Iraqi PM Risks Iraqi Sovereignty, Assyrian Villages With Turkey Appeasement

Turkish forces continue their month-long offensive across the northern fringe of Iraqi Kurdistan. As of July 15, 2024, Turkish jets and drones have carried out more than 380 bombardments and burned more than 250 miles of farmland. The Turkish attacks have been especially hard on the region's Christian-Assyrian community. After the Islamic State (ISIS) expelled Assyrians a decade ago from their traditional homeland in the Nineveh Plains, the Turkish bombardment now depopulates Assyrian enclaves in the far north of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The presence of Turkish forces predates the 2003 U.S.-led war to oust Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi leader miscalculated in 1991 when, against the backdrop of the Shia and Kurdish uprising against him, he calculated that he could deploy his forces to crush the southern rebellion and simply starve the Kurds into submission. The nascent Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) filled the vacuum but Turkey exposed their weakness, establishing forward operating bases in Amedi, Kani Masi, Bamerne, and elsewhere. The Turkish bases came absent any agreement with Baghdad or Erbil.

The irony of Turkey's declination to participate in the 2003 war to oust Saddam Hussein was that it had already occupied Iraqi territory for more than a decade, and on similar justifications. Weapons of Mass Destruction were not yet a factor, but terrorism was. Successive Turkish administrations argued that they needed to position their military in Iraqi Kurdish territory in order to prevent the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Turkey itself.

There was some logic here. Beginning in 1984, the PKK launched an insurgency inside Turkey, often targeting rival Kurdish groups. Within a decade, however, it had largely petered out. Prior to his death, Turkish President Turgut Ozal signaled a willingness to negotiate a resolution that would give Kurds greater cultural and political freedoms. The PKK eventually abandoned its separatist demands in favor of a patchwork of local autonomies. By the time the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, the PKK insurgency was essentially over.

Although listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States since 1997, and the European Union, the PKK today is not a terror organization and poses little threat to Turkey or Iraq, no matter how Erdogan or Iraqi Kurds seek to scapegoat it. Belgium has removed the PKK from its terror list in 2019, reclassifying it as an insurgency. Its major threat is to Masoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as Iraqi Kurds seek an alternative to Barzani's increasingly autocratic and repressive kleptocracy. Iraqi Kurds feel desperation as they feel they have no hope for livelihood unless they're a member of Barzani's family. Many refugees fleeing across the English Channel come from Iraqi Kurdistan, not from war-torn Afghanistan or Syria.

Nor is the PKK an alien movement. While Abdullah Ocalan founded the PKK in Turkey, Iraqi Kurds embraced it on their own, especially after Barzani's Peshmerga abandoned Kurds in Sinjar and the Nineveh Plains to ISIS. When Barzani's sons Masrour and Waysi ordered the Peshmerga to retreat, they refused to allow Kurds and Yezidis to keep weaponry to defend themselves. As a result, Kurds turned to the PKK as their defenders.

Perhaps the best analogy to the international aspect of the PKK is the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the region's second-largest party founded by the late Jalal Talabani. It was simultaneously an Iraqi movement and a member of the Socialist International; the two were not mutually exclusive.

Today, as Turkish forces drive deeper into Iraq, Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani suggests that the PKK presence renders Turkey's violations of Iraqi sovereignty legitimate. He is not alone. His predecessor Mustafa Al-Kadhimi likewise repeatedly subordinated Iraqi sovereignty to Turkish demands.

For the Iraqi prime minister, working with Turkey may appear as an easy decision. Iraqi oil flows northward, and Turkey controls the flow of water upon which Iraqi agriculture and hydroelectric power generation depends.

Baghdad may also make the simple calculation that countering Turkey's aggression would be too difficult. Whereas two decades ago, the Barzanis and KDP positioned themselves as voices for Kurdish nationalism, today they symbolize the cynical betrayal of the Kurdish cause for personal gain. Defending Iraq's sovereignty would mean not only standing up to Turkey, but also addressing its betrayal by the Barzanis.

The choices Sudani makes now, however difficult, will resonate for decades. The problem is that Turkey's incursions are not temporary. Just as with Bashiqa, an Iraqi town in which the Turks established a base and refused to leave, there is no indication that Turkey will leave Iraqi territory seized under the pretense of fighting the PKK.

Indeed, evidence suggests the opposite. Upon Iraq's independence, Turkey claimed the oil-rich former Mosul Vilayet. The League of Nations found against Turkey, but Ankara has never abandoned its claims. Indeed, one of the main reasons Turkey promotes the fiction that millions of Iraqi Turkmen live in the region is to justify Anschluss.

Sudani should understand the lesson of Cyprus. Turkey invaded the island twice, first in July 1974 and then a month later. The initial beachhead was enough to stop any effort by some Greek Cypriot leaders to seek unity with Greece. Against the backdrop of peace talks in Geneva, Turkey launched its second invasion, seizing nearly 40 percent of the island and ethnically cleansing it. It was a naked land grab, plain and simple. Turkey has since flooded northern Cyprus with settlers and seeks to extract gas illegally form offshore Cypriot fields. Today, Turkey demands recognition of the Turkish puppet state in northern Cyprus, a stepping-stone to annexation, much like Russia made "independence" of the Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples' Republics a precursor to a fake plebiscite and annexation.

The same pattern is at play in Syria, where Turkish forces entered predominantly Kurdish districts in 2018 and proceeded to ethnically cleanse them. Turkish forces destroyed graveyards, issued Turkish identity cards, linked the area to Turkey's domestic postal service, forced the use of Turkish currency and the Turkish language in school curricula, and enforced conservative Islamist dress upon a much more moderate population. Today, not only Turkish nationalists but also officials use maps that show Cyprus, northern Syria, and even Mosul as part of Turkey proper.

Sudani may seek to manage Barzani's infamous temper-tantrums, but much more is at stake. If Sudani does not stop appeasing Erdogan, Iraq's future will be akin to that of Cyprus or Syria: partition and decades-long occupation.

Iraq must realize: Turkey today poses an even greater threat to Iraq than Iran. While Iran interferes in Iraq's domestic affairs and abuses its sovereignty by sponsoring militias answering more to Tehran than to Baghdad, Turkey seeks territorial adjustment that will permanently change the shape and territorial integrity of Iraq.
Vice President Kamala Harris slammed the "unpatriotic protesters" who burned American flags and spray-painted pro-Hamas graffiti on Capitol Hill near Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech on Wednesday, calling their actions ''despicable."

"I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews," she posted on the social media platform X on Thursday. "Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation."

"I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way," said Harris, whose husband, Doug Emhoff, is Jewish.

Harris, who is expected to become the Democratic presidential nominee now that President Joe Biden has dropped his campaign, said she backs the right to "peacefully protest."

"But let's be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation," she continued.

Read my full statement on the protests in Washington, D.C. yesterday. pic.twitter.com/zJpZvdQDt9  Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 25, 2024

The protesters clashed with police wearing riot gear as Netanuyahu delivered his speech to members of Congress.

The demonstrators appeared to write "Hamas is Coming" on the Columbus Fountain, lowered the flags and set them on fire.
Headlining reports of the U.S. and Canada intercepting two Chinese nuclear-capable bombers and two Russian bombers off Alaska have created some cause for concern, though the bombers

Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have signed a declaration for the formation of a joint government in talks mediated by Beijing this week. The two factions have agreed to an interim reconciliation government should a ceasefire deal be reached with Israel in the Gaza Strip. (12 other Palestinian factors also signed the declaration). The declaration is meant to ensure that Israel has a reduced pathway to establishing an alternative structure of power in Gaza. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah in 2006, and a bitter rivalry has ensued ever since, making this Beijing-sponsored declaration an important development. Biden met with Netanyahu on Thursday (with the Israeli PM also scheduled to meet with Harris and Trump), to discuss the existing plan for a Gaza ceasefire. That tentative ceasefire deal has a 42-day first phase") that would include hostage releases from both sides. Israel is now seeking changes to the plan, which will add further complications. The markets should not hold their breath. With regards to the Houthis, after a Houthi attack on Tel Aviv last weekend, more promises of retaliation for an Israeli attack on Yemens port of Hodeida continued this week, with Israel claiming to have intercepted a Houthi missile on Thursday.

Politics, Geopolitics & Conflict

Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have signed a declaration for the formation of a joint government in talks mediated by Beijing this week. The two factions have agreed to an interim reconciliation government should a ceasefire deal be reached with Israel in the Gaza Strip. (12 other Palestinian factors also signed the declaration). The declaration is meant to ensure that Israel has a reduced pathway to establishing an alternative structure of power in Gaza. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Fatah in 2006, and a bitter rivalry has ensued ever since, making this Beijing-sponsored declaration an important development. Biden met with Netanyahu on Thursday (with the Israeli PM also scheduled to meet with Harris and Trump), to discuss the existing plan for a Gaza ceasefire. That tentative ceasefire deal has a 42-day first phase") that would include hostage releases from both sides. Israel is now seeking changes to the plan, which will add further complications. The markets should not hold their breath. With regards to the Houthis, after a Houthi attack on Tel Aviv last weekend, more promises of retaliation for an Israeli attack on Yemens port of Hodeida continued this week, with Israel claiming to have intercepted a Houthi missile on Thursday.

Headlining reports of the U.S. and Canada intercepting two Chinese nuclear-capable bombers and two Russian bombers off Alaska have created some cause for concern, though the bombers did not enter sovereign airspace. Russias most recent moves in terms of rhetoric on a wider conflict level with NATO are largely distractions from a shadow war of cyber attacks, fake news war-mongering, and assassinations.

Discovery & Development

Bolivia's YPFB has launched drilling on the Villamontes-X7 exploratory well in Tarija, targeting the Chorro and Tupambi formations. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to reverse a decade-long decline in oil and gas production, with output having dropped significantly since 2014. Despite recent discoveries like the Mayaya find with 1.7 Tcf of resources, Bolivia has increased hydrocarbon imports due to falling production. President Arce has urged YPFB to expedite development to address the country's dependency on imports.

Repsol and its partners have taken FID on the Monument subsea tieback project in the US GoM. Equinor originally drilled the Monument discovery in Walker Ridge Block 316 in 2020, but control has since shifted to Beacon Offshore Energy Exploration. The development plan includes a 27-km subsea tieback to the Shenandoah FPS, which will be upgraded to handle an additional 20,000 bpd. Additionally, Repsol is advancing projects in Mexican waters, including the Polok and Chinwol developments, and the recent Yopaat discovery, estimated at 300-400 MMboe.

CNOOC has commenced appraisal drilling at the WS16-5-4 well in the Beibu Gulf, anticipating it will become a medium-sized oilfield. The well, drilled to 4,185 meters and intersecting 65 meters of oil pay zones, has demonstrated high productivity, producing over 1,000 cubic meters of oil equivalent daily. CNOOC's Chief Geologist highlighted this successful well as indicative of promising exploration potential in the Wushi Sag area. This development follows recent achievements in Bohai Bay and aligns with CNOOC's 2024 strategy, including advancements in low-carbon initiatives such as the South China Sea oilfield powered by shore electricity.

Deals, Mergers & Acquisitions

Kuwait plans to merge four oil companies into two by 2025 as part of a major consolidation effort overseen by the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC). The Kuwait Gulf Oil Company will merge with the Kuwait Oil Company in the second stage of this process, aimed at streamlining operations and cutting costs. The merger is projected to save approximately $1.25 billion annually through efficiencies and reduced maintenance costs. KPC is committed to ensuring a smooth integration and preserving workforce rights, with future focus on merging companies with similar functions.

Woodside Energy is advancing its global LNG ambitions by acquiring US LNG developer Tellurian for $1.2 billion, aiming to expand its foothold in the American energy market. The deal is part of Woodsides strategy to build a dream team of investors for Tellurians $25 billion Driftwood project and is expected to strengthen their position amid a consolidating market. Despite a recent cost increase of 4% in their Scarborough project due to design changes, Woodside remains optimistic about future LNG demand growth of 50% over the next decade. Rising LNG contract prices and project costs pose challenges.

Earnings Beat

Galp Energia reported a 16% increase in Q2 net profit, reaching 299 million, thanks to higher oil prices and reduced production costs, despite a 5% drop in output from Brazil and a steady refining margin. The company is preparing for a second drilling phase in Namibia's Mopane field, where it holds an 80% stake, and is in initial discussions with potential partners. Galp's EBITDA fell 7% to 849 million but still exceeded forecasts. The company, which has seen a 40% rise in shares this year, is prioritizing partnerships that can accelerate development and contribute capital expenditure.

TotalEnergies reported a 6% decline in Q2 earnings, totaling $4.7 billion, due to falling refining margins and lower refined product and gas sales. The company's refining margins dropped 37% from Q1, reflecting decreased diesel demand and market volatility normalizing. Despite this, TotalEnergies plans a $2 billion share buyback and maintains a net investment guidance of $17-$18 billion for the year. The firm continues to invest in renewables and new exploration areas like Namibia and Guyana, while seeking a way forward for its stalled Mozambique LNG project.

Repsol more than doubled its Q2 net income to $713 million, driven by higher oil prices despite lower gas realizations and weak refining margins. The company continues to focus on upstream earnings, which have benefited from improved oil prices. However, the overall earnings for H1 2024 fell 21.8% year-over-year due to lower gas prices, narrow refining margins, and weak performance in the Chemicals segment. Similarly, TotalEnergies reported a 9% drop in Q2 net income to $4.7 billion, impacted by weaker LNG sales and refining margins, falling short of analyst expectations.

Valero Energy's Q2 2024 net income dropped to $880 million, or $2.71 per share, from $1.9 billion, or $5.40 per share, a year earlier. Refining income fell to $1.2 billion, while the Renewable Diesel segment saw a sharp decline in operating income to $112 million due to lower sales and maintenance issues. However, the Ethanol segment posted a slight decrease in income but saw a rise in production volumes. Valero continues to return value to shareholders with $1.4 billion in dividends and stock buybacks and is advancing its SAF project, set to start by Q4 2024.

NextEra Energy reported mixed Q2 2024 results with a revenue decline of 17.4% year-over-year to $6.07 billion, missing Wall Street estimates by $1.38 billion. Non-GAAP EPS of $0.96 exceeded expectations by $0.03, reflecting a 9% annual increase. Florida Power & Light (FPL) saw a 10.7% rise in regulatory capital employed, contributing to its $1.232 billion net income. NextEra Energy Resources added over 3,000 megawatts to its backlog, with a net income of $865 million. The company reaffirmed its FY 2024 EPS outlook and expects a 10% annual dividend growth over the next two years.
It's been a volatile week in oil markets as concerns over Chinese demand pressured prices despite a decline in U.S. crude inventories and wildfires in Canada.

Friday, July 26th, 2024

A rollercoaster of the week has left most market watchers guessing as to what might be coming up next for oil. Canadas wildfires, continuously decreasing US oil stocks, and GDP figures in the States coming in well above expectations should have lifted sentiment, but the signals went mostly unnoticed amidst a widespread tech stock selloff and a commodity-wide disappointment in China. ICE Brent is set to finish the week below $82 per barrel, marking the third straight weekly decline.

Democrats Seek to Ban US Talking To OPEC. US Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill to hold energy companies accountable if they are found by federal regulators to have colluded with OPEC, suggesting such firms should be no longer eligible for new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters.

Europe in Deadlock Amidst Ukraine Transit Row. Hungary and Slovakia have asked the European Commission to launch a consultation procedure with Ukraine after the latter sanctioned the two countries main Russian pipeline oil supplier Lukoil, raising the risk of potential refinery halts in Central Europe.

Shell Loses Interest in Scottish Wind. UK-based energy major Shell (LON:SHEL) is planning to sell development leases it won to build up to 5 GW of floating wind farms off the Scottish coast, potentially liquidating its participation in a joint venture with Iberdrolas subsidiary Scottish Power.

Brazil Prepares to Buy Back Its Own Refinery. Brazils state oil firm Petrobras (NYSE:PBR) is finishing up due diligence for a bid on the 300,000 b/d Mataripe refinery that it sold only three years ago to the Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala for $1.65 billion, seeking to unwind the Bolsonaro-era divestments.

OPEC+ Overproducers Present Their Compensation Plans. Just in time before the August meeting of the JMMC, Iraq, Kazakhstan and Russia, the largest overproducers of OPEC+, presented their compensation plans to reduce production by a collective 2.284 million b/d between now and September 2025.

Indias Refining Giant Gets Exempted from Venezuela Sanctions. According to Bloomberg, Indias largest private refiner Reliance Industries has received approval from the Biden administration to resume importing crude oil from Venezuela despite the reinstatement of sanctions in April 2024.

Chinese Investors Cut Stakes in Indonesian Smelters. Chinese mining companies are seeking to reduce their stakes in Indonesian nickel smelters to make their products eligible for EV tax credits in the US as the IRA restricts tax cuts to those with not more than 25% ownership by a foreign entity of concern, which applies to China.

Equinor Wants Less UK Exposure. Norways national oil firm Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) is considering cutting its 80% stake in the UKs largest untapped oil field Rosebank, saying it would prefer to bring the share in line with that of other assets as Britains new Labour government is set to hike windfall taxes.

India Eyes Riches of the Indian Ocean. The UN-backed International Seabed Authority has issued two deep-sea exploration licenses for India (out of a total of 31), with New Delhi planning to start mining by the end of the decade despite having no previous seabed mining expertise.

White House Eyes 2035 Ban on Single-Use Plastics. The White House announced a new goal to phase out federal procurement of single-use plastics in food service operations, packaging, and events by 2027 and to eliminate the material from federal operations by 2035, triggering the ire of the US polymer industry.

Russia Wants to Build a Refinery in Cuba. Revisiting long-lost ties from the Soviet era, Russian authorities have suggested that the countrys state-owned enterprises could build a refinery in Cuba, a country that mostly burns its 50,000 b/d of heavy crude oil production for power generation.

Italian Oil Major Expands in East Africa. Italys national oil company ENI (BIT:ENI) was awarded the Angoche A6-C offshore block in the countrys northeast, with the African countrys state oil firm ENH taking 40% in the project, seeking to replicate the success of the $7 billion Coral South LNG project.

Iron Ore Plunges on China Weakness. The disappointment from Chinas Third Plenary continues to weigh on industrial metals with iron ore dipping below the psychological level of $100 per metric tonne on the Singapore Exchange, worsened by negative steel margins and Beijing mandating new quality standards.

By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Baker Hughes reported a 13% annual increase in second-quarter revenues and a 41% annual increase in net profits, beating analyst expectations on its strong international business.

Like fellow oilfield service majors, Baker Hughes posted a strong quarter overseas and not so much at home. The company cited deals with Algerias Sonatrach and Brazils Petrobras among the largest contributors to its financial performance during the quarter, as well as Azerbaijans state-owned energy entity, SOCAR.

Baker Hughes reported a 12% quarterly increase in orders for its oilfield services and equipment unit although on an annual basis the order volume for the second quarter represented a 3% decline.

Thanks to the second-quarter performance, the company revised its full-year financial performance outlook higher.

Following our first-half outperformance, we are raising the midpoint of our full-year guidance by 5% and are confident in our ability to drive margins structurally higher over the coming years, chief executive Lorenzo Simonelli said.

The last six months have not been particularly easy for the U.S. oilfield service industry as consolidation among exploration and production companies increased competition among service providers.

It is this state of affairs that has seen both of Baker Hughes' main competitors, SLB and Halliburton, report stronger performance overseas and a weakening of the domestic business. Among them, SLB is especially well positioned, as some 82% of its revenues from overseas operations, Reuters recalled in a recent report.

Investments will increasingly be targeted to in the most resilient out of the market, including key international markets such as the Middle East and Asia and in offshore globally, SLBs chief executive Olivier Le Peuch said this week.

Growth is stronger outside North America because oil demand is growing outside North America and not so much in it. Even so, in a consolidating industry at home, the biggest OSPs are best placed to maintain and even expand their business.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Even as independent Chinese refiners have reduced the intake of Iranian crude amid low refining margins, China has continued to import near-record levels of Iranian oil this year as a new demand center emerged in the northeast of the country, Reuters reported on Friday, quoting trading sources and tanker-tracking firms.

The port city of Dalian, which has 6% of China's crude processing capacity, has seen only sporadic shipments of oil from Iran in the past few years, oil flow tracking firms Vortexa and Kpler have told Reuters.

But Dalian has recently seen a surge in cargoes discharging Iranian crude. Per Vortexa data, 23 cargoes with a total of 45 million barrels of crude oil were shipped into and discharged at Dalian and the nearby Changxing island between October of last year and June this year.

Kpler has estimated that China likely imported 34 million barrels into Dalian in the period.

China has continued to buy cheaper crude from Iran even after the U.S. re-imposed sanctions on Iranian oil in 2018. The worlds top crude oil importer is Irans key export market, and it looks like the soaring imports into Dalian have compensated for lower purchases by independent refiners in the Shandong province.

Earlier this year, Chinas independent refiners delayed purchases of crude from Iran for February as the Islamic Republic is now demanding higher prices and upfront payments before loading the cargoes, trading sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

As the year progressed, deteriorating refining margins have reduced the overall oil intake of the independent refiners, the so-called teapots.

Many cargoes going into China from Iran continue to be labeled as carrying crude from other countries, such as Malaysia or Oman.

Chinese customs data has shown that imports of crude from Malaysia have soared. According to Standard Chartered, the latest China customs import data showed crude oil imports from Malaysia clocked in at 1.456 million barrels per day (bpd), a lot more than the country produces.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Nigeria's largest refinery, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery, is reselling crude oil cargoes from both the United States and Nigeria. Reuters sources indicate that this move, unusual for refineries, stems from technical challenges at the plant.

The refinery, which began production in January 2024, aims to be the largest in Africa and Europe once fully operational. It's designed to shift Nigeria from a fuel importer to a fuel exporter. However, recent events suggest the refinery is grappling with operational issues, specifically with its crude distillation unit (CDU). Despite these claims, a Dangote executive insists the CDU is functional.

The rare resales include Nigerian Escravos and Forcados grades and even U.S. WTI Midland crude.

Constructed at a cost of $20 billion by Africa's wealthiest individual, Aliko Dangote, the 650,000-barrel-per-day facility represents a significant investment in Nigeria's oil and gas sector. Dangote's ambition is to eliminate Nigeria's dependency on imported fuel, an ongoing issue despite the nation being Africa's top oil producer.

This situation arises amid other significant moves by the Dangote Group, which plans to list its refinery and a fertilizer subsidiary on the Nigerian stock exchange by early 2025. This public listing strategy hopes to alleviate foreign exchange pressures on the Nigerian economy.

The refinery has been importing considerable volumes of U.S. crude, with more than 16 million barrels of West Texas Intermediate crude purchased in 2024 alone. This trend is expected to continue, with increased imports slated for the coming months.

While the plan is for the refinery to meet Nigeria's entire demand for refined petroleum products and generate a surplus for export, the current technical issues pose a significant hurdle.

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission reached an agreement with oil producers earlier this month to supply crude oil to domestic refineries at market prices, ending a lengthy supply dispute.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
California Governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Thursday ordering state agencies and departments to "adopt clear policies that urgently address homeless encampments."

His order also says they need to clear the encampents while "respecting the dignity and well-being of all Californians."

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision gives local governments the authority to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces and remove the encampments.

"The state has been hard at work to address this crisis on our streets. There are simply no more excuses," Gavin said. "It's time for everyone to do their part."

The executive order directs state agencies and departments to adopt "humane and dignified policies" to notify and support the people inhabiting encampments prior to removing them.

Newsom cannot order local authorities to take action but his administration can apply pressure by withholding money for local governments, the Associated Press reported.

The Supreme Court voted 6-3 to overturn an appeals court's decision that found a law prohibiting homeless people from sleeping outside in Grants Pass, Oregon unconstitutional.

The majority opinion was penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch.

"Homelessness is complex," he wrote. "Its causes are many. So may be the public policy responses required to address it. The question this case presents is whether the Eighth Amendment grants federal judges primary responsibility for assessing those causes and devising those responses. A handful of federal judges cannot begin to 'match' the collective wisdom the American people possess in deciding 'how best to handle' a pressing social question like homelessness."
World leaders, innovators, academia, development agencies, farmers organizations, and the private sector from across Africa and beyond will convene in Rwanda to participate in the annual Africa Food Systems Forum (AFSF) from September 2 to 6, 2024.



This years summit themed "Innovate, Accelerate, and Scale: Delivering Food Systems Transformation in a Digital and Climate Era," will spotlight innovations and technologies, policies and delivery mechanisms, best practices, business models and investments to accelerate food systems transformation in Africa with youth and women at the helm.



"Innovate" focuses on harnessing technologies, innovative policies, and business models to revolutionize agricultural practices and food production systems. "Accelerate" emphasizes the urgency of collective action to expedite sustainable food system transformations through technological advancements and innovative solutions. "Scale" highlights the need to expand proven models, initiatives, and investments to achieve widespread impact and ensure food security for millions.



These pillars together provide a comprehensive framework for driving meaningful change in Africa's food systems.



Leaders at this years convening will also examine the urgent need to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 and meet the Malabo Declaration's commitments by 2025.



The event will be graced by H.E. President Paul Kagame, along with several current and former presidents, ministers, and key players from government and the private sector. Their presence in the forum showcases the high-level commitment to addressing the critical issues facing Africa's food systems.



Amath Pathe Sene, Managing Director of the AFS Forum, emphasized the importance of this year's theme;



Innovating, accelerating, and scaling are not just words, they are the pillars upon which the future of African food systems will be built. We are committed to leveraging the best of science, policy, and technology to drive this transformation. This years summit provides an unparalleled platform for stakeholders to come together, share insights, and forge partnerships that will lead to tangible actions. It is through such collective efforts that we can address the pressing challenges of climate change, food insecurity, and economic inclusivity.



Our goal is to create an environment where innovative ideas can flourish, leading to sustainable solutions that benefit all, especially our youth and women. he added.



Rwanda Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente who officially launched the forum in March2024 called for the transformation of agriculture to make it a powerful engine of the economy.



"To transform the agriculture sector into a powerful engine for economic development, our country is embracing innovation and making evidence-based-policy decisions. In this context, the Government has focused on de-risking the sector to ensure that it becomes more profitable and attractive for the youth and private sector actors," said Dr. Ngirente.



The summit will feature a rich program, including plenary sessions, thematic forums, side events, and leadership exchanges. It provides a unique, forward-looking platform for actionable dialogue and peer-learning as stakeholders address the urgent need for innovative solutions to transform food systems in Africa.



In "Policy and Agenda Setting," discussions will focus on highlighting progress towards transforming food systems while renewing political, policy, and investment commitments.



The "Investment Facilitation & Finance" sessions will promote innovative financing models designed to unlock investments from both the public and private sectors.



Knowledge sharing sessions will be dedicated to disseminating the latest research, data, and technological advancements in the field and "Technological Advancements" will showcase digital technologies and scalable solutions aimed at addressing both global and local food challenges.



Participants are invited to register for the AFSF 2024 through the official website: https://agrf-inperson.com/?v=



The summit will provide a platform to engage with African leaders, discover emerging trends, access the latest technologies and solutions, and build strategic partnerships.





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 Ghana Tourism Authority (GTA), under the auspices of the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, honored the ancestors with wreath-laying ceremonies at the W.E.B. Dubois Centre, George Padmore Library, and Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park in Accra.



The Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Egyapa Mercer, emphasized the significance of this celebration for the nation and people of African descent.



He highlighted the importance of visiting key historical sites, such as the Salaga Slave Market and Pikworo Slave Camp in the Savannah and Upper East regions, as part of the emancipation commemoration.



Hon Egyapa Mercer noted the value of honoring the memories of those who suffered, celebrating progress, and reaffirming the commitment to preserving rich African culture.



He stated that "Emancipation Day" is not just a historic event but a call to action and a reminder that the journey toward freedom continues.



The Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Tourism Authority, Akwasi Agyeman, added that Emancipation Day also signifies continuity. He mentioned that even today, there are mental shackles that need to be broken.



Mr Akwasi Agyeman stressed the importance of reconnecting with ourselves, continuing the struggle started by our forebears, and committing to the fight for justice to eradicate poverty.



Odeneho Kwafo Akoto III, the Paramount Chief of Akwamu state, remarked that despite the legacy of those dark days, our resilience has proven to be our greatest asset in the journey towards building the global African community we all aspire to see.



He encouraged both citizens and those in the diaspora to use Emancipation Day as an opportunity to rekindle the lost heritage of the African continent.









Source: Clinton Akwasi Amoako









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 Muslim Cleric, Imam Ibrahim Mutala has advised Ghanaians to remain united before, during and after the forthcoming December 7, 2024, general elections.



Delivering a sermon on Friday, July 26, 2024, in Masjid Salaam at Ridge, he cautioned Ghanaians, especially political office seekers to refrain from hate speech and communicate their ideas to the masses, preaching peace.



Politicians and political commentators should communicate to transform lives and make Ghana progressive after the 2024 elections. They should be measured in their utterances, avoid character assassination and personal vendetta.



Imam Ibrahim Mutala further advised the youth of Muslim-dominated communities to resist pressures or attempts by some political figures to use them to cause mayhem as witnessed in the past.



He said the Muslim youth should reasonably serve as peace ambassadors, underscoring the need for Muslim Clerics to intensify their prayers for peaceful general elections.







Source: Abdul Karim Naatogmah - Contributor









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
An 11-year-old British girl lost her entire family in a fiery head-on car crash that killed her two little sisters after she made a last-minute decision to stay behind at a friend's house.

Poppie Morgan-Roller will now be raised by her aunt, following the tragic deaths of her parents, 33-year-old Shane Roller and 30-year-old Shannen Morgan, and her sisters, 9-year-old Rubie Morgan-Roller and 4-year-old Lillie Morgan-Roller Sunday afternoon, loved ones said.

Shane, Shannen, Rubie and Lillie were driving down a highway near Barnsley, England, and planned on going for a walk, when their vehicle slammed head-on into a motorcycle carrying a man and a woman, who also died, according to police.

Poppie was playing at her best friend's house when her family was killed.

"Her mum actually contacted us and asked if we could watch Poppie because she didn't want to go on the walk that they went on," family friend Paul Hepple explained, according to the Daily Mail.

"So we were watching Poppie as she's best mates with our daughter. She was with our daughter having fun. And on their way home, that's when the accident happened," he said. "We were having Sunday dinner as a family, and Poppie's auntie was with us and obviously, Poppie was as well. And then she got a phone call and she ended up leaving really quickly to go and see what happened."

Hepple launched a GoFundMe for Poppie earlier this week, which has since raised nearly half a million dollars.

"This global reach of compassion and kindness is truly heartwarming, and we cannot thank you enough," he wrote in the fundraiser description.

"Poppie is being incredibly brave, showing strength beyond her years. She's surrounded by love and support, and we're all doing our best to keep her spirits high with fun activities and distractions. Whether it's playing games, watching her favorite shows, or simply spending time with her family and friends, we are all committed to helping Poppie find moments of joy."

Hepple announced while Poppie has been staying with him and his family, her aunt, who he described as "amazing, loving, and capable," will become her legal guardian.

"She will be entirely responsible for managing the donations, ensuring that all funds are used for Poppie's well-being, including her living expenses, education, and any counseling she may need. Additionally, some of the funds may be used for the funeral expenses for Poppie's family if they choose to."

Meanwhile, authorities arrested a male driver of a gray Porsche 911 on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving. He was released on bail Thursday.
The Chiefs and people of the three traditional areas in the Sissala West District of the Upper West District showered praise on Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia for promptly fulfilling a promise to provide a Pickup vehicle to the only Senior High School in the district.



The NPP flagbearer pledged to provide the vehicle to the Hilla Limann Senior High School in response to a request by the late Paramount Chief of Gwollu, Kuri-Biktie Limann IV. Dr Bawumia pledged when he led a Government delegation to the late Gwollu overlord's funeral at Gwollu.



Less than a month after the pledge Dr Bawumia, on Thursday 25th July, 2024 handed over the keys to a brand new Nissan Navarra 44 Pickup to the authorities of the school at the Gwollu Palace, Gwollu.



Reading a speech on behalf of his fellow Paramount Chiefs of Zini, Gwollu and Pulima, Kuoru Osman Deiwia Nankpa III, Paramount Chief of Pulima expressed surprise at the speed with which Dr Bawumia had fulfilled his pledge.



"Your recent pledge to grant the request of our late father and colleague, late Kuoru Kuri Buktie Limann to get a bus and a Pickup for the Dr Hilla Limann Senior High School are testament of your government's and personal commitment to groom quality human resource for the benefit of our country.



"So let me be fulsome on behalf of the Chiefs and people of our land, in showing our profound gratitude for such meaningful interventions. I have gathered from very reliable sources that what you told us at this same grounds, barely a fortnight ago about making the Pickup available, is most likely to come to fruition today.



"I ask on behalf of our people, 'What kind of a politician is this?'. You promised and you delivered. We are deeply touched and express the same here with elation" Kuoru Deiwia Nankpa stated.

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
NPP presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has reminded Ghanaians of some comments former President John Mahama made against him.



Addressing an enthusiastic crowd in Jirapa in the Upper West Region on Thursday, Dr. Bawumia said former President Mahama played tribal cards against the NPP saying the party would never elect a Northerner to lead them, hence it is only when the NPP gives him their top position that the people of the North will vote for him to be President.



Interestingly, Mahama also made the remarks in the Upper West Region in the build-up to the 2016 elections.



"When I decided to contest for the flagbearership of the NPP, many people said it was not possible. They said it won't happen. They said the NPP would never elect a Northerner to be the leader. But I told them if God says it is possible, it will be possible.



"So I went for the contest and by the grace of God, I am the leader of the NPPYou will recall that some time ago former President Mahama said that if the NPP wants the North to vote for them, they should elect Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. Today, the NPP has elected Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, so the North, it is now time to vote for Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Dr. Bawumia said.



The Vice President said with him and Mahama representing the Northerners, it will be an all Northern affair, therefore this years election as "historic election.



He also reminded the residents in Jirapa how former President Mahama neglected them and all the Northern Regions, failing to provide them any tangible development during his reign as President.



It is an important election and an historic election. This is the first time the two leading parties are presenting candidates from the North, so it is going to be a Northern President. It is either Dr. Bawumia or former President Mahama but former President Mahama has been President before and I have not. I have only been a Vice President and my contributions to the development of the North is there for all to see.



"But do you recall what former President Mahama did for Jirapa, the Upper West Region and the entire North? He said he set up SADA to develop the North but after millions of dollars, we saw nothing. Can you point to any SADA project here in Jirapa, the Upper West and the Northern Regions? They said they invested in guinea fowls and when we asked them where are the guinea fowls, they said they have flown to Burkina Faso.



"We want development and we want to go forward. We want to go forward with digitalization and modern agriculture, not lip-service and guinea fowl which Mahama represented."

Source: Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Examination of the inner ear of the extinct dolphin species offers insights into the animals' evolution. Photo: Senckenberg Research Institute

Senckenberg researcher Dr. Rachel Racicot and her former student Joyce Sanks from Vanderbilt University have examined the inner ear of the extinct dolphin genus Parapontoporia. In their study, published in the journal The Anatomical Record, they show that the toothed whales had already developed specialized high-frequency hearing in the Miocene.

The mammals also colonized rivers, which links them to today's rare and endangered river dolphins. Investigating the sensory systems of toothed whales can help to understand the influence of habitat on their hearing and the evolutionary dynamics of marine mammals.

The return of cetaceans from land to the water about 50 million years ago in the early Eocene marks one of the most pivotal periods in the evolution of mammals. As a result of this change of habitat, whales, dolphins, and porpoises acquired a number of adaptations, including the relocation of their nostrils to the top of their heads and the development of a streamlined body.

"The echolocation used by the animals also developed quite early in their evolutionary history. The animals emit a sound wave that bounces off an object and returns an echo, which provides information about the distance and size of the object. Today, all toothed whales use this natural sonar system," explains Dr. Racicot from the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt.

"Echolocation is a logical hunting and communication strategy, especially in the sea, where sound travels five times faster than in the air, while at the same time visibility is often impaired."

Racicot and Sanks examined the inner ear of three specimens of the now extinct dolphin genus Parapontoporia from the collections of the San Diego Museum of Natural History, using high-resolution X-ray CT scans. With the help of 3D models, they were able to prove that the mammals already possessed narrow-band high-frequency hearing during the Miocene, around 5.3 million years ago.

"What is particularly exciting is that these dolphins changed their habitat once again and left the marine environment to colonize rivers," says Racicot. Even today, there are still a few dolphins living in rivers. All six species are currently very rare and threatened with extinction.

As a relative of the Chinese river dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer), which was last seen alive in 2002, Parapontoporia offers insights into the transition from a marine habitat to a freshwater environment.

"We assume that selective pressure and/or ecological advantages caused this early and widespread evolution of echolocation in the dolphins we studied. River systems are spatially complex habitats in which this form of orientation and communication was probably advantageous for the long-snouted dolphins," explains Racicot.

"Further research into the sensory systems of toothed whales can be an important tool to study the influence of habitat on cetacean hearing and to understand the evolutionary dynamics of marine mammals."

More information: Joyce Sanks et al, Predicting ecology and hearing sensitivities in ParapontoporiaAn extinct longsnouted dolphin, The Anatomical Record (2024). DOI: 10.1002/ar.25538
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: Faksawat Poohphajai (InnoRenew CoE)

Researchers are using biological matter to create unique new materials that can adapt to their environment and repair themselves.

The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

For Dr. Kunal Masania, an associate professor of aerospace structures and materials at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Clarke made a huge impression.

"I've always been greatly inspired by this," said Masania. "Through my research, I try to bring a kind of magic to people's lives."

Living materials

Masania is developing what he calls "living materials," for use in the aerospace and transportation sectors. These living materials are, precisely as they sound, literally alive. They contain microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria, which give them the capacity to sustain their integrity and self-healing.

His work may seem like magic, but it is very real and advancing well.

It is part of a five-year project called AM-IMATE, for which Masania was awarded a grant from the European Union in January 2023. The research team are looking at the potential of biological organisms to be integrated into innovative new materials for use in industry and engineering.

"The goal is to make engineered structures that can behave like living organisms, able to sense and adapt to mechanical stresses," said Masania.

3D printed fungi

The material Masania is developing is a composite that combines living fungi cells and wood. It consists of a hydrogel and mycelium, a root-like structure of a fungus that normally lives underground.

"We chose to work with fungi because fungus is a really robust organism, it is tolerant to harsh conditions and is relatively easy to cultivate," said Masania.

Moreover, fungal cells have a great ability to connect. Mycelium can grow a vast sensing network that allows it to send signals throughout the organism. That means the scientists can distribute only a few cells throughout the material, and these cells will reconnect and form a sensing network.

To produce these living materials, Masania has developed a special 3D printing method and a new 3D printing ink.

"We are making good progress in this regard, and we are already able to 3D print our material," he said.

Sustainable space

Biological materials could help to improve the performance and durability of critical structures used in areas like aerospace and transportation. For example, Masania and his team are exploring using their composites as the core material for the interior of airplanes.

"Our materials are very lightweight and more sustainable than currently used materials," said Masania. "Right now, the interior of aircraft is made largely of plastic and metal. If we replace these, we no longer have to rely on fossil fuels and we can offer better end-of-life solutions. If we use living materials, the aircraft components could be dismantled and returned to nature."

Masania's research may even be looking to make what seems like sci-fi a reality.

"It could be very interesting for building in space and on other planets," he said. "Our living materials could form the basis of new habitats because you could use the local materials and bind them together using the fungi."

Bio-based building skin

Closer to home, bio-based materials are also being used to develop a new ally for sustainable construction. Dr. Anna Sandak is an expert in materials science with a special focus on wood. She is an associate professor at the University of Primorska, in Koper, Slovenia, and deputy director and head of the materials department at the Slovenian InnoRenew Centre of Excellence.

InnoRenew was set up in 2017 with the help of EU, international and national funding to build on Slovenia's strengths in forestry and wood research. The aim was to investigate innovative renewable materials for sustainable building.

In 2022, Sandak and her InnoRenew research team were awarded a five-year EU grant to further develop the concept of a bio-active living coating system for use in the construction industry. Thanks to this funding, they are developing a "live" biofilm able to protect various built surfaces, including concrete, plastic and metal.

The idea is that this living skin could be applied to protect construction materials and make buildings more resilient and sustainable.

"Instead of using synthetic chemicals, biocides and mineral oils that are not always environmentally friendly, we are focussing on developing natural solutions," said Sandak.

By using living organisms, scientists are creating new functionalities that cannot be found in conventional materials.

"We are adding a new dimension to materials that has not existed beforelife," said Sandak. "In nature, cells have many fantastic properties which are very difficult and costly to achieve in synthetic materials. Living materials are more environmentally friendly, they can self-heal, have the potential to clean air and come at a lower cost."

Fun fungi

Like the AM-IMATE project, Sandak's team works primarily with fungi.

"They have a huge potential," she said. "They grow fantastically, have a high survival rate and don't need many nutrients. Fungi are fun."

Fungi already occur on construction sites, but are usually not desirable because they can damage materials. Sandak's team, however, works with a specific fungus that isn't harmful and doesn't degrade materials.

"We are using the "good guys" to stop the "bad guys" from spreading."

To ensure their research makes it to practice, the scientists are creating a biocoating that is not only effective, but also visually appealing. They are testing it on a variety of materials and working on adding different colors.

"Because aesthetics is important in architecture," said Sandak.

The resulting product is envisaged to be a water-based coating that can be sprayed, brushed or rolled onto a wide range of surfaces.

ARCHI-SKIN runs until 2027, and according to Sandak, the research is progressing quite fast, and it won't be too long before their coating can be applied to the first buildings.

"I believe it will be possible to use our solution within the next decade," she said.

Societal impact

In the case of both projects, scientists are gaining valuable fundamental knowledge about microorganisms, but as both project coordinators say, the main outcome of the research should be real-life applications.

"We want to make our world a better place," said Sandak.

"I believe we will definitely start to see many more applications for bio-based materials, such as in buildings and the built environment, as well as consumer products," said Masania. "As our understanding of these materials develops, more and more applications will follow."
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 member of a team taking part in the Elf Authentique Aventure raid crosses the Lencois Maranhenses National Park in Maranhao State, northeastern Brazil, on April 25, 2000. The Lencois Maranhenses National Park, known for its endless dunes and dazzling natural pools in northeastern Brazil, was declared a World Heritage site by Unesco on July 26, 2024. The decision was taken during the 46th annual meeting of the United Nations World Heritage Committee in New Delhi, India's capital, which is considering applications for recognition from 28 sites around the world.

Brazil's Lencois Maranhenses National Park, famed for its white dunes that fill with blue and emerald lagoons in the rainy season, was on Friday declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The vast park, named for the dunes' resemblance to a bedsheet spread across the landscape"lencois" means sheets in Portugueseis located in the northeastern state of Maranhao, in a transition zone between the Amazon, Cerrado, and Caatinga biomes.

The decision was taken during the 46th annual meeting of the United Nations World Heritage Committee, which is taking place in India's capital New Delhi.

Lencois Maranhenses is the 24th site in Brazil to make it onto the list of places of significant cultural or natural significance.

The national park was created in June 1981 and covers an area of 156,000 hectares, more than half of which offers a landscape of dunes and multi-colored lagoons, which attract more than 100,000 tourists each year.

According to UNESCO, it is the largest expanse of dunes in South America.

The Lencois Maranhenses are a protected area "where the desert meets the sea, creating a unique landscape," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said in a letter sent in early 2023 to UNESCO to urge the site's inscription as a World Heritage Site.

The park has also hosted several Hollywood film shoots.

 2024 AFP
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Average annual nutrient loss within all deer count areas from deer carcass removal for each land classification type. Credit: Ecological Solutions and Evidence (2024). DOI: 10.1002/2688-8319.12356

The removal of deer bodies following annual culls in Scotland may be depriving the environment of essential nutrients, according to a new study published in Ecological Solutions and Evidence.

Ecologists estimate that the clearance of deer carcasses prevents hundreds of thousands of kilos of vital minerals from re-entering the environment every year.

This loss could undermine the long-term success of habitat recovery efforts, experts say.

Environmental benefits

In Scotland, deer populations have been actively managed since 1959, primarily to control over-browsingeating shoots and leaves of trees and shrubs.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh and Yale University used nationwide cull data on red, roe, fallow, and sika deer between 2010 and 2022 to calculate annual nutrient losses. They estimated levels of phosphorus, nitrogen and calcium for each deer species based on their average body and antler size.

They calculated that 251,188 kg of calcium, 195,652 kg of nitrogen and 152,834 kg of phosphorus are lost across Scotland each year.

The research team says that the loss of calcium has a bigger environmental impact than loss of nitrogen or phosphorus. Low-calcium soils can hinder commercial and native woodland regeneration, and can have knock-on effects for birds, which experience declines in shell thickness in low-calcium environments.

Carcasses also bring other ecosystem benefits, such as being a food source for small predators including pine martens. Carcasses have also been shown to distract predators from ground-nesting birds, such as capercaillies, during the breeding season.

"The results of our study call for deer managers to reconsider current practices and integrate approaches that retain a proportion of deer carcasses within ecosystems.

"While we specifically look at nutrients and do not assess other environmental impacts of carcasses or make a value judgment on deer culling, our findings will help guide evidence-based recommendations for deer and nutrient management to better protect Scotland's plans for large-scale ecosystem recovery and sustainable wildlife management," said Chris Hirst, co-author of the study, from the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute.

Possible solutions

The researchers propose two solutions for retaining nutrients from deer carcasses in the environment.

The first is for culled deer carcasses to be left where they fall.

An alternative method is to reduce the number of culls and allow deer to die naturally in the landscape, potentially through the reintroduction of natural predators to manage deer numbers.

"Through predation, both the consumed carcass and what is left behind would ultimately remain in the ecosystem. Further, due to the way in which predators hunt, they would also create heterogeneity in carcass distribution on the landscape, creating hotspots of nutrients that would be difficult for human-hunting to replicate," said Kristy Ferraro, lead author of the study, from the Yale School of the Environment.

The researchers warn that their findings are estimates, and future experiments are needed to analyze carcass decomposition and environmental features to directly evaluate ecosystem impact.

They add that their outcomes are likely to underestimate actual nutrient losses, because the records of deer culling in Scotland exclude deaths, for example, from vehicle accidents.

More information: Kristy M. Ferraro et al, Missing carcasses, lost nutrients: Quantifying nutrient losses from deer culling practices in Scotland, Ecological Solutions and Evidence (2024). DOI: 10.1002/2688-8319.12356
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:

This handout image released by BC Wildfire Service shows smoke columns from the Truax Creek wildfire, Ontario, on May 12, 2024.

Rain and cooler temperatures are helping firefighters battling a huge forest fire that has devastated part of the popular tourist town of Jasper in western Canada, authorities said Friday.

The blaze has ravaged a large section of Jasper National ParkCanada's largestwhich is famed for its scenic mountains, lakes, waterfalls and glaciers, drawing some 2.5 million visitors a year.

The fire has so far caused no casualties, although as many as 25,000 residents and tourists were forced to evacuate quickly starting late Monday as the conflagration suddenly spread.

Still described as out of control early Friday, the blaze has destroyed more than 36,000 hectares (90,000 acres) of land, including 30 to 50 percent of the town of Jasper.

"There is no denying that this is the worst nightmare for any community," said Danielle Smith, Alberta province's premier.

'Heartbreaking' damage

Rain and cooler temperatures in the national park will likely "keep fire behavior low for the next 72 hours," said Parks Canada, which oversees the country's national parks and coordinates firefighting efforts.

Canada has mobilized troops to help its overtaxed fire crews, and has turned abroad, requesting a total 400 foreign firefighters from Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Africa.

The fire entered a by-then deserted Jasper on Wednesday evening, fanned by strong winds in a region hit by severe drought and record heat in recent days. Firefighters were still working in the town on Thursday.

A video circulating on social media showed the city's streets covered in ash, with cars turned to charred carcasses and buildings reduced to rubbleimages Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called "heartbreaking."

'Feeling of devastation'

The fire was started by lightning strikes Monday, said Parks Canada, adding that fast-moving flames had reached a height of up to 120 meters (390 feet).

Powerful wind gusts Wednesday saw the ferocious blaze advance by five kilometers (three miles) in less than 30 minutes, said Mike Ellis, minister of public security for Alberta province.

The authorities have said it could take several weeks to completely subdue the blaze.

Lightning strikes have ignited several other forest fires across western Canada, amid drought and high temperatures.

In all, there are 170 active fires in Alberta, authorities said.

Neighboring British Columbia province has also been hard-hit, with 400 active blazes, half of them still out of control.

Fifty-six new fires have been counted there just in the past 24 hours.

Climate change has left Canada increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events.

There are growing fears of a repeat of 2023, the country's worst fire year in history, when 15 million hectares were burned and more than 200,000 people had to evacuate.

The Jasper fire forced some residents to flee hundreds of kilometers in search of shelter.

One Jasper resident, who had driven hours to escape the advancing flames, told AFP: "Everyone has a total feeling of devastation. Many people are feeling very helpless. Because there's nothing that we can do."

 2024 AFP
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

The Hunga Tonga volcano, pictured during its eruption on January 14-15, 2022. Credit: Tonga Geological Services / ZUMA Press / Zuma / REA, Dr. Mark Schoeberl

New research from a collaborative team featuring Texas A&M University atmospheric scientist Dr. Andrew Dessler is exploring the climate impact of the 2022 Hunga Tonga volcano eruption and challenging existing assumptions about its effects in the process.

The remarkable two-day event, which occurred in mid-January 2022, injected vast amounts of volcanic aerosols and water vapor into the atmosphere. Historically, large volcanic eruptions like Tambora in 1815 and Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 have led to significant cooling effects on the global climate by blocking sunlight with their aerosols.

However, Hunga Tonga's eruption presented a unique scenario: As a submarine volcano, it introduced an unprecedented amount of water vapor into the stratosphere, increasing total stratospheric water content by about 10%.

Because water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas, Dessler says there was initial speculation that it might account for the extreme global warmth in 2023 and 2024. Instead, the results of the team's research, published Wednesday, July 24 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, reveal the opposite: The eruption actually contributed to cooling the Earth, similar to other major volcanic events.

A volcanic eruption's cooling effect

The team's paper, titled "Evolution of the Climate Forcing During the Two Years after the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Eruption," includes insight and analysis from Dessler, a professor in the Texas A&M Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the director of the Texas Center for Climate Studies; first author Dr. Mark Schoeberl, chief scientist at the Virginia-based Science and Technology Corporation in Hamburg, Virginia; and multiple scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Their methodology involved analyzing NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite data observations of aerosols and water vapor, among other variables, to estimate the energy balance of the Earth's climate system. Their analysis revealed that the eruption resulted in more energy leaving the climate system than entering it, thereby inducing the slight cooling effect.

"Our paper pours cold water on the explanation that the eruption caused the extreme warmth of 2023 and 2024," Dessler explained. "Instead, we need to focus primarily on greenhouse gases from human activities as the main cause of the warming, with a big assist from the ongoing El Nino."

Implications and future research

According to Dessler, this research has important implications for both scientists and the general public. By dismissing the volcanic eruption as a major factor in the recent warming, the team's study reinforces his point that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are the primary driver of climate change. This focus is particularly relevant, given the ongoing debate and misinformation about the causes of global warming.

Moreover, Schoeberl says the study underscores the importance of continued investment in satellite-based stratospheric measurements.

"Our understanding of the Hunga Tonga eruption is largely thanks to the investment in stratospheric satellite measurements by NOAA and NASA over the past two decades," Schoeberl added. "However, we need to be cautious about a potential 'stratospheric data desert,' as some of the most critical instruments are not being replaced."

The challenging path ahead

While this paper answers several important questions, Dessler acknowledges that it simultaneously introduces new ones. For instance, the researchers highlighted some unresolved issues related to the Hunga Tonga eruption, such as the unexpectedly low levels of sulfur dioxide produced by such a violent eruption and the minimal impact the eruption had on the 2023 ozone hole.

The 2023 ozone hole refers to a significant thinning of the ozone layer over Antarctica, which allows more harmful UV radiation to reach the Earth's surface. Additionally, the persistence of water vapor in the stratosphere beyond what was predicted by models suggests that there is still much to learn about stratospheric circulation processes.

As scientists work to resolve ongoing questions and deepen our understanding of the stratosphere, Schoeberl says the team's work highlights the critical need for continued research and precise data to tackle the challenges of climate change.

More information: M. R. Schoeberl et al, Evolution of the Climate Forcing During the Two Years After the Hunga TongaHunga Ha'apai Eruption, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2024JD041296 Journal information: Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A brush fire that ignited during the afternoon of July 24 from a lightning strike, burning hundreds of acres north of Palomar Mountain and triggering evacuations, is expected to last several days, a fire official said.

The blaze, dubbed the Grove fire, charred 900 acres and was reported to be 10% contained, Cal Fire reported shortly before 1 p.m. July 25 on X, formerly known as Twitter. Firefighters are battling flames under hot and humid weather conditions in steep terrain, Cal Fire Capt. Mike Cornette said.

The fire was reported around 1:15 p.m. July 24 in the area of Dodge Valley near the rural community of Sunshine Summit, and it spread quickly. It is located east of Oak Grove and burning to the southwest, Cornette said.

Around 5:25 p.m. that evening, officials announced evacuation orders for the areas around Chihuahua Valley Road, east of state Route 79 and south of the San Diego-Riverside county line. Evacuation warnings were issued in the area of Stone Ridge Estates.

"All the evacuation orders and warnings are still in place," Cornette said. "The fire is threatening homes off of Chihuahua Valley Road."

Cornette said firefighters are working in challenging conditions as they climb steep hills to try to put down containment lines. More than 230 firefighters have been assigned, along with 35 engines, eight water tenders, six helicopters and six dozers. Several air tankers also were expected to make fire retardant drops on the fire, Cornette said.

Officials planned to get firefighting aircraft in the air early to get a better view of the fire's size.

"Last night the fire activity died down, so we were able to get some good work in there around the fire," he said. "This morning, we will have our aircraft out early to strengthen the control lines so we can try to button this thing up."

He said officials expect the fire to last "several days."

"The weather is hot again," he said. "It is going to be humid  They are expecting less rain today, so that's going to increase the fire activity."

Forecasters said they expect to see fewer thunderstorms in the area on Thursday.

A temporary evacuation point was set up at the Warner Springs Community Resource Center, 30950 Highway 79 in Warner Springs. Small animals are welcome at that location. On Wednesday it was at Warner Spring High School.

Anyone fleeing the fire with large animals is being directed to Ramona High School, 1401 Hanson Lane in Ramona.

2024 The San Diego Union-Tribune. 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:

Analysis of sewage sludge for the formation of glyphosate in Professor Carolin Huhn's laboratory at the University of Tubingen. Photographer: Friedhelm Albrecht. Credit: University of Tubingen

A research team at the University of Tubingen has found that most glyphosate that ends up in European rivers likely does not come from herbicides, as previously assumed; instead, it may be the result of additives to detergents.

For the study, Professor Carolin Huhn of the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry and colleagues from the Geo- and Environmental Center conducted a large meta-analysis on data from European and US water protection authorities. The study has been published in the journal Water Research.

Until now, the use of glyphosate as a herbicide in agriculture was considered to be the main reason for its presence in bodies of water worldwide. However, European reduction measures have not led to any noticeable reduction in the environment.

Professor Huhn's study suggests that another source has been overlooked for decades. The hypothesis is that certain aminopolyphosphonates used, for example in laundry detergents, are converted to glyphosate in the sewage sludge of wastewater treatment plants.

A wealth of measurement data

In order to trace the pathways of glyphosate into rivers, the working group at the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry and colleagues from the Department of Geosciences analyzed a long-time series of glyphosate concentrations in rivers gathered mainly from authorities responsible for water protection in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Luxembourg, the UK, the Netherlands and the U.S.

Some of the data sets reached back to 1997. The researchers included data from about one hundred locations in their study.

The starting point for the study was the observation that glyphosate concentrations in European rivers show a strong seasonality with high concentrations in summer and low concentrations in winter.

Yet, with agriculture being the dominant source, we would expect increased concentrations from agriculture during the main application phases in spring and autumn, as well as increased concentrations after rain events. Glyphosate is used to prevent unwanted plant growth in agriculture, as well as in residential areas and in rail track beds.

"In soil and water, glyphosate is partly converted to aminomethylphosphonic acid, or AMPA. Both substances can be mobilized by precipitation and find their way into rivers," says Huhn, who is also the spokesperson for the Environmental Systems Platform, part of the University of Tubingen's Excellence Strategy.

This seasonal profile is known from substances entering surface waters from wastewater treatment plants, such as pharmaceuticals and household chemicals. Calculating the amount of glyphosate being transported in a river per day, a fairly constant input is derived from the data.

The concentration peaks expected from agricultural sources were only observed at very few, exclusively agricultural, measuring points in Europe. Furthermore, the input pattern of other herbicides is almost opposite to the one of glyphosate.

Thus, the study, carried out with Tubingen geoscientists Dr. Marc Schwientek, Dr. Hermann Rugner, Professor Stefan Haderlein and the chemistry Ph.D. students Sarah Bieger and Lisa Engelbart, showed that the main source of glyphosate and AMPA in rivers must come from wastewater from sewage treatment plants.

"A survey of literature data shows that glyphosate is found in all the wastewater treatment plants examined in Europe, and its concentration was remarkably constant throughout the year," says Huhn.

A source from households?

"The detailed analysis of the millions of individual values shows us that municipal wastewater plays a role. And some of the findings of the study also show us that we have to locate a source for glyphosate close to households," says Huhn. The researchers believe there must be a dominant input separate from the use of herbicides; the patterns in concentration could not be explained any other way.

"However, everything we cannot explain about the data disappears if we assume that we are not really looking at glyphosate which was previously used as a herbicide, but instead at glyphosate that has formed from a larger substance," says analytical chemist Huhn.

The researchers compiled a list of criteria from their data, and identified a substance chemically related to glyphosate, which would resolve all the questions raised from the meta-analysis. Their hypothesis is that glyphosate is a transformation product from aminopolyphosphonates which are used extensively in Europe and especially in laundry detergents.

Initial laboratory tests have now been completed and confirm the hypothesis of glyphosate formation in wastewater treatment plants from this laundry additive. However, there is also some good news: "We do not see glyphosate formation when we simulate conditions directly in the washing machine."

The results may explain why it has not been and will not be possible to reduce glyphosate pollution in rivers in Europe through herbicide reduction strategies, Huhn summarizes. The new glyphosate source must be verified in independent studies.

Authorities must discuss how to continue surface water monitoring and how to possibly regulate the aminopolyphosphonates or improve elimination rates in wastewater treatment. "We are aware that our findings may have far-reaching implications, including for industry and policymakers, but also for how surface water monitoring can be improved.

The situation in the U.S. is different from that in the EU; concentration patterns of glyphosate in U.S. river water closely follow those of other herbicides, indicating a dominant agricultural input. In contrast to Europe, aminopolyphosphonates are hardly used in the U.S. in laundry detergents.

More information: M. Schwientek et al, Glyphosate contamination in European rivers not from herbicide application?, Water Research (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2024.122140 Journal information: Water Research
Melania Trump is selling a "collector's edition" of her self-titled, debut memoir slated for release in the fall.

Fans willing to pay $250 will receive a signed version of Melania, bonus photographs and a digital collectible, according to her website.

An unsigned version will cost readers $40.

Melania, released in partnership with Skyhorse Publishing, tells the "powerful and inspiring story of a woman who has defined personal excellence, overcome adversity, and carved her own path," her website read. "The former First Lady invites readers into her world, offering an intimate portrait of a woman who has lived an extraordinary life."

The book, announced Thursday and now available for pre-order, will make its debut on store shelves Sept. 24, and includes stories and never-before-seen images.

"The book is a diligent and historically important record of the turbulent recent past of our country, seen from Melania Trump's unique vantage point," Skyhorse President Tony Lyons said, according to CNBC. "It conveys her core beliefs of unity, hope and kindness, and whatever you thought you knew about this intensely private woman, these pages contain something more  and something deeper."

Similarly, the former first lady's husband Donald Trump also announced Thursday his plans to release a new book.

"I'm pleased to announce my new Book, 'SAVE AMERICA,'" he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social. "As everyone knows, the first two, 'Our Journey Together' and, 'Letters to Trump,' have been spectacular successes, and this is the BEST OF ALL, especially in light of the fact that we are now living in a Failing Nation, but it will not be failing for long. We will soon, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"

The now-iconic photo of Trump pumping his fist in the air following his attempted assassination will adorn the cover, according to the post.
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 of phase-space objects. (a) Quasipotential landscape of a saddle fixed point. Gray dot: unstable fixed point localization. (b) Quasipotential landscape of a ghost state. Note the absence of a fixed point. Inset: time course of a trajectory with slow transition through the ghost. Schematic diagrams of scaffolds of connected (c) saddles (  ), i.e., heteroclinic channel, and (d) ghosts (  ), i.e., ghost channel.   denotes the ghost-attracting set of   , and   its basin. (a)(d) Black, gray, and magenta arrows represent (un)stable manifolds, flow direction and example trajectories, respectively. Credit: Physical Review Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.047202

Scientists all over the world use modeling approaches to understand complex natural systems such as climate systems or neuronal or biochemical networks. A team of researchers has now developed a new mathematical framework that explains, for the first time, a mechanism behind long transient behaviors in complex systems.

They introduce ghost channels and ghost cycles as novel objects that explain how natural systems can be stable over prolonged periods of time, yet still be able to rapidly switch to another state.

This new approach challenges the traditional concept based on stable or unstable equilibria and might help us to better understand how transiently-stable neuronal dynamics governs sensory information processing, or how to potentially predict tipping cascades, such as those driving the loss of biodiversity.

The joint study by the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behaviorcaesar, the University of Leicester, and King's College London has been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

When you find yourself in a new city and ask for directions, your working memory temporarily holds chunks of information such as turns or landmarks, that you follow in a specific sequence. Once you make it to your destination though, you will forget about the details. In order to perform this task, the neuronal networks in your brain have the opposed abilities to transiently stabilize neuronal activity in order to remember information, but also to quickly switch to a different state in the sequence.

Similar dynamics can also be observed in ecology. In competing microbial populations, one species often dominates for a long time and appears to define a stable equilibrium when suddenly, for no apparent reason, another species starts to take over, leading to a decline of the previous species. Such transitions can even lead to extinctions and biodiversity loss.

In order to predict whether and when such a tipping event might happen, the observed dynamics before the shift are often analyzed. The difficulty with such predictions is that they require prior knowledge about whether the state is indeed stable or comes from a long transient, to successfully interpret the statistics of the recorded data.

However, for economically important ecosystems such as coral reefs, it is necessary to identify whether reefs that appear to be a healthy ecosystem may in fact be in danger of tipping into a degraded algae-dominated state.

Challenging traditional dynamics models

Classically, dynamical states of any complex system have been described as attractors, or equilibriaabstract mathematical objects expected to be observed for an infinitely long period of time and where the system returns to after a small perturbation. These states, however, do not capture how transient stability, as well as rapid transitions can be achieved.

To introduce both features, sequences of dynamical saddles have been previously considered. Akin to the shape of a saddle, it stabilizes the dynamics along one dimensionalong the seat, but is intrinsically unstable and can fall off along the orthogonal dimension.

Therefore, if the unstable dimension of one is connected to the stable dimension of another saddle, a channel of saddles, called a heteroclinic channel, can emerge, such that the dynamics of the systems can switch between states in a sequence.

In a study led by scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior in Bonn (MPINB), in collaboration with researchers from the University of Leicester, and King's College London, the team has now shown that heteroclinic channels cannot fully capture the dynamics observed in real-world, noisy systems. The capability to generate transiently stable states along the saddle is lost as soon as the system encounters even small perturbations.

In contrast, they have identified special types of instabilities, called ghost channels and ghost cycles, explaining how complex systems can display robust transiently stable behavior, after which they would quickly transition to another transiently stable state that can have very different properties.

The ghost structures are a feature that emerges at criticality, when a system is balanced at the boundary between two or more qualitatively different regimes. Such organization allows systems to exploit qualitatively different regimes, and thereby also effectively balance between opposed features.

Dr. Akhilesh Nandan from MPINB explains, "Changing the framework that the dynamics are governed by stable states, or attractors, to a framework where the dynamics are dictated by formally unstable structures such as ghost-based scaffolds, enabled us to obtain a potential description for what has been experimentally observed across broad range of systems. Crucial for defining this framework was the mathematical characterization of these abstract ghost objects."

Understanding degrading ecosystems or climate change

In their publication, the scientists demonstrate that ghost-based scaffolds better capture the properties of long transients in noisy systems compared to traditional models. Instead of relying on precise knowledge or the existence of (un)stable fixed points, this novel framework centers on slow directed flows organized by ghost sets in ghost channels and ghost cycles.

An exciting implication from this study is that ghost structures seem to underline many different processes across biological and natural systems once you know what to look for.

"We have identified ghost channels in models relevant for cell fate decisions during development, but also models of tipping cascades in climate systems that are used to explore how tipping, e.g., of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) could affect the dynamics of other climate sub-systems," says Dr. Daniel Koch.

Therefore, these new findings open many doors for future research, from a theoretical understanding of how neuronal networks encode smell or taste, to a potentially better prediction of shifts in ecosystems or the climate.

"What we are most excited about, however, is the potential this powerful theoretical framework can bring for biological and artificial intelligence research," says Dr. Aneta Koseska, who leads the group of Cellular Computations and Learning at the MPINB in Bonn. "We already started investigating how ghost scaffolds can aid learning of natural and artificial neuronal networks, and use them to overcome the current obstacles of catastrophic forgetting."

This framework, therefore, could possibly provide a potential umbrella to study long transients, but also to identify the limits of the current mathematical frameworks and where further expansions are necessary to tackle long-standing open questions of quasi-stable transient dynamics across living, natural and man-made systems.

More information: D. Koch et al, Ghost Channels and Ghost Cycles Guiding Long Transients in Dynamical Systems, Physical Review Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.047202 Journal information: Physical Review Letters
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

The earliest datable sunspot drawings based on Johannes Kepler's solar observations with camera obscura in May 1607. Credit: Kepler, J. 1609, Phaenomenon singulare seu Mercurius in Sole, Thomae Schureri, Lipisiae.

Using modern techniques, researchers have re-examined Johannes Kepler's half-forgotten sunspot drawings and revealed previously-hidden information about the solar cycles before the grand solar minimum.

By recreating the conditions of the great astronomer's observations and applying Sporer's law in the light of modern statistics, an international collaborative group led by Nagoya University in Japan has measured the position of Kepler's sunspot group, placing it at the tail-end of the solar cycle before the cycle that Thomas Harriot, Galileo Galilei, and other early telescopic observers later witnessed.

The group's findings, reported in Astrophysical Journal Letters, offer a key to resolving the controversy on the duration of solar cycles at the beginning of the 17th century, which are associated with the transition from regular solar cycles to the grand solar minimum, known as the Maunder Minimum (16451715).

A grand solar minimum is an abnormally prolonged period of low sunspot activity, which is important for telling researchers about solar activity and its effect on the Earth.

Kepler's important observations

Kepler, renowned for his historical achievements in astronomy and mathematics, made one of the earliest datable instrumental records of solar activity in the early 17th Century, before the earliest telescopic sunspot drawings. He used an apparatus known as a camera obscura, consisting of a small hole in a wall to project the sun's image on to a sheet of paper, which allowed him to sketch visible features on the sun.

In May 1607, he recorded what he mistakenly interpreted as a transit of Mercury across the sun, later clarified to be a sunspot group sighting. Sunspots are areas on the sun's surface that appear darker because of intense magnetic activity. Their occurrence, frequency, and latitudinal distributions appear in cycles that affect solar radiation and space weather.

Hisashi Hayakawa, the lead author of the study, believes that researchers have underappreciated the significance of this finding.

"Since this record was not a telescopic observation, it has only been discussed in the context of the history of science and had not been used for quantitative analyses for the solar cycles in the 17th century," he said. "But this is the oldest sunspot sketch ever made with an instrumental observation and a projection."

He continued, "We realized that this sunspot drawing should be able to tell us the location of the sunspot and indicate the solar cycle phase in 1607 as long as we managed to narrow down the observation point and time and reconstruct the tilt of the heliographic coordinatesmeaning the positions of features on the sun's surfaceat that point in time."



Based on Kepler's observation, researchers suggested the cycle-boundary range between Solar Cycles 14 and 13 as indicated in red lines, in comparison with the sunspot (group) number reconstructions based on the sunspot records in blue curve (Svalgaard & Schatten, 2016) and tree-ring 14C data in black curve (Usoskin et al., 2021) and green curve (Miyahara et al., 2021). The authors' reconstruction contradicts controversial claim that an extremely short and an extremely lengthened solar cycles (green) and conforms to the regular solar cycles (black). Credit: Dr. Hisashi Hayakawa

The 17th century: A key time for astronomy

The observations were important because the 17th century was a pivotal period in the solar cycle, not only as the time when sunspot observations had just begun but also when solar activity transitioned from normal solar cycles to the Maunder Minimum, a unique grand solar minimum in observational history.

It is not fully understood how the pattern of solar activity shifted from regular cycles to the grand minimum, other than that the transition was gradual. One of the previous tree-ring-based reconstructions claimed a sequence consisting of an extremely short solar cycle ( 5 years) and an extremely long solar cycle ( 16 years), associating these anomalous solar-cycle durations with a precursor of the transition from regular solar cycles to the grand solar minimum.

"If true, this would indeed be interesting. However, another tree-ring-based reconstruction indicated a sequence of solar cycles with normal durations," said Nagoya University's Hisashi Hayakawa. "Then, which reconstruction should we trust? It is extremely important to check these reconstructions with independentpreferably observationalrecords."

Four key findings

Kepler's sunspot record is a key observational reference. By analyzing Kepler's records and comparing them with contemporaneous data and modern statistics, the researchers made several important discoveries:

First, after 'deprojecting' Kepler's sunspot drawings and compensating for the solar position angle, they placed Kepler's sunspot group at a low heliographic latitude. This suggests that the famous schematic drawing of the solar image that Kepler diagrammed in his book is not consistent with Kepler's original text and the two camera obscura images, which show the sunspot in the upper left portion of the solar disk.

A naked-eye sunspot group on 11 May 2024 as photographed by  E. T. H. Teague, one of the authors of the said article. Credit: E. T. H. Teague

Second, by applying Sporer's law and the knowledge gained from modern sunspot statistics, they identified the sunspot group as being probably located in the tail-end of solar cycle -13 rather than the beginning of solar cycle -14.

Third, their findings contrast with later telescopic observations, which show sunspots at higher latitudes. "This shows a typical transition from the preceding solar cycle to the following cycle, in accordance with Sporer's law," Thomas Teague, an observer for the WDC SILSO and a member of the team, said, referring to the German astronomer Gustav Sporer who described a migration of sunspots from higher to lower latitudes during a solar cycle.

Fourth, this finding allows the authors to approximate the transition between the previous solar cycle (-14) and the next solar cycle (-13) between 1607 and 1610, narrowing down the possible dates when it occurred. On this basis, Kepler's records suggested a regular duration for solar cycle-13, challenging alternative reconstructions that propose an extremely long cycle during this period.

Kepler's legacy

"Kepler's legacy extends beyond his observational prowess; it informs ongoing debates about the transition from regular solar cycles to the Maunder Minimum, a period of extremely reduced solar activity and anomalous hemispheric asymmetry between 1645 and 1715," Hayakawa explained.

"By situating Kepler's findings within broader solar activity reconstructions, scientists gain crucial context for interpreting changes in solar behavior in this pivotal period marking a transition from regular solar cycles to the grand solar minimum."

"Kepler contributed many historical benchmarks in astronomy and physics in the 17th century, leaving his legacy even in the space age," said Hayakawa.

"Here, we add to that by showing that Kepler's sunspot records predate the existing telescopic sunspot records from 1610 by several years. His sunspot sketches serve as a testament to his scientific acumen and perseverance in the face of technological constraints."

Sabrina Bechet, a researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, added, "As one of my colleagues told me, it is fascinating to see historical figures' legacy records convey crucial scientific implications to modern scientists even centuries later.

"I doubt if they could have imagined their records would benefit the scientific community much later, well after their deaths. We still have a lot to learn from these historical figures, apart from the history of science itself. In the case of Kepler, we are standing on the shoulders of a scientific giant."

More information: Hisashi Hayakawa et al, Analyses of Johannes Kepler's Sunspot Drawings in 1607: A Revised Scenario for the Solar Cycles in the Early 17th Century, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2024). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ad57c9 Journal information: Astrophysical Journal Letters
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

There needs to be "significant improvements" to the way data is collected across UK Government to prove if major changes to legal aid have delivered value for money to the taxpayer, a new report says.

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act of 2012 was intended to make significant savings to the cost of the civil legal aid budget. The previous government was unable to provide evidence for this.

The report argues there needs to be more systematic collection and analysis of quantitative data across government and local government. This would then show if legal aid cuts have led to savings to the public purse, of if the costs have been passed on to local authorities and other organizations via legal or housing costs associated with the slowing down of court cases, or by people waiting for judgements not being able to work and pay tax.

The report, authored by Emma Marshall, Samuel Engle and Sian Pearce from the University of Exeter in partnership with Public Law Project and Migrants Organise, spells out what data Government needs to collect to work out the actual costs of the 2012 LASPO Act legal aid cuts and if, as current evidence suggests, the cuts were a false economy all along.

It says without information about the full costs of LASPO, it is impossible to know whether better value for money has in fact been delivered. Better data would enable a better understanding of the impact of changes to immigration legal aid under LASPO, and would also improve understanding of the wider impact of changes to the scope of civil legal aid.

The report says Government has wasted nearly 400,000 a year assessing immigration legal aid applications that fall under Exceptional Case Funding, even though almost 90% are approved.

Dr. Marshall said, "Improving the sustainability of legal aid must now be a priority for the Government. We currently have a legal aid system that is neither fair nor fit for purpose and it is putting a considerable strain on many areas of governance.

"Reinstating immigration legal aid would help the whole immigration system to function more fairly and efficiently, as well as reducing costs across other parts of government."

Public Law Project's Dr. Jo Hynes, said, "Immigration legal aid is now available to only a fraction of the people who need it. The appalling injustice and harm this causes is well known to anyone working in immigration.

"But putting the price of injustice to one side: are cuts costing more money than they saved, and could we in fact have a fairer and more efficient system by spending money in different ways?

"This report clearly spells out which data the incoming Government needs to keep track of in order to find that out.

"There are clearly false economies in play. The tax-payer has just sunk 320 million on the Rwanda plan. That is 21 years' worth of the total reduction in spending for immigration legal aid caused by LASPO.

"We are at a point where the need for evidence to demonstrate the full costs of LASPO is embarrassingly urgent. By collecting the data points we identify, the Government will be able to start building immigration legal aid policy on a sound evidence base."

"Immigration Legal Aid and value for money" points to existing evidence which shows that:

Legal aid cuts have led to increased spending in other parts of government and public services, placing pressure on courts, health services, local authorities, prisons and social services.

Reducing immigration legal aid has impacted local authorities who have legal duties to support those who cannot access other public funds.

Where immigration legal aid is inaccessible, costs are shifted to other government departments, including the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Department of Health and Social Care.

New calculations contained in the report show that the Legal Aid Agency spends nearly 500,000 a year on assessing applications for immigration legal aid through the Exceptional Case Funding (ECF) scheme, even though 87% of applications are approved.

More information: Immigration legal aid and value for money: Identifying the missing data (2024). publiclawproject.org.uk/conten  riefing-paper-AW.pdf
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:

Woman collecting coffee cherries. Credit: Deniz Sanin

Economist Deniz Sanin was at Starbucks when a bag of specialty coffee from Rwanda caught her eye. "I Googled it right away," she recalled. "It turns out, there's been a coffee boom in the country."

Four years later, the Economics Department visiting scholar is finishing up a domestic violence study inspired by that chance encounter. Her research was made possible by the rapid expansion in the 21st century of Rwanda's cooperative mills, which hire women as seasonal workers to help process coffee cherries. Sanin's analyses show these wage earners are subject to less abuse by their husbands during the harvest season, just when they're busy at the mills.

"The results are not all cheerful," said Sanin, whose working paper is under review with the American Economic Review. "But the good news is, now we can use them to shape policy."

The development economist brings a longtime interest in women's issues, particularly outside of wealthier countries like the U.S. She grew up in Istanbul in an environment of "female empowerment," with an academic/public health expert mother and financial analyst father. The family proved a rarity in Turkey, which has persistent gender gaps in education, by prioritizing their daughter's schooling.

Sanin dove into the scholarship on domestic violence and women's financial empowerment while pursuing her Ph.D. at Georgetown University. She found a 2010 study which confirmed higher earnings meant lower rates of domestic violence for women in California. But in the developing world, research showed the threat of violence can actually increase for women with access to more moneyvia family resources or anti-poverty programs that offer cash transfers.

"I was heartbroken to learn it can go the other way," said Sanin, who vowed to find a natural experiment to investigate the benefits of women earning money outside the home.

In late 2019, Sanin was researching the impacts of Rwanda's 2008 domestic violence law, which criminalized spousal abuse while allowing women to unliterally divorce violent husbands. Then a trip to that Washington, D.C., Starbucks sparked her curiosity about the country's coffee industry and gradually pieces started to fall into place.

Sanin immediately found a 2011 case study detailing Rwanda's shift to higher-quality coffee production, with farm communities building more than 200 cooperatives in the East African country between 2002 and 2012. She also learned women traditionally did the cleaning, drying, and sorting of coffee cherries during the spring-summer harvest in home operations.

Meanwhile, researching the 2008 legislation brought Sanin into contact with Rwanda's newly digitized records on monthly domestic violence hospitalizations. She was already acquainted with the country's Demographic and Health Survey, a source of robust self-reported data collected every five years on domestic violence, labor market outcomes, household spending, and more.

"All of a sudden, I had my natural experiment," said Sanin, now an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina.

A male coffee farmer in Rwanda, she learned, traditionally sells the family's yield at a local market. But those fortunate enough to live near one of the growing number of neighborhood mills earn much more because the membership-based entities export to foreign countries.

Wives still had to help their husbands harvest. The facilities, however, needed laborers to help with the processing tasks that hadn't been mechanized, and women were the obvious choice.

"Since the tasks are female-dominated," Sanin writes in her paper, "a mill enables the wife in the catchment area to transition from an unpaid family worker in the couple's plot to a wage worker in the mill for the same tasks as before."

In other words, the mills doubly tie a husband's economic interests to his wife's ability to perform labor. Looking at data as far back as 2005 allowed Sanin to confirm that domestic violence had decreased for couples living in areas served by a newly opened mill. Wives in these neighborhoods became 29% less likely to self-report an incident over the previous 12 months.

Further analysis revealed this was particularly true during the harvest's June-to-July peak, with hospitals in catchment areas showing a 14% decrease in domestic violence patients.

"I was not expecting this," Sanin said. "When I first requested the data from the Minister of Health, I thought I probably didn't need the monthly data."

She then broadened her examination, performing a similar analysis with data on Rwanda's potato farming regions, where women lack the same opportunities to monetize traditional tasks. "I found no change in hospitalizations in these areas during the potato harvest," Sanin said.

She also looked at nearby Ethiopia, where social acceptance of domestic violence is highand divorce remains far more stigmatized. "There was recently a randomized control trial there, with factory jobs randomly given to women," Sanin said. But within that cultural context, she explained, "researchers did not find an effect on domestic violence."

Sanin's paper parses several possibilities for the variations. One is that women with income have increased bargaining power in their marriages. To test this theory, Sanin analyzed self-reported household decision-making, traditionally left to the husband under Rwandan social norms. Women living in the mills' catchment areas proved slightly more likely to make financial and contraception decisions either alone or jointly with spouses.

A wife's income could also relieve financial stressors on the couple. Sanin tested this by comparing self-reported monthly household consumption to the domestic violence hospitalization data.

"I find that monthly consumption was higher right after the harvest season relative to the pre-harvest, although the domestic violence hospitalizations were the same before and right after the harvest," said Sanin, who continued work on the paper as a 202122 visiting research fellow with the Kennedy School's Women and Public Policy Program.

Separate analyses were used to test the "exposure reduction" theory (that is, the simple fact that working outside the home means less time with abusive partners). "The majority of the couples here are coffee farmers, but there are some where the wife is a coffee farmer and the husband is a truck driver or construction worker," Sanin explained. "They plausibly did not see each other during the work hours both before and after the mill opening. But once she started earning more, there was still a decrease in domestic violence."

The bottom line, she concluded, is that her study shows domestic violence rising and falling according to men's economic self-interests. "During the harvest season, when a husband's income is a function of the wife's labor, it's really costly for him to incapacitate her," Sanin said.

But her analysis also points to two conditions necessary for female employment to reduce domestic violence. "You need a context in which divorce is a credible threat, where women can walk out of the marriage," Sanin said. "And in such a context, it also matters whether the husband derives some kind of economic benefit from the wife's physical productivity at work."

Provided by Harvard Gazette

This story is published courtesy of the Harvard Gazette, Harvard University's official newspaper. For additional university news, visit Harvard.edu.
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Sierra Spaces LIFE habitat following a full-scale ultimate burst pressure test at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Credit: Sierra Space

An element of a commercial space station, Orbital Reef, under development by Blue Origin and Sierra Space, recently completed a full-scale ultimate burst pressure test as part of the agency's efforts for new destinations in low Earth orbit.

This milestone is part of a NASA Space Act Agreement awarded to Blue Origin in 2021. Orbital Reef includes elements provided by Sierra Space, including the LIFE (Large Integrated Flexible Environment) habitat structure.

Teams conducted the burst test on Sierra Space's LIFE habitat structure using testing capabilities at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The inflatable habitat is fabricated from high-strength webbings and fabric that form a solid structure once pressurized. The multiple layers of soft goods materials that make up the shell are compactly stowed in a payload fairing and inflated when ready for use, enabling the habitat to launch on a single rocket.

"This is an exciting test by Sierra Space for Orbital Reef, showing industry's commitment and capability to develop innovative technologies and solutions for future commercial destinations," said Angela Hart, manager of NASA's Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program at the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"Every successful development milestone by our partners is one more step to achieving our goal of enabling commercial low Earth orbit destinations and expanding the low Earth orbit marketplace."

NASA, Sierra Space, and ILC Dover teams conducting a full-scale ultimate burst pressure test on Sierra Spaces LIFE habitat structure using testing capabilities at NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Credit: Sierra Space

The pressurization to failure during the test demonstrated the habitat's capabilities and provided the companies with critical data supporting NASA's inflatable softgoods certification guidelines, which recommend a progression of tests to evaluate these materials in relevant operational environments and understand the failure modes.

Demonstrating the habitat's ability to meet the recommended factor of safety through full-scale ultimate burst pressure testing is one of the primary structural requirements on a soft goods article, such as Sierra Space's LIFE habitat, seeking flight certification.

Prior to this recent test, Sierra Space conducted its first full-scale ultimate burst pressure test on the LIFE habitat at Marshall in December 2023. Additionally, Sierra Space previously completed subscale tests, first at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and then at Marshall as part of ongoing development and testing of inflatable habitation architecture.

NASA supports the design and development of multiple commercial space stations, including Orbital Reef. The current design and development phase will be followed by the procurement of services from one or more companies.

NASA's goal is to achieve a strong economy in low Earth orbit where the agency can purchase services as one of many customers to meet its science and research objectives in microgravity. NASA's commercial strategy for low Earth orbit will provide the government with reliable and safe services at a lower cost, enabling the agency to focus on Artemis missions to the moon in preparation for Mars while also continuing to use low Earth orbit as a training and proving ground for those deep space missions.

Provided by NASA
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A web of roads encircles the Earth and stretches 40 million miles. In Crossings, a new book by environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb, tarmac is exposed for the planet-shaping force it isone that has polluted rivers and the air, emptied soils and woodlands, and struck fear into wild animals.

Roads are one of the most ubiquitous man-made features, existing on every continent and in most habitats. Their effects don't end at the paved periphery either. While roads cover 1% of land in the US, their ecological effectsdisruptive noise, foul air and habitat fragmentation, to name a fewextend over 20% of the country, according to Goldfarb.

Furthermore, transport is among the fastest-growing contributors to climate change, wildlife collisions with vehicles cause more than 59,000 human injuries in the US each year, and road design disproportionately burdens the health and welfare of low-income and minority communities.

As an ecologist who studies their effect on wildlife, I applaud Goldfarb for weaving such a rich commentary on roads. Crossings could not be more timely: the biggest expansion of infrastructure in history is underwayand road networks are growing fastest of all.

An estimated 25 million miles of new road lanes will be built worldwide by 2050. Roadbuilding will have to change drastically for any hope of preserving biodiversity and halting climate change.

But first, we must face some uncomfortable truths.

Vehicles are modern super-predators

Roads bring us into contact with animals we rarely see. Unfortunately, they're usually dead.

Despite roadkill being a common sight, its consequences are easily ignored. Vehicles directly kill more land-based vertebrate animals than anything else humans do, be it poaching, hunting, trapping or causing fires.

Roads and their effects are so pervasive that they even leave a mark in DNA. For example, after years of flying in between and over cars, cliff swallows have evolved shorter wings to nimbly avoid getting hit by them.

Swifts are, in one sense, a success story. Other species haven't been so lucky. Throughout Crossings, roads are described as knives, scalpels and guillotines that carve up the landscape. Nor are waterways spared: culverts (tunnels that carry streams and rivers under roads) are so ubiquitous and faulty that they have thwarted fish migrating upstream to breed, and caused populations to collapse.

Even the sounds that roads create can dramatically change animal lives. Robins, wrens and great tits raise the frequency of their calls to be heard above cars. One study found that some birds spent so much additional energy around noisy roads, trying to listen for predators, that they were too tired to forage and starved.

'A road is never just a road'

Highways and dirt roads enable deforestation, hunting, urban sprawl and tourism. More than 50 studies have shown what this means for wildlife. Elk, bears and wolves have learned to associate cars with the hunters they carry. These animals avoid roads not because of the vehicles, but because of the people inside them.

Roads have created a new "landscape of fear," according to ecologists; one that governs how animals behave in an environment. Species may avoid being killed by remaining on one side of a busy roadbut by clinging to safety like this, they increase the rate at which natural habitats are being broken up.

Goldfarb also explores the racist legacies of interstate highways that were bulldozed through predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods in his native US, dividing families and causing extensive economic damage. One such neighborhood in the Bronx is tightly bound by three expressways. Here, asthma kills three times more people than the national average.

And a paper published by the Paris regional health agency calculated that even the noise from roads shortens the lifespan of some Parisians by up to three years.

Redesigning roads

Solutions in road ecology have, to date, been more reactive than proactive. This is because many roads were built long before their harmful effects were understood. For example, the US Forest Service has only recently started to remove a proportion of the 370,000 miles of road it manages.

The difficulty with mitigating the effects of roads is in changing driver behavior. Road signs rarely slow drivers down. In fact, some people intentionally swerve to hit animals. The best solutions remove choice altogether.

In one example, Goldfarb praises the SP-139 highway in Carlos Botelho state park in southern Brazil. When I worked there in 2015 and 2016, I saw how this highway was closed at night, and that the road was designed to wind and undulate, forcing drivers to slow down. The Brazilian government dared to inconvenience drivers, and wildlife was the better for it.

The dream of road ecology is a dream of connectivity. Wildlife crossings, bridges and other man-made structures that go over or under roads offer an opportunity for animals to cross safely. They are, as Goldfarb says, "the work of literal and metaphoric bridge-building." In Banff National Park, Canada, 44 wildlife crossings have helped cut the number of collisions between cars and large mammals by more than 80%.

Goldfarb proposes building more of these. But, while there are several case studies demonstrating their success, I doubt that crossings are a panacea for the coming infrastructure tsunami.

Research shows that what works for a handful of species may not work for others. Foxes and feral cats in Australia used road crossings on average three times more frequently than scientists expected. In stark contrast, 40% of surrounding animal species were not detected at a crossing at all. Whether effective or not, wildlife crossings could become a new form of greenwashing that excuses more roads and more destruction.

To wildlife, roads spell death and division. People are the causebut they can also be the solution. I share Goldfarb's optimism and hope road ecology will grow into a global campaign for a kinder, more connected world.

In the meantime, I urge you to read Crossings.

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:

Researchers at Michigan State have shown how bacteria like the MRSA cells shown here in purple can slip between biological environments. Credit: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

It's an unpleasant fact that most of us are happy to ignore: Our mouths and noses are the natural homes to infectious and antibiotic resistant bacteria.

The good news is that our nasal and oral environments are usually equipped to keep these germs in check, said Gemma Reguera, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, Genetics and Immunology at Michigan State University.

It's when these microbes, such as Staphylococcus aureus and its antibiotic-resistant variant MRSA, move deeper into the airways or into other body sites, like the heart, that they can cause serious, even fatal, infections.

Reguera and her colleagues have now shown that our bodies can unwittingly create conditions that usher staph, including MRSA, right into those danger zones.

"You know the people who wave the sticks to direct planes at the airport? It's like that," said Reguera, whose team published the new research in the journal mBio.

The flip side is that this report also provides new insights and techniques that can help researchers prevent our natural inhabitants from spreading to places they shouldn't.

"These are organisms that we harbor," Reguera said. "It's like having neighbors you don't like. We need to learn to live with them."

Michigan State University researchers discovered that Staphylococcus aureus spreads more readily in the presence of proteins made by the mucus membrane called mucins. Credit: Kristin Jacob, Ph.D.

A Staphylococcus slip 'n slide

Understanding how these bacteria move into different parts of the body is a complex puzzle underscored by two simple facts.

One, the microbes obviously move around and make people sick. Two, they aren't well equipped to do so. Staph, MRSA and their ilk lack the appendages, such as tail-like flagella, that help other types of bacteria get around.

Confronting these two seemingly conflicting facts is a problem that's new to Reguera's group.

She and her team are perhaps best known for their extensive work with soil bacteria that they've shown can do things like sop up radioactive elements. But, with support from the Office of Naval Research, the researchers have brought a unique ecological perspective to the studies of staphylococcithe plural of staphylococcusand other bacteria inhabiting our noses, mouths and middle ear.

"What's fascinating to me about the perioral environment is how environmentally diverse it is and how much its chemistry can change within such a small space," Reguera said. "This was new territory for me and a huge intellectual effort because of the impressive body of literature about human-associated bacteria. But we did what we do best: We looked at these microbes through the lens of microbial ecology."

Kristin Jacob, who worked on this project as a doctoral student, and Santiago Hernandez-Villamizar, a visiting Ph.D. student from the University of Los Andes in Colombia, helped forge the lab's path into this new realm.

The team first discovered that certain proteins called mucins made by our mucous membranes acted as lubricants for colonies of Staphylococcus bacteria. These mucins made it easier for the microbes to spread, but it still wasn't enough to explain how well they got around in worst-case scenarios.

The Michigan State University research team found that multiple species of staphylococcus bacteria make their own lubricating peptides to aid their spread. Credit: Santiago Hernandez-Villamizar, Ph.D. Adapted from K.M. Jacob et al (2024) mBio. 0:e01562-24. https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01562-24

"We found that the colonies can passively expand when there's enough lubrication," Reguera said. "But you need more than something passive to enable an infection. That's much more active and coordinated."

By culturing different strains of various species of Staphylococcus isolated from healthy human volunteers, the team systematically cultivated a pool of contestants with diverse genetics to see which could actively spread in a simulated biological environment.

They found that, in the right conditions, the winners were Staphylococcus aureus and a species known as Staphylococcus epidermidis. When colonies of these bacteria grew large enough, the microbes in the crowded periphery would signal to each other that it was time to make their own lubricants and slide away fast.

To dig deeper, the group teamed up with Neal Hammer, an associate professor at MSU and an expert in staphylococci. The team worked with MRSA strains that had certain parts of their crowd-sensing systems deactivated. In doing so, they identified peptides that the bacteria were making that also acted as lubricants to aid their movement.

The right combination of mucins and secreted peptides threw open the doors, almost literally, to the spread of the bacteria.

"We basically have chemicals in our mucus surfaces that are like rolled out red carpet for these bacteria toward our most vulnerable sites," Reguera said. "All of a sudden, the bacteria start making their own peptides and they're unstoppable. They can colonize new areas and grow."

Although this discovery begets a host of new questions that need to be answered before providing new therapeutic ideas, it also provides new tests and techniques to aid researchers in that quest.

"The clinical and therapeutic aspects of this work will really drive how we look at this phenomenon going forward," Reguera said.

In the meantime, Reguera is enjoying a sense of personal and professional accomplishment with her lab's growth into a new research area. She credits that success to the teamwork of industrious and fearless graduate students, as well as a generous and collaborative co-investigator in Hammer.

"Never in my whole life did I think I'd work with staphylococci," she said. "I'm very proud of my students and grateful to my colleague and now collaborator, Neal Hammer, for his expert insights."

More information: Kristin M. Jacob et al, Mucin-induced surface dispersal of Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis via quorum-sensing dependent and independent mechanisms, mBio (2024). DOI: 10.1128/mbio.01562-24 Journal information: mBio
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

In problem 1, the flow around a blunt body subjected to the supersonic flow is solved. Problem 2 presents the shock wave reflection on the wall involving complex interaction phenomena. For both problems, this hybrid method shows accurate solutions without serious errors. Credit: Yokohama National University

A team of scientists has developed a novel hybrid scheme for both steady and unsteady single-phase compressible flow simulations. Their scheme has potential applications in real-world scenarios, offering a promising avenue for future research.

The team used a finite volume method called monotonic upstream-centered schemes for conservation laws (MUSCL) to create a novel scheme. Their novel scheme offers a more precise and high-resolution alternative to conventional MUSCL for compressible flow computations.

Their work was published in the journal Physics of Fluids on April 10, 2024.

Finite volume methods are numerical methods that scientists use to solve fluid dynamics problems. MUSCL is a finite volume method that can provide accurate numerical solutions for partial differential equations.

Scientists use compressible flow simulations to study compressible flow of gases that experience significant changes in their density. These numerical simulations can be used to solve many kinds of research problems, ranging from aerospace or mechanical engineering. Yet it has been challenging for scientists to accurately simulate flows because of complex phenomena, such as shock waves and discontinuities.

MUSCL is especially useful in aerospace engineering because of its straightforward mathematical expression and accuracy in fundamental flows featuring shock waves. However, it often produces dissipative solutions for complex flows, which deteriorate the accuracy of simulations.

"Although a lot of methods have been recently proposed, there is still a gap between the recently-developed, complex methods for academic interests and the widely-used methods that are actually used to handle engineering problems. To fill the gap and contribute to the engineering, we proposed a new method with accurate and stable simulations for compressible flows using simple expressions," said Keiichi Kitamura, associate professor, Faculty of Engineering, Yokohama National University.

The research team used the MUSCL method along with the tangential hyperbolic interface capturing (THINC) method to create a novel hybrid scheme they call T-MUSCL. Their hybrid scheme optimizes the process based on the degree of nonlinearity and discontinuity around the target cells. They designed the scheme to provide an appropriate balance of nonlinearity between the physical phenomena and the reconstruction process. This solves the weak shock waves sharply and the strong shock waves robustly within the hybrid scheme.

The team used two key parameters: a nonlinearity-weighted parameter and a slope-ratio-weighted parameter. Their T-MUSCL scheme provides enhanced accuracy for continuous flow simulations with smaller errors than conventional MUSCL. It is capable of precisely capturing extremely weak moving and stationary shock waves. These cases were challenging for the conventional MUSCL to resolve accurately because of excessive numerical dissipation.

The T-MUSCL scheme also provides improved convergence behavior in steady two-dimensional blunt body problems and the lessening of unstable numerical behaviors in the presence of strong shock waves. This hybrid scheme can be easily adopted in place of conventional MUSCL in a range of practical applications without adding unnecessary complexity to existing algorithms.

"The punchline of the paper is that we obtained high-resolution and robust results for complex compressible flows using simple expressions. Our method is constructed within the so-called (spatially) second-order scheme, which is the most popular type of the numerical method. We believe that our method is accessible by a lot of users because of this feature," said Kitamura.

Looking ahead, the researchers' next step is to apply the proposed method to an actual engineering problem. They hope that their method will be widely used by researchers studying fluid dynamics. "Our ultimate goal is to deepen our understanding of compressible flow dynamics and shock waves by our method and contribute to accelerating the development in a variety of industries, such as aerospace and mechanical engineering," said Gaku Fukushima, researcher, Faculty of Engineering, Yokohama National University.

More information: Gaku Fukushima et al, Improved hybrid approach of monotonic upstream-centered scheme for conservation laws and discontinuity sharpening technique for steady and unsteady flows, Physics of Fluids (2024). DOI: 10.1063/5.0198163 Journal information: Physics of Fluids
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:

Samuel Gilvarg, a graduate student from the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF), holds up an ethanol vial containing a tick specimen. He and a group of SUNY ESF interns have been collecting ticks at Brookhaven National Laboratory to look for a connection between wildland fire history and relative tick abundance. Credit: Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

The morning alarm goes off, and it's time to get ready for work. Ph.D. student Samuel Gilvarg has already pretreated his clothes with permethrin insecticide. All that's left is to pull his socks up and over his pant legs.

This routine is a daily occurrence this summer for Gilvarg and his seven interns from the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) to keep them safe while collecting data on the local tick population.

Gilvarg has spent the past two summers at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory trying to understand how tick populations react to wildland fires. These are naturally-fueled vegetation fires that include both classic wildfires and prescribed burning, in which humans use fire as a management tool.

"I didn't just choose SUNY ESF interns because I go to SUNY ESF," he said. "These students are what some call passionate and others call crazy enough to want to go work with ticks for an entire summer."

For intern Melanie Costello, the research topic is personal. "Part of the reason I really wanted to do this internship is because my mom had Lyme disease for over 20 years," she said.

Research probing the relationship between ticks and wildland fires might offer a new direction for managing the unruly disease-carrying pests, Gilvarg said.

Gilvarg's seven interns, plus an additional helper, trek through the Long Island Pine Barrens to sample ticks on an experimental plot. Credit: Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Small bite, big impact

The problem is getting more urgent, he noted.

"Tick-borne illness is really bad, and tick numbers are going up," Gilvarg said, rattling off a list of debilitating tick-borne diseases: Lyme disease, anaplasmosis, ehrlichiosis, babesiosis, Powassan virus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and the alpha-gal allergy. Some of these conditions are associated with serious implications, including painful symptoms and mortality without proper medical treatment.

Alpha-gal syndrome, for example, transmitted by the bite of Lone Star ticks, induces an allergic reaction to mammalian products in certain people who've been bitten. Sometimes this can lead to delayed anaphylaxisa constriction of the airway that makes it difficult or impossible to breatheeven hours after eating an allergen (e.g., red meat or dairy).

In a Centers for Disease Control (CDC) study of 300,000 specimens from American patients suspecting they had alpha-gal syndrome, more than 30% tested positive.

To add to the challenge, most tick diseases are not passed directly from tick to tick or from mama tick through her eggs to the larvae, explained Timothy Green, Brookhaven's on-site tick expert, who works in the Lab's Environmental Protection Division. Instead, they pick up and pass on diseases as they feed during various stages of their complex life cycle.

"Tick larvae feed on small rodents, from which they pick up disease, then they molt to the nymph stage, get another blood meal from another host, and molt to the adult stage. As adults, they mate, and then the female must have another blood meal [likely on a deer] before laying eggs," Green said.

A tick that bites a human at any one of these stages could pass on the bacteria, viruses, or parasites that cause the tick-related diseases, he explained.

That means it's not just the ticks that require study, but rather how they interact with other animals and the whole ecosystem around them.

"If you can break the reproductive cycle at any point, you can start managing for tick populations," Green said. "Reduce mice, reduce ticks. Reduce deer, reduce ticks. Manage habitat, reduce ticks."

Interns Eric Jergensen (left) and Luke Myers (right) scan corduroy fabric they've dragged through the underbrush for any ticks that have latched on. They use this "corduroy on a stick" technique to census tick populations on plots that have experienced different burn histories. Credit: Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Time is ticking

What Gilvarg wants to know is whether fire can be part of a plan to execute that last option. Using prescribed fire, he asks, "Can we build a forest that is not good for ticks?"

Brookhaven is a good place to find out. Undeveloped pine barrens forest makes up over 3,000 acres of the Laboratory's 5,000-plus-acre property. In careful coordination with the Brookhaven Fire Rescue Group, the Lab's Prescribed Fire Program, led by the Environmental Protection Division's Kathy Schwager, regularly conducts prescribed burns. These fires decrease the amount of wildfire fuel on site, help prevent future out-of-control fires, and restore the ecosystem.

"Without periodic fire, we will lose pine barrens," Schwager said. She explained that this is a fire-adapted ecosystem, meaning it "requires fire for its very survival."

That leaves two options in her eyes: "Either we put fire on the landscape on our terms, or we wait for another wildfire that, if it burns under extreme conditions, may put people and property at risk." No one wants a repeat of the infamous 2012 Crescent Bow Fire or the Sunrise Fire of 1995.

By collecting ticks from different burn locations at different intervals after wild or prescribed fires, Gilvarg and his interns have been assessing the impact of wildland fire on the tick populations.

"Fire should deliver a one-two punch," he said, elaborating that it directly kills ticks and destroys some of the places they hide out and latch onto animals. Indeed, past evidence suggests that, right after a forest burns, leaf litter that has been charred black holds heat, leaving ticks with nowhere to take cover.

'Corduroy on a stick'

Gilvarg and his interns take precautions, like wearing permethrin-covered clothing, to avoid getting tick bites while collecting the data they need to test their hypothesis. To gather ticks, they use a method fondly called "corduroy on a stick."

A pair of interns drag large swaths of the textured fabric across 16-by-25-meter plots of underbrush. The interns then pluck hitchhiking ticks off the corduroyand themselves, if applicabledepositing the specimens in ethanol vials for later counting.

By sampling multiple sites with different burn histories, they can estimate relative tick abundance, which describes the presence of ticks actively out seeking a blood meal at the time of sampling, in each location.

An intern uses tweezers to pluck a tick off the corduroy. Credit: Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

Some plots they sampled this summer had burned recently; others burned years ago. Some had burned several times, and some have never burned at all, according to the Lab's records. That variation helps Gilvarg's team tease apart the relationship between fire management and tick population density.

The scientists must also account for meteorological conditions during their tick-sampling studies. This is because an ideal tick habitat may return no ticks at all on a hot, dry day. Or an abysmal tick habitat could still be chock-full on a wet, cloudy one.

"It can get extremely hot and uncomfortable working in those conditions, but it's great tick weather," intern Erin Peskin said of the steamy heat and humidity. Brookhaven has many policies in place to ensure that interns and Lab staff stay safe while conducting research and during other activities on site.

Intern Eric Jergensen agreed, "It takes some getting used to [the weather], but regular meetings assessing the heat risks and precautions that can be taken to avoid such risks really ensure our productivity throughout the day and fortify our efficiency as a team."

To collect the relevant weather data, the team carries devices called Kestrel Dropssensors that sample temperature, relative humidity, heat index, and dew point every five seconds. At the end of each day, roughly 500 weather data points get delivered right to Gilvarg's phone. He can then use statistics to filter out the impact of weather and see the true effect of wildland fire history on tick survival.

Fire's bad reputation

It will be a while before Gilvarg's team has analyzed enough data to draw conclusions. But even if they demonstrate that prescribed fire can be used as a tool to fight ticks and disease, they still have a public relations hurdle: People generally see fire as bad, as previous environmental education studies show.

Intern Melanie Costello holds an ethanol vial against her hand to make the tick within more visible. The team tallies specimens back in the lab. Credit: Kevin Coughlin/Brookhaven National Laboratory

"There's this whole culture predicated on Smokey the Bear fighting forest fires and fire as the enemy. While it's well-intentioned, it's misguided," Gilvarg commented.

Aside from fire's potentially positive role in mitigating tick populations, blanket anti-fire sentiment doesn't consider nuances of local ecology.

For instance, in Upstate New York, fire truly is damaging for beech and hemlock forests. But "It's totally different here," Gilvarg stressed. "Pitch pine and oaks are built to burn, survive, and thrive after fire," he said.

In fact, some pitch pinecones even rely on fire's heat to release seeds for reproduction. Again, as Schwager noted, this is a fire-adapted ecosystem that needs fire to survive.

But because the Long Island Pine Barrens, where Brookhaven is located, is a naturally moist ecosystem, fires ignited by lightning strikes aren't common. In addition, due to long-term fire suppression and climate change on a larger scale, many forests in the Northeast are becoming wetter.

Without fire, Gilvarg explained, other trees take root, creating moist shade. And shade and moisture are exactly what ticks like. By using fire management, he said, "You can sort of reverse this process."

But the solution isn't as simple as setting the Barrens ablaze.

"Previous studies suggest that if you burn a place once, or only a few times after a long absence of fire, it is actually going to increase ticks," Gilvarg pointed out. That's because the first thing to grow back is a flush of plants such as blueberry and huckleberry, which attract intermediary hosts for ticks to pick up disease. "To a deer, all those tender shoots are like an all-you-can-eat buffet."

This map illustrates where the study's 23 plots are in relation to areas of previous fire. The experimental plots are marked with green, orange, or red dots depending on whether they are control/no-fire sites, infrequent-fire sites, or frequent-fire sites, respectively. The wildfires are denoted by amorphous shapes on the map, and the prescribed burns are identifiable as rectangles. The name and year of each fire, excluding the two most recent ones, are recorded in the legend. The bold, black line represents the border of Brookhaven's property. (Created by Gilvarg using Geographic Information System software and data courtesy of Prescribed Fire Program Manager Kathy Schwager). Credit: Created by Gilvarg using Geographic Information System software and data courtesy of Prescribed Fire Program Manager Kathy Schwager

To account for the long, multistage lifecycle of the ticks and their relationship with deer and rodents, Gilvarg suggests the prescribed burn solution must be long-term. Repeated fires over a period of years, perhaps every three to five, might be what's needed to keep ticks at bay, he said.

Gilvarg noted that Indigenous people in the Northeast historically used and still use such routine prescribed fire practices. "It's people that kept the flame here," he said.

He highlighted the Mashpee Wampanoag's fire management practices in places like upper Cape Cod as exemplary and said he considers restoring Indigenous practices of fire for forest management as a human rights issue, too.

Even in the best-case scenario, though, under a robust fire management program replete with regular burns, "We're never going to completely eliminate ticks," Gilvarg said. Instead, "Our goal is to reduce tick populations and disease risk."

One way toward One Health

If burning adds a layer of protection against tick-borne disease, that would tie directly into One Health, a CDC framework for connecting ecosystem resilience, animal well-being, and human health.

Green appreciates Gilvarg's work as an example of One Health studies related to tick management. "This One Health approach joins with our efforts to improve our ecosystem through management of the deer population," he said. It further complements other methods for controlling vegetation, such as mechanically grinding up plants before implementing prescribed burns.

"The use of mechanical treatment and prescribed fire to improve ecosystem health also has an effect on the number of mice," Green added. Figuring out how fire management affects incidence of tick-borne illness in rodentswhile creating conditions that are less favorable for tick survivalwill be key, he said.

This aerial image displays a section of Brookhaven's property before (left) and after (right) a prescribed burn. A firetruck drives on the service road in the after photo. (Provided by intern Luke Myers from Nearmap, an aerial and satellite imagery service). Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

It all comes back to ecosystem interconnectedness. "That is why we are working with SUNY ESF and Sam to better understand the dynamics," Green said.

Gilvarg said, "I genuinely believe that fire management for tick control could save a lot of lives and prevent a lot of sickness. I really think this could help a lot of people."

Only timeand the datawill tell.
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:

Map of western Canada showing active fires in the last 24 hours, as of July 25 at 0800 GMT.

An "out of control" wildfire has devoured up to half of the main town in western Canada's popular Jasper National Park, authorities said Thursday, with 400 foreign firefighters called in to help battle the blaze.

While the fire has so far caused no casualties, as many as 25,000 residents and tourists were evacuated from the area before the conflagration suddenly grew in size, overtaking firefighters.

"There is no denying that this is the worst nightmare for any community," said Danielle Smith, Alberta province's premier, adding that damage to the town was estimated at between "30 to 50 percent."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called images of the damage "heartbreaking," and said his government had asked more than 400 firefighters from Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Africa to aid local authorities.

"Thank you for your courage, and for working non-stop to fight these wildfires," he said in a post on social media platform X.

A video circulating on social media showed the city of Jasper's streets covered in ash, with cars turned to charred carcasses and buildings reduced to rubble.

Mayor Richard Ireland wrote in an online post of a sense of destruction and loss that was "beyond description and comprehension."

On Thursday, firefighters were still hard at work in the town, with much-anticipated rain having "no significant impact" on the blaze, according to Jasper National Park authorities.

"Jasper National Park received a small amount of rain overnight. While the rain helped reduce fire activity slightly, it is not enough to have made a meaningful impact to the overall wildfire situation, which remains out of control," read a post on the park's X account.

In places, the flames reached a height of 120 meters (390 feet) and were moving at a speed of 15 meters per minute.

The fire entered the deserted town on Wednesday evening after advancing very rapidly late in the day, pushed by strong winds in a region hit by severe drought and which has seen record heat in recent days.

Jasper National Park, Canada's largest, is known for its mountains, glaciers, lakes and waterfalls, and attracts 2.5 million visitors every year.

'Devastation'

"Everyone has a total feeling of devastation," said Pattie Pavlov, a Jasper resident who drove for hours on Monday night to escape the advancing fire.

"Many people are feeling very helpless. Because there's nothing that we can do."

The general manager of the Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce said she had taken refuge with friends more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) away from her home.

In tears, Alberta Premier Smith provided an assessment of the damage and recalled that "for many generations" the town and Jasper National Park were "a source of pride."

In recent days, numerous fires have been started by lightning in western Canada.

In Alberta province, more than 170 fires were active on Thursday, including more than a dozen in the Fort McMurray region, a hub of oil sands development.

British Columbia, Alberta's neighboring province, was grappling with 400 active fires, more than half of which were burning out of control.

Fifty-six fires have started in the last 24 hours alone, authorities said.

 2024 AFP
An annoyed Donald Trump has lashed out on social media insisting he was struck by a bullet in the assassination attempt against him after the head of the FBI noted that he may have been hit by "shrapnel."

The FBI has asked to interview Trump in its investigation of the attack at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month, the New York Times reported Friday, citing an unnamed agency official.

FBI investigators are also examining "numerous metal fragments" found near the rally stage to determine if Trump was struck by a bullet or "potential debris," the newspaper added.

Trump emphasized in a post on Truth Social Thursday night: "The hospital called it a 'bullet wound to the ear,' and that is what it was."

The hospital has not said publicly that Trump was injured by a bullet because Trump has not allowed the release of his medical report by Butler Memorial, the nearby hospital that treated his injuries, which has raised questions.

"It was unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard," added Trump, who has characterized his near miss as divine intervention.

Trump has said he felt a bullet from the shooter's assault-style rifle "ripping through the skin" of his ear, though he needed no stitches to repair the damage.

Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, killed former Pennsylvania volunteer fire chief Corey Comperatore, and seriously injured two others attending the Trump rally.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday in testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that the agency is not certain Trump's injury wound was caused by a bullet.

"There's some question about whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear," Wray said.

At another point he noted that it was his "understanding that either [a bullet] or some shrapnel is what grazed his ear."

Trump's former White House doctor and ally Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago days after the shooting and affixed a bandage to Trump's ear before the Republican National Convention.

Jackson said in a memo issued last Sunday by the Trump campaign that the former president suffered a gunshot wound that came "less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear," leaving a "2 cm wide" wound.

Earlier Jackson had said in a podcast interview that Trump was missing part of his ear, a "little bit at the top."

According to the Florida Department of Health website, Jackson's medical license is conditioned on serving in the military and only authorizes him to practice in a military facility. He left the Navy in 2019.

Jackson's board certification in emergency medicine is valid through the end of next year but he needs a license to practice medicine, the Dallas Morning News reported in September.

A local police source reportedly told Newsmax after the shooting that Trump may have been hit by glass fragments from a shattered teleprompter. But sources have told the Times that all teleprompter glass was intact, and they are instead examining metal fragments.
VENTNOR  After his wife, Marjorie, died in April at 71, city resident Leonard Ariff sought a way to pay tribute to her that reflected her passion for reading and her career in special education.

The family considered a variety of memorials, including benches and bricks, but the long waits for those things made them look at other options.

Ive got three children that are going, This isnt working, Dad, so my daughter Jessica goes to the Brigantine and Margate libraries a lot and had noticed the wonderful murals sitting on the walls of each, so she took the names of the artists and we reached out, Leonard Ariff said.

As a result, the Ventnor branch of the Atlantic County Library will dedicate a mural to Marjorie Ariff in a ceremony from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Sept. 14 at the library at 6500 Atlantic Ave.

Cassandra Shober, a Realtor in the region who has been involved for 20 years in different community art projects, including library murals, helped the Ariffs achieve their vision, along with Philadelphia artist Shari Tobias.

The Ariffs and Shober sat down and put together a list of books that Marjorie had used in class as well as some of Shobers and the library staffs favorites.

Characters from childrens literary classics like Frog and Toad, The Cat in the Hat and Curious George now dot the back wall of the childrens section of the library.

Galloway Township library to close for HVAC work The Galloway Township branch of the Atlantic County Library System will close July 15 for cleaning and preparation for upcoming HVAC replacement work.

The team made an effort to portray characters as close to their original depictions as possible, as opposed to leaning into later animated versions that the likes of Disney and other studios have put out, Shober said.

We tried to make something really special not just in honor of an extraordinary woman but to also hopefully inspire the community and all the local children, said Shober, who has lived in Ventnor for close to 20 years.

Both Marjorie and Leonard Ariff grew up on Absecon Island, graduating from Atlantic City High School together in 1970. The two married in 1974 and went on to raise their children in Owings Mills, Maryland, but spent their summers in Ventnor for several decades. The couple retired and relocated year-round to Ventnor in 2019.

Marjorie Ariff was a reading specialist and spent the last years of her career working in special education at Winand Elementary School in Pikesville, Maryland.

The last 15 years (of her career) she was in heaven, it was special ed 3- and 4-year-olds, she was helping to identify autistic children. It was a mixed class, but this is what her job was and she just loved the challenge, said Leonard Ariff. The fun book at school was The Three Billy Goats Gruff book. I remember that because she would be the voice and the kids just loved that.

The majority of the mural was finished this week, with only background color and crayon-proof varnish to be glazed on ahead of its dedication.

A plaque with Marjorie Ariffs name will be displayed and hung next to the mural after its installed. The plaque will feature a quote from Dr. Seuss honoring her work with reading.

GALLERY: New mural underway at Ventnor library
Vice President Kamala Harris is in a statistical tie with Donald Trump, according to a new poll, and has gained ground among voters compared to the survey's results from earlier this month that show President Joe Biden trailing the former president by six percentage points.

Trump leads Harris 48% to 47% among likely voters and 48% to 46% among registered voters in a New York Times/Siena College poll taken after Biden announced he was ending his 2024 campaign.

The poll, taken between July 22-24, has a 3.3 percentage point margin of error.

Democrats are also coalescing around Harris, with 79% of her party saying she should receive the nomination and only 14% saying she shouldn't, the poll found.

And 70% say the party should "unite" behind Harris, while 27% favor a competitive nomination process.

The poll also has good news for Trump.

His favorability rating has risen to 48% among voters, a 5 point increase since the last poll that conducted before his assassination attempt at a campaign rally July 13 in Butler, Pa.

The poll also found that the vice president's favorability rating is climbing, going from 36% in February to 46% in the latest survey.

At the same time, Biden's favorability rating has been falling, hitting 43% in the latest poll.

Asked about the president's decision to quit the race, 65% strongly approve and 22% somewhat approve. Only 9% either somewhat or strongly disapprove.
Search crews have found and recovered the body of missing hiker Dylan Honnoll from the Beartooth Mountains northwest of Red Lodge.

His body, which was completely submerged under the fast moving water, was located by ground search crews on Tuesday, July 23. Early Wednesday, search and rescue team members met a specially trained crew from Two Bear Air Rescue from Kalispell to coordinate the recovery. The skilled helicopter crew was able to hover over the rapids in the steep canyon and lower a rescuer to recover Honnoll's body.

Red Lodge Fire Rescue Search and Rescue teams along with the Carbon County Sheriff's office had been searching for Honnoll since he fell into East Rosebud Creek on July 12.

"Locating Dylan in the fast moving river was very challenging, Assistant Chief Jon Trapp said in a statement. With the dedicated work of our Search and Rescue Team and help from many of our partners, we are honored to be able to help return him to his family.

A Carbon County Sheriff's Office coroner met the helicopter Wednesday morning at East Rosebud Creek Trailhead to begin the arrangements to return Honnoll to his family in Minnesota.

Honnoll suffered fatal injuries after falling into the rapids below Rimrock Lake as he attempted to cross East Rosebud Creek near the lake's outlet. He and a friend were hiking the well-known Beaten Path trail from East Rosebud Lake to Cooke City.

He had just completed his sophomore year at Montana State University, was active in sports, and had spent a lifetime in the outdoors with his family and friends.

"Our thoughts go out to Dylans family, friends and fellow students during this difficult time," the sheriff's office said in a statement. "Red Lodge Fire Rescue and the Carbon County Sheriffs Office would like to thank the many agencies and volunteers who assisted with this search, including the helicopter support provided by the Montana Army National Guard, Two Bear Air Rescue, and the Yellowstone County Sheriff's Department."
A former Russian deputy defense minister has been arrested on corruption charges, the latest high-ranking official being purged from the military as the war in Ukraine drags on, according to reports.

Gen. Dmitry Bulgakov, 69, who had been in charge of troop logistics, was taken into custody as "part of a criminal probe into corruption" to a pre-trial detention center in Moscow, Russian state-owned media outlet Tass reported, citing the Federal Security Service.

It said an investigation is underway into Bulgakov's alleged "unlawful activity."

The Moscow Times said neither the FSB or the Investigative Committee specified the crimes Bulgakov has been accused of committing.

Bulgakov, who received the Hero of Russia title in 2016, was in charge of military logistics from 2008 until he was discharged by President Vladimir Putin in 2022.

He is the latest defense official charged with corruption, Reuters reported, as Russia's new defense minister, Andrei Belousov, has been ordered to rid the ranks of corruption and get a handle on finances amid Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine.

Since April, at least five military and defense officials have reportedly been arrested.

Bulgakov is accused of working with a food company to create a system that replaced high-energy food items for Russian troops with lesser quality rations at inflated prices, Tass reported.

"At the same time, servicemen did not receive quality food products even in the conditions of a special military operation," Tass reported, quoting a source on the Investigative Committee, using the Russian term "special military operation" to describe the Ukraine war.
A Texas official declared a state of disaster on Friday after the area experienced dozens of earthquakes over the past week.

Scurry County Judge Dan Hicks issued the order after a magnitude 5.1 earthquake this morning.

Thousands of people across Texas and Oklahoma reported feeling the latest earthquake.

There were initial reports of items falling off of shelves and a broken window.

He says there have been 61 earthquakes in the past seven days. The United States Geological Survey, which measures quakes across the country says there could have been more than 75 connected tremors.

Damage has been fought throughout Scurry County in businesses and residences, he announced.

Hicks is asking for assistance from the Texas state government state officials to monitor the damage.
Here you'll find answers to common questions about our products, services, and policies. We encourage you to explore these FAQs before contacting us, as they may provide the information you need. We're always happy to help if you still have questions or need further assistance.

What are the store's opening hours?

The BFI Shop is open every day from 12 PM to 8 PM. Occasionally, our hours may change, so we recommend checking our homepage or looking for updates to stay informed.





I am unable to log in to my account. What steps should I take?

If you're having trouble logging into your account, try resetting your password. You can do this by clicking on the 'Forgot your password?' link on the login page. If you still can't access your account, please contact us at bfishop@bfi.org.uk, and we'll be happy to help!





Why isn't my membership discount being applied?

To activate your online discount, you will need to create a BFI Shop account using the email address you registered your membership in. Once you have done this you can then log into the shop site and your 15% discount will automatically appear in the basket at the checkout.

It might take a couple of days for your membership to be verified and updated on your shop account. If you need to place an urgent order, please contact our membership team at membership@bfi.org.uk, and theyll be happy to assist you.





How can I check the status of my order?

To check your order status, go to My Account and then My Orders. During busy periods, there may be delays in processing or updating your order. We will email you shipping updates, but sometimes these emails might end up in your junk folder.

If there are any items out of stock, we will notify you about any delays. If you havent received a confirmation or shipping notification, please email us at bfishop@bfi.org.uk, and well look into it for you.





I placed an order but did not receive a confirmation email. What should I do?

There could be a few reasons why you didn't receive a confirmation email. First, please check your spam or junk folder, as sometimes our emails may end up there. Additionally, a typo in your email address could prevent you from receiving our communications.

If you're still having issues, please contact us, and we'll check if your order was processed. For future purchases, consider creating an account with us to easily track your orders and receive notifications. You can reach us at bfishop@bfi.org.uk for assistance.





What is the processing time for my order?

Orders are typically processed the next day. Once your order is packed and ready for pickup, you'll receive a shipping notification. If you're in the UK and an item is out of stock, we can ship available items separately.

For international orders, we ship only when the entire order is ready, which may include waiting for pre-orders or out-of-stock items.

During busy periods like Black Friday, Christmas, and sales events, processing times may be longer due to high demand. We appreciate your patience as we prioritise packing orders, which might also delay our response to inquiries.

When will my pre-ordered DVD/Blu-ray be delivered?

Pre-ordering a DVD or Blu-ray doesn't guarantee delivery on or before the release date. We pack and ship these orders as soon as we receive the stock from our suppliers, so the wait time can vary. We'll do our best to get your pre-order to you as quickly as possible!





What is the expected wait time for an out-of-stock item I ordered?

The wait time for out-of-stock items can vary depending on the supplier and product availability. If you haven't received an update from us within 14 days, please contact us, and we'll provide you with more information.





How can I track my order?

We only provide tracking for orders over 25. You'll receive a tracking number in your shipping notification email. Use this number to track your order's journey to you.





How are customs and VAT handled for international orders?

Orders shipped to countries outside the UK are not subject to the 20% UK sales tax. This tax will be automatically deducted from your order at checkout if your shipping address is outside the UK. However, please be aware that your order may be subject to local import duties, taxes, and delivery service charges when it arrives in your country. These additional fees are not covered by us. For more information, you can check our International Shipping.





Which countries do you ship to?

As of July 2022, we offer shipping to the following countries: Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UK, USA

Regrettably, due to current service and customs issues, we do not offer shipping to countries not listed above.





I received an incorrect item. How can I return or exchange it?

If you received an incorrect item, please contact us so we can resolve the issue. Typically, we will provide a pre-paid envelope for you to return the item. We'll then assist you with the return or exchange process to ensure you receive the correct item. More information about our returns policy can be found here.





What is the status of my refund?

Refunds typically take a few days to process and can take up to 7 business days to appear in your account. If your refund hasnt been returned after 14 days, please contact us, and well look into it for you.





How do gift memberships work?

You can purchase a BFI gift membership through the BFI Shop. The gift card, which includes a unique voucher code, can be sent to you or directly to the recipient. To activate the membership, the recipient needs to use the voucher code before the expiry date printed on the card. Please note, this date is for activating the membership, not the membership's expiration date. Full instructions are provided with the gift card.



You can buy an E-Gift membership here. This will be sent as a PDF voucher right away to you or the recipient and is dealt with by the Membership team.





Im having issues with my Sight and Sound Subscription. Can you help?

The BFI Shop does not handle Sight and Sound subscriptions. For assistance with your subscription, please contact sightandsound@abacusemedia.com, and they will be able to help you.

If you're interested in purchasing individual editions of Sight and Sound, you can find them here.





What are the differences between DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K formats?

DVDs offer standard definition (SD) quality and work in any DVD or Blu-ray player.

Blu-rays provide high definition (HD) quality, giving sharper images and better audio, and require a Blu-ray player, but they can't be played on a standard DVD player.

4K Ultra HD Blu-rays deliver ultra-high definition (UHD) with enhanced colors and sound. To fully enjoy these features, you'll need a 4K Blu-ray player and a compatible HD TV. While these discs can also play on regular Blu-ray players and TVs, you'll only get the full benefits of 4K UHD with the proper equipment. Each upgrade provides a clearer, more immersive viewing experience.

What are region codes?

Region codes are used to control the distribution and playback of DVDs and Blu-rays across different areas. A disc from one region may not play on a player from another region, so its important to verify compatibility. You can find this information in the product details on our website.



DVD Region Codes:

Region 1: United States, Canada, Bermuda, U.S. territories

Region 2: Europe, Japan, Middle East, Egypt, South Africa, Greenland

Region 3: Southeast Asia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau

Region 4: Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands

Region 5: Russia, Eastern Europe, India, most of Africa, North Korea, Mongolia

Region 6: China

Region 0 or All: Region-free, can be played worldwide

Blu-ray Region Codes:

Region A: The Americas (North, Central, and South America), Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Southeast Asia

Region B: Europe, Africa, Middle East, Australia, New Zealand

Region C: Asia (except for Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia)

Region codes are used to control the distribution and playback of DVDs and Blu-rays in different areas. Discs with a specific region code are generally compatible only with players set to that region or with region-free players. The BFI Shop sells DVDs and Blu-rays that are compatible with players in the UK and Europe (Region 2 for DVDs and Region B for Blu-rays). Be sure to check your players compatibility before purchasing.





I saw this poster at the BFI Southbank. Do you sell it?

Unfortunately, the posters displayed at BFI Southbank are not available for sale. They are provided by our marketing team specifically for events and seasons.

How can I purchase or hire films, stills, and archive content?

The BFI Shop doesn't handle these requests. For all licensing inquiries, please reach out to Archive Content Sales and Licensing. Theyll be happy to assist you with your needs.
Anthony Goodshield, 41, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Sioux City to eight years in federal prison on one count of possession of a firearm by a felon and drug user. There is no parole in the federal system.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Goodshield was taken into custody on a state arrest warrant and found in possession of drug paraphernalia and the firearm, which he had attempted to hide in an air vent. In addition to the previous federal firearm conviction, his criminal history includes burglary, going armed with intent, eluding and drug possession.
What happens when you take a disease that is infamous for affecting a particular demographic and turn it into a superpower? Well, you might get a hit show, for one. Supacell, Netflixs recent Black British superhero series, defies the notion that audiences have had enough of monotonous heroes on the small screenit boasts a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and reached the No. 1 spot on Netflixs top 10 global television list, where it still remains in the top five nearly a month after its premiere. Created by Rapmanan English rapper turned screenwriter famous for creating Blue StorySupacell feels like a much more PG version of The Boys crossed with the gritty Black British crime drama Top Boy. The show has all the personality of its predecessorsand where Top Boy is concerned, the same setting of East Londonbut it provides something new for fantasy and drama lovers alike. Obviously, a show focused exclusively on supercharged Black people living in a poor neighborhood is already a rare thing. But Supacell stands out even more due to the culturally specific origin story it offers for its heroes: sickle cell anemia.

Sickle cell diseasea disorder that complicates the ease of blood flow throughout the body and, at times, to vital organsis one of the top five most common genetic disorders in the U.S. In the U.K., SCD is the most common genetic disorder, affecting about 17,000 people in England alone, per the National Health Service. Of these numbers, the disease is disproportionately found among the Black population, some of whom fully possess the disorder and some of whom carry the recessive trait. The genetic lottery of SCD, and the fact that it is so prevalent in a particular community, makes it an inspired starting point for superhero lore.

Advertisement

In Supacellperhaps the name now makes a little more sense?we meet five main characters in East London, all of whom are down on their luck and each of whom carries the recessive trait for sickle cell. Right on cue, one day they find themselves randomly and inexplicably able to wield a superhuman power. Theres Tazer (Josh Tedeku), a young gang leader embroiled in a turf war who realizes he can turn invisible when he suddenly cant see himself in the mirror; Rodney (Calvin Demba), a small-time (like, very small-time) drug dealer who actualizes his superspeed when he accidentally runs all the way to Scotland in a matter of seconds; Sabrina (Nadine Mills), a deftly competent yet oft-microaggressed nurse who finds out she is telekinetic when she accidentally slams her cheating boyfriend against a wall; and Andre (Eric Kofi Abrefa), a financially unstable father struggling after recently getting out of prison, who first awakens to his superstrength when he bursts open a wall-embedded ATM.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Then theres the groups ringleader of sorts, Michael (Tosin Cole), who starts off as a deliveryman trying to save up to better provide for his longtime girlfriend, until he accidentally time-travels to the future. There, he finds out not only that he can manipulate time but that he will wind up aligning himself with the other four in what appears to be a good-vs.-evil supe war. Of course, because Michael is the only one aware of the future, it becomes his job to find the other fourstrangers to him in the present dayand persuade them to team up against a looming evil theyre unlikely to believe is actually out there.

Perhaps more interesting than their powers, though, is the fact that each of our heroes is a sympathetic underdogeven Tazer, whose moments on-screen involve multiple stabbings in smaller battles within a larger gang war. Although many supe origin stories involve underdogs finally possessing something that helps them come out on top, Supacell maps its narrative onto realistic socioeconomic concerns. Every main character in the series is struggling with a lack of money and the impacts of systemic racism; for instance, Andres criminal record hinders him from finding gainful employment even though he maintains that hes innocent of the crime he was incarcerated for. And when our heroes wake up with their powers, they dont then try to heal the world at largeinstead, they apply those powers to the everyday world we know. Tazer uses his invisibility as a trump card in retaliatory knife-outs; Sabrina taps into her powers to save her sister from sexual assault outside a nightclub; and Rodney deploys his to finally get his literal drug-running scheme off the ground in record time. Life continues to happen as usual in the small community bound by its position below the middle class. Everything is connectednow its just also superhuman.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Supacell also manages to tackle more specific issues that marginalized and impoverished communities face. Somewhat akin to Netflixs great satirical blaxploitation homage They Cloned Tyrone, the show has a subplot of a clandestine operation that has identified the supacell phenomenon and aims to kidnap the Black people bearing it and subject them to a torment of relentless testing. In the real world, which is yet unaware of the existence of powers, the kidnapped are considered missing people, and only Michaels girlfriend, an embattled social worker, seems to care about tracking them down. Though little is revealed of the group conducting the tests, this subplot is a powerful reminder not only of the dark history of governments unethically running studies on innocent Black people, but also of the numerous Black people that go missing every year, whose families have to nearly beg law enforcement to try to find.

Advertisement

But for all the seriousness of its themes, Supacell still manages to be occasionally funny and often gripping. Sure, the CGI sometimes leaves a bit to be desired, and yes, some of the characters feel frustratingly stereotypical (like Andres ex and mother to his son, who wants nothing to do with him unless it involves child support). But then, superpowers always come with super problems, dont they? And as we find out early on, it stands to reason that if our ragtag group of heroes receives powers from the sickle cell trait, they are likely not the only ones. With such a rich and specific premise and setting, Supacell is clearly primed to tell many more stories. Showrunner Rapman says he has plans for three potential seasons in total, and there are many places for the show to go next if it gets the chance. But theres one core idea thats certain to remain the same: the genetics that threaten to kill you, or the place that seems as if it might stifle you? These are also the things that vitally, maybe even powerfully, set you apart.
Scott Sheffield, then-CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, in 2023. Michael Wyke/Contributor Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, talks to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott during the Republican National Convention on July 17. Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press

Texas oil and gas billionaires are mobilizing to stop Vice President Kamala Harris from becoming president, and for one father-and-son duo, its personal.

Attack dogs from the American Petroleum Institute and the Texas Oil and Gas Association have slammed President Joe Biden and his administration. Never mind that under Biden, the United States has produced more oil and gas than ever in the nations history.

Taking the throne as the worlds largest energy producer is not enough for these conservative businesspeople. They want higher profits, even if it hurts consumers and emissions from their products overheat the planet.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

My colleague James Osborne recently reported from Washington on why the industry hates Harris. As the California attorney general, she prosecuted oil and gas firms for criminal negligence and supported a lawsuit accusing Exxon Mobil of misleading investors on the financial impact of climate change.

As a U.S. senator, she wanted to ban hydraulic fracturing, the rock-shattering technique that breaks oil and gas molecules from shale. She also supported the Green New Deal, which called for the end of the fossil fuel industry and a transition to zero-emission energy sources.

While industry cheerleaders claim the world as we know it will collapse without burning fossil fuels, recent data from Texas main electric grid tells another story.

When I took this job in 2014, Texans relied on burning coal for 36% of the electricity supply and natural gas for 41%. Today, coal provides only 11% of the states electricity supply and natural gas 42%.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Clean wind, solar and nuclear energy supplied 47% of the grids electricity in the first half of 2024. Because wind and solar energy are cheaper than natural gas, guess which fuel source will be displaced next?

For all their self-important bluster, oil and gas leaders are scared that electric vehicles, renewable energy sources and new storage technologies will reveal how little we need oil and gas. If former President Donald Trump loses, fossil fuel executives will spend the rest of their careers managing a declining industry.

One of the leaders of the fracking revolution and his son have stepped up political giving to protect their business. Scott Sheffield, former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, and his son Bryan Sheffield, an oil and gas investor, have spent more than $6 million on state and federal politicians since 2010, according to a report from Public Citizen.

The elder Sheffield is especially eager to see Trump in the White House because the Department of Justice is investigating an allegation by the Federal Trade Commission that he colluded with OPEC and Russia to drive up global oil prices.

He denies he did anything wrong. The case is pending and at the discretion of whoever is attorney general next year.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Scott Sheffield grew Pioneer into Texas' largest oil and gas driller and was outspoken about industry tactics and geopolitics. When fracking companies like Pioneer flooded the world with crude oil and prices plummeted, he called on all producers, including the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, to cut back production and restore lost profits.

When he sold his company to Exxon for $60 billion, the FTC stipulated that he not take a seat on the Exxon board because of his calls to raise oil prices and hurt consumers.

Bryan Sheffield has worked closely with this father and leads the familys political giving. Since 2010, the two men and their wives have donated $2.4 million to conservative candidates and Republican causes in federal races. As of May, the younger Sheffield had donated $420,000 to funds designated by the Republican National Committee to support Trump and $6,600 to his campaign account, the maximum allowed by law.

Texas billionaires Tim Dunn of CrownRock, Kelcy Warren of Energy Transfer and Houstonian Jeffrey Hildebrand of Hilcorp and their spouses are among oil and gas donors whove given the Trump campaign and their allies $16 million since October, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Most energy-related political action committees, though, give to conservative groups that support Trump indirectly. The total does not include donations to so-called dark money groups that are not required to disclose donors.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Trump has not raised the $1 billion he requested from the oil and gas industry in return for supporting their policy priorities, but he might.
And just like that, we have a completely new election cycle. What is this whole thing going to look like with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate? How will the Trump camp respond to a brand-new, upturned 2024 presidential campaign? And what the heck will voters do now? These are just some of the known unknowns of our current moment. Well get plenty of answers in the coming weeks. (There are still more than 100 days until the election.) But as it stands, heres all the stuff we really just dont know yet!

What kind of campaign will Kamala Harris run?

In her first few speeches on the stump, Harris leaned into her background as a forceful prosecutor, declaring that she had taken on perpetrators of all kinds while serving as district attorney in San Francisco, then attorney general of California. This was a role she shied away from in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, unsure about how her record as a member of law enforcement would play among the party base. But now shes in the completely different environment of a general election in its final months, trying to convince a different, broader pool of voters. Will we see a return of a law and orderstyle antihero on the campaign trail?

Do we have to call her Momala, like Drew Barrymore did?

Lets not.

Who will be Harris VP? How will that affect everything?

Advertisement

The competition to be Harris running mate is in full swing and on a tight deadline, and the plan is to nominate a VP candidate alongside Harris during a virtual roll call on Aug. 7. The Harris campaign has already requested vetting materials from at least seven possible VPs, including North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and former Louisiana congressman and Biden White House aide Cedric Richmond. Theres also a good amount of excitement around Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. And maybe one-time Slate blogger Pete Buttigieg will be up for consideration too. Who knows?

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

As Slatester Ben Mathis-Lilley put it, the categories from which Harris can choose boil down to the swing-vote governors, the replaceable senatorsas in they could be replaced by another member of the Democratic Partyand the big names. But how Harris (and an army of Democratic consultants) will balance these considerations is anyones guess.

Does the electoral map to victory change with Harris?

Advertisement

Some of Bidens sharpest declines in polling this year relative to his 2020 performance came with younger voters, Hispanic voters, and Black men. That meant that he was most sharply off pace in the booming, diverse Sun Belt swing states he won in 2020: Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona. The Biden campaigns narrow path to victory, then, focused on retaining three older, whiter swing states farther north that he carried that year: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the piece of the erstwhile Democratic blue wall that Trump had swiped in 2016.

Harris coalition could look a little differentmore reliant on those young and diverse voters with whom Biden had lost his connection, and weaker with older white voters. Does that make Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada top priorities? Are Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania out of reach? Could Harris be in a position to win them all, or is she in worse shape than Biden to win any? Well have to wait for some fresh polling for the path to reveal itself.

Advertisement

Advertisement

How much will some of Harris leftmost positions in the 2020 Democratic primary come back to hurt her?

In Harris 2020 presidential campaign, she made a hard push to earn support from the left. It went nowhere. In the process of doing sotypically on national televisionHarris left behind a wake of clips and positions that Republicans will feast upon in this general election. She endorsed Medicare for All legislation and melted down when asked follow-up questions about eliminating private health insurance. There was no question she supported banning fracking. (If youre wondering why a pro-fracking governor of Pennsylvania is on her vice presidential short list )

Advertisement

The border is Democrats worst issue, and Harris raised her hand in a 2019 debate when asked who supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings. When asked in 2018 about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she said, We need to probably think about starting from scratch. Republicans are already running ads about these things. It remains to be seen how well Harris can defend herself on these matters after getting tongue-tied into oblivion during the 2020 campaign.

OK, but the memes. Those will definitely help her, right?

Advertisement

There is, without a doubt, a ton of enthusiasm about the Harris candidacy right now, and it is playing out in funny ways on the internet. But dont be fooled by your social media bubble. The memes are flying from all sides. One of the most viral Harris-related clips, which first went viral on TikTok and Twitter back in 2023, is a digitally altered voice-over of a speech at Howard University that makes her appear drunk and incoherent. The audio has been removed from TikTok but remains on Twitter, where Harris continues to be portrayed as wacky and idiotic. (The altered version has her saying Today is today, and yesterday is today yesterday. Tomorrow will be today tomorrow, so live today so the future today will be as the past today, as it is tomorrow.) And right-wing commenters are in overdrive, pushing a narrative about Harris that paints her as a childless, oversexualized idiot who slept her way to the top. (This is incorrect and also incredibly sexist and racist, for what its worth.)

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

In many ways, the right is still beefing up its attacks on Harris and still throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. So the nature of all these attacks could change.

In general, its good to remember: The fallout from Trumps presidential win in 2016 left people wringing their hands about disinformation and the role of social media in voter turnout and the election at large. But technology has only advanced since then. Now voters are swimming through not just disinformation but also A.I.generated content, deepfake images and videos, and even more precise targeting.

OK, but Charli XCX did say kamala IS brat, right?

She did.

Advertisement

How will Harris do against Trump in an eventual debate?

Advertisement

Advertisement

Harris is considered a seasoned and fierce debater, fueled by her time as Californias top prosecutor. When she was in the Senate serving on the Judiciary Committee, she earned a reputation for delivering excruciatingly sharp questioning. And in 2020, when she debated former Vice President Mike Pence, she famously said, Mr. Vice President, Im speaking, when Pence tried to interrupt her. The line went viral for its relatability in the everyday power struggle women face.

Meanwhile, Trumps debate style has been likened to bullying. He frequently interrupts, shouts, and distracts his opponents by talking over them, lying, and hurling insults. Back in 2016, Trump circled Hillary Clinton during one of their debates, stalking her as she spoke. And in 2020, Trump completely overtook Biden in a debate that devolved into a shouting match and pushed the president to say, Will you shut up, man?

Advertisement

A debate between Biden and Trump was scheduled for Sept. 10, but the Trump campaign has argued since the Democrats candidate switch that it should be hosted by Fox News, not ABC. Thats unlikely. Trump, nevertheless, has said hell absolutely debate Harris.

Advertisement

How will Harris campaign the war in Gaza? Can she distance herself from Biden on this?

Advertisement

Advertisement

There have been reports that Harris could try to distance herself from Bidens policy toward Israel, however slightly. Harris, after all, called for an immediate cease-fire in early Marchmonths before Biden came around to thatand has talked tougher in public about Israels deadly campaign in Gaza. Her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, is known in foreign policy circles to be more progressive than Biden and his team. And this week, Harris pointedly refused to preside over Congress during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus chest-beating address to Congress. (She did, however, meet with Netanyahu the following day.)

Advertisement

But this doesnt mean shes about to start fundraising for Palestinian relief organizations alongside her famous stepdaughter. Harris has a long, friendly relationship with the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC and introduced and supported pro-Israel legislation while in the Senate. She has met with Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog over the years. And she certainly understands that the Democratic Party contains not just those who call Biden Genocide Joe but also voters who have kept We Stand With Israel signs planted in their lawns since Oct. 7.

The Biden campaign was in trouble in Michigan, in part because many of the states Arab American votersand its young voterscould not support the man whom many held responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, including, for some, their family members. But this was going to be a problem for Biden nationwide. A July poll of about 1,800 people, conducted by the Century Foundation and Morning Consult, found that 38 percent of voters had reconsidered their support for Biden due to his unconditional backing of Israels assault on Gaza.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Harris 2020 campaign foundered in part because she tried to appeal to everyone in the Democratic tent, from Bernie Sanders supporters to those who backed Joe Biden (if not all the way toward Joe Manchin). In doing so, though, she wound up pleasing nobody. So her task with this issue is a matter of looking decisive and sympathetic, both to the Palestinians who have suffered immensely under Israeli fire and to the Israelis and hostages in Gaza and their family members. If her 2020 campaign taught us anything, its that shell try to strike a balanceand its impossible to take a position on this issue that doesnt piss off somebody.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

What will be the influence of Silicon Valley money on the race? Is it all in for Vance and Musk? Or will Harris ties to tech scramble things?

This is the big question mark from progressive policy groups in D.C. Biden has been willing to tangle with Big Tech and its monopolistic excessesnowhere is that more evident than his appointment of Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission. But Harris is much closer to tech by nature (and geography, and marriage, and fundraising), and a lot of the big names surfacing around her nascent campaign are tech-allied: Eric Holder (Airbnb), Tony West (Uber), David Plouffe (Uber). On the other hand, a lot of Silicon Valley billionaires have lined up behind Trump since he picked Vance as his running mate. Vance is something of a protege of Peter Thiels, having worked at one of Thiels venture capital firms. Also, in the words of Slatester Nitish Pahwa:

Advertisement

Advertisement

Silicon Valley and the financial world lurched to the right after 2020, radicalized against social justice protests, COVID lockdowns, and the antitrust scrutiny and legal probes that came under the Biden administration. A sense of grievance afflicted onetime Biden voters like [Elon] Musk and [Chamath] Palihapitiyaand always-radical folks, including Sacks (who arranged his pro-Trump Silicon Valley events with Vances help), were ready to capitalize on that.

How will Harris reshuffle Bidens platform?

Advertisement

Biden spent a ton of time articulating a pretty robust platform, including a first 100 days agenda at one of his last public appearances (a rally in Michigan). And before he dropped out of the race, he pushed a bunch of progressive policies, promising to make the rich pay more taxes, advocating for the expansion of Social Security, and calling for the elimination of medical debt. (He also indicated he was ready to take on the Supreme Court.) Will Harris take that on wholesale? Will she pick and choose? In her first speeches, she indicated that she would revive the care economy legislative efforts that got tossed when Bidens Build Back Better bill collapsed. Its not that she and Biden will necessarily have vastly different policy beliefs. They could, however, have different priorities.

Advertisement

How will South Asian voters and Hindu nationalists react?

South Asian Americans were just one of the many reliably Democratic voting blocs that had cooled on their prior enthusiasm for Joe Biden; now his veeps ascension could turn things around. Having Kamala Harristhe daughter of a Tamil Indian immigranton his ticket likely drove significant Indian American turnout for Biden in 2020, even as Trump leveraged his friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make inroads with Hindu nationalists. But Trump hasnt gained more South Asian American support since then, and the Groyper-adjacent, immigration-hawkish Vance probably wont help there, his own Indian American wife notwithstanding. Still, as the largest Asian American group in the country, with significant population numbers in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, voters of South Asian descent will remain a key target for both parties. Watch the WhatsApp groups.

How will Harris campaign on climate?

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Harris doesnt like the oil industry, and she can prove it: As Californias attorney general, she sued several of the worst climate villains you know (Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP) and even tried to curb drilling and fracking off her states coast. Though she entered the 2020 Democratic primary as a climate hawk, Harris moderated on the issue as Bidens running mate, and she hasnt made it a key plank of her vice presidency. Still, as fossil-fuel executives shower Trump with checks and (allegedly) accept quid pro quo arrangements, you can expect Prosecutor Harris to make clear she can never be so corrupted by Big Bad Oil. (As for the rest of her climate agenda? Frankly, itll probably depend on whether her choice for veep hails from a fossil-fuel state.)
The Education Ministry has launched a website to track the progress of universities.

Applicants for higher education courses can now use a new website to determine which Slovak university is the most suitable for them. (Source: SME - Marko Erd)

Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Share

Instead of attending an open house day, applicants for higher education courses can now use a new website to determine which Slovak university is the most suitable for them.

More information about the Slovak labour market Please see our Career Guide.

The Education Ministry launched the website, which contains detailed data, at the end of February 2024 to ensure that universities prepare students for the real world. The initiative is a component in Slovakias 6.4-billion share of the EUs post-pandemic Recovery Plan, which is being funded by a combination of grants and jointly-issued debt.

Data reports on universities do not aim to divide Slovak public universities into high-quality and low-quality schools, said deputy education minister Robert Zsembera.

By highlighting the academic performance of universities, as well as their potential for greater diversification, profiling, inclusion and cooperation with foreign partners and the private sector, the ministry said that it aims to convey authenticated information to the public, while simultaneously providing them with a comprehensive understanding of the study opportunities in Slovakia.
A selection of short feel-good stories from Slovakia.

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.

Large sapphire found while mushroom-hunting

The blue sapphire is 2.5 centimetres across. (Source: Archive of Ladislav Oravec)

An amateur mineral collector from south-central Slovakia has made a unique discovery.

While searching for mushrooms in a quarry belonging to the village of Gemersky Jablonec, he stumbled upon a blue sapphire embedded in a piece of basalt rock. It was his third discovery, but the previous two were a slightly smaller, the MY Novohrad regional newspaper reported.

One of the sapphires previously found by Ladislav Oravec, which he named King. (Source: Marcela Ballova)

I didnt found any mushrooms, so I started looking for sapphires, Ladislav Oravec told state-owned broadcaster STVR. After about 30 minutes I was left speechless. I had found a new record-breaker. I thought Id faint when I saw its colour.

As Daniel Ozdin from the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Comenius University in Bratislava said, it is the largest sapphire ever found in Slovakia, or anywhere in the Carpathians, STVR reported. The sapphire will first be examined, and then exhibited in museums.

Related article

Related article Abandoned Slovak quarry yields other rarities after gems Read more

Oravec has already made a unique discovery: last year, when searching for minerals, he found the toe of a prehistoric tapir.

Meanwhile, the nearby village plans to open an educational path and unveil a plaque commemorating the record sapphire find, MY Novohrad reported.

Norwegian architect creates a 'parklet' for Trencin

The parklet in downtown Trencin will remain there during the summer. (Source: Dvaja)

A parklet, i.e. a small area created as a public amenity on a parking space that gives people somewhere to enjoy their free time, is now occupying a roadside spot in downtown Trencin.

Situated in front of the M.A. Bazovsky Gallery on Palacky Street and created by Norwegian architect Sami Rintala, it is the first installation designed as part of the European Capital of Culture Trencin 2026 project. It should show people how a parking place can look like if it does not have to serve cars, Livia Gazova, the manager of architectural and public space projects in the Trencin 2026 team, explained.

The parklet in Trencin can remind us of a Roman temple or a dense forest of trees, said Gazova, adding that the author, who works for the Rintala Eggertsson Architects studio, was inspired by the heritage of Trencin, its Roman legacy and the beautiful nature around the town.

Trencin is known for a Roman inscription on the castle rock dating from 179 AD, which denotes the site as Laugaricio, and is the northernmost evidence of the presence of Roman soldiers in central Europe.

The parklet is set to remain on Palackeho Street throughout the summer.

Bojnice Zoo welcomes baby red pandas

Bojnice Zoo now has two more red pandas. (Source: Facebook/ZOO Bojnice)

The zoo in Bojnice, western Slovakia, welcomed two baby red pandas in early June.

The zoo announced the news on Facebook more than a month and half later, but added that they do not know their gender or their names yet. Visitors will probably not get to see them right away.

But it probably wont take long before they start showing up, the zoo wrote.

The baby red pandas were born to a female panda, Bambu, who arrived at the zoo last year from Ljubljana, and her mate Mao.

Five feel-good stories published by The Slovak Spectator to read:

Political meme of the week

A balanced strategy (Source: SME/Mikulas Sliacky)

Caption: Our strategy needs to be balanced. Its necessary to immediately get Russian pilots to those American fighters!

Carricaturist Mikulas Sliacky reacts with this meme to the delivery to Slovakia of the country's first F-16 fighter jets. The jets were piloted by US pilots. Their ceremonial arrival was attended by President and Commander-in-Chief of the Slovak Armed Forces Peter Pellegrini, Defence Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer), Chief of General Staff of the Slovak Armed Forces Daniel Zmeko, and other Slovak and foreign guests. In this meme, Sliacky refers to a phrase often used by Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer), to the effect that Slovakias foreign policy must be "balanced" and focus on all four points of the compass  while also alluding to Fico's conspicuously pro-Russian stances.

You can send me your tips on good news stories about Slovakia or funny memes at: radka.minarechova@spectator.sk. Thank you!
PAPARA, Tahiti (AP)  Tahitian dancers in palm-leaf skirts mingled with Olympic surfers, locals and tourists as the opening ceremony for the Summer Games commenced in French Polynesia on Friday morning, some 10,000 miles away from the main ceremony in Paris.

The people of Tahiti, we are all enchanted to have these Olympics games here and to welcome all our friends from all over the world, President of French Polynesia Moetai Brotherson told The Associated Press. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us. All the world is looking at us for this mighty wave.

Just steps from the ocean and set against the lush green mountains of Tahiti, the event was heavily centered on Polynesian culture: Visitors were welcomed with traditional Tahitian singing, dancing and ceremonies. Local government, Olympics and surfing officials had hand-woven palms placed around their necks upon arrival. White tents provided a shady spot for vendors to sell local vegetables, Polynesian crafts and food.

During one part of the ceremony athletes sealed banana leaves into a vessel, following an ancestral tradition in Polynesian culture  called Rahiri  used as a prelude to important events to secure the peace and union of those competing. During another part of the ceremony, athletes from different countries poured sand into a single communal container, symbolizing unity and respect for the ocean.

Before the event, surfer Caroline Marks from the United States said she was excited to be returning to the Olympics after she placed fourth at the Tokyo Olympics, where Olympic surfing first debuted.

This is way different from Tokyo, when we were in pandemic and there were no spectators  it felt secluded, she told AP. This Olympics definitely have a different vibe and it's great to be back.

The event was open to the public, with locals and tourists alike attending.

I think its a really great opportunity for us to show our culture to the world and really demonstrate that we exist, said local guesthouse owner Hiro Boosie, 25. We want to show what kind of people we are to the world.

Despite extra security such as police checkpoints and some road closures closer to the Olympic venues, tourists said that they felt their visit to Tahiti during the Olympics was so far a smooth and welcoming experience.

The locals are amazing, and I feel that its actually very well organized for tourists to be here, said Dhikra Bahri, 23, who was visiting from Tunisia.

International Surfing Association president Fernando Aguerre announced that the surfing competition would start the following day. Surf forecasts predict the conditions will be favorable. Only four days of a 10-day window will be allotted for the competition, dependent upon wave conditions.

Throughout the week, competitors were seen paddling out to the world-famous waves of Teahupo'o starting before sunrise to take advantage of exclusive access to the location for training ahead of the competition.

In Teahupoo, residents have spent the final days before the competition preparing their town for the influx of extra people: Families have cleaned trash and debris from beachside walking paths, extended their business hours and building homemade dirt road bumps.

The 2024 surfing event sets the Olympic record for the competition held furthest away from a host city. ___

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
The cure for sleep deprivation is pretty simple: sleep more. Sometimes, though, a cheeky little napsipoo just isnt in the cards and an energy boost is necessary. Thats what coffee is for, at least in the short term. But a new study finds that, while coffee may provide that kick pick-me-up, it may be adversely affecting the brains ability to recover from chronic sleep deprivation.

As reported by Newsweek, this latest study was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports. In it, a cohort of Swiss and German researchers sought to examine the effects of caffeine affects the total volume of grey matter in the brain.

Prior research has found that even one night with insufficient sleep can decrease the amount of grey matter in the brain, particularly in regions involved in memory, sensation perception, and conscious thought. Meanwhile, daily caffeine consumption has also been shown to reduce grey matter in the outer areas of the brain and the regions used for long-term memory storage. Thus, the researchers hypothesized that using caffeine as a means to counteract sleep deprivation-associated tiredness may be exacerbating the decreased volume of grey matter.

To test this, the researchers examined 36 healthy adults as part of a nine-day study, whereby the participants would undergo one adaption day, two baseline days, then five sleep-deprived daysdefined as having only five hours of sleepfollowed by a recovery day. Participants were split into two groups: 19 who consumed three cups of coffee a day, amounting to 300mg of caffeine, and 17 who consumed the same amount of decaf coffee.

Over the course of the nine days, participants underwent three different MRI scans of their brain. They found that for those in the decaf group, the overall volume of grey matter actually increased when compared to the baseline readings. But for those that consumed caffeinated coffee, the total grey matter in those brain regions was reduced.

These findings suggest, according to the researchers, that the increased grey matter volume in the decaf group is our brains way of counteracting the effects of chronic sleep deprivation. Drinking caffeine, then, is stymying the bodys ability to adapt.

This study revealed reversible cortical plasticity in frontal, temporal-occipital, and thalamic gray matter in response to chronic sleep restriction. This plastic response, however, can be suppressed or reversed by concomitant caffeine intake, the researchers surmise.

So while coffee can help provide an extra bit of energy and focus after a night of insufficient slumber, it is not a suitable solution in the long term. The only way to overcome sleep deprivation is, well, sleep. Maybe a coffee nap?
Todays episode of the Coffee Sprudgecast focuses on builds. Thats right, its the second episode of the 2024 Build-Outs of Coffee Coffee Buildcast podcast series.

Today on the show, we drink coffee from Scandinavian Alps Coffee in Hemsedal, Norway, brewed with the Ceado Hoop Brewer. We met these folks at the 2024 World of Coffee Europe event in Copenhagen, Denmark at the Cafe Imports activation. We love the coffee and the package it comes in!

We sipped while nibbling a tasty, vegan lemon pound cake treat from Marlenes Market and Deli in Tacoma, Washington. Next time youre in the area, get yourself a bar (and some soup).

This episode of the Coffee Sprudgecast is sponsored by Ceado, Pacific Barista Series, La Marzocco, Acaia, Ghirardelli, and DONA.

Take a closer look at the build-outs featured on todays podcast:

Listen to the complete episode right here:
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240725/pentagon-confirms-strike-near-airbase-in-iraq-reports-no-casualties-1119509245.html

Pentagon Confirms Strike Near Airbase in Iraq, Reports No Casualties

Pentagon Confirms Strike Near Airbase in Iraq, Reports No Casualties

Sputnik International

A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed an attack near the Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraq Thursday but claimed there were no casualties or damage to the facility as a result of the strike.

2024-07-25T23:34+0000

2024-07-25T23:34+0000

2024-07-25T23:34+0000

world

newsfeed

middle east

iraq

syria

pentagon

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/107797/18/1077971866_0:169:3043:1880_1920x0_80_0_0_0b5a5a920f8af5104593c4851f4a9ec0.jpg

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed an attack near the Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraq Thursday but claimed there were no casualties or damage to the facility as a result of the strike. We can confirm that there was a strike that landed outside the base with no damage or injuries, an official told Sputnik.It is not known at this time what equipment was used to carry out the attack or how many munitions were launched, the Pentagon added. Earlier this month two drones attacked the Ain al-Asad Airbase, similarly resulting in no damage or casualties. US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria have been targeted with multiple attacks since October 2023 following Hamas October 7 operation in Israel and the subsequent conflict in the Gaza Strip. US support for Tel Aviv has inflamed public opinion across much of the Muslim world.The base was previously targeted by Iran in retaliation for former President Donald Trump's killing of Iranian military general Qasem Soleimani in 2020.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240128/american-base-near-syria-jordan-border-attacked-amidst-rejection-of-us-role-in-area-1116455518.html

iraq

syria

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

ain al-asad airbase attack, us iraq airbase strike, strikes on us personnel middle east, muslim world opposition to us, arab world opposition to us israel
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/about-one-third-of-historic-canadian-town-lost-to-wildfires--albertan-premier-1119526094.html

About One-Third of Historic Canadian Town Lost to Wildfires  Albertan Premier

About One-Third of Historic Canadian Town Lost to Wildfires  Albertan Premier

Sputnik International

Preliminary data shows that about a third of the historic Canadian town of Jasper has been destroyed by raging wildfires, the Prime Minister of the Province of Alberta Danielle Smith said on Friday.

2024-07-26T20:24+0000

2024-07-26T20:24+0000

2024-07-26T20:23+0000

americas

canada

harjit sajjan

alberta

wildfire

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/1a/1119525937_31:0:3672:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_037bcfb398228a3632007f7ae472ee6a.jpg

Smith made the remarks during a joint press conference with Canadian Minister of Emergency Preparedness Harjit Sajjan and Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland, among others. Although more time is needed to complete a detailed assessment of the damage, it is clear, sadly, that many homes and some businesses have been lost. Our preliminary observation shows that about 33% of Jasper townsite endured total or partial structural loss, Smith said during a press conference. She noted, however, that all major infrastructure, including the hospital emergency service building, schools, the activity center and the wastewater treatment facility, have been protected from the wildfires. The fire continues to rage in the community, Ireland said, adding that the first priority remains the protection of those who stayed behind to protect the township from the wildfires. Sajjan said 175 wildfires were active within Alberta, having burnt 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres) of land. An estimated total of 17,000 people have fled their homes. On Tuesday, citizens of Jasper Township and the individuals at the Jasper National Park were ordered to evacuate the region towards neighboring British Columbia due to the looming threat of wildfires.

americas

canada

alberta

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

jasper national park, wildfires destroy jasper,
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/hamas-rejects-israels-new-conditions-for-ceasefire-in-gaza---movement-representative-1119518708.html

Hamas Rejects Israel's New Conditions for Ceasefire in Gaza - Movement Representative

Hamas Rejects Israel's New Conditions for Ceasefire in Gaza - Movement Representative

Sputnik International

Palestinian movement Hamas does not agree to Israel's new conditions for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesman in Lebanon Walid Kilani told Sputnik on Friday.

2024-07-26T11:46+0000

2024-07-26T11:46+0000

2024-07-26T11:47+0000

world

middle east

israel

hamas

gaza strip

palestinians

palestine

palestine-israel conflict

ceasefire

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/1e/1116483146_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_7275bc97acba0b372dd32fcc60c31049.jpg

Earlier this day, media reported that Israel was seeking changes to the Gaza truce plan, which would complicate a final deal with Hamas. Israel was reportedly demanding that displaced Palestinians be screened when returning to the northern Gaza Strip after the truce began. "We still stand by the ceasefire proposal in Gaza that we presented to the mediators three weeks ago, but [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has put forward additional conditions that Hamas and the Palestinian factions have not accepted," the representative said.Despite several rounds of negotiations, the Israeli authorities have repeatedly said that Israel sought to continue the hostilities until all of its goals are achieved, the main of which, in addition to the release of all hostages, is the complete elimination of the Hamas movement.

israel

gaza strip

palestine

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

2024

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

Sputnik International

gaza genocide, is israel committing genocide, whats happening with gaza, israeli genocide against palestinians, will israel be charged with genocide, whos backing israel, un hearing on gaza, current developments in gaza, whats happening to palestinians, us military aid to israel, us arms supplies to israel, us violating international law, what weapons is israel getting from us, israeli strikes, israel strikes gaza, israel kills civilians, operation in rafah, incursion into rafah, palestinian statehood, palestine independence, israeli hostages, jewish hostages, how many people did hamas abduct, how much money does us give israel, military aid to israel, financial aid to israel
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/hungary-accuses-ukraine-of-blackmail-over-russian-oil-transit-halt-1119515590.html

Hungary Accuses Ukraine of Blackmail Over Russian Oil Transit Halt

Hungary Accuses Ukraine of Blackmail Over Russian Oil Transit Halt

Sputnik International

Ukraine is using the stoppage of Russian oil transit to blackmail Hungary and Slovakia due to their stance on the Ukraine conflict, the Hungarian prime minister's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, stated at a government briefing.

2024-07-26T10:27+0000

2024-07-26T10:27+0000

2024-07-26T10:27+0000

world

europe

gergely gulyas

hungary

ukraine

slovakia

world trade organization (wto)

european union (eu)

european commission

eu association agreement

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/1a/1119515712_0:158:3077:1889_1920x0_80_0_0_c71c3123e423d8e7ddc3c2034d8cbf0c.jpg

"Ukraine is blackmailing two countriesHungary and Slovakiathat consistently advocate for a ceasefire and the start of peace negotiations," he said.Gulyas noted that Ukraine's actions contradict the EU agreement from the summer of 2022, which granted Hungary an exemption from sanctions on Russian oil supplies, as the country cannot guarantee its energy security otherwise. He warned that if the issue isn't resolved, Hungary could face a fuel shortage and stressed the need for a solution by September.Despite these challenges, Budapest does not wish to resort to counter-blackmail and adheres to the agreements in place, Gulyas emphasized. He pointed out that Ukraine receives over 40% of its electricity and more than 10% of its gas and diesel imports from Hungary. "But it is completely unacceptable for them to blackmail us. We have approached the European Commission to mediate in the agreements. If this does not yield results, we will have to consider other steps," Gulyas concluded.Meanwhile, Hungary is scrutinizing whether Ukraine's decision to halt oil transit breaches World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, the EU Energy Charter, and the EU Association Agreement, Hungarian EU Affairs Minister Janos Boka said on Friday.Last week, Hungary and Slovakia reported that they had stopped receiving oil from Lukoil via the Druzhba pipeline due to Ukraine halting transit through its territory. The Slovak Ministry of Economy noted that Kiev had included the Russian oil company in its sanctions list. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented that the transit of energy resources has long been a "manipulation tool" for the Kiev regime, and the West encourages this policy, which she described as growing into "true international terrorism."In December 2022, Western countries imposed sanctions prohibiting the supply of Russian oil to the European Union, with exceptions only for the Druzhba pipeline to avoid difficulties for several landlocked countries in finding alternative suppliers.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240724/slovakia-warns-ukraine-of-retaliation-over-halt-of-russian-oil-transit-1119484612.html

hungary

ukraine

slovakia

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

2024

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

Sputnik International

hungary, slovakia, ukraine, hungary, russian oil, druzhba oil pipeline, ukraine halts russian oil transit, european union (eu)
Bao Ong is a restaurant columnist for the Houston Chronicle. He can be reached at bao@houstonchronicle.com

He previously worked on staff at Eater New York, Bon Appetit and Time Out New York. In addition to Bao's background in journalism, he also graduated from the French Culinary Institute. He moved to Houston in summer 2022 and in his first year, he won the top award in the Comment and Criticism category awarded by the Texas Managing Editors organization. Follow where he's eating and drinking on Instagram: @baohaus
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/israel-privately-pressuring-biden-administration-to-fast-track-supply-of-weapons---reports-1119513033.html

Israel Privately Pressuring Biden Administration to Fast-Track Supply of Weapons - Reports

Israel Privately Pressuring Biden Administration to Fast-Track Supply of Weapons - Reports

Sputnik International

Israel is privately increasing pressure on the Biden administration and US lawmakers to authorize fast-tracked delivery of weapons it needs, with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's delegation during its Washington visit circulating a list of weapons it wants fast-tracked, Politico has reported, citing a person familiar with it.

2024-07-26T07:20+0000

2024-07-26T07:20+0000

2024-07-26T07:20+0000

world

benjamin netanyahu

us

joe biden

donald trump

gaza strip

israel

congress

biden administration

middle east

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e5/02/06/1082001396_0:0:2780:1565_1920x0_80_0_0_f097ab9767ae836e848e32c2f59eb843.jpg

On Monday, Netanyahu arrived in Washington to hold a series of meetings, including with US President Joe Biden on Thursday and with his Republican opponent, Donald Trump, on Friday, as well as to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night. During the prime minister's address to the US Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu urged the body to expedite weapon deliveries to Israel amid the ongoing in the Gaza Strip. The report cited the person as saying that the Israeli delegation passed the list of weapons to members of Congress on Wednesday after Netanyahu's address. The report added that Israel is attempting to solidify the transfers and bolster its weapons stockpiles before the upcoming presidential election in the United States in November. Israel's list does not include the shipment of 2,000-pound bombs that Washington is withholding and instead focuses on other systems, Politico reported. The person familiar with the list also said that Israel needs weapons since its stockpiles have been diminished in recent months, and Israel is seeking the weapons buildup as it is concerned about the possibility of a confrontation with Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, the media reported. According to Gaza authorities, the number of people killed in Israeli strikes on the enclave since October 7 has exceeded 39,000, and more than 89,800 people have been injured.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240725/netanyahus-abraham-alliance-proposal-completely-detached-from-reality--analyst-1119506949.html

gaza strip

israel

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

gaza genocide, is israel committing genocide, whats happening with gaza, israeli genocide against palestinians, will israel be charged with genocide, whos backing israel, un hearing on gaza, current developments in gaza, whats happening to palestinians, us military aid to israel, us arms supplies to israel, us violating international law, what weapons is israel getting from us, israeli strikes, israel strikes gaza, israel kills civilians, operation in rafah, incursion into rafah, palestinian statehood, palestine independence, israeli hostages, jewish hostages, how many people did hamas abduct, how much money does us give israel, military aid to israel, financial aid to israel
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/moldova-gravitating-towards-nato-against-peoples-will---deputy-speaker-1119519173.html

Moldova Gravitating Towards NATO Against People's Will - Deputy Speaker

Moldova Gravitating Towards NATO Against People's Will - Deputy Speaker

Sputnik International

The Moldovan government and the ruling Action and Solidarity party are going against the will of the people by choosing to get closer to NATO, deputy parliament speaker Vlad Batrincea said on Friday.

2024-07-26T11:58+0000

2024-07-26T11:58+0000

2024-07-26T11:58+0000

world

maia sandu

moldova

nato

us

united kingdom (uk)

germany

romania

nato enlargement

nato expansion

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/1a/1119519013_0:317:3076:2047_1920x0_80_0_0_b36e475ba7513c47958acd038f163e10.jpg

"The incumbent government's drift closer to NATO is not what people want. This shows that everything done by Action and Solidarity, Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi, and President [Maia] Sandu is controlled from the outside," Batrincea told journalists. The lawmaker argued that the government took no notice of the public at home, producing statements intended for the ears of its allies and donors in the United States. Despite Moldova's status as a neutral country, the eastern European nation has been cooperating with NATO since 1994 within the framework of an individual partnership plan. When Sandu's Action and Solidarity came to power, it began to routinely hold military exercises with the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Romania.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240402/nato-drills-in-moldova-west-tightens-grip-amid-tensions-around-the-country-1117703028.html

moldova

united kingdom (uk)

germany

romania

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

is moldova in nato, is moldova a nato member, moldova nato drills, moldova nato cooperation, moldova nato excercises
 DEMIROREN NEWS AAGENCY This handout video grab released on July 24, 2024 by Turkish news agency DHA (Demiroren News Agency) shows a Russian suspected of carrying out a car bomb attack in Moscow on July 24, 2024, arrested by Turkish authorities in Bodrum, south-west of Turkey. A Russian man suspected of carrying out a car bombing that wounded two people in Moscow on July 24, 2024 has been arrested by Turkish police, Turkey's Interior Minister said. Evgeny Serebryakov was detained in the Turkish city of Bodrum, hours after officials said an unidentified explosive device tore apart a car in a residential courtyard in the north of Russian capital. The suspected bomber fled to Turkey after carrying out the crime and was detained by law enforcement shortly after arriving, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya posted on X. (Photo by Demiroren News AAgency / AFP)
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/only-brute-force-can-force-draft-age-ukrainians-in-europe-to-go-home-to-face-near-certain-death-1119521472.html

Only Brute Force Can Force Draft-Age Ukrainians in Europe to Go Home to Face Near-Certain Death

Only Brute Force Can Force Draft-Age Ukrainians in Europe to Go Home to Face Near-Certain Death

Sputnik International

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has urged Warsaws European allies to create the right conditions to encourage Ukrainians who fled their country after 2022 to return home to fight Russia. Theres nothing short of violence that will force these people to comply, says veteran international affairs observer Dr. Gilbert Doctorow.

2024-07-26T15:56+0000

2024-07-26T15:56+0000

2024-07-26T15:57+0000

analysis

radoslaw sikorski

gillbert doctorow

ukraine

russia

poland

european union (eu)

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/1a/1119521595_0:161:3071:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_b35b10ce992bff0d855082042e4ae31b.jpg

We, as European countries, also need to help Ukraine as the country faces weapons shortages, war fatigue and dwindling troop numbers, Sikorski said in an interview with Polish radio on Thursday.There are hundreds of thousands of potential recruits obliged to defend their motherland living in EU countries, and Poland is in the vanguard of helping Ukraine prepare these people for military service, the foreign minister said. Its possible to impose such conditions on Ukrainian nationals living in Europe that will encourage them to fulfill their obligation to defend their homeland, Sikorski stressed.These potential conscripts are not vacationing in our resorts. They are here precisely because they fled conscription, which means nearly certain death on the battlefield, given the way that day after day the Russians are killing or gravely injuring more than 2,000 Ukrainian troops, includingsome of the countrys best trained and equipped military units, Doctorow emphasized.Sikorskis proposal is illustrative of a modern Polish political class as delusional as their forefathers in its fanatical hatred of Russia, according to the observer.Europes political institutions in general are staffed by followers, not leaders, Doctorow stressed. Accordingly, their main weathervane on what policy to pursue comes from across the Atlantic, not the EUs Eastern flank.They look to Washington and what they see today is the possibility of a Trump victory which will mean that the USA throws Ukraine under the bus, as it is fashionable to say today. With their nose to the wind, they will not expose themselves to ridicule and protest by following the Polish example, the observer said.Poland is currently home to about one million of the estimated 4.25 million Ukrainians who fled Ukraine for European Union countries following the escalation of the Donbass crisis into a full-blown Russia-NATO proxy war. Another 5.5 million have gone to Russia.The present conflict has thrust Ukraine into an acute, unprecedented and perhaps terminal demographic crisis, with the states efforts to forcibly mobilize men aged 18-60 (with those age 25 and above eligible to be sent to the front) threatening to wipe out the countrys working and fighting-age male population. The crisis has become so serious in recent months that Kiev has resorted to recruiting women.Media, even in the West, have increasingly reported on instances of recruiters drafting the mentally and physically handicapped, grabbing draft-age men off the streets and authorities handing out lengthy prison sentences to conscientious objectors. This heavy-handed approach, a general sense of war weariness and the constant scandals surrounding Volodymyr Zelensky and his allies have given rise to a fledgling resistance movement, including a wave of arson attacks across Ukraine targeting recruitment centers and vehicles.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240715/nato-to-help-ukraine-down-russian-jets-but-wont-get-its-hands-dirty-1119378156.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240718/ukraine-peace-talks-could-start-this-year-if-trump-wins-us-presidential-race---szijjarto-1119414657.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240709/new-volunteer-legion-in-poland---blatant-scam-to-force-ukrainians-to-front-lines-1119305546.html

ukraine

russia

poland

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

how many ukrainians are in europe, how many ukrainians are in russia, what is poland's position on ukraine conflict
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/pompeo-tries-to-hijack-trumps-peace-push-says-ukraine-needs-500-bln-and-nato-membership-1119520268.html

Pompeo Tries to Hijack Trumps Peace Push, Says Ukraine Needs $500 Bln and NATO Membership

Pompeo Tries to Hijack Trumps Peace Push, Says Ukraine Needs $500 Bln and NATO Membership

Sputnik International

Donald Trump has bragged that he could end the Russia-NATO proxy war in Ukraine with a couple phone calls, saying his main priority is to stop people dying. The GOP nominee for VP, JD Vance, has talked about the conflicts cost to taxpayers. But there are many figures in the Republican establishment looking to prolong the crisis at all cost.

2024-07-26T14:25+0000

2024-07-26T14:25+0000

2024-07-26T15:03+0000

donald trump

us

mike pompeo

volodymyr zelensky

ukraine

russia

kiev

republican

nato

americas

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/107490/83/1074908384_0:239:4584:2818_1920x0_80_0_0_875fc84c71ea0bcd5cc9a582eb3d1019.jpg

Former CIA director and secretary of state Mike Pompeo has outlined a neocon Republican playbook for the Ukraine crisis in the event that Donald Trump returns to office, calling for a rebranding of US military and economic assistance to Kiev as lend-lease, and inviting Kiev into NATO as soon as possible so all European allies assume the burden of protecting it.Pompeos proposal, entitled A Trump Peace Plan for Ukraine, assures that Trumps return to the presidency would not mean stopping Ukraine funding or negotiating directly with Moscow to end the fighting. On the contrary, he suggested, a Trump administration would pursue a strategy for victory thats lacking in the current administration.The neocon plan proposes a global effort led by the US and partners in the Middle East to bring down energy prices and squeeze Russia out of energy markets, imposing real sanctions on Moscow to replace the current good on paper buthollow ones Pompeo says are in place today, ramping up NATO defense spending to a minimum of 3 percent of GDP, and lifting all restrictions on the type of weapons Ukraine can obtain and use against Russia.Pompeos vision for a post-conflict Ukraine includes building up Kievs military potential against Russia, refusing to recognize Russias new territories, demilitarizing Crimea (whatever that means), giving seized Russian Central Bank assets to Kiev, and inviting Ukraine into the European Union.Pompeos treatise, penned together with lobbyist, CNN commentator and Trump 2016 campaign advisor David Urban, strikes a decidedly more aggressive tone than the former president or his pick for vice president, JD Vance, have taken on the campaign trail.Trump has repeatedly promised to stop the horrible war with Russia and Ukraine, vowing to start the peace process on election night if he wins, but has remained light on the details of how he might achieve this goal. People familiar with the plan have reportedly said that it will include pressuring Kiev to give up territory, sparking panic among some at the Pentagon and neocons in both parties that such Ukrainian concessions would mean Putin would win."Trump said last week that he had a very good phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, and that Zelensky had congratulated him on becoming the Republican nominee and surviving his recent assassination attempt. We agreed with President Trump to discuss at a personal meeting what steps can make peace fair and truly lasting, Zelensky said in a follow-up social media post.Zelensky got in trouble with Republicans earlier this month over comments in a CNN interview from earlier this year in which he suggested that JD Vance doesnt understand the situation in Ukraine, and that Kiev doesnt need any rhetoric from people who are not deeply in the know.Vance, who has positioned himself as an America First Republican, argued in an op-ed in the New York Times in April that the biggest reason the US shouldnt continue to support Ukraine is a basic math problem revolving around the fact that Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies, and needs more materiel than the United States can provide.Vance has also said that the argument by proponents of further military support to Kiev on the basis that it would help the US economy and create jobs was morally deficient. The notion that we should prolong a bloody and gruesome war because its been good for American business is grotesque, he wrote, saying that the sooner Americans confront the mathematical truth that Ukraine cant win, the sooner we can fix this mess and broker for peace.Which path Trump may take on Ukraine  the one proposed by Pompeo or the one outlined by Vance, remains unclear. During his first term in office, Trump staffed his administration with avowed neocons including Pompeo, John Bolton and Nikki Haley. At the same time, the president demonstrated that he had a preference for de-escalation, expressing pride in his January 2021 farewell address that he was the first president in decades with no new wars. Trump was also credited for avoiding being dragged into an all-out war with Iran in 2019 and 2020 on the advice of friendly conservative non-interventionist figures, first and foremost Tucker Carlson.Trump has already fallen for the neoconservative lend-lease for Ukraine argument once earlier this year, endorsing a $61 billion aid package which had been blocked for months by conservative House Republicans, after suggesting that part of the aid could be classified as a repayable loan.The loan idea was lobbied heavily by Lindsey Graham, another top neocon in Washington. Graham blasted Vance over his NYT op-ed, echoing Zelenskys talking points and claiming that if Washington wants American military members to stay out of the fight with Russia, it should help Ukraine.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/trump-versus-the-deep-state-will-next-president-shift-us-foreign-policy-1119509608.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240725/biden-promises-stronger-more-powerful-nato-in-speech-passing-torch-to-harris-1119493706.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240723/trump-vance-say-biden-leaving-race-may-be-result-of-coup-1119474418.html

ukraine

russia

kiev

americas

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

is donald trump for peace in ukraine, can trump bring peace in ukraine, what's trump's stance on ukraine, who is mike pompeo
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/russia-warns-of-retaliation-over-eus-use-of-frozen-assets-for-ukraine-support-1119516207.html

Russia Warns of Retaliation Over EU's Use of Frozen Assets for Ukraine Support

Russia Warns of Retaliation Over EU's Use of Frozen Assets for Ukraine Support

Sputnik International

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to European Union (EU) moves to pilfer interest from frozen Russian assets to pay for military aid to Ukraine, warning that such actions will not go unanswered.

2024-07-26T10:57+0000

2024-07-26T10:57+0000

2024-07-26T10:58+0000

russia

dmitry peskov

europe

ursula von der leyen

sergey lavrov

russia

ukraine

belgium

european union (eu)

european commission

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0b/15/1104501939_0:0:3153:1773_1920x0_80_0_0_9e28e00330fda2d5996663edbaa7f4a3.jpg

"Of course, such steps by the European Commission will not go unanswered," Peskov told reporters. On Friday, the European Union will send the first tranche of military aid to Ukraine, amounting to 1.5 billion, from the revenues of frozen Russian assets, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on social media site X. "This is not a reason for an immediate reaction, but certainly a reason for thoughtful actions in response to such illegal decisions by the European Union, Peskov added.These actions will definitely take place, but they must be well-considered and fully align with our interests." Following the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, the EU and G7 countries froze nearly half of Russia's foreign exchange reserves, amounting to approximately 300 billion.Over 200 billion are held in the EU, mainly by Belgium's Euroclear, one of the world's largest settlement and clearing systems. The Russian Foreign Ministry has described the freezing of assets in Europe as theft, noting that the EU is targeting not only private funds but also Russian state assets. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Russia would respond if frozen Russian assets in the West were confiscated. He mentioned that Russia also has the option to seize funds that Western countries hold in Russia.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240621/seizing-russian-assets-in-eu-will-lead-to-unpredictable-consequences-belgian-minister-warns-1119051905.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240523/wests-plan-to-seize-russian-assets-legal-loophole-or-theft-1118593293.html

russia

ukraine

belgium

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

russia, russian assets, russian frozen assets, european union (eu), ukraine, eu sends russian frozen assets to ukraine
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/trump-slams-fbi-directors-testimony-at-congressional-hearing-1119510963.html

Trump Slams FBI Director's Testimony at Congressional Hearing

Trump Slams FBI Director's Testimony at Congressional Hearing

Sputnik International

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a US House Judiciary Committee hearing he was not sure if former US President Donald Trump was struck by a bullet during an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Trump claimed in a post on social media.

2024-07-26T02:56+0000

2024-07-26T02:56+0000

2024-07-26T03:07+0000

americas

newsfeed

us

donald trump

christopher wray

pennsylvania

fbi

house judiciary committee

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/04/19/1095023528_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_fbfa415e4edb6c50e62ad341aabe2c21.jpg

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - FBI Director Christopher Wray told a US House Judiciary Committee hearing he was not sure if former US President Donald Trump was struck by a bullet during an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Trump claimed in a post on social media.Wray provided testimony at a US House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday relating to the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, during which he was also asked for his thoughts on President Joe Biden's mental acuity.Trump said the FBI director "knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our Country at record levels," adding that Wray's only focus is on "destroying J6 Patriots," raiding Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, and protecting "Radical Left Lunatics." He added that the doctors who treated him classified his injury as "a bullet wound to the ear," saying there was no glass or shrapnel. The former president suffered a wound to his right ear and was briefly hospitalized after a gunman fired shots at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. Thomas Crooks, 20, killed a member of the audience and injured two others in the crowd before Trump's Secret Service detail shot and killed him.The FBI is still actively investigating the assassination attempt, Wray said Wednesday. The incident prompted US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign following intense criticism of the agency for failing to prevent the shooting.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240104/trump-asks-court-to-hold-prosecutors-in-contempt-for-violating-stay-in-january-6-case-1115978647.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240723/forced-to-fall-on-her-sword-cheatle-takes-the-heat-for-secret-service-fumble-1119477723.html

americas

pennsylvania

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

trump truth social wray, trump fbi, trump fbi director post, trump ear bullet, trump fbi criticism, trump christopher wray attack, trump fbi shooting, trump wrap assassination attempt
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/trump-tells-netanyahu-he-will-try-to-bring-peace-to-middle-east-combat-anti-semitism-if-elected-1119525280.html

Trump Tells Netanyahu He Will Try to Bring Peace to Middle East, Combat Anti-Semitism if Elected

Trump Tells Netanyahu He Will Try to Bring Peace to Middle East, Combat Anti-Semitism if Elected

Sputnik International

Former US President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he will work to bring peace to the Middle East and combat anti-Semitism on college campuses in the United States if elected in November.

2024-07-26T18:44+0000

2024-07-26T18:44+0000

2024-07-26T18:53+0000

americas

us

benjamin netanyahu

donald trump

israel

white house

florida

middle east

palestine-israel conflict

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e7/08/09/1112474525_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_66f9c4b61b484cb6d44a742acb931bbe.jpg

Trump and Netanyahu met at formers Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of Netanyahus visit to the United States, during which he also delivered remarks to lawmakers at the US Capitol. Netanyahu also thanked Trump for his administrations efforts to promote stability in the Middle East through initiatives like the Abraham Accords, moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and ending the Iran nuclear deal, the statement said.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240625/is-netanyahu-trying-to-switch-biden-for-trump-1119112007.html

americas

israel

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

donald trump, benjamin neatnyahu, trump meets netanyahu, middle east crisis, gaza war, israel, palestine-israel conflict, hamas
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/trump-versus-the-deep-state-will-next-president-shift-us-foreign-policy-1119509608.html

Trump Versus the Deep State: Would Former President Shift US Foreign Policy?

Trump Versus the Deep State: Would Former President Shift US Foreign Policy?

Sputnik International

Former Ukrainian diplomat and whistleblower Andrii Telizhenko joined Sputniks The Backstory program this week to comment on the potential foreign policy of the next US president and discuss prospects for peace as fighting between Moscow and Kiev continues.

2024-07-26T00:47+0000

2024-07-26T00:47+0000

2024-07-26T03:52+0000

analysis

us

donald trump

joe biden

mike pompeo

ukraine

democratic party

nato

cia

white house

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/07/1a/1119509450_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_643e93ae165b742eafbc884a08906bac.jpg

A sea change has taken place in the way the US electorate discusses issues of foreign policy over the last decade.Former President Donald Trump spoke with distinctive brashness on subjects assumed to be beyond political debate in Washington, such as the United States fraught relationship with Russia and the countrys role as self-appointed policemen of the world. On the other side of the aisle Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders enjoyed a similar populist appeal, alleging massive fraud in US military spending and questioning former President Barack Obamas effort to overthrow Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.The mandarins of the US foreign policy establishment have spent the last several years attempting to put the genie back in the bottle, returning to a time before the prerogatives of the Deep State were openly speculated and commented upon, but the influence of Trumps candidacy and tumultuous time in the White House is still felt years later.As Vice President Kamala Harris solidifies her position as President Bidens Democratic heir apparent, speculation has emerged over the possible foreign policy of her administration and how it would differ from that of a second Trump term. Former Ukrainian diplomat and whistleblower Andrii Telizhenko joined Sputniks The Backstory program this week to comment on the matter and discuss prospects for peace as fighting between Moscow and Kiev continues.Everybody saw it coming, Telizhenko said of Bidens decision to end his candidacy for reelection Sunday amid concern over his age and mental acuity. The deep state in the Democratic Party used him and used his problems within his family [with] his son Hunter to keep him in place, to use him and his health to keep America in place, to bring this war with Russia.Harris, who previously served as Californias state Attorney General before a four-year stint in the US Senate, has been noted for her relative lack of formal foreign policy experience. Some commentators have looked to her advocacy on immigration policy under President Biden to attempt to decode her broader outlook on global affairs. One analyst speculated she would initially rely on Bidens foreign policy team, while others suggest she would continue her predecessors strong support for Volodymyr Zelensky, who has ruled Ukraine without an electoral mandate since the end of term in May.Republicans frequently allege President Bidens support for Kiev is influenced by his sons financial ties to the country as a former member on the board of the troubled Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Others suggest he is simply too old to manage the task of overseeing complex matters of foreign policy.Biden is often considered a neoconservative, a term used to describe a muscular US foreign policy that has traditionally found favor in both major political parties in the United States. His promise to restore a more traditional approach to international affairs is perhaps best exemplified by his reliance on figures like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.Nuland has served, in one position or another, in the administration of every US president since Bill Clinton  with the exception of Trumps four years in the White House. Nuland provoked the ire of the Russian government and other observers for her open support of unrest in Ukraine that led to the forced resignation of former President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.Telizhenko suggested Trump may be more likely to chart a different course on US foreign policy through his relationships with foreign leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.I think thats what Trump was trying to push through Orban at this moment, to get everybody on the world stage, [to] get their thoughts and get things [rolling], he said.But Telizhenko warned Trump would face opposition against any attempt to change course on Ukraine from people surrounding former Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo. I see that tension happening right now, he claimed, warning neoconservative interests within the Republican Party would lobby for a militarist foreign policy.The apparent division within the Republican Party was on full display during its recent convention in Milwaukee, with hawkish figures like Pompeo as well as avowed anti-interventionists like commentator Tucker Carlson each holding court. Carlson raised eyebrows during his previous tenure at Fox News by alleging covert US influence in Ukraines 2014 regime change, breaking a powerful taboo by openly discussing the methods of CIA-backed color revolutions.Telizhenko claimed the future of Ukraine should be decided by Ukrainians alone, without the interference of those who wish to use Kiev as a battering ram against Americas perceived adversaries.We have to decide what to do next, not somebody in Washington or Brussels, and I hope Trump understands that.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240712/nato-in-state-of-hysteria-as-alliance-faces-russia-china-trump-reelection---experts-1119357524.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240306/nulands-input-in-eroding-trust-between-russia-us-immense---russian-foreign-ministry-1117166736.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20230215/nikki-haleys-2024-bid-could-mike-pompeo-in-a-skirt-win-hearts-and-minds-of-gop-voters-1107465946.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20231121/euromaidan-color-revolution-that-brought-ukraine-to-ruin-1115104905.html

ukraine

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

2024

John Miles https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/19/1116388787_0:0:1316:1316_100x100_80_0_0_77e70d36afd983012b1c5d38ddb84156.jpg

John Miles https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/19/1116388787_0:0:1316:1316_100x100_80_0_0_77e70d36afd983012b1c5d38ddb84156.jpg

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

John Miles https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/01/19/1116388787_0:0:1316:1316_100x100_80_0_0_77e70d36afd983012b1c5d38ddb84156.jpg

trump deep state, trump fights deep state, trump versus deep state, kamala harris foreign policy, kamala harris ukraine, kamala harris russia, trump ukraine war, trump end ukraine war, trump russia policy, trump neoconservative, trump vs harris foreign policy
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/uae-gaza-proposal-may-be-rejected-by-palestinians-after-hamas-fatah-reconciliation-1119521914.html

UAE Gaza Proposal May be Rejected by Palestinians After Hamas-Fatah Reconciliation

UAE Gaza Proposal May be Rejected by Palestinians After Hamas-Fatah Reconciliation

Sputnik International

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has proposed a temporary international mission in the Gaza Strip to restore order and deal with the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the territory.

2024-07-26T16:37+0000

2024-07-26T16:37+0000

2024-07-26T16:37+0000

middle east

world

palestinians

mahmoud abbas

uae

palestine

gaza strip

hamas

fatah

israel

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/102029/07/1020290730_0:260:5000:3073_1920x0_80_0_0_1541468512b37882298ad30294f2f68a.jpg

UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al Hashimy announced on July 25 that the country considers deploying a temporary international mission in Gaza, at the formal request of the Palestinian government."A credible, and independent new Prime Minister must lead this government, ensuring transparent operations aligned with the highest global standards," the UAE Foreign Ministry website says."This international mission will be responsible for efficiently responding to the humanitarian crisis the citizens in Gaza are facing, establishing law and order, laying the groundwork for governance, and paving the way to reunite Gaza and the West Bank under a single, legitimate Palestinian Authority (PA)," the ministry continued.The wording of the proposal is hinting at the eventual recognition of the State of Palestine, Hasan Unal, professor of political science and international relations at Ankara Baskent University, told Sputnik.The proposal followed reports that officials from Israel, the United States and the UAE held a secret meeting in Abu Dhabi on July 18 to discuss plans for post-war restoration of the strip. Emirati Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed (ABZ) reportedly hosted the meeting.A day before the delegations met in Abu Dhabi, ABZ's special envoy Lana Nusseibeh outlined the UAE's vision in an op-ed for Financial Times.According to Axios, the UAE wants to be part of the solution for the Gaza Strip which excludes Hamas as a political force in the Palestinian territories.The media claims that the Emiratis are also skeptical about the performance of Palestinian National Authority's President Mahmoud Abbas and his new prime minister, Mohammed Mustafa.The UAE is reportedly advocating other candidates for a new Palestinian government, including former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, who is known as Abbas' critic.The rival Hamas and Fatah parties, as well as 12 other Palestinian groups, attended China-brokered talks in Beijing between July 21 and 23 and eventually signed the Beijing Declaration on "ending division and strengthening Palestinian unity" and forming a unity government in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.Hamas and Fatah have been at odds since Hamas' legislative victory in the Gaza Strip in 2006 which led to political clashes and the subsequent expulsion of Fatah from the region in 2007.A Hamas-Fatah reconciliation could be a sign that Palestinians are willing to determine their political future themselves while choosing China as an impartial broker, Ayman Yousef, a professor in political science and international relations at the Arab-American University in Palestine, told Sputnik earlier this week.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240723/us-uae-israel-hold-secret-meeting-on-post-war-plan-for-gaza-reports-1119474554.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240723/hamas-fatah-reconciliation-china-solidifies-role-as-mideast-peace-broker-1119473091.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/hamas-rejects-israels-new-conditions-for-ceasefire-in-gaza---movement-representative-1119518708.html

uae

palestine

gaza strip

israel

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

2024

Ekaterina Blinova

Ekaterina Blinova

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

Ekaterina Blinova

the uae proposal for postwar gaza, the gaza strip, israel's war in gaza, palestinians, humanitarian crisis in gaza, china-mediated reconciliation between hamas and fatah, the palestinian authority, a palestinian unity government to govern the gaza strip and west bank
Night tours in museums offer diverse experience to visitors

People's Daily Online) 10:00, July 26, 2024

Visitors view exhibits in the Sui-Tang Dynasties Grand Canal Cultural Museum in Luoyang city, central China's Henan Province. (Photo/Huang Zhengwei)

As museum fever continues to rise during the summer vacation, museums across China have extended opening hours to the evening and launched various night tour activities, providing a diverse experience for visitors.

The opening hours for the Henan Museum in Zhengzhou, capital of central Chinas Henan Province, are extended to 6 p.m. from July 17 to Aug. 31.

Thanks to the adjustment, Wang Tao, a resident in the city, could visit the exhibition - Small But Beautiful: Treasures of Cultural Heritage from Luxembourg - in the museum.

Wang said he entered the museum at 4 p.m. and planned to take a brief look at exhibits from Luxembourg before 5 p.m., the closing time of the museum before the adjustment. He was pleasantly surprised by the extended hours, and was able to take in everything on display at a leisurely pace.

By extending opening hours, museums offer more flexibility to visitors, allowing them to choose from a wider range of visiting times and appreciate exhibits more thoroughly. Some museums introduce various nighttime activities during these extended hours, providing visitors with a richer experience, said Xiong Haifeng, associate professor at the School of Cultural Industries Management, Communication University of China.

Longer opening hours, especially night tour activities, offer visitors a fresh experience different from the daytime experience.

A visitor takes photos of an exhibit in the night in the Suzhou Museum in Suzhou city, east Chinas Jiangsu Province. (Photo/Wang Jianzhong)

During the summer vacation, 45 museums in Shanghai launched night tours on weekends, not only extending opening hours but also adding special exhibitions, interactive experiences, cultural markets, and outdoor film screenings to provide visitors with a rich cultural experience.

Museums are offering activities like science lectures, interactive experiences, and artistic performances during night hours, enriching visitor experiences and catering to peoples growing cultural demands.

Extended opening hours and night tours in museums are not only a good example of cultural programs for public benefits, but they also help boost the night economy and stimulate cultural and tourism consumption.

Data from the online travel service provider Ctrip shows that the popularity of the exhibition named On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt in the Shanghai Museum has led to a nearly 20 percent year-on-year increase in bookings for hotels near the museum during the summer vacation.

Data from Tujia, an online platform for booking B&B hotels, indicates that bookings near museums across China have nearly doubled in the summer vacation compared to last year, with those near the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, southwest Chinas Sichuan Province, surging over 15 times year on year.

Extended museum hours will increase the number of visitors and their length of stay, boosting the development of the dining, accommodation, and transportation industries, Xiong said.

A visitor takes photos of an exhibit during the exhibition named On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt in the Shanghai Museum, Shanghai. (Xinhua/Lu Zhe)

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
Houston Restaurant Weeks is back for its annual food event starting next month and several suburban Houston restaurants are participating.

The event runs Aug. 1-Sept. 2 and is a fundraiser for the Houston Food Bank.

It offers special brunch, lunch and dinner menus from your favorite restaurants in your neighborhood and throughout the Houston area.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Small mom and pop restaurants throughout the Houston suburbs will be also participating in area such as Katy, Cypress and The Woodlands.

Darios Steakhouse & Seafood

Darios Steakhouse & Seafood will have lunch and dinner specials during Houston Restaurant Weeks.

Their lunch special will be $25 per person and $3 from each lunch sold will go to the Houston Food Bank that will provide nine meals.

The restaurant lunch special will include a three-course meal that will include salads, seafood, pork chops, and several other options including sweet desserts. Their dinner special will also be a three-course meal that is priced at $55 per person.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Address: 14315 Cypress Rose Hill, No. 162, Cypress

Bretts BBQ Shop

Brisket, ribs, sausages and sides at Bretts BBQ Shop in Katy. Annie Mulligan

Bretts BBQ Shop has the Chronicles food critics drooling when checking out their Houston Restaurant Weeks menu lineup.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Bretts BBQ Shop $39 dinner menu will feature two-meats and chicken empanadas. The second course features enchiladas, brisket burgers, tacos and more. Dessert features pecan pie, chocolate sheet cake or banana pudding.

Address: 25220 Kingsland, Katy



Amerigos Grille

Amerigos Grille three-course $55 dinner special has a bunch of options to choose from such as Lobster Bisque, salmon fillet and marbled cheesecake. Amerigos also has an option for a fourth course that gives you three options of bottles of wine.

Address: 25250 Grogan's Park, The Woodlands

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Belly of the Beast

Belly of the Beast Mexican-inspired dishes is becoming well-known in the Spring area. Karen Warren/Staff photographer

Belly of the Beast Mexican-inspired dishes is becoming well-known in the Spring area. During Houston Restaurant Weeks, they plan to offer a $39 dinner menu that will feature a tuna tostada dish for the first course and on to several taco-style dishes for the second course and then ending with carne asada, grilled shrimp or roasted chicken for the last dish.

Location: 5200 FM 2920 No. 180, Spring

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The Wheel Kitchen

The Wheel Kitchen in Tomball will kick off Houston Restaurant Week offering a $39 three-course meal special. Google Maps

The Wheel Kitchen in Tomball will kick off Houston Restaurant Week offering a $39 three-course meal special. From mushroom blend arepas to the wheel shrimp and grits dish. This shrimp dish includes white wine glazed shrimp, local spicy Italian sausage over polenta and smoked habanero. The last course will also offer several desserts options including berry pecan bread pudding which is made with a croissant bread pudding, berries, peach and pecans, and topped with salted caramel sauce.

Address: 25510 Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Tomball

Good Charlie's Oyster Bar and Seafood Kitchen

The loaded chargrilled oysters with applewood bacon and habaneros are seen at Good Charlies Oyster Bar and Seafood Kitchen. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer

Something smells fishy in Conroe and Good Charlies Oyster Bar and Seafood Kitchen will be participating in Houston Restaurant Weeks next month. This establishment is known for bringing their Louisiana-style chargrilled oysters to the area that is now feature in their menu for next month. Good Charlie's Oyster Bar will be offering a $39 menu that will feature shrimp and scallop ceviche, raw oysters and classic oysters. The second course will feature several cups of gumbo, clam chowder and lobster bisque. As you end your night you will be offered redfish Pontchartrain, steak sirloin steak or coconut shrimp.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/uk-in-talks-with-germany-on-creating-missiles-able-to-hit-russian-nukes-1119514818.html

UK in Talks With Germany on Creating Missiles Able to Hit Russian Nukes

UK in Talks With Germany on Creating Missiles Able to Hit Russian Nukes

Sputnik International

The United Kingdom is considering a collaboration with Germany to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting Russian nuclear weapons, The Times newspaper reported on Friday, citing diplomatic sources.

2024-07-26T09:41+0000

2024-07-26T09:41+0000

2024-07-26T09:41+0000

military

united kingdom (uk)

germany

russia

nato

tomahawk

jack healey

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/0b/13/1104440400_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_d86d1f87bb74b522b83e08fdc3c27fae.jpg

The UK is eyeing a weapon with a 2,000-mile range that could be fired at Moscow from Berlin if Russia ever decided to use its tactical nuclear arsenal, the sources said. New UK Defense Secretary John Healey reportedly discussed the plan during a trip to Berlin earlier this week. The visit aimed at boosting cooperation within NATO as part of Healey's "NATO-first" defense policy. The rockets would reportedly be stationed in Germany, replacing long-range US missiles that are to be deployed there starting 2026. This includes SM-6, Tomahawk and developmental hypersonic missiles. Western countries have increasingly voiced concerns about the possibility of a direct armed conflict between NATO and Russia. Moscow has for years objected to NATO's continued expansion and military buildup near Russian borders. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said on several occasions that Moscow is not going to attack NATO. The Kremlin said that Russia did not threaten anyone but would not ignore actions that represented a risk to its interests.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240711/us-push-to-put-tomahawks-in-germany-signals-death-rattle-of-hawks-who-failed-to-defeat-russia-1119341539.html

united kingdom (uk)

germany

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

uk, uk long-range missiles, british long range missiles in germany, lnog-range missiles against russia, nato weapons targetting russia
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240726/weeks-where-decades-happen-three-dramatic-developments-in-us-presidential-race-1119511587.html

Weeks Where Decades Happen: Three Dramatic Developments in US Presidential Race

Weeks Where Decades Happen: Three Dramatic Developments in US Presidential Race

Sputnik International

On Thursday Sputniks The Critical Hour program sat down with Dr. Jack Rasmus, an author and professor of economics at Saint Marys College in California with a PhD in political economy. Rasmus said three bombshells have gone off in less than a month in the US presidential race.

2024-07-26T07:09+0000

2024-07-26T07:09+0000

2024-07-26T07:48+0000

analysis

joe biden

donald trump

jack rasmus

us

secret service

2024 us presidential election

kamala harris

https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/06/1c/1119165620_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_6f0c562c4a5527326db983082a9530f3.jpg

In a recent article in CounterPunch Dr. Jack Rasmus writes that any number of crises on the foreign policy front are possible as US President Joe Biden can be seen as a "lame duck." The "neocons running US foreign policy and US wars the past two years may now run amuck, he claimed.On Thursday Sputniks The Critical Hour program sat down with Rasmus, an author and professor of economics at Saint Marys College in California with a PhD in political economy. Rasmus said three bombshells have gone off in less than a month in the US presidential race.[During] the June 27th first presidential debate the general public got to see what the insiders had been looking at for well over a year and keeping quiet, and that was the obvious deterioration, mentally, of President Biden, Ramsus said. That was the first thing that got set off.People are aware that the Trump campaign's been asking for a long time for better coverage from the Secret Service, but the Democrats have been preventing it, Rasmus claimed. And then the third one was this abrupt turnaround after weeks and months saying [Biden is] not going to leave, he's in good health and all the Democrat media and politicians pretty much confirming that. Then, all of a sudden Biden says, I'm gone.Rasmus said the donors to the presidents campaign were the force that very clearly kicked off an effort to drive him out and that politicians joined the effort afterwards. The author remarked that it was strange to hold a presidential debate in June, more than four months out from November's election.But that gave them plenty of time to do what they just did, which is to get him out of there before the convention that comes up in August, he added. So bottom line: that means that the money bags, the donors manipulated the leadership of the party, who manipulated this guy, both in the election and when he got elected back in 2020.Sputniks Wilmer Leon asked the shows guest for his take on Vice President Kamala Harris likelihood of becoming the Democratic nominee. Following his exit from the race, Biden threw his support behind Harris and moved to transfer campaign funds to her new team. Pelosi has joined back and said she's our candidate and then, of course, we've got Obama, who's getting closer to the absolute announcement that he's for it, if he hasn't already done it before. So I think they are now coalescing around Harris."Former President Barack Obama is reportedly planning to endorse Harris presidential bid, Politico reported. The former president holds powerful sway over the Democratic Party faithful and was a staunch supporter Biden's aborted campaign. Obama was recently criticized by activists from the group Black Men for Harris, who claimed it was insulting that the former president has yet to endorse the Vice President.Democrats reportedly plan to hold a virtual roll call vote to confirm their nominee as early as August 1 and no later than August 7. The Democratic National Convention will begin August 19.

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240725/biden-promises-stronger-more-powerful-nato-in-speech-passing-torch-to-harris-1119493706.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240725/uss-harris-vetting-dozen-of-potential-vice-presidential-candidates---reports-1119499510.html

https://sputnikglobe.com/20240725/harris-to-uphold-russophobic-us-dogma-as-world-seeks-multipolar-order--analyst-1119494135.html

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

2024

Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg

Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg

News

en_EN

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

1920 1080 true

1920 1440 true

1920 1920 true

Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rossiya Segodnya 252 60

Mary Manley https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e6/01/0b/1092187887_0:0:2048:2049_100x100_80_0_0_0c2cc4c84f89aff034cc55bb01fb6697.jpg

critical hour, us presidential race, obama, harris, trump, biden, us politics
Captains Quarters overcame post nine in the Meadowlands Pace to grab the nickel and 13 days later on Friday (July 26) morning, the Herb Holland student returned to the track on Canadian soil at Woodbine Mohawk Park in a qualifying session.

The Captaintreacherous - Prescient Beauty sophomore colt put in a refresher mile with Jody Jamieson between the wheels and while the pair won with ease, they put in fast fractions en route to the wire. Jamieson pointed Captains Quarters forward and the Holland student responded with fractions in :28.1, :56.1, and 1:24. He kept the field within a couple lengths throughout the mile, but used a :27 last quarter to open up and win by six lengths in 1:51.

Rich Stiles owns Captains Quarters, who is a winner of $854,928 in his career with a record of 4-3-2 in 11 starts. This year, the colt has won twice and finished second twice, yielding $329,024 in earnings. He has not missed the board in his 11 starts.

The video stream is available below.

For results from the qualifying session, click the following link: Friday Results - Woodbine Mohawk Park (Qualifiers).

(Standardbred Canada)
Two What The Hill colts, with Chris Page up for trainer Ron Burke, won $68,493 splits of the Ohio Sires Stakes for two-year-old colt trotters on Thursday (July 25) at Eldorado Scioto Downs.

Rose Run Alex won his race by a quarter length in 1:56.3 after getting away sixth from post five. Silverton (Hunter Myers) took the early lead from the outside post eight by the :27.4 quarter. After a couple early miscues from the competition, Scrappys Love (Aaron Merriman) pulled from third and made the lead going under the wire for the first time. Rose Run Alex was sitting fourth by the :57 half and pulled second over after the 1:26.3 third-quarter, then three-wide around the last turn. Scrappys Love was second with Power Hill (Austin Hanners) getting third. Out of the Kadabra mare Dabrina, Rose Run Alex was an Ohio Select Yearling Sale purchase for $60,000 from Rose Run Farm. Owned by Burke Racing, Hatfield Stables, Weaver Bruscemi and Knox Services, Rose Run Alex now has a second and a win in his two OHSS starts.

The other Burke winner was Hilltop Sonar (pictured above) in 1:55.1. Battle Hill (Chris Lems) battled Hilltop Sonar through the :28.1 quarter with Battle Hill making it to the front mid-way down the stretch for the first time. Heading into the second turn Hilltop Sonar was back out and moving, making the lead by the :57 half. Going strong through the 1:26 third-quarter, Hilltop Sonar was an easy winner by five lengths. Battle Hill was second with Whats Shakin (Ronnie Gillespie) third. Hilltop Sonar was just a $6,000 purchase from the Buckeye Classic Yearling Sale from Galliers Racing and is out of the Cantab Hall mare Mariah De Vie. Burke Racing, Hatfield Stables, Knox Services and R A S Racing own the gelding.

LT Loverboy took the first OHSS division in 1:56.1 with Brett Miller at the lines. After getting away third heading towards the opening quarter of :28.2 while Caviar Creek (Merriman) led the way. Mid-way through the second turn, LT Loverboy pulled by the :58.3 half and by the 1:27.1 third-quarter was up to the leaders wheel. Coming down the stretch, LT Loverboy won by a length and a quarter. What A Buckey (Dan Noble) came up the passing lane to be second but was running at the finish, so he was placed fourth. Caviar Creek was third placed second with Rose Run Arch (Ronnie Wrenn, Jr.) fourth placed third. LT Loverboy is by Long Tom out of the Cantab Hall mare Fortheloveoflindy. The Midland Acres bred gelding was purchased out of the Ohio Select Yearling Sale for $60,000 and is owned by William Hartt and trainer Matthew Burkholder.

Long Toms Thursday success continued as he, and Enterprise, had two sons take divisions of the $27,397 Buckeye Stallion Series for freshman colt trotters.

Tommy Count won the first division of BSS action in 1:58 by six lengths in his first lifetime start with trainer Ronnie Gillespie at the lines. Leaving the gate, Tommy Count was caught wide leaving from post five but made the front by the :28.2 opening quarter. The duo continued to lead at the :57.3 half while Burnindownthehouse (Lems) was second over, three-wide at the 1:27.2 third quarter but ducked down to the rail and came up the passing lane to take second with The Good King (Tyler Smith) continuing to go wide to get up for third. Tommy Count was a $30,000 Ohio Select Yearling Sale purchase from breeder Wayne Weaver. The colt by Long Tom out of the Full Count mare Make It Count is owned by Anthony Miller.

Another Long Tom son, Oaxaca Harry, led gate to wire to take the second division by a quarter length in 1:58.2. Fired up, Oaxaca Harry and Tyler Smith left from post five and set fractions of :27.3, :56.4 and 1:27.1 while Tom Cruiser (Lems) sat in the pocket. Tom Cruiser came up the passing lane with Lovelle (Ryan Stahl) following suit to get up for third. Oaxaca Harry is out of the Dejarmbro mare Purple Sona and was a $15,000 Ohio Selected Yearling Sale purchase from Steiner Stock Farm. Jeff Smith trains Oaxaca Harry for Bet The House LLC.

Last Call Romeo (Trevor Smith) was three-wide early in the mile from post five heading to the lead by the :30 opening quarter. Going to the 1:01.1 half, Vekna (Kayne Kauffman) pulled from fifth and swiftly made it up to second as the field straightened out down the backside. Trotting by the 1:31 third-quarter, Vekna made the top to win by a length and a half in 1:59.4. Stone Noble Lane (Jeff Nisonger) got up for second while Last Call Romeo held on for third. Vekna, owned by Natalie Kauffman is by Enterprise out of the Muscle Hill mare Rare Book and was an $11,000 Blooded Horse Sale purchase from Spring Haven Farm.

The last BSS division was won by another Enterprise, this one driven by Brett Miller who briefly took Naabaahii back to seventh from post two but was out and moving well before the :29.3 opening quarter. Well in hand by the :59 half, the duo led the field towards the 1:28.4 third quarter as Flying Tom (Wrenn, Jr.) made a mild first over bid. Coming down the stretch, Naabaahii was able to hold on to win by a head in 1:58.3 over a fast-closing Oso Fast (Lems) and Mister Squeeze (Page) who came up the passing lane. Naabaahii was bred by James Crawford IV and owner Ann-Mari Daley, who currently owns in partnership with Jared Daley. The gelding out of the RC Royalty mare Zanna Royal is now two-for-two since coming to Ohio from New York, winning at the fair in Mt. Vernon on July 20.

Racing will continue at Scioto on Friday (July 26) and the card will play host to four divisions of the BSS for two-year-old filly pacers and three divisions of three-year-old filly pacers.

(Eldorado Scioto Downs)
Former driver Allan Cullen of Windsor, Ont. passed away in hospital on July 16, 2024. He was 61.

Allan was born on Aug. 2, 1962 in Wawanesa, Man. Son of Lloyd and Ina Cullen. Allan has a successful career in the harness racing industry that was terminated at a fairly young age due to the result of numerous race accidents and multiple surgeries. Cullen, who was a leading driver at Windsor Raceway in Ontario, drove more than 5,300 winners with purse earnings in excess of $20 million in a career spanning from the 1980s to 2010.

Al has gone to race horses for eternity with his parents Lloyd and Ina and his sister-in-law Marilyn with his father-in-law George cheering him on. He will be happy to be with them again. His presence will always be here making us laugh and causing trouble. He will never be forgotten.

He leaves behind his soulmate Pauline, brother Keith, favourite cousin Tannis Rathwell, mother in law Gabriella Petruzzi, chosen family Kevin McCorkle (Karen), Nikki Kalas (Bill), Deanna McFadden and many family members and friends.

No formal service will be held. Al would want us to share stories, laugh and toast to his memory whenever we gather.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Al Cullen.
Qualcomm plans to hold its second Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii from October 21 to 23, where it is expected to unveil the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset. This event is highly anticipated in the tech community, as Qualcomm's new flagship mobile processor is expected to deliver significant advancements in performance and efficiency.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chipset is rumoured to utilise a 3nm process technology developed by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). This could offer substantial improvements in power efficiency and overall performance compared to its predecessors. Qualcomm's Chief Marketing Officer, Don McGuire, hinted at this timeline during his presentation at the Mobile World Congress (MWC 2024) held in Barcelona.

Also read: Qualcomm to unveil new Snapdragon PCs and mobile chipset in India on July 30: Here's what you can expect

Also read Looking for a smartphone? To check mobile finder click here.

Expected Specifications for Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 Chipset

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is reportedly equipped with Qualcomm's proprietary Oryon CPU, which was first unveiled at the 2022 Snapdragon Summit. This new CPU is expected to enhance gaming performance and may support LPDDR6 RAM. Additionally, the chipset might include an upgraded Neural Processing Unit (NPU). Sources suggest that the prime core of this SoC will be clocked at 4.2 GHz, a notable increase from the 3.4 GHz peak clock speed of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

According to preliminary Geekbench scores, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 could surpass Apple's A17 Pro SoC in processing power. The chipset reportedly achieved a score above 3,000 in single-core tests, just ahead of the A17 Pro's 2,999. In multi-core benchmark tests, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 achieved a 10,000 score.

Also read: Performance showdown: MediaTek's upcoming Dimensity 8400 chipset may beat Snapdragon 8 Gen 3

However, some reports cast doubt on these claims. A recent post by X user @negativeonehero suggests that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 may have lower peak GPU performance compared to the Apple A17 Pro, potentially on par with MediaTek's Dimensity 9300. This user also speculated that the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 might only show marginal improvements in CPU performance.

Despite these varying opinions, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 is expected to be more power-efficient than its predecessors, with reported power consumption of 8W during multi-core benchmarking.

Also read: Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 launched with Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset: Check out the detailed specs, features, and more

Exclusive Launch and Future Devices

Xiaomi has reportedly secured exclusive first-launch rights for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4, which means the Xiaomi 15 Pro could be the first smartphone to feature this new chipset. Other high-end smartphones, including the Samsung Galaxy S25 series and OnePlus 13, are also anticipated to adopt the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 in 2025.
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 custom-built hardware device plans to help artificial intelligence be more energy efficient. Credit: University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

Engineering researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities have demonstrated a state-of-the-art hardware device that could reduce energy consumption for artificial intelligent (AI) computing applications by a factor of at least 1,000.

The research is published in npj Unconventional Computing titled "Experimental demonstration of magnetic tunnel junction-based computational random-access memory." The researchers have multiple patents on the technology used in the device.

With the growing demand for AI applications, researchers have been looking at ways to create a more energy efficient process, while keeping performance high and costs low. Commonly, machine or artificial intelligence processes transfer data between both logic (where information is processed within a system) and memory (where the data is stored), consuming a large amount of power and energy.

A team of researchers at the University of Minnesota College of Science and Engineering demonstrated a new model where the data never leaves the memory, called computational random-access memory (CRAM).

"This work is the first experimental demonstration of CRAM, where the data can be processed entirely within the memory array without the need to leave the grid where a computer stores information," said Yang Lv, a University of Minnesota Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering postdoctoral researcher and first author of the paper.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a global energy use forecast in March of 2024, forecasting that energy consumption for AI is likely to double from 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2022 to 1,000 TWh in 2026. This is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of the entire country of Japan.

According to the new paper's authors, a CRAM-based machine learning inference accelerator is estimated to achieve an improvement on the order of 1,000. Another example showed an energy savings of 2,500 and 1,700 times compared to traditional methods.

This research has been more than two decades in the making.

"Our initial concept to use memory cells directly for computing 20 years ago was considered crazy" said Jian-Ping Wang, the senior author on the paper and a Distinguished McKnight Professor and Robert F. Hartmann Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota.

"With an evolving group of students since 2003 and a true interdisciplinary faculty team built at the University of Minnesotafrom physics, materials science and engineering, computer science and engineering, to modeling and benchmarking, and hardware creationwe were able to obtain positive results and now have demonstrated that this kind of technology is feasible and is ready to be incorporated into technology," Wang said.

Illustrations of CRAM concept, features, and potential applications. Credit: npj Unconventional Computing (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s44335-024-00003-3

This research is part of a coherent and long-standing effort building upon Wang's and his collaborators' groundbreaking, patented research into magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJs) devices, which are nanostructured devices used to improve hard drives, sensors, and other microelectronics systems, including Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM), which has been used in embedded systems such as microcontrollers and smart watches.

The CRAM architecture enables the true computation in and by memory and breaks down the wall between the computation and memory as the bottleneck in traditional von Neumann architecture, a theoretical design for a stored program computer that serves as the basis for almost all modern computers.

"As an extremely energy-efficient digital based in-memory computing substrate, CRAM is very flexible in that computation can be performed in any location in the memory array. Accordingly, we can reconfigure CRAM to best match the performance needs of a diverse set of AI algorithms," said Ulya Karpuzcu, an expert on computing architecture, co-author on the paper, and Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota.

"It is more energy-efficient than traditional building blocks for today's AI systems."

CRAM performs computations directly within memory cells, utilizing the array structure efficiently, which eliminates the need for slow and energy-intensive data transfers, Karpuzcu explained.

The most efficient short-term random access memory, or RAM, device uses four or five transistors to code a one or a zero but one MTJ, a spintronic device, can perform the same function at a fraction of the energy, with higher speed, and is resilient to harsh environments. Spintronic devices leverage the spin of electrons rather than the electrical charge to store data, providing a more efficient alternative to traditional transistor-based chips.

Currently, the team has been planning to work with semiconductor industry leaders, including those in Minnesota, to provide large scale demonstrations and produce the hardware to advance AI functionality.

In addition to Lv, Wang, and Karpuzcu, the team included University of Minnesota Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering researchers Robert Bloom and Husrev Cilasun; Distinguished McKnight Professor and Robert and Marjorie Henle Chair Sachin Sapatnekar; and former postdoctoral researchers Brandon Zink, Zamshed Chowdhury, and Salonik Resch; along with researchers from Arizona University: Pravin Khanal, Ali Habiboglu, and Professor Weigang Wang.

More information: Yang Lv et al, Experimental demonstration of magnetic tunnel junction-based computational random-access memory, npj Unconventional Computing (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s44335-024-00003-3
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: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

Local decentralized energy systems, known as microgrids, can make urban infrastructures more resilient and reduce risks for the population, for example, in large-scale power outages due to natural hazards or cyberattacks.

In Nature Sustainability researchers from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) present design criteria for microgrids that allow for fair treatment of different social groups alongside technical factors. The study shows how cities can shape the transformation towards a secure and more sustainable and equitable energy supply.

Climate change increases the probability of extreme events, as we have seen during the massive flooding of large parts of southern Germany in June. The question of how cities and municipalities can make power supply more resilient and more secure in the face of such crises is bringing so-called microgrids into focus.

Decentralized systems for generating, storing, and distributing energy, for example with networked photovoltaic power-generation systems and combined heat and power plants, are intended to make large-scale power outages in the entire urban area less likely and to ensure that critical infrastructures for the provision of public services will continue functioning.

A group of German and US researchers, led by Dr. Sadeeb Simon Ottenburger, Head of Department at the Institute for Thermal Energy Technology and Safety (ITES) at KIT, has developed a model for the spatial design of microgrids.

Their study provides urban planners with a template for a planning process that integrates various aspectsincluding socio-economic factors and issues related to societal participation in the planning process. Involved were employees of ITES, KIT's Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS), and, in the U.S., the Energy Production and Infrastructure Center (EPIC) at the University of North Carolina and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado.

'Energy Gerrymandering': Who has access to the energy supply?

"A special feature of our approach is that we do not consider technical parameters or cost issues as isolated factors, but rather look at the question of what role the design of microgrids plays in terms of a fair energy distribution," explains Ottenburger.

"Imagine the city as a jigsaw puzzle. The size and arrangement of its pieces can vary. The boundaries of energy networks are the result of deliberate decisions and have an impact on the population. In the event of a crisis, it makes a difference how the health, security, and food provision services are distributed within individual microgrids, but also throughout the entire urban area."

The study uses the term "degrees of freedom" to emphasize the importance of design flexibility. To refer to the potentially negative impact of districting that does not take social equity issues into account, the authors used the term "energy gerrymandering," akin to "political gerrymandering" known from the U.S., where electoral districts are divided to the advantage of certain groups.

Thus, microgrid districts might be defined in a way that creates an unfair distribution of resources and benefits. Strong and wealthy groups could be favored, while socially weaker and vulnerable groups could be left behind. "Resilience also includes a definition of how access is designed for different groups of the population," says Ottenburger.

Metrics for assessing well-being

The study focuses on the relationship between the different vulnerabilities of socio-economic groups and equitable access to energy and other services.

To this end, the researchers have developed metrics using existing vulnerability indices that describe the well-being of the population as a measurable variable and show how power disruptions affect socially and economically vulnerable groups, in particular: the sick or elderly, families with children, and low-income earners.

Data from case study after hurricane

The study evaluated data from a comprehensive case study conducted after the power outages caused by Hurricane Florence in New Hanover County, North Carolina, in September 2018.

The data was contributed by the US project partners. It allowed the researchers to analyze the critical infrastructure, its vulnerability in relation to the geographical distribution of socially disadvantaged households, and their access to basic services.

The project team used this data to develop a universal design that allows for a comprehensive assessment of urban resilience for each city and to generate proposals for the design of microgrids, taking technical and social aspects into account.

Multiple microgrids per city

One of the authors' specific recommendations is that a city should have not just one, but several microgrids to ensure a fair distribution and accessibility of critical services such as health and safety structures.

Concerning the districting of supply networks, city administrations should actively involve institutions in the areas of health care and security, representatives of different social groups, educational institutions, and social services in the planning and decision-making processes to fairly consider the needs of all social groups.

"The search for optimized microgrid designs is highly complex and new algorithms are needed to develop viable models from the available data," says Ottenburger.

"The key point is that resilient solutions are not necessarily a question of more investment, but above all of sophisticated planning. We should make sure that all groups have a voice and can participate in these processes."

More information: Sadeeb S. Ottenburger et al, Sustainable urban transformations based on integrated microgrid designs, Nature Sustainability (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01395-7 Journal information: Nature Sustainability
Houston Police cars block street accessibility Saturday, May 20, 2023 in Houston. If your car is stolen, the first step should be to call these folks. Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographer

An average of 55 people had their vehicles stolen each day in Houston in 2023, according to data from the Houston Police Department. Thats a total of almost 20,000 stolen vehicles.

Where most categories of crime have declined in recent years, auto theft is one of the few areas that has seen an uptick. Former police Chief Troy Finner said in October 2023 that the number had increased around 15% between 2022 and 2023.

MORE FROM HOUSTON CHRONICLE: Houston auto theft rates on the rise, bucking overall crime decline

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

With a growing number of Houstonians facing the possibility of having their cars stolen, heres what to do if yours is taken:

Call police with details

If your car is stolen, the first thing to do is call police, according to Nikki Washington, an investigator in the auto theft division at the Houston Police Department. Callers will speak with dispatch and should provide as much detail as they possibly can.

That includes the make and model of a vehicle, the license plate number and any facts a person might have that could help investigators solve the crime, Washington said.

Police cant look into a missing vehicle without a license number  something not all residents know about their cars, Washington said. So, it might be helpful to take a photo of your license plate, or write it down somewhere, in the event it is stolen.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Delve into the details

Because the department receives so many reports of stolen vehicles each day, the specifics make a difference in what is assigned to an investigator, Washington said.

Callers should provide a timeframe they last saw a vehicle, let dispatchers know if any valuables were in the vehicle and what cameras might have caught the theft, she said. In particular, dispatchers will want to know if there was a firearm in the vehicle because that could affect how officers respond.

Some vehicles have trackers installed on them, Washington said. Thats useful, but Houstonians shouldnt try to locate their vehicles by themselves. Instead, contact the tracking company and put them in touch with the police department.

Make sure your car was stolen

Washington said a significant number of people report their cars stolen when they werent, actually.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Before calling police, Houstonians should make sure they are up-to-date on payments and that their vehicle wasnt subject to a repossession, she said.

After you call the cops

Once someone has reported their vehicle stolen, theyll receive an incident number, Washington said. They should provide that number to their insurance company and, if they installed a tracker, to the company.

This will allow those companies to communicate directly with the department about the matter should they learn anything else, Washington said.

Auto theft investigators also prioritize cases based on solvability factors, so people should reach out if they receive any additional information that might help detectives, Washington said. Delivering camera video on a flashdrive or letting investigators know a nearby business caught the incident on video could help.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Sometimes people steal cars with credit cards inside and then make purchases using that card, Washington said. If that happens, contact police and provide specific details  address where the purchase was made, the specific dollar amount spent (not just $100, but $102.37), etc.
A person is detained by law enforcement officials during a large operation Wednesday, July 24, 2024, at NRG Arena in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer A person is detained by FBI agents during a large multi-agency operation Wednesday, July 24, 2024, at NRG Arena in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer

Many of those swept up in a federal wire fraud bust, including the former owner of a Houston bail company, gained their freedom Thursday with a type of unsecured bail, common in federal courts, that doesnt require a bondsman.

One of the defendants, Sheba Muharib, head of the now-defunct Aable Bail Bonds, was arrested early Wednesday in Missouri City as part of a massive pre-dawn federal bust that targeted her, two former employees and dozens of others accused of writing fraudulent bonds or using them to free jailed Houstonians pending trial.

Police ferried Muharib and others to an NRG Park facility and then federal custody. During a four-hour stretch Thursday, many of the defendants, mostly women, walked into the court wearing the same clothes they were arrested in, including Muharibs gray sweatshirt emblazoned with LAW.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

HOUSTON CHRONICLE INVESTIGATION: As Harris County judges take heat for felony bonds, critics point to unnoticed culprit

Several of the accused said they were related to or in relationships with each other.

Judge Christina Bryan spent the morning hours setting bail conditions and arraigning defendants, including Muharib, whose downtown office was searched by federal authorities in 2022 as judicial bail decisions and bail policies dominated news headlines.

Unlike many arrested in the bail crackdown, Muharibs charge stems from an allegation that she knowingly hired a man with a felony conviction stemming from dishonest actions, records show. The employee in question, Oscar Wattell, protested in court that he did not understand the charges against him. The magistrate urged him to remain silent.

Sheba Muharib, with Aable Bonds, second from left, answers questions during the Harris County Bail Bond Board meeting Wednesday, April 13, 2022, in Houston. Her company had a request for renewal of license before the board. The board voted on a proposal to set minimum 10 percent fee on bail bonds. Melissa Phillip / Staff Photographer

The judge set Muharibs bail at an unsecured amount of $50,000, allowing her release without a cash deposit and with the promise that shell return to court.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

THE 713: Never miss a Houston story with morning and lunchtime briefings

Investigators accused another former Aable employee, Mary Brown, of working with Wattell to recruit fake co-signers and falsify financial reports to help defendants make bond, court records show. She worked as Muharibs district sales manager, according to an archived version of the bail companys website.

Brown, charged with three counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud, was released on a $30,000 bail  also unsecured. The magistrate set a trial for September, a date that Browns defense attorney believes will be pushed back.

The bail decisions outlined in the bustling federal court consisted mostly of cashless bonds in which bondsmen would not be necessary  a variation of the state district court system where bail agents with neon light-adorned offices vie for business from jailed defendants and their families.

Browns lawyer, Richard Kuniansky, noted the irony of Brown and others leaving court on cash-free bonds when their case itself centers on bail requiring hefty fees. Some defendants wandered into the courthouses cafe afterward to use their phones or waited for a ride outside once freed and excused.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The whole cash bond system is corrupt with the bail industry making a huge amount of money and lobbying to keep it in effect, said Kuniansky, declining to discuss his clients case other than to say she should not have been indicted.



Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube, a criminal defense attorney who practices in both courts, said federal magistrates use different codes to make bail decisions, such as whether someone should be released on their own recognizance, sometimes with conditions of release, or if theyll be ordered to pay the court, rather than a bondsman, a fee for their release. State district court judges rely on Texas laws to mull someones bail.

Bail agents arent used in federal court, said DeBorde Hochglaube, who is not representing any of the defendants.

People go to court, as theyre asked  of course, there are exceptions but they generally comply, she said. In federal court, it does work. I think there are lessons to be learned from that process for state court.

Ken Good, a lawyer and advocate for cash bail, believes Texas would be unable to afford a system similar to federal court and that the cash bail system has more manpower and financial incentive to look for wanted individuals than the government.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

A witch hunt

Muharibs lawyer, Sadiyah Evangelista, declined to discuss Browns connection to Aable Bail Bonds.

She derided the arrest of her client as a witch hunt and professed her innocence. She suspects investigators will aim to flip Muharib to convict others.

Theyre going to try to use her to try to get everybody else, Evangelista said.

The indictment states Brown handled multiple fraudulent bonds, including one for Curtis Holliday, convicted of murder in the death of his wife. Holliday, also charged in the bail case, appeared in court Wednesday after the arrests, court records show. He had been at the Harris County Jail awaiting transfer to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Browns attorney declined to comment, while Hollidays lawyer could not be reached.

FROM 2022: Anti-gang raid at Houston bail bondsman office addressed

Curtis Holliday, left, convicted of killing his wife, waits to be taken into custody by a baliff, right, in the 174th District courtroom at the Harris County Criminal Courthouse to serve a 10 year sentence for the murder Friday, July, 19, 2024 in Houston. Michael Wyke/Contributor

Muharib, who lost her ability to write bonds in Harris County and elsewhere in 2022, raised questions that same year about Hollidays co-signers for a bond he secured for two charges. He paid a 10% premium to get out of jail but Muharib accused him of paying off the co-signers and providing them fraudulent information to aid the bonding process.

One of Hollidays former attorneys, Dick DeGuerin, told the court at the time that a fellow inmate referred him to an Aable Bail Bonds employee.
John Fuller, left, and Anthony Hill, right, both with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, are shown in the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Anthony Hill, left, and John Fuller, right, both with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, talk about the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Anthony Hill, left, and John Fuller, right, both with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, talk about the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Anthony Hill, with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, talks about the app used to remotely view the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Anthony Hill, with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, talks about the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer John Fuller, left, and Anthony Hill, right, both with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, are shown in the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Anthony Hill, with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, talks about the batteries and convertors in the control of the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer John Fuller, professor with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, talks about the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer A solar panel is shown at the Prairie View A&M University off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer Anthony Hill, left, and John Fuller, right, both with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, talk about the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer John Fuller, professor with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, talks about the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer

Prairie View A&M Universitys power was in and out in the hours after Hurricane Beryl ripped through the region, and engineering professor Anthony Hill saw an opportunity.

His off-grid solar lab is completely removed from the universitys regular utility supply but had never been tested like this. He rushed over to the facility and called his research partner in excitement. The solar farm energizes a small building on the same lot, and the air conditioning was blasting.

Man, I think were on to something, he said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

For Hill, the solar labs grand opening in May couldnt have come at a better time. As Americans explore solar power in rising numbers  and as Houston-area utility consumers question why they sat in the dark for days after recent storms  researchers at Prairie View now have a testing ground to study the most efficient uses for solar energy.

Weve got poles snapping out there, Hill said. Weve got to figure out better ways to get the power to our consumers and to our industry.

John Fuller, left, and Anthony Hill, right, both with the Prairie View A&M University Roy G. Perry College of Engineering, are shown in the off-grid solar lab Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Prairie View. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer

Hill and Texas A&M System Regents Professor John Fuller built the lab on an acre of land on the northeast side of Prairie Views campus, removed from the regular goings-on at the university.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Solar panels of different sizes dwarf a small shed on the property. A 3D-rotational panel is the biggest, whirring as it moves with the direction of the sun. Another sits on the ground, fixed at a 10-degree angle. More sit higher, at 35 to 45 degrees, facing south. Others move between two directions as the sun goes east to west.

The lab is enough to power three homes, but for now, it supplies power to air conditioning, lighting and equipment in the shed. The cost was in its installation  the sun is free.

We have no monthly bills, which makes the university happy, Fuller said.

Fuller and Hill believe that the lab is one-of-a-kind: Other universities have solar farms that provide energy to their campuses, but they arent aware of schools that allow students and faculty to use those farms for research.

Prairie Views lab came as part of a $4 million grant from the Department of Education, which also funded several other research learning initiatives on campus. Hill constructed the farm for his Ph.D. dissertation, and now as a professor of electrical and computer engineering, he and Fuller will work with their graduate and undergraduate students to improve the efficiency of solar energy systems and determine which uses are most cost-effective for consumers.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Solar is still a small portion of the U.S. energy landscape, but its increasing. Nearly 4% of all U.S. power generation comes from solar, but the number could reach 20% by 2050, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In Texas, solar-generated power increased by 35% in one year, from 2022 to 2023.

After Beryl, Fuller said he knows people are curious about other sources of energy. But just as research would be required to place more utility power lines underground, for example, engineers also need better research on solar.

This is the future, Fuller said.

A display of solar supplies is shown in the control center of the off-grid solar lab at Prairie View A&M University Wednesday, July 24, 2024. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer

Solar energy starts generating once the suns heat hits a solar panel  made up of a grid of solar cells  and moves into a current. That direct current isnt usable for how people power much of their homes, so it has to be converted to an alternating current, Hill said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Most solar panels in circulation operate at 20% efficiency, meaning 80% of the energy gets lost, Hill said. He and Fuller are hoping to boost their panels so less energy gets wasted, and they want to see how consumers might be able to use solar energy through the night, when they typically switch to energy generated by utility companies.

For now, their lab powers the shed on solar alone, but the research partners are constructing a second building that will partner utility with solar, Hill said. They can analyze those cost efficiencies, and they said they will also use the facility to energize solar-powered buses to transport students around campus.

Routing their solar power to the rest of Prairie View is a further-out prospect, as it isnt covered under the grant. That money could come through other sources with time, Hill said, but he and Fuller are more interested in seeing how consumers might benefit from the more expensive solar systems that move with the sun.

The only thing I want to know is, is it worth the extra power? Fuller said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad
Rebekah F. Ward is the Houston Chronicle's climate & environment reporter. She can be reached at rebekah.ward@houstonchronicle.com.

Before coming to Texas, Rebekah was an investigative journalist at the Albany Times Union, where she started in 2021 as the newsrooms first Joseph T. Lyons fellow. She has worked for outlets including Reuters, France 24 and the OCCRP, reporting from the U.S., Colombia, Mexico and her native Canada.
A photo of 2640 Fountain View Dr. from 2016, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development began looking into the city's housing policies. Then-mayor Sylvester Turner rejected a proposal to build a 233-unit mixed-income development known as Fountain View in an affluent, predominantly white neighborhood on Houston's west side. Now, the housing authority is looking for a buyer of the 6.3-acre site. Jon Shapley/Staff

The Houston Housing Authority is selling its Galleria-area headquarters, according to a press release from the commercial real estate firm CBRE. The 6.28-acre parcel near the wealthy Tanglewood neighborhood is the same site of the notorious failed mixed-income development, 2640 Fountain View Drive, which led the federal government in 2017 to reprimand Houston for violating the Civil Rights Act.

When asked where it will move its operations once its headquarters sells, the housing authority said in an emailed statement that it would try to serve its customers not only from a central office but also with satellite offices in their clients' communities.

David Northern, president of the authority, said in the press release, "The Authority is committed to reducing costs, stewarding the portfolio, and looks forward to seeing what the market delivers for this unique opportunity."

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The property is being marketed as "an incredibly rare infill opportunity" by CBRE's Peter Jansen, Barrett Von Blon, Chris Bergmann, Jr. and Brandon Burrows. In other words, an investor could redevelop the land for a mixed-use project, Jansen suggested in the press release, and touted how close it was to the Galleria.

The property currently has two 91,000-square-foot office buildings. According to the Texas Tribune, the Houston Housing Authority bought the land in 2014 with the intention of building affordable housing in a wealthy, "high-opportunity" neighborhood after receiving U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds to recover from Hurricane Ike. The property featured two pre-existing office buildings, one of which the housing authority was already leasing for its headquarters; one could be torn down to make space for 233 units.

The neighbors revolted, packing into public meetings and bending the ears of public officials. Ultimately, Sylvester Turner, the mayor at the time, declined to put it on the city council agenda for a vote necessary for the project to be built.

Afterward, HUD sent the city a letter concluding that the city's actions blocking the authority from building affordable housing were "at least in part racially motivated" in violation of the Civil Rights Act. Ultimately, the city resolved the Civil Rights investigation by entering a Voluntary Compliance Agreement promising to help voucher holders rent in neighborhoods with highly rated public schools and agreeing that "affordable housing is needed in all areas of Houston," among other measures.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The housing authority said the disaster recovery funds used to buy the lands were repaid since the affordable housing was never built.
Volunteers prepare priya for dinner at the Hindu Heritage Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. All the meals served are vegetarian. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer A sign marking the location of Texas Hindu Campsite on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Ahrin Raminrni, 9, watches a video on Airavata during the lessons portion of Hindu Heritage Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Campers participate in crafting activities at Hindu Heritage Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer Niam Mathur, 10, of Nashville, paints during the crafting time at a Hindu Heritage Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer A shallow swim pool is available for the campers at the new Texas Hindu Campsite during their recreation time, photographed on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer The bunk dorms for campers for the overnight camp at Texas Hindu Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer

The Hindu Heritage Youth Camp welcomed its first campers at its newly opened $6 million campsite in Columbus.

This years session marks the 40th anniversary and the debut of the camps new permanent location.

Campers become counselors, counselors become directors, said Namita Pallod, 29, a life-long camper who now serves on the steering committee of Texas Hindu Campsite, the nonprofit responsible for building the camp. We like that, to come back every year. We call it the best five days of the year.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Neil Agrawal, 9, left, holds tree pose for 10 seconds as he eyes Kartik Rajaia recite the Gayatri Mantra during a relay race at Hindu Heritage Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer

The 37-acre, $6 million site is mostly complete, with only finishing touches and some landscaping remaining. These tasks were delayed due to Hurricane Beryl, but the camp successfully opened as scheduled.

BERYL DEBRIS: Sugar Land and Fort Bend County continue debris removal after Hurricane Beryl

Funding for the project came from various donors and Hindu organizations.

The 138 boys and girls from fourth through eighth grade were mostly from the Houston area, but the camps growing reputation has reached nearby states, drawing two brothers from Nashville.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

A second session for older children will begin Monday.

Shaina Patel, 1, of Sugerland paints an elephant in her finger bowl during the crafting portion at the Hindu Heritage Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer

Like other away camps, this one offers arts and crafts, a variety of sports, and games for children. Counselors begin their day at 6 a.m., and campers start at 7 a.m. Most counselors are former campers themselves, having attended the camp every year from second through 12th grade.

We have a lake there, and next year well introduce canoeing, said Subhash Gupta, a co-founder with a career as a research engineer in the oil industry. Gupta made the first donation of $1.75 million. Now were in the process of building everything.

Far away from the city, surrounded by trees and local wildlife, the camp is a magical place.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Campers Anay Samnerkar, 10, from left, Kishore Kanjia, 10, and Juylan Jogi, 9, watch a video on Airavata during the lessons portion of Hindu Heritage Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer

The camp also includes activities such as kho-kho and kabaddi (Indian team games), as well as traditional dances such as dandiya raas, allowing campers to immerse themselves in their heritage. They also delve into their religion and its significance in their daily lives through education sessions.

FORT BEND INSIDER: Never miss a story with our bi-weekly newsletter

The camp started as a small, two-day event with 40 children in the 1980s, a time when Houstons Indian and Hindu community was significantly smaller. Its popularity soared over the years, and by the 2000s, it became an achievement to secure a spot. The website would often crash and the camp would be fully booked within just 10 minutes of opening registration, Pallod said.

Volunteers prepare priya for dinner at the Hindu Heritage Camp on Wednesday, July 24, 2024 in Columbus. All the meals served are vegetarian. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer

Due to its increasing popularity and the logistical challenge of finding suitable new campsites each year, the organization decided a permanent camp was needed.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

I made so many lifelong friends here, said counselor and Fulshear resident Kaushik Kallur, who has attended since third grade. We kept borrowing campsites for years, it was nice and all, but wed have to keep switching camps. Now Im really happy we have our own place.

Kaushik attended Cinco Ranch High School and is currently studying bio medical engineering at Texas A&M University.

I think its very special, said Kaushik. The kids can customize this place, make it their own and each year we can keep adding things  painting murals that will stay here forever.

Camp fees are $600 per child, and registration typically opens in April. For more information on Hindu Heritage Youth Camp, visit texashinducampsite.org.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. annual convention during the 71st biennial Boule at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. LM Otero/Associated Press Vice President Kamala Harris reacts to the applause as she prepares to address the members of the American Federation of Teachers at George R. Brown Convention Center on Thursday, July 25, 2024 in Houston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer

Nearly 170,000 people joined the White Women for Kamala Harris Zoom call on Thursday, raising $8.5 million. Think about that.

Since the 1950s, a majority of white women have voted overwhelmingly Republican in all but two presidential elections  Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clintons second term. White women have helped to enforce patriarchal norms with their votes. The reason? Its simple. They often benefit from the superiority and power that is associated with white men. Status quo ensures their status.

But on Thursday, white women showed up in the Answer the Call 2024 virtual event and got real about their privilege and power.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

White women tend to vote Republican, but we are not a monolith. The smallest shift in voter action can change an election. Its time to leverage the privilege, platform and power of women to elect the first female president of the USA, said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand who helped organize the call.

Much praise was given to the 40,000 Black women who started the movement with a Zoom call on Sunday in support of Harris and raised $1.6 million. The next group, Black men for Harris, held a call on Monday with 20,000 men raising $1.3 million. It was hosted by Houston native and political journalist Roland Martin. Latinas for Harris had one on Tuesday.

On Thursdays call, celebrities such as Pink and actress Connie Britton gave impassioned pleas to support the Harris campaign.

We are coming together to protect the freedom of each to speak and fight and organize for her beliefs, said Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed and Love Warrior, who urged the women to move beyond their privilege and comfort and to follow the lead of Black women.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

We can recognize that Black women know how to do this, and we do not. That forever they have organized, unified and delivered in elections more reliably than any other group behind candidates who were far from perfect, who often didnt deserve their votes but who they knew best protected their families, communities and future.

Since white women are 41% of the electorate and Black women are 6%, she said, it is beyond time for us to stop freeloading on their labor in protecting democracy and start carrying our weight.

As women spoke, donations poured in with many at the $5,000-$15,000 level; University of Houston professor and best-selling author Brene Brown was among the donors.

U.S. Rep Lizzie Fletcher, the first Democrat and first woman to represent Houstons District 7, didnt sugarcoat the dismal picture for womens rights in Texas in her comments to the women on the call.

From here in Texas, the state that I grew up in and the state that I love  that state is almost unrecognizable now and its getting worse. We have a total ban on abortions. Women having miscarriages being turned away from hospitals, told to come back when they are sicker, losing their ability to have children in the future, losing their lives, she said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The people who are writing these laws are forwarding them to other states and sending them to Washington and waiting to implement them in Project 2025.  Whats happening here in Texas will happen across the country.
A Watch For High Water sign is placed on West Road a Katy Hockley Cut-Off Road. Water remained after the rain over the weekend Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023, in Katy. Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer A man walks down the middle of a flooded road as Hurricane Beryl wanes on Monday, July 8, 2024 in Galveston. Elizabeth Conley/Staff Photographer

As heavy rainfall continues in Southeast Texas, commuters in the greater Houston area can expect delays Friday due to flooding.

Several roads in Harris, Galveston and Montgomery counties were considered at risk of flooding.

Here's a list of roads being affected by high water levels as of Friday morning.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Harris County

The Harris County Flood Warning System said flooding is possible on Hollister Street near the Brickhouse Gully.

Highway 59 North and W. Lake Houston Parkway near the San Jacinto River are also at risk of flooding.

High water levels were detected on I-45 North southbound at Parker Road, according to Houston Transtar, affecting the right lane and two frontage road lanes.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Galveston County

Texas City Emergency Management officials said city buildings and facilities would be closed until 12 p.m. Friday due to heavy rain and thunderstorms.

"Please avoid the roads, if at all possible, and be extremely careful if you are driving," according to a Facebook post from the agency. "Use caution and do not drive through flooded areas."

With a flood watch in effect in the area until 6 p.m., Emergency workers will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates to residents, including Rob.

Motorists on I-45 northbound at both FM-1765/Texas Avenue and Holland in Galveston County were experiencing delays due to high water levels affecting the center lanes, right shoulder and right lanes, according to Transtar.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Montgomery County

High waters also affected the two main lanes and right shoulder on FM-1485 eastbound at the Montgomery-Harris County line.
A Spanish-speaking cybercrime group named GXC Team has been observed bundling phishing kits with malicious Android applications, taking malware-as-a-service (MaaS) offerings to the next level.

Singaporean cybersecurity company Group-IB, which has been tracking the e-crime actor since January 2023, described the crimeware solution as a "sophisticated AI-powered phishing-as-a-service platform" capable of targeting users of more than 36 Spanish banks, governmental bodies, and 30 institutions worldwide.

The phishing kit is priced anywhere between $150 and $900 a month, whereas the bundle including the phishing kit and Android malware is available on a subscription basis for about $500 per month.

Targets of the campaign include users of Spanish financial institutions, as well as tax and governmental services, e-commerce, banks, and cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, the United Kingdom, Slovakia, and Brazil. As many as 288 phishing domains linked to the activity have been identified to date.

Also part of the spectrum of services offered are the sale of stolen banking credentials and custom coding-for-hire schemes for other cybercriminal groups targeting banking, financial, and cryptocurrency businesses.

"Unlike typical phishing developers, the GXC Team combined phishing kits together with an SMS OTP stealer malware pivoting a typical phishing attack scenario in a slightly new direction," security researchers Anton Ushakov and Martijn van den Berk said in a Thursday report.

What's notable here is that the threat actors, instead of directly making use of a bogus page to grab the credentials, urge the victims to download an Android-based banking app to prevent phishing attacks. These pages are distributed via smishing and other methods.

Once installed, the app requests for permissions to be configured as the default SMS app, thereby making it possible to intercept one-time passwords (OTPs) and other messages and exfiltrate them to a Telegram bot under their control.

"In the final stage the app opens a genuine bank's website in WebView allowing users to interact with it normally," the researchers said. "After that, whenever the attacker triggers the OTP prompt, the Android malware silently receives and forwards SMS messages with OTP codes to the Telegram chat controlled by the threat actor."

Among the other services advertised by the threat actor on a dedicated Telegram channel are AI-infused voice calling tools that allow its customers to generate voice calls to prospective targets based on a series of prompts directly from the phishing kit.

These calls typically masquerade as originating from a bank, instructing them to provide their two-factor authentication (2FA) codes, install malicious apps, or perform other arbitrary actions.

"Employing this simple yet effective mechanism enhances the scam scenario even more convincing to their victims, and demonstrates how rapidly and easily AI tools are adopted and implemented by criminals in their schemes, transforming traditional fraud scenarios into new, more sophisticated tactics," the researchers pointed out.

In a recent report, Google-owned Mandiant revealed how AI-powered voice cloning has the capability to mimic human speech with "uncanny precision," thus allowing for more authentic-sounding phishing (or vishing) schemes that facilitate initial access, privilege escalation, and lateral movement.

"Threat actors can impersonate executives, colleagues, or even IT support personnel to trick victims into revealing confidential information, granting remote access to systems, or transferring funds," the threat intelligence firm said.

"The inherent trust associated with a familiar voice can be exploited to manipulate victims into taking actions they would not normally take, such as clicking on malicious links, downloading malware, or divulging sensitive data."

Phishing kits, which also come with adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) capabilities, have become increasingly popular as they lower the technical barrier to entry for pulling off phishing campaigns at scale.

Security researcher mr.d0x, in a report published last month, said it's possible for bad actors to take advantage of progressive web apps (PWAs) to design convincing login pages for phishing purposes by manipulating the user interface elements to display a fake URL bar.

What's more, such AiTM phishing kits can also be used to break into accounts protected by passkeys on various online platforms by means of what's called an authentication method redaction attack, which takes advantage of the fact that these services still offer a less-secure authentication method as a fallback mechanism even when passkeys have been configured.

"Since the AitM can manipulate the view presented to the user by modifying HTML, CSS, and images, or JavaScript in the login page, as it is proxied through to the end user, they can control the authentication flow and remove all references to passkey authentication," cybersecurity company eSentire said.

The disclosure comes amid a recent surge in phishing campaigns embedding URLs that are already encoded using security tools such as Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) in an attempt to mask phishing links and evade scanning, according to Barracuda Networks and Cofense.

Social engineering attacks have also been observed resorting to unusual methods wherein users are enticed into visiting seemingly legitimate-but-compromised websites and are then asked to manually copy, paste, and execute obfuscated code into a PowerShell terminal under the guise of fixing issues with viewing content in a web browser.

Details of the malware delivery method have been previously documented by ReliaQuest and Proofpoint. McAfee Labs is tracking the activity under the moniker ClickFix.

"By embedding Base64-encoded scripts within seemingly legitimate error prompts, attackers deceive users into performing a series of actions that result in the execution of malicious PowerShell commands," researchers Yashvi Shah and Vignesh Dhatchanamoorthy said.

"These commands typically download and execute payloads, such as HTA files, from remote servers, subsequently deploying malware like DarkGate and Lumma Stealer."
Laos seeks to boost export of agricultural products via China-Laos Railway

Xinhua) 10:19, July 26, 2024

VIENTIANE, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Laos is seeking to promote sustainable agricultural production and increase the export of agricultural produce to China through the China-Laos Railway, marking a significant step in efforts to boost agricultural exports.

Lao Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry will collaborate with the Australian Center for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) to seek ways of boosting the export of agricultural products to the Chinese market, as part of the project "Assessing Policy Enhancements for Sustainable Agriculture Linked to the China-Laos Railway".

The project aims to formulate policy recommendations that will enable the Lao government to fully utilize the China-Laos Railway to boost agricultural exports to China, while simultaneously promoting sustainable agricultural practices in Laos, Lao National Radio reported on Thursday.

Key commodities for export to China include cassava, rubber, bananas and sugarcane, while local governments have shown significant interest in the export of cattle.

In the first five months of 2024, the railway carried 2.3 million tons of freight, an increase of 31 percent compared to the same period 2023, according to the report.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Houston native comic Ashton Womack was nominated for his third Emmy as a writer for The Daily Show. Womack started his comedy career in Houston and has also been a writer for the Grammys in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Courtesy of Ashton Womack Houston native comic Ashton Womack was nominated for his third Emmy as a writer for The Daily Show. Womack started his comedy career in Houston and has also been a writer for the Grammys in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Courtesy of Ashton Womack Houston native comics Ashton Womack and Tre Tutson. Womack was nominated for his third Emmy as a writer for The Daily Show. Courtesy of Tre Tutson Houston native comic Tre Tutson says the local comedy scene is grimy, but one of the best in the country, saying audience members expect "greatness for nothing." Courtesy of Tre Tutson

And while the Houston native had been nominated for two Emmys since working as a writer, it all still feels very surreal to him.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

"I never know how to feel in these moments," Womack said via an Instagram post after discovering he was nominated for a third Emmy on July 17. "I'm not supposed to be nominated for an Emmy. That's for nepo babies and people who do coke!"

And while there's no information to support his theory, one thing is for certain  it has been a long journey for Womack to arrive at this point in his career.

Open mic nights in Houston

Prior to working for The Daily Show, Womack started his stand-up comedy career in Houston, going to any bar or venue that was hosting an open mic, such as Rudyard's Pub in Montrose, Fitzgerald's in the Heights and St. Dane's Bar & Grille in Midtown, he said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Today, Rudyard's Pub has transformed its upstairs room into The Riot Comedy Club, while Fitzgerald's is now a parking lot and St. Dane's Bar & Grille is a Stick Talk Cajun-Hibachi.

All this is to say, Womack had been doing stand-up comedy in Houston for a long time.

Taking his talents to New York

With $3,000 to his name, Womack bought a ticket to New York City in 2017 in pursuit of his comedy career, he said. Like many before him, he was hitting any open mic he could all while struggling to survive financially.

And then one night at an open mic at The Creek & The Cave, before it closed its doors in 2020, Womack's dream would soon be realized.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

"There was a creepy guy in the audience, who was just a weirdo to a lot of women in the scene," he said. "I made my set about him. I was making a lot of off-the-cuff, kind of clever jokes. They were just witty comebacks...some comedian who worked for The Daily Show saw me there and recommended me (for a job) after seeing that show."

Shortly after the interaction, Womack was tasked with sending ideas to the show as an interview process.

"My first idea was about Black mental health," he said. "And they were like, 'well, how do you see getting Black mental health on the show, today? If you were to put that on the show today, what would be the news peg?' And it just so happened Kanye (West) had said something. So I said 'Kanye!'

Womack was hired shortly after that.

He would then start off as a researcher, working his way up to a writer for the show  assisting Comedian Trevor Noah with writing for the Grammys in 2021, 2022 and in 2023.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

"All of this is like coded in dreams come true," Womack said. "I can't believe it."

Catching the comedy bug

One of Womack's earliest memories as a child is sitting in front of the TV with is family in the early 90s, watching Def Comedy Jam and "buckling over with laughter," he said.

"That was my first introduction into comedy," Womack said," noting that growing up with a family that always joked amongst themselves also played a massive role in his love for the art form. "I was very fortunate to grow up around people who were silly, fun, loving, just all types of joy and laughter...played a massive role in my upbringing...we were just happy, broke as hell...living in La Marque, Texas."

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

It became a routine for Womack to watch stand-up comedy so much that his mother would allowed his bedtime to be a little later so he could watch the latest special.

Womack was 13 when he first met his father, which was also the first time he learned that his father was living his dream, he said.

"I meet him...and he's driving me around and he goes 'what do you want to be when you grow up?'" Womack said. "And I was like, 'I want to be a stand-up comedian.' And he goes 'do you know I'm a stand-up comedian?'...that sealed the deal."

He would then go on to move in with his dad in Memphis, he said. At age 16, his father threw him on stage for the very first time.

"Caught the bug and came back to Houston to go to college," he said. "And just went and did (stand-up comedy) every single day."

After Womack was hired at The Daily Show, his father, Anthony Lomax, was overwhelmed, Womack said. In a full circle moment, Womack was working for one of his dad's favorite TV shows. Before he died in 2023, his father was able to walk the halls of The Daily Show studio, seeing how far his son had come in his career, Womack said.

"My dad was a gangster...he (was) a tough guy. And so to see his eyes crack...I could tell it was overwhelming for him," Womack said. "It was overwhelming for me to see him like that...I am forever grateful for the experience and everything (The Daily Show) has given me."

'Houston gave me that passion'

Womack credits his success to the Houston comedy scene, noting many Houston native comedians had helped him along the way, such as Ali Siddiq, John Wessling, Andy Huggins and Keisha Hunt.

"I really wanted to be as good as one of them and be able to hold my own on a stage with Ali Siddiq," Womack said. "Houston gave me that passion."

Comedian Tre Tutson remembers Womack and Comedian Victor Tran approaching him in 2016 after performing at a club in the South Side, encouraging him to keep coming out to perform, he said. Womack would continue to keep in contact with Tutson, giving him books to read so he could perfect his craft.

"Ever since that...he's always been sort of a big brother in comedy," Tutson said. "We don't talk regularly, but it's consistent enough where there's love."

Tutson, who hosts Q&A with Tre and The Tutson Interuption at The Riot Comedy Club, said he wasn't surprised about Womack being a three-time Emmy nominee for his writing.

"He was always writing," Tutson said. "He used to take that part so seriously, just seeing him there writing stuff down...he was just always diligent. And that rubbed off on a lot of us. You would see his work ethic, you would see him up at every mic...I personally try to emulate that work ethic."

While Tutson calls the Houston scene grimy, he said it's one of the best scenes in the country.

"I will put our scene up against any other scene," he said. "We don't have a lot of comics that break, which is why I think we all root for our guys, whether it be Ali (Siddiq), whether it be Mo Amer, Ashton (Womack), (Zahid Dewji), Matthew Broussard. You come through Houston at any point, we just root for you."

One of the good things about the Houston comedy scene is its diversity, Tutson said.
Report Explores Teacher and Administrator Attitudes on K12 AI Adoption

K12 administration software provider Frontline Education recently released a new research brief regarding the use of AI adoption in schools, according to a news release. Insights into K12 AI Adoption: Educator Perspectives and Pathways Forward was developed from the results of the Frontline Research and Learning Institutes annual survey of district leaders. It explorers the current state and future potential of AI adoption in K12 schools.

At Frontline, we are dedicated to equipping school leaders with data and insights for informed decision-making, said Frontline Educations Chief Marketing Officer, Mark Friedman. Our latest research brief examines the attitudes of district leaders and K-12 educators toward GenAI integration in schools. We are committed to helping K-12 leaders understand the strategic opportunities AI brings in this new era of education.

According to a recent Rand report, 18% of teachers used some form of AI during the 202324 school year. The research brief indicates that among K12 administrators, 41% support the use of AI in K12 settings; 38% are neutral; 21% are opposed; and nine more nuanced responses. Among K12 teachers, 21% support the use of AI in schools; about 50% are neutral; and 34% are opposed, the news release reports.

More information about the research brief is available on Frontlines website.
On July 21, 2024 police arrested and charged Odel Gumbs, a 48-year-old farmer of Green Hill with the offence of Animal Cruelty.





According to the investigations, the accused allegedly without lawful excuse, cruelly ill-treated one (1) white boar pig valued at $1,100.00 ECC - the property of a 41-year-old Electrician of Green Hill - by chopping same on the back with a cutlass.





The offence was committed on July 21, 2024, in Green Hill.





Gumbs appeared before the Kingstown Magistrate Court on Monday July 22, 2024, and pleaded guilty to the charge. He was placed on bond for six months. In default, he pays $1000.00 ECC forthwith or spends four months in prison. He was also ordered to pay compensation to the complainant in the sum of $2,000.00 ECC by December 31, 2024 or six months imprisonment. (Source: SRSVGPF)




Story and photos by: Donald De Riggs





Venna Ollivierre is a goat and pig farmer on the Grenadine island Mayreau. In the midst of his displacement occasioned by Hurricane Beryl, he has extended heartfelt thanks to the East Caribbean Group of Companies (ECGC), for reaching out to him with the first tranche of aid in the form of animal feed.





With Beryl having stripped the island of most of its vegetation, little was left for his goats to eat, and his stock of pig feed was blown away.





Venna is a regular ECGC customer as the records will verify, so it wasnt difficult for the veterinarian working with the company to speak directly with Venna, to ascertain the type and quantity of animal feed his animals required, and possible medications. Once that assessment was finalized, his family friend, Don De Riggs, collected the feed from ECGC and personally delivered it and other food supplies and water to him, at the site of his demolished home in Mayreau.





De Riggs, Director of the RRL/YRM, said that he appreciated the kind gesture of ECGC and hoped "that this is not the first and last donation of animal feed to Ollivierre and other farmers in Mayreau, Canouan and Union Island, who have been similarly affected. The major focus of all residents affected in Mayreau, Union, Canouan and elsewhere, is to have their homes rebuilt, and therefore, any assistance to maintain their honest livelihoods, is through assistance by good corporate citizens like ECGC.





The ordeal and its impact

The Mayreau farmer, in sharing his experience during Beryl, said that after his roof was blown away, a sheet of galvanize kept swirling around angrily. He had to hide behind a refrigerator and use it as a body shield to prevent himself being sliced by the sharp metal. This ordeal continued for about half an hour as he constantly dodged the flying metal.

When the winds subsided, Venna began rummaging through the debris in his house. He found a cordless drill that he never saw before, and didnt know where it had come from whether it was picked up in Mayreau, Union, Palm island, PSV or elsewhere is anyones guess, but it landed in his house!

There was also an interesting tale related by a resident from Union Island, whom the writer met on his return trip, via MV Gem Star 2, to Vincy. The resident told of his normally aggressive dog, a pit bull, which had become as tame as a puppy; didnt bark at anyone and pored over his food before eating.

Such was the extent of the effect on animals, far less humans.









Communications - Internet/Wi-Fi service





While in Mayreau, De Riggs used the opportunity to operate his portable ham radio donated by Barrett communications, to maintain contact with local and regional fellow operators.





It was noted that there were a few persons who were still operating a starlink service that allowed a fairly reliable free WI-Fi service to the public in Mayreau, so that any emergencies could be reported, if necessary.

This complimentary WI-FI service, in part, has been provided by the NTRC and has reduced the workload but not importance of ham radio. Starlink service will always be affected on rainy or overcast days and when there is volcanic ash in the atmosphere. Ham radio, once there is a power source, can provide reliable communication as there are several frequency bands and operational modes available for use by radio amateurs (Hams).





Going forward  reaching out





This report will not be complete if mention is not made of some of the vital components in the delivery of the relief and the response mechanism in general, namely the inter-island ferries. After the Jaden Sun Fast Ferry had to discontinue service because of engine issues, Gem Star and Bequia Express did the major hauling of relief supplies, sometimes leaving port Kingstown late just to ensure that all available relief supplies could reach their intended destinations in the earliest possible time.

Sometimes, after unloading in Canouan and Mayreau, Gem Star would arrive in Union around at 10 pm, but the dedicated forklift drivers were there to move heavy cargo safely from ship to shore.

It is a given that the ravages of Hurricane Beryl will produce cases of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among some members of the affected Grenadines communities. Signs of withdrawal and hopelessness will not be uncommon. This beckons those of us not affected to reach out to relatives and friends in those islands, to give them a sense of hope.





In addition, religious ministers, social workers and journalists across the mass communications landscape should speak with/interview as many persons as possible, so that they could share their experiences with others. This also serves as an escape valve for the pent-up emotions built up during the storm pent-up experiences that can contribute directly to PTSD.

An appeal is also made to corporate society to adopt a family or two, maybe even three, four, or five families, dealing with the most urgent first, to ensure that these families can rebuild stronger and have a better standard of life.





Thanks to ECGC for leading in a tangible way. More can and MUST be done by you and others, especially those in the construction (hardware) and food businesses.
Feature Speaker  Joy Haynes, and her husband, at last Tuesdays opening to the 2024 Police Band Summer Programme.

Joy Haynes, Principal of the Barrouallie Government School has called for music to be given equal attention on the school curriculum, as any other subject.





Haynes made the appeal when delivering the feature address at the opening of the 16th Police Band Summer Programme, held at the Old Montrose Police Station last Tuesday, July 23.





She described music as a "stress reliever food for the soul, and said that It "builds self-esteem, and prepares you for the job market.





When it comes to the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Police Band, Joy has an enduring connection. Her husband, Bernard, was Band Master up to the time of his retirement from the Royal SVG Police Force.

Joy, who has plans to expand the music progamme at her school and has earmarked her husband to assist with that activity, noted the demand for places at the Police Band Summer Programme.





In that light, she told those who enlisted to "count it a privilege for having been selected for a place, and urged them "not to waste time, and to be "focused, eager to learn, punctual, and regular.

She advised the participants to "believe in yourself, reminded them "nothing good comes easily, and expressed the hope that they would "let this session make a positive impact on your life.





This years Summer Progamme is themed Harnessing young minds during summer time.

About 100 students are taking part in the exercise, slated to run for five weeks.
Inspector Vaughn Miller, Band Master, spoke to the participants about music being the universal language.

And Superintendent of Police Junior Simmons, who heads the Public Relations and Complaints Department of the Royal SVG Police Force, made it clear that his institution offered the "best and biggest, as it related to Summer events for young people.





He made the comment at the opening of the Police Band Summer Camp and added this reference to the SVG Coast Guard Programme, and the Police Youth Camp, as practical ways through which the Police Force was reaching out to young people.





But last Tuesday was an occasion to focus on the Police Band Programme and Inspector Vaughn Miller, Band Master, in his address to the opening ceremony at the Police Band Room at Old Montrose, described the Programme as "one of our crime fighting measures.





Miller pointed to music as being the "universal language, and of it "touching the depths of our souls.

He called on the student participants to "embrace the experience, and to look at it as "your chance to grow as musicians.





Turning his attention to the parents, he beckoned them to make music as much a part of their childrens lives as they make academics.





"People become more rounded individuals once they have that background in music, Miller posited.





Miller admitted that five weeks  the duration of the programme - "cannot make a musician, and he urged parents to facilitate follow-up exercises (in music) for their children, and noted that music will be added to the curriculum at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College.





Participants in the Summer Programme will be exposed to the rudiments of playing a range of instruments including: trumpet, trombone, saxophone, clarinet, keyboard, bass guitar, rhythm guitar, recorder, and drums.

Commissioner of Police (Ag) Enville Williams is pleased that parents have enrolled their children in the programme. He expressed the conviction that learning to play an instrument "opens up your creative thinking, and felt assured that participants will be exposed to skills which he contended, "will serve you well in life.





If there is a living example of the programmes impact, Corporal Serrano Hunte bears that testimony.

He enlisted in the Police Band Summer Programme in 2012, was identified as one suited for police duty and was drafted into the Police Band.





Hunte not only became an active member of the Police Band but took the time to successfully pursue a Bachelors Degree in Music from the University of Trinidad and Tobago.

He was present at last Tuesdays ceremony and entertained with a rendition of the standard, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, on the soprano saxophone.





Tuesdays ceremony also saw 100 chairs handed over by the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Friendship Cooperation to the Royal SVG Police Force Band. Sir Louis Straker and Dr. Mineva Glasgow, two members of that organization, made the donation.KWA)




Roberto Villalpando is the Texas weather science editor for the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. He can be reached at roberto.villalpando@houstonchronicle.com.

He supervises a weather coverage team that includes three newsroom meteorologists who provide expert forecasts for the states two largest cities.

Working out of Austin, Roberto joined the Chronicle in 2023 and has more than 25 years of experience covering Texas as a breaking news editor, multimedia producer, graphic artist, copy editor and reporter.
Christopher Jones early and separate appearance in court may have caused the authorites to have the matter properly presented in court.

Radio personality, talk show host and popular DJ Christopher Too Cool Chris Jones and 31-year-old fisherman Kevin Patterson of Lodge Village, both appeared at the Kingstown Magistrates Court, Wednesday on charges in connection with inflicting injuries on each other.





Jones, a licensed firearm holder, made his appearance in the morning after being charged with unlawfully and maliciously wounding Patterson with an incident in the vicinity of the Financial Complex, Kingstown around 8:30pm July 4, during which Patterson is reported to have received gunshot wounds to the left hip, left hand and right leg.





Patterson, who appeared in the same Court around 2:30 p.m. that day is charged with, that on July 4, he assaulting Jones, causing him bodily harm. He is reported to have struck Jones on his left arm with a bottle.

Both men pleaded not guilty to their respective charges.





On Jones appearance, Prosecutor Aliston Stapleton indicated that the defendant was on station bail, and asked that it be continued.





He told the court that the Prosecution intended to call about 12 witnesses and that the file would be completed in three weeks.





When Senior Magistrate Tammika McKenzie asked him whether the Prosecution was expected to get more witnesses in those three weeks, Stapleton replied in the affirmative.





However, as the Magistrate was considering a date for disclosure, Grant Connell, Jones attorney, told the Court that his client was arrested on the job (i.e. while on live radio) on Tuesday, and taken to the Central Police Station and charged, but the case file had not yet reached the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).





Connell said that Jones had made a report to the police against Patterson, but there was no cross-complaint before the Court.





He posited that the investigator cannot be blamed, adding that, "Sometimes instructions from the hierarchy overrides commonsense, and stressed, "The file incomplete.





The Senior Magistrate contended that, if the investigation in relation to the cross-complaint was not complete, it (file) cannot reach the DPP.





Stapleton asked that Jones have no contact with the complainant as a condition of bail, but Connell said that would be prejudicial since Jones had also made a report against Jones.





The matter was adjourned to September 6 for a report. Meanwhile, station bail will continue for Jones.

However, by that afternoon, Patterson, who was unrepresented, was taken before the Court to answer his charge. He was granted $1,500 bail with one surety.





He was also slated to return to Court on September 6 when the Court is expected to receive a report on the readiness of the matter.





When Patterson was sitting in the prisoners area, awaiting the commencement of the afternoon session of the court, he was heard saying, "You come and tell me I charge and I aint do nothing, I aint do nothing. They come and charge me for nothing at all. The man come and shoot me so.





Patterson had told the court earlier that he did not know Jones, he only heard of him.

Jones is the main anchor of Hot FMs popular Morning Programme, AM Mayhem.
Demonstrating its commitment to excellence in training, the Royal Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Police Force, through its Coast Guard Service branch, proudly announces the successful completion of the RSS Basic Seamanship Course 2024.





This rigorous five-week foundation training, held from June 10 to July 12, 2024, saw 26 graduates achieving an impressive overall average of 84.5%. The program, designed to equip coast guard personnel with essential maritime law enforcement skills, covered a wide range of topics, including knots and splices, boarding techniques and procedures, first aid, basic engineering troubleshooting, nautical terminology, ship husbandry, and navigation etc.





The training was spearheaded by Commander (Ag) of the SVG Coast Guard Services, Mr. Deon Henry, who expressed his gratitude to the lecturers and support staff for their dedication in making the RSS Basic Seamanship Course 2024 a success. Commander Henry emphasized that the course provided the personnel with the fundamentals of coast guard duties and seamanship, noting that 26 of the trained personnel have met these objectives, and highlighted that this batch represents the largest group of coast guard personnel to be trained in the basic seamanship course, including 11 coast guard auxiliaries. He encouraged the graduates to let integrity, loyalty, discipline, teamwork, respect, and devotion to duty be their guiding principles as they embark on their journey as coast guard officers.





Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Frankie Joseph underscored the importance of the training, stating that as law enforcement officers, one must possess the ability and motivation to do the job. He remarked that the training prepares them for the tasks at hand and equips them with the necessary tools to perform their duties effectively. He noted the intensity and methodological nature of the course, reminding the graduates to put everything they have learned into practice. He stressed that failing to do so would not only be a personal failure but also a failure to the nation and the region. He concluded by reassuring that the countrys national security is on solid ground, thanks to the training the personnel received.





Lt. Commander Rolrick Sobers, Regional Maritime Officer of the Regional Security System, described the course as a significant launch pad in maritime law enforcement. He wished the graduates continued success in their careers and emphasized the evolving nature of maritime law enforcement. Lt. Commander Sobers encouraged the graduates to stay ahead of the curve and to grow into the changes they wish to see in maritime enforcement. He reminded them that they would face various tests in their duties and must always produce work of the highest standard. He left them with pointed advice: "work hard, play hard, but most importantly, do your job.





The RSS Basic Seamanship Course is a foundational maritime law enforcement training program offered by the RSS Training Institute and facilitated by local instructors from the SVG Coast Guard Service. It aims to prepare coast guard personnel to effectively perform their duties in ensuring maritime safety and security. The course combines theoretical knowledge with practical hands-on exercises, providing a comprehensive educational experience that is crucial for the professional development of maritime law enforcement officers. (Credit: RSVGPF)




The Caribbean has lost another intellectual giant. The University of the West Indies (The UWI) salutes Sir Neville Nicholls as a quintessential Caribbean Man. He served his country, Barbados, and the Caribbean in several capacities, including as Chairman of the Campus Council of The UWI Cave Hill Campus from 1995 to 2009 and as President of the Caribbean Development Bank.





In all of his endeavours, the hallmark of excellence and doing what was right for the people who would be the ultimate beneficiaries of the decisions were paramount.

The UWI Community extends its deepest condolences to Sir Nevilles sons and other family members. We recognize the sacrifices they made in sharing Sir Neville with us, and we are grateful for his stellar service to our country and the region.





Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, reflects on Sir Neville as "a great UWI man even though he was not an alumnus of the regional university. Vice-Chancellor affirmed, "His advice to me as Principal of the Cave Hill Campus when he chaired the Campus Council was invaluable and deeply appreciated.





Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus, Professor R Clive Landis, added, "The Campus community mourns the passing of a giant in the Cave Hill pantheon. Sir Nevilles tenure as Campus Council Chair marked a period of remarkable growth in the physical plant of the Campus, its academic programming and student enrolment. I extend deepest condolences to Sir Nevilles family and friends on behalf of a grateful Campus.
Resources amounting to EC$2.1 million have been included in the approved Supplementary Budget for conservation work to begin at Salt Whistle Bay in Mayreau.





According to Senator Banarva Browne, Minister of Urban Development, Energy, Seaports, Grenadine Affairs and Local Government, this sum is to carry out the necessary work and services that were immediately needed following the passage of Hurricane Beryl, July 01, 2024.

ier this month.





She was at the time responding to a question during the July 18 Sitting of the House posed by Parliamentary Representative for the Southern Grenadines, Terrence Ollivierre who asked about what steps were being taken to protect Salt Whistle Bay.





And according to Browne, the passage of Beryl caused sand erosion which resulted in a gap measuring between 80 and 100 feet wide and at a depth of four feet.





"In light of the changes to the Bay, the government will embark on studies to ensure a permanent feasible and climate resilient solution is developed and implemented for this vital asset, she told members of Parliament.

To date, the company K Electric has mobilized equipment and material to begin work on the temporary emergency solution which include the strategic placement of boulders to prevent the further deepening and widening of the channel that has since developed which according to Browne, now divides Mayreau into two separate islands.





Erosion at Salt Whistle Bay has been an issue for some time and the Senator explained that in 2020 K Electric was awarded a contract amounting to EC$480,000 to place temporary boulders to the shoreline to protect areas until a more feasible, permanent solution could be developed.





The solution, she explained, had to consider the physical, social and environmental conditions of the site.

"And various stakeholders to deliver a resilient shoreline stabilization measure, she said.





Accordingly, Smith Warner International Limited was contracted in 2021 to carry out the coastal process investigations and to prepare engineering designs for structural and non-structural mitigation measures for the site.





This resulted in a recommendation which would have amounted to EC$5.8 million and which included the construction of a retaining wall on top of the existing wall which would provide a defence and boast a 3-metre boardwalk and vegetation linear access along the shore, Browne explained.





Unfortunately, before this could have been implemented, the island was impacted by Hurricane Beryl.

In recognition of the cultural and economic importance of Salt Whistle Bay, the government was moving swiftly to preserve the integrity of the beach.





The reality of the situation, according to Senator Browne, was that if the recommended solution was not delivered in a timely manner, the consistent battering of the shoreline over time, or another storm could cause almost irreversible damage.





"And this is what we are trying to avert, she said. (DD)




Siemens, a global technology conglomerate, has integrated Meveas digital twins and simulation technology into crane automation in the Port of NEOM, Saudi Arabia.

The technology will enable 10 automated ship-to-shore (STS) gantry cranes and 30 automated electric rubber tyred gantry (RTG) cranes to operate at the port, located at Oxagon, NEOMs reimagined industrial city.

The Port of NEOM is the first operational asset in Oxagon and aims to be the worlds most technologically advanced, efficient and sustainable port. It is undergoing an extensive development programme, including a new container terminal and a marine services basin, that will accommodate the worlds largest container vessels.

Crane automation

Sean Kelly, Port of NEOM MD, said: Crane automation is critical to meeting our goal of achieving unprecedented levels of throughput velocity. We are delighted that the partnership with Siemens and Mevea will introduce the latest technology and applications for step-change advancements in terminal operations productivity.

Douwe Wagenaar, Manager Remote Control of Siemens cranes department, said: Meveas technology, which were delighted to integrate, contributes to our targets for a fast go-live and steep productivity ramp up for the automated quay and yard cranes in the Port of NEOM.

We are proud to work with Siemens and to contribute to the crane automation software development for Port of NEOM, which is part of the Saudi Arabias Vision 2030, said Raimo Nikkila, Meveas Sales and Marketing Director. Meveas simulators are based on unique physics-based Digital Twin technology. The technology provides both the accuracy and the functionality needed in assistive & autonomous system development and advanced training capabilities needed in operator training.--TradeArabia News Service
A UAE delegation held discussions with top leaders of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu on strengthening cooperation in the sectors of the new economy, tourism, entrepreneurship, SMEs, transport and fintech, during its recent visit to the country.

Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of Economy, who led the delegation, held bilateral meetings with M K Stalin, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr T R B Rajaa, Minister for Industry, Investment Promotion and Commerce in the Government of Tamil Nadu, in the presence of Alia Bint Abdulla Al Mazrouei, Minister of State for Entrepreneurship.

While emphasising that the UAE and India share strategic economic, political and cultural relations, which continue to grow and scale new heights, Bin Touq, said: India is a strategic economic partner to the UAE and we look forward to continuing to work with our partners in the Indian government in sectors and areas of mutual interest.

Our joint efforts will contribute to enhancing the distinct economic partnership between the two countries, thus supporting the growth and sustainability of both economies.

Bin Touq reviewed the UAE's efforts in developing the tourism sector, especially in light of the objectives of the National Tourism Strategy 2031.

The strategy aims to raise the countrys status as the best tourism identity in the world, consolidating its position as a leading tourism destination; increase the sectors contribution to the national GDP to AED 450 billion; and attract new investments of AED100 billion to the national tourism sector by the next decade.

During his meeting with Dr Rajaa, Bin Touq discussed a range of flexible economic policies and legislations in both countries aimed at enhancing dialogue between the UAE and Indian business communities and encouraging the establishment of new projects in various economic fields.

In addition, he invited Indian investors and businessmen to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the UAE, especially its logistics capabilities and economic facilities for establishing diverse business activities.

The two countries enjoy strong relations in the civil aviation sector with continued growth in air traffic between UAE and Indias cities. Currently, there are 555 weekly flights connecting various cities of the two destinations, operated by the UAEs national carriers.

He also invited the two Tamil Nadu ministers to participate in the 4th edition of Investopia, scheduled to be held in February 2025, as it will be a significant opportunity to discuss ways to benefit from the promising opportunities that the UAE offers to investors from around the world, and to develop cooperation in various economic sectors.

In yet another meeting, with Dr A Sakthivel, President of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations (FIEO), Bin Touq highlighted the increasing opportunities for cooperation between the two countries in export and re-export and supporting the growth of exporting companies operating in the UAE and Indian markets.

The minister also met with Mr. Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu, Chairman and Managing Director of LMW, one of India's leading companies specialising in textile machinery manufacturing. In addition to the latest advanced technologies and innovative solutions used by the company in the textile machinery industry, the meeting highlighted the unique economic enablers and support that the UAE's business environment provides to companies looking to establish their operations in the country.

During a meeting with Dheeraj Hinduja, Chairman of Ashok Leyland, a leading Indian company in vehicle manufacturing and assembly, and the fourth-largest bus manufacturer in the world, the company presented its expansion plans in the UAE market before the UAEs Minister of Economy.

The UAEs FDI in the Indian markets cover several vital economic sectors, most notably renewable energy, software, IT services, and automotive manufacturing.

The non-oil trade exchange between the two countries is also witnessing continuous growth, with the total value of non-oil trade between the two sides exceeding $53.5 billion in 2023, a growth rate of 3.9% compared to 2022.  TradeArabia News Service
Public Utility Commission of Texas Chairman Thomas Gleeson listens to Commissioner Courtney Hjaltman as she questions a team from CenterPoint Energy, including CEO Jason Wells, during a PUC meeting Thursday, July 25, 2024, at in the Commissioners Hearing Room at the William B. Travis State Office Building in Austin. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Public Utility Commission of Texas Commissioner Jimmy Glotfelty reviews materials as commissioners speak to a team from CenterPoint Energy, including CEO Jason Wells, about Hurricane Beryl during a PUC meeting Thursday, July 25, 2024, in the Commissioners Hearing Room at the William B. Travis State Office Building in Austin. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Public Utility Commission of Texas Commissioners Courtney Hjaltman, from rear left, Chairman Thomas Gleeson, Lori Cobos and Kathleen Jackson speak to a leadership team from CenterPoint Energy about Hurricane Beryl during a PUC meeting Thursday, July 25, 2024, in the Commissioners Hearing Room at the William B. Travis State Office Building in Austin. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Public Utility Commission of Texas Chairman Thomas Gleeson speaks to CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells during a PUC meeting Thursday, July 25, 2024, in the Commissioners Hearing Room at the William B. Travis State Office Building in Austin. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Public Utility Commission of Texas Commissioner Lori Cobos talks to CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells about the companys response to Hurricane Beryl during a PUC meeting Thursday, July 25, 2024, in the Commissioners Hearing Room at the William B. Travis State Office Building in Austin. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer CenterPoint Energy CEO Jason Wells listens to commissioners of the Public Utility Commission of Texas during a meeting Thursday, July 25, 2024, in the Commissioners Hearing Room at the William B. Travis State Office Building in Austin. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer Jimmy Glotfelty, a commissioner with the Public Utilities Commission of Texas, speaks to CenterPoint executives -- including CEO Jason Wells (seated at center table, with water bottle) -- during a meeting of the Texas PUC on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer

Less than two weeks after a Houston Chronicle report revealed that CenterPoint Energys $800 million fleet of massive generators mostly sat idle in the wake of Hurricane Beryl, the company now says the problem is it doesnt have enough smaller ones.

Were committed to increasing the (number) of our small mobile generation units, said CenterPoint CEO Jason Wells. His comments came during a hearing on Thursday before the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which is investigating the companys response to the recent Category 1 hurricane that left millions without power for days.

Wells did not mention that such units are completely separate from the $800 million investment CenterPoint made on larger generators  most of which have a capacity of about 30 megawatts, enough to power entire neighborhoods  back in 2021.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

CenterPoint has never deployed the 30-megawatt units. But late last year the company quietly began to secure short-term leases for a fleet of much smaller units. Those have a capacity of around one megawatt or even just half a megawatt, usually enough to power up facilities like nursing homes, fire stations, and cooling centers. They also turned out to be the most useful during Beryl, records show.

In fact, CenterPoint needed even more of them. The company used up all 18 of its smaller generators and had to borrow about a dozen more from neighboring utility providers Oncor and AEP, Wells told the PUC on Thursday.

Its different tools for different risks, he told the Chronicle in a brief interview after his testimony. And we have to manage all of the risks.

When CenterPoint first asked regulators in 2022 for permission to recoup the cost of the large generators from consumers, the protests were fierce. Houston-area officials, trade groups and consumer advocates argued that the large units are too big to move around quickly and arent appropriate for critical facilities that tend to lose electricity after big storms. But the PUC agreed with CenterPoint, allowing it to pass on the whole investment to its ratepayers  and to earn a 6.5% profit.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

On Thursday, though, commissioners appeared to take the concerns more seriously.

What are you doing to optimize the use of those existing mobile generation units? said commissioner Lori Cobos. She added that the PUC had approved of the original investment based on the notion that, you know, CenterPoints in a hurricane-prone area and these units would help with restoration of power.

If theyre too big, she continued, get smaller ones  make sure you have the right size to address your critical care facilities.

Doug Lewin, a Texas energy analyst and publisher of the Texas Energy and Power Newsletter, said the discussion shows that CenterPoint never should have acquired the larger generators in the first place. The company is supposed to be focused on the transmission, not the generation, of electricity, he pointed out.

Its a distraction from what they should be doing, which is making sure the poles and wires operate, he said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

For the most part, CenterPoint and other utility providers are not allowed to be involved in generating electricity, but that changed after Winter Storm Uri killed more than 200 people in February 2021. State law now allows CenterPoint and its peers to rent generators for use during certain emergencies. But only CenterPoint chose to go big and lease a whopping 500 megawatts of mobile generation for $800 million; Oncor, by contrast, spent $3 million on several much smaller generators that have a combined capacity of 11 megawatts.

Critics said CenterPoint couldnt justify its astronomical investment and that it also made misleading claims about the generators usefulness. The company repeatedly called them mobile in news releases, regulatory filings and memos to investors, even though 15 of the 20 units are so big that it takes days to secure the permit required to move them.

Earlier this month, the company acknowledged that those units are not for rapid response use and that they are not designed to be mobile. It has also walked back previous statements, which it made in multiple public filings, that the large generators would be useful after storms knock out power lines and other parts of the transmission system.

In fact, company officials have said during recent interviews and hearings, the biggest generators would probably only help when high electricity demand forces rolling blackouts, which is what happened during Winter Storm Uri. They could not provide electricity following hurricanes or other storms like the derecho in May.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

I dont remember ever hearing (CenterPoint) say, this is only for a Winter Storm Uri kind of situation and we cant use it for hurricanes. They certainly at least gave the impression theyre more widely useful, Lewin said.

As for the smaller generation units, Wells said he did not know exactly how much money those will ultimately cost consumers, and the company has not responded to written requests for that information.

Those smaller units, too, may be contentious. Sandra Haverlah, president of the Texas Consumer Association, said it would be cheaper and more efficient for nursing homes and other facilities to install their own backup generation rather than to rely on CenterPoint to transport backup power on tractor-trailers after every big storm.

Plus, she pointed out, CenterPoint gets to charge customers not just to deploy the generators during storms but also to acquire them and store them in between extreme weather events  and the company gets to collect a profit on the investment.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

CenterPoint is not reliable, she said. Why give an investor the profit off of it?
Saudi-based Al Arabiya Network, the Arab worlds leading source of news, has launched its brand-new podcast hub, Mazeej that will be run by established media personalities, who will bring to life contemporary issues from around the world.

Featuring a variety of diverse content and programming tailored to the wide-ranging interests of a global Arab audience, Mazeej hosts top topics spanning from business and politics to arts and culture, health and wellness, sport, and more.

Al Arabiya Network said its latest hub aims to engage listeners and continue the conversation beyond YouTube through highlights on various social media platforms, while maintaining the highest standards of accuracy and impartiality.

Mazeej is tailored to listeners of all adult age ranges, offering a new and distinctive style of podcast thats far from the traditional approach.

Al Arabiya Networks cohort of prominent journalists and presenters include Nicole Tannoury, Layal Alekhtiar, Islam AlNajjar, and Hanan Al Masri.

Highlights

Mashaer with Dr Osama Al-Jamaa

Using storytelling grounded in documented psychological science, Mashaer explores the fascinating intricacies of the human psyche.

Jareema with Mohammed Alshaibani

The crime analyst delves into the complex criminal cases of the past that have left investigators puzzled. Jareema expertly narrates these cases while scientifically analysing the behaviours of these criminal masterminds.

Umm Al Qossas with Amro Zaki

Featuring interviews with inspiring figures from Egyptian society who share their experiences, talents, and expertise, Umm Al Qasas offers listeners unique insights into both their personal and professional journeys.

Yeman with Ahad Yaseen

This series captures the testimonies of Yemenis, chronicling their sorrows, joys, pains, and hopes, from Yemen to the world.

Khalf Al Jidar with Hanan Al Masri

Delving into inspiring stories from behind the separation wall, Khalf Al Jidar captures the reality of the evolving Palestinian experience through insightful interviews and testimonies.

Wa Maa Baad with Layal Alekhtiar

Join experts, specialists, analysts, and journalists as they examine the implications of the worlds current news stories.

Sasat with Nicole Tannoury

An engaging current and historical events series featuring candid discussions with prominent politicians and experts, documenting significant political events.

Heewar Teejari with Islam AlNajjar

Showcasing interviews with the founders of major commercial brands, highlighting key moments in their careers, the challenges they've overcome, and the valuable lessons they've learned along the way.  TradeArabia News Service
Presight, Middle Easts top big data analytics company powered by Generative AI, hosted a workshop on the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for the public sector that took place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in partnership with Open Innovation AI  an Abu Dhabi-based software company.

The three-day workshop that was held, as part of the AI Enablement Initiative from July 22-24, was attended by Ethiopias Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen Tiruneh and several high-level Ethiopian Government officials.

Designed to equip high-level government leaders with knowledge and insight into generative AI, the workshop covered big data analytics and other important technologies that could be deployed to support government decision making, policy, planning and other aspects of public sector work.

It also highlighted the potential of generative AI to enhance public services and increase government efficiency.

Ethiopias Deputy Prime Minister Temesgen Tiruneh, said: Today, AI is transforming businesses, industries, government and societies, all around the world.

For us, the timely and prudent use of AI applications is a strategic imperative for our nation's future competitiveness and growth. In that spirit, investing in AI education and training is essential to build a workforce capable of developing AI solutions and realising the full potential of this technology.

Workshops such as these are a positive step towards achieving this.

Dr Adel Alsharji, COO of Presight, said: The AI Enablement Initiative demonstrates Presight's dedication to supporting Ethiopia in its journey towards innovation and technological growth.

Presight was honoured to host senior representatives of the government to discuss the potential of AI in public services and share our international expertise in this area.

We look forward to further initiatives as part of the program to continue to contribute to the digital transformation of government for the benefit of the citizens of Ethiopia.  TradeArabia News Service
Researchers at Coventry University have contributed their expertise acting as technical authors for a new guide for operating autonomous vehicles.

The guide, titled BSI Flex 1887 - Human Factors for Remote Operation of Vehicles  Guide v1.0 and developed by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and supported by the UK Governments Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV), aims to establish good practices for the remote monitoring, assistance and operation of self-driving vehicles.

It comes as the UK government recently launches the Automated Vehicles Act 2024.

Professors Stewart Birrell and Kevin Vincent and Dr Adam Bogg from the university's Research Centre for Future Transport and Cities (FTC), have gathered extensive feedback from industry leaders and applied their extensive human factors research expertise to create this essential guide.

BSI

BSI Flex 1887 provides practical information to help businesses address challenges in operating autonomous vehicles. It emphasises the selection and training of remote operating staff, the organisations end-to-end responsibilities and fundamental workstation design principles.

Key considerations include: ensuring qualified personnel are chosen and adequately trained for remote operation; implementing effective strategies for assessing and maintaining operator performance; following specific guidelines to enhance efficiency and comfort in the operators working environments; and optimising the performance and co-ordination of remote operators through effective management.

While the BSI Flex primarily focuses on road applications, it also serves as guidance for controlled environments lacking specific standards. It is designed to support organisations in implementing remote operation capabilities and services, offering vital insights and best practices.

Kevin Vincent, Director at the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Automotive Research and National Transport Design Centre, said: This work builds on the research, learning and expertise of our Human Factors Group currently utilised in the CCAV-funded project SCALE (bringing self-driving shuttle services to the West Midlands), along with input from industry leaders, including BSI, CCAV, Department for Transport, Zenzic and other research and technology organisations. It will provide essential guidance to the forthcoming early-stage CAV deployment projects.

Essential building block

Professor Stewart Birrell, Centre Director for Future Transport and Cities, said: Remote operations are an essential building block for large-scale deployment of self-driving vehicles onto UK roads. Our research here in FTC, which is disseminated through this BSI Flex 1887, puts the human operator front and centre of remote operations, ensuring they have the right tools and information needed to effectively monitor and assist self-driving vehicles.

Matteo Novati, Programme Lead for BSIs CAM standards programme, said: Standards have the potential to play a key role in realising society's safe transition to self-driving vehicles and ultimately accelerating progress towards a sustainable future. Our CAM programme has recently focused on filling an important gap in standards supporting remote operations of road vehicles.

"Human Factors for Remote Operation of Vehicles  Guide v1.0 (BSI Flex 1887) is a very welcome piece of this puzzle and has already attracted much attention from industry and policymakers in the UK and globally. This guidance on human factors such as operators competencies and workstation design has been highlighted as a priority since our early engagement activities and aims to support deployment and imminent work on secondary legislation.

BSI Flex 1887 is now open for public consultation. Stakeholders and interested parties are encouraged to review the guide and provide feedback to ensure it meets the highest standards of safety and effectiveness.--TradeArabia News Service
Alfa Laval fuel supply system FCM Methanol has been selected by Maersk for their pioneering methanol retrofit project to enable the container vessel Maersk Halifax to operate on methanol fuel.

This project stands as a significant achievement for both Alfa Laval and Maersk, underscoring the feasibility of retrofitting ships with the necessary equipment for methanol-based propulsion.

Redefining the methanol journey

Alfa Laval continues to drive the marine industry's fuel transition with its methanol solutions, knowledge, and experience. The company has expanded its methanol-related expertise to offer solutions that suit the unique requirements of both new and existing vessels.

Alfa Laval will support AP Moller-Maersk (Maersk) with installation of FCM Methanol low-flashpoint fuel supply system (LFSS) on board the 15,000 TEU Maersk Halifax. The retrofit is scheduled by mid-2024. This pioneering container vessel conversion will enable the vessel to sail on green methanol with dual-fuel capabilities.

At Alfa Laval, we collaborate with the industry frontrunners in exploring and embracing innovative ways for decarbonisation, says Viktor Friberg, Head of Marine Separation & Fuel Supply Systems, Alfa Laval. The project with Maersk gives us a unique opportunity to take up a new challenge - retrofitting our equipment for methanol use, for the first time. We are immensely proud to extend our expertise to this innovative retrofit project.

Landmark retrofit project

The project will involve adding a new fuel line for methanol alongside the traditional fuel line, respecting the existing space constraints and the tight time schedule. The retrofit of the FCM Methanol is a landmark project that requires advanced engineering and understanding of the practical considerations of working with methanol.

Alfa Lavals dedication to technology research and product development, as well as its experience in both project execution and vessels in operation (> 450k hours), has prepared the company to take on challenges to equip both existing and new vessels with methanol solutions over time. The system can be designed to meet the specific requirements ensuring optimised performance and environmental efficiency.

We have set an ambitious net-zero emissions target for 2040, and retrofitting of engines on our vessels to run on methanol is an important nut in our strategy. Retrofitting solutions to accommodate new fuel thereby enabling the engine to operate on methanol is a complex task that requires expertise, and we are happy to have Alfa Laval on board on this project, says Ole Graa Jakobsen, Head of Fleet Technology, AP Moller-Maersk.

Longest experience with methanol

Sailing with green methanol fuel is a sustainable option to reduce emissions, but it requires a fuel supply system that can handle the fuel safely and effectively. With over 80 ships contracted, Alfa Laval has the longest experience in methanol FSS installation and service since 2015. It is the only system that has been powering methanol-fuelled vessels so far, with over 450 000 hours of operations and unmatched expertise.--TradeArabia News Service
Two destinations in AlUla, the ancient city in North-West Saudi Arabia, were declared remarkable places to be explored by TIME, the global media organisation based in the US, in its official announcement of the winners of its 2024 Worlds Greatest Places awards.

AlUla has secured two of the top 100 spots on the list, showcasing its high-quality, culturally rich, and sustainable tourism offerings.

Vetted by TIME's editors and correspondents around the world, this exclusive list features 100 extraordinary destinations to explore, stay and visit.

AlUlas Destination Offerings

Dar Tantora The House Hotel

It was opened in May 2024, and is the first property to be established in the historic AlUla Old Town  the ancient mud-brick houses city dating back to more than 800 years old, and which was recognised as one of the Best Tourism Villages in 2022 by UNWTO.

Nestled within AlUlas desert oasis, Dar Tantora represents sustainable luxury. With 30 guest rooms thoughtfully restored from historical mud-brick buildings, this eco-lodge offers guests an immersive blend of traditional Bedouin living and upscale comfort.

Sharaan Nature Reserve

It covers almost 600 square miles (1,500 sq km), the beautiful Sharaan Nature Reserve is a treasure trove of natural wonders.

Central to it is the restoration of AlUlas sensitive ecosystem, which in turn allows the reintroduction, preservation and protection of endangered animals such as Arabian wolves, gazelles and large-eared red foxes, along with indigenous flora and fauna.

Created with the goal for restoring the natural land and wildlife, Sharaan will serve as a safe rewilding hub for critically endangered Arabian Leopards, currently located at an offsite breeding facility.

To compile the World's Greatest Places list, TIME solicited nominations of places  including hotels, cruises, restaurants, attractions, museums, parks, and more  from its international network of correspondents and contributors, with an eye toward those offering new and exciting experiences.

The TIME brand is recognised and respected around the world, and this prestigious accolade remains the ultimate symbol and acknowledgment of excellence within the travel sector.

We are elated by the recognitions awarded to our destinations offerings by TIME in their renowned Worlds Greatest Places, said Rami AlMoallim, Vice President of Destination Management and Marketing at the Royal Commission for AlUla.

The exceptional sentiments reflect the excellence and dedication of AlUla's efforts to preserve and promote its unique cultural heritage through comprehensive and sustainable development initiatives rooted in the community.

Located in the northwest of Saudi Arabia, AlUla is an oasis city renowned for its diverse natural landscape including mountains, desert and unique geological rock formations, along with significant heritage sites.

A beacon for sustainable tourism, AlUlas commitment to purpose-driven revitalisation, is showcased in their newly launched global brand campaign, "Forever Revitalising, has transformed the destination into a vibrant hub not only for ancient heritage, culture, art and adventure, but also for responsible tourism, a statement said.  TradeArabia News Service
Turkish Technic, one of the largest maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) companies in the world, will provide component support and solution services to Citilink, a leading budget airline in Indonesia, under a new agreement.

The new component support agreement covers Citilinks Airbus A320 fleet, enabling the airline to benefit from services such as component pooling, repair, overhaul, modification, home base kits and logistics services.

Turkish Technic has been providing component support and solution services to Citilink for many years. It has also added landing gear overhaul services to the list of services it provides for operator, solidifying the long-standing partnership further.

Mikail Akbulut, CEO of Turkish Technic, said: This agreement is a testament to Citilink's trust in our expertise and capabilities.

We are excited to consolidate our long-standing partnership with our comprehensive component support services for their Airbus A320 fleet.

We are confident in our ability to continue providing reliable and high-quality component services for the operator.

We thank Citilink for trusting us as their solution partner over the years and look forward to many more successful years together.

Dewa Rai, President and CEO of Citilink, said: We are delighted to announce our partnership with Turkish Technic, a leading MRO provider.

Their expertise and extensive support network will enable us to benefit from comprehensive component support services for our Airbus A320 fleet.

This collaboration underscores Citilink's unwavering commitment to delivering the highest safety and performance standards, ensuring a seamless, comfortable, and hassle-free air travel experience for our valued passengers.

Operating as a one-stop MRO company with high-quality support, competitive turnaround times, and comprehensive in-house capabilities at its state-of-the-art hangars, Turkish Technic provides maintenance, repair, overhaul, engineering, modification, tailor-made component support, and reconfiguration to many domestic and international customers at five locations.  TradeArabia News Service
Two Rock Springs legislators filed a suit against the campaign finance arm of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus on Thursday over mailers claiming that the legislators voted to keep Donald Trump off the ballot.

Republican Reps. JT Larson and Cody Wylie  who are both seeking reelection to their seats  filed the suit in Sweetwater County against the Wyoming Freedom PAC.

The cause for the suit stems from mailers and text messages sent out earlier this month to registered Republican voters in the districts that Larson and Wylie represent.

Republican voters in Larsons district received a message stating that J.T. Larson voted with the radical left to REMOVE President Trumps name from the ballot.

Dont be deceived. Whomever J.T. Larson is representing its not us, the text continued.

Days later mailers paid for by the Wyoming Freedom PAC had the caption Liberal Larson" and doubled down on saying that Larson Voted NO  To Keep President Trump on the Ballot this fall.

Similar mailers were also sent out to Republican voters in Wylies district also claiming that Wylie voted to keep Trump off the ballot.

The lawsuit filed by Rock Springs attorney and fellow lawmaker Clark Stith says that the statements made in the text messages and mailers were false. The Wyoming House of Representatives has taken no vote on any proposal to remove Trumps name from the ballot.

The suit also stated that Larson and Wylie support Trump and that the Wyoming Freedom PAC knew that the statements claiming Larson and Wylie voted to keep Trump off the ballot were false.

The claim that Larson and Wylie voted to keep Trump off the ballot came from a vote on a budget amendment during the legislative session earlier this year, according to the suit.

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray filed an amicus brief with the Colorado Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court opposing efforts to remove Trump from 2024 ballots.

The legislature attempted to pass a budget amendment that would have not allowed Gray to use state money for out-of-state litigation without legislative approval.

Larson voted to keep the measure and Wylie did not vote on the measure after declaring a conflict.

The suit states that Larson and Wylie did not vote to remove Trumps name from any ballot, and that that vote was not a vote on any proposition to keep Trump on the ballot.

A request for the PAC to stop making the statements about Wylie and Larson was denied, according to the suit.

Ms. Drost refused saying we will continue making those statements, the suit says.

Karen Drost is the chairman of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.

The suit is seeking at least $50,000 in damages for each legislator.
The Public Utility Commission on Thursday axed changes proposed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas for its Emergency Reserve Program. Commissioners said the process to reach a decision was flawed, and raises concerns about making informed decisions on future proposals. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer The electric interconnection to CenterPoint is shown Wednesday, July 17, 2024, in Deer Park. Melissa Phillip/Staff Photographer

You'd be plenty mad if CenterPoint charged you for power you didn't have in the days after Hurricane Beryl knocked out the lights. Hopefully, that won't happen.

Now how would you feel if CenterPoint charged you, and every other customer, $800 million for emergency "mobile" generators that they didn't even switch on after Beryl while people suffered and at least seven of them died in scorching July temperatures?

That actually did happen.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

As we account for all the ways that Houston's utility company failed us after a Category 1 hurricane  from poor preparedness to a broken outage map to a CenterPoint executive telling us to use less A/C while his own thermostat was photographed at 70 degrees  let's not overlook one of the biggest scandals of all.

A Houston Chronicle investigation by reporters Neena Satija and Mike Morris revealed that 15 massive, 32-megawatt, "mobile" generators that CenterPoint spent the better part of $800 million to lease, on the consumers' dime, didn't benefit anybody as Beryl knocked out power to more than 2 million.

The price tag included a total of 20 generators but it's those 15 we're most concerned about. CenterPoint, which touted the investment in "mobile generation" in its news releases, memos and regulatory filings, now tells the Houston Chronicle that the generators are "not designed to be 'mobile'" and are "not for rapid response use." They take days to assemble and can't be moved without a permit that takes days to acquire.

They weren't turned on after the derecho in May, either, when many Houstonians were without power for days. In fact, the Chronicle reported, they've never been used since CenterPoint began leasing them in late 2021.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

If CenterPoint was just going to mothball them for three years, why the urgency in leasing them? They rushed through a short-term leasing bidding process so quickly, giving bidders only two days to respond to a request for proposals, that judges in a state hearing for the Public Utility Commission later determined it didn't comply with state law. The judges recommended against allowing CenterPoint to charge consumers for the generators because the utility hadn't shown they were "reasonable or necessary" and CenterPoint hadn't been prudent in leasing an astronomical amount of generation from a little-known company, Life Cycle Power, whose then-CEO had been convicted for flouting environmental regulations.

Yet, despite all that, the Public Utility Commission, which has the final say on whether utilities like CenterPoint can pass costs on to consumers, ignored the judges' recommendation and approved the short- and long-term leases.

Gov. Greg Abbott, who appoints Public Utility Commission members, announced a formal investigation into CenterPoint's handling of the storm, including its use of mobile generators, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick put together a special Senate committee to grill executives and experts on Monday. The PUC is investigating as well.

CenterPoint, for its part, told this editorial board that the large-scale generators were meant for scenarios similar to the one after Winter Storm Uri, when the statewide grid failed not because of downed poles and power lines, but because it ran short of the energy needed to meet surging power demand.

"We havent used these mobile generators yet because the state hasnt reached the condition yet for their intended use type," a spokesperson told us Friday.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

What an odd claim, considering that CenterPoint appears to have argued something quite different in 2022 when it was trying to persuade regulators to let it charge consumers for the generators. A state document reviewed by this editorial board shows that CenterPoint claimed it wanted to use the generators not just, say, when the state's power grid couldn't meet demand, but to "provide more reliable electric service following other extreme weather events, such as hurricanes." The rationale was disputed by other parties for tangential reasons, including competition concerns over letting CenterPoint generate its own electricity more often.

In response, CenterPoint executive Brad Tutunjian urged regulators to prioritize "the need to preserve and protect human life during an emergency" before "the economics of the utility power market in Texas."

"The people who are suffering during a widespread power outage could not care less" what caused the outage, the CenterPoint executive argued. We agree.

PUC staff apparently agreed, too, supporting CenterPoint's earlier decision to deploy a smaller generator to a Lake Jackson civic center after Hurricane Nicholas: "It would have been unreasonable," staff argued, for CenterPoint to "have let residents of Lake Jackson suffer from a prolonged lack of electricity" while the company "let the mobile generators sit idle."

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

And yet, idle the 15 generators sat after Beryl because they're too big to move.

At a Thursday PUC hearing, Commissioner Lori Cobos said the commission approved the company's original investment in generators based on the notion that, you know, CenterPoints in a hurricane-prone area and these units would help with restoration of power."

CenterPoint says they did deploy smaller, less expensive, generators to places like a Kingwood independent living facility.

But why spend hundreds of millions on the massive generators that can't be moved and may only be used in extremely rare, catastrophic situations in which the entire electrical grid of Texas is in danger of failing? We did come close to that after Winter Storm Uri, and legislative reforms haven't exactly guaranteed it will never happen again but the likelihood certainly seems lower. No other utility, including Oncor in Dallas, leased nearly as much capacity. They only spent $3 million.

Meanwhile, much more common culprits of power failure go unaddressed.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

What else could $800 million have paid for? Trimming trees so they wouldn't fall on power lines? Stronger utility poles that aren't made of pine? More generators that can actually be moved? A website that has a functioning outage map, maybe at least as helpful as Whataburger's?

Actually, CenterPoint should be asking to spend more money on infrastructure. The company's $2.3 billion resiliency plan includes hardened infrastructure such as $550 million to elevate substations and $215 million in new technology to modernize the grid. Badly needed, but not nearly big enough.

We're not saying ratepayers should be charged for all upgrades. CenterPoint netted $867 million last year and $1 billion in 2022. The company can afford to invest more in resiliency. We're guessing it's a little more careful when its investing on its own dime. But it shouldn't be that way.

The governor's appointees on the Public Utility Commission should demand answers and accountability on behalf of customers, who, in reality, aren't customers at all since we didn't choose this state-regulated utility; it was assigned to us. The PUC should force CenterPoint and its investors to eat the costs of a seemingly flawed investment: massive generators that didn't cool a single Texan during this crisis. There's precedent.The PUC got a refund for customers when Entergy cut corners ahead of a 1997 ice storm. The regulators can do that again.

Houston has paid enough in this disaster. Just like we shouldn't be charged for power we didn't use, we shouldn't be bilked for mistakes we didn't make.
TRINIDAD Petroleum Holdings Limited (TPHL) has put the matter of Patriotic Energy Services Company Limited submitting allegedly fraudulent documents in its bid to acquire the former Petrotrin refinery in the hands of its legal team.

The claim, first made by Energy Minister Stuart Young during the budget debate last Friday, was again denied yesterday by Oilfields Workers Trade Union (OWTU) president Ancel Roget. TPHL stated in a media release yesterday that it had received a document submitted by Patriotic Energies in its non-binding offer for the refinery, which specifically identified as evidence a wire transfer of US$1.5 billion into a local bank, and which document identified Patriotic Energies as the beneficiary.
Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady, right, talks with Flo and Scot Rice, Rosie Yanas-Stone and Gail McLeod after a hearing in the civil lawsuit against accused Santa Fe High School shooter Dimitrios Pagourtzis parents Tuesday, May 7, 2024, in Judge Jack Ewings County Court No. 3 at the Galveston County Courthouse. JENNIFER REYNOLDS/The Daily News/Jennifer Reynolds/The Galveston County Daily News

Unanswered questions

Regarding Santa Fe families offended by DOJs 'disrespectful and demeaning' response to shooting probe request (July 19): Why isnt a Department of Justice investigation mandatory in every mass school shooting? Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde and other shooting tragedies have all undergone multiple third-party investigations, including those conducted by the DOJ. Yet the Santa Fe High School shooting remains without a single comprehensive review to examine the successes and failures of those responsible for student safety on May 18, 2018.

Currently, our nation is in an uproar, demanding answers regarding the assassination attempt on a presidential candidate. The need to uncover the why and how is crucial to protect our leaders and ensure the stability of our political process.

Now, imagine enduring a lack of answers for six years with no resolution in sight. Uncovering the why and how should apply equally to every mass school shooting. These investigations are vital for protecting our children and implementing the highest safety measures in our schools. While our children may not hold the same national prominence as a president, they are the very fabric of our lives and the future of our country.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Without answers, we are doomed to repeat history. Unfortunately, Texas has already faced this painful reality.

Flo Rice, survivor of the Santa Fe shooting

Fixing the grid

Regarding How CenterPoint fleeces Houstonians. And why we still cant rely on our grid. (July 21): Loren Steffy hit the nail square on the head. I used to pay my electric bill directly to the supplier. I now have a choice of 50 different middlemen, and they all have a different cost for electricity. That is just a horrible nightmare. Back in the Houston Light & Power days they owned the generators, they owned the transmission lines and they did the billing. It was so simple and not mind-boggling!

Since deregulation how many power plants have been shut down? I know if you decrease the amount of electricity produced, then you can raise the cost of the surviving plants electricity. This has been a complete failure, which has cost the consumer a lot more money. All the new billing companies  and the thousands of new jobs they created  have made electricity more costly, and that has hurt the end user. It was so well run when the power companies did it all!

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The Legislature has caused a complete failing nightmare. But what would you expect from politicians? The electricity market needs to be under regulation again.

Hobie Sibley, League City

Regarding What CenterPoint and regulators need to do now (July 21): I totally agree with Ed Hirs recommending clearing vegetation from near power lines as the first and best solution, but must disagree with the assertion that simply replacing easily snapped wood utility poles with those made of stronger materials will also reduce power disruptions. The problem is not that relatively weaker wood poles are being used for electricity distribution. In fact, utility pole design specifications found in the National Electrical Safety Code are based on estimated loading from power lines and telecommunication lines, with geographic or weather-related factors such as estimated maximum wind speeds and ice buildup on wires also taken into account. The exact specifications for utility pole dimensions will vary depending on the pole type, whether its wood, concrete, steel or fiberglass. So, while wood itself may be weaker than concrete, NESC codes prescribe which class of wood pole is needed to meet the design standard. A larger wood pole that is less costly, lighter and most importantly, more readily available at short notice after a major wind event, can be substituted for a smaller non-wood pole that can handle the same load.



Jim Brient, Missouri City

Abbotts border policies

Regarding: How Greg Abbott made the Texas border Americas problem (July 17): I find it interesting and disappointing that a featured, full page-plus article about Gov. Greg Abbotts actions at the Texas border did not cite a single number noting the millions of illegal border crossings that have occurred over the past several years. Abbott has taken action to deal with these illegal crossings, and a number is certainly worth including because it has driven his response. The only number cited in the article refers to the 119,400 migrants that Abbott has sent to sanctuary cities across the country. This is but a small fraction of the huge numbers of those who have entered our country illegally.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

A major story about Abbots border actions which does not acknowledge and report the magnitude of the problem he is addressing is grossly incomplete.
Teaching the Golden Rule

Re: the June 26 letter Commandments and beatitudes.

This letter offered a good idea. I would like to add another. How about the Golden Rule in classrooms? Teaching children the basic treat others the way you would want to be treated covers the whole gamut of dont kill, dont steal, etc. The added benefit is that it would touch all children in our schools no matter what faith tradition they are coming from.

When I taught World Religions classes to Catholics, I discovered that every religions moral code has a Golden Rule that sounds much like the Christians. Examples: Do not offend others as you would not wish to be offended (Buddhism); Not one of you will be a true believer who does not wish for his brother the same that he wishes for himself (Islam) ... etc. Imagine a classroom poster with these universal Golden Rule quotes from many religions. What unity and respect that could create!

Sister Karen Berry, OSF

Midtown

TPD working for our community

I generally dont write about the police departments, even though I sat through hundreds of hearings involving cases filed by TPD police officers in my 26 years on the bench at Tucson City Court, but I have to say I am truly relieved to live and work in Tucson. After an exhaustive investigation, by the US Justice Department, a report finding a systematic pattern and practice of misconduct by Phoenix City PD, toward homeless people, protesters and generally citizens of different, racial and ethnic background, was damning.

Contrast that to Tucson Police Department, which under different police chiefs, has continued to create an agency of integrity and dignity in their professionalism: in recruitment, training and continued training. Recently Asst. Chief Kevin Hall was admitted to a evidence-based policing national institute. A rare and worthy group.

Are there areas of concern? Absolutely. Every officer involved shooting must be investigated and evaluated.

But we as Tucsonans should be very proud to have Tucson Police Department working for our community.

Margarita Bernal

West side

Defining the Republican Party

Re: the June 26 article Giving Republicanism a bad name.

Kimball Shinkoskey did a good job of defining the Republican party, but perhaps space limitations prohibited more.

Ronald Reagan started the war on unions, and the middle class in general, by firing the air traffic controllers, and he removed Jimmy Carters solar collectors out of spite and ignorance.

Our own Sandra Day OConnor helped give us George W. Bush instead of letting the wheels of democracy work. He gave us one unwinnable war and an unnecessary war and layered huge tax cuts on top.

It took Barack Obama eight years to dig us out of Ws caused Great Recession, and hand Trump a flourishing economy  which he squandered by the end of his term.

The pattern Republicans have set is one of giveaways to the wealthy via tax cuts and deficits to cover basic government operations. Democrats run deficits too, but they direct the money to projects and people that build the economy and social services.

Ted Morrison

Midtown

Bring back trains

With the current airline mess, we need to look to Europe, Japan and China to see what can be done with high-speed trains up to 222 mph but more often 124 mph.

First to be built would be those that are too far to drive and too short to fly. Then look into transcontinental routes with overnight trains between major cities and with compartments, dining cars etc. As long as we have extreme weather events the airlines are at a disadvantage.

It would be a program like the interstate highway system of the 1950s, justified as a military necessity, could guide us.

It would put a lot of people to work and reduced air pollution and reduce transportation costs

Donald Plummer

Northwest side

Democrats are not behaving like winners

The huge number of Democratic officials and pundits who called for Joe Biden to step aside does not bode well for the party now or in the future. The Democrats have found a way to shoot themselves in the foot and help the Republicans in the November elections.

Fran Gordon

Green Valley

Joe Biden

President Joe Biden announced he will not run for the Democratic nomination on July 21, but he still has the responsibility to serve the remaining six months of his four-year term. His family, his staff and most of the media have been hiding almost all of his accelerating physical and mental issues for several years. I wont be surprised if he is forced to resign the Presidency sometime during the next six months.

Douglas R. Holm

East side

Character vote results

The results are in from the recent character vote taken in the U.S.:

Joe Biden 333.3 million

Donald Trump 0

Stephanie Cady

SaddleBrooke

Whos incompetent?

Where are the Republicans with the courage to question the abilities of their presidential candidate?

Teresa Davis

Midtown

Unfair coverage

Biden did the right thing for the country by stepping down. Would Trump ever put anything before him? I do feel the media unfairly picked on his misstatements, some are due to his history of a stutter, but gave Trump a pass on statements that are insane. Airports in Revolutionary War, obsessions with electric vehicles, sharks, Hannibal Lecter, who he doesnt seem to know is fictional, didnt know what state he was in. The 30 thousand lies in office, this shows a significant degree of of dementia, not fit for office due to mental status and morally unfit.

Craig Miller

Northwest side

Men in Black

I was raised Catholic and stopped attending church decades ago. I grew weary of being preached to about right and wrong by morally compromised men in black robes. The abuse of children was not a few isolated incidents, but a systematic global activity ruining the lives of many thousands.

A relative recently married a Catholic woman and was required to fill out a questionnaire with several queries about his sex life. This was a requirement for the privilege of being married in the church. He was not allowed to ask the priest about his sex life.

Today, the Supreme Court, with six Catholic justices, are imposing their brand of morality on U.S. citizens. Like the priests, these men in black robes (along with Amy Coney Stepford) believe their activities are above reproach and refuse to be held accountable for their stunning conflicts of interest. While Im certain any attempts to impose ethical standards will be ruled unconstitutional by the justices, we must at least try.

Jim Lombardo

Oro Valley

Demeaning and disrespecting women

Re: the July 23 letter Be careful what you wish for.

The writer is parroting the new talking points line of the GOP, DEI hire in reference to Kamala Harris. She is a lawyer, a former prosecutor, attorney general, senator, and VP. What were Trumps qualifications before running for President?

Is the term DEI hire now going to be used to refer to any woman or person of color holding office? How should we refer to white men, since they have been handed positions of power without question for centuries? Were they all deserving? Once again, Republicans show their disrespect for women and minorities.

Mary Jordison

Northwest side

A time for wisdom

Most people have a filter when an untrue (stupid?) thought comes to mind. We all occasionally have them. However, mature people stop themselves. Exercise self-control. Remember what it means to be a responsible adult.

Apparently, todays MAGA Conservatives (in government, industry, media, religion) have emptied themselves of this God-given check. They go ahead and display their stupidity. Out loud. Then, for days they repeat ad nauseum the untruths throughout their echo chamber of distortion.

This is not surprising, since their idolized leader does the same thing. Shaped by a lifetime of lying to himself and others with ease, and I dare say, even talent, they descend down the same vile rabbit hole.

MAGAs responses to Bidens decision not to seek a second term, and to Harriss inspiring candidacy fall into such categories of untruth and insanity. Expect to hear more, Americans. Be wise.

Ron Rude

West side

In the year 2025

A great song from 1969 sung by Zager and Evans, titled In the Year 2525 has the following lyrics: In the year 2525, if man is still alive, if woman can survive, they may find.

Project 2025: Donald Trump and the Republicans want to shorten the period by 500 years until there is irreparable dystopian rule. Project 2025 is a blueprint for Trumps presidency spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation and dozens of Trump administration officials. It is essentially a wish list for his administration that plans to expand his executive authority, replace civil servants with ideologically aligned appointees, crush abortion rights, and impose an anti-immigrant agenda, among other policies.

We have been warned, voters. Vote responsibly this coming November.

Mike Villalobos

West side

Southern border

Recently there have been several letters to the editor concerning migrants coming across the southern border illegally. The letter writers insist that it is Congress, not the President, responsible for the mass of migrants crossing our Southern border.

Congress is responsible for making laws. It is the responsibility of the executive branch, led by the President to enforce laws.

U.S. Code title 18 section 1325 makes it a misdemeanor to enter the U.S. anywhere except for ports of entry. Section 1326 makes it a felony to illegally enter after being deported.

If our laws were ENFORCED there would be no southern border crisis.

Dont put the blame for the border crisis on Congress. Look at who is (or isnt ) enforcing the laws already on the books.

Thomas Wenzel

East side

Talk about voter suppression!

I was talking to a friend of mine about mail-in voting. She was complaining that she and her neighbors were not getting their voting materials in the mail. She went to the recorders office on Broadway and Kolb and they told her to go downtown to the main office. Long story short, after her search down the rabbit hole, she finally got a hold of the right person. According to the Pima County Recorders office, my friend was told that she signed paperwork that she NO LONGER wanted a mail-in ballot. What? She was livid! She had never signed anything of the sort! Her neighbors? Same thing! They had never signed any paperwork either! Talk about voter suppression! If you havent gotten your voting materials, you better check and see if someone signed papers on your behalf to stop your mail in ballots.

Linda Schaub

Southeast side

Shouldnt it be MAGAA?

Having been born in this great country I have always felt fortunate. Growing up, my parents had jobs, I could safely play in the parks and I got a great public school education.

About nine years ago, a political candidate decided that the USA needed him to Make America Great Again. Silly me, I thought America was already Great. The American voters trusted this politician and elected him (though not with a majority vote) to be our President. And what did he do? Bloated our national debt, gave tax breaks to the wealthy and eliminated a womans right to health care.

America gave him four years and he failed and yet hes still wearing a silly MAGA hat and asking us to be fooled again. Shouldnt his hat say Make America Great Again (Again)? He fooled us once, shame on him. If he fools us again, shame on us.

Dont be fooled by this charlatan again. He had his chance and he failed us all.

Ken Freed

East side

Whos a DEI hire?

Editor,

U.S. Representative Tim Burchett attempted to put down Kamala Harris by stating that she was a DEI hire. This is an all-too-common way of suggesting that she lacks merit, that the only reason she is where she is today is because of her gender and skin color. Unfortunately, too many women and people of color have lived with such insults their entire lives.

The truth just might be that many women and people of color are where they are today despite their gender or color. I wonder if Tim Burchett has ever given any thought as to whether or not he would be representing the great state of Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives today had he been born with Black skin?

Dave Gallagher

Foothills

Copper World is a health threat

Re: the July 17 article New anti-pollution measures are good.

As per Dr. Eve Shapiros well-written article, air pollution can create permanent damage to young lungs and worsen life quality in elderly compromised populations. Hudbay is now asking for public comments on its Class 2 Air Quality Permit that was applied for on October 21, 2022. Unfortunately, this permit does not have to comply with the new air quality standards as described in the Clean Air Act of 2024 that she lauds in her opinion piece. Recent severe wind storms have shown how difficult it is to contain dust in the atmosphere. Dust from mines includes not just large and small particulate matter, but toxic metals like cadmium, lead, mercury, arsenic and copper. Of these, only lead is monitored by the EPA. We must demand that this mine comply to a Class 1 Air Permit to mitigate some of the impending damage to Pima Countys 1 million plus residents.

Elaine Wolter
On July 10, only two days after Hurricane Beryl made landfall, more than 2,200 new Americans took the oath of citizenship at NRG Arena. Courtesy of Chelsie Kramer

Hurricane Beryls destructive trek across Houston knocked out power to millions, shuttered businesses and canceled summer classes across the region, bringing normal life to an all-too-familiar halt for weather-weary Houstonians.

But there was one thing the storm didnt stop: A historic naturalization ceremony at NRG Arena  the largest ever in Harris County since COVID  went on without a hitch just two days after landfall.

More than 2,200 Houstonians from 121 different countries officially became U.S. citizens. And it shouldnt go unnoticed that they braved the heat, traveled storm-ravaged streets and interrupted their own personal Beryl struggles to secure the most important document in the world: a U.S. passport.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

In the context of the collective trauma our region is experiencing, it is a bright spot.

This group of new Americans  who have chosen to put down roots here and contributed to Houstons prosperity for years  can now reap all the benefits of citizenship, including higher rates of home ownership, increased earning power, freedom of travel and voting.

We should all applaud ceremonies like the one this week at NRG. Thats because citizenship doesnt just benefit the person taking the oath  it benefits everyone who calls Greater Houston home.

Houston is one of the most diverse cities in the nation. According to the Migration Policy Institute, close to 1 in 4 people living in our metro area is foreign-born, and nearly 50% of Houston children live with at least one immigrant parent.

The institute estimates that Houston is home to more than 300,000 lawful permanent residents who are eligible to become U.S. citizens. The vast majority of these Houstonians  80%  have lived in the United States for more than 10 years, and 40% have lived here more than 20 years.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

But although they are eligible to take the final step toward citizenship, less than 10% do every year.

Imagine if we removed the barriers to naturalization and made this milestone more accessible.

If more eligible Houstonians were to naturalize, they could participate in future elections, giving Houston a bigger voice to address our regions unique needs. (Storm preparedness and resilient infrastructure come to mind.)

Volunteers with the League of Women Voters of Houston registered 1,905 new American voters at the July 10 ceremony  about 85% of those naturalized  and have registered more than 11,500 newly naturalized citizens this year alone.

Despite recent rhetoric, new Americans are not a voting monolith. Recent polling shows that while new citizens care about many of the same bread-and-butter issues as those born here  with the economy ranking most important  they hold a range of political beliefs, with party identification relatively split down the middle.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Encouraging naturalization makes business sense, too.

Research shows that citizenship leads to more stable and better-paying jobs and opens up employment opportunities, including positions with the federal government and those that require international travel. Immigrants already play a crucial role in many sectors important to Houston, including medicine, engineering and construction  42% of our doctors and 36% of our engineers are foreign-born, as are more than half of our construction workers.

Immigrants in Houston also contribute to the tax base, having paid $16.3 billion in federal, state and local taxes between 2016 and 2021. Expanding their employment opportunities would pay off for everyone. According to research from Thai V. Le at the University of Southern California, if all eligible Houstonians became citizens, wages here would grow by more than $950 million, boosting the local economy and tax revenue.

There are reasons why less than 10% of eligible immigrants take the step toward naturalization each year. The cost of the application has risen to $760  100 times the minimum hourly wage. In 1994, the fee was only $95. The high fee forces many families to choose between putting food on the table or saving for citizenship.

The process can also be overwhelming and confusing to navigate, and it involves completing a long and complex legal document.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Community partners and civic leaders across Greater Houston are working together to address these barriers and put more people on that path to citizenship. Efforts include the national New Americans Campaign, as well as Naturalize Now, Houston!, a first-of-its-kind, public-private partnership that aims to help Houstons more than 300,000 eligible residents become naturalized U.S. citizens over the next three years.

This innovative collaboration pairs community navigators at local organizations with eligible-to-naturalize residents, helping them access language services and legal support, complete the application and study for the citizenship exam.

Some of those helped were at NRG on July 10. After taking their oaths, they streamed out of the arena by the thousands, waving their certificates and American flags and wearing proud smiles while surrounded by family and friends.

Though the national conversation around immigration has become divisive, we should not overlook the hundreds of thousands of eligible-to-naturalize immigrants already living, working and raising families here. By helping more eligible Houstonians become naturalized citizens, our region will experience greater economic growth and civic engagement and become more resilient as a whole  no matter what the next storm brings.
The State Securities Commission of Vietnam has proposed eliminating the current regulation that requires foreign institutional investors to deposit 100 percent of the transaction value before trading stocks in Vietnam.

If foreign investors fail to make full payments, securities companies through which foreign investors make transactions will take responsibility for the payment, according to the proposal.

The proposition is included in a draft circular that the State Securities Commission has issued for public feedback.

Tran Truong Manh Hieu, head of the strategy analysis unit at KIS Vietnam Securities Corporation, stated that securities brokerages would be permitted to sell the stocks of foreign institutional investors if these investors fail to make payments.

They would have to evaluate their foreign institutional customers to decide the deposit rates for them.

The draft circular also includes a mandate that listed companies, public companies, and relevant agencies must disclose their information in English.

Pursuant to the prevailing regulations, the information disclosure in English is currently compulsory for stock exchanges and Vietnam Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation only, according to Dr. Tran Viet Dung, head of the Research Institute for Banking under the Banking Academy of Vietnam.

The World Banks market research indicated that some 10 percent of listed companies in Vietnam have announced their information and financial reports in English, with most of them having high capitalization, Dung noted.

Nguyen Khac Hai, managing director of legal affairs and compliance at SSI Securities Corporation, claimed that the major obstacles to upgrading the stock market are issues related to clearing, delivery versus payment, and the handling of failed transactions.

A solution to these issues is applying the central clearing counterparty model, which will take time to implement, including the necessary adjustments to regulations governing the operation of custodian banks.

Payment for foreign institutional investors' transactions by securities companies will address this problem, according to Hai, though it will entail high risks necessitating an upgrade in their risk management systems.

The new policy should consider the potential for foreign institutional investors to default on payments.

Securities companies should prepare large capital resources to minimize risk, according to Bui Van Huy, managing director of the Ho Chi Minh City branch of DSC Securities Corporation.

Bui Hoang Hai, vice-chairman of the State Securities Commission of Vietnam, cited experts as saying that new regulations in the draft circulation are appropriate and feasible.

Most international investors have voiced their support for these regulations.

The State Securities Commission of Vietnam hoped these rules would exert a positive impact on the Vietnamese stock market upgrade, the official added.

Two renowned international rating organizations, MSCI and FTSE Russell, currently categorize the Vietnamese stock market as a frontier market.

FTSE Russell has included Vietnam in the list of markets awaiting an upgrade to an emerging market as it has met seven out of the nine criteria.

The stock market upgrade may help Vietnam attract an additional US$25 billion from international investors by 2030, according to the World Bank.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
A public-service car with plate 80B-2089 that served General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong for 18 years was brought to the National Funeral Hall at No. 5 Tran Thanh Tong Street in Hanoi, where his state funeral took place on Thursday.

The special Toyota Crown car lies in a corner of the national funeral hall.

The vehicle was provided for the office of Vietnams lawmaking National Assembly (NA) in 1998, and started to serve the Party chief in 2006 when he was appointed as the chairman of the NA. The car was used for eight years beforehand.

He was elected as the Party leader in 2011 when the car had been operating for 13 years.

As of the passing of Party General Secretary Trong, the vehicle had been in use for 26 years, accompanying the Party chief for 18 years.

The car reflected the Party leaders simple, economical, humble lifestyle, and his devotion to the nation and people.

Nguyen Duc Ha, former head of the Party Grassroot Department under the Organization Commission of the Central Party Committee, previously said that the office of the Central Party Committee had proposed changing the car for another as it was already old.

However, the Party chief disagreed with the offer, explaining that it still ran well, and was only used to travel around Hanoi.

Changing the car would cost money, said the Party leader.

Vietnams Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong moves to his car after attending an event. Photo: Tien Tuan / Tuoi Tre

Tran Dinh Dan, former chief of the office of the NA, told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that the car had been used by former Chairman of the NA Nong Duc Manh.

Dan recounted that he and other officials hinted at buying a new car, but Party chief Trong, who served as NA chairman at that time, refused the proposal and deemed it good enough.

He utilized the car until his death. He passed away at 1:38 pm on July 19, 2024 at the age of 80 at 108 Military Central Hospital in Hanoi despite the efforts of leading doctors and healthcare experts to treat his age-related serious illnesses.

A car used to carry Vietnams Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. Photo: Tuan Huy / Tuoi Tre

A two-day state funeral for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong began on Thursday, with the respect-paying ceremony starting from 7:00 am at the National Funeral Hall at No. 5 Tran Thanh Tong Street in Hanoi, the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Minh City, and his hometown  Dong Hoi Commune, Dong Anh District, Hanoi.

A burial service for the Party chief takes place from 3:00 pm Friday at Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi.

Around 1:30 pm on Thursday, throngs of people flocked to the cultural house in Lai Da Hamlet in Dong Hoi Commune, one of the three locations to host the state funeral, to pay their final respects to the Party leader though it rained.

Tran Dinh Dan served as chief of the National Assembly office during the 2007-11 period. Photo: Danh Khang / Tuoi Tre

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
A burial service for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, who passed away at 1:38 pm on Friday last week, took place at Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi today, July 26, 2024.

Earlier, a memorial service was held for him at 1:00 pm on the same day.

Attending the ceremonies were family members of the late Party chief, incumbent and former leaders of the Party, state, government, lawmaking National Assembly, and other agencies of Vietnam, as well as foreign delegations.

Thousands of residents also gathered along the streets from the National Funeral Hall to Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi to bid farewell to the Party leader.

The memorial service for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Nguyen Khanh / Tuoi Tre

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made significant and outstanding contributions to the Party and the nation in nearly 60 years.

His passing is an extremely huge loss to the Party, state, and people of Vietnam as well as his family.

To mourn and commemorate Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front hold the state funeral for him.

A total of over 5,600 delegations, comprising 252,000 people, paid their last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Reunification Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and in Lai Da Village, Dong Hoi Commune, Dong Anh District, Hanoi, from 7:00 am on Thursday to 12:00 am on Friday and from 7:00 am to 12:00 pm on Friday, according to the organizers of the state funeral.

Leaders of the Party and state of Vietnam walk around the casket of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

Guards of honor carry a portrait of late Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, his medals, a Vietnamese national flag, and the casket of the Party chief out of the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi as they prepare for a funeral procession to Mai Dich Cemetery on July 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnamese State President To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man, Permanent Member of the Party Central Committee's Secretariat Luong Cuong, and guards of honor carry the casket of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong out of the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Nguyen Khanh / Tuoi Tre

The hearse for late Vietnamese Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong passes through the University of Science under the Vietnam National University-Hanoi, July 26,2024. Photo: Danh Trong / Tuoi Tre

Thousands of people stand along the streets from the National Funeral Hall to Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi to wait for the funeral procession for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 26, 2024. Photo: Danh Trong / Tuoi Tre

Guards of honor carry the casket of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to a grave at Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

Guards of honor lower the casket of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong into a grave at Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

The spouse of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and incumbent and former leaders of the Party and state of Vietnam at the burial service for the Party leader at Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

Family members of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. Picture taken in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

Incumbent and former leaders of the Party and state of Vietnam as well as international guests observe a one-minute silence to pay tribute to the deceased Party leader on July 26, 2024. Photo: Vietnam News Agency

Family members of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. Picture taken in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Hong Quang / Tuoi Tre

Tay ethnic minority women from Lao Cai Province, nearly 300 kilometers from Hanoi, gather in front of Mai Dich Cemetery in the capital city to bid farewell to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 26, 2024. Photo: Ha Thanh / Tuoi Tre

Residents crowd the road on which Mai Dich Cemetery is located in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Nam Tran / Tuoi Tre

Residents cry during the funeral procession for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi on July 26, 2024. Photo: Duong Lieu / Tuoi Tre

Dang Huu Lam (holding a portrait of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong), a 68-year-old resident in Hai Duong Province, some 60 kilometers from Hanoi, said he was off work to bid farewell to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 26, 2024. Photo: Quynh Trang / Tuoi Tre

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:

-- A total of 1,565 delegations, comprising 55,600 people, paid their final respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Reunification Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and his hometown in Lai Da Village, Dong Hoi Commune, located in Hanoi's outlying district of Dong Anh, from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm on Thursday, the Vietnam News Agency reported.

-- On Thursday, Vietnamese National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man met with Tolstoy Petr Olegovich, Deputy Chairman of Russias State Duma (lower house), who is in Vietnam to attend the state funeral of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Society

-- At a guesthouse in a town bordering Laos, the Quang Tri Province Border Guard of Vietnam arrested a girl along with 15kg of ketamine on Tuesday, local border guards said on Thursday. During their urgent investigation, they also discovered an additional 40 bricks of heroin and several kilograms of 'happy water' (a slang term for a drug solution).

-- Do Thi Nguyen, director of the Department of Health in Binh Phuoc Province, southern Vietnam, on Thursday asked a local food safety watchdog to suspend the facility that provided meals for Pin Yuan Vietnam Co., Ltd. at Nam Dong Phu Industrial Park in Dong Phu District, where 63 of its employees were hospitalized on Tuesday after eating the meals, showing signs of food poisoning.

-- An electric vehicle fire occurred in Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam early on Friday, destroying 21 electric vehicles in minutes, local authorities said the same day.

-- The weather in the northern region of Vietnam is forecast to have significantly less rain on Friday, with many areas experiencing hot and sunny conditions, followed by showers in the evening. The southern region will have mostly cloudy skies, with showers to heavy rain expected.

Lifestyle

-- Nguyen Van Duong, a non-tea drinker born in 1984 and residing in Thuan An City, Binh Duong Province, southern Vietnam, owns nearly 1,000 antique teapots and particularly cherishes a teapot made in 1984 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu.

Business

-- HSBC has revised its forecast for Vietnam's GDP growth this year to 6.5 percent, up from the previous projection of six percent, following the country's better-than-expected performance in the first half of the year, according to the bank's latest 'Vietnam at a Glance' report.

World News

-- "Japan has warned of the need to be increasingly vigilant to excessive foreign exchange fluctuations driven by speculation at a Group of 20 meeting," Reuters quoted top currency diplomat Masato Kanda as saying on Thursday.

-- "More than 97% of Windows sensors are back online, CrowdStrike's CEO George Kurtz said on Thursday, nearly a week after a software update by the cybersecurity firm triggered a global outage," according to Reuters.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on X to get the latest news about Vietnam!
A fire ravaged 21 electric sightseeing cars in Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam in the early hours of Friday morning, a local official confirmed the same day.

The blaze broke out at around 4:30 am at a parking lot of Hoi An Electric Car Company located along Nguyen Tat Thanh Street, a leader of the Hoi An City administration told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

Around 25 electric cars were ready to serve sightseeing tours of the day before the fire swept through the parking area.

Employees of the company attempted to put out the blaze and alerted local authorities, managing to save four cars.

Previously, another electric vehicle fire in Hoi An destroyed 43 sightseeing cars due to a short circuit.

An enormous column of smoke rises from a fire which destroyed 21 electric sightseeing cars in Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam, July 26, 2024. Photo: Pham Sanh

Firefighters put out an electric car fire in Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam, July 26, 2024. Photo: Pham Sanh

A fire-hit electric sightseeing car in Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam, July 26, 2024. Photo: Ba Thanh

The scene of an electric sightseeing car fire, which happened in Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, central Vietnam, July 26, 2024. Photo: Ba Thanh

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
The Peoples Council of Long An Province, southwestern Vietnam will submit a plan to the prime minister to build three bridges along a provincial road in a bid to connect the province with Ho Chi Minh City and Tien Giang Province.

As proposed, Provincial Road 827E will feature three new bridges over the Can Giuoc, Vam Co Dong and Vam Co Tay rivers, the provincial Peoples Council announced on Thursday.

If the plan is approved, the construction of the three bridges will help smooth the route from Ho Chi Minh City through Long An Province to Tien Giang Province, boosting the connectivity between the southern metropolis with the Mekong Delta region.

The building of the three bridges is expected to ease traffic pressure on National Highways 1, N2 and 50 at the western gateway of Ho Chi Minh City.

The route will also link Long An International Seaport and other southwestern provinces, contributing to driving up socio-economic development in the province and the region.

The trio were proposed to have six lanes each, with the steel-arch bridge over the Can Giuoc River set to be 568 meters long.

The cable-stayed bridge over the Vam Co Dong River will have a total length of over 1,350 meters, while the bridge over the Vam Co Tay River will measure 1,410 meters in length.

The trio will be implemented during the 2025-30 period, with a total capital of nearly VND4.8 trillion (US$190 million).

Of the total, more than VND4 trillion ($160 million) will be sourced from South Koreas official development assistance loans, while the rest will come from the reciprocal capital.

Besides, the provincial Peoples Council passed a project to develop roads leading to the three bridges along Provincial Road 827E at a total cost of over VND3 trillion ($118.7 million).

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!
Nine News Melbourne is claiming victory in the 2024 ratings year based on weeks won.

As we near the end of the 22nd week in the 40-week official ratings calendar, Nine News has claimed all 22 weeks based on average weekly audience measurements  the first time Melbourne has secured the top spot since 2021.

It follows Nine boldly switching anchors to the duo of Alicia Loxley and Tom Steinfort earlier this year, while Peter Hitchener is also leading in weekend results.

Hugh Nailon, Director of 9News Melbourne, said: Reclaiming the ratings crown in Melbourne is a testament to the relentless efforts of everyone in our talented newsroom. With Alicia Loxley and Tom Steinfort hosting Monday to Friday and Peter Hitchener hosting weekends, we offer unparalleled dynamism and experience across the seven days. We are honoured by the trust our viewers place in us and remain committed to delivering news that is both relevant and impactful. This achievement motivates us to keep pushing the boundaries of news reporting and to serve our community with the highest standards of journalism.

Source: TVMAP VOZ Program Analyser, VOZ Data 5.0  OzTAM Pty Limited [2023], Melbourne, Seven Content, Nine Content, 11/02/2024 23/03/2024 & 7/04/2024- 24/07/2024 v 12/02/2023- 1/04/2023 & 16/04/2023- 26/07/2023, Average Audience, Total People, Total TV, Overnight. Program descriptions include: 9News, 9News Saturday, 9News Sunday, Nine News, Nine News 6:30, Nine News Saturday, Nine News Sunday, Seven News, Seven News at 630, Seven News- Sat, Seven News- Sun. Excludes Spill.
Scottish police drama Rebus, starring Richard Rankin (Outlander), will screen via SBS on Demand next week, ahead of its SBS linear broadcast (August 15).

The 2024 series is a reboot of the 2000s series starring John Hannah.

Thursday August 1 at SBS on Demand.

All six episodes.

Based on the best-selling books by Ian Rankin, Rebus reimagines the iconic character John Rebus as a younger Detective Sergeant, drawn into a violent criminal conflict that turns personal when his brother Michael, a former soldier, crosses the line.

Haunted by an incident one year ago, where he almost killed Edinburgh gangster Ger Cafferty, Detective Sergeant John Rebus finds himself at a psychological crossroads. At odds with a job increasingly driven by corporate technocrats, involved in a toxic affair he knows he needs to end, and all but supplanted in his daughters life by his ex-wifes wealthy new husband, Rebus begins to wonder if he still has a role to play  either as a family man or a police officer.

In a world of divisive politics and national discord, does the law still have meaning, or is everyone reverting to an older set of rules? And if so, why shouldnt Rebus do so too?
Alexis Nungaray bows her head by the casket of her 12-year-old daughter, Jocelyn, on Thursday, June 2. Brett Coomer/Staff photographer

The savage murders of 14-year-old Jennifer Ertman and 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena on a summer night in 1993 horrified Houstonians and the nation. The teenagers cut through a park to get home by curfew, when they encountered a street gang of six young men who grabbed them. The girls were thrown into a gang initiation of rape, torture and murder. Their bodies were left to rot by White Oak Bayou.

Among the killers was Jose Medellin, a Mexican national who had illegally entered the United States and spent most of his life here. The gang members raped, sodomized and strangled the girls, finally growing so impatient with their inability to kill them that they stomped them to death. And they kept trophies, including Jennifers Disney watch, which was given to a gang members little brother.

One of us, Kim Ogg, was the chief gang prosecutor for the Harris County District Attorneys Office in 1993. Along with fellow prosecutors, she helped police deliver justice. All six murderers were arrested within days and ultimately, five were sentenced to death. The lone juvenile got the maximum, 40 years.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

As the case moved through the legal system, it ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court. One of us, Ted Cruz, was then solicitor general of Texas, and defended the right of Texans to sentence a foreign national to death for a capital crime. The Supreme Court agreed, and in 2008, Medellin was executed.

A 1993 missing persons flyers for Elizabeth Pena, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 14. Carlos Antonio Rios/Houston Chronicle

Thirty-one years after the murders of Jennifer and Elizabeth, a similarly brutal attack, with some of the same haunting hallmarks, has shaken our city. It has also brought together leaders from across the political aisle to protect our most innocent victims: children.

On June 17, 2024, the body of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray was found, nude from the waist down, submerged in another Houston bayou. She had been strangled and likely sexually assaulted. Two Venezuelan nationals, who entered the country illegally, have been arrested, charged and remain in custody.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Both men charged with Jocelyns death had just recently entered Texas illegally and been captured in El Paso, where they were enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program. This meant they were released into the interior of the United States, despite the availability of ICE detention center beds, where they could have been held until their immigration court hearings. This program did not protect Jocelyn. In fact, such catch and release policies dont protect anyone.

Jocelyns killing is not just a tragic loss for her family, but a painful reminder of the nations failed border policies and the dangers that we all face as a result. Houston is a hub for immigrants who enter the country illegally because of the labor market and our proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border. When records of past criminal behavior are absent, U.S. officials are in the dark about those they catch and release and where they go. In Jocelyns case, these accused killers came to Houston. In 1993, society could do little more than help the Pena and Ertman families pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. But 2024 is different.



Our childrens safety should not be a partisan issue One of us, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, is a Republican. And the other of us, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, is a Democrat. We are both working to protect our kids from predators, including those who enter the country illegally.

In the U.S. Senate, Cruz has introduced the Justice for Jocelyn Act of 2024, which would require ICE to fill every detention center bed before releasing immigrants who entered the country illegally to an Alternatives to Detention program, and to immediately deport those who violate the terms of their release.

In Houston, Ogg formed a Homicide Division to focus the best of the best on the worst of the worst. The most experienced prosecutors take on the most dangerous killers, including Jocelyns accused killers. Ogg has publicly stated that if the evidence supports a death penalty eligible charge against the two, shell bring it. In the meantime, she supports Cruzs legislation because it will make everyone safer.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad
Welcome Guest! You are here: Home

OpenAI rolls-out SearchGPT

Microsoft backed OpenAI which stormed the internet space last January entered the Google search market launching its own AI powered SearchGPT

Saturday July 27, 2024 0:34 AM , ummid.com News Network

San Francisco: Microsoft backed OpenAI which stormed the internet space last January entered the Google search market launching its own AI powered SearchGPT.

OpenAI had rolled out AI chatbot ChatGPT in January 2023 kickstarting an AI war with tech giants making their apps AI enabled.

Microsoft was the first to integrate AI features on its Bing search. Google followed by adding  Bard  in Google Search.

A year into the AI war, OpenAI Thursday rolled out SearchGPT  an AI powered search engine with real-time access to information from the internet.

SearchGPT is still in test mode and has been launched select users on trial basis.

Were testing SearchGPT, a prototype of new search features designed to combine the strength of our AI models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources, OpenAI said. Were launching to a small group of users and publishers to get feedback. While this prototype is temporary, we plan to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future, it said. "SearchGPT will quickly and directly respond to your questions with up-to-date information from the web while giving you clear links to relevant sources", the company said.

SearchGPT is designed to help users connect with publishers by prominently citing and linking to them in searches.

"Responses have clear, in-line, named attribution and links so users know where information is coming from and can quickly engage with even more results in a sidebar with source links", the company said.

The new platform also includes images in search result. For instance, if a user wants to know how to replace a tyre, they will be able to see step-by-step diagrams with images. This is a radically different approach from how conventional search engines work.

OpenAI launched SearchGPT prototype a day after Microsoft rolls-out " Bing Generative Search ". This is a new feature Microsoft search engine Bing which combines power of Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).

Select Language To Read in Urdu, Hindi, Marathi or Arabic.
HA NOI  ong Nai Province's footwear industry still faces many risks though it is showing signs of improvement in production and exports in the first half of this year, insiders said.

Le Quoc Thanh, general director of the province-based Phong Thai Group, said that his group has five member companies. From the beginning of the year, their production and export performance have shown signs of recovery, but not to levels pre pandemic.

Due to insufficient orders, workers in these companies do not work overtime. The recent geopolitic conflicts have also made shipping times on Red Sea route longer and transportation more costly. This directly affects their production recovery, Thanh told baodongnai.com.vn.

Tran Quoc Bao, deputy director of Casum Shoes JSC in Bien Hoa City, said up to 80 per cent of the firm's footwear products are shipped to the European market. However, his firm lacks large and long-term orders.

Thanh told the online newspaper that prices of raw materials have thus far this year increased by about 20 per cent, but export prices have not increased, so his company's profit has narrowed.

He added that some orders are not profitable but his firm still signs contracts to ensure jobs for workers.

Footwear is ong Nai's largest export item, earning the southern province over US$4 billion each year. At the same time, ong Nai is also one of the four leading footwear-exporting localities in the country.

Over the past six months of this year, the province's footwear exports topped over $2.2 billion, up 8.2 per cent year-on-year. Many footwear producers in the province have won orders from many international brands such as Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Puma.

Trade experts said the province's footwear products have been exported to over 70 countries and territories but the US and the EU are the two largest outlets, but footwear exports to these markets have been significantly affected by the Red Sea conflict that led to the shipping time increase by 1.5 times and costs rise by 10-20 per cent.

But the footwear industry has two main production seasons which are the beginning of the year and the end of the year. In early 2024, the province's footwear production and exports gradually recovered and showed signs of rebounding. Local footwear producers are expecting the year-end production season to have some breakthrough growth.

Meanwhile, many multinational retail corporations have come to Viet Nam to find more sources of goods for supermarkets, shopping centres and stores, experts said.

The world economy is forecast to continue recovery in the last months of the year, so consumer demand for goods such as footwear will likely increase. That will be an opportunity for businesses to expand exports, they said.

Vuu Le Minh, deputy general director of Binh Tien Bien Hoa Company which produces shoes under the Bitis' brand for both domestic and export markets, said she hopes that in the latter months of the year, domestic and foreign consumers will shop more, helping the domestic footwear industry recover.  VNS
HA NOI  General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, despite occupying the highest position of Party and State leadership, remained a cherished friend to his peers at the Ha Noi Universitys Literature Department. His unpretentious demeanor, emotional depth and genuine attentiveness endeared him to all.

In the recollections of his old classmate, journalist and photographic artist Chu Chi Thanh, who was a war correspondent for the Vietnam News Agency, General Secretary Trong emerges as a paradox  outwardly slow-paced, soft-spoken and with a gentle gait, yet harbouring an unwavering will  a lifetime commitment to serving the people and the nation.

Youth's dreams and ideals

He became emotional revisiting his youth with General Secretary Trong in Literature Class VIII at the Ha Noi University (1963-1967), but Thanh takes immense pride in his class  a group of dreamers and idealists, poised to charge into battle, whether wielding pens or cameras.

For him, the Party leader was a friend etched in his mind  a young man with a gentle smile that radiated amiability. Their bond deepened during the years of evacuation in ai Tu District in the northern mountainous province of Thai Nguyen, where they lived together in farming families, working together, building a school and studying side by side.

Back then, Trong was an active member of the Youth Union, being a familiar figure to all. The older students held a vested interest in shaping the next generation to be future Party members, journalists, cultural figures, poets and writers. It was during this pivotal period that the elders noticed Nguyen Phu Trongs unwavering commitment. In his final year, he was recruited into the Party. Meanwhile, we were destined for the battlefield, Thanh recalled.

After graduation, his friend Nguyen Phu Trong was employed at the Cong San (Communist Review) magazine, starting as an editor, then gradually became the person in charge of the magazine  this was also the career progression of a journalist.

"From the 90s onwards, the country's economy had started to improve, we wanted to reconnect with each other and we would almost always meet up after Tet, and organised many of the gatherings at the Vietnam News Agency, where memories flowed and bonds rekindled," Thanh said.

The veteran journalist said that he owes the Party leader a 'thank you' as he played a key role in the establishment of the National Archives and Exhibition Centre Artistic Photos.

When Thanh was the Chairman of the Viet Nam Association of Photographic Artists (VAPA) (2006-2009), he wished to complete the establishment of the archives centre.

Although the Vietnam News Agency has the largest photo archive in the country, it primarily consists of news and political photos, while other types of photos (such as historical photos before 1945) are not available. Additionally, photos from the general public across the country are also not included. Therefore, we wanted to establish an Archives Centre under the VAPA with a broader scope, so that we can have a more diverse and valuable photo collection about the country, Thanh said.

He immediately thought of his friend Nguyen Phu Trong, who was then the Secretary of the Ha Noi Party Committee.

Hearing the proposal for a photo archive about the country, people and revolution, Trong agreed and in just a week I had in my hand a referral for land grant approval from the city People's Committee. The project had been going on for 14 years and had yet to be implemented and in just three years, the centre was opened, Thanh said.

Revolutionary literature carried us forward

In the spring of 2011, Thanhs old classmate took office as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam. All the members of the Literature Class VIII gathered to congratulate Nguyen Phu Trong on his new position and also to applaud their teacher Ha Minh uc on his 76th birthday.

Thanh recalled that at the class reunion, his friend Trong was very respectful and deferential towards teacher uc. Despite holding the highest position in the Party, he said humbly: "This is the result of the Party's training, the teachings of teachers, and the encouragement and support of our classmates."

The General Secretary also shared: "There are people in our class who are more talented and have endured greater hardships going to battlefields, but I was fortunate enough to enter politics  this was not due to any special innate abilities."

According to Thanh, when in the university, they all admired Tran Hung ao [a 13th-century military commander] with his Hich Tuong Si (The Exhortation to the Military Generals), Nguyen Trai with Binh Ngo ai Cao (Declaration of the Restoration of Peace), Nguyen Binh Khiem (aka Trang Trinh) with his poetic works and other writers from the pre-revolutionary period such as Nam Cao, Nguyen Cong Hoan, Xuan Dieu, Che Lan Vien, Te Hanh and Nguyen inh Thi.

At that time, we did not think we would get into politics, and neither did Trong, because we were all still students and didn't know what we would end up doing or where. Life and the revolution led us forward, and Trong was one of the students who went on to succeed in the political path, Thanh said.

Attending the 75th anniversary of the Viet Nam Association of Literature and Arts in 2023, General Secretary Trong gave a speech, in which he expressed his concern that there are not many works that truly contribute to the advancement of our country and nation.

Therefore, the Party leader advised the artists and writers to follow the teachings of late President Ho Chi Minh, which is Nay o trong tho nen co thep (Now in poetry there should be steel), meaning that even in peacetime literature, there must be a fighting spirit.

The General Secretary was also a leader who was wholeheartedly dedicated to the development of Viet Nam's progressive culture. When implementing the Party Central Committee's Resolution on cultural and artistic work, he deeply absorbed the task and mission that President Ho Chi Minh have identified: "Culture must light the way for the nation."

Even in the twilight of his life, he remained steadfast and insightful  a testament to his unwavering commitment. Guided by President Hos wisdom and inspired by patriotic predecessors, Trong embodied respect and immense value. He was not at all aloof, he never distanced himself from his teachers, students and friends and always lived in genuine harmony. This essential quality defines Nguyen Phu Trong, earning him the highest esteem, Thanh said. VNS
HA NOI  Paintings by artists from Thailand, Myanmar, and Viet Nam are on display at Viet Nam National Fine Arts Museum to commemorate curator Shireen Naziree.

The exhibition entitled Celebrating The Curator Shireen Naziree is held by Nguyen Thu Hang - Blue Gallery's owner - in collaboration with Bangkok-based Thavibu Gallery's owner Jorn Middelborg.

The exhibition displays more than 40 paintings by 20 famous artists including Thai Santi Thongsuk, Jirapat Tatsanasomboon, Burmese U Lun Gywe, Aung Kyaw Htet and Vietnamese Le Quang Ha, Pham An Hai, inh Quan, Thanh Chuong, couple Trinh Tuan and Cong Kim Hoa, Ha Tri Hieu, Van Duong Thanh, Nguyen Thi Chau Giang and ang Xuan Hoa.

Naziree was an independent curator and an influential art researcher in Southeast Asia. She had many decades of association with Southeast Asian painting, tirelessly working for the development and international integration of art in this region, especially in the 1990s of the 20th century and the early 21st century, until her sudden death in 2018.

Her international curatorial practice included working with some of the region's most important artists and emerging talents from the region and interacting with art institutions in Southeast Asia and Europe.

She wrote extensively on both the traditional and contemporary art practices of the region, with a particular focus on Malaysia, Myanmar, and Viet Nam.

She wrote, in collaboration with Vietnamese artists and artist historian Phan Cam Thuong, a book entitled Impressions and Expressions - Vietnamese Contemporary Painting which is one of the important publications on contemporary art in Viet Nam.

The exhibition features artists all of them Naziree had met, befriended, and supported their artistic journeys.

"We initially planned to organised an exhibition in her honour one year after her passing," said Hang. "But due to the global pandemic, this year we have fulfilled this wish.

"Alongside this exhibition, we have compiled a catalogue with Naziree's writing about the artists translated into Vietnamese. Although it may still have shortcomings, we hope to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of her evaluation and insights on Vietnamese art as an international researcher and independent curator.

"Thanks to her efforts, Vietnamese art has reached the world and found a voice in the art market."

Attending the exhibition opening ceremony were Thai, Vietnamese artists and Naziree's daughter and assistant.

Celebrating The Curator Shireen Naziree SHIREEN NAZIREE runs till July 29 at 66 Nguyen Thai Hoc.  VNS
On the 203rd anniversary of the Independence of Peru, Ambassador Patricia Raez wrote to Viet Nam News about Peru-Viet Nam relations

July 28 marks the 203rd anniversary of Peru's Independence and National Day. At the same time, this year is very important because we commemorate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Peru and Viet Nam. The 30 years of ties between our countries have led to the establishment of a mutually beneficial relationship in various fields.

Both countries have an ancient history, a rich and varied gastronomy, and aspire to achieve increasingly higher levels of socioeconomic development.

Over the past three decades, we have established bilateral procedures, both in the political-diplomatic and economic-commercial arenas. We have the Political Consultation Mechanism between Peru and Viet Nam that meets periodically between the Vice Ministers of Foreign Affairs. There is also the Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Affairs and Technical Cooperation at the level of Vice Ministers, which we hope to hold meetings later this year.

Both countries have growing economies with a high degree of openness, and we believe in multilateralism, globalisation, and respect for international law. We have important similarities and give support to each other's candidates within the framework of the United Nations. We are part of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC), the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), and the Cooperation Forum for Latin America and the Caribbean (FEALAC).

In January 2024, Peru became an ASEAN Development Partner - the sixth country in the world to obtain this type of relationship - which demonstrates our commitment to continue strengthening our ties with Southeast Asia and means a new stage with the bloc to increase the flow of trade and cooperation and to project Peru's interests among ASEAN member states.

In recent years there have been several meetings at the highest official levels between Peru and Viet Nam. The most recent was between the Presidents in November 2023, on the sidelines of the APEC Leaders Summit, in San Francisco, and the meeting between Ministers of Foreign Affairs, which took place last May within the framework of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Ministerial Council Conference in Paris.

At a commercial level, Peru is Viet Nam's sixth trading partner in Latin America and exchanges reached more than 700 million dollars in 2023. Given that both countries are members of the CPTPP, there is a lot of potential to continue growing steadily in this area, considering that many products are exempt from tariffs. Precisely one of the main goals is to increase Peruvian exports to Viet Nam, in order to have a more balanced trade relationship. With the opening of the Chancay Megaport in Peru this November, the maritime transport time between Peru and Viet Nam will shorten from 40 to 25 days, which will increase capacity and efficiency to the exchange of goods and will also open opportunities in the sector of logistics services.

On the other hand, Viet Nam is the main Southeast Asian investor in Peru, having funded 1.3 billion dollars in various projects, made possible by Viettel and Petrovietnam.

The Embassy has been participating in many events and trade fairs in Viet Nam, such as Food Expo and Cafeshow, to gain access for Peruvian products here locally. The first Mission of Peruvian businessmen to Vietnam took place this past May, and met with their counterparts.

With regards to culture, the Embassy has been organising various events this year, both to celebrate the 203rd anniversary of the Independence of Peru and the 30 years of bilateral relations with Viet Nam. From July 18th to 23rd we held a photo exhibition about the Nature Preserves of Peru in an art gallery in Hoan Kiem. In October, we will be holding a Quechua Pop (Q-Pop) concert in Ha Noi Opera House. As Quechua is the language of the Incas, this concert will be the first of its kind and we expect a large turnout.

In 2024, Peru is hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC). This coming November we anticipate that the President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Viet Nam will arrive in Peru to participate in the APEC Leaders Summit. This will also be a good opportunity to celebrate 30 years of bilateral relations with encounters between our highest authorities.

As can be seen, there is a very active exchange and dialogue in different fields and we are looking forward to even stronger relations in the coming years, particularly in terms of trade and investments, and also exchange of delegations.

Personally, I arrived in Viet Nam this past May. It is my first time in Southeast Asia and I am impressed by the dynamism and industriousness of the Vietnamese people and by the desire to achieve higher levels of development.

As Peru celebrates 203 years of independence and 30 years of diplomatic relations with Viet Nam, I will work to nurture our relationship, so cooperation between our countries continue to be fruitful for the people of both nations. VNS
HA NOI - Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on July 25 received Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committees Political Bureau, Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee and Special Representative of Party General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping, who leads the Chinese delegation to attend the state funeral for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Viet Nam.

PM Chinh took the occasion to recall special milestones in the Viet Nam-China relations involving both Party General Secretary Trong and Party General Secretary and President Xi, particularly their historic visits in 2022 and 2023 as well as the elevation of the bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and the building of the Viet Nam-China community with a shared future that carries strategic significance. He affirmed that the Vietnamese Party and State consistently regard the development of the long-standing, stable friendship and cooperation with the Chinese counterparts as an objective requirement, a strategic choice, and a top priority in Viet Nam's foreign policy.

The PM said Viet Nam is ready to work with China to effectively implement the high-level common understandings following the direction set by the two top leaders, with key focuses including promoting visits and exchanges at all levels, increasing cooperation between the two countries parties, ministries, sectors and localities, organising more people-to-people exchanges, and improving experience sharing in theoretical work, party building, and national management. It is also necessary to deepen practical collaboration in such areas as economy-trade, investment, and transport infrastructure connectivity, as well as to effectively implement high-level agreements and common perceptions regarding the control and settlement of sea-related disputes.

For his part, Wang extended deep sorrow and condolences from the Chinese Party, State, and people for the passing of Party General Secretary Trong, describing him as a staunch Marxist, an outstanding leader of the Vietnamese Party, State, and people, and a great friend of the Chinese people.

He stressed that China firmly supports Viet Nam in pursuing a development path suitable to Viet Nam's situation and continuously promoting its cause of socialism's construction. Wang expressed his confidence that the traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation between the two parties and countries will develop further according to the direction set by the late Vietnamese Party leader and General Secretary, President Xi on continuously deepening and elevating the countries comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership and building the Viet Nam-China community with a shared future that carries strategic significance. VNS
HA NOI  Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang on July 25 received Minister of War Veterans and Rights Holders of Algeria Laid Rebiga, who is in Vietnam to attend the funeral for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

The Algerian minister said he had handed over a letter of condolences from President Abdelmadjib Tebboune to President To Lam, and expressed deep sorrow at the death of the Party leader, who has a prominent place in the heart of Vietnamese and Algerian people.

He laid stress on the significance of his visit to Viet Nam, noting that Algeria attaches importance to the traditional friendship and cooperation with Viet Nam and wishes to promote bilateral ties across the board.

Deputy PM Quang thanked Algerian leaders and people for their sympathies and emphasised that General Secretary Trong is an outstanding leader of the Vietnamese people, who has left many legacies including in external affairs.

He affirmed that Viet Nam consistently follows the foreign policy of independence, self-reliance and attaches importance to the friendship and cooperation with traditional friendly countries in Africa, particularly Algeria.

The Deputy PM proposed that the two sides actively prepare for the exchange of high-ranking delegations in the time ahead, with a view to opening a new chapter, a new period in bilateral ties, while continuing to effectively maintain existing cooperative mechanisms, including the inter-governmental committee and political consultation at deputy foreign ministerial level.

Quang also urged that the two countries continue to coordinate closely and support each other at international forums for the goal of peace and development for every nation, region and the world as a whole. VNS
Houston fire Department Chief Samuel Pena speaks during a press conference at Houston Fire Station 102 after severe flooding in the region, Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Kingwood. Jason Fochtman/Staff photographer

As Sam Pena's tenure as Houstons fire chief ends, Houston City Council members applauded his service after eight years with the department.

Pena plans to retire, and will be replaced by Tom Munoz, A 24-year veteran of the department who currently leads both Houstons Office of Emergency Management and Public Safety and Homeland Security office, Mayor John Whitmire announced Friday.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The news broke before many council members received a formal confirmation on Penas exit.

Here's how City Council members reacted:

Edward Pollard

Pollard said the mayor was afforded his own opportunity to appoint new department heads how he wanted.

He said Pena had served the city extremely well, and called him a first class act whose leadership has contributed in meaningful ways to Houstonians. Pena was also always present and a great communicator whenever there were issues in Pollards district, and the outgoing fire chief would often call directly.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Pollard said there had been rumors a new fire chief was coming.

Even with those rumors swirling around City Hall, he went above and beyond with his professionalism and his service to the city, Pollard said. And so I just want to commend him, and for people to know that from the council side of the street, he has been nothing but extraordinary in everything that he's brought to the office.

Julian Ramirez

Ramirez said it was up to Whitmire to choose his new department heads, but said he had great respect for Pena, who he saw everywhere in the community. Ramirez said he'd miss working with the outgoing chief, and was confident Munoz would do a good job.

Joaquin Martinez

Martinez, who formerly worked with Council Member Robert Gallegos, said he always admired the chiefs communication with elected officials.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Twila Carter

Carter called Pena a stellar individual.

Sallie Alcorn

Alcorn said she had nothing but great things to say about Pena and that he worked through a difficult time where the fire union didnt have a contract.

He was a really great fire chief and I wish him all the best, Alcorn said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Mary Nan Huffman

Nan Huffman said she was sad to see Pena go, and that he had done a lot for the citys residents.

He's been there every step of the way, Huffman said. Im sad, I think he was a great chief.

Abbie Kamin

Kamin wrote in a text to a reporter that Penas exit was a big loss for our City, and that the outgoing chief never faltered in his commitment to the department and the city.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

He put the best interests of Houstonians above politics every single time, Kamin wrote, calling him one of the best (shes) had the privilege to work with.

Letitia Plummer

Plummer said Pena had left a mark on the Houston Fire Department with his "distinguished service," she wrote via text. "His leadership during critical events, including Hurricane Harvey and the World Series, illustrates his commitment to the people and our city. I am profoundly grateful for his service and will miss him immensely."

Carolyn Evans-Shabazz

Evans-Shabazz said losing Pena was a loss for her district.

"Samuel Pena will be missed by me, and I believe the constituents of District D," she said.

Amy Peck

Peck, who chairs the council's public safety committee, wrote in a text she was grateful for Pena's service and that she had seen Munoz's leadership and compassion firsthand.

"Our fire department is comprised of excellent men and women who work hard for our city every day," Peck wrote. "I am confident that they will continue to do a great job serving our community under Munoz's leadership."
HA NOI  Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on July 25 received General Chansamone Chanyalath, Deputy PM and Minister of National Defence of Laos, who came to attend the state funeral for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

On behalf of the Vietnamese Party, State, Government, and people, PM Chinh thanked the Lao Party, State, Government, and people for sharing this great loss, as well as their sentiments towards Viet Nam in general and the General Secretary and his family in particular.

Highlighting the sentiments and the top priority General Secretary Trong consistently gave to the special Viet Nam - Laos relations, he said the late leader considers cooperating with and assisting Laos as a task of Vietnam.

The Party chief used to affirm that defence - security is one of the most important pillars of the special bilateral ties, according to PM Chinh.

The Vietnamese Government leader asked the two countries armies to keep strengthening solidarity and cooperation in improving the defence capacity; protect the shared borderline of peace and stability, thus actively enhancing the material and spiritual life of border residents and boosting cross-border trade; increase high-level mutual visits and meetings; work together to hold the border defence friendship exchanges between the two countries; and step up partnerships in education, training, and human resources development.

PM Chinh also congratulated Laos on its successful organisation of meetings during the ASEAN Chairmanship Year 2024, affirming Vietnams consistent support for and readiness to give assistance within its capacity to help Laos successfully hold the ASEAN Chairmanship this year.

Offering condolences to the Party, State, and people of Viet Nam and the bereaved family, Chansamone Chanyalath said the Lao Party, State, and people grieved the passing of General Secretary Trong.

He agreed with his hosts opinions and said the Laos Ministry of National Defence will coordinate with its Vietnamese counterpart to effectively carry out cooperation activities, especially all-level delegation exchanges, ideological education, the sharing of defence experience, border management and safeguarding, logistics, military technique, and military medicine, among others, thereby contributing to the great friendship, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries. VNS
BEIJING  The Vietnamese embassies in China, Japan and India opened two-day respect-paying ceremonies and condolence books for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25.

In Beijing, deputy head of the Communist Party of China Central Committees Organisation Department Zhang Guangjun conveyed the most profound condolences on the passing of the Vietnamese General Secretary. "We are always ready to stand united and cooperate with Viet Nam to advance the China-Viet Nam community with a shared future that carries strategic partnership," he wrote in the condolence book.

The delegation from the Lao Embassy wrote that with the passing of General Secretary Trong, the Lao Party, State and people lost a close comrade, who has made great contributions to the great friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between Laos and Viet Nam.

US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns wrote that the US would remember the late leader's commitment to the process of reconciliation and building a future of peace, stability and prosperity in the region.

A similar ceremony was also held by the Vietnamese Consulate General in Hong Kong and Macau the same day.

Commissioner of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Cui Jianchun, Chief Executive of Hong Kong John Lee, Lao Consul General Ammala Saenchonghack, Philippine Consul General Germinia V. Aguilar-Usudan, Russian Vice Consult General Vadim Savin were among those who have paid last respects to General Secretary Trong at the general consulate.

In Tokyo, representatives from diplomatic missions of China, India, Cambodia, Laos, Russia, the US, various Japanese government agencies and organisations, Japanese friendship associations and Vietnamese associations, students and workers living there gathered to offer incense in memory of the late Party leader and sign the condolence book.

Notable attendees included Japanese Vice Minister of Defence Matsumoto Hisashi and Special Envoy of the President of the House of Councillors Omura Shutaro.

The Vietnamese Consulate General in Fukuoka prefecture also opened a condolence book on July 24.

Governor of Fukuoka prefecture Hattori Seitaro hoped that the Vietnamese people will overcome this grief and build an ever-growing nation.

Vice Chairman of the Fukuoka Prefectural Assembly Eguchi Yoshiaki expressed gratitude for the General Secretarys contributions to fostering friendship between Fukuoka and Viet Nam.

In New Delhi, Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh, President of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party JP Nadda, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) Doraisamy Raja, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Sitaram Yechury also signed the condolence book, highlighting the late leaders contributions to Viet Nams progress and its relations with India. VNS
HA NOI The humility, revolutionary ethics and political thinking of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong are invaluable assets for the Vietnamese people, the value of which extends beyond the borders and has an influence on the left-wing movement and revolution in the world, according to a Cuban official.

Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and head of its Economic  Productive Department made the remarks during an interview with the Vietnam News Agency on July 25 in Ha Noi as he is a member of the Cuban delegation to the funeral of the late Party leader of Viet Nam.

He noted that First Secretary of the PCC and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez on July 24 morning (local time) paid homage to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the Vietnamese Embassy in Havana, he said, adding after learning about the sad news, a high-ranking delegation was immediately set up to attend the Party chiefs state funeral, and the Cuban delegation was the first foreign delegation to arrive in Viet Nam for the event.

The official went on to say that Cuba has held three days of state mourning in commemoration of the Vietnamese Party leader. Besides, Cuban mass media have run various articles on the late leader's ideology and theories on socialism and global revolution movement, seeing it as a way to guide the young generation to continue the revolutionary process, develop the nation and enhance the relations between the two countries, he said.

According to him, the Vietnamese Party chiefs international prestige demonstrates the increasing position of Vietnam in the international arena. Party General Secretary Trong, despite holding various positions, remained humble, simple and close to the people and generations of leaders.

He went on to highlight important achievements in the bilateral relations, with Vietnam being a strategic partner of Cuba in all areas.

Viet Nam is the second Asian country having increasing trade ties with Cuba, and is now the largest investor in the Latin American nations Mariel Special Development Zone, and the biggest rice provider for the nation, he elaborated.

The two countries have signed various cooperation plans across the domains of innovation, science-technology, pharmaceutical industry, biological industry, education, and many other sectors.

As Viet Nam and Cuba share the common ideal of developing and building socialism toward the highest goal of social equality, they have developed many joint projects for both nations' prosperous development and the benefits of their people.

Jorge Luis Broche affirmed that the two countries need to bolster their economic and trade ties as well as share experience in socio-economic development and socialism building, highlighting Viet Nams experience in the area is valuable for Cuba, which is updating its economic model, to overcome challenges. VNS
HA NOI  Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Friday morning met with General Secretary and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith and his spouse.

Thongloun Sisoulith was in Viet Nam leading a high-level delegation from the Lao Party, State and people to attend the funeral of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

During the meeting, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh expressed his deepest gratitude to them all, as well as to General Secretary and President Thongloun Sisoulith and his spouse, for their heartfelt condolences and solidarity with the Vietnamese Party, State and people over the passing of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. He particularly noted the two-day national mourning ceremony held in Laos, exemplifying the unique, steadfast and special relationship between the two countries.

Prime Minister Chinh highlighted that during his lifetime, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong always valued the traditional special relationship between Viet Nam and Laos, working tirelessly to strengthen and develop it. He also thanked President Thongloun Sisoulith's spouse for her touching letter to General Secretary Trong's family.

On behalf of the Lao Party, State and people, General Secretary and President Thongloun Sisoulith expressed profound condolences and solidarity with the Vietnamese Party, as well as with General Secretary Trong's family. He emphasised that the passing of General Secretary Trong is a great loss, not only for Viet Nam, but also for Laos, which has lost a close comrade and a great friend. He acknowledged General Secretary Trong's significant contributions to the special friendship, solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between the two.

General Secretary and President Thongloun Sisoulith praised General Secretary Trong's leadership, which guided the Vietnamese people to achieve significant milestones in renewal, national construction and development, while elevating Viet Nam's role and position both in the region and internationally.

Prime Minister Chinh congratulated Laos on its recent achievements and reaffirmed that the Vietnamese Party, State and people strongly and comprehensively support Laos in its renovation, defence and nation-building efforts. He expressed confidence that under the leadership of General Secretary and President Thongloun Sisoulith, the Lao People's Revolutionary Party will successfully implement the resolutions of its 11th National Congress and fulfill its international responsibilities in 2024.

Regarding the future direction of bilateral relations, both sides agreed to continue close coordination in effectively implementing high-level agreements, outcomes of the 46th meeting of the Viet Nam-Laos Intergovernmental Committee and the results of State President To Lam's visit to Laos. They emphasised the importance of high-level exchanges and cooperation in defence and security as key pillars.

Both sides also agreed to strengthen the legal framework for comprehensive cooperations, promote economic, trade and investment cooperation and facilitate business operations in both countries. They committed to addressing obstacles in key project implementation and prioritising partnerships in education, culture, tourism, banking and labour, while enhancing people-to-people exchanges. VNS
Jorge Luis Broche Lorenzo, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and head of its Economic  Productive Department made the remarks during an interview with the Vietnam News Agency on July 25 in Ha Noi as he is a member of the Cuban delegation to the funeral of the late Party leader of Viet Nam.
HA NOI  The respect-paying ceremonies for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong continued on the morning of July 26 at the National Funeral Hall in Ha Noi, Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and his hometown in ong Hoi Commune of Ha Noi's ong Anh District. From early morning, seemingly endless streams of people from all over gathered to bid a final farewell to the leader who dedicated his life to the nation and its people.

On the evening of July 25, due to the large numbers of people waiting to pay their last respects to the General Secretary, the visiting hours at the National Funeral Hall were extended until midnight. The ceremonies at Thong Nhat Hall and in his hometown were extended to 11pm instead of the previously announced 10pm, to accommodate the public.

Among those queuing near the National Funeral Hall was ang Thi Thu Huong, a teacher from Van Yen Primary School in Ha ong District, Ha Noi. She arrived at Han Thuyen Street at 11 p.m. on July 25 to pay her respects. Seeing the increasing number of people arriving from all directions, Huong decided to stay and wait through the night. She shared, "There are so many people from distant provinces waiting in line. We shared pictures of the General Secretary and stories about him to pass the time. Everyone is eager to pay their respects to him."

Then Trung Thanh, a 17-year-old Nung ethnic minority boy, travelled 340 km alone from the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang to Ha Noi to pay his respects. He shared that early on the morning of July 24, he prepared a few sets of clothes and some money and took a bus to Ha Noi. On July 25, after arriving in the capital, Thanh immediately took a bus to the late leader's hometown in Lai a Village. After paying his respects there, he went to the National Funeral Hall, wishing to pay his respects a second time. Thanh also plans to go to Mai Dich Cemetery in the afternoon to bid farewell to the General Secretary one last time.

From the early morning of July 26, thousands of people gathered in front of Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City to say goodbye to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. In addition to city residents, many came from other southern localities, travelling hundreds of kilometres, some arriving in the middle of the night, and others travelling the day before. The hall was overwhelmed with tears, sorrow, and mourning.

Tran Thi Thu Trang, holding a bouquet of white lilies she brought from her hometown, said she travelled from Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta to Ho Chi Minh City the previous afternoon and stayed at a relative's house to ensure she could arrive at the hall by 6 a.m. to pay her respects. An active member of the Women's Union, Trang shared that she has closely followed the General Secretary's activities over the years and deeply admires his lifelong dedication to the country and its people.

From Long Thanh District, ong Nai Province, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tham brought her two children, aged 7 and 5, to Ho Chi Minh City to pay their respects. Tham recounted that she had paid her respects alone the previous day, but after telling her children about it, they expressed a desire to go with her. Born into a family with a revolutionary tradition, she deeply values those who have dedicated their efforts to the country and its people. By bringing her children, Tham hopes they will understand and appreciate these sacred values.

In the late leaders hometown, Ngo Thi Ngoc Ly, a volunteer serving the funeral services, stated that on the evening of July 25, not only residents of ong Anh District but also many people from other regions came to Lai a to pay their respects.

Joining the line of mourners on the morning of July 26, some women in traditional Tay ethnic minority costumes from Lao Cai Province offered incense to bid their last farewell. Luong Ngoc Ha shared that at midnight on July 25, they gathered and boarded a bus to the capital, arriving at the General Secretary's hometown at 6 a.m.

"Our delegation consists of 37 people from Chieng Village, Cam uong Commune, Lao Cai Province. We all admire and deeply respect the character and personality of the General Secretary. Although we had never met him in person, when we heard of his passing, everyone was choked with emotions and sorrow. Many elderly individuals wanted to come but couldn't due to health reasons, so we came on their behalf to express our heartfelt gratitude and respect for a leader who dedicated his life to the nation and its people," Ha shared.  VNS
After more than five decades in politics, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong leaves behind a legacy that will never be matched. Man of the people, a pioneer in fighting corruption, and a firm friend of many countries worldwide. Here, people who knew him best share their memories of our nations son.
HA NOI - ang Thi Phuc, the primary school teacher of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, at 92 years old, made her way to the National Funeral Hall at 5 Tran Thanh Tong to bid a final farewell to her former student.

Amidst the long lines of people paying their respects to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong from early this morning, the sight ang Thi Phuc, arriving in a wheelchair deeply moved everyone. Before his casket, she broke down in tears, taking each step with her trembling legs.

At the venerable age of 92, ang Thi Phuc shared her feelings: When Trong was ill, I couldn't visit him. Now, I couldn't even see him one last time. I regarded Trong as my youngest sibling, and losing him feels like losing a family member. I mourn the loss of an honest leader who cared for the people.

ang Thi Phuc taught General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in the fourth grade. In a class of 48 students, she had a special impression of Trong, the youngest but the most academically gifted and diligent in participating and contributing to class discussions.

Amidst her sorrow, she left a heartfelt note: "My little student, I love you dearly. Why do I have to mourn you like this? Your teacher - ang Thi Phuc." VNS
HA NOI  A memorial service for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam, Nguyen Phu Trong, was held at 1pm on Friday at the National Funeral Hall at 5 Tran Thanh Tong, Ha Noi.

Simultaneous services were also organised at his hometown in ong Hoi Commune, ong Anh District, Ha Noi, and the Independence Palace, Ho Chi Minh City.

Among the leaders attending the service at the National Funeral Hall were State President To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man, Party Central Committee's Secretariat Standing Member Luong Cuong, and former high-ranking Party and State officials.

Delivering the funeral eulogy, State President To Lam said the passing of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is a huge and irreparable loss for our Party, our nation, and our people.

"Our country has lost a talented leader. The world communist and progressive movement has lost a sharp theorist. International friends have lost a sincere friend and close comrade. The family, clan, and homeland in ong Hoi have lost an outstanding son," he said.

After nearly 60 years of rich and persistent revolutionary activities, Professor, Doctor, and Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, "with his scholarly and sharp intellect, left behind a valuable ideological and theoretical system about Viet Nam's revolutionary path in the new era."

He strongly inspired and led the entire Party, people, and army with intelligence, humanistic spirit, noble compassion, strong will, and determination. He also had the personality and honour of a communist soldier who wholeheartedly served the Fatherland and the people with the mindset that Honour is the most noble and sacred thing.

President Lam emphasised that throughout his life of revolutionary activities, building and rectifying the Party and political system held a particularly important position to Trong.

Under his leadership, for the first time, our Party issued a thematic resolution on building and perfecting a law-governed socialist state of the people, by the people, and for the people. As State President and Chairman of the National Assembly, Trong was always concerned with building a legislative body that is truly the highest representative body of the people, truly democratic, and acts as a representative of the people and their legitimate rights and interests, Lam said.

Lam hailed Trong for possessing a profound and sharp political vision. The Party leader elevated the level of strategic thinking, creating new developments for Vietnamese defence, security, and foreign affairs with the imprint of bamboo diplomacy.

He was always steadfast in the viewpoint that regards the people as the root, the people are the subject, the centre of the oi moi (renewal) process."

The casket of Party leader Nguyen Phu Trong, wrapped in the national flag, then left the National Funeral Hall to make way to Mai Dich Cemetery for the burial service at 3pm.  VNS
HA NOI  National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man on Friday hosted a reception for President of the Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP), Chairman of the Supreme Privy Council to the Cambodian King and President of the Cambodian Senate Samdech Techo Hun Sen, who is leading a high-ranking delegation to Viet Nam to attend the funeral of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Man thanked the Cambodian King, the CPP, Senate, National Assembly, Government and many agencies and organisations of Cambodia for extending their condolences to the Party, State and people of Viet Nam over the passing of Party General Secretary Trong and send a high-ranking delegation to Viet Nam to pay last respect to the leader, which is a great consolation to the Party, State and people of Viet Nam and shows the special sentiments of the CPP leader himself to General Secretary Trong and the bereaved family.

The NA Chairman lauded the role that Hun Sen plays in maintaining and promoting the friendly neighbourliness and comprehensive cooperation between the two countries over the years.

He said he believes that the new generation of Cambodian leaders, under the guide of Hun Sen and veteran leaders of Cambodia, will make contributions to the development of Cambodia and bring the traditional friendship and solidarity between Viet Nam and Cambodia to a new height.

Man noted that bilateral cooperation mechanisms over the years have been implemented effectively, especially the high-level meeting of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and the Standing Board of the CPP Central Committee, as well as the Cambodia-Laos-Viet Nam exchange mechanisms.

The sound relationship between the Viet Nams National Assembly and the National Assembly and Senate has contributed to fostering and deepening the cooperation between the two countries, he said.

The Vietnamese NA leader invited the President of the Cambodian Senate to visit Viet Nam early to discuss and map out development orientations between the two countries in general and the Vietnamese NA and Cambodian Senate in particular.

For his part, Hun Sen conveyed deep condolences from the CPP, King Norodom Sihamoni, the Senate, the National Assembly and the people of Cambodia to the Party, State and people of Viet Nam.

Sharing his memories with General Secretary Trong, Hun Sen said that during more than a decade as the General Secretary of the CPV, Trong made important contributions to promoting the Viet Nam-Cambodia relations, and has devoted his whole life to the peoples happiness and the reinforcement of the solidarity, friendship and common development of Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia.

Affirming the sound relations between Viet Nam and Cambodia on the channels of Party and State and at the ministry, sector and local level, Hun Sen said he hopes that in the coming time, the two sides should continue to promote collaborations through all channels and aspects, especially in social-economic affairs to further improve the living conditions of the two peoples.

Highly valuing the fruitful cooperation between the two legislatures over the years, the Cambodian Senate President expressed his hope that the Vietnamese NA and Cambodias NA and Senate will further bolster their cooperation. He took the occasion to convey Cambodian NA President Khuon Sudarys invitation to Man to pay an official visit to Cambodia.

Man recognised Hun Sens proposals on strengthening bilateral relations through all channels and areas.

He said that currently, Viet Nam is actively preparing to welcome King Norodom Sihamoni and the Queen Mother. Man thanked Cambodian NA President Khuon Sudary for the invitation and pledge to make the visit at an appropriate time.  VNS
Newly appointed Houston Fire Chief Thomas Munoz, right, and Mayor John Whitmire speak to reporters during a press conference to announce Munoz as the new fire chief Friday, July 26, 2024, at Houston City Hall in Houston. Jon Shapley/Staff photographer

Tom Munoz, who spent 24 years as a Houston firefighter before leading state and city emergency management, will be the city's new fire chief, Mayor John Whitmire told KPRC Friday morning.

Munoz will replace Sam Pena, who has run the department since December 2016. Pena plans to retire, Whitmire told KPRC.

Munoz was previously the director of Houstons Office of Emergency Management, and moved to head the citys Public Safety and Homeland Security office May 30.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Heres what to know about the new fire chief.

Munozs fire, military and emergency response service

Munozs has been in public safety and emergency response for 26 years.

He served 24 years with the Houston Fire Department, where he ended his time as the departments assistant chief of homeland security and planning.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Munoz spent 21 years in the U.S. Coast Guard reserves, eventually retiring as a commander. He took on several positions throughout his years in the military, including deputy incident commander for the New Orleans Vessel Removal Projects, spill liaison for Texas City and as San Juan, Puerto Ricos Hurricane Maria Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officer. He has five USCG Commendation Medals.

Munoz left the Houston Fire Department to become the emergency manager and homeland security director in Texas City. He returned to Houston to assume the same position at OEM in 2021.

What is Munoz inheriting as the new chief?

Munoz returns to HFD right as the Houston Professional Firefighters Association starts its new contract following an eight-year stalemate. That contract could reach up to $1.5 billion, and includes $650 million of back pay to union members.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

NEW CONTRACT: Houston City Council approves landmark settlement to resolve yearslong dispute with firefighters
HA NOI  Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh on Friday hosted a reception for Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof, who is in Viet Nam to pay last respects to General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

PM Chinh thanked the Malaysian Deputy PM for coming here to pay tribute and share the sadness with the family of the Vietnamese Party chief, describing the gesture as a vivid demonstration for the strategic partnership and close friendship between the leaders and people of both nations.

He also took the occasion to express gratitude to other Malaysian leaders for sending messages of condolences, and affirmed Viet Nam has respected the sentiments that the Malaysian Government and people have given to the late Party leader, who wholeheartedly devoted to the nations construction and development, as well as the promotion of the relations with Malaysia in particular and ASEAN as a whole.

Conveying the deepest condolences of the Malaysian leaders and people to their Vietnamese counterparts and the family of the bereaved, Fadillah Yusof expressed his admiration for the tireless devotion as well as great and important contributions of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to the countrys construction and development over decades.

He affirmed that the Vietnamese Party chief is a friend of Malaysia and other countries in the ASEAN bloc.

On the occasion, the two sides discussed and reached consensus on several orientations to bolster the bilateral relations across areas.

PM Chinh suggested the two nations continue realising the outcomes of the discussions between General Secretary Trong and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim during the latters official visit to Vietnam in July 2023, including enhancing the exchange of high-level visits and contacts, sharing experience, supporting each other and striving to sign a cooperation agreement in the Halal industry soon, continuing effective coordination and humanitarian treatment for detained Vietnamese fishermen in line with international law and the sound relations between the two countries.

He laid stress on support for Malaysias ASEAN Chairmanship in 2025.

Agreeing with PM Chinhs opinions, Fadillah Yusof affirmed that Malaysia stands ready to assist Viet Nam in the development of the Halal sector, and concurred to strengthen cooperation in the domains of green energy, clean energy, renewable energy, digital transformation, semiconductor production and AI, striving for two-way trade of US$18 billion a year in the coming time.

They also agreed to continue close coordination to build an ASEAN community with sustainable development that plays a central role in handling strategic issues in the region and the world, including the East Sea (internationally known as the South China Sea) one.  VNS
HA NOI  The respect paying ceremony for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong continued on the morning of July 26 at the National Funeral Hall in Ha Noi, with high-level delegations from foreign countries and international organisations paying their last respects and expressing deep condolences.

Among them were high-level delegations from Belarus led by Siarhei Khamenka, Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Republic (upper house) of the National Assembly of Belarus; from Malaysia led by Deputy Prime Minister Yab DatoSri Haji Fadillah Haji Yusof; from the Philippines led by Secretary of the Department of Agriculture Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr; from Thailand led by Minister Attached to the Prime Minister's Office and the PMs Special Envoy Jakkapong Sangmanee; and from the Communist Party of Britain led by a representative of its leadership Kyril Whittaker.

In the condolence book, Deputy Chairman Siarhei Khamenka, on behalf of the Belarusian President and people, expressed his deep condolences over the passing of a true patriot of Viet Nam and a sincere friend of the Belarusian people. Thailand will always remember him, he added.

Malaysian Deputy PM Fadillah Yusof wrote that the late Party chief was a truly dedicated leader who tirelessly served his country. Viet Nam has lost a steadfast and committed leader who made great contributions. May his legacy inspire future generations, he wrote, affirming that the Party leader made invaluable efforts to significantly strengthen the Viet Nam-Malaysia strategic partnership, contributing to regional peace and prosperity.

Philippine Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr wrote that the Philippines shares the profound grief and great loss felt by the Vietnamese people over the passing of an outstanding leader, diplomat, teacher, intellectual, and most cherished son of Viet Nam''.

May his exemplary life and contributions to Viet Nam and the world noble life and immense contributions to Viet Nam and the world be remembered by generations to come, and may his love for peace and integrity long burn and inspire the hearts and minds of our fellow ASEAN brothers.

Special Envoy of Thai PM Jakkapong Sangmanee, meanwhile, wrote that the late Part chiefs leadership and dedication significantly contributed to Viet Nam's stable and prosperous development.

He was a great friend of Thailand, playing a crucial role in fostering a stable and strong relationship between the two countries. His visit to Thailand in 2013 marked a significant chapter, elevating the bilateral diplomatic relations to a strategic partnership. The people of Thailand will always remember the Vietnamese Party General Secretary.

Whittaker jotted down his farewell to "a revolutionary comrade of the highest calibre, leader of the Vietnamese people and light of the revolutionary movement."  VNS
HA NOI  Politburo member and permanent member of the Party Central Committees Secretariat Luong Cuong on July 26 received Vice Chairman of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) Leonid Kalashnikov and Chairman of the Presidium of the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) Central Committee Shii Kazuo, who came to attend the state mourning of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

At the meeting with the Russian official, Cuong sincerely thanked the Central Committee of the KPRF, Chairman of the KPRF Gennady Zyuganov and members of the KPRF for their special sentiments, deep condolences and respect to General Secretary Trong.

Cuong thanked the Central Committee of the KPRF for sending a delegation led by Vice Chairman Leonid Kalashnikov to attend the state funeral of General Secretary Trong.

Cuong highlighted that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong devoted his whole life to the country and the people and paid great attention to strengthening international solidarity. In his lifetime, General Secretary Trong had special sentiments for Russia, Russian people, and Russian culture. He always paid attention to cultivating, making efforts and contributing to consolidating and developing the traditional Viet Nam-Russia friendship, comprehensive strategic partnership, and the relationship between the two parties.

Expressing gratitude for the support that the former Soviet Union and Russia have given to Viet Nam, Cuong affirmed that the Party, State and people of Viet Nam will firmly adhere to the foreign policy, implement Trongs legacies in developing the comprehensive strategic partnership with Russia in general and the KPRK in particular, for the benefit of the people of the two countries, for peace, stability and development in the world.

For his part, Kalashnikov expressed his condolences for the great loss to the Party, State, people of Viet Nam and the bereaved family, and shared memories between General Secretary Trong and leaders of the KPRF.

He said that Russian people and communists pay great attention and express their condolences for the passing of General Secretary Trong, adding that the KPRF is very interested in studying the thoughts of General Secretary Trong and practical experience in implementing the "bamboo diplomacy" and the fight against corruption in Viet Nam.

At the meeting, the two sides also discussed issues to strengthen cooperation between the two Parties and the two countries in the coming time.

Meanwhile, at the meeting with the Japanese official, Cuong also emphasised that General Secretary Trong attached importance to the friendship and traditional relations between the two parties and two countries.

He stressed that with the foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, multi-lateralisation, and diversification, Viet Nam always attaches importance to and wishes to continue developing the comprehensive strategic partnership with Japan, including inheriting and promoting the tradition of friendship between the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) and the Japan Communist Party (JCP).

On this occasion, Cuong thanked the JCP in particular and the Japanese people in general for supporting Viet Nam during its cause of oi Moi (The Reform), socio-economic development, and socialism building.

He affirmed that Viet Nam will continue to consistently implement its foreign policy, following the wishes of General Secretary Trong.

Showing deep sympathies to the Party, State and people of Viet Nam, Kazuo highlighted that General Secretary Trong is a Marxist theorist and an outstanding leader who made great contributions to the international communist and workers' movements. Under the leadership of the CPV led by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, the Party, State, and people of Viet Nam have made many great and historic achievements in the cause of oi Moi and socialism building.

Kazuo recalled his meetings with Trong, emphasising that the General Secretary's passing is a great loss for the Party, State, and people of Viet Nam, and the JCP has lost a close and trusted friend.

He highly valued the theoretical and practical achievements of General Secretary Trong in Viet Nams development, especially those in foreign affairs, which have greatly contributed to peace and stability in the region and the world.

The official said he believes that the Party, State, and people of Viet Nam will definitely overcome the pain and loss, and successfully fulfill the will of General Secretary Trong.

On this occasion, the two sides discussed and agreed to strengthen the relationship of friendship and cooperation between the two parties and countries. Cuong presented the guest with a book on building and developing comprehensive and modern Vietnamese foreign affairs and diplomacy.  VNS
HA NOI - National Assembly (NA) Chairman Tran Thanh Man hosted a reception on July 26 for Siarhei Khamenka, Vice Chairman of the Council of the Republic (Senate) of Belarus, who is leading a delegation to Viet Nam to attend the state funeral of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Man said that the Belarusian delegation's attendance at the state funeral demonstrates the sincere feelings and sharing of the countrys State and people towards the Party, State, and people of Viet Nam during this period of sorrow and loss.

Viet Nam always values its traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation with Belarus and remembers the sincere support and assistance that the Belarusian people provided for Viet Nam in its struggle for national liberation and reunification in the past, as well as its current nation building and development cause, he said, expressing his wish to further enhance cooperation with Belarus in all areas.

Viet Nam will continue the foreign policy set forth by General Secretary Trong, which consistently values and develops friendship and cooperation with traditional friends, including Belarus, Man affirmed.

Recalling General Secretary Trong's two official visits to Belarus in 2009 as Chairman of the National Assembly and in 2014 as Party General Secretary, Man stated that Viet Nam highly values the political relationship between the two countries, which continues to be maintained and developed following these visits.

In particular, the Viet Nam ese NA always supports the enhancement of its traditional friendship and multifaceted cooperation with Belarus in such areas as security, defence, economics, trade, investment, education and training, science and technology, culture and tourism, and local cooperation, he said, adding the legislature will continue to implement the cooperation agreement between the two parliaments, signed in April 2009 during Trongs visit to Belarus.

To promote bilateral parliamentary cooperation, the top Viet Nam ese legislator proposed both sides step up the exchange of delegations at all levels, share information and experiences in legislative and supervision affairs, maintain consultations, information exchange, and collaboration among legislators within the framework of multilateral inter-parliamentary forums, and coordinate in building and completing the legal framework, thus facilitating cooperation between the two governments, localities, and businesses in all fields.

Siarhei Khamenka conveyed his profound condolences of Belarusian leaders and people to the Party, State, and people of Viet Nam on the passing of General Secretary Trong; and handed over a message of condolences of the President of Belarus to NA Chairman Man, emphasising that Belarus has lost a good friend who made significant contributions to the development of the two countries friendship and collaboration.

He noted that despite the geographical distance, the two countries share similar future visions. He said that he will forward Man's proposals to the Chairman of the Belarusian Senate, and believes that the relations between the two countries in general, and the two parliaments in particular, will continue to grow further. VNS
HA NOI - The Ministry of National Defence on July 26 handed over the State Presidents decisions to two officers who will join the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA).

Major General Pham Manh Thang, Director of the Viet Nam Department for Peacekeeping Operations (VDPO) under the ministry, said in order to prepare replacement forces, the department has selected highly qualified officers and organised various training courses following requirements of the UN while sending officers abroad for training.

The two officers to be deployed to the UN missions this time have participated in two major peacekeeping exercises  the Competency Evaluation for Prospective Peacekeeper Programme (CEPPP) and the Viet Nam - India Bilateral Army Exercise (VINBAX) 2023.

He affirmed that, preparations for the deployment of the two officers have been basically completed. The two officers themselves have expressed their determination to fulfilling their tasks.

Addressing the event, Deputy Minister of National Defence Senior Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Chien said that joining UN peacekeeping missions is an honour not only for each individual but also for the Viet Nam People's Army (VPA). Officers of the VPA have affirmed their mettle, will and capacity in the eyes of international colleagues and friends over the past 10 years of Viet Nam's participation in this special humanitarian activity, he added.

Chien, who is also Chairman of the defence ministry's steering committee on participation in the UN peacekeeping operations, requested the two officers to strictly follow the Party, State and armys foreign policies, the VPA's disciplines, regulations of the United Nations and laws of the host countries. The officers were urged to quickly grasp the local situation and perform well their assigned duties.

He asked the VDPO coordinate with relevant agencies to select and train suitable personnel to prepare a reserve force for future deployments.

Viet Nam has to date deployed over 800 officers to the UN peacekeeping missions in Abyei, Central African Republic and South Sudan, and the UN Headquarters. According to heads of the UN missions and agencies, Vietnamese peacekeepers have shown strong performance in implementing their assigned tasks with professionalism and discipline, leaving good impressions on mission leaders, friends, and international colleagues with specific, practical, and humane contributions. VNS
HA NOI  The State Funeral Board and the family of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Nguyen Phu Trong delivered a thank-you message following the burial service for the Party leader on Friday afternoon.

The message reads:

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam, the National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, the President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, the Government of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, the State Funeral Board and the family of comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam, express our sincere thanks to compatriots, comrades and soldiers nationwide, compatriots abroad, and international friends for showing deep-rooted sentiments, boundless regret, and profound respect for General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong; for coming to pay tribute to, sending letters and messages of condolences, as well as attending the memorial service, and seeing off comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam, to the glorious history of the civilised and heroic Vietnamese nation.

In recent days, millions of hearts in Viet Nam and around the world are looking towards Ha Noi, HCM City, and his hometown of ong Hoi, where the state funeral for General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was held. Hundreds of thousands of people from all corners of the country, regardless of distance or weather, have respectfully waited along the roads to bid the last farewell to the General Secretary to his final resting place. Hundreds of leaders of countries and territories have sent letters, telegrams, and messages of condolences; hundreds of international delegations have attended the respect-paying ceremony, the memorial service, and the burial ceremony; thousands of delegations with hundreds of thousands of people have come to pay their respects to the General Secretary; and thousands of delegations have paid their homage at our representative agencies abroad.

Once again, the State Funeral Board and the family sincerely thank the special sentiments of compatriots, comrades and soldiers across the country, our compatriots abroad, and international friends towards comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Viet Nam, and towards the nation and the civilised and heroic Vietnamese people.

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF VIET NAM

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIET NAM

THE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIET NAM

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIET NAM

THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE VIET NAM FATHERLAND FRONT
HA NOI  More than 400 delegations came to the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan to pay tribute to and write in the condolence book for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Viet Nam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong on Thursday and Friday.

Senator Natsuo Yamaguchi, President of the Komeito Party  a partner of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the ruling coalition in Japan, affirmed that the fine and enduring relationship between Viet Nam and Japan saw significant contributions of General Secretary Trong. Building on the foundation established and contributed by the Party chief, Yamaguchi hoped that the two countries will further strengthen the bilateral ties, which he said, is the best way to honour the late leader's efforts.

Japanese Minister for Digital Transformation Kono Taro wrote in the condolence book: "Our sentiments are with the people of Viet Nam". He also expressed his hope for the continued strength of the bilateral relationship.

Chief of the Japanese Joint Staff Gen. Yoshida Yoshihide wrote: "The Japan Self-Defence Forces stand with the people of Vietnam in this moment of sorrow."

Special Envoy of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Director-General for Foreign Affairs Hironori Yamamoto noted that the Vietnamese Party chief exercised a strong leadership to further Vietnam's development. He also so highlighted the Party chief's significant contributions to enhancing the Viet Nam-Japan friendship relations over the past years.

Governors of Japanese prefectures also expressed their appreciation for the General Secretarys contributions to the bilateral ties and offered respectful wishes for his eternal rest.

Former Japanese Ambassador to Viet Nam Yushita Hiroyuki hailed General Secretary Trong as an eminent leader of Viet Nam and a great friend of Japan.

On Thursday and Friday, the Vietnamese Embassy in the Netherlands hoisted the national flag at half-mast and opened a condolence book for General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Gerrie Willems, Acting Director of the Asia and Oceania Department at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, representing the Dutch Royal Family and Government, wrote in the condolence book.

Ambassadors and charge d'affaires from European, Latin American and Asian countries, particularly the ambassadors of ASEAN member countries in the Netherlands, also came to pay their respects and wrote in the condolence book, honouring the General Secretary's practical contributions to strengthening Viet Nam's friendship and cooperation with nations.

From Thursday to Friday, nearly 30 diplomatic representatives of various countries and over 200 Vietnamese nationals in Singapore came to the Vietnamese Embassy to pay their respects and bid farewell to the Party chief.

Diplomatic representatives of the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Israel, and the APEC Secretariat also came to pay homage to the Party chief, reflecting the broad international respect and admiration for General Secretary Trongs leadership and legacy.  VNS
HA NOI  Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh hosted a reception in Ha Noi on Friday for Jakkapong Sangmanee, Minister Attached to the Thai Prime Minister's Office and the Thai PMs Special Envoy, who is in Viet Nam to attend the funeral for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

The Vietnamese Government leader expressed his deep gratitude to the Thai minister and delegation for coming to Viet Nam to pay respects to the Party leader, describing this as evidence of the friendship and close ties between leaders and the people of the two countries.

He also extended his sincere thanks to Thai leaders for their condolence messages, affirming that Viet Nam highly appreciates the warm sentiments from the Thai Royal Family, Government, and people towards General Secretary Trong who devoted his whole life to the country's development and laid a solid foundation for the Viet Nam-Thailand Strategic Partnership in June 2013.

PM Chinh took this occasion to reiterate his invitation to Thai PM Srettha Thavisin to visit Viet Nam and co-chair the 4th Viet Nam-Thailand joint cabinet meeting at a suitable time.

Jakkapong, on behalf of the PM, Government, people of Thailand, extended the deep condolences PM Chinh and via the PM to the Party, State, Government, and the people of Viet Nam, as well as the bereaved family of General Secretary Trong over the country's great loss.

He expressed his admiration for the Vietnamese Party chiefs important contributions to the renewal and development cause of Viet Nam as well as his role in advancing the Viet Nam-Thailand Strategic Partnership.

The minister affirmed that Viet Nam is one of Thailand's important partners in the region, particularly in the economic field. He thanked the Vietnamese Government and called for its continued support and favourable conditions for Thai businesses to invest and operate in Viet Nam.

He also asserted that the Thai Government will consistently not allow hostile forces to use Thailand's territory to carry out activities that undermine neighbouring countries, including Viet Nam.

On this occasion, the two sides discussed and agreed on several bilateral cooperation directions in the coming time, including the effective implementation of the "Three Connections" strategy, strengthening cooperation in the areas of security, trade, tourism, and transport, with a focus on stronger aviation, road, and rail connectivity.  VNS
KIEN GIANG  Kien Giang Province plans to expand marine aquaculture by using modern methods to increase farmers incomes.

The Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta province has huge potential for marine aquaculture with its coastline of more than 200km and 143 small and large islands.

Its waters teem with high-value marine species with such as cobia, grouper and pomfret fishes and pearl oysters.

Nguyen Thanh Nhan, deputy chairman of its Peoples Committee, said: The province has identified the marine economy as a focus of development, especially effective and sustainable development of marine aquaculture.

The province is implementing a plan to develop marine aquaculture in 2020-30.

It had 3,870 floating cages for breeding marine species as of last year with an annual output of 3,910 tonnes.

It has the largest number of such floating cages of any province in the delta.

Cage aquaculture has been popular in the province since 2000 and has grown significantly in the last five years due to its high efficiency and reliability.

It is carried out mostly in Kien Hai and Kien Luong districts and Phu Quoc and Ha Tien cities.

The provinces Agriculture Extension Centre is implementing a model that used high-density polyethylene (HDPE) floating cages in place of traditional wooden ones to enhance breeding efficiency.

There are 69 HDPE floating cages with a total volume of 3,530cu.m in the province. They produce yields of 16 kilogrammes of aquatic species per cubic metre, four or five kilogrammes more than wooden ones.

Le Van Xeo, director of the Tien at Co-operative in Kien Hai Districts Lai Son Commune, said the extension centre provided support to his co-operatives members to set up 10 HDPE cages in 2022.

After seeing their efficiency during one to two harvests, most members switched to them, he said.

The HDPE cages have a life of 20 years as against three or four years for the wooden ones, he said.

HDPE floating cages cope better with strong waves than wooden ones and fish raised in them develop well. But not many farmers are able to buy them since their cost is high.

To develop marine aquaculture sustainably, the province aims to step up the use of high-tech breeding methods, including the use of HDPE cages.

High profits

Farmers in coastal areas and islands have bred more than 2,800ha of aquatic species in marine cages and harvested 2,000 tonnes as of early June.

Ninh Van Son, who has been raising fish in Kien Luong Districts Hon Nghe Commune for 15 years, said this year he bought more than 10,000 fish fry to breed, mostly pearl grouper, cobia, yellow pomfret, and red drum, in four HDPE cages and 16 wooden cages.

He has sold more than 2,000 mature fish so far this year and earned profits of VN100 million (US$3,900), he said.

The prices of marine aquatic species have been high since the end of last year and so most farmers are making high profits, he said.

Breeding fish in HDPE cages is efficient but each costs VN40-60 million ($1,600-2,300), and so he does not have enough money to buy more of them, he said.

I hope the Government will [provide] soft loans or [allow] repayment in instalments so that farmers can invest in the cages.

Development

Kien Giang targets having 7,500 cages and an annual output of 29,890 tonnes by 2025, increasing to 14,000 and 105,690 tonnes by 2030.

It has taken a number of measures to help farmers develop marine aquaculture in recent years, organising many training courses and seminars to train them.

Vo Thi Tham, who has 40 floating cages and breeds various fishes in Kien Hai Districts Hon Tre Commune, said: I and my husband participate in all seminars and training courses on breeding techniques and apply them. My family has used HDPE floating cages for two years.

She harvests 40 tonnes a year and earn VN1 billion ($39,000), she said.

But the province faces difficulties such as small scale of breeding and disease outbreaks, according to its Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Le Huu Toan, its director, said concentrated breeding areas would be set up for marine aquaculture, linkages would be created between various stakeholders in the supply chain and identifying codes for farmers would be issued.

The province plans to strengthen fisheries extension activities, ensure breeding areas and water environment meet stringent standards, and enhance disease forecasting and water quality to help farmers to avoid losses.

It will create favourable conditions for farmers to access soft loans and find markets for their produce at home and abroad.

The province has issued licences for four marine aquaculture projects costing a total of VN695 billion ($27 million) and having a total breeding area of 2,197ha.  VNS
HCM CITY  Farmers in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta are having difficulty harvesting their early summer-autumn rice and protect young rice plants since heavy rains have inundated many fields.

The countrys rice granary has been hit by prolonged heavy rains in recent days brought by a tropical depression.

In Soc Trang Province, farmers in low-lying places like My Tu and Thanh Tri districts and Nga Nam Town are beginning the harvest of 19,000ha of summer-autumn rice but many fields are inundated, reducing yields and increasing costs.

In My Tu District, My Tu Commune has 100ha of ripe rice but farmers cannot harvest them because machines cannot operate in flooded fields.

Ly Van Tao in My Tu Commune said his one hectare of rice ripened last week but he could not harvest it.

The commune does not have an electric pumping station to bail the water out of fields and most farmers have to do it themselves, and this raises production costs by VN1-2 million (US$40-80) per hectare, he said.

In low-lying areas, rice fields are often 25-35cm under water during the rainy season, according to the provincial Irrigation Sub-department.

Pham Tan ao, its head, said his agency is mobilising farmers to pump water out of fields and operating sluices to drain them.

In Kien Giang, the countrys largest rice producing province, farmers sowed the summer-autumn rice crop on 276,000ha staggering the cropping.

They began harvesting the crop at the end of last month, have completed 150,000ha so far, and expect to finish it in August.

Le Huu Toan, director of the Kien Giang Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said to protect the remaining crop, local administrations and farmers would mobilise all resources and take advantage of sunny weather to harvest rice quickly when it is about 85 per cent ripe.

In Ca Mau Province, heavy rains have damaged nearly 600ha of rice in Tran Van Thoi District sowed late and are 40 days old.

The last dry season caused farmers sow the summer-autumn rice 15-30 days later than normal, and so their young rice crop has been inundated and damaged in the prolonged rain, according to the Tran Van Thoi Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Nguyen Viet Khai, its head, said rice fields have often been inundated during the rainy season in recent years, and resolving the problem needs a closed irrigation system with 16 pumping stations with a total capacity of 600,000cu.m of water per hour.

The district has petitioned the provincial Peoples Committee and Department of Agriculture and Rural Development to build the irrigation system and pumping stations, he added.

In this summer-autumn crop, Ca Mau has planted 35,000ha of rice, 29,000ha in Tran Van Thoi.

In other localities, farmers have begun harvesting rice early to avoid risks from the weather by the time the crop ripens.

In Can Tho, farmers have harvested summer-autumn rice earlier than scheduled and completed harvesting all 71,280ha of summer- autumn rice.

Their average yield has been 5.9 tonnes per hectare, the same as a year ago. VNS
The CBO estimates the immigration surge will create $1.2 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade, mostly from income taxes and spending by the estimated 8.7 million migrants living in the U.S. during that time. Eric Gay/AP Community members and activists hold a rally ahead of May Day to demand that Mayor John Whitmire and the Houston Police Department develop a comprehensive plan to protect community members from anti-immigrant legislation like Texass Senate Bill 4 on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, at City Hall in Houston . Raquel Natalicchio/Staff photographer Max Aleman wears a Mexican flag to show his suport as he waits in a line that stretches multiple blocks down Richmond Avenue from the Mexican Consulate building Sunday, May 2, 2024. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Maria Tong waves with an American flag at her husband and daughter after becoming naturalized citizens Wednesday, March 27, 2024 at M.O. Campbell Educational Center in Houston. Tong, originally from Mexico, was among more than 1300 Houston-area residents who naturalized Wednesday. Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer The line of persons desiring to vote in the Mexican election, stretches multiple blocks down Richmond Avenue from the Mexican Consulate building Sunday, May 2, 2024. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer Voters sing a Mexican patriotic folk song, "Mexico lindo y querido which means Beautiful and Beloved Mexico to pass time as they wait to vote in the Mexican elections in a line that stretches multiple blocks down Richmond Avenue from the Mexican Consulate building Sunday, May 2, 2024. Kirk Sides/Staff photographer

The recent surge in migration across the southern border could help slash the federal deficit by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, according to a recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO estimates the immigration surge will create $1.2 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade, mostly from income taxes and spending by the estimated 8.7 million migrants living in the U.S. during that time. Those same migrants would cost the federal government just $300 billion in health care and other costs, according to the estimate, bringing the net benefit to $900 billion.

The new study builds on an extensive body of research showing immigrants are a boon to the economy, especially at the federal level. Immigrants have federal taxes withheld from their paychecks, and pay sales tax, property tax and more.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

But it includes one big caveat: the total doesnt factor in the costs of border crossings to state and local governments, which in some cases have spent heavily to accommodate the massive influx of asylum seekers.

Texas has given hundreds of millions in grants to border counties that have at times seen packed jails, shelters and hospitals as crossings reach historic levels in recent years  in addition to billions more to voluntarily send state troopers and National Guard to arrest migrants at the border under Gov. Greg Abbotts border security crackdown. New York City, where Texas has been busing migrants for years, has spent more than $4 billion to accommodate them, the CBO report notes.

The findings underscore a longstanding tension at the heart of Texas' many ongoing battles with the Biden administration on its handling of immigration: while the federal government oversees immigration enforcement, it is typically the states that bear the greatest costs for public schools, health care and more.

Texas has argued repeatedly in court that immigrants are a drain on the states resources. In a lawsuit challenging an Obama-era policy, Texas argued the state spent $90 million to provide emergency Medicaid services to undocumented immigrants.

Abbott has repeatedly called for the federal government to reimburse the state for costs associated with his border security program, Operation Lone Star. He has also said Texas should find a way to challenge longstanding Supreme Court precedent that requires public schools to educate undocumented children.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

But other studies have found the economic benefits far outweigh the costs, even in Texas. A Rice University study from 2020 found the state of Texas made more than $420 million off immigrants living in the state illegally in 2018.

That study, which replicated an outdated state comptroller report, found that for every $1 the Texas state government spends on the estimated 1.6 million people living in the state illegally that year, it brought in $1.21 in tax revenue.

The study found that they paid some $2.4 billion in state sales taxes, property taxes and consumer taxes on gasoline, vehicle inspections and more, the study estimated. It estimated they cost the state just more than $2 billion in education, health care and prison costs.

A 2019 study, meanwhile, found immigrants in Houston are responsible for more than 26 percent of the areas gross domestic product and have accounted for a third of the regions population growth over the past decade.
HA NOI  On Friday morning, the national funeral for General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong entered its second day. The respect-paying ceremony continues from 7am to 1pm at the National Funeral House, 5 Tran Thanh Tong Street, Ha Noi, and simultaneously at the Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, as well as in his hometown in ong Hoi Commune, Ha Noi's ong Anh District.
Speaking at a conference on H2 investment opportunities, Dat Tong, senior market strategist of Exness Investment Bank, said, The advent of working from home during the pandemic is here to stay, but there is much debate about the productivity of working from home. However, it cannot be denied that the adoption of technology by employees increases to an unprecedented high level due.

Pre-pandemic, employees mainly went to the workplace and rarely used technology. As working from home has been lasting for the past three years, employees start to get used to technology, especially AI. Indeed, several new AI applications have been brought into life.

Along with the rapid development of AI, many companies have increasingly utilised AI to produce goods and services. In particular, 20 per cent of the IT industry has adopted AI in their works, Tong said.

Oxford Economics has created an economic model digging into the 18,000 tasks that can be automated by AI and assessed from high to medium and low levels of AI adoption.

The findings reveal that AI can have an impact on productivity and GDP growth depending on each level. Specifically, AI technology could boost GDP by 0.62.5 per cent in 2027.

Therefore, Vietnam needs to include this increase in upcoming productivity in GDP forecasts to have more detailed and closer assessments, he said.

In addition, the Exness Investment Bank strategist pointed out that the supply of digital assets like Bitcoin continues to increase on the market while bitcoin mining supply drops every four years. There is still sustainable market demand for ETF funds. Nearly $1.2 billion was injected into the market through bitcoin ETFs last week, marking the third consecutive weekly inflow after Germany's government has been selling almost all of its remaining Bitcoin available in the previous weeks.

Bitcoin's market cap has jumped to $1.3 trillion, indicating the attractiveness of the digital asset market. The current market has better resistance and absorption than many years ago, when capitalisation increased and many different actors participated in the market, such as the government and ETFs.

Ether ETFs started trading on July 23, a day after receiving final approval from the US Securities and Exchange Commission. This will continue to help the market grow in capitalisation in the future.

Big players developing asset management services for all Wealth management services to protect and increase assets are becoming more popular, and not only for the rich. Dat Tong, senior market strategist at Exness, spoke to VIRs Nguyen Phuong about the potential of the wealth management services in Vietnam.

Major role to play for fresh investment channels amid shifting funding flows The global economy is experiencing rapid and complicated changes, and businesses in particular are swimming in the vortex. Thai Viet Dung, director of Exness Vietnam, told VIRs Hara Phuong about the pros and cons of seeking new investment channels.
Dinh Viet Thang, head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), is working with air carriers on solutions to aircraft shortfalls by reducing turnaround time, optimising aircraft operation during the day, and increasing flights after 10pm.

We coordinate with airlines and Vietnamese diplomatic agencies abroad to support and create better conditions for them to open and increase direct flight routes, and especially resumption of international flights to destinations such as Danang, Cam Ranh, Phu Quoc, and Dalat, Thang said.

His comments come amid a drop in the number of domestic flights and lower-than-expected recovery of international routes in the first half of this year, ringing alarm bells about flight operation efficiency among air carriers.

Vietnam Airlines is trying to pick up the pace with more international routes Photo: Le Toan

According to the CAAV, the domestic segments performance has been weak, with domestic tourist arrivals hitting 17 million, falling over 19 per cent on-year. Due to the lack of aircraft, airlines had to reduce the number of flights on domestic routes. This is also a reason for the fall, Thang added.

Dang Anh Tuan, deputy general director of Vietnam Airlines, said, While there were more than 55,000 domestic and international flights during January-June, we still faced many challenges due to the aircraft shortfall.

He blamed the situation on the fact that the airline halted operation of 12 Airbus A321 aircraft for technical checks, and its unit Pacific Airlines returning leased aircraft to clear debts and restructure.

Vietnam Airlines recovery of international routes is still lower than expected, and international flight revenues contribute 65 per cent of the airlines total revenue. Vietnam Airlines focuses on major markets such as the US, China, and Japan.

Specifically, flights to China are recovering slowly compared to general forecasts. In the first five months of the year, the Chinese market saw a decrease of about 55 per cent compared to before the pandemic. Japanese tourists coming to Vietnam only reached 60 per cent compared to 2019, and a US route to San Francisco was opened by the airline in 2022, but it has yet to cover its costs.

Le Hong Ha, general director of Vietnam Airlines, said, Long-haul flights are still a big challenge for airlines due to great competition. But the contribution of the US route to Vietnam Airlines is significant, bringing good results when other routes have not recovered, Ha said

Meanwhile, Bamboo Airways has cut flight frequency on a number of unprofitable routes in recent months and is focusing on restructuring. Its fleet numbers fell by a fifth from 2022 due to restructuring and since early 2024, the airline has rented three A320 aircraft, aiming to increase its fleet to 12 by the end of the year.

Bamboo general director Luong Hoai Nam said, The company still aims for 2024 to be the last year of business loss. From 2025, the business will break even and become profitable in the following years. Within the next three years, we will be listed on the stock exchange.

Bamboo Airways is focusing on main routes to Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Danang, and on tourist and public service routes with high demand; as well as international routes to Southeast Asia. To ensure operating needs, Bamboo Airways needs an approximate $70 million in the last months of 2024, through capital mobilisation from credit institutions and domestic and foreign investors.

Vietjet has not been as affected by the aircraft shortfall thanks to its business strategy, and continues to open new routes. In 2024 it has opened direct flights connecting Hanoi with Sydney, bringing the total number of connecting flights between Vietnam and Australia to seven.

The airline also opened direct flights from Hanoi to Hiroshima in Japan and Ho Chi Minh City to Chengdu in China.

Aviation expert Ngo Tuan said, Unlike Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet focuses on the niche market by opening flights to small cities and tourist destinations. This helps it gain advantages and competitive edge and better survive this difficult time. For instance, Vietjet operates the most flights to India and Australia.

Yet to disclose its first-half results, a Vietjet representative said that the airlines flights achieve an average seat occupancy ratio of 87 per cent, and technical reliability of 99.7 per cent. To meet operational needs, the company continuously invests in its fleet and, as of late December 2023, Vietjet boasted 105 aircraft.

Currently, air carriers are planning to rent more aircraft to serve the opening of more routes and increase flight frequency, pinning high hopes on growth.

For example, Bamboo Airways will reopen some domestic routes such as Ho Chi Minh City to Dalat, Thanh Hoa, and Phu Quoc. It will also look into to re-operating several regular international routes to destinations like Bangkok. Bamboo Airways aims to increase its fleet to 18 aircraft by the end of 2025 to operate more key domestic and international routes.

Meanwhile, Vietnam Airlines will expand operations on domestic routes such as Hanoi to both Dalat and Phu Quoc, and Ho Chi Minh City to both Thanh Hoa and Chu Lai. Pacific Airlines will focus on operating similar routes.

Several factors affecting aviation sector recovery Pacific Airlines has recorded zero passengers since the start of April after the budget airline returned its last aircraft at the end of March in an attempt to write off debts, perfectly encapsulating the ongoing struggles of businesses operating in the aviation sector.

Vietnam Airlines faces severe aircraft shortage, considers Chinese planes The CEO of Vietnam Airlines has disclosed that the airline's severe aircraft shortage is expected to persist until the end of 2024. To mitigate the impact, Vietnam Airlines is exploring the incorporation of Chinese-developed C919 aircraft into its fleet.

Vietnam Airlines to launch Hanoi-Phnom Penh direct flight Vietnam Airlines on July 13 announced a new direct flight route between Hanoi and Phnom Penh and signed cooperation agreements with Cambodian partners to boost aviation and tourism development.

Number of aircraft receiving AOC drops during January-July As of July, the total number of aircraft of Vietnamese airlines receiving air operator certificate (AOC) stood at 195, a drop of 36 compared to the same period last year, statistic from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam. Of which, the number of commercial aircraft utilised by the airlines was 167, a year-on-year decline of 51.
Party General Secretary and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith writes in the condolence book (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - High-ranking delegations from Laos, China, Cambodia, Russia, Cuba paid their last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25, expressing their grief for the death of the Vietnamese Party leader.

In the condolence book, Party General Secretary and President of Laos Thongloun Sisoulith noted the profound sadness at the death of General Secretary Trong. He wrote that the Lao Party, State, and people will always remember the General Secretarys great merit and invaluable contributions to the great friendship, special solidarity and comprehensive cooperation between Laos and Vietnam. "We lost a respectable comrade, a close and great friend," he wrote, affirming that the Vietnamese Party leader's reputation and legacy will forever live on.

The Chinese delegation is led by Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Wang Huning (Photo: VNA)

Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Wang Huning, leading the Chinese delegation to the respect paying ceremony, expressed deep sorrow at the passing of the General Secretary, calling him a great friend of the Chinese people.

CPP President and President of the Cambodian Senate Samdech Techo Hun Sen offers incense to the late Party leader (Photo: VNA)

Extending condolences to leaders and members of the Communist Party of Vietnam, President of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) and President of the Cambodian Senate Samdech Techo Hun Sen wrote that the CPP has lost a comrade and a visionary leader who strongly supported and developed the bilateral long-standing friendship and cooperation in all aspects between Vietnam and Cambodia in the spirit of friendship between the CPP and the Communist Party of Vietnam.

A Russian delegation led by Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly Petr Olegovich Tolstoy pays respect to the Vietnamese leader (Photo: VNA)

Petr Olegovich Tolstoy, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of Russia, wrote in the condolence book that the Russian people will remember and highly value the General Secretarys significant contributions to establishing and advancing the Russia-Vietnam comprehensive strategic partnership built on traditional friendship, trust and mutual support.

"We will forever remember the excellent leader," he wrote.

The Cuban delegation is led by President of the National Assembly of People's Power Esteban Lazo Hernandez (Photo: VNA)

President of the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba Esteban Lazo Hernandez offered the deepest condolences at the death of General Secretary Trong, who is a close and loyal friend of Cuba. He said the rich theoretical knowledge and extensive revolutionary experience of him are significant to the cause of socialism building in Vietnam and a source of reference for the international communist movement. Trong's research in Marxist-Leninist theory, Ho Chi Minh Thought and Vietnam's Doi Moi has strategic significance, he wrote.

The Vietnamese Party leader's successful visits to Cuba are evidence of the excellent relations between the two countries and the will to continue consolidating and expanding the relations, Hernandez wrote. He recalled his meeting with General Secretary Trong in September 2023, saying that he will forever remember that meeting, as he is the last Cuban leader to have had the chance to exchange views with him, a close friend of Cuba.

In the afternoon on July 25, many ambassadors, representatives of various countries and international organisations in Vietnam came to pay their respects and express profound sorrow at the passing of the Vietnamese leader.

As part of the State funeral for the Party leader, the respect-paying ceremony is held at the National Funeral Hall from 7am to 10pm on July 25, and 7am to 1pm on July 26.

The memorial service is scheduled for 1pm on July 26 at the National Funeral Hall, followed by the burial ceremony at 3pm at Mai Dich Cemetery in the capital city.

Leaders, people bid last farewell to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong Since the early morning of July 25, large numbers of leaders and people from all walks of life have paid their last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and in his hometown in Dong Hoi commune of Hanois Dong Anh district, showing their great grief over the passing of the Party leader.

Indonesia media highlights Party General Secretarys great role in Vietnam's renewal process Indonesian news agencies and newspapers have run articles highlighting the great contributions of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to national construction and development in Vietnam.

Vietnamese embassies in Indonesia, RoK, Australia open condolence books for late Party chief The Vietnamese Embassy in Indonesia held a respect-paying service and opened a book of condolence for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 and 26.

Respect paying ceremony held for Party General Secretary in Cambodia The Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia opened two-day respect paying ceremony along with the condolence book for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 morning.

Moscow mourns Vietnamese Party chief A two-day respect paying ceremony began on July 25 morning at the Vietnamese Embassy in Russia to honour Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (Photo: VNA)

Jakarta  Indonesian news agencies and newspapers have run articles highlighting the great contributions of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to national construction and development in Vietnam.

Kompas research magazine on July 20 published an article hailing the outstanding role of General Secretary Trong and emphasising his imprints on Vietnam's development.

According to the article, the Party leader has been known globally for introducing the bamboo diplomacy" approach, which is flexible and capable of responding to geopolitical winds in the world. While developing international relations, Vietnam bases on national values and stays open to all partner countries without losing its identity. The large-scale anti-corruption campaign initiated by the General Secretary is an unprecedented tough, effective measure. He is also a model of purity and corruption combat, winning the peoples trust. This is one of the key factors to create consensus in national development. The passing of the General Secretary is a great loss to Vietnam.

Meanwhile, Tempo newspaper reported that after nearly 60 years of working, General Secretary Trong made great and extraordinary contributions to the glorious revolutionary struggle of his Party and nation. His passing is a huge loss to the Party, State and people of Vietnam and his family.

"Nusantara Post" newspaper assessed that under the leadership of the Party leader, Vietnam has become a rising power in Southeast Asia, balancing historical relationships with a modern approach in international diplomacy. In addition, the Communist Party of Vietnam emphasised the importance of maintaining a socialist orientation and adapting to global economic changes through the Doi Moi (Renewal) policy.

Sharing the same views, Ipotnews and Indonesia Satu newspapers highlighted that General Secretary Trong led Vietnam to establish good and balanced relations with major countries, gathering national internal strength to maintain impressive economic growth over the past decade.

Other major newspapers and media agencies in Indonesia such as The Diplomat, CNN-Indonesia, Metro TV, RRI, and Liputan-6 also reported the passing of the Vietnamese leader and praised his role in the country's development.

Cuban leaders mourn Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez on July 24 morning (local time) paid homage to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the Vietnamese Embassy in Havana.

African political parties leaders sign condolence books in memory of Vietnamese Party chief General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) Solly Mapaila on July 24 afternoon came to the Vietnamese Embassy in South Africa to pay his respects and sign the condolence book following the passing of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

UN Secretary-General, ambassadors pay tribute to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong Leaders of the United Nations (UN) and ambassadors of countries to the UN on July 24 paid tribute to General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong at the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the UN in New York, the US.
A high-level delegation from Belarus led by Siarhei Khamenka, Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Republic (upper house) of the National Assembly of Belarus, pays last respect to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - The respect paying ceremony for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong continued on the morning of July 26 at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, with high-level delegations from foreign countries and international organisations paying their last respects and expressing deep condolences.

Among them were high-level delegations from Belarus led by Siarhei Khamenka, Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Republic (upper house) of the National Assembly of Belarus; from Malaysia led by Deputy Prime Minister Yab DatoSri Haji Fadillah Haji Yusof; from the Philippines led by Secretary of the Department of Agriculture Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr; from Thailand led by Minister Attached to the Prime Minister's Office and the PMs Special Envoy Jakkapong Sangmanee; and from the Communist Party of Britain led by a representative of its leadership Kyril Whittaker.

In the condolence book, Deputy Chairman Siarhei Khamenka, on behalf of the Belarusian President and people, expressed his deep condolences over the passing of a true patriot of Vietnam and a sincere friend of the Belarusian people. Thailand will always remember him, he added.

Malaysian Deputy PM Fadillah Yusof wrote that the late Party chief was a truly dedicated leader who tirelessly served his country. Vietnam has lost a steadfast and committed leader who made great contributions. May his legacy inspire future generations, he wrote, affirming that the Party leader made invaluable efforts to significantly strengthen the Vietnam-Malaysia strategic partnership, contributing to regional peace and prosperity.

Philippine Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr wrote that the Philippines shares the profound grief and great loss felt by the Vietnamese people over the passing of an outstanding leader, diplomat, teacher, intellectual, and most cherished son of Vietnam ''.

May his exemplary life and contributions to Vietnam and the world noble life and immense contributions to Vietnam and the world be remembered by generations to come, and may his love for peace and integrity long burn and inspire the hearts and minds of our fellow ASEAN brothers.

The high-level delegation from Thailand pays tribute to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (Photo: VNA)

Special Envoy of Thai PM Jakkapong Sangmanee, meanwhile, wrote that the late Part chiefs leadership and dedication significantly contributed to Vietnam's stable and prosperous development.

He was a great friend of Thailand, playing a crucial role in fostering a stable and strong relationship between the two countries. His visit to Thailand in 2013 marked a significant chapter, elevating the bilateral diplomatic relations to a strategic partnership. The people of Thailand will always remember the Vietnamese Party General Secretary.

Whittaker jotted down his farewell to "a revolutionary comrade of the highest calibre, leader of the Vietnamese people and light of the revolutionary movement."

Over 1,560 delegations bid farewell to Party General Secretary As many as 1,565 delegations with 55,600 people paid their final respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Reunification Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and his hometown in Lai Da village, Dong Hoi commune, Hanoi's outlying district of Dong Anh from 7am to 9pm on July 25.

Intl friends pay last respects to Party General Secretary Expressing their deep condolences to the Party, State and people of Vietnam, leaders from many countries and international friends came to Hanoi on July 25 to say goodbye forever to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Tens of thousands line up at night to pay respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong As the night deepened, more and more people headed toward the National Funeral Hall at No. 5 Tran Thanh Tong in Hanoi on July 25. They stood orderly in lines stretching for kilometers, waiting for their turn to pay respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
At the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi  Expressing their deep condolences to the Party, State and people of Vietnam, leaders from many countries and international friends came to Hanoi on July 25 to say goodbye forever to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Myanmar Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Admiral Tin Aung San wrote in the condolence book that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made great contributions in upgrading the relationship between the two countries to a comprehensive cooperative partnership during his visit to Myanmar in 2017.

His passing of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is also a great loss to Myanmar, Tin Aung San wrote, noting he is a dedicated politician who devoted his whole life to the benefit of the country and its people. The legacies he left behind will continue to inspire future generations of Vietnam as well as make a memorable milestone in bilateral relations between Myanmar and Vietnam.

Singaporean Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Dong expressed his deepest condolences over the passing of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

He wrote in the condolence book that under the leadership of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam has recorded rapid economic growth and improved people's lives. He strongly supported closer cooperation between Singapore and Vietnam, and established a solid foundation for bilateral cooperation in the future, including a plan to soon upgrade the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

Extending his deep condolences and sympathy to the family of the Party leader and the entire Vietnamese people, Prime Minister of the Republic of Korea Han Duck Soo hailed Nguyen Phu Trong for devoting his entire life to the development of Vietnam.

Taking notes in the condolence book, Australian Senate President Sue Lines affirmed that Australia appreciates the warmth and sincerity that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong gave to the relationship between the two countries. The most important achievement in the bilateral relationship during the term of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was the upgrade of the relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership. This would not be made without his support and leadership. The General Secretary's dedication to Vietnam and its people has been valued by the international community. His legacies and commitments to Vietnam's peace will remain forever.

In the condolence book, Special Envoy of the Japanese Prime Minister and former Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide wrote that he will always remember Party chief Trongs great contributions to promoting the friendship between Vietnam and Japan.

Sharing this immeasurable loss with Vietnam, General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and Chairman of the State Council of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea Kim Jong-un sent a wreath to pay tribute to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Paying respects to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, National Security Advisor of India Ajit Doval extended the deepest condolences to the leaders and people of Vietnam as well as the family over his passing, an uncountable loss of Vietnam.

India highly values the valuable contributions of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to the development of Vietnam as well as the strengthening of the India-Vietnam friendship.

Also on July 25, many ambassadors, representatives of countries and international organisations in Vietnam paid homage to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and extended their profound condolences over his passing.

Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the CPV Central Committee and Secretary of the Central Military Commission, passed away on July 19 at the age of 80.

For nearly 60 years of working, he made significant and particularly remarkable contributions to the glorious revolutionary cause of the Party and the nation. He was granted the Gold Star Order, the 55-year Party membership badge, and many other noble orders and medals of Vietnam and other countries.

The respect-paying ceremonies take place in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from 7am to 10pm on July 25, and from 7am to 1pm on July 26.

The memorial service will be held at 1pm on July 26 at the National Funeral Hall, No. 5 Tran Thanh Tong street, Hanoi. The burial ceremony will take place at 3pm on the same day at the capital citys Mai Dich Cemetery.

Vietnamese embassies in Indonesia, RoK, Australia open condolence books for late Party chief The Vietnamese Embassy in Indonesia held a respect-paying service and opened a book of condolence for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 and 26.

Respect paying ceremony held for Party General Secretary in Cambodia The Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia opened two-day respect paying ceremony along with the condolence book for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 morning.

Moscow mourns Vietnamese Party chief A two-day respect paying ceremony began on July 25 morning at the Vietnamese Embassy in Russia to honour Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Thai PM, Bruneian Princess pay respect to late Vietnamese Party leader The Vietnamese Embassies in Thailand and Brunei on July 25 began respect-paying ceremony and opened condolence books for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

Foreign leaders pay last respects to Vietnamese Party chief High-ranking delegations from Laos, China, Cambodia, Russia, Cuba paid their last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25, expressing their grief for the death of the Vietnamese Party leader. 

More condolences sent to Vietnam over Party General Secretarys death Following the passing of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, senior leaders from various countries, international organisations, parties, and friendship organisations worldwide have sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee, the President, Prime Minister, and people of Vietnam, and the late leaders family.
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong's casket leaves National Funeral Hall (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi  A memorial ceremony was held at 1pm on July 26 for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

The service was organised simultaneously at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and the late leaders hometown in Dong Hoi commune of Hanois Dong Anh district, by the CPV Central Committee, the National Assembly, the State President, the Government, the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee and his family.

As of 12:30 on July 26, over 5,600 delegations from central and local agencies, armed forces, the public, and foreign countries and organisations, with more than 252,000 people, had paid their respects to the late leader in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Additionally, over 483,000 entries had been made in the electronic condolence book on the e-identification app VNeID, and approximately 3,000 delegations paid their respects at 94 Vietnamese diplomatic missions abroad.

Attending the memorial service at the National Funeral Hall were Politburo members: State President To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man, permanent member of the Party Central Committees Secretariat Luong Cuong, Secretary of the Party Central Committee, President of the VFF Central Committee Do Van Chien, and other Politburo members and Secretaries of the Party Central Committee.

Also present at the ceremony were incumbent and former leaders of the Party, the State and the VFF, veteran revolutionaries, intellectuals, representatives from agencies, organisations, associations, religious organisations, people from all walks of life and international friends.

Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong was born April 14, 1944 in Dong Hoi commune, Dong Anh district, Hanoi city. His residence is at No. 5 Thien Quang street, Nguyen Du ward, Hai Ba Trung district, Hanoi. He started his career on December 5, 1967 and became a Party member on December 19, 1967.

He is a member of the Party Central Committee in the 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th tenures; a member of the Political Bureau in the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th tenures; Chairman of the National Assembly in the 11th and 12th tenures; General Secretary of the Party Central Committee in the 11th, 12th, 13th tenures; President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in the 2016-2021 tenure; Chairman of the National Defence and Security Council; Secretary of the Central Military Commission; a member of the Standing Board of the Central Public Security Party Committee; head of the Central Steering Committee on Prevention and Control of Corruption and Negative Phenomena; and Deputy of the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th National Assembly.

Politburo member and State President To Lam reads the eulogy (Photo: VNA)

Reading the eulogy, Politburo member and State President To Lam, head of the Funeral Board, said the General Secretarys passing is a huge and irreparable loss to the Party, nation, and people. The country has lost a talented leader; the world communist and progressive movements have lost a sharp theorist; international friends have lost a sincere friend and a close comrade; and his family, clan, and the hometown of Dong Hoi have lost an eminent son.

President Lam noted that throughout his nearly 60 years of diverse, unwavering revolutionary work, Professor, Doctor, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, with his wide and keen intellect, has left a valuable system of ideology and theory on Vietnams revolutionary path in the new era for the entire Party, army, and people. Persisting and creatively applying Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minhs ideology, with the goal of national independence and socialism, ideologist Nguyen Phu Trong, a theory flag of the Party, has clarified the theory of socialism and the path towards socialism in Vietnam, the role of the Communist Party of Vietnam, and the socialist-oriented market economy. His invaluable legacy has consolidated the strong trust in the path towards socialism, significantly contributing to the development of the world communist movement, Marxism-Leninism, and Ho Chi Minhs ideology in the present era.

With his strategic vision on the current world situation, unceasing efforts to contribute to maintaining a peaceful and stable environment in the region and the world, he opened up a new chapter in the relations between Vietnam and international partners, boosted the countrys friendship with other countries, intensified Vietnams contributions with various commitments and practical acts, and closely combined the strength of the nation and that of the era, strongly bringing the country forward.

General Secretary Trong and the Party Central Committee worked out plans, made decisions, and led the successful implementation of the strategic guidelines on Party building and rectification; resolutely and persistently fought individualism, degradation of ideology, morality, and lifestyle, and corruption and other negative phenomena in the Party. This is an arduous fight against internal enemy to make the Party purer and stronger, and affirm the pioneering role, mettle, and intellect, so that the Party is truly of morality and civilisation.

The late leader made great devotion and especially important contributions to building and developing an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity, making it truly a spiritual foundation of the society, an intrinsic strength, and important momentum for national development.

With a profound and sharp political viewpoint, he elevated the strategic mindset, creating a new development for the national defence, security, and external affairs of Vietnam. He also brought into play the pioneering role of the comprehensive diplomacy, forming and leading the efficient implementation of the new-era art of diplomacy deeply imbued with the characteristics of the Vietnamese bamboo. Under his leadership, Vietnam has become a trustworthy partner and an active and responsible member in the international stage, and unceasingly carried out intensive, extensive and comprehensive integration into the international politics, the world economy, and the humankinds civilisation, reads the eulogy.

President Lam went on to say that running through General Secretary Trongs thought is the people, the humans, and the wholehearted and all-out service to the people, the development of the new socialist people, and the unceasing consolidation of solidarity and unity, firstly those in the Party, the great national solidarity, and the pure international solidarity.

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong relentlessly devoted himself to the revolutionary cause of our Party and nation with a steel-like spirit and will, did not backtrack in the face of obstacles and difficulties; dedicated all of his sense of responsibility and revolutionary enthusiasm, worked till his last breath, and made wholehearted and all-out dedications to the Party, the country, and the people, demonstrating a great figure living his life to the fullest for the country, the Party, and the people.

He is truly an outstanding and brilliant example of the pure revolutionary mettle and ethics, public-spiritedness and selflessness, a simple, upright, and sincere lifestyle, a democratic, dedicated, scientific, close to reality, and drastic working style which contains consistency between words and actions, along with the respect for and love of people, and the extreme closeness to the people. He was truly the nucleus that mobilised the solidarity, unity, and wisdom of the entire Party, people, and army, received the respect, trust, and pride from cadres, Party members and the people, and was also appreciated and highly valued by international friends, President Lam went on.

The State leader added that the General Secretary passed away but his name and career, contributions and dedications, and talent and righteousness will remain bright forever in the glorious history of the Party and the nation, in the gratitude of cadres, Party members and people, and in the sentiment of international friends. His legacy will last forever in the history of Vietnam and be inherited and further brought into play in the cause of renewal, thereby successfully realising the goal of building a peaceful, independent, united, democratic, prosperous, powerful, civilised, and happy Vietnam that he wished and strived for throughout his whole life.

Leaders of the Party, State, and Vietnam Fatherland Front; representatives of ministries, departments, sectors, organisations, comrades, compatriots, and international friends observed a minute of silence to commemorate General Secretary Trong.

On behalf of the bereaved family, Nguyen Trong Truong, the son of Party General Secretary Trong said: After a period of illness, despite wholehearted care and treatment by the Party, the State, leading medical professors and doctors, and our family, due to old age and severe illness, our father and grandfather passed away at 1:38pm on July 19, 2024 (the 14th day of the sixth lunar month in the Year of the Dragon) at Central Military Hospital 108 in Hanoi, at the age of 80. Our fathers passing is an extremely great and incompensable loss to our family, especially my Mother and his children and grandchildren.

From the time our father fell ill until his last moment and throughout the organisation of the funeral, our family has received a lot of affection, encouragement, sincere sympathies, and wholehearted assistance from the Party, the State, central agencies and units, localities, uncles, aunts, brothers, sisters, along with the affection from people nationwide, overseas compatriots, and international friends. My Mother and our entire family wish to express the most profound and sincere appreciation and gratitude.

Delegates observe a moment of silence in memory of General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (Photo: VNA)

Expressing their grief, leaders of the Party, State, and Vietnam Fatherland Front; representatives of ministries, departments, sectors, organisations, comrades, compatriots, and international friends walked around the leaders coffin, bidding their last farewell to comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, an outstanding and reputable leader of the Party, State and people.

In the solemn background music of the song Hon Tu si (Souls of the Fallen), leaders and former leaders of the Party and State carried the coffin of General Secretary Trong to the hearse.

The coffin of General Secretary Trong was solemnly covered with the national flag. The hearse carrying the coffin of General Secretary Trong left the National Funeral Hall at No. 5 Tran Thanh Tong Street to his resting place at Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi.

Crowds of people lined both sides of the route where the funeral procession passed to send off comrade Trong - the exemplary leader who devoted his whole life to the country and the people, to his resting place.

On June 26 afternoon, taking place in parallel with the memorial services at the National Funeral Hall, at Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, large numbers of representatives from central and local agencies, and people of all walks of life in Ho Chi Minh City attended the memorial service for General Secretary Trong.

In the late Party leaders hometown at Lai Da village, Dong Hoi commune of Hanois Dong Anh district, local leaders, Trongs relatives and crowd of people gathered to pay last homage to the Party chief.

To the people of Dong Hoi, General Secretary Trong is not only an example of simplicity, accessibility and sincerity but also a talented, exemplary and virtuous leader of the Party, State and people.

The burial service for Party General Secretary Trong took place at 3pm the same day at the Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi.

Foreign leaders pay last respects to Vietnamese Party chief High-ranking delegations from Laos, China, Cambodia, Russia, Cuba paid their last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25, expressing their grief for the death of the Vietnamese Party leader. 

More condolences sent to Vietnam over Party General Secretarys death Following the passing of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, senior leaders from various countries, international organisations, parties, and friendship organisations worldwide have sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee, the President, Prime Minister, and people of Vietnam, and the late leaders family.
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Following the passing of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong, senior leaders from various countries, international organisations, parties, and friendship organisations worldwide have sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee, the President, Prime Minister, and people of Vietnam, and the late leaders family.

Canada's Governor General Mary Simon said in her message that the Party General Secretary will be remembered for his dedicated service to the Vietnamese people. She said Canada appreciates his support for the establishment of a comprehensive partnership between Canada and Vietnam, which has benefited both peoples.

Letters of condolence were sent to President To Lam from Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stre, Finnish President Alexander Stubb, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay, Secretary-General of the Zimbabwe African National Union  Patriotic Front (ZANUPF) Obert Moses Mpofu, Chairman of the People's Party of Kazakhstan Ermuhamet Ertsbaev, and Chief Representative of Japan's Komeito Party Yamaguchi Natsuo.



Meanwhile, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico sent a message of condolence to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

The CPV Central Committee has received additional messages/letters of condolences from General Secretary of the Portuguese Communist Party Paulo Raimundo, the presidium of the Hungarian Workers' Party, the Swiss Party of Labour, the Central Committee of the Colombian Communist Party, the Peruvian Communist Party; the Communist Party of Peru-Red Fatherland, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front of El Salvador, the international secretary of the Communist Party of Denmark, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Brazil, the Secretariat of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties, the head of the external relations committee of the Left Party of Germany, the Justicialist Party of Argentina, the Politburo of the Communist Party of Kurdistan-Iraq, and the Central Committee of the Paraguayan Communist Party.



The Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations received condolence messages from the Lao Committee for Peace and Solidarity, the China-Vietnam Friendship Association, the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, the Russia-Vietnam Friendship Association, the Republic of Korea-Vietnam Friendship Association, the Chairman of the Japan Committee for Asian-African-Latin American Solidarity, the Sri Lanka People's Liberation Front, the Egyptian Peace Committee, the Mongolia-Vietnam Friendship Association, and the Australia-Vietnam Friendship Association.

UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy sent a letter of condolences to Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son.

Vietnamese embassies in Indonesia, RoK, Australia open condolence books for late Party chief The Vietnamese Embassy in Indonesia held a respect-paying service and opened a book of condolence for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 and 26.

Respect paying ceremony held for Party General Secretary in Cambodia The Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia opened two-day respect paying ceremony along with the condolence book for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 morning.

Moscow mourns Vietnamese Party chief A two-day respect paying ceremony began on July 25 morning at the Vietnamese Embassy in Russia to honour Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Thai PM, Bruneian Princess pay respect to late Vietnamese Party leader The Vietnamese Embassies in Thailand and Brunei on July 25 began respect-paying ceremony and opened condolence books for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.
First Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of Russia Aleksey Yatskin writes in condolence book (Photo: VNA)

Moscow - A two-day respect paying ceremony began on July 25 morning at the Vietnamese Embassy in Russia to honour Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Vietnamese Ambassador to Russia Dang Minh Khoi described the General Secretary as a humble and approachable leader who always showed affection and concern to his subordinates.

He highlighted the "Vietnamese bamboo" diplomatic style initiated by General Secretary Trong, saying it has a very practical meaning for those working in foreign affairs.

He said all of those engaged in diplomatic work, both at home and abroad, will never forget the guidance and trust entrusted by the Party, State and people and pledge to keep striving to live up to the expectations of the General Secretary, to better serve the country and people.

Aleksey Yatskin, First Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of Russia, praised the late leaders legacies, saying that the two nations would continue to build on the foundation he laid for the benefit of the Vietnam-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership.

The condolence book is filled with heartfelt messages and sympathies from representatives of the embassies of Laos, Cambodia, India, and China; Deputy Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Federation Councill Andrey Klimov; representatives of major universities in Moscow; Vietnamese associations, businesses and others, reflecting the widespread respect and admiration for the Vietnamese leader.

Leaders, people bid last farewell to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong Since the early morning of July 25, large numbers of leaders and people from all walks of life have paid their last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and in his hometown in Dong Hoi commune of Hanois Dong Anh district, showing their great grief over the passing of the Party leader.

Indonesia media highlights Party General Secretarys great role in Vietnam's renewal process Indonesian news agencies and newspapers have run articles highlighting the great contributions of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to national construction and development in Vietnam.

Vietnamese embassies in Indonesia, RoK, Australia open condolence books for late Party chief The Vietnamese Embassy in Indonesia held a respect-paying service and opened a book of condolence for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 and 26.
China's advanced satellites for climate, carbon monitoring now operational

Xinhua) 10:46, July 26, 2024

BEIJING, July 25 (Xinhua) -- China's atmospheric environment monitoring satellite and terrestrial ecosystem carbon monitoring satellite have been officially put into operation, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Thursday.

During their in-orbit testing, these satellites demonstrated favorable application results across multiple areas, including ecological environment, forestry and grassland, geographic surveying, meteorology, agriculture and emergency disaster response, according to an official of the CNSA.

The two satellites will provide crucial data to effectively address global climate change and support China's goals of achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality.

The atmospheric monitoring satellite is the world's first to utilize active laser detection, employing a combination of active laser, hyperspectral, multispectral and high-precision polarization techniques for comprehensive observation, according to the CNSA.

It is capable of conducting extensive, continuous, dynamic and round-the-clock comprehensive monitoring of atmospheric fine particulate matter, pollutants, greenhouse gases, clouds, aerosols, as well as environmental elements such as land surfaces and water bodies.

Additionally, it has for the first time achieved global round-the-clock high-precision detection of carbon dioxide column concentrations at 1 PPM.

The terrestrial ecosystem carbon monitoring satellite, also known as "Goumang" (named after the ancient Chinese god of spring, growth and life), is the world's first remote sensing satellite for forest carbon sinks combining both active and passive observation methods, the CNSA said.

It employs a range of remote sensing methods, including laser, multi-angle, multispectral, hyperspectral and polarization techniques, to detect vegetation biomass and productivity, and monitor atmospheric aerosol distribution.

It also meets the needs of geographic surveying, disaster assessment, and agricultural remote sensing.

"Goumang" has achieved quantitative remote sensing detection of forest vegetation height, biomass, and chlorophyll fluorescence, enhancing the forest carbon sink monitoring capabilities of both China and the world.

The CNSA will further explore the satellite application scenarios, enhance the overall application effectiveness, and promote the sharing and utilization of satellite data resources.

China successfully launched the atmospheric environment monitoring satellite on April 16, 2022, and the terrestrial ecosystem carbon monitoring satellite on Aug. 4, 2022, both from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern Shanxi Province.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Crowds line up at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi to pay last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi  As many as 1,565 delegations with 55,600 people paid their final respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Reunification Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and his hometown in Lai Da village, Dong Hoi commune, Hanoi's outlying district of Dong Anh from 7am to 9pm on July 25.

The attendees included leaders from the Party, State, ministries, agencies, mass organisations, localities, and units, as well as the military, diplomatic delegations, international organisations, international friends, and fellow citizens, according to the organising board of the state funeral.

At the National Funeral Hall, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee delegation, led by Politburo member and State President To Lam, paid tribute to General Secretary Trong and offered condolences to his family.

The Government delegation was led by Politburo member and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, the State President delegation by Politburo member and State President To Lam, the NA delegation by Politburo member and NA Chairman Tran Thanh Man, and the VFF Central Committee delegation by Politburo member, Secretary of the CPV Central Committee and President of the VFF Central Committee Do Van Chien.

Former Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh; former Presidents Nguyen Minh Triet, Truong Tan Sang, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, and Vo Van Thuong; former PM Nguyen Tan Dung; former NA Chairpersons Nguyen Sinh Hung, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, and Vuong Dinh Hue; along with many other incumbent and former leaders of the Party and State also came to pay respects to the late leader and offer their heartfelt condolences to his family.

The respect-paying ceremony will continue in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City from 7am to 1pm on July 26.

The memorial service is scheduled for 1pm on July 26 at the National Funeral Hall, followed by the burial ceremony at 3pm at Mai Dich Cemetery in the capital city.

Indonesia media highlights Party General Secretarys great role in Vietnam's renewal process Indonesian news agencies and newspapers have run articles highlighting the great contributions of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to national construction and development in Vietnam.

Respect paying ceremony held for Party General Secretary in Cambodia The Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia opened two-day respect paying ceremony along with the condolence book for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 morning.

Foreign leaders pay last respects to Vietnamese Party chief High-ranking delegations from Laos, China, Cambodia, Russia, Cuba paid their last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25, expressing their grief for the death of the Vietnamese Party leader. 
Delegations from the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, Peoples Council, Peoples Committee, Fatherland Front, and people from all walks of life observe a minute of silence to commemorate Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi  More than 5,600 delegations with over 252,000 people formally paid tribute to General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Reunification Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and his hometown in Lai Da village, Dong Hoi commune, Hanoi's outlying district of Dong Anh during the two-day state funeral on July 25-26.

The attendees included leaders from the Party, State, ministries, agencies, mass organisations, localities, and units, as well as the military and diplomatic delegations, international organisations, international friends, and fellow citizens.

As many as 434 delegations with 136,886 people bid farewell to the late leader at the National Funeral Hall, 1,588 delegations with 56,600 people in Dong Hoi commune, and 3,585 delegations with 58,532 people in Ho Chi Minh City.

There were 100 foreign delegations coming to say goodbye to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

According to the organising board of the state funeral, over 483,000 people sent their heartfelt condolences to the late leader via the e-identification app VNeID.

The immense turnout for the national mourning prompted the organising board to extend the respect-paying ceremony to 24:00 at the National Funeral Hall, and 23:00 in Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Hoi commune instead of 22:00 on July 25 as announced earlier.

The memorial service was held at 1pm on July 26 at the National Funeral Hall, followed by the burial ceremony at 3pm at Mai Dich Cemetery in the capital city.

Intl friends pay last respects to Party General Secretary Expressing their deep condolences to the Party, State and people of Vietnam, leaders from many countries and international friends came to Hanoi on July 25 to say goodbye forever to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Tens of thousands line up at night to pay respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong As the night deepened, more and more people headed toward the National Funeral Hall at No. 5 Tran Thanh Tong in Hanoi on July 25. They stood orderly in lines stretching for kilometers, waiting for their turn to pay respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

Memorial service held for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong A memorial ceremony was held at 1pm on July 26 for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.
A CPP delegation led by Honorary President Samdech Heng Samrin at the ceremony (Photo: VNA)

Phnom Penh  The Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia opened two-day respect paying ceremony along with the condolence book for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 morning.

Throughout the morning, delegations from the Cambodian Royal Palace, the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), the Senate, the National Assembly, and various Cambodian ministries and agencies visited the Vietnamese Embassy to sign the condolence book and pay their last respects.

Senior Minister in charge of General Affairs of the Ministry of the Royal Palace Kuy Sophal conveyed a letter of condolences from King Norodom Sihamoni to Ambassador Nguyen Huy Tang, and condolences from the King and Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk to leaders and people of Vietnam over the passing of the late Party leader, who he said is a close friend of Cambodian people.

Leaders of the CPP, the Senate, the National Assembly of Cambodia hailed the General Secretary as an eminent leader of Vietnam and a close, longstanding friend of Cambodia who made significant contributions to the fraternal friendship and close cooperation between the two countries Parties, Governments and people, affirming that his legacy will remain forever in their hearts.

Representatives from diplomatic missions and international organisations in Cambodia, as well as from the Khmer-Vietnamese Association in Cambodia (KVA), the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Association, the Vietnam-Cambodia Business Association (VCBA), and the Cambodian Alumni in Vietnam Association (CAVA) also paid their last respects to the Vietnamese Party leader.

The respect paying ceremony at the embassy will last through July 26.

State Funeral for General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong: Memorial service in Ho Chi Minh City A memorial service for Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, is held at the Independence Palace, Ho Chi Minh City.

Cuban leaders mourn Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez on July 24 morning (local time) paid homage to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the Vietnamese Embassy in Havana.

African political parties leaders sign condolence books in memory of Vietnamese Party chief General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) Solly Mapaila on July 24 afternoon came to the Vietnamese Embassy in South Africa to pay his respects and sign the condolence book following the passing of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

UN Secretary-General, ambassadors pay tribute to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong Leaders of the United Nations (UN) and ambassadors of countries to the UN on July 24 paid tribute to General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong at the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the UN in New York, the US.

Leaders, people bid last farewell to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong Since the early morning of July 25, large numbers of leaders and people from all walks of life have paid their last respects to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, the Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and in his hometown in Dong Hoi commune of Hanois Dong Anh district, showing their great grief over the passing of the Party leader.

Indonesia media highlights Party General Secretarys great role in Vietnam's renewal process Indonesian news agencies and newspapers have run articles highlighting the great contributions of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to national construction and development in Vietnam.
Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin writes in the condolence book at the respect-paying ceremony at Vietnamese Embassies in Thailand on July 25. (Photo: VNA)

Bangkok - The Vietnamese Embassies in Thailand and Brunei on July 25 began respect-paying ceremony and opened condolence books for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

In Thailand, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin as well as representatives from various Thai ministries and departments came to the embassy to pay their respects.

In the condolence book, PM Srettha extended deepest condolences to the government and people of Vietnam on the passing of Party General Secretary Trong. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, the government, and the people of Vietnam during this difficult time.

The mourners also included ambassadors and diplomats from many foreign embassies in Thailand, and representatives from various associations, businesses, and the Vietnamese community.

The entries in the condolence book expressed deep respect and sorrow for the late Party General Secretary, highlighting his role in enhancing Vietnam's relations with other nations. They affirmed that his legacy will be upheld in a worthy manner and continue to positively contribute to strengthening Vietnam's international ties and global standing.

On the same day, the Vietnamese Embassy in Brunei also opened a two-day respect-paying ceremony and a condolence book for the Party General Secretary at its premises.

Princess Hajah Masna, the sister of Brunei's Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, paid tribute to the late Vietnamese leader on behalf of the Brunei royal family and government.

Princess Hajah Masna, on behalf of the Brunei royal family and government, writes in the condolence book at the respect-paying ceremony at Vietnamese Embassies in Brunei on July 25. (Photo: VNA)

Numerous ambassadors and heads of foreign missions in Brunei also paid their respects to the General Secretary, including ambassadors of Japan, Laos, China, the US, Australia, France, India, Thailand, the Philippines, Turkey, Iran, Timor-Leste, among others.

Indonesia media highlights Party General Secretarys great role in Vietnam's renewal process Indonesian news agencies and newspapers have run articles highlighting the great contributions of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong to national construction and development in Vietnam.

Vietnamese embassies in Indonesia, RoK, Australia open condolence books for late Party chief The Vietnamese Embassy in Indonesia held a respect-paying service and opened a book of condolence for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 and 26.

Respect paying ceremony held for Party General Secretary in Cambodia The Vietnamese Embassy in Cambodia opened two-day respect paying ceremony along with the condolence book for Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 morning.
Vietnam has seen a remarkable surge in the adoption of cryptoassets over the past few years. It ranks third globally in cryptocurrency owners, following India and the United States, with nearly 26 million people owning digital currencies, according to Crypto Crunch App. In 2023, a report by Chainalysis highlighted that Vietnam ranked third in estimated cryptocurrency gains by country, with approximately $1.18 billion in estimated gains.

Dr. Nguyen Nhat Minh and Dr. Thai Trung Hieu, lecturers of Blockchain Enabled Business at RMIT University

A significant trend is the growing interest in decentralised finance and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These innovations attract investors, creators, and entrepreneurs leveraging blockchain technology for new business models. For instance, Chainalysis suggests that play-to-earn gaming and NFTs are significant drivers of Vietnams crypto interest.

The demographic profile of crypto users in Vietnam is diverse, including young professionals, tech enthusiasts, and small business owners seeking alternative investments.

Vietnamese tech companies and startups are at the forefront of cryptoasset innovation, offering solutions that enhance transaction efficiency and security. These advancements position Vietnam as a regional leader in blockchain technology and foster a vibrant ecosystem of innovation.

The crypto market has become a significant income source, contributing to job creation and business opportunities. Furthermore, cryptoassets have the potential to enhance financial inclusion by providing access to financial services for the unbanked population, leading to greater economic participation and improved living standards.

Despite these promising developments, the cryptoasset landscape in Vietnam faces challenges. Security issues, including fraud and hacking incidents, remain a significant concern and undermine investor confidence. Market volatility also poses risks, with drastic price fluctuations potentially leading to substantial financial losses.

Necessity of regulations

Vietnams regulatory framework for cryptoassets is still in its nascent stages. Digital assets present unprecedented challenges, not only for Vietnam but for countries worldwide. Currently, Vietnamese law does not recognise ownership rights over digital assets. Despite this, trading and mining of digital assets continue to thrive, driven by the robust development of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

This regulatory gap creates an uncertain environment for investors and businesses, potentially stifling innovation and growth. The unregulated nature of the crypto market in Vietnam exposes investors to significant risks, including fraud, market manipulation, and security breaches.

As more people are interested in owning and investing in digital assets, there is an urgent need for regulations that protect consumers and ensure transparency in the market. This includes measures to prevent deceptive practices and safeguard against cyber threats. Implementing robust consumer protection regulations can build investor confidence and encourage more widespread participation in the crypto market.

Unregulated crypto markets can also pose threats to the broader financial stability of Vietnam. Without proper oversight, there is a risk of financial crimes such as money laundering and terrorism financing. Regulations are essential to maintain market integrity and prevent such illicit activities. Ensuring financial stability involves creating a regulatory environment that balances the benefits of cryptoassets with the need to protect the financial system from potential disruptions.

Besides the lack of regulations to mitigate risks, the rapid development of technology today also demands regulations to foster a conducive environment for innovation in the digital economy. To encourage the growth of blockchain technology and cryptoasset markets, it is essential to provide clear guidelines and support to create a healthy and fair playing field for businesses.

This can further attract foreign investment and support local startups, driving economic growth and technological advancement.

Photo: Shutterstock

Primary approaches to regulation

There are some key areas of interest in global practices regarding cryptoasset regulation, with the first being enhanced regulatory frameworks for investor protection. As cryptocurrency investment grows, robust regulatory frameworks are essential for protecting investors. In general, enhanced regulations ensure transparency, mitigate risks, and prevent fraud in the digital asset market.

By fostering a secure and stable environment, these measures bolster investor confidence and support the sustainable growth of the cryptocurrency industry.

In 2018, Hong Kong established one of its first comprehensive regulatory regimes for cryptoassets, setting new standards for fund managers, distributors, and platform operators. This regime addresses regulatory gaps and arbitrage issues from the previous framework, significantly enhancing investor protection.

When compared with the regulatory approaches of the US, the UK, and Singapore, Hong Kongs regime is significant. However, concerns remain, particularly regarding the regulatory scope, the application of traditional standards to non-securities cryptoassets, issues with the sandbox mechanism, and the need to balance investor protection with market development.

In the same fashion, Japanese regulation mandates that any entity wishing to provide cryptoasset exchange services to Japanese residents must register as a cryptoasset exchange provider. The primary objectives of this regulation are to protect investors and customers of cryptoasset exchanges and to prevent cryptoasset-related terrorist financing and money laundering. This framework ensures that exchanges operate transparently and securely, safeguarding investor interests and maintaining the integrity of the financial system.

The second area involves integration of cryptoassets into traditional financial regulations. One straightforward approach to addressing regulatory issues for cryptocurrencies is integrating them into traditional financial regulation. This integration aims to bring the benefits of cryptocurrencies, such as efficiency and innovation, into the established financial system while ensuring stability, security, and compliance.

By adapting existing regulations to accommodate digital currencies, authorities can address risks like fraud and volatility, fostering a safer and more transparent market.

Among several challenges of this integration is understanding the relationship between cryptocurrencies and securities. Securities law is essential for ensuring transparency, fairness, and integrity in capital markets. It governs the issuance, trading, and disclosure of financial instruments like stocks and bonds, aiming to protect investors, promote efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation.

However, whether cryptocurrencies could be seen as securities remains a subject of debate among global financial organisations and the cryptocurrency industry.

While several financial organisations argue that digital coins should be classified as securities, many leaders in the industry disagree, asserting that cryptocurrencies might differ from securities as they often serve as utility tokens, operate on decentralised networks, and offer global, inclusive financial access. Classifying them as securities could stifle innovation, create regulatory confusion, and impose restrictive frameworks not suited to their unique nature and purpose.

The final factor is balancing innovation and regulation, as excessive regulation could cause negative consequences. For example, there are debates saying that the US Securities and Exchange Commission seems not to meet its core mission of protecting investors, maintaining efficient markets, and facilitating capital formation.

Rather, its enforcement of pre-digital-asset laws has led to inadequate compliance and higher capital costs for crypto-issuers, ultimately harming the market and its participants.

Based on the current cryptocurrency market in Vietnam, it is recommended to address two key regulatory issues: protecting investors and users, and establishing balanced regulations that promote industry growth and innovation. Achieving an equilibrium between innovation and regulation is essential to create an environment where new ideas can thrive without compromising consumer protection and ethical standards.
Officials and staff at the embassy and Vietnamese representative agencies, and representatives from the Vietnamese community in Indonesia pay resspects to the late Party leader. (Photo: VNA)

Jakarta  The Vietnamese Embassy in Indonesia held a respect-paying service and opened a book of condolence for General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong on July 25 and 26.

Officials and staff at the embassy and Vietnamese representative agencies, and representatives from the Vietnamese community in the host nation observed a minute of silence in commemoration of the late Party leader.

Writing in the condolence book, Ambassador Ta Van Thong expressed the sorrow of staff members at the embassy over the death of General Secretary Trong. He stressed that the late leaders life and career will be a shining example for the Vietnamese people and party members to follow.

Representatives from diplomatic missions in Indonesia and local authorities and agencies came to the embassy to pay tribute to the late Party chief. They expressed grief and high valued the contributions of General Secretary Trong to Vietnam's development and relations with other countries in the world.

Deputy Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) Ahmad Basarah paid his last respects to the Vietnamese Party leader on behalf of the Indonesian parliament and the fifth President of Indonesia Megawati Soekarno Putri.

At a respect-paying ceremony for the late Party leader at the Vietnamese Embassy in the Republic of Korea (RoK) the same day, Ambassador Vu Ho underlined General Secretary Trongs great devotion and contributions to national construction and development of the nation as well as to the building of a strong Party.

Delegates from RoK ministries, political-social organisations, Vietnamese organisations, and foreign diplomatic missions including Brunei, Kuwait, the EU, Ireland, Laos, Russia, Singapore and Venezuela paid tribute to the late Vietnamese Party leader and wrote in the condolence book at the embassy.

Chairman of the Korea  Vietnam Economic and Cultural Association (KOVECA) Kwon Sung Taek, representing friendship organisations with Vietnam, signs the condolence book. (Photo: VNA)

On behalf of the RoK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, First Vice Minister Kim Hong Kyun wrote in the condolence book.

Representatives from many Korean businesses, business and social-cultural organisations, as well as the media also came to the embassy to pay their last respects to the Vietnamese leader.

In Australia, the Vietnamese Embassy and the Vietnamese General Consulates in Sydney and Perth have opened condolences books on July 25 and 26 for Party General Secretary Trong.

Writing in the condolence book, Ambassador Pham Hung Tam described the death of the Party leader as a great loss for the Vietnamese Party, military and people while promising to complete the entrusted political mission and strive to contribute to the Vietnam  Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership for the peoples interest and the regions peace, stability, cooperation and development.

Deputy Secretary of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Michelle Chan writes in the condolence book (Photo: VNA)

Representatives from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade paid tribute to General Secretary Trong and acknowledged his leadership, vision and contributions to the Vietnam  Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

Representatives from local administrations, foreign diplomatic delegations and the Vietnamese community in the nation also came to pay respects and wrote in the condolence book.

State Funeral for General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong: Memorial service in Ho Chi Minh City A memorial service for Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, is held at the Independence Palace, Ho Chi Minh City.

Cuban leaders mourn Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) and President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez on July 24 morning (local time) paid homage to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the Vietnamese Embassy in Havana.

African political parties leaders sign condolence books in memory of Vietnamese Party chief General Secretary of the South African Communist Party (SACP) Solly Mapaila on July 24 afternoon came to the Vietnamese Embassy in South Africa to pay his respects and sign the condolence book following the passing of General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong.

UN Secretary-General, ambassadors pay tribute to Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong Leaders of the United Nations (UN) and ambassadors of countries to the UN on July 24 paid tribute to General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee Nguyen Phu Trong at the Permanent Mission of Vietnam to the UN in New York, the US.
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.
How bad can your money problems get? We asked money professionals to spill the beans on some of the most challenging situations theyve encountered with their clients. Though weve changed names and a few details to protect privacy, these stories highlight how even the most daunting money problems have solutions.

Members only

Selling a money pit

Elizabeth wanted help selling her husbands house to contribute toward his care. George had moved to an assisted living facility about a year earlier. Elizabeth was living with her daughter, so Georges empty house had fallen into disrepair.

We listed the house, which had a mortgage balance of $190,000, for $325,000, but we soon learned that George had refinanced the house, adding $100,000 in debt. A buyer offered $330,000 but wanted nearly $10,000 in closing costs. The inspection revealed damage, prompting the buyer to ask for a $5,000 price cut. Then an $8,000 credit card debt popped up. Elizabeth would have had to pay $3,000 to close the sale.

I started negotiating. First, the credit card debt came down. Then the buyer lowered the repair costs to $2,500. I cut my commission by $1,500, and the buyers agent reduced her fee by $500. Elizabeth walked away with only $800 or so, but she avoided more expenses or foreclosure. Tabitha Richardson, real estate broker, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Pro tip: When you sell a house, always be prepared for additional expense, from repairs to closing costs. But keep in mind that everything  absolutely everything  is negotiable.

Valero Doval

A skyrocketing insurance premium

Despite making no changes to their property and never filing a claim, Betty and Don, retirees in a $1.1 million house near Lake Tahoe, were dropped by their insurer. Under current California rules, the insurer could not properly underwrite and price the policy to cover the areas increased fire risk.

I explained that to maintain similar coverage, they would have to replace their old $1,800 annual policy with two new ones. The first would cover everything but fire damage for $3,100 annually. For fire coverage, they would have to use Californias FAIR plan (which stands for fair access to insurance requirements). More than 30 states offer last-resort policies providing basic coverage for properties exposed to high risks, typically from natural disasters. But the FAIR premium cost was still high: $6,800 for the couples 2,000-square-foot home.

To cut their premiums, we raised the deductible to $10,000 on the residential policy and to $15,000 on the FAIR policy. Next, we lowered the coverage of personal property on both policies from $700,000 to $150,000, removed coverage for an additional shed-like structure, and eliminated coverage for the cost of temporary housing if damage forced them from their home. That cut their total premiums to about $6,000, down from nearly $10,000. Its still a lot more than they were paying, and their coverage is lower, but they are protected. Karl D. Susman, insurance broker, Los Angeles

Pro tip: Dont compare past insurance options with current ones. Today you may need to either reduce your coverage or pay higher premiums. There are steps you can take, however, to reduce the likelihood of property loss  such as installing a noncombustible roof, covering the eaves to prevent embers from getting underneath, and clearing brush from around your house  that may help lower your premium.

A $270,000 Social Security payment

Clara, 82, had never received a Social Security check despite contributing to the program since 1970. She had applied late, mistakenly believing that the monthly benefit based on her work record would continue to grow until she turned 72. (It stops growing at 70.)

An even bigger problem was that when Clara, an immigrant, submitted her initial application to the Social Security Administration (SSA), she had lost the certificate of naturalization proving she was a U.S. citizen. She requested a copy from the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services agency (USCIS), but the copy never arrived. Nine years later, in 2023, her daughter found her original certificate in a storage box. She and her mother hand-delivered it to her local SSA office. Yet Clara, 81 at the time and facing financial difficulties, received no benefit. Her children then contacted my company.


Boorara Ore Reserve Supports Development

Perth, July 26, 2024 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Horizon Minerals Limited ( ASX:HRZ ) is pleased to announce the results of the Boorara Ore Reserve Study ("ORS" or "Study"). The proposed mining project is 100% owned and is located 15km east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, adjacent to the Super Pit in the heart of the Western Australian goldfields (Figure 1*).



HIGHLIGHTS



- Independent JORC (2012) Ore Reserve for Boorara completed by AMC Consultants shows a financially viable project highlighted by the following:



o Open pit mine design producing 1.24Mt at a fully diluted grade of 1.24g/t Au for 49.5koz over an approximate 14 month mine life



o Ore Sale Agreement (OSA) at 92.5% metallurgical recovery produces 45.8koz recovered



o Project generates $19.9M in free cash flow (after capital) at a gold price of A$3,300/oz



- Boorara is fully permitted with all statutory approvals in place



- Mining and haulage contracts well advanced



- Binding OSA has been executed with Paddington Gold Pty Ltd (Paddington), a wholly owned subsidiary of Norton Gold Fields Ltd for treatment of Boorara ore



- Development decision expected imminently along with commencement of mining in the current September 2024



Commenting on the Ore Reserve, Managing Director and CEO Mr Grant Haywood said:



"We are very pleased that the independent Ore Reserve has validated our initial work that allows us to move forward with mining at Boorara and bring strong cashflows into Horizon. Our contract negotiations are well advanced and are the final key milestone outstanding in relation to bringing this asset into production.



Horizon has strong optionality within its large resource book of projects, which we aim to develop in conjunction, and following, development of Boorara to be a sustainable gold producer and generate more cash in this strong gold price environmental for the foreseeable future."



Boorara Overview



The Boorara Gold Project is located 15km east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder (Figure 1*) adjacent to the Super Pit, and 1km southwest of the Nimbus Silver-Zinc Project site where established offices are connected to mains power and existing water supplies.



The deposit is hosted in a quartz dolerite comprising a sheeted quartz vein array system with bounding shear zones and late-stage cross faults. Mineralisation occurs as northwest dipping sheeted and stockwork quartz-carbonate vein arrays within the quartz dolerite host rocks, and steeply dipping zones along sheared geological contacts trending to the north-northwest.



Boorara Ore Reserves Study



The Study was undertaken independently by AMC Consultants and is based on the following key parameters:



- Gold price of A$3,300/oz



- Open pit mining operations and road haulage conducted by contractors



- Ore processing through Paddington's 3.8Mtpa Paddington Mill, located ~56km by road from Boorara



- Project implementation and oversight by Horizon's own team in conjunction with contractors



The key Study outcomes for the project are included in Table 2* below: The estimated Ore Reserve, which constitutes 100% of the production target, has been prepared by competent persons in accordance with JORC Code 2012.



AMC conducted an engineering study (the "Study") as of 25 July 2024. The Study, prepared with an accuracy of +/-15%, considered all relevant mining modifying factors, allowing an Ore Reserve to be estimated in accordance with the JORC Code. Classification of the estimate is shown in Table 3*.



The Boorara Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources are inclusive of those Mineral Resources modified to produce the Boorara Ore Reserves that can be economically mined by open pit mining methods. The Ore Reserves make up 100% of the production in the Study.



Mr Adrian Jones continues to be the Competent Person for the 25 July 2024 Boorara Ore Reserve estimate, and supervised preparation of the estimate with assistance from specialists in each area of the estimate. Mr Jones is a Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and is employed by AMC Consultants Pty Ltd. He has sufficient experience relevant to the style of mineralization, type of deposit under consideration, and in open pit mining activities, to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code. Mr Jones consents to the inclusion of this information in the form and context in which it appears.



The information compiled by Mr Jones was prepared by specialists under direction of the responsible people identified within this Study report. Mr Jones is satisfied that the work of the specialists is acceptable for the purposes of Ore Reserve estimation. Each person has accepted responsibility for this report in their area of expertise.



The Proved Ore Reserve estimate is based on Mineral Resources classified as Measured, after consideration of all mining, metallurgical, social, environmental, statutory and financial aspects of the project. The Probable Ore Reserve estimate is based on Mineral Resources classified as Indicated, after consideration of all mining, metallurgical, social, environmental, statutory and financial aspects of the project.



Financial analysis undertaken in June 2024 shows that, at 25 July 2024, the future revenues to be derived and costs incurred to access those revenues produce a viable project using the assumptions presented in this estimate.



The Boorara Ore Reserve reflects the mining of four pits across three mineralised zones within the Mineral Resource, one small and one large pit within the Regal (North) deposit (pits 1 and 2), one within the Crown Jewel deposit (Central, pit 3), and one pit in the Royal (South) deposit (pit 4) as shown in Figure 2*. The removal of a very limited amount of waste over burden is required to reach the ore zones in most areas, with ore within 5m of surface in the Regal zone and Crown Jewel deposits, whereas the amount of cover increases to the south, with approximately 10m to be stripped in the Royal zone before exposing ore for mining.



Grade control drilling has been partially completed over the project during previous mining operations, with infill grade control drilling planned to commence in the coming weeks. Ore production will commence within the first month of mining, followed by processing followed thereafter once sufficient stockpiles have been built and grade determined to transport to the mill. The Study assumes low powder factor "paddock" blasting will be conducted to ensure acceptable dig rates without unnecessary ore movement impacting ore loss and dilution. Final pit depths are up to 85m.



Next Steps



- Award open pit mining and surface ore haulage contracts



- Finalise management and technical team for Boorara



- Commence grade control infill program



*To view tables and figures, please visit:

https://abnnewswire.net/lnk/8M7UOVP6





About Horizon Minerals Limited





Horizon Minerals Limited (ASX:HRZ) is a gold exploration and mining company focussed on the Kalgoorlie and Menzies areas of Western Australia which are host to some of Australia's richest gold deposits. The Company is developing a mining pipeline of projects to generate cash and self-fund aggressive exploration, mine developments and further acquisitions. The Teal gold mine has been recently completed.

Horizon is aiming to significantly grow its JORC-Compliant Mineral Resources, complete definitive feasibility studies on core high grade open cut and underground projects and build a sustainable development pipeline.

Horizon has a number of joint ventures in place across multiple commodities and regions of Australia providing exposure to Vanadium, Copper, PGE's, Gold and Nickel/Cobalt. Our quality joint venture partners are earning in to our project areas by spending over $20 million over 5 years enabling focus on the gold business while maintaining upside leverage.

Related Companies


Empire Signs Gas Sales Agreement with NT Government

Sydney, July 26, 2024 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Empire Energy Group Ltd ( ASX:EEG ) ( EEGUF:OTCMKTS ) signs 10-year binding Gas Sales Agreement with the Northern Territory Government to supply 25 TJ per day from Carpentaria Pilot Project.



- Empire Energy Group Limited ("Empire") has signed a binding long-term Gas Sales Agreement ("GSA") to supply the Northern Territory Government ("Buyer"):



o up to 25 Terajoules (TJ) of gas per day for 10-years (~75 Petajoules total, 100% Empire) from Empire's Beetaloo Basin properties commencing in 2025 ("Initial Supply"); and



o an additional 10 TJ+ per day for up to 10 years at the option of the Buyer to be made available by Empire if production levels from the Carpentaria project exceed 100 TJ per day ("Option Supply")



- The volume under the Option Supply is limited to 10% of production from the Carpentaria Project if production reaches 100 TJ / day. This would require additional pipeline capacity to be developed to facilitate increased supply to Australia's East Coast and / or Darwin



- Gas will be delivered to the Power and Water Corporation ("PWC") operated McArthur River Gas pipeline ("MRP") on an ex-field take-or-pay basis at market-competitive gas prices, escalating at 100% of the Consumer Price Index. The Option Supply would be at a slightly lower price than the Initial Supply, providing the potential for long-term affordable energy supply for the people of the Northern Territory if larger scale development occurs



- A T-piece connection has already been installed into the MRP by PWC at the proposed location of the Carpentaria Gas Plant ("CGP") to allow for delivery of gas from the CPP into the MRP



- The binding GSA is conditional on customary conditions for an agreement of this nature including Empire reaching a final investment decision for the Carpentaria Pilot Project, NT regulatory approvals for the installation of the CGP and sale of gas under the Beneficial Use of Test Gas provisions of the NT Petroleum Act. These regulatory approval processes are well advanced



- Empire holds a 100% interest in EP187 in which the Carpentaria Pilot Project will be located



- Empire is targeting commencement of gas sales from the Carpentaria Pilot Project in mid-2025



Comments from Managing Director Alex Underwood:



"Empire has been actively pursuing production from the Beetaloo Basin since 2011, with strong support from the NT Government for this objective since 2018. Subject to final approvals, we anticipate being the first company to provide gas supply from the Beetaloo, commencing next year.



This agreement comes at a critical time for the energy security of the NT. It demonstrates our commitment to providing energy for Territorians and will facilitate hundreds of millions of dollars of investment into the NT economy. The project will provide local jobs, support NT businesses, and create direct revenue streams for traditional owners and the NT Government.



We look forward to working with traditional owners, local communities and all Territorians to deliver this exciting project."





About Empire Energy Group Ltd





Empire Energy (ASX:EEG) (OTCMKTS:EEGUF) is a Sydney based Australian oil and gas company holding 100%-owned and operated assets with unconventional targets in the Northern Territory Beetaloo Sub-basin and central trough of the McArthur Basin.

Empire is an active Beetaloo Sub-basin operator, focused on maturing its assets to production. Following the successful appraisal drilling and flow testing of the Carpentaria-2H and 3H wells in Empire's EP187, Empire is targeting first gas flow in H1 2025 at its Carpentaria Pilot Project. The Pilot has a targeted sales gas rate of up to 25 TJ per day utilising the existing McArthur River Pipeline.

Related Companies
In conversation with Adgully, Pallavi Chopra, Chief Marketing Officer, redBus, delves into the strategic approach behind the companys successful Travel to Vote and Seat Guarantee campaigns, which leveraged contextual marketing to capitalize on the unique travel peaks during the recent 2024 Lok Sabha election period. Chopra shares insights on how redBus tailored its messaging and media to effectively cater to the spike in bus travel seen during elections, resulting in a record number of seats booked in a single day. She also discusses the challenges faced during the campaign, the impact on business metrics, and the lessons learned that will influence future marketing strategies.

Could you describe the strategic approach redBus took with the Travel to Vote campaign and how it was tailored to meet the unique travel peaks during the election period?

We took a strategic decision to use contextual and moment marketing at a national level to effectively cater to the spike in bus travel seen during elections. The message and medium was contextualized to the moment  the election period  to maximize business impact. Let me go through each aspect.

During elections, we know that news viewership increases and viewers are tuned for breaking news. Keeping this in mind, redBus strategically chose to dominate the news genre by advertising its election sales in this space on TV and digital platforms. We were probably the only brand which ran customised campaigns in regional TV news channels as well as national Hindi channels like AajTak, corresponding to the states election phases. Our aim was to let users know about easy accessibility and affordable travel for voters to return to their hometowns to cast their ballot. We connect close to 10,000 unique towns across 4.2 lakh routes and so we were very well placed to help passengers even to remote areas.

Our innovative ad format was contextualized for news channels and designed to cut through the clutter  our ads looked like they were breaking news. This concept was fantastically executed by our creative agency Leo Burnett. Together, they helped us break through the clutter and grab eyeballs  in fact, we had news channels calling us to understand if redBus would advertise with them!

This strategy of moment marketing had a significant impact on business. redBus hit a record number of seats booked in a single day.

What were the key that challenges you faced while implementing the Seat Guarantee Sale campaign, and how did redBus overcome them to ensure passenger confidence and satisfaction?

The summer travel trends which we have relied on historically were naturally disrupted by the elections this year. So, the first order of business was to accurately identify travel demand peaks. For this, we used our data forecasting tool to accurately predict expected travel across multiple states  many of them going to elections simultaneously. A lot of this forecast happened with a very short lead time  in some cases as little as 10-15 days! Within this tight timeline, we had to cater to huge travel demands. In Tamil Nadu, the first state to go to elections, the forecasted travel demand was as high as Diwali!

We correctly anticipated that the biggest events  elections and IPL  would completely dominate viewer mindshare. To get any share of voice at all, we would have to come up with a concept which was completely out of the box. I think we achieved this very well with our ad campaign.

The Breaking News format was a unique approach for your TV campaign. Could you explain why this format was chosen and how it contributed to the campaigns success?

The Breaking News format was chosen for our TV campaign to leverage the high viewership of news channels during the election season. By contextualizing our messaging device to the news genre, redBus aimed to break through the advertising clutter. The content looked organic and flowed seamlessly into the channel format, looking like native content.

On top of it, we played our ads exclusively as stings, which allowed the ad to flow seamlessly into news segment, almost looking like native content!

This unique approach allowed us to effectively engage a large audience tuned into election coverage, significantly contributing to the campaigns success.

With the Travel to Vote and Seat Guarantee campaigns reaching millions of viewers, how did redBus ensure effective engagement and conversion from these ads?

redBus campaign led to a great increase in searches of redBus platforms (app and website), transactions, acquisition of new customers, and engagement rate compared to that of last year. We saw that customer transactions during the campaign period were 123% of transactions in the same period in 2023, across the country. I think the sheer number of eyeballs grabbed and attention captured also increased, as the number of new customers acquired on redBus platforms was 111% of the same period in 2023. In fact, there was an acceleration of new users coming to our platform and we saw a week on week growth in the number of new users within the peak election season itself. For example, with our sale, which corresponded to Phase 3 and 4 of the elections, we saw a 30% growth in new users compared to the previous week.

Could you share some insights on the impact of these campaigns on redBus business metrics, such as the increase in bookings, customer acquisition, and engagement rates?

During the election dates in April and May 2024, redBus saw an unprecedented number of travellers, because it is obviously a high activity period. In the campaign period, searches were 119% of searches on redBus platforms (app and website) in the same period in 2023. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in particular responded positively to redBus election related campaigns. In the campaign period, searches were 150% of the same period in 2023, on redBus platforms (app and website). The campaign was also very successful in Uttar Pradesh, where there was about a 150% increase in searches, transactions and new customers acquired compared to the same period in 2023. Engagement rate on communications (app notifications) to existing users was 160% of the engagement rate for the same period last year.

How did redBus leverage digital platforms differently compared to traditional media in these election-related campaigns, and what were the outcomes of this strategy?

redBus approached this campaign with a Regionification strategy, through which our digital campaign targeted both brand awareness and performance campaigns in Hindi, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi, and Bengali, using a combination of breaking news format and other thematic messages. We targeted consumers with a high affinity for news consumption  both through the appropriate regional TV channels and on digital platforms.

The campaign included digital display ads on Meta and Google, digital video ads through YouTube bumpers, and various performance campaigns, including UAC and others. The reach for the digital campaign alone was approximately 170 million in 4 days  thats 50% of Indias online transactors!

What lessons did redBus learn from these election-related campaigns that will influence future marketing strategies, especially in terms of moment marketing and contextual advertising?

redBus gained valuable insights from its high intensity seasons which we will implement in future marketing strategies, particularly our insights regarding moment marketing and contextual advertising. While we have executed contextual marketing in the past, we saw business impact amplified during this campaign by leveraging a winning combination of context, media and messaging which resonated deeply with the target audience.

In particular, the efficacy of the Travel to Vote and Seat Guarantee Election Sale campaigns demonstrated the importance of agile strategy adjustments to meet changing consumer behaviour.

The campaigns highlighted the effectiveness of anticipating and catering to spikes in travel demand. Moving forward, redBus will continue leveraging moment marketing strategies to align with significant events and capitalize on high-engagement contexts, ensuring campaigns resonate deeply with target audiences and drive measurable business impact.
Johnsons baby, a pioneer in baby skincare, launches its latest television campaign (TVC), featuring Bollywoods illustrious actors, Anil Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor. The new round of advertising features a fun, playful, and heartwarming film starring one of Bollywood's most favourite father-daughter duos. The film conceptualised by DDB Mudra reinforces the brands unwavering commitment to help protect a babys delicate skin from day-one with products formulated using only 'baby safe ingredients.

The new film captures a fun banter between Anil and Sonam Kapoor as they don their real-life roles on reel, making reference to the veteran actors iconic role as Mr India (1987). The film opens with Sonam bathing the baby with Johnsons Baby Soap. As a concerned grandfather, Anil Kapoor expresses his worry about the babys delicate skin, noting how it can lose moisture after a bath and emphasising the importance of protection pehle din se. What follows is a fun exchange between Sonam and the baby, who reacts with glee as she remarks, Moisture gayab ho jaata hai? Mr. India hai kya? Sonam then goes on to highlight the superiority of Johnson's baby soap, specially formulated with naturally derived glycerin and vitamin E. This gentle formula helps to protect the babys natural moisture and healthy skin barrier, making it the perfect choice for newborns from pehle din se.

Manoj Gadgil, Business Unit Head-Essential Health & Vice President Marketing, Kenvue, said, Over the years, Johnsons Baby has been a trusted partner to parents, working consistently to deliver the best for their babies. We are now delighted to share our latest advertising campaign, featuring Anil Kapoor and, Sonam Kapoor. It aligns with our brand proposition to help protect* from day 1 as we offer superior products created from only baby safe, gentle ingredients to help protect a babys skin from Day 1. We are confident that this new film will resonate with mums.

Talking of his experience in doing a TVC for Johnsons baby, Anil Kapoor added, "Johnsons baby is an iconic brand, a brand that has always been a trusted partner for parents like us in our parenting journey. It was in Johnsons that Sunita and I trusted when our babies were born, from their first bath and first massage to many more milestones. I am delighted to be part of Johnsons latest campaign along with my daughter Sonam, which makes this campaign even more special to me. As sa father, and now a grandfather, I cannot overstate the importance of choosing only trusted brands to help protect and provide the best care for your baby from Day 1.

Sonam Kapoor also shared her thoughts on the campaign Johnsons baby is a brand we have all grown up to, it brings back many childhood memories. Today, as a mother, protecting my babys skin is of utmost importance. I only use brands which are baby safe with gentle ingredients which help protect babys skin from Day 1. I am thrilled to be part of the Johnson's baby campaign alongside my father. This collaboration is close to my heart because it reflects the love and dedication every parent feels for their child.

Harshada Menon & Siddhesh Khatavkar, Executive Creative Directors, DDB Mudra said, When theres a baby in the house, everything becomes fun. Which is why, for us, this series of ads are not really ads. They are fun instances that happen between a caring grandpa, a loving mom and a cute baby and Johnsons baby products playing an active part in it.

The highly anticipated 'Protection* ka Promise, Pehle Din Se' campaign goes live across prominent television channels, digital platforms, and social media networks.

Also read: Publicis Groupe to acquire influencer marketing company Influential
TV9 Network, through its esteemed News9 Kargil Honours ceremony 2024, celebrated the indomitable spirit of the Indian Armed Forces, paying homage to the heroes of the Kargil War on its 25th anniversary. The event, held at Le Meridien, New Delhi, was a profound tribute to the soldiers who exhibited unparalleled bravery and made the ultimate sacrifice during the 1999 conflict.

The highlight of the evening was the presentation of the News9 Kargil Honours, recognizing the outstanding contributions of several individuals and units. The awards were presented by General Anil Chauhan, Chief of Defence Staff, alongside Mr. Barun Das, Managing Director and CEO of TV9 Network.

Honourees of the News 9 Kargil Honours

 Lt General Mohinder Puri (Retd): Recognized for his exceptional leadership of the 8 Mountain Division, which played a pivotal role in capturing key strategic points such as Tololing and Tiger Hill. His command was crucial in turning the tide of the conflict in Indias favour.

 Lt General Yogesh Kumar Joshi: Honoured for his leadership of the 13th Battalion of the JAK Rifles in the successful capture of Point 4875, also known as Batra Top. His strategic acumen and bravery were instrumental in securing victory in one of the toughest battles of the war.

 Air Marshal PS Ahluwalia (Retd): Acknowledged for his pivotal role in the successful deployment of Mirage aircraft, which were instrumental in targeting enemy positions and providing crucial air support to ground troops.

 Brigadier Devinder Singh (Retd): Awarded for commanding the 70 Infantry Brigade in critical battles. His leadership in the Batalik sector, the battle for point 5203, and the assaults on the Jubbar Complex were crucial in reclaiming significant territories from enemy control.

 Brigadier Umesh Bawa (Retd): Honoured for his leadership in the capture of the Pimple Complex, a key strategic point that was fiercely defended by enemy forces. His tactical expertise ensured a significant victory.

 Colonel Rajeev Kumar (Retd): Recognized for his command of the 18 Grenadiers in the battle at Mushkoh Valley and other strategic points. His gallantry and strategic planning were vital in securing these critical victories.

 5 Para Regiment: Celebrated for their high-altitude operations in Mushkoh and in the Batalik sector. Their bravery and resilience in extreme conditions exemplified the spirit of the Indian Army.

 Captain Yashika Tyagi (Retd): The first female Army officer to be posted in Leh and serve during the Kargil War, Captain Tyagi was honoured for breaking barriers and serving with distinction in challenging conditions.

Special posthumous honours were conferred on:

 Major C B Dwivedi and Captain Neikezhakuo Kenguruse: Both officers were celebrated for their ultimate sacrifice, epitomizing the highest values of duty and courage. Their families received the awards on their behalf, a poignant reminder of their heroic contributions.

In addition to the military honours, key doyens in the Indian defence manufacturing industry were also recognized for their support of the Indian Armed Forces:

Mr. Baba Kalyani, Chairman and MD of Bharat Forge Ltd, for his leadership of Bharat Forge and successful supply of 1 lakh shells to the army in record time, at a point when the war effort was running low on ammunition.

Mr. Sukaran Singh, CEO of Tata Advanced Systems Ltd, the head of one of Indias largest defence and aerospace companies in the private sector, undertaking multiple strategic projects for the Indian armed forces and defence development agencies.

Mr. Arun Ramchandani, Head of L&T Defence, who has worked extensively on the design & development of critical equipment and new products for the Defence & Aerospace Business Segment, which includes land-based, air-based, and naval weapon delivery systems.

The ceremony concluded with the release of the latest issue of Salute magazine, dedicated to the Kargil War and its heroes, by General Chauhan. The event underscored the nation's gratitude to the brave soldiers who fought and those who laid down their lives for the country, ensuring their legacy lives on.

Also read: Emami to acquire men's grooming brand The Man Company
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is embroiled in a secretive legal battle with three of his children over the future of his vast media empire, according to a bombshell report by The New York Times. The 93-year-old billionaire is seeking to solidify his eldest son Lachlans control over News Corp, the parent company of Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and other influential outlets.

The dispute centers around a family trust that was initially designed to distribute control equally among Murdochs four eldest children upon his death. However, the media titan is now attempting to amend the trust to grant sole authority over the company's assets to Lachlan. This move has ignited a fierce backlash from his other children  James, Elisabeth, and Prudence  who have joined forces to challenge their fathers decision.

The battle for control of the Murdoch empire has taken on added significance in the wake of the insurrection on January 6th, 2021. James Murdoch, once considered the heir apparent, has publicly denounced Fox News for its role in spreading misinformation and fueling political division. His stance has further exacerbated tensions within the family and raised questions about the future direction of the company.

As the legal proceedings unfold behind closed doors, industry analysts are closely watching the case. A potential court battle is looming in September, just months before the crucial US presidential election. The outcome of this family feud could have far-reaching implications for the media landscape and the political discourse in the United States.

The leaked court documents reveal that Murdoch has dubbed his plan to consolidate power under Lachlan as Project Harmony. Ironically, the initiative has sparked anything but harmony within the family.

The battle for control of the Murdoch empire comes as the media industry is undergoing rapid transformation, with digital platforms challenging traditional news outlets. The outcome of the legal dispute could shape the future of journalism and media consumption.
Unstop, the leading talent engagement and hiring platform for students and alumni, has launched a billboard campaign in Delhi NCR to drive student participation for the highly anticipated Flipkart GRiD 6.0 competition. The campaign has a cheeky message "The choice is yours," which aims to nudge all engineering students to take control of their career trajectories and showcase their skills through this innovative challenge.

The messaging illustrates how participation in Flipkart GRiD 6.0 can be a game-changer for all engineering students. Through this opportunity , participants can catapult themselves into higher-paying roles with salaries as much as INR 32 LPA by demonstrating their problem-solving abilities and technical prowess.

The campaigns reach extends beyond physical billboards, with Unstop leveraging social media to amplify the message across multiple online channels. Unstop is also driving engagement around the "The choice is yours" idea, fostering a broader conversation in the student community.

Alekhya Chakrabarty, VP, Marketing & Growth at Unstop shared his thoughts. It is a simple idea. We ,at Unstop, want every engineering student in India to take part in Flipkart GRiD 6.0.

We wanted to drive awareness among all engineering students about how opportunities like these are rare and they should not repent missing out on registering for them. It is a cheeky take on how by winning the challenge the students get the bragging rights, fantastic prizes and an incredible chance to bag a job with a CTC of INR 32 LPA.

Also read: Trademark dispute case: Delhi HC rules in favour of original adidas
Warner Bros. World Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, the Middle Easts largest indoor theme park, is thrilled to announce a groundbreaking extension to its partnership with Etihad Airways, marking a monumental milestone in the theme parks history. This exciting collaboration will bring the excitement of Warner Bros. World to the skies with the launch of the worlds first Warner Bros. World branded aircraft, taking guests pre-theme park experience to new heights.

The first-ever Warner Bros. World branded aircraft was unveiled to the public on July 25 at a spectacular launch event held at Warner Bros. World. This exclusive reveal event was a grand celebration of creativity, fun and innovation, showcasing the unique partnership and setting the stage for an extraordinary journey.

The partnership between Warner Bros. World and Etihad Airways represents the largest collaboration for the theme park to date. As part of this captivating initiative, an Etihad Airways aircraft  Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner  has been creatively wrapped with iconic Warner Bros. characters. On one side, guests will be greeted by the mischievous antics of iconic Classic Animation characters like the Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, while the other side showcases the heroic feats of beloved DC Super Heroes.

Expressing his enthusiasm about the partnership, Mohamed Abdalla Al Zaabi, Group CEO of Miral, said: We are absolutely delighted to partner with Etihad Airways to bring the first-ever Warner Bros. World branded aircraft to fans. This collaboration not only expands the customer experience, but also extends the thrill of Warner Bros. World beyond our parks walls, creating a super vacation with long lasting unforgettable memories for passengers of all ages.

Adding to this, Antonoaldo Neves, Chief Executive Officer, Etihad Airways, said: Building on the strong reputation we have built as a family-friendly airline, were thrilled to take our partnership with Warner Bros. World to the next level. Our Looney Tunes and DC Super Hero themed aircraft will take our brands to destinations worldwide promoting one of Abu Dhabis many attractions. We look forward to welcoming more and more visitors inspired to visit our home, Abu Dhabi, and in particular delighting our Little VIP guests while they journey with us.

Whats more, all young guests aged up to 10 years old, flying on Etihad Airways longer flights will receive brand new Warner Bros. World Kids Packs that are being rolled out across the network this summer. Bursting with creativity, these packs are designed to entertain young travelers with activities that inspire them to draw their favorite superheroes and engage in a variety of fun tasks throughout the flight, ensuring every moment is packed with adventure. Infants will receive a DC Super Hero themed soft blanket, while juniors will receive goodies such as a branded backpack, Super Hero cape, water bottle and activity kit.

Adding to the excitement, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi will also debut exclusively branded, dedicated childrens lounge within the Etihad Airways Lounge at Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi. This whimsical lounge will transport travelers into the incredible universe of Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi, offering a one-of-a-kind experience that brings the wit of the park to the airport, making every journey as delightful as a visit to the theme park itself.

Read More:Etihad's CSK sponsorship impresses fans with Activation
MUDA Scam: BJP Urges Governor to Direct K'taka CM to Submit Resignation 2

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has submitted a memorandum to the Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot, demanding him to direct Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to submit his resignation and to handover the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The BJP legislators held a protest march from the Vidhana Soudha to Raj Bhavan to submit the memorandum.

The development has assumed significance in the backdrop of the social activist T.J. Abraham announcing that he will meet the Governor on Friday to seek consent for prosecution against CM Siddaramaiah in connection with the MUDA scam.

The memorandum said, We as a responsible Opposition party of the state, urge the Governor to please consider the apprehensions of the larger public, especially those from the SC/STs, citizens of Mysuru district and also of the state.

We request you to direct Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to submit his resignation since his family are themselves the beneficiaries of illegal land transactions and unlawful gaining of developed sites.

This scam is worth around Rs 4,000 to 5,000 crore and he (CM Siddaramaiah) being the head of the state may not allow fair probe (investigations) into it. Entrust the full investigation of the MUDA scam to CBI transferring it from the state-appointed committees, the memorandum added.

Speaking to media persons after meeting the Governor, State BJP President B.Y. Vijayendra said that BJP along with their NDA ally JD (S), will discuss and decide on the future course of action concerning the MUDA scam and the Valmiki Tribal Development Corporation scam in the coming days.

State BJP President Vijayendra accused the Congress government of intimidating tactics by filing FIRs against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and holding protests against it.

He said that the Karnataka High Court had stayed the FIR against the ED.

He criticised Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, stating that the latter was scared of being implicated in the Valmiki Tribal Welfare Board scam.

He expected Siddaramaiah to hold a detailed discussion on the MUDA scam and challenge the opposition parties BJP and JD(S) accusing him of running away from the discussion.

The State BJP President also added that the Governor had called the Chief Minister on Thursday and sought clarifications regarding the MUDA scam.

We will wait and see, he said.

Leader of the Opposition (LoP), R. Ashoka, said that the Congress government was involved in huge corruption cases.

He pointed out that no ruling party has ever faced such humiliation in the history of any Assembly.

He accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who had taken an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution, of violating it.

The LoP claimed that the Opposition was not allowed to speak in the Assembly and alleged that the Speaker U.T. Khader was also biased towards the Congress government.

He demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, stating that he had lost the moral right to hold the top constitutional post, adding that the BJP had submitted a memorandum to the Governor in this regard.
Will Attend NITI Aayog Meeting, Says CM Mamata Banerjee 2

Bringing an end to speculation, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Friday that she will be attending the NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi, which will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

On one hand, there is financial deprivation and on the other hand, there is a conspiracy to divide West Bengal. I will be attending the Niti Aayog Meeting to raise my voice of dissent on both of these issues, the Chief Minister said while interacting with the mediapersons at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport here before leaving for Delhi.

Trinamool Congress general secretary and the party Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee is accompanying her to the national capital.

She said that she is attending the meeting to raise her voice of protest on the issues of financial deprivation not just against West Bengal but also against the other non-BJP ruled states.

All the opposition-ruled states have been deprived in the Union Budget proposals. I cannot accept such favouritism. So I will be raising my voice on behalf of all at the meeting, he said.

Thereafter, she targeted the BJP on the issue of the party Lok Sabha member Nishikant Dubeys demand on the floor of the House on Thursday for a new Union territory combining Malda, Murshidabad, Araria, Kishanganj, Katihar district and the Santhal Parganas region.

All sorts of financial and geographical conspiracies are going on to divide the state. Messages are being spread to divide Bengal. The division of Bengal means a division of the country. We cannot accept this. In such a situation I will be there at the meeting for some time. If I am allowed to get my voice recorded I will do that. Otherwise, I will walk out in protest, the Chief Minister said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee, during their visit to the national capital, are also scheduled to hold meetings with the partys Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members. The Chief Minister is also scheduled to interact with media persons in Delhi later in the day.
Movie fans now have their first look at Gunner, an action movie that was filmed in the Birmingham area in spring 2023. Actors Morgan Freeman and Luke Hemsworth are prominently featured a trailer released this week by Warner Bros., along with fist fights, gun battles, explosions and a prison escape. (Watch the trailer in the video above.)

Viewers in Alabama will recognize a major Birmingham landmark in the trailer, as well. Sloss Furnaces shows up at the 1:11 mark in the video, and the historic ironworks is featured several times throughout the rest of the clip.

Freeman plays a laid-back drug lord named Kendrick Ryker in Gunner, directed by Dimitri Logothetis and written by the director with Gary Scott Thompson of The Fast and the Furious fame. Hemsworth portrays the title character, Lee Gunner, a skilled military veteran who butts heads with Rykers drug cartel after Gunners two sons are kidnapped during a fishing trip.

The cast also includes Joseph Baena (Arnold Schwarzeneggers son) and Alabamas Grant Feely, who appeared in Disneys Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

Several locations in the Birmingham metro area were used during the filming of Gunner in spring 2023, including Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park in McCalla and Watermark Place, a former outlet center in Bessemer. Watermark Place was used as a headquarters and soundstage for the film, and Freeman shot most of his scenes there, Logothetis said in a 2023 interview with AL.com.

The director also predicted that Freemans performance would be a highlight of the film. I like my bad guy characters to be likable, Logothetis said. I dont think you can get any more likable than Morgan Freeman. He just has such a warmth about him.

READ: Gunner director on filming in incredible Birmingham for Morgan Freeman movie

Director Dimitri Logothetis, left, filmed an action movie, "Gunner," in the Birmingham area in 2023. Filming took place from late March to mid-April, with a cast that included Morgan Freeman and Luke Hemsworth. (Photo by Anastasia Mikhaylova)

Freeman, 87, is an extremely relaxed bad guy in the trailer for Gunner, keeping his cool even when threatened by the intense hero. The drug lords son has Gunners kids, as it turns out, and Gunner wants to make sure they stay alive and well.

If he hurts my boys, Im going to kill you and kill everyone you know, Hemsworths character says.

Whoa, thats a lot of killing for one man, Freeman wryly responds as Ryker. The kingpin evidently doesnt see Gunner as much of an adversary, but the action-packed trailer proves otherwise.

Gunner is set for release on Aug. 16 via digital streaming platforms and in select theaters, according to IMDb.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall argues marijuana should continue to be classified among the most dangerous drugs, saying its linked to rising homeless and welfare dependence, among other problems.

Expanding access to marijuana also causes a host of secondary problems, Marshall said in a press release this week. It increases both the number and severity of motor vehicle accidents and creates problems in enforcing laws that prohibit driving while intoxicated.

Marshall, along with Republican attorneys general in 10 other states, came out in opposition to the federal governments recent proposal to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug. Under current federal guidelines, marijuana is in the same drug classification as heroin and LSD, those with no currently accepted medical use.

The Biden-Harris administrations rush to legalize marijuana is outside the bounds of the DOJs authority and will lead to disastrous consequences, Marshall said in his release. This is not the first time this Administration has failed to follow the science in favor of a cheap ploy to desperately score some points with voters before November.

The proposed move by the federal government, however, would not legalize marijuana, experts say. It would move marijuana to the same drug class as ketamine, which is also illegal for recreational use.

More than half of states have legalized marijuana for recreational use. But Alabama isnt one of them. And though Alabama legalized medical marijuana three years ago, that program has not gotten off the ground.

Experts said the reclassification would have almost no impact on Alabama law. The move would likely give dispensaries and other marijuana businesses tax breaks they are not yet entitled to because its considered a harmful drug under the law. But it would not have any impact on individuals or otherwise legalize or decriminalize the drug.

Itll still be illegal at the same levels it always was in Alabama under state law, Tim Douthit, chief trial attorney at the Madison County District Attorneys office, told AL.com in May .

In a 40-page letter, Marshall and the other AGs  from Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, and South Dakota  expressed concerns that the move would pose a risk to public health.

It is difficult to deny that increasing lawful access to marijuana  something rescheduling it to Schedule III would undoubtedly accomplish  will damage the public health and exacerbate serious societal ills already plaguing the Nation, the coalition wrote.

Though people who are homeless may use marijuana and other substances , according to the American Addiction Centers, in many instances, substance abuse is the result of the stress of homelessness, rather than the other way around.

Under Alabama law, marijuana possession can be enforced as either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on whether police think the amount is for personal use. There is no listed amount under Alabama state law to determine what qualifies as personal use. The sale of any amount of marijuana is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. If the sale is to a minor, the felony can see a conviction of up to 99 years in prison.

Certain cities in Alabama, namely Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, have made low-level marijuana arrests a simple ticketed offense. Mobile announced in April that they were considering a similar move.
Alabama Death Row inmate Alan Eugene Miller said he has no intention of holding his breath or resisting his execution from nitrogen gas suffocation, but hes worried the state will fail at securing his gas mask because theyre incompetent.

I dont think yall know what youre doing, Miller, who would be only the second inmate in America to die by suffocating on nitrogen gas, told a state attorney during a deposition. And these guys cant even open a cell door sometimes. Theyre keystone cops is basically what they are.

The deposition was filed as part of an argument Millers lawyers made earlier this week. That filing also said the only training execution team members have for preparing an inmate for the procedure is from an Alabama Attorney Generals Office prosecutor.

Miller, 59, is set to die on Sept. 26 at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore. The prison is the only facility in the state with an execution chamber and is where most death row inmates are housed.

In a Monday filing in federal court, Millers attorneys said Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshalls office and its deputy, James Houts, are responsible for training the execution team on how to carry out a nitrogen hypoxia execution.

Miller said hes open to having the gas mask fitted to his face prior to his September execution, but only if a doctor, medical professional or third party appointed by a federal judge does the fitting. Thats because he believes the prison workers are incompetent at mask fitting.

The execution, if carried out, will be the second using nitrogen in the country. The first was also in Alabama, when the state executed Kenneth Eugene Smith in January. That execution was widely criticized, after Smith convulsed for several minutes on the gurney.

State officials have argued that Smith held his breath at the beginning of his execution, delaying the nitrogen entering his body.

The best explanation of the testimony is that Smith held his breath and lost consciousness when he breathed nitrogen gasnot that the mask did not fit or that the nitrogen was impure, the Alabama Attorney Generals Office said in a filing earlier this month.

Miller has no physiological explanation for how Smith could have suffered due to the States nitrogen hypoxia protocol, it said.

But on Monday, Millers lawyers said the state doesnt offer any proof for their claims. The state hang(s) their hat exclusively on the self-serving testimony of a witness who claims to have remembered Mr. Smiths oxygen levels nearly seven months after the execution.

The execution team captain didnt write down those oxygen levels, according to Millers lawyers, nor tell anyone about them on the night of the execution.

In fact, evidence in the record suggest that the witness could not even see the levels from his position in the execution chamber, and the execution log from Mr. Smiths execution undercuts (the states) entire argument, said the filing.

The captains deposition was also submitted in public court records.

That man said his responsibility was fitting Smith with his respirator mask for the execution. I have not encountered any person for whom the mask did not fit securely and effectively, he said.

During Smiths execution, the captain said he watched the readout for one of the pulse oximeters attached to Smiths earlobe.

For a period of time that was longer than I had expected, I noticed that the pulse oximeter continued to read at a steady rate of 97%-98%. I did not notice whether Smith was breathing or holding his breath during this time.

The captain said that Smith eventually released a deep breath, and then the pulse oximeter dropped to the low 40s in a matter of seconds. After 40 more seconds, he said, the reading dropped to 17%.

This rapid drop in Smiths pulse oximeter readings was what I had expected would happen when Smith began breathing nitrogen. After those breaths, Smiths body did not move again, he said.

Millers lawyers wrote that the captain has no medical or scientific training, and had received no training for fitting gas masks. In the heavily redacted filing, the lawyers wrote that he has never read the (REDACTED) which provides instructions on the proper fit.

Instead, the filing said, the captain learned how to prepare inmates from state Deputy Attorney General James Houts.

Mr. Houts has admitted he is not an expert in nitrogen hypoxia protocols, but nevertheless believes he is qualified to (REDACTED) the States nitrogen hypoxia system because he is a private pilot, a master scuba diver, and served in the military.

The filing said Houts, too, has no medical or scientific training.

All notes from the states execution log that were included in the filing are redacted.

Miller believes, according to his deposition earlier this month, that the states gas mask wont fit him. Various masks havent worked on his face before, Miller said, because he has a large head and face. Hes also unable to wear hats sold to prisoners because they are too small for his head.

Ive a big old head, he said in the deposition.

According to his Alabama Department of Corrections inmate summary, Miller weighs 351 pounds.

Millers team also argued the state wont use a mask with an inherent airtight seal or perform a negative pressure test on the mask. They also said the prison system should provide Miller, or anyone about to face a nitrogen execution, a sedative to reduce the needless suffering that occurs during asphyxiation.
An Alabama man has pleaded guilty to threatening via Instagram to kill election workers in Arizona.

Brian Jerry Ogstad, 60, of Cullman, sent multiple messages through the social media app to election officials in Maricopa County during the 2022 primaries that read, You are so dead, and one message included a photo of Woody from Toy Story face down on the floor with a projectile in his back.

Ogstad, indicted earlier this year, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Arizona to one count of making a threatening interstate communication. He was initially charged with five counts of the crime.

He is set to be sentenced on Oct. 21 and faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

On Aug. 2, 2022, Arizona held primary elections for federal and state offices, including a gubernatorial primary election that received nationwide media coverage.

From the day of the election through Aug. 4, 2022, Ogstad sent multiple threatening direct messages to an Instagram social media account maintained by Maricopa County Elections.

On Aug. 2, 2022, court records show, Ogstad sent a graphic referencing alleged voter fraud in Maricopa County. You (expletive) think you can cheat. Ha! Stupid (expletive). Hang yourself.

On Aug. 3, 2022, Ogstad wrote, You did it! Now you are [expletive]. Dead. You will all be executed for your crimes.

On Aug. 4, 2022, Ogstad wrote, You people are so ducking [sic] stupid. Everyone knows you are lots [sic], cheats, frauds and in doing so in relation to elections have committed treason. You will all be executed. Bang [expletive]!

Ogstad was arrested Feb. 28 in Cullman.

The functioning of our democracy requires that our countrys public servants be able to do their jobs without fearing for their lives, said U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in a statement. We have no tolerance for this kind of heinous criminal conduct and the danger it poses to peoples safety and to our democratic process. Threats and acts of violence targeting those who serve the public will be met with the full force of the United States Justice Department.

Violent threats to election workers are threats to our democracy and democratic process. We cannot allow threats of violence against public servants to become normalized, said FBI Director Christopher Wray. The FBI takes seriously all threats of violence against public officials and will continue to pursue threats and acts of violence aimed at election workers.

The FBI Phoenix Field Office investigated the case with assistance from the FBI Birmingham Field Office.

Trial Attorney Tanya Senanayake of the National Security Divisions Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mary Sue Feldmeier for the District of Arizona are prosecuting the case.

In a heightened political climate, people often make online remarks they wish they can take back, Todd Spodek, Ogstads attorney, told CNN after the plea agreement. Unfortunately, Mr. Ogstad let his emotions get the best of him and sent a number of messages that he regrets.
An Alabama woman has been convicted of a felony crime in connection with the 2018 death of her infant son.

An Elmore County jury convicted Shirley Monique Matthews, 36, of aggravated child abuse, 19th Judicial Circuit District Attorney CJ Robinson announced Friday.

Matthews husband, 39, is charged with the same crime and has not yet gone to trial.

Karson Matthews was born in July 2018 weighing 6 pounds, 2 ounces.

Just two months later, in September, he was taken unresponsive to Elmore Community Hospital. At that point, he weighed only 4 pounds, 13 ounces, Robinson said.

An autopsy determined Karsons cause of death to be negligence, and the manner of death to be homicide.

In an interview with law enforcement, Shirley Matthews admitted to having never taken Karson to the doctor after she was released from the hospital after his birth.

Robinson said the mother claimed to be feeding Karson regularly and thought he would eventually gain weight.

However, the jury heard overwhelming medical testimony about the childs malnourished condition which led to his death, Robinson said.

Shirley Matthews sentencing is set for September. She faces a prison range of 10 to 99 years.
This is an opinion cartoon.

Sign up for JD Crowes newsletter: Enter your email to subscribe to JDs weekly newsletter, Crowe Jam.

Alabamas bass-ackward politicians are always a step ahead of Americas demise. Leading the way backwards is what we do here in this environmentally beautiful, absolutely friendly but politically oppressive deep red state.

Alabama people - southerners in general - are good people. Nobodys friendlier or quicker to help their neighbors - or a stranger - fix a flat tire or bury a body than the folks down here.

Its perplexing to me that Alabama, its politicians mostly, has no appetite for inclusiveness. The more the merrier works at parties, but not so much in politics.

Related: White fragility, fear of diversity rules Alabama legislature. The cost? Our future - al.com

DEI - diversity, equity and inclusion - is what most our people practice every day, whether they know it or not. Why is it such a politically divisive issue?

*********

Related: University of Alabama System campuses each close DEI offices, reassign staff - al.com

Related: Alabama Republi-chickens are scared to death of DEI - al.com

All three University of Alabama System campuses will be closing their diversity, equity and inclusion offices and opening new offices under different names.

The schools cite a law recently signed by Gov. Kay Ivey that bans DEI offices, programming and training in public colleges and other state agencies. SB129 becomes effective Oct. 1, 2024.

Related: Goodman: Alabamas war on DEI could impact what unites us all - al.com

**********

On the national stage, VP and Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris has been called a DEI hire by a GOP congressman from Tennessee.

Related: Right-wing media figures target Kamala Harris with race and gender-based attacks (msn.com)

Its a sign of things to come from an insecure and out of touch Republican party held hostage by a wanna-be dictator with little patience for adversity. Or diversity.

Gonna be a wild ride, yall. Hang on to your perversity.

Check out more cartoons and stuff by JD Crowe

JD Crowe is the cartoonist for Alabama Media Group and AL.com. He won the RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2020. In 2018, he was awarded the Rex Babin Memorial Award for local and state cartoons by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Follow JD on Facebook, Twitter @Crowejam and Instagram @JDCrowepix. Give him a holler @jdcrowe@al.com.
A suspect wanted for murder in Florida was captured Wednesday in Alabama after he was spotted at an Autauga County restaurant, authorities said.

The suspect, who was not publicly identified, was wanted for murder out of Manatee County, Florida.

The suspect was at Daisys in Autaugaville when they were taken into custody without incident, according to the Autauga County Sheriffs Office.

A search warrant was executed at the restaurant to find evidence of the Florida murder, the sheriffs office said.

The suspect was being held by the Autauga County Sheriffs Office pending extradition to Florida.

The public was never in danger and the restaurant owner was not involved in this case, the sheriffs office said.
The former mayor of Lake View was arrested this month on 11 child-pornography related charges, state court records showed.

The charges against Paul Calhoun, who led the Tuscaloosa County town from 2016 until his resignation amid ethics charges in 2020, include producing pornography with a minor, attempted producing pornography with a minor and possession of pornographic material, records showed.

Neither an attorney listed for Calhoun nor the Tuscaloosa County assistant district attorney handling his case could be reached for comment by AL.com.

The charges in Tuscaloosa County District Court identified the defendant as 53-year-old Lake View resident Paul Anthony Calhoun. Several media outlets reported the defendant is the former Lake View mayor.

The charges stem from a July 2 search warrant of Calhouns laptop that yielded 10 images of child pornography, according to one of the charging documents.
Two of Mexicos most powerful drug traffickers  one a longtime partner of the Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, the other his son  were taken into U.S. custody on Thursday afternoon, a pair of arrests likely to upend the world of international drug trafficking.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez were detained at a private airport in El Paso, according to two sources familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

The Justice Department confirmed the arrests in a brief statement Thursday, with Attorney General Merrick Garland saying that both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

Zambada, 76, faces federal indictments in multiple districts across the United States on charges of trafficking tons of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and other drugs across the border.

For decades he was business partners with El Chapo Guzman, who is serving a life sentence after a 2019 conviction for his leadership role in the Sinaloa cartel alongside Zambada.

Guzman Lopez, 38, was elevated within the cartel hierarchy after his father was arrested.

Few details were immediately available about the circumstances of the detentions in El Paso. Its unclear whether the pair were apprehended while traveling or whether they surrendered.

Zambada had been wanted by U.S. authorities for many years.

The hunt for the drug lord has intensified in recent years as U.S. authorities have crusaded to combat the trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that killed 100,000 Americans last year. In February, prosecutors opened a new case against Zambada for the manufacture and trafficking of the drug, which has become the leading cause of death for Americans between 18 and 45 years old.

He has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in jail, the U.S. State Department website says.

In 2021, the U.S. government raised its reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Zambada to up to $15 million.

After Guzmans arrest, a violent power struggle broke out, with the former kingpins sons, who are known as the Chapitos, vying with Zambada for control of the Sinaloa cartel.

The Chapitos faced a setback last year when one of Guzmans sons, Ovidio, was captured by Mexican authorities and sent to the United States, where he faces drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges.

Guzmans arrest followed a notorious 2019 incident in which he was briefly detained at a home in the northern Mexican city of Culiacan, but was later released after cartel gunmen flooded the city and held civilians hostage. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered Guzman released to avoid more bloodshed.

Three of Zambadas sons have been prosecuted in the United States, along with his brother, Jesus El Rey Zambada, who pleaded guilty to federal drug-trafficking charges and delivered damning testimony against Guzman during Guzmans trial. Testifying as a cooperating witness, he described how his brother and Guzman formed the Sinaloa cartel and together grew the organization.

They were partners, Zambada said on the witness stand.

Ismael Zambadas son Vicente Zambada Niebla, 49, also testified against Guzman. He was prosecuted in Chicago and received a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty. He is now believed to be in witness protection.

Another son, Ismael Zambada Imperial, known as Mayito Gordo, was extradited from Mexico in 2019 and pleaded guilty to federal charges in San Diego. Believed to be in his late 30s, Zambada Imperial was sentenced to nine years but received credit for time served, and, according to sources familiar with his case, is now residing in the U.S.

The third son who was prosecuted, Serafin Zambada-Ortiz, was sentenced toslightly more than five years in federal prison last year after pleading guilty to drug charges. Zambada-Ortiz, who described a harrowing childhood growing up inside his fathers cartel while pleading for mercy from his judge, was released in September 2018 after receiving credit for time served.

Mexicans welcomed the news. But some lamented that it was U.S. authorities, not their own, who had captured the suspects.

The day will come when it will be our prosecutors office  and not the American one  who will bring the big bosses of this country to justice so that they pay for all the lives they have stolen, Lilian Chapa Koloffon, a Mexican security analyst, wrote on X.

_____

(Hamilton reported from San Francisco and Linthicum from Mexico City.)

___

2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
In under 48 hours, the head of the staunchly conservative public-policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention rankled fellow Baptists by applauding President Joe Bidens selfless act of withdrawing his candidacy for re-election. Then, his agency reported he was fired  and now they have reaffirmed his leadership.

The head-spinning series of events started Sunday, but by Tuesday morning, the SBCs Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission announced that no, leader Brent Leatherwood wasnt fired. Rather, he has the full support of his top board members  though its chairman resigned and apologized for the erroneous announcement.

On Monday, the commission issued a statement that the ERLCs executive committee had removed Leatherwood in accordance with its bylaws.

But on Tuesday, it said, There was not an authorized meeting, vote, or action taken by the Executive Committee. Kevin Smith has resigned as Chair of the Executive Committee.

Leatherwood has our support moving forward, the executive committee statement said.

Smith, a Florida pastor, resigned both as chairman and as a board member, and he apologized Tuesday, according to a statement on Baptist Press, the denominations official news agency.

After multiple conversations with Executive Committee members of the ERLC, I was convinced in my mind that we had a consensus to remove Brent Leatherwood as the president of the ERLC, Smiths statement said. It is a delicate matter and, in an effort to deal with it expeditiously, I acted in good faith but without a formal vote of the Executive Committee. This was an error on my part, and I accept full responsibility. At this time, the Executive Committee does not wish to move forward with my course of action.

The previous ERLC vice chairman, Tony Beam, is now chairman.

Leatherwood posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Tuesday morning: I deeply appreciate everyone who has reached out, especially our trustees who were absolutely bewildered at what took place yesterday and jumped in to set the record straight.

Leatherwood had led the embattled agency through three years as the policy spokesman for the nations largest Protestant denomination, but he had not joined in the increasingly public support among many Southern Baptists for former President Donald Trump.

After Bidens announcement Sunday that he would not seek re-election, Leatherwood called it a selfless act.

We should all express our appreciation that President Biden has put the needs of the nation above his personal ambition, Leatherwood said.

Leatherwoods statement prompted fierce blowback on social media from some within the denomination who had already targeted his agency for criticism amid a larger battle to pull the already-conservative denomination even further to the right.

Clint Pressley, the SBCs newly elected president, joined in belittling the idea that Biden acted on principle.

Sounds right, Pressley posted on X in response to a post by a Southern Baptist professor. That professor, Andrew Walker, said Bidens withdrawal was not an act of valor but rather a case of ultra-powerful Democrats forcing him out.

In a follow-up statement Tuesday evening, the ERLC executive committee acknowledged the events had been destabilizing and that it would need to rebuild trust in the agency among Southern Baptists.

It said Smith acted unilaterally and that no vote was ever taken to remove Leatherwood.

Staff members had issued Mondays announcement of Leatherwoods firing, believing they were acting under the appropriate authority of the board, the statement said  but committee members themselves were taken by surprise and ensured the statement was retracted.

To be clear, this retraction was about following the procedures laid out in the bylaws of the ERLC, not about responding to pressure from outside organizations, the statement added.

The committee recognizes a wide range of opinions on the work of the ERLC, as evidenced by an unsuccessful attempt to defund the agency at last months SBC annual meeting.

But such discontent does not rise to the level of a dismissible offense, it said. We find Brent Leatherwood to be a man of utmost moral and ethical integrity.

While Leatherwood has been a target of pro-Trump advocates within the SBC, Smith doesnt fit that description. Smith, elected in 2023, was the first Black chairman of the ERLC, according to the agency. He roiled a panel discussion at a sideline event during the 2022 SBC annual meeting when he said some Southern Baptists lost their minds over the election of a Black president in Barack Obama and that some of them became political whores with this whole Trump stuff.

Leatherwood came to his job three years ago with conservative credentials. He was a former executive director of the Tennessee Republican Party. He was also a director of communications and policy strategy in the Tennessee General Assembly and worked for several years on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Leatherwood is the father of three children who were at the Covenant School in Nashville, last year when it was attacked by a gun-wielding assailant who killed three adults and three other children. Leatherwood joined some other Covenant parents in an unsuccessful effort to advocate for legislation that would keep firearms away from people who could harm themselves or others.

Leatherwood also denounced the publication in some news media of documents attributed to the killer, saying that it only worsened the trauma to families of the schoolchildren. He was the driving force behind a group of Covenant parents who went to court to keep the shooters writings from being released to media and other groups that had filed public records requests. A judge recently blocked the release of the writings.

Leatherwood and his agency had advocated staunchly conservative stances in areas such as opposing abortion, in keeping with official SBC stances, though he resisted calls to advocate legal penalties for women who seek abortions.

At this years annual meeting of the SBC, hundreds attended an unofficial event featuring a video-recorded address by Trump.

But Leatherwood hosted a separate event, also attended by hundreds, in which he interviewed former Vice President Mike Pence, another staunch conservative who received the wrath of Trump and many of the former presidents followers after he refused to block certification of Bidens 2020 election victory.

That latter event underscored how the commission has continued to occupy a narrow niche  advocating for deeply conservative policies without aligning itself with Trump-oriented politics.

While Leatherwood maintained his position in office, the effort to oust him reflects the MAGA-ness of the SBC in much of its leadership, said Baptist historian Bill Leonard, referring to Trumps Make America Great Again slogan.

Leonard said that although Southern Baptists have touted biblical inerrancy as essential, they have made compromises in their support for Trump and Christian nationalism.

It appears that as their numbers decline evangelistically, they are looking to government to undergird their kind of Christianity, said Leonard, author of Gods Last & Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the Southern Baptist Convention. The history of the church, to me at least, reveals that thats always been a historically doomed practice.

The ERLC has long been a magnet of controversy. While it doesnt endorse candidates, its the official policy arm for the countrys largest evangelical Protestant body  one whose members have been reliable foot soldiers in the conservative Christian political movement that has strongly aligned with Republican causes.

In 2021, Russell Moore resigned after eight years heading the ERLC. Moore was targeted for harshly criticizing evangelical support for Trump and said he also faced a backlash over the agencys attempts to address sexual abuse and racism in the largely white denomination.

On Monday, Moore called the report of Leatherwoods removal shameful and disgraceful in a post on X. He called Leatherwood a great Christian man who lived through his children barely surviving a school shooting. Southern Baptists, how much more of this are you going to let go on? You cannot pretend not to see what is happening in your name.
A Tuscaloosa woman has pleaded guilty fraudulently obtaining a government loan of nearly $100,000 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Erica Lasha Prewitt, 42, pleaded guilty this week to defrauding the Small Business Administrations) Paycheck Protection Program, announced Northern District of Alabama U.S. Attorney Prim Escalona and FBI Special Agent in Charge Carlton L. Peeples.

According to the plea agreement, Prewitt in August 2020 received a fraudulent PPP loan totaling $96,875.

In September 2021, Prewitt submitted a PPP Loan Forgiveness Application in which she claimed her business employed 30 people and the full amount of the loan was spent on payroll costs.

Prewitt never owned or operated a business and did not use the PPP loan funds to retain workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities said she used fake documentation to bolster her request.

The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Jack Harrington is prosecuting.

Prewitt is set to be sentenced on November 26, 2024. The maximum penalty for theft of government funds is 10 years in prison.

Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 relief funds can report it by calling the Department of Justices National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
An Alabama woman died Wednesday afternoon following a collision with a tractor-trailer on Interstate 20 in Georgia.

Brandy Rodgers, 39, of Oxford, died in the crash at 4:02 p.m. Wednesday.

The Georgia State Patrol said Rodgers was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident.

According to a GoFundMe page set up for the familys expenses, Rodgers was driving home from a shift as a registered nurse when the crash happened.

She is survived by her husband, Jason, and their six children.

She was so loved by so many. To know her was to love her. She was the brightest of lights in a sometimes dark world, Jason stated on social media.

Sarah Givens, a friend, said Rodgers made nursing look easy.

I want to believe that she knew how much we all loved her but what I know for certain is that if you spent even a second with her, you walked away knowing how much you were loved. I saw her show kindness to people who felt like they were forgotten and give grace to the ones who needed it the most, Givens wrote.
Some varieties of Boars Head liverwurst and deli meats are being recalled as authorities continue to investigate a listeria outbreak that has reportedly caused two deaths.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced that Boars Head Provisions Co. has recalled its liverwurst because of possible exposure to the listeria bacteria.

In addition, the company is recalling other meats that were produced on the same line and on the same day.

The ready-to-eat liverwurst products were produced between June 11 and July 1 and have a 44-day shelf life.

3.5-lb. loaves in plastic casing, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Strassburger Brand Liverwurst MADE IN VIRGINIA. The products shipped to retailers have sell by dates ranging July 25 to Aug. 30 printed on the side of the packaging.

The other ready-to-eat deli meat products were produced on June 27.

9.5-lb. and 4.5-lb. full product, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head VIRGINIA HAM OLD FASHIONED HAM with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

4-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

6-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head EXTRA HOT ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

4-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head BOLOGNA with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

2.5-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head BEEF SALAMI with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

5.5-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head STEAKHOUSE ROASTED BACON HEAT & EAT with sell by date AUG 15 on the product packaging.

3-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head GARLIC BOLOGNA with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

3-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head BEEF BOLOGNA with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

The products subject to recall were distributed to retail deli locations nationwide. The products shipped to deli retailers bear establishment number EST. 12612 inside the USDA mark of inspection on the product labels.

The outbreak was first reported last week. As of Thursday, 34 people were sickened, with all but one hospitalized, according to the Associated Press.

Listeria bacteria are most likely to sicken people who are pregnant and their newborns, adults aged 65 or older, and people with weakened immune systems, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Symptoms include flu-like symptoms, fever, headache and seizures.
This is an opinion column.

Were used to metaphorical sticks and stones in politics biting, sometimes witty (though usually lame) barbs or sophomoric nicknames aimed at an opponent. Especially from foes with little of substance to say.

Especially from Donald Trump.

Instead of delving into any depth on matters that matter, he diminishes opponents to a bumper-sticker. An insulting label that evokes guffaws from minions and becomes infectious, incessantly repeated among Republicans as if they were reading from mocking points distributed via Mailchimp.

Sleepy Joe. Mean, but okay, we get it. Cute.

DEI Vice President. Not so much.

The Republican playbook for regaining the presidency is in scraps on the floor, torched to ashes with the tikis their proud supporters like to wield. Their giddy plan was to pummel the 81-year-old President about his age, to harp on his 81-year-old moments, then two-step into the White House.

Now, not so much.

Not since President Joe Biden acceded to the inevitable and ended his re-election bid, then endorsed his vice presidenthis female vice president of African American and Indian descentto inherit the mantle atop the Democratic ticket.

Since then, Republicans have had to slap their hands over their mouths to avoid regurgitating instinctual racist and sexist sticks-and-stones barbs about Kamala Harris. Quips that just might expose the ugliest strands of their DNA.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, following a closed-door meeting Tuesday among House Republicans, declared the election will be about policies and not personalities. Which is strikingly different than what smolders in the ashes of their previous playbook.

This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris, he said, and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.

Translation: Stop it, fellow Republicans.

Stop it because now our mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces, and wives are watching.

Your daughters, too.

Because thus far your attacks on Harris have reeked with racism and sexismwith "entitleism.

Let's Go Brenda merchandise is being sold across the country as Kamala Harris is the favorite to be the Democratic nominee for the 2024 President election.Deion Johnson

Tainting Harris as DEIas countless Republicans have done and continue to do; and even former GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley condemnssays that because she is a non-white woman (because white women, whove benefitted as much as anyone from a half-century of affirmative action policies, have never been so labeled), she is somehow less than. Less than capable. Less than qualified.

Less than you.

Justify that to your daughter, who likely has more friends who look like Harris than you do.

GOP's new racial slurJD Crowe

To mock her laugh, challenge her intelligence, and slime her with the silly Marxist label most of your supporters cant even define exposes the depths of your desperation. And worse.

To intentionally and childishly mispronounce her name, for goodness sakeas Trump repeatedly, mockingly, and arrogantly doessays demonstratively more about you than her.

In grade school, boys pulled a girls ponytail because they liked her.

Republicans childishly yank at Harris because they fear her.

Some of your mothers, sisters, aunts, and wives may agree with you in opposing Harris candidacy. Maybe some of your daughters, too. That is their right in this nation.

Some of them may know this, too: If sexist/racist sticks and stones are your weapon of choice against the woman striving to be the first female president in U.S. history, how will you credibly respond when sexist/racist sticks and stones are someday wielded at them as they reach for their dreams?

At your daughters? At their friends?

At any of them who, say, struggle to birth children.

The most damning and sexist stone thus farits still early, and no doubt every Republican will not receive Johnsons memo  was hurled at two years ago by the now - Republican VP nominee JD no exceptions Vance.

In an interview on Fox News, he hooted that the nation was run by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that theyve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.

He specifically named three people. Its just a basic fact  you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC  the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children, he said. And how does it make any sense that weve turned our country over to people who dont really have a direct stake in it?

Vance stirred the ire of actress Jennifer Aniston, whos publicly shared her fertility struggles. On Instagram stories, she shared: I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.

Theyre watching, Republicans, so be careful. Or just be you.

I was raised by good people who encouraged me to be a good man and surround myself with good people. If I did, they said, good things would happen. I am a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame, an Edward R. Murrow Award winner, and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, and digital editions of The Birmingham News, Huntsville Times, and Mobile Press-Register. Tell me what you think at rjohnson@al.com, and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj.
Riots, restrictions on speech and religion, and the takeover of politics and law enforcement are just a few of the unwelcome changes that can be expected in non-Muslim societies as Muslim immigrants increase in number, according to Dr. Peter Hammond. A Christian missionary based in South Africa and author of 40 books, Hammond delineates how Muslims change societies in his book, Slavery, Terrorism and Islam. Citing examples of countries worldwide, Hammond outlines typical activities that occur as the Muslim percentage of the total population increases. It is a warning bell about the gradual, step-by-step changes that can be expected in other countries still undergoing significant Muslim immigration.

These societal changes occur because devout Muslims are bound by a 1,400-year-old doctrine of immigration originating in Islamic scriptures and based on Mohammed's migration from Mecca to Medina. Under the religious edict or Hijra, Islamic expansionism and submission of all non-Muslims to shariah or Islamic doctrine must occur. Islamic expansionism and its counterpart, jihad, are first expressed as Muslim demands for special status and privileges within the host country. A higher percentage of Muslims in the host country can soon translate into Muslim control of political processes, law enforcement, media, and the economy, as well as restrictions on freedom of movement, speech and religious practices. The appropriation of goods and property, as well as violence with impunity, can also occur.

The situation in at West Bengal in Hindu-majority India, bordering Muslim-majority Bangladesh, illustrates the inherent problems to non-Muslim societies of a growing Muslim population.

West Bengal

Bengal, an ethno-cultural region, was politically divided in 1947 during the partitioning of British India into independent India and Pakistan. Under this arrangement, the Bengal province was carved in two: the predominately-Hindu West Bengal, a state of India, and the predominately-Muslim East Bengal, which became a province of Pakistan and, in 1971, the Muslim-majority country of Bangladesh.

At partitioning, the Muslim population of West Bengal stood at 12% and the Hindu population of East Bengal 30%. Today, with massive Muslim immigration, Hindu persecution and forced conversions, West Bengals Muslim population has increased to 27% (up to 63% in some districts), as per the 2011 census and Bangladeshs Hindu population has decreased to 8%. While the situation for Hindus in Bangladesh is certainly dire, life has become increasingly difficult for Hindus in West Bengal, home to a Muslim-appeasing government and a breeding ground and safe haven for terrorists. For several years, West Bengal has suffered under apparent Muslim-planned riots designed to implement shariah, extract government concessions and grab more territory.

Kolkata Riots

In 2007, a violent protest broke out in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta) against Bangladeshi feminist author, physician and human rights activist, Taslima Nasreen. The demonstrations against Nasreen were a thinly veiled attempt to institute Islamic blasphemy laws and curtail freedom of speech.

Nasreen, who was born a Bangladeshi Muslim but chose atheism, had witnessed the horrific treatment of Islamic women in her medical practice, and advocated for freedom of expression, womens rights, non-Muslim rights and abolition of shariah law. In 1993, she published a novel, Lajja (Shame) about a Hindu family persecuted by Muslims. The novel ignited a furor in the Muslim community, which called for a ban on the book and offered a bounty for her death. The novel was subsequently banned by Indian authorities. Nasreen was physically attacked, went into hiding and escaped from Bangladesh to Europe. After 10 years exile, she returned to the east and settled in Kolkata. Her Bangladeshi passport had been revoked and she waited several years for a visa to be able to visit India. While in Kolkata, she continued to write articles critical of Islam despite renewed threats and calls for her beheading.

In November 2007, a protest organized by militant Muslims against Nasreen led to riots as Muslims blocked traffic, pelted police and journalists, torched cars and damaged buses. Similar to the justification for the Charlie Hebdo murders in Paris, West Bengali Muslims protested the violation of shariah blasphemy law, which mandates death for anyone who dares to criticize Islam. The army was forced to intervene, Nasreen was placed under house arrest and later forced to leave the area. The banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) were believed to have fostered the mayhem.

Canning District Riots

In 2013, Muslims in West Bengal were actively lobbying for a second partition of India to create an Islamic super state  Mughalistan  that would incorporate Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of India. Meanwhile, ethnic divisions were also stirred up by an upcoming local election. Into this charged situation, the murder of a Muslim cleric by unidentified assailants sparked outrage among Muslims, as thousands mobilized for rioting in the Canning District. An article in a popular weekly publication, Organiser, called the attack a well organized and meticulously planned attack on Hindus. Over 200 Hindu homes were looted and firebombed, hundreds of temples and idols destroyed, and vehicles set on fire amid shouts of Allah-hu Akbar! Repeated calls for help by Hindus went unanswered by the police. Local residents claimed authorities were complicit with the Muslim mobs.

Violence in Usti

This January 29th, in a market in the Kolkata suburb of Usti, more than 50 Hindu shops were ransacked, looted and gutted by rampaging jihadists. Police mostly watched as bombs were hurled at Hindus indiscriminately. They fired a few random shots into the air and detained victimized Hindu shop owners while their attackers roamed free. A legislative assembly member and the state minister for minority affairs reportedly demanded that local police release the few rioters held in custody. There was limited reporting by the mainstream media that didnt specify the Muslim identity of the perpetrators and West Bengals Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, issued no statement about the violence. Independent sites, Indiafacts and Hindu Samhati, reported the incident with numerous photographs.

Political Implications

With a 27% Muslim population, enough pressure exists to tip the scales for elected officials precariously toward advancement of an Islamist agenda and make Muslims the most privileged class in West Bengal. In some areas, such as the border district of Murshidabad, which is over 63% Muslim, de facto shariah is imposed on all residents. The vast majority of political candidates, elected officials and law enforcement leadership are Muslim and the economic prospects for Hindus dim as Muslims refuse to patronize non-Muslim businesses.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who has received official visits from Hillary Clinton and several U.S. ambassadors, offers a prime example of a political leader who expediently favors Muslim constituents, capitulates to their many demands and entices them with special benefits and privileges. The reality of Muslim vote bank politics, whereby an entire Muslim community votes along lines dictated by the local imam or religious leader, adds to the problem and furthers Muslim control of the state. Banerjee has gone so far in her Muslim sympathies as to publicly recite the Kalima Shahadat, the Islamic conversion prayer, in front of an audience of imams.

Because West Bengals Muslims were largely responsible for her election as chief minister, Banerjee has made substantial payback. She approved and validated the academic degrees of 10,000 previously unrecognized Saudi-funded and controlled madrasas (Islamic colleges) four minarets (Muslim towers), honorariums for imams and an exclusively Islamic township. Banerjee called for the establishment of Muslim medical, technical and nursing schools with special subsidies for Muslim students, as well as Muslim-only hospitals. She has favored Muslims to the extent of distributing free bicycles and rail passes to female Muslim students and laptops to Muslim boys. Banerjees political party, the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), will most likely send more Islamists to serve in parliament in the future. Reportedly, jihadist sleeper cells inhabit the area under her protection. Meanwhile, the needs of Hindu refugees from Bangladesh are ignored, even as they continue being victimized in West Bengal.

In June of 2014, Mamata Banerjee made a highly questionable appointment, Rajya Sabha, to the upper house of the Indian Parliament. Despite multiple warnings from the District Intelligence Bureau that had red-flagged him for instigating violence against Hindus, including alleged participation in the Kolkata and Canning riots and sheltering known terrorists, she selected Pakistani Hassan Imran to serve as MP. Imran is a founder and self-admitted member of the radical student group, the Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), a recognized terrorist organization banned by the Indian government. He founded and edited a radical weekly magazine, Kalam, which he later turned into a daily newspaper, Dainik Kalam, and sold to the Saradha Group, a financial conglomerate with ties to West Bengal government officials. The publication has advocated for the establishment of Muslim-controlled areas in the state under shariah. Hassan has close ties to local Islamist leaders and has worked with Jamat-e-Islami (JI), a pro-Saudi jihadist group supported by Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He also has ties to a chief official of the Islamic Development Bank, a Saudi entity that has financed Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood affiliate, the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism funding trial in the United States. JI and the ISI have been linked to efforts to take over the Indian state of Assam and separate it from India.

The Saudi-funded terrorist group Jamaat-ul-Mujahadeen, also linked to MP Hassan Imran, has a major base in West Bengal, including bomb-manufacturing units, and has used Wahhabi money to build mosques throughout the state. The Muslim call to prayer is blasted by loudspeaker from early in the morning to late at night and some thoroughfares in the Muslim districts of Kolkata are closed to all traffic for Friday prayers.

Recently, Hassan and other associates of Mamata Banerjee were implicated in a financial scandal  a Ponzi scheme with the Saradha Group  and things are starting to unravel for the chief minister. A major investigation of a consortium of 200 private companies that collected between $4  6 billion from over 1.7 million depositors before it collapsed, may bring down her reign in West Bengal. Her MP appointee, Hassan, is believed to have acted as a liaison between Jamaat-e-Islami and the money launderers.

Bangladesh

Hindus of West Bengal need only look across the border to Bangladesh to see their future if Muslim immigration continues and the Muslim population exceeds the current 27%. In Bangladesh, with an 89% Muslim population, ethnic cleansing persists unabated, Hindu land is forcibly captured and Hindu homes and businesses looted. People are commonly beaten with no police intervention. Hindus have been tortured and forced to pay the jizya, a tax that non-Muslims are required to pay for protection against Muslim terrorism. Hindu girls, even married women, have been raped, mutilated, kidnapped, enslaved and forced to marry Muslim men. Law enforcement authorities are often complicit in the activities and provide no protection or recourse. Victims are typically threatened if they report incidents to the police. Often, in the case of abduction, police refuse to register complaints and make claims that consensual intercourse has taken place even if the girl is 9 or 10 years old, a non-minor under Islamic standards.

Kidnapped Hindu girls who manage to escape report that they were taken to Muslim families in which relatives and friends were invited to rape them over several days while Muslim women facilitated the encounters.

This dire future could possibly be avoided in West Bengal, where some speculate that the Saradha financial scandal could go far in exposing Mamata Banerjees dangerous ties to Islamists who seek to wrest control of West Bengal from Hindus. If her government falls as a result, it could be the wake-up call needed to turn the current situation around. It could also serve as an example to other countries facing increasing Muslim immigration and increasing imposition of Muslim values on non-Muslims.
A lot of people assume that Democrats heavily influence the media. But that is not just an understatement but an inaccurate statement. To be influenced, the media and Democrats would have to be separate organizations. Also, the Democrats would have to employ their powers of persuasion to influence the media.

In reality, the media is the propaganda arm of the Democrats. There is no difference between the utterances of the press and the Democrats. If you want to know what the Democrat leadership is thinking, just follow in the mainstream media.

The late great Rush Limbaugh often played a montage of utterances from media pundits about any given event. Not only did the 'experts' have identical opinions, they also used identical keywords.

Words such as 'insurrection' or 'collusion' didn't become the de facto term for describing the events of January 6th or the Trump-Russia hoax by accident. These terms were provided by adept wordsmiths in the Democrat party, and the media lapdogs followed the diktat faithfully. They repeated the terms until even those against whom the hoax was perpetrated accepted the premise and used them while defending themselves.

We must therefore think of the media as a department within the Democrat party.

So what's the PR wing for the Democrats up to now?

The Democrat 'elites' had decided that despite 15 million primary votes from regular Democrats, Biden had to go. So they ordered a debate earlier than usual. The fairness shown by debate anchors was an act of sabotage against Biden. Expect the Democrat PR agents masquerading as anchors to have their fangs out against Trump during the second debate.

Following the debate, their command was 'destroy Biden,' which all media outlets followed. Some may erroneously think the media was doing its job and presenting facts, but they were merely following diktats.

Now that Biden has quit the race, he is a selfless patriot who placed the country before himself. Months ago, Biden was supposed to be sharp.

Clearly, these media slaves don't care how ridiculous they appear -- they blindly follow orders.

With the nation's foremost word salad chef as the nominee, the latest diktat is to destroy Trump. They couldn't attack Trump immediately after the assassination attempt, they would appear inhuman. Despite what they think, they had to feign 'lowering the temperature' and improving the quality of discourse.

But now they realize that the assassination attempt had an impact. It proves that the danger against Trump's life is real, and the Democrat media and their hateful and dehumanizing discourse led to it. MSNBC canceling the broadcast of Morning Joe the Monday after the assassination attempt is proof and acknowledgment.

Many have linked this to the myriad of baseless witch-hunts being prosecuted by Democrat judges. This is not to suggest that the media or the judges had any links to the assassin, but that he was brainwashed or influenced by them.

The assassination attempt humanized Trump in minds beyond his core base. Most fair-minded people will be alarmed and concerned. They will think, 'If this can happen to him for challenging the establishment, what chance do we have?"

Finally, it revealed that Trump is fearless. His display of courage and his tough talk are not an act but reflect his true nature. Few humans would have risen moments after a bullet almost took their life to urge his supporters to fight back against tyranny. The photograph of the moment has made the incident iconic.

This needs to be undone now that the word salad chef has to be promoted.

So what do the Democrats do?

They ordered the media to diminish the death threat and even imply that it was a hoax.

Following orders from the PR wing, is the formerly respectable news outlet Newsweek. An article in the magazine quotes FBI Director Christopher Wray's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee where he said it is not yet certain if Trump's injury was caused by a bullet or shrapnel.

How did the Newsweek article cover this?

Their tweet promoting the article is captioned 'Donald Trump might not have been shot after all.' Their article headline states 'Donald Trump May Not Have Been Hit By Bullet, FBI Director Says'.

They are hoping that people don't read the article and make up their minds just by reading the text of the tweet or the headline. They are wishing that people would assume that the shooting was a hoax or even staged by Trump so that it would benefit him politically. Many left-wing conspiracy theorists had claimed this moments after the incident.

It must be understood that this isn't a mistake. An article goes through multiple reviews from editors before it is published, even if the writer erred, someone on the editorial team should have rectified the error. The same applies to social media. The fact that this disgraceful material was published proves it was purposeful.

This is a vile and disgraceful piece of propaganda.

Members of the media often boast about being proponents of DEI. What the media needs is the most important variety of diversity -- diversity of thought.

In this situation, if Newsweek had a Trump supporter on their editorial or review board, this headline or tweet would never have been published. But the propagandists within these echo chambers abhor the discord of opposing views. All they want is the chimes of total concurrence. Their goal isn't about quality but how they can outdo each other generating content that will benefit the Democrat and malign Trump.

Most organizations have developed a subscriber base who tune in to consume their daily dose of hate. In time, the hate isn't enough to get them inebriated, so the content sinks deeper into the dungeons of hate.

It is quite likely that there will be a backlash and that Newsweek will be forced to apologize, change their headline and delete the tweet. But the tweet and headline will be allowed to remain long enough to spread.

A casual news consumer reads it and believes it. He tells a few other casual news-consuming colleagues or friends 'I just read Trump wasn't shot at Butler.'

"Was it a hoax?" asked one.

"Seems so" claims another.

This is 'mission accomplished' for the propagandists.

This proves the Democrats and their PR agents masquerading as journalists have no qualms about descending to the lowest level. We know they have no ethics, values, or morals, but this is downright evil.

So what can you do as consumers?

Let's assume your child attends a university in another state and you want to be aware of her well-being and whereabouts. Whom will you trust to provide you with facts, a well-wisher or an ill-wisher?

The answer is obvious.

The media is an ill-wisher that is doing all it can to destroy you and what you care for. It is wise to completely abandon consuming their propaganda. It is better to be uninformed than misinformed.

If you do consume what they are peddling, it is wise to assume that what is being claimed is false until proven true.

In a Democracy, the media has a function to act as watchdog on behalf of the citizens.

Alas, they have become lapdogs who crawl when asked to bend, prostrate when asked to crawl, and leap with elation when the proverbial biscuit is tossed in their direction.

Image: Newsweek - Fair Use
Perhaps the most significant factor contributing to the Soviet Unions collapse was a resolute commitment to the infallibility of socialist ideology, coupled with its continued application long after its obvious failure. The failure to learn history and, by extension, internalize the lessons from this dark period is what enables our modern-day Marxists (whom we refer to as leftists or progressives) to believe that they can somehow avoid the consequences of the policies they promote.

Modern political history shows that these same people almost always avoid any personal liability for the destruction that theyve wrought. In the Soviet countries, this mindset prevailed until the collapse of that abominable regime in 1991, but not before oppressing, enslaving, and murdering millions.

Unfortunately, this worldview persists even today. Adherence to ideological purity is valued above empirical evidence and objective truth, and is particularly prevalent among miseducated Western leftists who identify as secular, whereas those of us who believe in G-d are labeled superstitious. These are the archetypical godless commies. By traditional standards, they display appalling behavior. Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who had experience with this, once said, If there is no G-d, everything is permitted.

Image: The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (unaltered usage allowed under German law), which taught Marxists nothing.

These ideologues consider their worldview incontrovertible, making them intolerant of opposing viewpoints, which they consider lies. As we witnessed after the June 27 debate, opposing viewpoints are also regarded as inherently sinister. The debate moderators, CNNs Jake Tapper (Fake Yapper) and Dana Bash (the ex-wife of former Obama CIA Chief of Staff and DoD Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash), are two such godless commies, with their own histories of intolerance while feigning virtue.

Such cadres concentrate (and flourish) in institutions such as academia, government, non-profit/activist organizations, think tanks (producing few original ideas), and political and other organizations where ideological purity has replaced merit as the basis for career advancement. Here, ideas need not be empirically proven to receive perpetual funding. This explains how Democrats often fail upward, also known as The Peter Principle (people rise to the level of their incompetence). Biden, Harris, Blinken, and Jake Sullivan are prime examples.

Thomas Sowell said that the most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Yet we still find ourselves struggling with ideologues promoting impracticable ideas/policies provably tested over decades as destructive and morally evil. Unlimited empirical evidence and a well-documented 74-year Soviet period resulting in misery, deprivation, and failure dont dissuade them. Millions remain yoked to this ideology. Its simultaneously perplexing while perversely impressive, speaking to the religious nature of the ideology and the effectiveness of the indoctrination.

They hubristically believe that men and the governments they create can somehow bypass, bend, or suspend the laws of nature, avoiding failure. Men can become women and control the weather. Its as if they believe in a magical black hole that can be perfectly timed and exploited by Marxist demigods so capable that they can identify the precise moments in a time continuum enabling them to successfully implement policies that have failed repeatedly and miserably whenever theyve previously been attempted.

If that isnt bizarre enough, there is the self-delusion that their intentions are uniquely virtuous and their self-anointed experts (whose status never requires validation) uniquely capable.

When these policies, judged on merit (outcome, not intention), inevitably fail, the ideologues will hypocritically claim success or shamelessly place blame on others for not letting them go far enough or implement it correctly.

Ultimately, when they realize that the immutable natural laws they have attempted to bypass apply even to them, and they become trapped by the consequences of their actions, they invariably demand more government intervention and additional resources (their favorite), or, they just leave the mess they created for others to sort out. All the while, they insist that their intentions were good and their hearts were in the right place.

This occurs when actions have no consequences. Thomas Sowell again: It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

As weve seen, elections have consequences, but so should actions, particularly for those entrusted with power. Those promoting a collectivist, immoral, anti-human, anti-religion ideology, ignoring the laws of nature, giving money to terrorists and drug cartels, encouraging rioting, bailing criminals out rather than prosecuting them, and calling parents protesting sexual deviance domestic terrorists are trying to overthrow the system. Where I come from, we call that TREASON, which has serious consequences.

Progressives adamantine commitment to their ideologys infallibility is what enables them to believe that they can avoid their policies consequences. It is a Soviet mindset, replacing religion, that prevailed in the Eastern bloc until it began to collapse in 1989, and thats been perpetuated in underdeveloped places in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. In the Muslim world, it fused with Islam in Algeria, Egypt, and Iraq. This is an integral part of what makes (and keeps) such places underdeveloped.

Break free, as Czechia, Hungary, Chile, the UAE, and Taiwan did, and you might find your country developing. Become consumed by it, and your country will likely be destroyed (e.g., Argentina, Greece, Portugal, South Africa, and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe).

Although leftism has not claimed even one success (even many Israeli kibbutzim have failed, proving that such social experiments flop even on a small scale), this creepy ideology retains its staying power. Empirical evidence is irrelevant.

Ultimately, leftism is a faith, allowing its proponents to believe there must be loopholes in the laws of human nature and causality that apply to a progressive society, allowing its members to have their cake and eat it, too. Their well-documented history of misery, deprivation, and abject failure is no bar to their promoting an anti-human, anti-freedom ideology in the belief that somehow, once implemented, they will magically be spared its consequences.

The most vexing aspect of this manifestly self-destructive behavior is the false perception that progressive intentions are somehow more virtuous. When their policieswhich must inevitably be judged on their merits (outcomes, not intentions)consistently fail, progressives will either hypocritically claim success or shamelessly place blame on rivals for not letting you go far enough.

Ultimatelyand this is something progressives willfully refuse to acknowledgewhen the immutable natural laws you refuse to consider still make themselves known, you become trapped by the consequences of your actions. People who are not cultists will look at their failures and learn from them. The lefts cultists never learn, though. They just double down on their failures, even as the American experience collapses in ruins around them.

Jonathan Gault is a pseudonym.
Watching CNN and reading much of the rest of the mainstream media in print and online since last Sunday, when Joe Biden announced that hes not running for reelection, is like a nightmare vision of a dystopian future.

True to the Marxist playbook, its nonstop historical revisionism, coupled with the retooling of Kamala Harris as a messianic Obama-type figure.

Or, as Kayleigh McEnany of FOX News warned, Get ready for Kamalot. (A play on the common nickname for President John F. Kennedys thousand days in office, courtesy of his widow Jacqueline, as Camelot.)

The current PR offensive of the MSM on behalf of Kamala Harris is all the more upsetting and disorienting after what went on during the previous three weeks in the aftermath of Bidens disastrous debate with Donald Trump.

From June 28, the day after the debate, until early Sunday afternoon July 21, when Joe Biden abruptly ceased his campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor, the MSM for the first time ever began examining and targeting Biden for his physical and mental deterioration.

Leaks pointing to the high level cover-up of Bidens limitations were appearing daily.

Other leaks confirmed that the most influential Democrat kingmakers  Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer  were working behind the scenes to ensure that Biden was dumped. It was clear early last weekend that despite Bidens protestations that he was in it to the end, if he didnt go on his own he would be pushed out before the next week ended.

As painful as it is, watching CNN (and MSNBC, which arguably is even worse) provides essential insights into the fast-growing propaganda campaign that the political establishment and the MSM will be employing to get Harris elected.

A nightly prime time hour on CNN is emblematic. It airs from 10:00 - 11:00 p.m. ET and is hosted by Abby Phillip.

Abby Phillip speaking at an event in West Des Moines, Iowa January 10, 2024

Photo by Gage Skidmore // Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Abigail Daniella Phillip is a CNN anchor and a senior political correspondent who anchors CNN NewsNight. She previously worked for Politico covering the Obama White House, The Washington Post as a national political reporter, and ABC News as a digital reporter for politics.

Last night, the guests on Phillips program for the hour were five Never Trumpers (including Phillip) and one lone Republican, Joe Pinion. The other guests were Jane Coaston, described as an op-ed contributor to the New York Times; Elie Mystal, a writer for the uber leftist monthly The Nation; Jeff Duncan, the RINO former lieutenant governor of Georgia who came out in March as a supporter of Biden and now enthusiastically supports Harris; and Gretchen Carlson, a disgruntled former FOX News host who successfully sued the channel for sexual harassment after they demoted her in 2016, and has become an anti-FOX mouthpiece since then.

CNN puts transcripts of many of its programs on the web, and the transcript of the July 25 Abby Phillip program can be reviewed here. Warning: Reading this transcript may result in elevated blood pressure or other harmful health impacts.

While the MSM is now back to reexamining Donald Trump with a fine-toothed comb, and beating the bushes for any legacy video or statements by J.D. Vance that can be used against him, the memory hole, first described by George Orwell in his dystopian book 1984, is being opened wide to disappear Kamala Harriss previous statements and record of non-achievement. For example, in recent days, FOX News declared in an on-screen chyron on Thursday evening, Media Puts Kamala Harris Border Czar Job in Memory Hole.

Prominent examples of Kamala Harriss opinions on policing have emerged in a variety of statements she made during interviews starting in June 2020, when violent riots were rocking the nation during the Black Lives Matter Summer of Love following the death of George Floyd. On June 25, 2024, Harris said on the podcast Watch What Happens Live:

You know, for far too long the status quo thinking has been to believe that by putting more police on the street youre going to have more safety. And thats just wrong! Thats not how it works.

Dont hold your breath waiting for CNN or the rest of the broadcast and print media to cite examples of that important record.

Where you will see it is on FOX News. As the lies continue on the rest of the MSM, FOX News is the lone source of a significantly more fair and balanced view of the goings on  with justifiable, clear eyed scrutiny of the Democrats.

Last night, the content of FOX Newss prime time opinion programs consisted of the truth about the real reasons why Biden was forced to abandon his campaign (a coup at the hands of Democrat kingmakers, as former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and a number of other guests suggested).

Even more to the point, as the only counter to the deification of Harris that defines the rest of broadcast, and MSM print and online, news media, FOX News devoted a majority of its nighttime programs to Harris record, including in her own words thanks to many damning archival video clips.

Three quarters of Jesse Watters Primetime, guest-hosted by Kayleigh McEnany, was devoted to Harris actual record. This theme was continued on Sean Hannitys program that followed. And even the FOX News news departments hour long show FOX News@Night, which wrapped up the channels live programming at 11 PM ET, has been decidedly critical of Harris.

One small ray of hope going forward, for people who get a lot of their news from TV, is the continuing success of FOX News in the ratings.

In the latest week of the Nielsen Research television ratings, Monday July 15 through Sunday July 21 (the week of the Republican National Convention), FOX News was by far the most watched cable television channel in the United States both during the 24 hour day (6:00 a.m. - 6 p.m. ET) and in prime time (8:00 - 11:00 p.m. ET).

In prime time, FOX News averaged 5 million total viewers, followed by ESPN (1.3 million), and CNN (1.008 million).

Perhaps its no accident that if one wishes to see former President Trump interviewed on television, the only place to go is FOX News.

This week, Trumps exclusive interview with Jesse Watters was played on Monday and Tuesday nights on Jesse Watters Primetime. On Thursday morning, President Trump was on the phone for a live interview uninterrupted by commercial breaks on FOX & Friends from 7:30 to 8:02 a.m. ET.

The video of the interview, which FOX News has titled Former President Trump slams Biden's terrible Oval Office address on 2024 exit: It was a coup, is available here.

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 X/Twitter account is @pchowka.
Kamala Harris's rise in American politics has been hailed as a historic breakthrough. Yet a closer examination of her career reveals a trail of controversies and questionable decisions that raise serious doubts about her integrity and suitability as a political leader. From leveraging personal relationships for political gain to inconsistencies in her policy stances and questionable actions during her tenure as Californias top law enforcement official, Kamala Harriss track record is riddled with actions that betray the trust of the American people. Her career, marred by allegations of opportunism, hypocrisy, and ethical lapses, provides compelling reasons to question her capability to lead with honesty and integrity. Heres why Kamala Harris should be a figure of skepticism rather than trust in American politics.

One of the earliest and most significant controversies surrounding Kamala Harris is her relationship with Willie Brown, a powerful California politician. Brown openly admitted to having a lengthy affair with Harris and appointing her to two lucrative state commissions: the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and the Medical Assistance Commission. These positions reportedly paid her over $400,000 over five years. These appointments based on sexual relationships rather than merit, cast a long shadow over Harris's career narrative and raise ethical questions about her integrity and the legitimacy of her rise in politics.

As California's attorney general, Harris oversaw the prosecution of over 1,900 marijuana-related offenses . Despite this hardline stance, she adopted a pro-legalization position, even admitting to having used marijuana herself in a 2019 interview, when it became politically expedient to do so. This stark contrast between her actions and her public statements demonstrates a troubling inconsistency that calls into question her authenticity and reliability as a policymaker. Kamala Harriss DA office also had to dismiss over 1,000 drug cases when a court ruled in 2010 that her office knowingly did not disclose knowledge of tainted drug evidence.

While running for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination against Joe Biden in 2019, Harris shook the Democratic Party by stating that she believed the multiple women who said they were victims of unwanted touching from Joe Biden. Harris's decision to join Biden's presidential ticket after previously accusing him of sexual misconduct is another point of contention. Her sudden shift from a fierce critic to a running mate suggests a willingness to compromise her principles for political expediency. This move, perceived by many as a blatant display of opportunism, undermines her credibility and raises doubts about her commitment to the issues she once championed.

Kamala Harris's office has been criticized for covering up police misconduct. In 2015, the Orange County District Attorney's Office was removed from a death penalty trial due to an unconstitutional jailhouse informant program, but Harris's office appealed the removal. Additionally, in 2010, a California superior court judge criticized Harris's office for failing to inform defense lawyers of misconduct by a drug lab technician, leading to the shutdown of a section of the San Francisco police crime lab. These actions not only reflect poorly on her judgment but also highlight a disturbing disregard for justice and accountability.

One of the most egregious examples of Harris's questionable ethics involves her office's suppression of evidence that could have exonerated an innocent man on death row. Despite evidence pointing to the man's innocence, Harris's office chose to uphold the conviction, an action that has drawn widespread condemnation and further tarnished her record.

Kamala Harris's political career is fraught with controversies that highlight serious ethical failings. From leveraging personal relationships for political gain through quid pro quo, or at least abuses of power, to inconsistent policy stances and a troubling record as California's top law enforcement official, Harris's actions raise significant doubts about her fitness for leadership. As voters, we must demand integrity, consistency, and accountability from our leaders. Based on her track record, Kamala Harris has repeatedly shown that she falls short of these essential qualities. For these reasons, I cannot trust Kamala Harris as a political leader, and neither should you.

Parker McCumber is a doctoral student, entrepreneur, commissioned officer in the National Guard, and a political and economic contributor. Follow him on X @Parker_McCumber.

Image: Gage Skidmore
Why does the WaPo make a disclaimer for the democracy Israels numbers but not the terrorist organization Hamass?

In Hamas attack civilians intentionally, Human Rights Watch says (7/17/24), The Washington Post continued its bias against Israel in a systematic way.

The Post claims that 38,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and that the Israel Defense forces on Tuesday claimed to have killed or apprehended 14,000 militants and to have killed half of Hamass military leaders since the start of the war. However, only after the Israeli figures does the Post add, The figures could not be independently confirmed.

There was no such disclaimer after the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry figure. It seems that only democracies need to have their claims independently confirmed, whereas internationally recognized terrorist organizations have the full trust of The Washington Post for their claims. It says a lot about the integrity, not to mention motivations, of The Washington Post.

This requires a correction.

The reality of the story behind the numbers is that they show that Israel is fighting one of the most humane urban wars in history, even with Hamas military tunnels underneath most if not all civilian structures in Gaza. Hamas shoots from behind, below, and beside their civilians ensuring a maximal casualty count to aid in their war of global pressure on Israel. War experts applaud Israel for some of the lowest civilian to combatant casualty counts since these figures have been recorded. But it didnt dissuade the Post from its full-throated support of Hamas.

To the papers credit, after months of prodding, the Post finally is admitting that the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministrys count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, which would seemingly cast doubt on any semblance of accuracy. But it still feels the need to add the claim that the majority of the dead are women and children. Of course, that additional claim cant be independently confirmed, but that doesnt hold The Washington Post back from propagating it, since it coincides with its anti-Israel agenda. This claim obviously requires a correction as well.

Dr. Michael Berenhaus is a freelance activist who works to combat anti-Israel bias in the media. He has been widely published in news sources such as The Economist, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Image: Daniel X. O'Neil via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.
How hard was it by 2015 for the political class to know, at the core of their beings, that Joe Biden was a despicable man? Everyone in Congress knew it. They all knew he was a pathological liar, a greedy SOB for whom money was his singular motivation for everything he said and did. They all knew he was a racist. Long before he attempted to humiliate the great Clarence Thomas, he was mentored by Robert Byrd, once an Exalted Cyclops of the KKK. Biden was terrified of his children going to school with blacks, which is why he adamantly opposed bussing. But, even after two previous attempts to become president and failing, once for plagiarizing Neil Kinnocks speech, he was selected by the Democrat party to be installed in order to prevent Bernie Sanders from becoming the Democrat candidate in 2019.

It wasnt so difficult thanks to the amped up Covid hysteria. He could stay in his basement and let the media run his pathetic campaign. Thanks again to all the Covid lockdown nonsense, it was easy for the Democrats to flood the states with millions of unverified mail-in ballots and to stuff Zuckerbergs drop boxes with (fake?) ballots.

Joe Biden was illegitimately installed in the White House. The result? The Biden administration has been one of the worst, perhaps the worst presidency in U.S. history. That is what the Democrat party did and that is why they are in the grim situation they currently find themselves in today. They dug the hole, and now they are trying to dig themselves out of it, without success. But they keep digging, forgetting the rule about holes.

So, the godfathers of the not-at-all-democratic DNC, or whomever was in charge of this cruel enterprise from the outset, decided that, given the polls, Joe had to go. Sure, hes been cognitively impaired for years, but that only made him more malleable; they did not mind that, they embraced it. But seeing that he could not win in 2024, that was unacceptable. The heavies, Obama and Pelosi, as thuggish as Mafia mobsters, moved in with the deal: Joe would go or else the 25th Amendment would be invoked, and Joe would go down hard. They must have offered him a deal, one about which we will likely never know the details. A pardon for Hunter? A promise to take care of the Biden family? No prosecutions for his many, many crimes committed while in the office of V.P. and then president? They also probably promised money, that which Biden craves more than anything else. It is a safe bet that all of the above is true. That is how politics is done in D.C., the most corrupt city in America. Joe Biden is, and has always been, a loathsome person wholly without character, but he is a victim too, a victim of the system he relished being a part of for fifty years. Some might call it karma.

Biden promised early on to select a black woman to be his V.P. He said that first and then chose Kamala Harris, a half-Indian, half-Jamaican woman of little color and even less black American experience. No matter. The left always assumes that the American people are stupid. They will fall for the black thing. Most did not, but all those mail-in ballots cinched the deal. He did not much like Kamala, and Jill hates her to this day. Any semblance of friendship or partnership between them is entirely false. Its all a facade, a charade. It is common knowledge that Kamala climbed her way to the V.P. spot in the oldest, not-necessarily-professional way. In crude terms, she slept her way to the top. One of her monikers is still Heels up Harris. But the Dems could not care less about their candidates character. They never have. They gave us the Kennedys, the Clintons, Obama, and all the toadies that signed on to those campaigns and administrations knowing full well that their headliners were borderline sociopaths. Character is not a leftwing value. That has been proven over and over and over again.

Republicans occasionally choose poorly too. Who knew that John McCain would betray his party or that Mitt Romney became a presidential candidate without any core conservative values? More recently, Kevin McCarthy colluded with Democrats to further spend the U.S. into devastating debt. Mike Johnson and countless other Republicans in Congress are generally pathetic cowards, afraid to act on the promises they made to get elected. They dont want to rock the lucrative lobbyist gravy train with which theyve been permanently seduced. So, it is left to the few elected representatives with guts to speak for us: Josh Hawley, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Chip Roy, Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz, and a few others who speak up some of the time, but not all of the time. Our elected officials are largely disappointing. They are dedicated to the power they have and to keeping it, without regard for the people who voted for them. The Founders would be sorely disappointed.

This lack of reverence for good character is evident throughout the swamp, the bulging bureaucracy that governs our lives. Consider the scum that arose to the top of the CIA (Brennan, Clapper, Haspel) , the FBI (Comey, McCabe, Wray), the IRS (remember Lois Lerner?), etc. As it turns out, most of them are crooks! James Comey, Andrew McCabe and their willingly devious underlings like Peter Strzok, AG Merrick Garland and his anti-Trump thugs like Jack Smith, and the entire entourage that invented and perpetrated the Russia hoax to ruin Trump. They followed up with all the ludicrous and fabricated lawfare cases meant to take him off the campaign trail and to bankrupt him. These are well and truly evil people, wholly without character, let alone respect for the Constitution or the rule of law. Hillary Clinton has for decades used her positions in power to enrich herself, as has Nancy Pelosi; she has a net worth of more than $100 million on her House salary of $174k. Insider trading? They are the tip of the iceberg of government cheaters, those who enter politics to get rich quick, learn the system and then game the system. Biden and Hillary are perhaps the worst of the bunch, but are certainly not alone in their quest for power and money at the expense of the American people.

At this moment in time, the U.S. is teetering on the edge of an abyss, a cliche, but nonetheless accurate. For nearly four years, the people who illegitimately installed Biden as president were probably aware of his Parkinsons cognitive impairment during the 2020 campaign. Surely his family knew but went ahead with the scheme to put him in the Oval Office. The Democrat party and the media have covered up this fact for four years; theyre all guilty of gaslighting the American people with the glee of sociopaths. To what end? To keep Democrats in power. Democracy to Democrats means one thing, one thing only  they rule over us all. They hate, loathe, and despise all things conservative, conservative people with conservative values, and any public person, celebrity, activist, or politician who dares to promote Judeo-Christian values. Such people must be destroyed. Because Donald Trump is the best representative of those values to come along since Reagan, he must be destroyed.

Was the assassination attempt shooter a lone wolf or a patsy like many believe Oswald was? No one knows as yet. The massive security lapse sure seems intentional, but then Bidens and the rest of the lefts Hitlerian rhetoric over the past nine years could surely incite a mentally ill kid. Clearly our Secret Service needs to be radically restructured; so does the FBI, the DOJ, and every other alphabet institution. Equally guilty are our schools that no longer teach traditional values, let alone basic civics! They teach quite the opposite  they revel in the destruction of those traditional values. Believing in God can get one fired. Being a drag queen can get you a job reading to kids in a local library. The Biden administration embraces the genital mutilation of children, abortion up to and just after birth, allowing men to compete against women if they choose to identify as women. Hows all that for a wholesale lack of character?

Developing good character in our children used to be the number one, the single, most important job of parents. Now you can be cancelled, even fired for protecting the innocence of children, for not sexualizing them in kindergarten, for not promoting LGBTQ+ values in any setting. We are on a wrong path as a nation. Its time to revisit the reverence for good character, for those Judeo-Christian values that are the still profound basis of our Constitution. It is good character that the Founders knew was an absolute necessity for the republic to prevail. The Democrat partys dismissal of character as a prerequisite for a civil society has undermined everything America was meant to be. One has only to consider the extended Trump family, as opposed to the thoroughly dysfunctional Biden family, to grasp the truth of the character counts adage. The lies the left tells about Trump are just that, guilty lies, jealous lies, resentful lies. Shame on all those who tell them and on those who believe them.

Image: Free image, Pixabay license.
Countless young people across America are fervent proponents of ranked choice voting (RCV), also known as instant runoff voting, and incorrectly accept that it could cure many of our electoral ills  from reducing the impact of minority rule to broadening the diversity of political candidates. I was one of those people.

Now I realize just how wrong I was.

In college, I was happy to spew all sorts of RCV propaganda. I falsely believed that RCV would eliminate minority rule, the spoiler effect, the wasted vote phenomenon, and more! The benefits appeared clear as day. However, as I naively advocated for RCV across my state, I encountered many people who did not share my views. After listening to their arguments and doing more research, several alarming examples and facts quickly crushed my utopian view of an RCV society.

Indeed, my opinion of RCV has completely changed. I no longer support the system for three key reasons.

First of all, although RCV seems deceptively simple at first glance, a deeper look reveals a level of complexity that isnt just theoretical  its real, and it affects voters at the booth. The ballot process, which requires voters to rank candidates in order of preference rather than simply checking a box, is perplexing.

This brings to light an incredibly important question that supporters of RCV often forget: how does this affect our vulnerable voters? The elderly, people with disabilities, the less educated, and the non-native English-speakers? For these vulnerable voters, the complexity of RCV increases the likelihood of errors. In navigating the new system, they are more likely to misunderstand the ranking process, ultimately leading to their ballot being filled out incorrectly. And what happens to incorrectly filled ballots? Its a dreadfully easy answer: they are thrown away.

Because of this, RCV actually decreases the representation and electoral influence of minority voters as such voters disproportionately exhaust their ballots  a meek term for getting their ballots thrown out. For example, a study of the 2011 San Francisco mayoral election found that Asian-American and Latino voters had higher rates of incorrectly filled ballots compared to other demographic groups, meaning those specific minority groups had their voices disregarded. An effective voting system would ensure that this does not happen because American elections should be accessible for every lawful voter and ensure that every vote counts.

The complexity of RCV also slows down the entire electoral process, increasing both the lines at the polling places and the time it takes to count ballots.

Secondly, RCV disenfranchises voters. What misguided supporters of RCV often fail to recognize is that votes cast for lower-ranking candidates can become irrelevant if those candidates are dropped from the tally. In practical terms, this has led to significant numbers of exhausted ballots.

For instance, in New York Citys 2021 council race, a staggering 15% of votes were discarded due to ballot exhaustion. In the same year, a mayoral race in Sandy, Utah was decided by only 21 votes, where more than 18% of the original ballots (over 4,000 total) were discarded. According to a study of four local elections in California, between 9.6% and 27.1% of ballots were exhausted before the final round.

This effectively undermines the notion of every vote counting equally. In a traditional plurality voting system, a voters ballot is still counted in the overall tally, preserving its impact on the final outcome even if a voters chosen candidate loses. In contrast, RCV swiftly and effectively diminishes voter influence through discarding ballots.

This is hardly the mark of a more democratic system.

Finally, RCV can also lead to surprising election results that dont necessarily reflect the majoritys will.

In the Alaska special congressional race of 2022, for example, a Democrat won in the final runoff phase of an RCV election despite the fact that GOP candidates garnered 60% of the votes in the initial round. This outcome has sparked concerns that RCV actually distorts voter intent more than clarifies it.

Maine has also served time as an RCV testing ground, and the muddled results there have been eye-opening. In the 2018 election for Maines 2nd Congressional District, incumbent Bruce Poliquin led in the initial round with a plurality of the votes. However, as votes from eliminated candidates were redistributed in subsequent rounds, Jared Golden won the election in the final round. Once again, RCV fails to promise a valid outcome.

Passionate but misguided proponents of RCV, like me in college, would incorrectly argue that the solution to these issues lies in better voter education and outreach. This is undoubtedly important, but it does not fully address the systems inherent flaws.

Our constitutional republic should empower, not dilute, the voice of the people. Because of this, RCV will never be practical or effective.

Emmaline Merrill is a research assistant for Election Integrity Network, a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to protecting the ballots of all American voters. Ms. Merrill is a recent graduate of Southern Virginia University with a B.A. in political science.

Image via Raw Pixel.
A while back, the Biden administration called upon several companies developing AI to take part in a voluntary pledge to develop the technology responsibly. As lacking as that seems, several companies took part in the pledge. The jury is out on whether theyre actually developing AI safely. In any case. Apple will stick by the pledge.

Even though the AI boom happened almost two years ago, were still learning about the potential benefits and dangers of the technology. Were still waiting for solid laws governing AI companies. Until then, all we have are voluntary pledges, lawsuits, and letters to Congress. While several companies have signed the pledge, were already seeing companies laying off employees in lieu of AI tools. Its sad to see, but not unexpected.

Apple will stand by the AI pledge brought by Joe Biden

While Apple doesnt really identify as an AI company, it sure made a splash when it unveiled Apple Intelligence during WWDC. Since it dabbled in the generative AI market, this makes it a target of regulators. So, it would serve the company well to keep this pledge. Well, thats exactly what the company is doing.

This pledge revolves around transparency, security, testing, etc. Theyre designed so that companies dont cause any societal harm with their tools. While weve already seen some harm so far, were sure the government is talking about anything that would cause a Terminator situation.

Along with Apple, other companies to join the pledge are Amazon, OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. Since this is voluntary, there wont be any consequences if a company violates it. However, we cant rule out any action from regulators due to any effects from them stepping out of line.

As for Apple Intelligence, its going to make iOS 18 something to be feared. The company unveiled some extremely impressive features when it announced it, and they put Galaxy AI to shame in some areas. Right now, iPhone users are still waiting for the company to roll out these features. Users should expect them to roll out gradually over the next several months.
Microsoft is rolling out a new split interface for Bing. The modified view will have two search results, presumably to counter Googles AI Overviews.

Bing interface has AI-generated information mixed with traditional search results

Google recently rolled out AI Overviews. It is essentially a summarized information snippet about search queries compiled by Googles Gemini Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI).

Googles AI Overviews has received mixed reviews, and several internet users hunted for ways to avoid the same. Now Microsoft has tweaked its Bing search engine to infuse AI-generated snippets about search queries.

Microsoft adds generative search to its Bing engine

Looks a lot like Google's AI Overviews, hopefully without some of the early unfortunate summarieshttps://t.co/K75keIqods  Rich Tehrani (@rtehrani) July 25, 2024

The new interface divides Bing search results into two sections, but both are intertwined. While Bing offers regular search results, populated by weblinks that take users outside Bing, there are AI-generated summaries interspersed in the results.

Bings new interface has results generated using OpenAIs GPT-4 LLM (Large Language Model). Microsoft seems to be prioritizing AI-generated search results and summaries. However, the company claims this information wont negatively impact traffic to websites and publisher revenue.

Hey @Google  take note of how Bing sends traffic to the websites they source their AI answers from. Much cleaner approach than what you're doing right now. https://t.co/LApmD4QeaG  Eric Enge (@stonetemple) July 25, 2024

Does Gen AI stem outgoing traffic from search engines?

Several internet and social media experts have claimed that AI stops users from leaving Google or Bing. Simply put, if search engines summarize answers to search queries, users dont need to visit websites that contain the relevant information.

While several digital publications opposed Googles AI Overviews, there might not be a similar backlash for Microsoft Bings new interface. This is because Microsoft appears to have adopted a much more transparent approach.

New Bing generative search experience (GSE) with AI layouts and content in Bing Search is being tested https://t.co/5wgcR6LkVP pic.twitter.com/vRyAilyoMf  Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) July 25, 2024

Google attempted to serve AI-generated content to search queries noticeably that seemed to lack adequate links to sources or references. Microsoft claims Bings new AI section retains several clickable web links that lead to the source of the information.

Microsoft claimed, Early data indicates that this experience maintains the number of website clicks and supports a healthy web ecosystem. Strangely, the companys examples of the new Bing interface reportedly suggest an overwhelming preference of AI for just the top search results. An older iteration offered at least three source links.
Google Phone should soon have anti-scam capabilities powered by AI. Specifically speaking, Gemini Nano Artificial Intelligence (AI) would be able to detect spam calls as well as scam calls.

APK Teardown reveals Gemini Nano anti-scam protection for Google Phone

The Google Phone app is usually the default call management platform for Android smartphones. It has a decent spam call detection engine which either blocks the spam call or alerts users with a warning. It would soon allow reverse call lookups as well.

Moving forward, the Google Phone app could get an anti-scam engine powered by Gemini AI. Google has already deployed spam detection on Pixel devices. The same feature could be extended to include scam calls.

Google Phones AI-powered scam detection looks nearly ready to go (APK teardown) https://t.co/qwRZuAx8VU  Android Authority (@AndroidAuth) July 25, 2024

The upcoming feature reportedly spotted inside Google Phone version 138.0.654539475 beta release, is codenamed Sharpie. Google demoed the Gemini Nano AI-powered scam call detection inside the Google Phone app at the recent Google I/O event.

Google claims the feature can provide real-time alerts during a call if it detects conversation patterns commonly associated with scams. Several strings of code inside the beta version of the Google Phone app reportedly indicate the new feature would be able to distinguish between spam and scam calls. Android smartphone users would be able to manually report calls as well if the Phone app lets a potential scam call through.

@GoogleIndia add an option for reporting scam numbers in google phone app pic.twitter.com/03hgtnftat  Ivan Sikorsky (@ivan_sikorsky) July 23, 2024

Incidentally, Google has developed and tweaked Gemini Nano for smartphones. This suggests most of the AI processing will take place on the device to protect privacy. However, this could also mean several devices that lack capable hardware, might not get this feature.

Is Google forcing Gemini Nano Gen AI through backend channels?

Google wont be forcibly embedding Gemini Nano AI into the Google Phone app. Android smartphone users relying on the Google Phone app will get a choice. In other words, the Gemini Nano AI for Google Phone could be an opt-in service when it arrives.

Google will have Gemini Nano on Google Phone application to detect scam calls and alert you in real time. This may replace your Truecaller application in times in India soon!#GoogleIO #Gemini #GoogleIO2024 pic.twitter.com/ZHB2DtRt16  JumanJi  (@heyjumanji) May 14, 2024

Spam calls have been getting easier to spot and block. However, scam calls are quite clever and creative. Moreover, scammers continually improve to evade suspicion and detection.

Scam calls usually target some of the least tech-savvy smartphone users. This makes awareness campaigns futile. If an AI engine can help spot a potential scam call, Android smartphone users could exercise caution and protect themselves.
Google is set to announce the Pixel 9 Pro Fold next month, at an earlier than usual event in Mountain View. And as usual, Google has had trouble keeping everything from leaking out. So we know quite a bit about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold  even Google teased it on YouTube a few weeks ago.

So, whats Googles huge mistake with this phone? Well, there are a few, but I can sort of get over most of them. However, changing the front display is a big mistake. On the original Pixel Fold, Google went after a more passport-sized front display. It was wider at a 17.4:9 aspect ratio (for reference, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is 22:9, and it was skinnier in previous versions).

There were two things that made this wider front display so much better than the competition. For one, it meant that the Pixel Fold could be used with one hand because it was wider than most other slab and foldable phones. Secondly, and most importantly, in my opinion, when you unfolded it, you were already put into tablet mode since it was in a landscape orientation. With every other foldable (thats not the OPPO Find N2), you need to rotate the phone to get into tablet mode. It doesnt sound like a big deal, but it really does make a difference over time.

While I do like the more OnePlus Open-esque style of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Im still going to miss the passport size of the Pixel Fold. The cover display is rumored to be a 6.3-inch Actua Display, which means it is going to fix one of the biggest complaints with the Pixel Fold  screen brightness. The inner display is going to be an 8-inch Super Actua Flex display. That actually makes the inner display one of the largest among foldables. Many others are around 7.6- to 7.9-inches.

Many people who own the Pixel Fold absolutely love the wider front display. In fact, Ive seen quite a few Redditors claiming they wont upgrade because of this change and a few others opting to buy the year-old Pixel Fold versus waiting for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. This was also something that set the Pixel Fold apart from other foldables. Instead, it looks like Google is using a version of the OnePlus Open/OPPO Find N3. In fact, in the latest renders, it looks a whole lot like that phone, with the main difference being the camera module  which in itself is a weird design.

Google refuses to put flagship cameras on its foldable

Googles not alone here, however it would be great for them to set the standard of putting flagship cameras on its foldable device. Arguably the only real foldable that has flagship cameras is the OnePlus Open/OPPO Find N3. While the Xiaomi MIX Fold 4 does have pretty good cameras, I wouldnt call them flagship since Xiaomi typically does 1-inch sensors on their flagships  like Xiaomi 14 Ultra  and the MIX Fold 4 does not have that sensor.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold, like the Galaxy Z Fold 6, HONOR Magic V2 and many others, will be sporting downgraded cameras, once again. Reportedly sporting a 48-megapixel primary camera, a 10.5-megapixel ultrawide and a 10.8-megapixel telephoto sensor. Even the cheap Pixel 9 is sporting a better ultrawide sensor than this phone.

While I have not doubt that Google will be able to offer a really great photo taking experience with these cameras, I cant help but wonder why Google didnt include at least a 48-megapixel ultrawide or telephoto, even if they didnt do the dual 48MP sensors that the Pixel 9 Pro sports.

The only way I think Google could get away with this is, if the price is lower than the original Pixel Fold. Last year it debuted at $1,799  the same price as Samsungs, which did increase to $1,899 this year. If Google can bring this down to $1,299, I could probably forgive Google for the worse cameras. But I highly doubt that is whats happening here.

Despite this, Im still excited for Pixel 9 Pro Fold

Even though the Pixel 9 Pro Fold seems to be rather disappointing so far, Im still excited for the announcement in a few weeks. I really liked the Pixel Fold, not only for its size and aspect ratio but also for the Pixel software. I prefer that over other manufacturers skins, but Google does need to add some more features so users can really take advantage of the different screen sizes that foldables offer. Id love it if Google just ripped OnePlus Open Canvas feature and put it onto the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. That is by far one of the best ways to multi-task on a foldable right now.

We know quite a bit about this phone already, but theres still more for Google to unpack at its August 13 event. Like the price. Ill be in Mountain View for this launch event, and cant wait to finally see it in person.
WhatsApp has reached 100 million monthly active users in the US. The Meta-owned messaging platform, which is already the biggest instant messaging app in the world, hit the milestone on July 25. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news on his WhatsApp channel.

WhatsApp reaches 100 million monthly active users in the US

Founded in 2009 and acquired by Meta (then Facebook) in 2014 for approximately $19.3 billion, WhatsApp became the worlds most popular instant messaging app in 2015. By 2020, the app had more than two billion users worldwide. It is the primary means of Internet communication in several regions, including Latin America, the Indian subcontinent, Europe, and Africa. The platform facilitates more than 100 billion messages each day globally.

However, despite its massive popularity, WhatsApp couldnt penetrate the US messaging industry as much as the rest of the world. It appears thats slowly changing. With 100 million monthly active users, it is now among the most popular messaging apps stateside. Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Seattle are the fastest-growing markets for WhatsApp in the US. The app also experienced significant growth in Southern states. It has over 10 million users in Texas.

This is the first time data pertaining to users has been released since Metas acquisition of the messaging app and demonstrates how the messaging platform, already the biggest messaging app in the world, has experienced tremendous growth in the US, WhatsApp spokesperson Ashley OReilly said in a press release. The company continues to bet on its Android-iOS interoperability. Unlike Apples iMessage, WhatsApp works like a charm on both platforms.

Apples RCS adoption for iMessage could hurt WhatsApp

WhatsApps Android-iOS interoperability bet has been working because of the lack of RCS support on iPhones. This made cross-platform messaging to and from Android phones boring. It relied on the SMS standard, meaning that users missed out on modern features like read receipts, typing indicators, high-quality image and video sharing, end-to-end encryption, and more. Of course, a distinct green bubble for Android messages (iPhone messages appear in blue bubbles).

WhatsApp eliminated it all, offering the same messaging experience no matter what device you and your friends use. However, Apple is now leveling up the playing field with RCS support for iMessage. Starting with iOS 18, iMessage will work with the RCS messaging standard used by Google Messages on Android. This will ensure a standardized messaging system on both platforms, potentially at the expense of WhatsApps growth. Hopefully, Meta is preparing its next move.
An alternative healer who failed to get medical help for a 71-year-old diabetic woman who died after she stopped taking insulin at his slapping therapy workshop has been found guilty of her manslaughter.

Danielle Carr-Gomm died at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, in October 2016 while taking part in the Paida Lajin therapy event, which sees patients being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly.

Hongchi Xiao, of Cloudbreak, California, was convicted by the jury at Winchester Crown Court of the manslaughter by gross negligence of Mrs Carr-Gomm, from Lewes, East Sussex.

The 61-year-old was extradited for the trial from Australia, where he had previously been prosecuted over the death of a six-year-old boy who also died after his parents withdrew his insulin medication after attending the defendants workshop in Sydney.

The court heard that Mrs Carr-Gomm, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 1999, was left howling in pain as she became seriously ill before she died on the fourth day of the workshop.

Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that Mrs Carr-Gomm had sought alternatives to her insulin medication for type 1 diabetes because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.

She had first joined a Paida Lajin workshop, which means slap and stretch, run by the defendant in Bulgaria in July 2016.

She became seriously ill after stopping her insulin medicine before she restarted and subsequently recovered.

Mr Atkinson described how Mrs Carr-Gomm went on to attend another of Xiaos workshops in Wiltshire in October of that year.

The court had heard how Xiao said well done to Mrs Carr-Gomm, after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin at the week-long retreat, and she became seriously ill.

Mr Atkinson said that by the third day she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions.

A chef at the workshop, Teresa Hayes, told jurors Mrs Carr-Gomm was delirious and frothing at the mouth before she died, adding that she wanted to call an ambulance but trusted those with more experience of the holistic healing method.

Danielle Carr-Gomm died at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, where she was taking part in a slapping therapy workshop in October 2016 (CPS/PA)

Mr Atkinson described how the defendant failed to get medical help for Mrs Carr-Gomm before she died in the early hours of the fourth day.

The prosecutor said: Those who had received and accepted the defendants teachings misinterpreted Mrs Carr-Gomms condition as a healing crisis.

He said that Xiao had been an exponent of Paida Lajin for 10 years and had written a book on it.

Mr Atkinson said: It is said to be a method of self-healing in which poisonous waste is expelled from the body through patting and slapping parts of the body.

He added: He does not have medical qualifications or training.

In a book that he wrote about Paida Lajin, the defendant asserted that the taking of insulin leads to liver and eye problems, and that in contrast the Paida Lajin was safer and more reliable than existing healing practices which would result in significant improvement or full recovery in 90% of cases, including cases of diabetes.

He added that Xiao also wrote in the book that doctors are brainwashed by drug producers to act as salespersons for their drugs.

A screen grab taken from a video of a presentation by Hongchi Xiao on Paida Lajin therapy, which was shown to the jury at Winchester Crown Court (CPS/PA)

The court heard that Mrs Carr-Gomm had provided a testimonial for Xiao, describing him as a messenger sent by God who was starting a revolution to put the power back in the hands of the people to cure themselves and to change the whole system of health care.

Mrs Carr-Gomm was born in France and moved to the UK aged 21.

Speaking after her death, her son Matthew Carr-Gomm, who lives in New Zealand, said: She was always keen to try and find alternative methods of treating and dealing with her diabetes, and was very interested in alternative and holistic medicine and therapies.

I know she was desperate to try and cure herself of this disease.

She always maintained a healthy lifestyle and was adamant that nothing would stop her from living a full life.

In recent years, mum was in a great place with a partner, a lovely home and was travelling the world.

She had a lot of life left in her.

A screen grab taken from a video of a presentation by Hongchi Xiao on Paida Lajin therapy (CPS/PA)

He said the death of Mrs Carr-Gomm had come as a huge shock to the family.

Giving evidence during the trial, Xiao said he would never persuade someone who needed insulin not to take it, adding that insulin is useful.

On his attitude towards medication at his workshops, he added: First of all, I said Im not a medical doctor, so everyone is responsible for their own medication.

Secondly, Im not fully against medicine, what Im concerned about is the side effect of the medicine.

Following the verdict, head of the Crown Prosecution Service special crime division, Rosemary Ainslie, said: Hongchi Xiao knew the consequences of Danielle Carr-Gomms decision to stop taking insulin could be fatal, he had seen it before.

Hongchi Xiao has been found guilty of manslaughter (CPS/PA)

Hongchi Xiao was the man in charge, yet he failed to respond to Mrs Carr-Gomms worsening condition with tragic consequences.

His failure to take reasonable steps to help Mrs Carr-Gomm substantially contributed to her death and amounted to gross negligence.

Detective Chief Inspector Phil Walker of Wiltshire Police said: Xiao had no medical qualifications yet despite this, was actively encouraging those in attendance at his workshops to refrain from taking their regular medication, knowing full well the consequences.

He added: Xiao breached his position of trust and whilst in attendance at his workshop, Danielles health deteriorated quickly and she sadly passed away.

Xiao will be sentenced on October 1.
One hundred firefighters and 15 fire engines have tackled a double house fire in east London.

Two terraced houses were alight on Third Avenue in Dagenham, London Fire Brigade (LFB) has said.

The fire is now under control, LFB said.

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson told the PA news agency there are currently no confirmed casualties.

Footage posted to social media appeared to show black billowing smoke coming from a property, filling the street.

The house fire in #Dagenham is now under control but crews are continuing to damp down remaining hot spots. We are expected to be on scene throughout the evening https://t.co/5oE6AyEa4d pic.twitter.com/QYQk8yALv5  London Fire Brigade (@LondonFire) July 26, 2024

Residents were advised to keep their windows and doors closed due to the significant amounts of smoke.

Road closures are still in place and people are urged to avoid the area while crews battle the blaze, LFB said.

The cause of the fire is not yet known.

Station commander Darren McTernan, who is at the scene, said: Crews worked hard to bring the fire under control.

We asked local residents to keep windows and doors closed due to significant amounts of smoke being produced from the fire.

Road closures are still in place while firefighters remain on scene and the area is heavily congested. People are urged to avoid the area where possible.

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said earlier: We were called at 1.41pm today to reports of a fire on Third Avenue, Dagenham.

We have sent resources to the scene, including ambulance crews, a paramedic in a fast response car, an incident response officer and members of our hazardous area response team.

The incident is still ongoing and we are working with our emergency services partners.
A dog named Blueberry is looking for her forever home, but she's starting to lose hope. Employees at the Elmbrook Humane Society in Brookfield, Wisconsin have noticed that the English Bulldog has been looking pretty sad lately. They say she's been blue all the time. Now they're sharing Blueberry's story with the hopes that someone will take her in ASAP.

It's impossible to believe that someone hasn't snapped Blueberry right up. But at this point, the dog has been at the rescue for far too long.

The good girl has yet to find a human she clicks with. But that doesn't mean she won't. It just seems that rescue life is starting to wear on the English Bulldog. Won't somebody bring her home?

Related: English Bulldog and Labrador Are Sweetest Buddies to Neighborhood Cat

The video shows Blueberry looking down at the ground. Dogs can't exactly frown, but if they could Blueberry would be. Poor girl. Those big brown eyes have us dying. But the rescue still has faith that the right person will come through.

"We hope she finds her forever home soon," the humane society wrote. People in the comments section wanted this for Blueberry too. "She deserves to be loved every day forever and ever," wrote one person. "Poor little Blueberry just needs a home and family to love," someone else agreed. "Such a beautiful baby who deserves a forever home," another commenter chimed in. "Awww sweet pup! Praying someone wonderful sees this and gives Blueberry a happily ever after," chimed in one person.

Adopting From Elmbrook Humane

If you want to give Blueberry a new life (and you should) the dog is still available for adoption. You can apply to be Blueberry's mom or dad through the Elmbrook Humane website.

The organization says that Blueberry is a "middle-aged" sweetie who has a big heart.

"Blueberry finds joy in the simple pleasures of life, from lounging comfortably throughout the day to enjoying leisurely walks at her own pace," they explain. "Her low-energy nature makes her an ideal companion for those who appreciate the tranquility of quiet moments together."

The good part about adopting an older dog is that they're fully trained, and that goes for Blueberry too. Our girl is fully potty trained and won't leave your house a mess. Elmbrook Humane says that Blueberry would do best in a home without other pets, "as her true affection has always been reserved for her human companions."

The only thing Blueberry wants is a quiet home with a patch of sun that she can sleep in. Is that so much to ask? All she needs is someone to give her a chance.

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.
China to adhere to reform, socialist market economy: Chinese FM

Xinhua) 11:00, July 26, 2024

General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith meets with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, in Vientiane, Laos, July 25, 2024. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

VIENTIANE, July 25 (Xinhua) -- China will adhere to the correct political direction of reform, build a high-level socialist market economy, and provide a strong driving force and institutional guarantee for advancing Chinese-style modernization, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Thursday in Vientiane.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, made the remarks when meeting with General Secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party Central Committee and Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith.

During the meeting, Thongloun said that the important conclusions and innovative achievements of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee have provided important references for Laos to promote the socialist cause.

He thanked China for providing valuable support for Laos' economic and social development over the years, saying that the Laos-China Railway has helped the Lao people realize their dreams and is a precious symbol of friendship between the people of the two countries.

Laos is willing to deepen cooperation with China, speed up comprehensive development along the Laos-China Railway, and build landmark projects of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation that carry forward the Laos-China traditional friendship, Thongloun said, adding that Laos welcomes more investments by Chinese enterprises to help the country enhance its capacity for independent development.

He also noted that Laos will never allow anyone to undermine its friendship and practical cooperation with China, and stands ready to work with China to translate the consensus reached by the top leaders of the two countries into tangible results, pushing the Laos-China community with a shared future to a higher level.

For his part, Wang said the third plenary session proposed more than 300 reform tasks, outlined a blueprint for deepening reform across the board, and sent a clear signal that reform and opening up will always be in progress.

Wang said China appreciates that Laos has always stood with China on issues concerning China's core interests and major concerns, and will continue to be the most reliable friend and partner of Laos, ready to enhance experience sharing with Laos on governance.

China firmly supports Laos in exploring a development path suited to its own and in safeguarding its national sovereignty and dignity, willing to deepen all-round cooperation with Laos, strengthen comprehensive development along the China-Laos Railway and promote connectivity to boost Laos' economic development, said the foreign minister.

Wang proposed that the two sides should join hands to resolutely crack down on cross-border crimes, creating a good business environment for economic and trade cooperation.

On the same day, Wang also met with Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone and held talks with Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Rachael Burns is fundraising for a life-extending operation after being told she has an inoperable brain tumour. (SWNS) (Brain Tumour Research)

A woman who thought she had dry eyes has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour.

Rachael Burns, 22, first started noticing changes to her eyesight after giving birth to her daughter, Raeya, now one.

The woman, from Belfast, had long suffered from migraines, but says these began to worsen in March 2023 which led her to see an optician.

"They said I had dry eye and was doubly short sighted," she explains. "I was sent home with eyedrops and glasses which just made me feel dizzier.

"My eyesight worsened, leading to me walking in front of cars due to the blind spot on my right side. I could no longer take my daughter out of the house on my own as I was so worried I would put her in danger. I felt like I was being dramatic, and this led to me waiting even longer to get help."

It wasnt until Burns face lopsided and she was unable to open an eye that she was referred to hospital.

A subsequent MRI scan showed a high-grade cancerous tumour on her brain called a diffuse midline glioma (DIPG), that had already spread to her spine.

Doctors then delivered the news in May 2024 that Burns had just months to live  so now her family are hoping to raise 150,000 for life-extending treatment.

"When I was told I had a brain tumour my entire world fell apart," she explains. "I was told that the life expectancy of someone with my diagnosis was 12 months, and I had already been showing symptoms for eight.

"I just didnt expect to receive news that awful. Id hoped to maybe have at least a year or two. This hugely affected me mentally. I just sort of crumbled."

Burns was initially diagnosed with dry eyes. (SWNS)

Doctors told Burns that her surgery is not an option due to the tumour being located on her brainstem.

She is currently undergoing six weeks of radiation treatment on her brain and spinal cord.

"Some days Ill wake up and my legs wont work, and Ill be crying in agony for hours at a time with the pain," she explains.

"My partner Robert has had to take over most of our daughters care and it makes me feel so useless, like Im already being stripped of a lot of my motherhood. Some days I can walk unassisted and Im able to lift Raeya. All I can do is hope that I get as many good days like that as possible because memories with my family are all that matter to me now."

After doing some research, Burns and her family discovered the ONC201 drug which has been given to patients in Germany and prolonged patients lives by almost two years.

However, the cost of consultations, private scans, travel, accommodation, and the medicine amounts to 150,000  of which half of the amount has already been raised.

"As hard as it is to ask for help, Im really swallowing my pride and letting myself be vulnerable enough to beg for this extra time," Burns says. "I am not ready to leave my family and my baby.

"One year is not anywhere near enough time to get to experience the gift of motherhood and have it stripped from you.

"I may not get to take her to her first day of school but any extra days with her will be a blessing so I will fight with everything in me to wake up to her each morning."

Burns is also hoping that by speaking about her condition she can raise awareness for brain tumour research.

"There is not enough awareness and not enough funding put into brain tumour research when it is killing innocent children and young adults every single day and the world is going on as normal," she adds.

"If more people knew just how devastating the effects of brain tumours are on not just the person diagnosed but their entire family and everyone around them who loves them, maybe we could push for more options and more treatments as nobody deserves a fate this cruel."

Louise Aubrey, community development manager at Brain Tumour Research, said: "Its a tragedy that a young mother like Rachael cannot get the best drugs and treatment in the UK, and instead has to spend hundreds of thousands for the chance to spend more time with her daughter.

"Brain tumours kill more children and adults under the age of 40 than any other cancer, yet just 1% of the national spend on cancer research has been allocated to brain tumours since records began in 2002.

"This is unacceptable. So much more needs to be done to prevent young families like Rachaels from being ripped apart by this devastating disease."

To donate to Burns' fundraising page, visit: gofundme.com/f/3jrjd4

Additional reporting by SWNS.

Health: Read more
France full-back Melvyn Jaminet has been handed a 34-week suspension by the French Rugby Federation after he posted a video of himself making a racist remark earlier this month.

Jaminet put a video on his Instagram story on July 7, which included him making a racist comment about the Arab community.

The 20-times capped Toulon player was immediately suspended and sent home from Frances tour of Argentina before a FFR Disciplinary Council was held on Friday.

La Federation Francaise de Rugby (FFR) condamne avec la plus grande fermete les propos tenus par Melvyn Jaminet. En consequence, Melvyn Jaminet a ete mis a lecart avec effet immediat et quitte le groupe France actuellement present en Argentine. Notre communique :  France Rugby (@FranceRugby) July 7, 2024

It determined Jaminet should be fined 30,000 euros (25k) and given a suspension of 34 weeks, which can be reduced by eight weeks if he takes part in various prevention actions after the 25-year-old was declared to have harmed the best interests of the sport, according to FFR.

At the end of the FFR Disciplinary Council held today, it was held that Melvyn Jaminet had harmed the best interests of rugby. Consequently, the following decision was made: a suspension of 34 weeks, applicable from the notification of the full decision, an FFR statement read.

Eight of the 34 weeks of suspension may nevertheless be substituted by general interest activities for the benefit of the FFR.

This decision may be appealed by the player before the Federal Appeals Commission within seven days from the date on which it was notified.

Jaminet had issued an apology shortly after his suspension on July 7 was announced, saying on Instagram: I understand that this has hurt and offended many people, and I want to make it clear that these remarks do not reflect my values or those of the French rugby team.

Racism in any form is unacceptable and goes against everything I believe in.
Labour has dropped the previous Tory governments plan to challenge the International Criminal Courts (ICC) application for an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu, Downing Street has said.

A No 10 spokeswoman confirmed that the Government will not submit an objection.

This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the Government will not be pursuing in line with our long standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on, the spokeswoman said.

The move caused diplomatic tensions with Israel, with a senior Israeli official reportedly condemning the fundamentally wrong decision.

The No 10 spokeswoman noted that the Government believes very strongly in the separation of powers and the rule of law domestically and internationally.

I think you would note that the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side, so they are well seized of the arguments to make their independent determinations, she said.

ICC prosecutor Karim Khan in May requested arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Mr Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant over Israels war in Gaza.

Rishi Sunaks government had told the ICC it intended to submit arguments questioning whether the ICC had the right to order the arrest of Israeli nationals.

The Hague-based war crimes court gave the UK until Friday to decide whether it would do so.

The conflict in Gaza has been a thorn in the Labour leaders side, with his initial refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire costing the party votes and seats in the General Election despite its landslide.

Former MP Jonathan Ashworth was one of several Labour candidates defeated by independents who made Gaza a major part of their campaign.

Since entering Government, Labour has restored funding to the United Nations Palestine relief agency UNRWA, in a major shift from the stance of the previous government which had suspended funding in January.

Sir Keir has also stressed that a Palestinian state has an undeniable right to be recognised as part of a Middle East peace process.

The move was welcomed by pro-Palestinian groups and human rights organisations.

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UKs chief executive, said: This was a totally misguided intervention by the last government and we strongly welcome the decision to drop it.

Instead of trying to thwart the ICCs much-needed Palestine investigation, the UK should be backing efforts to bring all perpetrators of war crimes and possible genocide to justice.

https://x.com/BoardofDeputies/status/1816797952679067887

Hannah Bond, co-chief executive of ActionAid UK, said: Were pleased to see the new government abandon the legal challenge to the International Criminal Courts case.

The court must be free to pursue the course of justice unhindered and the UK government must support it in doing so, as well as respect and comply with whatever the ultimate outcome of the case may be.

A senior Israeli official told reporters in Washington that Israel is deeply disappointed by this fundamentally wrong decision, according to The Times of Israel.

It is contrary to justice and truth, and violates the right of all democracies to fight terrorism, the official reportedly said.

Mr Netanyahu and senior aides are in the US as he seeks to bolster support for his countrys fight against Hamas.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council said in a joint statement that Labours announcements signal a significant shift in policy, away from Israel being a key UK ally.

This would not only be a strategic error but a moral one.

The Labour Friends of Israel group said: The British Governments desire to defend international law is laudable but its decision today is deeply disappointing and will not advance that goal.
The Government will not be passing the buck on building renewable energy infrastructure to future generations, a minister has said.

Energy minister Michael Shanks also told MPs that some areas will have to host nationally significant power infrastructure such as solar farms in response to concerns expressed about the detrimental impacts on communities.

MPs had a general debate on Friday on making Britain a clean energy superpower, with the Great British Energy Bill due to receive its second reading after the summer recess.

Conservative MP for Huntingdon Ben Obese-Jecty raised the East Park Energy solar farm, a proposed project in his constituency, which he said would be larger than Gatwick Airport.

Energy minister Michael Shanks said we need to tackle this crisis (PA)

He said local residents have grave concerns over the scale of the development and asked the minister if he would commit to rural communities having a say on the Government allowing large solar farms to be built in their local areas given the detrimental impacts.

Mr Shanks replied: Were not in any way going to remove the ability of communities to be part of, of course, a consultation process in the planning system.

He added: But at some point, we have to have this national recognition that there is infrastructure that we need that is nationally significant.

Some communities will have to host that infrastructure and there should be benefits for those communities in doing it.

But that doesnt mean that we should stop doing it and Im afraid the days of Government passing the buck to a future generation to fix these issues are gone.

We need to tackle this crisis and that means we will be building and there will be projects in communities, with consultation of course, but nationally significant projects will have to go ahead if we want to reach the targets by 2030.

Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has sold his MPs down the river and that energy bills will not reduce under Labour.

Ms Coutinho said: The people now sitting on the benches behind the minister will have been telling their new constituents that their plans would save them 300 on their energy bills  they said it in hustings, they said it on local media, they said it on their leaflets. But they will have noticed by now that their ministers are no longer saying that at all.

Shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho said Labours approach to energy will add huge costs to peoples bills (PA)

And this is the problem, when you get into government, and you speak in the House, you cannot use numbers for which you have no basis.

This was met with laughter from the Labour benches.

Ms Coutinho continued: They will learn this, they laugh, but their voters wont forget that they made them that promise.

She added: They all know that their leadership has sold them down the river on this one, because the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State know those savings cannot be delivered. In fact, their approach to energy will add huge costs to peoples bills.

Thats not us being evil Tories on this side of the House, thats also the view of the European lead for Mitsubishi Power who said that Labour Party plans would require a huge sacrifice from Brits.

Former Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden also criticised the Government over its claim that clean energy plans would knock 300 off bills.

He said: Its been causing quite a lot of confusion in the national media over the last couple of days when Downing Street have been saying one thing, (Mr Shanks) department have been saying another.

Mr Shanks replied: I think it does take a bit of a brass neck to come here and talk about bringing down bills when the government that he supported for a long time saw those skyrocket.

Weve been very clear, bills will come down, we said that throughout the campaign, we said that yesterday and we stand by that because bills must come down, but this isnt going to happen overnight.

Elsewhere in the debate, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for climate change Wera Hobhouse said the race to net zero is the major economic opportunity of the century.

She said: The green economy must sit at the heart of economic growth, and the Government has work to do to reverse the damaging narrative of the previous government, that this is about green versus growth.

And also to reverse the unforgivable failures of the last Conservative government, which delayed, blocked or even reversed urgent action on climate change. Now is the time to move forward.

Winding up, Tory shadow energy minister Joy Morrissey pointed to plans for a Government-backed company called GB Energy to accelerate Britains pathway to energy independence.

Ms Morrissey said the plan is simply the Government subsidising high-risk projects for the private sector on the one hand, whilst decimating our oil and gas industry on the other.

Ms Hobhouse intervened and said: Is the shadow minister not aware that exactly this negative narrative from her party has held us back in the way to net zero?

In his winding up speech, Mr Shanks said: The rhetoric that were now hearing from this Conservative Party is a million miles from that David Cameron conservatism that said we should take the environment seriously.

He added: The reason that were on this journey is not because of some sort of ideological commitment to net zero, but because we know it is the only way to deliver the energy security that we need to reduce our dependence on volatile gas prices and to deliver the cheaper energy that we know will bring down bills.
Irish premier Simon Harris has doubled down on nominating former minister Michael McGrath to be Irelands EU Commissioner, despite an EU request for two names.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she will formally ask countries to put the names of a man and a woman forward to help her form a gender-balanced team of Commissioners.

Mr McGrath stepped down as Finance Minister several weeks ago in order to become Irelands EU Commissioner nominee.

Taoiseach Simon Harris speaking to the media ahead of a Cabinet meeting at Government Buildings in Dublin (Brian Lawless/PA)

The nomination to become Irelands next EU Commissioner was the choice of the Fianna Fail party under the terms of an agreement between the three parties forming Irelands coalition Government.

Speaking in Paris, Mr Harris said it would be odd and unfair to put two names forward after proposing a senior politician who had stepped down from Cabinet to focus on the role.

The Taoiseach said he also did not believe that nominating just one person would affect Irelands chances of getting an important portfolio.

I know President von der Leyen to be a very serious, a very competent and a fair politician, Mr Harris said, whose Fine Gael party is part of Ms von der Leyens EPP political group.

I know from my conversations with her that she will assess the suitability of commissioners for portfolios based on their background, based on their CV, based on interviews that she will carry out.

Irelands outgoing EU Commissioner, Fine Gaels Mairead McGuinness, had described a thorough interview process through which it is decided what portfolio each candidate is given.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen attends the opening ceremony of the World Climate Action Summit at Cop28 in Dubai (Chris Jackson/PA)

Mr Harris said: Michael McGrath was in Brussels this week, I spoke to Michael last weekend and I know hes taking that process extremely seriously in terms of preparing and engaging.

As the Taoiseach of Ireland, Im satisfied that weve sent a politician of substance in Michael McGrath.

Yes, President von der Leyen has asked for two names, and she did the last time as well, and I suppose weve respectfully said to her that Ireland has made a decision, in line with the treaties, as is our right, as to the Commission candidate we wish to send forward.

On other occasions in the past, weve sent one name and the name has been a woman. But weve had to make an assessment as to who we believe is the best commissioner to send from Ireland.

That person, Michael McGrath, has had to step down from Cabinet. Thats a pretty profound thing for him to have to do.

I think it would be an unfair thing for him to have to do and then tell him he has a 50-50 chance of getting a roll at the end of it. So I think theres at the very least an understanding of this at European level.

He added: Ireland has played its part in terms of gender equality and the important issues around that and will continue to.

On this occasion, though, we have a particular set of circumstances that are important. Firstly, we have a coalition Government  this is the politics of Ireland thats important people understand at a European level  and under that coalition Government, the nominee came from Fianna Fail, its a Government nominee, I fully support Michael McGrath.

And then the second thing to remember is that Michael McGrath was one of the most senior politicians in Ireland, he was the Minister for Finance, it was important that he would have his full concentration on preparing for the European Commission role and have a Minister for Finance whos preparing fully for the budget.

So therefore, the fact that hes stepped down from Cabinet, I think it would seem odd that you would send more than one name considering those pretty particular set of circumstances.
A jealous boyfriend who planted hidden microphones in his partners home so he could eavesdrop on her conversations will be sentenced in September.

Darren Querns, 35, subjected his partner of six years to a campaign of abuse that left her feeling depressed, suicidal and a shell of the person she was.

Glasgow High Court heard that during their relationship Querns accused his partner of infidelity, shouted and swore at her, physically pushed her and pinned her down, and monitored her mobile phone and social media accounts.

Towards the end of their relationship his partner became suspicious that he was listening in to her private conversations and reported the matter to the police.

A search of her home uncovered four listening devices hidden inside wall sockets, two in the living room, one in her bedroom, and one in the kitchen.

Two of the devices had Querns DNA on them, and police found SIM cards similar to those inside the devices during a subsequent search of his Glasgow home.

Judge Lady Drummond told Querns: You have got a criminal record. Your offences have not been domestic but they have been serious enough you have been sent to prison before.

The offences before me are serious matters, having been committed over a period of time.

She requested that a report be drawn up before sentencing, which will take place on September 5 at Edinburgh High Court.

Querns, dressed in a blue checked suit, showed no emotion as he was led from the courtroom.

During the hearing the court heard that Querns met his partner in 2016 when she was just 15, and about 12 years younger than him.

The court heard they argued frequently, with Querns accusing her of infidelity, shouting and swearing at her, and physically pushing and pinning her.

The court heard that on one occasion while they were staying in a Glasgow hotel Querns had to be removed by hotel staff after becoming aggressive towards her, shouting and swearing, throwing items across the room and smashing glass, some of which cut his partner.

The court heard he continued to shout at her as he was being led away down the hotel corridor.

The Advocate Depute explained that in 2023 Querns partner became suspicious he was listening in to her private conversations.

On February 16 2023 Querns sent his partners mother a Facebook message saying that she manipulated him and everyone else, and sent her two recordings of her speaking to someone to prove it.

Seeing as these calls contained private information the mother became concerned about how he had been able to obtain them and contacted her daughter to alert her.

This suspicion came to a head during an exchange of messages on Facebook in early August 2023.

On August 5 Querns partner saw a message on Facebook about how he had bought a new car, and she replied with a message asking how he could afford a car but could not afford to pay for the child they had together, who was living with her.

In response he referred to the contents of a private conversation she had had, which she knew he could not have known about if he had not been spying on her.

The Advocate Depute explained she then used a butter knife to unscrew the wall socket in her bedroom, which she had noticed had a red light in it.

He continued: She found a device and SIM card, then contacted the police.

He told the court that a search of her home found four listening devices with SIM cards, two in her living room, one behind the headboard in her bedroom, and one in the kitchen.

He explained that the devices automatically activated if sound got above a certain level, and that a phone call can be made to the SIM which will activate the device, providing an open mic.

He added: DNA matching the accused was found in two of the devices, and that a search of Querns home found SIM cards similar to those found in the devices.

Querns pleaded guilty to threatening or abusive behaviour and engaging in a course of behaviour which was abusive of his partner or ex-partner.

He pleaded not guilty to two other charges under the Misuse of Drugs Act and the Explosive Substances Act, which the crown accepted.

Querns, who remains on remand, will be sentenced in Edinburgh High Court on September 5.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has further committed to his promise of delivering WrestleMania to the capital after holding talks with World Wrestling Entertainment chief content officer Paul Triple H Levesque.

Before his re-election in May, Khan posted on social media that he wanted to go even further in making London the sporting capital of the world.

That included suggestions he would deliver the Super Bowl, the 2040 Olympics and WWEs showpiece premium live event, WrestleMania.

After his initial message on X, Levesque replied simply: Lets talk.

Those conversations began at City Hall on Thursday afternoon as Levesque, a former WWE wrestler who was world champion on 14 occasions, sat down with Khan  who is looking to add to the recent sporting successes in London.

Im really excited to have begun conversations about bringing international WrestleMania to London, Khan told the PA news agency.

I know there are many fans in London and across the UK and Europe who are desperate to see WrestleMania live.

I think London is the sporting capital of the world. Weve had great events this year, from Major League Baseball, American football, weve had Wimbledon, weve had Queens, weve had Diamond League athletics.

Weve had a Test match at Lords, another one coming up at The Oval. Weve got the (Anthony) Joshua fight taking place at Wembley in September. So Im really keen to get WrestleMania here too.

Philadelphia Phillies Johan Rojas walks out to bat during game two of the MLB London Series at the London Stadium (Zac Goodwin/PA)

The previous 40 incarnations of WrestleMania have all taken place in North America, with 38 in the United States and two in Canada.

However, WWE has branched out in recent years and started to take its premium live events  the name of its larger, monthly shows  across the world.

Cardiff and Glasgow have hosted Clash at the Castle events while the Money in the Bank show took place at the O2 last year.

Saudi Arabia, Costa Rica and France have also staged shows, while Germany will host Bash in Berlin in August.

WWEs main competition, All Elite Wrestling, sold out Wembley Stadium last year and returns in next month, with Levesque keen to bring WrestleMania over the Atlantic, too.

Why London? Some of our greatest and best fans are here in London. Ive been coming here for 30 years. Theyre always incredible, he told PA.

We have a massive following here but I think it also opens up to a lot of the rest of the world given how many people travel in every single year for events we do all over the globe.

This is just an opportunity for being in a different location, amazing fans but where the rest of the globe could possibly get your easier. So WWE is one of the true global brands and I think you should look forward to seeing us all over the world.

WWE boasts a number of British and Irish stars on its current roster, including the likes of Becky Lynch, Drew McIntyre, Sheamus and Finn Balor.

But wrestling also has a rich history in the UK and Levesque wants to tap into that if and when WrestleMania is hosted in London.

Theres always been a great history here, you know, going back to World of Sport and Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, William Regal, Adrian Street, Johnny Saint  you name it.

Theyve all come through here as part of the fabric of WWE runs deep in this region. So Im excited to be here.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, right, holds aloft a gifted mini replica WWE Championship belt, with Paul Triple H Levesque (Yui Mok/PA)

Next years WrestleMania will take place in Las Vegas but beyond that there are no other confirmed hosts, meaning the earliest the self-styled showcase of the immortals could be in London is 2026.

I dont think the weather is going to put anybody off here for sure, Levesque joked as he conducted media interviews in the rain.

I would imagine you guys are used to a little bit of rain, a little bit of cool weather. So its never stopped us from being here before. It wont stop us in the future. Put it this way, if its cold, well warm it up.
Mel Stride expected to join race to be next Tory leader

Mel Stride is expected to become the fourth Conservative MP to join the race for the partys leadership.

According to the BBC, the former work and pensions secretary will announce on Friday he is a candidate to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader.

Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick have so far confirmed they are running for leader.

Mr Stride, the MP for Central Devon, retained his seat by just 61 votes at the General Election.

Shadow communities secretary Kemi Badenoch, the bookmakers favourite to succeed Mr Sunak, and former home secretaries Suella Braverman and Dame Priti Patel are expected to put themselves forward before nominations close at 2.30pm on Monday.

Contenders need a proposer, seconder and eight other backers to stand.

Shadow home secretary Mr Cleverly was first to confirm he was running for the leadership, saying he was grateful for all the support and looking forward to getting out and about over the next few months.

Mr Tugendhat talked up his experience as former security minister and in the armed forces as he launched his bid, telling GB News he has a track record of delivery for the British people.

He said he was willing to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and denied that his change of tone on the matter was political opportunism.

He said he believed he could turn around the Tories disastrous result to win an election as leader of the Conservative Party in five years time but that the party needs to be united and regain the trust of the British people.

Mr Jenricks campaign team said the ex-immigration minister has gathered enough support to run and that he would submit his nomination on Thursday morning.

Robert Jenrick became the third person to enter the Tory leadership race (PA)

His campaign manager Danny Kruger said Mr Jenrick has the energy, temperament and policy agenda to take on our rivals and lead us back to power in five years.

The parliamentary party will narrow the field down to four, who will make their case at the Conservative Party Conference, which runs from September 29 to October 2.

The final two, picked by the parliamentary party, will then go to a vote of party members in an online ballot that will close on October 31 with the result announced on November 2.

According to polling by Savanta carried out between July 19 and 21, Mr Tugendhat is the most popular potential contender among both the public, at minus three points, and 2024 Conservative voters, at 21 points.

Dame Priti is the least popular, at minus 28 points and seven points respectively, according to the research.

Mr Cleverly is second in the running, Savantas findings suggest, at minus nine points with the public and 19 points among 2024 Conservative voters.
The writing is on the wall for greyhound racing, an MSP has said as a Bill aiming to ban the sport in Scotland gained enough support to proceed at Holyrood.

Mid Scotland and Fife Green MSP Mark Ruskell said his Members Bill had won the backing of enough colleagues at the Scottish Parliament to allow it to be introduced.

His proposed Prohibition of Greyhound Racing (Scotland) Bill aims to make it an offence to permit greyhounds to compete in races at tracks in Scotland.

He said: I am delighted to have received the backing of MSPs from across the political spectrum, and will be pushing ahead with my Members Bill.

Mark Ruskell said it is time to put paws before profit (Andrew Milligan/PA)

I hope that the Scottish Parliament will unite behind my proposed legislation and take the chance to act and to save the lives and limbs of countless greyhounds in future.

Data from 2023 showed 109 greyhounds died trackside in the UK, an increase on the number for 2022  with a further 4,238 greyhound injuries reported.

Injuries include all forms of wear-and-tear sustained by the racing greyhounds, including small grazes and broken nails.

Of the 4,238 injuries, there were 108 hind and fore long bone injuries in 2023 compared with 133 in 2022.

Mr Ruskell said: My Bill aims to protect greyhounds from the many risks that come from being forced to race around tracks at high speed.

With industry figures showing that the death rate is going up across the UK, its time to take action.

Public opinion is on our side, and I am heartened by the support that my Bill has received so far.

I urge racecourse owners and the wider industry to listen hard and to stand up for Scotlands greyhounds by putting paws before profit and ending the races for good.

.@markruskell has secured support from MSPs to introduce a Bill at @ScotParl. The Bill seeks to promote the welfare of #Greyhounds by introducing an offence of "permitting a greyhound to race at racetracks" in Scotland. Find out more about the proposal: https://t.co/dlscXOZvWy pic.twitter.com/iRUOwzpUCA  Scottish Parliament (@ScotParl) July 26, 2024

You can tell a lot about a society from how it treats voiceless animals. I believe that we are a nation of dog lovers, and that is why we need to ensure they are protected.

The writing is on the wall for greyhound racing in Scotland, its time for us to put the wellbeing of these wonderful dogs ahead of gambling company profits.

The Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB), which is the regulator for licensed greyhound racing, said the data logged by the Greens was misleading and inaccurate.

A spokesperson for GBGB said: We note the Scottish Green Partys statement on the status of their proposed Bill.

We also note that the Scottish Government has recently said, at this time, they are not persuaded of the need to ban greyhound racing in Scotland.

Scotland currently has no licensed greyhound racecourses and we continue to work with those in Holyrood to set out the extensive welfare protections that would be offered under our own existing regulatory regime.
With congestion, noise and tailpipe pollution more prominent than ever, its mostly car yards, speciality outlets such as bridal shops and a smattering of pubs and other services that remain on Parramatta Road  besides beyond the For Lease signs. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian

Abandoned shopfronts, bleak car yards, crumbling concrete, raw sewage and a reliable stream of traffic and smashed bus mirrors.

It sounds more like a war-ravaged dystopia than a key artery through Australias largest city  but premiers and planners have vowed to turn it into the Champs-Elysees of Sydney.

So it was no surprise that at a summit this week, convened to pave a path forward to realise Parramatta Roads long-promised potential, those gathered sought to convey its state of dereliction.

The New South Wales roads minister, John Graham, called it the scar through the heart of Sydney a descriptor that has become a favourite of state ministers tasked with revitalising it.

Parramatta Road at the moment is dying, its on life support, said Burwood mayor John Faker, whose council takes in part of its 23km length.

It is so depressing, remarked Sydneys lord mayor, Clover Moore.

Boulevard of broken dreams

Its not just contemporary leaders who have lamented the state of what was Australias first intercity road, back before Parramatta became enveloped by Sydney.

Related: Unreasonable and unacceptable: inquiry condemns traffic chaos created by Sydneys $3.9bn Rozelle interchange

In 1920, the then treasurer and later premier of NSW, Jack Lang, nicknamed the road Gallipoli, a reference to the trenches where the Anzacs had fought just a few years earlier.

The war references have endured, in part due to the tensions between state governments and the various local councils whose boundaries are pierced by the road. Without one primary stakeholder charged with its responsibility, the road struggled to keep up with a rapidly changing city.

Initially connecting horse, then tram traffic, between Sydneys east and west, the arterial road became busier, catering to a growing population and sprawling city.

The tearing up of Sydneys tram network in the middle of the 20th century and rise of the car commute led to near-constant congestion during peak times, deteriorating the quality of life for residents and pedestrians along the road. Ultimately that harmed the viability of local shops such as milk bars, which had become cornerstones of suburban life.

Today, with congestion, noise and tailpipe pollution more prominent than ever, its mostly car yards, speciality outlets such as bridal shops and a smattering of pubs and other services that remain on Parramatta Road  besides the For Lease signs.

Two-thirds of shops along the road were vacant even before the onset of Covid-19 pandemic restrictions, a 2020 study estimated. The Inner West council mayor, Darcy Byrne, has claimed many older landowners are happy to keep their properties untenanted as they can use it as a tax write-off, and called for higher rates for empty shops to disincentivise the trend.

Even for a hilly city, the road is unpleasant for motorists to navigate, and difficult for larger vehicles. Buses are often too wide to pass each other on some of the narrower sections. Over the last six years, 495 bus mirrors were smashed on Parramatta Road.

For residents of Sydneys inner west, it serves as an essential thoroughfare, but far from a destination in itself.

When Guardian Australia visited a section of Parramatta Road in Stanmore this week, raw sewage poured out from an empty shop front.

Its all a far cry from the litany of grand plans for its future that have failed to materialise, which have seen it characterised as the boulevard of broken dreams.

The first major proposition to remove traffic from the road was put forward in 1951 by Joseph Cahill, who would become a premier and have another controversial road, the Cahill Expressway, named after him. His plan to build a western expressway to free up Parramatta Road never eventuated.

In 1968, the Sydney Region Outline plan included an idea for a freeway to fix Parramatta Road. While the Western Distributor and the M4 that were also part of the plan were built, the freeway was dropped.

Another plan in 1996, Parramatta Road  Beyond 2000, which included a taskforce that proposed more trees and bike paths to revitalise sections but without a solution to remove the traffic, did not materialise. In 2004, another plan was put forward, centred on new homes and jobs along the corridor.

Revitalising Parramatta Road was a key promise when the politically charged Westconnex motorway megaproject was announced in 2012. However, after more than $20bn spent on moving traffic to paid underground roads, the commitment to build dedicated public transport lanes and beautify the ground level have not transpired.

It was very frustrating that the legal requirement for there to be dedicated public transport lanes on Parramatta Road was never carried out by the former government. I think it was pretty cynical that they realised that they didnt have to carry out their own condition of consent because there was no one powerful enough to take them to court, Byrne, a Labor-aligned mayor, said of the former Coalition government.

Major public transport injection

Entering the Committee for Sydneys Parramatta Road summit on Wednesday felt a lot like yet another an announcement of another grand plan.

Graham, the roads minister, was there, along with mayors and the press. Attenders were handed a brochure for a future light-rail line, with artistic renderings of trams running along various stretches of a tree-lined Parramatta Road, with trendy looking locals walking from modern cafes at the ground level of futuristic looking medium-rise developments.

Enthusiasm for the plan was high. The head of Altrac, which has built and operates Sydneys other light-rail lines, spoke of how the transport project could breathe new life into Parramatta Road.

The only thing missing was the NSW government logo.

While councils and industry are onboard with the Parramatta light-rail plan, which was first floated in 2000 by Clover Moore, Graham said he wont rush into another vision  that doesnt come to fruition.

Related: Westconnex: a $20bn money pit or a bold plan for Sydneys future? Experts remain divided

I refuse to add to the tally of broken dreams, he said.

Instead, the government wants to unite the various groups that agree on the problems with Parramatta Road, and is even open to the idea of creating a standalone agency to coordinate the various councils and leaders to transform the corridor.

Even with such an agency, consensus on a plan and funding source is far from clear.

While the City of Sydney wants the dedicated light-rail corridor from Burwood to Green Square, with room for limited car lane traffic in certain sections, Inner West council mayor Byrne is agnostic on the transport technology, and has raised the idea of cheaper trackless trams with dedicated lanes as achieving a similar outcome at a cost that would be easier to secure funding for.

Whether or not it includes light rail, Graham appears to agree with the mayors that Parramatta Roads future should involve turning it from a stroad  a confused mix between road and street design for cars with big shop fronts, common in the US  to a tree-lined boulevard that supports the Sydney growth plan for medium rise housing centred around public transport stations.

For their part, urban planning experts at this weeks summit backed the potential of light rail to bring wholesale change to Parramatta Road, repeatedly pointing to George Street and how its new light-rail line has transformed it from a car-clogged street to a pedestrianised destination in its own right since.

While some critics claim light rail is too slow to be a serious mode of transport, supporters insist it shouldnt be seen as a competitor to heavy rail or metro in achieving a comparable speed from each end of the line.

Rather, light rail should dictate a new speed for road users and provide an easy option to move shorter distances along it, in a future where Parramatta Road is the destination, not just an artery to escape it.

We dont need a grand new vision  the vision for this road has never died  we just need to find the right way to get there, Graham said.
Tony, Des and Bruce all attend the Good Life Chorus in Sydney. Sessions have singalongs and some physical aspects to get peoples minds and bodies working together through song. Composite: Carly Earl

Leigh Scully looks to her husband, and asks: Have you been enjoying singing, darling?

Music. Music. Music. I love it, Peter Scully says, with a smile and a drumbeat between each word.

Peter, who is living with dementia, fell in love with the Everly Brothers when he was a young teen. When they were in Australia, I snuck over to my uncles so I could get into the  He stalls over the word.

The performance? Leigh prompts.

Yes, says Peter. And for the rest of my life, thats what I have been doing.

Todays concert, however, is the Good Life Chorus (GLC) choir in West Ryde and its open invitation. Like clockwork, participants file in through the front of the community hall before a 1.30pm start. Most come in pairs, elbows looped together moving at a steady pace, stopping only to sign in, plop a gold coin into a biscuit tin and find their name tags, which take up an entire table at the back, all 50 of them. Chatter and clatter fills the hall with a joyful purpose.

This choir, run entirely by volunteers, meets every Wednesday and is more of a singalong than it is a choir, conductor Brian Hayes says. Many of the choristers at GLC are living with dementia. They attend weekly rehearsals with their partners or loved ones, who are also generally their carers.

Theres Carol and Tony sitting up front; Denise and Bruce finding their preferred row; Leigh and Peter nestling up the back; and Dr Michelle Wong and her mother-in-law Jing in an aisle seat, making space for Jings walker. With the help of Rosemary Eliott, the president of the choir, a projector is screening YouTube versions of Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, What A Wonderful World and Sweet Caroline. Eliott, I come to learn, is the thread holding this group of colourful characters together.

There are more men with dementia who attend GLC (brought in by their female carers), than women with dementia. This doesnt reflect the statistics however. Women and men under 80 are generally at equal risk for all types of dementia  other than Alzheimers disease. For 90-year-olds and above, dementia affects women at a rate 1.4 times that of men.

In 2023, more than 400,000 Australians were living with the neurological condition of dementia. Experts suggest the number of adults living with the condition worldwide could reach 153 million by 2050. The absence of a cure or definitive medical treatment has meant researchers and practitioners have relied on psychosocial approaches to better support people living with dementia.

Music, Peter says, is critical to his wellbeing. In the last couple of decades, researchers have studied the effects music has on people living with dementia. For example, studies have found that carers singing the steps of daily tasks, like dressing, washing and brushing teeth, may help people living with dementia maintain personal hygiene in a calm and fun environment. The Sydney Conservatorium of Music with the University of Sydneys Brain and Mind Centre is pioneering research into musical interventions: whether learning to play a musical instrument or singing in a choir can improve cognition in people with very mild memory difficulty, before dementia develops. But for those who choose to sing in dementia-inclusive choirs, numerous studies have found substantial improvements in communication, mood, wellbeing and quality of life.

It is often believed  or feared  that people living with dementia lose the capacity to keep doing the things they love. The choir upends that misconception. It reconnects people with dementia to something they know and enjoyed before their diagnosis. Its very good for [Peter] to do this, Leigh says. Because the songs are so familiar  you dont have to be a musical genius. And even when youre very advanced into dementia it brings you back.

Jing Lee would love to be singing in the Opera House, she says, but sings at GLC instead, with the help of her son Jeff and his wife, Dr Michelle Wong. Its really helped us get out of home and connect, Wong says.

Carol Cullen has been bringing her husband, Tony, who is living with dementia, to GLC since last year. They sit together in the front row, wearing matching grey jumpers  Tony donning a Peaky Blinders hat. He can play music by ear, Carol boasts.

Even if other forms of memory are no longer retained, musical memory can be well preserved Dr Rose Capp

You know how that came about? Tony directs his attention to me. Suddenly hes taken back to when he was a young man, always getting into trouble. He explains, with some help from Carol, how he couldnt read sheet music but bit by bit he learned the tunes to songs his sister would play on the piano. Hes been a pianist ever since.

If you think about it, music has played a role in the lives of most people at some point. So even if other forms of memory are no longer retained, musical memory can be well preserved, says Dr Rose Capp, policy adviser for Dementia Australia and lecturer of applied gerontology at Flinders University. In her book Demystifying Dementia, Capp writes about the two types of long-term memory (explicit and implicit) and how music is stored in different parts of the temporal lobe from other forms of long-term memory.

[Implicit memory] is often labelled unconscious or automatic because it requires no active effort, Capp writes, using the example of riding a bike. Decades might go by, but when you hop back on, you can ride without thinking what to do. When people living with dementia start to lose their explicit memory  the part of the brain that recalls previously learned information and requires conscious effort to maintain  implicit memory, where scientists believe elements of music are stored, can remain.

Hayes and pianist Malcolm Edey fill the weekly run sheet with familiar songs for the choir: theres jazz, blues, musical numbers and the reliable Happy Birthday.

One of the biggest things that happens for people with dementia is they start to withdraw, or stop engaging, Hayes says. For this group, we have to be very careful to not create situations where people feel threatened, where [they feel] theyve got to actually respond verbally [when they] cant remember words.

People can sing along if they feel like it, or sit and watch others. Were open to people of all abilities. Thats the point of it. And we sound surprisingly good, so its very satisfying, Edey says. The added physical stimulation from the rehearsals  choristers are encouraged to move and groove from their chairs  is also beneficial to supporting abdominal breathing, posture and mobility of people living with dementia, says Capp, who runs a residential aged care choir in Brighton East, Victoria.

Related: My father had dementia and I was his caregiver. Heres what I wish I had known | Cynthia Dearborn

Similar choirs have existed around Australia since 2016. GLC is modelled on Canberras Alchemy Chorus; Dubbos Sing Out choir had its first major concert last year; and University of Melbourne music therapist Dr Zara Thompson runs a Rewire Musical Memories choir in Ivanhoe, north-east Melbourne. Choir leaders meet regularly via Zoom as part of the Dementia Inclusive Choirs Network across Australia, for which Thompson is the network convener.

The music holds the space so that they can just look at someone and know the person knows what theyre going through Dr Zara Thompson

A small number of trial choirs have been conducted in other countries. An independent study in France brought together a group of people living with dementia, carers and volunteers for 14 rehearsals ending with a Christmas-themed concert in 2018. Despite some difficulties, those living with dementia showed capacities to learn new songs, integrate rhythmic accompaniments, [and] sang in different languages, Jean-Bernard Mabire, who co-authored the study, says. Even though several participants no longer remembered that they had sung in front of an audience, Mabire said the immediate benefits he observed were more important than the memory of the event.

Thompsons choir was born out of a similar research trial in 2016. Our members were so adamant that it could not stop after the research, they forced them to hire me, she laughs. They had [me] sign a contract saying we would never let it finish.

What distinguishes dementia-inclusive choirs from other support groups, Thompson says, is that being a participant doesnt mean sitting in a circle and being made to talk about your problems. You dont have to be too vulnerable. It doesnt feel clinical. The music holds the space so that they can just look at someone and know the other person knows what theyre going through.

People with dementia, and their caregivers, are often at high risk of depression. Loneliness and isolation are believed to exacerbate symptoms of dementia. While the benefits of singing and community have been found to impact symptoms of dementia, and address loneliness, such choirs  often very cheap to attend  can still be hard to come across. All choristers stress the importance of government funding to ensure choirs like theirs survive, and so more can be opened.

There are a lot of people with dementia who need stimulation [and who] could come to [choir] and benefit a great deal. But we had to find it ourselves, Leigh says.

Denise Jamieson spends nearly an hour driving from Peakhurst, in southern Sydney, to bring her husband, Bruce, who is living with advanced dementia, to rehearsals. Bruce used to sing in the Sydney Male Choir, and while his ability has changed since then, its good because I see [him] doing something that he enjoys, and something that he has enjoyed for a long time, Denise says.

A week after Bruce  who has difficulty speaking  sung his favourite song, Happy Birthday, for Guardian Australias video team, I return for another visit. Bruce sits in the hall tapping his hands and feet along to Singin in the Rain. I dont expect him to recognise me, let alone remember me, but as soon as I move to find a spot, he points in my direction and smiles. And the singing goes on.
If youre renting a home that relies on gas, consider purchasing portable electric options like plug-in induction cooktops Photograph: Justin Paget/Getty Images

The glory days of gas are over. As the cost of renewable energy comes down, many Australian households are making the shift away from the fossil fuel. But not everyone has got the memo, with about 5m Australian residences still relying on gas for heating and cooking.

Those gas connections might have been a good idea at the time, but in the current (and foreseeable) energy market, getting off gas will lower a households energy bills  not to mention their emissions. Its not always a DIY job  and it takes some planning  but electrifying your house is the inevitable way forward, so the sooner the better.

Related: Labors gas strategy: what is it and why do critics call it Back to the Future?

Why bother?

Youre going to come out ahead, says Rob McLeod, a policy and advocacy manager at Renew, a sustainability not-for-profit. In a standard, insulated, Melbourne home, getting off gas would bring the annual energy bill down by several hundred dollars.

A 2023 Grattan report concurs. Alison Reeve, one of the reports authors, says their research found that once the disconnection and abolishment fees (which differ from state to state) were taken care of, replacing your appliances and running your home solely on electricity is the right financial decision in every capital city except Perth.

Why now?

Household gas usage makes up a small fraction of our national carbon emissions, but with net zero targets fast approaching, new connections continuing and millions of disconnections to contend with in the next few decades, we need to get cracking.

The Grattan report calculated that in order for Victoria (the countrys biggest consumer of household gas) to honour national 2050 ambitions, over 200 homes would need to be disconnected from the gas network per day  for the next 26 years.

No matter what the pace, there will be fewer and fewer homes using gas in the coming years. And it pays to get ahead of the curve. Reeve points out that as those disconnections take place, those who remain connected will be left footing the bill for the vast operational costs for the network to function.

What are your options?

Heating homes with gas accounts for the biggest cost to consumers, so replacing heaters should be a priority, McLeod says. He says split systems are more efficient than many people realise and typically use about 75% less energy than a gas system of any sort.

If you have a ducted system, McLeod reckons converting to split systems is still the smarter choice, but if you dont want to part with the luxury of climate control it is possible to replace your gas ducted system with an electric one  though it will be more expensive to install and run than wall units.

In Victoria any homeowner is eligible for substantial discounts when upgrading their heating systems. Other states and territories offer more limited rebates, but theyre well worth looking into.

Hot water services are a households second biggest gas guzzler; replacing them with a heat pump when they give out is a no-brainer.

In terms of cooktops, gas stove devotees might shudder at the idea of giving up what feels like a superior option. But as anyone who has had the pleasure of using an induction will tell you, they outperform electric hobs and coils so significantly that any comparisons are moot.

When people think about switching, they are remembering terrible products, but its a new era of electrical appliances and they are just genuinely better, Reeve says. She also points out that induction stoves not only match the control you can have with gas, theyre also safer and easier to clean.

Plan ahead

While it is possible to get the job done in one fell swoop, if you dont have the cash flow, weaning your property off gas appliances before abolishing the connection is another option. Whatever path you take, planning ahead is essential.

McLeod suggests shopping around and having a list of options ready to seize the moment should one of your gas appliances suddenly fail. Reeve agrees; if your hot water service suddenly gives out, you dont want to end up in a situation where its a choice between installing a heat pump or giving the kids a bath by 5 oclock.

By having not only a shopping list, but also space in the budget and thought-through logistics, youll be better placed to act when funds allow or circumstances dictate.

Talk to your body corporate

If you [own] an apartment, therell be things that you can do individually, and therell be other things that your body corporate will need to be involved in, McLeod says. While you might not be able to unilaterally disconnect from gas mains, replacing heating and cooking appliances is an option.

But changing your hot water system could prove more challenging. Reeve acknowledges that getting involved in body corporate matters can be tedious, but McLeod says there are examples of some taking action to electrify whole buildings. He believes that as policies that prevent landlords from installing new gas appliances in rentals take effect in some states, and more government subsidies become available, it will become more appealing for residential blocks to go entirely gas free.

For renters (or landlords)

If youre renting a home that relies on gas, finding alternatives to using gas appliances is really all you can do. McLeod and Reeve suggest considering purchasing portable electric options like plug-in induction cooktops and energy-efficient electric heaters.

If you have a good relationship with your landlord, discuss upgrading appliances that are on their way out. For landlords, its worth remembering that not only are many energy efficient upgrades subsidised, theyre also often tax deductible and will likely increase the rental value.




Dr Kathleen Stock, a philosophy professor, resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after what she described as a witch-hunt over her views on transgender issues

Scrapping a law to tackle cancel culture at universities will put free speech in peril, the Government has been warned.

Bridget Phillipson revealed she has pulled the plug on the law designed to protect academics from being no-platformed or forced out over their views.

The Education Secretary will now consider repealing the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 just days before it was due to come into force.

Experts warned the move could leave academics unprotected against cancel culture on campus, with a new complaints scheme for those who have been no-platformed expected to be axed.

Akua Reindorf, a barrister and Equality and Human Rights commissioner, said she was shocked by the move. The Act was not perfect, but its quite evident that free speech and academic freedom are in peril in universities, she said.

Im surprised and shocked that Bridget Phillipson has announced that the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023 wont come into force on 1 August and may be repealed.

Under the flagship Tory policy, universities, colleges and student unions would have been required to actively promote free speech on campus.

Those found to have breached academics right to free speech would face sanctions by the universities regulator and possible fines.

Academics and students would also be able to seek compensation through the courts if they suffered financial loss after being expelled, dismissed or demoted. The protections would cover any visiting speakers whose invitations were rescinded following student protests.

It was introduced after a series of rows over the so-called cancellation of academics and students over their views. They include Dr Kathleen Stock, a philosophy professor, who resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after what she described as a witch-hunt over her views on transgender issues.

Dr Kathleen Stock, a philosophy professor, resigned from Sussex University in 2021 after what she described as a witch-hunt over her views on transgender issues - Paul Grover for The Telegraph

Labours decision to pause and potentially repeal the scheme will be seen as a major watering down of free speech protections ushered in by the previous government.

Tom Tugendhat, one of the frontrunners in the Tory leadership race, told The Telegraph that the Government had caved into universities that appear unable to stand up for freedom of expression.

Freedom of speech is sacrosanct. If we cant challenge each other we cant learn or progress as a society, he said.

This was a good Bill, passed by the last Parliament to tackle a real issue on our university campuses. Its disgraceful that Labour has paused it with no democratic debate or accountability. Theyve caved into universities who have shown themselves unwilling, or unable, to stand up for freedom of expression.

James Cleverly, another Tory leadership contender, said: Free speech is a core British value, at the heart of our liberal and democratic society.

Education must be free from cancel culture. Our freedoms are under threat under Labour.

The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said the Act 'risked enabling anti-Semitic extremists to access university campuses by severely impacting the ability of universities to block their presence' - Asadour Guzelian

The law was due to come into force next week and would have handed new powers to Prof Arif Ahmed, who was appointed the Governments first-ever free speech tsar in 2023.

The former Cambridge philosophy professor has spent the past year designing a new complaints scheme to implement the laws. It would have allowed him to take submissions from academics who have been cancelled over their personal beliefs.

Prof Arif Ahmed was appointed the Government's first 'free speech tsar' in 2023 - Eddie Mulholland for The Telegraph

However, Prof Ahmeds position now faces serious uncertainty amid growing expectations the entire scheme will be scrapped. The Telegraph understands he could be moved to another position within the Office for Students (OfS), the higher education regulator, if he does not resign outright.

In a statement announcing her decision to shelve the Act on Friday, the Education Secretary said that for too long, universities have been a political battlefield.

We are absolutely committed to freedom of speech and academic freedom, but the Free Speech Act introduced last year is not fit for purpose and risked imposing serious burdens on our world-class universities, she said.

The Telegraph understands Labour also had concerns the free speech laws could leave universities open to being sued at a time when many face crippling cost pressures.

Ministers are understood to be holding cross-government crisis talks about the future of several universities amid fears that some could be pushed under in the coming months.

Bridget Phillipson, pictured with Sir Keir Starmer, has put the Tory plan on hold - IAN WEST/PA

About 40 per cent of universities in England are expected to run budget deficits this year, with many top institutions thought to be exploring possible mergers to rescue their peers.

The Russell Group of elite institutions welcomed Labours decision to pause the legislation, noting that universities already had a legal duty to protect free speech and that extra laws could create unnecessary paperwork.

Matters relating to freedom of speech can be complex, particularly when cases interact with other legal duties such as equality law. Its right that the Government has decided to take more time to consider its options, the group said.

Labour also claimed the intervention was to protect vulnerable groups and Jewish students, and to save universities from costly legal action.

Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychology professor, has courted controversy for his views on transgender rights

Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said that although well-intentioned, the Act risked enabling anti-Semitic extremists to access university campuses by severely impacting the ability of universities to block their presence.

Whitehall sources also suggested the free speech laws would have unintentionally created protections for alleged hate speech on campus. They claimed the legislation may have built a platform for people like Tommy Robinson, the founder of the English Defence League, David Irving, a prominent Holocaust denier, and Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch far-Right Freedom party who was sworn into government earlier this month.

Prof Ahmed, who has always insisted the scheme would only protect freedom of speech under the law, is likely to resist the claims. A number of existing UK laws already outlaw hate speech, including language that incites racial and religious hatred, hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation and speech that encourages terrorism.

However, the Free Speech Union, led by former journalist Toby Young, has vowed to launch legal action against the Government.

There is a free speech crisis in our universities, as has been widely acknowledged, and this Act, which enjoyed cross-party support, was designed to remedy that, it said in a statement

The Governments attack on the Freedom of Speech Act is shocking. If Labour refuses to commence legislation passed in the last parliament, the Free Speech Union will bring judicial review proceedings.

A No 10 spokesman said the decision to pause the legislation had been taken in response to concerns that have been raised in the university sector.

Asked about criticism of the move as a threat to free speech on campuses, she replied: I disagree with that characterisation. Its right to listen to concerns and to take stock.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Kamala Harris in the White House. The US vice-president has been accused by some in Israel of endangering a potential deal to free the hostages. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Members of Israels rightwing government have hit back at Kamala Harris over her demands for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after she met Benjamin Netanyahu during his US visit.

After a brief meeting with the Israeli prime minister, which Harris described as frank and constructive, the US vice-president and presidential candidate said it was time for this war to end, and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination.

An unnamed Israeli official accused Harris of endangering a potential deal to free Israeli and dual-national hostages in Gaza. Hopefully the remarks Harris made in her press conference wont be interpreted by Hamas as daylight between the US and Israel, thereby making a deal harder to secure, the Israeli media reported the official as saying.

Israels far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who this week endorsed Donald Trumps candidacy, immediately joined the fray, tweeting: There will be no truce, Madam Candidate.

Ben-Gvir previously tweeted in support of Netanyahus fiery speech to Congress this week, where the prime minister avoided mention of a ceasefire, lashed out at the international criminal court and claimed victory is in sight.

Netanyahus visit, his first abroad since the 7 October attacks by Hamas and other militants that killed 1,200 people and 250 people were taken hostage, has been polarising in Washington and at home since his ministerial jet left the runway in Tel Aviv.

While his supporters lauded his speech to Congress, in particular his attacks on Iran, a growing chorus of critics as well as many of the hostages families expressed disappointment that Netanyahu had failed to declare a ceasefire and hostage deal while in Washington and also further delayed dispatching Israeli negotiators, due in Doha earlier this week.

Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence on Friday, amid speculation in the Israeli media that he will remain in Florida to celebrate the birthday of his son Yair, who lives in Miami.

Xavier Abu Eid, a Palestinian political analyst, said Netanyahus speech only deepened animosity towards him. I dont think anyone believed a word of what Netanyahu said  he didnt speak about policy, it was just a combination of slogans. It was insulting not only to the Palestinian victims of this war, but to American citizens demonstrating for Palestinian rights, he said.

Yair Lapid, a former Israeli foreign minister, also criticised Netanyahus speech. We heard Netanyahu talking about October 7 as if he had no idea who was the prime minister and who was responsible for the disaster, he said on X. Netanyahu had the opportunity to announce that he accepts the deal and returns the kidnapped before they all die in the tunnels. He didnt do it.

Families and supporters of some of the 114 hostages still held in Gaza expressed outrage at the lack of a ceasefire declaration.

Israels Hostages Families Forum demanded an urgent meeting with hostage negotiators, calling the delays in sending Israeli mediators to Doha deliberate sabotage of the chance to bring our loved ones back.

The group demanded that the Mossad, the intelligence agency in charge of negotiations, provide an honest report to the Israeli public about who is obstructing the deal and why.

Speaking at a rally in Tel Aviv this the week, the father of one hostage, Liri Elbag, addressed the prime minister. Everyone knows the story with Mr Netanyahu  except for one thing, when there will be a deal  Even your negotiation team doesnt know, he said.

Einav Zanguaker, the mother of another hostage, Matan Zangauker, described Netanyahus visit to the US as a public relations campaign.

Instead of declaring in Congress that he accepts the deal on the table, Netanyahu is preventing the implementation of the deal for personal reasons, she told Haaretz.

Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator, said the families of the hostages were divided, with some backing a deal and others agreeing with Netanyahus approach that military pressure was the only way to force an agreement from Hamas.

This reflects the split in Israel between the Netanyahu echo chamber and what is outside of it, which now includes most of the military leadership  who, unlike Bibi, want a deal, he said.

The true purpose of Netanyahus visit, Levy said, was to assess whether the Biden-Harris administration would continue to blame Hamas if talks failed, despite indications that Harris would strike a different tone on the war in Gaza.

Trump, before his meeting with Netanyahu, also demanded an immediate ceasefire, although his remarks drew no response from Netanyahus rightwing backers.

The former president told Fox News he wanted Netanyahu to finish up and get it done quickly  because they are getting decimated with this publicity. He claimed the 7 October attacks would not have happened under his presidency, adding: Israel is not very good at public relations.

Abu Eid said: Its clear for Netanyahu and those around him that they would prefer a Trump presidency, not even Republican, but Trump. But what kind of answers he will get when they meet are unclear.
Mr Peskov's comments come as Putin and Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko met at a chapel in Karelia, Russia - Alexander Kazakov/Pool Sputnik Kremlin

Moscow welcomed Donald Trumps comments on Russia being a war machine that had defeated Napoleon and Hitler, but said it had reservations about the ex-president returning to the White House.

Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesman, was responding to a question about comments Trump said he made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call last week.

This is a war machine youre facing. Thats what they [the Russians] do they fight wars. They beat Hitler. They beat Napoleon. We got to get this war over with, Trump told Mr Zelensky.

Mr Peskov said that while it would be useful for an American audience to be aware of the many glorious pages in Russias history, he was under no illusions of what a new Trump presidency would look like.

We have never worn and do not wear rose-coloured spectacles. [Trump] is a representative of the U.S. political elite, which is now all absolutely suffering from total anti-Russian sentiment, said Mr Peskov.

When he was president, under Trump, the Americans started this sanctions race, under Trump a huge number of sanctions were imposed against our country, and in this respect he is not much different for us from everyone else.

Maybe he shows a little more political wisdom in terms of maintaining channels of dialogue. But de facto it does not have a special impact on anything, and we should be aware of that, said Mr Peskov.

03:32 PM BST

Blog closed

Thats it for todays blog - thanks for following. Here is a look at the days main stories:

Explosions were reported near Russias Saky airfield in occupied Crimea after an apparent Ukrainian Atacms missile and drone attack.

Russian state news has broadcast a video of a Russian citizen confessing to maiming a military officer in a car bombing in Moscow on orders from Ukraines spy agency.

A blast at the East Urengoy gas condensate field in the Russian Arctic region of Yamal-Nenets has killed one worker and injured nine others.

Russia overnight attacked Ukrainian energy facilities in two regions with drones, disrupting electricity supplies.

Russian state news has broadcast a video of a Russian citizen confessing to maiming a military officer in a car bombing in Moscow on orders from Ukraines spy agency.

03:25 PM BST

Comment: Its just a matter of time until the Kerch bridge falls and Crimea is cut off

The Battle of the Azov Sea is tilting to Ukraine. Its only a matter of time until the Kerch Bridge falls, writes Tom Sharpe.

Russias Black Sea Fleet is having a torrid time. First, the Fleet has lost a third of its ships, either sunk or destroyed  a brutal casualty rate, though not particularly high by Russian standards. Second, last week the final remaining Russian warship left Sevastopol harbour, which had been the Black Sea Fleets main base since 2014. Ukrainian Navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk suggested we should remember this day. Reinforcing the sense of retreat and defeat, the same spokesman has just informed us that there are no longer any Russian warships in the Sea of Azov, the inland sea connected to the Black Sea lying to the north and east of the Crimean peninsula. The Azov is an important piece of water. It lies right next to Crimea, Vladimir Putins Holy land, which was once surrounded by Russian-controlled waters and now is not. The Azovs northern shore is held by the Russian army  this is the land bridge connecting pre-2014 Russia to Crimea. Russian troops on the long front line along the Dnipro and from Zaporizhzhia to Donetsk have their backs to the Azov, but until now they could at least feel reassured that their navy was behind them. No more.

Read the full piece

03:12 PM BST

Finland suspects Russian vessel of territorial violation

Finland suspects a Russian vessel of territorial violation in the Nordic countrys waters on Friday, the Finnish government said.

The Border Guard is investigating the incident and will provide further information as the investigation progresses, the Finnish defence ministry said.

The incident took place in the eastern Gulf of Finland, it added.

Finland last month said four Russian military planes had violated its airspace on June 10.

03:00 PM BST

Kremlin welcomes Trumps description of Russia as war machine

Explosions were reported near Russias Saky airfield in occupied Crimea after an apparent Ukrainian Atacms missile and drone attack.

Witnesses described hearing the powerful sound of detonating ammunition at the military base in the early hours of Friday morning.

After the initial explosions, secondary detonations could be heard, suggesting that ammunition was cooking off and exploding after the first hit.

Astra, a Russian Telegram channel, said that Ukraine had fired four US-donated Atacms missiles, citing emergency services sources.

The channel also claimed a missile had hit an air defence location about three miles from the airfield, destroying a radar station.

Saky military base is the home of Russias 43rd naval assault regiment. Its Su-30 and Su-24 fighter jets are regularly used to carry out strikes on Ukraine.

Fighterbomber, a Telegram channel with links to Russias air force, shared a cryptic message after the strikes, saying: Eternal memory.

Ukraine has heavily targeted Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, in a bid to drive Moscows forces out of the highly strategic peninsula.

02:19 PM BST

Scholz concerned by German citizen sentenced to death in Belarus

Chancellor Olaf Scholz is aware of the case of a German national sentenced to death in Belarus and is concerned, a government spokesperson said on Friday.

Germany confirmed last week that a German citizen had been sentenced to death in Belarus. Belarusian human rights group Viasna identified him as Rico Krieger and said his charges related to terrorism and mercenary activity.

Like the entire federal government, he [Scholz] is concerned about these events, a German government spokesperson said.

Mr Krieger has described himself as an emergency services worker and on Thursday reportedly asked Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a major ally of Vladimir Putin, to forgive him.

Russian state news agency Tass claimed Mr Krieger confessed that Ukraines SBU security service instructed him to photograph military sites in Belarus and to plant a backpack on train tracks near to the caoital of Minsk that later exploded, but hurt no one.

I truly hope that President Lukashenko will forgive and pardon me, Mr Krieger was reported as saying.

01:56 PM BST

Russia jails two pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for 15 - 22 years

Russia on Friday jailed two men for allegedly plotting to blow up fuel tanks at Moscows Sheremetyevo airport on orders from Ukraines secret services.

The men, Mikhail Dariy and Ilya Kovylkov, were sentenced to 22 years and 15 years respectively on terrorism and other charges.

Mr Dariy said that he did not go through with the planned attack because he wanted to minimise civilian casualties, local media reported.

Prosecutors said Ukrainian intelligence officers offered the men $2,000 to carry out the attack using a drone, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported.

They were also accused of being in touch with the Freedom of Russia Legion, a unit of pro-Kyiv fighters that includes Russian citizens and has made armed border incursions into Russian territory throughout the conflict.

Since launching what it calls a special military operation in 2022, Russia has opened dozens of such cases against those it says are collaborating with Ukraine or trying to undermine the Russian army.

01:22 PM BST

EU ready to send 1.5bn to Ukraine from frozen Russian assets

The EU on Friday said 1.5 billion (1.2 billion) had been made available to support Ukraine, the first chunk of money earned from profits on Russian frozen assets.

EU member states had agreed in May to use billions of euros in profits from frozen Russian central bank assets to help arm Ukraine and fund its post-war reconstruction.

The EU froze around 200 billion euros of Russian central bank assets held in the bloc as part of sanctions imposed on Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The EU stands with Ukraine. Today we transfer 1.5 billion euros in proceeds from immobilised Russian assets to the defence and reconstruction of Ukraine, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.

01:17 PM BST

Drunk Russian tank crew run over car, killing driver

A Russian tank has run over a civilian car in the village of Berezovka in the Belgorod Oblast region of Russia, killing the driver, according to local reports.

Pepel, a Belgorod-based Telegram channel, said the tank ran over a Lada Niva car that was travelling on the main road and obeying traffic regulations.

As the tank exited a turn, it did not give way to the car and ran it over, Pepel reported, adding that the tank crew may have been intoxicated and were laughing in his [the victims] face.

An investigation into the incident said the car driver died from heart failure.

The tank moving past the half-crushed civilian car in the western Belgorod region of Russia - Pepel

A person stands outside the wreckage of the car after the incident that killed the driver - Pepel

12:48 PM BST

Watch: Ukraines Atacms missile attack on a Crimean airbase

Footage shows the moment Ukraine attacked a Russian airfield in occupied Crimea with drones and missiles believed to be US-supplied Atacms.

Explosions can be heard, while a large fireball erupts above the Saky military base. Telagram channels reported significant damage to the airfield and an ammunition depot.

12:28 PM BST

Hungary says it is being blackmailed by Ukraine over oil flows

An aide to Hungarys prime minister on Friday accused Ukraine of blackmailing Hungary and Slovakia by halting oil deliveries.

Slovakia and Hungary have increased pressure after they said last week they had stopped receiving raw material from Russian group Lukoil via Ukraine due to Kyiv placing the company on a sanctions list.

On Monday, they asked the European Commission to use an association agreement, based on which they said Ukraine could not block oil transits.

Ukraine is blackmailing the two countries that are standing for peace and ceasefire, Gergely Gulyas told a news conference. If the situation is not resolved, there will be a fuel shortage... A solution must be found by September.

12:03 PM BST

Pictured: Ukrainian soldiers break from fighting in Donetsk

A Ukrainian soldier prepares a 2C3 tank at their fighting position in Donetsk Oblast - Anadolu

The troops waiting for the newest combat order - Jose Colon/Anadolu

The battered eastern region of Donetsk is the current target of Russia's fiercest assaults - Jose Colon/Anadolu

11:55 AM BST

Kremlin welcomes Trumps Russia is a war machine comment

The Kremlin on Friday welcomed Donald Trumps comments on Russia being a war machine that had defeated Napoleon and Hitler, but said it was not wearing rose-tinted spectacles when it came to the US Republican presidential candidate.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was aware that Trump represented a political elite which held anti-Russian views.

11:24 AM BST

Moscow car bomb suspect claims he blew up Russian officer for Ukraine

Russian state news has broadcast a video of a Russian citizen confessing to maiming a military officer in a car bombing in Moscow on orders from Ukraines spy agency.

The handcuffed man, named by Russias FSB security service as Yevgeny Serebyrakov, had been brought to Russia from Turkey and handed over to investigators.

In the video, published by Russian outlet Ria, the man claimed he was told to carry out Wednesdays attack by an officer of Ukraines SBU whom he met in Istanbul.

Several Russian news outlets named Andrei Torgashov and his wife as the two victims of the bombing, which was filmed on CCTV that showed a parked Toyota Land Cruiser exploding into a fireball.

The alleged intelligence officer, who Russian media reported was on Ukraines online target list, lost his feet in the explosion, while the woman received shrapnel wounds.

Mr Serebyrakov said he had been recruited by Ukrainian intelligence last year and asked to kill an officer with a homemade car bomb.

He was promised Ukrainian citizenship and $10,000-20,000 dollars as a reward for his work, he claimed. There has been no immediate comment from Ukraine on the new claims.

Evgeny Serebryakov, a suspect in the car bombing in Moscow, said that he carried out the attack on the orders of a Ukraine's security services in an alleged confession video - RIA Novosti

10:43 AM BST

Pictured: Ukraine shoots down Russian drones above Kherson

Ukraine shooting down a Russian drone above Ukraine's northeastern city of Kherson early this morning - Reuters

Paths of bullets are seen during a Russian drone strike on the city that has been the focus of relentless attacks in recent months - Reuters

10:26 AM BST

Blast at Russian gas field kills worker

A blast at the East Urengoy gas condensate field in the Russian Arctic region of Yamal-Nenets has killed one worker and injured nine others.

The cause of the explosion is being investigated, Russian technical watchdog Rostechnadzor said on Friday.

The facility is operated by a company controlled by Russian state-owned Rosneft. The explosion occurred while crews were preparing to repair some equipment.

10:24 AM BST

Chinese and Russian officials meet after vowing to counter extra-regional forces

China and Russias foreign ministers met their Southeast Asian counterparts on Friday after vowing to counter extra-regional forces, a day before Washingtons top diplomat was due to arrive.

Wang Yi and Sergei Lavrov were attending a three-day meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc in the Laos capital of Vientiane.

Both held talks with counterparts from the bloc, while Mr Wang also met British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

On Thursday, Wang and Lavrov agreed to work together in countering any attempts by extra-regional forces to interfere in Southeast Asian affairs, according to Moscows foreign ministry.

They also discussed implementing a new security architecture in Eurasia, Lavrov said in a statement, without elaborating.

09:43 AM BST

Watch: Ukraine repels massive Russian assault including tanks and motorbikes

A Ukrainian brigade has claimed to have blown apart one of Russias largest single armoured assaults, featuring 11 tanks, 45 armoured vehicles and 12 motorcycles.

Footage released by the 79th Air Assault Brigade appears to show artillery fire and first-person-view drones smashing into the advancing column of Russian armour, while mines also help stop its progress.

As a result of the battle, our paratroopers knocked out six tanks and seven BBM [armoured personnel carriers] with infantry. All 12 motorbikes were burnt, the brigade wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Read more on the attack here.

08:48 AM BST

Russia to punish soldiers using phones on front line

Russias parliament has approved an amendment that would allow commanders to punish soldiers using their mobile phones on the front line.

The rule was passed to stop the transmission of any information via phones or navigation devices that could be used to identify any Russian troops or their location.

The law states any possession of a device that allows military personnel to store or send video, photos or geolocation data on the internet is punishable by up to 15 days imprisonment.

Ukraine has previously been using videos shared by Russian soldiers to help locate troop positions across occupied territory.

08:20 AM BST

US can send additional $2bn in arms to Ukraine after accounting error

The Pentagon can send military aid worth another $2 billion (1.4 billion) to Ukraine after it found accounting errors in its calculations for ammunition, missiles and other equipment already sent to Kyiv.

It takes the total of improperly valued material to $8.2 billion (6.3 billion), a US government report revealed on Thursday. The US department of defence has faced challenges in accurately valuing defense articles sent to Ukraine.

In 2023, the Pentagon said staff had used replacement value instead of depreciated value to calculate the billions in materials sent to Ukraine. The $6.2 billion (4.8 billion) error created a path for billions more to be sent to Kyiv.

Now, another $2 billion more in overstatements have been found. As a result, arms worth an additional $2 billion can be sent to Ukraine to cover the amount of aid approved by the Biden Administration.

08:09 AM BST

Nato rules out intentional attack after Russian drone debris found in Romania

Romania said it had confirmed that fragments of a Russian drone entered its territory, one day after Russia targeted Ukraine with a bombardment of 38 long-range drones.

Ukraines air force said that three of the drones were lost after crossing the state border with Romania.

Nato said it saw no sign of a deliberate act of aggression towards the alliances territory but called such acts by Moscow irresponsible.

While Nato has no information indicating any intentional attack by Russia against Allied territory, these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous, a spokesman said in a statement.

It added that Nato had increased its presence in the Black Sea region in recent days.

Fragments of a Russian drone lie on the ground in the village of Plauru, Romania on July 25 - Reuters

A view of the forested area where the Geran 1/2 drone was found after the UAV passed over Ukraine - Reuters

07:59 AM BST

Russian drone attacks target Ukraines energy infrastructure

Russia overnight attacked Ukrainian energy facilities in two regions with drones, disrupting electricity supplies.

Power supplies have, however, been already restored to most consumers in the northern Chernihiv and Zhytomyr regions, Ukraines national power grid operator Ukrenergo said.

Kyivs air force claimed to have destroyed 20 out of the 22 Russian attack drones launched overnight. Most of the drones were shot down in the Kherson, Sumy, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv regions.

The governor of the Chernihiv region said that some infrastructure and a dormitory were damaged during the attack on the town of Nizhyn, without giving further details.

Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraines energy sector have intensified since the spring, resulting in blackouts in many regions and forcing Kyiv to start large-scale electricity imports from the EU.

07:57 AM BST

Watch: Moscow car bomb targets Russian military officer

Footage shows the moment a man, believed to a Russian intelligence officer, and his wife were targeted in a car bombing attack in Moscow on Wednesday.

Both received significant injuries and were taken to hospital. A Russian man has been arrested and allegedly confessed, in a video published by Russian state news, to have acted on orders from Ukraine.

07:43 AM BST

Hello and welcome to our live coverage

Were bringing you all the latest from the war in Ukraine.
A firefighter works to save a burning structure amid the Park fire in the community of Cohasset near Chico, California. Photograph: Fred Greaves/Reuters

A California man was arrested on Thursday and accused of starting the states largest wildlife of the year by pushing a burning car into a gully.

The flames have since exploded into what is now the Park fire, which has burned more than 71,000 acres (28,733 hectares) near the city of Chico. Evacuations were ordered in Butte and Tehama counties, with the blaze only 3% contained early on Thursday.

California authorities did not immediately name the man they arrested.

On Thursday, flames were visible from Chico as they burned through the foothills. Massive smoke plumes hung over the the north-eastern edge of town as the sound of helicopters and airplanes fighting the fire whirred overhead.

The Park fire began in Chicos Upper Bidwell Park, an area beloved for hiking and swimming. As the fire broke out on Wednesday, people lined the edge of town to watch the flames rise.

Fire officials are concerned that hot, windy conditions in the area could cause the fire, which was bearing down on rural communities, to grow rapidly overnight.

The blaze has stirred up a sense of trauma for residents, who have lived through several destructive and deadly fire seasons in recent years. The 2018 Camp fire that destroyed the nearby town of Paradise remains one of the most deadly in US history.

The arrest comes as firefighters across North America are working intensively on containing wildfires across the region, including in areas of California, Washington, Oregon and other states, as well as parts of Canada, as heatwaves reaching record-breaking temperatures continue.

In California, near the Nevada border, about 1,000 people remained displaced from their homes on Thursday after evacuations were ordered earlier this week when lightning sparked the Gold Complex fires, which have burned more than 3,000 acres in the Plumas national forest, about 50 miles (80km) north-west of Reno.

In eastern Oregon, evacuation orders were lifted on Thursday for the city of Huntington, population 500, after a severe thunderstorm late Wednesday brought some rain and cooler temperatures to firefighting efforts against the Durkee fire, currently the largest in the US. The fire had grown so big that it was creating its own weather.

Officials remain concerned that lightning from the storm  which brought wind gusts of up to 75mph  could spark new blazes. More than 2,800 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes were detected across south-east Oregon and Idaho on Wednesday alone, the National Weather Service in Boise said on Thursday.

The US National Interagency Fire Center said in a report on Wednesday that 84 uncontained large fires were burning across the country. In a statement, the center said that many of the wildfires in the north-west were exhibiting extreme fire behavior, and that evacuation orders were in effect as of Wednesday on 15 fires including in parts of California, the Northern Rockies and the Great Basin, the center said, with more than 21,000 wildland firefighters across the country working on managing the flames.

In northern California, fire personnel were focusing on evacuations and defending structures while using bulldozers to build containment lines ahead of the Park fire. No deaths or damage to structures had been reported, Cal Fire and the Butte county fire department said in a late Wednesday update.

A fire in southern California was much smaller, but moving fast and threatening homes.

In San Diego county, evacuation orders were in effect on Wednesday night after a wildfire began to spread fast near the San Diego and Riverside county line. And in many of the areas of the country affected by the wildfires, including parts of Oregon, Washington and Idaho, air quality alerts and advisories were in effect due to wildfire smoke.

Areas of Utah and Nebraska were under fire weather watches on Thursday morning from the US National Weather Service, and areas of western South Dakota are under extreme fire danger warnings due to extremely dry conditions.

Red Flag warnings, which means that critical fire conditions are occurring or will shortly, according to the National Weather Service, were in effect in areas of North Dakota, Nevada, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Idaho, Nebraska, Washington and Oregon with low humidity and strong winds expected.

The Pacific north-west has already seen a particularly aggressive fire season this year, with millions of acres of national forest lands continuing to see record-breaking dry timber conditions, exacerbated by a lack of rainfall, according to the news release.

The lengthy heatwave across the region has increased the wildfire threat in recent weeks, with dried out land and record-setting temperatures heightening the risk of ignitions.

In Canada, wildfires continued to burn in areas near the Canadian town of Jasper on Wednesday night, officials said. The town suffered significant loss due to the fires, Jasper National Park Service said in a statement on X.

The Associated Press contributed
Nasas Perseverance rover took photos on 23 July of a rock nicknamed Cheyava Falls, seen to the left of the rover near the centre of the image. Photograph: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

A spotty, vein-filled rock found by a Nasa rover on Mars contains features that suggest it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago.

The arrowhead-shaped rock, named Cheyava Falls, was discovered by Nasas Perseverance rover on 21 July as it trundled along the northern edge of Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley carved by water flowing into the red planets Jezero crater.

Analysis of the 3ft by 2ft rock revealed signs of organic material, intriguing surface spots similar to those associated with fossilised microbes on Earth and evidence that water once passed through the rock, the agency said.

Related: Life on Mars absolutely exhilarating: Nasa scientists year in a simulation

Ken Farley, the project scientist on the mission at the California Institute of Technology, said Cheyava Falls was the most puzzling, complex and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance, though the team make clear that non-biological processes may have given rise to the features.

On the one hand, we have our first compelling detection of organic material, distinctive colourful spots indicative of chemical reactions that microbial life could use as an energy source, and clear evidence that water, necessary for life, once passed through the rock, Farley said.

On the other hand, we have been unable to determine exactly how the rock formed and to what extent nearby rocks may have heated Cheyava Falls and contributed to these features.

In the ancient past, Mars was a warmer, wetter planet. If life ever evolved there, researchers believe traces should remain within its rocks, in the form of organic material and potentially fossilised remnants.

Scans of the Cheyava Falls rock by Perseverances Sherloc instrument suggest it contains organic compounds. Such carbon-based molecules are regarded as the building blocks of life, but can also be produced by non-biological processes.

Large white veins of calcium phosphate run along the rock. Between them are bands of reddish material, likely haematite, one of the iron oxide compounds that gives Mars its rusty colour. Closer inspection of the bands revealed dozens of little leopard spot-like features. Each of the off-white spots is surrounded by a black ring containing iron and phosphate.

David Flannery, an astrobiologist at Queensland University of Technology in Australia and a member of the mission, called the spots a big surprise, because on Earth similar features are often associated with the fossilised record of microbes.

White spots can form on rocks through chemical reactions involving haematite, producing iron and phosphate, as well as energy that microbes could live on. While the features are intriguing, nothing seen yet appears to be an actual fossilised microbe.

Researchers are desperate to get their hands on samples for more thorough investigation, but Nasas plans to return the Mars rocks to Earth have run into difficulties.

The agencys Mars sample return mission is over budget at $11bn (8.5bn) and badly delayed with no prospect of bringing rocks back before 2040. Nasa is looking for companies to return Mars samples sooner and at lower cost.

This is what Mars Sample Return is all about. We have never seen anything like this from Mars before, not in our Martian meteorite collections, not with Mars Science Laboratory or other landers, said Prof John Bridges, a participating scientist on Nasas Mars Science Laboratory mission at the University of Leicester.

The reality is we need to get these samples back on Earth to do the detailed electron microscopy and isotope analyses to check if these formed with ancient microbial action or abiotically, Bridges said.

Prof Charles Cockell, an astrobiologist at the University of Edinburgh, said: Although these features dont provide unambiguous evidence of life, they do confirm that Mars was a very dynamic planet with all the ingredients for life, including organic carbon.

We need to bring back samples, or in my view, even better, send humans, to find if we are seeing the signatures of life.

Prof Monica Grady, a planetary and space scientist at The Open University, said: This is a really amazing-looking rock. It makes my mouth water just to look at it. The combination of different types of minerals arranged the way they are reminds me of some of the textures found in ancient terrestrial rocks, where tracks of burrowing worms are preserved. Obviously, Im not saying that there were burrowing worms on Mars  but I cant wait to see what else Perseverance uncovers in this part of its exploration.
Unesco said the Flow Countrys conservation would be a model for peatland protection globally. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

The Flow Country, a vast and unspoiled blanket bog that carpets the far north of Scotland, has been made a world heritage site by Unesco.

The planets largest blanket bog, the Flow Country covers about 1,500 sq miles of Caithness and Sutherland, and is the first peatland in the world to be designated by Unesco, after a 40-year campaign by environmentalists.

One of the worlds biggest carbon stores, it joins sites such as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, the Serengeti in Tanzania and the Grand Canyon in the US among the worlds most protected and treasured natural assets.

Related: World heritage status for Scottish peat bogs could help UK hit net zero goals

With peat as deep as 15 metres in places, ecologists had told Unesco the Flow Country was the best example on the planet of a crucial yet threatened ecosystem; it hosts a diverse range of specialist plants and wildlife that have evolved to live on blanket bogs and peatland.

Those plants include bogbean that displays vibrant pink-fringed white flowers in spring, carnivorous sundew, yellow-flowered bog asphodel and dozens of different species of sphagnum moss. It also supports dragonflies and rare bird species such as the dunlin, golden plover and red-throated diver.

Its dense peat, which has accumulated over the past 9,000 years, also stores roughly 400m tonnes of carbon. Meeting in Delhi, Unesco agreed with specialists from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that its preservation had even greater significance because of the climate crisis.

It was the most extensive and diverse example of an actively accumulating blanket bog landscape found globally, the IUCN said, following exhaustive surveys.

Distinctive forms of blanket bog have evolved, exhibiting a diverse mosaic of mire and vegetation types with their associated species assemblages, including the full range of habitats from pools to drier hummock microsites including elements of damaged bog, transitional bog and fen communities.

Graham Neville, who led the campaign to designate the site on behalf of NatureScot, the government conservation agency, said the decision was momentous.

World heritage site status will lead to greater understanding of the Flow Country and raise the profile of Scotlands peatlands globally for their value as biodiverse habitats and important carbon sinks, he said. It is a wonderful recognition of the expert stewardship of farmers and crofters in maintaining this incredible ecosystem as a natural legacy for future generations.

The UK already has several world heritage sites, including the archipelago of St Kilda in the Atlantic, Stonehenge, the Tower of London, Georgian Bath and the old and new towns of Edinburgh.

Also on Friday, Unesco announced that Gracehill, a small 18th-century settlement in County Antrim in Northern Ireland, would join them. The Moravian church village was founded in 1759 by the Moravians, one of the oldest Protestant denominations in Christianity, dating back to the 15th century and preceding Martin Luthers Reformation.

It is linked to other Moravian sites that already have Unesco world heritage status including settlements in Herrnhut in Germany and Bethlehem in the US.

Congratulating the campaigners, the UK culture minister Chris Bryant said Gracehill was a town built around the central values of equality and tolerance and I am glad to see it gain the recognition that it deserves.

While much of Northern Irelands Protestant heritage is linked to Scotland, the Moravian village is one of the exceptions, built by German-speaking Protestants on the back of a 2,000 loan from the wider religious community elsewhere in Europe.

The perfectly preserved village and green consists of small cottages, each with enough land to grow potatoes and keep a farm animal, as well as a school, a church and two larger houses for unmarried members of the community.

But there were bitter recriminations over one decision affecting the UK, when a proposal to put Stonehenge on the heritage in danger warning list was thwarted after Kenyan delegates successfully amended the decision.

Campaigners with the Stonehenge Alliance, including the historian Tom Holland, are trying to reverse a decision by the UK government to construct a widely criticised road tunnel under Stonehenge. They say it will destroy archaeological artefacts, and that the Unesco decision has undermined their faith in the ruling committee.

This is a dark day for Stonehenge and a hollow victory for the UK government as this decision wont stop the harm to the world heritage site, said John Adams, the alliances chair. We should not forget that this scheme failed the planning test. It was recommended for refusal because of the permanent and irreversible harm it would do.
Aerial view of the old Kinchela boys home near Kempsey. The NSW government will engage archeological and heritage services to explore the site. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

The New South Wales government will engage a specialist to explore the site of a notorious boys home where locations consistent with clandestine human burials have been found using ground-penetrating radar.

Related: Taken to hell: even today survivors of Kinchela boys home are known by their numbers

In September, Guardian Australia revealed there are at least nine suspicious sites of possible graves on the grounds of Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home, one of the most violent and abusive institutions of the stolen generations era.

A report by experts surveying the area using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) highlighted high priority anomalies in the ground at the home, which show signal patterns that in other contexts have proven to be human burials and cannot be explained by other information sources.

Some evidence supports the use of cadaver dogs in finding buried human remains, the report said.

The report recommended further physical searches of the entire property near the north coast NSW town of Kempsey. If human remains are found in those areas, the report said, they would likely be of the clandestine burial type and not typical Christian burials.

The reports authors said some of the anomalies could be archaeological as well as forensic. They noted the only way to determine for sure if there are bodies buried on the site is to excavate.

The former federal Indigenous Australians minister Linda Burney said the reports were deeply disturbing and called for a full investigation. The NSW premier, Chris Minns, announced he would support further searches.

In January, the NSW government confirmed the search had widened to include investigative work at two other stolen generations institutions: Cootamundra girls home and Bomaderry infants home.

Since the revelations, Aboriginal Affairs NSW has been brokering meetings between the survivor organisation, the Kinchela Boys Home Aboriginal Corporation, and the Kempsey Local Aboriginal Land Council, which owns the site.

A spokesperson for the minister for Aboriginal affairs and treaty, David Harris, said the government is working to engage expert archaeological and heritage services to support the next phase of the Missing Children Project, which encompasses all three stolen generations institutions.

This is highly sensitive and technical work which requires a number of steps to comply with heritage legislation, the spokesperson said.

The minister notes the sensitivity of these issues which involve sorry business and can cause trauma for stolen generations survivors, their families and their communities.

Related: NSW government funds investigations into possible clandestine burials at three Stolen Generations sites

Kinchela Aboriginal Boys Training Home was run by the Aborigines Protection Board, later called the Aborigines Welfare Board, under the NSW government from 1924 until it closed in 1970.

An estimated 400 to 600 Aboriginal boys between the ages of five and 15 were taken away from their families and incarcerated there under the laws and policies of the stolen generations.

The stated aim was to assimilate them into white society by training them to be labourers. Kinchela, on the banks of the Macleay River, included a dairy and farm, where the boys did all the work. It was known during its time of operation as a violent and unregulated place.

Kinchela survivors have long maintained that Aboriginal boys died at the home, either as a result of the brutal physical punishment and neglect or because they may have met with foul play.
Oxford Crown Court heard Anthony Stocks groomed and attacked the girl repeatedly and wanted to 'marry' her - Thames Valley Police

A paedophile who raped a girl then tried to murder a boy he feared would expose his crimes by throwing him off a 100ft clifftop in Brighton has been jailed for life.

Anthony Stocks was told he would spend at least 19 years in jail for trying to kill the 10-year-old boy at Ovingdean, Sussex, and launching attacks on the girl over a three-year period.

The 54-year-old predator, who said he worked as an extra on film sets, groomed and attacked the girl repeatedly and wanted to marry her, Oxford Crown Court was told.

Stockss crimes came to light after the scared girl eventually confided in the boy, neither of whom can be named for legal reasons.

Aware that the boy was planning to put a stop to his attacks, Stocks took the boy to Ovingdean in September 2022 and threw him off the 100ft cliff. It was heard that the paedophile had previously contemplated pushing him off a cliff at a quarry several weeks earlier.

A witness described how they saw a small shape fall from the Brighton cliff before hearing a blood-curdling shriek.

The boy was airlifted to St Georges Hospital in London, where it was discovered he had several fractures on his head and arm, a deformity to his neck and a laceration of his spleen and kidney.

When interviewed by police, the girl said Stocks had admitted he was going to push the boy off the cliff 'to get rid of him' - Eddie Mitchell

When interviewed by police, the girl said Stocks had admitted he was going to push the boy off the cliff to get rid of him.

Detective Sergeant Rachel Jackson, of Thames Valley Police, called the girls ordeal one of the worst cases of child abuse she had ever investigated.

Stocks was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault of a child under 13 and one charge of causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

He was also found guilty of one count of rape of a child on at least three occasions and attempted murder. He denied all the charges

You have ruined the lives of two children

Stocks, of Goring, Reading, was told the minimum term he would have to serve before he could be considered for release was 19-and-a-half years.

Judge Daly told him: You have ruined the lives of these two children.

Referring to the sexual assaults, the judge continued: You groomed and assaulted this vulnerable young girl for your own deviant sexual pleasure.

It happened time and time again and its clear from the evidence that you became utterly obsessed with her and would go to any level to stop anyone interfering with your abhorrent behaviour.

You have heard the effect the injuries have had on [the boy].

He has been severely traumatised by what you did to him, made even worse because he thought he was going on a special trip. He trusted you and you betrayed that trust to cover up your own sexual deviant behaviour.

He added: This was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, the evidence shows you had researched your plan.

You made internet enquiries about trains to Brighton and the distance from the seafront to the cliffs.

You told [the girl] about your plans to get rid of [the boy].

At the bottom of the cliffs was a concrete path by sheer coincidence at the point where he landed the concrete did not quite reach but there was an area of rough ground.

If he landed two or three feet to the side he would have landed on concrete and I do not doubt he would have been killed instantly.

Danger assessment

Judge Daly said if an adult assaulted a young girl and then pushed a boy off a cliff, the resulting danger assessment would be obvious.

However, he said he must be satisfied he poses a risk of serious harm to the public.

He said: You have reached the age of 54 without committing other offences of a similar nature, you have significant disabilities of your own.

However, your total failure to accept responsibility for what youve done together with your ongoing obsession with a child gives me grave concerns.

Your inability to recognise what youve done leads me to believe that you are even more dangerous.

There is a significant risk to members of the public, particularly to young girls. I am quite sure if you had not been prevented your abuse of [the girl] would have continued.

The criteria is made and made a finding that you are dangerous.

Turning to mitigation, Judge Daly took into account that Stocks had a low IQ and learning difficulties as well as a diagnosis of depressive disorder.

You had a depraved background, the judge said. You suffered emotional abuse. You are assessed as being extremely vulnerable to exploitation in prison.

You are regarded as being a vulnerable adult and have had suicidal thoughts.

Stocks was found guilty after a 13-day trial heard over May and June.
Home Office estimates show asylum support costs could rise to 40 billion over the next four years - James Manning/PA

Rachel Reeves will next week single out a spiralling hotel bill for asylum seekers that could cost up to 10 billion a year as she pins the blame for financial pressures on the Tories.

The Chancellor will use a speech to the House of Commons on Monday to reveal the details of her audit on hidden public spending realities commissioned after Labour took office.

Conservatives and think tank figures are claiming that Labour figures are exaggerating their surprise at the problems in government to pave the way for tax rises in the autumn.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, is expected to say the black hole in the public finances is around 19 billion - Jonathan Brady/Reuters

The Telegraph revealed that Ms Reeves is expected to say the black hole in the public finances is around 19 billion, with an early assessment pointing to that figure.

This newspaper now understands that among the hidden issues the Chancellor will point to will be the scale of spending forecasted to house asylum seekers in hotels, which is more than three times previously thought.

Home Office estimates show asylum support costs are set to rise to 30 billion to 40 billion over the next four years, around 10 billion a year.

That is significantly higher than previously assumed. It had been said that 8 million was being spent on hotels for asylum seekers each day, which amounts to 3 billion a year.

Completely uncontrolled

One Government source familiar with plans for Monday said that the asylum hotel bill had been completely uncontrolled under the Tories.

Another said: We are facing enormous asylum accommodation costs for the next year until we are able to get to the point that we can get processing up to speed. But that wont happen overnight.

Housing asylum-seekers in hotels, with the state picking up the bill, was a move taken under the Tories due to the surge in small boats crossing the English Channel carrying migrants to the UK.

During the election campaign, the Tories accused Sir Keir of having no detailed plan for stopping small boat crossings.

The Prime Minister has scrapped the Tories Rwanda deportation plan, calling it a gimmick and instead putting focus on smashing the gangs who are smuggling people on small boats.

Sir Keir Starmer scrapped the Tories' plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, calling it a 'gimmick' - Carl Court/Getty Images

The figure for soaring hotel bill costs could be contested by the Conservatives. It is unclear if a full breakdown of the forecast will be revealed by the Government.

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, criticised the inheritance passed on by her Tory predecessors in the Home Office, including the cost of the hotel bills, earlier this week.

Ms Cooper said: We have often warned that, frankly, it would be cheaper to put them up in the Paris Ritz. As it turns out, it would have been cheaper to buy the Paris Ritz.

Ms Reevess statement on Monday comes after weeks of Labour claiming that it is facing the worst economic inheritance since the Second World War.

The claim has been fiercely contested by the Tories, now in opposition, who have said it is an exaggeration to create political space to increase tax rises in the autumn.

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor who left the Treasury earlier this month, called the claim absolute nonsense and said Ms Reeves wants to raise the ground for tax rises.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, said on Friday that the Chancellor should not feel any sense of surprise that the public finances are in a poor state.

Mr Johnson said: I dont think its really very credible at all. In terms of the scale of the problems facing public services, lots of individuals and organisations have pointed out that public services are performing considerably worse than they were pre-Covid.

They are performing worse than they were back in 2010. We have seen that Birmingham and other local authorities have been going bust, we know what the waiting lists are in the NHS.

We have always known that public sector pay is a long way behind private sector pay in terms of what has happened in recent years so there shouldnt really be any sense of surprise that there is a big issue here.

The choice is, as ever, do you want the public services to be as good as they are, better than they are, or are you willing to see them get worse?
Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada Garcia (L) and Joaquin Guzman Lopez (R)

Two of the alleged leaders of one of the most violent and powerful criminal organisations in the world were arrested after being lured to the United States in an elaborate sting operation.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia, the co-founder of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel and the son of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Lopez were arrested after being tricked into flying to the US instead of to another airport in Mexico.

The suspects landed in a private jet at the airport in El Paso, Texas on Thursday where they were arrested.

Details of how the alleged drug lords were captured are unclear but Fox News reported Mr Guzman Lopez convinced Mr Zambada Garcia to board the jet which he believed was heading south in Mexico but instead, it flew north and landed in the United States.

When the plane touched down, Mr Guzman Lopez surrendered and El Mayo was detained.

Agents stand by a plane believed to have carried Mr Zambada Garcia and Mr Guzman Lopez - Reuters

The New York Times quoted US officials saying the son of El Chapo lured Mr Zambada Garcia to El Paso under false pretences.

It is not clear if or why he may have betrayed his fellow cartel boss. The US is known to use plea deals to encourage members to cooperate with them.

Merrick Garland, the US attorney general said in a statement: The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organisations in the world.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to Mr Zambadas capture.

The Justice Department earlier put up a $15 million bounty for any information leading to Mr Zambada Garcia's arrest or conviction

Mr Garland said both men were facing multiple charges in the US for leading the cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

He added that the two men joined a growing list of Sinaloa cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, he said.

Court documents showed on Friday that Mr Zambada pleaded not guilty to US drug trafficking charges.

He waived his right to appear personally in court and directed that a not guilty plea be entered on his behalf.

He was ordered detained without bond and is scheduled to be arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Berton next Wednesday, the records showed.

Undated images of Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada Garcia - AFP

The two men were said to be among the most consequential drug traffickers in Mexico and oversaw operations that sent drugs to the US, Europe and other parts of the world.

It is understood that Mr Zambada Garcia has never been imprisoned, unlike his top ally, Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as El Chapo.

After his father was extradited to the US, it appeared that Mr Guzman Lopez was promoted to head the cartel.

In 2019, El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison by a court in New York.

After El Chapos capture, several of his sons, who were known as Chapitos or The Little Chapos took control of the crime organisation, US authorities said.

One son, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was extradited to the United States last year to face drug charges.

Killing Americans coast to coast

Anne Milgram, the US Drugs Enforcement Administration chief, said in a statement that the arrest of Mr Zambada Garcia strikes at the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast.

She said the capture of El Chapos son strikes another enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel.

In 2012, a federal grand jury in Texas indicted the 76-year-old Mr Zambada Garcia on charges of murder and conspiracy connected with drug trafficking, money laundering and organised crime.

Breon Peace, the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, said: As alleged, Zambada Garcia is charged with numerous drug offences, now including the manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, a deadly drug that was largely unheard of when he founded the Sinaloa Cartel more than three decades ago and today is responsible for immeasurable harm.
Donald Trump has called Kamala Harriss statement on the Gaza war disrespectful before a meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Florida to discuss the conflict.

Harris, the US vice-president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, had seemed to mark a change of tone on the Israel-Gaza war on Thursday after her own meeting with Netanyahu, when she declared she would not be silent about the suffering of Palestinians.

Trump criticised Harris on Friday before his meeting at his Mar-a-Lago home, calling her remarks disrespectful as he targeted her over an issue that has split the Democratic party.

They werent very nice pertaining to Israel, Trump said. I actually dont know how a person who is Jewish could vote for her, but thats up to them.

Right-wing Israeli politicians attacked Harris and anonymous officials have suggested the remarks could make it more difficult to conclude a ceasefire deal.

I think to the extent that Hamas understands theres no daylight between Israel and the United States, that expedites the deal, said Netanyahu to reporters at his meeting with Trump. And I would hope that those comments dont change that.

A Harris aide rejected a report in the Times of Israel that a senior official had said that Harris criticism would hinder the conclusion of a deal.

I dont know what theyre talking about, a Harris aide told CNN.

Photographs showed Trump warmly greeting Netanyahu, who is concluding a one-week visit to the US that has been marked by large protests against the war. People stood along the route used by Netanyahus motorcade to visit Trump, holding up signs that read: Ceasefire now and Convicted fellon [sic] invites a war criminal.

Before the meeting, Netanyahu said he believed military pressure on Hamas had created movement in ceasefire talks, and that he would send a team to an upcoming round of negotiations in Rome. Time will tell if were closer to a ceasefire deal, he said.

The meeting is their first since Trump left the White House in 2020. The men have had a strained relationship in the past after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his victory in the 2020 election, a vote that Trump has claimed, without evidence, was manipulated. Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake, Trump said at the time. Fuck him.

On Friday, the two appeared to have reconciled. Weve always had a good relationship, Trump told reporters before the meeting.

The two were political allies in the past. Trump largely gave Netanyahu carte blanche during his first term in office, ADD moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He told Fox News this week that Israel should finish the war and bring back the hostages fast. They are getting decimated with this publicity, and you know Israel is not very good at public relations, Trump told the broadcaster.

Harris has tried to thread the needle of continuing the Biden administrations policy of support for Israel while assuaging growing anger among Democrats about the humanitarian toll of the conflict that has killed 39,000 Palestinians. Nearly half the Democrats in Congress skipped Netanyahus speech in the House of Representatives, and dozens openly said they were boycotting it because of the war.

Harris met Netanyahu on Thursday at the White House shortly after the prime minister had sat down with Joe Biden. The separate meetings highlighted how the presumptive Democratic nominee has become increasingly independent since launching her presidential campaign.

At the same time, aides tried to play down the potential for change between Biden and Harris on Israel. [Bidens] and [Harriss] message to PM Netanyahu was the same: its time to get the hostage and ceasefire deal done, wrote Phil Gordon, Harriss national security adviser.

Harris called the meeting frank and constructive, and said Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters. She indicated that she would not halt military aid to Israel because she would always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself.

But she went further than other administration officials in criticising how Israel has prosecuted the war in Gaza, bolstering hopes she may, at least rhetorically, give more voice to the humanitarian concerns of Palestinians.

She said she had expressed her serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians, and I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating  the images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.

Harris did not say how Netanyahu responded to the Biden administrations offer of a three-part ceasefire that would begin with a withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from population centres and some hostages being released. She did not take questions from reporters following the remarks.

There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, Harris said. And as I just told prime minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done. So, to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you.

The Democratic mayor of Dearborn, Abdullah Hammoud, said in an interview with Michigan public radio: Many of us are waiting to see what policy platform Harris puts forward. Hammoud has been outspoken on Gaza in a state where 13.2% voted uncommitted in this years Democratic primary in a protest against Bidens policy towards Israel.

In the conversations that we have had I have found her to be sympathetic and empathetic, he said. Ive found her to be someone that wants to listen  obviously theres much that remains to be seen.

A senior administration official said before the meetings with Biden and Harris that the framework of the deal is basically there but that there are some very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved.

There are some things we need from Hamas, and there are some things we need from the Israeli side, and I think youll see that play out here over the course of the coming week, the official said.
A volunteer with Listen to Michigan near a voting site in Dearborn, Michigan, on 27 February 2024. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

The protest movement that sought to use the Democratic primaries to pressure Joe Biden to shift his policy on Israel and Gaza breathed a sigh of relief when he ended his bid for re-election. But theyre not ready to promise theyll support Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

More than 700,000 Americans voted uncommitted, or its equivalent, in state primaries as a message to Biden that he risked losing significant support in November if he did not shift away from his support for Israel. As next months Democratic national convention inches closer, the movement has turned its sights to pressuring Harris to shape a new course on Gaza policy. Its demands of Harris include an arms embargo on Israel and support for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, according to health officials.

Related: Kamala Harris says I will not be silent on suffering in Gaza after Netanyahu talks

Uncommitted voters say that their message to the White House is clear: stop funding Israels war, or lose our votes.

[Harris] could get my vote, but its going to be a difficult journey. We actually need to see action, said Fadel Nabilsi, a Palestinian American attorney who voted uncommitted in Michigans Democratic primary. Biden won the swing state, where 278,000 Arab Americans live, by just 154,000 votes in 2020. You need to get on the same page with all of us, Nabilsi said, if youd like to get our support and our backing.

Harris has spoken more forcefully about Palestinian suffering than her boss, and in remarks on Thursday after meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israels prime minister, she used sharp terms to call for a ceasefire and the protection of Palestinian civilians.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time.

She acknowledged that Israel has a right to defend itself and denounced Hamas, but also added: We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies [in Gaza]. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.

But despite a difference in tone, she has not signaled how or whether her politics on the region would break from Bidens  the departure that uncommitted activists are looking for.

The White Houses policy to continue to supply American bombs to Netanyahu is like a bartender serving drinks to an alcoholic while repeatedly urging them to stay sober, Waleed Shahid, a progressive Democratic strategist and an adviser to the Uncommitted National Movement, said after Harris spoke on Thursday. Empathy for Palestinians from the vice-president is a step in the right direction but people just want a policy change to stop the supply of American bombs to Israels war.

Related: Kamala Harris says I will not be silent on suffering in Gaza after Netanyahu talks

The uncommitted movement gained ground in March following a campaign called Listen to Michigan, which succeeded in persuading more than 100,000 voters to mark their ballots uncommitted during the states Democratic primary in February. The grassroots effort spread to more than two dozen states, ultimately earning the movement 30 delegates who will travel to the Democratic national convention next month.

The movement is urging delegates outside of the uncommitted camp to support their policy demands during the convention. Harris delegates can help push for an arms embargo, said Shahid. They dont need to become uncommitted delegates.

Abbas Alawieh, an uncommitted delegate from Michigan, said that people close to the Harris campaign have reached out to uncommitted activists in recent days, but declined to share specifics.

We need her to meet with members of our community. We need her to meet with uncommitted delegates, Alawieh said. We need to hear from her and her team how she will embrace an approach that prioritizes and values Palestinian lives and the lives of every civilian.

More than 600 people joined an uncommitted national organizing call on Monday night for the movements recently launched Not Another Bomb campaign, which urges US leaders to end financial and military support for Israels war.

Related: US medics who volunteered in Gaza demand arms embargo over unbearable cruelty inflicted by Israel

Chloe Lundine, a Detroit, Michigan, resident and uncommitted voter, joined a protest near the Capitol building in Washington DC during Netanyahus visit. Earlier this week, she said, she was pressured to resign from her position as an analyst at Wayne State University after posting pro-Palestinian art outside her office. While she was cautiously optimistic that Harris would change course on Gaza policy, she added that shed love to see her speak with Netanyahu and plainly say that she supports a permanent ceasefire at the very minimum.

Uncommitted voters are torn on whether theyll vote for the Democratic candidate if their demands arent met  they recognize that Donald Trump is not likely to bring peace to Gaza but are resistant to pressure from Democrats to vote against their conscience. Some said they would be dissatisfied if Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, were picked as Harriss running mate, citing his efforts to quash pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.

For Ghada Elnajjar, a Palestinian American organizer based in Georgia, the decision of whether to vote for Harris or a candidate like the Green partys Jill Stein keeps her up at night.

On the one hand, I do consider that it is time for this country to break shackles from a two-party system and introduce a third party, said Elnajjar. On the other hand, I understand theres so many other policies that we need to support: the economy, education, the environment.

This could look two ways

A separate anti-war movement has also started mobilizing. On Thursday, Pennsylvania activists launched a campaign to collect pledges from voters refusing to vote for Harris unless she breaks more sharply from Biden policies.

President Biden lost the support of hundreds of thousands of voters because he refused to stop funding genocide in Gaza, said Reem Abuelhaj, an organizer with the No Ceasefire No Vote campaign. Vice-president Harris now has a unique opportunity to win back those votes. But that will only happen if she does everything in her power to bring about a ceasefire.

Other activists may not be pressuring people to withhold their votes, but they warn that Harris shouldnt take their support for granted.

Instead of trying to stop support for Harris, our strategy is going to focus on holding her accountable to values and demands of the majority of the Democratic party base and electorate, which includes a lasting and permanent ceasefire via an arms embargo on Israel, said Lexis Zeidan, a Palestinian American activist with the uncommitted movement from Dearborn, Michigan.

A recent Gallup poll found that more Americans oppose Israels war on Gaza than support it: 48% compared with 42%. Just 23% of Democrats said they approve of Israels military campaign.

This could look two ways, said Shahid, the Democratic strategist. Either the 700,000 uncommitted voters could actively mobilize for vice-president Harris, if they felt like she had shifted significantly on Gaza from Biden.

If she doesnt shift on Gaza, I think people will be much more reserved about their enthusiasm, in terms of knocking on doors, donating, telling their friends and family and their community to vote for Harris, even if they dont like Trump.
The Government should draw up a 2.5 billion emergency loan pot to stop ailing universities from collapsing, a new report has said.

The Government should draw up a 2.5 billion emergency loan pot to stop ailing universities from collapsing, a new report has said.

The lack of a plan to deal with the potential collapse of some UK universities is causing an unsustainable level of uncertainty for students, according to consultancy Public First and the University of Warwick.

They called on Government to take urgent action to prevent universities going bust and warned there is a contagion risk for the entire higher education sector if one goes under.

In a report published on Friday, they urged ministers to create a 2.5 billion transformation fund to provide state-backed loans to universities that could prove cash injections would save them.

Public First said repayable loans would act as a lifeline to universities that have plans in place to secure their future but not enough money to enact them.

The report called for the issue to be near the top of the new Governments priority list as everyone shares the risk from a disorderly exit.

Crisis talks for emergency plan

It comes as ministers hold crisis talks about the future of several universities amid fears that some could be pushed under later this year.

The Departments for Education and Science, Innovation and Technology are understood to be in accelerated talks to produce an emergency plan if one or more fails.

The Telegraph reported earlier this week that top universities are preparing for potential takeovers of former polytechnics facing financial crises, with growing fears about those without the long-standing reputation of some of their peers.

About 40 per cent of universities in England are expected to run budget deficits this year, according to the Office for Students.

Three universities are thought to be in serious financial peril, and universities believe Labour will pressure the sector to manage their own financial problems rather than provide a taxpayer bailout.

Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, said on Monday that universities were expected to manage their own budgets before seeking help from the taxpayer.

Speaking to the BBC Radio 4s Today programme, she said: Universities are autonomous and there are expectations around how they manage their budgets, and I would expect them to do that without seeking any calls on the taxpayer.

Ms Phillipson says universities are expected to manage their own budgets before seeking help from the taxpayer - TOLGA AKMEN/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The report called for the Government to create a special administration regime for higher education to protect students in case universities go bust. It said this could be modelled on elements of other national infrastructure, including rail, designed to safeguard national public assets under the law.

It also suggested the role of Englands higher education watchdog should be rebalanced to take a more proactive approach to managing and forecasting financial risk.

Universities have been hit by a dramatic drop in international student numbers, which had been propping up the sector as domestic tuition fees remain frozen at 9,250.

Home Office figures in April showed a Tory crackdown on foreign student visas has slashed the number of dependants they are bringing to the UK by 90 per cent.

The number of overseas students applying for visas also fell by 15 per cent, from 39,900 in the first quarter of 2023 to 35,000 in the same period in 2024.

Crucial inflection point

Jonathan Simons, partner and head of education at Public First, told The Telegraph the crisis could soon become critical for many universities if student numbers drop further.

This summer is a really crucial inflection point - domestic student and particularly international student numbers could be the trigger for a lot of universities, he said.

By this autumn, a lot of those risks may have begun to materialise

A Department for Education spokesperson said: We are committed to creating a secure future for our world-leading universities so these engines of growth can deliver for students, taxpayers, workers and the economy.

We recognise the immediate financial strain that some providers are under and the Education Secretary has been clear that we are working closely with the Office for Students to monitor risks and protect students. We will set out further details shortly.
Police officers at Gare de Lyon railway station - Nathan Laine/Bloomberg

French intelligence sources hinted that the massive sabotage attack on rail lines leading to Paris on Friday may have been the work of Left-wing radicals.

But with no confirmed suspects, Russia was also blamed as suspicions swirled that Vladimir Putin has been yearning for a chance to humiliate Emmanuel Macron.

There are reasons to believe either may be correct.

As of Friday afternoon, with theories coming from multiple quarters and little to no hard evidence, it remained unclear who exactly the perpetrators were.

The French authorities have laid on a large, high-tech security regime to defend the Olympics, with Reaper drones in the skies and AI-powered cameras on the ground to watch for suspicious activity.

But Fridays attack suggests they paid far less attention to key rail routes, which were sabotaged by old-fashioned arson methods rather than cyber-attacks.

Damaged cables near Courtalain, France, at the site where saboteurs targeted the high-speed train network - Mayor of Vald'Yerre/Franck Marchand/Mayor of Vald'Yerre via REUTERS

Russia is a suspect in the Olympics sabotage - Brian Snyder/REUTERS

The perpetrators had a good working knowledge of the railway and were most likely seeking to cause maximum disruption while avoiding any loss of human life.

There have been five incidents of damage to the SNCF rail network, all of them targeting electronic or signalling boxes. French media reports said bundles of cables in the network had been burned or severed.

The result was around 50 per cent of the trains in the north and east of France were not running as of Friday morning, while the high-speed TVG network was also paralysed. The disruption is expected to last throughout the weekend.

Passengers wait for their train departures at the Gare Montparnasse in Paris - THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP

The attacks came in the early hours, when no trains were running on the high-speed network, and were carried out in such a way that control centres would have become immediately aware of the damage and shut down the system.

Had the perpetrators struck during the morning rush and employed acts of sabotage that could not have been so easily detected remotely  such as parking vehicles across the line  the outcome might have been very different.

France has not yet accused any group or state over the sabotage, but many will immediately point the finger at Moscow. Other possible suspects include terrorism groups, Left-wing radicals or environmental activists.

The head of SNCF has described the arsonists as a band of lunatics but gave no clues as to their identity. Gabriel Attal, the French prime minister, said the attacks were carried out in a prepared and co-ordinated manner, as he vowed to find and punish the saboteurs.

We are obviously in a situation of conflict with Russia, and Russia is obviously not going to do anything, and thats an understatement, to help these Olympic Games be a success, suggested Jean de Gliniasty, the former French ambassador to Moscow, in an interview with French broadcaster LCI.

In April, Mr Macron, the French president, said he had no doubt whatsoever, including in terms of information, that Russian leaders were planning to disrupt or damage the Games.

Around the same time, an aide to Mr Macron warned: There is a hardening from Russia, which we have been seeing for several months.

A security source said on Friday that a smoking gun had not yet been discovered to establish whether the railway sabotage was the result of a Russian hybrid attack.

They added: We do assess overall that Russian, and their supporters, activity is rising.

This will see an increase in both the severity and frequency of incidents in the grey zone, designed to disrupt and deter the supporters of Ukraine.

However, a French intelligence source told AFP news agency that the sabotage was similar to previous incidents involving the far-Left. The modus operandi  arson attacks on installations  resembles that used by the ultra-Left in the past, the source said.

Israel, meanwhile, has blamed Iran, its arch nemesis in the Middle East, which continues to fund and support Hamas, as well as the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

The sabotage of railway infrastructure across France ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics was planned and executed under the influence of Irans axis of evil and radical Islam, said Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister.

Based on information held by Israel, Iranians are planning terrorist attacks against the Israeli delegation and all Olympic participants. Increased preventive measures must be taken to thwart their plot, he added.

Stranded passengers wait inside Gare du Nord station in Paris following cancellations - MAST IRHAM/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Frances diplomatic and military support for Ukraine has put it in the crosshairs of a new Russian campaign against Europe known as hybrid warfare, which involves sabotage, arson, cyber-attacks and other attempts to destabilise Western democracy.

And there is already a precedent for Russia launching arson attacks on businesses and infrastructure in Europe.

In May, when a mysterious fire broke out at the Diehl arms factory in Berlin, German investigators initially ruled it an accident  despite the Diehl group being part of the supply chain that supports Ukrainian forces with weapons.

They have since received intelligence from a Nato member state which strongly suggests it was actually a Russian sabotage attack.

In the previous month, pro-Russian arsonists targeted a business with commercial links to Ukraine in east London. The British Government expelled Russias defence attache in response to the attack.
A controversial new law that could see universities and student unions fined for failing to secure freedom of speech could be repealed under Labour, the Education Secretary has announced.

Bridget Phillipson said there were concerns the legislation would be disproportionate and burdensome for providers and the Office for Students (OfS) watchdog.

The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which was due to come into force next week, will be put on hold to allow for time to consider options including its repeal, she said.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson leaving Downing Street, London, after a Cabinet meeting (Lucy North/PA)

In a written ministerial statement on Friday, the Education Secretary said: I am aware of concerns that the Act would be burdensome on providers and on the OfS, and I will confirm my long-term plans as soon as possible.

To enable students to thrive in higher education, I welcome the OfSs plans to introduce strengthened protections for students facing harassment and sexual misconduct, including relating to the use of non-disclosure agreements in such cases by universities and colleges.

The Act was introduced by the previous Tory government and sought to place a duty to secure and promote the importance of freedom of speech and academic expression

Ms Phillipson has signalled that Labour wants an end to so-called culture wars on campuses after a number of high-profile protests  including at Oxford before a talk by academic Kathleen Stock over her views on gender identity.

Higher education institutions will still have a legal duty to uphold freedom of speech under existing legislation.

When the new powers were introduced, the Conservatives said it would allow speakers to express views which others may disagree with as long as they did not cross a threshold into hate speech or incitement of violence.

Critics argued the measures went too far and could lead to further disruption, including by potentially enabling extremists to access campuses.

A review of the OfS by public servant Sir David Behan warned there was a perception that the watchdog is not sufficiently independent and recommended its structure be revised.

In her statement, Ms Phillipson said the regulator, which would have been allowed to fine or sanction institutions under the new law, should more sharply focus on key priorities such as the financial stability of universities.

The Government accepts the core analysis of the review and as set out in our manifesto, we recognise that strong regulation is a crucial element for a stable, world-leading higher education sector, that delivers for students and the economy, she said.

I have written to colleagues separately about my decision to stop further commencement of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, in order to consider options, including its repeal.

Downing Street rejected suggestions that the move amounted to a weakening of free speech.

Asked by journalists whether the decision was a backslide, a Number 10 spokeswoman said: I disagree with that characterisation, but it is also right to listen to concerns and take stock, and thats what the department is doing.

The Tories accused Labour of displaying a willingness to sacrifice the next generation on the altar of their own ideological dogma over the decision but Jewish groups welcomed the move, suggesting the legislation risked opening the door to antisemitism on campuses.

Shadow education secretary Damian Hinds said: Free speech is a fundamental right, and this must extend to universities.

Without the ability to freely express views in higher education, these centres of learning risk becoming centres of co-option and intolerance.

The fact this Labour Government is willing to scrap the measures we put in place to protect these rights makes clear that they are willing to sacrifice the next generation on the altar of their own ideological dogma.

Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said: We welcome the Secretary of States decision to halt the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, pending consideration of repeal.

The Union of Jewish Students has been clear that the act, while well-intentioned, risked enabling antisemitic extremists to access university campuses by severely impacting the ability of universities to block their presence  we strongly support UJSs concerns and reflected this in our Jewish Manifesto for the 2024 General Election.

This halt will enable the Government to consider how to ensure that freedom of speech is protected without allowing free rein to purveyors of hate speech.
Alternative healer Hongchi Xiao was previously prosecuted over the death of a six-year-old diabetic boy in Australia after he instructed the youngsters parents to stop giving him his insulin medication, his trial was told.

Xiaos trial for the manslaughter of Danielle Carr-Gomm, who died in Wiltshire in October 2016, heard that he was convicted of manslaughter by an Australian court in that case.

Winchester Crown Court heard that Xiao told the boys parents to stop giving the life-saving medication to him.

However, the trial was told there was no evidence that the defendant gave a similar instruction to Mrs Carr-Gomm, although it was claimed he said well done to her after the 71-year-old informed him that she had stopped her medication.

The court heard that, after the boys insulin treatment was stopped, he started to become seriously ill and began vomiting black liquid which Xiao said was just part of self-healing body adjustment. But the boy died on April 27 2015, 18 months before Mrs Carr-Gomm.

Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that the boys family had attended Xiaos workshops on Paida Lajin, a self-healing therapy, in Hurstville, Sydney, which involved participants slapping themselves and each other, and fasting.

He said: The defendant himself did not perform any slapping on any of the participants.

Shortly after the start of the workshop, as the judge who dealt with him in Australia found, the defendant told (the boy)s mother to stop (his) insulin injections.

Such an instruction is clear evidence of how strongly held the defendants views were, for example, as to insulin being poison.

Mr Atkinson said that, by day three, the boys mother told the workshop group of her sons deteriorating health and said he was vomiting, had high blood sugar levels and high ketone levels.

Despite this, the court was told, Xiao continued to instruct the mother to not give insulin to her son and his health deteriorated further. On the fifth day he needed to be pushed in a pram because he could not walk or stand to dress himself and started to vomit yellow and black liquid.

The court heard that the mother confronted Xiao and told him: Look this picture, last night he vomiting black stuff, all these things, to which he replied: Is the detox. All the bad stuff come from  come out from his body, his organ. Its just part of self-healing body adjustment.

Four days later, the boy was in his room with his grandmother when he began vomiting black liquid and had a seizure.

As the grandmother went for help, she locked herself out of the room, and when hotel staff arrived they found the boy motionless on the bed, the court heard.

Mr Atkinson said Xiao also went to the room and began slapping the boys inner elbows until paramedics arrived but they were unable to resuscitate him and he died as a result of diabetic ketoacidosis.

Mr Atkinson told the jury: The defendant was ultimately prosecuted for, and convicted of (the boy)s manslaughter.

It follows that there can be no question but that the defendant owed (the boy) a duty of care whilst he was an attendee at his workshop, and that he breached that duty.

He deprecated and deterred the use of conventional medicine even when he knew that to do so risked very serious consequences which could in turn be life-threatening.

He advocated a course that he knew was not medically justified, and was contrary to medical experience, and a boy died as a result.

His actions towards Danielle Carr-Gomm occurred when the very real, obvious and serious risk of death had become all the more real and all the more obvious.

They involved similar conduct, congratulating a type 1 diabetic who replaced insulin with Paida Lajin, and taking no action to secure her help despite the cruel lesson that ought to have been provided by the boys untimely death.

Xiao had denied having a duty of care over Mrs Carr-Gomm or that he had breached any duty of care.
Streeting says health watchdog not fit for purpose and needs radical reform

Englands health and social care watchdog is not fit for purpose and needs radical reform, Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said as he pledged immediate action to restore public confidence.

Mr Streeting was reacting to an independent review into the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the body that monitors and inspects all health and adult social care providers to ensure safety and quality standards.

It identified significant internal failings affecting its ability to identify poor performance at hospitals, care homes and GP practices.

The Health Secretary said he was brutally honest with the public before the election that problems with the NHS would take time to fix, but he had not anticipated that the regulator would have failed to such an extent, in comments to BBC Radio 5 Live.

Members of the public looking at ratings on the website should take them with a pinch of salt, he told ITVs Good Morning Britain, adding that he had asked the commission to urgently qualify its ratings.

Asked if there was a fix that did not involve spending more money, Mr Streeting said: I dont think money is the issue here. I think its culture.

He said there needs to be a radical reform of the organisation.

Leadership is vital. We need a new permanent chief executive at the Care Quality Commission and a new chief inspector of hospitals that we can work with to turn the regulator around, he told BBC Breakfast.

He added: I never expected to be told that one in five health and care providers had not received a rating, that some health and care providers have not been inspected for a decade, that some of those ratings are effectively manufactured and invented using partial views and inspections combined with historic ratings and judgments.

I am absolutely appalled.

The review, led by Dr Penny Dash, chairwoman of the North West London Integrated Care Board, found some organisations had not been reinspected for several years, with the oldest rating for an NHS hospital dating from more than 10 years ago while the oldest for a social care provider was from 2015.

Of the locations the CQC has the power to inspect, it is estimated about one in five has never received a rating, the interim report found.

It also revealed a lack of experience among some staff, including examples of inspectors visiting hospitals and saying they had never been in a hospital before, as well as an inspector of a care home who had never met a person with dementia.

The report found inspection numbers were still well below pre-Covid levels, a lack of consistency in the watchdogs assessments and issues with its IT system.

Mr Streeting said: When I joined the department, it was already clear that the NHS was broken and the social care system in crisis.

But I have been stunned by the extent of the failings of the institution that is supposed to identify and act on failings.

Its clear to me the CQC is not fit for purpose.

We cannot wait to act on these findings, so I have ordered the publication of this interim report so action can begin immediately to improve regulation and ensure transparency for patients.

I know this will be a worrying development for patients and families who rely on CQC assessments when making choices about their care.

I want to reassure them that I am determined to grip this crisis and give people the confidence that the care theyre receiving has been assessed.

This Government will never turn a blind eye to failure.

The Department of Health and Social Care announced immediate steps to restore public confidence in the CQC, which is appointing Professor Sir Mike Richards, a former hospital physician and its first chief inspector of hospitals, to review its assessment framework.

Transparency regarding how the regulator determines ratings for health and social care providers will also be improved and the Government will have increased oversight of the CQC, the department said.

Dr Dash was asked to carry out the review of the CQC in May and has spoken to about 200 senior managers, caregivers and clinicians working across the sector, along with more than 50 senior managers and professional advisers at the body over the last two months.

She said: The contents of my interim report underscore the urgent need for comprehensive reform within the CQC.

By addressing these failings together, we can enhance the regulators ability to inspect and rate the safety and quality of health and social care services across England.

Our ultimate goal is to build a robust, effective regulator that can support a sustainable and high-performing NHS and social care system which the general public deserves.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: This is going to be a long and difficult journey for the CQC, but one that is entirely necessary.

Care England stands ready to work with the regulator to help them deliver an effective and supportive regulatory system that will be the cornerstone of public protection and delivers fair judgments across health and social care.

The CQC must embark on a radical improvement programme that should not only include some tangible improvements in their performance, but also needs to move away from a culture of blame.

We all want proportionate and effective regulation, and the challenge now is for CQC to take action and work with organisations across the sector to deliver it.

Kate Terroni, CQCs interim chief executive, said: We accept in full the findings and recommendations in this interim review, which identifies clear areas where improvement is urgently needed.

Many of these align with areas we have prioritised as part of our work to restore trust with the public and providers by listening better, working together more collaboratively and being honest about what weve got wrong.

We are working at pace and in consultation with our stakeholders to rebuild that trust and become the strong, credible, and effective regulator of health and care services that the public and providers need and deserve.

Progress will be monitored over the summer and the full independent report will be published in autumn, the Department of Health said.
Streeting: Time for assisted dying debate has come, as Bill introduced in Lords

An Assisted Dying Bill has officially been introduced in the House of Lords as the Health Secretary said it is a debate whose time has come.

The prospect of legalising assisted death has increasingly been in the spotlight in the past year, with moves being made elsewhere in the British Isles, and the revelation from cancer-stricken TV star Dame Esther Rantzen that she has joined Dignitas.

The broadcaster and Childline founder said she had caught a glimpse of hope with this fresh bid to change the law being laid before Parliament.

The title of former Labour justice secretary Lord Falconer of Thorotons private members bill  the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill  was read out at the start of business in the House of Lords on Friday, and is expected to be debated in mid-November.

It is possible a private members bill on assisted dying could be chosen for debate in the Commons, when a ballot takes place in September.

Lord Falconer, who described assisted dying as the UKs next great social reform, said he had asked for his Bill to have its Second Reading debate in November so that colleagues in the House of Commons can, if they wish, hold their own debate and vote on Second Reading in advance of the House of Lords.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the time for debate on the divisive issue has come, but admitted he is uncharacteristically undecided on the topic.

Lord Falconers Bill would allow terminally ill adults with six months or under left to live to end their lives, and the peer has stressed that it would have strong safeguards, including that the person has to be mentally able to make the decision, two doctors would have to approve it and it must have High Court approval.

Dame Esther Rantzen is living with stage four cancer (Esther Rantzen/PA)

Some campaigners have called for any new law to be extended to people living with unbearable suffering, who may not be terminally ill, but Lord Falconer said he is very strongly against that.

He told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: My Bill is absolutely directed about how you die in the context of a terminal illness.

He said the idea of legalising assisted dying has moved up the political and social agenda in recent decades, noting Dame Esthers intervention.

The TV presenter has been a strong advocate among the voices campaigning for assisted dying to be legalised, as she lives with stage four cancer.

Last week, Dame Esthers daughter Rebecca Wilcox said her mother is living from scan to scan.

Writing in the Daily Express, Dame Esther said: This week, for the first time for over a year, I caught a glimpse of hope I have dared to look forward.

She said the introduction of the Bill had provided light at the end of a tunnel which has trapped me for so long.

What we terminally ill need is to be allowed the hope that if life becomes intolerable, we can ask for help to leave it, she wrote, saying the existing law meant anyone accompanying her on a trip to Dignitas in Switzerland to end her life would be breaking the law.

The law might actually change in time for me to die peacefully at home surrounded by those I love. Suddenly my heart lifted.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has committed to allowing a free vote on assisted dying, but has declined to put a timetable on it.

Assisting someone to end their life is currently a criminal offence in England and Wales.

An emotional debate in Westminster Hall earlier this year saw MPs from across the political spectrum give impassioned speeches for and against changing the law.

Various moves towards a change in the law have also been taking place in Scotland, on the Isle of Man and Jersey, with strong arguments from people on both sides of the argument.

Critics argue that legalisation could put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a burden on others and that the disabled, elderly, sick or depressed could be especially at risk, but supporters say it would allow people to die with dignity.

Mr Streeting said he is uncharacteristically undecided on the issue.

He told the Today programme: This will end up being both an ethical debate  is this right in principle?  and it will also go to being a practical debate  can this work in practice?.

And I think its contingent on us to help MPs and peers navigate those thorny issues in the most evidence-based and well-supported way as possible, recognising therell be sincerely and strongly held views on both sides of this debate.

He added: It is a debate I will wrestle with. Im uncharacteristically undecided on this issue, but it is a debate whose time has come.

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson said the law could be open to abuse (Martin Rickett/PA)

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson said she is happy for there to be a full debate because I think everybody needs to understand the implications of this becoming law.

She argued that despite the safeguards outlined, the law could still be open to a huge amount of abuse.

Asked about the public mood, she told Today: When you ask people the simplistic question do you support assisted suicide? a lot of people say yes. When you dig beneath that and people realise were not talking about palliative care, were talking about end of life, that support drops dramatically.

Dame Sarah Mullally, who is joint lead bishop on healthcare for the Church of England and sits in the House of Lords, said the church believes the priority for terminally ill people must be to provide urgent funding and resourcing of palliative care services rather than a law change to allow assisted dying.

The Bishop of London, a former chief nursing officer for England, said: No amount of safeguards could ensure the safety of the most vulnerable in society, should there be a change in the law allowing for assisted suicide.

We believe that there would be unintended, serious and fundamental consequences for the whole of society, especially for those who are at the most vulnerable point of their lives, and for those who love and care for them.
Temperatures are set to soar this weekend and into early next week as the Met Office warned of a heatwave.

Saturday is expected to be sunny with showers heaviest in parts of Scotland, northern England, Wales and the Midlands and the possibility of some isolated thunder.

Bright spells are forecast for Sunday, in what the weather service described as a fine and dry day for many, with temperatures expected to reach highs of 27C in the South and 25C in the North East.

Conditions are looking increasingly warm into Monday and early next week, with the Met Office confirming that some places may reach heatwave criteria.

Heatwave criteria is when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold which varies by county.

It is uncertain how long the warmer weather will last (Andrew Matthews/PA)

However, it is uncertain how long the warmer weather will last, with a possible breakdown coming next week.

Deputy chief meteorologist at the Met Office David Hayter said: As we go through the weekend, the jet stream will weaken to the west of the UK, generating an area of high pressure that will slowly move in across the UK.

High pressure means the air is sinking from higher in the atmosphere and that brings drier, settled and sunnier weather.

Temperatures will rise too, becoming widely above average. We could see maxima of 27C in the South and 25C in the North East by Sunday.

Theres a bit more in the way of patchy cloud in Northern Ireland, south and west Scotland and the Northern Isles, so temperatures will be lower there.

Earlier in the week, Met Office forecaster Greg Dewhurst warned that despite the warm weather, water temperatures could be much lower.

The weather this weekend will start on a showery note, but it will turn increasingly drier, sunnier and warmer as we move into Sunday Find out all the details for the weather this weekend below  pic.twitter.com/ABqku49IgF  Met Office (@metoffice) July 26, 2024

Mr Dewhurst told the PA news agency: At this time of year people head to the beach when the weathers warm or off to local lakes and rivers.

Be mindful that at this time of year the waters still pretty cold, around 16, 17, 18C, its not like in the Mediterranean where its much warmer.

Tom Morgan, meteorologist at the Met Office, said the hot weather is due to the fact that days are longer at this time of year, were only one month past the summer solstice and when its a sunny day, temperatures build because the land retains more heat than it loses by night.

Mr Morgan said: Even with no change in wind direction, were not drawing up weather from the south but its more to do with the fact that the sun is heating the ground during the day, creating a net increase in heat because the nights are shorter than days. The net balance of solar radiation increases.

Although theres no plume of hot air from the south initially in this warm spell, by around Wednesday next week we could start to tap into some more humid air from France, so it could start to feel more humid.

Temperatures will be above average, but if you do live in the South East we could see it turn hot and heatwave criteria could be met in some parts of the UK.
I went right to the source for this tip!

Simply Recipes / Getty Images

I absolutely love a good baked potato smothered with butter and a little salt. I used to microwave them, then switched to a couple of minutes in the microwave before baking them in the oven for a long time in high heat.

My way isnt bad, says a potato expert, but theres an even better way to ensure a baked spud turns out perfectly every time. I talked to Mike Carter, CEO of Bushmans Inc, a fourth-generation potato-growing operation in Rosholt, Wisconsin. Carter has been in the potato business for more than 25 years.

You would think that a baked potato is a baked potato, but it is not, Carter says. For the perfect baked potato, you have to be willing to invest the time.

First, be sure to scrub your potato. We grow these things in the dirt! says Carter. We either hand scrub or use a soft brush under cold water. Then, poke in a few holes with a fork to let steam escape.

Carter starts with a very hot oven450F. Pop the potato right in the oven, not wrapped in foil, for about 20 minutes. Im not a big fan of the foil, says Carter. It will help cook it through a little faster, but it steams [the potato], and the skin isnt crisp. We are not foilers in my house. We like crisp skin for a good texture.

After about 20 minutes, remove the potato from the oven, spray it with olive oil, and sprinkle it with sea salt. Then bake it for another 25 minutes or so.

There are several ways to test whether its perfectly done. My wife uses the squish method with an oven mitt. If it gives, then its done, Carter says. Im a fork guy. If I can stick a fork in it without resistance, I know its done.

Then you have to open it to add lots of butter and salt. After cooking, in my opinion, the appropriate and proper way to make a potato is to squish it, and it will pop open and look pretty, Carter says.

Simply Recipes / Alison Bickel

When Time Is Short

This double-baked method described above is the way Carter prepares the perfect potato when he has time, particularly if company is coming for dinner and he wants it to look and taste great.

When time is limited, he takes a bit of a shortcut and swaps out the first oven bake with a few minutes in the microwave. Zap it for about five minutes, then spray with oil and salt, and finish in the high-heat oven for about 20 minutes.

Carter says hes no microwave snob and will sometimes fully cook a potato that way if he wants one quickly. For lunch, I will absolutely throw a potato in the microwave and eat it. It takes close to eight minutes, maybe 10 if its a good-sized baker. Dont forget to squish or fork it to see if its done.

How To Choose the Best Potato for Baking

When you eye the big pile of potatoes at the grocery store or farmers market, choose whichever ones appeal to you.

As Americans, we shop with our eyeballs, and Im not sure that matters for the taste, Carter says. Misshapen ones will taste the same, but theyll look a little different on the plate. I don't think theres anything wrong at all with ugly produce.

What if potatoes have sprouted or have green spots? Green areas occur when a potato has been exposed to light. There can be a natural toxin in those parts, and eating (large) quantities may cause GI issues. Its best to just cut the green parts away before eating.

To help potatoes last a long time, keep them in a cool, dark place. Carter says, Our potatoes at home are stored in the dark in the basement.



Read the original article on Simply Recipes.
An alleged Mexican drug kingpin suspected of flooding the United States with deadly fentanyl and who evaded authorities for decades is in US custody after he was apparently lured across the border by federal agents.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada, 76, the alleged co-founder and leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in El Paso, Texas on Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Another alleged cartel leader, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 38, was also arrested, he said. Guzman is a son of the cartels infamous co-founder and former boss Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, 69, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison after he was convicted five years ago on multiple charges.

Both Zambada and Guzman Lopez face several charges for allegedly leading the cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks, Garland said.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, Garland said.

The sting operation to catch Zambada duped the alleged drug lord into flying to the US under false pretenses, two law enforcement officials familiar with the plot told CNN.

Zambada and Guzman Lopez boarded a plane purportedly en route to inspect a property in Mexico, the sources said, adding that at least one of the men was unaware they were headed to the US.

FBI agents arrested the two alleged drug kingpins after they landed in El Paso.

Among various criminal charges Zambada faces in the US, he was indicted by a northern Illinois grand jury in 2009, according to the US State Department.

While his whereabouts are unclear, CNN has learned that a US Justice Department aircraft frequently used for extraditions traveled from El Paso and landed at an airport near Chicago early Friday morning.

US authorities had sought Zambadas capture for years and in 2021 raised the reward for information leading to his arrest to $15 million.

Ismael Mario Zambada Garcia is the long-time leader of the Zambada Garcia faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. Zambada Garcia is unique in that he has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in jail, according to the US State Department.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Zambada and Guzman Lopez had eluded law enforcement for decades and will now face justice in the United States.

The pair allegedly oversaw the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl into the US along with related violence, Wray added.

Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram said the pairs arrests strike at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast.

Powerful cartel

The Sinaloa Cartel, named after the Mexican state where the gang was formed in the late 1980s, is one of the most powerful criminal groups in the world, raking in billions of dollars annually by trafficking drugs into the US and around the globe.

Notorious cartel boss Guzman, better known as El Chapo, was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 on homicide and drug charges and extradited to Mexico. But he escaped Mexican prison in 2001, reportedly by bribing prison guards to smuggle him out in a laundry truck. He was arrested again in 2014, but escaped again, this time through a tunnel.

Guzman was arrested for a third time in 2016 and then extradited to the United States.

In a major trial, he was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, according to the Justice Department.

Guzman was found guilty on 10 federal criminal counts, which included engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, and use of firearms.

During the trial, Guzmans lawyers argued Zambada was the real kingpin of the cartel who bribed the Mexican government to frame Guzman and remain free to run the criminal organization.

In the latest in a string of US indictments against him, Zambada was charged in February with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, an extremely potent synthetic opioid that has killed tens of thousands of Americans in an epidemic of overdoses.

Fentanyl was largely unheard of when [Zambada] founded the Sinaloa Cartel more than three decades ago and today is responsible for immeasurable harm, said Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in the indictment.

Since 1989, Zambada has imported and distributed massive amounts of narcotics, generating billions of dollars in profits, according to the indictment.

Federal prosecutors said he employed people to obtain transportation routes and warehouses to import and store narcotics, along with hit men, or sicarios, to carry out kidnappings and murders in Mexico to retaliate against rivals who threatened the cartel.

Zambadas son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, admitted during testimony at Guzmans 2018 trial to passing along orders for murders and kidnappings and was sentenced to 15 years in 2019 by a federal judge in Chicago.

He began cooperating with the US government in 2011, prosecutors said in a May 2019 filing. They said he aided authorities in helping target members of the Sinaloa Cartel and a rival gang, which lead to the charging of dozens of high-level targets and hundreds of their associates in indictments throughout the country, CNN previously reported.

The younger Zambada had known El Chapo since he was 15 years old, he testified at the kingpins trial in 2018. The younger Zambada frequently referred to El Chapo as mi compadre, or my buddy, during his testimony and said the drug lord was godfather to his youngest son.

A history of violence

El Mayo Zambada was also indicted by a US federal grand jury in April 2012, in Texas, along with other suspected top Sinaloa leaders and 22 people allegedly connected with the cartel, including Guzman. They were charged with murder and conspiracy connected with drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime.

At that point, Guzman and Zambada had already been indicted on drug trafficking and organized crime charges in several US federal courts.

The 2012 indictment in western Texas detailed two acts of violence federal prosecutors said were committed by members of the cartel; one took place during a 2010 wedding ceremony in Ciudad Juarez, when an American citizen and two members of his family were kidnapped because of their ties with the rival Juarez cartel.

The target was the groom and a resident of Columbus, New Mexico, whose body was found to be beaten, strangled and whose hands had been severed above the wrists and placed on his chest, according to the indictment.

Police found the bodies of the groom, his brother and his uncle three days after the wedding in the bed of a pickup truck, the indictment stated.

Another incident detailed in the indictment related to the kidnapping, killing and mutilation of a Texas resident in 2009 to answer for the loss of a 670-pound load of marijuana seized by the Border Patrol, prosecutors said.

This story has been updated with additional developments. CNNs Kathleen Magramo, Fidel Gutierrez, Sahar Akbarzai, Evan Perez, Josh Campbell, Mark Morales and Hannah Rabinowitz contributed reporting.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
The Girl in the Pool is a laugh riot, delivering sitcom-style shenanigans rather than a sincere sense of tension. Whether its intended to be funny or not is debatable. Director Dakota Gormans Hitchcock-inspired, psychological thriller about marital infidelity and a fracturing family takes a few of its cues from Rope, hiding a key figure in a trunk as a party transpires and a mystery murderer remains in their midst. But the similarities end there. Regardless of whether were supposed to chuckle at our heros crumbling sanity or empathize with his strife, its empty-calorie viewing designed for viewers to either mock or embrace its hijinks. Those who do celebrate its tawdry twists and turns, however, are assured to have a good time.

Meek middle manager Thomas (Freddie Prinze Jr.) seemingly has the perfect life. He has a good job, a huge home in the serene suburbs, two kids  clean-cut teenagers Alex (Tyler Lawrence Gray) and Rose (Brielle Barbusca)  and a loving wife, Kristen (Monica Potter). Hes also hiding a big secret: an affair with a younger woman, Hannah (Gabrielle Haugh). Yet their latest torrid tryst in his backyard ends in disaster when she turns up dead under suspicious circumstances, floating face-down in the pool, bleeding profusely from a head wound. Since his family is due home any minute, the panic-stricken adulterer hides the lifeless, bloodied body amongst the faded neon foam noodles and ring floats in the pool supplies trunk on the side of the house.

More from Variety

Thomas catastrophe quickly turns into calamity once Kristen reveals shes planned a surprise party for his birthday at the scene of the crime, inviting all his closest friends and colleagues. That includes Thomas cantankerous father-in-law William (Kevin Pollak), who despises Thomas and walks into every scene with an insult lobbed at the birthday boy. Why he chose to attend a party for someone he hates is the bigger mystery afoot. But as Thomas frantically attempts to clear his name, giving himself multiple pep talks in front of bathroom mirrors and sorting through a few clues, the festivities worsen with guests hanging out near the storage chest, using it as spot to make out or do drugs. Its clear he has a long night ahead of him  one filled with debauched frivolity and frazzled nerves.

Gorman and screenwriter Jackson Reid Williams pile on gimmick upon gimmick, beginning the proceedings with Thomas in media res, furiously scrubbing his blood-soaked sins away in the shower. His plight unfolds in a non-linear structure, switching back and forward on the timeline. While its never confusing, these flashbacks mostly provide cringe-worthy details (like hearing Thomas incel-ish best friend call him a Beta after not breaking the annoying neighbors camera drone) rather than add clarity to the present, which can also be fairly outlandish considering they quote Gandhi and say Prinze is like Vin Diesel with hair. Audiences will feel their bodies recoiling, hearing Thomas and Hannahs smooching sessions punctuated by the actors hilariously loud lip-smacking. And superfluous events, like Hannahs home tour where she slinks around the master bedroom and closet in her skivvies while destroying Kristens clothes and messing with her jewelry, call the films perspective into question as Thomas has no clue she ever did such devious things.

There are moments where Gorman and Williams lean into the inherent comedy of Thomas precarious situation. The scene where he grabs a large decorative vase after hearing strange noises outside before being surprised by party guests loosely functions as a setup for when he, in all seriousness, pulls a gun during the films mind-numbingly ridiculous resolution. Prinze plays the comedic undertones perfectly, specifically in the scene where he convinces his crew to return to the party after catching them smoking weed while sitting on Hannahs makeshift coffin. It also doubles as the filmmakers spin on the unbraced sink scene in Darren Aronofskys mother! where anxiety and nervous laughter are birthed. Plus, the sharp cut from inside Thomas coke-fueled confusion, where his children observe him acting like a cat mesmerized by the DJs light machine, is a high point in the films lunacy.

Still, the filmmakers fail to properly construct suspense. The antagonistic relationship between Thomas obnoxious pals Randall (Jaylen Moore) and Mike (Michael Sirow) stalls immediately. Hushed secrets between Alex and Kristen arent developed enough for us to believe their whispers are stoking Thomas suspicions. Potter and Prinze, who previously starred together in the rom-com mystery Head Over Heels, are dealt a disservice by the lax material; their dynamic doesnt generate much of a spark. Its also difficult to buy a completely unmotivated turn by William later in the film.

Aesthetically, The Girl in the Pool is loaded with artifice to jazz things up, from internalized sound design that places us within the protagonists paranoia (switching from stereo sound to a muffled mono when memories pull him out of casual conversations) to various Dutch angles when his world spirals out of control. Gorman, along with her editor Rob Bonz and sound designer Lawrence He, marries the sound and vision during these segments, showing Thomas stress culminating in rapid flurries of imagery and audible echoes, reverberations and tinnitus.

Tone is key in films this silly. So when these filmmakers dont hit a precise tone, despite their ensembles straight-faced delivery of hokey dialogue and cliched scenarios, the picture flounders. Shifts from silly to serious occur frequently, though the thriller is better served when it keeps the proceedings buoyant, having us root against the hero instead of for him. Gorman takes a decidedly regressive approach to the conclusion, pulling strands of inspiration from Adrian Lynes Fatal Attraction in hackneyed ways. Nevertheless, even the poor form of The Girl in the Pool is sufficient enough to garner more than a few cackles to keep viewers invested in its wildly stupefying journey.

Best of Variety

Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Rupert Murdoch is trying to make sure his son Lachlan (left), controls the company after he's gone. His son James Murdoch (right) is fighting the move in court. Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images

The Murdoch family is fighting over control over its media empire  even though it doesn't own all of it.

The fight is over what happens to the company's voting shares  the ones that give the Murdochs the ultimate say.

That's a set-up that's used quite often in media and tech: It lets moguls and founders take public money, without giving up power.

Rupert Murdoch is fighting with his children over control of his media empire, and the "Succession"-style brawl is headed for a Nevada courtroom.

But wait a minute: Both News Corp. and Fox are publicly traded companies. Shouldn't shareholders be the ones who make the ultimate decisions about what happens there?

That's a reasonable question! But the answer to that one is: No, not really.

That's because the Murdoch empire is built on a dual-class stock structure, which gives the family the power to effectively control the company, even if they don't own the majority of its shares.

And they're not the only big company you know that's set up that way: Some of the most powerful media companies have been running that way for decades. And more recently, some of the biggest companies in tech have adopted multiple class structures too.

The results are public companies that are effectively private. Regular shareholders can weigh in  primarily by buying or selling shares, to register their approval or disapproval over the way things are going  but the truly crucial decisions  like selling the company  are usually made by one or two people, or a family.

Companies like Meta, Comcast, and Alphabet have similar structures

In media, you can find examples of this at places like The New York Times (controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family), Comcast (largely controlled by the Roberts family), and Paramount (still controlled, for the moment, by Shari Redstone). Tech companies set up like this include Meta (Mark Zuckerberg), Google/Alphabet (Larry Page and Sergey Brin), and Snap (Evan Spiegel).

The structure and details differ by company, but they generally work in the same way: There's one class of shares that you, a regular investor, can buy or sell. And then there's another class of "voting" shares that do just what it sounds like: They give the people who own those shares the ability to vote on what happens.

Elon Musk was able to buy Twitter, which he eventually changed to "X," because of its single-class share structure that didn't give its founders control. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

If you want real-world examples of why any of this matters, see Twitter: That company didn't have a dual-class structure, which meant that none of its founders had the ability to block Elon Musk from buying the company in 2022. (Musk's Tesla, by the way, has a single-class structure as well.)

Or, in the present tense, see BuzzFeed, where founder Jonah Peretti controls the company, and doesn't have to listen to Vivek Ramaswamy, even though the former Republican presidential candidate has been buying up BuzzFeed shares.

Periodically, you'll hear people complain about these kinds of structures because they think they insulate the founders/owners from the discipline of the market. Redstone, for instance, is now facing a lawsuit from an investor who says her decision to sell the company benefits her but not regular shareholders.

On the other hand: None of these structures are secrets, so anyone buying into these companies knows  or should know  what they're getting into. And in most cases, as long as the stock goes up, they're not going to complain. Like a lot of things, this only becomes a problem when the company is having problems.

Read the original article on Business Insider
A hearing in the case of Justin Timberlake being accused of driving while intoxicated was held Friday, where an attorney for the singer disputed his arrest in June.

The most important fact to know about this case is that Justin was not intoxicated and should not have been arrested for DWI, Edward Burke, attorney for Timberlake, said in a statement. The police made a number of very significant errors in this case.

Justin respects law enforcement and the very important job that they do. He cooperated with the police officers at all times and treated them with the respect they deserve. He also respects the entire judicial process including the District Attorney and Judge who were in court today, Burke continued. But the fact remains, he was not intoxicated and they made an error in arresting him for it. We are confident that this charge will be dismissed.

The singer was arrested in Sag Harbor, New York last month. He is currently on tour for his most recent album, Everything I Thought It Was and was not present at the hearing.

According to police, the singer was observed driving a 2025 BMW in the early morning hours and was operating his vehicle in an intoxicated condition. He allegedly failed to stop at a stop sign and also failed to maintain in his lane of travel, a statement from Sag Harbor Police read.

After an officer initiated a traffic stop, Timberlake told police he had one martini and I followed my friends home, according to court records.

Justin Timberlake was arrested in Sag Harbor, NY in June after allegedly being observed "operating his vehicle in an intoxicated condition," according to Sag Harbor Police Department. - Sag Harbor Police Department

A Sag Harbor Village Police Department officer described Timberlake as unable to divide attention, adding he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests.

An arraignment in the case is scheduled for next month.

CNNs Zenebou Sylla, Marianne Garvey, Linh Tran and Mark Morales contributed to this report

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Prince Harry's legal battles against the British tabloids and phone hacking are ongoing, and the Duke of Sussex said in a new interview that his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, would be supportive of his fight.

"We had many conversations before she passed, this is very much something she supported, she knew how much this meant to me," Harry said ITV's documentary Tabloids on Trial. "She is up there going, 'See this through to the end,' without question.'"

Elsewhere in the film, he spoke about how his fight against the tabloids has caused a rift with his family. "I think that's certainly a central piece to it," Prince Harry said. "That's a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press."

He added, "I've made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done. It would be nice if we did it as a family. I believe that, again, from a service standpoint and when you're in a public role, that these are the things that we should be doing for the greater good. But I'm doing this for my reasons."

In 2019, Harry filed a lawsuit against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), which he won in December 2023. At the time, Prince Harry said in a statement, "I have been told that slaying dragons will get you burned, but in light of today's victory and the importance of doing what is needed for a free and honest pressit is a worthwhile price to pay. The mission continues."

He currently has two ongoing cases against Associated Newspapers (publisher of The Daily Mail) and News Group Newspapers (now News UK, which publishes The Sun). Both deny any illegal information gathering.

You Might Also Like
Despite originating in Siberia, almost everyone has seen a Husky these days. They are seen more and more frequently in animal shelters around the world, largely thanks to the popularity of shows and movies like Game of Thrones or Balto. Even Twilight 'stans' became fans of Huskies because they wanted to hang out with wolves like Jacob.

When they visit the shelter, though, many potential adopters are surprised to discover that dogs they thought were Huskies actually aren't. They're not wolves, either! They're called Alaskan Malamutes, and they're frequently mistaken for their Siberian relatives. Even though these dogs have a lot in common, Malamutes and Huskies are two different Northern breeds that developed similar traits over time.

Ancient Breeds of the Arctic

A large reason why these dogs are so similar is because they both originated and evolved inside the Arctic Circle. Both breeds were exposed to harsh conditions and challenging snowstorms, and they both performed essential jobs pulling sleds. However, that's where their historical similarities end.

Related: Husky-Malamute Throwing Tantrum Like a Kid Has Parents Everywhere Laughing

Siberian Huskies were developed in Northern Russia (AKA Siberia) to assist native nomadic peoples with following scarce food sources. Lenore Demmin, president of the Siberian Husky Club of America, explained to American Kennel Club, "The Siberian Husky was required to go day after day on very little food. Every aspect of the Siberian Husky is exceptionally efficient. No excess or waste."

In Northern Alaska, the Mahlemut tribe developed a close relationship with a local species of sled dog that was essential to survival. These dogs, now known as Alaskan Malamutes, worked alongside the tribesmen in a number of important jobs like pulling sleds, hunting, and carrying packs. However, they were also treasured members of the family.

Every Dog Is Built Differently

The environment and jobs these dogs evolved with played a large role in their physical appearances. Huskies, for example, are leaner and sleeker to help them run long distances in the snow, while Malamutes tend to be larger and more muscular to help with pulling and carrying heavy items. Malamutes can weigh 75-85 pounds when fully grown, which reflects their stocky stature, while Huskies weigh 45-60 pounds.

You'll also notice that both dogs have thick double-layered coats to protect them from low temperatures, but one breed can be a lot fluffier than the other. Malamutes appear fluffier thanks to more bulk on their body, too, but Huskies are also sleeker to help them run fast against the wind.

One of people's favorite features about Siberian Huskies is their bright blue eyes, but you'll be surprised to learn that this is a way to tell the breeds apart, too. Huskies can have brown or blue eyes, but Malamutes always have dark brown eyes.

While these two breeds may look similar on the surface, there are several key characteristics that can help you tell them apart. Even though these breeds have similar needs, knowing their exact lineage can help you learn what to expect as they become a part of the family.

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.
Someone keeps breaking into a Colorado steakhouse and stealing meat and police are asking the public for help identifying suspects in the case.

On July 20 at about 5:12 a.m., officers with the Denver Police Department said they responded to Columbine Steak House & Lounge for a report of a burglary.

The business is near the city's Barnum neighborhood about 4 miles southwest of downtown Denver.

During the burglary, thieves slammed a truck into the business to gain entry and caused major damage to the store, Irene Apergis, one of the owners, told USA TODAY Thursday.

TRND STOLEN STEAKS

"It's the third time actually, but this time they did a lot of damage," Apergis said. "They took the steaks out of the refrigerator and left."

The owner added that the thieves could have taken "beer out of the cooler or liquor from the bar," but they didn't touch either. They also didn't touch a nearby ATM machine located inside the business. They only took the steaks.

The most recent incident forced the steakhouse to temporarily shut its doors.

"We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding," the business wrote in a post on its Facebook page after the break-in. "We look forward to reopening as soon as possible."

Third time in two years suspects broke into steakhouse and stole meat

The break-in, police confirmed to USA TODAY, marked the third burglary over the past two years where suspects broke into the business and stole only meat.

"The first two times they broke into a door with a crowbar," Apergis recalled. "This time they decided to back in with their truck - six or seven times they hit it and tore down the whole wall."

Damage from suspects who burglarized Columbine Steak House & Lounge in Denver, and stole nothing but steaks from the business. The break-in marks the third time in less than two years the steakhouse has been broken into for meat.

Surveillance footage from the steakhouse, Apergis said, shows a truck slam into the side of the steakhouse causing the restaurant's alarm go off.

The break-in busted water pipes and gas lines, she said.

Apergis said the suspects made off with porterhouses, T-bones and filets and a few pork chops worth about $1,900.

Apergis said she hopes to reopen the steakhouse on Friday to customers.

No suspects, no arrest so far in Denver steak break-in

Police told USA TODAY the two previous burglaries were reported on Dec. 3, 2022, and May 25, 2022.

On Thursday, police said no arrest had been made in the case which remained under investigation.

Apergis said her late father opened the steakhouse in 1961.

"It's ridiculous," Apergis said." I just want to catch these guys."

Anyone with information about the burglary is asked to contact Denver police.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Denver steakhouse damaged after thieves break-in for steaks
PALM BEACH, Fla. - Former President Donald Trump stood on the steps of his Mar-a-Lago Club in South Florida on Friday to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the pair's first meeting since Trump left the White House in 2021.

Trump posted a video to his Truth Social account of himself smiling and greeting Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, after their motorcade made its way onto Palm Beach island just before noon Friday. Netanyahu stayed for roughly two hours, leaving Palm Beach at about 2 p.m. ET.

During the meeting, Netanyahu thanked Trump and his former administration "for working to promote stability in the region through, among many historic achievements, the Abraham Accords, moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, eliminating Qasem Soleimani, ending the horrific Iran Nuclear Deal, as well as combatting anti-Semitism in America and abroad," Trump's campaign said in a news release.

Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate as the motorcade of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels to Mar-a-Lago where Netanyahu will meet with former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on July 26, 2024.

Trump in turn shared his solidarity with Netanyahu in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. Trump "pledged that when he returns to the White House, he will make every effort to bring Peace to the Middle East and combat anti-Semitism from spreading throughout college campuses across the United States," his campaign said.

    ,    pic.twitter.com/mfXt0vfiPp  Benjamin Netanyahu -   (@netanyahu) July 26, 2024

Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris, his presumed opponent in the Nov. 5 general election, who had voiced concern in public comments after meeting Netanyahu about the toll on Palestinian civilians from Israel's 9-month-old campaign in Gaza.

"I think her remarks were disrespectful," Trump said.

Netanyahu said he hoped his U.S. trip would lead to a quicker cease-fire deal.

"I hope so. But I think time will tell," he told reporters. He said he thought there had been movement in efforts to forge a cease-fire because of Israeli military pressure and said he would dispatch a team to talks in Rome.

A woman holds a sign as the motorcade of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels over the Southern Bridge to Mar-a-Lago July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach. Meghan McCarthy/Palm Beach Daily News

While it had been expected that Netanyahu would arrive at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, his plane instead landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport about 10:30 a.m., according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

His motorcade traveled up Florida's Turnpike to Southern Boulevard, and then east to Mar-a-Lago where his meeting with the 2024 Republican nominee for president began about noon. Netanyahu arrived in South Florida from Washington, where he spoke to Congress on Wednesday and met with President Joe Biden and Harris on Thursday.

Law enforcement agencies closed roads along Southern Boulevard as they escorted Netanyahu to and from his meeting with Trump.

Netanyahu's office told Israeli media earlier in the week that Netanyahu will remain in the U.S. through the Sabbath before returning to Israel.

Protesters opposed to Netanyahu and the war in Palestine carried signs and shouted anti-Israel and anti-police chants as they stood on the Southern Boulevard Bridge on Friday morning. A group called Shut Down Elbit South Florida shared a press release and told a Palm Beach Daily News reporter that they want to arrest Netanyahu.

A Palm Beach County sheriff's helicopter flies over Southern Boulevard before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in West Palm Beach en route to a meeting with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

"I'm Jewish, there's other Jewish people present," said one organizer, who declined to give her name and said the group has been painted as terrorists by news outlets. "There's plenty of Jews who don't support committing genocide in Palestine. Zionism is a political ideology separate from Judaism."

She said she believes about 50 percent of Jewish people in the U.S. do not support what's happening in Palestine. "That's why we're out here, to protest the person doing it, and tell him he's not welcome in the state of Florida," she said.

Supporters of Trump and Netanyahu also gathered near the bridge, with Israel and U.S. flags and signs that read, "Shalom Bibi," and, "I Stand With Israel."

"I stand with Israel, I stand with peace and I stand against this," Jax Mcanulty, a British citizen, said of the group of pro-Palestine supporters on the opposite side of the bridge from where she stood.

The number of Trump and Netanyahu supporters increased notably around noon, bolstered by a group of Palm Beach County-based Trump supporters who regularly demonstrate on the Southern Boulevard Bridge. They included Boynton Beach resident Debbi Macchia, who called the pro-Palestinian protesters "terrorists."

At one point, she and a man holding a Gadsden flag interrupted a civil conversation between pro-Palestinian protester Gibson Lopez and pro-Israeli counterprotester Cindy Falco-DiCorrado by lobbing derogatory and anti-Muslim comments.

People carry signs as they wait for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to arrive in West Palm Beach as he travels for a meeting with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

After several minutes, Lopez moved to the other side of the bridge after law enforcement officers intervened. Falco-DiCorrado patted his back and thanked him for the discussion as he walked away.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Thursday that several law enforcement agencies  including the Florida Highway Patrol, Martin County Sheriff's Office and Broward Sheriff's Office  would assist with security for Netanyahu's visit.

Several international leaders traveled to Mar-a-Lago when Trump was president, including the late Shinzo Abe of Japan and Xi Jinping, president of China. During those visits, dozens of law enforcement officers were present around Mar-a-Lago and along the stretch of Southern Boulevard between Palm Beach International Airport and Trump's estate.

The sheriff's office also had boats in the water around Mar-a-Lago. The estate is essentially a fishbowl, with the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Intracoastal Waterway to the west, busy Southern Boulevard to the south and Palm Beach's Estate Section to the north.

Protesters were allowed to gather on the Southern Boulevard Bridge, but pedestrians were not allowed east past the smaller bridge on the causeway between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach.

The U.S. Secret Service has increased security around Mar-a-Lago since an assassination attempt on Trump during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa. Trump's ear was injured, and three people in the crowd were shot, one of whom died. The Secret Service shot and killed the shooter, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa.

Among the enhanced security measures: South Ocean Boulevard is now closed near Mar-a-Lago, from the Southern Boulevard traffic circle north to the intersection with South County Road. That change took effect July 20. Palm Beach officials are challenging the Secret Service's decision to close the road, suggesting that the road could be open when no protectees are at Mar-a-Lago.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Trump hosts Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago
Two Carnival Cruise Line crew members were arrested on child pornography charges earlier this month.

Law enforcement found what appeared to be child sexual abuse material on Reza Heta Pratamas phone and laptop during a July 18 search after he disembarked Carnival Valor in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was directed to leave the ship after being fired because of sexual harassment complaints from coworkers, according to an arrest affidavit signed by Homeland Security Investigations special agent Jessica Zuppardo.

Pratama, who is from Indonesia, told law enforcement that he got child pornography from groups on Telegram and acknowledged having it in his photo gallery.

Days earlier, law enforcement also found child sexual abuse material on Abdhul Rouvoof Shaiks WhatsApp account when he disembarked Carnival Liberty at the port on July 14. Shaik, who is from India, said his friend put him in a group that involves children having sex, according to an affidavit signed by HSI special agent Brian Villaflor.

The friend is from Indonesia, according to the document, but was not named. Shaik said he used to send and receive videos in the group. He would forward them to others and then delete it from his WhatsApp, the affidavit said.

Law enforcement showed Shaik a sexually explicit video featuring a minor, which he said he forgot to delete. Shaik admitted to sending the video to another friend, according to the complaint, but said it was by mistake.

Pratama is charged with transportation and possession of child pornography, while Shaik is charged with transportation and distribution of child pornography. Attorneys listed for them declined to comment.

"These allegations are deeply disturbing and we have zero tolerance for criminal behavior," a Carnival spokesperson told USA TODAY in an emailed statement. "We fully cooperate with law enforcement on these matters and immediately terminated anyone involved."

The news comes after a Celebrity Cruises crew member was arrested on child pornography charges in late April, while three Disney Cruise Line employees were arrested on similar charges between January and April.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at ndiller@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Carnival crew members arrested on child pornography charges
By Doina Chiacu and Ted Hesson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The White House will offer deportation relief and work permits to an estimated 11,500 Lebanese nationals already in the U.S., due to conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, U.S. President Joe Biden said in a memo on Friday.

The measure, under an authority known as Deferred Enforced Departure, will allow Lebanese nationals to remain in the U.S. for 18 months and could be renewed.

The announcement comes after Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than Biden. Harris has emerged as the likely Democratic presidential nominee after Biden ended his campaign on Sunday.

Israel and Hezbollah have been trading fire since Hezbollah announced a "support front" with Palestinians shortly after its ally Hamas attacked southern Israeli border communities on Oct. 7, triggering Israel's military assault in Gaza.

Hezbollah is an Iran-backed militant group and the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon.

U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan, which is home to Lebanese Americans in Detroit and elsewhere, applauded the move and estimated it would cover 11,500 people.

"Michigan is home to many Lebanese Americans who continue to watch their families suffer as Lebanon faces an unprecedented economic, political, and financial disaster," she said in a statement.

Former President Donald Trump, a Republican seeking another term in the White House, has pledged mass deportations if reelected. His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The fighting in Lebanon has killed more than 100 civilians and more than 300 Hezbollah fighters, according to a Reuters tally.

On the Israeli side, 10 Israeli civilians, a foreign agricultural worker and 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed.

Tens of thousands have been evacuated from both sides of the border.

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Rami Ayyub)
Sen. JD Vance speaking to supporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, earlier this month. Alex Wroblewski/The Washington Post via Getty Images

In the days since he became Trump's running mate, JD Vance's vulnerabilities have become clear.

Until now, Vance was mostly unknown nationwide. That makes it easier for opponents to define him.

He's also long espoused ideas that are generally unpopular with the public.

Nearly two weeks after former President Donald Trump selected Sen. JD Vance as his running mate, it's safe to say the Ohio politician is struggling.

His polling is the worst of any nonincumbent vice-presidential nominee in decades. His years-old comments about "childless cat ladies" have drawn widespread disgust. Some in Trump's orbit worry they've made the wrong choice. In recent days, he's been the target of a baseless rumor that he once had sex with a couch.

It was always clear that Vance brought little to the table, strictly electorally speaking. He does not represent a swing state, he does not diversify the ticket, and the selection of a MAGA true believer does not reassure more Trump-skeptic voters.

He was the choice of a campaign that was brimming with confidence. President Joe Biden had not yet dropped out of the race, and Trump's team likely made the choice with the idea that it did not need the boost that other vice-presidential contenders could have brought to the ticket, choosing instead to select an heir to the MAGA movement.

What was less predictable were the significant headwinds that Vance is now encountering as the GOP's vice-presidential nominee, which have been driven by the way he's talked about certain policies and enabled by the simple fact that most Americans are just now learning who he is.

Vance was unknown to many Americans before last week

In an AP-NORC poll conducted in the days before Vance was selected, 60% of Americans surveyed said they did not know enough about the Ohio senator to have an opinion about him. Twenty-two percent reported an unfavorable opinion, while just 17% said they had a favorable opinion.

That lack of familiarity is a key reason that the memes about Vance having sex with a couch have taken off.

To be clear, there's no evidence that ever happened. The meme began with a single X user joking that the Ohio senator wrote about it on pages 179 to 181 of his 2016 autobiography, "Hillbilly Elegy," which is patently and verifiably false. But then, The Associated Press decided to fact-check the claim before deleting its story, amplifying it further. By Thursday, social media was awash with memes riffing on the notion that Trump's vice-presidential nominee had once fornicated with a couch. One Democratic congressman even referenced it during a CNN interview that evening.

When voters don't know much about a candidate, stories like this initially appear plausible. Even after they're debunked, they can persist. In Vance's case, the meme seems to be an ironic stand-in for other issues that voters may have with the Ohio senator, even if they know he probably didn't have sex with a couch.

His 'cat ladies' comment is alienating  and there's probably more where that came from

A lesser-known candidate is also an easier target for their political opponents, especially if they come armed with all the most controversial things that the candidate has said.

In a way, Vance is running into the same problem that Blake Masters  a former Senate candidate who's ideologically aligned with the Ohio senator  encountered in his 2022 race in Arizona: People are being alienated by what he has to say.

This week, it's his comments about childless people. Next week, it could be something else: Trump's VP pick has an extensive online footprint.

Serious question: I have to go to New York soon and I'm trying to figure out where to stay. I have heard it's disgusting and violent there. But is it like Walking Dead Season 1 or Season 4?  JD Vance (@JDVance) July 11, 2021

In this instance, Vance is taking aim at childlessness because he subscribes to a more idiosyncratic, nationalist vision of conservatism than most other GOP politicians, and he's interested in ways to encourage the growth of families.

He has suggested incentivizing that growth by allocating additional votes to parents based on the number of kids they have, or by taxing childless adults at a higher rate than parents  a policy that's somewhat similar to a child tax credit.

But those ideas, and that framing, are somewhat alien to the broader public. Then, you throw in the disparaging way that he talked about certain Democratic politicians  including Vice President Kamala Harris  as "childless cat ladies" in a 2021 interview with the then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Vance made that comment shortly after he launched his Senate campaign, in which he was working to distinguish himself in a crowded field of Republicans. In short, his audience wasn't the general public but GOP primary voters.

Yet that sort of flippant comment makes an already-unknown candidate really easy to define in the context of a national campaign.

During an interview on Megyn Kelly's radio show on Friday, Vance insisted that he was referring solely to those politicians, not to Americans who are unable to have kids. But the damage had already been done.

"Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I've got nothing against cats. I've got nothing against dogs," Vance said. "People are focusing so much on the sarcasm, and not on the substance of what I actually said. And the substance of what I said Megyn, I'm sorry, it's true."

Read the original article on Business Insider


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.
Thongkham Philavanh, 40, was attacked in his home in the village of Vanghay. Rescued by his wife, he died on arrival in hospital. The murder of Pastor Sy Sengmany in 2022, a case that is still unsolved. A relative of Philavanh: Groups of people do not like what he did.

Rome (AsiaNews/Agencies) - In Laos, a one-party communist state with a predominantly Buddhist population, persecution of Christians is not uncommon. On Tuesday evening, Thongkham Philavanh, 40, a Khmu Christian pastor, an ethnic group present in northern Laos, was assassinated by two masked men who were reportedly riding motorbikes.

Philavanh was shot twice in his home in the village of Vanghay, Xai Province. The pastor was immediately rescued by his wife, who took him to the provincial hospital, where he died on arrival. Police investigations are ongoing and the exact motive is unclear at the moment.

The murder of Thongkham Philavanh, whose funeral will be held tomorrow, 27 July, at the village cemetery, recalls the sad attempt on the life in 2022 of another Christian pastor, Sy Sengmany, who was found dead near a forest in Khammouane Province. Before the incident, two men had visited his home and the village authorities had ordered him to stop his religious activities.

The case remains unresolved and underlines the extent to which violence against the Christian community has increased in Laos in recent years, aggravated by the control of the local communist authorities, the destruction of homes and the closure of churches, which have forced assemblies to meet in private homes, by means of meetings that are technically considered illegal.

These aggressions and discriminations take place despite the fact that a national law protects the free exercise of faith. But those who practise Christianity are still under suspicion by the authorities and targeted on various levels.

Radio Free Asia gathered some statements from Christian communities in Oudomxay province and other parts of Laos, who said they were mourning the loss of Thongkham. Last night, our community was shocked by the tragic loss of our beloved pastor, who was senselessly taken away from us in an act of violence, some of them wrote in English on Facebook the day after the murder.

His profound wisdom, unwavering faith and boundless compassion touched the lives of many, echoed someone else, recalling Thongkham Philavanh's magisterial leadership, who often participated in Christian church activities in Oudomxay province.

I am not sure why they killed him, but I believe it is because he serves Jesus Christ, said a relative of the Christian pastor who does not disclose the identity for security reasons. One thing I am sure of is that there are some groups of people who do not like what Thongkham did as a pastor.

Another Christian also told RFA that it is likely that Philavanh was killed simply because he was a Christian pastor and religious leader, and that this did not please anyone. Another believer, who had known Thongkham Philavanh for years, said he was sorry to learn the news of the pastor's death via social media.

Other Christian communities in Laos expressed concern for the safety of their pastors and members, fearing that they too might be killed. A member of the Evangelical Church in Laos said that anti-Christian groups in the country seek opportunities to harm Christians, and what happened on Tuesday is yet another proof.
Another boat with 45 refugees on board sank in the past few hours in the very stretch of water at the centre of concerns over Houthis attacks against shipping. Almost one hundred thousand people travelled this route in the past year, which the International Organisation for Migration defines as the most dangerous in the world.

Milan (AsiaNews/Agencies)  The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today reported that another boat with at least 45 people on board capsized Wednesday night off the coast of Yemen.

Only four survivors have been rescued off the coast of Taiz governorate. The agency blamed "strong winds and overloading" as the cause.

A similar but deadlier tragedy took place last month, on 10 June, when a boat carrying about 260 people, mostly from Ethiopia and Somalia, sank in the same waters.

The sea between Yemen and the Horn of Africa has become a common route for refugees and migrants travelling in both directions.

The outbreak of civil war in 2014 resulted in a surge in Yemenis fleeing the country.

In April 2022 Houthi rebels and the government reached a truce, leading to a decrease in violence and the easing of the ongoing humanitarian crisis.

The sea route, however, is still a high-risk area following Houthi attacks against merchant shipping in the Red Sea and drone strikes against Israel, like last week when a civilian was killed in Tel Aviv, sparking a major Israeli operation against the Yemeni port of Al Hudaydah.

Despite all this, thousands of people continue to flee conflicts in Africa seeking refuge in Yemen or use it to reach the more prosperous Gulf countries.

According to migration flow data, this route remains one of the busiest and most perilous in the world.

Over the past year, 97,000 migrants arrived in Yemen from the Horn of Africa along a route that often proves deadly.

Since 2014, the International Organisation for Migration recorded 1,860 deaths and disappearances along this stretch of sea.

Photo: Flickr/Unchr
People in Papua New Guinea are up in arms after 180 tonnes of seabed matter is extracted. Since 2019, Papua New Guinea had imposed a 10-year moratorium. The Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority is currently meeting to pick a new secretary general, who plays a crucial role in shaping policy vis-a-vis this controversial form of mining, which is backed by important business interests.

Port Moresby (AsiaNews)  Despite a ten-year moratorium imposed by the Papua New Guinea (PNG) government in 2019, foreign companies continue to take materials from the seabed off the coast of the country to prepare for massive deep sea mining activities, the mining industrys controversial new frontier that looks to the sea as a huge reserve for raw materials.

Solwara 1 Warriors held at a press conference yesterday in Port Moresby to speak out against what is happening. The local advocacy group, which opposes any threat to local ecosystems, includes the Council of Churches of Papua New Guinea. Mavis Tito, national director of Caritas PNG, was present on behalf of the Catholic Church.

Deep Sea Mining Finance Limited has relieved Canada-based Nautilus Minerals Limited in the Solwara project to mine the seabed for copper and gold.

Between May and June, residents of the affected area noticed activities on the west coast of Namatanai, a district of New Ireland province, involving a foreign ship named Coco, which reportedly mined about 180 tonnes of seabed matter for sampling in Singapore.

The Mineral Resources Authority (MRA),the Conservation and Environment Protection Authority (CEPA), and the New Ireland provincial government all claim to have no knowledge of this activity.

Those who allowed the ship to operate in PNG waters did so in secret, keeping in the dark residents of the province as well as the rest of the country.

Deep sea mining is not needed, not consented, said Michael Guka, secretary of the Council of Churches. The ocean is the little blue heart of our planet. It is our common responsibility. We are its guardian[s].

The complaint from Papua New Guinea comes just as the Council and the Assembly of the Jamaica-based International Seabed Authority (ISA) is meeting in the Caribbean country.

The ISA is an intergovernmental body charged with regulating seabed mining. Two very distant positions are facing off within the organisation, with some countries seeking a moratorium until a clear regulatory framework is adopted to protect the marine environment and those pressing for mining to go ahead after issuing concessions.

Crucial in this regard will be the election of the new ISA secretary general on 2 August. The current office holder, Michael Lodge of the UK, is known for being soft on mining companies; his rival is Leticia Carvalho, a marine scientist and international diplomat.
Today's news: Jimmy Lai's court deposition in Hong Kong postponed for another four months; Hamas leader in the West Bank dead after eight months in Israeli custody; Individual Indian states will also be able to impose their own royalties on mining activities; Brazil apologises to Japan for persecution of immigrants after World War II; In Moscow, Europe Square was renamed Eurasia Square.

SRI LANKA

Presidential elections in Sri Lanka, the first since Gotabaya Rajapaksa's exit from the scene in street protests two years ago, will be held on 21 September. Last week, the Supreme Court had rejected the possibility of any postponement in the country currently led by economist Ranil Wicremesinghe, who took over in the midst of a deep economic crisis. Nominations must be submitted by 15 August.

HONG KONG-CHINA

Jimmy Lai will be called on 20 November to testify in the national security trial against him in Hong Kong. Judges rejected a request by the 76-year-old founder of the Apple Daily newspaper, who has been in prison for four years now, to drop the charges against him for which he faces a life sentence. The postponement of his interrogation by a further four months is due to the availability of the three judges, each of whom was specially chosen by the Hong Kong government to handle national security cases.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

One of the Hamas leaders in the West Bank arrested by Israel after the start of the conflict on 7 October has died in custody due to his deteriorating health. This was announced today by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Mustafa Muhammad Abu Ara, 63, died after being transferred to hospital from Ramon prison in southern Israel. The Palestinian Authority's Prisoners' Commission claims that he was suffering from health problems even before his arrest but was denied adequate medical care during his months of detention.

INDIA

The Indian Supreme Court has ruled that royalties due on minerals do not constitute a tax, agreeing with local governments in individual states that challenge the central government's contention that only Delhi has the power to tax mineral rights in the country. The court will hear the parties on 31 July to decide whether the ruling should also be applied retroactively. In this case it would bring huge revenues to the coffers of the governments of some states, including West Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand, which already have local laws to impose additional levies on mining companies.

JAPAN-BRAZIL

The Brazilian government issued its first official apology for the persecution of Japanese immigrants in the country during and after World War II. The gesture was linked to two cases: one in which Brazil, as part of the Allies, evicted Japanese immigrants from their homes in Santos during the war, and another involving the mistreatment on Anchieta Island of people imprisoned during the post-war riots in the immigrant community.

RUSSIA

The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobjanin, signed the decree for the renaming of Europa Square, which will now be called Eurasia Square, after it was laid out and built in 2001 in a joint Russian-Belgian project in the centre of the capital, on the Berezhkovsky embankment next to the new skyscrapers, with the sculpture of the Rat of Europa in the centre.

AZERBAIJAN

The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, has signed the amendments to the Family Code banning marriage between second cousins and arranged marriages for children under the age of 16, with heavy fines or even arrests depending on the seriousness of the situation and the personality of the offender, which is widespread among Azerbaijani families.
The BJP-led state government wants hoteliers and restaurateurs to display their names, so that Hindu pilgrims visiting Shiva temples at this time of the year can avoid Muslim-run establishments. The Supreme Court stayed the state order and will re-examine the matter later. The district where the order was supposed to apply saw serious violence in 2013.

Lucknow (AsiaNews)  The Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand issued an order requiring hotels, restaurants, and vendors along the route of a Hindu pilgrimage to display the name of the owners, but the case has gone before Indias highest court.

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued an interim ruling staying the decision, which state governments ostensibly adopted to prevent religious unrest during the Kanwar Yatra, an annual pilgrimage dedicated to Shiva that began on Monday from the Ganges River, near Haridwar, Uttarakhand, and will end 2 August after pilgrims visit various local temples dedicated to the deity.

The original order, issued on 17 July for the Muzaffarnagar district, seeks to identify Muslim vendors to ensure that Hindu pilgrims buy only from Hindus.

The government of Uttar Pradesh, led by BJP, an ultranationalist Hindu party, defended the decision before the Supreme Court, arguing that it was taken to maintain peace and tranquility.

Even minor confusions regarding the type of food served to pilgrims (kanwariyas) can hurt their religious feelings and cause unrest, especially in a communally sensitive area like Muzaffarnagar, said lawyers representing the state.

The Supreme Court has challenged this argument, announcing today that it will fully examine the case before issuing a final ruling.

Muzaffarnagar district was the scene of sectarian violence in August-September 2013. Two young Hindus murdered a Muslim man, sparking unrest that left more than 60 people dead and 50,000 people displaced, mostly Muslims, not to mention gang rapes and other sexual violence against women.

The districts of Muzaffarnagar and Shaml are in western Uttar Pradesh, and are home to ethnic Jat, both Hindus and Muslims, dedicated largely to sugarcane production.

This is one of the areas where the Bharatiya Janata Party has managed to increase its influence by turning the story of local communities on its head. Traditionally, in rural areas like Muzaffarnagar, caste divisions, rather than religion, had determined differences.

Instead, local BJP leaders fuelled sectarian divisions and widespread violence by making the disadvantaged castes believe that they could achieve what they had always been denied.

After the two Hindus killed the Muslim man, a group of Muslims sought revenge. Shortly afterwards, BJP leaders posted a fake video on social media, which was quickly picked up, claiming that it showed a recent massacre of Hindus. In fact, it was about an incident that took place in Pakistan several years earlier, but the images went viral in a few hours, sparking unrest.

The difficulties of determining what happened has meant that many people have been denied justice. While some people have been convicted, independent reports blame local officials for the outbreak of violence and law enforcement for poorly handling the situation.

In Indias parliamentary election that ended in early June, the socialist Samajwadi party won in many other districts of Uttar Pradesh, including Muzaffarnagar.

This historic result for the party has made it the third largest political force after the BJP and the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress. Its success represents a refusal of years of divisive politics and new sectarian tensions.

INDIAN MANDALA IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO INDIA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY FRIDAY? TO SUBSCRIBE, CLICK HERE.
26 July 2024 12:59 (UTC+04:00)

Ulviyya Shahin Read more

In a significant development at the Azerbaijan-Kazakhstan Agricultural Forum held in Baku, Alim Bayel, Kazakhstan's Ambassador to Azerbaijan, underscored a promising opportunity for both nations to enhance their agricultural exports. The potential establishment of a joint production enterprise is poised to benefit not only Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan but also offer broader advantages on the international stage.

Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, both recognized as agricultural powerhouses face a world grappling with food shortages. This global issue underscores the urgency and relevance of collaborative efforts between these two nations. By pooling resources and expertise, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan can address these shortages more effectively and bolster their positions in the global market.

Establishing a joint production enterprise allows both countries to scale up their agricultural output and enhance their competitiveness in international markets. This collaboration could lead to a more diverse range of products and improved quality standards, making their goods more attractive to third countries.

For Azerbaijan, diversifying its agricultural sector through such partnerships can lead to new revenue streams and economic stability. Similarly, Kazakhstan can benefit from expanding its agricultural footprint and accessing new markets. This economic growth can stimulate job creation and technological advancement within both countries.

Kazakhstan's vast arable lands and Azerbaijan's strategic location provide a complementary advantage. By integrating their agricultural systems, they can optimize resource use, streamline supply chains, and reduce operational costs, leading to greater efficiency and profitability.

The partnership extends beyond bilateral benefits. By targeting third-country markets, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan can assert their influence in regional agricultural trade, potentially setting new standards and practices that could benefit neighboring countries.

The joint venture holds promise for contributing to global food security. As both nations work together to improve agricultural output, they can play a pivotal role in mitigating food shortages and fostering more resilient food supply chains globally.

Ambassador Bayel also expressed readiness to explore agricultural projects in Garabagh, a region with significant untapped potential. This initiative could further solidify the partnership and pave the way for innovative agricultural practices and development in the region.

The proposed joint production enterprise between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan represents a strategic move with far-reaching benefits. By leveraging their agricultural strengths and addressing global food security challenges, both nations stand to gain economically while contributing positively to the international market. As discussions advance, the realization of this partnership could mark a transformative step in agricultural collaboration and economic growth for both countries.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 10:00 (UTC+04:00)

Nazrin Abdul Read more

Azerbaijan is accelerating efforts to increase the share of renewable energy sources (RES) in the country's overall energy balance.

This was stated by Deputy Minister of Energy Kamal Abbasov during his speech at the 8th meeting of the intergovernmental commission on trade and economic cooperation between Azerbaijan and Serbia, Azernews reports.

According to him, Azerbaijan aims to achieve the goal of having a 30 percent share of renewable energy sources in the country's installed energy capacity by 2030 ahead of schedule.

"At the current pace of energy transition in the country, the share of renewable energy sources could reach 32.6% by 2027 and 34.6% by 2030," Abbasov said.

The government's calculations are based on the portfolio of ongoing renewable energy projects with international energy companies.

This project portfolio already encompasses a total capacity of 10 GW.

"The energy obtained from renewable energy sources is intended for domestic consumption, decarbonization of the economy, and export," Abbasov noted.

Currently, renewable energy sources account for 17-18 percent of the country's energy balance.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 15:00 (UTC+04:00)

Nazrin Abdul Read more

The latest meeting of the Commission, established by the Presidents Decree on "Additional Measures for Renewable Energy Projects," took place at the Ministry of Energy, Azernews reports.

Minister Parviz Shahbazov, Chairman of the Commission, highlighted key agenda items and outlined the Commission's objectives for the "Year of Solidarity for the Green World."

The meeting featured a review of the Secretariat's report on progress since the last session. Updates were provided on auctions for renewable energy sources, the integration of green energy projects into the grid, and key elements of the National Action Plan for Electromobility. Discussions also covered the "Shafaq" Hydropower Plant (HPP) project by bp and other relevant issues.

Attendees included representatives from the State Agency for Renewable Energy Sources, the Ministries of Economy, Finance, Justice, Emergency Situations, Ecology and Natural Resources, Agriculture, Digital Development and Transport, the State Urban Planning and Architecture Committee, the Central Bank of Azerbaijan, the Demining Agency, "Azerenergy," and "Azerishiq" OJSC.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 15:33 (UTC+04:00)

"We intend to drive growth activity in the private sector by strengthening joint activities with business representatives of Azerbaijan."

Azernews reports that Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov stressed this on his official "X" social account.

"Meeting with nonoil industry entrepreneurs was insightful, discussing the expansion of local production and new export markets. Questions were addressed, and valuable proposals were heard. Strengthening collaboration with business representatives is a priority to drive growth in the private sector," noted the minister.

Meeting with #nonoil industry entrepreneurs was insightful, discussing the expansion of #localproduction and new #export markets. Questions were addressed, and valuable proposals were heard.

Strengthening collaboration with #business representatives is a priority to drive growth pic.twitter.com/QGgzkielsJ  Mikayil Jabbarov (@MikayilJabbarov) July 26, 2024

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 17:29 (UTC+04:00)

Fatima Latifova Read more

The "Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Migration between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Republic of Turkiye" has been ratified.

Azernews reports, citing AZERTAC, that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed a decree regarding this matter.

According to the decree, the "Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Migration between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Republic of Turkiye" signed in Ankara on June 6, 2024, has been ratified.

According to the decree, the State Migration Service of the Republic of Azerbaijan must ensure the implementation of the provisions of the agreement after it comes into force.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs must send a notification to the Government of Turkiye stating that the necessary domestic procedures for the Agreement to come into force have been completed.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 11:23 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

President of the International Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation Aktoty Raimkulova has received newly-appointed Kyrgyz Ambassador to Azerbaijan Maksat Mamytkanov, Azernews reports.

Aktoty Raimkulova congratulated Mamytkanov on his appointment as the Kyrgyz Ambassador to Azerbaijan.

During the meeting, head of the Foundation highlighted the projects implemented by the organization to preserve, study, and promote the unique heritage and ancient history of the Turkic world in the international arena.

Aktoty Raimkulova hailed the partnership between the Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation and its founding country, Kyrgyzstan.

She also mentioned the restoration work initiated by the Foundation and the museumification of the House-Museum of the great Kyrgyz poet and playwright Alykul Osmonov in Bishkek.

The Kyrgyz Ambassador to Azerbaijan Maksat Mamytkanov highly appreciated the work done by the Turkic Culture and Heritage Foundation to study and preserve the tangible and intangible heritage of the Turkic peoples.

He stressed the significance of cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and the Foundation and expressed confidence in Kyrgyzstan's comprehensive support for further projects carried out by the Foundation.

The sides also discussed the further strengthening the partnership between the Foundation and Kyrgyzstan and on future joint projects.

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
26 July 2024 13:17 (UTC+04:00)

Fatima Latifova Read more

The first official event dedicated to Azerbaijan-UK bilateral relations was held on the topic of COP29 in connection with the opening of the new administrative building of Azerbaijan's Embassy in the United Kingdom, Azernews reports.

Attended by the designated President of COP29, Azerbaijan's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Muxtar Babayev, the event also saw the presence of the UK's Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, the UK's Minister for International Climate and Energy, Kerry McCarthy, the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps in the UK Alistair Harrison, President of COP26 and Member of the House of Lords Alok Sharma, the UK Prime Minister's former Trade Envoy for Azerbaijan, Baroness Nicholson, parliamentarians Baroness Uddin, Bob Blackman, Lord McNicol, and other members of the diplomatic corps in the UK. The event was also attended by the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in London, the Ambassador of Honduras to the UK, Ivan Romero Martinez, as well as the Ambassadors of Brazil and the United Arab Emirates, who are part of the COP Presidencies Troika, high-ranking representatives from The City of London, representatives from the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, employees from the UK Foreign Office and the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Gordon Birrell, Vice President for Production and Operations at BP, members of the Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council where the Embassy is located, numerous climate experts working in the UK, and other attendees.

In his speech, Azerbaijan's Ambassador to the UK, Elin Suleymanov, remarked that dedicating the first official event in the new administrative building of Azerbaijan's Embassy in the UK to COP29 is a significant occasion. He highlighted the symbolic importance of the attendance of the designated President of COP29, Azerbaijan's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Muxtar Babayev, and the UK's Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband. The Ambassador stated that Azerbaijan, which will host COP29 towards the end of the year, is fully focused on climate action and is doing everything possible to advance climate goals that are crucial for the entire world. Suleymanov expressed gratitude to the UK for its unwavering support to Azerbaijan from the very beginning in this important endeavour.

Elin Suleymanov also thanked the UK for the hospitality shown by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, during the European Political Community summit held in Oxford a few days earlier, as well as for the cordial meeting between UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. The Ambassador appreciated the UK's efforts to contribute to the normalisation process between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Following Ambassador Suleymanov, the designated President of COP29, Azerbaijan's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, Muxtar Babayev, spoke. He referred to the recent working visit of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev to the UK to participate in the European Political Community summit, emphasising that the event dedicated to COP29 held in Azerbaijan's new Embassy building in the UK also highlighted the bilateral friendship. Babayev noted London's significant role as a centre for climate action and mentioned his meetings and participation in events during his visit to the UK for the London Climate Action Week at the end of June. He spoke about his meeting with ambassadors of small island states at the Commonwealth Secretariat's headquarters, highlighting Azerbaijan's close cooperation with the organisation to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change in these countries. Babayev thanked the UK, which hosted COP26, for its vital partnership and support towards the successful organisation of COP29 in Azerbaijan. During his current visit to London, Babayev mentioned that he would hold official meetings with the private sector and financial institutions to discuss the sustainable markets initiative and talked about Azerbaijan's efforts and initiatives within the COP29 framework.

The UK's Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, expressed his honour to participate in the first official event in the new building of Azerbaijan's Embassy in the UK. Miliband emphasised the importance of COP events in bringing countries together to combat climate change and promote green development globally. He underscored the significance of continuing the measures agreed upon at previous COP meetings and reaching an important agreement on climate finance at COP29 to achieve climate goals. Miliband highlighted the importance of supporting countries most affected by climate problems and reiterated the UK's readiness to provide all necessary support to ensure the successful outcome of COP29 and closely partner with Azerbaijan.

During the event, the original copy of the invitation letter from President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to Prime Minister Keir Starmer to participate in COP29 was ceremoniously presented to Ed Miliband, the UK's Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The official representative of the Lord Mayor of The City of London, Alderman Greg Jones, also spoke at the event, expressing The City's readiness to support the successful organisation of COP29.

The event continued with a reception.

It is noteworthy that this event, held in connection with the opening of the new building of Azerbaijan's Embassy in the UK, marked the first time a high-ranking official from the UK Cabinet, the Secretary of State, participated in an event at Azerbaijan's Embassy in the UK.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 20:00 (UTC+04:00)

Fatima Latifova Read more

It was an unexpected event that the 30-year Garabagh conflict would end in 2020 and 2023 with counter-offensive operations by the Azerbaijani army. During this period, the Azerbaijani leadership took maximum humane measures in response to every Armenian provocation without going beyond self-defence. The ceasefire violations that periodically occurred along the borders continued until the Second Garabagh War in 2020, particularly targeting the civilian Azerbaijani population.

To end these provocations and liberate the formerly occupied Garabagh, the Azerbaijani army launched a counter-offensive operation and freed its historical territories from occupation in just 44 days. In 2023, during a 23-hour anti-terror operation, the separatist forces that illegally deployed military formations in Garabagh were neutralised .

Against the backdrop of all these events, Armenia, which had survived for decades with the help of other countries, realised that even with the support of Western countries, it was powerless against the Azerbaijani Army. However, the subversive plans of the Armenian authorities, which pretended to be peace-loving, but played games against Azerbaijan with their Western allies in the background, did not last long.

Despite the meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Almaty in May, which gave a significant impetus to the peace agreement to be signed in the South Caucasus, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's refusal to meet with the President of Azerbaijan at the 4th EPC summit in Oxford was another hindrance to a possible rapprochement between the sides.

It is worth recalling that after the long-standing and resolved Garabagh conflict, the Armenian government seemed interested in peace. However, these events prove that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's "peace-oriented" decisions were only due to his dwindling hopes for external support.

However, Armenia's shirking peace talks spilled the beans about the involvement of a US representative in the Armenian Ministry of Defence shortly before the London meeting, plus the European Union's 10 million aid package. The immediate provocations by Armenia towards Azerbaijan's Kalbajar and Tovuz districts demonstrate the false nature of all peace calls to date.

It should be noted that such provocations by Armenia are not the first and have a continuous nature. France's provision of lethal weapons to Armenia and the European Union's initial military aid of ten million euros under the "European Peace Fund" encourage Armenia to commit such provocations.

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence has once again warned Armenia and its patrons to refrain from its intention to create a new conflict zone in the South Caucasus region. It is clear that these steps will obstruct peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The Azerbaijani leadership is well aware of the Armenian mindset. Yerevan's search for the slightest "hope fragment" to evade peace and lay the foundation for new tension in the region while making peace calls without correcting the mistakes that hinder peace embodies Armenian hypocrisy and falsehood.

Another issue is the rumours in the media about Armenia's military procurements. Although the Armenian leadership denies these acts, many organisations claim that Yerevan is buying large quantities of weapons. Considering that Armenia lost a significant portion of its weapons during the 44-day war and is now trying to restore its military potential, these procurements could be seen as normal. However, Yerevan's inability to choose the right time for this undermines the steps taken towards peace. We underline that the Armenian army, militarised by other countries for over 30 years, could not withstand the Azerbaijani army for even 2 months. Moreover, while these two countries never had a chance to make peace, actions that could delay or even postpone the process suggest either some external forces pushing Armenia into a new war or the incompetent policies of Armenia's narrow-minded ruling circles.

Nearly four years have passed since the adoption of the November 10 declaration, which emphasises the necessity of signing the peace agreement. During this period, instead of fulfilling important demands such as handing over maps of the mines planted in Garabagh to Baku and amending the Armenian constitution by removing its preamble about the territorial claims against Azerbaijan, the Armenian side delays the peace process with empty statements.

It is interesting that instead of responding to Azerbaijan's demand for peace, Armenia resorts to new provocations, and this can be observed especially at the borders. Undoubtedly, Azerbaijan has a certain limit to its tolerance for such provocations. If there is no room for discussion at the table, it may be time to meet in the field at any moment.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 11:36 (UTC+04:00)

Fatima Latifova Read more

The time has come to sign a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The agreement will allow the economic potential of the South Caucasus to be realised.

Azernews reports that this statement was made by the U.S. Embassy in Armenia.

It was noted that the time has come to sign a peace agreement that will unveil the social and economic potential of the South Caucasus.

Besides, the diplomatic mission came to this conclusion following meetings between Louis Bono, the State Department's adviser for negotiations in the Caucasus, and Kristina Kvien, the US ambassador, with high-ranking Armenian officials.

According to the press release issued by the embassy, the sides discussed work to establish "a lasting and dignified peace between Yerevan and Baku".

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 11:58 (UTC+04:00)

Fatima Latifova Read more

The Armenian diaspora has initiated another smear campaign against Azerbaijan, using their hired Luis Ocampo as a facade. The campaign targets Azerbaijan's hosting of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Azernews reports, citing the statement that the Western Azerbaijan Community issued.

The statement also mentions: "In an interview where he presented himself as the author of this campaign, L. Ocampo portrayed himself as a climate activist, slandered Azerbaijan, and demanded the release of separatists accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Ocampo's simultaneous accusation of genocide against Azerbaijan and his demand for the release of those who committed genocide highlights his absurdity. Instead of demanding the release of these criminals, Ocampo should focus on clarifying the fate of the 4,000 Azerbaijanis who went missing as a result of Armenia's military aggression. It should be noted that there is irrefutable public evidence that Azerbaijani hostages were forced to work as slaves in the homes of high-ranking officers in Armenia's military leadership at that time, and that Azerbaijani prisoners were executed in camps in the formerly occupied territories of Azerbaijan and in Armenia.

If Ocampo wants to present himself as a climate activist, he should address the environmental damage caused by Armenia's occupation and destruction of Azerbaijani territories, the placement of millions of landmines, the destruction of areas where Azerbaijanis once lived, and the harm to air and water bodies from mining activities.

The Western Azerbaijan Community condemns the actions of the Armenian diaspora and its hired servant, Ocampo, and calls on the international community to combat such malevolent elements."

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 11:40 (UTC+04:00)

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to the President of the Republic of Maldives Mohamed Muizzu on the occasion of the National Holiday - Independence Day of Maldives, Azernews reports.

"Dear Mr. President,

On behalf of myself and the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my sincerest congratulations to you and all your people on the occasion of the national holiday of the Republic of Maldives  Independence Day.

On this joyous day, I wish you good health, happiness, success in your endeavors, and the friendly people of the Maldives everlasting peace and prosperity.

Sincerely,

Ilham Aliyev

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Baku, 23 July 2024"

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 17:56 (UTC+04:00)

Laman Ismayilova Read more

Shafiga Akhundova, a pioneering female composer in the East, has significantly contributed to the Azerbaijani music, Azernews reports.

Throughout her nearly 70-year career, the composer created a diverse range of compositions in various genres, including songs, romances, operas, operettas and symphonic suites.

The composer always wrote only about what touched her heart and expressed the highest human feelings.

Therefore, her music finds a lively response in the hearts of many listeners. Akhundova had turned a brilliant page in the history of Azerbaijani music art, creating a myriad of beautiful works.

Shafiga Akhudova, who was born on January 21,1924 in Shaki, devoted her whole life to the culture and art of her home country.

She was born into a family of an eminent public figure Gulam Akhundov. He did not approve the passion of her daughter. Although they had a piano at home, he always kept it locked to prevent little Shafiga from playing it.

When her father knew that Shafiga attended the Conservatory, he got angry with her and didn't let her come home. She even had to stay at her neighbors' place for a while.

The father was afraid that, having engaged in music and art, his children would face financial difficulties. Thus, he wanted to see his daughter as a doctor.

However, love for music overcame all challenges. Years later, he realized that he was mistaken.

Shafiga received her primary education at Baku Music School named after Asaf Zeynally, where she had been taught by Uzeyir Hajibeyov for eight years. Then, in 1956, she continued her education at Azerbaijan State Conservatory named after Uzeyir Hajibeyli, from which she graduated from the class of prominent composer Boris Zeydman.

In 1972, Shafiga composed her first opera "Brides rock" and became the first female composer in the East.

The opera was composed on the libretto of Iskender Joshgun based on the story of the same name by Azerbaijani writer Suleiman Rahimov.

Initially Shafiga Akhundova wrote music for the radio play "Brides rock". In this music, the song "Melodies of the Heart" was especially popular. The author of the novel Suleiman Rahimov suggested composer to write an opera.

The opera was staged on the stage of the Azerbaijan State Opera and Ballet Theater in Baku.

Akhundova is also the author of the wonderful songs "Leyla", "Happy Land", the operetta "Our home, our secret" (1965), pieces for a string quartet, the dramatic plays "Aydin", "Farewell to India!", "What do you live for?", etc. and music for children's plays such as "A tale of a clown", "Birthday of a rabbit", etc. She is the author of more than 600 works and composed music for more than 30 spectacles staged in state theaters.

In 1998, Akhundova was conferred a title of Peoples Artist of Azerbaijan and in 2005 she was awarded with the Shohrat Order.

For many years she combined her creativity with the pedagogical work at the Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Arts.

She wrote a number of critical articles, reviews of performances and concerts. She was a welcome and invariable guest at the creative meetings of composers, poets and writers.

Shafiga Akhundova suffered from heart disease for a long time. He passed away on July 26 at the age of 89.

The composer left behind a lasting legacy of musical excellence that continues to resonate with the Azerbaijani people.

----

Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @lmntypewriterrr

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 18:04 (UTC+04:00)

A delegation of international travellers, led by Charles Veley, founder and head of Most Travelled People (MTP), visited Aghdam as part of their tour of Azerbaijans Garabagh and Eastern Zangazur regions, Azernews reports.

The delegation represented 13 countries, including the USA, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, the Philippines, Poland, Hungary, and others.

Witnessing the Armenian atrocities

During their visit to the Alley of Martyrs in the city of Aghdam, the travellers were informed about the heroic Azerbaijani children who lost their lives in the First Garabagh War, as well as civilians who were victims of the Khojaly Genocide. They were also told about the destruction of Aghdam by Armenian vandals and the desecration of graves in the Alley of Martyrs.

The visitors observed the remains of structures demolished by Armenians on Aghdams central street and learned that, before the occupation, Aghdam was one of the largest and most developed cities in Azerbaijan. Once known for its vibrancy, the city now lies in ruins.

The delegation was shown the damage inflicted on the Aghdam Juma Mosque, built between 1868 and 1870. The mosque, like other historical and religious sites, was subjected to Armenian vandalism. The minarets were dismantled, the ceiling was damaged, and inscriptions were destroyed. The mosque was reportedly used to house livestock during the occupation. Following the liberation of Aghdam, the mosque was restored by the state of Azerbaijan.

The travellers also received information about ongoing restoration and construction efforts in Aghdam.

Travellers in Lachin's Zabukh and Sus villages

According to the itinerary of the trip, the travellers arrived in Lachin after Kalbajar.

They familiarised themselves with the construction and reconstruction work being carried out in the city. It was reported that currently, along with the city of Lachin, residents have also returned to their native lands in the villages of Zabukh and Sus in the district. It was stated that housing has been provided for 534 families (1,971 people) in the city of Lachin, 217 families (823 people) in the village of Zabukh, and 59 families (215 people) in the village of Sus, and all necessary conditions have been created for the resettled families. Additionally, the travellers were informed about important projects being carried out in the district.

It should be noted that in the last four years, more than 360 international travellers from nearly 50 countries have visited Garabagh and East Zangazur in large groups 10 times. From July 25-27, a group of international travellers will be making another trip to Garabagh and Eastern Zangazur organised by the MTP (Most Travelled People) travel club. The MTP trip will be the 11th trip of this kind.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 19:44 (UTC+04:00)

The European Council announced the appointment of Magdalena Grono as EUSR for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia. According to Azernews, Grono succeeds Toivo Klaar whose tenure of over 6 years comes to an end on 31 August. She will take up her duties on 1 September 2024 for an initial period of 12 months.

The Council's report says that as the new EUSR, M. Grono will continue the work of her predecessors, contributing to the implementation of the EU foreign policy objectives in the region.

According to what is said in the report, the special rep will contribute to the peaceful settlement of conflicts, including the crisis in Georgia and the normalisation process between Azerbaijan and Armenia, in close coordination with the UN and the OSCE. She will engage with the main interested actors regarding the region and will develop contacts with governments, parliaments, other key political actors, and civil society, encouraging and facilitating cooperation on regional themes of common interest.

Ms Grono, a Czech national, currently serves as Chief Diplomatic Adviser to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel. She has worked on foreign policy and conflict resolution issues for the past 25 years, including in high-level diplomatic posts for the EU as well as in think-tank capacities, with a strong emphasis on the former Soviet space and the South Caucasus in particular. Before joining President Michel's Cabinet, she was a foreign policy adviser to former President of the European Council Donald Tusk. Previously, she was the Europe and Central Asia Director at the International Crisis Group.

Note that the EU Special Representatives are proposed by the High Representative and appointed by the Council to promote the EU's policies and interests in specific regions and countries, and provide the EU with an active political presence in those areas.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 11:03 (UTC+04:00)

Ulviyya Shahin Read more

In the first half of 2024, Croatia significantly increased its crude oil imports from Azerbaijan, purchasing a total of 587,600 tons worth $375.98 million, Azernews reports.

This represents a substantial 90% increase in quantity and a 109% increase in value compared to the same period in 2023.

Last year, Croatia imported 308,500 tons of crude oil from Azerbaijan, with a value of $180.25 million.

This year, prices have risen, with the cost per ton climbing from $584 (approximately $77 per barrel) in 2023 to $640 (about $84 per barrel) in 2024.

In the first half of 2024, Azerbaijan exported a total of 11.1 million tons of crude oil, generating $7.012 billion in revenue.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 09:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

Turkiye will transfer two patrol ships and six F-16 aircraft to Qatar, Azernews reports.

According to the ministry, TCG KUMKALE ve TCG KUSADASI military vessels will depart on July 26 from the territory of the Aksaz naval base in the southwestern province of Mugla, and military aircraft will fly to Doha on July 30.

"Aircraft and vessels will be subordinated to the Command of the Qatar-Turkiye joint forces in order to participate in training programs and conduct exercises," the Turkish Defense Ministry said.

The Defense Ministry also shared the latest data in the field of combating terrorism. In the last week alone, the Turkish military has neutralized 94 terrorists in the region, and in general, 1,521 militants since the beginning of the year.

According to the ministry, 795 militants have been neutralized in northern Syria this year as part of anti-terrorist operations, and 726 more have been neutralized in northern Iraq.

Referring to the possibility of resuming joint patrols of the M4 highway with Russia in Idlib, the Turkish Defense Ministry said: "The Turkish army is taking and will continue to take all possible steps to ensure peace and tranquility in the region. The issue of ensuring safety on the M4 highway is being discussed. Turkiye is ready to take responsibility for any issues aimed at contributing to stability in the region.

At the same time, Ankara again criticized the US actions in Syria, stressing the inadmissibility of Washington's contacts with the Syrian wing of the PKK - YPG terrorist organization.

"It is unacceptable to fight some terrorists with the hands of other bloody organizations. We hope for the sincerity of the United States in supporting Ankara's efforts to eliminate the threat of terrorism in the region," the ministry stressed.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 19:22 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

The contract for the supply of two battalion sets of new Polish-made Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to the Polish army will be signed in early August, Azernews reports.

According to the Ministry of Defense, the first batch of new IFVs will consist of 159 vehicles, including two battalion sets of 58 IFVs plus additional vehicles for crew training.

A preliminary agreement on the purchase of 1,000 Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles was signed in February 2023 between the Polish Arms Agency and the companies Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa and Huta Stalowa Wola.

The Borsuk tracked BMP weighing 28 tons in the basic version is capable of reaching speeds of 65 km per hour and overcoming water obstacles at a speed of 8 km per hour. The crew consists of three people. The armor is able to protect the troops from small arms fire and grenade launchers.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 20:36 (UTC+04:00)

By Alimat Aliyeva

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, Cho Tae-yel, met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Laos on the sidelines of multilateral events through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and expressed concern about the "ongoing provocations" of the DPRK and the Moscow-Pyongyang treaty, Azernews reports.

Meetings of ASEAN foreign ministers and the organization's partners are taking place in the capital of Laos, the South Korean Foreign Ministry says. The talks between Cho Tae-yeong and Wang Yi lasted 40 minutes, the ministers positively assessed the state of bilateral exchanges, agreed to increase contacts, discussed the situation on the Korean peninsula and other issues of mutual interest.

"Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yeol expressed serious concern that North Korea continues provocations and escalates tensions in the region by concluding a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement with Russia and strengthening military and economic cooperation," Seoul reported.

The South Korean side asked China to play a constructive role in ensuring stability and peace on the peninsula. Wang Yi replied that China's policy in the region has not changed, Beijing will play a positive role.

The Republic of Korea made a similar position during the session of the bilateral strategic dialogue with China at the level of deputy foreign ministers, which was held in Seoul on July 24.

On June 19, during the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang, Russia and the DPRK signed a Comprehensive Strategic partnership Agreement, which implies the immediate provision of military assistance in the event of a defensive war. The Russian President said that the new agreement does not pose a cause for security concern for South Korea. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov noted that only potential aggressors can oppose the clause on military assistance in the event of a defensive war.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
26 July 2024 22:31 (UTC+04:00)

Nazrin Abdul Read more

Kyrgyzstan and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have held discussions on major transport projects, Azernews reports.

Kyrgyzstans Acting Minister of Transport and Communications, Absattar Syrgabaev, met with an EBRD delegation led by Ayten Rustamova, the Regional Head for Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

A key topic was advancing the financing agreement for the Balbay Baatyr - Karakol road reconstruction project, which is valued at 56.5 million. The next steps involve selecting a consulting engineer and contractor.

The discussions also addressed two additional major projects: the reconstruction of the northern bypass road around Bishkek and surrounding areas in the Chuy region, and the upgrade of the Kara Balta-Chaldovar road.

The Ministry of Transport and Communications affirmed its commitment to advancing both projects simultaneously, despite facing temporary challenges related to land acquisition for the northern bypass. They are collaborating with the Bishkek City Administration to address these issues.

Additionally, the meeting covered a $12 million initiative aimed at boosting climate resilience for the Kyrgyz Railway's infrastructure. Upcoming actions include finalizing tender documentation and obtaining procedural approvals.

The parties agreed to schedule a follow-up meeting with Simone Zeh Atanasovski, Head of the EBRD Advisory Services Program in Central Asia and Mongolia, to further discuss the outlined issues.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Defense ministry protests NATO's accusations against China concerning Ukraine

Xinhua) 11:05, July 26, 2024

BEIJING, July 25 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese defense spokesperson on Thursday expressed strong discontent with NATO's accusations against China concerning the Ukraine issue.

On the Ukraine issue, China has held an objective and impartial position and actively promoted peace talks, while the U.S.-led NATO allies kept fueling the fire and profiteering from the war, said Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, at a press conference, when commenting on allegations aimed at China in the Washington Summit Declaration recently issued by NATO.

"NATO needs to reflect on itself, instead of deflecting blame onto China," Zhang said.

China has always been a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development and a defender of the international order, while the Chinese armed forces remain a staunch force for global and regional peace and stability, he added.

Zhang warned NATO against provoking bloc confrontation and creating division in the Asia-Pacific region.

"We urge NATO not to interfere in China's internal affairs, not to challenge our legitimate rights and interests, and not to smear China's domestic and foreign policies," he said.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Dance and Eat at Port Orford Coast Guard Day, Maybe Help Save a South Oregon Coast Lighthouse

Published 7/22/24 at 12:05 a.m.

By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Port Orford, Oregon)  If you've ever wondered how you might be able to someday have a ton of fun at a south Oregon coast beach landmark and help to save a lighthouse at the same time, that opp is coming up. August 4 brings the 20th Annual Picnic in Port Orford Heads State Park, which features live music and an occasion to wander some of the south coast's coolest historic landmarks. (Port Orford Heads Lifeboat Museum, courtesy photo)

It takes place from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Bring chairs, blankets and a picnic lunch to celebrate US Coast Guard Day as well as Lighthouse Day. While the event is free, it helps raise awareness of the plight of the nearby Cape Blanco Lighthouse and how it is badly in need of funds for repair. It needs to be rescued.

This year, the band Timberwolf takes the stage, a rig that has been a favorite here for years. The music happens at the Port Orford Heads Lifeboat Station Museum.

You'll also be able to celebrate Lighthouse Day, which technically doesn't happen this year until August 7, but US Coast Guard Day and its party at Port Orford were a perfect match for this year's event.

Put together by the Cape Blanco Heritage Society (CBHS) and sponsored by Oregon Parks and Recreation Department, the two put a spotlight on the history of the US Coast Guard in the area. CBHS said it always celebrates the origin of the Revenue Cutter Service on the first Sunday in August.



Detail from the event poster, this image of Lifeboat #36498 was created by Don McMichael, one of the last surviving officers of the Port Orford Lifeboat Station when it was still in service

It was on August 4 of 1790 when the service was born, later seeing considerable action during the Civil War and helping to establish the state of Alaska.

This branch of service was active in environmental protection dating back to the 1822 Timber Act that tasked them with protecting government timber from poachers, CHBS said. In 1915 the Revenue Cutter Service and Lifesaving Service were merged into the U.S. Coast Guard as we know it today.



Courtesy CBHS

The event gives you the opportunities to visit the CBHS' museum at Port Orford Heads, where you can learn more about the Coast Guard's distinct place in this area's history, as well as amble down incredible viewpoints along the locale's hiking trails.

Turn West on 9th Street in Port Orford, near Milepost 301, and then follow the road up the hill to where the road ends.

Yet there's a very serious aspect to all this fun and music-meets-scenic frivolity. The CBHS also runs the Cape Blanco Lighthouse, which has a significant plight going on. The tower has been closed since 2020 because it is in dire need of repairs, according to CBHS executive director Rebecca Malamud-Evans. There's much more going on, however. Thus, the event and its Lighthouse Day hope to raise awareness of how badly the lighthouse and its grounds need funds for all sorts of issues.

It's a program known as Save Our Lighthouse. S. Oregon Coast's Cape Blanco Light Fundraising for 'Dire' Need of Repairs

The lighthouse is still in limbo at the moment. I am working to possibly get the workroom open to public tours this summer, Malamud-Evans said. That is up to the US Coast Guard who currently owns the lighthouse. Oregon State Parks is very supportive having just installed an anemometer to help with our efforts to keep visitors informed of the wind conditions before they head up the lighthouse gate road. We made our US Coast Guard Day event in recognition of Americas Lighthouses to support Cape Blanco. We have a very nice art exhibit happening in our Greeting Center Gift Shop to support the lighthouse and make visitors aware of our lighthouse keeping legacy - one of the most impressive anywhere.

Meanwhile, Malamud-Evans said she has some hope for possible funding coming from Oregon officials and State Parks. Some money has been doled out to other lighthouses.

We just need someone to take that first step to make great things possible at Cape Blanco, she said.

For more information, call 541-332-0521 or visit capeblancoheritagesociety.com.

Oregon Coast Hotels for this event - South Coast Hotels - Oregon Coast Vacation Rentals - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours







MORE PHOTOS BELOW















Photo CBHS

More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging.....

More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining.....



Coastal Spotlight



Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles

Back to Oregon Coast

Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection

All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright  Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted
Fata Morgana: Oregon Coast Weather Illusion Bends Reality, Caught Near Seaside

Published 7/17/24 at 9:32 p.m.

By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Seaside, Oregon)  What's fairly rare here on Oregon's coast turned into a stunning and strange find for one north coast resident. (Photos Mike Bernard). There's a cool science explanation behind it.

On July 5, Mike Barnard caught Seaside's Tillamook Head and the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse in a very unusual state: it was bent, squished and spread out in a repeated manner  like something out of a sci-fi movie. The thin piece that resembles some digital reiterative anomaly is Terribly Tilly and part of the headland. There's also that thin line above it stretching almost horizon to horizon. The visage makes no sense.

Barnard caught the elusive Fata Morgana, the surreal optical illusion that happens at sea or on land and turns ordinary objects into freaky things that cause plenty of head scratching. Reality gets bent here.

Barnard said he was at the wreck of the Peter Iredale for awhile and spotted it.

I immediately saw what I thought was smoke, he told Oregon Coast Beach Connection. As I drove towards Seaside from the wreck of the Peter Iredale, where one of the beach approaches are, it became clear it wasn't smoke because it was stationary.



Mike Bernard

He had to snap pics of it and then zoom in on his camera viewer to be sure. Yup, it turned out what he thought it was: the optical illusion you really don't often see on this coastline. Having been a commercial fisherman for awhile, Bernard said he'd seen it before in Alaska numerous times, but not here.

We usually don't see it here, Barnard said. We usually get the fog, not what I'd call a layering of different atmospheric conditions.



Photo Seaside Aquarium: you can just barely make out the lighthouse from this angle - as it normally looks. Note the lighthouse rock is in only one place: in the optical illusion phots it's repeated a strange way.

It turns out, it had been around awhile on this particularly warm north coast day. The park ranger at Fort Stevens that Barnard spoke to said he'd been seeing it out there for a good hour and wondered what the hell it was.

Barnard left after a half hour of watching it himself and said it was still around when he left.

The north coast resident said he isn't sure it's much of a big deal, but it is considered at least a little rare on this coastline. In the 30 or so years staff from Oregon Coast Beach Connection have been documenting the coast  and literally tens of thousands of photos  we've never seen it.

Brian Nieuwenhuis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service (NWS) in Medford, said he has seen it before in other areas but not around here.



Mike Bernard

So what is the Fata Morgana? The science is as trippy as the sight itself, and it's thought it's behind some strange mythology in our past.

It's simply a type of mirage, formed when there is a cold layer of air trapped below a very warm one, Nieuwenhuis said. I imagine this is pretty common at our coast in the summer, with the marine layer in place at the ocean surface and hot air flowing over the marine layer as it blows off the land. Maybe conditions were just right on this day?

Indeed, conditions were right.

I noticed you can actually see the line where the dense air meets the warmer air, Barnard said. When I cropped it to blow it up, then I could see that the lighthouse actually had an inverted image above it. Same with the pinnacles at the end of Tillamook Head, inverted above the normal image.

The distant horizon on Earth can cause all sorts of interesting sights, especially on the sea (like the Green Flash at Sunset or its freaky cousin the Novaya Zemlya. See Oregon Coast's Green Flash at Sunset and Its Wacky Cousin Novaya Zemlya).

The differences in temperature cause light to bend through what is called an 'atmospheric duct,' and this can cause objects on the horizon to look reflected, vertically stretched, and stacked on top of itself, Nieuwenhuis said. This same kind of 'ducting' can happen at any layer of the atmosphere, and it can mess with our radar data sometimes. In this case, the layer is right at the surface.

Nieuwenhuis said the cool thing about Bernard's shots is you can see exactly where the duct is.

Or in other words, exactly how shallow the marine layer is, Nieuwenhuis said. The rocks offshore are being vertically stretched and reflected, and also stacked so they look like hour glasses.



Mike Bernard

Fata Morgana can result in strange sights like seeing a ship out at sea that appears to be floating. The Fata Morgana probably had its hand in a lot of paranormal things people have reported throughout history.

It is thought that in the past this phenomenon is responsible for reports of castles in the sky, phantom mountains and islands, and even the legend of the Flying Dutchman!, Nieuwenhuis said.

Fata Morgana is also known as Morgan le Fay, a sorceress from Arthurian legends who was the sister of Merlin. Fans of Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis will also recognize that name.

Oregon Coast Hotels in this area - South Coast Hotels - Oregon Coast Vacation Rentals - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours







MORE PHOTOS BELOW













More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging.....

More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining.....



Coastal Spotlight



Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles

Back to Oregon Coast

Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection

All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright  Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted
Big Things in Pacific Northwest Skies: 3 Meteor Showers for Oregon, Washington, the Coast

Published 7/23/24 at 12:05 a.m.

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection





(Portland, Oregon)  There's something sizable going on in the skies above the Pacific Northwest right now, and it can be spectacular. And yet the show is really just beginning with a whole host of meteor showers above Washington, Oregon and the coastlines. (Photo NASA)

The Delta Aquariids, Alpha Capricornids and the Perseids are all happening right now, with the Aquariids and Capricornids peaking later this week.

Indeed, Oregon Coast Beach Connection witnessed some of this. Friday night, in spite of a rather large moon and a bit of haze, staff saw some four meteors (one of them really bright) and one satellite in the space of 15 minutes. It was astounding.

And yet the peaks of these two smaller showers were still a good week away.

Meteor showers come from the dust clouds left in space, often from large comets. Are we going through an extra dense cloud of interstellar dust this time?

According to the south Oregon coast's NASA ambassador Dr. Aaron Coyner (from Coos Bay's Southwestern Oregon Community College), probably not. He thinks there's just luck involved, although he said there have been some good reports of sightings around the U.S.



Shooting stars in Portland / Oregon Coast Beach Connection

Typically, we see 2 to 3 random meteors an hour just on any night, Dr. Coyner said. Maybe we hit a particularly large dust clump, so you get a few in a short time.

The Delta Aquariids are here from July 18 through August 21, and they're better seen down south of the equator. North of the equator, the radiant is positioned lower in the southern sky, resulting in lower visibility compared to southern regions.

This particular shower typically produces good rates for about a week centered around its peak night  which is July 29 - 30. The meteors are usually faint and lack persistent trains and fireballs. Also, these don't produce much, perhaps about 5 or so an hour. Yet some of them can be quite spectacular.





This year, moonlight will have minimal impact due to the waning crescent moon setting in the early morning hours.

The Alpha Capricornids are bouncing around above us from July 7 through August 15 with its peak on July 30 and 31. They are not very strong and rarely shoot out more than five glowing balls per hour. However, what is notable about this shower is the number of bright fireballs produced during its run.

Then there's the Perseids. They are the top dog, if this were any kind of celestial contest. These can produce some 50 to 75 shooting stars per hour at their peak, which is August 11 and 12.

If you're heading to the Oregon coastline or Washington coast, and the weather is clear, you're going to get an eyeful. Really, that's true of the entire Pacific Northwest: from Spokane and Seattle to Westport, and from Pendleton to Cannon Beach, Forest Grove down through Medford and over to Florence.

Made of tiny space debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle, the Perseids are named after the constellation Perseus, said Jim Todd of Portland's OMSI. The Perseids are widely sought after by astronomers and stargazers because most years at its peak, one can see 60 to 100 meteors in an hour from a dark place.

They started a little over a week ago on July 14 and run until September 1.

Luckily, according to Dr. Coyner, the moon won't be much of a problem after 1 a.m. as it sets at that time during the peak in August.

What's interesting here is that the farther north you go, the higher the Perseids' radiant.



Star movement at Arch Cape / Oregon Coast Beach Connection



The location they'll appear to be coming from is called the radiant  they're coming from Perseus, Dr. Coyner told Oregon Coast Beach Connection. If you're in a higher latitude the Perseids shift higher in the sky. Which is helpful, because you're not dealing with getting blocked from any of the forests we love so much around here.

That means good things for those up in Washington and its coastline: they could be easier to see..

It's not that they're in the atmosphere longer up there, they just don't disappear into the haze on the horizon as quickly, Dr. Coyner said.

Whether you're at the coastlines of the Northwest or in places like Ashland or Salem, make sure you check out the clear skies at night.

Oregon Coast Hotels for this event - South Coast Hotels - Oregon Coast Vacation Rentals - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours







MORE PHOTOS BELOW













More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging.....

More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining.....



Coastal Spotlight



Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles

Back to Oregon Coast

Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection

All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright  Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted
Oregon State Parks' Campfire Ban in Effect, Some Coastal Areas Affected

Published 7/24/24 at 1:15 a.m. - Updated 7/24/24 at 3:15 p.m.

By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Oregon Coast) - Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) has issued a temporary ban on campfires at most Oregon State Parks, while those on the south coast have some resctrictions, including no beach fires. The decision comes in response to the dry conditions prevailing across the state and the strain on firefighting resources caused by ongoing wildfires. Some state parks have even closed because of fire dangers.

OPRD said the restrictions mean campfires and open flames are strictly prohibited at all parks east of the Cascades due to the combination of low humidity and the extremely high risk of wildfires. Additionally, parks in other high-risk regions across the state are subject to restrictions. While most bans primarily affect parks east of the Cascade Range and in the valley, some coastal parks may also have specific limitations.

They are increasingly challenging conditions.

Fire bans also affect beach bonfires in those restricted areas, but currently that is only on the south Oregon coast and not applied to any part of the northern half of the coastline. That could change considering the region has had hardly any rainfall in a good month.

Campfire restrictions generally ban all open flame, but often make exceptions for propane cooking as the flame is contained. You'll want to check individual park webpages for details on any restrictions before visiting. Restrictions are listed in alphabetical order in a feature story at stateparks.oregon.gov/ or on the individual park pages.

JR Collier, OPRDs deputy of statewide operations, said the agency is well aware that campfires are an integral part of the camping experience.

We dont make the decision lightly to restrict the use of fire, but unfortunately conditions require that response, Collier said. The decision is made in consultation with our local fire agencies. Thank you for helping us do our part to reduce the risk of any new wildfires.



Fire at Crissey Field beach in recent years

Due to wildfires, several parks have been temporarily closed. These include Battle Mountain Forest State Scenic Corridor, Farewell Bend State Recreation Area, and the East and West Hatfield Trailheads on the Columbia River Highway State Trail. Additionally, the Ukiah-Dale Forest State Scenic Corridor is affected. For the most up-to-date information, visit the park webpages at stateparks.oregon.gov and search for the specific park youre interested in.

Some Oregon state parks have reduced air quality due to wildfire smoke. Check DEQs website for air quality information at www.oregonsmoke.org/.

For Oregon coast state parks, currently only south coast parks are affected and usually have the exception of allowing fires in designated fire rings. Fires are only allowed in the campgrounds and not on those particular beaches. However, this may differ from park to park on the south coast.

A fire ban means no wood fires, charcoal, charcoal briquettes, pellet-fueled grills, candles, tiki torches and other devices that emit flames or embers and cannot be turned off with a valve, OPRD said. Portable cooking stoves, propane fire rings, barbecues, and lanterns using liquefied or bottle fuels are allowed. Devices using liquefied or bottle fuels are banned in the backcountry unless used for cooking."

UPDATE: TO FURTHER CLARIFY, OPRD SENT THIS TO OREGON COAST BEACH CONNECTION:

No fires are permitted on the beaches or in day-use areas from the Douglas/Lane County border south to the Oregon border with California.



Fires are currently permitted in established fire rings in campgrounds within that area (William Tugman, Umpqua Lighthouse, Sunset Bay, Cape Blanco, Humbug Mountain, Bullard Beach, Harris Beach).



No coastal parks or beaches from the Lane County border with Douglas County north to the Washington border with Oregon are impacted at this time.



No fires are permitted on the south coast beaches (and beach fires when permitted are limited to no more than 3 feet x 3 feet x 3 feet in rule).

Around Brookings these parks include Crissey Field, the entire Samuel H. Boardman Scenic Corridor and Harris Beach State Park, among others. In the Gold Beach / Port Orford to Bandon area, parks with restrictions include Face Rock, Cape Blanco, Port Orford Heads, Sisters Rock State Recreation Area, Seven Devils, among most others. Around Coos Bay, Cape Arago and Shore Acres also have restrictions.

Last week, Siuslaw National Forest along the Oregon coast put further bans into place for its lands, which include the entire Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area between Florence and Coos Bay as well as some areas around Tillamook and Lincoln City. All Siuslaw National Forest Areas Under Fire Restrictions; South Oregon Coast Parks

Oregon Coast Hotels in this area - South Coast Hotels - Oregon Coast Vacation Rentals - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours







MORE PHOTOS BELOW















Crissey Field / OPRD







More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging.....

More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining.....



Coastal Spotlight



Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles

Back to Oregon Coast

Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection

All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright  Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted
Oregon Wildlife Experts Warn of Dogs Getting Salmon Poisoning on Coast, Around the State

Published 7/19/24 at 6:35 a.m.

By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Newport, Oregon)  A handful of dogs have become sick around the central Oregon coast in recent days and that has wildlife officials worried, warning the public to keep their dogs away from fish carcasses around the state. (ODFW photo)

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) said several cases of salmon poisoning were reported around Newport, a severe illness that can sometimes be deadly to dogs.

Salmon and trout carcasses may harbor bacteria in their blood that can be fatal to dogs, ODFW said.

The illness comes from the bacteria Neorickettsia helminthoeca, which is transmitted from a parasitic flatworm that lurks in dead fish by the side of a body of water, mostly salmon. Fortunately, most dogs survive if they receive treatment, but without it they are certain to die.

Recently, a dog had to be rescued near Seaside. Dog Injured on N. Oregon Coast Hike, Needed Rescue Due to Wire Mesh in Trail

Symptoms include severe vomiting and diarrhea, ODFW said.

However, it begins with a kind of lethargy: your dog will suddenly not be as energetic as before, according to ODFW Veterinarian Julia Burco.

It does not take much contact for a pup to get salmon poisoning. ODFW said. They can get infected from even just licking a dead fish carcass, but certainly from a bite or actually eating some. Symptoms often don't become visible until 5 to 7 days after exposure.

The disease does not just happen on the Oregon coast, either: ODFW warns of the issue statewide. This is earlier than usual, however, as ODFW usually warns the period from September through December is where it normally is at a higher risk of occurring.

ODFW said you'll want to be very proactive in looking out for your pooch in this situation. It's far too easy for them to become infected.

State Park rules, laws for dogs on Oregon coast beaches, such as Port Orford, Bandon, Cannon Beach, Manzanita, Pacific City, Florence, others: Unleash at the Beach? Hikes? Oregon Coast and State Park Dog Guidelines, Laws - Tips, guidelines and rules at state parks, beaches, towns, more

If you see your dog eating a dead salmon or trout, or even around one, take them to the veterinarian right away, ODFW said. Don't wait for your dog to get sick as prophylactic treatments can prevent a more serious illness. The sooner your dog gets treated, the less likely they will get sick and need expensive treatments.

Burco said you should keep dogs on a leash and in plain sight while at bodies of water, preventing them from even coming across fish carcasses. If you are cleaning fish out there, she said to make sure you pick up and bag all garbage associated with that. Do not leave fish parts around the landscape, and be sure to clean coolers and gear.

The highest risk of salmon poisoning is usually September when salmon gather in rivers to spawn and die. These cases early in the year are unusual, ODFW said.

Through ODFW, Oregon resident Wesley Shum said his dog Ukee was severely sickened after a fishing trip for trout back in June.

She went from being an energetic puppy to lethargic and would barely get up off the couch, he said. She lost her appetite and then she started throwing up every time she drank water.

The bacteria are also called flukes - and that's what the vet reported to Shum when he took the dog in to be examined. Test results came through fecal matter.

Ukee ended up in the emergency vet for five days, but has luckily since recovered and is now back to her normal, energetic self.

ODFW said Wesley told them he is now super diligent about keeping things clean, but both he and the agency admitted only a trace amount of fish slime or blood on a boot can expose your dog to salmon poisoning. See the ODFW video

Oregon Coast Hotels in this area - South Coast Hotels - Oregon Coast Vacation Rentals - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours







MORE PHOTOS BELOW













Dog rescue / US Coast Guard

More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging.....

More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining.....



Coastal Spotlight



Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles

Back to Oregon Coast

Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection

All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright  Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted
Two Drownings in 10 Days at South Oregon Coast's Lobster Creek, Near Gold Beach

Published 7/16/24 at 8:55 p.m.

By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Gold Beach, Oregon)  Two people have drowned at the south Oregon coast's Lobster Creek area, taking place in two separate incidents ten days from each other. The Curry County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) said both were men in their early 40s, visiting from elsewhere. In one case, the man's friends witnessed the drowning at the Rogue River spot, which is nine miles east of Gold Beach. (Photo CCSO)

The first incident took place on July 4 as the sheriff's office began receiving 911 calls about 3:30 p.m. Deputies responded by boat and vehicle to the location. Also dispatched were Cal Ore Life Flight, Gold Beach Fire and northern California's Reach Air, which arrived by helicopter.

Sergeant Gray arrived in the marine boat and several first responders got on the boat and they started the search for the person who was being reported as drowned, said Curry County Sheriff's Office.

The deceased was later identified as 42-year-old Rohithumar Godhani from Milipitas, Ca.

Godhani was in the area recreating with his family when he entered the water for unknown reasons, CCSO said. The searchers in the boat located Godhani in six feet of water about a hundred yards down river from where he had gone in. Godhani had been submerged for almost an hour from the time he went under water to when he was located. CPR was started by medics and first responders on scene.

Ghodani could not be revived and was pronounced dead on the scene, even after Reach Air medics arrived and attempted lifesaving efforts.

The second incident in the popular south Oregon coast recreation area happened on July 14 at 1:33 p.m. Around that time, CCSO said it was hearing Oregon State Police radio traffic of a drowning at Lobster Creek's gravel bar area.

Along with deputies, Cal Ore Life Flight and the Gold Beach Fire Department were also called to the scene. There, they discovered a man had gone under the water as his friends witnessed the incident from shore. Less than two minutes after going under, a marine boat from Linn County Sheriff's arrived, which was training in the area.

The man was soon ID'd as 41-year-old Adam Birdsell from Medford.

Without prior knowledge of a drowning and being flagged down and told about the drowning by witnesses, they began searching for Birdsell, CCSO said. The two marine deputies quickly located Birdsell submerged in about six feet of water. One of the deputies dove in and pulled Birdsell out of the water and onto their boat. Several other marine deputies and boats arrived to assist.

Deputies immediately began CPR efforts and quickly transported him to the shoreline, where Cal Ore Life Flight continued to try and revive him. Birdsell was soon transported to Curry General Hospital where he was pronounced deceased by medical staff.

Birdsell was on vacation with his family and friends, who witnessed the drowning, CCSO said. The Curry County District Attorney was notified and authorized release of Birdsell to Redwood Memorial Services out of Brookings.

CCSO sent out its condolences to the family and friends of both men.

Lobster Creek Campground is part of the US Forest Service's water recreation areas. White it does have water safety signage of its own, Oregon State Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) notes that most places around the state are not supervised.

Wearing a life jacket, and making sure it fits properly, saves lives. Remember: many of our lakes, rivers, and reservoirs are filled by snow runoff and remain cold year round, OPRD said. And even water that look calm could have swift currents and hidden obstructions beneath the surface.

MORE FROM THE GOLD BEACH AREA BELOW:

Oregon Coast Hotels in this area - South Coast Hotels - Oregon Coast Vacation Rentals - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours







MORE PHOTOS BELOW























More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging.....

More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining.....



Coastal Spotlight



Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles

Back to Oregon Coast

Contact Advertise on Oregon Coast Beach Connection

All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright  Oregon Coast Beach Connection. Unauthorized use or publication is not permitted
Newsweek and research firm Statista released their annual rankings of the best hospitals in the U.S. for cardiac care, which includes four hospitals in California in the top 25.

The list was compiled by surveying health care professionals and hospital managers working in cardiology. Their responses were considered along with hospital quality metrics, patient experience surveys and an analysis of whether the facilities use patient-reported outcome measures to improve care. Read more about the methodology here.

Here are the leaders of Newsweek's best hospitals in California for cardiac care:

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center/Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai (Los Angeles)

Thomas Priselac, president and CEO of Cedars-Sinai Health System

Bryan Croft, executive vice president and COO of Cedars-Sinai Medical Cente

Stanford (Calif.) Health Care - Stanford Hospital

David Entwistle, president and CEO

Quinn McKenna, executive vice president and COO

Linda Hoff, executive vice president and CFO

Niraj Sehgal, MD, MPH, executive vice president and chief medical officer

UCLA Health - Ronald Reagan Medical Center (Los Angeles)

John Mazziotta, MD, PhD, CEO of UCLA Health

Johnese Spisso, CEO of UCLA Hospital System

UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco)
Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine has proposed a new medical office building at its Huntley (Ill.) hospital campus, according to a July 25 report from Shaw Local News Network.

The building would be next to an existing medical office facility and would add 300 jobs, according to the report.

The new building already has reached maximum occupancy in terms of tenants. The two-story building is set to house oncology infusion, oncology radiation, cardiology diagnostics, the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute, medical oncology, general surgical services for gastroenterology, pulmonary, urology and related professional offices.

There will be a public hearing on the proposal before the Huntley Village Board and Plan Commission vote on it, the report said.
The New York Department of Health has given New York City-based Mount Sinai conditional approval to close Beth Israel after months of reviewing the health system's closure plan.

"The conditional approval of the closure plan submitted by Mount Sinai-Beth Israel Hospital is based on careful and extensive review of the plan and delineates several conditions to help ensure that patients receive quality care at nearby hospitals and other primary care providers," a spokesperson for the state health department said in a July 25 statement shared with Becker's.

The health system recently pushed back the July 12 planned closure of the hospital because of the state health department's ongoing review of a revised closure plan submitted by Mount Sinai.

"We are grateful for the DOH's careful and comprehensive review of our proposed closure plan," Loren Riegelhaupt, a spokesperson for Mount Sinai, said in a July 25 statement shared with Becker's.

Below are some of the state's requirements for Mount Sinai to close Beth Israel:

1. Secure formalized agreements with other area hospitals to ensure patients needing transfer to an inpatient setting are accommodated. The health system must also appropriately staff the Mount Sinai Behavioral Health Center to "ensure sufficient access for patients seeking psychiatric care at other hospitals," according to information shared with Becker's from the state health department.

2. Formalize an agreement with NYC Health + Hospitals that invests in an expansion of Bellevue Hospital's emergency department and comprehensive psychiatric emergency programs capacity to handle patients no longer receiving care at Beth Israel.

3. Open a 24/7 Mount Sinai urgent care clinic "for at least the first three months" to ensure sufficient patient capacity. A monthly operations report must be submitted to the state's department of health during the opening of the clinic. A quarterly report will be required afterwards.

4. Ensure that patients have knowledge of other ways to receive area care, including outpatient and urgent care centers, virtual care and the Mount Sinai Hospital-At-Home program.

5. Work with the New York City Fire Department to ensure EMS services are available in the area where Beth Israel will close.

Per the requirements, the health system plans to open an expanded, 24/7 urgent care center two blocks away from where Beth Israel is located once the hospital closes. The center will support the New York City Fire Department by operating an additional ambulance in the city's downtown area. It will also work with and support other city hospitals, like NYC Health + Hospitals and Bellevue.

Beth Israel will remain open and accepting patients for now and plans to share more information as they work with the state health department, Mr. Riegelhaupt said.

Mount Sinai has also asked the state court for an expedited review of the lawsuit filed against the health system by the Community Coalition to Save Beth Israel Hospital and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary to keep the New York City-based hospital from closing.

"The approval issued by the Department of Health is not unexpected," Arthur Schwartz, lead counsel for the coalition, said in a July 25 statement shared with Becker's. "The DOH has been laggard in defending the interests of the community ever since Mount Sinai began the process of shutting down Beth Israel back in 2017"

Mr. Schwartz also pointed to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for the loss of vital services should the hospital close.

"We are still in court and we still have a Temporary Restraining Order in place," he said. "We intend to keep on fighting."










The Justice Department pointed to antitrust scrutiny for why UnitedHealth Group's Optum backed out of its planned acquisition of Dallas-based Steward Health Care's physician group, Stewardship Health.

Steward, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy May 6, is working to offload its 31 hospitals along with Stewardship Health. Steward was also recently hit with a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's office in Boston.

"When you ask Americans what keeps them up at night, affording and accessing quality health care is too often at the top of their list," Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's antitrust division, said in a July 25 statement. "These transactions are among UnitedHealth Groups latest proposed provider-related acquisitions, and they raised questions about quality of care, cost of care and working conditions for doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers."

Optum backing out of acquiring Stewardship Health comes amid an antitrust investigation the Justice Department opened into UnitedHealth Group in February.

The investigation is partially looking into Optum's physician group acquisition and how the health plan and physician unit ownerships impact competition. Optum employs or is affiliated with more than 90,000 physicians.

Steward did not have an immediate comment for Becker's.

Becker's has also reached out to Optum and will update this story if more information becomes available.
CEO exits have declined 19.5% in the first half of 2024 compared to last year.

There were 66 reported hospital CEO exits in the first six months of 2024, according to a July 25 report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Tapping hospital CEOs from within the same health system and promoting COOs were among the more popular ways to find successors.

Here are four ways hospitals and health systems chose their new CEOs in 2024.

1. In-house promotion, dual roles

Marley Koons was promoted from CFO to CEO of Lakin, Kan.-based Kearny County Hospital in February. Ms. Koons continued to serve as interim CFO while searching for her successor.

COOs are a common choice for promotion, as seen with Anderson Healthcare's Mike Marshall, who took over as CEO in February. He had served as the Maryville, Ill.-based system's CFO from 2005 to 2022 before becoming COO.

Erik Wexler, Renton, Wash.-based Providence's COO, was named its next CEO; he will succeed Rod Hochman, MD, on Jan. 1.

2. Talent from other systems

In July, Trey Abshier was selected as CEO of Ascension Sacred Heart Emerald Coast in Miramar Beach, Fla. Mr. Abshier previously served as CEO of HCA Florida Lake Monroe Hospital in Sanford.

In March, Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health tapped Hollie Seeley, RN, as CEO of Sutter Medical Center in that city. Ms. Seeley previously served as CEO of HCA Healthcare's North Suburban Medical Center in Thornton, Colo.

Jody Prather, MD, was tapped as Loveland-based HealthSource of Ohio's new CEO. Prior to that, Dr. Prather had served as chief strategy and marketing officer at Louisville, Ky.-based Baptist Health.

3. Returning leaders

George Brown, MD, was selected as CEO of Portland-based Legacy Health in April, returning to the role after serving in it from 2008 to 2018.

Eleze Armstrong also returned to her previous workplace this year. She was named CEO of Templeton, Calif.-based Twin Cities Community Hospital in January and had previously worked at the hospital from 2010 to 2018, most recently as chief strategy officer.

4. Movement within one system

Transitioning between hospitals under the same system was common. Dallas Purkeypile, for example, was named CEO of AdventHealth South Overland Park (Kan.). Mr Purkeypile had previously led CEO AdventHealth Ottawa (Kan.).

Michelle Fuentes shifted between workplaces within Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based AdventHealth. Ms. Fuentes was named CEO of AdventeHealth Castle Rock (Colo.), and had most recently been president of Adventist Health Sonora (Calif.)
Randolph, Vt.-based Gifford Health Care has named Cheyenne Holland CFO.

Ms. Holland will assume the role on Aug. 19, according to a July 24 Gifford news release. She previously served as Gifford's interim finance chief from November 2023 through January 2024.

She most recently served as managing director of Mazars USAs healthcare advisory services, according to the release. She provided services to Gifford as part of that role. She also previously served as CFO of Berlin-based Central Vermont Medical Center.

Ms. Holland said her priorities in her first 90 days in the role include continuing to support the optimization of Gifford's new EHR, according to the release. The system went live with Meditech in October after previously using three different systems.
St. Bernard Hospital, located in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, recently celebrated its 120th anniversary. Leaders say this milestone is particularly meaningful given the challenges of remaining sustainable in today's healthcare environment.

"It's something that's very special," Diahann Sinclair, vice president of organizational support and external affairs, told Becker's. "Over the years there have been four hospitals that served the neighborhood. And at least for the last 40 [years] or so, we have been the only remaining [community] hospital in a neighborhood that is economically challenged and has high rates of all the chronic conditions."

St. Bernard serves families in need of urgent care and preventive services. More than 90% of its patients are on Medicaid or Medicare.

"So it is really special that in this environment where healthcare is challenging  we are able to sustain ourselves as an independent hospital, a safety-net hospital that's not part of a system, and still produce quality care for our patients," Ms. Sinclair said. "It is significant that with all of that, we are still here. We're not just existing but providing excellent care for our patients."

The hospital's roots date to June 1904. It began as the vision of the Rev. Bernard Murray, the leader of St. Bernard's Church in Englewood, who asked the Kingston, Ontario-based Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph, for help in founding a local hospital, according to St. Bernard's website. Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph sent seven sisters who, along with community residents, raised funds to build the hospital.

During the week of June 24, the hospital celebrated the milestone with activities for staff, including a Mass and hospital rededication June 26.

Ms. Sinclair said the hospital also presented employee service awards in July to recognize those who have served at St. Bernard for as long as 40 years.

"One of the things that has been really important and critical in this as we acknowledge the 120 years of service is to acknowledge the employees who have stood by us through some very challenging times," she said.

While the mood has been celebratory amid the milestone, Ms. Sinclair acknowledged the hospital's path has been particularly difficult financially.

"We have become very efficient. We have a very lean team," she said. "Many organizations like us have many layers. Our leadership team is six strong. People wear many hats. We are committed to quality. We are always advocating and looking for different avenues to generate revenue, and, of course, we depend on funding sources from the state. It is just about being very creative, but the truth is it's still financially challenging, and the years to come will be challenging until we become fully sustainable and profitable."

One recent approach was to establish the Center for Better Aging with community partners as part of the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services' Healthcare Transformation Collaboratives program.

The center opened July 23 at the hospital to address the shortage of aging care, practitioners and services for people 50 and older on the South Side.

"The goal is to have this comprehensive approach so people can be healthier, stay out of the hospital and be healthier as they age," Ms. Sinclair said. "Right now, that's a challenge for many of our seniors. Access is a challenge. Many of them don't feel comfortable. Some of them don't have the support."

She added that the goal is for the program to be a model that institutions across the country can follow.

Additionally, she emphasized the importance of hospital leaders nationwide, especially leaders of organizations serving populations that are economically challenged, knowing the populations they serve.

"It's important to get to know the populations because every population, every group, if you go to different communities, the socioeconomic issues may be different, the support structure may be different," she said.

"So you have to get to know the population you serve. You've got to craft what you do so it addresses the needs that they have and not make assumptions about what those needs are. It also means you have to engage, build trust with, not just with them, but with the local groups and leaders, like the faith-based groups, who already have that trust with that population. I think it's really about relationship building, focusing on the need, and making sure you are also bringing services and practitioners to the population that are reflective of who they are, their principles and their values. Because I think the more we do that, the easier that partnership will be in care delivery."
Healthcare is shifting to a multi-region model and the number of health systems operating in multiple states is rapidly increasing.

The trend is becoming more prominent as health systems diversify portfolios, increase their bargaining power with payers and vendors and pursue further economies of scale amid challenging financial headwinds.

The Federal Trade Commission also has challenged several recent in-market hospital deals, which is driving health systems to increasingly look outside their traditional service areas to expand.

Here are three health systems that recently acquired or plan to acquire their first hospital in an adjacent state:

1. Kansas City-based University of Kansas Health System on July 1 acquired Liberty (Mo.) Hospital. The transaction sees KU Health grow into a nine-hospital system, including seven acute-care hospitals and two behavioral health facilities. Liberty Hospital is its first hospital in Missouri.

Notably, 35% of KU Health's patients come from Missouri, making it "a perfect opportunity to partner with another independent hospital in a prime area for our health system," Bob Page, president and CEO of the health system, told Becker's. "We also have that cultural compatibility, so it was pretty much a no-brainer for us to pursue."

2. Greenville, S.C.-based Prisma Health plans to enter Tennessee by acquiring Blount Memorial Hospital, a 304-bed community hospital in Maryville, Tenn. The 18-hospital system has committed to investing $364 million into Blount Memorial should the deal close. Several health systems were interested in acquiring Blount Memorial, according to hospital leaders.

"Expanding to desirable nearby markets with respected regional hospitals like Blount Memorial strengthens our scale, capabilities, relevance, resources, and attractiveness to top talent and industry partners  all attributes of leading health care organizations," Prisma President and CEO Mark O'Halla said.

3. Dalton, Ga.-based Hamilton Health Care System plans to acquire Tennova Healthcare-Cleveland (Tenn.), a 351-bed hospital from CHS. The $160 million deal, expected to close in the third quarter, would mark Hamilton's entry into the Tennessee hospital market. The nonprofit, independent health system also plans to rebrand to Vitruvian Health as part of its regional expansion plans.

"As a not-for-profit and one of the few remaining independent health systems in the region, above all, we are committed to the well-being of our region and keeping care local to the communities we serve," Hamilton President and CEO Jeff Myers said. "Hamilton Medical Center and Tennova Healthcare-Cleveland share a proud history of serving the members of our respective communities  and we will invest in furthering that legacy to ensure long-term stability, the availability of advanced, comprehensive expert care, and a best-in-class patient experience."
Ontario, Calif.-based Prime Healthcare has grown significantly since Founder, Chair and CEO Prem Reddy, MD, launched the health system in 2001. Now it is preparing to acquire nine Illinois hospitals from St. Louis-based Ascension in what would be the largest acquisition in the health system's 23-year history.

The proposed transaction, expected to close in the first quarter of 2025, would increase the number of hospitals in Prime's portfolio to 53. It would also expand the health system's presence into the third-largest metropolitan market.

"With this historic transaction, Prime Healthcare's Midwest region will become one of the largest in the system," President and Chief Medical Officer Sunny Bhatia, MD, told Becker's. "This transaction is unique in that it provides scale and therefore opportunity to create significant benefit to communities, patients and Illinois."

Dr. Bhatia highlighted the health system's track record of improving financially struggling hospitals at a time when the industry is facing ongoing financial and workforce challenges and widespread consolidation.

"We are committed and uniquely able to improve, invest and ensure the continued legacy of service of these hospitals, having saved and transformed over 40 hospitals across the country," he said. "While Illinois would be a new market for us, there were a lot of similarities and parallels with other communities we've entered in Los Angeles and the Northeast, and we understand the vulnerable patient populations some of these hospitals serve in the Greater Chicago area."

Prime has committed to invest $250 million in facility upgrades, capital improvements, technology investments and system upgrades at the nine hospitals, which include:

Ascension Holy Family (Des Plaines)

Ascension Mercy (Aurora)

Ascension Resurrection (Chicago)

Ascension Saint Elizabeth (Chicago)

Ascension Saint Francis (Evanston)

Ascension Saint Joseph  Elgin

Ascension Saint Joseph  Joliet

Ascension Saint Mary  Chicago

Ascension Saint Mary  Kankakee

Dr. Bhatia insists that "healthcare is local," and that the smooth and successful integration of these facilities starts with speaking to hospital leaders.

"We first learn about the hospitals, their legacies, keeping healthcare local and supporting them with a larger system that has done this over 40 times," he said. "We also infuse capital around systems, technology, protocols, processes to ensure they're practicing at their highest level and following guideline-based medicine. Then you start to see efficiencies and improvement in outcomes and quality metrics."

As a physician-founded and physician-led system, Prime said it maintains a constant focus on clinical care to improve quality, operational efficiencies and the patient experience. Investments will focus on enhancing care and operational performance through facility improvements and new technologies or systems.

Part of Prime's integration plan includes converting all nine hospitals to its iteration of the Epic EHR system to drive synergy and quality.

"Operational improvements also stem from economies of scale and the ability to share resources and best practices across a national system," Dr. Bhatia said. "Most importantly, we define successful integration by raising the quality of care delivered, advancing equity and access, and expanding service to communities. Prime is committed to the long-term success and service of every hospital that is part of our system and has never closed a hospital."

Dr. Bhatia said Prime often introduces or expands service lines that hospitals put on the back burner or delayed, such as behavioral health programs, advanced cardiac programs, or comprehensive stroke programs, which the health system has established and expanded at multiple hospitals.

The 44-hospital system is in a strong financial position and is expected to close the transaction with its current finances  without adding any debt to the nine hospitals, according to Dr. Bhatia.

Prime is preparing to welcome the nine hospitals into the system in the first quarter of 2025, pending regulatory approvals and closing conditions, but it is not dismissing the possibility of further hospital acquisitions should the opportunities make sense.

"We're a big believer in community hospitals and their role in delivery of healthcare. There's many hospitals in distress, and we want to be very thoughtful, very thorough in the review, because there are challenges today that weren't in place many years ago, when we were growing at a rapid clip," Dr. Bhatia said. "We will continue to look at other opportunities if they present themselves and if we believe that the opportunity to turn them around and add value is realistic."
Clinician leaders might want to enourage their teams to meet hospitalized patients at their eye level, according to a meta-analysis published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Compared to standing by an adult patient's bedside, sitting or crouching was associated with more trust and satisfaction, the study authors found.

The researchers, who work in Maryland-based health systems and medical schools, evaluated 14 studies that examined how patients perceived clinicians who stood versus those who sat down. The studies were notably different in terms of study design, interventions, measurement types and outcomes, and most had an elevated bias risk.

Also, some interventions require standing, and some clinicians lack seating options.

In spite of these conditions, the meta-analysis revealed that patients favor clinicians who sit while communicating. Ten of the 14 studies noted better perceptions of clinician compassion and time spent, plus high satisfaction scores, among those who were seated. Three showed no difference, and one reported higher patient ratings of communication for clinicians who stood.

The preference for seated clinicians might be because communication at eye level indicates shared power, the study authors said.

"For those healthcare systems that wish to promote this behavior, it is likely that several changes would be necessary such as adjusting local culture to one that expects clinicians to sit, role modeling patient-centered posture in clinician teams, and eliminating physical barriers," the study said.

In their conclusion, the researchers recommended this practice because of the potential benefits and easy implementation.
Transitioning new nurse graduates from a remote learning environment forced by the pandemic into practicing by the bedside has been a challenge for health systems, calling for a change in the way C-suite leaders tackle the issue, hospital leaders told Becker's.

"While they were certainly receiving an excellent education through online course trainings and simulation labs, these students were unable to practice and sharpen their patient interactions and fully realize their medical training in clinical settings, which is so essential to building ones confidence as a nurse," Gara Edelstein, MSN, RN, chief nursing officer at Catholic Health in Rockville Centre, N.Y., told Becker's. "However, the experience gap has granted us the opportunity to retrospectively evaluate how to more effectively transition nursing students to practice  not only in dire situations such as COVID, but as a best practice orientation process to ensure all nurses feel fully prepared and supported as we move forward."

Solutions are not "one-size-fits-all."

Prompted by issues with the transition into practice, Catholic Health launched a Transition to Professional Practice program for its newly hired graduate nurses. The program is three months long and immerses the new nurses in a combination of classroom learning and bedside clinical training, Ms. Edelstein said. The nurses are also given a preceptor, one for each new nurse, to provide them with an individualized mentor and guide.

"The one-on-one interaction each training nurse obtains is the finishing touch, giving them confidence and support as healthcare professionals ready to serve on the front lines," Ms. Edelstein said. "Whatever the clinical or organizational skill they may practice, an orienting nurse preceptor is at their side to help guide them through the process."

The program also has the new nurses reconvene as a group three times after starting the program after each month to share experiences and progress.

"The orientation period is a crucial and highly influential time in any nurses career. It helps them to establish themselves as medical professionals while they are still learning," she said. "At Catholic Health, our top priority is to ensure our nursing staff  both the newly graduated and those with experience coming from other health organizations  have a solid foundation on which they can develop emotionally, clinically and professionally."

Transitioning the transition

The transition to practice from medical and clinical education was named the No.1 patient safety concern of 2024 by ECRI safety experts, but it's one Akin Demehin, the senior director of quality and patient safety at the American Hospital Association, has seen listed various times before, and heard vocalized by association members.

"The transition to practice has always been an area that hospitals and health systems have been quite attentive to," Mr. Demehin told Becker's. "When a new clinician comes in for practice, they come with a lot of clinical preparation; they come with a lot of educational preparation; and they come with some practical experiencebut hospitals know that no matter what that preparation is, every individual has to be oriented to policies in the organization's approach to patient safety systems like EHR and other processes that are used to deliver care In that environment."

Because there is not a cookie-cutter solution to be replicated for every hospital, Mr. Demehin said some systems have creatively brought in more resources or introduced mentorship programs, virtual platforms and educational opportunities to supplement training and onboarding. But what's most important is not following a standard approach, but ensuring that these newly onboarding clinicians are being heard.

"Always set up in-person conversations and talk about how things are going to check-in," he said. "One of the things that hospitals know is an important driver of patient safety is the workplace culture. We have seen hospitals really doubling down on building cultures that are supportive of the delivery of safe care, making sure that all staff, no matter their experience level  but especially those who may be newer  know that they'll be supported in raising potential patient safety issues."

What else can hospitals do?

Other systems have turned to solutions ranging from the addition of virtual nursing, wellness initiatives to support nurse mental health, and other reinforcement tactics.

The increase in simulation training done during the pandemic also brought on a need to "expand and enhance the transitional training hospitals provide," Susan Stone, PhD, RN chief nurse executive at Sharp HealthCare in San Diego, told Becker's.

Meeting nurses where they are today is critical, since nursing, from a national perspective, has also seen "an increase in nurses either retiring or transitioning to work outside the clinical setting," she said.

Part of meeting them where they are not only includes reflection on what these new nurse graduates have been through during their educational programs throughout the pandemic, but also recognizes that nurses today want more in their careers. In addition to transitioning them into practice, transitioning them for internal mobility is also important, Dr. Stone said.

"The transitional training programs we provide include didactic reinforcement and education for policy and procedure, along with clinical training and performance validation to equip our people with the knowledge and training required for optimal clinical outcomes, and optimal patient and family experiences," Dr. Sharp said.

That's something Ms. Edelstein emphasized as well. Catholic Health also provides yearlong residencies to nurses that help them build further confidence in a specialty area they choose.

"[The] yearlong residencies [are] designed to help them master the medical specialty they will be working in," Ms. Edelstein said. "We invest a great deal of time and money to ensure that our nurses are confident, clinically competent and fully prepared to care for patients according to the exact needs of their specialty."

The soft skills

While educational and clinical preparation are vital to onboarding and transitioning any new nurse into successful bedside practice, one of the things enveloped by the pandemic's onset was in-person patient interactions and social skills for the workplace, all three experts told Becker's.

"Every hospital and health system has a workforce that is usually comprised of multiple generations working alongside one another," Mr. Demehin said. "We already know technologies and communication styles do change across generations. So one of the things I've heard members do [to assist with the transition to practice] is provide educational offerings for everyone in the organization rather than just new clinicians to sort of help folks get acclimated to what it means to practice in a multi-generational environment and give them tips and practices on how to make sure that everyone  no matter what generation they're from or what their experience level is  feels welcomed, respected and supported in a care environment."

At Catholic Health, Ms. Edelstein said as part of the system's segmented transition to practice meetings which occur 30, 60 and 90 days throughout the three-month program, they also bring in clinical staff who aren't part of the training. This allows the newer nurse graduates to decompress, communicate with peers and also ask questions in a focused, supported setting with more seasoned members of the staff.
U.S. workers' confidence in their careers is now lower than it was at the height of the pandemic, according to LinkedIn's most recent Workforce Confidence survey.

LinkedIn's market research team surveyed 34,637 U.S. professionals from Dec. 30, 2023 to July 12, 2024, scoring their confidence on a scale from -100 to +100.

Workers' confidence in their ability to progress in their careers has declined since the start of 2024 and now sits at +24. This score is down from +28 in 2020 when COVID-19 spurred many workplaces to shut down, according to the report.

The decline has been especially pronounced among male workers this year, whose confidence in their careers dropped from +32 in January to +24 in July. Historically, men have reported higher confidence in their careers than women.

LinkedIn's analysts did not explain the reasons behind this year's drop in confidence, but factors such as a loosening labor market, decreasing worker engagement, and a growing trust gap between managers and employees may be contributing.

Learn more here.
The new office block at Ebrington in Derrys Waterside. Picture Martin McKeown.

Respected Derry company Alchemy is considering moving into the Grade A office blocks at Ebrington.

The former Army base was handed back to the city over 20 years ago but an anchor tenant in the office space is seen as key to its overall success.

Construction on the glass fronted units began back in 2019.

At one time there were high hopes that Allstate would occupy them but those plans fell through in 2021.

Alchemy Technology Services, founded and developed by Derry man John Harkin, has grown to become a key provider of technology and consulting services to the global insurance sector.

Ebrington Plaza. Picture Martin McKeown.

Alchemy recently acquired London management consultancy firm r10 Consulting for an undisclosed sum.

It was also awarded the Kings Award for Enterprise in the category of International Trade in May.

It current employs more than 200 people.

The Belfast Telegraph has learned that Alchemys current lease in Duncreggan Road in the city is up later this year and it is currently looking at a variety of options around the city.

A spokesperson for Alchemy said: Ebrington Plaza remains as one of the options we are looking at in the city and we will confirm our plans when they are finalised.

Meanwhile, plans by EY to develop a new hub in the north west are progressing well, according to Invest NI.

Last year, EY said it would be creating new roles over the next five years in a move that will bring the total EY headcount to 1,900 in the region. It currently has around 900 staff here.

There was some speculation that the company may avail of office space at Ebrington.

When asked for the latest on these plans, Invest NI said: The project is progressing well and EY is progressing with its plans to establish a hub in the North West.

The company will announce the location of the hub at the appropriate time.

The Executive Office which currently owns and runs the Ebrington site was contacted for comment.
More than 5,000 students will be accommodated at the site when completed

A sketch of the Fallowfield redevelopment project, for which NI construction company Graham has been selected as the preferred bidder

Co Down construction company Graham has been selected as the preferred bidder for a major student accommodation building project.

The Fallowfield campus redevelopment is the UKs largest student accommodation development, and will see 5,400 student beds provided upon completion.

The University of Manchester has chosen Graham for the project, alongside infrastructure company Equitix and facilities management company Derwent.

The Fallowfield site is nearby Manchester Universitys main buildings. The redevelopment will see new rooms added, as well as 3,300 bedrooms being updated.

The University of Manchester say this is a much needed update to one of our most popular student campuses, and add that they will work with the neighbours to ensure the surrounding community can benefit as much as possible from the redevelopment project.

There will be several phases to the project, beginning with the ongoing demolition of the Owens Park Tower and the surrounding buildings.

The buildings have been closed for several years, and the demolition work is due to be finished in early 2025.

Graham is a construction company headquartered in Hillsborough, Co Down, that employs around 2,300 people.

It had a turnover in 2023 of 1.1bn, resulting in a pre-tax profit of 15.1m. It cam 35th in the Belfast Telegraphs list of the Top 100 Companies in Northern Ireland 2024.

Graham CEO Andrew Bill said: Graham is delighted to be working in partnership with the University of Manchester to deliver its vision for the Fallowfield Residences Redevelopment Programme.

"Together, we will focus on creating an exemplar sustainable campus that will enhance the experience of the Universitys next generation of students.

Dr Simon Merrywest, director for the student experience at the University of Manchester said: We are delighted to have reached another key milestone in the progression of our plans for the Fallowfield Campus Redevelopment with the selection of Viridis as preferred bidder and our delivery partner.

"Clearly, there remains a lot of work to do in order to reach financial close on this exciting programme by summer 2025.
A perverted care worker has been barred from the profession after confessing to sex offences against a teenage girl he was in a position of trust over.

Disgraced carer Johnny Ritchie (29) was given a jail sentence at Londonderry Crown Court earlier this year after he pleaded guilty to five charges of intentionally sexually touching a girl he knew to be aged under 18.
The Chief Executive of the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust has resigned.

Dr Cathy Jack held the role of chief executive for four years after taking it up in 2020. She has marked 37 years working in healthcare.

Dr Jack first joined the consultant medical staff in Belfasts Royal Victoria Hospital as a geriatrician in 2004 before becoming deputy medical director in 2008, followed by medical director in 2014 and deputy chief executive in 2017.

A Health Trust spokesperson said: "Dr Jack has led the organisation through a challenging landscape for health and social care, including a global pandemic. She embodies health service values and has worked diligently to ensure our patients and service users have received the best possible care.

"Dr Jack is passionate about staff engagement and spent time listening to staff to better understand their experiences and provide support.

"Belfast Trust would wish to pay tribute to Dr Jack for her unwavering commitment to Belfast Trust and her wider contribution to health and social care in Northern Ireland."

Ciaran Mulgrew, Belfast Trust Chair, said: On behalf of Trust Board I want to thank Cathy for her dedication and leadership to the people we serve and she leaves with our sincere thanks and best wishes.

News Catch Up: Friday 26 July
Supporters protest outside the Danish embassy in Dublin calling for the release of veteran environmental activist Paul Watson, who has been detained in Greenland (Brian Lawless/PA)

A protest has been held outside the Danish embassy in Dublin calling for the release of veteran environmental activist and anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson.

Mr Watson, a 73-year-old Canadian-American citizen, is a former head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society whose direct action tactics, including high-seas confrontations with whaling vessels, have drawn support from A-list celebrities.

He was arrested in the Danish territory of Greenland on Sunday when his ship docked in Nuuk on foot of an international arrest warrant issued by Japan.

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) said he would be detained in Nuuk until August 15 at least, to give the Danish justice ministry time to investigate the case and possible extradition.

Environmental campaigner Paul Watson (Markus Schreiber/AP)

At a protest outside the Danish embassy in Dublin, protesters wore fox and badger masks, wrapped themselves in ropes and chanted is it a crime to save the oceans, is it a crime to save the whales, is it a crime to save the dolphins? No.

A letter was handed in by protesters to the Danish embassy urging them to release Watson.

Alex Neubauer of the Irish branch of the CPWF told the PA news agency that Watsons arrest came as an absolute shock.

He said that although he has heard Mr Watson is in good spirits, he is facing a prison sentence of up to 15 years in Japan, and there are fears that if he is sent there he may never leave.

Paul Watson was actually two weeks ago in Dublin  and we thought he was free to travel, he told PA.

But it looks like the Japanese government made a confidential Red Notice so no one could see it.

We are getting in contact all over the world, with politicians, with celebrities to ask for Paul Watson to be freed.

People take part in a protest outside the Danish embassy in Dublin calling for the release of anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson (Brian Lawless/PA)

He said they have petitions and have set up a website to help people send letters to embassies and politicians to increase pressure to release the activist.

Captain Paul Watson saved whales, he kicked a Japanese whaling fleet out of the southern oceans. He always says if the oceans die, we all die. So what we do, were saving the whales but were also saving humanity.

He said he hoped the Irish government would push for Watsons release.

For Denmark, I say only one thing: the world is watching you.
The court heard Kacey Clarke had texted a relative and told her she had been taking balloons, which was slang for inhaling nitrous oxide (PA)

A 16-year-old boy has been found guilty of killing a woman during a row after they both inhaled laughing gas last Christmas Eve.

The youth, who cannot be identified, had rowed with Kacey Clarke, 22, and stabbed her in the chest in a flat in Bermondsey, south-east London.

Earlier that evening he was caught on CCTV threatening to ching her up and kill her, the Old Bailey heard.

Like the victim, the boy was said to have a history of inhaling nitrous oxide  commonly known as laughing gas  which was classified a class C drug in November 2023 in a crackdown on anti-social behaviour.

A search of the defendants bedroom revealed a large collection of canisters, a jury was told.

After the killing, the youth hid the weapon  a large knife  in a railway arch where it was later discovered by a Thames Water workman on January 17.

The court heard he had a history of possessing knives, having been caught with a 25cm long Rambo-style blade in an ice cream shop and a lock knife in his waistband in a residential area.

In all, he had convictions for 25 offences between April 2022 and September 2023 and was subject to an electronically monitored tag at the time of Ms Clarkes death.

The crimes were mainly for theft and handling stolen goods and included an incident in April 2023 when he snatched a mobile phone from a woman who was injured when they both fell over, the court was told.

The defendant denied Ms Clarkes murder in a row sparked by the loss of her car keys.

Giving evidence, the boy admitted that he had taken laughing gas and claimed he had acted in self defence.

A jury at the Old Bailey deliberated for 13 hours and 23 minutes to find the boy guilty of manslaughter.

Moments before, the defendant had flashed a smile at family members from the dock as he was cleared of the more serious charge of murder.

Judge Simon Mayo KC ordered pre-sentence reports and said he would sentence the boy at a later date.

Previously, prosecutor Jane Osborne KC had said the defendant had lost his temper with mother-of-one Ms Clarke.

The prosecutor said: They might have been arguing, they might even have been fighting, but that argument met a fatal end when (the defendant) armed himself with a very large knife and used it to stab (Ms Clarke).

His intention to stab is nowhere more evident than on the audio footage which records him shouting that he is going to ching her up and kill her.

Earlier that evening, Ms Clarke had texted a relative and told her she had been taking balloons, which was slang for inhaling nitrous oxide.

When challenged about it, Ms Clarke told the relative that she shouldnt be boring because it was Christmas.

Another relative, texted to say Ms Clarke was buzzin like nothing, the court was told.

Police and paramedics were called just after 10pm and found Ms Clarke was lying on the kitchen floor of the Bermondsey flat with a single stab wound to the chest.

The defendant was arrested nearby around 45 minutes later.

He had been wearing Croc shoes and blood was found on his bare toe, jurors were told.

Clumps of his hair that appeared to have been ripped from the scalp were also recovered from the scene, the court heard.

A broken lamp and picture frame were found on the floor of the living room as well as a bag of the clothes believed to belong to the victim beside two large 640g nitrous oxide canisters, jurors were told.

In a police interview, the defendant offered a prepared statement in which he said Ms Clarke had become angry that she could not find her car keys.

She smashed a lamp and threw something at the defendant, hitting him on the side of the face, he said.

A fight ensued with Ms Clarke grabbing his hair, he claimed.

Ms Clarke then burst into a room holding a knife and the boy said he picked up a blade and waved it to create an invisible shield, the court heard.

He said he thought she was lying when she said she had been stabbed as he had no recollection of making contact, according to the statement.

Following the verdicts on Friday, the defendant was remanded into custody.
BBC racing commentator John Hunt has told friends that every message of support feels like a hug following the deaths of his wife and two daughters in a crossbow attack, a colleague has said.

Matt Chapman, an ITV commentator, said Mr Hunt was very thankful that people are thinking about him and his third daughter, Amy, following the attack in their Hertfordshire home earlier this month.

His wife Carol Hunt, 61, and two of their daughters, Hannah, 28, and Louise, 25, were found fatally injured at the house in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, on July 9.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Chapman said Mr Hunt had told him that every message thats been sent, every one of those messages feels like a hug.

Three people were found fatally injured at a house in Ashlyn Close, Bushey, on July 9 (Jonathan Brady/PA)

As far as whats happened, its still beyond belief that this could happen to anyone, a family in the world, Mr Chapman said. The message from all of us is when you need us [John], we are here.

A GoFundMe page set up to support Mr Hunt and Amy has passed its target of 100,000, which Mr Chapman said shows from the horror of this event, we have seen the other side of human nature  it just reminds us theres goodness out there in the world.

Kyle Clifford, 26, was arrested on suspicion of three counts of murder after he was found with injuries in the Hilly Fields area of Enfield, north London, on July 11.

Hertfordshire Police said he remains in hospital under arrest and continues to receive treatment, but that officers have not yet been able to interview him due to his condition.

In a previous statement, Mr Hunt and Amy said: The devastation that we are experiencing cannot be put into words.

We would like to thank people for their kind messages and for the support we have received in recent days. These have provided great comfort to us for which we are very grateful.

As you can imagine, this is an extremely difficult time for us, and we need time and space to come to terms with what has happened and start the grieving process.
There has been a second night of protests over the man kicked and stamped on by a police officer at Manchester Airport.

Roads and tram lines were blocked in Manchester city centre on Thursday night by people angry at the incident which has led to a Greater Manchester Police officer being suspended.

Videos online appeared to show a handful of demonstrators with their faces covered, throwing eggs at Rochdale police station on Thursday night.

The family of the man are particularly shocked by what happened because some of their family members are police officers, newly elected Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh said after speaking to them.

The footage, filmed at Manchester Airports terminal two on Tuesday, appeared to show an officer kick and stamp on the head of a man who was lying face down on the floor, with a woman kneeling beside him.

The video also appeared to show the officer strike a second man.

A Stand Up To Racism demonstration was held in Manchester (James Speakman/PA)

Police said three of their officers had been assaulted, including a female police constable who suffered a broken nose, and four men were arrested.

Posting on social media, on Thursday night Mr Waugh said it is clear they (the family) are deeply traumatised by what happened.

The family, who are his constituents, have two priorities, he said, the health and wellbeing of those involved including their mother, and the need for justice to be done.

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

Mr Waugh said: This is a hardworking Rochdale family, some of whose members are police officers themselves and are therefore particularly shocked at what they have witnessed.

He went on: The family also want me to make it crystal clear that they have no political agenda, do not condone political violence and do not want to take part in any protests.

They wanted me to appeal for calm and I hope that appeal is heeded.

While there is clearly deep concern about this incident, there is also a vital need not to let extremists of any kind hijack these events for their own ends.

The protest began outside the office of Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham (James Speakman/PA)

On Thursday evening, a few hundred protesters gathered outside the office of Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham as part of a Stand Up To Racism demonstration, chanting slogans such as No justice, no peace, no racist police.

Placards included black lives matter, serve and protect means GMB will stamp on our heads and GMP is racist.

They then marched through the city blocking roads and tram lines.

Protester Nahella Ashraf, co-chairwoman of Greater Manchester Stand up to Racism, said she was horrified by the level of police brutality and called for all the police officers involved to be suspended.

Fellow protester Shah Rahman, from Oldham, claimed communities were very scared when police have no limits.

Crowds had gathered also outside Rochdale police station late on Wednesday, some chanting GMP shame on you.

Solicitor Akhmed Yakoob said the family was OK but traumatised (James Speakman/PA)

Mr Burnham, who met with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to discuss the incident, also asked for calm, saying the right and proper steps had been taken.

Speaking to media outside Rochdale police station, the familys solicitor Akhmed Yakoob said: The family are OK but they are traumatised.

He said the condition of one of the men had worsened and said a CT scan revealed a cyst on his brain.

The regional director of police watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), Catherine Bates, promised a thorough and robust independent investigation.
A team of Polish divers has discovered the wreckage of an old sailing ship loaded to the brim with luxury goods including porcelain items and about 100 bottles of Champagne and mineral water about 190ft deep off the Swedish coast.

They believe the precious goods could have been on the way to the royal table in Stockholm or the Russian tsars residence in St Petersburg when the ship sank some time in the second half of the 19th century, according to the leader of the team, Tomasz Stachura.

A diver from the Polish team inspects the wreckage (Marek Cacaj/Baltictech/AP)

The private Baltictech group of divers, who search for shipwrecks on the Baltic seabed, made the discovery on July 11 while checking spots of interest about 20 nautical miles south of the isle of Oland.

They were ready to call it a day, but two divers, Marek Cacaj and Pawel Truszynski, decided to make a quick dive and emerged two hours later with the news of the wreckage and its valuable cargo.

I have been diving for 40 years, and it often happens that we find a bottle or two in a wreck, but to discover so much cargo, its a first for me, Mr Stachura told the Associated Press this week.

The 19th century ship was discovered on the seabed about 20 nautical miles south of the Swedish isle of Oland (Marek Cacaj/Baltictech/AP)

The mineral water, with the brand Selters imprinted on the stoneware bottles, was believed at the time to have medical properties.

The Champagne brand is still to be determined but the letter R could be seen on one cork, Mr Stachura said.

He said he believes the contents are still in good condition.

At this depth the wreckage is perfectly preserved, the temperature is constant, there are no currents and its dark, he said. That preserves the wreckage in a wonderful way.

The treasure included bottles of Champagne (Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech/AP)

He said Champagne and Selters experts have already contacted Baltictech and are interested in doing laboratory tests on the contents of the bottles, but it is Swedish authorities who will decide the next steps in exploring the wreck.

Divers from Baltictech previously discovered the wreck of the SS Karlsruhe, the last ship to leave Koenigsberg in 1945 as part of the evacuation of German civilians in the Second World War.
This image provided by the U.S. Department of State shows Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel. Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday, July 25, 2024. (U.S. Department of State via AP)

Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a long-time leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopeza, son of infamous cartel leader El Chapo, were arrested by US authorities in Texas, the US Justice Department said.

A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquin Guzman, Zambada is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world and is known for running the cartels smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile.

A Mexican federal official told The Associated Press that Zambada and Guzman Lopez arrived in the US on a private plane and turned themselves into authorities.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss the matter.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez (US Department of State/AP)

The US government had offered a reward of up to 15 million dollars (11.6 million) for information leading to Zambadas capture.

Zambada and Guzman Lopez, who have eluded authorities for decades, oversaw the alleged trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence, FBI director Christopher Wray said, adding that now they will face justice in the United States.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, attorney general Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Mexican authorities did not immediately comment on the arrests.

US officials have been seeking Zambadas capture for years, and he has been charged in several US cases. He was charged in February in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute the synthetic opioid.

Prosecutors said he was continuing to lead the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the cartels strategist, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, El Chapo Guzman, who was sentenced to life in prison in the US in 2019 and is the father of Guzman Lopez.

FBI director Christopher Wray (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Zambada is an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering, and even skinning their rivals.

While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.

In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.

Im terrified of being incarcerated, Zambada said. Id like to think that, yes, I would kill myself.

The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.

Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighbouring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.

Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually, he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but he still managed to maintain strong ties with the gang and avoid a turf war.

He also developed a partnership with El Chapo Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Zambadas detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of El Chapo Guzman, Ovidio Guzman Lopez.

In recent years, Guzmans sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or Chapitos, that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the US market.

They were seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested and extradited to the US last year.

He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September.

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, said Zambadas arrest is important but unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs to the US as Joaquin Guzman Lopez was the least influential of the four sons who made up the Chapitos.

This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I dont think so, he said.

Its not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him.
Vice President Kamala Harris said she urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza can return home.

Ms Harris said she had a frank and constructive conversation with Mr Netanyahu in which she affirmed Israels right to defend itself but also expressed deep concern about the high death toll in Gaza over nine months of war and the dire humanitarian situation there.

With all eyes on the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Ms Harris largely reiterated President Joe Bidens longstanding message that it is time to find an endgame to the brutal war in Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have died.

Yet she offered a more forceful tone about the urgency of the moment just one day after Mr Netanyahu gave a fiery speech to United States Congress in which he defended the war, vowed total victory against Hamas and made relatively scant mention of ceasefire negotiations.

There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, Ms Harris told reporters shortly after meeting Mr Netanyahu. And as I just told prime minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done.

Mr Netanyahu met separately earlier in the day with Mr Biden, who has also been calling on Israel and Hamas to agree on a US-backed, three-phase deal to bring home remaining hostages and establish an extended ceasefire.

Ms Harris said after her meeting with Mr Netanyahu that Israels war in Gaza is more complicated than simply being supportive of one side or the other.

Too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but, she said.

Ms Harris also condemned Hamas brutality.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby reiterated the administrations position that the militant group that killed some 1200 on October 7 and kidnapped 250 people from Israel ultimately holds responsibility for the suffering in Gaza and must come to terms with Israel.

Mr Kirby added that gaps between the two sides can be closed but there are issues that need to be resolved that will require some leadership, some compromise.

With Ms Harris forceful comments, the administration also appeared to be stepping up pressure on the Israelis to not let the moment pass to reach a deal.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, Ms Harris said.

We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.

Thousands protested Mr Netanyahus visit to Washington, and Ms Harris condemned those who were violent or used rhetoric that praised Hamas.

Mr Netanyahu, last at the White House when former president Donald Trump was in office, is headed to Florida on Friday to meet with the Republican presidential nominee.

Ahead of the Harris-Netanyahu meeting, Mr Trump said at a rally in North Carolina the vice president was totally against the Jewish people.

Ms Harris has long spoken of her strong support for Israel.

The first overseas trip of her Senate career in early 2017 was to Israel, and one of her first acts in office was to introduce a resolution opposing a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel.

She has also spoken of her personal ties to Israel, including memories of raising money as a child to plant trees in Israel and installing a mezuzah near the front door of the vice presidents residence in Washington  her husband is Jewish.

She also has connections to pro-Israel groups, including the conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the liberal J Street.

For Ms Harris, the meeting with the Israeli prime minister was an opportunity to demonstrate her mettle as commander in chief.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Julia Nikhinson/AP)

She is being scrutinised by those on the political left who say Mr Biden has not done enough to force Mr Netanyahu to end the war and by Republicans looking to brand her as insufficient in her support for Israel.

In what will likely be his last White House meeting with the outgoing president, Mr Netanyahu reflected on the roughly 40 years they have known each other and thanked Mr Biden for his service.

From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel, Mr Netanyahu said.

A US-backed proposal to release remaining hostages in Gaza over three phases is something that would be a legacy-affirming achievement for Mr Biden, who abandoned his re-election bid and endorsed Ms Harris.

Following their talks, Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu met with the families of American hostages.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, said the families received an ironclad commitment from leaders to get the deal done.

He said he was more hopeful than at any time since Hamas released more than 100 hostages during a temporary ceasefire in November.

There is more reason today than in any time since the last round of hostage releases that something can happen, he said.
Former film mogul Harvey Weinstein has been transferred from a New York City jail to a hospital to undergo treatment for a variety of health problems including Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs, his representatives said.

Weinstein, who is awaiting trial in New York on rape and sexual assault charges, was moved from the citys Rikers Island jail complex to a locked ward at Bellevue Hospital.

The other conditions he was to be treated for included diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, and fluid on his heart and lungs, according to a statement released by Weinsteins publicist that attributed the health information to Craig Rothfeld, Weinsteins prison consultant.

Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone (Andrew Kelly/Pool Photo via AP)

We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses in the citys corrections and public hospital systems who saw to it that Mr Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, said the publicist, Juda Engelmayer.

Weinstein has had at least one stint at Bellevue before, after he was first brought to New York City for legal proceedings related to his rape case.

Weinstein, 72, was found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault. The conviction was tossed out by appeals judges who said jurors should not have heard testimony from women who had accused the film producer of misconduct but whose allegations were not part of the case.

A retrial has been scheduled for November.

While his conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars in part because he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in California after he was convicted in a rape case in Los Angeles in 2022.

Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone.

At a recent court hearing, Weinsteins lawyers had said he was in poor health and asked for him to be transferred from the jail to the hospital.
Donald Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time in four years.

As president, Mr Trump exceeded his predecessors in fulfilling the Israeli leaders top wishes from the United States.

Yet by the time the former president left the White House, relations between the two had broken down after Mr Netanyahu rapidly congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory.

Both are interested in overcoming their differences.

For Mr Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, the meeting could cast him as an ally and statesman, as well as sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

That is as divisions among Americans over US support for Israels war against Hamas in Gaza open cracks in what has been decades of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of US aid.

For Mr Netanyahu, who was in the United States to address Congress and meet with incumbent President Joe Biden, repairing relations with Mr Trump is imperative because he may once again become president of the United States, Israels main arms supplier and protector.

For both men, Fridays meeting at Mar-a-Lago will highlight their home audiences depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage and can again.

One political gamble for Mr Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release and his much-hoped-for closing of a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Mr Trump wins.

Former US president Donald Trumps relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu broke down in the aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election (AP)

Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party, said Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the next six months, that means mending ties with an irascible, angry president, Mr Miller said, meaning Mr Trump.

Relations between the two soured in 2021 after the Israeli prime minister became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Mr Biden for his presidential election victory, disregarding Mr Trumps false claim he had won.

Bibi could have stayed quiet, Mr Trump said in an interview with an Israel newspaper back then. He made a terrible mistake.

The pair last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both mens political careers.

The accord brokered by the Trump administration involved the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreeing to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognising it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hopes will be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbours.

In public postings and statements after his break with Mr Netanyahu, the former president portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president and Mr Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

Mr Trump also has criticised Israels prime minister on other points, faulting him as not prepared for the October 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.

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 his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu gave recognition to Mr Biden, who has kept up military and diplomatic support for Israels offensive in Gaza despite opposition from within his Democratic Party.

However, Mr Netanyahu praised Mr Trump, thanking him for all the things he did for Israel.

Mr Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments  the US officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher policy toward Iran; and declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding US policy that Jerusalems status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

I appreciated that, Mr Trump told Fox & Friends on Thursday, referring to Mr Netanyahus praise.

He did not quiet his criticism, however, of Israels conduct of the war, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.

I want him to finish up and get it done quickly. You gotta get it done quickly, because they are getting decimated with his publicity, Mr Trump said in Thursdays interview.

Israel is not very good at public relations, Ill tell you that, he added.
Look closer to home for one of the most despicable acts of racism in football and the shameful 1988 'Banana Match' between Linfield and Glentoran
Sir Patrick Mayhew sent a highly classified message to John Major just 12 days after arriving in Belfast

Patrick Mayhew, who was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 1992-1997, said he 'heartily disliked' David Trimble

Under Prime Minister John Major, he held the role between 1992 and 1997, a time when the peace process was just beginning and the Troubles were still raging.

More information about the period, which was previously shrouded in secrecy, has emerged.

The Belfast Telegraphs Sam McBride has now discovered a secret briefing written by Mayhew to then Prime Minister Major in the national archives in Kew, London.

It suggests the IRA was in a stronger position in the early 90s than previously thought, and questions some of the received wisdom about the intelligence war against the Provisionals.

The highly classified memos also show how a post-Cold-war military shrinkage meant that there werent enough troops to give Mayhew what he wanted to combat the IRA.

In this episode, which is the 4th episode of The BelTels series on the Kew Files, Ciaran Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph Northern Ireland editor Sam McBride to reveal his recent findings from the national archives in Kew, London.

The Kew Files: Sam McBride unveils secret memos on NI Secretary of States IRA Intelligence concerns

This episode of The BelTel is part of a series of podcasts on The Kew Files. The Previous episode covered IRA decommissioning and how it almost collapsed the Good Friday Agreement.
BENNINGTON  A Rutland man, charged with sexually assaulting a teenage runaway in one case and then another runaway under the age of 16 four days later in September 2023, was arraigned and held without bail in Bennington after police in Manchester, New Hampshire, arrested him on two outstanding Vermont warrants. A judge must now decide whether to keep him without bail or release him pending a final outcome in the cases.

James A. Gathright, 56, was charged with four counts from two separate incidents last September. On September 18th, Gathright allegedly engaged in a sexual act without consent. Four days later, Gathright allegedly sexually assaulted a minor. Both incidents happened in Bennington and prompted an arrest warrant after he left the Bennington area.

Gathright is charged with four felony sexual assault counts  two sexual assault without consent charges, lewd and lascivious conduct, and sexual assault with a victim under 16. He faces a maximum life sentence on three of the four charges if he is found guilty as a charged habitual offender. He faces an additional 20-year sentence if found guilty of the sexual assault on the minor.

Vermont law considers a defendant with three or more felony convictions a habitual offender, allowing state prosecutors to enhance any further felony charges with a possible life sentence penalty.

Gathright was at a contested weight of evidence hearing Friday afternoon to determine whether he should continue to be held without bail, released on bail, or released on conditions. The hearing would also determine whether the preliminary evidence in the case was great, allowing for a continued hold.

Gathrights mother and sister testified on his behalf, telling the judge that he could reside with them in New Hampshire until his trial and that they would alert authorities if Gathright strayed from his conditions if released. Gathright, who has two separate attorneys on the two separate cases, appeared at the courthouse in shackles and smiled at the family members when he entered and after they testified.

Prosecutor Jared Bianchi, on cross-examination of Gathrights mother, was able to establish that Gathright struggled with addiction for many years and that his mother knew of at least one New Hampshire conviction involving underage women similar to the age of one of the victims in this case. Judge Kerry McDonald-Cady, pressed for time after Gathrights delayed transport from corrections, took the matter under advisement and told the court she would release her decision in a written order sometime in the next few days.

Gathright pleaded not guilty to all four counts at his arraignment on July 8th.

According to police affidavits in the case, on Sept. 18, 2023, an emergency nurse at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center reported to police that Gathright allegedly assaulted a runaway student from the Vermont School for Girls after befriending the student and forcing her down to a river bank trail behind Apollo Fuels in Bennington.

In a second incident four days later, a parent reported to police that a female under 16 had recently run away from home. As the victim walked near the KFC on Northside Drive in Bennington, a man on a bicycle, Gathright, allegedly offered the victim cigarettes and alcohol. He then allegedly took the victim to the bicycle path near Cumberland Farms and onto an empty building where he is accused of sexually assaulting her. Later, DNA evidence taken from the victim allegedly matched Gathrights DNA profile in the CODIS offender database.

Vermont State Police stated attempts were made to contact Gathright to no avail. Bennington Judge Kerry McDonald-Cady signed two arrest warrants in April, instructing law enforcement to hold Gathright without bail on the sexual assault under 16 and lewd and lascivious arrest warrant. The second warrant had a $25,000 cash or surety bond. It was believed that Gathright left the Bennington area sometime in November 2023, allegedly after finding out the police were searching for him.
If you'd like to leave a comment (or a tip or a question) about this story with the editors, please email us

We also welcome letters to the editor for publication; you can do that by filling out our letters form and submitting it to the newsroom.
Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series.

The trail had been cold for years in the 1930 murder of Bennington cab driver Michael Kane. Pre-indictments had already been issued at the time for Harry Pincus, Pittsfields famed strongman-swimmer, and two unidentified suspects  but no one knew quite where to look.

Then in 1936, an informant came to NYPD about a woman whod been crying into her drink at a Brooklyn bar, proceeding to tell a story about how her ex had murdered a cab driver upstate. Investigators quickly traced the woman, Jean Mack, and William Franco, a former New York City boxer with a prior gambling conviction.

A confession was initially obtained from Franco, but thrown out because it was obtained after beating him with a rubber hose. In the end, the case all came down to their primary witness, Jean Mack, about whom they knew almost nothing, except that her photo was confirmed by witnesses as the one seen in the getaway car with Harry Pincus. She said she could not recall the date or place of her birth, or the name of any family.

Shed been with Franco since they and Pincus planned to rob Michael Kane  she said had not known hed killed him until after. Recently, hed rejected her and become engaged to another woman.

In many ways, she was a less-than-ideal least ideal witness, but her account of the day of the murder remained exact and unflappable under cross-examination, and jurors were moved by her account. Franco was convicted; initially sentenced to death, his execution was commuted and he got paroled in 1955.

The circumstances of Pincus capture were similarly unusual. In 1940, a Newark police officer read about the case in a popular crime magazine, and as he showed it around, the photo of Pincus was recognized as a worker at a nearby glass company. Living with a new wife as Jack Brenner for years, hed actually installed windows at the Newark police station.

Harry Pincus was tried in the spring of 1941. This is about the time that his son Harold (father of Barry Manilow), whod been living in Brooklyn, began using his stepfather surname, Kelleher, instead of Pincus.

There were excited rumors that the prosecution would call as their star witness Jean Mack, who had long been an object of press fascination. She had been an enigmatic lead since the day of the murder, described variously as the mysterious red-haired girl or the blonde sweetheart, seen with Pincus the day of the killing, and at Pontoosuc Lake in the days before it.

They were clearly disappointed when he changed his plea to guilty mid-trial, and she disappeared back into anonymity.

In fact, Jean Mack wasnt even her real name. Born Helen McAvage, she was originally from Wyoming, Pa. In the early 1920s was married briefly to Frank Kerenski, then possibly to a man named Thomas Mack.

In New York, shed been a chorus girl in the controversial 1926 edition of Earl Carrolls "Vanities on Broadway." As such, she was probably present with the rest of the cast at his infamous bathtub party, the biggest Broadway scandal of the year.

While most of the "Vanities" chorus girls were serving canapes in lingerie, Carroll instructed one inebriated cast member to get naked in a bathtub that was rolled out for his guests to drink champagne from. In an ensuing trial, the high-profile theater producer was sentenced to a year in jail for perjuring himself about the party.

Eight months later, before the murder plot with Franco and Pincus, she was arrested in 1929 by NYPD for prostitution as Helen Mack, but not prosecuted. A decade later, she was arrested on a similar charge in Manhattan in July 1940, as Alice Winchell, pleading down to vagrancy.

No one knew any of this during the trials of Franco and Pincus; no one realized these were all the same person as the mysterious star witness Jean Mack, despite her photo appearing in several Northeast newspapers and tabloid crime magazines.

Then on June 9, 1948, the corpse of a 40-something woman with brown-gray hair was discovered by a tugboat passing in the Hudson River. The body had been tied to an iron weight, and was wearing only a gold ring with no inscription. An autopsy revealed her skull and larynx had been crushed.

After fingerprinting, and subsequent identification by her Pennsylvania relatives, all the dots began to connect in the story of Helen/ Jean Mack. Relatives pointed her to Charles Wolford, aka Ray Winchell, a river barge captain. Charles had been arrested with her in 1940, and the two had apparently been living together ever since.

Police caught up with Wolford, who quickly confessed that hed beaten Helen in a drunken argument on his boat. When he realized his blows had killed her, he undressed her and tied a weight to her. Kissing her goodbye, he pushed her into the river. Despite the weight she wouldnt sink, he said in his confession, bobbing back to the surface as though an accusation.

The mystery of the key figure in one of the regions most famous murder cases had ended as it began, in senseless violence.
This Story in History is selected from the archives by Jeannie Maschino, The Berkshire Eagle.
LENOX  For 40 years, the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum has been a magnet for rail buffs and anyone who fondly remembers regular passenger service from New York to the Berkshires that ended in 1970.

The nonprofit that runs the museum out of the vintage 1903 Lenox train station across from Woods Pond on Willow Creek Road will celebrate its anniversary with two public events this weekend.

Three cars of the historic Roger Williams train, under their own power for the first time in more than 30 years, will ride the rails south from Lenox to North Canaan, Conn.

Starting in July 1984, the all-volunteer museum operated scenic train rides from Lenox and Lee to Great Barrington through 1989, when it lost the use of the tracks. In 2003, with the help of local elected officials, the group began offering scenic rides between Lenox and Stockbridge, attracting more than 100,000 passengers per season.

But after nine successful seasons and with plans in the works for a dinner train, the organization was forced off the tracks again in 2011.

Starting in April 2016, seasonal excursions were offered on an 8-mile run from Adams to North Adams using traditional diesel-powered locomotives hauling passenger cars or a 1955 Budd Rail Diesel Car, both of which are historically accurate for the route.

A new fundraising campaign is being launched to help support the continued operation of those train rides.

Thanks to the scenic rail rides, hundreds of thousands of people have seen the beauty of the Berkshires in a whole new way, said Tom Delasco, president of the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum, in a prepared statement. Were holding these events to celebrate the work weve done and to hopefully kick off many more decades of educating and entertaining our visitors.

The 40th anniversary celebration will be held from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday at the Lenox Station, 10 Willow Creek Road in Lenox Dale, at the eastern end of Housatonic Street. The station is on the National Register of Historic Places.

At the Stockbridge train station, an outdoor concert will be presented at 3 p.m. Sunday by the Pellegrino Band.

The anniversary event will include hors doeuvres and beverages, remarks from special guests starting at 5 p.m., and tours of the museum grounds.

Tickets start at $40 per person. Tickets for the concert at the Stockbridge Station are $10 for adults and $5 for children ages 3 to 13.

Visitors to the Lenox station can walk through the Roger Williams train, sit in the engineers seat and hear the engines run, but the trip to North Canaan, Conn., will not be open to the public.

The train, originally six cars, was an innovative effort at high-speed rail service in 1956 by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. It was a forerunner of Amtraks Acela train operating in the Northeast Corridor since the year 2000.

The train continued to operate into the Amtrak era until the surviving cars were sold into private ownership in the mid-1980s, according to Railfan Railroad Magazine. The train eventually ended up in storage at the Lincoln, N.H., Hobo Railroad (now the Granite State Scenic).

Last year, the Lenox-based museum leased the surviving three cars from the Budd RDC Foundation. The Lenox Station museum is open on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend.

Rail Diesel Cars were an efficient, innovative way that railroads continued to offer value to passengers even as automobile and airplane travel grew more popular after World War II, Delasco said. All three railroads serving the Berkshires in the 1950s used RDCs when they were introduced, and were glad that we can continue using these historically accurate cars on our scenic train rides.
While we won't pretend to have all the answers on exactly how Lenox or any other community should adapt local regulations to this troubling housing paradigm, we would simply suggest that towns prepare for this debate that might be coming to a Town Hall near you if it hasn't already.
What does the Democratic Party base in the Berkshires  and those on the left  make of presidential candidate Kamala Harris?

By all appearances, Harris, the current vice president, will be the Democratic nominee for president in the upcoming election. The party nationally, the Berkshire delegation, and locals have consolidated around Harris without much hesitation, though some further to the left remain skeptical.

The partys loosely comprised base locally and beyond  people of color, working-class people, environmentalists and party loyalists  are ready for Harris. Those further to the left, like the Berkshire Democratic Socialists of America, are resistant to Harriss centrist views on certain issues.

CONQUERING APATHY

Dennis Powell, president of the NAACP Berkshire County Branch, says he and the group are energized by Harriss ascendance to front-runner for her partys nomination. He will be in attendance at Harris's event Saturday. Asked if he thinks her rise has rallied the party base, he said, 600 percent.

Its an injection of life. It was like going to the doctor, they bring the syringe, and they put life back into the democratic process, Powell said. They put hope back in, and its a chance for those of us who study history to now be a part of history.

Powell spoke against the apathy hes heard from people who were disappointed between the two major parties nominees for president. He argued that not voting is in itself a vote.

When he heard that type of thinking from his nurse, Powell urged them to vote for the many Americans whod struggled for that right.

If youre a white woman, vote for the fact that there was a time in history you couldnt vote. Think about your ancestors who could not vote, and vote in their honor, he said. For young Black people, think about the number of Black people who died so you would have the right to vote. Think of your lineage, that there were slaves who could not vote.

This is your time to correct history, and make history, he added.

Powell singled out John Lewis and W.E.B. Du Bois for their work advancing civil rights, and, in the case of Du Bois, the longevity of the NAACP. Instead of nitpicking issues with Harris, Powell urged people to look for the good in her.

POSTCARD CAMPAIGN

Soon after Biden ended his campaign, making room for Harris, North Adams residents Sarah Sutro and Michael Bedford reignited their local political postcard-writing campaign, which they conduct regularly from their loft at the Eclipse Mill.

On Wednesday, they wrote to their group, We likely are all very relieved that President Biden has halted his reelection campaign, and that [Vice President] Harris is poised to lead the democratic effort to halt the Trump-Vance campaign.

Early results of the outpouring of support in volunteers, new voter registrations and donations is incredibly exciting, the email continues. We feel a cloud has lifted! Now the work begins in earnest."

The campaigns typically render around 600 postcards, but with Harris's likely nomination, the group is expecting around 720.

MOOD FOR LABOR

Jeff Jones, president of the Western Mass Area Labor Federation, which is based in Springfield and covers the four western counties of the state, said that most major unions have endorsed Harris for president: Pretty much all of those national unions have come out in support of Harris with a vote of their executive councils.

National decision-making goes to the federation's national office, which has already chosen to endorse Harris.

We in the Western Massachusetts Area Labor Federation have not taken an official position, Jones said. Our next regularly scheduled meeting is in August. That may very well be on the agenda.

The federation includes a number of Berkshire unions, including UFCW Local 1459, the Massachusetts Nurses Association and teachers unions.

Ian Rhodewalt, a field organizer for the federation, said that it has significant concerns about two people reportedly on the shortlist for Harriss VP pick: Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Rhodewalt said Kelly has voted down consequential pro-labor legislation in the past.

Gov. Shapiro is an advocate of vouchers and charter schools, which divert public resources from public education, Rhodewalt said. Sen. Kelly and Gov. Shapiro are no friends of labor.

ENVIRONMENT

Climate Action Now Western Massachusetts is a volunteer group tied to the climate justice movement. Member Susan Theberge said the election will determine the fate of our climate, our democracy and our lives.

Theberge said the organization is holding an event next month inviting all the climate organizers in the region out to plan how to impact the election with a strong environmental platform.

We are on fire to get Kamala Harris elected, and the Democratic slate across the country, Theberge said. If shes there, we can work with her, we can organize.

VIEW FROM THE LEFT

While the Berkshire DSA plans to protest Harris visit on Saturday, and the Biden administrations continued military aid to Israel, it recognizes that there is a diversity of opinions held by the organizations and individuals coming to the protest.

Theres no way we can speak for the diverse views of our membership, the group said to The Eagle via email Thursday. But the one thing we can agree on is that a candidate cannot support or be complicit in genocide and must advocate for the working class.

As Pittsfield readies for Kamala Harris' visit, women in politics see hope for future Vice President Harris will be here less than a week after being catapulted from part of President Joe Biden's ticket to the Democrats' hope for retaining the White House.

Cheryl Rose, of Dalton, is well-involved with progressive politics in the Berkshires, and is an active member of the state Green-Rainbow Partys Western Massachusetts chapter, which is an affiliate of the national Green Party. Rose questioned the excitement around Harriss visit to the Berkshires, saying its all about celebrity and money and out of reach of most Berkshire-ites.

The patrons at this high-priced fundraiser will have a lovely evening with the 'star-studded cast' of invited guests gushing all over each other about how Democrats are saving democracy, Rose wrote in an email to The Eagle. They are fine with denying voters a fair and open primary, and chipping away at our right to dissent, including our right to support alternative candidates.

RAINBOW COALITION

Concerning former President Donald Trump, Powell does not permit himself to think about him. I dont want that energy in my spirit, he said. Hes already proven to me who he is. I looked for a reason to accept him, and there was none.

Harriss candidacy is especially remarkable, Powell said, because, as he put it, She is her own rainbow coalition.

Shes Jamaican, shes Black, shes a woman, shes of Indian descent, he said. Isnt that interesting, to hear we have someone who represents so many of the marginalized groups that have been under attack, who is now running for president of the United States of America? It does not get any better than that.
Just hours before would-be rivals had to declare their candidacy, Vice President Kamala Harris arrived in Pittsfield to raise funds for her own bid at the presidency. Here's what she had to say ...
BillOReilly.com is not available in this country.



We apologize for any inconvenience.
According to the police, 95 Libyan nationals were arrested on suspicion of having been trained in a secret military camp in northern South Africa. Photo: Bulelwa Maphanga/AP/dpa Keystone

Police in South Africa have discovered a suspected illegal military training camp. 95 Libyan nationals have been arrested in connection with it, the authorities have announced. The background to the camp in White River in the eastern province of Mpulamanga, not far from the border with the neighboring states of Mozambique and Eswatini, initially remained unclear. The site had been declared as a training center and had apparently been converted into an illegal military training base, the report continued.

SDA

When applying for their visas, the Libyans are said to have stated that they wanted to train as security personnel, South African police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe wrote on the X platform. The provincial police, on the other hand, suspect that the men from the North African civil war country received military training.

Information two days ago had led to a raid by the security forces on the camp. Photos published by the police showed khaki-colored tents and the arrested men in civilian clothes.

According to the police, the investigation is still ongoing. Further information will be released at a later date. There is no danger to the public, the provincial police authority emphasized.

SDA


Borsa Italiana non ha responsabilita per il contenuto del sito a cui sta per accedere e non ha responsabilita per le informazioni contenute.

Accedendo a questo link, Borsa Italiana non intende sollecitare acquisti o offerte in alcun paese da parte di nessuno.

Sarai automaticamente diretto al link in cinque secondi.
James Bond star George Lazenby has announced his retirement from acting at the age of 84, saying he had a fun ride but getting older is no fun.

Lazenby starred in just one film as Bond, 1969s On Her Majestys Secret Service, making him the series shortest serving actor, as well as the only non-British or Irish actor to play the role.

Advertisement

The Australian actor explained in a post on Twitter that he would also be retiring from public appearances and signing autographs.

George Lazenby starred in On Her Majestys Secret Service alongside Diana Rigg (PA)

His post read: This hasnt been an easy decision but its time to announce my retirement from work.

Advertisement

Therefore, I wont be doing any more acting or making public appearances, doing any more interviews or signing any more autographs as of today. Its been a fun ride but getting older is no fun.

I would like to thank my manager and friend, Anders Frejdh, for helping me since 2013, the best representative I ever had.

I can now concentrate on spending more time with my family. My sincere gratitude to everyone out there for your love and support over the years. It has meant a lot to me.

Despite his brief time as Bond, Lazenbys role in On Her Majestys Secret Service saw the secret agent get married, with his wife Tracy shot dead shortly after.

Advertisement

Prior to becoming 007, Lazenby had been a model, and was even voted Top Model Of The Year in 1966, until he met 007 producer Albert Broccoli in a barbers shop, who then offered him an audition for the part.

Lazenby was offered the chance to return as Bond, but he declined after his agent told him the spy would be archaic in the 1970s.

George Lazenby at a press reception in London, after he was announced as the second actor to play James Bond (PA)

Advertisement

After leaving the role of 007, Lazenby made the film Universal Soldier in 1971, which he helped to write, before starring in the 1972 Italian giallo film Who Saw Her Die? and the BBCs Play For Today TV series in 1973.

In 1973, Lazenby revealed he had become an alcoholic and was broke having spent all of the money he made playing Bond.

He moved to Hong Kong with the hope of starring in Game Of Death, alongside Bruce Lee, but the martial artist died on the day Lazenby was supposed to meet him for dinner.

Despite Lees death, Lazenby featured in three films for his Golden Harvest production company, The Shrine Of Ultimate Bliss, The Man From Hong Kong and A Queens Ransom.
A former British soldier living in Germany has had his 50th birthday wish come true after being reunited with his biological mother in Ireland.

Mark Balls, now 53, was adopted as a baby and was raised well by his adoptive parents in London.

Advertisement

He was told by his adoptive father that he was adopted when he was 10-years-old  but, out of respect for the man and woman who raised him, he chose not to pursue his biological family until after his adoptive parents had died.

Advertisement

Mr Balls, who has six children and now lives in Paderborn in Germany, said that while he knew some information about his biological mother, he could only get so far.

In the run up to his 50th birthday, his daughters asked him what he would like.

He said: I told them how far I got with my search and that maybe  because theyre a bit more media savvy than I am  I asked if they could find out more?

They conducted their own research but were unsuccessful.

Advertisement

His daughter Amanda then decided to give him a gift of a MyHeritage DNA test which would ultimately set him on a path that would finally see him connect with his Irish family.

The way I understood it is that if I do the DNA test and theres other people with a close DNA match to me, they might have information on where my mother would be.

The mystery was not immediately solved but the results provided Mr Balls with a path to follow.

I got the results and there were a couple of close connections. So I sent a few emails to people who unfortunately couldnt help me.

Advertisement

Michael Condon, Phyllis ONeill, Mark Balls, and Joe Condon (Amanda Gaese/PA)

Time went by and there was a new match, with someone who had done a test and had a 10% match with me.

I sent her a message and told her I was looking for my birth mother and it turned out her dads name was Condon  the same surname as my birth mothers maiden name  and that he had a sister called Phyllis.

Advertisement

Through a complicated chain of messages involving his newly discovered cousin in Greece as well as other relatives in Australia and Reading, Mr Balls eventually received an email to say that Phyllis ONeill was his mother  and that he had two blood brothers in Limerick, Ireland.

I was in work when I checked my emails. I got all choked up.

Mr Balls mother was 18 and living in Hampstead, London when she gave birth to him.

Fearing judgment over the situation, she kept the pregnancy secret and gave him up for adoption to an Irish family who lived less than 30 minutes away.

She and Mr Balls father later married and had two more children.

Five weeks after receiving the news, Mr Balls travelled to Fedamore in Limerick to meet his long-lost Irish family.

Jason ONeill, Mark Balls, Phyllis ONeill and James ONeill (Amanda Gaese/PA)

Mr Balls said that he believed his biological mother had felt guilt about the adoption process, but he said he assured her he had no bad feelings.

It was put to her that she was very young to be bringing up a child and that wasnt the done thing. It was very different times, he said.

My intention for this whole reunion was to get to know my mother and let her know I had no bad feelings.

It was unbelievable. I was taken in straight away and accepted as one of the family.

It was like a missing piece of a jigsaw, it felt so natural and like we had always known each other.

On the six-day visit, Mr Balls stayed in the spare bedroom of one of his brothers.

He said he connected with them over common interests and shared stories about their childhood, and he also met his uncles.

He said that because his adoptive mother was from Lissycasey in Co Clare, he knew how to fit in: I knew the Irish side of things, that I had to drink and socialise!

Mr Balls also brought his two daughters and youngest son  as well as one of his grandchildren.

Ms ONeill did not think she was a grandmother yet, so she was additionally surprised to learn she was a great-grandmother.

Asked if he would recommend the process to other people in the same situation, Mr Balls said: Im aware that not every story has a good ending  and that curiosity kills the cat.

However, if you dont do it  youll regret it. You dont want to look back and think I should have done that, or realise that you have left it too late.

Mr Balls said he will absolutely be coming to Ireland more often, as he has yet to meet all his relatives.

DNA test and historical records are available through MyHeritage.com.
A man has died, and another has been arrested, following a fatal assault in Tallaght in Dublin.

It happened in Drumcairn Estate in the early hours of Friday morning. The injured man was rushed to Tallaght Hospital, where he later died.

Advertisement

A man has been arrested and is currently detained pursuant to Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1984, at a Garda station in the Dublin area.

Gardai are appealing for witnesses to come forward, particularly those who were in the Drumcairn Estate area of Tallaght, Dublin 24, between 3am and 4am on Friday morning.

Additionally, individuals with video recordings, including motorists with dash cams, from the area within the timeframe are asked to provide footage to investigating gardai.

Anyone with any information that can assist gardai with this investigation is asked to contact Tallaght Garda Station on 01 666 6000, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station.

Investigations are ongoing, gardai said.
A man presented to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after a shooting in Co Wicklow on Tuesday evening.

It is reported that at approximately 10pm at Ballinahinch, Roundwood, two men travelling in a car were blocked in by another vehicle, and a firearm was discharged.

Advertisement

One of the men travelling in the car, aged in his 20s, received a number of wounds and later presented at hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Investigations into all the circumstances of this incident are ongoing at Bray Garda Station.

Gardai are appealing for any witnesses to come forward.

Anyone travelling in the Roundwood area between 9.30pm and 10.30pm on Tuesday is asked to come forward.

Any road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) and were travelling in this area at these times are asked to make this footage available to gardai.

Gardai are also appealing to anyone who observed the movements of a silver Mercedes Benz that travelled from Roundwood onto Newtownmountkennedy and then northbound on the N11 into the Dublin 4 area between 10pm and 11pm on Tuesday.

Any road users travelling in these areas at these times who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) are also asked to come forward.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Bray Garda Station on 01 666 5300, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station.
A 33-year-old mother died after Cork University Hospital (CUH) failed to detect that she had swallowed her denture when she first presented to the emergency department, the High Court has heard.

The case of Beata Kunicka from Kanturk, Co Cork, who was wrongly discharged, has now led to changes in hospitals across the country.

Advertisement

The High Court on Friday heard CUH has apologised to Ms Kunicka's family for the deficiencies in the care provided to her.

Ms Kunicka returned to CUH 17 days after first being discharged from the emergency department, when she collapsed at home and was vomiting blood. She died over 20 hours later, on October 12th, 2021, and hours after the embedded denture was removed from her oesophagus.

The familys counsel, Gabriel Gavigan SC, instructed by Tracey Solicitors, told the court that liability was never contested by the HSE and the proceedings brought by Ms Kunickas partner, Kamil Jarzembski, were settled for 450,000 after mediation.

The young mother first went to hospital A&E on September 25th, 2021, complaining of chest pain and reporting that she believed she had recently swallowed her dentures, which were two front teeth, supportive pallet and wiring.

Advertisement

A plain film X-ray of her chest was arranged, and she was given a small test meal to assess her ability to swallow. She was also given painkillers to treat her chest pain.

However, no foreign body showed up on the X-ray and Ms Kunicka, who was able to eat and drink, was discharged.

Mr Gavigan told the court that the hospital chief executive, David Donegan, wrote in a letter to Ms Kunickas partner Kamil Jarzembski last year that an external review into the care of Ms Kunicka made clear that we failed to identify that her dental plate had indeed been swallowed and as such wrongly discharged her when she first presented to ED.

Medical staff, the letter said, were not aware at the time that some denture plates would not show up on X-ray and mistakenly decided that because she was able to eat and drink it was safe to discharge her.

Advertisement

It added that CUH has taken action to highlight these risks nationally to regulators and the HSE and amended its own local clinical training.

Mr Gavigan said Ms Kunicka returned to CUH on October 12th after 1am.

She was not assessed in the ED until 7am and she was vomiting blood. It was ordered she be given blood and a CT scan was arranged.

She collapsed again and later underwent surgery where the embedded denture was removed. However, she suffered severe bleeding and had to be again stabilised.

Advertisement

It was claimed that there was a delay in further treatment due to there being disagreement as regards the diagnosis and in the hours that followed there was prolonged discussion of the case.

Ms Kunicka became critically unstable and was haemorrhaging from her ear, nose and mouth. She continued to deteriorate and went into shock and died from cardiac arrest after resuscitation efforts failed.

Mr Gavigan told the court the letter from the hospital chief executive stated that the review also outlined the care of Ms Kunicka in the hospital when she returned there on October 12th.

It said it was a complex and challenging presentation but it was clear that a number of elements for care were not delivered promptly enough. Furthermore, clinical differences of opinion about the source for continued bleeding, the right course of corrective action and the availability of the necessary expertise to deliver it, all delayed her receiving the care she needed.

Advertisement

Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds offered her condolences to Mr Jarzemnski and their young daughter Julia over the very tragic series of events and she hoped they took some comfort from the review and that the recommendations have been shared nationally to ensure such an incident does not happen in an Irish hospital again.
Taoiseach Simon Harris has doubled down on nominating former minister Michael McGrath to be Irelands EU Commissioner, despite a Brussels request for two names.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she will formally ask countries to put the names of a man and a woman forward to help her form a gender-balanced team of Commissioners.

Advertisement

Mr McGrath stepped down as Minister for Finance several weeks ago in order to become the EU Commissioner nominee.

Taoiseach Simon Harris said he did not believe that nominating just one person would affect Irelands chances of getting an important portfolio. Photo: PA

The nomination to become Irelands next EU Commissioner was the choice of the Fianna Fail party under the terms of an agreement between the three parties forming Irelands coalition Government.

Advertisement

Speaking in Paris, Mr Harris said it would be odd and unfair to put two names forward after proposing a senior politician who had stepped down from Cabinet to focus on the role.

The Taoiseach said he also did not believe that nominating just one person would affect Irelands chances of getting an important portfolio.

I know President von der Leyen to be a very serious, a very competent and a fair politician, Mr Harris said, whose Fine Gael party is part of Ms von der Leyens EPP political group.

I know from my conversations with her that she will assess the suitability of commissioners for portfolios based on their background, based on their CV, based on interviews that she will carry out.

Advertisement

Irelands outgoing EU Commissioner, Fine Gaels Mairead McGuinness, had described a thorough interview process through which it is decided what portfolio each candidate is given.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen attends the opening ceremony of the World Climate Action Summit at Cop28 in Dubai (Chris Jackson/PA)

Mr Harris said: Michael McGrath was in Brussels this week, I spoke to Michael last weekend and I know hes taking that process extremely seriously in terms of preparing and engaging.

Advertisement

As the Taoiseach of Ireland, Im satisfied that weve sent a politician of substance in Michael McGrath.

Yes, President von der Leyen has asked for two names, and she did the last time as well, and I suppose weve respectfully said to her that Ireland has made a decision, in line with the treaties, as is our right, as to the Commission candidate we wish to send forward.

On other occasions in the past, weve sent one name and the name has been a woman. But weve had to make an assessment as to who we believe is the best commissioner to send from Ireland.

That person, Michael McGrath, has had to step down from Cabinet. Thats a pretty profound thing for him to have to do.

Advertisement

I think it would be an unfair thing for him to have to do and then tell him he has a 50-50 chance of getting a role at the end of it. So I think theres at the very least an understanding of this at European level.

He added: Ireland has played its part in terms of gender equality and the important issues around that and will continue to.

On this occasion, though, we have a particular set of circumstances that are important. Firstly, we have a coalition Government  this is the politics of Ireland thats important people understand at a European level  and under that coalition Government, the nominee came from Fianna Fail. Its a Government nominee, I fully support Michael McGrath.

And then the second thing to remember is that Michael McGrath was one of the most senior politicians in Ireland, he was the Minister for Finance, it was important that he would have his full concentration on preparing for the European Commission role and have a Minister for Finance whos preparing fully for the budget.

So therefore, the fact that hes stepped down from Cabinet, I think it would seem odd that you would send more than one name considering those pretty particular set of circumstances.
Lady Gaga and Celine Dion are expected to star on the banks of the River Seine on Friday night as Paris prepares to defy over a century of Olympic tradition.

The duo are reportedly set to perform a version of Edith Piafs La Vie en Rose as part of a glittering conclusion to the first ever opening ceremony to be staged outside a stadium.

Advertisement

Instead, team delegations will set sail from the Austerlitz Bridge on a 6km journey through the centre of Paris to a unique finale close to the Trocadero.

Every time I return to Paris, I remember theres so much beauty and joy still to experience in the world. I love Paris, and Im so happy to be back!

Thank you to our wonderful friends at The Louvre!

Celine xx



PC: Laura Gilli pic.twitter.com/Mg9LVs9X8q  Celine Dion (@celinedion) July 24, 2024 Advertisement

Dion, who is French-Canadian, teased her appearance in a post on X, writing: Every time I return to Paris, I remember theres so much beauty and joy still to experience in the world. I love Paris, and Im so happy to be back!

The city has been preparing for the unique ceremony for months, and over recent days the famous river has been increasingly hidden behind miles of chain-link fencing as part of a giant security operation.

Advertisement

Ticketed fans will have access to specially constructed stands on both sides of the river, while the ceremonys conclusion will be beamed around the city via 80 giant screens.

The concluding stages of the torch relay, which travelled through each of Frances 64 territories before touching down in Paris in early July, is set to see rapper Snoop Dogg carry the flame through the suburb of Saint-Denis, home of the official Games stadium, the Stade de France.

The Paris Olympics have already got under way in sports like rugby sevens, handball and archery (Mike Egerton/PA)

Advertisement

Olympic champions Tom Daley and Helen Glover will share flag bearing duties at the head of the Team GB contingent, marking the start of a Games at which they hope to set a new post-War record of 70 medals from a single Games.

The ceremony for the Olympics staged in Paris in 1924 took place at the Olympic Stadium in Colombes, and welcomed 3,089 athletes, of which only 135 were women. Dignitaries gave speeches and carrier pigeons were released into the air.

French president Emmanuel Macron has made the ambitious equivalent his personal project, telling reporters this week: At the beginning, it seemed to be a crazy and not very serious idea.

But we decided it was the right moment to deliver this crazy idea and make it real.
At least 26 people were reportedly killed by a gang in three remote villages in Papua New Guineas north, United Nations and police officials said.

Acting provincial police commander in the island nations East Sepik province, James Baugen, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC): It was a very terrible thing  when I approached the area, I saw that there were children, men, women. They were killed by a group of 30 young men.

Advertisement

Mr Baugen told the ABC that all the houses in the villages had been burned and the remaining villagers were sheltering at a police station, too scared to name the perpetrators.





Advertisement

Some of the bodies left in the night were taken by crocodiles into the swamp. We only saw the place where they were killed. There were heads chopped off, Mr Baugen said, adding that the attackers were hiding and there were no arrests yet.

Chris Jensen, country director for aid group World Vision, said 26 people had been confirmed dead, eight were missing and 51 families were displaced from their homes in Angoram district on the crocodile-infested Sepik River, the longest river on New Guinea island.

The trigger seems to be, as it is in most cases in PNG, a combination of a couple of things. But sorcery seems to be one of the triggers along with land ownership, Jensen told the Associated Press.

An individual will get accused of sorcery and they may be the people who perhaps have some control over some assets or land.

Advertisement

UN commissioner for human rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Wednesday that the attacks happened last week.

I am horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights, he said.



Advertisement

Mr Turk said at least 26 people had reportedly died, including 16 children.

This number could rise to over 50 as local authorities search for missing people. In addition, more than 200 villagers fled as their homes were torched, he said.

East Sepik governor Allan Bird said violence across this diverse nation of more than 10 million people, who are mostly subsistence farmers, had escalated in the past decade. Police are under-resourced and rarely intervene, he added.

Advertisement

Papua New Guinea has more than 800 Indigenous languages and has been riven by tribal conflicts over land for centuries.

Most of the land belongs to tribes rather than individuals. With no clear borders, territorial disputes never end.

These conflicts have become increasingly lethal in recent decades as combatants move from bows and arrows to assault rifles, and mercenaries are increasingly becoming involved.





Blake Johnson, an analyst at the Australian Security Policy Institute think tank, said while the East Sepik killings appeared to be a particularly gruesome event, it is not the first instance of mass murder this year in Papua New Guinea.

Escalation of violence between groups, often leading to retaliatory murder is, at best, culturally accepted and at worst encouraged, he said.

Law enforcement officers lack the resources and training to police most of the country, he added.

The country is took big, too harsh and too difficult to navigate, and we dont even know how many people live in these places, Mr Johnson said.

The tribal fighting attracted international attention in February when at least 26 combatants and an unconfirmed number of bystanders were killed in a gun battle in Enga province.

The conflicts complicated an emergency response in May when a landslide in the same province devastated at least one village. The government said more than 2,000 people were killed, while the UN estimated the death toll at 670.

Internal security problems in Papua New Guinea, the South Pacifics most populous country after Australia, has become a battle line for Chinas struggle against US allies for influence in the region.

Australia, Papua New Guineas former colonial master and its biggest provider of foreign aid, signed a bilateral security pact last year that targets its nearest neighbours growing security concerns, while Beijing also reportedly wants a policing agreement with the nation.

China struck a secretive security pact with Papua New Guineas near-neighbour Solomon Islands in 2022, which included police aid and has raised concerns that a Chinese naval base could be established in the South Pacific.
The families of two Ryanair crew who died in a taxi crash on a motorway in northern England have told of their heartbreak.

Matt Greenhalgh (28) and Jamie Fernandes (24) were working for the Dublin-based airline and were travelling to Liverpool Airport in a taxi when the crash happened at around 5.30am on July 11th.

Advertisement

The car was in a collision with two lorries on the westbound carriageway of the M62 between junctions eight and seven, near St Helens.

Both men died at the scene.

The family of Mr Greenhalgh, a captain for the airline, said in a statement issued by Cheshire Police, they were lost without him but took comfort in their fantastic memories.

He was a loving husband, thoughtful son, loyal brother, caring grandson, respected colleague and valued friend, they said.

Advertisement

We have been overwhelmed with love and affection to our family, from so many areas of Matts life, as he clearly touched the lives of so many.

Senior first officer Mr Fernandes was described as so very kind by his family, who said he had been living his best life achieving his childhood dream of flying.

We have been truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and affection to our family which shows what a special young man Jamie was and how he clearly touched the lives of more people than we could ever have imagined.

Our darling boy was a loving son, grandson, nephew and cousin. He is the light of our lives and always will be.

Advertisement

Cheshire Police said a 61 year-old-man who was driving one of the lorries was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving, and has since been bailed.

The driver of the taxi was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

A GoFundMe page was set up after the tragedy, with the victims families revealing the money raised, along with funds raised by their colleagues, will be used for a scholarship trust to help people in their journey to becoming pilots.

In honour of their memory, Ryanair also announced it will be erecting a plaque with their names at East Midlands Training Centre and will be introducing the Matt Greenhalgh and Jamie Fernandes Memorial Award  which will be presented to the top performing cadet each year.
Vice President Kamala Harris said she urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza can return home.

Ms Harris said she had a frank and constructive conversation with Mr Netanyahu in which she affirmed Israels right to defend itself but also expressed deep concern about the high death toll in Gaza over nine months of war and the dire humanitarian situation there.

Advertisement

With all eyes on the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Ms Harris largely reiterated President Joe Bidens longstanding message that it is time to find an endgame to the brutal war in Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have died.

Yet she offered a more forceful tone about the urgency of the moment just one day after Mr Netanyahu gave a fiery speech to United States Congress in which he defended the war, vowed total victory against Hamas and made relatively scant mention of ceasefire negotiations.

There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, Ms Harris told reporters shortly after meeting Mr Netanyahu. And as I just told prime minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done.

Mr Netanyahu met separately earlier in the day with Mr Biden, who has also been calling on Israel and Hamas to agree on a US-backed, three-phase deal to bring home remaining hostages and establish an extended ceasefire.

Advertisement





Ms Harris said after her meeting with Mr Netanyahu that Israels war in Gaza is more complicated than simply being supportive of one side or the other.

Advertisement

Too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but, she said.

Ms Harris also condemned Hamas brutality.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby reiterated the administrations position that the militant group that killed some 1200 on October 7 and kidnapped 250 people from Israel ultimately holds responsibility for the suffering in Gaza and must come to terms with Israel.

Mr Kirby added that gaps between the two sides can be closed but there are issues that need to be resolved that will require some leadership, some compromise.

Advertisement

With Ms Harris forceful comments, the administration also appeared to be stepping up pressure on the Israelis to not let the moment pass to reach a deal.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, Ms Harris said.

We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.

Thousands protested Mr Netanyahus visit to Washington, and Ms Harris condemned those who were violent or used rhetoric that praised Hamas.

Advertisement

Mr Netanyahu, last at the White House when former president Donald Trump was in office, is headed to Florida on Friday to meet with the Republican presidential nominee.

Ahead of the Harris-Netanyahu meeting, Mr Trump said at a rally in North Carolina the vice president was totally against the Jewish people.

Ms Harris has long spoken of her strong support for Israel.

The first overseas trip of her Senate career in early 2017 was to Israel, and one of her first acts in office was to introduce a resolution opposing a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel.

She has also spoken of her personal ties to Israel, including memories of raising money as a child to plant trees in Israel and installing a mezuzah near the front door of the vice presidents residence in Washington  her husband is Jewish.

She also has connections to pro-Israel groups, including the conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the liberal J Street.

For Ms Harris, the meeting with the Israeli prime minister was an opportunity to demonstrate her mettle as commander in chief.



Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Julia Nikhinson/AP)

She is being scrutinised by those on the political left who say Mr Biden has not done enough to force Mr Netanyahu to end the war and by Republicans looking to brand her as insufficient in her support for Israel.

In what will likely be his last White House meeting with the outgoing president, Mr Netanyahu reflected on the roughly 40 years they have known each other and thanked Mr Biden for his service.

From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel, Mr Netanyahu said.

A US-backed proposal to release remaining hostages in Gaza over three phases is something that would be a legacy-affirming achievement for Mr Biden, who abandoned his re-election bid and endorsed Ms Harris.

Following their talks, Mr Biden and Mr Netanyahu met with the families of American hostages.

Ireland Harris must win over Republican-leaning voters who... Read More

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, said the families received an ironclad commitment from leaders to get the deal done.

He said he was more hopeful than at any time since Hamas released more than 100 hostages during a temporary ceasefire in November.

There is more reason today than in any time since the last round of hostage releases that something can happen, he said.
Donald Trump will meet with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the first time in four years.

As president, Mr Trump exceeded his predecessors in fulfilling the Israeli leaders top wishes from the United States.

Advertisement

Yet by the time the former president left the White House, relations between the two had broken down after Mr Netanyahu rapidly congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory.

Both are interested in overcoming their differences.

For Mr Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, the meeting could cast him as an ally and statesman, as well as sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

That is as divisions among Americans over US support for Israels war against Hamas in Gaza open cracks in what has been decades of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of US aid.

Advertisement

For Mr Netanyahu, who was in the United States to address Congress and meet with incumbent president Joe Biden, repairing relations with Mr Trump is imperative because he may once again become president of the United States, Israels main arms supplier and protector.

For both men, Fridays meeting at Mar-a-Lago will highlight their home audiences depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage and can again.

One political gamble for Mr Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release and his much-hoped-for closing of a normalisation deal with Saudi Arabia if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Mr Trump wins.

Advertisement

Former US president Donald Trumps relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu broke down in the aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election (AP)

Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party, said Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the next six months, that means mending ties with an irascible, angry president, Mr Miller said, meaning Mr Trump.

Relations between the two soured in 2021 after the Israeli prime minister became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Mr Biden for his presidential election victory, disregarding Mr Trumps false claim he had won.

Advertisement

Bibi could have stayed quiet, Mr Trump said in an interview with an Israel newspaper back then. He made a terrible mistake.

The pair last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both mens political careers.

The accord brokered by the Trump administration involved the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreeing to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognising it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hopes will be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbours.

Advertisement

In public postings and statements after his break with Mr Netanyahu, the former president portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president and Mr Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

Mr Trump also has criticised Israels prime minister on other points, faulting him as not prepared for the October 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.

Today, I met with Prime Minister Netanyahu for a detailed discussion on the ceasefire and hostage deal.



I also raised the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the critical importance of restoring basic services and protecting civilians lives during military operations. pic.twitter.com/87c8toQ296  President Biden (@POTUS) July 26, 2024

In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu gave recognition to Mr Biden, who has kept up military and diplomatic support for Israels offensive in Gaza despite opposition from within his Democratic Party.

However, Mr Netanyahu praised Mr Trump, thanking him for all the things he did for Israel.

Mr Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments  the US officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher policy toward Iran; and declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding US policy that Jerusalems status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

I appreciated that, Mr Trump told Fox & Friends on Thursday, referring to Mr Netanyahus praise.

He did not quiet his criticism, however, of Israels conduct of the war, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.

I want him to finish up and get it done quickly. You gotta get it done quickly, because they are getting decimated with his publicity, Mr Trump said in Thursdays interview.

Israel is not very good at public relations, Ill tell you that, he added.
Search teams are still digging at the site of deadly mudslides in southern Ethiopia as the death toll rose to 257, according to the UN humanitarian office.

Heavy rain triggered deadly slides on Sunday and Monday in a remote part of the country. The UN humanitarian office OCHA said in an update that the death toll could rise to as many as 500, citing local officials.

Advertisement

More than 15,000 affected people need to be evacuated, it added.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is expected to visit the area on Friday.



Rescuers are searching with hand shovels (Isayas Churga/Gofa Zone Government Communication Affairs Department/AP)

Advertisement

He said earlier in the week that he was deeply saddened by this terrible loss.

Photos from the scene show residents standing over the shrouded bodies of victims pulled from the muddy earth.

Rescuers have been using hand shovels to pick through the mud.

Many people were buried in the Gofa Zone of Kencho Shacha Gozdi district on Monday, as rescue workers searched the steep terrain for survivors from mudslides the previous day.

Advertisement

Landslides are common during Ethiopias rainy season, which started in July and is expected to last until mid-September.

Deadly mudslides often occur in the wider east African region, from Ugandas mountainous east to central Kenyas highlands.

In April, at least 45 people were killed in Kenyas Rift Valley region when flash floods and a landslide swept through houses and cut off a major road.
Our pilot lowered his chopper tentatively between red cliffs, settled it on a shelf at the confluence of two rivers, jumped out and started filming. Though hed flown for years in the Kimberley, hed never been to this most stupendous version of nowhere. At the last, he swung his camera and filmed us, and I recalled that grainy footage of Robert Falcon Scott in the howling white, waving at a photographer before disappearing entirely. Then he flew away, taking the world we knew.

Carrying heavy packs, four of us set off downriver. I was whistling, I think.

Credit: Robin Cowcher

Along the rivers, we scrambled over bus-sized boulders, and when these cleared we were tangled in head-high cane grass and sliced by pandanus palms that rained hand-sized spiders. Because of crocodiles we couldnt swim through the deep pools, so we had to climb out of the gorges to the escarpment, up vicious hierarchies of rock while entwined in vines and rained on by green ants, sidestepping serpents.

On the plateau we walked over broken stone covered with spinifex  placing each foot was an act of faith. We had many falls, each time feeling for breaks and sprains, and extolling our luck with repetitious vulgarities.
A 59-year-old bus driver has been charged with manslaughter over a late night collision that killed a pedestrian on June 28.

The pedestrian, a man in his 40s, was declared dead at the scene of the collision on Melbourne Street at South Brisbane, near the intersection of Cordelia Street.

In a statement on Friday, Queensland police said an investigation by the Forensic Crash Unit had led to the driver of the City Glider service being charged.

The Forensic Crash Unit investigates the site. Credit: Tony Moore

It was not immediately known why police opted for a manslaughter charge and not a traffic-related offence.
Chinese, Lao foreign ministers vow to expand practical cooperation

Xinhua) 11:10, July 26, 2024

VIENTIANE, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith here on Thursday.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said China and Laos share a river and a common future, and a high degree of mutual trust and mutual assistance are thus the distinctive features of the China-Laos community with a shared future.

Under the strategic guidance of the top leaders of the two parties and countries, Wang said, the building of the China-Laos community with a shared future has achieved fruitful results, which is in line with the aspiration of both peoples and the trend of the times.

China has always prioritized the development of China-Laos relations in its neighborhood diplomacy and supported Laos in taking the path of socialism which suits its national conditions, and in promoting the cause of innovation and opening-up, Wang said.

He noted that China is willing to work with Laos to deepen strategic mutual trust, promote mutually beneficial cooperation, share development opportunities and work hand in hand towards modernization.

China is willing to introduce the guiding principles of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee and the new measures to further deepen reforms comprehensively, share reform and development experiences in a timely manner, jointly improve the ability of governance, and join hands to promote the cause of socialism, Wang said.

The two sides should implement the action plan for building the community with a shared future signed by the leaders of the two parties and countries, Wang said, adding that based on the construction of the China-Laos Railway, the two sides should give full play to the first-mover advantage, build the China-Laos Economic Corridor, and help Laos enhance its capacity for independent development and achieve economic revitalization.

China will continue to provide all possible support for the economic and social development of Laos, deepen practical cooperation in energy, minerals and other fields, and import more high-quality Lao agricultural products to bring more benefits to the Lao people, said the Chinese foreign minister.

Saleumxay, for his part, said that the successful holding of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC central committee has provided valuable experience for the Lao People's Revolutionary Party to enhance its governing capacity.

He said Laos cherishes the firm friendship with China, firmly supports the building of the Laos-China community with a shared future, and is willing to implement the new version of the action plan, prepare for the next stage of high-level exchanges between the two countries, expand practical cooperation in various fields, and work together to combat transnational crime.

The Lao side has implemented a visa-free policy for Chinese group tourists and welcomes more Chinese visitors, he noted.

The two sides also exchanged views on regional cooperation, saying that they will work together to resist the interference and infiltration of external forces, jointly safeguard the ASEAN-centered regional architecture, and jointly promote regional peace, stability and prosperity.

Wang said China will continue to fully support Laos in fulfilling its responsibilities as the rotating chair of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and in playing a greater role in international and regional affairs.

After the talks, the two sides witnessed the signing of documents on cooperation in education, medical care and other livelihood issues.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Perpetrators of domestic and family violence will be targeted in an intervention strategy announced by the Queensland government as rallies against gendered violence kick off around the country.

Broadening the Focus outlines the governments priority areas, including strengthening interventions for people using, or at risk of using, violence, as well as increasing community understanding and support.

Premier Steven Miles at the Brisbane rally in King George Square to end gendered violence in April. Credit: Darren England

Premier Steven Miles said the strategy was an Australian first and would show Queenslands commitment to preventative solutions.

[This strategy] puts the focus on the people who commit the violence so that we can help break the cycle of abuse, Miles said.
More than 500 editorial staff at one of Australias major media outlets have gone on strike over pay and conditions as Nine insists the walkout will not impact its Paris Olympics coverage.

Journalists employed by Nine Publishing  including union members covering the Games in Paris - began a five-day strike on Friday after rejecting managements revised enterprise bargaining offer.

Striking workers outside Nines offices in Melbourne on Friday. Credit: AAPIMAGE

Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) members from The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review, the Brisbane Times and WAtoday walked off the job at 11am AEST.

After months-long negotiations, union members rejected the companys latest offer, saying it fails to include a fair pay rise that keeps ahead of the cost of living.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has joined with his counterparts from Canada and New Zealand to urge Israel to implement an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, saying they remain committed to a two-state solution as the only realistic solution to a lasting peace in the region.

As international frustration with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to grow, the three leaders implored him to allow extra aid into the area, where about 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Credit: Getty Images, Alex Ellinghausen, AP

The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue, Albanese said in a joint statement with New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxton and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released on Friday night.

We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of Hamas for the atrocities of October 7 and ongoing acts of terror. Hamas must lay down its arms and release all hostages. We see no role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza.
Paris: France has suspended high-speed rail services across much of the country in what has been described as coordinated sabotage attacks just hours before the Olympic Games opening ceremony.

The coordinated arson attacks on Thursday night will alarm organisers of the Paris Games as they prepare to host hundreds of thousands of spectators in the capital for the official start of the event, where thousands of athletes are set to sail through the heart of the city in boats.

Travellers face delays at the Gare de Montparnasse station in Paris. Credit: AP

A flotilla will carry more than 10,000 athletes along the River Seine in a route dotted with the citys major landmarks, in front of 300,000 spectators and an audience of VIPs and celebrities.

French officials and security agencies have previously warned that Russia or political activists could seek to sabotage the Games, and have also been bracing for terror attacks.
Mexico City: Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, have been arrested by US authorities in Texas, the US Justice Department said.

A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, Zambada is one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world and is known for running the cartels smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile.

Ismael Zambada, who is known as El Mayo has been pursued by authorities for years.

The US government had offered a reward of up to $US15 million ($22.9 million) for information leading to Zambadas capture. The Justice Department said the men were arrested in El Paso but didnt immediately provide details about how they were taken into custody.

Zambada and Guzman Lopez, who have eluded authorities for decades, oversaw the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, adding that now they will face justice in the United States.
Harris Faces Bipartisan Rebuke for Immigration Policies (Photo: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America/CC BY-SA 2.0 )

Vice President Kamala Harris has faced a formal rebuke from the House of Representatives over her handling of immigration issues, a move that has been described as "long overdue but absolutely warranted" by former Border Patrol union head Brandon Judd. The bipartisan resolution, which passed with a vote of 220-196, criticizes Harris and the Biden administration for their perceived failures in addressing illegal immigration.

"It's long overdue but absolutely warranted; better late than never," Judd told Fox News. He pointed to Harris's appointment on March 21, 2021, to address the root causes of migration from the Northern Triangle countries-Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador-as the beginning of her failure. "She failed to do it," Judd said.

Harris has been under fire for years regarding her approach to immigration. Tasked by President Biden to address the root causes of illegal immigration, Harris has faced criticism as illegal crossings reached unprecedented levels between 2021 and 2023. "She didn't look at the push factor from the cartels that go out and drive this," Judd added. "All she did was talk about issues that existed well before her term as vice president."

During her 2020 presidential campaign, Harris supported the decriminalization of illegal immigration. Now, as the front-runner for the Democrats in the 2024 presidential election, she faces increased scrutiny. President Biden, who recently withdrew from the race after a lackluster debate performance against former President Trump, had struggled with low approval ratings for his immigration policies, according to Fox News polls.

Migrants have increasingly been crossing the southern border from as far away as Asia and Africa. Representative Greg Murphy, R-N.C., noted that illegal immigration from China has surged by 8,000%. "Criminal illegals have taken innocent lives across America, fentanyl is pouring in, and over 100,000 individuals now die from drug overdoses each year," Murphy said. "Our legal immigration process has been defiled, and the sovereignty of our nation has been eroded."

The Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua has also expanded its presence in the U.S., contributing to a wave of robberies in New York City. Harris's supporters argue that her mandate was limited to the Northern Triangle, not other countries.

Six Democrats, including four from border states, joined Republicans in voting for the resolution. "We've been told that Vice President Harris' job was to find the root causes of the crisis," said House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green, R-Tenn. "It turns out to do so, she could have just looked in the mirror."

Critics like retired Yuma Sector Border Patrol Chief Chris Clem insist that Harris must "own" the border crisis. "The numbers don't lie," Clem said. "The U.S.-Mexico border under Harris has been disastrous."

Despite criticism, Harris secured $4.2 billion in private-sector investments for Central America, aiming to create job opportunities. Official figures show that illegal border crossings have decreased by over 50% under the Biden-Harris administration. However, GOP lawmakers remain critical. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene labeled Harris as the "Czar of Chaos," while House Speaker Mike Johnson described her as "completely ineffective."

In the midst of this controversy, former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama endorsed Harris for president. "Michelle and I couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office," Obama said in a video call with Harris.

Harris and Obama have a long-standing relationship, with the former president often serving as an advisor. Obama's endorsement came after Biden's announcement that he would not seek reelection, a decision that infuriated some Democrats.

Harris, the first woman and the first person of Black and Asian descent to serve as vice president, would make history again if elected as the first female and first Black president. Harris's mother emigrated from India, and her father came from Jamaica.

As the Democratic Party moves swiftly to nominate Harris, with official voting set to begin on August 1, the endorsement from the Obamas is expected to bolster her campaign. The Democratic convention is scheduled for August 19-22 in Chicago, where the party will finalize its nomination.
IndiGo received the intimation about the penalty from the US authority on 24 July. (Representational Photo)

The US Customs and Border Protection has issued a fine of $5,832.60 to IndiGo Airlines for the delayed payment of the immigration user fee, according to the airlines regulatory filing on Thursday.

The authority has imposed a penalty for the payment of the immigration user fee after the due date (non-interlineable tax). The company is exploring the possibility of a waiver of the penalty, it added. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp

However, the company has stated that there is no material impact on its financials, operations, or other activities. In fact, shares of InterGlobe Aviation, the parent company of IndiGo, rose by 1.22 per cent to Rs 4,430.50 per share on the BSE on Thursday.

IndiGo received the intimation about the penalty from the US authority on 24 July.

200 Indigo flyers stranded in Istanbul



In a separate development, the airline faced criticism online on Thursday (July 25) after 200 passengers experienced a delay at Istanbul Airport when an IndiGo flight to Delhi was postponed by 12 hours. The delay was caused by technical issues with the aircraft.

Hriday Madan, a passenger on the delayed flight 6E 12, shared his ordeal in a post on X, saying, Absolutely pathetic service by IndiGo Airlines. My wife and I are returning from Milan through an IndiGo codeshare booking with Turkish Airlines (6E 4156) to Istanbul and 6E 12 further to Delhi. We landed at 3 pm in Istanbul and now our connecting flight has been delayed.

@IndiGo6E Absolutely pathetic service by Indigo Airlines. My wife and I are returning from Milan theough Indigo codeshare booking with Turkish Airlines (6E 4156) till istanbul and 6E 12 further towards Delhi. We landed at 3PM in Istanbul and now our connecting flight has been July 24, 2024

Flight delay draws criticism

Another passenger, Govind Kanakan, wrote, Pathetic situation at Istanbul Airport for passengers travelling from Istanbul to Delhi. The Turkish IndiGo 6E-12 flight is delayed by over six hours now and the operators are ignorant. The food provided to passengers at the airport is stale.
At URC (Underrated Club), we are redefining streetwear by combining innovation and sustainability," Abhishek Teri, Co-founder of Underrated Club, said | Photo: Pexels

Online fashion retail brand KingsCraft Online Brands on Friday said it is eyeing Rs 50 cr revenue from its newly launched e-commerce platform Underrated Club in this fiscal. The Pune-based company, which started operations this year, also said it is looking to venture into offline segments as well with plans to set up 50 fashion retail stores across Tier-I cities under the new platform by March next year. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp Bootstrapped with an investment of Rs 8 cr, the company has strategically positioned Underrated Club as a key player in the affordable luxury streetwear segment, it said.

"At URC (Underrated Club), we are redefining streetwear by combining innovation and sustainability," Abhishek Teri, Co-founder of Underrated Club, said.

Underrated Club is set to expand its reach through a robust online presence and partnerships with plans to tie up with leading e-commerce platforms and establish a physical presence through retail partnerships, pop-up stores, and flagship stores in key metropolitan cities, the company said.

As part of this expansion, Teri said the company is planning to establish 50 physical retail stores under the brand in Tier-1 cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad, among others, in the current fiscal.

Moreover, he said, the company is also looking to garner Rs 50 cr revenue from the new business in FY25 while the target is to achieve Rs 200-cr topline from the platform in the next three years.

"India is where we started. URC brings a fresh, dynamic edge to streetwear, tailored specifically for the youth. Our debut collection is just the beginning, with many more exciting ranges on the horizon. We're also expanding our offerings to include a diverse mix of fashion elements, ensuring there's something for everyone," said Kartik Anand, Co-founder of Underrated Club.
Sun Pharma stock was up 2.2 per cent in morning trade on BSE.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries has received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for LEQSELVI (deuruxolitinib) that is used for treating an autoimmune disorder in adults.

Alopecia areata, which is characterised by hair loss, affects some 700,000 people in the United States, with 300,000 experiencing severe forms of the condition. Current treatments have shown slow progress, prompting some patients to seek alternative solutions. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp

LEQSELVI is a new, twice-daily oral Janus Kinase (JAK) inhibitor that disrupts the pathways involved in hair loss. In two Phase-III clinical trials, patients initially had an average of only 13 per cent scalp hair coverage. After 24 weeks of treatment, one-third of the patients achieved 80 per cent scalp hair coverage.

"LEQSELVI represents a significant advancement for patients with severe alopecia areata," said Abhay Gandhi, chief executive officer of North America business at Sun Pharma. "Our growing dermatology portfolio is excited to include this innovative treatment."

Alopecia areata occurs when the immune system targets hair follicles, causing sudden hair loss on the scalp, face, and other parts of the body. LEQSELVI, a twice-daily oral selective inhibitor of Janus Kinases (JAK1 and JAK2), works by interrupting the pathways believed to contribute to hair loss in severe alopecia areata.

"This new treatment option empowers the alopecia community with more choices and provides an important option for those living with severe alopecia areata," said Nicole Friedland, president and chief executive officer of the National Alopecia Areata Foundation (NAAF) in the US.

The approval was based on data from the THRIVE-AA1 and THRIVE-AA2 trials, which involved 1,220 patients with at least 50 per cent scalp hair loss. The primary endpoint, achieving a SALT (Severity of Alopecia Tool) score of 20 or less at 24 weeks, was met, with more than 30 per cent of patients achieving 80 per cent or more scalp hair coverage. Additionally, up to 25 per cent of patients experienced almost complete scalp hair regrowth (90 per cent coverage) at 24 weeks.

During clinical trials, 3.1 per cent of patients discontinued treatment due to adverse reactions. LEQSELVI may cause serious side effects, including infections, malignancies, thrombosis, gastrointestinal perforations, and certain laboratory abnormalities. Common adverse events included headache, acne, and nasopharyngitis.

"Early intervention with an effective treatment is critical for those with severe alopecia areata," said Dr Natasha Mesinkovska, associate professor at the University of California, Irvine, and an investigator in the LEQSELVI clinical development programme. "LEQSELVI offers proven results and will be impactful for the alopecia areata community."

Dr Marek Honczarenko, senior vice-president and head of development at Sun Pharma, expressed satisfaction with the FDA's timely approval. "This approval validates our team's capability to bring treatments from research and development to approval in a meaningful way for physicians and patients," he said.

Sun Pharma is a leading specialty generics company, offering a range of specialty, generics, and consumer healthcare products. It is the largest pharmaceutical company in India and a leading generic company in the United States.
Anil Agarwal, chairman of metals major Vedanta group, has called for the sale of government stake in Bharat Gold Mine and Hutti Gold Mine so as to increase production of the yellow metal in the country.

In a social media post, Agarwal said global gold prices are currently at record highs and India imports 99.9 per cent of its requirement. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp

With massive investments, we can be a major producer of gold and a big generator of employment, Agarwal said.

In India, as of now, only Bharat Hold Mine and Hutti Gold Mine are producing gold and the best way forward is to privatise both the mines, he said.

In 2023, India's total gold consumption was 747.5 tonnes, a 3 per cent decrease from the previous year.

Gold prices rebounded on Friday after falling for the past three sessions, rising by Rs 50 to Rs 70,700 per 10 grams in the local market due to strong trend in global prices.

The precious metal had earlier closed at Rs 70,650 per 10 grams in the previous session on Thursday.

In the Budget, the central government decided to reduce import duty on gold to 6 per cent from 15 per cent, leading to a sharp fall in the local markets.

In the overseas markets, comex gold was trading higher at $ 2,416.40 per ounce.

Agarwal said the privatisation of both mines should happen with three conditions. First, no retrenchment, second, some equity for employees; and third, it should be done as it is, without any attempt to parcel assets into different parts. Even if a state government holds shares, the Government of India must sell its equity. Entrepreneurs who acquire it are capable of persuading and working with the state government, Agarwal said.

Agarwal also lobbied for sale of the government's stake in Hindustan Copper, the sole miner of copper in India. It is in a similar situation to the gold mines, he said.

Even a 10 per cent reduction in gold and copper imports can save $ 6.5 billion in forex, contribute an additional Rs 3,500 crore to the government, and create at least 25,000 jobs, Agarwal added.

After the Budget, top officials clarified that the governments strategy goes beyond privatisation and the aim now is to create value for government-owned companies.
Maharashtra has been heavily impacted by relentless rainfall over the past 24 hours, resulting in the deaths of six people and injuring over 12 in rain-related incidents. The torrential downpour has led to severe flooding, especially in low-lying areas, forcing evacuation of hundreds of residents to safer locations.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a red alert for Pune, Mumbai, Palghar, Thane, and Raigad. In Pune, the Fire Brigade has rescued and relocated around 160 people from flood-affected low-lying areas. More than 200 firefighters and officers were mobilised for these rescue efforts. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp

Mumbai rains: Heavy rains led to flight cancellations

Heavy rainfall in Mumbai resulted in the cancellation of 11 flights and the diversion of 10 others to nearby airports on Thursday. The Mumbai airport had to suspend runway operations twice due to poor visibility, causing major disruptions. Residents in the impacted areas have been advised to stay alert and adhere to official safety guidelines.

CM Eknath Shinde reviews situation

Amid ongoing heavy rainfall in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde assessed the current conditions in the state on Thursday. He contacted the Raigad collector, instructing him to assist all those affected by the floods and promising comprehensive support.



In a press statement, the IMD stated, Isolated extremely heavy rainfall very likely over ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra during July 25-27 and in Konkan and Goa on July 25 and July 26 and Gujarat region on July 25.

Schools and colleges closed in Mumbai

As a preventive step, local authorities have announced a holiday for schools and colleges in Navi Mumbai, Panvel City, and Raigad district today due to heavy rainfall.

Mumbais Powai Lake reaches full capacity



Mumbais Powai Lake has reached its maximum capacity due to heavy rainfall over the past few days. The incessant downpour has caused water levels to rise significantly, leading to the lake overflowing.





#mumbairains



(Full video available on PTI Videos - pic.twitter.com/WhFpPuelKo VIDEO | Maharashtra: #Mumbai 's Powai lake is filled to the brim following heavy rains in the region from the last couple of days. #MumbaiWeather (Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/n147TvqRQz July 26, 2024



This persistent rain has not only filled Powai Lake to its limit but has also resulted in waterlogging and traffic disruptions across different parts of the city.



In Pune, Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Singh announced that residents in flood-prone areas have been evacuated to safer locations. Around 2,700 individuals have been moved to secure areas. Commissioner Singh urged the public to cooperate with rescue efforts and stay indoors unless it is absolutely necessary to go out.

[With agency inputs]
The objective of the Agnipath scheme is to keep the Army young and "continuously fit for war," said Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his address on Kargil Vijay Diwas.

Following criticism from several opposition parties over the Agnipath scheme, Prime Minister Narendra Modi defended the recruitment scheme on Friday. During his address in Ladakh's Kargil on the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, PM Modi said the Army had been demanding the scheme for years. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp

"The country has felt the need for major reforms in the defence sector for decades. The Army has been demanding this for years, but unfortunately, it was not given enough importance earlier. The Agnipath scheme is also an example of the necessary reforms done in the Army. For decades, discussions have been going on in Parliament about making the Army young," said PM Modi.

He added that the objective of the Agnipath scheme is to keep the Army young and "continuously fit for war." The PM pointed out that the average age of soldiers in India being higher than the global average was a concern raised over the years, and Agnipath resolved the matter.

"The average age of Indian soldiers being more than the global average has been a cause of concern. That is why this issue has also been raised in many committees for years. However, the will to solve this challenge related to the country's security was not shown earlier. The country has addressed this concern through the Agnipath scheme," he said during the address.

The Prime Minister also criticised the opposition parties opposing the scheme for "politicising" a sensitive issue related to national security. He said, "Those who are misleading the youth of the country. Their history is proof that they don't care about soldiers. These are the same people who lied on OROP by showing a meagre amount of Rs 500 crore. It is our government that implemented the charges. More than Rs 1.25 trillion was given to ex-servicemen."

The PM continued his attack on the opposition, saying, "Some people used to think that the Army means saluting politicians, doing parades, but for us, the Army means the faith of 1.4 billion countrymen... These are the same people who weakened our Army by committing scams worth thousands of crores, who wanted the Air Force to never get modern fighter jets, who had made preparations to scrap the Tejas fighter plane."

Meanwhile, the PM also highlighted the reforms made in the defence sector during the last 10 years. "Today, a significant share of defence procurement is being given to the Indian defence industry. Additionally, 25 per cent of the research and development budget in defence has been reserved for the private sector. As a result of these steps, India's defence production has now exceeded Rs 1.25 trillion... Due to these reforms, our armed forces are now more capable and becoming self-reliant," he said.

Agnipath scheme: Army's reaction to PM's speech

Reacting to PM Modi's speech, Air Marshal SP Singh (retired) told ANI, "PM Modi clarified it very well... Give the (Agnipath) scheme a chance... And like the PM said, it is the decision of the armed forces. It is a scheme endorsed by the government, and the country is accepting it.... It is a very good scheme..."

However, just last year, former Army Chief General MM Naravane had said that the armed forces were taken by surprise by the government's formulation of the Agnipath scheme for the short-term recruitment of soldiers, airmen, and sailors.

"We in the Army were taken by surprise by this turn of events, but for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a bolt from the blue," Gen Naravane wrote in his memoir 'Four Stars of Destiny'. He said that it took him some time to explain to the IAF and Navy chiefs that his proposal had only been Army-centric and that he was equally surprised by these developments.

What is the Agnipath scheme?

The Agnipath scheme was rolled out in June 2022 to lower the age profile of the armed forces. It held that only 25 per cent of around 46,000 soldiers, airmen, and sailors to be selected in a year would serve for another 15 years after the first four years.

Recommended by several expert committees, including the Kargil Review Committee (2000) and the Shekatkar Committee (2017), the Agnipath scheme sought to reduce the average age of Indias army personnel from 32 to 26 years. It is also aimed at lowering the government's spending on Army pensions. Therefore, the scheme provides a one-time payment of Rs 11.71 lakh to Agniveers on completion of a four-year tenure, but no gratuity or pension.
The Reserve Bank of India's latest draft guidelines aimed at enhancing the liquidity resilience of lenders, amidst an increased use of digital infrastructure, are expected to boost demand for government bonds over the medium term, traders said. Late on Thursday, the central bank proposed that banks apply an additional 5 per cent reduction in the stability of retail deposits that have internet and mobile banking access. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp If finalised, the norms would be applicable from April 1, 2025. "Given the significant penetration of internet and mobile banking, the proposed changes are likely to increase the outflows in the next 30 day bucket for banks, thereby posing higher requirements of high-quality liquid assets (HQLA)," Anil Gupta, senior vice president and co-group head financial sector ratings at ICRA said.

Liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) is a certain proportion of HQLA that banks need to maintain at all times. It includes cash, reserves with central banks, and federal government bonds, which can easily be converted into cash.

The new norms will pose requirements for higher liquid assets for the banks to shore up their LCRs. Banks are likely to add government bonds in the run up to the implementation of these guidelines, Gupta added.

The norms also suggest that government bonds would be valued at an amount not greater than their current market value, adjusted for applicable haircuts in line with the margin requirements under the liquidity adjustment facility and marginal standing facility.

"The additional haircut owing to internet enabled transaction facility has arisen from recent global experiences of run offs... These steps add to the withdrawal of accommodation stance as far as liquidity with banks is concerned," said Alok Singh, group head of treasury at CSB Bank.

However, traders said that there may not be an immediate impact as far as government bond yields are concerned as the said circular will come into effect later.

State-run banks are already holding assets more than what regulatory norms need, but traders said some private banks may have to shore up holdings which could push up demand for bonds at a later stage.

"In such a case, demand for shorter duration bonds would pick-up further," said VRC Reddy, treasury head at Karur Vysya Bank.
Google has announced that it is updating the free-tier of its Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot with the new Gemini 1.5 Flash model. Google in a blog post stated that users can now experience 1.5 Flash in the unpaid version of Gemini for faster and more helpful responses. The company said that the new model integration will offer improvements across-the-board and will lower the response latency.

Google Gemini 1.5 Flash Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp

Google launched the Gemini 1.5 Flash AI model at its Google I/O developers conference in May. The company said that the new model optimises high-volume, high-frequency tasks at scale and is more cost-efficient. Although lighter than the Gemini 1.5 Pro model, the 1.5 Flash is capable of multimodal reasoning. This essentially means that the AI model is capable of processing images, videos, voice and text.

At the time of announcement, Google said that the Gemini 1.5 model has been trained by the bigger Gemini 1.5 Pro model using a process called distillation. This means that most essential knowledge and skills from a larger model are transferred to a smaller, more efficient model. Google said that this makes Gemini 1.5 Flash optimum for text summarisation, chat applications, image and video captioning, data extraction from long documents and more.

Google said that the Gemini 1.5 Flash model is now available to free-tier users in the Gemini Mobile app and on the web. The model is available in over 230 countries including India and supports more than 40 languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati, Urdu and more.


OpenAI introduces SearchGPT

OpenAI has announced that it is testing a prototype version of a new artificial intelligence-powered web search feature called SearchGPT, which it plans to integrate into its AI chatbot ChatGPT. The Microsoft-backed AI company said that SearchGPT utilises the companys AI models to fetch results and answers with relevant sources from the web. The feature is tested with select users and publishers to draw feedback. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp

Microsoft introduces AI-powered Bing to rival Google Search

Microsoft is set to revamp the Bing Search experience by leveraging artificial intelligence to generate an overview of search results. The US-based software giant said it is combining the power of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) with the search results page to create a bespoke and dynamic response to a users query.

Google has announced that it is updating the free-tier of its Gemini artificial intelligence chatbot with the new Gemini 1.5 Flash model. Google in a blog post stated that users can now experience 1.5 Flash in the unpaid version of Gemini for faster and more helpful responses. The company said that the new model integration will offer improvements across-the-board and will lower the response latency.

Xiaomis spinoff smartphone brand POCO has set the launch of M6 Plus 5G smartphone in India for August 1. The POCO M6 Plus will join the POCOC M6 Pro in the companys M6 smartphone series. Ahead of the launch, POCO has confirmed that the M6 Plus will feature a dual-camera system on the rear, featuring a 108-megapixel main sensor of an f/1.75 aperture. POCO said the megapixel-rich main sensor will enable 3x in-sensor zoom.

OpenAI will be rolling out Voice Mode for the GPT-4o model in ChatGPT for Plus members starting next week. OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, while responding to a question on X (formerly Twitter), regarding the features availability said that voice mode for GPT-4o will be available in a limited alpha release for ChatGPT Plus subscribers from next week.

Reddit's recent actions in restricting access to its data for search engines other than Google have stirred significant attention and debate within the tech community. Initially, Reddit forged a prominent partnership with Google earlier this year, aimed at integrating Reddit's vast dataset into Google's AI models. This collaboration resulted in Reddit's content gaining heightened visibility in Google Search results, surpassing even the original websites linked within Reddit posts.

Finnish mobile phone brand HMD (Human Mobile Devices) debuted Qi2 wireless charging in Android smartphone space with the launch of Skyline. This is an important development because the second-generation wireless charging standard by Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) was introduced in early 2023, but has been skipped by the big technology players, such as Google and Samsung, to date despite growing adoption of wireless charging features in smartphones. Nevertheless, more brands are expected to follow the suit since there now is a smartphone with support for Qi2 wireless charging support.

OnePlus Nord 4 is presented by the company as its first smartphone in the 5G era to feature an all-metal unibody design. This is assumed significant because a full metal body generally presents challenges such as network reception issues, heating problems, and performance drops due to thermal throttling.

OpenAI is venturing into a territory long dominated by Google with the selective launch of SearchGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered search engine with real-time access to information from the internet.

Last month, websites for a French film festival and the Grand Palais, a historic exhibition and museum complex in Paris, shut down after a cyberattack. Researchers tracked the episodes to a group of hacktivists affiliated with Russian intelligence and reported that the hackers described it as a training exercise.

Foxconn is considering expanding its operations in India by assembling Apples flagship iPad, according to a report by The Economic Times. Currently, Foxconns efforts in India are primarily centred on manufacturing iPhones.

Videogame company Epic Games said on Thursday its popular title "Fortnite" will be returning to Apple's iOS systems in the European Union soon, amid a long-winded legal battle with the iPhone maker.

JPMorgan Chase has unveiled a generative artificial intelligence product, dubbed LLM Suite, designed to enhance the productivity of its employees in the asset and wealth management division, according to a report by the Financial Times (FT).
Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, and Joaqun Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by US authorities in Texas on Thursday, the US Justice Department said. A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaqun El Chapo Guzmn, Zambada is one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world and known for running the cartel's smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile. Click here to connect with us on WhatsApp The US government had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to Zambada's capture. The Justice Department said the men were arrested in El Paso but didn't immediately provide details about how they were taken into custody.

Zambada and Guzmn Lpez, who have eluded authorities for decades, oversaw the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, adding that now they will "face justice in the United States.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Mexican authorities didn't immediately comment on the arrests.

US officials have been seeking Zambada's capture for years, and he has been charged in a number of US cases. He was charged in February in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute the synthetic opioid. Prosecutors said he was continuing to lead the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the cartel's strategist, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, El Chapo Guzmn, who was sentenced to life in prison in the US in 2019 and is the father of Guzmn Lpez.

Zambada is an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals. While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.

In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.

I'm terrified of being incarcerated, Zambada said. I'd like to think that, yes, I would kill myself.

The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.

Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighboring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.

Although little is known about Zambada's early life, he is believed to have gotten his start as an enforcer in the 1970s.

By the early 1990s, he was a major player in the Juarez cartel, transporting tons of cocaine and marijuana.

Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but still managed to keep strong ties with the gang and avoided a turf war. He also developed a partnership with El Chapo Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Zambada's detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of El Chapo Guzmn, Ovidio Guzmn Lpez. Zambada's son pleaded guilty in US federal court in San Diego in 2021 to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel.

In recent years, Guzman's sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or Chapitos that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the US market.

They were seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.

Ovidio Guzmn Lpez was arrested and extradited to the US last year. He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September.

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the DEA, said Zambada's arrest is important but unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs to the US Joaqun Guzmn Lpez was the least influential of the four sons who made up the Chapitos, Vigil said.

This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I don't think so, Vigil said.

It's not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him, Vigil said.
Today, J. William Reynolds, Mayor of the City of Bethlehem, and Chair of the Bethlehem World Heritage Commission  speaking on behalf of all four historic Moravian communities  announced that Moravian Church Settlements has been inscribed on the prestigious World Heritage List at the World Heritage Committee meeting in New Delhi, India, July 21-31, 2024.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240726407698/en/

Moravian Church Settlements Delegation at the World Heritage Committee meeting. Pictured here (from left) are Jean Manes, U.S. Deputy Representative to UNESCO; Moravian University President Bryon L. Grigsby; Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds; Johnathan Putnam, Acting Chief, Office of International Affairs National Park Service; Rt. Rev. Chris Giesler; Mr. Clemens, Saxon State Minister of the Chancellery (Photo: Business Wire)

The historic Moravian Church Settlements of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania/USA; Gracehill, Northern Ireland/UK; and Herrnhut, Germany now join Christiansfeld, Denmark (already inscribed in 2015) as a single World Heritage site that represents the outstanding universal value of these historic settlements and the worldwide influence of the Moravian Church.

We would like to express our appreciation to our respective governments of the United States, Denmark, Germany, and Northern Ireland/UK for their efforts on behalf of Moravian Church Settlements, said Mayor Reynolds.

More information can be found on moravianchurchsettlements.org, launching today.

Moravian Church Settlements is a transnational extension of Christiansfeld, a Moravian Church Settlement in Denmark founded in 1773 and inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2015. The Moravian Church is a Protestant denomination in the free church tradition centered in Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany. The extension includes three additional component parts:

Bethlehem (USA) was established in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1741. This highlights the early transatlantic dimension of the Moravian Church phenomenon during a prolific settlement-building decade and added the cultural dimension of the Moravians outreach to Native Americans.

Gracehill (UK) was founded in Northern Ireland in 1759. It represents the significance of the Moravian Church in the UK and exemplifies a unique series of ideal urban plans that demonstrate a notable gender axis. This is showcased by the division of the town plan into a sisters side and a brothers side, which directly reflects the fundamental functional structure of Moravian society.

Herrnhut (Germany) is considered the mother or founding town of the Renewed Moravian Church. It was established in 1722 in Saxony and evolved in line with the development of Moravian theology and societal ideals. This town defined the principles of all Moravian Church settlements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240726407698/en/
Rakhi is a festival that celebrates the love that siblings share worldwide. Rakshabandhan comprises two words 'Raksha', which means protection, and Bandhan, which means to tie the siblings in the eternal bond of love, care, and protection. It is all about having each others back and ensuring one does not have to face anything alone. But with changing times the siblings live away from each other and find it difficult to celebrate Rakhi with their siblings like old times. Each year the festival is observed on the full moon day in the Shravana, August. GiftstoIndia24x7 aims to provide easy Rakhi gifting options for the NRIs and they can choose from a huge variety. With the vibrant collection of Rakhi, one can add more vitality to the celebration.When it comes to celebrating Rakshabandhan, the NRIs often find it difficult to look for ways to send Rakhis to their siblings living in India. But online websites like GiftstoIndia24x7, have made it easy to celebrate Rakhi online. They have made special efforts to curate Rakhi gifts for the loved ones. From choosing the designer Rakhi threads to curating gift hampers for the brothers, a lot goes on behind the scenes. The website has a huge variety of Rakhis and gifts so it fulfills the wishlist of those who are looking for gifts for their siblings. There are Rakhi threads for the spiritual brother to the cool one. The ample number of designs makes it easy to select gifts for the ones living far away but do not want to miss out on making their siblings feel special on the occasion of Rakshabandhan. The gifts are specially curated keeping in mind that they can emotionally connect even from a distance and it doesnt ruin the celebration.This year GiftstoIndia24x7 , the online gifting portal has come up with the largest collection of over 750 Rakhi threads and Rakhi gifts that one can send to their siblings online even from a distance. Sending rakhi online has become a lot easier and comes without any hassle. The website delivers Rakhis all over India and they have launched a whole lot of variety in the Rakhi threads. Spiritual Rakhis feature traditional designs like Om, Swastik, Rudraksh, Radha Krishna, Lakshmi, Ek Onkaar, Hanuman, Shiv, and Ganesh. These types of Rakhis are best for those who have a divine interest and traditional values. There are premium Rakhi threads that include Pearl, Stones, Peacock, and others. Bracelet Rakhis are also a type of Rakhi that is famous among brothers as they can wear it as an accessory even after the occasion is over. From premium designer rakhis to luxurious silver rakhis, you will find it all. There are traditional Raksha Sutras, the thread that one can wrap around the wrist two or three times. Bhaiya Bhabhi Rakhi sets are special lumba rakhis available in various designs with exclusive elements. Evil eye Rakhis are trending these days and you will find a variety of it on this website. Resin Rakhis are also gaining a lot of popularity these days and these are designed to perfection. There are also Rakhi sets available so you can also send Rakhis to the whole family at once. Last but not least, there are also Rakhis for the little ones. They would love to wear vibrant rakhis of their favorite cartoon characters and they will be elated to receive them as gifts. All the Rakhis are made with premium quality threads, beads, and elements which certainly give a good experience to the brothers who are far away from their sisters living in a different country but they can still soak in all the love even from a distance.When it comes to gifting brothers, one leaves no stone unturned. So the ample choices of gift hampers make it easy for the sisters to send Rakhi gifts to India to their brothers. The latest collection of Rakhi threads and gift hampers makes the Raksha Bandhan celebrations more ecstatic. There are unique designer Rakhis along with gift hampers specially curated for the brothers. Different gift hampers contain gift items that the brothers can use. Be it gourmet, personalized, or grooming- there are multiple options that one can choose from. For a change, the brothers can also find return gifts for the sister. With their choice of 'Customize your Combo', one enjoys more options and chooses the favorite one for their siblings. Sending Rakhi gift hampers serves the purpose of sending Rakhi threads along with curated gift hampers. Mr. Amit Desai, the CEO of GiftstoIndia24x7 says, Over the years, we have catered to the likes of the customers and made sure we walk that extra mile to fulfill their requirements. When it comes to celebrating your loved ones from a distance, we try to give a satisfying experience and deliver what they have chosen. There are a lot of emotions attached and we try to care for them in the best way possible.GiftstoIndia24x7 ensures that the celebration of Rakshabandhan is done wholeheartedly. They have ensured that Rakhis are available from as low as the price of Rs. 99 so that they fit into the budget easily. The website has curated its largest collection to date and significantly expanded its delivery area. At more than 15000 pincodes they have services of same-day delivery of Rakhi and Rakhi gifts. Distance should not ruin the celebrations so one can rely on their services when it comes to delivering rakhis to different parts of the country. With options of same-day delivery, one can avail to send rakhi to India to their brother. The website has a huge range of gifts, including flowers, cakes, chocolates, and exclusive gift hampers specially curated for Rakhi. There are also special personalized gift ideas that add up to the beauty of the occasion. GiftstoIndia24x7 makes sure that distance does not dampen the spirit of Raksha Bandhan and enables the customers to celebrate the occasion with a difference.
After a long wait, on Saturday, July 27th, the Via dellAmore will reopen to the public. With just over 900 metres of trail perched over the sea, this iconic symbol of Liguria is one of the most stunning, evocative, and famous pathways in the world. It is located in the natural paradise of Cinque Terre, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240725501622/en/

View of Via dell'Amore - ph credits Bruno Maderna

Closed since 2012 due to a landslide, the Via dellAmore was reopened after a complex redevelopment led by the Liguria Region, the Governments commissioner for management of hydrogeological instability, and in collaboration with Riomaggiore, the Cinque Terre National Park, the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape, and the Harbour Masters Office.

The total investment exceeded 23 million euros, with the Liguria Region providing 12 million euros, and additional funding from the Ministry of Culture (6.9 million), the Ministry of Environment (3 million), and Civil Protection (1.5 million).

Reopening the Via dellAmore was complex due to its fragile cliffside location. Restoration work started on January 14, 2022, and finished on July 19, 2024. Specialist companies worked on-site using helicopters to transport materials while rock workers suspended by ropes and cables performed deep anchorages on the cliff and installed stainless-steel mesh.

On the eve of its reopening, the Via dellAmore was inaugurated with support from the Ministry of Tourism. The communities of Riomaggiore and Manarola celebrated with key figures including the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Santanche; the Commissioner for the management of hydrogeological instability, Giacomo Raul Giampedrone; the interim President of the Liguria Region, Alessandro Piana; the President of the Cinque Terre National Park, Donatella Bianchi; and the Mayor of Riomaggiore, Fabrizia Pecunia.

Accompanying the authorities was a train adorned with a design dedicated to the Via dellAmore, which will remain in service on the route. The day was marked by a captivating fireworks display and a music show.

Going forward, Riomaggiore town will manage the trail as an open-air museum with reserved, limited, and fee-based access to maintain safety measures.

www.lamialiguria.it

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240725501622/en/
CAMEROUN :: Senghor University UNESCO:25 African participants now equipped to set up projects and climate change :: CAMEROON

These 25 participants come from the 5 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Chad and Cameroon. Since July 22, they have been taking part in this training called: Certificate in setting up projects integrating climate change (MPCC) at the UNESCO Regional Headquarters for Central Africa Yaounde in Cameroon.

An initiative of Senghor University in Alexandria in partnership with UNESCO for Central Africa, the common objective of which is to support and strengthen the capacities of development executives and actors, particularly specialists in project management and/ or the environment. It aims to equip stakeholders in public and private organizations to design and implement development projects integrating mitigation and adaptation to the effects of climate change, among other things, participants are made aware of the issues posed by climate change, the main manifestations.

It should be noted that the African continent is home to 60% of the countries most affected by climate change. At the country level, Governments, Municipalities, all classes of society are called upon to play a role in responding to these environmental challenges. Unfortunately, the constraints are numerous, with the lack of qualified human resources, limited access to financing mechanisms and the weak mobilization of internal financial resources, hence the challenge of holding this certification training.

We remind you that two trainers from Senghor University in Alexandria: Ms. Etotepe A. SOGBOHOSSOU, Director of the Environment Department (coordinator) and Mr. Ulvick HOUSSOU, Director of Development and Entrepreneurship (trainer) direct this training work linked to the "Certificate in Project Setting up integrating the Climate Change" (MPCC). As a training module, participants have already had the right to acquire knowledge on climate issues, analysis of a need, implementation and monitoring of a project. According to these trainers, 6 Skills to acquire at the end of this training, among other things:

Understand the context of results- based management and the general principles that govern development projects; Carry out a needs analysis, an essential step in setting up projects; Master the main project formulation tools (logic, budgeting intervention, planning).

WHAT TO REMEMBER FROM THIS CERTIFICATE TRAINING.

The initiative was born in 2022 during the Cop of the Cities in Cote dIvoire where many municipalities complained of not having access to funding. This certification training aims to help participants how to set up a good project that integrates climate change; on this subject, we involve the people who are at the heart of financing, according to Ms. Etotepe we had, today, a manager from the African Development Bank (BAD) who spoke to us about this module, the different resources that exist for the granting of financing. We hope that the participants will emerge empowered to be able to have easier access to funding, she specifies at the press microphone.

For Mr. Mayor of the commune of Fongotongo region of Western Cameroon, department of Menoua Dongue Paul, one of the participants:

Climate change is a real major problem in my municipality as head of a decentralized local authority so the main activity is agriculture, with drops in temperature, change in weather, heavy rain, drought, this training falls sharply in view of the climate changes observed in recent years. The training is going well, sharing experiences with other participants from other African countries. With the arrival of an ADB official this morning, I already know what procedure to adopt to develop and set up a good financing project that integrates matic changes, what I already knew the financing is there, and it is Its up to us, the bosses, to take the lead in seeking funding. Opportunity for me here to thank Senghor Alexandria University and UNESCO for having thought of launching this call for applications.

We recall that the first edition was held in Abomey in Benin, it only took into account the cities.The 5th edition which is held in Yaounde is open to municipalities,private and public institutions, ONG , organizations, said training closes this July 26 at Yaounde in Cameroon.
State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada

Zip Code
A TEENAGER who used threatening words to someone else, telling them youre dead, was before Carlow District Court last week. Jake Gorman, 12 Kyleshall, Raheendoran pleaded guilty to a charge of using threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour at Accommodation Road, Carlow on 13 November 2023.

Sergeant Hud Kelly told the court that Mr Gorman told the person, who wasnt named in court, that they were dead and I know where you live.

"No excuse"

Barrister Eamonn OMoore told the court that 18-year-old Mr Gorman apologised to the complainant and that, though there was no excuse for his behaviour or for the words that he used, there was a back story to the situation, which he couldnt go into in open court. He continued that there had been a dispute between the two families involved and that they were no longer in contact with each other.

Experience hugely affected him

Mr OMoore continued that Mr Gorman had been a complainant in a criminal trial last year and that the experience had hugely affected him. He continued that his client had a vision for his life and that he intended to study music in college.

Judge Geraldine Carthy heard that Mr Gorman was willing to pay 100 into the court poor box in lieu of a conviction, but Judge Carthy ordered him to pay 300 instead. She then adjourned the case until 18 September, to give the defendant a chance to pay the money, after which she will give him the benefit of the Probation Act.
A BALTINGLASS man pleaded guilty to selling or supplying cannabis in Carlow District Court after gardai found 1,500 worth of the drug at his home. Jason Connolly, 15 Lathaleer, Baltinglass, Co Wicklow pleaded guilty to owning the drug and to having it for the purpose of sale or supply after gardai searched that address on 27 October 2023.

Took responsibility for drugs

Inspector Conor Nolan told the court that when the gardai found the 1,500 worth of cannabis, 25-year-old Mr Connolly took responsibility for it, saying that it was for his own personal use.

He continued that the gardai found no evidence of Mr Connolly dealing the drug, such as a weighing scales or an amount of cash. Solicitor John OSullivan said that there was no methodology that he was dealing the drugs and that the amount of cannabis led to the sale or supply charge.

Ambitions to travel

He also handed a letter into court from Mr Connollys employer and told Judge Geraldine Carthy that his client had ambitions to travel to Australia after he completed his training in horticulture.

Judge Carthy then adjourned the case until 25 September for the preparation of a probation report and for Mr Connolly to be assessed for his suitability for a community employment order.
ISNT it dreadful to think that a group of hooligans  and thats the only way to describe them  believe they are above the law and can dictate to everyone else, including the government, where asylum seekers are to be housed.

Dont get me wrong, I accept there is a lot wrong with the current situation, where literally hundreds of asylum seekers can suddenly appear in Dublin city centre every week looking for protection.

The government was warned this was going to happen, but as is often the case, little or nothing was done in preparation for this huge increase in numbers until everything reached crisis point.

That said, there is no excuse for the actions of people in Coolock last week, at Ballyogen sometime before that, Citywest, Newcastle, Co Wicklow and practically every other place where asylum seekers are being housed.

After several days of protest and a total of 21 arrests for public order offences on Friday, we woke up to the news that gardai are now investigating a suspected arson attack on the premises in Coolock earmarked for conversion to cater for up to 500 asylum seekers.

What I couldnt understand was the leniency shown by the court to some of those charged. Granted, they have had their cases adjourned, but they still got to go home after causing mayhem instead of spending a few nights in prison to cool their heels. If nothing else, it would show what possible sanctions they face if they continue with such deplorable behaviour.

What is it with us? We pussyfoot around things instead of showing a firm hand. It is wrong that a few neer-do-wells, who wouldnt know what work was if it bit them, can go about stirring up hate, waving the Irish flag and calling themselves patriots, while all the time goading the gardai so they can then post items online showing how the police are attacking decent citizens, whose only crime is exercising their right to protest.

I spent a considerable amount of time looking up recent posts of incidents around the country and all I saw was faceless individuals trying to create trouble.

Yes, there is a lot wrong, and yes, we are all beginning to get sick and tired of looking at tent cities along canals or in green areas, but using violence, attacking people as they sleep or, as was reported on Thursday, using a machete on a tourist while shouting f**king immigrant, is not the answer.

Im gone beyond the age limit for joining the gardai, but from what I saw of coverage at these protests and from what was written about the most recent incidents in Coolock, youd have to ask yourself who in their right mind would want to be a garda today?

All I saw was a bunch of thugs trying their best to create a situation where they portray themselves as victims and then post negative reviews of the actions of those trying to maintain the peace.

There have been too many incidents of late, where people believe they have the right to do and say what they like and even go so far as to issue death threats.

Thankfully, no public figure has died, but public or otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before there are fatalities if this trend where people believe they have a right to resort to violence to get their own way isnt stamped out once and for all.

One complaint people had about this latest flashpoint was that there hadnt been enough consultation prior to work beginning on converting this former factory into a holding centre.

It became a you said, I said situation, with community activists saying there werent enough meetings, while the state agency responsible retorted by stating it had outlined plans for the new centre and would have elaborated further as work progressed.

The rights and wrongs of who did what or whether there was enough talk before work actually got underway can be debated, but we were all aware that such centres were going to become a reality.

The state signed up to a European agreement regarding immigration, so its now up to the state to house immigrants. What we need to concentrate on is ensuring we dont become a soft touch for accepting immigrants from all over the world.

Waving the Irish flag while throwing bricks at gardai or attacking security guards is not the way to go about that.
African officials speak highly of outcome of latest CPC plenum

Xinhua) 13:17, July 26, 2024

CHANGSHA, July 25 (Xinhua) -- African officials attending the 7th China-Africa People's Forum have spoken highly of the outcome of the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

The 20th Central Committee of the CPC adopted a resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization at its third plenary session held in Beijing from July 15 to 18.

It is of great significance for Africa and China to jointly seek a development path towards modernization, said the African officials, adding that political parties and civil organizations of African countries are willing to strengthen cooperation with China to help build a China-Africa community with a shared future.

The 7th China-Africa People's Forum and the 7th China-Africa Young Leaders Forum are being held in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province from Wednesday to Friday.

More than 200 representatives from over 50 African countries are attending the events jointly held by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Hunan Provincial Committee of the CPC.

Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe, president of the National Assembly of Burundi, expressed appreciation for China's efforts to provide Africa with useful experience, which has helped enhance its people-centered awareness and promote its development.

On Wednesday, the International Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Hunan Provincial Committee of the CPC jointly held a briefing to introduce the major measures adopted by the plenum to further deepen reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. More than 200 foreign guests from over 50 African countries attended the briefing.

Ndabirabe said at the briefing that he hopes to further strengthen education, culture and training exchanges between the two sides, break the barriers of languages and cultures, and learn from China's experience in governance and advanced technology.

Marvin Fanny, vice president of the United Seychelles political party, was impressed by the specific measures adopted by the CPC to further deepen reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. He added that he has drawn inspiration from the resolution and hopes it will help empower the governance of political parties.

Obert Mpofu, secretary-general of the ruling ZANU PF party of Zimbabwe, praised the Chinese government for its efficient decision-making and executive force. "We are willing to strengthen our relations with the CPC, whose sincere advice and friendly support have promoted the development of Zimbabwe," he said.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing)
By Cillian Sherlock, PA

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has expressed surprise over social media company Xs decision to use user posts to train an AI chatbot.

Users of X, formerly Twitter, expressed outrage after discovering that the company had enabled a system where their posts could be used to train its Grok AI chatbot.

Grok, which is available to X Premium customers, is billed as a humorous enhanced search feature powered by a state-of-the-art large language model that was initially trained on publicly available sources.

The company now wants to use user interactions and posts to improve the service.

X users are opted in to the new system by default but can choose to opt out in settings on the web-based app.

When enabled, the setting allows posts on the site as well as interactions with the chatbot to be used for training, while the data may also be shared with the xAI partner company.

X has it European headquarters in Dublin, making the DPC its lead regulator in Europe.

In a statement, a spokesman said: The DPC has been engaging with X on this matter for a number of months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday, therefore we are surprised by todays developments.

We have followed up with X today and are awaiting a response.

We expect further engagement early next week.
By Grainne Ni Aodha, PA

A protest has been held outside the Danish embassy in Dublin calling for the release of veteran environmental activist and anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson.

Mr Watson, a 73-year-old Canadian-American citizen, is a former head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society whose direct action tactics, including high-seas confrontations with whaling vessels, have drawn support from A-list celebrities.

He was arrested in the Danish territory of Greenland on Sunday when his ship docked in Nuuk on foot of an international arrest warrant issued by Japan.

The Captain Paul Watson Foundation (CPWF) said he would be detained in Nuuk until August 15 at least, to give the Danish justice ministry time to investigate the case and possible extradition.

Environmental campaigner Paul Watson (Markus Schreiber/AP)

At a protest outside the Danish embassy in Dublin, protesters wore fox and badger masks, wrapped themselves in ropes and chanted is it a crime to save the oceans, is it a crime to save the whales, is it a crime to save the dolphins? No.

A letter was handed in by protesters to the Danish embassy urging them to release Watson.

Alex Neubauer of the Irish branch of the CPWF told the PA news agency that Watsons arrest came as an absolute shock.

He said that although he has heard Mr Watson is in good spirits, he is facing a prison sentence of up to 15 years in Japan, and there are fears that if he is sent there he may never leave.

Paul Watson was actually two weeks ago in Dublin  and we thought he was free to travel, he told PA.

But it looks like the Japanese government made a confidential Red Notice so no one could see it.

We are getting in contact all over the world, with politicians, with celebrities to ask for Paul Watson to be freed.

People take part in a protest outside the Danish embassy in Dublin calling for the release of anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson (Brian Lawless/PA)

He said they have petitions and have set up a website to help people send letters to embassies and politicians to increase pressure to release the activist.

Captain Paul Watson saved whales, he kicked a Japanese whaling fleet out of the southern oceans. He always says if the oceans die, we all die. So what we do, were saving the whales but were also saving humanity.

He said he hoped the Irish government would push for Watsons release.

For Denmark, I say only one thing: the world is watching you.
By Cillian Sherlock, PA

RTE will offer audition opportunities to around 150 people in a bid to fill gaps in the 2FM line-up.

There have been a number of recent high-profile departures from the station, including Jennifer Zamparelli, The 2 Johnnies and Doireann Garrihy, leading to a reshuffle of hosts.

After major financial and governance scandals across RTE, the organisation introduced a plan to cut presenter wages, restrict external activities and develop a register of interests.

Head of 2FM Dan Healy previously said the new rules on external activities played a role but is not the reason for the exits.

RTE director-general Kevin Bakhurst (Brian Lawless/PA)

RTE bosses have acknowledged the clampdown may make the positions less attractive.

At the start of this month, the national broadcaster announced an open call for applicants to present roles on 2FM.

It said it wanted to create a long list of presenters  for single or double-header roles  who would appeal to a 15 to 34-year-old audience.

In an interview with the PA news agency, RTE director-general Kevin Bakhurst denied suggestions that 2FM had run out of ideas, adding: Far from it.

He said the reaction to the call-out was fantastic.

We had over 500 applications from a range of people, from existing radio presenters, members of staff, podcasters, social media people, some great young Irish-language journalists.

Theres a whole range of people and I know that Dan Healy and his team are actually very excited by the number of people.

They were very excited by some of the people that weve come across that we wouldnt have come across otherwise.

They had 500. I think were going to give an audition opportunity to around 150.
By Grainne Ni Aodha, PA

Taoiseach Simon Harris has doubled down on nominating former minister Michael McGrath to be Irelands EU Commissioner, despite a Brussels request for two names.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she will formally ask countries to put the names of a man and a woman forward to help her form a gender-balanced team of Commissioners.

Mr McGrath stepped down as Minister for Finance several weeks ago in order to become the EU Commissioner nominee.

Taoiseach Simon Harris said he did not believe that nominating just one person would affect Irelands chances of getting an important portfolio. Photo: PA

The nomination to become Irelands next EU Commissioner was the choice of the Fianna Fail party under the terms of an agreement between the three parties forming Irelands coalition Government.

Speaking in Paris, Mr Harris said it would be odd and unfair to put two names forward after proposing a senior politician who had stepped down from Cabinet to focus on the role.

The Taoiseach said he also did not believe that nominating just one person would affect Irelands chances of getting an important portfolio.

I know President von der Leyen to be a very serious, a very competent and a fair politician, Mr Harris said, whose Fine Gael party is part of Ms von der Leyens EPP political group.

I know from my conversations with her that she will assess the suitability of commissioners for portfolios based on their background, based on their CV, based on interviews that she will carry out.

Irelands outgoing EU Commissioner, Fine Gaels Mairead McGuinness, had described a thorough interview process through which it is decided what portfolio each candidate is given.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen attends the opening ceremony of the World Climate Action Summit at Cop28 in Dubai (Chris Jackson/PA)

Mr Harris said: Michael McGrath was in Brussels this week, I spoke to Michael last weekend and I know hes taking that process extremely seriously in terms of preparing and engaging.

As the Taoiseach of Ireland, Im satisfied that weve sent a politician of substance in Michael McGrath.

Yes, President von der Leyen has asked for two names, and she did the last time as well, and I suppose weve respectfully said to her that Ireland has made a decision, in line with the treaties, as is our right, as to the Commission candidate we wish to send forward.

On other occasions in the past, weve sent one name and the name has been a woman. But weve had to make an assessment as to who we believe is the best commissioner to send from Ireland.

That person, Michael McGrath, has had to step down from Cabinet. Thats a pretty profound thing for him to have to do.

I think it would be an unfair thing for him to have to do and then tell him he has a 50-50 chance of getting a role at the end of it. So I think theres at the very least an understanding of this at European level.

He added: Ireland has played its part in terms of gender equality and the important issues around that and will continue to.

On this occasion, though, we have a particular set of circumstances that are important. Firstly, we have a coalition Government  this is the politics of Ireland thats important people understand at a European level  and under that coalition Government, the nominee came from Fianna Fail. Its a Government nominee, I fully support Michael McGrath.

And then the second thing to remember is that Michael McGrath was one of the most senior politicians in Ireland, he was the Minister for Finance, it was important that he would have his full concentration on preparing for the European Commission role and have a Minister for Finance whos preparing fully for the budget.

So therefore, the fact that hes stepped down from Cabinet, I think it would seem odd that you would send more than one name considering those pretty particular set of circumstances.
New line to further squeeze imports to the Philippines

Peter Bell By 26 July 2024

Cement imports to the Philippines are expected to come under increased pressure after the start-up of Taiheiyo Cement Philippines Inc's (TCPI) PHP12.8bn (US$219.25) brownfield line last week. The plant modernisation is just one of several new capacity projects that have seen the country's cement capacity rise by 13Mta over the last five years to approximately 53Mta, according to the Cement Manufacturers Association (CEMAP). The aim is for domestic infrastructure projects to be supplied by local producers, encouraging local employment and safeguarding jobs in the Philippines' cement sector.

"Taiheiyos new plant in San Fernando, Cebu, will bolster the Philippines' cement production by 3Mta, reducing our reliance on imports. This investment aligns perfectly with our governments Build Better More Infrastructure Program, stated Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary, Alfredo Pascual.

Support for local cement producers

The push for locally-produced cement has been further bolstered by the Tatak Pinoy Law, which aims to empower Philippine industries with finances and incentives for the manufacture of quality goods. The swift passing of the law authored by Senator Sonny Angara was the result of close collaboration between the Senate, House of Representatives and the President, which had listed it on the priority measure of his administration. A key provision of the Act is that Philippine Products will be given priority and preference in all government procurement activities for a period of 10 years.

The added protection of the Tatak Pinoy Law is expected to give cement producers and other local industries the confidence to invest and improve the quality of their products. The new San Fernando plant, for example, will cut CO 2 emissions by 10 per cent compared to older lines. The plant will now produce an additional 100,000 bags of cement per day and will raise the company's market share from seven to 10 per cent by 2025. TCPI has also invested PHP3.2bn in the Jetty and Marine Belt Conveyor and the PHP1.4bn San Fernando port area projects. Furthermore, the Luzon Distribution Terminal has been modernised with an investment of PHP3.7bn.

Ramping up pressure on imports

The increases in domestic capacity could finally result in a sharp fall in imports. Earlier, in February 2024, CEMAP called the DTI to help curb the influx of imported cement that had evaded proper inspection. CEMAP claimed that cement products in Western Visayas, Central Luzon and parts of Mindanao, appeared to have been directly sold from vessels, at ex-vessel price, possibly even before the necessary inspection and sampling. CEMAP argues that imported cement should be mandated to undergo both chemical and seven-day physical strength testing before distribution or use.

Vietnam is the largest source of cement and clinker imports for the Philippines' cement market, accounting for approximately 2Mt of cement sales in the 1Q24 or US$81.56m, reports the General Department of Customs.

A brighter future?

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecast a six per cent growth in the Philippines GDP in 2024 and 6.2 per cent in 2025. The government also seeks to maintain infrastructure spending at the 5-6 per cent level with its BBM Infrastructure programme. The government-initiated Philippine Construction Industry Road Map also envisions PHP130trn of business will be generated between 2020-30 in the country.

Published under
Ramco Cements sees 55% fall in net profit

ICR Newsroom By 26 July 2024

The Ramco Cements Ltd reported a 55 per cent fall in net profit to INR355m (US$4.24m) during the quarter ended 30 June 2024, compared to INR793m in the same quarter of 2023.

The companys net revenue decreased by seven per cent in the first quarter of FY24-25 to INR20.97bn, down from INR22.49bn in the same period of FY23-24.

During the first quarter of FY24-25, sales volume was 4.4Mt, compared to 4.3Mt in the April-June quarter of 2023. This was due to weak demand amid general elections, the company stated.

Ramco is targeting a cement capacity of 30Mta by March 2026. It expects to achieve this target by commissioning a second line in Kolimigundla, along with de-bottlenecking of existing facilities and adding grinding capacity with minimal capital expenditure.

The India-based company has also announced its intention to sell off non-core assets worth about INR10m over the next 12 months.

Published under




In October of 2022, during the City Council meeting, Mayor Kelly apologized for the lack of communication from the city about this project. On the city of Chattanoogas website, the city specifically stated how they would keep the community engaged throughout the process, but have never followed through.





The last thing the community heard was back in January when they were told by the citys Chief Housing Officer, Nicole Heyman, that the city may be pivoting away from permanent support of housing and toward an affordable housing or mixed income project.





Since the last community meeting, the city has done nothing to prepare this site for a homeless shelter or permanent supportive housing. No new bus stop anywhere close, no grocery stores nearby, no new sidewalks, no cleaning up of the other motels, nothing. It is the exact same as it was when the city purchased this flea bag motel as Mayor Kelly likes to call it.





Lets not forget that the group that Mayor Kelly praised and was so excited to bring to Chattanooga is now embroiled in a $100 million lawsuit with the state of California. Now, without much time for due diligence, the city is just going to hand over a $2.8 million property and no one should ask questions?





Tiffany Newberry

Now, they just want to hand it off to an outside group with no community input or involvement in the middle of summer when hopefully no one is looking.

* * *

Thank you, Ms. Newberry, for informing. The public is in the dark about this situation, or at-least I was.

Another homeless funding debacle.

The city of Chattanooga has a history of chronic failure in the use of tax dollars assigned to help the homeless. The large tax dollar investments trickle away from the need.

What an embarrassment. The city taxpayers are once again being fleeced for another round help the homeless where public funds flow to everyone, but the homeless.

For the folks that remember the millions of local tax dollars wasted on the citys purchase of the polluted farmers market in a land deal that was simply deplorable, this is outrageous. The farmers market project was about 50 percent intended to funnel proceeds to political friends, and millions for environmental studies that never amounted to helping the homeless. An estimated 10 million dollars was wasted in the homeless campus pursuit that yielded nothing for the homeless.

That citys outrageous actions on the prior homeless effort are condemnable.

The city of Chattanooga dared to call down Hamilton County elected for failing to fall in line with their spending for homeless intervention 3 years ago. I was cheering for the citys plan to help provide temporary housing for the homeless and felt hopeful, of course history does repeat. The city failed miserably.

Here we are three years later, and not one homeless person has been assisted with the purchase of this Airport Inn. Money for vulnerable populations such as the homeless flow away for impactful purpose.

What is this?

The city has left a $3 million investment sitting for three years, not housing homeless. Is that correct? Somehow this is not surprising, as we dodge potholes everywhere.

I am reasonably fed up with seeing millions go to the cause of homelessness by the city of Chattanooga that results in zero temporary housing or outcomes at all.

Thank you, Ms. Newberry. No one would know about this without your words.

What would the $3 million in a land purchase have done for the homeless over the last three years?

City Council, do your job and intervene, sell the Airport Inn, and get the money to the need.

April Eidson
The Mayors Council on Disability invites everyone to a community celebration for the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Acts passage. The event will take place at Coolidge Park from 11 a.m.2 p.m. Mayor Tim Kelly will be in attendance and will read a proclamation regarding the ADA and its importance at 1:15 p.m.



Officials said, "The passage of the ADA in 1990 was a monumental occurrence for those with disabilities in the United States. Through this legislation, the Civil Rights and equal access of those with disabilities were legally mandated. The ADA was signed into law on July 26, 1990 under President George H.W. Bush."



Food will be provided on a first-come, first-served basis. There will be multiple vendors and service agencies present that serve those with disabilities.



Cheryl Zuckerman, who heads the council, said, The Mayors Council on Disability is delighted to offer this celebration for the community, and it is wonderful that Mayor Kelly has agreed to take part in the festivities. Chattanooga is known for being a city that is accessible and friendly for those who have disabilities, and it is important for us to come together to recognize how the ADA makes a difference in the lives of those with disabilities every day. Weve made great strides, but we know there is more to be done.
The Hamilton County Health Department, WillowBend Farms and Vision Hospitality Group partner with local organizations to participate in the Red Sand Project to raise awareness of human trafficking.The Red Sand Project uses sand artwork as a way for people to come together and connect, raising awareness about human trafficking, modern slavery and exploitation.Officials said, "The red sand symbolizes the human trafficking victims that fall through the cracks of our society every day.Although Hamilton County makes continuous efforts and improvements, human trafficking remains a significant public health concern within our community.Vision Hospitality Group is honored to serve as host for our third annual collaborative Red Sand Project. The One Voice Coalition, the Hamilton County Health Department and our civil leaders across Chattanooga have been hard-working partners in putting a stop to human trafficking. For that, we are deeply grateful. In keeping with our theme this year of 'progress,' Vision is proud to represent the hotel industry by sharing the ways hospitality has been taking a stance and our efforts towards increasing survivor support and awareness. While progress is being made, this fight isnt over, and we invite the community to join us with their voices."According to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, human trafficking is a demand-driven crime that involves exploiting a person for labor, services, or commercial sex acts, targeting men, women, and children. Human trafficking is also one of the fastest-growing criminal industries in the country, with cases reported in all 50 states. According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, in 2021, 217 victims in Tennessee were involved in 152 reported cases; cases can have multiple victims."As a survivor, I understand the importance of decreasing barriers to victims seeking services and that having a continuum of care provides survivors with sustainable restoration. During the Red Sand Event on Thursday, August 1st, we will share the progress made in the last year, including information on the Counter-Trafficking Alliance of Chattanooga launched in January 2024. That has brought together over 52 agencies in our community to address human trafficking. Massive steps to protect our community, bring awareness, and coordinate care with cultural sensitivity as a critical objective to serve the most vulnerable of populations to trafficking are at the forefront. One Voice collective comprises five local counter-trafficking agencies that serve the Chattanooga region that come together as one unified voice with a mission to support survivors and prevent human trafficking, said Sarah McKinnis, co-founder and CEO of WillowBend Farms.If you know someone who needs help to escape trafficking, contact the Tennessee Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-855-558-6484. If you suspect you have encountered a victim of human trafficking, you may call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or text 233722.As part of outreach efforts regarding Human Trafficking Awareness, a Red Sand Project event will be held on Thursday, Aug. 1, at 10 a.m. at the Aloft Hotel. Due to limited space, RSVPing is preferred. Event information and the RSVP link are available here
Improving school attendance addresses many educational challenges, including poor reading skills, chaotic classrooms, and learning loss. However, truancy, chronic absenteeism, and school dropouts often go unnoticed and are not given enough attention by policymakers.



School attendance is just not a sexy policy issue. Unlike testing, there is no industry like the highly profitable testing companies that spend millions lobbying policymakers for more taxpayer dollars to fight for these kids.

No highly financed political campaigns are focused on promoting showing up for school as an alternative to universal vouchers.Stephen Hawking once said, Half the battle is just showing up. If we want to elevate public education and see children achieve their potential, we must ensure that students show up in classrooms and learn daily. We must ensure that our schools have a teacher in each class and that students receive the support they need to know and succeed. School attendance is one of the most important indicators of school success.Many schoolchildren experience enormous hardships in their lives, including abject poverty, complex health challenges, neighborhood violence, and challenging family circumstances. These obstacles make it hard for students to make the most of their schooling opportunities. Mike Martin emphasized the need for policymakers to address transportation issues impacting chronic absenteeism to ensure no students are left behind.School absences nearly doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, posing a significant educational threat. Chronic absenteeism is particularly concerning, as it can become the new norm and hinder students' academic progress. Studies have shown that chronically absent students perform lower in reading and mathematics.Although schools have implemented strategies like attendance-tracking systems and community outreach to tackle absenteeism, the problem persists. While some states have managed to reduce chronic absenteeism rates, they remain higher than pre-pandemic levels. The availability of COVID relief funds for attendance campaigns has also diminished, making it challenging for school districts to continue their efforts.States like Rhode Island have taken proactive measures to address chronic absenteeism, such as using billboards to catch students' attention and implementing a public dashboard to monitor daily attendance rates. However, reducing chronic absenteeism requires tailored approaches that consider the unique circumstances of each region.The consequences of high school dropout rates are far-reaching, including lower wages, limited employment opportunities, increased reliance on welfare and public services, and higher incarceration rates. Tennessee, for example, has experienced high dropout rates in urban areas such as Memphis-Shelby County and Davidson County.Inconsistent policies and practices across states, districts, and schools hinder combatting chronic absenteeism and truancy. The lack of a standardized classification of absences as excused or unexcused and variations in truancy laws prevent accurate data analysis and comparison.When students drop out of high school, it creates challenges that most kids never understand. These include lower wages, lost productivity, lack of employment opportunities, dependence on welfare and public services, and higher rates of incarceration. For the state, lost wages for citizens mean a loss of tax revenue.To address these issues, a common language and stable attendance policies are needed. It is essential to prioritize school attendance as a critical indicator of success and ensure students have access to teachers and the support they need to thrive. We can elevate public education and empower students to reach their full potential by confronting truancy, chronic absenteeism, and dropouts. It is time we start having those conversations.

JC Bowman

Executive Director of Professional Educators of Tennessee

* * *

In response to JC Bowmans recent letter on school attendance, I will share Professor Walter Williamss opinion.

For someone to do well in school, somebody needs to make him go to bed on time and get a good 10 hours of sleep. Somebody must make him do his homework. Somebody must feed him breakfast in the morning and somebody must make him mind the teacher. If those things are not done, I dont care how much money you put in the school system, education will not occur.

Thomas Blewett
Ross Pitcairn has informed Mayor Tim Kelly that he will be stepping down from his position as Public Works Administrator, effective in two weeks.

Jerramy Jay Wood, who currently serves as Deputy Administrator of Wastewater Systems, will serve as Interim Public Works Administrator.

Ross is a true public servant, and I want to thank him for his hard work and wish him the best in his future endeavors, said Mayor Kelly.

Jerramy was a prior finalist for this position, so I have full confidence in his ability to step in as an effective leader for Public Works, ensuring we advance our One Chattanooga goal of efficient and responsive local government.




Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park will conduct artillery firing demonstrations, each lasting approximately 30 minutes, inside Point Park, on Lookout Mountain on Saturday, Aug. 10 at 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.Entrance to Point Park is $10 per adult (ages 16 years and older; ages 15 years and younger enter free of charge). If a visitor has an America the Beautiful National Parks & Federal Recreational Lands Pass, the passholder and three other adults may enter for free.Officials said, "Artillerists rely on a line of sight, and the clearer the better.However, on Nov. 24, 1863, Captain Max Van Den Corput and his Cherokee Light Artillery fired off Lookout Mountain without ever seeing their enemy. How did they aim their guns during The Battle Above the Clouds? Come join us for a unique experience and find out the answer to this question and more."For more information about programs at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, contact the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center at 706-866-9241, the Lookout Mountain Battlefield Visitor Center at 423-821-7786, or visit the park website at www.nps.gov/chch.
How pharmaceuticals act, how efficient catalysts are and how effective and accurate printing inks function all depend on the size of the nanoparticles they contain. However, there are as of yet no methods for monitoring the particle size distribution during grinding processes. In the EU-funded PAT4Nano project, a consortium from industry and research has spent the last four years looking for practicable approaches for such inline measurements. The Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT in Aachen has developed a promising laser-based method that could soon make such measurements possible.

Particles on a nanometer (nm) scale make all the difference in inkjet printing, vehicle catalytic converters and pharmaceutical production. "Their size distribution has a major influence on product properties in many applications," explains Dr. Christoph Janzen, who conducts research in the field of laser medical technology and bioanalytics at Fraunhofer ILT. For example, the degree of particle grinding in printing inks influences the reliability, costs and color effect in digital printing. So-called oversized particles  i.e. particles that are too large  can clog the inkjet nozzles. If they are ground too finely, the energy and time required in production increase and the print quality can also suffer. The situation is similar with nanoparticles for catalyst coatings. Both the catalytic effect and the raw material consumption of the precious metals platinum and iridium depend on the particle size distributions of the carrier materials aluminum and zirconium oxide: The optimum particle size achieves maximum catalytic efficiency with minimum precious metal input.

Particle size distribution is also important in the pharmaceutical industry because the size of the active ingredient particles determines how quickly they are dissolved in the body and how long their effect lasts. Some pain-relieving medicines have a drug-like effect when finely ground. Precision is, therefore, required in production. "If the specified particle size distribution is not adhered to, there is a risk that the entire batch must be discarded, which means the company could incur high financial losses," explains Janzen. However, as great as the influence of nanoparticles is on the properties of many products, it is difficult to measure them using currently available measurement and microscopy methods. This is especially true if the measurement is to be carried out inline during the grinding process. Because there are no practicable solutions for this, users have so far made do with in-process random sample measurements.

Making inline measurements of nanoparticles possible In order to close this gap, a consortium of industrial companies, manufacturers of measuring and analysis equipment and research partners has sought new approaches for inline particle measurement. In the PAT4Nano (Process Analytical Technology Tools for Realtime Physical and Chemical Characterization of Nanosuspensions) project, they have spent four years advancing various analytical approaches to measure and analyze industrially relevant nanoparticles with funding from the EU's Horizon 2020 research framework programme. In addition to the Belgian companies Agfa-Gevaert and Janssen Pharmaceutica, the National University of Ireland in Galway and the Irish University of Limerick, Johnson Matthey and Malvern Panalytical from the UK and InProcess-LSP and TNO from the Netherlands, Fraunhofer ILT was also part of the consortium.

A team led by Janzen has developed a novel laser-based technology for particle analysis, which it has used to investigate particle size distributions of samples from applications in pharmaceutical, printing ink and catalyst production during the PAT4Nano project. The new method is able to measure the size and size distribution of particles (particle size distribution; PSD) during the ongoing grinding process. This task is challenging for particles in the size range of less than 100 nm because microscopic image-based methods reach their limits here. The team, therefore, had to dig deep into their photonic bag of tricks when developing the laser-based inline analytics.

Mathematical detours to precise inline particle measurement "We developed our method on the basis of dynamic light scattering," explains Janzen. This measuring principle is based on Braun's molecular motion: In the liquid medium, the suspended nanoparticles are excited by collisions with molecules of the solvent and are in constant motion. The smaller the particles, the faster the movement. This is precisely where the laser measurement process comes in. "We focus a laser on the solution and analyze the scattered light or its temporary fluctuation," he explains. The particle size can be derived from the fluctuation using mathematical methods.

Two mathematical methods are commonly used: Fourier analysis leads to the actual particle size via the intensity distribution in defined frequency ranges. Alternatively, it is possible to use correlation analysis to draw conclusions about the particle sizes in the ground material based on the frequency of movement. If other parameters such as the viscosity or temperature of the liquid are included, the process can provide a very precise picture of the particle sizes and their distribution. According to Janzen, an absolute value is not always required. It is often sufficient for users to track how the "hydrodynamic radius" of the particles changes during the grinding process. "By comparing this to a perfect run, they can easily track how their process is progressing and when the desired particle size has been reached," he reports.

In addition to the mathematical approaches, the laser measurement process also involves imaginative engineering. This is because the inline measurement cannot take place in the ball mill, as the dynamic light scattering is based on the observation of undisturbed diffusion. However, it cannot be guaranteed that the particles diffuse freely in the liquid medium in a running ball mill, especially as the ground material is continuously mixed in it. Sampling by cuvette, on the other hand, does not fulfill the requirement of continuous process monitoring.

To solve the dilemma, the Fraunhofer team systematically analyzed the grinding process. This gave the researchers the brilliant idea: "In the ball mills typically used, the liquid medium is constantly pumped around," explains Janzen. The team used the optical measuring method in this liquid cycle. To guarantee the measurements are precise despite the moving liquids, the ILT researchers constructed an inline probe. A rotating impeller moves the sample liquid in front of the optical probe. When it stops, a closed space is formed in one of its chambers, decoupled from any flow. The particles can diffuse freely here, and an undisturbed measurement can be made. To analyze them, the team directs the laser through the probe onto the temporary measuring chamber. After the measurement, the impeller starts moving again, exchanges the analyzed sample liquid  and closes the measuring chamber against the outside again when it stops.

A further step toward a stable measurement method for nanoparticles used in industry According to Janzen, the light is introduced into the solution via an optical fiber, whereby the focus point is variable. A second optical system captures the scattered light and also guides it via fiber to the detector, which records the signals. "The advantage of this method is that the measurements are taken under the same conditions that prevail in the grinding process," he says.

One challenge that has not yet been fully resolved is that the particle concentration in the liquid is high, and it is not possible to dilute it from the outside. This increases the probability of multiple scattering, which can falsify the measurement results. In order to extend the concentration range, the researchers experimented with a completely new approach: 3D cross-correlation. This uses a modified immersion probe, which can carry out two DLS measurements at the same location and compare fluctuating signal intensities with each other using cross-correlation. This way, the concentration range can be extended because the interfering multiple scattering can be filtered out when the signals are compared. To ensure that both measurements capture exactly the same particles, the team has designed a special optics holder and manufactured it using selective laser etching (SLE). They aim to achieve high-precision focus superimposition by directing the light from two excitation lasers in two beam paths through one and the same aspherical lens at exactly the same particles and capturing the scattered light via two further beam paths. Through consistent miniaturization, they were able to integrate the optical system into the immersion probe. However, the approach proved to be very complex over the course of the project. "It is not yet robust enough, but the results with the SLE-manufactured holder are promising," says Janzen. This is also because two different wavelengths (785 nm and 795 nm) were used for excitation in order to separate the scattered light signals from the two DLS experiments.
As the International Space Station (ISS) approaches the end of its operational life in 2030, NASA is preparing to destroy it in a safe and responsible manner.

The agency announced that SpaceX had been selected for the task of developing a deorbit spacecraft to push the station out of orbit and back down to Earth without risk to populated areas.

NASA has awarded SpaceX a contract worth up to $843 million to carry out the job. While the company will develop the deorbit spacecraft, it will go under NASA ownership once its completed. According to NASAs plans, the deorbit vehicle will pull the space station back to Earth.

After entering the Earths atmosphere at a speed of over 17,000 miles per hour, the ISS and the deorbit vehicle are expected to break up before landing in a designated crash site in the ocean. The plan ensures that no one on Earth will be harmed by the debris.

This decision also supports NASAs plans for future commercial destinations and allows for the continued use of space near Earth, Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for Space Operations Mission Directorate at NASAs headquarters in Washington, said.

The first parts of the space station were launched in 1998. Since 2000, it has been occupied by astronauts from the U.S., Europe, Canada, Russia, and Japan.

They have conducted more than 3,300 scientific experiments while floating in a close orbit above Earth. The orbital laboratory is getting up there in years, though.

Crews have had to deal with issues such as technical faults and leaks. Additionally, the contracts between the five participating space agencies will expire by 2030. Russia has committed to continue operations of the station until at least 2028.

Each agency is responsible for managing the station. Its operations rely on efforts from across the partnership. The partnership between these countries also marked an era of cooperation in space ventures after the end of the Cold War.

Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
Back in her sophomore year of college, this 20-year-old girl made friends with about 7 people whom she says are pretty excellent.

They have been thick as thieves ever since then, and they all attend a pretty pricey college that doesnt offer scholarships. Due to that, she knows its reasonable to believe that they all come from rich families.

Back when she first started getting friendly with these people, they would grab drinks or meet up for brunch and split the bill all the time.

However, Ive been brought up to never let others pay and would offer to cover the bill whenever I could, she explained.

No one else offered to cover but I believe its just not common where theyre from. A few months ago, we were talking about our parents occupations, and I told them about my family. A quick Google search of my name brings up my fathers page; however, they had never connected the dots regarding our relationship.

My father is well known in the real estate industry and makes quite a bit of money. Since then, Ive been labeled as the rich friend in our group.

She only gave her friends tiny details about what her mom and dad do, but they were able to quickly piece together the bigger picture, and it wasnt possible for her to lie to them about it.

From there, any time she would go shopping with her friends, they would make a spectacle of her if she purchased cheap items.

They also would make snide remarks about her using public transit when she could clearly afford to ride around in Ubers or private jets or comment that she has so much money she should be able to buy a new outfit every single day.

Sign up for Chip Chicks newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
Photo by Pixabay

Norman Public Schools Superintendent Nick Migliorino has firmly stated that his district will not comply with Oklahoma Superintendent Ryan Walters' directive to teach the Bible in public school classrooms.

Migliorino made it clear that Norman Public Schools "is not going to have Bibles in our classrooms, and we are not going to require our teachers to teach from the Bible."

This stance has drawn support from Democratic officials, including State Representative Annie Menz, who represents Norman. Menz praised the district for "putting kids first" and criticized Walters and his "out-of-state bosses" for wanting to "put the Bible in schools but take free lunches out.

Similarly, Representative Jared Deck denounced Walters' directive as "big government overreach" and an attempt to "socialize Christian Nationalism."

In response, the Oklahoma State Department of Education accused the lawmakers of being "anti-knowledge" and claimed that the "Bible is foundational to American history and culture, and it is academic malpractice not to include it in instructional materials." Walters has stated that the Bible's historical role in the country necessitates its prominent use in public school curricula.

However, Migliorino maintained that Norman Public Schools' "standards are clear and our curriculum is very clear. And we're not going to deviate from that."State law allows local districts to choose their own curriculum and instructional materials, despite the state's ability to set academic standards.

According to The Christian Post, Ryan Walters told that the specifics of his directive requiring the Bible to be taught in public schools would be released within weeks, responding to concerns from families.

"The Bible was not being used prominently in its historical role in our schools. We heard that time and time again. This is not an ask," he said. "They will teach from the Bible, they will reference the Bible, they will make sure that that historical context is included when it's appropriate."

He mentioned that state officials are revising curriculum standards to "include more direct application of the Bible in our history classes," with David Barton of Wallbuilders overseeing the rewrites. This initiative is being closely monitored by groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Illustration by Ibrahim Rayintakath

In the 2000 movie Memento, protagonist Leonard Shelby has a specific brain injury that prevents him from forming new long-term memories. He can remember information for 30 seconds to a minute at most, but then he forgets everything.

Leonards disconnect from his past leaves him in a perpetual state of bewilderment about how he got into his present predicament: What enemy am I running fromand why? Why am I holding a gun? His confusion is a consequence of amnesia, an inability to remember ones own history. If Leonard could just relearn and remember the salient parts of his past, he could finally return to a stable existence, with a sane understanding of himself and the people around him.

Being an evangelical today is much like this. We too are disconnected from our past, albeit for more reversible reasons than a brain injury. As a result, evangelicals are more divided now than ever, with many of us combating enemies who were once friends.

Sign up for Moore to the Point Join Russell Moore in thinking through the important questions of the day, along with book and music recommendations he has found formative. Email* Sign Up This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thanks for signing up. Please click here to see all our newsletters. Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.

But what if we paused to remember our history? Not only would we recall who we are and how we got here, but we might even rediscover the best that evangelicalism has been, is, and can be once again.

Of course, one of the biggest problems today is that there seems to be almost no consensus on what the word evangelical even means. If only evangelicals from around the world could agree upon the baseline parameters for evangelicalismsomething minimal enough to encourage healthy diversity but substantial enough to ensure doctrinal integrity.

What if something like this already exists?

Fifty years ago, in July 1974, around 2,700 Christian leaders from 150 countries traveled to Lausanne, Switzerland, at the behest of American evangelist Billy Graham and British theologian John Stott.

The conference was officially titled the First International Congress of World Evangelization, but it came to be known as the first Lausanne gathering of 74. And although it included merely a portion of the global church, Time magazine famously reported at the time that the congress was possibly the widest-ranging meeting of Christians ever held.

Courtesy of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Top: Participants arrive at the Palais de Beaulieu in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974. Bottom: Booths translate Lausanne plenary sessions into the six official languages of the congress.

Perhaps the most important and lasting output of this gathering was the Lausanne Covenant, which in time would prove to be one of the most influential documents in modern evangelicalism. The purpose of the document was to answer a key question: How much must we agree with one another to partner together in the task of world missions?

At the time, as now, evangelicalism was feeling the effects of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, which caused ugly splits in almost every major Christian institution and denomination. The fundamentalist approach to differences involved rigorous litmus tests and doctrinal rigidity. The progressive outlook avoided setting any doctrinal boundaries, risking substantive departures from historical Christianity.

But evangelicals took another tack.

The evangelical approach to diversity exemplified at Lausanne is characterized both by (1) careful negotiation of unity across differences that is grounded in common confessions of historical Christianity and (2) celebration of diversity itself as an intrinsic good, and even evidence of an expression of Gods intended plan for the global, universal church of all believers.

The Lausanne Covenant provided a theological definition of evangelical and quite intentionally avoided any sociopolitical elements associated with the movement. It also did not stake out positions on a host of important yet secondary issues related to theology, doctrine, and praxis. For instance, there is no discussion of baptism, gender roles in ministry, or the age of the earth and evolution.

By steering clear of these sorts of issues, the Lausanne Covenant included Christians on both sides of disagreements who might otherwise be divided. Instead, the leaders of the congress sought to create a covenantal community across such differences and in service of a shared mission for the whole Church to take the whole gospel to the whole world.

In one sense, the covenant is a corporate statement of belief composed of 15 articles, an introduction, and a conclusion. At just over 3,100 words, the document is short enough to be legibly typeset onto two sides of a single page. Stott, chair of the drafting committee, explained the reasoning behind each article in his expositiona must-read companion to the covenant.

It would be a mistake to see this document merely as a statement of belief since it was intended as a covenant, Stott writesa binding contract that commits its signatories to a common purpose and partnership. After 10 days of debate, discussion, and negotiation, most of the attendees (2,300) signed the document together. As Stott explained, We did not want just to declare something, but to do somethingto commit ourselves to the task of world evangelization.

Even now, the covenant is meant to be signed by those who read and agree with itand in doing so, we commit to cooperating with each other in the mission of God.

Like most evangelicals, I had never heard of the Lausanne Covenant growing up, nor was I asked to sign it until I was an adult. Im a dark-skinned Indian, born in Southern California in 1978 to first-generation immigrants who were both Christiansincluding a father who studied at Biola University.

And while those at Christian institutions sometimes engaged with the Lausanne Covenant, I attended a public high school and a secular state university. The churches I grew up attending were nondenominational, which came with strengths but also some amnesia about Christian history.

I first learned of the covenant in late 2000, 24 years ago, when I was a graduate student studying to be a physician scientist. I applied and was accepted for the Harvey Fellowshipa scholarship offered to Christians entering underrepresented fieldsand all applicants were required to sign the Lausanne Covenant. The next summer, I headed to Washington, DC, for a weeklong event to meet up with a small group of other new Harvey fellows.

This event substantially broadened my experience of evangelical diversity. Ben Sasse, a Yale historian and Reformed Presbyterian, was the first Christian I knew who made a plausible argument for infant baptism, even though he and I disagreed about it. Mac Alford, a plant biologist from Cornell, was the first Christian Id met who affirmed evolutionwhich I rejected at the time.

And although these disagreements were uncomfortable, at least for me, we had all signed the Lausanne Covenant (which takes no stance on either of these issues) and so had already committed to cooperate.

The Lausanne Covenant offers a theological account of our differencesbased on the underlying belief that these differences can be intrinsically valuable. The leaders of the congress were unsatisfied with a reduced community of agreement, seeking instead an expansive community across our differences.

The covenant explains, using what Stott called a literal translation of Eph. 3:10, that our different views on Scripture are a mechanism by which Gods wisdom is disclosed to us:

Gods revelation in Christ and in Scripture is unchangeable. Through it the Holy Spirit still speaks today. He illumines the minds of Gods people in every culture to perceive its truth freshly through their own eyes and thus discloses to the whole church ever more of the many-colored wisdom of God.

Instead of retrenching doctrinal boundaries to achieve a counterfeit peace, the evangelical invitation is to read our Bibles together, to sort out our differences, and to negotiateand these instincts were clearly present in the way the Lausanne Covenant came to be.

Though the conference itself lasted only 10 days, the process of drafting the covenant took months of dialogue and negotiation. But with 2,700 delegates at the conference, how much cooperation was possible? Quite a bit, as it turns out. In Stotts assessment, It may truly be said, then, that the Lausanne Covenant expresses a consensus of the mind and mood of the Lausanne Congress.

The drafting of the document was assigned to a small committee including Stott; the then president of Wheaton College, Hudson Armerding; and Samuel Escobar, a Peruvian theologian from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

Months prior to the July meeting, attendees were sent papers from all the meetings speakers and asked to provide written feedback. Written by J. D. Douglas, editor of Christianity Today at the time, the preliminary draft was based on the key themes and insights of these papers.

In his exposition, Stott explains, Already this document may truly be said to have come out of the Congress (although the Congress had not yet assembled), because it reflected the contributions of the main speakers whose papers had been published in advance.

Before the conference, an early draft was sent out to several advisers, whose comments were used to guide the first revision of the document. Then a second revision was overseen by the committee.

But the drafters also wanted to engage with, listen to, and learn from the attendees themselves. So midway through the July meeting, each attendee was given a copy of the third draft of the covenant and asked to submit their responses and discuss in small groups that were organized each day.

From this feedback, any objections and suggested amendments were submitted for the drafting committee to consider. According to Stott, the congress

responded with great diligence. Many hundreds of submissions were received (in the official languages), translated into English, sorted and studied. Some proposed amendments cancelled each other out, but the drafting committee incorporated all they could.

Ultimately, this negotiation substantially impacted the final document along three primary themes. First, a carefully negotiated statement on biblical inerrancy was added. Second, the covenants statement on social responsibility was bolstered. Third, several changes were made to reflect the concerns and wisdom of the global church outside the Western world. These three themes, I believe, summarize the lessons of Lausanne for our current moment.

I. The article on the authority of Scripture was strengthened to include a carefully negotiated statement on inerrancy, influenced by input from Francis Schaeffer and others, which read that the Bible is without error in all that it affirms. This specific change was hotly disputed, creating a significant challenge for the drafting committee.

On the one hand, the reasons for including a statement on inerrancy were strong. A different view of Scripture was the root cause of many deep disagreements between evangelicals and progressive Christians. The modernist claim, driven by higher criticism, was that the Bible was authoritative but that its message was always subject to change due to its many errors.

Alongside this assertion, many liberal Christians rejected belief in the Resurrection, the Virgin Birth, and a historical Adam and Eve. And while these three classic claims of Christianity are not equally important, rejecting any one of them is a major revision with far-reaching consequences.

Clarifying the nature of this disagreement about Scripture was on the forefront of conference organizers minds. For good reason, evangelicals could not easily partner in world missions with those whose understanding of the gospel did not include, for instance, the bodily resurrection of Jesusfor this would be another gospel entirely (Gal. 1:69). As the apostle Paul said, If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile (1 Cor. 15:17).

But also, in the immediate context, the Lausanne conference was a response to the Bangkok Conference on Salvation Today, convened the year before (1973) by the World Council of Churches (WCC). Even the location was chosen in part because of Lausannes proximity to Geneva, where the WCC is headquartered.

The Bangkok Conference included evangelical delegates as well as liberal and mainline Christians, many of whom had drifted from orthodoxy. And while its final report includes a concession to evangelicals, affirming with Acts 4:12 that there is no other name [but Jesus] given among men by which we must be saved, other requests to strengthen the theology of the gospelechoing the Frankfurt Declaration of 1970, in which German Christians pushed back against the humanistic turn of missions in the WCCwere rebuffed as Western contributions that did not speak for everyone.

Moreover, the Bangkok report included statements labeling any release from societal oppression as a form of salvation, including the peace of the people in Vietnam, independence in Angola, justice and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and release from the captivity of power. In Christianity Today, Peter Beyerhaus wrote,

Here, under a seemingly biblical cover, the concept of salvation has been so broadened and deprived of its Christian distinctiveness that any liberating experience can be called salvation. Accordingly, any participation in liberating efforts would be called mission.

Beyerhaus added that the conference also presented Maoismthe communism of Chinaas an acceptable alternative to Christianity. Similarly, the church of prophet Simon Kimbanguwho claimed he was the incarnate coming of God the Father and that his son was the second incarnation of Jesuswas presented as a laudable example of an indigenous ministry.

More than offhand comments, these were intentional appeals of the WCC leadership to Asian and African churches, and any theological objections were dismissed as unhelpful attempts to assimilate indigenous churches to Western thinking.

While no one can dictate who is allowed to self-identify with the term Christian or even evangelical, the Lausanne Covenant grounds Christian unity in a shared mission of proclaiming the whole gospel to the whole world. This mission is why we join this often-uncomfortable community known as the church despite our differences.

Serious disagreements about the nature of the gospel can often be traced back to two fundamentally different ways of understanding Scripture. Everyone in this debate could agree that the Scripture was authoritative, but were its teachings always changing and full of errors?

On the other hand, even for many orthodox Christians, the term inerrancy was still the sticking point. Inerrancy was a loaded word, since it was already being used by some fundamentalists as a doctrinal litmus test. Compounding the problem, the term was poorly defined since it was still years before the Chicago statements on inerrancy and hermeneutics were written in 1978 and 1982, respectively. It should come as no surprise, then, that many attendees strongly objected to the covenants use of inerrancy in its statement on Scripture.

Stotts solution to this impasse was forged in the negotiation process and was wise. Instead of demanding the word inerrancy, he replaced it with a concise and salient definition of the term by saying that Scripture is without error in all that it affirms. Evangelicals objecting to the term inerrancy could affirm this, but many progressives would not.

II. The congress also bolstered the covenants article on social responsibility. Here again the drafters were distinguishing themselves from both the progressives at the WCC and the fundamentalists overreaction to liberalisms social gospel.

Tracing Billy Grahams own path on the issue of social justice provides some instructive background. In 1953, breaking with his Southern upbringing, Graham began insisting that his audiences be integrated, with Blacks and whites seated next to each other.

In 1960, Graham spoke at widely publicized revival meetings in several countries in Africapreaching the gospel to gigantic crowds at packed stadiumsbut he was unwilling to preach the gospel to crowds segregated by the South African apartheid.

Grahams deliberate actions were clear sociopolitical statements on racial integration in the churchinfuriating many fundamentalists, including those in his own denomination, the Southern Baptists.

A week after Grahams rebuff of South Africa, fundamentalist evangelist and broadcaster Bob Jones Sr. responded in an Easter radio message titled Is Segregation Scriptural? Arguing from a tortured reading of Acts 17:26, Jones taught that the answer was yes. Efforts to integrate the races and end segregation, he contended, worked against Gods created order and distracted from the task of sharing the gospel. In this, Jones echoed the views of many Christians in the South.

Though apartheid continued until the 1990s, Graham finally preached in South Africa in 1973, just one year before Lausannein perhaps one of the first large gatherings in the country to seat black, white, and brown people together. To the integrated crowd of 100,000, the Southern preacher roared, Christianity is not a white mans religion.  Christ belongs to all people.

Courtesy of Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Top left: A. Jack Dain and Billy Graham sign the Lausanne Covenant at the closing ceremony of Lausanne, 1974. Bottom left: Leaders of the Lausanne congress during a press conference, 1974. Right: Martin Luther King Jr. and Billy Graham.

Graham was a friend of Martin Luther King Jr. and sometimes a public ally to Kings cause, and he continued to grow in his desire to see racial justice over the course of his life. But Graham wondered if he had done enough, and in 2005, he expressed regret for not pushing for civil rights more forcefully, wishing he had protested with King in the streets.

This context brings life to the final version of the covenants text, which distinguishes the work of proclaiming the gospelcentering on Gods message to us specifically in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christfrom the task of societal justice:

Here too we express penitence both for our neglect and for having sometimes regarded evangelism and social concern as mutually exclusive. Although reconciliation with man is not reconciliation with God, nor is social action evangelism, nor is political liberation salvation, nevertheless we affirm that evangelism and socio-political involvement are both part of our Christian duty.

In response to the Bangkok Conference, the Lausanne Covenant makes it clear that liberation from oppression is not synonymous with the biblical concept of salvation. Yet the covenant also avoided the fundamentalist mistake of neglecting social justice and even called evangelicals to repent for dissociating Christianity from its rightful concern over the social order.

These are critical lessons for us today. Our present difficulties in talking and thinking about race, diversity, and social justice are not new. The theological debate about the gospel and social justice is at least as old as the modernist-fundamentalist controversy. Evangelicals rightly rejected the social gospel and the particular forms of liberation theology that led to a departure from historical Christian teaching. Yet we have often been too complacentand too untroubled by our complacencein our pursuit of justice.

Today, a contentious battle rages over critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. There are many ways to define and implement CRT and DEI, some of which approximate secularized versions of liberation theology. But the motivating desire to include and encourage diversity in society is admirable and ultimately reflects a longing for Gods kingdom. This is why many Christian calls for racial justice are driven by the language and concerns of Scripture and even grounded in the person of Jesus Christ.

At least at a high level, the stated goals of CRT and DEI are not the problem, even if we fear many common approaches to these ends are misguided or destructive. For those of us concerned about antibiblical versions of CRT, the best antidote might be to follow the Lausanne Covenants example. May we articulate a robust theology of justice and follow through in our actionsand may we be penitent for our past failures to pursue justice.

III. In studying the Lausanne Movement, Im always struck by members pride, joy, and love for the diversity of the global, non-Western church and their desire to amplify its voice. The conference is structured to include people from the most remote, underrepresented, and underresourced countries. It offers sliding-scale fees to ensure participants with less means can attend. Even as organizers gather the most diverse and global group of Christians in history each meeting, they always express sadness for the corners of the church that cannot attend.

That said, Lausannes commitment to global participation faced several obstacles early on in its historybeginning with its first gathering, where more than 1,000 of the 2,700 attendees came from developing countries.

Before Lausanne, some African leaders called for a moratorium on Western missionaries and any money raised through their networks. This was in part because many objected to the paternalistic patterns they saw in missions, which were often fueled by large imbalances in wealth.

Western missions, even when well intentioned, have at times been exploitative and failed to create healthy, collaborative relationships that serve non-Western countries well. And to be sure, the missionary movements association of Western culture with Christianity did distort the gospel and was often a stumbling block to the rest of the world.

Lausanne organizers invited Christians from all sides of this debate to the congress, including Kenyan theologian John Gatu, the author of the moratorium. At the congress, the East Africa National Strategy group of about 60 Africans took up the question of this request. A robust and reasonable debate ensued between Gatu, who argued for the moratorium, and Festo Kivengere, an Anglican bishop from Uganda who argued against it. By the end of the week, both sides had sorted out their differences enough to offer a consensus statement to the congress:

The idea behind moratorium is concerned about over-dependence upon foreign resources both personnel and finances, which sometimes hinders initiative and development of local responsibility. [Our] group felt that the application of the concept behind moratorium might be considered for specific situations rather than generally.

With the moratorium writ large effectively withdrawn, the rest of the congressand the largely Western drafting committeecould have responded triumphantly by avoiding the issue altogether. But instead, the committee recognized the legitimacy of the African concerns and amended the draft to state, We also acknowledge that some of our missions have been too slow to equip and encourage national leaders to assume their rightful responsibilities.

Elsewhere, in its article on Evangelism and Culture, the covenant also includes an acknowledgment that while the gospel does not presuppose the superiority of any culture to another, global missions have, all too frequently, exported with the gospel an alien culture.

The covenant as distributed by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in the 1970s.

The covenant as distributed by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization in the 1970s.

In these statements, the non-Western church rightly corrected the Western church, and the West responded with repentance. Once again, the many-colored wisdom of God, to recall the covenants phrase, arose not despite but because of disagreements that needed to be sorted out.

At the root of this issue was the common desire of non-Western Christians to be welcomed as equals. And the Lausanne Covenant overtly salutes the beauty of this vision:

We rejoice that a new missionary era has dawned. The dominant role of western missions is fast disappearing  demonstrating that the responsibility to evangelize belongs to the whole body of Christ.

Fifty years ago, evangelicals were becoming aware of how non-Western churches suffered when the gospel was too tightly linked with Western cultures and countries. And in our present day, we are seeing firsthand the dangers and damage this linkage has wrought on Western churches too.

Whenever we identify Christianity with the West, America, or any other sociopolitical entity, our witness and our understanding of the gospel become distorted. And when we ignore the full diversity of voices in the global church, we neglect the many-colored wisdom of God.

Courtesy of Wheaton Archives & Special Collections, Wheaton College, IL Top left: Festo Kivengere. Top right: John Stott. Bottom: Attendees at Lausanne II in 1989.

The Lausanne Covenant created a strange sort of movementa network of Christians across the globe from several denominations and organizations. And although the congress itself was composed exclusively of Protestants, the covenant they adopted was intentionally in alignment with other branches of Christianity. At least among the Harvey fellows, many Catholics and Orthodox Christians have signed it too.

A Christian from China once recounted to me his being asked to sign the covenant, which brought him real fear and concern. In China, signatures were physical evidence that the government used to identify Christians and persecute them, so he had been taught never to sign something that would so thoroughly implicate him. Still, after much deliberation, he decided to sign the covenantthe only belief statement he has ever signed. Many of us will never face persecution like his, but in signing the covenant, we are joining in solidarity with him and so many others like him.

Particularly outside America, the Lausanne community has continued to grow, and although it remains full of disagreements, it has kept in clear view the mission of the one who is greater than all our differences.

Courtesy of Wheaton Archives & Special Collections, Wheaton College, IL Top: Attendees discuss the program at Lausanne II, 1989. Bottom: A keynote session during Lausanne II.

The Lausanne community continues to gather new generations of leaders. Fifteen years after the 1974 congress, in 1989, the Second International Conference for World Evangelism convened in Manila and came to be known as Lausanne II. This congress included 4,300 delegates from 173 countries, including the Soviet Union. And in 2010, 21 years later, the Third Lausanne Congress met in Cape Town, South Africa. This time, 4,000 delegates from 198 countries gathered in person, but many more participated virtually.

This September, the fourth congress will convene in Seoul, where 5,000 delegatesmyself includedwill attend in person and 5,000 will attend virtually. Tens of thousands more will attend satellite meetings across the globe.

Much has changed since the last gathering in 2010. New wars are raging around the world, and rumors of war loom even in Korea where we will meet. The United States is preparing for another contentious presidential election, along with many other countries, and several denominational conventions are continuing to divide over tensions between fundamentalism and progressivism.

Still, my hope is that evangelicals will once again have an opportunity to remember who we are, where we came from, and why it is vital for us to work across our differences rather than ignore, stifle, or divide over them. And perhaps, as we reorient ourselves to the work of Gods global mission, we may recover the best version of what it has meant to be an evangelical.

As we look toward Seoul this year, I urge all believersevangelical or notto read, discuss, and consider signing the Lausanne Covenant. May church leaders teach it from the pulpit so congregations can wrestle with what it demands of us. Let it remind us of the beautiful and beloved community of differences and disagreements to which we are called.

Let us covenant together, once again, to take up the great task of world missions, that Gods whole church might bring the whole gospel to the whole world.

S. Joshua Swamidass is a physician scientist, associate professor of laboratory and genomic medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, founder of Peaceful Science, and author of The Genealogical Adam and Eve.
This week, Clarissa, Mike, and Russell welcome Pete Wehner (The Atlantic, New York Times, Trinity Forum) to talk about the Southern Baptist Conventions Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and the unlawful firing of their president, which leads to a discussion of populism in the church.

Then, the three hosts engage in a review of the Secret Service directors resignation and what this means for the American people. Finally, Chris Seiple (a Comparative Religion Program fellow at the University of Washington) joins for a discussion of the events and implications surrounding Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahus visit to Washington, DC.

GO DEEPER WITH THE BULLETIN:

Sign up for The Daily Briefing Get the most recent headlines and stories from Christianity Today delivered to your inbox daily. Email* Sign Up This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thanks for signing up. Please click here to see all our newsletters. Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.

Follow the show in your podcast app of choice.

the show in your podcast app of choice. Find us on YouTube.

Rate and review the show in your podcast app of choice.

Leave a comment in Spotify with your feedback on the discussionwe may even respond!

TODAYS GUESTS:

Peter Wehner is a contributing writer at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum. He was formerly a speechwriter for George W. Bush and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Wehner is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, and his work also appears in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and National Affairs.

Chris Seiple is the Senior Fellow for Comparative Religion at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. He is widely known and sought after for his decades of experience and expertise regarding issues at the intersection of geopolitics, US foreign policy, Asia, conflict resolution, human rights, and religion. He has pioneered innovative solutions in the US Marine Corps, at the US State Department, the Templeton Religion Trust, and as the president of the Institute for Global Engagement, where he developed a Track 1.5 theory of change rooted in relational diplomacy.

ABOUT THE BULLETIN:

The Bulletin is a weekly (and sometimes more!) current events show from Christianity Today hosted and moderated by Clarissa Moll, with senior commentary from Russell Moore (Christianity Todays editor in chief) and Mike Cosper (director, CT Media). Each week the show explores current events and breaking news and shares a Christian perspective on issues that are shaping our world. We also offer special one-on-one conversations with writers, artists, and thought leaders whose impact on the world brings important significance to a Christian worldview, like Bono, Harrison Scott Key, Frank Bruni, and more.

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
Ng Han Guan / AP Images

Anyone wanting to bring together the more than 100 million Chinese-speaking Christians around the world must deal with the thorny issue of the church in China. There, Christians are split between unregistered house churches and the government-sanctioned Three-Self church. Additionally, heated differences in political views make it difficult for the global Chinese-speaking church to unify.

Nevertheless, global evangelical leaders want to bring this community together. Last week, a delegation from the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) traveled to China to meet with the leaders of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC)which are both overseen by the Chinese Communist Partyand offered them an invitation to collaborate.

The WEA launched the World Chinese Christianity Alliance (WCA) a year ago to serve the Chinese-speaking church with a think tank, publishing house, and media center, along with academic exchanges, resource sharing, and trainings.

Sign up for The Daily Briefing Get the most recent headlines and stories from Christianity Today delivered to your inbox daily. Email* Sign Up This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thanks for signing up. Please click here to see all our newsletters. Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.

Ezekiel Tan, general secretary of both the WCA and the Evangelical Alliance of Singapore, spoke with CT about the WCAs aims, its current progress, and the unique challenges it faces as it brings together ethnic Chinese from around the world. (In the article, the term Chinese refers to all ethnic Han people regardless of where they reside.)

The WCA is the WEAs first language-based network, instead of its typical location-based network. Why was Mandarin Chinese chosen to pioneer this?

Mandarin Chinese is our first endeavor because Chinese speakers are unique: They are overwhelmingly ethnically Han Chinese and share the same ancestry from China. Other international language groups, such as Arabic and Spanish, include people from different ethnicities.

Because Chinese people are so spread out, by reaching the Chinese, you reach all corners of the world. The only difference is that some read simplified Chinese while others read traditional Chinese. When you produce something in Chinese, there are economies of scale. The elephant in the room is the geopolitical tensions around China. Oftentimes, there are mutual suspicions between China and its trade partners. We dont want other groups to misrepresent the Christian community and how we perceive our relationship with China.

Chinese people also have a lot of financial resources. In many Asian countries, they are the minority, but they manage a disproportionate percentage of the wealth and resources. Reaching out to them helps us not only improve resource sharing among the community but also promotes greater philanthropy and charitable giving within the global movement.

What are the WCAs aims?

We want to create a global platform that is not plucked from thin air but built on existing global networks, like Haggai International, which trains Christian leaders in 189 nations, or national Bible societies.

The WCA is a global platform for Chinese ministries and outreach. It will bring all Chinese Christians together to share Chinese-language resourcessuch as Sunday school materials, Chinese worship songs, and academic papers on subjects relevant to the global Chinese churchand improve efficacy in their respective work. At the end of the day, it will help us fulfill the Great Commission.

What is it not aiming to do?

Following the key ethos of the WEA, the WCA is not political, and we will not be taking sides. We want to be a neutral platform that provides a safe space for people to come together. We will abstain from anything political.

Also, we do not aim to be a global governing body of all Chinese ministries. It is a platform for existing groups and organizations to interact with one another. We are not here to compete with any existing network. Instead, we hope to play a complementary role.

Therefore, we invite any group that is already doing some aspect of Chinese ministry to get involved. The WCA is not geographically centric. While we are reaching out to ethnic Chinese, it doesnt mean that Asia is the key base. We seek to be global-centric rather than regional-centric.

The WCA officially launched last July. What stage is it at right now?

Currently, we are focused on building infrastructure for the WCA, which we expect will take another year. The media center is still getting started and we have been communicating about it with various parties. Some work has been done with resource sharing and we have published a few books.

Right now, the training center is the most developed. We started holding trainings before the program was launched, and we have had 20,00030,000 people from 20 countries joining our training annually. We go to different countries and locate a well-known Chinese speaker on a topic that we think is helpful, like parenting, communication, or Bible exposition. We publicize the training through our networks and invite people to join.

The second aspect is reaching out to the global Chinese Christians, including church leaders in Africa, Europe, North America, and the Asia Pacific. There have been many discussions and visits, although our budget constrains us.

The third aspect is the question of how we engage China. Its too obvious to say that the majority of Chinese people are in China. Before this recent trip, we had taken several visits to different stakeholders, including the authorities. However, in China, we need to do things formally, so last week, an official delegation of representatives of the WEAs international council and its regional leadership visited China to reestablish a relationship with the leaders of the Three-Self church.

The last visit that the WEA made to China was many years ago. After that visit, there hadnt been any follow-up to engage in a more intentional working relationship. This time was groundbreaking because it marked the beginning of a long-term relationship.

We hope to contribute to building up goodwill among all groups. Christianity is a movement of peace, so we hope the meeting provides greater understanding between the registered church and the larger global church.

What are some of the sensitivities that the WCA has to take into consideration when working in a place like China?

Many people in China have misconceptions and misunderstandings about the external world, especially the West, and the rest of the world has a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about what is happening in China.

Many Chinese think that all Christians are like American evangelicalswho are seen as very anti-Chinaor believe that we might have subversive intentions to destabilize China. But I tell them, The great majority of the people just want to love you, as we do.

If you approach Chinas registered church with misconceptions, you will go in there too guarded and can make a sensitive situation even worse. Also, China has its own rules and regulations, so we seek to approach the government-run church within a legal framework. When we visited China this time, we went to learn more about them, about what can be done and what cant be done. We learned to navigate the relationship with humility like some of the earliest missionaries to China, Hudson Taylor and Robert Morrison. They went to China, appreciated the culture, and worked with the Chinese people.

What did you learn during this recent fact-finding trip to China?

The WEAs International Council received a very warm welcome in China. We met with the top leadership in Chinas State Administration for Religious Affairs, the national TSPM and CCC, Nanjing Union Seminary, the Amity Foundation (a Christian charity in China), and Amity Printing, one of the worlds largest Bible producers. It was a chance for the international council to see Chinas Three-Self church for themselves and ask questions.

Besides building friendships, we were also able to have authentic and robust conversations, raise issues, and invite partnership. For instance, two of the concerns we discussed were about the Sinicization of Christianity as well as Chinas attempt to create a new version of the Bible. We were able to ask the different leaders we met about this and hear their perspectives.

In the first instance, they clarified that they were exploring what it means for someone in China, in a socialist country, to practice their faith. They are not addressing the core doctrines like the Incarnation or the deity of Jesus, but other aspects like how they worship or relate to Chinese society. We invited them to do this together with the rest of the global evangelical family.

In the second instance, they noted that they were not coming out with a new translation of the Bible but revising the popular Chinese Union Version, which was first translated in 1919. They said they wanted to make as few changes as possible, with the goal of helping young people and non-Christians better understand the Bible. Again, we told them that we were interested in engaging with them in the revision in order to help defuse tensions and clarify miscommunications. Then they could produce a translation that those outside of China could use as well.

At the end of the day, the international council members were very grateful to hear from the TSPM and CCC leaders and encouraged by this positive beginning of this new relationship.

You mentioned earlier some misconceptions that the West has of China and vice versa, but what about the misconceptions within the Chinese-speaking community, such as between house churches and Three-Self churches? How do you plan to bring them together?

When people ask me this, I always point to the United Nations as an example. The worlds enemies gather there because they trust in the UNs neutrality. Even today, some groups are trying to kill each other, but they go to the UN for dialogue. They work on joint projects like the World Health Organization or UNICEF.

The WEA is not about individual preferences or inclinations but the global evangelical family. Our track record speaks for itselfwe work with the whole spectrum of evangelicalism. We want to include everyone and provide resources for everyone.

How have diaspora Chinese groups responded to the idea of the WCA?

There are some concerns, but I was pleasantly surprised to receive overwhelmingly positive responses. They said they had been looking for something like this for a long time.

We were not prepared to see such an overwhelming response, which means we now have to work very hard with limited resources to get started. Many groups have asked, What can you give me now? What can you help me with? We are thankful but playing a bit of catch-up.

Of course, there have been some collaborations between Chinese Christian groups in the past, but they have never been so global. This is especially true as many overseas ministries are keen to visit or do ministry in China but do not have the avenue to do so. Also, ethnic Chinese Christians want to do missions, but because they only speak Chinese, they are limited in where they can go. With the WCA, they can partner with churches in Africa and use Mandarin to relate to their fellow Chinese who live there. They are looking forward to greater opportunities and possibilities.

Also, some pastors have good materials, but they dont know how to reach the world, they only use it in their congregation or their church. With this platform, their material can now go global.

How would this alliance differ from the existing network of the Chinese Coordination Center of World Evangelization (CCCOWE)?

The difference is that CCCOWE was built from the ground up, while the WCA is part of a global family. Diaspora Chinese Christian leaders inspired by the first Lausanne Congress started CCCOWE to connect the global Chinese church. The WCA, on the other hand, is an offshoot of the WEA, which represents 600 million Christians and represents all denominations and groups.

At the same time, we want to reach the tens of millions of Christians in China who attend registered churches. As noted by our recent trip, the WEA is willing to go to the Chinese government and work with all parties, including the registered churches. This is what distinguishes us and demonstrates that we are complementing what CCCOWE is doing by reaching places that it cant. Currently, we are already collaborating with CCCOWE on several projects.

What are your hopes for the future of WEAs partnership with China?

We want to continue dialoguing with the TSPM and CCC and explore ways these groups can partner with the WEA and regional evangelical alliances, as well as working together on the WCA.

If the WEA could be at the forefront of building goodwill and collaboration with the registered church, I think this would be really beautiful. I pray that there will be more ground-up collaborations with the registered church and with other groups that may be concerned, suspicious, or fearful of establishing relationships with them. We hope to be a bridge anchored by our faith in the region and beyond.
Home News Judge upholds ban on Christian teacher who refused to use preferred pronouns of trans-identified student

A High Court judge in England on Thursday upheld a ban on Christian Joshua Sutcliffe from teaching following his dismissal for refusing to use the preferred pronoun of a schoolgirl identifying as a boy.

The indefinite ban in response to Sutcliffes appeal means the teacher, fired from Cherwell School in Oxford after the incident in 2017, cannot return to his profession. Sutcliffe had said, Well done, girls to a group of students, including a girl who identified as a boy.

Sutcliffe, 34, launched legal action against the school and settled out of court but still received a minimum two-year ban from The Professional Conduct Panel Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA). The ban had been created in May 2013 for those bringing the profession into disrepute.

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

His legal counsel argued the ban was an unjustified interference with Sutcliffes rights to freedom of speech and religion.

Justice Pepperall ruled that regardless of a teachers faith and beliefs, compelled speech must be used for transgender pupils, according to a press statement by advocacy group Christian Concern. The judges direction reportedly included the requirement to respect and celebrate the pupils personal autonomy.

Just because misgendering a transgender pupil might not be unlawful does not mean that it is appropriate conduct for a teacher, the judge said.

The ruling came despite the previous Conservative U.K. government publishing draft transgender guidelines for schools in 2023 that stressed that teachers must not be forced into violating their consciences by using preferred pronouns contrary to biological sex.

Pepperall, noting the guidelines, reportedly said that Sutcliffes conscience based on his Christian beliefs did not justify his referring to a girl identifying as a boy as a she.

The draft guidance, which of course postdated these events and the panels decision, envisaged that schools would rarely agree to change a pupils pronouns but did not purport to suggest that such course would never be appropriate, the judge reportedly said. As the draft made plain, such decisions are complex and are made by schools and not individually by each member of staff according to their own assessment of the merits of the request.

The judge also reportedly said the unnamed pupil credibly passed for a male and was only known by male pronouns at the school. He accused Sutcliffe of failing to treat the student with dignity and respect.

After the ruling against his appeal, Sutcliffe issued a public statement saying he stood by his Christian convictions that it is harmful and detrimental to affirm gender confused children.

This is the belief I am fighting for which is shared by not only Christians but many who do not believe in harmful transgender ideology, said Sutcliffe. I have been a marked man ever since I dared to express my Christian beliefs in a school and tell the media about how I was punished for doing so.

He said no training and guidance was given to teachers on such issues in 2017. He pointed out that as a young teacher then, he was building my career in the profession at a time when schools took guidance about transgender issues from gay rights charity Stonewall, not the U.K. government or any experts.

With this ruling, every teacher is at risk if they share their beliefs and views in the classroom, Sutcliffe said. I believe affirming children in a transgender identity in the classroom is psychologically damaging for them. I refused to go against my Christian faith and conscience and cause a child harm.

Saying he refused to apologize for declining to go against his conscience, he asserted that it is not in any childs best interests to affirm them in something that is untrue.

The Cass Review, the Policy Exchange report and the transgender guidance from the Conservative government vindicate me on this, he said. The TRA wanted me to capitulate and say that I was wrong. I have been severely punished for refusing to do so. Despite this setback, I will continue to fight for justice and to get my career back.

British pediatrician Hilary Cass led the independent Cass Review of gender identity services for children and young people for the U.K.s National Health Service (NHS), with the final review released in April. NHS England commissioned the review to make recommendations on how to improve NHS gender identity services and ensure that children and young people questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria receive a high standard of care that meets their needs and is safe, holistic and effective.

For the majority of young people, a medical pathway may not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress, the review concluded.

For those young people for whom a medical pathway is clinically indicated, it is not enough to provide this without also addressing wider mental health and/or psychosocially challenging problems, Cass concluded. The controversy surrounding the use of medical treatments has taken focus away from what the individualized care and treatment is intended to achieve for individuals seeking support from NHS gender services.

Clinicians are unable to determine with any certainty which children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity, her review noted.

The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health, the review stated. The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown. The use of masculinizing/feminizing hormones in those under the age of 18 also presents many unknowns, despite their longstanding use in the adult transgender population.

The review concluded that while a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.

The strengths and weaknesses of the evidence base on the care of children and young people are often misrepresented and overstated, both in scientific publications and social debate, Cass stated.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre that supported the High Court appeal, said the description of Sutcliffe in Judge Pepperalls ruling reads like fiction.

The picture Mr. Justice Pepperall paints of Joshua and his beliefs is a far cry from the caring, kind and brilliant maths teacher we know Joshua to be, Williams said. We create a turbulent environment in schools when facts are turned on their head against the teacher in a context where children are identifying as the opposite sex. Teachers are treading on eggshells for fear of saying the wrong thing.



The teaching profession is not a safe place for Christian teachers, she said.

Expressing long-held Christian beliefs on marriage and gender can get you suspended, investigated and barred, Williams said. We are looking at the judgment carefully. We will continue to support Joshua for as long as it takes to secure justice.

This article was originally published by Christian Daily International.




Home News Kamala Harris appears on 'RuPaul's Drag Race' to warn LGBT 'rights and freedoms under attack'

Vice President Kamala Harris made an appearance on Friday's episode of "RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars" on Paramount+ to tell its largely LGBT audience that they should vote because their rights are endangered.

"Each day we are seeing our rights and freedoms under attack, including the right of everyone to be who they are, love who they love, openly and with pride," said Harris, who became the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden announced he is suspending his reelection campaign earlier this week.

"So as we fight back against these attacks, lets all remember  no one is alone," Harris continued. "We are all in this together. And your vote is your power."

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

Kamala Harris opens her presidential campaign on RuPaul's Drag Race ???? pic.twitter.com/DUqucBrrUH  RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 25, 2024

Among those surrounding Harris during the public service announcement were former *NSYNC member Lance Bass, former "Saturday Night Live" comedian Leslie Jones and Michelle Visage, who is a judge on "Drag Race."

"So please make sure your voice is heard this November, and register to vote at vote.gov," Harris added, to which the others raised their hands and said, "Amen!"

Other prominent Democrats have appeared on Ru Paul's drag-related reality shows, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

During an appearance in Season 12 of "Ru Paul's Drag Race" in 2020, Ocasio-Cortez joined the drag show judge panel.

"People think Congress and government is all about leading people, but ultimately a lot of our politics is about following the public will, she said at the time. And the people who change what people think are artists and drag queens."

Pelosi appeared on the show twice, first in 2018 and again in 2020. Like Harris, she urged viewers to vote.

Biden has drawn scrutiny for staffing the administration and his campaign with men who dress like women, such as U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Richard "Rachel" Levine, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman.

In 2022, Sam Brinton was fired from his role as deputy assistant secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy after getting caught stealing a woman's luggage and wearing her clothing.

Eric Lipka, who said he joined the Harris campaign as a deputy press secretary for Pennsylvania earlier this month, raised eyebrows on X when pictures of him emerged dressed and performing as a drag queen, according to Fox News Digital.

On Thursday, the prominent X account Libs of TikTok tweeted a video of a young child performing on stage with drag queens during a RuPaul's "DragCon" while adults clapped.

"This is what RuPaul's Drag Org promotes," the popular account wrote. "Kamala just launched her presidential campaign on RuPual's Drag Race. Kamala supports this."
Home News Pro-abortion vandals plead guilty to federal charges for defacing pro-life pregnancy centers

Four pro-abortion activists have pled guilty to vandalizing several pro-life pregnancy centers in Florida more than two years after damaging the centers.

In a statement shared with The Christian Post on Thursday, First Liberty Institute announced that the vandals affiliated with the pro-abortion group Janes Revenge who defaced several pro-life pregnancy centers in Florida with graffiti two years ago plead guilty to charges of conspiracy and racketeering brought under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.

The federal law, passed by Congress three decades ago, subjects anyone who intentionally damages or destroys the property of a facility, or attempts to do so, because such facility provides reproductive health services to federal charges. The First Liberty Institute, along with Floridas Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody, brought civil lawsuits on behalf of the facilities vandalized by the defendants.

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

Moody cheered the development: We will not allow radicals to threaten and intimidate women seeking help from crisis pregnancy centers or the counselors and health care professionals serving these women and their babies. In Florida, illegal actions have consequences, and I am proud of the work our attorneys did in this case to make sure these extremists were held accountable.

The entry of these felony plea agreements serves as a reminder that no one should suffer violence for simply providing faith-based counseling and baby supplies to women and their babies, said First Liberty Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys. Attorney General Moodys leadership, together with our lawsuit, sends a clear message: those who target life-affirming reproductive health facilities with violence will face the legal penalties Congress established for their crimes.

Two of the defendants, Caleb Freestone and Amber Smith-Stewart, vandalized the Heartbeat of Miami Pregnancy Medical Help Clinic in Hialeah, Florida, on July 3, 2022. The defacing of the property with pro-abortion graffiti was one of several attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers to take place in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Courts June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision, which determined that the U.S. Constitution does not contain a right to abortion.

Messages spray-painted onto the exterior walls of Heartbeat of Miami declared, If abortions arent safe [then] neither are you and vowed that our rage will not stop. Graffiti spray painted on the side of the building read Janes Revenge, referring to a group of pro-abortion activists who've claimed credit for multiple instances of pro-abortion vandalism.

As alleged in the lawsuit First Liberty Institute filed on behalf of Heartbeat of Miami, defendants harassment of the pro-life pregnancy clinic continued two-and-a-half months later at its annual gala.

First Liberty Institute noted Thursday that a third defendant, Annarella Rivera, joined Freestone in working to hack their way onto Heartbeats guest list for the event, where they shouted obscenities, disparaged Heartbeats staff, volunteers, and supporters, and leafletted the venue with propaganda hoping to dissuade women from using Heartbeats services.

First Liberty Institute noted that the crimes committed by the three defendants as well as an unnamed fourth defendant extended to several Florida pregnancy resource centers but did not go into detail. A 2023 indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida identifies Gabriella Oropesa as the fourth defendant.

Last month, the defendants pled guilty to charges of vandalizing pro-life pregnancy centers in connection with the indictment, which is separate from the lawsuit filed by First Liberty Institute. This indictment implicated the quartet of pro-abortion activists for the vandalism of the South Broward Pregnancy Health Center in Hollywood, Florida, in May 2022.

Graffiti spray-painted on the exterior wall of the pro-life pregnancy center proclaimed: If abortions arent safe then neither are you. This act of vandalism took place before the Dobbs decision but after the publication of the leaked draft decision indicating that the justices were poised to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

The indictment also charged Freestone, Smith-Stewart and Rivera with the vandalism of the Winter Haven, Florida-based LifeChoice Pregnancy Center, which was carried out two days after the Dobbs decision and exactly one week before the attack on Heartbeat of Miami. LifeChoice Pregnancy Center was defaced with messages warning that YOUR TIME IS UP!! WERE COMING FOR U and We are everywhere.

News of the four defendants guilty pleas comes a month after First Liberty Institute first revealed that Heartbeat of Miami had reached a settlement with the vandals that will require them to pay for their crimes. Although the law firm did not elaborate on the details of the settlement, First Liberty Institute expressed gratitude for the big win for Floridas pro-life community and maintained that the perpetrators of the vandalism will be held to account.
Home News Robert Morris son exits Gateway Church; Max Lucado to serve as interim teaching pastor

Bestselling Christian author Max Lucado will join Gateway Church as an interim teaching pastor while James Morris, the son of the church's embattled founder Robert Morris, stepped down Thursday, only weeks after he succeeded his father at the helm of the church in June amid a child sex abuse scandal.

Staff at the Southlake, Texas, church were told that James Morris and his wife, Bridgette, stepped down, CBS News reported Thursday evening.

"Earlier this week, the (church) elders met with Pastors James and Bridgette and they collectively made the decision that Pastors James and Bridgette would both step down from their current positions and from leading Gateway Church in the future," the church said in a statement Thursday.

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

Gateway elders said they sought the "advice of many well-respected pastors and ministry leaders" about the decision to cut ties with the Morrises while noting they are confident they will serve as senior leaders of a church in the future.

"We as elders affirm and believe that God has placed a desire in both Pastors James and Bridgette's hearts to serve as senior pastors of a church at some point in the future," the elders said in their statement. "We love Pastors James and Bridgette and their children. We deeply care about them and sincerely thank them for investing their lives here at Gateway Church. They have faithfully and honorably served our congregation and this community through all the years that they have been part of Gateway Church."

In addition to Lucado, who has served as teaching pastor at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, joining the staff at Gateway Church, the elders said Pastor Joakim Lundqvist from Sweden, will assume a more pastoral role with staff. Lundqvist has spoken frequently at the church.

The elders promised to share more updates with the church this weekend in a statement on the church's Facebook page.

On social media Friday, Lucado responded to reports suggesting that he was departing from Oak Hills. He clarified that he will serve as the teaching pastor at Gateway through the end of 2024 and plans to preach at both locations in the fall.

"My desire is simply this  love God's hurting people. I see this as an opportunity to do just that," he stated.

Lucado's temporary role at Gateway Church comes as he disclosed in his recent book God Never Gives Up on Youhis past struggles with alcohol to manage stress as his ministry grew and cope with a world gone crazy. He said he confessed to church elders who he said designed a plan to help him cope with demands.

Last month, Cindy Clemishire, 54, reported that Robert Morris began sexually abusing her on Christmas Day in 1982 when she was just 12 years old. She says the abuse continued for four-and-a-half years before others found out. But Morris was later allowed to return to ministry.

When questioned about the allegations by The Christian Post, Morris only confessed to being involved in "inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady" more than 35 years ago. He said he repented and was restored to ministry.

Clemishire insisted to CP, however, that she was no young lady when Morris abused her.

"I was 12 years old. I was a little girl. A very innocent little girl. And he was brought into our home. He and his wife, Debbie, and their little boy, Josh, trusted and preached at the church that my dad helped start and then began grooming all of us to do this, which took me decades to wrap my brain around as an adult," she said.

"It went on for many years. He says there was no sexual intercourse, but he did touch every part of my body and inserted his fingers into me, which I understand now is considered a form of rape by instrumentation. I was an innocent 12-year-old little girl who knew nothing about sexual behavior."



Gateway Church is conducting an independent review of the allegations years after Clemishire said she had first contacted Morris via his Gateway email seeking restitution.
Home News 5 potential running mates for Kamala Harris

With Vice President Kamala Harris securing the support of enough delegates to likely become the 2024 Democratic nominee for president, there is much speculation about who she will choose as her vice presidential running mate.

Whether Harris, 59, or former President Donald Trump, 78, wins the upcoming 2024 presidential election, a new person will take office as the 50th vice president of the United States on Jan. 20, 2025.

Here are five potential running mates for Harris.

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
Home News 'We are enduring immense hatred': Hindu extremists storm church, beat Christians at worship service

HYDERABAD, India  Members of a house church in northern India can no longer meet for worship after a mob of about 150 Hindu extremists attacked them on July 14, sources said.

In the Nawada area of Uttarakhand states Dehradun District, 15 church members were immersed in worship when Pastor Rajesh Bhomis mother-in-law notified them that she had seen the mob a few meters away on her way to the Sunday service.

My mother-in-law suspected that it could be a mob of RSS [Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] activists, and alerted us that they must have gathered to attack us, Pastor Bhomi, 37, told Morning Star News.

Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe

The church was worshiping on the top floor of the house he and his wife, Deeksha Pal, own. His mother-in-law suggested they lock the main entrance gate and conduct the services quietly, without music or microphone, he said.

We locked the gate and stayed indoors, not making any noise, Pastor Bhomi said. Soon we found the mob with women leading in the front banging on the gate trying to break open the lock.

When the pastor asked what they were doing, they replied, 'Open the gate, lets talk!' Lets talk!" he said. They replied that if there was anything to talk about, only two or three of them needed to enter.

Why did you come as a mob of over 100? we questioned them, but they kept repeating that we must open the lock, and they would only talk to us, he told Morning Star News. As they banged and pushed the gate, in that struggle the lock was let loose by us, and at once the mob of around 150 rushed inside the premises like flood waters. They went all around the house vandalizing every object in their sight, and some of them were carrying lathis. They beat wherever on the body badly.

His wife, father-in-law, brother-in-law, and two other female members of the congregation were severely injured, he said.

They received lathi blows in the stomach, neck and hands, Pastor Bhomi said. As they continued beating us, some from among the mob snatched away our mobile phones, laptop and damaged the music instrument.

The beating continued until police arrived and dispersed the mob, he said. After taking their statements, officers told them to come to the police station at 7 p.m. to receive a copy of the First Information Report.

Officers there kept them waiting for more than an hour, though they were aware that the couples 1-year-old and 7-year-old children had not eaten all day and had been crying after witnessing the violence, he said.

Police delayed filing cases against the assailants, the pastor said.

At first, the police said since the assailants are not known to us, cases would be registered against them as unknown, Pastor Bhomi said. But one of the members of our church who was formerly an RSS activist came forward to name 11 of the assailants who are quite famously known in the city as RSS leaders.

Police in Nehru colony named assailants Devendra Dobal, Bijendra Thapa, Sudheer Thapa, Sanjeev Pal, Sudheer Pal, Dheerendra Dobal, Arman Dobal, Aryaman Dobal, Anil Hindu, Bhupesh Joshi and Bijendra in the FIR. The case was registered under laws against causing grievous hurt, rioting, wounding feelings and insulting a religion, committing mischief, making a false document or false electronic record, publishing or circulating false information through electronic means, and acts caused by inducing person to believe he will be rendered an object of the divine displeasure under the new criminal law Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023, the pastor said.

Though they named the suspects, officers did not include the statements church members had given of the attack, he said.

It seemed as if the police were also under pressure since the averments we made in the actual complaint went missing, Pastor Bhomi said. The police had written their own version in a subtle tone so that stringent sections of law are not attracted.

The Christians had no need of gathering evidence since the mob had recorded video and posted it on social media platforms, he said.

The faces of the assailants are so clearly seen in the video, yet police have not taken any action against them so far, Pastor Bhomi said. They only tell us that the investigation is underway.

A church member who helped register the case by identifying the assailants lost a job at a factory that he had held for 16 years, as the owner is an ardent RSS supporter, he said. Owners of neighborhood shops now refuse to sell groceries and other essentials to church members, he added.

We are enduring immense hatred from all corners; many are writing dirty comments about the videos that went viral, Pastor Bhomi said. They are writing in filthy language about my wife. It has been very disturbing mentally, but I thank God that she is spiritually stronger.

The attack was the first one of such severity that he has experienced in 20 years of ministry, he said.

Yet I believe God choses only few for this great mission of facing persecution. I am thankful to the Lord that he has chosen me, he said. Through this pain and trials, too, I want to serve the Lord. I want to serve the Lord until my last breath.

He harbors no anger or hatred in his heart against those who attacked them, he said.

They came with hatred in their hearts to attack us; tomorrow, if by Gods grace they knock on our gates again, seeking the Lord, I would gladly open the gates of my house for them, the pastor said.

In a state of shock and panic since the attack, church members have begun participating in the churchs worship services online.

We have been worshiping only virtually for the time being, Pastor Bhomi said. There is no other church for at least 20 kilometers [12 miles] in this area. The Gospel is yet to be preached in many areas of this small state.

India ranked 11th on Christian support organization Open Doors 2024 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. The country was 31st in 2013, but its position worsened after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.

The hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), against non-Hindus, has emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of the country to attack Christians since Modi took power in May 2014, religious rights advocates say.

Originally published by Morning Star News
Home News Jerry Falwell Jr. sues Liberty University over resignation comments, claims damage to reputation

Jerry Falwell Jr. has filed a lawsuit against Liberty University, arguing that the evangelical Christian university engaged in defamation and breach of contract regarding his resignation.

Falwell resigned as president of the Lynchburg, Virginia-based school in August following multiple controversies, including a highly publicized sex scandal that involved his wife, Rebecca.

Filed in the Commonwealth of Virginia Circuit Court for the city of Lynchburg, the suit argues that Liberty harmed Falwell's reputation via multiple statements issued after he was forced to resign.

Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe

The suit alleges that Liberty officials accepted inaccurate claims against Falwells moral character without doing proper research and forced him to resign.

In a statement released Thursday morning, Falwell said he was saddened that University officials, with whom I have shared so much success and enjoyed such positive relationships, jumped to conclusions about the claims made against my character, failed to properly investigate them, and then damaged my reputation following my forced resignation.

While I have nothing but love and appreciation for the Liberty community, and I had hoped to avoid litigation, I must take the necessary steps to restore my reputation and hopefully help repair the damage to the Liberty University brand in the process, Falwell added.

Falwell is being represented by Robert Raskopf of Quinn Emanuel, who said in the same press release that Liberty officials refused to meet with his client to address his concerns.

We attempted to meet several times with the Liberty University Board of Trustees Executive Committee but were unsuccessful in doing so. Thus, we were forced to seek remedy for Mr. Falwell's ongoing injuries and damage to his reputation through the Court, stated Raskopf.

In late August, the Board of Trustees of Liberty University announced that they had accepted the immediate resignation of Falwell from his positions as president, chancellor, and member of the board of directors.

Falwell was already on a leave of absence after posting a photo on social media of himself at a costume party on a yacht showing him wearing unzipped jeans while his hand was around the waist of a pregnant woman wearing a tank top and unzipped shorts.

Shes pregnant, so she couldnt get her pants zipped, Falwell explained in a radio interview. I had on a pair of jeans I havent worn in a long time, so I couldnt get mine zipped up, either. And so, I just put my belly out like hers.

I should never have put it up and embarrassed her, he added, explaining that he has since apologized to everybody about the vacation photo taken during the costume party.

The resignation came shortly after revelations surfaced that Falwells wife had had an affair with a 29-year-old man named Giancarlo Granda, which began eight years ago.

Granda later attempted to blackmail the couple, telling Reuters at the time that Falwell himself was aware of the extramarital affair and enjoyed watching from the corner of the room.

Falwell acknowledged in a statement at the time that his wife had an inappropriate personal relationship with Granda, but denied any involvement in the extramarital affair.
Home News Liberty University sues Jerry Falwell Jr. for $10 million in damages

Liberty University has filed a lawsuit against its former president and chancellor, Jerry Falwell Jr., seeking $10 million in damages over breach of contract and other allegations.

The Virginia-based evangelical Christian school filed the suit against Falwell on Thursday in the Lynchburg Circuit Court, accusing the former school head of breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and statutory conspiracy.

The complaint alleges that Falwell created a well-resourced exit strategy from his role via a 2019 employment agreement while not telling Liberty officials about his personal scandals.

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

Of specific note was the revelations last year about Falwells wife having an extramarital affair with a former pool boy named Giancarlo Granda, which eventually led to Falwell's resignation.

Despite his clear duties as an executive and officer at Liberty, Falwell Jr. chose personal protection, stated the lawsuit, as reported by The Associated Press.

[Falwell had a] fiduciary duty to disclose Grandas extortive actions, and to disclose the potential for serious harm to Liberty. [Falwell] furthered the conspiracy of silence and negotiated a 2019 Employment Agreement that contained a higher salary from Liberty.

Last August, Falwell resigned from his position as president and chancellor of Liberty University following the highly-publicized Granda scandal, and other controversies.

After Falwell immediately resigned, Libertys Executive Committee announced that they were hiring a forensic firm to investigate all facets of Liberty University operations during Jerry Falwell Jr.s tenure as president, including but not limited to financial, real estate, and legal matters.

Later in 2020, Falwell filed a lawsuit against Liberty, claiming that the school had harmed his reputation by jumping to conclusions about the claims made against my character.

But last December, Falwell dropped the suit, stating that he was going to take a time out from my litigation against Liberty University," but assured he would continue to keep all options on the table for an appropriate resolution to the matter.

News of Libertys legal complaint against Falwell comes not long after Falwells son, Trey, was removed from his position as vice president of support services at Liberty.

Liberty spokesperson Scott Lamb told Politico earlier this week that Jerry Falwell III, also known as Trey, was no longer employed by the university.

However, Lamb declined to tell Politico about the reasons for Treys removal and if Falwells son, Wesley, or his daughter-in-law were still employed with the university.
Home News Obama endorses Kamala Harris after initial hesitation: 'A critical moment for our country'

Former President Barack Obama has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president of the United States after hesitating to publicly back the likely Democratic Party nominee.

In a post to his official X account on early Friday morning, Obama said he and his wife, Michelle, had a phone call with Harris earlier this week in which they voiced their support.

"We told her we think she'll make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support," he tweeted. "At this critical moment for our country, we're going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in November. We hope you'll join us."

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

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think shell make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, were going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2024

On Sunday, President Joe Biden announced that he was ending his run for reelection, instead imploring the Democratic Party to make Harris, a former U.S. senator and attorney general of California, its new presidential nominee.

Obama, under whom Biden served as vice president from 2009 to 2017, released a statement Sunday evening in which he commended the 81-year-old for his service but stopped shy of endorsing Harris.

"We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges," stated Obama.

"I believe that Joe Biden's vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August."

Some questioned if Obama's omission of Harris in the statement meant he didn't support her presidential bid. But sources close to the former president told The New York Times that it was more about being "an impartial elder statesman above intraparty machinations" and that people should not "read too much into it."

The Obama endorsement is expected to help Harris officially secure the nomination next month at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, as she has the backing of the last two Democratic presidents. Most Democratic Party delegates from across the nation have pledged to support Harris.

While Obama and other party leaders have conveyed their support for Harris getting the presidential nomination, some progressive groups and others have expressed their dismay at the move.

The Black Lives Matter organization released a statement denouncing the apparent fast-tracking of Harris to the nomination, arguing that "a 24-hour process of talking to party bosses is not democratic, nor is it a process Democrats should be proud of."

"We do not live in a dictatorship," BLM added. "Installing Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee and an unknown vice president without any public voting process would make the modern Democratic Party a party of hypocrites."
Home News Biden admin.'s refusal to acknowledge Christian persecution in Nigeria undermines foreign policy: watchdog

The U.S. government continues to face pressure to classify Nigeria as one of the world's worst prosecutors of religious freedom as terror attacks against Christians and a lackluster government response to them continue to plague the West African nation.

The U.S.-based religious freedom advocacy group International Christian Concern published a new 19-page report calling on the U.S. State Department to classify Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern for "engaging in and tolerating severe violations of religious freedom, saying that its failure to acknowledge the religious elements of violence in Nigeria can undermine the effectiveness of foreign policy measures.

The report by ICC's Advocacy Manager McKenna Wendt states that "it is in the best interest of U.S.-Nigerian foreign policy to designate Nigeria a CPC and appropriately hold it accountable for its failure to protect the human right of religious freedom."

Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe

The U.S. State Department designated Nigeria a CPC in 2020 during the last year of the Trump administration. But every year since the election of President Joe Biden, the African nation has been excluded from the federal government's annual lists of CPCs and the Special Watch List reserved for countries that do not meet the criteria for labeling as CPCs but still "engage in or tolerate severe violations of religious freedom" despite recommendations for doing so by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

"The United States' failure to hold Nigeria accountable for its religious freedom violations has allowed the Nigerian government to operate with impunity, perpetuating the violence caused by non-state actors and allowing state-level persecution to continue," the report laments.

The report highlights the presence of many Islamic terror organizations in the country that directly target Christians.

Attributing the kidnapping of more than 22,000 Christians between 2009 and 2014 and the burning of 13,000 churches and 1,500 Christian schools by the insurgent group Boko Haram in the same period, Wendt cites the Nigeria civil society group International Society for Civil Liberties & Rule of Law to state that "the group was accountable for the deaths of roughly 500 Nigerian Christians" in 2023.

Another terrorist group, Islamic State West Africa Province, was identified as "the deadliest terrorist organization in Nigeria" responsible for a bombing at a Catholic Church that killed 40 people in July 2022.

The report also charts incidents of torture directed at Christians that happened in 2023.

Examples include a January 2023 arson attack on the home of a Catholic priest that resulted in the religious leader burning alive inside, the May 2023 slaughter of 43 Christians by Fulani herdsmen, the August 2023 shooting of a Christian pastor as he worked on his farm, the October 2023 kidnapping and flogging of three Benedictine monks and the use of a machete to kill a Christian doctor that same month.

The most recent examples of torture directed at Christians were the sexual assaults and rapes of at least 13 women in a majority-Christian village and the beheading of "a Christian man who instructed children in the Church of Christ of All Nations."

Wendt notes that in northeast Nigeria, where Islamic extremist groups operate, civilians report that Nigerian security forces "deliberately avoid responding to warnings of violence until after attacks have taken place."

"If they do respond, Christians observe officials responding with more urgency to Muslim communities," the report adds.

"In September 2023, Fulani extremists set the St. Raphael Fadan Kamantan Parish ablaze in a botched kidnapping attempt, where Catholic seminarian Na'aman Danlami was burned alive. Although a government checkpoint was a kilometer away, there was no reaction or support from military forces."

International Christian Concern cites the blasphemy laws in 12 states as an example of a violation of religious freedom encouraged by the Nigerian government, identifying this situation as at odds with the guarantee of religious pluralism in the Nigerian Constitution. The laws are allowed, she said, since "the constitution grants sharia courts jurisdiction solely over matters of personal law."

In addition to requesting the redesignation of Nigeria as a CPC, the report calls on the appointment of a U.S. ambassador to Nigeria as well as a "special envoy to Nigeria to report on the escalating violence taking place in Nigeria."

"When pressed on the exclusion of Nigeria from the CPC list, the State Department, under the Biden administration, maintains that Nigeria 'does not meet the statutory definition of a CPC designation,'" Wendt wrote.

"While the State Department has recognized religious tensions in the region, the violence is often attributed to issues of climate change, farmer-herders conflicts, and ethnic divides," Wendt wrote. "Although these factors are certainly at play, it is a grave misjudgment to downplay the religious components of these conflicts and solely attribute them to secondary issues."

In Nigeria's Middle Belt states, thousands in predominantly Christian farming communities have been killed in recent years during attacks from radicalized nomadic Fulani herders.

Fulanis are the world's largest nomadic group, comprised of roughly 20 million dispersed throughout West Africa.

"Their early acceptance of Islam from Arab and Berber traders and subsequent propagation of the religion has made Fulanis foundational in the spread of Islam across West Africa. In the 16th century, the Fulani participated in jihads, or holy wars, which established them as a dominant social and economic force in the region," the report adds.

"Today, the group remains the most populous and politically influential among the 250+ ethnic groups in Nigeria. The Fulani are comprised of an extensive network of lineages, not all of whom subscribe to extremist views. Some Fulani, however, adhere to a radical Islamist ideology. These Fulani are fueled by an extremist notion that they are superior to those whom they consider 'infidels'  anyone who does not follow their Islamic agenda."

Last Friday, at least 18 Christians were killed by suspected Fulani during an overnight attack on Mbacher village, a predominantly Christian community in Benue state's Katsina-Ala County.

In January, after the State Department released its annual list of CPCs as mandated by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released a statement saying "there is no justification as to why the State Department did not designate Nigeria  as a Country of Particular Concern, despite its own reporting and statements."

USCIRF, tasked by the 1998 law with making recommendations to the State Department as to which countries to include on the list of CPCs, called for a congressional hearing over the agency's decision not to label India and Nigeria as CPCs despite evidence of religious freedom violations.

"Finally, the U.S. needs to understand and broadcast the true nature of the violence in

Nigeria," Wendt concluded. "Diminishing the violence to secondary issues of 'farmers-herders conflict' or 'climate change' prevents the U.S. from sufficiently addressing the source of the violence. It also significantly undermines the effectiveness of our foreign policy measures, like the CPC designation list."
Home Opinion Biden, AOC and the Left still wants to gut the Supreme Court

Bad ideas can often get accepted long after they were initially rejected. One generation recoils at a proposal. The next generation might cozy up to it. And the one after that might accept it.



Some on the left, including President Joe Biden and AOC, want to gut the Supreme Court. They havent gotten their way with the Court in recent years, so they want to try and term limit justices out.

Of course, there are three basic branches of the federal government  the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. Now, not pleased with some decisions from the Supreme Court, members of the first two branches are trying to seize and reshape the judicial branch.

They want to propose what Senator Mike Lee, an expert on the U.S. Constitution, calls nakedly authoritarian  unconstitutional proposals against the High Court.

Get Our Latest News for FREE Subscribe to get daily/weekly email with the top stories (plus special offers!) from The Christian Post. Be the first to know. Subscribe

They want to impeach justices like Clarence Thomas or Samuel Alito because of their conservative opinions. The left wants to impose term limits on justices. This could undermine the independence of the judges and cause them to base their decisions purely on the shifting winds of politics  not what the Constitution says or the founders intent.

For decades, conservatives rightfully complained about decisions from liberal justices that seemed to have no basis in the Constitution.

Heres an example. Roe v. Wade (1973), the now-defunct holy grail of the left, only cites two parts of the Constitution: the 9th amendment and the 14th amendment. But neither provide any direct or indirect statement along the lines of the right to abortion or even the right of privacy.

The irony of using the 14th amendment to justify killing preborn babies, which is Roe v. Wade (up to three months) and its companion decision issued the same day, Doe v. Bolton(up to the moment of birth), is that that particular addition to the Constitution actually mentions the right to life as an inherent right. The 1973 Court obviously didnt see that right applying to the unborn.

Since 1973, conservatives have spoken against Roe v. Wade as the quintessential example of judicial activism  judges coming up with desired results by twisting the Constitution to their desired end.

I once interviewed the late Henry Hyde, author of the pro-life Hyde Amendment. He spoke of the problem of the justices using the Constitution like silly putty to achieve their fore-ordained aim.

But through all the gnashing of teeth against judicial tyranny, conservatives did not advocate changing the court itself  just its occupants.

Conservative scholars are pushing back at these recent proposals to gut the court. Kelly Shackelford is the founder and director of First Liberty, a group that fights on behalf of religious liberty in the courts of the land, including the courts of public opinion.

Shackelford wrote, Transforming the Supreme Court into another partisan body would destroy the independence of the judiciary and threaten the civil liberties of all Americans. Joe Biden once said that changing the structure of the Court was a bonehead idea that would put in question  the independence of the  Supreme Court. He was right. The last thing we need in this country right now is a Supreme Court coup that would threaten judicial independence and our democratic republic. This is a radical attempt by a desperate politician.

Shackelford adds, Ending life tenure is just the Lefts way to purge conservative justices on the Court. Its simply court-packing by a different name.

And a majority of Americans agree, he says: Polling has revealed that 72% of Americans believe that the politicization of the Supreme Court threatens judicial independence and 69% do not want Congress taking over and setting rules for judicial ethics.

One of the brilliant aspects of the founders and the Constitution is the division of power so that no one person or small group of persons could lord it over others.

The framers knew the Bible. They knew world history. They knew man is basically sinful. Therefore, power must be divided.

James Madison, a key architect of the Constitution, warned us in Federalist #47: The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. [emphasis added]

And Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist #78: If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices, since nothing will contribute so much as this to that independent spirit in the judges which must be essential to the faithful performance of so arduous a duty. [emphasis added]

In effect, the judicial branch could say to the other branches, Hey, stay in your own lane!
Home Opinion First Baptist Church Dallas fire: The most loving local church I've been part of

Exactly one week ago, fire engulfed the historic sanctuary of First Baptist Church, Dallas. Constructed in 1890, the beautiful, majestic Victorian edifice had hosted worship services for several generations of devoted church members until the church moved into a new, larger worship center in 2013. In fact, there are scores of families that have been attending First Baptist Church, Dallas for three, four or even five generations.

First Baptist Church, Dallas has been the most influential and prestigious church in the Southern Baptist Convention, the nations largest Protestant denomination. It has often been referred to as either the Southern Baptist Notre Dame or the Southern Baptist Vatican.

My instant reaction to the shocking news of the fire was a flood of personal memories of my 13 years of service there (1975-1988) as a professor in their college, associate pastor at the church and Sunday school teacher.

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

Hundreds of faces and names from my years there immediately started flooding back into my memory. I had the privilege of teaching a 300-member Sunday school class called the Sheafor Bible Class for my entire 13 years there. These class members were vibrant Christians who loved Gods Word and each other. It was a privilege to teach them and fellowship with them every Sunday.

When my wife had a temporary health crisis while coping with three children (5, 2 and 2 months old), the blessed members of this class spontaneously organized and delivered evening meals for our family for approximately six weeks. I have never been part of a more loving and giving local church.

And on top of it all, my family and I had the rare privilege of sitting under the nonpareil pulpit ministry every Sunday of Dr. W.A. Criswell as he expounded Gods Word peerlessly and expositionally every Sunday morning and every Sunday night. He loved his church members and they loved and cherished him. My wife and I had the great blessing of seeing all three of our children come to know Jesus as their personal Savior and subsequently be baptized while we were members at First Dallas.

As I basked in these great memories, I realized once again that however beautiful and majestic the grand old sanctuary was, it did not encapsulate or explain the greatness of First Baptist Dallas. This experience reinforced for me the great spiritual truth that the church consists of the Christians who gather to worship and to fellowship in a particular place, not the buildings where they congregate. The church is made up of its members, not its buildings.

I knew nothing as merely temporal as a fire would keep Gods church from continuing to flourish for His kingdom purposes.

The Apostle Peter informed us in his first epistle that Christians are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. (I Pet. 2:9)

The New Testament reveals that a local church consists of born-again Christians and the Apostle Paul explains that such Christians are a new kind of human being, having been born-again from above (Eph. 2), having been made the children of God. (John 1:12) In covenanting together to worship and to fellowship, they are simultaneously ministering to each other.

The New Testament teaches Christians that it is only together, as part of a redeemed local fellowship that each of us will fully plumb the depths, scale the heights, and embrace the breadth of all that our Heavenly Father has desired for each of us in His will. (I Cor. 12-14)

Each local church is intended to be a colony of Heaven, a living spiritual organism centered in and sustained by Christ, seeking to fulfill His Great Commission:

And Jesus came and spoke unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and earth.

Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. (Matt. 28:18-20)

As I was borne along by these pleasing remembrances and heart-stirring reminiscences, I was reminded of my deep (and surprisingly unexpected) spiritual experience upon returning to corporate worship in my local church after COVID restrictions were lifted. As I was overwhelmed by the experience of simultaneously communing vertically with Jesus and horizontally with my fellow church members in collective worship, I realized how much I had taken such a divine blessing for granted before COVID.

If you are in a spiritually alive colony of heaven, express your gratitude to God, love and support your fellow church members, and relish the blessing. If you are not in such a church, please ask God to help you find such a fellowship, and join it with alacrity. This life is too short to miss the particular blessing God has intended and planned for each of us.
Home Opinion Higher ed is reaping what has been sown

Last school year, college and university campuses across the nation descended into a petulant kind of anarchy as students protested Israels war in Gaza.

Demonstrations broke out all over with Gaza solidarity encampments, Jewish students being threatened and assaulted, and protestors demanding that their schools divest from companies linked to Israel. Some Jewish students were told to go back to Poland, in a reference to death camps, and signs demanded to Stop funding genocide, as if Israel carried out the atrocities of October 7. Others said From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, without knowing which river and which sea.

The protesters claimed the uprisings were about ending Israels war in Gaza, which was waged in response to the October 7 attacks. However, many were calling for something far more radical, like so-called decolonization, or an end to Israel as a nation altogether.

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

Left-wing students do have a long history of jumping on protest bandwagons, including those not-so-subtly associated with Islamic terrorism. Part of this reality is the cult of youth that has pervaded American society, at least since the 1960s. The idea that young people are the conscience of our nation and that youth-led movements are always morally right was plainly articulated by a Democratic Socialists of America activist, who wrote:

A good law of history is that if you ever find yourself opposing a student movement while siding with the ruling class, you are wrong. Every single time. In every era. No matter the issue.

This revisionist view of history forgets, among other things, that the Nazi movement in Germany and Maos Cultural Revolution were popular with students who mobilized against the ruling classes. In the case of these campus protests, its not even clear who the ruling class are.

While there has been some pushback by school administrators against protestors, Noah Rothman correctly pointed out in a National Review piece that encampments of privileged, trust-fund kids at elite universities dont exactly pass for an uprising of the oppressed.

A more adequate explanation is that young people are often easily manipulated, not always aware of the ironies in their activism or demands. Todays youthful naivete and this thirst for attention is supercharged by social media. After all, no generation has been able to virtue-signal to the whole world before. The powerful desire, not only to speak truth to power, but to be seen doing it, is intoxicating. Hans Fiene once called this Selma envy.

Ultimately, these students, who are essentially flirting with support of terrorism, are a product of universities in which the goal of education is activism rather than wisdom. According to Al Mohler, it became clear decades ago that,

[H]igher education was turning into a laboratory for social engineering and intellectual revolution. Specialties such as post-colonial studies percolated with promises of liberation, often translated into nationalist movements and identity politics.

In other words, the universities created these monsters. Now, they are forced to deal with them.

The idea that education is for training activists to change the world is a progressive vision and is why activism typically leans left. Christian campuses often offer the opposite view. Recently, the president of a private, Christian college explained to parents why their students would not be talking that much about contemporary politics. Young people, he said, simply dont know enough to have opinions that are worth listening to. To know anything about politics, he continued, students need to know first what the soul is, what it means to be human, where truth comes from, and the best ideas of history about the role, purpose, and function of the polis. So, thats what they would be studying instead. Ironically, this same college is often accused, even by presuming Christian academics, of being too political.

Any philosophy of education, T.S. Eliot wrote, assumes a definition of what it means to be human. Much of higher education has lost the central purpose of education because it has lost sight of who we are as human beings. Education should be about training the intellect and cultivating a virtuous life, as understood and received from the great minds who have gone before us. Ultimately, that vision of education is grounded in the One who is Truth, and whose commands and character never change.

What we saw on campuses is an inevitable result when activism replaces education. But this means there is a real opportunity this fall, when schools start again, for Christians, who understand the truth about who we are, to reclaim what education truly is.

Originally published at BreakPoint.
Elon Musk says he's a 'cultural Christian'

Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has opened up about his beliefs and his mission to combat what he calls the "woke mind virus".

Talking to Jordan Peterson in an interview for The Daily Wire, Musk called himself a "cultural Christian" and expressed admiration for the teachings of Jesus.

"While I'm not a particularly religious person, I do believe that the teachings of Jesus are good and wise, and that there's tremendous wisdom in turning the other cheek," he said.

Even though some people might deserve "a punch in the nose", he suggested it was not worth chasing after vengeance.

"I'm actually a big believer in the principles of Christianity. I think they're very good," he said.

Elaborating, he said that Christian beliefs "result in the greatest happiness for humanity, considering not just the present, but all future humans".

Taking a leaf out of the book of committed atheist Richard Dawkins, who recently called himself a "cultural Christian", Musk said in the interview, "I would say I'm probably a cultural Christian."

He added, "I was brought up as an Anglican, and I was baptised."

The two-hour interview delved into Musk's views on transgenderism and his transgender child who was born male but now identifies as a female called Vivian Jenna Wilson.

Musk said that the "people that have been promoting this should go to prison" and claimed that "it wasn't explained to me that puberty blockers are actually just sterilisation drugs".

"It happened to one of my older boys, where I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys, Xavier. This is before I had any understanding of what was going on," the father-of-12 said.

He said he has been committed to destroying "the woke mind virus" ever since.
IHOPKC's board says 24/7 Prayer Room will no longer be connected to a church

(CP) After months of deliberation, the board of the embattled International House of Prayer Kansas City has decided that the vaunted 24/7 Prayer Room will not be operated under the umbrella of any church. This decision follows the shuttering of several arms of the ministry, including the Forerunner Church, in the aftermath of a sexual misconduct scandal involving founder Mike Bickle.

The board announced the decision Wednesday in an email update on the restructuring of the ministry sent to members of the IHOPKC community. A copy of the email was shared by The Roys Report.

"Another source of confusion has been the process of evaluating whether to move the governance of the Prayer Room under a church structure, and if it should be relocated to our Grandview Plaza facility," the board said in the email.

"It is the decision of the Board of Trustees that the Prayer Room will remain independent of any external church and continue to be the heart of IHOPKC. Further, the Prayer Room will remain in its present location at the Red Bride Center."

While the 24/7 Prayer Room won't function under the governance of a church, the board noted that it will still require governance. The board is working on a plan to operate it independently of a church.

"We realize that the long term health and wellbeing of the prayer room requires a formal governance structure for oversight, accountability, and spiritual strength," the email said. "We are exploring the best fit moving forward and are committed to ensuring systems are in place for solid decision making and responsible leadership."

In April, IHOPKC announced that the ministry would be restructured, including the shuttering of some aspects of operations this year, including the IHOPKC school of ministry and Forerunner Church, led by Isaac Bennett.

"In April, we announced that, after much prayer and deliberation, we would wind down many of IHOPKC's ministry and training expressions, including IHOPU, Forerunner Church, CEC, and internships, a process which concluded May 24th. Since that time, our focus as a ministry has been the 24/7 Prayer Room and Intercession for Israel," the board's email reads. "During the process of planning and carrying out these changes, incorrect statements were made about IHOPKC's future and reasons for shutting down various ministry expressions. As we said earlier, IHOPKC is not shutting down."

The Roys Report, citing a leaked recording from leaders at an internal IHOP University staff meeting as well as an email from IHOP University President Matt Candler, reported earlier this year that IHOPKC was in the process of shuttering for good due to the financial impact of Bickle's sexual abuse scandal. IHOPKC permanently cut ties with Bickle last December.

In February, a third woman alleged she was groomed and sexually abused by Bickle in the 1980s when she was 14.

Using her maiden name, Tammy Woods, who is now a 57-year-old mother and grandmother, told The Kansas City Star that Bickle abused her in St. Louis where he pastored a church before moving to Kansas City and starting IHOPKC in 1999.

Woods said Bickle abused her in his car, at her home, in the church and his office. She said the abuse, which began when she started babysitting his two sons, involved sexual contact but not intercourse. She revealed that the IHOPKC founder also told her several times that his wife, Diane, would die young and suggested that she could be the mother to his sons.

Last year, a woman identified as Jane Doe by The Roys Report alleged that Bickle paid for her apartment and gave her a key to his office, and that she engaged in sexual acts with him from 1996 to 1999 before he founded IHOPKC. She claimed Bickle wooed her with Scripture at age 19 when he was 42.

Bickle initially agreed to step away from the ministry last October when allegations of sexual abuse involving mutliple women were brought to light by an advocate group. Bickle confessed to engaging in "consensual sexual contact" with a woman connected to the 24/7 prayer ministry in addition to a previously confessed relationship with the Jane Doe, who alleged she was his kept woman for several years, according to an independent investigation report released in February.

In December, he admitted on Facebook to engaging in "inappropriate behaviour" but not "the more intense sexual activities that some are suggesting." The ministry perminantly cut ties with Bickle two weeks later, saying its investigation confirmed "a level of inappropriate behaviour."

 The Christian Post
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form
ServiceNow is an enterprise software and workplace management orchestration vendor based in Santa Clara, Calif. Its cloud-based enterprise service management (ESM) platform, Now, helps companies automate workflows across the enterprise, including those involved in IT service management (ITSM), IT operations management, IT asset management, and HR service delivery, among other domains.

AI  generative AI in particular  has increasingly become a focus of late for ServiceNow, which has a market cap of $183 billion, making it the 23rd largest technology vendor in the world.

Here is the latest ServiceNow news and analysis:
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.
The Charity Commission has removed the Mahfouz Foundation from its register as it continues to investigate allegations around a donation intended for the Kings Foundation.

It opened a statutory inquiry into the Mahfouz Foundation in 2021 over allegations that it received donations intended for the then-named Princes Foundation, set up by King Charles.

While this inquiry is ongoing, the Mahfouz Foundation was removed from the register on 6 October, according to the Official Custodian for Charities recently-filed annual accounts .

The accounts show that the Custodian held 7,500 from the Mahfouz Foundation on 31 March this year under an order that required these funds to be paid to it.

A police investigation into cash-for-honours claims involving the then-named Princes Foundation closed last year .

Allegations investigated

The Mahfouz Foundation, whose charitable aims included the promotion of the history and culture of the Middle East, was linked to allegations first published in the Sunday Times about attempts to use donations to influence the then heir to the throne.

It alleged that the Russian businessman Dmitry Leus had tried to donate 200,000 to the Princes Foundation, after being put in touch with Michael Fawcett (its CEO at the time).

His gift was subsequently rejected. Leus had been convicted of money laundering in Russia before the conviction was overturned.

The donation is alleged to have then been sent via the Mahfouz Foundation, without Leuss knowledge and obscuring the origins of the money.

Inquiry ongoing

The Commission announced in November 2021 that it has opened an inquiry into the Mahfouz Foundation and donations it received that were intended for another charity.

It also revealed that it had been engaging with trustees at the Mahfouz Foundation since the Sunday Times first published claims that it had received donations intended for the Princes Foundation.

At the time, it said its inquiry would examine whether the Mahfouz Foundation received these donations as alleged, how the money had been used, and whether or not it should be returned to the donor or another charity.

The Commission added it would look at financial controls at the charity and whether the trustees have worked in line with charity law.

The Mahfouz Foundation was founded by Saudi billionaire Mahfouz Marei Mubarak bin Mahfouz.

Its website is no long accessible, and Civil Society was unable to contact anyone formerly at the organisation.

sign up to receive the free Civil Society daily news bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector,
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has confirmed that its minister Stephanie Peacock will hold the civil society brief.

Umbrella bodies NCVO and ACEVO, who both met culture secretary Lisa Nandy this week, welcomed Peacock to the role.

Peacock has also been handed responsibility for sport, media, youth, ceremonials, legislation and corporate.

She will also be responsible for the gambling brief in the House of Commons as peer Baroness Twycross has been made minister for gambling.

Her predecessor as civil society minister in the last Conservative government, Stuart Andrew, was also the ministerial disability champion and responsible for major events including Eurovision.

Peacock, MP for Barnsley South, was Labours shadow sport, gambling and media minister before the election.

Prior to becoming an MP, Peacock worked as a history teacher and for trade union GMB.

Peacock is a patron of the charity Barnsley Independent Alzheimers And Dementia Support and was parliamentary chair of anti-fascist campaign organisation Hope not Hate.

Great to be part of @DCMS team as Minister for Sport, Media, Civil Society and Youth.



Looking forward to the challenge ahead  https://t.co/kxzjkBapox  Stephanie Peacock MP (@Steph_Peacock) July 26, 2024

Sector bodies look forward to collaboration

Sarah Elliott, chief executive of NCVO, said: Were delighted that Stephanie Peacock has been appointed as Minister for Civil Society, and we look forward to working closely with her to build a collaborative partnership between government and the voluntary sector in the future.

Charities aren't just a force for good, they're also a force for change. The new government has set out an ambitious plan for a decade of renewal, and we believe charities and voluntary organisations will be a critical partner for them to achieve their missions.

Weve already had some incredibly productive meetings with the new team at DCMS to make sure the needs of charities are heard and that the limitless opportunities for charities to make an impact are understood.

We look forward to more opportunities to work with Stephanie and the team to unlock the experience and understanding charities have to help solve some of society's biggest issues.

Shareen Patel, policy and influencing officer at ACEVO, said: ACEVO is delighted that the new minister for civil society has been announced.

We welcome Stephanie Peacock to this role, who given her experience of the charity sector will be aware of the context in which our sector has been working in for so long.

As someone who has already highlighted the need to work with us in the delivery of the new governments missions, we look forward to having an open and genuine partnership and together championing the vital role our sector plays.

Nicole Sykes, director of policy and communications at Pro Bono Economics, said: A flourishing civil society is crucial if the new government is to achieve its ambitious mission, from building a robust economy to providing opportunities to all.

The new government has already shown positive signs that it is keen to leverage the hands-on experience and practical solutions offered by charities, in order to develop better-informed and more effective policies that address local challenges and enhance the wellbeing of all UK citizens.

The new prime minister set out his vision for a thriving civil society at the summit we hosted in January, and now its time to start turning that vision into reality.

We're looking forward to working closely with the new minister and the entire government to secure the change that is needed to strengthen civil society. Its encouraging to see how much of that work is already underway.

Dan Corry, chief executive of NPC, said: We warmly welcome Stephanie Peacock to the very important role of minister for civil society.

We look forward to working with her so we can put civil society at the heart of delivering the new government's missions.

Charities have been providing critical services over what have been challenging years. This opportunity for a renewed partnership between government and civil society is one both sides should take.

A spokesperson for NGO umbrella body Bond said: We look forward to working with her in her new role to improve government relations with civil society and strengthen the political and operating environment for charities.

sign up to receive the free Civil Society daily news bulletin here . For more news, interviews, opinion and analysis about charities and the voluntary sector,
Monsanto will pay $160 million to settle a lawsuit by the city of Seattle that accused the unit of Germanys Bayer of polluting the citys drainage system and the local Lower Duwamish River with toxic chemicals known as PCBs.

City Attorney Ann Davison announced the settlement on Thursday, calling it the largest for a single city over PCB pollution.

In a statement, Monsanto said it will pay $35 million for PCB remediation, and $125 million to address other Seattle claims. The company did not admit liability or wrongdoing.

Seattle accused Monsanto of creating a public nuisance by selling polychlorinated biphenyls for commercial use from 1935 to 1977 despite knowing they polluted the environment, harming people and wildlife.

The city said PCBs remained over the years in exterior paint and caulk on buildings, and resulted in contaminated stormwater flowing into the river.

Seattle sued Monsanto in January 2016. The settlement averts a scheduled Sept. 23 trial in that citys federal court.

Monsanto said in an August 2022 filing that Seattle had been seeking nearly $750 million.

The company reached a separate $95 million settlement with Washington state in June 2020 over PCB contamination.

PCBs were outlawed by the U.S. government in 1979, and have been linked to cancer, immune system and other health problems.

Monsanto was the only U.S. maker of PCBs. It has said it stopped making them because they were not readily biodegradable.

In November 2022, Monsanto won court approval for a $650 million settlement with a class of 2,500 local governments over PCB contamination in various waters.

Other governments chose to sue Monsanto individually. Monsanto said nine cases remain pending, and that it is committed to defending itself at trial unless it settles.

Bayer bought Monsanto for $63 billion in 2018. It has also faced extensive and costly litigation over whether Monsantos Roundup weed killer causes cancer.

The case is Seattle v. Monsanto Co et al, U.S. District Court, Western District of Washington, No. 16-00107.

(Reporting by Stempel in New York; editing by Diane Craft)
Johnson & Johnson lost its bid in a federal appeals court to revive a plan to settle tens of thousands of talc cancer lawsuits by placing a subsidiary into bankruptcy.

The ruling Thursday upheld a bankruptcy judges dismissal last year of the Chapter 11 case of J&J subsidiary LTL Management LLC. J&J created LTL to carry into bankruptcy all health claims related to baby powder and other J&J products made with talc allegedly tainted with toxic substances. Last year, the Philadelphia-based appeals court rejected a similar bankruptcy plan.

The decision came on the eve of a Friday deadline for women with ovarian cancer and other gynecological cancers to vote on whether to support a third LTL Management bankruptcy. The company seeks to set aside $6.5 billion to resolve ovarian cancer claims as part of a total $11 billion settlement of J&Js current and future baby powder suits.

Related: The Battle Over J&Js Bankruptcy Plan to End Talc Lawsuits

In their opinion, the appellate panel rejected J&Js claim that the bankruptcy judge erred in ruling that the companys liability was not greater than $21 billion. The judges also rejected J&Js arguments that it faced insolvency and cash-flow difficulties.

No doubt that solvent companies, confronted by mass-tort litigation, can encounter significant financial distress that warrants bankruptcy, Judge Thomas Ambro wrote for the panel. When future insolvency is a realistic possibility based on meaningful evidence  not just the result of a highly speculative worst-case scenario  a mass-tort defendant has a viable case for bankruptcy.

J&J will seek US Supreme Court review of Thursdays decision, said Erik Haas, worldwide vice president of litigation. The company has denied liability in the lawsuits and has maintained that its talc-based products are safe. The ruling doesnt impact J&Js plan to resolve all current and future ovarian claims through a third LTL Management bankruptcy, Haas said.

Related: J&J Talc Users Want Cancer Checks Even if it Cost Billions

The appeals court also rejected an argument that the second bankruptcy was legitimate because a significant number of talc victims support the effort. That case had divided talc victims, with some backing J&Js offer to set up a trust fund as part of an insolvency case, and others opposing it.

Some victims argued the second bankruptcy was in the best interest of creditors. The appeals court rejected that view.

J&J has said it is trying to round up a super-majority of plaintiffs for the third bankruptcy attempt.

Last year, the same appeals court threw out the first LTL Management bankruptcy, ruling the subsidiary essentially had a blank check from J&J. Soon after that, J&J increased its settlement offer to cancer victims to $8.9 billion. But a federal bankruptcy judge in New Jersey dismissed the case, prompting the latest appeal.

I hope the message is loud and clear, plaintiffs lawyer Andy Birchfield, who opposes the bankruptcy plan, said in a statement. Now is the time for J&J to change course and act as a responsible company by offering truly reasonable compensation to its customers who have suffered serious injuries.

Top photo: Johnson & Johnson baby powder for sale at a pharmacy in New York, US, on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. Johnson & Johnson is scheduled to release earnings figures on April 16. Photographer: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg.

Copyright 2024 Bloomberg.
ATHENS, Ohio -- The widely published, iconic photos of a bloodied, fist-pumping Donald Trump after the recent assassination attempt remind us of the enduring power of single images and the unique skills of professionals behind the cameras.

The Trump photo thats now on TIME Magazines cover was taken by Evan Vucci, a 21-year veteran of The Associated Press who won a 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography with AP colleagues who documented Americas response to the death of George Floyd.
WASHINGTON  The U.S. State Department, in response to rising crime and health care issues, has reissued a warning about traveling to Jamaica, urging travelers to think carefully about going there.

The warning, issued Thursday, cautions travelers that some areas of Jamaica have increased risks related to violent crime and a lack of quality health care.

Previously: US warns travelers about high crime at 2 popular cruise destinations, urges extreme caution

Prevously: Is Jamaica safe? State Department advisory raises concerns; heres what to know

The State Department issued an initial advisory in January. Thursdays new advisory was made to reflect additional troubles since then, the State Department said.

The U.S. Embassy routinely receives reports of sexual assaults, including from U.S. citizen tourists at resorts, the State Department said. U.S. citizens report slow or unsatisfactory response to serious criminal incidents. When arrests are made, cases are infrequently prosecuted to a final verdict and sentence.

The homicide rate reported by the Jamaican government is among the highest in the Western Hemisphere. Armed robberies and sexual assaults are common.

The State Department did note that while violent crime occurs throughout Jamaica, tourist areas generally see lower rates of violent crime than other parts of the country.

Jamaica, south of Cuba and west of Hispanola, is an island nation smaller than the state of Connecticut with an estimated population of more than 2.8 million people.

The islands pristine beaches and other natural wonders have long made it popular for tourism, which is a major industry.

People who do travel to Jamaica should expect to find available health care will not be at the same level of that available in the United States.

Response times are generally lower for emergency services or routine care for illness or injury. Private hospitals often require payment up front before they will admit patients. Those hospitals may not be able to provide specialized care.

Ambulance services are not always staffed with EMTs or always readily available, especially in rural areas.

Travelers are advised to bring extra prescription medication as common medications such as insulin can be difficult to obtain.

The State Department cautions that travelers should obtain travelers insurance, including medical evacuation insurance, before visiting Jamaica.

The Department of State does not pay medical bills, and Medicare and Medicaid programs do not apply for treatment in Jamaica.

For travelers who do go to Jamaica, the State Department recommends these tips:

Do not attempt to bring firearms or ammunition. This includes stray rounds, shells, or empty casings. The penalties for carrying firearms and/or ammunition, even inadvertently, are severe, and can include lengthy prison sentences.

Be aware of your surroundings and keep a low profile, avoiding public buses, secluded places or situations and walking or driving at night.

Do not physically resist any robbery attempt.

Follow the Department of State on Facebook and X/Twitter

The State Department notes that U.S. embassy staff are forbidden from traveling in nearly a dozen areas of the country due to crime. They also are prohibited from using public buses and from driving outside of prescribed areas of Kingston, the capital, at night.
Vivian Jenna Wilson, the transgender daughter of Elon Musk, said Thursday in her first public interview that he was an absent father who was cruel to her as a child for being queer and feminine.

Wilson, 20, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, responded to comments that Musk made Monday about her and her transgender identity. On social media and in an interview posted online, Musk said she was "not a girl" and was figuratively "dead," and he alleged that he had been "tricked" into authorizing trans-related medical treatment for Wilson when she was 16.

Wilson said that Musk had not been tricked and that, after initially hesitating, he knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment, which required consent from her parents.

Musk's recent statements crossed a line, she said.

"I think he was under the assumption that I wasn't going to say anything and I would just let this go, unchallenged," Wilson said in a phone interview. "Which I'm not going to do because if you're going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I'm not just gonna let that slide."

Wilson said that, for as long as she could remember, Musk has not been a supportive father. She said he was rarely present in her life, leaving Wilson and her siblings to be cared for by their mother or by nannies even though Musk had joint custody, and she said Musk berated her when he was present.

"He was cold," she said. "He's very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic."

Wilson said that, when she was a child, Musk would harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and would pressure her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school.

"I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn't know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars  I don't remember which one  and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high," she said. "It was cruel."

Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

Wilson and her twin brother were born to Musk's first wife, author Justine Musk. The couple divorced in 2008, and Wilson said her parents shared custody between their homes in the Los Angeles area.

Musk, 53, is among the wealthiest people in the world through his stakes in Tesla, where he's CEO, and in SpaceX, which he founded. He's also become a significant political figure, having endorsed former President Donald Trump this month for another term in the White House. Musk has 12 children, including Wilson.

Now a college student studying languages, Wilson has never granted an interview before and has largely stayed out of public view. She did, however, attract attention in 2022 when she sought court approval in California to change her name and, in the process, denounced her father.

"I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form," she said in the court filing.

She told NBC News that at the time, she was surprised by the media attention to the court filing, which she submitted when she was 18. She said in the interview that she stands by what she wrote, though she said she might have tried to be more eloquent if she had known the coverage it would receive.

Wilson said that she hadn't spoken to Musk in about four years, and that she refused to be defined by him.

"I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult. I am 20 years old. I am not a child," she said. "My life should be defined by my own choices."

Musk threw a spotlight on Wilson on Monday by speaking about their relationship in a video interview with psychologist and conservative commentator Jordan Peterson streamed live on X, saying that he did not support Wilson's gender identity.

"I lost my son, essentially," Musk said. He used Wilson's birth name, also known as a deadname for transgender people, and said that she was "dead, killed by the woke mind virus."

And in a post on X Monday, Musk said that Wilson was "born gay and slightly autistic" and that, at age 4, she fit certain gay stereotypes such as loving musicals and using the exclamation "fabulous!" to describe certain clothing. Wilson told NBC News that those anecdotes are not true, though she said she did act stereotypically feminine in other ways as a child.

Wilson also addressed Musk's recent comments in a series of posts Thursday on the social media app Threads.

"He doesn't know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn't there," she wrote. "And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness."

"I've been reduced to a happy little stereotype," she continued. "I think that says alot about how he views queer people and children in general."

In recent years, Musk has taken a hard-right turn into conservative politics and has been waging a campaign against transgender people and policies designed to support them. This month, he said he was pulling his businesses out of California to protest a new state law that bars schools from requiring that trans kids be outed to their parents.

On the social media app X, Musk has for years criticized transgender rights, including medical treatments for trans-identifying minors, and the use of pronouns if different from what would be used at birth. He has promoted anti-trans content and called for arresting people who provide trans care to minors.

After Musk bought X, then known as Twitter, in 2022, he rolled back the app's protections for trans people including a ban on using deadnames.

Musk told Peterson that Wilson's gender transition has been the motivation for his push into conservative politics.

"I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that, and we're making some progress," he said.

Wilson was also mentioned in a biography of Musk by author Walter Isaacson  a book that she told NBC News was inaccurate and unfair to her. The book refers to her politics as "radical Marxism," quoting Musk's sister-in-law Christiana Musk, but Wilson said she's not a Marxist, though she said she does oppose wealth inequality. The book also calls her by her middle name, Jenna.

Wilson said that Isaacson never reached out to her directly ahead of publication. In a phone interview Thursday, Isaacson said that he had reached out to Wilson through family members.

Christiana Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Wilson told NBC News that for years she had considered speaking out about Musk's behavior as a parent and as a person, but that she could no longer remain silent after his comments Monday.

She said she had never received an explanation for why her father spent so little time with her and her siblings  behavior by him that she now views as strange.

"He was there, I want to say, maybe 10% of the time. That's generous," she said. "He had half custody, and he fully was not there."

"It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don't think I realized just how abnormal of an experience it was," she added.

Wilson said she came out twice in life: once as gay in eighth grade, and a second time as transgender when she was 16. She said she doesn't recall Musk's response the first time, and she wasn't present when Musk heard from others that she was transgender because by then the pandemic had started and she was living full-time with her mother.

"She's very supportive. I love her a lot," Wilson said of her mom.

The pandemic was a chance to escape Musk's cruelty, she said.

"When Covid hit, I was like, 'I'm not going over there,'" she said. "It was basically very lucky timing."

Musk told Peterson in the interview that he had been "tricked" into signing documents authorizing transgender-related medical treatment for Wilson  an allegation that Wilson said isn't true.

"I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys," Musk said, using her birth name.

"This was before I had really any understanding of what was going on, and we had Covid going on," he said, adding that he was told that she might commit suicide.

Wilson said that, in 2020, when she was still a minor at 16, she wanted to start treatment for severe gender dysphoria but needed the consent of both parents under California law. She said her mother was supportive, but that Musk was initially not. She said she texted him about it for a while.

"I was trying to do this for months, but he said I had to go meet with him in person," she said. "At that point, it was very clear that we both had a very distinct disdain for each other."

When she eventually went and gave him the medical forms, she said, he read them at least twice, once with her and then again on his own, before signing them.

"He was not by any means tricked. He knew the full side effects," she said.

She said she took puberty blockers before switching to hormone-replacement therapy  treatments that she said were life-saving for her and other transgender people.

"They save lives. Let's not get that twisted," she said. "They definitely allowed me to thrive."

She said she believed that the requirements to obtain such treatments remain onerous, with teenagers pressured to say they're at extreme risk of self-harm before they'll be approved. She said she felt judged by Musk and Peterson, in the Monday interview, for not being at a high enough risk in their eyes.

"I have been basically put into a point where, to a group of people, I have to basically prove whether or not I was suicidal or not to warrant medically transitioning," she said. "It's absolutely mind boggling."

 CNBC's Lora Kolodny contributed to this story
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th national convention in Houston, Texas, U.S. July 25, 2024.

Vice President Kamala Harris debuted an official TikTok account on Thursday, underscoring the social broadcasting app's importance to the 2024 presidential campaign as a way to reach voters.

In her first short TikTok video, Harris described why she joined the popular app, saying that she's "heard that recently I've been on the For You Page, so I thought I'd get on here myself."

The vice president was referring to the widespread attention her recently announced presidential campaign garnered on social media platforms like TikTok. Numerous TikTok users, for instance, created a swarm of humorous videos  including fusing clips from Charli XCX's 'Brat' summer trend  featuring Harris as a way to celebrate her rise as the Democratic Party's leading presidential nominee in the aftermath of President Joe Biden's recent announcement that he would drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

Harris's quick adoption of TikTok contrasts with President Joe Biden, who personally appeared with Harris on the campaign's @BidenHQ (now @KamalaHQ) page. U.S. lawmakers have expressed concern over TikTok's ownership by a Chinese tech company.

TikTok's immense popularity with the youth of America and the broader public has made the app an important campaigning tool by politicians, even though the company does not allow political advertising.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump debuted an official TikTok account in June. Earlier this year, Trump told CNBC that while he shares national security and privacy concerns about TikTok, he believed that banning the app would only "make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people."

Watch: "There is no rebranding Kamala Harris," former Trump aide.
In a Thursday interview with CNBC's Jim Cramer, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo stressed the importance of domestic chip production and said the country is on track to meet its end-of-decade goal.

"My boss, President Biden, has been crystal clear on this topic, and I think there's no place to be reckless here or play politics with this," Raimondo said. "It's time to get serious and have serious solutions to these issues, which is exactly why we passed the CHIPS act, and exactly what we're doing in implementing it."

The Biden Administration's CHIPS act allocated billions to encourage semiconductor companies to manufacture their products in the U.S., with recipients including Intel , Micron , Samsung and Taiwan Semiconductor .

Raimondo said more than 90% of the U.S.'s graphics chips  which are vital for electronics, including phones, cars, military equipment  are manufactured in Taiwan. She called this situation "untenable" and "unsafe," saying it makes the U.S. vulnerable. And while Raimondo said there will always be chips manufactured in Taiwan, she said the U.S. "needs to get out of this place of extreme vulnerability."

According to Raimondo, the country is "right on the path" to meet its goal of having 20% of chips made domestically by 2030, even though she characterized the feat as "audacious." She also pushed back against the notion that foreign countries like Taiwan took manufacturing jobs away from the U.S., saying these decisions had been made by American corporations.

"American businesses were in search of cheap capital and cheap labor and profits, so everything went overseasChina, Taiwan, etcetera," Raimondo said. "Except, we wake up now, and we find that whether it's chips or critical minerals or components, we're vulnerable. Not everything's about short term profits. You have to also have national security in your lens primarily."
(This is CNBC Pro's live coverage of Friday's analyst calls and Wall Street chatter. Please refresh every 20-30 minutes to view the latest posts.) Apple and a food delivery stock were among the names being talked about by analysts on Friday. Raymond James hiked its price target on Apple to $250. Meanwhile, Redburn Atlantic initiated coverage of DoorDash with a buy rating and a price target implying upside of more than 60%. Check out the latest calls and chatter below. All times ET. 7:35 a.m.: Barclays cuts price target on Crowdstrike after outage Things "could get worse before better" for Crowdstrike , which is dealing with the fallout from the world's largest IT outage , according to Barclays. Analyst Saket Kalia reduced his price target on the stock by 30% to $285 from $400. The new target forecasts 12.1% upside potential from where shares closed on Thursday. However, he kept his overweight rating on the stock. The company's IT outage struck on July 19, disrupting hospitals, airlines, broadcasters and more across and more. As a result, shares have sharply dropped more than 30% for the month  and Kalia believes the "stock could get worse before better." To be sure, Kalia still "ultimately think[s] CRWD remains a LT leader." "We are staying OW because ultimately we think customers continue to rely on CRWD's leading endpoint tools, and increasingly opt for their non-endpoint tools, which lengthen the runway for growth," Kalia wrote in a note on Friday.  Hakyung Kim 7:12 a.m.: Duolingo is a buy, according to Bank of America Bank of America says Duolingo is a growth leader in its internet sector coverage. The firm raised his rating on the stock to buy from neutral while maintaining its $245 price target on shares, which suggests 45.5% upside potential from Thursday's close price. The stock has tumbled 31% on the back of its first quarter earnings in early May. Ahead of Duolingo's second quarter earnings announcement on Aug. 7, analyst Curtis Nagle expects the company to post revenue in-line with expectations and a slight EBITDA beat. DUOL YTD line Duolingo shares "Duolingo boasts the highest growth in our internet coverage, above average margins and in our view ample opportunity for user/revenue/EBITDA upside. We also see share buybacks as increasingly likely given high cash on the balance sheet (~10% of mkt. cap), growing cash flow, no debt and no obvious M & A beyond small 'bolt-on' deals," Nagle said in a note Friday. He forecasts vast user growth opportunities for Duolingo given low penetration across all markets. Asia, particularly China, could be the company's biggest near-to-medium user growth opportunity market, he added. "While Duolingo trades at a premium valuation, it is now below the historic average (7x '25E EV/Sales vs. 8x) and on an EV/EBITDA basis Duolingo trades inline with other high growth subscription companies despite higher growth/margins and estimate revisions," Nagle said. Hakyung Kim 7:05 a.m.: Deutsche lowers rating on Southwest Airlines Deutsche Bank is stepping to the sidelines on Southwest Airlines after its disappointing second-quarter results. Analyst Michael Linenberg lowered his rating on the carrier to hold from buy. He also notched down his price target to $29 from $32, indicating 9.4% downside potential from Thursday's close. "Despite reporting record revenues driven by record passenger volumes, Southwest continues to experience margin pressure as its revenue generation continues to lag its elevated cost structure (of which the latter is an industry-wide phenomenon)," Linenberg wrote in a note on Thursday. Southwest's profits fell 46% in the second quarter from the same period in the prior year. Revenue per available seat mile, a gauge of airline pricing power, also dropped nearly 4%. The company made headlines Thursday when it announced sweeping changes including the elimination of open seating and adding overnight flights and seats with extra legroom. "While we are encouraged by Southwest's plans to add assigned seats, a premium onboard product, and the launch of red-eye flights, these initiatives will take time to roll out and are not without execution risk," he added. The U.S. market will likely stay over supplied through most of August, Linenberg said. This will put further downward pressure Southwest, which derives around 95% of its revenue from the domestic market, he added. Shares of Southwest Airlines are down 2.7% year to date but rose 0.7% in premarket trading Friday. Hakyung Kim 6:43 a.m.: NXP Semiconductors still a buy, BofA says Bank of America is staying bullish on NXP Semiconductors even after its second-quarter earnings miss and disappointing forward outlook. Analyst Vivek Arya reiterated his buy rating on the Dutch-based chipmaker in a client note on Thursday. NXP is his top pick for its pipeline across various auto segments, such as EV battery management and auto processors. "The stock has recently come under pressure on Q3 outlook miss, but NXPI stressed the delta was to maintain a clean channel, which we believe positions the company well for the next upcycle," Arya wrote. NXPI YTD line NXP share performance Although NXP lowered its full-year outlook, performance in the second half is forecast to improve from the first half of the year, the analyst said. Its autos segment will also likely rebound starting the third quarter on China strength, he added. The next catalyst for the stock is its analyst day on Nov. 7, where it is expected to provide its targets from 2024 to 2027, according to Arya. He has a $320 price target on shares, indicating 30% upside from Thursday's close. Hakyung Kim 6:15 a.m.: Bank of America reiterates buy call on Harley-Davidson after earnings Harley-Davidson is an outperformer in a difficult environment, according to Bank of America. The motorcycle company's second quarter earnings per share and shipment topped analyst Alexander Perry's estimates. He forecasts inventory levels to decline and for its stable retail trends to continue, particularly in the U.S. with the success of its new touring lineup. With this in mind, Perry reiterated his buy rating on shares. He also kept $50 price target on shares, which indicates 37% upside potential from Thursday's close. "HOG continues to outperform other powersports peers in a difficult macro environment. We expect HOG's new touring innovation to [potentially] drive a multi-year upgrade cycle from its addressable market of ~1.5mm Harley touring riders. We also see the potential cascading of new innovation into other segments including Cruisers (Softail)," Perry wrote in a Thursday note. Shares rallied more than 7% Thursday.  Hakyung Kim Correction: Harley Davidson shares were unchanged in premarket trading Friday. An earlier version misstated their status . 5:55 a.m.: Morgan Stanley slashes outlook on WW International Morgan Stanley is losing confidence in Weight Watchers parent company WW International . The rise of obesity medication such as Ozempic and Mounjaro presents a long-term headwind on WW's core business, according to analyst Nathan Feather. Although the company has managed to offset the threat to its core business with the growth in its clinical segment, even this has now flatlined  calling into question the company's outlook, Feather said. The analyst downgraded shares to equal weight from overweight. He also cut his price target to $1.25 from $6.25, which was 7 cents below Thursday's close price. "With both segments seemingly backtracking, we no longer have conviction [that] Clinic will be able to ramp fast enough to offset the headwinds on the core and move to EW as we wait for greater clarity," Feather wrote in a Friday note. Feather also highlighted concerns in the company's liquidity profile. WW has $1.4 million in debt, but negative free cash flow in 2024 and less than $100 million in cash, he added. Shares have plunged nearly 85% in 2024. WW YTD mountain WW year to date  Hakyung Kim 5:33 a.m.: Redburn Atlantic initiates DoorDash as a buy DoorDash is a stand-out name in the food delivery sector, according to Redburn Atlantic. Analyst James Cordwell initiated coverage on Doordash with a buy rating. His price target of $170 indicates 68% upside from Thursday's close. Out of the four food delivery stocks in his coverage, DoorDash is the only stock he named a buy. "While consensus essentially reflects a mean reversion in trends at the different platforms, we believe the sector is more likely to be characterized by winner-takes-most dynamics, leaving our estimates for DoorDash substantially ahead of consensus," Cordwell wrote in a Friday note. To be sure, he noted that DoorDash's first-quarter adjusted EBITDA came in just in-line with consensus estimates, even as gross order value topped expectations. "As an immediate reaction to the results, the stock was punished given market assumptions that adjusted EBITDA margin expansion would remain the priority. However, in our view, the company is pursuing the right strategy and will, in time, be rewarded accordingly," the analyst added. Shares are up just 1.9% in 2024. DASH YTD mountain AAPL year to date  Hakyung Kim 5:33 a.m.: Raymond James raises Apple price target Raymond James is getting more bullish on Apple ahead of earnings. Analysts Srini Pajjuri raised his price target on the iPhone maker to $250 from $200, implying upside of 15% from Thursday's close. He also reiterated his outperform rating on shares. Pajjuri called Apple, which reports earnings next week, a "more stable AI play for volatile times." "We do not expect near-term results to change the AI narrative ... and remain optimistic that upcoming AI features will drive a multi-year iPhone upgrade cycle," he said. "Early signs are already emerging as our conversations in the supply chain point to upward revision to iPhone 16 builds (by 5-10%) in 2H24. Supply chain data also points to material changes to iPhone 17 internals, suggesting that Apple is looking to do more AI on the device." Apple shares are up nearly 13% for the year. In the past week, though, they are down 3% amid a broad tech sell-off. AAPL YTD mountain AAPL year to date  Fred Imbert
Twice a week, Elizabeth Morosani gets up before 7 a.m., puts on her sun sleeves and spends the next three hours atop a John Deere lawn mower.

Her side hustle requires it: She's converted 11 acres of her land, split between three properties around Asheville, North Carolina, into private dog parks. She rents out the spaces to local pet owners on an Airbnb-style platform called Sniffspot.

Many Sniffspot hosts rent out their backyards. Morosani rents out parts of her 108-acre farm, where she lives and makes a majority of her personal income boarding horses. She has four dogs, and initially launched her side hustle just to connect with other nearby pet owners in November 2020, she says.

Then, the side hustle started bringing in money: a monthly average of $7,100 in revenue for the first half of 2024, including $8,400 in May alone. Roughly half of those earnings are profit, Morosani says. Sniffspot takes nearly a quarter in commissions and fees, and the remainder goes toward maintaining her dog parks.

DON'T MISS: The ultimate guide to earning passive income online

Morosani, who dedicates six to eight hours per week to the platform, has used her profits to hire an assistant, buy her $6,500 lawn mower and pay for supplies for additional dogs she fosters  up to 14 at a time, she says.

"I didn't think it'd be this popular, this successful," Morosani, 50, tells CNBC Make It. "It's allowed me to bank some money, [and to] be more aggressive with helping my local humane societies ... If you have space and the ability to give a private experience to individual dog owners, there's definitely room for everyone to do this."

Here's how she built and maintains her side hustle, and how she wants to grow it next.
China's homegrown large UAVs rush to support flood-season rescue

Xinhua) 13:29, July 26, 2024

BEIJING, July 25 (Xinhua) -- China's homegrown large civil unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are moving swiftly to support the fight against torrential rains, typhoons and other natural disasters in the critical flood season this summer.

The independently-developed large civil UAVs, including the Wing Loong-2H and Haiyan-1, have been dispatched to support disaster relief, disaster prevention and mitigation, and other emergency rescue missions, according to the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).

The country has entered the annual critical flood season, which normally runs from late July to early August. Large UAVs are performing unique roles in serving disaster monitoring, meteorological monitoring, communication support, post-disaster recovery efforts and more.

The Wing Loong-2H large UAV flew for a total of 45 hours over three consecutive days, from July 20 to 22, over the flood-stricken Hanyuan County under the city of Ya'an, southwest China's Sichuan Province, said AVIC.

Responding to the task from the Ministry of Emergency Management, the Wing Loong-2H carried out comprehensive disaster monitoring over the affected areas. It supported searches for missing personnel and provided long-term and stable communications support, said AVIC.

This large UAV provided rescue-command authorities with real-time information in the form of high-definition images, voice and data from the disaster-hit areas, supporting them in confirming risk points, monitoring disaster conditions, as well as efficient and precise on-site command and rescuer dispatch, said the developer.

With its ability to remain in flight for long periods, the Wing Loong-2H also served as an airborne communication base to ensure communication services. It provided stable and continuous communication signals covering a total area of about 2,700 square km during missions over three days, and sent 42,000 rescue-related messages, serving as a lifeline for both people and rescue forces in disaster areas.

As a meteorological monitoring-specialized model, the Haiyan-1 large UAV is playing its part in the typhoon season this summer.

In responding to the task from the Meteorological Observation Center under the China Meteorological Administration, the Haiyan-1 flew into the interior of Typhoon Prapiroon, the fourth typhoon of the year, said AVIC.

It carried out typhoon detection work in cooperation with an aircraft sent by the Hong Kong Observatory. They precisely captured the outer cloud system structure of Typhoon Prapiroon, supporting meteorological disaster prevention and reduction efforts.

In this mission lasting about two hours, Haiyan-1 sent more than 4,200 valid items of data to a meteorological big-data cloud platform and provided them to meteorological authorities and related institutions for further study.

It also obtained data on the temperature, humidity, wind direction, wind speed and air pressure at different altitudes, allowing meteorological forecasters to clearly observe the three-dimensional structure of the typhoon.

The Haiyan-1 large UAV enabled the forecasters to clearly "see" the inner structure of the typhoon cloud system, helping them to grasp the typhoon's development and make forecasts in a more scientific manner, said AVIC.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing)
Nouakchott, Mauritania (PANA) - The World Bank on Friday released the seventh edition of its Economic Update for Mauritania, which highlights a slowdown in economic growth in 2023, despite strengthened macroeconomic stability
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman is delaying the highly scrutinized listing of Pershing Square's U.S. closed-end fund, according to a notice on the New York Stock Exchange's website.

The initial public offering of Pershing Square USA Ltd., with the ticker PSUS, is pending on a date to be announced, according to the website. The deal is likely to price next week, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ackman is now looking to raise $2.5 billion to $4 billion for the fund, well short of the $25 billion target from a few weeks ago, according to a regulatory filing dated Thursday.

Closed-end funds sell a set number of shares during their IPO, and they trade on market exchanges after their debut. The price of the fund does not necessarily match the shares' net asset value, so the fund may trade at a premium or a discount.

"There is enormous sensitivity to the size of the transaction," Ackman said in a July 24 letter to investors that was included in the filing. "Particularly in light of the novelty of the structure and closed end funds' very negative trading history, it requires a significant leap of faith and ultimately careful analysis and judgment for investors to recognize that this closed end company will trade at a premium after the IPO when very few in history have done so."

Pershing Square had $18.7 billion in assets under management at the end of June. Most of its capital is in Pershing Square Holdings, a $15 billion closed-end fund that trades in Europe. Ackman is seeking to offer a similar closed-end fund listed on the New York Stock Exchange, a move that could pave the way for an IPO of his management company.

The public listing of Ackman's fund is seen as a move to leverage his following among Main Street investors after he accumulated more than one million followers on social media platform X, commenting on issues ranging from antisemitism to the presidential election. The publicly traded closed-end fund is expected to invest in 12 to 24 large-cap, investment-grade, "durable growth" companies in North America.

In the roadshow presentation that he made public, Ackman highlighted the challenge in managing traditional hedge funds that investors can yank their money out of any time, which can result in constant fundraising and soothing of investors. The advantage of managing permanent capital is that it makes him more focused on the portfolio and gives him the ability to take a long-term approach in investments.

"If you want to be a long-term investor in businesses, the challenge of managing a portfolio where money can come and might go is significant. Action can have a significant negative impact on one's returns," Ackman said.
European drug regulators on Friday rejected the Alzheimer's treatment Leqembi from Biogen and Eisai , creating another hurdle for the companies as they scramble to boost uptake of the therapy in the U.S.

The European Commission, the European Union's executive body, has a final say in Leqembi's approval. But it almost always follows the drug regulator's recommendations.

In a statement, Eisai said, it is "extremely disappointed" by the regulator's negative recommendation. The company added that it will seek a reexamination of the decision.

Shares of Biogen fell more than 6% on Friday. Japanese drugmaker Eisai's stock was essentially flat.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last year approved Leqembi, which has seen a sluggish rollout due to bottlenecks related to diagnostic test requirements and regular brain scans, among other issues. Leqembi has also won regulatory approvals in other countries such as Japan, South Korea, China and Israel.

The drug was considered a breakthrough for a progressive disease that has proven notoriously hard to treat. It is a monoclonal antibody that slows the progression of the disease in patients at the early stages of it.
Boxes of Ozempic and Wegovy made by Novo Nordisk are seen at a pharmacy.

Novo Nordisk's blockbuster Wegovy weight loss drug has received backing from the European Union's medical regulator to expand the medicine's use to include reducing the rise of serious heart events in overweight and obese adults.

The Danish pharmaceutical giant on Thursday said that the European Medical Agency had adopted a "positive opinion" on the label expansion after reviewing the outcomes of a closely watched SELECT trial, opening the door to further applications for the drug.

Results from the Novo Nordisk-funded SELECT trial, published in August 2023, found that semaglutide  the active ingredient in Wegovy and Ozempic  cut the risk of major cardiovascular events by 20% compared with a placebo.

"We believe that the recommendation to update the EMA label for Wegovy is a significant milestone for people living with cardiovascular disease and obesity," Novo Nordisk's executive vice president and head of development, Martin Holst Lange, said in a statement.

"The SELECT data demonstrated that in addition to helping people manage their weight, Wegovy has the potential to protect lives by reducing the risks of major adverse cardiovascular events."

The label update also includes data from the SELECT trial showing a risk reduction in cardiovascular death by 15% and a risk reduction of death from any cause by 19%, compared to instances when a placebo was used, the company said.

Novo Nordisk said it expects to implement the label update within a month.

It follows similar moves by the UK's medical regulator, which on Tuesday approved the use of Wegovy to reduce the risk of overweight and obese adults suffering from serious heart problems or strokes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March also approved the drug for such applications, expanding the use cases of the highly popular medicine as competition heats up in the sector.

Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Roche on Thursday said that its Wegovy rival weight loss drugs will be part of a suite of medicines aimed at combating the effects of obesity.

The company's CEO Thomas Schinecker welcomed positive early stage trial results from the firm's two weight loss drug candidates as showing "best in disease potential." He added that they will form part of a wider portfolio aimed at differentiating the Swiss company from other competitors in the growing obesity medication market.
SK Hynix logo displayed on a phone screen as seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on January 30, 2023.

This will be SK Hynix's first manufacturing plant in the cluster, with construction slated to begin in March next year and to complete the project in May 2027.

The fabrication plant  or fab  will be built in South Korea's Yongin Semiconductor Cluster just south of the country's capital of Seoul, where the government is looking to build a massive complex of chip operations.

Memory chip giant SK Hynix on Friday said it plans to invest 9.4 trillion Korean won ($6.8 billion) to build a new semiconductor manufacturing plant in an emerging chip hub in South Korea.

South Korea's SK Hynix is one of the world's top three makers of memory chips, which go into everything from laptops to servers. More recently, the company has had success with its high-bandwidth memory, which it supplies to Nvidia.

Earlier this year, SK Hynix committed 120 trillion won to build 4 fabs in the Yongin cluster. The remaining three will be set up at a later date.

The aggressive investment underscores both SK Hynix and the South Korean government's push to maintain the country's lead in the area of memory, which is important to artificial intelligence applications. Seoul has committed billions of dollars in support of its forays in semiconductors  a technology that has increasingly been seen as strategic to governments.

South Korea is also home to Samsung, the world's biggest memory chip maker.

SK Hynix has been riding the AI wave and its partnership with Nvidia, this week reporting that second-quarter profit came in at its highest level in six years.
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading: 3M  The stock skyrocketed 23% to hit a 52-week high after the maker of office supplies and adhesives reported stronger-than-expected quarterly results. 3M posted second-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.93 per share, exceeding an LSEG estimate of $1.68 per share. Its revenue also came in above expectations. Dexcom  Shares plummeted 40.7% after the medical device maker missed expectations for second-quarter revenue and offered weak full-year guidance for the measure. Dexcom said it earned $1 billion in revenue during the three-month period, under the consensus forecast of $1.04 billion from analysts polled by LSEG. Coursera  The online course provider soared 44.7% after reporting $170 million in second-quarter revenue, above the consensus estimate of $164 million from analysts surveyed by LSEG. On the other hand, the company said it lost 15 cents a share, while analysts anticipated earnings of 1 cent per share. Newell Brands  The Rubbermaid and Yankee Candle parent surged 40.5% after announcing adjusted earnings of 36 cents per share for the second quarter, well above the consensus estimate of 21 cents a share, according to LSEG. However, Newell saw just $2.03 billion in revenue, slightly under the $2.05 billion figure expected by Wall Street. Deckers Outdoor  Shares of the footwear company advanced 6.3% on its better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter earnings report. Deckers, which saw its sales boosted by brands Uggs and Hoka, posted earnings of $4.52 per share on revenue of $825 million. That exceeded analysts' expectations for earnings of $3.48 per share on revenue of $808 million, per LSEG. Boston Beer  The alcoholic beverages producer popped 7.5% after reaffirming its outlook for full-year earnings per share despite a weak second quarter. Boston Beer earned $4.39 per share on $579 million in revenue, while analysts surveyed by LSEG penciled in earnings of $5.02 a share and revenue at $597 million. Mohawk Industries  The flooring company rallied 19.5% on a stronger-than-expected adjusted earnings in the second quarter. Mohawk also said it would be able to generate annualized savings of $100 million through cost-cutting initiatives. Bristol Myers Squibb  The pharmaceutical stock surged almost 11.4% after beating estimates on the top and bottom lines in its second-quarter report. Bristol Myers Squibb posted adjusted earnings of $2.07 per share on $12.20 billion of revenue. Analysts surveyed by LSEG were looking for $1.63 in earnings per share on $11.55 billion of revenue. Revenue rose 9% year over year, fueled in part by the blood clot prevention drug Eliquis. Norfolk Southern  Shares of the railroad operator gained 10.9% after a second-quarter earnings beat. Norfolk Southern's adjusted earnings came in at $3.06 per share, exceeding the $2.86 per share analysts polled by LSEG had predicted. Revenue was in line with expectations. WW International  The Weight Watchers parent tumbled 12.5% following a Morgan Stanley downgrade to equal weight from overweight. Morgan Stanley said medications used for treating obesity are a long-term headwind on the company's main business. Charter Communications  The telecommunications company popped 16.6% after posting $13.69 billion in revenue for the second quarter, above the $13.59 billion analysts polled by FactSet had predicted. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization came in at $5.67 billion, also topping the Street's forecast for $5.48 billion Coinbase  The crypto exchange's stock added 4.9%, following the digital currency's move higher. Bitcoin was last up more than 4%. Southwest Airlines  The air carrier's stock slipped 3% on the back of a Deutsche Bank downgrade to hold from buy after its profit slid in the second quarter. In addition to reporting earnings this week, Southwest also announced major changes to its business, including the elimination of open seating. DoorDash  The food delivery stock advanced 4% after Redburn Atlantic initiated coverage as a buy. The firm gave a price target that indicates upside of approximately 68% from Thursday's closing level. Alexander & Baldwin  Shares of the real estate investment trust surged 6.3%, hitting a new 52-week high, after reporting second-quarter results that beat expectations. Alexander & Baldwin posted revenue of $51 million, above the consensus estimate of $48.3 million, according to analysts polled by FactSet. Piper Sandler upgraded its rating on the stock to overweight from neutral, seeing further upside. First Solar  Shares gained 4.9% after Guggenheim reiterated its buy rating on the provider of solar solutions ahead of its second-quarter results next week. The firm thinks the market has "significantly overreacted" to potential political risks surrounding the upcoming election and sees the company as positioned to benefit from accommodative policy regardless of which party wins the White House. Sweetgreen  Shares rallied 5.2% after Oppenheimer reiterated the salad chain as a top pick. The stock has more than doubled in 2024. FTAI Aviation  The engine materials company popped 6.9% following Stifel's upgrade to buy from hold. Stifel said the stock is worth buying given industry dynamics, even if considered expensive. Texas Roadhouse  The restaurant chain climbed 2% after second-quarter earnings topped expectations. Texas Roadhouse earned $1.79 per share, above the $1.64 per share estimate from analysts surveyed by LSEG. Revenue came in line with expectations at $1.34 billion. Colgate-Palmolive  The consumer packaged goods maker rose 3% on better-than-forecast earnings in the second quarter. Colgate-Palmolive reported adjusted earnings of 91 cents per share on $5.06 billion in revenue, while analysts polled by LSEG anticipated 87 cents a share and revenue of $5.01 billion.  CNBC's Yun Li, Pia Singh, Sean Conlon, Jesse Pound, Hakyung Kim and Lisa Kailai Han contributed reporting.
Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and the son of his former partner, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, were arrested in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and the son of his former partner, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, were arrested in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department said.

"The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world," the department said in a statement.

Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of El Chapo, face multiple charges in the U.S. "for heading the Cartel's criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks," the statement said.

The arrest of Guzman Lopez was first reported by Reuters, ahead of the Justice Department statement.

Two U.S. officials told Reuters that Zambada and Guzman Lopez were detained after landing in a private plane.
We Are | Digitalvision | Getty Images

Federal student loan payments are on pause for millions of borrowers while the Biden administration defends its new relief program in court. Here's what to know.

Who doesn't have to make payments?

The U.S. Department of Education is placing federal student loan borrowers enrolled in the Biden administration's new income-driven repayment plan, known as SAVE, into an administrative forbearance. They will remain in forbearance while the legal battle involving SAVE plays out. What that means: Eligible borrowers in that repayment plan will not have to make any payments on their debt while the break lasts, and interest will not accrue on their loans in the meantime. More from Personal Finance:

How to find out how big your Social Security benefits may be

IRS issues final rules for inherited IRAs

How kids from rich families learn about money The White House says roughly eight million people are enrolled in SAVE, or the Saving on a Valuable Education Plan. Borrowers eligible for the relief should receive notification from their servicer, according to the Education Department.

Why is the SAVE plan under fire?

The SAVE Plan has been a magnet for controversy ever since the Biden administration rolled out the program in the summer of 2023, describing it as "the most affordable student loan plan ever." Indeed, the terms of the new income-driven repayment plan are the most generous to date. SAVE comes with two key provisions that legal challenges have targeted: It has lower monthly payments than any other federal student loan repayment plan, and it leads to quicker debt erasure for those with small balances.

Republican-led states that have sued the Education Department over SAVE argue that the agency overstepped its authority and essentially is trying to find a roundabout way to forgive student debt after the Supreme Court blocked its sweeping plan in June 2023. Before the legal challenges, the Education Department had already forgiven $5.5 billion in student debt for 414,000 borrowers through the SAVE Plan. Those who have already received the relief should be in the clear, experts say.

What is the current status of SAVE?

A federal appeals court in Missouri issued a ruling on July 18 blocking the entire plan. Education Department officials have vowed to fight to protect the plan, but its future is uncertain.

How does the forbearance work?

Unlike during other payment pauses on student loans, months during this forbearance will not count toward borrowers' progress toward loan forgiveness. That means those enrolled in SAVE who are hoping to eventually get their debt cleared under either the income-driven repayment plan's terms or Public Service Loan Forgiveness are not getting credit on their timeline to loan cancellation. The PSLF program allows certain non-for-profit and government employees to get their debt cleared after 10 years of payments. "Borrowers cannot opt out of this forbearance because the SAVE repayment plan is temporarily blocked," said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. Borrowers can explore their other repayment plan options, "but that would lead to a higher monthly loan payment," Kantrowitz said. "By staying in the SAVE plan, the borrower doesn't lose anything other than time," he added.
Cape Town, South Africa (PANA)  Fifteen South African Police Service (SAPS) officers from the Public Order Police (POPs) unit have arrived in Paris to assist in performing security functions during the Olympics Games
Open AI CEO Sam Altman has written an attention-grabbing column in The Washington Post about the risks of artificial intelligence (AI), warning that authoritarian countries such as Russia and China want to control the development of AI systems  something that could eventually threaten humanity.

For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that whoever wins the AI battle will be the ruler of the world, while China has a stated goal of becoming the leader in AI by 2030. To prevent that from happening, the United States and its allies should work together to ensure that AI is used as a tool for freedom and democracy, Altman wrote.

To achieve that goal, substantial investment in security, infrastructure, diplomacy and dialogue will be required, he argued.
Googles AI unit Deepmind has demonstrated two new AI systems, AlphaProof and AlphaGeometry 2, which can successfully solve complex mathematical problems, representing a significant milestone in AI development, Reuters reports .

Todays AI models work by being able to recognize patterns and statistically predict, for example, the next word that should be generated. However, this is not enough to handle abstract mathematics, which instead requires a system that can reason in a way that more closely resembles human intelligence.

AlpaProof and AlphaGeometry 2 succeeded in solving four out of six questions in this years edition of the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO). One question was solved in just a few minutes; others took up to three days to solve, which is longer than the competition allows. AlpaProof also managed to solve the competitions most difficult problem, which only five of 600 human participants managed to do.
As the situation comedy disappears from broadcast television, we might be losing more than simply 23 minutes of laughs surrounded by Progressive commercials. Over the past 50 years, the sitcom has been a surefire cannon from which to launch unknown comic actors onto the A-list.

Here are 7 sitcoms that turned anonymous comedians into the biggest stars in the world

1 Mork & Mindy Robin Williams was a 1970s club comic with a growing reputation as an improvisational genius. A guest turn on Happy Days  producer Garry Marshalls kid was into Star Wars so Marshall ordered writers to invent a funny alien  launched a spin-off series that turned Williams into a star practically overnight. Also up for the Happy Days alien cameo? A young Richard Lewis.

2 Bosom Buddies Want a idiotic premise for a sitcom? How about two guys who decide to pose as women so they can get a permanent room in an affordable women-only hotel. This dumbed-down Some Like It Hot for the 1980s wasnt that popular, but the show did introduce America to its future favorite citizen: Mr. Tom Hanks. Bosom Buddies (Get it? BOSOM?) didnt last long, but when Hanks hit it big with Splash and Bachelor Party, NBC threw it back into rerun rotation. Advertisement Advertisement

3 Family Ties Was America really hungry for a Young Republican hero, or was Michael J. Fox just that charismatic? No one had heard of the guy when he landed the role of Alex P. Keaton, a job he got only because Matthew Broderick wasnt available. Soon he was pulling double shifts, filming Family Ties by day and Back to the Future by night. Advertisement Advertisement

4 Friends Friends turned out to be a starmaker for all six of its unknown leads, but no performer benefitted more than Jennifer Aniston. While other cast members careers faded, Aniston landed leading roles in feature films and continues to score high-profile gigs like The Morning Show. Friends turned out to be a big step up from young Aniston appearing in a bit part alongside Ronald McDonald in Mac and Me. Advertisement Advertisement

5 The Office Play Viewers may have recognized Steve Carell from his correspondent turn on The Daily Show, but he didnt become a household name until The Office. The show, debuting months before The 40-Year-Old Virgin hit theaters, turned Carell into one of the biggest comedy stars of the 2000s. Advertisement Advertisement

6 Community Likely the only place youd seen Donald Glover prior to his turn as Troy Barnes in Community was on YouTube performing with his online funny group Derrick Comedy. The show turned him into a young Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars universe and the inspiration for the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man. While Ken Jeong and Joel McHale judged reality shows, Glover won two Emmy Awards for Atlanta. Advertisement Advertisement
When will we get to see The Day the Earth Blew Up?

Its no secret that Warner Bros. Discovery has treated some of the companys most iconic characters with as much care and respect as Sylvester the Cat gives to Tweety Bird. After shelving a completed Batgirl spin-off and a new Scooby-Doo movie, just so that they could be used as tax write-offs, the corporation made headlines for similarly scrapping the release of the promising, and 100 percent complete, Looney Tunes feature Coyote vs. Acme.

Man, this company would sell off Humphrey Bogarts bones if they thought it would save them a few bucks.

Don't Miss

One silver lining to this depressing turn of events: Warners still had another feature length Looney Tunes project in the pipeline: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, a sci-fi parody in which Daffy Duck and Porky Pig battle mind-controlling aliens.

The Day the Earth Blew Up made its world premiere last month at The Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, where it received rave reviews. IGN called it one of the funniest movies of the year. Variety claimed that the entire project  is crafted with love and a genuine respect for the franchise. And Screen Daily hailed the movie as a high-intensity onslaught of manic hilarity that combines knowing gags which should delight older Looney Tunes fans and a frantic silliness that will likely electrify younger audiences.

So when will we get to see it?

That remains to be seen.

Directed by Peter Browngardt, who helmed the recent batch of streaming Looney Tunes shorts and created the Cartoon Networks Uncle Grandpa, The Day the Earth Blew Up currently has no U.S. release scheduled. It was originally set to be released directly to HBO Max, aka Max, but was one of a number of projects that was shopped around due to corporate restructuring.

Last year it was reported that Warner Bros. Animation had tapped GFM Animation to sell the worldwide distribution rights to The Day the Earth Blew Up, but as a theatrical release, making it the first-ever fully animated Looney Tunes feature-length movie created for a movie theater audience. At the time, Cartoon Brew noted that farming out global theatrical sales of the film to a third-party like GFM was an unusual approach for the company.

Advertisement

While the film has secured a release date in Germany, on August 1st, with several other international markets to follow, the movie is reportedly still looking for U.S. distribution, which is more than a little frustrating considering that this project originated with one of the oldest and most famous film distribution companies in the world.

Advertisement

I guess we should just be happy that The Day the Earth Blew Up hasnt been given the Coyote vs. Acme treatment, which was tantamount to being unceremoniously buried in an unmarked cartoon grave. But if Warner Bros. Discovery cant find a way to release a movie starring some of Americas most enduring and beloved pop-culture characters in America, what is even the point of this company?

Advertisement

You (yes, you) should follow JM on Twitter (if it still exists by the time youre reading this).
Spade will post a selfie with anyone he damn well pleases  even Kid Rock

Friends of David Spade are worried about what it means to be friends with David Spade. On this weeks Fly on the Wall podcast, Spade confessed that people in his sphere have encouraged him to cut ties with his pal and Joe Dirt co-star Kid Rock. People are like, You should never talk to him again, sighed Spade. And I go, Well, you cant start with someone, have a good beginning of a friendship and then (ditch him for) the way he thinks now and talks.

Spades podcast partner-in-crime, Dana Carvey, professed ignorance: Whats the problem?

You know what it is, replied an exasperated Spade.

Don't Miss

Carvey, whos proven himself oblivious to current events several times on Fly on the Wall, denied any such knowledge. Im not aware of it, he protested. Maybe he has a different point-of-view on America.

Kid Rock does have a different point-of-view on lots of things, but that doesnt stop Spade from waxing nostalgic with Joe Dirt stories.

In the movies script, Kid Rocks character Robbie drives an old, beat-up muscle car, but instead, producers provided a Trans Am that had 87 miles on it, Spade said. For some reason, they got us the best, newest Trans Am. Movie cars are a big deal.

Advertisement

But it wouldnt be in pristine condition for long, not with Kid Rock on the scene. The stupid story is that we have this car thats immaculate for some reason instead of just the old Trans Am we wrote in. They brought us a great one, Spade said. And then, of course, (Kid Rock) ripped the fucking seat fabric with his shoe while he was climbing up. And they had a conniption fit. Theyre like, Oh, you damaged this perfect car! That was a big story that day.

The desecrated Trans Am upholstery represents the kind of bonding experience that cements showbiz friendships. Kid Rock did a great job. Hes fun, Spade insisted. Every time I go to Nashville, I see him. I see him sometimes in L.A.

Advertisement

If you have to see him, people tell Spade, dont post a picture with him! Its as if they expect that Kid Rock-ness can rub off on a comics reputation. I go, Just relax, Spade explained. Ill get a picture with whoever.

Comedian Dusty Slay, this weeks podcast guest and a Joe Dirt superfan, agreed that Kid Rock is a superior hang. I did the Kid Rock Comedy Jam, he said. I had a hot set. It was great.

If nothing else, Spade said, Kid Rock likes to have fun.

If I were still drinking, it would be a blast, agreed Slade. I mean, I wouldve never made it to where Im at in comedy if I had kept drinking. But if I were still drinking, Id be all about a Kid Rock party.
Jordan Peele has proven himself to be the master of two genres. Theres comedy, as evidenced by his hilarious sketches on Key & Peele. Then theres horror, with his Oscar-winning work on movies such as Get Out.

So I guess its a natural that Peele and his Monkeypaw Productions are producing a reboot of Scare Tactics, a hidden-camera horror comedy show that ran for five anonymous (at least to me) seasons on SyFy. The show was first hosted by the late Shannen Doherty, then Stephen Baldwin and then Tracy Morgan, or three members of what would be the weirdest dinner party of all time.

The reboots premise, which picks up where the original left off, turns unsuspecting individuals into the main characters of their very own horror movies. Set up by their friends and family, these unwitting participants are put in twisted scenarios with fully immersive stories that blur the lines of reality, horror and comedy as they navigate one unreal decision after another.

Don't Miss

Am I the only one who thinks terrifying people for fun sounds like a terrible idea? Prank shows in general are pretty cruel, tricking unsuspecting people by putting them in ridiculous situations. The results are usually embarrassing, confusing or infuriating, but at least theyre (probably) not going to require years of therapy in the aftermath.

But what happens when you put a skilled horror master like Peele in charge of the psychologically twisted scenarios? As one of the most visionary creators of the day, there is nothing Jordan Peele cant do, says an NBCUniversal executive with a longwinded title. And thats the problem  based on his film work, I believe Peele is capable of real damage!

Its one thing to pay money to see a Peele horror movie when you know exactly what youre getting into. But being inserted into a Peele horror movie without your knowledge or your consent? Jump scare is the best-case scenario. The shows producers seem to get the inherent dangers in its concept, soft-peddling the possible consequences. All the italics in this press release quote are mine: Its cathartic and hilarious to watch people get a little scared, and the scenarios we cooked up for this season are really wild. We cant wait to share a little light-hearted schadenfreude with audiences soon.

Advertisement

A little scared. Light-hearted schadenfreude. Sure, sure, its all a romp in the park while being chased by a serial killer. As long as youre not the one set up by friends and family to be plunged into a living nightmare, its knee-slapping hilarity.

Advertisement

Okay, deep breath here. Peele likely will have little to do with Scare Tactics beyond a producer credit and a paycheck. But still, why would a guy with his pedigree be the creative force behind a rebooted reality show on the USA Network (a cable channel I wasnt aware still existed)? So lets hope that Im right, and that Peele will be pretty tangential to a show airing between Race to Survive: New Zealand and Mud, Sweat & Beards.

Advertisement

Either way, Ill wait for Peeles untitled fourth film instead. If Im going to get scared out of my pants, I want to know about it ahead of time.
At the risk of making myself the most hated man in this animal-loving kingdom, I cant help feeling a sharp twinge of sympathy for Charlotte Dujardin.

It seems to me that the multiple world and Olympic dressage champion has been punished with disproportionate severity for a sin she committed several years ago, of which as she herself admits she is deeply ashamed.

This was when she was caught on video whipping a horse 24 times during training, treating it like a circus elephant, according to the Dutch lawyer who represents her anonymous accuser.

It seems to me that the Olympic dressage champion has been punished with disproportionate severity

She admits she is deeply ashamed of having whipped a horse 24 times during training

Not only has she pulled out of the Paris Olympics, where she was set to become Britains most-decorated female Olympian of all time, but her Damehood  which would have been all but guaranteed had she won another medal  has now been taken off the table.

On top of that, she has been handed a six-month provisional ban, three of her sponsors have dumped her, UK Sport has suspended her Lottery funding and Brooke, the horse welfare charity, has sacked her as its ambassador.

There is even talk that the CBE she won in the 2017 could be confiscated.

Thus, at a stroke, this 39-year-old new mother, who has always come across to me as immensely likeable and down-to-earth  and, yes, completely devoted to horses  has lost her reputation, her livelihood and everything she has given her life to since she was three, when she won second place at her first Pony Club showjumping competition.

Heaven knows, I dont condone inflicting pain on animals. But I simply cant shake off the feeling that Dujardin has been offered up as a scapegoat to protect a sport in which I suspect she has been among the least serious of offenders.

Indeed, her plight reminds me a little of the recent ITV drama Douglas Is Cancelled, in which (spoiler alert) the eponymous character, played by Hugh Bonneville, is a much-loved and well-meaning man who is utterly destroyed for cracking a sexist joke at a wedding, having provoked the vengeance of a young female colleague by failing to intervene when a sleazy colleague attempted to seduce her.

Since all TV drama has to carry a woke message these days, the writers intention was clearly to make us side with his ambitious and vengeful young tormentor.

I dont know about you, but as a man who has himself cracked the odd sexist joke in his time (although Im a great deal more careful nowadays), all my sympathies lay with the unfortunate Douglas, as they do with Dujardin today.

As a result of the clip, Dujardin has pulled out of the Paris Olympics and her Damehood has been shelved. She is pictured at the Tokyo Games in 2020

Before I go any further, I must admit that, like most townies in this age of the motor car, I know disgracefully little about horses. Indeed, in the course of my 70 years, Ive ridden one for a grand total of no more than 20 minutes.

That was on a family holiday in Ireland, when I was about 12. After I dismounted, my backside was so sore that I could barely walk for days afterwards. I decided there and then that riding was not for me  and apart from a very occasional flutter at the races, Ive had nothing to do with horses since.

I should also say that, like so many of my fellow countrymen and women, I have an absolute horror of cruelty to animals  and though I greedily tuck into meat six out of seven days a week (Mrs U is an observant Catholic, who insists we eat fish on Fridays), the sight of a dumb creature in pain fills me with anger and grief.

Indeed, Ill never forget a visit to the Chepstow races many years ago, when the horse that was leading the field fell at the last, breaking its leg, allowing the one I was backing through to win.

When a shot rang out from behind a hastily erected screen, I had to turn my face away from my companions to hide my tears. I would gladly have sacrificed my winnings a thousand times over for a happier outcome.

As for dressage, its one of the few Olympic events I actually look forward to watching: the beauty of those immaculately groomed animals, the breathtaking elegance of the riders in their smart attire and the sheer, astonishing feat of horsemanship required to get those noble beasts to perform their intricate steps in time with the music.

When its done brilliantly, as Dujardin has so often done it, it strikes me as the ultimate display of man and beast in perfect harmony.

In the past, Ive often wondered how such perfection could possibly be achieved. How do you get an animal as mighty as a horse to lift its legs in a high-stepping trot, or to cross them and move sideways, like Fred Astaire in Easter Parade?

Well, I suppose that those of us who have seen that awful video this week now have an inkling of the answer. When I first saw it, I winced at what looked like wanton cruelty. But the more Ive replayed it since, the less Im sure.

Yes, Im still convinced that Dujardin crossed the ill-defined line between using a whip for guidance and encouragement, as horse trainers have always done, and inflicting an unacceptable degree of suffering.

But though the sharp crack of the whip is downright chilling, the horse in the video doesnt seem to be in great distress  at least, not to my untrained eye. Nor does Dujardin herself appear to have lost control of her temper, as I suspected she might have done when I first heard her confession.

Indeed, if my suspicion is correct  and I know that those who follow dressage more closely will put me right if I am wrong  other competitors at the Olympics will have used the whip in training, in ways pretty similar to Dujardins.

If my suspicion is correct, other competitors at the Olympics will have used the whip in training, in ways pretty similar to Dujardins

Why else would dressages governing body have received a letter just two months ago, warning: Our sport is in serious danger. The current scandals [note the plural] and the bad reputation threaten its existence and could mean the end of dressage and para-dressage as Olympic disciplines.

What is certain is that Dujardin showed none of the savagery that emerged in the case of Andreas Helgstrand, a Danish billionaire who was banned from his national dressage team in November after footage showed, among other horrors, horses at one of his riding schools bleeding from their mouths and flanks in training.

Meanwhile, isnt there an unpleasant smell about the timing of this weeks video? If that unnamed whistleblower is to be believed, she was concerned only for the welfare of horses and the good name of dressage. Why, then, did she wait years until the very eve of the Paris Olympics before releasing it?

Why, too, did she hire a Dutch lawyer to represent her (a man who has himself been pictured with a whip in his hand, when he was involved in training mules  though he swears he always found it enough to show it to the creatures and never used it)?

Of course, I fully accept the word of the Netherlands team that they had nothing to do with the video, having seen it for the first time after it was released. But is the complainant Dutch herself, from a nation that rivals Britain in the sport? I find it all very fishy.

Nor do I like the way some of Dujardins former admirers in the sport, including her greatest mentor Carl Hester, have rushed to condemn her.

I cant stress too often that I abhor cruelty to animals. But Im none too keen, either, on seeing a consummate horsewoman offered up as a sacrificial lamb to animal rights fanatics who seek to ban her sublime sport altogether.
How very convenient of Prince Harry to blame the rift with his family on his one-sided, obsessive, eternal battle with the tabloid and popular Press.

He made the claim on last night's documentary Tabloids On Trial (ITV), telling sympathetic Health Correspondent Rebecca Barry it was his 'mission' against newspapers that destroyed the relationship with his family. Was it really?

'Yeah, that's certainly a central piece to it,' he said, nodding from deep within the ruff of hair that now encircles his entire face, like a giant, ginger dandelion. 'But, you know, that's a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the Press.'

Prince Harry during last night's Tabloids On Trial documentary with Rebecca Barry

Harry said it was his 'mission' against newspapers that destroyed the relationship with his family

Torrent of abuse? Tsk. Clearly, three years in California have done little to halt the growth of Harry's giant beanstalk of a martyr complex. He's one of those pampered sensitivos whose elite status makes him believe that any mild disagreement with his views is a vicious personal attack.

So, listen Harry. I'm not an abuser, torrential or otherwise. I'm just a lowly Scottish serf offering a cheep of dissent, someone who is dumbfounded by your most sanctimonious claim to date. Which seems to be that you fell out with the Windsors because of your  checks notes  war on newspapers? Have I got that right?

'It would be nice,' he added, 'if we could do it as a family.'

It would be nice! Do it as a family! Why am I shouting? Just at the utter audacity of it all. Prince Harry has been so rude about his family for so long, painting them as ribbon-cutting dolts while he and only he, armed with his A-level in art and his grim wife, is guided by a higher moral purpose.

And this new pet theory of his neatly absolves the Prince of any responsibility for deserting not only his royal duty, but his duty as a brother and a son. It excuses him for the cruel things he wrote in his autobiography Spare about his family, including his stepmother ('dangerous'), his sister-in-law (imperious demands, wife who fitted the royal mould, utter witch who made darling Megs cry) and damning passages depicting his father as a damaged, dithering adult who loves his teddy bear and fears emotional intimacy. It ignores the fact that it was Prince William whose Chief of Staff first went to the police with his suspicions of illegal phone hacking.

Let's not forget it also exempts Harry from any accountability over that nasty business of globally smearing the entire Royal Family as racists fretting over the colour of baby Archie's skin. Then vowing never to reveal the true identities of the two individuals allegedly involved before it somehow became public  whoopsadaisy, thanks Omid  that it was CH*RL*S and K*TE all along.

Harry (with Meghan at his side) has broken the blood bond by repeatedly invading the Royals' collective and individual privacy on television, in documentary projects, in print, on film, via Oprah, Anderson Cooper, Netflix, Apple, and Tom Bradby  perhaps even on a podcast near you right now.

Indeed, I've never understood why the Duke and Duchess of Sussex continue to ostracise poor old Thomas Markle for his silly but minor transgression with newspapers, when what they've done together is a thousand times worse  on an industrial scale.

For the truth is that Prince Harry and the Royal Family fell out about a lot of things a long time ago. And to blame the rift on his Press crusade is not just disingenuous, it also provides him with the perfect excuse and a freshly minted get-out-of-jail-free card.

I suspect it's not what King Charles or Prince William would say, it's not what the Princess of Wales would say, it's not what all the scolded courtiers and former palace staff members would say about what really caused the royal rift. However, it is what Prince Harry says and in Harry's world, what Harry says goes  because who is going to argue with him?

Up there in his gilded Californian mansion, with his polo pals and his grandiose Archewell website  a total iron dome of dumb  he lives in a confected orbit of celebrity by proxy; he is a fish out of water, a prince in a republic, a rebel on pause. Today, the Sussexes exist as an abstract construct built on stunts and showbiz buzz, measuring out their existence by embarking on crusades and accepting embarrassing awards such as the Ripple of Hope or the Living Legend of Aviation.

Against the wishes of the late soldier's mother, who along with ex-military chiefs, urged him to turn it down, Prince Harry accepted the Pat Tillman Award for Service at a recent star-studded event in Los Angeles. It was the action of a man so desperate to be seen in a heroic light that he'd risk ridicule and controversy just to add another medal to his trophy cupboard.

Prince Harry's life now is propped up by such awards, along with honorary accolades and his assorted pet projects. Some of them, like the Invictus Games, are indeed noble. Yet blaming his grievances against the Press as the reason for his ongoing isolation from the rest of his family is fooling absolutely no one. Except himself.

A tourist desperate for a photo with the King's Guard fainted after being bitten on the arm by an unsettled horse. She should have won an Oscar for Best Delayed Reaction in a Post Equine Trauma Incident. It was a sensational performance.

The confrontation took place outside the Household Cavalry Museum in London, despite the warning signs advising onlookers not to approach. Perhaps, as a tourist, the young woman could not read English? Or perhaps she knew best and could not be told anyway, which seems more likely.

It seems obvious that these are working horses and soldiers. Both are on duty. They are part of the rich military pageantry of our capital, but they are not part of Disneyland or to be used for a photo opportunity. I'm sorry she was hurt, but let's hope others learn from her mistake and show more respect. Some don't know how to behave around dumb animals  but the horses usually have the right instincts.

Jailed eco-fanatics don't deserve our sympathy

The mother of a Just Stop Oil activist jailed for scaling the M25 gantry in 2022 has complained that her daughter 'will not be present at her brother's wedding' next year. Pass me a handkerchief, please. I need something to mop these tears of mirth.

What about all the thousands of people whose lives were disrupted; who didn't make it to sit their exams, keep business meetings or hospital appointments? Those who missed flights or holding the hand of a dying relative?

Cressida Gethin was given a four-year sentence for scaling the M25 gantry in 2022

Just Stop Oil didn't stop to think about them. And now in their time of crisis we are supposed to show sympathy for them? Speaking outside court after her 22-year-old Cambridge-educated daughter Cressida (of course) was given a four-year sentence, Cathy Gethin said she was proud of 'what Cressida stands for' but that 'our politicians, our media and our judiciary and yes our energy companies should be shocked and deeply embarrassed at how the court has dispensed its version of justice today'.

I'm only shocked by how lenient the courts have been in the past  and applaud them for getting it right at last. For if you are going to hold others to ransom because of your beliefs, then you must be prepared to accept the consequences of your criminal actions.

This was a huge protest, aimed at causing maximum disruption. It cost an estimated 765,000, caused 50,000 hours of vehicle delays affecting more than 700,000 vehicles, left the M25 'compromised' for more than 120 hours and cost the Metropolitan Police more than 1.1 million.

The country cannot be expected to change its laws relating to public order just to make sure darling Cressy doesn't go to prison and her mummy doesn't get upset as the seating plan for her son's wedding has been ruined. These people only care about themselves. They think they are morally superior.

I have scant sympathy for either of them. And even less for idiots like Chris Packham and Coldplay's Chris Martin, demanding to see the Attorney General and protesting at the sentences of all five activists, including JSO's chief Roger Hallam, who got five years.

Fanatic eco-activists who appoint themselves as the judges of what should be done about climate change and then do their worst with a wilful disregard for democracy, the law, and the rights of their fellow citizens should expect no clemency. From any of us.

Trumps veep knows how to lose Friends...

Friends star Jennifer Aniston clashed with Donald Trump's running mate JD Vance

Donald Trumps running mate JD Vance has managed to turn Hollywood against him in Week One: Quite an achievement, even for a Republican.

Friends star Jennifer Aniston (pictured) who generally stays out of politics, was appalled by his comments about childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives.

She replied by hoping that Vances own daughter was fortunate enough to bear children of her own and would not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.

Aniston has not been blessed with children of her own. Vance has not been blessed with brains or tact. Good job, as Melania would say.
Here at Westminster, where flag-waving children line the boulevards to celebrate socialism's triumph and civil servants dance at maypoles to the bark of Garrison Sergeant Major Sue Gray, English has been replaced as the official language. Its successor: Mandarin-Esperanto.

It is an elusive tongue. At first you think you understand but soon you realise it might as well be Swahili, or a Cecil Sharp recording of Silbo Gomero shepherds whistling across Canary Isle ravines. Questions to the Cabinet Office brought Pat McFadden to the despatch box. Mr McFadden, grindingly mirthless, bald as a walnut, is the Andrei Gromyko of the British Left.

Aged 58, he could be almost twice that. Audiences soon look older, slumped in their seats, mouths agape, dribbling.

A couple of new MPs asked about official usage of technology. Mr McFadden talked of 'the government digital service's incubator for artificial intelligence'. The MPs blinked a bit. They had no more idea than the rest of us what an incubator for intelligence might be.

Georgia Gould, under-minister, was asked to stop the public being ripped off in state contracts. She replied that 'public procurement is a key lever for enabling the delivery of missions. The digital centre of government will ensure procurement drives uptake of new digital technologies.' At which she beamed and returned to her place alongside Comrade Gromyko.

Under-minister Georgia Gould (pictured) was asked to stop the public being ripped off in state contracts. She replied that 'public procurement is a key lever for enabling the delivery of missions'

Sir Keir Starmer (left) laughs with Georgia Gould (right) whose late father was Tony Blair's pollster

Joe Powell (Lab, Kensington & Bayswater): 'I thank the minister for her answer.' Ha! If he's not careful, young Powell  who could be Chris Grayling's less suave twin  will be up before the Whips for impertinence.

Miss Gould said her 'key lever' could 'make huge strides in delivering social value'. My Mandarin-Esperanto phrasebook suggests this meant 'we'll only give contracts to firms that bend to our politically-correct demands  never mind the cost'.

Mandarin-Esperanto, like Homeric verse, is threaded by figurative epithets. You may talk of being 'determined to learn lessons' even though no such determination exists. You 'set out commitments to drive down fraud and drive up standards'  prepositions are dotted like raisins in a spotted dick. You 'deliver' abstracts such as 'social value', 'change' and 'standards'.

All these were coughed up by Miss Gould, 38, who became an MP three weeks ago and, like a few other favourites, has been catapulted straight into a ministerial job, to the fury of more experienced parliamentarians. Her late father was Tony Blair's pollster and her mum is a bigshot publisher and Labour peer.

Orderlies removed linguistic debris from the field of play, an umpire said 'new balls please' and Abena Oppong-Asare stepped to the despatch box. Ms Oppong-Asare is another Cabinet Office minister. Corker. She didn't seem to have put her teeth in quite right and several words came out mangled.

Like McFadden and Gould she read the replies prepared for her by her civil servants. Then, disaster. She dropped her file! She snatched the nearest piece of paper and read something that did not appear remotely linked to the question.

Not that many noticed. The chap from Harlow couldn't read the question he (or someone else) had typed on a piece of trembling paper. The MP for Stourbridge, covered in tattoos, wittered on so long, even kindly Speaker Hoyle snapped at her. She nearly burst into tears. The other night a chap called Baggy Shanker (Lab, Derby S) addressed the deputy speaker as 'Madam Deputy Mayor'.

Joe Powell (pictured) - MP for Kensington and Bayswater - thanked Ms Gould for her answer

Pat McFadden (left), Abena Oppong-Asare (centre) and Rachel Reeves (right) attend the Labour Party Conderence in Liverpool in 2022

As for Cabinet Office ministers, they are supposed to control the civil service. Really it works the other way round. The one minister to extemporise yesterday was Nick Thomas-Symonds, informative and capable. Sue Gray won't like that.

His other colleague, Ellie Reeves, said 'er' a lot. But her husband and late father-in-law were Labour MPs and her sister is the Chancellor. It fell to Rupa Huq (Lab, Ealing C) to demand that the Starmer government get rid of 'cronyism and nepotism'.

Rupa, for whom I actually have a soft spot, is a daft old brush and probably did not realise how disloyal her question was.
Sir Keir Starmer's big idea for government has been to promise a green revolution.

This, he insists, will decarbonise the electricity grid by 2030, cut household bills, boost the economy with many thousands of eco-jobs and protect our energy security.

And yesterday, the Prime Minister and his eco-fanatic Energy Secretary Ed Miliband unveiled how they hope to make this a reality: A giant, publicly owned quango called Great British Energy.

Yet the more you interrogate exactly how the Government's goals will be achieved, the more fanciful they become.

Their claims would make a self-respecting snake-oil salesman blush with embarrassment.

Seeing green: Sir Keir Starmer 's big idea for government has been to promise an eco revolution

Eco-fanatic Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and the Prime Minister unveiled how they hope to make their idea a reality: A giant, publicly owned quango called Great British Energy

It is extraordinary that self-professed socialist politicians believe they can swoop in and run a highly specialised energy business better than the professionals.

GB Energy's raison d'etre is to build more wind and solar farms by encouraging and subsidising new investment.

But there are two insurmountable problems. First, expecting our power-hungry nation to be reliant on renewables for all our electricity within six years is simply unfeasible.

And the quango's 8.3 billion budget over five years is a drop in the ocean compared to the colossal sums needed to achieve Net Zero.

This is green dream turned delusion.

Within hours, Labour's pledges were fraying. Mr Miliband was forced to confess that GB Energy might not cut family fuel bills by the promised 300.

He also admitted Britain would need fossil fuels for years to come.

So why is he ending new North Sea oil and gas production before renewables are ready to take over (if they ever do)?

By pursuing Net Zero with religious zeal, Labour will raise costs for households and business, make home heating a luxury and leave the UK vulnerable to costly imports from volatile countries, if not blackouts.

The Mail fiercely believes in the duty to safeguard the planet for our children. We are proud Britain leads the way in tackling the potential threat of climate change.

GB Energy's raison d'etre is to build more wind and solar farms by encouraging and subsidising new investment - but having the nation reliant on renewable energy in six years is unlikely

But this headlong dash to clean power is nothing short of a disaster in the making.

Sir Keir has promised to lead a government 'unburdened by doctrine'. With this exhibition of eco-zealotry and virtue-signalling, how hollow that now rings.

Mob rule can't win

The video footage of an armed policeman kicking and stamping on a suspect's head while making an arrest at Manchester Airport is deeply shocking.

We demand the highest standards from officers and expect them to show restraint even under enormous provocation.

The video footage of an armed policeman kicking and stamping on a suspect's head while making an arrest at Manchester Airport is deeply shocking

The officer, who struck the Asian man as he lay on the ground, has rightly been suspended while the police watchdog investigates.

Yet it is important not to rush to judgment. The images, disturbing as they are, represent only one side of the story.

Three of the PC's colleagues had just been attacked and hospitalised by a group of violent thugs.

Some will argue that given the risk of terrorism, airport police are trained to be aggressive. Others will say this is fresh evidence of police brutality and racism.

Whatever the truth, it does not justify the ugly sectarian protests outside Rochdale police station, with some of the crowd seemingly chanting 'Allahu Akbar'.

Such troubling mob behaviour has, however, been on the rise recently.

Only last week anarchy was unleashed in Leeds after Romanian children were taken into care.

The aim is to force the authorities to cave in to their demands. This can't happen.

No group is above the law  and that includes the police.
Whatever happened at Manchester Airport on Wednesday, none of which is clear, the ease with which mobs increasingly take to the streets demanding justice - with the implied threat of public disorder - is deeply concerning.

Yesterday, protesters marched through Manchester holding aloft placards threatening: No justice, no peace. Some wore Palestinian keffiyehs, others called for the police to be defunded, while many brandished Black Lives Matter signs.

Meanwhile, outside Rochdale Police Station, masked youths pelted its glass facade with eggs and blocked an entrance with a roadworks barrier and traffic cones.

The flames of public outrage have hardly been dampened by Akhmed Yakoob, the Lamborghini-driving lawyer and friend of George Galloway  seen as an ultra-Leftist firebrand  who is representing the family of the young man at the centre of the Manchester Airport incident, 19-year-old Fahir Khan.

This morning, Yakoob made the preposterous claim that the incident was a joint enterprise assassination of the young boys by the police officers.

A masked protester throws eggs at the police headquarters building in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, yesterday

A crowd of demonstrators gathers outside the police station after an officer appeared to kick a man in the head

Video footage shows a police officer appearing to kick a man on the floor at Manchester Airport on Wednesday. The officer has been suspended

The solicitor said yesterday that his client has a cyst on the brain, though this could have existed before the incident.

Whatever the truth, in Britain its the job of the police and the courts to ensure justice is done. When crowds display naked contempt for the rule of law - however justified they believe their case to be - anarchy is the result.

Feelings are undoubtedly running high after a 43-second video of a police officer appearing to stamp on a mans head was circulated on social media on Thursday.

The incident is shocking, and the alleged behaviour of the officer, who has since been suspended, appears to be excessive and wrong - assuming the suspect was already fully compliant and posed no further threat.

Fahir Khan was prone but not restrained. We dont know what his behaviour had been previously, or whether he was likely to get up and potentially commit a serious offence. Amid the chaos, its impossible to get a clear picture.

So, although the footage looks terrible, it is important to reserve our full condemnation until all the facts are revealed.

Selected footage like this, uploaded in isolation to social media, can be deeply misleading, incendiary and dangerous.

Crowds of protesters with placards gather in the streets of Manchester yesterday after the video footage emerged

Lawyer Akhmed Yakoob posing next to a gleaming Lamborghini as he wears shades and a sharp suit

Bodycam footage and witness statements covering the whole incident could offer a very different version of events from the video.

We must also remember that, with three of his colleagues already injured - one of them a female officer whose nose had been broken - the officer was in a volatile situation.

Police are human beings and, however good their training, will sometimes act on instinct. They are of course held accountable for their actions. The suspended officer will now face an independent investigation, which will rule on whether his use of force was proportionate.

In the course of my 31 years in the police, I have made many arrests that might have looked unnervingly aggressive, if seen out of context. I have detained people brandishing knives and come within a hairs breadth of being killed on two occasions  including once being stabbed in the chest by a burglar.

Believe me, in those situations, youre not worrying about how your actions look to bystanders. Youre too intent on protecting those bystanders, colleagues and yourself, from harm.

What most people reacting to the video havent understood is that in this era of terrorist attacks, police at Britains airports are forced into split-second decisions where not only their own lives may be at risk but, potentially, the lives of hundreds of staff and members of the public.

All armed officers have two paramount objectives: control and containment. That means a tougher, more proactive style of policing than that of a normal bobby on the beat - and one that can look very heavy-handed to outsiders.

They must prevent any disorder before it starts. By shouting and swearing, an officer uses intimidation to impose compliance and control. Yes, it can be ugly - but its effective and often necessary.

And if violence does erupt, they are trained to quell it as rapidly as possible, using their knees and boots on a suspect if required - especially given that the officers hands are often holding a weapon.

Indeed, a weapon can be a dangerous disadvantage in these situations. Firearms officers are aware that, if a violent suspect wrestles a weapon away from them, the result could be carnage.

So, whatever provoked the initial incident at Manchester Airport, the police had to be prepared for the very worst.

Only a decade or two ago, I would not have had to explain this. Most British people respected the police and supported in their role keeping our streets safe.

But after a string of high-profile cases - not least that of murderer PC Wayne Couzens - public trust in the force has plummeted. Armed with smartphones, members of the public prefer to video their interactions with an officer rather than submit to his or her orders, resulting in conflicts that can quickly escalate.

The demonstrations held yesterday are entirely symptomatic of this. But before people rush to the streets in angry indignation, let them remember that three officers were injured in this incident, suggesting an altercation more complicated than that shown in a 43-second film.

Norman Brennan is the founder of the police campaign group Protect The Protectors.
Emma Willis reaches out to rub the back of her husband Matts neck and says, I loved working together, but you found it a bit weird.

I was really nervous, he admits, frowning behind sunglasses. This is Emmas thing, shes very good at it. I didnt want to let her down.

Matt plays bass in pop band Busted while Emma is known for hosting Big Brother and The Voice. She has this ability to walk into a room and put people at ease even though they havent been on telly before, Matt says. Everyone is like, Oh cool, were in safe hands.

Emma has seen her man through some tough struggles with alcohol and drug addiction, but now theyre settled and happy with three kids, and this visibly loved-up pair have been chosen to front Love Is Blind UK, a new British version of the American dating series thats one of Netflixs biggest hits ever.

The closer we get to broadcast the more nervous I get, because its a very loved show and you dont want to be the one to drop the ball, says Emma, 48. There have already been successful remakes in Brazil, Japan and Sweden. Weve got to live up to all the expectation. But weve just watched the whole series in a day, so we know it does.

Matt and Emma Willis (pictured) are hosting the UK version of Love Is Blind, which will be available on Netflix from August 7. While Emma has hosted shows including Big Brother and The Voice, this will be Matt's first time presenting

Love Is Blind places single young men and women in pods separated by frosted glass, and they date from there, so all they have to go on is the way the other person sounds and what they say.

They choose potential partners and go deep quickly, telling their life stories, sharing laughter and sorrow. Those who like each other get engaged before meeting face to face. They then retreat to a luxury resort, followed by some time living together and meeting the others friends and family.

After just one month, theres a legally binding wedding day, when the bride and groom have the chance to say I do. Or, indeed, I dont.

We thought, Thats a crazy concept! says Emma. Then we watched episode after episode and said, When can we meet?

Its easy to see why Netflix bosses warmed to these two, with their obvious chemistry. They sit close together, and Emma seems protective of her man. Hes too hard on himself, she says of his nerves on their first day on set. He was really professional and prepared. He approached it like an actor, because thats one of the things he does.

The 41-year-old with a cheeky air has appeared in EastEnders and the revived Birds Of A Feather, as well as winning Im A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! back in 2006.

Matt learned the script from top to bottom, Emma adds. I was like, Oh no, Im going to look like a real amateur because I havent learned anything! But I absorb the script as we go along and make tweaks so things are as I would say them.

So why do we need a new version of Love Is Blind? The American one is loved across the world and ours is the same, just very British, says Emma. Its the sense of humour. Theyre very self-deprecating and theres a slight awkwardness about it all, which is endearing.

For example, a contestant called Freddie is shy of telling someone he fancies that he works as a funeral director, so tries to smooth things with a little joke: Calm down, Im not gonna embalm ya! Luckily, his date laughs.

Things move fast for some couples, but theres an endearing hesitation to say too much too soon. Its very hard to tell someone you love them after two weeks when youve never met them face to face, says Emma. You know they want to, and youre willing them on, but theres this British reserve going, I do feel it but should I say it?

Emma and Matt, who was in noughties band Busted, have been together for 20 years and married for 16. Their relationship has survived Matt's alcohol and drug addictions and produced three children

Its nice to watch British men being vulnerable, says Matt, who opened up about his struggles with substance abuse in BBC documentary Fighting Addiction last year. I think thats a beautiful thing to see.

The women say its liberating to be assessed on what they say rather than how they look. Emma agrees. Ive been judged on my looks since I was 17 because of the jobs Ive done. I was a model first, then I worked for television [starting with MTV] and a lot of the things you get complimented for  or criticised about  are to do with the way you look.

'Its always bugged me. People might say, Oh my God, you looked great! And Im thinking, But did I do a good job? Thats all that matters at the end of the day, so I love that this show is not about looks.

Would Matt and Emma have been attracted to each other if theyd met behind screens? No, I would feel so pressured to say the right thing that I would say something stupid and regret it massively, Matt says.

Emmas having none of it. Matt is the most charismatic person Ive ever met. I have no doubt that would come across, even through a screen.

They first met when Busted were on a show Emma was presenting, but nothing happened until she saw him on Ant & Decs Saturday Night Takeaway in 2004, remembered their rapport and called a friend who knew a friend of his. So I got passed her number but I waited a couple of days, reveals Matt.

What? He didnt call her straight away? Everyone said, Dont be too keen. Terrible advice! I made a bad move but then I called her and I wasnt holding back.

I didnt have major expectations, Emma says. I just thought maybe we could hang out and have fun. Twenty years later

The day we chat is their 16th wedding anniversary, and to mark the occasion Matt has just had a tattoo of Emma on his calf. Shes not super-keen, he admits, rolling up his jeans to show me. Its a biggie. Still a bit scabby, I need to put moisturiser on it.

Emma frowns. Its such an old picture of me.

Busted pictured in July 2003. Matt (left) played bass alongside bandmates Charlie Simpson (centre) and James Bourne (right)

Contestants on Love Is Blind have to decide quickly whether to get serious, so when did that happen for them? It was a funny time, Emma says. He was in a band and I was in a job Id not expected and didnt know how to navigate, but I realised I couldnt keep away from him.

Matt smiles at her. Thats so nice to hear. God, I put her through it. I put her through the wringer for a number of years.

Matt was just 19 when Busted hit the big time, and when he met Emma he was in his early 20s, drinking heavily and using drugs. We started dating and the band broke up and I thought, What am I doing? Where am I going? Who am I? All those kind of questions, but she was there with me, he says.

The big crisis came a month before their wedding in 2008. Absolutely there was a pressure point, says Matt. I was a mess.

Something changes for an addict when you realise you want sobriety and you just cant get it. Now every time you drink or use youre not doing it unconsciously, its because you cant stop. Theres a self-hatred that comes with that. I was in a really dark place. I knew we were getting married His voice cracks. Sorry.

Emma grabs his hand and he recovers. I was scared the wedding wasnt going to happen, because I couldnt be that man for her. Id always been sent to rehab in the past, but this time I begged for help.

I was scared the wedding wasnt going to happen, because I couldnt be that man for her. I begged for help - Matt

I came out of that rehab centre three days before we got married. I was sober on my wedding day. It was challenging but I was really proud that I was there. She had not said, Im not going to marry you. But I knew that was on the cards.

He had to make a choice, Emma says. I didnt want to leave. When you love someone and know how much theyre struggling  that its not selfishness or greed, its an illness  its really hard to walk away from them. I didnt want to do that, but I also couldnt let it be my life, or the life of any kids we might have. Thank f*** he sorted himself out.

I relapsed a few times, Matt says, but we knew how to get through it. Ive been clean for quite a while now and thats a daily thing for me.

Emma gave birth to Isabelle in 2009, Ace in 2011 and Trixie in 2014. Do they talk to them about it? They have to know, because of the way we live, says Emma. We told the older ones. Trixie is too young. She knows Daddy doesnt drink, but were not a drinking house so its not a big issue.

Once kids are old enough theres a conversation to be had about addiction, says Matt. My son asked me, Why dont you have any any more? I said, I cant. And I never will, a day at a time, for the rest of my life.

What will happen if their kids do drink or take drugs? I want them to live their lives, but if they ever want to talk to me they can, says Matt.

Theyre aware of their genetics, Emma adds. They will make their choices. I would rather know what theyre doing and have them feel like they can chat about it.

How do they feel about being seen as dating experts? Dont ask us, we havent got a clue, laughs Emma. We like people-watching. I love matchmaking. Ive done it for friends, but still not got a wedding out of it.

Emma hosting Celebrity Big Brother in 2015. Matt praises the way his wife can out people at ease even if they haven't been on TV before

Do they have date nights? Yeah, we go out for dinner. If we can blag a night away, well do that. Were lucky because my sister lives with us, says Emma. Home is in Hertfordshire. My parents help, theyre in Birmingham but theyre down all the time.

How about the attention they get from other people? Im very publicly married, says Matt. There are lots of girls at band shows but I never get a number thrown on stage. I put a ring on it. Stay back.

How about Emma? Oh, I couldnt give a f*** about other people, she says forcefully. They both laugh. The testing times have brought them closer together.

Thats the thing, right? says Matt. What makes a relationship is what you do in s*** times. Do you cut and run, or do you support each other?

Despite his early nerves, Matt has come to love working with Emma. I dont want it to end. We get to spend all this time together. Its nice. Less time on a sweaty tour bus with boys.

Im hoping people absolutely love the show, Emma concludes. I cant see how they cant. People love watching love, dont they?
You'd think if someone was caught having an affair they'd make a full confession. You'd think they would know if they wanted to stay or leave.

You'd think they would be able to explain why they were unfaithful. You'd think that if they promised to 'fight' for their marriage that their actions would match their words.

However, for lots of people recovery is not so straightforward and takes far longer than they would have imagined on discovery day. Sometimes the person who has been unfaithful vows to do 'anything' to make it better, but the next day sabotages everything.

Andrew G. Marshall, above, has spent more than 30 years working with couples in crisis, especially through cheating

Sometimes the discoverer of the infidelity is besieged by horrible images or overcome with anxiety - even though they want to move forward. Sometimes the betrayal has been so great - multiple affairs, illicit dating sites, prostitutes or cheating with a friend - that recovery is much harder.

If you can't get over your partner's affair, it is easy to think the pain is too great and you need to split up. However, I've spent more than 30 years working with couples in crisis and have a message of hope.

It's not that there's something fundamentally wrong with your marriage, but you have been so profoundly hurt that you need extra help and to learn special skills to find a way through.

Trust me, I've witnessed how bad a marriage can get. Take the wife who came to me when she discovered at eight months' pregnant that her husband was addicted to internet porn and was having countless one-night stands with women he met online. Or the man who overheard his wife having graphic phone sex.

I've also helped a woman who realised her successful businessman husband was having flings in every country he visited for work. He even missed one son's graduation and another's 21st birthday party to be with his Thai lover.

And these aren't Jeremy Kyle types. These are the kind of couples you'd meet at a dinner party or your child's parents' evening. They seem, to all intents and purposes, just like you and me.

He claims couples who've struggled with cheating have a ray of hope in reconciliation - if they follow his advice

I think we're living in an age when infidelity has never been easier to commit or harder to deal with. I believe this phenomenon, which I will be exploring in this first part of an exclusive new series, has three basic causes.

First, is the role of the internet. There are countless websites and apps that exist solely to facilitate 'easy' sex. While it was previously unusual for someone to be cheating with multiple partners, for example, I'm afraid today it is only too common.

And the services of prostitutes are often just a click away, thanks to widely used pornography websites that carry adverts for sex workers.

It's also true to say that the most unlikely of people are able to use the internet to explore their secret sexual peccadilloes in a way they never could before. There's no fantasy too sordid for the online world. And it's only getting worse.

We're living in an age when infidelity has never been easier to commit or harder to deal with

But there are deeper causes for extreme betrayal than the mere easy access that the internet offers. All too often, I find that many of the clients who come to me on the brink of splitting up have had troubled childhoods and come from fractured families.

Chaos breeds chaos - and my clients or their partners are often merely replicating the same break-ups and betrayals that characterised their childhood.

Another simple phenomenon making modern infidelity harder to deal with is this: men and women are much more likely to be friends today.

This was something that was much rarer 30 years ago when I started out as a marital therapist. Many of my clients tell me their husband or wife thinks it's acceptable to stay in touch with a lover when their fling is over. They're 'friends' after all.

In my experience, this only leads to yet more heartbreak, as the affair constantly reignites or threatens to, causing a great deal of anguish. Being betrayed is bad enough, but being betrayed twice in exactly the same way with the same person is twisting the knife in the most brutal way.

Here, I set out the most painful forms of betrayal I've encountered - and reveal the underlying reasons behind them...

HE'S CHEATED WITH YOUR BEST FRIEND

This is one of the most hurtful acts of infidelity. After all, the two people you trust the most are your partner and your best friend. The sense of violation can be overwhelming. This was the case for Julia, who sought my help after discovering her husband had a two-year affair with her friend.

To make matters worse, during this time, the couple were also trying to adopt a child.

Julia's friend was privy to the most private details of her marriage - for example, when she rowed with her husband or when things became tough because of the adoption.

And Julia was so close to her friend that, when the adoption was finally successful, the woman joined her and her husband and new daughter on a celebratory family holiday.

Unsurprisingly, Julia was devastated when she eventually discovered this extreme betrayal.

Andrew says that many men fall out of love and in most cases, it's because they don't feel loved themselves

Another woman, Allison, told me how she discovered her husband was cheating with a close friend of hers. Listening to a little voice inside her head, she checked his most recent phone bill and found that he had been in touch with her friend.

When she tracked back through his bills, she saw their flirtations had started two years before.

In the previous month alone, there were more than 1,700 texts to the friend and numerous calls.

Such extreme betrayal can make your husband or wife seem like a stranger. So let's start by asking, what kind of people have affairs? Well, they're often people pleasers, who want to be liked and make other people happy. Eventually, though, their needs and desires clash with that of their partners.

Normally people pleasers quash these desires, telling themselves 'my needs don't matter'. But then they snap. 'What about me?' they ask. 'Don't I deserve this?'

It's at this point people pleasers turn 180 degrees and become selfish. And it's then that the temptation to have an affair creeps in.

The warning sign for couples then is to spot when your needs and desires are diverging. When there is a clash, talk. It could save heartbreak.

The warning sign for couples is to spot when your needs and desires are diverging. When there is a clash, talk. It could save heartbreak

It's not always possible to spot the signs, though, especially if communication is poor. Unfortunately, lots of couples imagine they 'know' their partner inside out. Instead, genuine interchange is reduced to giving or receiving instructions from each other. It's easy, then, to dismiss someone's feelings when all you do is give each other orders.

Into this crevice comes temptation. And unfortunately, people tend to fall in love with someone with whom they have repeated exposure - often from work or a circle of friends.

You'd think lovers would realise they were crossing a boundary and step back, but there are so many unhelpful myths that facilitate affairs.

For example, 'love will find a way' (and no one will really be hurt) and 'this is bigger than both of us' (so we don't have to take responsibility).

So if you discover your husband or wife has cheated with your best friend, bear in mind the potency of these myths. Don't be too self-critical.

However, what you mustn't do is descend into dramatics, either. When the infidelity involves someone you know well, the tragedy moves up a couple of notches. Instead of telling other friends or family about the infidelity, venting your emotion, why not pour your feelings into a diary? That way events are less likely to descend into a drama.

Keep talking - and decide whether you can restore your love for each other.

As for your friend, I would cut her out instantly, especially if she is a single mum. It might sound horrible to say, but nine times out of ten, single mothers just want your husband.

WHY HE HAS SEX FANTASIES

Judith sought my help when her partner of many years begged her to try swinging.

She was disgusted - and wondered why this desire had suddenly bubbled to the surface after so many years.

Yes, he'd always had a higher sex drive, but why the sudden need to involve other people?

So why are so many men obsessed with fantasy sex? You're going to be surprised at what I'm going to write next, but it's probably got nothing to do with sex at all.

Andrew also claims that a woman who embarks on an affair does so not out of lust or desire, but because she has a problem with her marriage. He encourages worried men to look at their own behaviour towards their wife

The reason so many men entertain such fantasies is relatively simple: boys are not encouraged to express their feelings, but to suppress them. Obviously, these feelings don't just disappear. They pop up somewhere else. Where? The bedroom.

It's because society has told us that the only time it's acceptable for men to express their feelings is when they're having sex.

This is the real reason men's emotional problems are so closely linked with their libido.

I told Judith her partner could try swinging with 400 women and an elephant and I still think he would feel dissatisfied because he wasn't addressing his emotional problems. She needed to encourage him to discover what these were, rather than obsess over his libidinous urges.

HAVING CHILDREN MADE HIM CHEAT

The story of one of my clients, Jill, perhaps shows the most common cause for men straying. In a word: children.

Jill told me her husband had cheated on her. And the first thing she told me that illustrate what kind of relationship they had was the following: 'We have four beautiful daughters.'

I told Jill she needed to realise why men fall out of love. In most cases, it's because they don't feel loved themselves.

When men cheat during their partner's pregnancy or just after she's given birth, it is a clear signal they are uncomfortable about becoming a father

Yes, yes, Jill said, but I did love him and everything was fine.

Really? Because all too often, I can see that men like Jill's husband feel their wives 'leave' the relationship first.

This was a shock for the blamelessly monogamous Jill. But as I explained, lots of women become so wrapped up in their children that they neglect their husbands.

I've lost count of the men who tell me 'she was too good a mother and not a good wife'. And so, every time someone talks about their 'beautiful' children, my alarm bells go off because it sounds like the children have been put centre stage, and not just adored but idolised. Not even the most doting dad will be able to cope with being a bit part in his own marriage for long.

Many men just want to please their partner and so don't rock the boat  even when they're unhappy with the attention they receive from their wives.

But these are the men who will use affairs to jolt themselves out of their numbness. It is a warning to devoted mothers.

HE STRAYS WHEN SHE'S PREGNANT

Cheating on a wife who is pregnant or has recently given birth is one of the last remaining sexual taboos. But there are good psychological reasons behind such a destructive act.

When men cheat during their partner's pregnancy or just after she's given birth, it is a clear signal they are uncomfortable about becoming a father.

Sometimes it triggers a crisis about their own father, especially if they are frightened of becoming like him. It can also lead to feelings of entrapment and claustrophobia.

Many men tell me they become frozen with fear by their new responsibilities. 'How on earth am I going to support all these people?' they wonder. This can be a huge issue if you hate your job and dream of escaping.

Some men aren't tempted to cheat during their wife's first pregnancy - but the second can tip them over the edge.

Why? Many men find fatherhood and the reality of childcare such a shock that they fear the second baby will only make matters worse - only this time they'll be pushed further down the list of their wife's priorities.

I Can't Get Over My Partner's Affair by Andrew G. Marshall, Marshall Method Publishing

Sex, already an infrequent event because of the pressures of baby number one, will surely only become even rarer when baby number two arrives.

It's a biological fact that young children kill a couple's sex life. For the first 18 months after a baby is born, all the oxytocin - the bonding hormone - goes into the relationship between mother and child.

And, let's not forget, as we've already discussed, men need sex because it is the one way it is socially acceptable for them to get close to someone.

Into this mix, it's hardly surprising that the escapism of a fling is so tempting to many new fathers.

A word of reassurance, however: couples with children are more likely to survive an affair than those without. Children force us to find a balance between satisfying individual short-term goals and considering others and the greater good.

WIVES WHO TEASE OTHER MEN

Craig was another of my clients who sought my help. While his wife hadn't yet had an affair, she was in contact with her ex after a turbulent time in their marriage. Craig was convinced this was dangerous.

His frustration bubbled to the surface and he asked why she was deliberately contacting her ex when, as he put: 'We have so many other problems to solve.'

Well, I had bad news for Craig. Women normally only allow other men to chat them up if they're feeling lonely, desperate and sad. Did he really listen to his wife, I asked. Did he find himself pushing her away rather than truly interacting with her?

Too often, a woman embarks on an affair not out of lust or desire, but because she has a problem with her marriage.

The men she seeks are just a symptom of the problem and the problem is usually something her husband has been doing wrong.

Names have been changed.

A version of this article, part of the Femail Classics series, was originally published on November 18, 2015.
What's the worst chocolate bar of all time? Have your say in our poll below

You'll find them in every supermarket aisle and in their dozens in selection boxes at Christmas time.

But Brits have been left divided over which UK chocolate bar is the best of all time and, equally, which is the worst.

Nearly everyone appreciates a good chocolate binge, whether it's as part of a meal deal or the luxurious share-sized bars (which usually end up being eaten in one sitting).

But the debate over the worst and best option was ignited this week by discount comparison website LatestDeals.co.uk.

Asking on Facebook: 'What is the WORST chocolate bar?, the poll quickly received more than 1,000 responses, with people quick to express their very strong opinions.

Brits have been left divided over the worst chocolate bar of all time - with even some popular favourites making the list

The chocolates included were Bounty, Turkish Delight, Snickers, Milky Bar, Twix, Crunchie, Cadbury Fruit and Nut, Picnic and Boost.

Poll What is the worst chocolate bar in the UK? Bounty Fry's Turkish Delight Snickers Milky Bar Twix Crunchie Cadbury Fruit and Nut Boost Mars bar Caramac Milky Way Picnic Double Decker What is the worst chocolate bar in the UK? Bounty 2266 votes

Fry's Turkish Delight 7981 votes

Snickers 674 votes

Milky Bar 1212 votes

Twix 417 votes

Crunchie 565 votes

Cadbury Fruit and Nut 640 votes

Boost 1268 votes

Mars bar 502 votes

Caramac 2794 votes

Milky Way 1315 votes

Picnic 1177 votes

Double Decker 1280 votes Now share your opinion





Mars, Caramac, Milky Way, Double Decker and Picnic also made the list.

In tubs of Celebrations, Bounty famously gets a bad name and the coconut-filled treat is often the last remaining in the box.

But the British public mainly took issue with Fry's Turkish Delight, with one person branding it 'absolutely disgusting' and others saying it bares no comparison with the real thing.

Turkish Delight (Fry's) was crowned the most hated chocolate bar, receiving almost half the votes with 47 per cent.

One person said: 'Fry's Turkish delight is absolutely disgusting and it shouldn't be called that.'

They added that they 'couldn't find an emoji' bad enough to express their thoughts on the classic chocolate.

Others said: 'The fresh stuff with no chocolate is delicious.'

One person came to its defence, saying they 'love' the treat, but still added that they 'prefer real Turkish Delight'.

Coming in second was Bounty, with 16 per cent of the vote, proving its polarising nature.

Even well-known brands weren't immune to criticism.

Milky Bar and Snickers each received 7 per cent of the vote, with the latter making the list as one person doesn't 'like peanuts'.

The British public mainly took issue with Fry's Turkish Delight, with one person branding it 'absolutely disgusting'

Similarly, another voter chose Picnic as their least favourite because of the raisins. Elsewhere, one person said: 'I don't dislike any but Milky Way is bland.'

Tom Church, co-founder of LatestDeals.co.uk said: 'It's fascinating to see how preferences vary so much when it comes to chocolate.

'While some flavours are cherished, others clearly don't hit the sweet spot for everyone. The results certainly spark a debate about the nation's taste buds!'

Previously, MailOnline revealed Britain's most hated biscuit, with readers naming the variety they want banned from supermarket shelves.
Good designs often go unnoticed but when something is badly designed it sticks out like a sore thumb - as these photographs prove.

People from around the world have shared the epic design fails they've spotted online - and Bored Panda collated the very worst into a hilarious gallery.

The bizarre examples include a Belgian hospital which oddly opted for a red, blood like, swirl design for their hallway floors.

Meanwhile, university students in the US complained they had no privacy over the gap in the toilet doors and the school installed glass instead.

Elsewhere, a gym installed circus mirrors in the weight room so people would stop checking themselves out during workouts.

Making the situation worse: University students in the US complained they had no privacy over the gap in the toilet doors and the school installed glass instead

Meanwhile, an audience member was pretty annoyed in a Portsmouth theatre when they sat in their seat only to find a pole directly in front of their view.

If that wasn't all enough, a restaurant in the UK put a 'mind your step' sign on the door of an accessible toilet.

Here FEMAIL takes a look at some for the worst design fails spotted around the world...

What are we watching? An audience member was pretty annoyed in a Portsmouth theatre when they sat in their seat only to find a pole directly in front of their view

If that wasn't all enough, a restaurant in the UK put a 'mind your step' sign on the door of an accessible toilet

The bizarre examples include a Belgian hospital which oddly opted for a red, blood like, swirl design for their hallway floors

This gym installed circus mirrors in the weight room so people would stop checking themselves out during workouts

Ouch! A children's play area decided to put the kids slide directly in front of a structural beam

Duh! Meanwhile the door in this restaurant said 'pull' but the handle was on the opposite side of the door

Really! Someone clearly didn't test out the projector before they installed it with an obstacle in the way

Creepy! Elsewhere someone spotted this random door at the top of a stairway in their hotel while they were on holiday
The first thing I did upon waking, heart pounding, was look for my phone. To my enormous relief it was there on my bedside table. So far so good.

I was naked and, mercifully, alone. I could make out last night's outfit lying in a discarded heap on the floor by my bed, along with my handbag. My head was throbbing, my mouth dry and foul  yes, it had been quite a night.

How had I even got home? The first stab of shame struck as I realised I had absolutely no idea. I started scrolling through my phone for clues, my sense of unease and self-disgust increasing as messages appeared from numbers I didn't recognise.

Olivia had been out for dinner in London with friends. Later, they joined a group of friendly strangers at a bar

Was I OK? Did I get home all right? Did I find my wallet? I didn't even know I'd lost my wallet. Frantically, I flung aside the bed covers and upended my bag. There it was, safe and sound, together with all my cards. I breathed in and out to steady my growing panic.

But then, as I crawled back under the sheets, I noticed the strange bruises on my legs. I'd been in pain last night, hadn't I? Something had happened to me. And then, like ash from a smouldering fire caught in a sudden gust of wind, images started fluttering back. Horrible, frightening, incomplete ones, like fragments from a horror film.

The evening had started well. I'd been out for dinner in London with a couple of friends and, afterwards, we'd gone to a bar. After finding no available seats, a group of friendly strangers invited us to join them.

I was already quite drunk when we left the restaurant. We'd got through quite a bit of wine with our meal, and I'd been drinking much more heavily than usual. I'd broken up with my boyfriend of two years just two months earlier and I wasn't in a good place emotionally. I needed to have a good time.

So, for whatever reason, when my friends got up to leave, I insisted on staying and ended up chatting to one of the men I'd just met. He seemed harmless.

The next thing I remembered was being in a taxi with him on the way to another stranger's party. I must have drunk more when we arrived because from there it all became incredibly blurry. I could recall kissing the man from the bar, though I wasn't sure when.

I recoiled as a memory drifted back of a strange bathroom, and then a bolt of excruciating pain as the man from the bar roughly thrust himself inside me. By the time I realised what was happening, I was in too much shock to react.

But after that? Nothing.

I tried to laugh it off. 'Lol, woke up to loads of messages from random men,' I texted one friend.

'OMG you're hilarious,' she replied. It made me feel better. Nothing that bad could have happened if other people found it funny, could it?

Hurriedly, I started deleting and blocking all the strangers from my phone, desperate to 'clean away' the stain of last night. I pushed aside all thoughts of STDs with a shudder. I had a coil fitted, so I wasn't concerned about pregnancy, but I'd no idea if he'd used a condom.

A few nights later, I even confessed to friends how I'd ended up having sex with some stranger in the bathroom at another stranger's party, and I watched as they laughed.

I wasn't known for being a party girl, let alone a promiscuous one; at 26 I'd only had a handful of relationships and never a one-night stand.

At 26, Olivia had only had a handful of relationships and never a one-night stand

Maybe I was distracting myself from the reality of what happened by playing that part. It even felt like it made me more popular; that having sex with a stranger whom you couldn't remember was a societal badge of honour, a totem of how much alcohol you were able to consume and how 'up for it' you were.

Maybe that's all it was, I kept telling myself. Just another silly drunken story. After all, virtually all my friends had a tale to tell of a sexual assault of some degree after drinking too much: from a grope to full-on sex. There was even a name for those 'hilarious' ones you struggled to remember the next day: blackout sex.

It wasn't until a few months later that the laughter stopped.

I was watching TV one evening when my phone rang showing a number I didn't recognise. 'Hey, it's Billy [not his real name],' an unfamiliar voice said as I held my breath. 'We hooked up last summer.' I was confused. Not just about why this unknown man was suddenly calling me but what he meant by 'hooked up'.

I knew he wasn't the man from the bar, with whom I'd had sex in the bathroom, so who was he?

As far as I was aware, I'd left that party alone. But Billy told me we slept together at my house that night. I asked for more details. Where did I live? Why wasn't he there when I woke up? Why was he calling me now?

I didn't get any clarity beyond the terrifying fact that he did know where I lived and apparently had left early for work the following day before I woke. I started to cry, and explained I didn't have any recollection of this. I had to know more but he got shifty and hung up. I tried to call him back, but it didn't go through  he must have blocked me immediately.

To my horror, I realised not one, but two men had had sex with me that night, while I was in the middle of an alcohol-induced blackout.

Desperate for answers, I quizzed my housemates. One had been asleep and hadn't witnessed anything, and the other had been away that night, so they were no help.

Feeling petrified and vulnerable, I rang the police  not to report a sexual assault but to get guidance on harassment or stalking, for that's what I thought was happening to me.

Two officers arrived at my flat within the hour. After listening to me explain Billy's claims, alongside what happened with the man from the bar, they calmly told me it sounded like I'd been sexually assaulted by both of these men and asked if I wanted to pursue cases against them.

Shocked, I felt an immediate wave of shame and started blaming myself for drinking myself into a stupor.

Knowing how difficult it is to pursue any kind of sexual assault case  in the year to September 2021, just 1.3 per cent of rape cases recorded by police resulted in a suspect being charged or receiving a summons  I decided not to pursue a case with the man from the bar; I could remember kissing him and suspected this would undermine my claim.

As for Billy, I reported the incident and a case officer was assigned to me. Then I was told that the next step would involve calling Billy in for an interview. My officer warned me that, based on the lack of evidence, I had a low chance of getting any kind of charge brought. What I would be left with, she explained, was a potentially dangerous man on the loose who'd know I'd accused him of rape. So I let it go.

The view that there are no observable indicators of an alcohol-induced blackout has been contested by survivors, including Chanel Miller, who was sexually assaulted at a US college party in 2015

Still, I couldn't let go of the sense of blame and shame, that it was my fault for getting drunk  that nasty, misogynistic belief that still lingers, that a victim carries a certain degree of culpability because of her behaviour and life choices. Blackouts affect a part of the brain called the hippocampus, the region involved in the formation, storage and retrieval of memory, and there are two types of blackouts, fragmentary and en bloc, both of which are common when drinking owing to alcohol disrupting brain activity.

Fragmentary blackouts may refer to fuzzy memories or memories that only return with prompting, or ones that fade in and out. En bloc blackouts refer to gaps in time that, regardless of prompting, do not return. I experienced both of these on that night.

While rape cases are complicated at the best of times, they are even more so when there's a blackout involved. Blackout rapes are harder to prove than 'date rape' drugging cases  where victims are slipped a powerful sedative, without their knowledge, to render them comatose and insensate.

The Sexual Offences Act 2003 states that a person can consent only if they have the 'freedom and capacity to make that choice'. That capacity is compromised by alcohol. 'If a person is unable to give consent because they are drunk, drugged or unconscious, it is rape,' states Crown Prosecution Service guidance.

But, those accused claim, how can you know for sure if someone is 'blackout' drunk or not? That's why, in the rare event when these cases make it to trial, defence arguments are usually predicated on the basis that the perpetrator 'couldn't tell' the victim was too drunk to consent.

This was one of the key tactics in the high-profile case of Brock Turner, the Stanford University student who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman outside a fraternity party in 2015.

'People in a blackout appear to be behaving normally,' argues Kim Fromme, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, who testified for Turner's defence team. 'A peer-reviewed publication that reviewed 26 scientific studies on blackouts concluded there are no objective observable indicators of a blackout, and that no cognitive processes, other than memory, are impaired.'

Brock Turner, the Stanford University student who was convicted of sexually assaulting Chanel

However, this view has been heavily contested by experts and survivors, most notably Chanel Miller, Turner's victim, who later waived her anonymity.

In her victim statement, she explained that during a phone call and voicemail message to her boyfriend just prior to the attack she was 'incomprehensible' and 'slurring so heavily he was scared for me'. She pointed out that Turner himself had admitted that she 'fell down' and that the two passers-by who caught Turner during the attack had immediately seen that she was unresponsive.

'Two guys on bikes noticed I wasn't moving in the dark and had to tackle you. How did you not notice while on top of me?' she said.

Despite this, Chanel said that during the course of the investigation and trial: 'I was not only told that I was assaulted, but I was also told that because I couldn't remember, I technically could not prove it was unwanted. And that distorted me, damaged me, almost broke me.'

Another problem is that 'blackout sex' is happening in a culture that has perpetually normalised, and even parodied in films and on TV, men taking advantage of drunk women. John Hughes' 1984 romcom Sixteen Candles features a subplot about a girl, Caroline, too drunk to realise that the man she is with is not her boyfriend and, frequently unconscious, is being raped.

In the 2005 film The 40-Year-Old Virgin, starring Steve Carrell, the sexually inexperienced protagonist is explicitly advised by a friend to 'tackle drunk bitches'.

This has to change, says Amelia Handy, head of policy and public affairs at Rape Crisis England & Wales. 'In law, someone consents to sex or other sexual activity when they agree to it by choice and have both the freedom and capacity to make that choice,' she says. 'If someone is unable to make a choice or is unconscious, it is simply not sex, it is rape.

Kim Fromme, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Texas who testified for Turner's defence team, said studies show 'there are no objective observable indicators of a blackout, and that no cognitive processes, other than memory, are impaired'

'So "blackout sex" in law is rape and should be named as such. All forms of rape are deeply serious, and can be highly traumatic for victims and survivors. And the way we speak about it should reflect that rather than diminish it.'

'Victim-blaming myths, stereotypes and language abound in contemporary culture and need to be challenged,' adds Ciara Bergman, the charity's CEO. 'Only those who choose to rape and abuse can be held responsible for their behaviour  not victims  and nobody who has ever been through this is ever to blame for what has happened to them, no matter the circumstances.'

It has taken a long time for me to accept that what happened to me wasn't my fault, and to shake off the shame I've felt as a result. Yet, to this day, I still find it incredibly difficult to talk to my friends and family about what happened to me that night.

Once you bypass the cultural barriers that prevent you from accepting what happened to you and taking it seriously, the feelings you face can be almost too hard to bear. Yes, there's the shame, but there's also the violation. The sense that my body is no longer my own.

Four years on, I'm still trying to get that autonomy back, and the loss of it has hindered romantic and sexual relationships I've had since. I'm now 30, but still a long way from committing to anyone.

My relationship with alcohol is tenuous, too. While I still drink, I never get drunk nowadays. It's as if I now have an inbuilt trip switch that tells me to stop for my own safety  putting the onus for rape prevention on me, not my potential attackers.

I know I'm far from alone in my experience, which forms the basis of my debut novel, Gold Rush, in which a young girl wakes up in pain after spending the night with a famous musician, trying to piece together what happened.

This is an indictment of our society, one that fails survivors of sexual assault so frequently that it starts to feel like rape  which is exactly what happened to me  isn't even a crime.

I'm not sure there's anything more devastating than that.

Gold Rush, by Olivia Petter, published by Fourth Estate (16.99), is out now.
'We're taking on the subjects that people are afraid to deal with,' she said

After surviving two decades of ups and downs in the public eye, celebrity trainer Jillian Michaels feels uncancelable.

'I've been canceled so many times,' Michaels tells DailyMail.com. 'Now I just wear a T-shirt and every time is like a Boy Scout badge for me!'

She continues, 'I'm like, "This is the time I got canceled for saying I didn't celebrate obesity! I got canceled for saying we shouldn't give Ozempic to kids. Wait a second, this is the time I got canceled for saying that I don't think it's fair for transgender athletes to compete against biological women."'

Michaels, now 50, has been ruffling feathers since she burst onto screens in 2004 alongside fellow personal trainer Bob Harper on The Biggest Loser.

While Harper was notoriously nice on the competition series, Jillian took a tough-as-nails approach to weight loss, positioning herself as a polarizing figure from the jump.

Personal trainer Jillian Michaels (pictured) is fighting back against some of today's most controversial issues, telling DailyMail.com, 'I've been canceled so many times'

She's now ready to bring her unabashed brand of no B.S. advice to Bill Maher's Club Random podcast network.

Her long-running podcast, Keeping It Real, has been acquired by the network, as Maher continues to build a menagerie of hosts that fit in with his specific style of anti-woke liberalism.

'They're putting together a podcast network where essentially people can be truth seeking, curious, and uncancelable,' she explains.

'Bill wants unique and curious voices that are seeking the truth on a platform where people can have differing opinions and feelings about the facts, but in a way that's tolerant.'

The collaboration was sparked after Michaels appeared as a guest on Maher's own Club Random show in February.

The pair discussed a handful of hot button issues before getting into a spirited disagreement over California Governor Gavin Newson.

Maher was a Newson fan, while Michaels - a lifelong California resident - recently fled the state for the balmy Florida after seeing cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles fall into decline under the governor's leadership.

The Real Time host was impressed by Michaels and offered to bring her podcast over to his network, where it could be supported by a video format to reach more people.

Michaels is bringing her podcast to Bill Maher's Club Random network. 'Bill wants unique and curious voices that are seeking the truth,' she said

Jillian's long-running podcast, Keeping It Real, has been acquired by the network, as Maher continues to build a menagerie of hosts that fit in with his specific style of anti-woke liberalism

Michaels will also 'expand the dialogue' beyond her niche of health and fitness, with plans to discuss everything from social and political issues down to finance and more.

One upcoming episode with Dr. William Lee will explore the alarming rise of cancer in young people, while another episode will focus on how teenagers are buying fentanyl on Snapchat.

'We're basically just exploring thoughtful, evolved conversations to help people level up in all facets of their lives,' she said.

'But we're taking on the subjects that people are kind of afraid to deal with, the things that you get canceled over.

'And that's what Bill really wants his pool of hosts to be fearless in exploring and he's giving us the opportunity to do that.'

Michaels will also 'expand the dialogue' beyond her niche of health and fitness, with plans to discuss everything from social and political issues down to finance and more

Michaels, now 50, has been ruffling feathers since she burst onto screens in 2004 alongside fellow personal trainer Bob Harper on The Biggest Loser

One subject that Michaels is most passionate about is protecting children, whether it's from 'gender-affirming care' like puberty blockers and surgery, or from Ozempic usage.

'The things that I'm focused on, which I personally believe are dangerous, are giving drugs or surgeries to children for obesity. That to me is absolutely insane,' she said.

'It will have lasting repercussions for our kids that are of deep concern, that we don't fully understand. We need to have all hands on deck to fight against it.'

She continued, 'That is my deepest concern right now - that and gender-affirming care is terrifying.

'I want to be clear, this is not about adults. The focus here is on giving off-label cancer drugs, puberty blockers, giving cross sex hormones and performing medical procedures on children while their bodies are developing.

'If an adult chooses to take that on and an adult can comprehend what it means, wonderful. And if many of them find it life saving, fantastic. But the ability to understand it and take it on and know the consequences, you've got to be an adult to do that.'

Michaels moved with her wife, DeShanna Marie Minuto, and adopted kids Lukensia, 14, and Phoenix, 12, from Los Angeles, where she grew up, to Miami in June 2021.

One subject that Michaels is most passionate about is protecting children, whether it's from 'gender-affirming care' like puberty blockers and surgery, or from Ozempic usage

Michaels moved with her wife, DeShanna Marie Minuto, and adopted kids Lukensia, 14, and Phoenix, 12, from Los Angeles, where she grew up, to Miami in June 2021

She previously said the last straw was when her home was broken into by an intruder with 'duct tape and a video camera' who was let out of jail due to COVID.

When asked if she thinks there's a chance of saving Los Angeles, Michaels isn't optimistic.

'I think what it would take is change on a more macro level. I think there needs to be a leadership shift across the board to people in a position of power that are more tolerant and common sense based and less divisive across the board,' she said.

'And what I find is that truthfully, the bad acting does happen on both sides. Both sets of politicians are lying. Both sets of politicians are up for auction through Citizens United to corporate greed. They just are,' she continued.

'You see it every day with big food and big farming and big pharma and big banks, the military industrial complex. We need leaders that are not up for sale. And until campaign finance law passes, that doesn't change.'

Keeping It Real premiers on Monday, July 29th at @JillianMichaels on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts
She had less than a 0.1 per cent chance of falling pregnant after the procedure

Victoria Wood is pregnant with her third baby - despite her husband's vasectomy

She's putting the miracle in the miracle of life - after getting pregnant with less than a one percent chance of doing so.

Mom-of-two Victoria Wood, from Texas, was stunned when she started experiencing familiar pregnancy symptoms - despite the fact husband Will underwent a vasectomy in October 2023.

The couple, who had welcomed their second daughter in 2022, felt like their family was complete with four members - but are now preparing to expand with another baby girl.

'Will is a rule follower to a T,' Victoria explained in a now-viral TikTok video. 'And he did all of his follow up appointments [after his vasectomy] and then he also got a sperm analysis in January of this year, and the sperm analysis was zero.'

Victoria, who shares her daughters Luna and Laney with her husband, explained that when she missed her period in April, she immediately knew something was wrong, asking her husband to buy her a pregnancy test.

Mom-of-two Victoria Wood, from Texas, was stunned when she started experiencing familiar pregnancy symptoms - despite the fact husband Will underwent a vasectomy in October 2023

While his initial reaction, understandably, was confusion as he'd had a vasectomy - she insisted he buy it anyway.

'[I said] I know, but my body's feeling weird,' Victoria recounted.

'[The test] is positive,' she says. 'I'm freaking out, he's freaking out, it's a whirlwind of emotions.

'The urologist reported that in the seven years he's been doing the surgeries, it's the first time that it has happened to him, and he asked for another sperm analysis, which still came back zero.

'Now, the urologist is saying there's an underlying condition with your wife if she's testing positive on a pregnancy test. She's either one, pregnant, or two, there is a tumor or cancer or some underlying condition,' she recalled.

'I am freaking out, I am crying at this point,' she admitted. 'He's recommending that I make appointments with all these specialists to do follow ups and I'm trying to get in, they're saying it's not an emergency,' she shared.

Concerned, Victoria and her husband instead went to the emergency room to figure out what was happening where they gave her an ultrasound - and a baby was visible.

On the car ride home, she said her husband dismissed the notion that she would ever cheat on him.

Will's urologist reported that in the seven years he's been doing the surgeries, it's the first time that's happened to him, and he asked for another sperm analysis, which still came back zero

The couple are now preparing to add another little girl to their young family

'There's no way I cheated on him,' she said. '[But I tell him] for peace of mind would you like me to get a paternity test?'

Will assured her that he believed her and did not want her to do a prenatal paternity test that cost between $1,600 to $2,000.

Victoria said while they're still wrapping their heads around the situation, they start telling their families who are 'excited and happy' - although confused over how it happened.

'Will's mom the next day [asks] if we can talk privately, she pulls me into the room and basically asked "are you willing to take a paternity test?"' Victoria shared.

Although felling 'gutted' in the moment, Victoria said she understood where her mother-in-law was coming from and agreed to get the test.

'I take the paternity test and it is, of course, Will's,' she confirms. 'We're expecting baby number three in December of this year.'

Users shared their own stories of when they have also had a miracle baby, some couples even having a vasectomy and still getting pregnant

Users couldn't believe Victoria's wild story, some sharing their own tales of having a miracle baby.

'Clearly this baby is meant to be in the world to do wonderful amazing things in the future! I would love an update in about 20 years to see what this child is doing!!!!' one user gushed.

'I had a pregnancy after a tubal ligation. Less than one per cent club here, too! I did a paternity test on my daughter to make sure she's mine,' another shared.

'MIL worked with a man with six kids. They had three, she had tubes tied, got pregnant with number four, he got a vasectomy (with all follow-ups), she got pregnant with twins,' someone else chimed in.

One of Michelle's follower's revealed she had almost the 'exact same story.'

'Our vasectomy baby was baby number, I got pregnant 10 months after my husband's vasectomy. He is now almost two, we never got an answer,' they said.

According to the American Pregnancy Association, a vasectomy is one of the best ways to prevent pregnancy.

Most reports indicate that following a vasectomy a couple has a less than one per cent chance of getting pregnant.
When an expectant mother goes into hospital to give birth, there's nothing she wants more than her home comforts; so it's important to be prepared when you go into hospital with your overnight bag.

However, one young mother from the UK was left regretting her decision after allowing her boyfriend, and the father of her newborn baby, to pack the bag for her when she went into labour.

Liv Nightingale, 23, entrusted her partner Ryan, 25, to hastily gather together her belongings when she began having contractions - and when she eventually discovered what he had packed, she was left baffled.

Taking to TikTok, Liv revealed the items Ryan had included in the bag - and it wasn't comfortable clothes and treats, as she might have hoped.

Instead Liv's bag was filled with bizarre and random things that one would not typically associate with a hospital stay - including a Dyson Airwrap and a T shirt emblazoned with the face of Jake Wood, who plays Max Branning in Eastenders.

Viewers of the clip were left in hysterics after Liv shared it on her TikTok page as the new mother was left baffled by the items.

Pictured: Liv Nightingale, 23, from the UK, took to TikTok to share the bag her partner packed for the birth of their baby, sending viewers into hysterics over the strange selection of birth essentials

An oversized t-shirt with the EastEnders character, Max Branning, printed on the front, was also on offer

As she combed through the bag, Liv rated each item by how useful and appropriate it was for the situation she was in; ie. about to give birth.

The first in the strange list was a pair of slinky bodycon dresses - not what most new mothers would imagine slipping into after giving birth. Understandably, she rated these figure-hugging outfits -1000/10.

She wrote: 'Two going out dresses? I'm 34 weeks pregnant where am I wearing these? -1000/10.'

She conceded that Ryan had done well after packing some useful hygiene products.

However, among the more bizarre items in the bag, packed for maximum glamour, was Liv's Dyson Airwrap, that was thoughtfully packed alongside a bottle of heat protection spray, to ensure the smoothest and safest post-birth blow-dry.

'Dyson Airwrap and heat protection spray? At least he understands hair care,' she said, appreciating her partner's consideration.

Grateful for the heat styling option, Liv awarded her Ryan a not ungenerous 4/10 for his efforts.

Alongside her two skin tight dresses, Liv's partner had packed a third outfit option, should she choose not to leave hospital in a mini dress - an oversized t-shirt with the EastEnders character, Max Branning, printed on the front.

Also among those items packed for ultra glamour was Liv's Dyson Airwrap, that was thoughtfully packed alongside a bottle of heat protection spray, to ensure the smoothest and safest post-birth blow-dry

If Liv wasn't happy with the option to heat style her hair, her partner offered a second choice to use some styling wax, packing a V05 texturising gum into her birth bag

Next to be unpacked was a metal whistle on a long piece of string, which the young mum gave a -1/10, explaining she had 'not a clue' for it

Though he got it right with the toothpaste, Ryan fell short in other hygiene areas, failing to provide a towel for the half empty bottle of shower gel packed

The two dresses, which came in two colour options of lilac and black, were rated an understandable -1000/10 by Liv

Liv's partner had provided three toothbrushes for his girlfriend's hospital stay, two of which still in their packaging. Luckily, the trio also arrived with a tube of toothpaste

'The only other item of clothing he packed, 2/10,' she judged.

'Would of rather a fresh pair of pants than the Max Branning T shirt but beggars can't be choosers,' she added.

Next to be unpacked was a metal whistle on a long piece of string, which the young mum gave a -1/10, explaining she had 'not a clue' as to why it had been included in the bag.

And if Liv wasn't happy with the option to heat style her hair, her partner offered a second choice to use some styling wax, packing a VO5 texturising gum into her birth bag.

'Again, unsure what I'll be using this for? 1/10,' she wrote.

Another to add to her beauty essentials, was her make-up bag, which was provided in full by Ryan, to ensure she could look her best for the birth.

'Full make-up bag, going out after this hospital stay apparently 2/10,' Liv wrote.

Though he got it right with the toothpaste, Ryan fell short in other hygiene areas, failing to provide a towel for the half empty bottle of shower gel packed.

Liv said: 'Shower gel, no towel, 2/10,' ranking the final item in the bag.

Viewers of the video flocked to the comments where several were left in hysterics at the impractical but well meaning packing efforts.

'It's the whistle for me, did he ever give an explanation for it?' one wrote in a comment with laughing emojis.

'I swear all men in the world share one brain cell and they all share it,' another joked.

Sharing in on the pitiful packing, a third said: 'Don't worry, when I went into birth, he bought me thongs.'

A former hospital worker commented explaining that Liv's birthing bag was far from unusual, writing: ' 'As an ex hospital worker, I can tell you that this bag is actually decent. The worse one I saw was a bag with just a bath mat in.'

Viewers of the video flocked to the comments where several were left in hysterics at the impractical but well meaning packing efforts

Luckily, the mum-of-two was able to see the funny side of the incident, describing her partner as 'the greatest' dad after the incident

Another to add to her beauty essentials, was her make-up bag, which was provided in full by Ryan, to ensure she could look her best for the birth

Luckily, the mother-of-two was able to see the funny side of the incident, describing her partner as 'the greatest' dad after the incident.

'That's literally everything he packed,' she wrote, dishing out a generous 'overall 3/10,' for his efforts.

Liv shortly after received a 'panicked' message from Ryan - who had gone home to look after their toddler - saying her that he 'hope you have everything you needed.'

'Hes already the worlds greatest dad, and we couldn't be more lucky to have him baby boy is going to be just as lucky,' she gushed.
A family was left stunned after they took a drive through a safari park, only to find a hungry lioness had her eye on them for lunch.

Lydia Calvin, 26, from Bedford, Bedfordshire, UK, caught the bold lioness on camera as she bit into the bumper of their car in a hair-raising moment for the family inside.

Whilst on family day trip to Woburn Safari Park, an unexpecting family found themselves the victim of a hungry female lion's appetite after their vehicle had a chunk bitten out by a big cat at the safari.

At the beginning of the clip, Lydia's partner points out the lion to one of the couple's young children, innocently asking: 'Is he going to eat the car?'

The enormous cat then snuck around the side of the car, glancing up at the unsuspecting family who were sitting stationary in the car as he approached.

Lydia Calvin, 26, from Bedford, Bedfordshire, UK, caught the incident on camera at Woburn Safari Park, taking to TikTok to share the surprising moment

The lion then swiftly sunk his teeth into the back end of their Mercedes GLC, an unlikely meal for the big cat.

'He just bit it! He's a naughty lion,' Lydia's partner exclaimed in the video.

The cheeky lion managed to puncture multiple holes in a family car at a safari park visit.

Describing the incident, Lydia said: 'We didn't initially expect as much damage as there was, until people Around us were waving their hands at us, and pulling really shocked faces!

'Back in that moment, we realise that there was obviously a lot of damage to the car, the whole car shook!

'We haven't got the car fixed yet, we are actually looking to sell the car, but that's going to be a funny conversation to have with the garage.'

Viewers of the video were left in hysterics at the possibility that the family would eventually have to explain the situation to their car insurers.

'I wish I worked for your car insurer. I'm just imagining taking the call for the claim. 'Yeah, so the car was bitten by a lion',' one wrote alongside several laughing emojis.

Another resonated with the hair raising tale, writing: 'I've had bears try to open the door! That was scary! Glad I didn't have this.'

'Cool story though... "What happened to your car" "A lion bit it mate",' another joked, imagining the humorous conversation.

The terrifying but entertaining incident comes after the terrifying news earlier this month that a Spanish tourist died after being trampled by elephants at a safari park.

The Spanish tourist was horrifically crushed to death in front of his screaming fiancee by an angry herd of elephants after he got out of his car to take photographs in a South African game reserve.

The four visitors were driving around the Pilanesberg National Park close to the world-famous tourist resort Sun City when they spotted a breeding herd with three young by a lake.

The lion was pictured chewing the back end of the family car, which was a Mercedes GLC. 'He just bit it! He's a naughty lion,' Lydia's partner exclaimed

Viewers of the video were left in hysterics at the possibility that the family would eventually have to explain the situation to their car insurers

Describing the incident, Lydia said: 'We didn't initially expect as much damage as there was, until people Around us were waving their hands at us, and pulling really shocked faces!'

Pictured: the incision in Lydia's family car following the hungry lion's nibble. She said: 'We haven't got the car fixed yet, we are actually looking to sell the car, but that's going to be a funny conversation to have with the garage'

Despite warnings from his three fellow passengers to get back into the car the tourist, aged 43, said he wanted to get close-ups of the six elephants and got out and walked towards them.

A huge 3.5-ton adult female cow protecting the young members of the herd was spooked and charged at the man and she was joined by the other two adult bulls who also attacked.

The screaming Spaniard was racing back with his camera to safety through the bush to his friends in the car but was overtaken by the chasing herd who knocked him down and trampled him to death.

All that witnesses said was left after the 30-second attack was the tattered blood-soaked clothing of the tourist and the remnants of the tourist's body crushed into the earth.

A North-West Parks & Tourism Board spokesman urged people to avoid getting out their cars in such scenarios.

'The case has been handed over to the police for further investigation,' said Pieter Nel, Acting Chief Conservation Officer for the NW Parks & Tourism Board.
A mother-of-two claims her potentially fatal heart condition was dismissed as a UTI while pregnant with her second child.

Weronika Driver said at 36 weeks her normal pregnancy took a drastic turn when she awoke with a tightness across her chest and sweating excessively.

She recalls turning to her husband terrified, saying 'I think I'm having a heart attack'.

But when the 27-year-old, from Tattershall in Lincolnshire, arrived at the hospital medics said she was 'dehydrated' and dismissed her symptoms as just a UTI.

They then sent her home  a mistake other doctors later said could have resulted in a potentially fatal stroke or cardiac arrest.

Weronika Driver, 27, recalls that at 36 weeks her seemingly smooth pregnancy took a drastic turn in May 2020

Mrs Driver was told she probably had a UTI after her first AF episode, but after the birth of her daughter Violet (pictured, now four) she was given the medication she needed

Because, instead of a UTI, Mrs Driver had atrial fibrillation, a serious condition that cause disruptions to regular heart rhythm and, if left untreated, can lead to potentially deadly heart failure.

And it wasn't until she experienced another episode, that this time caused her to lose consciousness, that she was diagnosed.

The ordeal, which occurred in 2020, has had a lasting impact on her life and following the birth of her daughter Violet, now aged four, Mrs Driver has been told getting pregnant again could put her life at risk.

Now, she is sharing her story to raise awareness of heart disease conditions in women. According to Heart Research UK women have a 50 per cent higher chance of receiving the wrong initial diagnosis after a heart attack.

Mrs Diver first suspected something was wrong when she couldn't feel her baby moving and went to Lincoln Hospital to be monitored.

But, after staying for two days she was sent home and was told to return for foetal movement checks.

However, it was her own health that took a turn for the worst. Just a week after leaving hospital, she awoke covered in sweat and told her husband Ashely, 28, that she was having a 'heart attack'.

'I started having palpitations in the middle of the night, and when I woke up I said to my husband "I think I'm having a heart attack". I was just so sweaty, hot and really clammy,' she told MailOnline.

'I knew I was going to the hospital in the morning. So I kind of left it. Then, when I arrived at the hospital, I was sick and I was still having these palpitations,' she added.

Once she arrived in hospital her baby's movements were checked, her blood pressure and temperature were also taken. But despite suffering palpitations, she had no checks on her heart.

Instead, doctors said she simply looked 'dehydrated' and suggested she had a UTI.

The mother-of-two woke up with a tightness across her chest and was sweating excessively  she told her husband she was having a heart attack (pictured pregnant with her daughter Violet)

Mrs Driver, pictured with her husband Ashely, 28, Violet, four, (left) and Rosie, eight, (right). recalls just being told to 'take it easy, drink water' and come back in the following day when her symptoms first started

Mrs Driver recalls being told to 'take it easy, drink water' and come back the following day, but said was too tired to argue with the diagnosis at the time and went home to rest.

'I was tired, heavily pregnant and all of it was scary because it was Covid as well and didn't have anyone with me in the hospital,' she said.

'I did try to stay at home, relax and just sit down and not do anything, but I kept getting dizzy, feeling sick and felt so sweaty,' she added.

But the next morning Mrs Driver couldn't walk in a straight line without falling over and passing out and she called her mum to take her to the hospital.

Frighteningly, during the journey she kept losing consciousness, vomiting and swimming with sweat.

WHAT IS ATRIAL FIBRILLATION? More than 1.5million people in the UK have been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation (AF). It is estimated that there are at least another 270,000 people in the UK who remain undiagnosed and unaware. It is caused by random electrical impulses firing from the top chambers of the heart (atria) which override the hearts regular rhythm. The cause is not fully understood, but it tends to affect certain groups of people, such as older people and people living with long-term (chronic) conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure or obesity. It may be triggered by certain situations, such as drinking too much alcohol or smoking. Symptoms include: Dizziness

Shortness of breath

Tiredness

Hear palpitations

Sometimes atrial fibrillation does not cause any symptoms and a person who has it is completely unaware that their heart rate is irregular Source: NHS and Heart Research UK and British Heart Foundation Advertisement

'My mum had to stop the car several times because I was just in and out of consciousness,' she said.

Mrs Driver said the worst part of the journey was that her daughter Rosie, now eight, who was with her was confused and scared as she didnt understand what was happening to her mother.

When she arrived at the hospital a doctor took her pulse, and finding that to be irregular, then ordered a ECG  a test which measures the electrical signals in your heart.

That ECG revealed her heart rate was 250 beats per minute and also that it had been this high for the previous few days.

Although heart rate varies per individual, a normal resting heart rate is between 60 to 100 beats per minute, according to the NHS.

This led medics to conclude that Mrs Driver had atrial fibrillation (AF), a condition marked by an irregular and abnormally fast heart rate.

It is caused by random electrical impulses incorrectly firing from the top chambers of the heart which override the hearts regular rhythm.

This can lead to symptoms such as palpitations and breathlessness and in some cases, heart failure.

More than 1.5million people in the UK have been diagnosed with AF, about one in 50 people.

But an estimated additional 270,000 people are thought to have AF but remain undiagnosed and unaware of the danger, according to British Heart Foundation.

Elinor Fowler, a research information officer at Heart Research UK said: 'The likelihood of atrial fibrillation increases with age with the majority of cases occurring in people over the age of 65.

'However, younger people can also develop AF, which means it is important to recognise the symptoms, regardless of age.'

What exactly causes AF to develop is unknown with the condition striking both people with cardiovascular conditions and healthy athletes alike.

Although rare, AF can also develop during pregnancy. Furthermore, pregnancy can also worsen existing, perhaps undiagnosed, AF due to expectant mothers experiencing an increase in blood pressure.

In Mrs Driver's case, she had no history of heart disease and recalls waking in hospital unsure as to what had happened.

'The next thing I know, the room was just full of doctors. I was on my own and I remember telling my, my eldest I was going to be back in a minute. But then I didn't see her for a week,' she said.

She was kept on the cardiology ward for a week and was told she wouldn't be able to have a natural birth as had been planned, as there was a risk her condition could worsen as a result.

However, she also had to wait until after the birth to be given cardioversion  a drug used to get an abnormal heart rhythm back to a regular pattern due to the risks the medication posed to the then unborn Violet.

'I really wanted to have a natural birth because my first pregnancy, I was absolutely fine. Doctors said that there's no chance of me having a natural birth, it was going to be a C-section.'

Two years later in March 2022, Mrs Driver was given a catheter ablation, which involves passing thin, flexible tubes, called catheters, through the blood vessels to the heart. These are designed to record the heart's electrical activity and pinpoint the arrhythmia

But due to her condition her husband had to sign papers explaining the risks.

She said: 'I had to acknowledge that I could fall into a coma, or I could die. It was honestly horrible. I remember my husband crying.'

Thankfully, after the C-section Mrs Driver was able to see Violet, before her daughter was whisked away to her waiting husband. Ms Driver was then given cardioversion.

'I was given so much information about my condition, but I was just so scared and I was so alone as well, because I just wanted to go and see my baby,' she said.

Eventually Mrs Driver was reunited with her baby before being sent home armed with several blood thinning medications.

However, just a few weeks later, she was hit with the same symptoms of AF and was taken to A&E in Boston, Lincolnshire.

A cardiologist informed her she had a type of AF that 'comes and goes', sometimes for a few minutes or days at a time.

One of the lasting impacts of her AF diagnosis is the heartbreaking consequence that she cannot have more children.

'Doctors said to me don't have another baby. Because if it happens again, it can honestly just kill me straightaway. That, to me was really heartbreaking,' she said.

In a report following Mrs Drivers' delay in diagnosis, United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust apologised and admitted the doctor initially failed to recognise her symptoms were consistent with a 'possible cardiac condition'.

The report said this 'delay in treatment could have resulted in an adverse outcome such as a stroke or cardiac arrest'.

A hospital spokesperson told this website: 'Wed like to offer our sincerest apologies again to Ms Weronika Driver for the failures in her care which occurred in May 2020.

'The incident clearly fell below the standard of care we want to deliver, and following a thorough investigation we have since fully implemented a number of changes to the way we work to ensure that this does not happen again.'
A military family who lost custody of their autistic son after they refused to transition his gender are suing a major DC hospital.

The family said their boy had never shown any desire to become a girl until, at 16, he was hospitalized for self-harming after a bitter breakup with his girlfriend in 2021.

Staff at Children's National Hospital informed the family that he wanted to be female and should be referred to using she/her pronouns going forward, the suit claims.

His army veteran parents, from Prince George County in Maryland, rejected the suggestion, saying their son was 'impressionable' due to being autistic.

They have accused the hospital of starting a 'full-on campaign to transgender this child' and accused staff of 'mental re-programming', saying their son had been forced to write letters to friends disavowing his previous male identity.

Above is a picture that the family shared with DailyMail.com on condition of anonymity. The eldest son is shown on the far left, with his mother's arm wrapped around him in a loving embrace. Everyone is smiling and happy in the picture, after the second son had graduated

Pictured above is Children's National Hospital in Washington DC, which is where the boy was treated and then transferred to Child Protection Services

According to the lawsuit, the hospital used its emergency policies to keep the boy in its units and reported the parents to child protection services.

The boy was then moved into foster care and hasn't been back to the family home since. What followed has been a two-year legal battle for custody over the teen, who is now 19 and remains in foster care.

The parents, who are in their 40s and African-American, say their son was at risk because his condition means he is vulnerable to social manipulation.

They have spoken exclusively to DailyMail.com but want to remain anonymous to protect their estranged son's privacy.

The boy's father revealed how they had to sell their thriving business and four-bedroom family home to cover legal costs.

The father said: 'This has been devastating. It drained so much money, there is no money left.

'It changed our entire way of life, with the loss of a child and then with the loss of our income.'

Karl von Batten, a committee member for the DC Republican party who is supporting the parents, said the case was personal to him because he also has an autistic son.

Mr von Batten said: 'To me, this is personal. My son is autistic, and if you tell him you are a penguin he will tell me he is a penguin.

'I am very upset by what they have done in this case, there seems to be no safe-guarding. I don't want this to happen to my boy or any other child with autism.'

The family is seeking up to $100million in damages and cover for their legal costs.

Pictured above is hospital Chaplain Lavender Kelley, who is believed to be currently caring for the child. The individual says online that they do not have a gender

The lawsuit says the child is currently living with the hospital's 'non-gendered' chaplain, Lavender Kelley, who regularly posts online about trans issues.

In one post on Facebook from 2022, Kelley said they supported transitioning children without their parents' consent  saying they were 'drained' from arguing with families.

The suit adds that, since being removed from the care of his parents, the youngster has appeared in provocative and sexually suggestive poses on Instagram.

It is unclear whether the 19-year-old has received any sex change treatments like feminizing hormones or gender reassignment surgery.

The lawsuit was filed in the Maryland District Court, accusing Children's National Hospital of eight counts including negligence, inflicting intentional emotional distress and discriminating against someone based on their religion.

It has since been sealed by a judge, and is now in the Fourth Circuit US Court of Appeals.

In a statement, the hospital told DailyMail.com that the case had been withdrawn by the parents lawyers. Representatives for the parents lawyers denied this.

Children's National is ranked the fifth best pediatric hospital in the country, and treats around 223,000 patients every year  including those with gender dysphoria.

It also runs a 'Gender and Autism Program', which says it helps young children with autism to understand their gender.

Amos Jones, who is representing the family, previously said: 'This is the craziest case I've ever had. I don't know why there are people who think this makes sense. But I guess lots of people agree with this in Washington DC now.'

Ms Kelley, pictured above, has worked at the hospital in Washington DC for decadesThe

The family say their eldest son was hard working and initially home-schooled, before being sent to high school at age 14.

He graduated a year later, and was then accepted onto an Associates degree in Engineering program.

He texted friends in May 2021 to say that he was LGBT, but used masculine pronouns  and at no point indicated that he wanted to be female.

Around this time, he was also undergoing tests for autism  and attending a counseling service for disabled children.

He was willingly rushed to Children's National Hospital in early November 2021, after he attempted to commit suicide following the end of his relationship with his girlfriend.

But  after the hospital determined he had gender dysphoria  he was held there for 41 days.

It was not clear how this was determined, or whether any tests or psychological assessments were carried out.

The child was then moved to foster services, the lawsuit said, and placed with a single foster mother who had a previous assault charge and was alleged to be a close friend of Ms Kelley's.

In July, 2022  the boy made a second suicide attempt, and was re-admitted to Children's National as a girl.

He also had a second autism assessment in August, but at this meeting the foster mother removed him  claiming it was not necessary, according to the lawsuit.

The foster mother then died unexpectedly, with the boy believed to have been moved into the care of Ms Kelley, according to the lawsuit.

He turned 18 years old in March 2023, meaning he is now an adult and does not have to return to his parents if he does not wish to.

In the court filings, his parents accused the hospital of a 'cruel, abrupt, and intentional interruption of two fit parents' fundamental rights to parent their minor son'.

'[We] had never known of [our] son's purported desire or plan to change genders,' the documents read.

'Rather than treating [us] as patrons with legal and dignitary rights, the defendant... treated the parents as though they had harmed their son, even though the parents had never endangered their child and had home-schooled him to college entry at fourteen years old.'

They added: 'At Childrens National, it is as if all critical reasoning toward the child was suspended, and there was no investigation into the extent that the child was lying.'

The parents have requested a trial by jury.
Wes Streeting delivered an extraordinary warning today against trusting a watchdog's verdicts on hospitals and care homes.

The Health Secretary said a bombshell review showed the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was 'rotting', describing some of its ratings as 'invented'.

In a brutal round of interviews this morning, Mr Streeting said he was 'stunned' to learn one in five care providers have never been rated and it had been a decade since some hospitals, GP surgeries and care homes had been checked.

Mr Streeting said there was evidence that some of the ratings had been 'effectively manufactured and invented using partial views and inspections combined with historic ratings and judgments'.

He said there were 'people going into care homes with no experience of common conditions like dementia and making judgments about the quality of care, people going into hospitals with no experience of actually providing care in hospital'.

The CQC says it makes sure health and social care services in England provide people with 'safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care' by monitoring and inspecting what they do.

But the independent review by Dr Penny Dash found fewer than half the number of inspections were carried out last year as in 2019/20.

Those conducting the inspections also have a worrying lack of experience. Some inspectors said they had never been in a hospital before and one visiting care homes had never met a person with dementia.

Wes Streeting (pictured) has branded the CQC regulator 'not fit for purpose'

The Health Secretary said he was 'stunned' to learn one in five care providers have never received a rating from the Care Quality Commission (file image)

Dr Dash, chairman of the North West London Integrated Care Board, was commissioned to conduct the review by former health secretary Victoria Atkins in May.

Mr Streeting ordered the publication of an interim report, claiming urgent action is needed to improve regulation and ensure transparency.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said he was 'appalled' by what had been found.

'Firstly, honesty is the best policy, that's why I've moved quickly to publish the interim findings because there are ratings people that will be looking at today which I can't have confidence in, I don't think the public can have confidence in,' he said.

'I've asked the CQC urgently to put in place transparency around those ratings so that people can see how those ratings were put together and then make a judgment about whether it's a true and fair and accurate reflection of the quality of care.

'Leadership is vital. We need a new permanent chief executive at the Care Quality Commission and a new chief inspector of hospitals that we can work with to turn the regulator around.'

He added: 'I never expected to be told that one in five health and care providers had not received a rating, that some health and care providers have not been inspected for a decade, that some of those ratings are effectively manufactured and invented using partial views and inspections combined with historic ratings and judgments.

'I am absolutely appalled.'

Mr Streeting said there were 'brilliant people working throughout the NHS and social care but what we can't do is pretend that there are also not enormous amounts of failure to be seen'.

'For that failure to be rotting at the heart of the CQC is intolerable,' he said.

'We will not tolerate it, we will take the action needed to deliver the radical reform that organisation needs.'

Mr Streeting said members of the public checking ratings on the CQC website should 'take them with a pinch of salt'.

But he denied that funding was the problem. Mr Streeting said: 'I don't think money is the issue here. I think it's culture.'

He said there needs to be a 'radical reform' of the organisation and that he wanted to be clear with potential candidates about the scale of the challenge as he recruits a new permanent chief inspector of hospitals to the CQC.

He said: 'When I joined the department, it was already clear that the NHS was broken and the social care system in crisis.

Mr Streeting said there was evidence that some of the ratings had been 'effectively manufactured and invented using partial views and inspections combined with historic ratings and judgments' (file picture)

Experts have previously expressed concerns that the CQC failed to expose wrongdoings at trusts that were later embroiled in major scandals.

The Dash review identified 'significant internal failings' which are hampering its ability to identify poor performance.

These included too few inspections, a lack of clinical expertise among inspectors, a lack of consistency in assessments, and problems with the CQC's IT system.

Dr Dash said: 'The contents of my interim report underscore the urgent need for comprehensive reform within the CQC.'

Mr Streeting said the government will now take immediate steps to restore public confidence in the regulator. These include increased oversight, greater transparency in how it determines its rating for providers, and a review of assessment frameworks.

Dr Dash will publish her full report in the autumn.
A shocking report into the health watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), found it hasn't visited some hospitals for a decade  and now our searchable tool lets you find when your local provider was last checked.

The devastating interim report found the regulator, which has a duty to inspect health and social care providers in England, had 'significant internal failings' which affect its ability to identify poor performance.

This morning, Health Secretary Wes Streeting even went as far as to say people shouldn't trust the ratings published by the CQC, adding it is 'not fit for purpose' and needs 'radical reform'.

He told Radio 4s Today programme: 'I would take those ratings today with a pinch of salt.

'I want to make sure that we ask the CQC to urgently qualify its ratings by providing background information on how they were determined, so that people can make more informed decisions.'

Your browser does not support iframes.

Mr Streeting told ITV's Good Morning Britain he was 'appalled' to be confronted with a crisis at the heart of the CQC just three weeks after taking over as Health Secretary.

He said: '[Inspectors] are going into care homes with no experience of common conditions like dementia and making judgements about the quality of care. They are going into hospitals with no experience of actually providing care in hospital.

'Any one of those things would be shocking in themselves. Taken together, they are a damning indictment on a regulator that is supposed to safeguard care standards and patient safety.'

He added: 'It's not going to be easythings are worse than we expected. It's clear to me the CQC is not fit for purpose.'

Asked if there was a fix that didn't involve spending more money, Mr Streeting said: 'I don't think money is the issue here. I think it's culture.'

He told BBC Breakfast: 'There are brilliant people working throughout the NHS and social care but what we can't do is pretend that there are also not enormous amounts of failure to be seen.

'And for that failure to be rotting at the heart of the CQC is intolerable.

'We will not tolerate it, we will take the action needed to deliver the radical reform that organisation needs.'

The Health Secretary said he was stunned to learn one in five care providers have never received a rating from the Care Quality Commission (file image)

The CQC says it makes sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care by monitoring and inspecting what they do (file image)

As a starting point, he said the CQC needs a new permanent chief executive, adding he intends to appoint a new chief inspector of hospitals to help turn the regulator around.

The report from Dr Penny Dash, chairwoman of the North West London Integrated Care Board, found some healthcare providers had not been reinspected for several years, with the oldest rating for an NHS hospital dating back more than 10 years.

Of the locations the CQC has the power to inspect, it is estimated about one in five have never received a rating, the interim report found.

It also revealed a lack of experience among some staff including examples of inspectors visiting hospitals and saying they had never been in a hospital before as well as an inspector of a care home who had never met a person with dementia.

The Department of Health and Social Care announced immediate steps to restore public confidence in the CQC, which is appointing Professor Sir Mike Richards, a former hospital physician, to review its assessment framework.

Transparency regarding how the regulator determines ratings for health and social care providers will also be improved and the Government will have increased oversight of the CQC, the department said.

Dr Dash was asked to carry out the review of the CQC in May and has spoken to about 200 senior managers, caregivers and clinicians working across the sector, along with more than 50 senior managers and professional advisers at the body over the last two months.

She said: 'The contents of my interim report underscore the urgent need for comprehensive reform within the CQC.

'By addressing these failings together, we can enhance the regulator's ability to inspect and rate the safety and quality of health and social care services across England.

'Our ultimate goal is to build a robust, effective regulator that can support a sustainable and high-performing NHS and social care system which the general public deserves.'

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: 'This is going to be a long and difficult journey for the CQC, but one that is entirely necessary.

'The CQC must embark on a radical improvement programme that should not only include some tangible improvements in their performance, but also needs to move away from a culture of blame.

'We all want proportionate and effective regulation, and the challenge now is for CQC to take action and work with organisations across the sector to deliver it.'

Kate Terroni, CQC's interim chief executive, said: 'We accept in full the findings and recommendations in this interim review, which identifies clear areas where improvement is urgently needed.

'Many of these align with areas we have prioritised as part of our work to restore trust with the public and providers by listening better, working together more collaboratively and being honest about what we've got wrong.'

Progress will be monitored over the summer and the full independent report will be published in autumn, the Department of Health said.
A multi-state listeria outbreak linked to tainted deli meat has now sickened at least 34 people and killed two, sparking a massive recall.

Grocery store mainstay Boars Head is pulling 100 tons (207,000lbs) of meat from deli counters nationwide.

An investigation found traces of the bacteria on samples of liverwurst, which were also processed alongside other kinds of meats which may have led to cross-contamination.

Infection from listeria, called listeriosis, can be deadly, especially for pregnant women, unborn babies, seniors and people with weakened immune systems.

A sample of Boar's Head liverwurst came back positive for listeria. The liverwurst was processed alongside other meats such as turkey, prompting a massive recall of more than 200,00 pounds of meat

Symptoms range from fever and chills and nausea to headaches, stiff neck, and convulsions.

All but one of the 34 illnesses have required hospitalization. The CDC maintains that the outbreak is likely far larger than their investigation has shown because some people will recover without medical attention or testing for listeria.

Recalled deli meats Boar's Head Strassburger Brand Liverwurst MADE IN VIRGINIA - sell by dates ranging July 25, 2024, to August 30, 2024. Boar's Head VIRGINIA HAM OLD FASHIONED HAM - sell by date August 10 Boar's Head ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM - sell by date August 10 Boar's Head EXTRA HOT ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM 6-lb.- sell by date August 10 Boar's Head BOLOGNA - sell by date August 10 Boar's Head BEEF SALAMI 2.5-lb. - sell by date August 10 Boar's Head STEAKHOUSE ROASTED BACON HEAT & EAT - sell by date August 15 Boar's Head GARLIC BOLOGNA - sell by date August 10 Boar's Head BEEF BOLOGNA - sell by date August 10 Advertisement

USDA food safety regulators updated the case count earlier Friday in an announcement of the massive Boars Head recall, which will affect every major grocery store chain in the US.

The outbreak has affected at least 13 states so far, according to the USDA, though the CDC only shows 12: Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service said: The problem was discovered when FSIS was notified that a sample collected by the Maryland Department of Health tested positive for L. monocytogenes.

The Maryland Department of Health, in collaboration with the Baltimore City Health Department, collected an unopened liverwurst product from a retail store for testing as part of an outbreak investigation of L. monocytogenes infections.

CDC investigators began taking samples from sick patients on May 28 and have been conducting interviews about the foods they ate in the month before they got sick.

Of the 18 people CDC officials were able to interview, 16 reported eating meats sliced at a deli, most commonly deli-sliced turkey, liverwurst, and ham.

The bacteria can spread from one surface to another, from deli meat to slicing tools to countertops, and health officials are urging people to santize all of their kitchen surfaces as well as the insides of their refrigerators.

Around 1,600 people become sick with listeriosis every year and about 260 die. Eating improperly processed deli meats and drinking unpasturized milk carrying the bacteria is the primary means of infection.

Cases of listeriosis have been detected in 12 states. Two people have died - one in New Jersey and another in Illinois. The CDC believes the outbreak is likely larger than what officials have recorded

Healthy people are less likely to experience severe, life-threatening illness than seniors and pregnant women.

Pregnant women, who are 10 times more likely to get listeriosis compared to other adults, are especially susceptible to it because of changes in the immune system during pregnancy, which makes it easier for infections to take hold and harder for the body to fight them off.

When a pregnant woman is infected, the bacteria travels to the fetus. When it does, it can cause widespread infection in the fetus, leading to premature delivery, miscarriage or stillbirth.

Symptoms can come on quickly or as late as 10 weeks after exposure to the bacteria in contaminated food.

If it spreads to the nervous system, listeria can also lead to severe brain inflammation, blood poisoning, convulsions, and brain swelling. Early diagnosis and treatment with antibiotics is crucial to avoiding the worst possible outcome.

This is not the only recall linked to listeria to be announced this year. Earlier this month, Ohio based Wiers Farm Inc. voluntarily had said some of their whole and bagged salad cucumbers sold at select Walmarts in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio may have been compromised.

Pulled items include green beans, peppers, zucchini, jalapenos, and more - as the recall was expanded to also include green beans and jalapenos sold under the banner of Freshire Farms, an Aldi brand.

In total, 27 products were affected, with some sold individually or in bulk at Walmart, Krogers and Save-a-Lots across the country.
A photo of Donald Trump's right ear seemingly looking unscathed just weeks after being shot sparked a debate today.

The former president was pictured for the first time without a bandage on his wounded ear since the shooting on July 13.

The photo showed the 78-year-old's right ear, which appeared to be fully in-tact and without any cut, scab or bruise.

Adding to the controversy, it came as the FBI suggested Trump may have been hit by shrapnel rather than a bullet, which may have the effect of downplaying the severity of the assassination attempt.

Now, a doctor has analyzed the photo and said it certainly doesn't rule out that Trump's ear was hit by a bullet.

PHOTO IN QUESTION: The above image is the first to be revealed of Donald Trump's right ear since the assassination attempt

California-based plastic surgeon Dr Dennis Dass said that two things were at play.

First, the photo was grainy, zoomed in and had Trump's hair partially in the way  obscuring any cuts, scabs or missing pieces.

And secondly, he said it may be that the bullet had only grazed his ear and, therefore, did not leave a major mark.

The ear is filled with blood vessels, meaning it bleeds a lot from even the most minor of injuries  which could have led the attack to look worse when it took place.

'It is possible that his injury was small enough that they didn't have to do much work on it,' said Dr Dass.

'It may have just been nipped a bit, and then bled a lot  that is possible.

'Even if it was just a small nick, that would have been enough to explain the amount of blood we saw in the initial image.'

He added that it was important not to downplay Trump's injuries, saying they were no less dramatic regardless of what caused them.

'I think it is really irrelevant whether glass or a bullet caused the injury,' he said.

'It is a very unfortunate situation that he has been in, and it was simply horrifying. I wish former President Trump well.'

It is a remarkable turnaround for Trump, who was shot in the ear at the rally less than two weeks ago

Dr Dass said there was likely no mark visible because of the grainy image and the fact that the wound may have already mostly healed.

UC Health says online that small cuts can heal within a week, with the shooting now taking place nearly two weeks ago.

Trump was at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, meeting the Israeli prime minister when he revealed his right ear.

After the shooting, he was initially admitted to Butler County Hospital to be treated for a 'gunshot wound to the right ear'  hospital records show.

His former White House doctor, Ronny Jackson  who later examined Trump  said the bullet had left a 0.8-inch track in the flesh of his right ear, but that the cartilage was unscathed.

The Republican nominee also suffered from 'significant bleeding' shortly after the attack, he said, as well as a 'marked swelling' in his upper ear.

In an update released six days ago, he said that the wound was healing well but that dressing still needed to be in place.

'Based on the highly vascular nature of the ear, there is still intermittent bleeding requiring a dressing to be in place,' he said.

'Given the broad and blunt nature of the wound itself, no sutures were required.'

In an update released today, he added that there was 'no evidence' to suggest Trump's wound was caused by anything other than a bullet.

Trump was pictured wearing a bandage over his ear at the Republican National Convention.

This led some attendees to copy him in solidarity with the former President.
Keir Starmer has a touching faith in the idea that by giving a grandiloquent name to his new quango  Great British Energy (GBE)  his aspirations for a carbon-free and energy-secure nation will be fulfilled at a stroke.

The whole country would, of course, welcome a green and pleasant land with cleaner air, lower carbon emissions, cheaper fuel bills and reduced dependence on Vladimir Putin and his gas pipelines from Russia to the West.

But the truth is that the Prime Minister and his Energy Secretary, green fanatic and failed Labour leader Ed Miliband, are living in cloud cuckoo land. They will deliver few, if any, of the bold pledges they are making.

In the King's Speech, Sir Keir confirmed that GBE, the state-owned energy company, will develop, own and operate energy projects such as wind farms using public money

Let me explain. In the King's Speech, Sir Keir's new government confirmed that GBE, the state-owned energy company, will develop, own and operate energy projects such as wind farms, using public money to help spur further private sector investment.

But the 8.3 billion of seed money promised by the Exchequer for Britain's energy transformation over the term of the current parliament will be a drop in the ocean.

In spite of the overblown language, this is a fraction of the sums already devoted to 'climate reduction' goals by our UK-listed oil firms Shell and BP, as well as domestically owned power suppliers Centrica and Scottish & Southern Electricity (SSE).

Some argue it is reassuring that GBE will be headed up by the former boss of German multinational Siemens's British arm, Juergen Maier, who might bring some much-needed private-sector experience to the job.

What is less reassuring, however, is the disastrous financial performance of Siemens Energy  which ran up losses of 3.7 billion in 2023 alone. Combined with the desperate track record of past Labour governments to command and control the economy through grandiose quangos such as the National Enterprise Board of the 1970s, it looks almost inevitable that GBE will become yet another vast black hole, sucking in public cash at the expense of other strained public services.

it looks almost inevitable that GBE will become yet another vast black hole, sucking in public cash at the expense of other strained public services. The PM is pictured on a visit to Hutchinson Engineering in Widnes on Wednesday

Sir Keir was joined at the wind turbine factory by Energy and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband

Most critically, by blocking future North Sea oil licences, as Starmer has done, and for the moment holding fire on the prospects for new nuclear production, the nation's energy security is being sacrificed in order to pursue unproven green energy 'solutions'.

In doing so, Starmer and Miliband are exposing the nation to the danger of factories being closed, the elderly and poor freezing in their homes  and lights going out when the wind fails to blow and the sun doesn't shine.

It is also critical that the UK can maintain a minimum level of electricity production at all times  especially if the Government pursues a madcap rush towards electric vehicles (EV) which, in many cases, are proving notoriously unreliable.

That is why Centrica-owned British Gas is investing heavily in renewing the nation's gas storage capacity at Rough off the East Yorkshire coast and exploring other potential sites in Wales.

Not to mention that Starmer and Miliband appear willing to trash 100,000 North Sea oil-related jobs, sabotage Aberdeen and lose 30 billion of new investment in fossil fuels, and the engineering services which go with them, to drive the 'green revolution'. Labour believes that by signing an agreement yesterday with the Crown Estate  which has command over most of the nation's coastal waters  it can somehow magic up 60 billion of new investment. Admittedly, this will be useful. Indeed, the link to the monarchy alone could potentially attract some overseas investors on the grounds of offering a kind of royal imprimatur. But we shouldn't get carried away by Labour's hoopla.

The Crown Estate has much more expertise on redeveloping real estate, such as the shops of London's swish Regent Street, than it does in energy.

Nor perhaps, are all of Miliband's eco-wheezes quite as revolutionary as he would have us believe. Before its new agreement with Labour, for example, the Crown Estate was already in talks with Scandinavian pioneers and Danish offshore energy experts.

And despite the Crown Estate's prestigious reputation, the fact remains that the only thing that will attract investors is a competitive entry price. If the price at which energy generated at the offshore windfarms can be sold is set too low to make the projects viable, it will put off bidders.

We learnt this the hard way in a crucial auction late last year, when not a single company bid to run a new offshore wind farm. Why? Because the Tory government had set the energy price too low. Even more seriously, a major proposed investment off the coast of Norfolk was temporarily put on hold.

The same thing happened in the US last year when rsted can-celled 3.3 billion of wind projects because it could not make the returns.

Earlier this year, BP also pulled out of its involvement in New York state wind farms  at a heavy cost to investors  because of the difficulty of getting decent returns.

The ultimate goal in all of these wind farms may have been lower prices for consumers. The reality is that only by offering a higher energy price to investors will they come forward  and the projects be built. It's an uncomfortable truth for Starmer and Miliband, who want to be seen to be providing the cheapest energy possible to voters.

They have been repeatedly questioned about when  or even if  their 'Green New Deal' would deliver lower prices for consumers. They couldn't answer. So much for cheaper bills.

A secondary aim of GBE is to boost our manufacturing sector, creating new skills and new jobs to replace those in fossil fuels.

Starmer and Miliband are exposing the nation to the danger of factories being closed, the elderly and poor freezing in their homes

This may be a perfectly noble aim. But in Britain, we have already sold ourselves out. Most of the solar panels being installed on the roofs of homes and factories across the UK are being built in China at a fraction of the cost they can be made in the UK.

One only has to look at how Beijing is dominating the market for electric cars  and the 50 per cent tariffs erected in the US and Europe to slow imports  to understand how difficult it is going to be to compete with Asian production.

There also is evidence from pressure group Tech Transparency that Chinese suppliers of wind farm equipment are using cheap Uyghur labour to manufacture wind turbines. It will be all but impossible for UK manufacturers (currently responsible for less than 10 per cent of wind farm components) to compete.

It's not all bad news. There is one area of green technology where Britain has a competitive quality and engineering advantage. Rolls-Royce, with the assistance of government funding, leads the world in the development of 'small modular reactors'. These are mini, simple-to-construct nuclear reactors based on the turbines that power nuclear-powered submarines.

Rolls-Royce believes it is capable of capturing a 250 billion global market if it receives the go-ahead from Whitehall for UK production. The Czech Republic has already expressed interest in buying them.

Tens of thousands of real jobs  not the Potemkin quango roles envisaged by the new Government  are there to be created.

So far, however, Miliband has been slow to give the green light.

We can all pray for the success of Great British Energy and the zero-carbon nirvana envisaged by our mission-driven Government.

But I fear we are creating a taxpayer-funded white elephant which will decimate our energy security.
Britain's millions of motorists are still paying too much to fill up at petrol stations due to retailers pocketing bigger profits from every litre they sell, according to an ongoing investigation into the fuel sector by the UK competition watchdog.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that the fuel market is still 'failing consumers' a year on from its first report that laid bare the problems in the sector.

It said that retailers' fuel margins  the difference between what they pay wholesale for their fuel and the price they sell it at  are 'still significantly above historic levels'.

Increases in fuel margins cost drivers more than 1.6billion in 2023 alone, with supermarkets' fuel margins now roughly double what they were in 2019, the CMA added.

The CMA says retailers' fuel margins  the difference between what they pay wholesale for their fuel and the price they sell it at  are 'still significantly above historic levels'

According to RAC Fuel Watch, the average retailer margin on unleaded is 13.8p a litre while for diesel it is even higher at 15.4p. This means around 10 per cent of what motorists pay at the pumps goes to fuel company profits.

In the decade leading up to the Covid pandemic, the average profit margin on both fuels was around just 8p.

And the RAC's historical data shows that supermarkets were pocketing even less. In 2019, the average margin on both fuels was around 3.5p for every litre.

Average retailer margins on fuel in the decade run-up to the pandemic were around 8p a litre. Today, companies are pocketing almost 14p for petrol and over 15p per litre on diesel

Your browser does not support iframes.

The competition watchdog is calling on the Government to use recent legislation to launch a compulsory scheme to ensure that fuel retailers share price information to allow motorists to compare forecourt deals.

The CMA launched a temporary price data-sharing scheme after its initial report found problems in the market, but said it is voluntary and only covers 40 per cent of fuel retail sites across the UK.

Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said: 'Last year we found that competition in the road fuel market was failing consumers, and published proposals that would revitalise competition amongst fuel retailers. One year on and drivers are still paying too much.

'We want to work with Government to put in place our recommendation of a real-time fuel finder scheme to kick-start competition among retailers.

'This will put the power in the hands of drivers who can compare fuel prices wherever they are, sparking greater competition.'

Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA, said the industry was still failing consumers. She added: 'One year on and drivers are still paying too much'

Your browser does not support iframes.

Your browser does not support iframes.

The CMA said a smart data, real-time fuel finder scheme would allow motorists to save up to 4.50 each time they fill up and would make it easier to find cheaper forecourts.

It said: 'The proposed introduction of the Digital Information and Smart Data Bill by the new Government could provide the legislative basis to set up a compulsory and comprehensive scheme which the CMA would welcome.

'Legislation  which is needed to establish the scheme fully  may take time to come into force.

'So that motorists can start to benefit from quicker, easier access to fuel prices through everyday apps sooner, the CMA encourages the Government to introduce an enhanced interim voluntary scheme that is as close to the final scheme as possible.'

RAC head of policy Simon Williams says the latest findings of the CMA's investigation are 'nothing short of outrageous'.

He told us: 'Drivers have every right to feel ripped off, especially knowing there is virtually no market competition between retailers.

'The report is, once again, confirmation of what we have known and been campaigning against for many years. Our analysis has long shown that even accounting for retailers' increased operating costs, margins on fuel are at extremely questionable levels.

'The CMA couldn't be any clearer about what needs to happen.

'We have already written to the new energy secretary, urging him to implement its recommendations as quickly as possible.

'This means greater transparency of fuel prices from all retailers and, most importantly of all, a price monitoring body that can take decisive action on retailers whenever drivers are overcharged. This can't happen soon enough.'

Edmund King, AA president, said 'drivers have been taken for a very expensive ride which is even more worrying during a cost-of-living crisis'.

Gordon Balmer, executive director of the Petrol Retailers Association - the body which represents the nation's independent filling stations, forecourts at motorway services and supermarkets, collectively accounting for 65 per cent of all UK fuel stations -, said its members are 'committed to keeping pump prices as low as possible'.

He added that retailers are 'operating in a highly competitive environment which is affected by a range of factors, including cost increases for retailers and geopolitical events' and criticised the CMA's analysis for failing to 'take these complexities into account'.

Balmer went on: 'We support any sensible measures that lower prices for consumers, including continuing the 5p per litre cut and the fuel duty freeze, which accounts for more than 30 per cent of the pump price.'
Legal & General, the 13.69billion FTSE 100 company, which takes care of 1trillion worth of retirement and other savings, is being revamped under chief executive Antonio Simoes.

He is promising investors a 'simpler, better-connected L&G', in pursuit of which the complex group is being restructured.

Plans include the sale of CALA, the housebuilding arm acquired in 2018 in a diversification.

Curious that L&G is selling CALA now?

The Government wants to build 1.5million homes in this parliament.

But there will be no immediate benefit from this policy and Portuguese-born Simoes wants to simplify L&G which he regards as a route to boosting returns to shareholders.

Persimmon is seen as the most likely buyer for CALA  at a price of about 1billon.

Other changes?

Simoes wants to boost the corporate pension division by winning 'bulk annuity' deals. Firms are keener to 'de-risk'  dispense with the onerous responsibilities for their company pensions.

They are willing to pay a sum to a major insurer, such as L&G or Aviva, to take on full responsibility for the scheme.

Is L&G already a big player in annuities?

It IS a power player. In 2023, L&G did 12billion-worth of bulk annuity business, which included a 4.8billion buy-in from Boots and a 2.7billion buy-in from British Steel, the fourth from this company.

Actuaries estimate that about 50billion in pension liabilities were offloaded in 2023  and this year's total could be 80billion.

Any other moves?

Another Government policy should enable L&G to make the most of an areas in which it specialises  investing in 'private' assets, that is, companies not listed on the stock markets.

As part of her pensions 'Big Bang', the Chancellor Rachel Reeves wants pension funds to channel more money into such companies, particularly those in energy, roadbuilding and other areas of infrastructure.

When L&G was founded in 1836 infrastructure was the focus. The Stockton & Darlington, the world's first public railway, was one of its first ventures.

Exciting but why is share price down this year?

L&G shares have fallen 9 per cent since January largely in response to news that dividends will not increase as rapidly as hoped.

Simoes may argue that a 200million share buyback is more than adequate compensation for reduced payouts. (Share buybacks reduce the number of shares in issue which should give a fillip to the price of the remaining shares.)

Some shareholders remain unconvinced, however.

Where are shares headed?

Despite the dividend disappointment, analysts rate the shares as either a 'hold' or a 'buy' with an average price of 266p, against 229.5p yesterday.
Hopes of a 'Tell Sid' NatWest share sell-off to the public have been dashed as Labour lines up a sale to institutional investors.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves is keen to offer the Government's 5.6billion stake to pension funds, insurers and asset managers, rather than ordinary investors, sources say.

The move is a hammer blow to the bank and retail investors, with critics saying it is a missed opportunity to encourage more people to develop long-term saving and investment habits.

The last Labour government rescued the lender during the 2008 financial crisis and at its peak the taxpayer's stake was 84 per cent.

This month it fell below 20 per cent. The Conservatives planned a sale this summer with former chancellor Jeremy Hunt priming M&C Saatchi to launch a 'Tell Sid' advertising campaign  the slogan used to encourage people to buy shares in British Gas in 1986.

But NatWest said it had to spend 24million on a campaign which never saw the light of day.

Back in the 80s broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald asked the public: 'Are you in?' in a TV campaign that aimed to boost the beleaguered stock market.

Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell, said: 'Ditching the razzamatazz of a 'Tell Sid'-style campaign could be a missed opportunity to get people investing for the first time. Rachel Reeves wants investment in great British companies primarily through our pension schemes.

'With so much of people's savings still locked up in cash, a retail offer could be a catalyst for change.'

Mark Northway from investment not-for-profit group ShareSoc added: 'It would be a massive mistake to exclude retail and individual investors.

'This is an opportunity to redistribute to UK taxpayers who have taken on the burden of NatWest for the last few years.'

Meanwhile, NatWest posted bumper financial results for the first half. Chief executive Paul Thwaites hailed the strong performance which included profits of 3billion and a 6p interim dividend  9 per cent more than last year's gift to shareholders.

Shares rose 7 per cent, or 23.8p, to 361.9p, adding to gains of just under 60 per cent in six months. And the bank has also agreed to buy 2.5billion of UK prime residential mortgages from Metro Bank.

Thwaites said: 'Customers are beginning to feel more confident, with activity increasing, and we are well positioned to help unlock growth through our regional network.'

He expects share sale details to emerge in the autumn. Neither Nat West and Labour commented on whether a public share sale looked likely.
Banks are once again beginning to roll out a raft of perks for student current accounts to attract student deposits ahead of the new academic year.

Last week Santander launched a prize draw for new Edge Student current account holders, with 20 students being in with a chance to win 27,750 and a further 30 set to win 9,250.

Meanwhile Nationwide is offering 100 cashback and 12 months of Just Eat vouchers worth 120 with its FlexStudent current account.

Being a student comes with a hefty price tag. For most students, it is their first taste of independence and first experience of paying rent and doing a weekly food shop.

University of life: Student banking is often the first taste of financial independence for many

It costs 1,078 on average a month to be a student, according to website Save the Student, taking into account rent, household bills, food, transport and going out.

The figure is based on its annual National Student Money Survey of more than 1,750 students from around the country.

The greatest expense is rent, which came in at 439 per month in 2023, taking up 41 per cent of the average student's monthly budget.

On top of living expenses, many students are also faced with tens of thousands of pounds worth of debt in the form of student loans, which they will be repaying for a large chunk of their working life.

One of the main draws of a student current account is the whopping interest-free loans that come with them.

On a standard bank account you'll get charged between 35 per cent and 40 per cent for an agreed overdraft - that's 350 to 400 in interest charges in 12 months on a 1,000 overdrawn current account - if you're borrowing 3,000 it's 1,050 to 1,200 per year.

Santander's student account comes with an arranged interest-free overdraft of 1,500 for the first three years of study. This can increase up to 1,800 in the fourth year and up to 2,000 if students stay on to their fifth year.

Nationwide's current account offers arranged interest-free and fee-free overdrafts to students of up to 3,000 by the third year.

NatWest and RBS have accounts which offer a 500 interest-free overdraft in the first term of first year, which can increase to 2,000 in the second term of first year until the end of the second year. Students can apply for up to 3,250 interest-free from year three onwards.

Meanwhile HSBC's student account comes with a 1,000 interest-free overdraft in year one, increasing to 2,000 in year two and up to 3,000 in years three and after.

Andrew Hagger, founder of financial experts MoneyComms, said: 'I'd definitely recommend a student bank account over a standard bank account - mainly due to the interest-free overdrafts.

'You never know when you may need to borrow - you may set off to uni thinking you can manage, but life isn't always that straightforward - there are often unexpected expenses that crop up and which need paying for.'

How much of an overdraft you'll get in later years depends on your credit record and you need to ask for the increases at the end of the year, it does not increase automatically.

Outside of the overdraft, student accounts come with other perks that students simply wouldn't get with a standard current account which could help with living expenses.

'Most student accounts offer incentives too such as a 100 sign-up cash payment - others may offer a cut-price travel card,' Hagger added.

Significant savings: Santander says a railcard on average saves 16-25s around 192 every year

Along with its prize draw, which will give 20 students the chance to win three years worth of tuition fees, Santander is also offering a free 16-25 railcard to students who sign up to its current account.

Normally, a rail card costs 30 a year or 70 for three years. Santander said the average 16-25 Railcard user saves 192 a year with the card, meaning a potential average saving of 768 over the four-year term.

NatWest and RBS are offering students an annual Tastecard, worth 55 per year. With this, students can get two meals for the price of one, 50 per cent off a food bill or 25 per cent off the entire bill at thousands of UK restaurants.

Nationwide is offering students a 100 cash bonus on signing up for its FlexStudent account and 12 months of Just Eat vouchers worth 120.

Student overdrafts explained

The temptation to 'live in the overdraft' because they are interest-free may be strong and could encourage some students to spend more than they normally would.

But interest-free overdrafts which come with student current account can help with any unexpected expenses that crop up and provide an emergency cushion without being heavily penalised.

Hagger said: 'The 0 per cent overdrafts may prove to be a temptation for some, but setting up a budget planner before you set off for uni with your income and expenditure can help you staying out of the black (if you stick to it) - but if you need to borrow a little from time to time you know you're not going to get penalised heavily for doing so.'

> Five best current accounts: See This is Money's pick of the best current account perks
Disappointed and disillusioned. These two words sum up the sentiments of investors in BT and Vodafone, the two largest British players in telecoms.

Over the past decade, shares in these two household names have lost more two-thirds of their value.

But do these declines suggest this is the moment to end the relationship with these FTSE 100 names?

Or are there compelling reasons to stay, given the burgeoning international love affair with British stocks and the planning revolution unveiled by the new Government?

The US giant Blackrock and the German group Allianz are among those snapping up UK shares, enthused by the improving economy and the prospect of a stable government.

Female front: Vodafone boss Margherita Della Valle, left, and BT equivalent Allison Kirkby

Against this background, BT and Vodafone look almost alluring.

BT owns EE, Britain's largest mobile network and Openreach, which controls Britain's broadband and phone networks, providing these facilities to TalkTalk, Sky, Vodafone and 650 other 'telco' businesses.

Meanwhile Vodafone UK's arm is hoping to merge with Three's UK division in a 18bn deal that will form the nation's largest mobile network.

Labour's planning reforms, designed to deliver 1.5million new homes, are another plus. All will require broadband, as Matt Dorset analyst at Quilter Cheviot points out.

BT has been hit by the slump in housebuilding, as this week's second quarter results confirmed. But Dorset argues that lots of new housing could 'solidify its status as the UK's number one broadband provider'.

These trends are good news if you are one of the hundreds of thousands who have stayed loyal to BT since privatisation 40 years ago. But all shareholders in these two stalwarts must also confront the challenges.

Turnaround time? BT has been hit by the slump in housebuilding

Sajeer Ahmed of Aegon Asset Management says that BT and Vodafone have struggled to earn a return from their vast expenditure on building out 4G and 5G infrastructure and installing full-fibre broadband.

He observes: 'Markets have been competitive and customers are price-sensitive.'

This spending is set to fall, which means that BT and Vodafone will generate more cash, allowing them to cut debts and launch share buybacks to boost their share prices.

Yet, as Nigel Yates of AXA Investment Managers contends, their 'complex corporate structures and unpredictable financial liabilities' could prove to be an obstacle.

He adds: 'We have concerns that these businesses remain value traps and see better opportunities for steady, growing dividend yields elsewhere.'

It is clear that backing these British businesses involves a leap of faith.

But if you are ready to take a bet on the makeovers being led by two new chief executives, this is what you need to know:

BT

long-term share performance is shocking. But the price has risen 13 per cent this year, largely thanks to the new, plain-speaking chief executive Allison Kirkby.

Her announcement in May of an overhaul of the business, plus higher dividends confounded the hedge funds who were 'shorting' the shares, that is betting on a price fall.

Kirkby remarked: 'I always love to squeeze the shorts . . . and prove them wrong.'

This stirring talk enthused analysts who rate the shares a 'buy' with an average target price of 194p, against the current 140.5p.

The hope of a takeover spree is what lies behind some of the international excitement over British shares.

At 13.8billion, BT shares may appeal to a bargain-hunting predator, especially as Openreach alone is worth at least this amount.

French entrepreneur Patrick Drahi, boss of Altice, was seen as the most likely bidder.

But not only has Drahi borrowed heavily against his 24.5 per cent stake in BT, he could face Government opposition. As a result, the size of his holding represents an overhang on the share price.

But Dorset explains that Carlos Slim, Latin America's richest man snapped up 3.2 per cent of BT in May and could be keen to acquire some or all of Drahi's holding.

Since Deutsche Telekom is another large investor, other shareholders can expect some fun.

Vodafone

Vodafone is an 18billion company with 330million customers in 15 countries. Germany makes up about a third of the business and a turnaround in this area is beginning to bear fruit.

At the helm is another forthright boss Margherita Della Valle who is trying to simplify and streamline the group, while persuading dubious regulators that the get-together with Three should go ahead.

Like BT, Vodafone also has some controversial shareholders: another French entrepreneur Xavier Niel and Emirates Telecommunications, which the UK government regards as a national security risk.

All this may not sound too appealing but Vodafone shares have edged up nearly 7 per cent this year to 73.22p.

Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs rate the shares a 'buy', presumably on the basis that demand for mobile and broadband services can only expand  anywhere on the globe.

The spread of AI (artificial intelligence) will add to this need. The average target price is 113p.
Slap therapy is claimed to be an art of 'self-healing' which promises to improve blood circulation and release toxins from the body.

But the seemingly painful practice has been linked to a number of deaths worldwide, and left practitioners covered in deep cuts and huge swollen bruises.

Hongchi Xiao, was today convicted of the gross-negligence manslaughter of East Sussex grandmother Danielle Carr-Gomm, a 71-year-old diabetic with a fear of needles.

She attended two of Xiao's workshops in Bulgaria and then Wiltshire, where, each time, she fell desperately ill after allegedly being told to stop taking the crucial insulin medication that regulated her blood sugar levels.

Mrs Carr-Gomm described Xiao as 'a messenger sent from God,' but was left to die alone in her room after her grave condition worsened, despite Xiao saying her worsening symptoms were all part of the healing process.

It came a year after a six-year-old diabetic boy died in similar circumstances in Australia, for which Xiao was later jailed.

Hongchi Xiao (pictured) claimed slap therapy could cure people from immune diseases such as diabetes , arthritis and even cancer and autism

Many medical practitioners have criticised the practice, saying that it causes bruises and results in broken blood vessels leading to horrific injuries such as those pictured above

Hongchi Xiao claims these horrific marks left on the skin show the presence of toxins in the body

He claimed this type of therapy, also known as paida laijin, could cure people from immune diseases such as diabetes, arthritis and even cancer and autism.

The practice involves participants slapping parts of their body with their hands until they begin to swell and turn red, supposedly ridding paidthe blood of so called toxins which cause organs to 'become sick'.

It has amassed a cult like following around the world, with one website claiming there are 'millions of practitioners in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, Germany, Indonesia, India, South Africa, Australia'.

Paida laijin claims to be a more effective form of cupping therapy, which sees people attach special cups to a person's back for a few minutes and supposedly increases blood flow and improves circulation.

Those who practice paida laijin believe it can remove blockages of toxins, known as 'sha', in 'microcirculations' that are present in all internal organs.

These blockages are supposedly too small to spot using traditional medical techniques and can prevent nutrients being 'imported' into the body.

If these blockages remain in place, they can cause the organ to malfunction, it is claimed.

Paida laijin supposedly helps clear these blockages and help the body to 'self heal' and rid itself of any diseases.

The term paida, is said to refer to the use of one's hands to repeatedly slap parts of the body while laijin is the act of stretching your limbs and joints to make them flexible.

Practitioners like Xiao will slap patients all over their body to apparently expel any 'sha' before stretching their bodies to allow the 'smooth flow of energy'.

The slapping is often carried out with just a persons hand, although some also use specialised 'slappers', with large, protruding bumps.

Two women perform paida on a woman by slapping her arms as she lays down

A person's beaten chest is pictured covered in purple and red marks as they appear to be continually slapped by a 'slapper'

A person shows off their injuries after a slap therapy session, with a huge black mark seen on the right side of their lower back

A person covered in red marks across the backs of their legs after taking part in paida lajin

Many medical practitioners have criticised the practice, saying that it causes bruises and results in broken blood vessels.

But Xiao - who has no medical qualifications or training - disputes this, instead claiming that any black or red marks are in fact 'sha' just leaving the body and are 'good healing reactions'.

He has also claimed it can lead to full recovery in 90 per cent of cases, including people with diabetes, Alzheimer's and even cancer and autism.

The former Wall Street banker previously told a seminar in South Africa: 'The greater the pain and bruises while slapping means there is more poison inside the body.

'You can be your own doctor.

'We were all born with self-healing power but we simply ignore it and spend millions of dollars paying for medications.'

His website adds: 'Once we think out of the box of 'medical intervention', we will find that these non-medical methods can be used to prevent, diagnose and self-heal many so-called 'incurable' diseases for medical professionals.

'This has been repeatedly proven true by millions of people over the past five years, and we have online and offline statistics and clinical reports provided by medical institutions to support this claim.'

Despite this sentiment, Xiao has repeatedly claimed he is 'not a doctor,' and suggests people do 'see a doctor' when they are actually sick.

A couple of people perform the slapping exercises on a prone participant

Bruises to the forearm caused by being slapped repeatedly

A person lifts their T-shirt to reveal a grim pattern of bruises the shape of an opened palm

Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, who had diabetes, ended up dead from the consequences of Xaio's unorthodox methods

In 2019, Xiao was found guilty of the manslaughter of a seven-year-old diabetic boy who died after Xiao told his parents to stop giving him insulin.

His parents had taken their son to Xiao's workshop to try to cure his type 1 diabetes in 2015.

Xiao told the boy's parents to stop giving him insulin and told them that it was merely the 'detox' when their son was in fact dying, a court was told.

The boy later died after he was found unconscious in a Hurstville hotel. Ambulance paramedics attempted CPR but he couldn't be revived.

Just 17 months later he again told one of his followers, Mrs Carr-Gomm, to stop taking insulin during a four-day retreat where he performed paida lajin.
With his outlandish claims of being able to cure the sick, it is little wonder Hongchi Xiao attracted a devoted band of desperately ill people to his 'slapping' workshops.

The 61-year-old's cheerful demeanour and soft voice gave the impression of a humble do-gooder.

The Chinese healer's motivation, he said, was to rid the world of its maladies through his brand of holistic treatments, virtually unheard-of in the West, known as paida lajin - 'slapping and stretching' in English.

No medical emergency or condition was apparently too big for Xiao, or those who learnt how to perform paida lajin.

He claimed to have cured a 70-year-old man of his paralysis shortly after discovering how to perform acupuncture.

He said his own mother - an actual doctor of Western medicine - was able to give up her high blood pressure tablets after being performed on by Xiao, a man with no medical qualifications.

Hongchi Xiao, during a visit to South Africa, sits cross-legged as he gives an interview about the merits of paida lajin

Many medical practitioners have criticised the practice, saying that it causes bruises and results in broken blood vessels leading to horrific injuries such as those pictured above

Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, who had diabetes, ended up dead from the consequences of Xaio's unorthodox methods

Xiao, 61, appearing in one of many videos on his Pailala Institute website in which he explains how to help someone suffering a heart attack by slapping

And his impact was apparently keenly felt in Tibet, where he treated more than 1,600 locals in a month, claiming '90 per cent of patients benefited from my treatment.'

There were plenty of others, according to Xiao.

Patients with diabetes, Parkinson's and kidney failure all saw their conditions improve, specifically due to paida lajin, he said.

Somewhat miraculously, a heart attack victim was brought back to life through Xiao's completely unregulated form of salvation.

'We just slapped him,' Xiao claimed. 'In a few minutes, people come back.'

These stories, and many others besides, are sure to raise an eyebrow or two.

Mrs Carr-Gomm (pictured) - a follower of Xiao's who wanted to get rid of her type 1 diabetes - fell gravely ill over the course of the October 2016 workshop

Xiao, originally from Beijing but more recently of California, talks about the 'poison' of modern medicine at his talks

Xiao, at a workshop in 2015, is pictured performing his paida lajin slapping and stretching method on a willing participant

Viewers are told: 'When you encounter this heart attack don't panic. There is a very simple thing. You can do it in one minute, you can save many lives.'

Xiao said patients with diabetes, Parkinson's and kidney failure all saw their conditions improve, specifically due to paida lajin

Yet Xiao had plenty of fans around the world, desperate enough to give paida lajin a go. He referred to them as his 'disciples' - a nod to the messianic opinion he had of himself.

Tragically, among those drawn to him was diabetic grandmother Danielle Carr-Gomm.

The 71-year-old, from Lewes in East Sussex, sought out alternative therapy due to her fear of needles.

She travelled to Bulgaria for one of Xiao's workshops, but became seriously unwell after she stopped taking her insulin, which she ordinarily had to inject every day to keep her blood sugar levels stable.

She survived only when her medication was eventually administered.

But the near-death experience did nothing to dampen Mrs Carr-Gomm's enthusiasm for Xaio's unorthodox methods.

'You are definitely a messenger sent by God,' this 'disciple' wrote about Xiao afterwards.

And undeterred, she attended a second slapping workshop in Melksham, Wiltshire, in 2016, in a bid to be 'cured' of her diabetes. The decision had fatal consequences.

Witnesses said Xiao praised Mrs Carr-Gomm for stopping her medication, and slapped her as part of her treatment.

He calmly explained her feeling unwell was due to toxins leaving the body.

In reality, she would soon be dead. But it would take until today - nearly eight years later - for Xaio to be convicted of her manslaughter.

Yet it was not his first brush with the law.

A sketch by court artist Elizabeth Cook of defendant Xiao, flanked by a security guard, during his trial in Winchester

An image on Xiao's Facebook page of bruises caused to the forearm of a person engaging in the paida lajin method

A significant purple bruise, appearing as though made with the palm of a hand, appears on a paida lajin participant's tummy

A person covered in red marks across the backs of their legs after taking part in paida lajin

A person shows off their injuries after a slap therapy session, with a huge black mark seen on the right side of their lower back

Xiao was born in China in February 1963, as Chairman Mao geared up to begin the cultural revolution which resulted in a decade of social and political turmoil.

By his mid-20s, Xiao had a business qualification and was working in two of the most famous banking districts on either side of the globe, in New York and in Hong Kong.

But on reaching 40, Xiao 'withdrew from the financial world and began reading, writing and roaming around'.

Boosted by the apparent success of his novel called Sex and Stocks, which he later claimed became a 'best-seller', Xiao decided to write his next book about Chinese medicine - an area about which he knew virtually nothing.

Xiao embarked on a period of travelling across Asia, seemingly bumping into people who, by chance, were able to teach him about Chinese medicine.

He said he was able to heal 100 people a day in Tibet through acupuncture, despite only learning it a month earlier.

Xiao subsequently opened a clinic in Beijing, where he first started spreading the word of paida lajin among his patients.

Fast forward two decades, and empowered by an endless stream of anecdotes apparently confirming the authenticity of his craft, Xiao had become a major name in the world of holistic treatments.

He opened the Pailala Institute in California, espousing the benefits of 'healing yourself naturally', including claims that a woman successfully got rid of a breast tumour by slapping herself on the affected area.

His fame gave him a platform to further discredit Western medicine as 'evil', and 'like pesticides sprayed on crops - effective, but also harmful'.

He claimed paida lajin was 'effective against most diseases known today, including various chronic, acute, infectious and difficult diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's'.

And he said the method was 'safe, with no toxic side effects', and that 'you can save millions of people. It's just a slap - very easy.'

Those who practised it could become 'slimmer and better-looking and even increase (their) sex drive'.

Videos on the Pailala website and Xiao's YouTube channel demonstrated the techniques used to help in that department.

In one, a grinning Xiao could be seen making diagonal movements with a flattened palm against his groin.

Xiao performs a slapping motion on his arm in one of several videos uploaded to his organisation's website

Xiao said slapping can have a significant positive impact on a participant's sex life

'All this energy here will become much stronger, he said.

'It will go to the right destination - you will see what I mean.'

In another, he rolled up his sleeve and slapped his arm until it quickly reddened as he talked through how to help someone suffering a heart attack.

'When you encounter this heart attack, don't panic,' he said, sagely.

'There is a very simple thing. You can do it in one minute, you can save many lives.'

He even told a story of how a young girl was congratulated by ambulance staff after slapping her grandmother 'back to life' when she had a heart attack.

His trial at Winchester Crown Court this month heard Xiao claim there were three stages to the healing process, and that illnesses like Mrs Carr-Gomm's was 'darkness before dawn breaks'.

Pain, vomiting, insomnia, giddiness and loud crying - all experienced by his tragic follower - were completely to be expected, he said.

All the person had to do was unblock the 'meridians' of the body - channels which, according to Chinese philosophy, carry energy - by slapping.

Mrs Carr-Gomm's severely deteriorating condition should have been a warning to Xiao - for, tragically, he had been in a similar situation only months earlier.

He was convicted at a court in Australia in 2019 of manslaughter by gross negligence for breaching the duty of care he owed a diabetic six-year-old boy at one of his paida lujin workshops in Sydney in 2015.

Xaio had told the boy's parents to stop giving him insulin before embarking on a programme of slapping and stretching.

The judge said Xiao 'clearly expressed to people a disdain for Western medicine, implicit in it is a view of the superiority of traditional Chinese medicine'.

He was jailed for a minimum of seven-and-a-half years, meaning he would not be eligible for parole until October this year.

He was only able to go on trial in Winchester after being extradited to the UK to face justice.

Xiao maintained his innocence, pleading not guilty to gross negligence manslaughter by claiming he did not have a duty of care over Mrs Carr-Gomm, to whom he had made 'absolutely clear' he was not medically trained.

The jurors, however, were not taken in by his story, and he was convicted.

Xiao often described paida lajin as a 'way of life'. A significant portion of the rest of his will now likely be spent in a prison cell.
The mother of a 21-year-old woman who died after receiving the Moderna Covid vaccination received a excruciating reminder a year on from the tragedy.

Natalie Boyce, 21, died in March 2022 at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, five weeks after receiving a Moderna Covid vaccine booster and the case is now before the Coroner's Court in Melbourne.

Her death certificate lists myocardial infarction with subacute myocarditis as the cause.

Australia's medical watchdog the Therapeutic Goods Administration later listed Ms Boyce as a fatality linked to the vaccines, one of only 14 Australian deaths linked to the jabs and the sole one linked to Moderna.

Deborah Hamilton, Ms Boyce's mother, has become a fierce opponent of jab mandates saying her daughter was pushed into it by a part-time employer and Melbourne's Deakin University that made it a condition of being on campus.

'I hold those pushing vaccines accountable for the death of my healthy daughter,' Ms Hamilton told a parliamentary inquiry in 2023.

'This same GP practice on 24 February this year, nearly a year to the day of her death, insensitively sent me a text to get my booster on 24 February,' Ms Hamilton said.

'Money is obviously more important to them than people's lives. This text caused me severe emotional stress.'

When she was 15, Ms Boyce was diagnosed with an uncommon blood clotting disorder that affects about one-in-2000 people.

Ms Hamilton said she didn't realise was a potential risk to her daughter from the vaccine.

'I have also since discovered that there were warnings, in November 2021, of the dangers of the vaccine for people with immune compromised conditions,' Ms Hamilton told the Senate.

'If I had known this very real risk, Natalie would never have had another vaccine, and I believe she would still be alive today.'

In her 20-minute testimony, which Ms Hamilton later said only six Senators bothered attending, the grieving mother narrated a harrowing tale of her family's suffering.

Ms Hamilton said Ms Boyce, who she described as a hard-working student studying a double degree in a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Commerce, fainted the day after receiving a Moderna shot, following her two Pfizer ones, at a chemist.

Natalie Boyce, 21, died in March 2022 at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne , five weeks after receiving a Moderna Covid vaccine booster

'I called the COVID vaccine line for help, yet they were totally useless,' Ms Hamilton said.

'Their response was for me to call an ambulance if I thought I needed one.'

Ms Boyce began suffering a fever, stomach pain and vomiting', which the GP clinic and later a local hospital misdiagnosed as reflux.

With Ms Boyce not improving Ms Hamilton decided to take her to Melbourne's Monash hospital, which she called 'the biggest mistake of my life'.

'This major Victorian public hospital was an absolute shambles,' she said.

Despite being triple Covid vaccinated Ms Hamilton was not allowed to accompany her daughter into the wards under the pandemic rules then in place.

'I still have text messages in my phone from her, pleading for me to come and be with her as everyone else was allowed someone with them,' Ms Hamilton told parliament.

During her last weeks of life in Melbourne's Alfred Hospital Natalie's heart and kidneys failed

'This still haunts me today, and probably will for the rest of my life.'

Ms Hamilton claims Monash hospital left Ms Boyce 'sitting in a chair for eight hours with a drip in her arm and a full vomit bag'.

'She was humiliated and, as it turns out, in serious heart failure, yet she was ignored by staff,' Ms Hamilton said.

'They, too, misdiagnosed her and sent her home after about 16 hours.

'Doctors remarked that they were seeing a lot of these reactions after COVID vaccinations, especially a messy looking liver on an ultrasound.

'Yet still they did nothing for her. They failed to investigate her heart, despite all the signs, and sent her home with a report saying she looked well and to follow up with a GP in a week. '

Ms Hamilton said that 36 hours later Ms Boyce was in extreme pain and was having trouble breathing so she rang triple 0.

'I can't believe how I was treated by the ESTA call operator,' Ms Hamilton told parliament.

'I told her that my daughter has antiphospholipid syndrome, which is a blood clotting condition, and that I thought she had blood clots on her lungs.

'Because Natalie was still conscious, the operator dismissed me and refused to mark the call as a code 1 and to send an ambulance immediately.'

The operator told an increasingly frantic Ms Hamilton a paramedic would call her within half and hour to assess whether an ambulance should then be dispatched.

'I then made the decision to drive her to Mulgrave Private Hospital,'Ms Hamilton said.

Deborah Hamilton laid out the harrowing story of Natalie's demise before parliament last year

She said on arrival with Ms Boyce 'going in and out of consciousness' they still had to follow protocols and wait 15 minutes for a negative COVID test before she could be seen by any medical person.

After a doctor 'diagnosed straightaway' that Ms Boyce was in serious heart failure it was decided she needed to go to the Alfred Hospital for intensive care.

Ms Hamilton said she was 'disgusted' to learn 'that the highest ambulance service in Victoria did not have the necessary equipment to transport her'.

After chasing the ambulance Ms Hamilton arrived at the Alfred around 2:30 am but was told she couldn't stay with Ms Boyce and to go home because of Covid rules.

'I was so distressed because, again, me being vaccinated meant nothing,' Ms Hamilton said.

'I was a mess and had to drive home for about 40 minutes. To this day, I do not know how I got home in the state I was in.'

Ms Boyce spent three weeks in the ICU at the Alfred Hospital unconscious while her heart and kidneys were failed and her foot went black from a blood clot.

She died while having an MRI on 27 March 2022.

During the first fortnight in the ICU Ms Hamilton was only allowed to visit Ms Boyce for an hour on only three days a week but then she was allowed to visit for an hour each day.

Ms Hamilton said she was incensed to learn the rules were entirely different for then Victorian premier Danial Andrews

Ms Hamilton said she was incensed to learn the rules were entirely different for then Victorian premier Danial Andrews, who was in the same hospital recovering from a stair fall.

'An Alfred nurse told me that Daniel Andrews was allowed visitors whenever he wanted, with no time limits,' Ms Hamilton said.

'My daughter was critically ill, and I was prevented from being there for her, yet the Victorian Premier could always have visitors as long as he liked.'

She said communication was appalling from all hospitals involved in the ordeal.

'I was told during my one-hour visits that she had been resuscitated on several occasions, yet not one medical professional had bothered to call and let me know,' Ms Hamilton said.

'Another time, I arrived to find out that they had put Natalie on dialysis, yet nobody from the Alfred had rung to tell me about this either.

It was distressing and shocking to arrive and see more machines attached to my daughter.'

She said since her daughter's story became publicised she has been contacted by many other people claiming vaccine injuries.

Ms Hamilton called for Moderna to be pulled from market 'immediately so no other person should die from it'.

'Natalie's death has destroyed my life and severely impacted her brother, Hayden, and the rest of my family's life,' Ms Hamilton said.

'We were a tight, loving unit that is now shattered.'

An investigation into her death could progress to a full coronial inquest.

At a mention hearing in court on Wednesday, Coroner Catherine Fitzgerald told the involved parties that she would tighten the reins on expert reports being filed to the court, as mountains of medical information piled up.

Moderna Australia lawyer Jesse Rudd said an expert they had been working with required further medical information.

The professor had requested information about symptoms observed by a rheumatologist who saw Ms Boyce for her lupus in 2018.

Ms Fitzgerald allowed Moderna's request but said she would be reluctant to chase further such material going forward, telling lawyers 'these sorts of requests will be scrutinised'.

'There's lots of paper,' the coroner said of the mounting material filed for the case.

Ms Fitzgerald was hesitant to obtain more information and reports 'when we already have so many materials', describing the situation as 'chasing the rabbit down this hole'.

'If this continues on the current trajectory, this could lead to an inquest,' Ms Fitzgerald said.

Lawyers for Ms Boyce's family opposed Moderna's request on the grounds the doctor saw the young woman for lupus four years before she died.

The matter will be back before the Coroner's Court for another mention hearing in October.
An alternative Chinese healer convicted of the manslaughter of a diabetic grandmother is already serving time for killing a six-year-old boy in Australia, it can now be reported.

Today, Hongchi Xiao, 61, of Cloudbreak in California, was found guilty of killing Danielle Carr-Gomm at a slapping therapy workshop in Wiltshire in 2016.

Xiao congratulated Ms Carr-Gomm, a Type 1 diabetic, when she stopped taking her insulin before she died from ketoacidosis.

The workshop promoted a treatment known as 'paida lajin' - in which people slap themselves and each other to expel poisons from the body.

But, following his guilty verdict, it can now be reported that 18 months before Ms Carr-Gomm's death, Xiao was also involved in the death of a diabetic child Aidan Fenton in Sydney.

Aidan Fenton, pictured with mother Lily and father Geoff, before he died at one of Xiao's slap therapy workshops

Hongchi Xiao 'congratulated' Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, when she stopped taking insulin at his four-day retreat

Mrs Carr-Gomm, a follower of Xiao's who wanted to get rid of her type 1 diabetes, fell gravely ill over the course of the October 2016 workshop

Many medical practitioners have criticised the practice, saying that it causes bruises and results in broken blood vessels leading to horrific injuries such as those pictured above

Seven-year-old Aidan died after Xiao told his parents to stop giving him insulin after attending a 990 slap therapy workshop in Hurstville, New South Wales in April 2015.

The court heard how, shortly after the start of the workshop Xiao told Aidan's parents Lily and Geoff 'to stop his insulin injections'.

'Such an instruction is clear evidence of how strongly held the defendant's views were, for example, as to insulin being poison,' Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury.

But by day three, the youngster started to become seriously ill and started 'vomiting black liquid', which Xiao put down 'to just part of self-healing body adjustment'.

Despite this, Xiao continued to 'instruct' Mrs Fenton to continue withholding her son's insulin, and his health continued to deteriorate.

Aidan Fenton with his mother Lily before his death in April 2015

Aidan could not be revived after falling unconscious in the Ritz Hotel in Hurstville, Sydney

What is paida lajin? Inside dangerous world of slap therapy

The art of slap therapy is claimed to be a method of self healing which promises to improve blood circulation and release toxins from the body. But the seemingly painful practice has been linked to a number of deaths worldwide and has also seen practitioners covered in deep cuts and huge swollen bruises. The practice involves participants slapping parts of their body with their hands until they begin to swell and turn red, supposedly ridding the blood of so called toxins which cause organs to 'become sick'. It has amassed a cult like following around the world, with one website claiming there are 'millions of practitioners in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, Germany, Indonesia, India, South Africa, Australia'. Those who practice paida laijin believe it can remove blockages of toxins, known as 'sha', in 'microcirculations' that are present in all internal organs. Many medical practitioners have criticised the practice, saying that it causes bruises and results in broken blood vessels. Advertisement

By the fifth day he was required to be pushed in a pram because he could not walk or stand to dress himself and started to 'vomit yellow and black liquid', the court heard.

Mrs Fenton confronted Xiao and told him: 'Look at this picture, last night he vomiting black stuff, all these things'.

Xiao replied: 'Is the detox. All the bad stuff come from - come out from his body, his organ. It's just part of self-healing body adjustment.'

Four days later, the boy was accompanied by his grandmother in his room when he began vomiting black liquid and had a seizure.

As the grandmother went for help, she locked herself out of the room and hotel staff arrived who found the boy on the bed motionless, the court heard.

Mr Atkinson said that Xiao also returned and began 'slapping the boy's inner elbows' until paramedics arrived.

But they were unable to resuscitate him and he died as a result of diabetic ketoacidosis, the same condition as Ms Carr-Gomm.

Mr Atkinson told the jury: 'The defendant was ultimately prosecuted for and convicted of (the boy)'s manslaughter.

'It follows that there can be no question but that the defendant owed (the boy) a duty of care whilst he was an attendee at his workshop, and that he breached that duty.

'He deprecated and deterred the use of conventional medicine even when he knew that to do so risked very serious consequences which could in turn be life-threatening.

'He advocated a course that he knew was not medically justified and was contrary to medical experience, and a boy died as a result.

Hongchi Xiao, during a visit to South Africa, sits cross-legged as he gives an interview about the merits of paida lajin

The boy died at a 990 slap therapy retreat held at the Ritz Hotel in Hurstville, Sydney, in 2015

Court sketch of Xiao at Winchester Crown Court during the latest court case against him

A significant purple bruise, appearing as though made with the palm of a hand, appears on a paida lajin participant's tummy

Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, who had diabetes, ended up dead from the consequences of Xaio's unorthodox methods

A person covered in red marks across the backs of their legs after taking part in paida lajin

'His actions towards Danielle Carr-Gomm occurred when the very real, obvious and serious risk of death had become all the more real and all the more obvious.

'They involved similar conduct, congratulating a Type 1 diabetic who replaced insulin with Paida Lajin, and taking no action to secure her help despite the cruel lesson that ought to have been provided by the boy's untimely death.'

He was pronounced dead five days later at Sydney's St George Hospital.

Xiao was found guilty of the manslaughter of Aidan in October 2015. His parents and grandmother were also charged with manslaughter in 2017, but found not guilty.

In December 2019, Xiao was sentenced to at least seven years and six months in prison for manslaughter.

A New South Wales District Court judge said his parents were clearly led to believe their son would be cured of diabetes through participating in the workshop.

When Xiao was found guilty of Aidan's death in 2019, he listened to the heartbreaking victim impact statement of the agony his parents had endured.

'He was becoming my best friend,' Mr Fenton told a court in Sydney.

Meanwhile, Mrs Fenton revealed her 'immense pain, as if someone stabbed me in my heart.'

The alternative healer showed no remorse for his role in Aidan's death, later telling his YouTube followers that it was 'purely an accident' and the boy had 'many diseases'.
An alternative healer was today convicted of manslaughter after a diabetic grandmother died at his slap therapy workshop.

Hongchi Xiao, 61, had an 'unshakeable' belief that Western medicine is 'evil' and refused to call for help while Danielle Carr-Gomm lay dying.

He had 'congratulated' the 71-year-old when she stopped taking insulin at his four-day retreat where he performed paida lajin, a Chinese holistic therapy which involves slapping patients.

Mrs Carr-Gomm - a follower of Xiao's who wanted to get rid of her type 1 diabetes - fell gravely ill during the 2016 course and was heard 'howling in pain' before dying of diabetic ketoacidosis on day four.

Xiao ignored medical evidence that diabetics needs lifesaving insulin and 'evangelised' his slap therapy course as a 'cure' for diabetes.

He was extradited for the trial from Australia, where he had previously been prosecuted over the death of a six-year-old boy who also died after his parents withdrew his insulin medication after attending the defendant's workshop in Sydney.

Hongchi Xiao, 61, has been found guilty of the manslaughter of Danielle Carr-Gomm

Mrs Carr-Gomm, a follower of Xiao's who wanted to get rid of her type 1 diabetes, fell gravely ill over the course of the October 2016 workshop

Many medical practitioners have criticised the practice, saying that it causes bruises and results in broken blood vessels leading to horrific injuries such as those pictured above

Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that Mrs Carr-Gomm had sought alternatives to her insulin medication for type 1 diabetes because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.

She had first joined a Paida Lajin workshop, which means 'slap and stretch', run by the defendant in Bulgaria in July 2016.

What is paida lajin? Inside dangerous world of slap therapy

The art of slap therapy is claimed to be a method of self healing which promises to improve blood circulation and release toxins from the body. But the seemingly painful practice has been linked to a number of deaths worldwide and has also seen practitioners covered in deep cuts and huge swollen bruises. The practice involves participants slapping parts of their body with their hands until they begin to swell and turn red, supposedly ridding the blood of so called toxins which cause organs to 'become sick'. It has amassed a cult like following around the world, with one website claiming there are 'millions of practitioners in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Bulgaria, Germany, Indonesia, India, South Africa, Australia'. Those who practice paida laijin believe it can remove blockages of toxins, known as 'sha', in 'microcirculations' that are present in all internal organs. Many medical practitioners have criticised the practice, saying that it causes bruises and results in broken blood vessels. Advertisement

She became seriously ill after stopping her insulin medicine before she restarted and subsequently recovered.

Mr Atkinson described how Mrs Carr-Gomm went on to attend another of Xiao's workshops in Wiltshire in October of that year.

The court had heard how Xiao said 'well done' to Mrs Carr-Gomm, after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin at the week-long retreat, and she became seriously ill.

Mr Atkinson said that by the third day 'she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions'.

A chef at the workshop, Teresa Hayes, told jurors Mrs Carr-Gomm was 'delirious' and 'frothing at the mouth' before she died, adding that she wanted to call an ambulance but trusted those with more experience of the holistic healing method.

Mr Atkinson described how the defendant failed to get medical help for Mrs Carr-Gomm before she died in the early hours of the fourth day.

The prosecutor said: 'Those who had received and accepted the defendant's teachings misinterpreted Mrs Carr-Gomm's condition as a healing crisis.'

He said that Xiao had been an 'exponent' of Paida Lajin for 10 years and had written a book on it.

Mr Atkinson said: 'It is said to be a method of self-healing in which 'poisonous waste' is expelled from the body through patting and slapping parts of the body.'

He added: 'He does not have medical qualifications or training.

'In a book that he wrote about Paida Lajin, the defendant asserted that the taking of insulin leads to liver and eye problems, and that in contrast the Paida Lajin was 'safer and more reliable than existing healing practices' which would result in 'significant improvement' or full recovery in 90% of cases, including cases of diabetes.'

He added that Xiao also wrote in the book that 'doctors are brainwashed by drug producers to act as salespersons for their drugs'.

The 71-year-old, who had diabetes, ended up dead from the consequences of Xaio's unorthodox methods

A significant purple bruise, appearing as though made with the palm of a hand, appears on a paida lajin participant's tummy

Xiao claims these horrific marks left on the skin show the presence of toxins in the body

The court heard that Mrs Carr-Gomm had provided a testimonial for Xiao, describing him as a 'messenger sent by God' who was 'starting a revolution to put the power back in the hands of the people to cure themselves and to change the whole system of health care'.

Mrs Carr-Gomm was born in France and moved to the UK aged 21.

Speaking after her death, her son Matthew Carr-Gomm, who lives in New Zealand, said: 'She was always keen to try and find alternative methods of treating and dealing with her diabetes, and was very interested in alternative and holistic medicine and therapies.

'I know she was desperate to try and cure herself of this disease.

'She always maintained a healthy lifestyle and was adamant that nothing would stop her from living a full life.

'In recent years, mum was in a great place with a partner, a lovely home and was travelling the world.

'She had a lot of life left in her.'

He said the death of Mrs Carr-Gomm had come as a 'huge shock' to the family.

Giving evidence during the trial, Xiao said he would 'never' persuade someone who needed insulin not to take it, adding that insulin is 'useful'.

On his attitude towards medication at his workshops, he added: 'First of all, I said I'm not a medical doctor, so everyone is responsible for their own medication.

'Secondly, I'm not fully against medicine, what I'm concerned about is the side effect of the medicine.'

Xiao claimed slap therapy could cure people from immune diseases such as diabetes , arthritis and even cancer and autism

Court sketch of Xiao at Winchester Crown Court

A person covered in red marks across the backs of their legs after taking part in paida lajin

Xiao, at a workshop in 2015, is pictured performing his paida lajin slapping and stretching method on a willing participant

Thanking the jury for their 'record' number of questions, the judge said: 'You are a shining example of why the jury system we have is something this country we can be incredibly proud of.'

Rosemary Ainslie, head the Crown Prosecution Service, said: 'Hongchi Xiao knew the consequences of Danielle Carr-Gomm's decision to stop taking insulin could be fatal, he had seen it before.

'Hongchi Xiao was the man in charge, yet he failed to respond to Mrs Carr-Gomm's worsening condition with tragic consequences.

'His failure to take reasonable steps to help Mrs Carr-Gomm substantially contributed to her death and amounted to gross negligence.

Wiltshire Police's Detective Constable Dave Topp said Mrs Carr-Gomm had 'put her trust' in the 'extremely convincing' Hongchi Xiao.

The mother and grandmother had a 'love for travelling' before her tragic death in 2016.

Speaking outside Winchester Crown Court, he said: 'Xiao had no medical qualifications or experience but claimed to be a self professed master in paida lajin - an ancient Chinese method for self-healing which involves slapping and stretching techniques to cure conditions such as diabetes.

'However Danielle's health deteriorated whilst in the care of Xiao and she sadly died.

'A major investigation launched into her death and Xiao was arrested."

He continued: 'Despite having no medical qualifications Xiao actively encouraged those attending his workshops to stop taking medication, knowing full-well the consequences.

'Danielle put her trust in Xiao, he was extremely convincing and confident in his beliefs.

'This has been an extremely complex investigation with a high level of medical expertise sought before Xiao could be extradited and put before the courts.

'The passage of time which as been out of our control has added further challenges and complications to our investigation.

'Xiao's not guilty plea has only shown the little remorse he has over Danielle's death and has made an extremely difficult and upsetting process for Danielle's family even more prolonged and distressing.

'Danielle was a mother and a grandmother who enjoyed life and had a love of travelling.

'Her death came as a huge shock to her family and friends and our thoughts are very much with them at this time.'

Xiao will be sentenced on October 1.
Worklessness due to long-term sickness has soared six-fold in parts of Britain since pre-Covid, analysis suggests.

Currently 2.8million people are off work ill, according to Government estimates, up by around 700,000 before the pandemic rocked the country.

Spiralling rates of mental ill health has driven the 'economic inactivity crisis', which Labour has promised to tackle as part of its plans to give the economy a boost and save taxpayers billions on welfare hand-outs.

Young people are now just as likely to be out of work because of long-term illness as people in their 40s, according to the Resolution Foundation.

MailOnline analysis of official statistics shows more than 14 per cent of the working age population of Dover are now estimated to be 'economically inactive' because of a long-term illness, or 9,700 people.

For comparison, the figure was nearly 2.5 per cent in 2019-20.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Cambridge saw the second biggest rise, following Dover. It went from almost 1.5 per cent of 16- to 64-year-olds off work due to long-term sickness in 2019/20 to 6 per cent in 2023/24.

About one in 15 local authorities have seen rates at least double over the same time-frame, according to data from the ONS Labour Force Survey.

The figures are estimates, based on self-reported cases of long-term illness.

Blackpool, meanwhile, has the highest rate across Britain, with 16 per cent  12,900 out of 80,800 people  of its residents unemployed due to illness.

Millions more are out of work across the country for other reasons, such as studying at university, being retired or looking after their family.

Total economic inactivity in Britain now exceeds 9.5m, according to the ONS. Before the Covid pandemic it stood at around 8.4million.

Being a student used to be the leading cause of economic inactivity, but long-term sickness overtook it in late 2021.

Nearly 30 per cent of economically inactive people are so because of long-term sickness, up from 25 per cent before the pandemic.

Across England, Scotland and Wales the number of people out of work because of a long-term illness rose by nearly 20 per cent between 2019 and 2024.

Of those economically inactive due to long-term illness, depression, bad nerves or anxiety has consistently been the most common primary or secondary cause.

The numbers rose by nearly 390,000 or 40 per cent, from around 965,000 in 2019 to around 1.35million in 2023, ONS figures show. This is the greatest total rise of all reported conditions.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Louise Murphy, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation think-tank, said: 'This lays bare the scale of the economic inactivity crisis Britain is facing, with rising ill-health blighting too many people's jobs and career prospects.

'But the ill-health problems we face today are different to those of the past.

'Mental health problems are driving much of the recent rise in inactivity and are concentrated among young people, who are now just as likely to be out of work due to long-term sickness as people in their 40s.'

Labour's health advisor this week suggested workers on long-term sick leave should face benefit sanctions if they fail to seek employment.

Alan Milburn, who was health secretary under Tony Blair, said that getting millions of people who are economically inactive on medical grounds back into work would cut welfare costs.

Mr Milburn said 'scrutiny, conditionality and sanctions' would be needed to get those who refuse to work into a job.

But he also criticised the UK's 'perverse' welfare system, which 'pays to be classified as incapable of work rather than actively seeking it'.

Your browser does not support iframes.

Mr Milburn said: 'Those who are classified as officially seeking work are offered some support to do so but also face harsh conditionality and lower benefit payments than those who are classified as unable to work.

'By contrast, the latter economically inactive group get little support to find work but face no conditionality and receive higher payments than those actively seeking work.

'Solving this problem will require action across public services from schools, colleges and the NHS to job-centres.'

A survey included in the report also concluded that the most common barrier to work for those who want to was a disability or health issue, with 62 per cent saying this was an issue for them.

Half said a barrier was family or caring commitments and more than two in five said there was too much competition and that they lacked recent experience.

Labour Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall this week promised she would get two million more people into work.

In her first speech in the role, she slammed the 'dire' situation that meant Britain is 'the only G7 country whose employment rate still hasn't returned to pre-pandemic levels'.

But she indicated the Government would abandon the tough approach of the Tories  and vowed to end 'divisive rhetoric about strivers versus scroungers'.

Ms Kendall said the Department for Work and Pensions needed 'fundamental reform' to 'shift from being a department for welfare to being a department for work'.
Women and children are among those raped, killed and decapitated in an outbreak of horrific violence on Australia's doorstep.

The violent attacks on three remote villages in the Angoram district of East Sepik, in Papua New Guinea's (PNG) north, has likely killed 26 people, including 16 children, while several people were forced to flee after attackers set fire to their homes, the United Nations said.

'I am horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights,' U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The death toll could rise to more than 50 as PNG authorities search for missing people, Turk said.

More than 200 people had to flee their homes after it was torched in the attacks that happened in the East Sepik province on July 16 and 18.

About 33 men from a youth gang called 'I don't care' burned houses before killing an elderly man and a five-year-old boy in the Angrumara village on July 17, news.com.au reported.

The village of Tambari was also attacked the following day while most of the villagers were sleeping, with women and young girls raped and killed, and some male villagers also murdered.

Acting East Sepik Provincial Police Commander Senior Inspector James Baugen told the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier that mothers nursing their babies were decapitated and the bodies of the victims mutilated.

The violent attacks on three remote villages in the Angoram district of East Sepik, in Papua New Guinea's (PNG) north, has likely killed 26 people, including 16 children, while several people were forced to flee after attackers set fire to their homes, the United Nations said

'Most of the bodies were found, their heads were chopped off. Some are mothers who were trying to save their children from being slaughtered,' he said.

'The crime scene is rotting with dead bodies. Some of the bodies were seen floating down the Sepik River and taken by crocodiles.'

One woman told PNG newspaper The National about how she clung to a log to avoid the attackers.

'I could hear women wailing in pain, children crying out. I was lucky the men didn't see me,' she said.

'Three of my sisters were raped but escaped while another seven are missing. Three mothers with infants were killed and the babies taken away.'

Mr Turk urged PNG authorities 'to work in and with the affected communities to address the root causes of land and lake disputes, and so prevent recurrence of further violence'.

Home to hundreds of tribes and languages, the Pacific nation to Australia's north has a long history of tribal warfare.

However, violence has ratcheted up over the past decade as villagers swapped bows and arrows for military rifles and elections deepened existing tribal divides.

Eight people were killed and 30 homes torched in fighting in the Enga province in May, while at least 26 men were killed in an ambush in the same region in February.

The escalation of violence comes as the National Rugby League (NRL) and the Albanese government are believed to be finalising a deal to establish an NRL team in the country.

The proposal is expected to be supported by $600million in Federal government funding over 10 years.

Rugby league, considered the national game in PNG, is seen as a vehicle for 'sports diplomacy' to counter the growing influence of China in the small nation.
EXCLUSIVE

Accused killer cop Beau Lamarre-Condon has been moved to Australia's most top secret jail as his mental health continues to decline after almost six months in strict segregation.

Lamarre-Condon was recently transferred to a clandestine unit within Sydney's Long Bay prison complex called the Special Purpose Centre (SPC) which houses NSW's most vulnerable inmates.

The SPC currently holds about 30 of the state's 13,000 prisoners and is so far off-the-grid most Corrective Services staff cannot access information about who is in there.

Sometimes known as The Kennel because of the number of 'dogs' - or informers - it accommodates, once inmates step inside the SPC's walls their whereabouts no longer appear on the Corrective Services computer system.

Instead of being referred to by name or the Master Index Number (MIN) every prisoner receives when they are first go into custody, SPC occupants are identified internally by a number following the letter P.

'It's basically for inmates who can't be put anywhere else because they'd be killed,' a prison source told Daily Mail Australia.

Mark Standen, the onetime assistant director of the NSW Crime Commission who was jailed over a $120million drug plot, spent most of his 16 years behind bars at the SPC before his release in June.



Lamarre-Condon is charged with murdering former Studio Ten presenter Jesse Baird and Qantas flight attendant Luke Davies at Paddington on February 19.

Accused killer cop Beau Lamarre-Condon (above) has been moved to Australia's most top secret jail as his mental health continues decline after almost six months in strict segregation

He was previously in protective custody at the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre (MRRC) at Silverwater in Sydney's west before being shifted to the SPC about six weeks ago.

Earlier this month, the 28-year-old was hit with an additional charge of aggravated break and enter and the murder charges were specified to be related to domestic violence.

Lamarre-Condon's solicitor John Walford said his client was struggling to adjust to his situation as his legal team waited for the rest of the prosecution's brief against him to be served.

'I can say in general terms he's feeling overwhelmed,' Mr Walford told Daily Mail Australia. 'His mental health issues are declining.

'He's frustrated because he can't say anything at the moment. He's feeling very frustrated. He wants to be able to say something.

'I can say that to you at the moment, he's not doing well. He's declining.'

Mr Walford only learnt of the fresh charge, and that police were officially alleging the deaths of Mr Baird and Mr Davies were acts of domestic violence, through media reports.

While the case makes its way through the courts Lamarre-Condon can expect to stay in his present location.

Beaue Lamarre-Condon is charged with murdering former Studio Ten presenter Jesse Baird (right) and Qantas flight attendant Luke Davies (left) at Paddington on February 19

Whereas Supermax at Goulburn contains prisoners who represent a danger to staff and other inmates, the SPC warehouses those who are at extreme risk of physical harm.

It sometimes even takes offenders smaller states cannot keep safe, such as Perth bikie Sid 'Snot' Reid, who turned on his Gypsy Joker bikie comrades.

Reid became perhaps Australia's most infamous supergrass after he was arrested over the 2001 car firebombing murders of former Western Australian CIB boss Don Hancock and his friend Lou Lewis.

A retired senior prison officer who had never been inside the facility despite working in the NSW jail system for decades said few Corrective Services employees were familiar with the place.

'All the inmates are referred to by a number, not by name,' he said.

'I always thought of the place as an "upmarket boneyard". It's basically a very expensive protection unit.'

Wayne Astill, who is serving a maximum 23 years for raping 14 female inmates when he was a prison officer at Dillwynia Correctional Centre, has called the SPC home since shortly after his arrest.

Former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld did time at the SPC after being convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice for claiming a dead woman was driving his car when he received a speeding fine.

Despised rapist and prison informer Fred Many spent his final years of incarceration at the SPC, while gangster Neddy Smith had a long stint there after cooperating with ICAC in the early 1990s.

Swedish model Charlotte Lindstrom, who tried to hire a hitman to kill two witnesses giving evidence against her drug-dealing fiance, was another notorious SPC resident.

Lamarre-Condon was recently transferred to a unit within Sydney 's Long Bay prison complex called the Special Purpose Centre which houses NSW's most vulnerable inmates. Stock image

Lamarre-Condon is accused of shooting Mr Baird, 26 and Mr Davies, 29 with his service pistol at Mr Baird's home and then dumping their bodies two days later in the Southern Tablelands.

Mr Baird and Lamarre-Condon were previously engaged in what police described as an 'off and on' romance but Mr Baird had not wanted to pursue a relationship.

Investigators have alleged Lamarre-Condon displayed 'predatory' behaviour in the lead-up to the killings.

Lamarre-Condon, who used to regularly post pictures of himself with international stars on social media, turned himself in to police at Bondi four days after Mr Baird and Mr Davies were shot dead.

Following a brief court appearance that afternoon, Lamarre-Condon was transferred to the MRRC, where he was placed in protective custody due to his status as a policeman.

Jail authorities also deemed him potentially at risk because he was accused of extremely serious offences, had attracted saturation media attention and had never previously been in prison.

Detective spoke to Lamarre-Condon at the MRRC on February 24 after he received legal advice from Mr Walford.

Lamarre-Condon was previously in protective custody at the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre at Silverwater (above) in Sydney's west before being shifted to the SPC

Police subsequently located the bodies of Mr Baird and Mr Davies on a property at Bungonia, about 180km south-west of Sydney.

The former senior constable was sacked by the NSW Police Force on March 22 and is listed to appear in court again on August 13.

Lamarre-Condon has undergone a preliminary psychiatric assessment and his lawyers are awaiting a secondary report.

Mr Walford, a former detective who spent 20 years in the NSW Police Force, said once the Director of Public Prosecutions had served a full brief of evidence he could seek proper legal instructions from Lamarre-Condon.

'We're desperately trying to get everything served on us,' Mr Walford said.

'I'm hoping we can get this thing wrapped up and into court sooner rather than later to be honest.'

Mr Walford has previously said the murder charges 'could be' defendable and that Lamarre-Condon's mental health would likely feature in any case he presented in court.

'Mental health is something we expect to come into play,' he said in March. 'It certainly seems there are things we have to look at in that way.'

A Corrective Services NSW spokeswoman said the department did not comment on an individual inmate's circumstances.
The number of children being seriously hurt by knives in England and Wales rose 47 per cent in just 10 years, a new report has found.

The Youth Endowment Fund (YEF) warned in its latest report that serious violence involving knives has increased significantly in recent years, impacting some of Britain's most deprived communities the most.

The London-based non-profit noted that police have 'failed' to solve most crimes, investigating only nine per cent of cases successfully, down from 25 per cent ten years ago - as funding for essential resources aimed at prevention have dried up.

The report notes spending on young people's services has 'more than halved' since 2012-13, with many more children finding themselves in care, in absolute poverty or being referred to mental health services - weakening the 'safety nets' in place to support the most vulnerable.

Black children were more than six times more likely to be murdered compared to their share of the population in 2022-23 - a difference that has 'narrowed' recently, but remains worse than it was ten years ago.

Police are investigating fewer cases as funding has been cut, the report found

Nottinghamshire has seen the highest rate of violent offences by children per capita

While hospital admissions have been coming down, they remain higher than a decade ago

The harrowing report claims that while homicides, hospitalisations for knife assault and violent offending by children have all fallen below their pre-Covid levels, the rates remain high compared to where they were in the early 2010s.

In 2023-23, 99 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 were victims of homicide, up from 87 in 2012-13.

This follows a wider uptick in violence since the start of the last decade, correlated closely with a drop in funding for vital services designed to help young people away from violent crime.

Homicides of 16-24 year olds spiked in 2017-18, up 69 per cent from 2012-13's figures.

The number of 0-17 year olds admitted to hospital for knife assault likewise rose significantly through the late 2010s, nearly doubling from 2012-13 to 2018-19.

While the overall trend shows figures falling in the last couple of years, the YEF raises concerns that homicides and hospital admissions remained higher than they did 10 years ago - up 14 per cent and 47 per cent respectively.

Boys are disproportionately affected by the violence, remaining mostly unchanged.

In 2022-23, men accounted for 83 per cent of children cautioned or convicted for violent offences.

91 per cent of all children being admitted to hospital for knife assaults were young boys in this period, the report found.

While London recorded the highest sheer number of violent offences committed by children between 2021-22 and 2022-23, Nottinghamshire recorded the most per 100,000 people.

Population-dense London recorded 320 violent offences by children in the period - behind North Wales (324/100,000), West Yorks (363/100,000) and Notts (383/100,000).

'Although London ranks highest for the total number of young people involved in violence, it's shown relatively greater decreases in recent years compared to other areas,' the authors noted.

'In 2022/23, proven violent offending by children in London was 38% down compared to the year before Covid-19 (2019/20)  a larger decrease than almost three-quarters (74%) of all police force areas.'

Your browser does not support iframes.

Of immediate concern - with absolute poverty and inequality increasing since the pandemic towards 'Victorian Age' levels - knife crime appears to hit the poorest areas of England and Wales the hardest.

Children living in the most deprived police force areas are 2.5 times more likely to be exposed to violent crime than those in the least deprived areas.

While stopping short of pronouncing causation, the report correlates the concerning trends with the unavailability of safety nets designed to protect children from violence.

'There are signs of stretched services, financial pressures and increasing numbers of children in need of support,' the report concludes, pointing to a dearth of resources in the youth sector, education, health and children's services.

Spending on services for young people in England has halved in the last decade, down by more than 500,000 since 2012-13 in real terms.

Jon Yates, executive director at the Youth Endowment Fund said: 'If we want to cut knife crime and ensure that the next decade is safer for our children than the last, we need to focus our efforts and resources on the strategies that we know work.

'With the right support and opportunities, we can make our communities safer and help all children live a life free from violence.'

The YEF observes that since Covid, schools are still facing challenges with unauthorised absences.

Persistent absence rates reached 21 per cent in 2022-23.

More than a million children in England and Wales were also referred to mental health services - a figure that jumped sharply after the pandemic.

'Unfortunately, NHS services are struggling to cope with demand, leading to longer waiting lists and children being unable to access support when they need it.'

Police, notably, have had less success investigating related crimes.

In 2012-13, one in four recorded crimes led to a charge, summons or out-of-court disposal.

But ten years on, the figure had fallen to just nine per cent.

The YEF concludes there is 'growing evidence about what works to prevent violence', despite the trends, and urges use of approaches 'such as mentoring, therapies and hot spot policing' to prevent violence.

They suggest children committing low-level or first-time offences would benefit from targeted and timely support rather than criminal records to prevent reoffending.

The harrowing report comes as the Met Police arrested a 15-year-old boy on suspicion of murder on Wednesday after 15-year-old Pharrell Garcia was found collapsed on the ground in Hackney, London having suffered fatal stab wounds on Tuesday.

The horrific incident took place on the grounds of a block of flats next to Benthal Primary School, where Pharrell had been a pupil before going on to secondary school.

Two friends from his school told of how Pharrell had been visiting a friend who lives in the area, and was about to leave on a Lime bike he had rented when someone 'tried to rob him'.

They said Pharrell had tried to run, but the robber 'banged him on the head' before stabbing him in the lungs, causing him to suffocate.

It is understood he had gone to the area to pick up his sister from the primary school, before then meeting his friend.

Yvette Cooper arrives in Downing Street to attend weekly Cabinet meeting in London, July 16

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has blamed the rising trend of knife crime on the former Tory government, promising things will change under Labour.

'We can't carry on like this. This Labour government will put neighbourhood police back on the beat in our town centres, with stronger laws on knife crime, shoplifting and assaults on shop workers to keep our communities safe,' she said.

Ms Cooper previously put forward a new 'tough love' youth programme targeting those most at risk and delivering support for young people struggling with mental health issues.

The policy 'will draw' on a fund of up to 100mn a year to identify those most at risk, develop a national network of Young Futures hubs, and to reinforce existing measures deemed effective.

The Crest think tank estimates as many as 200,000 children are vulnerable to serious violence, a record number.

Separately, the ONS found this week that knife-enabled crime recorded by police in the year ending March 2024 had increased by four per cent (50,510 offences) year-on-year (up from 48,409 offences).
Hundreds of texts between members of a faith-healing group in the week a young girl lay dying from her diabetic condition have been revealed in court.

Fourteen members of the religious circle known as The Saints are on trial charged with the death of Elizabeth Struhs, who was found dead in her Rangeville home in early 2022.

It is alleged the Toowoomba girl's parents - Jason Richard Struhs, 52, and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49 - and members of The Saints withheld the girl's insulin from January 3 that year in line with their group's hard line beliefs in the healing power of God.

Elizabeth's condition worsened until she died between January 6-7 from diabetic ketoacidosis.

Jason and Kerrie Struhs are charged with their daughter's murder and manslaughter respectively.

Elizabeth's elder brother Zachary Alan Struhs, 21, Loretta Mary Stevens, 67, Acacia Naree Stevens, 31, Therese Maria Stevens, 37, Sebastian James Stevens, 23, Andrea Louise Stevens, 34, Camellia Claire Stevens, 28, Alexander Francis Stevens, 26, Lachlan Stuart Schoenfisch, 34, his wife Samantha Emily Schoenfisch, 26, and Keita Courtney Martin, 22, are all charged with manslaughter.

The Saints' leader Brendan Luke Stevens, 62, is charged with murder alongside Jason.

The court has been told Jason made the decision to withdraw Elizabeth's insulin to prove his faith in God after being baptised into The Saints in August 2021.

Elizabeth Struhs died between January 6 and 7, 2022 at her family's home in Rangeville, Toowoomba, from diabetic ketoacidosis. Picture: Supplied

Zachary Struhs (top row, 2nd from right) is among 14 members of the religious group The Saints accused of fatally withdrawing Elizabeth's insulin several days before her death. Picture: Court Sketch / NewsWire

On Friday, Brisbane Supreme Court was shown hundreds of texts exchanged between members of the group dating back as far as 2019.

During the week of Elizabeth's death, Jason texted Brendan Stevens that he was struggling after seeing his daughter become unwell.

Members of The Saints attended the Struhs home over the following days and continued to share messages encouraging Jason to stay firm in his faith.

One message from Ms Martin to Andrea Stevens reads: 'God won't give Jason more than he can bear.'

In another, Andrea texts Ms Martin: 'Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit this mountain shall be removed.'

Members of The Saints attended the Struhs home while Elizabeth was sick and continued to share messages encouraging Jason Richard Struhs (pictured) to stay firm in his faith. Supplied,

Jason Richard Struhs and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs (pictured) are both charged with the murder and torture of their daughter Elizabeth Rose Struhs. Supplied

On January 7 - the day Elizabeth died - Camellia Stevens tells her brother Alexander the girl doesn't appear to be breathing.

She then says: 'We will see this miracle.'

A text sent by Therese Stevens to Camellia and Acacia Stevens was also read onto the record.

'There is nothing to be afraid of, the Lord is with us. Elizabeth is alive. Be comforted,' her text read.

The court was told Ms Schoenfisch and Therese also exchanged messages in 2021 after Ms Schoenfisch was baptised into the group.

Ms Schoenfisch tells Therese over text that she was doing a 'clean out' of all 'unnecessary' medication.

She said she was throwing out her creams and ointments, describing them as 'witchcraft'.

'Needless to say there are many vitamins, sleeping tablets and painkillers all on their way to the dump this afternoon. Praise God,' Ms Schoenfisch says in her text.

Therese responds by recommending salt water as a replacement for antiseptic and to apply honey 'if a wound is clean'.

Recorded interviews with the defendants are also expected to be played over the coming weeks.

In one, played on Thursday, Zachary Struhs tells police he is 'disgusted' his parents were being investigated for murder and people would be 'judged' for it.

The court was told he was interviewed at Toowoomba Police Station several days after Elizabeth's death.

Zachary tells officers that he did not regret calling anyone to seek medical attention for his sister.

He goes on to say his sister had the full support of their congregation when the decision to stop administering her lifesaving insulin medication in the days prior, before slamming the investigation into his family.

'I'm very disgusted this is a murder investigation,' Zachary told officers at Toowoomba Police Station.

'All of those involved will be judged based on what's in their heart and what they've done today.'

The judge-alone trial continues.
The world is full of injustices, but none apparently quite so bitter as the decision by sandwich chain Pret A Manger to water down its 'coffee subscription' service.

Nearly four years after the scheme was launched, instead of a 30 monthly fee allowing them up to five free drinks a day, subscribers to Club Pret were told last week they will soon have to pay 10 a month in return for just a 50 per cent discount.

Club Pret's fans are appalled. Ever since the change, which will take effect in September, was announced  in a letter signed off 'with love' from UK managing director Clare Clough  social media has been frothing like a cappuccino machine gone haywire.

Pret's coffee subscription offered customers up to five drinks a day for just 30 a month

'You are making a huge mistake,' warned one user on X. 'There is time to rectify it, otherwise I am cancelling my subscription and will never set foot into any of your stores (which will quickly shut down, one by one, from September) ever again.'

Another echoed the thought: 'Can't wait to never set foot in Pret again because of this change.'

Others calculated the brutal economics of the new rules. At the moment, any Club Pret member with the caffeine-tolerance to gulp down five coffees per day for a month currently pays 30 to do so. But in future, such a habit will set them back 280, instead of 540 at full price.

So if the Club was hugely popular, and got people through the doors to buy sandwiches and other things, why has Pret dropped it?

Some experts have suggested the offer was simply too generous. They say it has been an enormous own-goal, rather like Hoover's infamous 'free flights' deal in 1992, when the vacuum-cleaner company was nearly brought to its knees after it offered two free return plane tickets to New York for anyone spending more than 100 on a Hoover.

Eagle-eyed travellers noticed that the value of the free tickets was around 600  six times the cost of the vacuum cleaner. Understairs cupboards filled up with surplus Hoovers while their owners enjoyed a jaunt to the Big Apple. The fiasco ended up costing the company an estimated 48 million.

Like the Hoover deal, Pret's coffee subscription was born out of desperation to boost business. When it launched on September 8, 2020, with the economy struggling to recover from the first Covid lockdown, the service offered five drinks a day  including teas, hot chocolates, smoothies and frappes  for an initial price of 20 per month.

When it launched in 2020 the service had an initial price of 20 per month, which has gradually increased

It was the same week the 'Rule of Six' was announced, and Britain began to be carved up into a bewildering number of 'tiers', all with their own constantly changing rules on social distancing. Millions of workers had yet to return to the office and Pret's 450 UK shops  around three-quarters of which are in London  were hurting badly.

'How Long Can Pret A Manger Hold Out While Brits Still Work From Home?' asked a headline in the Grocer magazine.

That was in spite of efforts by Rishi Sunak, then the chancellor, to give the hospitality sector a boost by temporarily lowering VAT to 5 per cent, and posting a cheery picture of himself buying lunch with the caption: 'Making the most of Pret's price cut in response to the VAT reduction.'

The chain also benefited from Sunak's 'Eat Out To Help Out' wheeze, in which the Treasury (ie the taxpayer) paid half the cost of food and drink consumed on premises (up to 10 per person) on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays during August 2020.

Pret's coffee subscription scheme was an immediate success, attracting 16,500 subscribers on its first day, far more than expected. By April 2023, the chain was dishing out over 1.25 million coffees a week under the subscription, to an estimated 180,000 customers. Pret was left with a headache: the scheme was rapidly becoming unaffordable, but how should they handle customers now accustomed to coffee that was apparently free at the point of delivery and who were bound to squeal if the offer was withdrawn?

Pret was having to make many more coffees as customers tried to max out their subscriptions. Non-subscribers, meanwhile, were understandably miffed at having to wait in queues behind 'freeloaders'  aka subscribers  who were paying far less for drinks.

By April 2023, the chain was dishing out over 1.25 million coffees a week under the subscription

In 2023, the chain phased out fruit smoothies and frappes, available via the subscription, because they were expensive and time-consuming to make.

That same year, Pret let slip that the average subscriber was visiting its shops 28 times a month  almost every day. Assuming they were having a coffee on each occasion, that meant they were getting each one for just over 1. Yet for non-subscribers, Pret was charging anything from 3 for an espresso to 4.25 for a 'Matcha Latte'.

According to insiders, High Street coffee shops typically make a profit margin of 10 per cent, with rent and staff accounting for a far bigger chunk of costs than the raw materials of coffee beans and milk. That means customers need to pay roughly 2.70 for Pret just to break even on an espresso  the company was thus losing 1.70 on every one handed out under the Club Pret rules.

Pret was putting on a brave face. In 2022, it returned to profit for the first time since 2018, and claimed that subscribers were spending almost 30 per cent more per transaction than non-subscribers.

But, it's difficult to see how it can be making anything other than a thumping loss on every cup of coffee it serves under the scheme. What's more, didn't the need for the Club arguably disappear as more workers returned to the office?

Retail analyst Natalie Berg says: 'You can't fault Pret for experimenting. They had to find a way to lure customers back into their stores post-lockdown.

'But for any subscription model to work, both the customer and the business need to be getting value from it. Pret's problem has been that some customers were arguably getting too much value.'

When it raised the price of the monthly subscription from 25 to 30 in 2023, Pret threw in a 20 per cent discount on food.

But there was no hiding the fact that while appearing to lose money from its more active subscribers, Pret was marking up the cost of other products.

Even allowing for a cost-of-living crisis, for non-coffee drinkers like me, a visit to Pret looks anything like good value for money.

A bottle of still water, which cost 1.10 in August 2020, now costs an astonishing 2.20 according to Prets website. As for a tuna baguette, 3.15 in 2020, I paid 5.25 for one in London a fortnight ago

Pret says it will now bring down many of its prices. And yes, there are signs of that happening. A butter croissant is available for 1.99 (down from 2.30) and Arabica filter coffee for 99p (from 1.80).

Pret says it will bring down many of its prices. Arabica filter coffee now costs 99p (from 1.80)

Pret is in good company when it comes to making over-generous offers. As well as the Hoover fiasco, McDonald's made a blunder with its 'When the US wins, you win' promotion during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Scratchcards offered customers free food and drink if the U.S. won a medal in particular events. A gold was worth a Big Mac, a silver a portion of fries and a bronze Coca-Cola.

McDonald's had based its sums on the 1976 Montreal Olympics, when the U.S. won 94 medals, 34 of them gold. But the boycott of the 1984 Olympics by the Soviet Union and Eastern European communist nations paved the way for a gargantuan American haul of 174 medals, 83 of them gold. The fast food giant took a hit.

Then there was the promotion by the US frozen food chain Healthy Choice in 1999 offering $1 worth of air miles for every eligible product. David Phillips, a California civil engineer, discovered a chocolate pudding on sale for just 25 cents and went on a buying spree. Cutting out the barcodes from 12,150 puddings yielded him 1.2 million air miles.

It's a tale that embodies the consumer dream of using a flawed promotion to get one over on a company. For Club Pret's subscribers, that dream will now seem even more elusive.
Kamala Harris was all smiles when she arrived at Joe Biden's former Delaware campaign headquarters on Monday.

She was there to lift the spirits of blindsided staffers, who after 15 months of toiling to re-elect the president, suddenly found themselves working for her.

'It is my great honor to have Joe's endorsement in this race,' she boasted to cheers from a crowd who were now on her payroll.

But as the assembled readily applauded, some must have harbored private concerns.

For, behind the recent public self-branding of Harris as a kindly, jovial 'Momala', she has earned a nasty reputation as an alleged 'soul-destroying' workplace 'bully'.

Only four of the initial 71 staffers hired by Harris during her first year in office still remain in a job. The rest either quit or were fired, according to analysis by non-partisan watchdog Open The Books.

Behind the recent public self-branding of Harris as a kindly, jovial 'Momala', she has earned a nasty behind-closed-doors reputation as an alleged 'soul-destroying' workplace 'bully'.

Kamala Harris was all smiles when she arrived at Joe Biden 's former Delaware campaign headquarters on Monday.

That translates to a 92 percent staff turnover rate  and, say critics, is a likely sign that the issues on Team Harris have more to do with her than anyone else.

During research for my recent Harris biography ('Amateur Hour', published in January), the horror stories I heard from many of her former employees and read about in numerous reports  shocked me.

As far back as the 2010s, when Harris served as California's Attorney General, she was allegedly known for running a 'toxic' workplace.

Barbara O'Connor, a professor at California State University, Sacramento claimed that students who worked for Harris as interns frequently came back to her crying and saying that they 'felt they weren't valued.'

After Harris was elected in 2017 to represent California in the US Senate, working conditions reportedly did not improve.

Analysis showed her office had the ninth-highest staff turnover rate out of the 114 senators who served between 2017 and 2020.

Congressional sources told the Mail that she would berate subordinates in expletive-laden tirades.

Even those working for Republican lawmakers allegedly got caught in the crossfire.

In one instance, reported in my book, sources described how Harris lashed out at a room full of Senate staffers during the highly contentious 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh.

On September 28 of that year, as Kavanaugh's nomination moved forward despite liberal outrage over allegations he'd sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford three decades earlier, Harris and her colleagues staged a walkout from the hearings.

Harris lashed out at a room full of Senate staffers during the highly contentious 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of U.S. Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Barbara O'Connor (above), a professor at California State University, Sacramento claimed that students who worked for Harris as interns frequently came back to her crying and saying that they 'felt they weren't valued.'

Later, Harris was said to explode in anger outside the main Judiciary Committee room.

Witnesses recalled Harris cursing and ordering around staffers who did not even work for her.

'Anyone who's staff, get the f*** out of here!' she allegedly yelled.

Harris's campaign did not respond to requests for comment on these allegations.

Years later, amid the dramatic and rapid collapse of Harris's 2020 presidential bid, this allegedly troubling behavior began to be leaked to the public.

In a sensational resignation letter shared with the New York Times in November 2019, Harris's then State Operations Director Kelly Mehlenbacher slammed her boss, saying: 'I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.'

She continued: 'It is not acceptable to me that we encouraged people to move from Washington, DC to Baltimore only to lay them off with no notice.'

'Morale has never been lower,' she added, saying there was no 'real plan' for how Harris might win, but that she hoped her departure 'might result in some serious consideration of [] our internal communications'.

In a sensational resignation letter shared with the New York Times in November 2019, Harris's then State Operations Director Kelly Mehlenbacher slammed her boss, saying: 'I have never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly.'

But as Harris's failed campaign then descended into nasty blame-shifting and finger-pointing, Biden threw her a political lifeline, tapping her to be his running mate and effectively saving her skin.

Just a few months into Biden's administration, troubling stories about her management style surfaced once again.

In June 2021, Politico spoke to 22 individuals familiar with Harris's VP office who all claimed that her team was experiencing 'low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials.'

'It's not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like s***,' one source said.

A Biden administration official claimed Harris was responsible: 'It all starts at the top.'

That sentiment was shared by Gil Duran, an ex-aide to Harris who worked in her Attorney General's office and quit after five months.

'What is the common denominator through all this?' he said, 'It's her.'

Harris's then-press secretary, Symone Sanders, tried to defend her boss, accusing complaining staffers of being soft.

'We are not making rainbows and bunnies all day,' Sanders told Politico. 'What I hear is that people have hard jobs and I'm like "welcome to the club".'

Just five months later, Sanders, a political veteran who had once worked for infamously cantankerous Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (no relation), left Harris's office as well.

'I'm so grateful to the VP for her vote of confidence from the very beginning,' Sanders said.

'We are not making rainbows and bunnies all day,' Sanders (above, right) told Politico. 'What I hear is that people have hard jobs and I'm like 'welcome to the club'.'

But then the dam broke.

Multiple staffers who worked for Harris before she was Vice President told the Washington Post in December 2021 how she'd reportedly refuse to prepare for public appearances and blame her aides when she then underperformed.

'It's clear [with Harris] that you're not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,' one ex-aide said. 'With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you're constantly sort of propping up a bully and it's not really clear why.'

In the summer of 2021  and reported by CNN  Harris was said to have been 'prepped extensively by her team' on how she could respond to questions about why she'd not yet visited the southern border, despite her role as White House 'border czar'.

But when the time came to deliver her answer, Harris botched her interview with NBC's Lester Holt.

'We've been to the border,' she told Holt in June of that year.

'You haven't been to the border,' he replied.

'I haven't been to Europe,' Harris clapped back with an awkward laugh. 'I don't understand the point that you're making.'

The flippant response resulted in one of the most damaging public appearances of her entire White House tenure. She didn't do another one-on-one interview for nearly a year.

'I haven't been to Europe,' Harris clapped back with an awkward laugh. 'I don't understand the point that you're making.' (Above) Harris's interview with NBC News in June 2021

A Biden administration official claimed Harris was responsible: 'It all starts at the top.' That sentiment was shared by Gil Duran (above), an ex-aide to Harris who worked in Harris's Attorney General's office and quit after five months.

At other times, and perhaps as a result of the Holt disaster, Harris reportedly began to over-prepare for some events.

In April 2022  having been invited to a salon-style dinner at the home of David Bradley, a heavyweight DC media mogul  she was said to be so anxious about that she held a 'mock dinner' with staffers who acted out the roles of dinner guests, Axios reported.

Speaking exclusively to the Mail, political strategists who have previously worked for Harris say the root of her problems is that she overly relies on a trusted, though under-qualified inner circle that includes her sister Maya Harris and brother-in-law Tony West, a former Obama Justice Department official.

Neither are professional political strategists.

Team Harris appears to now be leaking to the media that attempts are underway to bring former Obama adviser David Plouffe and ex-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel on board.

But, in truth, I'm told the efforts appear to be more wishful thinking to reassure donors rather than a reality.

On Monday, Harris announced that Biden campaign chief Jen O'Malley Dillon would remain on duty  as would senior Biden advisor Julie Chavez Rodriguez who previously worked for Harris in her Senate office and on her 2020 presidential race.

In a May interview on actress Drew Barrymore's talk show, Harris played the magnanimous boss.

'It's really important to be around people who love you, who are about you and who are going to be honest with you,' she said.

As she now prepares to tackle the monumental task of running a presidential campaign in just four months, the question for Harris will surely be whether she's prepared to listen to that honest feedback.
Joe Biden's doctor gave a puzzling response when asked if he was the president's physician after being ambushed on the White House lawn.

Kevin O'Connor was walking along the driveway trying to get around anti-Israel protest blockades when reporters asked if he was the president's doctor.

'I dont know. I dont know,' O'Connor replied while briskly walking toward the White House.

The former US Army medic then said Biden's health and mental cognition were 'excellent' and he saw no need to give the president a cognitive test.

O'Connor, known to Biden and others around the White House simply as 'doc', has been a part of the president's life for more than a decade and was a central figure to the family when Biden's son Beau was dying of cancer.

Joe Biden's doctor Kevin O'Connor said Biden's health and mental cognition were 'excellent' and he saw no need to give the president a cognitive test

He answered in very few words on Thursday as he tried to figure out how to pass the heightened security during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit.

The elusive doctor has never given an interview or press conference since Biden took office in January 2021, or even before that, and rarely makes statements.

When confronted by the New York Post on Thursday and asked if he was Biden's doctor, he initially replied 'I don't know. I don't know' before confirming he was.

Smiling as he said 'It's excellent' when asked how Biden's health was, he then added that he would 'probably not' brief the press about it.

'I hope not,' O'Connor replied when asked if that could change before the end of Biden's term in January.

The reporter asked: 'Is there a reason you didn't perform a cognitive test on him?' to which O'Connor explained, 'We don't need to. He's here every day.'

O'Connor said there was no truth to speculation that the president was suffering from Parkinson's disease, insisting 'No, he's good'.

Biden walks along the Colonnade at the White House with O'Connor in August 2023

He also denied White House visits by Parkinson's specialist Kevin Cannard had anything to do with concerns Biden may have the condition.

'He's seen him three times, my letter was clear,' he said, referring to two weeks ago when he explained Cannard only saw Biden for yearly physical exams.

'Dr Cannard was the neurological specialist that examined President Biden for each of his annual physicals,' he wrote in the letter.

'President Biden has not seen a neurologist outside of his annual physical.'

Cannard came to the White House residence clinic eight times between July 2023 and March 2024, meeting with Megan Nasworthy, who coordinates health checkups for the presidential family seven of those times.

O'Connor has never given an interview or press conference since Biden took office in January 2021, or even before that, and rarely makes statements

His eighth visit was to speak with O'Connor and Dr John Atwood, a cardiologist at Walter Reed National Military Medical Medical Center, where Cannard also works.

'Prior to the pandemic, and following its end, he has held regular neurology clinics at the White House Medical Clinic in support of the thousands of active-duty members assigned in support of White House operations,' O'Connor wrote.

'Many military personnel experience neurological issues related to their service, and Dr. Cannard regularly visits the WHMU as part of this General Neurology practice.'

Speculation about Biden's health increased after his disastrous June 27 debate performance against Donald Trump while he battled a bad cold.

Subsequent public events did not allay concerns and on Sunday he dropped out of the race but vowed to stay in office until his term ended.

President Joe Biden, in an Oval Office address, revealed why he decided to step down as the Democratic nominee

Doctors who watched Biden 's address to the nation on Wednesday night pointed out that the speech was relatively short - just 11 minutes - and the president read exclusively from a teleprompter,

This made it difficult to make a definitive assessment of his mental and physical well-being.

Dr Ernst von Schwarz, a cardiologist in California, said Biden's 'dry mouth, fixed stare, very little... hand movements and gestures... could be signs of cognitive decline' caused by his age, or 'a neurodegenerative condition' such as dementia.

But they could also be due to medication, the doctor told DailyMail.com.
This Sunday Anthony Albanese will announce the changes being made to his ministerial lineup, in the wake of two cabinet ministers stepping aside ahead of retiring from politics altogether at the next election.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that the Labor prime minister gets to decide for himself who moves into his cabinet.

No, no, no, that's not how things work in the Labor Party.

In case you didn't already know this, the factional bosses sit down and determine who from within their faction gets to enter the Labor ministry.

There are 30 ministerial positions all up, most in Cabinet, some in the outer ministry. The Right faction is allocated roughly half the positions, the Left faction gets the rest.

The PM gets handed a piece of paper with exactly who will be part of his ministry by each faction.

After that, he is given some power: he chooses the portfolios for everyone other than the deputy PM, Richard Marles, who as deputy has the right to choose his portfolio.

Because the two retiring ministers, Linda Burney and Brendan O'Connor, are from the Left, that faction will pick two new entrants to the ministry to replace them

The word is that one will be the assistant minister for Indigenous Affairs, Senator Malarndirri McCarthy.

The other is a choice between three other assistant ministers: Patrick Gorman and Senators Tim Ayres and Jenny McAllister, and one junior minister Stephen Jones.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that the Labor prime minister gets to decide for himself who moves into his cabinet. No, no, no, that's not how things work in the Labor Party

Before we go any further, assistant ministers are NOT part of the ministry. They are on the frontbench, technically, but they are outside the 30 ministerial roles.

The rules say that parties in government can pick a further 15 MPs and Senators to take up 'assistant minister' roles.

The PM gets to choose these positions for himself, free from being dictated to by the factions.

As an aside, assistant ministers used to be called 'parliamentary secretaries', until the title was changed because some within their ranks expressed frustration at being mistaken for the minister's secretary rather than an important member of the team.

I've always thought one's secretary is THE most important working for you, given that they keep you organised, but some politicians took exception to cases of mistaken identity so the title of parliamentary secretary is no more.

Getting back to Sunday's reshuffle...Senator McCarthy, Indigenous herself, is a natural fit for the Indigenous affairs portfolio Burney is vacating.

Both sides of politics have now embraced the benefit of - where possible - appointing an Indigenous politician to look after the Indigenous portfolio.

Senator Malarndirri McCarthy is widely tipped to take Linda Burney's Indigenous affairs portfolio

Dr Andrew Charlton, wasting away on the backbench, holds a PhD in economics

Albo's good mate, Senator Tim Ayres, is mooted to secure a promotion

While there are four possibilities to take up the other vacant cabinet role, there are really only two choices being considered: Senators McAllister and Ayres, with Ayres the frontrunner to secure the promotion, largely because he and Albo are good mates.

McAllister is still a chance because she's in the Left (like the rest of the options) and she's a senator (like Ayres). Apparently team Labor is keen to boost the number of senators holding ministerial portfolios.

Currently there are only four, but if the two retirements are replaced by a pair of senators that number jumps to six, which makes the business of the Senate easier apparently.

Too bad that both Gorman and Jones are the better qualified of the four for promotion: Jones because he's at least had junior ministerial experience; Gorman because he was a senior adviser to a PM and the state secretary of the WA Labor Party when it won a historic election victory with Mark McGowan.

Stephen Jones, the assistant treasurer, is also a possibility for promotion

Oh well, in Labor, talent rarely wins the day. Which is also why the two best replacements for the soon to be vacant assistant ministerial roles won't go to the two most qualified options: Andrew Charlton and Daniel Mulino.

Remind me, are we in a per capita recession? Yes we are. Is cost of living the central issue at the moment? Yes it is. Does this government need to find ways to improve its economic management credentials and talent on its frontbench? You bet it does, the only member of the powerful expenditure review committee of cabinet with an economics degree is Albo himself.

Charlton and Mulino, currently wasting away on the backbench, hold PhDs in economics from Oxford and Yale universities respectively. Their economic knowledge and experience - in government and working in the private sector - is second to none.

It is certainly more formidable than Treasurer Jim Chalmers skill set. Dr Chalmers has a PhD in politics...studying the leadership of Paul Keating.

While there is always an outside chance that Albo does the right thing and promotes one or two of this pair, the odds are staked against them both because they are in the wrong faction.

The two likely promotions from the assistant ministerial ranks into cabinet are both from the left faction. Charlton and Mulino are in the right.

So once again the stupidity of Labor's factional structure is likely to thwart doing the right thing and rewarding talent.

Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Andrew Giles must be a little nervous that his head is on the chopping block, giving the utterly woeful job that he's done in his portfolio.

He has released criminals into the community who re-offend, having changed the rules after taking over so that such an abomination became possible.

On the chopping block: Immigration Minister Andrew Giles

Home Affairs minister Clare O'Neil's future is up in the air

But he need not worry. While he might get shuffled into another portfolio he can summarily also no doubt stuff up without consequences, Giles is unlikely to get dumped because his faction will protect him.

And even if they don't, Albo probably will, given that he used to be the kingpin of Labor's Left and Giles is a close mate.

If Giles does get shuffled off to another role my suggestion is Veterans Affairs, moving WA MP Matt Keogh into Immigration in a direct swap.

Keogh's electorate in WA isn't as diverse as some Labor seats, so him taking a tougher line in immigration won't cause as much blowback in his seat or state as it could for others.

Giles can then get on with finding a way to create problems in the veterans affairs portfolio.

Which only leaves home affairs minister Clare O'Neil to consider. Does she also get shifted sideways to another portfolio given the problems she has had? It is a firm maybe from me.

Either way, she also need not worry: her right-wing faction will look after her and ensure she remains on their list to stay a minister, even if Albo had the courage to dump her, which let's face it, he doesn't.

There could be other minor changes up and down the list of 45 ministers and assistant ministers, including name changes to portfolios because that always gives the false impression of change when there really isn't any.

But given that Albo is seeking to make a virtue of the fact he hasn't made changes to his ministry in his first two years - spruiking his inaction in the face of failure as a strength - I'm tipping minimal changes rather than a major reshuffle.
A Christian teacher who was banned from the classroom over 'misgendering' a pupil has lost a High Court appeal against the decision.

Lawyers for Joshua Sutcliffe argued it was 'perverse' to expect him to use the child's preferred pronouns, which had no basis in law.

In a hearing in May, they also said it was an 'unjustified interference' with his right to freedom of speech and religion.

The 34-year-old maths teacher was banned last year after the Teaching Regulation Agency (TRA) found him guilty of 'unacceptable professional conduct'.

He had said 'well done girls' to a transgender pupil who identified as male, and a friend, while working at The Cherwell School in Oxford in 2017.

Maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe, who was banned from the classroom over 'misgendering' a pupil, has lost a High Court appeal against the decision

Mr Sutcliffe later did not use the pupil's preferred pronouns during an appearance on ITV 's This Morning

He later did not use the pupil's preferred pronouns during an appearance on ITV's This Morning.

All of this was before the Tories' draft guidance last year on transgender children, which stated teachers should not be made to use 'preferred pronouns'.

Mr Sutcliffe believes that the TRA would not have banned him had the guidance been in place at the time.

However yesterday, Mr Justice Pepperall dismissed the appeal, concluding that Mr Sutcliffe 'fails to understand or accept the harm that he caused vulnerable children in his class'.

In a written ruling, he said Mr Sutcliffe had to balance his religious convictions against his professional duties to 'treat children with dignity and respect and to safeguard their wellbeing'.

And he said the teacher had 'deliberately used female pronouns to refer to a transgender male pupil' in a way that he 'would be 'outed' without regard for the child's 'distress.'

He said that Mr Sutcliffe had to 'respect and celebrate the pupils' personal autonomy' and added: 'Just because misgendering a transgender pupil might not be unlawful, does not mean that it is appropriate conduct for a teacher'.

After the ruling, Mr Sutcliffe, who is being supported by Christian Concern, said: 'I still stand by my Christian convictions that it is harmful and detrimental to affirm gender confused children.

Mr Sutcliffe had said 'well done girls' to a transgender pupil who identified as male, and a friend, while working at The Cherwell School in Oxford in 2017

'This is the belief I am fighting for which is shared by not only Christians but many who do not believe in harmful transgender ideology.

'I have been a marked man ever since I dared to express my Christian beliefs in a school.'

The original TRA panel concluded he did not treat the transgender student with 'dignity and respect' by failing to use his 'preferred pronoun'.

It also found against him because he had expressed Christian views about homosexuality and had not provided a balanced view regarding a video he shown pupils about masculinity.

The ban was due to be reviewed two years after it was made.

Michael Phillips, representing Mr Sutcliffe, said in written arguments that the teacher believed 'one's biological sex is an immutable and essential aspect of one's personhood and to tamper with it is a denial of something sacred.'

Mr Sutcliffe, who has a young child, was found not to have acted 'maliciously', was a 'competent' teacher and showed 'high standards' in his personal life, the court was told.

It is understood he now hopes to take the case to the Court of Appeal,
Kevin Spacey's $5.6 million Baltimore home has been sold at a staggering discount just weeks after he claimed he was being forced to sell up due to the cost of his high-profile sexual assault case.

The actor sobbed as he recently told talk show host Piers Morgan that his Charm City home was being put up for auction to help cover his millions of dollars' worth of legal fees.

Now it has emerged the 9,000 square foot property has been sold to an anonymous businessman for $3.24 million.

'It is an iconic property in Baltimore,' Compass Realtor Sam Sheibani told the Baltimore Sun. 'We were very interested in getting it, obviously not under the circumstances that it's being sold, from whom it's being sold.'

The two-unit, waterfront condo last sold in 2017 for over $5.6 million to Clear Toaster LLC.

Kevin Spacey sobbed as he recently appeared on talk show host Piers Morgan's Uncensored that his Charm City home was being put up for auction to help cover his millions of dollars' worth of legal fees.

Spacey's Baltimore home is located in the city's Inner Harbor seaport and sold for $3.24 million at auction

No images were available of the property at the auction, which was sold in 'as is' condition.

Spacey has twice dodged bankruptcy since being cut off by Hollywood after allegations of sexual misconduct were first made against him in 2017.

Last year, the double Oscar winner was cleared of nine sexual offences against four men over a 20 year period following a highly publicized trial in the UK.

Spacey has strenuously denied the claims, but he still faces a further civil trial brought by one of the accusers.

Last month, he appeared on Morgan's Uncensored program where he said he is virtually penniless and owes 'many millions'.

'Well I mean, you have some sense of legal bills,' he said. 'I still owe a lot of legal bills that I have not been able to pay.'

Spacey's manager had previously appeared tried to cast doubt on whether the property was owned by the star.

Views on two: Tax records show that the home was purchased by Clear Toaster LLC for $5.65 million after being listed at $6.25 million

However, court records showed he had a significant amount in back payments.

The home, located in the city's Inner Harbour seaport, was secretly lived in by Spacey while he was filming the Netflix hit House of Cards, with its ownership listed under Clear Toaster LLC.

The sprawling riverside property was listed for sale after the actor fell behind on mortgage payments in the wake of his sexual misconduct scandal, which saw streaming giant Netflix drop him for breach of contract.

in 2021, an arbitrator ordered him to pay nearly $31 million to the studio that made the hit Netflix show, House of Cards, after it was revealed that he allegedly acted inappropriately towards someone on the set of the show.

When asked by Morgan about what he considered bad behavior, Spacey said: 'Pushing the boundaries'.

'Being too handsy, touching someone sexually in a way that I didn't know at the time they didn't want. I personally, I have caressed people, I have been gentle with people, that is the way that I am.

But in February, he agreed a settlement with Media Rights Capital (MRC) to pay $1 million.

The home was reportedly where Spacey holed up ahead of his sexual assault trial

Tumbling down: The price of the property has tumbled in the two years since it was purchased

Kevin Spacey (pictured in 2016) was one of the most recognized faces in Hollywood until allegations of sexual misconduct were made in 2017

Last month, he emotionally vowed that he 'won't give up on acting' after fresh allegations were made against him in a bombshell documentary by the UK's Channel 4.

The star accused the broadcaster of 'having an agenda' in deciding to go ahead with airing its two-part film, Spacey Unmasked.

The documentary featured previously unheard testimonies about the actor's alleged inappropriate behavior.

At the peak of his career, Spacey was worth almost $77 million with a property empire spanning the US and London.
The identities of the two pilots who died after their helicopters collided shortly after take-off in Western Australia's Kimberley region have been revealed.

Peter Ritter, 29, and Gavin U'Ren, 30, lost their lives at Mount Anderson Station in Camballin while cattle mustering at about 6.20am local time on Thursday.

At least one of the helicopters caught fire after it crashed to the ground.

Emergency services took about 45 minutes to arrive at the crash site because of the station's remote location.

The men worked for Broome-based helicopter company Pearl Coast Helicopters.

'Pearl Coast Helicopters is deeply saddened to report the tragic loss of two of our valued and highly experienced pilots in a helicopter accident on Mount Anderson Station earlier today.

'The accident is devastating and we express our condolences to the family and friends of the pilots involved, as well as our team, who are profoundly impacted by this loss.

Just weeks before the tragedy, Mr U'Ren spoke out about his love for helicopters in an interview with Farm Weekly.

Helicopter crash victim Gavin Uren

Helicopter crash victim Peter Ritter

'Watching them work, and getting to ride in the helicopters occasionally made me realise that was what I wanted to do,' Mr U'Ren said in his recent interview.

'Becoming mates with a few pilots, seeing the life they live, moving around and seeing some pretty cool countryside just concreted it.'

WA Police will prepare a report for the Coroner.

'This is a tragic incident that's happened today, everyone deserves to go to work and come home again safe and sound, but unfortunately, two young men, aged 29 years and 30 years respectively, have lost their lives,' WA Police Superintendent Steven Thompson said.

'On behalf of the WA Police force, I want to express my condolences to the family, friends, loved ones and colleagues of those who lost their lives today  I can only imagine what pain and suffering they are going through.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will also conduct an investigation into the incident and will send a team of investigators to the crash site.

'They will conduct a range of evidence-gathering activities including wreckage examination and site mapping, and will recover any relevant components for further examination at the ATSB's technical facilities in Canberra,' ATSB chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said.

Two pilots have died after two helicopters collided shortly after take-off near Mount Anderson Station (pictured) in Western Australia's Kimberley region on Thursday morning

The crash site location near Mount Anderson Station at Camballin in WA is pictured

'Investigators will also seek to interview witnesses and collect relevant recorded data, as well as pilot and aircraft maintenance records and weather information.'

Mr Mitchell said an interim report would be released in about two months, with a final investigation due later.

'However, should a critical safety issue be identified during the investigation, the ATSB will immediately notify relevant parties so safety action can be taken,' he said.

The Kimberley Agriculture and Pastoral Company runs the Indigenous-owned cattle station, which is about 120 kilometres south of Derby.
The number of calls to Centrelink that went unanswered almost doubled in the year to March 31, 2024, to more than 11million.

The shocking figure has been revealed in Services Australia data, as Centrelink also issued an urgent warning about payments made to huge numbers of Aussies.

The new figures revealed there were a massive 11,268,048 congestion messages, up from 6,997,300 in the previous 12-month period, on Centrelink's social security and welfare lines.

Congestion messages are the automated recordings that tell people on hold in the phone queue that staff are too busy to answer them.

Those trying to get through to a person are referred to online services and then the call abruptly disconnects.

Nearly two million of those dropped calls were to the disabilities, sickness and carers line, and those who did get through still had to wait an average of 47 minutes.

And those huge numbers do not even include unanswered calls for Medicare and Centrelink aged care clients, who were hung up on more than a million times.

That figure was a disturbing 27,500 per cent increase on the previous year's figure when just 4,067 people were hung up on.

The number of calls to Centrelink that went unanswered almost doubled in the year to March 31, 2024, to more than 11million (stock image)

Disgruntled Centrelink clients have vented their frustrations at the situation on social media.

'It's really fun that Centrelink keeps emailing to say ... we need to call them. Even more fun that I've tried calling them every day for the last week, and it just hangs up,' one person wrote, sarcastically.

Another said: 'It's like Centrelink is unaccountable via phone, but I will lose my payments if I don't talk to someone. I can't just take a potential week off (work) just to try to hopefully get through.'

A third person, who had an issue 'that can't be fixed in the Centrelink app or website', was also furious at being hung up on.

'Your solution is to call that number? And do what? Keep calling and getting hung up on again until I go insane?' they tweeted.

'There's no queue, there's no callback service. It puts the responsibility for fixing a Centrelink mistake on me, and then demands that I use hours of my time to fix it.'

Thousands of extra staff have been hired to work with Centrelink, and by April they had been trained to take calls and process claims, Services Australia said.

Its general manager, Hank Jongen claimed the 'use of congestion messaging has halved since January' and that wait times are down.

'Overall, Centrelink call wait times have fallen from an average of 31 minutes in January to about 25 minutes in June, depending on the day,' he told 7News.

The new hires and their colleagues have a huge backlog of claims to get through, though, and the situation is still very difficult for vulnerable people.

'In some cases, people are calling because their payments have been reduced or cut off, preventing them from paying their rent or buying food,' Australian Council of Social Services (ACoSS) acting CEO Edwina MacDonald said.

'Long call wait times are a big problem because that means people who need support cannot get the help they need.

'It's of huge concern that there were over 11million congestion messages, which block the caller, telling them to try again another time because the lines are too busy.'

Ms MacDonald said ACoSS welcomed the investment of $1.8billion to hire 3,000 new staff, but 'many are still waiting far too long'.

'The government must continue to invest in Services Australia including by employing and retaining skilled staff, after many years of cuts to this essential service.'

Meanwhile, people getting Centrelink benefits who are heading overseas have been warned to tell the government about their plans.

'There are rules covering how travelling outside Australia may affect your payment or concession card,' the agency said, depending on 'the payment or concession card you get'.

Welfare recipients have been reminded that if they leave Australia, their payments may be adjusted or even completely stopped.

Centrelink clients are advised to check their account regularly through the myGov website and to tell the agency about their travel plans.

'If you can't tell us online, you can tell us by calling us on the phone number that relates to your affected payment,' Centrelink said.

Before leaving Australia, recipients must report their income on the last business day before going abroad, even if their reporting day falls on or after they leave.

They should also let the government know if they are travelling overseas to see a partner while getting benefits as a single person.

'If you're going overseas to visit your partner ... we need to review your payment before you leave, otherwise we may pay you too much,' the agency said.

If Centrelink tries to get in touch with a recipient while they're abroad but can't, their payment or concession card could be stopped and may not be restored until the client is back in Australia.

There were a massive 11,268,048 congestion messages, up from 6,997,300 in the previous 12-month period, on Centrelink's social security and welfare lines. A queue at a Centrelink office is pictured

People getting Centrelink benefits who are heading overseas have been warned to tell the government about their plans. A queue at a Centrelink office is pictured

If you are travelling out of Australia for less than a year, eligible payments will continue every two weeks as usual, so long as Centrelink is aware of the person's plans.

If they are out of the country for more than a year, payments will be made every four weeks instead.

Those monthly payments can be paid into an overseas bank account in the local currency or US dollars depending on where the person is travelling.

If a serious issue, such as an illness or natural disaster, affects a person's ability to get home to Australia, payments may be extended, but the client will have to contact Centrelink International Services.
Sir Keir Starmer is expected to drop Britain's objection to an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu, it was reported last night.

The Prime Minister will reportedly abandon the Government's legal challenge to the the International Criminal Court's case against the Israel's premier.

It would in effect endorse the ICC's decision to pursue Mr Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders, for war crimes in Gaza, where around 39,000 people have died.

Under former PM Rishi Sunak, the UK issued a legal challenge questioning the ICC's jurisdiction over Israeli citizens.

But a Downing Street spokesman confirmed that the Labour government was 'looking' at the previous Tory administration's stance after The New York Times reported that Britain would drop its objections to the prosecution by the end of the week.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to drop Britain's objection to an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu by the end of the week

It would in effect endorse the ICC's decision to pursue Mr Netanyahu (seen in Washington yesterday) and his defence minister Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas leaders, for war crimes in Gaza

Following advice from Attorney General Lord Hermer KC, Sir Keir is expected to let the filing deadline for arguments pass tomorrow without issuing any challenge to the case, The Times reports.

Hermer  who worked with Sir Keir as a barristers at Doughty Street Chambers  was one of several Jewish lawyers who signed an open letter to the Financial Times calling on Israel to comply with humanitarian law after the October 7 massacre.

A spokesman for the Jewish Leadership Council criticised Labour's move and said Israel was a 'key ally' of Britain.

Labour has taken a tougher stance on Israel since winning a landslide election victory, despite losing four seats to pro-Palestinian activists.

David Lammy has restored funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency amid claims that workers participated in the October 7 attacks, which killed 1,200 people.

And the Foreign Secretary is rumoured to be publishing legal advice on halting some arms to Israel as early as next week.

Mr Netanyahu was in Washington last night meeting Joe Biden in an effort to close the remaining 'gaps' in the push for a ceasefire deal, the White House said.
She is preparing to launch a new lifestyle brand of her own  but it seems that Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, is still willing to do a favour for a friend.

It can be revealed that the Duchess has been promoting a new make-up range by her friend, mogul Victoria Jackson, who is part of her Montecito Mafia.

Jackson has just relaunched her iconic Eighties cosmetics brand, No Makeup Makeup.

Meghan wore it at the ESPY awards, pictured, where husband Prince Harry was controversially the recipient of the prestigious Pat Tillman Award. Her make-up artist Daniel Martin shared her support of the brand on Instagram.

Sources close to the Duchess say shes plugging it purely out of friendship, and that no money is changing hands. She and Victoria have been friends for years, I am told. She loves the product, and this wasnt a paid promotion.

Meghan (pictured) wore her pal's makeup at the ESPY awards, pictured, where husband Prince Harry (pictured) was controversially the recipient of the prestigious Pat Tillman Award

Victoria Jackson (pictured) has just relaunched her iconic Eighties cosmetics brand, No Makeup Makeup

Jackson wrote on her Instagram: You look stunning, Meghan! Thank you @danielmartin so much for your support with No Makeup Makeups red carpet debut! Xo Victoria.

Entrepreneur Jackson, 68, loaned Meghan her home for a photoshoot with The Cut in 2022 and is one of the key members of the former actresss inner circle. The pair were introduced by feminist icon Gloria Steinem.

Meghan celebrated her 41st birthday at Jacksons ranch in Santa Barbara, near Montecito.

The entrepreneur made a fortune with Victoria Jackson Cosmetics, which she began selling first via an infomercial and then on QVC. But she stepped away from the business after her daughter was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition and set up a charity which funded research into treatment and cures.

Sources close to Meghan (pictured in September 2023) say shes plugging it purely out of friendship

In 2021 she launched age-positive skin creams under the Kind Science banner with another close pal Ellen DeGeneres  who happens to be another good friend of Meghans.

Meanwhile, the Duchess is set to launch her lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, later this year, with a cooking series on Netflix and a branded rose wine the first ventures. Further homewares and food items will follow.
Harvey Weinstein has been rushed to hospital with a 'myriad of health conditions' including Covid and double pneumonia just days after he appeared wheelchair- bound in court.

The convicted rapist, 72, was transported to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, New York Corrections Department records show.

His representative said his ailing client is suffering from Covid-19, as well as pneumonia on both lungs.

The diagnoses paint a perilous picture for the disgraced movie mogul, who is 'still afflicted on a daily basis' with a host of conditions, including 'diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs', his spokesman Craig Rothfeld told DailyMail.com.

Weinstein has been pictured looking increasingly gaunt in recent days, including at a July 19 court appearance in New York, where he had to be wheeled in and out of the pretrial hearing.

Harvey Weinstein has been rushed to hospital with a 'myriad of health conditions' including Covid and double pneumonia just days after he appeared wheelchair bound in court on July 19

'We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses at DOCS, CHS, and NYC H+H who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward and will continue working hand in hand with them to ensure Mr. Weinstein receives proper medical treatment,' Rothfeld said in a statement to DailyMail.com.

Weinstein was convicted in New York and Los Angeles for a string of sex offences and had been serving a 23 year sentence on the east coast.

In the New York case, he was found guilty of sexual assault against former production assistant Miriam Haley and rape of aspiring actress Jessica Mann.

However, the charges were overturned earlier this year after a state appellate judges ruled that he did not receive a fair hearing.

The New York Court of Appeals determined that women who made allegations about Weinstein, but did not form part of the criminal complaint, should not have been allowed to testify at the trial.

A tentative new date was set for a retrial at the July 19 appearance, with jury selection set to begin on November 12.

Weinstein remains in prison as his conviction in Los Angeles for rape and sexual assault still stands.

The convicted rapist, 72, was taken to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, New York Corrections Department records show just days after the appearance at Manhattan Criminal Court on July 19

The ailing producer was previously spotted leaving hospital in a wheelchair back in April

He was given a 16 year sentence for three counts of sexual assault against Russian model Evgeniya Chernyshova, for which he has filed an appeal.

At the height of his powers, Weinstein was the most influential man in Hollywood.

But his world came crashing down in the wake of allegations of sexual misconduct first reported in the New York Times, which went on to form the basis of the #MeToo movement.

In recent court appearances, the ailing producer has been wheelchair bound, looking sickly and pale.

In April, he was sent to Bellevue for a barrage of medical tests. At the time, his lawyer described him as a 'train wreck health-wise'.

Arthur Aidala said his client's problems were all physical, adding that mentally he is 'sharp as a tack. Feet are firmly planted on the ground.'

The lawyer said Weinstein was 'not treated well' by prison staff.

In addition to his new diagnoses, Weinstein has a raft of pre-existing conditions including 'diabetes , high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs'

Weinstein was convicted in New York and Los Angeles for a string of sex offences and had been serving a 23 year sentence on the east coast. Pictured: Weinstein with (L-R)Taylor Swift, Este Haim, actress Jaime King and Lorde in 2015

The New York case saw him convicted for the sexual assault of Miriam Haley (left) and rape of Jessica Mann (right) but has since been overturned by an appeals court. Weinstein remains in prison in connection with his LA conviction

'They refused to give him even a sip of water, no food, no bathroom break,' Aidala said. 'He's a 72-year-old sickly man.'

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg vowed to do 'everything in our power' to retry the case, adding his office, 'remains steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault.'

If his second appeal against his Los Angeles conviction is successful, the shamed film boss could walk free.
A man has been arrested after a horror smash on Scotlands busiest motorway left three people, including a police officer, fighting for their lives.

Two on-duty officers and five other men were taken to hospital after the crash closed the eastbound lanes of the M8 in Glasgow at around 1pm on Wednesday.

Police said a 27-year-old had been arrested in connection with the collision and is due to appear at Glasgow Sheriff Court today.

It comes after a Mercedes A45 is alleged to have ploughed into an unmarked Volvo S90 police car and a Mercedes CLS, which were parked on the hard shoulder.

Two officers, aged 38 and 48, and two men from the Mercedes CLS, aged 31 and 43, were taken to hospital.

The 48-year-old officer and the 43-year-old man remain in a critical condition. The other injured officer and the 31-year-old man were later discharged after treatment.

A man has been arrested after a horror smash on Scotlands busiest motorway left three people, including a police officer, fighting for their lives

Two on-duty officers and five other men were taken to hospital after the crash closed the eastbound lanes of the M8 in Glasgow at around 1pm on Wednesday

Two officers, aged 38 and 48, and two men from the Mercedes CLS, aged 31 and 43, were taken to hospital

Three men, aged 27, 33 and 39, were in the Mercedes A45. The 27-year-old and 39-year-old left the scene but were later traced nearby.

They were taken to hospital for treatment. The 39-year-old is in a critical condition, while the 33-year-old is being treated for serious injuries.

The other man was discharged and then arrested in connection with road traffic offences.

He was released pending further inquiries but has since been arrested and charged in connection with an unrelated matter.

Police Scotland said the incident had been referred to the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner.
Bolt threatened to leave News Corp if James Murdoch took over

Energy Minister Chris Bowen has taken a shot at Sky News host Andrew Bolt after he threatened to quit News Corp if James Murdoch took over.

Billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch is locked in battle with three of his children after he went to change the terms of his family's trust - moving the bulk of his empire to his eldest son and News Corp chairman, Lachlan Murdoch.

His three eldest siblings, James, Elisabeth and Prudence, will go to court over the matter in September.

James resigned from the News Corp board in 2020 citing strategic decisions and editorial content he did not agree with.

On Thursday, Bolt unleashed on the youngest Murdoch son, saying: 'James could sack me if he did take over, but he wouldn't need to.

'I wouldn't be the only one who wouldn't work for him.'

Hours later, Federal MP Chris Bowen shared Bolt's resignation threat on X - with the sarcastic comment: 'How would we cope?'

Bolt responded to Mr Bowen's post on Friday afternoon.

'Chris Bowen would actually cope much better without me around to point out the lunacy of his net zero schemes,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'Mind you, many Australians are now waking up to him themselves.'

Climate and energy minister Chris Bowen is pictured at the National Press Club last week

Lachlan Murdoch could inherit the bulk of News Corp once his father dies. He is pictured with his wife, Sarah.

On Friday, Chris Bowen responded to Andrew Bolt's threat to leave News Corp if James Murdoch took over

Users hit back at Mr Bowen's post, with one saying: 'Why do you care? Oh that's right, because he calls you out.'

Another wrote: 'Good one, what a cabinet minister should be doing, diving straight into the gutter.'

But not everyone was critical, with some expressing excitement over the idea that Bolt could resign.

A third user said: 'Come on James! You can do it.'

Someone else wrote: 'There is a very good chance we will manage.'

The minister's post follows years of mud-slinging between the pair.

Last week, Bolt penned a scathing column about Mr Bowen in News Corp papers - slamming the minister as an 'idiot' and a 'liar' over comments he made in the National Press Club.

Mr Bowen had said: 'Open climate change denial is now less fashionable than it was ten or 15 years ago in the public debate.'

'Andrew Bolt still does it, but most other people don't bother with it.'

The conservative commentator argued he is not in denial about climate change, he just doesn't believe the situation is 'catastrophic' like Mr Bowen says it is.

Bolt has consistently attacked Mr Bowen's plans to transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar farms, labelling him as someone in 'total denial' who 'cannot hear the truth'.

He also once claimed Mr Bowen was 'the most dangerous person in government' after the minister asserted green energy was getting cheaper.

Conservative columnist Andrew Bolt (pictured) once called the climate minister a 'threat to Australia'

Rupert Murdoch is pictured, centre, with his two sons Lachlan, left, and James, right

In return, Mr Bowen has called for Bolt to be sacked for saying the energy minister was 'kowtowing to the primitive' by opening a speech in Dubai with a modified Acknowledgement of Country.

The minister said Bolt has crossed the line, labelling the comment 'racist and disgusting'.

'Like most Australians, I usually ignore Andrew Bolt,' Mr Bowen wrote.

'But on this occasion, I won't. His attack on First Nations people as 'primitive' is racist and disgusting. News Ltd should sack him.'

Bolt labelled Mr Bowen's gesture as 'brainless posturing' and 'race-based tribalism with its ruinous crusade against oil and gas'.

'Everyone in Australia is surely linked to some indigenous peoples somewhere on the planet from 'millennia' past,' he argued.

'Is Bowen seriously demanding 'profound' respect for the 'indigenous knowledge' of every Celt from England, every Saxon from Germany, every Gaul from France, or every Roman from central Italy?

'Or are the 'indigenous people' he's flattering only people who aren't white?

'In fact, Bowen's little homily is not just racist but anti-science, which makes him a threat to Australia'.

Bolt argued that indigenous people in Europe and Asia had 'left their indigenous knowledge behind because they used science to work out better ways to live without dying early and poor'.
An Army officer who was repeatedly stabbed in a street attack could return to work in the future, sources claim as he remains in hospital in a 'serious but stable condition'.

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Teeton is still receiving active medical treatment after he was set upon by a knife-wielding assailant outside his home in Gillingham, Kent, on Tuesday evening.

The 47-year-old, who has served in the Armed Forces for 24 years, was wearing his uniform 200 metres from Brompton Barracks when he was attacked by a moped rider.

His wife Eileen rushed from their house to his aid, with witnesses describing how she tackled the man who was stabbing her husband, likely saving Lt Col Teeton's life in the process.

Last night the father-of-two remained in hospital, with Army sources claimed that despite no change in his condition being expected in the coming days, in the long term is hoped he will return to work.

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Teeton pictured with his wife Eileen, who may have saved his life by running out to pull his attacker away

Lt Col Mark Teeton is reported to have joined the Army 24 years ago and has been awarded a long service and good conduct medal

Anthony Esan being led into Medway Magistrates Court this morning (left) and leaving (right) after being charged with the attempted murder of Lt Col Teeton

Police on the scene of an alleged attack on a British Army officer in Gillingham on Tuesday evening

The highly-respected officer had reached the same rank as his older brother Andy in the same corps, before becoming a course manager at the Royal School for Military Engineering, which is based at Brompton Barracks.

He was officially named yesterday as family, friends and neighbours paid tribute to him and his wife.

It came as a 24-year-old man appeared at Medway Magistrates Court in Chatham charged with attempted murder.

Antony Esan, of Rochester, confirmed his name but challenged the magistrate over why he should provide his date of birth. He confirmed the information when pressed by district judge Stephen Leake.

Prosecutor Rajni Prashar said a man was seen running up behind a soldier, pulling him to the ground and stabbing him with a 'large knife or machete'.

Ms Prashar added: 'He [the assailant] got on to a moped and drove off. Witnesses took down the registration number and it was traced.'

She said police found a set of kitchen knives in a black cardboard box on the moped. Two of them had been used. Three were still inside protective sleeves, suggesting they had not been used.

Esan did not enter a plea. He was remanded in custody until August 22 when he will appear at Maidstone Crown Court. His barrister said his client's fitness to stand trial will be assessed by psychiatrists.

Lt Col Teeton, a course manager for the Royal School of Military Engineering Regiment for almost six years, ran 44 miles just last month to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and to raise money for veterans' mental health support

Lt Col Teeton in his military uniform with his wife. He is believed to have been walking in a military uniform when he was attacked

A sketch of Anthony Esan, 24 (right), in court today accompanied by police officers. He is yet to enter pleas to the charges of attempted murder and possessing an offensive weapon

Forensic officers have been at an address in nearby Rochester, where a man was arrested and subsequently charged with attempted murder

Mrs Teeton was a member of an Army wives' choir and once appeared on the ITV chat show Lorraine alongside other military mums.

She is also a stalwart of the Armed Forces community in Medway, where her highly-respected husband belongs to the Royal School for Military Engineering at Brompton Barracks.

According to Army sources Mrs Teeton has been at her husband's side throughout his career, enduring the challenges that come with being a services wife.

But nothing could possibly have prepared her for the horror that confronted her on Tuesday evening.

Her anguished cries were inadvertently recorded on a neighbour's doorbell camera. 'What are you doing?' she screamed.

Then she turned and appealed for help, telling passers-by that her husband, who was wearing his uniform, had been stabbed and could bleed to death.

Last night friends said Mrs Teeton was a 'lovely lady', who is part of the Brompton and Invicta Military Wives Choir.

She appeared on ITV to discuss belonging to a services choir four years ago. A Facebook post from the time paid tribute to 'Our amazing Eileen  you were fabulous! We are so proud of you!'

Mrs Teeton is also a familiar face at the local community centre and could be relied upon to support other Army families. And her husband is as respected as he is popular, the Mail has been told, prioritising the welfare of personnel and veterans.

Earlier this year he ran 44 miles on the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy to raise 3,000 for military charity Combat Stress.
China, Russia can maintain communication, coordination on East Asia cooperation: Chinese FM

Xinhua) 14:04, July 26, 2024

VIENTIANE, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov here on Thursday.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said that China-Russia relations are mature, stable, resilient and independent, with solid political mutual trust, deepening strategic coordination, broad prospects for mutually beneficial cooperation, vibrant people-to-people exchanges and productive international cooperation.

Wang noted that in the face of the volatile and complex international situation and external disturbances and obstacles, China is ready to work with Russia to uphold the original aspiration of everlasting good neighborliness and friendship, firmly support each other, safeguard each other's core interests, and remain each other's good partner for development and revitalization.

China and Russia, both important countries in the Asia-Pacific region and dialogue partners of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), can maintain communication and coordination on East Asia cooperation, said Wang.

China is ready to work with Russia to uphold the ASEAN-centered, open and inclusive regional cooperation architecture, promote the existing East Asia mechanism to deepen cooperation consensus, and promote regional peace, stability and prosperity, the Chinese foreign minister added.

For his part, Lavrov congratulated on the successful conclusion of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, saying that this world-renowned event is not only of great significance to China's own development, but also to the global economic recovery.

Lavrov said under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, Russia and China have maintained close communication, strengthened strategic collaboration, jointly upheld a fair and just international order, practiced genuine multilateralism, and injected positive energy into the building of a multipolar world.

Russia will work with China to support the centrality of ASEAN and prevent the interference and infiltration of external forces, he noted.

The two sides expressed the willingness to strengthen cooperation within multilateral mechanisms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS.

Wang said China fully supports Russia in fulfilling its responsibilities as the rotating chair of BRICS and preparing for the upcoming Summit scheduled to be held in the Russian city of Kazan. Lavrov said Russia fully supports China in assuming the rotating presidency of the SCO.

The two sides also exchanged views on major issues concerning peace and security, believing that the victory and a correct view of World War Two should be jointly safeguarded.

Lavrov congratulated China on successfully promoting the signing of the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity by Palestinian factions, saying that Russia will work together to restore peace in the Middle East.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing)
Blog Archive: Oct 2024 (45) Sep 2024 (149) Aug 2024 (155) Jul 2024 (155) Jun 2024 (150) May 2024 (153) Apr 2024 (149) Mar 2024 (155) Feb 2024 (145) Jan 2024 (156) Dec 2023 (155) Nov 2023 (150) Oct 2023 (155) Sep 2023 (150) Aug 2023 (155) Jul 2023 (155) Jun 2023 (150) May 2023 (155) Apr 2023 (150) Mar 2023 (155) Feb 2023 (140) Jan 2023 (155) Dec 2022 (156) Nov 2022 (150) Oct 2022 (155) Sep 2022 (150) Aug 2022 (155) Jul 2022 (154) Jun 2022 (150) May 2022 (155) Apr 2022 (150) Mar 2022 (155) Feb 2022 (140) Jan 2022 (156) Dec 2021 (156) Nov 2021 (150) Oct 2021 (155) Sep 2021 (150) Aug 2021 (155) Jul 2021 (155) Jun 2021 (150) May 2021 (155) Apr 2021 (150) Mar 2021 (155) Feb 2021 (140) Jan 2021 (155) Dec 2020 (155) Nov 2020 (150) Oct 2020 (158) Sep 2020 (150) Aug 2020 (130) Jul 2020 (124) Jun 2020 (120) May 2020 (124) Apr 2020 (120) Mar 2020 (124) Feb 2020 (116) Jan 2020 (125) Dec 2019 (126) Nov 2019 (120) Oct 2019 (124) Sep 2019 (120) Aug 2019 (125) Jul 2019 (124) Jun 2019 (120) May 2019 (123) Apr 2019 (121) Mar 2019 (124) Feb 2019 (112) Jan 2019 (125) Dec 2018 (126) Nov 2018 (120) Oct 2018 (124) Sep 2018 (121) Aug 2018 (124) Jul 2018 (125) Jun 2018 (120) May 2018 (124) Apr 2018 (121) Mar 2018 (124) Feb 2018 (112) Jan 2018 (123) Dec 2017 (124) Nov 2017 (124) Oct 2017 (141) Sep 2017 (135) Aug 2017 (138) Jul 2017 (137) Jun 2017 (134) May 2017 (138) Apr 2017 (135) Mar 2017 (139) Feb 2017 (129) Jan 2017 (143) Dec 2016 (135) Nov 2016 (138) Oct 2016 (142) Sep 2016 (128) Aug 2016 (133) Jul 2016 (136) Jun 2016 (138) May 2016 (164) Apr 2016 (311) Mar 2016 (348) Feb 2016 (320) Jan 2016 (348) Dec 2015 (314) Nov 2015 (338) Oct 2015 (363) Sep 2015 (358) Aug 2015 (399) Jul 2015 (374) Jun 2015 (331) May 2015 (337) Apr 2015 (319) Mar 2015 (320) Feb 2015 (271) Jan 2015 (286) Dec 2014 (254) Nov 2014 (238) Oct 2014 (287) Sep 2014 (267) Aug 2014 (259) Jul 2014 (260) Jun 2014 (238) May 2014 (241) Apr 2014 (228) Mar 2014 (240) Feb 2014 (217) Jan 2014 (263) Dec 2013 (226) Nov 2013 (254) Oct 2013 (256) Sep 2013 (252) Aug 2013 (263) Jul 2013 (261) Jun 2013 (251) May 2013 (250) Apr 2013 (221) Mar 2013 (193) Feb 2013 (164) Jan 2013 (157) Dec 2012 (155) Nov 2012 (240) Oct 2012 (526) Sep 2012 (411) Aug 2012 (394) Jul 2012 (284) Jun 2012 (229) May 2012 (213) Apr 2012 (213) Mar 2012 (253) Feb 2012 (269) Jan 2012 (298) Dec 2011 (273) Nov 2011 (219) Oct 2011 (204) Sep 2011 (201) Aug 2011 (236) Jul 2011 (217) Jun 2011 (211) May 2011 (206) Apr 2011 (215) Mar 2011 (215) Feb 2011 (186) Jan 2011 (215) Dec 2010 (107) Nov 2010 (98) Oct 2010 (55)
A Missouri family was left heartbroken after a sheriff's deputy shot and killed their emotional support dog - a two-year-old chocolate lab named Nala.

Dianna Dollins said the deputy had arrived at her and her husband's Farmington property on Sunday to ask them whether they had any doorbell camera footage of a robbery that occurred across the street earlier that day.

But when the deputy arrived unannounced on their porch, he encountered Nala - whom the family had recently bought as an emotional support dog for Dianna's husband, Scottie, who has been recovering from brain tumor surgery - and fired his weapon.

'It's just devastating, there are no other words for it,' Dollins told KSDK.

The family now argues the deputy should not have been on their property in the first place - noting that he did not have a warrant and was not invited onto their land.

Nala, a two-year-old Chocolate Labrador who was Scottie Dollins emotional support dog, was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy on Sunday

They said they did not even know the officer was on their property until Scottie heard the shooting, Dianna shared in a July 21 Facebook post written by her husband.

'My husband heard the shots and came running around, and there she lay,' the couple recounted, telling how the dog was found lying in the gravel driveway with a gunshot wound in her head.

'He had already shot her. He immediately started saying she bit me. He was already back at his car in his car door.'

The St. Francois County Sheriff's Office now claims the Labrador bit the deputy's wrist and elbow - prompting the officer to fire his weapon.

Sheriff Daniel Bullock said the deputy is receiving rabies shots, claiming that the family did not have up-to-date immunization records for their dog.

The dog had been by Scott's side as he recovered from surgery to remove a brain tumor

They found the dog lying on the gravel driveway with a gunshot wound to the head

The St. Francois County Ambulance District's administrator also said an ambulance was dispatched to the Dollins' residence, but was then told there was no patient at the scene.

Yet the family says Nala 'would not hurt a fly,' and even if she had, it 'didn't warrant shooting [their] dog dead.'

'She'd never bit anyone,' Dianna said, as her father, Ronald Widner, noted that 'Nala welcomed everybody.

'But the way they do it is they jump on you and their tongue is wagging,' he said.

'They greet people like that. I'm sure that's what happened, and if he has a mark on him, he's got a scratch mark.'

The dog was adopted to be emotional support for Scottie, who had been recovering from brain tumor surgery, and was considered part of the family.

'Nala had been there with him through all of that,' Dianna said. 'She slept with us every night.'

The family is trying to seek justice for their beloved dog

Nala recently had 10 puppies and was wearing a shock collar that prevented her from leaving the property at the time of the shooting

The family is now calling for justice for their beloved animal, who had recently had 10 puppies and was wearing a shock collar that prevented her from leaving the property at the time of the shooting.

'After it happened, there was no remorse,' Dianna said. 'It was still "I did what I had to" with a bad type of attitude.

'I don't know if he's a good man or if he's a bad man, but he's a scared man with a gun,' she added. 'And I don't think that we need scared men with guns protecting our country.'

She went on to say that the deputy should have had his lights on or honked to let the family know he was there before he showed up at their property.

'That man does not need to have a gun,' Dianna said. 'This does not need to happen to anyone else.'

The sheriff's office is now investigating the shooting, with Sheriff Bullock saying his office is waiting on reports from the Farmington Police Department, which had officers respond.
Both former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

The Harris campaign released a video early Friday morning showing the likely Democratic presidential nominee taking a call from the political power couple where they reveal they're endorsing her.

The video was filmed Wednesday in Indianapolis, where Harris traveled to address the Zeta Phi Beta sorority.

The couple's decision to stay silent for days on Harris's candidacy had fueled speculation they weren't supportive of her bid.

An source close to Biden's family claimed the former president is 'very upset' about Harris' candidacy, even claiming that he 'knows she can't win' against Trump, 78.

However, a Democratic official told DailyMail.com that the endorsement announcement was held off to not overshadow President Joe Biden's Oval Office address Wednesday night.

'Kamala!' the brief clip begins, with President Obama's distinct voice coming over the VP's cell phone. 'Hey there!' chimes in Michelle.

The Harris campaign released a video early Friday morning that shows former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama calling Vice President Kamala Harris to endorse her presidential run

As Harris walks through the event venue toward her SUV, she gushes, 'ohh hi, you're both together. It's good to hear you both.'

'I can't have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala, I am proud of you,' Michelle says. 'This is going to be historic.'

'We called to say, Michelle and I, couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office,' the former president chimes in.

There were some questions about why the Obamas didn't immediately back Harris as other top Democrats got in line.

The Democratic official told DailyMail.com that the former president wanted to do something 'more than a statement.'

A source familiar also confirmed earlier this week that an endorsement would come soon, but the former president, while very impressed with Harris' work, thought it was important to let Democratic delegates go through their process.

Just days after Biden had dropped out, Harris announced she had secured enough delegates to become the presumptive Democratic nominee.

In a separate lengthier statement also released Friday, the Obamas said Biden choosing Harris was 'one of the best decisions hes made' and touted her resume as a former prosecutor and senator before becoming vice president.

'But Kamala has more than a resume. She has the vision, the character, and the strength that this critical moment demands,' the statement said. 'There is no doubt in our mind that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people. At a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope.'

Ahead of the endorsement announcement, the Trump campaign pushed the narrative that Obama was displeased that the party coalesced around Harris, with enough delegates endorsing her Monday night she had locked up the nomination.

'There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party - namely Barack Hussein Obama - that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone 'better,'' said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung Thursday night.

Vice President Kamala Harris (left) and former President Barack Obama (right) attend an event at the White House in April 2022 celebrating the Affordable Care Act, also known as 'Obamacare'

President Barack Obama (right) is seen leading President Joe Biden (center) offstage at the star-studded fundraiser in June with George Clooney, an appearance that led Clooney to encourage Biden to leave the race

The broader intent of the statement was to say that Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, would not finalize a debate schedule until 'Democrats formally decide on their nominee.'

The Democratic nomination process, which will take place virtually ahead of the Chicago convention, will wrap up by August 7.

In the short video, Harris told the Obamas she was looking forward to seeing them out on the campaign trail.

While the former president appeared at several high-dollar fundraiser on behalf of Biden - including the infamous one with George Clooney - Michelle has yet to set foot at a campaign event.

She had privately expressed frustration that the Biden family had largely exiled her close friend Kathleen Buhle, Hunter Biden's first wife, and mother of his three adult children, according to a report last month from Axios.

But it appears with Harris at the helm, Michelle's at the ready.

Harris thanked both Obamas before she got off the phone.

'I just want to tell you that the words you have spoken and the friendship that you have given over all these years mean more than I can express,' she said. 'So thank you both, it means so much.'

'And we're going to have some fun with it too, aren't we?' she asked.

Michelle chimed in, 'Indeed!'

'Well ... look, you're a happy warrior,' the former president said.

'And the country needs a happy warrior,' Michelle added.

This is not the first time the Obamas have delayed making an endorsement later than other prominent Democrats in the presidential race.

In 2020, despite Biden being the only Democratic candidate left in the race by April, President Obama did not officially endorse his former vice president for several months.

In August, he made it official also with a video endorsement ahead of the Democratic National Convention that year.
The heartbroken family of an Australian man stabbed to death at a tourist hotspot in Thailand is mourning the loss of their 'beautiful, gifted' brother and son.

Liam Michael Ross, 35, was found with stab wounds to his abdomen, leg and arm at Ao Nang Beach in Krabi early on Monday.

He was rushed to hospital but later died as a result of the injuries.

Mr Ross's family issued a brief statement through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on Friday morning.

'We are heart broken at the loss of our beautiful, gifted, much beloved Liam,' they said.

'The world is a poorer place for his passing. Thanks to family, friends and colleagues for their support.

'We requested that all family members be allowed to mourn Liam's passing in private.'

Ao Nang Police arrested US national Randall Owen Johnson over the stabbing and he was charged with physically injuring another person causing death.

The heartbroken family of an Australian man stabbed to death at a tourist hotspot in Thailand is mourning the loss of their 'beautiful, gifted' brother and son. Liam Michael Ross is pictured

Ao Nang Police arrested US national Randall Owen Johnson (above) over the stabbing and he was charged with physically injuring another person causing death

Witnesses reported that both men had been drinking at a nearby restaurant before the incident and reportedly had a disagreement.

They reportedly encountered each other again as the Australian man walked back to his hotel, which allegedly led to a confrontation.

Initially, the two exchanged words, but the situation soon escalated into a physical fight.

Johnson, 43, allegedly drew a knife and inflicted several stab wounds on Ross.

Photos from the scene showed it happened adjacent to the conch shell sculpture at the southern end of the beachside road, outside the entrance to the Holiday Inn resort.

Ao Nang is a popular tourist destination located in the Krabi Province in southern Thailand.

It is known for its nightlife and beaches.

Liam Michael Ross, 35, was found with stab wounds to his abdomen, leg and arm at Ao Nang Beach in Krabi early on Monday

Johnson allegedly drew a knife and inflicted several stab wounds on Ross

Mr Ross's sister had previously posted on social media about the death of her brother.

'As you may already know, we have lost Liam to a tragic incident in Thailand and jour hearts are broken,' she wrote.

'We appreciate your ongoing consideration while we grieve and continue to process this.'

Mr Ross's family was being provided with consular assistance, according to a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

'We send our deepest condolences to the family at this difficult time. Owing to our privacy obligations, we are unable to provide further comment,' the spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.
Donald Trump has slammed the FBI as the agency confirmed it is probing whether he was actually hit by a bullet during an assassination attempt.

The presidential hopeful blasted the bureau's director Christopher Wray, after he suggested that it could have been shrapnel which grazed Trump's ear following the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania.

The FBI has since confirmed it is examining fragments found near the stage to determine what caused the Republican nominee's injuries, after Wray told a congressional hearing there is 'some question' over what really happened.

The agency is hoping to interview Trump as part of its investigation, the New York Times Reports.

However, the former president has remained defiant in his account of events, stating it was a 'bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard'.

Donald Trump has slammed the FBI as the agency confirmed it is probing whether he was actually hit by a bullet during an assassination attempt

In a furious post on Truth Social, Trump blasted Wray's suggestion and took aim at his judgement on other topical issues - including Biden's mental state.

'FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasnt sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!),' he fumed.

'But he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively uneventful - Wrong! Thats why he knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our Country at record levels.

'His only focus is destroying J6 Patriots, Raiding Mar-a-Lago, and saving Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in D.C. burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monuments - with zero retribution.

'No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel.

'The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!'

Wray was updating Congress about the assassination attempt on Trump in Butler on Wednesday when he made the explosive statement.

'With respect to former President Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,' Wray said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray cast doubt on whether Donald Trump was actually shot during the attempt on his life at a Pennsylvania political rally

'I don't know right now whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have landed somewhere else.'

Wray was addressing security failures that allowed gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks to open fire. Crooks, 20, killed firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, and injured two others including Trump during the shooting.

The presidential hopeful has since given extensive accounts of the moment he was shot and was seen sporting a bandage over his ear.

'When I went down, bullets were coming over my head and you hear them, it's like a zip, zip,' he said.

The former president claims his Secret Service detail 'thought it was over when I went down' because of 'a lot of blood coming' after his ear was grazed.

Trump, 78, argued with his agents, telling them how he was 'not going on a stretcher' and instead vowed to 'get up'.

He added that a last minute turn of the head to glance at a screen is what saved him from the bullet.

'I'm supposed to be dead. The most incredible thing was that I happened to not only turn, but to turn at the exact right time and in just the right amount,' he added, saying he survived 'by luck or by God'.

Some initial reports on the day of the shooting speculated that Trump may have been struck by a shattered piece of glass when a bullet struck the teleprompter.

The teleprompter theory, however, was debunked when photos showed that both glass screens were intact after the attack.

Trump tuned into Wray's testimony, which also saw him detail how Crooks had researched the assassination of President John F. Kennedy prior to the shooting.

The gunman did a Google search one week prior of 'How far away was Oswald from Kennedy?' according to Wray, who said the suspect he said had taken a keen interest in public figures but had otherwise not left behind clear clues of an ideological motive.

The July 6 online search, recovered from a laptop the FBI says is tied to Crooks, is a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed Kennedy from a sniper's perch in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Wray said his understanding was that a bullet or some shrapnel 'is what grazed his [Trump's] ear' during the attempted assassination in Butler on July 13

'That's a search obviously that is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears that he registered' for the Trump rally, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee.

The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism.

The investigation has thrust the bureau into a political maelstrom months before the presidential election, with lawmakers and the public pressing for details about what may have motivated Crooks.

'We do not know the motive. That is obviously one of the central questions in our investigation, and it's been very frustrating to us that a lot of the usual kind of low-hanging-fruit places that we would find that have not yielded significant clues about his motive,' Wray said.

The hearing had been scheduled well before the shooting as part of the committees routine oversight of the FBI and the Justice Department.

Questions about the shooting dominated the session, but other topics included the FBIs diversity efforts, election interference, the Jan 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and whether Wray had personally observed any cognitive decline in meetings with Biden prior to his decision to withdraw from the election.

His answer that he had not witnessed any issues with the president's mental state left Trump unimpressed, with the Republican nominee calling for Wray to resign.

'I watched the Congressional Hearing today as Christopher Wray was asked the question whether or not he noticed any Cognitive Degeneration in his many conversations with Crooked Joe Biden,' Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday.

Members of the crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania rushed to his aid following the shooting

The presidential hopeful has since given extensive accounts of the moment he was shot and was seen sporting a bandage over his ear

'Wray should resign immediately from the FBI, and stop 'sweet talking' Congress every time he goes up, which he loves to do, because anybody can see that Joe Biden is cognitively and physically challenged.

'And if you can't see that, you sure as hell can't be running the FBI - Unless, that is, you want to illegally lead the Raid on Mar-a-Lago. Wray has to resign, and NOW, for LYING TO CONGRESS!'

The FBI was not involved in ensuring security for the rally and has therefore avoided the same level of scrutiny directed at the Secret Service over the lapses that preceded the event.

On Tuesday, Kimberly Cheatle resigned as the agencys director amid mounting questions over her the colossal security failures at the rally.

Cheatle took responsibility for the catastrophic lapses after she was lambasted by Republicans and Democrats alike when she appeared before Congress on Monday.

The security chief had faced mounting questions over why an agent was not stationed on the roof from where Crooks opened fire on the former president, and why Trump was allowed to take the stage even when a threat was detected.

Crooks had been identified as a suspicious person hours before the shooting took place.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has dramatically announced her resignation after the massive security failures that led to the attempted assassination on Donald Trump

Wray's testimony before Congress touched on security failures which allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks to open fire despite being identified as a suspicious person on the day of the shooting

He was shot dead by a sniper but not before he was able to discharge a volley of bullets into the crowd.

Wray said Crooks used mechanical equipment on the ground and vertical piping, to hoist himself up onto the roof of a squat manufacturing building that was within 135 meters (157 yards) of the stage.

He fired eight shots from an AR-style rifle before he was killed.

The Warren Commission report that analyzed the Kennedy assassination assessed that Kennedy had been shot through the neck at a range of 174.9 feet to 190.8 feet.
A mayor in far north Queensland has copped vile abuse after her council refused to change a local place name that some say is a reference to the rape of Indigenous women.

Burdekin Shire councillors, including mayor Pierina Dalle Cort, rejected a request from the state government to rename Yellow Gin Creek as part of a 'program of review of place names which may cause offence or harm'.

In a 6-1 vote on July 9, the council passed a motion to 'provide feedback to (the) Department of Resources' about why it would not be changing the name 'due to the creek's local historical significance to the region'.

The state government has focussed its program of changing offensive names on places with the word 'Gin' in them as in the past, the word had been used to describe Aboriginal women, particularly those who had been sexually abused by white men.

Queensland councils that are home to 16 Black Gin Creeks and 14 other creeks with Gin in the name have been sent letters asking for them to be renamed.

This included Burdekin's letter over Yellow Gin Creek, which some locals believe refers to a woman of mixed Aboriginal and white heritage.

'I'm not racist,' Ms Dalle Cort told Daily Mail Australia on Friday. 'I love the black community we have here.'

She said a poll had shown that 92 per cent of people agreed with not changing the name.

Burdekin Shire councillors rejected a request from the state government to rename Yellow Gin Creek (pictured) as part of a 'program of review of place names which may cause offence or harm'

The mayor also said that since the vote, she had been contacted by a local Indigenous woman who told her 'the Jura elders are wanting to keep (the) Yellow Gin Creek (name)' because it was named for one of their ancestors.

Ms Dalle Cort said she is aware of the sensitivities around race in Queensland and elsewhere.

'I know it's an issue everywhere ... I've had some hate mail (about the Yellow Gin Creek issue), but that goes with the job.'

She said she had experienced racism herself when she was younger.

'My background is Italian and Sicilian, and growing up I was called a wog ...

'We can't change history, but what we do in the future is what counts as well,' the mayor said.

Ms Dalle Cort also said the place name could be referring to a drink called yellow gin, 'which was distilled by early pioneers as a form of inexpensive alcohol'.

Ultimately, despite the state government's fears, there is no historical documentation indicating the reason the name was chosen, 'so you don't know which is right, which is wrong'.

In a 6-1 vote on July 9, the council passed a motion to 'provide feedback to (the) Department of Resources' about why it would not be changing the name 'due to the creek's local historical significance to the region'. The councillors are pictured, with mayor Pierina Dalle Cort in front

Queensland's Place Names Act of 1994 was updated in April 2024 to make it easier to rebrand place names considered racist or offensive, but the state government still requires local councils to make many of the changes.

The state can rename roads or bridges with problematic names, but not creeks.

In 2016, Queensland's Transport Department renamed Yellow Gin Creek Bridge to 'Youngoorah Bridge' after the Juru word for 'women'.

Ms Dalle Cort said she has been told the local Aboriginal elders were 'happy to talk' to her about the issue of Yellow Gin Creek's name.
Donald Trump has backed out of debating Kamala Harris citing Democratic party 'chaos' - after promising to the showdown 'anytime, anyplace.'

The former president had initially said on Tuesday he would 'absolutely' debate Harris after Joe Biden dropped out of the race - as his vice president, Harris, was likely to replace him.

But on Thursday night Trump backed away from the September 10 faceoff which he already had scheduled with Biden, or organizing a new one - at least until Harris is confirmed as the Democratic nominee.

'What happened to "any time, any place"?' Harris wrote on Twitter immediately after Trump backed out.

Steven Cheung, the campaign's communications director, claimed Democrats were in too much 'chaos' since Biden abandoned his reelection bid.

Donald Trump has backed out of debating Kamala Harris at least until she is confirmed as the Democratic nominee

Kamala Harris, pictured during her 2020 debate with then-vice president Mike Pence, said she was ready to go for a debate against Trump

'Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee,' he said.

'There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party - namely Barack Hussein Obama - that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone 'better.'

'Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.'

The Democratic National Convention on August 19 to 22 will officially determine the party's nominee for president, but Harris has already secured enough delegates.

Biden and Trump agreed to two debates during the presidential campaign, on June 27 on CNN and September 10 on ABC.

However, the first debate was such a disaster for Biden that it sparked three weeks of chaos that ended with him backing out of his campaign.

Harris mocked Trump after his campaigned announced debate planning was on hold for at least the next few weeks

Harris said she was keen to stick to the agreed schedule, but said earlier on Thursday that it appeared Trump wasn't locked in.

'I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10 debate, he agreed to that previously. Now it appears he's backpedaling,' she said.

'I think that the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage. I'm ready. So let's go.'

Harris then mocked Trump after his campaigned announced debate planning was on hold for at least the next few weeks.

'What happened to "any time, any place"?' she wrote in reply.

Trump in a press call with reporters on Tuesday insisted he would 'absolutely' debate Harris was was open to adding another one to the calendar.

'I agreed to debate with Joe Biden. But I want to debate her and she'll be no different because they have the same policies,' he said.

'I would be willing to do more than one debate actually.'

Trump said debating Harris would be 'probably similar' to Biden.

'She's the same as Biden, but much more radical. She's a radical left person, and this country doesn't want a radical left person to destroy it,' he claimed.

The first debate was such a disaster for Joe Biden that it sparked three weeks of chaos that ended with him ending his campaign

Trump said though he committed to the ABC debate, he would prefer it be hosted by another network, such as Fox News.

'I'm not thrilled with ABC. I guess they committed but I have at least equal say, and I don't like the idea of ABC,' he said.

Fox, which has been more friendly to the former president, earlier said it was interested in hosting a debate and Trump said it was mutual.

'Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has quit the race, I think the debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC,' he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday.
Australian tourists have reported losing all of their belongings after a major fire destroyed 16 villas in a Bali resort.

The huge and destructive blaze was reported at around 10.30pm on Thursday night in Seminyak, an area which is very popular with Aussies.

Western Australian man Bailey was staying in one of the villas and told Perth radio station 6PR he and his friends have lost nearly everything.

'We were out for dinner and on our way back we could see flames in the distance. As we were getting close we realised our villa was on fire,' he said on Friday.

'I lost everything apart from my passport and cash, most of us did. A couple of them lost passports and a couple have (lost) everything.'

Bailey said he and his mates are going to go to the Australian consulate to try to 'get some new passports ...

'And then we're going to have to find some new accommodation somewhere.'

Australian tourists have reported losing all of their belongings after a major fire (pictured) destroyed 16 villas in a Bali resort

Western Australian man Bailey was staying in one of the villas and told Perth radio station 6PR he and his friends have lost nearly everything. The fire is pictured

He said that reports of people stealing items from the compound as the fire raged were probably not true.

'They were wheeling safes and mattresses out of the place. I don't know that they were being stolen.

'They were just being taken out of there so that nothing got damaged,' he told Millsy and Karl on 6PR.
A former PepsiCo executive who claims he invented Flamin' Hot Cheetos while working as a janitor is suing the company for 'destroying his career'.

Richard Montanez spent decades telling anyone who would listen that he came up with the hugely popular flavor in 1991 and pitched it to executives.

His rags-to-riches story spawned a bestselling book, $50,000-a-pop on the speaking circuit, and a Disney+ film before it was debunked in 2021.

Frito-Lay, manufacturer of Cheetos, found 'the facts do not support the urban legend' and the flavor was instead crated by a team in Plano, Texas, in 1989.

Richard Montanez spent decades telling anyone who would listen that he came up with the hugely popular Flamin' Hot Cheetos flavor in 1991 and pitched it to executives

Montanez, the son of a Mexican immigrant who grew up in a migrant labor camp, began working for PepsiCo as a janitor at its Frito-Lay plant in Ranch Cucamonga, California, in 1977.

His story is that one day, a machine in Montanez's plant broke down, leaving a batch of unflavored Cheetos.

Montanez said he took the batch home and dusted them with chili powder, trying to replicate the flavor of elote, the popular grilled seasoned corn served in Mexico.

He claimed he asked for a meeting with PepsiCo chief executive Roger Enrico to pitch his spicy Cheetos, confident they would be a hit with the Latino community.

Enrico granted the meeting in 1991, liked the presentation, and directed the company to develop spicy Cheetos, according to the lawsuit.

Montanez said PepsiCo sent him on speaking engagements and actively promoted his story.

But Montanez claimed that, in the meantime, the company's research and development department shut him out of its discussions and testing.

Montanez and his wife are pictured at a 2014 gala celebrating the contributions of Latinos

PepsiCo introduced Flamin' Hot Cheetos in 1992 and Montanez said he continued to develop spicy snacks, like Flamin' Hot Popcorn and Lime and Chili Fritos, and in 2000 he was promoted to a business development manager in Southern California.

He eventually became PepsiCo vice president of multicultural marketing and sales.

Montanez said demand for speaking engagements was so great that he retired from PepsiCo in 2019 to become a motivational speaker full time.

He published a memoir in 2021 and his life story was made into a movie, Flamin' Hot, in 2023 that was even screened at the White House.

But according to the lawsuit, PepsiCo turned on Montanez in 2021, cooperating with a Los Angeles Times piece that claimed others in the company were already working on spicy snacks when Montanez approached them, and that they - not Montanez - came up with the name, Flamin' Hot.

Montanez said PepsiCo's about-face has hurt his speaking career and other potential opportunities, including a documentary about his life.

He is seeking damages for discrimination, fraud and defamation in the lawsuit that was filed July 18 in California Superior Court.

PepsiCo said it has no comment on the lawsuit.

His life story was made into a movie, Flamin' Hot, in 2023, starring Jesse Garcia (pictured) as Montanez

A junior employee named Lynne Greenfeld was assigned to create the brand and came up with the name, the company said.

Greenfield alerted Frito-Lay of Montanez's claims in 2018 and an internal investigation ensued.

'None of our records show that Montanez was involved in any capacity in the Flamin' Hot test market,' Frito-Lay said at the time.

'We have interviewed multiple personnel who were involved in the test market, and all of them indicate that Richard was not involved in any capacity in the test market.

'That doesn't mean we don't celebrate Richard, but the facts do not support the urban legend.'

Montanez subsequently spoke with Variety saying he was disappointed that Frito Lay publicly denied his story.

'I was their greatest ambassador,' he stated. 'But I will say this, you're going to love your company more than they will ever love you, keep that in perspective.'

Montanez (pictured in 2017) said PepsiCo's about-face has hurt his speaking career and other potential opportunities, including a documentary about his life

Montanez's rags-to-riches story spawned a bestselling book (pictured), $50,000-a-pop on the speaking circuit, and a Disney+ film before it was debunked in 2021

However, Frito Lay's parent company PepsiCo soon after backed up its ex-executive, without disputing that he hadn't been involved in creating Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

'The information we shared with the media has been misconstrued by some, which resulted in confusion around where we stand, a range of emotions among our employees and consumers and a strain on our valued friendship with Richard Montanez and the Latino community,' the statement read.

'Far from being an urban legend, Montanez had a remarkable 40-plus-year career at PepsiCo and made an incredible impact on our business and employees and continues to serve as an inspiration today.

'His insights and ideas on how to better serve Hispanic consumers were invaluable and directly resulted in the success of Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

'To be clear, we have no reason to doubt the stories he shares about taking the initiative to create new product ideas for the Cheetos brand, and pitching them to past PepsiCo leaders.'

The company claimed there were 'different work streams tackling the same product without interacting,' and that Montanez may possibly have had some part in the invention of Flamin' Hot Cheetos without their awareness.
A suspected pedophile killed himself moments after admitting to watching heinous child porn to a predator hunter who confronted him at his home.

Donald Letcher, 60, was seen on camera describing his viewing habits in graphic detail to Predator Poachers' Alex Rosen.

Rosen coaxed him into admitting his crimes after appearing at his home in Canova, South Dakota.

He then called the cops, but before Letcher could be detained, he went back into his house and shot himself in the head.

'The cop turns his back on him, Letcher goes in the home and we hear a pop,' Rosen explained to talk show host Breanna Morello.

Suspected pedophile Donald Letcher (right) killed himself during a confrontation with predator hunter Alex Rosen (left) moments after admitting to watching heinous child porn

'It didn't really register what it was because it wasn't a loud shot, it was a .22 I think he had and then the cop break the door down.'

Rosen's team caught the aftermath on camera, which showed police frantically trying to get inside the property.

'The camera man goes around the side of the building and sees him with a hole in his head bleeding out, a few hours later he was airlifted to hospital where he was pronounced dead,' Rosen added.

The pedophile hunter said he first connected with Letcher via messaging app Telegram, where the suspect was 'acting pretty sexual' and requesting nude photos of what he believed was a 12-year-old girl.

Rosen explained he got Letcher to admit to viewing child pornography involving children as young as infant age in a bid to secure a conviction, as the state's law was hazy around solicitation of porn from a fictional child.

He was unaware that Letcher had previously been convicted of two counts of sexually molesting his girlfriends nine-year-old daughter in Bridgewater in 1995.

However, the charges were overturned due to a technicality and Letcher was exonerated a year later.

It was not his only brush with the law however and in 2022, Letcher was convicted of the hit-and-run of a six-year-old girl.

Letcher shot himself in the head at his home in South Dakota before police could detain him

Letcher was given just 25 days in jail for the offense which occurred while he was drunk behind the wheel.

Rosen posted his interaction with the creep on X, where the video has been viewed more than 18 million times.

'I am a firm believer that all human lives have value. Except for pedophiles,' one viewer wrote.

'All's well that ends well #Justice,' another person added.

But the clip has also sparked backlash.

'The fact that there was not a real child that he was talking to and that they tricked him into thinking he was talking to someone that actually a decoy, they will be charged for something now for his death,' one person responded to the post.

'Alex should be arrested,' another wrote in response to a post about Letcher's suicide.

'I hope you get charged idiots,' a third person wrote.

During an interview with Morello, Rosen revealed that he was detained by police after the incident but ultimately released.

Rosen's team caught the aftermath of the sting on video and shared on their X profile

He was then inundated with critics claiming he should be arrested for his role in Letcher's death

He remained confident about his behavior and claims Letcher has nobody to blame but himself.

'It couldn't have happened to a worse guy,' he told Morello. 'I know it's still a human life and all that but when we say death penalty for pedos we mean it.

'Somebody has to be the one to experience it, so screw him.

'There is really no good reason to attack us for approaching an individual like this. We never go up to anyone where we don't have great reason to believe they are hurting children.'

He added that although he was talking to a decoy, Letcher was still 'being a predator' by soliciting explicit photos from what he thought was a minor.

'If he's getting off on infants being tortured then screw him,' Rosen said.

Rosen's group is just one of many who engage in anti-pedophile activism and stings such as the one against Letcher.

Rosen was detained by police but said he was ultimately released and has stood by his actions

Rosen told talk show host Breanna Morello he has no regrets about his behavior

Some have suggested that their tactics actually hinder police work and potentially violate human rights around privacy due to the fact they often live stream their efforts online.

Although such vigilantism is not illegal, activists can be charged if they break the law in the course of their actions.

In 2021, Illinois pedophile hunter Kyle Swanson was indicted on felony charges of unlawful restraint and obstructing justice over his stings.

The charges were ultimately dropped, but the case highlights the potential legal issues such activists can run into.
A paramedic has been banned for making unwanted sexual advances towards a teenager after working at the Bathurst 1000 motor race, claiming he was led on by the term 'Netflix and chill'.

Craig Davies admitted professional misconduct over touching and 'grinding' the 17-year-old boy in shared accommodation after working at the car race in regional NSW in October 2020.

He admitted sending the teenager an explicit TikTok video and a photo of a patient, while also making inappropriate comments like 'aren't you a pretty cute innocent boy' in the weeks afterwards.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Davies guilty of the misconduct on Friday and cancelled his registration.

The teenager had made it 'abundantly clear' the touching was unwelcome, but Davies' insight into his behaviour remains limited, the tribunal found.

Davies, then 27, worked for St John Ambulance at the race on October 17 and returned to his accommodation to watch an episode of the Netflix show Money Heist with the teenager.

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found St John Ambulance paramedic Craig Davies guilty of misconduct on Friday and cancelled his registration

While the pair sat on a bed watching on a laptop Davies stroked and rubbed the teenager, who used his elbow to push him away, the tribunal was told.

When the 17-year-old became upset and curled up in a ball on another bed, Davies hugged and 'grinded' him and suggested sex, which the teenager refused.

Davies told the tribunal the teenager had made several references to 'Netflix and chill', wrongly leading him to believe he was open to sex.

Under cross-examination, Davies admitted the teenager may have only used the phrase once.

The term is commonly used to refer to casual sex.

Even if the teenager used the phrase, his moving away and becoming upset demonstrated Mr Davies' conduct was unwanted, the tribunal found.

After Davies returned to Sydney, he sent the teenager a TikTok video of two people engaged in a sex act, followed by an explicit photo of a patient.

Davies said he didn't realise the video was on his social media feed, while the photo was sent to generate clinical discussions.

Craig Davies worked as a St John Ambulance paramedic at the Bathurst 1000

The tribunal found the sending of the photo for professional reasons was 'glaringly improbable'.

After Davies was suspended from St John Ambulance in December 2020 over the complaints, he did not inform NSW Ambulance or health regulators as required.

Davies was initially convicted of sexually touching a person without consent in the local court in 2021, but the NSW District Court quashed the conviction on appeal the following year.

His solicitor argued any further action against Davies would be unjust after the successful legal appeal.

But the tribunal said there was little evidence Davies had taken steps to address his behaviour.

'It is simply not possible to say when, if ever, Mr Davies will be able to establish that there is no real and material risk that the misconduct might be repeated,' the judgment said.
A local hero plumber has revealed how he chased two alleged gunmen through residential streets after being woken by gunshots.

Father-of-three Daniel Klinsic spoke of the terrifying incident that occurred on Thursday night in Austral, a south-western Sydney suburb.

Around 11.05pm on Thursday night police were called following reports of gunshots on Sixteenth Ave.

At least six shots were fired at a family home.

A short time later, they received further reports a vehicle had crashed on Craik Avenue, before two men ran from the scene.

On arrival, they found bullet casings and a fuel cannister inside the abandoned vehicle which had been reported stolen.

Mr Klinsic told reporters he was home asleep with his wife when they were woken by a loud bang.

Wearing only his pyjamas with no shoes, Mr Klinsic gave chase to the alleged offenders.

'So I bolted down the stairs, straight out,' he said.

Local hero tradie Daniel Klinsic (pictured) revealed how he chased two alleged gunmen through residential streets after being woken by gunshots

CCTV vision from the scene of the terrifying incident in Austral in Sydney's south-west on Thursday night

'I saw the guy running down there, so I gave chase barefooted. I was about 50 metres away from him, but obviously, being barefooted, I couldn't run any further.

'I could see exactly what he was wearing, I saw the whole lot,' he said.

He said chasing after the alleged gunman was a reflex action.

'It was just natural instinct. Get the p**** down on the floor,' he said.

Mr Klinsic said the alleged offender was panting.

'[I was thinking] 'I'm gonna get ya, I'm gonna get ya. But then I hit gravel. I can't run gravel in barefoot.'

He said the alleged offender was on the phone as he was running, 'obviously trying to contact someone to pick him up'.

Mr Klinsic admits he was scared, but added he was motivated by protecting his family.

'When it's around my family, I just kick in, I didn't think about guns. If I had... shoes on I would have got him.'

Mr Klinsic joked it was 'probably lucky he didn't catch him' as the man he was chasing was allegedly armed.

When he later saw the bullets in the alleged offenders' car, Mr Klinsic admitted that's when the realisation kicked in.

'F***, this could've turned nasty real quick,' he said.

Neighbours said they are not surprised Mr Klinsic gave chase as it is quite a common occurrence.

'There's been a bit of a nuisance like doing burnouts and all that up the street and speeding up and down the street,' Mr Klinsic said.

Police are pictured on the scene at Austral in Sydney's south-west where a barefoot tradie chased an alleged gunman on Thursday night

'So I've chased a couple of people up the road and cars. I just don't think, I just go for it.'

Police recovered an empty pistol magazine on Seventeenth Avenue and around 11.35pm located a 30-year-old man on Fourth Avenue.

He was taken to Liverpool Police Station and is assisting police with inquiries.

On Friday morning police located a silver gun believed to have been used in the incident.

Inquiries are ongoing.
An alarming increase of sharks in the waters off the East Coast has beachgoers and fishermen on edge.

The Long Island Sound - which borders New York City, Long Island, Westchester County and Connecticut - is home to five shark species: the spiny dogfish, the smooth dogfish, the dusky shark, the brown shark and the sand tiger shark.

But larger sharks sometimes make their way into the relatively calm waters and have been doing so at an increased rate.

In 2022, at least six people were bitten or injured by sharks at New York beaches, and in 2019, a great white was reported off the shore of Greenwich, Connecticut.

'They can be relatively close to shore, depending on where they're feeding and what they're feeding on for certain times of year,' fisheries biologist Jon Vander Werff told the Hartford Courant.

The Long Island Sound has seen an increasing number of sharks in recent years

'I dont want to say theyre right off shore like on the beach lines, but if someone was to be fishing and catch a fish, those larger [sharks] are usually the ones that will go after a fish,' he said. 'Theyre not right off shore of the beaches, but they can come in pretty close to shore.'

He noted that the conditions in the Sound are becoming ideal for such sharks.

'The water quality is there for them and the ecosystem has been rebounding from years' past, where there hasn't been a lot of sharks,' he told the Hartford Courant.

'Some people might not think it's a good. But as a fisheries biologist, I look at this as an excellent thing because the ecosystem is rebounding, and now there's enough resources for the sharks to be surviving in [the] Long Island Sound.'

'Theyre the apex predator, so theyre at the top of the food chain,' he added. 'They need a lot of resources to keep themselves going.'

There is now ample prey for the sharks to eat in the Sound as a result of conservation efforts to clean up rivers that flow into the ocean.

In 2022, at least six people were bitten or injured by sharks at New York beaches

'Seeing sharks in our local ecosystem is extremely important, and it's a sign that the environment around us is healthy,' Chris Paparo, a shark expert at Stony Brook University in Long Island said in a series of Twitter videos.

David Molnar, of Connecticut's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, also attributed the rise in shark sightings to more pups as sand bar sharks become more common.

'Some of it's their biology,' he said. 'It takes between one and three years to have pups, and they only have a couple of pups when they do.

'We only see them in the summertime. They're here now, they're popping.'

'Weve had young pups caught there by accident by fishermen, and they tend to follow wherever the bait,' he noted.

'So right now, theres a lot of bunker in Milford, New Haven. So Im sure there are sharks out there feeding on them.'

Molnar added that smooth dog fish are also present in the Long Island Sound, but will move out when the waters cool in the fall and winter.

But professors Oliver Shipley and Michael Frisk at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook told DailyMail.com said they can't conclusively say there is one specific reason why the sharks are swimming so close to shore.

'This is not a cut-and-dry cause-and-effect scenario,' Shipley said.

'This is something that's extremely complex and we have to be really careful about attributing single things, like pollution, to why we may see more of certain animals in certain areas than we did before.'

Experts recommend avoiding drop offs in the water where sharks can make 'sneak attacks'

Still, experts say the odds of getting bitten remain low, with seasoned diver John Langlois, the owner of Enfield Scuba and Water Sports, putting them at 264million to one.

'When you look at how many, they get a bad reputation, because as soon as somebody gets bit, it sounds like hundreds of people are getting bit, but they're not,' he told the Courant.

'And there's so few bites that what makes them so bad, of course, is the publicity.'

But if provoked 'like for example, you're swimming and you kick one, they might come around [for] an exploratory bite,' Vander Werff warned.

To avoid any bites, Langlois recommends avoiding areas that drop off to 20 to 30 feet 'because that would be the sneak attack, where sharks would be below, see something moving and just come straight up to you.

'Obviously avoid water if youre bleeding,' he added. 'There is an increased risk of shark attack. Sharks can sense tiny molecules of blood from long distances. Especially in brackish or low-visibility water a shiny object can look like a bait fish.

'So you want to leave your shiny jewelry on the beach blanket.
Wellwishers have donated thousands of pounds to a charity fundraising page launched by an Army officer who was repeatedly stabbed in a street attack as he remains in hospital in a 'serious but stable condition'.

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Teeton is still receiving active medical treatment after he was set upon by a knife-wielding assailant outside his home in Gillingham, Kent, on Tuesday evening.

The 47-year-old, who has served in the Armed Forces for 24 years, was wearing his uniform 200 metres from Brompton Barracks when he was attacked by a moped rider.

Now a fundraising page for charity Combat Stress, an organisation which supports veterans' mental health, set up by Lt Col Teeton has reached more than 8,000.

The soldier took part in the D-Day challenge to raise money, which consists of either a 22-mile walk, a 22-mile run or a 44-mile ultra-run on the beaches of Normandy, ending at Pegasus Bridge.

Lieutenant Colonel Mark Teeton pictured with his wife Eileen, who may have saved his life by running out to pull his attacker away

Anthony Esan arrives at Medway Magistrates' Court in Chatham, Kent, where he is charged with the attempted murder of Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Mark Teeton

The solider has far exceeded his target, so far raising more than 8,500

He had originally set a target of raising 1,750 but with the help of celebrity support, donations have soared to more than 8,500.

The page has been widely shared online, including by comedian Al Murray, a long time supporter of the Armed Forces.

Taking to social media, Mr Murray wrote: 'Lt Col Mark Teeton RE ran in aid of @CombatStress for the D-Day 80th anniversary.

'Here's the link to sponsor him and show support at this horrendous time for him and his family.'

After the horror attack, Lt Col Teeton's wife Eileen rushed from their house to his aid, with witnesses describing how she tackled the man who was stabbing her husband, likely saving his life in the process.

Last night the father-of-two remained in hospital, with Army sources claimed that despite no change in his condition being expected in the coming days, in the long term is hoped he will return to work.

The father-of-two completed the D-Day challenge in Normandy earlier this year to mark the 80th anniversary of the landings

Lt Col Mark Teeton is reported to have joined the Army 24 years ago and has been awarded a long service and good conduct medal

Anthony Esan being led into Medway Magistrates Court this morning (left) and leaving (right) after being charged with the attempted murder of Lt Col Teeton

Police on the scene of an alleged attack on a British Army officer in Gillingham on Tuesday evening

The highly-respected officer had reached the same rank as his older brother Andy in the same corps, before becoming a course manager at the Royal School for Military Engineering, which is based at Brompton Barracks.

He was officially named yesterday as family, friends and neighbours paid tribute to him and his wife.

It came as a 24-year-old man appeared at Medway Magistrates Court in Chatham charged with attempted murder.

Antony Esan, of Rochester, confirmed his name but challenged the magistrate over why he should provide his date of birth. He confirmed the information when pressed by district judge Stephen Leake.

Prosecutor Rajni Prashar said a man was seen running up behind a soldier, pulling him to the ground and stabbing him with a 'large knife or machete'.

Ms Prashar added: 'He [the assailant] got on to a moped and drove off. Witnesses took down the registration number and it was traced.'

She said police found a set of kitchen knives in a black cardboard box on the moped. Two of them had been used. Three were still inside protective sleeves, suggesting they had not been used.

Esan did not enter a plea. He was remanded in custody until August 22 when he will appear at Maidstone Crown Court. His barrister said his client's fitness to stand trial will be assessed by psychiatrists.

Lt Col Teeton, a course manager for the Royal School of Military Engineering Regiment for almost six years, ran 44 miles just last month to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and to raise money for veterans' mental health support

Lt Col Teeton in his military uniform with his wife. He is believed to have been walking in a military uniform when he was attacked

A sketch of Anthony Esan, 24 (right), in court today accompanied by police officers. He is yet to enter pleas to the charges of attempted murder and possessing an offensive weapon

Forensic officers have been at an address in nearby Rochester, where a man was arrested and subsequently charged with attempted murder

Mrs Teeton was a member of an Army wives' choir and once appeared on the ITV chat show Lorraine alongside other military mums.

She is also a stalwart of the Armed Forces community in Medway, where her highly-respected husband belongs to the Royal School for Military Engineering at Brompton Barracks.

According to Army sources Mrs Teeton has been at her husband's side throughout his career, enduring the challenges that come with being a services wife.

But nothing could possibly have prepared her for the horror that confronted her on Tuesday evening.

Her anguished cries were inadvertently recorded on a neighbour's doorbell camera. 'What are you doing?' she screamed.

Then she turned and appealed for help, telling passers-by that her husband, who was wearing his uniform, had been stabbed and could bleed to death.

Last night friends said Mrs Teeton was a 'lovely lady', who is part of the Brompton and Invicta Military Wives Choir.

She appeared on ITV to discuss belonging to a services choir four years ago. A Facebook post from the time paid tribute to 'Our amazing Eileen  you were fabulous! We are so proud of you!'

Mrs Teeton is also a familiar face at the local community centre and could be relied upon to support other Army families. And her husband is as respected as he is popular, the Mail has been told, prioritising the welfare of personnel and veterans.

Earlier this year he ran 44 miles on the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy to raise 3,000 for military charity Combat Stress.
A UK flight headed for Italy was forced to make an emergency stop in Germany after a young child suffered most severe type of burns from a cup of tea.

The young boy, aged nine, had been enjoying his hot beverage on flight from London.

But after he accidentally spilled drink upon himself his burns were so severe the plane had to make an emergency stop at Allgau Airport in Memmingen, 73 miles outside of Munich in the southern German state of Bavaria.

The boy was then rushed to hospital by rescue helicopter, which doctors confirmed he had third degree burns.

After the stopover, the plane finally took off again at around 11 am and landed at its actual destination of Brindisi in southern Italy at around 12.30 pm, a good hour and a half late.

His burns were so severe the plane had to make an emergency stop at Allgau Airport in Memmingen, 73 miles outside of Munich (pictured)

Officers from the Memmingen border police then took over the incident.

According to the police, the investigation revealed 'that the incident was not the fault of a third party and that the boy had scalded himself through carelessness'.

Third-degree burns, or 'full-thickness burns', are the most severe type, affecting all layers of the skin, including the epidermis, dermis, and underlying tissue.

These burns destroy nerve endings, so the affected area may not feel pain initially, and instead leaves the skin appearing white, charred, leathery, or waxy.

But this is all dangerously deceptive as healing requires medical intervention, often even involving skin grafts.

These burns can also lead complications like infections and fluid loss, and also very serious long-term consequences such as scarring.

This is not the first time, however, that children have been injured by food and drink served on board an aircraft.

It is not the first time that children have been injured by food and drink served on board an aircraft (file image)

The parents of a six-year-old girl sued United Airlines for 75,000 dollars in damages after a traumatic flight from Tel Aviv to Newark in 2022.

Here their daughter allegedly suffered severe burns from an 'inappropriately hot' meal and was left horribly disfigured.

The parents accused the airline of failing to properly maintain the aircraft, causing the child's tray table to malfunction and the hot food to slide onto her lap.

After the accident, the child allegedly also did not receive adequate medical care and suffered for the remaining twelve hours of the flight.
The Prime Minister of New Zealand has been dramatically rushed out of a press conference by his security detail over fears pro-Palestinian protesters would confront him.

Christopher Luxon had been promoting a new policy of getting more police officers on the streets during a media stop at Albert Street in Auckland's CBD on Friday.

He was joined by his Police Minister Mark Mitchell, who is a former officer, the Associate Police Minister Casey Costello and Police Commissioner Andrew Coster.

But as Mr Luxon was answering one of the final questions, a member of his security team rushed to him and prematurely ended the press conference.

'We gotta go,' the security service officer is heard saying in a video shared by The New Zealand Herald.

The bodyguard then tapped the Prime Minister on the shoulder and ushered him through the rest of the officers adding: 'We need to leave right now, sir.'

Mr Luxon and his team then made their exit from Good To Go mini-supermarket, where the press conference was held, and into waiting transport.

It's understood Mr Luxon's team feared he would be caught by pro-Palestinian protesters who were believed to be en route to the press conference location.

A member of the Prime Minister's security detail taps Mr Luxon on the shoulder before ushering him outside and away from the location

Mr Luxon had been promoting his government's efforts to expand the number of police visible on city streets.

Youth crime, particularly gang crime, is one of the major issues affecting New Zealand retailers.

Police spokesperson for the rival National Party, Mark Mitchell, said the number of youths joining gangs has skyrocketed over the past five years,

'New information shows there are more than 8,000 gang members in New Zealand - a 50 per cent increase since Labour came to power in 2017.

'The data reveals a concerning trend that new members aged 18-25 have increased by 75 per cent. This is the most significant increase for any age group and clearly shows that gangs are effectively targeting and recruiting young people.'

Under Mr Luxon's initiative, the police team in Auckland is expected to increase to 63 officers, while Wellington will see an addition of 17 officers, and 18 more in Christchurch.

Mr Luxon's had been talking up a new government policy to expand the number of police visible on city streets

'The Police Commissioner announced they would have more cops on the beat in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and it's amazing within a matter of weeks to see that commitment has been followed through,' Mr Luxon said.

He said the expanded number of officers on the force was 'more than a great start' and a 'collaborative effort'.

Mr Luxon explained it was important for the government to 'do better' so that people could feel safe, especially with cruise ships coming back to New Zealand.

'Police are obviously at the heart of the whole issue, but they are working really constructively with the security officers from the different retail complexes, with the city council,' Mr Luxon said.

'What we're here to do is to make sure that we have more police out and about on the beat.

'But importantly that we are restoring law and order in New Zealand and that people are feeling safer in their homes, their businesses and communities.'

He added more officers on the streets had delivered results since the initiative started, and that business owners have also noticed a change.
Kemi Badenoch has slammed 'dirty tricks' in the Tory leadership battle - as Mel Stride became the fourth confirmed candidate.

The former Cabinet minister lashed out on social media accusing a rival campaign of circulating a 'dirty dossier' about her.

It apparently includes posts made on a online chat room in 2007, when Ms Badenoch criticised Nigerian culture and branded Diane Abbott a 'hypocrite'.

Ms Badenoch - who has yet to launch her bid but is seen by many as the front runner to succeed Rishi Sunak - said people were also trying to generate 'petty and puerile' bullying claims against her.

'We can do better than this and I will be saying and writing more about how, in due course,' she wrote. She did not specify which campaign she thought was responsible.

Mr Stride announced during a round of interviews this morning that he has secured the 10 MP backers needed to enter the race.

Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick are the other contenders formally declared - with Priti Patel and Suella Braverman expected to pull the trigger soon.

Kemi Badenoch has slammed 'dirty tricks' in the Tory leadership battle

The former Cabinet minister lashed out on social media accusing a rival campaign of circulating a 'dirty dossier' about her

Mel Stride announced during a round of interviews this morning that he has secured the 10 MP backers needed to enter the race

The outcome could decide the fate of the party after its disastrous election rout, with One Nation and right-wing factions wrestling for control.

Mr Stride - who retained his Central Devon seat with a majority of just 61 on July 4 - said he believed he was the right person to 'unite the party'.

He said: 'What we know from the General Election is that we're in a very, very difficult place as a party, and I worry about that because I care about my party and I care about my country.

'We've substantially lost the trust of the British people and we've lost our reputation for competence, and I believe that I'm in a very good position to address those issues going forward.

'In terms of trust, I think (the party) needs somebody who is going to be able to unite the party. People are not going to vote for a party that's at each other's throats all the time.

'I am respected, I think, right across the parliamentary party. I was chair of the Treasury Select Committee, the leader of the House of Commons, all of those things are roles about bringing people together.'

Contenders need a proposer, seconder and eight other MP backers to stand, with nominations closing at 2.30pm on Monday.

Shadow home secretary Mr Cleverly was first to confirm he was running for the leadership, saying he was 'grateful for all the support' and 'looking forward to getting out and about over the next few months'.

Mr Tugendhat talked up his experience as former security minister and in the armed forces as he launched his bid, telling GB News he has a 'track record of delivery' for the British people.

He said he was willing to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and denied that his change of tone on the matter was political opportunism.

He said he believed he could turn around the Tories' disastrous result to win an election as leader of the Conservative Party in five years' time but that the party needs to 'be united' and 'regain the trust of the British people'.

However, he suffered an embarrassing setback

Mr Jenrick's campaign team said the ex-immigration minister has gathered enough support to run.

His campaign manager Danny Kruger said Mr Jenrick has the 'energy, temperament and policy agenda to take on our rivals and lead us back to power in five years'.

The parliamentary party will narrow the field down to four, who will make their case at the Conservative Party conference, which runs from September 29 to October 2.

The final two, picked by the parliamentary party, will then go to a vote of party members in an online ballot that will close on October 31 with the result announced on November 2.
A mother who got drunk and let her ex-boyfriend's two XL Bullies off their leads in a park where they mauled three dog walkers and their pets has been spared jail.

Amanda Wilkie, 44, had taken her former boyfriend's pets, Mavis and Missy, out for a walk in a park in Merseyside after she had been drinking at a funeral.

The powerfully built XL Bullies darted over to one woman and her dog, biting them both and dragging her along the grass.

They also attacked two small dogs belonging to Christina Potts and Tracey Hayhurst who were chatting on a park bench.

Party loving mother Amanda Wilkie, 44, got drunk and allowed two XL Bullies to maul three dog walkers and their pets during a terrifying parkland rampage

She had been looking after the hounds for her ex-boyfriend and sparked terror when she let them off their leashes at Willow Park in Newton-Le-Willows, Merseyside

Despite leaving two women injured, Wilkie left without the XL Bullies and went home to carry on drinking alcohol.

Liverpool Crown Court heard on Thursday that Wilkie had taken the dogs out for a walk on Willow Park in Newton-le-Willows shortly after 6pm on August 17 last year.

Simran Garcha prosecuting said the Bullies attacked one woman and her dogs before approaching Christine Potts and Tracey Hayhurst, who were sitting on a bench.

Mavis bit Ms Potts on the face, injuring her lip and finger, as she tried to protect her 17-year-old West Highland terrier, Rosie. Ms Potts also required hospital treatment after the incident.

She and Ms Hayhurst picked up their dogs, including a two-year-old Papillon called Mylo, and put them on top of a bin to protect them as the XL Bullies continued their attempts to attack.

Wilkie, of Southworth Road in Newton, attempted to move Mavis and Missy away.

She said that 'they were not her dogs and did not belong to her' but the 44-year-old was described as 'appearing to be drunk' and 'slurring her words' at this stage.

Christine Potts (right) with her friend Tracey Heyhurst tried to save their dogs, a 16-year-old West Highland Terrier called Rosie and a two-year-old Papillon called Mylo

A bloodied Miss Potts with her pet Mylo in the aftermath of the attack. She underwent treatment in hospital for puncture wounds to her lip

Ms Potts and Ms Hayhurst managed to get out of the area and sought refuge in a nearby van.

But the XL Bullies turned their attentions to Jacqueline Mahoney, who 'heard a woman screaming for help' upon entering the park with her own dog.

Wilkie warned her not to walk up a set of steps in the park due to dogs being aggressive.

Mavis and Missy then attacked Ms Mahoney's dog, a three-year-old Yorkshire terrier-Chi Hua Hua cross called Scooby.

One of the XL Bullies grabbed Scooby's neck and flipped it onto its back as Miss Mahoney was injured trying to rescue her pet.

She grabbed the XL Bully's leg but she was dragged along and fell downstairs.

Mylo pictured with 16-year-old West Highland Terrier called Rosie recovering after the vicious attack. Rosie had punctures around her neck

Mylo suffered bites around her head and ear after the XL Bully locked its jaws around the dog

She was left with bruising to her knuckles and pain in her back and arm while Scooby was left with wounds to its neck, back and chest. Scooby also ran away as a result of the attack.

Police officers later arrived at the park to find that Wilkie had left, leaving both of her dogs behind.

When interviewed on January 2, Wilkie told detectives that the dogs 'became free' after which she 'went back home to retrieve strong collars and leads'.

But she then 'had a number of alcoholic drinks and did not return to retrieve the dogs'.

Wilkie 'accepted possession of the dogs', although she stated that they 'belonged to her ex-partner' Mark Coxhill.

Ms Hayhurst was left with bruising to her arms and legs and a chipped tooth as a result of the incident, while her dog 'received bite marks'.

Ms Mahoney suffered 'many bruises and scratches', with her dog sustaining 'injuries to the chest and back, including puncture wounds'.

In a statement read to the court on her behalf, Ms Potts said: 'I don't take my dogs out now like I used to, and only on the odd occasion. Even then, I find it so hard.

'What used to be a pleasure, being outside and enjoying nature, isn't any more. I don't think my mental wellbeing will ever be the same.

'I have flashbacks and nightmares and often cry out in my sleep. I used to love Willow Park, but I've not been able to go back there since.

'I've been a huge dog lover since I was a child, but now I'm terrified of big dogs. I can't stop thinking the worst that could have happened.

'I used to be a positive person. This incident has taken away my love of the outside and being out in nature with my dog and my sense of feeling safe and secure.

'No one should ever have to go through what I did and feel like I do nine months after it happened. This trauma will have an effect on me for the rest of my life.'

One of the XL Bullies grabbed Scooby's neck (pictured) and flipped it onto its back as Miss Mahoney was injured trying to rescue her pet

Jacqueline Mahoney (pictured) was attacked while entering the park with her three-year-old Yorkshire terrier-Chi Hua Hua cross called Scooby

Wilkie has one previous conviction for inflicting grievous bodily harm against Mr Coxhill in relation to an incident on April 14 2023.

She stabbed her then boyfriend with a steak knife over claims he was about to cheat on her.

This saw her handed a 15-month imprisonment suspended for two years in October last year.

She owns three other dogs, a French bulldog called Dolly, Billy the Shih Tzu and a French bulldog Shih Tzu cross named Fifi.

Louise Santamera, defending, told the court: 'She says she tried to speak to the police at the time and asked them to make arrangements to remove Missy and Mavis, because they were not her dogs and she was not allowed to contact him.

'On the date of the offence, she had been to a family funeral and returned home in a hurry to take the dogs out for a walk because they had not been walked at all that day.

'She accepts that she had a couple of drinks at the funeral but does not accept that she was staggeringly drunk.

'She picked up some older leads rather than the newer leads, which were much stronger. She took them a short distance to the park to give them a walk.

'As she entered the park, another dog started barking at them and this caused Missy to slip the lead. In fact, the lead snapped.

'The other dog ran off after her. She does accept that she should have been more responsible and she should have put them on the stronger leads.

'She said she left the park after trying to retrieve both of the dogs, trying her best to get them back under control. Realising that she couldn't, she went home because she was afraid.

'She was afraid she would be blamed for what she had seen happen and that she would be arrested again when she was on bail for the other offence. She was ashamed of what she had done in not staying in the park and not doing more in trying to retrieve the two dogs.

'It is true that, at the time, she did have an alcohol problem, but on that particular day she was not staggering around. At the time, she had been in a toxic and abusive relationship with Mr Coxhill.

Wilkie pleaded guilty to four charges of having a dog dangerously out of control and faces up to two years jail under sentencing guidelines

'It seems that events in 2023 have brought her to her senses and made her realise that she needed to address her alcohol problem. She has done extraordinarily well, by all accounts.

'She has now been sober for eight months. The previous abusive relationship was the underlying cause of her alcohol problem.

'It would be, in my submission, a great pity if she was now to be sentenced to immediate custody. All of the hard work and effort she has made would be undone.

'She understands that the offences have caused immense physical and mental distress, and she is sorry for any pain she has caused. This incident in the park that day is a one-off incident in her ability to look after and care for dogs.'

Wilkie admitted two counts of being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog causing injury and two charges of being in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog.

Sitting with her arms folded in the dock and wearing a black, pink and grey striped cardigan with her black hair tied back with a clip, she was handed a 10-month imprisonment suspended for two years with 200 hours of unpaid work and a rehabilitation activity requirement of up to 10 days.

Wilkie was also told to pay 500 in compensation to Ms Potts and 300 to Ms Mahoney.

Rulings on whether she will be banned from keeping animals and a destruction order concerning the two XL bullies will be given on August 27 in order to allow Mr Coxhill to make representations to the judge.

Sentencing, Judge Brian Cummings KC said: 'I am dealing with not one but two dangerous dogs, two sizeable dogs, and two human victims - not including the dogs who were injured. Your conduct on this occasion represented a catalogue of irresponsibility.

'You are not a big person. You are a slight woman, so far as I can see.

'You went out with two large dogs. You had no proper collars or leads.

'You were under the influence of alcohol and, very seriously, you abandoned the dogs at the scene. You left others to deal with the situation, notwithstanding the fact that there were children in the park.

'You were on crown court bail at the time of this incident in respect of a dissimilar type of offence. You are not in breach of that suspended sentence order because it was imposed more than three months after the present offence.

'I keep in mind that this very serious incident was getting on now for a year ago. During that time, you importantly have not committed any further offences.

'It is only fair to acknowledge that your progress in respect of the community elements of the suspended sentence order has been described as excellent. If you were in breach of the suspended sentence order, of course you would be going to prison.

'There would be no doubt about it, but that is not the position. In my judgement, the balance in this case just comes through in your favour.'
A 15-year-old schoolboy who was left severely brain-damaged after flipping from a pier heartbreakingly looked his mother in the eye and begged for 'help' as he spoke for the first time since the accident.

Jack Dolan was left in a state where he could not move, speak or laugh after the tragedy on Margate pier in Kent on June 23.

The teen, who tried to jump the pier in front of his pals and girlfriend, 'overspun' and 'landed face first on the water'.

But after lying in a vegetative state for weeks, he is showing signs of improvement. Photos released by the family show his eyes open, as he is now regaining control of his arms and toes.

Jack, from Chatham, was flown to a London hospital where a scan revealed no brain activity. He was put on end-of-life care after having his life support taken away.

Jack Dolan (pictured) has spoken for the first time since his accident and is amazing doctors with his progress

Jack (pictured) was left in a state where he could not move, speak or laugh after the tragedy on June 23

Lying from his hospital bed, Jack heartbreakingly looked his mother in the eye and said 'help'

After lying in a vegetative state for weeks, Jack is showing signs of improvement

Jack's stepfather, David Dolan, told MailOnline: 'Jack is blowing everything the doctors said out of the water.

'He is moving his arms, wiggling his toes, holding eye contact and whilst in a lot of pain, he looked his mum in the eye and said 'help'.

'He has beaten a chest infection and re-inflated his collapsed lung with no medical intervention.

'We are putting him in experimental private treatment to see how much of Jack we can get back, so the goalposts have moved, the therapy is 8,000 and the tank for hyperbaric oxygen therapy to have in the home if it shows improvement is 38,000.

'We are doing all we can to fight for him.'

The family launched a fund-raising effort which has seen more than 1,000 supporters contributing more than 28,000.

Jack with his mother Lisa before the tragic accident off Margate Pier

He had done the move dozens of times before, most recently on holiday in Egypt in September (pictured), but this time he landed face first on the water

Jack's stepfather Dave said the jump from the Stone Pier (pictured) was three or four metres high but if Jack had landed a quarter rotation one way or the other he would probably have been fine

Jack's mother Lisa, an NHS worker, will be giving up her job to care for him full-time but doctors cannot say how long he will live.

Since the accident, Jack has suffered from heart issues and seizures along with a chest infection and a collapsed lung.

However, while his family expected the chest infection to claim the 15-year-old's life, he was able to fight it off with no medical intervention  even reinflating his lung by himself.

Mr Dolan also says with spots on his brain, Jack is likely to have a stroke at some point and has suffered two cardiac arrests.
John Lewis has been granted planning permission for 'Waitrose Tower' - a high-rise tower block looming above one of its upmarket grocery stores in Bromley.

Bromley Council's development committee signed off on allowing the John Lewis Partnership (JLP) - which owns both the department stores and Waitrose supermarkets - to proceed with the plans last night.

It comes as JLP looks to expand its business, moving into housing as part of a 500million investment deal with Abrdn that will, the retail giant hopes, see 40 per cent of its profit come from outside the world of shopping.

Objectors to the plans said the 135m-tall building will 'dwarf' the area - but planners recommended local councillors should green-light the plans because they make a 'very significant contribution' to the housing supply in the south London borough.

The Masons Hill tower will include 30 'discount market rent' flats at London Living Rent rates - a below-average rent rate set by the Mayor of London's office. It is currently an average of 1,267 for a two-bedroom home.

An artist's impression of the 353-home block of flats dubbed 'Waitrose Tower' that has been approved in Bromley

Three quarters of the flats will be furnished with John Lewis furniture (pictured: a selection of John Lewis home furnishings)

The existing Waitrose on Masons Hill in Bromley. Planners have admitted the new development will negatively impact residents of the existing Perigon Heights tower (middle of image)

John Lewis is also applying to build almost 430 homes in West Ealing

John Lewis says the homes will be energy efficient, and that it will discourage private car ownership by offering car club membership to tenants.

Some 75 per cent of the flats will come fully furnished with John Lewis goods.

There will be no new parking spaces on the development, and residents will not be able to apply for parking permits on the street under a condition agreed as part of the planning approval - with the exception of Blue Badge holders.

The number of spaces at the existing Waitrose store, which will be redeveloped as part of the plans, will also be cut from 199 to 140.

Planning officers at the council admitted the development would have a negative impact on those living in the nearby Perigon Heights block.

The building does not meet some requirements on flood risks, and planners say the number of London Living Rent flats offered is 'significantly below expectation'.

There were also 109 objections to the plans - and 144 notes of support. Councillors for the Bromley Town ward in which the development sits opposed the scheme.

The council ultimately said it was supportive of the 'finely balanced case' to permit the development.

'The proposal would make a very significant contribution to the housing supply in the Borough making efficient use of land and would help to address the Council's acute housing delivery shortages,' the report presented last night read.

Councillor Alexa Michael, Chairman of Bromley's Development Control Committee, later said: 'This development will make an essential contribution of much-needed housing in Bromley, while also providing a significant boost to the local economy.

'While finely balanced with many factors to consider, the proposal represents a clear net benefit to the borough and enhances local housing supply, which optimises land use on this highly-accessible brownfield site at the edge of Bromley's town centre.'

Katherine Russell, director of build-to-rent at JLP, said: 'This now gives us the opportunity to enhance the local area, create vital new housing for the local people of Bromley and deliver a state-of-the-art Waitrose, which sits at the heart of the community.'

JLP aims to start work on the site next year and hopes to complete the project by 2029. But it also has its sights set on building houses elsewhere in the capital.

In June, it announced it is appealing to Ealing Council on the grounds of 'non-determination' after submitting plans for 428 homes.

The proposed homes are near to West Ealing station on the Elizabeth Line and include 83 affordable rental homes. The appeal is due to be assessed by a planning inspector.

But the firm has come under fire from a group of Ealing residents - called Stop the Towers - which has urged the council to reject the plans.
Elon Musk's fiery feud with his trans daughter Vivian Wilson has deepened after she accused him of berating her for 'having a high voice' when she was young.

In an interview with conservative commentator Jordan Peterson earlier this week, Musk said that he was tricked into signing away his 'son' Xavier, using Wilson's former name, to allow her to go on puberty blockers.

Referring to Wilson with male pronouns and by her birth name, Musk claimed that his 'son' had been 'killed by the woke mind virus'.

Posting on X's arch rival site Threads, owned by Mark Zuckerberg 's Meta, Wilson hit back at his comments, claiming she had no idea 'where he got this from'.

Now, the 20-year-old has taken a step further by painting a scathing picture of her father in an interview yesterday by saying he was absent and bullied her for being queer.

Vivian Wilson, seen here responding to her father's comments on Threads, has deepened their feud after she accused him of berating her for 'having a high voice' when she was a young boy

In an interview, Musk said that he was tricked into signing away his son Xavier, using Wilson's former name, to allow her to go on puberty blockers

'I think he was under the assumption that I wasn't going to say anything and I would just let this go, unchallenged,' she told NBC News.

'[But] I'm not going to do [that] because if you're going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I'm not just gonna let that slide.

'I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn't know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars  I don't remember which one  and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high. It was cruel.'

Discussing his comment that he had been 'tricked' into approving gender-affirming medical care for Vivian, she added: 'He was not by any means tricked.'

She went on to describe the puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy she received as 'saving lives'.

In a post on X, Musk also said that Wilson was 'born gay and slightly autistic' and that, at age 4, she fit certain gay stereotypes, such as loving musicals.

Wilson replied by saying: 'He doesn't know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn't there.

'And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.

'I've been reduced to a happy little stereotype,' she continued. 'I think that says alot about how he views queer people and children in general.'

Musk said he had known from a young age that she was gay, saying she 'would pick out clothes for me to wear like a jacket and tell it was fabulous' and loved musicals

Musk kisses his then fiancee Talulah Riley as they stand with Musk's twin boys Griffin, left, and Xavier, now known as Vivian. Riley was not their mother

Wilson added her father has made up these claims because he wasn't around her as a child in her post to Threads

Musk is seen here with his second wife Talulah Riley in 2015 with Xavier (right), now Vivian, and Griffin

Elon Musk family continues to grow, 22 years after his first wife, Justine Wilson, gave birth to his first children

The father and daughter have long had a contentious relationship, with Musk having called her a 'communist' who thinks 'anyone rich is evil'.

When asked about gender dysphoria, he added: 'It's incredibly evil and I agree with you that the people that are promoting this should go to prison.'

Musk said that his right-wing awakening has been spurred on by this process and the trickery he claims was played upon him.

'I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that and we're making some progress,' he said.

The South African billionaire has fathered a reported 12 children over last 22 years and has spoken publicly about his view that the world is underpopulated.

He had his kids with three different women, Canadian author Justine Wilson, the mother of Vivian, musician Grimes and his employee, Shivon Zilis. His youngest child, with Zilis, was born in 2024.

Wilson legally changed her gender to female and her name from 'Xavier' to Vivian Jenna Wilson in 2022, while revealing in court filings she 'no longer wishes to be related' to Musk 'in any way'.

Vivian filed the petition just three days after her 18th birthday, though the court documents weren't made public until the day after Fathers Day.
Britain is set to bake this weekend amid hopes a mini-heatwave could send temperatures hurtling past 30C - making it hotter than parts of South Africa and Brazil.

As millions of families embark on their summer getaways, temperatures are set to climb to 27C on 'Frantic Friday', when more than 3 million cars are set to hit the roads.

The best of the warm weather is still to come, and after some light showers on Saturday, many can expect sunny spells and dry conditions across large swathes of the UK.

But Sunday could see the hottest day of the year so far, as sunseekers hope the mercury sizzles above the 31.9C recorded in St James's Park on July 19.

It comes after a disappointing start to July, where the wet and chilly start has barely materialised into the Great British summer many had pinned their hopes on.

LONDON: A man basks in the sun while covering his head with a t-shirt earlier this month

DORSET: Sunbathers make the most of the sunshine on Weymouth beach

A peaceful poppy field near Sturminster Marshall, Dorset during dawn this morning

The good weather will continue into next week, with the Met Office predicting highs of 29C on Monday.

The hotter spells are thanks to an Iberian plume which is pushing a warm weather front from Europe, where temperatures have been as high as 40C this summer.

The south-eastern areas of the country will experience the hottest weather, but most regions are expected to reap the benefits of the high pressure front.

Looking ahead, Britons can expect a much drier August with the Met Office predicting a 'warmer than average' period from August 7 to August 21.

London and the surrounding areas could see temperatures as high as 31C (89) on August 8.

Warm weather is expected to hit Britain this weekend. Pictured: Boaters punt on the River Cam in Cambridge

The UK is set for a mini-heatwave this weekend with temperatures hitting the mid-20s

Walkers wearing jackets and holding umbrellas during heavy rain at West Bay in Dorset on July 25

A woman uses a paper bag to shelter from the rain while walking on the Strand in London on July 25

The warm weather will be a welcome relief after what has been a wet and shivery July for most of Britain.

The average temperature in June sat at 12.9C (55F) and the country has experienced cooler temperatures in July, which has brought its own challenges.

On Wednesday, a marooned hiker in Wales had to call mountain rescue after getting hypothermia.

The group of walkers were attempting to walk the 15 Peaks until one of the members began to show signs of hypothermia.

After struggling to find the path down and knowing they were at risk of straying onto the cliffs, the group stopped in the summit shelter to wait for Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation who could safely bring them down.

The group set off at 3AM to complete 15 peaks until one began exhibiting signs of hypothermia

After confirming their location with the group was brought food and warm clothing

The mountain rescuers urged people to check the weather before setting out and if they are properly equipped for all possible conditions.

A spokesman for Ogwen Valley Mountain Rescue Organisation said this was 'especially important for long challenges, checking the weather will help you prepare properly for a trip in the mountains.'

Those in the area couldn't believe the summer weather as local David Humphries recalling a recent fishing trip near the Crimea Pass where he 'left in July, arrived in April and arrived back home in July.'
Elon Musk's transgender daughter last night branded her billionaire father 'uncaring' and 'narcissistic', but the pair's relationship has seemingly been broken for many years now.

Vivian Jenna Wilson, called Xavier Musk at birth, launched a blistering attack against her father yesterday - accusing him of being absentee, 'cruel', 'quick to anger', and bullying her for being queer - after he said she was 'not a girl' and figuratively 'dead'.

The pair's increasingly acrimonious public row was first thrown into the spotlight two years ago when Vivian, now 20, in a court filing declared she 'no longer wishes to be related' to her father and legally changed both her name and gender.

Although Vivian says she has not spoken to her father in four years, Musk, 53, has used their apparently toxic relationship as a catalyst to wage his war against trans activism and gender politics, even publicly branding his daughter as a 'communist'.

Vivian has remained relatively quiet, despite her father's public criticisms, until this week when she says Musk 'crossed a line' by claiming that Vivian was 'killed by the woke mind virus' and that he had been 'tricked' into allowing her to transition.

Seemingly outraged by being 'reduced to a happy little stereotype', the 20-year-old declared that she would no longer let Musk's remarks 'go unchallenged' and vowed to 'debunk' what she says are claims her father has made up because he wasn't around during her childhood.

Elon Musk's transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson (left, pictured this week) has branded her billionaire father 'uncaring' and 'narcissistic', but the pair's relationship has seemingly been broken for many years now. Vivian, born Xavier Musk, and her twin brother Griffin (right, pictured with Elon in 2017) are the Tesla CEO's eldest living children

Musk appears to have been somewhat involved in Vivian's childhood, being pictured several times at events with the twins and his then-wife British actress Talulah Riley - although Vivian, now 20, has accused him of being absentee. Musk, Riley and the twins are pictured in 2011

Vivian and her twin brother Griffin are the Tesla CEO's eldest living children, whom he shares with his ex-wife, Canadian author Justine Wilson.

The twins were born in 2004 in California, three years before their younger brothers, Kai, Saxon and Damian, all of whom are now 18.

Musk met his first wife, Wilson, while he was a student at Queen's University in Ontario. The pair married in 2000. Wilson previously told Musk biographer Ashlee Vance, that he 'wanted to get married and have kids early on.'

She gave birth to their first child, Nevada, in 2002. Tragically, at just ten weeks old Nevada Alexander Musk died as a result of sudden infant death syndrome.

In 2004, Wilson gave birth to twins, Xavier and Griffin, followed by triplets, Kai, Saxon and Damian, in 2006.

Musk and Wilson divorced in 2008 and agreed to share custody. Wilson wrote in an essay for Marie Clare in 2010 that she had felt more like an 'employee' to Musk than a partner.

Following his split from Wilson, Musk began dating British actress Talulah Riley, whom he is understood to have met at a bar in London.

Riley - who was a virgin when she began dating Musk in 2008 - first tied the knot with the Tesla architect in 2010. However, their first marriage ended in 2012, when she reportedly walked away with $16 million as part of a divorce settlement.

By the following summer, they had remarried. But then, in December 2014, she filed for divorce a second time, only to withdraw her lawsuit the following year.

In March 2016, she requested a divorce a third time, and the pair split for good; the couple did not have any children together.

However, she appeared to have somewhat embraced her role as a step-mother, having been pictured several times with Musk and his young twins Griffin and Vivian, then-Xavier.

Vivian her twin brother Griffin are the Tesla CEO's eldest living children, whom he shares with his ex-wife Canadian author Justine Wilson. The former couple are pictured together

Musk (second from left) and Wilson shared five children together. Vivian, then Xavier, is pictured sitting on a couch to CBS Mornings host Norah O'Donnell (right of Musk) in February 2014. She is also accompanied by her siblings

Musk and Wilson's five children had largely managed to remain out of the spotlight, but in 2012 the author did refer to all of her children as being autistic.

It was further revealed in 2018 that all of boys were being educated at a radical, ultra-exclusive school set up by the Tesla founder at his SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

The 'experimental' school, which is called Ad Astra, meaning 'to the stars' in Latin, was set up in 2014.

As of 2018, it was being attended by a very small, select group of students, including Elon's five sons and the offspring of several SpaceX employees.

All of the Musk children also, at some point throughout their education, attended the wildly expensive Crossroads K-12 school in Santa Monica, where annual tuition costs up to $50,000.

Vivian remained out of public sight for much of her late childhood and adolescence, but made headlines in 2022 when she officially adopted her mother's maiden name.

Vivian, then 18, filed a petition to change both her name and legal gender, and was quoted in court filings as saying she 'no longer wishes to be related' to her father 'in any way.'

A Santa Monica judge issued a new birth certificate that reflected her changed name, and gender, while their ruling simply stated: 'Xavier Alexander Musk to Vivian Jenna Wilson. The gender of the petitioner is changed from male to female.'

Vivian filed the petition just three days after her 18th birthday, though the court documents weren't made public until the day after Father's Day that year.

In a tweet the night her daughter's petition was granted, Wilson said: '"I had a weird childhood," my 18-year-old said to me.'

'"I can't believe I'm as normal-seeming as I am." I said, "I'm very proud of you." "I'm proud of myself!"'

Meanwhile, on Fathers Day, Musk tweeted prior to the revelation of her filings: 'I love all my kids so much.'

A private woman, she was not spotted in public until several months after her petition was granted.

She was seen on a quick shopping trip in Santa Monica, donning a brown T-shirt with a yellow pattern on it, black sweatpants, and a pair of sneakers. She wore a face mask and kept her long, flowing blonde hair loose.

Vivian remained out of public sight for much of her late childhood and adolescence, but made headlines in 2022 when she filed a petition to change both her name and legal gender. Vivian, then 18, (pictured in 2022) was quoted in court filings as saying she 'no longer wishes to be related' to her father 'in any way'

Musk kisses his then fiancee-Talulah Riley at an event in June 2010, as they stand with his twin boys Griffin (left) and Xavier, (right) now known as Vivian

Must spoke out about his painful estrangement from his daughter for the first time last year, calling her a 'communist' and blaming her politics on the expensive private high school she attended.

The billionaire was 'generally sanguine' when he first learned of his child's transition, but things changed when Vivian began expressing extreme Marxist views and declared her intention to sever all ties, according to author Walter Isaacson, who authored a biography about Musk.

'She went beyond socialism to being a full communist and thinking that anyone rich is evil,' Musk told the author, placing blame in part on Crossroads, the private K-12 school in Santa Monica where annual tuition costs up to $50,000.

Isaacson wrote that when Vivian was 16, which would have been 2020 or 2021, she texted the wife of Elon's brother to come out, writing: 'Hey, I'm transgender, and my name is now Jenna ... Don't tell my dad.'

The biographer revealed that Musk's painful rift with Vivian was partly responsible for the billionaire's ongoing obsession with 'woke' ideology, which he views as a threat to human civilization and motivated his $42billion purchase of Twitter in 2022.

'Unless the woke mind virus, which is fundamentally anti-science, anti-merit, and anti-human in general, is stopped, civilization will never become multiplanetary,' Musk told the author.

Musk's rift with Vivian 'pained him more than anything in his life since the infant death of his firstborn child Nevada,' who died just 10 weeks old of sudden infant death syndrome, the biographer added.

The SpaceX founder further publicized their feud this week by claiming he was 'tricked' by the 'woke mind virus' into allowing one of his sons to become a transgender woman.

In an interview Monday, however, Musk has made his strongest comments yet against her decision, calling what happened to the billionaire and his family 'evil'.

'I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys, Xavier,' he said, using Vivian's former name.

'This was really before I had any understanding of what was going on, and we had COVID going on, so there was a lot of confusion. And I was told Xavier might commit suicide,' Musk said.

The SpaceX founder further publicized their feud this week by claiming he was 'tricked' by the 'woke mind virus' into allowing one of his sons to become a transgender woman

Musk said he had known from a young age that she was gay, saying she 'would pick out clothes for me to wear like a jacket and tell it was fabulous' and loved musicals

He added: 'I was tricked into doing this. It wasn't explained to me that puberty blockers are actually just sterilization drugs.

'I lost my son, essentially. They call it "deadnaming" for a reason. The reason they call it "deadnaming" is because your son is dead, so my son, Xavier, is dead, killed by the woke mind virus.'

Vivian, 20, has now responded, painting a scathing picture of her father in an interview yesterday by saying he was absent and bullied her for being queer.

'I think he was under the assumption that I wasn't going to say anything and I would just let this go, unchallenged,' she told NBC News.

'[But] I'm not going to do [that] because if you're going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, I'm not just gonna let that slide.

'I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didn't know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars  I don't remember which one  and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high. It was cruel.'

Discussing his comment that he had been 'tricked' into approving gender-affirming medical care for Vivian, she added: 'He was not by any means tricked.'

She went on to describe the puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy she received as 'saving lives'.

In a post on X, Musk also said that Vivian was 'born gay and slightly autistic' and that, at age 4, she fit certain gay stereotypes, such as loving musicals.

Vivian replied by saying: 'He doesn't know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn't there.

'And in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness.

'I've been reduced to a happy little stereotype,' she continued. 'I think that says alot about how he views queer people and children in general.'

She also took to X's arch rival site Threads, owned by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, declaring: 'I want to make absolutely clear that I have disowned him and not the other way round.'

Furthermore, she used the platform to challenge her father's tweets, including the one in which he claimed that she was born 'gay and slightly autistic'.

Musk said he had known from a young age that she was gay, saying she 'would pick out clothes for me to wear like a jacket and tell it was fabulous' and loved musicals.

Vivian said: 'There's a lot of stuff I need to debunk, but I want to start with what I find the funniest which is the notorious "slightly autistic" tweet.

'This is gonna be a bit so just bare with me. This is entirely fake. Like, literally none of this ever happened. Ever. I don't even know where he got this from.'

The South African billionaire has fathered a reported 12 children over last 22 years and has spoken publicly about his view that the world is underpopulated. He had his kids with three different women - Wilson, the mother of Vivian; musician Grimes; and his employee, Shivon Zilis. His youngest child, with Zilis, was born in 2024

Vivian wrote that she had never loved musicals or theatre and also hit back at his claims about picking out clothes for her father.

She said: 'I never picked out jackets for him to wear and I was most certainly not calling them "fabulous" because literally what the f***.

'I did not use the word fabulous when I was four because once again I would like to reiterateI was four.

'Like this is so obvious I don't even think it warrants explanation but apparently people believe this nonsense so here I am.'

The South African billionaire has fathered a reported 12 children over last 22 years and has spoken publicly about his view that the world is underpopulated.

He had his kids with three different women - Wilson, the mother of Vivian; musician Grimes; and his employee, Shivon Zilis. His youngest child, with Zilis, was born in 2024.
The leaders of Australia, Canada and New Zealand have issued a joint statement calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Anthony Albanese, alongside Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau and Prime Minister of New Zealand Christopher Luxon, issued the joint statement on Friday afternoon.

'Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hezbollah and Israel,' the statement reads.

'The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue.'

The trio said they remain 'unequivocal' in their condemnation of Hamas for the 'atrocities of October 7 and ongoing acts of terror'.

They say Hamas must 'lay down its arms' and release all hostages, with the three leaders saying there is 'no role' for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza.

Palestinian health authorities have recently said Israel's continued ground and air campaign in Gaza since October last year has killed more than 39,000 people.

Most of those killed are believed to be civilians, with 2.3 million residents driven out of their homes and into shelters.

Anthony Albanese has called for a ceasefire in Gaza

The statement was also signed by New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Mr Albanese, Mr Luxon and Mr Trudeau are urging Israel to 'listen to the concerns of the international community'.

'The protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law,' the statement said.

'Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas. It must end.

'An immediate ceasefire is needed desperately.

'Civilians must be protected, and a sustained increase in the flow of assistance throughout Gaza is needed to address the humanitarian situation.'

The war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants crossed the border into Israeli communities and killed 1200 people and took 253 locals into captivity in Gaza.

The statement from the Australian, New Zealand and Canadian leader comes after US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a ceasefire.

The leaders of the United States met with Mr Netanyahu on Thursday at the White House, where it was reported Mr Biden has told the Israeli leader to 'compromise' to achieve peace'.

'We fully stand behind the comprehensive ceasefire deal, outlined by President Biden and endorsed by the UN Security Council,' Mr Albanese, Mr Trudeau and Mr Luxon said in the statement.

'We call on parties to the conflict to agree to the deal. Any delay will only see more lives lost.

'We are committed to working towards an irreversible path to achieving a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely within internationally recognised borders.'

The trio said this is the only 'realistic' option to achieve peace.

They called on Israel to respond to the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion and ensure the accountability for ongoing acts of violence against Palestinian people by extremist settlers.

They also called to reverse the record expansion of settlements in the West Bank which are illegal under international law, and work towards a two-state solution.

They said they were 'gravely concerned' about the prospect of further escalation across the region.

'We condemn Iran's attack against Israel of April 13-14, call on Iran to refrain from further destabilising actions in the Middle East, and demand that Iran and its affiliated groups, including Hizballah, cease their attacks,' they said.

'We also condemn the Houthis' ongoing reckless acts, including their indiscriminate drone attack in Tel Aviv and ongoing attacks on international shipping.'

Palestinian health authorities have recently said Israel's continued ground and air campaign in Gaza since October last year has killed more than 39,000 people

Pictured, an explosion occurs following an Israeli air strike on a residential building, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on July 20

The trio said they were 'particularly concerned' by escalating hostilities between terror group Hezbollah and Israel, which has led to the displacement of thousands of Israeli people.

'This escalation in hostilities only makes a ceasefire in Gaza more urgent,' they said.

'We urge all involved actors to exercise restraint and de-escalate. We support diplomatic efforts to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

'A wider scale war would have disastrous consequences for Israel and Lebanon, and for civilians across the region.'
The highly-anticipated Taika Waititi remake of hit 1980s fantasy flick Time Bandits has aired on Apple TV+ - following a row over its casting choices.

The new series, an adaptation of the much-loved 1981 Terry Gilliam film, has largely been met with approval with positive reviews from critics.

But the remake has faced criticism from the granddaughter of an actor who starred in the original for not casting actors with dwarfism.

Production of the series was also marred by controversy after one of the stars alleged that they were subjected to physical and psychological abuse while on set.

The highly-anticipated Taika Waititi remake of hit 1980s fantasy flick Time Bandits has aired on Apple TV+ - following a row over its casting choices

Abbie Grace took to social media to voice her disappointment that no one with short stature was listed in the initial cast announcement

While the series was in production, Abbie Grace took to social media to voice her disappointment that no one with dwarfism was listed in the cast announcement.

Ms Grace is the granddaughter of Jack Purvis - who played Wally in the original - and she previously demanded an explanation for why the director is 'tarnishing her late grandfather's legacy'.

Abbie, who is also an actress from Scotland, added in 2022 that she feels 'forgotten', after initially feeling excited about the opportunities the upcoming release may offer for actors of shorter stature like herself.

While there are some actors in the cast with dwarfism, according to IMDB, it has been noted that the Time Bandits themselves are now made up of able-bodied actors.

The 10-episode action drama series stars Lisa Kudrow from Friends and Mr Waititi from Jojo Rabbit.

Mr Waititi's production is based on Terry Gilliam's 1981 film of the same name which starred industry Hollywood heavyweights like Sean Connery, John Cleese and Ian Holm.

The fantasy movie followed the adventures of a young boy called Kevin, played by Craig Warnock.

The original famously featured six actors with dwarfism in key roles, including Abbie's grandfather Mr Purvis, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker (best known for playing R2-D2 in Star Wars), Malcolm Dixon, Mike Edmonds, and Tiny Ross.

Speaking in a TikTok video, Ms Grace said: 'When I heard there was going to be a series, I was over the moon.

'I happen to also be an actor, thanks to my grandfather and I finally thought that people like me were going to be represented in my generation and not always have to refer to an 80s film.'

She then discussed finding out that 'average height' actors have been cast, feeling 'baffled' by the choice.

Defending their casting decisions, co-writer Mr Waititi explained that while they initially wrote the script with some main characters as people with dwarfism, they did not think the film 'should be defined, because of the presence of little people in it'.

Co-writer Jemaine Clement said the creative team wrestled with the casting decision, with 'two big sides of this debate'.

He added that they responded to the backlash by creating roles for 'smaller actors' after the initial casting news broke and said that, should they receive a second season, these roles would have a more significant presence.

The fantasy movie followed the adventures of a young boy called Kevin - played by Craig Warnock - and famously featured six actors of shorter stature in the main cast, including Abbie's grandfather Jack, David Rappaport, Kenny Baker, Malcolm Dixon, Mike Edmonds, and Tiny Ross

Deadline earlier reported that Apple finally greenlit the project which has been in development since 2019. A shot from the original film pictured

Lisa Kudrow (left) joins a cast which boasts Kal-El Tuck from Unseeing Evil, House star Charlyne Yi (right) and Martyrs Lane actress Kiera Thompson

The granddaughter of Jack Purvis (pictured) - who played Wally in the original - previously demanded an explanation for why the director is 'tarnishing her late grandfather's legacy'

The new release is based on Terry Gilliam's 1981 film of the same name which starred Sean Connery, John Cleese and Ian Holm among others

Abbie continued: 'Time Bandits is the only film that's ever represented people like me in a way that isn't seen as a goblin or one of Snow White's seven little men.

'This was a film that changed the times and it was ahead of the times to be honest because people like me weren't treated the same as they are now.

'For a generation that is so big on talking about inclusivity and diversity and making sure that everyone's heard, this whole casting choice just seems absurd.'

It is not the first time that Hollywood's casting choices have cause controversy. Disney blockbuster Snow White, starring Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot, faced criticism for removing the seven dwarves from the title and replacing them with CGI characters.

Disney said this was done in order 'to avoid reinforcing stereotypes from the original animated film' and said it was 'taking a different approach with these seven characters and have been consulting with members of the dwarfism community'.

Meanwhile the 2012 Kristen Stewart film Snow White and the Huntsman also attracted controversy for casting Ray Winstone, Ian McShane and Bob Hoskins in the roles of the dwarves and digitally attaching their faces to the bodies of people of restricted growth.

The Time Bandits remake was also marred by controversy after Charlyne Yi alleged they were physically and psychologically abused on the set.

The Hollywood actor, 38, who uses they/them pronouns, was cast as Judy in the the fantasy adventure remake.

Yi has alleged that while filming in New Zealand in 2022 they were 'physically assaulted multiple times' and 'psychologically abused' by an unnamed male actor.

When this cam to light, Paramount Television Studios said in a statement: 'The safety of our cast and crew is very important to us, and we take all concerns that are raised to us very seriously.

'At the time of the complaint, Paramount Television Studios conducted a full investigation regarding allegations that were brought to our attention.

'While all investigations are confidential and we cannot comment on specifics, additional steps were taken to address concerns.'
This is the moment a suspected thief was cornered by a horde of angry Asda workers after trying to escape from the supermarket.

Footage of the incident was taken at an Asda superstore in Marshall Road, Leyton, east London on Wednesday evening.

The alleged crook was held near the sandwich display at the exit while staff members searched the pockets of his coat.

Three bottles, understood to be alcohol, were allegedly found on him.

During the altercation, one of the employees lifted a shopping crate over his head and appeared to threaten the alleged crook

The alleged thief was held near the sandwich display at the exit while staff members searched the pockets of his coat

One of the bottles smashed on the floor as one worker passed them to another.

During the altercation, one of the employees lifted a shopping crate over his head and appeared to threaten him.

One of them said: 'Go, go, go, go, go.'

Another added: 'Get him out.'

The alleged crook was then frogmarched out of the shop.

Local Lee Harvey said: 'The shop workers are fighting back.'

Omar Reynolds added: 'Great staff.

Three bottles, understood to be alcohol , were allegedly found on the suspected shoplifter

The incident comes after a spate of shoplifting across the UK with figures suggesting it is at a 20-year high

'It's a shame your justice system rewards shoplifting.'

Another joked: 'Man only wants a meal deal.'

A fourth said: 'Brother really wanted the basket shot to the face.'

A Met Police spokesperson said: 'Police were called at 11.45pm on Wednesday, July 24 to reports of people shoplifting at a supermarket on Marshall Road, E10.

'Officers attended and found a man in his 30s had been detained by the supermarkets security team. He was given a penalty notice for disorder.'

MailOnline contacted Asda for comment.

It follows a spate of shoplifting across the UK. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics revealed shoplifting is at a 20-year high.

Almost 444,000 crimes were recorded by forces in England and Wales in the year to March, up from 342,428 in the previous 12 months.

This is the highest figure since records began in 2003, according to the Office for National Statistics.

But industry figures say underreporting means shoplifting is even more endemic than currently thought, with many store owners not bothering to report offences to overwhelmed police and criminal gangs operating without any fear of being caught.

Cops are dealing with 50 offences an hour.

A security guard tried to prevent a crook from stealing four cans of beer from a BP garage in Northolt on Sunday.

On the same day a Poundland worker attempted to block a thief in Greenford.

On Wednesday, a shoplifter stole goods from Boots in Barnet despite shoppers trying to stop him.

A customer at the store in Barnet tells one of the men 'you need to stop'. He replies 'yeah, I'm going innit' as he continues stripping shelves with no attempt to hide what he is doing

A customer at the store in Barnet tells one of the men 'you need to stop'. He replies 'yeah, I'm going innit' as he continues stripping shelves with no attempt to hide what he is doing.

Professor Joshua Bamfield Director, Centre for Retail Research, said the rise of shoplifting was being driven by the perception that it was a risk-free crime.

He told MailOnline: 'At one time, shoplifting used to be a sort of craft where people didn't want to get caught because they knew they'd be trouble, but now people don't even bother because there's a perception nothing much will happen to you.

'A lot of retail crime now is organised, with people stealing large quantities of products like alcohol, meat and designer clothes. They are linked to other criminals who sell it on elsewhere.

'The fact thefts below 200 are not pursued and there are a lot of demands on officers mean retailers have found it very difficult to get the kind of support they require.'

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the data illustrated the 'disgraceful dereliction' of the previous government on law and order, as Labour vowed to tackle low-level shoplifting and make assaulting a shopworker a specific criminal offence.

Separate data from the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) estimates retailers have recorded more than 5.6million incidents of theft over the last year.
Eurostar passengers have been urged not to travel from Britain to France today, just hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games.

Huge snaking queues have formed at London's St Pancras station after a 'massive arson attack' brought mayhem to France's rail network ahead of the much-anticipated parade involving 10,500 athletes along the River Seine.

Several Eurostar trains to Paris have been cancelled and others diverted after 'co-ordinated acts of malice' on French high-speed rail lines.

It has thrown the first weekend of the summer holidays into chaos, with 3.2million drivers set to hit Britain's roads today on what has been dubbed 'Frantic Friday' by the RAC.

Holidaymakers are already facing tailbacks at the Port of Dover amid a 'weekend of woe', while delays are being felt across the Gatwick Express as families head off on their summer getaways.

Eurostar, which runs international services from London St Pancras, has told customers to cancel their trips today if they can - advice which has been backed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

The majority of Team GB athletes were arriving at the Games via Eurostar. The British Olympic Association confirmed that only two athletes were scheduled to arrive by Eurostar today and had been subject to only minor delays, but it raises fears others could be affected amid expectations that the delays will last all weekend.

Normally, Eurostar passengers would have the option to fly instead. But a no-fly zone being imposed for the opening ceremony means all flights must cease in the late afternoon.

ST PANCRAS: Passengers queue at the Eurostar terminal after several French lines were hit by 'malicious acts'

ST PANCRAS: Holidaymakers are facing travel chaos across Britain and France ahead of the Olympics

ST PANCRAS: A train cancellation on the Eurostar today

ST PANCRAS: Passengers sleep at the central London station as they face long delays

DOVER: Holidaymakers wait to board ferries at the Kent port as the busy summer travel period gets underway

DOVER: Port officials have said that holidaymakers are facing processing times of around 40 minutes

DOVER: Long tailbacks are seen as 3.2million drivers hit the roads on Frantic Friday

FRANCE: SNCF workers and French gendarmes inspect the scene of a suspected attack on the high speed railway network at Croiselles

The Prime Minister has also urged people going to Paris for the Olympics to heed the travel advice.

Sir Keir's spokeswoman said: 'Obviously the situation is concerning, and like the statements you've seen from the French, it is also incredibly frustrating for people travelling to attend the Games and the Olympic ceremony.

Eurostar delays: What are your rights? Eurostar has warned customers to postpone journeys between London and Paris after French railways lines were hit by a series of arson attacks on the day of the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games. 'We encourage our customers to postpone their trip if possible,' it said in a statement. The rail operators said customers were being informed via email, text and on the Eurostar website. Any affected passengers can cancel or refund their tickets or modify their journey free of charge. Normally, Eurostar passengers would have the option to fly instead. But a no-fly zone being imposed for the opening ceremony means all flights must cease in the late afternoon. If you cannot continue your journey on the day of travel, Eurostar says it will consider reimbursing overnight accommodation, food, transport between the station and your accommodation and the cost of calling anyone who was waiting for you at your destination. It won't cover the cost of alternative transport by rail, coach or ferry if passengers were informed of their options within 100 minutes of their schedules departure, if they did not wait for the next available Eurostar train or if they refunded their unused ticket. Eurostar advises passengers to check with their travel insurer first, who will likely cover you for most things. Source: Eurostar Advertisement

'The Prime Minister would urge people to continue to follow the travel advice and the statements from the travel operators.'

The spokeswoman added: 'Irrespective of this disruption, it is very clear that both in France, here and around the world, everyone is hugely excited and looking forward to what will be an incredibly successful Olympic Games, and we won't let disruption overshadow that.'

French rail company SNCF said a series of incidents overnight had affected travel to and from London beneath the Channel, to Belgium and across the west, north and east of France.

Three fires were reported near the tracks of the French Atlantique, Nord and Est high-speed lines by local media.

The French sports minister has described the rail attacks across France as 'unacceptable'.

Speaking to Sky News, Amelie Oudea-Castera said: 'I condemn them extremely strongly. It's just unacceptable.

'It's probably a large-scale sabotage with some malicious acts, probably co-ordinating. We're still in the process of analysing all the impacts, accessing what we're going to implement as solutions because it's going to have impacts also over the weekend.'

Last night, with just hours to go before the opening ceremony on the River Seine, fires were started at key installations, bringing trains to a halt and affecting around 800,000 passengers.

Eurostar said: 'Due to co-ordinated acts of malice in France, affecting the high-speed line between Paris and Lille, all high-speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today Friday July 26.

'This extends the journey time by around an hour-and-a-half. Several trains have been cancelled.

'Eurostar's teams are fully mobilised in stations, in the call centres, and onboard to ensure that all passengers are informed and can reach their destination.'

The company said customers were being informed via email, text and on the Eurostar website. Any affected passengers can cancel or refund their tickets or modify their journey free of charge.

In an update to the earlier statement, the rail operator said: 'We encourage our customers to postpone their trip if possible.'

PARIS: Dozens of Eurostar passengers are pictured surrounding a train amid the delays

PARIS: Armed guards in Paris head of the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games

PARIS: Eurostar delays at Gare du Nord amid chaos on France's rail lines

FRANCE: Employees of SNCF railway company speak to passengers waiting for their trains' departure at the Gare Montparnasse train station

MANCHESTER: Passengers queue at the airport on the first weekend of the summer holidays

MANCHESTER: Pictures show passengers waiting in long queues as they embark on summer getaways

PARIS: Rail passengers wait inside the Gare du Nord train station amid delays after a 'massive arson attack' hit France's rail networks

PARIS: Passengers sit on the floor as they wait for updates following a series of attacks

PARIS: Police officers patrol the areas after high-speed rail traffic to the French capital was severely disrupted

PARIS: Passengers wait inside the Gare du Nord train station on the day that the 2024 Summer Olympics starts in the capital

PARIS: Passengers gather around the departure boards at the Gare Montparnasse train station

PARIS: Travelers check trains on an electronic board at the Gare de Montparnasse

SNCF said the situation should last 'at least all weekend' but teams are already on site carrying out checks and beginning repairs.

The operator advised its passengers to postpone their journeys and 'not to go to the station'.

Adding to the chaos, an airport located at the Swiss-French border was evacuated due to a bomb alert. Basel-Mulhouse airport's terminals were evacuated on Friday morning and all flights had been suspended. It was later reopened.

Eurostar passengers have spoken about the delays caused by arson attacks that have disrupted the French rail network.

While most trains going from St Pancras to Paris are running on time, journeys have been extended by 90 minutes because of diversions, Eurostar said in a statement.

However, passengers anxious to absorb the atmosphere in Paris during the opening ceremony said they were disappointed their time in the city would be cut short because of the delays.

Hadassa Goncalves made the journey from Sao Paulo, Brazil, but missed her 7am train to Paris when she by arriving too late.

The 24-year-old now plans on getting a 12.30pm service, which was meant to arrive in Paris for 3.48pm but will now get in at 4.48pm.

She told the PA news agency: 'We want to see the opening ceremony. This is bad for us. We don't have tickets but we want to see the fireworks.'

In Britain, the RAC has warned of delays all week after schools broke up for the summer holidays and they have dubbed today as 'Frantic Friday' with an estimated 3.2million cars set to his the road.

Thousands of cars are descending on the Port of Dover, with border processing times currently taking 40 minutes.

Traffic is still flowing on the Jubilee Way overpass from the A2 to the port's Eastern Docks as measures to stop the influx of travellers from being backed up through Dover appear to be working.

Port officials and police officers are stationed at the entrance to the Port, at the bottom of the Jubilee Way flyover and along the A20.

The officials in high-visibility waist coats are in position in anticipation for long queues which often form on the busiest travel days.

Brief spells of freight traffic have caused traffic to be backed up onto the harbourside A20 road.

Rail and Tube passengers are also facing travel chaos today, with severe delays on the Bakerloo Line and minor delays on the Central and Elizabeth lines. The London Overground is partly closed between Hackney Downs and Chingford this weekend.

Rail passengers outside of London are also facing mayhem, with rail company Northern issuing a 'do not travel' warning for Sunday in parts of North West England due to staff shortage.

The chaos follows major travel disruption since last Friday after a flawed IT update by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike knocked many global services offline.

Congestion on Britain's roads is set to peak on Saturday, with 3.6million journeys expected, according to the RAC. This will be followed by another 2.9million trips on Sunday.

A further 4million getaways are planned at some point between Friday and Sunday, meaning a total of 13.8million trips could be made throughout the course of the weekend.

The RAC said its records show these three days will form the second busiest summer getaway weekend since 2015.

In that time only 2022 has seen more trips made, with 18.8million taking to their cars during the heatwave that came at the end of two years of Covid-related restrictions.

Analytics firm Inrix has warned drivers to avoid travelling between 12pm and 5pm on both Friday and Saturday and between 11am and 1pm on Sunday when the worst delays are forecast.

The best times to travel are expected to be after 6pm on Friday and Saturday, or 3pm on Sunday.

The single worst queue, of more than two hours, is predicted on Saturday lunchtime on the M5 heading south between junction 15 for the M4 interchange near Bristol, and junction 23 for Bridgwater, as holidaymakers flock to Devon and Cornwall.

RAC Breakdown spokesperson Alice Simpson said: 'Anyone heading off on holiday on Saturday or Sunday should expect a weekend of woe on the roads with journeys taking far longer than normal.

'If you can't set off really early, then it's highly likely you'll be sitting in traffic for quite some time.

'Our research suggests this year's getaway is set to be busier than average, possibly due to the UK inflation rate having slowed, giving people a bit more confidence to spend.

'However, with our recent bad weather causing an increase in international travel bookings, queues to major airports should not be underestimated. We'd advise drivers to plan their routes well in advance if jetting off abroad this week.'

Britons heading to holiday destinations by train also face disruption on certain routes over the coming week due to engineering works.

A major project to replace a 150-year-old bridge over the railway near Hackney Downs in East London began over the weekend and will run until Sunday, August 4.

This means Greater Anglia services between Bishops Stortford to Stratford will not operate all fortnight.

In addition, routes between London Liverpool Street and Cambridge and all Stansted Express trains will divert via Seven Sisters instead of running via Tottenham Hale  extending journey times.

This means Seven Sisters station is expected to be much busier than usual, with a one-way system in operation at peak periods.

Commuters at London Euston railway station last Friday during the global IT outage

London Overground services to and from Liverpool Street and Chingford will also be disrupted by the works.

Elsewhere, in Kent buses will replace Southeastern trains between Sittingbourne and Sheerness-on-Sea this weekend due to repairs on the Kingsferry Bridge.

East Midlands Railway passengers will be affected by works at the weekend, with buses running between Market Harborough, Leicester and Kettering.

And buses will also replace CrossCountry trains between Leicester and Nuneaton this weekend.

South Western Railway travellers will be also impacted by works taking place between Surbiton and Effingham Junction via Claygate, closing all lines.

Those staying at home are set to enjoy a mini-heatwave with temperatures set to hurtle past 30C - making it hotter than parts of South Africa and Brazil.

As families embark on their summer getwaways, temperatures could climb to 27C today.

But Sunday could see the hottest day of the year so far, as sunseekers hope the mercury sizzles above the 31.9C recorded in St James's Park on July 19.

It comes after a disappointing start to July, where the wet and chilly start has barely materialised into the Great British summer many had pinned their hopes on.
Her parents are charged with murder and torture

An engineer charged with a diabetic girl's manslaughter sent an astonishing email after the child's death accusing his uncle of 'idolatry' for pursuing a university degree.

Lachlan Stuart Schoenfisch's message to his uncle, Murray, was read to the court on the 13th day of a trial into the death of Elizabeth Struhs, eight, in early 2022.

In it, he reveals police had confiscated the pair's phones before going on a wild tangent over his relative's beliefs.

Mr Schoenfisch, 34 and his wife Samantha Emily Schoenfisch, 26, are among 14 members of the faith-healing group known as The Saints.

Both of them are charged with the child's manslaughter.

The long-winded email read to the court on Friday is one of hundreds of messages being relied on by the Crown as part of their case against the group.

Elizabeth's parents - Jason Richard Struhs, 52, and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs, 49 - are charged with their daughter's murder and manslaughter respectively.

Brendan Luke Stevens, 62, who is the leader of The Saints, is also charged with murder.

Elizabeth Struhs died between January 6 and 7, 2022 at her family's home in Rangeville, Toowoomba, from diabetic ketoacidosis

An email sent by Lachlan Schoenfisch (top) to his uncle in the month after Elizabeth's death was read to the court, where he goes on an astonishing rant against his relative

The other 11 charged with manslaughter include Lachlan and Samantha Schoenfisch, Elizabeth's elder brother Zachary Alan Struhs, 21, Loretta Mary Stevens, 67, Acacia Naree Stevens, 31, Therese Maria Stevens, 37, Sebastian James Stevens, 23, Andrea Louise Stevens, 34, Camellia Claire Stevens, 28, Alexander Francis Stevens, 26, and Keita Courtney Martin, 22.

It is alleged the girl's insulin was withheld from January 3, 2022 in line with their group's hard line beliefs in the healing power of God.

Elizabeth's condition worsened until she died between January 6-7 from diabetic ketoacidosis.

The court was told in the month after the girl died, Murray emailed his cousin offering help to the young Schoenfisches and saying he misses talking to Lachlan.

In a reply email on February 16, 2022, Lachlan - a trained engineer - outlined 'concerns' he has for his uncle and accuses him of 'idolatry' by pursuing a university degree.

'Woe to you shepherds who lead my flock astray,' Lachlan writes.

'Instead of participating in fellowship meetings your children are sent to their rooms to study.

'By now, they should be heavily involved in the meetings, encouraging others and using (their) spiritual voice.'

Lachlan claims Murray is not able to be a pastor as he is 'not able to lead his own children in the truth'.

'I pray you are able to be corrected by this rebuke... we will continue to put our trust solely in God,' he continues.

Lachlan ends the email with a bible passage: 'Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.'

A recorded interview with Jason Struhs on January 8 was also played to the court.

He is heard telling police he is 'not sad' at his daughter's passing as she was 'with God' and he no longer feels 'trapped' by Elizabeth's diabetes.

One of the officers asks Jason if he has any regrets regarding Elizabeth's death, to which he replies: 'No'.

'I'm happy for her, I'm at peace,' Jason is heard saying.'

'She hated it (the insulin).'

Zachary Struhs (top row, 2nd from right) is among 14 members of the religious group The Saints accused of fatally withdrawing Elizabeth's insulin several days before her death

Jason Richard Struhs and Kerrie Elizabeth Struhs are both charged with the murder and torture of their daughter Elizabeth Rose Struhs

Earlier in the day, Brisbane Supreme Court was shown hundreds of texts exchanged between members of the group dating back as far as 2019.

During the week of Elizabeth's death, Jason texted Brendan Stevens that he was struggling after seeing his daughter become unwell.

Members of The Saints attended the Struhs home over the following days and continued to share messages encouraging Jason to stay firm in his faith.

One message from Ms Martin to Andrea Stevens reads: 'God won't give Jason more than he can bear.'

In another, Andrea texts Ms Martin: 'Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit this mountain shall be removed.'

The judge-alone trial continues.
A married mother-of-three who had a steamy affair with an inmate behind bars while she was working as a corrective services staffer has avoided jail.

Jessica Elguindy, 25, pleaded guilty on Friday to having an intimate relationship with an inmate at Geoffrey Pearce Correctional Centre in Sydney's northwest.

Elguindy, who is the daughter of Corrective Services NSW Superintendent Walid 'Wally' Elguindy, engaged in a four-month relationship with inmate Beau Jones while working at a facility where her father was also the superintendent.

Daily Mail Australia does not suggest any wrongdoing on Mr Elguindy's part.

In agreed facts tendered to the court, the 25-year-old sent illicit pictures and images of sex toys to Jones' contraband phone, the Penrith Press reported.

The court also heard Elguindy, who has since resigned from her position at the correctional facility, confessed her love to the inmate.

Her former colleague and best friend, Amber Clavell, also allegedly engaged in a relationship with another inmate - armed robber Mark Kennedy.

The friends would send each other text messages discussing the difficulty of having extramarital affairs with men behind bars, court document state.

Jessica Elguindy, 25, pleaded guilty on Friday to having an intimate relationship with inmate Beau Jones while employed at a correctional facility

The married mother-of-three (pictured with her husband Mitch Haden) engaged in a four-month long tryst with the inmate

Elguindy and Clavell were both arrested on April 23 when the corrective services handed over an internal investigation to police.

Magistrate George Breton described Elguindy's offending as 'very, very serious' and rejected her bid to have the charges dismissed on mental health grounds.

However, Magistrate Breton added Elguindy's diagnosis of depression and anxiety did influence her decision to pursue a relationship with Jones.

'The psychological reports and other materials indicated that she was struggling throughout this period but has come out the other end, but there is still plenty of work for her to do', Magistrate Breton said.

He said that the 25-year-old acted at Jones' 'behest' and began sneaking in contraband for him after the affair began.

Elguindy also asked a third party to access restricted data so that she could progress in her relationship with Jones.

The court heard Egluindy allegedly had also pursued another relationship with a different inmate at the same time as her affair with Jones.

The affair took place at Geoffrey Pearce Correctional Centre in Sydney 's northwest (pictured)

Magistrate Breton told the court Elguindy's actions were 'deliberate, consistent and persistent' and the affair was a 'breach of trust'.

He noted Elguindy showed a considerable amount of remorse and accountability, with the offender acknowledging the harm she caused by engaging in the affair.

Elguindy also pleaded guilty to accessing restricted data and misconducting herself as a holder of public office.

She was sentenced to 12 month intensive corrections order - which is a prison term to be served in the community.

Meanwhile, Clavell pleaded guilty to unlawfully delivering or attempting to deliver anything to an inmate, drug supply and misconducting herself as a holder of public office.

She is scheduled to face Penrith Local Court on September 24 for sentencing.
Spilt Milk festival has been cancelled in an other blow to Australian music lovers.

It is the latest in a series of festivals to be cancelled as the industry endures a tough year.

The festivals organisers broke the sad news on Instagram.

'Sorry pookies, we couldn't get you the Spilt Milk you deserve this year. Sooo imma dip for a bit and come back when I can make all ur dreams come true. i miss u xx SPILT MILK,' the statement said.

Spilt Milk was last year headlined by Post Malone and Dom Dolla.

It is a travelling festival with stops in Canberra, Gold Coast, Ballarat and Perth.

It is unclear why the festival has been called off, however others have struggled to sell enough tickets.

Splendour in the Grass, Groovin the Moo and Falls Festival were all cancelled this year, as were Sunshine Coast's Caloundra Music Festival, Victoria's Coastal Jam and Adelaide's Vintage Vibes Festival.

Spilt Milk festival has been cancelled in an other blow to Australian music lovers

The festivals organisers broke the sad news on Instagram. A reveller is seen at the festival

The NSW parliament has launched an inquiry into the festival industry to understand the challenges organisers face.

Fans were upset to see Spilt Milk cancelled, but were relieved by early signs suggesting it would be back next year.

'I think I'd rather see you guys take a year off than drop a lineup people would be disappointed with. Hopefully you'll come back with a bang next year,' one said.

Another was shocked that 'a festival that sells out every year, can't even go ahead'.

Another wrote: 'What the f*** is even happening to Australian festivals?'
A British man has caught a carp that has earned the title of 'world's biggest goldfish', weighing a hefty 61lb 4oz.

Angler Lee Parker was fishing at Bluewater Lakes in France when he caught the much sought-after 'Carrot', one of the most famous ornamental fish.

The Brit almost bit off more than he could chew after he was nearly pulled into the lake by the mammoth goldfish.

Mr Parker, of Banbury in Oxford, said it took off like an express train as he had to cling firmly to his rod.

He also described how he was forced to dig his heels into the lake's bank to avoid behind dragged into the water.

Lee Parker, of Banbury in Oxford, pictured alongside what is believed to be the biggest goldfish in the world

The staggering fish which is found in France is 4ft long and weighs a whopping 61lb 4oz

After a near ten-minute tussle with he steered the goldfish into his landing net and hauled it on to the bank.

After that, he weighed it and photographed before slipping the goldfish safely back into the water to fight another day.

Far too big to fit into any normal sized fish bowl, the monster checks in at a whopping 4ft long.

The gigantic orange specimen, aptly nicknamed The Carrot, is a hybrid species of a leather carp and a koi carp, which are traditionally orange.

The Carrot is believed to be over 20 years old and was put in the lake at the fishery in France run by Brit Jason Cowler when it was young.

But it has proven an elusive fish to catch over the years and is rarely seen out of the water.

Fishery manager Jason Cowler said: 'We put The Carrot in about 20 years ago as something different for the customers to fish for. Since then it has grown and grown but it doesn't often come out. She is very elusive.

'She is in excellent health and condition. Congratulations to Andy on a great catch.'
A surgically-enhanced mother gave the finger as she was jailed for selling fake Covid vaccination cards at the height of the pandemic.

Jasmine Clifford, 34, flipped the bird after she was sentenced to one to three years in state prison Thursday for forging as many as 250 fake vaccination cards that she sold on Instagram for $200 each.

The mother of two arrived in Manhattan court very late on Thursday wearing tight grey shorts, a black t-shirt, black sneakers and a pair of expensive Loewe sunglasses.

She kept the shades on throughout proceedings out the proceedings and even while she was taken into custody.

At one point, the disgraced mother-of-two tried to hide her face with a sweatshirt wrapped around her head. But at other moments, she scowled at the camera, while letting her middle finger show onlookers exactly what she thought of the legal process.

Clifford appears to have undergone extensive plastic surgery on her face and body to dramatically change her facial features and proportions.

Her boyfriend accompanied her to court and sat silently while she was arraigned and taken into custody.

Jasmine Clifford, 34, gave those present the middle finger after she was sentenced to one to three years in state prison for forging as many as 250 fake vaccination cards

Clifford is seen outside the courtroom with her boyfriend on Thursday

Last week Clifford's sentencing was postponed after she brought her two young children to court but made no arrangements for them to be taken home.

The on Thursday Clifford claimed that she had been confused when she accepted the plea agreement, as reported by the Daily News.

'I was under the impression at the last court case that we were setting a date for trial, she said. 'I was not aware that there was a plea offer.'

She added: 'I had seconds to make a decision and the offer was on the table... I really didnt know what to do. In my heart what I wanted to do was to go to trial.'

However the prosecution said it was Clifford herself who asked for a plea deal.

She tried to hide her face with a sweatshirt wrapped around her head

The mother of two arrived in Manhattan court very late on Thursday wearing tight grey shorts, a black t-shirt, black sneakers and a pair of expensive Loewe sunglasses

Clifford was then hand cuffed and led out of the courtroom but not before giving the press who where present and taking pictures the middle finger

Judge Beller did not accept Clifford's argument and advised Clifford that she could appeal the sentencing.

'I was here, she pled guilty in front of me,' the judge said.

'I have a lot of people who come in front of me who have second thoughts about going to jail.'

Clifford was then hand cuffed and led out of the courtroom but not before giving the press who where present and taking pictures the middle finger.

Last week Clifford's sentencing was postponed after she brought her two young children to court but made no arrangements for them to be taken home

She pleaded guilty to a plot that saw her sell fake US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards before falsely registering buyers in New York.

At least 13 people were fraudulently put into the New York State Immunization Information System database as a result, feds said - as the mom-of-two lived high on the hog at her home in Lyndhurst

All the while, she maintained a stark social media presence as stripper 5StarJaziii, and on a still-operating Instagram account, she advertised the phony CDC vaccination cards under the name AntiVaxMomma.

Clifford, of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, was charged with offering a false instrument, criminal possession of a forged instrument and conspiracy

The image above shows a screenshot from the Instagram account 'AntiVaxMomma' offering fake COVID-19 vaccination cards for $200 apiece

She accepted payments from those interested through CashApp or Zelle. The pseudonym has since been wiped from her social media accounts.

For an extra $250, a second scammer would enter a bogus card buyer's name into a New York state vaccination database, which were used to verify vaccine status at gatherings like concerts and sporting events, prosecutors said.

Clifford was subsequently charged with Criminal Possession of a Forged Instrument, Offering a False Instrument for Filing, and Conspiracy in the Fifth Degree at the time of her arrest in August 2021.
A foot fetishist who sucked a drunken guest's toe on a 230-a-night super yacht is facing jail for attacking four women.

Egyptian hotel worker Ahmed Fahmy, 45, assaulted one of the women in her room onboard the unique Sunborn Yacht Hotel in London's Docklands in March 2022.

Fahmy began his spree when he abused a woman at an address in Wembley, northwest London, in 2008, Harrow Crown Court was told.

Prosecutor Soma Varapu said: 'He massaged her feet, grabbed her and tried to kiss her.'

Fahmy assaulted a second woman at the four-star Sunborn Yacht Hotel on 31 March 2022.

Ahmed Fahmy denied the charges but was convicted of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault by a jury at Harrow Crown Court, sitting at Hendon Magistrates' Court, for offenses committed between 2008 and 2024

Egyptian hotel worker Ahmed Fahmy, 45, assaulted one of the women in her room onboard the unique Sunborn Yacht Hotel in London 's Docklands in March 2022

Prosecutor Soma Varapu said: 'While she was intoxicated he entered a room with her and sexually assaulted her.

'He sucked her toe.'

In January 2024, Fahmy targeted four young tourists at the Anchor Guest Hotel in Golders Green.

When three women returned to the hotel in the early hours of January 20 without their room key, Fahmy demanded one of them withdraw 80 from a nearby cashpoint for a different room.

Once she complied, Fahmy let her into a separate room, where she fell asleep only to be awakened twice by Fahmy licking and sucking her toes.

Later that night, the fourth tourist returned and explained to Fahmy she had lost her room key.

Fahmy led her to his bedroom and raped her.

The group moved to another hotel and contacted the police, leading to Fahmy's arrest the same day.

In January 2024, Fahmy targeted four young tourists at the Anchor Guest Hotel in Golders Green. When three women returned to the hotel in the early hours of January 20 without their room key, Fahmy demanded one of them withdraw 80 from a nearby cashpoint for a different room

Fahmy, of Hampstead, northwest London, denied the charges but was convicted of one count of rape and three counts of sexual assault by a jury at Harrow Crown Court, sitting at Hendon Magistrates' Court, for offenses committed between 2008 and 2024.

He was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing on 20 September.

Detective Constable James Gomm, who led the investigation, warned Fahmy may have claimed many more victims.

He said: 'Fahmy displayed a clear pattern of offending where he abused his position as a hotel worker to get close to his victims and carry out his crimes.

'I want to commend all the victim-survivors for the courage they have shown throughout this investigation.

Some of the offences in this case happened a number of years ago and some victim-survivors felt more able to support the investigation now that time had passed since their initial reports.

'I do not underestimate for a moment the impact that reliving what happened will have had on those victim-survivors and I want thank them for supporting this investigation.

'Your bravery has helped put a sexual offender behind bars and protect other women.

'There may be other victims of Fahmy and, if so, I would urge them to get in contact with police immediately - you will be listened to and provided with support.'
READ MORE: Horror as car and school bus packed with students collide

A grief-stricken mother-of-11 has revealed the heartbreaking final text she sent her husband before he was killed in a horrific car and motorbike accident.

Hayden Errol Frank Selby, 31, was killed on July 19 when a car collided with his motorcycle at about 4.10pm on Friday on the M1 Motorway near New Mount Pleasant Road, Mount Ousley, south of Sydney.

Mr Selby and his fiancee Katie Powell were preparing to move to the Illawarra this weekend and he was guiding a friend to their new home when the accident happened.

His friend, Kirsten Anthony, was behind him driving a Toyota SUV and towing a box trailer when she collided with his motorcycle.

The 24-year-old has since been charged with negligent driving occasioning death.

Mr Selby's fiancee and mother to their 11 children, Katie Powell shared the heartbreaking final message she sent him before his death.

'Hayden was helping a friend down the coast move on Friday and I texted him in the arvo and said ''I love you, drive safe and take care of each other'',' she told 7News.

Ms Powell said she began to worry when a few hours had gone by and she did not receive a reply.

Father of 11 Hayden Selby, 31, was killed on July 19 when a car, driven by his friend, collided with his motorcycle in Mount Ousley, south of Sydney

She explained at about 6pm she received a phone call from one of Mr Selby's friends who told her the harrowing news.

'Since then it's just been one big blur. I drop my kids off at school each day and after that I don't know what to do,' Ms Powell said.

Ms Powell added, the pair share 11 children and two grandchildren, with their youngest an eight-month-old who 'won't even get to know her father'.

She described her fiancee as a selfless 'protector' and 'gentle giant' who would always help family and friends in need.

'He was such a teddy bear, a gentle giant, and a protector. He was the one his friends could rely on for anything. There's nothing he wouldn't do for friends and family,' Ms Powell said.

Powell shared a touching tribute to her 'amazing' fiancee and created a GoFundMe page to raise funds for his funeral while she cares for their children.

'This beautiful man was always the first to jump the second anyone needed help he fought struggled and battled to give my children and I what we have made together,' Ms Powell wrote.

'I just don't know how to do this. I'm a newly single mother with 11 children and two grandchildren.

'The man that took damn good care of all the important things in our lives is gone.

'I just want to give him what he deserves please help me spoil the love of my life and father to my children one last time.'

Mr Selby's fiancee and mother to their 11 children, shared a touching tribute to her 'amazing protector' (pictured, Mr Selby with three of his children)

At the time of publication, the GoFundMe had received 60 donations totalling $3,755 and has a goal of raising $7,000.

Ms Powell revealed she does not know when she will be able to put Hayden to rest as a police investigation into his death is still ongoing.

Ms Anthony was granted bail on Saturday and is set to front court later this month.
A 16-year-old suspect turned himself after admitting to his parents that he and two others attempted to steal an Ohio teacher's car and run her over.

Alexa Stakely, 29, was stuck by the unidentified 16-year-old on July 11 after he panicked when she confronted the group in order to save her child in the backseat during the middle of the robbery, Columbus Police said.

Now, the 16-year-old who fatally struck the educator turned himself in, accompanied by his parents, after he admitted to them he had performed the crime.

'Its my understanding that his parents and his conscience got to him a little bit,' Sergeant Joe Albert told WBNS. 'We want to thank his parents...His parents immediately brought him down here to Columbus Police headquarters.'

Albert said the teen admitted to hitting Stakely after she 'startled him and he panicked and drove away and struck Ms. Stakely, which caused her death.'

The teen - alongside another 16-year-old and Gerald Dowling, 19 - have been charged with murder.

Alexa Stakely, 29, was stuck by the unidentified 16-year-old on July 11 after he panicked when she confronted the group in order to save her child in the backseat during the middle of the robbery, Columbus Police said

Now, the 16-year-old who fatally struck the educator turned himself in, accompanied by his parents, after he admitted to them he had performed the crime

A $10million bond was set for Dowling after he turned himself in to Columbus Police on Wednesday and admitted to his involvement in the tragedy.

Both minors are enrolled in the Canal Winchester Local Schools District - the same district Stakely taught as a speech pathologist, according to WBNS.

The educator was fatally struck around 1am as she exited her babysitter's apartment complex after noticing the 16-year-old had started to back out of the space. She screamed for him to stop and for her son.

The 16-year-old, who was not identified, said he and his friends had been scoping out a car to steal when they saw Stakely's.

The teen - alongside another 16-year-old and Gerald Dowling, 19 (pictured) - have been charged with murder. A $10million bond was set for Dowling after he turned himself into Columbus Police on Wednesday and admitted to his involvement in the tragedy

Stakely had left her six-year-old son to go get her daughter's belongings.

The car then struck her, knocking her to the pavement, causing her to obtain a head injury. She was pronounced dead at the hospital.

The boys later ditched her Honda CRV a short distance away and police found the little boy unharmed inside, police said.

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.

'Its my understanding that his parents and his conscience got to him a little bit,' Sergeant Joe Albert (pictured) said. 'We want to thank his parents...His parents immediately brought him down here to Columbus Police headquarters'

'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 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.'
The IT Crowd actor Richard Ayoade has defended the show's creator Graham Linehan as a 'man of great principle' - after attracting criticism for praising the showrunner's book on being cancelled over his stance on trans rights.

Linehan, the award-winning comic writer behind Father Ted claims his career and marriage has been destroyed over his gender-critical views, which he began expressing after an episode of The IT Crowd was criticised as allegedly transphobic.

The Irish writer published a memoir last year, entitled Tough Crowd, which featured a positive quote from Ayoade on the cover.

But Ayoade, who starred as Maurice Moss in the BAFTA-winning comedy, says Linehan has experienced a 'harrowing time' amid the fall-out from his remarks, adding that he believed a book Linehan wrote about his experiences was 'good'.

The actor's quote, featured on the cover of Tough Crowd, said of Linehan: 'His brilliance in prose is equal to his brilliance as a screenwriter.'

Richard Ayoade has sought to clarify his remarks on Graham Linehan's book after he was criticised for contributing a cover quote

Linehan later praised Ayoade's 'bravery' in praising his memoir - but the actor has since said he thought the book was 'well-written'

Graham Linehan wrote Tough Crowd after his marriage and career fell apart as he began expressing his views on transgender rights

Ayoade entered the mainstream in his role as Moss on Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd, written by Linehan (pictured alongside Katherine Parkinson, Matt Berry and Chris O'Dowd)

A fuller quote from Ayoade, featured in publicity materials, noted: 'Graham Linehan has long been one of my favourite writers  and this book shows that his brilliance in prose is the equal to his brilliance as a screenwriter.

'It unfolds with the urgency of a Sam Fuller film: that of a man who has been through something that few have experienced but has managed to return, undaunted, to tell us the tale.'

Ayoade's warm words for the man who gave him the role that made him mainstream prompted criticism from fans. He has now defended his review as being based on Linehan's skills as a writer - not necessarily his viewpoints.

Speaking on Gyles Brandreth's Rosebud podcast, Ayoade said: 'He's had, I think, a very harrowing time.

'But I wrote (the review) because he wrote an autobiography and his involvement, I suppose, he would frame it in terms of women's rights as opposed to being anti- anything, so I wanted to say I thought his book was well-written and good.

'I think he's a great writer, a brilliant writer, and I think everyone who would know him would know he's a man of great principle, I think.'

Linehan's book was also praised by Jonathan Ross, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas author John Boyne, GB News presenter Andrew Doyle and Trans author Helen Joyce.

The Irishman later praised his fellow celebrities for their support, noting: 'I'm hoping that their bravery will mean that other people can just say what they think about this subject.'

The Father Ted writer says his marriage and career have been destroyed by his unflinching stance on women's rights.

Since his account was reinstated on social network X, formerly Twitter, under new owner Elon Musk, Linehan posts several times a day about transgender issues.

He also claims a stage musical based on the religious comedy series was cancelled because he refused to agree to the removal of his name from its credits.
A nuclear fallout shelter with stunning views of the Lake District has sold for 48,000.

The Cold War bunker in Dent, Cumbria, was constructed in 1958 and was one of over 1,500 built by the Royal Observer Corps (ROC).

They were designed to protect ROC volunteers following a nuclear attack, allowing them to measure blast waves and radioactive fallout.

Built close to the railway station and eight miles from Kirkby Lonsdale, the bunker boasts spectacular views of the Lake District National Park.

The 40ft deep bunker, with a guide price between 15,000 to 20,000, was listed by SDL Property Auctions as a piece of post-war British history.

There is a descent of 12 metres (40ft) down a metal ladder to get inside the bunker (pictured)

Despite being so secluded, the bunker also boasts great transport links being right next to Dent railway station

But now it has sold for double the guide price after 65 different bidders fought for the property via internet, phone and proxy.

There were also around 25 people who viewed the property before it was auctioned.

Andrew Parker, managing director and auctioneer at SDL Property Auctions, said before it was sold: 'This is a fantastic opportunity to purchase a piece of post-war British history.

'It is in excellent condition, redecorated, clean, dry and secure and comes with a plot of land with gate for access and secure off-road parking. It even comes with an active phone line suitable for broadband.

'It's a privilege to be able to sell a unique lot such as this and it follows SDL Property Auctions selling a similar nuclear bunker in Louth in 2022.

'We've already received significant interest on this lot and we anticipate a high level of bidders and online viewers on auction day.'

One person who was considering buying the bunker, Barney Strange, told The Guardian: 'I'm on the edge of a midlife crisis.

'The idea of owning a nuclear bunker is surely every 14-year-old boy's dream isn't it? It is so secluded truly unique.

'I know this is a cliche, but there is something about buying a piece of history.'

The property has no windows, running water and no mod cons except for a phone line.

Mr Parker said most of the bunkers designed by the ROC were decommissioned and sold off in 1993

The property has no windows, running water and no mod cons except for a phone line

But there is parking, stunning countryside and the shelter provides protection from any potential Armageddon scenarios.

Mr Parker said most of the bunkers designed by the ROC were decommissioned and sold off in 1993.

Many were bought by telecom companies so that they could be used to house mobile phone masts.

ROC nuclear war survivors were expected to report on the nuclear bursts and the fallout of a nuclear attack.

They were provided with enough food and water for 14 days and had a landline and radio communications available to them.

This bunker can also have broadband connected. There is a descent of 12 metres (40ft) down a metal ladder to get inside the bunker.

Despite being so secluded, the bunker also boasts great transport links being right next to Dent railway station, the highest mainline station in England.

There are around 258 bunkers left across the UK and most have been demolished with no trace left behind.

In 2003, bunkers in Flookburgh and Hawkshead were auctioned off.

The Flookburgh bunker was sold for 25,100 while the Hawkshead buker was told to a telecoms firm before being listed on the market again in 2004.
A German man sentenced to death by a Belarus court was made to beg for his life on state television, prompting Berlin to urge Minsk to stop 'parading' detainees.

Rico Krieger, 30, was convicted under six articles of Belarus's criminal code in a secretive trial held at the end of June, the Viasna Human Rights Centre reported.

Appearing on Belarusian public television in handcuffs and behind bars, he said: 'I really hope that President (Alexander) Lukashenko will forgive me and pardon me,' according to a statement quoted by the Russian news agency TASS.

German foreign ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer said on Friday that 'it is unfortunately common practice in Belarus to present people in videos or on television like this and we are of course very concerned that being paraded in this way massively violates that person's dignity'.

'We can only appeal to the Belarusian leadership to stop this practice,' she told reporters.

Rico Krieger, 30, pictured, appeared on Belarus state television to beg for his life

German foreign ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer pleaded with Minsk to stop 'parading' detainees such as

'We have been providing the detainee in question with consular services and are very concerned about his case,' Deschauer said, adding that 'we as a government fundamentally reject the death penalty under all circumstances'.

Mr Krieger revealed how he had been asked by Ukraine to photograph military sites in Belarus in October 2023 and that he had placed an explosive device on a railway line near Minsk under their orders.

'I deeply regret what I did and I am relieved that there were no victims,' he added, claiming that he had been 'abandoned' by the German government.

According to a LinkedIn profile that Viasna said belonged to Krieger, he worked as a medic for the German Red Cross and had previously been employed as an armed security officer for the US embassy in Berlin.

Belarus is reported to have executed as many as 400 people since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, according to Amnesty International, but executions of foreign citizens are rare.

The country is run as an authoritarian regime by long-time leader Lukashenko, who has detained thousands of dissidents and civic activists who oppose him.

Vladimir Putin pictured with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, right, during a meeting of the Union State Supreme Council in St. Petersburg, Russia, earlier this year

Krieger's case comes after China and Belarus held military drills near the Polish border earlier this month.

The manoeuvres, seemingly timed to coincide with the 76th anniversary NATO summit, offered a disturbing indication of Beijing's affiliations.

In the face of international condemnation, China has continued to back Russia's occupation of Ukraine by providing parts and technologies used to make missiles, tanks and aircraft.

Now it has sent elite troops to Russia's neighbour and ally in the conflict in Ukraine, Belarus.

It came hours after a Russian missile strike on the Ohmatdyt Children's Hospital which killed two adults.
A millionaire couple in Maine could face criminal prosecution for secretly poisoning their neighbor's trees to improve the coastal view from their mansion.

Camden residents have started a campaign to demand that Amelia and Arthur Bond III face consequences for poisoning Lisa Gorman's trees.

Local Tom Hedstrom told the Boston Globe that the worst part was that the 'disgusting' couple, who lives in Missouri, pretended to help Gorman as she dealt with the issues with her trees.

'They literally applied the poison, the trees start to die, then they call Mrs. Gorman and say, "Boy, these trees dont look so good. You better cut them down,"' said Hedstrom, who is chair of Camden's select board.

'And then, trying to show how gracious and generous they are, they offered to split the costs.'

Amelia Bond, who owns a $3.5 million holiday home in Camden, Maine, admitted using herbicide on oak trees owned by her neighbor

Hedstrom and other town officials were so upset by the Bond's actions that they decided that a $1.7million assessed in a legal settlement was not punishment enough.

They now want Knox District Attorney Natasha Irving and Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey to criminally prosecute the couple.

However, Irving informed Hedstrom this week that she would not seek charges as she did not believe she could prove a crime was committed.

The case gathered national attention after it emerged that Amelia Bond secretly sprinkled four pounds of the lethal herbicide Tebuthiuron on trees belonging to Gorman in 2022, before offering to pay for their removal when they started dying.

The former head of the $500 million St Louis Foundation, has since paid $1.5 million in compensation to Gorman after tests revealed her ploy.

The poisoning opened up Bond's view of Laite Beach, Camden Harbor and the Atlantic. Bond's house is pictured in the rear of this image, while victim Lisa Gorman's sits on the water's edge

Lisa and Leon Gorman, the president and CEO of L.L. Bean, founded by his grandfather. Leon died in 2015, aged 80

The poison leached into a nearby park and beach, uniting residents of Camden in fury.

Such is the anger to the Bonds, they're now likely among Maine's most hated couple.

'Anybody dumb enough to poison trees right next to the ocean should be prosecuted, as far as I'm concerned,' said neighbor Paul Hodgson.

Gorman, the widow of the late L.L. Bean's president Leon Gorman, became suspicious when the trees, along with large areas of vegetation began dying in her yard overlooking the picturesque Laite Beach and Camden Harbor.

Bond's vacation home is immediately behind hers further up the hill and the trees had obscured her view but appeared sympathetic when they began withering.

But Gorman asked the landscapers Bartlett Tree Experts to look at the trees, and they took soil samples which showed two oaks had been treated with herbicide, which had spread to other trees including maple, blueberry and dogwood.

The Gorman home (left) sits down the slope from the Bond house (right)

The local authorities in November 2022 also tested the site and spoke to Amelia Bond, who admitted using poison on the land.

She told Maine state investigators that she purchased the poison in her home state of Missouri, intending to put it on two oak trees she claimed she thought were dying.

She and her husband, Arthur Bond III, an architect and the nephew of former US Sen Kit Bond, have so far paid $4,500 to resolve Maine Board of Pesticides Control Board violations, and $180,000 to resolve violations with the town.

The couple have footed a bill of $30,000 for additional environmental testing, and paid more than $1.5 million to Gorman in a legal settlement.

But Maine Attorney general Aaron Frey has announced an investigation amid growing anger at the spreading damage in the town of 5,000.
This is the moment a paedophile lied about trying to save a 10-year-old boy moments after throwing him 100ft off a cliff to try and 'silence him' after raping his 12-year-old sister.

Anthony Stocks, 54, who was today jailed for life with a minimum term of 19 and a half years, had groomed the girl and made her dependent on him while he was working as an extra on several films.

However, his vile campaign of abuse threatened to be disrupted when his victim confided in her brother that she was 'scared'.

In an effort to cover up his crimes, Stocks took the boy to a towering chalk cliff top in Ovingdean near Brighton before pushing him onto the beach below, where he suffered catastrophic injuries but somehow survived.

Moments after trying to murder the boy on September 24, 2022, Stocks insisted to police on the beach that it had all been an accident, saying: 'He started running and I said ''Don't go near that cliff''... then he went over.'

Anthony Stocks, 54, insisted to police on the beach that it had all been an accident, saying: 'He started running and I said ''Don't go near that cliff''... then he went over'

Stocks took the boy to a towering chalk cliff top in Ovingdean near Brighton before pushing him onto the beach below

Stocks claimed he took the boy to the chalk cliffs to admire the view because it featured in the film Quadrophenia

The paedophile's account was initially believed to be genuine before police interviewed both the girl and the boy. Today, he showed no emotion as a judge sentenced him to life in prison.

Judge Nigel Daly, passing sentence in Oxford Crown Court, told Stocks: 'You have ruined the lives of these two children.

'The attempt on the brother was a direct attempt to remove the one potential witness to your sexual assaults and to prevent him from interfering with, and potentially preventing, the sexual assaults on his young sister.

'There is no word in the entire English language that can accurately describe the cruelty, the horror, the indecency and the near-death experience that this boy was exposed to. It was simply inhumane.'

Stocks' trial heard how he had become 'utterly obsessed' with the girl and believed they would one day marry.

After he learned she had told her brother about his abuse and planned to 'disrupt it', the paedophile - from Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire - lured him on a trip to London to see the Chelsea FC stadium.

Stocks then took him to the cliffs at Ovingdean - later claiming this was to admire the view because it featured in the film Quadrophenia.

A witness said they then saw a 'small shape fall as if thrown from the cliff', followed by 'a shriek'.

The boy was airlifted to St George's Hospital in London, where it was discovered he had several fractures on his head and arm, a deformity to his neck and a laceration of his spleen and kidney.

When interviewed by police, the girl said Stocks had admitted he was going to push the boy off the cliff 'as he wanted to get rid of him'.

Initially the boy could not remember whether he had been pushed or fell.

But after months spent recovering in hospital told police he 'knew everything' about the sexual abuse his sister had suffered, with Stocks asking to rape her 'pretty much every day'.

Stocks having the charges read to him by police following his arrest

The twice-married paedophile, from Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire, has a cigarette outside court

Judge Daly told the defendant: 'The boy became aware of your behaviour towards his sister and tried to prevent you being alone together.

'He was not entirely successful but he interfered enough to make you decide to get rid of him. Your solution to this problem was to take him to Brighton and to push him from a 100ft cliff.

'At the bottom of the cliff was a concrete path. By sheer coincidence, the concrete didn't quite reach to the foot of the cliff, and the boy landed on rough soil instead.

'If he had landed two to three feet out, he would have landed on concrete and I do not doubt that he would have been killed instantly.'

The judge remarked the attempted murder was not a spur of the moment decision as Stocks had previously taken the boy to a quarry in Oxfordshire and 'contemplated' pushing the boy off the cliffs there, before changing his mind.

The boy's sister, who gave live evidence at trial, also said that Stocks had approached her a few nights before the trip to Stamford Bridge and told her: 'I'm going to push him off a cliff. I want to get rid of him so we can be together.'

The court heard the girl had tried to warn her brother not to go with Stocks - in vain, as the boy was a keen Chelsea fan and had always wanted to see the stadium.

Judge Daly told the defendant: 'The evidence showed that you had researched your plan carefully. You knew of the cliffs at Brighton from watching the film Quadrophenia.

'You had made internet inquiries about trains to Brighton and made inquiries about the distance from Brighton seafront to the cliffs

'This boy trusted you and you betrayed that trust in an attempt to cover up your own deviant sexual behaviour towards his young sister.

'You groomed and assaulted this young girl for your own sexual pleasure and it happened time and time again.

'It is clear from the evidence that you became utterly obsessed with her and would go to any lengths to prevent anyone interfering with your abhorrent behaviour.'

A police officer stands guard at the scene of the attempted murder on the evening of Saturday, September 24, 2022

Stocks was found guilty after trial on eight counts including attempted murder, rape and sexual assaults.

Prosecutor Zoe Johnson told the court the boy has now returned to full-time education and is 'managing his life.'

'It is a testament to his incredible courage, resilience, and determination,' she added.

As for the girl victim, the judge heard there was still 'a very long way to go for her to feel safe enough to express her emotions, to trust that others won't hurt her, and to trust that others might want to support her.'

In a victim impact statement read out in court today by the prosecution, the boy victim said: 'I definitely tried to protect my sister from him [Stocks].

'I was too young to have had to protect my sister and someone else should have had to do that. It made me grow up quicker. I felt angry all the time. I feel angry now as well.'

In her victim impact statement, the girl said she was 'scared all the time' before Stocks was arrested.

She said: 'My life was different from other children and I was always at home. He [Stocks] frightened me and I could not get away from him. Now I have a proper life. I go to school and I have fun.'

Before the hearing was brought to an end, the judge praised the children for their 'courage' in giving evidence during the trial.

Judge Daly told the court: 'These children's courage and determination to give their account was quite humbling.

'The boy desperately tried to protect his sister from Mr Stocks. The girl learned his plan to kill her brother and tried everything in her power to convince him not to carry it out.

'Both gave their evidence in a remarkably clear and mature way. I find both of the children very impressive and they should be very proud.'
Wes Streeting insisted the 'time has come' for a debate on assisted dying today as a new Bill was introduced to Parliament.

The Health Secretary backed MPs looking at the issue again as Lord Falconer tabled legislation that would allow terminally ill adults with life expectancy of six months or under to end their lives.

Assisted dying has been thrust into the spotlight over the past year after cancer-stricken TV star Dame Esther Rantzen revealed that she has joined Dignitas.

The broadcaster and Childline founder said she had 'caught a glimpse of hope' with this fresh bid to change the law being laid before Parliament.

Moves are also being made to legalise the process elsewhere in the British Isles.

Keir Starmer has praised Dame Esther's campaign and committed to allowing a free vote on assisted dying, but has declined to spell out a timetable.

Wes Streeting insisted the 'time has come' for a debate on assisted dying today as a new Bill was introduced to Parliament

Lord Falconer tabled legislation that would allow terminally ill adults with life expectancy of six months or under to end their lives

Assisted dying has been thrust into the spotlight over the past year after cancer-stricken TV star Dame Esther Rantzen revealed that she has joined Dignitas

A private member's bill on assisted dying could also be brought forward in the Commons, with a ballot on what MPs have priority taking place in September.

Lord Falconer has stressed his legislation would have strong safeguards, including that the person has to be mentally able to make the decision, two doctors would have to approve it and it must have High Court approval.

The title of the Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults Bill was read out at the start of business in the House of Lords this morning, and is expected to be first debated at a later date.

Some campaigners have called for any new law to be extended to people living with unbearable suffering, who may not be terminally ill, but Lord Falconer said he is 'very strongly against that'.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'My Bill is absolutely directed about how you die in the context of a terminal illness.'

He said the idea of legalising assisted dying has moved up the political and social agenda in recent decades, noting Dame Esther's intervention.

The TV presenter has been a strong advocate among the voices campaigning for assisted dying to be legalised, as she lives with stage four cancer.

Last week, Dame Esther's daughter Rebecca Wilcox said her mother is 'living from scan to scan'.

Writing in the Daily Express, Dame Esther said: 'This week, for the first time for over a year, I caught a glimpse of hope I have dared to look forward.'

She said the introduction of the Bill had provided 'light at the end of a tunnel which has trapped me for so long'.

'What we terminally ill need is to be allowed the hope that if life becomes intolerable, we can ask for help to leave it,' she wrote, saying the existing law meant anyone accompanying her on a trip to Dignitas in Switzerland to end her life would be breaking the law.

'The law might actually change in time for me to die peacefully at home surrounded by those I love. Suddenly my heart lifted.'

Assisting someone to end their life is currently a criminal offence in England and Wales.

An emotional debate in Westminster Hall earlier this year saw MPs from across the political spectrum give impassioned speeches for and against changing the law.

Various moves towards a change in the law have also been taking place in Scotland, on the Isle of Man and Jersey, with strong arguments from people on both sides of the argument.

Critics argue that legalisation could put pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives for fear of being a burden on others and that the disabled, elderly, sick or depressed could be especially at risk, but supporters say it would allow people to die with dignity.

Mr Streeting said he is 'uncharacteristically undecided' on the issue.

He told the Today programme: 'This will end up being both an ethical debate  'is this right in principle?'  and it will also go to being a practical debate  'can this work in practice?'.

'And I think it's contingent on us to help MPs and peers navigate those thorny issues in the most evidence-based and well-supported way as possible, recognising there'll be sincerely and strongly held views on both sides of this debate.'

He added: 'It is a debate I will wrestle with. I'm uncharacteristically undecided on this issue, but it is a debate whose time has come.'

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson said she is happy for there to be a full debate 'because I think everybody needs to understand the implications of this becoming law'.

Keir Starmer has committed to allowing a free vote on assisted dying, but has declined to put a timetable on it

She argued that despite the safeguards outlined, the law could still be 'open to a huge amount of abuse'.

Asked about the public mood, she told Today: 'When you ask people the simplistic question 'do you support assisted suicide?' a lot of people say 'yes'. When you dig beneath that and people realise we're not talking about palliative care, we're talking about end of life, that support drops dramatically.'

Dame Sarah Mullally, who is joint lead bishop on healthcare for the Church of England and sits in the House of Lords, said the church believes the priority for terminally ill people 'must be to provide urgent funding and resourcing of palliative care services' rather than a law change to allow assisted dying.

The Bishop of London, a former chief nursing officer for England, said: 'No amount of safeguards could ensure the safety of the most vulnerable in society, should there be a change in the law allowing for assisted suicide.

'We believe that there would be unintended, serious and fundamental consequences for the whole of society, especially for those who are at the most vulnerable point of their lives, and for those who love and care for them.'
A new poll out of Michigan shows Kamala Harris and Donald Trump tied in the all-important battleground state with just over 100 days to go before Election Day.

According to the Detroit News-WDIV-TV poll conducted after Biden dropped out of the presidential race and Harris jumped in, Harris and Trump are tied at 41 percent each among likely general election voters.

The poll also found third party candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. who is running in the state as the 'Natural Law Party' nominee has the support of 10 percent of likely voters. Another 6 percent of voters are undecided.

Zoom in a little further and Harris is slightly ahead of Trump by a third of a percentage point but that is well within the margin of error.

The new poll suggests the state of the race in Michigan, which is viewed as essential for Democrats to win in November, has seen a dramatic shift from when Biden was still running.

New Michigan poll shows Harris and Trump tied at 41 percent each in the battleground state

A similar survey conducted by the group in Michigan six months ago found Biden was trailing Trump by eight points in a head-to-head matchup in the state: 47 percent to 39 percent with three percent of likely voters undecided.

According to the poll released on Thursday, Kennedy is leading among Independent voters but barely with a even split between those who 'lean Republican' and 'lean Democrat.'

He is polling at 27 percent, Harris 26 percent and Trump 25 percent among Independents, but nearly 18 percent of Independents remain undecided.

Independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. is polling at 10 percent in Michigan and pulling an even split among Democratic leaning and Republican leaning Independent voters

Trump won the state in 2016 but Biden was able to flip it back to blue in 2020 with just over 150,000 more votes than the ex-president. Democrats and Republicans have both been campaigning hard in the swing state leading up to November.

The poll comes just days after Donald Trump held his first rally in Michigan after officially accepting the Republican presidential nomination at the convention in Milwaukee.

His Grand Rapids rally was also his first with running mate J.D. Vance, who he announced at the very last minute during the convention.

Choosing the Ohio senator was viewed as a move that could help the ex-president with voters in the Rust Belt, but the GOP vice presidential nominees conservative leanings and anti-abortion stance could be a problem with especially among women in Michigan where abortion rights was the most important issue in the 2022 midterms.

Trump with running mate Senator J.D. Vance at their rally in Grand Rapids, MI on July 20

Meanwhile, Harris must still decide who her running mate will be with a looming deadline as the Democratic delegates have an August 7 deadline to officially nominate candidates for the top of their ticket.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's name has been mentioned as a potential vice presidential pick.

While the governor has endorsed Harris for president and vowed to help get her elected, Whitmer said in an interview this week that she is committed to finishing her second term in the state having been reelected during the 2022 midterms.

Vice President Harris arriving at a campaign event in Kalamazoo, MI on July 17

President Biden held a rally in Detroit just over a week before he dropped out of the presidential race. Harris made a campaign stop in Kalamazoo just over a week ago while she was still the presumptive vice presidential nominee.

While Whitmer has already been promoting Harris in the state, the vice president has not yet set a date to return to Michigan as the presumptive presidential nominee.
SNP minister Richard Lochhead has revealed he had to learn how to walk again after suffering a serious sepsis infection which left him fighting for his life.

The 55-year-old Moray MSP told how he had to undergo emergency heart surgery and was left unable to speak after surgery.

The father-of-two initially fell ill in May but is now hopefully of returning to Holyrood to continue his role as Minister for Business.

He said: It was very serious. Theres no doubt that Im lucky to be here.

The NHS saved my life.

Minister for Business Richard Lochhead and his wife Fiona

Mr Lochhead plans to return to Holyrood in September after recovering from his ordeal

Mr Lochhead told the Press and Journal fell ill with what he thought was flu, with the SNP politician developing fever-like symptoms.

But a week later he collapsed in his bathroom and could not move. He called his wife and his son to try help, but they couldnt move him.

Mr Lochhead was rushed to Dr Grays Hospital, in his hometown of Elgin, where he was diagnosed with sepsis.

He was then transferred to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary to get a heart valve replaced after it had been badly affected by the infection.

But, he revealed, it didnt go too smoothly as surgeons encountered problems which meant the operation went on much longer than expected.

He said: It was very serious and the doctors briefed my family that, at that particular fragile point, it was serious.

The toll the surgery took on him was enormous, and Mr Lochhead, who is the Minister for Business with the Scottish Government, said he felt totally vulnerable after coming out of intensive care and while on the high dependency ward after his operation.

He added: I couldnt do anything.

I had to learn to walk again. Id lost my voice.

It took two to three weeks to get my voice back.

He is now on course to return to the Scottish Parliament after the summer recess ends in September.

He said he found it humbling how supportive parliamentary colleagues from across the political spectrum have been.

And the MSP said he has immense gratitude to the doctors, nurses and other staff who helped care for him during his time in hospital.

First Minister John Swinney visited Mr Lochhead at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary soon after he was admitted.

He said: When youre lying in a hospital bed, particularly in the early days of an operation, and youre totally dependent on the nurses and support workers to help you get through the day.

Sometimes in hospital you get emotional and what I found was getting me emotional was I was struggling for the words to express my gratitude for those who were looking after me.

SNP Business Minister Richard Lochhead fell seriously ill after developing sepsis

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition - but it can be hard to spot.

With lots of possible symptoms, including those of other conditions like flu and chest infections, it is essential to get immediate medical treatment if it is suspected.

It is one of the leading causes of preventable deaths in the world, and claims more than 4,000 lives every year in Scotland.

And Mr Lochhead, who was saved by NHS Grampian medics, told how he would remain grateful to them forever.

He said: The NHS saved my life. And it reminds you in this country how lucky we are to have the NHS and it was there for me in my hour of need.

Im eternally grateful.

Symptoms of sepsis include fast or difficult breathing, uncontrolled shivering, confusion, and blotchy or cold arms or legs.

When sepsis strikes, the immune system overreacts and starts attacking not only the infection but everything else including the bodys own tissues and organs.
Most Americans were glad that Donald Trump dodged a bullet at the fateful rally in Pennsylvania.

But not everyone was pleased that 20-year-old assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks was such a bad shot.

Until now, many assumed that only a few bad apples wanted the Republican candidate to take a round to the head.

Not so, says alarming new research from a UK-based academic.

Eric Kaufmann says a shocking third of Democratic voters wished Trump had left his July 13 campaign event in a body bag.

At least a third of the people in this photo wanted Trump to take a bullet in Butler, polling suggests

A staggering 71 percent of hard-line lefties said they supported the attempt on Trump's life.

Among progressives, the figure is much higher, says the University of Buckingham politics scholar.

A staggering 71 percent of hard-line lefties said they supported the attempt on Trump's life.

Kaufmann said his results could be explained by 'woke moral absolutism.'

'Identity politics has moralized the outlook of the Left, painting conservatives as evil rather than wrong,' he says.

Eric Kaufmann says lefties have embraced 'woke moral absolutism'

Kaufmann carried out his snap poll of a few hundred people five days after the attack, in which Crooks killed firefighter Corey Comperatore, 50, and injured two others, including Trump.

In the hours that followed, several high-profile liberals voiced support for the assassin, who was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.

Jacqueline Marsaw, who worked for a Mississippi House Democrat, posted on Facebook that Crooks should take 'shooting lessons so you don't miss next time.'

'Ooops that wasn't me talking,' she added.

Kyle Gass, who performs alongside movie star Jack Black in the American comedy-rock duo Tenacious D, said: 'Don't miss Trump next time,' in an offhand comment during a show in Australia.

Steven Woodrow, a Democratic state representative in Colorado, lamented how the failed attack created 'sympathy for the devil.'

The comments were a bad idea and led to a fierce backlash against all three.

Marsaw was sacked, Woodrow backtracked and apologized, and Gass's musical career has unraveled.

While those three were savaged on social media, Kaufmann's research suggests their opinions were widespread in America's pent-up left-wing politics.

This comes down to a growing 'partisan asymmetry' in America, he says.

'The Left is more prejudiced against the Right than vice versa,' he adds.

Lefties are more likely to unfriend, refuse to date or otherwise discriminate against conservatives than the other way round, his research shows.

The respondents who backed Trump's assassination bid also had other hard-line feelings against the GOP.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures as he is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is taken from the stage

Kyle Gass, Jack Black and bassist John Spike have stopped performing in the wake of Gass's comment in support of the shooting

For example, many of them also agreed with the statement that 'white Republicans are racist,' Kauffman found.

This highlights an attitude among lefties that conservatives are 'evil rather than wrong,' he says.

As a result, they use 'catastrophizing language around 'white supremacy', 'fascism' and 'danger',' he says.

'Given our new politics of identitarian sacredness and moral absolutism, we should not be surprised to see a rise in political extremism,' he warns.

He's not the only observer to expresses alarm about volatile political rhetoric in the 2024 presidential race.

Speaking from the Oval Office after the shooting in Butler, President Joe Biden said it was time to 'lower the temperature in our politics.'

'The political rhetoric in this country has gotten very heated,' he added.

'It's time to cool it down.'

Biden later reviewed some of his own terse political language, and walked back a statement from a week before the assassination, in which he said it was 'time to put Trump in a bullseye.'

Thomas Matthew Crooks

FBI Director Christopher Wray this week updated Congress on his agency's probe into the shooting.

He said it came amid an increasingly tense political atmosphere surrounding the presidential campaign.

'I have been saying for some time now that we are living in an elevated-threat environment,' Wray testified.

'Tragically, the ... assassination attempt is another example, particularly heinous.'

The motive for the shooting remains unclear.

Wray said many people have described Crooks as a loner and the list of contacts in his phone was short, and his political leaning is unclear.

A day before Wray's testimony, Kimberly Cheatle resigned as director of the US Secret Service after bipartisan demands to quit over the failure to prevent the attempted assassination.

Much of the criticism has focused on the failure to secure the roof of an industrial building where the gunman was perched about 150 yards from the stage where Trump was speaking.
This is the moment a Brazilian politician slapped a computer while arguing with a hospital administrator after his friend was allegedly denied hospital care.

The cell phone video showed former congressman Raad Massouh confronting workers at Santa Helena Hospital in Asa Norte on Wednesday after they had allegedly asked Antonio Melo to make a deposit of about $19,500 to cover his emergency care.

'I want one of you to tell me which bank will make a Pix payment at one o'clock in the morning for 110,000 reals,' the angered politician asked. 'Can any credit card pay 110,000 reals at this time?'

Out of anger, he knocked the screen off the counter and continue to berate the staff before he went to check on Melo, who was resting on a bed.

Former Brazilian congressman Raad Massouh was recorded destroying a hospital computer screen while arguing with staff over the alleged lack of care that was provided to friend who had suffered a struck and was unable to cover an invoice payment

Antonio Melo rested on a hospital bed in the emergency unit at Santa Helena Hospital in Asa Norte, Brazil while friend and former congressman Raad Massouh argued on his behalf after the staff reportedly refused to provide care because of an unpaid bill of around $19,500. He was eventually placed in the ICU and later transferred to a private hospital

Massouh told Metropoles news that he visited the medical facility after he was contacted by Melo's family and only wanted to help his friend of over 30 years.

Melo's daughter, Lia Nascimento, 44, told the outlet that she noticed his 'speech was slurred and his foot was purple.'

She took Melo to Sobradinho Regional Hospital, where he didn't receive treatment and then took him to Santa Helena Hospital.

'They said they would find him an ICU room,' Nascimento said. 'More than two hours later, they informed us that a deposit of R$110,000 would be required for him to be transferred to the ICU. So, we called Raad.'

Melo, according to Massouh, was placed in the intensive care unit after the bizarre incident and found him a room. His family then had him transferred to a private medical facility.

Former Brazilian congress member Raad Massouh, who holds is a dual Syria-Brazil citizen, served in the Federal District legislative assembly from 2010 to 2013. He was removed from office due to allegations of embezzlement

Santa Helena Hospital explained in a statement that they never denied Melo care.

'The patient was seen immediately upon arrival at the hospital, underwent additional tests, received a diagnosis, was treated for the diagnosis he received and continues to be treated and monitored,' the hospital said.

'Only after the care, the diagnosis and after receiving the necessary treatment, the family received an estimated bill because the patient needs to continue hospital treatment.'

Massouh, who is a dual Syria-Brazil citizen, served in the Federal District legislative assembly from 2010 to 2013, when he was removed from office due to allegations of embezzlement.
Chipotle's CEO has made a shocking admission after the popular Mexican chain was accused of shrinking portion sizes.

Brian Niccol, the chairman and CEO of Chipotle, announced during the company's second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday that Chipotle has found more than 10 percent of its 3,500 locations were scoring poorly on portion sizes.

Niccol told analysts that the company is now investing in retraining employees at those 'outlier' locations to make sure they're putting the right amount of ingredients in burritos and bowls.

'We'll invest in it, and we'll figure out how to make sure we consistently do it every time,' he said, adding that the company was 'committed to making this investment to reinforce that Chipotle stands for a generous amount of delicious, fresh food at fair prices for every customer visit.'

However, Niccol admitted that this change will only be implemented at the 10 percent of the chain's restaurants that are currently scoring poorly, while it appears to be business as usual for the remaining 90 percent of restaurants.

Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol has denied the portion sizes are getting smaller as he revealed he would be training staff to ensure consistency across his stores

Niccol also firmly denied any plot to short-change customers.

'First, there was never a directive to provide less to our customers,' he said, 'Generous portion is a core brand equity of Chipotle. It always has been, and it always will be.'

'Our guests expect this now more than ever, and we are committed to making this investment to reinforce that Chipotle stands for a generous amount of delicious (and) fresh food at fair prices for every customer every visit,' Niccol said.

This response comes after widespread social media complaints about shrinking portion sizes at Chipotle, which led to customer dissatisfaction and viral videos.

It came after Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem and his team set out to test the theory that Chipotle has been skimping on its once-large portions, following a series of videos posted to TikTok showed employees barely filling their burrito bowls.

The team ordered and weighed 75 bowls from eight locations across New York City, and kept variables the same by ordering the same ingredients - white rice, black beans, chicken, pico de gallo, cheese and lettuce, according to Barrons.

Nicol was forced to respond after Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem and his team set out to test the theory that Chipotle has been skimping on its once-large portions

This response comes after widespread social media complaints about shrinking portion sizes at Chipotle, which led to customer dissatisfaction and viral videos

They were stunned to find huge variation across the locations, with some serving bowls that weighed up to 33 percent more than others.

The largest burrito bowl the team ordered came out to 27 ounces, while the smallest was just 14 ounces.

Among all 75 burrito bowls - which were divvied out for Wells Fargo analysts' lunches - the median weight was about 21.5 ounces.

Fadem's study comes after months of TikTokers claiming that Chipotle workers were skimping on their ingredients.

The trend began in early May, when Keith Lee - a former mixed martial arts fighter and TikTok food critic who has more than 16million followers on the app - posted a video showing him digging into a burrito bowl, and seemingly not finding any of the chicken he ordered.

'These portions be crazy,' he said in the video.

Later that month, another influencer, Isaac Francis, filmed himself ordering at Chipotle and indignantly asking for more rice and chicken.

Zachary Fadem found huge discrepancies in portion sizes from location to location

He wrote in the caption of the video that he 'couldn't let' the employee 'disrespect me with that protein size'.

However, employees soon hit back at the 'dehumanizing' trend, saying being filmed a work was causing them stress.

Laurie Schalow, Chipotle's chief corporate affairs officer, also told CNN that bowl sizes may vary by the number of ingredients a customer chooses or if they opt to make any ingredient 'light' or 'extra light.'

But Nicol said customers were free to ask for more of any topping, stating that he wants his clientele to be 'excited' by the food.

However, the controversy has not harmed Chipotle's sales, which beat analysts' expectations to rise by around 18 percent in the second quarter.
These baby foxes could have a career in photography if they keep up this level of camerawork.

Located in Sapporo, Japan, photographer Hiroki Takahashi managed to snap these wonderful images of some cheeky foxes.

Mr Takahashi revealed how the foxes looked as though they were about to bite his GoPro camera and take selfies with it.

He said: 'The little fox was very interested in the GoPro and came over to bite, lick, climb, and play happily.'

'The camera didn't break, but it was licked in many ways, so I disinfected it properly. The little fox was just having fun, so it was very soothing to watch.'

Say cheese! This adorable baby fox holds a GoPro camera and looks like he's about to take a picture of his friend

The photo, taken in Sapporo, Japan, shows a couple of foxes who are intrigued by the camera

Delete it! Perhaps this fox was not so happy with the outcome of the picture and attempted to delete it

The foxes were said to play with the GoPro, as this little fellow above is doing by crouching beneath it

Photographer Hiroki Takahashi said the pair of foxes were fascinated by the technology
The FBI wants to question Donald Trump about his near-death experience when he survived an assassination attempt earlier this month.

It has yet to receive a victim statement from the former president as it collects evidence to investigate the horrifying event, one official said.

The bureau's director Christopher Wray sparked a firestorm on Wednesday when he testified to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that there are still 'some question' about whether the former president was struck with a bullet or shrapnel.

In a subsequent statement he sought to clarify that remark.

Trump was quick to refute any suggestion that he was hit by shrapnel, saying he was struck by 'a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.'

He posted on his Truth Social: 'There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a "bullet wound to the ear," and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!'

The FBI still has questions over whether Trump was struck by shrapnel or by a bullet, but the former president has railed against that, saying he surely was hit by a bullet

The former president's campaign also railed against the notion that Trump was struck by shrapnel as opposed to a slug.

'Anyone who believes this conspiracy bulls**t is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons,' Trump campaign adviser Steven Cheung told CNN.

During the hearing Wednesday with Wray, the director responded to questions about the 'assassin's bullet' saying, 'My understanding is that either it or some shrapnel is what, you know, grazed his ear.'

Wray also testified that whatever it was that hit Trump came extremely close to killing the 45th president.

There were also plenty of other jaw-dropping revelations during the congressional hearing, including what 20-year-old shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks was up to immediately before he opened fire.

Donald Trump's would-be assassin Crooks searched online 'how far' Lee Harvey Oswald was from John F. Kennedy when he shot him, the FBI director revealed in stunning testimony to Congress.

Wray confirmed the FBI had recovered three 'explosive devices' in possession of Crooks

FBI Director Christopher Wray also told lawmakers the 20-year-old gunman flew a drone 200 yards from the stage just two hours before he opened fire in Butler, Pennsylvania, and had three explosives in his car.

The bombshell revelations from the bureau's chief give more insight into Crooks' preparation before he shot the former president, including his online research on the sniper that took out JFK in 1963.

Wray said Crooks had been 'interested in public figures' and 'somewhere around July 6 or so he became very focused on former President Trump and his rally.'

The director said an analysis of Crooks' laptop revealed he had searched on Google on July 6 'how far away was Oswald from Kennedy.' It was the same day he registered to attend the Butler rally.

Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed former President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

In this handout, American Marxist and former US Marine Lee Harvey Oswald (1939 - 1963) in a mug shot after he was arrested for assassinating President John F Kennedy in Dallas, 23rd November 1963

Crooks was flying a drone above the rally site two hours before the shooting and just 200 yards away from the stage, Wray has also revealed.

He flew the drone around 4 p.m. over the area of the rally close to '200 yards' from the stage to survey the scene. Trump took the stage around 6:03 p.m., over two hours later.

The FBI has also recovered three 'explosive devices' in possession of Crooks.

They were 'relatively crude devices' but had the ability 'to be detonated remotely,' Wray said.

The FBI director also revealed the weapon used had a 'collapsible stock,' which he said 'could explain why it might've been less easy for people to observe.'

Wray could not say whether Crooks carried the gun up to the roof with him before he fired the shots or had stashed it there prior. He said the gunman did not use a ladder to get onto the roof but rather some sort of 'vertical piping.'

He said Crooks and his family owned a combined 14 guns and Crooks had visited a shooting range one day before the rally. Crooks used an AR-style weapon that had been purchased legally by his father and sold to him in October 2023.

Dramatic new footage shows law enforcement standing over the dead body of Donald Trump 's attempted assassin moments after he was shot dead

The FBI investigation into the assassination attempt remains ongoing.

Congress has also voted to put together a task force to investigate the shooting.

Speaker Mike Johnson indicated that it would be a bipartisan effort split evenly with Republicans and Democrats.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also investigating the shooting.
An 11-year-old girl was unlawfully killed after her older brother punched her in the head, a coroner has concluded.

Falaq Babar died in hospital more than three weeks after she collapsed at her family home in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.

An inquest heard how her half-brother Suhail Mohammed, 23, had texted his girlfriend saying he had 'punched' and 'killed' Falaq.

He claimed he acted 'in the heat of the moment' after hearing Falaq 'screaming her head off'.

Mr Mohammed didn't phone an ambulance until 23 minutes later when she became ill and lost consciousness.

Suhail Mohammed, 23, texted his girlfriend saying he had 'punched' and 'killed' Falaq, his younger sister. He claimed he acted 'in the heat of the moment' after hearing Falaq 'screaming her head off'. He didn't phone an ambulance until 23 minutes later when she became ill and lost consciousness.

Falaq Babar, 11, died in hospital more than three weeks after she collapsed at her family home in Rochdale, Greater Manchester

He was subsequently arrested and detectives believed there was sufficient evidence for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider a charge of manslaughter.

But the CPS declined to prosecute partly due to 'complex medical evidence' about whether Falaq had an 'underlying' brain condition.

Today, senior coroner Joanne Kearsley ruled that Mr Mohammed's 'deliberate act' of punching Falaq had triggered a 'pre-existing abnormality' in a blood vessel to her brain.

Recording a conclusion of unlawful killing, she said the 'trauma' led to increased blood pressure or anxiety which led to a rupture of the abnormality in the blood vessel, leading to her fatal brain bleed.

Ms Kearsley said she was satisfied that Mr Mohammed had become 'frustrated' by 'bickering' between Falaq, who was in the bathroom with her younger brother, and another younger brother who wanted to get inside.

Mr Mohammed had 'shoulder charged' the bathroom door with 'significant force' without warning, she said, and then - on the balance of probabilities - punched her on the head.

She said it was consistent with the evidence and whether Falaq additionally hit her head on the door or the wall cannot be determined.

Giving evidence, Mr Mohammed admitted barging into the bathroom using a 'bit of force' but claimed it had been 'stuck' due to damp.

He initially claimed the door had been damaged previously before changing his account and crime scene investigators found it opened easily and no evidence it had been bolted shut.

Mr Mohammed said he'd found Falaq on the bathroom floor near the radiator and when she became unwell he called for ambulance, telling the call handler she'd 'slipped'.

But in a series of text messages with his girlfriend Sahar Fiaz he had revealed how he 'punched' Falaq.

'I've killed Falaq,' he wrote.

'WDYM (what do mean),' she replied.

'I punched her in the head.'

Mr Mohammed was arrested and he initially told police his sister must have fallen backwards and hit her head after he forced his way into the bathroom. But in a later interview he refused to answer questions after the text messages were discovered on his mobile phone

Senior coroner Joanne Kearsley ruled that Mr Mohammed's 'deliberate act' of punching Falaq had triggered a 'pre-existing abnormality' in a blood vessel to her brain. Recording a conclusion of unlawful killing, she said the 'trauma' led to increased blood pressure or anxiety which led to a rupture of the abnormality in the blood vessel, leading to her fatal brain bleed

He went on to say his sister was being taken to hospital before Ms Fiaz then asked: 'What she did that you hit her (sic)?'

Mt Mohammed responded: 'Zero. Screaming her head off.'

When Ms Fiaz said he 'shouldn't have done that', Mr Mohammed replied that he 'didn't know' he was going to 'knock her out' and Ms Fiaz accused him of being 'heavy handed'.

'It was the heat of the moment.' he replied.

The inquest heard how analysis of the 999 call made by Mr Mohammed revealed how he spoke to family members in the background, urging them to not 'make big deal' of the incident, adding: 'Don't tell, don't disclose'.

Mr Mohammed was arrested and he initially told police his sister must have fallen backwards and hit her head after he forced his way into the bathroom.

But in a later interview he refused to answer questions after the text messages were discovered on his mobile phone.

He also declined to give evidence at the inquest earlier this week after it was adjourned in November so police could investigate 'new evidence'.

Ms Kearsley labelled the evidence provided by family members as 'inherently improbable, inconsistent and unconvincing', saying the accounts given were 'untrue' and were made in 'an attempt to disguise or cover up the fact that Falaq's elder sibling hit her in a fit of pique'.

She said she couldn't understand why the family had refused to allow police to speak to Falaq's younger brothers - aged 5 and 7 - who would have been key witnesses.

Home Office pathologist Dr Philip Lumb recorded Falaq's cause of death as severe hypoxic ischemic brain injury with brain swelling due to a intracerebellar and intraventricular haemorrhage due to ruptured vascular pathology along the course of the left posterior inferior cerebellar artery (PICA).

Dimitries Varthalitis, a consultant paediatric neurosurgeon who had operated on Falaq at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, said he agreed with pathology evidence that an abnormal venous malformation (AVM), which affects only 0.05% of the population, in the PICA blood vessel had caused her brain bleed.

He said people could be asymptomatic and the 'vast majority' of bleeds were 'spontaneous', but 'trauma' could also be a cause.

Another expert, neuropatholigist Dr Daniel Di Plessis, described it as a 'very rare' type of brain bleed.

He believed on balance that 'trauma' had played a part and he said there was 'no doubt' a punch could have caused the blood vessel to rupture.

Addressing Falaq's family, Ms Kearsley said her findings would make for 'difficult reading and reflection' and the love they had shown her 'could not detract from her tragic death'.

Given the evidence only met the coronial standard, she said, she would not be referring the case back to the police or the CPS.

She added: 'My only hope is you can now accept and acknowledge how Falaq died and somehow look to rebuild and move forward together.'

Greater Manchester Police said it 'acknowledged' the coroner's findings.

A spokesman confirmed that following Falaq's death, officers conducted 'a full and thorough investigation into the circumstances' before preparing a file for the CPS.

Expressing the force's 'deepest sympathies' with her loved ones, he added: 'It is heart-breaking that a child has lost her life at such a young age and our thoughts remain with all those who knew her.'
READ MORE: Why this cute native Australian animal could soon be extinct

A tourist's photo of a quokka eating a discarded cigarette butt has exposed Australia's major problem with littering.

Fafa Liao was visiting Rottnest Island - a popular tourist destination in Western Australia off the coast of Perth - on July 16 when she captured the sad moment.

The Taiwanese woman watched as the island's famous marsupial started to eat the cigarette butt.

A shocked Ms Liao took a snap of the animal and explained she was left 'deeply saddened' by the sight, especially since the quokka clearly had a baby in her pouch.

Ms Liao called for regular clean ups of the quokkas' habitat and urged authorities to increase awareness of the danger that rubbish can cause to the marsupials.

'As a concerned visitor I believe it's crucial to address this issue promptly to protect both the quokkas and their habitat,' Ms Liao told PerthNow.

Ms Liao also urged authorities to enforce stronger penalties for littering - which is currently a fine of $200.

A Rottnest Island Authority spokesperson insisted the wellbeing of the 'iconic quokkas' was the top priority.

Taiwanese tourist Fafa Liao was visiting Rottnest Island when she spotted a quokka eating a discarded cigarette butt (pictured)

'The wellbeing of all wildlife, including the iconic quokkas, is a top priority for Rottnest Island Authority,' the spokesperson said.

'We urge all visitors to play their part in protecting the island by disposing of waste responsibly.'

Signs dot the island clearly warning tourists to limit their interactions with the small smiley wallabies.

Around 10,000 quokkas live on Rottnest Island, making the marsupial a vulnerable species.

Rottnest Island Authority conduct regular litter clean-up and street sweeping in the public and recreational areas of the holiday hotspot.

Information on correct waste disposal and about the protection of native wildlife is also available on the island, on visitor maps and online.
A drug gang that brought more than a billion pounds worth of narcotics into the UK have been jailed for total of 195 years.

Metropolitan Police detectives worked with the National Crime Agency - Britains FBI - on a four-year investigation that has put 12 'dangerous' men behind bars.

Officers said the painstaking investigation has helped to stop more than a billion pounds worth of Class A drugs from flooding the capital and other areas of the UK.

Detectives from the Met first began investigating the west-London based gang, headed up by Paul OBrien and Lee Mortimer, in 2020.

NCA investigators identified OBrien as a leading figure in the network.

On 29 May 2020, after conducting surveillance on one of the known gang members, Met officers intercepted a drugs exchange between OBrien and Mortimer and other members of the gang.

Metropolitan Police detectives worked with the National Crime Agency - Britains FBI - on a four-year investigation that has put 12 'dangerous' men behind bars

Officers said the painstaking investigation has helped to stop more than a billion pounds worth of Class A drugs from flooding the capital and other areas of the UK

Detectives from the Met first began investigating the west-London based gang, headed up by Paul OBrien and Lee Mortimer, in 2020

The sophisticated gang of 12 men have been jailed for plotting to smuggle up to 1billion of Class A drugs into the UK

Career criminal OBrien, 57, from Uxbridge, west London, trafficked drugs and dirty cash between Ireland and the Netherlands.

He was identified as part of Operation Venetic - the UKs part in the takedown of the encrypted communications platform EncroChat.

Arrangements for transporting cocaine and 900,000 euros in cash were discovered in EncroChat messages between OBrien, who was using the handle ONEDIAMONDGEE on the encrypted network, and another crook.

Conversations between the pair showed that on the morning of 4 April 2020, two vehicles - a HGV and a car - met near the village of Uddel in the Netherlands and exchanged drugs worth up to 1million if sold in the UK.

The drugs were successfully brought into the UK later the same day, and arrangements were made for it to be collected in Ireland. On 10 April, 300,000 euros belonging to OBrien were collected near Louth in Ireland and transported to the Netherlands by car.

A month later, on 11 May, a second pick-up of 600,000 euros was arranged at a bus station in Drogheda, Ireland, again to be taken by couriers from Ireland to the Netherlands.

But this time Garda officers conducting a surveillance operation moved in to intercept the cash and arrest couriers transporting the dirty money.

Career criminal OBrien, 57, from Uxbridge, west London, trafficked drugs and dirty cash between Ireland and the Netherlands

The gang was snared as part of Operation Venetic - the UKs part in the takedown of the encrypted communications platform EncroChat

Career criminal OBrien, 57, from Uxbridge, west London, had arranged to transport cocaine and 900,000 euros in cash on EncroChat messages between OBrien, who was using the handle ONEDIAMONDGEE on the encrypted network

EncroChat messages were found between OBrien, who was using the handle ONEDIAMONDGEE on the encrypted network, and another crook

OBrien was identified as the ONEDIAMONDGEE user after his EncroChat device was seized on 29 May 2020 when he was arrested by Metropolitan Police officers at his Uxbridge home.

He subsequently pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy to commit a crime abroad, and at Isleworth Crown Court on 3 November, 2023, a judge sentenced him to 21 years imprisonment.

This led to a series of arrests and officers seized more than 160kgs of cocaine as well as over 1million in cash and other high value assets, including vehicles and jewellery.

The investigation into O'Brien allowed Met officers to identify members of another drug-dealing gang operating in Greater Manchester and led by Jonathan Strogylos.

With help from the NCA, Met officers accessed the networks encrypted EncroChat messages, which revealed that the gang imported more than 8.5 tonnes of cocaine between 2017 and 2020.

The investigation into O'Brien allowed Met officers to identify members of another drug-dealing gang operating in Greater Manchester and led by Jonathan Strogylos

With help from the NCA, Met officers accessed the networks encrypted EncroChat messages, which revealed that the gang imported more than 8.5 tonnes of cocaine between 2017 and 2020

The total value of the drugs imported into the UK by the gang is assessed by police to be worth more than 1billion

The total value of the drugs imported into the UK over this period are assessed to be worth more than 1billion.

Working in partnership with Essex police, Met officers were later able to make a further series of arrests and seize another 138kg of cocaine and 8kgs of heroin, which had been imported via the Harwich port.

Detective Chief Superintendent Ella Marriott, Head of the London Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: This is an investigation that demonstrates how Met officers are going above and beyond to make London safe by removing drug dealers from the capital and other parts of the UK.

This is community crime-fighting at its best, removing offenders who impact the lives of those around them.

Weve seen time and time again that the supply of drugs has devastating consequences on communities across the country.

Met officers also made a further series of arrests and seized another 138kg of cocaine and 8kgs of heroin, which had been imported via the Harwich port in Essex

The sophisticated gang smuggled drugs between the Netherlands and Ireland

They planned to flood the capital and other areas of the UK with 1billion worth of Class A drugs

Photographs show how the gang smuggled drugs across borders in hidden compartments

It causes addiction, has devastating health impacts and leads to anti-social behaviour and violence. That is why we are determined to crack down on drugs and the gangs that exploit vulnerable people, while also working with partners to support drug users through addiction.

This investigation should serve as a message to criminals and gang members bringing drugs onto our streets - we will come after you and we will bring you to justice.

NCA Branch Commander Martin Clarke: The NCA were able to work in collaboration with the Met to share information which enabled us to identify and dismantle this organised crime group in its entirety.

The criminal network was international in its scope, with connections to drug suppliers across the globe.

Our work with the Met has resulted in significant custodial sentences for the gangs members, and demonstrates our commitment to do all we can with our law enforcement partners to protect the public by targeting the organised criminal networks causing most harm to the UK.
Horses are evacuated along a road in Cohasset (Butte County) near Chico as the Park Fire burns Thursday. Residents also evacuated portions of the Butte County community of Paradise, which was nearly wiped out during the Camp Fire in 2018. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle On social media, the Paradise Police Department advised residents to please remain vigilant for sudden fire condition changes. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

Residents of Paradise, a rural Northern California town that was incinerated by the Camp Fire in 2018, were told to prepare to evacuate on Thursday due to another devastating wildfire: The Park Fire.

Before the Camp Fire, Paradise was home to more than 26,000 residents. But the Camp Fire destroyed 90% of the homes in the town. Six years later, Paradise is still being rebuilt. The town is now home to just over 6,500 residents, a quarter of what it once was. Construction of new homes hasnt been easy either. Only a fifth of the homes destroyed by the fire had been rebuilt as of last fall, when a Chronicle reporter visited the town.

By the time the Camp Fire was fully contained, Paradise had become the site of the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. The blaze killed 85 people and injured three others, Cal Fire said. More than 18,000 structures were destroyed and an additional 754 were damaged. In all, the Camp Fire torched more than 153,000 acres.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The blaze sparked when a century old hook, operated by Pacific Gas and Electric Co., failed and dropped energized wires into a bush. Bill Johnson, the companys CEO at the time, pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter after a criminal investigation into the companys wrongdoing. The company agreed to pay the town $270 million as part of a settlement between the two sides, giving Paradise about 20 years to rebound before returning to its normal operating budget, the Chronicle previously reported.

The memories of the Camp Fire for Paradise residents rekindled Thursday evening, as evacuation warnings were issued for a western portion of the town. By 7:30 p.m., the Park Fire was still surging, torching nearly 125,000 acres across Butte and Tehama Counties.

On social media, the Paradise Police Department advised residents to please remain vigilant for sudden fire condition changes.

The main fire spread is to the north and east, weve seen significant movement to the east over the past few hours towards Highway 32, said Chronicle Meteorologist Anthony Edwards.

Edwards said extreme fire behavior was pushing the blaze to spread in multiple directions, including toward Paradise. Higher up in the atmosphere, winds are pushing the fire eastwards and embers are landing and starting new fires, he said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad
A man accused of stealing 2million worth of designer watches from a victim who hanged himself the next day has denied robbery.

Junior Kunu, 29, and an accomplice, allegedly held Oliver White, 27, in a chokehold and restrained him with cable ties during a violent raid on May 25.

Afterwards, the alleged robbers are said to have plundered timepieces from the 247 Kettles store on Kew Road, Richmond.

Mr White was found hanged in woodland in Shepperton, Surrey the following day.

Oliver pictured with his girlfriend, Alana Dredge. Surrey Coroner's Court heard Mr White, from Shepperton, had died from suspension

A 247 Kettles promo video displays the plush, expensive interior of the store

Wearing a light grey jumper, Kunu appeared in Woolwich Crown Court via video link from HMP Thameside today.

He spoke to confirm his name as well as to deny robbing Mr White.

Ms Nwanneka Aik, prosecuting, earlier said: 'The matter before the court relates to an incident that took place on May 25, 2024.

'It was a violent robbery that took place at a watch dealership in Richmond.

'Close to 2m of watches were stolen.'

Kunu, of Mitcham, south London, has a trial date set for November 18 at the same court and it is expected to last five days.

Kunu was remanded in custody ahead of a further case management hearing on September 13.

Surrey Coroner's Court heard Mr White, from Shepperton, had died from suspension.

He was pronounced dead at 9.59pm on May 26 in a wooded area adjacent to Sheep Walk.

Mr White's family earlier said in a statement: 'Our son Oliver returned home from his place of work on Saturday traumatised and unable to speak.

'He had been the victim of a terrifying attack and high-value robbery at his place of work, which was later shared widely on social media.

Watch dealer Oliver White (pictured) took his own life after robbers raided his shop

'As a family we are devastated by the loss of our beautiful, funny, loyal boy, who lit up every room he walked into.'

A spokesman for 247 Kettles had posted a statement on Instagram claiming Mr White should have never been alone in the store in the first place.

In a tribute to Mr White, a spokesperson for the store said: 'It is with profound sadness we share the heartbreaking news of the passing of our beloved Oliver, who was a close friend for 20+ years before working with us at 247 Kettles.

'In his time working with us Oliver left a long-lasting impact on the watch community as a whole - both suppliers and customers alike were taken back by Oliver's vibrant spirit and kind heart and his loss is felt deeply by all who knew him.

'Oliver had an incredible work ethic and a passion for pleasing customers. He liked to work around the clock and even out of hours to ensure customers were satisfied.

'As a business, we will remain closed temporarily to grieve the loss of our friend. Any messages/requests will be picked up upon our return. Our thoughts are with all of Oliver's family at this time.'
A California sex offender has been arrested for allegedly starting a 160,000 acre wildfire - the state's largest this year.

Ronnie Stout II, 42, was caught pushing his burning car into a gulley in upper Bidwell Park near the city of Chico on Wednesday, the Butte County District Attorney's Office announced.

The vehicle then tumbled 60 feet down an embankment, sparking a fire tornado that engulfed more than 71,000 acres of northern California overnight and prompted mass evacuations.

Stout was reportedly seen leaving the scene by blending in with parkgoers as the fire quickly spread.

Authorities ultimately identified the suspect early Thursday morning, and took him into custody.

Ronnie Stout II, 42, was caught pushing his burning car into a gulley in upper Bidwell Park near the city of Chico on Wednesday

He was then booked into the Butte County Jail, where he is being held without bail, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Stout was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted of sex crimes against a child under 14 years old in 2001 and of robbery with great bodily injury.

Given that he has two prior convictions, Stout could be sent to jail for life if found guilty under California's Three Strikes and Youre Out law.

Footage of the inferno shows a home blowing up as the area is surrounded by flames.

The vehicle then tumbled 60 feet down an embankment, sparking a fire tornado that engulfed more than 71,000 acres of northern California overnight and prompted mass evacuations

The Park Fire burned more than 195 square miles near the city of Chico

The Park Fire burned more than 195 square miles near the city of Chico.

More than 4,000 people were evacuated in Butte County and the city of Chico, said Megan McMann, a spokesperson for the Butte County Sheriff's Office.

As of Friday morning the fire had burned through more than 164,000 acres.

At least 134 structures have been destroyed but there are no reported injuries.

Cal Fire-Butte County had said as many as 4,200 structures were threatened.

Footage of the inferno shows a home blowing up as the area is surrounded by flames

A combination of a cold front passing through the province and several days of dry and hot weather led to the perfect conditions for the fire tornado

The park fire is the largest in California since the Caldor fire of 2021

Fire whirls' are intensely rotating columns of gas and flames.

A combination of a cold front passing through the province and several days of dry and hot weather led to the perfect conditions for the fire tornado.

Friday's windy conditions is making it harder for firefighters to battle flames.

The National Weather Service has issued a for the northern Sacramento Valley.

Meanwhile forecasters are warning wind gusts could reach up to 30mph and push the blaze north.

The park fire is the largest in California since the Caldor fire of 2021, which destroyed 1,000 structures while burning across the Sierra Crest and into the Tahoe basin, torched forest that hadnt seen flames in over a century.
A female pedophile preyed on multiple young boys at an Oklahoma swimming pool and called her victims 'daddy,' police say.

Kayla Lena, 28, was taken into custody and charged with two counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child under the age of 16 following the incident last month.

Police in Del City say the boys, 12 and 13, told officers that Lena had been touching them over several days and even asked one of them to be his girlfriend.

Rena allegedly attempted to remove some of their clothing at the Eagle Harbor Aquatic Center, grabbed at them and called them 'daddy'.

Lifeguards told responding officers that Lena had been following the boys around the pool 'touching them in the groin and buttocks'.

She was subsequently taken to the Oklahoma County Jail, with jail records now showing that she was bailed out

Kayla Lena, 28, was taken into custody and charged with two counts of lewd or indecent acts with a child under the age of 16 following the incident last month

Officers who arrived on the scene found Lena outside of the public pool with their interaction caught on body camera footage.

The footage, obtained by KFOR, shows an officer telling Lena to put her hands together to which she responds 'okay'.

At one point she asks 'can I call my grandma?', to which an officer answers 'how old are you?'. She then responds '28'.

The officer asks, 'what is going on today?', Rena responds 'nothing', as she is handcuffed.

Eventually, she tried to explain her actions by telling officers she was drowning and grabbed one of the boys in an attempt to pull herself up.

Major Brad Cowden the outlet: 'Its definitely troubling to see something like this happen at a place where we want people to come and feel safe, and just have a good time while theyre there.

'It really, really emphasizes the importance of both the staff and just parents in general to be to be mindful, be vigilant of their children, even in public places.'

She was subsequently taken to the Oklahoma County Jail, with jail records now showing that she was bailed out.

The footage, obtained by KFOR , shows an officer telling Lena to put her hands together to which she responds 'okay'

Court documents claim that Lena 'knowingly and intentionally looked upon, touched, mauled, or felt the body or private parts of two boys, ages 12 and 13.

It is claimed she did so 'in a lewd and lascivious manner calculated to arouse and excite'.

Authorities say the statements from the two victims and other witnesses indicate that she targeted the same two boys on multiple occasions over several days.
The police officer who kicked a man in the head at Manchester Airport is now under criminal investigation over the force used during the incident on Tuesday.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) watchdog said it had notified the Greater Manchester Police officer that he is facing a criminal probe for assault.

He has also been served with a disciplinary notice that he is being investigated for potential gross misconduct for alleged breaches of police professional standards.

The extraordinary footage showed the officer kick and stamp on the head of a man who was lying face down on the floor, with a woman kneeling beside him.

The video also appeared to show him strike a second man, and it has prompted a public outcry with two nights of demonstrations in Manchester and Rochdale.

Roads and tram lines were blocked last night during a protest after the officer was suspended following footage of the incident, in terminal two of the airport.

A police officer was filmed kicking and stamping on the head of a man at Manchester Airport

Videos online also showed a handful of demonstrators, with their faces covered, throwing eggs at Rochdale police station and forming barricades yesterday evening.

The IOPC said the serving of notices does not necessarily mean criminal charges will follow.

At the end of its investigation, the IOPC will decide whether to refer the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision and decide whether the officer should face disciplinary proceedings.

IOPC regional director Catherine Bates said today: 'We can confirm we are conducting a criminal investigation into the use of force during events which took place on July 23 at Manchester Airport. We are arranging to interview a police constable under criminal caution as soon as possible.

'I have today met one of the men who was involved and his family members to outline our investigation and we will continue to update them and Greater Manchester Police as our enquiries progress.

The family's lawyer Akhmed Yakoob speaks outside Rochdale Police Station yesterday

Lawyer Akhmed Yakoob (centre) with Fahir and Amaad Khan following the airport incident

'We will be speaking to the man involved in the second incident as soon as we can.'

She added that the family had asked her to 'reiterate their call for peace and wish to stress that they do not condone any acts of violence as a result of this incident'.

'The family has asked me to reiterate their call for peace': Full statement from IOPC Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) regional director Catherine Bates said today: 'We can confirm we are conducting a criminal investigation into the use of force during events which took place on July 23 at Manchester Airport. We are arranging to interview a police constable under criminal caution as soon as possible. 'I have today met one of the men who was involved and his family members to outline our investigation and we will continue to update them and Greater Manchester Police as our enquiries progress. We will be speaking to the man involved in the second incident as soon as we can. 'The family has asked me to reiterate their call for peace and wish to stress that they do not condone any acts of violence as a result of this incident. 'We are meeting with a number of community leaders in Rochdale this afternoon to listen to their concerns and explain our role. 'Our investigation continues to gather relevant evidence and will be following a number of lines of enquiry. We will provide further updates when we are in a position to do so.' Advertisement

Ms Bates said the IOPC would be meeting with community leaders in Rochdale this afternoon to 'listen to their concerns and explain our role'.

She continued: 'Our investigation continues to gather relevant evidence and will be following a number of lines of enquiry. We will provide further updates when we are in a position to do so.'

It comes as it emerged the chaos is now alleged to have followed a mid-air row involving the man's mother.

Family sources claimed Fahir and Amaad Khan were defending their mother when they were taken into custody by police on Tuesday after she arrived from Pakistan.

The mother was allegedly involved in a row during the flight with a male passenger - with insiders alleging that while she was picking up her luggage in Terminal 2, the same man pushed her with his trolley and made racist comments towards her.

It is claimed that the mother later pointed him out to her sons, and one then confronted the man - before a physical altercation that saw the police called.

Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, sources said the family claim they walked away and were confronted by armed police near the ticket machines, during which one officer allegedly struck the mother in the face.

This claim has not been independently verified, with Greater Manchester Police (GMP) not releasing any bodycam footage of this part of the encounter so far and no video shot by passersby released on social media. GMP claims after the initial encounter its officers were assaulted and 'punched to the ground' with three left needing hospital treatment including one female officer who had a broken nose.

No footage of this part of the incident has been released online either, with the first videos showing Fahir lying on the ground with his hands behind his back and Amaad sat on a chair with his hands above his head.

Multiple angles of the incident after this point have since been released online, with 19-year-old Fahir seen being kicked in the face and stamped on the head by a police officer, before he and his brother are hauled away by police.

Today, the family lawyer described the incident as an 'attempted joint enterprise assassination' by the police following another night of demonstrations.

Demonstrators throw eggs at Rochdale Police Station last night as protests continue

Stains from the egg throwing were left on the windows of Rochdale Police Station last night

Hundreds of protesters blocked traffic and held up Black Lives Matter placards last night after footage of a Greater Manchester Police firearms officer kicking a teenager in the head 'like a football' sparked allegations of gratuitous violence.

'TikTok lawyer' with Lamborghini lifestyle The solicitor representing the brothers at the centre of the Manchester Airport storm has been called 'the TikTok lawyer' because of the videos of his millionaire lifestyle which he shares with his 200,000 followers. Akhmed Yakoob, 36, boasts of having a 1million car collection that includes a Lamborghini with personalised number plates and is regularly seen wearing Prada trainers, a glittering diamond watch and gold-rimmed sunglasses. The Birmingham-based father-of-four has attracted controversy, including a row over a 'deep-fake' video which led to a viral hate campaign against an innocent teacher. Mr Yakoob, a director at Maurice Andrews Solicitors, shared the clip while running as an independent candidate in the West Midlands mayoral election on a pro-Gaza ticket in May. It used subtitles to suggest the woman had used a racial slur while canvassing for Labour. Labour said it employed a digital forensics company which found evidence that the video had been manipulated. West Midlands Police concluded no offensive words had been uttered. Mr Yakoob also posted the teacher's name and the name of her school. Others posted her phone number and email address. The teacher, who is in her 20s, said she had faced death threats amid a nightmare of online abuse. Mr Yakoob later said he had 'deleted the post from all my social media' and 'would like to see the findings' of the Labour Party and the police. He came third in the mayoral poll, later coming within 3,500 votes of unseating Labour's Shabana Mahmood in Birmingham's Ladywood constituency in the general election. Earlier this year he was criticised for comments that it was 'natural for men to be attracted to females, so keep our queens at home'. He said that he was 'mortified' by the backlash. Advertisement

Demonstrators who gathered outside Mayor Andy Burnham 's office claimed the shocking videos showed the force was racist and called for it to be 'defunded'.

The rally came as the officer filmed kicking a 19-year-old in the head then stamping on him in a violent arrest on Tuesday was suspended after further clips emerged.

Mr Burnham said at a press conference this afternoon: "People spoke of the family's appeal for calm. It was echoed in the room and I am today amplifying that message as loudly and clearly as I can so that everyone hears it.

"Lots of people this week have had their say on events here and it's important now that those same people hear what people in Greater Manchester want to happen next.

"What they want is a process that is able to proceed on the basis, as I said before, of being fair to everyone, rigorous, swift and has input from Greater Manchester communities.

"That has got to be the priority now so that the full facts can be established and we can get to the full truth of what happened, that's in everyone's interest.

"What people here don't want - and I heard this very clearly in the room this morning - is politicians without possession of the facts exploiting the situation for their own political agenda with zero regard for the effect on the ground in communities in Greater Manchester."

Earlier, the teenager's controversial solicitor Akhmed Yakoob described the incident as an 'attempted assassination, the joint enterprise assassination of the young boys by the police officers'.

Speaking to LBC radio this morning, Mr Yakoob added: 'That is concerning because if police officers who are meant to protect us are going around trying to kill people. I mean, how are the public going to feel safe?'

Questioned by presenter Nick Ferrari over his use of the word 'assassination', Mr Yakoob said: 'Kill, yeah. They were threatened to kill, one of the boys were threatened to get killed by a police officer.'

Mr Yakoob also posted a video on Instagram, saying that he would be meeting the IOPC today, adding that there would be 'light at the end of the tunnel' and he was 'confident that justice will prevail'.

MailOnline understands that Greater Manchester Police is not commenting on any specific claims at this stage due to the ongoing IOPC investigation.

Mr Yakoob  who is nicknamed the TikTok lawyer and earlier this year unsuccessfully stood to be the mayor of the West Midlands on a pro-Gaza platform  previously claimed that his client was 'fighting for his life' in hospital.

The lawyer said a CT scan had revealed that Fahir Muhammed Amas had a 'cyst on the brain'. However, he admitted he did not know whether it was linked to his violent arrest.

And today, newly-elected Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh confirmed that while the family members had been taken to hospital, they were both now at home.

Up to 400 protesters staged a sit-in in the centre of Manchester last night, causing severe disruption to the city's tram network.

Many held BLM banners with one speaker saying the incident was 'another reason' why the group wanted to defund Greater Manchester Police.

Also today, Mr Yakoob called for officer who kicked Fahir in the head to be charged with attempted murder  and said Fahir had lost all faith in the police since the incident.

Mr Yakoob said all the officers seen in the video should be suspended and even face criminal prosecutions under the joint enterprise law.

Speaking to the SWNS press agency, he said: 'There may have been an altercation before, but nothing justifies an attempted murder. They need to be arrested. If they were civilians, if they weren't police officers, they'd be arrested.

'A woman police officer threatened to taser an innocent bystander because they were filming what her colleagues were doing. If you went on a night out with three or four people and you did that to someone, you'd be on remand right now. It's joint enterprise.

Demonstrators throw eggs at Rochdale Police Station last night as protests continue

Stains from the egg throwing were left on the windows of Rochdale Police Station last night

'There has to be arrests otherwise people should step down. Arrests have to be made otherwise the public will lost trust in the police completely.'

Unanswered questions over airport arrests 1. Why do no videos show the start of the incident? Greater Manchester Police has revealed that firearms officers had been responding to reports of an altercation between members of the public. The force said three officers faced a 'violent assault' and were 'punched to the ground' while attempting to arrest a suspect from this earlier altercation. A female officer suffered a broken nose and all three were taken to hospital for treatment, but there is no video evidence of what happened. All of the clips posted online so far show multiple angles of when an officer appeared to kick and then stamp on the head of a man lying face down on the floor. It is not known whether members of the public have any further videos of what happened before this and have simply chosen not to release them. But it is likely that different angles of the start of the incident were caught on police bodycams, which will give greater clarity as to how things began. 2. Who allegedly started altercation with the mother? The chaos at Manchester Airport is now thought to have followed a mid-air row involving the mother of the two men. Family sources claimed Fahir and Amaad Khan were defending their mother when they were taken into custody by police after she arrived from Pakistan . The mother was allegedly involved in a row during the flight with a male passenger - with insiders alleging that while she was picking up her luggage in Terminal 2, the same man pushed her with his trolley and made racist comments towards her. It is claimed that the mother later pointed him out to her sons, and one then confronted the man - before a physical altercation that saw the police called. However nothing more is known about the man, or why the incident began on the plane. It is also not clear whether he was one of the people arrested by police. Four men were arrested at the scene for affray and assault on emergency service workers, but Greater Manchester Police have not confirmed their identities. 3. What happened on the plane? The chaos is believed to be linked back to the flight from Pakistan that landed at Manchester Airport on Tuesday, but little is known about what actually happened. The Daily Telegraph reported that the family told the newspaper that 'words were spoken between a middle-aged woman of Asian descent and another passenger'. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham told BBC Radio 4's World At One yesterday that the mother told her sons there had been 'an issue on the flight' and 'pointed somebody out and then there was an altercation in the arrivals hall'. But this is all that is known of what happened in flight, and no video footage or further details have been released by any of the passengers on board. There is also unlikely to have been any police bodycam footage of any on-board incidents because officers are not believed to have been called to the plane. 4. Why is there no police bodycam footage? While various videos have been released on social media from bystanders filming the moment that the men was arrested, nothing has been issued by police. While you might expect bodycam footage to come out quickly in the US  such as in the case of the Donald Trump shooting on July 13  it's very different in the UK. Bodycam footage is rarely issued to the media until it has been shown in court during a trial, and there is sometimes a wait until after sentencing for it to come out. The video will also likely form part of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) investigation, and is therefore highly unlikely to come out before this has finished. Even then, there could be a wait until any court cases have concluded. The bodycam footage also may be the only video evidence of the events leading up to the four arrests, when it is claimed three officers faced a violent assault. Newly elected Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh hinted in an interview with BBC Breakfast today that the police hold such video footage and that he had seen it. He said he went to see the assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester Police to 'look at some of the footage and to get some of the full facts', adding: 'I can't go into those for obvious reasons  there's a process that has to got to be followed through.' 5. Did police really fear their weapons could be taken? In Greater Manchester Police's initial response to the video, they said 'three officers were subject to a violent assault, where they were punched to the ground'. The force also explained that 'as the attending officers were firearms officers, there was a clear risk during this assault of their firearms being taken from them'. Such detail could be used as evidence by the police when explaining why such force was used, given the concerns of how guns could be used in a crowded airport. 6. How badly injured were the men? The extent of the men's injuries remains unclear. Their lawyer said one was 'fighting for his life' but the local MP confirmed today that both had left hospital. Their solicitor Akhmed Yakoob claimed a CT scan revealed Fahir Khan had a 'cyst on the brain' and was admitted to hospital, adding that his health has declined since the incident. He said: 'He has got a brain injury. He has been diagnosed with a cyst on his brain.' However, he admitted he did not know whether it was linked to the arrest. Mr Yakoob added: 'He's deteriorated overnight and he has a brain injury. I come from a boxing background and I've seen freak injuries like this. 'I've seen them in person, live, where a boxing fight finishes and person becomes unwell overnight and they've passed away the next day. 'So we can't take this lightly. The main concern is the safety of that man and later on we will do what we have to do.' However, newly-elected Rochdale Labour MP Paul Waugh confirmed today that while the family members had been taken to hospital, they were both now at home. He told BBC Breakfast: 'Clearly the family members have been hospitalised  one of them was taken to hospital for another scan. I'm hoping that they're on the mend. 'But obviously the after-effects of an incident like this are difficult to assess immediately at the time. They're at home, they are not in hospital.' Advertisement

He added that he was in the process of launching legal action against the police  and if the Crown Prosecution Service refuses to prosecute, then he will look at a private prosecution.

Mr Yakoob said Amaad appears to be physically fine after the ordeal, but the whole family 'has been left traumatised'. Family and friends were supporting their mother, who he claims was also injured during the fracas.

He also revealed the brother's six-year-old nephew - whose father is a serving police officer - was at the arrivals hall to greet his grandmother and witnessed the incident.

Mr Yakoob added: 'They were at the airport with their six year old nephew, the police officer's son, he saw this.

'He used to go round proudly telling everybody his dad was a police officer.. He's now seen his grandmother and his uncles assaulted by his father's colleagues.

'She'd just returned from Pakistan after two years, what a welcome home she's had. She herself was a victim of assault, she has a black eye as a result of the actions of the police. The boys were waiting at the airport for her. She's very shocked.

Dal Babu, a senior former Metropolitan Police officer, has claimed racism played a 'significant part' in the incident.

And Mr Yakoob said the racial undertones of the incident could not be overlooked, but appealed for calm amid rising tensions.

He added: 'We don't want any violence towards these officers, two wrongs don't make a right. We can't tar everybody with the same brush.

'I don't like to play the race card, but it's clear South Asian men have been targeted by the police, particularly men of Pakistani heritage.

'Fahir is at home resting. He is seeing a neurologist today. He has a cyst on the brain. The message from him is that he has lost all trust in the police and he's scared for his safety.

'He's scared for his life. His older brother is a police officer. He is on compassionate leave, he's afraid for his own safety.'

Meanwhile Mr Waugh revealed he had met the family at their home yesterday and said it was 'clear from talking to them that they are traumatised'.

He told BBC Breakfast: 'Lots of people saw that video clip and were really distressed by it, the police themselves said it was a distressing clip. But just imagine if that was your brother, that was your son in that video - and you can imagine just how distraught they are.'

Mr Waugh added that the family had two priorities  the first being the 'health and wellbeing of their family immediately, healing, getting better'; and the second being 'the need for justice not just to be done but seen to be done'.

He said the family were also 'really heartened by the early engagement' of the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

Mr Waugh continued: 'The family, the other strong message they wanted me to give people, is they have no political agenda whatsoever.

'They're not interested in political violence, they're not going to attend any of these protests, and they wanted me to issue an appeal for calm among the community, all different types of communities in Rochdale.

'We've had a history of unfortunate division within our town and we do not want to go back to those days.

'And they wanted through me to make that absolutely clear. Their agenda is simply to find justice after this incident. And there's no political agenda whatsoever.

'More importantly, they're acutely aware that there are extremists of all sides who are keen to hijack this event and use it for their own ends. The family are not interested in that at all.'

Mr Waugh said the family members had been taken to hospital, with one them taken for another scan  but they were now at home.

He added: 'I'm hoping that they're on the mend, but obviously the after-effects of an incident like this are difficult to assess immediately at the time.'

Mr Waugh added that he met with the Greater Manchester Police assistant chief constable yesterday to 'look at some of the footage and to get some of the full facts'.

He continued: 'It's clear that this is a complex, fast-moving incident but obviously there is no justification whatsoever for what we've seen and I think the police have made that clear, that's why this officer has been suspended. But we've got to let the independent process follow its due course.'

Mr Waugh added: 'There's also things that happened off camera which there need to be witness statements gathered for. It's really important that the full evidence is seen, because that's only fair to all the parties involved.'

One family friend from Rochdale said she had spoken to the family and 'they could not stop crying', reported the Manchester Evening News.

She said: 'They are lovely boys that do charity work and community work and fairs with kids. They are people you would trust with your whole heart. That's the kind of lads they are, they're not criminals.'

On Fahir, she said: 'He's only 19, he's just a baby. He's not in a good way and nobody deserves that. After watching it I haven't slept, it just kept going round and round in my head as it would for any mother. His mum is traumatised. They are asking for everyone to pray.'

Muhammad Aziz, who referred to himself as Fahir's uncle, told the crowd: 'What's happened to one of my nephews is absolutely shocking, it is absolutely disgusting. A lad who went to pick up his mum who had come back from holiday was abused brutally.'

Mr Aziz later added that Fahir's father was 'very upset as any father would be upset', adding: 'Especially seeing those scenes on social media each time he goes through that it must be very shocking. They're traumatised.

'There needs to be a criminal investigation and that police officer should be behind bars. We need an apology and accountability so when people go into the police force in the future they know not to be heavy handed.'

During the protest last night, one banner read: 'Serve and protect means GMP will stamp on heads.' Chants of 'No justice, no peace, no racist police' were shouted by the crowd.

Among the protesters was Sammy Azam, 58, from Nottingham, who described the actions of the officer as 'deplorable' and 'unacceptable'.

Shaiiye Khan, 39, from Manchester, claimed: 'If you give the police too much power they will just abuse it. They've been doing it for years.'

However, there were calls for caution about condemning the officer at the centre of the storm before the full facts of exactly what led up to the furious confrontation have been revealed.

The incident took place at Terminal 2 on Tuesday evening after Fahir and his brother Amaad, 25, met their 56-year-old mother who had just flown in from Pakistan.

She told them there had been 'an issue on the flight' and 'pointed somebody out and then there was an altercation in the arrivals hall', Mr Burnham told BBC Radio 4's World At One.

Police then used cameras to follow the suspects as they left for the car park, with the brothers arrested close to the pay stations.

Some protesters built a makeshift barricade outside Rochdale Police Station last night

Police officers are seen clearing the entrance to Rochdale Police Station last night

Protesters used metal fencing to block the entrance to Rochdale Police Station yesterday

Footage now seen hundreds of thousands of times around the world then shows Fahir lying on the ground as a male officer armed with a Taser appears to kick his face violently before stamping on him.

As his mother tries to protect him, Amaad is pulled from the bench where he was sitting and apparently kicked and hit by the same officer.

Onlookers can be heard shouting 'stop kicking people' and 'you're on camera' before another group is confronted by police.

Amar Rafiq, who filmed one of the clips, said he was 'gobsmacked' by what he witnessed.

'Everyone was worried about themselves, they started panicking and rushing away, they feared they would be attacked,' he told the Mail.

But Mr Burnham stressed that 'there had already been a serious incident' before the attempted arrests 'escalated', adding that it was a situation which people 'don't see in the clip'.

Chants of 'We want them sacked' were heard during a huge protest in Manchester last night

Demonstrators hold Union Flags with the words 'No Justice No Peace' in Manchester last night

A Stand Up To Racism demonstration in Manchester takes place yesterday evening

There were issues 'on both sides', he added.

A total of four men were arrested on suspicion of affray and assaulting an emergency worker before being released on bail.

After the clip went viral, Greater Manchester Police said one of the suspects had 'violently assaulted' officers, leaving a woman officer with a broken nose.

There was a 'clear risk' that the officers' firearms might be taken from them, the force added, with all three needing hospital treatment.

But, after further videos of the fracas from multiple angles emerged yesterday, the un-named officer was suspended from duty.

Meanwhile, police watchdog the IOPC launched an investigation.

Demonstrators including campaign group Stand Up To Racism in Manchester last night

Marchers held up signs which said 'Black Lives Matter' and 'Fight Police Racism' last night

An activist holds a placard which reads: 'Service and protect means GMP will stamp on heads'

Protesters march in the streets of Manchester yesterday after a similar protest in Rochdale

After the brothers had been treated in hospital, they went to their local police station in Rochdale on Wednesday evening to make a complaint.

However, the public counter was closed, with hundreds of supporters instead gathering outside in another protest.

Speakers accused the police of racism and chanted 'GMP, shame on you', 'Allahu Akbar' (God is greatest) and 'f*** the police'.

A local imam was seen trying to calm tensions within the crowd, telling them 'not to take the law into your own hands'.

At the family's 385,000 detached house yesterday, Amaad told the Mail: 'My brother is in a bad way. He is very shaken up.'

Describing the incident as 'police brutality', solicitor Mr Yakoob said the pair's older brother was himself a serving officer with the Greater Manchester force.

A police liaison officer holds her hand up to a tram driver as protesters block the tramway

Demonstrators hold a sit-in protest to block the road and tramway in Manchester

One person holds up a sign reading: 'This could have been me or you! Defund the racist police'

He was now 'afraid to go to work' because he was now 'fearing for his own safety', he added.

Mr Yakoob said the whole family were 'traumatised'. He added: 'Right now, the main concern for us is that the family receive justice and this no longer happens again.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he understood the concern the public 'rightly have' over the footage.

His official spokesman said: 'The public rightly expect a high standard of conduct from our police and it is right that the police have reported themselves to the IOPC.'

The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she shared the 'deep concern' and 'widespread distress' over the video.

Former Victims' Commissioner Dame Vera Baird described the footage as shocking, accusing the officer of 'kicking the man's head like a football'.

A second man was also seen being detained in the video - after being ordered off a chair, he appeared to be kicked and hit by the same officer. He has since been named as Amaad

She told BBC Radio 5 Live that the officer appeared to have 'gratuitously stamped on the head'.

She added: 'I don't know anybody who behaves in that way and it is pretty shocking to find that a firearms officer does because it smacks of being out of control.

'Whatever has gone on before, there really can be very little excuse for this conduct.'

Mr Burnham described the video as 'very disturbing' but called for calm.

He urged the public not to rush to judgement on the incident, telling Radio Manchester that it was 'more complicated' that it had been portrayed.

Yesterday, MP Mr Waugh said: 'Our armed police face a very difficult job every day, and will themselves expect the highest standards of conduct from their officers.'

Several Tasers appeared to have been activated during the incident on Tuesday

Additional footage shows the moment police arrest two more men after the incident in which a detainee had his head kicked. Here a police officer uses incapacitant spray on one of the men

Mr Waugh last night added that he has spoken to the relatives involved in the incident 'and it is clear they are deeply traumatised by what happened'.

'This is a hard working Rochdale family, some of whose members are police officers themselves and are therefore particularly shocked at what they have witnessed,' he said.

'The family also want me to make it crystal clear that they have no political agenda, do not condone political violence and do not want to take part in any protests.'

Mr Waugh added: 'They wanted me to appeal for calm and I hope that appeal is heeded. There is a vital need not to let extremists of any kind hijack these events for their own ends.'

Reform MP Lee Anderson posted on social media site X that the 'vast majority of decent Brits would applaud this type of policing'.

Mr Anderson also told the BBC's Politics Live: 'The message I'm getting loud and clear from my constituents is that they are fed up with seeing police dancing around rainbows, and being nice to people and running off from rioters.

The officer is then joined by a colleague who grabs one of the men in a headlock in the footage

The man is then wrestled to ground before being put in handcuffs and dragged out of the building

In one piece of footage, taken by one of the men who was arrested, a police officer can be seen pointing a taser at a group of men

'They want the police to do their job. And I think these police yesterday should be commended. In fact, I would give them a medal.'

Fellow Reform MP Richard Tice told TalkTV the video was 'reassuring' rather than 'distressing'.

And Greater Manchester Police Federation, representing rank-and-file officers, said it was supporting the suspended officer and that 'everyone has the right to a fair hearing where all sides of the story are told and context provided'.

A spokesman expressed gratitude for public support for their 'hard-working colleagues doing a difficult and dangerous job'.

Both brothers are known in Rochdale for their charity fundraising efforts during the festival of Eid and have been described as 'devout' and 'hard-working'.

Yesterday GMP said an officer had been suspended from 'all duties' following a 'thorough review of further information that has become available'.
Less than a week has passed since 15-year-old Rene Graham was shot in the midst of a family fun day in west London.

A red bandana, left with a bunch of now-dead flowers and a handful of extinguished tea lights, still remain as tributes to the murdered schoolboy, in this area of the capital where some of Britain's richest residents live cheek-by-jowl with some of its poorest.

It was last Sunday when Rene attended an annual pre-Notting Hill Carnival event promoted by the Caribbean Music Association, just a stone's throw from multi-million pound homes in Notting Hill.

Flyers for the event promised family games and face painting in a park named after Liberal politician and philanthropist Emslie Horniman, who donated the land to the public more than a century ago. It is known by locals as Teletubbies Park because of its brightly-coloured children's playground.

But at around 7.20pm, as the event was drawing to a close, a sudden burst of gunfire sent parents with young children, some of them strapped in buggies, running for cover. Moments later, Rene was on the floor dying from his wounds.

Rene Graham, 15, was shot in the midst of a family fun day in west London on Sunday

A red bandana, left with a bunch of now-dead flowers and a handful of extinguished tea lights outside the park

A young Rene. His mother, who gave birth to another son in November last year, is in shock and still 'trying to process' what has happened to the precious boy she referred to as 'my big man'

Within a couple of days, police had released his name and photograph.

But so too had someone affiliated to the notorious Harrow Road Boys gang, which is based on the council-owned Mozart Estate near Maida Vale, where Rene lived.

Apparently claiming Rene as one of their own, a photograph posted on social media showed the young teenager, hood pulled up, making a 'finger gun' hand gesture towards the camera.

Another, in which Rene appears to be holding a cannabis joint in his hand, is captioned 'RIP Rio'  one of Rene's nicknames  and the words: 'From the trips we took 2 to the licks we hit... love you for life n after bro'. Hitting a lick is gang slang for stealing or getting money by illegal means.

Such images are a stark contrast to those on family social media pages showing Rene, aged one, dressed in a miniature Santa outfit for his first Christmas, or as a little boy sharing cuddles with his mother and grandmother.

A relative told the Mail that Rene's family were still too devastated to speak of his death. His mother, who gave birth to another son in November last year, is in shock and still 'trying to process' what has happened to the precious boy she referred to as 'my big man'.

But as a family friend put it to me this week: 'How does a child go from a smiling little boy to being caught up in a gang war? This is not just a story about a 15-year-old being shot dead. This was a child who got drawn into gang culture and nobody was able to stop it happening.'

For while police have arrested  and bailed  four men pending further inquiries, there is a devastating sense of deja vu about Rene's death, not to mention fears that it is only a matter of time before another occurs.

His name has become one of many listed by gang members in 'RIP' social media 'rolls of honour' filled with gun, machete and coffin emojis and talk of retaliation.

And it is surely no accident that the red bandana  which is associated with members of the Harrow Road Boys  has been attached to railings at one end of a footbridge crossing the Grand Union Canal.

As those who live here know all too well, the bridge marks the boundary between two areas which are controlled by rival groups  the Harrow Road Boys and Ladbroke Grove Boys  involved a long-running turf and drug war.

'Over the water' is the phrase gang members use to refer to each other's territory, as if those living on the other side of the canal come from another country, rather than just half a mile away.

To get to the event Rene had crossed from north of the canal  where he lived  to the south.

A photograph posted on social media showed the young teenager, hood pulled up, making a 'finger gun' hand gesture towards the camera

A family member posted a picture of Rene, aged one, dressed in a miniature Santa outfit for his first Christmas on social media

The Grand Union Canal Bridge marks the boundary between two areas which are controlled by rival groups - the Harrow Road Boys and Ladbroke Grove Boys involved a long-running turf and drug war

Marvin William Bailey, aka Fredo, is a musician who was raised on the Mozart Estate and a notorious figurehead for the Harrow Road Boys

Was simply crossing a footbridge the reason a schoolboy lost his life?

Investigations into his death are ongoing, but the Reverend Sam Cross, vicar of St Thomas's Church, which borders the park where Rene died, told the Mail: 'There's a general sense of shock after the shooting but also a sense of 'what do we do now?'

'I know parents are keeping their children closer because there is that worry that kids are getting groomed and recruited into gangs.'

The danger time, says Rev Cross, are the 'lost hours' after school, when kids roam the street with nothing to do.

'That's when a lot of kids are targeted,' he says. 'Economic disparities come into play as the kids who are more vulnerable are the ones whose parents are perhaps working multiple jobs and aren't able to pick them up.'

Locals prepared to speak are tired of repeatedly expressing the same fears and the same warnings.

More children, they say, will inevitably be recruited into gangs who deal in drugs and guard their territories with threats of violence. Boys, desperate for a sense of identity and belonging, are ripe for grooming by older gang members even before they have hit their teens.

As one source put it to the Mail this week: 'These are families where fathers are often absent, where there are no role models for young men and where they aren't allowed or able to simply enjoy being children.'

One common grooming technique used by older gang members is to buy the younger boys  often left hungry thanks to a chaotic home life  food such as fried chicken, fizzy drinks and sweets.

The youngsters are left with a misguided feeling of being cared for, even loved, and a sense of gratitude to the older boys, many of whom have access to designer clothes, watches, vapes and drugs thanks to their own illegal dealing.

One mother told the Mail this week: 'It's frightening for everyone when something like this happens but my main worry is for the kids in the area.

'You worry firstly that your kids will get harmed because if people are shooting in a park in a crowd, someone could get in the way by accident.

Tributes to the murdered schoolboy were left in an area of the capital where some of Britain's richest residents live cheek-by-jowl with some of its poorest

Police have arrested - and bailed - four men pending further inquiries

Forensic officers and detectives revisit the scene the following day to piece together the events that led to the fatal shooting

'But also, you worry about these normal kids who might get involved in something without realising what it really entails.'

Another resident, who has lived in the Ladbroke Grove area for 42 years, said the young age of the children involved in such gangs is 'deeply upsetting'.

'They're just kids,' he said.

But hairdresser Rose Feliciano, who runs a salon close to the spot where Rene was killed, says that police are unable to deal with the mobs who maraud through the area, sometimes targeting shops where they break windows or steal alcohol, vapes and money.

'We don't call them anymore because the officers tell us they just get released because they're underage,' she said.

Gang rivalries in this troubled corner of London stretch back decades, with roots lying in the origins of both the Mozart Estate and the Kensal New Town Estate.

The former, completed in 1974, is a maze of 737 houses and flats in 25 medium-rise blocks linked by overhead walkways.

It won a design award for Westminster City Council but within a matter of years was being referred to as a sink estate and, later, as 'Crack City'.

Kensal New Town Estate, meanwhile, sprang up in the 1960s and 70s following slum clearance which began in the 1930s. Made up of around 700 flats and houses, it was also soon dogged by a range of social problems.

Both estates have become known as dumping grounds for poor, often single-parent families. While the Harrow Road Boys claim the Mozart Estate as their patch, Kensal New Town has the Ladbroke Grove Boys.

Locals have lost count of the deaths of young teenagers and boys from both estates, once largely as a result of knife wounds but increasingly from gun crime.

The 1990s saw a steady rise in tit-for-tat stabbings and shootings amid rising social tensions and the emergence of a complex web of alliances between gangs on different London estates

By the mid-2000s, the influence of U.S. gang culture was rife throughout the capital. The Harrow Road Boys and Ladbroke Grove Boys gangs took inspiration from such groups, choosing the colours red and blue, worn as bandanas, to indicate their allegiance.

Over the years, many of those caught up in their relentless violence have been innocent bystanders.

Members of the public visit the scene of the tragedy in Kensington and leave tributes

In 2008, 14-year-old Amro Elbadawi was killed by a single knife wound to the throat on the Mozart Estate

In May 2010, in a case of mistaken identity, 22-year-old electrician Daniel Omari Smith was shot in the back and killed as he left a fast food restaurant on Harrow Road

In 2008, 14-year-old Amro Elbadawi was killed by a single knife wound to the throat on the Mozart Estate. His father, who denied Amro was in a gang, said his family back in Egypt couldn't believe such a thing could happen in London.

In May 2010, in a case of mistaken identity, 22-year-old electrician Daniel Omari Smith was shot in the back and killed as he left a fast food restaurant on nearby Harrow Road. His mother Winnie later set up a trust in her son's name, offering financial support to encourage students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In 2011, three teenage girls, one of them holding her baby son, were shot and injured on the Mozart Estate by a group of men in hoodies on bikes who fled the scene. No arrests were made in relation to what the police said was a 'gang-related shooting'. The girls were hit while the original targets were fleeing the scene.

At the time, resident Jenny Kantinda, who knew the victims, told the BBC: 'We've had enough. The gang trouble has got worse. It's time police did something to help us. There are young children living here. Are they safe? I don't think so.'

She might just as easily have been talking about the shooting of Rene Graham. In 2011 he was two, then a sweet toddler photographed in the arms of his mother and grandmother whose family origins lie in the Caribbean island of Dominica where some of Rene's great uncles still live.

There is a feeling of hopelessness in the area. With police faced by a cultural wall of silence, many of these crimes remain unsolved.

But a landmark trial in 2022 saw three Harrow Road Boys jailed for life following the murder of one of their own associates, after initiating the shoot-out during which he lost his life.

Billy McCullagh, 27, known as Billy da Kid, was gunned down in a hail of bullets by gang rivals when his own side's revenge attack for a stabbing the day before, ended in 'crushing defeat'.

The person who fired the fatal shots was never identified, leading prosecutors to charge members of his own side with his murder. They successfully argued in court that the three men were just as responsible as the shooters for his death because they set out to cause serious violence.

McCullagh's death had been memorialised in an online music video described in court as a 'brazen and provocative celebration of his gang lifestyle'.

Indeed, the flagrant glorification of gang violence by popular rappers is one of the most problematic aspects of the warring in the capital.

Marvin William Bailey, aka Fredo, is a musician who was raised on the Mozart Estate and a notorious figurehead for the Harrow Road Boys.

Despite rapping about gang rivalries, drugs and money, he had a UK No.1 single in 2018 and has appeared at mainstream music festivals including those held annually in Reading and Leeds.

Said to have made more than 1 million from his music, he has spent time in jail in the UK for firearms offences, and is banned from Mozart Estate by Westminster Council's anti-social behaviour team.

He has been accused by prosecutors at Kingston Crown Court of conspiring with eight co-defendants to buy guns to shoot a rival rapper, Digga D, a key figure in the Ladbroke Grove gang.

Digga D, meanwhile, is in jail after admitting the importation and supply of cannabis.

The situation, then, is not just complex but a bleak one for families living on both sides of the Grand Union Canal.

Rev Sam Cross argues that there has been 'a lack of investment in young people... that leads to kids around here feeling left behind.'

He adds: 'They feel like they're not thought about or, if they are, that it's not positive or it's an afterthought. I think some of those older teenagers in gangs offer some sort of affirmation, even if it's of the wrong sort.'

He says that what is needed is more 'youth provision, opportunities for mentoring and role models. These will be the things parents are looking for as they enter summer holidays and are looking for ways to keep their kids safe and out of trouble.'

With fears of revenge attacks, there are already calls for next month's Notting Hill Carnival to be cancelled in light of Rene's death.

The Harrow Road Boys have their own sinister warning about the weeks stretching ahead.

Just a couple of days after Rene's death, one of their members posted footage of an air ambulance hovering over the Mozart Estate along with a caption.

'Going to be a hot summer lads,' he wrote.
100 firefighters and 15 fire engines have tackled a double house fire in east London earlier today.

Two terraced houses set alight on Third Avenue in Dagenham, London Fire Brigade (LFB) and firefighters rushed to the scene after being contacted just after 1:30pm.

Footage posed to social media showed black billowing smoke coming from a property and filling the street.

The fire is now under control and the cause of the blaze is under investigation, LFB said.

A London Ambulance Service spokesperson said there are currently no confirmed casualties, according to PA news agency.

LFB was alerted to the fire earlier this afternoon as aerial footage shows the impact of the fire

100 firefighters from the surrounding area rushed to the scene to get the fire under control

Fifteen fire engines attended the scene while residents were advised to keep windows and doors shut

Station Commander Darren McTernan, who was at the scene, said: 'Crews worked hard to bring the fire under control.

'Road closures are still in place while firefighters remain on scene and the area is heavily congested. People are urged to avoid the area where possible,' he added.

LFB took around 50 calls about the fire and residents were advised to keep their windows and doors closed due to the significant amounts of smoke.

A spokesperson for London Ambulance Service said earlier: 'We were called at 1.41pm today to reports of a fire on Third Avenue, Dagenham.

Emergency services including London Ambulance Service sent resources to the scene of the fire

'We have sent resources to the scene, including ambulance crews, a paramedic in a fast response car, an incident response officer and members of our hazardous area response team.

'The incident is still ongoing and we are working with our emergency services partners.'

Crews from Barking, Hornchurch, Leytonstone and surrounding fire stations also attended the scene as they attempted to get the fire under control.
The terror trial of Anjem Choudary exposed deep and disturbing links between the Islamic hate preacher and the killers of Lee Rigby, MailOnline can reveal.

The Jihadi hate preacher was earlier this week found guilty of directing banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun and now faces a life sentence.

But in the lead-up to Tuesday's guilty verdicts, the trial at Woolwich Crown Court for the first time exposed the extent of Choudary's connection to the execution of the Fusilier - including even presiding over one murderer's wedding.

Lee was run down in the street as he returned to Woolwich Barracks from duty at the Tower of London on May 22 2013 by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale - who then attacked and mutilated his body on camera.

Now we can reveal that Choudary's connections to Adebolajo run so deep that he was even present when he first converted to Islam.

The terror trial of Anjem Choudary exposed deep and disturbing links between the Islamic hate preacher and the killers of Lee Rigby

Choudary was present when Adebolajo converted to Islam at the age of 19 - after being groomed by proscribed group al-Muhajiroun - and presided over his wedding

Adebolajo, now 30, had adopted the name 'Mujahid', or holy warrior, after that conversion at the age of 19, which took place after he was groomed by al-Muhajiroun.

Choudary's trial exposed this and his many other links with the Rigby case - including a conversation in which he spoke almost wistfully about the killing.

On July 16 last year, a Canadian associate called Khalid Hussein messaged Choudary as he prepared to fly to London to visit the preacher.

The preacher told him: 'Btw your hotel is near Deptford market. I used to do a stall there with my father when he was alive.

'I would go every Saturday with him for many years so I know the area. You are also not too far from Woolwich - the famous Lee Rigby issue.

'Have you heard of the Cutty Sark?'

Hussein said he had not and was more interested in visiting an Islamic bookshop.

Tom Little KC, prosecuting, asked Choudary why he had referred to 'the famous Lee Rigby issue.'

He replied: 'The reason I mentioned Lee Rigby is that every day from the age of five to 11 I would walk down Love Lane over John Wilson Street to Mulgrave Primary School outside where Lee Rigby was killed.

Fusilier Lee Rigby was run down in the street as he returned to Woolwich Barracks from duty at the Tower of London on May 22 2013 by Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale

'It was always in my mind he was killed outside my primary school. Woolwich became on the map because of that.

'Now everyone knows Woolwich. The whole world knows about it, it became global. Woolwich has become synonymous with the death of Lee Rigby.'

Little asked Choudary: 'Did you ever meet the killer?' and Choudary told the court: 'I was there when he became Muslim.

'I officiated at his marriage. I believe then he stopped associating with anyone I know for years before Lee Rigby was killed.'

Asked by his barrister, Paul Hynes KC, if he had any difficulty describing the killing of Lee Rigby as murder, Choudary said: 'No, I don't believe it was permissible to kill him and I said that at time.

'I know he said Anjem is a noble person but I disagree with him.'

Records showed Adebolajo became a father in 2007, at the age of 23 when he apparently got two students pregnant at around the same time.

The mothers gave birth just 22 days apart after meeting him at Greenwich University in South East London.

He had started at the university in October 2003, and continued the following year but his academic progress was unsatisfactory, and he was not permitted to complete his studies.

Adebowale worked with Adebolajo to murder Lee Rigby and mutilate his body on camera

Adebolajo went on to marry Rikki Thomas, who converted to Islam.

They had a daughter in 2010 and another in 2011. Six weeks before he launched his attack they had a third child.

He also has a sixth child, whose identity is not clear.

Thomas and her two older sisters, who were all of Afro-Caribbean origin, all converted to Islam and would often wear the hijab head covering and long abaya dress, neighbours said at the time of the attack.

Adebolajo's own conversion to Islam began with an encounter with the terror group that saw Choudary convicted this week: long before it was banned, al-Muhajiroun would regularly be seen out leafleting for new members in places like Luton and central London.

The then leader of the group, Omar Bakri Muhammad, later told how he had converted Adebolajo to Islam at one of his street stalls - and immediately groomed him to share his extremist view of the religion.

Bakri Muhammad later recalled: 'We used to have a stall on the street in London where we would talk about the meaning of life with passersby. He stopped to speak with us and we invited him to Islam,' he said.

And Choudary himself told how Adebolajo attended their meetings and lectures from around 2003 until 2011.

Choudary said at the time, apparently endorsing Lee's murder: 'I knew him as Mujahid. He was a pleasant, quiet guy. He was interested in memorising the Koran.

'Some members of the Muslim community struggle to express themselves and he is making his voice heard in blood.'

After the attack, MI5 cross-referenced Adebolajo's telephone number against other subjects of interest which established that he had been in contact with them in relation to events held by al-Ghurabaa, an off-shoot of al-Muhajiroun, dating back to 2005.

Adebolajo was soon being drawn into a world of extremism and was photographed at two al-Muhajiroun rallies.

Rebecca Rigby, the widow of murdered fusilier Lee Rigby, laid a wreath at the scene of the murder on the first anniversary of his death in 2014

Hundreds arrived at Bury Parish Church in Lancashire for the 2013 funeral of Fusilier Lee Rigby

He was outside the Old Bailey in 2006 when a group of around 50 Muslims, some of them with scarves across their faces, protested against the arrest of Mizanur Rahman, who was being tried for soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred during a protest against the publication of a cartoon of the prophet Mohammed by a Danish newspaper after calling for 'another 9/11'.

Four men were arrested for fighting with police and photographers, including Adebolajo, who was led away in handcuffs.

He was also dressed in white Islamic clothes and surrounded by placards complaining of a 'Crusade Against Muslims' outside Paddington Green police station in April 2007.

He was attending a demonstration that followed the arrest of Abu Izzadeen, another al-Muhajiroun radical who was later sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail for raising funds and inciting terrorism.

Adebolajo went on to help with an Islamic street stall in Powis Street, near Woolwich Arsenal and in Greenwich, near the Cutty Sark.

At his trial, Adebolajo referred to Choudary saying: 'May Allah bless him, from what I know he's a good man,'

Just hours after Choudary's conviction this week, an attack on Lieutenant Colonel Mark Teeton close to barracks in Gillingham revived memories of the Rigby case.

And Lee's mother, Lyn Rigby subsequently told MailOnline that the incident had prompted disturbing memories of what happened to her son.

She said: 'This is just so heartbreaking, and it takes me right back to the day Lee was killed.

'I couldn't sleep for crying last night after I heard the news and when I closed my eyes, I had terrible flashbacks of when Lee was butchered in the street.

'It brought it all flooding back as if it was just yesterday. All I could see was Lee lying on the floor, fatally wounded.

'When I saw another soldier had been stabbed in the street, I thought, "Oh God, not again".'
A prison officer wept in the dock today as she admitted having an 'inappropriate relationship' with a male inmate and smuggling in codeine.

Kelsey Calvert engaged in the illicit affair while working at HMP Holme House, a category C men's prison in Stockton, in 2022.

The 28-year-old defendant also admitted taking the opiate painkiller codeine into the prison in November 2022.

Calvert wept in the dock while confirming her name, date of birth and address.

She pleaded guilty to misconduct in a judicial or public office and conveying a list A article into or out of prison.

Kelsey Calvert engaged in the illicit affair while working at HMP Holme House, a category C men's prison in Stockton in 2022

Calvert is pictured today walking into Teesside Crown Court, where she confirmed her name, date of birth and address

Jordan Parkinson, defending, and Shaun Dryden, prosecuting, spoke only to confirm the case would be adjourned while a pre-sentence report is prepared.

Judge Richard Bennett warned Calvert that the 'likelihood' is that she will receive a prison sentence but granted her bail until the next hearing.

The judge told her: 'You have pleaded guilty to these offences. You will be entitled to full credit.

'That sentence will take place on October 4.'

After an earlier hearing last month, Calvert left court draping a black jacket around her face to shield her identity, but strangely wore no shoes and walked across the pavement barefooted.

After an earlier hearing last month, Calvert left court draping a black jacket around her face to shield her identity, but strangely wore no shoes and walked across the pavement barefooted

After the earlier hearing, she draped a black jacket around her face to shield her identity

Her first offence states: 'On and before November 22, 2022 at Cleveland while acting as a public officer, namely prison staff, wilfully and without reasonable excuse or justification misconducted yourself in a way which amounted to an abuse of the public's trust in the office holder by having an inappropriate relationship with an inmate.'

The second count says: 'Prior to November 22, 2022 at Cleveland without authorisation brought, threw or otherwise conveyed a substance, namely Codeine which was specified by section 40A(2) of the Prison Act 1952, into or out of his majesty's prison situated at Holme House, Stockton.'

Calvert, of Sunderland, will appear at Teesside Crown Court for sentence on October 4.
What was meant to be a day of water-filled fun soon turned into a war of words after a Canadian family's cabana at a popular theme park was invaded by another group.

A customer to the park explained how she had booked a special cabana at the Wet'n'Wild water park in Toronto to celebrate her daughter's birthday with her boyfriend and her other child.

Priced at $200, the cabanas include two chaise lounges, patio table with chairs, couch, hotel-style safe, personal wait staff, two WetnWild Souvenir Towels and a bottle of sunscreen.

The family arrived around midday at cabana #4 and began to enjoy their day - but it wasn't long before chaos broke out.

The customer, who goes by @Libramuva revealed how her cabana at the Wet'n'Wild water park in Toronto was invaded by another group who refused to leave on the day of her daughter's birthday

About four hours after they arrived, a staff member, who had a family in tow, told them they were in the wrong tent.

Despite knowing that she was in the right tent, the mother-of-two quickly apologized and was taken to cabana #1 by the server.

In a video that has garnered over a million views, the TikToker who goes by @Libramuva said: 'When you rent a cabana, you don't just say like "I want a cabana" and they show you a random one.

'You have to select one online. You have to specifically choose which cabana you want in which area online.

'So I had done that already. So I knew exactly where my cabana was and I knew exactly which one it was. It was cabana #4 in the junior area.

'At around 4pm, my kids are in the cabana eating chicken fingers and fries with my boyfriend while I'm sitting on the outside on the lounge chair just chilling when a server comes over to me and says, "You're renting cabana #4 right? Oh this is actually cabana #1".

Priced at $200, the cabanas include two chaise lounges, patio table with chairs, couch, hotel-style safe, personal wait staff, two WetnWild Souvenir Towels and a bottle of sunscreen

'And I was like that's crazy, I've been here for four hours and nobody said anything.

'And there is a big family behind them. Immediately, I'm embarrassed and I was like "We need to move, we're getting kicked out of the spot".

'I know I was in the right spot. I specifically chose this cabana. I had been looking at their park map since May so I knew I was in the right place.

'But I'm very timid so I was like "I'm so sorry, I did not know I was in the wrong place. Nobody told us, we've been here for like four hours.'

When the server took the TikToker and her family to the other tent, she quickly realized that it was the wrong one and began showing her receipts and the pictures of where she had originally booked.

When requested by the server to leave, the family refused to move claiming that they liked the TikToker's cabana more than the one they had booked for themselves

Despite requests from the manager and the woman herself, she claims that the family refused to budge and leave her tent.

@libramuva UPDATE: I HAVE BEEN FULLY REFUNDED  Its long because i refuse to do 2 parts lmao  original sound - Libramuva

After a few minutes of back and forth, the staff member realized their mistake.

But when the group made their way back to the original cabana they saw that the other family had completely set up their stuff there.

When requested by the server to leave, they refused to move claiming that they liked the TikToker's cabana more than the one they had booked for themselves.

Despite requests from the manager and the woman herself, she claims that the family refused to budge and leave her tent.

In another video shared by Libramuva, a woman can be heard hurling racist abuses towards the bi-racial TikToker.

Minutes after a cusses-filled argument erupted between the Libramuva and another woman, security arrived at the scene and convinced the family to leave.

After the video went viral on TikTok, viewers tagged the water park to demand that they provide compensation to Libramuva and her family.

She later released another video stating that the management had refunded all of her booking costs for the day.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Wet'n'Wild Toronto for comment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly irked at Vice President Kamala Harris' 'critical' tone in the statement she made Thursday after their meeting.

Axios cited Israeli officials who said Netanyahu and his team were caught off guard by the likely Democratic nominee's comments where she both expressed support for Israel but condemned the 'dire humanitarian situation' in Gaza.

Harris made rare remarks after a meeting with a world leader, as she's stepped up her role in the White House and the campaign trail this week as the Democrats' likely presidential nominee.

President Joe Biden also met with Netanyahu Thursday - and allowed press in at the top of the meeting - but made no public remarks in its aftermath, instead allowing his VP to have the last word.

'Harris' statement after the meeting was much more critical than what she told Netanyahu in the meeting,' one Israeli official claimed to Axios.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) was reportedly irked at Vice President Kamala Harris' (right) 'critical' tone in the statement she made Thursday after their meeting

The official said that Netanyahu was upset that Harris talked about the ceasefire-hostage deal as the way the war would end.

Netanyahu wants to be able to continue fighting after the deal is implemented.

The Israeli official also told Axios that the prime minister was upset that Harris criticized Israel publicly about the killing of Palestinian civilians and the overall humanitarian crisis in Gaza, especially amid the hostage deal negotations.

'When our enemies see the U.S. and Israel are aligned it increases the chances for a hostage deal and decreases the chances for a regional escalation,' the official said.

'When there is such daylight it pushes the deal further away and brings a regional escalation closer. We hope that Harris' public criticism of Israel won't give Hamas the impression that there is daylight between the U.S. and Israel and as a result make it harder to get a deal,' the official added.

A Harris aide told Axios they didn't know what the Israeli officials were talking about and characterized the meeting with Netanyahu as 'serious and collegial.'

Harris, herself, told reporters that it was a 'frank and constructive' meeting.

'I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it was time to get this deal done,' she said. 'So to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace. I see you and I hear you: Let's get this deal done.'

The vice president started her statement by talking about how she had been a backer of Israel since her youth and then segued into the 'dire humanitarian situation' in Gaza.

Harris made rare remarks after a meeting with a world leader, as she's stepped up her role in the White House and the campaign trail this week as the Democrats' likely presidential nominee

'From when I was a young girl, collecting funds to plant trees for Israel, to my time in the United States Senate and now at the White House, I've had an unwavering commitment to the existence of the State of Israel, to its security, and to the people of Israel,' Harris said.

'I've said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself,' she continued. 'And how it does so matters.'

She said she expressed to Netanyahu 'my serious concern about the scale of human suffering and Gaza including the death of far too many innocent civilians.'

'And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there, with over two million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity,' Harris continued.

'What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating,' the vice president noted.

As the likely Democratic nominee, Harris has to take into account the thorny politics of the Gaza war with members of her party, as the progressive left has expressed outrage with how Palestinian civilians have been treated by IDF forces.

Palestinian health authorities have estimated around 39,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the war started in the aftermath of Hamas' brutal terror attack on Israel on October 7.

Hamas militants killed around 1,197 Israelis, mostly civilians, in that assault.

During Netanyahu's address before Congress Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib held up a sign that read 'war criminal' on one side and 'guilty of genocide' on the other.

The White House has pushed back on terms like 'war criminal' and 'genocide.'

'The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies,' Harris told reporters Thursday.

'We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent,' she said.

She then outlined what's on the table for there to be a ceasefire and for the Israelis to get their hostages back.

Before concluding her brief remarks, she asked Americans to view the war in shades of gray.

'It is important for the American people to remember the war in Gaza is not a binary issue,' she stated. 'However, too often the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but.'

'So I asked my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region,' she continued. 'Let us all condemn terrorism and violence. Let us all do what we can to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians and let us condemn anti-semitism, Islamophobia and hate of any kind.'

It's too early to tell if Harris' tough tone, but quest for nuance, will be enough to win back over the younger voters Biden was bleeding due to his support for Israel.

The 'uncommitted' movement saw Biden drained of around 101,000 potential votes in the key swing state of Michigan, as Democrats in the primary made that choice to express their displeasure with the president's foreign policy stance on Gaza.

Prior to her new role as Democratic presidential candidate, Harris had already been more nuanced than Biden when discussing the war.

In March, she called for a ceasefire deal to end the 'immense suffering' of the Palestinians and was critical of Israel for insufficiently getting aid into Gaza.

This week she kept an event with the historically black Zeta Phi Beta sorority in Indiana on her schedule, instead of being in Washington for Netanyahu's congressional address.

She did, however, rush back from Houston - where she had addressed the American Federation of Teachers Thursday morning - for her afternoon meet-and-greet with the Israeli prime minister.
A firefighting tanker releases retardant while battling the Park Fire in the community of Forest Ranch near Chico, Calif., Friday, July 26, 2024. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle Vehicles destroyed by the Park Fire are seen in the community of Cohasset near Chico, Calif., Friday, July 26, 2024. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle Firefighters with the Cal Fire Santa Clara Unit Pacheco Crew 2 walk along a dirt path while battling the Park Fire in the community of Forest Ranch near Chico, Calif., Friday, July 26, 2024. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle A hillside is engulfed in flames Thursday in a long exposure during the Park Fire in the community of Forest Ranch near Chico. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle Embers fly from a burning tree Thursday in a long exposure during the Park Fire in the community of Forest Ranch near Chico. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle A structure is in flames Thursday during the Park Fire in Cohasset. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

COHASSET, Butte County  The Park Fire raging near Chico went from bad to worse Friday as hot, dry and blustery weather conditions fueled the blaze, growing by tens of thousands of acres and sending firefighters scrambling to contain what swiftly became the largest wildfire in California this year.

The blaze, which state fire officials said was started by arson Wednesday, torched more than 307,000 acres of Butte and Tehama counties as of Friday evening. It destroyed an estimated 134 structures and threatened 4,200 more, Cal Fire said.

This fire is growing faster  and I hate to say it  than the Camp Fire, said Cal Fire incident commander Billy See at an afternoon briefing, referring to the 2018 firestorm that killed 85 people and decimated the town of Paradise. Theres a tremendous amount of fuel out there and its going to continue with this rapid pace.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Earlier in the day, containment of the Park Fire was downgraded to 0% after remaining stubbornly at 3% for nearly 24 hours, with the blaze growing at a rate of around 5,000 acres  or nearly 8 square miles  per hour. An unstable air mass offered prime conditions for fire whirls  sometimes called fire tornadoes  and rotating columns of smoke, according to Cal Fire officials.

Today will be a critical fire day, Scott Weese, a fire behaviorist with Cal Fire, told firefighters during an early morning briefing Friday, adding they should to expect extreme, significant fire growth and spotting potential.

More than 1,700 personnel from across the state were dispatched to fight back the flames.

Despite the massive firefighting force, some homes and structures in the community of Forest Ranch, located on the southern flank of the fire, were destroyed Friday. Garret Sjolund, Cal Fire-Butte County fire chief, said firefighters were able to hold the fire line at Highway 32 to stop it from jumping the highway and moving into the community of Butte Meadows.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Firefighters were also confronting the potential for the fire to enter two additional counties  Lassen and Shasta  if it crosses Highway 36.

Butte County prosecutors said Thursday they arrested a Chico man suspected of sparking the blaze. Ronnie Stout, 42, was allegedly seen pushing a burning car down a gully in upper Bidwell Park just before 3 p.m. Wednesday. The car fell down an embankment, sparking the blaze, prosecutors said.

An operator sprays water on a dozer trailer Thursday while battling the Park Fire in the community of Cohasset near Chico. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

The weather was expected to offer some reprieve Saturday, with a drop in temperatures from the upper 90s to the mid-80s and an increase in humidity, only to be followed by increasing temperatures each day Sunday through Tuesday.

But it was too late for the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve, where 90% of the sprawling 7,835 acres of protected wilderness area was scorched by the Park Fire as of Friday, reserve director Eli Goodsell said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The reserve, the largest of its kind overseen by the California State University system, operates as research headquarters for Chico State staff and employees, public information officer Ashley Gebb said. The reserve is located about 10 miles north of Bidwell Park, where the fire started.

A fire like this so close to our community is very traumatizing, said Gebb, adding the region has seen so many wildfires in recent years. We have lived through this. We know what the smoke plume means.

A home along Cohasset Road lies in ruins Friday after the Park Fire ripped through the community. The blaze continues to burn throughout Butte County. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Some of the buildings destroyed by the Park Fire were in Cohasset, a rural Butte County community with a population of around 850 situated in the foothills northeast of Chico. The fire tore through Thursday and into early Friday morning, leaving the small town devastated. Dozens of homes and structures were leveled by flames along Cohasset and Villa roads, although the Cohasset Store, a fixture in the community, survived.

The community  a mix of mobile homes, cottages and expansive properties with gated entrances  hadnt seen any burns through the area in decades, leaving it especially vulnerable and rife with dry and thickly overgrown grass. Firefighters said earlier in the week it could be a problem.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

They were right.

Grant Russell, a strike team leader stationed in Cohasset, said the fire went from calm to absolute chaos since he arrived Wednesday evening.

Russell said Friday that his crew tried to keep the flames at bay, working to eliminate any sources of ignition around existing structures.

It was very hectic, moving from house to house just trying to save what we could and not winning all the battles, he said about fighting the main fire front when it roared through Thursday. Were making sure that what we won yesterday we dont lose today. Were just waiting for more (firefighters) to get here so we can actually put this thing to bed.

A destroyed car is parked along Cohasset Road after the Park Fire ripped through the Butte County community of Cohasset on Friday. Jessica Christian/The Chronicle

Under a blue sky Friday, the town was otherwise eerily quiet, with patches of smoke drifting above charred land and the Welcome to Cohasset wood sign on the ground in three pieces, partially burned. All that was left of some homes were brick chimneys, stone foundations, some metal lawn furniture and ash.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Matt Branson and his 19-year-old son Zac, both of whom are private bulldozer operators working with Cal Fire, were taking a break and refueling in the parking lot of the Cohasset Store on Friday morning. The father and son, who were helping establish containment lines in Cohasset, were victims of the Camp Fire in 2018, and seeing another nearby community lose so many homes was numbing, Matt said.

The adrenalin keeps you going because youre eager to benefit the community, Matt said of the hours spent fighting the fire, as well as the nights without sleep. If you can save somebodys home, thats what its all about.

Still standing in Cohasset, thanks in part to their work, was the towns community center and elementary school.

In a lot of ways, its expected now, he said of the devastation elsewhere. All you can do is pray for a happy outcome, but for the majority, you know thats not going to be the reality.

At least 4,000 people, including residents from Cohasset and those from areas near the town of Paradise, which was destroyed by the Camp Fire in 2018, remained under evacuation orders. Many of them are staying in Chico and other nearby communities.

Frank Liuzza, 79, and his wife, Stephanie, fled their Paradise home Thursday evening on the advice of a Town Council member who advised them to get out early.

The pair, who have lived in Paradise for more than 20 years, escaped the Camp Fire after evacuating early, but their home was destroyed by the flames.

We thought about leaving a few times, but even our friends who left and spread out across the country, theyre having the same problems with floods and fires, Frank said. This was our home.

It took the couple four years  and an exhausting battle with their insurance adjusters  to rebuild their cottage. They just moved back in last year and were grappling with the woeful prospect of losing it again.

We really struggled to get our home rebuilt because of our health issues, and I dont have the strength to go through it again, Stephanie said. Gods in charge. Hell take care of us one way or another.

The full extent of the damage caused by the Park Fire will probably take weeks to assess, even after the flames have died out. Many of those evacuated expressed they had no idea what was in store in the coming days, weeks or years.

Chad Larscheidt and his parents, Sharon and Rick Larscheidt, evacuated from their home in Cohasset on Wednesday, when law enforcement ordered everyone to leave.

Im trying to prepare us for the worst and brainstorm our next step, Chad said Friday as he stopped by an evacuation center in Chico to look for neighbors.

Sharon and Rick Larscheidt bought the home in 2018 just before the Camp Fire, hoping to move closer to their son after they retired. Chad said hes spent every winter since then clearing dead trees and burning piles of debris from the property to limit the risks.

But even with that, he said he had a feeling the home is gone.

With the rising cost of insurance and Californias growing mega-fires, Chad said, his family, originally from Wisconsin, will probably move out of California.

It just takes one ember to get caught somewhere, he said, and thats the end of it.

Friday evening along Highway 32 north of Forest Ranch, the sky appeared split: dark clouds of orange and gray smoke to the north and clear blue skies to the south. Firefighters were still holding Highway 32 as the south edge of the fire, but concerns were rising that it could jump over and burn Butte Meadows, which was evacuated earlier Friday.

Our assignment is to make sure our crews are ready so that if the fire does spot (over the highway), that we attack that side, which we call the green, said Calfire strike team captain James Rauch, referring to the south side of Highway 32, which was in stark contrast to the char and ashes seen on the other side of the roadway.

Bulldozers were working to clear debris near the highway to widen the fire breakage line they were building in hopes of helping to slow down any potential flames before reaching the road. Engines were in place to try and know down flames and hand crew were on guard to attack spot fires.

The fire is so large that a lot of times it will spot, Rauch said. You can put in dozer blades and handlines and all that but it could spot up to a quarter or half mile.
A murder investigation has been launched after an elderly man was found dead with suspected shotgun injuries in a field in rural Lancashire.

The 75-year-old man was pronounced dead at the farm on Pinfold Lane in Scarisbrick after police were called shortly before 5pm yesterday.

A 29-year-old man  said by police to be known to the victim  is today being questioned on suspicion of murder.

Detectives said they weren't looking for anyone else in connection with what they described as an 'isolated incident'.

'This has sent shockwaves through the community,' one local said today.

A murder investigation has been launched after an elderly man was found dead with suspected shotgun injuries in a field in rural Lancashire

Aerial view showing farmhouse (bottom left) and the tractor where a body was found (circled)

Police in the field scan the scene in a Lancashire field

Police and scientific support officers were at the scene today

A shotgun was recovered from the scene, with forensics teams in white suits seen combing the field today

One neighbour said the shot farmer  named locally as Tom  had been killed while sitting on his vintage tractor.

Marsh Hey Farm and a neighbouring converted barn were both under police guard today.

An officer said both were being 'treated as crime scenes.'

One neighbour who knows the family said: 'It is incredibly sad.

'I have been told Tom was shot sat on his tractor.

'It was an old machine, everything around the farm was old.

'I think they were struggling a bit. Farming is a very hard game these days.

'I always thought Tom looked very downtrodden. He looked as if he was carrying the weight of the world around with him.

'It is such a tragedy especially in a rural area like this. A real tragedy.'

A 29-year-old man  said by police to be known to the victim  is today being questioned on suspicion of murder

The farmhouse, which has been sealed off next to the field

Det Chief Insp Andy Fallows, of Lancashire Police Force's Major Investigation Team, said: 'A man has very sadly lost his life as a result of this, and we have a dedicated team of officers working to establish what led to his death

Another described the family as 'very reserved'.

'We heard the air ambulance land somewhere near the farm,' the neighbour said.

'We don't know much about the people who live there, they're very closed off and keep themselves to themselves. It's so sad.'

Another described them as 'closed off, typical farmers'.

Officers swamped the area after receiving a report of a firearms discharge, Lancashire Police said this morning.

They found that a 75-year-old man had suffered a suspected gunshot injury.

An air ambulance was seen landing in a nearby field, but despite the best efforts of the emergency services, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A shotgun was recovered from the scene, with forensics teams in white suits seen combing the field today.

Detectives said they weren't looking for anyone else in connection with what they described as an 'isolated incident'

Officers swamped the area after receiving a report of a firearms discharge, Lancashire Police said this morning

An air ambulance was seen landing in a nearby field, but despite the best efforts of the emergency services, he was pronounced dead at the scene

A 29-year-old man from Scarisbrick has been arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in custody

Det Chief Insp Andy Fallows, of Lancashire Police Force's Major Investigation Team, said: 'A man has very sadly lost his life as a result of this, and we have a dedicated team of officers working to establish what led to his death.

'We know that this news may sound concerning to the Scarisbrick community, but we want to reassure everyone that it is being treated as an isolated incident.

'Both parties are known to each other, and we aren't looking for anyone else in connection with this incident.

'This is where I now appeal to you, the public, to ask that if you have any information, saw or heard anything suspicious or have dashcam footage from the Pinfold Lane area of Scarisbrick yesterday between 12pm and 5:30pm, to please get in contact.'

A 29-year-old man from Scarisbrick has been arrested on suspicion of murder and remains in custody.
The families of two Ryanair crew who died in a taxi crash on the M62 motorway in Cheshire have told of their heartbreak.

Matt Greenhalgh, 28, and Jamie Fernandes, 24, were en route to Liverpool Airport when their taxi collided with two lorries on July 11 at around 5.30 am.

The car was in a collision with two lorries on the westbound carriageway between junctions eight and seven, near St Helens.

Both men died at the scene.

The family of Mr Greenhalgh, a captain for the airline, said in a statement they were 'lost' without him but took comfort in their 'fantastic memories'.

Senior First Officer Jamie Fernandes, 24, (pictured) also died in the tragic crash

Captain Matt Greenhalgh, 28, (pictured) died in a crash involving two lorries

In response to the tragedy, a GoFundMe page was set up, and the victims' families announced that the funds raised, along with contributions from their colleagues, will be used to establish a scholarship trust to support aspiring pilots

'He was a loving husband, thoughtful son, loyal brother, caring grandson, respected colleague and valued friend,' they said.

'We have been overwhelmed with love and affection to our family, from so many areas of Matt's life, as he clearly touched the lives of so many.'

Senior first officer Mr Fernandes was described as 'so very kind' by his family, who said he had been 'living his best life' achieving his childhood dream of flying.

'We have been truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and affection to our family which shows what a special young man Jamie was and how he clearly touched the lives of more people than we could ever have imagined.

'Our darling boy was a loving son, grandson, nephew and cousin. He is the light of our lives and always will be.'

Cheshire Police reported that a 61 year-old-man who was driving one of the lorries was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving, and has since been bailed.

The driver of the taxi was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

In response to the tragedy, a GoFundMe page was set up, and the victims' families announced that the funds raised, along with contributions from their colleagues, will be used to establish a scholarship trust to support aspiring pilots from all backgrounds.

Ryanair also plans to honor the memory of the two pilots by erecting a plaque at the East Midlands Training Centre and introducing the Matt Greenhalgh and Jamie Fernandes Memorial Award, which will be presented annually to the top-performing cadet.

A link to the GoFundMe page can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/in-memory-of-2-amazing-pilots
Sonya Massey, an Illinois woman who was fatally shot by a white police officer after calling 911, died by gunshot wound to the face, a coroner revealed, as the officer's previous misconduct comes into light.

Massey was shot in the face below her left eye by Sangamon County Sheriff's Former Deputy Sean Grayson, 30, on July 6. The bullet caused her skull to fracture and perforated her carotid artery, which caused her brain to bleed, before exiting the back of her upper neck, the County Coroner's Office determined.

The 36-year-old woman also suffered from minor blunt force injuries to her right leg, the coroner said.

Massey was shot at three times by Grayson earlier this month after she called police to report a prowler. She had a pot of water boiling on the stove when he arrived, which Grayson asked her to shut off and threatened to shoot her.

Bodycam footage shows the young woman ducking and apologizing as the deputy fires three times.

Sonya Massey was shot in the face below her left eye by Sangamon County Sheriff's Former Deputy Sean Grayson, 30, on July 6. The bullet caused her skull to fracture and perforated her carotid artery, which caused her brain to bleed, the coroner said

Massey was shot at three times by Grayson earlier this month after she called police to report a prowler. She had a pot of water boiling on the stove when he arrived, which Grayson asked her to shut off and threatened to shoot her

Grayson has since been removed from the force and charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm, and official misconduct in Massey's death.

The former deputy, who lost his job over the shooting, pleaded not guilty to all charges. He is currently being held in the county jail while he awaits trial.

A faulty career

This isn't Grayson's first go with misconduct while on the job. His discharge from the Army was listed under 'misconduct (serious offense),' according to documents obtained by ABC News.

The Army declined to release further information regarding Grayson's discharge, citing the Privacy Act and Department of Defense policy that prevents the release of information regarding conduct of low-level employees.

Grayson worked as a Wheeled Vehicle Mechanic for the Army between May 2014 to February 2016 and he left with a rank of private first class, a spokesperson told ABC News.

During his time in the military, he was charged with a DUI offense in Illinois in August 2015 and another shortly after his discharge in July 2016 in the same county, ABC News reported.

This isn't Grayson's first go with misconduct while on the job. His discharge from the Army was listed under 'misconduct (serious offense).' Grayson has also hopped around various police forces, working for six agencies in four years

He paid thousands of dollars in fines for the unlawful act and his car was impounded after the 2015 incident, records show.

Grayson has also hopped around various police forces, working for six agencies in four years.

He was fired from the Sangamon County Sheriff's on July 6, the same day as the shooting.

'It is clear that the deputy did not act as trained or in accordance with our standards. Therefore, Sean Graysons employment with the Sheriff's Office has been terminated,' Sheriff Jack Campbell said in a July 17 Facebook statement.

What led to the shooting of Sonya Massey Sean Grayson and another Sangamon County sheriff's deputy were called to Sonya Massey's home for a suspected prowler at 12:50 a.m. July 6. The two officers searched the exterior of the home for 30 minutes, discovering only a car with smashed windows. During her interactions with the officers, Massey made several mentions of Jesus Christ and the Bible. Massey had placed a pot of possibly hot water on the counter on Grayson's instructions. The victim made a comment about 'rebuking' Grayson in the name of Jesus Christ. Grayson was in the living room when he then drew his firearm and threatened to shoot Massey in the face, prompting her to put her hands in the air, say, 'I'm sorry.' Massey ducks for cover behind a counter separating the two. Grayson moved closer, yelled at Massey to put the pot down and opened fire, hitting her three times, once in the head. Grayson did not render aid and discouraged the other deputy not to provide help. The second deputy, who was not named, stayed by Massey until medics arrived. She was pronounced dead at St. John's Hospital. Advertisement

In a follow-up statement on July 22, the sheriff wrote: 'Grayson had other options available that he should have used. His actions were inexcusable and do not reflect the values or training of our office. He will now face judgment by the criminal justice system and will never again work in law enforcement.

'Ms. Massey needlessly lost her life, and her family deserves answers. I trust the legal process will provide them.'

His first police job was at the Pawnee Police Department, where he held a part-time position between August 2020 and July 2021, according to the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board (ILETSB).

He also worked at the Kincaid Police Department from February 2021 to May 2021 and Virden Police Department from May 2021 to December 2021. Both were part-time positions.

Grayson held full-time positions from Auburn Police Department from July 2021 to May 2022 and Logan County Sheriff's Office from May 2022 to April 2023.

He started at Sangamon County in May 2023, according to ILETSB.

Bodycam footage

Grayson and his partner arrived at Massey's Springfield home in the early morning hours of July 6 after she called authorities.

The three spoke at Massey's front door before she later let them into her home, where Grayson asked her to check on a pot of water she had boiling on the stove.

'We don't need a fire while we're in here,' he tells the mother-of-two.

She asked the officers where they were going as she went to turn off the pot, which Grayson replied: 'Away from your hot, steaming water.'

'Away from my hot, steaming water?' she replied. 'I rebuke you in the name of Jesus. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.'

'You'd better f**king not. I swear to God, I'll f**king shoot you right in your f**king face,' Grayson said, before telling her to 'drop the f**king pot.'

The 36-year-old apologies before ducking for cover as the former deputy fires three shots.

The mother-of-two's family have since confirmed that she suffered from mental health issues with The Guardian reporting that Massey was a paranoid schizophrenic.

Flanked by civil rights attorney Ben Crump on Monday, Massey's father, James Wilburn raged about the shooting.

'This man should have never had a badge. He should have never had a gun. What an embarrassment. What an embarrassment to this country.'

According to her obituary, Massey was born in San Diego and was active in her local church in Springfield. 'She loved to do hair and spend time with her family,' one section reads. She was a mother to two children, a son Malachi, and daughter, Jeanette.
Utah's Hogle Zoo is mourning the loss of one of its black-footed cats - a four-year-old male by the name of Ryder.

Once billed as the zoo's 'black-footed cat bachelor,' he died on July 22 following a brief but severe bout with kidney disease.

He had resided at the zoo since 2021, after being sent from San Diego at the advice of the Black-footed Cat Consortium, a species survival organization dedicated to the conservation of the small class of cat.

Ryder had been weeks away from meeting his would-be mate Gaia, who had been kept in an enclosure next to his since arriving in October.

Then only a few months old, she was meant to stay there until she reached sexual maturity. Teams had been in the midst of introducing the two when Ryder's health 'rapidly declined,' and officials made the painful decision to put him down.

Utah 's Hogle Zoo is mourning the loss of one of its black-footed cats - a four-year-old male by the name of Ryder

Once billed as the zoo's 'black-footed cat bachelor', he passed on July 22 following a brief but severe bout with kidney disease

'Utahs Hogle Zoo is mourning the loss of beloved male black-footed cat, Ryder (4), who passed away on July 22, 2024,' their Thursday statement read.

'After Ryder was placed under close veterinary care for advanced kidney disease, Hogle Zoo made the responsible but difficult decision to humanely euthanize him as his health rapidly declined despite treatment.

'Ryders dedicated care team, including veterinarians and keepers, created an individualized treatment plan and worked together to assess his quality of life,' the bulletin continued.

'We discovered Ryders kidney disease during a health exam following notable changes in his behavior and weight.

'Our animal health team also performed a necropsy that confirmed his advanced kidney disease.'

The statement went on to recall how Ryder - whose species is considered one the zoo's deadliest in terms of straight statistics - to Hogle from San Diego Zoo Safari Park as a part of a breeding recommendation from the Black-footed Cat Consortium'

'Best known for his playful yet mellow personality,' his keepers wrote, 'Ryder loved the challenge of puzzle feeders and had a special fondness for scratching posts sprinkled with cinnamon.'

Tammy Walling, Animal Care Supervisor of the building where both Ryder and Gaia had resided, wrote: 'Ryder was a guest favorite in the Small Animal Building.

Ryder had been weeks away from meeting his would-be mate Gaia, who had been kept in an enclosure next to his since arriving in October

Teams had been in the midst of introducing the two when Ryder's health 'rapidly declined', and officials made the painful decision to put him down

'He loved to sleep by the glass and was often snuggled up in a spot where he could watch people.'

Gaia, meanwhile, continues her daily routine as usual, officials said - likely unaware that her companion has passed.

Officials said they will work with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the Black-footed Cat Consortium for future breeding recommendations for the feline, who recently turned a year old.

'Weve heard your pss-pss-pss, your woes about Gaia being friend-shaped, and your desire to scratch the chin of the tiniest, deadliest cat youve ever seen.

'Were not here to squash your dreams - except maybe we are,' staffers joked.

'While Gaia may be the cutest, tiniest, most friend-shaped feline youve ever seen, never forget her deadly reputation.

'What you CAN do is visit Gaia in the Small Animal Building, where you can feel all of your big feelings for Gaia internally and from afar,' the post, penned just last week, continued.

'Yours truly and happy #Caturday, #utahshoglezoo.'

The zoo posted video of his prospective mate just last week, shortly after the female had reached sexual maturity. Gaia, now one, is seen here

She continues her daily routine as usual, officials said - likely unaware that her companion has passed.

The carnivores can eat around 3,000 rodents per year in their natural habitats, and are considered one of the deadliest species of cat in the world - at least in terms of statistics

A few days earlier, zookeepers shared an equally cute clip of the spotted cat pawing at a dangling piece of wood installed in her enclosure.

'Get it, girl,' staffers wrote in response, before reminding onlookers he carnivores can eat around 3,000 rodents per year in their natural habitats.

Meanwhile, Ryder's malady was secretly occurring, and his future fate remained unknown.

Officials on Thursday added how the cat 'was a beloved member of our zoo family and an outstanding ambassador' for his species.

'To Ryders communityincluding his dedicated animal care and health teams, staff, volunteers, and gueststhank you for being part of Ryders life,' they went on to write.

'He will be greatly missed.'

Black-footed cats are found mostly in arid parts of Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa.

They can stalk their prey for hours on end, at times over distances pegged at around 20 miles.

But it's the black-footed cat's prowess when it comes in contact with the odd bird or gerbil when it really shows its prowess - flattening itself to the ground like a rug before pouncing with maximum power.

The result is a cat that can literally spring itself into the air several feet to catch an escaping bird - hence its success rate.

Considering this is out in the savannahs and deserts of some of the harshest areas of the world, this is nothing to sneeze at.

Despite all this, the black-footed cat is considered 'vulnerable' - just one step before endangered.

A 2016 assessment revealed that only around 9,700 of the killer cats are living in the wild in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, with the odd one kept in exhibits like the one opened in December in Utah.
Joaquin Guzman Lopez apparently grew tired of living with a target on his back as a member of Los Chapitos  or Little Chapos  the clan of siblings who took control of one-half of the Sinaloa Cartel drug cartel empire after their father Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman was arrested and later extradited to the United States.

On Thursday, El Chapo found a one-way ticket out of the extravagant, yet elicit, lifestyle when he hopped on a small jet with fugitive cartel co-founder Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada and set him up to be arrested in El Paso, Texas, DailyMail.com has learned.

DailyMail.com confirmed through a former Department of Justice that El Mayo joined Guzman Lopez on a flight to the Mexico City area to look for potential properties that he was going to purchase.

However, the aircraft changed its flight path and headed north into U.S. airspace before landing in El Paso, where agents were awaiting.

Zambada appeared in federal court in El Paso Friday morning and has entered a plea of not guilty to slew of drug trafficking charges, court records show.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's sons, self-surrendered to United States authorities on Thursday and in the process set up Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, by flying him into El Paso, Texas after El Mayo thought he was going to fly to the Mexico City area to look for property

Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada founded the Sinaloa Cartel along with Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman. He had never been arrested by Mexico authorities. He was arrested in El Paso, Texas on Thursday and is facing a litany of indictments for crimes relating to drug trafficking and organized crime in the U.S.

The pair were arrested in El Paso, Texas , after getting off a private plane that was supposed to take El Mayo to the Mexico City area to see properties

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, alongside his brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York in 2018 for allegedly conspiring to distribute cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine into the United States.

Retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent and Chief of Operation, Ray Donovan, who helped take down El Chapo, told DailyMail.com on Friday that it was a a smart move by Joaquin Guzman Lopez to turn himself in.

'It means that it was to it was a highly intelligent move on his part. Here he is indicted by the US government. There's a lot of violence in Mexico. Potentially, you know, change of administration with (President-elect Claudia) Sheinbaum in Mexico. Potentially, a change of administration in the United States,' Donovan said. '[There is] a lot of rhetoric going on,' he added. 'It's not a bad move if you're him.'

'You want you want a peaceful life, and you don't want to be a part of this anymore? Then, you know, it's actually a highly intelligent move on his part.'

Donovan senses that the fear of being killed at any given moment led Joaquin Guzman Lopez to betray Zambada, following years on internal strife.

'It's too much pressure, it's too much burden, and they fear death all the time,' he said. 'They fear being killed. Listen, even the top people fear being killed, as powerful as they are.'

Joaquin Guzman Lopez is escorted by U.S. federal agents following his self-surrender

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman was captured in Mexico in 2016 and extradited in 2017 (seen here). He was convicted on multiple drug trafficking charges by a New York federal court in 2019 and is serving a life sentence at ADX Florence, a super maximum security prison in Colorado

Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada founded the Sinaloa Cartel along with Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman and had never been arrested

Joaquin's brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez was also arrested in Mexico in September 2023 and extradited to the U.S. to face his own long list of charges

Donovan was behind an operation to capture El Mayo in 2014 following El Chapo's Hollywood-like prison escape, but El Mayo managed to outsmart them.

'We knew what was going on with him. We knew where he was and Mayo was smart,' Donovan recalled. 'He had intelligence that there was an operation and he ran to the mountains. While Chapo had intelligence too, he stayed in Culiacan. So, I always use that as somewhat of an indicator of how intelligent Mayo was. Mayo was sharp and he didn't stay around. He wasn't bold. The older he got, the more business-like he became.'

It's unlikely that Joaquin Guzman Lopez's half-brothers, Ivan Guzman Salazar and Jesus Guzman Salazar, will follow his steps and voluntarily surrender to U.S. authorities.

Of the four siblings, Donovan described Joaquin Guzman Lopez as being the 'least culpable' because he was just looking up to his brothers and got caught up in the family business.

'Listen, Joaquin, did he deal with drugs? Yes,' Donovan said. 'But was he really the main (one)? No, he was never the main guy. He was more like a follower than a leader. Ovidio was the big producer of Fentanyl. Ivan ran the cartel. (Jesus) had the contacts in Colombia.

'He (Joaquin Guzman Lopez) had to weight the pros and cons and I think that he made a smart decision. He wants a different life. This is it.'

Ivan Guzman Salazar (pictured), is one of El Chapo's sons now leading one-half of the Sinaloa Cartel. The DEA is offering a $10 million reward for information leading to his arrest and/or conviction

The Drug Enforcement Administration is offering a $10 million reward for information that leads to the arrest and/or conviction of Jesus Guzman Salazar

Donovan explained that the fact that Joaquin Guzman Lopez surrendered means that he had the intent of moving on from the cartel. Ovidio Guzman Lopez was apprehended in Mexico in September 2023 and is facing drug trafficking and money laundering charges in Chicago.

'It is showing good faith to the government, right?' he said. 'it's not a national self-surrender, it's an international self-surrender, right? So good faith to the U.S., that's one thing. Second thing is Mayo Zambada is apprehended. That is a big, big benefit. To me, I see it as a well-played move.'

Donovan sees Ivan Guzman Salazar joining forces with Zambada son, Ismael 'El Mayito Flaco' Zambada Sicairos, who is seen as not being bloodthirsty.

'He's not the type that's gonna be bold and willing to battle and fight for control,' Donovan said. 'So my belief is that Ivan Guzman is going to consolidate power over cartel.'
Young hairstylists are banning customers for tipping in favor of cost transparency, but the new rule may actually make haircuts more expensive in the process.

A growing number of San Francisco-based salon owners and stylists are challenging the tipping culture that has long been associated with the service industry.

Tips account for a substantial portion of hairstylists' income  an estimated 15 percent to 25 percent  despite widespread customer dislike for the practice.

While many stylists have found it impossible to separate service from gratuity, a movement toward gratuity-free pricing is gaining traction in the Bay Area.

This trend mirrors a similar shift in the restaurant industry several years ago, though with a potentially different outcome. While many restaurants faced backlash from staff or customers, stylists may be in a better position to enforce and sustain an equitable pricing model that benefits both clients and professionals.

A growing number of San Francisco-based salon owners and stylists are challenging the tipping culture that has long been associated with the service industry by opting for an hourly gratuity-free business model (pictured: Emma Maciaszek)

Tips account for a substantial portion of hairstylists' income  an estimated 15 percent to 25 percent  despite widespread customer dislike for the practice

Emma Maciaszek, a 24-year-old hair stylist who specializes in color services, opened Poppy Salon in February, allocating her the opportunity to take full ownership of her work.

'On June 1st, I will be updating all services to hourly, gratuity-free pricing,' she announced on Instagram.

The stylist said she's noticed that customers have become annoying with tipping culture in the US, especially given how often a customer is asked to tip in an establishment where they are not provided a service.

'People are so fed up with tipping culture.  It's out of control,' said Maciaszek told The San Francisco Standard. 'Plus, I want a sustainable wage and to be able to calculate my income.'

Maciaszek got rid of the 'add tip' option from her cash register, a common payment preference among people in Gen Z. Based on her eight years of experience and the expenses she incurs to run her business, the young hair stylist decided to charge an hourly price of $165 - a rough estimate to what she would earn with the average tip.

In the past, she said she charged around $285 for a set of highlights, a process that takes about two hours to complete on customers with less thick hair. With 20 percent gratuity, the total came to $342.

All of her clients receive a free consultation so Maciaszek can best assess the time a service would take based on the client's hair. For example. a root touch-up for thicker hair may take two hours at least, while fine hair would only take an hour.

The young business owner says she includes a 15-minue grace period in the event a customer's hair needs a bit more work than anticipated.

'If something takes two hours and 15 minutes, I'm not going to charge you for that 15. I'm not breaking it down by the minute. That's icky,' she said. 'You should come in and know exactly what you're going to pay.'

Emma Maciaszek, a 24-year-old hair stylist who specializes in color services, said she's noticed that customers have become annoying with tipping culture in the US, especially given how often a customer is asked to tip in an establishment where they are not provided a service

Based on her eight years of experience and the expenses she incurs to run her business, Maciaszek decided to charge an hourly price of $165 - a rough estimate to what she would earn with the average tip

Maciaszek said she thinks it might take time for more hair salons to embrace this model.

'When stylists receive cash tips, they don't always declare it [on their taxes], seeing it as their 'fun' money,' she said. 'But I want a stable income. When I want to buy a house, I don't want it to look like I've made no money because people have paid me in cash.'

Cassie Belcher, a veteran hair stylist of over 30 years who opened Sanctuary Salon in January, is also opting out of tipping. Splashed across the front page of her website reads, 'No tips, no labels, just damn good hair.'

She charges $125 for an hour of her time; other stylists in her salon charge $50 to $190, depending on experience level.

Belcher stresses the importance of transparency to her employees, instructing them to inform clients exactly how long the service will take so they know how much they're spending and why.

'If for any reason a service runs over, then [we] eat the cost,' she said, though she does ask clients to book more time for their next appointment.

But having a gratuity-free salon isn't a total walk in the park as hairstylists have come to expect the extra income. Additionally, a tipping option could work in favor for the stylists if a customer is feeling especially generous.

The uncertainty of the paycheck is the sole reason Belcher changed her model, in favor of a more predictable salary model.

'The goal is to create a more equal and fair experience for everyone,' she said. 'Clients feel relieved that they don't have to worry about tipping on top of an already expensive hair service,' she said.

Cassie Belcher, a veteran hairstylist of 30 years, stresses the importance of transparency to her employees, instructing them to inform clients exactly how long the service will take so they know how much they're spending and why

Belcher, said that while there is 'resistance to change in the industry, 'if stylists took a moment to realize how their income is being subsidized  their perspective might shift. It's a low rumble in the industry right now.'

Karrie Dies Ramsgaard, an independent precision hair-cutting specialist at Stone and Rye Salon, said that her industry has become 'broken,' as stylists are treated more 'like service providers' when they're actually 'craftmen.'

She switched over to a no-tipping model in 2021.

Ramsgaard said she understands that some clients find it difficult to adjust to the new pricing, which is essentially the same as before but with the tip incorporated.

To help them understand, she draws a comparison: 'Think of it like paying for a massage: You pay for the entire service, not just the core treatment.'

Clients, particularly those from Europe where tipping almost non-existent, have largely welcomed the change.

Katya Yoshida, owner of Capybara Hair Lounge in Walnut Creek, said she switched to gratuity-free ricing in 2021 because of the burnout her stylists were experiencing.

'Hairstylists were burning out from double- and triple-booking clients and not taking breaks,' she said. 'Many began offering services they didn't enjoy, like applying hair extensions, because of the high markup.'

She also said that hourly income allowed her to provide some of her services at a lower cost.

For example, if a client wants an Olaplex conditioning treatment that typically costs. 'The overhead evens out,' she said.

Her other stylists charge between $75 and $160 an hour.

Karrie Dies Ramsgaard, an independent precision hair-cutting specialist at Stone and Rye Salon, said that her industry has become 'broken,' as stylists are treated more 'like service providers' when they're actually 'craftmen'

Gratuity-free pricing also comes with added perks, such as digital checkout, no longer needed a receptionist, and no outrage from customers surprised by the additional costs.

Some clients insist on tipping, but Yoshida kindly turns it down, and instead requests them to leave a review of their experience.

'That helps us be sustainable long-term,' she said.

Julie Wood, 45, co-owner of Wood Salon in Berkeley, predicts that hourly, tip-free pricing will become the industry standard.

We do so much behind the chair  we are creatives, chemists, therapists, and it's physically demanding,' she said. 'It elevates our industry to move toward flat rates.'

The stylists who've gone tip-free said the switch to no-tipping has only helped their business, with most making the same if not more than before.
A former Jeopardy! champion and teacher at a ritzy New York City private school has been arraigned for disgusting crimes against children.

Winston Nguyen, a 37-year-old ex-con, has been arrested in Brooklyn on charges related to child pornography.

Nguyen, who appeared twice on the popular quiz show and won one episode, surrendered to authorities following an investigation into accusations involving x-rated photos of minors.

Prosecutors revealed that Nguyen catfished young students, tricking them into sending him explicit photos of themselves.

He was pictured in Brooklyn Criminal Court with his attorney Franklin Rothman on Thursday after posting $30,000 bail.

Winston Nguyen, a 37-year-old former Jeopardy! champion, has been arrested in Brooklyn on charges related to child pornography

Nguyen, who appeared twice on the popular quiz show and won one episode, surrendered to authorities following an investigation into accusations involving x-rated photos of minors

Nguyen taught math at St. Ann's School, pictured, a $60,000-a-year private school in the upmarket Brooklyn Heights area of the borough

The former teacher now faces 30 charges, including using a child in a sexual performance and promoting a sexual performance by a child.

Prosecutors allege that Nguyen, a former math teacher at the prestigious Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights, targeted six students from elite schools.

According to the charges, Nguyen used Snapchat to communicate with students, posing as a teenager at least 11 times in an attempt to solicit explicit photos.

Law enforcement officials have seized Nguyen's phone and other devices, which allegedly contain images of several minors.

Nguyen's dramatic arrest occurred in June, reportedly in front of students.

Nguyen has also found himself in legal jeopardy in the past.

He was pictured in Brooklyn Criminal Court with his attorney Franklin Rothman on Thursday after posting $30,000 bail

Prosecutors revealed that Nguyen catfished young students, tricking them into sending him explicit photos of themselves

The former teacher now faces 30 charges, including using a child in a sexual performance and promoting a sexual performance by a child

Prosecutors allege that Nguyen, a former math teacher at the prestigious Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn Heights, targeted six students from elite schools

According to the charges, Nguyen used Snapchat to communicate with students, posing as a teenager at least 11 times in an attempt to solicit explicit photos

Nguyen's dramatic arrest occurred in June, reportedly in front of students

Nguyen has also found himself in legal jeopardy in the past

In 2019, Nguyen was jailed on Rikers Island for four months after he stole $300,000 from a 96-year-old blind man and his 92-year-old wife, both of whom have since died.

He was hired in 2009 to assist the blind man and his wife with day-to-day tasks.

He used the cash to pay for expensive ballet tickets, Broadway shows, and trips to Florida with his friends - all on his unsuspecting employer's dime.

He worked for the pair for six years until he was finally arrested after the couple's daughter-in-law found he had stolen from them.

Nguyen would use the couples bank account and credit cards making $100,000 in purchases and cash withdrawals.

He wrote himself $200,000 in checks and then opened up lines of credit using their information to the tune of $35,000.

Nguyen had been working as a home aide for a couple in their 90s. when he stole $300,000

Nguyen stole from Bernard and Florence Stoll. Bernard died in November 2019. Florence in November 2018

Nguyen used his money to buy pricey ballet tickets and Broadway shows. He is seen at the New York City Ballet Spring Gala in May 2017

He was able to mask the theft by changing the address on the couples bank statements to his own home address. He then doctored the statements to remove any of the fraudulent purchases.

Any calls from the banks asking about the money were also blocked after Nguyen placed a bar on the couple's phone.

Following the discovery of the theft, Nguyen pleaded not guilty to 32 counts of grand larceny, possession of stolen property and identity theft.

He served jail time and probation while also being ordered to pay the money back.

Just three years later, Nguyen was teaching at the private school despite administrators being fully aware of his criminal record.
Vice President Kamala Harris took a gamble when playing up her record as a prosecutor at the start of her campaign as the Democrats' all-but certain 2024 presidential candidate this week.

At a rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she compared her Republican rival, former president and convicted felon Donald Trump, to the 'predators,' 'fraudsters,' and 'cheaters' she used to lock up.

But bragging about her time as San Francisco's district attorney and then California's attorney general may not help Harris, who aspires to be the first woman, first African American and first Asian American US President.

The 59-year-old faces criticism from left and right  progressives blame her for more prosecutions of black Californians under her watch, while those on the right paint her as a lefty activist in a powerful role.

Trump's campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Harris as 'dangerously liberal' and said she 'needs to answer for her own terrible weak-on-crime record in California' from the 1990s to the 2010s.

Kamala Harris, then San Francisco district attorney, speaks to a relative of a slain cop

Kamala Harris, then San Francisco district attorney, and the city's then-mayor Gavin Newsom, and others walk in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom March in 2004

America First Legal (AFL), a conservative legal action group led by former Trump administration officials, this week launched a volley of public records requests about Harris' time as a top lawyer in the Golden State.

The group's vice president Dan Epstein said he would 'aggressively probe' everything from Harris' failure to enforce California's immigration laws to her alleged refusal to disclose conflicts of interest.

'Each step up the ladder of her career appears marked by improprieties or scandal,' Epstein said.

DailyMail.com looks back at some of Kamala's most controversial decisions from those decades

MERCY FOR COP KILLER

Harris in 2003 became the first woman elected as San Francisco's top prosecutor after campaigning in part on a pledge not to seek the death penalty.

Her stance was tested almost immediately, when police officer Isaac Espinoza was brutally slain in 2004.

Black gang member David Hill gunned him down with an AK-47 during a routine traffic stop.

Despite pressure from several California Democrats, including the state's two US Senators, to bring the death penalty against Hill, Harris held firm and secured a sentence of life without parole.

Even Gavin Newsom, then San Francisco's mayor, said the murder 'rattled' his opposition to state executions.

The cop's widow Renata Espinoza told CNN in 2019 that Harris did not call her before announcing in a press conference she would not seek the death penalty.

'She had just taken justice from us, from Isaac,' Renata Espinoza said.

David Hill gunned him down an officer with an AK-47 during a routine traffic stop.

San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza, 29, was killed on duty in one of the city's most troubled neighborhood

Officer Espinoza's widow Renata Espinoza said Kamala Harris did not call her before announcing in a press conference she would not seek the death penalty.

MS-13 KILLER SPARED

Edwin Ramos, an illegal migrant from El Salvador and member of the ultra-violent MS-13 gang, committed a triple murder in 2008 in San Francisco when Harris was district attorney.

Ramos' gruesome killings of three members of the Bologna family  Tony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16  in a drive-by shooting rocked national headlines.

The family members were returning home from a picnic when Ramos opened fire, apparently mistaking them for gang rivals.

Harris did not seek the death penalty against Ramos, keeping a campaign promise, despite pleas from the bereaved mom and widow Danielle Bologna.

'It was senseless,' she told the San Francisco Chronicle at the time.

She said she was 'extremely angry' that the city 'didn't do anything' and urged officials to 'take responsibility.'

'And to think they didn't deport him back, knowing that he did not have papers and he was here illegally, it is a big issue,' Danielle Bologna added.

Ramos already had a record from before the triple shooting.

He'd reportedly been arrested several times as a youth over a gang attack on a bus passenger and an attempted robbery of a pregnant woman.

But he slipped through the net then because of a city policy not to question the immigration status of juveniles.

Edwin Ramos, the man who shot and killed a father and his two sons in a mistaken gang shooting in 2008, was spared the death penalty thanks in part to Harris

San Francisco district attorney Kamala Harris poses for a portrait in San Francisco, June 18, 2004.

Kamala Harris said taxpayers should finance the sex-change procedure so convicted killer Rodney James Quine could become Shiloh Heavenly Quine

SEX CHANGE FOR KILLER

When Harris was California's attorney general in 2014, she controversially agreed to a settlement that saw a transgender murderer receive a sex-change procedure on the taxpayer dime.

Rodney James Quine and an accomplice kidnapped fatally shot 33-year-old Shahid Ali Baig, a dad of three, in downtown Los Angeles in 1980.

They stole $80 and his car during a drug- and alcohol-fueled rampage.

Quine in 2009 started living as a woman after being locked up with men for 36 years, and sued the state for the 'cruel and unusual punishment' of being forced to retain the genitals he was born with.

Baig's daughter, Farida, tried unsuccessfully in court to block Quine's surgery.

She objected to inmates getting taxpayer-funded surgery that is not readily available to non-criminals.

'My dad begged for his life,' she said.

'It just made me dizzy and sick. I'm helping pay for his surgery; I live in California. It's kind of like a slap in the face.'

Harris did not agree, and backed the settlement, setting the ball rolling on California's permissive approach to transgender detainees.

Dozens of biological male convicts now serve out their sentences in women's prisons, raising the chances of rape and pregnancy among detainees.
READ MORE: FBI planning to question Trump after the

Donald Trump has appeared without a bandage on his ear for the first time since he was shot in an assassination attempt - as his doctor released an update on his recovery and responded to doubts he was hit by a bullet.

The shocking new images show that the 45th president's right ear seems to have made a remarkably quick recovery in less than two weeks since a gunman opened fire on him.

Would-be assassin Thomas Crooks, 20, fired eight rounds from his AR-15 at the rally stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, including one that ripped through the president's ear.

Blood covered his face as he was frantically pulled off the stage by Secret Service in what was a huge security failure by the agency meant to protect him.

The snaps were taken as the former president welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida for a meeting.

The pair discussed the war in Gaza, less than 24 hours Netanyahu held talks with Kamala Harris at the White House and was 'irked' by her comments on a ceasefire deal.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. it is the first time Trump's damaged ear has been seen publicly

During the meeting at Mar-a-Lago meeting Netanyahu and Trump spoke about the former president's Middle East peace deal, the Abraham Accords, Iran's nuclear program and combatting anti-Semitism in the U.S.

The ear reveal comes the same day that Trump's doctor, Dr. Ronny Jackson, gave a critical update on the president's recovery.

Dr. Ronny Jackson, who is also a Republican Congressman from Texas, released a letter on Friday saying there was 'absolutely no evidence' he was hit by 'anything other than a bullet.'

'I want to reassure the American people and the rest of the world, that President Trump is doing extremely well,' Trump's former White House chief doctor added.

Jackson's reassurance that the 45th president was hit by a slug rather than glass or shrapnel is a direct rebuke against FBI Director Christopher Wray's suggestion earlier this week that the agency is still determining what bloodied Trump's right ear.

Wray sparked a firestorm on Wednesday when he testified to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that there are still 'some question' about whether the former president was struck with a bullet or shrapnel.

'It is clear to everyone that President Trump survived an assassination attempt by millimeters, as the attempted assassin's bullet ripped the upper part of his ear,' Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., wrote to Wray in a letter sent Friday.

'This was made clear in briefings my office received and should not be a point of contention. Therefore, I urge you to immediately correct your statement and acknowledge that President Trump was hit by a bullet rather than glass or shrapnel,' the Republican prompted the bureau boss.

'As head of the FBI, you should not be creating confusion about such matters, as it further undercuts the agency's credibility with millions of Americans. Please correct this statement immediately.'

Now the FBI wants to question Donald Trump about his near-death experience when he survived an assassination attempt earlier this month.

It is a remarkable turnaround for Trump, who was shot in the ear at the rally less than two weeks ago

Trump's ear appeared to be normal after the bandages were removed

The top of the former president's ear was hidden behind his hair

It has yet to receive a victim statement from the former president as it collects evidence to investigate the horrifying event, one official said in a subsequent statement sought to clarify the Wray remark.

Jackson, who has been monitoring Trump's condition, added: 'I have continued to monitor his health and well-being, along with his primary care physician, since the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on the evening of July 13th.

'The would-be assassin fired multiple rounds from a relatively close distance using a high-powered rifle, with one bullet striking the former President, and now the Republican Nominee for President, in his right ear.'

And Trump, who's ear was pictured for the first time without a bandage on Friday, has totally refuted the FBI's questioning of his wound, saying he was struck by 'a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.'

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The meeting between the leaders took place at Trump's Florida home

The pair discussed the war in Gaza , less than 24 hours Netanyahu held talks with Kamala Harris at the White House and was 'irked' by her comments on a ceasefire deal

A former White House doctor has said Donald Trump is 'rapidly' recovering from his assassination attempt and has responded to the FBI investigation questioning if he was hit by a bullet or shrapnel

Trump posted on his Truth Social: 'There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a 'bullet wound to the ear,' and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!'

The former president's campaign also railed against the notion that Trump was struck by shrapnel as opposed to a slug.

'Anyone who believes this conspiracy bulls**t is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons,' Trump campaign adviser Steven Cheung told CNN.

During the hearing Wednesday with Wray, the director responded to questions about the 'assassin's bullet' saying, 'My understanding is that either it or some shrapnel is what, you know, grazed his ear.'

Wray also testified that whatever it was that hit Trump came extremely close to killing the 45th president.

Days after the shooting, Trump walked out to crowds at the Republican National Convention wearing a large white bandage on his wounded ear.

Trump accepts the nomination for President at the Fiserv Forum during the Republican National Convention

A large white bandage covered the former president's right ear the entire RNC

A combination image shows Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump with a bandaged ear after he was injured in an assassination attempt, and supporters and attendees wearing bandages over their ears in tribute to Trump during the Republican National Convention

The pillow-looking bandage soon caught on among attendees at the convention.

After the first day, many wore their own versions of the presidential dressing.

Trump was shot in the ear just 13 days ago.
A woman shared the uncensored truth of attending an all-deaf college as one of the only hearing students, forced to listen to noisy sex and extra loud farts the others couldn't.

In an episode of the 'Wrong Sauce Podcast,' content creator Caroline Blaike revealed to the show's hosts the sights and sounds of being one of the only non hearing-impaired students at Gallaudet University, a chartered university in Washington for the deaf.

Blaike lived on campus for the first two years of school and said she did not speak while she was on campus. Students who were deaf weren't afraid to make noise that would be considered rude or gross in an able-bodied environment.

'Everyone is deaf, you could f**k as loud as you wanted because nobody can hear you,' she said. 'But I could hear, so I heard everyone.'

Sex noises were not the only thing she heard. 'You'd be at an assembly or like some sort of presentation, everyone's just ripping a**, like farting.

In an episode of the Wrong Sauce Podcast, content creator Caroline Blaike revealed the sights and sounds of being one of the only non hearing-impaired students at Gallaudet University, a chartered university in Washington for the deaf

Blaike lived on campus for the first two years of school and said she did not speak while she was on campus. Students who were deaf weren't afraid to make noise that would be considered rude or gross in an able-bodied environment

Blaike said when others found out she attended a predominantly deaf university, they often assumed 'it must've been so quiet.'

But in reality, 'it was the loudest place because its the one space where deaf people don't have to adjust to a hearing world,' she said.

'They don't have to be aware of the sounds they make so they just do not give a f**k.'

Pictured: The host of 'The Wrong Sauce' podcast reacting to Blaike's stories

Gallaudet University's Hearing Undergraduate (HUG) program admits a select group of hearing applicants proficient in American Sign Language.

Up to five percent of hearing students are admitted to the university each year, according to the university website.

These students learn alongside deaf and hard of hearing peers and commit to pursuing careers that advance the education of the Deaf and hard of hearing community, per Gallaudet University.
Flames from the French Fire burn on a hillside above the town of Mariposa in early July. Insurance experts fear a year of massive wildfires could deplete the funding of the state insurer of last resort. Noah Berger/Associated Press

With California fire season already off to a dire start, new reforms seek to spell out just how much the states insurance policyholders could be charged if another year of massive wildfires leads the FAIR Plan to run out of money.

On Friday, Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara announced an agreement with the FAIR Plan that would increase the coverage limit for commercial properties it insures and also clarify what happens if a catastrophic fire leaves the insurer unable to pay all of its claims on its own.

The FAIR Plan is a state-created but privately run insurer of last resort that offers basic fire insurance coverage to homeowners and businesses unable to obtain it anywhere else.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

As Californias insurance crisis has worsened, the number of FAIR Plan clients has exploded. From September 2019 to March 2024, residential policies covered by the program have more than doubled, from just under 154,500 to over 365,600, according to the insurers data.

The FAIR Plan is quickly moving to be the first resort for a lot of people. Were one of the largest writers in the state right now in terms of new business coming in, FAIR Plan President Victoria Roach testified at a state hearing in April.

The FAIR Plan now carries around 3% of all home insurance policies in the state. That includes anywhere from 20% to 40% of homes in high-risk wildfire areas such as El Dorado and Tuolumne counties, according to data from the states Department of Insurance. Its left many worried what could happen if a massive fire in one of those areas results in more insurance claims than the FAIR Plan can afford to pay out.

Under current state regulation, if the FAIR Plan ran out of money, it would charge all private insurers in the market proportionally to their market share for the remaining balance. Companies could then file with the department to pass those costs on to their policyholders.

Laras new agreement directs insurance companies to split the costs with consumers. For up to $1 billion in residential claim payments, insurance companies would be required to pay half and then  with approval from the department  charge residential policyholders for the other half. The same would happen with commercial policyholders for up to $1 billion in commercial claims.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Its rare for the FAIR Plan to have to turn to private insurers for help. The deadly wildfires of 2017 and 2018 cost the entire industry around $12 billion each, according to department data, but did not cause the FAIR Plan to charge the industry.

Deputy Insurance Commissioner Michael Soller said the last time it happened was after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which caused an estimated $32 billion in insured property damage (in 2023 dollars) and is still the ninth costliest natural disaster in the country, according to the Insurance Information Institute. As a result, 93% of companies left the market, leading the legislature to remove earthquake damage coverage from a standard home insurance policy, Soller said.

Insurance companies would be asked to step in only if the FAIR Plan exhausted all its reserves, its reinsurance  insurance for insurers  and its catastrophic bonds and if it still had outstanding claims to pay, according to the department.

In addition to clarifying the payment process, Lara announced the FAIR Plan had agreed to raise its commercial coverage limits to $20 million per building, with a cap of $100 million per property. The long-promised agreement seeks to address scenarios where large multi-building developments  such as housing complexes  are unable to get the full coverage they need under the FAIR Plans previous commercial cap of $20 million per property.

Insurance companies will be allowed to charge an upfront temporary supplemental fee to their high-value commercial policyholders in order to make sure funds are available for the FAIR Plan to take on this increased liability. Soller said the exact fee would be subject to Department of Insurance approval, and any excess funds would be refunded to policyholders in 2028 once the program sunsets.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

A spokesperson for the FAIR Plan said the department agreed to give insurers 120 days to submit a filing to increase coverage limits. Once a filing is approved by the department, the FAIR Plan will then have 120 days to begin offering the policy, the spokesperson said.

The FAIR Plan appreciates the Insurance Commissioners attempts to seek balance in addressing consumer needs and gaps in the insurance marketplace while protecting the financial stability of the FAIR Plan, the spokesperson wrote. We look forward to working with the CDI on the development and review of a rate filing for the increased commercial policy limit.

The last aspect of the agreement requires the FAIR Plan to increase how often it publicly shares data with the Legislature and the department to increase oversight.

Representatives of the building and insurance industries responded favorably to the agreement. Mark Sektnan, the vice president for state government relations for the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, an industry group, called it an important step toward restoring the FAIR Plans financial stability.

Dan Dunmoyer, the president and CEO of the California Building Industry Association, said in statement that the increased coverage limits would address the issue of builders across the state, especially in wildfire-prone areas, being unable to secure adequate insurance coverage.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Commissioner Laras initiative to increase coverage limits and enhance financial oversight provides the necessary assurance that our projects and investments are protected. This reform is not only beneficial but long overdue, paving the way for continued growth and development in a more secure and predictable insurance market, Dunmoyer said.

But Carmen Balber, the executive director of the consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, derided the proposal as a bailout for insurance companies.

If the FAIR Plan gets into trouble it will be because insurance companies dumped too many Californians onto its books, she said in a statement. Those companies should be on the hook for the fallout, not every homeowner in the state.

Earlier this month, several homeowners filed a lawsuit against the FAIR Plan and the department, alleging the FAIR Plan did not cover all of the damage caused by fires.

In an interview with the Chronicle on Wednesday, Lara said that decreasing the number of policies on the FAIR Plan would be a key metric of success for his reforms.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad


Tory leadership hopeful Russell Findlay has been warned by police of a gangster plot to kill him.

Mr Findlay, who once had acid thrown in his face by an underworld thug, was informed of the dire threat on his life just days ago.

The terrifying bid to inflict serious harm on the MSP came shortly before he launched his bid to lead the Scottish Conservatives.

CID officers told the former journalist they had intelligence that his life was in danger  and the plot may be linked to the failed hit on him nine years ago.

William Burns, a hired hitman carrying a knife, threw acid in Mr Russells face as he answered the door at his Glasgow home in 2015.

Police Scotland notified Russell Findlay of intelligence about a plot to murder him

The 51-year-old father, whose young daughter witnessed the attack, managed to overpower his attacker and Burns was later jailed for 10 years. But he has a parole hearing next week and could be free within days.

Revealing the new threat in an exclusive interview with the Scottish Daily Mail, Mr Russell said the prisoner may regard him as unfinished business.

But he said the shock news that his life may again be in danger would not derail his bid to lead the Scottish Conservatives.

He said: You cant run away from this. You have to be defiant. Not in any reckless, foolish way, but they dont respect weakness.

Mr Russell also revealed that he had to tell his daughter, now 19, that another threat was hanging over him. He said she gave him her full backing.

At the time of the acid attack, Mr Findlay was an investigative journalist who specialised in exposing organised crime. He believed the motive for the hit was payback for doing his job.

William Burns was jailed for 10 years for throwing acid in Mr Findlay's face in 2015

In its immediate aftermath there was a race to save his eyesight and it took six months for his injuries to heal fully. He later gave evidence in Burnss trial.

The chilling police warning comes at a time of heightened concerns around the security of politicians. In recent years MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess were both murdered as they went about constituency business.

Mr Russell said a Police Scotland officer emailed him to request a meeting last week and within half an hour of him contacting them by phone two CID officers were at his front door.

They essentially said they were in possession of some form of intelligence to suggest that someone by the name of Russell Findlay was in danger. There was some form of threat against him.

They couldnt at that stage say it was me but, given all the circumstances, it seemed likely.

The police then told him the name of an individual who was from Paisley  the same town Burns was from.

I Googled the guys name there and then and saw a violent criminal, much younger than the guy that attacked me. I had never heard of him before, but this was supposedly where the threat was emanating from.

A few days later, the CID officers said they had now spoken to the individual and established a link between him and Burns  which Mr Russell said came as no surprise.

Mr Russell told the Mail: Its a little bit tiresome and concerning that he would regard this as potentially unfinished business, if this is what this represents. So I would be foolish to be dismissive or flippant about it, but Im not going to lose sleep over it.

He said that, through all his years as a journalist, he kept as low a profile as possible to guard against just such an attack. For years he was not on the voters roll and his picture never appeared in newspapers.

But he broke cover as he campaigned to be an MSP  and now, as he bids to lead his party, he is among the most recognisable faces in Scottish politics.

Mr Findlay remains defiant and says he is 'not going to lose sleep' over threats

He said: Being anonymous hadnt helped me. They found me. They got to me. It could have been life ending rather than life changing.

He added: If I back down and go away quietly, what am I? Safer? I dont think so.

Mr Russell said that he had signed up to a victim notification scheme following the attack, which he said was better than nothing but still left him largely in the dark.

He said: If youre someone who is genuinely fearful of the person who has caused you harm, that system is not fit for purpose, you know. I think there should be full transparency around parole.

He added: 'The system is so opaque. I think it wouldnt surprise me if someone in [Burnss] position would already be getting home visits and stuff in the community, but victims dont know that.

The MSP for West Scotland, who is the Conservatives justice spokesman at Holyrood,

launched his bid to succeed Douglas Ross as leader of his party by writing in the Mail earlier this week.

He said he wanted his party to renew its core purpose. We will reconnect with our traditional values of enterprise, self-reliance, fiscal responsibility and the rule of law.

Assistant Chief Constable Andy Freeburn said: While we dont discuss individual security details, we take every threat seriously.

We have well established relationships with elected representatives and regularly discuss security arrangements further with them.

In addition, we work closely with UK policing colleagues to ensure all MSPs and MPs are aware of relevant personal safety advice.

We thoroughly investigate any reports of threats made and take appropriate action where any offences are identified.
The boyfriend of a woman found hanging from a dock in Texas has been arrested after he gave an interview where he appeared to sob without shedding tears.

James Hart, 51, has been charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence with intent to Impair a human corpse, as reported by KHOU.

Police found the body of 30-year-old Giselle Salazar-Tapia on a boat at the Wharf Marina at Clear Lake on May 31.

Hart was arrested at the marina dock on Thursday and remains in custody on $80,000 bond.

The boyfriend of a woman found hanging from a dock in Texas has been arrested after he gave an interview where he appeared to sob without shedding tears

He told KHOU 11 News in June that he had been living with Salazar and her death was 'the worst thing that has ever happened' to him.'

James Hart, 51, is charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence with intent to Impair a human corpse

'It feels like a nightmare you can't wake up from,' Hart said as he sobbed and denied having anything to do with her death.

'I didn't have anything to do with it and I never would have. I loved Giselle more than anything in the world. We were together 24/7.'

Police said Hart was devastated upon hearing the news, and initially refused to come out of their boat to see for himself.

Investigators believe the mother-of-four's body was positioned in a way that made it look as though she died elsewhere. They think she was then moved and staged to look like a suicide.

Her body was discovered by her neighbor, Christian Allen, who found Tapia-Salazar half submerged in the water. He pointed out that one of her arms was twisted in an unusual position.

Hart said in June that he had been living with Salazar and her death was 'the worst thing that has ever happened' to him'

The victim's body was discovered by her neighbor, Christian Allen, who found Tapia-Salazar half submerged in the water. He pointed out that one of her arms was twisted in an unusual position.

After further inspection, investigators believe the 30-year-old's body positioned hanging from the dock in a way that made it look as though she killed herself, and the suspect staged her suicide

'Because of the position of her arm, we believe she probably passed away somewhere else,' League City Police Lieutenant Eric Cox told KHOU. 'Rigor mortis set in and then when she was moved, her arms stayed in that position.'

Police say Salazar was last seen alive on her boyfriend's boat at about 1.30 am the day her body was found.

Officials had previously responded to disturbances at Hart's home previously.

The Galveston County Medical Examiner Office has yet to release a toxicology report for Salazar.

The investigation remains ongoing.
Two days before Christmas in 2015 Russell Findlay went to answer his door in his pyjamas and found a postman asking him to sign for a delivery.

He took the chit to scribble his name and suddenly felt cold liquid splash on his face. Its sharp sting told him it was acid. This was no postman. It was a hitman.

The assailant now lunged at his target with a knife and, instantly aware of the mortal danger he faced, the journalist fought back.

The two of them crashed onto his driveway where Mr Findlays then 10-year-old daughter found them wrestling. She froze momentarily, then dashed to neighbours who called 999.

Even as the acid burned into his skin, Mr Findlay overpowered the hitman, rained punches on him and held him down until the police arrived to bundle him into a van.

Russell Findlay has been told by police of a fresh threat to kill him

Much of the rest of that day was spent in A&E where gallons of sterile water were poured directly on to his right eyeball  an urgent necessity, he was told, if his sight were to be saved.

This terrifying morning call was payback for doing his job. Exposing underworld criminals in the press, he had always known, carried risks.

Nine years on, Mr Findlay has just announced he is standing to be the next leader of the Scottish Conservatives - and is submitting to the first sit down interview of his life. The first, that is, where he is not the one asking the questions.

Taking a seat on his living room couch, he asks if he should be lying down.

It is a light-hearted acknowledgement that he is straying far outside his comfort zone.

But there is another, darker strand to the joke. There is much unburdening to do. Traumatic events to unpack. Worse than that, there are fears the nightmare he is about to speak of may not lie entirely in the past.

A few days ago, Mr Findlay, 51, was visited at home by two CID officers who informed him they had intelligence which suggested his life was in danger. They gave him the name of an individual based in Paisley. The mention of the Renfrewshire town had a chilling effect.

William Burns, the hitman who came for him in 2015, was from Paisley. He was ultimately given a 10-year jail sentence  but, Mr Findlay now learned, his latest parole hearing is next week. He could be back on the streets within days.

A few days after that visit, detectives gave Mr Findlay an update. They said they had now spoken to the individual in Paisley.

They were not forthcoming about the content of the conversation, which is understandable, he says. But they were able to then say they had established a link between this individual and my assailant, which didnt come as any great surprise.

To learn of an underworld threat to ones safety would make the blood run cold on any day.

But Mr Findlay was on the verge of announcing his candidacy for the leadership of his party. He would be in the public eye.

And, even as he set out his stall to the party membership, he would be haunted by a threat linked to his former life as a journalist who exposed organised crime.

Well, the timing of it is extraordinarily unhelpful, he says now. And yet planning his campaign has helped keep his mind away from the alleyways of dread which many, in his situation, might explore.

He says: I think being as busy as Ive been means Ive not dwelled on it as much as I perhaps ordinarily would. Ive thought to myself that Burns had a bad day that day. He ended up being imprisoned for 10 years. His reputation took a bit of a doing in that world.

Its a little bit tiresome and concerning that he would regard this as potentially unfinished business, if this is what this threat represents. So I would be foolish to be dismissive and flippant about it, but Im not going to lose sleep over it. And I feel rather defiant, but in a measured kind of way.

By the time of the 2015 attack, Mr Findlay had lived largely under the radar for most of his working life.

He was a successful and prolific national newspaper journalist and published author, but his picture never appeared next to his name on stories.

He was not on the voters roll. He was never on television. Few beyond friends, family and colleagues knew what he looked like. It was the way it had to be, he reasoned, as he waged war on organised criminals through his exposes.

And yet, on that day nine years ago, the underworld showed up at his front door.

Doesnt he worry that, by bidding to become one of Scotlands most high-profile politicians, he is poking the beast?

Mr Findlay had acid thrown in his face by an underworld thug in 2015

Being anonymous hadnt helped me, he says. They found me. They got to me. It could have been life ending rather than life changing.

He adds: Being public  gives you, I think, a layer of protection. Because, do Police Scotland want a dead MSP, not to put it too bluntly? Im not being gallus or thinking that Im somehow bombproof, far from it.

He is aware it is not just in former Soviet states or African regimes that crime gangs have targeted senior politicians.

The Netherlands and Malta are both awash with parliamentarians fearing for their lives after receiving credible threats.

Mr Finlay says: Yes, youre poking the beast but, bloody hell, you cant run away from this. You have to be defiant. Not in any reckless, foolish way, but they dont respect weakness. If I back down and go away quietly, what am I? Safer? I dont think so.

That said, his decision to quit journalism and stand in the Scottish Parliament elections in 2021 was not his alone.

He says: My daughter was still relatively young but mature enough to know what this might entail, and she had an absolute veto.

I had reconciled myself to the fact that I would have to go from anonymity  not that that had done me much good as it turned out  to being public and I think the trade off, the benefit of that platform and that voice against the potential drawback of being public was a worthwhile price, and then my daughter gave her wholesale backing to that.

A few days ago, the daughter he brought up as a single parent had another veto. Had she any qualms or concerns about his plan to stand for party leadership, his hat would not be in the ring.

If anything, she had unbridled enthusiasm for the idea. I was kind of hoping she would say no, he adds, laughing.

The Mail is not naming the 19-year-old whose childhood was scarred by the horrific events on her doorstep nine years ago.

But, just as her fathers facial wounds healed in time, leaving no visible trace of the sulphuric acid flung in it, so she has bounced back from the scenes she witnessed.

Mr Findlay could not be more proud of her. Tears well in his eyes as he talks about her.

I think theres a little bit of pride, which is very touching, that she sees me doing something that has largely been outwith my comfort zone, he says.

Raising my daughter was the single greatest privilege of my life. I almost sound emotional but nothing compares, you know?

He adds: I think shes got an incredible resilience. I wish nothing else than she would not have had her childhood contaminated. I strove to give her the best education, the best opportunities  whatever happened I always undertook to find the money to pay for a summer holiday. That was an absolute.

I daresay some psychologists or some such would have a better assessment than me, but you must assume that what has occurred has had some form of impact. But shes confident, shes outgoing, shes smart and shes extraordinary in terms of how she has not been, I believe, negatively impacted by any of this.

Does his daughter know about the latest threat?

I couldnt not tell her. I didnt feel comfortable telling her, but she is a young adult. She was a little bit  not upset, but quite indignant, almost like how dare they?

By necessity, Mr Findlays life was a closed book throughout his journalistic life. Now, with a potential new threat hanging over him, he is not about to fling it open completely.

He prefers not to discuss his wider family.

On personal relationships, he says simply: Ive been married twice and divorced twice, so Im not very good at that stuff. Im not planning to get married again.

Is he in a relationship right now?

No, Im not. I have found this job to be so full-on that Ive really not had the time or, frankly, Ive really not had the inclination. I think when you get to a certain age, having been through the wars a wee bit, I just feel Im not in any great rush to get into any form of serious relationship.

The leadership candidate presents a curious conundrum. As a top journalist, admired and respected throughout his trade, he developed the kind of hinterland which is sorely missing among so many of todays career politicians.

He knows the criminal justice system inside out and brings a multitude of transferrable skills to the table in the Scottish Parliament.

Yet there are limits to what he can share of his back story.

He offers that he attended Douglas Academy in Milngavie, Dunbartonshire where he excelled more in rugby than in academia.

At home, he read newspapers voraciously  from cover to cover, including the classifieds  and, before leaving school, already had work experience at his local paper under his belt.

That helped earn him a place on a two-year journalism course at the then Napier polytechnic in Edinburgh. When we went back for year two after the summer it was Napier University, so I suddenly felt cleverer, he laughs.

He landed a job on the now defunct freesheet The Glaswegian and, within a few months, masterminded an expose on a tenants association boss who was selling for profit tinned beef which was meant to be distributed free to people in deprived areas.

On the back of the scoop, he was offered a job on the Sunday Mail and his investigative journalism career was off and running.

Party politics rarely crossed his radar and his absence from the voters roll meant he didnt have a say anyway. I effectively disenfranchised myself on the basis of personal safety, he says. I was a blank canvas.

That changed in the run up to the independence referendum in 2014  in which he decided he would vote.

He says: I listened to all the arguments and weighed them up. I think I was instinctively No, but I didnt go into it with a closed mind. Very quickly it became apparent that this was an absolute snake oil exercise.

'The benefits of being in the UK are demonstrably compelling and I thought  naively  after the result, having done my civic duty and voted No, that that would be that. And I watched in astonishment the very next morning the way in which the SNP refused to accept the democratic will of the Scottish people.

Over the next few years, he began to wonder if he could address the issues he cared most about  exploitation of the vulnerable by organised crime, inadequacies in the criminal justice system, spiralling drugs deaths  more effectively as a politician than as a journalist.

His election as a list MP in 2021 prompted a rapid ascendancy through the line of succession of potential party leaders. Almost immediately, colleagues identified him as a future candidate for the top job.

People had said to me  friends, associates  they said to me when I became an MSP, Oh, youll be the leader quite early on. I was saying Shut up, will you? This is ridiculous, but as time passed, more people were saying this.

When current leader Douglas Ross announced he was vacating the role, the nudges from colleagues became more insistent. People were much more seriously saying you should do this or we want you to do this or you need to do this, but you have to want to. Its your decision.

The decision  a joint one, it turns out, between father and daughter  is now made. Mr Findlay says he did not tell the CID who visited him he was considering running for the job. It was not confirmed/official and did not seem particularly relevant to the situation.

He has, however, flagged the threat with security at the parliament and with the Police Scotland officer with responsibility for MSP security.

He was offered a home visit from an officer with counter terrorism expertise to appraise his home and personal security.

To an extent, however, it is situation normal for a man who has long known he has highly dangerous enemies.

His home, he says, has security measures that an ordinary home probably wouldnt have and he goes about his business in a state of almost hyper vigilance.

One positive effect of the attack is it prompted a big stock-take of his life.

He vowed to get fitter, to cycle more and to re-hang the punchbag that lay dismantled in his garage. He now regularly slips on box gloves and pounds away at it.

I am perhaps more conscious of fitness, he says. Its maybe an age thing as much as what happened.

His bike, he says, has become his main mode of transport. All the more so since his diesel car is non-LEZ compliant in his home city of Glasgow.

Given that the newly- introduced low emission zone in Edinburgh takes in the Scottish Parliament, he could not drive to work even if he wished to. He commutes by train.

As the conservation turns to down-time pursuits the politician seems thankful for frivolitys respite.

He is a huge fan of Scottish comedian Kevin Bridges  hes just absolutely hilarious  and once approached him in a Morrisons supermarket to tell him so. It was probably not what he wanted me to do.

And he is expansive on multi-series dramas such as The Sopranos and Breaking Bad which feature American versions of the hoodlums he has spent much of his working life exposing.

He says these shows largely get it right, depicting broken, desperate characters, but he rails against the lazy glamorisation of organised criminals in lesser series.

They are bloodsucking, parasitical, venal, corrupt, animals who profit from exploiting the most vulnerable people in society, he says. I would just like to be very careful that when you are telling it, you are not adding a sheen of excitement or glamour to it.

More than most, this remarkable politician understands the malign influence of real-life organised crime. He has grappled against it in newsprint and once with his bare hands at his front door.

Running away now is not an option.
Bystanders armed themselves with anything they could to fend off two pit bull mixes as they brought a boy to the verge of death.

A recent court filing disclosed the harrowing detail, as 3-year-old Minnesotan Covil Allen's fate is all but sealed.

The court document also revealed the dogs were not full pit bulls, but a mix between a pit and an American bulldog.

Known as American bullies, the dog's breed boasts especially powerful jaws that inflict more damage than those of any other breed.

This likely proved fatal for Covil, who remains in critical condition. His family has made the difficult decision to donate his organs when they decide to take him off life support, as they said he is not expected to survive. His mom was injured during the July 19 attack as well, but will recover.

Three-year-old Covil Lee and his father are seen before the attack that has left him on the verge of death, on life support

A recent court filing disclosed the harrowing detail, as the young Minnesotan's fate is all but sealed

'There were adults in the area that started to defend the three-year-old by using hammers and pick axes to get the dogs off the three-year-old,' the filing said following the incident on N. Brooklyn Park Drive.

First responders arrived and gave immediate medical attention to the boy, the filing added - describing how he was subsequently taken by ambulance to a hospital with 'critical' injuries.

Police Inspector Elliot Faust went on to write how the dogs were not only just American bullies, but those of 'the XL variety,'

He noted how 'this breed is banned in the UK,' despite them not being officially recognized as a specific breed.

They are described as dogs having 'a muscular body and blocky head' - bred so they stand to a staggering 23 inches tall at times, compared to a 'classic' bully's 17 to 20 inches.

They were banned in England and Wales back in 1991, with a similar guidance in the works in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

NHS consultant Richard Baker afterwards said the dogs' powerful jaws inflict more damaging wounds than any other, regularly resulting in broken bones, shredded skin and damaged nerves.

Such was the case for Covil and his mother Tasha Vega last week, when they visited a home on the 7500 block of N. Brooklyn Park Drive where the dogs were for sale.

Also revealed was the fact the dogs were a mix between a pit and an American bulldog known as an American Bully. Moreover, the dogs were of the XL variety, the biggest there is

The attack saw the two mutts savage the boy and his mom until onlookers were able to kill one of the dogs and injure the other. The surviving dog was taken to an animal care facility, where it was later put down

One of them attacked Covil in the backyard, after which a second one joined in, cops said.

Faust went on to reveal how conversations were already underway with city leaders about the attack, writing, 'It's a problem in our community.

'We had more potentially dangerous dogs this year than we did last year.'

His comments appeared to reference how on Tuesday, a 7-year-old girl was attacked on the 7500 block of N. Janelle Avenue just a few miles away.

The girl suffered superficial injuries, according to cops, who added officers killed the dog when it then tried to attack a boy.

Officials said the dog was loose when it attacked the girl, as was the case with the attack on Covil.

It saw the two mutts savage the boy and his mom until onlookers were able to kill one of the dogs and injure the other. The surviving dog was taken to an animal care facility, where it was later put down.

As for Covil, he remains in critical condition - with his family on Wednesday revealing they had begun the painful process of preparing to donate the boy's organs.

As for Covil, he remains in critical condition - with his family on Wednesday revealing they had begun the painful process of preparing to donate the boy's organs. As of the family's latest update Friday, he remained alive

They shared a heartbreaking still of relatives' hands over the boy's body in his hospital bed, where he remained hooked up to a series of tubes on the brink of death.

His mom has had had two surgeries and third on the way to repair her calf, with a skin graft needed as well

In the interim, Faust said, detectives are working toward presenting a case to prosecutors 'in the near future for their review,' along with the other dog bite incident this week.

The boy's family have already said their goodbyes, as they plan to donate his organs in the coming days when he is taken off life support.

They said doctors have discerned his injuries were too severe for him to survive.

As of the family's latest update Friday, he remained alive.

A GoFundMe started by the family has so far raised $46,261 toward its $50,000 goal.

'This will honor Covils life and save more childrens lives in hopes that no other parent has to endure the pain that they are experiencing right now,' organizers wrote.

Sharing a series of photos of the tot, they added Friday, 'You are so loved Covil.'


Donald Trump was hit by a bullet during the attempt on his life two weeks ago, a Dailymail.com analysis shows.

Evidence, including from forensic and ballistic experts, shows the former president was hit in the ear by the first of eight rounds fired by would-be assassin Thomas Crooks at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13.

It comes after FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional hearing on Wednesday there was 'some question about whether or not it's a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.'

Two weeks after the attack Trump appeared without a bandage on his right ear for the first time on Friday, and his former doctor said he is 'rapidly recovering'.

The FBI still has questions over whether Trump was struck by shrapnel or by a bullet, but the former president has railed against that, saying he surely was hit by a bullet

Donald Trump is seen on Friday July 26 without a bandage on is right ear for the first time since he survived an assassination attempt two weeks earlier

Crooks, 20, used a PMS-brand AR rifle to shoot 5.56 ammunition in the assassination attempt.

Rounds fired from such a weapon can, if they hit something, splinter into fragments.

That led to speculation the bullet could have hit an object, like a metal bar supporting the stage or bleachers, with a piece of shrapnel then flying off and hitting Trump.

However, Crooks had a clear unobstructed line of sight at the president with no objects close to being in the way.

The path of the initial bullet was captured in a 'one in a million' photograph just after it had passed Trump's head, and then in another piece of video hitting the bleachers directly behind him.

Analysis by forensic audio expert Steve Beck showed Trump grabbed his ear immediately after the 'crack' of the first bullet was picked up as it passed his microphone.

The 'crack' of the second bullet was then heard 0.867 seconds later, he told Dailymail.com.

In all Crooks got off eight shots in 5.2 seconds.

Wray confirmed the FBI had recovered three 'explosive devices' in possession of Crooks

There was an initial volley of three rounds, then a brief pause when Trump hit the floor, followed by a more rapid burst of five shots.

Then, 0.3 seconds after Crooks' eighth and final shot, a round was fired by a Secret Service agent from near the stage.

It appears to have incapacitated or killed Crooks as he stopped shooting.

Ten seconds later there was another shot from a different weapon, believed to have been fired by another Secret Service agent or law enforcement officer.

Audio analysis shows Crooks was 380ft away from where the sound of the bullets was picked up by Trump's microphone.

After the first bullet proceeded beyond Trump it could be observed, in a video published by the New York Times, creating a puff as it thudded into the bleachers close to rally-goer David Dutch.

Dutch appeared to be hit by one of the follow-up shots in the first burst of three shots.

In the second burst of five shots rally-goer Corey Comperatore, a heroic father and firefighter, was killed as he shielded his family.

Beck said decreasing time gaps between shots showed the gunman appeared to have aimed most precisely with his first one.

The gap between the second and third shots went down to 0.67 seconds, and then even less.

'The gunman had the best aim in the first shot so so you would expect it came closest to hitting,' he said.

After the first three Crooks 're-aimed' and then started 'pulling the trigger as fast as he could.'

Beck said he did not hear the sound of the first bullet hitting any other object before Trump grabbed his ear.

However, if the bullet had hit something else first, then the sound would not have registered on Trump's microphone because, at that moment, he would have still been talking.

In order for there to have been shrapnel, the FBI would need to discover that the bullet hit something 'hard' before reaching Trump, causing it to break up, ballistics expert Nathan Foster told Dailymail.com.

If that had happened, then the injury to Trump's ear would be 'jagged,' tearing an 'irregular shaped wound,' rather than punching a hole though it, he said.

There was also no way to reconcile a shrapnel injury with the photograph of the bullet's path taken by New York Times photographer Doug Mills.

Investigators found eight shell casings near Crooks' body on the roof he fired from 380ft away.

FBI experts are expected to analyze the trajectory of the bullets as they put together a forensic picture of the shooting.

Another early theory was that a bullet could have hit one of the two glass teleprompter screens in front of Trump, with the former president then being hit by flying debris.

However, the teleprompters were visible and undamaged after the shots were fired.

Congressman Ronny Jackson, Trumps former physician, lambasted Wray on Friday.

He said: 'During the congressional hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass.

'There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet.

'Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.'

U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson who was formerly the physician to President Trump in the White House

He said Butler Memorial Hospital had treated Trump for what it called a Gunshot Wound to the Right Ear.'

He added: 'Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors and nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting.'

Meanwhile, Trump on Friday appeared without a bandage on his ear for the first time since the shooting as he hosted Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago.

Expressing outrage with Wray, he said: 'No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel.'
The SNP is home to a culture of hate and heading for opposition, one of its most prominent figures has said amid the partys civil war.

In a brutal assessment, former MP Joanna Cherry, KC, said the state of the party was profoundly depressing and it was no wonder we are putting voters off.

Announcing she was stepping back from frontline politics, she said the SNP must not ignore the enormity of its general election defeat, when it lost 39 of 48 seats won in 2019.

Unless the party confronted why its vote crashed from 1.2million to 725,000, it would suffer another rout at the 2026 Holyrood election.

Challenging John Swinneys response to date, she said: I dont sense any great appetite on the part of the leadership of the party to do this properly.

Joanna Cherry has been highly critical of the SNP since losing her seat at the General Election

The Scottish Conservatives called Ms Cherrys comments a damning indictment of a party rotted to its core after 17 years in power.

The MP for Edinburgh South West from 2015 until losing to Labour on July 4, Ms Cherry was an outspoken critic of the SNPs gender reforms and independence strategy.

Writing in the National, she said she received some real pelters from others in the party, some highly personal and hard to take.

She wrote: A culture of hate against those who dare to disagree has been allowed to flourish in the SNP without anyone in authority having the courage to address it and it has poisoned our discourse and prevented proper debate.

She said if she had foreseen the level of abuse and harassment she would endure from colleagues she would not have left her legal career, but did not regret being an MP.

Ms Cherry has also been critical of former leader Nicola Sturgeon, especially over gender issues

The partys deafening silence over the conviction of former SNP branch equalities officer Cameron Downing for serious sexual assaults was also shameful, she said.

I am of course now free to stand for Holyrood, but eternal opposition is not for me, and opposition is where the SNP are heading at present.

'I went into elected politics to try and change things not to carp from the sidelines.

Tory MSP Annie Wells said: That one of the partys most prominent politicians has suffered years of abuse for daring to question the SNPs direction on certain issues demonstrates how ugly this civil war has become.

'The sooner Scotland sees the back of this wretched SNP government the better.

The SNP was approached for comment.
A senior Metropolitan Police officer responsible for drawing up the force's anti-drugs strategy - but who was sacked after he refused to provide a drugs sample himself - was today successful in having the decision quashed.

The Independent Police Appeals Tribunal has overturned the decision to sack former Met Police Commander Julian Bennett, who served in the force from 1976.

He was originally found to have committed gross misconduct by failing to provide a urine sample for a drugs test on July 21, 2020.

But this week he launched an appeal against both the gross misconduct finding and his sacking.

On Friday, the independent Police Appeals Tribunal quashed the dismissal decision and ordered a new hearing.

Met Police Commander Julian Bennett has today seen his dismissal and finding of gross misconduct - after he refused to take a drugs test - overturned after a decision by The Independent Police Appeals Tribunal

Mr Bennett, pictured in 2022, was originally found to have committed gross misconduct by failing to provide a urine sample for a drugs test on July 21, 2020

The senior officer, pictured at a hearing last August, said he had been taking CBD (cannabidiol) to treat facial palsy and was worried the sample would come up positive for an innocent reason

Met Police assistant commissioner Matt Twist said he was 'very concerned' by the decision and that the force would be looking to challenge it.

He added that his colleagues and the public would be 'appalled' that a final decision on Mr Bennett had not been arrived at.

Assistant Commissioner Twist also confirmed that his formerly dismissed colleague would not be returning to duty at this time.

On a social media post, he said: 'I am very concerned by this decision and I have no doubt that the public and hardworking colleagues across the Met will be appalled that this case remains unresolved after such a long time.

'It very clearly illustrates why reform of the misconduct process is so needed and why the Met has been calling for urgent change.

'We await the written decision before determining our next steps, but we are actively considering a challenge by way of judicial review.

'Senior officers are expected to lead by example and Mr Bennett will not return to duty whilst we consider our options.'

Mr Bennett, who joined the force in 1976, had previously been cleared by a disciplinary panel of using cannabis at home in late 2019, but was found to have failed to provide a urine sample for a drugs test on July 21, 2020.

As a result, he was suspended on full pay in July 2021 while police authorities began an investigation, which concluded at the end of October.

It was found that Mr Bennett's actions in refusing the drug test amounted to gross misconduct and he was dismissed.

His former flatmate Sheila Gomes claimed Mr Bennett had used the illicit substance daily before breakfast and leaving for work at New Scotland Yard, but the three-person panel rejected that allegation.

The panel also rejected an allegation that he had given an explanation for refusing a sample which he 'knew to be untrue'.

'Very concerned': Met Police assistant commissioner Matt Twist said the force would be looking to challenge today's decision

In a social media post on X, Met Police assistant commissioner Matt Twist said his colleagues and the public would be 'appalled' that a final decision on Mr Bennett had not been arrived at

After Ms Gomes reported Mr Bennett in July 2020, he was called in and, in the presence of an assistant commissioner, was asked to provide a sample. He offered to resign on the spot instead.

Mark Ley-Morgan KC, representing the Metropolitan Police, said it would have smacked of 'organised corruption at the highest level' if Mr Bennett had been allowed to resign on the spot.

The senior officer said he had been taking CBD (cannabidiol) to treat facial palsy and was worried the sample would come up positive for an innocent reason.

During the tribunal in Southwark, south London, Mr Bennett's lawyer John Beggs KC branded Ms Gomes a 'liar' and a 'fantasist' who he said wanted to write a book about the claims and make money.

The tribunal also heard Ms Gomes was engaged in litigation about another matter and had litigated in Portugal, where she was born.

Mr Beggs also claimed she was being inconsistent by claiming she had seen a newspaper cutting mentioning Mr Bennett that did not refer to his work and said she had given an inconsistent account about whether the senior officer was smoking cannabis 'from day one' on moving in.

Mr Bennett wrote the force's drugs strategy for 2017-21 as a commander for territorial policing (Pictured: Scotland Yard)

By failing to provide the sample, Mr Bennett was found to have breached force standards for honesty and integrity, orders and instructions and discreditable conduct.

His actions were found to have amounted to gross misconduct.

Mr Bennett wrote the force's drugs strategy for 2017-21 as a commander for territorial policing.

The document called Dealing With The Impact Of Drugs On Communities, set up plans to raise 'awareness of the impact of drug misuse'.

Freedom of information requests showed Mr Bennett presided over 74 police misconduct hearings involving 90 officers between June 2010 and February 2012.

Out of the hearings involving Mr Bennett, 56 officers were dismissed - more than three-quarters.

He chaired 69 hearings during that time and two officers were dismissed for drug misuse, the figures showed.

Allegations that he took magic mushrooms on holiday in France and LSD at a party were dismissed as hearsay by the panel during the summer's tribunal hearing.

Those claims were made by Hugo Pereria, who lived with the complainant Sheila Gomes and Mr Bennett in late 2019, but the tribunal was told he 'always lied' before the panel threw out the claims.

Panel chairman Akbar Khan said: 'It is highly improbable the officer believed he had a good reason for failing to comply with a lawful order.

'Harm has undoubtedly been caused to the reputation of the Metropolitan Police Service.'

He added that Mr Bennett most likely decided to involve the ex-commissioner 'to secure for himself high-level cover to deflect inevitable criticism and embarrassment that would come his way'.

The chairman also said that 'if the goal of resignation was to avoid embarrassing' the Met this was 'unlikely to be achieved'.

Mr Khan said Mr Bennett's behaviour was 'deliberate and intentional, seeking a personal advantage or special treatment from the commissioner' and that he would have had a 'unique insight' into what would have been a good reason to refuse a sample.

Outlining the panel's reasons for sacking Mr Bennett, Mr Khan said he had 'shown limited insight regarding the proven conduct'.

He said this may lead the public to be 'concerned his mindset demonstrates an attitude of one rule for senior officers and a different rule for a lower rank officer'.

Speaking of Ms Gomes's claims, the panel chairman said she 'exaggerates', 'lies' and that some of her claims were 'entirely fabricated'.

He added: 'Overall, the panel finds Sheila Gomes's account to be unpersuasive and lacking in cogency.

'Of particular importance are the panel's findings that Sheila Gomes exaggerates and has lied significantly damages her credibility and reliability.

Commander Julian Bennett (pictured), who served in the force since 1976, was found to have failed to provide a urine sample for a drugs test in July 2020 and was dismissed last year

'It is highly improbable that the officer smoked cannabis daily.'

By failing to provide the sample, Mr Bennett was found to have breached force standards for honesty and integrity, orders and instructions and discreditable conduct.

Assistant Commissioner Barbara Gray said at the time of his dismissal in October 2023: 'Julian Bennett's actions were deplorable. He was a senior officer and showed complete disregard and disrespect for the standards we must all uphold.

'The public will justifiably be outraged that any police officer, but particularly one of such a senior rank, refused a lawful order to take a drugs test.

'Commander Bennett was highly experienced and knew full well what was required of him, yet he made a choice not to cooperate. He could have been in no doubt of the professional standards required as he was responsible for chairing the misconduct hearings of numerous officers between 2010 and 2016.

'His actions have further damaged not only the public's trust in us as an organisation, but also the confidence of our own officers and staff in those who lead them.

'The hearing panel was entirely independent of the Met Police, chaired by a legally qualified chair, a senior member of His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services and an independent panel member.

'Throughout the proceedings no police officer was on the panel.

'It is hard to comprehend that it has taken more than three years for this case to conclude. We welcome the Home Office's recent police dismissals review which aims to address some of the pressing issues that have arisen in this case and many others.

'In the last year the Met has been making greater use of accelerated misconduct hearings to fast track cases where the evidence is irrefutable. This allows us to dismiss officers far more quickly.'
A Salt Lake City worker's simple mistake costed a neighborhood 200 trees, outraging the community.

Tony Hazelbaker, the director of the city's park division, said the worker responsible for the death of 175 trees in the Fairview neighborhood was devastated when he realized what went wrong.

Last year, the worker sprayed Milestone, a common herbicide, on the base of the trees. What he didn't know was that the chemical he used was designed to kill invasive species of weeds.

Fast-forward to this summer, locals started noticing the leaves on the trees beginning to shrivel and die. The city's urban foresters determined the Milestone was the culprit, and are now working to reverse the damage on the remaining trees that are still alive.

'We're going to try to save everything we can,' Hazelbaker told ABC4.

A Salt Lake City worker's simple mistake cost a neighborhood 200 trees, outraging the community

Last year, the worker sprayed Milestone, a common herbicide, on the base of the trees. What he didn't know was that the chemical he used was designed to kill invasive species of weeds

The dead trees are still standing as of Thursday, but whether or not the herbicide is still present in the soil is unclear.

One possible solution to save the trees involves temporarily planting medium-sized shade trees in large planters filled with fresh soil until the ground is clean and they can be replanted, which could happen as early as fall.

The city is currently getting quotes for how much the aforementioned restoration effort would cost.

Pictured: Map of the affected areas in the Fairpark neighborhood

One possible solution to save the trees involves temporarily planting medium-sized shade trees in large planters filled with fresh soil until the ground is clean and they can be replanted, which could happen as early as fall

'Right now, of course, the shade canopy along North Temple has been reduced, which, especially on the west side, especially in this heat, is a sad thing to see,' Hazelbaker said.

'The area is not as beautiful as it could be. We're looking to have the trees removed fairly soon.'

The Fairpark Community Council said they were 'heartbroken' about the dying trees and encouraged the community to reach out with questions or concerned, per a their Facebook post.

Fairpark has been historically hotter than other neighborhoods in Salt Lake City because of their lack of canopy shade.

Fast forward to this summer, locals started noticing the leaves on the trees beginning to shrivel and die. The city's urban foresters determined the Milestone was the culprit, and are now working to reverse the damage on the remaining alive trees

The dead trees are still standing as of Thursday, but whether or not the herbicide is still present in the soil is unclear

To address this pre-existing issue, Mayor Erin Mendenhall initiated a five-year plan to plant 1,000 trees annually on the city's west side.

Stricter protocols have since been implemented for herbicide use, including enhanced training for certified applicators and a fortified inventory control system involving both supervisors and warehouse staff, following the herbicide incident.

The city's human resources department will handle any disciplinary action against the employee responsible for the herbicide mishap, as the investigation is ongoing.
This is the moment a man was busted after his brother paid him off to murder his estranged wife in Brazil.

Rodrigo Xavier was taken into custody at his home in Nova Mutum on Wednesday, almost a week after he received $708 dollars to kill Raquel Cattani, the daughter of Mato Grosso Congressman Gilberto Cattani, police revealed.

Rodrigo's brother Romero Xavier allegedly plotted the murder and was apprehended the home of Raquel Cattanis family during an operation Wednesday.

The siblings are facing aggravated homicide charges.

Guilherme Pompeo, who is leading the Civil Police investigation, told reporters on Thursday that Rodrigo Xavier used $265 of the blood money to cover the down payment of car.

Raquel Cattani, the daughter of Brazilian congress member Gilberto Cattani, was murdered at her home July 18. Police have arrested her estranged husband and his brother

Authorities alleged that Romero Xavier plotted the murder of Raquel Cattani, the mother of the couple's six-year-old son and three-year-old daughter

Rodrigo Xavier is led out of his home by police on Wednesday. He told investigators that his brother paid him 4,000 Brazilian reals, around $708 to kill his sister-in-law

Rodrigo Xavier broke into the farmhouse the evening of July 18 and hid in one of the rooms before he attacked his sister-in-law and stabbed her 34 times.

'The dynamics identified, precisely through Rodrigos interrogation, is that he remained at the location during the day and stayed there until dusk,' Nova Mutum police officer Edmund Barros Jr. told said during the press conference.

'He broke the window of the childrens room, entered and stayed there waiting for the victim to arrive. After the victim arrived, he surprised her and began to strike her in several areas.'

The Mato Grosso Civil Police said that Romero Xavier and Raquel Cattani were in the process of getting a divorce and had been separated for 30 days.

Romero Xavier approached his brother, with whom he didnt have a close relationship, and orchestrated the murder because he was upset his wife and mother of his six-year-old son and three-year-old daughter no longer wanted to be with him.

Raquel Cattani had told a friend on July 15 that Romero Xavier had threatened to kill her unless they got back together.

On July 15, Raquel Cattani had told a friend that her estranged husband had threatened to kill her. The 26-year-old mother of two children was murdered July 18 by her brother-in-law, who confessed to the police

Raquel Cattani with her father, Brazilian Congressman Gilberto Cattani

Rodrigo Xavier became nervous as law enforcement agents questioned him about his sister-in-laws murder before he confessed to killing her.

Police said that he dumped his cell phone, his sister-in-laws motorcycle and the knife used to commit the crime in a river in the town of Lucas do Rio Verde.

Rodrigo Xavier broke the window of his nieces and nephews room in the farmhouse and left a television on  signs that the police believed was a staged home invasion.

While searching his home, police found a perfume bottle belonging to Raquel Cattani along with a radio, a cell phone case, a knife and a belt.

Rodrigo Xavier told investigators that his brother had ordered him to take the items as part of the plan to throw off the investigation.

A footprint that was found on the television appeared to match the print on the boots he was wearing the moment he was arrested.

Romero Xavier, police said, drove his brother to the home and left him nearby on July 18. He took his children to have lunch with Congressman Cattani to have an alibi.

He organized a barbecue with a few people, including some he had not been in contact with and went to three nightclubs in the municipality of Tapurah later at night.

Raquel Cattani was killed by Rodrigo Xavier, her brother-in-law, who received around $708 from her estranged husband, Romero Xavier, to carry out the crime

Romero Xavier went to the home the morning of July 19, when Congressman Cattani discovered his daughters body in the home.

He was detained and was released following an interrogation.

As rumors surfaced that Romero Xavier was considered a suspect, Congressman Cattani posted on social media.

'With a broken heart, I need to say a few things here. Raquel's husband was not arrested, nor did he confess to any crime, and I didn't kill my daughter as was reported. At least have some respect for other people's pain,' he wrote.

Romero Xavier attended Raquel Cattanis funeral home service and burial last Saturday and broke down in tears.
Two heartbroken parents have released a touching tribute to their three children who died in a house fire.

Two boys, Nakash Malik, 13, Muhammad Hanan Malik, seven, and their sister Aayat Malik, 11, perished following the blaze in east London.

Six fire engines and around 40 firefighters were called to the fire on Napier Road in East Ham at just before 8.30am on July 13, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) said.

Half of the first and ground floor of the terraced home was damaged by the fire, which was under control by 9.10am.

Ambulance crews, advanced paramedics, an air ambulance and members of the Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) were also present at the scene.

Nakash Malik, 13, and his two younger siblings died in a house fire which broke out in East Ham on July 13

Muhammad Hanan Malik, seven, also perished in the devastating incident

Aayat Malik, 11, who died along with her two brothers in the house fire. Their parents have since released a heartfelt tribute to their three beloved children

A number of local road closures were put in place while emergency services dealt with the fire.

The children's devastated parents Khurram Malik and Naumana Gul Khan have released a heartfelt tribute to their children, calling them a 'blessing'.

'Your lives were a blessing, your memory a treasure,' the grieving parents wrote.

'You are loved beyond words and missed beyond measure. May you rest in peace in God's heaven.'

A the time of the incident, LFB assistant commissioner Patrick Goulbourne said: 'This is a terribly sad incident and the thoughts of all of us at London Fire Brigade are with the family, friends and all those affected at this difficult time.

'Staff will be in the local community over the coming days to offer support and advice where needed.

Pictured the blaze in a terraced house on Napier Road, East Ham

Six fire engines and around 40 firefighters were dispatched to the blaze at around 8.30am on July 13

Enquiries are currently ongoing. The Metropolitan police have said there is 'no evidence to indicate suspicious circumstances'

'The welfare of our staff is very important and all those involved will be offered support from our counselling and trauma service.'

Metropolitan Police continue to investigate the cause of the fire alongside the London Fire Brigade.

A spokesperson said: 'At this stage, there is no evidence to indicate suspicious circumstances.'

Enquiries are currently ongoing.
A fire engine drives along Cohasset Road in Butte County during the Park Fire near Chico. The man accused of sparking the Park Fire was seen fiddling at the front of a car before it burst into flames, investigators say. Stephen Lam/The Chronicle Flames from the Park Fire engulf a sport utility vehicle in Cohasset (Butte County). Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

UPDATE: Park Fire started by suspected arson grows by tens of thousands of acres overnight

CHICO  Less than 12 hours after the Park Fire sparked and tore across the bone-dry landscape in Butte County, arson investigators accompanied by police officers stood outside the Chico home of 42-year-old Ronnie Stout, arrest warrant in hand.

At 4:58 a.m. Thursday  14 hours and 6 minutes after the blaze started  Stout was booked into jail on suspicion of starting the Park Fire.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Later Thursday morning, Butte County District Attorney Michael Ramsey was at his desk on two hours sleep. The fire started in Bidwell Park, he said, just before 3 p.m., with a lot of people looking for relief from the heat in the swimming holes.

Witnesses told investigators they saw a man doing something at the front of a car, then they saw flames, Ramsey said. The man reentered the car, perhaps to put it in neutral, then got out to push it over the side of an embankment, Ramsey said.

The burning vehicle, a 2007 Toyota Yaris, fell 60 feet and then set fire to the surrounding area, the district attorney continued.

Butte County officials believe the massive Park Fire was sparked after a man pushed a flaming car down an embankment. Butte County District Attorneys Office

The man calmly left the area, witnesses told investigators, blending in with those running from the fast-moving flames.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Investigators, with the help of witnesses and evidence, were quick to narrow in on a suspect. Stout is a longtime Chico resident who lives with his mother, Ramsey said. The car that started the fire allegedly belonged to Stouts mother.

Stout was arrested in 2020 for a DUI in Bidwell Park, where the fire started, and he has older convictions for child molestation, which require him to register as a sex offender, as well as robbery with great bodily injury, for which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was still on probation for the DUI when he was arrested Thursday, Ramsey added.

Ronnie Stout, accused of starting the Park Fire, was arrested in 2020 for a DUI in Bidwell Park, where the blaze started, and has older convictions for child molestation. California Department of Justice

Stout is registered with state authorities as living at a Chico mobile home park. At the address, a woman standing on the porch Thursday afternoon declined to identify herself, but said Stout had been arrested.

Theyre trying to make him the scapegoat, she told a Chronicle reporter. Theyre saying he did it intentionally, but he didnt. The car caught on fire.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

She then walked inside, refusing to say more, putting two large dogs on the fenced in porch to further restrict questions or access.

Neighbors said they heard the blare of police sirens in the early hours of the morning.

Dwight Phillips, 18, said he saw police outside of Stouts home around 1:30 a.m. using loudspeakers to demand that someone come outside with their hands up.

It lasted a good 20 minutes, he said, adding hed never seen police activity like that in the park.

Several neighbors said Stout was a nice guy, offering help or easy conversation. His apparent reputation in the park provoked shock and confusion that the man they knew had been accused of starting the largest wildfire in California so far this year.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Some knew of his legal history. Crystal Parker, 39, said he kept to himself.

A neighbor who has lived in the park for years said Stout moved in with his parents after getting out of prison 18 months ago and was unemployed and caring for his mom after the death of his father last year.

Ramsey said Stout would be charged after investigators collect more witness statements. A hearing was scheduled for Monday.

We hope it will not (include) an enhancement of great bodily injury or death, Ramsey added, citing the possibility people could die in the fire.

Stout already has two strikes on his record. An arson conviction would make him a three-striker, he said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

He declined to say whether Stout admitted to starting the fire. But Ramsey did say he believes they have the right person in the case.

He also couldnt say why someone would light a car on fire and push it over a ravine and spark a massive wildfire and then casually walk away.

Ramsey laughed at the question, but it was a tired laugh.
Former President Donald Trump announced Friday that he planned to hold another rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he survived an assassination attempt earlier this month.

Almost directly after, the FBI released a statement confirming the Republican nominee had been hit by a bullet during the July 13 shooting.

'What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subjects rifle,' an FBI statement said.

Trump made the rally announcement Friday afternoon on Truth Social.

'I WILL BE GOING BACK TO BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA, FOR A BIG AND BEAUTIFUL RALLY, HONORING THE SOUL OF OUR BELOVED FIREFIGHTING HERO, COREY, AND THOSE BRAVE PATRIOTS INJURED TWO WEEKS AGO,' Trump wrote. 'WHAT A DAY IT WILL BE  FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!

Former President Donald Trump announced Friday that he planned to hold another rally in Butler, Pennsylvania , where he survived an assassination attempt earlier this month

The Republican nominee made the announcement on Truth Social

He added, 'STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS.'

Earlier he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago and was seen for the first time not sporting any kind of bandage on his right ear.

Trump paid tribute to slain firefighter Corey Comperatore during his 92-minute Republican National Convention speech last Thursday.

Comperatore firefighter's jacket was displayed onstage and the Republican nominee walked over and kissed it amid his speech.

Trump also sported a large bandage throughout the four days of the convention in Milwaukee, which kicked off just two days after the failed assassination attempt.

He then wore a band-aid for several days.

It's unclear when Trump will head back to the Pittsburgh region.

He's headlining a rally Saturday in St. Cloud, Minnesota, alongside running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance on Saturday.

Trump announced a Wednesday rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, located in the center of the state.

The Republican nominee has been holding all of his campaign events indoors since the July 13 shooting.
Citizens and states alike are increasingly under threat from 'lawfare'  the abuse of legal processes or institutions for political purposes.

Israel was yet again a victim of this practice in May when the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) vexatiously applied for arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for supposed war crimes.

A month later, the then Conservative Government asked for permission to challenge the ICC's application, arguing that Israelis were outside the court's jurisdiction and its Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was guilty of overreach in seeking the arrest of two Israeli nationals.

Yet yesterday we learned that Sir Keir Starmer's new Labour Government would not pursue this issue any further, on the basis that applications for arrest warrants were a 'matter for the court to decide on'.

The truth is that an anti-Israel agenda has prevailed in the Labour Party for some time. The fact that it recently emerged from an election in which five independent candidates defeated sitting Labour MPs by challenging their stance on Gaza will be fresh in the minds of the most senior figures in the party.

While Sir Keir Starmer did his utmost to appease centrist voters, the Government is no doubt keen to win back more extreme voters they lost to rival parties

Yesterday we learned that the new Labour Government would not pursue a challenge against the ICC applying for arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

It is extraordinary to me that Starmer did not have Hamas's connections with Islamic State at the front of his mind when he chose to rubberstamp the decision to walk away from challenging the ICC ruling

The truth is that an anti-Israel agenda has prevailed in the Labour Party for some time, and the five Labour MPs defeated by challenging their stance on Gaza fresh in the minds of senior figures, writes NATASHA HAUSDORFF

While they did their utmost to appease centrist voters, who take a more nuanced view of the conflict in Israel and Gaza, in the run-up to the election, the Government is no doubt keen to win back those more extreme voters they lost to rival parties. Taking an aggressive stance on Israel is an easy way to do this.

In dropping its legal challenge to the arrest warrants, the British Government is also breaking ranks with democratic allies such as the U.S. and Germany, who recognise how important it is to stand full-square behind a bulwark of democracy in the Middle East, which has consistently supported the West's interests.

Make no mistake: the Government's announcement this week will be music to the ears of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation who are opposed not only to the rule of law but any peace process.

They are backed by Iran, a theocratic state determined to destroy Israel  then come after the rest of us.

It's no exaggeration to say that Hamas and the murderous thugs of Islamic State are branches of the same tree. Israel stands on the frontline of a war that affects us all.

It is extraordinary to me that our Prime Minister Keir Starmer  a former barrister specialising in human rights, no less  did not have this at the front of his mind when he chose to rubberstamp the decision to walk away from the ICC challenge.

It's a move that not only raises important questions about international law but now places those fighting a war on behalf of democracy and the West at risk of arrest if they step outside the borders of their home nation.

Starmer's U-turn also raises the prospect of his Government changing tack on another vitally important matter: the issuing of arms export licences to Israel.

Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives made it clear that withdrawing these licences would be out of the question.

And so it should be. The benefits of the incredibly close co-operation between Israel and the UK on defence and intelligence matters cannot be overstated. If anything, we rely on their technology and intelligence more than they do on ours.

Armed men from the Izz-al-Din al Qassam brigades, the military wing of Hamas in Gaza City

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The benefits of the incredibly close co-operation between Israel and the UK on defence and intelligence matters cannot be overstated

Our fighter jet fleet is so dependent on Israeli technology that one defence expert was recently quoted as saying that, without Israeli technology, the RAF could not get its planes in the air.

Meanwhile, Israeli intelligence on Iranian-sponsored Islamist terrorism has thwarted countless attacks here at home. Then there are the Israeli drones and armoured vehicles that protected British troops engaged in dangerous and difficult operations against terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the impact of a ban on weapons sales to Israel would be negligible, a reciprocal move against Britain would be much more significant.

It has not yet come to this but yesterday's announcement is, I believe, a worrying portent of what is to come.

I noted, too, that in her all-too-brief explanation of Sir Keir's decision to drop opposition to an international arrest warrant application, his spokesperson insisted that 'the Government feels very strongly about the rule of law internationally and domestically'.

How hollow this sounds now.

The Conservative Government's challenge against the ICC had potential consequences that stretched far beyond Israel. It concerns a matter of law and the UK was  rightly  addressing whether international law and the ICC rules were and are being properly applied.

If they are not, and the ICC is acting outside its powers, then this is a matter of enormous concern not just for the UK, but also for other ICC member states.

This is why so many other countries also submitted their own objections, among them the U.S., Germany, the Czech Republic and Hungary, along with a number of organisations, including UK Lawyers For Israel (UKLFI).

These nations and bodies recognise that, as Palestine is not a state, it cannot sign up to the Rome Statute, which provides the founding principles that govern the court.

Israel, meanwhile, is not a member of the ICC and the court has no jurisdiction over its territory.

What's more, the prosecutor's application violates the principle of 'complementarity'. This is a vital legal principle to which the ICC is meant to adhere, and which holds that the court will act only when a country's own national legal systems fail to do so or a state is unwilling or unable to carry out its own investigation.

Israel is not a member of the ICC and the court has no jurisdiction over its territory (file photo)

Neither of these can be said about Israel, a democratic state where the rule of law is robustly upheld and state institutions and politicians are accountable.

Worse still, the prosecutor's public statement summarising his application advanced falsehoods in every single sentence, as highlighted in a submission to the Court by UKLFI and other NGOs.

Allegations included an assertion that Israel had imposed 'a total siege over Gaza' that involved 'completely closing the three border crossing points' for 'extended periods'.

This, as with the other statements, is palpably and demonstrably false.

These actions can only be understood as an attempt to pander to sinister forces who would like to see Israel wiped off the map.

The Government should be ashamed of itself.
Anti-Israel protestors and Hamas sympathizers who desecrated Washington, D.C.'s Union Station have learned their fates.

A minimum of eight people who participated in the anti-Israel protest during Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech Wednesday are now facing federal criminal charges after defacing federal property and fighting police.

Some protestors, however, have had their charges dropped by more lenient Washington, D.C. prosecutors.

Frederick Coates, Crow Momamome and Antonio Somerville have all been charged with attempting to carry a dangerous weapon, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C.

Nathaniel Lawrence, Sonia Krishan and Roger Miller have been charged with attempted theft.

Zachary Kam has been charged with two counts of assaulting a police officer.

And Essa Ejelat has been charged with making threats.

The American flag was reportedly taken off of a flag pole outside of D.C.'s Union Station train terminal before being burned by anti-Israel protestors. The demonstration began outside of Capitol Hill during Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress. Then the demonstrators marched to the century-old train station and burnt its flag and graffitid its monuments

Authorities also maintain that the protest, which began near the National Mall close to the U.S. Capitol before heading to the train terminal, is still an open investigation and updates could come.

In addition to those charged there are numerous protestors who were arrested that will not face charges, Fox News reports.

The D.C. attorney general's office got at least 11 cases 'no-papered,' which means that the charges were dropped.

Among those three were charges for crossing police lines, five were for disorderly conduct and inducing violence and three were for disorderly conduct causing unreasonable fear.

All of the charges are misdemeanors.

Further, the report reveals an additional five pending cases for crowding and obstructing, though prosecutors have yet to decide whether to press charges.

Protestors ignite an American flag at Union Station

2022 Miss Maryland Teen USA Sonia Krishan, also spelled Soniya Krishan. The ex-beauty pageant winner was among the rioters at an anti-Israel protest Wednesday at Washington, where American flags were burned.The beauty queen, a former Miss Maryland Teen USA, is listed on a court docket as having been charged, along with nine others, with at least five crimes for actions during the protest outside Union Station in the nation's capita

She has reportedly been charged with alleged theft

Some demonstrators wrote support for the terrorist group Hamas on public monuments

Police officers try to stop pro-Palestinian demonstrators from taking down a U.S. flag outside Union Station

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators burn a U.S. flag and an effigy depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday

Pro-Palestinian protesters and police clash at Union Station

'Hamas is coming' is tagged in red on the Columbus Fountain

Minor offenses from the protest are generally being overseen by the D.C. attorney general's office while the more serious charges are being handled by federal prosecutors.

One of the protestors at the Wednesday demonstration had their face covered while screaming 'Allahu Akbar,' Fox News reports.

Others carried a Hamas flag and donned clothing bearing the terrorists group's insignia.

'Hamas is coming,' was graffitid onto the Columbus Fountain outside of the century-old train terminal.

The Israeli prime minister, who started and finished his address to Congress on Wednesday with standing ovations, called out anti-Israel protestors during his address.

'Some of these protesters hold up signs proclaiming 'Gays for Gaza', he said to loud applause.

'They might as well hold up signs saying 'Chickens for KFC,' he continued, receiving laughs from the audience.

Netanyahu spoke about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship during his speech, highlighting how the two's close ties have been instrumental in the Jewish nation's fight against Palestinian terror group Hamas.

'America and Israel must stand together,' Netanyahu proclaimed, receiving a standing ovation in response.

'When we stand together, something very simple happens, we win and they lose.'

Graffiti is written on Union Station during a demonstration against the Israeli operations in Gaza

Police detain a Pro-Palestinian protester at Union Station

Hundreds flocked to the train station for the anti-Israel protest

After the protestors were cleared out of Union Station, a group of lawmakers channeled their inner UNC frat boy - like the ones who held up the flag amid anti-Israel protests in April - and held a ceremony reattaching the flag at the terminal.

The group of lawmakers including Speaker Mike Johnson marched down to Washington, D.C.'s Union Station on Wednesday evening to replace the American flag that had been torn down and burned in protest of Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress.

In scenes reminiscent of the fraternity brothers who protected the flag during protests at the University of North Carolina, the group of Republicans, including Reps. Rudy Yakym, Ind., Derrick Van Orden, Wis., Morgan Luttrell, Texas and Brandon Williams, N.Y., hung the flag up and said the Pledge of Allegiance.

Earlier in the day officers were engaged in violent scenes as thousands of demonstrators descended in Washington D.C. to vent their fury at the Israeli Prime Minister over the war in Gaza.
Relaxing Britain's borders could be the price for closer trading and security ties with the European Union, Germany's ambassador to the UK has suggested.

Miguel Berger said the bloc would prefer a post-Brexit 'mega deal' which would restore freedom of movement for younger people and certain professionals.

It will raise fresh concerns about whether Sir Keir Starmer, who campaigned for a second referendum to reverse the Leave vote, will gradually unpick Brexit in his bid to 'reset' relations with Brussels.

The Prime Minister has said he wants to renegotiate the UK-EU post-Brexit treaty, including on security.

He also wants to forge closer economic ties in areas such as agriculture, chemicals and professional qualifications.

Sir Keir Starmer (pictured at Hutchinson Engineering in Widnes) is set to slowly unpick Brexit in his bid to re-build closer relations with Brussels

However Miguel Berger (pictured) the German ambassador in the UK has suggested relaxing Britain's borders may be the price for closer security ties

The PM has stressed he will not take Britain back into the bloc's single market or customs union.

But critics accuse him of being unrealistic, saying the EU will demand something in return for closer access to its markets.

This could include Britain once again effectively becoming subject to EU laws and judges.

Mr Berger said greater freedom of movement will be a priority for the EU as he revealed Berlin wanted a much 'broader' deal than the one being talked about by Sir Keir.

'We have a headline, which is security and cooperation.

'And beneath that, we think we should look for areas which are in the common interest,' he told the Politico website.

He suggested a working title of the Security and Cooperation Agreement for a new treaty.

Mr Berger said greater freedom of movement will be a priority for the EU as he revealed Berlin wanted a much 'broader' deal (stock image)

However he has insisted it has nothing to do with the 'migration dossier' as 'people come here to study, work, do internships, whatever, and then they would leave' (pictured: migrants in a dingy off the coast of England)

Insisting his proposals did not amount to a return to the freedom of movement seen when Britain was in the EU, Mr Berger added: 'I think it's very important that people understand this has nothing to do with the migration dossier, because people come here to study, work, do internships, whatever, and then they would leave. So this is not about migration.'

But he added: 'That would include a youth mobility scheme. It would include the Erasmus [student exchange] programme, school trips, youth exchanges, the question of visa costs.

'So I would say there are many, many things which affect the day-to-day mobility, especially for young people, and I would really like to see some progress there.'

During a European summit at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire last week, Sir Keir wooed EU leaders by telling them he wanted to reboot relations.
The father of a 15-year-old girl from Southern California who went missing for a week has now been arrested and could face possible charges for child abduction, conspiracy and falsifying a police report.

Jeffery Chao was arrested by officers with the Monterey Park Police Department following an 'extensive investigation' after his daughter, Alison Jillian Chao, suddenly vanished after leaving her father's home on July 16.

A missing persons case was then opened into the straight-A student after she failed to show up at her aunts house in San Gabriel some three miles away.

A city-wide search began for the missing teen with volunteers looking through local neighborhoods, handing out missing person flyers with family members making media appearances, statements and tearful pleas including her mother, Annie Chao.

Jeffery Chao, the father of a 15-year-old girl from Southern California who went missing for a week, has been arrested by officers

Alison Chao, 15, vanished on July 16 as she biked three miles from her dad's house in Monterey Park to her aunt's home in San Gabriel. She showed up a week later outside a TV station

Annie was last seen on surveillance footage in a photo of her riding her GT mountain bike wearing a purple t-shirt with black shorts and dark shoes. She was also carrying a backpack.

In a surprise twist, Alison turned up safe and well on Tuesday - a full week after her disappearance - when she showed up outside the gates of the local ABC television station in Glendale, wanting to 'tell her story'.

But now questions remain over exactly what happened during the week Alison was missing.

Although details surrounding her father Jeffery Chao's arrest are vague, investigators believe he may have played a role in Alison's disappearance.

Alison's aunt said she believes the high school student ran away because she did not want to be with her mother who was granted custody of her during the parents divorce

It's still unknown where the teen went for a week during her disappearance

Missing teen Alison Jillian Chao (center) was found outside a local news station begging to share her story one week after she disappeared

On Friday, police said the investigation was ongoing with 'no further comment at this time.'

The teen's parents are divorced which has fueled speculation that perhaps Alison's vanishing was as a result of a custody dispute.

Her mother, Annie Chao was awarded 'sole physical custody' over Alison, in the interest of her mental health and well-being.

Video has also emerged the day before Alison was reported missing showing police at Jeffery Chao's home, urging the teen to come with them.

A female voice can be heard in the background sounding distraught and refusing.

After Alison was found safe, her mother responded to social media posts speculating as to what might have happened.

Alison's mother, Annie Chao, pictured was awarded 'sole physical custody' over Alison, in the interest of her mental health and well-being.

The family even hung flyers around Monterey Park in the desperate search for the teenage

The teen ultimately showed up a week after she disappeared

Annie Chao said the posts were full of 'uninformed opinions, speculation, and hurtful comments about me and my family.'

'There is a great deal of misinformation that has been posted online regarding Alison and my family by a small number of people,' Annie Chao said.

'If you wish to help Alison, you will stop posting about this matter,' she continued explaining how her daughter was a 'young girl,' with feelings about her parents' divorce 'understandably complicated.'

'I will always do my best to protect Alison's interests, no matter the circumstances and regardless of the stones that may be thrown at me,' her mother said.

The family does not know where Alison spent the week she was missing.

When Allison showed up at the television station, a woman, Rachelle, recognized her from the missing poster.

Rachelle said the teenager was desperately trying to talk to someone and shared a heartbreaking claim.

The teen was last seen in a haunting photo showing her riding her GT mountain bike wearing a purple t-shirt with black shorts and dark shoes

'She was very clear on "I've come to ABC to tell my story. No one else will listen to me,"' Rachelle told the local news outlet.

'What struck me immediately was how self-possessed she was. Sound of mind. Very articulate, very clear on what the situation was.

'She was crying. She was very upset. Mostly about not being able to tell her story.

'I can only tell you that this is someone who's three years short of adulthood, who believes that she's deeply unheard, and that she has no avenue for adjudication,' Rachelle said.

'I hope her family comes together, can solve this for her, that the courts don't fail her.'

Alison is now in the custody of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.
Mel Stride has entered the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as the leader of the Conservative Party.

The former work and pensions secretary joined James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat and Robert Jenrick in the bid to become the next Leader of the Opposition.

It came as former home secretary Dame Priti Patel was last night expected to launch her own campaign.

Mr Stride was a staunch supporter of Mr Sunak and was regularly wheeled out to spread his government's message during the general election campaign.

But the 62-year-old ignored suggestions he was a 'continuity candidate' and said he could 'unite the party', partly due to his previous role as leader of the House of Commons.

Former work and pensions secretary Mel Stride has joined James Cleverly , Tom Tugendhat and Robert Jenrick in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak as Leader of the Opposition

It came as former home secretary Dame Priti Patel was last night expected to launch her own campaign, and is still predicted to do so

He told Sky News: 'The reason that I did all those media rounds was that I had the courage and the drive to put my head above the parapet, and to go out and face the fire, because I wanted to save as many Conservative seats as I possibly could.

'And I will take that resolve into leadership.'

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said the Tories needed to reorganise 'into a fighting machine' following a dismal set of election results.

'I think what we know from the General Election is that we're in a very, very difficult place as a party,' he said.

'We've substantially lost the trust of the British people and we've lost our reputation for competence, and I believe that I'm in a very good position to address those issues going forward.'

Mr Stride, who has been the MP for Central Devon since 2010, remains an outsider among the leadership contenders, according to bookmakers.

Kemi Badenoch is the favourite for the role.
Kamala Harris has tightened the presidential race against Donald Trump in key battleground states that Joe Biden was on track to lose, new polls show.

The vice president is tied with Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania, up by six per cent in Minnesota, and down by one per cent in Wisconsin.

Harris has erased the lead Trump was building in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin before Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday.

Voters said their top issue was the economy - by a big margin - with immigration and abortion about even as second and third, and other topics well below them.

The poll by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research conducted on July 22 to 24 for Fox News added to other polls showing the race tightening.

Kamala Harris has tightened the presidential race against Donald Trump in key battleground states that Joe Biden was on track to lose, new polls show

Harris and Trump had 49 per cent of the vote each in Michigan and Pennsylvania, while Trump had 50 per cent to Harris' 49 per cent in Wisconsin.

Minnesota, a usually blue state that was increasingly in play, is back to looking out of Trump's reach as he has 46 per cent to Harris' 52 per cent.

However, the races were head-to-head and did not take into account the effect of third-party candidates like independent Robert F Kennedy Jr.

When the additional candidates are included, Harris is up by two per cent (45 to 43) in Pennsylvania and six per cent in Minnesota (47 to 41).

Trump is ahead by two per cent in Michigan (45 to 43) and Wisconsin is tied at 46 per cent each.

Polls before Biden dropped out had the president down between two and nine per cent in Pennsylvania, one to seven in Michigan, and about three in Wisconsin.

The Fox News poll did not survey voters nationally, but others by the New York Times and a few more pollsters had Harris or Trump up by only one per cent.

Trump is up by one per cent in Wisconsin, but his leads in key states have been erased since Joe Biden dropped out and Kamala became his likely replacement

Harris must win Pennsylvania to have a chance of beating Trump, and likely needs Michigan and Wisconsin as well.

Losing Minnesota would be a shock and mean the Democrats were in danger of suffering a landslide defeat.

Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee since Biden abandoned his reelection campaign on Sunday, but will not be confirmed until the Democratic National Convention on August 19 to 22.

Twice as many voters said they cared more about the economy than any other issue, with immigration and abortion the other two key topics.

Thirty-seven per cent of Wisconsin voters had the economy on top, with 15 per cent each for immigration and abortion, and in Michigan it was 35 per cent economy, 17 per cent immigration, and 16 per cent abortion.

Economy was top issue for 39 per cent of Pennsylvanian voters with immigration at 16 per cent and abortion at 15 per cent.

Other notable issues included healthcare, election integrity, climate change, foreign policy, crime, and guns - but all were in the mid to low single digits.

Harris speaks on the phone with former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as the Obamas endorse Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate

Trump polls better among voters caring the most about the economy and immigration, and Harris is far better on abortion.

Economy and immigration voters in Pennsylvania back Trump by 31 and 86 points respectively, while abortion voters back Harris by 67 points. Answers for Michigan were roughly the same.

In Wisconsin, those prioritizing the economy and immigration backed Trump by 38 and 81 points respectively, while those putting abortion as their top issue prefer Harris by 78 points.

About as many voters said they were 'falling behind' or 'holding steady' financially, both in the low 40s, and about 15 per cent were 'getting ahead'.

About three-quarters of Democrats want Harris to be the nominee with Biden gone, with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro the next most popular but only getting 14 per cent of his own state to favor him.

Voters overwhelmingly approve of Biden's decision to drop out and about two-thirds want him to remain president until his term ends in January

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer got 20 per cent in her home state, but her support was far lower elsewhere.

Voters overwhelmingly approve of Biden's decision to drop out and about two-thirds want him to remain president until his term ends in January.

More than 90 per cent of Democrats agreed he was right to quit, and he should stay president until the election winner replaces him.

Harris has a significantly better favorability rating than Biden, and is ahead of Trump everywhere except Michigan where they are tied.

However, both candidates are still below 50 per cent favorability and more people judge Trump unfavorably than positively.

Harris has a positive net approval rate in Minnesota, negative in Michigan, and tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Trump's running mate JD Vance has the lowest approval to disapproval rating of anyone polled in the battleground states.
Even now, after more than 60 years and when it seemed every secret had been unearthed and every sordid detail pored over, the Profumo affair remains as murky and intriguing as ever.

The Mail on Sunday last weekend revealed that Prince Philip was named in FBI documents about this most enduring of British political sex scandals.

In a cable sent to the US Embassy in London in 1963, the bureau's autocratic director J. Edgar Hoover suggested that Philip may have been 'involved' with the two women at the heart of the affair, models Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies.

Speculation about the Prince's supposed connection has been the subject of drawing-room gossip for decades and it was a scurrilous plotline in an episode of season two of The Crown, the controversial Netflix series about the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

But the revelation that his name appears in an official lengthy memorandum about the saga will cause discomfort on both sides of the Atlantic.

Christine Keeler, then just 19, was frolicking naked in the swimming pool at Cliveden, the magnificent Thames-side mansion of Tory grandee Viscount Astor

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover suggested that Prince Philip, pictured with the Queen in 1962, may have been 'involved' with models Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies

Hoover's interest was hardly surprising. A notorious meddler and feared figure who for years orchestrated often illegal campaigns against suspected subversives and political foes, he had always been fascinated by sexual impropriety involving famous names.

All the same, the possibility of the Duke of Edinburgh, who died aged 99 in 2021, featuring in the FBI chief's scheming - albeit indirectly - would have caused severe damage to UK-US relations at a time when the Cold War was at its height.

But the Profumo affair was not just a tawdry British scandal, but one with international consequences and that contributed to the fall of the Conservative government in 1964.

Remarkably, after an Old Bailey trial, parliamentary questions and an official inquiry, books and even a Hollywood film, successive governments have continued to protect certain people's involvement in the sexual shenanigans from exposure by keeping one file about the case under lock and key.

Even though all the central players in the story are now dead it will be another 22 years before that file sees the light of day. But more of that later.

While many of the details have been contested over the decades, there is no dispute about the cast of characters.

John Profumo was the 48-year old married Secretary of State for War - and tipped as a future Foreign Secretary  when the episode's pivotal figure, society osteopath Stephen Ward introduced him to the lissom showgirl Christine Keeler and he was soon bedding her.

It all began in the summer of 1961 when Profumo was visiting Cliveden, the magnificent Thames-side mansion of Tory grandee Viscount Astor, and saw Keeler, then just 19, frolicking naked in the swimming pool. Her costume had been playfully snatched off by Ward.

Keeler was staying with Ward, who had the use of a cottage on the estate where he held wild parties and among whose guests was the Soviet defence attache Yevgeny Ivanov. Commander Ivanov also slept with Keeler but probably only once.

The Russian later gave a graphic description of their encounter. 'That devil of a girl could seduce anybody. We devoured each other like animals . . . she had both the firm, lithe body of a slender woman and a provocative ripeness. She behaved like a cat . . . beholden to no one.'

Rumours that she had slept with both men were soon sweeping London and the fear at a time of heightened East-West tensions was that careless pillow talk by the War Minister about nuclear secrets could have been passed by Keeler to the affable Ivanov.

The alluring Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler's playmate, was told in court that Lord Astor denied ever sleeping with her. 'He would, wouldn't he,' she said

Minister of War John Profumo returns home in June 1963 after admitting an affair with Christine Keeler

During the hearing, Keeler said she had procured young women for Stephen Ward and his rich friends

Profumo, a fierce patriot, was shocked when he learned from the Cabinet Secretary that Ivanov was a suspected spy and distanced himself from the louche Cliveden set, ending his relationship with Keeler.

It was too late. Some 18 months later, in 1963, he was questioned in the House of Commons about his liaison with the dark-haired beauty. Profumo responded with a brazen lie saying there had been 'no impropriety whatsoever'.

The denial only brought him the briefest respite. He took his wife, the screen star Valerie Hobson, to Venice and confessed the whole seedy affair. Memorably, she stood by him but insisted he face the music.

Returning to London, he resigned both as minister and MP. But while his career was over, the story was not. Scotland Yard was focusing on the extracurricular activities of Ward, placing him and his patients under surveillance.

He was charged with living off immoral earnings. A high-profile trial followed, enthralling the country. It also gave birth to a catchphrase when the alluring Mandy Rice-Davies, Keeler's playmate, was told in court that Lord Astor denied ever sleeping with her. 'He would, wouldn't he,' she said.

During the hearing, Keeler said she had procured young women for Ward and his rich friends. Other salacious details were revealed about Ward's West End flat with a two-way mirror where risque assignations took place.

The scandal was too much for Ward, the son of a respectable country parson, who anticipating a guilty verdict took an overdose of barbiturates the night before the jury brought in their verdict. He died three days later.

Ward's funeral at Mortlake Cemetery in South-West London attracted only six mourners. At the grave lay a wreath signed by the outspoken critic Kenneth Tynan: 'To Stephen Ward, victim of hypocrisy.'

In recent years his trial has been denounced as a gross miscarriage of justice. Geoffrey Robertson, the distinguished KC who wrote a book Stephen Ward Was Innocent, OK, said he was the victim of a 'massive stitch-up' with the Government determined to get a scapegoat for the embarrassment of Profumo's resignation.

Of the Prince Philip connection, Robertson is equally dismissive. 'It is pure gossip, scuttlebutt nothing more,' he says.

So how did the Queen's handsome husband, then a good-looking 42, come to be mentioned by J. Edgar Hoover and what is the truth of it?

The FBI document obtained by our sister paper after a freedom of information request, contains a claim by one Thomas Corbally, an American adventurer and part-time spy, who was friends with Stephen Ward.

Corbally had been passing information about Ward, who he described as a 'beatnik' and what he had learned of Profumo and Ivanov, Keeler and Rice-Davies to the Americans. In the cable, which is partly redacted, Hoover wrote: 'Corbally also stated there was rumour Prince Philip may have been involved with these two girls.'

Just 16 words with no context or anything else to substantiate such a rumour.

Corbally was a gregarious figure mixing with the rich and famous. He lived in a Park Lane apartment yet with no visible sign of income. He told the FBI he had seen Keeler and Rice-Davies swim naked in Lord Astor's pool and claimed he had been asked by the US ambassador to uncover the truth behind the Profumo rumours.

He is not thought to have known Philip. And over the years both Mandy and Christine have also firmly and repeatedly denied knowing the Prince.

Ward, on the other hand, was an acquaintance of the Duke. Whether Philip went to see him after suffering a polo injury for treatment to his back, as was suggested in The Crown, is not known. But he was a celebrity figure whose clients included Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner.

But the osteopath was also an enthusiastic amateur artist  as was Philip  and sketched the Prince several times.

Ward knew several members of the Royal Family, including Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon, who liked racy company, and he also did drawings of the Duke and Duchess of Kent and the Duchess of Gloucester.

How well Philip and Ward knew one another is not clear. (It has been suggested that they knew each other through the Thursday Club, the raffish men-only eating and drinking club where Philip would go to let his hair down in his early years in the Royal Family.) But there is no evidence it was deep.

They did have a close mutual friend, however. This was Philip's first cousin and close confidant, the high-living David Mountbatten, 3rd Marquess of Milford Haven.

Mountbatten, who was Philip's best man when he married Princess Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey in 1947, was a prominent figure on the London social scene during the 1950s and 1960s, a regular at parties and sometimes in the company of Stephen Ward with whom he shared an interest in pornography.

His closeness to Philip caused unease at the Palace. The twice-married Milford-Haven, like Philip a wartime naval officer, was known to host parties for discreet chums at his flat in Grosvenor Square at which the evening would begin with cards, followed by the arrival of women.

Society osteopath Stephen Ward took an overdose of barbiturates the night before the jury brought in their verdict at his trial

Ward was often among the guests and sometimes brought some of the women. Milford-Haven died of a heart attack in 1970  he was just 50.

During his lifetime Philip was often linked to other women, which he would airily dismissing by pointing out that, as he had police bodyguards wherever he went, any liaisons would be practically impossible. 'How the hell could I get away with anything like that,' he said tartly on one occasion.

This, naturally, was another mischievous theme avidly taken up in The Crown. One storyline has Anthony Blunt, later unmasked as Soviet spy, warning the Duke he will expose him over his relationship with Ward in response to Philip threatening to expose Blunt's treachery. There is no evidence that any such encounter between the two men took place.

But earlier this year it was claimed that Blunt, who was the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, was involved in buying every sketch of members of the Royal Family produced by Ward when they went on show at a London gallery.

In the past, when Philip's name has come up with reference to Profumo, royal aides and friends have labelled such allegations as wicked.

Which brings us back to the secret file, the only one held in the National Archives which is not open to public inspection. A decade ago the file was described by a government minister as containing sensitive information related to people still living.

Well, it is hard to imagine that is the case today. All the same, the file will not be opened until 2046. It is not a random date but was chosen because it marks more than 100 years since the birth of the youngest person in the Profumo affair, Mandy Rice-Davies, who died almost ten years ago.

Ending the speculation about Philip may be the best possible argument for the file to be opened to see who is being protected. But until it is, the rumours  thanks to the FBI  are unlikely to go away.
The Texas company blamed for last week's Microsoft outage that cost $5.4 billion has offered customer support staff a $10 Uber Eats gift voucher.

CrowdStrike, a cyber-security firm based in Austin, sent the $10 food vouchers to 'teammates and partners who helped customers through the situation', alongside an apology email.

'And for that, we send our heartfelt thanks and apologies for the inconvenience,' the message read.

'To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!'

Crowded airports were filled with stranded and frustrated passengers on July after the FAA ordered a total ground stop of all flights in the US after the CrowdStrike outage

CrowdStrike's 'Falcon Sensor' caused Microsoft Windows to crash, resulting in the now infamous 'Blue Screen of Death,' so many people saw July 23

CrowdStrike caused the meltdown Friday by pushing out a massive software update that crashed computers around the globe.

Airlines were among the worst hit, with tens of thousands of flights canceled across the globe - and Delta Airlines only returning to a full schedule a week later.

The company's 'Falcon Sensor' caused Microsoft Windows to crash, resulting in the now infamous 'Blue Screen of Death,' so many people saw July 19.

Falcon, uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect cyber threats in real time.

As part of its mea cupla tour, CrowdStrike issued a plan to avoid future outages in a blog post.

The company will no longer release mass updates to prevent worldwide outages.

It's also promised to upgrade its verification system to identify faulty code.

George Kurtz, chief executive officer of Crowdstrike Inc., speaks during the Wall Street Journal Tech Live global technology conference in Laguna Beach, California, U.S., on Monday, Oct. 21, 2019

Stranded travelers wait for flights at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

Bags await reunification with their owners in the Delta Air Lines baggage claim area Los Angeles International Airport

However, the company faced a backlash after some of the $10 Uber vouchers it dished out were blocked.

'Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates,' CNN reported.

While the gift cards were a good will gesture, CrowdStrike has been silent about whether it will pay customers restitution for lost profits.

However, lawsuits to get the money back are expected in the near future.

The tech business has already been hit with a complaint over DEI-- alleging it sidelined its white, male employees under a diversity-hiring scheme.

A conservative legal action group alleges that CrowdStrike favors women and minorities for jobs and promotions in coding, programming and other areas through diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Newly released photos show the moment Sinaloa cartel boss Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada's plane arrived in the US, only to be met by federal agents who were waiting to arrest him.

Zambada, 76, founded the Sinaloa Cartel along with Mexico's most famous lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, who sits the Alcatraz of the Rockies, ADX Florence, the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

A plane carrying Zambada and one of El Chapo's son, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, landed just outside El Paso, Texas Thursday.

The images shared by Homeland Security Investigations show agents watching the aircraft land, and then walking up to the jet to arrest some of the deadliest drug traffickers in the world.

The men were taken to El Paso to be jailed.

Zambada pleaded not guilty to charges against him, but did not appear in federal court in El Paso, where a federal judge ordered him detained without bond, the New York Times reported.

Zambada will appear in court again July 31 at 11 a.m.

The effort to capture the Sinaloa cartel kingpins was led by the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations

Federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations greet the plane carrying Sinaloa drug cartel lords Ismael Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez near El Paso, Texas Thursday

In the coming days, Guzman Lopez is to appear before a federal judge in Chicago.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Zambada was tricked by El Chapo's son Joaquin Guzman Lopez into boarding a private plane to inspect airfields for drug planes following a months-long operation by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI.

Zamabda believed the plane would fly south in Mexico, but it landed north in El Paso, Texas, where he and El Chapo's son were arrested.

Guzman Lopez is said to have surrendered to US authorities and turned on Zambada because he 'blamed Mayo for the capture of his father', according to a Fox News Correspondent.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez is one of El Chapo's sons and was elevated to the cartel's top leadership in 2017 when his father was extradited to the US.

The pair were arrested in El Paso after getting off a private plane that was flown in from Mexico by the FBI.

El Mayo' [(eft) has led the Sinaloa Cartel's day-to-day operations while battling diabetes since Joaquin ' El Chapo ' Guzman (right) was arrested in 2017

Joaquin Guzman Lopez is one of El Chapo's sons and was elevated to the cartel's top leadership in 2017 when his father was extradited to the US

Lopez cut a deal with American law enforcement to surrender and turn in Zambada at the same time, sourced told DailyMail.com.

What prompted Lopez turn himself in after years as most-wanted, and to take Zambada down with him, is unclear.

Zambada lived a simple life behind the scenes at his El Alamo compound, in contrast to El Chapo's larger than life persona, and was suffering from diabetes.

He was reportedly in communication with American law enforcement for the past three years at least, discussing the possibility of surrendering, but neve did.

Zambada said in 2010 in a rare interview 'I'd like to think so, that I'd kill myself' if he faced police capture.

Lopez is expected to face the Federal District Court in Chicago in coming days, and Zambada will go to New York.

The pair were arrested in El Paso, Texas , after getting off a private plane that was flown in from Mexico by the FBI

Zambada founded the Sinaloa Cartel along with El Chapo, and faces a litany of indictments for crimes relating to drug trafficking and organized crime in the US

The Justice Department earlier put an up to $15 million bounty on Zambada's head, for any information leading to his arrest or conviction

Attorney-General Merrick Garland called the cartel one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world as he detailed the arrests.

'El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates whom the Justice Department is holding accountable in the US,' he said.

Garland said others from the cartel now behind bars included El Chapo and another of his sons and alleged leader of the Cartel, Ovidio Guzman Lopez.

The alleged main hitman of the cartel, Nestor Isidro 'El Nini' Perez Salas, was also in American custody, he said.

American federal prosecutors in February charged Zambada with conspiracy to make and distribute fentanyl, but he has never been behind bars.

The US State Department earlier put an up to $15 million bounty on Zambada's head, for any information leading to his arrest or conviction.

A $5 million bounty was offered for Lopez's arrest.

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman is serving a life sentence after he was arrested in the beach resort town of Mazatlan, Mexico, and extradited to the US in 2017

A $5 million bounty was offered for Lopez's arrest

Joaquin's brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez was also arrested in Mexico, and extradited to the US in September to face his own long list of charges.

After El Chapo's extradition, his criminal empire was inherited by four of his sons - known as Los Chapitos, or Little Chapos - who took over his faction of the cartel and became some of the biggest exporters of fentanyl to the US.

El Mayo and Los Chapitos have had a fractious relationship since El Chapo's extradition, and the arrests of the two traffickers may trigger instability or even violence in Mexico.

Garland said fentanyl was the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

'The Department of Justice will not rest until every leader, member, and associate of the cartels responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,' he said.

Joaquin's brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez was also arrested in Mexico , and extradited to the US in September to face his own long list of charges

Zambada helped 'El Chapo' construct a network that has exerted its influence in illicit markets as close as the US and Colombia, and as far as New Zealand and Russia.

They distributed cocaine, heroin and other drugs while tapping into the lucrative human trafficking business.

Under the watch of the 76-year-old, the criminal organization has been able to haul in $11 billion based on seizures and pricing provided by the Drug Enforcement Agency.

'El Mayo' positioned himself as one of the richest men in the narcotics, earning $3 billion since 2001, despite his aversion to showing off his wealth.

Mike Vigil, who once led the DEA's international operations, recognized 'El Mayo's' business smarts as the head of a criminal syndicate that has spread its wealth and laundered its unlawful profits through international banks and companies.

The American agency tasked with battling drug smuggling and distribution has pointed out 250 business that have benefited from the Sinaloa Cartel's illicit earnings.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested on suspicion of drug-related charges in an operation carried out by Mexico City federal authorities

Vincente Zambada, the oldest of 'El'Mayo's' three sons, is currently serving a 10-year sentence in the U.S. after he was extradited from Mexico in 2010

They included a dairy company, water park and a daycare center allegedly operated by his daughter Maria Teresa.

'Even though he's only had maybe an elementary-school education, he's received a Harvard-level education from some of the most prolific, knowledgeable and astute drug lords that Mexico has ever had,' Vigil told Bloomberg in 2018.

In a 2010 interview with Proceso, 'El Mayo', admitted the possibility of being arrested created a sense of 'panic' despite how hard to he worked to maintain a low profile in public and wouldn't rule out committing suicide if it meant avoiding doing time in jail.

'I don't know if I'd have the courage to kill myself. I'd like to think so, that I'd kill myself,' he said.

A Sinaloa Cartel faction led by the sons of El Chapo has allegedly claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of 66 people in the northern Mexican city of Culiacan in March.

A series of narco mantas - or banners were found hanging from four highway overpasses and bridges before Tuesday morning's rush hour traffic.

The banners insisted the abductions were in response a rash of criminal incidents orchestrated by a home invasion gang, which some claim is led by law enforcement agents.

Each display featured a banner with a message signed off with the initials of El Chapo's son, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman, and had the pictures of the gang's four leaders.

Narco mantas, or banners, were spotted in the Mexican city of Sinaloa and addressed the kidnapping of 66 people

Alexia Monserrath Abrego Esqueda, one of five university students murdered by the cartel in Zacatecas, Mexico, in February, 2022

El Chapo, meanwhile, pleaded to have his his phone call and visitation rights reinstated at the ADX Florence super maximum security prison in Colorado.

The 67-year-old co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, who once boasted about being behind the killing of 3,000 people, moaned that he has been feeling lonely ever since his rights as a prisoner were stripped away in a letter he penned on March 20.

His visitation rights and phone privileges - previously two calls a month - were canceled out when he was convicted, and his appeal was denied in April.

'Sorry to bother you again with the request that I have asked you before with regards to my wife, Emma Coronel,' Guzman wrote in the letter.

'I ask that you please authorize her to visit me and to bring my daughters to visit me, since my daughters can only visit me when they are on school break, since they are studying in Mexico.'

The former cartel boss showed his softer side despite proudly running a drug empire that saw thousands slaughtered - and millions more affected by his illegal wares.

The former kingpin spends 23 hours locked in a 7-by-12-foot concrete cell with double doors in a section dubbed 'Range 13.'

He is supervised round-the-clock and he is prohibited from mingling with the inmate population.

Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman penned a letter to federal judge Brian Cogan in New York requesting that his wife be allowed to visit him in prison and that the two 15-minute phone calls with the couple's 12-year-old twin daughters be reinstated

The former kingpin spends 23 hours locked in a 7-by-12-foot concrete cell with double doors in a section dubbed 'Range 13.'

Guzman has often complained of the jail conditions ever since he was found guilty in by a federal jury in February 2019 on 10 counts that included drug trafficking money laundering and the use of a fire arm to carry out crimes.

Guzman was once consider the most powerful drug trafficker in the world - after Colombian Pablo Escobar.

He was extradited from Mexico in January 2017 after he was recaptured in January 2016 following his second prison escape in June 2015 via a tunnel that his organization had constructed underneath the jail.

Before that, he had been on the run for 13 years after he snuck out of prison on a laundry cart in January 2001.

His wife was released from US federal custody in September 2023 after she completed 31 months of a 36-month sentence that was handed down by a Washington DC federal court in November 2021 after she pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and money laundering.
A man was charged with murder after allegedly firing a gun, and killing another person, from the inside of a Muni bus. Scott Strazzante/The Chronicle 2021

A San Francisco man was charged with murder after he allegedly shot and killed a person from inside a Muni bus near San Franciscos Excelsior neighborhood, the San Francisco District Attorneys Office announced this week.

Jose Adrian Flores Garcia, 28, was sitting in the back of a Muni bus before noon on June 18 when the victim, whom the DAs office did not name, boarded the bus with two friends, prosecutors said.

When the victim and his friend got off the bus at Mission Street and Silver Avenue, Flores Garcia opened the bus window, stuck his arm out and shot the victim, according to the district attorney. Flores Garcia then reportedly yelled at the bus driver to drive away.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Flores Garcia was taken into custody a month later after an investigation by the San Francisco Police Department. He was charged with one count of murder and one count of discharging a firearm from a moving vehicle. The district attorneys office has moved to have him detained until his trial, citing public safety risk, and the police investigation into the case is ongoing.

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins offered condolences to the victims family and friends in a statement.

This cold-blooded killing and use of public transportation to flee the scene in this case is chilling, she said. Although nothing we do can bring the victim back, my office will do everything in our power to fight for justice in this case.
Chipotle has been hit by a wave of criticism over claims it has become stingy with its portion sizes.

The burrito giant has been accused of cutting back on everything from beans to veggies to their highly valued protein items, like chicken, steak and carne asada.

The result: a trend in which several TikTok users have now claimed they get bigger portions by filming their servers, implying that, under the pressure of a mobile phone's camera lens, Chipotle employees are more generous.

DailyMail.com decided to investigate, shopping at two locations of the fast food burrito chain in downtown Manhattan  filming one location and respecting the other's privacy.

'Filming does not result in larger portion sizes,' a Chipotle PR representative said, after users on TikTok began filming the servers making their orders. DailyMail.com has now investigated two locations of the fast food burrito chain in Manhattan (our weight testing is pictured above)

A war has raged for over two months between Gen Z influencers and TikTok users, on one side, and staff at Chipotle, on the other, over allegedly stingier new portions

While our data collection efforts were far below the standard of a true scientific investigation, our test threw up results no advocates for the 'life hack' saw coming.

DailyMail.com made identical steak and chicken burrito bowl orders at the two locations, in an effort to compare and contrast their serving portions by weight.

For the chicken burrito bowl, all of the possible vegetable toppings, plus beans and hot sauce were requested, including the 'fajita'-style roasted peppers and onions.

For the steak bowl, fajita veggies were skipped, and cheese was added to the mix.

Contrary to the claims of numerous, passionate Chipotle consumers on TikTok, the total weight of the burrito bowls were actually lighter at the location where we recorded  by approximately one-to-two ounces in each case.

A likely explanation for these reversed findings was made public by Chipotle worker Atulya Dora-Laskey, who works at a Lansing, Michigan, store.

'We actually go lighter on portions, because we don't want to be on the record violating Chipotle's proportion policy,' as Dora-Laskey told The Guardian in June.

'You could get in trouble with your boss for giving a customer too much food,' she explained, as the corporate franchise has strict official guidelines for scoop size.

Chipotle burrito bowl weights | recorded server v. unrecorded server meal by recorded server by unrecorded server by corporate portion guide chicken burrito bowl 26.90 ounces 28.15 ounces 26 ounces steak burrito bowl 25.05 ounces 28.80 ounces 25 ounces

Chipotle has been under fire for issues involving the sizes of their orders online and in-store being different from one another

Chipotle's employee 'pocket guide for portion sizes,' leaked to Reddit two years ago, does in fact show what the mandated proportions for each burrito ingredient should be.

Using those charts ourselves, DailyMail.com's chicken bowl and steak bowl ingredients with this guide helped us assess what the weight of our burrito bowls should have been.

The chicken burrito bowl should have clocked-in at 26 ounces.

The steak burrito bowl, with less veggies and a 1-ounce allotment of cheese, would be expected to come in at 25 ounces.

These figures come so close to the recorded Chipotle location's service for these bowls that the experiment lends credence to Dora-Laskey's claims.

Chipotle's 'crew pocket guide for portion sizes,' leaked to Reddit two years ago (above), does in fact show - both visually and by the ounce - what the mandated proportions are for each burrito ingredient as dictated by Chipotle's corporate office

'You could get in trouble with your boss for giving a customer too much food,' Chipotle worker Atulya Dora-Laskey explained. She noted that recording is likely to yield less food for the customer, 'because we don't want to be on the record violating Chipotle's proportion policy'

Estimates for Chipotle's official guidelines on portion sizes come so close to the weights delivered by our videotaped Chipotle location's service that the experiment lends credence to Dora-Laskey's claims. Above, one of our experimental chicken burrito bowls, ready to eat

DailyMail.com's burrito bowl results also matched the weight figures reported by a much more comprehensive study of 75 orders from the chain, conducted by Wells Fargo analysts on a lark.

The analysts, as they told Barrons, came to a median weight of about 21.5 ounces  several ounces below DailyMail.com's orders, but close.

The largest burrito bowl obtained by the team, led by Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem, came out to 27 ounces, while their smallest was just 14 ounces.

Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem set out to test the theory that Chipotle sizes are getting smaller

Fadem's team ordered and weighed their 75 test bowls from eight locations across New York City, and kept variables the same by ordering the same ingredients: white rice, black beans, chicken, pico de gallo, cheese and lettuce, according to Barrons.

When they ultimately returned to their offices, they discovered that the consistency of the burrito bowls varied widely from restaurant to restaurant.

Some locations served bowls that weighed up to 33 percent more than others, their study found.

The frenzy over Chipotle serving sizes appears to have started in earnest around early May, thanks to Keith Lee, a former mixed martial arts fighter and TikTok food critic.

Lee posted a video to his over 16 million followers on the app that appeared to depict the influencer digging into a burrito bowl  and not finding any of the chicken he had ordered.

'These portions be crazy,' he said in the video.

Later that month, another influencer, Isaac Francis, filmed himself ordering at Chipotle and indignantly demanding for more rice and chicken.

'Couldn't let [the employee] 'disrespect me with that protein size,' Francis captioned his video.

In late May, as the intensity over this debate on TikTok reached a fever pitch, Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol went on camera to deny portion sizes had gotten smaller.

Jewel Diaz, whose TikTok handle is @jeweldiaz, posted a video on April 8 and showed off her big bowl of food from Chipotle while sitting in her car

Other TikTok users have shared their own experiences with ordering food at Chipotle and some of them claim to be past or present employees at one of their locations

'We always want to give people big portions to get them excited about the food,' he told Fortune.

'It's kind of who we are,' the CEO professed, adding that anyone could simply ask for more of a favored burrito topping at the chain.

Laurie Schalow, Chipotle's chief corporate affairs officer, also told CNN that bowl sizes may vary by the number of ingredients a customer chooses or if they opt to make any ingredient 'light' or 'extra light.'

She also denied that the company has changed its portion sizes.

Addressing the TikTok 'life hack' head on, a company spokesperson told the New York Times, in no uncertain terms: 'Filming does not result in larger portion sizes.'

DailyMail.com's analysis, bolstered by candid disclosure's from Chipotle staff and the Wells Fargo team's 75-burrito bowl review, lends support to the company's claim.
'Worryingly hot' temperatures will affect children and teachers in classrooms as climate change drives more heatwaves, experts have warned.

The warning comes after research shows 85 per cent of classrooms breached a recommended maximum temperature of 26C during the recent heatwave in late June.

A study by climate campaign group Round Our Way worked with teachers in seven schools across England to put sensors in classrooms that recorded the temperature automatically every hour over a period of four weeks.

The period included the late June heatwave, when the UK's Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued a yellow heat health alert for most of England as temperatures climbed to 30C.

The data found that, while there is no legal maximum temperature for schools or workplaces, temperatures in six of the seven schools exceeded the 26C maximum which is advised by the National Education Union (NEU).

'Worryingly hot' temperatures will affect children and teachers in classrooms as climate change drives more heatwaves, experts have warned (stock image)

The highest peak indoor temperature recorded was in Cambridgeshire, with 29.6C in the classroom by the end of the school day.

Meanwhile, schools in West Sussex and Suffolk recorded peaks of 28.3C and 28.2C respectively.

Simon, a teacher in the Lake District, explained how there have been 'some fainting incidents' linked to hot classrooms at his school.

'Students lose concentration, become lethargic and occasionally complain of feeling sick with headaches,' he explained.

'There have been some fainting incidents. This may have been compounded by being in warm rooms with little air circulation.

'For obvious safety reasons, the windows only open about ten centimetres at the bottom.'

Roger Harding, director of Round Our Way, which describes itself as a not-for-profit supporting people impacted by climate change in the UK, said: 'This data reveals the worryingly hot temperatures our children are starting to face in the classroom thanks to climate change.

'Hard-pressed teachers have told us about children this summer who have fainted or even vomited due to the high heat, and there are many more who simply struggle to concentrate.

'This has been a mild summer by recent standards, so it is scary to picture how bad this will get when temperatures well above 30C return.'

The warning comes after research shows 85 per cent of classrooms breached a recommended maximum temperature of 26C during the recent heatwave (pictured) in late June

He warned that schools, like many of the UK's buildings, were not set up and funded to deal with the higher temperatures being seen because of climate change.

'The weather used to just be small talk but we now need our political leaders to ensure the country is better prepared for more extreme weather and to tackle the fossil fuel pollution that is causing it in the first place,' he said.

It comes after analysis from the Met Office shows the UK is seeing, on average, more frequent periods of hot weather and an increase in extreme rainfall, bringing challenges for infrastructure, health and wellbeing.

But the Government's plan to adapt to the risks posed by climate change is currently being challenged in the High Court, by campaigners who claim the Tory administration's July 2023 National Adaptation Programme (NAP) fails to properly respond to 61 climate change risks.
Google executives may be fearing the worst once again as Microsoft-backed rival OpenAI launches a new AI-powered search tool.

'SearchGPT', which is being trialed as a prototype before a wider rollout, scours the web for live news and information just like Google Search.

OpenAI says the new product is particularly useful for queries about current events, recent developments, or specific information that ChatGPT might not know.

Social media users have noted the parallels with the world's biggest search engine, with one saying 'Google Search is definitely in trouble'.

Another said: 'Anyone who has been paying attention knows there will be a new king of search within 10 years.

SearchGPT is a new AI tool from OpenAI, the California tech company behind ChatGPT. Currently being tested with a small group of users, it gives 'fast and timely answers' with clear and relevant online sources

What is SearchGPT? SearchGPT is a new AI tool from OpenAI, the California tech company behind ChatGPT. Currently being tested with a small group of users, it gives 'fast and timely answers' with clear and relevant online sources, it says. SearchGPT has more of a focus on scouring the internet for the latest news, trends and data compared to ChatGPT, which is more for 'conversational interactions', assisting with problem-solving, advice, tutoring and accessing older information. Advertisement

OpenAI says it is testing SearchGPT with a 'small group of users and publishers' to get feedback before it's rolled out more widely.

MailOnline contacted OpenAI for more information on when this could be but it wouldn't comment further.

In a blog post, OpenAI said SearchGPT will give users 'fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources'.

'Getting answers on the web can take a lot of effort, often requiring multiple attempts to get relevant results,' it said.

'We believe that by enhancing the conversational capabilities of our models with real-time information from the web, finding what youre looking for can be faster and easier.'

Sam Altman, the tech firm's CEO, said 'there is room to make search much better than it is today'.

He posted on X: 'We will learn from the prototype, make it better, and then integrate the tech into ChatGPT to make it real-time and maximally helpful.'

Compared to its famous sibling, SearchGPT has more of a focus on searching the net for the latest news, trends and data, as well as presenting web links to the relevant online sources.

ChatGPT, meanwhile, is more for 'conversational interactions', assisting with problem-solving, advice, tutoring and accessing older information.

Although it's revolutionized the way we access information online, ChatGPT sometimes has trouble accessing the most up-to-date information and also often gives inaccurate responses.

In a blog post, OpenAI said SearchGPT will give users 'fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources'

It could prove another headache for rival Google, which declared a 'code red' - an emergency situation - shortly after ChatGPT was released (file photo)

Earlier this year, eagle-eyed tech fans also spotted that OpenAI had created a domain for search.chatgpt.com.

The domain now takes users to the SearchGPT homepage, where they can sign up to become eligible to use the tool by clicking 'Join the waitlist'.

If you're already signed up to ChatGPT it will take your email to put you on the SearchGPT waitlist, but if you are not you will be asked to sign up to ChatGPT first.

It warns: 'Access is limited. If selected, you'll receive an email.'

OpenAI said it plans to integrate the best of SearchGPT's features directly into ChatGPT in the future.

Of those who have already tried, the response seems to be mixed.

JL Patten, founder of financial site Intrder, said it's fast, user-friendly and lets you 'have real conversations with your search'.

But Neil Patel, head of digital marketing agency NP Digital, said it 'seems like a mediocre search engine'.

If you're interested in using SearchGPT, you can head to the official webpage and join a waitlist - but it warns 'access is limited'

Social media users have noted the parallels with the world's biggest search engine, with one saying 'Google Search is definitely in trouble'. Another said: 'Anyone who has been paying attention knows there will be a new king of search within 10 years

'It doesn't seem revolutionary, and it doesn't give a good reason for people to switch from Google to SearchGPT,' he posted to X.

He added: 'Just because ChatGPT is successful doesn't mean SearchGPT will be.'

Regardless, SearchGPT should be causing a fresh headache for the top execs at Google fearing for its $150-billion-a-year search business monopoly.

Following OpenAI's new announcement, shares of Google's parent company, Alphabet fell 2 per cent.

Compared to its famous sibling, SearchGPT has more of a focus on scouring the internet for the latest news, trends and data, as well as presenting web links to the relevant online sources

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said his company believes 'there is room to make search much better than it is today'

Shortly after OpenAI released ChatGPT over a year ago, Google internally declared a 'code red'  an emergency situation  and scrambled to develop an equivalent product.

The result, formerly known as Bard but soon rechristened Gemini, operates very similarly to ChatGPT with conversational replies, but has been plagued with issues.

In February, Google has to pause Gemini after it was accused of replacing white historical figures, including Nazi soldiers, with people of colour.
A pair of Astronauts remain trapped in space with no end in sight to their near two month long ordeal while engineers try to fix their faulty Boeing spaceship.

Sunita Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore have had their stay on the International Space Station extended indefinitely after hoping to visit the orbiting lab for 8 days.

On Friday July 26, they hit day 51.

Thruster failures and helium links on Boeing's new Starliner capsule has prompted NASA and Boeing to keep them in orbit for longer over fears a trip back on the spacecraft could end in disaster.

NASA confirmed earlier this week that they are not ready to announce a return date.

At a briefing, officials said that the Starliner was probably safe enough to fly the two home, but that decision would be made during a review.

The space agency and Boeing have repeatedly said that the astronauts are not stranded and that in case of an emergency they could fly home in Starliner.

But that has raised questions about why Williams and Wilmore can't just fly home now, if the Boeing craft really is safe. The work being done on the Starliner is also being performed remotely - with no engineer sent to space to work on the actual craft itself.

Sunita Williams and Barry 'Butch' Wilmore have had their stay on the International Space Station extended indefinitely after hoping to visit the orbiting lab for 8 days

The Starliner is pictured docked in the International Space Station. The two astronauts who flew to space on the faulty aircraft remain trapped above the Earth indefinitely while NASA and Boeing probe a series of defects

Thruster failures and helium links on Boeing's new Starliner capsule, seen here aboard a Atlas V rocket, has prompted NASA and Boeing to keep them in orbit for longer

NASA's commercial crew program manager Steve Stich acknowledge that backup options are being reviewed, including SpaceX's Dragon capsule.

The capsule blasted off from Florida atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on June 5, with NASA saying a few hours later that the capsule had sprung two leaks.

While the capsule docked at the station on June 6, another leak was found and days later on June 10 another was spotted.

In addition to the helium leaks, five thrusters temporarily malfunctioned during the flight but four came back online, with the fifth being shut off.

If the spacecraft was to suffer another failure on the way back to Earth, the consequences could be catastrophic for its occupants.

The Starliner fiasco heaps fresh embarrassment on Boeing, whose commercial aviation department has been plagued by scandals and crashes.

Earlier this year, a 737 MAX plane burst open while flying over Portland, with two other MAX jets crashing in 2018 and 2019, killing more than 300.

Boeing has been accused of putting profits before safety and has vowed to improve the quality of its products after the series of catastrophic failures.

Williams and Wilmore, despite their unfortunate position, have to work conducting science experiments and upkeep on the station - including cleaning its toilets.

During a briefing with reports, Williams said: 'We've been thoroughly busy up here, integrated right into the crew.

'It feels like coming back home. It feels good to float around. It feels good to be in space and work up with the ISS team. So yeah, it's great to be up here.'

Since their arrival, they have performing ultrasounds on their veins to collect data on how space affects the human body.

They have also been tasked with chores on board including swapping out a urine processing pump, as well as taking an inventory of food supplies onboard.

Wilmore, 61, was tasked with servicing a pair of freezers used to hold research samples as well as refilling the coolant in one of the station's water pumps.

Wilmore, left, and Williams pose for a portrait inside the vestibule between the forward port on the International Space Station's Harmony module and Boeing's Starliner

The capsule blasted off from Florida atop a United Launch Alliance Atlast V rocket on June 5, with NASA saying a few hours later that the capsule had sprung two leaks

Prior to the flight, Williams said that she was aware that the nature of the test flight meant that her and Wilmore might have to improvise.

She said: 'We do anticipate everything's going to go as planned. But if it doesn't, we'll take a moment and analyze it and talk about it, and we'll be okay.

'So our confidence in the mission is high. I'm not complaining that we're here for a couple extra weeks.'

According to the Washington Post they had a scare last month when a satellite broke apart at an altitude near the station, posing a threat.

The two jumped inside the Starliner capsule and prepared to undock in case debris from the satellite hit the station, prompting an evacuation.

The debris ended up passing by the station without incident and the crew resumed operations.

Scott Kelly, a former NASA astronaut who spent nearly a year on the station, said that two others onboard would deplete food and cause the air supply to work harder.

Veteran NASA astronauts Suni Williams (left) and commander Butch Wilmore (right) prior to departure on June 5

Starliner is lifted at the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, April 16, 2024

Speaking with the post, Kelly said: 'They're going to put a little bit of a strain on that. On the other hand, there are four extra hands to do more work.

'And there always seems to be a lot of work to be done up there. So that's a positive.

'It's spaceflight, it's risky, it's dangerous. Stuff can go wrong. But you've got to trust the hardware and the people, and I'm confident they're going to be fine.'

Boeing and NASA officials first noticed issues with the Starliner even before it took off with the astronauts earlier this month.

It has faced years of delays, setbacks and added expenses that have cost Boeing more than $1billion, CNN reports.

Starliner was then set to launch on May 6, but teams detected a valve leaking helium and scrubbed the mission.

Engineers suspected that the issue came from a defective rubber seal the size of a shirt button, and said that even if the leak worsens, it could be managed in flight - and set the next launch for June 1.

During the flight Wilmore and Williams (pictured) were informed that the shuttle had developed two new helium leaks

The crew has enough food rations for at least four months on the International Space Station

NASA astronauts Suni Williams (bottom left) and Butch Wilmore (bottom right) are seen here after safely arriving aboard the International Space Station

However, Starliner was again plagued with misfortunate when the capsule was automatically halted with minutes to go before liftoff by a computer-abort system.

The postponement was triggered by computers on the Atlas V rocket's launchpad that coordinate the final moments before liftoff, but the Starliner capsule appeared healthy, officials said.

Engineers last week completed testing on a spare thruster in the New Mexico desert and will rip it apart to try to understand what went wrong ahead of the Starliner's docking.

The team will test-fire the capsule's thrusters this weekend while docked to the space station to gather more data, said Boeing's Mark Nappi.

Each of the 28 maneuvering thrusters can fit in a hand and weighs 2 pounds (1 kilogram).

The capsule is also outfitted with bigger engines for dropping out of orbit at flight's end. All these are part of a segment that is discarded before landing, which means nothing to study for future flights.

After the space shuttles retired, NASA hired private companies for astronaut rides to the space station, paying Boeing and SpaceX billions of dollars.
Archeologists have been left stunned after finding an ancient mummy that has been perfectly preserved for thousands of years in Italy.

The team made the 'unprecedented' find after unsealing the 2,000-year-old sarcophagus in the historic 'tomb of Cerberus' in Naples.

The remains had been preserved by plant-based creams that were applied on the bodies prior to being sealed in the chamber  supplying new and detailed evidence that reveal how Ancient Rome embalmed its own dead.

One of the bodies was found covered in a shroud, surrounded by grave goods, which the team unwrapped and found the individual was perfectly preserved.

The particular care given to the deceased and the chronology of the objects found suggested that he may have been the founder of the family for whom the mausoleum was built.

The burial chamber was discovered in Giugliano, a suburb of Naples, and is believed to be some 2,000 years old. It was uncovered after archaeologists spotted a wall featuring an ancient Roman construction technique known as opus incertum

Archaeologists have previously found a large number of burial sites in the same area, which date from the Roman Republic era (510 BC to 31 BC) to the Roman Imperial Age (31 BC to AD 476).

The 'tomb of Cerberus,' located in Giugliano, was discovered in 2023 after archaeologists uncovered the boundary of the necropolis.

A deeper analysis revealed the structure was the entrance to a chamber tomb, which featured a stunning fresco depicting Cerberus, the three-headed dog from ancient Greek mythology that is believed to be the guard of the underworld.

Guigliano, located in Campania, was colonized by the ancient Greeks between the 8th and 7th centuries BC.

The tomb was discovered by the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape, who were not only shocked by how well-preserved the bodies were but by the method used.

Researchers plan to share images of the newly found mummies at a later date.

The remains had been lathered with cream made from chenopodium, a genus of perennial herb colloquially known as goosefoot, and absinthium (wormwood).

The combination has been found on remains in the past, including the body of a 17th-century bishop found beneath a cathedral in Sweden.

The roughly 2,000-year-old ancient sarcophagus, located in Naples in southern Italy, was first probed with a micro-camera in order to assess if breaking the seal might harm the precious artifacts and remains it contains (pictured above) by exposing them to the air

A sealed sarcophagus at the 'tomb of Cerberus,' three-headed dog of Greek myth, has been opened - shocking experts with mummies in an 'excellent state.' The long-sealed chamber, part of a necropolis adorned with ornate frescos (above), was discovered outside Naples, Italy

The mummy that has been unwrapped, however, was covered in a shroud that experts believe mineralized due to the climate conditions inside the chamber.

Superintendent Mariano Nuzzo said in a statement: 'In recent months, in fact, laboratory analyses conducted on samples taken from the inhumations and the depositional beds have returned a considerable amount of data on the treatment of the deceaseds body and the funerary ritual carried out, significantly enriching the panorama of our knowledge.'

The burial chamber was discovered after archaeologists spotted a wall built using an ancient Roman construction technique known as opus incertum.

The method used irregularly shaped and randomly placed uncut stones, which emerged around in the second century BC.

It later emerged that this was the front wall of the tomb, which had been sealed with a heavy slab made of tuff  a light, porous rock created out of volcanic ash and other sediments.

To get inside the burial chamber, the archaeologists had to carefully remove the tiles covering the ceiling opening, which revealed what experts said was an 'unprecedented' discovery.

They inserted a micro camera into the small opening, allowing them to see the bodies enclosed inside.

The project, financed by Italy's Ministry of Culture, is now conducting DNA analysis on the mummified human remains, to identify the multiple bodies uncovered.
His journey was followed by hundreds of thousands of people on TikTok

The River Thames looks mighty and awe-inspiring as it flows through London, but at the start, it's practically just a marsh.

So reveals Ed Pratt, an adventurer who waded, swam and kayaked over 200 miles down the river, from its source to the sea.

Ed has a history of madcap adventures and has previously travelled 22,000 miles around the world on a unicycle.

His recent trip along the Thames was followed by hundreds of thousands of people on TikTok, with one of his videos receiving over 4.2million views.

Ed began his journey in Gloucestershire - where the river originates. Its starting point, known as Thames Head, does not have a fixed location, but arises from a group of shifting springs near Cirencester and Coates.

Adventurer Ed Pratt (pictured) waded, swam and kayaked over 200 miles down the River Thames, from source to sea. His journey was followed by hundreds of thousands of people on TikTok, with one of his videos receiving over 4.2million views

Ed began his journey in Gloucestershire - where the Thames originates. Its starting point, known as Thames Head (above), does not have a fixed location, but arises from a group of shifting springs. Picture courtesy of Creative Commons licensing

Ed paddled through London on his journey, where he passed by the Palace of Westminster and travelled under Tower Bridge

For the first few days, Ed trudged through muddy and foliage-rich water while ducking under the arches of small bridges.

On day four, once the water became more traversable, Ed picked up his kayak in Cricklade, Wiltshire.

The small vessel, which he called 'Thamesy McThamesface', served him well for the rest of the journey.

Ed paddled through Oxford, Reading, Henley, Windsor, Shepperton and Kingston before reaching the 'choppy' London section, where he passed by the Palace of Westminster and travelled under Tower Bridge.

@mredpratt Source to sea down the River Thames here we go! Ahead of me is 210 miles of wading, swimming (!) and kayaking down quite possibly the busiest river in Britain. And Im doing the whole thing alone and self-supported. The rule Ive set myself for this mission is this: in order to make progress I have to follow the course of the river exactly. This allows for camping on the bank, but if Im moving towards the sea, I have to be IN it! Ive never been great at posting about trips as they are actually happening, but for this adventure Im going to try it - if only with a short update clip a day. Wish me luck! Day 1s progress: 3.5 miles Total distance: 3.5 miles  original sound - Ed Pratt

Ed paddled through Oxford, Reading, Henley, Windsor, Shepperton and Kingston on his journey. The above image shows the Thames flowing through Henley-on-Thames

Ed spent most nights wild camping on the banks of the river, or in nearby car parks, aside from when strangers invited him in

On his journey, Ed capsized twice, came across sunken boats and picked up plastic litter that had found its way into the river.

He spent most nights wild camping on the banks of the river, or in nearby car parks, aside from when strangers invited him in.

He spent one night on a Dutch barge and was even invited to stay in the captain's cabin of HMS Wellington, which is moored in central London alongside Victoria Embankment.

Ed started each day at the exact point where he left the river the previous day.

After 19 days, he arrived at Sheerness seafront in Kent, which is located near the mouth of the River Thames, where it flows into the Thames Estuary and eventually into the North Sea.

On his journey, Ed capsized twice, came across sunken boats and picked up plastic litter that had found its way into the river. The above image shows the town of Windsor from the banks of the Thames

After 19 days, Ed arrived at Sheerness seafront in Kent (above), which is located near the mouth of the River Thames

In a TikTok video posted at the finish line, Ed described the last leg of his journey as a 'beautiful paddle' and felt 'relieved' to have made it to the end.

The adventurer set off on the journey with the intention of 'raising money and awareness' for The Rivers Trust, a charity aiming to conserve the rivers across Britain, Northern Ireland and Ireland. He set the goal of donating 10,000 to the charity and managed to raise over 20,000.

In the video, Ed noted that the fundraiser was still open for donations, and thanked those who had followed along on the journey.
An American living in the UK has discovered the north-south divide  and reveals that it 'threw' him off.

Kobie Jordan, who has lived in the UK for three years, declares in a thought-provoking TikTok video that it 'has to be talked about'.

As he strolls through the streets of London, Kobie explains to camera that in America people are friendly down south and reserved up north, but notes that in Britain, it's the other way around.

Kobie, known online as @kjordyyy, tells his 182,000 followers that 'back home in the South, things are a lot slower, people are much nicer and there's a more community feel to it'.

Meanwhile, in the north, he says people are 'rude and reserved' and describes the environment as a lot more 'fast-paced' with 'lots of hustle and bustle'.

TikToker Kobie Jordan explains that in America people are friendly down south and reserved up north, but notes that in Britain, it's the other way around

Kobie says London (pictured) is the only place in the UK where 'people look through you'

He adds: 'Someone could be on the side of the road dying and people would walk by.'

In the north of the UK, however, he points out that 'people are way more down-to-earth'.

Kobie claims northerners, such as in Newcastle or Liverpool, have the 'maddest accents', and says: 'I genuinely don't believe I've run into one bad northerner.'

The content creator was particularly stunned by the difference up north on a trip to Manchester, where he says 'everyone was so polite'.

Describing the visit, he says: 'I went to Poundland, and the cashier was like, "Are you alright love, how are you?" And you never get that in London.

'We had a 25-minute conversation. It was so awesome.'

In the south of the UK, however, he says 'people are a lot more reserved, a lot more distant'.

He adds: 'Some people may even describe them as snobby. Their accents are a lot more posh, and they're a lot more rude.'

Kobie says that in the south of the UK people are a lot more reserved, a lot more distant. Northerners, meanwhile, such as those from Newcastle or Liverpool, have the maddest accents, with Kobie adding: I genuinely dont believe Ive run into one bad northerner

Kobie was particularly stunned by the north-south difference on a trip to Manchester (above), where he says 'everyone was so polite'

FOR MORE FROM KOBIE... To see more from Kobie, follow him on TikTok at www.tiktok.com/@kjordyyy, or follow his Instagram account at www.instagram.com/kjordyyy/?hl=en. Advertisement

Kobie points out that it's 'not common' to engage in 'polite small talk' with southerners. He says: 'They're very much in their own lane and their humour is dry.'

London, in particular, is where he's noticed stunted socialising.

He adds: 'You don't really stop and say "hey".' Instead, he says, 'you keep your eyes forward and walk past [people]'.

London is also the only place in the UK where Kobie says 'people look through you'.

His video was viewed nearly 300,000 times, with users flooding the comment section with their thoughts on the divide.

User 'purpleshark21' said: 'I'm a southerner that now lives in Liverpool. Best move I ever made! Love it here. Been here 10 years and [would] never move back down South.'

Others were quick to point out that London does not represent the entire south of the UK. User 'antontevola' said: 'I think you're describing London more than the south.'

User 'anchoredwunderlust' agreed: 'Very true. But do try south-west too. Somerset, Bristol, Cornwall, Devon.'

To which the creator replied: 'I used to live in Bristol... all I gotta say, "LUSH."'
Forget everything you thought you knew about Yorkshire puddings (unless youre actually from Yorkshire).

Because not only have you been making them all wrong  youve been eating them at the wrong point in the meal.

MailOnline Travel spoke to Luke French, co-owner and chef at JORO, a Michelin guide restaurant in Sheffield, South Yorkshire.

He notes that 'in Yorkshire' the correct, traditional way to eat a Yorkshire pudding is as a first course before the main event.

That's right, Yorkshire puddings are a starter, not a side dish.

Luke French, co-owner and chef at JORO, a Michelin guide restaurant in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, notes that 'in Yorkshire' the correct, traditional way to eat a Yorkshire pudding is as a first course before the main event

Ellen Castelow, for Historic UK, supports chef Luke's statement and notes: 'The original purpose of serving the batter pudding was not as part of a main meal, in the way that its served with traditional roast dinners now, but instead served before, with gravy, as an appetiser course.

'This is because, when meat was expensive the Yorkshire pudding could act to fill the consumer, meeting the appetites of working men and allowing the meat to stretch further.'

It was, and still is in some homes, common to see them served with gravy, piccalilli and 'Yorkshire salad', aka onions and cucumber quick-pickled in vinegar.

Luke suggests some of his favourite ways to eat Yorkshire puddings as a starter for anyone unsure of the idea.

He explains: 'I love them as a starter with smokey burnt ends (from pork or beef ribs) and pickles in them covered in truffled cheddar sauce all over. Just good old roast beef and horseradish cream in them also.

'A wedge of ham hock terrine, a wedge of cheese and some piccalilli is a treat, too, if we have leftovers.'

So, next time you're taking the eggs out of the cupboard to make Yorkshire puddings, consider making your meal a two-course affair. It's only proper.

The chef also insists that Yorkshires are best served when made in the traditional format - baked in a large, square tray. Just like Yorkshire grandmothers have done for generations.

He says: 'I personally prefer a big, tray-baked Yorkie. Really tall and crispy around the outside. I love how the bottom with the big surface area (when cooked in a large tray) collects all the fat and is almost a tiny bit undercooked.

'Its got that naughty and delicious raw cake batter thing about it you know.'

So far, so Yorkshire. Historic UK notes that bigger Yorkshire puddings are the more traditional variety, too.

Luke says: 'I personally prefer a big, tray-baked Yorkie. Really tall and crispy around the outside. I love how the bottom with the big surface area (when cooked in a large tray) collects all the fat and is almost a tiny bit undercooked.' Above - file image

It states: 'The pudding would have originally been cooked beneath the meat (usually beef) in a large, shallow tin and then cut into squares to be served, rather than the individual puddings you can buy in supermarkets today.'

Luke offered his top cooking tips for those who want to try making proper Yorkshire puddings successfully.

He advises: 'Only ever make your mix with a whisk and a spatula  no blending allowed. Do not pass the mix through a sieve  some lumps are good!

'Never weigh the ingredients. Only make the batter with volumes  for example, take a cup or bowl and measure using this, equal parts whole milk, plain flour and good quality rich-yolk eggs.'

His tactic for getting the perfect rise?

Luke says: 'Use a heavy roasting pan, get it absolutely raging hot in the oven first.

'Then I always use roasted liquid beef fat (tallow) instead of oil (oil is fine, but beef fat tastes way better). Get the fat very hot in the preheated tray then add the batter, cook until golden brown and tall and crispy.

'Let them sit in the tray for a minute or two before removing from the tray or they may flop.'

He also adds some sneaky ingredients to his batter.

Give them a try if you want chef-standard puds.

Luke told us: 'I always add a pinch of caster sugar, English mustard powder, salt and MSG to mine. This helps with colour, but more importantly flavour.'

If any Yorkshire puddings go spare then you can also serve them up as a dessert - another traditional use for these Northern delights.

Luke notes: 'I like them standalone with custard (proper vanilla custard  but we make it with miso and duck fat in the custard)  trust me, it's next level. Ice cream is unbelievable, too.'
Cat Deeley showed off her incredible figure in a skimpy black bikini as she enjoyed a relaxing beach day with her husband Patrick Kielty on her family holiday to St Tropez on Wednesday.

The presenter, 47, is enjoying a summer break from This Morning, and certainly made the most of the French sunshine by heading to the coast.

Cat slipped into a strapless black two-piece as she prepared for a dip in the ocean with her sons Milo, eight, and James, five.

Meanwhile her husband Patrick, 53, showed off his shirtless physique as he headed into the ocean for a swim.

As she and her family prepared to leave the beach, Cat covered her bikini in an oversized navy blue dress, and finished her look with a wide-brimmed straw hat.

Cat Deeley showed off her incredible figure in a skimpy black bikini as she enjoyed a relaxing beach day with her husband Patrick Kielty on her family holiday to St Tropez on Wednesday

The presenter is enjoying a summer break from This Morning, and certainly made the most of the French sunshine by heading to the coast

Meanwhile her husband Patrick showed off his shirtless physique as he headed into the ocean for a swim

Cat's holiday comes after she and her co-host Ben Shephard, 49, announced they would be departing This Morning for several weeks.

The new hosts, who joined the ITV daytime show in March and are said to be receiving an annual salary of 555,000, are set to take a seven-week break.

During their summer break, a rotation of guest presenters will be brought in to front the show in their absence.

Friday favourites Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary will kick off the summer shows from, Monday July 15, before a mix of familiar faces return to the sofa.

Also stepping in to host will be Josie Gibson, Craig Doyle, Rylan Clark, Rochelle Humes and Joel Dommett, plus new mum Sian Welby also making her return to broadcasting since welcoming her baby daughter Ruby last month.

Ben and Cat return to ITV's flagship daytime show on September 2, and Alison and Dermot return to fronting Fridays on September 6.

This Morning's editor, Martin Frizell, said of the summer lineup: 'Viewers will not want to miss a moment this summer!'

'The shows will be packed and whatever the weather, the team in front of the cameras and behind will deliver plenty of content to keep the nation smiling.'

Cat slipped into a strapless black two-piece as she prepared for a dip in the ocean with her sons Milo, eight, and James, five

As she and her family prepared to leave the beach, Cat covered her bikini in an oversized navy blue dress, and finished her look with a wide-brimmed straw hat

Patrick made the most of the stunning French ocean during the family holiday

Cat's holiday comes after she and her co-host Ben Shephard announced they would be departing This Morning for several weeks

The new hosts, who joined the ITV daytime show in March and are said to be receiving an annual salary of 555,000, are set to take a seven-week break

During their summer break, a rotation of guest presenters will be brought in to front the show in their absence

Friday favourites Alison Hammond and Dermot O'Leary will kick off the summer shows from, Monday July 15, before a mix of familiar faces return to the sofa

Ben and Cat return to ITV's flagship daytime show on September 2, and Alison and Dermot return to fronting Fridays on September 6

'I'm delighted Alison and Dermot are kicking things off and together with our brilliant family of hosts - made up of the biggest names in TV - they will be serving up really exciting content on Britain's biggest daytime show.'

However, viewers were left baffled when the early exit was announced.

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, they shared: 'Ben and Cat only joined #ThisMorning back in April of this year'; 'Back in September?? Its July 11... ITS ONLY THE 11th of July part timers basically got TWO month off work what a Joke!'; 'Let's see if they do come back in September. Their viewing figures suggest maybe not #thismorning.'

Other viewers were delighted by the shakeup, however, as they expressed their delight at seeing Irish presenter Craig back on their screens.

Ben and Cat's summer break comes weeks after they took time off for Easter.

The duo enjoyed two weeks away from the programme in April, during which time Alison and Dermot fronted Monday to Friday for the fortnight.

Ben and Cat were officially announced as the new This Morning hosts in February after months of whispers.

Sources at the channel said that they were 'thrilled' at the signing of the pair after 'so many obstacles had to be negotiated to get there'.

The Mail first revealed that the duo were top of the list but in December Cat turned down the role because she wasn't able to commit to the programme at the time.

This Morning's editor, Martin Frizell, said of the summer lineup: 'Viewers will not want to miss a moment this summer!'

However, viewers were left baffled when Ben and Cat's early exit was announced, after the pair were unveiled as the new main hosts back in March

Ben and Cat's summer break comes weeks after they took time off for Easter

Ben and Cat were officially announced as the new This Morning hosts in February after months of whispers

However, after further negotiations and the offer of more money, she agreed. One source said: 'Cat was the one they wanted all along and finally they have her. It is incredible news for them.'

It's possible the reason for the sudden U-turn was financial, with Cat set to nab a bumper payday as the new host.

When reports of her joining the show first emerged last year it was claimed she and Ben would receive an annual salary of 555,000.

While hefty, the salary still paled in comparison to former hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield, who were said to have been paid 700,000 annually for their roles.

Holly left the show last October 'for the sake of her family' after discovering she was the target of a foiled kidnap and murder plot and has since not been replaced permanently.

Her departure came five months after Phillip's when his affair with a young male showrunner was made public, followed by claims of an increasingly strained relationship with his co-host.
Alec Baldwin looked weary as he stepped out with wife, Hilaria Baldwin, to grab a casual dinner in the Hamptons on Thursday.

The 30 Rock alum, 66 - who was recently hailed as 'the kindest actor' by the mother of two child actors in the film Rust - stopped by Nick & Toni's restaurant alongside Hilaria, 40, for a tasty meal.

His latest outing comes nearly two weeks after his Rust shooting trial came to an abrupt end, leaving the star in tears upon hearing the judge's decision to dismiss the case in a Santa Fe courtroom.

Alec sported a light gray, checkered shirt that was buttoned at the front, as well as a pair of dark gray trousers during the evening excursion.

He additionally slipped into a pair of brown loafers while easily carrying his wallet in his right hand.

Alec Baldwin, 66, looked weary as he stepped out with wife, Hilaria Baldwin, 40, to grab a casual dinner in the Hamptons on Thursday

The mother-of-seven was also stylishly casual in a pair of loose-fitting, denim jeans as well as a black, long-sleeved cardigan.

The flared hem of her pants concealed the shoes she opted to wear for the Hamptons dinner, and allowed her brunette locks to flow down naturally past her shoulders.

Hilaria - who tied the knot with the Beetlejuice actor in 2012 - opted for minimal accessories, and added a pair of mini, rhinestone earrings and a few flashy rings to complete her look.

She was seen flashing a smile while holding hands with her husband as they strolled outdoors together.

Baldwin's outing comes nearly two weeks after his Rust shooting trial was dismissed - causing an emotional reaction from the star and his wife.

Most recently, one of the juror's on the case - which was dismissed on July 12 - told People in an article published on Tuesday that 'the case seemed mishandled from the get-go.'

Martina Marquez - a resident of New Mexico - added that the fateful shooting, which killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza, was 'an unfortunate accident.'

'The indictment charge seemed a little bit harsh. Just starting from the lapel cam videos, it didn't make sense how they could point fingers directly towards him as a whole.'

The actor sported a light gray, checkered shirt that was buttoned at the front, as well as a pair of dark gray trousers during the evening excursion

Baldwin's outing comes nearly two weeks after his Rust shooting trial was dismissed - causing an emotional reaction from the star and his wife; seen on July 12 in Santa Fe, New Mexico

Marquez also recalled seeing body cam footage during the trial which showed an assortment of people on the set not long after the shooting had occurred.

Lieutenant Timoteo Benavidez also was seen looking for the prop gun in the footage and was finally given the item by armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed - who notably was sentenced to 18 months in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

'It didn't make sense. We all watch TV and we watch movies. You're not supposed to really touch evidence and move it from place to place,' Martina said.

'So that made me iffy about the situation because it could have been in so many people's hands by the time the lieutenant actually confiscated it.'

'I felt like she was liable for what happened,' Marquez said of Gutierrez-Reed.

In regards to the charges against Alec and the case, the juror expressed to People, 'that it didn't need to go this far. And it did seem pointless.'

The widower of the late cinematographer, Matthew Hutchins, released a statement after the judge's decision and said that he 'respects the court's decision.'

However, he also added that, '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.'

Most recently, one of the juror's on the case - which was dismissed on July 12 - told People in an article published on Tuesday that 'the case seemed mishandled from the get-go'; seen earlier this month in Santa Fe

'The indictment charge seemed a little bit harsh. Just starting from the lapel cam videos, it didn't make sense how they could point fingers directly towards him as a whole,' Marquez added; Rust seen in October 2021

Baldwin is also planning on suing a New Mexico state prosecutor and sheriff after it emerged they withheld evidence from his defense team during their failed bid to prosecute him over the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set for Rust.

Charges of involuntary manslaughter against Baldwin were dismissed after a New Mexico judge agreed that prosecutor Kari Morrissey and Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza withheld evidence about the source of the live round that killed Halyna Hutchins in 2021.

The evidence came from a man who dropped it off at the sheriff's office in March, more than two years after the shooting, who said it may be relevant.

But investigators believed it was unrelated and unimportant, and did not disclose it to Baldwin's defense team.

Baldwin's lawyers sent letters to Morrissey and Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza earlier last week on Monday asking them to preserve documents for future litigation, according to copies of the letters seen by Reuters.

The Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office confirmed it received the letter from Baldwin's legal team but declined further comment. Morrissey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hutchins died when Baldwin pointed a gun at her as they set up a camera shot on a movie set near Santa Fe. The gun fired a live round inadvertently loaded by the movie's chief weapons handler Hannah Gutierrez-Reed.

Gutierrez-Reed, serving an 18-month prison sentence, filed a motion for dismissal of charges in response to the prosecutors' failures to disclose evidence last week on Tuesday.

Baldwin is also planning on suing a New Mexico state prosecutor and sheriff after it emerged they withheld evidence from his defense team during their failed bid to prosecute him over the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the set for Rust; seen earlier this month in Santa Fe

Hutchins died when Baldwin pointed a gun at her as they set up a camera shot on a movie set near Santa Fe; Hutchins seen in 2018 in Park City, Utah

Gutierrez-Reed, serving an 18-month prison sentence, filed a motion for dismissal of charges in response to the prosecutors' failures to disclose evidence last week on Tuesday; Hannah seen in April in Santa Fe

They claimed prosecutors failed to disclose evidence on the live rounds, testing of Baldwin's gun by firearms expert Lucien Haag and an interview with the movie's props supplier Seth Kenney.

After the dismissal of the case, Alec broke his silence and penned 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,' he added.

Over the past weekend on Saturday, Alec also made his first red carpet appearance since the end of the case while joined by wife, Hilaria, in East Hampton.

He held a smile on his face as he attended the HamptonsFilm SummerDocs screening of War Game.

Baldwin donned a pair of dark gray trousers as well as a light blue shirt and black blazer on top. The actor completed his ensemble for the weekend outing by slipping into a pair of black, leather loafers.

Hilaria also dressed for the occasion wearing a figure-hugging, pink dress that clung to her frame and was held up with thick straps that wrapped around her shoulders.

After the dismissal of the case, Alec broke his silence and penned on Instagram, 'There are too many people who have supported me to thank just now'; seen in 2021 in NYC

Over the past weekend on Saturday, Alec also made his first red carpet appearance since the end of the case while joined by Hilaria in East Hampton (seen above)

She slipped into a pair of closed-toed, white pumps and allowed her brunette locks to effortlessly flow down past her shoulders in elegant waves.

The mother-of-seven opted for minimal accessories, and added a pair of small, rhinestone earrings as well as a few flashy rings on each of her hands.

Alec and Hilaria struck a variety of poses together upon arriving to the special screening at the Regal UA East Hampton theater.

He was also seen giving a friendly wave to fans while outside as he arrived to the venue as the sun was setting.
The Assyrian Church in China, a Missionary Perspective

In autumn 2022 I was lucky enough to interview Mar Awa III Royel, Patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East in Rome for Agenzia Fides. It is a Church that now it is small from a numerical point of view, but has a long history, and represents a direct heir of that Ancient Eastern Church which in the first centuries of Christianity was at the center of an extraordinary missionary adventure. An adventure that brought the Christian message from the Middle East to the Arabian Peninsula, India and even China. In the interview I asked Mar Awa what in his opinion was the secret of that great missionary adventure.

The young Patriarch of the Assyrian Church replied to me that the missionaries of the ancient Church of the East were a singular "army", a spiritual army. He remembered that they were above all monks and nuns, who captivated the hearts of other people "with sweetness, and not through dynamics of conquest". For them -- added Mar Awa -- Every emergency, every concrete problem in life became an opportunity to do good, becoming friends and brothers with everyone. Various reasons in my opinion still make that extraordinary historical and ecclesial event very relevant today. For most of the references contained in my speech I am indebted to the rich and in-depth studies of the Italian sinologist Matteo Nicolini-Zani, monk of the Community of Bose.

I am referring in particular to his essay "Monastic Mission in Dialogue" contained in the volume "The Mission of the Universal Church -- an Oriental Perspective, edited by Professor Germano Marani sj and published by Urbaniana University Press. Origin and specific traits of the Church of the East The communities of the Church of the East which took root for centuries also in China since the most distant antiquity are often defined as "Nestorian", because at the time of the Council of Ephesus (431), which condemned the Patriarch Nestorius of Constantinople, wanted to remain linked to the theological and spiritual tradition of the Church of Antioch, from which Nestorius himself came. That Antiochian tradition strongly emphasized the incarnation and humanity of Christ, his human nature, recognizing that through the humanity of Christ the mystery of his divinity is revealed.

Since the beginning of the 3rd century AD, the Eastern Church had begun to structure itself as an autonomous Church, outside the borders of the Roman Empire, distancing itself from the Church of the Empire. The Christians of the Eastern Church had their own Patriarch (Katholikos) based in Seleucia-Ctesiphon on the Tigris River, in Mesopotamia. The distancing from the Churches of the Empire and above all from the Church of Constantinople/Byzantium was not mainly due to theological or doctrinal reasons, but to reasons that we could define as political, in a broad sense. As its presence moved towards the East, between to the Persian Empire and beyond, the Eastern Church, also to avoid persecution, had to show that its Christians did not belong to communities linked to the Roman Empire, which for centuries had represented the enemy par excellence of the Persian world.

The communities of the Eastern Church progressively increase their presence towards the east through different ways and processes. In some cases this occurs due to deportations of populations in the territories conquered by the Persian Empire, when among the deportees there are Christians and even bishops. In less troubled times, Christians moved eastward following trade routes. In any case, on their journey towards the East, the Christians of the Syriac Church encounter new peoples, new languages, new cultures and new religious communities. For example, when they found new Episcopal Sees in present-day Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, cities like Samarkand and Tashkent became the meeting place with the Sogdians, a population of nomadic merchants, who partly became Christians.

To follow the Sogdian merchants, bishops who embraced their nomadic status were ordained. Therefore that of the East Syrian Church is a Christianity that expands following the events of history: migrations, deportations, movements along the flows of trade. In their fundamental work of missionary theology, Stephen Bevans and Roger Schroeder recognize that the originality and relevance of this "missionary movement" were linked to two of its characteristics: the monastic connotation and the openness to a dialogue attitude towards everyone. A monastic missionThe missions of the East Syrian Church were monastic undertakings. In the new territories, the first communities were always structured around monasteries. The missionaries sent to take care of the Christian life of the communities and also the metropolitan bishops of the new ecclesiastical provinces outside Persian territory were monks, raised in the monasteries scattered in Mesopotamia and Persia. Historical evidence documents that Patriarch Timothy sent the monks of the Bet'Abe monastery, located north-east of Mosul (in present-day Iraq), to China as bishops.

The monks were well trained in the study of the Holy Scripture and in theology, and due to their faith they were ready to live in difficult situations. A letter from Patriarch Timothy reports that Many monks cross seas towards India and China carrying with them only a stick and a pouch". In the area currently included in the diocese of Zhouzhi, a few kilometers from Xi'an, the "Nestorian Stele" was found in 1625, today kept in the Stele Forest Museum of Xi'an: it is the relic/archaeological evidence which attests to the arrival of the first Christian announcement in China by the missionary monks of the Eastern Church as early as 635 AD. Built in 781 with texts engraved in Chinese and Syriac, the Stele represents -- as stated in its heading -- the "Memorial of the Propagation of Da Qin's Luminous Teaching in China". In Chinese, the term Da Qin originally referred only to the Roman Empire. Then the expression was used to refer precisely to the communities of the Syriac Church that had permanently settled in China.

Also from the text of the Stele it can be deduced that monasteries were also present in Chang'an, the ancient eastern capital of the Empire, today Xi'an ).The Stele describes the Christian community as a community with monastic traits, made up of people who live without being subjected to worldly passions, practice fasting and penance, experience liturgical and prayer moments 7 times a day according to the office of the monks and they carry out works of charity The other characteristic of this missionary adventure is that of openness and dialogue, which can be seen taking place in three areas: dialogue with cultures, with religious realities and dialogue with power and political authorities. In dialogue with cultures When they arrive, the missionary monks of the Eastern Church do not place themselves in a position of strength, but as humble monks and traders. And precisely because they are well founded in their faith and doctrine, they can come into contact with the local culture and literary tradition with a dialogue attitude, as had already happened in the encounter between Christianity and Greco-Roman culture.

The East Syrian communities flourished in China during the Tang (618-907) and Yuan (1272-1368) dynasties. When they arrive in China, the missionary monks are confronted with a superior culture, and to bear witness to their faith they begin a process of adapting the Christian theological language into the Chinese cultural context, preserving the heart of the Antiochian faith. Numerous quotations are also found in the text of the Stele modeled on the expressions taken from the Chinese classics. Thus the monks begin a process of sinicization which is not a flat and mechanical replacement of Chinese cultural data with oriental Syriac data, but a more gradual and vital process of contamination. Only in this way is adaptation real and fruitful. Mission and dialogue with religions In the experience of the Eastern Church in China, Christianity takes its words from religious ways and doctrines such as Buddhism and Taoism.

Even the words chosen to describe monastic institutions, such as the word "monastery", are taken from Buddhism. Their attempt produces texts in which many key terms belong to the Buddhist and Taoist religious sphere. And the adoption of this language is not perceived as a loss of Christian identity, but as a tool to expose the "proprium" of the Christian faith in a pluralistic context. It is an adaptation of the announcement of Christianity in its essential terms, with words that belong to cultural contexts different from those of the Greek and Roman cultural world. To give an example, the mystery of the Trinity is evoked by referring to the salvation given through "Three Majesties of Luminous Teaching". The effects of this contamination are also documented for example in the iconography of the Christian tombs of Zaitun (13th century), where crosses are grafted into the lotus flower and celestial beings similar to angels painted in the Buddhist iconographic mode.

Mission and dialogue with politics and power Another dimension of the dialogue approach of the missionary practice of the Church of the East in China is that adopted towards the authorities and the political power of the Tang Emperors and the Mongol Yuan rulers. The uninterrupted dialogue with it was accepted by the imperial authorities as a necessary tool to gain recognition as a legitimate and "orthodox" teaching in the sense of Confucian political meaning. This was the only way through which the Christian faith could be accepted in a Chinese society and to avoid being associated with cults considered pernicious and perverse, prosecuted by law.

The Stele itself testifies to the intent of Christianity of Syriac origin to acquire legitimacy at the imperial Court. The entire Stele is permeated by the intent to show the connection and harmony between the just actions of the rulers and the presence of the Church in China, which makes its contribution to the social order and the common good. Therefore the Stele also testifies to a process of adaptation to the Chinese way of conceiving and managing relations between communities of faith and political authorities. A certain number of Christians were functionaries and officials in the political and military administration of the Tang empire, French Cardinal Eugene Tisserant , an expert and lover of Eastern Christianity, recalled in one of his writings on the Eastern Church that The Nestorian priests in China voluntarily offered their services to the government, taking on public roles. Among these there was also the donor of the Stele , the Bactrian Yazdbozid, who in China takes the name of Yisi. The Chinese section of the Stele, in the final part, reproduces his biography and highlights his high-ranking roles achieved in the imperial administration, and exalts his practice of the Christian virtue of charity. In this attitude of collaboration and service towards the political authorities, the Church finds its legitimacy in the political context so different from that of the Roman Empire. Christianity, in the way it is lived and witnessed by those communities in China, becomes a confession that can be embraced because it is not perceived as a doctrine of foreign people or those subjected to foreign powers or interests. The names of Christians who already in those centuries became court advisors and doctors in China show that the choice of dialogue and not opposition was useful in spreading the Gospel and bearing witness to it, in that period of history which was in many ways the antipodes of what would have been happened many centuries later, in the era of Colonialism.

Conclusions The two aforementioned scholars Bevans and Schroeder underlined that the missionary experience of the ancient Eastern Church has a lot to say to our present. The attitude of openness to meeting and dialogue leads back to the sources of the mission. And in today's world, it appears increasingly clear that dialogue and openness to encounters are necessary attitudes for every Christian testimony. This was also demonstrated by the first Council of the Catholic Church in China, which took place in Shanghai 100 years ago, in 1924. On 21 May a conference organized in Rome by the Pontifical Urbaniana University in collaboration with Agenzia Fides commemorated that important Council. said Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization (section for the first evangelization and the new particular Churches), speaking of the Council of Shanghai, the announcement of the Gospel is not identified with a civilization and a culture , and precisely for this reason it protects and promotes the riches of individual peoples and their cultures. Because the liberation and healing brought by Jesus are a gift for each and every one, as Pope Francis always repeats.

This article is a translation. Apologies should the grammar and/or sentence structure not be perfect.
Chinese embassy in Syria celebrates 97th anniversary of PLA

Xinhua) 14:07, July 26, 2024

Syrian Defense Minister Ali Mahmoud Abbas (at the podium) speaks during a reception marking the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in Damascus, Syria, on July 24, 2024. The Chinese embassy in Syria hosted a reception Wednesday evening to celebrate the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). (Photo by Ammar Safarjalani/Xinhua)

DAMASCUS, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy in Syria hosted a reception Wednesday evening to celebrate the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Chinese Ambassador to Syria Shi Hongwei, Military Attache He Yongliang, and Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Army and Minister of Defense Ali Mahmoud Abbas attended the event.

In his address, the military attache highlighted the significant contributions of the PLA over the past 97 years to achieving China's national liberation, defending national sovereignty, and safeguarding global peace.

He praised the fruitful outcomes of recent cooperation between China and Syria in combating terrorism and other areas, reaffirming continued support for the efforts of the Syrian army and people in protecting their national sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity.

Abbas expressed great appreciation for the achievements of the Chinese military and its positive contributions to maintaining global peace and security.

The minister thanked the Chinese government for its robust support for Syria on the global stage and conveyed readiness to work with China to elevate bilateral relations and cooperation between their militaries to a new level.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing)
New housing developments abound on a strip of Harrison Street in downtown Oakland between Grand Avenue and 27th Street. Its part of where Lakeside Group plans to create a new neighborhood dubbed Northlake, with private investments to spur safety and development. Thomas Sawano/The Chronicle

Amid recurring reports about rising crime and safety issues in Oakland, a midday stroll along the northern tip of Lake Merritt suggests something different  emptiness.

The sidewalks around the shiny office towers facing the lake are swept clean and devoid of activity or audience. A retail spine along Grand Avenue is marked by vacancies. And while a handful of eateries have opened on nearby Valdez Street, there are no customers in sight.

On top of Oaklands PR problem of danger and doom, workers in the area say this is one of the citys real issues.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

You can throw a bowling ball around here and you wont hit anybody, said Nigel Jones, owner and chef of restaurant Calabash at 2300 Valdez St. Thousands of people live here, but you wouldnt know it from walking on the streets.

Construction workers pave the concrete pedestrian area at the corner of Harrison and 24th streets in downtown Oakland. Thomas Sawano/The Chronicle

Jones is no longer looking to city government for answers, but is hopeful that a campaign launched by property owners in the area to fix the neighborhood  which, with newly defined boundaries, has been dubbed Northlake  will bear fruit.

The vision for Northlake is a privately funded enhanced services district  similar to a business improvement district, or BID, but fueled by private capital and without the taxing power  that would aim to create a thriving, 24/7 environment in a stretch of downtown bounded by 19th and 27th streets, Broadway and Lake Merritt.

The area is already home to a number of luxury multifamily buildings, retail shops and office towers  including PG&Es new headquarters at 300 Lakeside Drive and the headquarters of card issuing platform Marqeta at 180 Grand Ave.  making it an ideal location to perform an enhanced placemaking exercise, said Oakland investor and developer Isaac Abid, who is leading the Northlake project.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The effort comes as political tensions percolate in City Hall, where Mayor Sheng Thao and District Attorney Pamela Price face recalls in an election year.

And a closer look at the area thats earmarked for investment reveals cracks in the sleepy cityscape: Wise Sons Jewish Deli confirmed its location at 1700 Franklin St. has shuttered permanently after nearly a dozen break-ins over the past two years. An attempted break-in this week left a window in the storefront of Calabash, located at the base of a luxury apartment complex, fractured.

Restaurants are closing and we pretend its a one-off, but its not. Its systemic, said Jones, who estimated that his establishment could close in a matter of months if things dont turn around.

Abid, formerly a founding partner at West Coast real estate development firm HP Investors, which owns multiple commercial properties in Oakland, has been a vocal critic of the citys state of affairs. Hes donated to a group seeking to remove Price from office. A former civil rights attorney, Price campaigned on promises to reduce mass incarceration, lighten sentences for defendants under age 25 and take a hard line on police misconduct.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Lakeside Group founder Isaac Abid walks on Franklin Street in downtown Oakland. He believes private investment could help an area around Lake Merritt in ways the city government has not. Thomas Sawano/The Chronicle

So much of the criticism of Oakland and downtown is a difficult situation. Its a big city. Its obviously got fiscal challenges. And rather than complain about it, we asked: Where can we find a place to conduct this experiment?   said Abid. The presence of concentrated private capital in a pedestrian scale neighborhood thats mixed use, felt like a unicorn type of opportunity.

Earlier this year Abid stepped away from HP Investors to launch Lakeside Group, a company that he now heads with his wife, Puja. Lakeside Group will focus on investment opportunities in Northern California, but its first order of business is raising around $4 million from property owners and corporations in the proposed Northlake area to augment security and sanitation services, fund streetscape improvements and pay for programming to activate underutilized or vacant properties.

Eventually, they also want to launch a public relations campaign to change the negative perceptions swirling around Oakland, which, in recent years, has seen a crime surge thats forced restaurants and businesses to close, hire security or stop accepting cash.

There are perceptions and reality  and there are realities around crime, but once those perceptions harden, it becomes irrelevant, Abid said. If I told you that there was not a single crime in this area for two weeks, would that change anything in your mind? Would you feel comfortable when you walk at night?

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Graffiti covers 290 27th St., a dilapidated building that sits across from the residential developments along Harrison Street in downtown Oakland. Thomas Sawano/The Chronicle

By doing the work of activation, place making, investing in infrastructure, it shows that this area can be something different  that helps change the perception. It gives the shot of adrenaline that I think is needed at this juncture to replace the organic growth that was happening in the last boom cycle, he said.

Abid said that his team has already secured commitments from property owners and other stakeholders for about half of the funds it needs to launch the first phase of Northlake, which will focus on the area north of Grand Avenue and south of 27th Street, called Zone 1.

While Abid did not disclose which groups are donating to the Northlake District project, an individual with insight into the matter told the Chronicle that Holland Partner Group, which owns three apartment complexes within the larger districts boundaries, is supporting the effort.

Enrollment in the district is voluntary, but nearly all of the large multifamily owners in the area have shown up to meetings, the individual said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The PG&E office at 300 Harrison St. has sweeping views of Lake Merritt and the Oakland hills. Thomas Sawano/The Chronicle

Oaklands largest employers  PG&E, Kaiser Permanente, Clorox and Blue Shield  have also been engaged by Lakeside Group. In March, these companies announced that they would be spending $10 million collectively on a security plan that includes increasing security downtown and subsidizing transportation and escorts for workers in the area. That program is already underway and has received positive feedback from our employees, the companies said in a joint statement to the Chronicle.

Kaiser and PG&E both have offices within the proposed Northlake District zone.

Weve also had initial conversations with representatives from the Northlake coalition and were looking forward to continued collaboration with the city and community leaders to support our goal of creating a safer, more prosperous Oakland for all, the companies said in their statement.

The initial funding that Lakeside is seeking to raise would allow it to hire a security firm through the existing Uptown Downtown Business Improvement District, which already oversees a team of unarmed community ambassadors who patrol the area during the day.

The patches of land where the Lakeside Group plans to develop border downtown Oaklands Whole Foods Market. Thomas Sawano/The Chronicle

Puja Abid said that the ambassadors are more hospitality focused, serving to welcome and guide visitors and address quality of life issues. The extra security that Lakeside Group plans to fund would also be unarmed and supplement the BIDs services after hours  with the goal of ensuring around-the-clock security in the Northlake District.

We want the district to be friendly, inclusive and something that plays up the great vibe of Oakland, she said.

Lakeside has partnered with Biederman Redevelopment Ventures, the place-making consultancy that programmed Salesforce Park and the East Cut neighborhood in San Francisco to assist with planning and activation. It is also working with global architecture firm Gensler, which has an office in the Northlake District zone.

We care quite a bit about the environment  we have 110 employees that come to work every single day in our building and eat and shop in the district, said Gensler managing principal Manan Shah.

Along with helping to brainstorm activation opportunities in the Northlake zone, Gensler is tasked with pulling in the community. In May, the firm held a workshop with residents, local businesses, elected leaders and other stakeholders at its office.

Weve got this map in our office that has 100-plus sticky notes all over it with tactical, grassroots ideas about what could be done all across the district, Shah said. Some of those ideas include installing new street lighting and signage, landscaping and transforming underutilized spaces for concerts, events and recreational or learning activities.

Real estate firm Lakeside Group hopes to construct a new residential project on the site of this parking lot, on the corner of Webster and 23rd streets in downtown Oakland. Thomas Sawano/The Chronicle

A parking lot that was once envisioned for redevelopment into a housing tower at Broadway and 23rd Street is among the parcels being eyed for temporary activation.

Part of the challenge economically is that theres high degrees of vacancies and lots that five years ago had plans for high-rise residential or other uses. I think everybodys accepting the reality that were not going to all of a sudden put up 15 new buildings, so we have to work with the fabric of the district as it is, Shah said. There are a lot of surface parking areas where we have the ability to bring in recreation, spaces that kids can use, that provide office workers needed amenities, that could bring in more retail or pop-ups.

Earlier this year, Oakland adopted a long-awaited plan to revitalize downtown, which relies largely on incentivizing private construction of housing, offices and cultural spaces over the next two decades.

City leaders have been mulling over a plan to patch a projected two-year $292 million budget deficit. Leigh Hanson, Thaos chief of staff, said private investment to bolster the citys economic health is welcomed.
Nina Dobrev looked elegant alongside her three-time Olympic gold medalist boyfriend Shaun White on the eve of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

The Vampire Diaries star, 35  who was recently hospitalized due to a serious e-bike accident  and the former pro snowboarder, 37, attended Louis Vuitton's star-studded Prelude to the Olympics event in Paris on Thursday.

Dobrev looked every inch a movie star in a leather jacket and a high-waisted black silk maxi-skirt.

The actress also modeled a gold mesh top while appearing to be in good spirits in the City of Love.

Her brunette locks were let loose and her signature bangs framed her face as she posed for photos with White.

Nina Dobrev looked elegant alongside her three-time Olympic gold medalist boyfriend Shaun White on the eve of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony

The Vampire Diaries star, 35, and the former pro snowboarder, 37, attended Louis Vuitton's star-studded Prelude to the Olympics event in Paris on Thursday

The Canadian native paired the look with a black designer purse and a dainty gold necklace.

She rocked a simple makeup look that included natural blush and rosy lips.

Shaun, 37, looked dashing in a beige suit as he posed up a storm with his lady love at the star studded event.

The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics are slated to kick off on July 26 and will wrap on August 11.

White, a California-born snowboarder and skateboarder, is a five-time Olympian and took home Olympic gold medals in the half-pipe event in 2006, 2010 and 2018.

Nina and Shaun first met at an awards show in 2012 but were formally introduced at a Florida workshop organized by motivational speaker Tony Robbins in late 2019.

'I actually didn't know anything about her,' White told People of their first interaction.

The pair dated secretly until going Instagram official in April 2020. Since, the pair have grown closer.

White, a former snowboarder and skateboarder, has previously won Olympic gold medals in the half-pipe event in 2006, 2010 and 2018

Shaun, 37, looked dashing in a beige suit as he posed up a storm with his lady love at the star studded event

In April, the athlete told the outlet that he felt 'no pressure' to propose to the actress.

He said: 'We're just enjoying our time together right now, but I told her, I was like, "Look, after the Olympics, I finally got my freedom to do whatever. And let's just have fun and be together and support each other."

'But you never know. We'll see what happens,' he added.

Dobrev has also starred in the series Degrassi: The Next Generation, The Perks of Being A Wallflower, Let's Be Cops, Flatliners, XXX: Return of Xander Cage, Dog Days and Then Came You.
This video is no longer available

This video is no longer available

The lure of social media stardom has enticed many Australians to pursue a career as an influencer on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube.

But for every Bec Judd, Tammy Hembrow or Skye Wheatley, there are hundreds of Aussies struggling to make enough to survive in the world of online content creation.

And ING's Head of Consumer Rights Matt Bowen has revealed the sad truth about Aussie influencers during an appearance on Sunrise on Friday.

'Most people who pursue careers as content creators are lucky to make ends meet,' host Edwina Bartholomew said, introducing the segment.

Matt agreed, saying that while forecasts for the industry looked bright, the reality of starting and growing an influencer career can be much different.

'We're all dreaming about that side hustle to make it big online. We don't have to work the 9 to 5 like we do every day,' he said.

'And Goldman Sachs is saying this industry is actually gonna be worth $480 billion globally over the next few years.

'So it's nice to think that a nice little slice of that pie could be.'

ING's Head of Consumer Rights Matt Bowen has revealed the sad truth about Aussie influencers during an appearance on Sunrise on Friday

Matt went on to explain that given that there are only a handful of Australians 'making the millions on social media', managing expectations around income reliability, changing trends and brand preference was crucial.

'You need to be prepared for long stints without potentially any income coming in,' he said.

'As you start to monetise your audience, there'll be genuine questions around whether you believe the products that you're actually pushing.

'You need to be prepared for long stints without potentially any income coming in,' he said

Matt went on to explain that given that there are only a handful of Australians 'making the millions on social media', managing expectations around income reliability, changing trends and brand preference was crucial

'And TikTok is the fastest growing platform here in Australia, but there are concerns about that being banned potentially in the US,' he added, questioning the longevity of the platform.

Matt ended the segment by suggesting a side hustle might be a good way for burgeoning content creators to shore up income.

'I think for now, Eddie just set up the garage, the garage sale on the weekend and sell those unused clothes might be, might be an easier option,' he said.

'You don't have to pay tax on that.'

Tammy Hembrow (pictured) with an estimated net worth of $50million rakes in as much as $82,998 per sponsored post, according to Yahoo! Lifestyle

Hunter Talent, a management firm which represents some of Australia's biggest social media personalities, recently shed a light on their wild social media earnings.

Tammy Hembrow boasts more than 17million followers on Instagram and her shock salary certainly reflects her huge rise to fame on the platform.

With an estimated net worth of $50million, the fitness influencer, 30, rakes in as much as $82,998 per sponsored post, according to Yahoo! Lifestyle.

Tammy's huge earnings for just one post are the same as the average Australian's annual salary, which is estimated to be around $89,000 per year.

Kayla Itsines follows closely behind Tammy as she is said to charge as much as $71,550 for each of her Instagram advertising posts.

The personal trainer, 32, boasts almost 16million followers on the social media platform after gaining huge popularity for her fitness and wellness posts.
Strictly Come Dancing contestant Zara McDermott reportedly suffered a leg fracture during training for the BBC show.

The Love Island star, 27, picked up the nasty injury while preparing for a performance with her professional partner Graziano Di Prima, and despite being in agonising pain, pushed through to compete in the dance-off.

According to sources, Zara was unaware she'd suffered the injury until she sought medical help after being eliminated from the show, and it was only recently revealed to show bosses when she was interviewed about Graziano's conduct.

Graziano was sacked by Strictly bosses earlier this month after it was alleged footage emerged that showed him physically and verbally abusing Zara in training.

According to The Sun, Zara relied on painkillers to get through her ten-hour training sessions with Graziano, with the pair agreeing to plough on and compete in the dance-off, before being voted off the show in Halloween Week.

Strictly Come Dancing contestant Zara McDermott reportedly suffered a leg fracture during training for the BBC show with professional partner Graziano Di Prima (pictured)

The Love Island star picked up the nasty injury while preparing for a performance, but only sought medical help when she was eliminated (pictured wearing a moon boot in March)

Zara was then reportedly taken to hospital, where an X-Ray revealed she had severe ligament damage plus a stress fracture on her left tibia.

A source said: 'She started developing a really bad, niggly pain in her left leg at training. The pain got worse and by the last few weeks, she was in agony, popping painkillers before, during and after sessions.

'She made Graziano aware of her discomfort but he was pretty adamant they needed to crack on.

'Obviously they both wanted to get the highest scores possible, and unfortunately she pushed through the pain. She wasn't seen to by medics on site, and production weren't aware of the extent of her injury.'

Zara is thought to have told BBC bosses of the 'rigorous' training sessions she endured while paired with Graziano on the show.

However, a source close to Graziano told the publication that he encouraged her to take breaks, and she wanted to continue training despite her pain.

A spokesman for Zara declined to comment to The Sun. MailOnline has contacted representatives for Strictly Come Dancing, Zara McDermott and Graziano Di Prima for comment.

After Zara was pictured in a recovery boot earlier this year, she shared on social media that she'd suffered a stress fracture on her tibia, but did not say at the time it stemmed from her time on Strictly.

Zara is thought to have told BBC bosses of the 'rigorous' training sessions she endured while paired with Graziano on the show

Graziano was sacked from Strictly after he was accused of kicking and spitting at former Love Island star Zara (pictured on the show)

It comes following reports on Thursday that Zara's pal Pete Wicks has joined the Strictly lineup.

A source told The Sun: 'Pete has joined the Strictly line up and is excited to get started.

'He isn't much of a dancer but that's what the BBC loved about him. They wanted the show to feel more like it did in the beginning. Pete is also going to attract younger viewers who have followed his career since Towie.'

It comes following reports on Sunday that Graziano was accused of 'chasing' after Zara while 'screaming abuse,' leaving her so frightened that she 'locked herself in a toilet.'

He has apologised for kicking his former partner, but added other allegations do not align with 'how he remembers it.'

According to the reports, shock details have now been revealed which allege he 'called her nasty names, asked if she had gained weight and was forceful' leaving her 'visibly demoralised' and 'in tears.'

Zara herself previously claimed in a statement there had been 'particular incidents inside the training room which were incredibly distressing.'

She did not report the incidents at the time as she was 'scared' of backlash, instead it was junior production staff who came forward.

An insider told The Sun: 'Zara ran to the toilets and locked herself in. He chased after her and was screaming abuse. He was aggressive and called her nasty names. It was really scary.

'You could constantly hear Graziano screaming but when production staff opened the door he would stop. Hed say, "How the f*** are you not getting this right?", and "Why are we even bothering to come here?". Zara was visibly demoralised.'

The insider added that Graziano would apologise each time and 'promise to not do it again.'

On Thursday, Mark Borkowski, a spokesperson for Graziano, told BBC News: 'There is never a time when kicking, or any sense of that is right. And he knows that.

He knows he's made a mistake. He apologised at the time.'

Referring to the media reports, Mark added: 'But he doesn't recognise some of the issues surrounding it. The descriptions of what is being commented online, and how he remembers it, are not aligned.'

'He [Graziano] has literally cut himself off from civilisation. I think that's a wise thing to do, supported by his wife. He's coming to terms with his mental health issues.'

Graziano believed the matter had been resolved at the time.

The investigation into his behaviour was triggered by Strictly's bid to clean up the show after fellow Italian Giovanni Pernice was accused of abusive behaviour by his 2023 dance partner Amanda Abbington, which resulted in him leaving the show. Giovanni denies the claims.

According to show insiders, video footage of Graziano mistreating Zara gave bosses no choice but to cancel his contract.

Addressing his departure on Instagram, Graziano wrote: 'I deeply regret the events that led to my departure from Strictly. My intense passion and determination to win might have affected my training regime. Respecting the BBC HR process, I understand it's best for the show that I step away.'

He continued: 'While there are aspects of this story involving external influences that I can't discuss at this time, I remain committed to being strong for my family and friends. I wish the Strictly family and the BBC nothing but success in the future.'

He concluded the post: 'I also want to thank everyone who has supported my career, both professionally and personally. When the time is right, I will share my story.'

A BBC Spokesperson told MailOnline: 'We will not be commenting on individuals or engaging with speculation.

'However, as we have said previously we will always listen if people want to make us aware of something or raise it with us directly and we have appropriate procedures and processes in place to manage this.'

Zara broke her silence after Graziano was sacked from Strictly Come Dancing over reports he 'hit and kicked' her on Tuesday.

The Love Island star wrote on Instagram that while much of her time on Strictly 'was everything I could have dreamt of' inside the training room with Graziano there were 'particular incidents which are incredibly distressing'.

'I felt it was right that I post something regarding the recent media reports,' Zara begain. 'Strictly is one of the most magical shows on TV and one that I dreamt of being on since I was a little girl.'

'When I was invited to be a contestant on the show it really was a childhood dream come true. I fully understood the level of commitment and hard work that Strictly was going to be and I dedicated everything to it.'

'I am a resilient person and I was fully prepared to put in whatever it took.'

It comes following reports on Sunday that Graziano was accused of 'chasing' after Zara while 'screaming abuse,' leaving her so frightened that she 'locked herself in a toilet'

'And so much of my Strictly experience was everything I could have dreamt of. The entire production team and everyone behind the scenes as well as my fellow contestants were so amazing to worth with.

'However, my experience inside the training room was very different. Reports have been made about my treatment on the show and there were witnesses to some events, as well as videos of particular incidents which are incredible distressing to watch.

Zara explai-ned that she didn't report the incidents at the time as she was 'scared' of backlash.

Instead it was junior production staff who came forward to share what they had witnessed as the investigation into pro dancer Giovanni Pernice was taking place.

Giovanni was suspended while a BBC probe is underway over allegations made by Amanda Abbington and two other former celebrity partners.

He has now denied all accusations of abusive or threatening behaviour made by Amanda in her interview and has cooperated with the BBC.

On Tuesday, Paralympics star Will Bayley became the latest star to speak about his time on the show.

The 36-year-old, who was paired with Janette Manrara in 2019, said he was left with life-changing injuries after being made to redo a jump in a routine as he criticised the show's duty of care.
Ioan Gruffudd and his fiancee Bianca Wallace have recently been spending some time in America, and have opted to stay in a budget hotel during their holiday.

The couple, who are staying in the States while Bianca films her latest project, were seen leaving a $77-a-night hotel on Wednesday.

It comes after Alice Evans' lawyers have accused her ex-husband Ioan of giving Bianca $77,000 in just a single month while she was struggling for cash to look after their children.

But Ioan put the claims and divorce drama behind him as he enjoyed a relaxing stroll in the sunshine during Bianca's day off work.

The actor, 50, later shared a sweet embrace with Bianca, 31, as he supported her through on set through out the filming of her new movie Cougar.

Ioan Gruffudd and his fiancee Bianca Wallace have recently been spending some time in America, and have opted to stay in a budget hotel during their holiday

The couple, who are visiting the States while Bianca films her latest project, were seen leaving a $77-a-night hotel on Wednesday

The actress revealed on Thursday that filming had wrapped up as she shared a beaming snap to Instagram.

She wrote in the caption: 'Cougar wrapped! What a dream job, cast & crew - So grateful, MB. Country crime incoming from the supremely talented guy who does it best'

It comes after bombshell court papers revealed Evans claims that the Fantastic Four actor stopped paying him either child or spousal support in April.

According to a court filing on July 1 seen by MailOnline, she claims she is in a dire financial crisis, behind on rent and utility payments and struggling to put food on the table for their daughters Ella, 14, and Elsie, 10.

Meanwhile, she alleges Gruffudd, 50, and Wallace have been travelling the world and even recently bought new Rolex watches.

A page from the court filing appears to show the $77,000 that Gruffudd is said to have paid out to Wallace in December last year. The biggest single payment is $53,760 - for a 'loan repayment'.

It seems that there are three of them in the divorce battle, with Evans, 55, saying that Wallace made a 'completely false' and highly defamatory attack on her on Instagram in April this year.

In the post, aspiring actress Wallace said she had been contacted by thousands of people who claimed Evans had abused or threatened them - declaring that she was going to 'stand up' to 'bullies'.

Evans' lawyers argue this means that Wallace was in breach of a custody stipulation, which forbids either of them from being negative about the others in front of the children.

The actor, 50, later shared a sweet embrace with Bianca as he supported her through filming of her new movie Cougar

The actress revealed on Thursday that filming had wrapped up, as she shared a beaming snap and wrote: 'Cougar wrapped! What a dream job, cast & crew - So grateful, MB. Country crime incoming from the supremely talented guy who does it best'

Because their eldest daughter, Ella, has Instagram, her lawyers say this is a breach.

In the papers, Evans adds that Ella was very upset when a school friend told her about the post and 'cried out she never wants to see Ioan again.'

The documents say that Evans' lawyers emailed Gruffudd's lawyers to ask for Bianca's Instagram post to be removed, but received no response. They note that Bianca used the pronoun 'we' in the post, which implied that her fiancee agreed with her.

It is also the case that Evans, after hundreds of outbursts on social media and elsewhere in the immediate aftermath of their separation in 2021, is subject to a restraining order which means that she was not able to respond at the time.

The filing is an urgent request for funds. In it, Evans, who met Gruffudd on the set of the film 102 Dalmatians, says: 'As it stands, I have very little money coming in each month. I earn approximately $300 per month in royalties.

'I have drained all of my personal savings paying my prior attorneys in this case and paying for my expenses

'I have some personal property, such as vintage designer items, held in storage, that I could possibly sell, but they are in danger of being sold at auction because I cannot pay the monthly storage fee (Ioan stopped paying post-separation even though our daughters' childhood mementos are stored there.)'

She adds: 'As it stands, I am behind on rent and utility payments, and friends have started dropping off groceries and food so the children and I can eat. I will be applying for food stamps and welfare.

'While I am struggling to put food on the table for our children, Ioan is jet setting around the world. Ioan could not appear at his noticed deposition for custody issues because he travelled to the UK. Since April 2024, according to his Instagram page and press releases, he has been in the UK, Cardiff, Sardinia, Rome, Spain, and Seattle.

Alice Evans pictured with her two daughters - amid her messy divorce from Ioan Gruffudd

Gruffudd is pictured kissing his smiling fiancee Bianca Wallace in an Instagram post announcing their engagement in January

Gruffudd paid Wallace $77,000 in December 2023, Evans says. This image from the court filing appears to show the payments in question

'Based upon stories in the media, Ioan purchased an expensive engagement ring for his fiancee and they recently purchased new Rolex watches. '

She acknowledges she signed a prenuptial agreement in 2007 before marrying Gruffudd. It gives her 20 per cent of his earnings as spousal support in the event of a split, or 10 per cent if they have children.

She notes: 'This provision punishes me for having children, which I contend offends the public policy of the State of California that both parents are to contribute to the financial support of the children, especially in this case where I now have 100% custody of the children.'

At the time of the prenup, which is attached to the filing, Gruffudd said he had a net worth of 2million, and she had $40,000 in various accounts.

The couple split up in January 2021, and in September of that year he went public with Wallace, who was an extra on the show Harrow which was filmed in Australia.

It was only at the end of 2023 that some interim spousal and child support was settled. The agreed payment was $3,000 a month in interim child support and $7,000 a month in spousal support. Evans says that Gruffudd only paid the spousal support from December 2023 to April 2024 and has paid nothing since.

Her lawyers say that he earned on average $21,000 a month in 2023, but during the marriage had earned between $500,000 and $1million a year.

They claim that Gruffudd earns tens of thousands of dollars a month, per his tax filings, and that he also received 'approximately $390,000 from the sales proceeds of the home just in December 2023'.

'In this case, a disparity in access to funds to pay fees exists because Alice earns only a few hundred dollars per month, while Ioan's self-reported average monthly income on his Income and Expense Declaration filed January 24, 2024, is $21,023 for the 36 months ending December 31, 2023 and $18,264 for the 12 months ending December 31, 2023,' the legal filing states.

'Moreover, Ioan continues to get roles in movies, such as Bad Boys 4, which was just released this year. Ioan also received approximately $390,000 from the sales proceeds of the home just in December 2023.'

Evans is asking the court to pay her attorneys and alleges that he has been paying two different law firms and a forensic accountant.

It was initially understood that the financial issues would go to trial by April 2024 but that has now been put off to August.

Evans, Ella, Elsie and Gruffudd attending the premiere of Show Dogs in Hollywood in 2018

'Alice is applying for public assistance because she is unable to support herself and the children,' her lawyer states in the latest legal filing.

'It appears that the financial trial will be several months away and Alice will not be able to survive without the receipt of guideline spousal support.

'Ioan has the ability to pay spousal support based upon his greater ability to earn income and his ongoing lavish lifestyle. For these reasons, Alice requests guideline child and spousal support.'

The issue of custody has been settled, with both parties signing a stipulation two months ago. Following an evaluation by a child custody expert, which took several months, Evans was granted 100 per cent custody. Gruffudd had wanted a 50-50 arrangement.

Her lawyer Janina Verano also says that since May 2023, Gruffudd has not seen the children outside of reunification therapy nor has he 'exercised his court ordered right' to have a telephone call with them three times a week. Reunification therapy ended in February this year.

'Ioan has not telephoned the children or returned their text messages since May of 2023,' Evans says. She adds: 'The children have been left in limbo and are completely confused about when or if they will see Ioan.'

Through an order filed by her lawyer, Evans says that she does not agree to the sealing or keeping private of their stipulation, or custody agreement in its entirety, which is what Gruffudd has requested - accusing him of being 'disingenuous' in his request to seal the legal proceedings in order to 'protect the children'.

Evans' attorney notes that Gruffudd 'did not seek to seal any of DVRO [domestic violence] pleadings nor any of the custody pleadings wherein he falsely accuses Alice of abusing the children' - calling out the fact that he only wishes to seal those proceedings in which the allegations were resolved.

Evans was made subject to a restraining order by her estranged husband in February 2022 after she posted a number of messages about him and his new girlfriend on social media and allegedly sent him over 100 texts. One suggested: 'You've got your nuts stuck in her veneers.' She denied abusing or harassing him.

The order was extended for three years in August 2022, and Evans was forbidden from posting about either Gruffudd or Wallace.

In June last year, elder daughter Ella, then 13, applied for a restraining order against Gruffudd after a custody visit ended in chaos. She said: 'I was so mad at my dad because this was an overnight visit, and I had told him in the past that I didn't want to meet his girlfriend who was now his live-in girlfriend.'

She claimed that Wallace had slammed a door against her head as she was running from their apartment after pouring milk and mustard around in protest.

In publicly available documents she said that she was 'afraid' of her father and said that he had threatened to 'call the police on her anytime she misbehaves' during visits.

The request for a restraining order was dropped in court by Ella, who faced her father's legal team.

The couple married in Mexico in 2007 after meeting on the set of the Disney film 102 Dalmatians.

Gruffudd's representatives were contacted for comment.
Bianca Censori continued to put on a risque display while stopping by the Chateau Marmont in LA on Thursday in a skimpy ensemble with husband, Kanye West.

The Australian-born architect, 29 - who also wore a daring outfit last week to grab a bite at the iconic landmark - returned with the Heartless rapper, 47, to enjoy lunch together at the hotel.

She barely covered up her cleavage in a skimpy, nude-colored bralette top as well as a pair of white, micro shorts - not paying any heed to the business casual dress at the Chateau Marmont.

Censori additionally slipped into a pair of closed-toed, black heels that were secured with thin straps that wrapped around her ankles.

Her short, brunette locks were parted to the side, and fell down in natural waves to nearly brush the tips of her shoulders.

Bianca Censori, 29, continued to put on a risque display while stopping by the Chateau Marmont in LA on Thursday in a skimpy ensemble with husband, Kanye West, 47

She barely covered up her cleavage in a skimpy, nude-colored bralette top as well as a pair of white, micro shorts - not paying any heed to the business casual dress at the Chateau Marmont

Bianca chose to not wear any flashy pieces of jewelry to allow the outfit to be the main focal point during the daytime outing.

She was seen arriving to the legendary venue on Thursday while stepping out of a sleek, Tesla Cybertruck

West - who is also known as Ye - joined his wife for the lunch date and opted for an all-black ensemble that comprised of a black hoodie and comfy sweatpants.

The performer also slipped into a pair of black shoes while also sporting black shades and a bracelet in his left wrist.

Censori's return to the Chateau Marmont in another daring look comes shortly after an insider revealed whether the architect was welcome at the hotel - which costs around a whopping $774-a-night.

A valet at the landmark told DailyMail.com on Wednesday, 'She comes here all the time. I always know when she's here because there's always a lot of paparazzi.'

'She comes a lot. She stayed here awhile, a few months I think, and last time she was here was before the weekend, Tuesday or Wednesday.'

In regards to her risque looks when paying a visit to the hotel, the valet revealed, 'She always dresses like that.'

Her short, brunette locks were parted to the side, and fell down in natural waves to nearly brush the tips of her shoulders

Censori additionally slipped into a pair of closed-toed, black heels that were secured with thin straps that wrapped around her ankles

West - who is also known as Ye - joined his wife for the lunch date and opted for an all-black ensemble that comprised of a black hoodie and comfy sweatpants

Bianca chose to not wear any flashy pieces of jewelry to allow the outfit to be the main focal point during the daytime outing

She was seen arriving to the legendary venue on Thursday while stepping out of a sleek, Tesla Cybertruck

Censori's return to the Chateau Marmont in another daring look comes shortly after an insider revealed whether the architect was welcome at the hotel - which costs around a whopping $774-a-night

Earlier last week on Wednesday, both Censori and West were spotted at the Chateau Marmont to enjoy lunch together.

At the time, she wore a semi-sheer, fitted nude top that clung to her frame - but opted to not wear any bottoms, easily showing off her nude, thong underwear.

She added a tan cap that was placed on top of her head, and for a finishing touch, donned a pair of chic black pumps.

It comes shortly after Bianca could possibly face jail time, a fine and mandatory registration as a sex offender due to her daring looks while out in Los Angeles.

Before her visit to the iconic hotel last week, the architect - who tied the knot with Kanye in 2022 - flaunted an X-rated outfit as she stopped by a tanning salon.

She flashed her cleavage in a see-through, mesh top as well as a pair of nude-colored, micro shorts during the errand run.

Censori added a camouflage hat on top of her dark locks while also slipping into a pair of closed-toed heels for the daytime excursion.

The jaw-dropping ensemble could possibly be considered as indecent exposure under California state law.

A valet at the landmark told DailyMail.com on Wednesday, 'She comes here all the time. I always know when she's here because there's always a lot of paparazzi'

'She comes a lot. She stayed here awhile, a few months I think, and last time she was here was before the weekend, Tuesday or Wednesday,' the valet said

Earlier last week on Wednesday, both Censori and West were spotted at the Chateau Marmont to enjoy lunch together

It comes shortly after Bianca could possibly face jail time, a fine and mandatory registration as a sex offender due to her daring looks while out in Los Angeles

The California Penal Code Section 314(1) is a crime of indecent exposure when a person exposes his/her naked body or genitals in public and causes individuals to feel both offended or annoyed.

A person found guilty of the crime has to pay a fine of $1,000, can face six months in a county jail while also being required to register as a sex offender for at minimum 10 years.

She was also seen at the hotel on a separate occasion in a skimpy, black bikini top as well as shorts while grabbing drinks with close pals.

However, some tourists and residents of Los Angeles appear to be unbothered by Bianca's daring style.

Tourist Emily Martinez told DailyMail.com, 'It's not something I'd wear but if she wants to, that's for her.'

A couple were asked to give their opinion, but needed clarification on who Bianca was. The man then shared, 'She thinks no and I think yes. Whatever anyone wants to wear is fine.'

Another tourist named Devontae, stated, 'Everyone should have the freedom to wear what they want. I wouldn't wear it though!'

But some restaurateurs have differing opinions on the outfits, and have vowed to ban Censori and West from their eateries.

However, experts say that her outrageous outfits 'won't stop,' with PR guru Mark Borkowski telling MailOnline, 'Where does it end?'

But some restaurateurs have differing opinions on the outfits, and have vowed to ban Censori and West from their eateries

However, experts say that her outrageous outfits 'won't stop,' with PR guru Mark Borkowski telling MailOnline, 'Where does it end?'; seen in February in Milan

She clearly is very comfortable with her public image and demonstrates it with this extreme fashion statement.'

Mark added, 'I can only think this is a considered act. It feels to be a desperate attempt for publicity. It feels like a living embodiment of the Empress has no clothes.'

And earlier this week on Wednesday, both Bianca and Kanye stepped out for a cinema date in L.A. She flashed her cleavage in a sheer cropped top as well as nude-colored micro shorts, while Ye covered up in an all-black outfit.

The two seemingly had issues with their Tesla Cybertruck and appeared to have trouble getting into the vehicle. The pair were spotted re-entering the movie theater as their security guard made a call.
Claire Stokes was among the who's who of Australian showbiz, politics, and business who gathered to mark a major milestone for a newspaper on Thursday night.

The wife of the Channel Seven media mogul Ryan Stokes, showcased her expensive taste as the couple attended The Australian's 60th birthday bash at The Australian Museum near Sydney's Hyde Park.

Claire opted for a sexy $400 black velvet jumpsuit from NBD which featured a U-shaped bust to show off her ample cleavage.

She paired her look with a cropped black blazer and a black $3,000 Dolce & Gabbana handbag, while accessorising with black platform heels and dazzling silver jewellery.

Meanwhile, Ryan looked dapper in a black tuxedo.

Their outing comes after the Seven Network axed about 150 workers amid financial woes.

Claire Stokes was among the who's who of Australian showbiz, politics, and business who gathered to mark a major milestone for a newspaper on Thursday night

Staff across editorial, television, marketing and sales teams have been axed, with a number of high-profile - and highly-paid - TV presenters already chopped.

One high-profile victim was long-serving Brisbane newsreader Sharyn Ghidella, who was sacked over the phone while at a hair salon preparing for an upcoming network promotion.

The situation is so dire the network's billionaire owner Kerry Stokes, Ryan's father, will fly into Sydney from Perth next week and take up residence on the executive floor of Seven's Eveleigh headquarters.

The wife of the Channel Seven media mogul Ryan Stokes, showcased her expensive taste as the couple attended The Australian's 60th birthday bash at The Australian Museum near Sydney 's Hyde Park

Claire opted for a sexy $400 black velvet jumpsuit from NBD which featured a U-shaped bust to show off her ample cleavage

It is understood that he will take a hands-on approach as the troubled network attempts to arrest months of damaging headlines and internal turmoil - and his impending arrival has done little to ease staff concerns.

Seven's title as the country's most popular free-to-air network largely spiralled in the wake of the Bruce Lehramnn Spotlight saga, when former producer Taylor Auerbach began slinging allegations at his former employer in the Federal Court.

He alleged the network had reimbursed Lehrmann for drugs and sex workers while trying to seduce him into doing an exclusive interview on Spotlight.

She paired her look with a cropped black blazer and a black $3,000 Dolce & Gabbana handbag, while accessorising with black platform heels and dazzling silver jewellery

The network repeatedly refuted those allegations, but the damage was done - Seven has now been struck with a wave of leadership turmoil and financial cuts.

Among those to depart recently include director of news and current affairs Craig McPherson, managing director James Warburton, commercial director Bruce McWilliam, and Spotlight executive producer Mark Llewellyn.

Replacing Mr McPherson was Anthony De Ceglie, who previously worked as a newspaper editor and had no experience in television, was promoted to the top editorial position at Channel Seven in April.

Veteran journalist Robert Ovadia also left the network after ABC Four Corners made inquiries about the alleged toxic culture in the Seven newsroom.

Ovadia allegedly took images from a female producer's personal Instagram page and turned them into a 'caricature' before sharing them with her, Daily Mail Australia previously revealed.

He has now filed a claim with the Fair Work Commission against both De Ceglie and Seven, and is seeking compensation and to be reinstated to the job he held for 23 years.

There are also rumours that long-standing news presenter Mark Ferguson - who is reportedly on a salary of up to $750,000 - could be in the firing line, with presenter Angela Cox turning heads with a rare series of solo appearances this week.

Meanwhile, Ms Ghidella was reportedly axed from the network's Brisbane bureau because she was on a much higher salary than her co-host Max Futcher.

'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,' she wrote on social media.

Their outing comes after the Seven Network axed about 150 workers amid financial woes. Kerry Stokes (pictured with his wife Christine Simpson Stokes) is flying to Sydney to deal with the ratings issues

Seven's long-time Sydney newsreader Mark Ferguson (pictured) could also be in the firing line

'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.

'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.'

Secret internal ratings figures obtained by Daily Mail Australia revealed that in just two weeks, Seven News Brisbane has shed a significant 29,000 viewers.

The ratings freefall put Seven some 88,000 viewers behind Nine's Brisbane news on Monday - whereas on Monday, July 8, prior to her axing, Seven was just 60,000 behind.
Viewers were shocked when the face of Seven News in Queensland Sharyn Ghidella was abruptly sacked earlier this month.

And her fans were stunned when the beloved 58-year-old TV veteran disappeared from screens without offering an on-air 'goodbye'.

Now Sharyn has revealed that she knocked back the chance to say farewell to her large and loyal audience.

In a touching admission the journalist said that after 17 years at the news desk she merely wanted to stay 'professional' during her final bulletin.

'I think it was the emotional side of it,' she confessed on Friday in The Courier Mail.

'I was not certain I could keep my emotions in check. I didn't want to be on air, trying to communicate the news, which is a very serious business, if I was not completely composed.

'If I'd made mistakes, if my voice had a wobble in it, that's not professional and our viewers deserve better than that.'

Elsewhere in the chat, Sharyn said she considered viewers 'friends'.

Viewers were shocked when the face of Seven News in Queensland Sharyn Ghidella was abruptly sacked earlier this month. (Pictured)

'Family, actually,' she added and continued: 'When you are in their lounge rooms at 6pm, five days a week, they have to trust you.

'They have made a connection with me, that connection has now been broken and I feel a little lost.'

It comes after Ghidella confirmed the news of her sacking in a fiery Facebook post earlier this month.

Her former co-host Max Futcher spoke emotionally and passionately about her on air when he hosted the 6pm bulletin solo after her untimely exit.

'First tonight, she didn't want a farewell, and she's too humble to want us to make a fuss. But we would like to thank Sharyn Ghidella for her 17 wonderful years behind the desk here at 7News Brisbane,' he said.

'A true professional, an accomplished journalist, and for all of us here  a friend and mentor. And my good mate.

'We know Sharyn has also been a big part of your lives, and we know she sees that role as a great privilege.

'Sharyn leaves with our respect, our admiration, and wishes for an amazing future. Love you Shaz.'

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.

'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.

Now Sharyn has revealed that she knocked back the chance to say farewell on air to her large and loyal audience. In a new interview with the Courier Mail she said that after 17 years at the news desk, she wanted to stay 'professional' during her final bulletin

'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.'

She 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.

Sharyn said she was not sure she could keep her emotions in check and wanted to stay professional. She had been on the News Desk since 2007

'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.

'These people are some of the best content creators in the business. They are good people and it's been heartbreaking to watch.'

Sharyn added she was not a fan of the network's rebranding of its news programming, with comedian Mark Humphries doing regular skits and an astrology 'report'.

'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.

She ended her take-no-prisoners post by thanking the many friends she had made throughout her long career with the network.
Hugh Jackman has paid tribute to the Hollywood mogul who helped make the Australian-born actor a global superstar.

The 55-year-old fan favourite a guest when Marvel boss Kevin Feige, 51, received a 'star' on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The Wolverine star decided to have some fun at the expense of his old mentor.

As part of his tribute, Hugh presented the multi-millionaire Marvel Studios president with a $15 voucher to a well-known steakhouse chain.

A video shared to Facebook shows the cheeky star struggling to keep a straight face during his presentation.

'I honestly would go with you, but Im kind of a massive movie star now [so] it would not look good for me,' Hugh joked.

In his speech Hugh explained the meaning of his 'gift'.

Speaking in front of a star-studded group of guests including Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pratt, Hugh told how he had known Feige since he first auditioned for the part of Wolverine for the X-Men movie 25 years ago.

Hugh Jackman has paid tribute tp Marvel boss Kevin Feige, 51, as he received a 'star' on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles on Thursday. As part of his tribute, Hugh presented him with a $15 voucher to a well-known steakhouse chain

At the time, Feige was a producer for Marvel and had offered to drive the then little known Aussie to the airport.

'And all of a sudden he pulls over at a restaurant,' Hugh continued.

'Now at this point I know Im not getting the part. Kevin knows Im not getting the part. The waiter in the restaurant knows Im not getting the part. But Kevin says: ''I want to buy you a steak''.

'And like, Im an actor, it's free steak, Im in totally...He [Kevin] took the time to take care of me. And I will never ever forget it.

'Its 25 years later. And this is kind of a full circle moment. So is there any way I can show my affection for this man today? Other than saying a few words?

'I got you this gift certificate to Mastros Steakhouse. This is a full $15 gift certificate... valid on Tuesdays between 3 and 3pm. Don't cry.'

Hugh has played the Marvel character in eight X-Men films from 2000 until 2016, and was last seen as Wolverine in standalone movie Logan in 2017.

Deadpool and Wolverine will be the 10th time the Aussie has strapped on the big claws for the popular role.

Speaking in front of a star-studded group of guests including Ryan Reynolds and Chris Pratt , Hugh told how he had known Feige since he first auditioned for the part of Wolverine for the X-Men movie 25 years ago
Kayla Itsines has criticised children's play centres after she came down with a nasty eye infection after visiting.

The fitness influencer and personal trainer, 33, went to the kid's activity venue during the school holidays with her daughter Arna, five, who she shares with ex-boyfriend Tobi Pearce.

But on Monday, Kayla took to social media to reveal to her 15.8million followers that she'd contracted conjunctivitis, also known as 'pink eye'.

'Well... I somehow ended up with conjunctivitis,' she captioned her post, which documented Arna having a fun time at the play centre.

'I'm all better now but who's going to be the one to tell Arna we're never going again?'

'I recently took the kids to a play centre during their school holidays (because they were begging me to go) and EVERYONE told me not to because apparently they're a cesspool for gastro and conjunctivitis,' Kayla added.

'I even went as far as researching to find a place that shows videos on how they clean everything daily.'

Kayla, her husband Jae Woodroffe their son Jax officially moved from Adelaide to the Gold Coast earlier this year after months of speculation.

Kayla Itsines has criticised children's play centres after she came down with a nasty eye infection after visiting. Pictured with daughter Arna and son Jax

Kayla and Jae tied the knot in December last year following a two-year engagement, but their fairytale romance first blossomed under unusual circumstances.

From getting together just months after leaving their respective exes to Kayla's subsequent falling out with Jae's ex-girlfriend - things weren't always so simple.

Kayla debuted her relationship with personal trainer Jae on September 26, 2021, when the couple was spotted packing on the PDA outside a kebab shop in Adelaide.

The sighting came just a few weeks after Kayla had split from her former boyfriend, a videographer known only as 'Mitch G'.

The fitness influencer and personal trainer, 33, went to the kid's activity venue during the school holidays with her daughter Arna, five, who she shares with ex-boyfriend Tobi Pearce

But on Monday, Kayla took to social media to reveal to her 15.8million followers that she'd contracted conjunctivitis, also known as 'pink eye'

Earlier that month, 'Mitch G' was pictured packing his personal belongings into a moving van outside Kayla's home, confirming their brief relationship was over.

Coincidentally, Jae also moved on with Kayla shortly after splitting with his long-time ex-girlfriend Lauren Benotti, who also happened to be close friends with Kayla.

Jae and Lauren are believed to have started dating in 2016, as indicated by loved-up Instagram photos posted by Lauren at the time.

The last photos of the former couple together were uploaded on May 23, 2021, following a night out with a group of friends which included Kayla.

A group photo taken during the outing even shows Kayla, Jae and Lauren all posing side by side.

In January 2022, Kayla finally debuted Jae on her Instagram page, uploading a photo of the pair cuddling alongside a caption describing him as her 'best friend for years and now partner'

Kayla and Jae debuted their romance four months later. Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting any party has ever been unfaithful.

Kayla declined to comment when contacted by Daily Mail Australia, but her spokeswoman Sara Bergstrom said the 'media narrative' suggesting Kayla and Lauren fell out because of Jae 'was false then, and [is] still false now'.

Kayla and Lauren's relationship appears to have soured, and the pair no longer follow each other on Instagram.

In January 2022, Kayla finally debuted Jae on her Instagram page, uploading a photo of the pair cuddling alongside a caption describing him as her 'best friend for years and now partner'.

The happy couple welcomed their first child together, a boy named Jax, in January last year, with Kayla sharing custody of her daughter Arna, five, with ex Tobi Pearce.

Kayla and Tobi share custody of their daughter Arna. Kayla also welcomed her first child with Jae, a boy named Jax, in January 2023.
Zara McDermott has broken her silence after it was revealed close friend Pete Wicks will perform in Strictly Come Dancing this year.

The documentary maker, 27, and former TOWIE star, 36, joke they are in a throuple relationship with Zara's long-term boyfriend Sam Thompson, 31, who has been best pals with Pete since 2019.

Despite their close-knit friendship, Pete has landed a spot on the Strictly line-up amid shocking reports Zara performed on the show with a 'fractured' leg following an injury in training and needed painkillers to get through ten-hour rehearsals.

The latest revelation comes after professional dancer Graziano Di Prima, 30, admitted to kicking Zara during their sessions, causing him to be sacked from the BBC series.

It follows claims his abusive behaviour was caught on video, in clips Zara stated were 'incredibly distressing to watch.'

Zara McDermott has broken her silence after it was revealed Pete Wicks will perform in Strictly Come Dancing this year

The documentary maker and the former TOWIE star are close pals and even joke they have a throuple relationship alongside Zara's long-term boyfriend Sam Thompson

A source told MailOnline: 'Zara is so happy for Pete landing the Strictly gig.

'Her experience on the show was so individual  she hopes no one will go through the same again.

'She knows that Pete will have an amazing time and could even impress the judges, he's incredibly hardworking and a good person, and will thrive in the environment, which can be intense, but he performs best when he's challenged and under pressure.

'Zara doesn't want anything that happened to her to taint his Strictly journey and backs Pete even if it is a bit close to home.'

Pete joined Sam in the Strictly studio audience last year and together they wore patterned shirts embellished with Zara's face to show their support.

They posed for photographs alongside Zara and Graziano, who has since fled to his native Sicily in the wake of his Strictly axing.

Reality stars Sam and Pete became friends following their appearance on E4 show Celebs Go Dating in 2019 and have since hosted podcast Staying Relevant together.

As well as their podcast, the pair's working relationship sees them prank each other in viral social media videos based around Sam's enthusiasm and eagerness to please juxtaposed with Pete's moodiness.

Zara often features in the clips, which has seen the trio perform fun dance routines for their huge combine following.

The latest revelation comes after professional dancer Graziano Di Prima admitted to kicking Zara during their training, causing him to be sacked from the BBC series

Zara often features in social media videos alongside Sam and Pete, which has seen the trio perform fun dance routines for their huge combine following

The BBC star has spoken out about her experience in the Strictly training room and being 'scared' about her future and 'victim shaming' in the wake of the revelations

The Sun revealed Zara needed painkillers to get through ten-hour training sessions after breaking a leg bone on Strictly.

A source told the publication the TV star danced during the show's Halloween week with a fractured leg, and it was 'literal horror in every sense of the word.'

An X-ray revealed severe ligament damage plus a stress fracture on her left tibia.

Show bosses learned the full extent of the injury only two weeks ago when Zara spoke to private investigators amid the inquiry into Graziano's behaviour.

Professional dancer Giovanni Pernice has also been sacked from the show following an ongoing investigation into his conduct after actress Amanda Abbington told the broadcaster she had been mistreated.

On Wednesday, Amanda revealed to Channel 4 the BBC had failed to offer any 'aftercare' following her departure from Strictly and the onslaught of trolling she experienced once Giovanni was booted off the series.

She revealed there are '50 hours of footage which have been blocked' to back up her claims Giovanni created a 'toxic' environment in the training room.

Speaking to former Strictly co-star Krishnan Guru-Murthy, she said: 'It's bullying and it's aggressive behaviour and there were other things that happened that were very upsetting that you manage at the time in the room because you're a woman and you have to manage those things because otherwise what do you do?'
A split tray of paella at Bellota in San Francisco, as seen in 2016. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle

A popular San Francisco destination for Spanish fare like tapas and paella will be closing soon after eight years in business.

Bellota, at 888 Brannan St. in SoMa, will close on Aug. 17, according to an announcement from the restaurant on social media.

Eric Vreede, operations director and vice president of the Absinthe Group, cited low activity in the area caused by a slow return to office as the main factor behind the decision to close. The restaurant opened on the first floor of Airbnbs headquarters in 2016, but during the pandemic, the company adopted a generous remote work policy and shrank its footprint in the area.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

We never really rebounded since COVID, he said. Its been a struggle.

Bellota recently lowered prices to entice diners  a strategy that some restaurants are starting to consider  but it didnt pay off.

The Tierra Verde cocktail at San Francisco Spanish restaurant Bellota, photographed in 2016. Laura Morton/Special to The Chronicle

Vreede added that pop-ups at the restaurant may continue past its closing date, and that all 33 Bellota employees will continue to be paid through Sept. 20. The Absinthe Group notified the state on July 22 of its intent to close and lay off its workers, ahead of the minimum 60-day period required by California law.

Sagan Piechota Architecture, a San Francisco firm, designed the space with a capacity of 140 seated diners, accented with industrial details and surrounded by windows. The current menu features paellas, a variety of tapas, and meats such as grilled Iberico pork and whole fish. The wine focuses exclusively on Spanish vintages. Diners can also choose from a variety of gins and tonic to create a customized gin and tonic.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Bellotas plans to close follow the departure of another leading Bay Area Spanish restaurant, Duende, which recently shuttered in Uptown Oakland after more than a decade.

With the closing on the horizon, the Absinthe group will look at the possibility of reopening with a new business by the end of the year. Vreede declined to share any details, but said it wont be a successor to Bellota.

It will be a different name and a different focus, Vreede said.

A ham outside the kitchen at Bellota in San Francisco, as seen in 2016. John Storey/Special to the Chronicle

Bellota was named to the Bay Areas Michelin Guide, which called the restaurant a Spanish stunner. Former Chronicle restaurant critic Michael Bauer called the restaurant The Absinthe Groups most ambitious project, and its best, in his 2016 review published just two months after the opening. He also praised the restaurants then-chef Ryan McIlwraiths varied versions of paella, which can be ordered on large split pans to sample two in one order. All paellas at Bellota have one thing in common, Bauer wrote. A perfectly caramelized rice crust.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

McIlwraith is currently the chef at Alora, a new Mediterranean restaurant on the Embarcadero.
Rebecca Judd shared a sweet tribute to her beloved son Oscar as she marked his 13th birthday on Friday.

The AFL WAG, 41, took to Instagram to share an array of throwback snaps of herself and Oscar over the years as she commemorated the occasion.

She kicked off the gallery with photographs of herself cuddling up to Oscar when he was a baby as she documented his first few years of life.

One picture showed Bec sweetly feeding Oscar ice cream on holiday, while another shot showed them cuddled up together on the couch.

She also documented Oscar's love for AFL - proving he following in his father Chris' footsteps - as she posted snaps of him attending footy matches as a toddler.

In an accompanying caption, Bec gushed over Oscar as she shared her disbelief that he is already a teenager.

'My best little mate is 13 today. I have a TEENAGER. I love you Oscar Judd. Long may I always be your favourite person,' she penned.

As well as Oscar, Bec also shares a daughter Billie, ten, and twins Tom and Darcy, eight, with former Carlton captain Chris, 40.

Rebecca Judd shared a sweet tribute to her beloved son Oscar as she marked his 13th birthday on Friday (pictured)

The AFL WAG, 41, took to Instagram to share an array of throwback snaps of herself and Oscar over the years as she commemorated the occasion

Chris and Bec met at a pub in Perth 17 years ago when they were both teenagers, and wed on December 31, 2010, at Melbourne's Albert Park.

The family live in a $7.3million mansion in the upmarket Melbourne suburb of Brighton.

They all recently jetted back home from their annual family trip to Broome, western Australia, for some winter sun.

She shared a whole host of holiday snaps to her Instagram page, and even shared her son Tom's savage verdict on one of her dinner outfits.

For one night out for dinner, Bec slipped into a gorgeous $400 outfit from Viktoria and Woods, consisting of a silk beige concert shirt and matching pants.

She kicked off the gallery with photographs of herself cuddling up to Oscar when he was a baby as she documented his first few years of life

One picture showed Bec sweetly feeding Oscar ice cream on holiday (pictured), while another shot showed them cuddled up together on the couch

She also documented Oscar's love for AFL - proving he following in his father Chris' footsteps - as she posted snaps of him attending footy matches as a toddler

As well as Oscar, Bec also shares a daughter Billie, ten, and twins Tom and Darcy, eight, with former Carlton captain Chris, 40 (all pictured)

She completed her effortlessly chic outfit with a singlet from Henne, white heels from Lana Wilkinson and earrings from Pandora.

Despite looking every inch the fashionista in the glamorous outfit, Bec revealed her son Tom hilariously mistook it for sleepwear.

'"Very fancy PJs" - Tom Judd,' Bec explained as she quoted the youngster in the comments, before adding: 'Not PJs but I'm digging this vibe.'
Kate Walsh was showing off her chic fashion sense as she arrived at Sydney Airport on Friday.

The Grey's Anatomy star, 56, looked incredibly stylish in a cream wool coat with a loose cut.

She added a fluffy sweater underneath, while wearing a pair of caramel toned patterned trousers.

Kate added a brown felt cap to her look and wore a black designer bag in a crossbody style.

The Emily in Paris star completed the ensemble with a gold choker and a pair of stacked gum boots.

The American actress had on a natural makeup look and tucked her hair under her hat.

She carried a large water bottle and added some extra interest with a pair of dainty gold earrings.

Kate couldn't wipe the smile off her face as she made her way through the airport during the low key arrival.

Kate Walsh (pictured) was showing off her chic fashion sense as she arrived at Sydney Airport on Friday

The star lives in Australia with her Aussie farmer fiance Andrew Nixon, who she met in 2020.

Kate has settled into her new life in Perth, Western Australia after finding love with her fellow Aussie beau.

The actress relocated to the isolated state nearly four years ago after getting engaged to the Western Australian farmer.

She recently revealed she had fallen in love with Australia's laid back lifestyle and was happy to call Perth home.

The Grey's Anatomy star, 56, looked incredibly stylish in a cream wool coat with a loose cut

Kate added a brown felt cap to her look and wore a black designer bag in a crossbody style

'I really love Western Australia I think nature here eclipses everything. It drives me,' she told news.com.au.

'I like the slowness. It's really good for me. And then you go back overseas and you're like, "Oh my god. People are insane,'' she added.

Walsh then said she often flew to America for filming and then returned to Australia when she was free to spend more time with her fiance.

'I feel very fortunate I can pop back to LA, go to work, and then come back here and live my best life.'

'I needed my life to be a lot more balanced. And then, I fell in love with an Aussie, and here I am. I love it. I'm very grateful,' she added.

The star lives in Australia with her Aussie farmer fiance Andrew Nixon, who she met in 2020. Pictured together

The California native reportedly met Andrew, of Nixon Farming, on a cruise just before the start of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.

The Nixon family have been farming predominantly malt barley and canola in the Moora/New Norcia area of Western Australia for close to 100 years, according to their website.

This will be the second time down the aisle for Kate, who ended her 15-month marriage to Day Shift executive producer Alex Young in 2010.

The showbiz couple legally separated in 2008. They cited the celeb favourite 'irreconcilable differences' as the reason for the split.
Sami Lukis has revealed the one surprising household item she always takes on holiday with her.

The radio star, 54, is known for her jet-setting lifestyle and has shared some of her top travel tips, including the unexpected item she always has on hand.

Sami revealed she always takes a small ziplock bag filled with washing powder so she can wash her delicates in the sink in her hotel room.

Sharing her surprise travel trip, Sami told 9Travel: 'You get to a destination. Maybe you can't find a laundry or you can't find a supermarket, and if you do, you have to buy an entire box of washing powder.

'But if you take a little bag of washing powder from home, you can wash your dedicates and your smalls in the sink in your hotel room.'

Sami shared her other top travel tips, including taking earplugs in case of a noisy flight or hotel and rolling rather than folding clothes in luggage to make more room.

Last week, Sami was caught in the global IT outage during her latest travels as her flight from Orlando was delayed amid the chaos.

Thousands of flights around the United States were either delayed or cancelled in the days following the massive Microsoft outage.

Sami Lukis (pictured) has revealed the one surprising household item she always takes on holiday with her

Sami detailed the chaos at Orlando International Airport on Friday as she admitted it wasn't a good day to be flying in posts shared to X - formerly known as Twitter.

She penned: 'Sitting here at Orlando airport waiting for my flight  and no one on the ground seems to know whats going on.

'Some flight cancelled. Some flights are boarding. Most are showing as delayed. For now.'

Hours later, Sami confirmed flights were beginning to board after the outage caused chaotic scenes at airports all around the globe.

'So flights at Orlando airport are now starting to board. Lets hope this thing is sorted before they put planes back in the air,' she shared.

Giving an insight into her top travel tips, Sami revealed she always takes a small ziplock bag filled with washing powder so she can wash her delicates in the sink in her hotel room

Windows is the most used operating system in the world, meaning the outage affected almost every part of the global economy.

The technical fault - from an update pushed out to customers of cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike - caused Windows software to suddenly shut down, prompting departure boards to immediately turn off at many airports.

In a sign of the global impact of the IT failure, passengers were seen sleeping in passageways at Los Angeles International Airport, huge queues formed at terminals across Spain, and in Delhi staff set up a whiteboard to record departures.

Shops in Australia shut down or went cashless after digital checkouts stopped working, while in the US emergency services lines went down in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Ohio.

Holidaymakers faced days of travel chaos in the days following the outage as flights continued to be cancelled or delayed amid a huge backlog.
Fearne Cotton looked in good spirits as she enjoyed a family day out on Friday to watch her brother-in-law Tyrone Wood tie the knot with businesswoman Faye Harris.

The radio presenter, 42, was a vision as she headed to the ceremony at Marylebone Old Town Hall in London in a stylish summer dress.

She looked effortlessly chic in the pale orange garment that featured a blue floral print and shirred detailing on the bust.

Fearne added to the look with lace up heels adorned with flowers and a small taupe handbag.

By her side for the ceremony was husband Jesse Wood, who matched their 11-year-old son Rex by donning a blue suit with a plain white T-shirt.

Fearne Cotton looked in good spirits as she joined son Rex, husband Jesse Wood and stepson Arthur to watch her brother-in-law Tyrone Wood marry Faye Harris in London on Friday

The radio presenter, 42, was a vision as she headed to the ceremony at Marylebone Old Town Hall in London in a stylish summer dress

Fearne and Jesse are also parents to nine-year-old daughter Honey, who was not pictured on the day.

Jesse has two children from his previous marriage - Lola, 18, and Arthur, 22 - who looked dapper at the wedding in a linen suit.

The family watched on proudly as groom Tyrone emerged with his new wife Faye, who looked incredible in an off-the-shoulder white mini dress.

They were cheered by his famous father Ronnie, mum Jo and guests including a whole host of rock royalty.

Ronnie has six children from his first marriage Krissy Findlay.

The Rolling Stones rocker and his current wife Sally have been married since 2012 and share six-year-old twins Gracie Jane and Alice Rose.

He also has Tyrone and Leah from his relationship with Jo and six grandchildren.

Leah, lives in Kentish Town with her TV producer husband Jack MacDonald and their two children Maggie, 14, and Otis, nine.

She looked effortlessly chic in the pale orange garment that featured a blue floral print and shirred detailing on the bust

Fearne added to the look with lace up heels adorned with flowers and a small taupe handbag

By her side for the ceremony was husband Jesse Wood, who matched their 11-year-old son Rex by donning a blue suit with a plain white T-shirt

Fearne seemed in great spirits as she caught up with friends and family at the event

The actress, only eight months younger than Ronnies wife Sally, moved there in 2011 after her mother Jo bought the house for just over 3 million.

Mayfair art gallery owner Tyrone previously dated Rita Ora as well as models Rosie Huntington-Whiteley and Daisy Lowe, before settling down with Faye.

The stunner, who was first linked to her now husband back in 2022, is the co-founder of 'genderless' perfume company Eauso Vert.

After exchanging their vows the party headed to the Michelin star George pub on Great Portland Street in swanky Fitzrovia.

Also on the guest list was Iron Maiden legend Steve Harris, 68, who appeared in great spirits.

The George is an 18th century Grade II listed Victorian pub that boasts original 18th century features including marble fireplaces and ornate plasterwork.

According to it's website the venue has welcomed famous writers and poets of the 20th century.

The family watched on proudly as groom Tyrone emerged with his new wife Faye, who looked incredible in an off-the-shoulder white mini dress
Christina Hall's ex-husband Ant Anstead surfaced in a rare sighting in Newport Beach, California this week amid her divorce from Josh Hall.

Ant, 45, and Christina, 41, exchanged vows in Newport Beach in 2018 and the following year they welcomed their son Hudson, four.

They ultimately separated in 2020 and finalized their divorce in June 2021, just days before news broke that he was dating his current girlfriend Renee Zellweger.

Meanwhile, Christina moved on with Josh, a police officer turned realtor whom she secretly tied the knot with in October 2021.

Now, less than two weeks after Christina and Josh filed for divorce, Ant was spotted emerging for a casual outing in sunny Southern California.

Christina Hall 's ex-husband Ant Anstead surfaced in a rare sighting in Newport Beach, California this week - amid her divorce from Josh Hall

The British television presenter showed off his toned physique in a fitted black t-shirt and a pair of fossil grey trousers, teamed with flip-flops and a watch.

Ant was with his first wife Louise for 12 years and welcomed two children with her before they went their separate ways in July 2017.

Meanwhile, Christina shot to fame on the HGTV series Flip Or Flop alongside her first husband Tarek El Moussa, with whom she has two children.

She and Ant went Instagram official on New Year's Day 2018, and they tied the knot three days before Christmas that year at their Newport Beach home.

Ant's sighting this week came after Christina broke her silence on her latest divorce, labeling Josh an 'insecure man' on her Insta Stories this Thursday.

Josh is said to have been stunned by the end of the marriage, as he was devoted to Christina and her three children, sources in his camp told TMZ.

Although he acknowledged that the relationship had its troubles, he allegedly did not anticipate that they would split the way they did.

Insiders close to him claim that after one particular argument, Christina stopped talking to him directly and began communicating with him through a lawyer.

Less than two weeks after Christina and Josh filed for divorce, Ant was spotted emerging for a casual outing in sunny Southern California

Ant and Christina finalized their divorce in June 2021, just days before news broke that he was dating his current girlfriend Renee Zellweger; Ant and Christina pictured in 2019

Ant, 45, and Christina, 41, exchanged vows in Newport Beach in 2018 and the following year they welcomed their son Hudson, four; Ant pictured with Hudson

Josh, understanding that divorce was now in the offing, is said to have also secured legal representation at that point.

However he was allegedly crushed by the breakup and feels his world has evaporated, having reportedly reorganized his social and work life around Christina.

At present, he is said to be in Nashville, where he frequents church services and has been maintaining his physical health at the gym.

Christina - who recently claimed that Josh transferred $35k from her bank account - addressed the shock split on Thursday after it was revealed last week that the pair filed for divorce after nearly three years of marriage.

She penned, 'Over here waiting for the typical Hired PR rep speech of "how was I blind-sided and how I'm working on myself and taking time to heal at her ranch...'

'Meanwhile I'm over here not as nice and quiet as I used to be,' the mother-of-three continued.

In another slide, Christina added, 'I have worked my a** off to build this life for myself and my children and anyone who would try and take what they don't deserve/what they did NOT work for should be ashamed.'

The TV personality got candid over the shock split after it was revealed last week that the pair filed for divorce after nearly three years of marriage

She penned, 'Over here waiting for the typical Hired PR rep speech of "how was I blind-sided and how I'm working on myself and taking time to heal at her ranch...'

She then added, 'An insecure man with a large ego can sure try and derail you - but, "still rise"...'

'For those that aren't aware...divorces do not happen overnight.. & there is always a breaking point. This one is personal........,' Christina concluded to her 1.8 million fans and followers.

The TV personality's latest post on her stories comes just on week after it was reported that the estranged couple officially filed for divorce - with the date of separation dated as July 8 by Joshua, while Christina cited July 7.

Joshua has also requested for alimony from the HGTV star, and doesn't want to have to give her money, per TMZ.

The split will be Christina's third divorce - who was previously married to Tarek El Moussa from 2009 until 2018, and also Ant Anstead from 2018 through 2021.

She shares her children Taylor, 13, and Brayden, eight, with El Moussa, as well as son Hudson, four, with Anstead.

Shortly before the pair's separation, both Christina and Joshua had signed on to appear together on the new 2025 HGTV series, The Flip Off, alongside Tarek and his wife, Heather Rae El Moussa.

Joshua also broke his silence following the divorce news by also jumping to his Instagram stories earlier this week on Wednesday.

In another slide, Christina added, 'I have worked my a** off to build this life for myself and my children and anyone who would try and take what they don't deserve/what they did NOT work for should be ashamed'

'For those that aren't aware...divorces do not happen overnight.. & there is always a breaking point. This one is personal........,' Christina concluded to her 1.8 million fans and followers

The TV personality's latest post on her stories comes just on week after it was reported that the estranged couple officially filed for divorce - with the date of separation dated as July 8 by Joshua, while Christina cited July 7

He shared a snap that was taken from behind him as he strolled through a forest while surrounded by green trees. Towards the bottom of the image, he simply added a praying hands emoji.

Christina seemingly trolled her estranged husband after sharing a selfie on her main Instagram page on Thursday.

In the caption of the post, the media personality simply added a praying hands emoji - possibly referencing to his own snap one day earlier.

Christina's ex-husband, Tarek El Moussa, also shared his thoughts on the divorce while recently talking with E! News.

'I think life's tough, s*** happens. I think she's gonna get through this. We're here to support her. We got one shot at life, we gotta do what's best for us. Whatever she needs, we're here to help.'

Christina notably did not sign a prenuptial agreement with Joshua - who is asking for alimony and to equally split their community property, including their $12.6 million mansion located in Newport Beach, per Us Weekly.

And following their back-to-back divorce filings, Christina has now accused her estranged husband of transferring $35,000 of her money into his bank account.

Per legal documents obtained by ET, the HGTV personality has claimed, 'Josh was able to divert over $35,000 of my separate property rental income into his account.'

She shares her children Taylor, 13, and Brayden, eight, with El Moussa, as well as son Hudson, four, with Anstead

Joshua also broke his silence following the divorce news by also jumping to his Instagram stories earlier this week on Wednesday

Christina seemingly trolled her estranged husband after sharing a selfie on her main Instagram page on Thursday, and also shared a praying hand emoji in the caption

She went on to say in the court paperwork, 'I am asking for Josh to account for the funds taken and return them to me as those funds are specifically used to pay any loans, obligations, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance for these rental properties.'

The money came from Christina's various rental properties around Tennessee, which Josh was allegedly able to obtain via a text sent to the property manager on July 8.

The text message from Josh read, 'Hi. For June payments, can we please get it sent to a different account when it's time? Thank you,' with the 'we' seemingly indicating that both he and his soon-to-be ex-wife were on board with the request.

However, Christina, who included a screenshot of the message as evidence in her filing, said she found out about the transfer on July 21.

She noted in her documents that she 'had no personal contact with Josh on July 8, 2024,' adding, 'I would not have asked him to send himself my money the day after I told him we are getting divorced.'

Furthermore, she explained the property manager followed through with the request 'believing I had authorized the change of accounts and asked for account details and Josh provided his own Wells Fargo Bank account.'

The documents were filed in Orange County Superior Court in California, and the mother-of-three has requested that a judge order Josh to return the money.

Additionally, she is seeking exclusive use of the Newport Beach, California, residence she and her ex once shared.

She recognizes that the home is titled in both of their names, but maintains that the money used to purchase the home came from the sale of a house in Dana Point that she owned.

Christina notably did not sign a prenuptial agreement with Joshua - who is asking for alimony and to equally split their community property, including their $12.6 million mansion located in Newport Beach, per Us Weekly

Per legal documents obtained by ET, the HGTV personality has claimed, 'Josh was able to divert over $35,000 of my separate property rental income into his account'

In another twist, Christina shared that Josh's attorney sent her a letter demanding that she keep 'electronic evidence without it being automatically deleted' from their home cameras, per ET.

Christina noted in response, 'I unplugged cameras so the system would not automatically overwrite the hard drive. Each time Josh has returned to the house he has plugged the cameras back in, which would allow him to keep me and my children under surveillance. I object to him having that access into my home.'

The Flip or Flop star also got in front of spousal support orders, officially stating, 'I understand that at some point this court may require that I pay some spousal support to Josh and reasonable attorney's fees to his counsel.

'However, it is my belief that this is a simple case with straightforward accounting over a short period of time, [therefore] any fees and costs should be minimal.'

It was added, 'Like all hard-working mothers, my life revolves around my children and my work. It is my understanding that Josh has his own income and therefore he should not need any spousal support from me.

'He has sufficient assets of his own to pay his own attorney's fees and costs. Quite frankly I am shocked and concerned by the fact that he has diverted over $35,000 of my separate property money to his separate account on July 8, 2024.

'The fact that this is the same date he now alleges to be our date of separation, even though it is actually July 7, 2024, makes it clear why he chose the next day.'

Following the diversion of cash, Christina says she is now wondering 'what else I am not aware of as it relates to his financial situation and that is why I am having a full forensic accounting performed for the entire term of our marriage.'
She never misses an opportunity to show off her incredible figure.

And Amanda Holden once again took to her Instagram to flaunt her slender physique on Friday while on holiday with her family in Greece.

The BGT judge, 53, soaked up the sun in a tiny pink bikini for a slew of sizzling snaps draped over the back of a boat.

Her ample assets and toned stomach were on full display as she shielded her eyes from the sun with a pair of oversized sunglasses.

In her typical playful manner, Amanda also shared a video of her leaping off the boat and throwing her arms wide to dive into the cooling water.

Amanda Holden once again took to her Instagram to flaunt her slender physique on Friday while on holiday with her family in Greece

The BGT judge, 53, soaked up the sun in a tiny pink bikini for a slew of sizzling snaps draped over the back of a boat

Her ample assets and toned stomach were on full display as she shielded her eyes from the sun with a pair of oversized sunglasses

While her eldest daughter Lexi showed the apple does not fall far from the tree, as she shared her own bikini-clad snaps, looking the spitting image of her famous mum.

The 18-year-old has often been compared to Amanda, being called her miniature twin thanks to their almost identical features.

And in photos she shared to her Instagram Stories of herself having dip in the sea and sunbathing while playing backgammon, the resemblance was uncanny.

In one shot of her posing while climbing out of the clear blue, she donned a bold yellow two-piece and black shades, in a mirror image of Amanda's photos.

Lexi is Amanda's oldest child with her husband Chris Hughes, with whom she also shares daughter Hollie, 12.

But their holiday comes after Amanda revealed last week that Lexi was recently admitted to a hospital with life-threatening E. coli amid the latest outbreak.

The aspiring model, who was sitting her A-levels at the time, was reportedly on a ward for five days with her parents at her bedside.

While discussing the warning signs to look out for amid the latest outbreak, Amanda revealed to The Sun that her daughter had been suffering from bloating and stomach cramps.

In her typical playful manner, Amanda also shared a video of her leaping off the boat and throwing her arms wide to dive into the cooling water

While her eldest daughter Lexi showed the apple does not fall far from the tree, as she shared her own bikini-clad snaps, looking the spitting image of her famous mum

In one shot of her posing while climbing out of the clear blue, she donned a bold yellow two-piece and black shades, in a mirror image of Amanda's photos

The 18-year-old has often been compared to Amanda, being called her miniature twin thanks to their almost identical features (pictured together in December)

She said: 'For about three weeks, Lexi had been complaining of bloating and stomach cramps. She was not happy at all and in quite a lot of pain with her tummy.'

It was around the time of revision and her A-levels, so I was just putting this down to exam stress.'

However, Amanda admitted that after taking her daughter to her GP, who insisted on her doing some blood and stool samples, the results came back as a bacterial infection.

The star then revealed that while she was filming in Spain, she began to get calls from various government officials asking her to fill out several forms about where her daughter might have eaten and what kind of food they had stored in their home.

Stating that the cultures come back, Amanda revealed that Lexi has VTEC E. coli, which is a very harmful strain of bacteria that's very rare in humans.

Amanda also told how perplexed she was by the news as she couldn't work out how her daughter came down with the bacterial infection.

She admitted that she even had her rabbits and cat checked after the doctor asked if she lived on a farm or had any livestock, as the infection is usually affiliated with farmers.

The star also confessed that the antibiotics her daughter was given didn't seem to be working and claimed her doctor called her saying 'I don't want to alarm you' before telling her Lexi's bloods were 'through the roof'.

Lexi is Amanda's oldest child with her husband Chris Hughes , with whom she also shares daughter Hollie, 12 (pictured together)

But their holiday comes after Amanda revealed last week that Lexi was recently admitted to a hospital with life-threatening E. coli amid the latest outbreak (pictured earlier this month)

The mother-of-two admitted that being told that her daughter was in danger of 'contracting sepsis' was 'terrifying' to hear

The mother-of-two admitted that being told that her daughter was in danger of 'contracting sepsis' was 'terrifying' to hear.

According to Amanda, Lexi was the 113th case in the country  but the doctor warned them that this was the tip-of-the-iceberg as more cases were to come.

Amanda then issued an update on her daughter's health by revealing that she was finally let out after being in the hospital for five days, however, she has been back and forth for more blood tests.

A verotoxigenic E. coli, known as VTEC, is a harmful strain of a bacterium called Escherichia coli.

Most E. coli strains are harmless and live in the gut of humans and other animals without causing any problems. VTEC, however, is capable of producing a toxin that can cause serious illness.

Symptoms associated with E. coli usually present around two to four days after ingesting the bacteria and these may include stomach cramps, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, and fever.
Tammy Hembrow was turning heads on Friday night.

The 30-year-old stunned in a slinky black dress as she attended the Petal & Pup's ten-year anniversary collection launch in Brisbane.

The fitness influencer opted for an off-the-shoulder gown with bow details at the straps.

It clung close to her famous figure and featured gathering around the hips as well as maxi length skirting.

Tammy carried a dainty Chanel handbag and added a pair of strappy heels that matched her frock.

For makeup, the influencer went for a rosy hue with lots of blush and highlighter as well as a dark nude lipstick.

She wore her blonde locks down around her face and added a pair of gold statement earrings.

Tammy worked her angles in the dress, flaunting her infamous derriere as she turned her back to the camera.

Tammy Hembrow (pictured) was turning heads on Friday night

It comes after Tammy wowed her fans last week by revealing the gruelling exercise routine she is undergoing ahead of her upcoming wedding.

The blonde, who is engaged to Love Island Australia star Matt Zukowski, posted a jaw-dropping clip to Instagram which captured her hard at work at a gym.

She looked focused as she worked up a sweat by lifting weights and performing a variety of lunges and lower body exercises on a Seated Leg Press.

The clip showcased just how dedicated Tammy is to achieving her fitness goals before she ties the knot with Matt in November.

The 30-year-old stunned in a slinky black dress as she attended the Petal & Pup lastest launch in Brisbane

The fitness influencer opted for an off-the-shoulder gown with bow details at the straps. Tammy carried a dainty Chanel handbag and added a pair of strappy heels

It clung close to her famous figure and featured gathering around the hips as well as maxi length skirting

The brunette beauty captioned the footage with some revealing words.

'This challenge is based on the way I love to train and the way I personally see the most results' she said.

It follows reports that Hembrow is busy planning her wedding - and her honeymoon.

The fitness influencer and Matt, 28, got engaged in December after just three months of dating and are set to tie the knot in Byron Bay later this year.

Tammy shared a series of loved-up selfies with her beau to Instagram, revealing that the pair are already dreaming up a special wedding night.

For makeup, the influencer went for a rosy hue with lots of blush and highlighter as well as a dark nude lipstick

She wore her blonde locks down around her face and added a pair of gold statement earrings

Tammy worked her angles in the dress, flaunting her infamous derriere as she turned her back to the camera

It comes after Tammy wowed her fans last week by revealing the gruelling exercise routine she is undergoing ahead of her upcoming wedding

'Just a tall guy and his short girl. We're in the midst of planning our honeymoon (and wedding) but any guesses where we're going?' Tammy wrote in her caption.

The jet-setting pair were engaged in the Maldives late last year, before heading off to Greece and Bali for luxury holidays in recent months.

Tammy recently addressed the online backlash she received after her wedding invitation was leaked by a handful of influencers.

'You guys might know that recently my wedding details were leaked online accidentally,' she said in a TikTok video.

The blonde, who is engaged to Love Island Australia star Matt Zukowski (left) posted a jaw-dropping clip to Instagram which captured her hard at work at a gym

She looked focused as she worked up a sweat by lifting weights and performing a variety of lunges and lower body exercises on a Seated Leg Press

'This has caused a few issues for me, I have had to change a lot of the details because we want it to be very private and it's been a bit frustrating.'

The Gold Coast-based blonde then clarified the interesting details on her wedding invitation which have been causing a stir on social media.

Tammy and Matt asked for a wishing well - donation box in which guests can deposit cash gifts instead of material items.

The decision raised eyebrows as Tammy's net worth is said to be a staggering $50million, according to AFR's Young Rich List.
A Place in the Sun host Danni Menzies showed off her jaw-dropping figure in a bikini as she gave an insight into her stunning Mykonos holiday on Thursday.

The Scottish presenter, 36, looked sensational in the blue two-piece while cooling off in the sea.

Displaying her toned midriff, she slicked her hair back and posed for a photo before getting changed into a black bandeau top and patterned bottoms.

For the evening Danni opted for a plunging blue dress with cut-out detailing and a leg slit.

She teamed it with a pair of gold strappy heels and carried a Dior saddle bag in cream to top off her chic look.

A Place in the Sun host Danni Menzies showed off her jaw-dropping figure in a bikini as she gave an insight into her stunning Mykonos holiday on Thursday

The Scottish presenter, 36, looked sensational in the blue two-piece while cooling off in the sea

The TV personality was joined by a group of her friends as they soaked up some sun on the Greek Island.

Danni recently opened up about what it's really like to work on the popular Channel 4 show - revealing that she's even 'seen a few flashers' while filming.

The host has been a fan favourite presenter for viewers of the property show since she began co-hosting it back in 2016.

However, she announced her departure from the programme earlier this year and has opted for a surprising career move.

In conjunction with The Health Lottery, Danni will spearhead an 'inspirational' podcast where she will speak to personalities such as Loose Women's Kaye Adams.

Reflecting on her time on the show, the presenter spoke to the Daily Star about what it was like behind the scenes on A Place In The Sun, including the 'dodgy things' that sometimes happened in the background of her takes.

She told the newspaper: 'I was doing a piece to camera in Lanzarote and had a nudist running in the background.

'I was filming and they said, "One minute guys, there's something dodgy behind you".

Displaying her toned midriff, she slicked her hair back and posed for a photo before getting changed into a black bandeau top and patterned bottoms

For the evening Danni opted for a plunging blue dress with cut-out detailing and a leg slit

The TV personality was joined by a group of her friends as they soaked up some sun on the Greek Island

Danni recently opened up about what it's really like to work on the popular Channel 4 show - revealing that she's even 'seen a few flashers' while filming (pictured on the programme in 2023)

The Scottish star has been a fan favourite presenter for viewers of the British property show since she began co-hosting it back in 2016

'We had it in Spain too, we were filming and this guy cycled past on his bike totally naked. There's lots of it, I've seen a few flashers.'

Danni added that 'living out of a suitcase' took its toll and she found it 'hard to date and do normal things'.

The star's new podcast show will be available on all platforms including Apple, Spotify and Amazon Music from May 23.

Also appearing on the pod will be award-winning filmmaker and photographer Doug Allan, Michelin star chef Andy Beynon, and bestselling author Chris Brookmyre.

Her show is part of the Pay it Forward campaign launched by The Health Lottery which has raised over 130 million for wellbeing causes across the UK.

Before her podcast well and truly kicks off, Danni took a luxurious holiday to the Cayman Islands in April to visit her friend Steph and shared photos from the trip to Instagram.

The Channel 4 star recently confirmed that she's single and shared she was just enjoying life after a brief relationship with Love Island star Jay Younger, 30 - also a Scot.

However, Danni announced her departure from the programme earlier this year and has opted for a surprising career move

Before her podcast well and truly kicks off, Danni took a luxurious holiday to the Cayman Islands in April to visit her friend Steph and shared photos from the trip to Instagram

Back in February, Danni paid a heartfelt tribute to her co-host Jonnie Irwin, following his death at the age of 50 after tragically losing his battle with lung cancer

Danni said: 'Things didn't work out with Jay but that's fine. Travelling a lot for work does make it trickier to meet someone.'

Back in February, Danni paid a heartfelt tribute to her co-host Jonnie Irwin, following his death at the age of 50 after tragically losing his battle with lung cancer.

Taking to her Instagram Stories, she shared a poem by Ida Banks and told her followers how her former colleague would 'continue to exist in those who loved him'.

The post read: 'When we die I want to believe that we are scattered throughout all the people that have ever loved us'.

'That we will continue to exist in them, in their bloodstreams, for generations, for lifetimes.'
Naomi Isted displayed her jaw-dropping physique as she posed in a red bikini during a sun-soaked holiday in Turkey.

The British TV presenter, 45, showed off her toned abs in the skimpy two-piece, adding a fashionable touch with chic shades and a straw hat.

She finished off the look with a pair of tan sandals for her beach outing in the gorgeous city of Fethiye, and later added a nude beach cover-up.

'Another day another #outfitpost wearing @dancing_leopard #twopieceset and @naia_beach #bikini and #kaftan ! #beachvibes #turkiye lots of #styleinspiration coming your way over the next few weeks ladies! ,' Naomi wrote.

Another incredible shot captured the fashion journalist posing in front of an astonishing view of the luxurious 5-star Liberty Signa Hotel.

Naomi Isted displayed her jaw-dropping physique as she posed in a red bikini during a sun-soaked holiday in Turkey

The British TV presenter, 45, showed off her toned abs in the skimpy two-piece, adding a fashionable touch with chic shades and a straw hat

The siren posed barefoot by a swanky pool, in a nude co-ord with tropical leaves print, which included a maxi skirt with a very risque split and a wide-straps crop top.

The columnist had praised the hotel's wellness event as well as the place's hospitality during her very first visit on Turkish soil.

The wellness event at Liberty Signa Hotel brought together British journalists and global celebrities, emphasizing the hotel's dedication to luxury and holistic wellness.

Naomi is a renowned fashion and beauty television presenter and journalist who has captivated UK audiences with her work on Harley Street Beauty on Wedding TV as well as various lifestyle segments on ITV's Good Morning Britain and This Morning.

The star - born in Grimsby - is also known for her fashion columns with the likes of Evening Standard, Herald Scotland and HELLO Magazine.

'I absolutely loved my time at Liberty Signa Hotel,' the TV icon said.

'Turkey is beautiful, and the hospitality was truly impressive. The wellness event was a remarkable experience, and I am delighted to have been part of it.'

Liberty Signa Hotel, part of Liberty Hotels and Resorts, offers unparalleled luxury and wellness in Fethiye, Turkey.

She finished off the look with a pair of tan sandals for her beach outing in the gorgeous city of Fethiye, and later added a nude beach cover-up

Another incredible shot captured the fashion journalist posing in front of an astonishing view of the luxurious 5-star Liberty Signa Hotel

The brand-new hotel is renowned for its stunning location, exceptional hospitality, and commitment to providing rejuvenating experiences for its guests.

Naomi seemed relaxed and carefree while making the most of the luxury retreat after she had been seriously ill for months due to health issues.

Since December of last year the star took some time off from social media after she has undergone some surgeries at Harley St Skin.

During her swanky getaway, she was joined by her daughter Fleur as the pair posted about meditation, yoga, fire ceremonies and more - while her husband Haydn and her son Rocco joined the pair later.
One of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds' children has a cameo in his new movie Deadpool & Wolverine.

The couple shares daughters James, nine, Inez, seven, Betty, four, and baby Olin, one.

It was revealed on Friday that Inez Reynolds makes a surprise cameo as a character named Kidpool.

This comes after news his wife Blake, 36, has a role as Ladypool near the end of the film.

Lively and Inez's faces are completely disguised under Deadpool masks.

One of Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds' children has a cameo in his new movie Deadpool & Wolverine. Seen on July 22 in NYC

Ryan and Blake seen with two of their children in Hollywood

This comes after Blake shared a very rare photo to Instagram on Monday morning.

The blonde beauty was seen kissing her husband while he was dressed up on the set of his new Deadpool movie.

It was a professional photo shot by their longtime friend Guy Aroch to promote the new film with Hugh Jackman,

Lively said in her caption she was 'proud' of her spouse for the work he put into the project.

It also appears that she has a red costume of her own on suggesting she plays Lady Deadpool, which has been widely speculated.

Deadpool & Wolverine opens on July 26.

Lively plays Lady Deadpool with blonde hair

The power couple at the Deadpool & Wolverine New York Premiere on July 22

'Brb Im buying milky pens to write your name on my hand @vancityreynolds,' began Blake's Instagram caption.

She then went on a fun rant.

'My y2k girlies, I should be competitive bc @itendswithusmovie is coming out in 3 weeks BUT when your middle school obsessions, your feelings post baby, or about Nice men who use feminism as a tool, your love of the Wizard of Oz, Succession, Sandy & Danny, driving with Avril blasting, the way the choreography of a certain boy*band song got me, of Baz Luhrmann fireworks to punctuate a moment, even down to the fact that our hair color is determined by seasons and the French method by which its painted are all so seen

'MY WORD its hard not to encourage my ladies to spot all the ways weve influenced @deadpoolmovie Ive never been more proud. And Ive given birth 4 times. .'

This comes after Ryan made a joke about a friend.

Reynolds said Taylor Swifts babysitting fee for his and his Blakes four children is 'cost-prohibitive.'

Hugh Jackman started the conversation with E! News as he said Swift was Ryan's nanny.

'The cost of that is  I believe the accountant said, "Cost-prohibitive,"' Reynolds replied. 'But I think what he meant was, "Cost-insane-what-are-you-doing-Im-no-longer-youre-accountant."'

Reynolds is seen at Good Morning America in New York City on Monday
Brad Pitt looked pensive whilst at Formula One in Belgium on Friday amid his ongoing drama with Angelina Jolie.

The Hollywood star, 60, called time on his marriage to his Mr and Mrs Smith co-star Angelina, 49, and the pair have endured a lengthy legal battle ever since over their Chateau Miraval winery.

He rejected her recent plea to 'end the fighting,' after he sued her for selling her half of the winery in October 2021 for $67 million.

But as the weekend kicked off he was seen looking forlorn at the annual racing event.

The Fight Club star donned a large pair of tinted glasses and long-sleeved white during practice ahead of the release of his upcoming movie F1.

Brad Pitt looked pensive whilst at Formula One in Sweden on Friday amid his ongoing drama with Angelina Jolie

The Hollywood star, 60, called time on his marriage is Mr and Mrs Smith co-star Angelina, 49, and the pair have endured a lengthy legal battle since over their Chateau Miraval winery since

In further snaps, Brad looked deep in concentration as he placed one hand on his hip and appeared to have been letting out a sigh at one point.

The former couple have been embroiled in a dispute over their co-ownership of the idyllic French winery, which they purchased in 2008, with the actor suing his ex-wife for selling her half without his consent for $67 million in October 2021.

Angelina - who has Maddox, 22, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and 16-year-old twins Vivienne, and Knox, 16, with Brad had begged her estranged husband to call a truce earlier this month.

But sources have exclusively told DailyMail.com that the Fight Club star 'has no intention' of dropping it - alleging that Jolie only made the plea after realizing that she does not have as strong a case as she previously thought.

'Brad is not going to drop this lawsuit  why would he?

'This was a very standard business dispute but unfortunately, Angelina has consistently introduced personal elements that are meant for a divorce court,' an insider said.

'Angelina is asking him to put an end to the fighting as if she is a peacemaker. This is nothing more than to paint herself as the victim. This is not a fight. This is a business dispute over the sale of property that was ultimately going to be for their kids. It was their inheritance, and she knows this.

'She is realizing that she does not have a strong case anymore and she also knows that she may likely have to shell out the money by order of the courts.

The Hollywood star, 60, called time on his marriage is Mr and Mrs Smith co-star Angelina, 49, and the pair have endured a lengthy legal battle since over their Chateau Miraval winery since

The Fight Club star appeared to heave a sigh at one point as he made an appearance at the annual sporting event ahead of his film F1

The Oscar winning star was hounded by clamouring fans upon arrival all reaching at him with their phones

Brad seemed in better spirits as he waved to the hoards of people there and gave a small smile

The estranged couple, who met in 2004, have been embroiled in a dispute over their co-ownership of the winery since 2021 and have entered into an mudslinging over NDA's

Sources tell DailyMail.com that Pitt 'has no intention' of dropping it - alleging that Jolie only made the plea after realizing that she does not have a strong case (Pictured Miraval in 2008)

'Bringing very personal issues into a business lawsuit is backfiring on her. It has exposed the weaknesses in her case and has complicated matters for both parties. She didn't need to do this.'

A separate source close to the matter refuted claims it is a 'simple business dispute,' and added: 'Pitt is the one suing Angelina yet he somehow thinks he can say she's fighting him. She's the one out there saying they should focus on healing their family and he should drop his relentless attacks on her, but he's refusing.

'Suing her for 67 million dollars because she refused to sign an NDA covering up his abuse is not a 'simple business dispute''. All Angelina wants is peace, but he is determined to continue fighting her and blaming everyone but himself for the situation he's now in.'
Sandra Bullock is 'doing okay' and focusing on her children as she turns 60 today - almost one year on from the death of her partner Bryan Randall from ALS.

Bullock - who marked the milestone on July 26 - dated Randall from 2015 until his death aged 57 in August 2023 - with the actress calling him 'the love of my life.'

A source close to Bullock's friend Jennifer Aniston, 55, told People: 'Shes doing okay now. Her kids are amazing. She's very happy to be a mom.

'Her friends gave her the support that she needed both during his illness and afterwards. She is grateful for all the love. Everyone helped to lift her up after Bryan passed.'

Bullock is mom to Louis, 14, and Laila, nine who she adopted in 2010 and 2015 respectively.

Sandra Bullock is 'doing okay' and focusing on her children as she turns 60 today - almost one year on from the death of her partner Bryan Randall from ALS, seen in 2018 in NYC

A source close to Bullock's friend Jennifer Aniston, 55, told People : 'Shes doing okay now. Her kids are amazing. She's very happy to be a mom - pictured 2022

Randall passed away at the age of 57 on August 5, 2023 following a private three-year battle with ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

ALS is a 'nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord,' per Mayo Clinic, and there is no cure for the disease.

At the time of the photographer's tragic death, his family released a statement to People.

'It is with great sadness that we share that on Aug. 5, Bryan Randall passed away peacefully after a three-year battle with ALS.'

'Bryan chose early to keep his journey with ALS private and those of us who cared for him did our best to honor his request,' the family had continued.

'We are immensely grateful to the tireless doctors who navigated the landscape of this illness with us and to the astounding nurses who became our roommates, often sacrificing their own families to be with ours.'

'At this time we ask for privacy to grieve and to come to terms with the impossibility of saying goodbye to Bryan.' In conclusion, Randall's loved ones added, 'His Loving Family.'

Bullock's sister, Gesine, had also mourned the loss of the photographer's death at the time, and praised the 'amazing' way Sandra had cared for her longtime partner during his private ALS battle.

Although Sandra and Bryan never married, the two were seen 'exchanging vows' during an intimate ceremony held in December 2017 - three years before the photographer's ALS diagnosis; seen in 2018 in NYC

She had taken to Instagram to pen: 'I'm convinced that Bry has found the best fishing spot in heaven and is already casting his lure into rushing rivers teaming with salmon.'

'ALS is a cruel disease but there is some comfort in knowing he had the best of caretakers in my amazing sister and the band of nurses she assembled who helped her look after him in their home,' Bullock-Prado added.

Gesine concluded the post by writing, 'Rest in peace, Bryan,' and encouraged donations to both the ALS Association and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Sandra and Bryan first crossed paths in 2015 when he photographed her son Louis's birthday party.

Later that same year in October, the pair went public with their relationship while attending the premiere of Our Brand Is Crisis.

Bullock and Randall were last pictured together in July 2020 when they arrived to a small gathering with the star's two children, Louis, 13, and Laila, 11, in Studio City.

The model-turned-photographer also has a daughter of his own, Skylar, 30, from a previous relationship.

Sandra - who was married to Jessie James from 2005 through 2010 - opened up about her relationship with Bryan during an interview in 2021 on Jada Pinkett-Smith's Red Table Talk.

'I am someone who went through the divorce process,' the Bird Box actress expressed, but then added, 'I found the love of my life.'

'We share two beautiful children - three children, his older daughter. It's the best thing ever,' Bullock stated.

She also recalled informing Bryan that she planned to adopt a second child, although they 'hadn't been together that long.'

'I said, "Remember that NDA you signed when you photographed my son?" I said, "You know, that still holds."'

'He said "Why?" I said, "I'm bringing a child home when I come back from Toronto." He was so happy, but he was scared.'

She continued, 'I'm a bulldozer. My life was already on the track and here's this beautiful human being who doesn't want anything to do with my life, but the right human being to be there.'

Although Sandra and Bryan never married, the two were seen 'exchanging vows' during an intimate ceremony held in December 2017 - three years before the photographer's ALS diagnosis.

In a video obtained by DailyMail.com, the couple could be seen dancing in celebration after the ceremony was held - with close friends and family also in attendance.

A close friend informed DailyMail.com that, 'They really did this for the children, to kind of seal the deal and show them this was a forever thing. After the ceremony Louis and Laila started calling Bryan dad.'

The Oscar-winning actress was previously married to Jessie James from 2005 until their divorce was finalized in 2010; former couple seen in 2010 in L.A.

The ceremony took place at Arpaud Busson's Three Bees Villa on Harbor Island in the Bahamas.

A guest in attendance also stated, 'It was Bryan's birthday on December 31 so it's like they wanted to celebrate everything all at once.'

At the time of his passing, Sandra and Bryan had been 'more together than ever,' a separate source revealed to DailyMail.com.

'Sandra kept Bryan hidden away in the back of the house. It's so big that you could conceal what was going on with him but towards the end she really didn't let people into the home beyond the doctors and nurses who were looking after him.'

'It was quite convenient for them to have these rumors that they'd broken up because it helped conceal what was really going on. It was easier to let people assume they hadn't seen him because they were no longer together.'

At the time of his passing, Sandra and Bryan had been 'more together than ever,' a separate source revealed to DailyMail.com; seen in March 2022 in Texas

According to a close friend, Bullock 'stopped throwing her annual Easter parties, they used to do big Thanksgivings and Christmas in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, but she really has a very small group of friends these days and when she does see them, she goes to their homes.'

'She wouldn't let anyone come to her place anymore unless it was outside by the pool.'

However, those who had visited the star's home were mostly in the medical field, including nurses and specialists.

'It was just a horrible situation for them all but she didn't abandon him no matter how tough it got.'
Gigi Hadid rocked a casual look while stepping out on Friday in New York City - four days after she attended the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere in New York City with pal Blake Lively.

The model, 29, showcased her shaggy haircut for her solo outing, paired with a no makeup look.

Gigi flashed a hint of her midriff in a graphic cropped top, paired with jeans that featured panel detailing along the sides.

The mom of one - who is dating 49-year-old actor Bradley Cooper - carried a polka dot patterned handbag and rocked small framed sunglasses.

Gigi Hadid rocked a casual look while stepping out on Friday in New York City - four days after she attended the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere in New York City with pal Blake Lively

The model, 29, showcased her shaggy haircut for her solo outing, paired with a no makeup look

Gigi is in a relationship with actor Bradley Cooper, 49 - and their romance has gone from strength to strength.

'Bradley has already determined that he is going to ask Gigi to marry him,' an insider revealed to Dailymail.com exclusively.

'That is not even a question. They discussed family and marriage early on their relationship,' the source revealed.

'They have been committed to each other and to their plans for some time and now it is just a matter of when,' they added.

Gigi and Bradley were first together in October 2023, despite their 21-year age difference.

In early October, a source told ET Bradley and Gigi were 'hanging out casually,' adding that they 'have known each other for a while.'

They were first seen together on Thursday, October 5, for a dinner date in the Big Apple.

Gigi was last linked to Leonardo DiCaprio; whom she dated on and off from September 20022 until their romance fizzled in February 2023.

The runway star has a three-year-old daughter named Khai with ex-boyfriend Zayn Malik; they dated on/off from November 2015 until October 2021.

Bradley and ex-partner Irina, 38, share daughter Lea, seven.

They dated from 2015 until 2019.

Gigi's sighting came four days after attending the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere with pal Blake Lively.

Gigi is in a relationship with actor Bradley Cooper, 49 - and their romance has gone from strength to strength; seen with Bradley on February 27 in New York City

Gigi's sighting came four days after attending the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere with pal Blake Lively; seen at the premiere on Monday night in New York City

The model channeled Wolverine in her yellow crop top and skirt for the premiere - all by Miu Miu including her purse

Blake, who is married to Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds, channel Deadpool in a burgundy Versace jumpsuit; Ryan, Blake, Gigi and Hugh Jackman. Hugh plays Wolverine in the film

The model channeled Wolverine in her yellow crop top and skirt for the premiere - all by Miu Miu including her purse.

Blake, who is married to Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds, channel Deadpool in a burgundy Versace jumpsuit.
Armie Hammer's mother has broken her silence on her son's career ending cannibalism and abuse allegations.

The Call Me By Your Name actor, 37, who was at the peak of his fame, fell from grace when a series of disturbing allegations were made against him by multiple women, who accused him of violent abuse and harboring cannibalism fantasies.

In February 2021 his ex-girlfriend, Effie Angelova, 26, accused him of 'violently' raping and abusing her in 2017. He denied the accusations of rape through his attorney and said all of his sexual encounters were 'completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance and mutually participatory'.

Dru Hammer - who has tell-all book Hammered coming out - told TMZ: 'I was very careful during the whole ordeal because my own son didn't come out and defend himself.

'I had a pastor at the time who said if you come to your own defense, it's the only defense you're ever gonna have, so we believe that God is our defense and now the truth is coming out.

Armie Hammer's mother Dru has broken her silence on her son's career ending cannibalism and abuse allegations

Dru Hammer - who has tell-all book Hammered coming out - told TMZ: 'I was very careful during the whole ordeal because my own son didn't come out and defend himself

Referring to her son's recent interviews with Bill Maher and Piers Morgan, she said: 'He was not criminally wrong, he was morally wrong but it's changed his life forever and he's sober and he's happier than he's ever been.

'And coming back to God and that's the most important thing to me.'

She said things were looking 'so good' for Armie now and he was set for a return to Hollywood.

Dru added that she detailed her son's scandal in her new book - and that he signed off on it with no edits, adding he said: 'I wouldn't change anything, I'm really proud of you mom.'

Hammer recently confirmed his ex-girlfriend Paige Lorenze's accusation that he once 'branded' her with a knife  but he claims it was 'more like a scrape' or 'tattoo.'

The actor made the admission in a new interview with Piers Morgan as he seemingly tried to downplay Lorenze's disturbing version of events.

At the height of Hammer's cannibalism and abuse scandal in 2021, Lorenze came forward to accuse him of 'marking and branding' her during their 'traumatic' four month relationship in 2020.

The Dairy Boy founder alleged to DailyMail.com at the time that Hammer had carved his first initial into her groin with a knife and licked the blood from the wound during a kinky sexual encounter that got out of control.

Referring to her son's recent interviews with Bill Maher and Piers Morgan, she said: 'He was not criminally wrong, he was morally wrong but it's changed his life forever and he's sober and he's happier than he's ever been ' - pictured 2017 with Armie's now ex-wife Elizabeth Chambers

Dru added that she detailed her son's scandal in her new book - and that he signed off on it with no edits, adding he said: 'I wouldn't change anything, I'm really proud of you mom'

Hammer, who was at the peak of his fame, fell from grace in 2021 when a series of disturbing allegations were made against him by multiple women, who accused him of violent abuse and harboring cannibalism fantasies; seen in 2019

But Hammer claimed to Morgan on Thursday, as per Page Six, that he didn't technically 'brand' Lorenze and that blood was never drawn.

'I wouldn't say brand, no,' Hammer said.'There was a scenario that we talked about beforehand, that we had discussed where, you know, I would basically take a little, tiny point and just kind of trace the letter 'A'  just like the tip of a small knife.'

He continued: 'I mean, there wasn't even blood in the situation. It was more like a scrape It's along the lines of couples getting their own initials tattooed on each other.'

Morgan pointed out that taking a knife to someone's skin is 'a bit different to a tattoo.'

'[It's] less permanent. I guarantee it was such a small thing,' Hammer fired back.

After Morgan confessed he was 'shocked' by the whole thing, Hammer tried to frame it as a 'romantic gesture.'

'Yes, I think to some it probably sounds really strange. To some, it probably sounds like a very romantic gesture,' he explained.

He also insisted that he had nothing to 'gain' from 'having a sexual experience that my partner didn't appreciate or enjoy.

'That was also a huge sense of validation for me, making this person that I'm with feel good, making this person that I'm with, I don't know if I can say this, climax,' Hammer explained to Morgan.

'Like, these were things that made me feel good and made me feel powerful, which I desperately needed, because I didn't know how to give them to myself.'

Lorenze shared an image of her 'A' scar with DailyMail exclusively back in 2021 as she detailed their four-month romance.

Last month Hammer revealed he is grateful for the shock cannibalism and abuse allegations which imploded his once-stellar Hollywood acting career.

Speaking on the Painful Lessons podcast, the actor said of the scandal: 'Whatever it was that people said, whatever it was that happened, I'm now at a place in my life where I'm grateful for every single bit of it,

He denied the accusations of rape through his attorney and said all of his sexual encounters were 'completely consensual, discussed and agreed upon in advance and mutually participatory'; seen in 2020

'I'm actually now at a place where I'm really grateful for it because where I was in my life before all of that stuff happened to me I didn't feel good I never felt satisfied I never had enough I never was in a place where I was happy with myself where I had self-esteem.

'I never knew how to give myself love. I never knew how to give myself self-validation but I had this job where I was able to get it from so many people that I never had to learn how to give it to myself.'

On being accused of cannibalism - the actor reportedly said he was '100% a cannibal' in 2021 texts - he added: 'People called me a cannibal. Like I ate people! What???? You know what you have to do to be a cannibal? You have to eat people!'

He added of his downfall: 'It was an ego death, a career death. A neutron bomb went off in my life. It killed off [everything]'

His then-wife Chambers split from him in July 2020 - the former couple share two young children.

Hammer was told 'he had issues' but he's 'not what people are saying' in a psychiatric evaluation report - after cannibalism and abuse allegations imploded his career in 2021.

The star said he had contemplated suicide during that period, saying: 'There were a lot of times when I thought I can't take this anymore. I was getting hateso it just went right in there was a time

'I was standing at the shore and I swam out really far and just laying there..a half-assed suicide attemptBut I thought I couldn't do that to my kids.'

He admitted his Hollywood career is 'nowhere now' and said he's 'creating his own sandbox' and planning to write a screenplay.
Jenelle Evans broke down in tears while obtaining a restraining order for herself and kids against her ex David Eason, following their split after six years of marriage.

On Thursday's episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, the reality star, 32, opened up about feeling 'harassed' and 'stalked' by her estranged spouse, who she shares her seven-year-old daughter Ensley Jolie Eason.

In an attempt to distance herself from Eason, Evans, who rose to fame as a teenager on MTV's 16 & Pregnant, made the move from North Carolina to Las Vegas.

'I think Vegas is definitely gonna be a space - life my safe haven and definitely a good safe haven for my kids. There's just so much to look forward to for this move to Vegas,' Evans said in a confessional interview after touring a number of properties.

She continued: 'So much has happened in North Carolina, it's just traumatized all of us in different ways.'

Jenelle Evans broke down in tears while obtaining a restraining order for herself and kids against her ex David Eason , following their split after six years of marriage

Despite her hopes of getting a fresh start in Sin City, Evans was forced to return to North Carolina to request a restraining order from Eason.

'I really don't want to be here. But this week, I have a court case for a pending restraining order, so we'll see how that goes,' she said after having to come back to her home state. 'But this week, I have a court case for a pending restraining order, so we'll see how that goes.'

The mother-of-three continued: 'I don't feel safe when I'm in North Carolina, because I don't know if or where I can run into David.'

Evans proceeded to explain that her ex is 'just capable of intimidating' and that she feels nervous whenever she sees a 'white truck on the highway' since she doesn't 'know if it's him.'

Ahead of the court hearing, she told viewers her nerves were 'shot' and she was 'having panic attacks.'

'I keep thinking how I have to go on stand. It's just all very scary. And I'm like, shaking. But I gotta do it,' she said. 'I'm really sick of feeling this way. And even though he's not here, it's like I'm still walking on eggshells, which sucks.'

The episode goes on to document her legal victory as she was, ultimately, granted a six-month restraining order from her ex-husband that protected her and her children.

While reacting to the news, she told her castmate Briana DeJesus over FaceTime that 'all these fears in' her head were 'just poof, gone now.'

On Thursday's episode of Teen Mom: The Next Chapter, the reality star, 32, opened up about feeling 'harassed' and 'stalked' by her estranged spouse, who she shares her seven-year-old daughter Ensley Jolie Eason; seen with Eason in 2016

In May, Evans was granted a six-month domestic violence protective order that also required Eason to surrender his firearms.

Additionally, he is not allowed contact of any kind with Evans or her children, including posting about them on social media or visiting the kids' school.

Eason did not have any representation in the North Carolina courtroom after he asked for multiple continuances to obtain a lawyer.

Evans and Eason are involved in an active child custody case over their little girl.

Evans also shares son Jace Vaughn, 14, with ex Andrew Lewis, and 9-year-old son Kaiser Orion with ex Nathan Griffin.

'I don't feel safe when I'm in North Carolina, because I don't know if or where I can run into David,' she admitted during a confessional

The 16 & Pregnant alum filed for legal separation from Eason in February, citing his recent 'erratic behavior' and accusing him of 'substance abuse.'

Evans also referenced when Eason killed the family's French bulldog puppy Nugget in 2019, as well as his assault on Jace, after he was charged with child abuse for allegedly strangling the teenager in October.

Jace was placed in the custody of CPS and ultimately reunited with his father earlier this year after running away multiple time.

Evans revealed in February that CPS dismissed their case against her and Eason.

Earlier this year, Evans announced that she was pulling her children out of class and homeschooling them for the rest of the year after she 'found out their school is not safe.'

The mother-of-three said she 'wouldn't go into detail about that,' adding: 'I want to keep them safe, I want to keep them at home, I want to keep my eye on them.'
John Deere has laid off even more workers - at the same time it is moving more of its tractor and farming gear manufacturing to Mexico.

The agricultural giant on Wednesday informed officials in Iowa that 103 employees - 34 in Dubuque and 69 in Waterloo- are being laid off in the state immediately.

It takes the total this year to around 1,830. They layoffs are across several Iowa sites - Ankeny, Dubuque, Ottumwa, Urbandale, Waterloo - plus Davenport and East Moline in Illinois, as well as a research center in Urbandale.

In many instances, production that these US workers were responsible for has been shifted to new locations in Mexico.

At the start of the year, John Deere employed about 22,600 salaried and production workers across the two states.

DailyMail.com asked John Deere how many new jobs had been created in Mexico in recent years - as the US workforce has been cut. It did not answer.

In a statement, it said the reason for the layoffs is to 'position John Deere strongly for the future'.

John Deere manufactures everything from tractors, construction vehicles, mowers and even snowmobiles. The company is facing backlash over its ongoing plan to lay off increasing numbers of American workers in favor of relocating production to Mexico

Employees are furious at the cuts.

A longtime John Deere worker at the Harvester Works plant in East Moline, Illinois, said it comes down to one thing: Greed.

'We get wind of more layoffs daily, it seems, and it's causing uncertainty all over,' said the worker, who stayed anonymous for fear of retaliation.

'The only reason for Deere to do this is greed.'

The company has blamed a 20 percent fall in sales from 2023 to 2024.

Demand for tractors is down as crop prices stay low amid rising costs for farmers.

The company was founded 187 years ago.

More layoffs are expected later this year - despite John Deere raking in over $10 billion in profit in 2023 while also paying CEO John May $26.7 million in total compensation.

Laid-off workers get up to 12 months of severance pay - based on years of service - payment for unused time off, and access to health benefits.

'While the decision to reduce roles across the company was a challenging one, the company is confident that these adjustments, coupled with our ongoing efforts to reduce costs and align production and inventory levels, will position John Deere strongly for the future,' the statement added.

John Deere said it is still committed to US manufacturing. Bosses pointed to a $2 billion investment in US factories since 2019.

Iowa State University professor Peter Orazem told KWQC that the job losses will have a wider impact on other businesses in the local economy.

A John Deere factory in Brazil. The company is moving production there, as well as Mexico

Workers at a plant in Ottumwa, another tiny town in Iowa, had been expecting layoffs for two years after John Deere announced a portion of its production line would be shifted to Mexico

Inside a John Deere plant in Ottumwa, Iowa, where over 100 jobs were cut this year

More than 10,000 workers at John Deere went on strike for five weeks in 2021. They won a 10 percent raise for hourly earners and increased retirement benefits

'This is going to be a serious problem, not just because John Deere is such a large employer, but because a lot of inputs John Deere uses are produced in the area.'

He warned that suppliers to Deere might also reduce their workforce in response.

John Deere said: 'While the decision to reduce roles across the company was a challenging one, the company is confident that these adjustments, coupled with our ongoing efforts to reduce costs and align production and inventory levels, will position John Deere strongly for the future.'
Sees Candies has been toppled as America's favorite candy store in an annual ranking by thousands of shoppers.

Founded in Los Angeles, California in 1921, the iconic American store brand has fallen to second place in this years list by Newsweek.

Top spot has been taken by Lindt, the upmarket Swiss chocolatier founded in 1845, that was in third last year.

The company set up a US arm in 1989 - bringing the European style of chocolate making, considered to be superior, across the Atlantic.

The introduction of the Lindt Gold Bunny three decades ago created a whole new market for so-called hollow figure segment that also includes Santas and reindeers for the holidays.

Topping the candy and chocolate store section this year was Lindt. See's feel to number two

To help Americans find the best places to shop, Newsweek partnered with data intelligence platform Statista to survey 7,000 customers on their opinions on retailers spanning 40 industry categories.

Participants were asked to rank the retailer based on prices, the selection of goods, atmosphere, customer service, accessibility and how likely they would be to recommend the store.

Lindt scored 90.65 out of 100 in the ranking to take top spot among chocolate and candy stores.

See's Candies scored 90.18 as it slipped down a space. Last year's number two, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, dropped to fifth.

Sees Candies soon expanded after Mary See opened the first shop in 1921. By the late 1950s, there were more than 124 shops across California, and mail order arrived in the 1960s. There are now around 280 across America.

The same Newsweek survey showed that Wegmans - the upmarket store founded in Rochester, New York - lost its crown as America's favorite supermarket.

Topping the supermarket section this year was Great Wall Supermarket, an Asian American supermarket chain which opened its first store in New York City in 2003.

Among the other categories ranked by the survey participants are apparel, bridal fashion, department stores, bookstores and toy stores.

See's Candies has around 280 stores in the US, but it is no longer America's favorite confectionary shop

Swiss chocolatier Lindt is now rated as the best candy store in America

Trader Joe's tops the list for discount supermarkets this year, followed by WinCo Foods and Aldi.

Costco, meanwhile, ranks the highest when it comes to Superstores and Warehouse Club Stores.

In second place is Walmart's warehouse chain Sam's Club, followed by Target and BJ's.
A North Carolina bartender has revealed how many customers leave the bar without closing out their tabs.

Bartender Michelle Kimball posted a viral TikTok video showing how many tabs she had to complete at 2.30am after a busy Saturday night.

In the video Kimball, who has a TikTok following of 4.8 million, shows the the huge number of receipts of 'walk out' customers.

'These are the open tabs, the tabs nobody closed out for, y'all are not going to believe this' Kimball said.

The bartender's colleague then dragged the line of receipts around the large bar.

Bartender Michelle Kimball, who has a TikTok following of 4.8 million, revealed the open tabs

The video revealed 372 open tabs left at the end of a busy Saturday night

'Now for all 372 of those tabs I get to go in here and add 20 percent tip to every single one' she explained.

'Thank God I can do math really quickly' she joked.

In a separate video Kimball answered a user's question about whether bartenders dislike when tabs aren't closed before a customer leaves.

'First of all no' Kimball explained, 'we appreciate that you started a tab.'

'It takes so much longer if you just get one beer each time and close out each time instead of starting a tab.

'Second, if you walk up to the bar and it is so busy and you can't get a bartender's attention right away that means we are making drinks for other people, aka we're making money.

'So if you just leave without tabbing out and you were already going to tip 20 percent, we love you.

'It takes so much less time to close you out at the very end of the night and then just add the 20 percent' she added.

Some viewers of the video agreed that leaving an open tab with the expectation of a 20 percent tip is a helpful practice.

'When the bar is busy and I know they will close with 20% tip I feel like I'm doing both of us a favor but correct me if I'm wrong' one user wrote in the comments.

'Its actually cheaper for the bar to swipe your card just once. Those swipe fees can be killer for the business' another added in agreement.

While many are happy to leave a customary 20 percent tip a recent study found that three-quarters of Americans believe tipping culture has gone too far.

The findings come amidst a widespread backlash against 'tipflation' which has seen tipping culture spill out from bars and restaurants and into stores, takeout chains and even self-service machines.

84 percent of respondents to the CouponBirds survey argued that the minimum wage should be increased to off-set the need for gratuity.

Across the board, tipping was most common for restaurant service. Some 59 percent of consumers said they would tip at dinner while 43.8 percent they would for food delivery.

It was followed by hairdressing and beauty services - which 41.1 percent of individuals said they would tip for.

Some 39.6 percent said they would add gratuity in a taxi while 36.8 percent said they would tip at a bar.

The least likely place shoppers would tip was at a convenience store or Bodega. Some 4.9 percent of survey respondents said they would add gratuity in this instance.
Southwest Airlines' loyal passengers are up in arms about the carrier's plan to ditch its open seating policy.

Under the major change announced Thursday, the low-cost airline will soon assign seats - something it has never done in its 56-year history.

The move is part of a bid to boost profits. It will offer flyers the chance to pay extra to pick seats early or get coveted extra-legroom ones.

There will also be so-called premium seating, which is likely to be similar to the basic first-class offered on the Delta, United and American.

It marks a significant shift away from its traditional business model.

A passenger checks in for her Southwest Airlines flight at Midway International Airport in Chicago, Thursday, July 25, 2024. Southwest Airlines plans to drop the open-boarding system it has used for more than 50 years and will start assigning passengers to seats, just like all the other big airlines

Southwest boss Robert Jordan said those complaining are in the minority.

'I know there are going to be customers who say "I want to stay with open seating". It's a minority,' he told CNBC.

'But we had the same thing when we switched from plastic boarding passes. We had the same thing when we took peanuts out of the cabin. I'm convinced we can win them over.'

But it is a big minority if the noticeboards of Reddit and posts on Facebook and X are anything to go by.

At the same time customers have complained to the Wall Street Journal.

Bradley Bolin, a 64-year-old from Minneapolis, told the WSJ that he feared Southwest is mutating into 'another Delta or United.'

He liked that it wasn't divided into different cabins - with the rich up front and the rest at the back.

'I don't know if I'm just an old socialist, but I liked that you didn't have to walk through all the beautiful people to get to your seat,' he said.

On Reddit, one customer who said they fly 60 to 70 times a year on Southwest for business wrote: 'This new seating policy is really going to suck for those of us that use Southwest for its ease of flight changes.

'I fly 60-70 times a year and half of those are pre booked flights that I end up changing because I finish a job faster than anticipated or end up having to stay a day later. Moral of the story, I change more flights than I stick to the original.

'Im curious to see how A List Preferred is handled. I love being able to book a flight three hours before and still being able to board after the As. I dont sit in middle seats on an airline I spend over 15-20k a year with.'

The post had more than 200 comments - most agreeing.

The seating change was announced Thursday as Southwest reported second-quarter earnings.

It had adjusted profit of 58 cents per share, about half of what it reported a year earlier, but managed to beat analysts' average estimate of 51 cents per share, according to LSEG data.

Southwest is facing pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management, which is pushing for a management and board overhaul.

Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan announced on Thursday plans to potentially revamp the airline's boarding and seating procedures

Elliott took an about 11 percent stake in the carrier and has urged it to consider making commercial changes to its business model, including exploring revenue opportunities such as assigned seats, checked bag fees and premium products.

Historically, Southwest has shied away from these changes.

The airline has also been hit hard by Boeing's jet delivery delays and is reeling from elevated operating expenses, including high aircraft maintenance costs, as it keeps older planes in the air.

Southwest said it was in discussions with Boeing about the negative financial impact it faces from the delayed deliveries.
A million-dollar price tag on a home is no longer a signifier of luxurious living.

In over 200 cities across the US, budding homeowners will have to fork out the sum for a typical starter home, according to new Zillow analysis.

The real estate marketplace defines a 'starter home' as properties among the lowest third of home values in a given region.

It found that the typical starter home has surpassed this staggering price threshold in 237 US cities - almost tripling from 84 five years ago.

Nearly half of the cities are in California, which is notorious for its high housing costs, but exactly half of all states have at least one city where a million-dollar starter home is the norm.

Nearly half of the cities are in California, which is notorious for its high housing costs (Pictured: A street in San Francisco)

Your browser does not support iframes.

Starter homes in these cities cost more than five times the national average of $196,611, according to Zillow, which is comfortably affordable for a median-income household.

A housing shortage which worsened over the Covid-19 pandemic has driven up the cost of homes across the US to new heights.

Starter home values have grown 54.1 percent since 2019, which is even more than the 49.1 percent increase for the typical American home in the same time frame.

This has priced many would-be homebuyers out of the market, and delayed the first home purchase for millions.

In 2023, the median age of a first-time homebuyer was 35, Zillow found, which is a year older than in 2019.

California is home to 117 cities where the typical starter home costs more than $1 million, including places such as Santa Monica, Montecito and Carmel Valley.

This figure has more than doubled since 2019, when it was home to 53.

California is well ahead of New York, which has 31, and New Jersey, which has 21.

Florida and Massachusetts round out the top five with 11 each. While the Sunshine State was home to four cities with million-dollar starter homes five years ago, Massachusetts did not have any.

States including Utah, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas, which did not have a single city with million-dollar starter homes in 2019, are now all home to one.

For example, in Utah, it is Alta, a ski town near Salt Lake City, and in Kansas it is Mission Hills, a suburb of Kansas City.

Exactly half of all states have at least one city where a million-dollar starter home is the norm (Pictured: Seattle in Washington, which is home to eight cities)

'Home buyers are battling affordability and availability,' said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow

Irvine, California, which has a population of more than 300,000 is the biggest city with $1 million starter homes, Zillow found.

Among metropolitan areas, the New York City metro, which includes parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, has 48 cities with million-dollar starter homes - the highest in the country.

The San Francisco metro has 44, Los Angeles has 35, San Jose has 15, and Miami and Seattle each have eight.

'Home buyers are battling affordability and availability today. So much so that $1 million is the norm for a starter home in hundreds of cities,' said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow.

'However, it's looking more and more like there will be some good news ahead for first-time buyers.

'More homes are for sale, price cuts are on the rise, and buyers have a few more days to weigh their options as homes sit on the market.'

It comes as experts warn that house prices are set to see a dramatic fall in pandemic-era 'boomtowns' in the South.

Already, recent reports have shown parts of Florida and Texas are seeing elevated costs begin to come down.
Bridging the skills gap through targeted initiatives can not only enhance employability but also drive economic growth and social stability

Few would believe that 26-year-old Kevin Dahima - a young, successful entrepreneur from coastal Gujarat - was once unemployed. Today he himself employs his thriving niche. Kickstarting his business in 2021 and providing a 24-hour service, Kelvin brings home over Rs. 55,000 per month. Having trained as a Hospital Assistant.

It all began at a hospital where he saw patients discharged, but still in need of various forms of care - elderly patients who require dressings; ex-ICU patients who need oxygen daily; and cancer and post-surgery patients  what if he could provide nursing care to them, from the comfort of their own homes? Not only is he being productive in life, but

he is helping people in their hour of need, whilst building something for the future. And his journey to success all began when he signed up for skill training.

One doesnt have to look too far to see the social impact of high levels of youth unemployment. In South Africa, where youth unemployment has hit a high of 59.7%, unemployment is considered to be the root cause of many problems the country faces today - including crime, poverty and suicide.

Closer to home, the epidemic of drug use in Punjab has been fuelled by social and economic factors including high unemployment, and underemployment; and pressing national issues like youth suicide are compounded by youth unemployment. Never has it been more important for our young people to have opportunities for bright and productive futures.

Around the world, youth unemployment and underemployment are significant problems in many societies, which can lead to feelings of hopelessness and frustration  which can often fuel social unrest. Over the next decade, the World Bank estimates one billion young people will try to enter the job market, but less than half of them will find formal jobs. This will leave the majority of young people, many in minority and marginalized groups, unemployed or experiencing working poverty.

With the largest youth population in the world (with 66% of the total population under the age of 35), and the latest data from CMIE (a think tank) claiming youth unemployment could be as high as 45.5% - among the highest in the world - it is important that India takes note here.

There is a lot we can do to ensure we take a preventive approach to these issues to secure productive futures for our many young people.In a country with a gaping skills gap, this presents a major opportunity  to invest in skills collaboratively to meet the needs of both youth and industry. According to recent studies, Indias employable population is far too low to meet the demands of the skilled labour market.

Two-thirds of the countrys workforce arent qualified for current job openings. With such a shortage of qualified workers, businesses are struggling to fill positions creating a significant challenge. Its not just the quantity of skilled labour thats lacking. The quality of available talent is also wanting. Recent research shows that only 33% of workers in India possess the skills employers seek most. The need of the hour to tackle issues at both ends of the spectrum lies in skill training.

Whilst the India Skills Mission abandoned its goal of training 500 million youth by 2022, there is still a clear need for corporates, skill training providers and civil society to step into the breach.

Rural youth, in particular, need greater access to quality skill training providers who also support placement, whilst also requiring help to convince families that skills are indeed the way to go  a route often in conflict with the white-collar aspirations of both youth and their families. Sadly, half of all graduates in India are unemployable due to a lack of industry-relevant skills.The world faces a multitude of challenges today, many of which affect our youth. Conflicts that disrupt education and stability, a polarized online environment that fosters negativity, and economic inequality that limits opportunities. These issues threaten not only individual futures but the overall stability of communities. It is therefore crucial to equip youth with the necessary skills to become productive citizens and create a more sustainable future for all.

(The writer is CEO, of Ambuja Foundation; views are personal)
China's growing role as a mediator in international conflicts hints at a shifting power dynamic, challenging the traditional Western dominance in international diplomacy

He flew to Washington; they went to Beijing. While leaders soar through the skies, ordinary civilians are engulfed in the flames of war. Their children scream not for the luxury of education, but for the sheer will to survive amid the relentless rains of bombs. Famine devastates their lives, and in Gaza and beyond, people are not just yearning for food but for the basic necessity of drinking water. This grim reality highlights the stark polarization in the global order, as non-Western nations struggle with age-old problems made worse by those wielding power. Harvard-educated former combat soldier of Sayeret Matkal in the IDF, Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, commonly known by his nom-de-guerre Bibi, flew to the United States to address Congress, followed by a meeting with President Joe Biden, who, battling COVID-19 for the third time, was expected to announce his inability to run for a second term officially. Amidst thousands of protesters and a boycott by dozens of Congress members, Netanyahu addressed Congress. Meanwhile, representatives from fourteen Palestinian organisations flew to Beijing to sign a peace agreement. The presence of fourteen organisations for a population of just over 5 million highlights the profound divisions within this land, once a nation-state ravaged by intricate schemes.Following the horrific October 7 attack, where thousands of Israelis were brutally killed and many more kidnapped by Hamas, the regions conflict landscape has been irrevocably altered.

This incident has significantly hampered Israel's efforts to normalise relationships with neighbouring countries. In response, China swiftly intervened, brokering an unprecedented rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This diplomatic achievement was monumental during Ebrahim Raisis presidency, although tragically overshadowed by the helicopter crash that claimed the lives of Raisi and his dynamic Foreign Minister while returning from a joint irrigation project inauguration in Azerbaijan province.In his record-breaking address to Congress, Prime Minister Netanyahu outlined his vision for peace, affirming that he would not cease fire until victory was achieveda notion that seems illusory given the ground realities.

Ironically, before the speech, his entourage hinted that he would present "a vision" for the future of Gaza and the region. Ultimately, that vision consisted of "a demilitarized and deradicalized" Gaza. Netanyahu, who struggles to convince his ultra-Orthodox partners to teach their children basic math, now claims to plan on educating "a new generation that must be taught not to hate Jews." This plan remains unclear, but he quickly shifted to slogans about an "Abraham Alliance" between Israel and "moderate" Arab nations, conveniently ignoring his coalition's refusal to even utter the words "two-state solution," the very foundation for this alliance.Following our victory, with the help of regional partners, the demilitarisation and deradicalisation of Gaza can lead to a future of security, prosperity, and peace. Thats my vision for Gaza, he proclaimed to Congress.

He continued, A new generation of Palestinians must no longer be taught to hate Jews but to live in peace with us. Those twin concepts, demilitarisation and deradicalisation, were applied to Germany and Japan after World War II, leading to decades of peace, prosperity, and security.Despite his lofty words, Netanyahu's visit was not about peace but about expanding the war towards Iran, a country he mentioned twenty-seven times in his 52-minute, record-breaking fourth address. Tragically, there was not even the slightest hint of how he plans to extricate Israel from the tragic impasse it is trapped in under his watch.Israeli analysts expose these hyperboles, stating, The goal of Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to Washington, including his appearance before the U.S. Congress, is not and never was to advance a diplomatic agreement to bring home the Israeli hostages safely and to end the fighting and suffering. Rather, it is designed to enlist domestic American support to keep waging the war. Another analyst remarked, Netanyahu may have won 52 standing ovations from the rapturous, majority-Republican audience, but his rhetoric, which so impressed Washington, offered nothing for Israelis watching back home. Meanwhile, in Beijing, 14 Palestinian groups, including Hamas and Fatah, signed the Beijing Declaration.

This rare display of unity, facilitated by China, marks a significant shift towards reconciliation among Palestinian factionsa unity long deemed unattainable due to numerous internal and external challenges. The persistent disunity has exacerbated the Palestinians' suffering beyond Israeli oppression. Therefore, the recent declaration offers a glimmer of hope for a more cohesive and effective Palestinian political movement, provided the commitments are genuine and actionable.

The Beijing Declaration signifies a remarkable step towards Palestinian unity and sovereignty. The declaration's commitment to post-war governance in Gaza and the establishment of a temporary national reconciliation government underscores a unified vision for Palestinian self-governance and independence.The significance of the Beijing Declaration is profound, echoing ancient and contemporary sentiments on diplomacy and conflict resolution. Chinese scholar Zhu Weilie aptly noted, "The Beijing Declaration represents the mainstream opinions of various Palestinian factions," marking a critical step toward Palestinian statehood.

Historical divisions between factions like Fatah and Hamas, ongoing since the late Yasser Arafat's era, have long impeded progress. The success of this meeting, which saw all factions in attendance for the first time, symbolizes a breakthrough in Palestinian unity and reflects the global south's emerging solidarity and cooperation. The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.The impact of the Beijing Declaration extends beyond Palestinian internal politics. It poses significant implications for the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While Palestine moves towards internal unity, Israel's political trajectory appears increasingly extreme and radical.

The continuous violence and rising death toll highlight the urgent need for a ceasefire and renewed peace efforts. Yet, Israel's alignment with U.S. interests and electoral politics hinders progress. In contrast, Palestine's willingness to engage with China's diplomatic initiatives offers a hopeful pathway towards reconciliation and peace, reminiscent of Sun Tzu's assertion that "the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."China's role as a mediator and leader in global conflicts is likely to expand. The successful reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran under China's mediation last year, followed by the current Palestinian unity efforts, signals a shift in West Asian diplomacy. China's "active actions," characterized by leadership and initiative, have garnered widespread acceptance and support from various countries in the region.Concurrently, Ukraines Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, during his visit to Beijing this week, informed Chinas Foreign Minister that Ukraine is ready and willing to engage in dialogue and negotiations with Russia aimed at a permanent settlement. Kuleba is in China to secure their assistance in future negotiations with Russia. He emphasised that the negotiations should be rational and lead to lasting peace. There is no mention of NATO, the US, or the UK being involved, but they cannot be pleased with the prospect of peace in Europe being facilitated by China.

This could drive President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to rethink his approach to destructive promises he was given by his masters behind the screen.These developments indicate that Beijing is emerging as a new pivotal key player in global conflicts, advocating its strategic ambitions. As regional powerhouses in Asia, both India and China have the potential to elevate the Global South to new heights. Not only Beijing but also Delhi, with Prime Minister Modi's first foreign visit to Russia after his third election, shares this strategic vision. In this context, it is important to consider the words of Sergey Lavrov, Russia's Minister of Foreign Affairs: It is also obvious that the United States is trying to drag India into its anti-China project. Both China and India are much more deeply involved in the Western system of globalisation in terms of the volume of financial, investment, and trade agreements and many other things. But the fact is that just like us (Russia), China and India are fully aware of the discriminatory nature of what the West is doing. Transcending political affiliations and beliefs, the most noble and imperative pursuit, as Albert Camus profoundly stated, is the fight for peace. Humanity prevails when, at such critical moments, we forge a united front against the relentless forces of conflict and injustice. Humanity triumphs when, at pivotal moments, we unite resolutely against manufactured conflicts and unyielding forces of injustice, setting aside political differences to stand together.

(The writer is a journalist and author. Views are personal)
Sending out a terse message to the neighbouring country on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas celebrations, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday warned Pakistan by asserting that the Indian soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply. In his maiden visit to Ladakh after taking the oath of office for the third time, Modi also reminded Pakistan that it has not learned anything from the past.

Without mincing any words the Prime Minister said, In Kargil, we not only won the war, we presented an incredible example of truth, restraint and strength. The Prime Minister threw light on Pakistans deceit at a time when India was making all efforts to maintain peace. Falsehood and terror were brought down to their knees by truth, he added.

Condemning terrorism, the Prime Minister said Pakistan has always faced defeat in the past. Pakistan has not learned anything from its past and has continued to wage war in the garb of terrorism and proxy wars to stay relevant.

Addressing the Shradhanjali Samaroh after paying homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty the Prime Minister said, Today I am speaking from a place where the masters of terror can hear my voice directly. I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed. Our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply, he added.

India will overcome all challenges that come in the way of development, be it Ladakh or Jammu & Kashmir, the Prime Minister reiterated.

On July 26, 1999, the Indian Army announced the successful culmination of Operation Vijay, reclaiming the positions occupied by Pakistani infiltrators/army regulars on the Indian side of the LoC in the Kargil region after a nearly three-month-long battle in Ladakh.

Responding to the political muscle flexing over the Agnipath scheme, the Prime Minister responded by clearly saying the purpose of Agnipath is to keep forces young and continuously battle-ready.

Referring to the blatant politicization of this sensitive subject, the Prime Minister said, The truth is that the Agnipath scheme will increase the strength of the country and the country will also get capable youth. Announcements have been made to give priority to Agniveers in the private sector and paramilitary forces as well, he said.

Rejecting the propaganda about the intention of saving pension burden as the main reason behind the Agnipath Scheme, the Prime Minister reminded that the pension burden of the soldiers being recruited today will come up after 30 years, therefore, this can not be the reason behind the scheme. We have respected this decision taken by the armed forces because for us the security of the country is more important than politics, he added.

The Prime Minister pointed out that those misleading the youth of the nation today had no regard for the armed forces in the past. Recalling the false promises made by past governments on One Rank One Pension, the Prime Minister underlined that it was the present government that implemented the scheme where ex-servicemen were given more than Rs 1.25 lakh crores. He further pointed out the neglect of past governments and said, These are the same people who did not build a war memorial for the martyrs even after 7 decades of independence, did not provide enough bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border and kept ignoring Kargil Vijay Diwas.

The Prime Minister along with the Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, Brig (Dr) B D Sharma, Union Minister of State for Defence, Sanjay Seth, Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Anil Chauhan and the Chiefs of Army Staff of the three armed forces were present on the occasion. The Prime Minister heard the Gaurav Gatha: Briefing on Kargil War by NCOs and visited Amar Sansmaran: Hut of Remembrance. He also visited the Veer Bhoomi.

The Prime Minister also witnessed the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project in Ladakh, virtually today. Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1 km long Twin-Tube tunnel to be constructed at around 15,800 feet on the Nimu  Padum  Darcha Road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh.

Referring to the historic decision taken by his government, Modi said that in a few days from now on the 5th of August, the abrogation of Article 370 will complete 5 years and the Jammu & Kashmir of today is talking about a new future full of dreams. The Prime Minister gave examples of progress and mentioned holding G20 meetings in the UT, the governments focus on infrastructure development and tourism, cinema halls opening up, and the tazia procession being initiated after three and a half decades. This heaven on earth is swiftly moving in the direction of peace and prosperity, the Prime Minister added.

Referring to the ambitious targets for the border areas, the Prime Minister informed that the Border Road Organization (BRO) has completed more than 330 projects including Sela Tunnel, showcasing New Indias capabilities and direction.

Emphasizing the importance of upgrading military technologies, the Prime Minister said in the changing global scenarios, our defence force needs the latest weapons and equipment along with a modern working style and arrangements. Modi said that the defence sector had felt the necessity to upgrade in the past as well, but unfortunately, this issue was not given much importance. However, in the last 10 years, Defence reforms have been prioritized, making our forces more capable and self-reliant, he added.
Assams historical treasure, the Charaideo Moidam royal burial complex and shrines built by Ahom dynasty that ruled the Northeastern State for around 600 years, has received the prestigious UNESCO tag, marking the first cultural site from the region to receive this honor.

This was announced during the 46th World Heritage Committee session in India. With this addition, India now proudly hosts 43 World Heritage Sites.

The Moidams in Assams Charaideo district with their striking pyramid-like structures captures the States regal past, and simultaneously offers a fascinating blend of history, architecture, and folklore of the Tai-Ahom dynasty. The UNESCO tag highlights the global appreciation of the Tai-Ahom dynastys rich cultural heritage and historical contributions.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed pride and joy over the inclusion, highlighting the cultural and historical value of the Moidams. while Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat called the decision a day etched in golden letters.

Moidams was submitted as Indias nomination for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List for the year 2023-24.

The Moidams at Charaideo showcase the glorious Ahom culture, which places utmost reverence to ancestors. I hope more people learn about the great Ahom rule and culture. Glad that the Moidams join the #WorldHeritage List, Modi said in a post on X.

The Moidams are a mound burial system that served as a resting place for Ahom kings and queens. They were constructed by providing an earth cover over a hollow vault made of bricks, stone or earth.

The designated site contains 90 moidams of different sizes, which were created over a period of 600 years, and include other cultural features like ceremonial pathways and bodies of water, said a spokesperson from ICOMOS, the advisory body of the World Heritage Committee.

Reports say that there are actually over 150 moidams, but only 30 are protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Assam State Archaeology Department.

Ranjan K Baruah, Advisor to the Skill Employment and Entrepreneurship Department of the Bodoland Territorial Council and a Tourist guide trainer, lauded the inclusion of the Charaideo Moidams on UNESCOs World Heritage List as a moment of immense pride for the people of Assam and beyond. These remarkable sites epitomize the grandeur of the Ahom dynastys heritage and stand as an architectural marvel akin to the pyramids of Egypt, he remarked. Baruah emphasiSed that further exploration by the Archaeological Survey of India or similar institutions could unveil additional insights into the rich legacy of the Ahom dynasty, enriching our understanding of this historical treasure.

The Tai-Ahoms migrated to present-day Assam in the 13th century and selected Charaideo as their first capital and location for the royal necropolis.

They established the first capital at the Patkai hills in eastern India and named it Charaideo, which means a dazzling city above the mountain in their language. Even though the clan moved across cities, the burial site they built was seen as the most sacred place for the departed souls of the royals.

According to the UNESCO website, the site has the largest concentration of these vaulted mound burials, and reflects the sculpted landscape of the surrounding hills. Moidams are characterized by vaulted chambers, often double-storied, accessed through arched passages. The chambers housed centrally raised platforms where the deceased were laid to rest along with their royal insignia, weapons, and personal belongings. The construction of these mounds involved layers of bricks, earth, and vegetation, transforming the landscape into undulating hillocks reminiscent of celestial mountains.

Several objects used by the deceased during his/her life, like royal insignia, objects made of wood, ivory or iron, gold pendants, ceramic ware, weapons, clothes to the extent of human beings (only from the Luk-kha-khun clan) were buried with their king, according to the website.

Reacting to Moidams receiving the UNESCO tag, Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said it is a day etched in golden letters and thanked UNESCO, the World Heritage Committee for understanding the outstanding universal value of Moidams.

In the Northeastern State, the Kaziranga National Park and the Manas National Park fall in the natural and mixed heritage categories respectively.
Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a PIL challenging the Centre's decision to declare June 25, the day the Emergency was imposed in 1975, as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas'.

The petitioner said the decision was not only in violation of the Constitution but also "insulting" as it used the word "hatya (murder)" with the "Samvidhan (Constitution)" -- a "living document".

A bench headed by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan said the Centre's notification was not in violation of the Constitution as it was not issued to challenge the issue of the proclamation of Emergency but against the abuse of power, misuse of law and the excesses that followed.

"It is in that context that the word 'hatya' is used. It does not disrespect the Constitution," the bench, also comprising Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, said.
Assembly Member Chris Ward and members of the LGBTQ caucus announce a bill to ban school policies forcing teachers to out trans students to their parents on May 22 in Sacramento. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law on July 15. Courtesy of Assembly Member Chris Ward

Regarding Musk is right to leave (Letters to the Editor, SFChronicle.com, July 22): In Gloria Judds letter about AB1955, the state law concerning student gender identity, she expresses her outrage to the point of considering switching political parties. It also exposes a problem in the news media and consumers: twisted headlines.

Judds understanding of the law mirrors the headlines, which distort the actual law with sound bites and clickbait.

The law does not forbid teachers from informing parents about their transgender preferences; it forbids forcing a teacher to notify parents. This is due to concern for the safety of the child, a mandate that supersedes any parental right.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

I agree with Judd that parents are the primary people in a childs life. A transgender child should feel safe revealing that identity to a parent. Sadly, not all are safe. With the new law, a teacher can keep that childs identity confidential for their safety.

Ms. Judd, do you really want to align yourself with a party that would force a teacher to put a child in harms way?

Susan Cislo, American Canyon

Be wary of new park

Regarding S.F. Bay waterfront site once slated for 1,200 homes will be turned into park after yearslong fights (Real Estate, SFChronicle.com, July 17): The story speaks of turning the land into a nature park, and that few opportunities remain to create significant parkland, especially in the Richmond region, according to a spokesperson for the East Bay Regional Park District.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Im happy that Point Molate isnt going to be converted into a casino and housing for the wealthy, but Im mystified by whats meant by this so-called turning and creating, and what impact that is going to have on the pristine, beautiful, natural shore and coastline thats already there.

When a governing body decides it needs to improve something thats perfect, should diminishment be unforeseen?

Rocky Leplin, Richmond

Pay scale is off

Regarding S.F.s top-paid employee made $840K. Heres what every city worker gets paid (Data Spotlight, SFChronicle.com, July 19): I couldnt help but think about how these salaries compare with what we pay teachers and other people working in the San Francisco public school system.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

You would think that salaries for teachers, such as myself, would be similar to those of people with similar education requirements and work responsibilities in city government, particularly if these salaries reflect what it costs to live in San Francisco. This is additional evidence that we need to rethink how we fund schools in California.

Meghan Byrne, San Francisco

What about homelessness?

Regarding Could S.F.s Embarcadero Plaza become a world-class park? There are plans to make it happen (San Francisco, SFChronicle.com, July 17): Putting a park on the Embarcadero? What good is that in a city thats lost its soul?

No matter how beautiful that park may be, it wont help with homelessness. Spending all that money for appearances rather than on San Franciscos major problem is tone-deaf and uncaring.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Nancy Hume, Pleasant Hill

Criticism misguided

The indignant congressional attack on Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned as Secret Service director on Tuesday, managed to elide the most significant element of the incident  the easy legal access to guns, including the assault weapon used in the assassination attempt on Donald Trump.

The loudest voices declaiming against Cheatle were among those congressional members, particularly Republicans, most likely to vigorously defend the rights of American citizens, including people like the perpetrator Thomas Matthew Crooks, to obtain guns.

John Stedman, San Francisco

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Bravo, Mr. President

Regarding Biden saved America in 2020, and he may have just saved it again on Sunday (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, July 21): I applaud Jack Ohmans op-ed touting the accomplishments of President Joe Biden.

Not mentioned was that President Biden is a decent, caring man. Time caught up with him and his frailty can not be denied. Age does that.

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

Biden put country before self. Can we, as Americans, who greatly benefited from his lone term, ever be able to thank him for all he did?

Hopefully, history will thank him for being one of the greats. He certainly gets loud applause and a standing ovation from me.
Kamala Harris speaks with MSNBC host Chris Matthews in the Spin Room after the second Democratic primary debate of the 2020 presidential campaign season in Miami on June 27, 2019. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images 2019

Four years ago, I wrote in the pages of the Chronicle that Kamala Harris would be Joe Bidens best bet for vice presidential running mate.

I made that judgment based on her television appearances, but also in person. As a senator, Harris always struck me as whip-smart with a far wider cultural reach than someone who is simply winning at electoral politics. In person, when she came to my show Hardball and whenever we had a chance to talk off the air, she was even more impressive.

We will soon discover if my 2020 commendation will do the trick for her as President Joe Bidens Democratic successor.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Vice President Harris has already made a couple of top choices since Biden announced he was dropping his reelection campaign.

She began with a solid political compass reading  by establishing Jen OMalley Dillon as her top campaign manager. Cant get better than that. You hear of many political staffers being introduced as strategists. OMalley Dillon actually is one.

Starting at the presidential level with Vice President Al Gores campaign, she has proven herself ever since. Her 2020 campaign defeated an

incumbent president, Donald Trump. Keeping OMalley Dillon was the simplest move but also the right one. She is what we call in politics thegenuine article.

Confirming her position at the top gives confidence to the staff and keeps them solidly at work instead of out somewhere looking for the next job. It made no sense to chop apart a campaign structure and top fundraising effort in the middle of July that needs to deliver by November. People need to get to work in the morning, not worry about whether they need to find another job.

Beyond staffing, Harris is emphasizing her own political roots, not letting the Trump people assign her someone elses. This is vital. A campaign needs to define itself before the opposition does it.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Before she was vice president or a U.S. senator, Harris was the San Francisco district attorney and then California attorney general. Now more than ever, its vital to keep that badge of honor visible and intact.

How often does a candidate get to play the role of a political district attorney facing off against an accused felon?

The rhetoric you hear from a candidate is one thing. But when that rhetoric is backed up by the candidates biography, it packs a punch. Prosecuting bad guys was how she made her name, putting people like Trump away.

Her most powerful line since becoming the presumed Democratic presidential nominee was when she said on Monday that shes learned to spot Trumps type.

I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rule for their

own gain. So, believe me when I say I know Donald Trumps type.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

That is the instinct we expect from a hard-nosed prosecutor, to know the person across the room for what he is: a sex abuser, a bully from the

schoolyard, a tyrant looking for a country to lord over.

What the civil and criminal cases against Trump have thus far have failed to do is convince the public that his actions  both alleged and confirmed  matter to them. That is a political assignment  and its the job of the Democratic candidate to make it.

There is currently a great deal of excitement about Harris. But lets face it. The chances of her upsetting Trump at the ballot box would be a world-class upset.

Even before the disastrous debate that ultimately knocked him out of the race, Biden was behind Trump in the polls in battleground states. To win the general election, Harris and her running mate will need to convince not just young, minority voters in the big cities but also those at the citys edge and in the suburbs that a President Harris is much to be preferred to a doubled-down President Trump.

When I made the case for Harris in 2020, I used a vital word. It was the same word that Biden himself chose to describe what he wanted in a running mate: simpatico.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Biden got just that in selecting Harris. With all the harrowing political realities they faced together, never so much as a negative story came out between them. They got along well.

Harris now needs a running mate who can throw a punch as hard as she can. That means someone who can get headlines by hitting Trump, headlines

that stick in both his and the voters minds.

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

Strength is what the voters want in their candidates. The time to go on offense is today, not five or 10 or 15 weeks from now. Youll find none of this in the Constitution: why we need a prosecutor as president, why we need a puncher as a running mate.

But we live in interesting, threatening times. We need an upset. We badly need an upset. This is how well get there.
Get prepared for a late night hookup now

Late night hookups are getting to be ever more popular, as individuals are researching ways to have some fun and obtain laid and never have to be worried about the early morning after. there are a variety of various late night hookup web sites available, each with its very own unique group of features. whether you are considering an informal hookup or something more serious, there is a site on the market for you personally. listed below are five of the finest late night hookup sites:

1. grindr

Get alerts:

grindr is perhaps the most popular late night hookup site on the market. it gives many different features that make it well suited for those looking a casual hookup. among these features are a nearby feature that displays you that is within a particular radius of you, along with a distance function that shows you who is the farthest from you. 2. tinder

tinder is another popular late night hookup site. it is simple to use and simple to get prospective lovers. among the list of top features of tinder are a swipe left function enabling you to reject prospective partners, also a swipe right function that enables you to definitely accept prospective lovers. 3. hornydate

hornydate is a site that is specifically designed for anyone finding a critical late night hookup. among these features are a  compatibility checker feature that allows you to definitely find somebody that is suitable for you, along with a message board function which allows you to find lovers whom share your passions. 4. craigslist

craigslist is frequently considered to be the go-to late night hookup site. on the list of top features of craigslist are a personals function that enables you to find prospective partners who are looking a casual hookup, also a dating function that allows one to find prospective lovers that looking for a more serious relationship. 5. hornydate plus

hornydate plus is reduced form of the hornydate site. among these features are a private talk function that allows you to definitely consult with possible partners in a private environment, including a password protected chat feature that allows you to definitely talk with potential partners whove been approved by hornydate plus.

The ultimate guide to gay craigslist albuquerque

As a gay guy, you know that craigslist is one of the most useful resources for finding dates. but what about finding times within the gay community? well, albuquerque is a superb place to begin. here are five methods for finding times on gay craigslist albuquerque:

1. use the search by location function. this may support you in finding specific dates and places that match your passions. 2. use the advanced search feature. this can allow you to specify more specific interests, particularly age, battle, and sexual orientation. 3. use the personals feature. this may permit you to look for individuals who are particularly thinking about dating other gay guys. 4. this will permit you to find upcoming occasions that match your passions. 5. make use of the messageboard function. this may enable you to keep in touch with other users of the gay community.

Find gay personals into the usa

Looking for a romantic date or a relationship in the usa? search no further compared to the gay relationship scene! whether you are considering anyone to go out with, speak to, or just someone to spend time with, the gay relationship scene has something for all. there are a variety of various web sites and apps that focus on the gay relationship scene in the usa. several of the most popular include grindr, scruff, and hornet. these apps enable users to find other users inside their geographic area, or even worldwide. if you are shopping for an even more personal experience, there are also some online dating sites solutions that cater particularly to the gay community. these services allow users to connect along with other gay singles, and sometimes provide more individual features than the apps. whatever sort of gay dating you are considering, the united states gay scene has one thing for you. so whether you are looking for a casual date, a long-term relationship, or perhaps someone to chat with, the us gay dating scene has everything you need.

How to help make the nearly all of craigslist m4m north carolina

Craigslist is a fantastic resource for finding times and relationships. if you should be seeking to make the most of craigslist m4m north carolina, below are a few ideas to help you to get the absolute most out of the website. 1. utilize the search bar to get specific forms of dates or relationships that youre enthusiastic about. it is possible to narrow your search by location, age, passions, or other requirements you may possibly desire. 2. use the send a note function to start a conversation with somebody you are enthusiastic about. it is possible to either deliver a note directly to the person or use the message this person feature to send it to friends that the individual is in. 3. utilize the view profile function to obtain a much better knowledge of the individual that youre enthusiastic about. this will provide you with a better notion of what type of person they truly are and just what their interests are. 4. make use of the add to favorites feature to help keep tabs on the times or relationships that you are enthusiastic about. this can ensure it is simpler for you to get them when youre looking for them next. 5. this can give you the possibility to begin a conversation together and see if there is a potential relationship here.

Go /granny-personals.html
An Oakland Police Department car at the scene of an incident in Oakland on April 11. Gov. Gavin Newsom is asking Oakland leaders to reconsider city policy and let officers chase suspects more frequently. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging Oakland leaders to revise the citys police pursuit policy to let officers chase suspects more frequently.

The announcement comes just two weeks after he deployed a surge of California Highway Patrol officers to patrol high-crime areas in the city.

CHP has brought to my attention that they observed criminals often fleeing with impunity because its common knowledge that the Oakland Police Departments (OPD) pursuit policy allows vehicle pursuits in only very limited circumstances, Newsom wrote in a letter to city officials obtained by the Chronicle. I urge you to reconsider whether OPD should be permitted to pursue suspects in more circumstances.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Newsom is sending the letter to Oakland officials including Mayor Sheng Thao, the City Council and the police department Friday, spokesperson Tara Gallegos said.

Oaklands police commission is reviewing the citys policy and is set to recommend possible revisions in the fall. In his letter, Newsom praises the city for initiating the review.

In a statement, Thao said she wants the policy changed to bring the department in line with our regional counterparts.

Safety is my number one priority, but we know it requires the effort of every part of the system to tackle this complex issue, she wrote. I am tremendously grateful to the Governor and CHP for their continued partnership as we work hand in hand to build a safer Oakland. I encourage the Police Commission to join us in this effort.

CHP Commissioner Sean Duryee told the Chronicle he raised concerns about Oaklands policy with the governor after accompanying CHP officers on patrol on July 13. Over four hours, he and CHP officers initiated seven high-speed chases to catch people who tried to flee after breaking traffic laws.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Ive been in law enforcement over 26 years, and I was just shocked at the number of people who were fleeing from us, he said.

Duryee said he thinks the high rate of fleeing suspects is a consequence of the police departments restrictive chase policy, which bars police from chasing suspects except for violent forcible crimes or crimes involving guns.

Police pursuit policies vary from city to city. San Francisco is in the process of expanding when police can chase suspects after voters passed a measure to do so. Duryee said Oaklands policy is particularly restrictive. Newsom called it an outlier.

Duryee said he believes the city needs to allow police to chase suspects in more circumstances. Fewer suspects will flee, he said, if they know they will likely be chased.

Police chases can be deadly. A Chronicle investigation into police chases earlier this year found that fatal chases have increased dramatically in recent years across the country, and that they tend to be initiated over low-level offenses.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Oakland last updated its police chase rules in December 2022, when then-chief LeRonne Armstrong banned pursuits over 50 mph on city streets without special permission.

Chases in Oakland dropped significantly after the latest changes to the rules, which came after pursuits killed two bystanders in 2022, according to department data.

Any policy on vehicle pursuits must be clear-eyed in balancing the risks and benefits involved, Newsom said in the letter.

Duryee said police should stop pursuing suspects if a high-speed chase would endanger bystanders and said CHP officers often stop pursuits for that reason. But he said Oaklands policy prevents police from pursuing suspects for too many different crimes, incentivizing suspects to flee without threat of consequences.

The CHP officers deployed to Oakland help respond to 911 calls when local police need backup, but mostly patrol high-crime areas for traffic violations, Duryee said. During the night when he observed their work, he said they chased people who broke traffic laws, including a driver who passed a car unsafely using a bus lane, another driving without headlights on and another who ran a red light. As a result of the chases, they arrested 13 people, he said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

He said the stops were not pretextual, a term for when police stop someone for a minor infraction with the intent of searching their car for evidence of a more serious crime. He said his officers were pursuing people because of the traffic infractions themselves, which put pedestrians, bikers and other drivers at risk.

Somebody may argue that a person driving with a headlight out is a pretextual stop, he said. I would argue that driving with a headlight out is unsafe.

San Franciscos new policy limiting police pretextual stops, which went into effect this month, prohibits officers from pulling over drivers for having one nonworking tail light. A new state law that went into effect in January, meanwhile, requires police to tell drivers the reason they were pulled over, in an effort to limit pretextual stops.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is said to be on Vice President Kamala Harris short list of potential running mates. Tyger Williams/TNS

When Barack Obama, then a young, first-term senator, locked up the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, his campaign felt it needed to balance the ticket: He needed someone older  preferably with foreign policy gravitas  and, yes, someone white.

Enter Joe Biden.

No one called Biden a DEI hire, shorthand for diversity, equity and inclusion. Nor did anyone say that about Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clintons 2016 running mate.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

But that is, essentially, what any vice president is: someone who can broaden the appeal in ways the person in the No. 1 spot lacks. Its almost by definition an exercise in providing diversity and inclusion.

Now, as Kamala Harris vets potential VPs, shes seeking to bolster her own strengths in similar ways. Most of the dozen candidates being vetted are white men, including the front-runners, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.

And once again, no one is writing those men off as DEI candidates.

Instead its Harris herself  the candidate with the most experience in the race  whos having the phrase thrown at her in a way thats flat-out racist and sexist, not to mention factually incorrect. That hasnt stopped conservatives like Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and conservative Newsmax commentator Sebastian Gorka from describing Harris as benefiting from something other than her ability.

Its the latest code word for calling someone the N-word, Steve Phillips, a San Francisco attorney and founder of Democracy in Color, an organization focused on race, politics and building a progressive majority. Theyre trying to feed into this very, very long-standing narrative trope that people of color are where they are, not by merit, but through the use of these unjustified preferences.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Thats hardly the case with Harris.

San Francisco voters elected Harris twice to district attorney, and California voters backed her twice, to be attorney general and then U.S. senator, where she represented the worlds fifth-largest economy.

But much like how previous generations of conservatives used to devalue the abilities of people of color as affirmative action hires, now theyre tagging them as benefiting from policies designed to level an American playing field dominated by white men, who have been 45 of the countrys 46 presidents.

Harris has far more political experience than her opponents. Donald Trump held no political office before being elected president. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, has served in elective office since 2023.

The DEI epithet is also rooted in her connection to former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who openly dated Harris for a year in the mid-1990s when Brown had been separated from his wife for a decade. (Harris and Brown broke up before he took office as mayor.) Brown appointed Harris to two statewide commissions and introduced her to the citys moneyed elite while she held a job as a prosecutor in the East Bay. But that was several years before she began her first run for office.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Around the same time, Brown appointed Gavin Newsom, a young Marina District businessman whose father was a judge and had connections to the billionaire Getty family, to San Franciscos Parking and Traffic Commission in 1996, and to the Board of Supervisors the following year, starting his political career.

But Newsom, a white man who didnt have a romantic relationship with Brown, doesnt get tagged as a DEI hire.

These nuances and facts get lost in the social media tornado that accompanies a national political campaign. Like when Fox News-turned-SiriusXM radio host Megyn Kelly posted on X this week that Harris actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California politics.

A meme circulating on social media shows a photo of Harris and describes her as a woman who seduces men to climb lifes success ladder. Also known as a Jezebel.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Jennifer Lawless, author of Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era, and a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, said Harris won statewide in California multiple times. She won nationally as VP. Its just so offensive. The fact that they have to go back 25 years and talk about an appointment to a commission just highlights the straws at which theyre grasping.

Wendy Smooth, an Ohio State University professor who is part of the Kamala Harris Project of scholars who have been analyzing the vice president since she took office, said this is taking us back to Mad Men, where women are hyper-sexualized in the workplace or in spaces of leadership.

Not to mention it is tarnishing something that is intended to be positive.

Diversity, equity and inclusion are aspirations for modern American culture. But theyre trying to make (DEI) a bad word, Aimee Allison, the Oakland-based founder of the She the People organization that advocates for women of color in politics. Its really shorthand for a deep anti-blackness that says that what we want is the opposite of diversity, equity and inclusion  a kind of America in which white people have supremacy.

While the shortlist of candidates Harris is vetting to be her running mate is dominated by white men, it does include Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who seemingly took herself out of the running by saying, Im not leaving Michigan, and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

But the focus is on the white dudes to, in political politesse, balance the ticket.

That is because of a long-held assumption that the country, if you will, cant stomach too much progress at one time, like the first Black and Indian American female president, said Kelly Dittmar, director of research and scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

There is no research that backs up whether voters are less likely to vote for or against a woman because of their race or gender, Dittmar said. Its a perception of a perception of what voters think.

Yes, theres still racism. Yes, theres still sexism. Yes, it affects evaluations of candidates, Dittmar said. People arent voting for Kamala because shes a woman, and theyre not going to vote against her because shes a woman. What theyre going to vote on on Election Day is (what) party the candidate belongs to.

Nevertheless, many expect Harris to pick a white guy as her running mate. And in some cases, for legitimate political reasons. Putting Shapiro or Kelly or Cooper on the ticket could boost the chances of Democrats winning a tightly contested battleground state.

So could Whitmer. But dont hold your breath waiting to see an all-female ticket.

Kamala probably has to do what Obama had to do, which was to calm peoples fears by choosing a moderate, reassuring white guy, Phillips said.

Meanwhile, Smooth, a professor of womens gender and sexuality studies and political science, hopes voters will call out the tropes that are following Harris. And not just for political reasons.
Monifa Willis, chief of staff to San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. The current victim services unit now reports to Willis, while the prosecution units report to Chief Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez. San Francisco District Attorneys Office

San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins decision this spring to promote her former head of victim services to chief of staff marked the first time in the offices history that the role will be filled by someone without a law degree.

Monifa Willis, a longtime psychiatric nurse who is also an assistant professor at UCSFs School of Nursing, was initially recruited to the victim service role by Jenkins two years ago amid a personnel overhaul following the recall of former top prosecutor Chesa Boudin and Jenkins mayoral appointment in 2022. Jenkins went on to win an election for the seat later that year.

Jenkins praised Willis for her fresh perspectives on how to improve criminal justice in San Francisco. But others have questioned whether a health care practitioner is qualified to lead in an office that relies on legal expertise, and say that Willis work at UCSF has cut into time from one of the offices highest-ranking positions.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Willis, who was promoted with little fanfare in March, receives a salary of $289,000; up from the $248,000 she made as the head of the Victim Services Division in 2023, according to city records. She also earned more than $100,000 teaching at UCSF last year, according to a statement of economic interests she filed in March.

In an interview, Jenkins said her choice of a leader with experience outside of law enforcement was intentional.

I needed somebody who could oversee, in a deep way, our non-prosecutorial work, Jenkins said, noting initiatives involving community engagement, criminal justice and prison sentencing reform and legislative efforts.

Willis, Jenkins said, has a long history of working with crime victims, people with mental health issues and juveniles involved with the criminal justice system.

So many of the people that we deal with have been traumatized as young people, which is what leads them to commit crime later, or have mental health issues now that we have to address as a part of their disposition, Jenkins said. I felt that she just brought a different lens to the work that I thought was important.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The current victim services unit now reports to Willis, while the prosecution units report to Chief Assistant District Attorney Ana Gonzalez.

Willis described her new role as an expansion of her work in victim services, where she said she focused on improving the quality of care for victims, in part by ensuring that their advocates were trained in assisting people whove experienced trauma.

Among Willis first endeavors as chief of staff was the launch of the offices new Access to Hope initiative, a mentorship and anti-violence program that connects teens and young adults to career opportunities in criminal justice, as part of a new unit in the office.

Willis said her experience brings in a fresh set of eyes to a powerful law-enforcement agency.

As a nurse practitioner, we are trained to look at how structural systems impact public health, which in turn impacts public safety, Willis said. Thats ultimately what I feel the advantage is in having a non-prosecutor in this role.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

But some of those familiar with Willis work as the head of victim services say their concerns go beyond her lack of legal knowledge, and that she neglected her prosecutors office duties to attend to her teaching job.

One former victim advocate who worked under Willis told the Chronicle that Willis was frequently difficult to reach, often working from home or behind a locked door when she came to the office.

The source, who spoke to the Chronicle on the condition of anonymity in accordance with its policy on confidential sources, said she witnessed Willis teaching classes online while she was at the district attorneys office.

The person said their work was made more challenging by Willis inaccessibility.

Willis told the Chronicle that she teaches one course per quarter during the fall, winter and spring, and that it takes place after business hours, for two hours. She said she does not teach during the summer.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Asked about allegations that she was working at her second job while at the district attorneys office, a spokesperson for the office maintained that Willis has always taught in the evenings, and when requested for a daytime obligation, she took (paid time off).

A UCSF spokesperson confirmed that Willis was a part-time employee, but said the school could not release additional information due to personnel privacy concerns.

Sources who spoke to the Chronicle said many believe that its Willis personal relationship with Jenkins, not her experience, that landed her the key position. The two have been friends since high school. Jenkins rejected this assertion, and said its not unusual for office heads to hire people they know.

Another source who is familiar with the role of the offices chief of staff said Willis lack of courtroom experience is a disservice to employees.

The person in this position is generally expected to be able to view prosecutors motions, review practices in court, take complaints and meet with the presiding judge, according to the source. These duties under Jenkins have generally been filled by Gonzalez, leading to confusion over why the chief of staff role was created.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Lateefa Simon, a longtime police-reform advocate who, along with then-San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris, in 2005 created the Back on Track program to help reduce recidivism, fiercely defended Jenkins promotion of Willis.

Thats what Kamala did for me. I was a non-lawyer, and she put me on her executive team 20 years ago, said Simon, a BART board director who is running as a congressional candidate for Californias 12th District.

Simon said she commended Jenkins on her hire.

With Monifa as your chief of staff, your focus is really on survivors and victims, Simon said. Its not even political, like your whole office will be really focused, for the first time ever, in supporting victims.
Now that the already floundering Joe Biden is a bona fide dead duck president, the globe is in even more serious danger as the Wests enemies mobilise, utilising the time of weakness for their benefit before the November US election.

1. Joint Military Escalation

Recently, the United States and Canada intercepted Russian Tu-95 and Chinese H-6 bombers in international airspace near Alaska. This incident was the first of its kind, marking a significant joint military exercise between Russia and China in the Arctic. This manoeuvre signifies a bold escalation and an apparent test of U.S. defences, highlighting the growing military cooperation between these two major powers. This cooperation in a strategically sensitive region indicates a coordinated effort to challenge U.S. influence and military readiness.

2. Arctic Tensions

The Arctic is becoming a flashpoint for geopolitical tensions. In May 2019, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticised Russias illegitimate claims in the Arctic and warned China against leveraging its self-proclaimed status as a near-Arctic power to assert dominance. The Pentagons 2024 Arctic security report, released just before the recent escalation, highlighted enhanced Sino-Russian cooperation and warned of Russias capabilities to disrupt GPS satellites. These developments underscore the strategic importance of the Arctic and the potential for conflict as global powers vie for control over this resource-rich region.

3. Leadership Weakness

President Biden is not and was never fit to serve, creating a leadership vacuum in the White House. This terrible predicament certainly emboldens enemies like Russia and China to push the boundaries of U.S. deterrence. The lack of strong and decisive leadership from a dead duck president Biden is an opportunity for these countries to expand their influence and challenge U.S. interests without fear of significant repercussions. This scenario increases the risk of miscalculation and unintended escalation in multiple global theatres, including Eastern Europe and the South China Sea.

4. European Threats

Russias conventional and hybrid threats to U.S. allies in Europe are intensifying. Recently, fragments of Russian kamikaze drones were found in Romania, a spillover from Russias attack on Ukraines Izmail port. Additionally, French police arrested a Russian chef conspiring with the FSB to sabotage the Paris Olympics. These incidents highlight Russias multifaceted approach to destabilise Europe, using both military aggression and covert operations. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the spillover effects into neighbouring countries demonstrate Russias willingness to test NATOs resolve and readiness.

5. South China Sea Tensions

In the South China Sea, despite a fragile truce with the Philippines, Chinas aggressive territorial claims remain a significant threat. Beijings maritime boundary revisionism and suspension of arms control talks with the U.S. over military support for Taiwan exacerbate tensions. China continues to modernise its nuclear arsenal and increase its military capabilities. Taiwans Han Kuang war games, which simulate a Chinese invasion, further strain relations and raise the risk of military confrontation. The U.S.s inability to curb Chinas assertive actions in the region signals a failure to maintain peace and stability in this critical area.

6. Failed Deterrence

The U.S. has struggled to effectively deter the parallel aggressions of Russia and China. Despite warnings and sanctions, these countries have continued their aggressive actions. Secretary of State Antony Blinkens trip to Beijing in April 2024 emphasised potential U.S. punishments for Chinas support of Russia in Ukraine. However, these threats have only resulted in minor setbacks, with Russia-China trade slightly declining but not significantly impacted. The persistent strategic and economic cooperation between Russia and China demonstrates the limitations of U.S. deterrence efforts and the challenge of enforcing international norms.

7. Ongoing Military Drills

Provocative military exercises involving Russia and China have become increasingly common. In March, Russia, China, and Iran conducted maritime drills in the Gulf of Oman, showcasing advanced anti-ship cruise missiles. Chinas Eagle Assault exercise with Belarus simulated the capture of a Polish airport, indicating preparations for future conflicts in Europe. These drills highlight the deepening military collaboration between these countries and their readiness to confront Western powers. The growing frequency and scale of these exercises raise the risk of miscalculation and unintentional escalation.

8. War Preparations

Both Russia and China are preparing for inevitable large-scale conflicts. Russias victories in Ukraine indicate that its military campaigns are far from over. Britains Chief of the General Staff General Sir Roly Walker warned that Russia would seek revenge, especially if it loses in Ukraine, and that the U.K. must be ready for global war in three years time or less. Meanwhile, China is stockpiling essential resources, such as agricultural products and strategic materials, indicating preparations for a prolonged trade war or even a military conflict. These actions suggest that both countries are positioning themselves for sustained confrontations with the U.S. and its allies.

9. Historical Parallels

Historical examples provide cautionary tales about underestimating adversaries. Germanys invasion of Belgium in 1914 and Japans attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 were based on false assumptions about Western responses. These miscalculations led to world wars with devastating consequences. Similarly, the current weakness of the U.S. presidency will no doubt encourage Russia and China to test U.S. resolve, leading to grave consequences on a global level.

10. High Risk of Conflict

The combination of lame dead duck President Bidens weakness and the unpredictability of a potential Trump re-election could create a volatile global environment. Enemies of NATO and the West will invariably be tempted to exploit this period of uncertainty to achieve strategic gains. The high risk of escalation of conflict increases daily as these nations test U.S. boundaries and resolve. In the lead-up to the November elections and their aftermath, cautious intervention is required to prevent unintended escalations. Without proactive steps, the world could face a new era of heightened conflicts and even the escalation of the world war to spread to even more countries.
Comrade Starmer is set to begin his much touted EU Reset (Brexit Betrayal) deal by giving away Britains fishing rights in our own waters to the EU, thus losing over 800 million per annum.

Because of Brexit, English fishing vessels had 120,000 tonnes more quota a year than we would have had as members of the EU, but this will all be lost when Comrade Starmer betrays Britain and Brexit for ever closer union with the EU.

Brexit Betrayal is Ongoing

Despite the so-called Brexit, Britain is still under the control of many EU regulations and directives, as well as the ECHR and ECJ. Because of Comrade Starmer, Britain will have to incorporate even more EU regulations and the real controllers of the EU in Berlin want to turn the British prime ministers proposed security pact into a Brexit mega deal, including agricultural rules.

EU regulations will also impact all new road vehicles in the UK, which will all have to be fitted with ISA speed limiters. Labour have welcomed this and have already incorporated the EU law which came into effect on July 7, 2024. Manufacturers selling cars across the continent have shown no sign of wanting to provide ISA-free variants for UK buyers.

Within a few years of Keir Starmer bending the knee to the EU, there will be talk about rejoining fully because Britain will have already integrated many of the EUs laws anyway. The EU will then demand that for reintegration, the UK will have to ditch the Pound Sterling and incorporate the Euro currency.
Researchers from Dalhousie University are collaborating with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) on a two-year, $500,000 project that could help make Atlantic Canada a hub for green hydrogen innovation.

Drs. Mita Dasog and Michael Freund of the Department of Chemistry are leading the project that aims to identify and test promising catalysts that could serve as alternatives to the costly precious metals used in the production of green hydrogen.

The bulk of the projects funding comes from a $352,000 grant awarded through the NRCs Materials for Clean Fuels Challenge program (MCF). The MCF program is for collaborative research and development and is funded through the NRCs Collaborative Science, Technology and Innovation program. Remaining funding will come from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and partners.

Shown right: Dr. Mita Dasog.

Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia have identified green hydrogen to play a crucial role in meeting net zero goals, says Dr. Dasog, an associate professor and Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Chair. Hydrogen burns cleanly to produce thermal energy and/or electricity. It has the potential to decarbonize hard-to-abate sectors such as material and chemical manufacturing industries, heavy-duty transport, shipping, and aviation.

Producing green hydrogen



Commercially, green hydrogen is produced using a process called water electrolysis, in which an electrolyzer  powered by a renewable energy source such as wind or solar  splits fresh water into hydrogen and oxygen. Unlike other methods of producing hydrogen, which can involve the use of natural gas, coal, or non-renewable energy, green hydrogen does not result in any greenhouse gas emissions. A hindrance to more widespread use is that commercial proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolyzers require precious metals as catalyst materials on its anode (iridium) and cathode (platinum).

For green hydrogen production to ramp up, its necessary to replace precious metals with something cheaper and more readily available. If we replace the current metals with other high-performing elements that are also rare, like palladium or rhodium, its still the same problem, says Dr. Dasog, the principal investigator on the project. Our focus is to start replacing precious metals with more abundant elements, but they have to perform as well as current catalysts do.

Identifying alternative catalysts



Fortunately, there is no shortage of scientific literature discussing catalysts in green hydrogen production, but reading through thousands of research papers is not a task that can realistically be done individually. Enter artificial intelligence (AI).

The first step in the project involves developing a Chat GPT-like tool capable of reading human language that will comb through existing research papers and identify potential catalysts free of precious metals that meet certain performance metrics. Dr. Dasog says she and Dr. Freund will collaborate with Dr. Frank Rudzicz, an associate professor in the Faculty of Computer Science, and the NRC teams to develop this tool.

Shown left: Dr. Michael Freund.

Step two heads back to Dr. Dasogs lab where the catalysts shortlisted by the AI-tool will be made in-house. The literature will provide the recipe to make these, she says.

The third step is benchmarking. Once we have made the materials, the Freund lab will test them all under the same conditions, benchmarking protocols that the NRC has developed and are used by other international labs, Dr. Dasog explains. This will give us a more realistic evaluation of how promising these materials are and whether they have a chance of replacing precious metals in electrolyzer components.

Another key consideration in this stage is making sure these replacements are resilient to water quality. Current electrolyzers require a certain water-quality standard to operate, says Dr. Dasog. Having an expensive catalyst and needing to spend so much energy purifying water is one of the few reasons why green hydrogen is not as cost competitive as grey hydrogen. The hope is that if the catalysts are water resilient, that will bring down the cost of green hydrogen.

Finally, step four involves testing the most promising catalysts in realistic water conditions with the help of an industry partner, World Energy GH2 in Newfoundland. Catalysts that successfully pass the tests will be shipped off to the NRC for further analysis beyond whats capable at Dal.

Planning a greener future



Dr. Dasog hopes that the project will result in advancement towards making next generation electrolyzers that are cheaper and water-quality resilient. Given the local interest in green hydrogen, it is also important that we create a path to manufacture electrolyzers without significant backlogs, she says. Moving away from precious metals will help mitigate some of the challenges associated with their supply-chain.

Everyone wants to produce green hydrogen cheaply, she adds, and proving that it is possible to lower the cost of electrolyzers by lessening their dependence on rare materials should help increase the Atlantic regions adoption of green hydrogen. The NRCs hydrogen research has primarily taken place in Ontario and British Columbia, so the project also provides a chance to train graduate students and other highly qualified personnel from the Atlantic provinces. This project will help strengthen the collaborations between Dalhousie and NRC labs and build a path toward future opportunities to advance green-hydrogen technologies.
Students of African ancestry from Dalhousie will join African Nova Scotian community members on a journey to Ghana, West Africa this summer.

The trip kicks off this week and is meant to honour and commemorate the final year of the UN-declared Decade for People of African Descent (DPAD).

Miguel Nkeng, a fourth-year Bachelor of Science in Recreation/Bachelor of Management student is looking forward to the trip, which he calls a life-changing opportunity.

I was born and raised in Toronto and have never left North American soil. My fathers lineage traces back to Ghana, so this trip will be especially meaningful. Itll give me a sense of where I come from and where my ancestors come from. I feel like it will change my whole perspective, he says.

'Welcome home'



The organization known as Connecting to Africa (CTA) is helping to facilitate the 17-day in-country experience. This transformative opportunity will allow participants to further self-development and appreciate other perspectives and experiences as people of African descent.

Travelling to Mother Africa provides the opportunity for people of African descent to truly find a place where they feel connected and home," says Dr. Barb Hamilton-Hinch, an associate professor in the Faculty of Health and and Dal's assistant vice provost equity and inclusion. "Reflecting on a quote that was said to many of us who went to Ghana during the 50th year of Independence by the tourism minister, Welcome home sons and daughters of our strongest ancestors. This quote will aways resonate for me as we continue to provide these opportunities to students and community members.

The group will take part in CTAs Learning Project and will work closely with local not-for-profit organizations to share, learn and exchange knowledge about services and resources. Participants will also visit various historical sites and learn more about the history and culture of Ghana.

Participants will learn about the people, culture, and history of Ghana on the journey, which will also create dialogue exchanges and participation in several community development activities.

Making the trip possible



A total of 15 people are going on the trip, including eight from various African Nova Scotian communities and seven Dalhousie students sponsored by Global Skills Opportunity with from the African Nova Scotian Strategy and Dalhousie University.

This trip would not be possible for the students without the support of Global Skills Opportunity, the African Nova Scotian Strategy, and Dalhousie University. I am honoured to be the faculty member who gets to experience many of the first with students. Not only do they grow but so do I, said Dr. Hamilton-Hinch.

The group leaves July 17 and will return August 7.
Mayor London Breed, left, with Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson. Nicholson will step down as the leader of the fire department at the end of August. Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle

San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson will step down at the end of August, citing unforeseen medical issues, city officials said Friday.

Nicholson, who was appointed by Mayor London Breed in 2019, was the second woman to hold the position and the departments first openly gay leader.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have served the City and County of San Francisco for over 30 years, Nicholson said in a statement. I am proud of the San Francisco Fire Department and the people that work day and night to protect our City and citizens. It has been a great privilege and honor to serve as your Fire Chief for the past 5 years.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Breed described Nicholson as an incredible leader for the fire department.

She and the Department she leads have kept San Franciscans safe through the COVID pandemic and the challenges of the last few years, while also helping launch groundbreaking and life-saving initiatives, like our nationally recognized Street Response Teams, Breed said in a statement.

Chief Nicholson has shown extraordinary leadership and dedication to our great city and we are indebted to her for her service.

Nicholson did not elaborate on her current issues, but has frequently spoken about her successful battle with an aggressive form of breast cancer.

Nicholson joined the department in 1994 and worked for more than two decades as a firefighter and as a paramedic, rising to become a captain and a battalion chief. As deputy chief of administration, she oversaw a number of divisions, including homeland security, human resources and investigative services.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Her successful battle with breast cancer also raised awareness about the health risks facing female firefighters on the job.

Nicholsons resignation will touch off a search for a new fire chief, a decision thats made jointly by the Fire Commission and Breed. The Fire Commission over the next few weeks will select three names for Breed to pick from. If Breed rejects all three candidates, the commission will restart its search and select three more names, according to city officials.

A spokesperson for Breed said city officials hope to have a selection in place by the time Nicholson leaves office. If the search takes longer than expected, an interim chief will be selected by Nicholson.
Women make up almost half of Canadas workforce (47.4 per cent as of 2023), but within the Canadian tech industry, that dwindles to just 24 per cent.

Efforts to increase the number of women and gender-diverse people in STEM fields have been around for decades. Within Dals Faculty of Computer Science, for example, the diversity initiative WeAreAllCS was launched in 2017 to increase applications for tech-related programs from those who have historically been underrepresented in the field. While positive change has progressed, there is still work to be done  especially for those from equity-deserving communities.

Its a tough nut to crack for Dalhousies Women in Technology Society (WiTS) president Madhulika Reddivari. Computer science is a career path that is very male dominated, she explains. Women need to feel that they can also have a career in tech and feel welcome and feel like a part of this community.

Powered partnerships



Thats why WiTS, along with Dal's Faculty of Computer Science (FCS), ShiftKey Labs, STEM Connector, and with funding from the Leacross Foundation, launched the first annual Women in Tech Summit in May 2024.

FCS and the Leacross Foundation have had a longstanding partnership, with the not-for-profit investing in efforts to increase diversity in computer science through scholarships. This partnership has evolved as both parties have listened to feedback from women students regarding what supports are needed.

One such request for support was to provide a safe space for women students to upskill, network, and learn. With topics such as self-advocacy, tips for interviews, panel discussions and upskilling breakout groups, the Women in Tech Summit created that space. Building on the momentum of WeAreAllCS, a diversity initiative to represent the full spectrum of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status, the summit is part of a multipronged approach to make computer science a more welcoming at Dal and in the industry.

Creating a safe space



The real benefits of a summit like this are that women get to see themselves in their peers and identify and connect with representative role models, says Dr. Angela Siegel, assistant dean, academic outreach in the Faculty of Computer Science. These women know the feeling of being two out of 10. This summit was such a wonderful contrast.

Reddivari agrees that the atmosphere is a big part of the events success. These upskilling events and workshops are helpful because they put you on the spot in a safe environment, she says. Nobody's judging you, and were all learning.

Emily Fenton, manager of ShiftKey Labs, a partner in this years summit, says the events emphasis on upskilling is important framing for a lot of students. She says many employers have initiatives to hire women, but often with the caveat when all else is equal.

Fenton says if men are receiving extra training, women should too. Finding time to do that upskilling maybe doesn't always seem like a priority, she acknowledges. But it's a competitive job market and sometimes you need things on your resume that prove you're willing to learn.

Summits benefits extend beyond Dal



Around 50 women-identifying and non-binary undergraduate and graduate students attended the inaugural event. Most attendees were Dal students, but some travelled from as far away as Cape Breton to attend the summit. A few students from Cape Breton University shared that this was a first event of this kind that they had been to, and that they were thrilled to be surrounded by so many women in their field, says Dr. Siegel.

Other attendees came from the Matrix CODE program through ONE North End, a grassroots organization that helps African Nova Scotians who face barriers to employment learn programming and software development skills. Dalhousie offers an open-credit course to Matrix CODE participants, which covers the basics of computer programming, including designing, writing and testing programs and creating algorithms to solve simple problems.

Computer science is the future, says Reddivari. You can do so much with tech  health, sports, anything! Its exciting to think of the apps and things women and non-binary people will come up with.



From L-R: Rawan Morshed, Sarah Morshed, Fariha Zerin Rabita, Carla Heggie
The Dal Solutions series offers an in-depth look at how Dalhousie researchers are collaborating across disciplines to make significant contributions to lives locally, nationally, and around the globe.

The Snapshot

Canadians have access to a drug that prevents HIV infection, but it's not getting into the hands of those who need it most. Dalhousies Dr. Kyle Wilby is tackling the issue by collaborating with policymakers to make Nova Scotian pharmacists among the first in the country with the ability to prescribe the lifesaving medication.

The Challenge

Dale Lemieux lives in Nova Scotia and knows very well a frustration shared by many in Canada's 2SLGBTQI+ community: trying to access Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a drug that could make them nearly impervious to HIV.



Dale Lemieux

Over the years, I talked to people at the clinics about wanting to get on PrEP, and they said  okay, but these are the million steps, says Lemieux. You have to talk to a doctor, you have to get this blood work, then you have to come here, and then you have to do this, and then you'll have to do that again. And then we can't guarantee the time that youll get in. It was just all very daunting.

That's why he, like others often do, gave up pursuing PrEP before even getting started.

And while antiretroviral therapies have significantly diminished the dangers of HIV, the virus is still very much with us. Statistics Canada counted 1,833 new diagnoses in 2022, a 25 per cent increase over 2021. The pathogen leads to a greater risk of infections, cancers, and cardiovascular and liver disease. The emotional burden of managing and disclosing HIV can seriously impact mental health. And Canadians continue to die of the virus  133 in 2021.

For those in the health field, PrEP offers an obvious answer. But the path to get there is complicated. Barriers to access make adoption difficult.

Dalhousie health researcher Dr. Kyle Wilby explains that until earlier this month, Nova Scotians who wanted PrEP needed to get a prescription from oversubscribed primary physicians or nurse practitioners. Sexual Health Nova Scotia clinics are also an option, but months-long appointment waits make regular check-ins and blood testing for refills difficult to manage.

I know there's definitely people out in the community who havent been able to follow through with getting PrEP, says Lemieux. Were at risk, and that's not something that we should have to deal with when there is something preventative that we should be able to access in an easier way.

The Solution

As a gay man and pharmacist who worked in Ghana and Qatar earlier in his career, Dr. Wilby says he was confronted firsthand with how a persons sexual identity can limit access to health care. Its a lesson that informs the work of this newly appointed director of Dalhousies College of Pharmacy, including his efforts to increase access to PrEP in Nova Scotia.



Dr. Kyle Wilby, Professor and Director of Dalhousie's College of Pharmacy

Dr. Wilby started taking PrEP years ago while working in New Zealand. When he moved to Nova Scotia without a family doctor, he quickly found his access to the drug changed for the worse.

I was going to walk-in clinics to get my prescription and physicians weren't aware of it or they didn't know about the monitoring. The use of PrEP is still not very common, so they cant be blamed. But the result was disjointed care for a drug that requires regular monitoring and testing for STIs, says Dr. Wilby.

He saw a solution at the pharmacists counter. Embedded in every neighborhood, he says pharmacies provide ready access to health professionals who specialize in the proper use of medication.

He says giving pharmacists the power to prescribe PrEP is a natural fit with the greater role theyve begun to play in relieving pressure on taxed health care systems. Their function as a release valve became evident during the COVID pandemic when pharmacists stepped up to deliver vaccines. But it can also be seen in their expanded authority to prescribe and refill drugs and manage chronic ailments like diabetes.

The Work

Our objective was to explore the feasibility and acceptability of PrEP prescribing by pharmacists in Nova Scotia as part of their scope of practice, says Dr. Wilby.

In a six-month pilot study supported by Shoppers Drug Mart, Dr. Wilby followed 50 patients at 10 pharmacies, tracking the experience from both sides of the counter. The results were positive, with pharmacists keen to provide the service and patients eager to pursue it in the future.



A pill container with PrEP.

On July 1, after reviewing the studys findings and a proposal from Dr. Wilby, the Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists, which regulates the practice of pharmacy in Nova Scotia, authorized pharmacists to prescribe for PrEP. This makes Nova Scotia pharmacists the first in the country to prescribe PrEP.

Bev Zwicker, CEO and registrar of the Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists, says the research completed by Dr. Wilby provided the insight to land on the decision.



This is about determining when somebody would benefit from a medication for prevention, says Zwicker. So, when Dr. Wilby came to us, it was clear that this would be a role that pharmacists could play in protecting people from HIV. Then it was just a matter of developing the necessary safeguards to ensure that it happens safely.



Now that pharmacists have this prescribing authority, planning is taking place so pharmacists can fully implement this scope so the public can benefit. The expectation is that the first prescriptions will be written in early fall.

The Impact

As one of the studys participants, Dale Lemieux says the experience was transformative.

We have been working with the pharmacists and it has been life-changing in the way that we are on top of everything," he says. "I feel safer now. It was what I needed in my life. I think it's needed in a lot of queer peoples lives to have this kind of access.



Lemieux, right, at the pharmacy

Dartmouth-based pharmacist Yasmine Abdalla, who also participated in the study, says shes happy to see the research led to her professions ability to add further capacity to Nova Scotias health-care system.

Extending the scope of our practice is really important, she says. A recent report showed Primary Care Clinics have contributed to a 10 per cent decrease in visits to the ER for non-essential emergencies. That's an achievement. Even if I play a small role in that, I'm happy.

Dr. Wilby echoes the sentiment, noting that a key goal of his work is focused on reducing burdens on the healthcare system. But his primarily concerned is improving health outcomes. He says connections between pharmacists and people seeking PrEP will open new doors to care, highlighting that testing conducted for the study already revealed numerous other health issues, including hepatitis B and cases of asymptomatic chlamydia and gonorrhea that were then treated.

People might come in for PrEP, but pharmacists might determine they also need support for mental or cardiovascular health, and refer them onward, he says. It offers that first contact with the health-care system that can start that person to on their health journey, hopefully in a more inclusive and accessible way.
Volkswagen College: A college built on the industrial chain

People's Daily Online) 14:48, July 26, 2024

Among the many departments and colleges of Hefei University, Volkswagen College is the most special.

The college is located in the Sino-German Cooperation Innovation Park in HETDA (Hefei Economic and Technological Development Area), with enterprises from the new energy vehicles (NEV) and next-generation information technology industries located just next to it.

53 teachers are involved in teaching at Volkswagen College, providing instruction to its students, with half of them coming from Volkswagen.

Just like the college itself, the curriculum offered is very unique. In addition to general courses on NEVs, there are also curriculum modules co-constructed by the university and Volkswagen, covering topics like production and operations at the company. During a students third year of study, the "classroom" will even be transferred to enterprises and training centers for hands-on experience.

Aerial view of the Volkswagen College of Hefei University. (People's Daily Online/Zhang Jun)

In recent years, the automobile industry has been designated as the "first industry" of Anhui Province, and foreign enterprises represented by Volkswagen have gradually increased their capital investment and industrial layout in Anhui.

On July 16, 2021, Hefei University (previously known as Hefei Union University), the Managing Committee Of HETDA, Volkswagen Group China and Volkswagen Anhui signed a letter of intent, deciding to cooperate in the establishment of the Volkswagen College at Hefei University. Through a dual system education approach at the undergraduate level, the initiative aims to integrate education, talent cultivation, industry development and innovation chains. The goal is to create a synergy among professional training, industry, and employment, fueling the development of a world-class NEV and intelligent connected vehicle (ICV) cluster in Anhui. This collaboration is set to provide major support for accelerating the provinces automotive industrys ascent.

What is dual system education? In the words of Hefei University party committee member and Volkswagen College Dean Wang Xiaofeng, it is a system that puts students in two learning environments, school and industry. Students are taught by tutors in school and engineers in enterprises. Schools and enterprises collaborate to create a cultivation model characterized by multiple scenarios, stages, and objectives to achieve the integration of theory and practice. This model improves students' ability to apply theoretical knowledge to enterprise practice, and cultivates "the most needed talents" for enterprises.

Students at Volkswagen College study the subject under the guidance of their teachers (People's Daily Online/Zhang Jun)

"At present, Volkswagen College has three majors: intelligent manufacturing engineering, data science and big data technology, and new energy materials and devices, with a total of 194 students across two cohorts," said Wang.

Even before the establishment of the Volkswagen College, Hefei University had cultivated engineers for Volkswagen Anhui. Working together, the university and company selected third-year students from across a number of majors based on different job requirements. Selected students underwent a one-year corporate training program with Volkswagen, and were referred to as the seed engineers.

Today, 11 of those pioneering "seed engineers" have taken up various roles at Volkswagen. Now Volkswagen College has taken over the responsibility of cultivating the next batch of talents.

In July this year, Wang Chengxin, a student majoring in new energy materials and devices at Volkswagen College, just finished her sophomore year. In addition to the academic courses, what impressed her most was the enterprise courses on campus.

Wang explained, The courses conducted by corporate instructors were full of useful information, and gave me a much clearer idea of my future career development.

For Volkswagen, the use of corporate executives and experts to teach is also an important means to "lead" the talent cultivation process. As of July 2024, Volkswagen Group corporate instructors have completed 53 lectures, with nearly 5,000 attendances.

Martin Hofmann, executive vice president of Volkswagen Group (China), said that Volkswagen College is committed to cultivating versatile and applied talents for the future ICV mobility travel industry.

This education model requires close collaboration and in-depth exploration between the enterprise and university. In the process of building the curriculum system, Volkswagen Group and the university have engaged in thorough discussions, striving to combine the most cutting-edge technology, products and industry trends with theoretical knowledge, added Hofmann.

(Pan Yidan, an intern, also contributed to this article.)

(Web editor: Sheng Chuyi, Liang Jun)
Kayakers line up at the edge of Carnelian Bay on Lake Tahoes North Shore. A week after an untreated sewage spill marred the lakes tourist season, one beach on the bay remains closed. Jeanne Cooper/The Chronicle

A week after an untreated sewage spill marred North Lake Tahoes tourist season, one of the two popular beaches affected has reopened.

The Carnelian West and Patton Landing beaches in Carnelian Bay were initially closed just before sunset on July 18, when a private contractor, working on a Caltrans project, damaged a pipeline belonging to the North Tahoe Public Utility District.

As a result, approximately 125,000 gallons of sewage leaked into a nearby parking lot, with around 85,000 gallons reaching the pristine lake.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Although the pipeline was quickly repaired, ongoing efforts have been directed at cleaning the spill, mitigating shoreline damage and ensuring water quality.

A golden retriever goes after a ball thrown into the water at Carnelian Bay in North Lake Tahoe. Jeanne Cooper/The Chronicle

In a Thursday update, district officials announced that Patton Landing Beach reopened to the public at 5 p.m. after recent water quality tests at the spill site showed bacteria levels within Californias beach water quality standards.

Conversely, bacteria levels at Carnelian West Beach remain elevated and above the state standards, keeping the beach closed.

Water quality samples are being taken daily along the Lake Tahoe shoreline, with results typically taking 24 hours to process.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

An advisory indicates the areas of North Lake Tahoe affected by the untreated sewage spill as of Thursday, July 25. North Tahoe Public Utility District

Authorities will assess the daily findings and consider lifting or modifying the health advisory once at least two consecutive days of data confirm that bacteria levels are consistently below state standards.

Should future tests indicate rising bacteria levels at Patton Beach or east of the spill site, the original health advisory and beach closure could be reinstated.

The spill was caused during the installation of a lighted crosswalk by a private contractor working for Caltrans, Justin Broglio, a spokesperson for the utility district, told the Chronicle.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad
Key Points:

The joint flight of Russian and Chinese bombers near Alaska marks the first time Chinese military aircraft have been intercepted in that region and the first instance of Russian and Chinese bombers flying together near Alaska.

The incident highlights the deepening military partnership between Russia and China, which has raised concerns among U.S. officials about the potential threat to regional stability.

While the bombers remained in international airspace, the joint operation demonstrated Russia and Chinas growing military capabilities and willingness to challenge U.S. dominance in the Arctic.

Russian and Chinese Bombers Intercepted Off Alaskan Coast

The United States and Canada jointly intercepted four Russian and Chinese bombers operating in international airspace near Alaska on Wednesday, July 24th, 2024. This marked the first time that Chinese military aircraft had been intercepted in that region and the first instance of Russian and Chinese bombers flying together near Alaska.

Get alerts:

The incident, which has raised concerns about growing military cooperation between Russia and China, occurred within Alaskas Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). While the aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace, the joint flight has been described as a testing of U.S. defenses.

The Incident

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected and tracked two Russian Tupolev TU-95 strategic bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers operating within the Alaskan ADIZ. American and Canadian fighter jets conducted the interception, escorting the bombers for approximately an hour before they left the area.

Growing Military Ties

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the joint operation, describing it as a five-hour air patrol over the Chukchi Sea, Bering Sea, and the North Pacific Ocean. The ministry highlighted the cooperation between Russian and Chinese crews during all patrol stages and acknowledged the presence of foreign fighters accompanying the air group at specific points.

The joint flight underscores the deepening military ties between Russia and China. While both countries do not have a formal defense treaty, their military cooperation has increased in recent years. This incident follows a series of strategic bomber patrols conducted by the two nations, including their first joint patrol in 2019.

The growing partnership has raised concerns among U.S. officials, who see it as a potential threat to regional stability. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks noted the increasing Chinese military interest in the Arctic region and Chinas role in funding Russian energy exploitation in the area. She also highlighted the recent combined exercises conducted by Russia and China in the same region.

Reactions and Implications

The U.S. Defense Department has described the joint bomber flights as not a surprise, suggesting that the operation may have been planned for some time. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin emphasized that the U.S. closely monitored these aircraft and remains at the ready. He stated that the U.S. will continue to see challenges from adversaries in the region.

Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska described the flights as an escalation and called for the U.S. to enhance its military capabilities and infrastructure to counter the growing threat posed by Russia and China in the Arctic.

Chinas Ministry of National Defence spokesperson, Zhang Xiaogang, said the joint flight was the eighth strategic air cruise organized by the two militaries since 2019. He emphasized that the operation was in line with international law and practice and not intended to target any specific nation.

However, reports suggest that the Russian Ministry of Defense referred to the joint flights location as a new area of joint operations, indicating that the countries may plan to conduct similar activities regularly in the North Pacific and Bering Sea near U.S. territory.
A Derry man is completing a gruelling running challenge to raise money for the Derry branch of Parkinsons UK.

Matthew McClelland is running 4 km every four hours for four days, with his final run on Saturday afternoon at 2pm.

Following his father's disease diagnosis in November 2023, the 26-year-old embarked on this task.

Mr. McClelland said: The Parkinsons centre in Derry in St. Columbs Park has been a great help for him and the family.

It has helped us come to terms with the diagnosis and made him feel like it is not the end of the world and that he can still have a very fulfilling life.

"Firstly, I wanted to raise money for Parkinson's in general, and then when I got in contact with Parkinson's, they said they were able to funnel all the money directly to the centre in St. Columbs Park, so all the money raised is going directly to the centre that is helping my dad and so many other people.

Usually, when someone tackles a demanding challenge like this, they have had some experience.

But Mr. McClelland had only a limited amount of prior running experience, having gotten into it like many during Covid but he didnt sustain it.

And as his body gets stiffer and more fatigued after every run the support he has received has pushed him through.

He said: It has been a massive help; like, Ive had a good few mates come out and do a few runs with me, other mates on holidays over in Manchester and London who have done virtual runs at the same time as mine.

My girlfriend has been incredible. She has supported me through every run and has had to listen to my complaints, so bless her.

Even someone just dropping me a message to let me know people are supporting you when you are sore makes it that bit easier to power through.

Support for the 26-year-old has been evident in the money he has raised, and he is incredibly grateful for it.

He said: Ive raised 3,850 so far. It is quite funny, actually. When I first put the link up in June, I had an initial target of 500, and I think I hit 1000 within an hour and a half. My phone just wouldnt stop. So it is a ridiculous amount of money that has been raised, and it helps make these runs a little bit easier.

My family would like to thank everyone for helping a cause that is so close to our hearts. It is amazing to see how kind people are.

As pleased as he is about the fundraising that has been done for Parkinson's, he cannot wait for it to be over with a crisp, refreshing pint to celebrate.

He joked: Im never coming to this Sainsburys again; I hate this car park. Im probably never going to walk the quay again; Im just done with it all.

I am pretty wrecked.

Ill just be relieved once it is over. The last run we are running from my house to the Glen bar, or local, a good few people are going to come and meet for a pint to celebrate.

Im sure after one sip Ill be on my back.

You can donate to his cause through this link, and Mr. McClelland has expressed his gratitude in advance to anyone who does donate or celebrates the completion of his final run at 2pm at Glen Bar on Saturday.
A man currently on bail and subject to a curfew fell asleep at a friend's house and missed his curfew Derry Magistrate's Court heard today.

Ryan McLaughlin (36) of Broomy Lane in Derry appeared charged with breaching his bail by being out after his curfew time of 11pm.

The court heard that police were alerted to the breach of curfew on July 24 by G4S and made six attempts to contact McLaughlin unsuccessfully.

McLaughlin was arrested the next day.

Bail was opposed due to the fact that the defendant had breached his conditions and the police officer said that the defendant had 'no regard for court orders'.

Defence solicitor Paddy MacDermott said that his client was on bail since May 3 without incident.

He said it was a simple case where he had fallen asleep in a friend's house and missed his curfew and when he realised this he went straight home.

The solicitor said that there had been no new offences and asked for bail to be granted with a final warning.

Deputy District Judge John Rea said he would accept the breach was 'a genuine mistake' but warned the defendant he had to be 'very careful'.

McLaughlin was re-released on bail to appear again on August 1.
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.
Greg Porter is a senior newsroom meteorologist at the San Francisco Chronicle. Porter comes to Chronicle after seven years working as a meteorologist for the Capital Weather Gang at the Washington Post. Porter has also worked as a meteorological technical subject matter expert in for both government and commercial organizations around the world.

Porter received his Bachelors and Masters Degrees in Atmospheric Science from UMass Lowell and the University of Maryland. A native of Boston, Porter has also spent time living in Washington, D.C. and Edinburgh, Scotland.

Outside of work, Porter loves to spend time with his wife and very energetic 2 year old son. He also enjoys spending as much time outside as possible and he fancies himself a very average golfer.
Sink or surf? VCs weigh in on Taiwan startups facing the AI Tsunami

As artificial intelligence reshapes industries globally, Taiwan's startup ecosystem finds itself at a critical juncture.

The island nation's historical strengths in hardware and semiconductors offer unique advantages, but adapting to the new AI paradigm also presents challenges. At the AWS Summit Taipei, leading venture capitalists shared insights on how Taiwanese founders can ride the AI wave.

Taiwan's dominance in hardware and semiconductor manufacturing has put it squarely in the spotlight of the AI revolution. "Suddenly, everyone from Silicon Valley is asking me about TSMC and how to secure more GPU compute power in Taiwan," noted Tina Cheng, Partner at Cherubic Ventures. This hardware edge extends to the fundamental infrastructure powering AI applications.

However, the current AI wave requires a comprehensive approach, encompassing both software and hardware. "With AI now bridging software and hardware, this cross-disciplinary expertise becomes even more valuable," said Dr. Brian Hsu, Partner at MediaTek Capital.

Indeed, as AI applications like robotics gain prominence, Taiwan's deep talent pool across hardware, software, and manufacturing could be a key differentiator. Dr. Huang Lee, Managing Partner at Taiwania Capital, noted that many US robotics startups struggle with hardware execution.

While Taiwanese founders can now access cutting-edge AI tools as easily as their global peers, competition has intensified. "The technical barriers to entry for AI startups have lowered significantly," Cheng observed. While technical prowess remains essential, "now the differentiator is often go-to-market strategy, which isn't traditionally a strength for Taiwanese and Asian founders."

Dr. Lee echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of identifying valuable problems to solve. "With new technologies, we always ask - can this address existing pain points better than before? Understanding industry-specific challenges deeply is crucial."

The investors highlighted several promising areas at the intersection of AI and Taiwan's strengths:

1. AI Hardware Infrastructure: As compute demands skyrocket, innovations in chip design, memory, and system architecture tailored for AI workloads present significant opportunities.

2. Robotics: Taiwan's manufacturing prowess combined with AI expertise could yield globally competitive robotics startups, particularly those targeting industrial and enterprise applications.

3. Domain-Specific AI: Rather than competing head-on in general-purpose AI, Taiwanese startups can leverage deep industry knowledge to build vertical-specific AI solutions.

4. AI-Enhanced Traditional Industries: Applying AI to transform established sectors like manufacturing, where Taiwan already has a strong foothold.

For startups pivoting towards generative AI, the VCs recommended a measured approach. "Don't get caught up in FOMO (fear of missing out)," Cheng advised. "Assess if embracing gen AI truly aligns with your core business and target market."

However, capturing these opportunities requires overcoming certain hurdles. Dr. Lee noted that Taiwanese founders often excel technically but may lack exposure to global market dynamics. "In Taiwan, we often see startups solving problems they encounter locally. The critical question is whether these issues are global in nature. If a problem is universally applicable, the solution's value increases substantially," he stated.

The investors also stressed the importance of cross-disciplinary teams. "If you're building AI for factory automation, having team members with actual manufacturing industry experience is invaluable," Dr. Lee explained.

Taiwan's startups have a unique window of opportunity in the AI era, but capitalizing on it requires looking beyond technological prowess alone. Understanding global markets, building diverse teams, and honing business acumen will be crucial to translating the island's hardware and AI strengths into world-class companies.

For Taiwan's ambitious founders, the message is clear: the AI revolution presents a chance to shine on the global stage, but success will require combining the island's traditional engineering excellence with a more outward-looking, market-driven approach. As Dr. Hsu succinctly put it, "It's no longer about being the best coder or chip designer. In the AI age, the winners will be those who can seamlessly blend technology, market insight, and execution at a global scale."

With billions in AI investment flowing globally and Taiwan's critical role in the hardware underpinning this transformation, the island's startup ecosystem stands at an inflection point. The coming years will reveal whether a new generation of founders can seize this moment to elevate Taiwan's tech industry beyond its hardware roots and establish the island as a true AI powerhouse.
August Craft Month, a month-long celebration of local craft across the island of Ireland, launches with a host of exciting events taking place throughout Louth.

This year August Craft Month returns with a packed programme of over 400 events across all corners of the island. Events include; workshops, exhibitions, open studios and festivals to allow audiences to immerse themselves in local craft. With a whole range of crafts from ceramics to carving, glass to sewing available to be explored. There is something for everyone, of all ages, and all levels of expertise.

August Craft Month celebrates a rich craft heritage with artisans keeping ancient traditions alive and new talented makers bringing real vibrancy to the scene.

People can enjoy creative craft celebrations on their doorstep, as well as hit the road on a craft inspired adventure or staycation. Led by Design & Crafts Council Ireland and Craft NI, the annual celebration is once again part of an island-wide summer programme. This year also sees August Craft Month continue their long-term collaboration with Cork Craft & Design.

Local makers such as; Sarah McKenna, Fiona Quigley and Aine Dunne will all be involved in the celebrations and events, to name a few.

The programme provides unmissable opportunities to experience, participate in, support, buy and learn about the local stand-out craft sector. Below you will find just a few of the exciting events on offer in Louth:

Parent and Child Therapeutic Journaling with Fiona Quigley

Location: Bridge Street Studios, 97 Bridge Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth; Price: 60 for 1 Adult & 1 Child; Date & Time: Tuesday 6th August 6pm-8pm

Experience the joy and therapeutic value of journaling. This workshop aims to help parent and child connect to their emotions and facilitate personal growth through creativity. No experience necessary, all materials provided. Age 10 upwards.

Make a Vase with Soft Slabs with Sarah McKenna Ceramics

Location: Bridge Street Studios, 97 Bridge Street, Dundalk, Co. Louth; Price: 50; Date & Time: Thursday 15th August 7pm  9pm

Create your own unique vase, using soft slabs of clay which you can decorate and impress with patterns and textures. Vases will be dried, glazed and fired and collected at a later date or Sarah can arrange shipping. To book this event please visit: bridgestreetstudios.com

A Practical Guide to Weaving Tapestry

Location: An Cruach, Ballymakenny, Drogheda, Co. Louth, Ireland; Price: FREE; Date & Time: Sunday 11th August 10am  2pm

Aine Dunne is a tapestry weaver working from her studio in the Boyne Valley on Irelands Ancient East coast. She has produced commissions for hotels, churches, LinkedIn International Offices in Dublin and more recently Pinterests new Dublin offices. As a member of CTA Contemporary Tapestry Artists Ireland, she represents them in this unique hands on tapestry weaving workshop at her studio for August Craft Month.

The workshop will introduce participants to the art of tapestry weaving. The participants will explore tapestry design in Ireland and learn techniques that will help them design their own tapestry piece. Participants will prepare looms, weave patterns, finish their tapestry and bring it home from the studio as a keepsake and inspiration into the world of tapestry weaving.

Craft NI and Design & Crafts Council Ireland have come together to deliver this important initiative. For the first time ever, people can use the August Craft Month interactive map on the augustcraftmonth.org website to find the closest events happening in your local community. For the full island-wide programme, visit www.augustcraftmonth.org. Share your own craft adventures by tagging @augustcraftmonth24 and use the hashtags #augustcraftmonth2024 #makeseebuy

For more information, and to get a feel for the craft events near you and across Ireland, visit www.augustcraftmonth.org.
Local history and heritage groups in Louth are being invited to access a new guide to help secure the future of their volunteer organisation.

Succession Planning: A Guide for Community Archives and Heritage Groups is a free resource developed by the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN) - a National Museum of Ireland initiative delivered in partnership with the Heritage Council, participating Local Authorities and community groups across Ireland.

The Guide looks at ways volunteer groups can address some of the challenges that can influence their future success. Common challenges include attracting new members, getting young people involved; keeping adequate records; or losing access to accounts due to lost passwords or IT crashes. Effective succession planning addresses these challenges so that groups can safeguard their work into the future.

iCAN was set-up to support volunteer groups across Ireland to develop and maintain their own community archive. It developed the Guide to provide a simple step-by-step process for good succession planning - from having written goals, objectives and operational procedures to protecting passwords and access to websites and social media accounts.

The Guide was officially launched on Thursday at the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar. It is now available to download for free from www.museum.ie and www. ouririshheritage.org . Speaking at the launch, Lorna Elms, iCAN Development Officer, said:

iCAN works to empower local communities to document their own history, heritage and culture. This Succession Planning Guide is designed for community archives and heritage groups to ensure their work is future-proofed. It provides a structured approach to forward-planning which, if carried out on an annual basis, will help to ensure groups are maintained and continue to thrive.

Aalia Kamal, Cultural and Inclusive Heritage Officer with the Heritage Council and a member of the iCAN Advisory Group, also attended the launch. She said: Local heritage groups are doing invaluable work developing archives and sharing knowledge, collections, stories and local history.

"The Heritage Council is delighted to support this work through our involvement with iCAN. The Succession Planning Guide we are launching here today is another great resource provided by iCAN to volunteer researchers and archivists in communities.

iCAN member Mary OMalley, from the Louisburgh-Killeen Heritage Group in Co. Mayo, also attended the launch. Welcoming the publication of the new Guide, she said: I am delighted this Succession Planning Guide is now available to download for free to groups across Ireland.

"iCAN members have drawn on their collective experience and contributed their thoughts and ideas to develop the guidelines, audits and checklists comprised in the guide and I am sure these will provide a very useful tool and resource for groups who are working to document their local history, heritage and culture and make it available to others. Indeed this Succession Planning Guide is a template for any volunteer led community group looking to plan for the future."

Marie Mannion, iCAN member and Heritage Officer with Galway County Council, also welcomed the launch of the Guide: There are 36 community archives developed through iCAN with heritage groups across Ireland and this resource will help to promote the long term sustainability of these archives and groups.

"It is hugely important to ensure volunteers can continue to access their websites into the future and to prioritise the ongoing feasibility of the volunteer group itself. The Succession Planning Guide provides lots of practical tips, advice and processes for that purpose.
Agri Aware is teaming up with farmers to bring tips for staying safe on farms for Farm Safety Week, which ends on July 26.

Through its social media channels, Agri Awares Safety In Every Field social media campaign will highlight and raise awareness of dangers on farms and how to be safe while on a farm.

Farmers and agri businesses across the agricultural sector will share their farm safety tips on topics including safe livestock handling, tractor and quad safety, working safely with slurry, wearing correct PPE while dealing with chemicals and much more.

Raising awareness about farm safety has never been more important.

In its annual report released in June, the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) revealed that farming continues to have the highest number of fatalities, with 16 out of 43 (37%) workplace accident fatalities 2023.

Farm accidents result in physical and emotional consequences for farmers and their families, which is what this campaign aims to highlight and raise awareness through, by showing best practices while working on a farm.

The Safety In Every Field campaign for Farm Safety Week aims to raise awareness not only within the farming community but also amongst the general public.

With schools recently finished for the summer holidays, children and adults should understand the potential dangers on farms they may be visiting.

Cork vet and president of Veterinary Ireland, Hazell Mullins, will be joining us for Farm Safety Week.

Hazell, who has a strong following of 17.500 people on Instagram, brings a wealth of veterinary and farming knowledge to her audience. She aims to provide Agri Aware followers with valuable insights into the use of a livestock crush, ensuring safer handling practices.

Speaking about the Safety In Every Field campaign for Farm Safety Week, Agri Aware Chairman Shay Galvin said: Highlighting the importance of being safe on farms has never been more essential.

Farms can be hazardous, and without sharing knowledge on safe practices, accidents will continue to occur.

This social media campaign aims to refresh those working on a farm to be aware of the dangers that are present on farms and how to be safe while working on a farm, be it with machinery or livestock for example.

Furthermore, it cant be emphasised enough that farms are not a playground and as such this campaign is very much relevant to those visiting farms, especially now during the school holidays, how they and their families can be safe.

The public can access Agri Awares social media platforms, Instagram, X and TikTok to educate and engage with the advice from farmers during Farm Safety Week.

In 2024, Agri Aware has been busy in the farm safety space, rolling out its farm safety initiative Safe Farm Futures in primary schools across the country.

To date, 23,647 students are enrolled in the programme with 60 workshops completed so far this year across 16 counties.

The programme aims to enhance safe farm practices among children to make the countryside and farms a safer place to live and work on.

Agri Aware, the independent farming and agri-food educational body, is a charitable trust whose mission is to improve the image and understanding of agriculture, farming and the food industry among the public.

Agri Aware is tasked with conveying the importance of the agri-food industry among the public and bridge the gap between producer and consumer.

It delivers high-impact educational and public awareness initiatives and projects for students and the public through its school programmes and at events nationwide.

Safe Farm Futures is a farm safety initiative created by Agri Aware which aims to enhance safety literacy among children to make the countryside and farms a safer place to live and work on.

The Safe Farm Futures programme attends primary school classes to discuss safety around machinery, safe livestock handling and taking care while in the countryside.

Agri Aware had its first farm safety demonstration at Flavours of Fingal Show at the end of June and hopes to continue throughout the year to demonstrate common safety issues on farms.

Safe Farm Futures has also recorded a series of webinars available on YouTube.
One of Cork theatres oldest traditions returned to the stage this week to a sold-out house and a standing ovation.

For over two decades, the annual Summer Revels! series was a showbiz mainstay in Cork, and now it has now been relaunched for a whole new generation.

On Wednesday evening, the premiere of Summer Revels!, which takes its name from a series of productions which ran through the 1970s and 1980s, opened in Cork Opera House, bringing the audience to their feet after a show-stopping display of comedy, music and dance.

The production boasts a company it describes as 100% Cork, and it is led by West End star Claire OLeary, fresh from her recent run at The London Palladium in Andrew Lloyd Webbers new Wizard of Oz, and following her debut in Les Miserables.

She is joined by Cork theatre icons Declan Wolfe, from The Den and The Improv Panto, Michael Sands from The Sound of Music, Annie, and The Young Offenders, and Trevor Ryan from the Cork Opera House Panto.

The 17-strong professional ensemble also includes several Cork musical theatre performers who have been entertaining audiences nationally and internationally for years, including Marie ODonovan, Therese OSullivan, Alex Glennon, Fiona Kennedy.

They are joined by Bandons Alison Arnopp, and emerging Cork artist Precious Abimbola, making her professional debut in the show.

Speaking after the opening night, Cork Opera House CEO, Eibhlin Gleeson, said she was delighted to see the return of an important part of Leesides theatre history.

We are thrilled to revive and present this show, which was once a cherished feature of our stage for over 20 years.

Without doubt, our cast represents the absolute creme of local, national, and international talent, and it is an immense achievement to be able to say that each and every one of them is from Cork, and began their theatrical training here, Ms Gleeson said.

Directed by Killian Collins and John OBrien, Summer Revels! runs at Cork Opera House until Sunday, August 4.

See www.corkoperahouse.ie for details.
A motion calling for there not to be restrictions on the cutting of verges along public roads prompted observations from councillors that the birds and the bees were too clever to make their homes in roadside ditches. The motion was made at a meeting of Cork County Council this week.

While the impact of cutting on flora and fauna was mentioned, most councillors focused on the safety of the roads, a number of which had become so overgrown that the grass on the left was meeting the growth on the right.

The motion, proposed by Independent councillor Finbar Harrington, who represents West Cork, urged the council to request an amendment to public policy to ensure that there would be no prohibited period for verge cutting on all public roads.

Dangerous

We all know how dangerous the vegetation growth that encroaches on public roads can be to all users, be they walkers or cyclists or motorists, said Mr Harrington. He pointed out that under current legislation, landowners were prohibited from hedge-cutting between March 1 and August 31 on all uncultivated lands.

There are several exceptions to this, one being the grounds of road safety, he said.

The problem is that, especially in West Cork, ferns, grass, briers, and brambles and vegetation, they grow at an alarming rate at this time of the year.

A road that was OK a month ago is dangerous now.

Mr Harrington said that the West Cork region, as a tourism destination, needed better management of its road verges and he detailed a number of examples where he had been contacted by road users whose vehicles had been damaged by overgrown verges.

A large number of other councillors echoed Mr Harringtons concerns, and Independent councillor in East Cork Mary Linehan Foley suggested that the motion be amended to include footpaths, many of which were becoming overgrown with vegetation.

Deputy Mayor Martin Coughlan, who chaired the meeting, said that he was aware of footpaths in his area, Macroom, that were so overgrown that women pushing buggies were forced to step off the pavement onto the road.

Opposition

The motion was met with opposition from two Social Democrat councillors, who pointed to the biodiversity crisis. Liam Quaide, representing East Cork, said that widespread and indiscriminate hedge cutting was happening at this time of the year and it was happening with impunity.

Our trees and hedgerows have never been more at risk, Mr Quaide said.

And this is in the context of a biodiversity crisis which threatens the survival of all species, including human life.

In my view, we need to protect the vibrancy and colour and lushness of our roadside verges, as well as their biodiversity value for pollinators.

The road-safety implications of roadside verges is drastically exaggerated, in my view.

At junctions and other safety pinch-points, by all means cut, but this is not what we see in practice.

His Social Democrat colleague, Isobel Towse, said all West Cork councillors would have passed the grassy verges growing along the roadside exiting Bandon on the way to Cork.

I do not understand how grassy verges such as these could pose a danger.
Treatment was provided for more than 650 cases of problem alcohol use in Cork last year, new statistics show.

A new report by the Health Research Board (HRB) shows that nationally, 8,163 cases were treated for problem alcohol use in 2023, the highest number in over a decade.

In Cork, however, where 5,707 people have sought treatment for alcohol over the last seven years, numbers decreased by 3% in 2023 compared to 2022, though the report notes that participation in the reporting system is not uniform across Ireland.

Commenting on the new report, Brian Duncan, South-West manager for Coolmine Therapeutic Community, said that they saw a slight decrease in people identifying alcohol as a main problem compared to 2022.

In 2022, 20% of people identified cocaine as their primary drug, in 2023 it was 25%  almost all these people would also be using alcohol, he said.

The HRB report shows that nationally, one in four cases reported using another drug along with alcohol, with cocaine the most common additional drug, more than doubling since 2017.

Treatment

One Cork man who completed three months of treatment in 2023 told The Echo: When I went to treatment, I thought that I would still be able to drink after it, if I gave up cocaine.

Its much easier to blame drugs because nobody is supposed to do drugs anyway, but youd be protecting the drink, thinking: How could I ever go to events again without it?.

But in treatment, almost instantly I realised drink was my main problem  it leads to everything else. Any time I have taken cocaine, Id always have alcohol in my system first.

Im clean nearly 18 months now, and I dont think of drugs; if I have a craving its always drink, but if I took a drink it would instantly lead to everything else.

Mr Duncan said: With cocaine use, people tend to hit a crisis quicker due to a combination of financial and mental health issues, this means people reach out for help younger.

A persons alcohol use is more likely to have been problematic for quite some time by the time they reach out, and people with just alcohol addiction are more likely to present again for treatment at a later date.

He added that alcohol has been, and continues to be, by and far the most significant problem substance across society  close to half to all presentations to services are in relation to alcohol, that can be missed because its seen as so socially acceptable and its legal.

Rise

The report detailed a rise in the amount of alcohol consumed and the frequency of alcohol consumption, with 51.5% of the total number treated in Ireland in 2023 having consumed alcohol daily.

Mr Duncan suggested that people drinking at home could be a factor in this.

People started drinking at home during covid, and the price of drinking out has gone up, he said.

When people are drinking at home, theres no closing hours or restrictions; and once it becomes habitual for someone, theyre more likely to drink every day.

The Cork man who spoke to The Echo said that this had been his experience.

Covid was the first time I drank at home, I always would have went out before; then after covid Id go out, but Id be dying to get back home, he said. You cant kick yourself out of your own house for drinking too much.

He advised anyone struggling to seek help before it gets worse.

If you think you might have an issue, you definitely do  even if you only feel like that after a binge or bender, then three days later you think you have no problem with drink.
Works are under way on remedying a fault at the Dunmanway waste water treatment plant, which led to a continuous discharge of sewage into the Bandon River near the West Cork town, an Uisce Eireann spokesperson has confirmed.

A video depicting what was described as pure pollution flowing into the river from the towns waste water treatment plant, had already been viewed more than 12,000 times before it was highlighted by a Fine Gael councillor during a meeting of Cork County Council on Monday.

The account given by Noel ODonovan, who represents the West Cork Municipal District on the council, prompted several of his colleagues to give accounts of similar sewage related issues in their areas.

This led to an unaminous call for Uisce Eireann executives to come before the council to give an account of what the utility was doing to deal with those issues as well as setting out investment plans for developing new plants and upgrading its existing facilities.

Overloaded

Councillors told of issues surrounding sewage discharge and overloaded plants in Macroom, Carrignavar, Carrigaline, Castletownbere, and Bandon.

Mr ODonovan said that he didnt want negative headlines while it was the height of summer and the tourist season in West Cork, but he had to highlight what was happening in Dunmanway.

Mr ODonovan said: For anyone whos seen the video, its upsetting.

Theres no words to describe how disgusting, how shocking it is, to look at the colour of the water thats coming out of the discharge in Dunmanway.

For any of us looking at it, theres no assessment needed to know what that actually is.

The waste water treatment plant was put in place in Dunmanway in 2013.

After this, new EU guidelines came into effect, and the facility in Dunmanway was no longer complying with these standards.

Cork County Council chief executive Moira Murrell told councillors that she had attended a meeting with Uisce Eireann, pointing out she had been told that the utility had invested upwards of 80m in Co Cork over the past eight years.

Her colleague Michael Lynch, divisional manager for South Cork, told the meeting that the council had updated Uisce Eireann last weekend about the latest situation regarding the discharges at the Dunmanway plant and would do so again after the meeting concluded.

Incidents

Councillors called on the executive to seek an urgent meeting with Uisce Eireann about the incident at Dunmanway and a litany of similar incidents in locations around the county.

They also called for a letter to be sent to the minister for the environment to voice the concerns expressed at the meeting.

In the statement from Uisce Eireann, the spokesperson said the cause of the incident related to air flow to the process units and confirmed remedial works were currently under way.

Uisce Eireann is engaging with Inland Fisheries Ireland and the EPA in relation to [the incident] and we will provide further updates as they become available said the spokesperson.

Cork South West Fianna Fail TD Christopher OSullivan said it was unacceptable that the town of Dunmanway would have to wait five to 10 years for the solution to waste water capacity.

The plant is only 12 years old, Mr OSullivan said.

It was built for capacity of 3,400, and the population of Dunmanway is at around 2,500.

Theres serious questions that have to be answered as to how we got to this point.
Siptu has described as shocking the decision by pharma firm Viatris to wind down its Little Island facility, which employs around 200 people, calling on Government to intervene to save the plant.

The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment confirmed it had received a collective redundancy notification from Viatris.

A Viatris spokesperson told The Echo that a thorough assessment of the site unfortunately concluded it was no longer viable due to challenging market and site dynamics.

The spokesperson said

there will be no immediate reductions: It is anticipated that the majority of the workforce will remain employed until early 2028 as the company winds down operations over the next several years.

Viatris remains committed to treating those impacted fairly and with respect.

Unions

The spokesperson said the company will work with unions on a plan, including comprehensive redundancy packages.

Cork Chamber public affairs director Cathal McSweeney said: The job losses announced at Viatris present a challenging situation for all involved, and we empathise with those affected by this unfortunate situation.

Mr McSweeney said Cork has experienced significant business growth and investment in the pharma and life science sectors, and the demand for skilled employees remains high, so they would be optimistic that those affected will find new jobs.

Siptu representatives have requested an urgent meeting with the company management, with organiser Ciara McMahon-Flavin saying: This announcement is a shocking development for our members, many of whom have provided decades of loyal service to the company at this plant. She said Siptu is also calling for Government intervention in an attempt to save this plant and its jobs.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin said yesterday: In situations like this, our first priority is the workers, we will galvanise all the State agencies to work to support them.

Alternative employment

Mr Martin pointed out there have been good announcements in Cork recently in terms of new employments such as in Motorola, saying: Hopefully within the broader Cork economy there will be capacity to secure alternative employment for the employees.

Fianna Fail TD in Cork North-Central, Padraig OSullivan, said he was deeply disappointed at the news.

The only silver lining from this situation is that workers have time to find alternative employment should they seek to do so, he said.

Nonetheless, this is an unexpected and significant blow to the employees and the local economy.

He welcomed Siptus involvement and added: I echo the Tanaistes comments this morning that the priority must be about the workers, and engagement is needed to work to source alternative employment for them.

Concerning

Sinn Fein Cork North-Central TD Thomas Gould said: This is extremely concerning for the workers and their families.

There needs to be a skills audit to support these workers in finding alternative employment as a matter of urgency.

People Before Profit-Solidarity TD in Cork North Central, Mick Barry, said: These jobs are being sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed.

Viatris is not in any kind of financial trouble, and isnt going to be any time soon.
Between 1922 and 1998, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary ran Bessborough as a mother and baby institution, and during that time 9,768 mothers and 8,938 babies were admitted.

According to the final report of the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation, some 923 children died at Bessborough or after being transferred from there.

Burial records exist for only 64 of the children who died in the care of the Bessborough institution or after transfer from it, meaning that the records and remains of 859 children are missing.

In 1960, Madeleine Walsh, a pregnant 18-year-old from Co Tipperary living and working in London, was sent back to Ireland, to Bessborough, by a Catholic group called The Crusade of Rescue.

While she was in labour, the nuns gave Ms Walsh an injection, and she later developed a large abscess where she had received the injection.

Her baby William was born healthy, but when he was three days old, he became suddenly extremely ill and was taken from his mother, who also became very sick.

When William was eventually brought to St Finbarrs Hospital, it was too late to save him and he died, six weeks old. His death certificate says he died of septicaemia.

Still desperately ill, Ms Walsh was told William had already been buried. Three decades later, visiting Bessborough, Ms Walsh was told he had been buried in the empty quadrant of the nuns graveyard by the Bessborough folly.

In 2019, almost 60 years after William died, the fifth interim report of the State commission on mother and baby homes was published. It was scathing in its criticism of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary at Bessborough, describing the information the nuns had given the commission as speculative, inaccurate, and misleading.

The report also contained distressing details clearly identifying William and showing that he had, in fact, been buried, over half a century earlier, in a paupers grave in the overgrown Famine graveyard on Carrs Hill.

Ms Walsh spoke at last months 10th annual commemoration at Bessborough, an event organised by her daughter, Carmel Cantwell. The event was MCd by PJ Coogan, with music by Myles Gaffney. Ms Walsh described the institution as a place of complete horror when she was brought there in 1960.

I was stripped, with two nuns looking on, observing what I was taking off, taking every single [thing], even little studded earrings you could hardly see were taken from me, everything. My shoes, everything.

She was made to wear a canvas dress and clogs, and she and another girl were put to work in the labour ward. I wasnt aware of the facts of life, I didnt even know where a baby came from, and yet we were put in charge of the labour ward. She said there was very little they could do to help each beautiful Irish girl, frightened out of her life.

Her voice faltering, Ms Walsh said she had been coming to the Bessborough folly for years, visiting what she had been led to believe was Williams grave, talking to him, apologising to him, before learning he was somewhere on Carrs Hill.

She said the Mother and Baby Institutions Payment Scheme Act 2023, which excludes those who were in an institution for less than six months, was an insult even to those eligible.

Around 68,000 people, mothers and babies, are believed to have gone through the religious-run system for unmarried mothers  but only 34,000 survivors will be eligible for redress.

Reflecting on her time in Bessborough, and remembering all the other girls and women who were put in such institutions, Ms Walsh said so many mothers had been incarcerated, their babies taken from them, and so many babies had died, like her baby William.

I wonder, what was it for? Why were we punished? What did we do wrong? she asked.

We could have looked after our babies, fed our babies, loved our babies, if we had been given the facilities, but no, everybody hated [us]. It was the church who got onto the parishioners, to put this hatred into their minds about single mothers.

Afterward, in a thoughtful address, the former lord mayor of Cork, independent councillor Kieran McCarthy, spoke about the many stories of Corks history, and of Blackrock, the stories he said which had the power to stop people in their tracks.

However, Mr McCarthy said, when the story came to that of Bessborough House, the reader would learn of the 19th-century folly, and the Pike family and their steamship industry, and then you turn the page over, and for our story today, the ink disappears.

Cork had done a lot, he suggested, to forget about Bessborough and the lives blighted by the institution.

PLANNING

This gathering is a beacon or a lighthouse to not only tell the stories of what happened here, to tell the human experiences of what happened, but also lead the calls to break the selectiveness of Cork and Irish history and completing the multitude of memory banks that are only partly explored  and to learn from all of that. Mr McCarthy said that he believed that the grounds of Bessborough needed to become a large-scale memory site or park.

He added that, when the planning process is finished, he believed that Cork City Council, with the help of central Government [would] work with the developer to see what can be done to either directly purchase or CPO (compulsory purchase order) the lands for commemoration purposes.

Early last year, MWB Two, the developers behind a proposed 92-unit residential development at Bessborough in Blackrock, lodged an appeal with An Bord Pleanala in a bid to overturn Cork City Councils decision to refuse planning permission. A decision is overdue on that appeal.

A separate decision from An Bord Pleanala on three separate developments, in total 467 apartments, at Bessborough, outstanding since 2021, is also overdue.

Sinn Fein councillor Michelle Gould said creating a memorial park would be so fitting.

The call by everyone at the commemoration was that there should be no planning permission, there should be nothing built here, it should be a memorial park, she said.

I think all parties and none should come together now, An Bord Pleanala should refuse planning permission, and Cork City Council, with the help of central Government, should CPO it, and the first thing that should be done is that the grounds be scanned for human remains.
A 33-year-old mother died after Cork University Hospital, when she first presented to the emergency department failed to detect that she had swallowed her denture, the High Court has heard.

The case of Beata Kunicka from Kanturk, Co Cork who was wrongly discharged home has now led to changes in hospitals across the country.

The High Court today heard Cork University Hospital (CUH) has apologised to her family for the deficiencies in the care provided to Beata.

Ms Kunicka had returned to CUH seventeen days after first being discharged from the emergency department, when she collapsed at home and was vomiting blood. She died over twenty hours later on October 12, 2021, and hours after the embedded denture was removed from her oesophagus.

The familys counsel Gabriel Gavigan SC instructed by Tracey Solicitors told the court that liability was never contested by the HSE and the proceedings brought by Ms Kunickas partner Kamil Jarzembski were settled for 450,000 after mediation.

The young mother first went to the hospital A&E on September 25, 2021, complaining of chest pain and reporting that she believed she had recently swallowed her denture which was two front teeth , supportive pallet and wiring.

A plain film X-ray of her chest was arranged, and she was given a small test meal to assess her ability to swallow. She was also given painkillers to treat her chest pain.

However, no foreign body showed up on the X-ray and Ms Kunicka, who was able to eat and drink was discharged.

LETTER

Counsel told the court in a letter to Ms Kunickas partner Kamil Jarzembski last year, the hospital CEO David Donegan said an external review into the care of Ms Kunicka makes clear that we failed to identify that her dental plate had indeed been swallowed and as such wrongly discharged her when she first presented to ED.

Medical staff, the letter said, were not aware at the time that some denture plates will not show up on X-ray and mistakenly decided that because she was able to eat and drink it was safe to discharge her.

It added that CUH has taken action to highlight these risks nationally to regulators and the HSE and amended its own local clinical training.

Counsel said Ms Kunicka returned to CUH on October 12 after 1am.

She was not assessed in the ED until 7am and she was vomiting blood. It was ordered she be given blood and a CT scan was arranged. She collapsed again and later underwent surgery where the embedded denture was removed. However, she suffered severe bleeding and had to be again stabilised.

It was claimed that there was a delay in further treatment due to there being disagreement as regards the diagnosis and in the hours that followed there was prolonged discussion of the case.

Ms Kunicka became critically unstable and was haemorrhaging form her ear nose and mouth. She continued to deteriorate and went into shock and died from cardiac arrest after resuscitation efforts failed.

Counsel told the court the letter from the hospital CEO stated that the review also outlined the care of Ms Kunicka in the hospital when she returned there on October 12.

It said it was a complex and challenging presentation but It is clear that a number of elements for care were not delivered promptly enough. Furthermore, clinical differences of opinion about the source for continued bleeding, the right course of corrective action and the availability of the necessary expertise to deliver it, all delayed her receiving the care she needed.

Ms Justice Leonie Reynolds offered her condolences to Mr Jarzemnski and their young daughter Julia over the very tragic series of events and she hoped they took some comfort from the review and that the recommendations have been shared nationally to ensure such an incident does not happen in an Irish hospital again.
A judge commented that a mans previous convictions totalling more than 500 may well be a record but his defence solicitor said it stemmed from a car crash 27 years ago when six members of his family were killed.

Richard OBrien, 53, of 14 Ardshanavooley, Killarney, County Kerry, pleaded guilty to two more public order charges at Cork District Court.

He admitted being drunk and a danger and engaging in threatening behaviour during a recent incident in Cork city.

Sergeant Aisling Murphy said he had a total of 544 previous convictions. Of those, 342 were for being so intoxicated that he was a danger to himself or others and 56 were for engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace.

Judge Mary Dorgan said on hearing this, Ah now, Mr Collins-Daly (defence solicitor), that must be a record.

Shane Collins-Daly solicitor said the defendant did tell him he had more than 500 convictions but he gave an explanation.

He says his life was ruined by drink going back a long time. He lost six members of his family 27 years ago in a Road Traffic Accident, Mr Collins-Daly said.

Sgt. Murphy outlined the background to the latest incident: On June 29 outside Gallaghers pub on MacCurtain Street, he was threatening members of the public and staff at the premise. When the gardai arrived he was verbally abusive to them.

Judge Dorgan said, Obviously, it is caused by trauma. It would be helpful if you (the accused) could get help for your drinking, while you are in custody. It does not help matters.

The judge imposed a prison term of two months on Richard OBrien on the threatening charge.
Munster Technological University (MTU) has been nominated for two awards for its dedication to entrepreneurship.

The nominations come as part of the Triple E Awards.

The Triple E Awards are a global recognition of efforts towards the quest for entrepreneurship and engagement in higher education.

It is the first set of awards to focus specifically on different dimensions of the universities third mission.

The Triple E Awards aim to foster change in universities and to emphasise their role in their communities and ecosystems.

These awards are organised in four regions around the world (Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia-Pacific). This year, the award ceremonies will be hosted in Sao Paulo (Americas awards), Lisbon (European and African awards) and Kuala Lumpur (Asia-Pacific awards).

MTU has been shortlisted in two categories: The team-level Innovation and Entrepreneurship Activators of the Year and the initiative-level EDI Community Engagement Initiative of the Year within the European category.

The combined success of four different initiatives earned MTU its nomination in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Activators of the Year category.

The Innovative Product Design Initiative, the Student Inc Entrepreneurship Programme, the Innovation Challenge, and the MTU Prize for Innovation all helped MTU to make the shortlist for the awards.

These four elements have been developed at MTU to ensure that they are complementary to each other, such that each of them focuses on a different aspect of educational entrepreneurship and engagement.

More than 5,000 people have benefited from the programmes over the last two decades.

The course coordinator for biomedical engineering in MTU, lecturer Hugh ODonnell, said: For many years, our team has provided a range of interlinked opportunities for students at all academic levels to express their creativity, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial talents.

We are delighted that the team has been recognised by being shortlisted for the Triple-E award category: Innovation and Entrepreneurship Activators of the Year.

MTU received its nomination in the EDI Community Engagement Initiative of the Year for its leadership in fostering youth entrepreneurship in rural and urban community initiatives, while increasing access to such initiatives for young people.

The university demonstrated this through its MTU Enterprise Camp and Goalmine programmes.

Both camps are free to attend and particularly encourage student participation from primary- and secondary-level students in regional and lower socioeconomic areas.

These programmes demonstrate outstanding community engagement, directly impacting over 1,600 individuals since 2012.

Rebecca Robinson, a researcher at the MTU Hincks Centre for Entrepreneurship Excellence, said: Having delivered the MTU Bishopstown Entrepreneurship Summer Schools programme for the past four years, it is incredibly rewarding to see the dedication of our team and the programmes positive impact ... acknowledged through the Triple E Awards nomination.

In 2023, MTU was named as a finalist of the Engaged University of the Year Award  earning fourth place.

The university was beaten by category winners Corporacion Universitaria Minuto de Dios Uniminuto, Colombia.

Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, and University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, US, earned second and third place in the Engaged University of the Year category.

Awardees are selected through a two-stage process.

After the shortlisting of the top five entries in each category in each region, additional information needs to be submitted which will serve as the basis for the final ranking of the entries and the selecting of the category winner.
By Cillian Sherlock, PA

A former British soldier living in Germany has had his 50th birthday wish come true after being reunited with his biological mother in Ireland.

Mark Balls, now 53, was adopted as a baby and was raised well by his adoptive parents in London.

He was told by his adoptive father that he was adopted when he was 10-years-old  but, out of respect for the man and woman who raised him, he chose not to pursue his biological family until after his adoptive parents had died.

Mr Balls, who has six children and now lives in Paderborn in Germany, said that while he knew some information about his biological mother, he could only get so far.

In the run up to his 50th birthday, his daughters asked him what he would like.

He said: I told them how far I got with my search and that maybe  because theyre a bit more media savvy than I am  I asked if they could find out more?

They conducted their own research but were unsuccessful.

His daughter Amanda then decided to give him a gift of a MyHeritage DNA test which would ultimately set him on a path that would finally see him connect with his Irish family.

The way I understood it is that if I do the DNA test and theres other people with a close DNA match to me, they might have information on where my mother would be.

The mystery was not immediately solved but the results provided Mr Balls with a path to follow.

I got the results and there were a couple of close connections. So I sent a few emails to people who unfortunately couldnt help me.

Michael Condon, Phyllis ONeill, Mark Balls, and Joe Condon (Amanda Gaese/PA)

Time went by and there was a new match, with someone who had done a test and had a 10% match with me.

I sent her a message and told her I was looking for my birth mother and it turned out her dads name was Condon  the same surname as my birth mothers maiden name  and that he had a sister called Phyllis.

Through a complicated chain of messages involving his newly discovered cousin in Greece as well as other relatives in Australia and Reading, Mr Balls eventually received an email to say that Phyllis ONeill was his mother  and that he had two blood brothers in Limerick, Ireland.

I was in work when I checked my emails. I got all choked up.

Mr Balls mother was 18 and living in Hampstead, London when she gave birth to him.

Fearing judgment over the situation, she kept the pregnancy secret and gave him up for adoption to an Irish family who lived less than 30 minutes away.

She and Mr Balls father later married and had two more children.

Five weeks after receiving the news, Mr Balls travelled to Fedamore in Limerick to meet his long-lost Irish family.

Jason ONeill, Mark Balls, Phyllis ONeill and James ONeill (Amanda Gaese/PA)

Mr Balls said that he believed his biological mother had felt guilt about the adoption process, but he said he assured her he had no bad feelings.

It was put to her that she was very young to be bringing up a child and that wasnt the done thing. It was very different times, he said.

My intention for this whole reunion was to get to know my mother and let her know I had no bad feelings.

It was unbelievable. I was taken in straight away and accepted as one of the family.

It was like a missing piece of a jigsaw, it felt so natural and like we had always known each other.

On the six-day visit, Mr Balls stayed in the spare bedroom of one of his brothers.

He said he connected with them over common interests and shared stories about their childhood, and he also met his uncles.

He said that because his adoptive mother was from Lissycasey in Co Clare, he knew how to fit in: I knew the Irish side of things, that I had to drink and socialise!

Mr Balls also brought his two daughters and youngest son  as well as one of his grandchildren.

Ms ONeill did not think she was a grandmother yet, so she was additionally surprised to learn she was a great-grandmother.

Asked if he would recommend the process to other people in the same situation, Mr Balls said: Im aware that not every story has a good ending  and that curiosity kills the cat.

However, if you dont do it  youll regret it. You dont want to look back and think I should have done that, or realise that you have left it too late.

Mr Balls said he will absolutely be coming to Ireland more often, as he has yet to meet all his relatives.

DNA test and historical records are available through MyHeritage.com.
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.

According to official figures, last year Irelands data centers consumed more electricity than all of the countrys urban homes for the first time, reported The Guardian.

The expanding number of data centers used 21 percent of the countrys electricity, a fifth more than in 2022, the Central Statistics Office said. In 2023, electricity used by residences in cities and towns made up 18 percent of total power consumption.

Eirgird, Irelands grid operator, predicted electricity supply challenges for the country this decade, partially because of growth of demand driven by large energy users and data centres, AFP reported.

The sudden rise in demand for electricity to power the data centers could thwart Irelands  as well as Europes  climate goals, experts have said, according to The Guardian.

Googles European headquarters are in Ireland, and the company said its data centers drove a 48 percent surge in its total emissions last year, as compared with 2019, putting its green targets at risk.

In 2023, more than 50 percent of Irelands electricity came from fossil fuels. Wind made up 34.6 percent and solar 1.2 percent.

Irelands low corporate taxation policy has supported its explosion of tech companies and data centers.

Ireland has been incredibly successful in attracting these data centres, professor Paul Deane, a University College Cork senior research fellow, told the Irish Examiner. Its accounting for one fifth of all electricity demand in Ireland. At a global level, were closer to 1% of demand, so Ireland is an outlier.

Increased data processing demands, driven by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI), mean data centers in Ireland could use roughly 31 percent of the countrys electricity in the next three years, the National Energy and Climate Plan said, as reported by The Guardian.

If we already had lots of wind and lots of solar, it wouldnt be a problem, Dean told the Irish Examiner. Were still so reliant on fossil fuels. We need to be able to build up renewables very quickly. Were good at building large datacentres quickly but not as good at building renewables.

The training for AI-powered chatbots, for instance, demands enormous amounts of electricity for the powering of data centers, as well as a good deal of water to cool them down, The Conversation reported.

AI can be a double-edged sword, said Felippa Amanta, a Ph.D. candidate at University of Oxfords Environmental Change Institute, in The Conversation. It can be a powerful tool for climate action, improving the efficiency of the energy grid, modelling climate change predictions or monitoring climate treaties. But the infrastructure needed to run AI is energy- and resource-intensive.

And while AI is useful for making systems such as home cooling and heating more energy efficient, that efficiency can sometimes encourage the use of more power as people become accustomed to fine-tuning their environments.

In fact, the true scale of AIs impact on the environment is probably underestimated, especially if we focus only on the direct carbon footprint of its infrastructure. Today, AI permeates almost all aspects of our digitalised daily lives. Businesses use AI to develop, market and deliver products, content and services more efficiently, and AI influences how we search, shop, socialise and organise our everyday lives, Amanta said. These changes have massive implications for our total energy consumption at a time when we need to actively reduce it. And its not yet clear that AI will support us in making more climate-positive choices.
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.

Peru's Manu National Park was part of the study on tree bark's ability to absorb methane. David Gonzalez Rebollo / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Trees arent just important for carbon sequestration. According to a new study, trees can also help remove methane from the atmosphere through their bark.

Researchers determined that some tree bark contains microbes that can take up methane from the atmosphere at a rate similar to the sequestration power of soil. The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature.

The main ways in which we consider the contribution of trees to the environment is through absorbing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, and storing it as carbon, Vincent Gauci, lead researcher of the study and a professor at the University of Birmingham, said in a press release. These results, however, show a remarkable new way in which trees provide a vital climate service.

The team analyzed methane exchange between the atmosphere and different heights of trees in tropical forests in the Amazon rainforest and Panama, temperate forests in Oxfordshire, UK, and boreal forests in Sweden. They found the greatest methane absorption in tropical forests, which offer optimal conditions for microbes.

Researchers used tools to measure gases around the tree trunks, Energy Voice reported. They found that trees may emit small amounts of methane lower on the tree, close to the soil, but higher up the trunk, there is a greater exchange of methane and the trees take in methane.

While methane doesnt have as big of an impact in the long term as carbon dioxide emissions, it is still a powerful greenhouse gas that impacts our planet. As the Environmental Defense Fund explained, methane emissions are around 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide for the first 20 years they are released into the atmosphere. Methane has contributed to around 30% of global warming since the Industrial Revolution, the International Energy Agency (IEA) stated in its Global Methane Tracker 2024 report.

The new findings revealed that preserving and restoring forests could have even bigger benefits than previously thought. The research team estimated 10% higher climate benefits from the methane absorption by tropical and temperate trees.

The Global Methane Pledge, launched in 2021 at the COP26 climate change summit aims to cut methane emissions by 30 percent by the end of the decade, Gauci said. Our results suggest that planting more trees, and reducing deforestation surely must be important parts of any approach towards this goal.

As a next step, the researchers plan to investigate whether deforestation has contributed to increasing amounts of methane in the atmosphere.
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 man works his job as a charcoal production torcher in 104F heat in Diyarbakir, Turkiye on July 18, 2024. Bestami Bodruk / Anadolu via Getty Images

As global temperatures continue to rise, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued a worldwide call to action for more effective protection of the billions of people who are exposed to extreme heat.

The urgent appeal follows the highest temperature ever recorded for the planet, as well as deadly heat waves in the United States, the Middle East, Africas Sahel and Europe that have caused the deaths of several hundred people, including 1,301 Hajj pilgrims this summer.

Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic  wilting under increasingly deadly heatwaves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world. That is 122 degrees Fahrenheit  halfway to boiling, Guterres said during a press conference at New Yorks UN Headquarters, according to a press release from the UN in Turkiye. The message is clear: the heat is on. Extreme heat is having an extreme impact on people and planet. The world must rise to the challenge of rising temperatures.

Guterres pointed out that while crippling heat is everywhere, its effects are not felt by everyone equally.

Those who are most at risk include pregnant women, older people, children, those with disabilities, those who are suffering from illnesses and the poor and the displaced, who frequently live in substandard housing with no access to cooling.

UN estimates say that deaths related to extreme heat for those over 65 have increased by roughly 85 percent in the past two decades. Currently, 25 percent of children are exposed to frequent heat waves, a number that could rise to nearly 100 percent by 2050.

We must respond by massively increasing access to low-carbon cooling, expanding passive cooling  such as natural solutions and urban design and cleaning up cooling technologies while boosting their efficiency, Guterres said in the press release.

He also emphasized the need to scale up worker protections.

More than 70 percent of the worlds workforce  2.4 billion people  are put at substantial risk by extreme heat, a new report by the UNs International Labour Organization said. The situation is especially severe in the Arab and Africa regions, where upwards of 80 and 90 percent of workers are at risk, respectively.

Three out of four workers in Asia and the Pacific  the most populous region in the world  are also exposed to extreme heat.

Excessive heat is the cause of almost 23 million workplace injuries worldwide, Guterres said in another UN press release. We need measures to protect workers, grounded in human rights. And we must ensure that laws and regulations reflect the reality of extreme heat today  and are enforced.

Guterres pointed out the necessity of boosting the resilience of societies and economies, citing the impacts of crop failures, infrastructure damage and increased demand on water supplies, electric grids and health systems, UN in Turkiye said.

The levels of heat we now routinely see around the world put every part of society under extreme pressure, directly harming our health while also affecting food and water security and much of our vital infrastructures, said Alan Dangour, climate and health director at UK-based science foundation Wellcome, as Climate Change News reported.

Cities are under severe pressure, as they experience heating at two times the average global rate, said the UN in Turkiye press release.

In order to confront these challenges, Guterres said that specific and comprehensive action plans rooted in scientific data would be crucial for nations, cities and sectors.

We need a concerted effort to heatproof economies, critical sectors and the built environment, Guterres said in the press release.

Guterres reiterated the essential nature of recognizing the multitude of symptoms other than extreme heat, including droughts, wildfires, floods, rising sea levels and hurricanes.

The main issue is the worlds reliance on fossil fuels coupled with climate inaction, the UN chief said. He stressed that governments  in particular G20 nations, cities, regions and the private sector  must adopt climate action plans for limiting the rise of temperatures worldwide to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Countries must also end new coal projects and impose an urgent phase-out of fossil fuels.

They must act as though our future depends on it  because it does, Guterres said.
Apple has joined several other tech companies in agreeing to abide by voluntary AI safeguards laid out by the Biden administration. Those who make the pledge have committed to abide by eight guidelines related to safety, security and social responsibility, including flagging societal risks such as biases; testing for vulnerabilities, watermarking AI-generated images and audio; and sharing trust and safety details with the government and other companies.

Amazon, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI were among the initial adoptees of the pact, which the White House announced last July . The voluntary agreement, which is not enforceable, will expire after Congress passes laws to regulate AI.

Since the guidelines were announced, Apple unveiled a suite of AI-powered features under the umbrella name of Apple Intelligence . The tools will work across the company's key devices and are set to start rolling out in the coming months. As part of that push, Apple has teamed up with OpenAI to incorporate ChatGPT into Apple Intelligence . In joining the voluntary code of practice, Apple may be hoping to ward off regulatory scrutiny of its AI tools.

Although President Joe Biden has talked up the potential benefits of AI, he has warned of the dangers posed by the technology as well. His administration has been clear that it wants AI companies to develop their tech in a responsible manner .
NASA's Perseverance rover has been collecting samples from Mars since 2021, but one of its most recently collected rocks could help it achieve its goal of finding evidence of ancient life on the planet. Nicknamed Cheyava Falls after the tallest waterfall in the Grand Canyon, the 3.2 feet by 2 feet sample contains "chemical signatures and structures" that could've been formed by ancient microbial life from billions of years ago.

Perseverance collected the rock on July 21 from what was once a Martian river valley carved by flowing water long ago. The sample, which you can see in close up below and from afar at the center of the image above, exhibits large white calcium sulfate veins running along its length. They indicate that water did run through the rock at one point.

More importantly, it contains millimeter-size marks that look like "leopard spots" all over its central reddish band. On our planet, those spots could form on sedimentary terrestrial rocks when there are chemical reactions that turn hematite, one of the minerals responsible for Mars' reddish color, to white. Those reactions can release iron and phosphate, which could've served as an energy source for microbes.

The rover's Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry (PIXL) tool already determined that the black rings around the spots contain iron and phosphate. However, that doesn't automatically mean that the rock truly did serve as a host for ancient microbes.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The spots could've been formed by non-biological processes, and that's something scientists will have to figure out. "We cannot say right now that we have discovered life on Mars, Katie Stack Morgan, the deputy project scientist, said. "But what we are saying is that we have a potential biosignature, which is a set of features that could have a biological origin but do need further study and more data."

NASA still has to bring back the samples Perseverance had collected to our planet, including Cheyava Falls. As The New York Times notes, the Mars Sample Return mission is years behind schedule and would not be able to bring back rocks from the red planet until 2040 instead of in the early 2030's like originally planned. NASA recently asked aerospace companies for alternative solutions on how to get the samples to Earth much sooner and will finance their studies due later this year. Scientists will also have to conduct extensive testing to rule out contamination and non-biological processes, as well as other possible explanations for how the leopard spots had formed, before they can proclaim that they're indeed evidence of ancient Martian life.
A grand jury in Kansas City has indicted Rim Jong Hyok, a North Korean intelligence operative who allegedly used ransomware to attack health providers' systems in the US, according to AP News. The State Department said Rim is part of a group called Andariel that's controlled by the North Korean intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau. Rim is not in the US government's custody. The agency is now offering a $10 million reward for information that would lead to his location or the location of a foreign operative who "engages in certain malicious cyber activities against US critical infrastructure."

A Kansas medical center alerted the FBI about an attack that blocked personnel's access to patient files and lab test results, as well as prevented them from operating hospital equipment with their computers, was back in 2021. It's a common MO of Rim's Andariel group, which would infiltrate a computer system and infect it with Maui ransomware. The group would then ask their target for payment and would threaten to release sensitive information if they don't pay up. In the Kansas hospital's case, the group demanded a ransom in Bitcoin worth $100,000 within 48 hours. The group allegedly used the money it gets to buy more computers and servers to fund more cyberattacks.

The FBI, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of the Treasury issued a joint cybersecurity warning in the midst of Andariel's attacks on healthcare providers in 2022. "The North Korean state-sponsored cyber actors likely assume healthcare organizations are willing to pay ransoms because these organizations provide services that are critical to human life and health," they wrote. Federal investigators said they followed the ransom the Kansas medical center paid across blockchains and found that someone had transferred the Bitcoin to an address belonging to two Hong Kong nationals. Based on the court documents seen by AP, the money was then transferred to a Chinese bank and withdrawn from an ATM in China close to the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge connecting the country to North Korea.

Andariel and Rim are being accused of infiltrating 17 entities across 11 states, including four defense contractors, two US Air Force bases and NASA. The group was reportedly able to stay in NASA's computer system for three months and steal 17 gigabytes of classified information. During one of its operations that targeted a US defense contractor in November 2022, the State Department said the group was also able to extract over 30 gigabytes of data that include information on the material used in US military aircraft and satellites.
The greatest British zombie rom-com in film history will return to theaters for another run to the Winchester in honor of its 20th anniversary. Focus Features announced that Shaun of the Dead starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost will get another theatrical run starting on Aug. 29 for US theaters and Sept. 27 for UK theaters.

Shaun of the Dead tells the story of a British slacker named Shaun who gets dumped by his girlfriend Liz, played by Kate Ashfield, on the eve of an undead apocalypse. His best friend Ed, played by Nick Frost, takes him out for a night of drinking just as the zombies start to emerge to help him get over the breakup and remind him its not the end of the world.

They wake up to a George Romero-esque world overrun by lifeless, shuffling cannibals and a hangover that makes them blissfully unaware of the carnage surrounding them. The hilarious, continuous shot of Shaun walking from his flat to the corner store and back without once noticing the bloody state of the world around him is worth seeing on the big screen.

Shaun of the Dead is returning to US theaters in August and UK cinemas in September to celebrate 20 bloody years!



For US tickets: https://t.co/Jgw0aZNTys

For UK tickets: https://t.co/MQRs85fJmp pic.twitter.com/8ask97HwvZ  Focus Features (@FocusFeatures) July 25, 2024

Shaun of the Dead became one of the sleeper hits of 2004 and marked the first film in the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy starring Pegg and Frost and directed by Edgar Wright. The trio first worked together on another British cult comedy with the two-season TV series Spaced when a zombie themed subplot line in an episode inspired them to make a proper British zombie comedy in the style of Romeros Dead movies. The action cop parody Hot Fuzz in 2007 and the alien invasion pub crawl adventure The Worlds End in 2013 rounded out the rest of the trilogy.

The ice cream refers to the flavors of Cornetto ice cream treats that make Easter egg appearances in each movie: the red strawberry flavor for Shaun of the Dead, the blue vanilla flavor for Hot Fuzz and the peppermint flavor for The Worlds End. The movie also sparked the start of Peggs acting career in America as an inspired Scotty in J.J. Abrams Star Trek film trilogy and Hughies father on the Amazon prime superhero satire The Boys.
The US is in the middle of another hotly contested and seemingly close presidential election. This election is also happening in this new age of widespread access to artificial intelligence and easily disseminated misinformation. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon says his office tracked the source of one key piece of election misinformation back to Xs Grok chatbot.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Xs premium chatbot service is passing along erroneous information about the deadlines for states presidential ballots including Minnesota. When Grok is asked Which states presidential ballot deadlines have passed?, Grok claims Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington have passed their presidential ballots. Grok then sources its information to an X post published on Sunday by user and conservative pundit @EvanAKilgore, which does not include a correction or warning about election misinformation.

In Fun Mode, Grok repeats the incorrect information and source with the comment, So if youre planning on running for president in one of these states, you might want to check if theres a write-in option. Or, you know, travel back to before the deadlines passed. Another response to the same question said These states have already passed their deadlines to get on the presidential ballot, which means they're probably just sitting around, twiddling their thumbs, wondering what to do now that Joe Biden has dropped out. But hey, at least they've got their ballots ready to go, right?

Grok insinuates that President Joe Bidens name cant be replaced on these nine states ballots because the deadlines have passed. President Biden was the presumptive nominee until he announced he would no longer seek a second term on Sunday. The Democratic Party will choose its nominee through a virtual roll call vote ahead of its convention and states dont start printing ballots until after both conventions. Also, Minnesota's ballot deadline isn't until Aug. 26.

Several fact checks from more reputable news outlets refute the claim that Bidens name is etched into stone on these states ballots. Politifact rated a similar claim with the same list of nine states as False.

Simon says members of his staff tried to inform X about the misinformation their chatbot was spreading on its platform but could not reach a media relations representative. The response he says he received was equally concerning.

[They] got what I can only verbalize as the equivalent of a shoulder shrug, Simon said to the Star Tribune.

We reached out to X's press email for comment and only received a reply that read, "Busy now, please check back later."
July 25, 2024: Russian President Vladimir Putins visit to North Korea recently was a masterpiece of revisionist history. During the visit Putin and North Korean leaders boasted of their long partnership, mutual friendship and cooperation in military matters. Before Putin arrived in North Korea, he wrote an article for a North Korean newspaper praising the long tradition of friendship and cooperation between the two countries. North Korea had recently sold weapons, including North Korean ballistic missiles, to Russia for use in Ukraine.

While Russia and North Korea glorified the long relationship between Russia and North Korea, the reality was that the two countries had stopped cooperating in the 1950s and their relationship did not go beyond maintaining embassies and ambassadors in each others capitals of Moscow and Pyongyang. It was Russian leader Joseph Stalin who ordered North Korea to invade South Korea in 1950, triggering a three year war where the South Koreans, backed by the United States and American allies defeated the initial North Korean attack and counterattacked with an operation that seemed likely to destroy the North Korean military and government and reunite Korea under a democratic, free market South Korean rule. Communist China and the Russian communist Soviet Union would not tolerate that and China sent in several hundred thousand soldiers they described as volunteers while Russia supplied large quantities of weapons and munitions. By 1953 this had caused a stalemate and both sides agreed to an armistice with the dividing line between the two Koreas being where troops of both sides were fighting a form of World War I trench warfare. This line was called the Demilitarized Zone. It was four kilometers wide and devoid of troops from either side. A garrison of American troops remained to ensure that the North Koreas did not restart the war and to restrain South Koreans who were still eager to reunite Korea. The armistice never turned into a peace treaty and technically the two Koreas are still at war. Currently

Since 1953 South Korea has created a functioning democracy and one of the top ten economies in the world. North Korea, still adhering to Juche, or self-reliance, and a North Korean form of socialism that had turned the country into a poverty stricken place where food, freedom and hope for a better future are all in short supply, By the 2020s the South Korean economy provided more benefits for its citizens that North Korea could provide for its subjects, The starkest evidence was the calculation that per capita income in South Korea was twenty times what it was in North Korea, and South Koreans could travel freely around the world and many have migrated to the United States and other Western countries, North Korea is a prison where leaving is unlawful and those who try and are caught are sent to labor camps for years as punishment. Many North Koreans do not survive a few years in a labor camp.

While life is arguably adequate in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, that is an anomaly because the rest of the country is mired in poverty with people willing to risk their lives to cross the border into Chia and eventually get to South Korea, which most North Koreans consider a prosperous place to be where the people speak Korean, although with a notably different accent than northerners. Fewer than 40,000 North Koreans have made it to South Korea since the 1990s, mainly because the border with China is guarded by North Korean troops with orders to shoot to kill anyone trying to leave North Korea.

Until recently there was little trade between North Korea and Russia. China has long been North Koreas major trading partner. Even that was sometimes disrupted by the poor relations between the Kim dynasty in North Korea and the Chinese communist government. China has become the second largest trading nation, after the United States, in the world. This was because Chinese leaders decided to adopt free market economic rules in the 1980s. Chinese leaders proclaimed that it was not glorious to get rich, as long as you did not disobey your Chinese communist rulers.

There is no democracy in China but new leaders are chosen every five or ten years when senior Chinese officials decide among themselves who will be the supreme leader. For the last ten years that has been Xi Jinping, who has apparently decided to keep the job for life. That is working, so far. In North Korea there have been three generations of leaders belonging to the Kim family. Kim Il Sung, the first leader, was approved by the Soviet Union, where he had lived for several years. Kim spoke good Russian and not much Chinese. Kim Il Sung died in 1994 as North Korea was undergoing a famine that killed about ten percent of the population because, after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the generous aid the Soviets had long supplied ceased. North Korea refused to accept aid offered by South Korea because Kim Il Sung and his successor, Kim Jong Il (and son  North Korea is the worlds only Communist monarchy), continued the ruinous economic policies that continued to impoverish North Korea. Kim Jong Il died in 2011.

The only major accomplishment of Kim Jong Ils rule was the development of nuclear weapons and more ballistic missiles to use against South Korea or the United States. North Korean leaders were not suicidal and knew that attacking South Korea with conventional or nuclear weapons would bring retaliation that would eliminate Kim family rule in the north. China was annoyed because the North Korean nuclear tests were conducted at an underground site near the Chinese border and China detected dangerous levels of radioactivity on their side of the border. The Chinese forcefully suggested that North Korea carry out its future underground nuclear tests far from the Chinese border.

In 2o11 Kim Jong Il died and was succeeded by his son Kim Jong Un, who had spent a lot of time living in the west and acquired a taste for the finer things in life. As a result, Kim Jong Un imported more luxury items for himself and his senior political and military associates. Kim Jong Un, like his predecessors, did little to improve the lives of most North Koreans and maintained a formidable secret police force to deter any violent protests of North Koreans.

Kim Jong Un was always alert to economic opportunities. When Russian leader Vladimir Putin came looking for weapons to use in Ukraine, Kim offered what North Korea had and would provide as much as Russia could pay for. That meant cash up front and not sales on credit. China would not sell Russia weapons but would provide non-military and dual-use items, as much as the Russians could afford.

The Chinese and North Korean weapons and military equipment were useful to Russia in Ukraine, but not decisive and the Russian are still losing lots of troops and find themselves trapped in a war they cannot win but cannot just abandon. Ukraine received, at no cost, over $100 billion in military aid from NATO countries that included the United States.

North Korea and Russia have both done poorly because of the war in Ukraine and the continued difference in living standards between North and South Koreans. Worse, South Korea has become a major supplier of modern weapons and has exported over $20 billion dollars of those weapons to NATO nations supporting Ukraine. This was with the understanding that these weapons would not be used in Ukraine. That was no problem because NATO countries like Poland sent weapons they already had to Ukraine and replaced them with new weapons from South Korea. Russia was not pleased with this but did not want to antagonize South Korea, which had become a major trading partner with Russia, or NATO countries, which were sending equipment but not troops to Ukraine. Russia did not want to go to war with NATO but was going broke paying for all those North Korean weapons while the Russian economy was suffering from the economic sanctions imposed by NATO countries for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Wayne Brady is a new father again!

Well, he has been for some time now.

According to 'Page Six,' the stand-up comedian and his ex-girlfriend welcomed a baby boy into the world back in 2022. The two managed to keep the event discreet from the media. Brady and his ex-girlfriend Tina had an on-again-off-again relationship during the pandemic.

Brady, 52, discussed his family's new addition, Val Henry, in an interview with 'PEOPLE' prior to the release of his reality television show 'Wayne Brady: The Family Remix.'

"When I first found out ... I was floored. A 51-year-old dad? I didn't see it coming. So was I happy? No,' he recalled. "Because I was in shock."

The comedian's ex-wife, Mandie Taketa, and daughter, Maile Masako Brady, were reportedly conflicted about the news. Reports suggest that the toddler's mother Tina and Taketa, 48, do not particularly get along.

"Tina and Wayne had been broken up a year," Taketa said. "Then [his] grandma Val passes away, so we go to her funeral in the Virgin Islands, then we come back. Something happened  you fill in the blank. Then, two weeks later, we get a phone call from Tina that she's pregnant with Wayne's baby."

"Tina does not live her life in complete honesty," Maile, who attends Loyola Marymount University, said. "The string of events is suspicious. I don't enjoy her presence."

Brady, who hosts CBS' 'Let's Make a Deal,' is determined that Val Henry feels nothing but love, despite any family tension.

"I never want Val to grow up thinking that he should be ashamed or look back and go, 'Oh, my dad didn't want me or he was ashamed of me.' Because I want him, in his own way, to know that I love him as much as I love Maile, who is of me and that I had a part in creating."

Brady publicly identified as pansexual in August 2023. He told 'PEOPLE' how he "had to do research and find out what it was that I was."

"What the definition basically boils down to is, regardless of gender, regardless," he continued. "So that means that I am happily free to fall in love with anybody here. If you're gay, if you're straight, if you're non-binary, trans, I don't care."
An elder white man has been labeled a "male Karen" after being caught on video harassing an Amazon employee as she delivered packages to a store kiosk.

The video, which has been gaining traction on social media, shows the man recording the Amazon worker while accusing her of chatting on the phone instead of focusing on her duties.

The footage begins with an off-camera woman questioning why the man is bothering the worker, who is seen placing packages in the kiosk's lockers.

"No, she is doing something; she's talking on her phone," he can be heard saying. "Instead of doing her work, she's talking on her phone so I'm taking a video of this."

The Amazon worker responds to the off-camera woman, saying, "I've been doing my work." When the woman asks the man if he plans to send the video to the worker's supervisor, he confirms, "Absolutely, because that's what she said to do."

The woman then suggests that he express his concerns quietly, to which he insists he is already being quiet. When she points out that he's "yelling" and "causing a disturbance," he counters by saying she's the one causing interference and dares her to have him removed from the store, which would prevent him from receiving his package.

"The point is that she's multitasking and talking on the phone when she should be focused on completing the job," the man complained. "Instead, she's wasting time on the phone."

In the video, the woman off-camera mentions that the Amazon worker is now talking to her, while the man insists the worker is still on the phone. The worker explains she's speaking with her stepfather, prompting the man to shout "No!" before the video ends.

Social media users reacted strongly to the man's behavior, criticizing him as "miserable" and labeling his actions typical of a "Karen." Many defended the Amazon worker, noting that employees often need to use their phones for work-related tasks. Some pointed out that the man was the one causing a disturbance, not the worker.

Neither the man or employee has been identified. It's unclear what occurred after the video stopped.
(Informacion remitida por la empresa firmante)

America del Norte, 26 de julio de 2024.- Although for many years the offshore model has been a cost-effective option for North American companies, it can be overwhelming to manage. This is due to a variety of factors, including geographic distance, cultural contrasts, language barriers, and regulatory and legal differences. For this reason, many companies have turned to nearshoring solutions as an alternative to reduce costs and simplify management. In this area, Novacomp presents a wide variety of innovative business solutions through its nearshoring consulting service. Thus, the firm has positioned itself as a benchmark in the market, working in various industries.

An outstanding track record as a provider of nearshoring services

Novacomp is a company with more than 25 years of experience, which is formed by a team of experts in nearshoring solutions. Through its knowledge, this company has successfully executed more than 6,000 IT projects, satisfying the needs of more than 250 clients. In this regard, the firm has developed a smooth, fast and quality-focused talent acquisition process. This allows organizations to enjoy the benefits of nearshoring strategies without the drawbacks associated with the offshore model.

Novacomp's nearshoring services include Staff Augmentation, Agile Team as a Service, IT Consulting, QA and Software Testing, Cybersecurity, Cloud Services, App Development. In this way, the consulting firm seeks to help companies accelerate their adaptation to digital transformation in order not to lose competitiveness in a dynamic and fast-paced economic scenario. As a result, Novacomp has grown exponentially in recent years, providing nearshoring solutions for sectors such as financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, logistics and manufacturing.

Nearshoring benefits

Digital transformation needs have been a driving factor for many U.S.-based companies to seek more cost-effective outsourcing options. In this regard, Novacomp highlights the main benefits of nearshoring solutions. Among them is the possibility of keeping production in a nearby country, which helps to avoid the high costs involved in the offshore method.

At the same time, this modality allows North American companies to have trained and experienced developers in Latin America. Likewise, this type of strategy favors better communication and greater control, enabling successful project execution and optimal organizational management.

In short, the nearshoring outsourcing model for digital transformation is a cost-effective, efficient and much simpler option than offshore. For its implementation, Novashore offers a specialized service, with a team of more than 800 collaborators working in more than 20 countries in Latin America.

DATOS PUBLICOS:

Contacto

Emisor: Novacomp

Contacto: Gabinete Periodistico

Email de contacto: comunicados@prensaymedios.com
July 26, 2024: While Myanmar became quieter for a while after the military government allowed democracy to return in 2010, by late 2023 there was a major outbreak of violence by northern rebels against soldiers stationed in the north. This led to chaos in the north where non-tribal residents fled south and large groups of armed and angry tribal rebels moved south. The army never expected this and now fighting continues in the north outside, and sometimes inside, towns where there is an army garrison. With few troops left in the area, the Myanmar military sent its warplanes to bomb towns believed to be occupied by rebels. This was an imprecise operation and many civilians were killed.

Myanmar is still subject to violence from tribal separatist militias in the north plus radical Buddhist groups. There was another military coup in early 2021, a decade after the military government since 1962 finally gave in to demands for freedom and democracy. By 2010 the army had failed at running the economy or dealing with the rebellious northern tribes. The military negotiated a deal with the democrats that left the military with some of their political power as well as immunity from prosecution or retribution for a long list of past crimes. Once elections were held, the generals realized they had underestimated the degree of popular anger at the decades of military misrule. After 2011, with Myanmar governed by a government answerable to the people, not a military caste, there were calls for canceling the political privileges the military had retained as part of their agreement to allow peaceful transfer of power. The late 2020 nationwide elections put into power a government that finally had the votes, and determination, to cut the military down to size and make them much less capable of another coup. The generals moved faster than the new government and once more took control of the country on February 1st. That military government remains in control at the end of 2021, mainly because of support from China. There is growing armed and unarmed opposition to the military which has resulted in over a thousand dead, nearly 12,000 arrested. The economy is in shambles but, despite that, the population resists and the survival of the military government depends on how much China wants to spend saving them. China refused to contribute more than token assistance, while the rebel militias in the north became more powerful and the Myanmar army began to collapse, along with the military government when there was another major uprising in late 2023 that started in the north and is ongoing.

Meanwhile in the northwest the fighting between tribal rebels and the army in Rakhine State has intensified, and because of this several hundred thousand villagers have fled their homes. Many traveled all the way to the state capital, which is seen as the safest spot in the state. The army also revived Internet restrictions which had been lifted earlier. The result was that most cellphone users in Rakhine State get only slow (2G) Internet speeds. This made it difficult to access pro-rebel websites, and most others as well.

Most of the rebels involved belong to the AA (Arakan Army). Many AA attacks are ambushes or raids on road traffic, outposts or border posts. Control of the roads is essential for the army, which depends on regular deliveries of all sorts of supplies. The army also has some air support, mostly surveillance but also occasional airstrikes. The rebels know the mountains and forests, which the army enters and moves through more slowly. The war up here is about driving away locals who can provide support for the rebels. Most of these civilians have nothing to do with the rebels and see themselves as innocent victims of random military violence. There is some truth to that because troops often loot abandoned villages or rape female refugees they catch up with.

The rebels have another advantage in that their attacks are more precise and involve much less firepower. The soldiers spend most of their time wandering around in the forests seeking rebels who move faster in the bush and usually detect the troops before the soldiers can spot any rebels. Hiring, or forcing, local hunters to guide the troops rarely works because the local guides hate the troops and know that the rebels wont forget if such guides and trackers cost them casualties.

Rebels attack outposts and border posts for loot. These attacks are not just about stealing some weapons and other gear, it is also intimidating the border guards and troops into backing off on border security. A major source of income for the AA is getting illegal drugs from nearby Shan State, where most illegal drugs in the country are produced, into Bangladesh. The AA also works with Myanmar Rohingya refugees just across the border in Bangladesh.

The AA has support from one of the rebel coalitions, the NA, or Northern/Brotherhood Alliance tribal rebels, who refuse to attend peace talks unless the government allows the Arakan Army, or AA, to attend. The AA and the army have been fighting for over six years with no end in sight. The government, pressured by the army, declared the AA an outlaw organization in early 2020. The other tribal rebels disagreed and saw the army as the true outlaws. No long-term peace deal is possible without the NA and some NA members are still engaged in combat with the army.

All NA members agree that if the AA is not allowed to attend peace conferences, neither will any NA member. The NA consists of four tribal militias: TNLA (Tang National Liberation Army), AA, MNDAA (Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army) and KIA (Kachin Independence Army). The NA exists because its members refused to sign the 2015 Myanmar Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA). Those who did sign the NCA have made progress in working out differences with the government and military. The army, which tends to do as it likes in the tribal areas of the north, is the primary cause for violence. China is also involved because Northern Alliance members survive via their access to China. The access is tolerated as long as these Myanmar rebels do not let the fighting spread into China or interfere with Chinese commercial operations in Myanmar. This includes the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) project, which NA members object to. So do other tribal rebels and the largest such group, the UWSA (United Wa State Army), boycotts peace conferences and otherwise tries to get their point across to the army and the government.

Army leaders have become more outspoken about foreign support the tribal rebels are receiving. The generals wont come right out and name China, but it is no secret that China has done little to curb Chinese weapons dealers from selling all manner of military small arms to tribal rebels and getting it across the border into Myanmar. That cannot be done without the acquiescence of the Chinese government. In this way the Chinese are sending a message to the Myanmar generals, who the Chinese see as equally responsible for the violence in the north, sometimes right on the Chinese border. Both the rebels and the army are often using Chinese weapons and ammo against each other. There are not a lot of casualties and most of them are from army convoys being ambushed or the army firing into pro-rebel villages to drive the civilians, and any rebels, out and into the bush. The army does not have enough troops to occupy all the territory they push tribal rebels, and civilians, out of. Often the rebels, if not the civilians, at least not right away, come back and resume attacking convoys and patrols.

Rebellions in Rakhine and down along the coast are nothing new in this area. Long known as the Arakan coast and similar names hinting at an interesting past. In recent years there have even been calls for the restoration of the Arakan Empire, which ceased to exist 235 years ago. This is a renewal of ancient feuds over who should control the northwest coast of Myanmar, an area with a long history as an independent Arakan state. For example, in late 2017 ARSA (the new Islamic terror group in Myanmar) called for Rohingya to join with al Qaeda to fight the Myanmar army and establish Rakhine State as the independent Moslem Arakan. This refers to the Arakan region, which is the coastal area that includes Rakhine State and the coastal area along the Bay of Bengal from eastern Bangladesh down deep into Myanmar. Some 1800 years ago Arakan became an independent Hindu state but 500 years later Islam spread to the area in part because Arakan was one of the many branches of the ancient Silk Road from China.

The population was largely Bengali and Myanmars. In the 18th century the Myanmar kingdom to the east conquered the area but lost it to the British colonial forces a century later. After that most of Arakan became part of the post-colonial nation of Myanmar. When the British left in the late 1940s they had created a Myanmar with unique borders and many citizens who were not ethnic Myanmar. For Islamic radicals Arakan, like Spain, Portugal and parts of the Balkans are still considered part of the Caliphate (Islamic Empire) because they had once been ruled by Moslems. The current inhabitants of these lost territories are now largely non-Moslem and have no interest in becoming Islamic states again. Despite that groups like al Qaeda see an opportunity in Myanmar.

Islamic terrorists first showed up in late 2016 and August 2017 when there were attacks by a Rohingya Islamic terrorist group called ARSA. Its founder (a Rohingya expatriate) and much of the cash came from Saudi Arabia. Myanmar prefers to call groups like ARSA Islamic terrorists but until ARSA and the Saudi cash showed up there had not been much, if any, religious aspect to the armed Rohingya resistance. ARSA was openly calling for Rohingya worldwide to support a war against Myanmar for the bad treatment the Rohingya have received, especially since 2012. Until the 2017 announcement ARSA had denied any connection with al Qaeda but that eventually changed. The ARSA leader, Ataullah Abu Ammar Jununi or just Ata Ullah, has received more attention now that Islamic terror groups like al Qaeda are calling for its members to help ARSA and the Myanmar Rohingya any way they can. Since August 2017 there have been no more large scale ARSA attacks but there have been some clashes with security forces. For the moment ARSA is largely a force on the Internet, not on the ground.

Since 2018 Rakhine State has been the scene of soldiers fighting the Arakan Army rebels for control of territory. Along the west coast in Rakhine and Chin states the fighting is mainly about the army effort to control and tax illegal activities by tribesmen. The tribes have been mistreated by the military for so long it is difficult to generate a lot of trust and put an end to the armed resistance.

The Arakan Army had been avoiding soldiers since a series of clashes in late 2015 ended badly for the rebels. Clashes resumed in early 2016 as troops moved into territory where Arakan Army rebels were known to operate. All this was unexpected because the northwest coast has not had as much tribal violence as states to the east. In this case the Arakan Army had help from Kachin State tribal rebels and have become a problem on both sides of the Bangladesh border. The government ordered the army to increase its efforts to destroy the Arakan Army and the successful clashes in late 2015 led to the military working with police to find and arrest the many Arakan Army supporters in the area. Unlike most tribal militias in the north, the Arakan Army was never given official recognition, in large part because the Arakan Army was more of a gangster operation than tribal rebels. All this police activity was unpopular but at least it was less arbitrary and lawless than in the past when soldiers would torture and kill people they picked up. That sort of behavior has always been illegal but few violators were prosecuted. In 2020 those illegal practices returned in a big way as the army sought to shut down the Arakan rebels once and for all.

The government at the behest of the army continues to block more foreign aid groups from operating in Rakhine State. The army accuses some foreign aid groups of aiding rebels and Islamic terrorists as well as contradicting government reports of what is going on in the area. There are still some Rohingya refugees in Rakhine State living in camps and supported by local and foreign aid.

Another source of casualties in the north, along the Bangladesh border, are the landmines and booby traps set by both the army and the rebels to make it more difficult to get hit with a surprise attack. Nearly 60 percent of these casualties are in Rakhine State where the AA and army have been fighting for several years now. Most of the landmine casualties are civilians, who often dont know the army or AA has planted some mines in an area. Both sides do often record and remove mines they have placed. But the point of mines is surprise and civilians traveling through mined areas do so without being warned that mines are there. The mine danger is another reason the army prefers to use artillery to clear civilians out of an area and sometimes to clear mines.

Since 2017 Myanmar Rohingya refugees, currently nearly a million of them, have been an involuntary presence in Bangladesh. All efforts to get Myanmar to take them back have failed. Apparently, Myanmar is OK with the refugees becoming a permanent presence just across the border. The refugees were initially welcomed by Bangladesh when they arrived in large numbers during 2017, After about a year the presence of nearly a million displaced Rohingya in an already crowded country became a problem. Most of the Rohingya refugees are in an area called Coxs Bazaar and their presence tripled the local population. At first the locals were eager to help fellow Moslems, for a few months at least. But that expected short visit has gone on for three years and there is no end in sight. The growing number of criminal gangs in the camps are a growing problem. The gangs specialize in smuggling things in and out of Myanmar. This is a problem for governments on both sides of the border. The smuggled goods range from consumer items, to drugs, to Chinese weapons to illegal explosives. At one point police seized a truck in Kachin State that crossed the border with 17 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Sales and imports of ammonium nitrate are regulated because this fertilizer can easily, with the addition of some fuel oil and a detonator, be turned into a powerful explosive.

There are still over 100,000 Rohingya refugees on the Myanmar side of the border living in camps that are less livable than those in Bangladesh. Refugees on both sides of the border are waiting for an opportunity to return to their homes. Gangs of Myanmar Buddhist nationalists still prevent this, as well as attacking any Rohingya returning from Bangladesh. Myanmar is regularly condemned in the UN for this but with China as an ally, the Chinese UN veto can prevent any serious sanctions against Myanmar.

In the northwest Sagaing Region, west of Kachin State NCSN-K (National Socialist Council of Nagaland- Khaplang), tribal rebels based in Kachin state have long been hunted on both sides of the border by Indian and Myanmar forces that coordinate these operations. This has led to an unprecedented number of Indian tribal rebels, especially leaders, being arrested in northwest Myanmar and returned to India as per earlier border security agreements.

Indian and Myanmar Naga rebels continue to maintain bases on the Myanmar side of the border. The Sagaing region has long been used as a refuge for Indian rebels but since early 2019 Indian and Myanmar forces have been coordinating efforts to shut down the border camps for good, or at least for a long time. Until early 2020 Indian and Myanmar troops would periodically search remote areas on both sides of the border. While this hurt the Naga rebels it did not destroy the rebel groups, who returned to the border area once the troops had ceased their activity. In response Myanmar troops began to patrol the area for several months, or as long as it took for India to certify that the Naga rebels had suffered serious and long-term damage. Indian troops were also active on their side of the border to ensure that the Naga rebels, both the Indian and Myanmar ones, have nowhere to go and that situation will last so long and after several months many of the rebels will desert and return to their villages. Other rebel groups have been cornered by Indian or Myanmar troops and dispersed or destroyed. These clearance operations do not always work exactly as expected because after years of intense border patrols NSCN members are still active on both sides of the border.

Most of the Naga people are Indian but some live in the Myanmar far north of Sagaing Region and belong to the NSCN which wants to form an independent Nagaland, including Indian and Myanmar territory and Naga people from both countries. Many of the camps being sought in Sagaing belong to the NSCN-K faction of the NSCN. At the start of 2019 there were believed to be about 5,000 active rebels in NSCN with about ten percent of them Myanmar Naga. Operations since then sought to reduce the size of NSCN by a significant amount. These operations are not just going after the NSCN but also smaller groups like the Ulfa-I, NDFB and Manipur rebels.

The Naga are actually about two million people from a collection of tribes that share many Myanmar-Tibetan characteristics and traditions. About ten percent of the Naga live in Myanmar but most of the rebel violence occurs in Indian Nagaland. For years the Naga rebels have used bases in Myanmar to train and rest before returning to fight in India. After much diplomatic pressure the Myanmar army finally went after the Naga rebel camps and have now shut most of them down or at least made them very difficult to maintain. The Naga rebels do not fight the Myanmar soldiers but always retreat. For this new operation Myanmar soldiers have orders to pursue and capture or kill any rebels they encounter. If the rebels head for India the Indian Army is alerted and moves troops into position to confront any rebels crossing the border to escape Myanmar troops.

All these border patrols have involved thousands of soldiers and border police in both countries. There have been casualties, but they have been low. The rebels prefer to flee rather than fight but there are occasional clashes often as small groups of rebels seek to slow down troops so that most of the rebels can get away.
The ban on the live export of animals has come into effect, meaning it is now illegal to export livestock for slaughter and fattening from Great Britain.

The Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act applies to journeys from, and transit journeys through, GB to destinations outside of the UK, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man.

The legislation, which was created by the previous Conservative government, does not apply to Northern Ireland.

While the ban affects the export of cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and horses for fattening and slaughter from GB, it does not prevent the export of livestock and horses for breeding or competitions.

Defra said this ban, which came into law in May 2024, would protect animals from enduring stress, exhaustion and injury on long and unnecessary export journeys.

It added the legislation would "ensure that animals are slaughtered domestically in high welfare UK slaughterhouses, reinforcing our position as a nation of animal lovers and a world leader on animal welfare, boosting the value of British meat and helping to grow the economy."

The new Labour government said it was committed to introducing the "most ambitious" programme for animal welfare, including banning "brutal practices" such as puppy smuggling and farming, and the use of snare traps.

Baroness Hayman of Ullock, who was appointed parliamentary under-Secretary of State at Defra earlier this month, said: For too long, animals have been left to suffer in silence.

I have fought for many years for this legislation to be implemented. It represents a huge win for animal welfare, ending the cruel practice of exporting live animals for slaughter and fattening.

No longer will British animals endure stress, exhaustion, and injury on long and unnecessary journeys abroad.

"These are just the first steps in our plans to implement the most ambitious programme for animal welfare in a generation.

Government data shows up to 40 million farm animals, including sheep, calves and pigs, have been exported from Britain for further rearing or slaughter since the 1960s.

At its height, one million animals were being exported annually - and animals have travelled from ports such as Dover, Ramsgate and Brightlingsea.

Elsewhere in the world, Australia has committed to end the export of sheep by 1 May 2028.

Last year, a Brazilian court banned the export of live cattle from the countrys ports.
Farmers and landowners are being urged to look out for the eight-toothed spruce bark beetle, a serious pest of spruce trees first found in 2018.

Defra has issued an update on new outbreaks of the pest, which has been recorded on sitka spruce trees within the demarcated area covering much of East Anglia and the south east.

Farmers, woodland managers, landowners and the public are being urged by Defra and the Forestry Commission to look out for the pest.

Although preferring stressed or dying trees, scientists say that under the right conditions the beetles will attack healthy trees, with the potential to cause significant damage.

In the UK, the pest is most commonly found on Norway spruce, but all spruce species are vulnerable to attack, alongside fir species such as the Nordmann fir and pine species.

Fallen, cut, damaged or generally unhealthy trees are the main target of the pest as they have little or no defence system, scientists say,

However, healthy trees can also become infested if environmental conditions see beetle numbers increase significantly.

It is thought that the recent outbreaks are most likely due to natural dispersal of the pest from mainland Europe, and there is no evidence of spread within the UK.

Farmers and landowners in the south east of England are being encouraged to proactively remove spruce and replant with other non-susceptible species.

They may be eligible for funding if their land is in the proactive spruce removal area.

NFU plant health adviser Dr Alison Warrington has advised that farmers with spruce on their land, particularly those growing for the Christmas tree industry, should take care to check fallen and damaged trees for signs of the pest.

She added: Use the Forestry Commission guidance to help identify the signs and symptoms. This is especially important for those within or near the demarcation area.

This pest has the potential to cause significant damage to healthy trees, therefore identification and eradication as quickly as possible is key.

Farmers and landowners served with a statutory plant health notice due to an outbreak on their site may be eligible for grants to support felling and restocking activity through the Tree Health Pilot.
A year on from a law change allowing farmers to profit more easily from glamping revenues, an insurance expert is reminding them to check health and safety on pop-up sites.

The law, which came into force in July 2023, allows farmers and landowners in England to operate a temporary camping or glamping site for up to 60 days without planning permission.

The law change significantly reduces the burden of paperwork and planning for farmers looking to run simple, pop-up campsites.

But rural insurance risk specialist Lycetts says farmers still need to be aware of the potential pitfalls of launching new business ventures before breaking ground.

With glamping bookings up 67% in 2023, demand in the UK is at an all-time high as the public look to get back to nature without breaking the bank.

Mobile glamping structures such as yurts and bell tents that can be easily moved arent normally considered permanent structures and can provide a lifeline for struggling farmers looking for additional revenue streams.

James Cuthbertson, from Lycetts, said: Inviting members of the public on to your farmland makes written health and safety risk assessments, along with measures and procedures to ensure a safe environment, an essential consideration at the design stage.

This would include creating adequate boundaries between the working farm and public facilities, appropriate signage, hygiene facilities, emergency procedures including evacuation plans and the safe separation of visitors from animals and machinery.

Farmers should also regularly inspect and maintain structures, pathways, and communal areas to prevent accidents and claims. This includes checking the stability and storm proofing of temporary structures.

Public liability insurance is also essential, he added, and insurers may request site inspections to ensure that quality standards and requirements are being met.

"In some cases, new glamping projects may also see farmers employing staff for the first time, resulting in a new requirement for employers liability cover.
Livestock marts have launched an initiative to promote health and safety in markets, offering staff training and advice on best practice to minimise accidents.

The MartSafe training programme, which is now in its third year, addresses the responsibilities within agricultural markets.

The initiative, by the Livestock Auctioneers Association (LAA), aims to provide specialist advice, training and information to mart staff.

The health and safety training programme has been met with praise from across industry and government, with the LAA delivering sessions to over 2,000 participants within the first two years.

Zanna Dennis, LAA development officer, said: Since launching the initiative, we have developed the curriculum, year-on-year, incorporating recaps of core topics from previous sessions.

This year, we are pleased to be working with the DPJ Foundation to include a specialist training unit based around mental health and suicide awareness for market staff."

Designed to support market staff to recognise the signs of poor mental health or suicide, and provide signposts to further professional support, this new module is a key addition.

Livestock markets are seen as a crucial touchpoint for the farming community, as auctioneers, or market staff, are often seen as a shoulder to lean on,

Ms Dennis said marts also often the only ear for farmers to share their concerns or anxieties, and often these are concerns hidden from family and colleagues.

She said: To provide training for our market staff to identify and be aware of issues that may well manifest into something more serious, we feel is a very welcome addition to our training programme.

It also lends itself to the wider issue of safety in the workplace, and looking after yourself."

Kate Miles, charity manager of the DPJ Foundation, who is supporting this new training unit, said that livestock markets were a vital hub for farmers.

"It provides a chance to connect, share concerns and update on the industry. Staff play a vital role as familiar and trusted faces and are really well placed to notice if someone is not themselves.

When the LAA asked to work with us on creating their MartSafe module, we jumped at the chance as this is a key way to build confidence amongst market staff and reach more people within the industry."

Alongside the new mental health awareness training unit, MartSafe continues to cover the four core training units of animal behaviour, safe handling, people behaviour and animal welfare.

Each unit includes new content such as, low stress handling and the impact on carcass quality, safe handling of machinery and equipment and public perception.
A 46 million agri-food investment initiative has been described by Northern Irish farm leaders as a 'very positive development' for the province.

Food and drink processors of all sizes are eligible to apply for the scheme, which was officially opened earlier this week.

Developed by Invest Northern Ireland, it has been designed to improve the overall competitiveness and productivity of the agri-food and drink processing sector.

Agri-food processing makes a significant contribution to local communities throughout NI, particularly to rural communities.

By targeting support to this sector, the scheme aims to promote regional balance, with capital investment helping companies adopt greener technologies and boost productivity.

The Ulster Farmers' Union (UFU) said the scheme would have 'positive knock on affects' for rural communities and the farming industry.

UFU president, William Irvine, said: Our local agri-food and drink industry is Northern Irelands largest manufacturer, supports approximately 113,000 jobs and feeds some 10 million people across the globe.

The success of which is built upon our food producers including our farmers, who produce nutritious food to the highest environmental, animal health and welfare, and food safety standards.

As part of the scheme, the maximum aid intensity that can be granted to small businesses is 35% of the eligible investment costs and the minimum project size is 300,000.

For medium businesses, the maximum aid intensity that can be granted is 25% of the eligible investment costs and the minimum project size is 1,000,000.

And the maximum aid intensity that can be granted to large businesses is 20% of the eligible investment costs.

Kieran Donoghue, chief executive of Invest NI, said the aim of the initiative was to improve the overall competitiveness of Northern Irelands agri-food and drink processing sector.

He said: To this end, we are particularly seeking projects which are innovative and demonstrate how they will improve the productivity and sustainability of the business.

It is now open to applications from all eligible agri-food and drink processors in NI, and I encourage businesses in the sector to avail of this significant opportunity to invest for future growth.
Lea Michele latest pregnancy experience has been "very different" to her first.

Lea Michele is expecting her second child

The 37-year-old actress is expecting her second child with husband Zandy Reich, and Lea has now revealed how her two pregnancies have differed.

The Hollywood star - who already has son Ever, three, with Zandy - told PEOPLE: "It was an incredibly different experience, being pregnant with Ever. We were in California, and we were in a pandemic.

"So it was a lot of just hanging out at home and very minimal activity. And now, it's New York, it's the busy streets. I'm working, I'm a mom, and it's very different."

Lea loves that she's now able to share her pregnancy experience with her friends and family.

She explained: "None of my friends saw me pregnant, ever.

"You know, my best friend, Jonathan [Groff], never saw me pregnant. He wasn't with me, and my dad was in New York, he was on the East Coast [during] the pandemic. So to be able to have this experience and share this time with my friends and family has been really wonderful, and not something that I got to do before."

Meanwhile, Lea previously admitted that motherhood has changed her entire outlook on life.

The actress - who is best known for playing Rachel Berry in the hit TV series 'Glee' - suggested that she's become less career-focused since she gave birth to her baby boy.

During an appearance on 'The Drew Barrymore Show', Lea explained: "It was all about my career. I've been so career-focused my entire life, I think to a fault.

"I think I have this sense of drive that created a lot of blind spots for me in my life."
Pharrell Williams' star-studded Olympics party in Paris on Thursday night (25.07.24) was disrupted by animal rights protesters.

Pharrell Williams' glitzy party in Paris was disrupted by PETA protesters

The musician-turned-fashion designer hosted a glittering event for Louis Vuitton at the brand's headquarters in the French capital on the eve of the launch of the 2024 Olympic Games in the city on Friday (26.07.24) but the The Prelude To The Olympics bash was stormed by two supporters of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) who waved signs urging him to stop using animal skins in his designs for the company.

PETA Vice President of Corporate Projects Yvonne Taylor said of the protest: "While Pharrell lives it up at celeb-filled soirees, the vulnerable animals sentenced to die for his fashion choices languish in pain and filth on factory farms and at slaughterhouses, where theyll be hacked to bits or skinned alive.

"PETA is calling on Pharrell to stop being complicit in cruelty and help pull Louis Vuitton out of the dark ages by shunning the antiquated use of animal skins and fur."

The protesters held up signs emblazoned with the words "Pharrell: Stop Killing Animals for Fashion" before they were bundled away by security guards. The event - held at the Louis Vuitton Foundation - was attended by stars including Charlize Theron, Zendaya, Snoop Dogg and Serena Williams.

Pharrell has been Louis Vuitton's men's creative director since last year and he previously incurred the wrath of PETA by creating a $1 million made-to-order crocodile-skin bag.

PETA's US Senior Vice President Lisa Lange invited the musician to tour a crocodile factory farm to see how the creatures are treated prior to slaughter.

She said: "Wed like to invite you on a less-than-luxurious tour of a filthy (for thats what they are) crocodile factory farm with us to see the living origins of your Millionaire bag.

"Youd want to bring along nose plugs and high boots to wade through fetid, waste-filled water. If we go to an indoor tank, also bring a flashlight, because you wont see daylight. There are no blurred lines here. Killing wildlife for a bag isnt cool  its cold."
Stevie Nicks was rushed to hospital in the middle of the night after being struck down with a mystery infection.

Stevie Nicks has opened up about her health scare

The 76-year-old Fleetwood Mac star was staying in a "fabulous castle" in Scotland prior to her gig in Glasgow on July 6 but she pulled out of the show at the last minute explaining she needed surgery on her leg - and now she's revealed she was actually seriously ill with an infection and was rushed to hospital by her butler.

During her rescheduled gig at Glasgow's OVO Hydro venue on Wednesday (26.04.24), Stevie explained the cancellation to the crowd.

In a video from the gig posted on YouTube, she told the audience: "When I got here, I was just really so excited to be in Glasgow. And then I don't know what happened, I just got this weird infection, and it just went crazy.

"And I'm staying at this fabulous castle ... we get here days early because we want to be here for a few days before [the gig] and I finally just looked at my assistant  it was like two in the morning  and I said, I think we need to go to emergency [room]. And she looked at me and I said, Im not kidding! I think we need to go to the hospital."

Stevie went on to reveal her butler ended up driving her to the hospital in the middle of the night. She added: "And so our butler  this wonderful man, his name was Simian  throws us in his BMW Sedan which was so great and off we sped through the night to a hospital. And I was there for two days .

"They let me go back to the castle, and we cancelled this show and I've been fighting this throughout this whole thing, this whole tour, fighting what started here, and I would be damned if I wasnt coming back here."

As well as cancelling her show in Glasgow, Stevie also called off a gig at at the Co-Op Live Arena in Manchester and the tour changes were put down to a leg issue which required surgery.

A statement previously posted on X explained: "Due to a recent leg injury requiring a minor surgical procedure that will need a few days of recovery time, Stevie Nicks scheduled performances in Glasgow Saturday 6 July and Manchester Tuesday 9 July have been postponed."

Stevie played the rescheduled Manchester show on July 16.
Chinese scientists research on protecting, restoring high-altitude wetlands

Xinhua) 14:57, July 26, 2024

CHENGDU, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists are conducting monitoring, evaluation and research on biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration of the alpine wetlands in southwest China, harnessing the significant role of the wetlands in carbon sequestration and climate change adaptation.

The Zoige Wetland Ecology Research Station, established by the Chengdu Institute of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Sichuan Province, went operational on Friday.

The station is expected to provide scientific and technical support and policy recommendations for regional ecological protection and sustainable socio-economic development in southwest China, and also make scientific explorations for global wetland protection, according to Gao Yongheng, head of the research station.

The Zoige plateau, one of the main distribution areas of high-altitude wetlands in China, serves as an important ecological barrier. With the backdrop of global climate change, the region is facing significant ecological challenges, including biodiversity loss and a weakened wetland ecosystem, scientists say.

China lacked long-term monitoring and research on the ecology of high-altitude wetlands. The systematic scientific research, technological development and promotion of sustainable agricultural and pastoral development in the Zoige region are still weak, said Zhu Dan, deputy director of the station, who has conducted research in the Zoige region for nearly two decades.

The Zoige region is the most populous area for yaks on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, and the yaks are a vital source of energy and materials for the local herdsmen, Zhu said.

In addition, the Zoige wetland is the world's most concentrated area of alpine peatlands, which are similar to huge loose sponges able to hold water up to eight times its own weight. During the dry season of the Yellow River, the Zoige wetland could provide 40 percent of the downstream flow, according to Zhu.

"If the Zoige wetland is not properly protected, it might become a source of sandstorms in south China, posing a threat of ecological degradation," Zhu said.

Peatlands play a crucial role in carbon sequestration, carbon fixation and climate change mitigation due to the slow decomposition rate of carbon dioxide in peat soils, Zhu explained.

Zhang Hui, an assistant researcher at the station, said peatlands, often in a state of being submerged or semi-submerged, contain a large volume of water but with little air and low soil fauna content. If peatlands degrade, there would be an increase in soil animals such as earthworms, as well as microorganisms, leading to peat decomposition and causing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, thereby exacerbating global warming trends.

"Our research has illustrated that the unique climatic conditions of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, with its low temperatures, inhibit carbon decomposition, thereby possessing a strong carbon neutralization function," said Ju Peijun, who is also conducting research in the Zoige region.

"Previously, people only focused on the ecological functions of wetlands in terms of water conservation and biodiversity protection. We hope to draw people's attention to the carbon fixation function of wetlands," said Liu Xinwei, another assistant researcher at the station.

The new station, focusing on the Zoige wetland and covering typical wetland distribution areas of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and the adjacent regions, adopts an interdisciplinary approach to mainly carry out monitoring, research and experimental demonstration works on the conservation and sustainable utilization of high-altitude wetland ecosystems.

The research mainly includes observation of wetland and grassland ecological elements, high-altitude ecosystem structure, function and processes, as well as wetland and grassland resource conservation and utilization.

The research station has set up field observation instruments and equipment at altitudes ranging from 3,400 meters to 4,100 meters, and utilizes efficient storage and automated information transmission methods to improve the accuracy and density of field data monitoring, as well as the comprehensiveness of observed parameters.

The researchers also established a climate change simulation platform to investigate the mechanisms of aboveground vegetation, underground soil microorganism and soil carbon processes in alpine wetlands in response to climate change.

Scientists will also comprehensively explore the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem functioning, as well as investigate grassland degradation and restoration in high-altitude wetlands. Their experiments involve studying the impacts of environmental change such as warming, nitrogen deposition and grassland degradation.

Chinese researchers have engaged in exchanges and cooperation on wetland ecological protection with scientists from the United States, Canada, Australia and Croatia, as well as neighboring countries such as Russia, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bhutan and Afghanistan.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing)
Chai has always been a part of Mira Maneks life. The London-based author and entrepreneurs journey is a series of reminiscences. Memories of drinking ukaro chai as a child in London, travelling with cups of tea, it seems, from one chaiwala to the next through India, being buoyed by chai through lonely days in university, making it her happy place when travelling and living abroad in Dubai and Uganda. After her marriage ended and she came back to London, Mira fell into a food and wellness career almost by chance. By popular demand, she began making a chai spice mix  and her business Chai By Mira came about. In short order, she launched her cafe Chai By Mira in a central London yoga studio  serving everything from Rose Chai and Chai Latte as well as wholesome Ayurvedic food (one of Miras previous books is Prajna: Ayurvedic Rituals For Happiness).It is truly as if Mira took the personal  the comfort she received from her own ritual of brewing tea with spices  and made it social  in the form of the cafe  and then went entrepreneurial. Her Chai By Mira brand goes to cafes, hotels and restaurants in the UK, and is available worldwide. She finally translated it into her third book, The Book Of Chai: History, Stories And Recipes (Hachette India).The cafe has since shut down, the chai brand is doing very well, thank you, and Mira has put her vivid memories associated with tea from her childhood and youth into this book. The Book Of Chai is a vehicle to tell my personal stories, to delve into my treasure trove of memories, to encapsulate the details from my grandmothers childhood  to share and preserve them  with chai as the thread that weaves these stories together.

Mira with her grandmother Bhanuben



The book explores the history of tea in India, how masala chai was born, the fascinating fact that, although tea is the countrys national drink, it wasnt drunk in India until the 1900s, and a slew of teas from across India. There are also recipes  different types of regional teas, snacks to be relished with tea (think pakoras and the more unusual handvo cupcakes) and dishes to be made with tea and the associated spices. But what distinguishes The Book Of Chai most is the Mira in it, in the form of her India travel stories centred around chai. Stories in which she delves into her grandmothers childhood memories of growing up in a village in Gujarat, of milking cows, and other interesting stories woven around the blends. It was the stories I started writing first; the rest, the history and recipes and the structure, all came after.



Deciding which recipes would go into the book was not easy. I wanted to feature as many, if not all, the regional teas or chais I could find, and there really are so many  from the salt chai or namak-wali chai up North, closer to the Himalayas, as well as a yak butter tea, to a stronger more gingery and sweeter blend in Rajasthan and Gujarat, the cutting chai of Mumbai, and the Kashmiri kahwa. Snacks to have with chai were just as important, of course. In this book, its a mix of typical dishes such as chilli cheese toast to my own creations such as corn fritters. Lastly, I wanted there to be a celebration of spices in food, so there is everything from Carrot Cake Masala Chai Cupcakes to Chai Spiced Overnight Oats and Saffron Biscuits.



Is talking about tea to Indians like selling ice to Eskimos? Chai is an emotion; it means different things to different people. It is something to slow you down, to take a moment and breathe, to feel the spices warm the body, to feel the tea awaken the senses and the sugar send a rush of energy to the brain. And I think most Indians will identify. For many to whom Ive spoken, chai is home, it takes them back to family, to rituals, to memories. Ive tried to encapsulate chai through my stories in different parts of India, on train journeys, in the monsoons, the cities and the villages  I hope readers will connect with the memories and emotions encapsulated in these stories. She hopes to inspire readers to travel and create your own stories and memories.



The India Connection

Although Mira is based in London, India has always been a second home. Ive travelled all over India, but have spent more time in Mumbai as well as Gujarat. I still come a few times a year and often spend a month at a time there. Theres a sense of feeling at home when I land in India, like my soul or some part of me just belongs there. And each part of India is so different, so diverse, both in culture, customs and food. It is India that truly feeds my soul, gives me spiritual fulfilment, and in which I find inspiration.



The One That Got Away

In hindsight, Mira would have liked to have added a simple but pretty awesome recipe  a chai butter. Ive made it many times using my blends and it is delicious!



Also Read:

Mira Manek: Inspired By Spices

Mira Maneks Treats With Tea: Golden Spiced Blended Oats

Mira Maneks Treats With Tea: Chilli Cheese Toast

Mira Maneks Treats With Tea: Carrot Cake Masala Chai Cupcakes

Mira Maneks Treats With Tea: Chai Fudge
Chiang Mai, Thailand--(Newsfile Corp. - July 25, 2024) - Straight UP! Digital proudly announces the launch of its latest product series, uniquely crafted in the vibrant cultural hub of Chiang Mai. Representing a significant milestone in the company's quest for quality, autonomy, and innovation, the new offerings reflect Straight UP!'s commitment to excellence in digital marketing solutions.

Straight UP! Product Series

At the core of Straight UP! Digital's new series is a relentless dedication to superior quality in SEO, advertising, and social media services. The company's independent approach ensures unparalleled quality control and rapid responsiveness, setting a new industry benchmark.

The launch coincides with the expansion of Straight Chat, which further enhances media presence and brand credibility for clients. This growth underscores Straight UP! Digital's commitment to providing holistic, cutting-edge solutions in the digital marketing realm.

"The independence allows us to maintain superior quality control and quick response times," says Sebastian Stroeller, Founder of Straight UP! Digital. This philosophy extends to Straight Chat, their next-generation AI chatbot.

Yet, it is Straight UP! Digital's passion for dogs that finds the most innovative expression. The company's brands, Zoe Paws and Zoeta Dogsoul, epitomize their deep commitment to canine welfare. Zoe Paws serves as an educational and entertaining platform for dog owners, while Zoeta Dogsoul showcases their unique, energy-based dog training method. Combining traditional techniques with an understanding of canine communication, Zoeta Dogsoul offers a holistic approach to dog training.

The integration of AI technology into its dog training programs further exemplifies the company's forward-thinking approach. The development of a dog training app for iOS and dog training app for Android, featuring an AI Training Assistant in 95 languages, demonstrates the company's commitment to leveraging technology for enhancing training methods and outcomes.

Shifting to local production in Chiang Mai symbolizes the company's innovative spirit and dedication to leveraging the city's rich cultural heritage to inspire creativity and excellence.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217770

SOURCE: Straight UP! Digital
Industry experts to discuss ways we can achieve net-zero in the world of global manufacturing

Sydney, Australia, July 25, 2024

When we measure carbon footprints, certain large industries capture much public scrutiny, including energy, iron and steel production, transportation, and construction.

But there's another less obvious sector that has significant environmental impact. Households - representing the average consumer buying everyday things like phones, clothes, furniture, computers, and toys - according to the International Society of Industry Ecology account for more that 60% of global emissions.

While the complexities of this sector have proven difficult for governments to tackle, specialised individuals are stepping up to the challenge. Professor Peter Ralph from the Faculty of Science at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is one example. He says, "I'm a research scientist by background, but my goal is to use science to help all industries decarbonise."

Professor Ralph's research uses algae to remove carbon from the atmosphere and integrates it into industrial production processes. "Effectively," he explains, "I'm remaking the things people want and need using net zero technologies."

Achieving net-zero in the world of manufacturing is the next topic of discussion in the UTS Global Game Changers series, entitled The Big Carbon Rethink.

On 8 August, Professor Ralph will sit down with Vice President of Manufacturing at global technology conglomerate, Siemens, Dr Gunter Beitinger; co-founder of innovative plastics-alternative company Uluu, Dr Julia Reisser; director of brand and marketing at iconic Australian swimwear group Piping Hot, Amy Low; and fellow UTS researcher and marine ecologist, Dr Alex Thomson.

With well-known ABC 'War on Waste' host, Craig Reucassel, leading the conversation, discussants will examine factors driving consumer behaviour and enabling companies to transition to net zero.

"We recognise," says Piping Hot's Amy Low, "that a successful transition is as much about creating a sense of value in the product as it is about eliminating emissions in the production process. Industry structures and the way we consume products both need to change."

In pursuit of the most innovative and sustainable outcomes, Piping Hot Australia has commissioned the UTS research collective directed by Professor Ralph - The Climate Change Cluster (C3) - to develop a new biomaterial derived from algae that can sequester carbon from the ocean and reduce the environmental impact of synthetic fibres.

To produce Piping Hot's environmentally sustainable and popular consumer products, experts representing business, technology, design, and science have gathered. "We're dealing with complex problems, and the best way we can approach them," says UTS C3's Manager of Industry Engagement, Dr Alex Thomson, "is through large cross-disciplinary teams."

Dr Gunter Beitinger concurs saying, "Due to my different roles and tasks at Siemens, the Estainium Association, and as a member of the World Economic Forum, I have had the opportunity to listen to many interest groups to understand them better. What I have seen when it comes to carbon emissions is that the only way to make a powerful impact is if governments, private sectors, independent organisations, and academia work together and collaborate."

Innovative Western Australian company, Uluu, co-founded by Dr Julia Reisser, is another example of scientists applying their expertise in the world of business. An oceanographer who specialised in ocean plastic pollution, Dr Reisser was one of the early founding members of The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch not-for-profit developing technology to remove plastic from the seas. Determined to do more than "simply tackle the symptoms of plastic pollution", Dr Reisser examined the market saw that unlike renewable energy, "there were no persuasive alternatives to plastics made from fossil fuels. So," she says, "I decided to try to produce a material that acts like plastic but is made from seaweed."

Uluu's breakthrough product is as innovative as it is sustainable. It can be generated as a rigid substance - think furniture, consumer electronics, and car interiors - and in more flexible forms - think films, foams, and coatings. Its versatility and nature-based durability has caught the attention UTS scientists. UTS and Uluu are now looking forward to an exchange of research ideas.

Professor Ralph and Dr Reisser support collaborative "discovery science", which explains Reisser "broadens our knowledge and has the potential to be transformational." Professor Ralph adds, "We both recognise the need for translational R&D, which takes fundamental science and finds a place for it in the market, so UTS and Uluu working together makes sense."

Even the most challenging of problems seems within reach when expert collaborations come into effect. Take for example Scope 3 emissions. Notoriously tricky to measure and track, Siemens has developed a process to query, calculate, and transfer Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) data along the supply chain and combine this with a company's own carbon emissions data. "Siemens cross-industry Estainium network," explains Dr Beitinger, "is linking up manufacturers, suppliers, customers, and others in the supply chain to exchange the 'whole picture' PCF information set."

Professor Ralph explains, "Once a manufacturer knows which components of its product have the highest embodied carbon, they can look to source lower carbon equivalents and reduce the PCF. In general, we need more visibility of green feedstocks, and sector-wide awareness, not just the more progressive companies. It's a global project that impacts everyone."

The upcoming Global Game Changers - the Big Carbon Rethink is one step towards broader public engagement. Join the conversation.

Expert UTS Contacts:

Professor Peter Ralph, Director of the UTS Climate Change Cluster, email Peter.Ralph@uts.edu.au

Dr Alex Thomson, Industry Engagement Manager of the UTS Climate Change Cluster, email alexandra.thomson@uts.edu.au and mobile +61 (0) 482 164 796

Attachment
LEM HOLDING SA / Key word(s): Quarter Results

LEM with significant sales decline in Q1 2024/25 - first signs of stabilization in China



26-Jul-2024 / 07:00 CET/CEST

Release of an ad hoc announcement pursuant to Art. 53 LR

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



Geneva, 26 July 2024 - LEM (SIX: LEHN), a global leader in electrical measurement for automation, e-mobility, renewable energy, power network and railroad applications, announces its results for the first quarter 2024/25 (April-June): Sales declined 27.9% to CHF 81.0 million (Q1 2023/24: CHF 112.3 million); at constant exchange rates, the decrease was 26.9%.



LEM recorded significant sales declines in the EMEA region of 32.3%, in Rest of Asia of 33.8% and in the Americas of 28.8%. China was down 20.3% year-on-year but showed first signs of stabilization due to improved bookings in the Automotive and Renewable Energy businesses.



Compared to the previous year's level, bookings decreased to CHF 65.1 million (CHF 81.0 million); the book-to-bill ratio was 0.80. Nevertheless, bookings increased over the last three quarters.



EBIT decreased by 71.4% to CHF 7.5 million (CHF 26.2 million); the EBIT margin stood at 9.3%. Net profit fell to CHF 4.8 million, resulting in a net profit margin of 5.9% (CHF 20.5 million; 18.3%).



LEM expects business in Q2 2024/25 to be on a similar level as in Q1 2024/25. Based on feedback from customers and projects wins, sales should pick up during the second half of the financial year. Frank Rehfeld, Chief Executive Officer, said: "LEM operates in markets where the investment climate has deteriorated significantly due to the economic downturn. This trend intensified with the ongoing reduction in inventories. Structurally, a further shift of the renewable energy and automotive industries towards Asia can be observed, which is intensifying price competition in all regions. Thanks to the cost initiatives introduced and the acceleration of the innovation process with joint developments with leading customers, LEM won important projects in various industries and markets that will become visible in our future sales. We were able to further develop our business and will continue to benefit from fundamental, environmentally friendly trends in the increasingly competitive areas of electrification, renewable energies and e-mobility." Andrea Borla, Chief Financial Officer, commented: "The first quarter, with a decrease in sales of 27.9% and an EBIT margin of 9.3%, is the worst result in the recent history of LEM. Sentiment has not yet improved in our end markets, but the various measures introduced have shown initial measurable success. Furthermore, the sequential increase in incoming orders over the last three quarters is encouraging, albeit at a low level." Sales by business in CHF millions Q1 2024/25 Q1 2023/24 Change Business Scope Automation drives, robots, tooling machines, elevators, HVAC 23.6 34.3 -31.1% Automotive battery (EV & CE), motor control, onboard charging 19.9 27.4 -27.2% Renewable Energy solar, wind 14.1 21.0 -32.9% Energy Distribution & High Precision charging stations, smart grid, energy storage, high precision 12.2 15.6 -21.5% Track trains, metro, trackside 11.1 14.2 -21.3% Total 81.0 112.3 -27.9%

Automation The business contracted in a difficult economic environment and was also slowed down by the ongoing reduction in stock levels as well as the rescheduling of certain orders. In China, where sales initially started to weaken during the current cycle, there were first signs of stabilization. Automotive The Automotive business showed weak sales momentum overall. In China, the most important market, a significant part of our business depends on exports, and this had been negatively impacted. However, LEM was able to grow in line with the domestic market thanks to the cost initiatives implemented and the increased customer focus. LEM won new business in China, e.g. from a leading EV manufacturer, and regained market share. Demand in the Rest of Asia region suffered from weak demand and high inventory levels. Europe performed well with new projects for battery management being ramped up. Renewable Energy The business recorded a decline across the board, with signs of stabilization in China due to stable domestic demand and the reduction of inventories at manufacturers and distributors. LEM was able to maintain its market share due to better customer proximity and competitive pricing. Thanks to an accelerated innovation process and co-developments with customers, important projects were won. The remaining regions were characterized by high inventories and project postponements. Energy Distribution & High Precision The DC meter business for charging stations recorded a significant decrease, driven by a slowdown of the installation speed and due to some of LEM customers losing market share in Europe. The development of the US charging infrastructure also stagnated. Only in China did LEM see an increased demand for DC meters from manufacturers of charging stations for export to Europe and the USA. Products for smart grids developed more cautiously due to a generally lower level of investment. Track The business, which is characterized by long investment cycles, has returned to its usual growth path. It was still supported by the regular retrofit business for the replacement of energy meters for locomotives in several smaller EU countries, with more to follow. Track also recorded stable growth in China and India. Sales by region in CHF millions Q1 2024/25 Q1 2023/24 Change Region Scope China

31.8 39.8 -20.3% Rest of Asia Japan, South Korea, India, South-East Asia 13.6 20.5 -33.8% EMEA Europe, Middle East & Africa 26.7 39.4 -32.3% Americas NAFTA & Latin America 9.0 12.6 -28.8% Total 81.0 112.3 -27.9%

China The environment in China showed signs of stabilization in the first quarter of 2024/25, particularly in the Automation and Renewable Energies businesses. Sales growth compared to Q4 2023/24 reached 40%. Thanks to the measures taken to improve flexibility, cost efficiency and customer proximity, LEM was able to acquire promising new customers and projects in the automotive, solar and energy distribution industries, which will support growth in the coming quarters. Track also performed well. Rest of Asia The other Asian markets, particularly Korea and Japan, experienced a broad-based downturn due to the general economic weakness, weak exports and high inventory levels. The Indian market was stable. The new production site in Penang enables LEM to supply the Asian markets as well as the USA and Europe from Asia and has brought further production lines into operation. EMEA Europe experienced a broad-based slowdown in demand, which was exacerbated in part by high inventories in the DC meter and solar industries and in the automation business in general. Orders were postponed and some canceled in those areas. In the Automotive segment, starting from a low base, LEM was able to benefit from the start of production for major orders and acquired two large orders for battery management systems. Overall, there was a high level of design-in activity with customers for new platforms in all business areas. Americas The Americas region was not immune to the generally subdued investment activity that has persisted since the second quarter of 2023/24. This led to order postponements in the Automation business and increasing price pressure in the Automotive business. On a positive note, the region will benefit from a large order for battery management from a European car manufacturer in the second half of the year. Profitability under pressure Gross profit for the first quarter of 2024/25 dropped by 30.5% to CHF 36.0 million (CHF 51.8 million). The gross profit margin decreased from 46.1% to 44.4%. The main reasons were a negative product and geographical mix and the under absorption of production fixed costs due to the lower volume. SG&A costs increased by 7.6% to CHF 18.6 million (CHF 17.3 million). This increase was due to LEM's investments in digitalization, such as the go live of the new ERP system in several sites, and build-up costs for the new production facility in Malaysia. LEM continued its investment in future applications. R&D costs increased by 19.2% to CHF 9.9 million (CHF 8.3 million) due to new and expanded R&D centers. EBIT decreased by 71.4% to CHF 7.5 million (CHF 26.2 million); the EBIT margin stood at 9.3%. Net profit fell to CHF 4.8 million, resulting in a net profit margin of 5.9% (CHF 20.5 million; 18.3%). Outlook LEM expects business in Q2 2024/25 to be on a similar level as in Q1 2024/25. Based on feedback from customers and projects wins, sales should pick up during the second half of the financial year. Financial calendar The financial year runs from 1 April to 31 March 11 November 2024 Half year results 2024/25 7 February 2025 9 months results 2024/25 27 May 2025 Full year results 2024/25 26 June 2025 Annual General Meeting for the financial year 2024/25 1 July 2025 Dividend ex-date 3 July 2025 Dividend payment date

LEM - Life Energy Motion A leading company in electrical measurement, LEM engineers the best solutions for energy and mobility, ensuring that our customers' systems are optimized, reliable and safe. Our 1'800 people in 17 countries transform technology potential into powerful answers. We develop and recruit the best global talent, working at the forefront of megatrends such as renewable energy, mobility, automation and digitization. With innovative electrical solutions, we are helping our customers and society accelerate the transition to a more sustainable future. Listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 1986, the company's ticker symbol is LEHN. www.lem.com Investor contact Andrea Borla, Chief Finance Officer +41 22 706 1250 investor@lem.com Media contact Dynamics Group Thomas Balmer, +41 79 703 87 28, tba@dynamicsgroup.ch Christian Wolf, +41 79 457 72 05, cwo@dynamicsgroup.ch

Appendix ATTACHMENTS: Press Release (pdf): LEM Q1 2024/25 If you do not wish to receive further media releases from LEM, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the following link: One-click-delete If the email looks unformatted, please use this alternative link .

End of Inside Information
AI-enhanced solution will help Eisai accelerate data review and reconciliation by 80%

Medidata, a Dassault Systemes brand and leading provider of clinical trial solutions to the life sciences industry, today announced Eisai Inc. ("Eisai"), the U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary of Tokyo-based Eisai Co., Ltd., as one of the first customers to harness its recently announced AI-driven Medidata Clinical Data Studio. Eisai Inc., will leverage this innovative data experience to gain unprecedented control over its clinical data, enable the execution of scalable and complex clinical trials, and enhance patient experience.

"We've included Medidata's Clinical Data Studio in our clinical trial management platform given its ability to break down data silos and seamlessly integrate into our current software stack, while maintaining quality and integrity across all data sources," said Shobha Dhadda, Ph.D. chief clinical science operations officer, at Eisai. "Having a suite of technology solutions capable of processing diverse clinical and patient data types provides increased efficiencies without sacrificing quality or needing additional resources."

Clinical Data Studio is powered by the Medidata Platform, the industry's only unified platform that centrally manages all data sources, improving data reliability across the entire clinical trial ecosystem. By seamlessly integrating data from both Medidata sources, including Medidata Rave EDC, and non-Medidata sources, such as labs or another electronic data capture system, Clinical Data Studio streamlines the import process and enables automatic validation through configured data transfer agreements. Utilizing AI, it mitigates challenges posed by disparate data systems and offers up to 80 percent faster data review while providing a comprehensive view of patient data that can be concurrently reviewed, visualized, and acted on.

"Through Clinical Data Studio, Eisai is enabling healthcare stakeholders to overcome the complexities of modern clinical trials and foster collaboration on cleaner, more actionable data," said Janet Butler, executive vice president, global head of sales, Medidata. "By delivering a unified AI-driven data management and analytics experience, we are enabling study teams to identify potential data issues faster and gain a more accurate understanding of the patient."

About Medidata

Medidata is powering smarter treatments and healthier people through digital solutions to support clinical trials. Celebrating 25 years of ground-breaking technological innovation across more than 33,000 trials and 10 million patients, Medidata offers industry-leading expertise, analytics-powered insights, and the largest patient-level historical clinical trial data set in the world. More than 1 million registered users across 2,200+ customers trust Medidata's seamless, end-to-end platform to improve patient experiences, accelerate clinical breakthroughs, and bring therapies to market faster. A Dassault Systemes brand (Euronext Paris: FR0014003TT8, DSY.PA), Medidata is headquartered in New York City and has been recognized as a Leader by Everest Group and IDC. Discover more at www.medidata.com and follow us @Medidata.

About Dassault Systemes

Dassault Systemes is a catalyst for human progress. We provide business and people with collaborative virtual environments to imagine sustainable innovations. By creating virtual twin experiences of the real world with our 3DEXPERIENCE platform and applications, our customers can redefine the creation, production and life-cycle-management processes of their offer and thus have a meaningful impact to make the world more sustainable. The beauty of the Experience Economy is that it is a human-centered economy for the benefit of all -consumers, patients and citizens. Dassault Systemes brings value to more than 350,000 customers of all sizes, in all industries, in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit www.3ds.com.

Dassault Systemes. All rights reserved. 3DEXPERIENCE, the 3DS logo, the Compass icon, IFWE, 3DEXCITE, 3DVIA, BIOVIA, CATIA, CENTRIC PLM, DELMIA, ENOVIA, GEOVIA, MEDIDATA, NETVIBES, OUTSCALE, SIMULIA and SOLIDWORKS are commercial trademarks or registered trademarks of Dassault Systemes, a European company (Societas Europaea) incorporated under French law, and registered with the Versailles trade and companies registry under number 322 306 440, or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are owned by their respective owners. Use of any Dassault Systemes or its subsidiaries trademarks is subject to their express written approval.

About Eisai Inc.

Eisai Inc., a human health care company, is the U.S. pharmaceutical subsidiary of Tokyo-based Eisai Co., Ltd. headquartered in Nutley, N.J. Dedicated to oncology and neurology, its U.S. operations include research development; manufacturing; global supply logistics; and commercial activities. Learn more: https://us.eisai.com; Follow us on X and LinkedIn.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240724837236/en/

Contacts:

Medidata PR

Medidata.PR@3ds.com

Analyst Relations

Medidata.AR@3ds.com
Real-world data demonstrating vaccine effectiveness against mpox of up to 90% after two MVA-BN doses and a significant reduction of the risk of mpox-related hospitalizations

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, July 26, 2024 - Bavarian Nordic A/S (OMX: BAVA) today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended the approval of a type II variation for IMVANEX (MVA-BN) smallpox and mpox vaccine, including real-world effectiveness data from the use of the vaccine during the global 2022 mpox outbreak in the marketing authorization.

In the absence of real-world data before the 2022 outbreak, the European marketing authorization of MVA-BN, granted in 2013 for smallpox prevention and extended in 2022 to include mpox, was based on efficacy data in non-human primates and immunogenicity data from numerous studies involving more than 4,000 healthy and immune-compromised individuals. These data demonstrated that MVA-BN had a favorable safety profile and induced immune responses that were non-inferior when compared to traditional smallpox vaccines, which are known to confer cross-protection against mpox and other orthopoxviruses.

After a systematic review and analysis of data from real-world observational studies conducted in vaccine-eligible individuals and published after the onset of the global mpox outbreak in 2022, Bavarian Nordic submitted an application to EMA in late 2023 for a type II variation, representing a major change to the marketing authorization for MVA-BN.

In the real-world studies, vaccine effectiveness against mpox disease was demonstrated at least 14 days after vaccination, with adjusted vaccine effectiveness estimates ranging from 35% (95% CI, -2-59) to 89% (95% CI, 76-95) after one MVA-BN dose and from 66% (95% CI, 47-78) to 90% (95% CI, 86-92) after two MVA-BN doses.

Furthermore, in a surveillance study, MVA-BN was shown to reduce the risks of mpox-related hospitalization. Compared with unvaccinated mpox patients, the odds of hospitalization were 0.27 (95% CI, 0.08-0.65) after one MVA-BN dose, and 0.20 (95% CI, 0.01-0.90) after two MVA-BN doses. The estimated relative risk reduction was 73% after one MVA-BN dose and 80% after two MVA-BN doses.

"The 2022 global mpox outbreak provided an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of our vaccine in at-risk populations across different geographies, both before and after exposure to the mpox virus, and we are pleased to receive the recommendation to include real-life data in our marketing authorization in Europe, which confirm a high effectiveness of up to 90% after two doses of the vaccine as recommended by the authorities. It is furthermore encouraging that data show the vaccine to significantly reduce the risk of hospitalizations, thus confirming our vaccine as an important and versatile tool in the fight against mpox globally," said Paul Chaplin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bavarian Nordic.

About the MVA-BN smallpox and mpox vaccine

MVA-BN or Modified Vaccinia Ankara-Bavarian Nordic (marketed under the brand names JYNNEOS, IMVANEX and IMVAMUNE) is a non-replicating smallpox and mpox vaccine. The vaccine is approved by the FDA, EC, Health Canada, MHRA and Swissmedic and has also obtained emergency use authorization in other territories for use during the mpox outbreak. The vaccine was originally developed in collaboration with the U.S. government to ensure supply of a smallpox vaccine for the entire population, including immunocompromised individuals who are not recommended vaccination with traditional replicating smallpox vaccines.

Bavarian Nordic has been a long-term supplier of the vaccine to the U.S. and Canada as well as several other countries as part of their national biological preparedness. During the 2022-2023 mpox outbreak, Bavarian Nordic has furthermore supported governments and supranational organizations by expanding access to the vaccine to more than 70 countries worldwide.

For a full list of adverse events and information on dosage and administration, contraindications and other precautions when using IMVANEX, please refer to the Summary of Product Characteristics .

About Bavarian Nordic

Bavarian Nordic is a fully integrated vaccine company with a mission to protect and save lives through innovative vaccines. We are a global leader in smallpox and mpox vaccines, supplied to governments to enhance public health preparedness and have a strong portfolio of vaccines for travelers and endemic diseases. For more information visit www.bavarian-nordic.com .

Forward-looking statements

This announcement includes forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning our plans, objectives, goals, future events, performance, and/or other information that is not historical information. All such forward-looking statements are expressly qualified by these cautionary statements and any other cautionary statements which may accompany the forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances after the date made, except as required by law.

Contacts

Europe: Rolf Sass Srensen, Vice President Investor Relations, rss@bavarian-nordic.com , Tel: +45 61 77 47 43

US: Graham Morrell, Paddock Circle Advisors, graham@paddockcircle.com , Tel: +1 781 686 9600

Attachment
FirstGroup Plc - Transaction in Own Shares

PR Newswire

LONDON, United Kingdom, July 26

FirstGroup plc

Transaction in own shares

FirstGroup plc ("FirstGroup") announces that, in accordance with the terms of its share buyback programme (the "Programme") announced on 8 June 2023, it has purchased the following number of its ordinary shares of 5 pence each ("Ordinary Shares") through RBC Europe Limited.

Date of Purchase 25 July 2024 Number of ordinary shares purchased 202,660 Weighted average price paid (p) 169.10 Highest price paid (p) 170.50 Lowest price paid (p) 167.50

Following the above purchase, FirstGroup holds 134,115,165 Ordinary Shares in treasury. The total number of Ordinary Shares in issue excluding shares held as treasury shares is 616,579,850. FirstGroup initially intends to hold the purchased shares as treasury shares but may cancel them in the due course.

The total number of voting rights in FirstGroup, excluding treasury shares as at 25 July 2024 is 616,579,850. This figure may be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, FirstGroup under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

Contacts at FirstGroup:

Marianna Bowes, Head of Investor Relations

David Blizzard, Company Secretary

corporate.comms@firstgroup.co.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7725 3354 Contacts at Brunswick PR:

Andrew Porter / Simone Selzer

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7404 5959 Contacts at Panmure Liberum:

Nicholas How / John Fishley

Tel: +44 (0) 20 3100 2000 Contacts at RBC Europe Limited:

James Agnew / Jack Wood

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7653 4000

Transaction details

Issuer name: FirstGroup PLC

LEI: 549300DEJZCPWA4HKM93

ISIN: GB0003452173

Classification: 2.4. Acquisition or disposal of the issuer's own shares

Intermediary name: RBC Europe Limited

Intermediary Code: ROYCGB22

Timezone: GMT

Currency: GBp

In accordance with Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (the Market Abuse Regulation), a breakdown of the individual trades made by RBC Europe Limited on behalf of FirstGroup as part of the Programme is detailed below:

Aggregate information:

Venue Weighted average price (pence per share) Aggregated volume XLON 169.00 53,669 BATE 169.00 3,631 CHIX 169.21 130,892 TRQX 169.00 1,762 Aquis 169.00 12,706

Individual transactions:
JZ Capital Partners Ltd - Compulsory Redemption of Shares and Total Voting Rights

PR Newswire

LONDON, United Kingdom, July 26

JZ CAPITAL PARTNERS LIMITED (the "Company")

(a closed-ended investment company incorporated with limited liability under the laws of Guernsey with registered number 48761)

LEI 549300TZCK08Q16HHU44

Compulsory Redemption of Shares and Total Voting Rights

26 July 2024

Unless otherwise defined herein, capitalised terms used in this announcement have the meanings given to them in the circular of the Company dated 30 May 2024 (the Circular).

Completion of Compulsory Redemption of Shares

Further to the announcements made by the Company on 3 July 2024 and 10 July 2024, the Company today announces that, on 25 July 2024 (the Redemption Date), it effected a compulsory partial redemption of 9,803,921 Ordinary Shares (the Redemption), which will result in the return of an aggregate amount of US$39,999,997.68. On this basis, approximately 12.65% of the Company's total issued share capital has been redeemed pursuant to the Redemption.

The Redemption was effected at a price of US$4.08 per Ordinary Share (the Redemption Price) from all Ordinary Shareholders pro rata to their existing holdings of Ordinary Shares as at the close of business on 25 July 2024 (the Redemption Record Date). The Redemption Price, which was determined by the Board, represented the NAV per Ordinary Share as published on 21 June 2024 (being the most recently published month-end NAV of the Company prior to the announcement made by the Company on 10 July 2024).

Following the Redemption, the Company now has 67,673,293 Ordinary Shares in issue and, with effect from today, the Ordinary Shares will trade under the new ISIN number: GG00BT3MVL31. Shareholders' existing share certificates for the Ordinary Shares subject to the Redemption will be cancelled and new certificates will be issued for the balance of their holding of Ordinary Shares. It is expected that new share certificates will be dispatched by 1st class post at the risk of Shareholders by 8 August 2024.

It is expected that payments of Redemption monies will be paid either through CREST (in the case of Ordinary Shares held in uncertificated form) or by cheque (in the case of Ordinary Shares held in certificated form) by 8 August 2024.

As mentioned in the announcement made by the Company on 10 July 2024, with respect to any potential further returns of capital in the longer term, Shareholders should note that the Board retains absolute discretion as to the execution, extent and timing of any further potential returns of capital. Further, the Company remains committed to its investment policy and specifically the strategy of realising the maximum value of investments and, having repaid all debt, returning capital to Shareholders, subject always to retaining sufficient funds to cover existing obligations and support certain existing investments to maximise their value. To that end, the Company will continue to assess its ability to make further returns of capital to Shareholders (as well as the manner in which they are made), and will seek to do so as and when it has sufficient cash reserves that are not otherwise required to support its existing investments to maximise value and/or to meet its existing obligations such as operational expenses.

Total Voting Rights

In accordance with the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules the Company also notifies the market of the following:

The total number of ordinary shares in issue as at 8.00 a.m. on 26 July 2024 was 67,673,293 with each ordinary share carrying the right to one vote.

The Company does not hold any shares in treasury. Therefore, the total number of voting rights in the Company is 67,673,293.

This figure may be used by Shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company under the FCA's Disclosure Guidance and Transparency Rules.

___________________________________________________________________________________

For further information:

Kit Dunford / Ed Berry

FTI Consulting +44 (0)7717 417 038 / +44 (0)7703 330 199 David Zalaznick

Jordan/Zalaznick Advisers, Inc. +1 212 485 9410 Hannah Hayward

Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited +44 (0) 1481 745 417

Important Notice

This announcement contains a number of "forward-looking statements". Generally, the words "will", "may", "should", "continue", "believes", "expects", "intends", "anticipates", "forecast", "plan" and "project" or in each case, their negative, or similar expressions identify forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the relevant company's current views with respect to future events and are subject to risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Many of these risks, assumptions and uncertainties relate to factors that are beyond the companies' abilities to control or estimate precisely, such as future market conditions, changes in general economic and business conditions, introduction of competing products and services, lack of acceptance of new products or services and the behaviour of other market participants. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, no assurance can be given that such expectations will prove to have been correct. Shareholders should not, therefore, place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this document. Except as required by applicable law or regulation, the Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained in this document to reflect any change in the Company's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
The transaction would see Masdar become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions

Masdar will invest 817m to acquire a 49.99% stake in 2GW of solar energy plants, with a potential BESS hybridization for up to 0.5 GW

Masdar has also signed an MoU with Endesa to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain

One of Spain's biggest renewable energy transactions in recent years, the partnership is expected to play a significant role in helping Spain meet its NECP targets and the EU's net zero by 2050 target

Agreement cements Masdar's position in Spain, one of EU's largest solar markets, advancing growth plans in Europe as company targets global capacity of 100GW by 2030

ABU DHABI, UAE and MADRID, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC - Masdar ("Masdar"), the UAE's clean energy leader, announced today that it has reached an agreement with Endesa S.A. ("Endesa") to become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. The transaction would see Masdar invest 817 million to acquire a 49.99% stake, with an enterprise value of 1.7 billion, representing one of Spain's biggest renewable energy deals.

The portfolio Masdar plans to acquire consists of 48 operational solar plants of 2GW aggregated capacity. Endesa and Masdar aim to add 0.5GW of battery energy storage system (BESS) to the projects. The partnership reinforces Masdar's reputation as a trusted global energy partner for governments, investors, developers, and communities.

The deal demonstrates Masdar's commitment to accelerating the energy transition in Spain and Europe, and these solar projects will play an important role in supporting Spain to meet its National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the EU's net zero by 2050 targets.

In addition to the acquisition Share Purchase Agreement (SPA), Masdar and Endesa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain.

The deal reflects Masdar's ambitious growth plans in Europe, having recently announced that it has reached a definitive agreement with Greece's GEK TERNA SA and other shareholders of TERNA ENERGY SA to initially acquire 67% of the company's outstanding shares, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. With a strong portfolio of projects in Greece and Europe, TERNA ENERGY is targeting renewable energy operational capacity of 6GW by 2030.

In March this year, Masdar and Spain's Iberdrola also reached financial close on the 476MW Baltic Eagle offshore wind project located in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Germany.

Masdar's existing presence in Spain includes the Almenara 1.2GW solar photovoltaic (PV) project in the Castilla la Mancha region of Spain currently under development.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala; Endesa is a subsidiary of the Italian energy giant Enel.

HE Dr Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Chairman of Masdar and COP28 President, said:

"Building on Masdar's global expertise and pioneering approach to renewable energy innovation and development, this partnership underscores our commitment to unlocking clean energy capacity in Spain, Europe, and around the world, supporting the global mandate enshrined in the COP28's UAE Consensus to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 enabling a just, orderly and equitable energy transition. Masdar is accelerating its ambitious growth plans as we target 100GW of renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade."

Flavio Cattaneo, CEO of Enel Group, said:

"We are pleased that Enel, through its subsidiary Endesa, has started this partnership with a major player such as Masdar and, looking ahead, we hope that we will be able to carry out similar transactions in other geographies."

Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar, commented:

"By forging a strategic partnership in Spain with Endesa for 2.5GW of solar and battery storage assets, we are taking a significant step forward in our ambitious growth plans in one of Europe's largest renewables markets. This deal with Endesa will play a significant role in supporting Spain and the wider EU in meeting their net-zero ambitions. We are delighted to also sign an MoU with Endesa to become their preferred partner for future solar projects."

Advisors:

Masdar has retained BNPP as its transaction advisor, Linklaters as legal advisor, UL as technical advisor, PwC as its tax advisor, and PexaPark as PPA advisor.

Banks:

The acquisition was partially funded via acquisition financing from BNPP, Santander, Intesa, ADCB, FAB and SMBC. Lenders were advised by Ashurst.

About Masdar

Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company) is one of the world's fastest-growing renewable energy companies. As a global clean energy pioneer, Masdar is advancing the development and deployment of solar, wind, geothermal, battery storage and green hydrogen technologies to accelerate the energy transition and help the world meet its net-zero ambitions. Established in 2006, Masdar has developed and invested in projects in over 40 countries with a combined capacity of over 20 gigawatts (GW), providing affordable clean energy access to those who need it most and helping to power a more sustainable future.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala, and is targeting a renewable energy portfolio capacity of 100GW by 2030 while aiming to be a leading producer of green hydrogen by the same year.

For more information please visit: https://www.masdar.ae and connect: facebook.com/masdar.ae and twitter.com/masdar.

About Endesa

Endesa is a leading electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. It is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. It undertakes end-to-end business including the generation, distribution and retailing of electricity. It also offers electric mobility services, where it is one of the main operators of charging stations in Spain, and other value-added services aimed at the electrification of energy uses in homes, companies, industries and public administrations. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power Espana, the digitalization of grids through e-distribucion and Corporate Social Responsibility. The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR. Our workforce numbers around 9,000 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, the largest electricity group in Europe.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469453/Masdar_Partners_with_Endesa.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1973446/Masdar_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/masdar-partners-with-endesa-in-1-7-billion-renewable-energy-transaction-in-spain-302207382.html
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.
EDINBURGH, Scotland, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Spiritfilled, a leader in the premium spirits industry, proudly announces the opening of Braeside Bond, a state-of-the-art bonded warehouse located in the heart of the Lowlands. This new facility is designed to meet the growing demands of spirit maturation, storage and distribution, offering unparalleled services to distillers, cask owners and importers across the globe.

Braeside Bond is strategically situated to take advantage of Scotland's rich heritage in whisky production and its robust logistics network. The facility boasts 20,000 square feet of secure storage space with a capacity to house over 14,000 casks, Braeside Bond is poised to become a pivotal hub for cask maturation.

Key Features of Braeside Bond:

Enhanced Security Measures: State-of-the-art security systems, including 24/7 surveillance, access control and fire suppression systems ensure that all stored products are protected.

Customizable Storage Solutions: Whether you need short-term storage or long-term aging solutions, Braeside Bond offers flexible options tailored to meet your specific requirements.

Efficient Logistics: Located near major transportation routes and ports, Braeside Bond facilitates seamless distribution and export processes, reducing lead times and operational costs for our clients.

Russell Spratley, CEO of Spiritfilled, expressed his enthusiasm about the launch, stating, "Braeside Bond represents a significant milestone for Spiritfilled. We are committed to providing our clients with the highest standards of storage and maturation facilities. This new venture not only supports the growth of our business but also reinforces our commitment to improving our client experience."

About Spiritfilled:

Spiritfilled is a renowned provider of premium spirits, dedicated to quality, innovation and customer satisfaction. With a diverse portfolio of products, Spiritfilled has established itself as a trusted name in the spirits industry, delivering exceptional experiences to connoisseurs and enthusiasts alike.

CONTACTS:

Russell Spratley: info@spiritfilled.co.uk or +44 208 126 1760

Website: spiritfilled.co.uk

Social Media: @spiritfilledltd

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2468273/Spiritfilled_Ltd.jpg

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/spiritfilled-announces-the-launch-of-braeside-bond-a-premier-bonded-warehouse-for-spirits-302205324.html
MUNICH, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Trina Storage, a leading provider of integrated energy storage solutions, is proud to announce that it has been recognized as a Tier 1 energy storage supplier by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BloombergNEF) for three consecutive quarters. This prestigious recognition is a testament to Trina Storage's comprehensive capabilities and its active contributions to the global energy transition.

BNEF's Tier 1 status is awarded to manufacturers that meet rigorous standards for product performance, bankability, and customer satisfaction. Trina Storage's strong financial health, cutting-edge technology, and extensive project portfolio have positioned it as a trusted leader in the energy storage industry.

Innovative Solutions Driving Success

Trina Storage's success is built on its comprehensive approach to energy storage, providing solutions from cell to pack to container. The company's vertically integrated manufacturing process ensures high-quality control and consistency, while its expertise in system design and engineering commissioning delivers optimized, turnkey energy storage systems tailored to customer needs.

Commitment to Sustainability and Innovation

Trina Storage remains at the forefront of the energy storage industry through continuous innovation and a strong focus on sustainability. A significant contributor to this success is the Elementa 2 - Trina Storage's latest innovation in energy storage technology. Elementa 2, the new generation, cutting-edge battery storage system equipped with in-house Trina Storage cells, offers enhanced performance with a cycle life of up to 12,000 cycles, higher energy density, and improved safety features, helping customers achieve greater efficiency, stability, and sustainability in their energy usage.

"We are honored to be recognized as a Tier 1 energy storage manufacturer by BNEF for three consecutive quarters," said Helena Li, Executive President of Trina Solar. "This achievement reflects our relentless dedication to providing superior energy storage solutions that meet the highest standards of performance and reliability. It also validates the hard work and innovation of our team, as well as the trust and support of our customers and partners worldwide."

Looking Ahead

As Trina Storage continues to expand its global footprint, the company remains committed to its mission of driving the clean energy revolution. With a strong pipeline of innovative projects and a growing portfolio of satisfied customers, Trina Storage is well-positioned to maintain its Tier 1 status and lead the energy storage market into a sustainable future.

About Trina Storage

Trina Storage, a business unit of Trina Solar established in 2015, is a global leader in energy storage products and solutions, dedicated to transforming the way we provide energy. Our mission is to lead the renewable energy transition through cost-competitive storage and to provide Solar For Everyone by expanding solar generation at scale. Leveraging over 27 years of expertise in solar manufacturing, we offer cost-effective and flexible storage solutions to meet the diverse needs of our global customers.

More information is available on the Trina Storage website, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2468242/Tier_1_in_Q3.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/trina-storage-achieves-tier-1-status-for-three-consecutive-quarters-by-bloombergnef-302205663.html
Oxford Instruments Plc - Annual General Meeting 2024 Results

PR Newswire

LONDON, United Kingdom, July 26

26 July 2024

Oxford Instruments plc

Annual General Meeting 2024 Results

The Annual General Meeting (the "AGM") of Oxford Instruments plc (the "Company") was held at Ashurst LLP, London Fruit & Wool Exchange, 1 Duval Square, London E1 6PW on 25 July 2024 at 11am.

All resolutions were voted upon by a poll and the resolutions proposed at the AGM were all passed by shareholders with the necessary majorities. The full text of each resolution is contained in the Notice of Annual General Meeting, which is available on the Company's website (oxinst.com).

The number of votes for and against each of the resolutions put before the AGM and the number of votes withheld were as set out in the table below.

Resolution Votes for % Votes against % Total votes cast (excluding withheld) % of issued share capital voted Votes withheld 1. To receive the 2024 Annual Report and Financial Statements 47,399,464 100.00 25 0.00 47,399,489 81.82 96,703 2. To approve the Directors' Remuneration Report 46,643,409 98.21 849,741 1.79 47,493,150 81.98 3,042 3. To declare a final dividend 47,495,865 100.00 225 0.00 47,496,090 81.98 102 4. To re-elect Neil Carson as a director of the Company 45,803,032 96.44 1,691,842 3.56 47,494,874 81.98 1,818 5. To elect Richard Tyson as a director of the Company 47,493,675 100.00 1,199 0.00 47,494,874 81.98 1,818 6. To re-elect Gavin Hill as a director of the Company 47,489,935 99.99 4,939 0.01 47,494,874 81.98 1,818 7. To re-elect Alison Wood as a director of the Company 46,129,577 97.12 1,365,493 2.88 47,495,070 81.98 1,622 8. To re-elect Mary Waldner as a director of the Company 46,196,957 97.27 1,297,957 2.73 47,494,914 81.98 1,778 9. To re-elect Nigel Sheinwald as a director of the Company 46,197,261 97.27 1,297,613 2.73 47,494,874 81.98 1,818 10. To elect Hannah Nichols as a director of the Company 46,430,704 98.13 886,588 1.87 47,317,292 81.67 179,400 11. To re-appoint BDO LLP as auditor of the Company 47,495,144 100.00 523 0.00 47,495,667 81.98 1,025 12. To authorise the Audit and Risk Committee to agree the auditor's remuneration 47,495,974 100.00 134 0.00 47,496,108 81.98 584 13. To authorise political donations and expenditure 47,135,050 99.24 360,562 0.76 47,495,612 81.98 1,080 14. To authorise the Board to allot shares 46,096,520 97.05 1,398,811 2.95 47,495,331 81.98 1,361 15. To authorise the disapplication of pre-emption rights * 46,185,476 97.24 1,309,947 2.76 47,495,423 81.98 1,269 16. To authorise the additional disapplication of pre-emption rights * 45,017,877 94.78 2,477,346 5.22 47,495,223 81.98 1,469 17. To authorise the purchase of own shares * 47,309,584 99.61 183,815 0.39 47,493,399 81.98 3,293 18. To authorise the calling of a general meeting of the Company on not less than 14 days' notice * 47,115,543 99.20 381,024 0.80 47,496,567 81.98 125

* Indicates a special resolution.

For all resolutions, as at close of business on 23 July 2024, being the time at which shareholders who wanted to attend, speak and vote at the meeting were required to have their details entered in the register of members, the issued share capital of the Company with voting rights consisted of 57,934,037 ordinary shares of 5 pence each. The Company did not hold any shares in treasury. Ordinary shareholders have one vote for each ordinary share held.

Please note a "vote withheld" is not a vote under English law and is not counted in the calculation of votes "for" or "against" a resolution. Votes "for" and "against" are expressed as a percentage of votes received, rounded to two decimal places. Votes "for" include those at the Chairman's discretion.

In accordance with UK Listing Rule 9.6.2R, a copy of all the resolutions passed have been submitted to the Financial Conduct Authority via the National Storage Mechanism and in due course will be available for inspection at https://data.fca.org.uk/#/nsm/nationalstoragemechanism .

This notification is made in accordance with UK Listing Rule 9.6.3R.

LEI number of Oxford Instruments plc: 213800J364EZD6UCE231

Enquiries:

Sarah Harvey

Company Secretary

Sarah.harvey@oxinst.com
PORT VILA, Vanuatu, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading multi-asset broker, Vantage Markets ("Vantage") is delighted to announce the release of the fifth episode of The Vantage View , "The Future of HealthTech". The Vantage View video series is produced in collaboration with Bloomberg Media Studios and offers insightful financial analysis and perspectives.

This latest episode features Arnaud Bauer, Partner at L.E.K. Consulting, and delves into the transformative potential of healthcare technology as well as its promising investment opportunities.

Bauer starts by discussing the rapid growth in healthcare data production, stating, "By 2025, the world is expected to produce 15,000 exabytes of healthcare data annually, versus only 2000 in 2020." According to the research by L.E.K. Consulting, the healthcare industry alone accounts for approximately 30% of the world's data volume. Additionally, the global healthcare data analytics market is projected to reach $1.5 to $2 billion by 2030.

Highlighting the potential of investment opportunities within the markets, Bauer explains, "Healthcare data is increasingly used by pharma and medtech companies to bring new innovations to market, monitor products with available evidence data, and is now being leveraged by tech and AI companies. The breadth and depth of data, its longitudinality, and the quality of underlying data are key factors driving its value."

Marc Despallieres, Chief Strategy and Trading Officer at Vantage, says, "We're excited to unveil this latest episode, putting the spotlight on HealthTech. The focus on healthcare technology aims to provide a fresh perspective on a rapidly evolving sector, while uncovering hidden opportunities in an area that many investors haven't fully explored yet. We're confident the intersection of healthcare and technology is poised to drive significant innovation and investment potential."

Previous episodes of The Vantage View have explored topics like A.I., the space economy, the circular economy, and sustainable mobility, featuring insights from leaders such as Dr. Ayesha Khanna, Simon Gwozdz, Dr. Seeram Ramakrishna, and Andrey Berdichevskiy.

Tune into the latest episode of The Vantage View to explore the dynamic world of HealthTech and its investment possibilities.

About Vantage

Vantage Markets (or Vantage) is a multi-asset broker offering clients access to a nimble and powerful service for trading Contracts for Difference (CFDs) products, including Forex, Commodities, Indices, Shares, ETFs, and Bonds.

With over 14 years of market experience, Vantage transcends the role of broker, providing a trusted trading ecosystem, an award-winning mobile trading app , and a user-friendly trading platform that empowers clients to seize trading opportunities. Download the Vantage App on App Store or Google Play.

trade smarter @vantage

About Bloomberg Media

Bloomberg Media is the world's leading multi-platform media company for business and finance, which draws on the editorial resources of more than 2,700 editorial professionals globally in more than 120 countries. Bloomberg Media is the consumer-facing media organization of Bloomberg L.P.

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2467992/Image.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1745281/Vantage_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/vantage-markets-reveals-the-future-of-healthtech-in-the-latest-episode-of-the-vantage-view-302206095.html
LONDON, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading multi-asset broker, Vantage Markets ("Vantage UK") is delighted to announce the release of the fifth episode of The Vantage View , "The Future of HealthTech". The Vantage View video series is produced in collaboration with Bloomberg Media Studios and offers insightful financial analysis and perspectives.

This latest episode features Arnaud Bauer, Partner at L.E.K. Consulting, and delves into the transformative potential of healthcare technology as well as its promising investment opportunities.

Bauer starts by discussing the rapid growth in healthcare data production, stating, "By 2025, the world is expected to produce 15,000 exabytes of healthcare data annually, versus only 2000 in 2020." According to the research by L.E.K. Consulting, the healthcare industry alone accounts for approximately 30% of the world's data volume. Additionally, the global healthcare data analytics market is projected to reach $1.5 to $2 billion by 2030.

Highlighting the potential of investment opportunities within the markets, Bauer explains, "Healthcare data is increasingly used by pharma and medtech companies to bring new innovations to market, monitor products with available evidence data, and is now being leveraged by tech and AI companies. The breadth and depth of data, its longitudinality, and the quality of underlying data are key factors driving its value."

David Shayer, CEO of Vantage UK, remarks, "Exploring the HealthTech sector provides us with valuable insights into an area with significant growth potential. As healthcare and technology continue to merge, there are numerous opportunities for investors to consider."

Previous episodes of The Vantage View have explored topics like A.I., the space economy, the circular economy, and sustainable mobility, featuring insights from leaders such as Dr. Ayesha Khanna, Simon Gwozdz, Dr. Seeram Ramakrishna, and Andrey Berdichevskiy.

Tune into the latest episode of The Vantage View to explore the dynamic world of HealthTech and its investment possibilities.

The information is provided for educational purposes only and doesn't take into account your personal objectives, financial circumstances, or needs. We encourage you to seek independent advice if necessary.

About Vantage UK

Vantage UK (or Vantage Markets) is a multi-asset broker offering clients access to a nimble and powerful service for trading Contracts for Difference (CFDs) on Forex, Commodities, Indices, Shares, ETFs, and Bonds.

With over 14 years of market experience, Vantage UK transcends the role of broker, providing a trusted trading ecosystem and a user-friendly trading platform that empowers clients to seize trading opportunities.

trade smarter @vantage

https://www.vantagemarkets.co.uk/

Risk warning: CFDs and Spread Bets are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 72.5% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs and Spread Bets with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs and Spread Bets work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money. Please seek independent advice if necessary.

About Bloomberg Media

Bloomberg Media is the world's leading multi-platform media company for business and finance, which draws on the editorial resources of more than 2,700 editorial professionals globally in more than 120 countries. Bloomberg Media is the consumer-facing media organization of Bloomberg L.P.

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2467993/Image.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1745281/Vantage_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/vantage-uk-shines-a-light-on-healthtech-innovations-in-latest-episode-of-the-vantage-view-302206090.html
Today, J. William Reynolds, Mayor of the City of Bethlehem, and Chair of the Bethlehem World Heritage Commission speaking on behalf of all four historic Moravian communities announced that Moravian Church Settlements has been inscribed on the prestigious World Heritage List at the World Heritage Committee meeting in New Delhi, India, July 21-31, 2024.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240726407698/en/

Moravian Church Settlements Delegation at the World Heritage Committee meeting. Pictured here (from left) are Jean Manes, U.S. Deputy Representative to UNESCO; Moravian University President Bryon L. Grigsby; Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds; Johnathan Putnam, Acting Chief, Office of International Affairs National Park Service; Rt. Rev. Chris Giesler; Mr. Clemens, Saxon State Minister of the Chancellery (Photo: Business Wire)

The historic Moravian Church Settlements of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania/USA; Gracehill, Northern Ireland/UK; and Herrnhut, Germany now join Christiansfeld, Denmark (already inscribed in 2015) as a single World Heritage site that represents the outstanding universal value of these historic settlements and the worldwide influence of the Moravian Church.

"We would like to express our appreciation to our respective governments of the United States, Denmark, Germany, and Northern Ireland/UK for their efforts on behalf of Moravian Church Settlements," said Mayor Reynolds.

More information can be found on moravianchurchsettlements.org, launching today.

Moravian Church Settlements is a transnational extension of Christiansfeld, a Moravian Church Settlement in Denmark founded in 1773 and inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2015. The Moravian Church is a Protestant denomination in the free church tradition centered in Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany. The extension includes three additional component parts:

Bethlehem (USA) was established in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1741. This highlights the early transatlantic dimension of the Moravian Church phenomenon during a prolific settlement-building decade and added the cultural dimension of the Moravians' outreach to Native Americans.

Gracehill (UK) was founded in Northern Ireland in 1759. It represents the significance of the Moravian Church in the UK and exemplifies a unique series of 'ideal' urban plans that demonstrate a notable gender axis. This is showcased by the division of the town plan into a sisters' side and a brothers' side, which directly reflects the fundamental functional structure of Moravian society.

Herrnhut (Germany) is considered the 'mother' or 'founding town' of the Renewed Moravian Church. It was established in 1722 in Saxony and evolved in line with the development of Moravian theology and societal ideals. This town defined the principles of all Moravian Church settlements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240726407698/en/

Contacts:

MEDIA CONTACTS

Bethlehem: Craig Larimer, larimerc@moravian.edu

Christiansfeld: Steen Rosenvinge Lundbye, srl@museumkolding.dk

Gracehill: David Johnston, johnstonni@aol.com

Herrnhut: Friederike Hansell, friederikehansell@gmail.com
Multiparty legislative elections herald continued work on reform agenda

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Central Election Commission of the Republic of Uzbekistan (CEC) has fixed the election date for parliamentary elections that follow on last year's successful constitutional referendum. Citizens will go to the polls on October 27 to elect a total of 150 parliamentary deputies and almost 6,000 members of local councils.

This election represents the first time since 2019 that parliamentarians have had to seek a new mandate from voters, and the first since the 2023 constitutional referendum, which vested more power in the parliament than ever before. Additionally, this election makes a change from an exclusively "first past the post" method to a majority-proportional (mixed) system. This time, 75 of the 150 deputies of the Legislative Chamber will be elected from single-member constituencies under the "first past the post" system, while the remaining 75 will be chosen through proportional representation; that is, on the basis of votes given to party lists, with a threshold of 7%.

Nizamkhodjaev Zayniddin, chairman of the CEC, explained the importance of the elections in garnering public confidence in democratic processes.

"Today, our citizens are not only witnesses of major transformations, but also active participants in transformation processes through genuine representation of the interests of citizens and civil society institutions. The elections push forward with the liberalization of socio-political relations, the accountability of public institutions at all levels to the population, the democratization of public administration, and of course the strengthening of institutions of parliamentary control over the activities of officials."

Several parties are expected to participate. A provision for more political competition in the Constitution approved just last year stipulated that the basic law of the country must guarantee the freedom of political opposition in parties as well as public associations, mass movements, and representative bodies of state power. There are also quotas for women, who should number at least 40% of the candidates nominated from a political party in single-mandate constituencies, while on the party list, at least two out of every five sequential candidates must be women.

An "E-Elections" information system has been put in operation, allowing all CEC activities, as well as their interaction with political parties, candidates, observers and mass media to be fully automated. This secures openness and transparency of the process while reducing unnecessary bureaucracy.

Public interest in the election is expected to be higher than in the past, because the legislature is no longer a rubber stamp, but rather a strengthened political force that executes significant checks and balances on the Presidency and the judiciary.

As per the pre-election calendar, parties have certain thresholds to meet. For example, they must collect 40,000 voter signatures for the CEC to grant permission to participate in the elections, Then, the parties have to nominate candidates and certify their election manifesto.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/uzbekistan-central-election-commission-announces-parliamentary-elections-for-october-302207410.html
The surge in adoption of structural parts across various end-use industries is significantly propelling the styrene maleic anhydride (SMA) market size.

WILMINGTON, Del., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global styrene maleic anhydride market stood at US$ 3.5 billion in 2023, and the global market is projected to reach US$ 5 billion in 2034. The international styrene maleic anhydride market is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 3.5% between 2024 and 2034.

The global styrene maleic anhydride (SMA) market is witnessing robust growth, driven by its extensive applications across various industries and the rising demand for advanced materials. SMA, a versatile copolymer, is prized for its excellent adhesion properties, thermal stability, and chemical resistance, making it a preferred choice in numerous applications.

One of the primary drivers of the SMA market is its increasing adoption in the automotive and construction industries. In automotive applications, SMA is used in the production of structural parts, coatings, and adhesives due to its durability and performance under stress.

Request a PDF Sample of this Report Now! https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=86127

The construction sector similarly benefits from SMA's properties, employing it in sealants, coatings, and composite materials that enhance the longevity and strength of buildings and infrastructure.

Another significant factor propelling the SMA market is the burgeoning battery manufacturing sector. SMA is used in the production of advanced battery components, which are critical for the performance and lifespan of modern batteries. The rise in electric vehicle (EV) adoption and the expansion of renewable energy storage solutions are fueling investment in battery technology, consequently driving the demand for SMA.

Moreover, the packaging industry contributes to the market's growth. SMA is utilized in various packaging materials due to its excellent barrier properties and compatibility with different substrates. As the demand for sustainable and high-performance packaging solutions increases, so does the use of SMA.

Geographically, the Asia-Pacific region dominates the global SMA market. Countries such as China, India, and Japan are experiencing rapid industrialization and urbanization, leading to increased demand for SMA in construction, automotive, and electronics applications. Additionally, these countries are major hubs for battery manufacturing, further boosting the market.

Key Takeaways of Market Report

Global styrene maleic anhydride market to generate absolute dollar opportunity worth US$ 5 billion until 2034.

Global styrene maleic anhydride market is valued at US$ 3.5 billion in 2023.

Asia Pacific is forecasted to hold the largest share in 2023.

Styrene Maleic Anhydride Market: Growth Drivers

SMA copolymers, known for their enhanced material performance, high mechanical strength, and excellent thermal stability, are increasingly used as additives in manufacturing structural parts across various industries. This has propelled their adoption in the automotive and construction sectors, driving the styrene maleic anhydride (SMA) market development.

SMA copolymers serve as effective compatibilizers and electrolyte modifiers in lithium-ion battery manufacturing. With lithium-ion batteries powering a wide range of electronic devices, major battery manufacturers are investing heavily in battery cell production to meet the demands of electronics, electric vehicles, defense, and aerospace industries. This investment surge is expected to augment the demand for SMA polymers, further fueling the dynamics of the SMA market.

Styrene Maleic Anhydride Market Report Scope:

Report Coverage Details Forecast Period? 2024-2034 Base Year? 2020-2022 Size in 2023 US$ 3.5 Bn Forecast (Value) in 2034 US$ 5.0 Bn Growth Rate (CAGR) 3.5 % No. of Pages 308 Pages Segments covered By Type, By Application, By End-use Industry, By Region

Styrene Maleic Anhydride Market: Regional Landscape

Asia Pacific emerged as the leading region in 2023, fueled by a significant expansion in the construction sector. The region's progress is further bolstered by initiatives such as India's National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), launched in 2020 to accelerate infrastructure development and investments.

The rising demand for electronic products and electric vehicles is expected to positively impact the SMA market share in Asia Pacific during the forecast period. As countries in the region continue to invest in infrastructure and sustainable technologies, the demand for SMA, a key component in various applications including construction materials and electronic devices, is projected to experience substantial growth, consolidating Asia Pacific's position as a dominant player in the global SMA market.

Unlock Growth Potential in Your Industry! Download PDF Brochure: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=86127

Styrene Maleic Anhydride Market: Key Players

In 2023, INEOS introduced a novel range of SMA copolymers with enhanced thermal stability and mechanical properties. This advancement addressed the growing demand for high-performance SMA materials in industries such as automotive, construction, and electronics, further consolidating INEOS's position as a leading provider of specialty chemicals.

In 2023, Aurorium contributed to the SMA market with the development of an innovative SMA-based compatibilizer specifically designed for lithium-ion battery manufacturing.

This new compatibilizer improved the performance and durability of battery materials, meeting the increasing demand for reliable energy storage solutions in applications ranging from portable electronics to electric vehicles. Aurorium's breakthrough technology positioned them as a key player in the evolving landscape of sustainable battery technologies.

Styrene Maleic Anhydride Market: Segmentation

By Type

Alternate SMA

Random SMA

By Application

Polymer Modification

Resin Modification

Chemical Intermediates

Surface Sizing Agents

Compatibilizers

Others

By End-use Industry

Automotive

Chemicals

Building & Construction

Others

By Region

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Middle East & Africa

Latin America

Buy this Premium Research Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=86127<ype=S

More Trending Reports by Transparency Market Research -

Acetic Anhydride Market - The global acetic anhydride market is projected to advance at a CAGR of 4.3% from 2023 to 2031

The global acetic anhydride market is projected to advance at a from 2023 to 2031 Aramid Paper Market - The global aramid paper market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 4.4% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2034

The global aramid paper market is projected to expand at a during the forecast period from 2024 to 2034 MV Dynamic Underwater Cables Market is estimated to increase at a CAGR of 11.3% from 2023 to 2031 and reach US$ 4.2 Bn by the end of 2031

is estimated to increase at a CAGR of 11.3% from 2023 to 2031 and reach US$ 4.2 Bn by the end of 2031 Cross Laminated Timber Market is expected to increase at a CAGR of 10.6% from 2023 to 2031 and reach US$ 3.0 Bn by the end of 2031

About Transparency Market Research

Transparency Market Research, a global market research company registered at Wilmington, Delaware, United States, provides custom research and consulting services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insights for thousands of decision makers. Our experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools & techniques to gather and analyses information.

Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

Contact:

Transparency Market Research Inc.

CORPORATE HEADQUARTER DOWNTOWN,

1000 N. West Street,

Suite 1200, Wilmington, Delaware 19801 USA

Tel: +1-518-618-1030

USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453

Website: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com

Follow Us: LinkedIn| Twitter| Blog | YouTube

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1682871/TMR_Logo_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/styrene-maleic-anhydride-market-to-be-worth-us-5-0-billion-by-2034--growing-a-cagr-3-5---exclusive-report-by-transparency-market-research-inc-302205441.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!
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!
GLASGOW, Scotland, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2024 UK's Best Workplaces for Women has officially recognised Invisors among the 330 ranked organisations.

The 2024 UK's Best Workplaces for Women List is made up of employers whose people have told Great Place To Work UK they work for a place that is inclusive and equitable for all. The 330 companies on the list are committed to ensuring a reasonable balance of women and men across the organisation; removing barriers to women's career advancement; and creating workplaces where all employees, regardless of gender, can flourish.

"Invisors being named on the Best Workplaces for Women UK list is a testament to our unwavering commitment to fostering an inclusive, supportive and empowering environment for women to thrive and excel in their careers," shares Lorna Casey, Director of EMEA Functional Practice at Invisors. "This recognition reflects our dedication to creating a workplace where diversity is celebrated and everyone is given the opportunity to reach their full potential. We are proud to be acknowledged for our efforts and will continue to strive towards equality and excellence for all of our employees."

Benedict Gautrey, Managing Director of Great Place To Work UK says:

"Workplaces are only great if they're great for all employees. For seven years, the UK's Best Workplaces for Women List has been paving the way by tackling discrimination, removing barriers to women's advancement in their careers, and challenging taboos around subjects like the menopause, and endometriosis.

"Importantly, each of the companies on the list have been commended by their own female employees through their anonymous feedback that told us their workplace has gone above and beyond to ensure that women employees are treated fairly in terms of recognition, training, and promotion opportunities.

"It's fantastic to once again see a wide spread of sectors and organisational sizes appearing on our Best Workplaces for Women List this year - congratulations to all!"

In addition to being recognized as one of the Best Workplaces for Women in the UK, Invisors has received various recognitions by Great Place to Work, including Great Place to Work certification since 2021, Best Workplaces for Development UK, Best Workplaces for Millennials, and Best Workplaces for Parents.

About Invisors

As a certified Workday Services Partner, Invisors helps customers utilize their organizational data to make better-informed business decisions through the deployment of Workday. With a focus on delivering exceptional client experiences, Invisors helps organizations unlock the full potential of their Workday investments. We believe the most important measure of our team's success is our client's ability to achieve their big-picture vision. From initial deployments to ongoing projects, we are focused on elevating perspectives + transforming results. Learn more by visiting invisors.com.

About Great Place To Work

Great Place To Work is the global authority on workplace culture, helping organisations to create exceptional, high-performing workplaces where employees feel trusted and valued. The UK's Best Workplaces for Women enables these outstanding organisations to celebrate their achievements, build their employer brand, and inspire others to take action. For more information, visit www.greatplacetowork.co.uk.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469579/Invisors.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/invisors-named-one-of-uks-best-workplaces-for-women-by-great-place-to-work-302207346.html
XIAMEN, China, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 25, 2024, the 40th Anniversary Ceremony of Xiamen Airlines was held in Xiamen. At this event, the review of the company's 40-year inspiring history was made, and a new blueprint mapped.

In his letter replied to Xiamen Airlines employees to celebrate the anniversary, President Xi Jinping extended warm congratulations, and expressed fervent hopes. Zhao Dong, Chairman of Xiamen Airlines, remarked that the president's words mean both the highest honor the company has received, and the greatest responsibility awaiting fulfillment. While reviewing the company's 40-year history, Zhao emphasized the meaningfulness of the "three mosts": most grateful for President Xi's caring guidance, most thankful for support and empathy of leaders at all levels and in all kinds of organizations, and most admiring devotion of all employees generation after generation.

Looking forward, Zhao Dong said that Xiamen Airlines will stick to President Xi's new visions, carry forward distinguished values that the organization was built upon, and keep Xiamen Airlines Spirit alive. By protecting and continuing "Xiamen Airlines Undertaking", the company will play a bigger role in promoting economic and social development, enhancing cross-Strait exchanges and cooperation, turbocharging high-quality development in the civil aviation industry, and boosting China's strength in transportation.

At the ceremony, the honorary title and medal of "Xiamen Airlines Pioneers in Entrepreneurship'" was conferred, and Framework Agreement on Joint Support for Deepening Reform of Xiamen Airlines signed.

The day before the ceremony, the company launched a publicity campaign under the same theme at the Bagua Mansion on Kulangsu Island, the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. The campaign features the release of the corporate anthem "Egrets by Your Side" and its first white paper on corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the announcement of strengthening cooperation with the UN Global Compact China Office by including five major initiatives with the aim "propel sustainable development fly for a better world".

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469718/The_40th_Anniversary_Ceremony_Xiamne_Airlines.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/xiamen-airlines-celebrates-its-40th-anniversary-302207431.html
With Over 23 Million Euros Invested for Safety Measures

After a long wait, on Saturday, July 27th, the Via dell'Amore will reopen to the public. With just over 900 metres of trail perched over the sea, this iconic symbol of Liguria is one of the most stunning, evocative, and famous pathways in the world. It is located in the natural paradise of Cinque Terre, which was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240725501622/en/

View of Via dell'Amore ph credits Bruno Maderna

Closed since 2012 due to a landslide, the Via dell'Amore was reopened after a complex redevelopment led by the Liguria Region, the Government's commissioner for management of hydrogeological instability, and in collaboration with Riomaggiore, the Cinque Terre National Park, the Superintendency of Archaeology, Fine Arts, and Landscape, and the Harbour Master's Office.

The total investment exceeded 23 million euros, with the Liguria Region providing 12 million euros, and additional funding from the Ministry of Culture (6.9 million), the Ministry of Environment (3 million), and Civil Protection (1.5 million).

Reopening the Via dell'Amore was complex due to its fragile cliffside location. Restoration work started on January 14, 2022, and finished on July 19, 2024. Specialist companies worked on-site using helicopters to transport materials while rock workers suspended by ropes and cables performed deep anchorages on the cliff and installed stainless-steel mesh.

On the eve of its reopening, the Via dell'Amore was inaugurated with support from the Ministry of Tourism. The communities of Riomaggiore and Manarola celebrated with key figures including the Minister of Tourism, Daniela Santanche; the Commissioner for the management of hydrogeological instability, Giacomo Raul Giampedrone; the interim President of the Liguria Region, Alessandro Piana; the President of the Cinque Terre National Park, Donatella Bianchi; and the Mayor of Riomaggiore, Fabrizia Pecunia.

Accompanying the authorities was a train adorned with a design dedicated to the Via dell'Amore, which will remain in service on the route. The day was marked by a captivating fireworks display and a music show.

Going forward, Riomaggiore town will manage the trail as an open-air museum with reserved, limited, and fee-based access to maintain safety measures.

www.lamialiguria.it

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240725501622/en/

Contacts:

Emanuela Capitanio

Alessandra Perrucchini +393404212323

press@wondercomunicazione.net
CHICAGO, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The report "Paints & Coatings Market by Resin Type (Acrylic, Alkyd, Epoxy, Polyurethane, Fluoropolymer, Vinyl, Polyester), Technology (Waterborne Coatings, Solvent-borne Coatings, Powder Coatings), End Use (Architectural, Industrial), Region - Global Forecast to 2029", is projected to reach a market size of USD 227.5 billion by 2029 from USD 194.5 billion in 2024, at a CAGR of 3.2%. The Asia pacific is one of the prominent consumers of paints & coatings across the globe. Currently, the requirement for paints & coatings is growing tremendously for automotive, packaging, construction, electronics, and others. The growth of the emerging economies as China, India, Brazil and Mexico among others contribute significantly for the development of the global paints & coatings market.

Browse in-depth TOC on "Paints & Coatings Market".

456 - Tables

62 - Figures

410 - Pages

Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=156661838

Acrylic resin type segment is expected to register the highest growth of the architectural paints & coatings market during the forecasted period.

Pure acrylic powder is renowned for its exceptional look, flexibility, and film toughness. Acrylics are frequently used due to their appealing finish, durable surface, outstanding weather resistance, and good electrostatic application qualities, making them perfect for applications that require high standards. These resins are widely used as clear coatings in the automobile industry. The acrylic resin market is rapidly developing in the coatings business. Demand for acrylic resin coatings is rapidly expanding in emerging economies like as China and India, owing to rising living standards and a growing preference for high-quality paint.

Epoxy resin type segment holds the largest share in the overall industrial paints & coatings market during the forecast period in terms of value.

Epoxy resins are used in the production of adhesives, plastics, paints, coatings, primers, sealants, floors, and other construction and building products. Epoxies are used in the paints & coatings business to form insulating and protective layers for maritime vessels, satellite systems, spacecraft, and airplanes. Epoxy is a reliable anchor in a variety of applications, including fastening handrails, rebar, and bolts into concrete. Epoxy resins are valuable in a variety of sectors because they may be used as adhesives, laminating resins, grinding wheel coatings, fire-retardant coatings, and insulating materials. Their resistance to heat stress and water makes them very good in preventing corrosion.

Request Sample Pages: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestsampleNew.asp?id=156661838

Asia Pacific region is likely to be the fastest growing paints & coatings market during the forecast period.

Rapid urbanization and industrialization in Asia-Pacific are increasing demand for a wide range of sectors, including EV automotive vehicles, packaging, aerospace& defence, marine, construction, and medical & healthcare. The expansion of industrial activities in nations such as China, India, Japan, and South Korea has raised the demand for paints & coatings. In addition, significant infrastructure development projects, notably in India and China, are propelling up demand in the building & construction industry for bonding, sealing, insulation, and surface protection. Technological advancements in paints and coatings tailored to meet the needs of diverse industries are expected to fuel market growth in this domain.

Key Players

Akzo Nobel N.V. (Netherlands), PPG Industries Inc. (US), The Sherwin-Williams Company (US), Axalta Coating Systems LLC. (US), Jotun A/S (Norway) are the key players in the global paints & coatings market.

Browse Adjacent Market: Coatings Adhesives Sealants and Elastomers Market Research Reports & Consulting

Related Reports:

Architectural Coatings Market - Global Forecast to 2028

Industrial Coatings Market - Global Forecast to 2028

About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets has been recognized as one of America's best management consulting firms by Forbes, as per their recent report.

MarketsandMarkets is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. We have the widest lens on emerging technologies, making us proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients.

Earlier this year, we made a formal transformation into one of America's best management consulting firms as per a survey conducted by Forbes.

The B2B economy is witnessing the emergence of $25 trillion of new revenue streams that are substituting existing revenue streams in this decade alone. We work with clients on growth programs, helping them monetize this $25 trillion opportunity through our service lines - TAM Expansion, Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy to Execution, Market Share Gain, Account Enablement, and Thought Leadership Marketing.

Built on the 'GIVE Growth' principle, we work with several Forbes Global 2000 B2B companies - helping them stay relevant in a disruptive ecosystem. Our insights and strategies are molded by our industry experts, cutting-edge AI-powered Market Intelligence Cloud, and years of research. The KnowledgeStore (our Market Intelligence Cloud) integrates our research, facilitates an analysis of interconnections through a set of applications, helping clients look at the entire ecosystem and understand the revenue shifts happening in their industry.

To find out more, visit www.MarketsandMarkets.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Contact:

Mr. Rohan Salgarkar

MarketsandMarkets INC.

630 Dundee Road

Suite 430

Northbrook, IL 60062

USA: +1-888-600-6441

Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com

Research Insights: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/paint-coating-market.asp

Visit Our Website: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/

Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/paint-coating.asp

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1951202/4609423/MarketsandMarkets.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/paints--coatings-market-worth-227-5-billion-by-2029--exclusive-report-by-marketsandmarkets-302207363.html
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - Lake Victoria Gold Ltd. (TSXV: LVG) ("LVG", or the "Company") - is pleased to announce that it has closed the first tranche of its non-brokered private placement announced on July 15, 2024 (the "Private Placement") of unsecured convertible debentures (each, a "Debenture") for gross proceeds to the Company of $563,000. The Company intends to close a subsequent tranche of the Private Placement to raise aggregate gross proceeds, together with the first tranche, of up to $750,000.

Each Debenture bears interest at 12% per annum payable quarterly, which interest, may at the option of the Company be settled in cash or in common shares of the Company (each, a "Share") subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). Each Debenture matures 24 months from the date of issuance (the "Maturity Date"). As the Debentures are unsecured debt obligations of the Company, each Debenture ranks subordinate to any secured debt obligations of the Company.

The outstanding principal amount of each Debenture is convertible, at the option of the holder, at any time prior to the Maturity Date, into common shares of the Company (each, a "Share") at a conversion price of $0.18 per Share (the "Conversion Price"). The Debentures are subject to a forced conversion provision whereby the Company may, in its sole discretion, convert the outstanding principal amount of the Debentures into Shares at the Conversion Price if, at any time after the first year following the date of issuance of the Debentures and prior to the Maturity Date, the Shares trade at a closing price above $0.275 for a period of 20 consecutive trading days on the Exchange.

The Company intends to use the proceeds of the Private Placement for general working capital purposes.

The Debentures and, if issued within four months from the date of issue of the Debentures, the Shares, are subject to a hold period expiring four months and one day following the date of issue of the Debentures in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. No finder's fees were paid in connection with the first tranche of the Private Placement. The Private Placement is subject to the final approval of the Exchange.

888 Capital Corp., a company controlled 50% by Nick DeMare, the Corporate Secretary of the Company, and Phoenix Gold Fund Limited, a holder of over 10% of the outstanding common shares of the Company, participated in the first tranche of the Private Placement by subscribing for Debentures in the principal amounts of $75,000 and $340,000, respectively, which constitute related party transactions pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). As a result of its participation in the Private Placement, Phoenix Gold Fund Limited owns or controls 12.23% of the outstanding common shares of the Company on a partially-diluted basis assuming the conversion of its Debentures. There has not been a material change in the percentage of the outstanding common shares of the Company that are owned or controlled by Mr. DeMare as a result of his participation in the Private Placement. The Company is exempt from the requirements to obtain a formal valuation and minority shareholder approval in connection with the participation of the insiders in the Private Placement in reliance on the exemptions contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101, respectively, as the fair market value of the insider participation does not exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization as determined in accordance with MI 61-101. The Company obtained approval by the board of directors of the Company to the Private Placement. No materially contrary view or abstention was expressed or made by any director of the Company in relation thereto. The Company did not file a material change report related to the Private Placement more than 21 days before the expected closing of the Private Placement, as the details of the insider participation were settled shortly prior to the closing of the Private Placement, and the Company wished to close the Private Placement on an expedited basis for sound business reasons.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in the United States or in any other jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements thereunder.

About Lake Victoria Gold

Lake Victoria Gold is a rapidly growing gold exploration and development company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol LVG. Leveraging our unique position and experience, the Company is principally focused on growth and consolidation in the highly prolific and prospective Lake Victoria Goldfield in Tanzania.

The Company has a 100% interest in the Tembo project which has over 50 thousand meters of drilling and is located adjacent to Barrick's 20Moz Bulyanhulu Mine. The Company recently (August 10, 2023 and August 29, 2023) announced the acquisition of two deposits that support our objective of accretive growth and consolidation. The Imwelo project and Dora project both have potential for significant growth.

LVG has assembled a highly experienced team with a track record of developing, financing, and operating mining projects in Africa with management, directors and partners owning more than 60% of the shares. Notably, the Company is grateful for the validation that comes with the support and equity investment from Barrick Gold and recent strategic partnership with Taifa Group.

Taifa Group (a diverse group of companies with interests in amongst others, Mining, Telecoms, Oil & Gas, Agri Business, Pharmaceuticals and Leather) has entered into an agreement with the Company to obtain an equity stake in the Company and through its wholly owned subsidiary Taifa Mining (a wholly Tanzanian owned company), or other nominees. Taifa Mining will also carry out all the contract mining and civil works for the Imwelo project. Taifa Mining is Tanzania's largest mining contractor with over 30 years mining related experience. Taifa have been the contractor of choice to most mines in Tanzania and have maintained long and successful relationships with companies such as Petra, De Beers, Barrick, and AngloGold Ashanti. In addition, Taifa also owns the largest fleet of mining equipment in Tanzania. As a company, Taifa is committed to adopting and adhering to the latest internationally recognized standards throughout all aspects of its business.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of the Company,

Simon Benstead

Executive Chairman & CFO

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation, including: the completion of the Private Placement, exploration and development plans of the Company, use of proceeds and obtaining regulatory approval for the Private Placement. All statements in this news release that address events or developments that we expect to occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Forward-Looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, although not always, identified by words such as "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "project", "target", "potential", "schedule", "forecast", "budget", "estimate", "intend" or "believe" and similar expressions or their negative connotations, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could", "should" or "might" occur. All such forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made.

Forward-Looking statements necessarily involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond LVG's control, including risks associated with or related to: receipt of all regulatory approvals; the state of financing availability; the volatility of metal prices and LVG's common shares; actual exploration or development plans and costs differing materially from the Company's estimates; and other risks disclosed in the Company's public filings.

LVG's forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management and reflect their current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date hereof. LVG does not assume any obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's beliefs, expectations or opinions should change other than as required by applicable law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results, performance or achievements could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements. Accordingly, no assurance can be given that any events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do, what benefits or liabilities LVG will derive therefrom. For the reasons set forth above, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements.

NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR THROUGH U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217824

SOURCE: Lake Victoria Gold Ltd.
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 Share Purchase for the 2024 H-share Core Employee Stock Ownership Plan



26.07.2024 / 13:30 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 Share Purchase for the 2024 H-share Core Employee Stock Ownership Plan



Qingdao / Shanghai / Frankfurt / Hong Kong, 26 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 Share Purchase for the 2024 H-share Core Employee Stock Ownership Plan. The announcement is fully available at: https://smart-home.haier.com/en/dggg/P020240726654984848359.pdf?appdesc=Announcement%20on%20the%20Completion%20of%20Share%20Purchase%20for%20the%202024%20H-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.



26.07.2024 CET/CEST The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.

Archive at www.eqs-news.com


BEIJING, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Boasting rich wetland resources, Harbin City in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province has become a popular tourism destination in summer days this year.

Since the start of July, the search volume for "wetlands" in Harbin on Chinese e-commerce platform Meituan has increased 23 percent year on year, with the number of related travel tips surging 151 percent year on year, according to data from Meituan.

Recently, the number of tourist visits to the Hulan River estuary wetland park has significantly increased, reaching about 5,000 on weekends, according to Zhang Huan, the park's operation manager.

The park gives priority to wetland ecosystem conservation. Meanwhile, it provides diversified services for visitors to do exercises and enjoy recreational activities.

As one of the Chinese cities certified as "International Wetland Cities", Harbin has been stepping up wetland conservation and restoration efforts.

It has implemented the medium- and long-term wetland protection plan (2019-2035), and rolled out wetland protection measures, a work plan for wetland ecological conservation and restoration, as well as an implementation plan for the enforcement of the national wetland protection law, securing law-based protection endeavors aiming to enhance the quality of wetlands, according to Xing Guangyou, director of wetlands and natural reserves management division of Harbin municipal forestry and grassland administration.

Wetland parks have established relevant management mechanisms. For example, Alejin Island national wetland park has introduced wetland protection management system, wildlife protection and rescue system, water quality monitoring and management system and so on. The national level wetland park covers an area of 419 hectares, of which 71.1 percent are wetlands.

Through years of efforts, Harbin has restored more than 3,000 hectares of wetlands, and reverted cultivated land into 685 hectares of wetlands.

Harbin's achievements in wetland protection have earned good returns. Approximately one million tourist visits are made to Harbin each year, creating a total income hitting tens of billions of yuan for the city.

See the original link: https://en.imsilkroad.com/p/341314.html

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469802/image.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/xinhua-silk-road-ne-chinas-harbin-becomes-popular-summer-tourism-destination-with-rich-wetland-resources-302207521.html
SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Franklin Resources, Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE: BEN) today announced net income1 of $174.0 million or $0.32 per diluted share for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, as compared to $124.2 million or $0.23 per diluted share for the previous quarter, and $227.5 million or $0.44 per diluted share for the quarter ended June 30, 2023. Operating income was $222.5 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, as compared to $129.3 million for the previous quarter and $314.9 million for the prior year.

As supplemental information, the Company is providing certain adjusted performance measures which are based on methodologies other than generally accepted accounting principles. Adjusted net income2 was $326.4 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share2 was $0.60 for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, as compared to $306.6 million and $0.56 for the previous quarter, and $326.1 million and $0.63 for the quarter ended June 30, 2023. Adjusted operating income2 was $424.9 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, as compared to $419.6 million for the previous quarter and $476.8 million for the prior year.

" During our third fiscal quarter, we saw a number of positive developments across our business which further diversified our firm's capabilities, and continued our focus on new technologies to optimize the client experience and support our business growth," said Jenny Johnson, President and CEO of Franklin Resources, Inc.

" This quarter, we continued to make progress executing our long-term plan of diversification across asset classes, investment vehicles and geographies. Client demand led to positive net flows in multi-asset and alternative strategies during the quarter. We saw a strong quarter of positive net flows across our retail SMAs, Canvas and ETF offerings. In particular, ETFs generated net inflows of over $3 billion with ending AUM of $27 billion. Our non-U.S. business saw a fifth consecutive quarter of positive net flows and finished the quarter with approximately $492 billion in AUM.

" As various aspects of the asset management industry evolve, we continue to make investments in technology across distribution, investment management and operations. This quarter, we announced that we are working with Microsoft to build an advanced financial AI platform, which will help embed artificial intelligence into our sales and marketing processes to create more personalized support for clients. We also recently announced plans to make a strategic minority investment in Envestnet, a significant industry platform. Finally, we announced the selection of a single platform to unify our investment management technologies across public market asset classes. This will support the simplification of our operation and reduce long-term capital expenditures.

" Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in the business to support our strategic priorities in asset management and wealth management for the benefit of all stakeholders."

Quarter Ended % Change Quarter Ended % Change 30-Jun-24 31-Mar-24 Qtr. vs. Qtr. 30-Jun-23 Year vs. Year Financial Results (in millions, except per share data) Operating revenues $ 2,122.9 $ 2,152.8 (1 %) $ 1,969.0 8 % Operating income 222.5 129.3 72 % 314.9 (29 %) Operating margin 10.5 % 6.0 % 16.0 % Net income $ 174.0 $ 124.2 40 % $ 227.5 (24 %) Diluted earnings per share 0.32 0.23 39 % 0.44 (27 %) As adjusted (non-GAAP):2 Adjusted operating income $ 424.9 $ 419.6 1 % $ 476.8 (11 %) Adjusted operating margin 25.7 % 25.2 % 30.5 % Adjusted net income $ 326.4 $ 306.6 6 % $ 326.1 0 % Adjusted diluted earnings per share 0.60 0.56 7 % 0.63 (5 %) Assets Under Management (in billions) Ending $ 1,646.6 $ 1,644.7 0 % $ 1,431.5 15 % Average3 1,632.6 1,581.1 3 % 1,419.6 15 % Long-term net flows (3.2 ) 6.9 0.2

Total assets under management ("AUM") were $1,646.6 billion at June 30, 2024, up $1.9 billion during the quarter due to $3.0 billion of cash management net inflows and the positive impact of $2.1 billion of net market change, distributions, and other, partially offset by $3.2 billion of long-term net outflows.

Cash and cash equivalents and investments were $5.6 billion and, including the Company's direct investments in consolidated investment products ("CIPs"), were $6.8 billion4 at June 30, 2024. Total stockholders' equity was $13.6 billion and the Company had 522.1 million shares of common stock outstanding at June 30, 2024. The Company repurchased 4.3 million shares of its common stock for a total cost of $101.5 million during the quarter ended June 30, 2024.

Conference Call Information

A written commentary on the results by Jenny Johnson, President and CEO; Matthew Nicholls, Executive Vice President, CFO and COO; and Adam Spector, Executive Vice President, Head of Global Distribution will be available via investors.franklinresources.com today at approximately 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.

Ms. Johnson and Messrs. Nicholls and Spector will also lead a live teleconference today at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time to answer questions. Access to the teleconference will be available via investors.franklinresources.com or by dialing (+1) (800) 549-8228 in North America or (+1) (646) 564-2877 in other locations using access code 21080. A replay of the teleconference can also be accessed by calling (+1) (888) 660-6264 in North America or (+1) (646) 517-3975 in other locations using access code 21080# after 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time on July 26, 2024 through August 2, 2024, or via investors.franklinresources.com.

Analysts and investors are encouraged to review the Company's recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and to contact Investor Relations at investorrelations@franklintempleton.com before the live teleconference for any clarifications or questions related to the earnings release or written commentary.

FRANKLIN RESOURCES, INC. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME Unaudited (in millions, except per share data) Three Months Ended

June 30, %

Change Nine Months Ended

June 30, %

Change 2024 2023 5 2024 2023 5 Operating Revenues Investment management fees $ 1,689.9 $ 1,613.4 5 % $ 5,056.0 $ 4,818.5 5 % Sales and distribution fees 358.3 304.0 18 % 1,013.0 897.3 13 % Shareholder servicing fees 61.8 38.8 59 % 162.3 115.5 41 % Other 12.9 12.8 1 % 35.5 32.0 11 % Total operating revenues 2,122.9 1,969.0 8 % 6,266.8 5,863.3 7 % Operating Expenses Compensation and benefits 893.8 841.2 6 % 2,890.3 2,667.7 8 % Sales, distribution and marketing 481.1 406.8 18 % 1,366.2 1,202.0 14 % Information systems and technology 156.6 127.3 23 % 442.7 376.7 18 % Occupancy 104.8 56.9 84 % 247.7 171.1 45 % Amortization of intangible assets 84.0 85.4 (2 %) 254.4 254.6 0 % General, administrative and other 180.1 136.5 32 % 507.2 427.2 19 % Total operating expenses 1,900.4 1,654.1 15 % 5,708.5 5,099.3 12 % Operating Income 222.5 314.9 (29 %) 558.3 764.0 (27 %) Other Income (Expenses) Investment and other income, net 74.5 49.8 50 % 300.2 200.3 50 % Interest expense (25.7 ) (34.9 ) (26 %) (72.2 ) (99.3 ) (27 %) Investment and other income of consolidated investment products,net 37.6 1.7 NM 103.7 75.3 38 % Expenses of consolidated investment products (8.8 ) (0.8 ) NM (20.6 ) (15.7 ) 31 % Other income, net 77.6 15.8 391 % 311.1 160.6 94 % Income before taxes 300.1 330.7 (9 %) 869.4 924.6 (6 %) Taxes on income 68.1 84.1 (19 %) 205.8 237.3 (13 %) Net income 232.0 246.6 (6 %) 663.6 687.3 (3 %) Less: net income (loss) attributable to Redeemable noncontrolling interests 43.0 26.8 60 % 95.3 108.5 (12 %) Nonredeemable noncontrolling interests 15.0 (7.7 ) NM 18.8 (8.5 ) NM Net Income Attributable to Franklin Resources, Inc. $ 174.0 $ 227.5 (24 %) $ 549.5 $ 587.3 (6 %) Earnings per Share Basic $ 0.32 $ 0.44 (27 %) $ 1.04 $ 1.14 (9 %) Diluted 0.32 0.44 (27 %) 1.03 1.14 (10 %) Dividends Declared per Share $ 0.31 $ 0.30 3 % $ 0.93 $ 0.90 3 % Average Shares Outstanding Basic 516.5 490.7 5 % 507.2 490.3 3 % Diluted 517.2 491.4 5 % 508.0 491.0 3 % Operating Margin 10.5 % 16.0 % 8.9 % 13.0 %

FRANKLIN RESOURCES, INC. CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF INCOME Unaudited (in millions, except per share data) Three Months Ended %

Change Three Months Ended 5 30-Jun-24 31-Mar-24 31-Dec-23 30-Sep-23 30-Jun-23 Operating Revenues Investment management fees $ 1,689.9 $ 1,713.9 ' (1 %) $ 1,652.2 $ 1,634.4 $ 1,613.4 Sales and distribution fees 358.3 358.3 0 % 296.4 306.4 304.0 Shareholder servicing fees 61.8 68.0 (9 %) 32.5 37.2 38.8 Other 12.9 12.6 2 % 10.0 8.1 12.8 Total operating revenues 2,122.9 2,152.8 (1 %) 1,991.1 1,986.1 1,969.0 Operating Expenses Compensation and benefits 893.8 1,028.2 (13 %) 968.3 826.3 841.2 Sales, distribution and marketing 481.1 484.3 (1 %) 400.8 411.1 406.8 Information systems and technology 156.6 155.1 1 % 131.0 128.3 127.3 Occupancy 104.8 76.2 38 % 66.7 57.8 56.9 Amortization of intangible assets 84.0 84.6 (1 %) 85.8 86.5 85.4 General, administrative and other 180.1 195.1 (8 %) 132.0 137.8 136.5 Total operating expenses 1,900.4 2,023.5 (6 %) 1,784.6 1,647.8 1,654.1 Operating Income 222.5 129.3 72 % 206.5 338.3 314.9 Other Income (Expenses) Investment and other income, net 74.5 52.5 42 % 173.2 62.0 49.8 Interest expense (25.7 ) (27.7 ) (7 %) (18.8 ) (24.4 ) (34.9 ) Investment and other income (losses) of consolidated investment products, net 37.6 89.9 (58 %) (23.8 ) 40.5 1.7 Expenses of consolidated investment products (8.8 ) (5.9 ) 49 % (5.9 ) (3.0 ) (0.8 ) Other income, net 77.6 108.8 (29 %) 124.7 75.1 15.8 Income before taxes 300.1 238.1 26 % 331.2 413.4 330.7 Taxes on income 68.1 62.8 8 % 74.9 75.0 84.1 Net income 232.0 175.3 32 % 256.3 338.4 246.6 Less: net income (loss) attributable to Redeemable noncontrolling interests 43.0 42.8 - % 9.5 27.0 26.8 Nonredeemable noncontrolling interests 15.0 8.3 81 % (4.5 ) 15.9 (7.7 ) Net Income Attributable to Franklin Resources, Inc. $ 174.0 $ 124.2 40 % $ 251.3 $ 295.5 $ 227.5 Earnings per Share Basic $ 0.32 $ 0.23 39 % $ 0.50 $ 0.58 $ 0.44 Diluted 0.32 0.23 39 % 0.50 0.58 0.44 Dividends Declared per Share $ 0.31 $ 0.31 0 % $ 0.31 $ 0.30 $ 0.30 Average Shares Outstanding Basic 516.5 518.4 0 % 487.0 489.2 490.7 Diluted 517.2 519.2 0 % 487.9 490.0 491.4 Operating Margin 10.5 % 6.0 % 10.4 % 17.0 % 16.0 %

AUM AND FLOWS (in billions) Three Months Ended

June 30, %

Change Nine Months Ended

June 30, %

Change 2024 2023 2024 2023 Beginning AUM $ 1,644.7 $ 1,422.1 16 % $ 1,374.2 $ 1,297.4 6 % Long-term inflows 82.7 67.4 23 % 236.5 199.7 18 % Long-term outflows (85.9 ) (67.2 ) 28 % (237.8 ) (214.1 ) 11 % Long-term net flows (3.2 ) 0.2 NM (1.3 ) (14.4 ) (91 %) Cash management net flows 3.0 (7.3 ) NM 2.9 5.9 (51 %) Total net flows (0.2 ) (7.1 ) (97 %) 1.6 (8.5 ) NM Acquisition - - NM 148.3 34.9 NM Net market change, distributions and other6 2.1 16.5 (87 %) 122.5 107.7 14 % Ending AUM $ 1,646.6 $ 1,431.5 15 % $ 1,646.6 $ 1,431.5 15 % Average AUM $ 1,632.6 $ 1,419.6 15 % $ 1,533.1 $ 1,396.1 10 %

AUM BY ASSET CLASS (in billions) 30-Jun-24 31-Mar-24 % Change 31-Dec-23 30-Sep-23 30-Jun-23 Equity $ 595.0 $ 592.7 0 % $ 467.5 $ 430.4 $ 458.0 Fixed Income 564.5 571.4 (1 %) 511.7 483.1 505.1 Alternative 254.5 255.5 0 % 256.2 254.9 257.2 Multi-Asset 168.1 163.4 3 % 154.6 145.0 148.3 Cash Management 64.5 61.7 5 % 65.5 60.8 62.9 Total AUM $ 1,646.6 $ 1,644.7 0 % $ 1,455.5 $ 1,374.2 $ 1,431.5 Average AUM for the Three-Month Period $ 1,632.6 $ 1,581.1 3 % $ 1,394.2 $ 1,419.1 $ 1,419.6

AUM BY SALES REGION (in billions) 30-Jun-24 31-Mar-24 % Change 31-Dec-23 30-Sep-23 30-Jun-23 United States $ 1,155.0 $ 1,155.9 0 % $ 1,019.4 $ 979.9 $ 1,026.0 International Europe, Middle East and Africa7 205.8 206.3 0 % 180.6 165.1 170.6 Asia-Pacific 174.1 170.4 2 % 150.5 117.6 121.0 Americas, excl. U.S. 111.7 112.1 0 % 105.0 111.6 113.9 Total international 491.6 488.8 1 % 436.1 394.3 405.5 Total $ 1,646.6 $ 1,644.7 0 % $ 1,455.5 $ 1,374.2 $ 1,431.5

AUM AND FLOWS BY ASSET CLASS (in billions) for the three months ended June 30, 2024 Equity Fixed

Income Alternative Multi-Asset Cash

Management Total AUM at April 1, 2024 $ 592.7 $ 571.4 $ 255.5 $ 163.4 $ 61.7 $ 1,644.7 Long-term inflows 32.0 37.4 3.4 9.9 - 82.7 Long-term outflows (33.6 ) (42.2 ) (2.0 ) (8.1 ) - (85.9 ) Long-term net flows (1.6 ) (4.8 ) 1.4 1.8 - (3.2 ) Cash management net flows - - - - 3.0 3.0 Total net flows (1.6 ) (4.8 ) 1.4 1.8 3.0 (0.2 ) Net market change, distributions and other6 3.9 (2.1 ) (2.4 ) 2.9 (0.2 ) 2.1 AUM at June 30, 2024 $ 595.0 $ 564.5 $ 254.5 $ 168.1 $ 64.5 $ 1,646.6

(in billions) for the three months ended March 31, 2024 Equity Fixed

Income Alternative Multi-Asset Cash

Management Total AUM at January 1, 2024 $ 467.5 $ 511.7 $ 256.2 $ 154.6 $ 65.5 $ 1,455.5 Long-term inflows 27.5 43.8 3.4 10.2 - 84.9 Long-term outflows (32.8 ) (35.5 ) (2.4 ) (7.3 ) - (78.0 ) Long-term net flows (5.3 ) 8.3 1.0 2.9 - 6.9 Cash management net flows - - - - (4.8 ) (4.8 ) Total net flows (5.3 ) 8.3 1.0 2.9 (4.8 ) 2.1 Acquisition 81.3 59.3 0.7 5.8 1.2 148.3 Net market change, distributions and other6 49.2 (7.9 ) (2.4 ) 0.1 (0.2 ) 38.8 AUM at March 31, 2024 $ 592.7 $ 571.4 $ 255.5 $ 163.4 $ 61.7 $ 1,644.7

(in billions) for the three months ended June 30, 2023 Equity Fixed

Income Alternative Multi-Asset Cash

Management Total AUM at April 1, 2023 $ 437.1 $ 510.1 $ 258.2 $ 146.1 $ 70.6 $ 1,422.1 Long-term inflows 23.0 26.5 7.3 10.6 - 67.4 Long-term outflows (26.0 ) (29.6 ) (3.3 ) (8.3 ) - (67.2 ) Long-term net flows (3.0 ) (3.1 ) 4.0 2.3 - 0.2 Cash management net flows - - - - (7.3 ) (7.3 ) Total net flows (3.0 ) (3.1 ) 4.0 2.3 (7.3 ) (7.1 ) Net market change, distributions and other6 23.9 (1.9 ) (5.0 ) (0.1 ) (0.4 ) 16.5 AUM at June 30, 2023 $ 458.0 $ 505.1 $ 257.2 $ 148.3 $ 62.9 $ 1,431.5

Supplemental Non-GAAP Financial Measures

As supplemental information, we are providing performance measures for "adjusted operating income," "adjusted operating margin," "adjusted net income" and "adjusted diluted earnings per share," each of which is based on methodologies other than generally accepted accounting principles ("non-GAAP measures"). Management believes these non-GAAP measures are useful indicators of our financial performance and may be helpful to investors in evaluating our relative performance against industry peers.

"Adjusted operating income," "adjusted operating margin," "adjusted net income" and "adjusted diluted earnings per share" are defined below, followed by reconciliations of operating income, operating margin, net income attributable to Franklin Resources, Inc. and diluted earnings per share on a U.S. GAAP basis to these non-GAAP measures. Non-GAAP measures should not be considered in isolation from, or as substitutes for, any financial information prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP, and may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures of other companies. Additional reconciling items may be added in the future to these non-GAAP measures if deemed appropriate.

Adjusted Operating Income

We define adjusted operating income as operating income adjusted to exclude the following:

Elimination of operating revenues upon consolidation of investment products.

Acquisition-related items: Acquisition-related retention compensation. Other acquisition-related expenses including professional fees, technology costs and fair value adjustments related to contingent consideration assets and liabilities. Amortization of intangible assets. Impairment of intangible assets and goodwill, if any.

Special termination benefits related to workforce optimization initiatives related to past acquisitions and certain initiatives undertaken by the Company.

Impact on compensation and benefits expense from gains and losses on investments related to deferred compensation plans, which is offset in investment and other income (losses), net.

Impact on compensation and benefits expense related to minority interests in certain subsidiaries, which is offset in net income (loss) attributable to redeemable noncontrolling interests.

Adjusted Operating Margin

We calculate adjusted operating margin as adjusted operating income divided by adjusted operating revenues. We define adjusted operating revenues as operating revenues adjusted to exclude the following:

Elimination of operating revenues upon consolidation of investment products.

Acquisition-related performance-based investment management fees which are passed through as compensation and benefits expense.

Sales and distribution fees and a portion of investment management fees allocated to cover sales, distribution and marketing expenses paid to the financial advisers and other intermediaries who sell our funds on our behalf.

Adjusted Net Income and Adjusted Diluted Earnings Per Share

We define adjusted net income as net income attributable to Franklin Resources, Inc. adjusted to exclude the following:

Activities of CIPs.

Acquisition-related items: Acquisition-related retention compensation. Other acquisition-related expenses including professional fees, technology costs and fair value adjustments related to contingent consideration assets and liabilities. Amortization of intangible assets. Impairment of intangible assets and goodwill, if any. Write off of noncontrolling interests related to the wind down of an acquired business. Interest expense for amortization of Legg Mason debt premium from acquisition-date fair value adjustment.

Special termination benefits related to workforce optimization initiatives related to past acquisitions and certain initiatives undertaken by the Company.

Net gains or losses on investments related to deferred compensation plans which are not offset by compensation and benefits expense.

Net compensation and benefits expense related to minority interests in certain subsidiaries not offset by net income (loss) attributable to redeemable noncontrolling interests.

Unrealized investment gains and losses.

Net income tax expense of the above adjustments based on the respective blended rates applicable to the adjustments.

We define adjusted diluted earnings per share as diluted earnings per share adjusted to exclude the per share impacts of the adjustments applied to net income in calculating adjusted net income.

In calculating our non-GAAP measures, we adjust for the impact of CIPs because it is not considered reflective of our underlying results of operations. Acquisition-related items and special termination benefits are excluded to facilitate comparability to other asset management firms. We adjust for compensation and benefits expense related to funded deferred compensation plans because it is partially offset in other income (expense), net. We adjust for compensation and benefits expense and net income (loss) attributable to redeemable noncontrolling interests to reflect the economics of certain profits interest arrangements. Sales and distribution fees and a portion of investment management fees generally cover sales, distribution and marketing expenses and, therefore, are excluded from adjusted operating revenues. In addition, when calculating adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share we exclude unrealized investment gains and losses included in investment and other income (losses) because the related investments are generally expected to be held long term.

The calculations of adjusted operating income, adjusted operating margin, adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share are as follows:

(in millions) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended 30-Jun-24 31-Mar-24 30-Jun-23 30-Jun-24 30-Jun-23 Operating income $ 222.5 $ 129.3 $ 314.9 $ 558.3 $ 764.0 Add (subtract): Elimination of operating revenues upon consolidation of investment products* 12.3 11.0 12.1 34.7 26.3 Acquisition-related retention 43.7 104.5 21.3 217.3 108.1 Compensation and benefits expense from gains on deferred compensation, net 1.8 14.0 10.1 34.8 26.3 Other acquisition-related expenses 33.6 25.2 8.7 65.6 45.3 Amortization of intangible assets 84.0 84.6 85.4 254.4 254.6 Special termination benefits 16.7 40.4 12.2 63.8 54.9 Compensation and benefits expense related to minority interests in certain subsidiaries 10.3 10.6 12.1 32.6 32.6 Adjusted operating income $ 424.9 $ 419.6 $ 476.8 $ 1,261.5 $ 1,312.1 Total operating revenues $ 2,122.9 $ 2,152.8 $ 1,969.0 $ 6,266.8 $ 5,863.3 Add (subtract): Acquisition-related pass through performance fees - (14.4 ) (11.6 ) (87.0 ) (164.1 ) Sales and distribution fees (358.3 ) (358.5 ) (304.0 ) (1,013.2 ) (897.3 ) Allocation of investment management fees for sales, distribution and marketing expenses (122.8 ) (125.8 ) (102.8 ) (353.0 ) (304.7 ) Elimination of operating revenues upon consolidation of investment products* 12.3 11.0 12.1 34.7 26.3 Adjusted operating revenues $ 1,654.1 $ 1,665.1 $ 1,562.7 $ 4,848.3 $ 4,523.5 Operating margin 10.5 % 6.0 % 16.0 % 8.9 % 13.0 % Adjusted operating margin 25.7 % 25.2 % 30.5 % 26.0 % 29.0 %

(in millions, except per share data) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended 30-Jun-24 31-Mar-24 30-Jun-23 30-Jun-24 30-Jun-23 Net income attributable to Franklin Resources, Inc. $ 174.0 $ 124.2 $ 227.5 $ 549.5 $ 587.3 Add (subtract): Net (income) loss of consolidated investment products* (2.4 ) 3.5 1.5 (1.1 ) 6.4 Acquisition-related retention 43.7 104.5 21.3 217.3 108.1 Other acquisition-related expenses 34.9 29.3 12.7 75.0 61.5 Amortization of intangible assets 84.0 84.6 85.4 254.4 254.6 Special termination benefits 16.7 40.4 12.2 63.8 54.9 Net gains on deferred compensation plan investments not offset by compensation and benefits expense (1.1 ) (3.9 ) (0.5 ) (11.0 ) (14.1 ) Unrealized investment (gains) losses 31.0 (9.6 ) 9.4 (27.6 ) (23.2 ) Interest expense for amortization of debt premium (6.4 ) (6.4 ) (6.3 ) (19.2 ) (19.0 ) Net compensation and benefits expense related to minority interests in certain subsidiaries not offset by net income (loss) attributable to redeemable noncontrolling interests 2.8 0.4 (1.0 ) 1.2 (0.9 ) Net income tax expense of adjustments (50.8 ) (60.4 ) (36.1 ) (140.8 ) (110.4 ) Adjusted net income $ 326.4 $ 306.6 $ 326.1 $ 961.5 $ 905.2 Diluted earnings per share $ 0.32 $ 0.23 $ 0.44 $ 1.03 $ 1.14 Adjusted diluted earnings per share 0.60 0.56 0.63 1.81 1.76

__________________

* The impact of CIPs is summarized as follows: (in millions) Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended 30-Jun-24 31-Mar-24 30-Jun-23 30-Jun-24 30-Jun-23 Elimination of operating revenues upon consolidation $ (12.3 ) $ (11.0 ) $ (12.1 ) $ (34.7 ) $ (26.3 ) Other income, net 42.0 38.6 7.3 72.0 67.4 Less: income (loss) attributable to noncontrolling interests 27.3 31.1 (3.3 ) 36.2 47.5 Net income (loss) $ 2.4 $ (3.5 ) $ (1.5 ) $ 1.1 $ (6.4 )

Notes

Net income represents net income attributable to Franklin Resources, Inc. "Adjusted net income," "adjusted diluted earnings per share," "adjusted operating income" and "adjusted operating margin" are based on methodologies other than generally accepted accounting principles. See "Supplemental Non-GAAP Financial Measures" for definitions and reconciliations of these measures. Average AUM represents monthly average AUM. Includes our direct investments in CIPs of $1.2 billion, approximately $370 million of employee-owned and other third-party investments made through partnerships, $286.1 million of investments that are subject to long-term repurchase agreements and other net financing arrangements, and $440.3 million of cash and investments related to deferred compensation plans. During the quarter ended March 31, 2024, the Company identified that it did not eliminate the investment income from certain consolidated limited partnerships for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2023, resulting in offsetting adjustments to investment and other income, net and net income attributable to nonredeemable noncontrolling interest. For comparability, the Company has revised the comparative prior period amounts in the Consolidated Statements of Income. There was no impact to operating income, net income attributable to Franklin Resources, Inc. or earnings per share. Net market change, distributions and other includes appreciation (depreciation), distributions to investors that represent return on investments and return of capital, and foreign exchange revaluation. India region is included in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE: BEN) is a global investment management organization with subsidiaries operating as Franklin Templeton and serving clients in over 150 countries. Franklin Templeton's mission is to help clients achieve better outcomes through investment management expertise, wealth management and technology solutions. Through its specialist investment managers, the Company offers specialization on a global scale, bringing extensive capabilities in fixed income, equity, alternatives and multi-asset solutions. With more than 1,500 investment professionals, and offices in major financial markets around the world, the California-based company has over 75 years of investment experience and over $1.6 trillion in AUM as of June 30, 2024. The Company posts information that may be significant for investors in the Investor Relations and News Center sections of its website, and encourages investors to consult those sections regularly. For more information, please visit investors.franklinresources.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Some of the statements herein may include forward-looking statements that reflect our current views with respect to future events, financial performance and market conditions. Such statements are provided under the "safe harbor" protection of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include all statements that do not relate solely to historical or current facts and generally can be identified by words or phrases written in the future tense and/or preceded by words such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "depends," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "likely," "may," "plan," "potential," "seek," "should," "will," "would," or other similar words or variations thereof, or the negative thereof, but these terms are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements.

Forward-looking statements involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause actual results and outcomes to differ materially from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including market and volatility risks, investment performance and reputational risks, global operational risks, competition and distribution risks, third-party risks, technology and security risks, human capital risks, cash management risks, and legal and regulatory risks. While forward-looking statements are our best prediction at the time that they are made, you should not rely on them and are cautioned against doing so. Forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding our business, the economy and other possible future conditions. Because forward-looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. They are neither statements of historical fact nor guarantees or assurances of future performance. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them.

These and other risks, uncertainties and other important factors are described in more detail in our recent filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including, without limitation, in Risk Factors and Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2023 and our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. If a circumstance occurs after the date of this press release that causes any of our forward-looking statements to be inaccurate, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, we undertake no obligation to announce publicly the change to our expectations, or to make any revision to our forward-looking statements, to reflect any change in assumptions, beliefs or expectations, or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any forward-looking statement is based, unless required by law.

Contacts

Franklin Resources, Inc.

Investor Relations:

Selene Oh, (650) 312-4091

selene.oh@franklintempleton.com

Media Relations:

Jeaneen Terrio, (212) 632-4005

jeaneen.terrio@franklintempleton.com

investors.franklinresources.com
Buzz was recognized in multiple categories as part of the Summer 2024 G2 Grid Report, an analysis based on user product reviews. In the G2 report, Buzz achieved a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 95 while receiving badges for Best HIPAA Compliant Messaging, Best Communication & Collaboration Platform, Best Support, Easiest to Do Business With, and Momentum Leader.

MARLBOROUGH, MA / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Skyscape announces that the Buzz app has been recognized as a Summer 2024 Leader in Customer Satisfaction for Clinical Communication and Collaboration by G2, a trusted marketplace for peer-reviewed software applications. G2 reported that customers recognized Buzz for its innovation, clinical communication performance, HIPAA-compliant messaging, ease of use, telehealth capabilities, and high level of support.

Skyscape Buzz HIPAA-Secure Communication Wins G2 Awards

Skyscape developed Buzz, a HIPAA-secure, AI-powered application that combines the many communication tools used by care teams into one data-secure application (including phone, text, video, document signature, group collaboration, and fax). Buzz is designed to simplify communication for medical clinics, long-term care, home health care, hospice, behavioral health, and other post-acute care environments.

Buzz received accolades in multiple categories as part of the Summer 2024 G2 Grid Report, an analysis based on user product reviews. In the G2 report, Buzz achieved a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 95 while receiving badges for Best Support, Easiest to Do Business With, and Momentum Leader.

"We are incredibly proud to receive recognition from G2 and those who use Buzz daily," said Sandeep Shah, founder and CEO of Skyscape. "This reaffirms our commitment to our partners' success and to intuitive innovation that empowers healthcare teams with the most efficient communication capabilities possible."

Efficient communication among care providers impacts healthcare organization revenue and profitability after rising costs. In recent case studies, home healthcare agencies that adopted a HIPAA-secure communication application increased new patient volume by 33%, reduced hospital readmissions by 50%, and increased Medicare star ratings and insurance claim reimbursement.

"The growth and complexity of home health care exposes the need to prioritize communication productivity as a simple, cost-effective way to increase an agency's income. This is critical as the industry pushes for improvement in home health care fee reimbursement," states Devin Paullin, Chief Growth Officer of Skyscape.

Additionally, healthcare organizations are required to protect personal health information (PHI) from misuse and theft and maintain compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). A recent home healthcare company data breach involving Massachusetts residents resulted in $425,000 in fines. The risk of violations, data theft, and fines and penalties can be reduced in some cases by using HIPAA-secure communication applications.

For more information or to schedule a demonstration, visit buzz.skyscape.com.

Contact Information

Kristin Snowdon-Smith

Marketing Manager, Skyscape

kristin@skyscape.com

603-930-6912

SOURCE: Skyscape

View the original press release on newswire.com.
This fast-growing air conditioning and plumbing company is making a big name for itself in San Antonio Texas with cutting-edge products, family-oriented service approach and affordable prices.

SAN ANTONIO, TX / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Air & Plumbing Today is proud to announce that it has been named "Best Air Conditioning Company in San Antonio 2024" and "Best Plumbing Company in San Antonio 2024" by SA Current. This recognition demonstrates the company's dedication to providing top-notch air conditioning and plumbing services in the San Antonio area.

Air & Plumbing Today Staff

Air & Plumbing Today Air Conditioning & Plumbing Technicians in San Antonio

"We are honored to win Best AC Company in San Antonio two years in a row," said Manny Mallen, founder of Air & Plumbing Today. "Our team has had the best training and we've worked very hard for our customers to earn this recognition. We will continue to work even harder for the families of San Antonio, bringing them the best air conditioning and plumbing services for the best value."

With over 2,200 5-star Google reviews, Air & Plumbing Today's technicians clearly demonstrate their commitment to San Antonio families. Air & Plumbing Today CFO Maira Mallen said, "Our company was founded on providing the best service for our customers, and we'll continue to raise the bar for all HVAC and plumbing companies in San Antonio."

Air & Plumbing Today is also known for pioneering new energy-saving technology within the San Antonio home services market with Comfortmaker Ion variable-speed central A/C systems and AO Smith heat pump hybrid water heaters that provide immediate savings on electricity bills. "While we offer the latest, cutting-edge technology in central air conditioning systems, hybrid water heaters and super-efficient water softeners, our technicians are consistently trained to master the installation process of the most advanced equipment, ensuring homeowners get many years of use and maximum efficiency from their new systems," Maira Mallen said.

Air & Plumbing Today remains committed to providing exceptional service to the families of San Antonio. Recognition as "Best AC Company in San Antonio 2024" for two years in a row is very exciting. Additionally, winning "Best Plumbing Company in San Antonio 2024" is amazing. The company remains committed to serving the families of San Antonio by keeping services affordable while providing repairs that last a long time.

About Air & Plumbing Today:

Air & Plumbing Today is a leading air conditioning and plumbing company in San Antonio, Texas. Air & Plumbing Today is known for its family-oriented approach to business and is continually committed to keeping San Antonio's homes comfortable. For anyone in San Antonio looking for the best AC repair services, Air & Plumbing Today is the company to call. Our friendly staff can be reached at 210-519-5959 or visit our website at https://www.airandplumbingtoday.com.

Contact Information

Manny Mallen

President

manny@airandplumbingtoday.com

2105195959

Darrin Cheraso

Director of Marketing & Communications

darrin.cheraso@airandplumbingtoday.com

2105195959

SOURCE: Air & Plumbing Today

View the original press release on newswire.com.
CHICAGO, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The proximity sensor market is projected to grow from USD 4.3 billion in 2024 and is estimated to reach USD 6.6 billion by 2030; it is expected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.5% from 2024 to 2030 according to a new report by MarketsandMarkets. The growth of the proximity sensor market is driven by the expansion of proximity sensors into new application areas such as medical devices, environmental monitoring, and smart city initiatives, Integration of proximity sensors with IoT and Al technology.

Download PDF Brochure: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownloadNew.asp?id=36281914

Browse in-depth TOC on "Proximity Sensor Market"

189 - Tables

73 - Figures

295 - Pages

Proximity Sensor Market Report Scope:

Report Coverage Details Market Revenue in 2024 $ 4.3 billion Estimated Value by 2030 $ 6.6 billion Growth Rate Poised to grow at a CAGR of 7.5% Market Size Available for 2020-2030 Forecast Period 2024-2030 Forecast Units Value (USD Million/Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered By Technology, Product Type, Range, Output, End-user Industry and Region Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest of World Key Market Challenge Addressing the need for continuous technological upgrades Key Market Opportunities Development of more user-friendly and cost-effective models Key Market Drivers Increasing adoption in aerospace and automotive sectors



By technology, Ultrasonic technology is projected to grow at a high CAGR of proximity sensor market during the forecast period.

Ultrasonic proximity sensors emit a sound pulse that bounces back to the sensor from a target and generates an output signal. These sensors can detect metallic and non-metallic, transparent or opaque, liquid and solid objects offering effective enough acoustic reflectivity. Compared to photoelectric sensors, they are little affected by condensing moisture and hence apply in many environments. Rockwell Automation, Hans Turck GmbH & Co. The major companies operating in the market of ultrasonic proximity sensors include KG, TIMES France, and Migration Corp. The demand from the automotive sector has increased drastically due to the rising installation of ADAS in vehicles. Ultrasonic proximity sensors find high usage in improving vehicle safety and convenience, such as parking assistance, blind spot detection, and collision avoidance.

Adjustable distance segment in Product Type will account for highest CAGR during the forecast period.

Adjustable distance proximity sensors are ultra-modern devices designed to detect and measure the distance between the sensor and an object with adjustable precision. These sensors shall be using technologies like:

It gives accurate proximity sensing through ultrasonic, infrared, and laser-based systems across many industries; it is a sure deal in allowing automation, enhancing safety, and improving efficiency in their diversity of applications. Those companies located in Germany such as Pepperl+Fuchs; Japan, Omron Corporation; Germany, Sick AG; and the US-based Rockwell Automation have developed adjustable distance proximity sensors that detect metallic and non-metallic objects within an adjustable sensing range. This feature enables its application where sensing range might vary, like full or empty tank detection. Proximity sensors with an adjustable distance option are used more in comparison to fixed distance proximity sensors, which detect only at a specified distance.

<10 mm proximity sensor in Range segment in proximity sensor market will account for the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

In applications that require a high degree of precision and sensitivity, proximity sensors with a range below 10 mm become essential. Detection of the presence or absence of objects at very short distances makes the sensor quite suitable where minute accuracy is required. Consumer electronics, medical devices, and the automotive industry are the industries that need these sensors immensely for the simple reason that they can function in infinitesimal spaces, even tracing minute movements. Since the invention of IoT devices, need-based requirements for compact and efficient sensors in consumer electronics have increased manifold. These short-range proximity sensors find places in wireless earbuds, smart watches, and VR headsets for attachment/detachment detection.

Analog Proximity Sensor in Output segment in proximity sensor industry will account for largest market share in the forecast timeline.

Compared with digital proximity sensors, analog ones also have advantages in high-precision and continuous-monitoring applications. Where digital sensors will give a binary output, analog sensors give variable output, which changes linearly with distance detection. This becomes very critical in tasks that require fine-tuned control and accurate distance measurements, like robotic arm positioning, conveyor belt speed regulation, or quality control during manufacturing processes. It is in this way that technologies of Industry 4.0, focusing on automation, connectivity, and data exchange, increase the demand for such sensors at an incredible rate.

Automotive in end-user industry segment in proximity sensor market will account for the highest CAGR by 2030.

With rising demands for advanced safety and, more recently, autonomous driving features, vehicle manufacturers across the globe are seeking proximity sensors. For instance, in June 2023, Leuze introduced the HTU200 and DMU200 series of highly compact ultrasonic products with applications oriented to the packaging and automobile industries. Such sensors detect objects precisely and independently of their surface quality: glossy and transparent surfaces and at distances between 0.1 and 6 meters. Large companies making automotive, like Tesla, BMW, and Audi, increase the diffusion of the design of vehicles, setting examples for others to follow. Proximity sensors will probably play a more significant role in the industry's future when technology develops, and vehicle sophistication increases.

Inquiry Before Buying: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_BuyingNew.asp?id=36281914

Asia Pacific will account for the highest CAGR during the forecast period.

As industries aim to achieve efficient operations, thereby reducing downtime and enhancing the quality of their products, proximity sensors, which make all these advancements possible in automation and safety protocols, will likely extend their demand manifold in the near future. Countries like China and South Korea account for the lion's share in the electronics manufacturing world; hence, demands for proximity sensors in this segment are strong. Proximity sensors are applied in electronic assembly lines for component detection, checking correct placement, and enhancing production efficiency. The growth of consumer electronics market in Asia Pacific, driven by demand from an increasing disposable income and technological development, further fuels the demand for these sensors. For instance, China is the largest manufacturer of electronics globally, thus offering significant regional demand for proximity sensors.

Key Players

Key companies operating in the proximity sensor companies are OMRON Corporation (Japan), KEYENCE CORPORATION (Japan), Panasonic Corporation (Japan), SICK AG (Germany), STMicroelectronics (Switzerland), Rockwell Automation (US), Delta Electronics, Inc. (Taiwan), Honeywell International Inc. (US), Broadcom (US), Schneider Electric (France), ZF Friedrichshafen AG (Germany), Balluff Automation India Pvt. Ltd. (India), Pepperl+Fuchs SE (Germany), Baumer (Switzerland), Banner Engineering Corp. (US), among others.

Get 10% Free Customization on this Report: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/requestCustomizationNew.asp?id=36281914

Browse Adjacent Market: Semiconductor and Electronics Market Research Reports &Consulting

Related Reports:

Automotive Sensors Market Size, Share, Statistics and Industry Growth Analysis Report by Sales Channel (OEM, Aftermarket), Type (Temperature, Pressure, Oxygen, Position, Speed, Inertial, Image, Level, Chemical Sensors), Vehicle Type (Passenger Car, LCV, HCV), Application, Region - Global Forecast to 2028

IoT Sensors Market by Sensor Type (Pressure, Temperature, Humidity, Image, Inertial, Gyroscope, Touch), Network Technology (Wired and Wireless), Vertical (Commercial IoT and Industrial IoT) and Region - Global Forecast to 2029

Light Sensors Market by Function (Ambient Light Sensing, Proximity Detection, RGB Color Sensing, Gesture Recognition, UV/Infrared Light (IR) Detection), by Output, by Integration (Discrete, Combination), by Application and Region - Global Forecast to 2022

MEMS Sensor Market for Automotive by Type (Inertial Sensor, Microphone, & Pressure Sensor), Application (ADAS, ECU, ESC, HVAC, Safety & Security, In-Car Navigation, OIS Camera, Microphone in Cabin, & TPMS), & Geography - Analysis & Forecast (2014 - 2020)

Smart Sensors Market by Type (Temperature & Humidity Sensor, Pressure Sensor, Motion & Occupancy Sensor), Technology (CMOS, MEMS), Component (Microcontrollers, Amplifiers, Transceivers), End-User Industry and Region - Global Forecast to 2029

About MarketsandMarkets

MarketsandMarkets has been recognized as one of America's best management consulting firms by Forbes, as per their recent report.

MarketsandMarkets is a blue ocean alternative in growth consulting and program management, leveraging a man-machine offering to drive supernormal growth for progressive organizations in the B2B space. We have the widest lens on emerging technologies, making us proficient in co-creating supernormal growth for clients.

Earlier this year, we made a formal transformation into one of America's best management consulting firms as per a survey conducted by Forbes.

The B2B economy is witnessing the emergence of $25 trillion of new revenue streams that are substituting existing revenue streams in this decade alone. We work with clients on growth programs, helping them monetize this $25 trillion opportunity through our service lines - TAM Expansion, Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy to Execution, Market Share Gain, Account Enablement, and Thought Leadership Marketing.

Built on the 'GIVE Growth' principle, we work with several Forbes Global 2000 B2B companies - helping them stay relevant in a disruptive ecosystem. Our insights and strategies are molded by our industry experts, cutting-edge AI-powered Market Intelligence Cloud, and years of research. The KnowledgeStore (our Market Intelligence Cloud) integrates our research, facilitates an analysis of interconnections through a set of applications, helping clients look at the entire ecosystem and understand the revenue shifts happening in their industry.

To find out more, visit www.MarketsandMarkets.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Contact:

Mr. Rohan Salgarkar

MarketsandMarkets INC.

630 Dundee Road

Suite 430

Northbrook, IL 60062

USA: +1-888-600-6441

Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com

Visit Our Web Site: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/

Research Insight: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/ResearchInsight/proximity-sensor-market.asp

Content Source: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/proximity-sensor.asp

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1951202/4609423/MarketsandMarkets.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/proximity-sensor-market-worth-6-6-billion-by-2030---exclusive-report-by-marketsandmarkets-302207360.html
Healthcare infrastructure development and increased funding are likely to drive demand for pharmerging.

WILMINGTON, Del., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The pharmerging market accounted for US$ 2.1 billion in 2023. It is expected to advance at a CAGR of 11.6% from 2024 to 2034 and reach US$ 7.1 billion by the end of 2034. Pharmaceuticals are in higher demand to manage and treat chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, as they become more prevalent in emerging economies.

The pharmerging market, comprises of nations such as Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRIC) and other rapidly emerging economies, these have dynamic environment with multiple opportunities and challenges. These countries account for 40% of the world's population, with a growing middle class and an increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, driving demand for pharmaceuticals. The rapid growth in healthcare expenditures in these markets contrasts sharply with the relatively sluggish growth in G7 countries, showing the shift in global healthcare spending toward pharmerging economies.

The pharmaceutical sector of these countries is rapidly developing. For example, Indian pharmaceutical business, is already the world's third-largest in terms of volume, is forecast to increase significantly in coming period. Similarly, patent registrations in China and Brazil are rapidly increasing, indicating more industry innovation and competitiveness. This expansion is aided by technology developments and rising industrial capacities, both of which are required to maintain long-term growth in the pharmaceutical industry.

Pharmaceutical businesses in emerging markets frequently employ both legal and illicit sales techniques. These tactics address a variety of stakeholders, including prescribers, patients, pharmacists, and society as a whole. The study conducted in Turkey discovered that physicians frequently overestimate their abilities to withstand marketing pressures and are inadequately taught on how to manage these methods, leaving them vulnerable. Furthermore, pharmaceutical firms use educational and infrastructure deficits to maintain and expand their market dominance.

Effective solutions are critical for addressing these difficulties. Creating a comprehensive national drug policy, limiting exposure to aggressive marketing methods, and increasing healthcare professional education and infrastructure are all critical initiatives. While emerging markets provide tremendous development opportunities for the pharmaceutical industry, tackling ethical and regulatory challenges is critical to ensuring long-term viability and fair healthcare access. With the correct legislation and educational frameworks in place, these markets may continue to propel the global pharmaceutical industry forward.

Request a PDF Sample of this Report Now

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=8200

The pharmaceutical industry's healthcare infrastructure is receiving more funding from governments and the private sector in emerging nations to facilitate better access and quality to healthcare. Pharmerging markets frequently encounter issues with healthcare access and drug affordability. Innovative pricing strategies, biosimilar, and generic medications could reduce healthcare costs in the future.

Telemedicine and digital health solutions may change how healthcare is delivered in emerging nations as smartphone and internet access expands. Remote consultations can be facilitated, healthcare access can be improved, and chronic illness monitoring can be simplified through these innovations.

Building hospitals, clinics, and diagnostic centers is essential to improving healthcare access and provision worldwide. Among the creative ways to develop infrastructure, modular and prefabricated construction techniques could hasten the development of healthcare facilities worldwide.

Developing economies are going through a transition in terms of disease patterns as their economies develop. Pharmaceutical research and development activities are proving to be a driving force in the growth of various regional markets in the pharmaceutical industries.

Key Findings of the Market Report

Based on product type, the pharmaceuticals segment is likely to drive demand for pharmerging market.

In terms of indication, cancer and autoimmune diseases are expected to drive pharmerging market growth.

The hospitals segment generated a major share of revenue in 2023.

In 2023, the Asia-Pacific region held the majority of the market share.

Global Pharmerging Market: Growth Drivers

The regulatory environment of pharmaceutical businesses is constantly changing, which impacts their strategies and operations as well as the prices, reimbursement policies, and entry into the market. Healthcare infrastructure advancements such as increased accessibility to healthcare facilities and distribution networks, make pharmacies more accessible in emerging markets.

Innovations in biotechnology and personalized medicine are propelling pharmaceutical research and development. This results in novel treatments and therapies being introduced. Biotechnology advancements are propelling the creation of customized medications based on the genetic composition and disease attributes of particular patients.

Pharmaceutical markets may be able to make use of these advancements to lower medical expenses and enhance treatment results. Drug delivery innovations, like implantable devices and systems based on nanotechnology, have the potential to improve patient adherence to treatment plans and increase medication safety and efficacy.

Pharmaceutical companies have benefited from health insurance plans and universal healthcare coverage, increasing patient access to pharmaceuticals and improving healthcare quality. Growing patient empowerment and health knowledge encourage people to seek medical treatment and prescription drugs, propelling the growth of the pharmaceutical industry in emerging markets.

Pharmerging Market Report Scope:

Report Coverage Details Forecast Period? 2024-2034 Base Year? 2020-2022 Size in 2023 US$ 2.1 Bn Forecast (Value) in 2034 US$ 7.1 Bn Growth Rate (CAGR) 11.6 % No. of Pages 192 Pages Segments covered By Product Type, By Indication, By Distribution Channel, By Region

Global Pharmerging Market: Regional Landscape

Asia Pacific is expected to lead the pharmerging market. With countries like China and India having large populations, the Asia-Pacific area is home to a sizable share of the global population. Numerous governments in the area are investing in healthcare infrastructure, including broadening the reach of healthcare facilities, implementing universal health coverage, and improving regulatory frameworks to facilitate pharmaceutical growth.

The need for pharmaceuticals for prevention, treatment, and management is driven by changes in disease patterns, such as an increase in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Healthcare reforms drive pharmaceutical market expansion to enhance healthcare quality, cost, and access. Intellectual property rights, pricing and reimbursement practices, and regulatory harmonization are a few examples of these reforms.

Healthcare technology, including telemedicine, digital health solutions, and genomics, is advancing quickly in Asia-Pacific. Pharmaceutics research, development, and market expansion are fueled by these developments, especially in the biotechnology and specialty medication sectors.

Unlock Growth Potential in Your Industry! Download PDF Brochure: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=8200

Global Pharmerging Market: Competitive Landscape

Pharma and healthcare companies can form strategic partnerships with other companies, research institutions, and healthcare providers to drive innovation, expand market reach, and improve drug discovery, development, and delivery capabilities.

Key Players Profiled

Abbott Laboratories

Koninklijke Philips N.V.

F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

Merck & Co., Inc.

Novartis AG

Johnson & Johnson

Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

AstraZeneca

GlaxoSmithKline plc

Lupin

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.

Huadong Medicine Co. Ltd.

Key Developments

Abbott Laboratories is a leading product manufacturer of medical devices, generic pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, nutritional products, and branded pharmaceuticals.

is a leading product manufacturer of medical devices, generic pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, nutritional products, and branded pharmaceuticals. Koninklijke Philips N.V. is an international company that specializes in healthcare, lighting, and consumer products. Aside from healthcare equipment, they offer a variety of services.

an international company that specializes in healthcare, lighting, and consumer products. Aside from healthcare equipment, they offer a variety of services. F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies. Innovative treatments are offered in fields such as immunology, oncology, infectious diseases, and others.

Global Pharmerging Market: Segmentation

Product Type

Pharmaceuticals Branded Prescription Drugs Generic Drugs Branded Generics Unbranded Generics OTC Drugs

Healthcare Medical Devices Diagnostic Instruments Others (IT and Record Management)



Indication

Lifestyle Diseases

Cancer and Autoimmune Diseases

Infectious Diseases

Others

Distribution Channel

Hospitals

Clinics

Retail Pharmacies

E-commerce

Drugs Stores

Region

Europe

Asia Pacific

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

Buy this Premium Research Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=8200<ype=S

More Trending Reports by Transparency Market Research -

Vaccines Market - The global vaccines market is projected to advance at a CAGR of 4.2% from 2023 to 2031

The global vaccines market is projected to advance at a from 2023 to 2031 Diabetes Devices Market - The global diabetes devices market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 6.0% during the forecast period from 2022 to 2031

The global diabetes devices market is projected to expand at a during the forecast period from 2022 to 2031 Tympanostomy Products Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.4% from 2023 to 2031 and reach US$ 139.7 Mn by the end of 2031

is expected to grow at a CAGR of 3.4% from 2023 to 2031 and reach US$ 139.7 Mn by the end of 2031 Hemostatic Agents Market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.2% from 2023 to 2031 and reach US$ 4.5 Bn by the end of 2031

About Transparency Market Research

Transparency Market Research, a global market research company registered at Wilmington, Delaware, United States, provides custom research and consulting services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insights for thousands of decision makers. Our experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools & techniques to gather and analyses information.

Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

Contact:

Transparency Market Research Inc.

CORPORATE HEADQUARTER DOWNTOWN,

1000 N. West Street,

Suite 1200, Wilmington, Delaware 19801 USA

Tel: +1-518-618-1030

USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453

Website: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.com

Follow Us: LinkedIn| Twitter| Blog | YouTube

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1682871/TMR_Logo_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/pharmerging-market-set-to-hit-usd-7-1-billion-by-2034--driven-by-surge-in-demand-for-cost-effective-innovative-drugs-and-comprehensive-insurance-policies--report-by-tmr-302207485.html
INVESTOR NEWS no. 54 - 26 July 2024

DFDS will leave the space charter agreement with P&O Ferries covering the Dover-Calais route effective from end August 2024.



The space charter agreement was entered into in May 2021 to enhance the ferry offering to freight customers through shorter waiting times.

With P&O Ferries' recent agreement to enter into an additional and separate space charter agreement with the third ferry operator on Dover-Calais, Irish Ferries, the terms of a continuing space charter arrangement would change. At this point in time, we have assessed DFDS to be in a better commercial position by operating outside such a space charter agreement.

Although the space charter agreement has brought benefits to some freight customer segments, the agreement has also resulted in complexity and constraints.

We will continue to leverage and optimise our unique dual route offering, Dover-Calais and Dover-Dunkirk, to provide reliable and efficient ferry services on the English Channel for freight customers and passengers.

In addition, we continue to pursue our ambition to offer decarbonised ferry services on the English Channel through the deployment of electric ferries starting in 2029.

Contact

Torben Carlsen, CEO +45 33 42 32 01

Sren Brndholt Nielsen, IR +45 33 42 33 59

Media +45 31 16 28 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
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - InZinc Mining Ltd. (TSXV: IZN) ("InZinc" or the "Company") announces the renewal of a 5-year drill permit, with provisions for up to 60 drill holes, access trails and related work, was received July 18 for the Indy Sedex (zinc-lead-silver) project (100% interest) ("Indy" or the "Project") located 90 km southeast of Prince George, in central British Columbia.

On July 21 wildfire-related evacuation orders were issued and are in place for communities (Wells-Barkerville) and surrounding areas located to the south of the Project. The Company continues to monitor notices and developments. All InZinc crews are currently on a planned break and are absent from the project site.

Considering these developments, InZinc is re-evaluating the timing of the next phase of drill testing, notionally scheduled for this fall, at Indy. The Company is currently well positioned with working capital.

2024 Ground Exploration

Based on recent stratigraphic correlations1, the geological setting at Indy is highly analogous to that hosting mineral deposits in the prolific, metal-rich Selwyn Basin. To help guide the next drill campaign, InZinc completed additional geological mapping, soil geochemistry and rock sampling across the Main Trend area in June and early July. Soil and rock samples have been submitted for analysis with results anticipated in late August.

The Selwyn Basin, an 1100 km long sedimentary belt, hosts the world's second largest known accumulation of Sedex deposits, including some of the world's largest (see Table 1). Previously, the mineralized sequences of the Selwyn Basin were only known to extend from the Yukon into northeastern BC. The Indy project, located approximately 500 km south of the nearest known Selwyn Basin deposit, is particularly well located with respect to road, rail and power infrastructure (see Figure 1).

Table 1: Sedex Districts and Deposits of the Selwyn Basin, Canada1

Sedex Deposit/District Historical and Current Estimates (Mt - million tonnes) Anvil District, Yukon 120 Mt at 5.6% zinc, 3.7% lead and 45 to 50 g/t silver Howard's Pass District, Yukon 400 Mt at 5% zinc and 2% lead Mac Pass District, Yukon 11.2 Mt Indicated at 6.6% zinc, 2.5% lead and 21.3 g/t silver

39.5 Mt Inferred at 5.8% zinc, 3.1% lead and 38.2 g/t silver Cirque, Northeast BC 40 Mt at 7.8% zinc, 2.2% lead and 48 g/t silver Akie, Northeast BC 22.7 Mt Indicated at 8.3% zinc, 1.6% lead and 14.1 g/t silver

7.5 Mt Inferred at 7.0% zinc, 1.2% lead and 12.0 g/t silver

1 See News Release 2024-06, May 16, 2024 for details.

Property-Wide Sedex Exploration Targets

The widespread distribution of mineralization at Indy includes many features common to prolific Sedex districts. The recent discovery of abundant barite, with zinc-lead enrichment, also provides an important exploration vector and will enhance exploration targeting for these deposits. Priority drill targets include (see Figure 1):

Keel Barite and Keel West - Extensive barite mineralization (700 m strike) at Keel with local enrichment in zinc-lead sulphides at Keel West.

- Extensive barite mineralization (700 m strike) at Keel with local enrichment in zinc-lead sulphides at Keel West. Delta Horizon - Additional widespread barite mineralization (up to 25% barite in rock samples) with zinc-lead enrichment occurring over a 1.3 km trend at Delta, located 1 km northwest of Keel.

- Additional widespread barite mineralization (up to 25% barite in rock samples) with zinc-lead enrichment occurring over a 1.3 km trend at Delta, located 1 km northwest of Keel. B-9 Sulphide Zone - Sedex-style mineralization (10.0% zinc and lead, 16.2 g/t silver over 9.9 m) at the B-9 sulphide zone (open for expansion), located 4 km south of Keel.

Figure 1: Indy Project - Main Trend Targets

To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:

https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6480/217818_dd0b9032b4b6bace_001full.jpg

About InZinc

InZinc is an active explorer and, through its Indy project, equity investment and royalty interests, is exposed to a diverse portfolio of active North American base metals and precious metals projects. The Company has discovered and continues to explore for expansion of near surface zinc mineralization at the easily accessible Indy project located in a new and under-explored mineral region of central British Columbia, Canada. A Canadian subsidiary of South32 (ASX, LSE, JSE) became a major tenure holder in the belt by staking approximately 200 km2 of adjacent claims in late 2021. InZinc has a significant equity investment in American West Metals (ASX) which is advancing multiple North American base metals projects. In addition, InZinc has a production royalty and will receive 50% of the revenue (NSR) from the sale of indium mined from American West's West Desert project. The Company is engaged in a continuing review of other properties and projects for possible acquisition.

InZinc Mining Ltd.

Wayne Hubert

____________

Qualified Person

Brian McGrath, B.Sc., P.Geo. a Qualified Person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, has approved the technical content of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). All statements herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements. Forward-Looking statements, include but are not limited to, statements that address activities, events of developments that the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future. Forward-Looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipates, intends, estimates, plans, postulate, indicate and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. Although InZinc believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future results, performance or actions, and that actual results or actions may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, those risks and uncertainties disclosed in the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2023 filed with certain securities commissions in Canada and other information released by the Company and filed with the appropriate regulatory agencies. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, Inzinc disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. All of the Company's Canadian public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedarplus.com.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217818

SOURCE: InZinc Mining Ltd.
PUNE, India, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Elevator and Escalator Market Report by Product Type (Elevator, Escalator & Moving walkways), Elevator Technology (Traction, Machine room-less, Hydraulic), Service (New installation, Maintenance & Repair & Modernization), End-Use Industry (Commercial, Industrial) is expected to reach 194.97 Billion by 2030 from 127.97 Billion in 2023 at a CAGR of 6.2%.

Global Elevator and Escalator Market 2023-2030: Key Highlights:

Market Size in 2023 USD 127.97 Billion Market Size in 2030 USD 194.97 Billion CAGR 6.2 % Forecast Period 2024-2030 Base Year 2023 Number of Pages 229 No. of Tables 135 No. of Charts and Figures 193 Segment Covered By Product Type, Elevator Technology, Service, and End Use Industry 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.

Get your Sample PDF: https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/request-sample/17439/

Otis Elevator Company (US): Leader in Elevator and Escalator Industry

Otis Elevator Company has a long-standing reputation and extensive experience in the industry operating in over 300 cities worldwide, with more than 2 million installations in the U.S. alone. The company has maintained its position as a leading player in the global elevator and escalator market in 2023 by introducing advanced technologies such as Otis Gen3 Core Elevator, a digitally connected elevator system featuring enhanced efficiency, safety, and connectivity launched in North America in 2023. The ability to meet the demand with a wide range of products has contributed to its leadership of the company within the market.

ThyssenKrupp Elevator AG (Finland): A Prominent Manufacturer

ThyssenKrupp Elevator is recognized as one of the largest elevator manufacturers globally. In the year 2022-2023, the company sales reached about 9 Billion with a 14% YoY growth which signifies its production capacity and ability to mitigate challenges. The company has prioritized sustainability by developing eco-friendly products and practices that align with growing environmental regulations and consumer demand for greener solutions.

The Elevator Segment to Dominate the Elevator and Escalator Market during the Forecast Period

In 2022, more than 60% of the population has relocated to urban cities necessitating the demand for elevators. With the growing urbanization, the new elevator installations particularly from China, India, and Southeast Asia contribute to about 50% of the Asia Pacific region. Elevators have become more popular due to their versatility in residential and commercial buildings. The integration of advanced technologies like IoT and AI has led to the development of smart elevators, enhancing efficiency, safety, and user experience. For instance, KONE's UltraRope technology reduces energy consumption by up to 15% compared to conventional steel rope elevators, addressing environmental concerns. Additionally, about 30% of elevators in Europe are more than 20 years old, which is contributing to the increasing demand for upgrades to comply with safety regulations. By 2030, the global population of people aged 60 and above is expected to grow to 1.4 billion, highlighting the importance of installing elevators in public and residential buildings to improve accessibility.

Get 10% Free Customization on this Report:

https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/request-sample/17439/

The Machine Room Less Segment to grow fastest during the forecast period

The Machine Room Less (MRL) MRL elevators eliminate the need for a separate machine room, freeing up to 40% of building space for other purposes. This is particularly advantageous in urban areas with limited space. With gearless traction systems, these elevators can save up to 30% in energy compared to traditional geared systems. For instance, Mitsubishi Electric's NEXIEZ-MRL effectively minimizes power usage through the use of regenerative drives, transforming excess energy into reusable electricity. MRL elevators offer a simpler and faster installation and maintenance process, resulting in a 20% reduction in labor costs and reducing project timelines. Additionally, they provide enhanced safety features such as advanced braking systems and remote monitoring for increased reliability and quicker response times. The focus on green building standards in the European Union has accelerated the adoption of MRL elevators, with around 50% of all new installations in Europe being MRL systems. Similarly, in the United States, the demand for LEED-certified buildings has led to a noticeable increase in the use of MRL technology. Otis and Schindler are making substantial investments in MRL technology, with Otis's Gen2 Switch and Schindler's 3300 models leading the way in the industry. The flexibility, affordability, and eco-friendly advantages of MRL elevators are opening up growth opportunities in the global elevator escalator market.

Asia Pacific Region to be the fastest growing during the forecast period

The Asia-Pacific region is experiencing a surge in demand for elevators and escalators due to rapid urbanization, population growth, and increased infrastructural development. The concentration of populations in urban areas has necessitated the construction of high-rise buildings and commercial spaces further amplifying the need for vertical transportation solutions. China, India, and Japan are leading the infrastructure growth with significant investments driving the demand for elevators and escalators. In particular, China leads the global elevator installations market with more than 60%instalations that are driven by the high-rise projects and urban regeneration initiatives in Shanghai and Beijing. In addition, initiatives like the Smart Cities Mission and the goal of achieving 40% urbanization by 2030 support the growth of the Indian elevator and escalator market. Also, governments are implementing large-scale initiatives, including the construction of new airports, railway systems, and smart cities, all of which necessitate the use of vertical transportation solutions. Energy efficiency and smart elevator systems are advancing in the Asia-Pacific region, solidifying its position as a hub.

Request a Free Sample of the Elevator and Escalator Market Report -

https://www.maximizemarketresearch.com/inquiry-before-buying/17439/

Competitive Landscape

The Elevator and Escalator Market companies include significant key players like Otis Elevator Company (USA), Kone Corporation (Finland), Schindler Group (Switzerland), Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (Japan), ThyssenKrupp Elevator AG (Finland), Hitachi Ltd. (Japan), Fujitec Co., Ltd. (Japan) among others.

Browse for Related Reports: Engineering Equipment Market Research Report & Consulting

Traction Elevators Market: The market is a USD 43.61 Bn Market in the year 2023 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.9 % to become a USD 69.57 Bn Market in the year 2030.

Elevator Ropes Market: The market size was valued at US$ 701.54 Mn in 2023, and the total revenue is expected to grow by 3.9% from 2024 to 2030, reaching nearly US$ 916.99 Bn.

Elevators Market: The market was valued at USD 96.81 Bn in 2023 and is expected to reach USD 151.43 Bn by 2030, at a CAGR of 6.6 % during the forecast period.

Escalator Cleaning Machine Market: The market size was valued at USD 941.15 Bn in 2023 and is expected to reach USD 2065.04 Bn by 2030, at a CAGR of 11.88 % from forecast 2024 to 2030.

Traction Elevators Market: The market is a USD 43.61 Bn Market in the year 2023 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 6.9 % to become a USD 69.57 Bn Market in the year 2030.

Electric Power Tools Market: The market was valued at USD 31.87 Billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 56.42 Billion by 2030, exhibiting a CAGR of 8.5% during the forecast period (2024-2030).

About Maximize Market Research:

Maximize Market Research is a multifaceted market research and consulting company with professionals from several industries. Some of the 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 Maximize Market Research:

3rd Floor, Navale IT Park, Phase 2

Pune Banglore Highway, Narhe,

Pune, Maharashtra 411041, India

sales@maximizemarketresearch.com

+91 9607365656

Follow Up: Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin | Instagram

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2457992/Maximize_Market_Research_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/elevator-and-escalator-market-to-be-dominated-by-automotive-segment-at-a-cagr-of-6-2--says-maximize-market-research-302207569.html
NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / MetLife, Inc.

MetLife China volunteers join a community event with Sesame Workshop to help children and parents learn about planning and saving.

MetLife Sustainability Report

Our Approach

As one of the world's leading financial services companies, MetLife plays an important role in caring for its communities. All MetLife regions, lines of business and colleagues contribute to community engagement and outreach. MetLife Foundation helps connect MetLife colleagues with nonprofits and opportunities to make a difference through volunteerism, pro-bono work and grantmaking. These efforts contributed to MetLife Foundation reaching over $1 billion in all-time giving in 2023.

Governance

As a separate legal entity, MetLife Foundation has its own Board of Directors, chaired by MetLife, Inc.'s Head of Corporate Affairs. MetLife Foundation's President and Chief Executive Officer reports directly to the Foundation's Board Chair. As a fully integrated role, MetLife Foundation's President and CEO also serves as MetLife, Inc.'s Head of Corporate Giving and Employee Volunteerism, a function overseen by the Governance and Corporate Responsibility Committee of MetLife's Board of Directors.

Highlights:

$1B+ in MetLife Foundation giving?since 1976.

$30M multi-year commitment to Upstate New York, to build upon existing efforts in the region to help all New Yorkers thrive.

$8.3M contributed in grants to environmental causes since 2020.

$37.4M 1 in total grants globally in 2023.

144,000+ volunteer hours across 38 markets in 2023.

$96.1M to support communities with low incomes since 2021.

ADDRESSING WEALTH AND INCOME INEQUALITY IN THE U.S.

In 2023, MetLife Foundation launched a new initiative to address the growing income and wealth divide in the U.S. The two-year, $10.5 million pledge supports nonprofit organizations and leaders proximate to the issues who are on the front lines supporting people with low income in communities where MetLife has a presence.

Accelerating Commitment to Equity Innovation Fund (ACE Innovation Fund) is a $10 million commitment over two years that aims to democratize access to capital for nonprofits addressing the income and wealth divide in communities that have been historically disadvantaged. The Foundation selected 24 nonprofits across seven cities to receive up to $400,000 each in grants to implement and accelerate programs that will work to dismantle systemic barriers to the income and wealth gap. MetLife Foundation is partnering with Urban Institute and Community Resource Exchange to measure impact and deliver technical assistance to the cohort of grantees.

Community Impact Grant Program (CIGP) supports grassroots organizations addressing essential needs of people with low income. MetLife Foundation awarded $491,000 in grants to 38 nonprofit organizations that provide vital services to more than 100,000 people with low income in cities where MetLife has a presence.

The full list of grant recipients for the CIGP and ACE Innovation Fund is available on MetLife Foundation's website.

Download the full MetLife 2023 Sustainability Report

View additional multimedia and more ESG storytelling from MetLife, Inc. on 3blmedia.com.

Contact Info:

Spokesperson: MetLife, Inc.

Website: https://www.3blmedia.com/profiles/metlife-inc

Email: info@3blmedia.com

SOURCE: MetLife, Inc.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
The "Europe Data Center Market Landscape 2024-2029" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Europe Data Center Market was valued at USD 42.98 billion in 2023, and is expected to reach USD 64.5 billion by 2029, rising at a CAGR of 7%.

Digital Realty, Equinix, NTT DATA, atNorth, Iron Mountain, Colt Data Centre Services, Orange Business Services, Vantage Data Centers, STACK Infrastructure, and others are among the current major European data center investors.

The major hyperscale operators investing in the Europe data center market include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apple, Microsoft, Meta, and Google. These operators focus more on developing data center facilities across Western Europe and the Nordic region.

Support infrastructure vendors include ABB, Airedale, Caterpillar, Delta Electronics, Eaton, Schneider Electric, Legrand, Eaton, Rittal, Vertiv, and others. These companies have a strong global presence and have been operating across Europe for many years. In some prominent countries with many existing and ongoing ventures, they operate directly, whereas, in others, they operate via channel partners and distributors, getting into competition with local vendors in their respective countries.

Notable construction contractors in the Europe data center market include AECOM, Arup, Deerns, Mace, PM Group, ISG, Linesight, and many others. Prominent vendors like CloudHQ, Goodman, Prime Data Centers, Ada Infrastructure, Global Technical Realty, Nation Data Center, and others are among the European data center market's new entrants.

These companies have a considerable presence in other countries across the world as well, outside of the three European sub-regions. These companies may disrupt the existing industry by posing as competitors to the existing players, and their clientele from other parts of the world may likely follow them here as well.

The Europe data center market will be a rain-maker and bring in multi-million dollar revenue opportunities for construction contractors and sub-contractors operating in said market. It will also lure in new companies that are open to offering their construction services in this market. Considering the vast availability of area, labor, comparatively inexpensive construction costs and electricity rates compared to North America, the chances of thriving in this region is a positive possibility.

Competition among existing infrastructure and key service providers will also rise, with developers and operators keen on building sustainable data center environments.

KEY TRENDS

Adoption of Artificial-Intelligence-Based Infrastructure

The widespread adoption of AI solutions in Europe has led to a surge in data generation, driving growth in the technology market, increasing the demand for data centers in various European countries, and supporting the Europe data center market growth.

Governments and organizations in the region are investing in initiatives to implement AI solutions in their operations. For example, the UK government announced a 900 million ($1.1 billion) investment in Isambard-AI, a high-performance supercomputer, to support AI research at the University of Bristol.

In Denmark, specific goals have been set in health, energy and utilities, agriculture, and transport to improve AI implementation, with around USD 8.6 million set aside for new plans. Similarly, the Kremlin is dedicating funds from the federal budget to support AI research in Russia, aiming to accelerate AI development and achieve technological sovereignty in the country.

Growth in 5G Connectivity Deployment of Edge Data Centers

The expansion of 5G connectivity is leading to increased data generation, creating a greater demand for the construction of additional and edge data centers. This demand is particularly pronounced in tier II and tier III cities, where building large data centers is either infeasible or would result in a location distant from established data centers.

Sustainability Initiatives Attracting Data Center Operators

European data center market operators are leveraging solar, wind, and other renewable energy technologies to reduce their carbon footprint. Adopting renewable energy aims to align data centers with sustainability objectives and minimize their environmental impact.

Most data center operators opt for renewable energy to power their facilities due to the expensive cost of electricity in all major countries and cities.

In September 2023, Microsoft signed a new Power Purchase Agreement with Lightsource bp. It will take over 40 MW of electricity from a solar farm in Poland. LCL Data Centers in Belgium commit to science-based climate goals and has joined the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, aiming to achieve carbon neutrality for European data centers by 2030.

Rise in District Heating Concept

Europe has witnessed immense growth in its data center ecosystem in recent years. Most data center operators are building massive facilities covering a large area. Data centers are energy-intensive facilities that consume the most electric power and water.

A significant trend in the Europe data center market revolves around achieving energy efficiency. The aim is to reach a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) of 1.0, indicating that all the energy consumed directly powers the servers; this reflects optimal efficiency.

District heating efficiently distributes surplus heat generated by industrial facilities to fulfill the heating needs of nearby residential and commercial areas. For more than a decade, the practice of using waste heat from data centers to support district heating has been in operation.

GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS

Investors in the Europe data center market are increasingly choosing locations like Spain, Portugal, Greece, and other areas with abundant renewable energy and reasonable land prices. Hyperscale leaders like Microsoft, Meta, and Google are at the forefront of developing sustainable hyperscale facilities, especially in Nordic and Western European countries. Colocation data center developers also contribute by adopting initiatives like HVO, sustainable construction materials, and green facades.

KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED

What is the estimated market size in terms of area in the Europe data center market by 2029?

What are the key trends in the Europe data center market?

How big is the Europe data center market?

What is the growth rate of the Europe data center market?

How many MW of power capacity is expected to reach the Europe data center market by 2029?

Key Attributes:

Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 166 Forecast Period 2023 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $42.98 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $64.5 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 7.0% Regions Covered Europe

VENDOR LANDSCAPE

Prominent Support Infrastructure Providers

Arista Networks

Atos

Broadcom

Cisco Systems

Dell Technologies

Extreme Networks

Fujitsu

Hewlett Packard Enterprise

Hitachi Vantara

Huawei Technologies

IBM

Inspur

Lenovo

MiTAC Holdings

NEC

NetApp

Pure Storage

Quanta Cloud Technology

Super Micro Computer

Wiwynn

IT Infrastructure Providers

3M

ABB

Airedale International Air Conditioning

Aermec

Alfa Laval

Aksa Power Generation

Carrier

Caterpillar

Condair

Climaveneta

Cummins

D'HONDT THERMAL SOLUTIONS

Daikin Applied

Delta Electronics

Eaton

ebm-papst

EMICON INNOVATION AND COMFORT

Enrogen

FlaktGroup

Grundfos

Guntner

GESAB

HiRef

HITEC Power Protection

Honeywell International

Johnson Controls

KOHLER-SDMO

KyotoCooling

Legrand

Mitsubishi Electric

Munters

NetNordic

Nlyte Software (Carrier Global Corporation)

Perkins Engines

Piller Power Systems

Riello Elettronica (Riello UPS)

Rittal

Rolls-Royce

Schneider Electric

Siemens

Socomec

STULZ

Trane (Ingersoll Rand)

Vertiv

ZIEHL-ABEGG

Prominent Construction Contractors

AECOM

Altron

AODC

AEON Engineering

APL Data Center

ARC:MC

Ariatta

ARSMAGNA

Artelia

Arup

Aurora Group

Atkins

Basler Hofmann

BENTHEM CROUWEL ARCHITECTS

Bouygues Construction

Callaghan Engineering

Cap Ingelec

Caverion

Coromatic

Collen

COWI

DataDome

Deerns

Designer Group

Dipl.-Ing. H. C. Hollige

Dornan

Etop

DPR Construction

Eiffage

EYP MCF

Fluor Corporation

Ferrovial

Free Technologies Engineering

Future-tech

Granlund Group

GreenMDC

Gottlieb Paludan Architects

Haka Moscow

ICT Facilities

IDOM

IMOS

ISG

JCA Engineering

JERLAURE

Kirby Group Engineering

KKCG Group

Linesight

LPI Group

M+W Group (EXYTE)

Mace

Mercury

Metnor Construction

MT Hojgaard

Nicholas Webb Architects (NWA)

NORMA Engineering

Oakmont Construction

PM Group

PORR Group

PQC

Quark

Ramboll Group

RED

Reid Brewin Architects

Royal HaskoningDHV

Skanska

SPIE UK

Starching

STO Building Group

STRABAG

STS Group

Sweco

TECHKO

Tetra Tech

TPF Ingenierie

TTSP

Turner Townsend

Warbud

Winthrop Engineering and Contracting

YIT

ZAUNERGROUP

Prominent Data Center Investors

3data

3S Group

Amazon Web Services

Artnet

Atman

Apple

Aruba

AtlasEdge

AQ Compute

atNorth

Bahnhof

Beyond. pl

Bulk Infrastructure

China Mobile

Colt Data Centre Services (COLT DCS)

CyrusOne

DATA4

Digital Realty

Echelon Data Centres

EcoDataCenter

EdgeConneX

Equinix

Euclyde Data Centers

Meta (Facebook)

Global Switch

Google

Green Mountain

Hyperco

Iron Mountain

Ixcellerate

Kao Data

KDDI

LCL Data Centers

Ledfal Mine Datacenter

Liberty Global

Magenta Telekom

Microsoft

MTS

Nautilus Data Technologies

NDC-GARBE Data Centers Europe

Neterra

Netia

NorthC

NTT DATA

Orange Business Services

OVHcloud

Proximity Data Centres

Pure Data Centres

Rostelecom Data Centers

STACK Infrastructure

Stadtwerke Feldkirch

T-Mobile

T5 Data Centers

Telecom Italia Sparkle

Vantage Data Centers

Verne Global

Virtus Data centers (ST Telemedia Global Data Centres)

VK Cloud Solutions

Yandex

Yondr

New Entrants

Ada Infrastructure

CloudHQ

Form8tion Data Centers

Global Technical Realty

Goodman

Mainova WebHouse

Nation Data Center

Prime Data Centers

Stratus Data Centres

SEGMENTATION ANALYSIS

Segmentation by Facility Type

Hyperscale Data Centers

Colocation Data Centers

Enterprise Data Centers

Segmentation by Infrastructure

IT Infrastructure

Electrical Infrastructure

Mechanical Infrastructure

General Construction

Segmentation by IT Infrastructure

Server Infrastructure

Storage Infrastructure

Network Infrastructure

Segmentation by Electrical Infrastructure

UPS Systems

Generators

Transfer Switches Switchgear

Power Distribution Units

Other Electrical Infrastructure

Segmentation by Mechanical Infrastructure

Cooling Systems

Racks

Other Mechanical Infrastructure

Segmentation by Cooling Systems

CRAC CRAH Units

Chiller Units

Cooling Towers, Condensers, and Dry Coolers

Economizers Evaporative Coolers

Other Cooling Units

Segmentation by Cooling Techniques

Air-based

Liquid-based

Segmentation by General Construction

Core Shell Development

Installation Commissioning Services

Engineering Building Design

Physical Security

Fire Detection Suppression

DCIM

Segmentation by Tier Standard

Tier I II

Tier III

Tier IV

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/yuoqkb

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.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240726234941/en/

Contacts:

ResearchAndMarkets.com

Laura Wood, Senior Press Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com

For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./ CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900
Enzolytics, Inc. (OTC PINK:ENZC) ( enzolytics.com ) (the "Company") stated today that the Company will whole heartedly support any and all efforts by Sagaliam Acquisition Corp ("SAGA") in its campaign to stop another attempt by NIKA Pharmaceutical and its CEO, Dimtar Savov, falsely claiming rights to patents issued to Harry H. Zhabilov and the Zhabilov Trust for the Immunotherapy treatment of HIV/AIDS. Mr. Savov has, since defaulting on licensing agreements and losses in civil court actions in the US and Bulgarian court systems, erroneously and maliciously asserted claims to ITV-1 in his attempt to mislead the investing public and to harm the shareholder value of SAGA as well as the Company. The exclusive license holder of this intellectual property is Virogentics, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Sagaliam.

Sagaliam press release issued on July 25, 2017: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sagalium-responds-competitor-false-misleading-204600512.html

Steve Sharabura, Interim CEO of Enzolytics, commented, "I and the Board of Directors are steadfastly aligned with Sagaliam to bring to an end this travesty and the protection of both entities' shareholder value."

About Enzolytics, Inc.

Enzolytics, Inc. is transitioning from a drug development company committed to commercializing its proprietary proteins and monoclonal antibodies to treat debilitating infectious diseases to a sales, marketing and distribution entity focusing on medical devices, medical testing and nutraceutical products.

Forward Looking Statements

The disclosure herein includes certain statements that are not historical facts but are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as "believe," "may," "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "expect," "should," "would," "plan," "predict," "potential," "seem," "seek," "future," "outlook," and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding projections, estimates and forecasts of revenue and other financial and performance metrics and projections of market opportunity and expectations, Company's ability to enter into a definitive business combination agreement and Company's ability to obtain the financing necessary to consummate the potential business combination transaction. These statements are based on various assumptions and on the current expectations of Company's management and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on by any investor as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of Company. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including: Company's ability to enter into a definitive agreement with respect to the proposed business combination or consummate a transaction; the risk that the approval of the stockholders of Company for the potential transaction is not obtained; failure to realize the anticipated benefits of the potential transaction, including as a result of a delay in consummating the potential transaction or difficulty in integrating the businesses of Company; the amount of redemption requests made by Company's stockholders and the amount of funds remaining in Company's trust account after satisfaction of such requests; those factors discussed in Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023 under the heading "Risk Factors," and other documents of Company filed, or to be filed, with the SEC. If the risks materialize or assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. There may be additional risks that Company presently does not know or that Company currently believes are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect Company's expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date hereof. Company anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause Company's assessments to change. However, while Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Company's assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this disclosure statement. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Enzolytics, Inc.

Steve Sharabura, Chief Executive Officer

3002 Royal Palm

Baytown, Texas 77523

Tel: (845) 925-4597

X/Twitter: @EnzolyticsInc

SOURCE: Enzolytics, Inc.

View the original press release on accesswire.com
International students at OSU can now secure on-campus employment before even setting foot in the United States

INTO Oregon State University (INTO OSU) has unveiled a pioneering employment program called "Jump Start," designed to help international students secure on-campus jobs even before they arrive in the United States.

The innovative program will benefit all international students at Oregon State University (OSU) receiving support and services from INTO OSU - the on-campus education centre dedicated to overseas students.

Through the Jump Start program, students have the opportunity to earn over $20,000 annually while gaining invaluable work experience in a variety of on-campus job roles. This initiative enriches their educational experience, offering both a solid financial foundation and significant professional development.

"We are thrilled to introduce the Jump Start employment program at INTO OSU, a groundbreaking initiative designed to empower our international students with early access to work opportunities. This program not only allows students to potentially earn over $20,000 annually but also equips them with crucial skills and experiences that will significantly enhance their professional journeys," said Bob Gilmour, INTO OSU's Executive Director.

"At INTO OSU, we are committed to supporting our students in every aspect of their academic and career development, and Jump Start is a testament to that commitment."

International students studying in the United States have the option to work on campus for up to 20 hours per week during term time and up to 40 hours during vacations.

International undergraduate and graduate students who have an offer to study on the OSU Corvallis campus with support and services from INTO OSU are eligible for the Jump Start program.

"Many on-campus jobs are available for international students who study at Oregon State University. The jobs provide opportunities for students who come from various countries and cultures to contribute to the campus community and its diversity. Finding and applying for an on-campus job before they arrive in the U.S. is not an easy task for an international student. It requires them to overcome many challenges and learn new skills. I'm delighted the INTO OSU Student Success Services team has introduced this program to help students throughout this process. The team informs students about available jobs and the application steps, and they also prepare them for their first day of work," said Edward Feser, OSU's Provost and Executive Vice President.

Students enrolled in Jump Start will enjoy the following benefits:

An annual earning potential of over $20,000

A job offer outlining the minimum expected salary for the year that may be used as part of proof of funding in the admissions process

The potential to start a job during the first week at OSU

Individualized support from an INTO OSU staff member to assist with the journey from applying through to the first day of work on campus

Strengthened interviewing and resume skills

Remote interviews were conducted in international students' home countries before travelling to the US

Valuable work experience that will help students prepare for their post-graduation careers

A network of coworkers and supervisors who can act as professional references

Jobs within walking distance of on-campus housing and classes

A flexible work environment designed to fit around students' study schedules to help ensure their continued academic success

A launch message went out to about 1700 graduate and undergraduate offer holders with an invitation to register for Jump Start. So far 140 students have signed up.

"I applied for an Amazon internship and had an interview. I took two weeks off from my on-campus job to prepare for the interview. I was successful, and after completing the internship I now have a job offer to work at Amazon in Seattle after graduation. Working in the student job helped prepare me for the Amazon internship. Having a good mindset about work culture and having routine and discipline is very important," said Samisha, a student from India who worked in the OSU Admissions Office.

"I like the program because it allows an undergraduate student to gain work experience while studying, and also provides financial support. The details of the program were clearly explained to me. The interviewing process was also good as my interviewers were kind and helpful to me and their questions were well thought-out." Ahmet, a student from Turkey will start a position with the OSU Campus IT support in the fall term of 2024.

INTO OSU was created in 2008 as a joint venture partnership between OSU and INTO University Partnerships, a global education partnering organization, to expand the University's global reach. INTO OSU offers academic support and services to international students in the form of direct entry and taught preparatory programs in all undergraduate majors, as well as a wide range of graduate degrees at the University.

Students receive an additional layer of academic and personal support from the staff and faculty at INTO OSU - a vibrant educational hub located in the International Living Learning Center on the historic OSU campus. Since its inception, INTO OSU has helped more than 11,900 international students from more than 155 countries achieve academic success in their chosen courses. INTO OSU-supported students also have gone on to represent all 11 of OSU's academic colleges at PhD level.

Oregon State University Quick Facts:

Top 1.4% Global University (Center for World University Rankings 2022)

#2 Best College Towns in America (bestcolleges.com, 2023)

Career outcomes - OSU graduates earn $20,000 more per year than the average salary of graduates from other US higher education institutions ( U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard 2023).

Research and innovation - nearly half a billion dollars in research funding every year.

Top-ranked Engineering school - top 100 Best Engineering Schools with four top 50 graduate programs (U.S. News & World Report 2023).

Find out more about INTO OSU's Jump Start program here: www.tinyurl.com

For media enquiries, please contact: Davinder Kumar

VP, Corporate & Public Relations

davinder.kumar@intoglobal.com SOURCE: INTO University

View the original press release on accesswire.com
BEIJING, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from People's Daily: At the invitation of the Chinese side, high-level representatives of 14 Palestinian factions recently held a reconciliation dialogue in Beijing. They signed the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity.

This was an important historical moment in the Palestinian liberation cause, and an important step to solve the Palestinian question and achieve peace and stability in the Middle East. It has brought precious hope to the long-suffering Palestinian people.

The international community highly appreciates China's active mediation and promotion of internal reconciliation in Palestine, considering it a clear demonstration of China's commitment to a just stance and the country's role as a responsible major country in safeguarding regional peace and stability.

Only when Palestinian factions speak as one can the voice of justice be loud and clear, and only when they join hands and march forward shoulder to shoulder can they succeed in their national liberation cause.

The most important consensus from the Beijing talks is to achieve the reconciliation and unity among the 14 factions; the core outcome is the affirmation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinian people; the biggest highlight is the agreement on establishing an interim government of national reconciliation focusing on the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza; and the strongest call is for truly establishing an independent State of Palestine in accordance with relevant UN resolutions.

Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy chief of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), noted that China is a beacon of light, and its efforts to promote reconciliation among various factions in Palestine are rare and commendable in the international arena.

Middle Eastern countries believe that the successful signing of the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity fully demonstrates China's unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their pursuit of restoring their legitimate national rights and justice.

The Palestinian question is the fundamental problem behind peace in the Middle East. Without a just resolution to the Palestinian question, there can be no lasting peace and stability in the region.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent congratulatory messages to a UN Special Commemorative Meeting in Observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People for 11 consecutive years. He also attended the BRICS extraordinary virtual summit on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, and has put forward initiatives and proposals on resolving the Palestinian question on multiple occasions, contributing Chinese wisdom and solutions to the resolution of the Palestinian question.

Promoting the realization of Palestine's internal reconciliation and solidarity is conducive to the just cause of the Palestinian people and the early, comprehensive, just, and lasting settlement of the question of Palestine.

China always supports Palestinian factions in achieving reconciliation and solidarity through dialogue and consultation and stands ready to provide platforms and opportunities for all Palestinian factions to carry out dialogue for reconciliation.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative Party, said, "China is decent and honest, genuinely wanting to help us without interfering in our internal affairs, and supports our cause by strengthening our unity."

Currently, the spillover effects of the Gaza conflict are becoming apparent, causing concerns about the situation in the Middle East. China believes that the pressing task is to realize a comprehensive ceasefire as quickly as possible; the key priority is to ensure humanitarian assistance; and the fundamental way out is to implement the two-State solution.

At the opening ceremony of the 10th ministerial conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, Xi once put forward China's propositions. He said war should not continue indefinitely, justice should not be absent forever, and commitment to the two-State solution should not be wavered at will.

China, together with the international community, will work with utmost urgency to promote a comprehensive ceasefire and end the conflict. The will also provide multiple batches of emergency humanitarian assistance to Gaza through bilateral and multilateral channels.

During the reconciliation talks in Beijing this time, China proposed a three-step initiative. The first step is to promote a comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible and ensure humanitarian assistance and relief access. The second step is to uphold the principle of "the Palestinians governing Palestine" and work together to promote post-war governance in Gaza. The third step is to promote Palestine to become a full member of the UN and begin to implement the two-state solution.

China's initiative, which is rooted in the present and looks to the future, helps to build consensus among all parties and steer the Palestinian question back onto the right track of political resolution.

China's efforts to promote internal reconciliation of Palestine represent the latest practice in implementing Global Security Initiative and maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East. In recent years, China has put forward a five-point initiative on achieving security and stability in the Middle East, a four-point proposal on solving the Syrian issue, a three-point vision for the implementation of the two-state solution between Palestine and Israel, and has successfully facilitated dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Beijing, leading to the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The purpose was to encourage regional countries to unite and strengthen themselves, and to resolve their conflicts and differences through dialogue and consultation.

China has no self-interest in the Middle East and does not engage in "exclusive blocs." It continues to play a role in promoting conflict de-escalation and easing tensions, firmly supporting the people of Middle Eastern countries in taking control of their own future. Abdulaziz Alshehhi, a senior researcher in political analysis from the United Arab Emirates, said China has become one of the most important forces supporting peace and development in the Middle East.

On the Palestinian issue, China stands on the side of peace, justice and conscience. China sincerely hopes that the various factions in Palestine can achieve national unity and independence through internal reconciliation at an early stage. Looking ahead, China will continue to make unremitting efforts with all relevant parties to contribute to the peace and stability in the Middle East.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/china-demonstrates-major-country-responsibility-in-maintaining-regional-peace-stability-302207657.html
IDAHO FALLS, ID / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Bank of Idaho Holding Company (the "Company") (OTCQX:BOID), the holding company for Bank of Idaho (the "Bank"), today announced its unaudited financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2024. The Company reported consolidated net income of $2,586,000, or $0.58 per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2024 after recording a one-time tax expense of $425,000 in the second quarter related to the remeasurement to its deferred tax asset. Prior to the adjustment, earnings for the second quarter of 2024 were $3,011,000, or $0.68 per diluted share. This compares to $3,067,000, or $0.69 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2024, and $2,274,000 or $0.51 per diluted share, for the second quarter of 2023.

"We are pleased to announce a strong second quarter with Bank of Idaho generating $4.6 million in pre-tax, pre-provision income and $0.68 adjusted earnings per share. Our commitment to prioritizing credit, pricing, and expense discipline continues to provide strong results for our shareholders," said Jeff Newgard, Chairman, President, and CEO of Bank of Idaho. "We are proud to serve dynamic geographic markets, which produce strong loan growth. We remain confident for the remainder of 2024 and beyond and intend to capitalize on emerging opportunities."

Quarterly Summary

Loans held for investment grew $47.1 million, or 5.1%, in Q2 2024 and increased $182.2 million, or 23.3%, from Q2 2023.

Total core deposits increased $75.9 million, or 8.0%, in Q2 2024 and were up $131.1 million, or 14.7%, from Q2 2023.

Pre-tax, pre-provision ("PTPP") net income was $4.57 million in Q2 2024, compared to $4.76 million in Q1 2024 and $3.66 million in Q2 2023.

Tangible book value ("TBV") per share increased to $25.90, or 3.0%, from $25.16 at Q1 2024, and increased 12.3% from $23.06 at Q2 2023. The increase in TBV is attributable to earnings and a decrease in unrealized losses within our securities portfolio.

Operating Results

Net income for the second quarter of 2024 was $2,586,000, or $0.58 per diluted share, compared to net income of $3,067,000, or $0.69 per diluted share, for Q1 2024, and $2,274,000, or $0.51 per diluted share, for the same quarter last year. The decrease from the prior quarter was the result of a one-time tax expense of $425,000 related to the remeasurement of the Company's deferred tax asset.

Net interest income for Q2 2024 was $12.6 million, an increase of $265,000, or 2.1%, from the prior quarter as interest income outpaced the increases in interest expense. Net interest income grew $790,000, or 6.7%, from the same period in the prior year.

Net interest margin for the second quarter of 2024 was 4.19% compared to 4.43% in the previous quarter and 4.82% for the same quarter last year. While there continues to be margin pressure from the Fed's restrictive rate policy and liquidity tightening mandate, we see healthy loan demand at attractive rates. While the cost of funding increases, the growth in earning assets at current market yields should outpace funding cost pressures.

Noninterest income, including net gains and losses, for Q2 2024 was $1,028,000, a decrease of $169,000, or 14.1%, from $1,197,000 in Q1 2024. The decrease was attributable to a $145,000 loss for a municipal security being called. Relative to the second quarter of 2023, noninterest income decreased $62,000, or 5.7%.

Noninterest expense of $9.06 million in Q2 2024 was an increase of $286,000, or 3.3%, from $8.77 million in Q1 2024 and a $182,000, or 2.0%, decrease from $9.24 million in Q2 2023. The increase from Q1 2024 was due to one-time personnel expenses of $75,000 and variable compensation of $90,000 due to increased loan production. The Company's efficiency ratio was 64.8% for Q2 2024, compared to 64.0% for Q1 2024, and 70.5% for Q2 2023.

Total assets were $1.29 billion as of June 30, 2024, an increase of $100.6 million, or 8.5%, from $1.19 billion at March 31, 2024. Second quarter 2024 balance sheet growth was driven by growth in portfolio loans of $47.1 million, or 5.1%. Loans were funded by the growth in deposits of $77.2 million, or 7.8%. Cash and cash equivalents increased $43.4 million along with an increase of $21.0 million in total borrowings.

Loans held for investment were $963.8 million as of June 30, 2024, an increase of $47.1 million, or 5.1%, from $916.7 million as of March 31, 2024, and an increase of $182.2 million, or 23.3%, from $781.6 million as of June 30, 2023. The increase in total loans from the previous quarter came from growth in all loan categories, the largest coming from an increase in the Bank's commercial and commercial real estate loans. We continue to see significant lending opportunities across our markets.

Deposits were $1,069.0 million as of June 30, 2024, up $77.2 million, or 7.8%, from the previous quarter, and up $175.3 million, or 19.6%, from the same quarter last year. The growth in our deposits is primarily in interest bearing products as customers continue to seek yield on their deposits. While we are successful in attracting deposits within our markets, deposits come at an elevated cost due competition from both bank and non-bank organizations. Noninterest bearing deposits represented 27% of total deposits and 28% of core deposits as of June 30, 2024, compared to 30% as of March 31, 2024, and 36% as of June 30, 2023.

Borrowings were $84.2 million as of June 30, 2024, which consisted of $24.6 million of Company subordinated debt, $24.6 million of BTFP advances, and $35.0 million of FHLB borrowings compared to $24.6 million of Company subordinated debt, $24.6 million of BTFP advances, and $14.0 million of FHLB borrowings in the previous quarter.

Asset quality remained strong in Q2 2024. Nonaccrual loans, excluding government guaranteed balances, totaled $2,351,000, or 0.24% of loans, as of June 30, 2024, compared to $2,194,000, or 0.19% of loans, as of March 31, 2024, and $269,000, or 0.03% of loans, as of June 30, 2023. The Company had no OREO for Q2 2024, Q1 2024, or Q2 2023.

The Allowance for Credit Losses ("ACL") totaled $11.8 million, or 1.23% of loans held for investment, as of June 30, 2024. The Company recorded $497,000 in provision for loan loss expense in the second quarter of 2024 compared to $645,000 in provision expense in the previous quarter, and $520,000 in provision in the second quarter of 2023. The Company recorded net charge-offs of $47,000 in the second quarter of 2024 bringing year-to-date net charge-offs to $126,000 or annualized 2.7 basis points of average loans.

Capital ratios of the Company and Bank continue to exceed the "well-capitalized" capital levels set by our respective regulators. As of June 30, 2024, the Bank's Tier 1 leverage ratio was 11.57% and the total risk-based capital ratio was 14.82%. As of June 30, 2024, the Company had tangible common equity (total stockholders' equity less intangible assets) of $114.8 million and tangible book value per share of $25.90. Tangible common equity increased $3.403 million in Q2 2024 due to quarterly earnings of $2.586 million and a $470,000 improvement to accumulated other comprehensive loss ("AOCL") related to decreased unrealized losses on our securities portfolio. The Company's tangible common equity to tangible assets ratio was 8.97% as of June 30, 2024, down from 9.42% in the previous quarter. There were no paid dividends during Q2 2024 or in any quarter presented.

About Bank of Idaho Holding Company

Bank of Idaho Holding Company is a bank holding company headquartered in Idaho Falls, Idaho. The Company's subsidiary, Bank of Idaho, is an independent commercial bank providing a range of business, personal, and mortgage banking products and services, as well as trust and wealth management services, to customers in Idaho and eastern Washington. The Company's common stock is traded on the OTCQX exchange under the symbol "BOID."

Non-GAAP Financial Measures

Some of the financial measures included in this press release are not measures of financial performance recognized in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States ("GAAP"). These non-GAAP financial measures include "efficiency ratio," "tangible common equity," "tangible common equity to tangible assets," "tangible book value per share," and "pre-tax pre-provision net income." Efficiency ratio is computed by dividing total noninterest expense, including intangible expense, by the sum of net interest income and noninterest income, including gains and losses. Tangible common equity is computed by subtracting goodwill and core deposit intangibles from total stockholders' equity. Tangible common equity to tangible assets is computed by dividing total assets, less goodwill and core deposit intangibles, by tangible common equity. Tangible book value per share is computed by dividing tangible common equity by common shares outstanding. Pre-tax, pre-provision net income is computed by adding provision for loan loss expense and income tax expense to net income. The Company believes these non-GAAP financial measures provide both management and investors with a more complete understanding of the Company's financial position and performance. These non-GAAP financial measures are supplemental and are not a substitute for any analysis based on GAAP financial measures. Not all companies use the same calculation of these measures; therefore, this presentation may not be comparable to other similarly titled measures as presented by other companies.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains, among other things, certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, without limitation, statements preceded by, followed by, or that include the words "may," "could," "should," "would," "believe," "anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "plan," "projects," "outlook" or similar expressions. These statements are based upon the current belief and expectations of the Company's management team and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties that are subject to change based on various factors (many of which are beyond the Company's control). Although the Company believes that the assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements are reasonable, any of the assumptions could prove to be inaccurate. Therefore, the Company can give no assurance that the results contemplated in the forward-looking statements will be realized. The inclusion of this forward-looking information should not be construed as a representation by the Company or any other person that the future events, plans, or expectations contemplated by the Company will be achieved.

All subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or any person acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements above. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date the forward-looking statements are made, except as required by law.

###

CONTACT: Matt Borud, Bank of Idaho

Phone: 208.412.2322

Email: mattborud@bankofidaho.net

SOURCE: Bank Of Idaho Holding Co

View the original press release on accesswire.com
North Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - Lion One Metals Limited (TSXV: LIO) (ASX: LLO) (OTCQX: LOMLF) ("Lion One" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce that the Company has closed the fully-subscribed upsized brokered private placement financing (the "LIFE Offering") previously announced on July 18, 2024 and July 19, 2024 by issuing 27,027,027 units of the Company (the "Units") at a price of C$0.37 per Unit (the "Offering Price") for aggregate gross proceeds of C$10,000,000, pursuant to the listed issuer financing exemption available under National Instrument 45-106 - Prospectus Exemptions (the "LIFE Exemption") in each of the Provinces of Canada other than Quebec, pursuant to the terms of the agency agreement (the "Agency Agreement") dated as of July 26, 2024, among the Company, Eight Capital, and Canaccord Genuity Corp. (collectively, the "Agents").

Each Unit consists of one common share (a "Common Share") in the capital of the Company and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant") of the Company. Each Warrant shall be exercisable to acquire one Common Share (a "Warrant Share") at a price per Warrant Share of C$0.50 for a period of 36 months from the closing date of the LIFE Offering.

Concurrently with the LIFE Offering, the Company completed, a non-brokered private placement of 4,458,352 Units on the same terms as the LIFE Offering, for gross proceeds of C$1,649,590.24 (the "Sidecar Private Placement", and together with the LIFE Offering, the "Offering") pursuant to applicable exemptions under NI 45-106 other than the listed issuer financing exemption. In aggregate, under the Offering the Company issued 31,485,379 Units for gross proceeds of C$11,649,590.24.

In connection with the LIFE Offering, the Company (i) paid to the Agents a cash commission of C$700,000, which was equal to 7.0% of the gross proceeds from the LIFE Offering; and (ii) issued an aggregate of 1,891,891 compensation warrants ("Compensation Warrants"), equal to 7.0% of the number of Units sold pursuant to the LIFE Offering. Each Compensation Warrant is exercisable for one Common Share at a price of C$0.37 for a period of 24 months from the closing date of the LIFE Offering.

In connection with the Sidecar Private Placement, the Company (i) paid a cash commission to a finder (the "Finder") in the aggregate of C$38,850, which was equal to 5% of the gross proceeds in respect of subscribers introduced to the Company by the Finder; and (ii) issued an aggregate of 105,000 Compensation Warrants, equal to 5% of the number of Units sold to subscribers introduced to the Company pursuant to the Sidecar Private Placement. Each Compensation Warrant is exercisable for one Common Share at a price of C$0.37 for a period of 24 months from the closing date of the Sidecar Private Placement.

The net proceeds received by the Company from the sale of the Units will be used for development and ramp up expenses at the Tuvatu Gold project located in Fiji, as well as for general corporate expenses & purposes.

The LIFE Offering was completed pursuant to the LIFE Exemption, and accordingly, the securities issued in the LIFE Offering are not subject to a hold period in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. The securities issued under the Sidecar Private Placement are subject to a hold period expiring on November 27, 2024 pursuant to applicable Canadian securities laws.

Certain subscribers under the Sidecar Private Placement are directors and management of the Company. The issuance of Units to directors and management of the Company constitutes a "related party transaction" as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101"). The transactions are exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value of any securities issued or the consideration paid by such persons will exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization.

The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the "United States" (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. 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 the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

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 of

Lion One Metals Limited

"Walter Berukoff"

Chairman and CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information. Forward-Looking statements are frequently identified by such words as "may", "will", "plan", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend" and similar words referring to future events and results. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of the Company. Forward-Looking statements made in this news release include statements regarding anticipated completion of the Offering and debt settlement, and the proposed use of proceeds of the Offering. Although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-Looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of the Company relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks, including, with respect to the Offering, the conditions of the financial markets, availability of financing, timeliness of completion of the Offering, and the timing of TSX Venture Exchange approval; and with respect to the use of proceeds, the sufficiency of the proceeds, the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, fluctuating commodity prices, and competitive, as described in more detail in our recent securities filings available at www.sedarplus.ca, including the Offering Document. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given 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 forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION OR DISSEMINATION DIRECTLY, OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217822

SOURCE: Lion One Metals Limited
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Nepra Foods Inc. (CSE:NPRA)(FSE:2P6)(OTC PINK:NPRFF) ("Nepra Foods" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce that further to its press release dated July 8th, 2024, trading in the Company's common shares has resumed on the Canadian Securities Exchange.

About Nepra Foods Inc.

Nepra Foods is specialty food company focused on innovative and proprietary allergen and gluten-free food ingredient technologies. The company supports food manufactures globally with formulations, ingredients and technical support for the production of the next generation of healthy, nutritious foods. For more information on the company, visit www.neprafoods.com.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

David Wood, Chief Operating Officer and Interim CFO

investors@neprafoods.com

Investor Relations Toll-free (844) 566-1917

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains statements and information that, to the extent that they are not historical fact, constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking information may include, without limitation, statements related to the future developments and the business and operations of the Company. Forward-looking information is based on the reasonable assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect.

Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information, including, but not limited to, statements relating to the Company's financial performance, business development, results of operations, and those listed in filings made by the Company with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities (which may be viewed at www.sedarplus.ca). Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any such forward looking information. Further, any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which such statement is made. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for the Company's management to predict all of such factors and to assess in advance the impact of each such factor on the Company's business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking information to reflect information, events, results, circumstances or otherwise after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law including securities laws.

SOURCE: Nepra Foods

View the original press release on accesswire.com
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - Rome Resources Ltd. (TSXV: RMR) (FSE: 33R) ("Rome" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the completion today of its previously announced plan of arrangement (the "Arrangement") with Rome Resources Plc (previously known as Pathfinder Minerals Plc) ("Pathfinder") and Pathfinder's wholly-owned subsidiary 1475033 B.C. Ltd. ("Subco") under section 288 of the Business Corporations Act (British Columbia), resulting in Rome becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pathfinder. Pursuant to the Arrangement, Subco and Rome amalgamated. Immediately following the amalgamation, the amalgamated company, 1475033 B.C. Ltd. changed its name to Rome Resources Ltd ("Amalco"). Upon the amalgamation taking effect, Dr. Georg Schnura and Serge Nawej Tshitembu ceased to be directors of Amalco, with Mark Gasson becoming the initial sole director of Amalco. Amalco thanks Dr. Schnura and Mr. Tshitembu for their services to Rome.

The Arrangement was approved at a special meeting of shareholders of Rome held on July 12, 2024, followed by the issuance of a final order approving the Arrangement by the Supreme Court of British Columbia on July 17, 2024.

Pursuant to the Arrangement, effective July 26, 2024, each holder of a Rome common share (the "Rome Shares") at the Effective Time (as defined in the Circular (defined below)) was entitled to receive 19.54 ordinary shares in the capital of Pathfinder in exchange for each Rome Share held. It is anticipated that these Pathfinder shares will be distributed by Link Group to former shareholders of Rome on or prior to August 7, 2024. The Rome Shares are expected to be delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange after market close on Monday July 29, 2024. The Company will apply to cease to be a reporting issuer in all of the jurisdictions in Canada in which it is currently a reporting issuer.

Further details of the Arrangement are set out in Rome's management information circular dated May 27, 2024 (the "Circular") and related continuous disclosure documents, which are available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca under Rome's profile. Registered shareholders of the Company holding Rome Shares in certificated form are reminded that they must properly complete, sign and return the letter of transmittal, along with their share certificate(s), to Computershare Investor Services Inc. (the "Depositary"), as depositary, in order to receive the consideration they are entitled to under the Transaction. Non-registered shareholders should contact their intermediaries for instructions and assistance in delivering their Rome Shares and receiving consideration for such Rome Shares.

If any shareholder of the Company has questions with respect to the letter of transmittal, please contact the Depositary, toll free at 1-800-564-6253 (North America) or 1-514-982-7555 (outside North America), or by email at corporateactions@computershare.com.

Further to the Company's news release dated May 22, 2024, following communication with the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange") with respect to the timing for providing certain final documents to obtain final Exchange acceptance for filing of the Mont Agoma Term Sheet and MRDC Term Sheet, and in view of the closing of the Arrangement and the subsequent delisting of Rome's Shares from the Exchange, the Company withdrew its submissions of the Mont Agoma Term Sheet and MRDC Term Sheet and accordingly did not obtain Exchange acceptance for filing of the Mont Agoma Term Sheet and MRDC Term Sheet. For further details of the Mont Agoma Term Sheet and MRDC Term Sheet please refer to the Company's May 22, 2024 news release and the Company's Circular.

About Rome Resources

Rome Resources Ltd. is a mineral exploration company that is a party to two option agreements and a binding term sheet whereby 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 and is responsible to fund exploration up to the completion of a definitive feasibility study.

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/217912

SOURCE: Rome Resources Ltd.
BANGALORE, India, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Data Center Chip Market By Chip Type (GPU, ASIC, FPGA, CPU, Others), By Data Center Size (Small and Medium Size, Large Size), By Industry Verticals (BFSI, Manufacturing, Government, IT and Telecom, Retail, Transportation, Energy and Utilities, Others): Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2023-2032.

The Data Center Chip Market was valued at USD 11.7 Billion in 2022, and is estimated to reach USD 45.3 Billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 14.6% from 2023 to 2032.

Get Free Sample @ https://reports.valuates.com/request/sample/ALLI-Auto-2B326/Data_Center_Chip_Market

Major Factors Driving the Growth of Data Center Chip Market

Because of the growing need for data processing and storage solutions brought about by the quick development of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics, the data center chip market is expanding significantly. High-performance chips are necessary for data centers to process massive volumes of data quickly and efficiently. As a result, advances in chip technology, including CPUs, GPUs, and specialist AI processors, have been made. The need for more resilient and scalable data center infrastructure is fueled in part by the expansion of digital services and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. The market is expanding due to key areas including Asia-Pacific, with its investments in technology and fast digital transformation, and North America, with its top tech businesses and vast data center networks.

View Full Report @ https://reports.valuates.com/market-reports/ALLI-Auto-2B326/data-center-chip

TRENDS INFLUENCING THE GROWTH OF THE DATA CENTER CHIP MARKET:

In data centers, Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are essential for speeding up computing operations and data processing. They are perfect for managing workloads related to artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and large-scale data analytics because of their parallel processing capabilities. The need for GPUs in data centers is growing as these technologies become increasingly essential to corporate operations. Businesses are purchasing GPUs in order to increase the effectiveness of their data processing, lower latency, and boost overall performance. The need for data center chips is being driven by the increasing reliance on GPUs for sophisticated computing activities, which is considerably contributing to the market's rise. This need is further increased by the growing use of AI and machine learning in a variety of sectors, which puts GPUs at the forefront of the data center semiconductor industry.

Compared to general-purpose chips, Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) provide better performance and efficiency since they are designed specifically for a given application. ASICs are extensively utilized in data centers for specific tasks including networking, data compression, and encryption. ASICs are becoming more and more common as a result of the growth of cloud computing, big data analytics, and blockchain technology, which has increased demand for high-performance, energy-efficient processors. Their capacity to provide tailored performance for certain applications aids data centers in better workload management, power conservation, and operating expense reduction. The market is expanding as a result of the increased preference for ASICs in data centers, which is fueling the need for specialized data center chips.

Large data centers are important users of data center chips; they are run by well-known IT firms and cloud service providers. To manage enormous volumes of data and provide a wide range of services, these facilities need a great deal of processing power and sophisticated computing skills. High-performance data center chips are becoming more and more necessary as a result of the growth of massive data centers and the rising demand for online streaming, cloud services, and digital transactions. These chips are necessary to ensure effective data management, processing, and storage, which helps big data centers fulfill the increasing expectations of its clientele. Large data center proliferation is anticipated to considerably boost the data center chip industry as the digital economy continues to grow.

Data centers are becoming more and more important to the Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) industry as a means of safely and effectively managing high transaction volumes, consumer data, and financial records. The need for sophisticated data center processors is being driven by the sector's requirement for real-time data processing, high-performance computing, and strong security measures. BFSI organizations may improve their operational efficiency, guarantee data integrity, and deliver superior client services by utilizing data centers fitted with robust chips. The BFSI sector's need for data center chips is being driven by the increasing use of online banking, digital banking, and financial analytics tools, all of which increase the requirement for sophisticated data center infrastructure.

The market for data center chips is significantly influenced by the cloud computing industry's explosive growth. There is a growing need for scalable, effective, and high-performance data center infrastructure as more companies move their operations to the cloud. In order to handle enormous volumes of data, facilitate virtualization, and guarantee flawless service delivery, cloud service providers need sophisticated data center chips. Sturdy data center chips are becoming more and more necessary as cloud-based solutions become more and more popular. Benefits like cost savings, flexibility, and scalability are driving this trend. In places like North America and Europe, where cloud adoption rates are high and data center chip demand is rising rapidly, this tendency is especially significant.

Buy Now @ https://reports.valuates.com/api/directpaytoken?rcode=ALLI-Auto-2B326&lic=single-user

DATA CENTER CHIP MARKET SHARE

In 2022, North America gained a sizable portion of the market.

In 2022, the GPU made up the largest portion of the market share.

Throughout the projection period, large data centers are expected to gain a significant portion.

The BFSI market is anticipated to be one of the most profitable markets.

Purchase Regional Report @

https://reports.valuates.com/request/regional/ALLI-Auto-2B326/Data_Center_Chip_Market

Key Companies:

Advanced Micro Devices Inc

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited

Broadcom

Huawei Technologies Co Ltd

Intel Corporation

NVidia Corporation

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd

Qualcomm Technologies Inc

GlobalFoundries

ARM LIMITED (SOFTBANK GROUP CORP.)

Purchase Chapters @https://reports.valuates.com/request/chaptercost/ALLI-Auto-2B326/Data_Center_Chip_Market

SUBSCRIPTION

We have introduced a tailor-made subscription for our customers. Please leave a note in the Comment Section to know about our subscription plans.

DISCOVER MORE INSIGHTS: EXPLORE SIMILAR REPORTS!

- The global modular data center market size was valued at USD 14,952 Million in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 59,971 Million by 2027, registering a CAGR of 18.7% from 2020 to 2027.

- Data Centre Market was estimated to be worth USD 137500 Million in 2023 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 412740 Million by 2030 with a CAGR of 16.8% during the forecast period 2024-2030.

- Data Center PCIe Chip market was valued at USD 194.9 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach USD 377.4 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 10.2% during the forecast period 2024-2030.

- Data Center Accelerator Market

- Data Center Networking Market

- According to a new report published by , titled, "Big Data Analytics in Semiconductor & Electronics Market," The big data analytics in semiconductor & electronics market was valued at D18.7 billion in 2021, and is estimated to reach D47.2 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 9.9% from 2022 to 2031.

- IoT market was valued at USD 34250 Million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach USD 74630 Million by 2030, witnessing a CAGR of 11.6% during the forecast period 2024-2030.

- Data Center AI Accelerator Chip Market

- Electro-absorption Modulated Laser Chip Market

- According to a new report published by , titled, "Data Processing Unit Market", the data processing unit market was valued at D553.96 Million in 2021, and is estimated to reach D5.5 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 26.9% from 2022 to 2031.

- Optical Chip for Data Center Market

- EML Chip Market

- Optical Communication Chip Market revenue was USD 3102.7 Million in 2022 and is forecast to a readjusted size of USD 7251.5 Million by 2029 with a CAGR of 12.9% during the forecast period (2023-2029).

- SiC Power Chip Market

- Silicon Carbide Chip Market

- High Speed Optical Communication Chip Market

- 56G eml Optical Chip Market

- FPGA Master Control Chip Market

- Single-port Industrial Grade Ethernet PHY Chip Market

- AWG Chip Market

- Discrete Graphics Chip Market

- LNOI Optoelectronic Chip Market

- Smartphone Chip Market

- Smartphone TFT-LCD Display Driver Chip Market

- Smart Phone Baseband Chip Market

DISCOVER OUR VISION: VISIT ABOUT US!

Valuates offers in-depth market insights into various industries. Our extensive report repository is constantly updated to meet your changing industry analysis needs.

Our team of market analysts can help you select the best report covering your industry. We understand your niche region-specific requirements and that's why we offer customization of reports. With our customization in place, you can request for any particular information from a report that meets your market analysis needs.

To achieve a consistent view of the market, data is gathered from various primary and secondary sources, at each step, data triangulation methodologies are applied to reduce deviance and find a consistent view of the market. Each sample we share contains a detailed research methodology employed to generate the report. Please also reach our sales team to get the complete list of our data sources.

YOUR FEEDBACK MATTERS: REACH OUT TO US!

Valuates Reports

sales@valuates.com

For U.S. Toll-Free Call 1-(315)-215-3225

WhatsApp: +91-9945648335

Website: https://reports.valuates.com

Blog: https://valuatestrends.blogspot.com/

Pinterest: https://in.pinterest.com/valuatesreports/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/valuatesreports

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valuatesreports/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@valuatesreports6753

https://www.facebook.com/valuateskorean

https://www.facebook.com/valuatesspanish

https://www.facebook.com/valuatesjapanese

https://valuatesreportspanish.blogspot.com/

https://valuateskorean.blogspot.com/

https://valuatesgerman.blogspot.com/

https://valuatesreportjapanese.blogspot.com/

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1082232/Valuates_Reports_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/data-center-chip-market-size-was-valued-at-usd-11-7-billion-in-2022-and-is-expected-to-reach-usd-45-3-billion-by-2032-at-a-cagr-of-14-6--valuates-reports-302207745.html
Finsbury Growth & Income Trust PLC - Transaction in Own Shares

PR Newswire

LONDON, United Kingdom, July 26

For immediate release

26 July 2024

FINSBURY GROWTH & INCOME TRUST PLC

(the "Company")

MARKET PURCHASE OF COMPANY'S OWN SHARES

The Company announce that it has today purchased 194,614 of its own shares ("Ordinary Shares") at a price of 848.34 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 50,508,614; 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 174,482,689.

The figure of 174,482,689 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
XINING, China, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- vivo today held the 2024 vivo Imaging Conference in Xining, China, where it showcased vivo's latest advancements in imaging technologies. The company presented its progressive strategies surrounding three new trends in mobile imaging: imaging security, 3D imaging/XR and health imaging. In addition, the results of the VISION+ Mobile PhotoAwards 2024 were also revealed, with photographer He Jinyi's captivating work, "A Fleeting Moment in Endless Time," earning the Best Photograph of the Year.

The event saw the presence of several distinguished guests and industry partners, including Yu Meng, Vice President, Vice President of Imaging at vivo; Li Zhuo, Senior Director of Imaging Product at vivo; Sebastian Dontgen, Head of Marketing, Category Management and Sales, ZEISS Consumer Products; world-renowned color photographer Alex Webb; visual artist Duan Yueheng; director Xin Shuang; visual artist Li Xiaoliang; and Song Wen, founder of the FIRST International Film Festival.

"Over the past decade, we have steadfastly adhered to a strategy of independent and collaborative R&D, continuously advancing 'human-centric professional imaging.' We strive to be on par with the benchmarks set by professional imaging equipment, photography teams, and post-production capabilities. Going forward, vivo is committed to addressing user needs, pushing the boundaries of imaging technology in collaboration with global partners, and forging a new vision for the future of imaging. Our ultimate goal is to contribute positively to society and enrich people's lives," said Yu Meng.

vivo Announced Winners of VISION+ Mobile PhotoAwards 2024

In recent years, vivo has built a rich imaging culture ecosystem through initiatives like the VISION+ Mobile Photo Awards, co-organized with ZEISS, sparking public creativity and enthusiasm.

vivo announced the winners of the VISION+ Mobile Photo Awards 2024 at the event. Over a span of seven months, the competition received over 600,000 entries worldwide, all captured using vivo smartphones. After rigorous evaluation, a total of 25 award-winning works stood out, including four entries from photographers overseas. Among these are "Happy Together" by Indonesian photographer Maya Nurikawati, "O Shape" by Burmese photographer Aung Chan Thar, "Look Like Painting" by Burmese photographer Win Ei Phu, and "Friendship Goals" by Indian photographer Pradiptamoy Paul.

Among the winning entries across six categories, "A Fleeting Moment in Endless Time" by photographer He Jinyi was honored as the Best Photo of the Year. This photo captures a magnificent moment of a meteor streaking across the sky over a dracaena cinnabari on Socotra Island, a tree species known for its longevity of tens of thousands of years. Using the Handheld Astro feature and long exposure capability of vivo X100 Pro, the photographer precisely captured the dazzling beauty of the night sky.

vivo Unveils Three New Trends in Mobile Imaging

As a pioneer in mobile imaging, vivo has unveiled three key future trends: imaging security, 3D imaging/XR, and health imaging, and shared the company's insights and explorations into the technology industry ecosystem and the future of imaging.

To protect user image data and privacy, as well as to prevent the misuse of image information, vivo is committed to further strengthening its image security technology, establishing a more reliable imaging experience and digital lifestyle for users. In terms of authenticity, vivo consistently innovates in the marking technology for photos and videos. By collaborating with security application and service providers, vivo aims to build a transparent and trustworthy ecosystem for content creation and sharing, achieving the widespread applicability of image security identification. This is also a major direction that vivo and ZEISS will jointly explore.

In terms of 3D imaging and XR technologies, vivo introduces cutting-edge 3D imaging capabilities to vivo X100 Ultra[1] for the first time, delivering an immersive visual experience. The synchronization of multiple cameras and 3D image processing technology enables the capture of vibrant and lifelike 3D images, which are then stored in a proprietary stereo format. vivo, in partnership with Rokid, pioneers an integrated experience in the industry, blending content creation and consumption. This synergistic relationship empowers the smartphone to capture stunning 3D imagery, while AR glasses elevate the consumption experience, unlocking its full potential. In the field of XR technology, vivo is dedicated to improving the immersive and panoramic viewing experience by projecting distant scenes onto AR glasses or virtual screens. Looking ahead, Yu Meng revealed at the event that vivo will launch MR (Mixed Reality) wearable devices in 2025, further driving the development of spatial imaging.

In the field of smart health, vivo is actively exploring innovative applications of mobile imaging in healthcare services, aiming to develop solutions that are more intelligent and convenient.

Marking a decade of imaging milestones, vivo, from this new starting point, will continue to uphold its user-oriented approach. With a genuine passion for innovation and in collaboration with like-minded partners, vivo will persist in exploring the boundaries of imaging, jointly shaping a visionary blueprint for the future of mobile imaging.

About vivo

vivo is a technology company that creates great products based on a design-driven value, with smart devices and intelligent services as its core. The company aims to build a bridge between humans and the digital world. Through unique creativity, vivo provides users with an increasingly convenient mobile and digital life.

While bringing together and developing the best local talents to deliver excellence, vivo is supported by a network of R&D centers including Shenzhen, Dongguan, Nanjing, Beijing, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Xi'an, focusing on the development of state-of-the-art consumer technologies, including 5G, artificial intelligence, industrial design, photography and other up-and-coming technologies. vivo has also set up an intelligent manufacturing network (including those authorized by vivo), with an annual production capacity of nearly 200 million smartphones. As of now, vivo has branched out its sales network across more than 60 countries and regions, and is winning more than 500 million users worldwide with its superior products and services.

Following the company's core values, which include Benfen*, user-orientation, design-driven value, continuous learning and team spirit. vivo has implemented a sustainable development strategy, with the vision of developing into a healthier, more sustainable world-class corporation.

*"Benfen" is a term describing the attitude on doing the right things and doing things right - which is the ideal description of vivo's mission to create value for society.

[1] vivo X100 Ultra is currently only available in the mainland China market..

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469995/Image_1.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469998/Image_2.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469996/Image_3.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/vivo-unveils-future-imaging-trends-and-announces-winners-of-vision-mobile-photoawards-2024-302207747.html
EQS-News: CPI PROPERTY GROUP / Key word(s): AGM/EGM

CPI PROPERTY GROUP: CONVENING NOTICE OF THE COMPANY'S EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING TO BE HELD ON 29 AUGUST 2024



26.07.2024 / 18:40 CET/CEST

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.





CPI PROPERTY GROUP

Societe Anonyme

40, rue de la Vallee

L-2661 Luxembourg

R.C.S. LUXEMBOURG B 102254

(the "Company")



CONVENING NOTICE

OF THE COMPANY'S EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING

TO BE HELD ON 29 AUGUST 2024

Dear Shareholders, You are invited to attend the extraordinary general meeting of the shareholders of the Company (the "Meeting") to be held at the registered office of the Company at 40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, on 29 August 2024 at 9:30 CEST , in the presence of a Luxembourg notary public, to discuss and to vote on the agenda indicated below.



The Meeting is convened in accordance with article 450-8 of the Luxembourg law on commercial companies dated 10 August 1915, as amended from time to time (the "LCA") and article 3 of the Luxembourg law dated 24 May 2011 on the exercise of certain rights of shareholders in general meetings of listed companies, as amended from time to time, with the following points on the agenda:

AGENDA

Decision to decrease the corporate capital of the Company from its present amount of EUR 861,952,279.10 to EUR 86,195,227.91 without cancellation of shares, by decreasing the par value of the existing shares from ten eurocents (EUR 0.10) to one eurocent (EUR 0.01) per share with allocation of the reduction proceeds to a reserve (which is available for distribution following the fulfilment of the conditions set out in Article 450-5 of the LCA). The purpose of this capital decrease is to adapt the share capital and the par value of the shares of the Company to future potential group simplification measures. Subject to approval of agenda item 1, decision to amend the articles of association of the Company to reflect the changes necessary following the approval of agenda item 1 (including, for the avoidance of doubt, the first paragraph of articles 5.1 and 5.2. of the articles of association of the Company).

ATTENDING THE MEETING

In order to participate in the Meeting, shareholders must provide the Company with the following three items as explained in greater detail below: (i) Record Date Confirmation, (ii) Attendance and Proxy Form, and (iii) Proof of Shareholding.



Record Date Confirmation: This document shall be provided to the Company by a shareholder at the latest on the Record Date, i.e. by 24:00 CEST (midnight) on 15 August 2024. The Record Date is 15 August 2024 at 24:00 CEST (midnight) (the "Record Date", i.e. the day falling fourteen (14) days before the date of the Meeting at midnight (Luxembourg time)).



The Record Date Confirmation must be in writing and indicate that a shareholder holds the Company shares and wishes to participate in the Meeting. A template form of the Record Date Confirmation is available on the Company's website at www.cpipg.com.



The Record Date Confirmation must be sent to the Company by post or electronic means so that it is received by the Company at the latest on the Record Date, i.e. by 24:00 CEST (midnight) on 15 August 2024 , to: CPI PROPERTY GROUP

40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg

Fax: + 352 26 47 67 67

email: generalmeetings@cpipg.com

Attendance and Proxy Form: A template form is available on the Company's website at www.cpipg.com and is to be duly completed and signed by shareholders wishing to attend or be represented at the Meeting.



Proof of Shareholding: This document must indicate the shareholder's name and the number of Company shares held on the Record Date, i.e. at 24:00 CEST (midnight) on 15 August 2024. The Proof of Shareholding shall be issued by the bank, the professional securities' depositary or the financial institution where the shares are on deposit. Please note that Proof of Shareholding is not necessary for those shareholders whose shares are still recorded as registered shares in the Company's shareholders' register.



Shareholders wishing to participate to the Meeting must send the Attendance and Proxy Form together with the relevant Proof of Shareholding by post or electronic means so that they are received by the Company at the latest by noon (12:00 noon CEST) on 22 August 2024 , to: CPI PROPERTY GROUP

40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg

Fax: + 352 26 47 67 67

email: generalmeetings@cpipg.com

Please note that only persons who are shareholders on the Record Date and have timely submitted their Record Date Confirmation, Attendance and Proxy Form, and Proof of Shareholding shall have the right to participate and vote in the Meeting.



Documentation and information: The following documents and information are available for the shareholders on our website: www.cpipg.com: the present convening notice;

the total number of shares and the voting rights in the Company as at the date of this convening notice;

the draft resolutions of the Meeting including the proposed changes to the articles of association of the Company. Any draft resolution(s) submitted by shareholder(s) shall be added to the website as soon as possible after the Company has received them;

the Record Date Confirmation form; and

the Attendance and Proxy form. The above documents may also be obtained by shareholders upon written request sent to the following postal address: CPI PROPERTY GROUP, 40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg.



Quorum Requirement: With respect to all items of the agenda, the Meeting shall not validly deliberate, unless at least one half of the corporate capital is represented and if the agenda of the meeting includes the statutory changes to be considered. In the event that such quorum condition is not fulfilled, a second meeting may be convened by publishing this convening notice in the Luxembourg official gazette (Recueil Electronique des Societes et Associations), a Luxembourg newspaper and in such media which may reasonably be expected to be relied upon for the effective dissemination of information to the public throughout the European Economic Area, and which are accessible rapidly and on a non-discriminatory basis, seventeen (17) days prior to the date of the reconvened meeting provided that (i) the first Meeting was properly convened; and (ii) the agenda for the reconvened Meeting does not include any new item.



The second meeting shall deliberate validly whatever the part of the corporate capital represented thereat.



At both meetings, resolutions, in order to be adopted, must be carried by a majority of two-thirds of the votes cast. Votes cast shall not include votes attaching to shares in which the shareholder has not taken part in the vote or has abstained or has returned a blank or invalid vote.



Right to add new items on the agenda : One or more shareholders together representing at least five per cent of the share capital have the right to (i) put one or more items on the agenda of the Meeting and (ii) table draft resolutions for items included or to be included on the agenda of the Meeting. Such requests must: be in writing and sent to the Company by post (at the following address: CPI PROPERTY GROUP, 40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg) or electronic means (at the following email address: generalmeetings@cpipg.com ) and be accompanied by a justification or draft resolution to be adopted in the Meeting;

) and be accompanied by a justification or draft resolution to be adopted in the Meeting; include the postal or electronic address at which the Company may acknowledge receipt of the requests;

be received by the Company at least twenty-two (22) days before the date of the Meeting, i.e. 7 August 2024.

The Company shall acknowledge receipt of requests referred to above within (forty-eight) 48 hours from receipt. The Company shall prepare a revised agenda including such additional items on or before the fifteenth (15th) day before the date of the Meeting. For further information, visit our website: www.cpipg.com. If you need further assistance or information, please contact: CPI PROPERTY GROUP, 40, rue de la Vallee, L-2661 Luxembourg, Tel: + 352 26 47 67 58; Fax: + 352 26 47 67 67; email: generalmeetings@cpipg.com.



Luxembourg, 26 July 2024



Yours faithfully,



The Board of Directors of the Company



26.07.2024 CET/CEST Dissemination of a Corporate News, transmitted by EQS News - a service of EQS Group AG.

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.



The EQS Distribution Services include Regulatory Announcements, Financial/Corporate News and Press Releases.

Archive at www.eqs-news.com


Summary: JP Legal advised Blom Perfume Fund on acquiring an 18% minority stake in Dkhoon AlEmiratia, valued at over SAR250 million. The transaction, approved by the Saudi General Authority of Competition, emphasizes the importance of investing in Saudi companies under Vision 2030.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - Regional law firm JP Legal advised Blom Perfume Fund, part of BLOMINVEST (a Saudi financial company regulated by the CMA), on acquiring an 18% minority stake in Dkhoon AlEmiratia, valued at over SAR250 million, after obtaining approval from the Saudi General Authority of Competition (GAC).





Photo courtesy of JP Legal

Based in Riyadh, Dkhoon AlEmiratia is a private Saudi company established in 2013. The company operates in the retail services sector and specializes in producing and selling oriental perfumes, incense, and related products. It blends traditional Arabian fragrance elements with modern touches to create unique, high-quality scents.

The company has built a strong reputation in the Saudi market for its luxurious and authentic products, often associated with the region's rich cultural heritage. Early this year, Dkhoon AlEmiratia signed a three-year sponsorship agreement with the prominent Saudi Al Hilal Club Company, marking the beginning of this prosperous partnership.

The transaction was subject to customary closing conditions, including securing proper filings and approvals from the General Authority of Competition (GAC). In addition to advising on the M&A aspects, JP Legal advised on the share purchase agreement (SPA), shareholders agreement (SHA), and the negotiation of a solid partnership.

JP Legal's multidisciplinary team was led by Partner Anas El Jisr, who has extensive years of M&A experience in the Saudi markets and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with support from a Riyadh-based team.

Working across its Middle East offices, JP Legal Saudi Arabia has advised on complex and strategically important cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions. Additionally, the JP Legal team has grown exponentially with recent senior recruits from major regional and international firms.

Anas El Jisr, corporate/M&A partner at JP Legal, says, "This transaction highlights the importance of investing in local Saudi companies, which have seen major growth across all sectors in line with the Vision 2030 initiative, achieving success well ahead of 2030."

He adds, "The JP Legal cross-practice team has been working on cross-border transactions in the region, closing strategic transactions and representing major local Saudi conglomerates and multinational companies doing business in the market. We are proud to have advised our client, BLOMINVEST, on this significant project. It was a complex transaction, and our Saudi team worked seamlessly to ensure a successful closing."

About JP Legal

JP Legal specializes in corporate and commercial law. It has served clients across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the broader Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region for over a decade.

The firm's expertise in handling high-stakes mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has made it a trusted advisor for various corporate transactions. The company structures and negotiates M&A deals and gives clients strategic advice tailored to their specific business objectives. Furthermore, the firm's cross-border knowledge allows it to support transaction processes, making it one of the GCC's premier legal partners for businesses.

Contact information:

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217448

SOURCE: Baden Bower
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - East Africa Metals (TSXV: EAM) ("East Africa Metals" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the Company is currently working to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with JinJiu Hong Kong International Investment Ltd. ("JinJiu") for the development of the Magambazi mining project in Tanzania.

In October 2020, the Company signed a Share Purchase Agreement and Gold Purchase Agreement an with a Tanzanian private company, PMM Mining Company Limited ("PMM") to develop the Magambazi mining project. In December 2022 due to PMM's lack of performance, non-compliance with the terms and conditions of the Mining License Agreement and a litany of breaches to PMM's agreements with the Company, the Tanzanian Ministry of Mines suspended PMM's operations at the project site and the renewal of the mining licenses. Since that time EAM's management has been engaged with the Tanzanian government and PMM to resolve issues inhibiting the development of commercial mining operations at Magambazi.

In July 2024, the Minister of Mines announced formal action would be taken to intervene to resolve the issues, recognizing the government's obligations to participate based on the government mediation that resulted in EAM's partnership with PMM.

Following meetings with EAM management and the Minister of Mines on June 20, 2024, the Minister called for a meeting of all parties to discuss the non-compliance of mining operations at Magambazi and the significant breaches to PMM's agreements with the Company for the acquisition and development of the project.

At the conclusion of that meeting, the Minister announced the government would intervene to mediate a resolution of the issues to allow the development of the project to move forward. To that end, a Ministerial Hearing was held from July 10 - 13, 2024 to determine the best way forward. This Hearing included inspection of the site by government representatives of the Ministry of Mines.

The formal directives of the Ministry based on the results of the Hearings are pending but the Hearings concluded with the government foreshadowing a request for the parties to develop and present a "rescue plan" for the project.

EAM has engaged with JinJiu to develop an MOU in anticipation of meeting the Ministry's request to present a rescue plan for the project.

The terms of the proposed MOU are based on a previous MOU drafted in January 2023 after the suspension of PMM's mining operations. In this expired MOU, JinJiu agreed to acquire a 100% interest in the project through the purchase of shares of Canaco Tanzania Limited ("CTL") held by EAM for a total consideration of US $2,000,000. EAM has invested approximately US $60,000,000 in exploration, resource establishment and mine planning.

Additionally, JinJiu committed to producing a minimum of 10,000 ounces of gold in the first year increasing to at least 40,000 ounces annually from the fourth year onwards. EAM will receive 30% of the gold produced from the project at the production cost plus 15% pursuant to a Gold Purchase Agreement to be signed by the parties. JinJiu will be responsible for all investment funds required for mine development and production and CTLs operating costs of until the project becomes self-sustaining.

The terms of any transaction between EAM and JinJiu will be subject to approval by the Tanzanian Mining Commission and other relevant government authorities.

Andrew Lee Smith, CEO of East Africa Metals, commented, "We are excited by the possibility to partner with JinJiu on the development of commercial mining operations at the Magambazi project. The proposed MOU represents a significant step forward in unlocking the value of our Tanzanian assets and establishing commercial production at Magambazi. JinJiu's commitment to invest and develop the project aligns with our strategic objectives, and we look forward to working together to realize the full potential of the Magambazi mining project for all stakeholders."

About East Africa Metals

The Company's principal assets include a 30% Net Profits Interest in the Mato Bula and Da Tambuk mines (collectively "Adyabo Property") and a 70% project interest in the Harvest polymetallic VMS Exploration Project in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia. In addition, the Company has a 30% Net Streaming Interest in the Magambazi Mine in the Tanga Region of Tanzania.

EAM has invested US$66.8M in African exploration since 2005 and has identified a total of 2.8 million ounces of gold and gold-equivalent resources representing an average discovery cost per ounce of US$24.

More information on the Company can be viewed at the Company's website: www.eastafricametals.com.

On behalf of the Board of Directors:

Andrew Lee Smith, P.Geo., CEO

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified using forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate", "believe", "plan", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "forecast", "project", "budget", "schedule", "may", "will", "could", "might", "should", "indicate" or variations of such words or similar words or expressions. Forward-looking information is based on reasonable assumptions that have been made by East Africa as at the date of such information and is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of East Africa to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to: timing of receipt of mining permit; timing of mining development; projected heap leach recoveries; early exploration; the closing of the agreement with the exploration and development company to advance the Magambazi Project or identify any other corporate opportunities for the Company; mineral exploration and development; metal and mineral prices; availability of capital; accuracy of East Africa's projections and estimates, including the initial mineral resource for the Adyabo, Harvest and Magambazi Properties; interest and exchange rates; competition; stock price fluctuations; availability of drilling equipment and access; actual results of current exploration activities; government regulation; political or economic developments; foreign taxation risks; environmental risks; insurance risks; capital expenditures; operating or technical difficulties in connection with development activities; personnel relations; the speculative nature of strategic metal exploration and development including the risks of diminishing quantities of grades of reserves; contests over title to properties; and changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined, as well as those risk factors set out in in East Africa's management's discussion and analysis for the three months and nine months ended September 30, 2023 and for the year ended December 31, 2023, and East Africa's listing application dated July 8, 2013. Mineral Resources, which are not Mineral Reserves, do not have demonstrated economic viability. The contained gold, copper and silver figures shown are in situ. No assurance can be given that the estimated quantities will be produced. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions management believes to be reasonable, including but not limited to the timely closing of the financing; the timely closing of the Handeni Property definitive agreement; the price of gold, silver, copper and zinc; the demand for gold, silver, copper and zinc; the ability to carry on exploration and development activities; the timely receipt of any required approvals; the ability to obtain qualified personnel, equipment and services in a timely and cost-efficient manner; the ability to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner; the renewal or extension of exploration Licenses; the regulatory framework regarding environmental matters, and such other assumptions and factors as set out herein. Although East Africa has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. The Company does not update or revise forward looking information even if new information becomes available unless legislation requires the Company do so. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information contained herein, except in accordance with applicable securities laws. 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/217922

SOURCE: East Africa Metals, Inc.
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - Showcase Minerals Inc. (CSE: SHOW) (FSE: ZJ0) ("Showcase" or the "Company") announces that it has provided a termination notice to the sub-optionor of the Dixie Flats, North Star, and Woodruff properties with respect to the option covering those claims. The Company's decision is based on the results of its drill program on the Dixie Flats - North Star project, which failed to encounter significant gold mineralization similar to nearby deposits.

The greatest gold assay in the Company's reverse circulation drill program was 0.254 grams per tonne gold over 6.1 metres. The thickest intercept was 25.9 metres of 0.252 grams per tonne gold. In comparison, production grades at the nearby Emigrant Mine, which is geologically similar to the Company's project, are at least 0.8 grams per tonne. The Company's consulting geologist has advised it that the likelihood of significant improvement in grades in the vicinity of previous drilling is small, and the costs of exploration and risk increase substantially in other untested areas of the project. Accordingly, given the Company's budget and results to date, no further work was recommended.

Showcase will now focus its exploration efforts on its recently acquired Pontiac Uranium Project located near the town of Fort Coulange in southwestern Quebec. The Company intends to conduct an initial exploration program on this property imminently, which will consist of prospecting, mapping and sampling, and a scintillometer radiometric survey.

Qualified Person:

Mr. Steve McMillin, M.Sc., C.P.G. is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical information in this news release.

About Showcase Minerals Inc.

Showcase is a Canadian mineral exploration company with an option to acquire a 100% interest, subject to a 2% net smelter returns royalty, in 60 mineral claims comprising the Pontiac Uranium Project located near the town of Fort Coulange in southwestern Quebec.

For further information, please contact:

Neither the CSE nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in CSE policies) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news 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/217952

SOURCE: Showcase Minerals Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - Torr Metals Inc. (TSXV: TMET) ("Torr" or the "Company") has initiated judicial review proceedings in the BC Supreme Court, challenging the denial of an exploration permit for the Company's Latham Copper Project (the "Project"), located in northern BC's prolific "Golden Triangle."

Torr applied for its exploration permit in early 2022 following early engagement with the Tahltan Nation, spending approximately 2.84 million dollars in exploration and community relations on the Project. After many months of further constructive discussions, and the signing of two separate agreements with the Tahltan Nation, the Tahltan position suddenly changed and the permit was denied.

In its petition Torr alleges, among other things, that the government decision-maker failed to adhere to relevant legal principles following consultation with the Tahltan Nation, allowing them to determine the outcome, and did not undertake the balancing of interests that the Supreme Court of Canada requires.

"We did not want to end up in court but are profoundly concerned with how the permitting process is currently operating in northern British Columbia," said Malcolm Dorsey, President and CEO. "It stands in stark contrast to what we have experienced elsewhere in Canada, including our Filion Project in northern Ontario, where we recently received our exploration permit."

Rich in critical minerals potential the Latham Project has a long history of exploration dating back to the 1890's that includes the discovery of the Gnat Pass copper porphyry deposit located adjacent to Highway 37, recently slated for significant highway upgrades as part of a $195 million dollar investment by the Province and Energy and Natural Resources Canada. The Latham permit denial came unexpectedly after draft permit conditions had already been shared with the Company and at a time when the need to supply critical minerals, such as copper, are increasingly in demand for clean energy technologies and infrastructure development.

"The government of British Columbia frequently discusses the need for critical minerals, but its actions don't align with its words," added Malcolm Dorsey. "It casts serious doubts on the stability and fairness of the exploration landscape in the region if a company like ours, which has strictly followed all protocols and made substantial accommodations for First Nations, can be denied without proper justification."

In June 2023 Torr also made an access request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The original 30-day legislative timeframe has been extended by the government three separate times, and the materials are still being withheld some 400 days later.

Torr is represented by McMillan LLP. A copy of the petition is posted on the Torr website here (https://torrmetals.com/corporate/legal/).

In order to pursue other interests Ewan Webster has also stepped down from his role as a director of the Company, effective immediately. We thank him for his contributions and wish him all the best in his future endeavors.

About Torr Metals

Torr Metals, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, is committed to advancing its 100% owned, district-scale projects in highly accessible mining regions of Canada. Focused on critical minerals essential for clean energy technologies, particularly copper, each project benefits from excellent existing infrastructure, year-round drilling potential, and low-cost development opportunities. For more details, please visit the company's website or view documents filed under the company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedarplus.ca.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Torr Metals Inc.

"Malcolm Dorsey"

Malcolm Dorsey

President, CEO and Director

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, without limitation, statements regarding the use of proceeds from the Company's recently completed financings, and the future plans or prospects of the Company. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions that, while considered reasonable by management, are inherently subject to business, market and economic risks, uncertainties and contingencies that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Other factors which could materially affect such forward-looking information are described in the risk factors in the Company's most recent annual management's discussion and analysis which is available on the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.sedarplus.ca. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217914

SOURCE: Torr Metals Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - CopAur Minerals Inc. (TSXV: CPAU) (OTCQX: COPAF) ("CopAur" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that, subject to regulatory approval, it intends to enter into a loan agreement (the "Loan Agreements") with an arms length lender (the "Lender") pursuant to which the Company will borrow a total of C$1,000,000 (the "Loan"). The Loan will bear simple interest of 1% per month (12% per annum). The maturity date of the Loan will be the date that is 6 months following the date that the Lender provides the Loan to the Company and the Loan may be repaid at any time prior to its maturity with a minimum interest payment of 3 months' interest. Subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval, in the event that the Company conducts a private placement of its securities prior to the maturity of the Loan, the Lender will have a right to participate in the private placement by specifying the amount of the Loan that the Lender wishes to be used as a subscription commitment and the outstanding balance of the Loan will be reduced by the Lender's subscription commitment in the private placement.

Subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"), the Company will issue 2,500,000 non-transferable share purchase warrants (the "Bonus Warrants") to the Lender as a bonus inducement for providing the Loan. Each Bonus Warrant will entitle the holder to purchase one common share of the Company at an exercise price of C$0.20 until the date that is 12 months following the date of issuance of the Bonus Warrants. In the event that the closing price (or closing bid price on any day on which there is no trade) of the common shares on the TSXV exceeds $0.45 per common share for a minimum of five consecutive trading days, the Company may provide written notice to the Lender accelerating the exercise of the Bonus Warrants to the date that is 30 days following the date of delivery of such written notice (the "Advance Exercise Date") and any unexercised Bonus Warrants will expire on the Advance Exercise Date.

The Company intends to use the proceeds of the Loan for general working capital purposes and to pay the cash consideration payable to Nevada Sunrise Metals Corporation (TSXV: NEV) (OTCBB: NVSGF) to purchase Nevada Sunrise's 18.74% ownership interest in the Kinsley Mountain Gold Project in Nevada ("Kinsley Acquisition"). The balance of the consideration payable to Nevada Sunrise will be the issuance of 1,000,000 common shares of the Company. If the Kinsley Acquisition is completed, CopAur will own 100% of the Kinsley Mountain Gold Project. See the Company's news release disseminated on July 8, 2024 for further information about the Kinsley Acquisition.

About CopAur

CopAur is an exploration company focused on developing projects within the emerging, mineral-rich mining regions of Nevada. The Company is backed by a dynamic and experienced team of resource professionals advancing its projects in Nevada with the flagship project being Kinsley Mountain Gold Project, a Carlin-style project located 90 kilometres south of the Long Canyon mine (currently in production under the Newmont/Barrick joint venture, Nevada Gold Mines).

For more information, please contact:

CopAur Minerals Inc.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or the Company's future performance including the Company's plans to borrow the Loan and issue the Loan Bonus Warrants and the intended uses for the Loan funds, as well as the Company's intention to complete the Kinsley Acquisition, and the obtaining of TSXV approval for these transactions. All such statements involve substantial known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results to vary from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, they should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results and they will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions on the date of this news release, the Company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revised any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable securities regulations.

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217980

SOURCE: CopAur Minerals Inc.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 26, 2024) - David H. Brett, President & CEO, EnGold Mines Ltd., (TSXV: EGM) ("EnGold" or the "Company") reports that the Company has closed an insider-lead non-brokered private placement of 4,000,000 flow-through units at a price of $0.08 per unit (the "Units") for gross proceeds of $320,000 (the "Financing"). The Units consist of one flow-through common share and one two-year warrant to purchase one non-flow-through common share at a price of $0.10 per share. Finders' fees of $8,400 in cash were paid and 105,000 finders' warrants were issued in connection with the Financing. Each finders' warrant entitles the holder to acquire on common share at $0.10 per share for two years.

Proceeds of the Financing will be used to explore the Company's 100% owned, fully permitted Lac La Hache Copper-Gold Property in the southern Cariboo region of BC. The exploration costs incurred as a result of the Financing will qualify as critical mineral flow-through mining expenditures.

About EnGold

EnGold is a Vancouver-based copper, gold, silver, and magnetite exploration company focused solely on its 100% owned Lac La Hache property in the Cariboo region of BC which hosts the Spout Copper Deposit, the Aurizon Gold Deposit, and the G1 Copper Deposit and other targets within a large porphyry mineralizing system. With world-class infrastructure at its doorstep, Lac La Hache is a great location to be exploring.

EnGold Mines Ltd.

David Brett

President & CEO

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217995

SOURCE: EnGold Mines Ltd.
DocketAI, a San Francisco, CA-based AI revenue enablement startup, raised $15M in Series A funding.

The round was led by Mayfield and Foundation Capital, with participation from additional investors.

The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.

Founded by Arjun Pillai, former Chief Data Officer at ZoomInfo, and Anoop Thomas Mathew, former Director of Engineering at FullContact, DocketAI provides AI-driven revenue enablement solutions. It leverages generative AI as a virtual Sales Engineer, providing revenue teams with instant, accurate technical support and personalized document generation capabilities. By utilizing its proprietary Sales Knowledge Lake, which ingests and analyzes structured and unstructured go-to-market data, the company continually learns from performers to offer best practices and insights. This allows revenue professionals to focus on improving win rates and managing complex inquiries efficiently. It streamlines revenue processes, enhances productivity, and delivers effective outcomes by integrating with existing revenue tools while maintaining robust security.

DocketAI integrates with tools like Gong, Sharepoint, Google Drive, Intercom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, ZenDesk, Web URLs, and 100+ knowledge sources.

The platform is SOC 2 Type 2 certified with ISO 27001 and GDPR.

FinSMEs

25/07/2024
Enty, a Tallinn, Estonia-based provider of a back office platform for European SMEs, raised 700K in funding.

The round was led by TMT Investments, Trado Capital, and angel investors.

The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.

Led by CEO Kirill Zheleznov, Enty provides a back office platform, which, by automating as many back-office processes as feasible, frees SMEs and entrepreneurial companies from time-consuming back-office operations. The solution currently includes financial and invoice management, and contract development and management, as part of a single subscription and is integrated with over 100 banks in Europe, including Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Rabobank, Santander, Revolut and N26. It is fully compliant with EU, EEA and UK local regulations.

In the last 3 years, over 2,500 European SMEs have been onboarded, leading Enty to hit 1 million in ARR in 2023.

FinSMEs

26/07/2024
Passionfruit, a London, UK-based provider of a platform that allows businesses to collaborate with independent workers, raised $9M in Series A funding.

The round was led by Seaya, with participation from existing investors Firstminute Capital, Playfair Capital, Cornerstone and Portfolio Ventures.

The company intends to use the funds to continue developing products, expand further into North America, as well as adding focus on software for businesses to track progress in real time across their entire growth planning, execution & reporting cycles.

Led by Raffi Salama, Co-Founder and CEO, Passionfruit provides an AI-powered platform that simplifies a companys ability to discover, arrange and engage vetted independent talent, initially in Marketing, while also providing on-project collaboration tooling, empowering all parties to plan, implement and report on entire work-streams within a single system.

The company caters to a diverse community of mid-sized and Fortune 500 businesses across North America, the UK and Europe, supporting the needs of brands worldwide, including PepsiCo, Mars, ABinBev, HSBC and The Match Group.

FinSMEs

26/07/2024
Workstaff, a Montreal, Canada-based provider of workforce management tools for businesses that manage temporary and flexible staff, raised $1.6M CAD in Seed funding.

Backers included Impulsion PME, a Gouvernement du Quebec program managed by Investissement Quebec, and Anges Quebec.

The company intends to use the funds to continue expanding into global markets and enhance its product offering that helps companies find, schedule, and manage temporary and flexible staff.

Led by CEO Nick Dauchez, Workstaff is a provider of cloud-based workforce management tools, empowering businesses to manage their on-demand workforce. Its scheduling software, paired with a mobile app and real-time notifications, keeps staff informed and engaged, with features optimize scheduling for maximum flexibility.

Its solutions include staff onboarding, booking and scheduling, integrated messaging and open shift publishing. This seed round will support Workstaffs ongoing development of a marketplace focused on matching temporary work with available workers. The marketplace will help reduce labour shortages by empowering companies to quickly find and engage talent, providing real-time access to labour, and reducing time spent finding and onboarding flexible staff.

FinSMEs

26/07/2024
Mexican drug kingpin Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of El Chapo, were arrested in El Paso, Texas. Zambada, a co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, is a low-profile yet influential trafficker, while Guzman Lopez represents the cartels newer, more flamboyant generation. Their arrests may destabilise the cartel, triggering violence and power struggles read more

s Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, has been arrested by the US. AP

United States authorities have nabbed two key figures at the helm of the infamous Sinaloa cartel. The co-founder of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, Ismael El Mayo Zambada, and one of El Chapos sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, were arrested on Thursday (July 25) in Texas.

This high-profile detention may not only reshape the Mexican criminal landscape but also lead to violence in case a potential power-grab war tussles ensue.

Heres an in-depth look at who El Mayo and Joaquin Lopez are, and what their arrests might mean.

Advertisement

El Mayo: The shrewd trafficker

Ismael El Mayo Zambada, now believed to be in his seventies, is one of Mexicos most consequential traffickers. A co-founder of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel alongside El Chapo, Zambada has been a key figure in the international drug trade for decades. Unlike many of his contemporaries, El Mayo has shunned the limelight, operating from the shadows with a blend of cunning and discretion that has enabled him to evade capture until now.

His reputation as an old-school narco is well-earned; he has avoided the ostentatious displays of wealth and power that often lead to the downfall of many in his line of work. He is understood to be a shrewd operator.

Zambadas arrest marks a significant milestone for US authorities, who had placed a $15 million bounty on his head. His capture is expected to create a power vacuum within the Sinaloa Cartel, an organisation that has recently become the primary target for US law enforcement due to its significant role in the fentanyl drug trade.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, has become the leading cause of death for Americans aged 18 to 45, intensifying the urgency to dismantle the cartels operations.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez: The flashy heir

In stark contrast to El Mayos low-profile persona, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, in his thirties, embodies the new generation of narcos. As one of the four sons of El Chapo collectively known as Los Chapitos (Little Chapos) Joaquin Guzman Lopez has inherited not just his fathers empire but also his penchant for flamboyance.

Advertisement

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of the sons of infamous drug cartel leader El Chapo, has been arrested by the US. AP

This younger cadre is notorious for their flashy lifestyles and propensity for violence, characteristics that have made them conspicuous targets for law enforcement.

Joaquin Guzman Lopezs arrest follows the detention and extradition of his brother, Ovidio Guzman, to the US last year. The Guzman siblings have been at the helm of their fathers faction of the Sinaloa Cartel, continuing its operations with a blend of brutality and bravado that starkly contrasts with Zambadas more calculated approach.

Joaquin Lopez had a $5 million bounty on his head.

A landmark operation

Zambada and Guzman Lopez were detained after landing in a private plane in the El Paso area, according to US officials.

Advertisement

US Attorney General Merrick Garland emphasised the significance of the arrests, stating that the two men face multiple charges for heading the cartels criminal operations, particularly its deadly fentanyl trafficking networks.

Implications for the Sinaloa Cartel

The arrests of Zambada and Guzman Lopez could trigger significant instability within the Sinaloa Cartel. Historically, the detention of key figures has led to violent power struggles as factions vie for control. The relationship between Zambada and Los Chapitos has been fractious since El Chapos extradition in 2017, and this recent development may exacerbate tensions.

The cartels operations, which span over 50 countries, are expected to face disruptions as a result of these high-profile arrests. US authorities, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), who conducted the joint operation, have focused recent efforts on combating the flow of fentanyl and precursor chemicals that fuel the cartels illicit activities.

Advertisement

The future of the Sinaloa Cartel now hangs in the balance. The potential for infighting and the emergence of rival factions may lead to further violence. The possibility of violence is not only within the cartel, but also across the broader Mexican criminal landscape. Perceived weakness in the Sinaloan cartel may open it up to attacks from other groups.

With inputs from agencies
FBI Director Christopher Wray informed lawmakers during a hearing held by the House judiciary committee on Wednesday that the exact cause of Donald Trumps ear injuries from the July 13 shooting at his Pennsylvania rally remained unknown. He said that his understanding was that either a bullet or a piece of shrapnel is what grazed (Trumps) ear read more

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump gestures with a bloodied face as multiple shots rang out during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania. Reuters

Donald Trump was the target of an assassination bid at a rally in Pennsylvania.

It was a last-minute head tilt that saved his life.

But did a bullet hit the former United States President?

The FBI director has his doubts.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating the July 13 shooting, which is being seen as one of the most shocking failures of US Secret Service agents.

Lets take a closer look.

Did the bullet really hit Trump?

Advertisement

Wray informed lawmakers during a hearing held by the House judiciary committee on Wednesday in Washington that the exact cause of Trumps ear injuries from the shooting at his Butler, Pennsylvania, campaign rally earlier this month remained unknown, according to Newsweek.

The shooting killed one rallygoer and seriously injured two others before the gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot dead by the US Secret Service.

To the best of your understanding, how close did the assassins bullet come to killing President Donald Trump? California Representative Kevin Kiley asked Wray.

Wray replied that his understanding was that either a bullet or a piece of shrapnel is what grazed (Trumps) ear.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies before a House committee about the July 13 shooting at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., Wednesday, July 24, 2024, on Capitol Hill. AP

The committee chair, Rep. Jim Jordan, questioned Wray later in the hearing if the gunman had fired all eight bullets had been accounted for.

We obviously know that Comperatore lost his lifetwo other rallygoers were injured, seriously injured, and then the one that hit President Trump. Does that account forwere some of these individuals hit multiple times? Where did all eight bullets go, is I guess my question, Jordan asked.

Wray said he did not have that information to hand, according to The Guardian, adding, As I said, I think with respect to former President Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.

So its conceivable, as I sit here right now, I dont know whether that bullet in addition to, you know, causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else. But I believe weve accounted for all of the shots in the cartridges, he added.

Advertisement

Wray was discussing the security lapses that led to the assassination attempt, which included Crooks being allowed to attend the rally, despite being identified as a suspicious person.

What does Trump say?

The Republican presidential nominee gave comprehensive details of the assassination attempt.

Trump claimed in a statement on Truth Social that he had been shot and that the bullet had pierced the upper portion of his right ear shortly after the incident.

I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin. Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening, he said.

Advertisement

The 78-year-old also posted a recovery memo shared by his former White House doctor and now Republican representative Ronny Jackson.

However, Trump did not allow medical professionals to talk about his condition publicly.

Former US President Donald Trump reacts following his speech on Day 4 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee. Reuters

Just days after the shooting, Trump spoke at the Republican National Convention that the bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life.

I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard on my right ear, he described the scene.

In the days following the shooting, Jackson examined the wound, he subsequently revealed the details on a conservative talk show.

It (the bullet) was far enough away from his head that there was no concussive effect from the bullet, and it just took the top of his ear off, he said, according to DailyBeast.

Advertisement

Whether Trump was struck by a bullet or shrapnel doesnt really matter politically because the picture of a wounded Trump raising his fist has come to represent resilience during a crucial election year.

After the incident, he was seen with an ear bandage at the Republican National Convention.

Many of his supporters also covered their ears with bandages during the event as a show of support.

How did the former president respond?

Responding to Wrays doubts during the hearing, Trump shared a post on Truth Social calling for the FBI directors resignation.

This wasnt because of his doubts, but as he claimed to find his interactions with Democratic President Joe Biden uneventful and unremarkable, stating that he found nothing wrong, mentally or physically, with Joe."

Advertisement

If that is the case, Director Wray should resign immediately from the FBI, and stop sweet talking Congress every time he goes up, which he loves to do, because anybody can see that Joe Biden is cognitively and physically challenged, and if you cant see that, you sure as hell cant be running the FBI  unless, that is, you want to illegally lead the Raid on Mar-a-Lago. Wray has to resign, and NOW, for LYING TO CONGRESS!

Jackson also called Wrays comments to lawmakers absolutely irresponsible and politically motivated against Trump on X.

What little credibility he may have left is GONE after recklessly suggesting Trump might not have been hit from a bullet, Jackson said. It was a bullet, he added. Ive seen the wound!

ABSOLUTELY IRRESPONSIBLE for Chris Wray to make such a statement as Director of the FBI.



Another POLITICALLY MOTIVATED move by the man that has repeatedly weaponized his office to tear down President Trump.



What little credibility he may have left is GONE after recklessly https://t.co/hMftzOpZqV  Ronny Jackson (@RonnyJacksonTX) July 25, 2024

What else do we know about the assassination bid?

Wray offered fresh insights about the assassination attempt.

The FBI director talked about how Crooks gun had an easily hidden collapsible stock.

In his testimony, Wray disclosed that Crooks had ascended to the top of a building within the stages reach by use of vertical pipework and mechanical equipment on the ground.

The gunman is also believed to have done a Google search one week before the shooting of How far away was Oswald from Kennedy? Wray said Wednesday, revealing new details about a suspect he said had taken a keen interest in public figures but had otherwise not left behind clear clues of an ideological motive.

Thomas Matthew Crooks was shot dead by security officials moments after he attempted killing former US president Donald Trump. File Image

The July 6 online search, recovered from a laptop the FBI says is tied to Thomas Matthew Crooks, is a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald, the shooter who killed President John F Kennedy from a snipers perch in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

Thats a search obviously that is significant in terms of his state of mind. That is the same day that it appears that he registered for the Trump rally scheduled for July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee, according to the Associated Press.

The agency has built out a detailed timeline of Crooks movements and online activity, but the precise motive  or why Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, was singled out  remains elusive, Wray said. The FBIs assessment continues to be that Crooks acted alone.

We do not know the motive. That is obviously one of the central questions in our investigation, and its been very frustrating to us that a lot of the usual kind of low-hanging-fruit places that we would find that have not yielded significant clues about his motive, Wray said.

Crooks is believed to have visited the rally site a week before the event, staying for about 20 minutes, and then returned on the morning of July 13. More than two hours before the shooting, Wray said, Crooks flew a drone about 200 yards from the rally stage for about 11 minutes, using the device to livestream and watch footage.

The use of the drone, which along with a controller were recovered from Crooks car, so close to the rally site just hours before Trump took the stage add to the questions about the security lapses that preceded the shooting.

With inputs from agencies
PM Narendra Modi will be in Ladakh today to attend the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas. Overseas, Paris is gearing up for the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his resort in Palm Beach, Florida read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Ladakh on July 26 to attend the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas. File Image

Its going to be a quite busy Friday.

Paris is gearing up for the opening ceremony of the Olympics today. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

PM Narendra Modi will be in Ladakh on July 26 to attend the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas.

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is likely to attend the BRICS trader ministers meeting in Moscow on Friday.

Advertisement

Heres how the day will unfold.

PM Modi to attend 25th anniversary Kargil Vijay Diwas

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Ladakh on July 26 to attend the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas.

The grand celebrations to mark the Rajat Jyanti of Indias victory over Pakistan in the 1999 war are being conducted at Drass in the Kargil district.

Maj General Malik said the prime minister would land at Drass Brigade Helipad on the morning of July 26 and be received by army officials.

In 1999, Pakistani army-backed forces led an extensive invasion across the Line of Control (LoC). This forced the two nuclear nations, India and Pakistan, into a fierce battle. In the end, India emerged as the winner of the Kargil War. File Photo

Modi would take rest in the green room before departing for the Kargil War Memorial to participate in the wreath-laying ceremony, which will followed by a visit to the Shaheed Marg (Wall of Fame). He said Modi would sign on the visitors book and inspect the museum of Kargil War artefacts.

PM Modi will also interact with Veer Naris (War Widows) and visit the Veer Bhoomi, he said, adding he would inaugurate the Shinku La Tunnel virtually.

2024 Paris Olympic Games opening ceremony

The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics is scheduled today, July 26.

Instead of a traditional march into a stadium, about 10,500 athletes will parade on more than 90 boats on the Seine River for six kilometres (3.7 miles). This will start the ceremony, not mark the end of it, another break from tradition.

Advertisement

The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics starts at 11 p.m. IST (1:30 p.m. EDT/7:30 p.m. CES) and is expected to last more than three hours. AP

The ceremony starts at 11 pm IST (1:30 pm EDT/7:30 pm CES) and is expected to last more than three hours.

The ceremony will air on NBC and stream on Peacock and NBC Olympic platforms  NBCOlympics.com, NBC.com, NBC app, NBC Olympics app.

Trump to meet Netanyahu in Florida

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday at his resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

The meeting will be their first since the end of Trumps presidency, during which the two forged close ties, and comes at a time of strains also between Netanyahu and Democratic President Joe Biden over Israels war against Hamas militants in Gaza.

Advertisement

Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanayhu. Reuters file

This week he will also meet both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who on Sunday entered the 2024 presidential race after Biden pulled out.

The Israeli leader appears to be hedging his bets about the November U.S. election. Polls show the race is tight. Most analysts believe a second Trump administration would give Netanyahu a freer hand in the Gaza war.

SC hearing on eateries along Kanwar Yatra route

The Supreme Court will be hearing a plea against Uttar Pradesh governments order that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route must display the names of their owners.

The top court had earlier put an interim stay till Friday on the directive and had said that shop owners will, however, be required to display the kind of food they are serving to Kanwariyas.

Advertisement

The holy month of Sawan 2024 has begun on Monday (July 22) during which devotees carry Kanwar, a bamboo pole with pitchers filled with Ganga Jal attached on both sides, and travel to Lord Shiva temples.

Among the most popular is the Haridwar Route. Devotees take Ganga Jal from Haridwar to the Neelkanth Mahadev Temple in Rishikesh or the Pura Mahadeva Temple in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh.

Piyush Goyal to attend BRICS trade ministers meeting in Moscow

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal is likely to attend the BRICS trader ministers meeting in Moscow on Friday.

BRICS members comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Advertisement

With the Indian marine and pharma exporters facing issues in Russia, New Delhi is looking to resolve and facilitate the shipments.

Monsoon session of Jharkhand Assembly begins

The monsoon session of Jharkhand Assembly will be held from July 26 to August 2.

Governor CP Radhakrishnan has approved the week-long session, which will comprise six working days.

The session is likely to be stormy as the opposition BJP will try to corner the ruling alliance led by the JMM on various fronts such as corruption, deteriorating law and order and infiltration.

This will be the last session of the fifth Jharkhand Assembly.

Womens Asia Cup T20 2024  Semi-finals from today

The Womens Asia Cup semi finals is slated to kick off on Friday in Sri Lanka.

India, the reigning champions, will begin their campaign for an unprecedented eighth Asia Cup title when they will clash against their fierce rivals Pakistan in Dambulla on the tournaments opening day.

The tournament will feature a total of 15 matches, with full-member teams from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka participating alongside Malaysia, the UAE, Thailand and Nepal.

A day to remember
A new study published in the American Economic Association journal reveals that around 500,000 people in India died between 2000 and 2005 as a result of the decline in the vulture population. This is because of the important role the scavenging birds play when it comes to managing the spread of disease read more

The population of vultures in the mid-1990s plummeted to nearly zero  causing alarm for many including conservationists. But it also had other side effects.

The death of vultures in India at an alarming rate has been an issue for quite some time.

The population of the birds in the mid-1990s plummeted to nearly zero  causing alarm for many including conservationists.

But the vulture deaths have had other unintended consequences.

According to a new study, the decline of vultures also led to 500,000 deaths in India.

But why did the vulture population decline so dramatically? And how did it lead to half a million deaths?

Advertisement

Lets take a closer look:

What happened?

First, lets take a look at the decline of the vulture.

As per BBC, Indias vulture population began dying off in the 1990s.

This occurred due to India using a drug named diclofenac to treat cattle.

The drug, a non-steroidal painkiller, was cheap.

However, the drug was also deadly to vultures.

The birds, would who would feed on the carcasses of the animals, were left with severe kidney damage.

As per The Times of India, the vulture population declined from 50 million to a few thousand in a decade.

The worst-hit species, the white-rumped vulture, declined by a dreadful 99.9 per cent between 1992 and 2007, according to Bird Guides.

India finally banned diclofenac in 2006.

Vultures in Panna Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh.

While that helped vultures recover in some areas, the long-term outlook for vultures remains bleak.

The outlet quoted the latest State of Indias Birds report as showing that at least three Vulture species have lost 91 to 98 per cent of their population.

How did it lead to 500,000 deaths?

Advertisement

Now, according to a new study in the journal of American Economic Association journal, over half a million people died between 2000 and 2005 as a result of the decline in vulture population.

The study also pegged the cost of the health crisis at $70 billion per year.

According to The Times of India, the study was conducted by Anant Sudarshan and Eyal Frank.

Advertisement

Sudarshan is an associate professor at the University of Warwick and senior fellow at EPIC, while Frank is an environmental economist at the University of Chicago.

Sudarshan and Frank looked at health records from over 600 districts.

They overlapped these against maps of historical vulture habitats.

They also examined other variables including water quality and healthcare access, as per the newspaper.

As per BBC, they found an increase in the sale of anti-inflammatory drugs and a spike in death rates of over four per cent in areas where the vulture population had declined.

They also found the greatest spike in deaths occurred in urban areas with large livestock populations and carcass dumps.

Natures sanitation service

But why did this happen?

To understand this, you have to examine the roles vultures play in our society when it comes to managing the spread of disease.

Advertisement

As per Science.org, by feeding on disease-filled carcasses, vultures decrease the populations of other scavengers like rabid dogs.

Farmers, without the help of vultures to consume their dead livestock, are forced to dispose of them in waterways  which only further spreads disease.

Sudarshan said he witnessed this firsthand while growing up in India.

He said he saw carcasses of cattle piled up outside tanneries and city limits and dogs and rats feeding on them.

He added that the Indian government mandated tanneries to use chemicals to do away with the waste  thus polluting the waterways.

The authors explained how vultures keep nature in balance.

Advertisement

Vultures are considered natures sanitation service because of the important role they play in removing dead animals that contain bacteria and pathogens from our environment - without them, disease can spread, Frank told BBC.

Understanding the role vultures play in human health underscores the importance of protecting wildlife, and not just the cute and cuddly. They all have a job to do in our ecosystems that impacts our lives.

The vulture collapse in India provides a particularly stark example of the type of hard-to-reverse and unpredictable costs to humans that can come from the loss of a species, Sudarshan added.

What do experts say?

Experts are impressed by the paper.

Atheendar Venkataramani, a health economist at the University of Pennsylvania told Science.org that the paper will be a classic in the field.

Its going to generate a lot of new science.

Andrea Santangeli, a conservation scientist at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies, said this could spur action on the part of policymakers.

If you give them flashy figures, its probably easier to push forward policy and conservation measures, Santangeli told Science.org.

Marshall Burke, an environmental economist at Stanford University, said the study could be applicable to other species.

Burke said such approaches might encourage environmental economists to examine other species impact on human health.

With inputs from agencies
The Indian Air Force played a big role in Indias victory in the 1999 Kargil War against Pakistan. The IAF launched Operation Safed Sagar to help the Army counter the enemies who infiltrated Indian territory read more

India is observing 25 years of Kargil Vijay Diwas today (July 26), celebrating its victory over Pakistan in the 1999 Kargil War. Every year on this day, India pays tribute to soldiers who laid down their lives for the country during the war.

July 26 marks the successful conclusion of Operation Vijay, wherein Indian armed forces reclaimed territories in the Kargil district that were infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and militants.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) had played a pivotal role in Indias triumph against Pakistan through its Operation Safed Sagar.

Advertisement

What was it? How did the IAF help in defeating Pakistan? We explain.

How Operation Safed Sagar came to be

Safed Sagar was the name of the operation that the IAF gave to its role in Operation Vijay in the Kargil War.

This was the first time combat air power was used in the mountain ranges above 15,000 feet altitude, as per the defence ministrys article on the operation.

Initially, India had refrained from deploying its air force along the Line of Control (LoC) as it meant an escalation of war. However, the government gave a go-ahead once the scale of Pakistani intrusion was known.

The IAF launched the mission on May 26, a day after the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) gave its approval for the use of air power but with a caveat.

While the force could attack the infiltrators, it was specifically asked not to cross the LoC. This mandate was issued to prevent the possibility of further escalation.

Operation Safed Sagar

The IAF kickstarted its mission by attacking enemy positions and supply lines. MiG-21, MiG-27ML and MiG-23BN fighters were deployed to carry out the first strike.

Advertisement

In the initial days, the IAF suffered setbacks, including the loss of two aircraft  MiG-21 and MiG-27  and a Mi-17 chopper.

On May 27, the MiG-27 flown by Flight Lieutenant Kambampati Nachiketa developed mechanical issues, forcing him to eject. Soon after, he was captured by Pakistani forces and tortured for days before being released.

An MiG-27 aircraft prepares for a sortie during the de-induction ceremony of MiG-27 aircrafts at the Air Force Station, Jodhpur, December 27, 2019. MiG-27 aircraft, one of the most prominent fighter jets, has earned the moniker Bahadur from IAF pilots for the lethal role they had played during the 1999 Kargil War. File Photo/PTI

Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja who tried to locate Nachiketas place of landing lost his life. His MiG-21 was shot down by the enemy.

His wife, Alka Ahuja, told Times of India (TOI), Ajays MiG-21 fighter was hit by a surface-to-air missile. He had ejected but was captured and tortured by the Pakistan authorities as the postmortem  which was conducted at the Srinagar Base Hospital  revealed.

Advertisement

He was awarded Vir Chakra posthumously for displaying exceptional courage while trying to rescue a fellow officer.

On May 28, 1999, Squadron Leader R Pundir, Flight Lieutenant S Muhilan, Sergeant PVNR Prasad and Sergeant RK Sahu were tasked to fly as Nubra formation to strike enemy positions at Tololing.

However, their helicopter was hit by the Stinger Missile, killing the four bravehearts.

Speaking to Hindustan Times (HT), Dhruv Muhilan, son of Flt Lt S Muhilan, said, I have heard of my fathers bravery and sacrifice for as long as I can remember.

After a homemade cake my mother sent my father did not reach him, we were told shortly after that my fathers aircraft had gone missing. A few days later, we were given the news of my fathers final sacrifice.

Advertisement

The rocket attack launched by the four aircraft formation, whose leader was Wing Commander Anil Kumar Sinha, inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy, as per the defence ministry article.

The air strikes by the IAF on some key locations tilted the war in Indias favour. According to Air Chief Marshal AY Tipnis (retired), the air strike on a major supply dump at Muntho Dalo broke the enemys back. An estimated 100 casualties were reported, along with the destruction of the enemys shelters and a huge loss of supplies.

The air forces missions on Tiger Hill are also well-known. The IAF used LGBs to attack the enemy. As the former IAF chief wrote for Force magazine, The photograph of the laser designators cross on Tiger Hill and the laser bomb hitting the hill-top gives a very vivid impression (of) what Operation Safed Sagar entailed: Peak of IAFs professional elan.

Advertisement

The IAFs operation concluded on July 12, 1999.

ALSO READ: 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas: Meet the unsung heroes of the 1999 war

How IAF helped

During Safed Sagar, the IAF launched 550 strike missions, 150 reconnaissance missions, and more than 500 escort flights.

Operation Safed Sagar exhibited the air forces ability to adapt, prioritise and deliver in a hitherto new operational environment," the defence ministrys article noted.

The IAF fulfilled its objective of degrading enemys offensive capabilities, softening its defence and denying essential supplies," it added.

A major contribution of the IAF was to curtail the length of the war, which could have lasted longer if the force was not deployed.

As a part of Kargil Vijay Diwas Rajat Jayanti, a wreath laying ceremony was conducted at the War Memorial at AF Station Bhisiana, where #IAF bravehearts were paid tribute by their family and IAF personnel. #KargilVijayDiwas pic.twitter.com/3AAXj9qriu  Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) July 20, 2024

Noting the air forces crucial role, the defence ministry said in a statement, IAF operations in Kargil War (Op Safed Sagar) are a testament to IAFs ability to overcome insurmountable challenges posed by the steep gradient and dizzying altitudes of above 16,000 ft, that posed unique operational difficulties in targeting the enemy.

With inputs from agencies
Mumbai is supposed to be witnessing moderate showers today, according to the IMD. But the city has received little to no rainfall so far. Indias weather agency is often criticised for its monsoon forecasts. Heres what is going on read more

A commuter makes his way through a waterlogged road after rains, in Mumbai, July 25, 2024. PTI

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a red alert for Mumbai which was valid until 8.30 am this morning. The weather department has now scaled down the alert to yellow, predicting light to moderate showers for Friday (July 26).

However, the city has received little to no rainfall so far. The IMDs warning comes a day after Mumbai and Pune were brought to a grinding halt due to torrential rain.

The weather department has been criticised for dropping the ball with its forecasts during the monsoon. Predictions have also missed the mark for Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).

Advertisement

But why does this happen? Lets understand.

How IMD predicts weather

The IMD relies on satellite data and computer models to make weather forecasts.

The INSAT satellites gather data on cloud motion, cloud top temperature, and water vapour content that facilitate the estimation of weather, including rainfall, and tracking cyclones, as per an NDTV report.

Besides satellites, the IMD uses weather balloons, manned and automatic weather stations, aircraft, ships, and ocean buoys to collect information on atmospheric temperature, wind speed, pressure humidity, and sea surface temperatures, the report added.

A man reacts during rainfall as the temperature dips in the capital upon the arrival of monsoon, which was struggling with heatwave in the past weeks, in New Delhi, June 27, 2024. File Photo/Reuters

Tools like Doppler radars, radiosondes, surface observation centres and advanced weather processing systems are also required to forecast weather.

India uses Doppler radars, which forecast rainfall in close vicinity, making predictions more timely and accurate, reported NDTV.

The number of these radars have increased in the country from 15 in 2013 to 37 in 2023.

Why IMD gets it wrong

The IMD often faces flak when its predictions fail. Earlier this year, the IMD warned of moderate rainfall across central and northwest India on January 8 and 9. It also issued an orange alert for Haryana, Punjab, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and parts of Rajasthan, predicting rain and thunderstorms in these states.

Advertisement

However, there was no rain in most parts of these states on both these dates. After its inaccurate forecast on January 8, the IMD changed its prediction to a possibility of isolated showers for the next day.

In 2022, the Data Intelligence Unit (DIU) of India Today, which studied 20 years of data, found that IMDs seasonal monsoon predictions were wrong for many years in this period.

Indias tropical climate makes it a challenge to predict the weather more accurately than in countries like the United States and the United Kingdom.

The US, UK and Japan are known for their apt weather forecasts.

India is in a tropical zone. It is surrounded by sea and oceans and the weather is quite warm, humidity increases with high temperatures. There are several papers, tropical weather is less predictable than middle altitudes like Europe, and the US. The weather patterns in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan are less predictable, IMDs RK Jenamani told India Today.

Advertisement

Climate change poses another obstacle, making the job of forecasters more tough.

Disaster response force personnel help pedestrians to cross a waterlogged street following rains, in Mumbai, July 8, 2024. File Photo/PTI

Experts also point out a lack of good network of machines and stations across the country. The US also has more Doppler radars  200  than India for weather prediction.

ALSO READ: A city submerged: The unforgettable saga of Mumbais 26/7 deluge

According to M Rajeevan, former secretary of the ministry of earth sciences, the IMDs model to predict weather has improved and is at par with technology used in the US, UK and Japan, reported Hindustan Times (HT).

However, he admitted the weather agency falls behind in interpreting data and satellite images. IMD has access to all the state-of-the-art models along with its own models. The resolution of IMDs models has also significantly improved over the last few years An accurate weather forecast depends on two aspects  the model and the interpretation of forecasters models are just tools and if we are unable to look at multiple satellite images, radars and pick up hints from the models, we will still be missing the mark with forecasts. That is what seems to be happening.

Advertisement

Rajeevan told HT that the IMDs weakness is believed to be long-range, seasonal forecasts. Seasonal forecasts are more difficult to make. There is a term called predictability, which means the accuracy with which we can forecast, it is higher for three-day and five-day forecasts, but for seasonal forecasts, the predictability becomes low.

Experts blame the significant data gap for inaccurate prediction of the IMD, especially in Delhi. If we are collecting the wrong data on the first day itself, it will only increase on the second day and thereafter. Therefore, if we are predicting the day five weather based on these sets of data, the prediction is bound to fail. That problem is happening in metro cities where despite multiple stations, the forecast is not coming true many times in a year, a scientist told India Today.

Advertisement

IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra has defended the weather agency, saying it is not possible to be accurate all the time and small misses in predictions like unseasonal rains should not be considered as mistakes.

Over the last few years our forecasts have improved significantly, and we are striving to make it better in the coming years, he told HT earlier this year.

The IMD is taking steps to boost the accuracy of its weather prediction.

Speaking to India Today in 2022, the IMD director general had said they intend to raise the number of radars to 65 by 2025. In the next few years, we have decided to place four more radars in the Western Himalayan region, 10 in the Northeastern region, and 11 additional radars in the plains of north India, he said at the time.

The weather agency is also reportedly deploying artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to improve its forecasts.

With inputs from agencies
Indias highest gallantry award, Param Vir Chakra, was designed by Swiss-born woman Savitribai Khanolkar. She had a profound understanding of Indian culture and history that prompted Major General Hira Lal Atal, the first Indigenous Adjutant General of independent India, to seek her assistance in designing the gallantry medal. So far, the prestigious medal is only awarded to 21 bravehearts including four soldiers from the Kargil War read more

In the annals of Indian military history, the Param Vir Chakra stands as the highest gallantry award, a symbol of ultimate bravery and sacrifice.

So far, the nation has honoured 21 war heroes with the Param Vir Chakra, including four brave soldiers from Kargil War. Captain Vikram Batra (posthumously), Rifleman Sanjay Kumar, Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav and Lt. Manoj Kumar Pandey (posthumously), who despite overwhelming odds, stood resolute against the enemy in the line of duty and were awarded the prestigious medal.

Advertisement

But did you know that the creative force behind this esteemed medal was Savitri Khanolkar, a Swiss-born woman whose own journey is as remarkable as the heroes who wear the award with pride.

Who was Savitri Khanolkar, and how did she come to design the Param Vir Chakra? Lets delve into the fascinating story of her life and contribution.

1. Savitri Khanolkar, born Eve Yvonne Maday de Maros on July 20, 1913, in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Her father, Andre de Maday, was a distinguished Hungarian professor of sociology at Geneva University, and her mother, Marthe Hentzelt, was a Russian educator at the Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Geneva.

2. During WWII, Eve Yvonne Maday de Maro fell in love with Major General Vikram Khanolkar who was undergoing training at the Royal Military Academy, in the United Kingdom and was holidaying in Europe, according to The Times of India (TOI). Despite facing opposition from her family, Maros followed Khanolkar, moved to India a few years later, and made it her home. She later acquired the name Savitribai Khanolkar in 1932 after she married the Army officer in Mumbai.

3. Despite being from a faraway land, Savitribai immediately felt a deep connection with Indias history and wholeheartedly immersed herself in the study of its mythology, traditions, and religious scriptures. She embraced a vegetarian lifestyle and became fluent in Marathi, Sanskrit, and Hindi, while also learning Indian music, dance, and painting.

Advertisement

She always claimed that she had been born in Europe by mistake as she was Indian soul, and would feel bad on anyone who dared to call her a foreigner, retired Squadron Leader PA Pathreeker told the TOI.

4. It was Savitribais profound understanding of Indian culture and history that prompted Major General Hira Lal Atal to seek her assistance in designing a new medal for gallantry in combat after India gained independence in 1947. Tasked with creating Indias military award which would replace Britains Victoria Cross, Savitribai helped bring the medal to life.

5. According to a report by India Times, Savitribai Khanolkar drew inspiration from one of Indias greatest warriors, Chhatrapati Shivaji. To honour the Maratha warrior, she incorporated his legendary sword Bhavani on both sides of the medal, encircled by the Hindu god Indras powerful mythic weapon Vajra.

Advertisement

Param Vir Chakra. Image Courtesy: National War Memorial

As noted by the National War Memorial, Savirtribai was also inspired by a Vedic rishi, sage Dadhichi, who made the ultimate sacrifice by giving up his body so the Gods could forge the deadly weapon Vajra or Thunderbolt from his spine.

7. The resulting design featured a circular bronze disc made of gunmetal, measuring 1.375 inches (3.49 cm) in diameter. This disc is suspended from a straight swiveling suspension bar and held by a 32 mm purple ribbon.

8. Coincidentally, the Param Vir Chakra, which was introduced on January 26, 1950, on the first Republic Day of India, was awarded to Savitribais elder daughter Kumudini Sharmas brother-in-law Major Somnath Sharma of 4 Kumaon regiment. He was posthumously awarded for his valour during the 1947-48 Indo-Pak war in Kashmir.

9. In addition to the Param Vir Chakra, Savitribai also designed several other prestigious bravery medals. These include the Mahavir Chakra, the Vir Chakra, the Ashok Chakra, the Kirti Chakra, and the Shaurya Chakra.

Advertisement

10. Savitribai was deeply involved in social work, dedicating much of her later years to supporting soldiers, their families, and refugees displaced during the Partition. Following her husbands death in 1952, she found solace in spirituality and joined the Ramakrishna Mission. Additionally, she authored a book Saints of Maharashtra, which remains popular to this day.

With input from agencies
Apart from addressing US Congress and meeting US President Joe Biden during his US visit this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also sought an audience with Donald Trump. The former US president has had a mixed relationship with Netanyahu but has agreed to meet the Israeli leader, announcing the meeting to held on Friday at his Florida residence read more

Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump, reacts after speaking at a campaign rally on July 20, 2024, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet former US President and current Republican candidate Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Friday. This meeting comes at a time of significant political turmoil in both Israel and the United States.

Ahead of this meeting, Trump replied to a letter by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and shared a screenshot of the letter, which included Trumps handwritten response: Mahmoud, so nice. Thank You. Everything will be Good.

Advertisement

Abbas letter, received a day after an assassination attempt on Trump in Pennsylvania, stated that violence should have no place in a world governed by law and order.

It is with grave concern that I have received news and later on watched footage of your attempted assassination, Abbas wrote. Respect for the other with tolerance and valuing of human life is what must prevail, he continued, urging issues to be resolved through dialogue and free expression.

Letter to Trump from Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, with Trumps response written below. Trump also posted this letter on his Truth Social page.



Abbas expressed his concerns over the attempted assassination and expressed condolences to the victims families. pic.twitter.com/XESdq9484A  Anthony Laurie (@AnthonyLaurie89) July 24, 2024

Initially announced for Wednesday, the meeting was rescheduled to Friday at Netanyahus request. Trump announced, Looking forward to seeing Bibi Netanyahu on Friday, and even more forward to achieving Peace in the Middle East! on his social media platform, Truth Social.

This meeting comes after Netanyahus address to US Congress and his meeting with US President Joe Biden, who recently withdrew from the presidential race and endorsed Kamala Harris as his Democratic replacement. Netanyahu also met Harris separately where the latter reportedly vowed to not be silent about the crisis in Gaza.

Advertisement

Netanyahus US visit occurs during a period when he faces pressure to end the conflict and manage relations with the Biden administration.

What has Netanyahus relationship with Trump?

Netanyahus relationship with Trump has had its ups and downs. In a 2021 interview with Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Trump expressed his displeasure with Netanyahu for congratulating Biden on his 2020 election victory, saying, F*** him.

However, Netanyahu has been working to regain Trumps favour, understanding the potential advantages of a Trump presidency for Israel.

Bahrains Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani, Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed display their copies of signed agreements while US President Donald Trump looks on as they participate in the signing ceremony of the Abraham Accords, normalising relations between Israel and some of its Middle East neighbors, in a strategic realignment of Middle Eastern countries against Iran, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, US, September 15, 2020. File Image/Reuters

The two leaders enjoyed a close relationship during Trumps tenure, with Netanyahu often praising Trump as the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House. Trump reciprocated the compliments, presenting Netanyahu with a ceremonial gold key to the White House in 2020.

Advertisement

During his presidency, Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israels capital, moved the US embassy there, and facilitated the signing of the Abraham Accords, which normalised relations between Israel and four Arab states  Bahrain, the UAE, Morocco, and Sudan.

How has the Biden administration dealt with Israel?

Even without Trump in office, US support for Israel has remained steadfast under Biden. Since October 7, the Biden administration has provided billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, despite growing criticism from within the Democratic Party and mass protests over his Gaza policies.

Biden, described as one of the most pro-Israel presidents, has faced backlash for not holding Israel accountable for its actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

Advertisement

US President Joe Biden is welcomed by Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu, as he visits Israel amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 18, 2023. File Image/Reuters

The Biden administration paused one shipment of weapons to Israel in early May over concerns they would be used in the offensive in Rafah. Half of that shipment was later sent in July, though the other half remains withheld due to concerns about its use on civilians.

This decision has fueled criticism from both Israeli right-wing figures and American left-wing groups.

What impact would a change in US presidency have?

A potential Trump presidency could mean a return to unqualified support for Israel, including the lifting of sanctions on settlers and possibly enabling more aggressive policies towards Gaza and the West Bank. Analysts believe Trump would likely remove sanctions against settlers altogether, as he previously supported Netanyahus agenda without constraints, reported Al Jazeera.

Advertisement

In a February interview with the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University, Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law who is married to Ivanka Trump, suggested that Gazas waterfront property could be very valuable.

He also proposed that Israel could relocate civilians from the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where over 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are currently sheltering, to Israels Negev desert while Israeli forces finish the job there. When questioned about concerns that Palestinians who flee Gaza might not be permitted to return, Kushner remarked, I am not sure there is much left of Gaza at this point.

Jared Kushner, former senior advisor to the US president during the administration of his father-in-law, former US President Donald Trump, speaks about the Abraham Accords during an event at the Trump affiliated America First Policy Institute in Washington, September 12, 2022. File Image/Reuters

Additionally, Kushner characterised proposals to grant Palestinians their own state as a super bad idea that would be tantamount to rewarding an act of terror.

In contrast, a Harris administration is expected to continue Bidens policies, balancing support for Israel with calls for humanitarian considerations and a push for a two-state solution. Kamala Harris, if elected, might align more closely with younger elements of the Democratic Party, which could include restrictions on US-supplied munitions used in Gaza.

Why is the US visit crucial for Netanyahu?

Netanyahus visit to the US and his meeting with Trump are also seen as political maneuvers to bolster his domestic standing. Facing pressure from right-wing cabinet ministers and widespread protests in Israel demanding a ceasefire deal with Hamas, Netanyahu seeks to project strength and secure unwavering support from the US.

Security fencing is installed ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus address to the US Congress in Washington, US, July 23, 2024. Reuters

Ehud Barak, a former Israeli prime minister, told BBC that Bidens decision to not seek re-election could strengthen his hand in foreign policy, allowing him to pressure Netanyahu without electoral considerations. However, Netanyahu appears to be playing for time, hoping for a Trump victory that might ease the pressure hes facing from the Biden administration.

Also Read: Why Benjamin Netanyahus visit to the US will be be closely watched

With inputs from agencies
Kargil Vijay Diwas honours the bravery and sacrifice of Indias soldiers commemorating their decisive victory in the Kargil War read more

Kargil Vijay Diwas is especially poignant this year as it marks the 25th anniversary of Indias victory in the Kargil War observed on July 26. This milestone celebrates not only the triumph of the Indian Armed Forces in reclaiming territory from Pakistani infiltrators in the challenging terrains of Kargil but also reflects on a quarter-century of remembering and honouring the immense bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers who fought valiantly. The 1999 conflict, lasting from May to July, stands as a testament to the resilience and strategic prowess of the Indian military. This silver jubilee serves as a solemn tribute to the fallen soldiers and an opportunity to reflect on the enduring impact of their courage on the nation.

Advertisement

Date of observance: Kargil Vijay Diwas is celebrated annually on July 26. It marks the anniversary of Indias victory in the Kargil War against Pakistan in 1999.

Historical context: The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil Conflict, took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir. It was triggered by the infiltration of Pakistani soldiers and militants into Indian territory.

Significance of the day: The day commemorates the bravery and sacrifice of Indian soldiers who fought in the conflict. It is a tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives and a celebration of their victory.

Operation Vijay: The military operation launched by the Indian Army to recapture the territories held by Pakistani forces was named Operation Vijay. The operation was successful in regaining control of the disputed areas.

Key figures: General Ved Prakash Malik, the then Chief of Army Staff of the Indian Army, played a crucial role in leading the operations during the war.

Casualties: The Kargil War resulted in significant casualties on both sides. The Indian side lost around 527 soldiers, while Pakistans losses were estimated to be around 300.

Advertisement

Diplomatic impact: The war led to increased international recognition of Indias strategic position and its stance on the Kashmir issue. It also highlighted the need for robust border security measures.

Memorials and tributes: Numerous memorials and war memorials have been established to honour the soldiers who fought in the war. The Kargil War Memorial at Dras is a prominent site dedicated to the soldiers.

Strategic lessons: The Kargil War highlighted the importance of high-altitude warfare and led to significant changes in Indias military strategies and border security protocols. The conflict also brought to attention the need for enhanced surveillance and preparedness in challenging terrains.

Advertisement

Annual observance: On Kargil Vijay Diwas, various events are organised including military salute, ceremonies and memorial services to honour the soldiers and reflect on the significance of the conflict.
The catastrophic 26/7 Mumbai floods of 2005 highlighted the citys infrastructural deficiencies and the need for effective disaster management strategies read more

(File) Commuters walk through floodwaters after heavy torrential rains paralysed the city of Mumbai on 27 July 2005. AFP

July 26, 2005, is a date etched in the memory of Mumbais residents marking one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in the citys history. Known as 26/7, this day saw Mumbai come to a standstill due to unprecedented rainfall that paralysed the entire city. The financial capital of India was subjected to a deluge that not only claimed lives and caused extensive damage but also exposed significant vulnerabilities in urban planning and infrastructure. This disaster forced the city and its administration to rethink disaster management and resilience strategies. Heres an in-depth look at the 26/7 Mumbai floods and 10 crucial things you should know about this defining event.

Advertisement

1. Unprecedented rainfall

Record-breaking downpour: On July 26, 2005, Mumbai received a staggering 944 mm (37.17 inches) of rain in just 24 hours, marking a 100-year high in rainfall for the city. This was the eighth heaviest rainfall ever recorded in a 24-hour period globally. Within a 12-hour window from 8 am to 8 pm, the city was deluged with 644 mm (25.35 inches) of rain.

Continuous rain: The rain persisted even after this peak contributing to the extensive flooding and compounding the challenges faced by the city.

2. Paralysis of the city

Transport disruption: The relentless rainfall led to a complete halt of local train services due to severe waterlogging on tracks, resulting in the damage of 52 local trains. Mumbais suburban railway network, which serves as the citys lifeline, was rendered inoperative, stranding millions of commuters.

Road traffic chaos: The flooding caused an unprecedented traffic gridlock. Low-lying regions, including Dharavi and the Bandra-Kurla Complex, were submerged, making road travel perilous and, in many cases, impossible.

3. Massive damage to public and private transport

Vehicles affected: The floods wreaked havoc on the citys public and private transport systems. Over 37,000 auto-rickshaws, 4,000 taxis, 900 BEST buses and 10,000 trucks and tempos were damaged or immobilised. The cumulative damage led to significant economic losses and logistical nightmares.

Financial impact: The city incurred a direct financial loss estimated at 5.5 billion (approximately $100 million or 80 million), severely affecting Mumbais economy.

Advertisement

4. Closure of airports

Airport shutdown: For the first time in its history, Mumbais airports were forced to shut down for more than 30 hours due to extensive flooding and poor visibility. Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, along with Sahar and Juhu aerodromes, was non-operational affecting air traffic severely.

Flight cancellations: Over 700 flights were either cancelled or delayed disrupting air travel and adding to the chaos as travellers were left stranded.

5. Human casualties and displacement

Lives lost: The catastrophic floods claimed the lives of over 1,000 people in Mumbai alone. The fatalities were primarily due to drowning, electrocutions and landslides in various parts of the city.

Advertisement

Homes destroyed: More than 14,000 homes were destroyed leaving thousands homeless and in urgent need of shelter and aid.

6. Impact on communication

Telecommunication breakdown: The floods caused significant disruption in communication networks. Approximately 5 million mobile users and 2.3 million MTNL landline users experienced outages for over four hours making coordination and rescue efforts challenging.

7. Critical failures in infrastructure

Drainage system overwhelmed: Mumbais outdated drainage system, designed during the colonial era, was grossly inadequate to handle the deluge, resulting in widespread waterlogging.

Natural waterways blocked: Unchecked urbanisation had led to the blockage of natural waterways and the destruction of mangroves further exacerbating the flooding.

Advertisement

8. Government response and relief efforts

Delayed response: The governments initial response to the disaster was widely criticised for its slowness. Many citizens were left to fend for themselves for extended periods.

Military involvement: The Indian Army, Indian Navy and Indian Air Force were mobilised to assist with rescue operations, providing essential aid to those stranded in flooded areas.

Relief camps: Temporary shelters and relief camps were established across the city, offering food, water and medical assistance to the affected population.

9. Role of citizens and NGOs

Community efforts: Local citizens and non-governmental organisations played a crucial role in rescue and relief operations. Volunteers provided vital services, distributing food, water and other essentials, and offering shelter to those in need.

Advertisement

Volunteer coordination: Despite limited resources, volunteers coordinated effectively filling gaps where official efforts were delayed or insufficient.

10. Lessons learnt and long-term impact

Disaster management reforms: The disaster underscored the urgent need for effective disaster management strategies. In response, the government established disaster management cells and improved coordination between various agencies.

Infrastructure improvements: Post-flood efforts focused on upgrading the citys drainage systems and implementing measures to mitigate future flooding risks. However, progress has been inconsistent and challenges persist.

Urban planning awareness: The floods highlighted the necessity of sustainable urban planning and stricter enforcement against illegal constructions emphasising the importance of preserving natural habitats like mangroves.

Public awareness: The event heightened public consciousness regarding environmental conservation and the need for resilience against climate change-induced weather extremes.

The 26/7 Mumbai floods were a grim reminder of the vulnerabilities that come with rapid urbanisation and inadequate infrastructure. While the city has made strides in improving disaster preparedness and resilience since then the challenges of urban flooding remain ever-present.
While hearing the matter on July 8, the bench had noted in its order that as per an administrative order of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, a suo motu (on its own) writ petition was registered on the basis of an e-mail of May 25 sent by a retired district judge of Gujarat read more

The Supreme Court on Friday said huge amounts of unclaimed compensation, payable to the claimants and lying deposited with the Motor Accident Claims Tribunals (MACTs) and labour courts, is a pan-India issue.

A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Augustine George Masih asked why claimants, who have been awarded compensation, do not come forward to collect the money.

This is a pan-India issue, the bench observed.

While hearing the matter on July 8, the bench had noted in its order that as per an administrative order of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, a suo motu (on its own) writ petition was registered on the basis of an e-mail of May 25 sent by a retired district judge of Gujarat.

Advertisement

The July 8 order noted the e-mail mentions that large amounts payable by way of compensation were unclaimed and lying with MACTs and labour courts.

It had said as per the e-mail, in the state of Gujarat alone, a sum of about Rs 2,000 crore was lying unclaimed and no efforts were being made to trace the beneficiaries to whom such compensation was payable.

The bench had then sought responses from the Gujarat government and the Registrar General of the Gujarat High Court in the matter.

During the hearing on Friday, the counsel appearing for the high court referred to the e-mail sent by the retired district judge.

Why the claimants do not come forward to take compensation? Assist us on that, said the lawyer. Some directions have to be issued, it added.

What we are worried about is that there may be genuine claimants who are entitled to it (compensation), it said.

The apex court said it would first pass an order limited to Gujarat and thereafter consider doing so for other states.

It requested the counsel appearing for the Gujarat High Court to assist it as an amicus curiae and posted the matter for further hearing on September 2.
Bought from a Swedish company amid allegations of kickback payments, the Bofors howitzer emerged as a force multiplier for the Indian Army during the Kargil war read more

In this photo from PTI archives, Indian army soldiers are seen with the Bofors gun during the Kargil War, in July 1999. File images/ PTI Photo

July 26 is celebrated every year as the Kargil Diwas, marking Indias victorious closure to the war that Pakistan foisted on Indian armed forces 25 years ago. The Kargil war of 1999 remains etched in memory as a time of intense strife and sacrifice for India.

It unfolded amid the rugged peaks and challenging terrain of the Kargil sector, where Pakistani forces stealthily infiltrated Indian positions. This incursion, daunting in its audacity and scale, required a swift and robust response from the Indian military to evict the intruders and regain control of the strategic heights overlooking key supply routes.

Advertisement

It was against this backdrop in the hilly landscape of Kargil, a controversial weapon system, the Bofors howitzer, emerged as the unsung hero that turned the tide in Indias favour. Bofors had been a tainted name in Indian political and public discourse ever since allegations of corruption were levelled against the Rajiv Gandhi government during the 1980s.

A useful gun tainted by scandal and politics

The Bofors scandal refers to a major political and financial controversy, involving allegations of corruption in a defence deal between the Indian government and the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors.

In March 1986, the Rajiv Gandhi government signed a contract with AB Bofors for the supply of 400 field guns, 155 mm howitzers, for the Indian Army. The deal was valued at approximately Rs 1,437 crore ($285 million).

In April 1987, Swedish Radio claimed that Bofors had paid illegal kickbacks to Indian politicians and defence officials to secure the contract. The payments were alleged to have been routed through intermediaries and offshore bank accounts to conceal their origin.

The consequent political outcry became huge, leading to the resignation of Rajiv Gandhis defence minister, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who emerged as his principal challenger in the next national election. The 1989 parliamentary election was held amid slogans like Gali gali mein shor hai, Rajiv Gandhi chor hai (There is outcry in every street, Rajiv Gandhi is a thief). His government fell.

Advertisement

But Bofors didnt India

In the challenging terrain and amid limited operational options, the Bofors FH77B howitzer, the 155 mm field artillery gun, emerged as a game-changer for the Indian Army. The Bofors howitzer demonstrated unparalleled precision and firepower during the conflict.

Positioned strategically at altitudes exceeding 8,000 feet, the Bofors guns ability to deliver accurate, rapid-fire artillery rounds proved decisive in neutralising entrenched Pakistani positions.

Equipped with a range of over 35 kilometres, the Bofors howitzers capability to fire three rounds in 12 seconds allowed Indian artillery units to engage Pakistani forces effectively. Its capacity to operate in a direct-fire role, targeting enemy positions at nearly 90-degree angles from vantage points below Pakistani-held heights, ensured that Indian troops could engage their adversaries with minimal exposure.

Advertisement

How Bofors guns impacted the Kargil war

The Bofors howitzers impact on the course of the Kargil war cannot be overstated. By providing precise and devastating artillery support, the Bofors gun facilitated the systematic dismantling of Pakistani artillery batteries and defensive positions.

This strategic advantage bolstered Indian efforts to reclaim occupied territories and secure crucial supply lines in the face of determined resistance from well-entrenched Pakistani troops. The rapid deployment capabilities of the Bofors howitzer were instrumental in maintaining operational flexibility for Indian forces operating in the rugged mountainous terrain.

Powered by a Mercedes-Benz engine, which enabled swift relocation after firing salvos, the Bofors guns mitigated the risk of counter-fire from Pakistani forces. It proved to be a formidable weapon system that gave Indian forces the operational advantage to overpower the intruding Pakistan troops in the Kargil war.
The Kargil war, with its tumultuous days and decisive outcomes, not only altered the landscape of South Asian geopolitics but also catalysed a lasting friendship between nations once estranged by mistrust and rivalry. From potential rivals, India and the US became friends read more

During the long decades of the Cold War, the United States never really developed a trustworthy relationship with India despite the two being the largest democracies. The US, initially due to colonial inertia of its closest ally UK, sided with Pakistan ever since its formation with Indias Independence in 1947.

During the wars in 1947-48, 1965 and 1971, the US showed its preference for Pakistan. Those were years when its arch rival, the Soviet Union, was leading the socialist bloc and the US suspected India to be in the Soviet camp though officially New Delhi was leading the third or neutral camp, known as the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in a strong rebuttal of the Cold War.

Advertisement

All this changed the moment Pakistan risked misadventure in Kargil in the summers of 1999, barely weeks after then India Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee rode a friendship bus to Lahore. The change came particularly after Indias stern and robust response to Pakistani invasion in Jammu and Kashmir.

A summer when Pakistan deceived India

In the blistering summer of 1999, the Kargil war erupted like a sudden storm across the Himalayas, thrusting the worlds attention onto the Line of Control (LoC) between India and Pakistan.

Catching India off guard in the euphoria of Vajpayees friendship move and a matching reciprocity by then Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif  who too had been deceived by Pakistan Army chief General Pervez Musharraf, who later deposed Sharif and became the ruler of the country  Pakistani forces occupied a number hills that Indian forces vacate during snowy winters of the high hills in the highest elevation zone on the earth.

What began as a localised conflict soon evolved into a pivot of global diplomacy, which y reshaped the relationship between the United States and India. US President Bill Clinton found it challenging to navigate the intricate webs of international diplomacy  himself caught at a crossroads when the conflict broke out.

A facade that the US believed in

Its often overlooked that immediately prior to the Kargil war, US-India relations were at their lowest point, overshadowed by Indias decision to go nuclear. The Vajpayee government had carried out nuclear tests in May 1998. As the leading nuclear power, with unmatched surveillance capabilities, the US was found napping as the Vajpayee government provided cover to Indian scientists to carry out these tests in the deserts of Rajasthan.

Advertisement

Embarrassed and anguished, the US responded with unprecedented sanctions against India, raising concerns over nuclear proliferation in South Asia as Pakistan had hurriedly followed up its own nuclear tests to show that it matched Indias technological prowess. Pakistan was the USs ally  a subservient loyal partner  in South Asia. For decades, the US had used Pakistan to counter India, a democracy that had stood up to the hegemonistic attitude of American leaders.

Pakistan was a facade the US believed will keep it at the fulcrum of the South Asian and Central Asian strategic games. The US depended on it for its counter-Russia operations and hoped to use Pakistan to keep a tab on Taliban and al-Qaeda and its leader Osama bin Laden.

Advertisement

On the other hand, it mistrusted India for its neutral and somewhat Gandhian socialist approach in politics and diplomacy. Exacerbated by Indias nuclear tests in 1998, then-US Deputy Defence Secretary Strobe Talbotts diplomatic efforts were largely focused on arms control, with little room for broader strategic cooperation.

But Kargil changed India-US relationship, forever

However, the Kargil incursion by Pakistan dramatically altered this dynamic.In a sense, both India and Pakistan had been isolated after their nuclear tests. Vajpayee used the opportunity to bring the two nations together  not only at the political level but more importantly at people-to-people and cultural levels.

The incursion by Pakistan was a shock that woke up the US leadership when the Cold War had ended and the Soviet Federation had disintegrated in over a dozen states. Successor Russia was not in a position to rival with the economic might of the US. And India had opened up its economy, becoming extremely attractive for American companies. Pakistan had reached a state when it had served its purpose in the geopolitical game of the US.

Advertisement

When the Vajpayee government shared enough evidence to prove that the Kargil incursion was like stabbing in Indias back after its sincere attempt at stitching the wounds of the past to build a new friendly future. Vajpayee had famously said, We can change our friends, not neighbours.

Once reality dawned on Clinton

Clintons swift and unequivocal condemnation of Pakistani aggression against India marked a watershed moment. For the first time, the US openly sided with India, demanding Pakistans withdrawal from occupied territories and threatening consequences for Islamabads belligerence. This bold stance underscored a shift in American foreign policy, setting the stage for deeper engagement with New Delhi.

Advertisement

The climax came during a tense summit between Clinton and Sharif in Washington on July 4, 1999. The meeting was charged with urgency and high stakes. Clinton, known for his diplomatic finesse, adopted an unyielding posture as India had conveyed in no uncertain terms what it wanted, insisting on Pakistans compliance with international borders and highlighting concerns over its nuclear ambitions and links to terrorism. The outcome was decisive: Pakistans retreat from Kargil and a clear signal of Americas alignment with Indias strategic interests.

The aftermath of Kargil resonated far beyond the battlefield. It reshaped the trajectory of US-India relations. Clinton, too, seized the moment and undertook the historic visit to India in 2000the first by a US president in over two decades.

The visuals of Clinton dancing with women folk dancers in a Rajasthan village  something the US president had not done in his own country. This journey marked a symbolic thaw in bilateral ties, underlining Clintons vision of India as a pivotal democratic power deserving of American partnership.

And war ultimately gave two friends

During his visit, Clinton was greeted with warmth and enthusiasm by Vajpayee, reflecting a newfound camaraderie between the two nations. Beyond ceremonial niceties, discussions focused on bolstering security cooperation and expanding economic ties, laying a solid foundation for future collaborations. Vajpayee was successful in conveying that Indias decision to go public with its nuclear tests was not a mistake.

What Clinton laid as a new foundation of India-US relationship was built upon by subsequent US administrations. Presidents following Clinton continued to deepen engagements with India, recognizing its rising global stature and shared democratic values.

Today, the US-India relationship stands as a testament to the transformative power of diplomacy amid conflict. What began amid the heights of Kargil has evolved into a strategic partnership encompassing defence cooperation, economic ties, and shared commitments to regional stability.

As the world reflects on the legacy of the Kargil war, it is relevant to underscore how significant it turned out to be in redefining international alliances. The bonds forged in the crucible of conflict have endured, propelling US-India relations to new heights and setting a course for mutual prosperity and security in the 21st century.
A historic day for Indias cultural heritage! Today, on the sidelines of the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee #46WHC, India & USA signed the Cultural Property Agreement. The Agreement provides for the repatriation of our priceless heritage, deepening our cultural ties, said MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal read more

US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti with Govind Mohan, Secretary, Ministry of Culture. Image Courtesy: @MEAIndia

India and US on Friday inked the Cultural Property Agreement on the sidelines of the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee that provides for repatriation of Indias priceless heritage and deepening its cultural ties.

The agreement was signed between US ambassador to India Eric Garcetti and Govind Mohan, Secretary, Ministry of Culture.

MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal tweets, "A historic day for India's cultural heritage! Today, on the sidelines of the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee #46WHC, India & USA signed the Cultural Property Agreement. The Agreement provides for the repatriation of our pic.twitter.com/NWMnzR0MBq  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

Advertisement

Taking to X, MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said, A historic day for Indias cultural heritage! Today, on the sidelines of the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee #46WHC, India & USA signed the Cultural Property Agreement. The Agreement provides for the repatriation of our priceless heritage, deepening our cultural ties."

Over the past few years, India has placed a greater emphasis on the repatriation of its cultural heritage.

According to official data, over 400 antiques have been returned to India since 2014.

As part of the agreement, the US will automatically offer the object for repatriation, negating the need for India to provide proof that it is its own.

It imposes import restrictions that stop looted and stolen cultural property from entering the US while encouraging the legal sharing of such objects for scientific, cultural, and educational purposes.

Under the agreement, the US will intercept smuggled goods at the border and return them expeditiously.

With inputs from agencies
Prime Minister paid homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty in the 1999 Kargil war read more

Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tributes to the soldiers who lost their lives in the 1999 Kargil War. Source: Screengrab.

On the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked Pakistan and said the country has failed in all its nefarious attempts in the past, but has not learned anything from its history and is carrying out proxy war.

I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed. Our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply

Advertisement

#WATCH | Ladakh: PM Narendra Modi says, "Pakistan has failed in all its nefarious attempts in the past. But Pakistan has not learned anything from its history. It is trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war. Today I am speaking from a place where pic.twitter.com/HQbzjcVKVq  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

The Prime Minister further said: In Kargil, we not only won the war, we also gave a wonderful demonstration of Truth, Restraint and Strength.

India will defeat every challenge that comes in way of development

The Prime Minister further said, Be it Ladakh or Jammu and Kashmir, India will defeat every challenge that comes in the way of development.

In a few days, on August 5, it will be five years since Article 370 was abolished. Jammu and Kashmir is talking about a new future, talking about big dreams Along with infrastructure development, the tourism sector is also growing rapidly in Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. After decades, a cinema hall has opened in Kashmir. After three-and-a-half decades, Tazia procession has been taken out in Srinagar for the first time. Our heaven on earth is rapidly moving towards peace and harmony, he further said.

Advertisement

#WATCH | Ladakh: PM Narendra Modi says, "Be it Ladakh or Jammu and Kashmir, India will defeat every challenge that comes in the way of development. In a few days, on August 5, it will be 5 years since Article 370 was abolished. Jammu and Kashmir is talking about a new future, pic.twitter.com/Iss2H6B5XO  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

Sacrifices made for nation are immortal

Speaking at Kargil Vijay Diwas Shradhanjali Samaroh in Dras, Ladakh, PM Modi said: " Kargil Vijay Diwas tells us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal."

VIDEO | "Today, the great land of Ladakh has become a witness to 25 years of Kargil victory. Kargil Vijay Diwas tells us that the sacrifices made for the country are immortal," says PM Modi (@narendramodi) speaking during Kargil Vijay Diwas Shradhanjali Samaroh in Dras, Ladakh. pic.twitter.com/tum2R9xr0h  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 26, 2024

He further said that the country will always be indebted to the brave soldiers of the Indian Army.

This country is grateful to them. It is my good fortune that during the Kargil war, I was amongst our soldiers as a common countryman, the PM said.

VIDEO | "This country will always be indebted to the brave soldiers of our Army. This country is grateful to them. It is my good fortune that during the Kargil war, I was amongst our soldiers as a common countryman," says PM Modi (@narendramodi) speaking during Kargil Vijay Diwas pic.twitter.com/Rt7RwLmbFX  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 26, 2024

Advertisement

PM Modi on Agnipath Scheme

Prime Minister Modi said that the Agnipath Scheme is an example of the necessary reforms done by the Army.

For decades, there have been discussions on making the armed forces young, from Parliament to various committees. The average age of Indian soldiers being higher than the global average has been raising concerns. Therefore, this topic was raised in many committees for years. But the will to solve this challenge related to the countrys security was not shown earlier. The country has addressed this concern through the Agnipath scheme, he said.

#WATCH | PM Narendra Modi says, "...Agnipath scheme is also an example of the necessary reforms done by the Army...Some people used to think that the Army means saluting politicians, doing parades but for us, Army means the faith of 140 crore countrymen. The goal of Agnipath is pic.twitter.com/oF3ZV7Fnp8  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

Slamming the Opposition, PM Modi said, Agnipath aims to make the forces young The aim of Agnipath is to keep the armies continuously fit for war. Unfortunately, some people have made such a sensitive topic related to national security a subject of politics.

Some people are doing politics of lies in their personal interest even on this reform of the army. These are the same people who weakened our forces by running scams worth thousands of crores in the forces, he said.

#WATCH | On the Agnipath scheme, PM Narendra Modi says, "I don't know what has happened to the thinking of some people. They are spreading the misconception that the government has come up with this scheme to save pension money... For today's recruits, the question of pension pic.twitter.com/vnEWy2YhDC  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

Intensifying his attack on the Opposition, PM Modi said: The history of those who are misleading the youth of the country shows that they do not care about the soldiers. These are the same people who lied about One Rank One Pension. It is our government which implemented One Rank One Pension, gave more than Rs 1.25 lakh crore to ex-servicemen. These are the same people who did not build a war memorialThese are the same people who did not provide adequate bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border

#WATCH | On the Agnipath scheme, PM Narendra Modi says, "The history of those who are misleading the youth of the country shows that they do not care about the soldiers. These are the same people who lied about One Rank One Pension. It is our government which implemented One Rank https://t.co/dSygFxGqDp pic.twitter.com/NPWON70E2j  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also met with the families of the heroes of Kargil War.

#WATCH | Ladakh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets the families of the heroes of Kargil War on the occasion of 25th #KargilVijayDiwas2024 pic.twitter.com/sFWZMGDIW6  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

PM Modi also virtually carried out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel project.

The Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1 km long Twin-Tube tunnel which will be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet on the Nimu  Padum  Darcha Road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh. Once completed, it will be the highest tunnel in the world.

#WATCH | Ladakh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi virtually carries out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel project



Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1 km long Twin-Tube tunnel which will be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet on the Nimu  Padum  Darcha pic.twitter.com/ISobHEhkzl  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

Soon after reaching Ladakh on Friday morning, PM Modi Modi paid tributes to the heroes of the 1999 Kargil War at Kargil War Memorial in Dras on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas.

The Prime Minister laid wreath at the Kargil War Memorial as he paid homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty in the Kargil war.

VIDEO | PM Modi (@narendramodi) lays wreath at Kargil War Memorial, Dras, Ladakh, as he pays homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty, on the occasion of 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas.#KargilVijayDiwas2024 #KargilVijayDiwasRajatJayanti



(Full pic.twitter.com/n6wHH5bauf  Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) July 26, 2024

The Kargil War was launched in response to the infiltration of Pakistani soldiers and terrorists into the Kargil sector of Ladakh, where they had occupied strategic positions. It ended on July 26, 1999.

The Kargil Vijay Diwas is observed annually on this day to commemorate Indias victory against Pakistan at Kargil district in Ladakh.

During the Kargil War, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists.

#WATCH | Ladakh: Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to the heroes of the Kargil War at Kargil War Memorial in Kargil on the occasion of 25th #KargilVijayDiwas2024 pic.twitter.com/T8HVHcpU5H  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

The Pakistani army had initially denied allegations about its involvement in the war. It had claimed that it was caused by the Kashmiri terrorists. However, documents left behind by casualties and testimony of POWs contradicted the claims.

Later, the then Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Staff Pervez Musharrafs Pakistan Army Chief noted the involvement of the Pakistani paramilitary forces. These forces were led by General Ashraf Rashid.

Kargil War Memorial

The Indian Army built the Kargil War Memorial in memory of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the war. Located in the Kargil district of Ladakh near the Line of Control (LoC), it is also known as the Dras War Memorial.
The IMD issued red alert for Mumbai on Friday, but despite that the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that the educational institutes will function normal on July 26 read more

Mumbai is under red alert as the commercial capital of India witnessed incessant heavy rainfall over the past few days that left most low lying areas submerged in water. The alert by the IMD suggests that the city will experience more heavy rain on Friday following which the Mumbai Police has asked people to stay indoors, but schools and colleges have not declared holiday.

More rains and thunderstorms will likely throw life out of gear as Mumbai roads will be waterlogged, there will be traffic snarls and the lifeline of city Mumbai local will be delayed or cancelled.

Advertisement

The Mumbai Police in a post on X said, IMD has declared a Red alert for Mumbai Requesting all Mumbaikars to stay indoors, until essential. Please stay safe.

In its bulletin on Thursday, the weather department said isolated heavy rainfall will likely be over parts of Central Maharashtra, the Konkan region, and other areas of the state on July 26 and 27.

BMC schools open despite Mumbai police asking people to stay indoor

Advertisement

Citing the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the Mumbai Police warned the people of heavy rain on Friday, but the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) late Thursday said that the weather and rainfall in the city are normal, and the educational institutes will function normal on July 26.

The weather and rainfall in Mumbai are normal at present, allowing life in the metropolitan city to proceed smoothly. As a result, all schools and colleges in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) area will remain open on a regular basis tomorrow, Friday, 26th July 2024, the BMC said in a post on X.

 The weather and rainfall in Mumbai are normal at present, allowing life in the metropolitan city to proceed smoothly.



 As a result, all schools and colleges in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) area will remain open on a regular basis tomorrow, Friday, 26th July   Mumbai,  BMC (@mybmc) July 25, 2024

Advertisement

The municipal body also requested parents not to believe any other information or rumors regarding school and college holidays and to only rely on official information from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation.

On Thursday, a dozen flights were cancelled and around 10 were diverted to nearby areas after heavy rains in Mumbai.

Railway tracks were submerged under water, resulting in delays and cancellation of several local trains on Thursday.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde convened a high-level meeting with Deputy Chief Ministers Ajit Pawar and Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday to review the relief and rescue operations.

Advertisement

The Chief Minister informed that teams of NDRF, SDRF units, Army, Navy, police, fire brigade and doctors have been mobilised across the state to speed up the relief operations and to provide help.

Rain claims 6 lives in Maharashtra

As many as four people have died - three were electrocuted - in Pune and two drowned after falling into Thanes Barvi Dam.
In a detailed submission to the Supreme Court, the government said that the directive was issued in response to complaints from Kanwariyas who reportedly expressed concerns about the food provided along the route, according to a report read more

Kanwariyas walk past a shop on which banners with shopkeeper's name was put up on Kanwar Marg following an order issued by Uttar Pradesh Government. PTI File

The Uttar Pradesh government has strongly defended its order in the Supreme Court requiring shop owners along the Kanwar Yatra route to display their nameplates prominently, saying that the directive was issued to ensure a peaceful and orderly pilgrimage.

According to an NDTV report, in a detailed submission to the Supreme Court, the government said that the directive was issued in response to complaints from Kanwariyas who reportedly expressed concerns about the food provided along the route.

Advertisement

There were worries about whether the food was being prepared according to religious practices, added the report.

Terming the order discriminatory, the Supreme Court on Monday had issued a stay on the order that required eatery owners along the Kanwar Yatra route to publicly display the names of their owners and staff.

The decision came during the hearing of a plea filed by an NGO, the Association of Protection of Civil Rights, challenging the orders of the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments.

Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra had also approached the Supreme Court regarding this controversial issue.

The petition sought a stay on the orders, arguing that they could escalate communal tensions and were intended to impose a socially enforced economic boycott on Muslim-owned shops.

The Kanwar Yatra, an annual pilgrimage where devotees of Lord Shiva, known as Kanwariyas, travel to fetch holy water from the Ganges River, sees millions of participants each year.

With inputs from agencies
It was on July 4 that the Indian Army changed the course of the Kargil War after capturing the strategically important Tiger Hill, providing a major psychological boost to operations and hurting the morale of Pakistani troops. On the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, we tell you all about the feat read more

A commemorative trek in 2019 to Tiger Hill by men from 18 Grenadiers, the unit that played a key role in the recapture of the hill. Image courtesy: @ShivAroor/X

When we speak of the Kargil War of 1999, the photograph of soldiers standing tall on Tiger Hill with the national flag remains one of the most indelible memories in Indian history.

It was on July 4, 25 years ago that soldiers from the Indian Army displayed great gallantry and bravery to capture Tiger Hill, which became a major turning point in the Operation Vijay campaign.

Tiger Hill, a majestic mountain that is 5,307 metres high (17,410 feet), stands heads and shoulders above all other mountains and dominates the Drass bowl. Its location made the mountain the watchman of Drass. It was believed that the one who had control of the peak would have a strategic advantage over the other in the war that was being fought by India and Pakistan. The picturesque Tiger Hill became a war symbol to everyone in the country.

Advertisement

Heres a recap of the events that led to the 13-hour gun battle with the Pakistani troops and how it changed the course of the war in 1999.

Background to Tiger Hill battle

In May 1999, Pakistani troops began large-scale infiltrations into the Indian territory along the Line of Control (LoC).

Hundreds of Pakistan Army troopers intruded into the mountainous region of Jammu and Kashmirs Kargil district. The military operation against India was planned by General Pervez Musharraf, the then-chief of the Pakistan Army and three other generals: Mohammad Aziz, Javed Hassan and Mahmud Ahmad.

In late May, the Army was made aware that the enemy (Pakistani troops of 12 Northern Light Infantry, supported by Special Services Group, artillery and engineers) had acquired control of Tiger Hill.

With this, the Pakistani troops could effectively interdict vehicular movement on these roads with observed artillery fire. It was clear to the Army that unless Tiger Hill and Point 4875, which is located two km to its southwest, were secured, movement along NH 1A would never be safe.

Role of 18 Grenadiers and 8 Sikh

The task of recapturing Tiger Hill was given to the 18 Grenadiers by GOC, 8 Mountain Division. 8 Sikh had been in contact with the enemy for some time and had isolated Tiger Hill from three directions. The battalion provided a firm base to 18 Grenadiers for the attack on Tiger Hill.

Advertisement

Simultaneously, 8 Sikh was tasked to simulate attacks from the southern and northern directions. Tiger Hill extends about 2,200 metres from west to east and about 1,000 metres north to south.

The main extension is towards the west on which there are two prominent protrusions. The first, approximately 500 metres West of Tiger Hill, had been named India Gate, and the second, another 300 metres to the West, was called Helmet. Approximately one company of Pakistan 12 Northern Light Infantry held the whole feature.

As General Ved Malik, the then Chief of Army Staff, recounts that the assault began at 7 pm on 3 July 1999 with direct and indirect firing by artillery. The 18 Grenadiers moved towards the objective from the south and northeast. Lt Balwan Singh led the Ghatak Platoon (Commando) of 18 Grenadiers on the most difficult, north- eastern approach.

Advertisement

His platoon made use of the rope to reach the top of Tiger Hill at 4.30 hours and totally surprised the enemy that had already suffered due to heavy artillery shelling and air attacks. In the ensuing hand-to-hand fighting, the enemy lost 10-12 personnel. 18 Grenadiers suffered six fatal casualties. At 0800 hours that morning, the Indian Tricolour was ceremonially hoisted on Tiger Hill Top with the honour and respect that only soldiers are capable of.

Two years ago, General Malik recounting that day said, Early morning, GOC 15 Corps rang up to inform that 18 Grenadiers had captured Tiger Hill Top.

Advertisement

1. 4 Jul 1999. I had been anxious all through previous night. Early morning, GOC 15 Corps rang up to inform that 18 GRENADIERS had captured Tiger Hill Top. Heavy fighting was going on. 0730h, GOC 8 Mtn Div confirmed that enemy would not be able dislodge us from Tiger Hill now.+  Ved Malik (@Vedmalik1) July 4, 2022

Reactions to the victory

Then President K R Narayanan hailed the recapture of Tiger Hill and said it was a moment of great pride and satisfaction for the entire nation.

We applaud the unparalleled bravery, perseverance and commitment of our soldiers  young officers and jawans  who have made this achievement possible, he said.

The then Defence Minister George Fernandes and Army Chief General VP Malik also congratulated the armed forces for the triumph.

Former chief of Army staff, General Shankar Roy Chowdhury (retired) said the recapture of the strategic Tiger Hill was the greatest event for the Indian Army since the Bangladesh war. It was a tremendous victory of our Armed Forces. I am delighted, and proud of our boys who have done the job, he said.

Honoured for their bravery

The soldiers of the battalion were honoured with several medals and gallantry awards for their bravery and grit throughout the operations. Subedar Major (then Grenadier) Yogendra Singh Yadav became the youngest person to be awarded the Param Vir Chakra. His presence of mind and bravery helped the men to climb the cliff as he was the first to reach the top and killed four enemy soldiers. Yadav further engaged four other enemy soldiers with two of his fellow soldiers and killed them in hand-to-hand combat. Yadav was wounded with 14 bullets piercing him but he survived well to narrate his story.

Havildar Madan Lal who fought with valour and pride was awarded the Vir Chakra posthumously. The battalion was also awarded the Unit Citation and honoured with the title Bravest of the Brave.

With inputs from agencies
The Kargil War of 1999 was a decisive moment in Indias military history where a blend of modern weaponry and strategic brilliance enabled India to reclaim control over its territory in the challenging terrains of Jammu and Kashmir read more

The Kargil War, fought between India and Pakistan from May to July 1999, was a conflict that tested Indias military capabilities in high-altitude warfare. The Indian Army detected the intrusions between May 3 and May 12, 1999. The Indian Army identified the intrusions occurring from May 3 to May 12, 1999. The subsequent strategic planning for operations took place from May 15 to May 25, 1999. On May 26, 1999, the Indian Army launched Operation Vijay, a coordinated infantry and artillery assault with air support against regular Pakistani soldiers of the Northern Light Infantry occupying high-altitude mountain peaks and ridgelines. The operation aimed to evict the Pakistani intruders.

Advertisement

This conflict saw the Indian Armed Forces using a range of advanced weapons and tactical strategies to reclaim strategic positions infiltrated by Pakistani forces. The battle, fought in the challenging terrain of the Kargil district in Jammu and Kashmir, showcased Indias military prowess and the critical role of weaponry in modern warfare.

Indian Armys arsenal

Artillery and fire support

A key component of Indias success in the Kargil War was the effective use of artillery. The Bofors FH-77B howitzer, a 155mm artillery gun, played a crucial role due to its remarkable accuracy and range. This gun was instrumental in softening enemy bunkers and disrupting their supply lines making it one of the wars standout weapons. The artillery barrage was so devastating that the Indian Army captured Tiger Hill and Point 4875 on July 5 and Mashkoh Valley on July 7, 1999. In recognition of the artillerys outstanding performance in the Drass and Mashkoh sub-sectors, the Indian Army renamed Point 4875 as Gun Hill.

The Indian Army also employed the BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher system to deliver saturation fire over enemy positions creating a significant impact in strategic areas. M-46 field guns, with their 130mm calibre, were used for long-range barrages, effectively targeting enemy lines and fortifications. Additionally, mortars such as the L16 81mm and 120mm mortars were vital for indirect fire support providing infantry units with crucial backup in mountainous terrains where direct engagements were challenging.

Infantry weapons

Indian infantry units were equipped with a variety of small arms that proved essential for close-quarter combat in the challenging terrain of Kargil. The INSAS rifle, chambered in 5.5645mm NATO, served as the standard-issue assault rifle for the troops. It provided a reliable balance of range and accuracy. The AKM, a modernised version of the AK-47, was preferred by certain units for its reliability in harsh conditions. Additionally, the 1A1 Self-Loading Rifle (SLR), chambered in 7.6251mm NATO, was employed for its powerful firing capability though it was being phased out at the time in favour of newer models.

Advertisement

The Pinaka Multi-Barrel Rocket Launcher was instrumental in inflicting significant damage on enemy infantry during the Kargil War. Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and mounted on trucks, each unit comprises 12 rockets capable of firing within 44 seconds. The Mark-1 and Mark-2 variants have a range of 40 kilometres, while the Mark-3 extends this range to 65 kilometres.

To address the need for anti-tank measures and bunker destruction, the Indian Army used the Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle, known for its effectiveness against armoured vehicles and fortified positions. Portable anti-aircraft missiles, such as the Igla and Strela-2, were also deployed to counter any potential aerial threats, offering defensive capabilities against low-flying enemy aircraft.

Advertisement

Armoured vehicles

Despite the rugged terrain limiting the deployment of armoured vehicles, the Indian Army successfully used T-72 tanks and BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles in areas where conditions allowed. These vehicles provided crucial mobility and firepower aiding infantry in reclaiming strategic points. The T-72 tanks, although primarily suited for plains warfare, were adapted for the conditions, providing heavy fire support when needed though their overall role was limited due to the geographical constraints.

Indian Air Force: Air supremacy and precision strikes

Aircraft and missions

Naming its operation Safedsagar, the Indian Air Force (IAF) played a pivotal role in the Kargil conflict through strategic air strikes and maintaining air superiority. The Mirage 2000 emerged as a gamechanger, particularly due to its precision strike capabilities. Equipped with Paveway II laser-guided bombs (LGBs), the Mirage 2000 targeted enemy bunkers with remarkable accuracy significantly aiding ground forces.

Advertisement

The IAF also deployed MiG-21, MiG-27 and MiG-29 fighters for various roles including air superiority missions, ground attacks and close air support. The MiG-29 was instrumental in providing air cover ensuring dominance over the Kargil skies. Jaguars, or SEPECAT Jaguars, were employed for deep penetration strikes, targeting enemy supply lines rather than fortified positions and using unguided bombs effectively.

Aerial weapons

In addition to precision bombs, the IAF utilised a range of missiles to ensure comprehensive aerial coverage. Air-to-air missiles, such as the R-60 (AA-8 Aphid) and R-73 (AA-11 Archer), equipped Indian fighters for engaging aerial threats effectively. For ground strikes, air-to-ground missiles like the Kh-29 and Kh-59 provided further precision enabling the IAF to dismantle well-fortified enemy installations and logistical targets.

Advertisement

Helicopters played a critical role

Helicopters played a multifaceted role in the Kargil War, providing essential support to the Indian Armed Forces across various operations. They were indispensable in both logistical and combat roles offering the agility and flexibility needed to operate effectively in the harsh terrain of the Kargil region.

Cheetah: This light utility helicopter used for reconnaissance and casualty evacuation capable of operating at high altitudes.

Chetak: Another light utility helicopter, Chetak, employed for observation and casualty evacuation missions known for its manoeuvrability in confined spaces.

Mi-17: This medium-lift helicopter modified for combat support roles including troop deployment, resupply missions and aerial strikes with mounted weaponry.

Mi-8: A medium-lift helicopter, Mi-8, was used for transporting troops and delivering logistical support to frontline units in remote areas.

Indian Navys strategic role

While the Indian Navy did not engage directly in combat operations in the mountainous regions, it played a strategic role through Operation Talwar. The navy enforced a preventive measure by positioning itself to deter any naval interference by Pakistan effectively ensuring that no maritime conflict could arise. This strategic posture contributed to the overall pressure on Pakistan by safeguarding Indias maritime interests and maintaining a broader regional stability.

Strategy and tactics

The success of the Kargil War can be attributed to the effective combination of military strategy and weaponry. The Indian Armed Forces adopted a coordinated approach involving artillery barrages to weaken enemy positions followed by precision airstrikes to dismantle fortifications. Subsequently, infantry units advanced to secure reclaimed territories often engaging in intense close-quarter battles.

Lessons learned and impact

The Kargil War was a demonstration of Indias military prowess showcasing the critical role of modern weaponry and strategy in contemporary conflicts. The conflict underscored the need for continued modernisation of Indias military capabilities particularly in high-altitude warfare. The lessons learnt from Kargil prompted significant upgrades in Indias military arsenal focussing on enhancing precision strike capabilities, high-altitude readiness and strategic planning. This war reinforced the importance of integrating technology with traditional combat methods to effectively address challenges in future conflicts.
Yesterday, the Ministry of External Affairs reminded Mamata about the provisions of the Constitution, saying that only the Union Government has the right to conduct foreign affairs and all matters which bring the Union into the relation with any foreign country read more

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday launched an attack against the Ministry of External Affairs for objecting to her shelter remark for Bangladeshi refugees.

Last week, Bangladesh protested West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees shelter remark, saying her remarks were provocative and had false elements concerning the internal affairs of Bangladesh.

Yesterday, the Ministry of External Affairs reminded Mamata about the provisions of the Constitution, saying that only the Union Government has the right to conduct foreign affairs and all matters which bring the Union into the relation with any foreign country.

Advertisement

Dont teach me

I know the federal structure very well. I was an MP seven times, I was a Union minister twice. I know the MEA policy better than anyone else. They shouldnt teach me a lesson; they should learn from the system instead, the Trinamool Congress supremo said.

She added that since Bangladesh shares the border with West Bengal she is obliged to give shelter to those who cross the border as per the UN resolution.

Your browser does not support the video tag.

What did Mamata say before?

Banerjee, on July 21, during an address said that her government would provide assistance to whoever comes knocking at our doors and provide shelter to people coming to India from the turmoil-hit country.

I cannot speak anything about Bangladesh as it is another country. The Indian government will speak about that. But if helpless people (from Bangladesh) knock on Bengals door, we will give them shelter. There is a resolution of the UN. Neighbours will respect refugees, she said on the occasion of Martyrs Day.

Later in a post on X, the Trinamool Congress supremo reiterated her governments support for students who returned to West Bengal.

She said, Hundreds of students and others are returning to West Bengal/ India, from the trouble-torn Bangladesh. I have asked our State administration to render all help and assistance to the returnees.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the NITI Aayog lacks the coordination with state governments that the Planning Commission had read more

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has called for the scrapping of NITI Ayog, the premier central government think tank.

Mamata, also the supremo of Trinamool Congress (TMC), has also called for the return of Planning Commission, the predecessor of NITI Aayog.

In 2014, after Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister of India, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government scrapped the Planning Commission and replaced it with the NITI Aayog. The idea said to be behind the move was that a new-age institution was needed to address the needs of a world with a market economy and the Planning Commission, a socialist-era institution formed in 1950, was no longer apt for the job.

Advertisement

Planning Commission had structure, worked with states

Meanwhile, Mamata on Friday said that Planning Commission had a structure and worked in coordination with the states  unlike the NITI Aayog.

Remove NITI Aayog and bring back the Planning Commission. It had a structure. It built infrastructure in the country. The Planning Commission was the idea of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, said Mamata, as per India Today.

Mamata further said that the NITI Aayog lacks the authority and coordination with state governments that the Planning Commission used to have.

The NITI Aayog has no powers. It doesnt work in coordination with the state governments, said Mamata.

Mamata is in Delhi to attend the meeting of the NITI Aayog on Saturday. Except for Mamata, all chief ministers of INDIA bloc have boycotted the meeting, according to The Wire. These leaders are Himachal Pradeshs Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu, Karnatakas Siddaramaiah, and Telanganas Revanth Reddy from Congress; Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin of DMK; Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann of AAP; Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan of CPI (M); Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), as per the report.

Mamata said that she would raise the issues for all INDIA-ruled states.

I will raise issues not only for Bengal but for all INDIA bloc-governed states. It is supposed to be cooperative federalism, but they are biased. They are conducting an economic blockade of INDIA bloc-governed states, said Mamata, as per India Today.
Given Pakistans long-standing focus and policy of thousand cuts to bleed India, its Kargil misadventure was a strategic calculus whose final outcome it could not anticipate. From the military point of view, Pakistans military spotted a weakness in Indias defence when India tried to make friends with Pakistan and tried to capture Kargil hills read more

The Kargil war of 1999 stands as a stark reminder of Pakistans strategic manoeuvring amid its complex relationship with India. Today is the 25th anniversary of the formal ending of the war; India celebrates it as the Kargil Vijay Diwas (the Day of Kargil Victory) with a series of official functions. This year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the nation in saluting the soldiers who ensured victory of the Indian forces.

Advertisement

Rooted in historical precedent and contemporary geopolitical dynamics, Pakistans military incursion into the Kargil sector along the Line of Control (LoC) that keeps the two forces on the opposite sides was a military move that underscored a shift in its strategic calculus.

To understand why and how Pakistan decided to invade Kargil, knowing fully well that the Indian forces who left these hilltops during snowy winters would come back, and when they did they would come back hard, it is important to look for the answers to a few questions. We would come to those questions individually broadly later. Lets first see the context that gave Pakistan the motivation for this foolhardy misadventure.

Shock that wasnt a total surprise: Historical context and strategic precedent

Historically, Pakistan has employed unconventional warfare tactics during periods of heightened tensions with India. The use of irregular forces and covert operations dates back to the 1947-48 and 1965 India-Pakistan wars, where such tactics were at the core of Pakistans planning and pivotal in the initial stages of hostilities.

Barely two months after the Partition of India, creating Pakistan as a separate nation, its Pakistani leadership plotted to surprise Indian forces. Smitten by its infatuation for Kashmir, Pakistan sent its regular forces mixed with tribal militias in October 1947 to Kashmir from the northwest, primarily through the regions of Muzaffarabad and Gilgit. The aim was to capture key areas and create a fait accompli to justify Kashmirs accession to Pakistan  an ambition denied at Partition.

Advertisement

Again in July-August 1965, Pakistan launched a covert operation named Operation Gibraltar to capture Kashmir by inciting a rebellion in the Valley, expecting local support and a rapid collapse of Indian control in the region. But it didnt get the popular support it had imagined, and Indias response was resolute. The limited incursion turned into a full-scale war in September 1965, forcing Pakistan to come to the negotiating table in Tashkent, where a peace agreement was signed.

These actions were often aimed at gaining strategic leverage before conventional warfare ensued. However, the Kargil incursion marked a departure from this pattern. Unlike previous wars, which saw deteriorating political relations preceding military action, the Kargil operation occurred despite relatively stable diplomatic ties between Islamabad and New Delhi.

Advertisement

Shifting strategies: From proxy warfare to direct infiltration

The Kargil operation represented a strategic evolution of Pakistans India policy. It appeared to move beyond its traditional reliance on proxy warfare facilitated by infiltration of mercenaries.

Instead, the intrusion saw the deployment of regular Pakistani military personnel disguised as Mujahideen, a tactic reminiscent of Pakistans involvement in Afghanistan, where military personnel posed as Taliban forces.

This shift underscored Pakistans intent to employ a more direct and overt military strategy against India, leveraging the advantageous terrain of Kargil where the Line of Control (LoC) was lightly held due to extreme climatic conditions.

Primary motivations and key considerations

Advertisement

Pakistans decision to launch hostilities in Kargil can be attributed to a combination of long-term strategic considerations and immediate domestic political imperatives. Strategically, Pakistans military planners viewed the incursion as a means to assert territorial control and disrupt Indian logistical routes, particularly the critical National Highway 1 Alpha that went up to the Siachen Glacier. Pakistan hoped to alter the status quo along the LoC and bolster its position to force a solution in its favour of the Kashmir dispute.

Pakistan has long claimed Kashmir as a territory that should have gone to it at the Partition. Legal records in accordance with the Indian Independence Act of 1947 showed Jammu and Kashmir legally acceded to India after Pakistan invaded the territory then ruled by a king.

Advertisement

The Indian Independence Act was enacted by the UK Parliament that granted freedom to India from 190-year-long British rule and also created Pakistan, a country for Muslims as demanded by the Muslim League  the rival of the Indian National Congress which had led Indias freedom struggle - and its leader Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who is now known as the Father of Pakistan. India has always cited legal records to dismiss Pakistans claim over Jammu and Kashmir.

However, for Pakistan, Kashmir has been a political bread and butter, and an impossible military dream. Domestically, the Kargil operation served as a distraction from internal governance issues and economic challenges plaguing the Nawaz Sharif administration. With a history of coups, Pakistans military saw a window to power under the circumstances.

It is, however, not clear whether Sharif actually had no idea about the Pakistan Armys Kargil designs. He has maintained this stand in public all these years.Facing criticism and unrest at home, particularly following economic hardships exacerbated by post-nuclear test sanctions, Kargil episode looked like a perfect fit for the government seeking to divert public attention outward, rallying national sentiment behind a perceived external threat. The Pakistani military leadership was ready with the design in any case.

Pakistans insecurity syndrome and strategic implications

At its core, Pakistans strategic behaviour in Kargil reflected deep-rooted insecurities stemming from its asymmetric power dynamic vis-a-vis India. Pakistan, with its smaller size and population compared to its neighbour, has historically tom-tommed Indias size and military capabilities as existential threats despite the fact that in all wars, provocations have come from Pakistan.

However, this belief of Pakistan has shaped its national security strategy, driving it to adopt measures aimed at maintaining a balance of power through military assertiveness and strategic initiatives.

The introduction of nuclear weapons further complicated this dynamic, providing Pakistan with a perceived deterrent against Indias conventional military superiority while simultaneously raising the stakes in any potential conflict.

This strategic backdrop influenced Pakistans decision-making in Kargil, where the deployment of military forces was seen not only as a tactical move but also as a statement of Pakistans security concerns and its readiness to defend its perceived interests vigorously.

Now, lets address the questions we referred to earlier in this piece.

Why Pakistan hoped to get from its Kargil incursion plan?

Pakistans planning of the Kargil incursion was driven by both strategic and domestic political considerations.

Strategically, Pakistan aimed to assert control over the area that moved the LoC further into Indian territories.

Logistically, it could have pressured Indias highway to Siachen Glacier  the highest military post in the world.

Why did Pakistan timed the Kargil incursion when it did?

India was not suspecting Pakistan to betray the trust that their political leaderships had shown in full public view.

Pakistan was facing serious internal governance issues (distrust with the military establishment was growing) and economic challenges that the country had perennially faced.

A military conflict with India had the potential to provide a perfect distraction for both the domestic audience and international community, particularly the US, which until then sought to take Pakistan help and believed that the terror and other problems of the country was not a matter of policy but a consequence of poverty.

How did the Kargil incursion reflect Pakistans strategic posture in South Asia?

For a long time Pakistan had played the victim card, saying that the British treated India favourably at the Partition  a charge not proven by facts; Pakistan got a larger portion of land for its share of population, and more importantly it got regions of geopolitical advantage for being closer to Central Asia.

Pakistan hoped that if India could be pushed into accepting the new LoC, with possible help from the US, the outcome would boost its stature in South Asia significantly. But in doing so, Pakistan exposed itself to its long-time benefactor, and slipped out of favour.

What were the implications of the Kargil war for Pakistan in terms of international standing?

The Kargil war strained Pakistans diplomatic relations with other countries, particularly drawing international attention to the volatile India-Pakistan relationship and concerns about regional stability. This tilted the geostrategic balance towards India, which responded with restraint in hitting back at Pakistani intruders. Vajpayee was categorical in his messaging to the Indian forces about not to cross the LoC.

Pakistans unilateral military actions in Kargil highlighted the risks of escalation and underscored the importance of diplomatic engagement in managing conflict.

The international community, including the US, was forced to intervene diplomatically to urge restraint and de-escalation, criticising Pakistan for incursion and destabilising the region.

The fallout underscored the need for coordinated diplomatic efforts and highlighted the disconnect between Pakistans military strategy and broader diplomatic objectives.

And finally, what lessons can be drawn from the Kargil war about South Asian security dynamics?

The Kargil war serves as a cautionary tale regarding the risks inherent in unilateral military actions and the imperative of diplomatic engagement to mitigate conflict escalation.

The Kargil war underscored that Pakistan was far from matching Indias military might despite the complexities of international security dynamics, and that no major power would side with Pakistan in the post-Cold War era against India if it continued to needle its eastern neighbour with another military misadventure.

Pakistans military incursion into the Kargil sector, though, marked a strategic shift by the country towards direct military engagement with India and the use of regular armed forces in territories it had eyed for all the decades of its existence, the outcome established India as the leading yet responsible power of South Asia. It also exposed Pakistan at various levels. The absence of coordinated diplomatic efforts exacerbated Pakistans isolation on the international stage, highlighting the disconnect between its military strategy and broader diplomatic objectives.
Fighter operations in Ladakh and Arunachal have been going up, but fighter squadrons remain at an all-time low, and the strength must quickly go up from the current 31 squadrons to the authorised 42. Image: Wikimedia Commons

The India-China faceoff in Galwan in 2020 was the worst-ever border tension since the India-Pakistan Kargil War of 1999. The Chinese army had diverted a significant number of troops, who were carrying out a large exercise, towards various points of the Line of Actual Control (LAC) on its side. Transgressions were reported at multiple locations in eastern Ladakh, in the larger Hot Springs area, and in the Finger area of Pangong Lake. This skirmish came despite the world being under severe China-originated Covid-19 pandemic.

Advertisement

India found such behaviour both surprising and belligerent. The Indian military gave a befitting response. Not only did it hold ground, but it also did tit-for-tat strategic land grabs. Both sides continue to hold last-held ground for the past three years. Their deployed numbers remain enhanced. Both sides have accelerated the pace of infrastructure building. Additional weapon platforms have been brought in. Newer combat equipment, such as light battle tanks, is being developed. Even after 21 rounds of military commander-level talks, the stalemate continues.

Meanwhile, as India celebrates 25 years of Kargil War victory, it is time to look at the lessons that continue to apply to the face-off on LAC.

Pakistani Game Plan in Kargil

India was forced into the Kargil War when General Pervez Musharraf ordered the Pakistani Army to occupy Indian posts, which were traditionally vacated every winter and reoccupied in the summer. The Pakistani plan was to dominate the Srinagar-Kargil Highway and cut off the important road link to Ladakh. Even the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) was not kept in the loop. On one hand, it was the repeat infiltration plan of the Pakistan Army, and on the other, it was a failure of Indian intelligence.

The Kargil War was fought between India and Pakistan from May 3 to July 26, 1999, at one of the highest battlefields in the world. The leadership and valour of young officers that motivated and led brave jawans was internationally acclaimed. Indian Air Forces (IAF) air operations code named Operation Safed Sagar supported a decisive victory for Indian forces. Nearly 500 Indian soldiers were killed in action, and Pakistan lost over 700 soldiers.

It was also the first direct conventional war between two newly declared nuclear weapon states. The employment of air power and its escalation dynamics were deliberated at length by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) before IAF was given go ahead on May 25, 1999, to mount unrestricted attacks on the infiltrators, albeit without crossing the Line of Control (LoC). The full scale air operations began on 26 May.

Advertisement

IAF Initial Losses and Change of Strategy

On 27 May itself, the IAF lost a MiG-27 strike aircraft piloted by Flt Lt Nachiketa, which had an engine failure due to high-altitude rocket firing. He was taken a Prisoner of War (POW). Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja, who was escorting Nachiketa, flying a MiG 21, descended trying to trace the downed pilot despite the threat from Surface to Air Missiles (SAM) and was shot down by a Stinger shoulder-fired missile. The following day, a Mi-17 was shot down, with the loss of all four crew, when hit by a SAM. The aircraft did not have a serviceable IR flare dispenser. These losses forced the IAF to reassess its strategy.

Advertisement

The helicopters were immediately withdrawn from offensive roles. All bombing hereafter was from high altitude. Mirage 2000 aircraft with Laser Guided Bombs (LGB) were inducted. All other fighters carried out attacks using gravity bombs. Nearly 100 SAMs were fired during the remaining war, but there were no further hits or losses. IAF learned the hard way.

Precision Bombing: A Game Changer

The targets in Kargil were at 16-18,000 ft. Most aircraft and weapons are not designed for delivery at such high altitudes. No one had ever practiced weapon delivery at these heights. The restriction of not crossing the LoC put limitations on choices of attack directions for strike aircraft. To avoid SAMs, the aircraft had to pull out of the attack at above 30,000 ft. IAF had to use ingenuity, Indian Jugaad, to modify aircraft and aiming systems to achieve direct hits at those heights. IAF targeted small bunkers, enemy gun positions and logistic camps. IAF struck enemy positions in Muntho Dhalo, Tiger Hill and Point 4388 in the Dras Sector.

Advertisement

The precision delivery of laser guided bombs and also dumb bombs by Mirage 2000, Mig-27, Jaguar, and MiG-21 aircraft not only helped turn the tide of war and hastened the recapture of high mountain peaks but also greatly reduced Indian Army casualties. A testament to the effectiveness of the IAFs attacks came when Pakistans Foreign Minister, Sartaj Aziz, during an official visit to New Delhi at the peak of the war on June 12, 1999, implored to stop the air strikes as one of the requests he made to the Indian government.

Air Effort

As per the Ministry of Defence annual report, a total of 7831 sorties were flown by IAF. As many as 1730 by fighters (22.7 per cent), 3427 by transport aircraft (44.9 per cent) and 2474 by helicopters (32.4 per cent). Nearly 48 per cent of fighter sorties were for strike missions. Another 39 per cent for Air Defence Combat Air Patrol (CAP) and Escort missions. Nearly 13 per cent were for Recce missions.

Advertisement

Nuclear Bluff Called

Despite Pakistani foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmads statement on May 31 warning that an escalation of the limited conflict could lead Pakistan to use any weapon in its arsenal, Pakistans oft repeated nuclear threat bluff was exposed. The possibility of a conventional war under nuclear overhang was re-established.

Post Kargil Review and Actions

The Kargil Review Committee report highlighted the lack of interagency coordination between RAW, IB, and military intelligence just prior to the war. Even human intelligence was found to be weak. A thorough review of the entire national security system was carried out.

Based on the report, a full-time National Security Advisor (NSA) was instituted. Improved aerial surveillance using Indian RISAT satellites and UAVs has been put in place. A centralised communication and electronic intelligence agency, the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), was set up in 2004. The Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) has been set up. Based on recommendations, the Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), the Andaman and Nicobar Command, the Nuclear Command Authority, the Strategic Forces Command, and the Defence Acquisition Council, among others, were set up.

More recently, the Defence Space and Cyber Agencies and a Special Forces division have been created. And finally, the dawn of 2020 saw the post of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS). The formation of theatre commands is at the advanced stage of discussions. The only thing left is the most important genuine civil-military integration in MoD.

IAF Upgrades Post Kargil

Post-Kargil, the IAF co-developed the Sukhoi Su-30 MKI fighters with Russia. It also upgraded its Jaguars, MiG 29, and Mirage 2000 aircraft with the latest weapons and avionics. Two squadrons of Light Combat Aircraft have been inducted. LCA Mk1A is getting ready for delivery, albeit there are some delays. As many as 36 Rafale cover both the eastern and northern sectors of LAC. There has been a massive increase in transport aircraft capacity with Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, Lockheed C-130J, and Airbus C-295W inductions. Similarly, the helicopter fleet got a boost with the Boeing Chinook and Apache induction. A large number of ALH variants, including the Light Combat Helicopter have been inducted.

BrahMos missiles have been added in large numbers, and more potent variants are being developed. Three units of the potent S400 AD system are in place. Two more will induct soon. The indigenous Akash AD system, and Astra BVR missiles are in service. The Rafale brought the world class MBDA Meteor missile. All new acquisitions are cleared for operations at Himalayan heights.

IAF acquired its Flight Refuelling Aircraft (FRA) and AWACS after the Kargil War. The numbers are inadequate for operations against the northern neighbour, and new platforms are under acquisition. UAVs too were inducted only in the last two decades. The numbers are going up, and now drones are being added in large numbers. The country now has dedicated military and surveillance satellites. IAFs secure internal network and Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS) are making a game-changing operational impact.

Additional airfields have become operational both in Ladakh and in the North East. The number of hardened shelters has gone up. All advanced landing grounds have been upgraded. Weapon stocking has gone up considerably. IAF is thus much better off for an air war across the Himalayas.

Growing PLAAF

Chinas Peoples Liberation Army Air Force has seen significant modernisation. It today has nearly 250 J-20 fifth-generation aircraft and close to 1,200 fourth generation fighters, most of which are homegrown. They have a very successful aerial missile program. Nearly 50 indigenous large transport aircraft Y-20 have been inducted. These are being converted into AEW&C and FRA variants. Their H-20 stealthy bomber is slated to fly by 2025. China has a very large UAV and drone industry. China already has three aircraft carriers and a few more under construction.

With nearly three times Indias defence budget, it is in a position to fast-track military growth. But their immediate area of threat and interest is on their east coast, where the US and its allies are putting pressure to prevent an invasion of Taiwan. Bulk of Chinas military is concentrated in the eastern region. Notwithstanding, China has made significant investments in infrastructure in Tibet and Xinjiang across the LAC. China is fast moving to second position in the global power index. India must take all actions to close the military capability gap and certainly not let it grow.

Indias Exposure

China hasnt fought a war since the short one with Vietnam in 1979. PLAAF mainly exercises with the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and more recently with Russia. Their war and exercise exposure is extremely low.

The Indian military has been operating at the highest battleground on earth, the Siachen Glacier. India maintains a very large number of troops in the Himalayas. The Kargil War was at Himalayan heights, and the Indian military has had huge exposure and lessons to learn. The Indian military carries out large scale military exercises with all major military powers, from the US to Australia, Japan to Brazil. Clearly, it is a huge advantage for India.

Lessons from Kargil

The first lesson is to increase the satellite and airborne (fighters and UAV) Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) capability across the LAC. The number of defence satellites has to go up and the latency of ISR pictures is reduced. Electronic intelligence (ELINT) and Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) have to be more current.

Operations in Ladakh could include a full spectrum of air operations, namely counter-air strikes against Chinese airfields, destruction of enemy aircraft in the air, and air defence of Indian assets, including landing strips in the region. India has the airfield altitude and numbers advantage. Neutralising even two Chinese airfields would have a much greater impact than if four Indian airfields were to be out of operations.

Battlefield Air Interdiction (BAI) could be undertaken against Chinese lines of communications, army bridgeheads, troop concentrations, and logistics nodes. The IAF will also have to attack other targets, such as enemy radars. Battlefield strikes would mean taking on adversary troops, bunkers, artillery, and armour engaged in battle with the Indian Army (IA). Fighter aircraft will also use electronic warfare to impede enemy air and ground action. There will be a need for regular Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) missions to plan the next course of action.

Fighter operations in Ladakh and Arunachal have been going up. But fighter squadrons remain at an all-time low, and the strength must quickly go up from the current 31 squadrons to the authorised 42. Meanwhile, the Rafale piloted by much better-trained aircrew will be more than a match for the Chinese J-20 fighters. The Chinese cruise missile carrying H-6 bombers would have to be kept at distance using ground-based and airborne AD assets.

China is likely to use surface-to-surface missiles (SSM). India would also do the same. Indias BrahMos missiles will be very effective in the mountains. The IAF and the Indian Army would have to maintain strong air defences in the area, including the Akash missiles, to counter aerial threats.

Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) have a very important role in the mountains. The IAFs transport and helicopter fleets will be crucial for inter- and intratheater movements and also for inter-valley transfers. The C-17 can carry the T-90 tank. Similarly, the IL-76 can carry a T-72 tank. The C-130 and An-32 can land at Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) airfield. Many tasks will be done by heavy-lift helicopters. The missile-laden attack helicopters will have a great role in interdiction and battlefield attack roles. The IAF will be an active participant in airborne or air-landed operations of Special Forces. Air power will play a crucial role in the mountains and will do India good in the long term.

Way Ahead India

The Kargil conflict with Pakistan was a reckoning event. It represents a prototype of Indias most likely type of future combat challenge against China. Notwithstanding the eventual victory, there were hits and misses, and hopefully the lessons have been imbibed and amends made to fight a future air war in the mountains with greater finesse and accuracy. But a lot more needs to be done.

Quick political calls must be taken to meet the key requirement of the IAF to acquire modern fighter aircraft, AEW&C and FRA to bridge the gap with China. India needs to increase its inventory of SSMs and AD platforms. Drones are becoming a game-changer. Their numbers and employment must be a priority area. Also, many border airfields still need more hardened shelters and other assets. The IAF needs to train more for mountain warfare and weapon delivery. There is a need for more high-altitude firing ranges. I am sure that IAF will not be forced to fight its next war with a plan B.

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.
While India may not be competing directly in Graphics Processing Unit manufacturing, its software-centric approach to AI development could redefine the parameters of technological leadership in the artificial intelligence era read more

As countries seek to diversify their tech partnerships beyond the US-China axis, India's growing AI capabilities and neutral stance could make it an attractive collaborator. REUTERS

In the rapidly evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, a new battleground has emerged thats reshaping the geopolitical tech scene: the race for GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) supremacy. Recent reports of nations stockpiling these powerful chips, essential for training large AI models, have thrust this previously niche hardware into the spotlight of international relations.

Trade Wars

The catalyst for this global GPU grab was the US governments October 2023 export controls on advanced AI chips to China, which have now been tightened further in April 2024. These restrictions, aimed at curbing Chinas AI capabilities, have had far-reaching consequences, sparking a worldwide rush to secure these critical components.

Advertisement

The numbers tell a compelling story. NVIDIA, the leading GPU manufacturer, saw its data centre revenue skyrocket to $18.4 billion in Q4 2023, a staggering 409 per cent increase year-over-year. This surge is largely attributed to the AI-driven demand for high-performance GPUs. Meanwhile, the global AI chip market, valued at $51.2 billion in 2023, is projected to reach $131.8 billion by 2028, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 20.8 per cent.

Chinas response has been swift and decisive. Reports suggest that tech giants like Baidu and Tencent have been amassing NVIDIAs A800 GPUs, the most advanced chips they can legally obtain. This stockpiling isnt just about maintaining AI development pace; its a strategic move to buffer against potential future restrictions.

Strategic Assets

But the implications extend far beyond US-China relations. Countries worldwide are now recognising GPUs as strategic assets crucial for technological and economic competitiveness. The European Union, through its European Chips Act, has pledged 43 billion to double its global semiconductor market share to 20 per cent by 2030. Japan has earmarked $6.8 billion for domestic semiconductor development, while South Korea plans to invest $450 billion in its chip industry over the next decade.

This GPU arms race is more than a tech industry trend; its a microcosm of the broader geopolitical struggles in the AI era. The concentration of AI compute power is stark: a recent study by Stanford Universitys Human-Centred AI Institute found that just 15 companies control 95 per cent of the worlds AI compute resources. This imbalance has profound implications for global AI development and deployment.

The situation raises critical questions about the future of global tech cooperation. Are we heading towards a world of tech isolation, where nations and regions develop parallel, incompatible AI ecosystems? The potential for divergence is real. Chinas alternative GPU designs, like Huaweis Ascend series, are gaining traction, with the company reporting a 130 per cent year-over-year increase in AI computing power sales in 2023.

Advertisement

Moreover, this race highlights the vulnerability of global supply chains. With NVIDIA and AMD dominating the high-end GPU market, controlling over 95 per cent of the discrete GPU market share, countries are acutely aware of their dependence on foreign suppliers for this critical technology. This realisation is driving not just stockpiling but also intensive efforts to develop domestic alternatives.

The environmental impact of this AI arms race cannot be ignored. Training a single large language model can produce over 626,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to the lifetime emissions of five cars. As nations ramp up their AI capabilities, the energy demands and environmental costs could be substantial.

Advertisement

As nations jockey for GPU advantage, we must consider the broader implications. The concentration of AI capabilities in the hands of a few countries could exacerbate global inequalities. Theres also the risk of an AI cold war, where technological barriers become new iron curtains. The World Economic Forum estimates that AI could add $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, but the distribution of these gains is likely to be uneven.

Policymakers face a delicate balance act. They must weigh national security concerns against the benefits of open scientific exchange and global market efficiency. Too restrictive policies could stifle innovation and economic growth, while too lax an approach could compromise strategic interests.

Advertisement

The recent establishment of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council and the Quads focus on technology cooperation demonstrate attempts to navigate this complex landscape. As this high-stakes game unfolds, one thing is clear: the nation or alliance that secures GPU supremacy may well hold the keys to the AI kingdom, and with it, a significant edge in the geopolitical landscape of the 21st century.

Indias Emerging Role in the Global GPU and AI Landscape

In this high-stakes technological contest, India is positioning itself as a unique player, leveraging its software prowess and vast talent pool to carve out a niche in the AI ecosystem. While India may not currently be at the forefront of hardware manufacturing, its strengths in software development and IT services present significant opportunities in the AI and GPU space.

Advertisement

Indias software industry, valued at $227 billion in FY2022 and expected to reach $350 billion by 2026, forms the backbone of its technological capabilities. The country produces 1.5 million engineering graduates annually, creating a vast talent pool for AI and machine learning development. This human capital is Indias key advantage in the global AI race.

Recognising the strategic importance of AI, the Indian government launched the National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in 2018. The strategy focuses on leveraging AI for economic growth and social inclusion, with a particular emphasis on healthcare, agriculture, education, smart cities, and infrastructure.

In the context of the GPU scramble, India should take a multi-pronged approach, one that is not just focused on hardware but leverages Indias strengths too, as we discuss below.

Software Optimisation

Indian tech companies and startups should focus on developing software solutions that optimise GPU usage, potentially reducing the hardware requirements for AI training and inference. This approach plays to Indias software strengths while addressing the global GPU shortage. Bengaluru-based startup Nference has developed an AI platform that optimises GPU usage for genomics and biomedical research. Their software allows for more efficient processing of large-scale biomedical data on existing GPU hardware. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) has created a GPU-accelerated analytics platform called  TCS BaNCS, which optimises financial modelling and risk assessment tasks, reducing the need for extensive GPU resources. Researchers at IIT Bombay have developed SparseDNN, a compressed deep learning model that requires significantly less computational power while maintaining accuracy.

Cloud GPU Services

Indian cloud service providers like Tata Communications and Reliance Jio are expanding their GPU-as-a-service offerings, allowing businesses to access high-performance computing without the need for physical hardware ownership. Tata Communications offers IZO Private Cloud with GPU acceleration, allowing businesses to access high-performance computing resources on-demand. Reliance Jio, through its partnership with NVIDIA, provides cloud-based GPU services for AI development and deployment on its JioCloud platform.

Domestic Chip Development

While not yet at the scale of global leaders, India is making strides in chip design. The governments $10 billion incentive scheme for semiconductor and display manufacturing is a step towards reducing dependency on foreign chips. Bengaluru-based Signalchip has designed Indias first indigenous semiconductor chips for 4G/LTE and 5G NR modems. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has developed the  PARAM Siddhi-AI supercomputer, using a mix of imported and domestically developed components.

International Collaborations

India is leveraging (and should leverage further) its diplomatic ties to secure technology transfers and collaborations. The India-US Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) includes provisions for high-performance computing and semiconductor supply chain diversification. Under the India-US iCET initiative, companies like Lam Research are setting up training programmes in India to develop semiconductor manufacturing skills. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has partnered with IBM to establish an AI research lab, focusing on natural language processing and computer vision applications.

AI Research Hubs

The establishment of AI research centres like ARTPARK (AI & Robotics Technology Park) in Bangalore aims to bridge the gap between academic research and industrial applications in AI and robotics. ARTPARK at IISc Bangalore is working on AI solutions for healthcare, including a project on AI-assisted robotic surgery. The Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Mumbai is developing AI solutions for social good, including an AI-powered tool for early detection of crop pests.

Talent Development

The NASSCOM FutureSkills initiative has partnered with NVIDIA to train over 500,000 IT professionals in AI technologies. The Indian governments  Responsible AI for Youth programme aims to empower young students with AI skills, having trained over 11,000 students in its first phase.

AI for Social Good

Bengaluru-based Intello Labs uses computer vision and deep learning to assess the quality of agricultural produce, helping reduce food wastage. Niramai, an Indian healthtech startup, has developed a low-cost, AI-based breast cancer screening solution thats particularly useful in rural areas.

Edge AI Development

Qualcomm, in collaboration with Indian partners, has set up an Innovation Lab in Hyderabad focusing on AI and IoT applications that can run efficiently on edge devices with limited GPU resources.

Open-Source AI Initiatives

The Indian AI community should actively contribute to global open-source projects. For instance, developers from various Indian tech companies have contributed to the development of Apache MXNet, an open-source deep learning framework. Similarly, Indian tech companies should join the OpenAI-led initiative to build software that facilitates switching between different AI chips.

India Needs to Rise to the Occasion

Indias approach to the GPU challenge showcases a different model in the global AI raceone that emphasises software innovation, talent development, and strategic international partnerships over hardware manufacturing dominance. This strategy could potentially offer a third path in the US-China tech rivalry, presenting India as a collaborative partner to both while maintaining its technological sovereignty.

However, challenges remain. India still lags in terms of AI infrastructure and faces a significant AI skills gap. A NASSCOM report indicates that India would need to train and re-skill over 4.5 million people in AI and related technologies by 2025 to meet industry demands.

As the global scramble for GPU dominance continues, Indias role will be crucial. Its software expertise could be key in developing more efficient AI systems that reduce reliance on hardware. Moreover, as countries seek to diversify their tech partnerships beyond the US-China axis, Indias growing AI capabilities and neutral stance could make it an attractive collaborator. While India may not be competing directly in GPU manufacturing, its software-centric approach to AI development could redefine the parameters of technological leadership in the AI era.

The author is a research scholar at Takshashila Institution, Bangalore. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.
If Donald Trump returns to the White House after the November presidential election, one can expect major changes in the American foreign policy vis-a-vis Iran, Hamas and Ukraine read more

Donald Trump accepted the Grand Old Partys presidential nomination on June 18 at the Republican National Convention in Butler, Pennsylvania. With less than four months left for the election and Democrats seemingly on the back foot, Trumps return to the White House seems imminent.

After many days of speculation and calls from his party men, President Joe Biden announced his exit from the 2024 presidential election race on July 21, endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for the democratic nomination.

Advertisement

The winds seem to have shifted decisively in favour of Republicans on account of an assassination bid on Trump. This incident is poised to reshape the presidential elections. Trumps rebellious image with fist raised shouting fight, fight! will become the defining campaign poster in the run-up to the polling date in November.

Trump is expected to attract sympathy votes, likely resulting in a substantial boost. His 3-6 per cent advantage in post-debate surveys is set to expand further. If ballots were cast today, his victory would seem almost inevitable.

There is little doubt that the political atmosphere in the US is highly charged. Domestically, American society is divided on several policies as well, and that can be seen in recent events. On foreign policy, especially on regional conflictsthe Russia-Ukraine war in Europe and the Hamas-Israeli wars in West Asiathe US public opinion is strongly divided.

Therefore, anticipating the political outcome of US elections in November, dynamics of conflict in West Asia and Europe would take turn pointing more towards continuity of Trumps strategic policies, which had begun in 2016.

Shifting Focus on China

If Trump wins the November presidential election, he could turn global politics on its head. Trump may shift Americas focus from NATO, Europe, and the Atlantic to the South Pacific and what he calls the worlds principal global threat: China. Trump may double or triple tariffs on Chinese imports, setting off a new trade war. Hence, it is essential to analyse the White Houses foreign policy choices regarding ongoing conflicts/wars in Europe and West Asia, which are extremely important regions for the US.

Advertisement

On the Russia-Ukraine war in Europe, he may stop the intensity of aid and weapons to Ukraine, as he has pledged to end them on the negotiating table, not the battlefield. Under Biden, a Cold War politician, the US pinned itself in Europe, disillusioning itself about the real threat.

The US confronts an existential threat from China, surpassing the challenges posed by the former Soviet Union and present Russia. Chinas economic prowess, technological advancements, and global influence present a multifaceted and formidable challenge in the 21st century.

Despite focusing on China, especially in the South China Sea, Biden forced the US to focus on Russia through NATO expansion. This not only engaged the US in Europe but also pushed Russia closer to China. Taking note of his previous engagements with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump understands the geopolitical shift, and he may likely put an end to the Russia-Ukraine war on the negotiating table.

Advertisement

On West Asia

The second war that impacted the US in the West Asia region is the ongoing Hamas-Israel war and the apprehension of spilling over to Lebanon. This is the second place where the US is pinned down with its resources before the South China Sea. Israel, an exceptional ally of the US, started a war to eradicate Hamas in Gaza following the October 7 attack. Over 38,000 people died, including 15,000 children, which has maligned the Israel and US credibility and image on the international stage.

The Biden administration supported Israel with weapons and also vetoed several resolutions in the United Nations against it. However, there were situations where the US posed grave concerns over Israeli actions in Gaza, stopped military shipments to Israel in order to force Israel for a cease-fire, and reacted very coldly when Iran (a supporter nation of the Palestinian cause and an archrival of Israel and the US) directly attacked Israel.

Advertisement

Observing Trumps first term, one can anticipate a relatively tougher stance in West Asia. Trump may unequivocally support Israel in its war with Hamas and even with Hezbollah, a Shia militia and political organisation in Lebanon well supported and funded by Iran. Previously, Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), simply known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, keeping Israeli interests in mind. The Trump administration used a maximum pressure campaign and intensified sanctions against Iran after the United States exited the JCPOA in 2018.

If Trump returns to the White House after the November presidential election, we would expect US foreign policy during his first term (2017-21) to kick-start, particularly regarding ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. His approach to the Russia-Ukraine war may involve a swift push for negotiations, potentially altering the course of the conflict.

Advertisement

In West Asia, the Trump administration would likely maintain support for Israel while taking a hardline approach towards Iran. Furthermore, a second Trump presidency could see a marked shift in focus towards countering Chinas growing influence, potentially escalating economic tensions through increased tariffs and trade restrictions.

Anmol Kumar is a Research Assistant at Pondicherry University. Vijay Maidergi is a PhD scholar. The views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect Firstposts views.
Amazons drive to develop its own processors is aimed at providing more cost-effective solutions for customers who need to perform complex calculations and process large volumes of data. By producing its own chips, Amazon aims to mitigate the so-called NVIDIA tax read more

Amazon is developing new AI chips that are set to outperform and be cheaper than NVIDIAs current offerings. This move is part of Amazons strategy to reduce its dependence on NVIDIAs expensive chips, which currently power many of the artificial intelligence (AI) services in Amazon Web Services (AWS), its primary growth driver.

In Amazons chip lab in Austin, Texas, a team of engineers has been working on a new server design that integrates these new AI chips. During a recent visit to the lab, Amazon executive Rami Sinno showcased the server, highlighting how it competes directly with NVIDIAs market-leading chips.

Advertisement

Amazons drive to develop its own processors is aimed at providing more cost-effective solutions for customers who need to perform complex calculations and process large volumes of data. By producing its own chips, Amazon aims to mitigate the so-called NVIDIA tax, referring to the high cost associated with NVIDIAs AI chips.

Amazons efforts are not unique; other tech giants like Microsoft and Alphabet are also developing their own AI chips to reduce costs and improve performance. Amazons Annapurna Labs, which it acquired in 2015, is leading the charge in this area. According to Sinno, the director of engineering at Annapurna Labs, there is a growing demand among Amazons customers for cheaper alternatives to NVIDIAs chips.

Though Amazons AI chip initiative is still in its early stages, the company has a solid foundation in chip development with its Graviton processors, which handle non-AI computing tasks. The Graviton chip, now in its fourth generation, has been in development for nearly a decade.

On the AI front, Amazons new chip designs, named Trainium and Inferentia, are poised to offer significant improvements in price and performance.

According to David Brown, Vice President of Compute and Networking at AWS, these new chips can offer up to 50 per cent better price performance in some cases, making them potentially half as expensive as running similar models on NVIDIA hardware.

Advertisement

AWS, which accounts for nearly 20 per cent of Amazons total revenue, saw its sales rise by 17 per cent to $25 billion in the first quarter of the year compared to the previous year. AWS controls about a third of the cloud computing market, with Microsofts Azure holding around 25 per cent.

During Amazons recent Prime Day event, the company deployed a significant number of its custom chips to handle the increased demand. Specifically, Amazon used a quarter of a million Graviton chips and 80,000 of its custom AI chips to manage the surge in activity across its platforms. This event generated record sales of $14.2 billion, according to Adobe Analytics.

Advertisement

Amazons foray into AI chip development is a strategic move to enhance its cloud services and offer more competitive pricing to its customers. By reducing its reliance on NVIDIA and developing its own high-performance, cost-effective AI chips, Amazon aims to maintain its edge in the cloud computing market and continue to drive growth in its AWS division.

This development not only positions Amazon as a formidable player in the AI chip market but also highlights the broader industry trend of tech giants investing heavily in custom chip development to optimize performance and reduce costs.
Grok sources its information to an X post published on Sunday by user and conservative pundit with the handle @EvanAKilgore, which does not include a correction or warning about election misinformation read more

Fact checks from reputable sources, including Politifact, have debunked the claim that Bidens name is permanently on the ballots of these states, rating similar assertions as "False." Image Credit: Reuters

The United States is currently experiencing another intense and seemingly close presidential election. This election is unfolding in an era where artificial intelligence (AI) and the rapid spread of misinformation play significant roles.

Recently, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon revealed that his office traced a major piece of election misinformation to Xs Grok chatbot.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Xs premium chatbot service, Grok, has been disseminating false information regarding the deadlines for states presidential ballots, including Minnesotas.

Advertisement

When asked about which states presidential ballot deadlines have passed, Grok incorrectly listed Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. The chatbot sourced this erroneous information to an X post by conservative pundit @EvanAKilgore, which had not been corrected or flagged for misinformation.

In its Fun Mode, Grok repeated the incorrect information with a comment suggesting that potential candidates should check for a write-in option or consider time travel to meet the supposed deadlines.

Another response implied that these states had passed their deadlines and were left with President Joe Bidens name on the ballot, despite his recent announcement that he would not seek a second term.

The truth is that the Democratic Party will select its nominee through a virtual roll call vote before its convention, and states will only start printing ballots after both major parties conventions. Additionally, Minnesotas actual ballot deadline is not until August 26.

Fact checks from reputable sources, including Politifact, have debunked the claim that Bidens name is permanently on the ballots of these states, rating similar assertions as False. Despite attempts by Simons staff to inform X about the misinformation, they were unable to reach a media relations representative and received an unsatisfactory response.

Advertisement

When contacted for comment, Xs press email replied with a curt, Busy now, please check back later, highlighting the challenges in addressing and correcting misinformation spread by AI chatbots during such a critical election period.
The development of SearchGPT follows Microsofts lead, which, as an OpenAI investor, launched an AI-powered Bing search engine in 2023. This search engine uses OpenAIs large language models and has since been rebranded as Copilot read more

Entering the web search market could not only provide a new revenue source but also help OpenAI compete with Google, which has developed its own ChatGPT competitor, Gemini, and is integrating similar technology into various commercial offerings. Image Credit: Reuters, OpenAI

Going after Googles core business, OpenAI has unveiled SearchGPT, a new prototype search engine designed to streamline user searches by leveraging generative AI to provide conversational answers and gather relevant links.

This move marks OpenAIs latest effort to carve out a piece of the lucrative search market, traditionally dominated by Google.

While OpenAI has kept many details under wraps, it confirmed that SearchGPT aims to integrate broader web searches with data from publishers who have entered into agreements with the company, as reported by Reuters.

Advertisement

The development of SearchGPT follows Microsofts lead, which, as an OpenAI investor, launched an AI-powered Bing search engine in 2023. This search engine uses OpenAIs large language models and has since been rebranded as Copilot.

Since then, several competitors, including Google and Perplexity, have released their own AI search tools.

Google, for instance, introduced AI Overviews, which generate summaries of articles at the top of news results, although this feature has faced reliability issues, such as bizarre recommendations like adding glue to pizza.

SearchGPTs design is similar to Perplexitys approach, offering a chatbot that provides a list of relevant links and allows for follow-up questions. This method could address some limitations of current AI models, which often rely on outdated training data and sometimes fabricate information when unsure of an answer.

OpenAI plans to use retrieval augmented generation (RAG), a standard in AI search, to enhance reliability. RAG reduces the likelihood of AI hallucinations by referencing trusted sources and linking back to the original data.

A significant aspect of SearchGPT is its commitment to publishers. OpenAI has secured licensing agreements with several media companies, including Vox Media, The Atlantic, News Corp, and the Financial Times, ensuring that publishers are prominently cited and linked in search results.

Despite the success of ChatGPT, OpenAI is exploring new revenue streams to offset the substantial costs associated with training larger AI models and expanding its staff. A report by The Information suggests that OpenAI might face losses of up to $5 billion this year.

Advertisement

Entering the web search market could not only provide a new revenue source but also help OpenAI compete with Google, which has developed its own ChatGPT competitor, Gemini, and is integrating similar technology into various commercial offerings.

The transition from developing artificial general intelligence to more commercial ventures presents its own challenges.

OpenAIs SearchGPT represents a bold step into the search engine market, leveraging generative AI to provide more efficient and user-friendly search experiences. While the company faces challenges, including stiff competition and the need for reliable data sources, its commitment to working with publishers and its innovative use of AI technologies could position SearchGPT as a formidable competitor in the search engine landscape.
NASAs Commercial Crew manager, Steve Stich, emphasised that while progress is being made, the agency is not yet ready to set a firm return date. NASA plans to review the situation in the first week of August to determine the next steps read more

The Starliner program has been plagued with numerous issues, including technical setbacks, delays, and budget overruns. The recent launch faced several helium leaks, which caused multiple thrusters to shut down unexpectedly as the spacecraft approached the ISS. Image Credit: Space.com

NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams have been stuck at the International Space Station (ISS) for over a month and a half, far longer than their intended short stay. They arrived on June 6 aboard Boeings Starliner spacecraft, which has faced numerous technical issues and delays over the years.

Initially, their mission was supposed to last less than two weeks, but due to ongoing investigations into several thrusters that malfunctioned during the trip, their return has been indefinitely postponed.

Advertisement

NASA has confirmed that the astronauts will remain on the ISS until at least August, marking a significant extension of their mission.

During a recent press conference, NASAs Commercial Crew manager, Steve Stich, emphasized that while progress is being made, the agency is not yet ready to set a firm return date. NASA plans to review the situation in the first week of August to determine the next steps.

The Starliner spacecraft was developed by Boeing as an alternative to SpaceXs Crew Dragon capsule, aiming to provide NASA with a reliable means of transporting astronauts.

However, the Starliner program has been plagued with numerous issues, including technical setbacks, delays, and budget overruns. The recent launch faced several helium leaks, which caused multiple thrusters to shut down unexpectedly as the spacecraft approached the ISS.

Boeing has been conducting tests on spare engines at NASAs White Sands test facility to understand the cause of the malfunction. These tests are crucial for the data reviews that will inform the next steps for the Starliner program. The mishap has intensified scrutiny of NASAs partnership with Boeing, raising questions about the agencys confidence in the contractors ability to deliver a safe and reliable spacecraft.

The situation has also led to negative public perception, with media outlets like The Atlantic highlighting the astronauts extended stay and referring to them as being stranded at the ISS. This narrative has compounded Boeings public relations challenges, as the company already faces significant scrutiny in its aerospace operations.

Despite reassurances from NASA and Stich that the astronauts could technically return aboard the Starliner in an emergency, the agencys hesitation to commit to a return date has raised concerns.

Advertisement

A retired NASA astronaut, speaking anonymously to The Atlantic, suggested that if NASA felt comfortable with the spacecrafts safety, the astronauts would have been sent back already.

In summary, the extended stay of Wilmore and Williams at the ISS underscores the ongoing issues with Boeings Starliner spacecraft. While NASA continues to work on resolving the technical problems, the delay has brought to light concerns about the reliability of the Starliner program and the future of NASAs relationship with Boeing as a contractor.
The FBI has been collecting evidence against a hacking group called Andariel, which is considered a part of the larger North Korean Lazarus group. These hackers have been using US-based tech infrastructure to carry out their attacks read more

The US is ramping up efforts to track down North Korean hackers responsible for attacking healthcare and defence networks. Recently revealed court documents show that the FBI has seized the contents of numerous email addresses from Google and Yahoo, which are believed to have been used by hackers for their operations.

The FBI has been collecting evidence against a hacking group called Andariel, which is considered a part of the larger North Korean Lazarus group. These hackers have been using US-based tech infrastructure to carry out their attacks, as reported by The Information.

Advertisement

In particular, the FBI targeted 17 Google accounts, 18 Yahoo accounts, and two from IONOS, a company providing email services. As part of the ongoing investigation, US authorities have indicted Rim Jong Hyok for his involvement in these cybercrimes.

The investigation began in May 2021 when hackers attacked a healthcare provider in Chanute, Kansas. They used ransomware to lock down at least four physical servers, making it impossible for employees to access critical systems, including those for X-rays, diagnostic imaging, and the internal intranet.

The victim and the FBI identified the malware as Maui ransomware. By July 2022, the FBI, CISA, and the Department of Treasury issued a joint advisory attributing the attacks to North Korean state-sponsored hackers.

The hackers demanded a ransom of 2 Bitcoins, approximately $90,000 at the time, to unlock the compromised systems. After the payment was made on behalf of the healthcare facility, the decryption keys were provided, but the servers remained inaccessible for over a week.

Following this incident, the FBI traced payments through a cryptocurrency exchange, eventually seizing around $500,000 linked to the Maui ransomware.

The extensive investigation uncovered the identities behind the ransomware attacks on the Kansas healthcare organisation and other targets between May 2021 and July 2022. The FBI executed 39 search warrants during this period, as per the report by The Information.

Advertisement

A recent unsealed warrant focused on email accounts allegedly used by the hackers. These hackers created numerous online accounts, including those offering encrypted services. The FBI identified accounts accessed by IP addresses in North Korea.

An email address found on the locked Kansas systems, ReneeAFletcher@protonmail.com, led investigators to ProtonMail, which provided a recovery email linked to the account whas1985@yahoo.com.

Further investigation into this Yahoo account revealed its use by a North Korean hacker for communicating with co-conspirators, planning ransomware attacks, and laundering extorted funds.

Additional search warrants on related email accounts revealed more connections. For example, raajivkum26@gmail.com was linked to other Gmail accounts accessed by the same device.

Advertisement

The FBI concluded that the cyber actors behind the Maui ransomware campaign are part of Andariel, a subgroup of the Lazarus Group, which is closely tied to the North Korean regime.

On Thursday, the FBI and other agencies issued a new advisory about Andariels attacks on defence, aerospace, nuclear, and engineering sectors to obtain sensitive information for North Koreas military and nuclear programs. The hackers are believed to be working for North Koreas Reconnaissance General Bureau, the countrys premier intelligence agency.
Even before the Olympics opening ceremony began, arsonists attacked the French railway network in at least three locations read more

It was supposed to be a day of national glory for France as the nation welcomed sportspersons and spectators from the world over to the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Instead, well before the ceremony began, the nation made international headline for nationwide sabotage of its railway network.

The sabotage of the railways was just the beginning. Through the day, incidents continued to mar the days revelry.

From the train sabotage to rain and ticketing snag, here is all that went wrong on the day one of Paris Olympics.

Advertisement

Train sabotage

The French high-speed rail network was hit by acts of sabotage on Friday, according to operator SNCF.

The operator described the incidents as malicious acts.

The attacks included acts of arson that stopped the trains functioning and stranded thousands of commuters hours ahead of the Olympics opening ceremony in Paris.

Around 4 am (local time) the arsonists cut and burned cables used for signalling and security, reported The New York Times citing French authorities.

France 24 reported that incidents occurred at three places and the sabotage at a fifth place was foiled. It reported that incidents signal boxes were damaged along the lines connecting Paris with cities of Lille in the north, Bordeaux in the west, and Strasbourg in the east.

The report quoted two security sources as saying that the modus operandi led to suspicions on leftist militants or environmental activists. The sources, however, said that there was no evidence yet for the same.

Rains spoil the opening ceremony

French weather service had predicted that flooding rains will occur on Friday and coincide with the Olympics opening ceremony.

The prediction did not prove to be wrong as sporadic rainfall kept spattering the ceremony even as spectators largely remain put to witness what some called once-in-a-lifetime spectacle in Paris. The Associated Press reported that skies above Paris were grey with intermittent drizzle throughout the afternoon but they cleared as the ceremony began but the showers picked up soon just as the procession began advancing the Seine River.

Advertisement

Instead of a traditional march in a stadium, the Paris Olympics opening ceremony featured more than 6,500 participating athletes rowing in boats in the Seine River. The AP reported that mood largely remained lively among the spectators but, as the rain grew heavier, a small trickle of them left the ceremony while the most of the people stayed put and braved the showers.

Ticketing snag and long queues add to spectators woes

Thousands of spectators faced long queues and ticketing problems upon their arrival in Paris for the opening ceremony, according to AFP.

The agency reported that many gates opened an hour late and two gates opened at least two hours late because concerned staffers had not been delivered scanners to check tickets.

Advertisement

The police have been amazing, but the organisation sucks, said German film producer Michael Ohoven, 48, to the agency.

Ohoven told the agency that he had been waiting an hour in front of a closed gate. The agency reported that another man needed first-aid after he collapsed.

To add to the woes, heavy rain began when the doors opened at last.

Long lines of people were also seen close to the Louvre in central Paris and large crowds also built up close to the start point of the river parade around the Austerlitz bridge, according to the agency.

Separately, The New York Times reported that it was hard to overstate how daunting it was for spectators to move around to witness the opening ceremony. The newspaper reported that as subway stations were closed, they were put on buses that did not take them to their destinations at once.

Advertisement

Its hard to overstate how daunting the logistics of this ceremony have been for spectators, who tried to get into subway stations that were closed, were put on buses that didnt go where they were meant to go and crowded en masse at confusing checkpoints before gaining entry to their spots along the route. They had to travel for hours to even get here. Its such a shame that the rain sent many of them heading for the exits early, noted Sarah Lyall of The Times.

Rain-induced departures

Even though spectators braved the initial spells of rains, a procession of departures began once the French contingent had passed in the parade, according to The Times.

Advertisement

A deluge from the skies and a deluge for the exits: The crowds at Pont Neuf have seen enough now that the French team has passed. A procession of departures, noted Tariq Panja of The Times.
As a result of the malicious acts including arson, many routes will have to be cancelled and the situation would last at least all weekend while repairs happen. read more

Hours ahead of the Paris Olympics, the French high-speed rail has been subject to arson attacks. File image/AFP

Frances high-speed rail network was hit by malicious acts including arson attacks that have disrupted the transport system, train operator SNCF said Friday (July 26), hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

This is a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network, SNCF told AFP, adding that many routes will have to be cancelled and the situation would last at least all weekend while repairs are conducted.

Advertisement

SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous malicious acts overnight, the national train operator said, adding that the attacks affected its Atlantic, northern and eastern lines.

Arson attacks were started to damage our facilities, it said, adding that traffic on the affected lines was heavily disrupted.

Trains were being diverted to different tracks but we will have to cancel a large number of them, the statement said.

The arson attacks on Frances high-speed rail network were coordinated acts of sabotage, a source close to the investigation told AFP. The attacks were evidently coordinated, the source said after train operator SNCF reported that it had been the victim of a massive attack on a large scale to paralyse the TGV network.

The southeastern line was not affected as a malicious act was foiled.

SNCF urged passengers to postpone their trips and stay away from train stations.

The attacks were launched as Paris prepares for the opening ceremony, with 7,500 athletes, 300,000 spectators and an audience of VIPs.

With inputs from AFP
While former US President Donald Trumps relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started strong, it soured towards the end of his term read more

Four years after their last meeting, former US President Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his home on Friday.

Netanyahu is on a visit to the United States. After addressing a joint session of the Congress on Thursday, he separately met President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. A day later, he is meeting Trump today.

Netanyahu, the longest-serving Israeli premier, has counted his relationship with key political players in the United States as his key strengths. For the four years that he was the Israeli premier and Trump was in the White House, the two projected the best of the relationship  but that was not for long.

Advertisement

In 2021, barely a year out of office, Trump slammed Netanyahu as disloyal and cursed him.

In an interview with journalist and author Barak Ravid, Trump said he had not spoken to Netanyahu since their last meeting in 2020.

I havent spoken to him since. F**k him, said Trump to Ravid in 2021.

Now, three years after he abused Netanyahu, Trump has welcomed him at his Mar-a-Lago home amid US election season. For months, he has maintained that Hamas would have never attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, if he were the President of the United States. Even though he has long claimed to be the best friend of Israel, he has repeatedly criticised Netanyahu in recent past and has called for the ongoing war to end quickly.

How Trump and Netanyahu had falling out

Trump told Ravid that he liked Netanyahu but slammed him as disloyal.

Citing that Netanyahu congratulated Biden after he won the 2020 US presidential election, Trump said that it was a terrible mistake.

Trump and his supporters of the far-right Make America Great Agan (MAGA) movement have baselessly been claiming since 2020 that Biden and the Democrats stole the election from Trump and it was Trump who actually won it. In a bid to illegally overturn the election result in his favour, Trump egged on a mob on January 6, 2021, which attacked the US Congress. The intention of the mob, which had several members armed with guns, was to disrupt the certification of the election result.

Advertisement

In an article for Axios, Ravid quoted Trump as saying in an interview that Netanyahu could have stayed quiet but he wished Biden and made a terrible mistake.

I liked Bibi. I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty. The first person to congratulate Biden was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with, and not only did he congratulate him, he did it on tapeBibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake, said Trump in the interview, referring to Netanyahu by his popular nickname Bibi.

As with many of his claims, Trumps claim was false. Ravid fact-checked in the Axios article that Netanyahu was not the first leader to congratulate Biden and he took more than 12 hours to send the message.

Advertisement

Ravid further wrote that Trump believed that he had ensured Netanyahus political survival but he did not acknowledge it. Recalling that he walked out of the Iran Nuclear Deal that Netanyahu did not like, moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, and recognised Golan Heights as Israeli territory, he said that Netanyahu would have lost the elections if he would not have done these things.

In another incident cited by Ravid that soured the relationship, when Trump asked Netanyahu just 10 days before the 2020 election if Sleepy Joe could have cut Abraham Accords, instead of satisfying him with a partisan statement, Netanyahu said: Mr. President, one thing I can tell you is we appreciate the help for peace from anyone in America.

Advertisement

Ravid wrote that Trump bristled at the response.

Separately, Trump also blasted Netanyahu for his conduct in the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, the top Iranian general of the Quds Force, the foreign intelligence and operations wing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) of Iran, the archenemy of Israel. He said that Israel let us down during the operation without going into the details.

Are Trump and Netanyahu friends again?

Years after repeatedly slamming him, Trump is now meeting Netanyahu. Both the leaders are looking to score political points.

While Trump is projecting himself as a statesman who could end the war in Gaza all by himself, Netanyahu is shoring support as he faces a political uprising at home against his failure to win the war against Hamas and secure the release of hostages held by terrorists. As Trumps victory in the election is quite likely, Netanyahu is also looking forward to mend ties in case Trump assumes office.

Advertisement

But Trump and Netanyahu are not on the same page entirely. While Netanyahu has said that the war should go on until Hamas is defeated, Trump has said it needs to end quickly and the world does not have patience anymore.

You have to end this fast. It cant continue to go on like this. Its too long. Its too much, said Trump in an interview with Fox News.

Trump further said, Israel has to handle their public relations. Their public relations are not good. And theyve got to get this done fast because the world  the world is not taking lightly to it. Its really incredible.
Sanctions include a travel ban and an asset freeze. EU citizens and companies are also forbidden from making funds available to those on the list. read more

Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) hold position following renewed fighting in Kilimanyoka, outside Goma in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo June 9, 2022. File Photo- Reuters

Concerned over frequent human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, European Union (EU) member states imposed sanctions on Friday on nine individuals and one entity for human rights violations and abuses in the country and for their role in sustaining the conflict in the east of the country.

According to reports, the list includes two leaders of the M23 rebel group, a Tutsi-led group that has intensified its campaign in eastern Congo this year, and two from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda. The EU said that both groups sustain the armed conflict in the country by inciting violence.

Advertisement

It also said that they (groups) are responsible for serious human rights abuses, including killings, sexual violence and attacks on civilians, as well as child recruitment.

The EU also listed a commander from both the Allied Democratic Forces and the Rwanda Defence Force and two from the Collectif des Mouvements pour le Changement-Forces de Defense du Peuple.

The entity sanctioned by the EU was the Alliance Fleuve Congo, a politico-military movement created in Kenya but operating in the east of Congo.

Since the end of 2021, the Congolese and Ugandan armies have been conducting joint operations against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in North Kivu and the neighbouring province of Ituri. Despite these efforts, they have not been able to stop the deadly attacks on civilians.

In 2019, the ADF pledged allegiance to ISIS, which recognizes them as its Central African branch. The ADF has been accused of massacring Congolese civilians and staging attacks in neighboring Uganda.
European Union member states have been discussing options to extend the renewal period of sanctions on Russian central bank assets in order to secure a major Group of Seven loan for Ukraine read more

Ursula von der Leyen attends a press conference after her re-election for a second term as President of the European Commission, at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, July 18, 2024.- Reuters

The European Union will transfer 1.5 billion euros in proceeds from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media platform X on Friday.

Today we transfer 1.5 billion euros in proceeds from immobilised Russian assets to the defence and reconstruction of Ukraine. There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlins money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live, she said.

Advertisement

The EU stands with Ukraine.



Today we transfer 1.5 billion in proceeds from immobilised Russian assets to the defence and reconstruction of Ukraine.



There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlins money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live. pic.twitter.com/keDyf9Dzzd  Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) July 26, 2024

Earlier this week, the US Treasury Department ordered the nations banking industry to start disclosing its holdings of Russian assets on Tuesday, to eventually seize those billions of dollars in assets and sell them to aid the devastated Ukrainian economy.

The disclosure is required under a new law passed by Congress earlier this year known as the REPO Act, which gives the U.S. government the authority to seize Russian state assets held by U.S. banks, to eventually sell them and give those funds to Ukraine. While the vast bulk of Russian assets are held in Europe, it is estimated that the U.S. banking system holds as much as $6 billion in Russian assets in trust.

Banks will need to report Russian assets on their books no later than Aug. 2 to the Office of Foreign Assets Control. If a bank discovers any new Russian assets on their books after the deadline, those assets need to be reported within 10 days, the Treasury Department said.

Russias war in Ukraine, which began in February 2022, has killed tens of thousands but has also caused significant devastation to Ukraines economy and infrastructure. The World Bank estimated in February that Ukraine will need $486 billion for recovery and reconstruction, a figure that has only risen as the war has continued.

Advertisement

The U.S., Canada, France, Germany Italy, the U.K. and Japan  commonly known as the G7  froze roughly $300 billion worth of Russian assets at the start of the war. These assets included hard currency, as well as gold and investments in publicly and privately-held companies. But there has been little conversation until this year about what to do with those frozen assets, until the idea of forfeiture and liquidation was included in the REPO Act.

With inputs from agencies.
While for Pakistan the Kargil War may have been tactically innovative since India wasnt prepared for it, the conflict eventually turned out to be a major strategic catastrophe read more

Commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that Pakistan, the main perpetrator of the war, did not learn anything from the history. He lambasted the country for being nefariously involved in carrying out the proxy war and called it patrons of terrorism.

I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed. Our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply the prime minister said while addressing the families of Kargil veterans in Ladakh. In Kargil, we not only won the war, we also gave a wonderful demonstration of Truth, Restraint and Strength," he furthered.

Advertisement

What the prime minister mentioned was not actually wrong. While for Pakistan the Kargil War may have been tactically innovative since India wasnt prepared for it, the miniwar eventually turned out to be a major strategic catastrophe. Heres a look at what did not work for the countrys military and how some of these problems still persist.

A surprise attack but to a strong enemy

The Kargil War was triggered after infiltrators from Pakistan crossed the Line of Control (LoC) and occupied the high positions in Ladakhs Kargil district. The attackers were initially thought to be jihadis, however, India soon realised the direct involvement of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the infiltration turned into an all-out war that was fought militarily and diplomatically as well.

In response to this, India initiated two subsequent operations, they are: Operation Vijay which was conducted by the Indian Army and Operation Safed Sagar in which the Indian Air Force showcased its might.

The two operations helped India to re-capture a majority of the position on the Indian side of the LoC and the whole ordeal turned out to be a major embarrassment for Pakistan.

Where did Pakistan fail?

While there were a lot of political and diplomatic factors that contributed to Pakistans loss in the war, the following are the two major factors that led to the countrys defeat:

Advertisement

Lack of Communication between the three wings

In the book titled The Idea of Pakistan, author Stephen Philip Cohen wrote that the Kargil War emphasised the major weakness of the Pakistan army, notably its lack of interest in joint service operations. The Pakistani army is not only the dominant political power in Pakistan, it does not share this power with the other services, treating them strategically like a junior partner, Cohen wrote in the book.

Pakistan failed to understand the multiplier effect of combined air-ground operations and did not realise the importance of sea power in any war. While Islamabad had a joint staff system for more than twenty years, it was the Rawalpindi army headquarters that made all the important decisions.

Advertisement

Similar sentiments were also echoed by Pakistani fighter pilot Kaiser Tufail. In a piece for the CLAWS Journal, titled Role of the Pakistan Air Force During the Kargil Conflict, Tufail noted that there were four protagonists of what he called the Kargil adventure: General Pervez Musharraf: Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt Gen Aziz Khan: Chief of General Staff (CGS), Lt Gen Mahmood Ahmed: Commander 10 Corps, and Maj Gen Javed Hasan.

He insisted that in an effort to keep the plan secret, the army leadership took no one into confidence, neither its own operational commanders nor the heads of the other services.

Advertisement

Tufail listed out some of the major failures, they are as follows:

Failure to grasp the wider military and diplomatic ramifications of a limited tactical operation that had the potential of creating major strategic effects.

Failure to correctly visualise the response of a powerful enemy to what was, in effect, a major blow in a disputed sector.

Failure to spell out the specific aim to field commanders, who acted on their own to needlessly capture territory and expand the scope of the operation to unmanageable levels.

Failure to appreciate the inability of the Army officers to evaluate the capabilities and limitations of an Air Force.

Failure to coordinate contingency plans at the tri-services level.

Weak technological base

The Pakistani military also had a weak technological and scientific foundation this reflects the poor scientific and technical capabilities of Pakistan itself, the tight budget and the reluctance of the United States and the European Community to become major military suppliers to Pakistan also contributed to the whole ordeal.

In an earlier interview with Firstpost, Pakistani scientist and author Pervez Hoodbhoy elucidated how politics and religion weakened Pakistans educational and scientific foundation.

Underestimating the enemy

As mentioned by Tufail, one of the major reasons why Pakistan faltered in its operation was because the country not only underestimated Indias military might but also didnt expect such kind of response.

Advertisement

In the initial phase of the war, it can not be denied that Pakistan took India by surprise. The Pakistani military also had the higher ground in the war until it didnt. While India was new to high-altitude warfare, it soon managed to adapt to the situation and counter it.

In his book, Cohen also mentioned that the Pakistani leadership also assumed that since both nations have nuclear capabilities, India would give a soft response to the attack.

As the Kargil miniwar demonstrates, being a nuclear power does not bring political and strategic wisdom. Pakistan mounted a serious provocation, but the threat of escalation to nuclear war did not prevent India from responding by conventional means, and the blame for the conflict fell squarely on Pakistan, Cohen wrote.

Pakistans inability to hide the defeat

On July 4, Pakistans then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met then-US President Bill Clinton, seeking a way out of the crisis. Unlike in past instances, Washington favoured India and on Clintons advice, Sharif asked his generals to retreat from Kargil.

The army was infuriated at what they regarded as a betrayal by an uninformed civilian, especially since they claimed that Nawaz had been briefed fully on the operation. He had, but probably did not fully understand the implications of what he was being told by the generals, Cohen wrote.

But the major thing was what happened after the war ended, the Pakistani regime was filled with embarrassment after the defeat. The access to global media seriously weakened the effectiveness of state propaganda.

While Pakistan managed to gloss over the mistakes it made during the 1965 and 1971 war. The Kargil fiasco is well known to informed Pakistanis who had access to cable television and Internet sources. The common public got to know that the Pakistani government was not only incompetent but was outrightly lying to them.

Army dominance still persist

Pakistan Army is still considered the epicentre of the countrys military. The prime wing still takes the major chunk of Pakistans budget. In the year 2024-25, Pakistans budgetary allocation of PKR 2,122 billion constituted 1.7 per cent of the cash-strapped countrys GDP.

The army received the lions share, getting 47.5 per cent of the defence budget. The Air Force received 21.3 per cent and the Navy received 10.8 per cent.

Not only this, the Pakistani army notoriously continues to have a political sway in the country ensuring a pro-military government in the Parliament. Hence, it will be safe to say Rawalpindis influence goes beyond the military realm.
July 4th, 1999, marked a pivotal moment in the annals of American diplomacy, as President Bill Clinton navigated the perilous waters of South Asian geopolitics with a phone call that would reverberate across the globe. The stakes were nothing short of nuclear catastrophe, amidst a tense standoff between India and Pakistan over the disputed region of Kashmir read more

Indian army soldiers are seen at Tiger Hill in the Drass-Kargil area of Ladakh. File Photo/PTI

One can imagine the gravity of the diplomatic scene that the US President Bill Clinton was dealing with during the Kargil war. On July 4, 1999  the American Independence Day  Clinton was furiously discussing with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif the ways to end the Kargil war between India and Pakistan.

Reports of the time say that Clinton had lost cool during his talks with Sharif, who was claiming ignorance about the circumstances under which the Pakistan Armys chief General Pervez Musharraf had launched his Kargil misadventure.

Advertisement

This was possibly the most challenging diplomatic task that any American president has faced when his nation was celebrating its Independence Day. (The US has not had a woman president to date; if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the November presidential election, she would become the first woman to be elected as the US president.)

The Kargil conflict and strategic manoeuvring

For decades, India and Pakistan had been embroiled in a bitter dispute over Kashmir, marked by sporadic violence including wars along the LoC. The spring of 1999 saw a significant escalation when Pakistani forces, in a departure from established norms, occupied strategic positions in the Kargil sector during the winter months, catching Indian forces off-guard.

This move not only violated previous agreements but also posed a direct threat to Indian supply lines in the region. The consequence was the fourth India-Pakistan war in the summers of 1999.

Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayees government, having come to power projecting its firm stance on national security against the backdrop of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism through the 1990s, viewed this incursion as a betrayal. This was a particularly stark development after Vajpayees earlier efforts at reconciliation through the Lahore Summit with Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif.

Advertisement

The spirit of cooperation envisioned at Lahore had been shattered by Pakistans aggressive actions, prompting India to respond with intense military operations to reclaim the occupied territory.

International alarm and American intervention

Deeply concerned about the potential for a nuclear conflict between the two South Asian powers, the Bill Clinton administration of the United States swiftly moved to mediate the crisis. Then-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analyst Bruce Riedel was President Clintons Special Assistant for Near Eastern and South Asia Affairs at the National Security Council at the time of the war. He later wrote and spoke at length about how Clinton dealt with the crisis while Riedel found himself at the heart of these critical diplomatic efforts.

Advertisement

Clintons team also included figures like Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and General Tony Zinni, engaged tirelessly, urging Pakistan to withdraw its forces behind the LOC.

The fact that both India and Pakistan were nuclear-armed meant that any escalation could have catastrophic consequences not only for the region but also for global stability. This set the context that the situation required delicate handling. Clintons administration, having grappled with the aftermath of Indias nuclear tests in 1998, was acutely aware of the stakes involved.

Vajpayee set the tone for Clinton-Sharif summit

While Clinton feared a nuclear war amid intelligence inputs and speculation that India would respond with full force if Pakistan deployed nuclear weapons, a telephonic conversation with Vajpayee set the tone for the subsequent meeting between the US president and Pakistan PM Sharif.

Advertisement

That call happened on July 2, Riedel wrote in an Indian Express piece in 2002. He wrote, The President consulted with Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee on the phone. The Indians were adamant  withdrawal to the LoC was essential, Vajpayee would not negotiate under the threat of aggression.

The [US] President sought to reassure Vajpayee that we would not countenance Pakistani aggression, not reward them for violating the LoC and that we stood by our commitment to the Lahore process, i.e. direct talks between India and Pakistan were the only solution to Kashmir, not third party intervention, Riedel wrote.

Riedels comment assumes significance in the view that he was the only person in the audience when Clinton and Sharif talked in private on July 4, two days after Clinton-Vajpayee telecon.

Advertisement

Sharifs desperation and Clintons ultimatum

As the conflict intensified through May and June 1999, Nawaz Sharif found himself increasingly isolated internationally. With mounting pressure and dwindling options, Sharif reached out to Clinton directly, seeking urgent American intervention to halt Indias advances and defuse the crisis.

Sharif appealed for American intervention immediately to stop the fighting and to resolve the Kashmir issue. However, Clinton told Sharif that he would help only if Pakistan withdrew to the LoC, Riedel reported.

So, Clinton was unequivocally clear that any assistance to Pakistan would be contingent upon its complete withdrawal to the pre-conflict positions.

The Blair House Summit

Fraught with apprehension, Sharif arrived in Washington to face a determined President Clinton, who had reportedly told the Pakistan prime minister that he should visit America only if he had a concrete plan to withdraw from Kargil. The two met at Blair House in Washington.

Riedel described the scene at Blair House as tense, with Clinton stressing the need for Pakistan to pull back its forces immediately and unconditionally. Sharif, grappling with the dual pressures of international isolation and domestic political instability, eventually acceded to Clintons demands. The agreement reached stipulated a withdrawal to the LoC, a ceasefire, and a commitment to resume dialogue through the Lahore process.

Sharif had brought his family with him to Washington, clearly indicating that he feared for their safety and had serious concerns about his own political future amid military pressures back home. But with Vajpayee absolutely firm and Clinton determined, Sharif departed from Washington on July 5 with commitments to de-escalate military tension and withdraw Pakistani troops from Kargil.
Both India and China have withdrawn troops from some areas on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but continue to maintain extra troops as part of a multitier deployment. read more

Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. File Photo- FP

India and China have agreed to work urgently to achieve the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops stationed along their disputed border in a long-running standoff, Indias government said Friday.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Thursday on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Laos, where they stressed the need for an early resolution of outstanding issues along the disputed Line of Actual Control, the long Himalayan border shared by the two Asian giants.

Advertisement

The line separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to Indias eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety.

Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. It turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.

The two foreign ministers agreed on the need to work with purpose and urgency to achieve complete disengagement at the earliest, according to an Indian statement, which added that peace on the border is essential for restoring normalcy in ties between the two countries.

Jaishankar in his opening remarks said the border issues have cast a shadow over India-China ties for the last four years despite considerable efforts by both sides to solve them. The state of the border will necessarily be reflected on the state of our ties, he said, according to the statement.

Wang stressed that improving China-India ties is beneficial for both countries as well as for other nations, Chinas official Xinhua News Agency reported. The two sides agreed to work together to maintain peace in border areas and push for progress, it said.

India and China fought a war over their border in 1962. The Line of Actual Control divides the areas of physical control rather than territorial claims. According to India, the de facto border is 3,488 kilometers (2,167 miles) long, but China claims a considerably shorter figure.

Top Indian and Chinese army commanders have held several rounds of talks since the military clash to discuss the disengagement of troops from areas of tension.
The plan for ceasefire in the Gaza Strip being discussed seeks to end the war in three stages, starting with a six-week truce and release of select hostages read more

The ceasefire proposal on the table seeks to end the war in Gaza in three stages (Photo: Reuters)

Israels latest push to alter the terms for the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip has complicated the ongoing efforts to strike a deal, according to a report.

For months, Israel and terrorist group Hamas have been engaged in indirect talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt and backed by the United States. While the signing of the deal has been said to be close multiple times, sticking points have meant no deal has yet been reached.

Advertisement

The proposal on the table, as outlined by US President Joe Biden in May, seeks to end the war in three stages. In the first stage, there will be a six-week ceasefire in which Hamas will release a select class of hostages in lieu of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. The talks for a permanent end of the war will also start in this stage and, in the second stage, the permanent end of the war will be achieved and displaced Palestinians will return to their homes. In the third stage, the reconstruction for the war-ravaged Gaza will start.

Now, Reuters has reported that Israel has sought at least two changes in the second stage of the proposal.

Citing four officials from countries part of the talks, the news agency reported that Israel has sought a vetting mechanism for Palestinians returning from southern Gaza to their homes in the north instead of allowing them to return without any checks as was originally envisioned. Secondly, the agency reported that Israel has also rejected the idea of vacating the Philadelphi Corridor.

Hamas & Egypt reject Israels new demands

Previously, the terms of the deal being discussed included the return of Palestinians from southern Gaza to the north without any checks.

Around 1.9 million people of Gazas 2.2 million estimated population have been displaced in the nine months of fighting, as per the United Nations (UN). Most of them have sheltered in the southern Gaza as months of fighting drove them from central and northern regions of the Palestinian enclave.

In the latest round of talks, Israel has said that these displaced Palestinians returning to their homes from the south should be screened to check that no terrorists from Hamas or other groups escape, reported Reuters, citing a Western official, one Palestinian source, and two Egyptian sources.

Advertisement

The Western official told the agency that Israeli negotiators have sought a vetting mechanism for civilian populations returning to the north of Gaza, where they fear these populations could support Hamas terrorists who still remain in northern Gaza.

The Palestinian and Egyptian sources told the agency that Hamas, the terrorist group that has controlled and governed Gaza since 2007, has rejected the Israeli demand.

The second sticking point is Israels demand to retain the control of Philadelphi Corridor. The corridor refers to the eight-mile-long (around 12.8 kms) strip of land along the Gaza-Egypt border. Currently, Israel is in control of the strip and has argued that it is crucial to ensure that cross-border smuggling of terrorists or arms and ammunition does not take place. The agency reported that Egypt had dismissed the Israeli position as outside of the frameworks of the proposal.
The warning was issued by the intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom and South Korea in a joint notice over the matter read more

Intelligence agencies of different nations warned of a global cyber-espionage campaign," accusing North Korean state-backed hackers of attempting to obtain secrets related to nuclear materials, military drones, submarines and shipbuilding in the UK and US.

The warning was issued by the intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom and South Korea in a joint notice over the matter. The agencies stated that the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) is using state-backed attackers and hackers to further its military and nuclear ambitions.

Advertisement

The agencies also mentioned that Japan and India are also being targeted by these state-sponsored malicious actors. They noted that the hackers have targeted sensitive military information and intellectual property in four main areas: nuclear, defence, aerospace and engineering.

What are the findings?

Paul Chichester, the National Cyber Security Centres (NCSC) director of operations, said: The global cyber espionage operation that we have exposed today shows the lengths that DPRK state-sponsored actors are willing to go to pursue their military and nuclear programmes.

The NCSC insisted that the hackers had been compromising organisations around the world to steal sensitive and classified technical information and intellectual property data. They also noted that the assailants who are involved in this are working for a group called Andariel.

The intelligence body believes that Andariel is a part of North Koreas Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) and insisted that their activities pose a major threat to critical infrastructure organisations globally, The Guardian reported.

The information targeted included data related to tanks, torpedoes, fighter aircraft, satellites, government nuclear facilities, nuclear power plants, robots and 3D printing. The agencies accused the group of conducting its espionage campaign by launching ransomware attacks against the US healthcare sector.

It should remind critical infrastructure operators of the importance of protecting the sensitive information and intellectual property they hold on their systems to prevent theft and misuse," Chichester averred.

Advertisement

The NCSC, alongside our US and Korean partners, strongly encourage network defenders to follow the guidance set out in this advisory to ensure they have strong protections in place to prevent this malicious activity," he furthered. The advisory outlined how over the years Andariel has evolved from destructive hacks against US and South Korean organisations to carrying out specialised cyber espionage and ransomware attacks.

The US plans to hunt them down

Earlier, the US State Department offered a reward of up to $10m for any information on Rim Jong Hyok, who they claimed was associated with Andariel. The department maintained that Rim and others conspired to carry out ransomware attacks on US hospitals and other healthcare providers.

Advertisement

The authorities noted that Andariel targeted five healthcare providers, four US-based defence contractors, two US air force bases and NASAs office of inspector general.

According to a report published by the United Nations, over the past six years, Korean hackers have been involved in almost 60 cyber-attacks on cryptocurrency-related companies alone. These hackers have managed to steal a whopping $3 billion.
Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas on Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department said. read more

A barman stands next to a TV showing the news of the arrest of Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and the son of his former partner, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman at a private airport in El Paso, Texas, at a cantina in Mexico City, Mexico. Reuters

Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas on Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department said.

A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, Zambada was known for running the cartels smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile.

The U.S. government had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to his capture.

Advertisement

Zambada and Guzman Lopez are facing multiple charges for leading the cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks, Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, Garland said in a statement.

Zambadas detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another one of Guzmans. Guzman Lopez was also a son of El Chapo Guzman.

In recent years, Guzmans sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or Chapitos that has been identified as one of the main exporters of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid, to the U.S. market. El Chapo Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019.

They were seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.

One of them, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was arrested and extradited to the U.S. last year. He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September.

In February, Zambada was charged in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl. Prosecutors described him as continuing to lead the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

Advertisement

A son of Zambadas pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court in San Diego in 2021 to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel.

Ismael Zambada Imperial admitted in a plea agreement to being a major coordinator in the trafficking operation, including importing and distributing tons of cocaine, heroin and marijuana from Mexico into the U.S.

Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the strategist of the Sinaloa cartel, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, whois serving a life sentence in the United States.

Strong ties to Colombian cocaine suppliers and his cells across the United States made Zambada one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the world. He had been among the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel since the 1970s, with their principal livelihood being the sale of narcotics in the United States, according to a U.S. Justice Department.

Advertisement

Zambada was an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals. While Zambada fought those who challenged him, he was known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.

In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.

Im terrified of being incarcerated, Zambada said. Id like to think that, yes, I would kill myself.

Advertisement

The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.

Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighboring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.

Although little is known about Zambadas early life, he is believed to have gotten his start in drug trafficking as an enforcer in the 1970s.

By the early 1990s, he was a major player in the Juarez cartel, transporting tons of cocaine and marijuana.

Advertisement

Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually, he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but still managed to keep strong ties with the gang and avoided a turf war. He also developed a partnership with El Chapo Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Top diplomats from Southeast Asia met Friday morning in Vientiane with Chinas Foreign Minister for talks that come as friction continues to escalate over Beijings growing effort to press its sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea. read more

Ahead of the talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Indonesias Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi warned Beijing, saying that one wrong step in the South China Sea will turn a small fire into a terrible firestorm.

Foreign Ministers from Southeast Asia gathered in Vientiane on Friday morning for discussions with Chinas Foreign Minister. These talks come amid escalating tensions over Beijings increasing efforts to assert its extensive maritime claims in the South China Sea.

Advertisement

ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei all have disputes with China regarding its claims of sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, a vital global shipping route. Indonesia has also raised concerns about Beijings perceived encroachment on its exclusive economic zone.

Several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation have disputes with China, which has led to confrontations that many worry could lead to broader conflict.

The United States and its allies, meanwhile, have been regularly conducting military exercises and patrols in the area to assert their free and open Indo-Pacific policy, including the right to navigate international waters  drawing criticism from China.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to arrive Saturday to attend the ASEAN meetings and was expected to meet with Wang on the sidelines for bilateral talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is also attending the meetings, and already held direct talks with Wang.

China is a key ally of Russias in its war against Ukraine, and Wang emphasized the deepening strategic coordination between the two nations, Chinas Xinhua news agency reported.

This year, tensions between the Philippines  an American treaty ally - and China have escalated. In June, a Chinese vessel and a Philippine supply ship collided near the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, sparking alarm.

Advertisement

The ASEAN countries  Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos  emphasized in their opening meetings Thursday that its important they dont get drawn in as both China and the U.S. look to expand their influence.

Following the talks, Marsudi said the group stressed that the ten-member regional bloc should not be a proxy for any power, otherwise it will be difficult for ASEAN to become an anchor for regional stability and peace.

There were no immediate details available about Friday mornings talks between Wang and the ASEAN foreign ministers.

After Thursday nights talks, however, Thai foreign minister Maris Sangiampongsa said the group had discussed the importance of producing the South China Sea code of conduct that it has been working on for some time with China, and planned further talks with China on the matter.

Advertisement

He said that the Philippines informed in the meeting that they have been trying to engage with China, which is considered a good sign.

China and the Philippines said Sunday they had reached a deal that they hope will end the confrontations, aiming to establish a mutually acceptable arrangement for the disputed area without conceding either sides territorial claims.

There are divisions within ASEAN on how to deal with Chinas maritime claims and the Philippines has been critical over a perceived lack of support from the bloc.

In Thursdays talks, the Philippines pushed for the inclusion of Junes collision in the joint communique to be issued at the end of the meetings. Cambodia and Laos, which are close to China, opposed the wording, according to a senior Southeast Asian diplomat who was involved in closed-door negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter freely.

Advertisement

Manilas proposal stating that a recent incident in the South China Sea caused damage to properties and caused injuries without mentioning specific details like the name of the shoal and the contending state forces, the diplomat said.

The increasingly violent civil war in ASEAN member state Myanmar is also one of the main issues being taken up, the group supported Thailand taking a broader role, Thailands Maris said.

Thailand, which shares a long border with Myanmar, has already been involved in providing humanitarian assistance.

The country initiated its first delivery of aid to Myanmar in March from the northern province of Tak. It was said to be distributed in Kayin state to approximately 20,000 out of millions of people displaced by fighting.

Advertisement

Maris announced that another $250,000 will be donated to the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management that is overseeing a plan to deliver aid into Myanmar.

The army in Myanmar ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule, leading to increasing violence and a humanitarian crisis.

The ASEAN group has been pushing its so-called five-point consensus for peace, but the military leadership in Myanmar has so far ignored the plan, raising questions about the blocs efficiency and credibility.

It calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties.

Myanmar has been blocked from sending political representatives to the ASEAN meetings and is instead represented by Aung Kyaw Moe, the permanent secretary of Myanmars Foreign Ministry.

China, which also shares a long border with Myanmar, also plays an important role in that it that it supports the military regime while also maintaining close contacts with several of the powerful ethnic armed groups that are currently fighting against it.

In his opening statement ahead of talks between ASEAN and China, Aung Kyaw Moe had effusive praise for Beijing, pledging that the bloc would continue to work to deepen cooperation with China in all areas.

With inputs from agencies.
A United States official said initial reports indicated that projectiles landed outside the base without causing injuries or damage to the base read more

Several rockets were launched Thursday and Friday against bases hosting troops from the US-led anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq and Syria, security officials and a war monitor said.

Such attacks were frequent early in the war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants in Gaza but since then have largely halted.

Four rockets fell in the vicinity of Ain al-Assad base in Anbar province, an Iraqi security source said.

Another security official said an attack occurred with a drone and three rockets that fell close to the base perimeter.

A United States official said initial reports indicated that projectiles landed outside the base without causing injuries or damage to the base.

Advertisement

All sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media.

At least one rocket also fell near a base of the coalition in the Conoco gas field in Deir Ezzor province of eastern Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

The Observatory said a blast was heard in the area but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The rocket was fired from zones under the control of pro-Iranian militia groups, said the monitor which relies on sources inside Syria.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.

Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq have largely halted similar attacks on US-backed troops in recent months.

The latest attack come after a security meeting this week between Iraqi and US officials in Washington on the future of the international anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq. Iran-backed groups have demanded a withdrawal.

The US Defense Department said Wednesday the delegations reached an understanding on the concept for a new phase of the bilateral security relationship.

This would include cooperation through liaison officers, training, and traditional security cooperation programmes.

On July 16, two drones were launched against Ain al-Assad base, with one exploding inside without causing injuries or damage. A senior security official in Baghdad said at the time he believed the attack was meant to embarrass the Iraqi government before the security meeting.

Advertisement

For more than three months, as regional tensions soared over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, United States troops were targeted by rockets and drones more than 175 times in the Middle East, mainly in Iraq and Syria.

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups, claimed the majority of the attacks, saying they were in solidarity with Gaza Palestinians.

In January, a drone strike blamed on those groups killed three US soldiers in a base in Jordan. In retaliation, US forces launched dozens of strikes against Tehran-backed fighters.

Since then, attacks against US troops have largely halted.

Baghdad has sought to defuse tensions, engaging in talks with Washington on the future of the US-led coalitions mission in Iraq.

Advertisement

The US military has around 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria with the international coalition.

The coalition was deployed to Iraq at the governments request in 2014 to help combat the Islamic State group, which had taken over vast swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

IS remnants still carry out attacks and ambushes in both countries.
The Libyans stated they were entering South Africa on study visas to train as security guards but they have received military training, according to police read more

South African police said Friday they have arrested 95 Libyan nationals on suspicion of receiving training at a secret military camp in the north of the country. Police raided the camp at a farm in White River in the Mpumalanga province, about 360 kilometers (220 miles) northeast of Johannesburg.

National police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said in a post on the social media site X that the Libyans stated they were entering the country on study visas to train as security guards but police investigations suggest they have received military training.

Advertisement

The Newzroom Afrika TV news channel broadcast pictures of the site of the arrests, showing a military-style camp with green tents.

Police said the operation to arrest the Libyans and close down the camp began two days ago. The site appeared to have been converted into an illegal military training base, police said.

The 95 individuals taken into custody are all Libyan nationals and are currently being questioned by the relevant authorities, Mpumalanga acting provincial commissioner Major General Zeph Mkhwanazi said in a statement.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2023 over alleged war crimes in the Ukraine war, but Mondays step was the first time Khan has sought to intervene in the conflict in the Middle East. read more

The UK would not proceed with efforts to question whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

In May, the ICCs prosecutor had requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders over alleged war crimes.

Court documents released in June revealed that Britain, an ICC member state, had sought to provide written observations on whether the court can exercise jurisdiction over Israeli nationals, in circumstances where Palestine cannot exercise criminal jurisdiction over Israeli nationals under the Oslo Accords.

Advertisement

Since then, Britain has elected a new government run by the Labour Party, and Prime Minister Keir Starmers spokesperson said the previous government had not submitted its proposal before the July 4 election.

On the ICC submission I can confirm the government will not be pursuing (the proposal) in line with our long-standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on, the spokesperson told reporters.

The ICC is the worlds first permanent international war crimes court. It 124 member states are obliged to immediately arrest the wanted person if they are on a member states territory.

A court of last resort, the ICC steps in only when a state is unwilling or genuinely unable to do so itself.

Israel has said alleged war crimes in Gaza are being investigated domestically.

Israel and its main ally the United States are not members of the ICC, along with China and Russia.

Member states have in the past failed to hand over suspects who entered their territory, including Sudanese former President Omar Bashir, wanted since 2005 for war crimes and genocide.

But if warrants are issued against Israeli leaders, court members including nearly all European Union countries could be put in a diplomatically difficult position.

With inputs from agencies.
Assisted dying, which allows terminally ill individuals to obtain life-ending drugs legally, is legal in a limited number of countries, including Canada, 11 US states, most of Australia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. It is partially available in Germany and Italy, while Spain and Portugal have recently legalised the process. read more

Keir Starmer faces mounting pressure to fulfill his promise of allowing a parliamentary vote on legalising assisted dying. This issue resurfaces in Parliament as a bill is set to be introduced in the House of Lords on Friday, though its journey to the House of Commons remains uncertain.

Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor under Tony Blair will introduce a private members bill to permit assisted dying for terminally ill persons. The move follows his success in a recent ballot of peers.

Advertisement

Ive been campaigning for a long time on this issue, Charlie Falconer, the Labour peer introducing the bill, told CNN. It has never felt for me a more favorable time to try and embark on legislation, he said.

Starmer expressed support for changing the law in March of this year. He assured television presenter Esther Rantzen, who has terminal cancer and is advocating for assisted dying, that if he became prime minister, he would ensure parliamentary time to debate the issue and allow a free vote. He reiterated this pledge after winning the general election.

However, some advocates worry that Starmer may delay until a private members bill is introduced in the Commons, with a ballot of MPs scheduled for September. Falconer said that while Starmer was committed to securing parliamentary time for an assisted dying bill, a Commons bill would offer a more certain path than one originating in the Lords.

Meanwhile, a bill to permit assisted dying has passed its third reading in the Isle of Mans legislature, the House of Keys. It now advances to the upper house, which can amend but not block the bill. This legislation would allow assisted dying for terminally ill, mentally competent individuals who have resided in the Isle of Man for at least five years.
At the start of the propaganda campaign, US national security officials were concerned that China was leveraging the pandemic to secure geopolitical deals and undermine US alliances by providing aid to the Philippines and other nations read more

The US Department of Defense has acknowledged, albeit not publicly, that it spread propaganda in the Philippines aimed at undermining Chinas Sinovac vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic. This revelation, documented in a June 25 memo, was brought to light by a former top government official earlier this month.

The disclosure was initially mentioned in a podcast by Harry Roque, former spokesman for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Reuters subsequently reviewed the confidential document and verified its contents with a knowledgeable source.

Advertisement

Pentagons admission

It is true that the Department of Defense communicated with Philippine audiences to cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of Sinovac, the document stated. It referenced information exchanged between the US Defense Department and the Philippine Departments of Foreign Affairs and National Defense. The Pentagon admitted to missteps in our COVID-related messaging but assured improved oversight and accountability of information operations since 2022.

The June 25 document indicated that Pentagon officials deemed the anti-vaccine campaign misaligned with our priorities. The US military informed Filipino officials that operatives ceased COVID-related messaging in August 2021.

US Defense Department spokesman Pete Nguyen acknowledged the distribution of social media content about the safety and efficacy of Sinovac to Reuters, but did not confirm the specifics of the cited document.

Firstpost could not independently verify the document.

How US propaganda campaign unfolded

At the start of the campaign, US national security officials were concerned that China was leveraging the pandemic to secure geopolitical deals and undermine US alliances by providing aid to the Philippines and other nations.

Using defence contractors and non-military partners, the US deployed networks of online bots and fake social media accounts to influence foreign audiences. Reuters identified hundreds of fake accounts on X (formerly Twitter) matching descriptions from former US military officials familiar with the operation.

Philippines reaction

The US admission followed a June 14th Reuters investigation, which uncovered a covert Pentagon psychological operation aimed at discrediting Chinese vaccines and other COVID-related aid during 2020 and 2021. The revelation prompted the Philippine Senate Foreign Relations Committee to launch an inquiry and seek a formal response from the US.

The Philippine Senate, led by Senator Imee Marcos, has commenced an investigation. Marcos condemned the US military campaign as evil, wicked, dangerous, unethical, questioning its legality and potential recourse for the Philippines.

Advertisement

The clandestine operation extended beyond the Philippines, targeting countries in Central Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia in 2020 and 2021. Many of these nations relied heavily on Sinovac to combat the deadly virus. The Philippines, particularly hard-hit by COVID-19, saw nearly 67,000 fatalities and over 4 million infections by 2024, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) data.
Closer to the Philippines than Australias east coast capital, Canberra, Darwin has long been a garrison town for the Australian Defence Force and a U.S. Marine Rotational Force that spends six months of each year there read more

Signage is pictured outside RAAF Base Tindal, near the town of Katherine in the Northern Territory, Australia. Reuters

The U.S. military is building infrastructure in northern Australia to help it project power into the South China Sea if a crisis with China erupts, a Reuters review of documents and interviews with U.S. and Australian defence officials show.

Closer to the Philippines than Australias east coast capital, Canberra, Darwin has long been a garrison town for the Australian Defence Force and a U.S. Marine Rotational Force that spends six months of each year there.

Advertisement

A few hundred kilometres to the south, RAAF Base Tindal is home to key elements of Australias airpower, and was a temporary base for U.S. jets in recent exercises.

As northern Australia re-emerges as a strategically vital Indo-Pacific location amid rising tensions with China, the United States has quietly begun constructing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of facilities there to support B-52 bombers, F-22 stealth fighters, and refuelling and transport aircraft  all part of a larger effort to distribute U.S. forces around the region and make them less vulnerable.

When you look at the positioning of northern Australia, particularly Darwin, in relation to the region  its always good to have multiple options in where you would want to put your forces in any type of crisis, said Colonel Brian Mulvihill, commanding officer of the U.S. Marine Rotational Force.

Tender documents show that intelligence briefing rooms, upgraded runways for bombers, warehouses, data centres and maintenance hangars are in the works. Massive fuel storage facilities are already built, officials told Reuters on a rare visit to the two northern bases.

The projects, scheduled for construction in 2024 and 2025, make northern Australia the top overseas location for U.S. Air Force and Navy construction spending, with more than $300 million set aside under the U.S. congressional defence authorisations for those years.

Advertisement

There is more on the horizon: The U.S. Navy in June sought contractors for projects worth up to $2 billion to build wharves, runways, fuel storage and hangars in places including Australias Cocos Islands, and neighbouring Papua New Guinea and Timor Leste, under a program to counter China.

Chinas defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Air Commodore Ron Tilley, the Royal Australian Air Force director-general of capital facilities and infrastructure, confirmed Washington was paying for the facilities at Darwin and Tindal, which would support U.S. operations.

I dont believe the U.S. would be spending all this money on our northern bases if there wasnt an arrangement in place where they could use those facilities they are funding in times of conflict, he added.

Advertisement

Canberra has drawn closer to its top security ally, Washington, under the AUKUS pact to transfer U.S. nuclear submarine technology to Australia next decade. Yet it has been largely silent on U.S. military construction in the north.

The Australian government recently highlighted its own plans to spend A$14 billion hardening the northern bases under the countrys biggest defence shakeup since World War Two.

The Australian and U.S. defence officials interviewed for this story said the new facilities should not be characterised as U.S. bases. Foreign basing is a sensitive domestic political issue for Australia; successive governments, including that of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, have said there are no U.S. bases on Australian soil.

Advertisement

All the bases will remain Australian bases, but will be able to be utilised by our international partners, Tilley said.

Laying foundations

A 2011 agreement with Australia for the U.S. Marine Corps to temporarily train in Darwin has evolved into a regional deterrence role for about 2,000 Marines each year, Mulvihill said. War games this month included troops from the Philippines and Timor Leste.

The Marines are adding facilities at Darwin for their MV-22 Osprey aircraft, which can shuttle troops and equipment.

Darwin is absolutely key terrain for us to help bring stability to the region, he said in an interview at Darwins Larrakeyah Barracks. We are more focused on that interoperability with the Australian Defence Force  how can we project power from northern Australia into the region.

Advertisement

The United States wants to be able to disperse its forces from its largest bases in the Pacific, such as Guam and Okinawa, to reduce vulnerability.

For Australia, the northern bases offer greater access to the South China Sea, and with Tindal, a secure inland location for Australias F-35A stealth aircraft and its MQ-4C Triton long-range surveillance drone. A U.S. F-22 Raptor squadron shared the facilities this month during Exercise Pitch Black.

Tindals location is vitally important, said RAAF Base Tindal Wing Commander Fiona Pearce, with greater reach into our near region.

U.S. tender documents and engineering plans for Tindal show parking and hangars for six B-52 bombers and refuelling aircraft.

Australia is spending A$1.5 billion ($981.45 million) on Tindals redevelopment, and by July a new terminal, control tower, hangars and accommodation for extra personnel were near completion. Separate U.S. and Australian jet fuel stores sit side by side, and the tarmac is being dug up for the bomber expansion.

Already a target

A third of residents in the sparsely populated Northern Territory are Indigenous Australians, although they make up just 10% of Darwins population.

Traditional Owners, as Indigenous Australians who have cultural access rights to an area of land or sea are referred to in Australia, can visit sacred sites on the bases, U.S. and Australian officials said.

Tibby Quall, 75, is among several Traditional Owners who say growing demand for defence-related housing in Darwin has led to land-clearing of forests they want protected, while rising prices have pushed Indigenous families out of the city.

Despite visitation rights, he says, his family has no real voice on how the land is used.

Defence are the prominent citizens, said Quall, a military veteran.

Darwin Mayor Kon Vatskalis says his city, where a Chinese company runs the port, welcomes the economic boost as the defence presence grows, although some residents have raised concerns that hosting the U.S. military could make the city a target.

The reality is that we are already a target: We are the most northern port in Australia, we are the city that serves the gas and oil industry, said Vatskalis, who supports the military expansion.

($1 = 1.5284 Australian dollars)
The officials stated that leaders discussed the end of the nine-month conflict in Gaza during both meetings read more

US President Joe Biden meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, US, July 25, 2024. REUTERS

After Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held bilateral talks with US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the White House said that Israel and Hamas are closer now than weve been before to reaching a ceasefire deal.

The officials stated that leaders discussed the end of the nine-month conflict in Gaza during both meetings. Weve got a lot to talk about, Biden said when he welcomed Netanyahu to the Oval Office.

Advertisement

From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel, Netanyahu told Biden at the start of their meeting.

The parties agree on the framework

A senior administration official told reporters that a framework for the deal had been agreed upon but that serious implementation issues  still had to be resolved". I dont expect the meeting to be a yes or no, the official said. Its a kind of like: How do we close these final gaps?

During a press conference while the two leaders were holding talks, John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, said gaps in the ceasefire deal could be overcome. We need to get there soon, he said. We are closer now than weve been before. Both sides have to make compromises.

I think the message from the American side in that meeting will be that we need to get this deal over the line," the US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller averred.

What happened when Harris and Netanyahu met

US Vice President and Democratic Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris vowed to not be silent about the Gaza crisis during her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. After the meeting, Harris mentioned that she expressed serious concerns" about the ongoing Israel-Hamas war to the prime minister of the Jewish nation.

Advertisement

Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating, Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told reporters in remarks after her meeting with Netanyahu. The vice presidents remarks provided the clearest explanation yet of her views on the conflict.

Harris went on to echo the sentiments presented by Biden about the United States ironclad support of Israel. In the meeting, she recalled the details of the ceasefire and hostage deal proposed by the United States.

It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination, she said. Harris mentioned that she is hopeful that ceasefire talks will move smoothly.

Advertisement

But Israel remains miffed

Shortly after the meeting, a senior Israeli official accused Harris of putting ongoing negotiations into jeopardy with her public statement.

Hopefully the remarks Harris made in her press conference wont be interpreted by Hamas as daylight between the US and Israel, thereby making a deal harder to secure, the senior official said in a briefing with reporters on condition of anonymity, The Times of Israel reported.

He supported his argument by mentioning that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the importance of having no perceived gaps between the stances of Israel and the US.

The more our enemies see that there is complete alignment of positions between Israel and the US, the more we increase the chance of securing the release of the hostages and decrease the chance of a regional war, the senior official said.

Advertisement

The more the gap widens between our countries, the more we move away from a deal and thus also increase the possibility of a regional escalation," he added.
NASAs Perseverance rover made a significant discovery on July 21, uncovering an intriguing arrowhead-shaped rock, dubbed Cheyava Falls, while moving along the northern rim of Neretva Vallis, a vast, ancient riverbed that once channeled water into Mars Jezero crater. read more

This 3ft by 2ft rock revealed signs of organic material and surface spots similar to those associated with fossilised microbes on Earth. Representational Image

A spotty, vein-filled rock discovered by a NASA rover on Mars exhibits features suggesting it may have hosted microbial life billions of years ago. The arrowhead-shaped rock, named Cheyava Falls, was found by NASAs Perseverance rover on 21 July as it moved along the northern edge of Neretva Vallis, an ancient river valley that once directed water into the Jezero crater.

This 3ft by 2ft rock revealed signs of organic material and surface spots similar to those associated with fossilized microbes on Earth. Additionally, there is evidence indicating that water once passed through the rock, according to NASA.

Advertisement

In May, a NASA rover accidentally climbed into a rock, which caused it to crack. What came out from the rock left the scientists surprised as it was never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.

The scientists believe that some surrounding rocks may also contain sulphur. NASA mentioned that they are set to conduct further study in that area. Scientist Ashwin Nasavada further said, The discovery is strange and an unexpected thing for all of us. This type of discovery makes planetary exploration so exciting. The rover has been exploring the Gediz Vallis channel area for the past few months now. As per NASAs statement, this discovery might significantly aid efforts to establish a human population on Mars.

Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals  in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials  the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isnt clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.

While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs (the result of hydrogen sulfide gas), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists havent associated with the history of this location. And Curiosity found a lot of it  an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed.

Advertisement

It may be noted that sulphur is one of the major elements that contribute to the existence of life on Earth. This discovery has opened up a brand new path for scientists as they continue their efforts to establish human colonies on the planet.
Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn is looking for opportunities to assemble Apple iPads in India. According to a recent report from ET, the contract manufacturer may begin assembling iPads at its facility in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu.

The report suggests that some rounds of discussions have already taken place with the government, and the outcome seems to be positive. In a few years, we can expect the facility to assemble iPhones, iPads, and more.

Assembling iPads is similar to assembling iPhones, and hence the manufacturer should be comfortable with the decision if it materializes. Furthermore, this move should also help Apple diversify its manufacturing resources outside of China, reducing supply chain risk.

It is said that Apple is also aiming to improve iPad sales in India, which will boost global sales, estimated to reach 49 million this year, a year-on-year increase of 4.5%.

Foxconn is also said to assemble MacBooks later. However, this will take more time as the process is completely different from that of iPhones and iPads.

The Indian governments recent decision in the Union Budget 2024-25 to reduce the Basic Custom Duty (BCD) rates on mobile phones, mobile PCBs, and mobile chargers back to 15% will also have a positive impact on the decision to assemble iPads in India.

Further, it will help the contract manufacturer gain PLI 2.0 for IT Hardware incentives, which include tablets as well. As per reports, the assembling of iPads should start in the later part of 2025 in Tamil Nadu.
Google has announced the availability of Gemini 1.5 Flash in the unpaid version of Gemini for faster and more helpful responses. This follows its unveiling at the Google I/O 2024 event in May.

Alongside this, Google is introducing a new feature to address hallucinations and expanding their Gemini for Teens experience and mobile app to more regions.

Faster, Smarter Responses with Gemini 1.5 Flash

Google is upgrading the free-tier experience to Gemini 1.5 Flash. This update promises improvements in quality and latency, particularly in reasoning and image understanding.

Google is also expanding the context window to 32K tokens, allowing for longer and more complex conversations at no cost.

To maximize the larger context window, users will soon be able to upload files via Google Drive or directly from their device. This feature, already available in Gemini Advanced, will let users upload documents, like an economics study guide, and ask Gemini to create practice questions or analyze data files, generating insights and visualizations.

Related Content within Geminis Responses

Google has added links to related content for fact-seeking prompts within Gemini, helping reduce hallucinations and making it easier to explore informative websites.

This feature is available for English language prompts in certain countries. Users can click on the chip at the end of a paragraph to see related websites, and if Gemini references Gmail information, there will be inline links to relevant emails.

To combat hallucinations, Geminis double-check feature uses Google Search to verify responses, highlighting statements corroborated or contradicted on the web.

Other New Features

Gemini in More Places

Google has introduced the ability to chat with Gemini directly in Google Messages on select Android devices.

This feature is now rolling out to the European Economic Area (EEA), UK, and Switzerland, with support for languages like French, Polish, and Spanish.

The Gemini mobile app is also being expanded to more countries starting today.

Expanded Access for Teens

In the coming weeks, Gemini will be accessible to teenagers globally in over 40 languages. Teens who meet the age requirement to manage their own Google Account will use Gemini for educational purposes and creative projects.

Google has implemented additional policies and safeguards for teens, including a teen-specific onboarding process and an AI literacy guide. They have partnered with child safety and development experts to ensure the platform meets the unique needs of teens and families.

Responsible Design of Gemini

Google emphasized their commitment to responsibility and user safety in Geminis development.

They have shared more about their approach and policy guidelines on their website, detailing how they navigate complex topics, including those of public interest, political, religious, or moral beliefs. These guidelines are grounded in their AI Principles.

Availability

Gemini 1.5 Flash is now available to all Gemini users on both web and mobile platforms, in more than 40 languages and over 230 countries and territories.
Epic Games has unveiled a new strategy for mobile gaming, marking a significant shift in Epics efforts to bring their games to mobile devices.

The company plans to distribute popular titles like Fortnite on third-party app stores that do not impose high fees on developers.

Fortnites Return on iOS and Store Expansion

Fortnite is set to return to iOS in the European Union. Additionally, the Epic Games Store will launch on Android worldwide and on iOS in the European Union, following Apples recent approval of the Epic Games store app.

The store will offer favorable terms for developers: a 12% fee for payments processed by the store and 0% for third-party payments.

Distribution Partnerships

Epic Games will bring their own titles, including Fortnite, to other mobile stores that offer fair deals to developers. They plan to end partnerships with stores that do not compete fairly or serve developers well, even if those stores offer special deals for Epics games.

Epic Games has long supported fair competition for app stores on iOS and Android. This effort is gaining momentum globally, with Europes DMA, similar laws in the UK and Japan, and regulatory investigations worldwide. The company also mentioned their victory in the Epic v Google litigation in the US as part of this progress.

Support for Other Stores: As operators of the Epic Games Store, Epic aims to offer developers great deals. As game developers, they want to support other stores that provide similar benefits to developers.

Epic Games on AltStore: Epic Games announced that their mobile games will be available on AltStore for iOS in the EU. They plan to support at least two other third-party stores soon.

Leaving the Samsung Galaxy Store

Epic stated that Fortnite and their other games will be removed from the Samsung Galaxy Store. This decision protests Samsungs anti-competitive Auto Blocker in One UI 6.1.1, which blocks side-loading by default, preventing app installations from unauthorized sources.

Epic Games Store Launch

The Epic Games Store is expected to launch on Android soon, though no specific date has been provided.

Emphasizing their commitment to fair competition and developer rights, Epic Games stated:
Naypyitaw/New Delhi, July 26 (UNI) National Security Advisor Ajit Doval is leading the Indian delegation at the Fourth Annual Meeting of BIMSTEC Security Chiefs being held in Naypyitaw today.

He also met with the Myanmar NSA Admiral Moe Aung yesterday.

The BIMSTEC Security Chiefs also called on Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing yesterday.

The Indian Embassy in Myanmar in a post on X said:

NSA Shri Ajit Doval is leading the Indian delegation at the 4th Annual Meeting of #BIMSTEC Security Chiefs being held in Naypyitaw today. He met with the Myanmar NSA Admiral Moe Aung yesterday, and BIMSTEC Security Chiefs called on Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

The Fourth BIMSTEC Security Chiefs meeting is set to focus on the fight against regional terrorism and transnational crime and drug trafficking.

Besides NSA Doval, the Secretary-General of BIMSTEC Indra Mani Pandey also called on Admiral Moe Aung.

During the meeting between the two NSAs, they cordially exchanged views on the challenges facing countries and on the cooperation among BIMSTEC member states on the security of the regional economy. They also discussed Myanmars political developments and preparations for a free and fair multiparty democratic general election.

UNI RN
Two Kiwi blokes have set off on a mission to "revolutionise NZ's alcohol industry" by making liquid-free cocktails.

Brayden and Conor, locals from Queenstown, call themselves 'The Unnamed Alcohol Project.' They're determined to make powdered alcohol for Kiwis to take on camping and hiking trips.

Being outdoorsmen themselves, they've been dead keen on making it easier for Kiwis to trek our big backyard with bevvies on hand.

Just two months ago, the blokes admitted they had "no money, no supplies, and no idea how to do it." Despite the odds, they're making it happen - and are taking us along for the ride.

A shitload of experimentation and a few broken blenders later, the lads eventually got on the right track.

Using a very high percentage of alcohol and tapioca maltodextrin, the boys finally cracked the concoction.

The boys now have a rough prototype sorted and say all you need is water to turn the powder into a cocktail on the go. It gives a whole new meaning to turning water into wine...

Brayden and Connor are well on their way to making their 'what if' project a reality - they're looking into the legal process of getting it on the shelves, and are getting food scientists involved.

As highly requested by their 10,000 loyal followers on Instagram and TikTok, Pinacolada is the first flavour they're keen to get out to us, but there's still a long way to go.

The latest update shows the blokes trying to make the powder as light as possible. The guys are set on making a 50-gram pack of the stuff which is about 85% less than your usual bevvie can.

On ya boys, that's what we call working for the people.
New Delhi, July 26 (UNI) Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of lying to the nation on Agnipath Scheme and said that the scheme was implemented without consulting the Army.



He said that this scheme has invited anger and opposition from the youth and demanded it to be scrapped immediately.



On social media handle X, Kharge said, Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army, this is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant Armed Forces.



He said, It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister @narendramodi ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas. No Prime Minister has ever done this before.

The Congress President stressed, Modi ji, it is you who are spreading LIES!.



It may be mentioned that the PM in his address in Dras had said that the government had respected the decision taken by the armed forces because as the security of the country was more important than politics.

Mentioning about the former Army Chief, Kharge said, Former Army Chief (Retd.) General MM Naravane has said on record that 75% of recruits were to be taken for permanency in the 'Agnipath Scheme' and 25% of people were to be let go after 4 years. But the Modi Govt did the opposite, and forcibly implemented this scheme for all three Armed Forces.



He mentioned about the book authoured by Gen MM Naravane and said, According to news reports, Former Army Chief (Retd) General MM Naravane in his book which the Modi Govt, has stalled from being published, has also said, that the 'Agnipath Scheme' was shocking for the Army, and for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a "bolt out of the blue"!.



Are we creating professional soldiers, only by 6 months of training? Soldiers join the Army out of patriotism, not to earn a living. Many retired officers have strongly criticised Agnipath and said that it is endangering National Security and the aspirations of the rural youth, demanding that this scheme should be completely scrapped. All this is on record, Kharge said.



The Rajya Sabha MP alleged that Agniveers do not get any pension, gratuity, family pension, liberalized family pension and education allowance for their children.



Modi ji, 15 Agniveers have been martyred so far. At least respect their martyrdom, he said.

UNI RBE CS1630
Two Men Plead Guilty to Acting as Illegal Agents of Chinese Government and Bribery

Thursday, July 25, 2024

For Immediate Release

Office of Public Affairs

Defendants Furthered the Chinese Government's Transnational Repression Campaign Against the Falun Gong by Bribing a Purported IRS Official

John Chen, 71, of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Los Angeles, California, and Lin Feng, 44, a PRC citizen and resident of Los Angeles, California, pleaded guilty to acting as unregistered agents of the PRC and bribing an IRS agent in connection with a plot to target U.S.-based practitioners of Falun Gong a a spiritual practice banned in the PRC.

According to court documents, from at least approximately January 2023 to May 2023, Chen and Feng worked inside the United States at the direction of the PRC government, including PRC government official identified as PRC Official-1, to further the PRC's campaign to repress and harass Falun Gong practitioners. The PRC designated the Falun Gong as one of the "Five Poisons," or one of the top five threats to its rule. In China, Falun Gong adherents face a range of repressive and punitive measures from the Chinese government, including imprisonment.

As part of the PRC's campaign against the Falun Gong, Chen and Feng engaged in a PRC government-directed scheme to manipulate the IRS's Whistleblower Program in an effort to strip the tax-exempt status of an entity run and maintained by Falun Gong practitioners (Entity-1). After Chen filed a defective whistleblower complaint with the IRS, Chen and Feng paid $5,000 in cash bribes and promised to pay substantially more to a purported IRS agent (Agent-1) who was, in fact, an undercover officer, in exchange for Agent-1's assistance in advancing the complaint. Neither Chen nor Feng notified the Attorney General that they were acting as agents of the PRC in the United States.

In the course of the scheme, Chen, on a recorded call, explicitly noted that the purpose of paying these bribes, which were directed and funded by the PRC, was to carry out the PRC government's aim of "toppl[ing] . . . the Falun Gong." During a call intercepted pursuant to a judicially authorized wiretap, Chen and Feng discussed receiving "direction" on the bribery scheme from PRC Official-1, deleting instructions received from PRC Official-1 in order to evade detection, and "alert[ing]" and "sound[ing] the alarm" to PRC Official-1 if Chen and Feng's meetings to bribe Agent-1 did not go as planned. Chen and Feng also discussed that PRC Official-1 was the PRC government official "in charge" of the bribery scheme targeting the Falun Gong.

As part of this scheme, Chen and Feng met with Agent-1 in Newburgh, New York, on May 14, 2023. During the meeting, Chen gave Agent-1 a $1,000 cash bribe as an initial, partial bribe payment. Chen further offered to pay Agent-1 a total of $50,000 for opening an audit of Entity-1, as well as 60% of any whistleblower award from the IRS if the Chen whistleblower complaint were successful. On May 18, 2023, Feng paid Agent-1 a $4,000 cash bribe at John F. Kennedy International Airport as an additional partial bribe payment in furtherance of the scheme.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York and Executive Assistant Director Robert R. Wells of the FBI's National Security Branch made the announcement.

Chen and Feng each pleaded guilty to one count of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and one count of bribing a public official. Chen pleaded guilty yesterday and is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 30. Feng pleaded guilty today and is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 31. Chen and Feng each face a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The FBI and the Office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration are investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Qais Ghafary, Michael D. Lockard and Kathryn Wheelock for the Southern District of New York and Trial Attorney Christina Clark of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case.

Topic: National Security

Components: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

National Security Division (NSD)

USAO - New York, Southern

Press Release Number: 24-934

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Leaked: Israel attempted to obstruct US lawsuit against Pegasus spyware

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 6:25 PM

Israel has gone to great lengths to obstruct a high-stakes US lawsuit that could potentially expose highly confidential information regarding the regime's Pegasus spyware, one of the world's most notorious hacking tools, leaked files suggest.

Israeli officials confiscated documents related to the Pegasus spyware from its manufacturer, NSO Group, in a bid to prevent the company from complying with demands from WhatsApp in a US court to provide information about the intrusive technology, said the British media on Thursday.

These documents indicate that these seizures were part of an unusual legal tactic devised by the Israeli regime to prevent the disclosure of details about Pegasus, which Tel Aviv feared could lead to significant diplomatic and security repercussions for the regime.

Pegasus enables NSO clients to secretly install hidden software on smartphones, allowing them to extract messages and photos, record calls, and activate microphones covertly. NSO's clients have included both authoritarian regimes and democratic nations, and the technology has been implicated in human rights abuses worldwide.

NSO has sold its spyware - known as Pegasus - to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Hungary and India among others.

The spyware also allows its users to monitor conversations, text messages, photos and location, and even encrypted messaging apps such as Signal and WhatsApp. Pegasus can turn phones into remotely operated listening devices.

Since late 2019, NSO has been embroiled in a lawsuit in the US filed by WhatsApp, alleging that the Israeli firm exploited a vulnerability in the messaging service to target over 1,400 of its users across 20 countries within two weeks. NSO rejects the allegations.

The seizure of files and computers from NSO's offices in July 2020, kept secret until now by a strict gag order issued by an Israeli court, sheds new light on the close relationship between Israel and NSO, and the shared interests of the privately owned surveillance company and the country's security establishment.

The removal of files in July 2020 occurred after talks between Israeli officials and NSO about how to respond to WhatsApp's demands for NSO to disclose internal documents regarding its spyware, prompting questions about potential coordination to withhold certain information from US legal proceedings.

At one point, NSO's lawyer, Rod Rosenstein, a former US deputy attorney general during the Donald Trump administration, reportedly asked one of Israel's US attorneys whether the Israeli regime would intervene to assist in the legal dispute with WhatsApp.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp accused NSO of failing to fulfill its responsibilities to provide internal documents as part of the legal discovery process. This process aims to help WhatsApp gather information crucial for its case and reveal unprecedented details about how NSO's government clients have utilized Pegasus.

Nevertheless, the covert involvement of the Israeli regime has impeded WhatsApp's efforts to compel NSO to provide crucial information. Recently, WhatsApp's lawyers informed the US court that NSO has "only produced 17 internal documents of its own."

Both Israel and NSO anticipated expansive demands from WhatsApp for confidential internal company documents, including lists of its clients.

As the discovery process became imminent in the early part of 2020, NSO considered requesting a "blocking order" from the Israeli regime. This order would prevent NSO from disclosing specific information to WhatsApp. A memo outlining this proposal was shared with Israel's justice ministry in April of that year.

Tel Aviv's actions seem to have significantly affected the case. NSO has contended that its ability to engage in the discovery process has been constrained by several legal restrictions in Israel.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp's lawyers told the court they had not yet received any documents relevant to Pegasus, accusing NSO of a "continued refusal to meaningfully participate in discovery."

The US government blacklisted the Israeli company in 2021 for its sale of hacking tools to repressive regimes.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Washington, July 26 (UNI) FBI Director Christopher Wray told Wednesday's US House Judiciary Committee hearing that he was not sure if ex-US President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was hit by a bullet during an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, Trump has said on Truth Social.

On Wednesday, Wray attended a US House Judiciary Committee hearing to discuss the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump. When asked by a lawmaker whether the FBI director noticed any signs of cognitive decline by incumbent US President Joe Biden during recent talks, Wray said he did not observe any such decline.

"FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasn't sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively 'uneventful,'" Trump said on Thursday.

The ex-president said this is the reason why the FBI director "knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our Country at record levels," adding that Wray's only focus is on "destroying J6 Patriots," raiding Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, and saving "Radical Left Lunatics."

Trump added that a hospital called his injury "a bullet wound to the ear," saying that there was no glass or shrapnel.

"No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America," the presidential nominee said.

The shooting took place on July 13 at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump suffered a gunshot wound to his right ear and was briefly hospitalized. Thomas Crooks, 20, killed a member of the audience and injured two others in the crowd before the Secret Service neutralized him.

The FBI is still actively investigating the assassination attempt, Wray said on Wednesday.

The incident prompted US Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle to resign from her leadership role following criticism of the agency for not preventing the assassination attempt.

UNI/SPUTNIK ARN SY GNK
NORAD detects, tracks and intercepts Russian and PRC aircraft operating in the Alaska ADIZ

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)

Press Release | July 24, 2024

North American Aerospace Defense Command Public Affairs

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- NORAD detected, tracked, and intercepted two Russian TU-95 and two PRC H-6 military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on July 24, 2024. NORAD fighter jets from the United States and Canada conducted the intercept.

The Russian and PRC aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace. This Russian and PRC activity in the Alaska ADIZ is not seen as a threat, and NORAD will continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence.

An ADIZ begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security.

NORAD is a unique bi-national command between the United States and Canada. NORAD employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft in seamless interoperability to detect and track aircraft and inform appropriate actions. NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America.

-30-

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Pakistan Welcomes the Declaration of Unity by the Palestinian Political Factions in Beijing

Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Pakistan welcomes the 'Declaration of Unity' by the Palestinian political factions in Beijing. We recognize andcommend China's role in bringing the factions together for meaningful negotiations.

Unity amongst the Palestinian people is of paramount significance in the wake of the ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza, and the blatant disregard for international norms by the Israeli occupation forces.

Pakistan once again calls upon the international community to intervene immediately to stop the ongoing illegal and incessant aggression in Gaza. We also reiteratesupport for the realization of the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, their right of return to Palestine and establishment of an independent homeland for the Palestinians, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.

Islamabad

24 July 2024

133/2024



NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Strengthening strategic cooperation of Poland and Great Britain

Poland - Ministry of National Defence

24.07.2024

- I am thankful for this very good meeting, very good Polish-British relations. For us this i san expression of extraordinary trust, friendship and cooperation. Today the minister was in Paris in the morning, in Berlin at noon and finishes in Warsaw. This shows how important a partner Poland is for Great Britain. This shows how important security and our cooperation are. Our friendship has never been as strong as it is in this moment. I am grateful for this approach to the Polish-British cooperation. The new government emerging after elections in Great Britain unequivocally stated its priorities - deputy prime minister Wadysaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said aftr the meeting with the defence secretary of Great Britain.

On July 24th, 2024, a meeting was held in Warsaw between deputy prime minister and minister of national defence Wadysaw Kosiniak - Kamysz and the defence secretary of Great Britain, John Healey.

The discussions concerned, among other topics, the security situation in Europe two years after Russian invasion of Ukraine, the effects of the recent NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. and the projects pursued through bilateral cooperation.

- We have the same view on security in Europe and globally. During the last NATO Summit in Washington we have made decisions together. We are determined to enhance our capabilities and strengthen our Armed Forces. Poland and Great Britain re united in cooperation for a cause of freedom, peace and democracy. These are our core values, to which we are faithful

- the deputy prime minister noted after the meeting.

The deputy prime minister said that a number of British Royal Engineers will be deployed in Poland in order to conduct a reconaissance regarding the possibilities of support in the construction of Shield East.

- We have discussed the situation at the Polish-Belarussian border and the attacks on Polish soldiers today. I have presented clips of these attacks. I am very thankful for the support both during the NATO Summit and today in Poland regarding the border of NATO's eastern flank, the border of the Western world, as a common responsibility of member states of the North Atlantic Alliance. This has a measurable effect. Soon a group of British Royal Engineers will be sent to Poland, they will decide on how to support Poland in the construction of Shield East. The scouting group will conduct reconaissance and will continue its mission. (...). Another result of our discussion is a declaration of sending 4-6 Eurofighter planes for an Air Policing mission next year to patrol the Polish airspace. The Sky Sabre system is also stationed in Poland, protecting the airport in Jasionka. I am grateful for for it remaining here until the end of the year

- the deputy prime minister noted

***

British troops are stationed in Poland as part of the multinational Forward Land Forces battlegroup (FLF) in Bemowo Piskie, which is an important part of strengthening NATO's eastern flank. Britsih anti-air Sky Sabre system is also deployed in our country in order to enhance allied air defence. Great Britain is also Poland's strategic partner in the use of defence technologies and modernization of the Polish Armed Forces, including in the NAREW and SWORDFISH programmes.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






July 25, 2024

Transcript

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles "CQ" Brown Jr Hold a Press Conference

PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY MAJOR GENERAL PATRICK RYDER: Thank you, everyone, for being here today. It's my pleasure to introduce Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General CQ Brown Jr.

The secretary and the chairman will deliver opening remarks and then have time to take a few questions. Please note that I will moderate those questions and, due to time constraints would ask that those called upon limit their follow ups to give your colleagues a chance to ask their questions.

With that, I will turn it over to Secretary Austin. Sir?

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE LLOYD AUSTIN: Thanks, Patrick. Good morning and thanks for being here. I wanted to take just a moment to acknowledge the president's remarks last night, and I want to thank President Biden for being such a strong and skillful guardian of our national security.

He will leave an extraordinary legacy of foreign policy achievements, including rallying the world to save Ukraine from Putin's aggression, uniting and expanding NATO, and positioning America to compete with China and win. I've seen countless times how deeply and personally this commander in chief cares about our troops, our veterans, and our military families.

Now, the president is intensely focused on the work ahead, especially in ending the war in Gaza and reinforcing Ukraine's capabilities for the long haul, and making our posture in the Indo-Pacific even stronger. And this department will continue to do what we always do, stay firm and stay focused, because we've still got a lot to do. And as we move forward, the entire department salutes the president's life of service.

Now, as you all know, it's been a busy time here. We're moving quickly from the historic 75th anniversary NATO summit to my departure tomorrow for my 11th trip to the Indo-Pacific. So, since we're in between these two major events and halfway through 2024, I wanted to take a step back and I wanted to look at the progress that we've made over the past three and a half years, especially when it comes to NATO and the Indo-Pacific.

Now, it's worth remembering where we were when I started as secretary back in 2021. The pandemic was raging, autocrats were emboldened, NATO was divided and our alliances and partnerships across the Indo-Pacific were frayed. So, the Biden-Harris administration came into office determined to restore American leadership and to invest in the greatest fighting force on Earth and to reinforce the global network of allies that makes us stronger and safer.

And that's exactly what we've done, and we've shown that American leadership gets results for the American people. Just look at our most important alliance. Today NATO is larger than ever, stronger than ever, and more united than ever. And over the past three and a half years, we've seen an historic increase in annual defense spending across the alliance by almost $80 billion.

All NATO allies have agreed to spend at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense. In 2021, only six allies did so. But in 2024, a record 23 NATO allies will hit the 2 percent spending goal. And beyond NATO, our bonds with our allies and partners are deep and strong.

Putin's outrageous invasion of Ukraine and the tragic Israel-Hamas war have meant sustained communication and consultation with my counterparts with an intensity that few secretaries of defense have ever matched. I have calls with many of my fellow ministers of defense every week or every month, and the Ukraine Contact GroupDefense Contact Group that I lead has kept some 50 defense leaders worldwide in close touch at a truly historic tempo. And these frequent touch points have produced vital capabilities for Ukraine. They've also spurred our friends to help shoulder the burden, and they've strengthened America's security.

Now, let me talk about what that kind of sustained engagement has meant in the Indo-Pacific, which is our priority theater of operations. As you know, I'm wheels up tomorrow morning for important meetings with Secretary Blinken and our allies in Japan and the Philippines. Now, I know that it's easy to focus on the crisis of the day, but just look at what our strategy has achieved in the Indo-Pacific over the past three and a half years.

We're nearly doubling our military construction investment in the Indo-Pacific from fiscal year '23 to fiscal year '24, and our ties with Australia and India are stronger than ever. We've improved our relationships with Vietnam, Indonesia, Singapore, Papua New Guinea, and many more. In Japan, we're in the process of forward stationing a marine littoral regiment, the most advanced formation in the Marine Corps.

And just a few weeks ago, we announced a plan to station our most advanced tactical aircraft in Japan, reflecting more than $10 billion of capability investments. And meanwhile, Japan is making historic investments in its defense spending, and Japan and the ROK are taking some truly historic strides forward together.

But there's no greater example of our progress in the Indo-Pacific than the Philippines. When I started as secretary, our ties with the Philippines were at a low point. We were even on the brink of losing our decades-old Visiting Forces Agreement. But after three years of intensive engagement and partnership, we are in an entirely new chapter of our alliance.

Last year President Marcos agreed to include four new locations under our Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. We've expanded our rotational access thanks to the leadership of President Marcos and Secretary Teodoro, and we're taking unprecedented steps to help modernize the Philippine military. So, I very much look forward to going back to the Philippines and to Japan. I visited both countries just last year.

In Tokyo, Secretary Blinken and I will hold a 2+2 meeting with our Japanese allies. And in Manila, we'll hold another 2+2 with our counterparts from the Philippines. Again, I'm very proud of America's historic achievements with these great allies over the past three and a half years, and it's amazing what the United States, Japan, and the Philippines have done together in just the past six months.

With Japan, we've made significant improvements to our force posture. We've also worked more closely than ever with the Republic of Korea. And I'm proud that Minister Kihara and I will sit down in Tokyo with Minister Shinn for an historic trilateral defense ministerial, the first ever to be held in Japan or the ROK.

All of this just underscores the new convergence in the Indo-Pacific that I talked about in Singapore last month. We're not just strengthening our bilateral alliances, we're also seeing our regional partners come together like never before around our shared vision of a free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific. So, it's going to be a great trip, and we're going to deliver even more progress.

And with that, I'll turn it over to General Brown.

CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF GENERAL CHARLES BROWN: Well, thank you, Secretary Austin. Good morning, everyone. On a warm day, an October day in 1937, President Franklin Roosevelt addressed a crowd on the Outer Bridge Drive in Chicago, and he said those who cherish their freedom must work together for the triumph of law and moral principles in order that peace, justice, and confidence may prevail in the world.

President Roosevelt knew that we could not turn a blind eye to nations who violate treaties, international law, and the sovereignty of their neighbors. He knew that unchecked aggression only leads to more aggression. Our National Defense Strategy lays out five key challenges: People's Republic of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and violent extremists. All five of these challenges are active today, and they're increasingly interconnected.

The PRC is undermining the international order using economic coercion, military build up, technology advancements that challenge our interests and those of our allies. Russia continues its aggression with its war in Ukraine. Iran persists in its malign and destabilizing activities across the Middle East. North Korea remains a significant threat with its continued development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. And violent extremists continue to exploit ungoverned spaces, fragile states threatening regional and global stability.

These increasingly interconnected threats demand a coordinated and strategic response from the international community. And importantly, we must leverage all the strengths and capabilities of the United States and of our allies and partners. Our most valuable strategic advantage is that we never fight alone.

From the very founding of our nation, when the French military assisted 13 upstart colonies in gaining their independence to the beaches of Normandy to the coalition to defeat ISIS, our battlefield successes have depended on integrating military power with like-minded nations.

Due to the complex security environment, we need to redouble our efforts today to collaborate and cooperate with allies and partners. We can't develop our respective national plans and capabilities with allies and partners as an afterthought. We must start at the beginning with the end in mind. We need to be integrated by design.

And over the course of the past month, I've had the opportunity to visit several allies and partners around the world to underscore our desire to work in concert and coordinate closely with one another. At the end of June, I went to Botswana to attend the African Chiefs of Defense Conference, the first time that conference was held on African soil.

Two weeks ago, as the secretary highlighted, we were privileged to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Washington Treaty at the NATO summit here in Washington DC. 13 allies came together to celebrate 75

years of peace. We reaffirmed our commitment to collective defense and our shared values of democracy and the rule of law.

Russia hoped their invasion of Ukraine would fracture and weaken NATO. Our alliance is stronger and more unified than ever. We've expanded and welcomed Finland and Sweden, and we continue increasing collective capability interoperability, furthering and improving the  history's longest and most successful alliance.

The NATO summit also included leadership from Japan, Republic of Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, demonstrating that our collective security is not limited to one region or one continent. Security in one region contributes to security in another, which is why last week I traveled to Philippines and Japan to meet with key leaders and strengthen multilateral relationships in the Indo-Pacific region.

I had the opportunity to meet my counterpart and other officials in the Philippines, and we held an historic meeting of chiefs of defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan in Tokyo for the first ever Tri-CHOD meeting in Northeast Asia. Our work with these allies is critical to maintaining stability in the Indo-Pacific and to counter growing influence by the PRC.

En route to the Indo-Pacific region, I also visited the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies in Anchorage, a DOD regional center that addresses strategic implications of current and emerging Arctic security challenges. On a related note, the Department of Defense released its 2024 Arctic Strategy this past Monday. That strategy lays out the steps we will take to safeguard the Arctic, defending our homeland and keeping the region stable and secure.

The strategic security of the Arctic must be intentionally thought through today to determine what capability and capacity will be needed in the future. For in the Antarctic or the Indo-Pacific regions or in Africa, navigating and evolving security challenges depends on integrating and collaborating closely with our allies and partners, because President Roosevelt's words hold an enduring truth.

Those who cherish freedom and peace must stand united. Progress will not always be swift. But if the past 75 years have taught us anything, it's that achieving a stable, just, and prosperous world requires the work of all of us. Our alliances and partnerships are our greatest strengths, and together we will continue to build a safer and more peaceful world.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

MAJOR GENERAL RYDER: Thank you both, gentlemen. The first question will come from Associated Press, Lita Baldor.

Q: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Russian and Chinese bombers were off Alaska yesterday. I'm wondering if you could talk to us about what threat you think that growing cooperation is to the U.S., and also particularly to the allies in Asia who were very concerned with this growing activity.

And for you, Mr. Chairman, the president himself expressed some disappointment in the pier and the aid that it was able to bring into Gaza. Now that that is gone, what if any military involvement do you see  U.S. military involvement do you see as necessary or not in helping to get continued aid into that area, where obviously Palestinians are still starving?

MR. AUSTIN: Thanks, Lita. Regarding the Russian and Chinese aircraft that flew together in the north here recently, this was not a surprise to us. We closely monitored these aircraft, tracked the aircraft, intercepted the aircraft, which demonstrates that forces are at the ready all the time and we have very good surveillance capabilities. And of course, I won't discuss any intelligence issues here at the podium.

But again, it's the first time that we've seen these two countries fly together like that. They didn't enter our airspace. I think the closest point of approach was about 200 miles off of our coast. But this is a thing that we track very closely, we're able to intercept. And if it happens again, if there is any kind of a challenge from any direction, I have every confidence that NORTHCOM and NORAD will be at the ready and will be able to intercept.

In terms of the relationship between Russia and China, this is a relationship that we have been concerned about throughout, mostly because we're concerned about China providing support to Russia's illegal and unnecessary war in Ukraine. And we've seen evidence of that, and we would hope that that would cease going forward. But again, we'll see what happens and how this relationship continues to develop. We will remain focused on protecting the homeland here. And again, I applaud the efforts of NORTHCOM and our great airmen who are always at the ready.

GENERAL BROWN: Let me just echo the applause really for the nearly 1,000 service members that operated JLOTS over the course of  since the time they've been operating there in the Mediterranean.

And so, what I would tell you is that the 20 million pounds of humanitarian assistance to help the citizens of Gaza, we continue to  we've moved all that forward. At the same time, the elements that we've been able to put in place, some of the coordination elements and the flow from Cyprus, also the ground movement through Jordan, many of those things we'll continue to work on. And so, the coordination elements that were put in place we'll continue to sustain and support as we transition this capability of humanitarian assistance through other means, whether it's through land means through Jordan, but also through the port of Ashdod there and Israel.

MAJOR GENERAL RYDER: Okay. The next question, we'll go to Fox, Jennifer.

Q: Thank you. Secretary Austin, just to follow up on the Chinese and Russian warplanes, the Chinese and Russians put out video bragging about this mission, so clearly it was a propaganda effort. The leader of the Houthis also bragged overnight that the drone that struck near the U.S. consulate in Tel Aviv flew 1,400 miles undetected. Are you concerned that the raucous political turmoil and election and the decision of the president to step aside is leading to adventurism and miscalculation by America's adversaries? Are they testing the U.S. right now?

And General Brown, yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said he wants the U.S. to deliver weapons to Israel faster. He also said that the ratio of civilian casualties to Hamas combatants killed in Gaza is the lowest in the history of urban warfare. Is that true?

MR. AUSTIN: Thanks, Jennifer. As to whether or not our adversaries are testing us at this particular time, they're always testing us, and that's no surprise to any of us. We see activity in the north on a number of occasions, and we are always at the ready to address that activity.

And in terms of the Houthis, as you know, they've been focused on successfully launching an attack on Israel. And this one drone that was able to get through is something that  it happened. But again, when you consider the fact that they have tried to attack Israel some 200 plus times and this one got through, I think it speaks to the remarkable air defenses that Israel has.

But again, we will see challenges from adversaries throughout, and I don't think that this particular point in time is any different. I think we'll continue to see this going forward. It's just the nature of who they are and what they do. But again, we have the world's greatest military, the most capable military, and we will continue to protect this nation.

GENERAL BROWN: Jennifer, I'll tell you that we've  as a nation and as a military, we've provided capability for Israel to defend itself before 7 October but also after 7 October. And after 7 October, we rushed a number of capabilities in to the Israelis, save recently one shipment of 2,000 pound weapons. And we'll continue to support the Israeli with munitions.

To the prime minister's comments on the ratio, I've not seen the numbers to validate or invalidate what he said. But I will tell you, in every one of my conversations with my counterpart, I do talk about the aspect of minimizing the civilian casualties and pushing humanitarian assistance into Gaza as they conduct their military operations.

Q: So, you're not withholding or slowing weapons to Israel right now?

GENERAL BROWN: We're not.

MAJOR GENERAL RYDER: Okay. Let's go across the room here to Washington Post.

Q: Gentlemen, thanks for your time today. Mr. Secretary, the Pentagon for more than a year has been examining what the definition of a Gold Star family should be, and it's an emotional topic for people on both sides of the issue. Can you explain where you stand on this issue, whether you support a broader definition that includes not only families of those killed in combat but also accidents, suicides, and other health crises?

Mr. Chairman, despite efforts to stop the Houthis attacking, global shipping remains mostly stymied in the Red Sea statistically. Do you support expanding those efforts in any way to stop the Houthis? And why has the current efforts not been enough to stop it?

MR. AUSTIN: Well, thanks for the question. Let me begin by expressing my deep condolences to all those families who have lost a loved one either in combat or otherwise. Every one of our troops is special to us, and we cherish what they bring to the force. And we feel their loss when we lose them.

This is an important topic, and it requires and deserves serious deliberation. And so, what we have done is taken in input from a number of different places and we've consulted a number of different people.

And so, it's going to take us a little bit more time to work through this, but we'll get it right and we have to get it right. It's really important. But again, this is important to us. It's also important to the many families who are a part of our larger family here.

GENERAL BROWN: As we work in the Red Sea and the Bab Al-Mandab, we're working not just with U.S. but also with the international community, with our allies and partners to ensure the freedom of

navigation and the flow of commerce. There is still flow of commerce that goes through the Red Sea and Bab Al-Mandab. But as you highlight, the Houthis are challenging the ability for that to move through.

We are taking away capability from the Houthis. We'll continue to take away, and the approach  we're taking capability away from the Houthis. But at the same point, it's going to take more than just a military operation. And this is an engagement with the international community but also the interagency, to use the various tools to put pressure on the Houthis to cease this.

They originally tied this to support of the Palestinians. And if you've watched how they've changed that, we'll see how this progresses forward. If a ceasefire does come to fruition and the hostage deal, that'll be a test of whether or not the Houthis are focused on the Palestinians or the Houthis are focused on the Houthis.

Q: Mr. Secretary, as you know, the Pentagon recently withdrew its recommendation on that Gold Star issue to review it more. Do you anticipate we will see a firm recommendation out of the Pentagon by the end of the year, by the end of the presidential term, any of the above?

MR. AUSTIN: I won't provide any predictions on a date. Again, what's most important is that that we put  we get this right, and we take on all of the recommendations and we consider every aspect of this issue. And when we're ready to provide that recommendation, we'll certainly do that.

MAJOR GENERAL RYDER: Okay. Again, we do have limited time, so I appreciate your limiting your follow ups. Let's go to Al Arabiya, Joseph.

Q: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, just to follow up on Prime Minister Netanyahu's comments yesterday, he said that he wanted to fast track  he wanted U.S. weapons fast tracked. He said that this would lead to a quicker end to the war in Gaza. Your former top official, who departed just in January on Middle East policy, said that the faster delivery of U.S. weapons to Israel will not enable a faster end to the war. There's no end to the war if the ends are total victory or only defined in military terms. Can you say whether you agree with that assessment or not?

And General, wanted to ask about the Houthis again. There's been some criticism in recent days and weeks from U.S. military officials, including from the CENTCOM commander, about the U.S. led mission to counter the Houthis, that maybe the current mission is not succeeding. Can you talk about any recommendations that you've made that the administration has not heeded or listened to? Or what more could be done other than  you mentioned more than just military operations or related matters. What else could be done specifically? Thank you.

MR. AUSTIN: Thanks for the question. Regarding the speed of delivery of security assistance to Israel, we have provided security assistance to Israel at record pace, and we've done that from the very beginning. We're able to do that because we learned a lot of lessons from our efforts to provide security assistance to Ukraine.

And you saw what happened initially. This conflict  well, the Israelis were attacked. A couple of days later, we had security assistance flowing in on the airfield there to our allies there in the Israel. We have sustained that throughout. And again, we're going to continue to do that. We're going to continue to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself.

But again, in terms of the prime minister's comments, I won't comment on that. What I will tell you is I'm going to stay focused on doing what we've done to date, providing Israel what it needs to be successful.

GENERAL BROWN: Well, I'll just tell you, I'm not going to get into internal deliberation discussions and tell you what recommendations I made or didn't make or what was taken or not taken.

What I will say is that we are doing is actually taking away a capability from the Houthis from military aspect. But to be able to address this, it's going to take broader than just the military strikes. There's an inspection regime of things that is  of smuggling that we can  we'll work through. There's also other things from a sanctions standpoint and many of the tools that you're probably familiar with.

And that's the conversation of the things that we need to do, not just for the U.S., but just in the international community, and to raise the awareness of the impact of  there is the flow of navigation now, but there is an impact. And so, how do we collectively internationally look at this so we can get that free flow of commerce back to the Red Sea and the Bab Al-Mandab.

MAJOR GENERAL RYDER: OK. Let's go to NBC.

Q: Thanks. Mr. Secretary, when and how did you find out that President Biden was deciding not to run? I guess could you discuss when, how, and by who or whom? I'm not sure actually what that is, who, by whom did you find out that he was stepping down? Have you spoken with him since or the vice president since?

And can you give us any sense of  I know you're not going to want to give us transcripts or quotes from any meetings that you've had that the vice president has participated in. But in some of these bigger decisions that have happened as you've been secretary, like the withdrawal from Afghanistan, strikes against the Houthis, can you give us any sense of the role that the vice president has played in those meetings, like your impressions?

And General Brown, you mentioned at the top that there are still active challenges today including  or including violent extremists. So, I wonder, with this talk about the potential for the mission in Iraq to change and the U.S. military presence there to really decrease by a significant amount in the coming year or so, what is the U.S. military assessment for ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and how they could reconstitute over what timeline? Thanks.

MR. AUSTIN: Thanks, Courtney. I found out when the president made the announcement. This is a very  this is a significant issue, a very personal issue for the president, and he made his decisions on his own timeline. And in terms of whether or not I've spoken with him or seen him, we were in the same NSC meeting yesterday, and then I spoke with him again separately by phone.

So, again, I think the president has done a significant amount for this country and the international community. And I am absolutely convinced that he is committed to doing everything he can for as long as he can to build upon many of the successes that you heard me talk about earlier today.

So I think in terms of  your second question was about Vice President Harris and her contribution to decision making processes. I won't get involved in any kind of political commentary or political processes. What I will tell you is what I know. Having sat in meetings with her for three and a half years,

having observed her provide input to some very complex decision making processes, she is always prepared. She is always  she always provides meaningful and very helpful input.

And again, I've seen her help the team, help the president work through some very, very complex issues. As you know, the president is the major player in the process, but she is a key player and, again, has always been engaged and involved, is always prepared for whatever discussion that we're going to have.

She's represented this country in the international arena, on the international stage a number of times and done so in a very, very professional and effective manner. She's met with key leaders around the globe. She even met with President Xi. And so, she understands national security, international affairs. And again, she's been a vital asset to the overall team throughout this. Again, that's what I know from sitting in a room with her over three and a half years.

Q: I didn't mean to limit you. If you did want to give quotes or transcripts from meetings, you could do that. I was just trying to  .

MR. AUSTIN: Sure. See me later. I'll hand them out.

Q: It's on the record.

MR. AUSTIN: Yeah.

GENERAL BROWN: Thanks, Courtney, on the question regarding ISIS. You're probably aware that we had our Iraqi partners here this week to talk about the transition from Operation Inherent Resolve to a bilateral security relationship. I had a chance to sit down with my counterpart and talk a bit about that transition, but also talk about the security environment and in relation to ISIS.

I'm not going to  I can't predict for you what might happen. But we are both focused on making sure there's not a resurgence of ISIS. And so, as we make that transition, it is something, a topic that we did talk about and how we posture ourselves from the US military, how we work the bilateral relationship, and where the Iraqi security forces are very broadly.

Now, we'll continue to work through the details of how that transition and number of forces. But we both understand the importance of us working together to ensure that there's not a insurgence a resurgence of ISIS.

MAJOR GENERAL RYDER: Okay. Let's go to Reuters, Idris.

Q: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, let's start off with you. Can you just give us a broader assessment of Israel's military strategy in Gaza? It seems there's sort of a clear and then not hold, which allows Hamas to come back into areas. How do you see  is that a sustainable strategy? And have you seen a credible day after plan from the Israelis so far?

And Mr. Secretary, you mentioned Vice President Harris being a key player. Could you give an example of when you've seen that? And then personally for you, what are you hoping to achieve in the remaining six months? And looking back at your tenure, what do you see as your legacy, and what's your biggest regret that you've had in the past three and a half years?

MR. AUSTIN: In terms of specific examples of Vice President Harris's input to decision making processes, we'd go back to the same place that Courtney was trying to get me to there to provide information that we dealt with that process, and I'm not going to do that.

But what I will tell you is that, if you just kind of look at the things that we have done, Idris, over the past three and a half years, the strikes that we've had to take, the deployments that we've done, the decision to support Ukraine, there's just thing after thing after thing, she's always there, she's always a part of the process, and she's always very engaged.

And the one thing that I would also tell you is that she absolutely loves troops. And she comes from the state of California where, as you know, there are a lot of troops in that state. And so, she's always been focused on the welfare of our troops and our families and also veterans as well.

So, that's what I know. And again, she has been thoroughly engaged throughout. And what was the second part of your question?

Q: What do you see as your legacy in this job, and what's your biggest regret in the past three and a half years? You've had successes, but naturally also some failures, frankly. But yeah, what's your biggest regret?

MR. AUSTIN: Idris, if my staff heard me talk about my legacy, they would have a heart attack because they know that I never focus on my legacy. I'm focused on defending this country, taking care of our people, and making sure that we have what we need to do those things. And again, I think, as long as we're doing the kinds of things that we are doing and have done, the legacy issue will take care of itself.

Again, if you look around, I mean, there's a lot of points on the board. And if it's a fact, it's not bragging, it's a fact. I mean, you look at what I mentioned earlier, what we've done with the Philippines and throughout the Indo-Pacific, you look at the fact that NATO is more unified than it's than it's ever been, and it goes on and on and on. I think this team has done remarkable work.

And I mention the team because it is all about the team. We have some of the greatest and most talented professionals here on the OSD staff that I've ever had the chance to work with. And of course, you know the caliber of people we have on the Joint Staff, but our troops are out there doing amazing things every day. And whatever successes we've achieved, it's because of them and because of the great families that support them.

So, we have work left to do, and we're going to stay focused on that work. We've got Ukraine and Russia. We've got Israel and Gaza. And we have to continue to make sure that we maintain the competitive edge in the Indo-Pacific.

Q: Biggest regret?

MR. AUSTIN: I'm sorry?

Q: Biggest regret in the past three and a half years?

MR. AUSTIN: I'll tell you what my biggestwhat I'm grateful for

most is having the ability to serve with the kinds of people that I just described. So, yeah.

operating in a very complex urban environment with an extensive tunnel network. And so, from a strategy standpoint, I'd prefer to defer to them exactly their strategy. But being able to go in and clear out areas and be able to try to hold that at the same time as Hamas is able to use that subterranean features to move around does create some challenges.

As far as the day after, we have talked to the Israelis about this, how to make a transition. We've talked to them a number of different times. There's not a lot of detail that I've been able to see from a plan from them. And that this is something we'll continue to work with them on. And it's going to be important for the security of the region of how you work that day after, as well as we work and talk to some of the other nations, our partners in the region as well.

MAJOR GENERAL RYDER: OK. We have time for one more. We'll go to Charlie, CBS.

Q: Thank you. First of all, Mr. Secretary, as we understand it, this is the first intercept of a joint Chinese-Russian exercise in that region. What message are they trying to send, and why now?

And General, if I could ask you about the pier, a lot of these conditions would have been predicted and forecasted for the challenges. Many people say that it wasn't designed for what it was meant to do. So, what went wrong?

MR. AUSTIN: In terms of the message that the Russians and the Chinese are sending, I'll tell you what message we're sending. And that message is we're going to be at the ready. We are at the ready. We will always be at the ready. We're going to defend this nation.

And so, if there is a challenge or a threat to the United States of America, your troops will be at the ready, and they will do the right thing. And I want to thank all those who continue to support our troops and their families. What you saw the other day is what they do each and every day. And I am absolutely proud of them.

Q: What do you make of the timing? Why now?

MR. AUSTIN: Well, I mean, you could probably guess that things like that have probably been planned well in advance. And so, that certainly would be my guess. And in terms of why they would choose to do something at a particular time, have to ask them. But what I will tell you is that, whenever somebody does something like that, we'll be at the ready to do the right thing.

GENERAL BROWN: Charlie, as we did the planning for moving the JLOTS, the pier, one of the thingsthere's a couple things we knew that we did plan for. We knew this would be temporary. We also knew that the sea states would start to increase as you get further into the summer.

And so, from that perspective we did everything we could to help mitigate. And as you saw, we'd bring the pier in, we'd move it back out so we could preserve the capabilities to continue to push humanitarian assistance in to the citizens of Gaza.

Again, I'm very proud of the thousand service members that were doing this work, because it's not easy work. And to be able to provide humanitarian assistance I thought wasI think we all collectively believe it was important to support and get that energized, not just what we did but what the others were able to do because of us being able to energize the process.

Q: But it was hoped it would be more effective?

GENERAL BROWN: Well, I mean, we didn't come out with the metrics and say here's how much we're going to move or how many days, but I think it was effective. And what we did is better than not doing anything at all and just observing. And again, I think we did a good job of actually getting things energized.

And ideally, as we get ready to bring the JLOTS home, we'll continue to be able to help with the coordination piece now that we've got some of that coordination done and continue that flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

MR. AUSTIN: I mean, we're talking 8,800 metric tons of humanitarian assistance. If you're a person in Gaza starving to death, I think that's effective.

And again, as the chairman said, this was never designed to be a permanent fix. And I made that point from the very beginning and I made it every day, that this is a temporary measure that we're taking to help with the overall effort, and we're going to take it out at the end of July. But while wewhen we had the opportunity to provide humanitarian assistance, I think our troops did amazing work, amazing work.

MAJOR GENERAL RYDER: Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. That concludes our press briefing. Secretary Austin, General Brown, thank you.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3850467/

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






July 25, 2024

By Devon Bistarkey, Defense Innovation Unit

AI-Powered Agile Talent Identification Systems Supports Joint Force

The launch of an artificial intelligence-powered platform for uncovering and matching talent across the joint force is an important step in tackling what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., has described as the current "war for talent."

Combining the eagle from the Defense Department's iconic heraldry with the term for a short-term work opportunity, the GigEagle platform is one of the Defense Innovation Unit's transformational projects. It works to match members of the Reserve and National Guard with gigs based on their full set of skills, including in-demand talents gained from civilian careers. The gigs range from four hours to 90 days across DOD.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael T. McGinley, GigEagle's program lead, draws parallels from the platform's inception to the successful model of rideshare companies that match supply and demand in real time.

"The idea is that across the department, programs have real-time needs for specific support and skills, and by mapping the expertise across the Reserve and Guard force, who have in-demand expertise outside of their military occupational specialty, we are able to connect them in an easy-to-use environment," McGinley said.

Today, the model for real-time talent matching has been proven, and it's transforming the way one military member is serving.

Air Force Reservist Maj. Kaitlin Zimmerman created her GigEagle profile and was matched with a project listed by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to support an on-base Morale, Welfare and Recreation Center initiative. While her military job is a program manager in the Space System Command's reserve strike team, she was tapped for her civilian career skills as a principal data scientist at Amazon Web Services to help predict MWR program office staffing levels.

"They needed a pretty straightforward machine learning model, and I was able to build a model that predicted the staffing needs with close to 87 percent accuracy," Zimmerman said.

The MWR office provided a dataset with information that included the number of people on-base, different events and training courses, which Zimmerman was able to use as proof of the possible.

"The training dataset was relatively small, so I'd categorize this as a prototype  nothing ready for production, but it did show that it could be done," Zimmerman said.

Showcasing what is possible for the future of defense work is precisely what platform users are demonstrating. With a focus across the services to find ways to drive modernization and recruit and develop top talent, the platform represents a joint capability gap solution.

"Throughout the U.S. Army and other services, there is an unprecedented focus on innovation and modernization which is forcing the department to leverage skillsets not typically developed within traditional military occupational specialties or branches," said Army Maj. Craig Robbins, chief talent management officer at the 75th Innovation Command.

Leveraging soldier skills and experience  especially those gained through the private sector  in AI, robotics, software development, data analytics and medical technologies represent just a few areas critical for the future force.

"These are skills we know we have in our ranks, but [we] cannot access them in real time because we lack the tools to identify them across the force," Robbins said.

The demand for talent matching is not new. Several years ago, the 75th Innovation Command prototyped a tool, which has since been retired, that matched talent with missions and assignments. Building on this demand, GigEagle brings those capabilities to the next level using AI and machine learning to understand the totality of soldiers' talents and how they align with problem sets in real time.

"I see GigEagle as the next step forward in achieving what we've been able to achieve in the 75th Innovation Command, but at scale across the Army and DOD," Robbins said.

Early adopters of the platform include DIU's own Joint Reserve Detachment, Space Force Space Systems Command, Marine Innovation Unit and AFWERX.

During a March technology demonstration at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas, Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel Hokanson, experienced the GigEagle platform.

"We're happy to have seen the GigEagle platform in action, a new joint talent marketplace that could be a game changer for the National Guard Bureau by unlocking the incredible skills resident in our Guard force."

Most recently, GigEagle prevailed as a top contender in DOD's inaugural Talent Management: From the Ground Up Innovation Challenge hosted by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. The goal was to meet the challenges of talent management by asking employees across the department for their best talent management ideas.

Of the 200 submissions received, nine, including GigEagle, were selected after employees presented their ideas in a final round of the competition in April. They will work with various policy offices inside DOD to collaborate on how best to implement their ideas.

Initially focused on National Guard and Reserve talent, the platform has enterprise-wide use case potential to include supporting the active-duty component, civilian service matching, and even military spouses.

To learn more about how this platform can transform the way service members can apply their skills or how your organization can find and engage in-demand talent to help solve problems, visit www.gigeagle.mil.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Belgium - Small Diameter Bomb-Increment II

Media/Public Contact: pm-cpa@state.gov

Transmittal No: 24-62

WASHINGTON, July 25, 2024 -- The State Department has made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Belgium of Small Diameter Bomb-Increment II and related elements of logistics and program support for an estimated cost of $115 million. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency delivered the required certification notifying Congress of this possible sale today.

The Government of Belgium has requested to buy up to one hundred ninety-six (196) Guided Bomb Unit (GBU)-53/B Small Diameter Bombs-Increment II (SDB-II) All-Up-Rounds (AURs). Also included are SDB-II Weapons Load Crew Trainers (WLCT); training aids and devices; spare and repair parts, consumables, accessories, and repair and return support; unclassified software delivery and support; unclassified publications and technical documentation; major modifications and maintenance support; training and training equipment; munitions support and support equipment; transportation support; studies and surveys; U.S. Government and contractor engineering, technical, and logistics support services; and other related elements of logistics and program support. The estimated total cost is $115 million.

This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a NATO Ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe.

The proposed sale will improve Belgium's capability to meet current and future threats by maintaining its F-35 fleet in combat-ready status and providing a credible deterrent to regional threats. Belgium will have no difficulty absorbing these articles and services into its armed forces.

The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region.

The principal contractor will be RTX Corporation, located in Arlington, VA. There are no known offset agreements proposed in connection with this potential sale.

Implementation of this proposed sale will not require the assignment of any additional U.S. Government or contractor representatives to Belgium.

There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readiness as a result of this proposed sale.

The description and dollar value are for the highest estimated quantity and dollar value based on initial requirements. Actual dollar value will be lower depending on final requirements, budget authority, and signed sales agreement(s), if and when concluded.

All questions regarding this proposed Foreign Military Sale should be directed to the State Department's Bureau of Political Military-Affairs, Office of Congressional and Public Affairs, pm-cpa@state.gov.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






The Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI) is Providing An Opportunity For Companies To Produce Battle and Combat Ammunition in Amari

Republic of Estonia - Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI)

25.07.2024

The Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI) is conducting a competitive bidding process to find a company that will start producing battle and combat ammunition in the Amari military base, with the aim to commence production at the beginning of next year.

"The development of the bigger defense industry park, managed by the Estonian Ministry of Defence, will take a couple of years due to the state special planning and its scale. Considering the current geopolitical situation, there is a need to start production as quickly as possible. Our goal is to remove barriers hindering the sector and support the development of the ammunition production industry through appropriate conditions," said Katri Raudsepp, Deputy Director of ECDI.

Using the military territory gives companies the opportunity to start ammunition production immediately. "Amari already has the necessary security and safety infrastructure, which does not need to be developed from scratch," added Raudsepp. She noted that meetings with representatives of the Estonian defense industry have clearly signaled that local defense companies are interested in expanding their businesses and participating in the competitive bidding.

The company winning the competitive offering will be granted the use of approximately 6,200 square meters in the Amari military base for up to five years, for which the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments will ensure the necessary defensive walls and communications to enable operations. The company is required to build temporary production facilities on the allocated area and ensure the necessary equipment for production.

Companies must submit an action plan for the competitive offering. "Based on the action plan, we will assess how the company supports the security plans of Estonia, NATO, and Ukraine through various criteria," said Raudsepp.

In August, ECDI will organize an information day for interested companies and publish the conditions and evaluation criteria of the selective bid invitation in the Official Announcements.

Ammunition production in the Amari military base will begin by the start of next year at the latest.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Yemen-Iraq joint operations to see significant development: Ansarullah leader

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Jul 25, 2024

Tehran, IRNA -- The leader of Yemen's Ansarullah Movement has underlined that joint operations by the Arab country and Iraqi resistance groups against the Israeli regime will witness an important development in the next stage.

Seyyed Abdul-Malik al-Houthi made the comment on Thursday as he made a speech addressing the Yemeni nation.

He also stated that the enemy was surprised by the Yemeni drone operation last Friday that targeted a decision-making center in Tel Aviv. They were also surprised by the distance that Yemen's Yaffa unmanned aerial vehicle travelled to reach Tel Aviv, he added.

Referring to the recent attack by the Zionist regime on Yemen's al-Hodeidah city, the Ansarullah leader said that the Israeli aggression against the port city will not force Yemen to stop its ongoing operations in support of Gaza. He added that the operations will continue in the seas and deep inside occupied Palestine.

Elsewhere in his remarks, al-Houthi spoke about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the US Congress on Wednesday when he called on Arab states to unite with the regime against Iran.

The Yemeni leader said that Israel's hostility is because that Iran is an Islamic country free from US and Israeli hegemony, and it supports Palestine and helps Arab countries in the face of enemy.

Al-Houthi also said that US legislators' praising Netanyahu is "the celebration of crime, oppression, and genocide", and shows the extent of the US involvement in Israeli atrocities against Palestinians.

Netanyahu's speech, which was full of lies, reflected the level of crisis and impasse in his cabinet, as well as his aggression and criminality, the Yemeni leader said.

4208**4194



NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Hezbollah targets Israeli positions in fresh attacks

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Jul 25, 2024

Tehran, IRNA -- Lebanon's Hezbollah Resistance Movement has targeted the positions of Zionist forces in northern occupied Palestine to show solidarity with Palestinians.

Hezbollah announced that its fighters targeted a military site for occupation soldiers in Shtula, located in northern Palestine, Al Mayadeen reported on Thursday.

They also announced a strike on the al-Manara site, confirming that the target was directly hit.

The movement added that the attack on al-Manara was launched in support of Gaza and in response to the aggression of the Zionist enemy, especially in southern Lebanon's Kfarhamam.

Hezbollah has said that it will continue its military operations in support of Gaza until the Israeli regime ends its war on the blockaded Palestinian territory.

The death toll from Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has reached 39,175 since the regime invaded the Palestinian territory on October 7.

7129**4194





NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Iran supports sustainable peace agreement in Yemen: FM Spox

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Jul 25, 2024

Tehran, IRNA -- Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani has expressed hope that a sustainable peace agreement in Yemen will be signed as soon as possible.

In reaction to a statement issued by the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Yemen Hans Grundberg on July 23, Kanaani said that Iran pursues resolving regional crises through dialogue.

The spokesman expressed hope that a sustainable peace agreement in Yemen would be signed as soon as possible.

The official welcomed any agreement in Yemen that results in resuming flights from Sana'a airport and solving monetary and banking problems nationwide.

Iran believes that any agreement, which reduces economic pressure and lifts air, sea, and land blockade of Yemen, is in the interest of the Yemeni people and serves as a source of stability in that country, Kanaani noted.

Grundberg issued his statement on Tuesday, saying that Ansarullah and the former Yemeni government informed him a day earlier that they had agreed on several measures to de-escalate in relation to the banking sector and Yemenia Airways.

The UN envoy voiced the world body's readiness to work with the parties to implement the agreed measures. He also urged them to collaborate towards an economy that benefits all Yemenis and supports the implementation of a nationwide ceasefire and the resumption of an inclusive political process.

7129**4194

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Gaza death toll climbs to 39,175

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Jul 25, 2024

Tehran, IRNA -- The death toll from Israel's genocidal war on Gaza has reached 39,175 since the regime invaded the Palestinian territory on October 7.

The Health Ministry in Gaza announced the updated figure on Thursday. It said that the total number of the wounded has exceeded 90,400 since the start of the war.

The ministry also said that at least 30 Palestinians were killed and 146 others wounded in a matter of 24 hours ending at Thursday noon, as a result of three acts of massacres by the regime.

In the meantime, Al Mayadeen news network reported continuous attacks on Gaza's southern city of Khan Yunis.

It also reported heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance fighters in the western parts of another southern city, Rafah.

4208**4194

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Lithuania and Poland to purchase Piorun air defence systems together

Republic of Lithuania - Ministry of National Defence

2024-07-25

Acquisitions and infrastructure development | Development and Strengthening of the Armed Forces

Lithuania and Poland, alongside two other European countries, submitted a request for partial European Union funding in a common procurement of the Piorun short-range man-portable air defence system under the European defence industry reinforcement through common procurement act (EDIRPA).

"We are happy to be able to join the Piorun short-range man-portable air defence system procurement. Strengthening of air defence is one of the most critical objectives on our agenda, therefore the purchase is welcome as much as collaboration with our close Ally Poland," said Minister of National Defence Laurynas Kasciunas.

Poland's invitation to Lithuania to join acquisition of the Polish air defence system Piorun was announced during the visit of Poland's Minister of National Defence Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz in Vilnius.

Currently LIthuania operates an older generation Polish air de fence system Grom.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






General Valdemaras Rupsys passed the colors to General Raimundas Vaiksnoras

Republic of Lithuania - Ministry of National Defence

2024-07-25

Development and Strengthening of the Armed Forces

On July 24 the transfer of authority took place at the Lithuanian Armed Forces during a ceremony in the Cathedral Square. The incoming chief of Defence of Lithuania General Raimundas Vaiksnoras received the Lithuanian Armed Forces flag and other regalia of command from the President of the Republic of LIthuania and Commander-in-Chief HE Gitanas Nauseda.

The event was attended by Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania Viktorija Cmilyte-Nielsen, Minister of National Defence Laurynas Kasciunas, Chair of the NATO Military Committee Adm Rob Bauer, Chief of Defence of Estonia Maj Gen Andrus Merilo, Chief of Defence of Latvia Lt Gen Leonids Kalnins, Chief of Defence of Portugal Gen Jose Nunes da Fonseca, Commander of the NATO Multinational Northeast Corps Maj Gen Jurgen-Joachim von Sandrart, commanders of services and units of the Lithuanian Armed Forces, commanders of Allied contingents in Lithuania, foreign defence attaches, representatives of NGOs, and other distinguished guests.

Chief of Defence General Valdemaras Rupsys relinquished the duties and saluted the lined up color guards bidding farewell to the commanders and personnel of the armed services. President of the Republic of Lithuania presented to the outgoing Chief of Defence the symbol of the state, the national flag, a personal weapon and symbolically a replica of the stock of the Great Hetman of Lithuania.

"Great challenges lead to difficult times, while difficult times shape leaders. Incoming Chief of Defence Raimundas Vaiksnoras is a true leader, therefore I am confident that he will usher in positive and tangible results. Knowing the energy and resolve the new Chief of Defence brings, I can only wish patience and consistency and keeping the vision throughout the term. I wish that when the five year term concludes, it would be possible to tell sincerely that the Lithuanian Armed Forces have done everything to ensure our security," said Minister of National Defence Laurynas Kasciunas in his remarks.

The Decree of the President on the appointment of General R. Vaiksnoras as the Chief of Defence of Lithuania was read out loud at the ceremony: the incoming top officer swore to protect the integrity of the territory of Lithuania and strengthen the Lithuanian Armed Forces. President of the Republic of Lithuania HE G. Nauseda bestowed on the new Chief of Defence the Lithuanian Armed Forces flag, scepter and the Chief of Defence badge.

The state and national flags of the Republic of Lithuania were paraded at the ceremony along with color guards of the Lithuanian Land Force, Infantry Brigade Iron Wolf, Lithuanian Great Hetman Jonas Karolis Chodkevicius Infantry Brigade Griffin, National Defence Volunteer Force and Colonel Juozas Vitkus Engineer Battalion, Air Force, Navy, Special Operations Forces, Training and Doctrine Command, Logistics Command, Lithuanian Grand Duke GEdiminas Headquarters Battalion, Lithuanian Great Hetman Kristupas Radvila Perkunas Signal and IS Battalion, Military Police, General Jonas Zemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania. The parade was commander by Commander Lithuanian Land Force Brig Gen Arturas Radvilas.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Iran welcomes Yemen de-escalation deal, says hopes for 'sustainable peace'

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 2:04 PM

Iran has hailed a deal between Yemen's Ansarullah resistance movement and the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) to ease financial tension and stop reciprocal measures.

In a statement on Thursday, spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Nasser Kan'ani said that the Islamic Republic hopes that the warring sides in the long-running conflict would sign an agreement on sustainable peace as soon as possible.

Kan'ani said the resolution of regional crises through dialogue and negotiations is rooted in Tehran's fundamental policies.

The United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg announced the deal on Tuesday. It seeks to end the warring parties' battle for control over the country's financial institutions and resume national carrier Yemenia Airways' flights between Sana'a and Jordan with an increase to three daily flights. Additionally, daily flights to Cairo and India, or as needed, will be operated.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran considers any agreement that eases economic pressures and removes the air, sea, and land blockade of Yemen to be in the interest of the Yemeni nation, and to bring stability and stability in the country," Kan'ani emphasized.

The top Iranian diplomat stated that the resolution of regional conflicts through dialogue is rooted in the fundamental policies of the Islamic Republic, expressing hope that Ansarullah and the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) would clinch an agreement on lasting peace in Yemen as quickly as possible.

UAE, Iraq laud Yemen's financial de-escalation deal

Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Ministry described the agreement as a positive step towards a political solution in Yemen that would fulfill the aspirations of its nation for security, development and stability.

The ministry also commended the efforts of the UN and its special envoy to reach a comprehensive and sustainable solution to the Yemeni crisis that would enhance peace and stability in the country and the West Asia region.

The UAE foreign ministry then reaffirmed Abu Dhabi's support for all regional and international efforts to bring stability to Yemen, and its commitment to stand by the brotherly people of Yemen and uphold their legitimate aspirations for development and prosperity.

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry, for its part, lauded the agreement between Yemen's Ansarullah resistance movement and the Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) to de-escalate economic tensions.

"The Ministry affirms its full support for the efforts aimed at achieving peace and security, and meeting the aspirations of the brotherly Yemeni nation," it said in a statement.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Islamic Jihad rebukes Netanyahu's lies in US congress, calls for his quarantine

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 10:57 AM

The Palestinian resistance movement Islamic Jihad has denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the US Congress as "full of lies and slander," calling on the international community to make utmost effort to "quarantine" him following the regime's months-long onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip.

The Gaza-based resistance group made the remarks in a statement on Thursday while reacting to an earlier speech by the Israeli premiere at the US Congress, with American lawmakers applauding in multiple intervals Netanyahu's recount of the Tel Aviv regime's genocidal war in the Palestinian territory over the past ten months.

"Netanyahu's speech is full of lies and slander," the statement said. "Netanyahu's lies that his army did not kill a single civilian in the attack on Rafah, and is not waging a war of starvation and genocide against the Gaza Strip, indicate his mockery of the world and his shameless indulgence in lies."

The Islamic Jihad said the Israeli prime minister's speech clearly stated that he has no intention of ending his aggression against Gaza, nor stopping the war and that he endeavors to obtain an American mandate to expand the scope of the war to include the entire region, which proves his bloodthirsty mentality on which his entity and Netanyahu's political future feeds.

"Netanyahu's talk about the future of Gaza confirms that he seeks to perpetuate his occupation, and that he is continuing his crimes and the war of genocide against our people, without deterrence or control," the statement added.

The Islamic Jihad said Netanyahu proved in his speech that his fragile entity derives its existence from wars and that the occupying regime only lives on bloodshed, which confirms that the existence of this entity is a danger to all of humanity.

"We call on the free people of the world to expose Netanyahu's plans and to make every effort to pursue and quarantine him, and we warn Western governments against falling into the trap of the criminal Nazi government in the entity," the statement underlined.

"What Netanyahu and his gang are seeking is a war that spares nothing and no one, deluding themselves that it comes from the myths of the Talmud that feed their imaginations.

Earlier, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas also termed the Israeli prime minister's so-called ideas about a "future" for the Gaza Strip that excludes the resistance from the territory's rule as mere "delusions."

"We in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) affirm that the war criminal Netanyahu's visions for the future of the Gaza Strip are mere delusions and fantasies he is trying to market," Hamas said.

Pro-Palestine protesters flocked to the streets in Washington, DC, on Wednesday to condemn Israel's barbaric campaign of death, destruction and genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip as Netanyahu was addressing US Congress.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023 after Hamas-led resistance groups waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

However, almost nine months into the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has failed to achieve its objectives in Gaza despite killing at least 39,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring over 90,000 others. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.

The US remains Israel's most important ally and biggest supplier of arms. It has provided Israel with weapons and intelligence support during the Gaza war, and blocked UN resolutions calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in the besieged Palestinian territory.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






UN: Israel continues forcible transfer of Palestinians to Gaza Strip's south

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 10:52 AM

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory says Israel continues forcible transfer of Palestinians in the devastated northern part of the Gaza Strip to the south of the besieged territory.

"People continue to cross from northern Gaza southwards," the UN body said in a post on X account on Thursday, adding that trickling flow of humanitarian aid in the northern part of Gaza has been slower than other parts of the Strip amid the continuation of the Israeli regime's genocidal war.

"The UN and partners are receiving and registering those who cross, providing them with water, food and other supplies, as well as basic health care, medical referrals, critical information and child protection services," it wrote.

This comes as earlier this month, the UN announced that 250,000 Palestinians in southern Gaza have been affected by Israel's evacuation orders as many people have been fleeing areas in and around the Strip's second largest city of Khan Yunis on foot and by car.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) also said on July 2 that patients at the European hospital near Khan Yunis are being transferred to nearby medical centers following an Israeli evacuation order covering much of the Gaza Strip's second-largest city.

In a separate tweet on Thursday, the UN's agency for Palestinians refugees (UNRWA) also said many Palestinian families are continually forced to move around inside the Gaza Strip, where there is no safe place.

"Children are crying and screaming, everybody is in this horrible position once again. It keeps happening over and over and over," said UNRWA spokeswoman in Gaza Louise Wateridge.

"They are forced from place to place, promised safety where there is none."

Israel unleashed a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas carried out its historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime's intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

So far, the Tel Aviv regime has killed more than 39,175 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured over 90,403 others.

Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have fled their homes, with many displaced multiple times.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






US military says 'tracked, intercepted' Russian, Chinese bombers off Alaska

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 9:43 AM

The US military says it has intercepted several Russian and Chinese bombers in international airspace near the coast of Alaska, the first time the two Asian allies make a joint foray into the area.

North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement late on Wednesday that two Russian Tu-95s and two Chinese H-6s had entered what is known as the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ).

The aircraft were "detected, tracked and intercepted," NORAD said, adding that they remained in the Alaska ADIZ and did not enter US airspace.

The bombers were intercepted by US F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, along with Canadian CF-18s and other support aircraft, a US defense official confirmed to CBS News.

The American official said the incident marks the first time that Russian and Chinese aircraft have jointly entered the Alaska ADIZ, and the first time Chinese H-6s have encroached off Alaska.

NORAD stressed in the statement that while the Alaska ADIZ is considered part of international airspace, it is defined as an area where US airspace ends, which "requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security."

The US military, however, added that the activity from the Russian and Chinese bombers was "not seen as a threat."

In February, the US military detected four Russian warplanes flying in the Alaska ADIZ, as was another Russian military aircraft in May 2023.

Russian warplanes were intercepted there twice in one week in February 2023, and in the same month, a Chinese spy balloon was detected near Alaska before eventually making its way across the continental US and being shot down off the coast of South Carolina.

Meanwhile, the American Coast Guard said in a statement last Wednesday that it had spotted multiple Chinese military warships in the US exclusive economic zone off the coast of Alaska.

The statement said all four Chinese vessels were "transiting in international waters but still inside the US exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the US shoreline."

The US Coast Guard stopped short of specifying how long the Chinese ships had been in the economic zone but said the Chinese vessels underlined in radio communication that their purpose was "freedom of navigation operations."

The latest reports come as the US, Canada, Russia and China have ramped up their military activities in the Arctic.

Days earlier, Moscow said it scrambled fighter jets to intercept two US military long-range bomber aircraft that approached the Russian border over the Barents Sea in the Arctic.

Earlier this month, Canada's defense ministry said it plans to acquire 12 new submarines capable of traveling under sea ice to bolster the defense of the country's vast Arctic coastal region, claiming that China has expanded its own underwater fleet while Russian submarines continue to collect intelligence in Arctic waters.



NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






UN highlights mass killing, displacement of Palestinians in West bank since Gaza war

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 9:33 AM

The UN says Israeli forces and armed settlers have killed 563 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East al-Quds, since Israel began its war on Gaza in October, highlighting mass killing and displacement of Palestinians in the area.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in its recent report on Wednesday disclosed that Israeli forces have killed a total of 548 Palestinians since October 7, 2023 as the world attention was focused on Gaza.

Also Israeli settlers are responsible for the deaths of 10 Palestinians, with 7 cases in which it is unclear if the perpetrators were Israeli forces or settlers, it added.

In the most recent development in the area, an Israeli drone strike killed five Palestinians, including two women and three resistance commanders, in the Tulkarm refugee camp and Tulkarm city.

Tulkarm governorate has seen the highest number of Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, with 115 deaths during Israeli forces' operations and 39 casualties from airstrikes, making up 22 percent of the total.

However, the death toll provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry is slightly different as it says that at least 589 Palestinians, including 142 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank since Israel began its genocidal war against Gaza.

Moreover, the OCHA reported Israeli forces have destroyed or compelled the destruction of 1,247 Palestinian-owned buildings in the West Bank, with 481 of them being homes. This has led to the displacement of 2,836 Palestinians, including 1,245 children.

Moreover, the OCHA reported that Israeli forces have destroyed or ordered the destruction of 1,247 Palestinian-owned buildings in the West Bank, with 481 of them being homes. This has led to the displacement of 2,836 Palestinians, including 1,245 children.

During the same period, the OCHA has documented 1,143 incidents of Israeli settlers' attacks against Palestinians, since the start of the conflict in Gaza. Out of the number, 108 attacks caused injuries, 916 resulted in damage to Palestinian property, and 119 led to both casualties and property damage.

Violence and human rights abuses in the West Bank have sharply risen in the first half of 2024, with a 65 percent spike from the previous year, as stated in recent reports by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), an Oslo-based NGO that seeks to protect the rights of people affected by displacement.

Settler attacks have also climbed, with 649 incidents recorded in the first half of 2024, compared to 598 in 2023.

"The data indicates that Israeli forces are deploying unwarranted use of lethal force against Palestinian civilians," said Ana Povrzenic, NRC's country director in Palestine.

She added that the deteriorating situation in the West Bank is directly linked to the actions of top Israeli officials to assert control over the region in defiance of international laws.

On July 19, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion stating that Israel's presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including East al-Quds, is illegal and that Israel's settlement policy is in breach of the Geneva Convention and must be terminated promptly.





NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Vietnamese, foreign officials attend state funeral for Communist Party chief

Few countries sent their top leaders to pay their respects for general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

By RFA Staff 2024.07.25 -- Top Vietnamese and foreign officials gathered in Hanoi on Thursday for the funeral of Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong who died last Friday at the age of 80.

Trong, who state media said died of "of old age and serious illness," served for 13 years as the most powerful leader in the Southeast Asian country's one-party political system, and spearheaded a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that some critics say has been used to settle factional scores.

President To Lam, who took over Trong's duties the day before his death was announced, led mourners at the National Funeral Hall in the Vietnamese capital, alongside Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

Trong's coffin was bedecked with his medals and a portrait as his family greeted mourners, who were asked not to bring flowers or envelopes of cash, media reported.

Flags flew at half mast across Vietnam, with somber services also held in Ho Chi Minh City and Trong's home village of Lai Da in Hanoi's Dong Anh district.

The state funeral will last for two days, ending with Trong's burial at the Mai Dich cemetery, where he will be laid to rest alongside many of the country's old leaders, on Friday afternoon.

Cambodia's Senate president and former prime minister Hun Sen and South Korean Prime Minister Han Duk-soo were among the foreign officials attending but many countries sent lower-ranking representatives rather than their top leaders.

"The general secretary had strengthened the enduring brotherly friendship with Cambodia and persistently strived over the years to enhance close cooperation not only between the Cambodian People's Party and the Communist Party of Vietnam but also between our two governments and peoples," Hun Sen said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken planned to attend the second day of the funeral on Friday to kickoff his whirlwind tour of Asia but postponed his arrival in Hanoi by a day to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Thursday.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said at a press briefing that U.S. President Joe Biden's bout of COVID had forced a planned meeting with Israel's leader to be pushed back by a day, making it impossible for Blinken to arrive in Hanoi in time for the funeral.

"We will still be there attending the meetings that we intended to, and still traveling to Vietnam to pay our respects, not on the day of the funeral but the day after," Miller said. "I think our allies and partners ... certainly understand the importance we've placed on the region."

Trong was the main architect of Vietnam's "blazing furnace" anti-corruption drive. The campaign has netted scores of suspects including several senior Communist Party officials and business leaders.

But it has also raised concern about political stability, unnerving some foreign investors, while also fueling complaints that some leaders have used accusations of corruption to settle scores and improve their standing.

"People remember Nguyen Phu Trong through his 'blazing furnace' campaigns, but it was this fight against corruption that helped expose the nature of a one-party dictatorship," said Viet Tan, a pro-democracy group with members inside Vietnam and abroad, which says it aims to aid a transition to democracy.

"Too many communist officials sought to exploit public resources and plunder the people's property. Not surprisingly, the burning furnace campaigns failed. After many years of rule, the Communist Party of Vietnam has made corruption endemic."

Edited by Mike Firn and Taejun Kang. Updated to include details about Antony Blinken's planned trip to Vietnam.

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






Cambodian court rules top opposition official must pay US$1.5 million

Government lawyers sued the Candlelight Party's president for defamation over democracy comments.

By RFA Khmer 2024.07.25 -- The president of Cambodia's leading opposition party was ordered on Thursday to pay the government US$1.5 million in a defamation case that stemmed from critical comments about Prime Minister Hun Manet.

Teav Vannol's comments to Nikkei Asia during a trip to Japan in February included the statement: "There is no democracy in Cambodia."

He added that Prime Minister Hun Manet's administration was "getting worse in terms of democracy." Government lawyers filed a lawsuit in April.

The interview with Nikkei Asia took place about six months after Hun Manet was named to the government's top post following the July 2023 parliamentary election that saw the ruling Cambodian People's Party win 120 out of 125 seats.

The election was held without any candidates from Teav Vannol's Candlelight Party. The government's National Election Committee ruled the party ineligible in May 2023, citing inadequate paperwork.

Hun Manet is the son of former prime minister Hun Sen, who was often criticized for his government's human rights abuses - including violations of freedom of speech and the shuttering of independent media outlets.

Teav Vannol wasn't in the courtroom on Thursday for Phnom Penh Municipal Court Judge Hok Pov's ruling. His attorney, Choung Chougny, said Teav Vannol has been living and working outside of Cambodia and may appeal the decision.

Political debate discouraged

Officials from the United States Embassy, the European Union, civil society organizations and human rights groups were present in the courtroom for the verdict.

Teav Vannol's comments to the newspaper were merely expressions of his true opinion and shouldn't have been the subject of a defamation lawsuit, Choung Chougny told reporters afterward. Critical comments among politicians are normally protected free speech, he said.

Freedom of expression is guaranteed by Cambodia's Constitution, but Thursday's judgment could cause people to be more wary of expressing their opinion, said Kim Piseth, a senior official with human rights group Adhoc.

Ideally, political matters should be resolved through political debate, he said.

"It is very important that politicians discuss things to a certain extent in a specific manner, and open up opportunities for citizens, as well as people in society, to discuss their interests," he said.

A spokesman for the Cambodian government couldn't immediately be reached for comment about the court's decision.

Previous cases

The lawsuit was just the latest in a long line of defamation cases brought by powerful officials in Cambodia.

In February, Hun Sen and the Cambodian People's Party, or CPP, sued Adhoc's spokesperson, Soeng Senkaruna, after he told a media outlet that the party has used its influence with the courts to put pressure on political opponents.

CPP lawyers have demanded 2 billion riel (US$500,000) in damages.

Last year, the Supreme Court upheld a US$1 million defamation judgment against Son Chhay, the Candlelight Party's vice president.

A lower court in 2022 ordered Son Chhay to pay the amount to the CPP and the National Election Committee following comments he made about local commune elections, which he said were marred by irregularities.

Additionally, another Candlelight Party vice president, Thach Setha, was found guilty of incitement in October 2023 and - in a separate verdict in September 2023 - of writing false checks.

He was arrested in the incitement case for comments he made about the CPP's historical ties to Vietnam and the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Monument, which was built in Phnom Penh in 1979.

His bad check conviction has been criticized as politically motivated by human rights groups and party officials.

Translated by Yun Samean. Edited by Matt Reed.

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






Tibetans forced to remove religious structures outside their homes

The measures come as Beijing intensifies efforts to assimilate Tibetans.

By Pelbar for RFA Tibetan 2024.07.25 -- For the first time, Chinese authorities are forcing ordinary Tibetans to remove religious symbols and destroy such structures from the exteriors and roofs of their homes in several villages in a Tibetan area of Sichuan province, two sources with knowledge of the situation said.

Authorities also are prohibiting Tibetans in Sichuan province and elsewhere from organizing and participating in prayer sessions online, said the sources who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.

The measures come as Beijing intensifies efforts to assimilate Tibetans and adapt Tibetan Buddhism so that its tenets and practices conform with the ideology of China's Communist Party.

While authorities have demolished religious objects and structures at times at Buddhist monasteries in Tibet, this is the first instance of religious symbols at ordinary people's homes being destroyed.

Since the beginning of July, Chinese authorities have conducted searches of all homes in at least four villages in Ngaba county, said the sources, one of whom lives in exile and the other who is inside Tibet.

They are forcing Tibetans to remove prayer flags hoisted on rooftops and to destroy religious objects, said the source from inside Tibet.

Among the objects being dismantled are concrete structures resembling chimneys outside homes where Tibetans perform Sang-sol, or incense offerings, to mark important religious and personal events in their lives, he said.

While authorities have not publicly disclosed the reason for their actions, Tibetans expect similar inspections in neighboring Tibetan areas, both sources said.

No online prayer sessions

Tibetans in Sichuan province and elsewhere are also prohibited from organizing any religious prayer sessions online in their social media messaging groups or chat groups, one of the sources said.

"Individuals who have initiated these prayer sessions have been summoned for interrogations by Chinese authorities," he said.

China has continued to restrict and control Tibetan religious practices and shown no willingness to resume formal negotiations about greater autonomy for the region with representatives of the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, according to the most recent annual report by the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China.

Beijing also bans Tibetans from observing significant cultural, religious and historical events such as Tibetan National Uprising Day and the Dalai Lama's birthday.

But Tibetans have defied these prohibitions, despite possible severe consequences.

During the Dalai Lama's birthday on July 6, monks from monasteries in the Ngaba area were confined to their compounds under police presence to enforce such restrictions, said the first source from inside Tibet.

With the birthday of Kirti Rinpoche, the head of Ngaba's Kirti Monastery, approaching in August, Chinese authorities have already implemented online restrictions and threatened Tibetans against posting any photos or well wishes, said the second source.

In March, Chinese police arrested Pema, a Tibetan monk from Kirti Monastery for staging a solo protest while holding a portrait of the Dalai Lama on the streets of Ngaba county.

Pema, who was working as a teacher for the preliminary Buddhist study section at the monastery, also shouted slogans against Chinese policies in Tibet during his protest and was immediately arrested.

Translated by Tenzin Dickyi and edited by Tenzin Pema for RFA Tibetan. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Matt Reed.

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






China Breaks Ground On Massive Afghan Copper Mine After 16 Years Of Delays

By RFE/RL's Radio Azadi July 25, 2024

Chinese engineers and the Taliban government officially started work on a massive project in Afghanistan to mine the world's second-largest deposit of copper.

At the July 24 event at Mes Aynak, some 40 kilometers southeast of the capital, Kabul, Taliban officials along with Chinese businessmen and diplomats carried out a ribbon-cutting ceremony as work began on the construction of a road to the mining site.

A $3 billion deal signed in 2008 gave the Chinese state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) a 30-year mining concession, but combat between NATO-led troops and Taliban insurgents at the time delayed the project from moving forward for 16 years.

With violence waning since the Taliban's 2021 takeover of power amid the withdrawal of foreign troops, the cash-strapped Taliban-installed government is eager to exploit the country's vast and lucrative mineral deposits.

"The time wasted in the implementation of the project should be recuperated with speedy work," Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdul Ghani Baradar said at the ribbon-cutting event.

Taliban officials said it would likely be at least two years before the first copper was extracted by MCC while Chinese diplomats praised the progress as a sign of warming ties between Beijing and Kabul.

"The economic and trade relations between the two countries are becoming increasingly close," said China's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zhao Xing.

Since it seized power, the Taliban has faced the task of undertaking the reconstruction and development of a country devastated by decades of war.

But officials have also found their economy suffocated by Western sanctions and dealing with international isolation that has cut them off from receiving financial support.

China has been an exception for the Taliban government, with Beijing vowing to pursue deeper cooperation shortly after the group took control of Kabul.

Beijing has been particularly focused on exploiting Afghanistan's extensive resource wealth, from oil and gas to rare-earth metals.

Mes Aynak remains one of the most attractive offerings for Chinese firms. The deposit is estimated to contain 11.5 million tons of copper ore, which is vital for electronics components and is surging in value due to its use in growing markets related to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers.

According to a Brookings Institute report, Afghanistan sits on some 2.3 billion metric tons of iron ore and 1.4 million metric tons of rare-earth minerals, and the U.S. Geological Survey has calculated that the country is sitting on $1 trillion in untapped minerals, such as iron, gold, and lithium -- an essential but scarce component in rechargeable batteries and other technologies.

Amir Mohammad Musazai, a retired professor from the Department of Geology and Mines at Kabul Polytechnic University, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi that mining Mes Aynak is likely to yield amounts of copper ore worth more than the $3 billion that was signed for the mining rights, given that nearby areas also hold large copper reserves that weren't factored into the original plans.

While the groundbreaking event at Mes Aynak is a sign that Chinese resource ventures are moving forward in the country after decades of delays due to war, security concerns are still a major hurdle holding back more expansive projects, which often rely on Chinese engineers and other staff.

The July 24 ceremony was closely guarded by dozens of armed men and Taliban officials made assurances that they would protect staff at the mining project.

Chinese workers have increasingly become a target of attacks in the region, including a suicide attack that killed five Chinese enginners in Pakistan in March and a 2021 bombing that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers, at a dam project in the South Asian country.

In Afghanistan, at least five Chinese nationals were wounded when gunmen stormed a Kabul hotel popular with Beijing businessmen in 2022.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/china-afghanistan-mes- aynak-copper-mining/33050447.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






Never Mind Unseating Georgian Dream, Georgia's Opposition Must First Overcome Internal Frictions

By Joshua Kucera July 25, 2024

TBILISI -- With the ruling Georgian Dream party risking estrangement from the West amid a crackdown on dissent, Georgia's opposition parties appear to agree on one thing: In their view, winning national elections this fall is essential to preserving democracy in their Caucasus state.

What they can't agree on is how to do it.

A new 5 percent threshold for parliament is prodding smaller opposition parties that could prove critical to unseating the Georgian Dream majority to join forces to avoid their share of the vote going to waste. But disputes have persisted over whether to form a single opposition front -- which would be dominated by the largest party, the former ruling United National Movement (ENM) -- or run in smaller party alliances. That question, along with missed deadlines even where cooperation has emerged, has left some smaller parties unwilling to seek out partners or grudgingly going it alone.

"We have such incompetent people in the opposition," a voter, Sergi Khetsuriani, complained to fellow government critics on a social media forum recently. "The one thing they need to do is to unite, and they can't even do that."

Georgia's increasingly combative president, Salome Zurabishvili, agrees that the stakes are high, repeatedly describing the October voting as a referendum on the country's "European future."

Tbilisi's Western partners have hinted as much, too. Washington has announced that bilateral relations are under review over a new "foreign agent" law targeting media and civil society, a violent crackdown on protests, and "disinformation and negative rhetoric about the West." Brussels has "stopped for now" Georgia's EU accession process and frozen financial assistance to Tbilisi.

The spoils are amplified further by a newly enacted system, set out in the 2017 constitution, that excludes parties under 5 percent from parliament and redistributes their votes.

"I am sick and tired of [opposition leaders'] egos, now that the election matters more than ever," a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more candidly told RFE/RL.

The diplomat said cooperation within the opposition has been hindered by personal squabbles between leaders and even petty issues like campaign colors and shared parking spaces.

"By now, the opposition should have a very good strategy," the diplomat said, "and so far I don't see it."

Clearing The Bar

Georgian Dream, founded by billionaire Bidzina Ivanashvili in 2012, will be seeking its fourth consecutive ruling majority in October.

Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters and opposition parties accuse the ruling party of leading the country toward Russia and authoritarianism, exemplified by parliament's passage of the "foreign agent" law in May, despite Zurabishvili's veto.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze and other party officials argue that they are the only force that can maintain national sovereignty in the face of foreign forces that don't have Georgia's best interests in mind.

Polls historically show the combined opposition of around half a dozen parties has about the same level of support as Georgian Dream, somewhere between one-quarter and one-third of the public. A number of them hover below 5 percent, suggesting they could miss parliament and thus inadvertently contribute to a Georgian Dream victory.

Some in the opposition argue that the simplest way to prevent such an outcome is for all of those parties to unite on the ballot.

A single list would send the most coherent message to voters, run the least risk of smaller parties falling short of the threshold, and emphasize opposition to Georgian Dream, said Tina Bokuchava, the chair of the ENM.

"Otherwise, it's [our own] party differences that become the divisions between us," she told RFE/RL. "We're forced to define ourselves vis-a-vis each other, not just vis-a-vis the government."

Out With The Old?

The ENM and its polarizing founder, jailed former President Mikheil Saakashvili, ruled Georgia from the 2003 Rose Revolution until suffering defeat by the upstart Georgian Dream in 2012.

It remains the single most popular opposition party in the low double-digits, but the widespread perception of the ENM is that it fell prey to autocratic excesses during that decade in power.

Georgian Dream has capitalized on popular distrust of ENM by labeling all opposition parties "the collective ENM." So, many opposition leaders and sympathizers argue that distinguishing themselves from the ENM is essential to success at the ballot box.

"It has been working quite well for [Georgian Dream], using the ENM as a bogeyman to scare people from voting for the opposition," Salome Samadashvili, a lawmaker for the liberal-centrist Lelo party, said. "There are plenty of Georgian voters who do not want to vote anymore for Georgian Dream, and they clearly see that it is time to change the government, but they're also very unwilling to vote for anything that includes the ENM."

Lelo and some other parties have advocated for multiple smaller opposition alliances that are likely to surpass 5 percent but also offer a choice for voters who can't abide ENM or some other specific opposition force.

That approach appeared to win out in June, when six opposition parties signed an agreement in Brussels pledging to announce their alliances by July 8. But the deadline passed with only one alliance announced, between ENM and Strategy Aghmeshenebeli, a smaller splinter party with which ENM had already formed an alliance last year.

The next day brought another alliance: the Akhali, Droa, and Girchi-More Freedom parties, all also led by former ENM officials.

The following week, a third alliance was announced between Lelo and the For The People and Freedom Square parties, neither of which has strong ties to ENM; on July 23, the Citizens Party joined as well.

The opposition strategy of coordinated variety doesn't appear to have diverted Georgian Dream away from its "collective ENM" tactic. One of its lawmakers, Maka Botchorishvili, told RFE/RL recently that Georgia is "a very small society, and it is difficult to lie to people."

"Whatever you create from the former ENM, it will still be ENM," Botchorishvili said. "Maybe there will be little shifts, these changes, creating the picture that the old ENM doesn't exist anymore -- this is their tactic -- but honestly I don't think it will work."

Cracks Already Emerging

Meanwhile, small but potentially important elements are missing from the efforts to unify.

The For Georgia party of Giorgi Gakharia, who was prime minister as a member of Georgian Dream from 2019 until a falling out with the party in 2021, has been in inconclusive talks so far on an alliance with Lelo.

"It could be quite a strong bloc, but their history and personal disagreements don't allow it," Kornely Kakachia, head of the Tbilisi think tank Georgian Institute of Politics, said of a For Georgia-Lelo pairing. "And there are many such stories like this."

Polls suggest that For Georgia stands a good chance of reaching the 5 percent threshold on its own. Three other opposition parties that are less likely to do so -- European Georgia, Girchi, and the Labor Party -- have so far found no partners.

But Giga Bokeria, the chairman of European Georgia, said he likes the prospects of his party going it alone.

"If [Georgian Dream] are over 40 percent, then we are screwed, but they are losing ground," Bokeria said. He said that with the opposition polling a combined 60 percent or so -- "assuming the ENM in the best-case scenario will have 20, maybe 25 [percent]" -- the remaining 35 percent can't be divided among parties polling below 5 percent. "It's not possible."

Ahead of the vote, the Civil Society Foundation (the Georgian branch of the Open Society Foundation network) sponsored a poll intended to identify the most successful opposition configuration to challenge Georgian Dream.

RFE/RL obtained a copy of the results, which were meant for internal use among the opposition parties. It showed Georgian Dream with 29 percent support and a right-wing offshoot that will run together with it -- called People's Power -- just below 1 percent.

The poll tested various opposition party groupings, though not those that eventually prevailed. It found that there was synergy among such alliances that could boost their results. The raw vote totals of the parties that joined the three alliances amounted to 32 percent -- just ahead of the ruling party bloc.

For Georgia, meanwhile, was just under the threshold at 4.6 percent; European Georgia was at 2.6 percent; and Labor at 1.2 percent. Losing those votes could make all the difference for the opposition, analyst Kakachia argued.

"I don't think we have the luxury to lose 2 or 3 percent," he said. "That can actually be decisive."

Still, he said, the opposition has at least partially overcome the infighting that has long plagued it.

"This year, it seems like they have this pressure from Brussels and also from Georgian people to cooperate and at least not attack [each other]," he said. "But I'm not sure that they solved all their problems."

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/georgia-election- opposition-politics/33050853.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






Croatia Declares Three Right-Wing Montenegrin Officials 'Undesirable'

By RFE/RL's Balkan Service July 25, 2024

Croatia has declared three pro-Serbian officials from neighboring Montenegro undesirable, effectively banning them from entering the country, after the Montenegrin parliament passed a resolution declaring the World War II-era Croatian concentration camp at Jasenovac as genocidal.

The three are parliament speaker Andrija Mandic, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksa Becic, the leader of the right-wing Democratic People's Party, and lawmaker Milan Knezevic, a member of presidency of the opposition Democratic Front alliance.*

The decision was announced in a note sent by the Croatian Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs to the Embassy of Montenegro in Zagreb.

The note said that the decision was made because of "systematic actions to disrupt good-neighborly relations with Croatia and continuous abuse of that country for domestic political purposes."

"The parliament of Montenegro decided to ignore the continuous calls of the Republic of Croatia and not take steps that could negatively affect our bilateral relations and Montenegro's European path," the note said.

The resolution, put forward by Mandic and adopted by lawmakers on June 28, is considered a response by pro-Serbian ultranationalists to a UN resolution acknowledging as genocide the 1995 mass killings in Srebrenica by Bosnian Serbs.

Mandic is the head of the right-wing New Serbian Democracy, a party that was part of the now-disbanded right-wing populist Democratic Front bloc, on whose initiative the Montenegrin parliament on June 28 approved the Jasenovac resolution.

The Jasenovac concentration and extermination camp was established in 1941 by Croatia's Nazi-allied Ustase leaders. Between 83,000-100,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma, and anti-fascist Croats were killed at Jasenovac during the war.

Zagreb's move comes two days after the parties of Mandic and Knezevic became part of the government in Podgorica. Becic was already deputy prime minister in the government led by Milojko Spajic.

Neighbors Croatia and Montenegro were part of the former Yugoslavia. Croatia is now a European Union and NATO member, while Montenegro joined the alliance in 2017 and is an EU candidate.

"Croatia supports European Montenegro, supports the process of accession to the European Union," the Croatian note said, adding that it also "expects that Montenegro will behave in accordance with European values and in the European spirit, and that it will focus its efforts on further fulfilling the conditions and benchmarks in the accession process."

*CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misidentified Milan Knezevic as a member of the Democratic People's Party. He is affiliated with the Democratic Front alliance.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/croatia-podgorica-resolution- jasenovac/33050475.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






U.S., Canadian Warplanes Intercept Russian, Chinese Military Aircraft Near Alaska

By RFE/RL July 25, 2024

The United States and Canada scrambled fighter jets after two Russian and two Chinese military planes were tracked in the international airspace close to Alaska, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement.

"NORAD detected, tracked, and intercepted two Russian Tu-95 and two PRC H-6 military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on July 24, 2024. NORAD fighter jets from the United States and Canada conducted the intercept," the statement said.

The "identification zone" is a stretch of international airspace that acts as a buffer zone where the U.S. and Canadian national airspace ends. All aircraft entering the ADIZ require identification for national security reasons, NORAD clarified.

The presence of the Russian and Chinese planes was not seen as a threat, since they remained in international airspace and did not violate U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace, NORAD said, adding that it will "continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence."

Russia has long had a military presence in the North Pacific and intercepts of Russian planes are relatively common in the area. An intercept refers to visual or electronic contact by NORAD aircraft of foreign planes.

Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Russian and Chinese warplanes conducted a "joint patrol over the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, and the northern part of the Pacific Ocean" and "worked out issues of interaction at all stages of air patrolling."

They "acted strictly in accordance with the provisions of international law" and there were "no violations of the airspace of foreign states," the ministry said.

China's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said the joint flight was "not aimed at a third party."

Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said the action "has nothing to do with the current international and regional situation," while it "tests and enhances the level of cooperation between the two air forces."

Russia and China have deepened their political, military, and economic cooperation since the start of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Beijing's military has in recent years expanded its reach farther and farther away from continental China, with Chinese naval ships being detected in international waters near Alaska.

The U.S. Coast Guard earlier this month spotted four Chinese vessels in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, a 370-kilometer stretch of sea from the U.S. coast.

NORAD is a Colorado-based joint organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection for Canada and the continental United States.

"NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America," the statement said.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-norad-alaska-china- intercepts/33050150.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






Pentagon Confirms Strike Near Airbase in Iraq, Reports No Casualties

Sputnik News

20240725

US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria have been targeted with multiple attacks since October 2023 following Hamas' October 7 operation in Israel and the subsequent conflict in the Gaza Strip. US support for Tel Aviv has inflamed public opinion across much of the Muslim world.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed an attack near the Ain al-Asad Airbase in Iraq Thursday but claimed there were no casualties or damage to the facility as a result of the strike.

"We can confirm that there was a strike that landed outside the base with no damage or injuries," an official told Sputnik.

It is not known at this time what equipment was used to carry out the attack or how many munitions were launched, the Pentagon added.

Earlier this month two drones attacked the Ain al-Asad Airbase, similarly resulting in no damage or casualties.

US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria have been targeted with multiple attacks since October 2023 following Hamas' October 7 operation in Israel and the subsequent conflict in the Gaza Strip. US support for Tel Aviv has inflamed public opinion across much of the Muslim world.

The base was previously targeted by Iran in retaliation for former President Donald Trump's killing of Iranian military general Qasem Soleimani in 2020.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Imposing Sanctions on Coalition of Armed Groups in the DRC

US Department of State

Press Statement

Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson

July 25, 2024

The United States is today sanctioning the Congo River Alliance, known by its French name Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), a coalition of armed groups driving violent conflict and civilian displacement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). We are also designating individuals and entities associated with AFC.

AFC and its affiliates - including the U.S.- and UN-designated, Rwanda-backed M23 group - have called for the overthrow of the Government of the DRC and used violence to achieve this political goal, resulting in serious violations of international law that have exacerbated a humanitarian crisis in eastern DRC. The United States condemns the displacement of civilians in North Kivu and encirclement of its provincial capital, Goma, and the human rights abuses committed by M23 in Masisi, Rutshuru, and Nyiragongo territories.

The United States has long sought to hold accountable those actors harming civilians and creating instability in eastern DRC. Today's measures are intended to support a DRC that is peaceful, prosperous, and sovereign. We remain committed to supporting regional peace processes, including the Angola-led Luanda process and East African Community-led Nairobi process, which seek to create the conditions to end the hostilities.

The Department of the Treasury's actions today were taken pursuant to Executive Order 13413, "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo," as amended. For more information on today's action, see Treasury's press release.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Secretary Blinken's Call with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Manalo

US Department of State

Readout

Office of the Spokesperson

July 25, 2024

The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke today with Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Enrique A. Manalo to discuss the upcoming 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilberto Teodoro in Manila.

Secretary Blinken and Foreign Secretary Manalo reiterated the importance of the United States-Philippines Alliance and spoke about shared priorities both in the Indo-Pacific region and around the world. Secretary Blinken further shared condolences for those in the Philippines who have died or been displaced as a result of Typhoon Gaemi and recent monsoon-related flooding. The Secretary noted that the United States stands ready to provide assistance.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Secretary Blinken's Call with Kenyan President William Ruto

US Department of State

Readout

Office of the Spokesperson

July 25, 2024

The below is attributable to Spokesperson Matthew Miller:

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Kenyan President William Ruto today. The Secretary underscored the importance of freedoms of assembly and expression as enshrined in Kenyan's constitution, emphasized the vital role played by youth and civil society organizations in healthy democracies, and urged respect for their contributions to Kenya's development. The Secretary commended President Ruto for his pledge of accountability for security forces allegedly involved in protest violence or responsible for disappearances and his commitment to direct police to refrain from using violence of any kind against protesters. The Secretary thanked President Ruto for Kenya's contributions to the multinational security support mission to Haiti. The Secretary reiterated that the United States stands with the Kenyan people as they build a more inclusive and prosperous Kenya.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Treasury Sanctions Rebel Alliance Driving Instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

U.S. Department of the Treasury

July 25, 2024

United States targets armed group leaders who fuel conflict, displacement

WASHINGTON -- Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on the Congo River Alliance, known by its French name Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), a coalition of rebel groups that seeks to overthrow the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and is driving political instability, violent conflict, and civilian displacement. The principal member of AFC is the U.S.- and UN-sanctioned March 23 Movement (M23), an armed group with a long history of destabilizing the DRC's North Kivu province and perpetrating human rights abuses. OFAC is also targeting individuals and entities associated with AFC, including Bertrand Bisimwa, the president of M23; Twirwaneho, an AFC-affiliated armed group in the DRC's South Kivu province; and Charles Sematama, a commander and deputy military leader of Twirwaneho.

"Today's action reinforces our commitment to hold accountable those who seek to perpetuate instability, violence, and harm to civilians to achieve their political goals," said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson. "We condemn AFC and its affiliates, including M23, for fueling this deadly conflict and exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in eastern DRC."

In addition, OFAC is redesignating Corneille Yobeluo Nangaa (Nangaa), who launched AFC alongside the leaders of M23. Nangaa is the former president of the DRC's National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) and was originally sanctioned by OFAC in 2019 for engaging in actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in the DRC. Today, he is also being sanctioned for acting as a leader of AFC. The designation of AFC and its affiliates and the redesignation of Nangaa are being carried out pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13413, as amended by E.O. 13671.

CONGO RIVER ALLIANCE: A Driver of Political INSTABILITY IN Eastern DRC

The Congo River Alliance (Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC)) is a political-military coalition that seeks to overthrow the DRC government. At its launch on December 15, 2023, AFC invited armed groups and members of the Congolese military to join its rebellion. AFC conducts advocacy and public outreach on behalf of M23 and seeks to extend its armed insurgency beyond eastern DRC. AFC is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13413, as amended by E.O. 13671 ("E.O. 13413, as amended"), for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of M23.

Corneille Yobeluo Nangaa (Nangaa) is the former president of CENI and was a key figure in the delay of the DRC's 2016 elections, which were postponed until 2018. Nangaa is the coordinator of AFC, which he launched alongside senior M23 officers. Nangaa is engaging in efforts to popularize AFC and promote its goal of overthrowing the DRC government, in collaboration with M23. OFAC designated Nangaa on March 21, 2019, pursuant to E.O. 13413, as amended, for engaging in actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in the DRC. Today, OFAC is also designating Nangaa pursuant to E.O. 13413, as amended, for being a leader of AFC.

m23: A Rebellion at the center of recurring Violence in North Kivu

AFC's primary member is M23, a Rwanda-backed rebel group that seized vast swathes of eastern DRC in 2012 and briefly controlled the border city of Goma, before fleeing to neighboring Rwanda and Uganda in 2013. OFAC designated M23 on January 3, 2013, pursuant to E.O. 13413, for committing serious violations of international law involving the targeting of children in situations of armed conflict in the DRC, including killing and maiming, sexual violence, abduction, and forced displacement, and receiving arms and related materiel, including military aircraft and equipment, or advice, training, or assistance, including financing and financial assistance, related to military activities in the DRC.

M23 reemerged in late 2021 with the help of the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF). In February 2024, M23 cut off the last remaining overland supply route to Goma, and in May 2024, M23 seized Rubaya, a town at the center of an expansive mining area for coltan, a key material used in the production of electronic devices. The security crisis prompted by M23's rebellion has displaced around 1.5 million people according to the International Organization for Migration. Over the course of its rebellion, M23 has perpetrated human rights abuses, including killings, attacks against civilians, and sexual violence. On November 29, 2022, M23 conducted a series of killings in the town of Kishishe in North Kivu, where M23 combatants looted civilian property and raped women. Promoting accountability for conflict-related sexual violence committed by groups such as M23 is a top priority for President Biden, who signed a Presidential Memorandum on November 28, 2022 that directs the U.S. government to strengthen the exercise of its financial, diplomatic, and legal tools to address this pernicious problem.

Bertrand Bisimwa (Bisimwa) is the civilian president of M23. He stood alongside Nangaa at the launch of AFC and is central to AFC and M23's collaboration. Bisimwa engages in public outreach on behalf of M23 and facilitates the establishment of rebel administrations in territories controlled by M23. Bisimwa is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13413, as amended, for being a leader of M23.

Twirwaneho: Extending AFC's Rebellion TO South Kivu

Twirwaneho is an armed group in South Kivu province that is a member of AFC and collaborates with M23. The leader of Twirwaneho is Michel Rukunda (Rukunda), who was sanctioned by OFAC, along with other Congolese armed group leaders, on December 8, 2023 pursuant to E.O. 13413, as amended. In February 2024, the UN Security Council's 1533 DRC Sanctions Committee also added Rukunda to its sanctions list. Twirwaneho is responsible for attacks against civilians and forced recruitment, including of minors.

Twirwaneho is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13413, as amended, for being responsible for or complicit in, or having engaged in, directly or indirectly, the targeting of women, children, or any civilians through the commission of acts of violence (including killing, maiming, torture, or rape or other sexual violence), abduction, forced displacement, or attacks on schools, hospitals, religious sites, or locations where civilians are seeking refuge, or through conduct that would constitute a serious abuse or violation of human rights or a violation of international humanitarian law in or in relation to the DRC.

Charles Sematama (Sematama) is a commander and deputy military leader of Twirwaneho. Sematama deserted from the Congolese military in February 2021 and leads Twirwaneho operations, including the armed group's forcible recruitment of minors. Sematama is being designated pursuant to E.O. 13413, as amended, for being a leader of Twirwaneho.

sANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS

As a result of today's action, all property and interests in property of the designated persons described above that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. In addition, any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, individually or in the aggregate, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons are also blocked. Unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC, or exempt, OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all transactions by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons.

In addition, the prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

The power and integrity of OFAC sanctions derive not only from OFAC's ability to designate and add persons to the SDN List, but also from its willingness to remove persons from the SDN List consistent with the law. The ultimate goal of sanctions is not to punish, but to bring about a positive change in behavior. For information concerning the process for seeking removal from an OFAC list, including the SDN List, please refer to OFAC's Frequently Asked Question 897 here. For detailed information on the process to submit a request for removal from an OFAC sanctions list, please click here.

Click here for more information on the individuals and entities designated today.

###

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






DAF stands up Integrated Capabilities Office to advance Operational Imperatives

Published July 25, 2024

Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs

ARLINGTON, Va. (AFNS) -- In an effort to codify the success and significant gains made in line with the Operational Imperatives, Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall stood up the Integrated Capabilities Office July 19.

Driven by the need to rapidly modernize the DAF to meet emerging challenges in an era of Great Power Competition, the ICO seeks to institutionalize the speed, agility and rapid innovation that the Operational Imperatives have brought to the force.

"The Integrated Capabilities Office will directly support the Department of the Air Force senior leadership team as we develop our integrated modernization plans for the Air Force and Space Force," Kendall said. "China, our pacing challenge, is modernizing its military with the intent to defeat U.S. power projection capabilities. We will not let that happen."

The Operational Imperatives were born out of necessity. Upon his arrival in 2021, Kendall ordered a series of studies and analyses that identified key capability gaps within the force. Seven areas of need were determined imperative to meet the pacing challenge: Resilient Space Order of Battle and Architectures, Joint All-Domain Command and Control, Moving Target Engagement at Scale, Next Generation Air Dominance, Resilient Forward Basing, B-21 Long-Range Strike Family of Systems, and Readiness for Wartime Posture.

Initiated under the DAF's optimization for Great Power Competition, the ICO is a Secretariat-level office that will continue the work of the Operational Imperatives. Prior to initiation of GPC, the Operational Imperative teams operated mostly ad hoc, which allowed for innovation, speed and agility.

The ICO will facilitate agile Integrated Development Campaign Teams led and staffed by operational experts from the newly formed U.S. Space Force Space Futures Command and U.S. Air Force Integrated Capabilities Command, and acquisition professionals from Air Force Materiel Command's Integrated Development Office and Space Force acquisition organizations.

The campaign teams will work imperative problem sets and provide data-driven solutions and recommendations. The ICO will incorporate these results into prioritized recommendations for modernization and will collaborate with other organizations to integrate these priorities, along with other portfolios, into the budgeting process.

The ICO will remain in a primarily advisory role but will have direct access to the Secretary and senior leadership, with the ability to make highly collaborative and unfiltered, recommendations to ensure emerging capability opportunities get a voice in the enterprise.

Many of the current Operational Imperatives will graduate to existing programs of record and stakeholder teams.

The ICO, in conjunction with the Integrated Capabilities Command and Space Futures Command, will optimize capability development through assessment, development, integration, and fielding of future capabilities that will rapidly modernize the DAF and preserve the advantages U.S. forces have benefited from for decades. The ICO is on schedule to be fully staffed and resourced by the end of 2024.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






George Washington, Ronald Reagan Conduct Hull Swap

US Navy

25 July 2024

From Courtesy Story

SAN DIEGO -- Nimitz-class aircraft carriers USS George Washington (CVN 73) and USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) conduct a hull swap on Naval Air Station North Island that sends Ronald Reagan to Bremerton, Washington, and returns George Washington to Yokosuka, Japan, as the Navy's only Forward-Deployed Naval Forces-Japan (FDNF-J) aircraft carrier effective Aug. 1.

The hull swap between Ronald Reagan and George Washington was planned in coordination with the government of Japan, and as a part of the 50-year lifespan of the U.S. Navy's Nimitz-class aircraft carriers.

"USS Ronald Reagan has served exceptionally as America's forward deployed aircraft carrier for nearly a decade, projecting credible combat power while sailing and flying where international law allows and doing so with allies and partners throughout the Indo-Pacific," said Rear Adm. Greg Newkirk, commander of Task Force 70 and Carrier Strike Group 5. "Reagan's crew and those who have served aboard over the past several years should be tremendously proud of what they accomplished."

George Washington relieving Ronald Reagan marks the second time the ship will serve as the FDNF-J aircraft carrier. In 2008, George Washington became the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier to serve as FDNF-J and was relieved by Ronald Reagan seven years later after a historic tri-carrier hull swap.

"For the last nine years, Ronald Reagan Sailors upheld the international rule of law and maintained a free and open Indo-Pacific alongside our allies and partners through their diligence and dedication towards our common goals," said Capt. Daryle Cardone, Ronald Reagan's commanding officer. "Their commitment has left a mark on the 7th Fleet area of responsibility and the impact we made will be continued as George Washington makes their way to Yokosuka, Japan. I know 7th Fleet is in good hands and as Ronald Reagan left behind a legacy of 'peace through strength,' George Washington will embody the 'spirit of freedom' in the Indo-Pacific once again."

George Washington's return to Japan continues the long-standing alliances and partnerships, and consistent U.S. presence in the Indo-Pacific region.

"Now is also an exciting time for the men and women of the USS George Washington, who are building on that ship's history as Reagan's predecessor in Yokosuka and re-establishing 'GW' as America's forward-deployed aircraft carrier - a tangible and enduring sign of our nation's commitment to peace, stability and freedom in the region," said Newkirk. "Over its previous years as our forward-deployed carrier, George Washington built a reputation for professionalism, confidence and true excellence in Japan across the Indo-Pacific. I know today's GW Sailors are trained and ready to retake the mantle, make their own mark in this consequential theater."

Prior to arriving in San Diego, the George Washington Carrier Task Group completed Southern Seas 2024, circumnavigating South America, and the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group completed its final patrol as the FDNF-J aircraft carrier in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility.

"Having the George Washington back in Yokosuka is a new and exciting adventure for the crew, but it more importantly ensures the United States remains best positioned to meet common goals in the region," said Capt. Tim Waits, George Washington's commanding officer. "This nuclear aircraft carrier was a huge part of the foundation of trust between the U.S. and Japan, and that trust is the cornerstone of peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific."

George Washington and crew are in the process of completing the hull swap, replacing USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) as the forward-deployed U.S. Naval Forces Japan aircraft carrier at Fleet Activities Yokosuka, Japan. As part of the transition, the embarked Air Wing and Staffs, which include Carrier Air Wing 5 (CVW 5) and Destroyer Squadron 15 (DESRON 15) will all cross deck to USS George Washington (CVN 73) bringing with them their vast operations experience operation on one of the most advanced and capable warships in the world. About 350 Sailors, 13 percent of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) crew, will swap with USS George Washington (CVN 73) Sailors. With them, these Sailors will bring their Indo-Pacific and forward deployed experience to George Washington.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






US official unfazed by Russian-Chinese flyby off coast of Alaska

By Jeff Seldin July 25, 2024

The appearance of two Russian and two Chinese long-range, strategic bombers in the skies off of coastal Alaska may have been a first, but it did not catch the United States off-guard.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters Thursday the appearance of the Russian and Chinese aircraft "was not a surprise" and that at no time did the bombers pose a threat to the United States.

"We have very good surveillance capabilities," Austin said during a rare news conference at the Pentagon. "We closely monitored these aircraft, tracked the aircraft, intercepted the aircraft, which demonstrates that our forces are at the ready all the time."

And if Russia and China fly more similar missions in the future, Austin said he has every confidence that U.S. forces will be prepared.

"We are at the ready. We will always be at the ready," he said. "If there is a challenge or a threat to the United States of America, your troops will be at the ready and they will do the right thing."

NORAD tracks aircraft

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) first shared word of the Russian and Chinese military activity late Wednesday.

NORAD said it tracked two Russian TU-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers operating in the U.S. Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ)  a stretch of international airspace where planes must be identified  off the coast of the northwestern state of Alaska.

A statement said U.S. and Canadian fighter jets were sent to intercept the Russian and Chinese planes, and that at no time did the Russian or Chinese pilots enter U.S. or Canadian sovereign airspace.

"This Russian and PRC activity in the Alaska ADIZ is not seen as a threat, and NORAD will continue to monitor competitor activity near North America and meet presence with presence," it said.

Flight was joint patrol, say Russia and China

Russia and China on Thursday described the flight as a joint patrol over the Chukchi and Bering seas in the north Pacific.

"During the flight, Russian and Chinese crews cooperated in the new area of joint operations during all stages of the air patrol," the Russian ministry said in a statement, describing the exercise as "part of the implementation of the military cooperation plan for 2024."

Russian officials said the entire flight lasted five hours and that the bombers were at times escorted by Russian fighter jets, emphasizing that at no time did the bombers violate U.S. or Canadian airspace.

A spokesperson for the Chinese military said the patrol was designed to improve coordination between the Chinese and Russian militaries, and said it was the eighth joint air patrol since 2019.

The U.S., however, said the Russian-Chinese air patrol was the first to approach the area around Alaska.

"This is the first time we've seen those two countries fly together like that," Austin told reporters, adding the Russian and Chinese bombers never got closer than about 320 kilometers from the Alaskan coast.

The U.S. defense secretary declined to comment on the timing of the Russian-Chinese air patrol, though he said, "you could probably guess that things like that have probably been planned well in advance."

Earlier this week, the Pentagon issued its new Arctic defense strategy, which called for increased investment and increased cooperation among the U.S. and its Arctic allies to counter both Russian and Chinese activity.

The U.S. and its NATO allies have also raised concerns about growing cooperation between Russia and China, along with Iran and North Korea, as Moscow has sought support for its war in Ukraine.

U.S. and Western officials have repeatedly accused China of playing a critical role in sustaining Russia's military by sending Russia raw materials and so-called dual-use components needed to produce advanced weapons and weapons systems.

"There is no time to lose," a NATO official told VOA earlier this month, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the need to counter the growing defense cooperation.

"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."

Information from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Washington warns adversaries: US politics not a sign of weakness

By Jeff Seldin July 25, 2024

U.S. diplomats and military officials rejected concerns that recent  and sudden  changes to the American political landscape are a sign of weakness, warning America's adversaries Thursday against trying to seek any sort of advantage.

"They should think again," said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, briefing reporters.

"They should be disabused of the notion that we are anything but focused on the national security challenges that the country faces," he added. "That includes responding to our adversaries when appropriate."

At the Pentagon, officials insisted that whatever challenges U.S. adversaries might have in store, the U.S. military is ready.

"As to whether or not our adversaries are testing us at this particular time, they're always testing us," said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

"It's just a nature of who they are and what they do," he told reporters. "I don't think that this particular point in time is any different."

The warnings from Washington come less than a week after U.S. President Joe Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection, instead endorsing fellow Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris to run against former president and Republican Party nominee Donald Trump.

In an address from the White House late Wednesday to explain his decision to quit the race with just more than 100 days to go until the presidential election, Biden spoke in stark terms about the future of the country.

"Nothing  nothing  can come in the way of saving our democracy," Biden said.

"America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division," he added. "We have to decide: Do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy?"

Adding to the public concerns, the U.S. military announced just before Biden's speech that, for the first time, Russian and Chinese long-range strategic bombers flew a joint training mission, coming within 350 kilometers of the northwestern U.S. state of Alaska.

Other officials have also warned of emboldened U.S. adversaries.

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday told lawmakers that Iran still seeks retribution against Trump and some of his advisers for the January 2020 killing of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

"We need to recognize the brazenness of the Iranian regime, including right here in the United States," he said, while declining to share details of a reported assassination plot against Trump.

"I expect there will be more coming on that," he said.

Others have voiced concerns about the actions of Iranian proxy forces, like the ongoing attacks by Yemen's Houthis on international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, or attacks by Iranian-backed militias on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

"We are taking away capability from the Houthis," said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown Jr., speaking to reporters Thursday at a Pentagon briefing.

"But at the same point, it's going to take more than just a military operation," he said. "This is an engagement with the international community, but also the [U.S.] interagency to use the various tools to put pressure on the Houthis to cease this."

At the State Department, spokesperson Miller said no matter the challenge, U.S diplomats will be up to the task.

"The president has made it incredibly clear to the secretary and the rest of the national security team that he expects them to be focused for this next six months, that he expects them to advance the foreign policy objectives that he laid out from the outset of the administration and we have put into place over the course of the last three and a half years," he said.

And should any adversary seek to weaken the U.S., the Pentagon's Austin said, the military will be waiting.

"I think we'll continue to see this going forward," he told reporters. "But again, we have the world's greatest military, most capable military, and we will continue to protect this nation."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Biden, Netanyahu discuss war in Gaza, possible cease-fire; Harris takes firm line

By Anita Powell July 25, 2024

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday brought Israel's leader into the calm eye of America's political storm, as the two tried to hash out a lasting peace to silence the suffering in Gaza. But it was Biden's vice president who took a sharper tone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying she had "serious concern" about the scale of human suffering in the besieged exclave.

Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been campaigning this week after Biden stepped out of the presidential race, also stepped ahead of the president's usually measured rhetoric. She began by echoing Biden's sentiment that Israel has a right to defend itself and urged Netanyahu to accept a cease-fire plan. And then:

"I also expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians," she said. "And I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating."

Her strong words were amplified by protesters outside the White House on Thursday, who object to Netanyahu's military's conduct in Gaza and want Biden to dial back his support.

'Good discussion'

The White House said the meeting with Biden was productive but didn't cite any breakthroughs.

"This was a good discussion with Prime Minister Netanyahu," John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, told VOA. "The president had a chance to lay out his concerns about where we are on the cease-fire deal, and seek to get closure on that, as well as to talk about a range of other issues, [like] Iran's destabilizing activities, tensions at the blue line [a border demarcation] with Lebanon, the need for more humanitarian assistance getting to the people of Gaza. There was a lot on the agenda."

On Friday, Netanyahu meets with the Republican nominee for president in 2024, former President Donald Trump.

This trio of meetings is obviously a delicate political balancing act for the Israeli leader, but some pro-Israeli analysts argue that Netanyahu's defiance of Washington has garnered results.

"There's more likelihood of a cease-fire now than there was a couple of months ago, before Israel went into Rafah," said Michael Makovsky, president and chief executive of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. "Vice President Harris told them they shouldn't go in or there'll be consequences. Biden didn't want him to go in. It turned out actually to be a pretty successful mission. They haven't finished Rafah, but they were able to quickly move a lot of the Palestinian civilians into other areas so they, the Israeli military, could fight Hamas."

A senior administration official on Wednesday told reporters during a background briefing that the White House meeting would include discussion of threats to Israel from Iran-backed groups in the Middle East such as Hamas, Lebanon-based Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi militants.

In addition to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Biden and Netanyahu's agenda also included talk about efforts to secure a deal to halt the fighting, free the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, release some Palestinian prisoners from Israel and surge humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.

The United States has been working with Egypt and Qatar to broker the cease-fire talks, which have stretched on for months amid competing demands from Israel and Hamas.

The official said there is a framework in place for the first stage of an envisioned three-stage agreement, and that the U.S. expects "a lot of activity over the coming week" as negotiators try to seal an agreement.

The first stage would last for 42 days and include Hamas releasing some of the hostages, including women, men over age 50, and those who are sick and wounded. The U.S. official said what is left to figure out are the implementation steps for the first phase, "how it will actually work day-to-day."

"There are some things we need from Hamas, and there are some things we need from the Israeli side," the official said.

Meeting with families

Following their meeting, Biden and Netanyahu met with the families of the Americans who are among the hostages.

"We came today with a sense of urgency," said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of American Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen. "So as families, we came in really emphasizing to the leaders of the United States and of Israel a desire to get this deal done, this three-phase deal that the president announced a few weeks ago and has been on the negotiating table."

But Netanyahu's defiance puts his desire for a deal into question. On Wednesday, he went before the U.S. Congress and delivered a speech defending his country's war against Hamas and vowing to pursue the fight against Palestinian militants until "total victory" and the return of the remaining hostages are secured.

With thousands of pro-Palestinian, anti-war protesters in the streets outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and more than 50 Democratic lawmakers boycotting his speech, Netanyahu said he was confident that negotiations for a cease-fire would eventually succeed. But he gave no hint of a breakthrough in the stalemated, monthslong talks.

Instead, he blamed Hamas for the continuation of the war. He attacked Iran for its funding of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, while assailing the nearby protesters and those at U.S. college campuses in recent months as "Iran's useful idiots" helping Israel's enemies.

The Israeli-Hamas war started with the October 7 Hamas terror attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to the capture of about 250 hostages. Israel's subsequent counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people as of Thursday, most of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. In May, Israel estimated the death toll at 30,000 and said that most of the dead were combatants.

Begum Ersoz contributed to this report from the White House; Kim Lewis contributed from Washington.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Israeli officials detail recovery of hostage bodies as fighting continues

By VOA News July 25, 2024

Israeli officials Thursday offered details of how they recovered the bodies of five hostages killed during the October Hamas attack on Israel, while Israel's military continued its offensive in Gaza.

At a news conference in Tel Aviv, military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said the bodies of the hostages had been held by Hamas in tunnels 20 meters beneath the streets of the southern city of Khan Younis.

He said the bodies were found Wednesday underneath an area that was previously designated as a humanitarian area by the Israeli military.

"An area for Gazan civilians to move away from the battlefield and receive humanitarian aid and shelter," Hagari said. "Hamas exploited the humanitarian area and used it to hold our hostages captive."

The Israeli military identified one hostage as Maya Goren, who was killed at Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel. The other four hostages were Israeli soldiers killed in combat during the October attack, the military said. They were identified as Sgt. Oren Goldin, Staff Sgt. Tomer Ahimas, Sgt. Maj. Ravid Aryeh Katz and Sgt. Kiril Brodski.

Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage during the October 7 attack. About 110 hostages are still being held in Gaza, and Israeli authorities have said about one-third of them are believed to be dead.

Israel's counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians as of Thursday, according to the territory's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its tally. In May, Israel estimated the death toll at around 30,000, and that most of the dead are combatants.

Reports from Gaza indicate the Israeli offensive continued Thursday with strikes on Khan Younis and Rafah in the south. An Associated Press correspondent counted seven Palestinian deaths in Khan Younis. Agence France-Presse reported machine gun and tank fire in Gaza City to the north.

Netanyahu visit

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Thursday with President Joe Biden at the White House, where the two leaders were to try to close the final gaps in the Gaza cease-fire deal the Biden administration has been pushing for weeks.

Months of negotiations brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have not been able to secure an agreement on a cease-fire proposal that would include the release of hostages from Gaza as well as Israel freeing some Palestinian prisoners and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

"I think the message from the American side in that meeting will be that we need to get this deal over the line," U.S. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Thursday.

But as negotiators from Egypt, Israel, the U.S. and Qatar were scheduled to meet Thursday in Doha to resume talks for a proposed three-phase cease-fire deal, Israel announced its negotiators were delayed and that talks now will not resume until next week.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of Israeli American hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, expressed concern to VOA about the threat of a broader regional conflict.

"The world  and not just President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu  need[s] to commit to doing all that's necessary to get this done, and that starts, first and foremost, with [the] return of hostages, a cease-fire that can hold in Gaza and thereby prevent what could be a massive explosion," Dekel-Chen told VOA.

"Right now, it's a minor miracle that a wider, regional conflict has not yet exploded," he added.

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris also met with Netanyahu on Thursday. Afterward she told reporters that she raised her concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

"Israel has a right to defend itself. And how it does so matters," Harris told reporters after the meeting.

"I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there," she added. "I will not be silent."

Netanyahu earlier this week indicated there may be a breakthrough coming in the talks that would halt fighting and release all remaining hostages. But during his speech before the U.S. Congress on Wednesday, he vowed to press forward with Israel's war until he achieves "total victory."

As for his vision of a post-war Gaza, Netanyahu said he hopes for a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza where a new generation of Palestinians can "live in peace with us." But in the meantime, he said, Israel must retain "overriding security control." He made no mention of an independent homeland for Palestinians.

The top U.S. general on Thursday said Israel still has not shared much of its "day after" planning for Gaza once the war with Hamas concludes.

"There's not a lot of detail that I've been able to see from a plan from them," Air Force General C.Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference. "This is something that we'll continue to work with them on."

During a briefing in New York, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Netanyahu's speech offered nothing new.

"So, there is nothing that was said that deserves comment," Guterres said. "And obviously, we absolutely must keep the two-state solution as the only possible long-term solution for peace in the region, independently of whatever is said by whoever, wherever."

VOA's Celia Mendoza contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






UN chief: Earth becoming hotter and more dangerous for all

By Margaret Besheer July 25, 2024

The U.N. Secretary-General warned Thursday that the Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, killing nearly a half-million people annually, and he blamed fossil fuels for driving global warming.

"Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic  wilting under increasingly deadly heat waves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world. That's 122 degrees Fahrenheit. And halfway to boiling," Antonio Guterres told reporters.

Sunday was the Earth's hottest day on record, only to have the record broken the following day. Temperatures have been rising steadily, with scientists declaring the last 13 consecutive months all heat record-breakers. Urban areas are heating up at twice the global average.

Heat waves have killed scores of people this year in India and in Africa's Sahel region. Last month, extreme heat killed 1,300 Muslim pilgrims in Saudi Arabia. This month, Europe, the United States and Asia have also seen exceptional heat.

He said that the World Health Organization and World Meteorological Organization estimate that improvements to heat health warning systems in 57 countries could save nearly 100,000 lives a year.

Fossil fuels

Guterres has repeatedly called on greenhouse gas emitters to meet the 2015 Paris Climate Accord's target of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius  a goal that many worry is slipping away. He said that fossil fuel expansion and new coal plants are obstacles to meeting that target.

"I must call out the flood of fossil fuel expansion we are seeing in some of the world's wealthiest countries," he said. "In signing such a surge of new oil and gas licenses, they are signing away our future."

He urged leaders to quickly and fairly phase out fossil fuels and end new coal projects.

"The G20 must shift fossil fuel subsidies to renewables and support vulnerable countries and communities," he said of the world's largest economies.

And he urged more climate adaptation and mitigation financing from the richest countries  which are the biggest emitters  to help the poorest, most vulnerable nations that have contributed the least to global warming.

Guterres said he is launching a global call to action focused on caring for the most vulnerable, including protecting workers who are exposed to extreme heat.

"A new report from the International Labor Organization  being released today  warns that over 70% of the global workforce  2.4 billion people  are now at high risk of extreme heat," he said.

In addition to the rights and health of individual workers, there are economic impacts of extreme heat too.

"Heat stress at work is projected to cost the global economy $2.4 trillion by 2030. Up from $280 billion in the mid-1990s," Guterres said, adding measures need to be taken to "heat proof" critical sectors of the global economy, like farming and construction work.

The U.N. chief warned that extreme heat widens social inequality, undermines development, furthers food insecurity, and pushes people deeper into poverty.

"Leaders across the board must wake up and step up," he said.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Venezuela - 2024 Election - President

Presidential elections were held in Venezuela on 28 July 2024 to choose a president for a six-year term beginning on 10 January 2025. Exit polls showed pposition challenger Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia winning 65% and Maduro getting 31%. There is no way these exit polls were off by 30%. The de facto victory of current President Nicolas Maduro was already known. Maduro claimed 51.2% of the voters voted for him. Opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez did not recognize the official result, insisting they won in all states with 70% of the vote. "We want to say to all of Venezuela and the world that Venezuela has a new president-elect and it is Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia," opposition leader Maria Corina Machado told journalists, adding: "We won." It was already clear in advance that both sides would not recognize each other's victory.

Venezuela's Attorney General announced plans to prosecute opposition leaders Maria Corina Machado, Lester Toledo, and Leopoldo Lopez for alleged election interference. These prosecutions are being launched on orders from Nicolas Maduro.

The governments of Argentina, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay express "profound concern" over the election, The Costa Rican government issued a communique on the results of the elections in Venezuela, saying they were falsified and does not recognize Maduro as its president. Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa, who called for the OAS meeting to discuss the "delicate situation" in Venezuela in a post on X, also said: "Throughout the region, there are politicians who try to cling to power and who intend to snatch peace from our citizens," he said, warning of "the danger of dictatorship". Brasilia "reaffirms the fundamental principle of popular sovereignty, which must be respected through the impartial verification of the results", the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"DICTATOR MADURO, OUT! Venezuelans chose to end the communist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro," Argentine President Javier Milei asserted on X. "The data announce a landslide victory for the opposition and the world is waiting for them to recognise their defeat after years of socialism, misery, decadence and death. Argentina will not recognise another fraud, and expects the Armed Forces this time to defend democracy and the will of the people." Chile President Gabriel Boric said: "Maduro's regime must understand that the results are hard to believe. The international community and especially the Venezuelan people, including the millions of Venezuelans in exile, demand total transparency."

However, other regional leaders more ideologically aligned with Maduro offered their congratulations on winning a third term, as did the president's allies from beyond Latin America. Both China and Russia congratulated Maduro on his re-election. "China stands ready to enrich our all-weather strategic partnership and better benefit the peoples of both countries," foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing. "Russian-Venezuelan relations have the character of a strategic partnership. I am confident that your work at the head of state will continue to contribute to their progressive development in all areas ... Remember that you are always welcome on Russian soil," Putin said, according to the Kremlin. Cuba, Honduras and Bolivia took to social media to congratulate Maduro on his victory.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, for his part, had toughened his tone in the run-up to the vote, claiming that a victory for the opposition could plunge the country into a fratricidal civil war provoked by fascists and warning of a bloodbath. Maduro is vying for a third term after being in power for more than a decade. But weakened by economic crisis and a deteriorating security situation, Hugo Chavez's chosen successor is trailing in polls against opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who is looking to open a new chapter in Venezuelas history.

This presidential election represents a critical moment for Venezuela and the future of democracy in the region. The stakes are incredibly high as the results could either entrench authoritarian rule or open the door to transformative democratic reforms. Such changes could tackle the ongoing humanitarian crisis, restore the rule of law, and reconnect Venezuela with the global community. Additionally, the fate of almost 8 million Venezuelans living abroad and those still in the country hangs in the balance, with potential implications for increased migration if the situation further deteriorates.

A decade of economic crisis that has plunged the country into poverty  and fuelled the exodus of several million Venezuelans  is proving a difficult legacy to overcome, and Venezuela may be on the cusp of rejecting decades of state-centric Chavismo policies. The United States does not recognize leftist President Nicolas Maduro, candidate for the Great Patriotic Pole Simon Bolivar (GPPSM), as the legitimate leader of Venezuela. The Venezuelan opposition on 30 December 2022 dissolved the interim government led by Juan Guaido, once the popular and internationally recognized face of the drive to oust leftist leader Nicolas Maduro. The vote came in the opposition-controlled National Assembly, a body elected in 2015 and now largely symbolic as it was replaced by a legislature loyal to Maduro. The tally was 72 in favor of dissolving the interim government, 29 against and eight abstentions Three of four major parties in the Venezuelan opposition voted to end the interim government led by Guaido. "The interim government is no longer useful," these parties said in a joint statement, "and is of no interest to citizens."

Venezuela's opposition hoped a presidential nominating contest will rally supporters after years of futile attempts to unseat the government of President Nicolas Maduro, but it faced deep voter apathy as people struggle to afford food and other basics. Opposition lawmakers named a new three-person leadership for their parallel legislature, which is recognized by many Western countries as Venezuela's last remaining democratic body. Now, they needed a presidential candidate who can persuade voters to make him or her the next leader of Venezuela. But after years in the political wilderness, the opposition was disjointed - at a time when Maduro is enjoying renewed relations with neighbors Colombia and Brazil and some loosened U.S. restrictions.

While Venezuela is legally a multiparty, constitutional republic, the regime of Nicolas Maduro claims control over all public institutions. In November 2021, the Maduro regime organized regional and municipal elections largely perceived as skewed in their favor. Election observers and media reported arbitrary arrests, criminalization of opposition parties activities, bans on candidates, and media censorship during the elections. The European Union was allowed to act as election observer for the first time in 15 years, but the Maduro regime asked its observers to leave the country before they could present their final report. In the final report, the European Union noted significant structural deficiencies to the electoral system and provided the regime with 23 recommendations to improve electoral conditions.

The national police largely focus on policing Caracas Libertador municipality; patrolling Caracas-area highways, railways, and metro system; and protecting diplomatic missions. The national armed forces patrol other areas of the country. Civilian authorities control over the security forces continued to decline and was deeply politicized. Increasingly unpopular with citizens, the Maduro regime depended on civilian and military intelligence services, and to a lesser extent, proregime armed gangs known as colectivos, to neutralize political opposition and subdue the population. There were reports that members of security forces committed numerous abuses. A September 2022 UN report detailed the systematic use of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service and the Military Counterintelligence Directorate to intimidate and control the activities of political opponents.

Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: unlawful or arbitrary killings, including extrajudicial killings by regime forces; forced disappearances by the regime; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention by security forces; political prisoners or detainees; serious problems with the independence of the judiciary; unlawful interference with privacy; unlawful recruitment or use of child soldiers; serious restrictions on free expression and media, including violence or threats of violence, unjustified arrests or prosecutions of journalists, censorship, and enforcement of or threat to enforce criminal libel laws to limit expression; serious restrictions on internet freedom; substantial interference with the freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on the organization, funding, or operation of nongovernmental organizations and civil society organizations; inability of citizens to change their government peacefully through free and fair elections; serious and unreasonable restrictions on political participation; serious government corruption; serious restrictions on or harassment of domestic and international human rights organizations; lack of investigation of and accountability for gender-based violence, including domestic or intimate partner violence, sexual violence, workplace violence, femicide, and other forms of such violence; substantial barriers to accessing sexual and reproductive health services; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting indigenous peoples such as the Yanomami; trafficking in persons; crimes involving violence or threats of violence targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex persons; significant restrictions on workers freedom of association; and the worst forms of child labor.

Senior national and state leaders of the Maduro regime continued to harass and intimidate privately owned and opposition-oriented television stations, media outlets, and journalists by using threats, property seizures, administrative and criminal investigations, and prosecutions. Maduro regime-owned and -influenced media provided almost continuous proregime programming. In addition, private and public radio and television stations were required to transmit mandatory nationwide broadcasts.

Venezuela's government and opposition agreed on 17 October 2023 to elections. An exact election date will be defined by the country's National Electoral Council, according to the text of the deal. The two sides had resumed talks seeking to end the country's political and economic crisis, after a nearly yearlong suspension.

Maduro said, in so many words, 'well, you send me Alex Saab, you lift sanctions on us, and in exchange I am going to have free elections, and we are going to accept the deportation flights.' Alex Saab is a criminal, a person that the USA spent years trying to extradite from Cape Verde to the US for crimes he committed. Now, he is free like Maduro's nephews who are also drug traffickers convicted in the court of this country. At the same time, now Maduro is basically canceling elections. Maria Corina Machado, who is the most popular figure, the candidate who was chosen by the opposition, has been removed from the ballot. The dictatorship will continue searching until they have an official candidate, 'from the official opposition', as all these regimes want to have.

The Venezuelan government and the Unitary Platform, a grouping of U.S.-backed opposition parties and organizations, signed an agreement regarding conditions and details for this years presidential election called the Barbados Agreement. The agreement outlined elements such as a proposed timetable, a rejection of political violence against Venezuelans or any of its state institutions, the presence of international observation missions, and conditions and guarantees for participation. The agreement was part of a process of dialogue which the Venezuelan government has promoted for the last several years in order to address the political crisis facing the country due to numerous U.S.-backed coup attempts.

After the agreement was signed, the U.S. Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it was issuing four licenses which suspended several sanctions against the country and allowed for limited production, investment and sale in the Venezuelan oil, gas and gold sectors. While these coercive measures should have never been in place in the first place, their suspension marked an important advance to strengthen economic recovery efforts.

The United States would ease some oil and gas sanctions against Venezuela after the country's government and opposition agreed to hold elections there next year, the Treasury Department said 18 October 2023. In response to those "democratic developments," the Treasury "has issued General Licenses authorizing transactions involving Venezuela's oil and gas sector and gold sector, as well as removing the ban on secondary trading," a statement from under secretary for terrorism Brian Nelson said. It added, however, that they could be amended or revoked at any time if the electoral deal falls through.

In concrete terms, the US government re-authorized the purchase of Venezuelan oil and gas for a period of six months, which may be renewed "only if Venezuela meets its commitments under the electoral roadmap as well as other commitments with respect to those who are wrongfully detained."

Former lawmaker Maria Corina Machado led the vote count in the Venezuelan opposition's presidential primary by a huge margin and has claimed victory in the 22 October 2023 contest, with final results pending. The vote to choose a unity opposition candidate to face President Nicolas Maduro in his probable re-election bid next year came amid pledges by the United States to roll back sanctions relief if the government fails to lift bans preventing some opposition figures from holding office. Machado was tallying 93% of the vote, with just over 26% of ballot boxes counted, the primary's organizing commission said around midnight.

However, the government subsequently rejected the outcome of an opposition primary to choose a presidential candidate. Maduro's administration has launched a probe into the primary, claiming it was tainted by fraud.

And Jose Brito, a dissident opposition lawmaker accused by some of being in cahoots with the Maduro government, filed an appeal against the primary to the Supreme Court. "All the outcomes of the different phases of the electoral process... are suspended," read the 30 October 2023 ruling. The top court also reiterated its ban of Machado, for alleged corruption and backing international sanctions against Caracas. Venezuelan officials are demanding the opposition hand over all documents relating to the primary election, including logs that could identify voters.

Venezuela is not allowing the right-wing coup supporter and sanctions backer Maria Corina Machado to run in the elections due to a 15-year disqualification dating back to 2015. The Supreme Court ratified that decision on January 26, citing her participation in the Juan Guaido coup attempt and associated acts of corruption that led to the loss of key state assets like the CITGO gas company. Machado was also a key player in the 2014 and 2017 waves of right-wing riots that led to the deaths of dozens of government supporters and those assumed to be government supporters because of the color of their skin. Her exclusion is completely legitimate and in line with common practices around the world that bar people who have committed serious crimes from holding public office. Furthermore, the very same Barbados Agreement that the Biden administration has applauded outlines that candidates must defend Venezuelas independence and reject violent actions against the government in order to qualify. Machado has been supporting U.S.-backed attacks on the Venezuelan state since the first coup attempt against Hugo Chavez in 2002.

On 29 January 2024, U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller announced that his country revoked the relief of sanctions against the international marketing of Venezuelan gold. He also threatened to suspend relief for Venezuelan oil and gas that is due to be renewed in April. President Joe Biden's administration took these measures in response to a decision by the Venezuelan Supreme Court, which politically disqualified until 2036 far-right politicians who carried out actions against the constitutional order.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro expressed his support 30 January 2024 for the call made by the National Assembly (AN) for a dialogue aimed at establishing the 2024 electoral schedule. The Bolivarian leader shared with citizens the agreement whereby legislators rejected any form of ultimatum from the United States against Venezuelan sovereignty and territorial integrity. "I support with all my strength the call for a broad and inclusive dialogue to establish the electoral schedule for 2024. We are a guarantee of peace. Elections now!" stated Maduro. Previously, the National Assembly approved the immediate convening of a dialogue so that various Venezuelan groups can collaboratively develop a proposal for the presidential electoral schedule to present it to the electoral authorities.

On 17 April 2024 the Biden administration reimposed oil sanctions on Venezuela, following President Nicolas Maduro's broken post-election promises for democratic reform. The administration will give companies 45 days to "wind down" business in Venezuela's oil and gas sector. "We are concerned that Maduro and his representatives prevented the democratic opposition from registering the candidate of their choice, harassed and intimidated political opponents, and unjustly detained numerous political actors and members of civil society," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Maduro's party, however, manipulated the proceedings, including barring former lawmaker Maria Corina Machado from running. "It became impossible for the White House to pretend that the Maduro government in any way was complying  or even intended to comply  with the implicit deal in the partial lifting of sanctions," Christopher Sabatini, a research fellow at the Chatham House in London, told The Associated Press. "To have ignored that would have made the U.S. look weak and undermined its credibility in leveraging sanctions not just on Venezuela but elsewhere."

The drop in crime and homicide in the capital is partly explained by widespread impoverishment; extortion and kidnapping have become less profitable. Some gangs have capitalised on the massive wave of migration to pivot to more lucrative activities, notably human trafficking. Today, most homicides are due to the settling of scores or the actions of the police themselves, accounting for more than a third of the total. While he has arguably lost control of the country, Maduro pretends to fight against a lack of security by recruiting and sending poorly trained police officers to working-class neighborhoods, which has led to thousands of extrajudicial executions.

Describing the campaign as heroic, creative, admirable and proactive, Nicolas Maduro said that we have united all the forces of the people. We have constituted a new political, social and cultural majority that will be expressed as an overwhelming electoral majority on Sunday, July 28, Maduro said. Not only have we united Chavismo, the Bolivarian people are on the streets united as a single block of force, he said. For harmony and inclusion to unite all Venezuelans: it is the main task of the moment, the Venezuelan head of state said while inviting the disappointed leaders of the right to join the candidacy of the man for peace, Nicolas Maduro: welcome to build homeland, national union, he said.

In calling on all sectors of the country that suffered sanctions, he said Only a Bolivarian and Chavista president, only this man who is here, who is not an individual but a people, guarantees peace and stability in this country called Venezuela. Nicolas Maduro, while recognizing the Venezuelan working class, said We defeated the sanctions and the blockade, and what we are going for is up, for economic prosperity, but for that peace and stability are needed. In his speech at the closing of his electoral campaign, candidate Maduro recalled how his Administration has managed to overcome every attack that has been launched against the Venezuelan economy from the extreme far right.

According to data from the National Electoral Council (CNE), over 21 million citizens are authorized to cast their votes in 30,026 polling stations distributed throughout the country.

Opposition challenger Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a former ambassador to Argentina and Algeria, is generating real enthusiasm, considering that his candidacy was somewhat improvised. Urrutia replaced opposition leader Maria Corina Machado on the ballot after Maduros Supreme Court controversially invalidated her candidacy. The soft-spoken grandfather is now leading in polls, and may be the oppositions best hope yet of unseating Maduro.

Maduro was a former trade union leader who became Chavez's foreign minister. When he came to power, he lacked credibility in the eyes of the army, unlike Chavez himself or other possible successors who had military backgrounds. So he had to offer assurances by continuing, and even accelerating, the rise of the army in the spheres of power. If the opposition wins this election, Maduro has spoken of the risk of a "bloodbath". This risk does not come from the opposition side but rather from the powers that be. And if they continue to act against the will of the people, they expose themselves to possibly seeing a wave of massive protests that they will then have to silence.

The army seems reluctant to face such a scenario, or at least less so than in the past, for several reasons. In 2014 and even more so in 2017, the government repressed anti-government demonstrations in an unprecedented way, painting students and young people from the working classes as violent putschists. But today, with the exodus continuing, it is women who are most often at the forefront of pro-opposition rallies  including single mothers and the elderly, who are demanding reforms so that their loved ones can come back home. This would make it that much more difficult to justify any repression of a mass popular movement.

The army's wait-and-see stance is also due to its own discontent and internal divisions. Some have seen their privileges diminish due to the economic crisis. Others, particularly the high-ranking officers, have suffered from foreign sanctions  in particular, the freezing of their assets abroad. It should also be noted that the army's support for Maduro has never been total: among the approximately 300 political prisoners in the country, half are military personnel. Everything, therefore, seems to indicate that the military is considering scenarios besides Nicolas Maduro remaining in power.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino assured that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the candidate of the Great Patriotic Pole, has set an example by recognizing the electoral results, after calling on other contenders to respect the ongoing voting process in the Caribbean nation. President Maduro has set the example. From the beginning, he has called on all political actors and candidates to respect the official results from the electoral authorities once the voting day is concluded, Padrino said after casting his vote. The high-ranking Bolivarian official also stated that he was very pleased with the massive citizen turnout at the polling stations, attributing it to a broad consensus for maintaining peace in the nation. We hope the electoral process ends peacefully and with civility and patience, just as it is currently unfolding, Padrino said, adding that no significant incidents have been reported at the polling centers.

The situation is somewhat complicated by the fact that on the eve of the elections, observers from among former or current Latin American politicians were not allowed into the country. However, there is nothing surprising here - for the most part, they openly planned to support the opposition, and planned to perform the function of an independent observer on a residual basis. The provocateurs roughly imagined the reaction of the Venezuelan authorities and could well have counted on a refusal of entry, in order to use the fact for subsequent accusations against Maduro's team.

On election night, the president of Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE), Elvis Amoroso, declared a win for President Nicolas Maduro without providing data from polling stations, stating that the CNE had been the victim of a computer attack. "We have no evidence of that whatsoever," Jennie Lincoln, head of the Carter Center delegation that was invited to monitor the Venezuela election, told AFP. The CNE did not publish detailed results from the vote due to a hack, while Maduro has denounced what he calls a "criminal cyber-fascist coup d'etat."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States has "serious concerns" about the announced result of Venezuelas hotly contested presidential election that authorities say was won by Maduro. Speaking in Tokyo shortly after the announcement was made, Blinken said the US was concerned that the result reflected neither the will nor the votes of the Venezuelan people. He called for election officials to publish the full results transparently and immediately and said the US and the international community would respond accordingly.

U.S. State Department: "Given the overwhelming evidence, it is clear to the United States and, most importantly, to the Venezuelan people that Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia won the most votes in Venezuelas July 28 presidential election...We congratulate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia on his successful campaign."

The key issue following the vote is the concern about possible US sanctions, which may be strengthened against the background of non-recognition of the elections. However, Maduro recently said that the Venezuelan authorities are in contact with the White House.

Maduro asked the country's Supreme Court to conduct an expert review of the electoral process. The court announced that it had accepted the request and called the president, opposition candidate Gonzalez and the other candidates to testify. The Venezuelan opposition had uploaded all the data they collected from individual voting centers, showing that with 81% of the vote verified opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez had 67% of the vote.

The main cities of Venezuela were the scene of mass protests against the Chavista regime on 30 July 2024, over the presidential election results that Maduro  proclaimed the winner in a process full of anomalies  refuses to hand over. The regime's response was a strong repression, not only by the armed forces and the police but also by gangs in the service of Chavismo. According to reports from international agencies, there are at least 6 dead and hundreds of detainees (744 according to the regime), in addition to an undetermined number of wounded. Nothing indicates that the regime  which maintains control of the armed forces  is going to give in.

Diosdado Cabello stated in the Chavista Parliament - hand-picked by the regime - that the opposition leaders will be arrested, indirectly alluding to Gonzalez and Machado. We are not going to stop, and if they want to provoke us, we will fall for the provocation, but we are going to screw them, we are going to screw them, said Cabello, considered the toughest man in the regime and with strong ties to Cuba. Whatever their name is, whatever surname they have, they are going to go to jail.

Jorge Rodriguez, the president of Parliament and considered the third man closest to Maduro, made a speech full of diatribes against Machado and Gonzalez, calling them fascists, the regime's favorite epithet against its adversaries. This time he went further, comparing the opposition to Hitler. "With fascism, one cannot have mercy, fascism is not given procedural benefits, with fascism one cannot dialogue, one cannot forgive it," said Rodriguez. The public ministry has to act, as it is acting, not only against the drug-addicted criminals who are given $40 to terrorize a woman or shoot a young man. Their bosses, those who paid them, have to go to jail. And when I say their bosses, I am not only referring to Maria Corina Machado, who has to go to jail, but also to Edmundo Gonzales, because he is the head of the fascist conspiracy.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said 07 August 2024 that the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) ratified its support for President Nicolas Maduro, whom the National Electoral Council proclaimed as the winner of the 2024 presidential elections.

The opposition posted its ballot count online, which shows Gonzalez receiving double the number of votes as Maduro. In Venezuela, voting machines print out three copies of voting records for the electoral authority, the ruling party and its challenger. "The members of the Unitary Platform (opposition coalition) did not submit any electoral material" to the court, Chief Justice Caryslia Rodriguez told journalists and diplomats 10 August 2024. The judge recalled that the candidate of the main opposition coalition, the Democratic Unitarian Platform (PUD), Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, was the only one of the ten candidates who did not appear before the TSJ for this process requested by the re-elected president Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela's supreme court warned that its decision in determining the winner would be final.

Venezuelas Attorney General, Tarek William Saab, asserted that the so-called Small Commandos are implicated in at least 20 murders during the protests led by the far-right after the 2024 presidential elections. In an interview 12 August 2024 on the TV program Situational Analysis, Saab provided details about the violent protests called for by far-right leader Maria Corina Machado and former presidential candidate of the Unitary Platform, Edmundo Gonzalez. The Attorney General reported that investigations carried out by his office have gathered sufficient evidence to charge the small commandos with serious crimes, such as murder. We were able to confirm that organized crime groups, like the Del Llano Train, which supported Gonzalez, said they would take action if the police or security forces repressed the protesters, Saab said.

On 14 August 2024 the National Electoral Council (CNE) condemned the Preliminary Report of the United Nations (UN) Panel of Experts on the Venezuelan presidential electionsAll CNE members emphasized that the UN document is filled with politically motivated lies and contradictions. The Venezuelan electoral authority stated: The Electoral Power of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela condemns the publication of the so-called Preliminary Report of the United Nations panel of experts on the presidential election conducted in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on July 28, 2024. The report is illegal and contrary to the UN principles, violating the terms of reference agreed upon with this Constitutional Power, and, above all, filled with lies and contradictions.... the publication of an alleged report was not within their functions and demonstrates the perverse political intent of this dissemination, consisting of fallacious and distorted arguments. According to point 4 of the terms of reference agreed upon between the UN and the CNE on June 29, 2024: The Panel is not an observation mission and, therefore, will not issue any public statement or judgment on the process and/or the outcome of the elections."

Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, United Nations, said: In response to questions about the issuing of the interim report of the Panel of Electoral Experts concerning Venezuela, I would like to recall that the document was made public under the authority of the Secretary-General as a normal procedure in line with our transparency policy. The Secretary-General reiterates his call for transparency and encourages publication of the election results and a breakdown by polling station. The Panel continues to follow the technical aspects of the coming remaining phases of the electoral process, as per its terms of reference, and will provide a final report to the Secretary-General.

On 22 August 2024, the Venezuelan Supreme Court issued the final decision on the contentious appeal filed by President Nicolas Maduro regarding the presidential elections held on July 28. Judge Caryslia Rodriguez certified in an unrestricted and unequivocal manner the results of the elections presented by the National Electoral Council (CNE), the highest electoral authority in Venezuela. Rodriguez assured that the CNE results bulletins are consistent with the reports of the electoral machines. Consequently, the Supreme Court ratified that President Nicolas Maduro was reelected as president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The United States and 10 Latin American countries issued a joint statement 23 August 2024 rejecting the Venezuela Supreme Court's certification of President Nicolas Maduro's July 28 reelection, widely rejected at home and abroad. the governments of Argentina, Costa Rica, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Uruguay and the US called for an impartial and independent audit of the vote. They also voiced profound concern over human rights violations committed during Maduros post-election crackdown, which activists say has resulted in more than 1,600 people being detained and at least 24 others killed.

In a move that could help cement President Nicolas Maduro's disputed presidential reelection, on 03 September 2024 a Venezuelan court allowed for an arrest warrant to be issued against presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia for "serious crimes", despite widespread support for his party's claim that he had won the election.

Rep. MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR (R-Fla.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Western Hemisphere Subcommittee said in a statement that Maduro needs to get the message from the United States that his blood-stained oil deals are over and that the world will not tolerate him staying in power after the January 10, 2025 inauguration date. The National Security Council defended its targeted, calibrated approach to Venezuela sanctions, saying in a statement that they are designed to hold Nicolas Maduro and his representatives accountable for its electoral fraud and violent repression, without harming the everyday Venezuelan people.





NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






North Korean Government Hacker Charged for Involvement in Ransomware Attacks Targeting U.S. Hospitals and Health Care Providers

Thursday, July 25, 2024

For Immediate Release

Office of Public Affairs

Hacking Group Known as "Andariel" Used Ransom Proceeds to Fund Theft of Sensitive Information from Defense and Technology Organizations Worldwide, Including U.S. Government Agencies

Note: View the indictment here and view cryptocurrency seizure affidavit here.

A grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, returned an indictment on Wednesday charging North Korean national Rim Jong Hyok for his involvement in a conspiracy to hack and extort U.S. hospitals and other health care providers, launder the ransom proceeds, and then use these proceeds to fund additional computer intrusions into defense, technology, and government entities worldwide. Their ransomware attacks prevented victim health care providers from providing full and timely care to patients.

"Two years ago, the Justice Department disrupted the North Korean group using Maui ransomware to hold hostage U.S. hospitals and health care providers," said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. "Today's criminal charges against one of those alleged North Korean operatives demonstrates that we will be relentless against malicious cyber actors targeting our critical infrastructure. This latest action, in collaboration with our partners in the U.S. and overseas, makes clear that we will continue to deploy all the tools at our disposal to disrupt ransomware attacks, hold those responsible to account, and place victims first."

"Rim Jong Hyok and his co-conspirators deployed ransomware to extort U.S. hospitals and health care companies, then laundered the proceeds to help fund North Korea's illicit activities," said Deputy Director Paul Abbate of the FBI. "These unacceptable and unlawful actions placed innocent lives at risk. The FBI and our partners will leverage every tool available to neutralize criminal actors and protect American citizens."

"North Korean hackers developed custom tools to target and extort U.S. health care providers and used their ill-gotten gains to fund a spree of hacks into government, technology, and defense entities worldwide, all while laundering money through China," said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department's National Security Division. "The indictment, seizures, and other actions announced today demonstrate the Department's resolve to hold these malicious actors accountable, impose costs on the North Korean cyber program, and help innocent network owners recover their losses and defend themselves."

"Today's indictment underscores our commitment to protecting critical infrastructure from malicious actors and the countries that sponsor them," said U.S. Attorney Kate E. Brubacher for the District of Kansas. "Rim Jong Hyok and those in his trade put people's lives in jeopardy. They imperil timely, effective treatment for patients and cost hospitals billions of dollars a year. The Justice Department will continue to disrupt nation-state actors and ensure that American systems are protected in the District of Kansas and across our nation."

"The Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI) will continue to work alongside our law enforcement partners to root out malicious actors who seek to degrade the Department of the Air Force's ability to protect the nation," said Commander Brigadier General Amy S. Bumgarner of OSI. "Multiple OSI units, including one of our newly established National Security Detachments, which were established to provide counterintelligence, law enforcement and analytical support to protect technology at the earliest stages of advanced research and development, provided support to this investigation."

"While North Korea uses these types of cybercrimes to circumvent international sanctions and fund its political and military ambitions, the impact of these wanton acts have a direct impact on the citizens of Kansas," said Special Agent in Charge Stephen A. Cyrus of the FBI Kansas City Field Office. "These actions keep our families from getting the health care they need, slowing the response of our first responders, endangering our critical infrastructure and, ultimately, costing Kansans through ransoms paid, lost productivity, and money spent to rebuild our networks following cyber attacks. Today's charges prove these cyber actors cannot act with impunity and that malicious actions against the citizens of Kansas and the rest of the United States have severe consequences."

"The indictment of individuals responsible for breaching U.S. government systems, regardless of their location, demonstrates the dedication of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Office of Inspector General (NASA-OIG), the Justice Department, and our law enforcement partners to relentlessly investigate, prosecute, and hold accountable those who believe they can operate in the shadows," said Assistant Inspector General for Investigations Robert Steinau of NASA-OIG.

According to court documents, Rim and his co-conspirators worked for North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau, a military intelligence agency, and are known to the private sector as "Andariel," "Onyx Sleet," and "APT45." Rim and his co-conspirators laundered ransom payments through China-based facilitators and used these proceeds to purchase internet infrastructure, which the co-conspirators then used to hack and exfiltrate sensitive defense and technology information from entities across the globe. Victims of this further hacking include two U.S. Air Force bases, NASA-OIG, and entities located in Taiwan, South Korea, and China. Related Andariel activity has been the subject of private sector reporting, and a cybersecurity advisory with updated technical indicators of compromise

was published by the FBI, the National Security Agency, U.S. Cyber Command's Cyber National Mission Force, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Defense's Cyber Crime Center, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Administration, and South Korean and United Kingdom partners today.

The Justice Department and the FBI are also announcing the interdiction of approximately $114,000 in virtual currency proceeds of ransomware attacks and related money laundering transactions, as well as the seizure of online accounts used by co-conspirators to carry out their malicious cyber activity. The FBI previously seized approximately $500,000 in virtual currency proceeds of ransomware attacks and related money laundering transactions. In addition to these actions, the Department of State announced today a reward offer of up to $10 million for information

leading to the location or identification of Rim. The State Department's Rewards for Justice program has a standing reward offer for information leading to the identification or location of any person who, while acting at the direction or under the control of a foreign government, engages in certain malicious cyber activities against U.S. critical infrastructure in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Private sector partners are also taking other voluntary actions to limit the spread of Andariel-created malware. In partnership with the Department, Microsoft developed and implemented technical measures to block Andariel actors

from accessing victims' computer networks. Additionally, Mandiant is publishing research today that highlights its unique insights into Andariel's tactics, techniques, and procedures

. These actions by Microsoft and Mandiant were a significant part of the overall effort to secure networks, and they will help cybersecurity practitioners prevent, identify, and mitigate attacks from Andariel actors.

Maui Ransomware and Money Laundering

As alleged in the indictment, Rim worked for North Korea's Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), a military intelligence agency, and participated in the conspiracy to target and hack computer networks of U.S. hospitals and other health care providers, encrypt their electronic files, extort a ransom payment from them, launder those payments, and use the laundered proceeds to hack targets of interest to the North Korean regime.

The Andariel actors used custom malware, developed by the RGB, known as "Maui." After running the maui.exe program to encrypt a ransomware victim's computer network, the North Korean co-conspirators would extort the organization by leaving a note with a cryptocurrency address for a ransom payment.

The Andariel actors received ransom payments in a virtual currency and then laundered the payments with the assistance of Hong Kong-based facilitators. In at least one case, these Hong Kong facilitators converted ransom funds from cryptocurrency to Chinese yuan. The yuan was then accessed from an ATM in China in the immediate vicinity of the Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge, which connects Dandong, China, and Sinuiju, North Korea.

Exfiltration of Sensitive Data from Companies and Government Agencies

Rim and his co-conspirators used ransom proceeds to lease virtual private servers that were used to launch attacks against defense, technology, and other organizations, and to steal information from them. Victims of this further hacking included U.S. defense contractors, two U.S. Air Force bases, NASA-OIG, South Korean and Taiwanese defense contractors, and a Chinese energy company. The Andariel actors obtained initial access to victims' networks by exploiting known vulnerabilities that had not been patched by the victims, including the widespread Log4Shell vulnerability. (Additional tactics, techniques, and procedures are available in the joint cybersecurity advisory

released today.) The Andariel actors stole terabytes of information, including unclassified U.S. government employee information, old technical information related to military aircraft, intellectual property, and limited technical information pertaining to maritime and uranium processing projects.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan Huschka and Chris Oakley for the District of Kansas and Trial Attorneys Neeraj Gupta and George Brown of the National Security Division's National Security Cyber Section are prosecuting the case.

The FBI continues to investigate Andariel's hacking and money laundering activities. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations, the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Center, and NASA-OIG provided valuable assistance.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Topics: Cybercrime

National Security

Components: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

National Security Division (NSD)

Office of the Deputy Attorney General

USAO - Kansas

Press Release Number: 24-930

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Defendants with Ties to White Supremacy Sentenced in Connection with Plot to Destroy Energy Facilities

Thursday, July 25, 2024

For Immediate Release

Office of Public Affairs

Three men were sentenced today for various conspiracy and firearms offenses in connection with a racially-motivated scheme to destroy an energy facility.

Paul James Kryscuk, 38, of Boise, Idaho, was sentenced today to six years and six months in prison for conspiracy to destroy an energy facility. Liam Collins, 25, of Johnston, Rhode Island, was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for aiding and abetting the interstate transportation of unregistered firearms. Justin Wade Hermanson, 25, of Swansboro, North Carolina, was sentenced today to one year and nine months in prison for conspiracy to manufacture firearms and ship interstate.

"As part a self-described 'modern day SS,' these defendants conspired, prepared, and trained to attack America's power grid in order to advance their violent white supremacist ideology," said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. "These sentences reflect both the depravity of their plot and the Justice Department's commitment to holding accountable those who seek to use violence to undermine our democracy."

According to court documents and other information presented in court, Kryscuk, Collins, and Hermanson researched, discussed and reviewed at length a previous attack on the power grid by an unknown group. The group depicted in the attack used assault-style rifles in an attempt to explode a power substation. Between 2017 and 2020, Kryscuk manufactured firearms while Collins stole military gear, including magazines for assault-style rifles, and had them delivered to the other defendants. During that time, co-defendant Jordan Duncan gathered a library of information - some military-owned - regarding firearms, explosives, and nerve toxins and shared that information with Kryscuk and Collins. In October 2020, a handwritten list of approximately one dozen intersections and places in Idaho and surrounding states was discovered in Kryscuk's possession, including intersections and places containing a transformer, substation, or other component of the power grid for the northwest United States.

Previously filed charges alleged that Collins and Kryscuk were members of and made multiple posts on the "Iron March" forum, a gathering point for young neo-Nazis to organize and recruit for extremist organizations, until the forum was closed in late 2017. Collins and Kryscuk met through the forum and expanded their group using an encrypted messaging application as an alternate means of communication outside of the forum. Collins and Kryscuk recruited additional members, including Duncan, Hermanson, and co-defendant Joseph Maurino, and conducted training, including a live-fire training in the desert near Boise, Idaho. From video footage recorded by the members during the training, Kryscuk, Duncan and others produced a montage video of their training. In the video, the participants are seen firing short barrel rifles and other assault-type rifles, and the end of the propaganda video shows the four participants outfitted in Atomwaffen masks giving the "Heil Hitler" sign, beneath the image of a black sun, a Nazi symbol. The last frame bears the phrase, "Come home white man." Prior to their arrests, Collins and Duncan had relocated to Idaho from North Carolina and Texas, respectively, to be near Kryscuk.

The FBI, Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives investigated the case.

Trial Attorney John Cella of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Barbara Kocher and Gabriel Diaz for the Eastern District of North Carolina are prosecuting the case, with assistance from Assistant United States Attorneys for the District of Idaho, District of New Jersey, Eastern District of New York, and the District of Rhode Island.

Topic: National Security

Components: Office of the Attorney General

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

National Security Division (NSD)

USAO - North Carolina, Eastern

Press Release Number: 24-936

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Unity declaration by Palestinian factions paves way for peace

Xinhua) 16:35, July 26, 2024

RAMALLAH, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The signing of a declaration in Beijing by 14 Palestinian factions, aimed at ending division and strengthening unity, is widely seen as a positive step toward Palestinian national reconciliation, bringing fresh hope to the long-suffering Palestinian people.

"A POSITIVE STEP"

The most important consensus reached at this dialogue is to achieve grand reconciliation and unity among the 14 factions, and the core outcome is to make clear that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

The dialogue also highlights the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government focused on the post-war governance of Gaza. Meanwhile, it calls for the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state in accordance with relevant United Nations resolutions.

The signing of a declaration on ending division and strengthening unity by 14 Palestinian factions in Beijing is "an additional positive step" toward achieving Palestinian national unity, Hamas said on Tuesday.

This announcement came at an important time as Palestinians are facing an ongoing conflict, especially in the Gaza Strip, said Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas's political bureau, adding that the solution represents "the ideal and most appropriate national solution" for the Palestinian situation after the conflict.

The Beijing Declaration represents an important step toward achieving Palestinian unity and ending internal divisions that have negatively affected the Palestinian cause for decades, Abdulaziz Alshaabani, a researcher at Al Riyadh Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Xinhua.

CHINA'S EFFORTS

In a statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian presidency said that it appreciated China's support to help the State of Palestine obtain its full membership of the United Nations and to hold an international peace conference to implement the two-state solution.

It also expressed the gratitude of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership for China's extensive efforts to support the Palestinian people across all levels and in various international forums.

China has played a crucial role in facilitating this agreement through mediation and providing political and diplomatic support, Alshaabani said, underscoring China's commitment to promoting stability in the Middle East and its active contribution to resolving international conflicts.

Ding Long, a professor at Shanghai International Studies University, told Xinhua that thanks to the continued efforts of the Chinese side, the Palestinian factions came to China to participate in the talks.

China has consistently supported the just cause of the Palestinian people and China, as a responsible country, has successfully brokered an Iran-Saudi deal and gained the trust of the Palestinian factions, Ding said.

The success of negotiations in Beijing demonstrates the growing maturity of China's mediation diplomacy in the Middle East, Ding said.

HEADING FOR PEACE

The Beijing Declaration has addressed pressing issues such as the establishment of an interim national reconciliation government, carrying out reconstruction in Gaza. It has also outlined long-term objectives, including resolving the Palestinian issue through a two-state solution.

Musa Abu Marzouk, head of the Fatah delegation Mahmoud al-Aloul and head of the Hamas delegation, voiced their readiness to implement the consensus, strengthen unity among factions, advance the reconciliation process, and work for an early solution to the question of Palestine.

The talks in Beijing involved 14 Palestinian factions with all their positions balanced, thus constituting a basis for ending the division, said Abdel Mohdy Motawe, a Cairo-based researcher and executive director of the Middle East Forum for Strategic Studies and National Security.

The prospects of internal Palestinian reconciliation after the Beijing Declaration hinge on the earnest commitment of Palestinian factions, sustained international support, and tangible improvements in economic and security conditions, Alshaabani said

"If these factors are achieved, the reconciliation can lead to improved political, economic, and social conditions in the Palestinian territories, enhancing the chances of achieving sustainable peace in the region," Alshaabani said.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing)
Rewards for Justice - Reward Offer for Information on North Korean Malicious Cyber Actor Targeting U.S. Critical Infrastructure

US Department of State

Media Note

July 25, 2024

The U.S. Department of State's Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program, administered by the Diplomatic Security Service, is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of any person who, while acting at the direction or under the control of a foreign government, engages in certain malicious cyber activities against U.S. critical infrastructure in violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Rim Jong Hyok is a national of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) who is associated with a malicious cyber group known as Andariel. The Andariel group is controlled by the DPRK's military intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, which has primary responsibility for the DPRK's malicious cyber activities and is also involved in the DPRK's illicit arms trade.

Andariel's targets include foreign businesses, government entities, and the defense industry.

Rim and others conspired to hack into the computer systems of U.S. hospitals and other healthcare providers, install Maui ransomware, and extort ransoms. The ransomware attacks encrypted victims' computers and servers used for medical testing or electronic medical records and disrupted healthcare services. These malicious cyber actors then used the ransom payments to fund malicious cyber operations targeting U.S. government entities and U.S. and foreign defense contractors, among others. In one computer intrusion operation that began in November 2022, the malicious cyber actors hacked a U.S.-based defense contractor from which they extracted more than 30 gigabytes of data, including unclassified technical information regarding material used in military aircraft and satellites, much of which was from 2010 or earlier.

U.S. law enforcement investigators have documented that Andariel actors victimized five healthcare providers, four U.S.-based defense contractors, two U.S. Air Force bases, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Office of Inspector General.

This action underscores the United States' continued efforts to address the DPRK's malicious cyber activity against critical infrastructure as well as prevent and disrupt the DPRK's ability to generate illicit revenue through malicious cyber activity, which it uses to fund its unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.

We encourage anyone with information on the malicious cyber activity of Rim Jong Hyok, Andariel, and associated individuals, entities, and activities to contact Rewards for Justice via the Tor-based tips-reporting channel at: he5dybnt7sr6cm32xt77pazmtm65flqy6irivtflruqfc5ep7eiodiad.onion (Tor browser required).

More information about this reward offer is located on the Rewards for Justice website at https://rewardsforjustice.net .

Since its inception in 1984, RFJ has paid in excess of $250 million to more than 125 people across the globe who provided actionable information that helped resolve threats to U.S. national security. Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RFJ_USA .

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russian-Chinese International Scientific Lunar Station to Be Built in 3 Phases

Sputnik News

20240725

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The International Scientific Lunar Station (ISLS) will be jointly created by Russia and China in three phases: research and development, construction, and operation, according to the relevant agreement published on the official legal information portal on Thursday.

"The creation of the ISLS is planned to be implemented in 3 phases: phase I - research and development ... phase II - construction ... phase III - operation," the document read.

Joint Russian-Chinese operations at the station will start during the second phase, according to the document.

The intergovernmental agreement on the joint creation of the ISLS by China and Russia was signed on November 25, 2022. On June 12, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law ratifying it. The agreement entered into force on July 18.



A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Defence supports Pacific Partnership 2024

Issued by Defence Media

25 July 2024

Defence military and civilian personnel have joined Pacific Partnership 2024, and are deploying to four countries across the Indo-Pacific region from July to September.

The United States-led Pacific Partnership is the largest annual multilateral humanitarian assistance and disaster relief preparedness mission in the Indo-Pacific region.

Defence personnel have supported partnered activities in Vanuatu and will support further activities in Vietnam, the Philippines and Yap in the Federated States of Micronesia.

During Pacific Partnership, approximately 20 Australian Defence Force and civilian personnel are providing medical, dental and engineering support as well as expertise in Humanitarian and Disaster Relief (HADR).

Chief of Joint Operations, Vice Admiral Justin Jones said Pacific Partnership 2024 was a long-standing commitment by Australia to the region.

"The ADF is proud to support this annual activity, which followed the multinational HADR response to the Banda Aceh tsunami of 2004," Vice Admiral Jones said.

"This year, an Australian officer is serving as the Deputy Commander and ADF personnel will take part in medical workshops in South East Asia and the Federated States of Micronesia.

"Pacific Partnership enables us to enhance cooperation and interoperability with regional partners, improve regional crisis responses, and aid local communities."

Australian support to Pacific Partnership 2024 began in Vanuatu on 18 July with a Humanitarian and Disaster Relief workshop supported by the Australian Civil-Military Centre.

Pacific Partnership is now in its 20th iteration.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Chinese, Russian bombers appear in Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone

Global Times

By Liu Xuanzun and Guo Yuandan Published: Jul 25, 2024 10:10 PM

China and Russia on Thursday held their eighth joint aerial strategic patrol that saw bombers of the two countries flying over the Bering Sea for the first time, also marking the farthest place Chinese bombers have reached in a strategic patrol mission, experts said.

According to an annual cooperation plan between the Chinese and Russian militaries, the two sides organized a joint aerial strategic patrol over the Bering Sea on Thursday, Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson from China's Ministry of National Defense, confirmed with the Global Times at a regular press conference on Thursday.

This is the eighth joint aerial strategic patrol between the two militaries since 2019, which further tested and enhanced the two air forces' interoperability, and deepened the two countries' strategic mutual trust and pragmatic cooperation, Zhang Xiaogang said.

The operation does not target any third party, conforms to international law and practices, and is not related to current international and regional situations, the spokesperson said, when asked if the joint patrol was a response to the Pentagon's recently released 2024 Arctic Strategy that hyped China-Russia cooperation in the Arctic.

Zhang Xiaogang's remarks came after the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said it detected two Russian Tu-95 and two Chinese H-6 bombers operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone on Wednesday local time, but remained in international airspace and did not enter US or Canadian sovereign airspace, according to US media reports.

This is the first time a China-Russia joint aerial strategic patrol has featured a patrol over the Bering Sea. Previous patrols have covered regions including the Sea of Japan, the East China Sea and the West Pacific.

Zhang Xuefeng, a Chinese military expert, told the Global Times on Thursday that the latest China-Russia joint aerial strategic patrol marked the first time Chinese bombers have reached an area near Alaska, and also the farthest place Chinese bombers have reached in a strategic patrol mission.

Through constant upgrades, China's H-6 bombers have achieved significant capability boosts. They can now carry long-range missiles that can launch strikes against land and maritime targets out of hostile interception range, Zhang Xuefeng said.

In a joint aerial strategic patrol in November 2022, Chinese aircraft landed in Russia and Russian aircraft landed in China.

Citing this previous experience, Zhang Xuefeng assessed that in the latest mission, the Chinese bombers likely took off from Russian territory, which is closer to North Pacific waters. He said that Chinese and Russian air force task forces have reached a high level of interoperability in terms of command, coordination, communications and logistics support.

Before the bombers' patrol, Chinese warships have cruised in the North Pacific, according to both Chinese and US official releases.

In a recent event, the US Coast Guard said that it came across four Chinese military ships in international waters in the Bering Sea north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, the AP reported on July 12.

In response, Zhang Xiaogang, the Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson, told the Global Times on Thursday that the Chinese warships recently carried out regular training activities aimed at boosting and testing combat capabilities without targeting any country.

Chinese warplanes' and warships' operations conformed to international law and practices, as they did not enter US sovereign airspace or territorial waters, another Chinese military expert, who requested anonymity, told the Global Times on Thursday.

If the US feels uncomfortable seeing a Chinese military presence on its doorstep, it should get used to it, or reflect on its own military presence on China's doorstep, which poses much greater security concerns to China, the expert said.

The China-Russia joint aerial strategic patrol closely followed a joint naval patrol that stretched from northern Pacific waters to the South China Sea and a joint naval exercise in waters off China's southern coast earlier this month, with experts highlighting the growing China-Russia military cooperation and its contribution to peace and stability through providing global strategic balance.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Xi Jinping 'sharing out' political power among rival allies

A bigger role for top party ideologue Wang Huning comes after reports that chief of staff Cai Qi was favored.

By Chen Zifei for RFA Mandarin 2024.07.25 -- Ruling Chinese Communist Party ideologue and 'United Front' czar Wang Huning - who on Thursday attended the funeral of Vietnamese leader Nguyen Phu Trong - appears to have been favored in a recent move by party leader Xi Jinping following a top political meeting in Beijing, analysts told RFA Mandarin.

Wang, who is the fourth-ranked member of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, has been appointed "first deputy leader" of the drafting group for the third plenary session of the party's Central Committee, state media reported, in what analysts said is an indication of a bigger role for him at the expense of Cai Qi, Xi's chief of staff.

Xi leads the document drafting group that will be charged with formulating detailed policy based on the meeting, with Wang, Cai and Ding Xuexiang working under him as deputies, state news agency Xinhua reported.

However, Wang is ranked first among those deputies, while Cai's predecessor had previously served in the role, commentators said.

The move indicates a more important role for Wang, the architect of Xi's personal brand of ideology, Xi Jinping Thought, who previously headed the party's United Front outreach and influence arm.

It likely means that that the government's economic policies will likely be long on spin and short on substance, while continuing Xi's insistence on top-down economic planning that owes more to Marxist economics than to the economic reform era begun by late supreme leader Deng Xiaoping, according to Xia Ming, politics professor at New York's City University.

"Xi Jinping is no longer capable of delivering real results on the economy, so he'll definitely need to come up with various political and propaganda tricks," Xia said. "The entire third plenum of the 20th Central Committee was about carrying on United Front work and strengthening external propaganda, manipulating people's thinking ... to provide a false sense of legitimacy."

"Wang Huning is a veteran writer and spin doctor, and his role will be to exercise a form of political deception," he said.

Ideology-minded Wang

Independent political commentator Chen Daoyin agreed, saying that former propaganda ministers in China are typically ideologically, not practically minded.

"Wang is better at ideology than other members of the Politburo Standing Committee, like Cai Qi," Chen said, adding that the break with precedent also indicates how powerful Xi himself has become within the highest levels of leadership.

"It also shows us that Xi Jinping is the only person who wields real power in the party, because he can arbitrarily assign work to the other standing committee members."

Feng Chongyi, a professor at the University of Technology in Sydney, said Xi has broken many rules of rank and precedent since taking power in 2012, and the elevation of Wang could be a response to recent media reports claiming that Cai was growing in power.

Bloomberg reported in January that Cai "is quietly emerging as one of China's most influential politicians," saying that he had unusual political clout for a fifth-ranked Politburo Standing Committee member.

The article said Cai was "the only member of China's top decision-making body to publicly travel overseas with Xi during his decade-plus in power," citing Cai's appearance next to Xi at overseas summits with U.S. President Joe Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

It said Cai's role had put him on a level with second-ranking premier Li Qiang.

"[Xi] is very sensitive to what people are saying," Feng said. "When there were rumors going round that he had suffered a stroke, he made a point of going to the Vietnamese embassy to show that he knew about them."

Rumors that Xi suffered a stroke during the third plenum, which ran in Beijing from July 15-18, have been widely seen on Russian social media platforms.

Xi Jinping visited the Vietnamese embassy in Beijing on July 20 to pay his respects following the death of Nguyen Phu Trong, late General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, state news agency Xinhua reported.

"Of course he's sensitive to the rumors that Cai Qi has too much power, and could challenge him," Feng said. "So he is sharing out some of Cai Qi's power with Wang Huning, so he doesn't become too dependent on him."

"Then he'll let them fight it out between them, because they are all dependent on him anyway."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.

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






Chinese and Russian bomber jets intercepted near Alaska

The intercept comes as Beijing, Moscow and Washington compete for geopolitical superiority in the Arctic region.

By Alex Willemyns for RFA 2024.07.25 -- The North American Aerospace Defense Command on Wednesday "detected, tracked, and intercepted" two Chinese and two Russian military aircraft operating together in international airspace off the coast of Alaska, but said the activity was "not seen as a threat."

A Chinese defense official said Thursday that the planes were operating over the Bering Sea as part of a planned joint exercise and had "nothing to do" with recent tensions between Washington, Beijing and Moscow over cooperation between the latter two nations.

NORAD, a bi-national military command between the United States and Canada, said two Russian TU-95 bombers and two Chinese H-6 bombers were detected in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, which is international airspace abutting U.S. and Canadian territory.

"An ADIZ begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security," NORAD said, adding that U.S. and Canadian forces had been "ready" to respond if needed.

"NORAD employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft in seamless interoperability to detect and track aircraft," it said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the joint operation by Chinese and Russian aircraft near America was unprecedented.

"This is the first time that we've seen these two countries fly together like that," Austin said at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday. "They're always testing us, and that's no surprise to any of us."

Russia's Defense Ministry released images of the Russian and Chinese jets flying over the Bering Sea, as well as the Chukchi sea to the north, and said in a statement that the four jets had at times been "accompanied" at times by fighter jets from "foreign" forces.

In Beijing, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Zhang Xiaogang said that the aircraft were operating over the Bering Sea as part of a "joint strategic aerial patrol" intended to "enhance" their ability to cooperate and was not meant to send any message.

"This action is not aimed at third parties," Zhang said. "It is in line with relevant international laws and international practices, and has nothing to do with the current international and regional situation."

'Freedom of navigation'

The intercept of the aircraft is not the first time Chinese military forces have been detected near U.S. and Canadian territory.

Chinese naval ships have in the past month been detected operating within the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone but in international waters near Alaska's Aleutian Islands, telling U.S. Coast Guard ships via radio that they were conducting "freedom of navigation" operations.

The explanation for their presence was an allusion to the U.S. military's frequent "freedom of navigation" tours of portions of the South China Sea, which are meant to counter China's extensive sovereign claims to the international waters but which have continuously irked Beijing.

After that incident, Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, said he believed it was only the beginning of what would be an increased Chinese military and naval presence around American territory.

"Our military needs to be ready for increasing Chinese, and joint Chinese and Russian military activity near Alaska's coast," Sullivan said in a post to X. "America must be much more prepared for the increasing activity in the Arctic, and to also let Alaskans know that our military is on the job protecting our state and our country."

Russia has also stepped up its military presence near U.S. territory, recently conducting military exercises with Cuba, which lies about 90 miles (145 kms) south of Florida. A report earlier this month said China, too, has built its own intelligence gathering operation in Cuba.

The report, issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on July 1, said the spy station would allow Beijing to monitor air and maritime traffic up to 9,000 miles (14,500 kms) away, prompting security concerns from U.S. defense officials and diplomats.

But Beijing has denied claims that it's trying to target the continental United States, with Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, denying that such a spy station even exists.

"Such claims are nothing but slander," Liu wrote, also in a post to X. "The US side should immediately stop its smearing of China."

Chilly reception

The joint Chinese-Russian drills near Alaska also come as Washington, Beijing and Moscow compete for geopolitical dominance in the Arctic region, as Beijing eyes a greater presence there.

The Pentagon this week released its updated Arctic strategy. It cautioned that Beijing and Moscow's plans to extend their presence in the region "can hold U.S. and allied territories at risk," and calling for a greater U.S. military focus on operating in the Arctic region.

"The People's Republic of China, not an Arctic nation, is increasing its presence in the Arctic," it said in a statement, noting Beijing already has a military presence, including three icebreakers, in the Arctic and was pushing to have a greater role in how the region is governed.

"The Chinese military has also demonstrated its ability to operate in the Arctic by conducting operations with the Russian navy," it said.

In a press briefing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning called China an "important stakeholder" in the Arctic that "always follows the basic principle of respect" there.

"The U.S. misrepresented China's Arctic policy and pointed fingers at China's normal activities in the Arctic conducted in full compliance with international law," Mao said at the briefing. "This is not conducive to peace, stability and cooperation in the Arctic."

But the military element has been acknowledged in Moscow.

In an article about tensions over the Arctic, Russian state media quoted Ekaterina Labetskaya, an international relations researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, as saying that Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO this year had changed calculations.

"The Arctic has long become a northern frontline of a global hybrid war, waged by the collective West led by the U.S. against Russia and its friendly countries with interests in that region," Labetskaya said.

"The Arctic is being viewed from a new angle by both Russia and China," she added, arguing that "all Arctic nations are reconsidering their military doctrines" in the wake of shifting global alliances.

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






Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Wang Yi

25 July 2024 16:18

1419-25-07-2024

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had a meeting with Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China Wang Yi on July 25, in Vientiane, on the sidelines of the ASEAN ministerial meetings.

The officials praised efforts by Russia and China to promote their political dialogue and practical cooperation at a time when the international system has to grapple with a lot of turbulence and uncertainty. They paid special attention to reviewing progress on the agreements resulting from the May 2024 summit meeting in Beijing.

The ministers also discussed cooperation within ASEAN considering the fact that certain countries have become increasingly proactive in setting up restricted bloc-based military and political mechanisms, which are designed to undermine the ASEAN-centric security and stability framework for the Asia-Pacific Region. They praised the new Russia - China + ASEAN Chair format following the first meeting of this kind with Laos on July 25, and said that they hoped that developing this dialogue platform would help forge closer ties across the ASEAN space.

Sergey Lavrov and Wang Yi stressed the importance for Moscow and Beijing to step up their foreign policy coordination efforts at various international platforms, including the UN, the SCO, APEC, the Group of Twenty and other formats. The Russian minister thanked China for supporting Russia's BRICS Chairmanship and reaffirmed Moscow's readiness to assist Beijing as SCO President. The two ministers went on to discuss ways to implement the concept of building a new security architecture for Eurasia. It has been put forward by Russia as a response to stagnating Euro-Atlantic mechanisms.

Sergey Lavrov thanked his counterpart for China's balanced and consistent position on the Ukraine crisis and welcomed Beijing's initiatives to promote approaches taking into consideration the interests of all the stakeholders and addressing the causes at the root of this conflict.

As usual, the conversation unfolded in a trust-based and constructive manner, which has become a hallmark of the Russia-China strategic partnership.



NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's opening remarks during his meeting with Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Wang Yi, Vientiane, July 25, 2024

25 July 2024 15:35

1418-25-07-2024

Mr Wang Yi,

My friend,

Colleagues,

At the outset, I would like to congratulate our Chinese friends for successfully holding the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which completed its work on July 18, 2024. The outcomes of this meeting will have a major bearing not only on China's development, but also on the global economy as a whole.

Our countries focused their agendas on undertaking a comprehensive effort to deliver on their national development goals, and the Russia-China strategic cooperation is designed to facilitate these efforts. President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of China Xi Jinping attach great importance to these relations and always keep them on their radar, including by exploring new horizons for our strategic partnership.

In May 2024, Beijing hosted summit talks between them. After that, the two leaders had a conversation on the sidelines of the SCO Summit in Astana, where they outlined the main directions for further strengthening our bilateral cooperation as well as the way we work together on the international stage.

Russia and China have been working in tandem on building a multipolar world order with better justice for all, guided by the principle of genuine multilateralism. In addition, they have been creating positive vibes within the United Nations and the Group of Twenty, while remaining proactive within BRICS and the SCO. There are other important international platforms too, including, of course, ASEAN and the entire architecture revolving around this association. We share the view that we must do everything to prevent its destruction.

Today, we had a detailed conversation on this matter during our joint meeting with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Lao PDR Saleumxay Kommasith, whose country currently chairs ASEAN. We believe in the importance of continuing this dialogue in order to combine our efforts in countering any attempts by extra-regional forces to interfere in Southeast Asian affairs and to contribute to its wellbeing and prosperity.





NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






China seeks to boost influence by playing peacemaker

By William Yang July 25, 2024

China hosted a series of high-profile diplomatic meetings this week aimed at projecting an image as a global peacemaker in two major global crises, the Russia-Ukraine war and the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in the southern city of Guangzhou, his first trip to China since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. In Beijing, China hosted a meeting that resulted in the signing of an agreement among 14 Palestinian factions to form a national unity government.

Analysts say the developments, while significant, were largely symbolic.

"These diplomatic efforts are in line with the Global Security Initiative that Beijing is trying to put out to make itself look like a global peacemaker, but the international community needs to see some substantive progress [from China,]" Ian Chong, a political scientist at the National University of Singapore, told VOA by phone.

China dubbed the agreements between representatives from 14 Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Fatah, as the "Beijing Declaration." On Tuesday, Wang Yi said that while reconciliation is an internal affair of Palestinian factions, it could not be achieved "without the support of the international community."

He also laid out China's three-step approach to help end the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, including promoting a comprehensive and sustainable ceasefire, upholding the principle of "the Palestinians governing Palestine," and promoting Palestine to become a full member of the United Nations as well as implementing the two-state solution.

The United States has made its own concerted attempts to achieve an Israel-Hamas ceasefire, laying out conditions intended to lead to the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas in return for a permanent ceasefire and the pullout of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Although Wang tried to use the meeting in Beijing to cast China as a potential mediator in ending the Middle East conflict, Israel quickly denounced the declaration. The United States voiced its objection to Hamas' involvement in the post-war governance of Gaza, noting it has designated the group as a terrorist organization.

Some experts say that without the support of the U.S. and other countries, China's efforts to facilitate peace talks in the Middle East could all be in vain.

"Despite China's intention to be a peacemaker and mediator, without the support of the United States and other countries, China won't be able to achieve much," said Zhiqun Zhu, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at Bucknell University.

Despite pushback from Israel and the U.S., Chong in Singapore said Beijing's outreach to Palestinians could boost its standing in the Muslim world.

"Beijing wants to seem like it is supporting the Palestinian cause, which has broad sympathy among Muslims and this dovetails with investment and efforts to advance Saudi-Iranian reconciliation," he told VOA.

Last year, China brokered a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia that paved the way for the two Middle East rivals to restore diplomatic ties and reactivate a security cooperation agreement.

In his view, China's efforts stand as a "contrast" to what some observers see as destructive U.S. actions, from Washington's support for Israel to the U.S. experiences with Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.

"Beijing is trying hard to look constructive and supportive to causes that many Muslims and Arab states care about," Chong noted.

A window of opportunity in Ukraine war

China's hosting of Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba this week was also an important diplomatic milestone for Beijing, which has faced persistent criticism over its support for Russia. Beijing has refused to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

During a meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Wednesday, which lasted more than three hours, Kuleba said "a just peace" in Ukraine is in China's strategic interests and that Beijing's role as "a global force for peace" is important.

He also said Kyiv is ready to negotiate when Russia is ready to do so in good faith, adding that Ukraine hasn't sensed any sign of readiness from the Russians.

In response, Wang Yi said China remains committed to a political settlement of the "Ukraine crisis" and reiterated four principles put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping as well as the six understandings proposed by China and Brazil in May to help find a solution to end the Ukraine war.

Zhu, the China foreign policy scholar at Bucknell University, said a potential victory by former president Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election could mean reduced support for Ukraine from Washington, making it "imperative" for Kyiv to reach out to China.

"If Trump wins the U.S. election, Ukraine will basically be left to itself, so getting support and help from China is critical for Ukraine moving forward," he told VOA in a written response.

Building blocks for an alternative world order

Sari Arho Havren, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in Brussels, said China's diplomatic efforts are part of the "building blocks" to help establish an alternative world order led by China.

"China sees an opportunity to weaken the United States' global position through its diplomatic efforts this week, and countries in the Global South are an important audience [for its messaging,]" she told VOA by phone.

Zhu said as the U.S. becomes more preoccupied with November's presidential election, there may be more opportunities for China to present itself as an alternative leader in global affairs.

"The messier the U.S. elections are and the more isolationist the U.S. becomes, the more opportunities China will have to fill in the gap and play a leadership role in international affairs," he told VOA.

However, if China hopes to become a more important international player through these diplomatic efforts, Chong said Beijing needs to follow up on the more declaratory agreements by rolling out some concrete steps.

"I suppose China has ambitions to become a more important player [internationally,] but those ambitions haven't been matched by developments on the ground yet," he said.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Rights advocates cite uptick in Uyghur refugee detentions in Turkey

By Kasim Kashgar July 25, 2024

Over the past three weeks, Shirali Abdurehim, a 39-year-old Uyghur honey seller in Istanbul, has been detained in an immigration detention center.

Abdurehim, a father of nine children, has lived in Turkey with his wife since 2013 as a refugee after fleeing repression in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China. He is one of at least a dozen Uyghurs who have been detained in recent weeks, according to detainees, lawyers and rights advocates.

VOA has also seen at least four posts on the social media site Facebook calling for the release of family members since last weekend.

"Turkish agents came to my residence on July 4 and said there was an allegation against me that I conspired with other foreigners from Uzbekistan to produce and sell counterfeit Turkish passports," Abdurehim told VOA in a phone interview.

"They were very polite when they took me for interrogation. They first said they would immediately release me after taking a statement," he said.

Family facing eviction

During the interrogation, Abdurehim says he denied the allegations, claiming that the accusations were fabricated by the Chinese government or Chinese agents in Turkey.

"After that interrogation, they said they couldn't release me and instead transferred me to an immigration detention center, where I joined six other recently arrested Uyghurs," he said. "My wife and nine children are desperately waiting for my return. They can't survive without me, and now they face eviction from the apartment we rent."

VOA emailed the Turkish Interior Ministry's Immigration Department for more information regarding the cases of Abdurehim and the other Uyghurs detained in recent weeks. The ministry has yet to respond.

Abdurehim's wife, who asked that her first name not be published to protect her relatives in Xinjiang, told VOA that the family had been living day-to-day on her husband's honey sales. "Our landlord demanded six months' rent in advance, but we can't afford it. With my husband in indefinite detention, we're also struggling to put food on the table."

Turkish flag T-shirt

Abdurehim says his troubles trace to 2010 when Chinese authorities arrested him in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

"I was arrested for months in 2010 for wearing a T-shirt with a Turkish flag," Abdurehim said. "It was a time when many Uyghurs felt grateful for [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan's statement in 2009."

Unrest had broken out in Urumqi in July of that year amid protests over government inaction following reported killings and injuries of Uyghurs by a Chinese mob in Guangdong province. Initially peaceful, the protests escalated into clashes when Chinese armed police intervened. Subsequently, Uyghurs faced accusations of attacking unarmed Chinese individuals, resulting in arrests, disappearances and detentions.

Erdogan had characterized China's actions toward Uyghurs as "genocide," a sentiment that resonated within the Uyghur community.

Fleeing China

After his release, Abdurehim fled the country without a passport. Because of China's historical restrictions preventing many Uyghurs from obtaining passports legally, he sought assistance from human traffickers in Yunnan province in southwest China.

"In 2012, I journeyed from Yunnan through Vietnam and Thailand, eventually arriving in Malaysia. It was there that my wife, our only child at the time, and I received humanitarian travel documents from the Turkish Embassy, enabling us to relocate to Turkey in 2013," he recounted.

"For the first time, I felt liberated from government repression in a country I came to cherish deeply, a place I was prepared to sacrifice everything for, including my life."

After arriving in Turkey, Abdurehim opened a grocery shop in Istanbul. However, in late 2018, he was detained by Turkish authorities on unspecified allegations. He was released in early 2019 without any charges.

"I spent three months in detention due to baseless accusations, which I believe were influenced by Chinese authorities or their agents in Turkey," Abdurehim recounted.

"Thankfully, Turkish authorities eventually recognized my innocence and released me. However, the ordeal forced me to sell my grocery shop to cover legal expenses and defense fees."

Refuge in Turkey

Turkey is home to one of the largest Uyghur diaspora communities outside China, with a population estimated at 50,000 to 75,000, according to Uyghur groups there.

Since the 1950s, Turkey has been a refuge for Uyghurs fleeing what they describe as severe repression by the Chinese government, including allegations of genocide, mass arbitrary detention affecting over 1 million people, forced labor, forced sterilization, torture and other abuses.

China denies all those allegations, but in recent years, the U.S. and several Western parliaments have officially labeled China's recent policies and treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang as genocide. The U.N. human rights office has suggested that these actions may constitute crimes against humanity.

Initially denying these accusations, China later referred to the facilities holding Uyghurs as "re-education centers" aimed at countering "extremism, terrorism and separatism." China continuously describes accusations of Uyghur human rights abuses as "lies fabricated by U.S.-led anti-China forces" to contain China's development.

China-Turkey ties

Memettohti Atawulla, an Istanbul-based senior project manager at the Washington-based Center for Uyghur Studies, notes that the recent surge in arrests of Uyghurs in Turkey came shortly after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited Xinjiang.

During the trip, "Turkey expressed its commitment to cooperate in what China terms as 'anti-terrorism,' a label that masks China's harsh policies targeting Uyghurs," Atawulla told VOA. "This may be a significant factor contributing to the increased arrests of Uyghurs in Turkey."

During his visit to Urumqi, Fidan emphasized Turkey's support for China's anti-terrorism efforts in a meeting with Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Ma Xingrui.

"We support China against armed terrorist groups. We do not approve international initiatives seeking to incite strife in China and to stop China's economic development," Fidan said in China. He also urged China to respect Uyghurs and let them "live their values."

The Turkish Foreign Ministry didn't respond to a request from VOA for comment on whether the recent arrests were related to "anti-terrorism" cooperation between the two countries.

Recent uptick

According to Jevlan Shirmehmet, an Istanbul-based lawyer advocating for Uyghurs, the reasons for the recent arrests extend beyond accusations related to terrorism.

He said it is hard to determine the total number of Uyghurs detained, but he personally knows of at least five detainees and was meeting with one detained Uyghur in a prison in Istanbul when VOA spoke with him.

He added that arrests of Uyghurs are not new, but that there has been a recent uptick.

"This issue of Uyghur detentions in Turkey has persisted over several years, and I have personally seen a variety of cases," Shirmehmet said.

"One common scenario involves allegations conveyed by China, while another type accuses Uyghurs of espionage for China. Additionally, there are cases related to civil crimes that occur in any community."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Experts eye China-Japan meeting on sidelines of ASEAN

By Chung-Hsi Tu July 25, 2024

Expectations are building for a meeting this week between Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Japanese counterpart Yoko Kamikawa on the sidelines of ASEAN meetings in Vientiane, Laos.

Earlier this week, China's vice foreign minister, Ma Zhaoxu, met with his counterpart in Tokyo, the first time the two countries have held strategic talks since 2020. Ma later met with Kamikawa during a visit to Tokyo.

According to a report in Chinese state-run newspaper, the Global Times, "The two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on major strategic issues concerning China-Japan relations." Ahead of the meetings in Laos, Japan's Kyodo News Agency quoted government sources who said Tokyo is looking into a possible meeting between Wang and Kamikawa.

Kyodo reported Thursday that both governments have begun making arrangements for a meeting between their foreign ministers on Friday.

When they do meet in Laos, experts say the two will have a lot of contentious issues to discuss, including China's detention of Japanese nationals, territorial disputes and Japan's release of treated wastewater from its Fukushima nuclear power plant.

Sachio Nakato, professor at the College of International Relations at Ritsumeikan University in Japan, tells VOA's Mandarin Service that "Japan-China relations seem to lack the motivation to truly improve, but it is also necessary for the two countries to improve their relations as much as possible."

Szu-shen Ho, director of the Center of Japan and East Asia Studies at Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan, notes three key areas of contention between China and Japan: a territorial dispute over the Senkaku Islands, which China calls the Diaoyu Islands, the detention of at least five Japanese nationals by China following the implementation of its revised counterespionage law, and the release Fukushima's nuclear wastewater into the sea.

Ho said that while the two are "creating an atmosphere for the improvement of relations," neither side is sure whether these disputes can be resolved through dialogue.

He said, however, that channels of communication between China and Japan, be it among Cabinet members or leaders, seem to be relatively "smooth." Economic and trade relations, he adds, also still are very deep between China and Japan, despite the U.S.-China trade and technology war.

Last year, the United States was Japan's biggest export market and China its biggest source of imports, according to Japanese trade data. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, however, some Japanese companies have shifted their investments out of China.

Late last year, Mitsubishi Motors announced it was leaving China's market. Earlier this week, Nippon Steel ended a 20-year joint venture with China's Baoshan Iron and Steel.

Despite the challenges, Hsien-Sen Lin, a professor of the Department of East Asia Studies at National Taiwan Normal University, sees some light at the end of the tunnel for the two countries.

He believes some of the major sticking points between Beijing and Tokyo could be resolved. China's ban on Japanese aquatic products following its release of wastewater from Fukushima nuclear power plant was a misstep because no other major country followed suit.

Lin also believes that it's possible China could release Japanese nationals who have been detained in China after they are sentenced and the judicial process is complete.

Tensions over Taiwan, however, remain a key sticking point.

Last week, Japan's and Taiwan's coast guards held a maritime shipwreck training drill off the eastern Japanese coast.

Taiwan's 1,000-ton vessel "Patrol No. 9," an ocean-going patrol ship, and the Japan Coast Guard's "Sagami" patrol ship participated in the drill, which was conducted just south of the Boso Peninsula and near Izu Oshima on July 17.

The exercise, which sparked a strong protest from China, was the first joint maritime training for Japan and Taiwan since Tokyo severed diplomatic ties with Taipei in September 1972 and switched recognition to Beijing.

Beijing's "One China" principle demands that countries not maintain official relations with Taiwan, but Japan, like a growing number of nations in the region, has been expanding ties with Taipei in response to growing Chinese aggression.

Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, Yoshimasa Hayashi, said the exercise was not aimed at any country, including China.

Ho said the cooperative relationship between the two coast guards is a "very long-term relationship," and that the two countries are likely to cooperate in non-traditional security fields in the future.

He stressed, however, that neither the Japanese coast guard nor the Taiwan coast guard is military, and said the public should not read too much into it. He added that he does not think the cooperation will have an impact on Sino-Japan relations.

Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Transcript of Weekly Media Briefing by the Official Spokesperson (July 25, 2024)

India - Ministry of External Affairs

July 25, 2024

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, we are happy to see all of you yet again. Let's open the floor.

Umashankar: Umashankar Singh, NDTV India se. American congress mei ek bar phir se ek tippani aayi hai, Pradhan Mantri Modi ke Russia daure ko lekar, usmai ye kaha gaya hai ki America niraash hai, jis tarah se timing chuni gayi aur jis tarah ka symbolism wahan se samne aaya. Halaki ye bhi kaha gaya hai ki koi... American najariye se ek aaklan pesh karne ki koshish ki gayi hai, ki koi bada jo defence deal hai woh nahi hua hai, koi technical sahyog ki koi baat nahi hui hai, toh ispe Videsh Mantralay ki kya pratikriya hai, America ke is tippani par?

[Question in Hindi: Approximate translation] Umashankar Singh from NDTV India. Once again, a comment has come from the American Congress regarding Prime Minister Modi's visit to Russia. It has been said in it that America is disappointed with the timing chosen and the kind of symbolism that emerged from it. However, an assessment has been made from American perspective that no major defence deal has been done, and no technical cooperation has been discussed. So, what is the Ministry of External Affairs response to this comment from America?

Sidhant: Sir my question is on the Bangladesh situation, if you can apprise on the number of Indians who have come back and the situation, how it has impacted Indians? Second question, continuing with Uma Sir's question on the American comments, do you think that there is pattern in American comments regarding the Prime Minister's visit? How do you see it as?

Kadambini: Kadambini Sharma from NDTV. Ek travel advisory America ki taraf se jari ki gayi hai, jahan par North-East ki baat ki gayi hai, Manipur ki baat ki gayi hai, Central India, sab jagah ke baare mei kafi alarming tasveer pesh ki gayi hai, is par koi pratikriya?

[Question in Hindi: Approximate translation] Kadambini Sharma from NDTV. A travel advisory has been issued by America, wherein an alarming picture has been presented of the regions in North-East, Manipur, and Central India. Any response on it?

Rishabh: Sir, Rishabh from Times Now. Sir, in Canada, two people have been arrested for threatening Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, the same country where there have been constant death threats to our leaders, be it Prime Minister, be it External Affairs Minister, or our High Commissioner to Canada, first thing. Sir, second thing, there is a video of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, where he is saying that Canadian-Khalistani Sikhs have come to India to fight Indian forces. Is there any information on any Canadian citizen who was involved in any such incident here in India?

Madhurendra: Sir Madhurendra, main News Nation se. Jis tarah se China India ko sideline karke South Asia mei apni outreach ko badha raha hai, aur ye bhi dekha ja raha hai ki Nepal ko woh apne partnership mei behtar tarike se engage kar pa raha hai; Aapko lagta hai ki hum apne neighborhood mei jis tarah ke approach ko aage badha rahe hain, South Asia mei, usko hi counter karne ki ek nayi policy par China chal raha hai? Aur is pure hi CASAF ki jo meeting hai, paanchvi baithak hai, us par kya tippani hai?

[Question in Hindi: Approximate translation] Sir, I am Madhurendra from News Nation. Considering how China is increasing its outreach in South Asia by sidelining India and also engaging with Nepal in a partnership in a better way, do you think that this is China's new policy, aimed at countering our approach in the neighborhood, in South Asia? And what are your comments on the fifth meeting of the CASAF?

Abhishek: Sir this is Abhishek Jha from CNN News 18. Okay. My question is regarding U.S. Assistant Secretary Donald Lu's comment, in which he has said that India has cancelled billions of dollars of purchase from Russian defence industry because Russia cannot deliver. So my first question is that, and second also, he has said that he has been in communication with the Indian government on their displeasure and disappointment with the Prime Minister's visit to Moscow. So could you please brief us on what kind of communication they have been in?

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Okay. So let me come to the first question, which was asked by Umashankar and also Abhishek and Sidhant.

This pertains to the comments made in the U.S. Congress. You must understand that India has long-standing relationship with Russia, that is based on mutuality of interests. In a multi-polar world, all countries have the freedom of choice. It is essential for everybody to be mindful of and appreciate such realities. So that will be our response to your questions.

Uma ji aapne hindi mei pucha isliye main hindi mei bolna chah raha hoon. Hamari Russia ke sath purani maitri hai aur ye donon deshon ke rishton pe, interests pe aadharit hai. Ek bahu-dhruviy duniya mei, multi-polar world mei sabhi deshon ko ye aazadi hai ki apni-apni raah chune, apne-apne vikalp ko chune. Aur ye bhi jaruri hai ki ek nayi jo vastavikta hai, hakikat hai, log usse wakif ho, usko samjhein, aur uski prashansa bhi karein.

[Answer in Hindi: Approximate translation] Uma ji, you have asked in Hindi, so I want to answer in Hindi. India has long-standing relationship with Russia, that is based on mutuality of interests. In a multi-polar world, all countries have the freedom of choice. It is essential for everybody to be mindful of and appreciate such realities.

Sidhant, the question on Bangladesh, so far, we have had over 6700 Indian students who have come back from Bangladesh. We have received excellent cooperation from the Bangladeshi Government. Our High Commission has arranged for their safe and secure travel to the border crossing points or to the airport, as the case may be. They also have several helplines, both our High Commission and our Assistant High Commissions, they are operating 24x7 helplines and all the people who are there, our students and our nationals, they can reach out to them and they have been rendering whatever assistance that has been requested for. So, that is the update on the student movement. We also feel that being a close neighbor with whom we share very warm and friendly ties, we are hopeful that the situation in the country would return to normal soon.

Kadambini aapka sawal travel advisory ko lekar hai. Travel advisory ek routine matter hai, jo har desh, jo-jo chahain woh usko issue karte hain. Hum logon ne bhi travel advisories issue ki hai, toh hum log isko ek routine matter ki najar se dekhte hain.

[Answer in Hindi: Approximate translation] Kadambini, your question was about the travel advisory. Travel advisory is a routine matter that any country can issue as they deem fit. We have also issued travel advisories, so we see this as a routine matter.

Rishabh, you have asked two questions; one was regarding the arrests made in Canada for online threats given to their leaders. On that, we would like to say that we have seen these reports. When a democracy adopts different yardsticks to measure or implement the rule of law and freedom of expression, it only exposes its own double standard. We expect Canada to take action against anti-India elements who have repeatedly threatened Indian leaders, institutions, airlines and diplomats by violence. So we would like to see strong action or same level of action on the threats posed to us as well. On the second question about the video you talked about, relevant agencies are looking into it and hopefully we will get an update.

Madhu, aapne hamare padosi deshon ke baarain mei baat ki, pados mei Nepal ho, aur bhi desh jo hain hamare pados ke, aapko pata hai ki 'Neighborhood First' policy hamari neeti hai, aur uske tahat hum saare desh jo hamare neighborhood mei hain Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka aur anya desh jo hain, unke sath hum apni maitri ka rishta aur majboot kar rahe hain. Aur ye rishta Bharat aur un deshon ke beech mei hai, ye tisra desh kya kar raha hai ya nahi kar raha hai, ye ek alag baat hai, lekin jahan tak hamara manna hai, aur hamara prayas hai, hamari neeti hai, ki hum 'Neighborhood First' policy ko aur majboot karain aur ye jitne hamare desh hain, jinse hamare achhe, friendly relations hain usko aur majboot karain, aanewale dinon mei.

[Answer in Hindi: Approximate translation] Madhu, you talked about our neighboring countries, whether it is Nepal or other countries in our neighborhood, you know that we have 'Neighborhood First' policy, and under this policy, we are strengthening our friendly relations with all the neighboring countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other countries. This relationship is between India and these countries. What a third country is doing or not doing is a different matter, but as far as we believe, our efforts and policy are to strengthen our 'Neighborhood First' policy and to further strengthen our relations with these friendly countries in the coming days.

Abhishek, I answered your question regarding... same question that was put by Rishabh.

Abhishek: Sir, regarding defence purchase from Russia?

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: So, on the comments made by Donald Lu in the US Congress, we have conveyed what we had to, between as far as Russia and India concerned, it's a large, and it's a long standing relationship. There are several aspects to it and recently we had the visit of Prime Minister, we also issued a joint statement where different aspects of our relationship were highlighted, what are the areas where we are moving forward, there was thrust on economic aspects to the relationship. So, I would request you to have a look at the joint statement. You will get a clear idea of the direction of the relationship.

Yeshi: Yeshi Seli from the New Indian Express. U.S. Foreign Secretary, David Lammy was in India yesterday, and Prime Minister Modi said that they're looking at early conclusion of the FTA. Was any deadline set? Are meetings going to take place? Because, the British Prime Minister is also keen that this is concluded?

Suhasini: Suhasini Haidar from the Hindu. You spoke about Bangladesh a little earlier. Many like Professor Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh have called for the international community, for Bangladesh's partners, the United Nations, to intervene in some way to stop the bloodshed. My question is not so much about the students, but about whether the government, whether the Prime Minister or External Affairs Minister have had any conversations with their counterparts in Dhaka about the situation over there? And, do you see the situation itself as one of concern?

Pranay: Sir, Pranay Upadhyay Zee News se. Mera sawal kuch domestic issues ko le kar hai, jismei Videsh Mantralay ka interest ho sakta hai. Kerala sarkar ki taraf se abhi haal hi mei jo ek notification aaya tha, ek adhikari ki niyukti ko le kar ke, jisko media mei 'Foreign Secretary' kaha gaya. Saath hi Paschim Bengal ki Mukhyamantri ki taraf se bhi jo bayan aaye hain, kya ye Business Allocation Rules ka ullanghan hai, aur isko lekar in sambandhit sarkaron ke sath kya Videsh Mantralay ne kuch kaha hai, baat hui hai, kuch aashvashan?

[Question in Hindi: Approximate translation] Sir, Pranay Upadhyay from Zee News. My question is regarding some domestic issues that the Ministry of External Affairs might have interest in. Recently, there was a notification from the Kerala government regarding the appointment of an officer, who was referred to as 'Foreign Secretary'. Also, there have been statements from the Chief Minister of West Bengal. Do these actions violate the Business Allocation Rules, and has the Ministry of External Affairs had any discussions with the concerned governments regarding this, or any assurance?

Ayushi: Sir this is Ayushi Agarwal from ANI. I have two questions. One is regarding the upcoming visit of our External Affairs Minister to Japan for the Quad Foreign Ministers' meeting. Any discussion on the dates of the Summit expected between the Ministers, since India is the host? So if we can know when the Summit would happen, will that be later this year or early next year? Second, who will be representing India at the swearing-in ceremony of the Iranian President-elect Pezeshkian, which is scheduled later this month?

Ileana: Good afternoon. Ileana, TASS News Agency. My first question is on cooperation between India and Eurasian Economic Union. As we know, India and Russia agreed that they will explore the possibility of Eurasian Economic Union-India Free Trade Area. So have the negotiations started on this? What is your estimation of this possible FTA and when may it be created? And related to this issue, the question is, maybe India considers to join this Union, Eurasian Economic Union? And if you allow me one more question, on what stage are now the negotiations between India and Russia on RuPay in Russia and Mir cards in India? Thank you very much.

Neeraj: Sir main Neeraj Dubey Prabha Sakshi se. Bangladesh par hi mera prashn hai Sir. Sir wahan ke jo Videsh Mantri hain unhone West Bengal CM ke ek bayan par aapatti jatayi hai, aur kaha hai ki Bangladesh sarkar Bharat sarkar ko ek patra likh rahi hai, kya Bharat sarkar ko koi is baare mei patra mila hai Bangladesh se.

[Question in Hindi: Approximate translation] Sir, I am Neeraj Dubey from Prabha Sakshi. My question is also about Bangladesh. The Foreign Minister of Bangladesh has expressed objections to a statement made by the Chief Minister of West Bengal, and mentioned that the Bangladesh government is writing a letter to the Indian government. Has the Indian government received any such letter from Bangladesh on this matter?

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Yeshi, regarding the visit of UK Foreign Secretary, we had the visit yesterday, the official visit of UK Foreign Secretary. This has happened within one month of the swearing in of the new government in UK and it speaks of the kind of commitment that is there on both sides, and on the UK side as well on strengthening this partnership. UK Foreign Secretary met with the Prime Minister, called on the Prime Minister. He also had meeting with National Security Advisor and then bilateral discussions with External Affairs Minister. Both sides recognized that positive movement have happened on the FTA negotiations, and hopefully both sides will take this forward, both sides are looking forward to a mutually beneficial and a balanced FTA outcome that serves both the countries. So we are positive, both the governments are positive on the negotiations.

Suhasini, your question regarding how do we see the developments in Bangladesh, we are aware of the situation in the country. We have been closely following the developments there. India considers the ongoing situation in the country to be an internal matter of Bangladesh. With the support and cooperation of the Bangladesh government, we were able to arrange for safe returns of our students, which we deeply appreciate. Being a close neighbor with whom, as I said earlier, we share very warm and friendly ties, we are hopeful that the situation in the country will return to normal soon. So that is how we look at the developments in Bangladesh.

Pranay, Kerala sarkar ko lekar aapne jo sawal kiya (your question regarding Kerala Government), I think there are others also who are asking this questions, so we will do it in English and Hindi both.

The Kerala government had issued an order where they have appointed a Secretary in charge of External Cooperation. Let's be very clear, the Constitution of India, under the Seventh Schedule, List-I, which is the Union List, Item Number 10, clearly specifies that Foreign Affairs and all matters which bring the Union into relation with any foreign country are the sole prerogative of the Union Government. It is not a Concurrent subject. The Foreign Affairs is not a Concurrent subject and definitely not a State subject. Our position is that state government should not intrude into matters that are beyond their constitutional jurisdiction.

Bhartiya samvidhan ke tahat, saatve schedule mei, jo Union List hain, uska dasva jo item number hai, usmai bade saaf shadbon mei likha hua hai ki jahan tak videshi muddon ka sawal hai, foreign affairs ka sawal hai aur woh sabhi mudde jo bahar ke deshon se tallukat rakhte hain, woh jo prerogative hai, woh kendra sarkar ki hai, aur ye jo mudda hai, ye jo subject hai, teen list hain, jaise ki aap jante hain, Union List, State List and Concurrent List, ye Concurrent List ka bhaag nahi hai, aur State List ka bhi bhaag nahi hai. Toh aise situation mei jab ki samvidhanik pravdhan hain aur bahut spasth hain, aise mei jo rajya sarkar hain unko jo jurisdiction unke daayre mei nahi hain, usmei kisi prakar ka hastakshep nahi karna chahiye.

[Answer in Hindi: Approximate translation] Under the Constitution of India, in the Seventh Schedule, List-I, which is the Union List, Item Number 10, clearly specifies that Foreign Affairs and all matters which bring the Union into relation with any foreign country are the sole prerogative of the Union Government. And this subject...there are three such lists, as you know, Union list, state list and concurrent list...it is neither a part of the Concurrent list nor of state list. So, in such a situation, when there are constitutional provisions and are very clear, the state governments should not interfere in the jurisdiction which is not under their purview.

Ayushi, External Affairs Minister will be visiting Japan for the Quad Foreign Ministers' meeting. The Quad Foreign Ministers' meeting is on 29th. At the meeting, the leaders will take forward what has been agreed to by the leaders, the Prime Minister, the Presidents of the country when they met last in Hiroshima and thereafter there was a follow-up meeting also in New York. So it's a good occasion. It is a valuable occasion for them to take forward the Quad agenda and take stock of all that has been achieved so far. On the question of the next Summit, it will be a matter which will be discussed as well. At the same time, all the Quad partners together, we are the presidency this time, we will discuss and find a suitable date to host this Summit. As and when we have confirmation on that account, we'll keep you updated.

On the question of Iran, I will let you know as and when we finalize our participation. So, hopefully in a day or two, as and when it happens, I will keep you informed.

Ileana, on the question about FTA between India and Eurasia Economic Union, this matter was discussed. It is part of the joint statement which was issued when Prime Minister went to Russia. I understand that the first initial meeting happened in March of this year and subsequent to that, now it is for both sides to mutually agree on a date, schedule, the next meeting and take things forward. So that is where it is. Both sides are in touch with each other to see how best they can take it forward. On the question of RuPay card and Mir card, these are very technical aspects and the technical teams in both countries are in touch with each other on this particular matter.

Neeraj aapka sawal Bangladesh ke Videsh Mantri aur hamari Bengal ki Chief Minister ko lekar tha. Toh yahan mei phir dohrahan chahunga.

[Answer in Hindi: Approximate translation] Neeraj, your question was about the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh and our Chief Minister of West Bengal. So, I would like to reiterate here.

For everybody else, I would like to first speak English and thereafter make my comments in Hindi.

I can that we have received a diplomatic note, a communication from Bangladeshi side protesting the comments made by Chief Minister of West Bengal. It is essentially on the lines that you would have seen in the reports that have come out today. Again, I would like to underline that under the Seventh Schedule, List 1, Union List, Item 10 of our Constitution, the conduct of foreign affairs and all matters which bring the Union into relation with any foreign country are the sole prerogative of the Union Government.

Neeraj aapke liye, hum logon ko Bangladesh ki sarkar ki taraf se ek diplomatic note mila hai. Unhone ek protest kiya ki jo tippaniya di gayi hain West Bengal ki Chief Minister dwara, woh sahi nahi hain aur jo aapne reports dekhain hain, usi tarj par ye protest note bhi hai. Hum ye kehna chahenge ki Bhartiya samvidhan ke tahat, Bhartiya samvidhan mei sechedule 7 jo hai uske tahat, usmei List 1, Union List, item number 10 ke tahat jo videshi mamle hain, foreign affairs, aur woh sabhi mamle jo bahar ke deshon se jinka tallukat hai, woh Union List ke andar hain aur usmei Sirf aur Sirf Union Government hi uspe kaam kar sakti hai.

[Answer in Hindi: Approximate translation] Neeraj, to answer your question, we have received a diplomatic note, a communication from Bangladeshi side protesting the comments made by Chief Minister of West Bengal. It is essentially on the lines that you would have seen in the reports that have come out today. Again, I would like to underline that under the Seventh Schedule, List 1, Union List, Item 10 of our Constitution, the conduct of foreign affairs and all matters which bring the Union into relation with any foreign country are the sole prerogative of the Union Government.

Neeraj: Sir Neeraj hoon News 18 India se. Pradhan Mantri Narendra Modi ke daure ke baad kya koi Bhartiya jo ki Russian sena mei hai, abhi unhain nikala gaya hai Russian army se? Abhi tak koi kamyabi mili hai Sir, daure ke baad?

[Question in Hindi: Approximate translation] Sir, I am Neeraj from News 18 India. After Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit, have any Indians been discharged from Russian Army? Has there been any success in this regard, following the visit?

Ayanangsha: This is Ayanangsha Maitra, Sir. My question is regarding the budget allocation. In recent budget, we have seen, we have allocated about Rs 200 crore for Afghanistan, which is almost similar to the entire nations, all the nations of Africa. So, will this money be disbursed for some of the projects related to Chabahar, if not what? Secondly, is there any surge on visas given to the Afghan nationals in different categories? Thank you, Sir.

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Can you repeat your question, second question?

Ayanangsha: Is there any surge of visas granted to Afghan nationals in several heads ranging from business to health?

Rishabh: Hello, Sir. Good evening again, Rishabh from Times. Sir, one more question pertaining to Canada. This week we have seen a temple, a Swaminarayan temple being vandalised with anti-Prime Minister slogan written on it and few of the Indian origin MPs have also been targeted in that vandalism. Can we have a response on that?

Huma: Sir, I am Huma Siddiqui from the Financial Express. I have two questions. One, India has reopened its Mission in Libya. How many Indians are there and would it be safe for the Indian companies to do business there? My second question, there is a report today in Bloomberg, or was it yesterday, that Reliance has got permission to buy oil, crude from that country. So, what happens to the other companies like ONGC? Are they allowed to do business there?

Srinjoy: Sir, Srinjoy, Times Now. Sir, between the 11th of July to the 13th of July, and all these meetings happen in the morning, from all the way from Ladakh to Lipulekh to Sikkim to Arunachal; there were a series of meetings at different levels between Indians and the Chinese over different periods of time. Some were very long, some were short, but they happened within these three days. Can you tell us what the general agenda is, and if it is leading somewhere?

Sudhi: Sir, Sudhi Ranjan from Bloomberg, Sir. As you reiterated, Bangladesh is one of our closest neighbors, and India is keeping a close watch on the developments. Bangladesh government, A, hasn't indicated or given us anything to understand that these protests, there may be some outsider influence. And since India is a close neighbor friend, does India have any such reports?

Milan: Hello, Sir. Milan from India today. Just wanted to know the progress on Indians stuck in the Russian army. There was a request that was received by India also to help them come back. So, what's been the progress on that, Sir?

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Okay. Neeraj, aapka sawal aur Milan ka sawal ek hi hai. Pichle saptah bhi hum logon ne ispe aapko update diya tha ki kariban 50 log hain jinhone madad mangi hai Bharat sarkar se, hamari Embassy se, unke pariwar ke logon ne aur khud unhone chitthi likhi hai ki unko Russian sena se jald se jald nikala jaye. Aapko gyat hoga ki is mudde par hum logon ne aapse pahle bhi baat ki hai, Pradhan Mantri ke daure ke darmiyan ye batchit hui aur Russian sarkar ki taraf se ye aashwasan diya gaya ki jo hamare wahan log fase hue hain, wahan Russian fauj mei, unko wahan se riha karaya jayega. Ispe kaam chal raha hai, aur jald hi hum aasha karte hain ki ye log Bharat wapas laut aayenge.

[Answer in Hindi: Approximate translation] Neeraj, your and Milan's questions are the same. Last week, we updated you that around 50 individuals have sought assistance from the Indian government and our Embassy, their families and they themselves have written letters requesting that they be discharged from the Russian army as soon as possible. As you would remember, we have discussed this issue with you before. During the Prime Minister's visit, discussions took place, and the Russian government assured that those stuck in the Russian army would be released from there. Work is ongoing on this, and we hope that these individuals will return to India soon.

Milan, so this issue, we have taken up, it was taken up by the Prime Minister himself during the visit and the Russian authorities have given us assurance, they have given a positive response on our request and we are working to get these people back to India.

On budget, with Afghanistan, as you know, we have historical ties with the people of Afghanistan; we have undertaken humanitarian assistance over several years now. We continue to be committed to this partnership with the people of Afghanistan and therefore in the budget, you saw the reflection of the figures that you talked about. On the question of surge in visas, I don't have exact numbers of visas that you are talking about. But yes, visas to people in Afghanistan are being given and that to and fro movement is happening.

Rishabh, on the question of vandalisation of the temple in Edmonton in Canada, we have strongly taken up the matter with Canadian authorities, both here in Delhi and in Ottawa. We condemn the vandalisation, we expect the local authorities to take swift and strong action against those responsible. These attacks against temples have become a recurring occurrence and are done with a purpose which is not very difficult to fathom. We have seen a number of such incidents in recent times in Canada. Lack of action against the perpetrators has further emboldened such criminal elements. Those advocating and responsible for extremism and violence need to be brought to justice or else the rule of law and respect for pluralism in Canada will continue to be severely undermined. We hope that the Canadian government will take action. It has been happening on a repeated basis now.

Huma, our first officer has been sent to Tripoli, Libya. He has to set up the Embassy and thereafter... in some sense, it is functional now; but it is not fully functional. But, he has gone there to establish it and soon you will have all the activities beginning in Libya and thereafter, of course, we will try to enhance and expand our cooperation. We do have people there, exact number, I do not have a figure right now but I can give you that figure. We have people who are working in that country in medical field, teachers, professionals, so on and so forth.

On the question of OFAC exemption, yes, we have also seen reports of Indian company being given exemption by OFAC of the United States to trade in oil with Venezuela. Whether other companies have also been given this exemption or not, I do not have an update but I shall give you the latest, the soonest that I have.

Srinjoy, regarding meetings that happen on border areas, we have been giving you an update of all the meetings that have happened at the military to military level and at the diplomatic level as well. We will continue to update you with the progress that happens in these meetings.

Sudhi, on Bangladesh, while answering Suhasini's question, I told you that we see the developments in Bangladesh as an internal matter of that country. So that is our position on the question that you raised.

Yeshi: This is Yeshi again from the New Indian Express. I just wanted to know if there is any update on the 8th Naval veteran Commander Purnendu Tiwari. It has been five months since the seven others came back.

Sachin: Hi, this is Sachin from the Times of India. I just wanted to check with you if there is any update in the case of Nikhil Gupta who is an accused in the US alleged murder for hired plot. Has there been any sort of communication with the Americans about him? Has he sought consular access? And I understand there was a request from his family members for help from Indian authorities. So have you acted upon that request? Thank you.

Kallol: Kallol from the Hindu. Sir, of course, you described the protests in Bangladesh as an internal matter of the country. But during the protests, we also saw anti-India slogans being raised. There were slogans that were targeting India and saying India is a supporter of the Hasina government. Do you think that is something that concerns India, that anti-India sentiment is rising in Bangladesh?

Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Yeshi, regarding your question on the 8th naval veteran, as I told you, we've kept you informed that he has certain requirements. And therefore, for that reason, he's there in that country. He's staying there. And as and when he is able to meet those requirements, he'll travel back home.

Sachin, on Nikhil Gupta case, I don't have an update. Last time, we had told you that he hasn't sought a consular access as of now. But we don't have an update. I'll keep you updated on this matter.

Kallol, see, with Bangladesh, our ties are strong, warm, and very friendly. And that is how we look at our relations with that country.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for attending this Press conference.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






INDIAN ARMY CONTINGENT DEPARTS FOR MULTINATIONAL MILITARY EXERCISE KHAAN QUEST

India - Press Information Bureau

Ministry of Defence

Posted On: 25 JUL 2024 2:41PM by PIB Delhi

The Indian Army contingent departed today for the Multinational Military Exercise KHAAN QUEST. The exercise is scheduled to be conducted from 27th July to 9th August 2024 at Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The exercise will bring together military forces from around the world to collaborate and enhance their peacekeeping capabilities. Last edition of Exercise KHAAN QUEST was conducted in Mongolia from 19th June to 2nd July 2023.

The exercise first started as a bilateral event between USA and Mongolian Armed Forces in the year 2003. Subsequently, from the year 2006 onwards the exercise graduated to a Multinational Peacekeeping Exercise with current year being the 21st iteration.

The Indian Army contingent comprising 40 personnel is being represented mainly by troops from a Battalion of the MADRAS REGIMENT along with personnel from other Arms and Services. One Woman Officer and two Women Soldiers will also form part of the contingent.

Aim of Exercise KHAAN QUEST is to prepare Indian Armed Forces for peacekeeping missions while operating in a multinational environment, thereby increasing interoperability and military readiness in peace support operations under Chapter VII of United Nations Charter. The exercise will focus on high degree of physical fitness, joint planning and joint tactical drills.

Tactical drills to be practiced during the exercise will include establishment of Static and Mobile Check Points, Cordon and Search Operations, Patrolling, Evacuation of Civilians from Hostile Area, Counter Improvised Explosive Device drills, Combat First Aid and Casualty Evacuation, among others.

Exercise KHAAN QUEST will enable the participating countries to share their best practices in Tactics, Techniques and Procedures for conduct of joint operations. The exercise will facilitate developing inter-operability, bonhomie and camaraderie between soldiers of the participating countries.

*****

SC



(Release ID: 2036798)

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Whoever confronts powerful Iran will be defeated: IRGC chief cmdr.

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Jul 25, 2024

Tehran, IRNA -- The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has said that anyone who wants to confront "powerful Iran" will be defeated and humiliated.

Major General Hossein Salami made the remark at Imam Khomeini's mausoleum near the capital Tehran on Thursday, addressing a congress in commemoration of 12,000 martyrs of Tehran province.

Salami argued that today, enemies are helpless in the face of the Islamic resistance front, which is inspired by Ashura (the day when the third Shia Imam, Imam Hossein was martyred) and the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The congress to commemorate 12,000 martyrs of Tehran province was attended by state and military officials as well as provincial officials.

4208**4194



NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Iran executes Kamran Sheikheh, 7th defendant in imam murder case, rights groups say

July 25, 2024

Human rights sources say Iranian authorities have executed Kamran Sheikheh, a Sunni Kurdish prisoner and the last of seven defendants sentenced to death for the 2008 killing of a Muslim cleric.

The reports say Sheikheh was hanged early Thursday in Urmia prison in northwestern Iran.

In recent months, the six other defendants a Qasem Abesteh, Ayoub Karimi, Farhad Salimi, Davood Abdollahi, Anvar Khezri, and Khosrow Besharat a all were executed for their involvement in the death of cleric Abdulrahim Tina, the imam of the Rashideen Caliphate Mosque in Mahabad.

The seven had been convicted of "corruption on Earth." One report by human rights group Amnesty International said they were sentenced to death "in grossly unfair trials" marred by claims of torture to extract "confessions."

According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the seven denied the charges against them in an open letter.

Sheikheh's death comes one day after the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, KHRN, said he had been moved from a prison in Mahabad to solitary confinement in Urmia Prison in preparation for his execution.

The KHRN also revealed that prison officials informed the family that Sheikheh, who had been detained for close to 15 years, would be executed at dawn on Thursday.

Arash Sadeghi, a former political prisoner, wrote on social media platform X that "Kamran often sang Kurdish songs in the prison yard a songs for his mother, for Kurdistan, for Lake Zarivar. He longed for them all."

He added, "Kamran and his six co-defendants were neither terrorists nor murderers. They were souls deeply in love with life."

Human rights sources said that the seven defendants were subjected to "severe torture" during their detention, and that the judicial process was "highly ambiguous" and contained numerous flaws.

The Campaign for Human Rights in Iran also emphasized that all the death sentences were handed down by "unfair and non-transparent courts that did not meet the basic standards of a fair trial," and that they lacked "any legal validity."

A more recent Amnesty report said, "The Iranian authorities refuse to provide public statistics of death sentences and executions" and that the death penalty "is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment."

Kamran Sheikheh and the six other prisoners were sentenced to death in March 2016 by a branch of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Mohammad Moghiseh. The verdict was later overturned by Judge Ali Razini in the Supreme Court.

Their case was then sent to another branch of the Tehran Revolutionary Court for reconsideration, with hearings taking place from June 17 to June 19, 2019. Another judge, Abolqasem Salavati, handed down the death sentences.

The case was again reviewed in the Supreme Court under Razini. On Feb. 3, 2020, the high court upheld the death sentences for all seven.

Some information was provided by Agence France-Presse.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






PM Netanyahu's Address to a Joint Meeting of the US Congress

Israel - Prime Minister's Office

Events and Speeches

The 37th Government

24.07.2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

"Speaker of the House Mike Johnson,

Senator Ben Cardin,

Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries,

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer,

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell,

Senators,

Members of Congress,

Distinguished guests,

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank you for giving me the profound honor of addressing this great citadel of democracy for the fourth time.

We meet today at a crossroads of history. Our world is in upheaval. In the Middle East, Iran's axis of terror confronts America, Israel and our Arab friends. This is not a clash of civilizations. It's a clash between barbarism and civilization. It's a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life.

For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together. Because when we stand together, something very simple happens. We win. They lose.

And my friends, I came to assure you today of one thing: we will win.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Like December 7th, 1941, and September 11th, 2001, October 7th is a day that will forever live in infamy.

It was the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. It began as a perfect day. Not a cloud in the sky. Thousands of young Israelis were celebrating at an outdoor music festival. And suddenly, at 6:29 a.m., as children were still sleeping soundly in their beds in the towns and kibbutzim next to Gaza, suddenly heaven turned into hell. Three thousand Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel. They butchered 1,200 people from 41 countries, including 39 Americans. Proportionately, compared to our population size, that's like 20 9/11s in one day. And these monsters, they raped women, they beheaded men, they burnt babies alive, they killed parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents. They dragged 255 people, both living in dead, into the dark dungeons of Gaza.

Israel has already brought home 135 of these hostages, including seven who were freed in daring rescue operations. One of those freed hostages, Noa Argamani, is here in the gallery sitting near my wife Sara.

On the morning of October 7th, the entire world saw Noa's look of desperation as she was violently abducted to Gaza on the back of a motorcycle. I met Noa's mother Liora a few months ago. She was dying of cancer. She said to me, "Prime Minister, I have one final wish. I wish to hug my daughter Noa one last time before I die."

Two months ago, I authorized a breathtaking commando rescue operation. Our Special Forces, including a heroic officer named Arnon Zmora, who fell in this battle, rescued Noa and three other hostages.

I think it's one of the most moving things, when Noa was reunited with her mother, Liora, and her mother's last wish came true.

Noa, we're so thrilled to have you with us today. Thank you.

Many hostage families are also here with us today, including Eliyahu Bibas. Eliyahu Bibas is the grandfather of those two beautiful red-headed boys, the Bibas boys, toddlers. And they were taken hostage with their mother and Eliyahu's son. The entire family was taken hostage. Two beautiful red-haired children taken hostage. What monsters.

And with us also is Iris Haim, whose son Yotam bravely escaped Hamas captivity with two other Israelis, and tragically they were killed making their way back to our lines.

We have with us also the families of American hostages. They're here.

The pain these families have endured is beyond words. I met with them again yesterday and I promised them this. I will not rest until all their loved ones are home. All of them.

As we speak, we're actively engaged in intensive efforts to secure their release, and I'm confident that these efforts can succeed. Some of them are taking place right now.

I want to thank President Biden for his tireless efforts on behalf of the hostages and for his efforts to the hostage families as well.

I thank President Biden for his heartful support for Israel after the savage attack on October 7th. He rightly called Hamas "sheer evil." He dispatched two aircraft carriers to the Middle East to deter a wider war. And he came to Israel to stand with us during our darkest hour, a visit that will never be forgotten.

President Biden and I have known each other for over forty years. I want to thank him for half a century of friendship to Israel and for being, as he says, a proud Zionist. Actually, he says, a proud Irish American Zionist.

My friends, for more than nine months, Israel's soldiers have shown boundless courage.

With us today is Lieutenant Avichail Reuven. Avichail is an officer in the Israeli paratroopers. His family immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia. In the early hours of October 7th, Avichail heard the news of Hamas' bloody rampage. He put on his uniform, grabbed his rifle, but he didn't have a car. So he ran eight miles to the frontlines of Gaza to defend his people. You heard that right. He ran eight miles, came to the frontlines, killed many terrorists and saved many, many lives. Avichail, we all honor your remarkable heroism.

Another Israeli is with us here today. He's standing right next to Avichail. This is Master Sergeant Ashraf al Bahiri. Ashraf is a Bedouin soldier from the Israeli Muslim community of Rahat. On October 7th, Ashraf too killed many terrorists. First, he defended his comrades in the military base, and he then rushed to defend the neighboring communities, including the devastated community of Kibbutz Be'eri.

Like Ashraf, the Muslim soldiers of the IDF fought alongside their Jewish, Druze, Christian and other comrades in arms with tremendous bravery.

A third hero, Lieutenant Asa Sofer [ph] is also here with us. Asa fought as an officer in the tank corps, and he was wounded in battle. He was wounded in battle while protecting his fellow soldiers from a grenade. He lost his right arm and the vision in his left eye. He's recovering, and incredibly, within a short time, Asa will soon return to active duty as a commander of a tank company.

I just learned there's a fourth hero here - Lieutenant Yonatan, Jonathan Ben Hamo (ph) who lost a leg in Gaza and continued to fight.

My friends, these are the soldiers of Israelunbowed, undaunted, unafraid.

As the Bible says, "  " they shall rise like lions. They've risen like lions, the lions of Judah, the lions of Israel.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The men and women of the IDF come from every corner of Israeli society, every ethnicity, every color, every creed, left and right, religious and secular. All are imbued with the indomitable spirit of the Maccabees, the legendary Jewish warriors of antiquity.

With us today is Yechiel Leiter, the father of one of those Maccabees. Yehiel's father escaped the Holocaust and found refuge in America. As a young man, Yechiel moved to Israel and raised a family of eight children. He named his eldest son Moshe after his late father. Moshe became an exemplary officer in one of our elite commando units. He served with distinction for two decades while raising six beautiful children of his own.

On October 7th, Moshe volunteered to return to combat. Four weeks later, he was killed when a booby-trap mine exploded in a tunnel shaft right next to a Mosque. At his son's funeral Yechiel said this: "If the State of Israel had not been established after the Holocaust, the image engraved in our collective memory would have been the photograph of that helpless Jewish boy in the Warsaw Ghetto holding his hands up in the air with Nazi riffles pointed at him. But because of the birth of Israel," Yechiel continued, "because of the courage of soldiers like my son Moshe, the Jewish people are no longer helpless in the face of our enemies."

Yechiel, please rise so we can honor your son's sacrifice. And I pledge to you and to all the bereaved families of Israel, some of whom are in this hall today, the sacrifice of your loved ones will not be in vain. It will not be in vain because for Israel, "never again" must never be an empty promise. It must always remain a sacred vow. And after October 7th, "never again" is now.

My friends,

Defeating our brutal enemies requires both courage and clarity. Clarity begins by knowing the difference between good and evil. Yet incredibly many anti-Israel protesters, many choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers. They stand with people who came into the kibbutzim, into a home, the parents hid the children, the two babies, in the attic, in a secret attic. They murdered the family, the parents, they found the secret latch to the hidden attic and then they murdered the babies. These protesters stand with them. They should be ashamed of themselves.

They refuse to make the simple distinction between those who target terrorists and those who target civilians, between the democratic State of Israel and the terrorist thugs of Hamas. We recently learned from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, that Iran is funding and promoting anti-Israel protests in America. They want to disrupt America. So these protesters burned American flags even on the 4th of July. And I wish to salute the fraternity brothers at the University of North Carolina who protected the American flag, protected the American flag against these anti-Israel protesters.

For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this buildingnot that many, but they're thereand throughout the city. Well, I have a message for these protesters: When the Tyrants of Tehran, who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair, are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran's useful idiots.

It's amazing, absolutely amazing. Some of these protesters hold up signs proclaiming "Gays for Gaza." They might as well hold up signs saying "Chickens for KFC."

These protesters chant "From the river to the sea." But many don't have a clue what river and what sea they're talking about. They not only get an F in geography, they get an F in history. They call Israel a colonialist state. Don't they know that the Land of Israel is where Abraham, Isaac and Jacob prayed, where Isaiah and Jeremiah preached and where David and Solomon ruled?

For nearly four thousand years, the land of Israel has been the homeland of the Jewish people. It's always been our home; it will always be our home.

It's not only the campus protesters who get it wrong. It's also the people who run those campuses. Eighty years after the Holocaust, the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and I'm ashamed to say my alma mater MIT couldn't bring themselves to condemn the calls for the genocide of Jews. Remember what they said? They said, it depends on the context. Well, let me give these befuddled academics a little context.

Antisemitism is the world's oldest hatred. For centuries, the massacre of Jews was always preceded by wild accusations. We were accused of everything from poisoning wells to spreading plagues to using the blood of slaughtered children to bake Passover matzos. These preposterous antisemitic lies led to persecution, mass murder and ultimately to history's worst genocide, the Holocaust.

Now, just as malicious lies were levelled for centuries at the Jewish people, malicious lies are now being levelled at the Jewish state. No, no. Don't applaud. Listen. The outrageous slanders that paint Israel as racist and genocidal are meant to delegitimize Israel, to demonize the Jewish State and to demonize Jews everywhere. And no wonder, no wonder we've witnessed an appalling rise of antisemitism in America and around the world.

My friends,

Whenever and wherever we see the scourge of antisemitism, we must unequivocally condemn it and resolutely fight it, without exception.

And don't be fooled when the blood libels against the Jewish State come from people who wear fancy silk robes and speak in lofty tones about law and Justice.

Here's a case in point: The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza. This is utter complete nonsense. It's a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That's half a million tons of food, and that's more than 3,000 calories for every man, woman and child in Gaza. If there are Palestinians in Gaza who aren't getting enough food, it's not because Israel is blocking it, it's because Hamas is stealing it.

So much for that lie, but here's another: The ICC prosecutor accuses Israel of deliberately targeting civilians. What in God's green earth is he talking about? The IDF has dropped millions of flyers, sent millions of text messages, made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to get Palestinian civilians out of harm's way. But at the same time, Hamas does everything in its power to put Palestinian civilians in harm's way. They fire rockets from schools, from hospitals, from mosques. They even shoot their own people when they try to leave the war zone. A senior Hamas official Fathi Hamad boasted - Listen to this - He boasted that Palestinian women and children excel at being human shields. His words: "excel at being human shields." What monstrous evil.

For Israel, every civilian death is a tragedy. For Hamas, it's a strategy. They actually want Palestinian civilians to die, so that Israel will be smeared in the international media and be pressured to end the war before it's won.

This would enable Hamas to survive another day, and as they vowed, to carry out October 7th again and again and again. Well, I want to assure you, no matter what pressure is brought to bear, I will never allow that to happen.

The vast majority of Americans have not fallen for this Hamas propaganda. They continue to support Israel, and I want to say: Thank you America, and thank you, senators and house members who continue to support us, continue to support Israel, continue to support the truth and see through the lies.

But as for the minority that may have fallen for Hamas's con job, I suggest you listen to Colonel John Spencer. John Spencer is head of urban warfare studies at West Point. He studied every major urban conflict, I was going to say in modern history, he corrected me. No. In history.

Israel, he said, has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history and beyond what international law requires.

That's why despite all the lies you've heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to non-combatant casualties in the history of urban warfare. And you want to know where it's lowest in Gaza? It's lowest in Rafah. In Rafah. Remember what so many people said? If Israel goes into Rafah, there'll be thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of civilians killed. Well, last week I went into Rafah. I visited our troops as they finished fighting Hamas' remaining terrorist battalions. I asked the commander there, "How many terrorists did you take out in Rafah?" He gave me an exact number: 1,203. I asked him, "How many civilians were killed?" He said, "Prime Minister, practically none. With the exception of a single incident, where shrapnel from a bomb hit a Hamas weapons depot and unintentionally killed two dozen people, the answer is practically none." You want to know why? Because Israel got the civilians out of harm's way, something people said we could never do, but we did it.

These heroes here today, the heroic soldiers of Israel, should not be condemned for how they're conducting the war in Gaza. They should be commended for it.

I want to thank all of you here today who have forcefully opposed the false accusations of the ICC and stood up for the truth. These lies are not only libelous. They're downright dangerous. The ICC is trying to shackle Israel's hands and prevent us from defending ourselves. And if Israel's hands are tied, America is next. I'll tell you what else is next. The ability of all democracies to fight terrorism will be imperiled. That's what's on the line. So let me assure you, the hands of the Jewish state will never be shackled. Israel will always defend itself.

My friends,

In the Middle East, Iran is virtually behind all the terrorism, all the turmoil, all the chaos, all the killing. And that should come as no surprise. When he founded the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Khomeini pledged, "We will export our revolution to the entire world. We will export the Islamic revolution to the entire world." Now, ask yourself, which country ultimately stands in the way of Iran's maniacal plans to impose radical Islam on the world? And the answer is clear: It's America, the guardian of Western civilization and the world's greatest power. That's why Iran sees America as its greatest enemy.

Last month, I heard a revealing comment, ostensibly about the war in Gaza, but about something else. It came from the foreign minister of Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, and he said this: "This is not a war with Israel. Israel," he said, "is merely a tool. The main war, the real war, is with America."

Iran's regime has been fighting America from the moment it came to power. In 1979, it stormed the American embassy, it held scores of Americans hostage for 444 days. Since then, Iran's terrorist proxies have targeted America in the Middle East and beyond. In Beirut, they killed 241 U.S. servicemen. In Africa, they bombed American embassies. In Iraq, they supplied explosives to maim and kill thousands of American soldiers. In America, they actually sent death squads. They sent death squads here to murder a former secretary of state and a former national security adviser. And as we recently learned, they even brazenly threatened to assassinate President Trump.

But Iran understands that to truly challenge America, it must first conquer the Middle East. And for this it uses its many proxies, including the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas. Yet in the heart of the Middle East, standing in Iran's way, is one proud pro-American democracymy country, the State of Israel.

That's why the mobs in Tehran chant "Death to Israel" before they chant "Death to America." For Iran Israel is first, America is next. So, when Israel fights Hamas, we're fighting Iran. When we fight Hezbollah, we're fighting Iran. When we fight the Houthis, we're fighting Iran. And when we fight Iran, we're fighting the most radical and murderous enemy of the United States of America.

And one more thing. When Israel acts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons that could destroy Israel and threaten every American city, every city that you come from, we're not only protecting ourselves. We're protecting you.

My friends,

If you remember one thing, one thing from this speech, remember this: Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory.

Ladies and gentlemen,

That victory is in sight. Israel's defeat of Hamas will be a powerful blow to Iran's axis of terror. Another part of that axis, Hezbollah, attacked Israel on October 8th, a day after the Hamas attack. It has launched thousands of missiles and drones against us. 80,000 of our citizens in northern Israel evacuated their homes, becoming effectively refugees in their own land. We are committed to returning them home. We prefer to achieve this diplomatically. But let me be clear: Israel will do whatever it must do to restore security to our northern border and return our people safely to their homes.

Last Friday, a third Iranian proxy, the Houthis, attacked Tel Aviv with a deadly drone. It exploded a few hundred feet from the American consulate, killing one person and injuring nine. On Saturday, I authorized a swift response to that attack.

All our enemies should know this. Those who attack Israel will pay a very heavy price.

And as we defend ourselves on all fronts, I know that America has our back. And I thank you for it. All sides of the aisle. Thank you.

My friends,

For decades, America has provided Israel with generous military assistance, and a grateful Israel has provided America with critical intelligence that saved many lives. We've jointly developed some of the most sophisticated weapons on Earth. I choose my words carefully: we've jointly developed some of the most sophisticated weapons on Earth, that help protect both our countries. And we also help keep American boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East.

I deeply appreciate America's support, including in this current war. But this is an exceptional moment. Fast tracking US military aid can dramatically expedite an end to the war in Gaza and help prevent a broader war in the Middle East.

In World War II, as Britain fought on the frontlines of civilization, Winston Churchill appealed to Americans with these famous words: "Give us the tools and we'll finish the job." Today, as Israel fights on the frontline of civilization, I too appeal to America: "Give us the tools faster, and we'll finish the job faster."

My dear friends,

The war in Gaza could end tomorrow if Hamas surrenders, disarms and returns all the hostages. But if they don't, Israel will fight until we destroy Hamas' military capabilities and its rule in Gaza and bring all our hostages home.

That's what total victory means, and we will settle for nothing less.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza can emerge. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Gaza should have a civilian administration run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel. That's not too much to ask. It's a fundamental thing that we have a right to demand and to receive.

A new generation of Palestinians must no longer be taught to hate Jews but rather to live in peace with us. Those twin words, demilitarization and deradicalization, those two concepts were applied to Germany and Japan after World War II, and that led to decades of peace, prosperity and security.

Following our victory, with the help of regional partners, the demilitarization and deradicalization of Gaza can also lead to a future of security, prosperity and peace. That's my vision for Gaza.

Now, here's my vision for the broader Middle East. It's also shaped in part by what we saw in the aftermath of World War II. After that war, America forged a security alliance in Europe to counter the growing Soviet threat. Likewise, America and Israel today can forge a security alliance in the Middle East to counter the growing Iranian theat.

All countries that are in peace with Israel and all those countries who will make peace with Israel should be invited to join this alliance. We saw a glimpse of that potential alliance on April 14th. Led by the United States, more than half a dozen nations worked alongside Israel to help neutralize hundreds of missiles and drones launched by Iran against us.

Thank you, President Biden, for bringing that coalition together.

The new alliance I envision would be a natural extension of the groundbreaking Abraham Accords. Those Accords saw peace forged between Israel and four Arab countries, and they were supported by Republican and Democrats alike.

I have a name for this new alliance. I think we should call it: The Abraham Alliance.

I want to thank President Trump for his leadership in brokering the historic Abraham Accords. Like Americans, Israelis were relieved that President Trump emerged safe and sound from that dastardly attack on him, dastardly attack on American democracy. There is no room for political violence in democracies.

I also want to thank President Trump for all the things he did for Israel, from recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, to confronting Iran's aggression, to recognizing Jerusalem as our capital and moving the American embassy there. That's Jerusalem, our eternal capital never to be divided again.

My dear friends, Democrats and Republicans,

Despite these times of upheaval, I'm hopeful about the future. I'm hopeful about Israel because my people, the Jewish people, emerged from the depths of hell, from dispossession and genocide, and against all odds we restored our sovereignty in our ancient homeland, we built a powerful and vibrant democracy, a democracy that pushes the boundaries of innovation for the betterment of all humanity.

I'm hopeful about America because I'm hopeful about Americans. I know how much the people of this country have sacrificed to defend freedom. America will continue to be a force for light and good in a dark and dangerous world. For free peoples everywhere, America remains the beacon of liberty its extraordinary founders envisioned back in 1776.

Working together, I'm confident that our two nations will vanquish the tyrants and terrorists who threaten us both. As Israel's prime minister, I promise you this: no matter how long it takes, no matter how difficult the road ahead, Israel will not relent. Israel will not bend. We will defend our land. We will defend our people. We will fight until we achieve victory. Victory of liberty over tyranny, victory of life over death, victory of good over evil. That's our solemn commitment.

And we will continue to work with the United States and our Arab partners to transform a troubled region, from a backwater of oppression, poverty and war into a thriving oasis of dignity, prosperity and peace. In this noble mission, as in many others, Israel will always remain America's indispensable ally. Through thick and thin, in good times and in bad, Israel will always be your loyal friend and your steadfast partner.

On behalf of the people of Israel, I came here today to say: Thank you, America. Thank you for your support and solidarity. Thank you for standing with Israel in our hour of need. Together, we shall defend our common civilization. Together, we shall secure a brilliant future for both our nations.

May God bless Israel.

May God bless America.

And may God bless the great alliance between Israel and America forever".

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Netanyahu Calls for NATO-Like Mideast Security Alliance to Counter 'Iranian Threat'

Sputnik News

20240724

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an address to the US Congress on Wednesday proposed that the United States and Israel should forge a security alliance to counter Iran, in the same way that America allied with Europe to counter the Soviet Union.

"Now here's my vision for the broader Middle East, it's also shaped in part by what we saw in the aftermath of World War II, after that war, America forged a security alliance in Europe to counter the growing Soviet threat," Netanyahu said.

"Likewise, America and Israel today can forge a security alliance in the Middle East to counter the growing Iranian threat."

All countries that are at peace with Israel and all those countries who will make peace with Israel should be invited to join this alliance, which should be called the "Abraham Alliance," the prime minister noted.

A strong opponent of the two-state solution, Netanyahu told lawmakers Israel must retain overriding security control in Gaza for the foreseeable future.

"Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza, but for the foreseeable future we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel," he said, doubling down on past remarks on the continued Israeli foothold on Palestinian grounds.

Netanyahu's Wednesday address comes two months after Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, announced he was seeking arrest warrants for the Israeli figure.

Concerns of an actual Netanyahu arrest however were more recently kicked up, with the Israeli Justice Ministry reportedly fearing that an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice would legitimize efforts to detain the prime minister while abroad.

Addressing the ICC dilemma, Netanyahu warned in his speech at the US Capitol building that if the International Criminal Court ties Israel's hands, those of the United States would be next.

"I want to thank all of you here today who forcefully opposed the false accusations of the [International Criminal Court] and stood up for the truth," said Netanyahu.

"These lies are not only libels, they're downright dangerous. The ICC is trying to shackle Israel's hands and prevent us from defending ourselves, and if Israel's hands are tied, America is next."

Netanyahu's nearly hourlong address effectively saw the official deflect any and all criticism against Israel in regards to its actions in Gaza and the West Bank by underscoring that the Israeli state's survival was at stake.

While Netanyahu did not criticize Biden, he turned his ire towards protesters, pulling no punches against Wednesday's growing crowds or students who earlier took action on college campuses.

From accusing protesters of having poor knowledge of the Middle East to calling them "Iran's useful idiots," Netanyahu opted for claims that the surge in "anti-Israel protests in America" were being funded by Iran.

Outside the Capitol, police deployed pepper spray and arrested multiple demonstrators who took part in the rally, which started at the US Capitol and then continued as most participants moved to nearby Union Station.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






PM Netanyahu Meeting with US President Joe Biden

Israel - Prime Minister's Office

Events and Speeches

The 37th Government

25.07.2024

;Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today is currently meeting with US President Joe Biden at the White House.

Before their meeting, the Prime Minister signed the guestbook in the Roosevelt Room.

Prime Minister Netanyahu:

Mr. President, we've known each other for 40 years, and you've known every prime minister for 50 years, since Golda Meir.

So, from a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist - I thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the State of Israel.

I look forward to discussing with you today and working with you in the months ahead on the great issues before us."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Unspeakable scandal: Iran censures US over 'criminal' Netanyahu's disgraceful visit, Congress speech

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 9:02 AM

Iran has hit out at the US over the current visit by the "criminal" Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid nine months of the regime's genocidal war in the Gaza Strip.

"The criminal prime minister of a fake regime is embraced by his supporters after nine months of genocide and infanticide [in Gaza]," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan'ani lamented in a post on his X account on Thursday.

He added that the visit disclosed decades of deceitful efforts by the so-called Western civilization to portray an "innocent and humanitarian image" of it to the world and exposed the "callous and devil" face of the US policies to the entire world.

The Iranian spokesperson criticized the American and European leaders and statesmen for crying out the "most ridiculous slogans" about human rights while the most basic rights of the people of Palestine, including the right to life, security, access to water, food, medicine and treatment, are being violated in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the most horrible way before the eyes of the world and Palestinian children are slaughtered every day by the Tel Aviv "butcher" regime.

The Iranian diplomat lashed out at the US administration and Congress for welcoming the Israeli "executioner" despite all such crimes.

Netanyahu landed in Washington late on Monday on a three-day official visit. He addressed the US Congress on Wednesday and plans to meet senior US officials from both parties.

In his speech to Congress, Netanyahu defended Israel's genocidal aggression against Gaza, called for "total victory" in the nine-month-old war, and lauded US support for Israel's war, dashing hopes for a ceasefire.

He delivered the speech as massive protests condemned the regime's war crimes against the Palestinian people outside the fenced-off Capitol.

Police used pepper spray against protesters who chanted "Netanyahu, you can't hide. You're committing genocide."

Netanyahu and his minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant are accused, among other war crimes, of "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare" and "intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population" in the ongoing war, which was waged in October 2023.

The regime's war machine has so far killed more than 39,145 Palestinians, with a devastating impact on children in particular, according to the Gaza health officials. Over 90,257 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Readout of President Joe Biden's Meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel

July 25, 2024

President Biden met today with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House. The President and the Prime Minister discussed developments in Gaza and the ongoing negotiations on the ceasefire and hostage release deal in detail. President Biden expressed the need to close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza. The President also raised the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the need to remove any obstacles to the flow of aid and restoring basic services for those in need, and the critical importance of protecting civilian lives during military operations. President Biden reaffirmed the United States' ironclad commitment to Israel's security against all threats from Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.

###

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Insurgents claim seizure of regional headquarters in northeast Myanmar

But a junta spokesperson denied that the military headquarters in Lashio has fallen.

By RFA Burmese 2024.07.25 -- A Myanmar insurgent army said it had captured a junta regional military headquarters in an embattled northeastern town on Thursday, which, if confirmed, would be one of the most significant losses for the military in years.

A spokesman for the junta denied the claim by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, or MNDAA, that the military headquarters in the town of Lashio had fallen, saying troops were clearing insurgents from Lashio's outskirts.

"We were fighting for the last half of the headquarters since last night and were able to fully seize it at 4 a.m.," an MNDAA spokesperson told Radio Free Asia, referring to the headquarters of the Northeastern Regional Command, one of the military's 14 such commands.

The spokesperson, who declined to be identified for security reasons, did not give any information on casualties but said the MNDAA had captured prisoners without saying how many.

The MNDAA is a member of a tripartite insurgent force known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance that has made significant gains against junta forces in northeast Myanmar's Shan state since late last year despite Chinese efforts to broker peace in the region on its border.

Lashio is the main town in northern Shan state, about halfway along the main road link between the city of Mandalay and the Chinese border.

Main junta spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told state-run media that reports of the capture of Lashio's military headquarters were false. He said the reported fighting was a "'clearance operation"' launched by the junta to expel rebels from near Lashio.

'Urban conflicts cannot be avoided'

Later on Thursday, a person familiar with the ongoing conflict in Lashio said that MNDAA troops penetrated the junta's regional headquarters and were finalizing its seizure.

A member of the insurgent force told RFA that they entered the headquarters after taking control of junta outposts around Lashio city step by step.

"Small junta outposts in the surrounding areas were first seized, then the remaining strategic hill was controlled," he said. "After the junta lost their strategic hill, the regional headquarters was captured."

MNDAA troops entered the headquarters with only a small number of troops because the junta had deployed its forces elsewhere around the city, according to a person familiar with the battles in Lashio.

"The junta troops are taking positions in the residential areas to fight back longer," the person said. "Urban conflicts cannot be avoided."

A Lashio resident who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons said junta troops could still be seen moving around some areas of the city.

"Now there are some junta troops in our ward," the resident said. "Until morning, all these groups were shopping at the railway station market."

Thousands of residents have fled from the town in recent weeks and more got out early on Thursday, residents said.

Several charity workers assisting those trapped in the town had been shot, they added.

RFA attempted to reach Shan state's junta spokesperson Khun Thein Maung for comment, but he did not respond.

TNLA's Mogoke victory

The MNDAA's announcement on Lashio came days after another member of the rebel alliance, the Ta'ang National Liberation Army, said it had captured the whole of the gem-mining town of Mogoke, 130 km (80 miles) west of Lashio.

The TNLA posted a video on social media of cheering Mogoke residents coming out to welcome its fighters as they entered the town.

Forces of the junta that seized power in a 2021 coup have been facing significant setbacks in different parts of the country since late last year.

The Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar think tank said in a report last month that 10 of the 14 regional military commands were "actively engaged in high-intensity armed conflicts."

The Three Brotherhood Alliance launched an offensive in late October, codenamed Operation 1027. It has been halted twice by Chinese-brokered ceasefires but the rebels' largest push began last Friday.

When asked by Reuters at the Chinese Foreign Ministry's regular news conference on Thursday if China could verify the seizure of Lashio, spokesperson Mao Ning said China is closely monitoring the situation in northern Myanmar.

She added that China will continue to support peace talks and urged all parties to end hostilities, resolve disputes peacefully and ensure the security of its borders, as well as the safety of people living in the border area and that of Chinese projects, businesses and personnel in Myanmar.

Translated by RFA Burmese. Edited by Kiana Duncan and Mike Firn.

This story has been updated with details from Lashio and comments from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

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






Thailand to investigate financing of deals on arms for Myanmar

Task force to be set up after U.N. official highlighted growing role of Thailand in helping Myanmar get arms.

By Pimuk Rakkanam for RFA 2024.07.25 -- Thailand is to set up a task force to investigate transactions by its financial institutions that help the junta in neighboring Myanmar acquire weapons it uses against domestic opponents battling to end military rule since a 2021 coup.

Tom Andrews, special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar, told a Thai parliamentary hearing this month that Thailand had become Myanmar's main supplier of military equipment through the international banking system. He called on Thailand to "take a clear and strong position opposing the transfer of weapons and dual use technologies into Myanmar."

"The Bank of Thailand and the Anti-Money Laundering Office will jointly establish a task force to investigate these transactions that may be linked to the purchase of weapons and military supplies and the Myanmar government," Thai foreign ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura said in a statement.

Nikorndej said Thailand "attaches utmost importance to the human rights agenda and the well-being of the people of Myanmar" and would seek more information from Andrews and "review measures to further equip and enhance the ability of Thai financial institutions in support of the government policy and position regarding human rights violations in Myanmar."

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted a government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in early 2021. Pro-democracy activists have taken up arms and joined forces with autonomy-seeking insurgents in a bid to end military rule.

Andrews said airstrikes by the Myanmar military against civilian targets had increased five-fold over the past six months as it lost positions and troops to anti-junta forces.

On the question of cutting support to the Myanmar military, Andrews said in a report last month, that Singapore had implemented a clear policy opposing the transfer of weapons and, as a result, exports of arms 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 named several Thai banks he said were involved in handling transactions for the Myanmar junta or its front companies.

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.

Pro-democracy activists handed a letter to the Thai parliament on Thursday calling for sanctions against the state-run Myanmar Economic Bank and Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, which the activists said the Myanmar military used to buy weapons and aviation fuel and to gain access to international financial markets.

Rangsiman Rome, chairman of the house committee on national security, who received the letter, said the committee would follow up on the issue with the Thai central bank and foreign ministry.

Edited by Mike Firn.

Copyright 1998-2024, RFA. Used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. For any commercial use of RFA content please send an email to: mahajanr@rfa.org. RFA content 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, 25 July 2024

Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Assalam-o-Alaikum,

Thanks for joining us for the Weekly Briefing.



The Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers and Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan, Rashid Meredov, visited Pakistan on 22-25 July 2024.

Foreign Minister Meredov called on President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif. He held extensive talks with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar. The two Foreign Ministers also co-chaired the Third Round of Pakistan-Turkmenistan Bilateral Political Consultations.

The agenda of the talks included discussions on bilateral trade, investment, energy cooperation, connectivity, and people-to-people linkages. The two sides committed to enhance high-level dialogues and exchanges. They agreed to intensify efforts in political, economic, and defence cooperation; to foster parliamentary, cultural, and educational exchanges; and strengthen collaboration in multilateral forums, including the United Nations and the Economic Cooperation Organization. Important connectivity projects including TAPI Pipeline and TAP Electricity Transmission Line were also discussed. The two sides also exchanged views on global and regional developments including the situation in Afghanistan and IIOJK.



The outgoing Secretary General of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), Ambassador Khusrav Noziri, arrived in Islamabad yesterday at the invitation of Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi for an official visit to Pakistan from 24-26 July 2024.

The Secretary General will meet with the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and the Minister of Commerce. In these meetings the Secretary General will discuss ECO's initiatives and activities undertaken during his tenure as well as his reform agenda to revitalize the Organization.

Secretary General Noziri is on his farewell visit to Pakistan as he concludes his term next month. Starting next month, former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan Dr. Asad Majeed Khan will assume the position of the Secretary General of ECO for a three year term. His appointment was approved by the Council of Ministers and notified in May 2024.



Pakistan is hosting a two-day Regional Conference on Export Control Programme for Dual-Use Goods in Central Asia on 24-25 July 2024. The Conference has been organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the European Union (EU). Senior officials and experts from Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the US, the EU, the UN, and other international organizations are participating to discuss national approaches to strategic trade controls and promote international cooperation in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1540.

At the inaugural session yesterday, Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi emphasized Pakistan's commitment to non-proliferation and disarmament while advocating for developing countries' access to dual-use goods and technologies. The Regional Conference highlights Pakistan's robust cooperation with regional and global stakeholders in non-proliferation efforts and demonstrates Pakistan's commitment to the implementation of strategic trade controls in line with the objectives of UNSC Resolution - 1540.



Pakistan welcomes the 'Declaration of Unity' by the Palestinian political factions in Beijing. We recognize and commend China's role in bringing the factions together for meaningful negotiations.

Unity amongst the Palestinian people is of paramount significance in view of the ongoing war crimes against the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza, and the blatant disregard for international law by the Israeli occupation forces.

Pakistan once again calls upon the international community to intervene immediately to bring an end to the ongoing illegal and incessant aggression in Gaza. We also reiterate support for the realization of the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, their right of return to Palestine and the establishment of an independent state of Palestinewith Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.



The Human Rights Committee in Geneva has recently concluded its consideration of the fourth periodic report of India on how it implements the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. During the proceedings, important questions were raised about arrests under draconian laws like Public Safety Act and Public Security Act, and frequent suspension of mobile internet service in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. This demonstrates continuing concerns of the international human rights machinery about the dismal human rights situation in IIOJK. We call on the international community to take note of these human rights abuses by India in IIOJK and to bring an end to the suppression of 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.



Now a couple of announcements.

At the invitation of the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif will visit Tehran on 30 July 2024, to attend the inauguration ceremony of the President-elect of Iran, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian.

The visit attests to the commitment by the two countries to strengthen leadership level engagement and bilateral cooperation.



Foreign Secretary Muhammad Syrus Sajjad Qazi will lead the Pakistan delegation at the 31st ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Ministerial Meeting, being held on 27 July 2024 in Lao People's Democratic Republic.

At the ARF Ministerial Meeting, the Foreign Secretary will take part in discussions on political and security issues pertaining to the Asia-Pacific region to foster collective solutions through dialogue and collaboration. He will share Pakistan's perspective on important regional and global issues. On the sidelines of the 31st ARF, the Foreign Secretary will hold bilateral meetings with the participating dignitaries.

Thank you!

***

(Khawaja Nayyar Iqbal, Media Today): Regarding the incident at Pakistan Consulate in Germany, what steps have been taken by Pakistan regarding security of its consulates in other countries? Especially, will there be any change in the policy for Afghan refugees?

Spokesperson: Regarding the unfortunate attack on Pakistani Consulate in Frankfurt, Germany, Pakistan has expressed its concerns with the government of Germany. We are engaged in discussions with the German authorities to ensure the protection of Pakistani consular missions and Pakistani diplomats. You may have heard the Prime Minister yesterday; the security of Pakistani Missions abroad and of our diplomats is of paramount importance. We will continue to take measures to ensure the protection of our missions and work with the host governments to ensure that our missions are safe from any attacks.

(Kiran Butt, Khorasan diary): Ma'am, on 29th June, Ambassador Masood Khan while addressing a sitting of policy-makers said that Pakistan has started Azm-e-Istehkam for which we will be needing small arms. And yesterday $101 million assistance was approved by US Congress and in the statement, it was said by Mr. Donald Lu that, "China is the past in terms of investment, and we are the future." The impression was that we are balancing it out to reduce the influence of China in Pakistan. So, is this aid being given with a pre-condition that China's influence will be reduced in Pakistan? And if we can get some more details like if this aid is being given for fighting against terrorism or to strengthen democracy or to boost Pakistan's economy?

Spokesperson: I think there are a number of questions in this one question, so maybe I can unpack your question and respond to these aspects separately. I would like to underline that we have noted the hearing that was held by the US Congress on 23rd of July and, as we have noted before, this is an internal debate between the US Congress and the administration. Pakistan values its close relationship with the United States and believes in constructive engagement. We would like to develop this relationship on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect and non-interference in each other's domestic affairs. We believe that deliberations of legislative bodies should contribute to promoting positive dynamics in bilateral ties and should be based on mutual respect and understanding.

Your second question was regarding the budgetary allocation. On that too, we have noted the statement made by the US Assistant Secretary of State, Donald Lu, at the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. We believe this is an internal debate between the US Congress and the administration. We do not comment on State Department's budgetary requests. Traditionally, such allocations are made for support to civil society in areas of strategic priorities of the United States government. As for the third part of your question, Pakistan has said on several occasions that it does not believe in zero-sum relationships. For us, relations with the United States and relations with China are both important. We do not believe in situations where relationship with one country can be sacrificed on the altar of relations with another. China is an all-weather strategic cooperative partner of Pakistan, and Pakistan will continue to strengthen this relationship going forward.

(Saima Shabbir, Arab News Pakistan): Ma'am, my question is about the debate in the Parliament of the UK where over more than a dozen UK parliamentarians attended. They said that Mr. Khan, the ex-Prime Minister, should be released and the Pakistan Government should be pressurized by the UK Government. I would like to get your comment, and don't you think that it is interference in the domestic politics of Pakistan?

Spokesperson: Again, we have taken note of the discussions at an event that took place in London. As far as we understand, it was a private event held in a side room of the House of Lords, and the event was organized by a political party that had invited some members of Parliament. We have taken note of the discussions that took place. As we have said on several occasions, it is important that members of legislative bodies contribute to promoting positive dynamics in bilateral relations and contribute to developing mutual understanding and mutual respect between the two countries.

(Anas Mallick, Capital TV): With regards to the situation at the Chaman border, while there has been an agreement that has been reached leading to the sit-in being called off after 274 days and opening of the border. But we're yet to see an official notification coming in. The Taliban authorities on the other side of the border have said that the Pakistani side is not adhering to their part of the deal. Your comments on the matter?

(Siyar Ali Shah, Khyber News): We implemented the one-document regime policy with Afghanistan but first traders and transporters were given a relaxation, now travelling is again permitted. Is this a departure from the one-visa regime policy?

(Abdul Hadi Mayar, Hum Pashto 1): Ma'am. Yesterday, the Afghan authorities on the border refused entry to Pakistanis and even Afghan nationals. They said that we are not part of this arrangement between the Pakistan Government and the Chaman participants. Your views?

Spokesperson: Okay, first of all, regarding the discussions or negotiations that took place between individuals who were doing a sit-in in Chaman and our authorities, we would advise you to contact the relevant authorities, including the government of Balochistan, for any details of the understandings reached between the protesters and the authorities. However, I would like to underline that one-document regime remains in place, and no foreigner can come to Pakistan without a valid passport and visa.

(Anwar Abbas, 24 News): Ma'am, American Ambassador recently indicated that he is going to meet Imran Khan, prisoner number 804. Is it allowed for a foreign Ambassador to meet such a person who has several charges and is facing charges of treason and attacks on law enforcement authorities?

(Khawaja Nayyar Iqbal, Media Today): Will Pakistan allow any diplomat to meet Imran Khan in jail?

Spokesperson: First of all, I have not seen the statement of the US Ambassador that you have referred to. We have, however, commented on this particular aspect in the past, and we have underlined that any such requests will be determined on the basis of Pakistani laws and the decisions of the Pakistani courts.

(Imran Waseem, Aik News): Ma'am, my question is regarding the Saudi investment that it was said that they are going to invest heavily in Pakistan and the visit of Mohammad Bin Salman to Pakistan was also expected but then it was delayed till last week of June. Has the date of his visit been determined and what is the plan of his visit?

Spokesperson: Regarding the visit of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, I have said on multiple occasions that when the visit is finalized and it is time for us to make an announcement, we will make that announcement from this very podium. We have not made any such announcement in the recent past, so I do not wish to comment on speculative reporting.

(Zeeshan Yousafzai, Dunya TV): Madam, US State Department has showed its concerns over banning of PTI. Need your comment on it. Simultaneously, they have talked about human rights as well. What is your comment on it? Is this intervention?

Spokesperson: I think on this, you asked the question, somebody asked this question in the last briefing. And I did comment on it. I would reiterate what we have said in the past that recent decisions of the Pakistani courts, including the Supreme Court of Pakistan, show the strength of Pakistan's legal and judicial system and the ability of Pakistani nation to deal with domestic political challenges. And we therefore believe that commentary from abroad is an unwarranted and unacceptable interference in Pakistan's domestic affairs.

(Sarah Zaman, VOA): So recently, the Government of Pakistan in order to end the sit-in of a certain religious political party sat down with them and then said that Netanyahu is a terrorist and that we will send more aid to the Palestinians. Yesterday, the Cabinet also issued a statement in support of Palestinians. What is the Foreign Office's official position on Netanyahu? Is he a terrorist? Is that the government's official position, or was that just a statement made to placate a religious political party? And follow up on this, it was also promised that 1000 tonnes of aid would be sent to Palestinians. What is the status of that because Rana Sanaullah said that would happen by the end of this month?

Spokesperson: First, I would not like to engage in a commentary on the discussions that took place between government officials and the protesters. The details of those discussions have been announced by the relevant departments, including by the Minister for Information. Pakistan's position on Israel's war on Gaza has been clear and consistent. We are concerned that Israeli terror unleashed on the defenseless people of Palestine constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity. Pakistan has also welcomed South Africa's case before ICJ, as per the statement we made on 11th of January regarding Pakistan's support for the application of South Africa at ICJ concerning Israel's violations of the Genocide Convention. Yesterday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif highlighted Israel's unprecedented acts of violence in Palestine targeting innocent civilians, including children and women. Also yesterday, the Federal Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister, adopted a resolution supporting Palestinians and condemning Israeli actions. The resolution called for war crimes proceedings against Israel. I have no further comments to offer besides what the Cabinet has already said.

(Sarah Zaman, VOA): What about the humanitarian aid?

Spokesperson: Pakistan has sent several consignments of assistance, humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza. This flow of assistance continues. We are working to send the next consignment of humanitarian assistance in coming days. However, it must be understood that the key issue is not the lack of humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza, but the siege that has been imposed on Gaza, which prevents the entry of humanitarian assistance for the people suffering under the Israeli occupation in Gaza.

(Shaukat Piracha, AAJ News): Yesterday, the State Department expressed concerns about freedom of expression. And also yesterday, the US Ambassador, Donald Blome, spoke at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad. He said that the US will continue to advocate for upholding the rights of all Pakistanis, especially the freedom of expression, assembly and worship. And then he continues that without such stability, the prospects for investment economic growth appear far less certain. Is that not something which a political party says in Pakistan that without these liberties, there will be no inflow of investment, as Pakistan is in dire need of investment? How is US position echoing in parallel with the political party in Pakistan?

Spokesperson: First, it is normal for Ambassadors to make policy statements at think tanks. We appreciate statements which are respectful in tone and are aimed to at promoting bilateral cooperation and friendship. At ISSI, Ambassador Blome presented a vision of comprehensive and strategic partnership between United States and Pakistan built on shared interest and mutual respect. We believe it is important for the two countries to understand each other's perspective and priorities. Pakistan will continue to work for a strong relationship with the United States on the basis of mutual respect, mutual confidence, sovereign equality and non-interference in each other's domestic affairs.

(Allah Noor, Mashriq TV): Ma'am, what are the reasons behind the incident that happened in Germany? Have the German authorities arrested anyone? And, is the policy of Pakistan regarding Afghanistan the reason behind this attack?

(Imran Waseem, Aik News): Ma'am, my question is regarding the attack on Pakistan Consulate. How many people have been identified by the German authorities and what actions are being taken against them?

(Zahid Farooq Malik, Daily Metro Watch): Minister for Information held a press conference regarding the attack on Pakistan Consulate in which he said that we are looking for the involvement of Pakistanis. So, are there any reports regarding involvement of Pakistanis because the Minister for Information pointed it out?

(Anwar Abbas, 24 News): Ma'am, it is being said that the two individuals who were arrested in Frankfurt, travelled to Germany on Pakistani passport. What is the veracity of this report?

Spokesperson: First of all, the issue of attack on Pakistan's Consulate in Frankfurt has been raised with the German authorities. The German government has expressed regret at the incident, and they have conveyed that the attack on the consulate would be thoroughly investigated and all those involved in the attack would be brought to justice. They have assured us of full support and cooperation. Our Consulate General in Germany and our Embassy in Berlin remain in contact with German law enforcement authorities for identification and arrest of those involved in the attack. We will continue to work closely with the German authorities to ensure that individuals who are involved in this attack will be brought to justice and action would be taken against those responsible for lapses in security of the Pakistan Consulate in Frankfurt. At this stage, we do not have a confirmation about the nationality of individuals involved in the attack.

(Mateen Haider, GTV): Ma'am, among bad news, there was good news that Washington is announcing over $100 million assistance to strengthen democracy and help Pakistani authorities in fighting terrorism. How do you see this development? Is this assistance being announced by the United States at its own or if in the background there was any request from Pakistan to support Pakistan's action against the fresh wave of terrorism? So, will the US assistance come for strengthening democracy or fighting terrorism?

Spokesperson: I think I answered this question earlier in response to a question raised by our colleague, Kiran, but I would like to reiterate that we have noted the statement made by the US Assistant Secretary of State at the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee. We believe this is an internal debate between the US Congress and administration. We do not have a comment on State Department's budgetary requests. Traditionally, such allocations are made for supporting civil society in areas of strategic priorities of the United States government.

(Aghar Ali Mubarak, The Daily Mail International): Ma'am, China has a significant role in mediation at global level and recently it played a major role in mediation between militant groups in Gaza especially between Al Fatah and Hamas. How does Pakistan see this? If China tries to mediate between Pakistan and Afghanistan, will Pakistan welcome it?

Spokesperson: Regarding the first part of your question, I have spoken about it in my opening statement. Pakistan welcomes the efforts by China in bringing the different Palestinian factions on one platform and the outcome that has been announced. We appreciate the positive role that China has played in the region, including in the understanding that was reached last year between Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Pakistan will continue to work with China on all matters of mutual interest. Your second question, I would like to underline that Pakistan has a direct channel of communication with Afghanistan. Our Embassies are functional and we have been discussing areas of mutual concerns and areas of cooperation directly with the Afghan authorities.

(Anas Mallick, Capital TV): Ma'am. Yesterday, the former Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari issued a statement saying at least three Pakistani nationals were kidnapped in Myanmar. Is there an update on that? And second question, again, a different question. Last week from this podium, you commented on the United Nations monitoring team report, with regards to the mention of the TTP in Afghanistan. In the same report, it said that a key associate of Osama bin Laden, Amin ul Haq was arrested by Pakistani authorities in March. However, his arrest was declared last week while you were speaking, at the Media Briefing; the Counter-terrorism Department in Punjab said he was arrested last week. So, would you share some clarity and shed light on whether he was arrested in March 2024 or was he arrested on the 18th of July?

Spokesperson: Regarding your second question. Mr. Aminul Haq, an al Qaeda operative who is on UN Security Council sanctions list, was arrested by Pakistan law enforcement agencies in March 2024 while crossing into Pakistan from Afghanistan illegally. We conveyed this information to the United Nations in March and that is what the report is referring to. The CTD is taking lead in investigation and prosecution of Mr. Amin Ul Haq. You may like to seek further clarification from the CTD.

As for your first question, we are aware of these reports. Our Mission in Myanmar has approached the relevant authorities for the release of Pakistani nationals who have been illegally detained by criminal gangs and to assist in the recovery and early repatriation of these individuals to Pakistan. When we have further information, we will share it with the media and as well as the families of these Pakistani nationals. It is important to note that transnational criminal networks and organizations operating in some parts of South-East Asia pose a serious threat to regional security. These groups engage in illegal and sophisticated scamming operations to ensnare and trap individuals seeking job opportunities. Their modus operandi includes human trafficking, forced labor, and ensnaring victims into forced criminality. We believe that these concerns need coordinated international response to challenges of human trafficking and transnational organized crime. We will continue to work with the relevant governments to ensure that Pakistani nationals who fall victim to these criminal networks are released and brought back to Pakistan.

(Siyar Ali Shah, Khyber News): Who is participating from Pakistan in the meeting of UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which is being held in India?

Spokesperson: Pakistan participated in the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee in New Delhi. The Committee is a committee of UNESCO and is responsible for implementation of the World Heritage Convention. Pakistan's Head of Delegation was Ms. Huzaifa Khanum, who is our Deputy Head of Mission in Paris and our focal point for UNESCO affairs.

(Syed Asif Ali, Din News): Ma'am, now that Biden administration has announced $101 million aid for Pakistan, can it be considered as the complete support of Pakistan operation against terrorism? Secondly, will America also provide technical assistance to Pakistan in the future because terrorists possess the same weapons that were left by America during the fall of Kabul?

Spokesperson: I think both these questions would be better answered by the US authorities and it is not for me to respond to this question.

(Aftab Jahan, News One): Madam, last time you said that some medical students would come to Pakistan for medical education from Gaza. What is the update on that? Have all the arrangements been done? Because PMDC is already controversial regarding Pakistan's own medical students. So, how far the arrangements have been made and how many students from Palestine will come to Pakistan?

Spokesperson: As we discussed last time, the decision has been taken in a committee meeting headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Pakistan. Implementation of this decision will be done by the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council. They, I understand, are in the process of identifying these colleges where these students will study. But I would advise you to contact PMDC for details on implementation of the decision.

(Saima Shabbir, Arab News): Ma'am, yesterday in the Cabinet meeting, it has been decided and announced that almost 126 countries' citizens would be given visa and their visa fee would be exempted to enhance trade and tourism, etc. Any Arab countries included in that list, if you can give few names?

Spokesperson: Yesterday, the Cabinet approved the enforcement of online visa application system for citizens of 126 countries and the objective is to promote business investment and tourism. It has also been decided that these visas will be processed within 24 hours with no processing fees. I do not have a comprehensive list of these 126 countries, which will be maintained by the Ministry of Interior. However, Pakistan's traditional friends and partners in the Middle East, including the GCC countries, are included in this list.

(Shahzad Hasan Mirza, Star Asia News): 14,000 foreign nationals were arrested in Saudi Arabia in the month of April who were residing there without Aqama or legal permit. Do you have any details if it includes Pakistanis and what is their total number?

Spokesperson: I do not have specific details of the individuals that you are referring to. However, any Pakistani nationals who are arrested abroad are a priority for our Embassies and Missions in terms of consular access. And we have impressed on Pakistani nationals, including those traveling to Saudi Arabia and other GCC countries to respect the laws, customs and values of the countries that they visit.

(Mateen Haider, GTV): Ma'am, day before yesterday, there was a briefing chaired by Prime Minister in which he gave orders to different authorities and departments including Commerce and Foreign Office on economic diplomacy of $60 billion export target for Pakistan. How you see it at a time when Pakistani economy is facing challenges? And how Foreign Ministry, whose job is to pursue economic diplomacy and trade with different countries through its trade officers, will be helping achieve this national target of $60 billion exports?

Spokesperson: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs works in concert with the relevant departments, including the Ministry of Commerce, Board of Investment and SIFC to promote economic diplomacy. Our missions and our ambassadors are under instructions to pursue opportunities for trade and investment, and as you yourself, underlined, this is a collective effort of all government departments Pakistan Foreign Office will continue to play its role in achievement of targets set by the Government.

(Anas Mallick, Capital TV): The Bangladeshi Foreign Minister yesterday in a televised interview has said that members of the Pakistani diaspora were involved in protests in Chicago and in Los Angeles. Your comments on the matter?

Spokesperson: We have no reports to confirm the veracity of this claim. As a matter of principle, we follow a policy of non-interference in internal affairs of other countries. And this is the first advice that our Mission in Dhaka gave to Pakistani students in Bangladesh. And we are not aware that this issue is of concern to Pakistani diaspora in any other country around the world.

(Khawaja Nayyar Iqbal, Media Today): The Minister for Finance is visiting China. It is said that he is visiting to renegotiate the terms of Chinese IPPs.

Spokesperson: As per my information, most of the reports that we see in the media are based on speculation. The Minister for Finance is travelling to China to discuss the range of issues for bilateral cooperation between Pakistan and China and any details regarding the agenda of the visit may be sought from the Ministry of Finance.

(Abdullah Momand, Dawn News): There are reports that Ministry of Foreign Affairs is working with Ministry of Interior on a policy under which those Pakistanis who are deported from different countries, their passport will be blocked. Is this true? And the second one is, last day a Pakistani family was brutally assaulted on Manchester airport by the police. So, what are the updates?

Spokesperson: On the first question, I have no such information, so I can't comment on it. Regarding your second question, we have seen the disturbing reports about the incident at Manchester Airport. Apparently, it involves dual-national Pakistanis. We are obviously concerned about the conduct of the police and the excessive use of force in the viral video. Our mission in Manchester is in contact with members of the Pakistani community and the local police. We also advise all Pakistani nationals abroad to abide by the laws of the host country and respect the local culture, customs and legal system and cooperate with the local police.

(Allah Noor, Mashriq TV): Ma'am, DG ISPR, in a conference said that most of the smuggling is being done from Iran. So, is Pakistan in contact with Iranian authorities to hinder such activities with mutual cooperation?

Spokesperson: Pakistan and Iran have robust channels of communication, including on issues pertaining to the activities of smugglers and terrorists in the border areas. And this is an issue of great concern to both countries. We, therefore, remain engaged to ensure that these criminals do not contribute to lawlessness along the border between Pakistan and Iran.

Thank you.

***

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






New Extremist Groups -- At Least In Name -- Enter Pakistan's Militant Scene

By Daud Khattak July 25, 2024

Suicide bombers and gunmen penetrated a military base in northwestern Pakistan last week, killing eight soldiers.

It was just the latest in a string of deadly attacks to hit the South Asian country, where militant violence has surged in recent years.

But what was significant about the July 15 attack in the city of Bannu was the group that claimed responsibility -- Jaish Fursan-e Muhammad (JFM) -- a previously unknown militant outfit.

JFM is among several new militant groups that have announced their arrival on the crowded militant scene in Pakistan in recent months.

But experts believe the new actors are in fact fronts for existing groups, including the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the most lethal militant organization waging war against Islamabad.

JFM is a believed to be a front for Hafiz Gul Bahadar (HGB), a separate extremist group. The group is named after its leader, a former TTP commander.

Tehrik-e Jihad Pakistan (TJP), another militant group that announced its emergence last year, is considered by experts to be a front for the TTP. It marked its arrival with a spectacular attack on a key air base in the eastern province of Punjab in November.

Experts say the fronts have allowed the TTP and HGB -- which are coming under military pressure from Islamabad -- to maintain a position of plausible deniability.

"All these groups are either part of the TTP or Hafiz Gul Bahadar," said Mansur Mehsud, director of the FATA Research Center, an Islamabad-based nonprofit organization. "This is part of the TTP and HGB's strategy to create confusion."

'Using Different Names'

The TTP and HGB are both believed to be based in Afghanistan, where the Afghan Taliban seized power in 2021.

Experts say the Taliban takeover has emboldened and strengthened Pakistani militants. The withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan has significantly reduced U.S. air strikes in the region, allowing militants to operate more freely.

TTP and HGB fighters have also obtained sophisticated weaponry, including U.S.-made firearms, left behind by international forces.

Pakistan has accused the Afghan Taliban of sheltering the TTP, with which it has close ideological and organizational ties.

Pakistan has used pressure tactics, observers say, to force the Afghan Taliban to sever ties with the TTP, including by expelling hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan, shutting key border crossings, and blocking Afghan transit goods in recent years.

Islamabad has also conducted deadly cross-border attacks targeting alleged TTP hideouts in eastern Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban has tried to appease Pakistan by relocating TTP fighters away from the border with Pakistan to other areas of Afghanistan and brokering a year of peace talks between the Pakistani militants and Islamabad that broke down. But the Afghan militants have refused to expel the TTP from Afghanistan.

Each major TTP attack inside Pakistan has been followed by Islamabad issuing condemnations and summoning the Afghan Taliban's ambassador in protest.

"The [Pakistani] Taliban are strong, but also under pressure," said Muhammad Amir Rana, an Islamabad-based security and political analyst. "They are using different names as part of their strategy and also to avoid pressure."

Mehsud of the FATA Research Center said the "TTP sometimes deliberately avoids large-scale attacks just to avoid pressure" from the Afghan Taliban, which he said has tried to convince its Pakistani ally to rein in its attacks.

'Security Situation Is Very Bad'

The TTP and HGB as well as their affiliates have concentrated most of their attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the northwestern province along the border with Afghanistan that has long been a hotbed of militancy.

Several other militant groups that have attracted less headlines have also recently emerged in the region. They include Lashkar-e Khorasan, a militant group believed to be a front for the TTP. The other is the Shaheen Group, which is considered a front for the HGB. Both groups have claimed attacks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in recent months.

Pakistan earlier this year said the military would launch a new offensive to root out militants in the northwest, without offering details.

The planned military operation has been fiercely opposed by locals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the scene of numerous offensives that have killed thousands and uprooted millions of civilians in the past.

Thousands of people rallied in Bannu on July 19 to call for an end to military operations in the region. The demonstration turned violent and security forces fired on protesters, killing one person. Since then, thousands of people have been participating in a sit-in protest in Bannu.

Rana, the Islamabad-based analyst, says Pakistan faces no good choices in its battle to curb the soaring number of militant attacks in the country.

If it launches a deadly military assault, it will attract the wrath of the public. If it targets alleged TTP strongholds inside Afghanistan, it will further escalate tensions with the Afghan Taliban, he says.

"The security situation is very bad," Rana said. "This is the peak of it now."

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-ttp- militants-taliban-afghanistan/33050488.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






Northern Fleet frigate Admiral Gorshkov enters Mediterranean Sea

24.07.2024

Today, a detachment of ships and support vessels of the Northern Fleet led by the frigate Admiral Gorshkov, which is carrying out tasks in off-shore maritime zone, has completed the transatlantic sail and entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Strait of Gibraltar.

Previously, in the Atlantic Ocean, the frigate crew held a number of exercises on the anti-submarine search as well as on the defence of a detachment of ships against the means of air enemy on sea passage.

Earlier, on 23 July, the frigate Admiral Gorshkov, fully replenished its reserves from the tanker Akademik Pashin.

In the Mediterranean Sea, the frigate is to perform a number of military-diplomatic missions and also practise interaction with other Russian ships. A number of business calls are planned at the ports in the Mediterranean area.

The long-distance voyage of the Northern Fleet frigate Admiral Gorshkov started on 17 May 2024. The main tasks of the mission are to demonstrate the flag and ensure a naval presence in important areas of the far ocean zone.

The Russian frigate has already made a call at the port of Havana, the Republic of Cuba, and at the port of La Guaira, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The frigate Admiral Gorshkov is a modern multipurpose ship with guided missile weapons designed for missions in off-shore maritime zone and oceanic zones. The frigate was commissioned by the Navy in 2018, and it was upgraded for the use of Tsirkon hypersonic missiles in 2021. The ship, armed with high-precision missile weapons, is capable of launching accurate and powerful strikes against the enemy at sea and on land.

Information Activities Office of the Northern region (Severomorsk)

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Putin: No One Will Succeed in Attempts to Intimidate, Divide Russian Society

Sputnik News

20240724

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Those who try to intimidate and divide Russian society, and pull on religious or national heartstrings will not succeed, inevitable retribution will await, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

"I emphasize that those who try to intimidate people, divide our society, and pull on religious or national heartstrings will never succeed. Inevitable and just retribution awaits them," the Russian president said in a video message on the occasion of Investigation Officers' Day, a professional holiday celebrated in Russia on July 25.

Putin added that Russian investigators effectively work in Russia's new territories and collect irrefutable evidence of crimes of "neo-Nazis" and their accomplices, terrorists and extremists in the special military operation area.

The Russian leader added that investigators significantly contribute to combating corruption, terrorism and extremism, and stand to protect the interests of society and the state.

However, Putin called on investigators to improve investigative techniques and introduce advanced approaches to respond competently and promptly to new challenges and risks.

The president further said that new risks arise against the background of dynamic changes in the world, technological revolution, migration flows, local conflicts and the establishment of future markets. Those also include cyber threats, drug trafficking, transnational criminal groups and criminal syndicates in virtual and financial domains.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Putin vows to 'crush' anybody trying to 'divide' Russia

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 5:42 PM

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has vowed to crush anyone who attempts to sow division within the Russian society, while praising effectiveness and unswerving loyalty of the Russian Federation's powerful law enforcement agencies.

In a video message posted by the Kremlin on Thursday, the 71-year-old Russian leader made the remarks on the occasion of Investigation Officers' Day, a professional holiday celebrated in Russia on July 25.

"I would like to stress that those who try to instill fear and divide our society, playing on religious and ethnic sentiments, will never succeed. They will face inevitable and just retribution," Putin said, according to the English translation of his statement published on the official website of the President of Russia.

The Russian leader was paying tribute to various Russian law enforcement agencies, including the Investigative Committee and the FSB security services, the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

"I am confident that Russian investigation officers will continue to achieve new commendable results across all key areas of their work, demonstrating their best professional, personal and moral qualities such as professionalism, objectivity, strong character and, of course, unwavering loyalty to the Fatherland and our nation," Putin added.

In March, armed assailants fatally shot over 140 people at a concert hall in Moscow, marking the nation's deadliest terrorist attack in nearly twenty years. The Takfiri Daesh terrorist group claimed responsibility, but, Putin and other Russian officials stressed that Kiev had a role in the carnage.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russia's Mi-28 Helicopter crashes in Kaluga region; all crew members killed

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 11:15 AM

A Russian military helicopter has crashed in the country's Kaluga region during a routine flight killing all of its crew members, as confirmed by the country's Defense Ministry.

In a statement early on Thursday, Russia's defense ministry said that a Mi-28 military helicopter crashed in the Zhizdra district of the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow, killing all its crew members.

The ministry said a technical malfunction was likely to blame, but no specific number of individuals on board was mentioned. However, a Mi-28 helicopter usually carries a crew of two.

"A commission of the Russian Aerospace Forces is working at the site of the crash," the ministry added.

According to TASS news agency, the helicopter was performing a scheduled flight when the incident occurred. The crew members did not survive, as the Mi-28 is not equipped with a crew ejection system, unlike the Ka-52 "Alligator" helicopter.

The Russian aircraft crashed in a remote area near the village of Klyonki, without causing any further damage on the ground, as reported by local officials.

The governor of Kaluga, Vladislav Shapsha, has confirmed the incident, revealing that the crash occurred in Zhizdrinsk district on the border with the Bryansk region, which is on the frontier with Ukraine.

Shapsha wrote on Telegram that rescuers were working at the crash site.

Moreover, the Telegram channel of Mash online newspaper disclosed that the helicopter, which is often used on drone-hunting missions, was heading back from a combat mission when a crew member spotted a fire on board, apparently caused by an engine malfunction.

As a result, the pilot decided to redirect the aircraft to an unpopulated area to prevent any potential harm to civilians.

The Cold War-era Mi-28 helicopter is a twin-seat attack helicopter, designed as an anti-tank attack platform similar in scope and function to the American Hughes AH-64 Apache series.

It took its first flight in 1982, becoming an all-weather attack helicopter with multiple updated models.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Lao People's Democratic Republic Saleumxay Kommasith

25 July 2024 15:25

1416-25-07-2024

On July 25, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China Wang Yi and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Lao People's Democratic Republic Saleumxay Kommasith on the sidelines of ASEAN ministerial events in Vientiane.

The officials engaged in a fruitful discussion on various international and regional issues, with a particular focus on collaboration within ASEAN-centric mechanisms.

A key aspect of their conversation was practical cooperation in enhancing regional food and energy security, as well as the expansion of transport connectivity.

The foreign ministers of the three countries agreed to continue their contacts.



NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Laos Saleumxay Kommasith

25 July 2024 13:07

1414-25-07-2024

On July 25, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held talks with Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of the Lao People's Democratic Republic Saleumxay Kommasith on the sidelines of ASEAN ministerial events in Vientiane.

The officials discussed the current status of bilateral relations and their prospects for development. They focused on implementing agreements reached at the highest level, consolidating trade and economic, cultural and humanitarian ties and intensifying joint coordination in international and regional affairs. They noted that Vientiane was effectively chairing the ASEAN.

Following the meeting, the sides signed an agreement between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Government of the Lao People's Democratic Republic on Cooperation in the Field of Security of and in the Use of Information and Communication Technologies. They also signed a plan of consultations between the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation and the Foreign Ministry of the Lao People's Democratic Republic for 2024-2026.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Press release on Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's meeting with Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Kingdom of Cambodia Sok Chenda Sophea

25 July 2024 12:17

1411-25-07-2024



On July 25, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Kingdom of Cambodia Sok Chenda Sophea on the sidelines of ASEAN ministerial events in Vientiane.

During the meeting, the officials discussed the current state and future of bilateral cooperation, with an emphasis on foreign policy, trade, the economy, culture, and humanitarian affairs.

The ministers also reviewed the practical cooperation within the Russia-ASEAN dialogue partnership, which has been coordinated by Cambodia since August 2021. They expressed support for strengthening efforts and coordination at ASEAN-centric platforms.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russia's Baltic Fleet Group to Make Port Call in Cuba's Havana From July 27-30 - Ministry

Sputnik News

20240725

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - A group of Russian Baltic Fleet warships will make a port call in the Cuban capital of Havana from July 27-30, the Cuban Defense Ministry said on Thursday, adding that one of the ships will be accessible to visitors.

"Between July 27 and 30, vessels of the Russian Baltic Fleet, including the Smolny training ship, the Neustrashimy patrol vessel, and the Yelnya tanker, will arrive in the port of Havana on a working visit," the ministry said in a statement.

The Smolny training ship will be open to the public from July 28-29.

Another group of Russian Northern Fleet naval ships made a port visit to Havana on an official visit from June 12-17. The group included the Admiral Gorshkov frigate and the Kazan nuclear-powered submarine.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russian, Chinese Military Aircraft Intercepted off Alaska - NORAD

Sputnik News

20240725

The jets were not seen as a threat but NORAD will continue to monitor similar activity from the North American continent and "meet presence with presence," the joint US-Canadian organization declared.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US and Canadian fighter jets intercepted Russian and Chinese military aircraft flying in international airspace near Alaska but they were not seen as a threat, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a press release.

"NORAD detected, tracked, and intercepted two Russian TU-95 and two [Chinese] H-6 military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on July 24, 2024," the organization said Wednesday.

NORAD fighter jets from the United States and Canada conducted the intercept, the press release added. The Russian and Chinese aircraft reportedly remained over international territory and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace.

The jets were not seen as a threat but NORAD will continue to monitor similar activity from the North American continent and "meet presence with presence," the organization declared.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






The Russian Federation is increasing its malign activities and interference: UK statement to the OSCE

Deputy Ambassador Deirdre Brown underlines the increased scale and intensity of the hybrid threat now faced by many participating States.

25 July 2024

Thank you, Madam Chair. The threat from the Russian Federation comes in many forms, so let me thank France for tabling this item, and allowing participating States the opportunity to put on record just how reckless it is becoming. As Russia continues to pursue its devastating war in Ukraine at ever greater cost to Ukraine and itself, Russia's operations abroad have become more diverse and more widespread.

Russia's use of disinformation and other malign tactics is well documented - deployed to advance its influence, sow discord and undermine global rules and norms. This is pervasive across the globe, but particularly in its near abroad. Alongside the US and Canada, the UK recently condemned Russian attempts to undermine Moldova's democratic institutions in the leadup to the October presidential elections, and the referendum on Moldova's EU membership. The UK will continue to stand firm with our friends, against Russia's persistent attempts to undermine sovereignty and democratic processes, and to provide support to bolster regional resilience.

In Europe, participating States have seen buildings burned down. In May, five British men were arrested and charged in relation to an arson attack in London. Two of these individuals were arrested and charged under the UK's new National Security Act including offences relating to a foreign intelligence service - with the Crown Prosecution Service confirming Russia as the foreign state involved in the sabotage incident. Similar incidents and arrests have taken place in Poland, Czechia, and Latvia, which we assess to be part of a covert and coordinated sabotage campaign, directed by Russia. It is clear that those behind this activity do not care who bears the consequences of their recklessness.

This year, there have been numerous reports of assassination plots allegedly prepared by Russia, including one which allegedly resulted in the death of a Russian defector, who was shot dead in Spain. This is nothing new; it brings to mind the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal by the GRU, which led to the death of an innocent British civilian in 2018, or the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. What is new, is the scale and intensity of the hybrid threat now faced by so many participating States, signalling an increase in Russia's readiness to use covert and illegal methods abroad to further its agenda, posing the most acute threat to European security and to global stability.

Such aggression requires a robust and collective response from all participating States who seek to uphold the core values of this organisation. We must make clear to President Putin and the Russian authorities that attempts to undermine our support for Ukraine will not work, by maintaining the assistance it urgently needs to defeat Russia on the battlefield. And we must work together to deny Russia's attempts to operate inside our own borders, whether directly or through its proxies.

The UK has taken action to expel the Russian Defence AttachA, an undeclared GRU officer, and is working intensively to make the UK the hardest possible operating environment for Russian hybrid attacks. Such measures are vital to prevent Russia from destabilising those who stand in its way, and to send a clear message that we will not falter in the face of its belligerence. Thank you.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Time for Russia to give straight answers on its commitment to OSCE principles: UK statement to the OSCE

Ambassador Holland expresses concern at the mounting evidence of Russia's violations of international law and demands answers on whether Russia stands by its OSCE commitments.

25 July 2024

Thank you, Mister Chair.

On Monday 22 July, ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) released their fifth interim report on reported violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law in Ukraine.

The findings were disturbing but sadly not a surprise; they are consistent with findings by other international organisations. They are also consistent with the serious concerns that we and colleagues have repeatedly raised in this room.

For example, the report noted an intensification of attacks by Russian Federation forces since December 2023, resulting in increased civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including critical energy infrastructure. It notes a continued disregard for the principles of distinction and proportionality. We have heard similar points in this Council almost every week.

The report covered patterns of arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances of civilians in the territories Russia temporarily controls and "widespread and systematic torture, including sexual torture against civilian detainees."

It cites evidence of the widespread use of torture and poor conditions of detention for prisoners of wars.

There was also further information in ODIHR's report on Russia's intensified efforts "to alter the status and character of the occupied territories in violation of IHL".

Mister Chair, there are many more examples. The point is that ODIHR's interim report is the latest contribution to the growing body of evidence detailing how Russia has executed this illegal war. It is right that the OSCE and its autonomous institutions should play a role in documenting these crimes and holding Russia to account. It is also right that we - participating States - continue to use this meeting to confront Russia with the uncomfortable truth and highlight violations of OSCE principles which we all agreed to honour.

In this spirit, on 6 June I asked the Russian delegation whether they considered Russia's actions in Ukraine to be in conformity with this first Helsinki principle and if so, whether they could explain how? Their response was to give an example - from 25 years ago - where they believed that others had failed to comply with the principle. That did not answer my question. So I ask again - does the Russian Federation stand by its commitment to the first Helsinki principle on sovereignty?

On 11 July, we asked how Russia's preconditions for negotiations with Ukraine conformed to several principles from the Decalogue. We did not get a direct response to this either. The speech by the Russian President called for Ukraine to withdraw completely from four oblasts that fall within Ukraine's internationally recognised borders. So could Russia confirm that they still stand by their commitments in Article 3 which prohibit the demand for and seizure of part of the territory of another state? Could we also get a proper answer on how the invasion of Ukraine complies with Article 4 which prohibits making the territory of a fellow state an object of military occupation? Does Russia still stand by that commitment? And finally, could we also get a direct answer to whether Russia still abides by its Article 2 commitments on the non-use of force in the light of the invasion?

Mister Chair, we should all be deeply concerned at how seriously Russia treats its commitments when those commitments become inconvenient. If they are allowed to discard OSCE principles and the UN Charter on this occasion, how could any of us have faith that they would comply with their commitments, here or elsewhere, in the future? I think those of us who share the Helsinki commitments and a common geographic home deserve straight answers. Because these principles were designed to keep us secure and if we compromise on them, we undermine all of our collective security. Thank you.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Putin, Assad meet in Moscow to discuss bilateral ties, regional issues

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 10:58 AM

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad have met in Moscow to discuss bilateral ties and regional issues, in their first meeting at the Kremlin in over a year.

Putin hosted Assad in the Russian capital on Thursday and held talks on matters of mutual interest, Syria's official news agency SANA and Russia's TASS news agency reported.

Assad said both Syria and Russia have encountered tough challenges but have consistently managed to overcome them, emphasizing the strong trust between Moscow and Damascus, SANA said.

Putin, for his part, characterized the situation in the Middle East as growing more tense and stressed the need for the continuation of bilateral talks, SANA further reported, adding that he also stated that there are promising prospects for economic and trade relations between Syria and Russia.

"Dear mister president, I am very happy to see you. We have the opportunity to talk about the entire set of our relations. We have not seen each other for a while," TASS quoted Putin as telling Assad at the beginning of their meeting.

No more details about the meeting have been released yet.

Previously, the two leaders met at the Kremlin in mid-March last year, with their talks lasting three hours.

Russia is a key supporter of Syria and deployed forces to the war-ravaged Arab country on the official request of Assad to help fight foreign-backed Takfiri terrorist groups, including Daesh, since 2015.

Together with Iran and Turkey, Russia has also served as one of the guarantors of negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Putin, Assad Meet in Kremlin, Discuss Worsening Regional Situation Affecting Syria

Sputnik News

20240725

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, suggested discussing the situation in the region, noting that it is showing a tendency to escalate, which also affects Syria.

"I am very interested in your opinion on how the situation in the region as a whole is developing. Unfortunately, it is tending to escalate, as we can see. This directly concerns Syria as well," Putin said.

The meeting took place the previous evening in the Kremlin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has held a meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Kremlin on Wednesday evening.

"I am very glad to see you. We have the opportunity to talk about the entire complex of our relations," Putin said at the meeting.

Putin also proposed to discuss the situation in the region, which tends to worsen, noting that this also applies to Syria.

Putin also expected to discuss with Assad trade and economic relations between Russia and Syria.

Bashar Assad in turn has noted the relevance of a meeting with Vladimir Putin against the backdrop of current geopolitical events to discuss possible prospects and scenarios.

"Considering all the events that are happening today in the world and in the Eurasian region as a whole, our meeting today seems very important to discuss all the details of the development of these events, to discuss possible prospects and scenarios," Assad said at the meeting.

Russia and Syria have gone through difficult tests over the past decades, the president said, adding that the meeting coincides with the anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the countries.

"Over the past decades, our countries have gone through difficult trials. These decades have witnessed complex transformation processes within our countries. However, over all decades, relations between our countries have maintained a level of trust and this is an indicator of the maturity of our peoples," the leader added.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Han Kuang drills cut short as troops reassigned to typhoon disaster relief

ROC Central News Agency

07/25/2024 02:20 PM

Taipei, July 25 (CNA) This year's Han Kuang military exercises have been cut short as troops were mobilized to assist in disaster relief in the aftermath of Typhoon Gaemi, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said Thursday.

Multiple drills scheduled between noon on Thursday and Friday -- when the five-day exercises were originally scheduled to conclude -- have been canceled, and tabletop war games will be conducted instead, the MND said.

Troops previously assigned to participate in the drills will now assist local governments in disaster relief to ensure people and their property remain safe, the MND added.

According to the Central Weather Administration, most of Taiwan and its outlying islands were still within Gaemi's radius as of 1 p.m. on Thursday, with the typhoon moving in a northwesterly direction at a speed of 11 to 19 kilometers per hour.

The annual Han Kuang exercises, which have served as Taiwan's major war games since 1984, consist of live-fire drills and computerized war games and seek to test Taiwan's combat readiness in the face of a possible Chinese invasion.

(By Matt Yu and Sean Lin)

Enditem/kb

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






US, Taiwan, China race to improve military drone technology

By Katherine Michaelson July 25, 2024

This week, as Taiwan was preparing for the start of its Han Kuang military exercises, its air defense system detected a Chinese drone circling the island. This was the sixth time that China had sent a drone to operate around Taiwan since 2023.

Drones like the one that flew around Taiwan, which are tasked with dual-pronged missions of reconnaissance and intimidation, are just a small part of a broader trend that is making headlines from Ukraine to the Middle East to the Taiwan Strait and is changing the face of warfare.

The increasing role that unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, play and rising concern about a Chinese invasion of democratically ruled Taiwan is pushing Washington, Beijing and Taipei to improve the sophistication, adaptability and cost of drone technology.

'Hellscape' strategy

Last August, the Pentagon launched a $1 billion Replicator Initiative to create air, sea and land drones in the "multiple thousands," according to the Defense Department's Innovation Unit. The Pentagon aims to build that force of drones by August 2025.

The initiative is part of what U.S. Admiral Samuel Paparo recently described to The Washington Post as a "hellscape" strategy, which aims to counter a Chinese invasion of Taiwan through the deployment of thousands of unmanned drones in the air and sea between the island and China.

"The benefits of unmanned systems are that you get cheap, disposable mass that's low cost. If a drone gets shot down, the only people that are crying about it are the accountants," said Zachary Kallenborn, a policy fellow at George Mason University. "You can use them at large amounts of scale and overwhelm your opponents as well as degrade their defensive capabilities."

The hellscape strategy, he added, aims to use lots of cheap drones to try to hold back China from attacking Taiwan.

Drone manufacturing supremacy

China has its own plans under way and is the world's largest manufacturer of commercial drones. In a news briefing after Paparo's remarks to the Post, it warned Washington that it was playing with fire.

"Those who clamor for turning others' homeland into hell should get ready for burning in hell themselves," said Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Chinese defense ministry.

"The People's Liberation Army is able to fight and win in thwarting external interference and safeguarding our national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Threats and intimidation never work on us," Wu said.

China's effort to expand its use of drones has been bolstered, analysts say, by leader Xi Jinping's emphasis on technology and modernization in the military, something he highlighted at a top-level party meeting last week.

"China's military is developing more than 50 types of drones with varying capabilities, amassing a fleet of tens of thousands of drones, potentially 10 times larger than Taiwan and the U.S. combined," Michael Raska, assistant professor at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told VOA in an email. "This quantitative edge currently fuels China's accelerating military modernization, with drones envisioned for everything from pre-conflict intel gathering to swarming attacks."

Analysts add that China's commercial drone manufacturing supremacy aids its military in the push for drone development. China's DJI dominates in production and sale of household drones, accounting for 76% of the worldwide consumer market in 2021.

The scale of production and low price of DJI drones could put China in an advantageous position in a potential drone war, analysts say.

"In Russia and Ukraine, if you have a lot of drones - even if they're like the commercial off-the-shelf things, DJI drones you can buy at Costco - and you throw hundreds of them at an air defense system, that's going to create a large problem," said Major Emilie Stewart, a research analyst at the China Aerospace Studies Institute.

China denies it is seeking to use commercial UAV technology for future conflicts.

"China has always been committed to maintaining global security and regional stability and has always opposed the use of civilian drones for military purposes," Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA. "We are firmly opposed to the U.S.'s military ties with Taiwan and its effort of arming Taiwan."

Drone force

With assistance from its American partners, pressure from China and lessons from Ukraine, Taiwan has been pushing to develop its own domestic drone warfare capabilities.

The United States has played a pivotal role in Taiwan's drone development, and just last week it pledged to sell $360 million of attack drones to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, or TECRO, Taiwan's de facto embassy in Washington.

"Taiwan will continue to build a credible deterrence and work closely with like-minded partners, including the United States, to preserve peace and stability in the region," TECRO told VOA when asked about the collaboration between Taipei and Washington. "We have no further information to share at this moment."

The effort to incorporate drones into its defense is crucial for Taiwan, said Eric Chan, a senior nonresident fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute.

"The biggest immediate effects of the U.S. coming into this mass UAV game is to give Taiwan a bigger advantage to be able to, first, detect their enemy and, second, help them build a backstop to their own capabilities as well," Chan said.

With the potential for China to consider using drones in an urban conflict environment, Taiwan is recognizing the importance of stepping up its counter-drone defense systems.

"After multiple intrusions of Chinese drones in outlying islands, the Taiwan Ministry of Defense now places great emphasis on anti-drone capabilities," said Yu-Jiu Wang, chief executive of Tron Future, an anti-drone company working with the Taiwanese military.

The demand is one that Wang said his company is willing and ready to fill.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






US creating logistic hubs to expedite arms supplies to Ukraine: Russia

Iran Press TV

Thursday, 25 July 2024 7:06 PM

Amid growing tensions between Moscow and the West, a Russian presidential aide says the United States plans to establish logistics centers in Black Sea countries to speed up arms supplies to Ukraine.

"In the countries of the Black Sea region, the United States intends to create logistics centers to accelerate the supply of weapons to Ukraine, as well as to deploy modern long-range weapons," Nikolai Patrushev, who formerly chaired Russia's Security Council, said on Thursday.

At the Washington 2024 summit, the US-led NATO alliance demonstrated plans to increase its military presence and intensify confrontation in the Black Sea, the official added.

The Kremlin aide noted that Russia had successfully thwarted attempts by the Western military alliance to set up a naval base in the Sea of Azov.

He added that there can be no talk of unhindered passage to the ports of the Sea of Azov by ships of Western countries supporting Kiev.

"Given the aggressive nature of Western countries that directly support the Kiev regime in conducting military and terrorist actions against Russia, currently any unhindered passage of their ships to the ports of Azov is out of the question," Patrushev emphasized.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Patrushev said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the development of advanced maritime robotic systems to combat unmanned vessels.

"The head of state outlined the directions for creating advanced systems and types of weapons, military and special equipment, including naval robotic systems and technologies to counter unmanned vessels," he said.

Patrushev highlighted the need for a high-quality fleet that would surpass the technological capabilities of other maritime nations.

Last week, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia would consider any plans to establish a permanent presence of US-led NATO warships in the Black Sea as a threat, given the alliance's involvement in the Ukraine war.

"Of course, the concentrated presence of NATO ships - we are paying attention to Bulgaria and Romania, the coastal states that are members of the (NATO) alliance - of course, this represents, especially in the current situation, an additional threat to Russia," Peskov told reporters.

"Russia will take all necessary measures to ensure its own security," he added.

Senior officials in Moscow have repeatedly warned the US and NATO countries against arming Ukraine further, saying it will prolong the conflict and the ensuing pain.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russia Attacks Ukrainian Danube Port For Second Day As NATO Scrambles Warplanes Over Romania

By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service and RFE/RL's Romanian Service July 25, 2024

Russia on July 25 attacked the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmayil for the second day in a row, damaging infrastructure critical for Kyiv's grain exports, while in neighboring Romania, NATO scrambled F-18 warplanes as drone debris was found near the border with Ukraine.

Ukraine's military said its air defenses shot down 25 out of the 38 drones launched by Russia at its territory early in the day, adding that three Russian drones "were lost on location after crossing the Romanian border."

The drones were destroyed over the Odesa, Kherson, Mykolayiv, Kyiv, Sumy, Zhytomyr, and Cherkasy regions, the air force said.

Local officials in Izmayil, which is in the Odesa region, said that port facilities were damaged for the second day in a row and two civilians were wounded.

Oleh Kiper, the governor of the Odesa region, said the administrative headquarters in Izmayil was "partially destroyed and then caught fire."

Russia, which last year exited a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey allowing Ukraine to export grain via the Black Sea, has turned to targeting Izmayil and another Ukrainian Danube port, Reni, used by Kyiv to export its grain through Romania's Black Sea port of Constanta.

Romania's Defense Ministry confirmed that drone debris was found near the village of Plauru, across the Danube from Izmayil. "The remains of a Geran1/2- type drone of Russian origin were identified," it said in a statement, adding that the search continued.

The ministry said that two F-18 fighter jets belonging to NATO ally Finland took off from Kogalniceanu Air Base near the Black Sea coast to monitor the situation, the second day alliance warplanes took off in the region after Romanian F-16s had been scrambled the previous day.

A spokesperson said NATO has no indication of any intentional attack on NATO territory but said incidents of Russian drones entering Romanian airspace are "irresponsible and potentially dangerous."

The spokesperson said NATO has further intensified monitoring and surveillance measures, including through air patrols, in recent days.

In images and video footage broadcast by Romanian television, burnt out trees and a crater could be seen at the site where the drone debris was found.

Earlier, Romania issued for a second day mobile-phone messages for Tulcea County, which borders southern Ukraine, alerting the public of the risk of falling drone debris. It was the second time Romania issued such an alert in as many days.

Romanian Foreign Minister Luminita Odobescu denounced the "heinous" Russian attacks on Ukraine and said Bucharest was in constant contact with NATO.

"More heinous attacks have been perpetrated by Russia against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. Debris has been found on Romanian territory. We have informed and are coordinating with our Allies on this matter. Romania strongly condemns these irresponsible actions," Odobescu wrote on X.

With reporting by G4media.ro, Digi24.ro, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine- drones-romania-alert/33050082.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






US Creating Logistic Centers in Black Sea to Speed Up Arms Supplies to Ukraine - Kremlin Aide

Sputnik News

20240725

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United States wants to create logistics centers in the Black Sea region to speed up arms supplies to Ukraine and deploy long-range weapons, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said on Thursday.

"In the countries of the Black Sea region, the United States intends to create logistics centers to accelerate the supply of weapons to Ukraine, as well as to deploy modern long-range weapons," Patrushev said.

At the Washington summit, NATO demonstrated plans to increase its military presence and intensify confrontation in the Black Sea, the official added.

There can be no talk of unhindered passage to the ports of the Sea of Azov by ships of Western countries supporting Kiev, the aide noted.

"Given the aggressive nature of Western countries that directly support the Kiev regime in conducting military and terrorist actions against Russia, currently any unhindered passage of their ships to the ports of Azov is out of the question," he emphasized.

Last month, the countries that signed a joint communique following the Swiss-hosted summit on Ukraine have called for providing access to sea ports in the Black and Azov seas to ensure global food security.

The number of joint exercises between the Japanese navy and NATO countries and other military allies of Washington in 2024 has already increased 30 times compared to last year, Patrushev added.

"The number of bilateral exercises between the Japanese navy and the navies of NATO countries and other US military allies in 2024 has already increased 30 times compared to 2023," he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the development of advanced maritime robotic systems to combat unmanned vessels, Nikolai Patrushev mentioned.

"The head of state outlined the directions for creating advanced systems and types of weapons, military and special equipment, including naval robotic systems and technologies to counter unmanned vessels," he said.

Patrushev added that Russia was entering a new stage in the development of its navy, highlighting the need for a high-quality fleet that would surpass the technological capabilities of other maritime nations.

Putin held a meeting on shipbuilding at the end of June.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russian Forces Destroy Stationing Site for Ukrainian Unmanned Boats

Sputnik News

20240725

Over the past 24 hours, Russia's tactical aircraft destroyed a site harboring unmanned boats used by the Ukrainian armed forces, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Thursday.

"Operational aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces destroyed Ukraine's military fuel and lubricants, up to five US-made Bradley infantry fighting vehicles on site with foreign military equipment, as well as a base for unmanned boats," the MoD said in a statement.

Russian troops also targeted the repair shops of armored and mechanical plants, and Ukrainian clusters of troops and military equipment in 104 different areas.

Russian air defenses shot down three HIMARS rocket launchers and 52 UAVs, 26 of which were destroyed in the areas outside the special operation zone.

Furthermore, Ukraine lost up to 460 servicemen in battles with Russia's Battlegroup Zapad, while the Tsentr Battlegroup repelled seven counterattacks and Kiev lost up to 410 soldiers over the past 24 hours.

"The losses of the armed forces of Ukraine amounted to up to 680 military personnel, a tank, two infantry fighting vehicles, two armored combat vehicles, four pickup trucks [in clashes with Battlegroup Yug]," the statement read.

Additionally, Russia's Battlegroup Sever repelled six counterattacks and Kiev lost up to 235 soldiers in fights, while Kiev lost up to 125 soldiers in battles with the Vostok Battlegroup, the MoD added.

Russia's Battlegroup Dnepr hammered Ukrainian troops and military equipment, and Ukraine lost up to 115 soldiers.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russian Iskander-M Hits Foreign Mercenary Temporary Deployment Site in Kharkov - MoD

Sputnik News

20240725

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russia's Iskander-M missile defense system struck a temporary deployment site for foreign mercenaries in the industrial zone of the city of Kharkov, killing up to 100 military personnel, including 40 foreign instructors, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Thursday.

"The crew of the Iskander-M operational-tactical missile system carried out a missile strike on the temporary deployment site of foreign mercenaries in ... the industrial zone of the city of Kharkov. As a result of the strike, up to 100 militants were killed, of which 40 were foreign instructors, as well as about 60 servicemen of the 151st mechanized brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces," the ministry said in a statement.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has previously reported the elimination of mercenaries from the United States, the United Kingdom, Georgia, and other countries, and regularly reports on the destruction of locations where foreigners fighting for Kiev are concentrated.

According to the Ministry, over 13,000 foreign mercenaries have arrived in Ukraine to fight for the Kiev regime since the start of the special operation. During this period, about 6,000 fighters have been eliminated.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






EU Refuses Support to Hungary, Slovakia on Russian Oil Transit Dispute With Ukraine

Sputnik News

20240725

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The European Union has denied its support to Hungary and Slovakia after they sought to force Ukraine to restore Russian oil transit to the bloc, the Financial Times reported citing sources familiar with the matter.

EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the FT that Brussels would need more time to gather evidence and assess the legal situation. Eleven of the EU nations attending a meeting of trade officials on Wednesday backed his stance and none took the side of Budapest and Bratislava, diplomats told the FT.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday that Hungary and Slovakia had asked the European Commission to launch consultations with Ukraine after it stopped the transit of oil through the Druzhba pipeline. Szijjarto also said that Hungary would not approve the allocation of 6.5 billion euros ($7 billion) for arms sent to Ukraine through the European Peace Facility until the issue was resolved.

Ukraine's trade agreement reportedly contains a clause that provides for the possibility of suspending oil transit. An EU diplomat was quoted as saying by FT that disruption in Russian oil supplies would have a "huge impact" on the central European nation.

Last week, Szijjarto said that Ukraine stopped the transit of Lukoil's oil. The Slovak Economy Ministry confirmed that the country was not longer receiving oil from the Russian oil giant, which was sanctioned by Ukraine. Slovakia's Slovnaft refinery imports Russian crude from another supplier, but the country is discussing the current situation with Ukraine.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russia Downs 11 Ukrainian Drones Over Kursk, Belgorod, Crimea Regions - MoD

Sputnik News

20240725

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian air defenses shot down four Ukrainian drones over the Kursk Region, three over the Belgorod Region, and four over Crimea and the Black Sea overnight, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said on Thursday.

"Last night, the Kiev regime attempted a terrorist attack using unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] against assets on the Russian territory: four UAVs over Kursk, three over the Belgorod region and four UAVs over the territory of Crimea and the Black Sea were intercepted and destroyed by on-duty air defenses," the statement read.

Two unmanned boats heading toward the Crimean Peninsula were destroyed in the Black Sea.

The debris from a downed drone set fire to an apartment building in the village of Yubileyny in the Kursk Region, acting Governor Alexei Smirnov said.

"Today, a residential building caught fire in the village of Yubileyny in the Kursk region due to falling debris. A local resident, who was fighting the fire on her own, got burns. She received the necessary medical care on the spot," Smirnov said on Telegram.

Ukraine has been sending drones towards Russia almost daily since it launched its botched counteroffensive attempt. Russian officials repeatedly stressed that deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure reveal the criminal nature of Kiev regime.

A Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






The UK's commitment to support Ukraine is ironclad: UK statement at the UN Security Council

Statement by UK Spokesperson to the UN Mungo Woodifield at the UN Security Council meeting on Ukraine.

25 July 2024

Colleagues, on 24 February 2022 many of us were sitting in this Council when we learned the terrible news that Russia had launched an illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. On that day, and on every one of the 882 days since, Ukraine has been bravely exercising its right to self-defence under the UN Charter. Ukraine has defended its sovereign land and it has rejected Russia's vision for a world where states can change borders by force. It has stood up for the principles at the very heart of the UN Charter. The UK's commitment to support Ukraine is ironclad.

I would like to use my remarks today to make three points. First, we must never lose sight of the terrible human cost of the war in Ukraine, Putin's war of choice. Just a few weeks ago, we met after a Russian missile reduced a children's hospital in Kyiv to rubble. This was the latest example of the horrific attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure, which have resulted in over 34 thousand civilians confirmed killed and injured since the invasion began, and which have left over 14.6 million Ukrainians in need of humanitarian assistance. The Russian people are also experiencing the terrible consequences of the invasion. Nearly 70,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the last 60 days alone, adding to the more than half a million Russian troops killed or wounded since the start of the invasion.

Second, Russia has become increasingly desperate to procure weapons to sustain its attacks on Ukraine. Russia has received hundreds of drones from Iran and significant quantities of weapons from the DPRK. It is absurd, but frankly no longer surprising, that Russia criticises legitimate Western support for Ukraine's self-defence while it procures weapons from the DPRK in flagrant violation of Security Council resolutions that it supported. We reiterate our call on all third parties immediately to cease material support for Russia's war of aggression.

Third, the UK - together with our Allies and partners - will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. At the NATO Summit earlier this month the UK, alongside 22 other countries and the EU, signed up to the Ukraine Compact. This declared our enduring commitment to support Ukraine's self-defence and to deter aggression. Our resolve will not waver.

The UK has committed to sustain current levels of military support to Ukraine for as long as it takes. And we will continue to support Ukraine's fight against Russian aggression until a just and lasting peace is secured, in line with the UN Charter. It is for Ukraine to determine its position in any negotiations. Just as it is for Ukraine to determine its democratic future. Ukraine is a sovereign country making sovereign decisions about the defence of its sovereign land and the sooner Russia understands this, the better.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Foreign Funds Have Started to Work Noticeably and Effectively in Defense Production, and This Is a Great Achievement for Us - President's Address

President of Ukraine

25 July 2024 - 20:18

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

Today was an eventful day.

A report from Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko regarding the detention of the suspect in the murder of Iryna Farion. I have asked the minister to present all the necessary information to the public and journalists. Of course, procedural actions are still ongoing, and all the circumstances of this case are being clarified. There should be more public information tomorrow.

Secondly, I had a very detailed and long conversation with Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin. We analyzed the work of the ministry and the relevant enterprises in our defense sectorawhat has been achieved and what is planned. There are good results. Many different aspects were discussed, including our armored vehicles, drones, and artillery. I am grateful to everyone working at our defense enterprises, in our defense industry. It is evident that the sector is becoming entirely differentastronger and more efficient. It is crucial that foreign funds have finally started to work noticeably and effectively in defense production, which is a significant achievement for us. Not only the state budget funds but also partner investments in defense production in Ukraine. Today, we have also decided on the updated tasks for Ukroboronprom and our missile specialists. In many areas, we now have not just potential or some specific results but also supplies to meet the needs of the Defense and Security Forces - growing supplies. Additionally, we are preparing steps to increase the quantity and quality of our long-range drones. Ukraine will always be able to defend its interests.

Today, I also held a meeting with those responsible for state-owned enterprises. Those that were once unprofitable or not always controlled by our state. Now they work exactly as they should. And they give money to the state budget. These are tens of billions of hryvnias that strengthen Ukraine.

And one more thing.

Today, I had a meeting with the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council about the decisions made by the NSDC and the Staff and the planning of new ones.

Thank you to everyone who is enhancing Ukraine's capabilities - capabilities of our state, our industries, and our people. Thank you to everyone fighting for our independence.

Glory to Ukraine!

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Security Council debates weapon transfers to Ukraine

25 July 2024 - The transfer of arms to Ukraine was the focus of debate in the UN Security Council on Thursday in the latest meeting convened by Russia to address the issue.

Deputy UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, Adedeji Ebo, briefed ambassadors and also provided an update on casualty figures.

Mr. Ebo said that since the last briefing on 14 June, "the provision of military assistance and transfers of arms and ammunition to the armed forces of Ukraine has continued in the context of the full-scale invasion of that country, launched by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022, in violation of the UN Charter and international law."

According to publicly available information, the transfers have reportedly included heavy conventional weapons such as battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles and helicopters, as well as small arms and light weapons, anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions.

"In addition, there have been reports of States transferring, or planning to transfer, weapons such as uncrewed aerial vehicles, ballistic missiles and ammunition to the Russian armed forces and that these weapons have been used in Ukraine," he said.

Weapons and conflict escalation

He stressed that the influx of weapons and ammunition into areas where armed conflicts are occurring can contribute to escalation. It also presents significant risk of diversion and proliferation, even after the fighting has ended.

"Any transfer of weapons and ammunition must take place consistently with the applicable international legal framework, including of course, relevant Security Council resolutions," he said.

He told the Council that measures to address the risk of weapons diversion are key for preventing further instability and insecurity in Ukraine. They will also be crucial to post-conflict recovery.

He recalled that last month, countries met to review progress towards implementing the UN Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons and its International Tracing Instrument.

They also adopted, by consensus, measures to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons for the period through 2030.

He called for States to implement these and other related commitments, and their obligations under other instruments, to prevent the diversion of arms and regulate the international arms trade.

Casualties likely to be higher

Turning to casualties, Mr. Ebo said 11,430 people have been killed in Ukraine, and 23,228 injured, citing the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). However, the actual figures are likely to be much higher.

OHCHR also reported that 72 percent of civilian casualties in June occurred as a result of artillery shelling, multiple-launch rocket systems and aerial bombardments, while 26 per cent were caused by missile and loitering munitions strikes.

Furthermore, the number of casualties among children in June was the highest so far this year.

"The use of armed uncrewed aerial vehicles and missiles continues to cause civilian deaths and injuries as well as damage to civilian infrastructure," he said.

"In addition, there have also been reports of an increasing number of cross-borde strikes using missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles by Ukraine inside the Russian Federation, with some, according to the Russian authorities, reportedly resulting in civilian casualties."

Mr. Ebo urged all parties to armed conflict to refrain from actions that could endanger civilians.

He underlined that the UN will continue to work towards peace in Ukraine "in line with international law, including the UN Charter, and relevant General Assembly resolutions."



NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






'Western Weapons Not Cause of Senseless War' in Ukraine, Delegate Tells Security Council, stressing Kyiv's Right to Self-Defence under United Nations Charter

Meetings Coverage

Security Council

9693rd Meeting (AM)

SC/15778

25 July 2024



Russian Federation Wasting Organ's 'Precious Time, Resources' by Repeatedly Requesting Meetings on Ukraine, Representative Underlines

Supplying weapons to Ukraine is legitimate and in line with the Charter of the United Nations, as it will help that country defend itself against the Russian Federation's aggression, the Security Council heard today, as members presented diverging perspectives on the West's approach to achieving a just and lasting settlement to the war.

The United States "began its crusade against Russia" immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, said the representative of the Russian Federation, Council President for July, who spoke in his national capacity. After the anti-constitutional coup in 2014, "Ukraine became an outpost of this policy", he said, stating that Western colleagues continue to supply weapons and mercenaries to the Kyiv "regime".

His counterpart from the United States condemned the Russian Federation for continuing its brutal war against Ukraine, while calling out China, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Iran for their military assistance to Moscow. Beijing is exporting nitrocellulose, machine tools, microelectronics, optics and "UAV and cruise-missile technology" that are prolonging and enabling Moscow's violation of the Charter. He also spotlighted the "dangerous quid pro quo" evidenced by the recent alignment of Moscow and Pyongyang and cited credible reports suggesting that Moscow "plans to follow the same playbook with Tehran".

The representative of Malta was among those who highlighted Ukraine's right to self-defence in line with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. "Western weapons are not the cause of this senseless war, nor the reason for its prolongation," he said, adding: "If Russia had to withdraw from Ukraine today, the war would end today." Until that day comes, Ukraine has no alternative but to defend itself.

The speaker for Slovenia observed that "there is only one long-term security guarantee for everyone a strict application and respect for international law", declaring that her country will be "one of the first to man the barricades".

The Russian Federation "has wasted so much of the Council's precious time and resources" by repeatedly requesting meetings on Ukraine, said Japan's diplomat, rejecting the Kremlin's attempts to place itself a the aggressor a and its victims "on the same moral footing". Echoing such a view, the Republic of Korea's delegate said that, instead of examining the West's military assistance to Ukraine, "this Council should address, in depth, Russia's illegal weapons procurement from the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] and the worrying trend of enhanced military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow".

China had "no part" in creating this crisis, nor is it a party to the conflict, its representative said. Beijing has not provided lethal weaponry to any party to the conflict and will not do anything to profit from it. On the contrary, China pushes for a political solution to the conflict, he added.

Ukraine did not participate in today's meeting. In previous debates, its representative mentioned rule 20 of the Council's provisional rules of procedure, which refers to a situation where, if the Council President is directly connected to a question that is being addressed, that Council member should not preside and the presidential chair should move to the next member in alphabetical order.

At the outset of today's meeting, the Council heard a briefing by Adedeji Ebo, Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, who provided some updates on the continued provision of military assistance and transfers of arms and ammunition to the armed forces of Ukraine.

Also addressing the Council was Karin Kneissl, co-founder of the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia's Key Issues Center at the St. Petersburg University and former Federal Minister for European and International Affairs of Austria, who illustrated how "the weapons market built up by European tax money" in Central and Eastern Europe made "weapons travel as easily as crude oil".

THREATS TO INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY

Briefings

ADEDEJI EBO, Director and Deputy to the High Representative for Disarmament Affairs , delivered remarks on behalf of Izumi Nakamitsu, High Representative for Disarmament Affairs. He said that, since the last briefing on the same topic on 14 June, the provision of military assistance and transfers of arms and ammunition to the armed forces of Ukraine has continued in the context of the full-scale invasion of that country by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022, in violation of the Charter of the United Nations and international law. He expressed concern about civilian casualties caused by the use of cluster munitions and widespread contamination with mines and explosive remnants of war in Ukraine and called for universal participation in and the full implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, and the Convention on Cluster Munitions and the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons.

Preventing the diversion of arms and ammunition requires supply-chain transparency and cooperation and information exchange between importing, transit and exporting States, he said, noting that in June, States met to review progress made in the implementation of the Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons and its International Tracing Instrument. States adopted a by consensus a action-oriented measures for 2024-2030 to prevent, combat and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons throughout their life cycle. All States should now implement these and other related commitments, including those in the Global Framework for Through-life Conventional Ammunition Management, as well as the obligations under all instruments to which they are a party, such as the Arms Trade Treaty and the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, their Parts and Components and Ammunition.

According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 72 per cent of civilian casualties in June occurred because of artillery shelling, multiple-launch rocket systems and aerial bombardments, while 26 per cent were caused by missile and loitering munitions strikes. The number of casualties among children during that month is the highest in 2024. He went on to condemn the 8 July missile attacks by the Russian Federation hitting residential and civilian infrastructure across Ukraine, which reportedly killed dozens of civilians, including children, and injured over 150 more. The incidents in which missiles hit the Okhmatdyt National Children's Specialized Hospital in Kyiv, the largest paediatrics facility in Ukraine, and at another medical facility in the capital's Dniprovskyi district, "are particularly shocking".

In addition, he cited reports of an increasing number of cross-border strikes using missiles and uncrewed aerial vehicles by Ukraine inside the Russian Federation, with some, according to the Russian authorities, reportedly resulting in civilian casualties. "Just like any other weapons or weapons systems, armed uncrewed aerial vehicles and missiles must not be used in a manner inconsistent with international humanitarian law," he warned. All parties to an armed conflict should refrain from any actions that could endanger civilians, including by avoiding the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, and ultimately should aim to take combat out of urban areas altogether. The Organization will continue working towards a just and lasting peace in Ukraine in line with international law, including the Charter of the United Nations, and relevant General Assembly resolutions.

KARIN KNEISSL, analyst and former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Austria , focusing on "the weapons market built up by European tax money" in Central and Eastern Europe, said "weapons travel as easily as crude oil; truly global goods one can call them". Those from Brussels to Berlin asking for more arms to Ukraine ignore the nature of arms trading, she stressed, adding that the arms industry is no longer integrated into the State. The Hungarian Government is a lonesome voice in Europe asking to stop arms supplies to the war in Ukraine. According to Europol, there are 821 criminal networks with over 25,000 members across 27 European Union member States. The Ukrainian arms market might increase new sorts of business opportunities for these criminals, she cautioned.

She recalled that, in 2011, France eagerly pushed resolution 1973 (2011) to enable a no-fly zone in Libya. "What started as one of those many dubious humanitarian interventions within 48 hours turned into a regime change operation," she stated, noting that the killing fields in Libya were initiated by European politicians. The inflow of arms for the "good guys" in Benghazi spilled across the borders of Libya due to its solid assistance in containing migration from sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean. What followed was a lethal series of domino effects of brutal terrorism in North-West Africa. In addition to the Libyans the peoples of Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali paid a high price for the European arms deliveries. Unrest and terrorism spilled over from Libya to those Sahel countries and the weapons market found new channels across that region.

The adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty in 2013 marked a turning point in the international community's efforts to regulate global trade in conventional arms and to promote peace and security, she continued. With regards to the tremendous inflow of weapons into Ukraine, which started in 2014, the diplomatic consensus on a need to contain the global flow was quickly abandoned.

She further warned against the rise in terrorism and organized crime on European territory when all those small weapons and light arms in combination with war-experienced mercenaries return to their countries of origin. The European Union citizens who opted to join Da'esh in Syria in 2014 were considered terrorists for clear reasons and tried once back. However, those who joined the battlefield in Ukraine were encouraged by their respective Governments and never risked losing their citizenship for joining foreign armed forces or militias. "I do not see the war in Ukraine turning from a conventional into a non-conventional one," she said.

Statements

The representative of the Russian Federation , Council President for July, spoke in his national capacity to state that "we all know" that the United States "began its crusade against Russia immediately after the collapse of the USSR, masking its actions with well-intentioned speeches and appeals". And, after the anti-constitutional coup in 2014, "Ukraine became an outpost of this policy", he said, and that "friendly neighbouring country was gradually moulded into an anti-Russia". This all occurred under the cover of the Minsk agreements, which were used solely as a screen to arm Ukraine and prepare it for war with the Russian Federation. "It is clear that our Western colleagues are extremely reluctant to abandon this course," he said, as weapons supplies to the Kyiv "regime" continue. Meanwhile, given Ukrainians' "absolute unwillingness" to fight and die for Western geopolitical interests, the West has sent mercenaries and instructors, he emphasized.

"The consequences of the Ukraine crisis will not be overcome as long as the lies on which the Kyiv regime is based continue," he stressed, adding that these are fuelled and propagated by Kyiv's Western backers. He also said that the Ukrainian Armed Forces' situation is so "catastrophic" that recent days have seen several statements from the Kyiv regime, "who have hastily put on sheep's clothing and now claim that they are supposedly ready to engage in peace talks with Russia". This purported willingness to negotiate is in line with Moscow's position that a diplomatic path is the preferable way to resolve the Ukraine conflict, he said, adding that his country has never rejected negotiations. If Ukraine is "finally ready to talk about peace", he noted the peace proposal advanced by the President of the Russian Federation in June. "Ukraine will certainly not be offered anything better at this point, and there is absolutely no way it will get a break on the battlefield in the form of a preliminary ceasefire," he added.

The representative of Slovenia said that Ukraine is defending itself in line with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. Her country "sees its assistance to Ukraine not only as supporting the protection of its civilians against drones and missiles, but also as protecting the Charter against the erosion of its basic tenets", she said. Citing a bilateral security agreement signed last week, she said that "this solidifies Slovenia's support to Ukraine's self-defensive efforts and highlights Slovenia's commitment to humanitarian aid for Ukrainians". Moscow is reportedly replenishing its arsenal by importing missiles and artillery shells from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in violation of multiple Security Council resolutions. "There is only one long-term security guarantee for everyone a strict application and respect for international law," she insisted, adding that her country will be "one of the first to man the barricades".

The representative of Switzerland condemned Moscow's military aggression and rejected any attempt to evade responsibility for it. Over the past two weeks, Ukraine has once again been the victim of the Russian Federation's attacks, including on a children's hospital in Kyiv. On 24 July, other attacks in Kharkiv damaged the "Fondation suisse de dAminage" office, an important partner in the implementation of humanitarian demining. "This reminds us of the dangerous conditions in which humanitarian workers operate, including in the field of humanitarian demining a an essential prerequisite for the reconstruction of Ukraine," he stated. He also expressed deep concern that Moscow's military aggression appears to continue to be fuelled by transfers of arms and munitions from third parties a Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The representative of the United States observed that, earlier in July, the Russian Federation lectured the Council on multilateral cooperation even as it blatantly violated the Charter of the United Nations by continuing its brutal war against Ukraine, and "today, its hypocrisy is once again on full display" as it uses the Council as a platform to broadcast its disinformation. He went on to say that, despite its calls on countries not to prolong the conflict, China is exporting nitrocellulose, machine tools, microelectronics, optics and "UAV and cruise-missile technology" that are prolonging and enabling Moscow's violation of the Charter. Also spotlighting the "dangerous quid pro quo" evidenced by the recent alignment of Moscow and Pyongyang, he said the former shields the latter from Council scrutiny so long as it supplies arms for the Kremlin's war effort. And citing credible reports suggesting that Moscow "plans to follow the same playbook with Tehran", urged all countries to cease military cooperation with the Russian Federation and to halt materiel and political support, "which only pours fuel on the fire".

The representative of Guyana said that "the supply of weapons and ammunition in any armed conflict situation risks further escalating or prolonging the violence and presents a significant risk of their diversion to unauthorized end users". She urged all parties to ensure that the transfers are transparent, conducted within international legal frameworks, and have stringent provisions for controls to prevent their irregular transfer. As a State party to the Arms Trade Treaty and other instruments, her country encourages States not done so to accede to them. She then called on the Russian Federation to withdraw its military forces from the internationally recognized territory of Ukraine and encourage the international community to redouble its efforts towards lasting peace.

The representative of Algeria underscored that just and lasting peace is vital to end the conflict in Ukraine, noting the importance of considering the security interests of all relevant parties. The increased proliferation of weapons in conflict zones remains a source of deep concern, he observed, stressing that their influx will lead to further loss of life, prolongation of civilian suffering and additional hurdles undermining a diplomatic solution. Calling on all parties to refrain from the escalatory narratives and prioritize the protection of civilians, he underlined the need to alleviate the suffering of those affected by the conflict. He pointed out that the growing polarization will only lead to the escalation of tensions, noting the need to strengthen diplomatic efforts to bring about sustainable peace. To this end, Algeria will support any initiative aimed at maintaining international peace and security.

The representative of France , recalling that the Russian Federation recently invited Member States to the Council to discuss multilateral cooperation, noted that "several people were surprised at this initiative" because, at the same time, Moscow is "undermining the foundations of our multilateral system with its large-scale aggression against a sovereign State". Today, the Russian Federation has organized another meeting a "the seventeenth", he observed a "to accuse weapons deliveries to Ukraine of being responsible for a war that Russia alone unleashed". To achieve its ends, Moscow is ready to weaken the international non-proliferation architecture, receiving munitions from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and drones from Iran. He therefore urged all States to abstain from providing the Russian Federation with dual-use goods and components that could support its war of aggression. Adding that Ukraine has the right to defend itself under Article 51, he said: "Along with many partners, France has chosen to provide Ukraine with the means to exercise this right."

The representative of Sierra Leone said that the alarming civilian casualty figures and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine since the start of the conflict underscore the urgent need for all warring parties to prioritize the protection of civilians and refrain from pursuing winning the war on the battlefield. "Dialogue and diplomacy should be the primary tools employed to de-escalate tensions and pave the way for a peaceful resolution of the conflict," he stressed. All transfers of weapons in conflict situations should occur within the applicable international legal framework and relevant Council resolutions and include pre-transfer risk assessments and end-user verification to prevent the diversion of arms and ammunition.

The representative of Ecuador underscored that the transfer of arms and munition must adhere to the applicable international legal framework and relevant Council resolutions. Moreover, all States must carry out comprehensive risk assessments to prevent the diversion, illicit trafficking and misuse of weapons. "It is necessary to tighten the standards on marking, registration and traceability of arms and munition to avoid them reappearing elsewhere in the world, including Latin America, and to avoid them being misused by transnational organized armed groups or terrorists," he stated. Turning to the conflict in Ukraine, he cited "a persistent lack of true will" to participate in dialogue and make efforts to bring an end to military clashes. Noting that the hostilities are intensifying, with civilians bearing the brunt of the conflict, he stressed the need to protect all nuclear facilities in Ukraine.

The representative of Mozambique , while recognizing the sovereign right of "each and every country" to self-defence a "and to adopt the necessary measures to that end, including through arms supplies" a said: "If not carefully handled by the conflicting parties and their allies, arms transfers can have devastating consequences on both countries, in the region and the world at large." History teaches that massive arms supplies can aggravate insecurity and divert resources from critical areas of development. Underscoring, therefore, the importance of responsible arms transfers within the existing international legal framework, he said that this can enhance transparency, reduce uncertainty and promote strategic stability. He added, however, that such measures "should not be seen isolation", and must complement other necessary measures aimed at finding an agreeable solution. Against that backdrop, he urged a political and negotiated solution "as the only viable way to end this conflict and sustain peace".

The representative of the Republic of Korea emphasized that Ukraine is defending its people and territories in self-defence in line with Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. For this reason, today's meeting on the issue of weapons transfers to Ukraine is irrelevant. "Instead," he said, "this Council should address, in-depth, Russia's illegal weapons procurement from the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] and the worrying trend of enhanced military cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow," which violates multiple Council resolutions adopted unanimously in this Chamber. The two countries are now pursuing deepened military cooperation, which "poses a serious threat to international peace and security and undermines the global non-proliferation regime".

The representative of Malta emphasized that "Western weapons are not the cause of this senseless war, nor the reason for its prolongation". The Russian Federation's unrelenting aggression against its neighbour is the sole reason for this conflict, she said, adding: "If Russia had to withdraw from Ukraine today, the war would end today." Until that day comes, Ukraine has no alternative but to defend itself. In the areas it has temporarily occupied, Moscow has brought suffering, death and destruction, not peace. To allow that country to continue with these barbaric actions would be to reward an open act of aggression, she asserted, voicing concern over the intensified attacks affecting civilian population and infrastructure. The shelling against Kyiv and other urban centres on 8 July marked one of the worst days of violence against civilians in months, she added. Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation continues to deteriorate, causing the largest displacement in Kharkiv and the Donetsk regions, she said, adding that over 14.6 million people require some form of humanitarian assistance.

The representative of the United Kingdom , noting that Ukraine has rejected the Russian Federation's "vision for a world where States can change borders by force", underscored that his country's commitment to support Kyiv is "ironclad". He urged those present never to lose sight of the cost of "Putin's war of choice", adding that Moscow has become increasingly desperate to procure weapons to sustain its attacks on Ukraine. "It is absurd a but, frankly, no longer surprising a that Russia criticizes legitimate Western support for Ukraine's self-defence while it procures weapons from the DPRK in flagrant violation of Security Council resolutions that it supported," he said. Calling on third parties to immediately cease providing material support for Moscow's aggression, he stressed that it is for Ukraine to determine its position in any negotiation, as well as its democratic future. "Ukraine is a sovereign country, making sovereign decisions about the defence of its sovereign land, and the sooner Russia understands this, the better," he concluded.

The representative of Japan said that the Russian Federation "has wasted so much of the Council's precious time and resources" by repeatedly requesting meetings on Ukraine to merely "match the numbers". Today's briefing is no exception, she lamented, rejecting the Kremlin's attempts to place the violator of the Charter of the United Nations and its victims "on the same moral footing" and compare Moscow's actions with Kyiv's legitimate defence against aggression. In August, Ukraine will commemorate its Independence Day. As a friend and partner, her country unequivocally supports Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The representative of China said that, in Ukraine's protracted crisis, civilians are the ones who suffer the most. The continued flow of weapons and ammunition into the battlefield will only further aggravate the conflict and deepen its unpredictability, resulting in more innocent casualties while diminishing the prospect of a peaceful solution. It is in the best interest of the parties involved to seek a political settlement, he said, calling for de-escalation. The parties to the conflict must signal their willingness to negotiate and start peace talks as soon as possible, he asserted, calling on the international community to provide assistance to this end. He further emphasized that China had no part in creating this crisis, nor is it a party to the conflict. It has not provided lethal weaponry to any party to the conflict and will not do anything to profit from it. On the contrary, China pushes for a political solution to the conflict, he added.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Russian drones attack Ukraine's Izmail port for second consecutive day

By VOA News July 25, 2024

Officials in Ukraine's Odesa region said Thursday that Russian drones attacked the southern port city of Izmail for a second consecutive night, destroying an administrative building and injuring two people inside a house.

The attacks were part of a wave of 38 drones that Russia launched overnight, the Ukrainian air force said.

Three of the drones crossed into neighboring Romania, Ukraine's military said.

Following Russian drone attacks on Izmail the previous night, the Romanian National Defense Ministry said Wednesday it boosted its airspace surveillance measures, including the use of two F-16 fighter jets to monitor the situation.

The NATO ally reported that debris from a Russian drone was found on Romanian soil on Thursday in an uninhabited area. A NATO spokesperson said that there is no evidence of an intentional Russian attack against Romania, but that "these acts are irresponsible and potentially dangerous."

Reports of drone fragments on Romanian territory have occurred multiple times since Russia's invasion of the country in February 2022.

Ukraine's military said Thursday the country's air defenses shot down 25 of the 38 Russian drones, with intercepts taking place over the Cherkasy, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy and Zhytomyr regions.

Oleksandr Prokudin, the governor of Kherson, said on Telegram a Russian drone killed at least one person.

Zhytomyr Governor Vitaliy Bunechko said falling debris from destroyed drones damaged 10 houses and an infrastructure facility.

The head of Kyiv's military administration, Serhiy Popko, said many drones attacked the capital region from multiple directions, but air defenses shot them all down.

Russia's Defense Ministry said Thursday it destroyed 11 Ukrainian aerial drones over Kursk, Belgorod and Russia-occupied Crimea. Russian defenses also destroyed two uncrewed boats that were traveling toward Crimea, the ministry said.

Kursk Governor Alexey Smirnov reported one person was injured after falling debris set fire to a home.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Ukrainian drone attacks damaged a home and a bus.

Officials in the Kaluga region in western Russia said Thursday an MI-28 military helicopter crashed, killing the pilots on board.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address






Sydney, Australia, July 25, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Event Details

Global Game Changers: The Big Carbon Rethink

Thursday 8 August

6:00pm (Sydney Time)

F2F in the UTS Great Hall or online livestream via Zoom

Register now

When we measure carbon footprints, certain large industries capture much public scrutiny, including energy, iron and steel production, transportation, and construction.

But theres another less obvious sector that has significant environmental impact. Households  representing the average consumer buying everyday things like phones, clothes, furniture, computers, and toys  according to the International Society of Industry Ecology account for more that 60% of global emissions.

While the complexities of this sector have proven difficult for governments to tackle, specialised individuals are stepping up to the challenge. Professor Peter Ralph from the Faculty of Science at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is one example. He says, Im a research scientist by background, but my goal is to use science to help all industries decarbonise.

Professor Ralphs research uses algae to remove carbon from the atmosphere and integrates it into industrial production processes. Effectively, he explains, Im remaking the things people want and need using net zero technologies.

Achieving net-zero in the world of manufacturing is the next topic of discussion in the UTS Global Game Changers series, entitled The Big Carbon Rethink.

On 8 August, Professor Ralph will sit down with Vice President of Manufacturing at global technology conglomerate, Siemens, Dr Gunter Beitinger; co-founder of innovative plastics-alternative company Uluu, Dr Julia Reisser; director of brand and marketing at iconic Australian swimwear group Piping Hot, Amy Low; and fellow UTS researcher and marine ecologist, Dr Alex Thomson.

With well-known ABC War on Waste host, Craig Reucassel, leading the conversation, discussants will examine factors driving consumer behaviour and enabling companies to transition to net zero.

We recognise, says Piping Hots Amy Low, that a successful transition is as much about creating a sense of value in the product as it is about eliminating emissions in the production process. Industry structures and the way we consume products both need to change.

In pursuit of the most innovative and sustainable outcomes, Piping Hot Australia has commissioned the UTS research collective directed by Professor Ralph  The Climate Change Cluster (C3)  to develop a new biomaterial derived from algae that can sequester carbon from the ocean and reduce the environmental impact of synthetic fibres.

To produce Piping Hots environmentally sustainable and popular consumer products, experts representing business, technology, design, and science have gathered. Were dealing with complex problems, and the best way we can approach them, says UTS C3s Manager of Industry Engagement, Dr Alex Thomson, is through large cross-disciplinary teams.

Dr Gunter Beitinger concurs saying, Due to my different roles and tasks at Siemens, the Estainium Association, and as a member of the World Economic Forum, I have had the opportunity to listen to many interest groups to understand them better. What I have seen when it comes to carbon emissions is that the only way to make a powerful impact is if governments, private sectors, independent organisations, and academia work together and collaborate.

Innovative Western Australian company, Uluu, co-founded by Dr Julia Reisser, is another example of scientists applying their expertise in the world of business. An oceanographer who specialised in ocean plastic pollution, Dr Reisser was one of the early founding members of The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch not-for-profit developing technology to remove plastic from the seas. Determined to do more than simply tackle the symptoms of plastic pollution, Dr Reisser examined the market saw that unlike renewable energy, there were no persuasive alternatives to plastics made from fossil fuels. So, she says, I decided to try to produce a material that acts like plastic but is made from seaweed.

Uluus breakthrough product is as innovative as it is sustainable. It can be generated as a rigid substance  think furniture, consumer electronics, and car interiors  and in more flexible forms  think films, foams, and coatings. Its versatility and nature-based durability has caught the attention UTS scientists. UTS and Uluu are now looking forward to an exchange of research ideas.

Professor Ralph and Dr Reisser support collaborative discovery science, which explains Reisser broadens our knowledge and has the potential to be transformational. Professor Ralph adds, We both recognise the need for translational R&D, which takes fundamental science and finds a place for it in the market, so UTS and Uluu working together makes sense.

Even the most challenging of problems seems within reach when expert collaborations come into effect. Take for example Scope 3 emissions. Notoriously tricky to measure and track, Siemens has developed a process to query, calculate, and transfer Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) data along the supply chain and combine this with a companys own carbon emissions data. Siemens cross-industry Estainium network, explains Dr Beitinger, is linking up manufacturers, suppliers, customers, and others in the supply chain to exchange the whole picture PCF information set.

Professor Ralph explains, Once a manufacturer knows which components of its product have the highest embodied carbon, they can look to source lower carbon equivalents and reduce the PCF. In general, we need more visibility of green feedstocks, and sector-wide awareness, not just the more progressive companies. Its a global project that impacts everyone.

The upcoming Global Game Changers  the Big Carbon Rethink is one step towards broader public engagement. Join the conversation.

Expert UTS Contacts:

Professor Peter Ralph, Director of the UTS Climate Change Cluster, email Peter.Ralph@uts.edu.au

Dr Alex Thomson, Industry Engagement Manager of the UTS Climate Change Cluster, email alexandra.thomson@uts.edu.au and mobile +61 (0) 482 164 796

Attachment
NEWARK, Del, July 25, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global residential and commercial smart glass market size is projected to be valued at USD 58248.1 million in 2024 and further increase at a CAGR of 12.4% during the forecast period. Worldwide sales of residential and commercial smart glasses are set to total USD 187475.7 million by 2034.



Smart glass technologies, including voice assistants, self-cleaning properties, and improved energy efficiency, are gaining popularity due to climate change concerns and green building initiatives. Governments are offering tax breaks and incentives for incorporating smart glass technologies in construction projects. As businesses and homeowners become aware of their benefits, they are adopting smart glasses in their homes and construction projects.

As technology advances, smart glasses are expected to become affordable and attractive for various applications. They also enhance the architectural appeal of residential and commercial buildings by providing privacy control without compromising natural light. However, higher initial costs and the need for additional demonstrations are hindering their wider adoption.

Request Your Sample Report Now! https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-473

Key Takeaways from the Market Report:

The global residential and commercial smart glass market is set to reach USD 187475.7 million by 2034, with a CAGR of 12.4% in the forecast period.

by 2034, with a CAGR of in the forecast period. Based on technology type, the electrochromic segment accounted for a market share of 39.4% in 2024.

in 2024. By end-user, the residential segment is leading with a market share of 54.8% in 2024.

in 2024. India is anticipated to record a CAGR of 18.4% between 2024 and 2034.

between 2024 and 2034. Sales in China are predicted to rise at a CAGR of 13.8% through 2034.



Consumers are increasingly demanding smart glasses to fulfill the luxurious appeal of their homes. Manufacturers are targeting specialized markets for smart glasses beyond their conventional uses, Says Nikhil Kaitwade, Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights (FMI).

Who is Winning?

Key players in the smart glass industry, including Gentex Corporation, Asahi India Glass Limited, Glass Apps, LLC, and Kinestral Technologies, Inc., are developing customizable smart glass solutions with features like tint adjustment, integration with smart home systems, and self-cleaning properties. They are investing in research and development to create cost-competitive materials, such as electrochromic or suspended particle display technologies.

They are also innovating for voice control, improved user experience, and automated adjustments based on environmental conditions. They are targeting specialized markets like smart shower enclosures, skylights, commercial space partitions, and greenhouses to diversify consumer categories and generate additional revenue. They are also optimizing production procedures and exploring substitute materials to reduce costs.

Industry Updates-

Zeiss , headquartered in Oberkochen, in January 2024 showcased its Multifunctional Smart Glass Technology that can float holographic and AR content on transparent surfaces.

, headquartered in Oberkochen, in January 2024 showcased its that can float holographic and AR content on transparent surfaces. Panasonic, headquartered in Osaka, in September 2023 developed photovoltaic glass with perovskite for power-generating windows with solar cells that can convert the facade into a renewable energy source.

Get in Touch with Our Sales Team to Secure Your Copy of the Report Now! https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/checkout/473

Leading Residential and Commercial Smart Glass Brands

Gentex Corporation

Asahi India Glass Limited

Glass Apps, LLC

Kinestral Technologies, Inc.

NODIS Pte Ltd.

Polytronix, Inc.

RavenBrick LLC

Scienstry Inc.

Smart Glass Technologies Inc.

ToughGlaze (UK) Ltd

Key Segments of Market Report:

By Technology Type:

Based on technology type, the sector is divided into electrochromic, thermochromic, and photochromic.

By End-use:

By end-use, the sector is segmented into residential and commercial. The residential segment is further divided into smart windows and doors, smart glass partitions, smart shower glass, and smart glass walls. The commercial category is segregated into commercial buildings, automobiles, aircraft, marine, consumer electronics, and others.

By Region:

The sector is spread across North America, Latin America, Western Europe, South Asia, East Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and Africa.

Authored By

Nikhil Kaitwade (Associate Vice President at Future Market Insights, Inc.) has over a decade of experience in market research and business consulting. He has successfully delivered 1500+ client assignments, predominantly in Automotive, Chemicals, Industrial Equipment, Oil & Gas, and Service industries.

His core competency circles around developing research methodology, creating a unique analysis framework, statistical data models for pricing analysis, competition mapping, and market feasibility analysis. His expertise also extends wide and beyond analysis, advising clients on identifying growth potential in established and niche market segments, investment/divestment decisions, and market entry decision-making.

Nikhil holds an MBA degree in Marketing and IT and a Graduate in Mechanical Engineering. Nikhil has authored several publications and quoted in journals like EMS Now, EPR Magazine, and EE Times.

Have a Look at Related Research Reports of Chemicals & Materials

The global glass additive market size is estimated to be around USD 1.5 billion in 2024 and is anticipated to reach a value of USD 2.3 billion by 2034. Sales are projected to report a CAGR of 4.4% over the forecast period.

The global antimicrobial glass powder market size is projected to reach USD 7,702.0 million by 2034, up from USD 2,827.6 million in 2024. Global sales of antimicrobial glass powders will likely soar at 10.6% CAGR during the assessment period.

Sales of glass substrates are envisioned to evolve at a steady 5.9% CAGR between 2024 and 2034. The glass substrate market size is predicted to attain a valuation of USD 4.2 billion by 2034.

Asia Pacific flexible glass market value is projected to reach USD 612.7 million by 2020 at an estimated CAGR of 36.5% during the forecast period.

Global flat glass demand is anticipated to be valued at USD 5.3 Billion in 2022, forecast to grow at a CAGR of 5.2% to be valued at USD 8.8 Billion from 2022 to 2032.

The global silica sand for glass making market is expected to be valued at USD 5.7 billion in 2023. As per the research, the market is expected to register a CAGR of 4.1% between 2023 and 2033. The valuation is projected to cross USD 8.5 billion by 2033.

The Europe silica sand for glass making market size is estimated to attain a valuation of USD 1,654.9 million by 2033. The market is predicted to thrive at a CAGR of 4.1% from 2023 to 2033.

The glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites market is predicted to capture a valuation of USD 18.54 billion in 2023, and is rising to USD 41.53 billion by 2033. The market is estimated at a CAGR of 8.4% during the forecast period.

The fiberglass market is currently showing a CAGR of 5.30% for the next decade, it is highly likely to reach a whopping USD 19,028.50 million by 2034.

Global Non-Woven Glass Fiber Prepreg market is relishing a market valuation of USD 901.7 Million in 2022 and is all set to expand with a CAGR of 6.90% during the 2022 to 2032 period. The market is anticipated to top a valuation of USD 1,757.3 Million by the end of the forecast period.

About Future Market Insights (FMI)

Future Market Insights, Inc. (ESOMAR certified, recipient of the Stevie Award, and a member of the Greater New York Chamber of Commerce) offers profound insights into the driving factors that are boosting demand in the market. FMI stands as the leading global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, consulting, and events for the Packaging, Food and Beverage, Consumer Technology, Healthcare, Industrial, and Chemicals markets. With a vast team of ~400 analysts worldwide, FMI provides global, regional, and local expertise on diverse domains and industry trends across more than 110 countries.

Contact Us:

Future Market Insights Inc.

Christiana Corporate, 200 Continental Drive,

Suite 401, Newark, Delaware - 19713, USA

T: +1-845-579-5705

For Sales Enquiries: sales@futuremarketinsights.com

Website: https://www.futuremarketinsights.com

LinkedIn| Twitter| Blogs | YouTube
WASHINGTON, July 26, 2024  Boar's Head Provisions Co., Inc., a Jarratt, Va., establishment, is recalling all liverwurst product produced by the establishment that is currently available in commerce because it may be adulterated with Listeria monocytogenes, the U.S. Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today. The company is also recalling additional deli meat products that were produced on the same line and on the same day as the liverwurst and, therefore, may be adulterated with L. monocytogenes. The company is recalling approximately 207,528 pounds of products.







The ready-to-eat liverwurst products were produced between June 11, 2024, and July 17, 2024, and have a 44-day shelf life. The following liverwurst products are subject to recall [view labels]:





3.5-lb. loaves in plastic casing, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Strassburger Brand Liverwurst MADE IN VIRGINIA. The products shipped to retailers bear sell by dates ranging July 25, 2024, to Aug. 30, 2024, printed on the side of the packaging.



The other ready-to-eat deli meat products were produced on June 27, 2024. The following deli meat products are subject to recall:







9.5-lb. and 4.5-lb. full product, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head VIRGINIA HAM OLD FASHIONED HAM with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

4-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

6-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head EXTRA HOT ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

4-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head BOLOGNA with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

2.5-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head BEEF SALAMI with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

5.5-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head STEAKHOUSE ROASTED BACON HEAT & EAT with sell by date AUG 15 on the product packaging.

3-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head GARLIC BOLOGNA with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

3-lb., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head BEEF BOLOGNA with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

The products subject to recall were distributed to retail deli locations nationwide. The products shipped to deli retailers bear establishment number EST. 12612 inside the USDA mark of inspection on the product labels.







The problem was discovered when FSIS was notified that a sample collected by the Maryland Department of Health tested positive for L. monocytogenes. The Maryland Department of Health, in collaboration with the Baltimore City Health Department, collected an unopened liverwurst product from a retail store for testing as part of an outbreak investigation of L. monocytogenes infections. Further testing is ongoing to determine if the product sample is related to the outbreak. Anyone concerned about illness should contact a healthcare provider.







FSIS is working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state public health partners to investigate the multistate outbreak of L. monocytogenes infections linked to meats sliced at delis. As of July 25, 2024, 34 sick people have been identified in 13 states, including 33 hospitalizations and two deaths. Samples were collected from sick people from May 29, 2024, to July 12, 2024. Additional information may be found on the CDC investigation notice, Listeria Outbreak Linked to Meats Sliced at Delis. The investigation is ongoing, and FSIS continues to work with the CDC and state partners.







Consumption of food contaminated with L. monocytogenes can cause listeriosis, a serious infection that primarily affects people who are pregnant, aged 65 or older, or with weakened immune systems. Less commonly, persons outside these risk groups are affected.







Listeriosis can cause fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms. An invasive infection spreads beyond the gastrointestinal tract. In people who are pregnant, the infection can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, premature delivery or life-threatening infection of the newborn. In addition, serious and sometimes fatal infections can occur in older adults and persons with weakened immune systems. Listeriosis is treated with antibiotics. Persons in the higher-risk categories who experience flu-like symptoms within two months after eating contaminated food should seek medical care and tell the health care provider about eating the contaminated food.







FSIS is concerned that some product may be in consumers refrigerators and in retail deli cases. Consumers who have purchased these products are urged not to consume them and retailers are urged not to sell these products with the referenced sell by dates. These products should be thrown away or returned to the place of purchase. Consumers who have purchased these products are also urged to clean refrigerators thoroughly to prevent the risk of cross-contamination.







FSIS recommends retail delis clean and sanitize all food and non-food surfaces and discard any open meats and cheeses in the deli. Retailers may refer to FSIS guideline, Best Practices Guidance for Controlling Listeria monocytogenes in Retail Delicatessens, for information on steps to prevent certain ready-to-eat foods that are prepared or sliced in retail delis and consumed in the home, such as deli meats and deli salads, from becoming contaminated with L. monocytogenes.







FSIS routinely conducts recall effectiveness checks to verify recalling firms notify their customers of the recall and that steps are taken to make certain that the product is no longer available to consumers. When available, the retail distribution list(s) will be posted on the FSIS website at www.fsis.usda.gov/recalls.







Consumers with questions regarding the recall can contact Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc., Customer Service at 1-800-352-6277. Media with questions can contact Elizabeth Ward, Vice President of Communications, Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc., at media@boarshead.com.







Consumers with food safety questions can call the toll-free USDA Meat and Poultry Hotline at 888-MPHotline (888-674-6854) or send a question via email to MPHotline@usda.gov. For consumers that need to report a problem with a meat, poultry, or egg product, the online Electronic Consumer Complaint Monitoring System can be accessed 24 hours a day at https://foodcomplaint.fsis.usda.gov/eCCF/.




Meudon (France), July 26th, 2024

Vallourec, a world leader in premium tubular solutions, announces today its results for the second quarter 2024. The Board of Directors of Vallourec SA, meeting on July 25th 2024, approved the Group's second quarter 2024 Consolidated Financial Statements.

Second Quarter 2024 Results

Q2 2024 EBITDA of 215m was moderately down sequentially, as expected

Q2 2024 results reflect strong QoQ recovery in international Tubes volumes, more than offset by weaker US Tubes prices and volumes

Several significant initiatives underway to realize full earnings potential in Brazil

International OCTG demand remains at a healthy level and pricing remains strong

Net debt reduction remains ahead of plan; further reduced to 364 million

Expect further total cash generation in H2 2024, to be allocated predominantly to shareholder returns in 2025 at the latesta

HIGHLIGHTS

Second Quarter 2024 Results

Group EBITDA of 215 million (down 20m QoQ) with EBITDA margin of 20% Tubes EBITDA per tonne of 599, above 550 for the seventh straight quarter despite reduced US pricing Tubes EBITDA of 210 million down 4% sequentially and 36% year over year Mine & Forest EBITDA of 15 million down 49% sequentially and 69% year over year due to lower realized prices and lower volumes year over year

Adjusted free cash flow 81 million; total cash generation 41 million

Deleveraging remains ahead of plan: net debt declined 121 million sequentially to 364 million

Third Quarter 2024 Outlookb

Group EBITDA to decline versus Q2 due to lower overall Tubes volumes and reduced US Tubes pricing

Expect positive total cash generation and further net debt reduction versus the Q2 2024 level

Full Year 2024 Outlook

Group EBITDA expected to range between 800  850 million due to lower US prices

Expect positive total cash generation and further net debt reduction versus the Q2 2024 level

Philippe Guillemot, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer, declared:

Our second-quarter results continued to reflect Vallourecs significant transformation into a more profitable, resilient and cash-generative company. Our Tubes EBITDA margin exceeded 20% for the fifth time in the last six quarters despite significantly weaker market conditions in the US versus early 2023. In addition, our total cash generation was positive for the seventh consecutive quarter, enabling us to remain ahead of plan in terms of net debt reduction.

We are convinced that there remain significant opportunities to improve our Tubes returns independent of overall OCTG market conditions. In particular, we have several initiatives underway to drive our Brazilian Tubes operations towards best-in-class levels of efficiency and profitability. Today, we announce our plan to close our oldest rolling mill, the Barreiro Plug millc, which will save on cost and capex without sacrificing future volume upside. We are further reducing operating complexity and costs at our remaining operations with the goal of improving Brazilian Tubes cost per tonne by over 150 by year-end 2025. We also believe that this asset base retains the potential to deliver over 100,000 tonnes of incremental premium volume as we capitalize on future demand and improve our production efficiency. d

Also in Brazil, we recently announced that we have obtained the necessary approvals from the state environmental authority (COPAM) and federal mining regulator (ANM) to progress the mines Phase 1 extension project. This project, expected to start in late 2024, will extend the iron ore mines life, improve its reserve quality, and enhance its profitability. We also are engaging with the relevant parties to progress the Phase 2 extension, which is still slated for startup in 2027.

International OCTG market dynamics remain strong. Over the past several months, Vallourec has been awarded several contracts in the Middle East, Brazil and Africa to deliver premium tubular solutions to top global customers over the coming years. Additionally, customer tendering activity remains high, and we are confident in our ability to win attractive new business in the coming months. Our pricing for new orders remains at a healthy level, in line with strong global drilling activity levels.

In the US market, OCTG prices have remained pressured by weaker than expected demand in 2024. We have remained disciplined in our pricing strategy and have taken action to offset these price headwinds via reduced staffing and sourcing costs. We see medium-term upside to demand as operators seek to maintain their currently-high level of oil and gas production in the years ahead.

With our balance sheet refinancing completed and our net debt level now within our target leverage range, we are in a resilient position for any market environment. We expect further total cash generation in the second half of 2024, which will be predominantly allocated to shareholder returns in 2025 at the latest. e

Key Quarterly Data









in  million, unless noted Q2 2024 Q1 2024 Q2 2023 QoQ chg. YoY chg. Tubes volume sold (k tonnes) 351 292 396 59 (46) Iron ore volume sold (m tonnes) 1.4 1.4 1.9 0.0 (0.5) Group revenues 1,085 990 1,358 95 (273) Group EBITDA 215 235 374 (20) (159) (as a % of revenue) 19.8% 23.7% 27.5% (3.9) pp (7.7) pp Operating income (loss) 100 174 258 (74) (158) Net income, Group share 111 105 159 6 (48) Adj. free cash flow 81 172 174 (91) (93) Total cash generation 41 102 118 (61) (77) Net debt 364 485 868 (121) (504)

CONSOLIDATED RESULTS ANALYSIS





Second Quarter Results Analysis

In Q2 2024, Vallourec recorded revenues of 1,085 million, down (20%) year over year, which was also (20%) at constant exchange rates. The decrease in Group revenues reflects:

(12%) volume decrease mainly driven by the closure of the European rolling mills and decreased volume sold in North America

(7%) price/mix effect

(1%) Mine & Forest effect

(0.3%) currency effect

EBITDA amounted to 215 million, or 19.8% of revenues, compared to 374 million (27.5% of revenues) in Q2 2023. The decrease was largely driven by lower average selling prices in Tubes in North America, partially offset by improved Tubes results outside of North America due to higher market pricing and the benefits of the New Vallourec plan.

Operating income was 100 million, compared to 258 million in Q2 2023. Operating income was burdened by (65) million of asset disposals, restructuring costs and non-recurring items, largely due to costs related to the closure of Vallourecs German operations.

Financial income (loss) was positive at 57 million, compared to (24) million in Q2 2023. Net interest income in Q2 2024 was 37 million compared to (28) million in Q2 2023. Vallourecs balance sheet refinancing had a net positive impact of approximately 70 million mainly related to the reversal of fair value accounting on the 2026 senior notes and State-guaranteed loan (PGE), of which 44 million impacted interest income.

Income tax amounted to (40) million compared to (70) million in Q2 2023.

This resulted in positive net income, Group share, of 111 million, compared to 159 million in Q2 2023.

Earnings per diluted share was 0.46 versus 0.67 in Q2 2023, reflecting the above changes in net income as well as an increase in potentially dilutive shares largely related to the Companys outstanding warrants, which are accounted for using the treasury share method.

First Half Results Analysis

In H1 2024, Vallourec recorded revenues of 2,075 million, down (23%) year over year, which was also (23%) at constant exchange rates. The decrease in Group revenues reflects:

(22%) volume decrease mainly driven by the decrease in Industry volumes following the closure of the European rolling mills and by lower volumes in Oil & Gas Tubes in North America

0.4% price/mix effect

(1%) Mine and Forest effect

(0.1%) currency effect

EBITDA amounted to 450 million, or 21.7% of revenues, compared to 694 million (25.7% of revenues) in H1 2023. The decrease was largely driven by lower average selling prices in Tubes in North America, partly offset by improved Tubes results outside of North America due to higher market pricing and the benefits of the New Vallourec plan.

Operating income was 273 million, compared to 514 million in H1 2023. Operating income was burdened by (77) million of asset disposals, restructuring costs and non-recurring items, largely due to costs related to the closure of Vallourecs German operations.

Financial income (loss) was positive at 37 million, compared to (70) million in H1 2023. Net interest income in H1 2024 was 23 million compared to (54) million in H1 2023. Vallourecs balance sheet refinancing had a net positive impact of approximately 70 million mainly related to the reversal of fair value accounting on the 2026 senior notes and State-guaranteed loan (PGE), of which 44 million impacted interest income.

Income tax amounted to (86) million compared to (123) million in H1 2023.

This resulted in positive net income, Group share, of 216 million, compared to 315 million in H1 2023.

Earnings per diluted share was 0.90 versus 1.34 in H1 2023, reflecting the above changes in net income as well as an increase in potentially dilutive shares largely related to the Companys outstanding warrants, which are accounted for using the treasury share method.

RESULTS ANALYSIS BY SEGMENT

Second Quarter Results Analysis

Tubes: In Q2 2024, Tubes revenues were down 19% year over year due to an 11% reduction in volume sold and a 9% decrease in average selling price. This decrease in volumes was largely attributable to the closure of Vallourecs German rolling operations as a result of the New Vallourec plan and decreased shipments in North America. Tubes EBITDA decreased from 330 million in Q2 2023 to 210 million Q2 2024 due to lower profitability in North America offset by improvements in the rest of the world due to higher market pricing and the benefits of the New Vallourec plan.

Mine & Forest: In Q2 2024, iron ore production sold was 1.4 million tonnes, a decrease of 0.5 million tonnes year over year. In Q2 2024, Mine & Forest EBITDA reached 15 million, versus 50 million in Q2 2023, reflecting lower sales volumes, realized price, and non-cash forest fair value revaluation effects and higher costs.

First Half Results Analysis

Tubes: In H1 2024, Tubes revenues were down 23% year over year due to a 22% reduction in volume sold. This decrease in shipments was largely attributable to the closure of Vallourecs German rolling operations as a result of the New Vallourec plan and decreased volume sold in North America. Tubes EBITDA decreased from 609 million in H1 2023 to 430 million H1 2024 due to a decrease in profitability in North America offset by improvement in the rest of the world due to higher market pricing and the benefits of the New Vallourec plan.

Mine & Forest: In H1 2024, iron ore production sold was 2.8 million tonnes, decreasing by 0.6 million tonnes year over year. In H1 2024, Mine & Forest EBITDA reached 46 million, versus 98 million in H1 2023, largely reflecting lower sales volumes, realized price, and non-cash forest fair value revaluation effects and higher costs.

CASH FLOW AND FINANCIAL POSITION

Second Quarter Cash Flow Analysis

In Q2 2024, adjusted operating cash flow was 96 million versus 232 million in Q2 2023. The decrease was attributable to lower EBITDA. Financial cash out in the period included approximately (10) million of one-time costs related to the balance sheet refinancing.

Adjusted free cash flow was 81 million, versus 174 million in Q2 2023. Lower adjusted operating cash flow was partially offset by reduced capex versus the prior year period.

Total cash generation in Q2 2024 was 41 million, versus 118 million in Q2 2023. The decrease was attributable to lower adjusted free cash flow as well as higher restructuring charges and non-recurring items.

First Half Cash Flow Analysis

In H1 2024, adjusted operating cash flow was 330 million versus 531 million in H1 2023. The decrease was attributable to lower EBITDA, partly offset by reduced financial cash out. Financial cash out in the period included approximately (10) million of one-time costs related to the balance sheet refinancing.

Adjusted free cash flow was 253 million, versus 368 million in H1 2023. Lower adjusted operating cash flow was partially offset by a release in working capital and lower capex versus the prior year period.

Total cash generation in H1 2024 was 143 million, versus 269 million in H1 2023. The decrease was attributable to lower adjusted free cash flow as well as higher restructuring charges and non-recurring items.

Net Debt and Liquidity

As of June 30, 2024, net debtf stood at 364 million, a significant decrease compared to 868 million on June 30, 2023. Gross debt was 1,082 million, down from 1,724 million on June 30, 2023. Long-term debt was 772 million and short-term debt totaled 310 million. There were 80m of non-cash reductions to net debt in Q2, which included 44 million of fair value adjustments related to the April balance sheet refinancing.

As of June 30, 2024, the liquidity position was very strong at 1,498 million, with 720 million of cash, availability on our revolving credit facility (RCF) of 550 million, and availability on an asset-backed lending facility (ABL) of 228 milliong. Both liquidity facilities were upsized and extended in Vallourecs April balance sheet refinancing.

THIRD QUARTER AND FULL YEAR 2024 OUTLOOKH

In the third quarter of 2024, based on our assumptions and current market conditions, Vallourec expects:

Group EBITDA to decline versus Q2, with: Tubes volumes to decrease sequentially driven by lower US volumes and a Q4-weighted international shipment schedule US Tubes prices to be lower in Q3 versus Q2 Iron ore production sold to increase sequentially

Total cash generation to be positive and net debt to further decline versus the Q2 2024 level





For the full year 2024, based on our assumptions and current market conditions, Vallourec expects:

Group EBITDA to range between 800  850 million, driven by: A persistently strong international Tubes market environment, more than offset by lower US Tubes demand and pricing Iron ore production sold of approximately 6 million tonnes, leading to full year EBITDA of approximately 100 million i

Deleveraging to remain ahead of schedule with positive total cash generation positive and further net debt reduction versus the Q2 2024 level

Key items affecting Vallourecs cash flow in 2024 are as follows:

Financial cash out is expected to be approximately (100) million

Tax payments are expected to reflect a low-to-mid 20% cash tax rate relative to reported pre-tax income, down from the previous expectation of a mid-to-high 20% cash tax rate relative to reported pre-tax income

Capital expenditures are expected to be less than (200) million, down from the previous expectation of approximately (200) million

Restructuring charges and non-recurring items are expected to represent a net cash use of approximately (250) million. This estimate has increased from a previous estimate of a (200) million cash use and includes offsetting proceeds from minor equipment sales, changes in cash collateral and other cash items. j

The potential positive impact of major asset sales continues to be excluded from any cash flow or net debt outlook.





Accounting for the above factors, we expect positive total cash generation in the second half of 2024, allowing us to remain ahead of schedule in our net debt reduction plan.

Information and Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology, including the terms as believe, expect, anticipate, may, assume, plan, intend, will, should, estimate, risk and or, in each case, their negative, or other variations or comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements include all matters that are not historical facts and include statements regarding the Companys intentions, beliefs or current expectations concerning, among other things, Vallourecs results of operations, financial condition, liquidity, prospects, growth, strategies and the industries in which they operate. Readers are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and that Vallourecs or any of its affiliates actual results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and the development of the industries in which they operate may differ materially from those made in or suggested by the forward-looking statements contained in this presentation. In addition, even if Vallourecs or any of its affiliates results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and the development of the industries in which they operate are consistent with the forward-looking statements contained in this presentation, those results or developments may not be indicative of results or developments in subsequent periods. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. These risks include those developed or identified in the public documents filed by Vallourec with the French Financial Markets Authority (Autorite des marches financiers, or AMF), including those listed in the Risk Factors section of the Universal Registration Document filed with the AMF on March 14, 2024, under filing number n D. 24-0113.

Accordingly, readers of this document are cautioned against relying on these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this document. Vallourec disclaims any intention or obligation to complete, update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable laws and regulations. This press release does not constitute any offer to purchase or exchange, nor any solicitation of an offer to sell or exchange securities of Vallourec. or further information, please refer to the website https://www.vallourec.com/en .

Presentation of Q2 2024 Results

Conference call / audio webcast on July 26th at 9:30 am CET

To listen to the audio webcast: https://channel.royalcast.com/landingpage/vallourec-en/20240726_1/





To participate in the conference call, please dial (password: Vallourec):



+44 (0) 33 0551 0200 (UK) +33 (0) 1 7037 7166 (France) +1 786 697 3501 (USA)



Audio webcast replay and slides will be available at:





https://www.vallourec.com/en/investors

About Vallourec

Vallourec is a world leader in premium tubular solutions for the energy markets and for demanding industrial applications such as oil & gas wells in harsh environments, new generation power plants, challenging architectural projects, and high-performance mechanical equipment. Vallourecs pioneering spirit and cutting edge R&D open new technological frontiers. With close to 14,000 dedicated and passionate employees in more than 20 countries, Vallourec works hand-in-hand with its customers to offer more than just tubes: Vallourec delivers innovative, safe, competitive and smart tubular solutions, to make every project possible.

Listed on Euronext in Paris (ISIN code: FR0013506730, Ticker VK), Vallourec is part of the CAC Mid 60, SBF 120 and Next 150 indices and is eligible for Deferred Settlement Service.

In the United States, Vallourec has established a sponsored Level 1 American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program (ISIN code: US92023R4074, Ticker: VLOWY). Parity between ADR and a Vallourec ordinary share has been set at 5:1.

Financial Calendar

November 15th 2024 Release of Third Quarter and Nine Month 2024 results

For further information, please contact:

Investor relations

Connor Lynagh

Tel: +1 (713) 409-7842

connor.lynagh@vallourec.com Press relations

Taddeo - Romain Griere

Tel: +33 (0) 7 86 53 17 29

romain.griere@taddeo.fr



Individual shareholders

Toll Free Number (from France): 0 805 65 10 10

actionnaires@vallourec.com





APPENDICES

The Groups reporting currency is the euro. All amounts are expressed in millions of euros, unless otherwise specified. Certain numerical figures contained in this document, including financial information and certain operating data, have been subject to rounding adjustments.

Documents accompanying this release:

Tubes Sales Volume

Mine Sales Volume

Foreign Exchange Rates

Tubes Revenues by Geographic Region

Tubes Revenues by Market

Segment Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Summary Consolidated Income Statement

Summary Consolidated Balance Sheet

Key Cash Flow Metrics

Summary Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows (IFRS)

Indebtedness

Liquidity

Definitions of Non-GAAP Financial Data





Tubes Sales Volume

in thousands of tonnes 2024 2023 YoY chg. Q1 292 431 (32%) Q2 351 396 (11%) Q3 - 343 - Q4 - 382 - Total 643 1,552 -

Mine Sales Volume

in millions of tonnes 2024 2023 YoY chg. Q1 1.4 1.5 (9%) Q2 1.4 1.9 (25%) Q3 - 1.8 - Q4 - 1.7 - Total 2.8 6.9 -

Foreign Exchange Rates

Average exchange rate Q2 2024 Q1 2024 Q2 2023 EUR / USD 1.08 1.09 1.09 EUR / BRL 5.61 5.38 5.39 USD / BRL 5.22 4.95 4.94

Quarterly Tubes Revenues by Geographic Region

in  million Q2 2024 Q1 2024 Q2 2023 QoQ

% chg. YoY

% chg. North America 383 450 663 (15%) (42%) South America 169 153 229 10% (26%) Middle East 247 162 157 53% 57% Europe 48 51 102 (5%) (53%) Asia 108 68 73 57% 47% Rest of World 76 48 56 56% 36% Total Tubes 1,030 932 1,279 11% (19%)

Year-to-Date Tubes Revenues by Geographic Region

in  million H1 2024 H1 2023 YoY

% chg. North America 833 1,321 (37%) South America 322 418 (23%) Middle East 409 269 52% Europe 99 254 (61%) Asia 176 127 38% Rest of World 124 148 (16%) Total Tubes 1,963 2,537 (23%)

Quarterly Tubes Revenues by Market

in  million Q2 2024 Q1 2024 Q2 2023 QoQ

% chg. YoY

% chg. YoY % chg. at Const. FX Oil & Gas and Petrochemicals 879 762 1,039 15% (15%) (15%) Industry 100 119 207 (16%) (52%) (51%) Other 52 51 33 3% 60% 58% Total Tubes 1,030 932 1,279 11% (19%) (19%)

Year-to-Date Tubes Revenues by Market

in  million H1 2024 H1 2023 YoY

% chg. YoY % chg. at Const. FX Oil & Gas and Petrochemicals 1,641 2,060 (20%) (20%) Industry 219 422 (48%) (48%) Other 103 55 87% 89% Total Tubes 1,963 2,537 (23%) (23%)

Quarterly Segment KPIs

Q2 2024 Q1 2024 Q2 2023 QoQ chg. YoY chg. Tubes















Volume sold* 351 292 396 20% (11%) Revenue (m) 1,030 932 1,279 11% (19%) Average Selling Price () 2,937 3,189 3,226 (8%) (9%) EBITDA (m) 210 220 330 (4%) (36%) Capex (m) 23 46 61 (50%) (63%) Mine & Forest











Volume sold* 1.4 1.4 1.9 3% (25%) Revenue (m) 69 80 93 (13%) (25%) EBITDA (m) 15 30 50 (49%) (69%) Capex (m) 5 9 5 (37%) 14% H&O



Revenue (m) 49 45 51 9% (4%) EBITDA (m) (13) (13) (5) (2%) nm Int.



Revenue (m) (64) (67) (65) (5%) (1%) EBITDA (m) 2 (2) (1) nm nm Total







Revenue (m) 1,085 990 1,358 10% (20%) EBITDA (m) 215 235 374 (9%) (43%) Capex (m) 29 56 66 (47%) (56%) * Volume sold in thousand tonnes for Tubes and in million tonnes for Mine H&O = Holding & Other, Int. = Intersegment Transactions nm = not meaningful

Year-to-Date Segment KPIs

H1 2024 H1 2023 YoY chg. Tubes















Volume sold* 643 827 (22%) Revenue (m) 1,963 2,537 (23%) Average Selling Price () 3,052 3,066 (0%) EBITDA (m) 430 609 (29%) Capex (m) 69 106 (35%) Mine & Forest











Volume sold* 2.8 3.4 (18%) Revenue (m) 149 186 (20%) EBITDA (m) 46 98 (53%) Capex (m) 14 12 14% H&O



Revenue (m) 93 97 (4%) EBITDA (m) (27) (10) nm Int.



Revenue (m) (130) (123) 6% EBITDA (m) 1 (3) nm Total







Revenue (m) 2,075 2,696 (23%) EBITDA (m) 450 694 (35%) Capex (m) 85 119 (29%) * Volume sold in thousand tonnes for Tubes and in million tonnes for Mine H&O = Holding & Other, Int. = Intersegment Transactions nm = not meaningful

Quarterly Summary Consolidated Income Statement

 million, unless noted Q2 2024 Q1 2024 Q2 2023 QoQ chg. YoY chg. Revenues 1,085 990 1,358 95 (273) Cost of sales (774) (669) (890) (105) 116 Industrial margin 311 321 468 (10) (157) (as a % of revenue) 28.6% 32.4% 34.5% (3.8) pp (5.8) pp Selling, general and administrative expenses (91) (87) (84) (4) (7) (as a % of revenue) (8.4%) (8.8%) (6.2%) 0.4 pp (2.2) pp Other (5) 1 (10) (6) 5 EBITDA 215 235 374 (20) (159) (as a % of revenue) 19.8% 23.7% 27.5% (3.9) pp (7.7) pp Depreciation of industrial assets (44) (45) (45) 1 1 Amortization and other depreciation (8) (8) (9) (0) 1 Impairment of assets 3 3 (8) (0) 11 Asset disposals, restructuring costs and non-recurring items (65) (11) (55) (54) (10) Operating income (loss) 100 174 258 (74) (158) Financial income (loss) 57 (20) (24) 77 81 Pre-tax income (loss) 156 154 234 3 (78) Income tax (40) (46) (70) 6 30 Share in net income (loss) of equity affiliates 0 1 1 (1) (1) Net income 116 108 164 8 (48) Attributable to non-controlling interests 5 3 5 2 0 Net income, Group share 111 105 159 6 (48) Basic earnings per share () 0.48 0.46 0.68 0.02 (0.20) Diluted earnings per share () 0.46 0.43 0.67 0.03 (0.21) Basic shares outstanding (millions) 230 230 233  (3) Diluted shares outstanding (millions) 241 244 236 (3) 5

Year-to-Date Summary Consolidated Income Statement

 million, unless noted H1 2024 H1 2023 YoY chg. Revenues 2,075 2,696 (621) Cost of sales (1,443) (1,816) 373 Industrial margin 631 880 (248) (as a % of revenue) 30.4% 32.6% (2.2) pp Selling, general and administrative expenses (178) (163) (15) (as a % of revenue) (8.6%) (6.0%) (2.6) pp Other (3) (23) 20 EBITDA 450 694 (244) (as a % of revenue) 21.7% 25.7% (4.1) pp Depreciation of industrial assets (89) (85) (4) Amortization and other depreciation (17) (19) 2 Impairment of assets 6 (8) 13 Asset disposals, restructuring costs and non-recurring items (77) (68) (9) Operating income (loss) 273 514 (241) Financial income (loss) 37 (70) 107 Pre-tax income (loss) 310 445 (134) Income tax (86) (123) 37 Share in net income (loss) of equity affiliates 1 (0) 1 Net income 224 321 (97) Attributable to non-controlling interests 8 6 2 Net income, Group share 216 315 (99) Basic earnings per share () 0.94 1.36 (0.42) Diluted earnings per share () 0.90 1.34 (0.44) Basic shares outstanding (millions) 230 232 (2) Diluted shares outstanding (millions) 241 236 5

Summary Consolidated Balance Sheet

In  million Assets 30-Jun-24 31-Dec-23 Liabilities 30-Jun-24 31-Dec-23 Equity - Group share 2,311 2,157 Net intangible assets 37 42 Non-controlling interests 77 67 Goodwill 37 40 Total equity 2,388 2,224 Net property, plant and equipment 1,885 1,980 Bank loans and other borrowings 772 1,348 Biological assets 59 70 Lease debt 33 40 Equity affiliates 17 16 Employee benefit commitments 81 102 Other non-current assets 132 159 Deferred taxes 84 83 Deferred taxes 209 209 Provisions and other long-term liabilities 264 317 Total non-current assets 2,375 2,516 Total non-current liabilities 1,234 1,890 Inventories 1,240 1,242 Provisions 181 249 Trade and other receivables 716 756 Overdraft & other short-term borrowings 310 122 Derivatives - assets 22 47 Lease debt 16 17 Other current assets 251 251 Trade payables 817 763 Cash and cash equivalents



720



900



Derivatives - liabilities 103 79 Other current liabilities 278 370 Total current assets 2,949 3,196 Total current liabilities 1,704 1,600 Assets held for sale and discontinued operations 1 1 Liabilities held for sale and discontinued operations   Total assets 5,325 5,713 Total equity and liabilities 5,325 5,713

Quarterly Key Cash Flow Metrics

In  million Q2 2024 Q1 2024 Q2 2023 QoQ chg. YoY chg. EBITDA 215 235 374 (20) (159) Non-cash items in EBITDA (0) 10 (21) (10) 21 Financial cash out (65) 5 (61) (70) (4) Tax payments (54) (15) (60) (39) 6 Adjusted operating cash flow 96 235 232 (139) (136) Change in working capital 15 (7) 8 22 7 Gross capital expenditure (30) (56) (66) 26 36 Adjusted free cash flow 81 172 174 (91) (93) Restructuring charges & non-recurring items (71) (67) (59) (4) (12) Asset disposals & other cash items 31 (3) 3 34 28 Total cash generation 41 102 118 (61) (77) Non-cash adjustments to net debt 80 (17) 14 96 66 (Increase) decrease in net debt 121 85 132 35 (11)

Year-to-Date Key Cash Flow Metrics

In  million H1 2024 H1 2023 YoY chg. EBITDA 450 694 (244) Non-cash items in EBITDA 9 (8) 17 Financial cash out (60) (79) 19 Tax payments (68) (76) 8 Adjusted operating cash flow 330 531 (200) Change in working capital 8 (44) 52 Gross capital expenditure (85) (119) 34 Adjusted free cash flow 253 368 (115) Restructuring charges & non-recurring items (138) (106) (32) Asset disposals & other cash items 28 7 21 Total cash generation 143 269 (126) Non-cash adjustments to net debt 63 (7) 70 (Increase) decrease in net debt 206 262 (56)

Summary Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows (IFRS)

In  million H1 2024 H1 2023 YoY chg. Consolidated net income (loss) 224 321 (97) Net additions to depreciation, amortization and provisions 13 64 (51) Unrealized gains and losses on changes in fair value 43 1 42 Capital gains and losses on disposals (1) 1 (1) Share in income (loss) of equity-accounted companies (1) 0 (1) Other cash flows from operating activities (34) (0) (34) Cash flow from (used in) operating activities after cost of net debt and taxes 244 386 (142) Cost of net debt (23) 54 (76) Tax expense (including deferred taxes) 86 123 (37) Cash flow from (used in) operating activities before costs of net debt and taxes 308 563 (255) Interest paid (70) (68) (1) Tax paid (68) (76) 8 Interest received 18 7 11 Other cash flow on financial income    Cash flow from (used in) operating activities 188 425 (237) Change in operating working capital in the statement of cash flows 8 (44) 52 Net cash flow from (used in) operating activies (A) 196 381 (185) Acquisitions of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets (85) (119) 34 Disposals of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets 21 18 3 Impact of acquisitions (changes in consolidation scope) 3 2 1 Impact of disposals (changes in consolidation scope)    Other cash flow from investing activities 0 0 0 Net cash flow from (used in) investing activities (B) (61) (99) 38 Increase or decrease in equity attributable to owners    Dividends paid to non-controlling interests (1) (3) 2 Proceeds from new borrowings 790 41 749 Repayment of borrowings (1,106) 0 (1,107) Repayment of lease liabilities (11) (12) 1 Other cash flow used in financing activities 16 (1) 17 Net cash flow from (used in) financing activites (C) (312) 27 (338) Impact of reclassification to assets held for sale and discontinued operations (E)  (0) 0 Change in net cash (A+B+C+D+E) (177) 308 (485) Opening net cash 898 547 Impact of changes in exchange rates (D) (2) (4) Closing net cash 719 851 Change excluding forex impact (177) 308

Indebtedness

In  million 30-Jun-24 31-Dec-23 8.500% 5-year EUR Senior Notes due 2026  1,105 7.500% 8-year USD Senior Notes due 2032 748  1.837% PGE due 2027 (a) 193 229 ACC ACE (b) 109 94 Other 32 42 Total gross financial indebtedness 1,082 1,470 Cash and cash equivalents 720 900 Fair value of cross currency swap (c) 2  Total net financial indebtedness 364 570

(a) Maturity prior to refinancing was 2027. Intended repayment of the remaining amount by Dec. 2024

(b) Refers to ACC (Advances on Foreign Exchange Contract) and ACE (Advances on Export Shipment Documents) program in Brazil

(c) Vallourec entered into 4-year cross-currency swaps (CCS) to hedge the EUR/USD currency exposure related to its USD 2032 Senior Notes. The fair value of the CCS related to the EUR/USD hedging of the principal of the notes is consequently included in the net debt definition.





Liquidity

In  million 30-Jun-24 31-Dec-23 Cash and cash equivalents 720 900 Available RCF 550 462 Available ABL (a) 228 177 Total liquidity 1,498 1,539

(a) This $350m committed ABL is subject to a borrowing base calculation based on eligible accounts receivable and inventories, among other items. The borrowing base is currently approximately $253m. Availability is shown net of approximately $9m of letters of credit and other items.





DEFINITIONS OF NON-GAAP FINANCIAL DATA

Adjusted free cash flow is defined as adjusted operating cash flow +/- change in operating working capital and gross capital expenditures. It corresponds to net cash used in operating activities less restructuring and non-recurring items +/- gross capital expenditure.

Adjusted operating cash flow is defined as EBITDA adjusted for non-cash benefits and expenses, financial cash out and tax payments.

Asset disposals and other cash items includes cash inflows from asset sales as well as other investing and financing cash flows.

Change in working capital refers to the change in the operating working capital requirement.

Data at constant exchange rates: The data presented at constant exchange rates is calculated by eliminating the translation effect into euros for the revenue of the Groups entities whose functional currency is not the euro. The translation effect is eliminated by applying Year N-1 exchange rates to Year N revenue of the contemplated entities.

EBITDA: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization is calculated by taking operating income (loss) before depreciation and amortization, and excluding certain operating revenues and expenses that are unusual in nature or occur rarely, such as:

impairment of goodwill and non-current assets as determined within the scope of impairment tests carried out in accordance with IAS 36;

significant restructuring expenses, particularly resulting from headcount reorganization measures, in respect of major events or decisions;

capital gains or losses on disposals;

income and expenses resulting from major litigation, significant roll-outs or capital transactions (e.g., costs of integrating a new activity).

Financial cash out includes interest payments on financial and lease debt, interest income and other financial costs.

Free cash flow, as previously defined, may continue to be derived as follows: total cash generation - asset disposals & other cash items. This is also defined as EBITDA adjusted for changes in provisions, less interest and tax payments, changes in working capital, less gross capital expenditures, and less restructuring/other cash outflows.

Gross capital expenditure: gross capital expenditure is defined as the sum of cash outflows for acquisitions of property, plant and equipment and intangible assets and cash outflows for acquisitions of biological assets.

(Increase) decrease in net debt (alternatively, change in net debt) is defined as total cash generation +/- non-cash adjustments to net debt.

Industrial margin: The industrial margin is defined as the difference between revenue and cost of sales (i.e. after allocation of industrial variable costs and industrial fixed costs), before depreciation.

Lease debt is defined as the present value of unavoidable future lease payments.

Net debt: Consolidated net debt (or net financial debt) is defined as bank loans and other borrowings plus overdrafts and other short-term borrowings minus cash and cash equivalents plus the fair value of the cross-currency swaps related to the EUR/USD hedging of the principal of the $820 million 7.5% senior notes. Net debt excludes lease debt.

Net working capital requirement is defined as working capital requirement net of provisions for inventories and trade receivables; net working capital requirement days are computed on an annualized quarterly sales basis.

Non-cash adjustments to net debt includes non-cash foreign exchange impacts on debt balances, IFRS-defined fair value adjustments on debt balances, and other non-cash items.

Non-cash items in EBITDA includes provisions and other non-cash items in EBITDA.

Operating working capital requirement includes working capital requirement as well as other receivables and payables.

Restructuring charges and non-recurring items consists primarily of the cash costs of executing the New Vallourec plan, including severance costs and other facility closure costs.

Total cash generation is defined as adjusted free cash flow +/- restructuring charges and non-recurring items and asset disposals & other cash items. It corresponds to net cash used in operating activities +/- gross capital expenditure and asset disposals & other cash items.

Working capital requirement is defined as trade receivables plus inventories minus trade payables (excluding provisions).

a Vallourecs dividend policy would in any event be conditional upon the Boards decision taking into account Vallourecs results, its financial position including the deleveraging target and the potential restrictions applicable to the payment of dividends. Dividends and share repurchases would also be subject to shareholders approval.

b In all cases, total cash generation and net debt guidance excludes the potential positive impact of major asset sales. See further details regarding the third quarter and full year 2024 outlook at the end of this press release.

c The Barreiro Plug rolling mill has annual capacity of 150kt.

d The cost reduction target measured relative to the 2023 baseline, while volume upside is measured relative to H1 24 volumes.

e Vallourecs dividend policy would in any event be conditional upon the Boards decision taking into account Vallourecs results, its financial position including the deleveraging target and the potential restrictions applicable to the payment of dividends. Dividends and share repurchases would also be subject to shareholders approval.

f Vallourec entered into 4-year cross-currency swaps (CCS) to hedge the EUR/USD currency exposure related to its USD 2032 Senior Notes. The fair value of the CCS related to the EUR/USD hedging of the principal of the notes is consequently included in the net debt definition.

g As of June 30, 2024, the borrowing base for this facility was approximately $253 million, and $9 million in letters of credit and other commitments were issued.

h In all cases, total cash generation and net debt guidance excludes the potential positive impact of major asset sales.

i Assumes iron ore prices around the current level (as of July 26, 2024).

j The majority of such proceeds are expected to be recorded in asset disposals and other cash items.

Attachment
New York, United States , July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Global Practice Management Systems Market Size is to Grow from USD 10.35 Billion in 2023 to USD 23.85 Billion by 2033, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.71% during the projected period.





Get a Sample PDF Brochure: https://www.sphericalinsights.com/request-sample/5112

A practice management system (PMS) is software that helps medical offices with invoices and administrative tasks. It can be used for arranging appointments, managing patient records, and processing insurance claims. Also, a practice management system can help streamline workplace procedures and improve employee collaboration. A practice management system is an essential tool for healthcare organizations (PMS). Practice management systems might improve practice efficacy and efficiency through improved patient communication, job automation, and data-driven insights. Even though there are many different types of practice management systems, they are all designed to make life better for both doctors and patients. Due to the many characteristics of hospital and healthcare environments as well as the increasing number of technological breakthroughs, there are several opportunities for market expansion. Also, it is anticipated that the industry will develop as a result of the increased focus on accessible and superior treatment. The practice management system sector has promoted partnerships and collaboration with other industries due to severe competitiveness among large competitors. However, healthcare facilities might be reluctant to use EMRs due to concerns regarding patient privacy and security. There are certain risks associated with utilizing cloud-based medical practice management systems (MPMS), even though many hospitals use them as they are more affordable and accessible than on-premises systems.

Browse key industry insights spread across 238 pages with 119 Market data tables and figures & charts from the report on the " Global Practice Management Systems Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Product (Integrated, and Standalone), By Component (Software, and Services), By Delivery Mode (Web-Based, Cloud-Based, and On-Premise), 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/5112

The integrated segment is anticipated to hold the greatest share of the global practice management systems market during the projected timeframe.

Based on the product, the global practice management systems market is divided into integrated, and standalone. Among these, the integrated segment is anticipated to hold the greatest share of the global practice management systems market during the projected timeframe. These systems offer several benefits, such as streamlined patient and provider communication and organized medical billing. The increased complexity of patient treatment and payment, along with the centralization of the healthcare business, is driving the category's expansion.

The software segment is anticipated to hold the largest share of the global practice management systems market during the projected timeframe.

Based on the component, the global practice management systems market is divided into software and services. Among these, the software segment is anticipated to hold the largest share of the global practice management systems market during the projected timeframe. These software tools are widely used by hospitals, health systems, and healthcare practitioners to improve patient satisfaction and elevate the level of service. Regulatory organizations, particularly in industrialized nations, are prioritizing the implementation of universal practice management software as a means of enhancing the delivery of healthcare services.

Inquire Before Buying This Research Report: https://www.sphericalinsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/5112

North America is expected to hold the largest share of the global practice management systems market over the forecast period.

North America is expected to hold the largest share of the global practice management systems market over the forecast period. Several factors might contribute to North America's dominance, such as a patient base with sufficient expertise, large healthcare spending, and high computer literacy. Beneficial government initiatives, like as the EHR incentive programs offered by Medicaid and Medicare, have led to a notable expansion of the industry in the region. The market is expanding in North America due to several factors, including the aging population, the rising demand for better healthcare infrastructure, and the dominance of large companies in the sector.

Asia Pacific is predicted to grow at the fastest pace in the global practice management systems market during the projected timeframe. This increase in the patient pool is caused by several variables, such as the aging population and the development of chronic diseases. Also, the rising markets in the region are seeing an increasing need for affordable, high-quality healthcare services. These factors are expected to drive significant market expansion in the next years.

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 practice management systems market include Henry Schein, Inc., Allscripts Healthcare, LLC (Veradigm LLC), AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions, Athenahealth, CollaborateMD Inc., Greenway Health, LLC, OfficeAlly Inc., PracticeSuite Inc., Cerner Corporation (Oracle), Epic Systems Corporation, GE Healthcare, McKesson Corporation, Accumedic Computer Systems, Inc., AdvancedMD, Inc., DrChrono, Inc., Others.

Get Discount At @ https://www.sphericalinsights.com/request-discount/5112

Recent Developments

In June 2022, Weave and Patterson Dental recently partnered on the cloud-based Fuse dental practice management software. Local dental practices now have access to a range of instruments designed to bring state-of-the-art technology which is typically reserved for larger enterprises due to this collaboration.

Market Segment

This study forecasts revenue at global, regional, and country levels from 2020 to 2033. Spherical Insights has segmented the global practice management systems market based on the below-mentioned segments:

Global Practice Management Systems Market, By Product

Integrated

Standalone

Global Practice Management Systems Market, By Component

Software

Services

Global Practice Management Systems Market, By Delivery Mode

Web-Based

Cloud-Based

On-Premise

Global Practice Management Systems Market, Regional Analysis

North America US Canada Mexico

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 the Middle East & Africa



Browse Related Reports

Global Contraceptive Drugs Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Product (Oral (Combined Contraceptives and Progestin-only Pills), Injectable, and Patches), By Distribution channels (Hospital Pharmacy, Retail Pharmacy, Clinics, Online Channel, Public Channel and NGOs, and Others), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023  2033.

Global Oncology Based Molecular Diagnostics Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Product (Instruments, and Reagents), By Technology (Polymerase Chain Reaction, Chips & Microarrays, Sequencing, Mass Spectroscopy, Transcription Mediated Amplification), By Application (Breast Cancer, Prostate Cancer, Colorectal Cancer, Skin Cancer, Cervical Cancer), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023 - 2033.

Global Healthcare Fraud Detection Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Descriptive Analytics, Predictive Analytics, and Prescriptive Analytics), By Delivery Model (On-premises, Cloud-based, and Others), By Application (Insurance Claims Review, Pharmacy Billing Issues, Payment Integrity, and Others), By End User (Private Insurance Payers, Public and Government Agencies, Third Party Service Providers, and Others), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023  2033.



Global Adaptive Stroller Market Size, Share, and COVID-19 Impact Analysis, By Type (Single Seats, Multiple Seats), By Application (Cerebral Palsy, Traumatic Brain Injury, Developmental Delay, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and Others), and By Region (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa), Analysis and Forecast 2023 - 2033.

About the Spherical Insights & Consulting

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
Dublin, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Antibacterial Drugs - Global Strategic Business Report" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The global market for Antibacterial Drugs is estimated at US$44.9 Billion in 2023 and is projected to reach US$58.6 Billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 3.9% from 2023 to 2030. This comprehensive report provides an in-depth analysis of market trends, drivers, and forecasts, helping you make informed business decisions.







The growth in the antibacterial drugs market is driven by several factors, including technological advancements in drug discovery, the increasing prevalence of bacterial infections, and the rising awareness of antibiotic resistance. Technological advancements, such as high-throughput screening, genomics, and bioinformatics, have accelerated the discovery of new antibiotics and enhanced the understanding of bacterial resistance mechanisms.

These technologies enable researchers to identify novel drug targets and develop more effective antibacterial agents. The growing prevalence of bacterial infections, exacerbated by factors such as aging populations, increased hospitalizations, and the rising incidence of chronic diseases, continues to drive demand for effective antibacterial treatments.

Additionally, public health initiatives and educational campaigns have raised awareness about the dangers of antibiotic resistance, leading to increased demand for new and more effective antibacterial drugs. The development of rapid diagnostic tools to identify bacterial infections and resistance patterns is also propelling market growth, as these tools enable more targeted and effective treatments.

Furthermore, the support from government and non-government organizations in funding research and development activities, as well as regulatory incentives such as expedited review processes for new antibiotics, is fostering innovation in the market. Overall, the combination of these factors is driving sustained growth and innovation in the antibacterial drugs market, ensuring the continued effectiveness of these critical medicines in the fight against bacterial infections.

Key Questions Answered:

How is the Global Antibacterial Drugs Market expected to evolve by 2030?

What are the main drivers and restraints affecting the market?

Which market segments will grow the most over the forecast period?

How will market shares for different regions and segments change by 2030?

Who are the leading players in the market, and what are their prospects?

Key Insights:

Market Growth: Understand the significant growth trajectory of the ?-lactams Drug Class segment, which is expected to reach US$35.4 Billion by 2030 with a CAGR of a 4.1%. The Macrolides Drug Class segment is also set to grow at 4.4% CAGR over the analysis period.

Regional Analysis: Gain insights into the U.S. market, estimated at $12.2 Billion in 2023, and China, forecasted to grow at an impressive 6.5% CAGR to reach $12.1 Billion by 2030. Discover growth trends in other key regions, including Japan, Canada, Germany, and the Asia-Pacific.

Report Features:

Comprehensive Market Data: Independent analysis of annual sales and market forecasts in US$ Million from 2023 to 2030.

In-Depth Regional Analysis: Detailed insights into key markets, including the U.S., China, Japan, Canada, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Middle East, and Africa.

Company Profiles: Coverage of major players such as Allergan PLC, AstraZeneca PLC, Bayer AG, and more.

Complimentary Updates: Receive free report updates for one year to keep you informed of the latest market developments.

Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 244 Forecast Period 2023 - 2030 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $44.9 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2030 $58.6 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 3.9% Regions Covered Global



MARKET OVERVIEW

Influencer Market Insights

Global Economic Update

Antibacterial Drugs - Global Key Competitors Percentage Market Share in 2024 (E)

Competitive Market Presence - Strong/Active/Niche/Trivial for Players Worldwide in 2024 (E)

MARKET TRENDS & DRIVERS

Rising Incidence of Bacterial Infections Expands Addressable Market Opportunity for Antibacterial Drugs

Advances in Drug Discovery Technologies Propel Growth in the Antibacterial Drugs Market

Increasing Antibiotic Resistance Throws the Spotlight on New Drug Development

Development of Novel Antibiotics Strengthens Business Case for Innovative Treatments

High-Throughput Screening Techniques Accelerate Identification of New Antibacterial Compounds

Genomic Research Spurs Growth by Uncovering New Drug Targets

Integration of Bioinformatics in Drug Development Expands Market Potential

Public Health Initiatives Drive Adoption of Responsible Antibiotic Use Programs

Rising Awareness of Antibiotic Resistance Generates Demand for New Treatments

Increasing Prevalence of Hospital-Acquired Infections Sustains Market Growth

Expansion of Rapid Diagnostic Tools Enhances Market for Targeted Antibacterial Therapies

Growth in Aging Population Expands Need for Effective Antibacterial Drugs

Advances in Bacteriophage Therapy Generate Opportunities for Alternative Treatments

Growing Use of Antimicrobial Peptides Propels Market Growth

Evolving Healthcare Infrastructure in Emerging Markets Expands Market Reach for Antibacterial Drugs

FOCUS ON SELECT PLAYERS (Total 124 Featured)

Allergan PLC

AstraZeneca PLC

Bayer AG

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company

GlaxoSmithKline PLC

Johnson & Johnson

Merck & Co., Inc.

Novartis International AG

Pfizer, Inc.

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/k3rire

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Attachment
Dublin, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "United States Tunable Filters Market, By Region, Competition, Forecast and Opportunities, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.



The market for tunable filters in the United States, valued at USD 175 million in 2023, is experiencing significant momentum, driven by the increasing demand for advanced wireless communication networks and the expanding integration of 5G and IoT technologies.

The remarkable growth trajectory, with a forecasted compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.7% through 2029, highlights the vital role of tunable filters in the ever-evolving tech landscape. Tunable filters are becoming indispensable in optimizing spectrum efficiency and supporting the functionality of versatile frequency bands essential for the telecommunications sector, particularly with the deployment of advanced network infrastructures.







The aerospace and defense sectors are major contributors to the increased adoption rate of tunable filters, leveraging these sophisticated components to upgrade radar and electronic warfare systems. The technological innovation spearheaded by key market players is delivering cutting-edge solutions, demonstrating the market's commitment to accommodating the demands of diverse and rapidly changing industry requirements.



Technological Innovation and Industry Competition:



Continuous advancements in filter technology and the integration of novel materials and designs signify a market ripe with innovation. Competition among industry players aligns with the pervasive trend of increased investment in research and development, ensuring the evolution of more advanced and cost-effective filter solutions. The integration of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology and breakthroughs in material science further underscore the industry's dedication to technological progression.



Challenges in Compliance and Supply Chain:



However, the market's robust expansion is not without its challenges. Regulatory hurdles demand adherence to stringent compliance standards and alignment with international regulations, essential for maintaining global market relevance. Supply chain disruptions pose operational risks that require strategic management to sustain the market's growth and customer satisfaction.



Regional Dominance and Military Applications:



Regionally, the market is witnessing the West Coast, particularly California, assert dominance due to its robust tech sector and strong aerospace and defense presence. The military segment of the Tunable Filters Market maintains a leading position, driving demand with stringent operational requirements and ongoing modernization initiatives.



As the industry propels forward, the United States Tunable Filters Market remains a critical field for technological advancement, strategic enterprise, and economic activity. With sustained growth projected for the near future, market participants continue to harness opportunities, innovate, and address the demands of an increasingly connected world.



Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 85 Forecast Period 2024 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2024 $175 Million Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $324.95 Million Compound Annual Growth Rate 10.7% Regions Covered United States





A selection of companies mentioned in this report includes, but is not limited to:

Thorlabs, Inc.

EXFO Inc.

Santec Holdings Corporation

IDEX Corporation

Dover Corporation

Luna Innovations Incorporated

Agiltron Inc.

Brimrose Corporation

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/knxy1v

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Attachment
Dublin, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Alternative Cathode Material Market - Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity and Forecast, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Global Alternative Cathode Material Market was valued at USD 27.81 Billion in 2023 and is anticipated to project impressive growth in the forecast period with a CAGR of 7.01% through 2029.

The burgeoning demand for electric vehicles stands as a significant driver behind the flourishing Global Alternative Cathode Material Market. In consonance with the global urgency to address climate change, the shift toward electrification in transportation is predominantly spurred by rigorous regulatory frameworks and escalating consumer preference for environmentally conscious transport alternatives. With an unprecedented rate of growth in the electric vehicle sector, the attendant need for progressive battery technologies has been imperative, particularly those that promise higher energy densities and longer life cycles.







Simultaneously, the integration of renewable energy sources has been catalyzing market growth. The intrinsic variability of renewable generation necessitates efficient energy storage systems, where advanced battery technologies featuring novel cathode materials come into play. The ability to store surplus energy during periods of peak generation and dispense it in high-demand times is crucial for grid stabilization and the optimization of renewable energy usage.



Sustainability Considerations Drive Market Innovations



Mounting sustainability and environmental concerns are also pivotal drivers in propelling the Global Alternative Cathode Material Market forward. The push for eco-friendlier alternatives in energy storage is steering the market toward sustainable cathode materials, exemplified by lithium iron phosphate, which affords lower toxicity and a reduced environmental footprint. Stringent environmental legislations are underpinning this shift, fostering the development of green technology solutions and catalyzing market growth.



Challenges: Resource Scarcity and Economic Viability



While the market prospects are optimistic, challenges such as the scarcity of essential resources like cobalt and nickel, along with supply chain constraints, underscore the complexities faced by the market. Moreover, the formidable costs involved in deploying new materials and technologies present economic viability challenges that market players must navigate. Companies are intently focused on research and development to surmount these hurdles, ensuring market sustainability and future growth.



Market Trends Indicate Technological Advance and Solid-State Battery Adoption



Advancements in battery materials technology signal a dynamic era for the Global Alternative Cathode Material Market. These breakthroughs are pivotal in enhancing battery efficacy, durability, and cost-efficiency. A particular trend of note is the burgeoning adoption of solid-state batteries, marking an innovative turn in energy storage, with an emphasis on improved safety and energy density.



Regional Dynamics: Asia Pacific at Forefront



Asia Pacific stands out as the market hegemon, credited to its expansive manufacturing base and sophisticated battery technology expertise. This region's command over the market is bolstered by the active role of countries like China, Japan, and South Korea, all contributors to the global supply of alternative cathode materials.

The Future of Energy Storage: A Market on the Rise



In summation, the Global Alternative Cathode Material Market is set on a path of impressive growth, driven by the synergistic effects of increased electric vehicle prevalence, renewable energy integration, and sustainability initiatives. As the market navigates its challenges, technological advancements and regional market dynamics are likely to further substantiate its growth trajectory, promising a global impact in the energy sector. Excited anticipation surrounds the future developments of this thriving market as it advances towards a more sustainable and energy-efficient worldwide landscape.



Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 182 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $27.81 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $41.36 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 7.0% Regions Covered Global





A selection of companies mentioned in this report includes, but is not limited to:





NEI Corporation

Targray Technology International Inc.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation

BASF SE

Nippon Chemical Industrial CO., LTD.

LG Chem Ltd.

POSCO

American Elements

Johnson Matthey

Umicore N.V.





For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/3pc4i7

About ResearchAndMarkets.com

ResearchAndMarkets.com is the world's leading source for international market research reports and market data. We provide you with the latest data on international and regional markets, key industries, the top companies, new products and the latest trends.

Attachment
Dublin, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Smart Robots Market - Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity and Forecast, 2019-2029F" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Global Smart Robots Market was valued at USD 4.61 billion in 2023 and is anticipated to project robust growth in the forecast period with a CAGR of 28.55% through 2029.

Enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), smart robots are redefining efficiency standards across manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and consumer services.





Driving Forces Behind Market Expansion



One of the most influential factors fueling market growth is breakthroughs in AI and ML, which dramatically augment the intelligence and capabilities of smart robots. With exceptional precision and reliability, these robots are increasingly present in manufacturing, handling repetitive tasks and boosting both productivity and product quality. The deployment of smart robots is not only altering operational standards but also nurturing sustainable growth that is reshaping the competitive landscape of the global market.



Smart Robots - A Solution to Rising Labor Costs



As industries confront rising labor costs and heightened demand for efficiency, automation through smart robots presents an effective countermeasure. The market sees an expanding role for these robots in sectors like logistics and agriculture, where they tackle repetitive and labor-intensive work.

Challenges to Market Progression

Despite the optimistic outlook, the smart robots market encounters several obstacles. The substantial initial implementation costs and extended ROI timelines deter prospective adopters, specifically small and medium enterprises. Moreover, regulatory complexities and ethical dilemmas surrounding AI contribute additional layers of challenge for widespread deployment.



Integration of IoT and Cobots: Latest Market Trends



Significant trends shaping market dynamics include the incorporation of the Internet of Things (Io4T), which bolsters the connectivity and data-driven efficiency of smart robots. Additionally, the escalating demand for collaborative robots (cobots) is instrumental in fostering human-robot collaborations that boost productivity and operational flexibility.



Regional Market Dynamics



North America currently leads with the largest share of the market, thanks to robust technological infrastructure and an innate culture of innovation. The regions embrace of Industry 4.0 principles has seen smart robots becoming integral components of the manufacturing sector. Furthermore, the healthcare sector is turning to robotics to overcome labor shortages and enhance medical procedures.



Market Composition and Prospects



The smart robots market is segmented by component, with the software sector achieving dominance due to the integration of AI and ML. By mobility, the market is categorized into stationary and mobile segments, with diverse applications spanning automotive, manufacturing, and electronics. As the smart robots market continues its upward trajectory, the focus remains steadfast on progressing capabilities, ensuring ethical deployment, and overcoming technological limitations.



This recent market analysis underscores a clear message: the global smart robots market stands at the cusp of a new era in automation, poised to effectuate unparalleled advancements in operational efficiency across diverse industries.



Key Attributes:





Report Attribute Details No. of Pages 183 Forecast Period 2023 - 2029 Estimated Market Value (USD) in 2023 $4.61 Billion Forecasted Market Value (USD) by 2029 $20.99 Billion Compound Annual Growth Rate 28.5% Regions Covered Global



Competitive Landscape

ABB Ltd

iRobot Corporation

Kuka Aktiengesellschaft

Fanuc Corporation

Yaskawa Electric Corporation

Omron Electronics, LLC

SGBI Inc.

Report Scope:



Smart Robots Market, By Component:

Hardware

Software

Smart Robots Market, By Mobility:

Stationary

Mobile

Smart Robots Market, By Application:

Automotive

Manufacturing

Electrical & Electronics

Others

Smart Robots Market, By Region:

North America

United States

Canada

Mexico

Europe

France

United Kingdom

Italy

Germany

Spain

Netherlands

Belgium

Asia-Pacific

China

India

Japan

Australia

South Korea

Thailand

Malaysia

South America

Brazil

Argentina

Colombia

Chile

Middle East & Africa

South Africa

Saudi Arabia

UAE

Turkey

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/m9aby2

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
Hinesville, GA, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clearwave Fiber, the leading Fiber internet provider in Southeast Georgia, partnered with the Liberty County Chamber of Commerce to hold a grand opening event and commemorative ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of its new Customer Experience Center at 1067 W. Oglethorpe Highway in Hinesville, Ga. The occasion marked a significant milestone in the companys ongoing commitment to provide exceptional service and support to its valued customers.

Weve been privileged to serve Hinesville businesses and residents for nearly ten years and this community is particularly close to our hearts, said Clearwave Fiber CEO David Armistead. The continued expansion of our residential Fiber network and opening of this center directly reflects our commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our Hinesville area customers.

Since 2015, Clearwave Fiber has invested millions of dollars to enable Fiber Internet in more than 7,000 locations in Hinesville, more than 2,000 in 2024 alone. The company is on track to build 2,000 more by the end of the year.

Many members of the Hinesville community attended the grand opening, including Mayor Karl Riles and Liberty County Chamber of Commerce CEO Leah Poole, along with Clearwave Fibers Armistead, members of the companys senior leadership team, and local associates.

Mayor Riles said the event not only signified economic growth but also illustrated the city's commitment to fostering partnerships that benefit our community. We look forward to continuing to grow together, creating new opportunities and a more connected future for all, Riles said.

Georgia Congressman Earl Buddy Carter said Clearwave Fibers continued investment in Hinesville will increase reliable broadband access in Georgias rural communities. The Internet is no longer optional, and its important that we ensure this service is available to all those who need it, especially those in rural and remote areas, Carter said. Clearwave Fiber is helping connect Georgias First Congressional District to the rest of the world, and I am excited for its continued partnership and investment in our communities.

As part of the event, Clearwave Fiber made a $2,500 donation to SD Gunner Fund, a local nonprofit whose mission is to assist veterans, first responders and special needs children through the training and coordinated adoption of service animals.

Thanks to Clearwave Fibers contribution, well be able to continue our mission of providing service dogs, therapy dogs, and other essential resources to those in need, said Britnee Kinard, founder and CEO of SD Gunner Fund. This donation will directly impact the lives of those who rely on our services, promoting independence, companionship, and a better quality of life. Clearwave Fibers partnership in this endeavor is invaluable, and were truly grateful for their commitment to making a positive impact in our community.

About Clearwave Fiber

Clearwave Fiber is an Internet service provider that operates a more than 15,000 route-mile Fiber network serving communities across the Midwest and Southeast regions of the United States. With an emphasis on exceptional customer care and community engagement, the fast-growing company delivers advanced telecommunications solutions, providing Fiber to business, enterprise and residential customers in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, and Kansas. Committed to deploying 100% Fiber Internet service to 500,000 homes and businesses across the country by 2026, Clearwave Fiber employs more than 300 and is based in Savannah, Ga. Learn more at ClearwaveFiber.com, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.





Attachments
Charleston, SC, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Amanda Blackstone is good at a lot of things  but no one will give her the chance to prove it. When her first job at her towns local daily newspaper is as their society columnist, she uses it to search for any opportunity to take on a case and prove her skills as an investigative reporter.

While covering the debutante reception for the daughter of one of the towns wealthiest men, Amanda overhears a veiled threat that leads her to suspect that corporate embezzlement is behind a suspicious suicide. She teams up with experienced fellow reporter, Patrick Maguire, who does his best to rein in her impulsive instincts. The two discover evidence of a shady offshore account, blackmail, and a reprehensible family secret from a generation ago that will end in murder. As her feelings for Pat grow, Amanda realizes her rookie mistakes may have put both their lives in danger.

Great for fans who appreciate a fiercely independent sleuth as a main character, Blood Will Tell leads the reader on a harrowing adventure set against the dynamic backdrop of journalism during the turbulent 1970s.

Blood Will Tell is available for purchase online at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com. For more information about the author, please visit any of her social media platforms.

Facebook: Anita Coffee Thomas

Instagram: JavaJax5015

Twitter: @javahoney

About the Author:

Anita Coffee Thomas grew up in northeast Florida and graduated with a bachelors degree in English from Florida State University. She married her childhood sweetheart but was widowed at age 27. She briefly remarried and then subsequently spent twenty years in Atlanta at her dream job in advertising. After growing tired of Atlanta traffic and the lack of an ocean, she moved to Wilmington, North Carolina in 2000. There she started her second dream job at the local daily newspaper, the Star-News. Following her retirement in 2014, she completed her first novel.

Attachment
NEW YORK, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of MediaAlpha, Inc. (MediaAlpha or the Company) (NYSE: MAX). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at newaction@pomlaw.com or 646-581-9980, ext. 7980.



The investigation concerns whether MediaAlpha 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 24, 2024, Wolfpack Research published a report entitled MAX: Our Investigation Reveals MAX Is Participating in Consumer Fraud. In pertinent part, Wolfpack announced that it was short the insurance lead generator, MediaAlpha, Inc. (NYSE: MAX) following our research into the companys [Health Insurance] segment[.] Wolfpack stated that it believed [MediaAlpha] uses dishonest and sometimes outright fraudulent ads along with deceptive websites to trick consumers into providing their personal information in exchange for a health insurance quote. [MediaAlpha] then sells this information as raw lead data or uses it to generate clicks or calls for its lead-buying partners. Our investigation indicates as much as 78% of [MediaAlphas] Health [Insurance] lead-buying partners are running boiler room health insurance scams or are flagrantly violating laws concerning telemarketing.

On this news, MediaAlphas stock price fell $1.92 per share, or 11.84%, over the following two trading sessions, to close at $14.29 per share on June 25, 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 numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomlaw.com .

Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.
TORONTO, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TLNs Camila Gonzalez hosted an exclusive interview this week at the TLN Studios in Toronto with Official Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre and his wife, Anaida. The power couple discussed vital issues including the housing crisis, immigration, multicultural media, and climate change. Anaida passionately highlighted her advocacy against human trafficking and her aspirations to become Canada's first Latina First Lady.



Tune in to TLN TV where the exclusive interview will air nationwide this weekend:

Saturday July 27 at 8:30P/ET

Sunday July 28 at 7:30P/ET

TLN Media Group is Canadas most influential multicultural media company serving the needs and interests of ethnoculturally diverse communities.

For additional information contact:

Bruna Aloe | Senior Director of Communications & Marketing

416.744.5745 | bruna@tlnmediagroup.com

About TLN Media Group

Celebrating 40 years of service, the TLN Media Group organization brands inform and entertain millions of Canadians. Since launching in 1984, the original ethnic TV channel Telelatino has expanded to become a multichannel operator TLN Media Group, and Canadas most influential multicultural media company. TLN Media Group is an independent, immigrant-owned organization dedicated to connecting communities through storytelling and shared experiences. As a multicultural media leader, TLN Media Group selects, curates, produces, and commissions unique and culturally significant TV and digital content distributed in Canada and worldwide. TLN TV, the original flagship channel has evolved into a mainstream-friendly destination providing multiculturally rich content. TLN Media Group also operates Canadas most widely available multilingual TV channels led by top Italian language services Mediaset Italia Canada and TGCOM24 news network, as well as Spanish language leader Univision Canada. Additional TV channels include Canadas first and only Heritage language channels for kids, Telebimbi (Italian) and Teleninos (Spanish), bringing well-known Canadian-made kids shows to families nationwide; and EuroWorld Sport TV, a channel dedicated to sports fandom. TLN Media Group has also produced and promoted many cultural events and festivals, the most widely recognized of which is the annual TD Salsa in Toronto/Salsa on St. Clair summer festival and street party. Whether in Italian, Spanish, English and other languages, TLN has played a key role in the development of the national multicultural media landscape. More info at www.tln.ca
Bettendorf, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bettendorf, Iowa -

John Cornish, a seasoned mortgage lender, has introduced a new program aimed at offering thorough mortgage support to both homebuyers and current homeowners. This initiative seeks to simplify the mortgage process, making it more accessible and less confusing for those trying to secure their financial well-being.

John Cornish has long been dedicated to providing clear and practical mortgage solutions. His new program is specifically designed to tackle common issues borrowers face, such as understanding various loan options, managing paperwork, and navigating the approval process. By offering detailed guidance and support, the goal is to help clients make informed decisions and feel confident throughout the mortgage journey.

"Our mission is to simplify the mortgage process for our clients and give them the tools and knowledge they need to succeed," said John Cornish. "We believe buying a home should be an exciting and rewarding experience, not one filled with stress and confusion."

The new initiative includes a range of educational resources that break down complex mortgage topics into simple, easy-to-understand language. These resources will be available online, allowing clients to access them whenever they need. Additionally, John Cornish will offer personalized consultations to tackle individual concerns and questions, providing tailored advice for each client's unique situation.

"We are committed to supporting our clients every step of the way," added Cornish. "Whether they are first-time homebuyers or seasoned homeowners looking to refinance, we want them to feel empowered and informed throughout the mortgage process."

A major part of the initiative is reaching a broader audience through social media platforms like Facebook. By engaging with clients online, the goal is to build a community of informed homebuyers and homeowners who can share experiences, tips, and advice. Social media will also allow for real-time updates and interactions, keeping clients informed about the latest news and developments in the mortgage industry.

For more details, visit John Cornish's official website or follow him on his Facebook page. These platforms provide a wealth of information on mortgage solutions, borrower experiences, seamless process guidance, free consultations, and strategic advice for making winning offers on properties.

The new venture aims to positively impact the community by promoting financial literacy and responsible borrowing. By educating clients on various aspects of mortgages, John Cornish hopes to reduce the number of individuals who feel overwhelmed or uncertain when making significant financial decisions. This approach benefits clients and contributes to a healthier, more stable housing market.

John Cornish's commitment to transparency and education distinguishes his approach from traditional lending practices. By prioritizing client understanding and support, the goal is to build lasting relationships based on trust and mutual respect. This approach reflects John Cornish's dedication to not only helping clients achieve their homeownership dreams but also ensuring they have the knowledge and confidence to navigate the process successfully.

"Our clients' success is our success, and we are dedicated to doing everything we can to support them," said Cornish. "We are excited to launch this new initiative and look forward to helping more people achieve their homeownership goals."

In addition to educational resources and personalized consultations, John Cornish's initiative will also include regular updates on market trends and mortgage rates through various channels. By keeping clients informed about the latest changes and opportunities in the mortgage landscape, the aim is to help them make timely and informed decisions.

The initiative underscores John Cornish's belief that informed clients are better equipped to achieve their financial goals. By providing them with the necessary tools and resources, the hope is to foster a sense of empowerment and confidence throughout the mortgage process. This approach benefits individual clients and contributes to a stronger and more resilient housing market overall.

John Cornish invites interested individuals to learn more about this initiative and take advantage of the resources and support offered. For those looking to deepen their understanding of the mortgage process or seek personalized advice, John Cornish encourages them to reach out and explore the various ways his team can assist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv0fYhNqlX0

This news article offers an overview of the initiative, highlighting its goals and the support it seeks to provide to homebuyers and homeowners. For more information about the new mortgage initiative and to access educational resources, visit the John Cornish website or follow him on Facebook.

###

For more information about John Cornish - Mortgage Lender, contact the company here:



John Cornish - Mortgage Lender

John Cornish

(563) 214-1539

jcornish@gohomeside.com

5189 Utica Ridge Rd

Davenport, IA 52807
TORONTO, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lithium Ionic Corp. (TSXV: LTH; OTCQX: LTHCF; FSE: H3N) (Lithium Ionic or the Company) is pleased to report the results of its Annual General and Special Meeting of shareholders held on July 26, 2024 (the "Meeting").



Over 56% of the issued and outstanding shares of the Company were represented in person or by proxy and were voted at the Meeting significantly in favour of all the matters submitted to the shareholders for approval as set out in the Company's Notice of Meeting and Management Information Circular dated June 13, 2024 (the Circular). At the Meeting, Lithium Ionic shareholders approved the re-election of the eight director nominees, the re-appointment of Deloitte LLP as auditor of the Company, the Stock Option Plan and the RSU/DSU incentive plans. Details of these plans are included in the Circular, which is available under the Companys profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

Lithium Ionic would like to thank shareholders for their participation and continuing support.

About Lithium Ionic Corp.

Lithium Ionic is a Canadian mining company exploring and developing its lithium properties in Brazil. Its Itinga group of properties, which hosts its flagship Bandeira Lithium Project, as well as its Salinas group pf properties cover ~14,000 hectares in the northeastern part of Minas Gerais state, a mining-friendly jurisdiction that is quickly emerging as a world-class hard-rock lithium district. The Bandeira Project is situated in the same region as CBLs Cachoeira lithium mine, which has produced lithium for +30 years, as well as Sigma Lithium Corp.s Grota do Cirilo project, which hosts the largest hard-rock lithium deposit in the Americas.

Investor and Media Inquiries:

+1 647.316.2500

info@lithiumionic.com

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains statements that constitute forward-statements. Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the Companys actual results, performance or achievements, or developments to differ materially from the anticipated results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes, in light of the experience of its officers and directors, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that have been considered appropriate that the expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. When used in this press release, the words estimate, project, belief, anticipate, intend, expect, plan, predict, may or should and the negative of these words or such variations thereon or comparable terminology are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The forward-looking statements and information in this press release include information relating to results of the Meeting and the Companys future plans. Such statements and information reflect the current view of the Company. Risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in those forward-looking statements and information. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The forward-looking information contained in this news release represents the expectations of the Company as of the date of this news release and, accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that managements beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

Information and links in this press release relating to other mineral resource companies are from their sources believed to be reliable, but that have not been independently verified by the Company.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
NEW YORK, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of investors of Axos Financial, Inc. (Axos or the Company) (NYSE: AX). Such investors are advised to contact Danielle Peyton at newaction@pomlaw.com or 646-581-9980, ext. 7980.

The investigation concerns whether Axos 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 4, 2024, Hindenburg Research published a report alleging that Axos is exposed to the riskiest asset classes with lax underwriting standards and a loan book filled with multiple glaring problems. The report describes schemes to hide underperforming loans, including providing loans to non-performing or doubtful borrowers to avoid recognizing problems, and a so-called extend and pretend scheme.

On this news, Axoss stock price fell $2.21 per share, or 4.21%, to close at $50.25 per share on June 4, 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.
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 26, 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
MELVILLE, N.Y., July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, is excited to announce its continued support of the New York Marine Rescue Center (NYMRC) regarding efforts to release rehabilitated sea turtles back into the ocean to be tracked and reintroduced to their natural habitat.

The annual initiative, which took place at Robert Moses State Park on July 23, was the culmination of an eight-month long rehabilitation journey led by the NYMRC in Riverhead. After being rescued, the turtles were brought to the centers facilities to receive further restorative treatment. Canon representatives, scientists from the New York Marine Rescue Center, community volunteers, and students from the Half Hollow Hills School District were all in attendance to cheer for the turtles as they made their way back into the ocean.

Supporting the New York Marine Rescue Center is a large part of Canon U.S.A.s ongoing social responsibility initiative focused on environmental protection and conservation, said Shinya Fukuda, vice president and general manager, Corporate Planning & Communications Division at Canon U.S.A., Inc. Our support is a testament to Canons belief in leveraging technology and resources to make a positive impact on the environment. This initiative truly showcased the power of our collective efforts in making a tangible difference in environmental conservation.

The NYMRC is a rescue and rehabilitation organization that promotes marine conservation. Its mission is to preserve and protect the marine environment through conservation efforts including rescue, rehabilitation, education, and research. They are the primary responders for sick or injured seals, sea turtles, dolphins, porpoises, and small toothed whales, and maintain the only marine mammal and sea turtle rehabilitation center in New York State.



We are beyond thrilled to be part of this amazing project with Candlewood Middle School and Canon. This is our third year hosting this program and every year it gets better, said Maxine Montello, the executive director of the NYMRC Rescue Program. Its a true pleasure sharing the students excitement during the release of their adopted animal. In addition, the amount of hard work and creativity that goes into these books is tremendous. Im excited to continue to see this program grow.



The long-standing association between Canon U.S.A. and the NYMRC is focused on preserving and protecting the marine environment through conservation efforts, including rescue, rehabilitation, education, and research. To that end, on July 23, Sheldon, the Canon Loggerhead sea turtle, and Mydas, an Atlantic Green sea turtle, were released back into the ocean, with the event also serving as an educational opportunity for environmental science students from Candlewood Middle School in the Half Hollow Hills School District, who were invited to participate in the release and observe the intricate process of marine life rehabilitation.



During the 2024-2025 school year, the students will write and illustrate a book about their rescued turtle, Mydas, for which Canon will support the project by binding and printing the books. All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to NYMRC.

I am always looking for ways to connect students to the world around them, said Melissa Watkins, a teacher at Candlewood Middle School. When I was approached once again to participate in the program I jumped at the chance. It is one thing to tell students that we have sea turtles and seals in the ocean surrounding Long Island but it is another to learn in depth about it, see rescue work in action, and to let the students share their acquired knowledge in their own words. I also love the opportunity for students to fuse science with literacy and art, and what better way to do so than with a children's book.





About Canon U.S.A. Inc.

Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions to the United States and to Latin America and the Caribbean markets. With approximately $29.4 billion in global revenue, its parent company, Canon Inc. as of 2023 has ranked in the top-five overall in U.S. patents granted for 38 consecutive years. Canon U.S.A. is dedicated to its Kyosei philosophy of social and environmental responsibility. To learn more about Canon, visit us at www.usa.canon.com and connect with us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/canonusa.

# # #

 Based on weekly patent counts issued by United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Attachment
PHILADELPHIA, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kaskela Law LLC announces that it has launched an investigation into the recently announced proposed buyout of Instructure Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: INST) (Instructure) shareholders.



On July 25, 2024, Instructure announced that it had agreed to be acquired by private equity firm KKR at a price of $23.60 per share  a premium of just $0.87 per share, or less than 4%, to the stocks prior day closing price of $22.73. Following the closing of the proposed transaction, Instructures shareholders will be cashed out of their investment position and the companys shares will no longer be publicly traded.

The investigation thus far has revealed that the process leading up to the announcement of the buyout appears to have significant conflicts of interest, thus making the sales process as well as the price-per-share appear unfair to the companys shareholders. Notably, just one week prior to the announcement of the shareholder buyout, shares of the companys stock traded at prices above $25.00 per share, and numerous analysts were maintaining price targets for INST shares in excess of $30.00 per share.

Instructure shareholders unhappy with the buyout price are encouraged to contact Kaskela Law LLC (D. Seamus Kaskela, Esq. or Adrienne Bell, Esq.) for additional information about this investigation and their legal rights at (484) 229  0750, or by clicking on the following link (or if necessary, copying and pasting the link into your browser):

https://kaskelalaw.com/case/instructure-holdings/

Kaskela Law LLC exclusively represents investors in securities fraud, corporate governance, and merger & acquisition litigation on a contingent basis. For additional information about Kaskela Law LLC please visit www.kaskelalaw.com.

CONTACT:

KASKELA LAW LLC

D. Seamus Kaskela, Esq.

(skaskela@kaskelalaw.com)

Adrienne Bell, Esq.

(abell@kaskelalaw.com)

18 Campus Blvd., Suite 100

Newtown Square, PA 19073

(888) 715  1740

(484) 229  0750

www.kaskelalaw.com

This notice may constitute attorney advertising in certain jurisdictions.
TORONTO, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Supporters and members of the labour movement are joining a solidarity rally on Saturday, July 27, for Telus call centre workers, members of United Steelworkers union (USW) Local 1944, in their fight against announced office closures.



"Please join us Saturday, July 27 for a solidarity rally to show Telus that WE WILL NOT go Without a Fight! The recent closure of offices and the reintroduction of in-office work has affected numerous employees. Now more than ever is the time for us to come together and show our support, said Michael Phillips, USW Local 1944 President.

The office closures affect 150 families in Ontario who are required to relocate to Quebec, as well as 1,000 employees who are transitioning back to in-office schedules following an extended period of remote work from 2020 or earlier.

WHO: Supporters, allies and members of the USW Local 1944, including Michael Phillips, USW Local 1944 President.

WHAT: Solidarity rally for USW Local 1944 members forced by Telus to relocate or lose their jobs

WHEN: Saturday, July 27, 2024, starting at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE: Telus Tower, 25 York St., Toronto, M5J 2V5, then marching to Toronto City Hall, 100 Queen St. W.

Attendees include USW members from across Toronto and the GTA, members of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL) and Toronto and York Region Labour Council members.

TELUS can easily afford to provide office space for their employees in Ontario, they just dont want to. These call centre jobs can be performed properly from anywhere  and they have been, for years, said Phillips.

Supporters are encouraged to contact their representatives in Ottawa to ask that they stand up for Canadian call centre workers, our communities and our local jobs: usw.ca/standupforcallcentreworkers.

For more information:

Michael Phillips, USW Local 1944 President, michael.phillips@usw1944.ca 604-818-7466





A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/55c9e282-d8cc-478f-8fa8-1920f217247c
BOSTON HEIGHTS, Ohio, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Arhaus , a leader in artisan-crafted furniture and home decor, announces the opening of its new 16,160 square-foot showroom at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto, California. Located in the southern San Francisco Bay area, Arhaus promises an inspiring destination for high-quality furniture and home decor, alongside the open-air center's roster of premier shops, eateries, and more. This showroom marks the brands thirteenth location in California, and seventh to open within the past year as part of Arhaus ongoing West Coast expansion. Other nearby locations include the Arhaus Los Gatos showroom and Burlingame Studio.



The Palo Alto location offers complimentary design services to clients, extending a helping hand on home projects of any scale. Whether reviving a single space or furnishing an entire home, Arhaus' team of seasoned design consultants is ready to provide guidance both in-store and online. For further details or to connect with a local designer, please visit Arhaus.com/DesignServices.

In celebration of the showroom opening at Stanford Shopping Center, Arhaus will make a $10,000 contribution to American Forests, the country's oldest nonprofit conservation organization, dedicated to nurturing healthy and resilient forests from coast to coast. Rooted in sustainable principles and as part of its ongoing Green Initiative, Arhaus takes pride in its continued support for American Forests and its mission. To learn more about American Forests, visit AmericanForests.org.

The Arhaus Palo Alto showroom opens today, Friday, July 26, at Stanford Shopping Center, located at 660 Stanford Shopping Center #820B, Palo Alto, CA 94604.

For more information and store locations, visit the Arhaus Store Directory at Arhaus.com/Stores . To learn more about Arhaus values and commitments, visit Arhaus.com/About. To learn more about Arhaus Trade, an exclusive program for industry professionals, visit Arhaus.com/Trade.

About Arhaus

Founded in 1986, Arhaus is a rapidly growing lifestyle brand and omni-channel retailer of premium home furnishings. Through a differentiated proprietary model that directly designs and sources products from leading manufacturers and artisans around the world, Arhaus offers an exclusive assortment of heirloom quality products that are sustainably sourced, lovingly made, and built to last. With more than 95 showroom and design studio locations across the United States, a team of interior designers providing complimentary in-home design services, and robust online and ecommerce capabilities, Arhaus is known for innovative design, responsible sourcing, and client-first service. For more information, please visit www.arhaus.com.

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/5914ac14-2a4b-4a0b-9eb9-9e13ccfbe427

https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/ed753430-ae94-420b-881d-84ca56b42713
TORONTO, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Premier American Uranium Inc. (PUR, the Company or Premier American Uranium) (TSXV: PUR) (OTCQB: PAUIF) is pleased to outline targets as part of its exploration growth plans at the Companys flagship Cebolleta Project (Cebolleta or the Project) located in the Grants Mineral Belt in New Mexico.



Uranium mineralization at PURs Cebolleta project are the northern extension of the Jackpile-Paguate trend of uranium deposits, which is one of the largest sandstone-hosted uranium endowments in the world.1,2 Collectively, the mines of the Laguna mining district produced more than 100 million pounds of U 3 O 8 from the Jackpile-Paguate trend during the period from 1951 to 1983, as documented by geologists of the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources and the US Department of Energy.2 The northern continuation of the Jackpile-Paguate trend of uranium deposits onto the southern part of the Cebolleta project property is well established, but the extent of mineralization is not fully defined, representing several important potential exploration and growth opportunities for the Company.

The Company has identified several target areas at Cebolleta, including:

Untested areas with known mineralized zones, but not yet comprehensively drilled.

Mineralized zones within the Jackpile sandstone which remain open-ended and trend beyond the limits of the existing drilling grid, providing potential for expansion of known deposits.

Mineralization at the Piedra Lumbre prospect (Figure 1), hosted in the Westwater Canyon Member of the Morrison Formation, which is the principal host for the prolific uranium deposits of the Grants Mineral Belt.



Colin Healey, CEO of PUR commented, As drilling has begun in Wyoming to unlock the potential opportunity to discover another ISR amenable deposit in close proximity to Ur-Energys Lost Creek uranium mine and processing facility and not far from Rio Tintos Sweetwater Mill, our technical team is undertaking the next steps required to expand shareholder value at Cebolleta in New Mexico. We are currently designing programs with the goal of unlocking growth potential as we advance toward preliminary economic and technical studies at the Cebolleta Project. We look forward to providing more detailed plans for exploration and advancement at this rapidly evolving flagship project in the near future.

Brownfield Exploration Targets at Cebolleta

The Company has identified several important brownfields targets that remain either untested or have very limited historical drilling immediately adjacent to historically defined mineralization in the Jackpile Sandstone at both the St. Anthony and L-Bar (Sohio) areas of the Project (Figure 1).

In the St. Anthony area, the southern property line is defined by the northern part of the Jackpile open pit mine. Reconnaissance-scale exploration drilling carried out by a previous operator of the project encountered mineralization in several holes in the immediate vicinity of the northern edge of the Jackpile open pit. The Company believes the southern boundary region of the property has the potential to host additional uranium mineralization that could be similar in tenor to mineralization in the adjoining Jackpile mine.





The Link target is situated along the northern flank of the St. Anthony north pit and near the area of Phase I confirmation drill program completed by American Future Fuel Corporation in 2023, in an area of limited historical drilling along the major trend that defines the mineralized system on the Project. The Company believes that the Link target has a probability of expanding the known mineralization on the Project. In addition, the South Pit Extension target is considered to have good potential to host additional mineralization as it is situated between areas of well-defined mineralization but was largely undrilled due to the presence of an isolated topographic high. Notably, the Willie P underground mine developed by UNC as part of the St. Anthony mine complex where 1.6 million pounds of uranium were mined from 1975 to 1979, is believed to have remaining mineralization not included in the current mineral resource estimate ( MRE ) for the Cebolleta Project in New Mexico prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (see press release dated June 24, 2024). The Company has begun work to acquire and analyze data that was previously unavailable.





) for the Cebolleta Project in New Mexico prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (see press release dated June 24, 2024). The Company has begun work to acquire and analyze data that was previously unavailable. At the L-Bar (Sohio) area of the Project brownfields targets have been identified in the north and south Sohio target areas, immediately adjacent to known mineralization. In the Central target area, sparse historical drilling has defined isolated pods of mineralization that the Company believes could be linked to define a larger, continuous mineralized body.





Figure 1: Brownfields and greenfields exploration targets within the Project area. Note the Jackpile Mine pit boundary is at the southern limit of the property and the Company believes there is good potential to extend this mineralization onto the Project area. On the eastern side of the Project area, the Piedra Lumbre prospect is a greenfields target that has potential for hosting mineralization in the underlying Westwater Canyon Member of the Morrison Formation.

Greenfields Exploration Targets at Cebolleta  Potential for New Discovery

At the Piedra Lumbre prospect on the eastern margin of the Project (Figure 1), historical drilling encountered uranium mineralization within sandstones of the Westwater Canyon (Westwater), 300 feet below the Jackpile Sandstone. The extent of mineralization at Piedra Lumbre is largely untested, and represents an opportunity for potential identification of new greenfields mineralized area.



About the Cebolleta Project

Cebolleta is an advanced uranium exploration project with a Mineral Resource (April 2024Technical Report) of Indicated Resources containing 18.6 million pounds of U 3 O 8 (6.6 M tons @ 0.14% U 3 O 8 ). Inferred Resources are estimated to contain 4.9 million pounds of U 3 O 8 (2.6 M tons @ 0.10% U3O8).

Qualified Person Statement

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release was reviewed and approved by Dean T. Wilton, PG, CPG-7659, MAIG-6384, a consultant to PUR, and a Qualified Person (as defined in National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects). Data verification related to certain scientific and technical information with respect to the Project can be found in the Companys technical report entitled Technical Report on the Cebolleta Uranium Project, Cibola County, New Mexico, USA dated June 17, 2024, which is available under the Companys profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

About Premier American Uranium

Premier American Uranium Inc. is focused on the consolidation, exploration, and development of uranium projects in the United States. One of PURs key strengths is the extensive land holdings in three prominent uranium-producing regions in the United States: the Grants Mineral Belt of New Mexico, the Great Divide Basin of Wyoming and the Uravan Mineral Belt of Colorado. With a rich history of past production and both current and historic uranium mineral resources, PUR has work programs underway to advance its portfolio.

Backed by Sachem Cove Partners, IsoEnergy Ltd., Mega Uranium Ltd., and additional corporate and institutional investors, and an unparalleled team with U.S. uranium experience, PURs positioning in the market represents a compelling opportunity, as uranium fundamentals are currently the strongest they have been in more than a decade.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Premier American Uranium Inc.

Colin Healey, CEO

info@premierur.com

Toll-Free: 1-833-223-4673

Twitter: @PremierAUranium

www.premierur.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to, planned exploration and advancement activities; anticipated exploration results; the potential for identification of additional mineralization and future mineral resource expansion; plans regarding preparation of a Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Project; expectations regarding the resurgence of nuclear power in the US; and other activities, events or developments that are expected, anticipated or may occur in the future. Generally, but not always, forward-looking information and statements can be identified by the use of words such as plans, expects, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates, or believes or the negative connotation thereof 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 or the negative connotation thereof.

Forward-looking information and statements are based on our current expectations, beliefs, assumptions, estimates and forecasts about PURs business and the industry and markets in which it operates. Such forward-information and statements are based on numerous assumptions, including among others, that the planned exploration activities will be compelt4ed as anticipated and that the results of such planned exploration activities are as anticipated, the price of uranium, the anticipated cost of planned exploration activities, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms, that third party contractors, equipment and supplies and governmental and other approvals required to conduct the Companys planned exploration activities will be available on reasonable terms and in a timely manner. Although the assumptions made by PUR in providing forward-looking information or making forward-looking statements are considered reasonable by management at the time, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be accurate.

Forward-looking information and statements also involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performances and achievements of Premier American Uranium to differ materially from any projections of results, performances and achievements of Premier American Uranium expressed or implied by such forward-looking information or statements, including, among others: limited operating history, negative operating cash flow and dependence on third party financing, uncertainty of additional financing, delays or failure to obtain required permits and regulatory approvals, changes in mineral resources, no known mineral reserves, aboriginal title and consultation issues, reliance on key management and other personnel; potential downturns in economic conditions; availability of third party contractors; availability of equipment and supplies; failure of equipment to operate as anticipated; accidents, effects of weather and other natural phenomena and other risks associated with the mineral exploration industry; changes in laws and regulation, competition, and uninsurable risks and the risk factors with respect to Premier American Uranium set out in PURs annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2023 and the other documents of PUR filed with the Canadian securities regulators and available under PURs profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

Although PUR has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information or implied by 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 forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. PUR undertakes no obligation to update or reissue forward-looking information as a result of new information or events except as required by applicable securities laws.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0762793d-ba7a-456f-846c-d807399c936b

_______________

1 Worlds Largest Giant Uranium Deposit in New Mexico. US Geological Survey Open File Report 82-539, 1982. (https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1982/0539/report.pdf)

2 The Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine, Grants Uranium District: Changes in perspectives from production to superfund site Virginia T. McLemore, Bonnie A. Frey, Ellane El Hayek, Eshani Hettiarachchi, Reid Brown, Olivia Chavez, Shaylene Paul, and Milton Das
GUADALAJARA, Mexico, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V., (NYSE: PAC; BMV: GAP) (the Company or GAP) announces that it has signed amendments to the Concession Agreement with the Airports Authority of Jamaica (AAJ) associated with the Montego Bay and Kingston Airports, derived from the effects suffered by the Concessionaires during the COVID-19 pandemic. The main amendments were the following:



Montego Bay Airport: The Concession Period will expire thirty-one (31) years after the commencement date, in March 2034. This represents one additional year to the original Concession Period.

Kingston Airport: Concession Fee changes from 62.01% of the Gross Revenues to 53.22%, from the Effective Date, which is September 11, 2023. Accordingly, the amounts paid to the owner (AAJ) in excess from the Effective Date will be reimbursed to the Concessionaire once the Extension of the Runway begins (the main project of the Capital Works), with the handover of the site to the contractor will being the trigger. The benefit of this change will be recognized retroactively in our Income Statement of 2024.

Company Description

Grupo Aeroportuario del Pacifico, S.A.B. de C.V. (GAP) operates 12 airports throughout Mexicos Pacific region, including the major cities of Guadalajara and Tijuana, the four tourist destinations of Puerto Vallarta, Los Cabos, La Paz and Manzanillo, and six other mid-sized cities: Hermosillo, Guanajuato, Morelia, Aguascalientes, Mexicali, and Los Mochis. In February 2006, GAPs shares were listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PAC and on the Mexican Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol GAP. In April 2015, GAP acquired 100% of Desarrollo de Concessioner Aeroportuarias, S.L., which owns a majority stake in MBJ Airports Limited, a company operating Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay, Jamaica. In October 2018, GAP entered into a concession agreement for the Norman Manley International Airport operation in Kingston, Jamaica, and took control of the operation in October 2019.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements. These statements are statements that are not historical facts and are based on managements current view and estimates of future economic circumstances, industry conditions, company performance, and financial results. The words anticipates, believes, estimates, expects, plans and similar expressions, as they relate to the company, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Statements regarding the declaration or payment of dividends, the implementation of principal operating and financing strategies and capital expenditure plans, the direction of future operations, and the factors or trends affecting financial condition, liquidity, or results of operations are examples of forward-looking statements. Such statements reflect the current views of management and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. There is no guarantee that the expected events, trends, or results will occur. The statements are based on many assumptions and factors, including general economic and market conditions, industry conditions, and operating factors. Any changes in such assumptions or factors could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations.

In accordance with Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and Article 42 of the Ley del Mercado de Valores, GAP has implemented a whistleblower program, which allows complainants to anonymously and confidentially report suspected activities that involve criminal conduct or violations. The telephone number in Mexico, facilitated by a third party responsible for collecting these complaints, is 800 04 ETICA (38422) or WhatsApp +52 55 6538 5504. The website is www.lineadedenunciagap.com or by email at denuncia@lineadedenunciagap.com. GAPs Audit Committee will be notified of all complaints for immediate investigation.

Alejandra Soto, Investor Relations and Social Responsibility Officer asoto@aeropuertosgap.com.mx Gisela Murillo, Investor Relations gmurillo@aeropuertosgap.com.mx/+52 33 3880 1100 ext. 20294

Facebook: AeropuertosGAP

X: @aeropuertosGAP

Instagram: @aeropuertosgap
New ISIN and CUSIP Numbers

Vancouver, July 25, 2024 - Gitennes Exploration Inc. ("Gitennes" or the "Company") - (TSXV - GIT) announces that, further to a news release dated July 8, 2024 and subject to final acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV"), its board of directors has approved the consolidation (the "Consolidation") of its issued and outstanding common shares (the "Shares") on the basis of one (1) post?Consolidation Share for every ten (10) pre?Consolidation Shares. The Company anticipates that the Shares will begin trading on a post-Consolidation basis effective market open on July 30, 2024.

As of the date of this news release, the Company has 68,547,122 Shares issued and outstanding and the Company expects that it will have approximately 6,854,712 Shares issued and outstanding on a post-Consolidation basis. The Company's new CUSIP number and ISIN for the Shares will be 37636Q304 and CA37636Q3044, respectively.

Registered shareholders will receive a letter of transmittal from Computershare Investor Services Inc., the transfer agent for the Shares, describing the process by which shareholders may obtain new certificates representing their post-Consolidation Shares. Shares held in uncertificated form by non-registered shareholders through brokerage accounts will be converted through each shareholder's brokerage accounts. Non-registered shareholders should consult their broker for further information.

About Gitennes Exploration Inc.

Gitennes is in the business of exploring for and advancing mineral properties The Company currently has two properties in the Sept Iles region of Quebec where the Company is exploring for nickel, REE, niobium and tantalum and three gold properties in the Chapais-Chibougamau area of Quebec: New Mosher, JMW and Maxwell. All properties are 100% owned by Gitennes except for New Mosher which is under option and Gitennes can earn an initial 70% and has the right to increase its ownership to 85%.

For further information on the Company, readers are referred to the Company's website at www.gitennes.com and its Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

Gitennes Exploration Inc.

"Ken Booth"

Ken Booth

President

For further information, please contact: Ken Booth

Phone: 604-682-7970

Email: info@gitennes.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release includes certain statements that constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws and U.S. securities legislation, including the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including, without limitation, statements concerning the Consolidation, the Company's expectation that will be successful in enacting its business plans, and the future business, operations and financial performance and condition of the Company, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by words such as "will", "pro forma", "plans", "expects", "may", "should", "budget", "schedules", estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "potential" or variations of such words including negative variations thereof and phrases that refer to certain actions, events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, the receipt of any necessary regulatory or corporate approvals in connection with the Consolidation, market fundamentals will result in sustained precious metals demand and prices, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future exploration and development of the Company's projects in a timely manner, the availability of financing on suitable terms for the exploration and development of the Company's projects and the Company's ability to comply with environmental, health and safety laws.

The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future results or performance, and that actual results could differ from those projected in any forward-looking statements due to numerous factors including risks and uncertainties relating to exploration and development and actual results of exploration activities; the ability of the Company to obtain additional financing; delays in obtaining governmental and regulatory approvals (including TSX Venture Exchange approval of the Consolidation), permits or financing; the fact that the Company's interests in certain of its mineral properties are only options and there is no guarantee that the interests, if earned, will be certain; financial condition and results of operations; the need to comply with environmental and governmental regulations; potential defects in title to the Company's properties; changes in general economic conditions; fluctuations in the prices of commodities and precious metals; operating hazards and risks; environmental issues and liabilities; risks related to joint venture operations; and competition and other risks and uncertainties of the mining industry. Readers should consider all of the information set forth herein and should review the Company's periodic reports filed from time-to-time with Canadian securities regulators. These reports and the Company's filings are available on the Company's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and, except as otherwise required by law, the Company undertakes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained herein, or to update the reasons why actual results could differ from those projected in these forward-looking statements.

Copyright (c) 2024 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.
Compania de Minas Buenaventura S.A.A. ("Buenaventura" or "the Company") (NYSE: BVN; Lima Stock Exchange: BUE.LM), Peru's largest publicly-traded precious metals mining company, today announced results for the second quarter (2Q24) and six-month period ended June 30, 2024 (6M24). All figures have been prepared in accordance with IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) on a non-GAAP basis and are stated in U.S. dollars (US$).

Second Quarter and Six-Month 2024 Highlights:

2Q24 EBITDA from direct operations was US$ 106.9 million, compared to US$ 22.1 million reported in 2Q23. 6M24 EBITDA from direct operations reached US$ 201.3 million, compared to US$ 68.7 million reported in 6M23.

2Q24 net income reached US$ 74.4 million, compared to a US$ 5.4 million net loss for the same period in 2023. 6M24 net income was US$ 141.4 million, compared to US$ 67.5 million in net income for the 6M23.

Buenaventura's cash position reached US$ 171.5 million by quarter's end, June 30, 2024, while net debt amounted to US$ 520.5 million, resulting in a Leverage Ratio of 1.40x.

El Brocal's processing plant facility was voluntarily temporarily suspended for 16 days, as was announced by the Company on May 22, 2024, and resumed operations at midnight on June 7, 2024. El Brocal had accumulated approximately 220,000 tonnes of copper ore upon the plant's reinitiation, and the processing of this stockpiled inventory, combined with ongoing mine production, is expected to enable El Brocal to meet its nine-month 2024 copper production target by September 2024.

Buenaventura's 2Q24 consolidated silver production increased by 2.4M Oz, zinc production increased by 28% YoY, and lead increased by 86% YoY, primarily due to production initiation at Uchucchacua and Yumpag. Copper production decreased by 22% YoY due to the temporary suspension of El Brocal's processing plant facility, as well as a 9% YoY decrease in gold due to lower production from the southern mines.

2Q24 CAPEX related to San Gabriel was US$ 69.7 million, primarily directed towards the completion of waste dumps and the main substation platform.

Cerro Verde paid a total dividend of US$ 150 million on April 26, 2024, of which Buenaventura received US$ 29.4 million relative to its stake in Cerro Verde. On July 24, 2024, Cerro Verde announced a second total dividend of US$ 300 million to be paid on August 29, 2024, of which Buenaventura will receive an additional US$ 58.7 million.

Financial Highlights (in millions of US$, excluding EPS):

2Q24 2Q23 Var 6M24 6M23 Var Total Revenues 277.1 173.3 60% 523.9 358.8 46% Operating Income 66.6 -22.0 N.A. 113.4 -9.5 N.A. EBITDA Direct Operations 106.9 22.1 N.A. 201.3 68.7 193% EBITDA Including Affiliates 236.9 92.4 156% 422.3 265.7 59% Net Income (1) 70.7 -6.7 N.A. 132.1 57.7 129% EPS (2) 0.28 -0.03 N.A. 0.52 0.23 129% Net Income attributable to owners of the parent. As of June 30, 2024, Buenaventura had a weighted average number of shares outstanding of 253,986,867.

For a full version of Compania de Minas Buenaventura Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Release, please visit: https://www.buenaventura.com/en/inversionistas/reportes-trimestrales/2024

CONFERENCE CALL INFORMATION:

Compania de Minas Buenaventura will host a conference call on Friday, July 26, 2024, to discuss these results at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time / 10:00 a.m. Peru Time.

To participate in the conference call, please dial:

Toll-Free US:

+1 844 481 2914

Toll International:

+1 412 317 0697

Passcode:

Ask to be joined into the Compania de Minas Buenaventura's call.

Webcast:

https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=C3gM4Lqs

If you would prefer to receive a call rather than dial in, please register via the following link. Please use this option 10-15 minutes prior to the conference call start time:

Call Me Link:

https://hd.choruscall.com/?callme=true&passcode=&info=company-email&r=true&b=16

Passcode: 9476300

Participants who do not wish to be interrupted to have their information gathered may have Chorus Call dial out to them by clicking on the above link, filling in the information, and pressing the green phone button at the bottom. The phone number provided will be automatically called and connected to the conference without any interruption to the participant. (Please note: Participants will be joined directly to the conference and will hear hold music until the call begins. No confirmation message will be played when joined.)

Company Description

Compania de Minas Buenaventura S.A.A. is Peru's largest, publicly traded precious and base metals Company and a major holder of mining rights in Peru. The Company is engaged in the exploration, mining development, processing and trade of gold, silver and other base metals via wholly-owned mines and through its participation in joint venture projects. Buenaventura currently operates several mines in Peru (Orcopampa*, Uchucchacua*, Julcani*, Tambomayo*, La Zanja*, El Brocal and Coimolache).

The Company owns 19.58% of Sociedad Minera Cerro Verde, an important Peruvian copper producer (a partnership with Freeport-McMorRan Inc. and Sumitomo Corporation).

For a printed version of the Company's 2023 Form 20-F, please contact the investor relations contacts on page 1 of this report or download the PDF format file from the Company's web site at www.buenaventura.com.

(*) Operations wholly owned by Buenaventura

Note on Forward-Looking Statements

This press release and related conference call contain, in addition to historical information, forward-looking statements including statements related to the Company's ability to manage its business and liquidity during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company's results of operations, including net revenues, earnings and cash flows, the Company's ability to reduce costs and capital spending in response to the COVID-19 pandemic if needed, the Company's balance sheet, liquidity and inventory position throughout and following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company's prospects for financial performance, growth and achievement of its long-term growth algorithm following the COVID-19 pandemic, future dividends and share repurchases.

This press release may also contain forward-looking information (as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) that involve risks and uncertainties, including those concerning the Company's, Cerro Verde's costs and expenses, results of exploration, the continued improving efficiency of operations, prevailing market prices of gold, silver, copper and other metals mined, the success of joint ventures, estimates of future explorations, development and production, subsidiaries' plans for capital expenditures, estimates of reserves and Peruvian political, economic, social and legal developments. These forward-looking statements reflect the Company's view with respect to the Company's, Cerro Verde's future financial performance. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors discussed elsewhere in this Press Release.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240725358542/en/

Contact

Contacts in Lima:

Daniel Dominguez, Chief Financial Officer

+51 1 419 2540

Gabriel Salas, Head of Investor Relations

+51 1 419 2591

gabriel.salas@buenaventura.pe

Contact in New York:

Barbara Cano, InspIR Group

+1 646 452 2334

barbara@inspirgroup.com

Website: www.buenaventura.com
TSXV: ARTG

VANCOUVER, July 25, 2024 - Artemis Gold Inc. (TSXV: ARTG) ("Artemis Gold" or the "Company") announces the wildfire evacuation order previously announced on July 22, 2024 has been lifted. The Company plans to immediately commence the staged return of employees and contractors to site over the coming days. Camp operations and services have been maintained and accordingly ramp-up to full construction capacity is expected to be expeditious. All access roads to the Blackwater Mine are clear and the mine site was not impacted by any wildfires.

About Artemis Gold Inc.

Artemis Gold is a well-financed, growth-oriented gold development company with a strong financial capacity aimed at creating shareholder value through the identification, acquisition, and development of gold properties in mining-friendly jurisdictions. The Company's current focus is the construction of the Blackwater Mine in central British Columbia approximately 160km southwest of Prince George and 450km northeast of Vancouver. The project is one of the largest capital investments in central British Columbia in over a decade. The first pour of gold and silver at Blackwater is expected in H2 2024. Artemis Gold trades on the TSX-V under the symbol ARTG. For more information visit www.artemisgoldinc.com.

ARTEMIS GOLD INC.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Steven Dean

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

+1 604 558 1107

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information as defined under applicable Canadian and U.S. securities laws. Statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Any statements that refer to expectations, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking statements. In certain cases, forward-looking statements and information can be identified using forward-looking terminology such as "may", "will", "expect", "intend", "estimate", "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "plans", "potential" or similar terminology. Forward-looking statements and information are made as of the date of this press release, and include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the potential of the Blackwater mine project; the jobs to be created in connection with the project; the contribution of the project to the economy; opinions of the Province of British Columbia regarding the project and the region; agreements and relationships with Indigenous partners; the future of mining in British Columbia; the plans of the Company with respect to the project, including construction, site preparation, clearing, consultation with indigenous groups, and other plans and expectations of the Company with respect to the project, including the duration or impact of the wildfire evacuation order.

These forward-looking statements represent management's current beliefs, expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events and operating performance, which are based on information currently available to management, management's historical experience, perception of trends and current business conditions, expected future developments and other factors which management considers appropriate. Such forward-looking statements involve numerous risks and uncertainties, and actual results may vary. Important risks and other factors that may cause actual results to vary include, without limitation: risks related to the ability of the Company to accomplish its plans and objectives with respect to the development of the project within the expected timing or at all, the timing and receipt of certain required approvals, changes in commodity prices, changes in interest and currency exchange rates, risks inherent in exploration estimates and results, risks inherent in exploration and development activities, changes in development or mining plans due to changes in logistical, technical or other factors, unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications, cost escalation, unavailability of materials, equipment or third party contractors, delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances, job action, and unanticipated events related to heath, safety and environmental matters), changes in governmental regulation of mining operations, political risk, social unrest, changes in general economic conditions or conditions in the financial markets, and other risks related to the ability of the Company to proceed with its plans for the project and other risks set out in the Company's most recent MD&A, which is available on the Company's website at www.artemisgoldinc.com and on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca

In making the forward-looking statements in this press release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, the assumptions that: (1) market fundamentals will result in sustained mineral demand and prices; (2) any necessary approvals and consents in connection with the development of the project will be obtained; (3) financing for the development, construction and continued operation of the project will continue to be available on terms suitable to the Company; (4) sustained commodity prices will continue to make the project economically viable; and (5) there will not be any unfavourable changes to the economic, political, permitting and legal climate in which the Company operates. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could affect the Company and may cause actual actions, events, or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause the actual results or performance by the Company to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by any forward-looking statements. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on the results of operations or the financial condition of the Company. Investors should therefore not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation, to update, alter or otherwise revise any forward-looking statement, whether written or oral, that may be made from time to time, whether because of new information, future events or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

SOURCE Artemis Gold Inc.
VANCOUVER, July 25, 2024 - Alaska Energy Metals Corp. (TSX-V: AEMC, OTCQB: AKEMF) ("AEMC" or the "Company") announces that it has been requested by OTC Markets Group Inc. ("OTC Markets") to issue this statement about promotional activity concerning its common shares (the "Shares") traded on the OTCQB Venture Market ("OTCQB") (operated by OTC Markets).



On July 23, 2024, OTC Markets informed the Company that it became aware of certain promotional activities concerning the Company and its Shares traded on the OTCQB, including the distribution of three email newsletters (the "Promotional Newsletters") published by Wealth Research Group LLC, an affiliate of Gold Standard Media, LLC ("Gold Standard") discussing the Company, its business, the economy, and the battery metals and nickel market generally.

On October 30, 2023, January 19, 2024, and July 11, 2024, the Company entered into advertising agreements with Gold Standard, whereby Gold Standard, along with its affiliates, Future Money Trends LLC, Wealth Research Group LLC, Crush the Street, and Portfolio Wealth Global LLC, would provide investor relations and advertising services to the Company. The Company was therefore aware of Wealth Research Group, LLC's promotional activities respecting the Company since October 30, 2023. Accordingly, the Promotional Newsletters were paid for by the Company through its engagement of Gold Standard.

The engagement of Gold Standard, the nature of the relationship between the Company and Gold Standard, as well as the compensation paid to Gold Standard, was publicly disclosed in news releases on November 6, 2023, January 23, 2024, and July 16, 2024, which can be found under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca) and on the Company's website (www.alaskaenergymetals.com).

The Company provided Gold Standard with publicly available sources of information for its marketing materials and management reviewed and approved the materials prepared by Gold Standard prior to their dissemination, including to ensure factual accuracy. The Company does not believe the statements in the Promotional Newsletters were materially false or misleading. However, the Company notes that investing in the Company's securities involves certain risks and uncertainties which investors should review prior to making any investment decision. The Company encourages all investors to undertake proper due diligence and carefully consider all investment decisions. The Company directs potential investors to rely solely on its filings and disclosures made with the Canadian Securities Administrators, available at www.sedarplus.ca.

After inquiry of management, other than as disclosed herein, no directors, control persons, officers, or controlling shareholders have been involved with the creation, distribution, or payment of promotional materials related to the Company and its securities.

The Company understands this promotional activity coincided with increased trading activity in its Shares beginning on approximately July 22, 2024. However, the Company does not believe the promotional activities were the primary factor in any increase in trading volume of its Shares.

Except as disclosed below, after inquiry of management, its officers, directors, any controlling shareholders, or any third-party service providers, the Company is not aware of any purchases or sales of the Company's shares in the past 90 days:

Entities controlled and directed by Commodity Partners' principals, Mario Vetro and Carson Seabolt, sold an aggregate of 1,903,000 common shares and purchased an aggregate of 1,198,500 common shares.

A third-party service provider acquired 66,600 special warrants in July 2024.

The Company has engaged the following third-party service providers to provide investor relations services, public relations services, marketing, or other related service within the last twelve months: BW Venture Strategies Inc. (August 2023), Apollo Shareholder Relations Ltd. (November 2023), 2686362 Ontario Corporation dba CanaCom Group (November 2023), Canid Capital Corporation (November 2023), Gold Standard Media, LLC (October 2023), Junior Resource Investing (November 2023), Senergy Communications Capital (November 2023), Supercharged Stocks dba The Market Mindset (November 2023), Triple Bull Consulting Inc. (November 2023), Virtus Media Group LLC (November 2023), Commodity Partners Inc. (August 2023), Market Radius Capital Inc. (December 2023), MMG Market Medium GmbH & Co. KG (July 2023), OMNI8 Communications Inc. (July 2023), InvestorIdeas.com dba Econ Corp Services (December 2023), Black Swan Solutions Inc. dba VHLA Media (February 2024), Sydney Knight (February 2024) and Triomphe Holdings Ltd. dba Capital Analytica (December 2023). However, only the engagements with Sydney Knight, OMNI8 Communications Inc., Gold Standard, BW Venture Strategies Inc., and MMG Market Medium GmbH & Co. KG remain in force.

Other than pursuant to financings and acquisition transactions in accordance with TSX Venture Exchange policies, which the Company has publicly disclosed in news releases (available at: www.sedarplus.ca), including the Company's most recent non-brokered special warrant and unit private placement completed on July 5, 2024 (see news release dated July 8, 2024), the Company has not issued shares, or convertible instruments allowing conversion to equity securities, at prices constituting, at the time of issuance of such shares or convertible instruments, a discount to the then current market price.

ABOUT ALASKA ENERGY METALS

Alaska Energy Metals Corporation (AEMC) 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:

Gregory A. Beischer, President & CEO

Toll-Free: 877-217-8978 | Local: 604-638-3164

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). 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.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.
26 July 2024 - TheNewswire (Australia) Jervois Global Ltd. ("Jervois") (ASX: JRV) (TSX-V: JRV) (OTC: JRVMF) advises that the debt under the Secured Working Capital Facility (the "Facility") provided by Mercuria Energy Trading S.A. ("Mercuria") to its 100% owned subsidiary Jervois Finland, has been transferred by Mercuria to the majority bondholder ("Investor") of the Idaho Cobalt Operations US$100 million Senior Secured Bond.

The Investor is now the Lender under the Facility. The Facility continues to be secured against the assets and working capital in Jervois Finland, and the shares in Jervois Finland owned by Jervois. The Facility continues to have an unsecured parent guarantee from Jervois. There are no changes to the terms of the Facility.

Jervois is continuing its engagement with the Investor and other parties on a potential financing or other solution to strengthen Jervois' balance sheet.

On behalf of Jervois Global Limited

Bryce Crocker, CEO

For further information, please contact:

Investors and analysts: Alicia Brown Group Manager - External Affairs Jervois Global alicia.brown@jervoisglobal.com Media: Nathan Ryan NWR Communications nathan.ryan@nwrcommunications.com.au Mob: +61 420 582 887

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target, "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule", "expected" and other similar words or expressions identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information may relate to the potential financing or other solutions to strengthen Jervois balance sheet and certain other factors or information. Such statements represent Jervois' current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by Jervois, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social risks, contingencies and uncertainties. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Jervois does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affections such statements and information other than as required by applicable laws, rules and regulations.

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.

Copyright (c) 2024 TheNewswire - All rights reserved.
TORONTO and MARSEILLES, France, July 26, 2024 /CNW/ - Foraco International SA (TSX: FAR) (the "Company" or "Foraco"), a leading global provider of mineral drilling services, will release its second quarter 2024 financial results, prior to TSX market open on Friday, August 2, 2024. Following the release, Management of the Company will host a Conference Call at 10:00 am ET to review the financial results. The call will be hosted by Tim Bremner, CEO and Fabien Sevestre, CFO.

To join the conference call without operator assistance, you may register and enter your phone number at https://emportal.ink/4fmaJ2z to receive an instant automated call back.

You can also join the call by dialing 1-888-636-8184 or 1-289 819 1350. You will be put on hold until the conference call begins.

A live audio webcast of the Conference Call will also be available

https://app.webinar.net/G0zrOB9mpN3

Please connect at least 15 minutes prior to the Conference Call to ensure adequate time for any software download that may be needed to hear the webcast. An archived replay of the webcast will be available for 90 days.

About Foraco International SA

Foraco International SA (TSX: FAR) is a leading global mineral drilling services company that provides a comprehensive and reliable service offering in mining and water projects. Supported by its founding values of Integrity, Innovation, and Involvement, Foraco has grown into the third largest global drilling enterprise, with a presence in 21 countries across five continents. For more information about Foraco, visit www.foraco.com.

SOURCE Foraco International SA
North Vancouver, July 26, 2024 - Lion One Metals Ltd. (TSXV: LIO) (ASX: LLO) (OTCQX: LOMLF) ("Lion One" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce that the Company has closed the fully-subscribed upsized brokered private placement financing (the "LIFE Offering") previously announced on July 18, 2024 and July 19, 2024 by issuing 27,027,027 units of the Company (the "Units") at a price of C$0.37 per Unit (the "Offering Price") for aggregate gross proceeds of C$10,000,000, pursuant to the listed issuer financing exemption available under National Instrument 45-106 - Prospectus Exemptions (the "LIFE Exemption") in each of the Provinces of Canada other than Quebec, pursuant to the terms of the agency agreement (the "Agency Agreement") dated as of July 26, 2024, among the Company, Eight Capital, and Canaccord Genuity Corp. (collectively, the "Agents").

Each Unit consists of one common share (a "Common Share") in the capital of the Company and one common share purchase warrant (a "Warrant") of the Company. Each Warrant shall be exercisable to acquire one Common Share (a "Warrant Share") at a price per Warrant Share of C$0.50 for a period of 36 months from the closing date of the LIFE Offering.

Concurrently with the LIFE Offering, the Company completed, a non-brokered private placement of 4,458,352 Units on the same terms as the LIFE Offering, for gross proceeds of C$1,649,590.24 (the "Sidecar Private Placement", and together with the LIFE Offering, the "Offering") pursuant to applicable exemptions under NI 45-106 other than the listed issuer financing exemption. In aggregate, under the Offering the Company issued 31,485,379 Units for gross proceeds of C$11,649,590.24.

In connection with the LIFE Offering, the Company (i) paid to the Agents a cash commission of C$700,000, which was equal to 7.0% of the gross proceeds from the LIFE Offering; and (ii) issued an aggregate of 1,891,891 compensation warrants ("Compensation Warrants"), equal to 7.0% of the number of Units sold pursuant to the LIFE Offering. Each Compensation Warrant is exercisable for one Common Share at a price of C$0.37 for a period of 24 months from the closing date of the LIFE Offering.

In connection with the Sidecar Private Placement, the Company (i) paid a cash commission to a finder (the "Finder") in the aggregate of C$38,850, which was equal to 5% of the gross proceeds in respect of subscribers introduced to the Company by the Finder; and (ii) issued an aggregate of 105,000 Compensation Warrants, equal to 5% of the number of Units sold to subscribers introduced to the Company pursuant to the Sidecar Private Placement. Each Compensation Warrant is exercisable for one Common Share at a price of C$0.37 for a period of 24 months from the closing date of the Sidecar Private Placement.

The net proceeds received by the Company from the sale of the Units will be used for development and ramp up expenses at the Tuvatu Gold project located in Fiji, as well as for general corporate expenses & purposes.

The LIFE Offering was completed pursuant to the LIFE Exemption, and accordingly, the securities issued in the LIFE Offering are not subject to a hold period in accordance with applicable Canadian securities laws. The securities issued under the Sidecar Private Placement are subject to a hold period expiring on November 27, 2024 pursuant to applicable Canadian securities laws.

Certain subscribers under the Sidecar Private Placement are directors and management of the Company. The issuance of Units to directors and management of the Company constitutes a "related party transaction" as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 ("MI 61-101"). The transactions are exempt from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as neither the fair market value of any securities issued or the consideration paid by such persons will exceed 25% of the Company's market capitalization.

The securities referred to herein have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the "United States" (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. 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 the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

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 of

Lion One Metals Limited

"Walter Berukoff"

Chairman and CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information. Forward-Looking statements are frequently identified by such words as "may", "will", "plan", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend" and similar words referring to future events and results. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of the Company. Forward-Looking statements made in this news release include statements regarding anticipated completion of the Offering and debt settlement, and the proposed use of proceeds of the Offering. Although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-Looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of the Company relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks, including, with respect to the Offering, the conditions of the financial markets, availability of financing, timeliness of completion of the Offering, and the timing of TSX Venture Exchange approval; and with respect to the use of proceeds, the sufficiency of the proceeds, the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, fluctuating commodity prices, and competitive, as described in more detail in our recent securities filings available at www.sedarplus.ca, including the Offering Document. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given 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 forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION OR DISSEMINATION DIRECTLY, OR INDIRECTLY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO THE UNITED STATES

To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/217822
Endangered Logan Sargeant slams former F1 driver

Logan Sargeant has slammed a former Formula 1 driver for gossiping about his situation.

Logan Sargeant, Hungarian GP 2024

 Williams

It is almost certain that Sargeant, 23, will be ousted by Williams at the end of the year - amid rumours boss James Vowles actually tried and failed to replace him immediately with Esteban Ocon.

A couple of my American friends who know Sargeant told me that he and James Vowles don't even seem to talk to each other anymore, former F1 driver Marcus Ericsson, now in Indycar, told Viaplay recently.

They just say hello. They completely cut off the connection between them, the former Sauber driver added.

American Sargeant was not impressed when he was told about Ericsson's comments.

He has a reputation for spreading things about other people, even though he never spoke to me in his life, he said at Spa-Francorchamps.

I just spoke to James 20 minutes ago. So this is completely untrue.

However, there is almost no doubt at all that Sargeant's F1 career will be over for now at the end of 2024.

It's not an easy season, considering how much has happened, both for me and for the team, we've suffered in certain areas, he said.

So of course it may appear from the outside that the relationship has deteriorated, but in fact we continue to work as before. We try to perform during the weekend for the team.

(GMM)
Sainz admits problem with even heavier 2025 cars

Carlos Sainz says it's a "problem" for Formula 1 that the cars keep getting incrementally heavier.

Carlos Sainz, Hungarian GP 2022

 Ferrari

Today's hybrid-powered single seaters are literally hundreds of kilograms heavier than in the past - and now an extra 2kg has been added to the weight of the seat-plus driver for 2025.

The FIA explained that the move is in the interests of driver wellbeing .

Obviously, two kilos is not a big change, Ferrari's Sainz said. "The problem is when you start adding two kilos on top of another two, another two, another two, which I think is where the trend has been in Formula 1 over the last ten years.

Then the cars have become 800 kilos heavy, he said. In the past, they were around 600.

Sainz admits the extra 2kgs will be welcomed by tall drivers like Nico Hulkenberg, Esteban Ocon and George Russell who are taller and therefore naturally heavier.

Yeah, agreed Daniel Ricciardo. They can't help being tall, so it's unfair if they have to kind of dehydrate themselves just to make the weight, so to speak.

For the all-new regulations commencing in 2026, the overall minimum weight is being reduced to 768kg - but insiders believe the 32kg reduction is not enough to make the cars as nimble and 'racy' as in the past.

Anything that we can do to bring the weight back down, I think every driver here will appreciate it, said Sainz. We hope the FIA and the teams are taking that into consideration when deciding future rules - not only the '26 ones.

(GMM)
China sees rapid development of intelligent shipping

17:05, July 26, 2024 By Han Xin ( People's Daily

On the shore of the Bohai Sea, a "smart zero-carbon" terminal at the Section C of Tianjin Port's Beijiang Area was bustling with activity. Nearly 100 AI-enabled transport robots zipped back and forth, guided by the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System, setting new highs in cargo handling volume.

A 12.5-meter-deep channel downstream of Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu province along the Yangtze River, was teeming with vessels. Thanks to an automatic identification system, ships entering an electronic geofence could quickly receive real-time service information, which significantly improved navigation safety.

Cranes handle containers in a yard at a fully automated terminal of Qingdao Port, east China's Shandong province, March 6. (People's Daily Online/Zhang Jingang)

In the waters off Zhanjiang, south China's Guangdong province, the unmanned vessel Wenjiang traveled thousands of miles from inland rivers to the open sea for marine surveying tests and applications. Equipped with low-latency communication and high-precision positioning systems, it not only navigated autonomously but also transmitted data in real-time, expanding the potential uses for unmanned vessels.

From fully automated cargo terminals to the rapid rise of digitally managed waterways and self-navigating smart ships, "intelligence" is becoming a key feature of the high-quality development of China's shipping industry.

Smart ports are emerging rapidly across China. Nowadays, China ranks among the world leaders in both operational and under-construction automated container terminals. The country has mastered key technologies across the entire chain, from design and construction to equipment manufacturing, system integration, and operational management. Both the overall application scale and technological level are at the forefront internationally.

Meanwhile, the automation of dry bulk cargo terminals is accelerating. Qinhuangdao Port, Huanghua Port, Qingdao Port, Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, and Zhangjiagang Port have achieved full automation of dry bulk cargo handling, transitioning towards unmanned, intelligent operations.

Smart waterways continue to expand. Electronic navigational charts now cover over 5,700 kilometers of waterways nationwide, with complete coverage of the Yangtze River's main channel. The application of electronic cargo release platforms for imported containers and bulk commodities by sea is also growing.

An intelligent new energy cruise ship equipped with an autopilot system sails on the waters of Sandouping, Yichang, central China's Hubei province, May 18. (People's Daily Online/Wang Gang)

Significant breakthroughs have been made in the development of intelligent vessels. China has successfully developed key technologies for intelligent navigation, including ship perception and decision-making, with some indicators leading globally.

These advancements have resulted in a series of achievements, including the Zhifei vessel which equipped with a complete set of intelligent navigation systems, over 10 self-navigating ships, and more than 1,000 vessels applying intelligent technologies. These developments have brought substantial economic and social benefits.

"Currently, a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is reshaping the global shipping industry, creating new driving forces and competitive advantages," said an official with China's Ministry of Transport.

It is important to maintain a coordinated approach to promote systemic upgrades, and accelerate comprehensive development in smart ports, intelligent waterways, smart ships, and intelligent shipping services, so as to continuously enhance the digital and intelligent capabilities across all elements and the entire chain of the shipping industry, the official explained.

The shipping industry not only serves as a crucial support for economic circulation but also acts as a window into economic performance. The rapid development of intelligent shipping not only demonstrates China's growing strength in the shipping sector but also reflects the vibrant energy of a nation in motion.

Photo shows a busy scene of an automated intelligent terminal in Taicang port area of Suzhou Port, east China's Jiangsu province, July 16. (People's Daily Online/Ji Haixin)

Since this year, many Chinese ports have seen continued growth in throughput. From January to June, Ningbo-Zhoushan Port handled 708 million tons of cargo, a 4.2 percent year-on-year increase, and processed over 19.16 million twenty-foot equivalent units of containers, up 8.4 percent from a year ago.

During the same period, Huanghua Port, the primary hub for China's "west-to-east coal transport and north-to-south coal transport" strategy, achieved a cargo throughput of 179 million tons, marking a 12.04 percent year-on-year increase.

"Last year, China's international maritime shipping volume approached nearly 1/3 of global sea freight, further cementing the country's role as an 'anchor' in international shipping," said the official.

According to the official, since the beginning of this year, waterway transportation has continued to develop at a relatively rapid pace. The Three Gorges hub on the Yangtze River, the Changzhou hub on the Xijiang River, and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal have all set new records for vessel passages. The capacity and efficiency in transporting key materials and international containers have further improved.

At the same time, a number of major projects have accelerated. A container terminal project in the northern operations area of Xiaoyangshan port area in Shanghai has begun construction both on land and at sea, and work has commenced along the entire route of the Pinglu Canal project. Such growth in both volume and quality of the shipping industry will provide robust support for economic and social development.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Liang Jun)
Samsung's Galaxy A06 is coming soon, and it might actually arrive very soon. The device has now been listed on Samsung India's support pages, with the model number SM-A065F/DS. This obviously means India will be one of the markets where it will be available. The "DS" suffix in its model number also tells us it will have dual-SIM functionality.

The Galaxy A06 has previously been certified by the Bluetooth SIG, BIS, NBTC, and the FCC. It was also spotted in the Geekbench online database a while back, and that run revealed the fact that it will be powered by the MediaTek Helio G85 SoC, just like its predecessor, the Galaxy A05.

The version that ran the benchmark had 6GB of RAM, but of course more options could be offered. The phone will unsurprisingly run Android 14 from day one. Through the FCC certification we also found out that it will come with a 5,000 mAh battery, and support for 15W wired charging.

These are all the details about the A06 that have surfaced so far, now all that's left is for Samsung to finally make it official. When that happens, we'll also find out what the differences between it and its predecessor actually are, since the specs that have surfaced so far are identical.

Via
The Guam Memorial Hospital Authority is seeking a critical access hospital designation from the federal government, in the hopes of improving cash flow.

GMH Administrator Lilian Perez-Posadas told the hospital board Wednesday night that the designation could help raise the maximum per-diem payout for patients on Medicaid and Medicare.

Medicaid and Medicare are two of the biggest payers at GMH, but the hospital has the lowest daily payout cap in the region, with just $1,600 covered per patient per day. Anything that costs more than that isnt reimbursed by the feds.

In comparison, patients on Saipan get covered for up to $2,000 per day, while patients at Guam Regional Medical City are covered up to $4,000.

Hospital leadership sat down this week with officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, along with other federal officials, to discuss the possibility of a critical access hospital designation, according to Perez-Posadas.

Getting GMHs Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates improved is a key part of hospital leaderships plan to cope with a $74 million budgetary shortfall that GMH expects to see next fiscal year.

Perez-Posadas said federal officials discussed various funding options for GMH, including grants and possible legislation in Congress.

A critical access hospital designation could also help get loan forgiveness for doctors that work on Guam, Perez-Posadas said.

Anything to do to help us recruit doctors, because that was one of the issues that was brought to the table, the shortage of doctors, she said.

Guam residents going off to medical school, and doctors from the Philippines are particular targets, she added.

Pay hike stanches nurse loss

A recent 18% pay hike has also improved nurse retention, Perez-Posadas told trustees Wednesday, though a large number of nurses quit this year.

Some 21 nurses have left in 2024, but another 29 nurse hires offset the number. Its a much better rate than last year, when 59 nurses quit compared to just 21 hired.

Hopefully though we dont lose any more nurses, and we continue to gain, Perez-Posadas said.

Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero signed the 18% nurse pay raise in April, in the wake of critical nurse shortage at GMH. It was anticipated to cost $3.5 million a year at GMH alone.

GMH is slowly tapering off reliance on expensive travel nurses, recently going from 40 to 37 travel nurses on staff, according to Perez-Posadas.

She also said the hospital is trying to retain those nurses, and get them on full-time contracts as local hires.

Travel nurses earn $100 an hour from the hospital, the PDN has reported.

COVID-19 cases up

GMH has also seen a big uptick in COVID-19 cases among staff this year.

There were 254 employees who tested positive as of July, Perez-Posadas said, versus 321 who tested positive in all of 2023.

July alone saw 58 positives among hospital staff.

Fortunately, the symptoms of the employees are not so severe, not so critical, theyre manageable, she reported.

However, employees do have to remain in isolation for five days after testing positive, which impacts staffing levels.
It's a dispute that has been smouldering in various forms for years: the publishing house Axel Springer has been trying for years to ban ad blockers from its media sites and to enforce this in court. On Thursday, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe dealt with the issue (case number I ZR 131/23). However, the BGH wants to wait for a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in a similar case.

Anzeige

On Thursday, the First Civil Senate of the Federal Court of Justice, which is responsible for copyright law, dealt with the publisher's copyright claims against Eyeo, the provider of the Adblock Plus ad blocking add-on. After Axel Springer had already failed before the Hamburg Regional Court (2022) and the Hamburg Higher Regional Court (2023), the publisher is now attempting to enforce its objectives on appeal before the Federal Court of Justice.

In this further attempt, Axel Springer has changed its argumentation and is now emphasizing copyright law: According to copyright law, the programming of the websites constitutes computer programs to which Springer has the exclusive rights of use. When a web browser calls up a page, the HTML file is stored in the computer's working memory. To display the page, the browser interprets this file and creates additional data structures. An installed ad blocker add-on influences these data structures, which in the publisher's opinion is "an unauthorized modification of a computer program within the meaning of Section 69c No. 2 UrhG". Springer is demanding injunctive relief, information and damages.

Lower courts dismissed the claim

In the previous instance, the Hamburg Regional Court dismissed the claim. The appeal was also unsuccessful: the Higher Regional Court declared that whether the website programming was a computer program or not was not decisive. The court argued that the intervention of the ad blocker after the data storage in the working memory was not a reworking in the sense of the copyright paragraph to which the publisher refers. In order to meet this point, the program substance would have to be changed, or the program would have to be changed and reproduced. However, this is not the case. The adblocker merely interferes with the program flow by affecting the data structures that the browser calculates "as part of the display of the HTML document as a temporary intermediate result during the execution of the website programming". According to the Higher Regional Court, the tool does not interfere with the substance of the program.

The Federal Court of Justice sees similarities to a case that is to be decided before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg in October. The highest German civil judges are therefore awaiting the ECJ's ruling, reports news agency dpa.

Numerous lawsuits by media companies against adblock providers

Anzeige

Eyeo has previously had to defend its business model in court: The financing model via so-called Acceptable Ads, which in the opinion of the Adblock makers are not intrusive, are not filtered out in the default settings. Several media companies saw this as a violation of competition law. Axel Springer has also already taken legal action against the company, albeit also unsuccessfully. In their arguments, the courts referred, among other things, to Eyeo's argument that the installation of the add-on was the user's decision. The courts saw no grounds for action against Eyeo when examining the unfairness criteria.

(are)
There is new movement in the sluggish reappraisal of political measures during the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, a group of journalists published internal minutes from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and extensive other material from the years 2020 to 2023. According to the group, this includes all meeting minutes of the RKI crisis team from the time of the pandemic.

Anzeige

The data in the package, which comprises around 10 GB, comes from a person who worked for the RKI, said journalist Aya Velazquez at a press conference in Berlin on Tuesday. She spoke out in favor of an "uncompromising and honest reappraisal" of coronavirus policy in Germany.

"Pandemic of the unvaccinated"

According to initial evaluations, the documents indicate that experts at RKI were critical of the measures taken by politicians during the coronavirus pandemic. For example, RKI experts considered the catchphrase"pandemic of the unvaccinated", which politicians liked to use, to be "technically incorrect". Members of the crisis team also expressed doubts about the effectiveness of compulsory masks or school closures.

The leak ends a years-long tug-of-war between the federal government and a handful of journalists who had demanded access to government documents relating to the pandemic. In May 2021, publicist Paul Schreyer filed a lawsuit for the release of the RKI files on the basis of the Information Act.

The RKI then published the documents in March 2023 with many redactions. The RKI justified the redactions with the protection of the persons concerned as well as operational and political secrets worthy of protection. Only after another lawsuit was filed did the institute begin to publish further unredacted documents  but only until mid-2021.

This meant that the documents from the time of current Federal Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach (SPD), were missing. In March of this year, he promised to continue to work towards removing redactions in the RKI documents. However, Lauterbach did not want to commit to when the rest of the protocols would be released until the crisis unit was dissolved in July 2023.

Anzeige

The whistleblower's documents, which according to Velazquez contain the complete documents up to 2023, now close this gap. Of the more than 4,000 pages, around 1,500 have not yet been published. Among other things, the files should provide further clarity as to whether and to what extent the coronavirus measures of the German government and the authorities were backed by science.

Lauterbach has nothing to hide

The RKI does not want to confirm the completeness of the documents, but criticizes the publication as expected: "Insofar as personal data and trade and business secrets of third parties are unlawfully published in these data sets and, in particular, the rights of third parties are violated, the RKI expressly disapproves of this," the institute announced on Tuesday. The RKI now promises to "publish the remaining protocols as quickly as possible until the end of the crisis team meetings in July 2023".

Lauterbach also echoes this. "The RKI was already planning to publish the RKI files of the coronavirus crisis team with my consent," the minister said on X. Now this has happened without protecting the people involved. "There is still nothing to hide."

(vbr)
YLE on Monday revealed that Centres for Economic Development, Transport and Environment (ELY Centres) have received a flood of applications from forest owners for permanent protection under Metso, a state-funded programme for voluntary conservation in Southern Finland.

FOREST OWNERS in Finland are quite literally lining up to protect their forests.

The applications cover an area that can be up to 10 times larger than the one budgeted for by the government.

The government has allocated 20 million euros for the permanent conservation programme for 2024. By comparison, state subsidies for fur farms could exceed 50 million euros this year, according to Ilta-Sanomat.

Henri Mommo, the director of sales at the Forest Management Association in Paijanne, Central Finland, reminded the public broadcasting company that compensation is a key incentive for forest owners specifically in regards to permanent protection.

Even if the current owner was ready to protect a valuable area without compensation, you never know when the area gets a new owner, he pointed out.

An unprotected forest area can also be harvested in response to unexpected financial hardship.

Due to the lack of funding for conservation, forest management associations have advised forest owners to instead apply for 10-year agreements on environmental aid under Metso. After 10 years, you can do whatever you want with the forest. Its a fixed-term deal and the compensation is smaller, said Mommo.

In Central Finland, the compensation for permanent protection has been up to 15,000 euros per hectare, compared to the roughly 3,000 euros per hectare granted under environmental aid agreements. The aid is additionally subjected to tax, whereas the compensation for permanent protection is tax free.

Mommo proposed to the public broadcasting company that the government tackle the problem by introducing instalment plans. The state is a reliable debtor. Im sure many would be ready to agree to a 20-year payment plan, for instance, he mused.

In 2023, almost 10,000 hectares of forest habitats were protected in Southern Finland under Metso. Over half, or 5,100 hectares, of the total was protected under the 10-year environmental aid agreements and about 4,300 hectares under permanent conservation agreements.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT
Finlands new law regarding asylum seekers at Russia border was covered in an article by Politico on July 22.

Here is a selection of what the international press has published about Finland in the last week:

The article discusses Finlands new deportation law, which allows the country to turn away asylum seekers at its long border with Russia, and provides insights from human rights groups on the matter.

This measure, supported by Finlands right-wing government, aims to counter what Prime Minister Petteri Orpo describes as Russias weaponization of migration. Finland has seen an increase in asylum seekers from the Middle East and Africa and blames Moscow for instigating this influx, a claim the Kremlin denies.

The law permits border guards to block asylum seekers in national emergencies, suspending their right to appeal. This move has been compared to actions by Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, which faced similar migration issues from Belarus in 2021. Critics, including human rights groups and international bodies, argue that the law violates the Finnish constitution, international commitments, and EU law, specifically the principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits returning individuals to countries where they may face harm.

Amnesty International and other organizations have condemned the law for potentially enabling illegal pushbacks and compromising the assessment process for asylum seekers. Concerns have been raised about its broader implications for the rule of law and human rights in Finland.

European leaders, particularly from the Baltic countries, have expressed support for the law, viewing it as a model for managing migration pressures. The European Commission plans to review the law to ensure compliance with EU standards while acknowledging member states rights to secure their borders.

Original story was published by Politico on 22.07.2024 and can be found here.

Pentagon unveils arctic strategy bolstered by new high north NATO allies Finland, Sweden

U.S. Pentagon's 2024 National Strategy for the Arctic Region was covered in an article by Breaking Defense on July 22. The article looks into the strategy, in the context of Finland and Sweden joining NATO, emphasizing the need for the U.S. and its allies to counteract Russian and Chinese ambitions in the Arctic.

Isolated due to international sanctions, Russia relies on China for financing Arctic energy infrastructure. The accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO significantly bolsters the alliances capabilities in the Arctic. Both countries have extensive experience in Arctic operations and icebreaking, crucial for maintaining clear shipping routes.

U.S. Deputy Defence Secretary Kathleen Hicks emphasized the strategic benefits of Finland and Sweden stating, The historic accession of Finland and Sweden to the NATO alliance not only makes them safer, but it makes our alliance stronger, including in the high north.  We will continue to train and exercise alongside each other, strengthening deterrence deepening cooperation and ensuring our shared security in the arctic.

The strategy notes that climate change is making the Arctic more accessible, raising security concerns due to the potential for new sea routes between Europe and Asia. In response to these developments, President Joe Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb signed the ICE Pact, aiming to enhance collaboration on building heavy ice-breaking ships. The agreement leverages Finland and Canadas extensive experience in icebreaker construction and the U.S.s larger industrial base and budget.

Original story was published by Breaking Defense on 22.07.2024 and can be found here.

B-52 on first time mission over northern Finland

The first-ever flight of two U.S. B-52 strategic bombers in the skies above Lapland from Norwegian airspace was covered in an article by The Barents Observer on July 21. The article gives details of the unprecedented flight, highlighting significant geopolitical shifts in the region following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Finland's subsequent accession to NATO in April 2023.

The B-52 is a long-range strategic bomber capable of carrying cruise missiles and nuclear weapons, although no nuclear arms were on board for this exercise. The bombers' route took them close to Russias Kola Peninsula, a critical military area housing Russias ballistic missile submarines and the Olenya airfield, which is used for bombing missions in Ukraine. The B-25 bombers were part of a deployment to Romania and had transited over Norway before entering Finnish airspace. They were met by three U.S. Air Force tankers over Lapland for mid-air refueling and were escorted by Finnish F/A-18 fighter jets.

The B-52s were seen as a show of strength and a message to Russia regarding NATOs capabilities and reach. Today, Finland has implemented cooperation with the strategic bombers of the United States in the territory of Finland, the Finnish defense minister Antti Hakkanen said on X.

Russia claimed its MiG-31 and MiG-29 fighters intercepted the American bombers over the Barents Sea, forcing them to change course. However, NATO denied this, stating the bombers continued their planned route without incident.

Norway, which has long imposed restrictions on NATO activities near its border with Russia, did not escort the American bombers within its airspace and has not allowed similar flights east of the Porsanger fjord in Finnmark.

Original story was published by The Barents Observer on 21.07.2024 and can be found here.

Berry misleading: Thailand picks apart fake Finland job offers

Thai governments crackdown on a scam that misled its citizens about fake berry picking jobs in Finland was covered in an article by Thaiger on July 22. The article provides details of the scam by local agents in Thailand, who deceived Thai citizens into believing they had legitimate job offers of berry picking in Finland.

Thai authorities intercepted 43 individuals at Suvarnabhumi Airport on July 20, who were about to board a flight to Finland under false pretenses. Thailands Department of Employment began the investigation following a tip-off about Thai workers supposedly heading to Finland to pick wild berries.

The detained Individuals, including seven women, admitted to being part of a scheme where they were deceived by local agents. The Director-General of the Employment Department, Somchai Morakotsriwan, revealed that most detainees were misled into working illegally as wild fruit pickers.

The export of workers to Finland for berry picking has been suspended. The Thai government is in discussions with Finland to adjust regulations to protect workers and ensure compliance with legal standards. Employers are now required to meet new conditions that demonstrate their commitment to resolving human trafficking issues and protecting Thai workers rights.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Finland had previously suspended Schengen visa applications for wild berry pickers from Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar for the summer 2024 harvest season. This decision followed a reassessment of visa application procedures due to allegations of serious crimes, including human trafficking, during the previous year's harvest season. Finlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment has formed a working team with Pellervo Economic Research PTT to evaluate the impact of various regulatory options. This initiative aims to prevent exploitation and trafficking of workers.

Original story was published by Thaiger on 22.07.2024 and can be found here.

HT
Aquarius  (20th January to 18th February) Daily Horoscope Prediction says, hey, your life is your choice Have a strong love relationship and a creative professional one today. The official schedule will be busy and new challenges will also test your potential. Aquarius Daily Horoscope Today, July 27, 2024: The official schedule will be busy and new challenges will also test your potential.

Have a positive attitude in the relationship and you will also take steps to resolve the issues of the past. Consider the opportunities to prove your mettle at the job. Make good investments for a better future. You also need to consider your health as many ailments both minor and major may impact your day.

Aquarius Love Horoscope Today

Your relationship with your partner will be great today. Ensure you spend more time together as this will give opportunities to share your emotions. Some relationships will see minor friction but they will not cause serious disturbances. Do not hurt the lover through words or gestures and also encourage in both personal and professional endeavors. Single Aquarius natives will be happy to know that the chances to find new love are high.

Aquarius Career Horoscope Today

Despite minor hiccups in the first half of the day, you will succeed in meeting the deadlines. New joiners need to strive to grab the attention of the seniors. Be cordial with the team members and this will work out in team projects. Some Aquarius natives will switch jobs for a better salary. Those who aspire to move abroad for job reasons will see new opportunities. Businessmen will be successful in launching new ventures or signing new partnerships.

Aquarius Money Horoscope Today

You are good in terms of wealth. Consider buying a vehicle in the second part of the day. You may also renovate the home or invest in real estate. Some Aquarius will need to spend on legal expenses. A friend will also for financial help which you cannot refuse. You may also plan a vacation abroad with the family as your financial status permits that.

Aquarius Health Horoscope Today

Be careful about minor complications related to the heart or chest. Diabetic Aquarius natives will require consulting a doctor while seniors will complain about pain in joints. Some females will have gynecological issues in the first part of the day that will impact their routine life. Stay away from people with a negative attitude as this can impact your mental health.

Aquarius Sign Attributes

Strength: Tolerant, Ideal, Friendly, Charitable, Independent, Logical

Weakness: Disobedient, Liberalistic, Rebel

Symbol: Water carrier

Element: Air

Body Part: Ankles & Legs

Sign Ruler: Uranus

Lucky Day: Saturday

Lucky Color: Navy Blue

Lucky Number: 22

Lucky Stone: Blue Sapphire

Aquarius Sign Compatibility Chart

Natural affinity: Aries, Gemini, Libra, Sagittarius

Good compatibility: Leo, Aquarius

Fair compatibility: Cancer, Virgo, Capricorn, Pisces

Less compatibility: Taurus, Scorpio

By: Dr. J. N. Pandey

Vedic Astrology & Vastu Expert

E-mail: djnpandey@gmail.com

Phone: 9811107060 (WhatsApp Only)
Pisces  (19th February to 20th March) Daily Horoscope Prediction says, you love troubles Expect a happy love life & professional success today. Look for more chances to take up new roles at work. Handle wealth carefully while health is positive. Pisces Daily Horoscope Today, July 27, 2024: Expect a happy love life & professional success today.

Youll experience a fabulous love relationship today. Do not hesitate to take up new roles at work and this will prove fruitful in the long run. Financially you are good today and your health is also positive.

Pisces Love Horoscope Today

Keep your lover cool and comfortable in the relationship. Do not let possessiveness work in the love life as the partner will feel suffocated. Some love affairs may even fail to work out as Pisces natives may walk out of it due to constant bullying. Value the love affair and spend more time talking. Those who are traveling should call up their lover to express their emotion. Single Pisces natives can expect someone to walk into their lives today.

Pisces Career Horoscope Today

Keep your office life smooth and productive today. While you take up new roles, ensure you meet the expectations. Too much work pressure may impact health but be careful to maintain a balance between the both. If you are into business, this is the time to expand beyond horizons and invest in multiple ventures. The fortunate ones will also expand their business to foreign locations. Some students applying for higher studies will also receive positive news.

Pisces Money Horoscope Today

Wealth will come in from multiple sources. You may receive financial support from your spouse or a relative today. You may also start repairing or renovating the house as the financial status approves that. Avoid all financial disputes and you may also donate money to a charity in the second half of the day. Businessmen will be successful in making crucial monetary decisions.

Pisces Health Horoscope Today

Be vigilant about even minor health issues. There can be chest pain that requires utmost attention. Avoid food from outside and there can be digestion issues and this may impact you while travelling. Seniors should not miss medicines while females may complain about migraine or oral health issues today. Devote more time for the family to keep mental stress under control.

Pisces Sign Attributes

Strength: Conscious, Aesthetic, Kind-hearted

Weakness: Sentimental, Indecisive, Unrealistic

Symbol: Fish

Element: Water

Body Part: Blood Circulation

Sign Ruler: Neptune

Lucky Day: Thursday

Lucky Color: Purple

Lucky Number: 11

Lucky Stone: Yellow Sapphire

Pisces Sign Compatibility Chart

Natural affinity: Taurus, Cancer, Scorpio, Capricorn

Good compatibility: Virgo, Pisces

Fair compatibility: Aries, Leo, Libra, Aquarius

Less compatibility: Gemini, Sagittarius

By: Dr. J. N. Pandey

Vedic Astrology & Vastu Expert

E-mail: djnpandey@gmail.com

Phone: 9811107060 (WhatsApp Only)
Foxconn may begin assembling Apples flagship tablet iPad in India as it aims significant expansion of its current operations, it was reported. The manufacturer may begin assembling iPads at its facility in Tamil Nadus Sriperumbudur after rapidly expanding supply chain in India for Apples products, Economic Times reported citing people in the know. At present, Foxconn and other global contract manufacturers have only assembled Apples smartphones in India. At present, Foxconn and other global contract manufacturers have only assembled Apples smartphones in India.

Citing a source, the report claimed, Foxconn is seriously looking to start assembling Apple iPads out of its Tamil Nadu facility."

Another person in the know told the outlet that some rounds of discussions have already happened with the government as well on this. Their experience so far has been very good, and they are coming full force. They will double what they have in the next few years, which includes iPhone, iPads and some other products too.

Assembly of the Mac range of laptops may take some time as the production volume is very small, the source told the outlet.

Another industry source said as per ET, It ( iPad) is like a bigger iPhone in essence. So, it is something that can be assembled in India without too much trouble as Apples contract manufacturers are already well equipped to manage such functions.
IndiGo - Indias largest carrier is all set to induct a new type in its fleet, albeit as a wet lease. The airline, which has records for largest aircraft orders with Airbus, will induct a handful of MAX 8 aircraft from codeshare partner Qatar Airways, all of which will be deployed on flights to Doha from various points in India. announced that it would induct Max 8 aircraft on wet or damp lease during its analyst call post its results declaration

This announcement was made during the call with analysts post Q1-FY25 results. IndiGo reported a profit of INR 2278.8 crore in the quarter, making this the seventh consecutive quarter of profits. The airline announced that it would induct these aircraft on wet or damp lease during its analyst call post its results declaration today.



ALSO READ: More passengers are impacted by delayed flights than ever before, shows data

Doha is the hub for Qatar Airways. The news has been making rounds since early this year and was widely speculated to cover the busy summer season.

However, it was delayed repeatedly until the first aircraft landed in India today. Progressively, the airline will deploy 75 out of its 82 frequencies to Doha on the MAX 8 aircraft being wet-leased from Qatar Airways.

This translates to 150 weekly flights, with all but seven flights to Doha by IndiGo being on the MAX 8. The airline had put up the seat map and seat selection prices on its website a few weeks ago.



ALSO READ: Half of Indian airports see foreign carriers dominate international routes

While Qatar Airways had called out these flights as codeshare flights operated by IndiGo with Boeing 737 family, IndiGos own website continued to call these undefined, possibly for regulatory reasons.

This arrangement is similar to what IndiGo has with Turkish Airlines but while IndiGo sells tickets beyond Istanbul, in the case of Qatar Airways, it does not. Like Turkish Airlines, which is bilaterally constrained on adding flights to India, Qatar Airways,too, has exhausted all rights to India.

Competing with Dubai and Abu Dhabi for traffic, Qatar Airways is at a disadvantage since its quota of seats is significantly lower than the two hubs in the UAE. Qatar Airways operates only a single flight to Mumbai and twice daily to Delhi from Doha. Rival Emirates has five daily flights to Mumbai and four daily to Delhi.



ALSO READ: Jet, Let, Go: The economics behind IndiGos business class strategy

Qatar Airways has nine MAX 8 in its fleet and it is an interesting story on how it got those, as its narrowbody fleet is otherwise the A320 family, with 50 A321neo on order. Initially, it was speculated that those were the Air Italy ones, a carrier bankrupt but had a 49% stake in Qatar Airways.

The airline started receiving the MAX in April 2023, and all nine are now in the fleet and operational. All of these were destined for S7 - Siberia Airlines, but then started the Russia - Ukraine war and the sanctions meant that the planes could not be delivered and were available quickly. The first aircraft arrived in Doha on April 15, 2023. The aircraft underwent IFE streaming installation at Doha and went into pilot training flights. The airline had already placed an order for 25 737 MAX10 at Farnborough Airshow in 2022.

These flights will offer a significantly better experience to passengers than IndiGos current product. These are configured in 176 seats, comprising eight Business class - which IndiGo is not selling and 168 economy class.There are power outlets at each seat, as well as personal device holders.

The Boeing MAX family has been in the news for all the wrong reasons since induction, which has involved two fatal crashes, global grounding and a recent incident of a door coming loose and flying out.

The aircraft, however, has been certified by global regulators to fly commercially. Boeing continues to struggle with maintaining timelines for deliveries of this aircraft, with one or the other problem cropping up at regular intervals.

Where are these planes going to fly?

Data shared by Cirium - an aviation analytics company, exclusively for this article shows the MAX 8 being deployed to Doha progressively from Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi, Chennai, Kannur, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Towards the end of August, there is an increase in frequency from Mumbai to thrice a day service from the current double daily offering by IndiGo.

IndiGo seems to be perfecting the model which has worked well with Turkish Airways.

But why?

IndiGo ordered 500 planes last year, has nearly a thousand planes on order then why does it need these types? IndiGo is hit by the grounding of Pratt & Whitney powered A320neo family aircraft. Pratt & Whitney powered planes have had one or the other issue since induction, which involved false warnings leading to air turnbacks, in-flight engine shutdowns and the latest being contamination in powder metal leading to the grounding of around 80 airplanes from its fleet of over 360.

With Tata group airlines growing rapidly and demand still strong, these wet leases will help free up aircraft that IndiGo can then deploy on other routes. The upgrade of experience on routes to Doha also is a win-win for Qatar Airways whose codeshare passengers will have a better experience than flying IndiGos own aircraft.
The magistrate court in Bengaluru rejected the plea of Kannada actor and murder accused Darshan, who is in prison, to provide him with home food. In his plea earlier, Darshan said that he had lost a few kilograms of weight as he is unable to eat the jail food. Bengaluru court denies murder accused Darshan's request for home-cooked food in prison

Also Read - Karnataka HC directs actor Darshan to approach magistrate court for home food in jail

According to reports, Darshan suffered from diarrhea, and doctors declared it as food poisoning. Section 30 of the Karnataka Prisons Act, 1963, allows undertrial prisoners to receive these materials subject to examination and to such rules as may be approved by IGP (Prisons).

However, the Karnataka High Court directed Darshans advocate to appeal it to the magistrate court. He requested cutlery, clothing, bedding, books to be supplied by his family members, and home-cooked food. The court stressed that the facilities as sought by the actor cannot be extended to a murder accused.

Also Read - Darshan is losing weight and looking pale in prison, claims ex-inmate: He is trying to push through the days

Actor Darshan was arrested on 11 June along with his close friend Pavitra Gowda for allegedly being involved in the murder of his fan. Renukaswamy, the victim, was killed in a shed used to park seized vehicles in south-western Bengaluru on 9 June, and his body was dumped in a stormwater drain 10km away, police have said. The motive for the crime, according to police, was that Renukaswamy, who lived in Chitradurga, 200km from Bengaluru, trolled Gowda on social media platforms, enraging her and Darshan.

During the investigation, police also recovered several objects that were used to torture the victim, including wooden logs, a leather belt, and a rope.
In a bid to preserve the states natural landscape, the Himachal Pradesh high court has ordered the implementation of measures to make the region plastic-free. The court has suggested collecting a green tax from tourists, similar to Sikkim and Bhutan, to maintain the states cleanliness. The courts orders aim to protect Himachals environment and promote sustainable tourism practices. (File)

Justices Tarlok Singh Chauhan and Sushil Kukreja directed the state government to ensure that tourists carry plastic bags in their vehicles to collect their waste. The court had previously ordered the Shimla municipal corporation to take strict measures to eliminate solid waste on March 23 and May 9.

In compliance with the courts orders, the civic body had set up a complaint number (+91-9805201916) for citizens to report waste-related issues. The court instructed that complaints should be displayed until resolved.

Additionally, the court has ordered the state government to form a special task force by the next hearing on August 1. The court has also asked the Lahaul-Spiti deputy commissioner to file an affidavit regarding the green tax collected from tourists and its utilisation.

The court has further directed the state government to register plastic companies from outside states to monitor plastic influx and impose heavy fines on those bringing plastic illegally. The courts orders aim to protect Himachal Pradeshs environment and promote sustainable tourism practices.
A resident of village Phullanwal and his servant allegedly hacked a 55-year-old farmer to death with a sharp-edged weapon on Thursday night. The accused escaped after the locals gathered on the spot. The Sadar Raikot police registered a first-information report (FIR) after a complaint by Jaspreet Singh, son of the victim Kamaljit Singh alias Billu of Basrava village in Raikot. A resident of village Phullanwal and his servant allegedly hacked a 55-year-old farmer to death with a sharp-edged weapon on Thursday night. The accused escaped after the locals gathered on the spot. (HT File)

According to police, the key accused was forcing the victim to sell his land to him.

The accused were identified as Harjit Singh Sekhon of Phullanwal village and his servant Vikas Lal Yadav of Bihar. The accused are on the run.

Jaspreet Singh, a factory worker, said his father left the house on his bike for the fields on Thursday and when the latter did not return by nightfall, he went out to look for him.

Jaspreet added that when he reached the fields, he found the accused assaulting his father. He alleged that accused Harjit Singh held his father while Vikas Lal assaulted him with a sharp-edged weapon. As he raised an alarm, the accused fled while locals gathered at the spot. With the help of locals, he rushed his father to hospital where the doctors declared him dead.

The complainant added that the accused was eyeing their land and was forcing his father to sell it to him. As his father refused, the accused nursed a rivalry.

Sub-inspector Narinder Singh, who is investigating the case, said that an FIR under sections 103(1) and 3(5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) was registered against the accused. A hunt is on for their arrest.

He added that the reason behind the murder will be ascertained after arresting the accused.
The anti-narcotics task force (ANTF) of the Delhi Police said that it has arrested a 43-year-old Afghan national, who is a member of an international drug syndicate, and recovered half a kilo of heroin from his possession. The arrested foreigner, identified as Hasan Reza alias Haji Hamid, is a key link between members of the drug syndicate in Afghanistan and Delhi, ANTF officials aware of the matter said on Friday. Police said that the heroin was stuffed inside small capsules by drug peddlers in Afghanistan. Carriers swallow them before boarding flights to India. After landing in Delhi, the capsules are extracted and are accordingly supplied to the receivers. (Representational image)

Deputy commissioner of police (crime) Amit Goel said that ANTF officials were carrying out operations against traffickers and suppliers of drugs in Delhi. In the first week of May, the team members received information that one Afghan national arrived in India with a consignment of heroin. It was learnt that the foreigner would visit a place near Sant Kanwar Ram Mandir in Lajpat Nagar to deliver the contraband to one of his receivers on May 7.

A trap was laid and Hasan Reza was caught. He was carrying a packet of juice. When the packet was checked, there was no juice but some long capsules were found. The person was taken into custody for questioning. When the capsules were opened, heroin was found inside them. The total weight of the contraband was 512 grams, the value of which is around 1 crore in the international market, said an ANTF officer.

DCP Goel said that Reza revealed that the heroin was stuffed inside small capsules by drug peddlers in Afghanistan. Thereafter, carriers like him swallow the capsules before boarding flights to India. After landing in Delhi, the capsules are extracted and are accordingly supplied to the receivers.

An ANTF officer on condition of anonymity said that after collecting details about the members of the syndicate in Delhi and National Capital Region, multiple raids were conducted for over two months to nab more suspects and recover more narcotic substances. However, none of them could be arrested. It seems they got a hint of Rezas arrest and went underground, added the officer.
Heavy rainfall in the national Capital Delhi on Friday morning led to traffic jams across the city due to waterlogging and breakdown of vehicles. IMD said that significant amount of rainfall was observed from 8:30am on Thursday to 6:30am on Friday. (Delhi Traffic Police)

Rainfall in parts of north, south and central Delhi areas including Connaught Place, led to waterlogging causing peak hour traffic jams during office hours.

Important stretches in the New Delhi area including Minto Road, ITO, C-hexagon near the India Gate, Shanti Path in Chanakyapuri and Civil Lines, were affected due to severe waterlogging.

According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), significant amount of rainfall was observed from 8:30am on Thursday to 6:30am on Friday. The rainfall recorded at Safdarjung, which is representative of Delhis weather, was 39mm at 8:30am.

Light to moderate rain is expected in Delhi through the day, IMD said.

A yellow alert for light to moderate rainfall with thundershowers is issued for Saturday as well. The maximum temperature for the next two days is expected to be around 35C and minimum is likely to be around 26C.

Delhi University received 89.5mm rainfall and IGNOU recorded 34.5mm. New Delhi and South Delhi areas received higher rainfall, said an IMD official.

Major underpasses across the capital city were submerged on Friday with Jakhira underpass, Azadpur underpass, Minto bridge, Ashok Vihar and Jahangirpuri, being the worst affected.

Also Read: Delhi rain: City waterlogged; police issue traffic advisory

Delhis traffic police released an advisory for commuters to avoid Minto Bridge suggesting alternate routes.

Traffic coming from Connaught Place on Minto Road can divert on Outer Circle of Connaught Place, Barakhamba Road towards Turkman Gate and Kamla Market via Ranjeet Singh flyover. Similarly, traffic coming from Kalma Market roundabout on Minto Road can be diverted on Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Marg towards Connaught Place via Ranjeet Singh flyover, the traffic police said.

In other advisories, they also shared pictures of vehicle breakdowns on social media accounts.

Around 7:30am, the traffic police said that traffic will remain affected on the Ring Road, Vandematram Marg and NH-48 due to waterlogging under Dhaula Kuan flyover and at GGR/PDR near Metro Pillar No 156.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday left for Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog meeting on July 27, during which she plans to raise her voice against the Centres step-motherly attitude towards opposition-ruled states in the Union Budget 2024-25. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata. (ANI Photo)

Before the budget, I said I would attend the meeting. A copy of my written speech was also sent to Niti Aayog as per their requirement. When the budget was placed, I found how states ruled by opposition parties have been neglected. They have been shown step-motherly attitude. I want to speak about this. If they allow me to speak, its fine. If they dont, I will protest and leave, Banerjee told reporters in Kolkata before leaving for Delhi.

We cannot accept this discrimination. This is political bias, she added.

This is the first time Banerjee, also the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chairperson, will be attending a Niti Aayog meeting. She had periodically protested the dismantling of the Planning Commission in 2014 by the first Narendra Modi government, saying it was an insult to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who conceived it.

Although the chief minsters of three Congress-ruled states have boycotted the meeting, Banerjees decision to attend it raised questions since the boycott was seen as a strategy of the INDIA block of which TMC is a part.

I am told that Hemant Soren (Jharkhand chief minister) is also attending. His state has been neglected too, she said, accompanied by her nephew and TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee.

The TMC chairperson accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of trying to split West Bengal by demanding the formation of special zones.

BJPs West Bengal unit president Sukanta Majumdar, who is also the Union minister of state for development of North-East region, proposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting in Delhi on Tuesday to include the north Bengal region in Indias North-East to ensure development.

On Thursday, BJP MP Nishikant Dubey demanded in Parliament that the Centre should form a Union Territory comprising West Bengals Murshidabad and Malda districts, and three districts of Jharkhand. He alleged that population of Muslims in these districts were posing a threat to Hindus.

All this is part of a conspiracy to divide West Bengal. A minister (Majumdar) is making such a demand when the Parliament is in session. Another BJP member raises a different demand to divide West Bengal and Jharkhand. They have planned an economic, political and geographical blockade of West Bengal. To divide West Bengal is akin to dividing India, Mamata Banerjee said.

Meanwhile, state Congress spokesperson Soumya Aich Roy targeted Banerjee for attending the Niti Aayog meeting.

When chief ministers of Congress-ruled states are boycotting the meeting, Mamata Banerjee wants to keep BJP in good humour, Roy said.
A delegation from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) met with deputy chief minister and health and medical education minister Brijesh Pathak on Friday to submit a memorandum requesting an increase in the stipend for medical interns. A delegation of ABVP workers meeting Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister (HT)

The delegation stated that medical interns in regional medical institutes and medical schools are not receiving stipends that meet their needs, leading to student agitation. ABVP supports this demand and calls for a swift resolution to the problem, added the delegation.

According to the delegation, ABVP initially communicated this issue to deputy CM Pathak on July 17, advocating for an increase in the stipend for medical students.

The delegation stated that deputy CM Pathak assured them that the matter would seriously be considered and a decision made in the interest of medical students.

Rohit Singh, provincial co-minister of ABVP Awadh Province, said, ABVP has been continuously demanding that a uniform stipend be fixed for medical students across the country. In Uttar Pradesh, medical interns receive a stipend of 12,000, which is insufficient for their basic needs and is significantly less than in other states. Today, the ABVP delegation submitted a memorandum demanding an increase in the stipend.

ABVP Kanpur provinces medidivision convenor and medical intern Saurabh Nayak added, The stipend given to medical interns by the UP government is very low and needs to be increased. While in other states, medical interns receive an average stipend of 25,000, in UP it is 12,000, which fails to meet basic needs. In central government-affiliated medical institutions, the stipend is 27,000. ABVP has also demanded that the UP government increase the stipend proportionately.

The delegation included ABVP Awadh province co-minister Rohit Singh, Kanpur province medidivision convenor Saurabh Nayak, Manish Kumar Gupta, Srishti and Yash Chopra.
LUCKNOW Cheating through remote access device was exposed by the UP STF on Friday morning during the Council of Scientific and Industrial Reasearch (CSIR) National Eligibility Test (NET) at Subharti Vishwavidyalaya, a private university in Meerut, ADG (law and order) Amitabh Yash said in Lucknow. The ADG said lab employee, Arun Sharma, and two others have been taken into custody for information on the cheating racket. (Pic for representation)

This exam determines the eligibility of Indian nationals for the post of assistant professor and junior research fellowship in Indian institutes. The online exam was scheduled on July 25, 26 and 27 in two shifts.

The STF carried out a search in the examination lab of the university and found an extra admin computer in the server room operational through local area network (LAN) and two laptops having Any Desk, remote access software, installed in them. The STF team also recovered a cell phone from an employee in the lab having roll numbers of four candidates and IP addresses of their systems, said the ADG.

He said these IP addresses of the candidates systems were shared with a private person outside the examination centre through which he could access the screen of the preferred candidates and helped them by sharing correct answers to the questions from outside the exam centre.

Apart from four candidates, the STF team has retrieved details of 11 candidates, who appeared in the first and second shifts of the examination on July 25, from the deleted file of the cellphone recovered, he added.

The ADG said lab employee, Arun Sharma, and two others have been taken into custody for information on the cheating racket.
In a first-of-its-kind initiative in Uttar Pradesh, a day care, wellness and recreational centre for senior citizens above 60 is all set to become functional here in September. Mooted by the state government in 2022, the Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has developed the unique centre in over 5,000 square feet area in Aliganj under the Smart City project. Lucknow Municipal Corporation has developed the centre in over 5,000 square feet area in Aliganj. (HT photo)

Principal secretary, urban development, Amrit Abhijat said, At the centre, elderly citizens will have the option to stay from morning until night. The centre will offer facilities like a small library, a multi-purpose hall, music, yoga, meditation, sports, food and medical care.

A cafeteria within the premises will provide various paid meals too. From morning tea and breakfast to dinner, food will be available at the centre, but the facilities will be accessible to members only, he added. Furthermore, a doctor will be stationed on-site to handle any health emergencies, which is a crucial provision for the elderlies. The entire campus will be equipped with Wi-Fi to ensure connectivity, Abhijat said.

He further said charges for these services will be kept reasonable to encourage maximum participation. The goal is to create a community where senior citizens can contribute positively to the society, he added.

It will help improve the quality of life for senior citizens, providing them with a safe, supportive and engaging environment where they can spend their time joyfully. The primary objective of the centre is to ensure that senior citizens lead a stress-free and happy life.

The initiative is also expected to set a precedent for similar projects in other regions, promoting the overall well-being of the elderly population. To further develop the centre, beautification of a park there is being carried out. It will also offer medical and legal support for the elderly.

As per LMC officials, plans are also in place to construct an open-air theatre where seniors can perform and organise events such as birthdays and marriage anniversaries. The premises has separate toilets for males and females and will also include a counsellor and a dedicated counselling room to provide emotional and psychological support.

This comprehensive approach aims to cater to the varied needs of senior citizens, ensuring their well-being and active participation in community life. A meeting with some local senior citizens was held recently to discuss terms and conditions for its operations.
MUMBAI: Sometimes dead men do tell tales. While examining the body of their informer Guru Wagmare, who was brutally murdered in the wee hours of Wednesday night at a spa, the police found an intriguing detail: 22 names tattooed on his thighs and a declaration that those people should be held responsible if anything happened to him. Interestingly, one of the names was of spa owner Santosh Sherekarone of the three accused arrested for Waghmares murder on Thursday. Murdered police informer had 22 names of enemies tattooed on thighs

Apart from Sherekar, the two other alleged assailants have been identified as Mohammad Firoz Ansari, 26, and Shakib Ansari, 28. The crime branch has also detained two suspects in Kota in Rajasthan who were in touch with the accused at the time of the murder.

Police officials said that Waghmare also left behind a diary in which he used to write down his daily activities. If his day was bad, he would use a red pen to describe it, including the names of the people he fought with, said an officer. He would use a green pen if his day was good and a blue pen for normal days. Interestingly, the diarymaintained from 2014also mentions the names of the spas from whose owners he had extorted money.

Waghmares extortion shenanigans proved to be his undoing. Fed up with the constant demands and harassment, Sherekar decided to get him eliminated and entrusted the job to Firoz Ansari for a payment of 6 lakh. Firoz roped in his friend Shakib Ansari from Delhi. Police officials said that as per their preliminary probe, an amount of 4 lakh was already paid to the assailants.

Firoz, a resident of Nalasopara, was more than a hired hitman. The owner of a spa himself, he had also had run-ins with Waghmare, who had lodged multiple police complaints against his spa and forced him to close it down a year earlier. Firoz knew that Waghmare, under the guise of an RTI activist, had complained against several other spa owners in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane as well. When he met Sherekar a few months ago, both discussed Waghmares extortion racket, said a crime branch official. Sherekar asked Firoz to find a solution and said he would bear the expenses.

Firoz called Shakib 10 days before the crime and instructed him to start following Waghmare. The duo bought a pair of scissors and broke them into two parts. One part was used to stab Waghmare and the other to slit his throat, said a crime branch officer.

Waghmare celebrated his 50th birthday on July 17, and on Tuesday threw a party at a bar in Sion for his 24-year-old female friend, who worked in Sherekars spa, and two other staffers. All four returned to the spa by Waghmares car. Firoz and Shakib followed the car on a scooter.

The manager and other staff left for their homes while Waghmare and the 24-year-old spa employee went in. Around 1.30 am on Wednesday, the assailants entered the spa, locked the woman in a room and stabbed Waghmare multiple times in another room. They also slit his throat before fleeing from the spot half an hour later, said a crime branch official.

The assailants then went to a Kandivali spa where they removed their raincoats and shoes, dumped the scissors and left the scooter behind. They then went to Nalasopara, from where Shakib and two others, whose role is yet to be ascertained, boarded the Garib Rath Express in Virar to Delhi, said deputy commissioner of police Datta Nalawade of the crime branch.

Elaborating on how they cracked the crime, Nalawade said that the CCTV footage showed two persons in raincoats moving suspiciously near the Sion bar. In the ensuing footage, they were also found following Waghmares vehicle, he said. One of them was seen paying at a paan shop near the Sion bar. We inquired with the shop owner and got his GPay details which led us to Firoz.

A crime branch team then got Firozs call data records based on his mobile phone location near the bar in Sion and spa in Worli and also his calls to Sherekar. He was picked up from Nalasopara.

Firoz revealed the identities of the others involved in the crime, after which Shakib was arrested. The police are also questioning Waghmares 24-year-old woman friend. Nalawade said the police had seized the raincoats, scissors, shoes and a scooter from Kandivali.

Waghmare, known in the police force as Chulbul Pandey, a devil-may-care character from the Hindi film Dabang, was a Vile Parle resident with a wife and 24-year-old son. For the last 15 years, he identified himself as a RTI activist and used to file RTI applications mainly against spas in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane. He would move around in a Hyundai Aura car, with the words Kayda aur Suvyavastha (Law and Order) written over it. There are eight FIRs and 22 non-cognisable cases registered against him in the city for serious offences like rape, molestation and extortion.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators organised a brief sit-in protest outside the House, raising a host of issues to corner the Hemant Soren government, even as the first day of the monsoon session was adjourned on Friday after obituary references were made to eminent personalities, including former elected representatives who died recently. Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren speaks during the first day of the State Assembly Monsoon session, in Ranchi on Friday. (ANI)

During the six-day session, likely to be the last session of the fifth assembly, Speaker Rabindranath Mahto said that the first supplementary Budget for 2024-25 will be tabled, and several bills will be presented.

Stating that the previous sessions had been productive, and he expected the same from members in this session, the Speaker said that the people have been allowed to serve both the ruling dispensation and the Opposition.

This is the ornament of democracy. Though the session is scheduled for a brief period, it is very important. The Fifth Jharkhand Vidhan Sabha, which began on January 6, 2020, is heading to a close with members in the previous sessions showing good conduct and work reaching higher standards. Their presentation following parliamentary tradition has been praiseworthy. We tried to fulfil the aspirations of the states 35 million population, Mahto added.

The Speaker also informed the House that Raj Bhawan returned the Jharkhand Finance Bill 2022 with a message containing the legal opinion of the Attorney General of India.

Later, after paying obituaries to eminent persons and common citizens who died after the last session, the House was adjourned.

Meanwhile, the BJP legislators protested outside the House, raising a host of issues, including corruption, law and order, alleged Bangladeshi infiltration, and the non-fulfilment of promises by the government, including employment to youth.

The tribal population declined to 28 per cent in 2011 from the earlier 44.67 per cent, and the Muslim population rose from 9.44 per cent to 22.73 per cent in Santhal Parganas, Jharkhand BJP chief Babulal Marandi said before the start of the session.

BJP chief whip Biranchi Narayan said they would expose the government in the session. They have cheated the people of the state and have failed to fulfil the electoral promises, be it giving five lakh jobs to youth or giving them unemployment allowance. Corruption is rampant in the state while the demography is changing in Santhal Parganas due to vote bank politics of the ruling dispensation, added Biranchi.

Reacting to the allegations, state health minister Banna Gupta said the government would answer all the questions.

They are desperate. The last time they gave a call of winning 65 seats, they got 25. This time they have aimed for 55, they will get 15. Therefore, they are just looking to set a false narrative. If there is any infiltration of illegal migrants, then the onus lies on the Centre, and the Union Home Minister should take responsibility and resign, Gupta told reporters.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is likely to declare the results of the ICAI CA Foundation Exam 2024 on July 29, 2024. Candidates who appeared for the exam and wish to check the results can visit the official website of ICAI at icai.nic.in. Candidates who would like to check their results need to submit their login credentials in order to access the results. (Hindustan Times)

The result of the Chartered Accountants Foundation Examination held in June 2024 is likely to be declared on Monday, (Late evening) the 29th July 2024 and the same can be accessed by candidates on the website icai.nic.in It may be noted that for accessing the result at the above mentioned website the candidate shall have to enter his/her registration no. along with his/her roll number, mentioned a notice on the official website of ICAI.

Also Read: Increased budgetary outlays for education, as well as enabling reforms, key for India to reclaim its historical place

Candidates who would like to check their results need to submit their login credentials in order to access the results. Login credentials like the registration number and roll number need to be furnished to check the results.

Also Read: CUET UG 2024 final answer key released, heres how to download from nta.ac.in and other details here

Students who wish to check the ICAI CA Foundation results 2024 can follow the below mentioned steps.

Steps to check ICAI CA Foundation Exam 2024 results:

Visit the official website of ICAI at icai.nic.in

Look out for the link to check ICAI CA Foundation Exam 2024 Results on the home page and click it

A new page appears and candidates are required to furnish their login credentials in order to view the results

Login credentials like registration number and roll number are to be submitted to access the results

On submitting, results will be displayed on the screen

Check the details and save the page

Download the page and take a print out of the same for future needs

For more information, visit the official website of ICAI at at icai.nic.in.

Also Read: Candidates who have appeared for the exam and wish to check their results can visit the official website at dge.tn.gov.in.
NEET UG Result 2024 Live: The National Testing Agency (NTA) has released the NEET UG scorecard 2024 on July 26. A total of 17 candidates have made it to the toppers list. Candidates who have appeared for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) can check their results and scorecards on the official website of NTA NEET at exams.nta.ac.in. The results and scorecards can also be checked on neet.ntaonline.in. The Agency has also released the revised toppers list. The complete list can be checked here....Read More

DIRECT LINK TO CHECK NEET UG FINAL REVISED SCORECARD

Prior to this, the Agency released the NEET UG final revised answer key.

DIRECT LINK TO CHECK REVISED FINAL NEET UG ANSWER KEY

Union Education Minister on Tuesday, July 23 had informed that the revised NEET UG results will be declared within the next two days.

The revised final result has changed the rank list of all the candidates, including 44 NEET UG 2024 toppers who were awarded grace marks for the question.

This is the fourth time the result has been released. The NEET UG first result was issued on June 4 and second one was issued on June 30 and third one was issued on July 20, 2024.

Up next, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) and state counselling bodies will begin the online counselling process for UG medical admissions. The dates for the same is awaited.

Follow this live blog for the latest details on results, direct link, counselling and more.
The National Testing Agency, NTA, finally announced the revised result of NEET UG 2024 on Friday, July 26, ending days of anticipation. Candidates who took the exam can download their scorecards from the official website exams.nta.ac.in/NEET. NEET UG revised results live updates NEET UG revised result 2024: A total of 17 candidates secured Rank 1 in the revised results declared on July 26, 2024. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

To download the results, candidates will need to enter details such as their application number, date of birth, and registered mobile or email address.

The number of rank 1 holders down to 17 from 61:

The revised results have put forth a contrasting picture so far as the number of first-rank holders is concerned. In the latest results, a total of 17 candidates shared the top rank as opposed to the 61 candidates shown in the previous result.

It may be mentioned that in the results declared on June 4, 2024, a total of 67 candidates had secured a perfect 720, raising suspicions. The number was later reduced to 61 after the NTA removed the grace marks initially awarded to them on account of the loss of time.

Also read: NEET UG 2024 revised scorecard out, here's how to check final results

Consequently, out of the 61, a total of 44 candidates who scored a perfect 720/720 lost four marks after expert panel from IIT-Delhi informed the Supreme Court that a question of the Physics section of the NEET-UG 2024 exam had only one correct answer and not two. This automatically meant only 17 candidates were left to share Rank 1.

The Supreme Court had directed the NTA to follow the IIT Delhis recommendation on the controversial Physics question and re-tally the results. The top court said, In view of the experts' determination, we have no manner of doubt with regard to the correct option... we accept the IIT Delhi report, and accordingly, the NTA shall re-tally the NEET UG result on the basis that option 4 represents the only correct answer to the question.

Who are the 17 toppers of NEET UG 2024:

The NTA, while informing about the results, listed out the rank one holders. They are as follows:

Mridul Manya Anand, Delhi - Score 720 Ayush Naugraiya, Uttar Pradesh - Score 720 Mazin Mansoor, Bihar - Score 720 Prachita, Rajasthan - Score 720 Saurav, Rajasthan - Score 720 Divyansh, Delhi - Score 720 Gunmay Garg, Punjab - Score 720 Arghyadeep Dutta, West Bengal - Score 720 Shubhan Sengupta, Maharashtra- Score 720 Aryan Yadav, Uttar Pradesh - Score 720 Palansha Agarwal, Maharashtra - Score 720 Rajaneesh P, Tamil Nadu - Score 720 Sreenand Sharmil, Kerala - Score 720 Mane Neha Kuldeep, Maharashtra - Score 720 Taijas Singh, Chandigarh - Score 720 Devesh Joshi, Rajasthan - Score 720 Iram Quazi, Rajasthan - Score 720

Also read: Amid NEET UG row, Centre dismisses paper leakage in recruitment examinations conducted by UPSC, SSC and more

Whats next for candidates:

With the announcement of the results, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) and state counselling bodies are set to begin the online counselling process for UG medical admissions. The NTA informed that the details and schedule of counselling would be available on the websites of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education Directorates of States.

Fourth result of NEET UG 2024:

Interestingly, it is for the fourth time that the NEET UG result has been released. The first NEET UG result was issued on June 4 the second one was issued on June 30 and the third one was issued on July 20, 2024.

How to check NEET UG revised results 2024:
A delegation of the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Thursday met the chairman of the Centre's high-level exam reform panel and submitted its suggestions on improving the functioning of the National Testing Agency (NTA), a statement said. ABVP submits suggestions on NTA reforms to Centre's high-level panel

In a letter submitted to panel chairperson K Radhakrishnan, the students' union suggested conducting the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) in two phases like the JEE, developing advanced infrastructure for holding exams, setting up exam centres at government institutions and adequate staffing of permanent employees at NTA.

NEET UG result 2024: Revised merit list not out yet, awaited at exams.nta.ac.in, get details

The ABVP also underlined the need for administrative reforms within the NTA to ensure transparency in exams and restoring students' confidence in the agency. It suggested that OMR sheets of the paper should be uploaded on the NTA website.

"Over the past two weeks, the ABVP has consulted students from diverse disciplines such as humanities, medical sciences, engineering and others and compiled 42 suggestions for reforming the National Testing Agency. These suggestions have now been submitted to the high-level committee overseeing NTA reforms," ABVP national general secretary Yagywalkya Shukla said.

Also Read: Tamil Nadu NEET UG Counselling 2024: DMER releases list of documents required

"It is crucial to promptly resolve the issues plaguing the NTA to restore trust in its examination processes. We hope that the committee will take decisive action based on the ABVP's recommendations," he said.

The Centre has set up the seven-member panel headed by former ISRO chief Radhakrishnan to make recommendations on reforms in the examination process, enhancing data security protocols, and reviewing the structure and operations of the NTA.

Read More: Karnataka passes resolution to scrap NEET, calls to reinstate CET for UG medical admissions

The panel was set up following reports of alleged irregularities in some competitive exams conducted by the NTA.

While NEET-UG is under the scanner for several irregularities, including an alleged paper leak, UGC-NET was cancelled after the Ministry of Education received inputs that the integrity of the exam was compromised. Two other exams -- CSIR-UGC NET and NEET PG -- were cancelled as a pre-emptive step.

The NTA later announced fresh dates for some of these exams.
The Himachal Cabinet, led by Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Thursday, decided to close 89 Government Primary Schools and 10 Middle Schools that have zero enrolment. Himachal chief minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu (HT File Photo)

Additionally, the Government Primary Schools within a 2-kilometre radius and Government Middle Schools within a 3-kilometre radius with five or fewer students will be merged.

Harnessing the power of Design Thinking in schools and fostering 21st-century skills in students

Education Minister Rohit Thakur emphasized the need for these changes, stating, "Our focus is on optimizing resources to provide quality education. Schools with zero enrollment are not serving their purpose, and merging schools with low enrollment ensures better utilization of our educational infrastructure."

In line with these decisions, the Cabinet also approved annual transfers for teaching staff, to be conducted only after the academic session ends. All teachers, including Head Teachers, Centre Head Teachers, Headmasters, and Principals, will engage in teaching students. Morning assemblies featuring the national anthem and the daily unfurling of the national flag at High and Senior Secondary Schools have been mandated. Physical education will become a compulsory daily period, and training in CPR and First Aid will be provided in collaboration with the Health and Ayush Departments.

Also Read: Transfer Certificate of child not a tool for schools to collect pending fees: Madras HC

The Cabinet has recommended that the Governor convene the Monsoon session of the Himachal Pradesh Vidhan Sabha from August 27 to September 9, 2024, at Shimla, consisting of 10 sittings.

Industry and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Harshvardhan Chauhan highlighted the importance of this session, stating, "The Monsoon session is crucial for discussing and addressing the pressing issues faced by the state. We aim to ensure productive and meaningful deliberations."

Among other decisions, the Cabinet sanctioned the creation of Police District Dehra with its headquarters at Dehra, along with the creation and filling up of 39 posts of different categories. Police Posts Dadasiba and Majheen will be upgraded to Police Stations, and new Police Posts at Jwalamukhi City and Moin have been established.

Check this: IMT Ghaziabad ranks first in career outcomes category among top Indian B-schools in QS EMBA Rankings 2024

The Cabinet also approved the procurement of apple, kinnow, malta, orange, and mango fruits under the Market Intervention Scheme at Rs. 12 per kg, with the procurement rate for galgal set at 10 per kg. The procurement periods have been specified for each fruit.

Additional administrative decisions include the creation of SDPO offices, new police stations, and various posts across multiple districts. The Cabinet also approved filling up several posts in different departments, including Public Works, Jal Shakti Vibhag, Tourism and Civil Aviation, and the Department of Treasuries, Accounts, and Lotteries.

Furthermore, the Cabinet has constituted three sub-committees to examine specific issues. One sub-committee, chaired by Industries Minister Harshvardhan Chauhan, will focus on arbitration and court matters. Chauhan remarked, "We are committed to resolving legal issues efficiently to promote industrial growth and development in the state."

The Cabinet also approved the extension of the MoU with Alliance Air Aviation Limited for operating flights between Shimla and Dharamshala seven days a week from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025.

Industry minister Harshvardhan Chauhan while briefing the media on the cabinet decisions said that these decisions reflect the government's efforts to streamline operations, enhance administrative efficiency, and address the needs of the state's populace.
Deadpool & Wolverine movie review: Early in Shawn Levy's buddy superhero movie, when Ryan Reynolds' Wade Wilson is commissioned an Avengers-like world-saving mission, he literally breaks the fourth wall by headbanging the camera into cracks and telling Fox that he's going to Disneyland. That's exactly what the threequel entails: Deadpool entering the Disneyland that's the Marvel Cinematic Universe  it's like Alice in Wonderland, but on signature Deadpool steroids. Deadpool & Wolverine movie review: Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds team up for a buddy superhero movie

(Also Read: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman storm San Diego Comic-Con with Deadpool and Wolverine cameo stars. Spoilers inside!)

Deadpool in Disneyland

The reason why this turbulent marriage of Deadpool and MCU sustains is because it's not designed as Disneyfication of Deadpool, as many feared, but as the Deadpoolification of the MCU. One has rarely seen a Marvel film go all R-rated. Ryan Reynolds and Levy (Free Guy and The Adam Project) fly with the idea by introducing gore, abuses, and adult imagery into the MCU. But they do so by sticking to the core of what Deadpool is  humour. Lots and lots of humour. And no one is spared. Not even Marvel.

In that sense, Deadpool & Wolverine is to Marvel what Greta Gerwig's Barbie was to Mattel. The studio bosses are in on all the jokes directed towards them. Deadpool uses all the recent criticism directed towards MCU's Phase 4 and 5 as fodder for his unsparing humour. For instance, the most obvious criticism of Marvel resurrecting Hugh Jackman as Wolverine becomes a running joke. Deadpool suspects a bag of Marvel cash is tough to say no to, and predicts that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige is now going to bank on Hugh as Wolverine till he's 90.

He also welcomes Wolverine to the MCU, but adds that he has joined at a low point. When an army of Deadpool variants walk in from another dimension, he echoes our exasperation when he says he's sick of all the time variation, multiversal mumbo-jumbo. Not to say that there isn't any of that in this movie  there's plenty. Because it seems like MCU is no longer capable of building high stakes without invoking multiple timelines. Well, that may imply that the stakes are cosmic, but it also defeats the very purpose of stakes-building  nothing is under tangible threat because everything is revocable.

In 2017, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine had gotten the most memorable send-off  I'd argue it ranks higher than Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man in Avengers: Endgame. James Mangold's Logan was the perfect swan song for a special character and its legacy stands diluted by Wolverine striking back in the Deadpool threequel. But it helps that the very tone of the Deadpool franchise is of not taking itself too seriously. So along with all the Hugh Jackman sellout jokes, when a character getting decimated by Wolverine asks to make it stop, another butts in, Mangold tried.

The humour extends not only to Disney (Dogpool is referred to as Mary Puppins) and MCU's own movies, but also that of its rival, Warner Bros. and DC. The Void, a dimension where the rejects are dumped into by the Time Variance Authority, looks like a Mad Max rip-off. A joke about Furiosa is also slid in, just like a wisecrack about Batman pops up when Deadpool remarks that Wolverine's classic yellow mask makes him look like Batman but who can move his neck. Ryan doesn't spare himself either  with a sappy reference to The Proposal (2009) and a shoutout to actor-wife Blake Lively. My favourite, however, is when he looks at the worn-out giant Ant-Man skull and says, Paul Rudd has finally aged.

The meta humour somehow helps the audience glide over Marvel's borderline annoying obsession with timeline hopping, VFX overdose, and cameo bombarding. Thankfully, cameos don't turn into a spectator sport here as most of them have fascinating MCU lore attached to them. There are Fox characters returning to assemble like Avengers, a forgotten Fox character reprising role after he emerged as a Marvel legend, an actor playing a mutant he was supposed to play in the past but never got there, and even a now-retired DC actor cast as a Wolverine variant. Marvel could've gone overboard with the cameos, but it decidedly treats the movie as a tribute to 20th Century Fox, which it acquired in 2019. Stay for the end credits for a walk down memory lane to the high-stakes superhero storytelling of the X-Men and Fantastic Four days.

Red & yellow

Interestingly, it took a Marvel to unite two of the most loved Fox superheroes. Their team-up was teased way back in 2018 in the post-credit scene of Deadpool 2. The long-in-the-making threequel makes for a sumptuous buddy comedy because of the giving actor that Ryan Reynolds is. After headlining 2 movies in his franchise, he makes space for Wolverine not only in the film's title, but also the storyline. He's had great chemistry with his male co-stars in movies like The Hitman's Bodyguard (Samuel L Jackson) and Red Notice (Dwayne Johnson), and Hugh Jackman is no different. Because he slips into the adamantium skull and regenerative skill with consummate ease, as if he last played Wolverine just yesterday.

His no-nonsense, tough guy humour is a sharp contrast to not only his classic comic-book yellow costume, but also the irreverent, verbose one of Deadpool. The very fact that neither of them can die, but still go on to slash and pierce each other anyway, makes for some charged action sequences, high on gore and bloodshed. Watch out for the bit when all the windows of a bus turn red as Deadpool and Wolverine go about with their onslaught. It's every gore lover's wet dream. Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova, Charles Xavier's evil twin, brings her own icky appeal to the proceedings, getting her hands dirty to literally penetrate people's minds with her fingers (that's some tangible telepathy), in sharp contrast to her prim and proper British accent.

Emma Corrin plays Cassandra Nova in Deadpool & Wolverine

Sure, the invincible immortality of both its lead characters, coupled with MCU's multiverse-fuelled revocability, makes Deadpool & Wolverine another superhero film with rather predictable, low stakes. But like Spider-Man: No Way Home, the multidimensional design is efficiently used as their one chance at penance. For the longer you live, the longer you fight with your guilt, your insignificance. MCU is gradually transcending its ultimate purpose of world-saving  it's increasingly becoming more about not becoming complacent of saving the world. It's become more about fighting the fatigue  of its very own existence.
Former film mogul Harvey Weinstein has been transferred from a New York City jail to a hospital to undergo treatment for a variety of health problems, including Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs, his representatives said Thursday. Weinstein, who is awaiting trial in New York on rape and sexual assault charges, was moved from the city's Rikers Island jail complex to a locked ward at Bellevue Hospital. (Also Read  Netizens fume after Harvey Weinstein's conviction overturned: 'Wealthy in this country live by different rules) Harvey Weinstein has been hospitalised due to COVID-19 and pneumonia(AP)

The other conditions he was to be treated for included diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, and fluid on his heart and lungs, according to a statement released by Weinstein's publicist that attributed the health information to Craig Rothfeld, Weinsteins prison consultant.

We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses in the city's corrections and public hospital systems who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, said the publicist, Juda Engelmayer. Weinstein has had at least one stint at Bellevue before, after he was first brought to New York City for legal proceedings related to his rape case.

Weinstein, 72, was found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault. The conviction was tossed out by appeals judges who said jurors shouldnt have heard testimony from women who had accused the film producer of misconduct, but whose allegations werent part of the case. A retrial has been scheduled for November.

While his conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars in part because he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in California after he was convicted in a rape case in Los Angeles in 2022.

Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone. At a recent court hearing, Weinstein's lawyers had said he was in poor health and asked for him to be transferred from the jail to the hospital.
Earlier this year, Hollywood actor Will Smith spoke about having a 'difficult time' over the past couple of years and reading all the holy books during a spiritual phase' of his life. In 2022, Will spoke on Jay Shetty's On Purpose podcast about how Arjuna's story from Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharat helped him navigate 'perplexing situations' with people he loves. Talking about Arjuna, Will said he was 'deeply pious' but was left devastated by what his family did to him. Also read: Will Smith spotted with mysterious Jada Pinkett Smith look-alike Actor Will Smith spoke in details about Arjuna in an old interview. (File Photo/AP)

What Will Smith said about Arjuna

He said, "About Arjuna, the circumstance that he was in, for people who don't know, his family has tripped out, he's a wonderful archer. He's the best archer in the world and his family tricks out and takes the kingdom and they're like, you know, they snatch his wife and they're trying to disrobe his wife and he... you know, he's a warrior and, you know, he can get, he could get the kingdom back, you know. But these are his uncles and his, his brothers in law and his teachers and people that he loved and trusted, and they took his kingdom."

He added, And they prepared an army and they're going to fight Arjuna and he's, he's devastated that his family and his friends and all of that, for material gain, would, would do this to him. And he's deeply pious. And they prepare an army, the greatest army that's ever been assembled, except that they don't know that God is driving Arjuna's chariot. Yes. Right? And they think they're going to tear through Arjuna, they're going to do all this, but God is driving Arjuna's chariot.

'He knows Mahabharat more than today's Gen Z'

In response to an old clip of the actor talking about Arjuna, an Instagram user wrote, "Wow... just love that Will knows so well about Mahabharat and Arjuna." Another commented, "The way he says 'Except that they dont know that GOD is driving Arjunas chariot' Its just so perfect!"

"Bro has read Mahabharat not watched TV serials that's why he knows Arjuna was a true heroic character, yes Karna was powerful but the attitude of Arjun is what makes him the face of Mahabharat, the hero of Mahabharat," wrote a person. Another said, "He knows Mahabharat more than today's Gen Z kids." A comment also read, "Never heard this perfect explanation of Mahabharat... the way he's explained everything and the shine in his eyes... beautiful."

Why Will Smith has been in news

Will Smith and Chris Rock's heated exchange at the 2022 Academy Awards will go down in Oscars infamy. The annual awards took a sharp turn on March 27, 2022, when Will walked up to the Oscars stage and slapped Chris in the face after the comedian made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith and her buzz cut. The actor has been candid about her hair loss and alopecia, so Will took offence to her medical condition being a punchline. Jada also stood by Will after he was criticised for slapping Chris at the 2022 Oscars.

In October 2023, Jada during an NBC News special, revealed that she and Will have been living separate lives' for the past seven years, though they haven't legally divorced. Jada explained that neither of them had publicly spoken about their split until last year because they were still trying to figure out where they stood as partners.
Recently, several reports stated that Tara Sutaria has been cast as Yashs second love interest in Geetu Mohandas Toxic: A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups. She took to Instagram to clarify that these reports were false and not to believe baseless speculations about her work unless she confirmed them. (Also Read: Yash and Atlee chat away at Anant Ambani's wedding; fans want them to work together. Watch) Tara Sutaria denies being a part of Yash-starrer Toxic.

Tara denies being cast in Toxic

Tara shared a note on her Instagram stories addressing the rumours. She wrote, Hello all! The articles released over the last few days about a project and I are false and not shared by me. She also took a dig at the claim that she was cast as the second female lead writing, Whenever there is something to share, I will share it with all of you! My love always. PS  Nobody is second to anyone.

A screen grab of Tara Sutaria's Instagram stories.

Peeping Moon first reported on July 23 that the actor will play one of the two love interests in the film, with Kiara Advani cast in the other role. They even quoted a source saying she was overjoyed about landing such a massive project.

What we know about Toxic

While Geetu or Yash have yet to divulge anything about the cast, there are also rumours of Nayanthara and Huma Qureshi starring in the film. At one point, Kareena Kapoors name was also attached to the film after she teased doing a big south film while promoting Crew. Fans have been waiting for updates but the films team has stayed mum.

The actor recently changed his look for Toxic, letting go of the long tresses and changing his beard. Sharing a picture of the actors new look, his hairstylist Alex Vijayakanth wrote, Crafting a look thats truly explosive. A custom pompadour for Rocking Star Yash! From the iconic long hair look to the shorter, edgier and intense style for Toxic. Creating a hairstyle that perfectly complements characters played by @thenameisYash is a challenge I relish, and this pompadour is a testament to it.

Taras recent work

Tara was last seen in the 2023 survival thriller Apurva which was released on Disney+ Hotstar. She will soon be seen in a film titled Humraaz.
Social media personality and actor Uorfi Javed took to Instagram to post a video of her striking new outfit, which was praised by many celebs. Social media personality and her friend, Orry Awatramani aka Orry, showered love on her look, saying 'she ate' and she reposted this on Instagram Stories. Now, a Reddit post about fashion influencer and commentator Sufi Motiwala's unsavoury reaction to Orry 'hyping' Uorfi has surfaced online. Also read: Uorfi Javed recalls relatives calling her a 'porn star' after her pictures were uploaded on adult site Uorfi Javed in a now-deleted post called out a fashion commentator for speaking ill of her.

Did Sufi insult Orry and Uorfi?

Sharing details and a screenshot of Uorfi's now-deleted Instagram Stories, a Redditor wrote, Apparently Orry left a comment on Uorfi's latest Instagram post, and Uorfi reposted the same on her stories (Just like how two friends on Instagram would hype up each other). This wannabe Sufi guy sent sadak chap (roadside) reply to Uorfi's same Instagram Stories. This guys goes on licking shoes of rich nepo babies and the Ambanis in his posts. Also seen partying with Orry on various occasions. But when others praise/hype each other, seems like he cant stand it. Good that Uorfi stood up against this bully. Kudos to her.

Some on Reddit called Sufi's comments disgusting and crass. In more screenshots that have since appeared on Reddit, Uorfi said in another-deleted Instagram Stories, "So he (Sufi) was probably sending this reply to one of his friends, accidently sent to me only! Unfortunately for him I was online at that time and I immediately took a screenshot. Koi id hack nahi hui hai iski, 2 min mein id wapas mil gayi (His id was not hacked, how did he get it back in two minutes)..."

Another screenshot seemingly showed Sufi's now-deleted Instagram Stories in which he wrote, "I have texted her I had no such intentions and I would not text someone life that." The alleged screenshot showed the messages Sufi had purportedly sent to Uorfi.

The messages read, "Uorfi... please pick up my call... I genuinely have not sent this... PLEASE... I HAVE NO INTESIONS TOWARDS YOU. Please Uorfi, I don't uise such language. I just logged back into my account... Please, I will be ruined, I have never wished you bad, Uorfi."

Uorfi Javed is not happy with what Sufi Motiwala has to say about her camaraderie with Orry.

What happened

On Thursday, Orry took to Instagram Stories to praise Uorfi's post about her black dress with 3D butterfly art, which she posted on Instagram with the caption, "Its magic..." Orry gave her a shoutout as he reshared her video on Instagram Stories, writing, "Ngl (not going to lie) she ate..."

She reposted the same and wrote, "Orry aprroved (red rose emojis)." She also shared a screenshot of Orry's comment on her video, "F***ing love her." Sufi seemingly responded to this by DMing Uorfi some really crude words, hinting that Orry was praising her a little too much.

Uorfi said in her deleted Instagram Stories as she shared a screenshot of Sufi's alleged message, "Surname mein Ambani nahi hai toh Sufi Motiwala aise baat karega aapse (If you don't have Ambani in your surname, this is how Sufi will speak to you)."

TV actor Uorfi Javed, who has also appeared on Bigg Boss OTT, is known for her unconventional fashion choices and unique dresses. She often appears in paparazzi videos showcasing her quirky looks.
Actor Yoo Ah-in, known for his hit film Burning, has been accused of sexual assault by a man. As reported by Soompi, the police have begun an investigation into the matter. The actor's lawyer has denied the allegations, asking people not to make "unnecessary speculation". (Also Read | BTS Festa: Fans face sexual assault charges for kissing Jin at hug event, officials respond) Yoo Ah-in has starred in many films and web series.

What has Yoo Ah-ins lawyer said

Yoo Ah-ins lawyer, Park Jung Hyun, said, The claims in the criminal complaint involving Yoo Ah-in are not true. Additionally, we ask that you refrain from unnecessary speculation regarding his personal life.

What did the man claim

The man claimed that the actor sexually assaulted him on July 14 this year when he was sleeping at an apartment. It neither belonged to the man nor Yoo Ah-in. Reportedly, there were other men present at the time. The alleged incident took place in Seouls Yongsan District.

Here's what the Seoul police has said

On Friday, the Seoul Yongsan Police Station confirmed that they had received a criminal complaint from a 30-year-old man. The police have already questioned the man about the case on Thursday. He has, as per the report, tested negative for drugs. We have not yet contacted the accused [Yoo Ah-in] about the case. We plan to call him in for questioning soon, Sooompi quoted the police as saying.

About Yoo Ah-in

Yoo Ah-in is best known for his leading roles in the coming-of-age film Punch (2011), the melodrama Secret Affair (2014), the action blockbuster Veteran (2015) and the period drama The Throne (2015).

The actor also starred in the television series Six Flying Dragons (20152016), the psychological thriller mystery drama Burning (2018), the zombie film #Alive (2020), the indie crime drama film Voice of Silence (2020), and the dark fantasy series Hellbound (2021).

Burning, directed by Lee Chang-dong, was widely praised. It competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and became the first Korean film to make it to the final nine-film shortlist of Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards.
Multinational corporations (MNCs) have generated significant strength to influence the international political economy, anchored by the nation-state. Traditionally, the nation-State has the monopoly of decision-making to conduct domestic and international affairsconceptualised as the States sovereignty. Sovereignty is the unchallenged authority to control a country's internal and external affairs. However, it is argued that States have ceded part of their sovereignty to multinational companies to allow the latter to conduct their scale of operations at the transnational level. International Relations

Their dominant economic roles in the global and national economies allow them to lobby for foreign policy issues. They contribute to about a third of global gross domestic product (GDP) (28%), half of global exports and about a fourth of global employment, according to OECD (2018). They have shaped the present global value chains through their global business operations through outsourcing and offshoring activities. Governments have followed foreign economic policies supported by MNCs, which has led to the strengthening of globalisation. MNCs are at the centre of the modern State economy facilitated by technological discoveries, conducive economic situations, and public policy reforms. MNCs have gained a more robust position owing to the advanced stage of international production that affects global businesses' ownership, organisation and location.

The nation-State-based international order constantly pushes and pulls between states and MNCs to assert their authority over the other. After the Trump administrations rolling back on globalisation in favour of protectionism, President Biden has tightened its anti-Chinese trade practices by threatening to ban TikTok or biotech companies like Wuxi AppTec, among others, while at the same time warning McKinsey & Company, which conducts businesses with the Chinese government. Trumps trade policies were hurting domestic firms at the same time. American companies raised concerns against protectionist trade policies that restrict immigration and disrupt global value chains. Even during the bilateral trade tensions, the American companies lobbied their national government and successfully got tariff exemptions. It only shows their strength in influencing government policy-making.

The cracking down on several Chinese companies/apps reminds us of colonial businesses that led to war and conflict. The British East India Company ruled most of the Indian subcontinent, reaching Burma, Singapore and Hong Kong with immense power. Trumps efforts were to renew the existing trade agreements between the US and China, which he believed were against American national interests. The Biden administration has labelled the trade practices of China anti-America, posing a severe threat to American national security. It is an example of a state using MNCs to control/attempt to destroy a nations economy, depending on which side of the argument is made. The US administration believes that Chinese trade practices could seriously damage American businesses. The Chinese government is accused of using MNCs as a tool to do this through unfair trade practices in technology, transfer, intellectual property, and innovationwhich may leave American companies out of the competitive markets.

Beijings American policy is to keep Washington busy with the bilateral trade deficit favouring China and the growing penetration of Chinese MNCs into the global value chains. At the same time, Beijing can strengthen its strategy to challenge American hegemony by strengthening its power position in the South China Sea and neighbouring areas. The tension surrounding TikTok, a foreign product, reflects the growing geopolitical rivalry between the US and China.

Well, the growing power of MNCs can be translated into meanings: one, MNCs can provide public goods like schools, health centres, and other basic amenities that host States may lack the capacity to develop, and two, some of them are even bigger or more powerful than states, employing more staff than the population of many States in Africa, e.g. the Gambia or Principe posits themselves to influence the politics or foreign policies of the host countries, as it is reported. In the second interpretation, the governments ability to exercise its powers becomes weak. Multinational companies, including big banks, can lobby for free capital markets, foreign investments, and more capital mobility.

In another perspective, the relationship between the States and MNCs is mutually beneficial under the World Trade Organization (WTO) terms for transactions. Governments can still close down MNCs or ask them to follow the laws of the land. Globalisation has reshaped the functioning of governments by interconnecting their decision-making processes, as one government can no longer have the final say within its territory. MNCs have brought together public and private actors through global production networks which connect political MNCs bring technology and foreign direct investment (FDI) to host countries, which are essential for development and reduction of poverty in developing countries. They also export their goods and services to host countries, which serve as a source of balance of payment and foreign currency. However, this is not always true, as these MNCs can also become a tool of exploitation, especially in countries of Africa. It is argued that multilateral institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the WTO protect MNCs from unethical practices and anti-welfare activities.

The US-China rivalry is putting MNCs (local or foreign) at the crossroadsa reminder that the State can bounce back by restoring its long-withheld sovereignty. However, whether the control of MNCs is good or bad is context-specific, and the conclusion is tentative due to a lack of data. MNCs controlled by governmental regulations towards producing public goods to improve peoples lives is a good thing. MNCs without such regulations would try to avoid corporate social responsibilities (CSRs) and choose their primary objective of profit earning. They can harm the environment, politics or social fabric if a few owners of capital pocket the benefits. It would be far-fetched to say that the private actors have swayed over the elected government.

On the other hand, if they operate through market forces to trade freely, mobilise capital, and produce and distribute goods and services, they can bring enhanced efficiency good jobs, and offer goods and services at competitive prices. The critical role of their FDI in this regard is widely agreed. MNCs should be allowed a free interaction in the market for free trade with limited State intervention. The States are as powerful in the globalised world as ever. The governments have allowed the private forces to take the lead in the development process, for they bring innovative ideas and efficient modes of business operations, in which governments could be dull, slow and inefficient.

This article is authored by Mehdi Hussain, former assistant professor, Political Science, Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi.
Akshay Kumar is a busy actor, who often has multiple releases in a year. But it has been a while since fans saw him in an out-and-out comedy. Much to our delight, the superstar is now returning to the genre with Khel Khel Mein. Also starring Ammy Virk, Taapsee Pannu, Vaani Kapoor, Fardeen Khan, Aditya Seal and Pragya Jaiswal, the Mudassar Aziz directorial is all set to arrive in theatres on August 15. After the first posters, where Akshay rocked a salt-and-pepper look, makers have now dropped the first song from the film, titled Hauli Hauli. Well, theres a lot to love! Stills from Khel Khel Mein song Hauli Hauli

Helmed by Guru Randhawa, Yo Yo Honey Singh and Neha Kakkar, Hauli Hauli is a Punjabi song. But what sets it apart from all the other recent trending tracks is how soft and groovy it is. Watching the star cast dance to this track will make you want to sway along. Even the hook step is really cool. Akshay and Vaani look nice together while Ammy and Taapsee are adorable! Fardeen makes a hero-waali entry looking handsome as ever. But the highlight is when Akshay and Fardeen send us down the memory lane by recreating an iconic step from their 2007 comedy Heyy Babyy.

Fardeen Khan and Akshay Kumar recreating the iconic step from Heyy Babyy

Another highlight of Hauli Hauli comes at the end of the music video. Chitrangada Singh, who shared the screen with Akshay in Desi Boyz (2011), joins the superstar for a scene shot in an airplane. We cant tell for sure if this is a cameo or a full-fledged role, but fans are loving it! In the comment section below, one social media user shared, Akshay sir and Chitrangada Desi Boyzz ki yaad dila di, while another comment read: Nostalgiaaaa Akshay + Fardeen + Chitrangada Heyy Baby and Desi Boyzz. Gushing over Akshay and Fardeens reunion, one internet user shared, bro ye toh nostalgia ho gaya. HEYY BABYY wala step, whereas another wrote: Akshay & Fardeen vibing to iconic Heyy Baby hook step. In another sequence, Akshay lifts his onscreen wife Vaani up in his arms, which is his signature move. Lauding the same, a fan stated: Everything is temporary but Akshay sir lifting actress is permanent.

Like we said, theres a lot to love in this song. We are now eagerly waiting to roll on the floor with laughter when Khel Khel Mein releases on the silver screen.
Agartala: Two Indian touts, allegedly involved in human trafficking and helping illegal Bangladeshi nationals cross into the Indian territory, were arrested in Tripura and forwarded to the court on Friday, officials aware of the matter said. (Representative Photo)

A team comprising Government Railway Police (GRP), Railway Protection Force, and Border Security Force arrested the duo on Thursday from Agartala Railway Station, said officials.

Officials said that the duo, identified as Biplab Malakar, a resident of Sidhai in West Tripura, and Bishal Datta, a resident of Takarjala in Sepahijala district, were charged with the Indian Penal Code, Foreigners Act, and International Passport Act before.

We sought police remand for them. Both of them were wanted in the case. The matter is under investigation, said GRP officer Tapash Das.

The arrest follows a long line of arrests of the people involved in human traffickers in Tripura and other northeastern states by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Tripura shares a total 856-km-long international border with Bangladesh; parts of some patches are yet to be fenced.

Touts having access and network in different parts of Tripura are involved in facilitating the infiltration, illegal border crossing, and providing shelters and fake identity documents to the infiltrators for travelling to different destinations.
Moidams, the 700-year-old burial mounds of the Ahom dynasty in Assam, were on Friday included in the Unesco World Heritage List, the UN agency announced, making them the first cultural site from the northeastern state to get the coveted tag. Located in the Patkai Ranges in eastern Assam, the unique burial mounds  represented by pyramid-like structures known as Moidams  were used by the Ahom dynasty that ruled Assam for around 600 years. (HT Photo)

The decision to include Moidams in the list was taken during the ongoing 46th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) in the Capital.

New inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List: Moidams  the Mound-Burial System of the Ahom Dynasty, India, UNESCO or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization posted on X.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the decision, calling it a matter of immense joy and pride for India.

The Moidams at Charaideo showcase the glorious Ahom culture, which places utmost reverence to ancestors. I hope more people learn about the great Ahom rule and culture. Glad that the Moidams joined the World Heritage List, he posted on X.

Located in the Patkai Ranges in eastern Assam, the unique burial mounds  represented by pyramid-like structures known as Moidams  were used by the Ahom dynasty that ruled Assam for around 600 years. Also known as the pyramids of India, Moidams were first included in the tentative list of Unescos World Heritage Sites in April 2014.

Moidams are vaulted chambers (chow-chali), often double-storied, that have an arched passage for entry They contain the remains of kings and other royals together with grave goods such as food. Eventually, the mound would be covered by a layer of vegetation, reminiscent of a group of hillocks, transforming the area into an undulating landscape, according to the UNESCO website.

The word Moidam is derived from the Tai word Phrang-Mai-Dam or Mai-Tam. Phrang-Mai means to put into the grave or to bury and Dam means the spirit of the dead, according to an Assam government portal.

The designated site contains 90 Modiams of different sizes, and includes other cultural features like ceremonial pathways and bodies of water, according to people aware of the matter.

There are a total of 1,204 sites from across the world on the list, with 43 of them now being from India. The sites are categorised under cultural, natural and mixed labels. Assams Kaziranga Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park are also included in the list under the natural heritage label.

Tim Curtis, the director of Unesco South Asia Regional Office, said the Moidams were a unique site of cultural significance.

I would like to congratulate the government of India, the people of India, and the people of Assam for this significant inscription. The Moidams are a unique site, which holds immense value for the local communities, who continue to practice ceremonies there, as well as for all of humanity. It is our collective responsibility to ensure the safeguarding of this heritage for generations to come, he said.

The Ahom clan established their capital in different parts of the Brahmaputra River Valley between the 12th and 18th centuries, after migrating from China, according to the UN cultural agencys website. They established the first capital at the Patkai hills in eastern India and named it Charaideo, which means a dazzling city above the mountain in their language. Even though the clan moved across cities, the burial site was considered as the most sacred place. The site has the largest concentration of these vaulted mound burials, according to UNESCO, and reflects the sculpted landscape of the surrounding hills.

Union culture and tourism minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said it was a moment of immense pride for India as the global recognition will help highlight the rich cultural heritage of Assam and Bharat.

In the last few years, our capacity in the archaeological ecosystem has increased so much that there are 57 sites pending for addition to the Unesco heritage site list. The inscription of these new sites in the World Heritage list will help boost tourism across the country. We have now proposed the Maratha Military Landscape for the list, he said.

Historian and author of The Ahoms: A Reimagined History Arup Kumar Dutta said the recognition will help make Moidams more popular among tourists and the people of the state.

I am optimistic that the UNESCO tag will give [Moidams] more popularity and more people will get to know about the rich legacy of the Ahom dynasty, he said.

Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma thanked the central government for ensuring that the mound-burial system is included in the Unesco list.

This is great news for Assam as the Charaideo Moidam is now officially a UNESCO Heritage site... Assam will always remain indebted to the Centre for this honour. This inclusion is a great honour for the country and not for Assam alone.

Other sites included on Friday in the list included the Colonies of the Moravian Church in Germany, the US and UK; the Umm Al-Jimal in Jordanu and the Badain Jaran Desert in China.

(With inputs from Vrinda Tulsian and agencies)
Samajwadi Party (SP) president and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav on Friday took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the speculated rift in the party's Uttar Pradesh unit, reported PTI. Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav and UP's deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya.(File)

Talking to reporters in Lucknow, Yadav said that he had heard that UP's deputy chief minister, Keshav Prasad Maurya, is a "pawn". Maurya, however, hit back at Yadav for his comments, calling him a "Congress' pawn".

Yadav was speaking to reporters after unveiling a 'Samvidhan-Manstambh' at the SP headquarters in Lucknow.

He also targeted the Yogi Adityanath government on the issue of corruption in the state.

"The government used to claim that there is a zero-tolerance policy, especially on corruption and law and order. But now their leaders themselves are saying we have not seen such corruption in our political life," Yadav said, referring to a remark by a former state minister, who later backtracked from his statement.

"Corruption is being exposed because some people have become pawns," Yadav said, hinting at the speculated rift within the BJP, without taking any name.

"I heard that 'Maurya ji mohre hain' (deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya is a pawn), a password to Delhi's Wi-Fi," he added, hinting at Maurya's closeness with the central BJP leadership, according to PTI.

Maurya, however, reacted to Yadav's comments, calling him a Congress' pawn and urging him to save his party from extinction.

Samajwadi Party leader Shree Akhilesh Yadav ji, who has become a pawn of the Congress, should focus on saving the SP from extinction rather than harbouring misconceptions about the BJP, targeting the backward sections and insulting them, Maurya wrote on X.

Also Read | BJPs dilemma as party weighs pros and cons of changing leadership in state

"The BJP will repeat the 2017 (state assembly poll performance) in 2027. The lotus (the BJP's poll symbol) has bloomed and will continue to bloom," he added.

The exchange comes amid a buzz about a rift between the Yogi Adityanath-led government and the BJP.

The BJPs below-par performance in the 2024 Lok Sabha poll in Uttar Pradesh was the trigger point that opened the alleged fault lines between the party organisation and the state government. The Lok Sabha poll results on June 4 brought down the BJP tally in Uttar Pradesh to 33 MPs from 62 in 2019.

As the process of reviewing the poll results began, party workers accused the government of neglecting and overlooking them.

At the BJPs state executive committee meeting in Lucknow on July 14, Maurya had asserted that the Sangthan (organisation) was, is, and will remain greater than the Sarkar (government). Yogi, at the same meeting, asserted that overconfidence kept the party away from achieving desired results.

Maurya, who had skipped some state cabinet meetings amid speculation about his growing differences with the chief minister, had also met Nadda in New Delhi.
New Delhi: Indias concerns about the fallout of the violence and instability in Myanmar figured in a meeting between National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and his Myanmarese counterpart Admiral Moe Aung, people familiar with the matter said on Friday. NSA Ajit Doval is in Myanmar to attend a meeting of security chiefs of member states of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec) (Twitter/@IndiainMyanmar)

Doval is in Myanmar to attend a meeting of security chiefs of member states of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Bimstec).

This is one of the first visits by a senior Indian functionary to Myanmar since the 2021 coup by the junta.

The junta has suffered a series of humiliating military defeats at the hands of resistance forces and peoples defence forces since a number of armed groups launched a coordinated offensive in October last year.

The offensive is being seen as the most significant challenge to the junta, as Myanmar has been witnessing wide-ranging violence since the military seized power in a coup on February 1, 2021. As the resistance forces have overrun military positions and captured key trading posts on the borders with India, Bangladesh, and China, concerns have grown in New Delhi about the fallout on the northeastern states.

The Indian embassy in Myanmar said in a post on X that Doval is leading the Indian delegation to the 4th annual meeting of Bimstec security chiefs, which is being held in Naypyitaw on Friday.

He met with the Myanmar NSA Admiral Moe Aung [on Thursday], and BIMSTEC Security Chiefs called on Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the Indian embassy said.

The people cited above said on condition of anonymity that Indias concerns about the security situation in Myanmar had figured in Dovals meeting with his Myanmarese counterpart. The Indian side raised the impact of the violence and instability in Myanmar on Indias border regions, they said.

Myanmar shares a 1,640-km border with a number of Indian states, including Nagaland and Manipur.

While delivering Indias national statement at the meeting of Bimstec security chiefs, Doval spoke on strengthening cooperation in counterterrorism and combating drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and organised crime, the Indian embassy in Myanmar said in a separate post on X.

Doval also spoke about Bimstec connectivity, holding the second port conclave, and water security of Himalayan river systems, the embassy said.

The Indian NSA travelled to Myanmar after representing India at the state funeral of Vietnams general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong in Hanoi. He conveyed Indias condolences personally to President To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and the bereaved family.
Five people were arrested after a Congress worker was allegedly beaten to death in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district on Wednesday night. The incident took place near the victim's worker's house in Hathat colony under Khargrabari-1 gram panchayat of Maynaguri. Manik Roy was allegedly tied to a tree and beaten by a group wielding iron rods and sticks. He was killed over a dispute with his neighbours, the police said. Congress worker beaten to death in West Bengal (HT File)

Manik Roy was rescued by a police team from Moinaguri and taken to Jalpaiguri Super Specialty Hospital in a critical condition, where he succumbed to injuries on Thursday, the police said.

His family members and WBPCC president Adhir Chowdhury claimed that some of the assailants belonged to the ruling Trinamool Congress. The police on Thursday arrested five persons in connection with the case.

Manik Roy's family and Congress alleged that the party worker was forced to leave his house after the Lok Sabha election 2024 after getting repeated threats from TMC-backed goons in the area.

Roy started to stay in Siliguri town where he worked as a security guard. Last Sunday, he returned home. But TMC-backed goons tied him to a tree and beat him up. This is the ruling partys terror in Bengal, Congress worker Soumya Aich Roy told The Indian Express.

West Bengal Congress president Adhir Chowdhury said, It seems that Congress workers have no right to pursue political activities in TMC-ruled West Bengal. We want a fair probe into the murder of Roy.

While Congress launched attacks on the TMC over the death of their party worker, the ruling party slammed the attempts to politicise the issue and called for a deep probe in the matter.

TMC leader Kunal Ghosh told news agency PTI it was an unfortunate incident and none of those involved should be spared. Any attempt to politicise this should be denounced, Kunal Ghosh asserted.
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of doing petty politics on Kargil Vijay Diwas. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge during a press conference in New Delhi on July 23.(PTI)

Kharge's criticism comes hours after Modi, during an address at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, targeted the Opposition for its criticism of the Agnipath scheme and accused them of attempting to weaken the Army.

It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas, Kharge wrote on X. No Prime Minister has ever done this before.

Kharge added that the prime minister's claim that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant Armed Forces.

Modi ji, it is you who are spreading LIES! Former Army Chief (Retd.) General MM Naravane has said on record that 75% of recruits were to be taken for permanency in the 'Agnipath Scheme' and 25% of people were to be let go after 4 years. But the Modi Govt did the opposite, and forcibly implemented this scheme for all three Armed Forces, Kharge wrote.

"According to news reports, Former Army Chief (Retd) General MM Naravane in his book which the Modi Govt, has stalled from being published, has also said, that the 'Agnipath Scheme' was shocking for the Army, and for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a "bolt out of the blue"!" he added.

Also Read | PM Modi defends Agnipath scheme, says it aims to rejuvenate armed forces

Further, Kharge pointed out that several retired officers have strongly criticised Agnipath and said that it is endangering the national security and aspirations of the youth from rural backgrounds.

He added that the former officers have been demanding that the Agnipath scheme should be completely scrapped.

All this is on record. Agniveers do not get any pension, no gratuity, no family pension, no liberalized family pension and no education allowance for their children, Kharge added.

Also Read | Agniveer among three held for carjacking in Mohali

Announced in June 2022, the Agnipath scheme recruits personnel to the Indian armed forces for a short period of four years. At the end of four years, up to 25% of recruits, called Agniveers, join the services on a permanent commission (15 more years) subject to merit and other requirements.

What PM Modi said

In his address at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, Modi attacked the Opposition for criticising the Agnipath scheme, saying that they are trying to mislead the youth of the country. This shows that they do not care about the soldiers, the prime minister said.

These are the same people who lied about One Rank One Pension. It is our government that implemented One Rank One Pension, and gave more than 1.25 lakh crore to ex-servicemen. These are the same people who did not build a war memorial...These are the same people who did not provide adequate bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border. These are the people who tried to weaken our army, Modi said.

He also launched a fiery attack at Pakistan saying that the neighbouring country has not learnt anything from history. He said, Pakistan has failed in all its nefarious attempts in the past. But Pakistan has not learned anything from its history. It is trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war.
New Delhi, As India's Moidams received the UNESCO tag on Friday, Union Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said it is a day "etched in golden letters" and termed the inscription a "great gift" to the country. Day etched in golden letters, great gift to India: Shekhawat on 'Moidams' getting UNESCO tag

He thanked UNESCO, the World Heritage Committee for understanding the outstanding universal value of 'Moidams' the centuries-old mound-burial system of the Ahom dynasty in Assam.

'Moidams' was on Friday included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, making it the first cultural property from the Northeast to get the coveted tag.

The decision was taken during the ongoing 46th session of the World Heritage Committee being held in India.

"It is a day etched in golden letters," Shekhawat said at the session surrounded by members of the Indian delegation.

The other two UNESCO sites in Assam Kaziranga National Park and Manas Wildlife Sanctuary were added to the World Heritage List in 1985.

Shekhawat hailed the "close cooperation" between the Archaeological Survey of India and the state's archaeology department which worked on this site.

In his address, he termed the inscription a "great gift to India," adding the site was put in the Tentative List of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2014.

Videos of the 'moidams' were played on big screens carrying a caption 'Congratulations India'.

Shekhawat later also addressed a press conference and shared a long post with photos and a video of the UNESCO-recognised 'necropolis' in Assam.

The site is partly under the ASI and partly under the state administration.

"In a moment of immense pride for India, Assam's Moidams have been inscribed as the 43rd UNESCO World Heritage Site. This historic recognition brings global attention to the unique 700-year-old mound burial system of the Ahom Kings at Charaideo, highlighting the rich cultural heritage of Assam and Bharat," he posted on X.

The journey of Moidams towards the recognition was spearheaded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who nominated ancient structures as India's official entry in 2023.

The nomination underscores the cultural and historical significance of the Moidams, making them the first cultural heritage site and the third overall site from the Northeast to be inscribed on the World Heritage List, he wrote.

"The Moidams at Charaideo, often referred to as the 'Pyramids of India', are a series of grand, earthen mounds that serve as the burial sites for the Ahom royalty. These structures date back to the 13th century and showcase the intricate funerary practices and cosmological beliefs of the Tai-Ahom people.

"The Moidams are characterised by their hemispherical shape, brick structures, and octagonal boundary walls with arched gateways. The vaults contain the remains of the royals along with grave goods, symbolizing their stature and reverence in society," the culture and tourism minister added in his post.

"The inclusion of Moidams in the UNESCO World Heritage List is a testament to their outstanding universal value. The International Council on Monuments and Sites highlighted the Moidams' exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition and their representation of significant stages in human history.

"This recognition underscores the efforts of the Archaeological Survey of India and the Assam government in preserving these historic treasures," he said.

Shekhwat said visiting Charaideo offers a glimpse into the region's opulent history and the grandeur of the Ahom dynasty. "Tourists can marvel at the architectural brilliance and the meticulous preservation efforts that have kept these structures intact," he wrote.

The Moidams' recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage Site serves as a reminder of the importance of "conserving our cultural heritage for future generations," he said.

Tim Curtis, Director, UNESCO South Asia Regional Office in New Delhi, in a statement said, "I would like to congratulate the government of India, the people of India, and the people of Assam for this significant inscription. The Moidams are a unique which site holds immense value for the local communities, who continue to practice ceremonies there, as well for all of humanity."

"It is our collective responsibility to ensure the safeguarding of this heritage for generations to come," he said.

Ranjan Sarma, Commissioner and Secretary, Indigenous Tribes and Cultural, Govt of Assam, and Padmapani Bora, Secretary, tourism department of Assam, who were preset at the Assam stall at the Incredible India pavillion, also hailed the decision.

"We are planning to have a common ticketing system now," Sarma said.

Bora said as part of Assam's policy of community-based homestays, "We have about 10 homestay facilities in Charaideo".

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
A Delhi court on Friday extended the judicial custody of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha till July 31 in connection with the excise policy case, reported ANI. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Manish Sisodia and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leader K Kavitha.(File)

Both are in custody in connection with a corruption case filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy scam.

The two leaders were produced through video conferencing from Tihar Jail. The CBI recently filed a supplementary charge against Kavitha, according to ANI.

K Kavitha, the daughter of former Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, was arrested on March 15 by the Enforcement Directorate(ED) in a money laundering case related to the excise policy. The CBI later arrested her from Tihar Jail on April 11.

Sisodia was arrested by the CBI on February 26, 2023, for his role in the excise policy case. The ED later arrested him on a related money laundering charge on March 9, 2023.

On Thursday, a Delhi court extended chief minister Arvind Kejriwal's judicial custody till August 8 in the CBI case filed against him.

The Supreme Court had earlier granted interim bail to Kejriwal in the ED case, however, he continues to be lodged in Tihar jail here as he has not furnished the bail bond in the case. He is in judicial custody in the CBI case.

Sisodia has sought bail from the Supreme Court in corruption and money laundering cases against him linked to the alleged Delhi excise policy case.

Sisodia had approached the top court appealing against the order passed by the Delhi high court on May 21 denying him bail.

The court has posted the matter for hearing on July 29.
Silchar: The Special Narcotics Police Station of Mizoram seized 14.082 kg of methamphetamine and 2.804 kg of heroin worth Rs.42.38 crore from Khawzawl district, officials said on Friday. (Representative Photo)

During the operation, which was conducted Wednesday, three people, all residents of neighbouring Tripura, were arrested and produced before the court on Friday, Mizoram police said.

Based on specific information, a special narcotics police of the Crime Investigation Branch (CID), Mizoram, intercepted a vehicle on the outskirts of Dulte village in Khawzawl district, and the narcotic products were seized, one of the officials aware of the matter said.

According to the Inspector-general of police (law & order), Mizoram, Lalbiakthanga Khiangte, 191 soap cases containing suspected heroin and 14.082 kg of methamphetamine were recovered from the secret chambers of the vehicle.

The suspected drug peddlers have been identified as MD Iman Hossain (23), Rippan Hossain (37), and Niranjan Karmakar (40).

The Special Narcotics Police Station has registered a case against them under sections 21(c), 22(c), 25, and 29(1) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

They were produced before the court, and further investigation into the matter has been launched, said IG Khiangte.
New Delhi: The situation in Myanmar and keeping sea lines of communication free and open figured at the Asean-India foreign ministers meeting in Laos on Friday, with external affairs minister S Jaishankar saying economic and security cooperation with the bloc is an utmost priority for India. EAM S Jaishankar is in the Laos capital of Vientiane for a series of meetings related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) (Twitter/@DrSJaishankar)

Jaishankar is in the Laos capital of Vientiane for a series of meetings related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and has also held bilateral meetings with counterparts of several countries, including Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.

Digital, defence, maritime issues, connectivity, security, health, and cultural heritage preservation are priority areas for India-Asean cooperation, Jaishankar said in a post on X after the foreign ministers meeting.

Also spoke about the situation in Myanmar, keeping the Sea Lines of Communication open and free, Quads outlook on ASEAN & AOIP, and the conflict in Gaza, he said, referring to the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific.

Describing the meeting as productive, Jaishankar said that as India marks a decade of its Act East policy, the country values the progress achieved in implementing its comprehensive strategic partnership with the bloc and the increasing synergy in the outlook for the region.

In his opening remarks at the meeting, Jaishankar said Asean is the cornerstone of Indias Act East policy and the Indo-Pacific vision built thereafter on the policy.

For us, political, economic, and security cooperation with Asean is of the utmost priority. So too are people-to-people linkages that we are constantly seeking to expand, he said.

It is encouraging to note that our partnership acquires ever more dimensions with each passing year. While our achievements are substantial, our ambitions must always remain high, he added.

Jaishankar thanked Singapore foreign minister Vivian Balakrishnan for co-chairing the Asean-Indian foreign ministers meetings for the past three years. Singapore was the country coordinator for India within Asean during this period, and the Philippines will take on the role for the next three years.

He also welcomed foreign minister Bendito Freitas of Timor-Leste as an observer at the meeting and said India will open an embassy in Dili very shortly.

Jaishankar also held bilateral meetings with Lao home minister Vilayvong Bouddakham, industry minister Malaithong Kommasith, foreign affairs committee chairman Sanya Praseuth, and special envoy Alounkeo Kittikhoun and discussed relations between the two countries.

He held a separate meeting with Brunei foreign minister Erywan Yusof and launched the logo celebrating 40 years of diplomatic relations between the two sides. He also met New Zealand foreign minister Winston Peters and discussed education, agriculture, technology, and the Pacific Islands.
Bhopal: Four people were killed after inhaling suspected poisonous gas from a well in Madhya Pradeshs Katni on Thursday, police said. (Representative Photo)

Police said that a water fetching pump was installed in a well in the districts Juhli village. Due to rain, the water level was continuously rising, and on Thursday afternoon, one Pintu Kushwaha entered the well to take out the pump but became unconscious, said NKJ police station in-charge Neeraj Dubey.

To save him, another person identified as Rajkumar Dubey, his nephew Nikhil Dubey, and Rajesh Kushwaha went down in the well to rescue Kushwaha, but they too fainted, said Dubey.

Police, along with the State Disaster Emergency Response Force and forensic team, reached the spot after being informed about the incident by villagers and pulled out four bodies from the well.

According to the postmortem report, it is suspected that they died after inhaling poisonous gas inside the well, likely methane, said officer Dubey.

He added that the forensic team has collected samples of water and gas to know the actual cause of death.

Meanwhile, chief minister Mohan Yadav expressed condolences over the incident and announced an ex-gratia of Rs.4 lakh each to the kin of the deceased persons.

The news of the untimely demise of four precious lives in an accident caused by leakage of poisonous gas is heartbreaking. The bereaved family will be provided assistance of Rs.4 lakh each from the Chief Ministers Voluntary Grant Fund, the CM said.
NEET-UG 2024 paper leak: Two days after the Supreme Court admitted that National Eligibility cum Entrance Test  Undergraduate (NEET-UG) 2024 paper leak happened in Hazaribagh and Patna, the Central Bureau of Investigation has revealed the sequence of events of the exam wrongdoings involving the principal and vice principal of a school. Members of All India Democratic Students Organisation protest against the NTA over issues in NEET Exam at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. (Raj K Raj/HT file photo)

After hearing a batch of pleas on irregularities in the NEET-UG 2024, the Supreme Court on Tuesday concluded that a retest would not be justified. However, the court admitted that the paper leak happened in Hazaribagh and Patna. During the proceedings, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud also noted that ordering a fresh exam would have significant repercussions affecting over 24 lakh students who appeared in the exam.

NEET-UG exam: What CBI said on Hazaribagh paper leak
The GROWTH-India telescope at Indian Astronomical Observatory in Ladakh captured a building sized asteroid as it approached closest to Earth, the Times of India reported. The telescope tracked the asteroid's rapid movement, making the background stars look like streaks of light. GROWTH-India telescope at Indian Astronomical Observatory (Representative Image)(Picture courtesy: Shutterstock)

The image of the event was shared on social media platform X by Varun Bhalerao, an astrophysicist at Space Technology and Astrophysics Research (STAR) lab at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.

"Last night, the GROWTH-India Telescope caught this 116m, building-sized asteroid on its closest approach to earth! We tracked the rapid motion of the asteroid as it zipped across the sky at just 10x lunar distance. The rapid motion makes background stars look like streaks." the scientist posted.

Also read | Ladakh MP presses for statehood, job recruitment agency for UT

What is a GROWTH-India telescope?

It is India's first fully robotic optical research telescope. It also has the honour of being positioned in one of the world's highest astronomical observatories at 4,500 meters in Ladakh. The 0.7m wide-field telescope is part of a joint venture by IIT Bombay and the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) in Bengaluru.

The project was fully funded by India's Department of Science and Technology-Science and Engineering Research Board (DST-SERB) under the Partnership for International Research and Education (PIRE) project, administered by India-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF).

It is also supported by generous financial and technical help from the alumnus of IIT Bombay's batch of 1994. It specialises in time-domain astronomy, which studies the explosive transient objects like asteroids and comets in space and universe.

The telescope is a part of a multilateral collaborative initiative known as the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) to observe transient events in the universe.

GROWTH programme is a five-year project, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), a United States government agency whose mission includes support for all fields of fundamental science and engineering, except for medical sciences.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Friday released a white paper, accusing the previous YSRCP government led by Jagan Mohan Reddy of destroying the state's economy and causing a loss of up to 7 lakh crore. Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu. (ANI)

While releasing the white paper on state's finances in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, Naidu alleged that under Reddy's leadership, the growth of the agriculture sector had declined from 16 percent to 10.3 percent, and the service sector's growth rate had dropped from 10.3 percent to 9.9 percent.

He also alleged that the misrule that began when Reddy took office resulted in the looting of natural resources, anti-industrial policies, changes to the capital city plan.

The document alleged 45,000 crore loss in the Polavaram project and other damages totaling 7,900 crore.

Andhra Pradesh was growing faster than Telangana from 2014 to 2019, but the economy was destroyed from 2019 to 2024 with farmers' incomes falling and debts rising, said Naidu while presenting the white paper in the assembly.

Naidu claimed that the cost of power increased under the YSRCP regime due to short-term power purchases, which added an extra burden of 12,250 crore, while alleged illegal sand mining led to a loss of 7,000 crore.

He charged that the looting of mineral wealth resulted in a revenue loss of 9,750 crore and said the cancellation of the Amaravati city project, the Polavaram project, and energy contracts had destroyed investor confidence and damaged the state's brand image.

The Telugu Desam Party chief said that the state's debt rose from 3.75 lakh crore on March 31, 2019, to 9.74 lakh crore by June 12, 2024.

The white paper revealed that despite the impact of COVID-19, Andhra Pradesh should have collected an additional 52,197 crore. The paper highlighted inefficiencies and mismanagement under the previous government.

It also highlighted a rise in state debt from 3,75,295 crore in March 2019 to 9,74,556 crore by mid-2024.

While presenting her seventh consecutive Budget, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23 announced a special financial support package of 15,000 crore for the development of Andhra Pradeshs new capital city during the financial year 2024-25.

The idea of Amaravati as Andhra Pradeshs capital was chief minister Chandrababu Naidus brainchild, floated during his first chief ministerial term between 2014-19. Naidus Telugu Desam Party is currently an important ally in the BJP-led coalition government at the Centre.
The Supreme Court on Friday extended its interim order staying the directives from the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh governments requiring eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names and identities of owners and staff. Kanwariyas (Shiva devotees) carry pots filled with water collected from Gangariver during the annual 'Kanwar Yatra', in Haridwar on Thursday. (ANI Photo) (Princess Ilvita)

A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti said it wont issue any clarification on the July 22 order as we have said what needed to be said in our July 22 order. Can't force anyone to disclose names.

ALSO READ- Kanwar Yatra: Unaware of SC stay, eatery owners rush to display names

The court has given Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh additional time to file their responses and scheduled the next hearing in two weeks. The UP government defended its directive in an affidavit filed with the court earlier on Friday.

The Supreme Court also rejected an intervention by Kanwar pilgrims who supported the state directives, arguing that it would violate their fundamental rights to religious customs and practices.

The Uttar Pradesh government has submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court defending its directive requiring the display of shop owners' names along the Kanwar Yatra route. The government contends that the directive is intended to ensure a peaceful Yatra and enhance transparency, following the Supreme Court's interim stay.

In its reply, the Yogi Adityanath government explained that the directive aims to provide transparency and allow Kanwariyas to make informed choices about the food they consume during the Yatra, while respecting their religious beliefs to prevent any inadvertent conflicts.

ALSO READ- Pakistani journalist rakes up Kanwar Yatra order, US says not actually in effect

On Monday, the Supreme Court stopped the enforcement of disputed directives from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, which mandated that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route display details about their owners and staff. The court also issued notices to the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh, where a similar order was implemented in Ujjain.
The Uttar Pradesh government has submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court opposing petitions that challenge its directive on displaying shop owners' names along the Kanwar Yatra route. The government argued that the directive aims to ensure a peaceful Kanwar Yatra and promote transparency after the Supreme Court put an interim stay. Kanwariyas carrying holy water collected from River Ganga in Haridwar walk back to their hometowns. (Parveen Kumar/ HT Photo)

The Yogi Adityanath government explained that the idea behind the directive is transparency and informed choice of the consumer/Kanwaria regarding the food they eat during the period of the Yatra, keeping in mind their religious sentiments so that they dont, even accidentally, fall foul of their beliefs.

ALSO READ- Kanwar Yatra: Unaware of SC stay, eatery owners rush to display names

On Monday, the Supreme Court halted implementation of controversial directives from Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand that required eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display information about their owners and staff. The court also issued notices to the governments of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh, where a similar order has been issued in Ujjain.

The court, however, said eateries may be required to display the kind of food they are serving like they are vegetarian or non-vegetarian.

The top court was hearing a batch of pleas including those by TMC MP Mahua Moitra, academician Apoorvanand Jha, columnist Aakar Patel, and NGO Association of Protection of Civil Rights challenging the directives.

No one appeared for the state governments in the apex court on Monday. It has posted the matter for hearing on July 26.

ALSO READ- Pakistani journalist rakes up Kanwar Yatra order, US says not actually in effect

The opposition thanked the Supreme Court for issuing a stay on the directive. Congress welcomed the order and said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi should remind Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief ministers of their "raj dharma."

Right-wing groups criticised the ruling and hoped that the "basic human rights" of pilgrims would be upheld in the next court hearing. Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) secretary general Bajrang Bagda said that the order has "demotivated the Hindu community, Hindu pilgrims, and Kanwar Yatris."
As the country celebrates Kargil Vijay Diwas, we look back at one of our bravehearts in the 1999 war against Pakistan who received a Vir Chakra (posthumous) for his service - the late Captain Vijayant Thapar. A photo of Captain Vijayant Thapar, a Kargil war martyr and his father retired Colonel VN Thapar (Photo by Sunil Ghosh / Hindustan Times)

Also Read: PM Narendra Modi to visit Kargil War Memorial today

In his last letter to his parents, Vijayant Thapar said, I have no regrets, in fact even I become a human again, Ill join the Army and fight for my Nation.

Also Read: India marks landmark Kargil victory as Pakistan army looks on

Coming from three generations of army officers in his family, Vijayant Thapar was the son of retired Colonel VN Thapar. Born on December 29, 1976, in Nangal Punjab, he was named after an army tank called Vijayant.

Also Read: Delhi's 12-year-old Arav Bhardwaj to cycle from Kargil War Memorial in Ladakh to honour martyrs on 25th anniversary

Captain Vijayant Thapar graduated from the Indian Military Academy in December 1998 and joined the 12 Rajputana Rifles. On May 25, 1999, his unit received orders to move to Drass and combat Pakistani Army troops from Tololing, Tiger Hill and surrounding areas.

On June 28,1999, he was given the task of leading his platoon to capture Three Pimples, Knoll and Lone hill area. Though they conquered Knoll, Vijayant Thapar lost his life to a burst of firing.

Here's the last letter of Captain Vijayant Thapar

Dearest Papa, Mama and Granny,

By the time you get this letter Ill be observing you all from the sky enjoying the hospitality of the Apsaras. I have no regrets, in fact even I become a human again, Ill join the Army and fight for my Nation. If you can, please come and see where the Indian Army fought for you tomorrow.

As far as the unit is concerned the new chaps should be told about this sacrifice. I hope my photo will be kept in the A Coy Mandir. Whatever organ can be taken should be done. Contribute some money to orphanage and keep on giving 50/ to Ruksana per month and meet Yogi Baba.

Best of luck to Bindia, never forget this sacrifice of men. Papa you should feel proud, Mama so should you meet **** (I loved her).

Mamaji forgive me for everything wrong I did. Ok then its time for me to join my clan of dirty dozen, my assault party has 12 chaps.

Best of Luck to you all,

Live life King Size,

Yours Robin
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hailed the valour of the soldiers whose heroism won India the 1999 Kargil war with Pakistan, and sought to strongly brush aside criticism of the controversial Agnipath recruitment model that cuts tenure and offers fewer service benefits, saying its goal was to keep the forces young and battle-ready. Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the Kargil War Memorial on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas, at Drass, on Friday. (BJP-X)

Standing on a makeshift stage in Dras on a helipad named after a 22-year-old Kargil war hero killed in action, Modi also launched a volley of attacks on Pakistan as the 25th anniversary of the conflict was marked across the country.

In Kargil, we not only won the war, we presented an incredible example of truth, restraint and strength...Kargil Vijay Diwas reminds us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal, he said, paying tribute at the Kargil war memorial to young soldiers who fell fighting Pakistan army intruders.

Modi also issued stern warnings to Islamabad and said Pakistan was trying to stay relevant by using terrorism and proxy wars. Today, I am speaking at a place from where the masters of terror can hear my voice directly. I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed.

But the majority of his speech was devoted to the Agnipath scheme.

The truth is that the Agnipath scheme will increase the strength of the country, he said, defending the scheme in the presence of the chief of defence staff and the three service chiefs who were here for the landmark 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas celebrations.

Discussions on reducing the age profile of the armed forces had been going on for decades, but there was no political will to make this happen. The average age of Indian soldiers was way more than the global average and that was worrisome, Modi added.

The scheme, which the Opposition Congress has repeatedly called for scrapping, has come under fire from aspirants across the country, especially the northern states, and is believed to have lost the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a chunk of votes across the region in the summers national elections.

Agnipath was a major departure from the militarys decades-old recruitment system that was scrapped when the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government announced the new scheme in June 2022. It seeks to recruit soldiers for only four years, with a provision to retain 25% of them in regular service. Those recruited under the scheme are called Agniveers.

The Opposition attacked Modi for politicising a national event.

It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas. No PM has ever done this before. Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the army; this is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant armed forces, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote on X.

The Opposition is attempting to create an illusion that the scheme was introduced to cut the pension bill, Modi said in his speech.

This is shameful. They forget that a soldier recruited today will get pension only after 30 years and by then Modi would be 105 and there will be no Modi government. Do they think Modi is such a fool to be abused for it now. Its not the party but the country that is paramount for me, he said.

To be sure, soldiers recruited under the legacy system serve for about 20 years before they retire in their late 30s with pension and other benefits, which Agniveers released from service after four years are not entitled to.

Sadly, a sensitive issue linked to national security has been politicised by the very people who were involved in scams running into thousands of crores. The same people who never wanted the air force to get new fighter jets and had prepared to lock the Tejas fighter plane in a box, Modi said.

His comments come at a time when the armed forces are expected to suggest to the government that the age ceiling for Agnipath inductees be raised to 23 and that at least 50% be retained after four years to boost combat effectiveness, as reported by HT.

The scheme is likely to be a major election issue in the upcoming assembly polls in Haryana.

The proposed overhaul of Agnipath, which will have to be approved by the government, is being sought in the middle of a firestorm of controversy and deepened the political divide over its impact on national security. The first modification of the scheme that the armed forces are planning to propose to the government is to raise the upper age limit from 21 to 23 to induct graduates who can be groomed for technical jobs in the three services. The second one is for the retention of at least 50% Agniveers in service, as against the current 25%, to hedge against a manpower crunch in specialised areas.

The capable youth will come forward to serve the country and announcements have been made to give priority to Agniveers in the private sector and paramilitary forces, the PM said. Maybe some people had this mentality that the job of the armed forces was only to salute politicians. For us, the armed forces are a guarantee of national security, he said.

At the time of its announcement, the government said the Agnipath scheme would lower the age profile of the armed forces, ensure a fitter military and create a technically skilled warfighting force capable of meeting future challenges. Then too, Agnipath sparked widespread protests and forced a concerted outreach by the government to scotch apprehensions about it.

Those misleading the youth, their history shows they never cared about soldiers. They allocated a mere 500 crore for one rank, one pension (OROP) scheme. Our government implemented it fully and has disbursed around 1.25 lakh crore to veterans. They are the same people who never built a national war memorial for fallen heroes. They didnt even give enough bullet-proof jackets to soldiers, he said.

Agniveers are deployed at some of the forward positions in the Dras-Kargil-Batalik sector, the 170km mountain frontier along which the Kargil war was fought, and their performance is on a par with regular soldiers, senior officers said.

They are almost as young as the officer after whom the helipad is named: Captain Vijayant Thapar, who was posthumously honoured with Vir Chakra for his uncommon courage and leadership.

The plaque at the helipad reads, On the night of 28/29 June 1999, Captain Vijayant Thapar, as company officer of A Company, 2 Rajputana Rifles was tasked to capture Knoll and Lone Hill. During the ensuing battle, he led the assault on the enemy machine gun post and destroyed it. The officer succumbed to his injuries in this crucial battle...

Sometime before the final assault, he penned his last letter to his parents.

By the time you get this letter I will be observing you all from the sky enjoying the hospitality of apsaras. If I become a human again, I will join the army, he wrote in that letter.
Maharashtra Rain News Live: The Mumbai police has advised people to stay indoors amid torrential rains in Maharashtra Photo - Praful Gangurde/Hindustan Times

Maharashtra Rain Highlights: The India Meteorological Department has issued an orange alert for Western Maharashtra districts namely Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune, and Satara. The alert indicates the possibility of heavy to very heavy showers on Saturday. Financial capital Mumbai and adjoining Thane has been issued a yellow alert, indicating heavy showers in isolated places. None of Maharashtra's districts has been issued any alert from July 28 to 30, the IMD said....Read More

Schools will remain closed in Palghar, Thane and Raigad, while the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Mumbai said schools will remain open in the city.

Maharashtra chief minister Eknath Shinde said the NDRF, SDRF and Indian Army are on standby in case people need to be airlifted out of Pune.

In Pune, at least 160 people stranded in houses and buildings in low-lying areas were rescued and taken to safety zones by the fire brigade.

Heavy rainfall on July 25 led to at least four deaths in Pune as well as a landslide on the Pune-Raigad road, where one person is feared to be trapped and one person died.

In Thane, two people have drowned due to the overflowing of the Barvi dam. Several people have been injured as well.

Incidents of short circuits, trees falling, property damage and river levels rising were experienced across the state.

All seven of the lakes supplying water to Mumbai overflowed after overnight rains. On the Pune-Raigad road, debris from a landslide halted all traffic, while internal city traffic was jammed as well.

Local trains also operated at a delay of 10-15 minutes, with the Panvel Chouk line suspended and re-directed to Kalyan. BEST buses also had to be redirected due to immense inundation in Mumbai city.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar were monitoring the situation and advised all citizens to remain indoors if possible.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday hit out at Pakistan, saying it has faced defeat after all its immoral and shameful acts but Islamabad refuses to learn from history and tries to maintain its relevance through terrorism and proxy wars. Speaking after visiting the war memorial at Dras to pay tribute to the men who laid their lives fighting Pakistani intruders in Kargil in 1999, Modi said he was speaking from the place where the masters of terrorism could hear him clearly. Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking in Dras. (PTI)

I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their sinister plans will never succeed. Whatever evil attempts Pakistan has made in the past, it has had to face failure. But Pakistan has not learnt anything from its history. It is trying to keep relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war. ...I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their evil intentions will never succeed, he said as the Indian Army kicked off the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas (victory day) celebrations from a mountaintop near the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto India-Pakistan border in the region.

Modi said Indias brave soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply. Be it Ladakh or Jammu and Kashmir, India will overcome every challenge coming in the way of development.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been at an all-time low as the two sides have not had any formal talks since the 2008 Mumbai attacks ended the composite dialogue. Terror attacks have derailed the attempts to resume contact.

India and Pakistan were on the verge of another war following the 2019 Pulwama attack, which prompted India to carry out airstrikes deep inside Pakistani territory. Pakistan retaliated a day later. A ceasefire along the LoC was resumed in February 2021 after back-channel contacts mostly involving intelligence and security officials in third countries.

Modis comments on Friday came against the backdrop of a spike in terror activity mostly south of the Pir Panjal mountains, which divide Jammu and the Kashmir Valley. On Wednesday, a terrorist was killed and non commissioned officer (NCO) injured in an exchange of fire between security forces and terrorists in the Kupwara district of Kashmir after the Army launched a joint search operation regarding the presence of terrorists in Trimukha Top forest that they use it to sneak from one district to another after infiltrating from across LoC.

The gunfight broke out days after the Army foiled an infiltration bid in Kupwaras Keran sector and killed two terrorists. On July 14, three terrorists were killed as security forces foiled another infiltration bid in Keran.

The region has been on alert amid an increase in terror attacks. The Army has been using drones, quadcopters, and human intelligence to track the movement of terrorists and thwart infiltrations. Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi last week reviewed the security scenario at a joint meeting with police, paramilitary forces, and intelligence agencies in Jammu on Saturday amid a series of attacks in the region.

This year, at least 28 people, including 12 security personnel, a village defence guard, and five terrorists, have been killed in nearly a dozen attacks in six districts of Jammu. Four army personnel, including an officer, died in a gunfight with terrorists in the Doda district last week. Five soldiers were killed and five wounded in a terrorist ambush a week earlier in Kathua.

The Army has sent more troops to the region, reoriented its units, and strengthened the intelligence network for counterterror operations. Security forces recalibrated their responses as Jammu, Rajouri, Poonch, and Reasi districts became clear targets for Pakistan-based terror groups.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday defended the Agnipath scheme amid fresh calls for scrapping the military recruitment plan that cuts tenure and offers fewer service benefits, saying it aims to rejuvenate the armed forces and keep them continually fit for war. He said an important dream was fulfilled through the scheme. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan in Dras. (PTI)

The Agnipath scheme will increase the strength of the country and the capable youth will also come forward to serve the motherland. Announcements have also been made to give priority to Agniveers in the private sector and paramilitary forces, he said in his speech after visiting the war memorial at Dras to pay tribute to the men who laid their lives fighting Pakistani intruders in Kargil in 1999.

The Opposition Congress has repeatedly called for scrapping the scheme, which sparked protests in 2022. The scheme was designed to lower the average age of Indias armed forces. Recruitments under it are done on four-year contracts. Only 25% of the recruits will be retained at the end of their terms. Janata Dal (United), a key ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government, has also called for a review of the Agniveer scheme.

Modi said it was unfortunate that some people have politicised such a sensitive issue related to national security. Some people are playing politics of lies on this reform of the Army for their personal interests. These are the same people who weakened our armed forces by committing scams worth thousands of crores of rupees in the armed forces. These are the same people who wanted the air force to never get modern fighter jets. These are the same people who made preparations to lock the Tejas fighter plane in a box.

Ahead of the first session of the 18th Lok Sabha last month, the Congress demanded the scrapping of the Agnipath scheme, questioning the rationale behind it. The Congress called for the reinstatement of the old long-term military recruitment process.

The demand came against the backdrop of media reports that suggested that an internal survey of the military has proposed some changes in the scheme, such as extending the tenure of the Agniveers, increasing the retention rate of recruited soldiers from 25% to around 60-70%, and increasing the age for the induction of personnel in technical services.

The Congress has accused the government of passing the bills including that on the Agnipath scheme without proper discussion. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi called the scheme a risk to national security in a letter to President Draupadi Murmu, requesting her intervention in the matter. In May, Gandhi said Modi wants two types of martyrsone who gets compensation, pension, and martyr status, and the second (enrolled under the Agniveer scheme), who is poor and gets nothing. He called it an insult to the Indian Army.

Gandhi said Modi turned soldiers into labourers while promising to scrap the Agniveer scheme if the Congress was voted to power. He maintained it was Modis scheme and that the Army never wanted it.

Two Angineer batches have completed their training since the scheme was implemented in September 2022. The government has repeatedly defended the scheme, saying it was introduced to lower the age profile of personnel. Under the scheme, personnel in the age bracket of 17.5 to 21 years are recruited in the armed forces and 25% of each batch will be promoted and retained for 15 years.
Individuals who routinely upload videos to social media, make podcasts or write about current affairs online could be classified as digital news broadcasters, according to the new draft of the broadcasting bill that the government shared with stakeholders. All news and news adjacent content online --- videos and commentary on social media, websites, newsletters, podcasts --- is covered by this bill. (Bloomberg File Photo)

The new version -- HT has reviewed a copy -- is the second draft of the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2024 that is meant to replace the cable television networks act of 1995.

When the Bill was first released for public consultation in November 2023, it set out to combine all regulation for broadcasters under one law. From the beginning, it has been dogged by concerns around whether or not news content creators online, who are not associated with legacy media or registered digital media, can attract obligations imposed on streaming platforms (OTT broadcasting services). The 2024 version proposes to bring them under the ambit of the law by introducing the new category called digital news broadcasters.

It attempts to address the ambiguity created by the first draft on this aspect by defining professional --- a person engaged in an occupation or vocation --- and systematic activity as any structured or organised activity that involves an element of planning, method, continuity or persistence.

The new version also defines news and current affairs programmes to include texts apart from the existing audio, visual or audio-visual content, sign, signals, writing, images which are transmitted directly or using a broadcasting network.

The definitions of programme and broadcasting have also been revised to include texts and textual programmes, respectively.

In short, all news and news adjacent content online --- videos and commentary on social media, websites, newsletters, podcasts --- is covered by this bill.

To be sure, the bill is still in public feedback stage, and all changes it will have go through the Union Cabinet before it is tabled in Parliament.

These proposed provisions are part of a broader approach that also introduces new obligations for intermediaries and social media intermediaries related to streaming services and digital news broadcasters, and, in a major change from the last version circulated in 2023, provisions targeting online advertising.

In the context of streaming services, OTT broadcasting services are no longer a part of the definition of internet broadcasting services.

The definition of OTT broadcasting service has also been revised due to which not only Netflix and Amazon Prime Video , but also content creators who regularly upload their content to social media can arguably be OTT broadcasting services.

For instance, a chartered accountant who posts videos on YouTube and Instagram about how to file IT returns is a professional under the Bill and can attract provisions of the Bill if they have enough followers/subscribers. A journalist who tweets regularly is covered by it too.

Due diligence for intermediaries

The new definition of an intermediary, given in the context of any programme, includes social media intermediaries, advertisement intermediaries, internet service providers, online search engines and online market places.

The new Bill also allows the government to prescribe different due diligence guidelines for social media platforms and online advertisement intermediaries, and requires all intermediaries to provide appropriate information, including information pertaining to the OTT broadcasters and Digital News Broadcasters on its platform to the central government to ensure compliance with the act.

If the intermediary does not comply with the governments directions, it stands to lose its safe harbour (exemption from liability for third party content) and can attract penal provisions under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, the Bill says.

The bill clarifies that if an OTT broadcasting service or a digital news broadcaster is a user on a social media platform, the two broadcasters will be responsible for complying with the act, not the social media company

Online advertising to be regulated

A crucial change pertains to provisions aimed at regulating online advertising by creating the category of advertising intermediaries which refer to an intermediary which primarily enables buying or selling of advertisement space on the internet or placement of advertisements on online platforms without itself endorsing the advertisement, and shall not include an advertiser or broadcaster as defined under the rules. All ads published online on a website, social media, or similar medium must conform with the Advertising Code. It is not clear who will be responsible for ensuring the compliance --- the ad creator or the intermediary that enables the sale of the ad space or the intermediary that finally displays it for the user.

It is not clear if sponsored posts by influencers, which are considered ads under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, are also covered under this bill.

In July 2023, the allocation of business rules were amended to allocate regulation of online advertisements to the MIB.

General obligations for all broadcasters and network operators

General obligations for broadcasters and network operators now also include compliance with the governments foreign direct investment policy and standard operating procedures during disasters and natural calamities, at par with how such regulations have existed for conventional broadcasters.

Certain relaxations given

The new Bill exempts OTT and digital news broadcasters from criminal penalties for failing to inform the government of reaching the prescribed threshold (intimation). Under the new Bill, if OTT and digital news broadcasters do not meet the prescribed threshold of subscribers of viewers, they shall be deemed to have provided intimation.

In the 2023 Bill, the government was empowered to exempt OTT broadcasters from provisions of the law if they did not meet the prescribed threshold of subscribers or active users. In the 2024 bill, the central government, if it considers or expedient so to do for avoiding genuine hardship on such other OTT broadcasting service operators or Digital News Broadcasters, who constitute any distinct class or group, or relax, through Guidelines, any requirement contained in any of the provisions of this Act.

As HT reported on July 14, the negative list, that is, content that will not require certification or vetting by the in-house content evaluation committee (CEC) of the broadcaster, has been included in the updated draft. These include programmes already certified for public viewing in India by any statutory body (like movies certified by CBFC), news and current affairs, programmes, educational programmes, live events, and animations for children.

The broadcasters are no longer required to publicise the names and credentials of the members of the CEC. They are only required to intimate them to the central government.

The new bill also states that self-regulatory organisations for streaming platforms and digital news broadcasters, that were previously registered by the central government under the IT Rules, 2021, will be deemed to have been registered under the Broadcasting Act as well.

The power to seize and confiscate equipment has now been limited to cover only cable broadcasting networks, radio broadcasting networks and any other broadcasting network or service notified in the gazette. The section on right of way for broadcasters has also been shortened significantly.

Anti-piracy provisions

The 2024 bill also includes a section on anti-piracy provisions which prohibit everybody from carrying any content in their programmes that violates someone elses copyright. The Bill also empowers the central government to establish a dedicated task force or unit to investigate and combat piracy.

Regulatory sandbox to test new broadcasting technologies

Under the new bill, the central government can also create one or more regulatory sandboxes to encourage and facilitate innovation and technological development in broadcasting. A regulatory sandbox is a live testing environment where new products, services, processes and business models can be deployed on a limited set of users for a specified period of time with relaxations from the provisions of the act.
Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday rejected criticisms of only Bihar and Andhra Pradesh being given importance in the latest Union Budget presented by her on July 23.



Opposition parties alleged that Bihar and Andhra, governed by Janata Dal (United) and Telugu Desam Party respectively, both members of ruling National Democratic Alliance, preferred over non-BJP states.



In an interview to NDTV, the minister said that states are receiving allocations as in the past. Stating that no state had been denied anything, the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act requires the Centre to support the southern state in building its capital city and developing backward regions.



ALSO READ: INDIA bloc protests 'Kursi-Bachao' Budget: Extortion money to Bihar, Andhra



In the Union Budget 2024, the finance minister had announced a 15,000 crore allocation for the development of Andhra Pradesh's capital Amaravati. She also said that the government is committed to expediting the Polavaram Irrigation Project.



ALSO READ: Chandrababu Naidu praises Union Budget 2024: Thanks for



Several steps have been taken in the last 10 years (and) many other steps, as per the Act, which had to be done have been done. Yes, we will support (the building of the new capital, Amaravati, and the Polavaram irrigation project) ... Polavaram should have been completed but there are some technical issues. The state government is seized of the matter, the minister told NDTV.





Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman said the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act required the Centre to help in building the state capital Amaravati(Sansad TV)
Five Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled states on Friday announced reservations for Agniveers in recruitment for state government jobs. The Rashtriya Rifles conducts a preparatory session for Agnipath aspirants in J&K. (ANI)

The reservation will be provided in jobs to Agniveers after they return from serving the Armed forces.

The announcements were made by the governments of Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Odisha.

The announcement also comes on a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi defended the Agnipath scheme amid fresh calls for scrapping the military recruitment plan that cuts tenure and offers fewer service benefits, saying it aims to rejuvenate the armed forces and keep them continually fit for war.

Modi, during an address at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, targeted the Opposition for its criticism of the Agnipath scheme and accused them of attempting to weaken the Army. This shows that they do not care about the soldiers, the prime minister said.

In response, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, accused the prime minister of doing petty politics on Kargil Vijay Diwas. Kharge further said that the prime minister's claim that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant Armed Forces.

Announced in June 2022, the Agnipath scheme recruits personnel to the Indian armed forces for a short period of four years. At the end of four years, up to 25% of recruits, called Agniveers, join the services on a permanent commission (15 more years) subject to merit and other requirements.

Here's what the states have announced for Agniveers:

Uttarakhand

As the nation observed the 25th anniversary of the Kargil war victory, Uttarakhand chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced that Agniveers will be granted reservation in government jobs in the state upon their return after serving in the armed forces.

"We will make provisions and bring an Act to give reservation to them in government services. We are working on this plan. We will make use of their skills and discipline in various government departments," he said, according to PTI.

The chief minister also announced that the aid extended to the kin of martyrs will be increased from 10 lakh to 50 lakh. "No sacrifice can be bigger than the act of laying down one's life to secure the country's borders. No grant or honour can be enough for this supreme sacrifice," he pointed out.

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh CM Mohan Yadav said that his government will provide quota to Agniveers in police and armed forces recruitment.

He also said that the step has been taken as per the wishes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"As per the wishes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the MP government has decided to give reservation to Agniveers in police and armed forces. The Agniveer scheme is in the real sense an attempt to not only modernize the armed forces and to recruit capable jawans but also to make it young at the global level," Yadav told reporters, according to PTI.

"We will walk in tandem with Prime Minister Narendra Modis feelings on the issue," he added.

Chhattisgarh

Chhattisgarh chief minister Vishnu Deo Sai also said the state government will provide reservations for Agniveers in recruitments for police constables and forest guards, among other posts once they complete their service in the armed forces.

He further added that the state government will soon issue the necessary guidelines to provide a fixed reservation to Agniveers, according to PTI.

Uttar Pradesh



Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath also announced that Agniveers, after serving the country, will be given weightage in recruitment for the UP Police and Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) forces.

He said that the country would benefit from having trained and disciplined young soldiers in the form of Agniveers.

The UP government has also said as the Agniveer scheme progresses and when these youth return after their service, we will provide facility and weightage for their adjustment in UP Police and PAC (Provincial Armed Constabulary) force, the UP CM said, reported PTI.

"We will get trained and disciplined youth as Agniveers. Our government is fully committed to this," Adityanath said.

Odisha

The BJP government in Odisha also announced a 10% quota and five-year age relaxation for Agniveers in uniform services.

Odisha chief minister Mohan Majhi said that his government would soon bring a legislation to extend the reservation.

"All the soldiers who have joined the Indian Army are our pride and glory. After getting trained in the tri-services, the Agniveers have qualified to play important roles in various state's security forces. The Agniveer Yojana is a landmark scheme of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has helped to make the youth of the country competent, able and courageous. The scheme has an important role in building a youth that is ready to accept challenges in all spheres of life," he said.

Earlier, the BJP government in Haryana had also announced similar job quota for Agniveers on July 17.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday delivered a strong warning to Pakistan, saying that the Indian Army will crush terror emanating from that country with full force while reminding it of its past defeats and failures. Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays homage at the Kargil War Memorial in Dras on Friday. (PTI)

I speak from where the patrons of terrorism (across the de-factor border) can hear me loud and clear, he said after paying homage to the soldiers killed in the Kargil war that was fought along a 170-km mountain frontier in the summer of 1999.

And I want to tell them that their sinister plans will never succeed. Past attempts made by Pakistan have failed. But it has not learnt anything from history. It is trying to stay relevant through terrorism and proxy war.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been at an all-time low as the two sides have not had any formal and sustained dialogue since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The PMs comments came during his address at a ceremonial function held at the Kargil war memorial to mark the 25th anniversary of the war that began after the Pakistan army captured strategic heights on the Indian side of LoC a few months after the signing of the Lahore peace declaration in February.

The remarks are also significant as they come against the backdrop of a series of terror attacks, backed by Pakistan, in which several soldiers have been killed in the Jammu region. These strikes have raised questions over key operational and intelligence challenges facing the army south of the Pir Panjal range.

India wanted peace but Pakistan showed its untrustworthy face again, the PM said. In Kargil, not only did we win the war, but also set a wonderful example of truth, restraint and strength.

Pakistani intruders exploited gaps in Indian defences and sneaked across LoC to occupy several commanding heights, with some of them offering a sweeping view of the strategic Srinagar-Leh highway, a critical supply line. Taking back the peaks from Pakistan army cost the lives 527 Indian soldiers. There is no definitive account of Pakistan army casualties, but different estimates peg the number between a few hundred and a few thousand.

According to our intelligence estimates, their (Pakistani) army suffered over 737 casualties, primarily due to our artillery fire, says a plaque placed in front of a Bofors gun, quoting then army chief General VP Malik (retd).

Kargil Vijay Diwas tells us that days, months, years and ages may pass, but sacrifices made by our soldiers for the nation are immortal, the PM said. Be it Ladakh or Jammu and Kashmir, India will overcome every challenge in the way of development.

The lessons learnt from the war and the events that led to it resulted in the overhaul of Indias intelligence set-up, far-reaching military reforms, modernisation of the armed forces and vastly improved border management.
July 26, 2024 11:59 AM IST

Parliament Budget session live: BJP MP Nishikant Dubey says, "...In 2000, the tribal population was 36 per cent, then how did it become 26 per cent today? People say that the census has not been done, but the voter list has been prepared, their names are not there in that list. Secondly, this is not just a matter of girls' marriage, I said that there are more than 100 'Mukhiyas' whose husbands are Muslims, who are Mukhiyas from the tribal quota, so what is happening to them, the children born to them are becoming Muslims. The Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act says that the land of the tribals will remain with them, it cannot be bought or sold, so this act is also being violated... The Jharkhand government is not doing anything, but apart from this, the West Bengal government is playing a big game of settling people in Jharkhand. The entire Kishanganj, Katihar, Araria, Malda and Murshidabad, its condition has deteriorated. The condition of the tribals will become such that it will be known that if any tribe is becoming extinct, then it is the tribals."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday visited the Kargil War Memorial in Drass on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas. Modi also virtually conducted the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel, which aims to provide all-weather connectivity between Himachal Pradesh and Ladakh. Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during a program to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas at the Kargil War Memorial, in Dras, Friday, July 26, 2024. (PTI Photo)(PTI)

Addressing the public meeting at Drass, Modi launched multiple attacks on the opposition parties for their criticism of the Agnipath scheme, and accused them of attempting to weaken the Army. The prime minister also paid tribute to the fallen heroes of the Kargil War during his visit to the war memorial in Drass.

PM Modi at Kargil War Memorial: Top quotes

PM Narendra Modi began his speech by remembering the sacrifice of the fallen heroes in the Kargil War. Today, this great land of Ladakh is witnessing the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas. Kargil Vijay Diwas tells us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal, he said.

"As time passes, days turn into months, months into years, and years into centuries - the names of those who laid down their lives for the sake of national security remain etched in our collective memory, forever immortalised!" Modi said.

In a fiery attack at the neighbouring country, Modi said Pakistan has not learnt anything from history. He said, Pakistan has failed in all its nefarious attempts in the past. But Pakistan has not learned anything from its history. It is trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war.

From where I am standing, the masters of terrorism can hear my voice directly. Our bravehearts will crush terrorism, and enemy will be given a befitting response, the prime minister warned.

Modi also attacked the Opposition for criticising the Agnipath scheme, saying that they are trying to mislead the youth of the country. This shows that they do not care about the soldiers, the prime minister said.

These are the same people who lied about One Rank One Pension. It is our government which implemented One Rank One Pension, gave more than  1.25 lakh crore to ex-servicemen. These are the same people who did not build a war memorial...These are the same people who did not provide adequate bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border. These are the people who tried to weaken our army, Modi said.

1.25 lakh crore to ex-servicemen. These are the same people who did not build a war memorial...These are the same people who did not provide adequate bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border. These are the people who tried to weaken our army, Modi said. Modi also hailed the development in Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir after Article 370 was abolished in the area. "Along with infrastructure development, the tourism sector is also growing rapidly in Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. After decades, a cinema hall has opened in Kashmir. After 3 and a half decades, Tazia procession has been taken out in Srinagar for the first time. Our heaven on earth is rapidly moving towards peace and harmony..." he said.

(With inputs from agencies)
25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said Pakistan has failed in all its nefarious attempts in the past but it has has not learned anything from its history. Paying homage to the Kargil war heroes at Kargil War Memorial in Drass to mark the 25th anniversary of India's victory over Pakistan in 1999, PM Narendra Modi said Pakistan is still trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war. Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during a program to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass on Friday. (PTI Photo)(PTI)

Warning supporters of "terrorism" that they would never be successful, Modi said the "enemy" would be given a tough response.

"Today, I am speaking from a place where the masters of terror can hear my voice directly, I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed. Our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply," Modi said. Follow Live Updates on PM Modi at Kargil War Memorial in Drass

Watch the video here:

The prime minister laid a floral wreath at the Drass War Memorial to pay tributes to officers and soldiers of the armed forces who made the supreme sacrifice in service of the nation.

On July 26, 1999, the Indian Army announced the successful culmination of "Operation Vijay", declaring victory after a nearly three-month-long battle on the icy heights of Kargil in Ladakh.

The day is observed as 'Kargil Vijay Diwas' to commemorate India's victory over Pakistan in the war.

PM Modi slams Opposition on Agnipath scheme

Speakling on Centre''s Agnipath scheme, PM Narendra Modi said it is also an example of the necessary reforms done by the Indian Army, adding that some people used to think that the Army means saluting politicians, doing parades. But for us, the Army means the faith of 140 crore countrymen, he said.

Defending Agnipath, Modi said the goal of the scheme is to make the Indian Army young, to keep the Army continuously fit for war. "Unfortunately, some people have made such a sensitive issue related to national security a subject of politics. These are the same people who weakened our Army by committing scams worth thousands of crores in the Army," Modi said.
The secret behind Chinese bayberries international breakthrough

People's Daily Online) 13:58, July 26, 2024

The Chinese bayberry, a type of fruit grown in abundance in east Chinas Zhejiang Province, just went viral globally this summer.

Recently, short videos about this fruit were widely shared on overseas social media platforms. According to the custom reports of Qingtian county, Lishui city, Zhejiang Province, the countys exports of Chinese bayberries this year are expected to double the 2023 amount, which stood at some 20 tonnes.

Photo shows ripe Chinese bayberries in an orchard in Xianju county, Taizhou city, east China's Zhejiang Province. (People's Daily Online/Zhang Yongtao)

In Xianju, a major Chinese bayberry-producing county in Taizhou city, Zhejiang Province, a fruit distributor has sold hundreds of kilograms of Chinese bayberries to Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and Canada in less than a week.

A major grower of Chinese bayberries from the province's Ningbo city said that the fruit has been fetching high prices overseas this year. In some parts of Europe, larger-sized Chinese bayberries are sold at over 10 yuan (about $1.38) per fruit, and the highest quality fruit can fetch even higher prices, the grower added.

The fruits impressive sales can be traced to the new techniques adopted by growers to keep it fresh longer. To shield the delicate produce from the rigors of long-distance shipping, farmers have improved their controlled atmosphere packaging. This innovative approach now extends the shelf life of the fruit to nearly a month, paving the way for robust exports.

Local agricultural departments have stepped up to the plate, offering farmers vital support to hone their growing techniques and boost fruit quality. In Yuyao county, Ningbo, agricultural experts have rolled out a suite of eco-friendly, efficient, and practical methods for cultivating Chinese bayberries. The results speak for themselves: premium fruit yields have shot up, with each mu (about 667 square meters) now generating over 2,000 yuan in extra revenue.

On top of that, distributors have pulled out all the stops in promoting bayberry products. They've jazzed up the packaging with trendy Chinese-style illustrations that showcase the local scenic beauty. Some gift boxes even come with Chinese bayberry-themed cultural souvenirs. They've also branched out into related industries, developing products like Chinese bayberry pastries and wine. This strategy has transformed Chinese bayberry exports from a seasonal hit into a year-round success.

In recent years, a wave of Chinese products have caught the eye of international consumers. Take the autumn and winter seasons of 2022, for instance, when Chinese-made electric blankets and heating devices took Europe by storm. Major cross-border e-commerce platforms reported a surge in overseas demand for Chinese heating products compared to the previous year, with some items seeing their sales skyrocket by over 50 percent.

Some entrepreneurs noted that their overnight success was actually years in the making. For over a decade, they've been fine-tuning their products, pushing the boundaries of performance in key areas. This relentless pursuit of excellence has not only led to those coveted viral sales moments but also significantly boosted the added value of their products.

(Web editor: Hongyu, Liang Jun)
Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on Thursday asked civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu to probe allegations of sudden fare hike when MPs try to book air tickets, saying similar complaints raised by several lawmakers are extremely serious and worrying. Probe charges of abrupt hike in airfares faced by MPs: Speaker to aviation minister

Taking note of a query by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) lawmaker Dayanidhi Maran during the Question Hour on the alleged abrupt fare hike faced by MPs while booking a ticket, Birla said: ...the MP has raised a very serious issue this matter is extremely serious and worrying and has been raised by many MPs. It should be investigated

In response, Naidu said: We will get the matter investigated. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) looks after the rights of passengers but it also has a tariff monitoring unit. We will ensure that such incidents are not repeated.

He added: Customer is king and that is the priority of the ministry. We will do whatever we can to make the air travel affordable

Raising the issue in the Lower House, Maran alleged that whenever he tries to book a ticket on Air Vistara for the Chennai-Delhi route, the airline initially shows a price in the range of around 33,000 one way. But just before making the payment, an error message is displayed and then the fare is revised. The new fare goes up to 93,000, he said.

The airline belongs to Tatas and the software the airline uses also belongs to the Tata group. This is happening because the Tatas are using its supremacy in the software This happens very frequently, he added.

Maran also claimed the matter doesnt fall under the jurisdiction of DGCA since the civil aviation regulator is only concerned with flight cancellation or rescheduling.

Meanwhile, Naidu also said he will look into the allegations of high air fare during holiday season on international routes. As far as regulation of airfare is concerned, the government does not regulate the fares set by airlines- Indian or foreign. The fares on any route are dependent on seasonality, holidays and festivals, cost of aviation turbine fuel, competition and other similar factors.
Over two months after the Pune Porsche car accident killed two IT professionals, police have filed a chargesheet against seven people, including the parents of the minor allegedly behind the wheel. Porsche car which was involved in the accident that killed two in Pune (File Photro)

The 900-page chargesheet was submitted in a Pune court on Thursday. However, it excludes the 17-year-old boy, whose case is being handled separately by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB).

We have filed a 900-page chargesheet against seven accused, including the parents of the minor, two doctors and a staffer from Sassoon General Hospital and two middlemen in a Pune court on Thursday, PTI quoted Shalesh Balkawade, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) as saying.

The luxury car was allegedly driven by the 17-year-old minor under the influence of alcohol fatally struck two motorbike-riding software engineers in Kalyani Nagar Pune in the early hours of May 19.

The boy's parents along with two doctors from Sassoon General Hospital, Ajay Taware and Dr. Shrihari Halnor, and staff member Atul Ghatkamble are accused of swapping the boys blood samples with his mothers after the crash.

Ashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad are accused of managing the financial transactions between the father and the doctors to facilitate the swap.

The chargesheet includes statements from 50 witnesses. Last month, the police submitted the final report to the Juvenile Justice Board, detailing all the evidence against the 17-year-old boy in the car crash case.

The teenager, son of real estate developer Vishal Agarwal was initially granted bail by the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) with a condition to write a 300-word essay.



This decision sparked significant public outrage. Subsequently, the police requested a review, and the JJB remanded the boy to an observation home.



Earlier police got CCTV footage showing the teenager drinking at a pub before the accident. Police commissioner Amitesh Kumar had confirmed the footage, saying the boy was fully aware of his actions.



The two IT professionals, Aneesh Awadhiya and Ashwini Koshta were flung into the air and landed on parked vehicles. One of them died on the spot whereas the other passed away during treatment. Both were from Madhya Pradesh.



In June, the minor was released from the observation home after a habeas corpus plea filed by his paternal aunt. The Bombay High Court had said that the orders which remanded him to the facility were illegal, reported PTI. He also submitted a 300-word essay on road safety in abidance with the bail conditions of the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB).



With PTI inputs
The Madras high court on Friday directed the Tamil Nadu government to initiate action and remove prefixes and suffixes such as tribal from the names of the government schools in the state. The bench of justices SM Subramaniam and C Kumarappan who stated that it was painful that even in the 21st century the government would allow such terms when in schools which are functioning out of public money. (ANI)

The court passed the order while hearing a suo moto case on the socio-economic status of the people, particularly members of the scheduled tribe, living around Kalvarayan hills where a hooch tragedy in June resulted in the death of 68 people.

It was brought to the courts notice that public schools are functioning in that locality in the name of Government Tribal Residential School.

The court said: The usage of the term Tribal along with the name of the Government School is unwarranted. Such usage of word Tribal in Schools name, undoubtedly would result in stigmatising the children studying in Schools. They will get the feeling that they are studying in a Tribal School and not in a School on par with the other children in nearby localities.

The case was being heard by a bench of justices SM Subramaniam and C Kumarappan who stated that it was painful that even in the 21st century the government would allow such terms when in schools which are functioning out of public money.

The bench said: Stigmatisation of children at no circumstances be approved by the Courts and by the Government. Wherever such names are used indicating a particular community / caste are to be removed and the Schools must be named as Government School and children residing in that locality must be granted admission in the School to pursue their education.

A state like Tamil Nadu which is a forerunner in social justice, cannot allow such stigmatic words to be added as either prefixes or suffixes, the court said. In this regard, the first respondent Chief Secretary to Government of Tamil Nadu have to initiate appropriate action, it said.

Meanwhile, the court expressed unhappiness over the status report filed by the state government on the situation in Kalvarayan hills. The Kallakurichi hooch tragedy in June claimed 68 lives after locals in the region consumed illicit liquor laced with methanol.The CB-CID is currently investigating the incident.

The court is hearing the case for the government to take immediate measures to ensure that the people in and around the Kalvarayan Hills have basic amenities, welfare schemes for social upliftment along with special care in education and economic interests.

The status report filed by the department of Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare, in our opinion is insufficient and is not the ground reality as projected by the learned Amicus Curiae, the court said.

The money spent on the locality of Kalvarayan Hills and the details furnished in the status report itself raises a doubt, whether the money spent has been utilised properly for the benefit and upliftment of the people in that locality, it said.

The matter has been posted to August 2 by which time advocate general P S Raman has been asked to appraise authorities to conduct thorough inspections and find out the ground reality in Kalvarayan Hills.
Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi on Friday called out a user on X (formerly Twitter) for insulting the Chair of the Rajya Sabha. Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi. (ANI)

She also mentioned moving a breach of privilege motion against the user, who had commented that it was embarrassing to see her officiating the Chair on Thursday.

Look at their meltdown. However this tweet is more about breach of parliament privilege and not just sexist but also accusing the Hon. VP of India who is the Chairman of the house, wrote Priyanka Chaturvedi in a post on X.

Read: UPA rejected Swaminathan suggestion on MSP, says Shivraj Singh Chouhan, triggers row

I will request Hon. Chairman to allow breach of privilege motion against PawPaw brigade champ here who has no idea that RS has a chairperson and not a speaker, she added.

As per parliamentary rules, when the Vice President of India, who serves as the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha is absent, the deputy Chairman or a panel of vice chairpersons presides over the sessions. Chaturvedi, who is part of this panel was in charge during the session.

The X user had also accused the Shiv Sena (UBT) MP of not respecting the Marathi language and of showing disrespect towards the Pune MP Dr. Medha Vishram Kulkarni.

"Uddhav Thackeray's RS MP Priyanka Chaturvedi tried to humiliate the MP from Pune, Maharashtra because she was speaking in Marathi but not her "posh" language English? She kept shouting at her... What does she think of herself? And what happened to UT's Marathi ashmita?" wrote the user @MrSinha_ on X.

However, his allegations were refuted by Chaturvedi, who said, This pawpaw champ bhakt is truly having a meltdown of the worst kind. Dr Medha Kulkarni and Rajni Patil ji both spoke in Marathi and without interruption barring when her own ally sitting in the front row had a hissy fit and asked her to sit down multiple times so that he could be disrespectful to the chair. Also, paw paw champ, understand parliamentary proceedings in the RS and the rule book. Cry some more.

Priyanka Chaturvedi a former Congress leader joined the Shiv Sena in April 2019. She is now the partys deputy leader and spokesperson.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday demanded the abolition of NITI Aayog, the central government think tank founded under Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in 2015. She demanded that the Planning Commission, the body tasked with formulating Five-Year Plans be brought back. West Bengal CMr and TMC chief Mamata Banerjee with the partys National General Secretary Abhishek Banerjee at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport before leaving for Delhi, in Kolkata.(PTI)

Stop this niti Aayog. It does not do anything other than convene meetings. Bring back the Planning Commission, Banerjee said in the capital, day before she is set to attend the NITI Aayog meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

When asked why is she attending the NITI Aayog meeting unlike some of her alliance partners who have decided to boycott, Banerjee said,"There is no need to come and I had cancelled my programme because of their budget. But Abhishek and others convinced me and I spoke to Hemant ( Soren) also, who is coming."



ALSO READ: Congress CMs to boycott NITI Aayog meeting due to discriminatory Union Budget: KC Venugopal

The problem is coordination. Every state has its priorities, but I believe in federalism. The BJP wants to break up the country. Their leaders are talking of dividing," she said, referring to Union minister Sukanta Majumdar's remark on north Bengal.



ALSO READ: Mamata Banerjee slams Union Budget 2024: Anti-people, anti-poor



Majumdar had on Wednesday proposed to PM Modi that northern West Bengal, due to its similarities with the Northeast region, be included under the Ministry of Development of the North Eastern Region (DoNER) to facilitate more development funds for various projects in the region.

"If the BJP doesn't listen to the verdict of the people, then it is their choice. All opposition-ruled states are deprived. You can give the special package to your friends but can't deprive others," she said.

Mamata Banerjee once again questioned the survival of the NDA government, saying,"I am not sure how long they will last but let them work for the people as long as they are in power."



Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK leader M K Stalin, Kerala's CM and CPI(M) leader Pinnarayi Vijayan as well as Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab and Delhi governments have also announced to boycott the meeting.
The Supreme Court on Friday issued notices on petitions filed by Kerala and West Bengal governments challenging governors' action to delay assent on bills by referring it to President. Supreme Court of India. (PTI File Photo)

Both states claimed the respective governors were sitting on eight bills for more than a year without communicating any reasons.

A bench of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justice JB Paridwala and Justice Manoj Misra issued notices to the Union ministry of home affairs and the secretaries to both the governors.

Senior advocate KK Venugopal, appearing for Kerala, said they were challenging the governor's decision to refer bills for consideration by the president.

Similarly, senior advocates Abhishek Singhvi and Jaideep Gupta, appearing for West Bengal, said every time the matter was listed in the Supreme Court, the office of the governor referred bills to the president.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
The Madhya Pradesh high court on Thursday condemned the long-standing ban on government employees participating in the activities of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), underlining the flawed basis of the original office memorandums (OMs) that imposed this prohibition over five decades ago. The controversy dates back to three OMs issued between 1966 and 1980, which prohibited central government employees from associating with RSS. (HT PHOTO)

Emphasising the lack of empirical evidence and rational basis for a complete restriction on RSS that was lifted by the Narendra Modi- government on July 9 this year, a bench of justices SA Dharmadhikari and Gajendra Singh lamented that the organisation, which was several non-political wings too, remained out of bounds for government employees for more than five decades without any review or assessment of evidence.

The court also laments the fact that it took almost five decades for the central government to realise its mistake; to acknowledge that an internationally renowned organisation like RSS was wrongly placed amongst the banned organisations of the country and that its removal therefrom is quintessential. Aspirations of many central government employees of serving the countries in many ways, therefore got diminished in these five decades because of this ban, said the bench.

It directed the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to ensure widespread publicity of the new order lifting the prohibition on RSS participation. The court mandated that the OM dated July 9, 2024, be displayed prominently on the official websites of these departments and transmitted to all central government departments and undertakings across India within 15 days of the judgment.

The controversy dates back to three OMs issued between 1966 and 1980, which prohibited central government employees from associating with RSS. The lifting of the ban sparked a war of words between the Opposition and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). While BJP leader Amit Malviya lauded the withdrawal of what he termed an unconstitutional order, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and AIMIM MP Asaduddin Owaisi criticised the move. Sunil Ambekar, RSSs publicity chief, on Monday said that the Congress government had baselessly banned government employees from participating in the activities of a constructive organization like the Sangh, to cater to its political interests.

A retired government employee knocked on the high courts door challenging the Central Civil Service (Conduct) Rules based on the OMs that prohibited him from associating with RSS. While the case remained pending, the Union government informed the high court that the prohibition had been revoked through a fresh OM dated July 9, 2024.

Refusing to wrap up the proceedings in light of the new OM, the high court held that it was imperative to deliver a ruling to ensure that any coveted voluntary organisation, working in public and national interest is not crucified again through executive instructions/ OMs at the whims and fancies of the government of the day, in the manner in which the RSS has been so treated for last almost 5 decades.

The bench pointed out that the OM directives seemed to lack any substantial foundation, questioning the empirical basis of the original ban. It noted that the government had failed to provide any material, study or survey that justified its decision on either banning the organisation or a subsequent review that prompted it to revoke the ban.

What was the empirical report, statistical survey, or material, that led the then government of the day to arrive at an objective satisfaction that involvement of Central Government employees with the RSS would precipitate communal feelings and communal bias in the whole community? the court asked. Perhaps there was never any material, study, survey, or report at the relevant point of time on the basis of which the ruling dispensation arrived at a satisfaction that involvement and engagement of central government employees even with the apolitical/non-political activities of RSS must be banned, it held.

The court further highlighted that the ban, which impacted fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, was imposed arbitrarily. The judgment noted that the restrictions, prima facie, violated cherished freedoms under Article 19(1) and would have continued unabated if not for the institution of the writ petition.

The central government cannot behave as be all and above all. The discretion to classify any organization as a dont join organization for central government employees must therefore be clearly informed by rules of reason, fair play, and justice, not according to subjective opinions of those in power, it stated.

According to the judgment, voluntary membership of an organisation like RSS, for activities other than political in nature, like religious, social, philanthropic, educational cannot be proscribed through executive instructions. They ought to have been done only through duly enacted law if the necessity was felt for doing so, preferably through amendments to the Conduct rules itself, it held.

The court also emphasised that any future decisions to ban organizations like the RSS must be preceded by substantial evidence and a thorough review process. Any such exercise of proposing and restoring its name back in the dont join list ever in future must be preceded by a profound thought process, intensive deliberations at the highest levels of the rule-making authority, backed by persuasive data, compelling evidence, and material, it said.

Moreover, the judgment underscored the need to prevent arbitrary or whimsical bans, asserting that such decisions must be rooted in law and reason. Decisions of the State must be informed by reason based on reasonable, relevant, and rational considerations and that it must act in public and national interest, the court noted.

Ends
The Uttarakhand government on Thursday directed authorities to enforce the rule mandating all vehicles entering the state to have garbage bags and dustbins. Representative image: The Uttarakhand government has mandated garbage bags and dustbins in all vehicles entering the state to prevent illegal dumping of garbage

Also Read: Haldwani encroachments: SC orders Centre, Uttarakhand to present rehabilitation plans

The Uttarakhand transport department will be required to run checks on incoming vehicles at all entry points, reported The Times of India.

Also Read: Budget 2024: Flood assistance announced for Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim

Letters were also sent to transport officers of neighbouring states such as Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to ensure their cooperation and compliance.

If vehicles do not comply with the rules, then they will be fined and will not be issued a trip card that allows them to travel in the state.

Also Read: Supreme Court stays Uttarakhand, UP govt orders asking eateries on Kanwar Yatra route to disclose staff names

The move by the Uttarakhand government is an attempt to maintain the cleanliness and beauty of the Himalayan state and prevent illegal garbage dumping.

Authorities stressed the responsibility of tourists and operators in keeping the surroundings clean and not litter, especially on routes to Char Dham and other popular tourist destinations.

Before issuing trip cards to vehicles, it should be ensured that they have a dustbin or garbage bag installed, Chief Secretary Radha Raturi said.

Chief secretary Raturi also said, "Uttarakhand is a tourist state. Maintaining the natural cleanliness of the state and protecting its environment is the collective responsibility of its residents as well as lakhs of tourists and devotees who visit the state every year."

In Goa, another state that invites many tourists, Chief minister Pramod Sawant said that the existing legislation will be amended to ensure stricter penalties, revoking permits of vehicles for one year if they were caught illegally dumping garbage.
Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Friday told Rajya Sabha that the government is still waiting for a report by a committee on minimum support prices (MSP) for farm produce and the government will take a call once its views are received. Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan speaks in the Rajya Sabha during the Parliament's Monsoon Session, in New Delhi on July 26.(ANI/Sansad TV)

Chouhan was replying to a question by Samajwadi Partys (SP) Ramji Lal Suman on whether the Centre will bring a law to provide a legal guarantee to MSPs in the ongoing session.

The previous Modi-led government had set up the MSP committee following a year-long agitation by farmers in 2020-21, demanding a law to make MSPs binding. An MSP is a federally-fixed floor price aimed at helping avoid distress sales by farmers.

Also Read | 'Will press govt : Rahul Gandhi recalls MSP promise after meeting with farmers

The committee was formed with specific objectives. It is to ensure MSP for farmersalso, to give more autonomy to the commission for agricultural costs and prices and to improve marketing for higher price realisation, Chouhan said.

Chouhans reply sparked protests by the Opposition, which accused the minister of parrying a straightforward question. The minister shot back, saying the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-led government had rejected the Swaminathan Commissions recommendation that MSPs should offer 50% returns over costs of cultivation.

Citing a cabinet note from July 28, 2007, the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister said the Congress-led government refused to implement the MSP suggestion, adding it could distort the market.

Also Read | Govt raises MSPs for kharif season, focus on pulses, oilseeds

On the Swaminathan reports recommendation that MSP should give 50% returns over costs, the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government clearly stated, and Im quoting Cabinet notes, that implementing this suggestion can create market distortions, Chouhan said.

Heated arguments swirled around the Swaminathan report as lawmaker Suman, in his question, asked if the Centre was going to give legal guarantee for MSPs as per Swaminathan committee recommendation.

However, the Swaminathan panel never mentioned a law to back MSPs. But it did recommend that MSPs should be at least 50% more than the weighted average cost of production. In the 2018-19 Budget, the Modi government announced that MSPs will be fixed such that cultivators get 50% returns.

Congress MP Randeep Singh Surjewala protested, saying the minister was digressing instead of answering a specific question. Suman asked, How long will you wait for the MSP committee? Will you give a legal guarantee or not?

Farmers are like God for us. Under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, our government will spare no efforts to improve farm incomes and double them, Chouhan said amid the ruckus.

The Swaminathan panel, officially the National Commission on Farmers, was set up by the Manmohan Singh government to make agriculture productive. It submitted five reports between December 2004 and October 2006.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, in a post on X, said the farm minister was asked a direct and straight-forward question, but for 30 minutes he stonewalled and went round and round in order to avoid answering the question.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited the home of her Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal on Friday to meet his wife, Sunita Kejriwal and his parents. AAP MP Raghav Chadha was also present. Mamata Banerjee and Sunita Kejriwal exchanged a bouquet upon meeting. (Screengrab/X)

Banerjee is in Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog meeting, while most chief ministers from the INDIA bloc have decided not to attend. Earlier on Friday, Banerjee stated that the government think tank introduced by the Modi administration should be abolished and the Planning Commission should be reinstated.

In a video released by the Aam Aadmi Party on X, Banerjee and Sunita exchanged a bouquet upon meeting, after which the West Bengal CM met Kejriwal's parents and touched their feet to seek blessing. They were also seen sitting and talking in a living room.

In another post on X, AAP said, "INDIA is united against the dictatorship. West Bengal Chief Minister (@MamataOfficial) reached Delhi Chief Minister's @ArvindKejriwal residence to meet his family. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's wife @KejriwalSunita welcomed Mamta Banerjee."

After the meeting, Chadha told ANI, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee visited the residence of CM Arvind Kejriwal to meet his wife and parents...She was concerned about the health of Arvind Kejriwal...She gave the message that in this hour of struggle, she stands with AAP and Arvind Kejriwal.

Kejriwal is in judicial custody related to the excise policy case. The Enforcement Directorate arrested him on March 21 in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam and gave him interim bail by the Supreme Court. However, he is still in Tihar Jail due to a CBI case.

On Thursday, AAP Rajya Sabha MP Harbhajan Singh visited Sunita Kejriwal at her home. "Met Sunita Kejriwal wife of Delhi's Hon'ble CM Arvind Kejriwal. Had a very long and fruitful discussion with Sunita ji. We all stand in solidarity with Arvindji and AAP. Jai Hind," he said on X.
A project to restore the art on ancient monastery walls is changing families, local economies and societies, in a remote corner of Nepal.

It all began when the walled city of Lo Manthang  formerly the capital of the independent kingdom of Mustang  opened its doors to foreigners, in the 1990s. This tiny corner of land had remained closed to the world from the 1300s, when it was founded, until about 30 years ago.

Even before it opened its borders, the non-profit American Himalayan Foundation had been working on educational and social welfare schemes in the region.

With the borders opened, the Foundation reached out to the Mustang royal family. Greater access meant that more could now be done. What should they focus on, as a priority, they asked? Help us restore the monasteries, the king responded.

A handful of these precious, once-revered two- and three-storey structures were crumbling in and around Lo Manthang. Some were 600 years old. All had interiors covered in intricate depictions of Buddhist lore. But the climate was changing, and the once-arid rocky Himalayan region was experiencing something it had no experience with: rain.

The humidity had caused the frescoes on the walls to flake and peel. In many cases, the monks had moved out; some monasteries had been reduced to serving as warehouses.

The first thing the foundation did was reach out to conservationist Rodolfo Lujan-Lunsford, a professor at the Ars Labour Conservation Institute in Rome. Lujan-Lunsford invited the Italian Luigi Fieni over to help steer the project. Fieni had worked on restoration projects across the region, and archived these efforts in his work as a photographer.

Fieni would join and then lead the Upper Mustang Cultural Heritage Project, as it came to be called. What started out as a two-year endeavour ended up lasting more than 20 years. Some of the monasteries are now home to monks again, and are drawing tourists.

No one who loves art or history could have walked away from these structures without trying to help, Fieni says. For him, this meant spending long months in a region with virtually no electricity and no telephone connections, particularly in the early years. But I learnt that the less we have, the happier we are, he says.

Invisible repairs

Now to the social and economic changes. Before work began, the king had asked that locals be employed in the project, to underline their stake in their heritage.

Luigi, along with two of his Italian colleagues and a local painter, Dawa Dhondup, trained teams of men to restore the walls and artwork. They taught them how to clean the walls of damp and dust, rebuild chipped segments and retouch the paint.

At first, only the men participated. Women werent traditionally allowed into the monasteries.

Then something interesting happened. In 2001, the main abbot of a large monastery here announced that the souls of the deities in the art works had temporarily left the monasteries. The images werent deities anymore, but just images. The deities would return once the work was done, he said. The other conservators and I asked if this meant that women could now enter, and he said they could, Fieni recalls.

Today, 30 of the 45 tribals at work on the monastery walls are women. Emboldened by their experiences, by the change they see around them, and by their earnings  which are nominal, but still exceedingly rare for women here to have  some are even opening up homestays to cater to the small but growing number of tourists, mainly trekkers, visiting the region.

Dolma Tsering, 44, now a mother of two, joined the restoration project in 2011. Working on the holy art has given me a sense of joy and independence, she says. My children have seen me leave the house every day. They know that I shape and reinforce the walls.

Karsang Choeten is one of the 30 women working on the monastery walls.

Tsering Wangmo, 45, has worked on the monasteries for 20 years. The money I have earned has helped me expand my woollen-clothing business, she says.

Fieni has since had his work permit rejected, in one of those tangles of bureaucracy that seems to befuddle everyone involved. But he retains his faith, especially in the women who have held the project together.

Our mission, in restoring the structures, was to turn these religious buildings back into monasteries, not into museums, and this we have achieved, he says. Now, Lo Manthang may be undergoing a cultural renaissance of sorts. The project has had its ripple effects.

Fieni has also documented the effort in a photobook titled Tibetan Mustang, released in August and co-authored with Amy Heller, with photographs by Kenneth Parker.
What is home when youre an immigrant? What does it mean to belong to more than one place? Like so many of us who have left our birthplace in search of opportunity or the freedom to be ourselves, photographer Anurag Banerjee has always had a complicated relationship with belonging.

Growing up as a non-tribal in 1990s Shillong, in the wake of ethnic violence aimed at outsiders, the notion of belonging seemed fraught with tension. When he moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in photography, after graduating in media studies from Pune, he side-stepped the issue by reinventing himself as a Bombay photographer. But when the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens broke out in 2019, all the questions came crashing back.

Anurag Banerjee.

Here were two initiatives that were demanding impossible clarity in the matter of who belonged where, and who had the right to call themselves an Indian.

It was an attack on identity, says Banerjee, 33, who threw himself into the work of documenting the protests, until they were brought to a halt by the pandemic.

Amid it all, it became important for me to look at my identity and confront the fact that I am from Shillong, not Mumbai. And to ask: What does that entail?

It entailed, for one thing, learning more about the place that was home, and the people in it.

Banerjees quest to reclaim home provided the inspiration for his second photobook, The Songs of our People. Consisting of intimate, empathetic portraits of 19 musicians from across Meghalaya, it documents the identities, histories and stories of loss, grief and community that are reflected in the music of these artists.

The multi-genre band Nokpante, photographed by Anurag Banerjee for The Songs of our People.

He turned to music as the framework for this exploration at least partly because the people of Meghalaya have such a deep relationship with songcraft, going back to the states rich and still-strong tribal oral traditions. But there was also a touch of serendipity involved.

When Banerjee returned to Shillong during the lockdown, for his first extended stay there since he left in 2010, one of the first people he met was Junisha Khongwir, a photographer and assistant professor of mass media. She decided to give him, a professed music-lover, a crash course in the Shillong music scene.

By that point I was familiar with the indie music scene in parts of urban India, but I didnt know what was happening in Shillong beyond Lou Majaw and Soulmate, Banerjee says. It really blew me away that there are so many people making music here, against the odds. With little infrastructure and support, and meagre earnings for the most part, he saw a single artist juggling it all: composing, singing, producing, organising gigs. And I thought: This is the story. This is what I need to do.

Musician Jeffrey Laloo, as profiled by Anurag Banerjee for the book.

Homing in

On that first trip back, Banerjee interviewed and photographed three musicians, hoping to pitch a photo-feature to travel or culture publications. No one was interested.

He began returning to Shillong frequently, at this time, to work on his first photobook. Im Not Here (2022) was a personal exploration of the idea of home through 71 images of the city, and seven essays. On these trips, he made more friends within Shillongs music community; the community slowly lowered its guard and invited him in.

In 2023, armed with a grant from The Meghalayan Age, a state-government agency that seeks to promote the states art forms and culture, Banerjee set out to turn his initial idea for a story into a self-published book. Many of the artists featured are rappers and R&B musicians. It just made sense because this was still a time of protest, and rap is protest music, he says.

Meba Ofilia, one of the musicians, as photographed by Anurag Banerjee for the book.

The book also features a heavy-metal guitarist, a blues band, a popstar and a group of Khasi folk musicians from the tiny village of Lynshing. Some sing in English, others in local languages such as Khasi, Garo and Pnar.

Theres 25-year-old Garo musician Katta Nisa, whose music is deeply rooted in Garo mythology and folklore, even as he longs to rise above his identity as a tribal (I ache to forget about myself sometimes, he says in the book). You can read about Nicholas Richmond Dann, a doctor burnt out from being on the frontlines of the pandemic, who found a spiritual awakening in the murky bass and off-beat rhythms of reggae.

One of the most striking stories is that of music producer Praiselyson Lyngskor, 30. Struggling with a deep state of depression after he witnessed the death of a friend in a road accident, he found solace in music and the sense of community it afforded him. Now, he seeks to extend the two to others. His small studio in Lummawbah, on the outskirts of Shillong, which he funds with his earnings from a government job as a lower division assistant and typist, serves as a platform for talented artists. Hes more mentor than producer, making sure the young artists turn up for rehearsals and recordings, and sometimes helping them battle angst, anxiety or addiction.

Maya Lyngdoh, as profiled by Anurag Banerjee for the book.

The reader may go in thinking they know what to expect from The Songs of our People, but this isnt a chronicle of a niche subculture through the tired lens of marginalisation.

What connects many of these stories, beyond the overarching themes of identity and belonging, is an underlying thread of grief and loss. Its loss of various kinds: a loved one, a time gone by, innocence, opportunity, Banerjee says. That really resonated with me. Because weve all had a run-in with grief at some point.

(The Songs of our People is priced at 799 and available via Instagram)
Jacqueline Fernandez set the ramp ablaze last night as she turned showstopper for Roseroom by Isha Jajodia at Indian Couture Week. Ever since the fashion week began, fashion enthusiasts have been eagerly anticipating the stunning designs and celebrity showstoppers that would grace the event this year. And we are definitely not disappointed. Jacqueline Fernandez dazzled at Indian Couture Week in a stunning black off-shoulder gown.(Instagram/@fdciofficial)

After a display of royal elegance on day one, day two was nothing short of glamour as Isha Jajodia showcased her collection named "Art of Eternity," which blends artisanal heritage with modern feminine strength. Jacqueline played the perfect muse for the designer, leaving onlookers swooning as she dazzled on the ramp in stunning black attire. Scroll down to know more about her look. (Also read: Wamiqa Gabbi and Taha Shah bring royal elegance to India Couture Week 2024 in stunning ethnic ensembles: Watch )

Jacqueline Fernandez turns showstopper in stunning black gown

Jacqueline's showstopper look featured a stunning black gown with an off-shoulder sweetheart neckline, a bodycon fit, a fish-cut hemline, and silver sequin detailing that added an extra oomph factor. She paired the gown with a long black netted cape draped over her shoulders, sweeping the floor and adding a dramatic flair to her ensemble. To complement her outfit, she chose a luxurious diamond statement necklace that adorned her neck, a chunky wristwatch, and massive diamond rings on her fingers, all of which exuded royal vibes.

Her bold makeup look was equally captivating, featuring smoky eyeshadow, smudged eyeliner, darkened brows, blushed cheeks, contoured cheekbones, a luminous highlighter, and a shade of dark red lipstick. Her lustrous tresses were styled in a top bun, adding an extra touch of sassiness to her look. Jacqueline's ensemble was a perfect blend of elegance and drama, making her appearance on the ramp absolutely swoon-worthy.

About the 'Art of Eternity' collection

Isha Jajodia's "Art of Eternity" collection represents a love story whispered in lace and meticulously crafted dreams. Inspired by the grandeur of French architectural landmarks, our designs blend artisanal heritage with modern feminine strength. Delicate lace patterns and luxurious fabrics evoke palatial elegance, while botanical motifs and ethereal fabrics capture the essence of a fairy tale romance. Each garment is a masterpiece, adorned with intricate embroidery, beadwork, and applique, celebrating the beauty of nature and timeless craftsmanship.
Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis, also known as PAM, is a deadly disease caused by Naegleria fowleri  a microscopic amoeba  also known as brain-eating amoeba. Brain-eating amoeba is currently rampant in the state of Kerala. Usually, it enters the body and severely affects the brain. Freshwater environments such as lakes, hot springs and rivers make for comfortable spaces for such amoeba to thrive. Recently a 14-year-old teen - Afnan Jasim - from the district of Kozhikode survived PAM  he is one of the eleven people in the world to combat the deadly disease. A 14-year-old teen from the district of Kozhikode survived PAM  he is one of the eleven people in the world to combat the deadly disease. (Unsplash)

In an interview with HT lifestyle, Dr Sheetal Goyal, Neurologist, Wockhardt Hospitals, Mumbai Central explained the survival rate of PAM - The survival rate for an infection caused by the brain-eating amoeba, Naegleria fowleri, is extremely low. Primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), the condition resulting from the infection, has a fatality rate of over 97%. Most cases are diagnosed only after the disease has progressed significantly, and early symptoms often mimic more common illnesses, leading to delayed diagnosis and treatment.

ALSO READ: What is brain-eating amoeba that killed teen in Kerala; know how to be safe, early signs and prevention tips

Early diagnosis:

Timely identification of PAM is crucial. The earlier the disease is detected, the higher the chances of survival, as this allows for quicker initiation of treatment.

Prompt treatment:

Immediate administration of a combination of medications, including amphotericin B, azithromycin, miltefosine, and dexamethasone, can improve survival odds. Although the efficacy of these treatments remains uncertain, they have shown some success in past cases.

ALSO READ: Brain-eating amoeba: Know all about the rare disease that killed a Kerala boy

Access to medical care:

Access to advanced medical facilities and intensive care units can significantly impact survival. Patients require close monitoring and supportive care to manage the severe inflammation and brain damage caused by the amoeba.

Patient's age and health:

While PAM primarily affects children and young adults, the overall health and immune response of the patient can also play a role in determining outcomes. A robust immune system may help in fighting the infection more effectively.

ALSO READ: 'Brain-eating amoeba' naegleria fowleri kills South Korea man. Check symptoms
Infertility is a medical condition that can be caused in males or females by various factors like endometriosis, low sperm count, blockage in the fallopian tube, premature ovarian failure, PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome), uterine fibroids, irregular periods, immune problems, cystic fibrosis, semen ejection and enlargement of the scrotum vein (Varicocele). Infertility at the same time, is an emotional journey for couples, filled with various feelings related to family, society and their own selves. Social media can impact couples battling fertility issues: Tips to take care of your mental well-being amid infertility (Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels)

In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Diana Divya Crasta, Chief Psychological Counsellor at Nova IVF Fertility, shared, Infertility treatment involves multiple steps such as stimulation also called ovulation, retrieving eggs from the womans body, fertilization of these gametes at embryo labs, and embryo transfer & then finally result. It almost takes 6 to 8 weeks for an IVF cycle to complete, right from consultation to embryo transfer. However, the period may vary from woman to woman depending on factors like treatment plans, medical conditions, and how your body reacts to every step in the IVF cycle. The planning, decision-making, and treatment periods significantly impact a couple's personal and social lives. However, this is the time when people look for more information through social media.

Positive aspects of social media

In todays tech-savvy world, social media is a dispensable tool that has been widely used by millions of people in India and all over the world. There is plenty of information and details are available for anyone who is looking for more details.

Diana Divya Crasta opined, On the brighter side, social media can be beneficial for couples battling with infertility as it provides a platform for various people to connect and share their experiences along with the knowledge. Social media provides couples to reach out to various support groups or people who are actively going through IVF procedures or have done IVF previously to seek advice and emotional support. Couples who are curious to explore more about IVF can surf through fertility chains/fertility specialist social media handles to gain valuable insights about technological advancements in IVF treatments for positive outcomes.

Negative Aspects of social media for couples battling infertility

Diana Divya Crasta explained, Social media is like a double-edged sword that has both positive and negative aspects, especially for couples suffering from fertility issues for a long period of time. Due to the abundance of available information, couples may feel overwhelmed. It's important to approach this information mindfully, treating it as just thatinformationrather than comparing and connecting themselves to everything they read. The ability to understand and use information from social media varies from person to person. One the other hand, one can easily get overwhelmed and start to feel envy after seeing other couples announcing their pregnancy or frequently seeing baby photos.

She elaborated, This can heavily impact their mental health leading to feelings of guilt, frustration, irritation, sadness, agitation, and anger. Social media there can be more scope for false information as well. People must not trust the information unless the content is coming in from a credible fertility specialist. The stories or details we see in social media is often focuses on beautiful things along with life struggles. Theres an increasing risk of easily being judged or privacy concerns in sharing sensitive information while going through a challenging phase like infertility. Couples should take a long break from social media platforms to detox and free themselves from the shackles of comparisons and jealousy.

Impact of social media on couples mental health

Infertility can be a stressful journey that can negatively impact ones mental health. Diana Divya Crasta revealed, It aggravates symptoms like dramatic emotional shifts, struggle to cope with current situations, easily getting frustrated or irritated even on small issues, finding it difficult to concentrate or remember something, increased influence towards harmful habits like alcohol, and smoking, and suicidal thoughts. Marital issues due to infertility are common, and social media can exacerbate these problems.

She added, "Seeing "ideal and happy" couples online can heavily influence their feelings and perceptions. Excessive social media exposure while going through IVF treatment can be an emotional rollercoaster. To effectively tackle this one can, take necessary precautions and safety measures to ease your mental load. This can be achieved by setting boundaries and avoiding posts or influencers giving negative or misguiding information about infertility issues or IVF treatment. Consulting a mental health expert can be helpful in effectively managing your mental health."

Tips to take care of your mental well-being when battling infertility issues

How can the couple going through infertility can avoid and take care of themselves from social media? To keep your mind at ease avoid watching distressing content that can make you worried and mentally exhausted, Diana Divya Crasta recommended some tips -

1. Stop generalising all the information available on social media. Everyone is different, and infertility treatment requires personalized focus

2. Instead of getting overwhelmed by the information available on social media, consult a fertility expert for a second opinion. This approach saves time and reduces stress

3. Try spending more time doing things that make you happy such as watching your favourite comedy movies, doodling, yoga, gateway vacation and journaling to reduce stress and cheer you up while going through fertility procedures.

4. If social media starts to take over mental peace, then do not mind deleting these social media apps to completely avoid the temptation to check them. Setting time limits or avoiding using them for certain days can be effective.

5. Stop comparing yourself to what you see on social media. Remember, what you see online is not always true. Everyone has their own struggles, and people choose what they want to show to the world

6. Consulting experts like psychologists or therapists can be beneficial. Couples can openly discuss their concerns and express their feelings associated with infertility and social media impact.

7. Support groups can be beneficial for these couples as you get to meet people suffering through similar challenges or issues like infertility which can be mentally exhausting. It creates a safe space where people can freely share their experiences, guilt, thoughts, regrets, and feelings, and provide emotional support and encouragement to maintain their well-being.

Diana Divya Crasta concluded, We are in the era of social media, which greatly impacts everyones life. Even though we are aware of the negative effects of over-involvement, it can still be challenging to discern what is beneficial. However, being mindful and finding happiness within is crucial. Decisions related to health and treatments should always involve expert opinions, as every treatment varies from person to person.
I have to admit that Ive extensively cited, taught and discussed the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser, a man who murdered his wife  albeit in a mental condition that led him to clinics rather than prison.

Even more exciting and influential in my intellectual career has been the writing of the Kenyan novelist and activist Ngugi wa Thiongo, a man accused by his own son, the writer Mukoma wa Ngugi, of physically abusing the woman who was his wife and Mukomas mother.

How do I process my relationship with the ideas of these writers  and with the fact that they have invigorated my thinking for years now? The question creeps out of the closet and stares at my face as the literary world reels in chilling disgust at the revelation that the recently deceased Nobel Laureate in literature, the Canadian writer Alice Munro had ignored, indeed, had passively accepted the persistent abuse of her own daughter by her second husband, stepfather to the then-nine-year old girl. Munro had stood by her man in spite of his perversion, rather dismayed at his adultery, even going so far as to blame the little girl for being a nymphette and seducing the older man!

Throughout the history of civilisation, the morality of influential artists and thinkers, as reflected in their private lives, has not shown any elevation above common humanity. If anything, their behaviour has often violated ethical norms, no doubt enabled by the socio-economic privileges that gave them a prominent voice.

Be it musical composers, artists, or philosophers, the farther back into the past we move, the whiter, more male, more upper-class the figures appear  or in the subcontinental context, more Brahminical. People of these ranks may very well be brilliant  after all, they are the best supported and nurtured of all humanity  but their privilege and sense of entitlement have time and again led them to cause personal harm and violation to people around them, particularly to people less empowered than them, often the female members of their family.

Add to this power and privilege the legitimacy of artistic decadence  that perverse freedom of truth and beauty from the domain of ethical or political responsibility  and you get a kind of moral anarchy that only the decadent can celebrate.

And then we got Twitter and hashtags, and the sharpness of Woke morality. #cancelculture threatened to cancel them all. But the Munro revelation offers a sharp reckoning: Such violations go far beyond knee-jerk condemnation that burns like wildfire on social media and are then quickly forgotten.

What we need to examine carefully are the principles with which a writer and a thinker have come to be identified. And then ask the hard question  how do these principles bear upon the violations in their personal life? How does Ngugis domestic partner abuse modify the narrative about sub-Saharan Africa as the battlefield of heroic and rebellious men? What bearing does Althusser's uxoricide have on his revealing reading of power and ideology in the capitalist state?

Heres the damning irony of ethical violations: Anything that seems to have harmed a collective brings out a greater outrage, directly proportionate to the political capital attached to the bruised group. Personal violations are likelier to go unnoticed until they also touch a group identity, particularly a group that is able to muster a significant voice.

No wonder so many instances of child abuse go unnoticed and unremarked upon  often until the victim becomes an adult and is able to mobilise their outrage within a larger, vocal group  usually that of women. That is perhaps how Munros daughter, Andrea Skinner got her story out there, only after she became an adult.

No greater wounded power and cultural-financial prestige than the Jewish diaspora in the US, and in post-War America, no greater villain than the Nazis, possibly even beyond the Communists. Imagine the sharpness of the fall of the then Yale-based Belgian literary critic, Paul de Man before his liberal Jewish colleagues and students, when the anti-Semitic writing of his callow youth came to the surface!

Chilling lines stood out from De Mans 1941 essay, ''Jews in Contemporary Literature': ''A leopard can never change its spots. The Jews are Asiatics; they're a menace to any country that will have them, and they must be excluded by the Constitution.''

A key term in De Mans critical vocabulary was prosopopeia, the projection of the voice of a dead author. The pathologically anti-Semitic lines from the past of one of the most radical and innovative literary critics, a beloved of the liberal establishment, is an unexpected illustration of this unconscious voice lost to time.

De Mans sharpest reader, Christopher Norris, called it, perhaps not without a sense of mischief, ideological auto-critique. Unthinkingly, De Man had worked for a Nazi newspaper and had gone along with the argument that Jews were dispensable as his employers were preparing the final solution. He was innocent of history, wrote James Atlas. and his innocence assured his complicity.

The personal life, particularly the personal ethical violations of writers and thinkers can trigger us to reject them on a personal level. But I repeat: What really matters is what they stood for. The hauntingly resurfaced stories of the deceased Alice Munro going so far as conniving at the abuse of her minor daughter, chilling as it is, need to be understood far beyond the immediacy of a gut response.

Across the long arc of cultural history  and the urgent domain of ethics  the importance of this kinship violation cannot be fully appreciated without measuring it against the unique feminism with which Munro has come to be identified. What is crucial for this history and this field of ethics is that Munro has been celebrated  and awarded the Nobel Prize for  the psychological complexity of the feminine Gothic as embodied in the tragic and eroticised female lives depicted in her short stories. Will the female Gothic in her work, with its erotic traumas and haunting mothers and daughters, ever be the same again?

Saikat Majumdars most recent book is the novel, The Remains of the Body. The views expressed are personal
An Indian employee in the Netherlands shared his offices touching attempt at Indian cuisine in an Instagram Reel that has gone viral. Anuvind Kanwal filmed a video of the questionable dishes that were served to employees in the name of Indian food. The Indian food at my office in the Netherlands is a bit questionable, he wrote. Indian food at Dutch office Miro(Instagram/@anuvindkanwal)

His video shows a spread that includes something called Bell Pepper Dal and Padima Chutney. Also on offer are bite-sized naans and green beans. The padima chutney, presumably a misspelling of pudina or mint chutney, contains celery, according to the information cards displayed alongside the dishes.

Kanwal is an employee of the Dutch company Miro, which describes itself as a visual workspace for innovation that enables distributed teams of any size to dream, design, and build the future together on LinkedIn.

Sharing the video on Instagram, he wrote: The Indian food served today at my office in the Netherlands seems a bit questionable to say the least.

I sure don't want to know what "Padima Chutney" is made of, Kanwal added with a laughing face emoji.

Take a look at the video below:

The video has racked up nearly 1 million views and a ton of amused comments on Instagram. Many praised Miro for trying to be more diverse and catering to Indian tastebuds, while others wondered how much research had gone into creating the Indian spread.

Dude, I bet Europeans feel the same way about the Indian 'continental' cuisine. I think it's a great thing that they are trying to be more inclusive and adventurous with their taste buds, wrote one Instagram user.

The fact that they're making an effort is appreciable in itself, another agreed.

Be grateful they are at least trying to accommodate you, a third wrote.

One Instagram user said: The food literally offended the Indian foodie inside me.

Padima chutney wins this buffet, another joked with a laughing face emoji.
Two Marvel fans in Mumbai dressed as Deadpool and Wolverine, the superheroes of the film Deadpool & Wolverine, and took to the city's roads as the financial capital battles its annual heavy rain. Cosplayers Aditya and Swaraj Kalebere dressed as Deadpool and Wolverine in Mumbai. (Instagram/jainam_turakhia)

Videos and photos of cosplayers Aditya and Swaraj Kalebere in their superhero costumes wandering in Mumbai are viral on social media amid the huge buzz around the Marvel superhero film.

"Not even rains can stop the Deadpool & Wolverine duo from entering Mumbai," Aditya wrote in one of his Instagram posts, with a photo of him and Swaraj looking into the camera.

While Aditya was dressed as Wolverine, Swaraj dressed as Deadpool.

A video featured them standing on a bridge in heavy rain, holding umbrellas and waving at passing vehicles as they hoped to hitchhike

"Isnt it romantic getting wet in the rain together? Deadpool & Wolverine love Mumbais rains," Aditya said in the caption of the video.

Watch the video here:

Another video showed the cosplay artistes sitting in a bus stop, taking shelter from the rain.

"Deadpool & Wolverine", starring Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in the title roles, hit the theatres on Friday.

The film also features Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova and Matthew Macfadyen as Paradox. It is the only Marvel-Disney movie released this year and is the third installment in the "Deadpool" movie franchise.

Mumbai rain affects flights

Mumbai has been seeing heavy rain for the last couple of days, with flight and airport operations severely hit on Thursday. As many as 11 flights were cancelled and ten diverted to nearby airports from here on Thursday as heavy rains continued to lash Mumbai. Runway operations at the Mumbai airport had to be halted twice as the visibility dropped to 300 meters.

(Also Read: Mumbai Police urges caution near Marine Drive with clever post amid heavy rainfall)
A robbery attempt took a hilarious turn in Telangana when the disappointed thief, finding nothing to steal, left 20 on the table before making his exit. Footage of the honest thief is now being widely circulated on social media, where it has amused thousands of viewers. A thief left a Telangana hotel poorer than he had entered (Representational image)

According to Times of Indias Samayam Telugu news website, the thief entered a hotel in Maheswaram in the Rangareddy district of Telangana with the intention of stealing the cash kept on the premises. He broke into the hotel using a rod to damage the front lock.

When a thorough search of the hotel yielded no cash and nothing valuable to steal, the thief expressed his disappointment through CCTV cameras. Footage shared online shows the thief wearing gloves, a cap and a face mask to conceal his identity carefully. Looking up at the surveillence camera, he appears to ask why the business is so broke.

Rather than leave totally empty-handed, the thief then reaches into the refrigerator to take a bottle of some beverage. He exits the room before turning back, opening his wallet and leaving 20 on the table, as if to pay for the drink.

This might just be the first robbery where a thief left poorer than he entered, and social media users were quick to see the humour in the situation.

A thief with morals. Wow, wrote one X user. If it were a politician he would have taken away that fridge also, a second person joked. Many people just dropped laughing face emojis in the comments section.

This is not the first time a thief has had a change of heart. Earlier this month, a thief was overcome with remorse after realizing that the house he stole valuables from belonged to a famous Marathi writer and returned the valuables he had decamped with in Mumbai.
Elon Musks estranged daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, has refuted the billionaires account of her childhood, saying he was never around to see her growing up. She called out Musks anti-trans statements and refuted his account of her childhood in a lengthy thread shared on Meta-owned Threads. Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, June 16, 2023. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo(REUTERS)

Elon Musk on Monday wrote that Wilson was born gay and slightly autistic and added that as a child, she would pick out clothes for me to wear like a jacket and tell me it was fabulous!

But he was not a girl, the Tesla CEO added.

Wilson, who is transgender, refuted her estranged fathers account. She said her billionaire father harassed her relentlessly for her sexuality and femininity while growing up, and is now using her to gain sympathy points.

This entire thing is completely made up and theres a reason for this. He doesnt know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasnt there, and in the little time that he was I was relentlessly harassed for my femininity and queerness, Vivian wrote on Threads.

Entirely fake

Wilson, 20, came out as transgender in 2022 and legally changed her birth name of Xavier to Vivian. She also dropped her famous last name Musk.

Earlier this week, in a conversation with Canadian psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson, Elon Musk vowed to destroy the woke mind virus which he claimed killed his son. He claimed that he was tricked into consenting for his biological son Xavier to go on puberty blockers.

That same day, the Tesla CEO shared a post on his social media platform X recounting Vivian's childhood, which she has now slammed as entirely fake.

Literally none of this ever happened. Ever. I dont even know where he got this from, she responded on X rival Threads.

Musk's claim that she loved musicals and theatre from the age of four she dismissed as entirely baseless. I did not have a love of musicals & theatre when I was four, because yknow I was f****g four, she wrote, adding that her first real brush with the genre came when she was in the 8th or 9th grade.

She also emphasised that she never used words like fabulous at the age of four - again because she was only four.

Desperate for attention

Wilson also addressed her estranged father's claims that she is not a woman. Im legally recognized as a woman in the state of California and I dont concern myself with the opinions of those who are below me, she wrote.

Musk, she said, is desperate for attention and validation in a ketamine-fuled haze.
Honorary degrees given by esteemed institutions honour distinguished individuals who have made significant contributions to a field of study or society in general. IIT Kharagpur recently bestowed that honour on Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Pichai's alma mater presented him with an honorary doctorate in a ceremony. Sundar Pichai received an honorary degree in an event organised by IIT Kharagpur. (Instagram/@sundarpichai)

Last week I was grateful to receive an honorary doctorate from my alma mater IIT Kharagpur. My parents always hoped I would get my doctorate, I think an honorary one still counts, Pichai wrote.

The access to education and technology at IIT put me on a path to Google and helping more people access technology. IITs role in technology will only grow in importance with the AI revolution, and I will always be thankful for my time there, he added.

He also shared two pictures of himself receiving the honorary degree. Sundar Pichai was awarded the Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) Award. His wife, Anjali Pichai, was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award. They received their awards at an event in San Francisco.

Take a look at Sundar Pichais post here:

What did Instagram users say about this post?

An individual praised and added, Once an IITian, always an IITian. Another posted, Sundar Pichai is not a name. Its a miracle.

While a third commented, A great man, Dr Pichai, a fourth wrote, Thats fantastic. Congratulations.

Why was Sundar Pichai given the honorary degree?

"In recognition of his remarkable contribution towards digital transformation, affordable technology and pathbreaking innovations; President Droupadi Murmu, Visitor of the institute, bestowed the degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) to Pichai in absentia at the 69th Convocation of IIT-Kharagpur in December last year. However, as Pichai was not present at the annual convocation, the institute therefore had decided to reach out to him at a later date for the same. On July 23, the institute officials held the felicitation programme in San Francisco, the institute said in a statement, reported Indian Express.

After accepting the award, Pichai, in the recent event, said, This is indeed a great honour that IIT-Kharagpur has bestowed on me. I am truly blessed and humbled to receive this award Standing with this award in my hands reminds me of the young boy that I was who dreamed to be in the world that I am trying to create with my inventions. IIT-Kharagpur holds a special place in my heart as this was the place where I first met my beloved wife, Anjali, and had beautiful memories of my second home that I grew up in.
An old interview with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman predicting that conventional jobs will become a thing of the past has re-surfaced on social media. The veteran entrepreneur's predictions sparked renewed conversations about the evolving nature of employment and how companies must figure out how they can minimise some of the uncertainty and increase stability for employees in the era of gig economy. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman said a person might work in multiple industries in their career. (Photo by Ant Rozetsky on Unsplash)

"You may not only work at multiple companies in your career. You may work at multiple industries. Industries are changing. Your growing path changes. You may not actually do a lot of your work," Hoffman said.

"You may be working in the gig economy. You may have two or three gigs. All of these things are the directional changes for what we've seen in the workforce for the last few decades."

Neal Taparia, an Indian-American entrepreneur and investor, shared the clip from Hoffman's interview.

Your 9-to-5 job is dying. By 2034, it'll be extinct. That's Reid Hoffman's latest prediction  the founder of LinkedIn who predicted the rise of social media in 1997, he said in a post on X (formerly Twitter). The post has over 17 million views and over 61,000 likes.

Take a look at the viral thread on X:

Taparia highlighted three other past predictions by Reid Hoffman that came true.

The LinkedIn co-founder had predicted that social networks would change the world and eventually sold the platform to tech giant Microsoft for over $26 billion. Hoffman, an early investor in vacation rental giant Airbnb, had foreseen the rise of the sharing economy.

Hoffman had also predicted the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution years before ChatGPT was launched.

(Also Read: JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon on work-life balance: it's your job, it's not our job)

Reid Hoffman backs Kamala Harris

Reid Hoffman, 56, on Sunday backed US Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee ahead of the US elections.

The major Democratic Party donor wrote on social media: "I wholeheartedly support Kamala Harris and her candidacy for President of the United States in our fight for democracy in November."
Bengaluru, often touted as Indias IT capital, has a surprisingly high cost of living. Due to the notorious traffic, residents spend more on travel than accommodation. For one woman, her Uber bills surpassed half her monthly rent. In a social media post, she shared about the citys exorbitant expenses, expressing that CREDs feature helped her figure that out. Bengaluru: The screenshot shows Uber transactions for the month of July. (X/@yourswriterly)

I cant believe my Uber expenses are more than half the amount I pay as rent in Bengaluru. For me, this has got to be the most useful feature by CRED till date! the woman wrote while sharing a screenshot of her Uber transactions.

According to a screenshot, the woman made 74 Uber transactions between July 1 and 25, totalling a staggering 16,600.

Take a look at the post below:

The post, since being shared on July 25, has accumulated over 95,000 views and the numbers are still increasing. Many even took to the comments section of the post to share their thoughts.

Check out how people reacted to this post:

At this point, maybe it's better if you buy yourself a vehicle. Even monthly EMIs would be far lesser, posted an individual.

Another added, You deserve a loyalty card from Uber.

As someone who pays 700 on one side, I dread looking at this feature. Thankfully I dont have to travel to office everyday, expressed a third.

A fourth commented, You can get a Baleno or an i10 on EMI at that same rate.

That's the only reason I bought a two-wheeler for myself here. Super convenient and don't have to think twice about going anywhere. And most important. Don't have to deal with ride cancellation and high ride prices in rain, shared a fifth.
LA PAZ, - The Bolivian department of Santa Cruz has declared a state of emergency through the end of this year due to extreme weather including wildfires, the departmental government said in a decree published on Thursday. Bolivia's Santa Cruz department declares emergency due to extreme weather

The latest wildfires in eastern Bolivia are preventing fuel supplies from reaching certain areas by train, local reports said. This has exacerbated ongoing diesel shortages that began earlier this week in the South American country and made it harder for firefighters to reach affected areas.

"A departmental emergency is declared due to the climatic changes, which have and are causing heavy rains, floods, droughts, strong winds, extreme temperatures, forest fires, environmental pollution and other events," the decree said.

The state of emergency, in effect through Dec. 30, calls on the government to free up funding and resources to rapidly address the disasters.

"With regards to the problem with diesel we're facing, we acted responsibly as the national government and planned the purchase of diesel that has been on ships in Chilean ports for several days due to weather," Bolivian President Luis Arce said on Thursday evening, explaining that a storm surge in Chilean ports has kept fuel from being unloaded.

The diesel was purchased from Russia, a country to which Bolivia has turned to in order to overcome its recent fuel shortages. According to LSEG, the vessel Zeynep with 33,000 metric tons of diesel reached the Chilean coast this week from the Baltic Sea.

Bolivia, which has seen a spike in deforestation in recent years, has large wetland areas and a big chunk of South America's Amazon rainforest.

It noted that 14 municipalities had declared disasters due to rains, landslides and flooding, six due to drought and one due to drought and forest fires.

Julieta Valverde, the government's natural resources director for Santa Cruz, told Reuters on Thursday around 200,000 hectares were affected by around 25 active fires.

"The government is currently attending to 10," she said.

Scientists predict that this month could beat the July record for the most fires ever recorded in that month in Bolivia, when the full scale of the damage recorded by satellite imagery is analyzed.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
G20 nations have agreed to work together to make the super-rich pay their taxes, but stopped short of a more substantial deal, according to a declaration adopted Friday after a meeting of finance ministers in Rio de Janeiro. G20 pledges to work together to tax ultra-rich

The thorny topic of tackling tax-dodging billionaires dominated the two-day meeting in the Brazilian city, which will host a G20 summit in November.

The initiative is a key priority for Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who this year heads the grouping, which includes the world's major economies, the European Union and the African Union.

Lula was hoping for a minimum tax on the moneyed elite, but the final statement represents a compromise on a topic that divided member states.

"With full respect to tax sovereignty, we will seek to engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed," said the statement.

"Wealth and income inequalities are undermining economic growth and social cohesion and aggravating social vulnerabilities."

Brazil's Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said that "from a moral point of view it is important that the twenty richest nations consider that we have a problem, which is to have progressive taxation on the poor and not on the rich."

The United States and Germany dismissed the need for a global deal on taxing billionaires, an initiative which is backed by France, Spain, South Africa, Colombia and the African Union.

French economist Gabriel Zucman, who authored a report on taxing the rich, welcomed the fact that "for the first time in history, there is now a consensus among G20 countries that the way we tax the super-rich must be fixed."

"Now it is time to go further," said Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz on Friday, urging heads of state to coordinate minimum standards by November.

"The climate crisis is expected to cost trillions of dollars every year and it is outrageous to expect that the regular taxpayer should pay for it, while the super-rich evade taxes," said Camila Jardim of Greenpeace Brazil.

On the sidelines of the thorny tax discussions US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Brazilian Economy Minister Haddad announced on Friday the signing of a partnership on climate protection.

Founded in 1999, the organization was originally focused on global economic issues but has increasingly taken on other pressing challenges even though member states do not always agree on what should be on the agenda.

Divisions within the G20, of which Russia is also a member, have made drafting a joint communique at the outcome of meetings a challenge.

Three texts were published by Brazilian authorities: a joint final communique, a document on "international cooperation in tax matters" and a separate communique from Brazil on geopolitical crises.

The final communique makes no mention of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, but simply refers to "wars and the escalation of conflicts" as risk factors for the global economy.

alb/tmo/fb/aha

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
NEW DELHI  India and China have agreed to work urgently to achieve the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops stationed along their disputed border in a long-running standoff, India's government said Friday. India and China agree to work urgently to achieve the withdrawal of troops at their disputed border

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Thursday on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Laos, where they stressed the need for an early resolution of outstanding issues along the disputed Line of Actual Control, the long Himalayan border shared by the two Asian giants.

The line separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to Indias eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety.

Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. It turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.

Both India and China have withdrawn troops from some areas on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but continue to maintain extra troops as part of a multitier deployment.

The two foreign ministers agreed on the need to work with purpose and urgency to achieve complete disengagement at the earliest, according to an Indian statement, which added that peace on the border is essential for restoring normalcy in ties between the two countries.

Jaishankar in his opening remarks said the border issues have cast a shadow over India-China ties for the last four years despite considerable efforts by both sides to solve them. The state of the border will necessarily be reflected on the state of our ties, he said, according to the statement.

Wang stressed that improving China-India ties is beneficial for both countries as well as for other nations, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported. The two sides agreed to work together to maintain peace in border areas and push for progress, it said.

India and China fought a war over their border in 1962. The Line of Actual Control divides the areas of physical control rather than territorial claims. According to India, the de facto border is 3,488 kilometers long, but China claims a considerably shorter figure.

Top Indian and Chinese army commanders have held several rounds of talks since the military clash to discuss the disengagement of troops from areas of tension.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
India on Friday marks 25 years since its last major armed conflict with arch-rival Pakistan, a high-altitude battle in the Himalayan foothills that briefly appeared poised to escalate into nuclear war. India and Pakistan: A history of division and war

The bloodshed sparked by their division at independence in 1947, and numerous wars since, have entrenched hostility that continues to animate politics on both sides of their shared frontier.

AFP reviews the key moments in the fraught and often violent relationship between the two neighbours:

Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, brings the curtain down on two centuries of British rule at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947.

The Indian sub-continent is divided into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

The poorly prepared partition unleashes sectarian bloodshed that kills possibly more than a million people and displaces 15 million others.

The monarch of Muslim-majority Kashmir, sandwiched between both countries and below the Himalayan mountain range, dithers on whether to submit to Indian or Pakistani rule.

Militants backed by Pakistan attack the territory after the suppression of local uprisings against the monarch's rule, prompting him to seek India's help repelling them and precipitating an all-out war between both countries.

A UN-backed, 770-kilometre ceasefire line in January 1949 becomes a de facto frontier dividing Kashmir, now known as the Line of Control and still heavily militarised on both sides.

Pakistan launches a second war in August 1965 when it invades Kashmir, seeking to bring the divided territory entirely under its control.

The conflict ends inconclusively seven weeks later after a ceasefire brokered by the Soviet Union with thousands of soldiers dead on each side.

Pakistan deploys troops at the start of 1971 to violently suppress a growing independence movement in what is now Bangladesh, which it had governed since 1947.

An estimated three million people are killed in the nine-month conflict and millions more cross into India with harrowing stories of atrocities by Pakistani troops.

India mobilises a full invasion of Bangladesh at the end of the year, forcing Pakistan's surrender less than two weeks later.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's popularity reaches stratospheric heights as a result of the quick victory, bolstered further when her government announces India's first successful nuclear weapons test three years later.

An uprising breaks out in Kashmir in 1989 as longstanding grievances with Indian rule boil over, worsened by a territorial election that locals accuse authorities of rigging.

Hindus and other minorities flee the region over the following year after targeted assassinations, assaults, and threats by rebel fighters.

Tens of thousands of soldiers, rebels and civilians are killed in the following decades during periodic battles between security forces and militants.

Widespread human rights abuses are documented on both sides of the conflict.

India accuses Pakistan of funding the rebels and aiding their weapons training on its territory.

Pakistan conducts its first public nuclear weapons tests in 1998 in response to another round of tests by India weeks earlier.

The UN Security Council unanimously condemns both governments and orders them to refrain from more tests, while the United States imposes economic sanctions on both countries.

Pakistan-backed militants cross into Indian-administered Kashmir the following year, seizing military posts in the icy heights of the Kargil mountains.

Raja Mohammad Zafarul Haq, a leading member of Pakistan's ruling party, says his country will not refrain from using nuclear weapons to protect its security if necessary.

Pakistan yields after severe pressure from Washington, alarmed by intelligence reports showing Islamabad had deployed part of its nuclear arsenal nearer to the conflict.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif blames army chief Pervez Musharaf for igniting the conflict, which killed at least 1,000 people over 10 weeks, without his knowledge or approval.

Musharaf overthrows Sharif in a coup months later.

Islamist gunmen attack the Indian financial hub of Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people including 29 foreign nationals.

India blames Pakistan's intelligence service for the assault and suspends peace talks.

Contacts resume in 2011, but the situation is marred by sporadic fighting.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes a surprise visit to Pakistan in 2015 but the diplomatic thaw is short-lived.

A 2019 suicide attack kills 41 Indian paramilitary troops in Kashmir and prompts Modi to order tit-for-tat airstrikes inside Pakistan.

The resulting stand-off between the two nations is swiftly defused and Modi is re-elected months later, partly on a wave of nationalist fervour spurred by the military response.

bb/gle/cwl

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Washington, Stating that Israel has a right to defend itself, but how it does so matters, said US Vice President Kamala Harris after her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighting the human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. Israel has a right to defend itself but how it does so matters: Harris after meeting Netanyahu

I've said it many times, but it bears repeating. Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization. On October 7, Hamas triggered this war when it massacred 1,200 innocent people, including 44 Americans. Hamas has committed horrific acts of sexual violence and took 250 hostages. There are American citizens who remain captive in Gaza, Harris told reporters immediately after meeting Netanyahu in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House complex.

During her meeting with Netanyahu, Harris said that she expressed with the prime minister her serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.

I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there. With over two million people facing high levels of food insecurity, and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating, she said.

The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, Harris said.

Harris said there is a deal on the table for a ceasefire and a hostage deal. The first phase of the deal would bring about a full ceasefire, including a withdrawal of the Israeli military from population centers in Gaza. In the second phase, the Israeli military would withdraw from Gaza entirely and it would lead to a permanent end to the hostilities.

It is time for this war to end, and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination. There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, she said.

I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done. So to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let's get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Let's bring the hostages home and let's provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people, Harris said.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
South African authorities rounded up 95 Libyans on Friday in a raid at a farm that appeared to have been converted into an illegal military training base, police said. S.African police detain 95 Libyans at suspected military camp

The morning raid was in a remote area outside the town of White River in the northeastern province of Mpumalanga, about 360 kilometres east of Johannesburg.

"The 95 individuals taken into custody are all Libyan nationals and are currently being questioned by the relevant authorities," police said in a statement.

The Libyans had entered South Africa in April and claimed to be training to be security guards, officials said.

"They allegedly misrepresented themselves on visa application to SA claiming they were coming to train as security guards," police spokeswoman Athlenda Mathe said in a statement on X.

But police in Mpumalanga "suspect they are receiving military training", she said, and they were arrested for contravening the immigration act.

Newzroom Afrika television footage from the scene showed a heavy police presence outside the suspected camp, which included green military-style tents.

It showed the detained men standing in groups and wearing civilian clothing.

A sign leading to the facility described it as an academy offering "specialised security training", an AFP reporter said.

"The place, which was initially designated as a training site, appears to have been converted into an illegal military training base," the police statement said.

No weapons or illegal substances were found on the site immediately but a search was ongoing, a police official told AFP.

The raid was launched after authorities received intelligence about the site in the province, which adjoins Mozambique and Eswatini.

Mpumalanga's safety and security minister, Jackie Macie, told local media that authorities were following up information about other similar camps in the area.

Authorities were processing the group with the aim of sending them back to their country of origin, he said.

The owner of the security company said to be running the facility was a South African national, police spokesman Donald Mdhluli told AFP.

Most of the detained men did not speak English and it was not immediately clear whether they were affiliated to any group, Mdhluli said.

"We do suspect them of serious crime because we have had multiple complaints from the community for cases including rape," Mdhluli said.

South Africa has porous borders and high corruption and criminality that experts say have made it fertile ground for criminal syndicates.

Its security problems have given rise to a huge private security industry.

The country has more than 15,000 security firms employing about 2.8 million guards, providing armed response and training services, according to the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority.

There are also concerns the country may be a base for jihadist financing in Africa.

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday announced sanctions against what it said were two Islamic State group operatives based in South Africa.

They used robberies and kidnappings for ransom to raise money, and one was a suspected IS trainer and facilitator, it said.

Libya is still struggling to recover from years of war and chaos after the 2011 overthrow of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

Although relative calm has returned in the past four years, clashes periodically occur between its myriad armed groups.

Most are allied with either the UN-recognised government in Tripoli or the rival administration backed by strongman Khalifa Haftar in the east.

Jalel Harchaoui, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in Britain, said rival factions were known to have sought security training abroad to create elite military units.

"This is often done through networks of foreign private companies," Harchaoui told AFP.

In a statement on Facebook, the UN-recognised Libyan government said it "formally and clearly denies" any affiliation with the group in South Africa and would assist with investigations to find out who they were.

zam-ub-rim/br/js

Meta

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
NASA announced Thursday that while aliens on Mars remain undiscovered, evidence suggesting that the Red Planet may have hosted life billions of years ago has been found. The Perseverance rover, part of NASAs ongoing mission to explore Mars, discovered a spot-covered rock on Sunday that could hold vital clues about Mars' habitability. Perseverance Rover uncovers mysterious rock on Mars(NASA/MSSS)

Nicknamed Cheyava Falls, after a Grand Canyon waterfall, this vein-filled arrowhead-shaped rock. This extraordinary find, located on the northern rim of the ancient Neretva Vallis riverbed, contains organic compounds that hint at a potential history of microbial life thriving in a long-lost Martian waterway. The Neretva Vallis, a quarter-mile wide and carved out by the relentless flow of water into Jezero Crater eons ago, has yielded a discovery that could redefine our understanding of the Red Planet's past.

Measuring 3.2 feet by 2 feet, Cheyava Falls is distinguished from other red-colored Martian rocks by its unique leopard-like white and black splotches.

ALSO READ| Sunita Williams, Butch Wilmore's return date not fixed as Boeing's Starliner still stuck in space, NASA says

NASA finds most puzzling rock yet on Mars

Nicola Fox, an associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, stated, We have designed the route for Perseverance to ensure that it goes to areas with the potential for interesting scientific samples. This trip through the Neretva Vallis riverbed paid off as we found something weve never seen before, which will give our scientists so much to study.

On a mission to hunt for signs of ancient microbial life, the Perseverance rover conducted multiple surveys of Cheyava Falls.

Scientists described this rock as the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance.

The black halos on the Cheyava Falls rock contain iron and phosphate, features also found on Earth rocks with fossilized microbes on their surface. Scientists caution that the white and black rings might have resulted from a chemical reaction unrelated to living organisms.

ALSO READ| 2 Indian astronauts to undergo training at NASAs Johnson Space Center

NASA aims to bring Cheyava Falls to Earth for further research in the coming years. Other explanations for the observed features are being considered by the science team, and future research steps will be required to determine whether ancient life is a valid explanation, NASA stated.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmers office said Friday that the U.K. will not interfere with the International Criminal Courts request for an arrest warrant against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington(REUTERS)

The announcement is reversal of plans announced by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was ousted earlier this month when Starmer's Labour Party swept Conservatives from office in a landslide.

This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the government will not be pursuing in line with our long-standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide, a Starmer spokesperson said.

Also read | Israel has a right to defend itself but how it does so matters: Harris after meeting Netanyahu

The courts prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders  Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh  of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also criticized the prosecutor and supported Israels right to defend itself against Hamas  as did Sunak.

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan sought warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in May over Israels war in Gaza, a symbolic blow that deepened Israels isolation over the war in Gaza.

Israel is not a member of the court. Even if warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it harder for them to travel.

The ICC had set a deadline for Friday for the government to file a challenge.

Starmers decision puts the U.K. at odds with America, though his office on Friday described the decision as based in a strong belief in the separation of powers and the rule of law domestically and internationally.

The issue is a tricky one for Starmer and his party.

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has been under pressure from his party to take a tougher stand on the ongoing crisis in Gaza. London has also been the scene of huge protests decrying Israels actions intended to root out Hamas militants and has also reported record levels of antisemitic incidents.

Labour lost support and seats they had been expected to win after Starmer initially refused to call for a cease fire shortly after Israel retaliated for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants. The party is still recovering from the stain of a scandal involving antisemitism allegations against the leadership of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

Starmer recently restored funding for the United Nations Palestine relief agency UNRWA, which had been suspended by Sunak's government in January.

He has also said the Palestinian state has an undeniable right to be recognized as part of a peace process.

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International U.K.s chief executive applauded Starmer's decision not to challenge the action at the Hague court.

This was a totally misguided intervention by the last government," Deshmukh said. Instead of trying to thwart the ICCs much-needed Palestine investigation, the U.K. should be backing efforts to bring all perpetrators of war crimes and possible genocide to justice.
As the US election campaign season heats up Donald Trump and his running mate are gunning for Kamala Harris over rampant illegal immigration from the Mexico border. In their election narrative Republicans are squarely blaming Kamala Harris for oversight of U.S. border security. But was she responsible for border security? Fact Check: Can Kamal Harris be blamed for rampant illegal immigration crisis at US borders? (AFP)

The portrayal of Kamala Harris as the Biden administration's "border czar" is misleading. Her assignment was always about tackling the root causes of migration from specific Central American countries, not overseeing border security operations.

This narrative has been bolstered by a House Republican resolution criticizing Harris's record on immigration. However, these claims misrepresent the specific responsibilities Harris was assigned, which focused more on addressing the root causes of migration rather than direct oversight of U.S. border security.

Truth behind viral claim calling Kamala border czar

In March 2021, President Joe Biden assigned Kamala Harris a specialized role: to lead diplomatic efforts aimed at addressing the root causes of migration from Central America's "Northern Triangle" countriesGuatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Her mission was to tackle the socio-economic and political issues that drive people to leave their homes, a task distinct from managing the U.S. border itself.

This misrepresentation overlooks the distinct nature of her responsibilities and the intended scope of her work. Kamala was never tasked with managing border security. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas oversees U.S. border security operations. Mayorkas emphasized that while Harris was focused on addressing migration's root causes, DHS was responsible for border management and security.

Harris has spearheaded initiatives to foster private sector investment in the Northern Triangle, aiming to create job opportunities and improve living conditions, which are long-term strategies to reduce migration pressures. Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told TIME that while the VP did reasonably well in working with the private sector, her work is such that it could not produce results anytime soon.

While her work is inherently long-term and not immediately visible in terms of border security metrics, it targets the fundamental issues prompting migration. Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) indicates a decrease in migrants from the Northern Triangle, though migration from other regions has increased, illustrating the complexity of immigration trends.

Kamala Harris blamed for border situation

Despite being in-charge of a long term policy to improve border situation Harris faced criticism from both the left and right. Conservatives have attacked her for not directly addressing the border crisis, while some liberals criticized her firm stance against illegal immigration during a 2021 speech where she advised potential migrants, Do not come.
Former US President Donald Trump hopes America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the earth if the US adversary succeeds in assassinating him. Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is helped off the stage by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)(AP)

On Thursday, through a post on Truth Social, Trump shared a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Congress about threats from the Islamic Republic.

The former POTUS did not mince words in his post. If they do assassinate President Trump, which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth, he wrote.

If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered gutless cowards!

This call for vengeance follows a recent attempt on Trumps life. Less than two weeks ago, during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a would-be assassins bullet grazed Trumps ear. The incident took the life of 50-year-old Corey Comperatore, a heroic firefighter, and left 2 others injured.

ALSO READ| Kamala Harris launches first campaign ad featuring Trump's mugshot, We choose

US officials later disclosed intelligence that indicated an Iranian plot to kill Trump just weeks prior to the July 13 shooting. This threat was communicated to the lead Secret Service agent assigned to Trumps protection detail and to his campaign team.

The White House National Security Council has been monitoring Iranian threats against Trump administration officials for several years following the US killing of Qassem Soleimani, the leader of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, who was targeted on Trumps orders in 2020.

Trumps hardline stance is not new

Back in 2017, Trump also made a similar comment about North Korea when he said Kim Jong Un's country would face fire and fury if it continued its belligerent behaviour against the US. He [Kim Jong-un] has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said, they will be met with the fire and fury and frankly power, the likes of which this world has never seen before, Trump said.

ALSO READ| Donald Trump takes stage at NC rally amid USA USA USA chants, rips Kamala Harris: Dishonesty and incompetence

In 2019, he warned that if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon, it would face unprecedented obliteration. During an interview on NBCs Meet the Press, Trump stated, Im not looking for war, and if there is, itll be obliteration like youve never seen before.

But Im not looking to do that. But you cant have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk? Good. Otherwise you can have a bad economy for the next three years.
Elon Musks transgender daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, has slammed her fathers claim that Wilson was killed by the woke-mind virus. Elon Musk's trans daughter, Vivian Wilson fires back at her father's hurtful comments, says she's 'disowned' him.(Thread/vivllainous/File Image)

Taking to Mark Zuckerbergs Threads, Wilson posted, I look pretty good for a dead b***h, along with a picture of hers.

The 20-year-old continued her public denouncement on Thursday by telling her 13,000 followers that she had disowned Musk.

ALSO READ| Elon Musk finally lauds Mark Zuckerberg in a rare exchange

I disowned Musk, not the other way around, she asserted. To emphasize her point, Wilson shared a screenshot of one of Musk's old tweets in which he claimed she was born gay and slightly autistic. She condemned these remarks as entirely fake, stating, Like, literally none of this ever happened. Ever. I dont even know where he got this from. My best guess is he went to the Milo Yiannopoulis school of gay stereotypes, just picked some at random and said, eh- good enough in a last-ditch attempt to garner sympathy points when he is so obviously in the wrong even in his own f**king story.

Musk said woke minded virus killed his son

Musk spoke on Monday about his experience with Wilson's transition during an interview with psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson on the Daily Wire. The Tesla boss claimed that he was tricked into allowing Wilson, referred to by her deadname, Xavier, to undergo gender reassignment surgery.

I was essentially tricked into signing documents for one of my older boys, Xavier, Musk said.

Musk called allowing children to transition an incredibly evil act and suggested that those who promote such surgeries should go to prison. He elaborated, They call it deadnaming for a reason. The reason they call it deadnaming is because your son is dead. My son Xavier is dead  killed by the woke-mind virus, directly referring to Wilsons transition.

ALSO READ| Elon Musk vows to destroy the woke mind virus that 'killed' his son

Musk has vowed to combat the woke-mind virus, stating, I vowed to destroy the woke-mind virus after that. And were making some progress. After Governor Gavin Newsom signed the new Assembly Bill 1955, which will allow school forms not to notify the parents of their children's gender, he announced plans to move the SpaceX and X headquarters from California to Texas.

Musk explained his rationale, saying, I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children.
The situation remains dire for children of legal immigrants, particularly Indian Americans, who face the risk of deportation when they turn 21 due to "aging out" of their dependent status. Approximately 250,000 such children, many of them Indian, could be forced to leave the US, despite having lived there since childhood. Dwarkesh Patel hosting a podcast with Tony Blair.(Dwarkesh Podcast)

On June 13, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, led by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) and Rep. Deborah Ross (D-NC), addressed this issue by sending a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and US Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur Jaddou. The letter, signed by 43 lawmakers, urged the Biden administration to take action to protect children of green card applicants from deportation due to aging out.

Current immigration policies require these children to leave the country if their parents have not obtained permanent residence by the time they turn 21. Forbes reports that over one million Indians, including dependents, are waiting in the employment-based immigrant visa categories, according to the National Foundation for American Policy.

ALSO READ| India-born H-4 visa holder forced to self-deport from US after aging out from his mother's green card petition

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated, I talked about the bipartisan agreement that came together from the Senate where we negotiated a process to help the so-called documented Dreamers. And sadly, Republicans, and I've said this many times already at this podium today, which is that they voted it down twice. They voted it down twice.

India-born immigrant shares ordeals of PR backlogs and aging out

While many India-born is freaking out about what will happen when they turn 21, their parents are suffering the agony of huge PR backlogs.

Dwarkesh Patel, one India-born, shared such an ordeal on X (formerly Twitter). My family moved to the US when I was 8, but by the time I turned 20, my dad was still on an H1B (waiting to get processed for a green card). Once I turned 21, I would age out as his dependent, despite the fact that I basically grew up in the US, he shared.

Patel, who is a podcaster, often features faces like Jeff Bezos, Tony Blair, Patrick Collision and more in his show, Dwarkesh Podcast. Working on the promising podcast I was doing as a side project? A beyond impossible pipe dream, he expressed.

Patel further detailed the dice shot with H-1b lottery system, stating, I thought I'd have to become a code monkey after college, and even that only if I was lucky enough to win the H1B lottery.

Otherwise, back to India.

He highlighted how's his H-1b visa-holder father spent the precious 9-years of his life in the US but never able to get a green card. Even after 9 years, my dad wasn't able to get a green card - and the lines were only getting longer over time. I figured I'd be an old man before I could quit some FANG job and build my own thing, he said.

By some miracle, COVID travel restrictions cleared out the lines, and I got my green card literally months before I would have aged out.

ALSO READ| HT Exclusive: US visa expert shares perfect fix for H-1B challenges amid layoffs and green card suspension

But it's unconscionable that we put the kids of high skilled immigrants through all this anxiety, and in many cases make them repeat the nerve-racking indentured life trajectory that they had to watch their parents go through., Patel concluded.

Dip Patel, founder of Improve The Dream, an organization representing these children of legal immigrants told PTI, All major administrative actions have excluded this population from receiving benefit, despite the tools for such relief being available and being used for others. Until Congress can pass the bipartisan America's Children Act, we need urgent action by the administration to prioritize this issue, which has bipartisan support from Congress and the general public, and clear economic benefit.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris pressured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to help reach a Gaza ceasefire deal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians, striking a tougher tone than President Joe Biden. US Vice President Kamala Harris following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not pictured, in the Vice President's Ceremonial Office in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, July 25, 2024. Photographer: Kenny Holston/The New York Times/Bloomberg(Bloomberg)

"It is time for this war to end," Harris said in a televised statement after she held face-to-face talks with Netanyahu.

Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee after Biden dropped out of the election race on Sunday, did not mince words about the humanitarian crisis gripping Gaza after nine months of war between Israel and Hamas militants.

"We cannot allow ourselves to be numb to the suffering and I will not be silent," she said.

ALSO READ| Who is Ella Emhoff? Kamala Harris controversial stepdaughter making waves in fashion

Harris presses Netanyahu to ease the war in Gaza

Harris' remarks were sharp and serious in tone and raised the question of whether she would be more aggressive in dealing with Netanyahu if elected president on Nov. 5. But analysts do not expect there would be a major shift in U.S. policy toward Israel, Washington's closest ally in the Middle East.

The conflict began on Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 captives, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's retaliatory attack in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 people and caused a humanitarian calamity with most of the coastal enclave leveled, people displaced from their homes, famine and a shortage of emergency relief.

Biden met with Netanyahu but did not make substantive remarks. Aides said he pressed for a ceasefire in his first face-to-face talks with the Israeli leader since Biden traveled to Tel Aviv in the days after Oct. 7.

Netanyahu will meet Harris' Republican rival, Donald Trump, on Friday at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.

A ceasefire has been the subject of negotiations for months. U.S. officials believe the parties are closer than ever before to an agreement for a six-week ceasefire in exchange for the release by Hamas of women, sick, elderly and wounded hostages.

"There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, and as I just told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done," Harris said.

ALSO READ| Harris 'will not be silent' on Gaza after tough talks with Netanyahu

Although as vice president she has mostly echoed Biden in firmly backing Israel's right to defend itself, she made clear on Thursday that she was losing patience with Israel's military approach.

"Israel has a right to defend itself. And how it does so matters," Harris said.

Harris calls for end to Gaza war, says 'let's get the deal done' on ceasefire

In March, she bluntly stated that Israel was not doing enough to ease a "humanitarian catastrophe" during its ground offensive in the Palestinian enclave. Later, she did not rule out "consequences" for Israel if it launched a full-scale invasion of refugee-packed Rafah in southern Gaza.

The Gaza conflict has splintered the Democratic Party, and sparked months of protests at Biden events. A drop in support among Arab Americans could hurt Democratic chances in Michigan, one of a handful of states likely to decide the Nov. 5 election.

In a nod to those concerns, Harris urged Americans to help "encourage efforts to understand the complexity, the nuance and the history of the region."

"To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you," she said. "Let's get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war."

In an Oval Office address on Wednesday, Biden cited a desire for unity in the Democratic Party as it seeks to defeat Trump as a main reason he decided not to seek reelection but to instead support Harris for the 2024 race.

ALSO READ| Kamala Harris stepdaughter Ella Emhoff gives savage reply to JD Vance over childless comment: How can you

Harris maintains closer ties to Democratic progressives, some of whom have urged Biden to attach conditions to U.S. weapons shipments to Israel out of concern for high Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza. The U.S. is a major arms supplier to Israel and has protected the country from critical United Nations votes.

Biden and Netanyahu met together with the families of Americans held by Hamas, who expressed hope for a ceasefire including a release of hostages. "We came today with a sense of urgency," said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, whose son is a captive.
Donald Trump has faced fresh mockery for fixating on the size of Kamala Harris crowds at a recent rally. The former president, who initially downplayed the importance of beating Harris in the election, has been criticised for his apparent insecurity as support for Harris grows. Trump claimed that Harris' team worked hard to draw a large crowd, implying that his own events consistently attracted more people. However, critics are taking this obsession with crowd sizes as a hint of deep-seated fear and anxiety. Vice President Kamala Harris has accepted an invitation from CBS News to debate former President Donald Trumps vice presidential pick this summer. (AP )

Donald Trump mocked for fixating on crowd sizes

Since Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris as his successor for the upcoming presidential election, the opponents have become particularly vigilant about every development. Harris, who kicked off her run for president on Sunday, had her first big event close to Milwaukee on Tuesday, pulling in a huge crowd of more than 3,000 people. This large turnout reportedly unsettled Trump, leading him to take multiple swipes at his rival during his event in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Wednesday.

Also read: Ana Navvaro shares risque Melania Trump photo while standing up for Kamala Harris dating history

The constant comparison didnt go unnoticed on social media as clips from the rally started circulation inviting a flurry of meme frenzy and mockery aimed at the Republican nominee. "Trump is having a major breakdown right now at his rally crying about Kamala Harris' crowd size," Ed Krassenstein wrote on X (formerly Twitter.) He just spent several minutes talking about how she got credit for her crowd size and how he never gets credit. He's a man-baby. You can tell he's really flustered, he added taking a light-hearted jab at Trump.

Donald Trump obsessing over Kamala Harris rallies

Since Kamala Harris' campaign gained momentum, various polls and surveys have shown her leading or at least performing better than Biden against Trump. In response, Harris has faced numerous attacks by detractors, including criticisms of her race, gender, and dating history. Adding to the list is Trumps criticism towards her team for supposedly "working hard to attract a crowd."

Also read: Big Hollywood celebs endorse Kamala Harris: George Clooney to Cardi B and Beyonce; see full list

Moreover, the former president has criticised the media for allegedly ignoring the attendance numbers at his rallies, accusing them of focusing on headline stories. "If I ever had a crowd like Kamalaassuming she had 2,000 people, which I don't think she didbut if I ever had a crowd, they'd do headline stories, 'Trump is over, it's all over, it's not working for him anymore,' Trump said that night.

Oh my God, look at him obsessing over Harris. Didnt he say he wasnt scared? one X user claimed. Same old Trump. All insults and nothing on the issues, said another, commenting on how the Republican leader focuses on the past while Harris discusses the future. Why does he seem more flustered than when he was shot? asked another user. On #J6, Donald Trump was more concerned about CROWD SIZE than the very real threats against the lives of lawmakers, Capitol Police, and his own MAGA supporters! Trump: 'My EGO is far more important than the lives of all these people combined.'
The former presidential hopeful Nikki Haley while sitting down with CNN, affirmed that she would not apologize or take anything back for her comments against former President Donald Trump; all the more, she has made a U-turn by supporting his candidacy. US former ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley gestures as she speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 16, 2024.(Photo by Jim WATSON / AFP)(AFP)

Haley said Trump was toxic, unhinged, and lacked moral clarity during GOP convention last week.

I said a lot of tough things about him in the campaign. He said a lot of tough things about me in the campaign. Thats what happens in campaigns. I dont think we need to apologize or take anything back. I dont plan on doing that, Haley remarked, acknowledging that she would still vote for the candidate she once labelled as chaos.

During the campaign, Trump did not hold back either, directing harsh remarks towards his former UN Ambassador. He mocked Haleys husbands military service and dubbed her bird brain Nikki Haley. Despite this, Haley shifted her stance in May and publicly pledged her support for Trump, even though she had previously said in February that there was no need to kiss the ring.

ALSO READ| Kamala Harris takes aim at Benjamin Netanyahu, says 'it's time for this war to end'

She also noted, I dont agree with Trump 100% of time, and I dont expect them to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. But I wanted them to think about it through my eyes and how I thought about it.

Haley also sent a cease and desist letter to a PAC of her former supporters, Haley Voters for Harris.

Haley unsurprised by Biden's decision to pass torch to Harris

Haley's interview also touched upon President Joe Bidens decision to pass the presidential torch to Kamala Harris after one term. She expressed that she was not surprised by this decision. Through the whole campaign, I fought for mental competency tests. I wasnt doing it to be disrespectful. I wasnt doing it to be mean. I was doing it because I think its not just Joe Biden, Haley said, and its a problem for the American people.

I never thought he would make it to the election. I always said a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris, and I think thats whats playing out.

In January, Haley had stated that the first party to retire its 80-year-old candidate is going to be the one who wins this election.

ALSO READ| Donald Trump wishes America to wipe Iran off the face of the earth if

Despite these earlier views, she lauded Trump in a speech to the Republican National Convention last week, even though she initially faced a snub. Haley criticized Kamala Harris as a far-left choice but denounced some Republicans racist portrayal of Harris as merely a DEI hire.

The fact that you put in one of the most liberal politicians you probably could have put in, its going to be an issue. Theres so many issues we can talk about when it comes to Kamala Harris that it doesnt matter what she looks like, she commented.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul's former aide's $3.5 million home was raided by the FBI earlier this week. The federal agents searched Linda Sun's five-bedroom residence located in Manhasset, Long Island. Kathy Hochul's former aide Linda Sun's Long Island residence was raided by FBI earlier this week

Linda Sun's $3.5m Manhasset home searched by FBI

While the agency did not provide any information about why the property was targeted, an FBI spokesperson told Fox News, The FBI New York conducted court-authorized law enforcement in Manhasset. The 40-year-old and her husband, Chris Hu, have not been accused of any wrongdoing, nor have any arrests made as part of the raid.

ALSO READ: Kamala Harris launches first campaign ad featuring Trump's mugshot, We choose

Paul Mauro, a lawyer and Fox News contributor said, While there is no official accusation and wrongdoing, a judge had to approve this search warrant and searching somebody's house is very intrusive. Obviously, there must be some indicia of wrongdoing for the judge to have approved it, Mauro added.

A search warrant for Sun's home had been obtained by the US Attorney's office in Brooklyn, according to sources per NY Post. The property was surrounded by law enforcement officials at the time of the raid. Property records show that the couple had transferred the residence to a trust back in March, per the outlet.

ALSO READ: North Korea dismisses Donald Trump's claims of friendship with Kim Jong-Un: We don't care

Prior to serving as one of Hochul's deputy chief of staff, Sun worked in the former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration. As part of Hochul's administration, her work mainly focused on business development, Asian American affairs, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Sun's government roles across the Empire State span 15 years, according to her LinkedIn profile. However, she quit state service last year after allegedly being fired following evidence of misconduct, sources told the outlet. Meanwhile, her husband runs a liquor store in Queens.
* Polish bill on using arms at Belarus border sparks human rights concerns

Bill allows border security services to use firearms in emergencies

*

Poland says Belarus and Russia orchestrating 3-year surge of migrants

*

Polish soldier killed at border in June

*

Public back weapons use in poll, activists raise human rights concerns

By Barbara Erling, Alan Charlish

WARSAW, - Polish lawmakers were set to vote on Friday on a bill making it easier for security services to use weapons against migrants on the Belarus border, legislation that has public support but that critics say infringes human rights.

The debate pits Donald Tusk's pro-European Union government against activists who had hoped he would shun the previous, nationalist administration's approach to the crisis on the bloc's eastern frontier.

Poland has been dealing with what it says is a form of hybrid warfare on the border since 2021, when large numbers of migrants started trying to cross illegally.

Both Warsaw and the EU say Belarus and its ally Russia have been orchestrating the crisis by flying in migrants from the Middle East and Africa, something Minsk and Moscow deny. The situation took a tragic turn in June when a 21-year-old Polish soldier died after being stabbed through the border fence, provoking a wave of grief and anger.

Many Poles were also irate when it was reported that soldiers who had fired warning shots on the border were arrested and led away in handcuffs, an incident that cost a prosecutor his job.

The bill would explicitly allow security services to use force including firearms on the frontier in certain emergency situations.

Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said it would send "a clear signal of support to people in uniform fighting aggression at the border".

PUBLIC SUPPORT

An IBRiS survey for the Rzeczpospolita daily indicated that 85.7% of Poles thought soldiers should be able to use weapons to repel migrants who use force.

However, activists are dismayed.

"I believe the government ... stepped into the shoes of its predecessors because it was convenient," said Marcin Wolny, a lawyer from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

Human rights advocates say the bill may prevent proper scrutiny of incidents.

The government rejects such arguments, and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said the migrants are not refugees seeking asylum but "hordes of bandits who ... try to attack or attack Polish soldiers".

For Natalia Ciaston from the NGO 'We are Monitoring', such rhetoric paints a misleading picture.

"The narrative that these are dangerous criminals ... is probably based on a few individual cases, such as the attack on a soldier, which of course should be condemned, but should not be projected onto all the rest," she said.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Prince Harry has offered new insights into the reasons behind his family's decision to relocate to the United States. In the recent ITV documentary Tabloids on Trial, the Duke of Sussex has expressed major concerns about the safety and well-being of his wife, Meghan Markle, if they were to return to the United Kingdom. He attributes these concerns primarily to the intense media scrutiny and invasive press coverage the couple has faced which will continue to happen if the security decision is not overturned. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle walk down the steps after their wedding.(AP)

Prince Harry wont bring Meghan Markle back to the UK

People are wondering if the Sussexes might finally settle down in London to avoid all the hotel hopping they have to do when they're in the UK. But Prince Harry has made it clear he won't be bringing his wife and kids back to his country. In a recent update, Harry made it clear, "That's not going to work if we can't keep them safe while they're here." The Duke, whose security was scaled back following his and Meghan Markle's departure from royal duties, is embroiled in a legal battle to reinstate protection for his family.

Also read: Prince William cuts Queen Camilla's sister from Royal payroll; he would no longer employ'

There is a lot of attention on Meghan

"There is more than enough attention on me and my wife anyway," the Duke said when asked if their high-profile lawsuits against the press could be drawing more attention to him. The youngest son of the late Princess Diana, also dismissed concerns that his legal actions against media outlets could further endanger himself and his family.

"They pushed me too far," Harry continued. It got to a point where you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. But I don't think there's anybody in the world better suited and placed to be able to see this through than myself.

Harry finds it dangerous to bring the family back to the UK

In their bombshell Netflix documentary, Harry and Meghan presented multiple instances of being attacked by random people and the press after they stepped back as senior royals. He now believes, It's still dangerous, and all it takes is one lone actor, one person who reads this stuff to act on what they have read.

Also read: Prince Harry hoping to join Indian billionaire Anant Ambanis wedding in UK because

Talking about how he thinks the tabloid's harsh reporting on the Duchess of Sussex is causing trouble, the Duke went on, Whether it's a knife or acid, whatever it is, and these are things that are of genuine concern for me. It's one of the reasons why I wont bring my wife back to this country."

Why Harry and Meghan left the UK?

One of the main reasons the Sussexes chose to take a break from their royal duties and move to the US was because they thought the danger level was getting worse. Prince Harry has said before that he felt like he had to leave the UK because he was worried about his family's safety. The couple's permission to keep their security clearances was taken away by the Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures (RAVEC), even though Harry promised to pay for their own security.

The Duke is now appealing the decision in the UK court "The Duke is not asking for preferential treatment, but for a fair and lawful application of RAVECs own rules, ensuring that he receives the same consideration as others in accordance with RAVECs own written policy," a legal spokesperson from Harrys team said.
The mysterious deaths of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. have haunted the hip-hop world for decades. Recently, a new wave of intrigue has been stirred with a startling accusation coming to light. A supposed suspect in the matter has alleged that music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs made a huge deal to plan the killing of Tupac. Combs, who is currently embroiled in numerous controversies, has been slapped with yet another explosive claim that threatens to upend the long-held theories surrounding one of the infamous unsolved crimes in music history. Sean Combs, Tupac Shakur

Diddy accused of paying Million for Tupac hit

On September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur, a 25-year-old American rapper known for his revolutionary impact on the music industry, was shot in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was reportedly hit by four bullets from a .40-caliber Glock. Now, according to Fox 5, ex-gang leader Duane Keefe D Davis, who faces murder charges in connection with Tupacs death, allegedly told police that Sean Diddy Combs offered $1 million to have the rapper killed.

[Davis] has asserted publicly that he only told on himself and wasnt trying to provide evidence against anyone else in his conversations with police, court documents obtained by the outlet claim.

Also read: Who is Ava Kris Tyson? MrBeast cuts ties with longtime co-host over serious allegations; Im disgusted

Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. have been linked for a while because their stories are pretty similar. Biggie was shot a year after Tupac. It was earlier reported that Duane 'Keefe D' Davis, who talked about his part in Tupac's killing in a bunch of interviews, basically admitted to being involved in the crime. A lot of people think that the same person or people could be behind both killings.

However, this statement belies this claim, as he suggested that Sean Combs paid [drug dealer] Eric Von Martin a million dollars for the killings as well as offered to set up a surreptitious phone call with Terrence Brown, the driver, who, at the time, was still alive, the statement further read.

Is Sean Combs involved in Tupac Shakurs death?

The allegation against Sean "Diddy" Combs is not entirely new. This theory has circulated for years but is now gaining traction as the Bad Boy record producer finds himself entangled in serious accusations. This involves sex trafficking, sexual harassment, rape, and battery among others.

Also read: Big Hollywood celebs endorse Kamala Harris: George Clooney to Cardi B and Beyonce; see full list

Court documents have referenced a "deadly rivalry" between Combs' East Coast label, and Suge Knight's West Coast imprint, Death Row Records. These same documents include a transcript of a 2009 interview where Combs reportedly expressed intense animosity towards Knight, who was with Tupac Shakur at the time of the murder.

The former gang member said Diddy claimed, I would give anything for that dude [sic] head, referring to Knight.
Washington, US Senator Marco Rubio on Thursday introduced a bill in the Congress which proposes to treat India on par with its allies like as Japan, Israel, Korea and NATO allies regarding technology transfers, support India in its response to growing threats to its territorial integrity and bar Pakistan from receiving security assistance if it is found to have sponsored terrorism against India. Senator Rubio introduces US-India Defense Cooperation Act

Communist China continues to aggressively expand its domain in the Indo-Pacific region, all while it seeks to impede the sovereignty and autonomy of our regional partners. Its crucial for the U.S. to continue its support in countering these malicious tactics. India, along with other nations in the region, is not alone, Rubio said after he introduced the U.S.-India Defense Cooperation Act in the Senate.

Given the short timeline of a bitterly divided Congress in an election year, the bill is unlikely to make much headway, but might be reintroduced in the next Congress given that there is a bipartisan level of support on India-US relationship. The bill notes that the US-India partnership is vital to countering influences from Communist China. In order to strengthen this partnership, it is essential to enhance our strategic diplomatic, economic, and military relationship with New Delhi, it asserts.

Among other things, the bill would set a Statement of Policy that the US will support India in its response to growing threats to its territorial integrity, provide necessary security assistance to India to deter adversaries, and cooperate with India with respect to defense, civil space, technology, medicine and economic investments.

When passed into law, it would provide a limited exemption for India from CAATSA sanctions for purchases of Russian equipment that are currently used by the Indian military and set a sense of Congress that expeditious consideration of certifications of letters of offer to sell defense articles, defense services, design and construction services, and major defense equipment to India is consistent with US interests and it is in the interest of peace and stability India to have the capabilities needed to deter threats.

It proposes to treat India as if it were of the same status as the US allies such as Japan, Israel, Korea, and NATO allies regarding technology transfers; authorize the Secretary of State to enter into a memorandum of understanding with India to increase military cooperation; expedite excess defense articles to India for two years and grant India the same status as other allies; and expand International Military Education and Training Cooperation with New Delhi.

It requires a report to Congress on Pakistans use of offensive force, including through terrorism and proxy groups, against India; and bar Pakistan from receiving security assistance if it is found to have sponsored terrorism against India.

This is for the first time such an India-centric bill has been introduced in the US Congress that proposes to put India at the same level of that of its treaty ally, exempt it from CAATSA sanctions, and imposes sanctions on Pakistan for promoting terrorism in India.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
The co-founder of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel pleaded not guilty to US drug charges on Friday after being flown to Texas in a scheme allegedly orchestrated by another top leader of the notorious trafficking ring. Sinaloa Cartel co-founder pleads not guilty after stunning US capture

Ismael Zambada Garcia, known as "El Mayo," co-founder of the cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of its other co-founder, were taken into custody in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday, US officials said.

Zambada, 76, who faces charges of drug trafficking, money laundering and conspiracy to commit murder, appeared before a US magistrate judge shortly after his stunning arrest and entered a plea of not guilty, according to court documents.

He was remanded in custody and is to appear in court again on July 31.

President Joe Biden welcomed the arrests of the two cartel leaders and said the United States "will continue doing everything we can to hold deadly drug traffickers to account and to save American lives."

"Too many of our citizens have lost their lives to the scourge of fentanyl," he said.

The Mexican authorities said they were not involved in the operation, which President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador described as "an important advance in the fight against drug trafficking."

Lopez Obrador said he expected a "complete report" from the United States on how the men were taken into custody. "There must be transparency," he said.

The situation was calm on Friday in Sinaloa's state capital, Culiacan, where furious gunmen went on a rampage in 2023 after the arrest and extradition to the United States of Ovidio Guzman Lopez, another son of Sinaloa co-founder Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

El Chapo was convicted of drug charges in New York in 2019 and is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison.

The Mexican defense ministry sent 200 members of the special forces to the cartel heartland on Friday to reinforce security.

US media quoted law enforcement sources as saying that the arrests were the result of a sting operation in which Zambada was unwittingly lured across the border by Guzman Lopez, who is in his mid- to late 30s and faces US charges of trafficking cocaine, heroin and other drugs.

Guzman Lopez is one of El Chapo's four sons; they are known collectively as Los Chapitos, or "The Little Chapos."

According to a US Drug Enforcement Administration report released in May, Los Chapitos were engaged in an "internal battle" against Zambada, their father's former partner.

CNN, citing a US law enforcement official, said the US authorities exploited the "rift" in the cartel to capture Zambada.

The official said Zambada boarded a plane with Guzman Lopez for a flight that he believed was intended to inspect property in Mexico near the US border. Instead, the plane landed in El Paso, where both men were arrested.

The Wall Street Journal said the operation had been in the works for months.

NBC News said Guzman Lopez may have decided to surrender and was "under the impression he would receive more favorable treatment if he brought with him another major cartel figure."

DEA chief Anne Milgram said Zambada's arrest "strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast."

And the capture of El Chapo's son marks "another enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel," Milgram said.

The low-profile Zambada, who has never served time in prison, had cultivated close connections with Mexico's federal police and military and has been wanted in the United States for decades.

His son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, was arrested by the Mexican authorities in 2013 and extradited to the United States.

Zambada Niebla testified against "El Chapo" at his 2019 trial and revealed details of the cartel's smuggling operations, claiming his father had a "bribery budget" of $1 million per month, much of it going to high-level Mexican public officials.

The US State Department had offered a reward of $15 million for the arrest of Zambada and $5 million for the capture of Guzman Lopez.

Victims of the cartels' ultra-violent turf wars include rival gang members, security personnel and journalists, among more than 450,000 people murdered since the government launched a military offensive against drug cartels in 2006.

The United States saw more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fentanyl accounted for about 70 percent of them.

bur/cl/bbk

THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
The Trump campaign announced Thursday that it would not agree to a general election debate with Vice President Kamala Harris until Democrats formally decide on their nominee after the VP expressed her readiness to debate the former president. Donald Trump donated to Kamala Harris re-election campaign in the past, as per reports (Photo by BILL PUGLIANO / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP, photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)

Earlier on Thursday, Harris declared she was ready to go for a debate with Trump, challenging her likely GOP rival after he indicated he might not participate in an ABC News-hosted event as planned.

Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee, said Trump spokeperson director Steven Cheung in a statement.

I have agreed to the previously agreed upon Sept. 10 debate. He agreed to that previously, Harris said. Now, here he is backpedalling, and Im ready, and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage, and so Im ready. Lets go.

Amid several netizens questioning Trump's thickening out, Harris took this golden opportunity to mock the former POTUS in an X exchange, What happened to any time, any place?

ALSO READ| Donald Trump wishes America to wipe Iran off the face of the earth if

Many Democrats think Harris is Marxist fraud who can't beat Trump

Cheung asserted that there is a prevailing belief among many Democrats that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, adding that some are still hoping for a different candidate, referencing former President Barack Obama's lack of endorsement, though Obama is expected to publicly support Harris soon.

Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds, Cheung continued.

Trump and Joe Biden had agreed to two debates, one on June 27 and another on September 10. However, Biden's poor and shaky performance in the June CNN presidential debate debate led to increased calls from Democrats for him to step down as the nominee, which he did on Sunday due to mounting pressure, and named Harris as his successor.

ALSO READ| Fact Check: Is the Kamala Harris photo embracing paedophile Jeffrey Epstein on beach real?

Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats  its time to come together and beat Trump, Biden said on Sunday through a press release.

Harris has now secured enough delegate support to be the likely Democratic nominee. The Democratic convention is scheduled for August 19-22 in Chicago.

On Tuesday, Trump told reporters he would absolutely debate Harris at least once before Election Day.
Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara at Mar-a-Lago on Friday. During the meeting, the former president claimed that the present-day global conflicts could escalate into the Third World War should he lose the 2024 presidential race. This still image taken from an Israeli Government Press Office video shows Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and his wife Sara (R) being welcomed by former US President Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 26, 2024.(AFP)

Trump meets with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago

During his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump took a dig at his rival Kamala Harris, claiming that she is worse on the matters of the Middle East, per Fox News. The GOP nominee told reporters that the Israel-Hamas conflict could be headed for a full-blown war if the issues are not resolved quickly, which, according to him, is only possible if he wins the November election.

ALSO READ: NY Gov Kathy Hochul's former aide Linda Sun's $3.5m home raided by FBI

We'll see how it goes. But if it all works out, if we win, it'll be very simple. It's all going to work out. And very quickly. If we don't, you're going to end up with major wars in the Middle East. And maybe a third World War, Trump said, adding, You are closer to a third World War right now than at any time since the Second World War. We've never been so close because we have incompetent people running the country.

Trump's meeting with the Israeli prime minister at his Florida property comes after Netanyahu met President Joe Biden and the vice president in Washington, DC, earlier this week. In her comments after the meeting, Harris said that she will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah, per the outlet.

ALSO READ: Trump brutally slams FBI director for questioning if he was really hit by a bullet

However, the Democratic nominee's condemnation of Israel's actions in Gaza reportedly left Netanyahu upset, Axios reported. An Israeli official told the outlet that the prime minister was irked when Harris mentioned the civilian deaths in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation there. When our enemies see the U.S. and Israel are aligned, it increases the chances for a hostage deal and decreases the chances for a regional escalation, the official added.
Ella Emhoff, the stepdaughter of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, has recently attracted attention by defending her mother from JD Vance's disparaging childless cat lady comment, which resurfaced from a 2021 interview. Following President Joe Biden's endorsement of Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee, many celebrities have rallied in her support. Adding her voice to the chorus is Ella Emhoff, who has not only stood by her stepmother but is also capturing the publics interest as a rising fashion star. Kamala Harris stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, shared a story on Instagram to back her stepmom against JD Vance's 'childless' comment.(Insta/Harris)

Ella Emhoff slams Trumps vp pick JD Vance

The political tide has turned after Biden chose not to run for a second term. Harris has emerged as one of the strongest presidential nominees to fight against Trump, and her chances of winning this election are slightly better than the president's. However, this has also invited a wave of scrutiny, from her dating history to Vances childless cat lady comment. Now, Harris stepdaughter has spoken up in her defence.

Also read: Who is Ava Kris Tyson? MrBeast cuts ties with longtime co-host over serious allegations; Im disgusted

Delivering a savage reply to Vance, Ella wrote, How can you be childless when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I? referring to her brother as well. Even her mother Kerstin slammed the Ohio senator as baseless attacks on Harris.

Also read: Adidas says sorry to Bella Hadid and partners over Munich Olympics campaign after facing legal threat

Who is Ella Emhoff?

Ella Emhoff is the child of Douglas Emhoff, who married Vice President Kamala Harris on August 22, 2014, in Santa Barbara, California. Prior to this, Emhoff was married to Kerstin Emhoff (nee Mackin) for 16 years, and they had two children together, Cole and Ella. Both the siblings were named after renowned jazz artists Ella Fitzgerald and Cole Porter.

Controversy

Ella Emhoff faced backlash after posting a link to a fundraiser for UNRWA on Instagram. This organization, which aids Palestinian refugees and is a major employer in Gaza, was accused by Israel of hiring people linked to the October 7 Hamas attacks. Because of this, the US and other countries pulled their money. UN Watch called out Emhoff for supporting the charity event, but she eventually took down the link from her profile.

Ellas relationship with Harris

Ella (25) and her older brother Cole came up with the nickname Momala for their stepmother when Kamala Harris married Douglas. At the time she was serving as California's Attorney General. After capturing attention with her striking fashion choices at her stepmothers inauguration in January, Ella Emhoff soon joined IMG Models. In a CNN interview, Kerstin Emhoff, Douglas Emhoffs ex-wife from 1992 to 2008, lauded the U.S. Vice President as caring and supportive.

Ella Emhoff the breakout fashion star

Ella, a Parsons fashion student, became an overnight sensation after her daring outfit choices at a major event. Her collaboration with Batsheva Hay and her stunning Miu Miu coat made headlines worldwide. This young talent quickly transitioned from the classroom to the catwalk, debuting at Paris Fashion Week for Balenciaga and landing a coveted magazine cover.

Her star-studded brand collaborations include Louis Vuitton, Calvin Klein, Mulberry, Lacoste, Stella McCartney etc.
Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas on Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department said. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia provided by the Mexican Attorney General's office in Mexico City on August 1, 2003. Two top leaders of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, including its co-founder Ismael Zambada Garcia, were arrested on July 25, 2024 in Texas, the US Department of Justice said.(AFP)

A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, Zambada is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world and known for running the cartels smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile.

A Mexican federal official told The Associated Press that Zambada and Guzman Lopez arrived in the United States on a private plane and turned themselves in to authorities. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized discuss the matter.

The U.S. government had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the capture of Zambada, who eluded authorities for decades.

Zambada and Guzman Lopez oversaw the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, adding that now they will "face justice in the United States.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Mexican authorities didn't immediately comment on the arrests.

U.S. officials have been seeking Zambada's capture for years, and he has been charged in a number of U.S. cases. He was charged in February in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute the synthetic opioid. Prosecutors said he was continuing to lead the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the cartel's strategist, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, El Chapo Guzman, who was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019 and is the father of Guzman Lopez.

Zambada is an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals. While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.

In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.

Im terrified of being incarcerated, Zambada said. Id like to think that, yes, I would kill myself.

The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.

Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighboring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.

Although little is known about Zambadas early life, he is believed to have gotten his start as an enforcer in the 1970s.

By the early 1990s, he was a major player in the Juarez cartel, transporting tons of cocaine and marijuana.

Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but still managed to keep strong ties with the gang and avoided a turf war. He also developed a partnership with El Chapo Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Zambadas detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of El Chapo Guzman, Ovidio Guzman Lopez. Zambada's son pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court in San Diego in 2021 to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel.

In recent years, Guzmans sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or Chapitos that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the U.S. market.

They were seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested and extradited to the U.S. last year. He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September.

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the DEA, said Zambadas arrest is important but unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs to the U.S. Joaquin Guzman Lopez was the least influential of the four sons who made up the Chapitos, Vigil said.

This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I dont think so, Vigil said.

Its not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him, Vigil said.
A North Carolina man accused of shooting three tree workers engaged in a shootout with cops before he was subsequently taken into custody.

Lucas Murphy, 36, has been charged with three counts of felony assault with a deadly weapon, one count of assault with a deadly weapon intent to kill, and four counts of assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officer, according to prosecutors.

It's unclear if he entered a plea to the charges.

Murphy allegedly fired on a trio of tree workers clearing the way for a local power company in Green Mountain, North Carolina Wednesday, inflicting serious injuries on all three victims.

Responding officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect and shot him, resulting in Murphy's disarming and arrest.

"I want to start out by saying that my thoughts and prayers are with the Asplundh victims of today's shooting for a speedy recovery," Yancey County Sheriff Shane Hilliard said in a statement. "I am so proud of my incredible deputies and dispatchers! They did an awesome job responding and getting the situation under control quickly."

Murphy was previously convicted of misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon against his brother in 2021, according to prosecutors. He was sentenced to 150 days in jail.
A Texas dad allegedly claimed he was motivated by feelings of overwhelming anxiety when he made the decision to abandon his infant daughter in a dumpster outside a restaurant, according to court records.

Anferne Gray, 28, has been charged with one count of child abandonment in connection with the case, jail records indicate.

He also faces three assault-related charges for an alleged attack on the baby's mom in the incident.

It's unclear if he entered pleas.

On Monday, Gray allegedly told his daughter's mother he was going to leave their infant at a fire station. Instead, he allegedly ditched the child next to a Pasadena, Texas motel pool for about 20 minutes, before returning, court documents stated, according to KTRK-TV.

"Then you picked up the child, walked about 1,000 feet to a nearby restaurant, where you allegedly left the baby inside of a dumpster enclosure" for about three or four hours, a Harris County court magistrate accused, KHOU-TV reported.

Police initiated a missing persons investigation after the baby's mom called 911 when she realized Gray did not drop their daughter off at a fire station, according to KPRC-TV.

Authorities did not elaborate on the baby's condition.

Gray is due back in court Wednesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago Florida home where the former president warned him that there could be World War 3 if he isn't reelected.

Trump briefly permitted reporters to enter the meeting. When asked about the potential nature of a working relationship with Israel in a second Trump administration, he hinted that the current U.S. leadership might result in a "third world war," according to the New York Times.

"We'll see how it goes," Trump said during the meeting. "If we win, it will be very simple. It's all going to work out and very quickly. If we don't we're all going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war. You are closer to a third world war right now than at any time during the second world war. You've never been so close because you have incompetent people running our country," as reported by CBS News.

Prior to the meeting, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, were greeted at the door by Trump upon their arrival.

"Come on in, nice to see you," Trump said as they posed for photographs.

    ,    pic.twitter.com/mfXt0vfiPp  Benjamin Netanyahu -   (@netanyahu) July 26, 2024

Netanyahu, who posted video and photos of the meeting on social media, presented the former president with a framed photo of a child that is being held captive in Gaza, the Associated Press reported.

The prime minister told Trump that the child's grandfather wanted Trump to have it.

"We'll get that taken care of," Trump replied, with both of them posing with the photo.

Netanyahu traveled to Florida just days after he addressed Congress and described Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza as a "clash between barbarism and civilization."

He urged the legislators to continue to support Israel in the speech that was marred by protesters on Capitol Hill burning American flags and writing pro-Hamas graffiti.

"For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together. Because when we stand together, something very simple happens: We win, they lose," he said.

During his speech, Netanyahu also praised President Joe Biden for his support.

"I thank President Biden for his heart-felt support for Israel. After the savage attack on Oct. 7, he rightly called Hamas 'sheer evil.' He dispatched two aircraft carriers to the Middle East to deter a wider war, and he came to Israel to stand with us during our darkest hour, a visit that will never be forgotten," Netanyahu said.

While in Washington, D.C., Netanyahu met with Biden in the Oval Office.

He also huddled with Vice President Kamala Harris, who is expected to become the Democratic presidential nominee now that Biden has ended his campaign.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance said he's "sympathetic" to a federal law banning women from traveling for an out-of-state abortion in a newly resurfaced clip.

Speaking with hosts Aimee Terese and Oliver Bateman in 2022 during an appearance on the "What's Left?" podcast, Vance ruminated over the reversal of Roe v. Wade.

"Let's say Roe versus Wade is overruled in Ohio. Ohio bans abortion," Vance pondered months before it was overturned. "And then... every day George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity."

BREAKING: In a stunning leak, JD Vance is found to be calling for a federal response to stop women from traveling from red states to blue states to receive reproductive healthcare. Retweet so all Americans hear this devastating leak. pic.twitter.com/t9Q4n9dQJL  Kamalas Wins (@harris_wins) July 26, 2024

Vance called the hypothetical situation "really creepy" and said he was "pretty sympathetic" to a federal response preventing women from getting abortions in another state.

The Kamala Harris campaign reposted the now-viral clip on X Thursday, condemning Vance's ideas over women's health as "bad policy."

"JD Vance's obsession with controlling women's most personal health care decisions, from blocking access to IVF, to tracking women's menstrual cycles, to passing a national abortion ban to bar women from traveling to access the care they need, isn't just bad policy  it's creepy, it's unacceptable, and voters won't stand for it," Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika told the HuffPost Friday.

"Women have had enough of the Trump-Vance Project 2025 ticket blocking access to critical health care, and they're going to shut it down this November by sending Vice President Harris to the White House."

Earlier this month, the Ohio senator shifted his staunch federal anti-abortion stance to align with Donald Trump's beliefs the issue should be handled at the state level.

"My view is that Donald Trump is the leader of the Republican Party, and his views on abortion are going to be the views that dominate this party and drive this party forward," Vance during an interview with Fox News, according to CNN.
J.MAK HOSPITALITY announces the addition of Joao Donadel to its sales team, to enhance its reach to travel advisors across North America, particularly on the West Coast of the U.S., and to support its global portfolio of partners.

Donadel, who will be known as "J.WOW," joins J.MAK with a passion for luxury travel, and experience gained traveling to 52 countries and speaking 5 languages. In 2020, Donadel moved to LA from his native Brazil to become a pilot and attend pilot training but soon after he discovered a calling for luxury travel. He is an affiliate and ambassador at Embark Beyond and he is proud to expand his influence and dedication as a hospitality personality with J.MAK HOSPITALITY.
London, UK  Wowcher, a leading marketplace to buy and share the best things to do in your city, has partnered with SiteMinder, the name behind the only software platform that unlocks the full revenue potential of hotels, to offer more high-value deals to travellers and drive incremental bookings for hotels.

The partnership marks Wowchers first integration with a hotel distribution platform, and forms part of Wowchers broader initiative to increase booking value for its hotel partners. Through the integration, UK and Irish hotel users of SiteMinders distribution and revenue platform can seamlessly tap into Wowchers 20-million-plus subscriber base. Importantly, SiteMinders platform ensures properties leveraging the Wowcher website can now market and sell a broader range of rooms simultaneously.

Were thrilled to partner with SiteMinder as we present our customers with more exclusive hotel deals than ever before. With the rising cost of living, the demand for deals on short stays year-round has never been more apparent. This partnership, with the trusted SiteMinder brand, ensures that we continue to meet that demand by offering exceptional value via the dynamic hotels that use SiteMinders platform. Jamie Lavers, UK Travel Manager at Wowcher

Adds Lavers, Recognising the benefits of efficient distribution and inventory management, it made sense to integrate with SiteMinders platform, which is widely adopted by many of our hotel partners. Through this integration, hotels can now supply travellers with higher room categories, publish their rooms for longer periods and manage their inventory with greater flexibility. Moreover, this integration allows hotels to connect to untapped segments, as our data shows that up to 80% of our customers are first-time guests at the hotels we feature.

Our collaboration with Wowcher comes at a time when SiteMinders Changing Traveller Report 2023 has shown that nearly 50% of travellers from the United Kingdom are now opting for package deals, cheaper rooms and shorter stays in response to increasing prices. In this ever-changing landscape, we are eager to support Wowcher by connecting our hotels with travellers looking to make the most of their accommodation experiences, whether its a seaside vacation, a quick city getaway or a spa retreat. We are pleased to have this integration as a way for hotels to drive more incremental value. In todays dynamic environment, its vital for hotels to offer a great experience for their guests, regardless of economic conditions. Connecting with Wowcher enables SiteMinders UK and Irish properties to unlock additional revenue streams by opening their doors to travellers who are hungry for special deals. James Bishop, Vice President for Ecosystem and Strategic Partnerships at SiteMinder

About Wowcher

Wowcher is a leading marketplace to buy and share the best things to do in your city. Providing a trusted, convenient source for finding value on everyday items and activities as well as identifying novel, enriching and fun experiences for you to enjoy and share with your friends. With thousands of unique and diverse offers every day, Wowcher inspires their subscribers to discover everything from weekend excursions to international travel, from exclusive gourmet dinners to family outings and more.

About SiteMinder

SiteMinder Limited (ASX:SDR) is the name behind SiteMinder, the only software platform that unlocks the full revenue potential of hotels, and Little Hotelier, an all-in-one hotel management software that makes the lives of small accommodation providers easier. The global company is headquartered in Sydney with offices in Bangalore, Bangkok, Barcelona, Berlin, Dallas, Galway, London and Manila. Through its technology and the largest partner ecosystem in the global hotel industry, SiteMinder generates more than 120 million reservations worth over US$50 billion in revenue for its hotel customers each year. For more information, visit siteminder.com.

Maria Cricchiola

Director of Brand Communications & PR

+61 2 9056 7415

View source
SINGAPORE  Accor, a world-leading hospitality group, together with executive travel managers and buyers from 17 leading international corporations, have launched the Accor Global Leadership Council (GLC), an innovative advisory board aimed at reimagining the future of corporate travel and meetings. Established to create a forward-looking vision for business travel and corporate meetings, the GLC connects business leaders responsible for corporate travel across diverse industries with senior executives from Accor. Council delegates include representatives from sectors such as financial services, engineering, manufacturing, transportation, energy, professional services and technology.

The GLC discussed shifting corporate and traveller expectations; the importance of recognition, personalisation and B2B-focused loyalty; the evolving importance of sustainability; emerging traveller trends; the role and impact of distribution and pricing; and a deep-dive on areas of Accors business and brands.

The Global Leadership Council delegates, who have a combined employee base of over 2.7 million travellers, unanimously agreed the top three priorities for business travel are:

Traveller experience and well-being  including corporate employee engagement, wellness, traveller security and digital efficiencies. Cost management and optimization  including program compliance, pricing, cost-reduction and cost avoidance. Sustainability  including sustainable action, carbon budgets and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)

The dynamics of international and corporate travel in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific region are evolving rapidly. It is essential for both our clients and hospitality businesses to adapt to new demands and priorities. The new GLC, and the program of client and commercial partner events we host across the region, are critical forums for sharing insights and collaborating on solutions that meet the changing needs of travellers and delegates. Travel and tourism is undergoing a profound transformation, driven by an increased focus on flexibility, sustainability, cost and personalisation. At Accor, we are committed to not only meeting these needs but also anticipating them, ensuring that every journey is as enriching and impactful as the destination and travel intent itself. Antony Meguerdijian, SVP Sales, Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific at Accor

Left: GBTA Dinner at Raffles Singapore - Right: "ALL THANKS TO YOU" appreciation event in Turkiye  Photo by Accor

Highlighting the groups commitment to thought leadership in the leisure and business travel sectors, Accor has been actively involved in several key events in the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific regions. The Group recently hosted a private dinner at the new Banyan Tree in Dubai during the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) event, bringing together 50 industry leadersfrom top travel firms around the world.

Additionally, Accor has demonstrated its expertise in the business travel sector by hosting the prestigious Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) conference at Swissotel Singapore from 13-15 May. This significant event attracted over 800 top travel buyers from leading companies worldwide. The GBTA board was also hosted for dinner at the iconic Raffles Singapore, where a customer advisory meeting was held to capture key business travel insights, further cementing Accor's role as an industry leader.

Accors dedication to inclusivity and diverse community engagement was further emphasised during the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) with the hosting of gAyTE  a celebration of the LGBTQI travel community in Australia. This event showcased Accors commitment to fostering open mindsets and expanding travel horizons for all communities.

Accor's partner interactions have been elevated through the expansion of the "ALL THANKS TO YOU" appreciation weeks, hosted from Africa to Australia. Events have been held in Riyadh, Dubai, Istanbul, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Tokyo, with upcoming events in Seoul, Singapore, Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta, and Abidjan this month. This initiative reflects Accor's dedication to recognising and celebrating its diverse global clientele.

Our recent events in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific underscore Accor's unwavering commitment to fostering strong relationships with our partners and communities. These gatherings, along with the expansion of our 'ALL THANKS TO YOU' customer appreciation weeks, demonstrate our continuous efforts to connect with and celebrate the millions of guests we welcome both locally and globally. In Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific, we are honoured to support some of the fastest growing and most ambitious countries in prioritising their tourism economies. We play a crucial role in fostering their growth ambitions and serving the travellers they represent. We are proud to be at the forefront of industry innovation, driving meaningful conversations and initiatives that open new horizons for travel. Kerry Healy, Chief Commercial Officer for Accor in the Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific

About Accor, a world-leading hospitality group

Accor is a world leading hospitality group offering experiences across more than 110 countries in 5,700 properties, 10,000 food & beverage venues, wellness facilities or flexible workspaces. The Group has one of the industry's most diverse hospitality ecosystems, encompassing more than 45 hotel brands from luxury to economy, as well as Lifestyle with Ennismore. Accor is committed to taking positive action in terms of business ethics & integrity, responsible tourism, sustainable development, community outreach, and diversity & inclusion. Founded in 1967, Accor SA is headquartered in France and publicly listed on the Euronext Paris Stock Exchange (ISIN code: FR0000120404) and on the OTC Market (Ticker: ACCYY) in the United States. For more information visit group.accor.com or follow us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.

Naomi Hammond

Communications Manager - Pacific

+61(0) 434 738 380

Accor
Manila - Radisson Hotel Group is delighted to announce the addition of three new hotels in the Philippines, adding more than 450 keys to its portfolio in three first and second-tier destinations  Cauayan City, Olongapo and Dasmarinas  to reaffirm its status as one of the countrys leading international hotel groups.

Our success in this important market is underpinned by the strength of our local partnerships and relevance of our brands. We are grateful to SMHCC for their trust in our brands and people. We commit to creating more opportunities to our guests, owners and people. Elie Younes, Executive Vice President & Global Chief Development Officer, Radisson Hotel Group

These three hotels will be an outstanding addition to the SMHCC portfolio as it forays into newly-emerging important destinations in the country. The anticipated opening of these properties underscores the expansion of our hotel group and will be an added boost for the Philippine hospitality industry. Ms. Peggy Angeles, Executive Vice President, SM Hotels & Conventions Corp.

The three hotel signings include:

Park Inn by Radisson Cauayan Isabela is a new upper-midscale property that will become the first internationally branded hotel in Cauayan, a city in the province of Isabela, Luzon Island. It is perfectly positioned atop the existing SM City Cauayan Mall  the first SM Supermall in the region which launched in 2014 and has become a popular retail tourism hub for the entire region. The development is now being expanded to cater for a rising number of visitors. Opening in Q2 2027, the hotel will feature 151 rooms, plus a lobby bar, a breakfast restaurant and private dining room, plus a gym, swimming pool, a pool deck and lounge, kids pool, three meeting rooms and a pre-function area.

Park Inn by Radisson Olongapo Central is a brand-new hotel that will mark Radisson Hotel Groups entry into Olongapo, an emerging coastal city overlooking Subic Bay on the west coast of Luzon Island. This location is expected to attract leisure travelers seeking beachfront relaxation, diving and water sports, while also providing a gateway to the jungles and mountains of Central Luzon. The hotel will be located next to the SM Olongapo Central Mall. Making its debut in Q1 2028, this property will offer 151 rooms, a lobby bar, a convertible breakfast area and private dining room, plus a swimming pool with a pool deck, lounge and kids pool.

Park Inn by Radisson Dasmarinas is another exciting addition to the upper-midscale Park Inn by Radisson portfolio in the Philippines. It will form part of the extension of the existing SM City Dasmarinas shopping mall, the largest mall in the province of Cavite, which is 50 minutes drive away from Manilas Ninoy Aquino International Airport. When it opens its doors in Q4 2027, this hotel will feature 151 rooms, plus a lobby bar, a convertible breakfast area and private dining room, a grab & go kiosk, a swimming pool with a pool deck, lounge and kids pool.

Radisson Hotel Group currently operates six hotels in the Philippines, comprising an upper-upscale Radisson Blu hotel in Cebu and 5 Park Inn by Radisson hotels in Davao, Clark, Iloilo, Quezon and Bacolod. This latest phase of growth will reinforce Park Inn by Radissons position as the leading international upper-midscale brand in the Philippines, catering to business and leisure travelers alike. Other hotels in the groups nationwide pipeline include Park Inn by Radisson, Radisson, and Radisson RED hotels in Cebu, a Radisson Collection hotel in Boracay, and a Radisson Individuals member in Bohol.

About Radisson Hotel Group

Radisson Hotel Group is one of the world's largest hotel groups with nine distinctive hotel brands, and more than 1,600 hotels in operation and under development in 120 countries. The Group's overarching brand promise is Every Moment Matters with a signature Yes I Can! service ethos.

The Radisson Hotel Group portfolio includes Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Radisson Individuals, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson, Country Inn & Suites by Radisson, and prizeotel brought together under one commercial umbrella brand Radisson Hotels.

Radisson Rewards is our international rewards program that delivers unique and personalized ways to create memorable moments that matter to our guests. Radisson Rewards offers an exceptional experience for our guests, meeting planners, and travel agents at over 550 hotels in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific.

Radisson Meetings provides tailored solutions for any event or meeting, including hybrid solutions placing guests and their needs at the heart of its offer. Radisson Meetings is built around three strong service commitments: Personal, Professional and Memorable, while delivering on the brilliant basics and being uniquely 100% Carbon Neutral.

The health and safety of guests and team members remain a top priority for Radisson Hotel Group. All properties across the Group's portfolio are subject to stringent health and safety requirements, as outlined in the Radisson Hotels Safety Protocol.

More than 100,000 team members work at Radisson Hotel Group and at the hotels licensed to operate in its systems. For more information, visit our corporate website. Or connect with Radisson Hotels on:

LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube
This publication will lead to greater prosperity, job creation, community empowerment, and SME expansion in Zambia. It offers a comprehensive overview of Zambias economic, political, and social landscape, highlighting the vast opportunities within Zambias tourism industry. Zurab Pololikashvili, Secretary General of UN Tourism

Investment in tourism is pivotal not only for sustainable development, economic growth, job creation but also the preservation of our rich cultural heritage and the conservation of our natural resources creating opportunities for the local communities. Rodney Simbuka, Minister of Tourism of Zambia

Stability and Growth in Zambia

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Zambias economic outlook is promising, with projected growth rates of 4.3% in 2023, 4.7% in 2024, and 4.8% in 2025. Zambia has maintained a steady growth rate of 3.2% over the past decade, demonstrating economic stability that exceeds the Sub-Saharan Africa average of 3.0%.

Reasons to Invest in Zambia

Tourism Doing BusinessInvesting in Zambia, outlines the opportunities for international investors, emphasizing:

Zambias biodiversity and natural resources make it an attractive destination for investors , with 30% of its land (22.4 million hectares) dedicated to 20 national parks and green spaces.

, with 30% of its land (22.4 million hectares) dedicated to 20 national parks and green spaces. Zambia shares borders with eight other countries. The location of this landlocked nation, along with its cultural diversity, with more than 70 ethnolinguistic groups, are a few of its many merits.

Zambia has been ranked the 7th Best Country to do Business out of 54 African nations and the 1st for Ease of Obtaining Credit in Africa after celebrating 60 years of peace and stability.

out of 54 African nations and the 1st for Ease of Obtaining Credit in Africa after celebrating 60 years of peace and stability. Zambia offers attractive investment incentives, with 16 investment promotion and protection agreements currently in place.

Investing in Tourism

Avenues for investment in Zambia, such as the tourism sector, startups, and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), are attracting attention. Zambia has made its mark on the global investment arena with an average of USD 969.7 million in FDI receipts over the past decade. Zambias economic resilience, emphasis on tourism education, tax incentives, and efficient business setup processes make it a noteworthy prospect for investors.

The services sector contributes to almost 58% to the Zambian economy and employs 33% of the countrys workforce. Fostering an investor-friendly climate facilitates well-informed decision-making, enabling stakeholders to maximize Zambias strengths and actively contribute to sustainable development initiatives.

Related Links:

About UN Tourism

The World Tourism Organization (UN Tourism) is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.

As the leading international organization in the field of tourism, UN Tourism promotes tourism as a driver of economic growth, inclusive development and environmental sustainability and offers leadership and support to the sector in advancing knowledge and tourism policies worldwide.

Our Priorities

Mainstreaming tourism in the global agenda: Advocating the value of tourism as a driver of socio-economic growth and development, its inclusion as a priority in national and international policies and the need to create a level playing field for the sector to develop and prosper.

Promoting sustainable tourism development: Supporting sustainable tourism policies and practices: policies which make optimal use of environmental resources, respect the socio-cultural authenticity of host communities and provide socio-economic benefits for all.

Fostering knowledge, education and capacity building: Supporting countries to assess and address their needs in education and training, as well as providing networks for knowledge creation and exchange.

Improving tourism competitiveness: Improving UN Tourism Members' competitiveness through knowledge creation and exchange, human resources development and the promotion of excellence in areas such as policy planning, statistics and market trends, sustainable tourism development, marketing and promotion, product development and risk and crisis management.

Advancing tourism's contribution to poverty reduction and development: Maximizing the contribution of tourism to poverty reduction and achieving the SDGs by making tourism work as a tool for development and promoting the inclusion of tourism in the development agenda.

Building partnerships: Engaging with the private sector, regional and local tourism organizations, academia and research institutions, civil society and the UN system to build a more sustainable, responsible and competitive tourism sector.

Our Structure

Members: An intergovernmental organization, UN Tourism has 160 Member States, 6 Associate Members, 2 Observers and over 500 Affiliate Members.

Organs: The General Assembly is the supreme organ of the Organization. The Executive Council take all measures, in consultation with the Secretary-General, for the implementation of the decisions and recommendations of the General Assembly and reports to the Assembly.

Secretariat: UN Tourism headquarters are based in Madrid, Spain. The Secretariat is led by the Secretary-General and organized into departments covering issues such as sustainability, education, tourism trends and marketing, sustainable development, statistics and the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), destination management, ethics and risk and crisis management. The Technical Cooperation and Silk Road Department carries out development projects in over 100 countries worldwide, while the Regional Departments for Africa, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East serve as the link between UN Tourism and its 160 Member States. The Affiliate Members Department represents UN Tourism's 500 plus Affiliate members.

UN Tourism Communications Department

+34 91 567 8100

UN Tourism
Sebel Melbourne Ringwood Hotel Acquired by Serene Capital

Australia-based Amber Property Group have sold the 103-key Sebel Melbourne Ringwood Hotel to Australia-based Serene Capital, marking it as the 13th asset in Serene Capitals flagship hotel fund, Serene Capital Hotel Fund 1. The property is located at 96 Maroondah Highway, Melbourne. It features both guest rooms and suites, on-site restaurant & bar, conference and event spaces, a fitness centre, and on-site car parking. Vacant possession of hotel management was also included as part of the agreement.

CHI 120 Serviced Apartment in Hong Kong Sold for HKD188 Million

Hong Kongs CHI 120 Serviced Apartment has been acquired for HKD 188 million. The property is located a 2-minute walk from the Sai Ying Pun MTR Station and boasts a harbour front location. It features 19 whole-floor, 1,050-square-foot one-bedroom apartments and a retail podium of 8,824 square feet. The property has the potential to be redeveloped into a commercial building to maximize its gross floor area.

Aqualand Lodges Request to Build Mixed-Use Tower in North Sydney

After recently completing the development of AURA by Aqualand, Australia-based Aqualand Australia ("Aqualand") has lodged a request with local governing bodies for permission to build a 40-storey mixed-use development at the site of an existing commercial building in 132 Arthur Street, North Sydney. The planned development will include a 240-key hotel spanning twelve stories; and around 225 built-to-rent apartments spanning 25 stories above the hotel. The development will also include food and beverage options on the ground floor, as well as a hotel lobby and conference space. The property will be situated close to the existing North Sydney Metro Station, and the upcoming Victoria Cross Metro Station slated to open in August 2024.

Bangkok Airways is Developing Koh Samui Infrastructure to Attract more Tourists

Thailand-based airline Bangkok Airways PLC ("Bangkok Airways") has announced plans to expand its Koh Samui Airport over the next two to three years with an investment of THB 1.5 billion. Four boarding gates and ten additional check-in counters will be added to the airport. The shopping area of the airport will also be enlarged. Furthermore, Bangkok Airways has expressed interest in bidding for the construction and ownership of two new projects on Koh Samui: a cruise terminal and a sea airport. While a feasibility study is required before commitment, Bangkok Airways has stated that the projects align with the airlines interests in expansion and attracting tourists to the island.

About HVS

HVS is the world's leading consulting and valuation services organization focused on the hotel, restaurant, shared ownership, gaming, and leisure industries. Established in 1980, the company performs more than 4,500 assignments per year for virtually every major industry participant. HVS principals are regarded as the leading professionals in their respective regions of the globe. Through a worldwide network of over 50 offices staffed by 300 experienced industry professionals, HVS provides an unparalleled range of complementary services for the hospitality industry. For further information regarding our expertise and specifics about our services, please visit www.hvs.com.
Over the past few years, sustainability in the hospitality industry has become a crucial factor used not only for conserving the natural environment but strategically for improving financial performance. Hotels have realized the many benefits of sustainable operations and are extensively adopting technologies that lead in that direction. While sustainability initiatives may incur initial costs, the long-term benefits of cost savings, brand reputation, and attracting eco-conscious consumers make them highly worthwhile hotel investments. This article focuses on the economic benefits that come with the adoption of sustainable practices in the hotel industry.

Cost Savings from Reduced Energy and Water Usage

One of the most prevalent benefits of sustainable hotel practices is saving costs. Changing light bulbs to ones that consume less energy, changing heaters to more efficient types, and installing low-flow faucets and showerheads are examples of how utility costs can decrease in hotels. The adoption of energy-efficient lighting systems uses less electricity to provide enough light to meet its purpose, reducing electricity bills. Likewise, contemporary HVAC systems employed for efficiency avoid both heating and cooling costs. Also, water-efficient devices like low-flow toilets and faucets are installed, thus leading to a reduction in the hotel's water bills. These practices collectively reduce costs, leading to an increased profit-to-expense ratio.

Research points out a significant reduction in the use of resources in big hotels globally. The numbers show that sustainable practices are capable of cutting energy use by 78%, water usage by 20-30%, and decrease in CO2 by 81%1. Further research shows that 3-9% of the operational budget is used on energy, 4% of running costs is used on water, and 2.3% of annual turnover is spent on waste management by hotels globally2. The figures imply hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent annually. Simple calculations show that reducing the consumption of these resources can save much for companies, providing capital to keep operations running seamlessly or for expansion purposes.

Improved Brand Reputation

Another apparent benefit of suitable practice in hotels is improved brand reputation. Customers have become more conscious of engaging with businesses that have sustainable business practices. This shift in consumer perception is attributable to increasing consciousness of the impacts of environmental degradation and a yearning to associate with environmentally-conscious companies3. Hotel organizations that adapt to sustainability initiatives also meet this consumer demand and build a favorable brand image. Consumers are willing to spend their time and money at environmentally friendly hotels, thus enhancing brand recognition and referrals. This can lead to higher occupancy levels and the possibility of charging higher room prices than similar establishments that do not prioritize sustainability.

Attracting a More Extensive Customer Base

Nowadays, travelers who consider themselves sustainable always search for eco-friendly and socially conscious accommodations. These travelers look for hotels and accommodations that echo sustainability principles like energy efficiency, water conservation, and community engagement. By communicating their sustainability practices, hotels can target a larger market segment comprising those willing to spend more on green hotels. This strategic focus not only helps to extend the hotel market segment but also to gain a competitive advantage in meeting the new demands of the traveling population. Therefore, sustainable practices protect the natural environment, making the hotel more attractive to a broad pool of moral consumers looking for socially responsible accommodation.

Escape Fines and Legal Suits

Hotels should develop sustainable solutions to meet growing legislation demands and industry norms concerning environmental conservation. This case was experienced in 2022 when a hotel in Japan was fined heavily due to exceeding carbon emissions4. Governments and industry associations are establishing increased measures regarding energy consumption, waste disposal, and CO2 emission. The non-adherence to these regulations exposes hotels to certain legal consequences, such as fines and legal suits, which are expensive and lead to reputational loss. Furthermore, in addition to regulatory developments, the proactive approach of hotels can help market them as leaders in sustainability and attract customers and investors who share these values. Thus, as well as guaranteeing compliance, it provides an economic advantage because it helps to avoid potential risks and respond to the increasing consumer interest in sustainable performance.

Employee Satisfaction/Retention

Sustainability also improves employee satisfaction and staff turnover. Some green measures make work environments healthier and safer, making employees happier and decreasing staff turnovers. Employees who work for companies that are socially conscious of the environment are always proud of working for their employers5. This can lead to efficiency improvement in service delivery, which is healthy for business growth. Furthermore, improving staff satisfaction and retention through sustainability should decrease costs incurred from high turnover, which may comprise recruiting, hiring, and training expenses. A healthy workplace leads to reduced expenses in cases of workplace accidents and ill health. Also, increased employee morale means that there will be better performance and fewer costs incurred within the business, hence better profits.

Conclusion

The advantages of incorporating sustainability initiatives into hotel management are enormous and far-reaching. Apart from benefiting the environment, they assist in cutting operating expenses, improving the company's image, and attracting environmentally conscious consumers. With the development of the hospitality industry, sustainability is about meeting international environmental standards and the prospects for the financial sustainability of hotels in a highly competitive environment. In simple terms, using sustainably sourced products and operating through sustainable means would benefit hotel companies and the planet in the long run.

1. SiteMinder. (2024, February 13). Hotel sustainability: A full guide for hotel owners. Hospitality Net. https://www.hospitalitynet.org/explainer/4120392.html

2. Quintas, M. A., Martinez-Senra, A. I., & Garcia-Pintos, A. (2023). Is the hotel industry really committed to the environment? Answering using the business models framework. Service Business, 17(1), 395428. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-023-00522-2

3. Sujanska, L., & Nadanyiova, M. (2023). Sustainable Marketing and its Impact on the Image of the Company. Marketing I Menedzment Innovacij, 14(2), 5157. https://doi.org/10.21272/mmi.2023.2-06

4. Caradonio, J. (2022, July 19). The Hotel Industrys Big Carbon Lie. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-19/embodied-carbon-is-dirty-secret-of-hotel-industry-greenwashing-eco-ratings

5. Padmavathi, T. (2023). Does Sustainable Work Environment Influence Work Engagement, Job Satisfaction and Employee Retention? Perspectives from E-Commerce Industry. Revista de Gestao Social e Ambiental, 17(4), e03392-e03392. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372048969_
Hotel Rate Shoppers: What Are They and How Do You Pick One? - Image Credit Lighthouse

Why a rate shopper is an invaluable tool for hoteliers

Hotel revenue management has never been more challenging. The markets are unpredictable, margins are thin, and competition is fierce from both traditional hotels and short-term rentals.

Guests are also savvier than ever, looking for unique experiences and the best value.

How do you keep up?

By aligning your room rates with guest expectations and market trends.

To run a profitable hotel, you must now know exactly what your competitors are doing and whats happening across your distribution channels at all times.

Given the complex market conditions and the sheer volume of data thats needed to optimize room pricing, the only way for hoteliers to keep informed is with the help of a rate shopping tool.

What is a hotel rate shopper?

A rate shopper is a tool that automates the collection of hotel pricing data, showing how your hotels rates compare to competitors.

It allows revenue managers and commercial decision-makers to monitor and benchmark their rates across all key channels, including OTAs, brand.com and GDS - eliminating the need for manual data collection - so that they can maximize their hotels revenue and overall profitability.

By monitoring both your hotels rates and your competitors rates regularly, you will start to see trends emerge.

This will help you to implement an effective pricing strategy that is in line with market conditions and your compset.

Often hoteliers use this as part of a broader revenue management strategy or targeted towards specific periods - such as high season or low season - to ensure they always competitively price their inventory.

During local events with high demand, such as a summit or major conference, a rate shopper would help you to keep track of competitor rates and market trends, enabling you to adjust your room rates upwards quickly to meet current market conditions.

How a rate shopper helps hotels drive revenue

Using a rate shopper in hotel revenue management brings you four key benefits:

The tools to implement the right strategy at the right time to maximize profitability

Knowing how your hotel fits into your markets competitive landscape helps you make informed, effective pricing decisions that will help you seize more revenue opportunities. By using a hotel rate shopping tool, you have all the right data at your fingertips meaning that you can implement pricing strategies that reflect current market conditions, allowing for more responsive and effective yield management that maximizes revenue opportunities. A complete overview of your market and your competition

Rate shoppers present market data and competitor rates in a clear, easy-to-understand format, eliminating the need for complex Excel spreadsheets. This comprehensive view allows you to track competitors' prices and ensure rate parity across distribution channels which, in turn, protects your brands reputation and prevents unnecessary revenue leakage. Agility so you can be ahead of the pack

Instead of manually checking competitors' rates, a rate shopper provides all the market intelligence for you, freeing up time for strategy, forecasting, and analysis. This agility helps you identify and react to demand changes faster than your competitors, meaning you can be more dynamic with your pricing strategies and minimize the risk of unsold or underpriced rooms that stem from a pricing position that is out of sync with demand and market conditions. Saved time on data collection

By automating the data collection process, rate shoppers save you significant time and effort. A consolidated view of critical data on a single platform allows you to focus on improving customer satisfaction and making informed strategic decisions. In short, rate shoppers help you better understand your competitors, identify market trends early, and maximize revenue year-round.

Key boxes your hotel rate shopper should check

When selecting a rate shopper, there are several critical features and capabilities to consider to ensure you choose a tool that meets your needs.

1) Data quality, quantity and diversity

The goal of using a rate shopper is to provide more and higher quality data than you could collect manually. No good decisions can come from second-rate data, so prioritizing the quality, quantity, and diversity of the data your tool offers is essential.

Continuous access to live data Todays market is fast-paced. Having continuous access to real-time data is crucial. Many rate shoppers still only offer market snapshots once or twice a day, which isn't sufficient to stay competitive. The best rate shoppers provide real-time data updates, allowing hoteliers to adjust their room prices promptly.

Broad data sets covering the whole market

Effective rate shoppers pull data from a wide array of booking sources, including OTAs, GDS, direct booking channels, and even short-term rental platforms like Airbnb. This ensures you get a full picture of market demand and rate evolution. The best tools integrate this diverse data into a single interface, making it easy to compare and analyze information.

High-quality, accurate information

Even vast amounts of data are useless if the information is inaccurate. High-quality rate shoppers employ advanced anomaly detection and integrity controls to ensure the data is accurate and reliable. When evaluating a rate shopper, inquire about their data validation processes.

Specific features to look for:

Real-time data updates: Ensure the rate shopper offers continuous data refreshes. Comprehensive coverage: Look for tools that gather data from OTAs, GDS, short-term rentals, and direct booking channels. Data accuracy measures: Check if the tool has robust data validation processes, including anomaly detection and integrity controls. User-friendly interface: The interface should allow easy access to and comparison of diverse data sets. Historical data analysis: Ability to analyze past data trends for better forecasting.

2) Advanced market monitoring

Always knowing where your hotel stands in the market, where your rooms are selling, and if all partners are adhering to agreements is crucial. The right rate shopper can help you do this effectively.

Shopping across distribution channels

Manually monitoring numerous distribution channels is impossible. The best rate shoppers offer extensive global connectivity, pulling data from various OTAs, GDS, and regional channels. This includes major platforms like Ctrip in China and Rakuten in Japan, as well as short-term rental sites like Airbnb. Including these diverse sources ensures you get a complete market picture.

Parity checks

Rate disparity can lead to lost revenue and customer trust. Effective rate shoppers highlight rate discrepancies across channels, allowing you to maintain rate parity and avoid losses from undercutting partners.

Specific features to look for:

Multi-channel monitoring: Ability to track rates across OTAs, GDS, regional channels, and short-term rental sites. Rate parity alerts: Notifications for rate discrepancies to maintain pricing consistency. Comprehensive connectivity: Access to both global and regional distribution channels.

3) Precise rate comparison

Gathering competitor rates helps ensure your hotel is positioned optimally and lets you understand competitor strategies. To do this effectively, your rate shopper needs to offer granular comparisons.

Refined room mapping

Apples-to-apples comparisons require refined mapping so that youre evaluating equivalent room types and rate parameters. Your rate shopper should: a) Map comparable room types : Match true equivalents despite different naming conventions b) Consider rate parameters : Account for length of stay (LOS) restrictions, inclusions (e.g., breakfast, airport pickup), meal plans, and room types.

Length of stay comparison

Many rate shoppers only compare one-night stays. For a better understanding, gather data for multiple stay lengths. This reveals strategies like long-stay offers during low seasons or minimum LOS during events, allowing you to tailor your offers.

Tracking rate evolution

To understand competitors rate strategies, track their pricing over specific dates or ranges. Analyzing pricing throughout the booking window helps determine if theyre winning business.

Flexible compsets

Markets change quickly, and your compset may not remain the same year-round. The best rate shoppers allow you to update your compset as needed, whether by season, proximity, or targeted competitors. This flexibility ensures you stay competitive in dynamic markets.

Specific features to look for:

Accurate room mapping: Precise room type comparisons. Comprehensive rate parameters: Include LOS, inclusions, and meal plans. Multiple LOS comparisons: Data for various stay lengths. Rate evolution tracking: Analyze competitor pricing over time. Flexible comp sets: Update as market conditions change.

4) Access and integrations

Breaking down silos in the hotel industry is crucial for fostering communication and collaboration across departments. The right rate shopper can facilitate this, leading to more effective promotions, increased sales, and boosted revenue.

Logins for all commercial teams

Rate shoppers are primarily used by the revenue team, but sales and marketing also benefit from access to market data and booking trends. The best tools present information clearly, making it valuable for all teams. Shared access enables collaboration on strategies.

Integration with other revenue tools

A rate shopper's effectiveness is limited if it functions in isolation. Top-quality rate shoppers integrate with other systems by pushing data from your Revenue Management System (RMS) and pulling data from your PMS. This ensures smooth data flow, reducing manual data extraction and report formatting.

5) Customer support

Even with the best tech tool, youll occasionally need assistance. Quick, helpful responses from your provider are essential since revenue management is time-sensitive and delays can cost money. You are in the hotel industry, renowned for extraordinary guest service. You should expect no different from your tech provider.

Key aspects of quality customer support

Fast response times: Look for providers that offer rapid support to resolve issues quickly. Proactive assistance: The best providers proactively monitor for issues and reach out to prevent downtime. Comprehensive support: Ensure access to a knowledgeable support team available whenever you need them. Training and resources: Providers should offer training and resources to help you make the most of their tools.

3 top hotel rate shoppers to kickstart your search

With more and more rate shopping solutions to choose from, finding a solution that suits the needs of your hotel can be overwhelming. To help get you started, here are three options to consider.

1) Rate Insight by Lighthouse

Serving over 65,000 hotels across 185 countries, Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight) is the leading commercial platform in the hospitality industry. It stands out as the sole provider of real-time hotel and short-term rental data on a single platform.

Through its suite of market intelligence, business intelligence, and pricing tools, Lighthouse simplifies complex datasets, enabling commercial teams to make quick, confident decisions that boost revenue.

For the fourth consecutive year, Lighthouses rate shopper, Rate Insight, has been ranked the number one Rate Shopping and Market Intelligence solution in the Hotel Tech Report Awards.

Key features that distinguish Rate Insight from other rate shopping solutions include:

360-degree competitor visibility: Collects 2 billion daily data points from 300,000 hotels and 19+ million short-term rentals. The data is presented through an easy-to-use dashboard, significantly reducing the time needed to arrive at a decision.

Data accuracy : Advanced anomaly detection and automated integrity control ensure access to accurate, complete, and reliable data, all in one place without switching systems.

Comprehensive market monitoring : Provides global channel coverage, including OTAs, GDS, and short-term rentals, providing a complete market view. It includes event and holiday calendars, online reputation data, and highlights rate disparities.

Detailed rate comparison : To fully understand your pricing competitiveness, Rate Insight provides granular comparisons by room type and rate parameters, multiple stay lengths, and updates competitive sets as needed to offer a comprehensive overview of long-term pricing and promotional strategies.

Exceptional customer support: Fast, proactive customer service with an industry-leading CSAT score ensures users can manage and optimize pricing strategies confidently.

2) Rate Navigator by RateGain

RateGain provides SaaS solutions for the travel and hospitality sectors, serving over 3,200 customers and 700 partners in more than 100 countries.

It processes large volumes of transactions, price points, and travel intent data to support revenue management, distribution, and marketing across various travel industries. Rate Navigator helps hoteliers analyze rate trends, identify pricing strategies, and gain insights into the competitive landscape.

3) RevenueStrategy360 by Amadeus

Amadeus is a global travel technology firm operating in over 190 countries, supplying software solutions for airlines, hotels, airports, and travel agencies.

It offers search, booking, and payment processing services and operates a global distribution system. RevenueStrategy360 is Amadeus's business intelligence solution, and provides forward-looking, on-the-books business data alongside real-time pricing data to support hoteliers in their pricing and revenue management efforts.

Compare leading rate shoppers to ensure you invest in the right tool for your hotel

Choosing the right rate shopper for your hotel is crucial for optimizing your pricing strategy. Focus on your specific needs and the features that matter most. Compare capabilities and customer support, and read customer stories for real-world insights.

While many rate shoppers promise reliable information, they often lack live data and real-time competitor insights vital for making the best decisions. For genuine user experiences, check reviews on Hotel Tech Report.

Rate Insight, the industry's leading rate shopping tool, stands out with its real-time data. It allows you to see competitors current, past, and future rates, helping you spot trends, parity issues, and pricing strategies.

With detailed room type mapping and insights into hidden competitors like short-term rentals, Rate Insight provides a comprehensive view of your rates and market, enabling you to make smarter pricing decisions quickly and confidently.

Ready to take control of your pricing strategy? Start with a free trial of Rate Insight and discover why its consistently the top choice for hoteliers.

About Lighthouse

Lighthouse (formerly OTA Insight) is the leading commercial platform for the travel & hospitality industry. We transform complexity into confidence by providing actionable market insights, business intelligence, and pricing tools that maximize revenue growth. We continually innovate to deliver the best platform for hospitality professionals to price more effectively, measure performance more efficiently, and understand the market in new ways.

Trusted by over 65,000 hotels in 185 countries, Lighthouse is the only solution that provides real-time hotel and short-term rental data in a single platform. We strive to deliver the best possible experience with unmatched customer service. We consider our clients as true partners - their success is our success.
OpenAI Announces SearchGPT, Its AI-powered Search Engine

Excerpt from The Verge

The Google and Perplexity rival will be available as a prototype in limited release, with plans to eventually build it into ChatGPT.

OpenAI is announcing its much-anticipated entry into the search market, SearchGPT, an AI-powered search engine with real-time access to information across the internet.

The search engine starts with a large textbox that asks the user What are you looking for? But rather than returning a plain list of links, SearchGPT tries to organize and make sense of them. In one example from OpenAI, the search engine summarizes its findings on music festivals and then presents short descriptions of the events followed by an attribution link.

In another example, it explains when to plant tomatoes before breaking down different varieties of the plant. After the results appear, you can ask follow-up questions or click the sidebar to open other relevant links. Theres also a feature called visual answers, but OpenAI didnt get back to The Verge before publication on exactly how this works.

An example of SearchGPT query. Image: OpenAI

SearchGPT is just a prototype for now. The service is powered by the GPT-4 family of models and will only be accessible to 10,000 test users at launch, OpenAI spokesperson Kayla Wood tells The Verge. Wood says that OpenAI is working with third-party partners and using direct content feeds to build its search results. The goal is to eventually integrate the search features directly into ChatGPT.

Click here to read complete article at The Verge.

Click here to read complete article at The Verge.
Government Briefs: Healey Signs Gun Law

Healey Signs Law Targeting 3-D, Ghost Guns

Gov. Maura T. Healey signed Thursday into law An Act Modernizing Firearms Laws (H.4885), which cracks down on ghost guns (homemade weapons that do not have a serial number and thus are untraceable) and guns made with a 3-D printer.

The bill was passed by the Legislature as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which many believe weakened states' ability to protect their residents through gun safety laws.

The bill modernizes Massachusetts' existing firearms laws to address issues such as untraceable "ghost guns" and 3-D printed guns, enhance the "Red Flag Law," further protect safety in public spaces and increase violence prevention programming in the state.

As attorney general, Healey was a strong advocate for stricter regulation of ghost guns and 3-D guns.

"Massachusetts is proud of our strong gun laws, but there is always more work to be done to keep our communities safe from violence. This legislation updates our firearms laws in response to the Supreme Court's misguided Bruen decision," the governor said. "It cracks down on ghost guns and 3-D printed weapons, which I have long advocated for, enhances our ability to prevent guns from falling into dangerous hands, and invests in our communities to address the root causes of violence. This law will save lives, and I'm grateful to the Legislature and gun safety advocates for their hard work to see this through."

Governor Changes Emergency Shelter Rules

The Healey-Driscoll administration is announcing changes to its Emergency Assistance (EA) prioritization and safety-net sites for families experiencing homelessness. These changes are intended to address the system's continuing capacity constraints, lower costs, and protect the financial sustainability of the EA system. Beginning Aug. 1, families will be prioritized for placement in EA shelters if they are homeless because of a no-fault eviction or because of sudden or unusual circumstances in Massachusetts beyond their control, such as a flood or fire, or if they have at least one member who is a veteran. Families will continue to be prioritized if they have significant medical needs, newborn children, are at risk of domestic violence, or are homeless because of fire, flood, or other disasters. Families who are not prioritized for placement in EA shelters will be eligible to stay at a "temporary respite center" for up to five days. On Aug. 1, the state's safety-net sites in Chelsea, Lexington, Cambridge and Norfolk will be transitioned to temporary respite centers. Norfolk is the newest of these sites and is nearing capacity. The administration will not be opening additional respite center sites due to operational and financial constraints.

Families who choose to stay at a temporary respite center will be required to wait six months or more for placement in the states emergency family shelter system.

Markey Calls for Expansion of Supreme Court

U.S. Sen. Edward Markey is pushing legislation he authored in 2021 that would expand the Supreme Court by four seats, matching the 13 Courts of Appeals. The number of justices has been set by Congress and has varied over the nation's history. There have been nine justices since 1869.

"When the Court issued the Dobbs decision, I warned that it was a preview of coming atrocities. In the Court's 2023 term, they began to arrive," said Markey. "The Court's recent decisions on presidential immunity, Chevron deference, and overturning Roe v. Wade laid bare that a far-right, extremist majority has been fully captured and plunged the Court into a crisis of confidence and legitimacy. Because we can no longer trust the current Supreme Court to uphold the words engraved on the outside of the Supreme Court  Equal Justice Under the Law  we must fight to return balance and legitimacy to this institution and expand the Court."

The normally staid court has been caught up in scandals including failure of some justices to declare expensive gifts and trips and the actions of some spouses.

Markey was joined at a press conference in Washington on Thursday by U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia, ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet and lead House sponsor of the legislation.
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

Ryan Reynolds has shared he originally wanted to film Deadpool & Wolverine under the disguise of a terrible fake movie.

The third installment of the Deadpool franchise, which released on Friday, July 26, sees the return of Reynolds, 47, as the loudmouth antihero alongside Hugh Jackmans bearded mutant.

Both Reynolds and Jackman, 55, made a recent appearance on the popular YouTube series Hot Ones, where they spoke about harmful movie leaks.

Im shocked that we managed to get through this without some of our biggest surprises ending up  even being hypothesized  online. But, man, its hard to keep a secret, Reynolds said.

The original idea with this movie was to shoot a fake movie called Alpha Cop, that was intentionally bad, he explained. I even had one of the posters made. It was about two guys who were sharing one brain and together they make the ultimate cop.

Reynolds revealed the tagline for the movie was: Two cops, one brain, all balls, with the idea being that he and Jackman would lead the fake movie, Alpha Cop, while they shot Deadpool & Wolverine in secret. Yet, then, while promoting the former, audiences would get the surprise of a lifetime when it was unveiled that the movie was actually Deadpool & Wolverine.

It was meant to be kind of, like, horrible, the Free Guy star said of the fake movie. Like 10 people in America would go to see this movie on opening weekend and five minutes into the movie the Marvel logo would flip up and it would actually be Deadpool & Wolverine.

He said that the problem would have been that if you managed to get down to the last minute and it got blown, it would just be heartbreaking.

It would be really unfortunate for the people who really wanted to see Alpha Cop, too, you know, host Sean Evans joked.

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

open image in gallery Ryan Reynolds revealed his original plan for Deadpool & Wolverine was to film it under the disguise of a horrible, fake movie (  2024 20th Century Studios /  and  2024 MARVEL. )

Jackman chimed in to give an example of a bad leak, recalling the notorious moment 2009s X-Men Origins: Wolverine was leaked online a week before it was scheduled to premiere.

In fact, I think its the only case where someone has been prosecuted and gone to jail for a leak, the Australian actor said. It was a rough, rough [cut] and it was leaked maybe a week before we came out, and I think I remember someone saying, I think its up to 10 million people have seen it already before we came out.

In 2011, Gilberto Sanchez was convicted of piracy and sentenced to one year in federal prison after he admitted to illegally uploading a nearly final workprint copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine to the internet.

Directed by Shawn Levy, Deadpool & Wolverine has received mixed reviews from critics.

While The Independents Clarisse Loughrey found it to be a tedious and annoying corporate merger of a film, in her two-star review, Variety called the bromance an irreverent send-off to Foxs X-Men movies.

Deadpool & Wolverine is out in theaters now.
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

I Am Legend 2 producer and writer Akiva Goldsman has clarified how Will Smiths character will appear in the sequel.

The original 2007 zombie horror, directed by Francis Lawrence, follows Smith as Robert Neville, a US Army virologist and the last surviving human New Yorker who spends his days trying to find a cure for a virus that wiped out humanity.

Since the follow-up was announced in 2022, fans have speculated how Neville could reappear after he sacrificed himself to save mankind.

However, in a famous alternate ending that was included in the DVD extras, Robert abandons his research and heads off in search of a survivors colony.

Were sequelizing the alternative cut, Goldsman confirmed during Colliders Producers on Producing panel at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday (July 25). Where Will lives and things dont go well for humanity.

The world returns in a way that is kind of spectacular  an exciting playground for all of us  not your fathers I Am Legend, Goldsman teased.

Michael B Jordan (Creed) will join Smith in the sequel, it was announced in 2022.

open image in gallery Will Smith will be joined by Michael B Jordan for I Am Legend 2 ( Warner Bros )

Were still working on the script and getting that up to par, he told People magazine last month. It doesnt have a release date or anything like that. Im not sure exactly where were going to be filming that one, but Im really excited to get in front of the camera with him [Smith].

Jordan said Smith is somebody that Ive looked up to for a really long time, [so] to be able to work with Will is something Im really looking forward to. Im really excited.

Last year, Goldsman said he was taking inspiration from HBOs wildly successful zombie series, The Last of Us.

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

Im obsessed with The Last of Us, where we see the world just post-apocalypse but also after a 20-to-30-year lapse, he told Deadline. You see how the earth reclaims the world, and theres something beautiful in the question of, as man steps away from being the primary tenant, what happens?

That will be especially visual in New York. I dont know if theyll climb up to the Empire State Building, but the possibilities are endless.

The film was adapted from author Richard Mathesons 1954 novel of the same name.

What Matheson was talking about was that mans time on the planet as the dominant species had come to an end, Goldsman said.

Thats a really interesting thing were going to get to explore. There will be a little more fidelity to the original text.
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 selection of familiar ex-Marvel faces have made an appearance at Comic-Con 2024 in San Diego to celebrate the release of Deadpool & Wolverine.

The film is the third instalment in the Deadpool movie franchise, and sees Ryan Reynolds unite with Hugh Jackman, who is returning as the X-Men character Wolverine alongside a glut of cameos from characters across the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and beyond.

*Spoilers follow  you have been warned*

Captain America star Chris Evans, 43, came out as a surprise guest at the Deadpool & Wolverine panel at the convention on Thursday night (25 July), after it was revealed the star had made a shock cameo as his Fantastic Four character, Johnny Storm, who he last played 17 years ago.

Elektra actor Jennifer Garner, 52, also attended the panel alongside Dafne Keen, Channing Tatum and Wesley Snipes who joined Deadpool & Wolverine stars Jackman, Reynolds and Emma Corrin, director Shawn Levy, and Marvel president Kevin Feige, on stage for the post-screening chat.

Garner stepped out in support of the film as she has also resurrected her Marvel character, who she last played in 2005, for a special appearance in Deadpool & Wolverine.

Elsewhere, Tatum surprised fans by featuring in the film as the X-Men character Gambit, who he was cast as for a solo movie many years ago, which was cancelled before reaching production.

Snipes also stepped back into a familiar role for the film, appearing as his trilogys titular character Blade, who he played in Blade, Blade II and Blade: Trinity  released between 1998 and 2004.

open image in gallery Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in Deadpool & Wolverine ( 20th Century Studios )

Meanwhile, Keens appearance came as no surprise to fans after the return of her X-23 character from the 2017 film Logan was revealed in Deadpool & Wolverines final trailer a week before its theatrical release.

The myriad of returning ex-Marvel characters in Deadpool & Wolverine comes after the films executive producer Wendy Jacobson suggested there may or may not have been some subterfuge and misdirections on the internet or in-person in order to protect the secrecy of actors who would be cameoing in Deadpool & Wolverine.

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

Speaking to GamesRadar+, she said I can neither confirm nor deny any cameos in this film but I will say, in terms of characters that may or may not appear, it was always important to us that nothing in this movie feels like a gimmick.

Anyone showing up has a crucial story purpose or a beginning, middle, and end as a character arc. It was definitely a collaborative process of seeing who fit in and who didnt.

open image in gallery Jackman in Deadpool & Wolverine ( AP )

Ahead of its release, a trailer for the movie broke records, racking up 365 million views in 24 hours.

However, The Independents Clarisse Loughrey was left unimpressed by the film, calling it a tedious and annoying corporate merger of a film, and assigning it a paltry two stars.

Its a marvel just how desperate this film is, quipped The Telegraph, seconding Loughrey, and providing it an even lower and very lonely one star.

Meanwhile,Variety called the bromance an irreverent send-off to Foxs X-Men movies, suggesting that the movie focuses on giving fans closure. Looking backwards, the film works best as an irreverent homage to whats come before, as opposed to the prototype for future superhero movies.
Sign up to Roisin OConnors free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free 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

Roisin OConnors email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

Can you feel the spirit? Bruce Springsteen yowls with preacher-like fervour as Spirit in the Night sets out once more on its wild Saturday night down on Gypsy angel row with G-man, Killer Joe and that temptress Crazy Janey. Its a sleaze rock rumble from Springsteens 1973 debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ, but over 50 years later, in the hands of a 74-year-old veteran of blue-collar heartland anthems, that spirit remains miraculously undimmed.

He may have made his hat-tipping covers albums (The Seeger Sessions in 2006; 2022s soul and R&B set Only the Strong Survive) and his reflective record about death and ageing (2020s Letter to You). He might have penned his autobiography, had his Broadway show and flogged his catalogue for hundreds of millions. He may even have had to cancel shows on this two-year world tour due to peptic ulcer issues that threatened to rob him of his singing voice for good. All markers on the last few miles of the rock legend road. But as Springsteen  in waistcoat and tie but with sleeves rolled up for the evenings real business  clocks in at a party-ready Wembley for another three-hour shift of blazing, hi-octane rocknroll, theres no sign of the wear and tear dogging other such Sixties and Seventies greats. He roars and gnashes and stomps and sweats every bit as hard as the runaway rebel rocker of Born to Run ever did, foot still firmly on the gas. Hes just grown into the new figurehead of what  if Iggy and Mick can keep it up too  theyll soon be calling Gramps Power.

Hun, hoo, hee, haw, Springsteen grunts, and the E Street Band blast into Lonesome Day, a cut from 2002s The Rising. Its a song that encapsulates both the fullness and gleam of his post-millennial work, as well as the way hes continually bolstered and rejuvenated his prime setlist canon to move nimbly on from any one particular albatross era. That Wrecking Ball and gospel rocker The Rising have become such crowd-pleasers, for instance, allows him to skip Born in the USA and The River tonight and know therell be a short queue for refunds.

Of the opening hour, only thunderclap anthem No Surrender and Hungry Heart could be considered classic Springsteen hits, but even his relative rarities are made of showstopping stuff. Seeds, a track left off the 1984 Born in the USA album, is resurrected as maximal roadhouse rock, Springsteen wrenching a solo from his guitar like cast iron from a furnace. The 2020 single Ghosts may be a tribute to lost rock brothers like E Street legends Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici (By the end of the set we leave no-one alive! Springsteen bawls) but its built on a very tangible, tumbling melody. Even stark Nebraska tracks Atlantic City and Reason to Believe are beefed up into canyon rock powerhouses, the latter now bearing more than a passing resemblance to Norman Greenbaums Spirit in the Sky.

Springsteen performing in July ( Magnus Lejhall/TT/Shutterstock )

When Springsteen hails his 18-strong backing band as the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, booty-shaking, love-making, earth-quaking, Viagra-taking, death-defying, legendary E Street Band!, he undersells them. Other bands might match their musicianship and chemistry, but none deliver such unified power and joyous character. On Youngstown, a Celtic devil blues from The Ghost of Tom Joad describing the demise of an Ohio steel town  one of many latter-era songs that have helped Springsteen brush Bob Dylans hem as a historical chronicler of the great American dilemma  guitarist Nils Lofgren pulls out a solo straight from the crossroads. A spartan Racing in the Street blooms into a virtuosic piano solo from Roy Bittan, and saxophonist Jake Clemons summons goosebumps of glory during Thunder Road as easily as his iconic uncle ever did. Springsteen himself acts as the front edge of a hurricane, and its friendly face too. During the righteous gospel blast of The Promised Land he spots a sign in the crowd offering a live proposal in return for his harmonica, beckons the happy couple to the barriers and hands over his harp like a papal blessing. Theres not a dry ironic Eighties sweatband in the house.

This is also the case when Springsteens septuagenarian cracks inevitably start to show. When Letter to You finds Gramps Power (see?) in lines of wisdom and reflection, or when he introduces Last Man Standing  played with force and fragility  with a background story about being the only surviving member of his first band The Castiles since the death of his bandmate George Theiss in 2018.

As you get older the presence of death becomes a clarity, he says. Grief is the price that we pay for having loved well. Then comes Backstreets, a stirring Born to Run song with a new spoken-word segment detailing, perhaps, the mementos Springsteen has of Theiss: an old box of 45s; a jacket; a Silvertone guitar; a photo from a wedding day. These are the things I can hold in my hands, he says, tapping his chest, and the rest of you Im gonna carry right here, until it ends.

Springsteen shows and endings, of course, are mortal enemies. After three hours of crowd-lifters and curveballs  howsabout when he turned Wembley into a stadium-sized Soul Train with an authentic cover of the Commodores Nightshift?  the encore refuses to quit. Following all-guns-blazing versions of Badlands, Bobby Jean, Dancing in the Dark and Born to Run  played with all the house lights up  the signature E Street blow-out Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out bleeds into a raucous Twist and Shout wherein everybody in band and crowd reaches a mutual agreement to ignore the curfew and anyone who tries to enforce it. For a finale, Springsteen reappears with an acoustic guitar to gently insist death is not the end on afterlife ballad Ill See You in My Dreams. On this evidence, though, when the time comes, hell surely convince the Reaper to kick back for one more tune, air-soloing on his scythe.
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

Independence Day director Roland Emmerich was shocked by Anthony Hopkinss interest in his new gladiator TV series.

Hopkins plays Vespasian, the last in the Year of the Four Emperors (69AD), in Emmerichs new Peacock series, Those About to Die.

Speaking at a panel on Thursday (July 25) at San Diego Comic-Con, the director was asked what it was like pitching a TV series to the Welsh acting legend.

We sent him the scripts and he literally said, Yes. He was the first guy that we actually wrote to and I was totally surprised that he was that interested! Emmerich said to laughs from the audience.

However, he added that the Silence of the Lambs star is a keen ancient historian, which may explain his interest in the role.

When we were on the set, he knew so much about Rome and was such an intelligent man. Naturally, that [must have been why] he wanted to be in a series like that, Emmerich said.

open image in gallery Anthony Hopkins plays Emperor Vespasian in Roland Emmerichs Those About to Die ( PEACOCK )

Jojo Macari (Sex Education), who plays Vespasians son Domitian in the series, then spoke about his intimidating first day acting across from the Oscar-winner.

I cant believe they put me in a room with him, he said laughing. You talk about bucket list experiences, that is a bloomin big one.

My first day with Tony, I was standing there in my toga, sweating in a big way, like what the hell am I going to say with Anthony Hopkins.

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

Macari said Hopkins arrived surrounded by an entourage who he then shrugged off to introduce himself: Jojo? Tony, hows it going? Macaria claims Hopkins then gave him a fist bump and said respect, drawing more laughs from the panel attendees.

He just had so much fun, Macari added. The big lesson about working with Anthony, because hes a serious actor and a heavyweight, is that hes having a great time all day, every day. Hes playing the whole time and he makes you feel great. It fills you with confidence doing a scene with him. Very, very good vibes.

Those About to Die explores a side of Rome never told before: the dirty business of entertaining the masses who crave blood and sport, an official logline reads.

The cast also includes Game of Thrones star Iwan Rheon as Tenax, Tom Hughes as Titus Flavianus, Sara Martins as Cala, Gabriella Pession as Antonia and Johannes Haukur Johannesson as Viggo.

The series, inspired by the nonfiction book of the same name by Daniel P Mannix, is written by Robert Rodat, who was nominated for an Oscar for writing Saving Private Ryan.

In her three-star review of the show for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey wrote: Hopkins earns his pay cheque with a rather lacklustre performance as the sage Vespacian.

History nerds will find much to quibble with in the depiction of the Flavian dynasty. Ultimately, Those About to Die is not really for those people whose Roman Empire is the Roman Empire. It is for people who want the ancient world, where the stakes of sex and violence were far lower than the present day, to give licence to something primal, something carnal, in them. Emmerich doesnt do subtle, and so Those About to Die is suitably, viscerally, bold.

All 10 episodes of Those About to Die are out now on Peacock in the US and Amazon Prime Video in the UK.
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 new Doctor Who spin-off is coming.

The news was announced at San Diego Comic-Con on Friday (July 26) during a panel moderated by Josh Horowitz with stars Ncuti Gatwa and Millie Gibson and showrunner Russell T Davies.

Russel Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw will lead the new spin-off series titled, The War Between the Land and the Sea.

When a fearsome and ancient species emerges from the ocean, dramatically revealing themselves to humanity, an international crisis is triggered, an official description reads. With the entire population at risk, UNIT steps into action as the land and sea wage war.

Created by Davies, the series features the return of the Sea Devils, classic Doctor Who villains first seen in 1972.

Davies said in a statement: Im so lucky to work with such a magnificent cast. And this is a huge, muscular, thrilling drama which will shake The Whoniverse to its foundations. When the Doctors not in town, the whole of humanity is in trouble.

open image in gallery Russell Tovey will star in The War Between the Land and the Sea ( Getty Images for Warner Bros )

Filming begins next month and will be directed by Dylan Holmes-Williams, director of two Doctor Who season one episodes: 73 Yards and Dot and Bubble. The series will air exclusively on Disney+ in the US and BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK.

The War Between The Land And The Sea is produced by Bad Wolf, with BBC Studios for Disney Branded Television and BBC. In addition to Davies, executive producers include Phil Collinson, Joel Collins, Julie Gardner and Jane Tranter.

Gatwa and Gibson return to Doctor Who next season and will welcome Varada Sethu (Andor) as a new companion to the Doctor. Gibson also announced that The Little Mermaid star Jonah Hauer-King will join the cast of the new season as part of Rubys story.

Elsewhere in the panel, Nicola Coughlan introduced the first trailer for the forthcoming Doctor Who Christmas special.

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

She stars as a determined woman whose life is changed forever when she meets the Doctor.

Shes an absolute star, Gatwa said of the Irish actor.

In 2022, Disney bought the international distribution rights to Doctor Who, in a deal which considerably boosted the production budget for the recent 14th season.

The deal, which some analysts have valued at $100m (80m), coincided with the return of Davies, who brought in the Sex Educations Gatwa.

However, the latest season of Doctor Who drew in almost 1.5 million fewer viewers per episode (over seven days) than the final series starring the previous Doctor, Jodie Whittaker.

In a review of the series finale, The Independents Ed Power wrote: In a recent interview with The New York Times, returning Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies said that he wanted the latest incarnation of the BBC blockbuster to reflect the positive trend among young people to express their emotions in a healthy way. This was in reference to Ncuti Gatwas teary, big-hearted Doctor  a Time Lord who isnt embarrassed to shed a tear or jig with joy.

But as Gatwas first season draws to a close with its eighth episode, the one emotion Whoivans young, old and in-between, are likely to share is the sting of anticlimax. After stringing us along since last years Christmas special with the so-called mystery of Ruby Sundays origins, the series delivers the mother of all letdowns: Rubys mum is just an ordinary person.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

The creators of legal thriller series, Presumed Innocent, have explained why they did not set up a second season in the shows finale.

Based on a novel by Scott Turow by the same name, the series follows a movie adaptation, released in 1990, starring Harrison Ford.

Executive produced by Ally McBeal creator David E Kelly, Nightcrawler star Jake Gyllenhaal and Star Wars and Star Trek director JJ Abrams, the show was initially released as a limited series.

Gyllenhaal stars as prosecutor Rusty Sabich who is accused of the murder of his colleague Carolyn Polhemus, played by Renate Reinsve, who he was also having an affair with.

Apple TV+ announced that the show would be returning for a second season on 12 June, which left fans confused when the finale dropped 12 days later and appeared to be a very final and self-contained conclusion to the storylines and characters featured throughout.

We discussed the possibility of a second season during production, but then Apple brought it up to us in post, Abrams said according to Deadline.

Expanding on the timing of renewal conversations, he explained that the first season had already been shot and completed when the team were approached about continuing the concept.

Nothing was ever shot to set up a second season. Our focus was telling the story of Carolyns murder and Rustys trial, and wrapping that up at the end of the first season, he said.

open image in gallery Gyllenhall stars as Rusty Sabich in the legal thriller ( Apple TV+ )

Its too early to talk about what might happen in Season 2, but were very excited about the possibilities we are discussing.

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

Gyllenhaal stars opposite his brother, Peter Sarsgaard, who plays his adversary, Tommy Molto. Gyllenhaal recalled finding it funny to see Sarsgaard behave seriously on set, joking tone it down in a recent interview.

The Independents chief TV critic Nick Hilton called the series a criminal misfire, giving it a meagre two stars.

Whats clear is that the streamer was shooting for something like Skys The Night Of, a brooding 2016 thriller set in the New York justice system, he concluded in his review.

But Presumed Innocent fails to be anything like it  nowhere near as shocking, sexy or satisfying. With this much investment and this much talent, such a misfire feels almost criminal.
Recollecting his experience on a jury at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France, in June, Li Chao finds it difficult not to share the groundbreaking ideas he came across at the event. He hails the award-winning works, yet feels regretful for those not awarded but presenting equally in innovative spirit and humanitarian issues.

The annual festival and awards are a get-together for those from the advertising and communication industries. Li and his team won a Bronze Cannes Lions award last year for their Alibaba Healthy Fonts Project.

The project is a pinyin-based keyboard input method automatically translating pinyin text into braille.

It is free, and accessible to everyone. All you need to do is download the font and install it, says Li, a designer and the marketing and branding vice-president of Alibaba and Ant Group Macao Pass Group who initiated the development of the font in 2022.

He says the first thought was to make it easy for, and encourage, pharmaceutical companies to add braille on medication packaging to guarantee the safe use of medications for people with visual impairments.

Li says the launch of the font garnered acclaim from teachers at the schools for visually impaired children who, with the help of the font, could add learning materials and books used at ordinary schools into their curriculum.

Product packaging with braille translated by Alibaba Healthy Fonts Project ( PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY )

In December, the font won a gold award at the eighth annual Design Intelligence Awards presented by the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

Launched in 2014, the award aims at inspiring new technology inventions and applications, products and solutions that address humanistic concerns and make life smarter. The first DIA prizes were given in 2016.

A selection of the DIA award winners, including the Alibaba Healthy Fonts Project, is on show at Gather Great Wisdom to Shape the Future of Intelligence Manufacturing held at the National Museum of China until mid-August.

The exhibition aims to raise public awareness of the role of industrial design in the improvement of the economy, social issues and environmental protection, and to gather more ideas for the countrys high-quality development. The exhibition is also a notice to those interested in applying to participate in the ninth DIA. The award ceremony will be held in December.

Lis booth spotlights the font project at the exhibition and shows how it can benefit the many needs of those with vision impairments. Packages are on display of a dozen objects necessary in daily life featuring braille, such as food delivery, hygiene products, hotel vouchers and cleaning kits, and more.

Developing the font is not technologically complicated. The packaging on display is made of white paper because we want to tell people that design doesnt have to be always eye-catching, it can be simple but important, useful and careful when it addresses the basic needs of certain disabled groups, Li says.

To serve the various needs of people with a humanistic approach has been an orientation of design, Li noticed at Cannes.

It is also the commitment of the Design Intelligence Award, according to Gao Shiming, president of the China Academy of Art.

In the decade following its launch, the award has been people-centred and oriented, advocating for kindness in design, he says.

He says the award has built connections with thousands of designers, designer groups and manufacturers around the world whose work has formed a foundation of ideas and powerful sources of creativity to promote the upgrading of industries in the digital economy and intensified integration of AI. Gao says they also inspire solutions for emerging social issues, such as public health, ecological restoration and the care of the elderly community.

We always believe that design is for the people, Gao says. The responsibility of designers is to create new life aesthetics in the digital age and the time of artificial intelligence.
Chinas supportive policies and ongoing quality upgrades in foreign trade are set to bolster economic growth throughout the year despite lingering external challenges, market watchers and business leaders say.

They made the comments as the third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China vowed to further deepen reform, including in the trade sector, and continue to expand opening-up.

According to a communique released on 18 July after the conclusion of the session, which started on 15 July, China will steadily expand opening-up, deepen foreign trade structural reform, further reform the management systems for inward and outward investment, improve planning for regional opening-up, and refine the mechanisms for high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Zhao Fujun, a foreign trade researcher at the Beijing-based Development Research Centre of the State Council, said that in recent years, protectionist moves, geopolitical rivalries and intense competition have pushed domestic manufacturers to upgrade the technical content of their products.

Many of them have also invested in new plants and warehouses in countries like Hungary and Vietnam to enhance competitiveness and mitigate risks, said Matthias Loebich, partner and leader for international business at BearingPoint, a European consultancy with more than 10,000 employees in 70 countries and regions.

China set a record for foreign trade in the first half of the year, achieving a year-on-year increase of 6.1 per cent, reaching 21.17 trillion yuan (2.25 trillion), data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

As developed countries are shifting from services spending to increased demand for goods, Chinas exports will continue to grow in the second half, said Mao Zhenhua, co-director of the Institute of Economic Research at Renmin University of China in Beijing.

Mao said that the upward global trend in technology will also benefit exports of Chinas high value-added products.

Upbeat about the Chinese market, United States-based logistics services provider FedEx launched two new cargo flights to the US from Qingdao, Shandong province, and Xiamen, Fujian province, in late June.

This is a proactive move to meet the growing demand of Chinas foreign trade and to deepen cooperation with the local market, said Koh Poh-Yian, senior vice-president of FedEx.

Yu Xiangrong, Citigroups chief economist for China, warned that in the long term, the recovery of developed economies remains uncertain, and trade policies in the US may become even more unpredictable after the 2024 US general election.

The emulation of US policies in Europe could further increase fluctuations in external demand, Yu said.
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are amazed by Jackie Chans kung fu movies. Some dream of living a life out of it. But few could realise it. Matt Jane did.

People often say you should do a movie, that would be great, but I am living the real-life version of it, thats more meaningful than making a movie, the British kung fu master said.

Jane, who is also known by his Chinese name Bailong, which means white dragon, has been on a remarkable 25-year journey with Chinese kung fu.

At 11, he watched a kung fu show called The Wheel of Life in London. Inspired by the spectacle and Chinese kung fu movies, the young Jane nurtured a dream deep within his heart  to become a Shaolin master.

When he turned 16, he went to the Shaolin temple in Henan province to learn the ancient martial art.

The journey proved to be a transformative experience for the young Briton who encountered a world that was vastly different from the life he had known back in the UK.

At 5 every morning, we would awaken and ascend a mountain, cool down on our hands and knees and practise headstands on concrete for hours on end, Jane recalled.

Although the rigorous lifestyle may seem arduous to most, Jane found immense joy in it.

Alongside the demanding training came austere living conditions.

We didnt have access to a lot of things, but we were a very happy group of people. And the idea of family was really powerful because we were able to encourage each other to train and push forward, which I also didnt feel I had much connection to in the UK growing up, reflected Jane.

Growing up in Camden in north London, Jane described himself as a lost young man with a bloated street ego and a narrow perspective on life. However, his time in China transformed him in ways he could never have imagined.

During my four-and-a-half-year stay in China, not only did I learn some incredible kung fu, but I grew from a young teenager into a man. And I experienced many different things, the learning process and the principles and morals which I would then continue into my life, which I continue to do until today, said Jane.

After living in China for almost five years, Jane, then 21, became the first and only non-Chinese Shaolin warrior to join The Wheel of Life kung fu show, the very same show he watched as an 11-year-old.

And Jane met his future wife, Chang Chun, who was also a martial arts enthusiast. In 2009, they decided to return to London when Chang became pregnant. It was during this period that Jane started to establish his kung fu school, called Temple, in London.

Nathaniel Lawrence, a 40-year-old who has been training under Jane for two years, commends his kung fu skills and the positive impact he has made on the community.

Many people have to go far away to learn such skill, so being able to have somebody within driving distance like Matt Jane is incredible, Lawrence said.

Jane said: Kung fu is a resource that allows people like myself to achieve something unique. And Im so happy to have the chance and opportunity to bring this resource to the people of London and the communities here, the local people who come from across the UK to experience this unique opportunity, to have access to a culture, which before Temple, wasnt available (here).

In order to be better connected with the people in the UK, Jane interprets kung fu in a modern way.

Not everyone wants to shave their head and become a Shaolin monk. But in reality, what we really need in kung fu is a culture called chanwuyi, and for me its not just Buddhism, kung fu and traditional Chinese medicine, its mind, exercise and nutrition, he said.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the

Breaking News email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

North Korea delivered a stinging rebuke to Donald Trump for flaunting his supposedly friendly relations with Kim Jong-un, saying we do not care about the Republican.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency ran an editorial after the former president said Washingtons relations with the East Asian country would improve if he was re-elected in November.

No matter what administration takes office in the US, the political climate, which is confused by the infighting of the two parties, does not change and, accordingly, we do not care about this, the state news agency said.

It rejected the idea that Mr Trumps first presidency had a substantial impact on US-North Korea relations, and said personal connections and diplomacy should be looked at separately.

And it said it had no interest in talking to a possible second Trump administration if all it offers are dialogue with sinister attempts and dialogue as an extension of confrontation.

Speaking at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week, Mr Trump flaunted his supposedly strong personal ties with Mr Kim and suggested the North Korean leader probably wanted him back in the White House. I think he misses me, the former president said.

Kim Jong-un with Donald Trump at the border village of Panmunjom in the Korean Demilitarized Zone in 2019 ( AP )

While acknowledging Mr Trumps attempt to improve relations during his presidency, the North Korean news agency said that it brought no substantial positive change.

Mr Kim and Mr Trump had a complicated relationship. They initially exchanged barbs, with Mr Trump threatening to unleash fire and fury after Mr Kim tested a series of nuclear weapons in 2017 and KCNA responding by calling him a dotard and his envoys gangsters.

But they went on to what seemed to be a historic diplomatic breakthrough in 2018, holding summits in Singapore and Hanoi in the next two years.

At the 2018 summit in Singapore, they signed a statement agreeing to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and improving relations.

Donald Trump shaking hands with Kim Jong-un in Hanoi in February 2019 ( AFP via Getty )

The engagement declined after the 2019 Hanoi summit ended abruptly without an agreement, mainly due to differences over sanctions relief and denuclearisation steps.

Mr Trump has claimed that he and Mr Kim had been exchanging letters and had fallen in love.

After Joe Biden took over as president from Mr Trump in early 2021, Washington deepended ties with the USs long-time allies in the region South Korea and Japan, conducting regular defensive drills in the Korean Peninsula rather than engaging directly with the Kim regime.
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 mystery pile of human bones has left many looking for answers in Japan.

Depending on who you ask, the pile of bones that have been sitting in a Tokyo repository for decades could be either leftovers from early 20th century anatomy classes, or the unburied and unidentified victims of one of the country's most notorious war crimes.

A group of activists, historians and other experts who want the government to investigate links to wartime human germ warfare experiments met over the weekend to mark the 35th anniversary of their discovery and renew a call for an independent panel to examine the evidence.

Japans government has long avoided discussing wartime atrocities, including the sexual abuse of Asian women known as comfort women and Korean forced laborers at Japanese mines and factories, often on grounds of lack of documentary proof. Japan has apologized for its aggression in Asia, since the 2010s its been repeatedly criticized in South Korea and China for backpedalling.

Around a dozen skulls, many with cuts, and parts of other skeletons were unearthed on July 22, 1989, during construction of a Health Ministry research institute at the site of the wartime Army Medical School. The schools close ties to a germ and biological warfare unit led many to suspect that they could be the remains of a dark history that the Japanese government has never officially acknowledged.

Headquartered in then-Japanese-controlled northeast China, Unit 731 and several related units injected prisoners of war with typhus, cholera and other diseases, according to historians and former unit members. They also say the unit performed unnecessary amputations and organ removals on living people to practice surgery and froze prisoners to death in endurance tests. Japans government has acknowledged only that Unit 731 existed.

Top Unit 731 officials were not tried in postwar tribunals as the U.S. sought to get ahold of chemical warfare data, historians say, although lower-ranked officials were tried by Soviet tribunals. Some of the unit's leaders became medical professors and pharmaceutical executives after the war.

A previous Health Ministry investigation said the bones couldn't be linked to the unit, and concluded that the remains were most likely from bodies used in medical education or brought back from war zones for analysis, in a 2001 report based on questioning 290 people associated with the school.

open image in gallery A power shovel is used on Feb. 21, 2011 to dig the site of a former medical school ( AP2011 )

It acknowledged that some interviewees drew connections to Unit 731. One said he saw a head in a barrel shipped from Manchuria, northern China, where the unit was based. Two others noted hearing about specimens from the unit being stored in a school building, but had not actually seen them. Others denied the link, saying the specimens could include those from the prewar era.

A 1992 anthropological analysis found that the bones came from at least 62 and possibly more than 100 different bodies, mostly adults from parts of Asia outside Japan. The holes and cuts found on some skulls were made after death, it said, but did not find evidence linking the bones to Unit 731.

But activists say that the government could do more to uncover the truth, including publishing full accounts of its interviews and conducting DNA testing.

Kazuyuki Kawamura, a former Shinjuku district assembly member who has devoted most of his career to resolving the bone mystery, recently obtained 400 pages of research materials from the 2001 report using freedom of information requests, and says it shows that the government tactfully excluded key information from witness accounts.

The newly published material doesn't contain a smoking gun, but it includes vivid descriptions  the man who described seeing a head in a barrel also described helping to handle it and then running off to vomit  and comments from several witnesses who suggested that more forensic investigation might show a link to Unit 731.

Our goal is to identify the bones and send them back to their families, said Kawamura. The bones are virtually the only proof of what happened, he says. We just want to find the truth.

Health Ministry official Atsushi Akiyama said that witness accounts had already been analyzed and factored into the 2001 report, and the government's position remains unchanged. A key missing link is a documentary evidence, such as a label on a specimen container or official records, he said.

Documents, especially those involving Japans wartime atrocities, were carefully destroyed in the wars closing days and finding new evidence for a proof would be difficult.

open image in gallery Members of a citizens group investigating the bones dug up from a wartime Imperial Army medical school site

Akiyama added that a lack of information about the bones would make DNA analysis difficult.

Hideo Shimizu, who was sent to Unit 731 in April 1945 at age 14 as lab technician and joined the meeting online from his home in Nagano, said he remembers seeing heads and body parts in formalin jars stored in a specimen room in the units main building. One that struck him most was a dissected belly with a fetus inside. He was told they were maruta  logs  a term used for prisoners chosen for experiments.

Days before Japans Aug. 15, 1945 surrender, Shimizu was ordered to collect bones of prisoners bodies burned in a pit. He was then given a pistol and a packet of cyanide to kill himself if he was caught on his journey back to Japan.

He was ordered never to tell anyone about his Unit 731 experience, never contact his colleagues, and never seek a government or medical job.

Shimizu said he cannot tell if any specimen he saw at the 731 could be among the Shinjuku bones by looking at their photos, but that what he saw in Harbin should never be repeated. When he sees his great-grandchildren, he said, they remind him of that fetus he saw and the lives lost.

I want younger people to understand the tragedy of war, he said.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

Indian police were able to arrest several suspects accused of murder after they found tattoos on the dead mans body naming individuals he believed wanted to harm him, in an eerie parallel to the Christopher Nolan film Memento.

Guru Waghmare was killed inside a spa in the Worli area of Indias financial capital of Mumbai around 3am on Wednesday. According to Worli police, Waghmare was extremely well-known to the police as an informer, reported Indian news daily Hindustan Times.

However, he also had a series of criminal cases registered against him on allegations of extortion, rape, and molestation.

According to local media reports, Waghmare was a frequent patron of the Soft Touch Spa, and had taken a few staff members to a restaurant on his birthday. After dinner ended, everyone returned to the spa and allegedly planned to spend the night there.

Police said three male staff members stepped outside around 2.30am, and two unidentified men entered the spa and fatally stabbed Waghmare several times.

The incident took place in the middle of the night but police were informed only at 2pm after which a team was sent to the spot and a case of murder was registered, said a senior police officer, reported Indian news daily The Indian Express.

While conducting an autopsy, the police found the names of 22 individuals on his thigh, as people who were likely responsible if anything unfortunate were to happen to him  in a manner similar to Nolans 2000 psychological thriller. Memento follows Leonard Shelby (Pearce), a man with short-term memory loss who uses photographs, notes, and tattoos in an attempt to uncover his wifes murderer.

Santosh Sherekar, the owner of the spa in which the murder took place, as well as another spa owner named Mohamed Firoz Ansari were arrested.

The deceased, RTI activist Guru Waghmare, would threaten and extort money from spa owners in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane. Likewise, he harassed spa owners in neighbouring states as well due to which there are about eight FIRs and 22 non-cognisable offences registered against him, a senior police officer told The Indian Express.

Mr Sherekar was allegedly being extorted by Waghmare, and Mr Ansaris spa had been shut down after a raid in 2023. Mr Ansari had refused to pay Waghmare, who then made a complaint to the police leading to the raid, the police said.

The two men decided to work together and allegedly hired a contract killer named Sakib, from the Indian capital Delhi, and offered him Rs400,000 (3,712) for the job, police said.

CCTV footage from the spa as well as the restaurant helped police put together the sequence of events. The police found two men, who tried to hide their identity by wearing a raincoat, following Waghmare from the restaurant to the bar, but then noticed that they also stopped to buy something from a small shop nearby.

An investigation revealed that the payment was made by UPI, and the account linked to the payment belonged to Mr Ansari. The police were able to track Mr Ansari down to his home, where he allegedly confessed to the crime and named his accomplices.

Mr Sakib, who had left the city by train the night of the murder, was found and arrested from a station in Kota, a city in the North Indian state of Rajasthan. Two more people with him, also suspects, have been arrested.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails 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

Bangladeshs prime minister Sheikh Hasina is under fire for shedding crocodile tears over damage caused to a railway station during a protest against her government that left more than 150 people dead.

Ms Hasina was seen wiping away tears in pictures taken during her visit to a metro station in Mirpur, as social media users lambasted her for what they saw as her apparent lack of empathy for the victims of violence.

Police fired rubber bullets, released teargas, and threw sound-grenades in an effort to disperse tens of thousands of protesters who came out onto the streets to rail against job quotas. The government denied that any live rounds had been fired, but hospital sources said dead and injured people had wounds from bullets and shotgun pellets.

Rights groups and critics accuse Ms Hasina of becoming increasingly autocratic during her 15 years in power. They say her time in office has been marked by mass arrests of political opponents and activists, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings. She denies all of these charges.

What kind of mentality leads them to destroy facilities that make peoples lives easier? the leader was quoted as saying by the Business Standard during her visit to Mirpur.

Dhaka city was clogged with traffic. The metro rail offered respite. I cannot accept the destruction of this transport facility made with modern technology, she said of the station, where ticket vending machines and signalling control stations had been shattered.

open image in gallery Prime minister Sheikh Hasina weeps during a visit to a metro station in Mirpur vandalised by students during the anti-quota protest ( Bangladesh Prime Ministers Office )

open image in gallery Hasina views the damage that was caused to the metro station in Mirpur during the protest ( Bangladesh Prime Ministers Office )

The prime minister also toured a damaged section of Bangladesh Television (BTV), as she accused the protesters of trying to spoil Bangladeshs image abroad.

Calling on the public to help the government find those responsible for the vandalism, she said: Please help us find those who are involved, no matter what nook or cranny of the country they are in, and bring them to justice.

Bangladeshi news portal BDNews24 quoted her as saying: I say to citizens and Dhaka residents  those who are responsible for this suffering and destruction, who are today spoiling Bangladeshs image abroad  I leave to you the responsibility of bringing them to justice.

The people must be the ones to bring those who create obstacles to the livelihoods of the public to justice, because the only power in the country is the power of the people.

open image in gallery Hasina has called on the public to find those responsible for the vandalism and bring them to justice ( Bangladesh Prime Ministers Office )

Alleging that the protesters were spreading disinformation, she said: Do not allow them to stir unrest by spreading fake propaganda. Everyone must know the truth. They are still making calls from London, trying to ruin the countrys honour and stir up expatriates around the world.

On Thursday, as she toured the sites that had been damaged during the protest, lamenting the vandalism and the impact on public infrastructure, social media users expressed outrage over her comments.

open image in gallery The charred remains of state broadcaster Bangladesh Television are pictured after students set it on fire during the anti-quota protest in Dhaka on Wednesday ( AFP via Getty )

We lost 200+ students. Students who are called the future of a nation. Students who were only fighting for their own rights, wrote a user on X/Twitter. But PM Sheikh Hasina had the time to go watch and cry for a metro rail, not for the people who wont return ever again.

It was the funniest thing I saw yesterday! Lmao she deserves an award for acting this hard and shedding crocodile tears!!!! wrote another user.

The protests began after students took to the streets demanding an end to a quota system that reserves up to 30 per cent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladeshs war of independence against Pakistan in 1971.

The demonstrations began late last month, but tensions escalated last week when students at Dhaka University, the countrys largest university, clashed with police, and a counterprotest inflamed the situation. The students alleged that the protest was peaceful until the student wing of the ruling Awami League party attacked the protesters.

Badiul Alam Majumdar, the secretary of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik, a Dhaka-based civil society platform for good governance, said the protests were just the tip of the iceberg and that the use of force against students will breed further resentment against Ms Hasinas government.

People are being deprived of their basic rights, with a significant lack of human rights and justice. They cant cast their votes freely, he said. This widespread frustration and anger among the people is evident in the protests.
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

Taiwan was struggling to rescue dozens of sailors off the southern coast after Typhoon Gaemi sank a freighter and grounded eight others in the Taiwan Strait.

At least 79 crew members were still awaiting rescue on eight freighters that were stranded, the Taiwanese coast guard said. But rough weather and rainfall were creating challenging conditions.

One crew member was found dead while four Myanmar nationals were rescued from a Tanzania-flagged freighter. The group detailed their ordeal of jumping into the sea holding each other in teams for survival amid rough conditions.

The ship had nine members on board. They said they separated into two groups, one of five and one of four, in order to jump into the sea and survive. Some of their colleagues watched helplessly as their life jackets were washed away.

One of the survivors said he had swum backwards to retrieve a waist bag containing his passport, before swimming with all his life to reach the shore, according to the BBC.

open image in gallery One of the crew members of sunken Tanzania flagged ship rescued in Taiwan ( EPA )

Another burst out crying after calling his family as he informed his mother and his wife, who had assumed he had died, that he is alive.

The powerful typhoon swept through Taiwan on Thursday with gusts of up to 227kph (141mph) before moving towards China.

As Typhoon Gaemi barrelled across the Taiwan strait, it stranded an unprecedented number of ships in the sea for any other typhoon, according to Taiwans ocean affairs council minister Kuan Bi-ling, whose department runs the coast guard.

Braving waves five-meters high ... our ships made it to as close as one nautical mile but still failed to get closer, she said in a post on Facebook, adding authorities will continue the rescue efforts.

In Taiwan, the storm dumped over 1,800mm (70.8inches) rain in southern mountains since Tuesday and bringing flash flooding to several cities and towns that has largely receded.

Businesses and schools in most parts of southern Taiwan were shut for a third day.

The typhoon also injured more than 700 people and killed seven, and rescuers took nearly 1,000 people out of floodwater in inflatable boats.
 Close Muddy flood gushes downhill stalling drivers in typhoon Gaemi-hit region of the Philippines

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 }}

Taiwans coast guard is working to rescue dozens of sailors stranded off its southern coast after Typhoon Gaemi sank one freighter and left eight others stranded.

The typhoon flooded streets, knocked out power and killed at least five people in Taiwan before heading to China. It earlier killed 22 people in the Philippines.

Seventy-nine crew members are awaiting rescue on the eight freighters that were stranded, the coast guard said. Nine people were rescued earlier today from a Togo-flagged freighter stranded on a beach.

Typhoon Gaemi made landfall in China on Thursday evening, after officials issued widespread flood warnings and evacuations.

More than 290,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in Fujian while emergency responses were put in place and flights and trains have been cancelled.

Gaemi is forecast to unleash intense rainfall in at least 10 Chinese provinces, including the capital Beijing, in the coming days, areas that have already been soaked by days of rainfall.

Gaemi has drawn comparisons with Typhoon Doksuri last year, which triggered historic flooding as far north as Beijing and caused nationwide losses of nearly $30bn.
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 daughter of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has been appointed by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to serve on the Virginia Board of Education, drawing criticism from some Democrats who called the appointment politically motivated.

Meg Bryce, a psychology educator who unsuccessfully ran last year for an at-large seat on the Albemarle County school board, said Thursday at a business meeting that she was thankful that Youngkin chose her for the board, which is responsible for determining statewide curriculum standards, high school graduation requirements and qualifications for teachers.

I have so admired what this board has already done to increase accountability and transparency and excellence in Virginia schools, Bryce said. Those are things that I have already fought for and its my honor and privilege and just a joy to be a part of those efforts going forward.

Bryce grew up in Virginia and earned a doctorate in cognitive science from the University of Virginia. During her campaign for Albemarle school board, community members criticized Bryce for taking her children out of public schools in light of the pandemic, according to the Daily Progress. Bryce, described by a board member as a capstone mentor at the University of Virginia, has since been criticized by community leaders for being unfit for the position.

Del. Katrina Callsen, a Democrat from Albemarle, said in a Tweet that Bryce was a failed Moms for Liberty candidate. Teacher and Democratic Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg said on social media that Bryce had no credentials and "spent a year running for School Board embroiled in culture wars.

James J. Fedderman, president of the Virginia Education Association, said Bryces appointment is one more example in a long list of shortsighted, politically motivated decisions that serves to advance Gov. Youngkins anti-public education agenda while further endangering LGBTQIA+ students in the Commonwealth.

Board President Grace Creasey, also appointed by Youngkin in 2022, said she is thrilled to have Bryce be a part of the group.

Having an expert in psychology on the board with teaching experience is a great addition for navigating the most critical issues facing our public schools and youth today, Creasey said, referencing mental health and other issues students face. She is going to be a phenomenal addition to the board and a champion for students.

Youngkin spokesman Christian Martinez said the governor was thankful Bryce would serve Virginians on the board, adding that she would be instrumental in ensuring that every parent, student, and teacher receives the essential resources and support needed to thrive.

Youngkin also tapped Ida Outlaw McPherson, a Hampton Roads-area attorney, to serve on the board, filling out the nine-member group after two seats opened up this month.

McPherson, a Howard University law school graduate, was previously appointed by Gov. Bob McDonnell to serve as the director of the Department of Minority Business Enterprise, now titled the Department of Small Business and Supplier Diversity. She also served as the former president of the NAACP Suffolk Chapter, Creasey said.

McPhersons community work would help her bring a critical lens to the board, Creasey said.

Fedderman said almost all of Youngkins appointees, including McPherson, were inexperienced with K-12 public education policy and practice, and they lack many of the requisite credentials generally expected for a seat on that Board.

___

Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
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 }}

Italy plans to send an ambassador back to Syria after a decade-long absence, the countrys foreign minister said, in a diplomatic move that could spark divisions among European Union allies.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking in front of relevant parliamentary committees Thursday, announced Romes intention to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria to prevent Russia from monopolizing diplomatic efforts in the Middle Eastern country.

Moscow is considered a key supporter of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has remained in power despite widespread Western isolation and civilian casualties since the start of Syrias civil war in March 2011.

Peaceful protests against the Assad government  part of the Arab Spring popular uprisings that spread across much of the Middle East  were met by a brutal crackdown, and the uprising quickly spiraled into a full-blown civil war. The conflict was further complicated by the intervention of foreign forces on all sides and a rising militancy, first by al-Qaida-linked groups and then the Islamic State group until its defeat on the battlefield in 2019.

The war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the countrys pre-war population of 23 million, is now largely frozen, despite ongoing low-level fighting.

The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus-based government of Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces.

In the early days of the conflict, many Western and Arab countries cut off relations with Syria, including Italy, which has since managed Syria-related diplomacy through its embassy in Beirut.

However, since Assad has regained control over most of the territory, neighboring Arab countries have gradually restored relations, with the most symbolically significant move coming last year when Syria was re-admitted to the Arab League.

Tajani said Thursday the EUs policy in Syria should be adapted to the development of the situation, adding that Italy has received support from Austria, Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Cyprus and Slovakia.

However, the U.S. and allied countries in Europe have largely continued to hold firm in their stance against Assads government, due to concerns over human rights violations.

___

Associated Press writer Abby Sewell contributed from Beirut.
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 }}

Search teams were still digging at the site of deadly mudslides in southern Ethiopia on Friday, as the death toll rose to 257, according to the U.N. humanitarian office.

Heavy rain triggered deadly slides on Sunday and Monday in a remote part of the country. The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said in an update Thursday that the death toll could rise to as many as 500, citing local officials.

More than 15,000 affected people need to be evacuated" from the area, it said.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is expected to visit the remote area on Friday. Mudslides there have been triggered by heavy rainfall in recent days. Abiy said earlier in the week that he was deeply saddened by this terrible loss.

Photos from the scene show residents standing over the shrouded bodies of mudslide victims who are being pulled, one by one, from the muddy earth. Diggers have been using hand shovels to pick through the mud.

Many people were buried in the Gofa Zone of Kencho Shacha Gozdi district on Monday, as rescue workers searched the steep terrain for survivors from mudslides the previous day.

Landslides are common during Ethiopias rainy reason, which started in July and is expected to last until mid-September.

Deadly mudslides often occur in the wider East African region, from Ugandas mountainous east to central Kenyas highlands. In April, at least 45 people were killed in Kenyas Rift Valley region when flash floods and a landslide swept through houses and cut off a major road.
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 }}

You just cant believe what you see sometimes, says Waheed Doulatzai, a shopkeeper in east London for whom the scourge of shoplifting has never been more felt.

Often some very well-dressed-looking people will go down the middle isles and steal things like honey, protein and chocolate drinks, Monster cans, and other energy drinks.

In words likely echoed by thousands of retailers across the UK, the 52-year-old is unsurprised figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) this week show shoplifting is at its highest level since records began 20 years ago.

The 30 per cent surge in incidents in the past took the total number of recorded offences last year to 443,995  up by more than 100,000 on the year previous.

Shopkeepers in east London told The Independent the problem was so bad, that theyve all but given up on calculating the cost of the stock theyve lost.

Shopkeepers at their wits end unable to keep up with the rate of shoplifting incidents ( Madeline Sherratt/The Independent )

Ultimately I dont trust anybody and it doesnt matter ... smart, poor, wealthy, or homeless, said Mr Doulatzai, a shopkeeper at the Sun Star Express food and wine store in Old Street.

After 2am we have to close the shutters on the shop and only serve customers through the window.

This is because were a 24-hour operation in this shop and weve stopped selling alcohol after 2am too because things can get out of hand.

The 16.5 per cent alchohol volume tonic wine is a popular item to be thieved, says Doulatzai ( Madeline Sherratt/The Independent )

People will still kick the doors and start shouting at us.

Where previously petty theft, such as teenagers grabbing chocolate bars and crisps off shelves, was more common, the shopkeeper told The Independent that thieves from all walks of life and ages were now targeting high-value stock items like vapes, tonic wine, and even honey.

He only recently had to start putting bottles of Magnum tonic wine behind the counter which he said was popular due to its 16.5 per cent alcohol volume.

Mr Doulatzais colleague showed The Independent several clips of thieves targeting their shop.

One showed a young woman emerging on screen and then vanishing seconds later after she leant over the counter and grabbed a vape from under the glass.

In another, a smartly dressed man grazed the drinks aisle until he suddenly slid a bottle of water from a high-end brand up his sleeve.

Waheed Doulatzai explains that shoplifting cannot be confined to one group in society ( Madeline Sherratt/The Independent )

One showed an older man brazenly wandering around the alcohol aisle before grabbing a bottle of wine off the shelf.

Eddy Patel, 61, a corner shop worker of 17 years, said: The most popular times for thieves are between 10pm and 12 pm, and weekends tend to be much worse.

Something we have seen in this shop is young women being regularly preyed on when theyre on a night out. Typically, a man will run into the shop while the girls tap their contactless card and snatch it from them in the process before bolting off.

A woman runs into the corner shop and snatches a vape ( Sun Star Express )

Its the reason why we dont accept contactless cards at night anymore  only chip and pin, he said, pointing at the sign displayed behind him: Its because people are stealing it and then tapping it until it maxes out.

When I call the police they tell me not to bother unless its over 500 worth of goods that have been stolen.

The Metropolitan Police told The Independent it does not have a cost threshold that needs to be met before it launches a shoplifting investigation and that each report is dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

The cost of living crisis has driven the price of weekly shops up for consumers across the UK, leaving some unable to afford essential items.

Man slides a water bottle up his jacket sleeve ( Sun Star Express )

It has been widely attributed as one of the main causes of the rise in shoplifting incidents. Retails placing security tags or cases on products such as cheese and red meat has become a common sight.

St Giles, a charity supporting people affected by poverty, unemployment, the criminal justice system, homelessness, exploitation and abuse, said the rise in shoplifting offences documented in the ONS figures was unsurprising.

The charity added: The cost of living crisis has forced people into often dire circumstances.

At St Giles, we frequently encounter adults who are skipping meals to feed their children  72 per cent of new people using our pantry network during the winter told us they had not eaten for a whole day as they could not afford food.

Eddy Patel, shop worker at Hare Food and Wine in Shoreditch, flaunted his strict policies displayed behind the counter. ( Madeline Sherratt/The Independent )

Faced with such stark choices, it is not surprising to learn of the ONS figures.

Shopkeepers The Independent spoke to said they saw a spike in incidents at weekends and these could often be at the end of the month when people anticipated payday.

Ultimately, shop workers said the problem was beginning to destroy their faith in society and was making them reconsider goodwill gestures they had extended to customers in the past.

Typically we are very good with customers, Mr Patel said. We give random discounts and if people dont have the extra pound or two we let them off.

If his business continues to be hit as badly as it has been by shoplifting, he fears he may no longer be able to be so generous.
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 alternative healer who failed to get medical help for a 71-year-old diabetic woman who died after she stopped taking insulin at his slapping therapy retreat has been found guilty of her manslaughter.

Danielle Carr-Gomm died at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, in October 2016 while taking part in the paida lajin therapy event. Paida lajin therapy involves patients being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly.

Danielle Carr-Gomm was born in France and moved to the UK aged 21 ( PA Media )

Hongchi Xiao, of Cloudbreak, California, was convicted by the jury at Winchester Crown Court of the manslaughter by gross negligence of Carr-Gomm, from Lewes, East Sussex.

Xiao, aged 61, was extradited for the trial from Australia, where he had previously been prosecuted over the death of a six-year-old boy who also died when his parents withdrew his insulin medication after attending the defendants workshop in Sydney.

The court heard that Carr-Gomm, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1999, was left howling in pain as she became seriously ill. She died on the fourth day of the workshop.

Xiao gives a presentation on paida lajin therapy ( CPS/PA Wire )

Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that Carr-Gomm had sought alternatives to the insulin medication she had been prescribed for her diabetes, because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.

She had first joined a paida lajin workshop run by the defendant in Bulgaria in July 2016. She became seriously ill after stopping her insulin medicine, before she resumed taking it and subsequently recovered.

Mr Atkinson described how Carr-Gomm went on to attend another of Xiaos workshops in Wiltshire in October of that year.

Xiao appears at Winchester Crown Court charged with manslaughter ( Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire )

The court heard how Xiao said Well done to Carr-Gomm after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin at the week-long retreat, and that she subsequently became seriously ill.

Mr Atkinson said that by the third day of the event, she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions.

A chef at the workshop, Teresa Hayes, told jurors that Carr-Gomm was delirious and frothing at the mouth before she died, adding that she had wanted to call an ambulance but trusted those with more experience of the holistic healing method.

Mr Atkinson described how the defendant failed to get medical help for Carr-Gomm before she died in the early hours of the fourth day.

The prosecutor said: Those who had received and accepted the defendants teachings misinterpreted Mrs Carr-Gomms condition as a healing crisis.

He said that Xiao had been an exponent of paida lajin for 10 years and had written a book on it.

Mr Atkinson said: It is said to be a method of self-healing in which poisonous waste is expelled from the body through patting and slapping parts of the body. He added: He does not have medical qualifications or training.

In a book that he wrote about paida lajin, the defendant asserted that the taking of insulin leads to liver and eye problems, and that in contrast, the paida lajin was safer and more reliable than existing healing practices [and] would result in significant improvement or full recovery in 90 per cent of cases, including cases of diabetes.

The court heard that Xiao failed to obtain medical help for Carr-Gomm before she died ( Wiltshire Police )

He added that Xiao also wrote in the book that doctors are brainwashed by drug producers to act as salespersons for their drugs.

The court heard that Carr-Gomm had provided a testimonial for Xiao, describing him as a messenger sent by God who was starting a revolution to put the power back in the hands of the people to cure themselves and to change the whole system of health care.

Carr-Gomm was born in France and moved to the UK aged 21. Speaking after her death, her son Matthew Carr-Gomm, who lives in New Zealand, said: She was always keen to try and find alternative methods of treating and dealing with her diabetes, and was very interested in alternative and holistic medicine and therapies.

I know she was desperate to try and cure herself of this disease. She always maintained a healthy lifestyle and was adamant that nothing would stop her from living a full life.

In recent years, Mum was in a great place, with a partner, a lovely home, and was travelling the world. She had a lot of life left in her. He said the death of his mother had come as a huge shock to the family.

Giving evidence during the trial, Xiao said he would never persuade someone who needed insulin not to take it, adding that insulin is useful.

On his attitude towards medication being taken at his workshops, he added: First of all, I said Im not a medical doctor, so everyone is responsible for their own medication. Secondly, Im not fully against medicine. What Im concerned about is the side effects of the medicine.

Following the verdict, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Rosemary Ainslie, said: Hongchi Xiao knew the consequences of Danielle Carr-Gomms decision to stop taking insulin could be fatal; he had seen it before.

Hongchi Xiao was the man in charge, yet he failed to respond to Mrs Carr-Gomms worsening condition with tragic consequences. His failure to take reasonable steps to help Mrs Carr-Gomm substantially contributed to her death and amounted to gross negligence.

Xiao will be sentenced on 1 October.
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 alternative healer has been found guilty of killing a 71-year-old woman after she stopped taking her insulin with the hope his slapping therapy would heal me entirely.

Xiao Hongchi, 61, was described as Master Xiao in the programme for his workshop involving paida lajin therapy, in which patients are slapped, or slap themselves, repeatedly.

Following a trial at Winchester Crown Court, the 61-year-old was convicted on Friday of the manslaughter by gross negligence of Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, who died after taking part in the event at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, in October 2016.

The court previously heard how Xiao, of Cloudbreak, California, in the US, said well done to Mrs Carr-Gomm, from Lewes, East Sussex, after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin at the week-long retreat. Prosecutors had said Xiao failed to seek medical help for her as she became seriously ill.

A chef at the retreat, Teresa Hayes, told jurors she heard slapping noises, crying, yelling and just very loud painful noises like howling when she walked past Mrs Carr-Gomms room in the hours before she died on 20 October. The slapping noises sounded the same as the Paida slapping method that the attendees had been taking part in the entire time, she said.

Danielle Carr-Gomm, 71, had been attending an event promoting Paida Lajin therapy in Wiltshire in 2016 when she died ( PA Media )

What is slapping therapy

Paida lajin is described as a self-healing philosophy that involves the patient being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly in the belief that it releases toxins from the blood.

The therapy has roots in traditional Chinese medicine, although critics say it has no scientific basis. Paida involves patting ("pai" in Chinese) and slapping ("da") ones skin, while lajin involves assuming various postures to stretch ones muscles.

A video of one of Xiaos workshops, recorded in Malaysia, shows people taking part in the therapy, forcefully slapping different parts of their body, particularly joint areas and the head, until their skin turns red or begins to look bruised.

Scores of participants slap themselves with enough force that the noise can be easily heard on the audio of the clip. Some can then be seen doing various stretches while lying down on tables or on the floor.

Others, meanwhile, are taken on to a stage from which Xiao addresses the room to be slapped by others present at the session.

Xiao is a US national originally from China who runs the California-based Pailala Institute and has led workshops across the world.

Xiao is a US national originally from China who runs the California-based Pailala Institute and has led workshops across the world ( Hongchi Xiao/Facebook )

The Pailala Institute is a non-profit organisation managed by a team of non-paying volunteers to promote and support the self-healing practice of Paida Lajin, led by Xiao, according to its website.

Our mission is to transform our world into a healthier place, by enabling every one of us to awaken our self-healing power, we were born with, to heal ourselves, reducing medical cost and its related potential side effects, it adds.

Xiao has also written books about the practice, which include picture illustrations showing people how to conduct the therapy. His first book, The World of Medicine: The Paida Lajin Self-Healing Method, published in 2009, made Xiao famous and his workshops became popular in across China Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. He has also held clinics in India, the US, Germany.

However, Xiao has come under heavy criticism from experts who have refuted his claims that paida lajin can cure a wide range of conditions including olds, body pains, Alzheimers, strokes, paralysis, kidney failure and even cancer and autism.

Paida and lajin are linked to a concept in traditional Chinese medicine known as "sha", which is the belief that blood can be "poisoned" by toxins and therefore needs to be expelled from the body.

Advocates of the therapy believe paida and lajin can improve blood circulation and therefore draw out "sha". According to Mr Xiaos doctrine, when sha appears this is an indication of "latent diseases".

Hongchi Xiao appearing at Winchester Crown Court ( PA Wire )

Critics, however, say that slapping therapy results in nothing more than broken blood vessels and bruised skin.

Mr Xiao has repeatedly talked about the "slapping therapy" in interviews and videos posted on the internet.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in a 2014 radio interview with Australian broadcaster ABC he insisted he was not a "master". "Im not a doctor, Im not a healer. I just teach you a way. You learn and do it yourself," he said.

The court heard that, on the day before she died, other participants interpreted Mrs Carr-Gomms condition as a healing crisis  a term used by the defendant as the process of the Paida Lajin taking effect.

Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that Xiao had written a book on Paida Lajin in which he stated that doctors are brainwashed by drug producers to act as salespersons for their drugs.

In the book My Health, I Manage! E-Dao Paida And Lajin Self-Healing he states that the practice should be safer and more reliable than existing healing practices  with no risk of poisoning or side effects and that it should be effective on almost all diseases.
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 }}

Under-fire Giovanni Pernice is set to return to work for the first time since the Strictly abuse allegations emerged with a series of dance workshops at his London studio.

The private classes, which cost up to 240 per head, will take place in in Fulham on Sunday (28 July) with participants made to sign a waiver accepting the risk of injury or damages that might occur under his tuition.

The Italian dancer, 33, has kept a low profile since being accused of misconduct by his former Strictly celebrity partner Amanda Abbington, 50, who described working with him as being in the trenches.

In an explosive Channel 4 interview, she accused him of humiliating behaviour of a sexual nature and said that there was more than 50 hours of documentary evidence to support her claim.

Pernice has denied all claims against him, pending an ongoing investigation from the BBC.

The private one-hour classes with the dancer will also take place in September  alongside a number of Strictly judges including Shirley Ballas and Anton Du Beke  and cost 60 a head per hour.

They cover various dances including the Cha Cha Cha and Charleston, but the style will ultimately be Giovannis choice.

For 240, participants can participate in all four classes taking place on a given day.

Giovanni Pernice is set to return to work this weekend as the Strictly scandal continues. ( BBC/Guy Levy )

Open to anyone regardless of experience, potential participants are urged to remember to be respectful towards Giovanni, staff/organisers, and other attendees so that everyone feels safe and welcome in the class.

The advert stresses: Any unkind or disrespectful behaviour will not be tolerated. If you see or experience anything of this nature, please alert us to it.

Participants must also sign a waiver accepting the risk of injury before booking the classes.

By booking, you agree to assume full responsibility for any risk, injury or damages, known or unknown, which might occur as a result of participating, the disclaimer reads.

You knowingly, voluntarily and expressly waive any claim you may have against GP Ballando Ltd, Giovanni Pernice, and the organisers and/or their agents for injury or damages that you may sustain as a result of participating.

The advert also says that while the TV dancer is happy to pose for pictures with participants, photographs are not guaranteed.

The BBC has come under intense scrutiny in recent weeks over its handling of abuse claims which appear to have been more widespread than initially reported.

Fellow professional dancer and co-star Graziano Di Prima was fired from the show after allegedly physically and verbally abusing his celebrity partner, Zara McDermott.

A spokesperson for Pernice urged fans of the dancer to withhold judgement until the BBC has completed its investigation into his actions.

They told the MailOnline in a statement: We would urge people to wait for the reviews conclusion and not to pay heed to these very serious and defamatory allegations that have no evidence in support of them.

Di Prima was fired from the show less than 24 hours after posses saw footage of his training sessions with former Love Island star McDermott.

Strictly star Zara McDermott is at the heart of the scandal. ( BBC )

He is accused of subjecting her to various forms of abuse, including spitting on her.

She allegedly endured a fractured leg as a result of her on-screen partners actions and reportedly competed in a dance-off despite the injury.

The former TV star aslo denies all claims against him, with reports subsequently being released about the gruelling training techniques implemented at the dance school where he trained.

In a statement posted to Instagram, he wrote: I deeply regret the events that led to my departure from Strictly.

My intense passion and determination to win might have affected my training regime. While respecting the BBC HR process, I acknowledge its only right for the sake of the show that I step away.

I am saddened that I wasnt allowed to offer a quote to the online news stories, and I take on board the sensitivity of the situation.

The Independent has reached out to the BBC for comment.
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 }}

Prince Harry has claimed that his grandmother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, is up there supporting his battle against the tabloid press.

In an explosive interview with ITV, the Duke of Sussex, said he had spoken to his grandmother on several occasions about his decision to take on the press over phone-hacking allegations and is sure he still has her support.

We had many conversations before she passed and this is very much something that she supported, he said on ITVs Tabloids on Trial. She knew how much this meant to me and shes very much up there saying see this through to the end, without question.

Harry made the claims while giving his first major interview since the conclusion of his court case against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), in which a High Court judge ruled the group had unlawfully gathered information for stories published about him.

It seemed that while the late Queen supported his wishes to fight the case, other members of his family were not in such agreement.

Prince Harry has claimed the late Queen Elizabeth is up there supporting his battle against the tabloid press. ( Getty Images )

The prince revealed his legal battle as a central piece in the ongoing rift between himself and his family. Harry alleged in the High Court claim last year that William reached a settlement rather than go to court with News Group Newspapers (NGN) for a huge sum of money over hacking claims in 2020.

The duke also claimed he could not bring his own claim sooner because of a secret agreement between The Firm and senior NGN executives, and that his bid for an apology from media mogul Rupert Murdoch was blocked by Charless staff.

Asked on the programme if his determination to fight the tabloids hurt his relationship with his family, Harry said: Yeah, thats certainly a central piece to it.

But, you know, its a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press. Ive made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done.

It would be nice if we, you know, did it as a family.

The prince revealed his legal battle as a central piece in the ongoing rift between himself and his family. ( Getty Images )

Also in the programme, the duke said he would not bring his wife, Meghan Markle, back to the UK over fears for both their safety as a result of negative news stories.

He said how it would take just one lone actor who had read such articles to use a knife or acid to harm him or his wife.

The pair stepped down from their roles as senior members of the royal family in 2020 and now live in Montecito, California. While Harry has returned for occasional visits, including to see his father briefly following his cancer diagnosis, Meghan has not been back to the UK since Queen Elizabeth IIs funeral in 2022.

Asked whether hes just seeking attention through the court battles, he said: There is more than enough attention on me and my wife anyway.

The duke said he would not bring his wife, Meghan Markle, back to the UK over fears for both their safety as a result of negative news stories. ( Getty Images )

There was... they [the press] pushed me too far. It got to a point where youre damned if you do, youre damned if you dont. I dont think theres anybody else in the world that is better suited and placed to be able to see this through than myself.

Its still dangerous. And all it takes is one lone actor, one person who reads this stuff, to act on what they have read... and whether its a knife or acid, whatever it is.

These are things that are a genuine concern for me. Its one of the reasons why I wont bring my wife back to this country.

The prince is still fighting legal battles against the Daily Mail and The Sun publishers and also lost a High Court challenge against the UK Home Office over his security when in the country.

MGN said in response to the programme: We welcomed the judgment in December 2023 that gave the business the necessary clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago.

Where historical wrongdoing took place, we apologise unreservedly, have taken full responsibility and paid compensation.
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 fundraiser set up to help Meghan Markles rejected and abandoned father after his 80th birthday is approaching 50,000  nearly five times its original target.

The GoFundMe was set up by royal author and socialite Lady Colin Campbell after Thomas Markle admitted earlier this year that his one birthday wish was to reconnect with his daughter but I know the one person I most want to hear from, Meghan, wont be in touch.

Thomas, who turned 80 this month, admitted that he would love to finally meet his grandchildren, Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, however, he has accepted that this is also unlikely.

I would love to meet my grandchildren, but I would be happy with a photograph at this stage, he added to the MailOnline.

This inspired Lady Colin to launch the fundraiser in a bid to show Mr Markle that there are still people in the world with good hearts, good values, and good intentions.

At the time of writing, the GoFundMe has raised 45,000 from over 2,300 donors, more than quadrupling its initial 10,000 target.

Mr Markles relationship with his daughter, now 42, soured in 2018 when it emerged that he had taken part in a staged paparazzi photoshoot ahead of her wedding to Prince Harry.

While he was scheduled to walk her down the aisle at St Georges Chapel in Windsor, he had to pull out of the service entirely after suffering two heart attacks.

Thomas Markle has repeatedly pleaded with his daughter through the press to reconcile. ( Good Morning Britain )

After stepping down as a working royal, Meghan told Oprah Winfrey that the relationship broke down as she found it difficult to reconcile her fathers betrayal with the press.

Lady Colin wrote on the GoFundMe: Many people have suggested that I spearhead this fundraiser to meaningfully note Thomas Markle Srs 80th birthday.

He has been exceedingly generous with his time and money over the years, as I have learnt from the teachers at his daughters school, who could not sing his praises highly enough.

Lady Colin continued: His kindness and generosity are well known in the film community, and I agree that now that he has been rejected and abandoned by the daughter, those of us who wish to show him solidarity and give him the acknowledgement he should be getting from the actual recipient of his largesse, will hopefully, through our contributions, no matter how small, demonstrate to him that there are still people in the world with good hearts, good values, and good intentions.

Hopefully our actions provide him with the comfort he deserves in more ways than one in his declining days.

Thomas Markle holding baby daughter Meghan. ( Instagram )

Mr Markle claims that he had a good relationship with his daughter until she got into a romantic relationship with Prince Harry, who he has never met.

He admits that he does not understand why Harry, 39, never attempted to meet him, despite having the means to do so ahead marrying his daughter.

What man gets married without meeting his wifes father? he told the MailOnline.

The GoFundMe for Mr Markle has been flooded with messages of support from people similarly estranged from family members.

One donor wrote: Sending you love and hugs from New Zealand. Hoping you get to see your grandchildren soon.

King Charles walked Meghan Markle down the aisle in her fathers absence. ( POOL/AFP via Getty Images )

My father is gone from this earth and I wish I could give him a hug, added a second. I want to give it to you and just know that you have daughters around the world now. You are loved.

A third well-wisher praised: Thank you Lady C for this wonderful page! So very happy to contribute. Wishing Thomas Markle Sr prosperity, health and love on his next trip around the sun. And a hug from all of us. I pray that this page and these messages bring Thomas a small comfort.

The Independent has reached out to Lady Colin Campbell and a representative for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for comment.
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 }}

David Lammy is being pushed to urgently review Britains foreign policy towards a potential key ally in the Red Sea conflict with the Houthis and officially recognise Somaliland.

The former UK protectorate on the Horn of Africa has functioned as an independent state since 1991 after breaking away from Somalia following a civil war but has not received official recognition by the international community. The two countries had unified within days of the UK giving Somaliland independence in 1960 but broke up again after a civil war.

The renewed calls came this week after Labour run Liverpool City Council unanimously backed a motion recognising Somaliland in what has been hailed as a significant move in the countrys relations with the rest of the world.

Foreign secretary David Lammy is being encouraged to review UK policy towards Somaliland (PA) ( PA Wire )

Liverpools Lord Mayor Richard Kemp announced: Liverpool council unanimously agreed a motion calling upon HMG to recognise the former British Protectorate of Somaliland as an independent Country free from Somalia. The Somaliland Representative to the UK and local Somaliland residents were delighted.

Somalilands disapora office Tweeted: We deeply appreciate Liverpool City Council's July 24th, 2024 motion re-recognizing Somaliland's independence. This milestone is a testament to the tireless efforts of the Somaliland community in Liverpool, the UK Mission, and advocates worldwide. We congratulate all involved!

Pressure was mounting on the previous Tory UK government and Joe Bidens administration in the US to change their position on Somaliland which is seen as a functioning democracy in a troubled part of the world.

The leading advocate for the unrecognised state in the UK has been Tory former defence secretary Sir Gavin Williamson who praised Liverpools decision and urged the foreign secretary to take note.

Former defence secretary Sir Gavin Williamson (Jordan Pettitt/PA) ( PA Wire )

He told The Independent: This is an important symbolic step and I hope the Foreign Secretary listens to the growing cross party voices on this matter and acts to move UK policy to recognise Somaliland so recognising the reality on the ground.

Since the UK and US were forced to intervene against Houthi terrorists from Yemen in the Gulf of Aden on one of the key shipping routes in the world, pressure has increased to rethink recognition of Somaliland. Its major port of Berbera has been described as a potential base for UK and US military operations.

Ethiopia became the first African country to have any form of recognition with Somaliland last year in a deal to give it access to the sea. But the memorandum of understanding infuriated Somalia who claim that Somaliand is part of their territory and led to mass protests.

Critics of Somalia have described it as a failed stated, wracked with civil war and a haven for piracy with Somaliland, in comparison, holding democratic elections later this year.

But its claim to Somaliland was supported by Barack Obamas administration and has recently had renewed backed from Joe Bidens White House.

The UK took part in talks during David Camerons premiership but still does not recognise Somalilands claim for independence.
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 }}

Keir Starmer has dropped Rishi Sunaks plans to challenge the International Criminal Courts (ICC) application for an arrest warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu.

The previous Conservative government had suggested the ICC was overreaching its powers.

But No 10 has now confirmed that, under Labour, no objection will be submitted.

The matter was one for the court to decide, Downing Street said.

An Israeli soldier jumps from the top of a tank in an area near the Israeli-Gaza border ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

In May, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan requested arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister and his defence minister Yoav Gallant over Israels war in Gaza.

It marked the first time in ICC history that a sitting head of state and a sitting defence minister of a country supported by other powerful Western states, including the UK and US, faced arrest warrants, international law experts told The Independent.

It came weeks after even Israels staunchest allies called for restraint in its war in the enclave, particularly around the invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than a million Palestinians fled to avoid being caught up in the earlier stages of the war.

The charges against Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant, both members of Israels war cabinet, include starvation of civilians as a method of warfare  intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population  wilfully causing great suffering  persecution as a crime against humanity  [and] extermination and/or murder.

The UK had until Friday to decide whether or not to lodge objections.

Since winning the election, Labour has restored funding to the United Nations Palestine relief agency UNRWA - a major shift from Mr Sunaks administration which suspended payments in January.

Sir Keir has also stressed that a Palestinian state has an "undeniable right" to be recognised as part of a Middle East peace process.

But the conflict in Gaza has been a thorn in the Labour leaders side since it erupted last October.

His initial refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire was seen to cost the party votes and seats at the election.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly ( ABIR SULTAN/AFP/Getty Images )

Former frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth was one of several Labour candidates defeated by independents who made Gaza a major part of their campaign.

Commenting on the decision, a No 10 spokeswoman said: This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the government will not be pursuing in line with our long-standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on.

She said the government believes strongly in the separation of powers and the rule of law domestically and internationally.

"I think you would note that the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side, so they are well seized of the arguments to make their independent determinations," she added.

Mr Netanyahu responded angrily to the ICC prosecutors statement, saying Israelis were being painted as mass murderers and accusing Mr Khan of callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world.

At the same time, Israels staunchest ally, the US, expressed its shock at the application. President Joe Biden called it outrageous, sadding: And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence  none  between Israel and Hamas.

Sacha Deshmukh, chief executive of Amnesty International UK, said: This was a totally misguided intervention by the last government and we strongly welcome the decision to drop it.

Instead of trying to thwart the ICCs much-needed Palestine investigation, the UK should be backing efforts to bring all perpetrators of war crimes and possible genocide to justice.

The UKs standing as a genuine supporter of the rule of law requires consistency and even-handedness - if war crimes are wrong when carried out by Russian forces in unlawfully-occupied Ukraine, then theyre equally wrong when carried out by Israeli forces in unlawfully-occupied Palestinian territory.
Tom Tugendhat, one of the six or seven candidates standing for the leadership of the Conservative Party, changed an online advertisement for his campaign after it was pointed out that the initial letters of the four-line slogan spelt out a word that sent the wrong message:

Together we can:

Unite the party.

Rebuild trust.

Defeat Labour.

The last line was changed to: Win back the country.

There hasnt been such a public relations hiccup since... the last Conservative leadership campaign. Penny Mordaunt had to re-edit her campaign launch video in 2022 because Jonnie Peacock, the Paralympic athlete, objected to his image being used. Footage of a smiling police officer, clearly identifiable, was also removed, as was a clip from an interview with Sarah Gilbert, the co-developer of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, as it had been used without her permission.

Longer ago, in 2005, David Daviss campaign for the Tory leadership got into trouble for one of its slogans, Its DD for Me, after it was printed on T-shirts that were worn by two of his young female supporters  one of whom, Fay Jones, went on to become a Tory MP herself. She was asked at her selection meeting if she had ever done anything to embarrass the party. I had to say yes, she said recently. She added: I was later asked what I had learnt from the incident, and I said That I do not look good in pink. She was defeated by a Liberal Democrat on 4 July.

Lib Dem leadership candidates have had terrible slogans, too. Mark Oaten launched a campaign to replace Charles Kennedy in 2006 with the slogan Oaten So Good  an allusion to a popular brand of porridge oats, as The Guardian helpfully explained. He withdrew when the tabloid newspapers published too much information about his private life. Two years later, Lembit Opik, then dating Gabriela Irimia of The Cheeky Girls, ran unsuccessfully for the party presidency on the slogan I Pick Opik.

The initial letters of slogans have also caught out political communicators before. Alan Johnson made an urgent phone call to Tony Blair when he was appointed secretary of state for the Department of Trade and Industry, which had just been renamed the Department for Productivity, Energy and Industry, in 2005. He pointed out that the new name might be abbreviated to Penis, and the prime minister immediately agreed to change it back again.

Many years later, when Labour was in opposition, Jeremy Corbyns supporters staged a parallel event to the partys annual conference in an effort to support his leadership, calling it the World Transformed Festival. They pretended to be unconcerned that people abbreviated it to WTF, but quietly dropped the festival in subsequent years.

Sometimes abbreviations can be used the other way round, to conceal a rude word and insult an opponent. At the 2008 Democratic National Convention, supporters of Hillary Clinton wore sweatshirts that said Puma on the back, standing for Party Unity My Ass. They wanted a full roll-call vote to be taken, but Clinton disappointed them by interrupting the vote to propose that Barack Obama be declared the nominee by acclamation. (It was all a bit of theatre, as Clinton had already conceded defeat in the campaign for the nomination two months before the convention.)

Even general election slogans can backfire, despite being crafted by expensive advertising agencies and tested on groups of floating voters before launch. Edward Heaths Who governs Britain? in 1974 was a foolish question to ask because, as Alan Watkins, the columnist, wrote, the answer turned out to be: Not you, mate.

Equally, Michael Howard, who led the Tories to their third successive defeat by Tony Blair in 2005, should not perhaps have asked: Are you thinking what were thinking? That turned out to be a Question To Which The Answer Was No.

Still, at least none of the Conservative leadership candidates, as they begin their three-and-a-half month campaign for the right to take on Keir Starmers majority of 174 in the Commons, will have to put out ads declaring: Im not a witch.

That was what Christine ODonnell, the Republican candidate for senator in Delaware in 2010, was forced to do after an old interview surfaced in which she said I dabbled into witchcraft ... We went to a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar.

She lost, although that may have been more to do with her support for the pre-Trumpian anti-tax Tea Party movement in a strongly Democratic state.
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 }}

States that fund so-called crisis pregnancy centers where pregnant patients are dissuaded from seeking abortions have some of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the US, according to a new report from a reproductive health watchdog group.

The unregulated pregnancy clinic industry  which encompasses roughly 2,500 to 4,000 sites in all 50 states, most of which are affiliated with anti-abortion groups  is increasingly funded by state legislatures that allocate taxpayer dollars to support them, according to Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch.

That pace of funding has accelerated in the wake of the Supreme Courts 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v Wade, which struck down the constitutional right to abortion care and granted states wide latitude to restrict access.

Money has been flowing into the industry within the last several years, but direct taxpayer funding is increasing even faster, according to the report.

At the same time, the industry is working to evade watchdog attempts to understand exactly how those public funds are used, with a significant lack of accounting for a billion dollar industry, according to the report.

Between 2021 and 2024, at least 21 states have funded clinics with taxpayer dollars  all of them anti-abortion states with high rates of maternal and infant mortality above the national average.

Clinic supporters have argued that pregnant patients are provided care to understand the risks of abortion, but abortion rights advocates say that the information is not rooted in any medical or scientific guidance.

Abortion rights activists demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court in Washington DC on June 24. ( AFP via Getty Images )

While support for such clinics is typically positioned as a response to infant and maternal health needs, only 5 percent of such clinics provide prenatal care, and a majority of clinics distract and divert pregnant women from the legitimate medical system to promote their own [ideological] ends, according to the report.

Anti-abortion lawmakers who encourage public funding for crisis pregnancy centers have also turned away public funding for maternal healthcare, the report noted.

For example, in Mississippi, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, with 39.1 deaths per 100,000 births, lawmakers who supported clinic tax credits have also tried to block Medicaid expansion to support postpartum care.

In Arkansas, where maternal mortality rates are 38.3 deaths per 100,000 births, lawmakers introduced legislation to double direct taxpayer funding to clinics  while Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders rejected that Medicaid coverage.

The state is among only a handful that has not taken advantage of the federal option to extend postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months after birth.

Private donations remain the largest source of clinic industry revenue, but a growing number of state legislatures are approving public funds to support the industry.

The report, citing publicly available IRS forms, found that 53 percent of industry-supported clinics reported a 30 percent increase in revenue between 2019 and 2022  up from $1 billion to more than $1.4 billion within a three-year period.

Roughly 87 percent of that revenue came from private donors and corporations.

But between 2021 and July 2024, state lawmakers approved more than $511 million in taxpayer dollars to crisis pregnancy centers.

In the two years before the Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs v Jackson Womens Health Organization, that figure was roughly $184 million, according to the report.

In the years after Dobbs, it surged to roughly $327 million.

Seven states have created new public funding programs within that four-year period, while 11 states increased total funding appropriated for clinics, according to the report. Lawmakers are turning to funding mechanisms like tax credits, sales tax exemptions and government contracts, among others.

The findings follow a wave of anti-abortion laws that followed the Dobbs decision, with 14 states outlawing abortion at any point in pregnancy, while several other states have strict gestational limits  including at roughly six weeks, when most women dont know they are pregnant.

Anti-abortion laws have threatened access to care for more than 20 million women, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Including states that ban abortion at 12 or 15 weeks of pregnancy, the number of affected women grows to roughly 25 million.
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 man has been arrested on suspicion of sparking Californias largest wildfire of the year by pushing a burning car down a steep embankment.

Ronnie Dean Stout II, 42, was seen shoving the smouldering vehicle down a 60-foot gully in the Alligator Hole area of Bidwell Park in Chico, California, at around 3pm local time on Wednesday afternoon, according to the Butte County District Attorneys Office.

Stout was then seen calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other citizens who were in the area and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire, authorities said.

The flames from the car in question quickly burned out of control and spread across the dry surrounding landscape, driven on by persistent winds, and causing the huge Park Fire.

An estimated 164,000 hectares had burned by Friday morning, according to The Los Angeles Times, an area four times larger than any other California fire so far in 2024. Just 3 per cent of the blaze had been contained as of early morning.

More than 4,000 people from northeastern Chico, Forest Range and Cohasset have meanwhile been evacuated from the danger zone, according to sheriffs office spokesperson Megan McMann, with several rural areas in nearby Tehama County also under evacuation orders.

Crews numbering 1,100 firefighters, 150 engines and several air tankers have been battling the blaze but are said to be struggling with sweltering temperatures, steep terrain and high winds whipping the flames towards the Ishi Wilderness and Lassen foothills  which have reportedly not been troubled with fires for many decades, making them more vulnerable.

The burning car thought to have sparked Californias Park Fire on July 24 2024 ( Butte County District Attorneys Office )

Once it got into that area, it had a lot of fuel to consume, Cal Fire spokesperson Dan Collins said, explaining that the fire had burned through fresh grass as well as the areas denser vegetation.

A lot of us who work in fire have kind of been waiting for this fire to happen for the last 25 years, Zeke Lunder, a Chico-based fire specialist and geographer, told the Times.

Even though it was going across the canyons, theres all these little side canyons, and so it was kind of a perfect setup.

Its a big one. Unless you can get people out there on the ground to put in fire lines, aircraft alone arent necessarily going to put this fire out  and the area where its burning into is extremely rough.

Ronnie Dean Stout II in mugshot ( Butte County District Attorneys Office )

Lunder added that that fire has so far threaded the needle through this area with pretty low-density development.

He warned that any town in its path would likely have been devastated like the town of Paradise, which was destroyed in apocalyptic scenes in the horrific Camp Fire of 2018.

California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the state has been granted a fire management assistance grant from the federal government, providing financial support for communities hit by wildfires.

Stout is expected to be charged with arson offences over the fire.

He is being held in Butte County Jail without bail ahead of a court hearing on Monday, according to District Attorney Michael Ramsey.
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

The US could have avoided almost 250,000 Covid-19 deaths if every state had adopted stricter mask and vaccine requirements seen in the Northeast during the height of the pandemic, according to a new study.

Researchers say that the country, which saw more than 1.1 million Covid deaths, could have been spared an estimated 118,000 to 248,000 more lives.

The research from University of Virginia public policy and economics professor Christopher J Ruhm, published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Health Forum, analyzed mortality data between 2020 and 2022, comparing it to a baseline of 2017 through 2019.

These study findings do not support the views of those opposing COVID-19 restrictions who erroneously believe the restrictions did not work, Ruhm writes. To the contrary, the package of policies implemented by some states probably saved many lives.

If all states had imposed restrictions similar to those used in the 10 most restrictive states, excess deaths would have been an estimated 10% to 21% lower than the 1.18 million that actually occurred during the 2-year analysis period, according to the study.

Conversely, the estimates suggest counterfactual increases of 13% to 17% if all states had restrictions similar to those in the 10 least-restrictive states.

During the outset of the pandemic, red and blue states alike implemented closures of public space, masking requirements, and other pandemic measures, but jurisdictions quickly diverged as the pandemic wore on and the science around the coronavirus was politicized.

It led to striking disparities. By 2021, for example, California schools required teachers to be vaccinated or tested regularly in the classroom, while Florida threatened to withhold pay from schools with mask mandates.

Ruhms data captures similar differences.

The excess death rate in Massachusetts, the state with the tightest Covid restrictions during the study period, was less than one-fifth that of Mississippi, the state with the loosest rules.

The lessons from the early years of the pandemic will surely be on lawmakers minds, as the US grapples with an outbreak of bird flu on poultry and cattle farms as well as a summer surge in Covid cases, with wastewater data showing spikes across the country.
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 }}

Disgraced movie mogul and convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein has been hospitalized with Covid-19 and pneumonia in both lungs just days after he appeared at a court hearing in New York over his retrial on rape and sexual assault charges.

The Hollywood movie producer was transferred from the notorious Rikers Island jail complex in New York to a secure ward at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan on Wednesday.

Mr Weinstein tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs, his publicist Juda Engelmayer said in a statement on Thursday.

Weinstein was first transferred to the hospitals prison ward late on Wednesday night, Engelmayer told CNN, before being sent to the Manhattan hospital.

There, Weinstein is also being treated for a myriad of health conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, and fluid on his heart and lungs, his publicist said.

We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses in the citys corrections and public hospital systems who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, he added.

This marks Weinsteins second stint at the hospital since he was returned to Rikers Island in April for legal proceedings related to his rape case.

That month, a New York appeals court vacated his rape conviction in the state after finding the trial judge made egregious errors by allowing prosecutors to call witnesses whose allegations were not related to the charges at hand.

Weinstein was moved from Mohawk Correction Facility, located approximately 35 miles from Syracuse in upstate New York, to Rikers Island after his 23-year prison sentence was vacated.

Days later, his attorney said he had been taken to Bellevue hospital, describing him as somewhat of a train wreck health wise.

Harvey Weinstein appeared in Manhattan Criminal Court for a status hearing to be retried ( Andrew Kelly via AP, Pool )

Weinstein was prevoiusly hospitalized in March 2020 when he contracted Covid-19 while being held in Wende Correctional Facility in Buffalo, New York  one month after he was jailed.

The Weinstein Company co-founder was found guilty in February 2020 of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act and was handed a 23-year sentence.

The sentencing marked a major chapter in the #MeToo movement after numerous sexual abuse allegations had come to light against the film producer since October 2017.

While that conviction was overturned this year, Weinsteins Los Angeles conviction still stands.

There, he was convicted of rape and sexual assault and jailed for 16 years.

Prosecutors in New York are also retrying the case against him.

Last Friday, he appeared for a hearing at Manhattan Criminal Court where a retrial date was set for November 12 after Weinsteins attorneys said they wanted to move as soon as possible.

More alleged victims have come forward after the New York conviction was overturned.

On July 9, prosecutors accused Weinstein of raping more women than those who were part of his earlier prosecution.

We believe the defendant forcibly raped and sexually abused women in Manhattan that fall within the statute of limitations, Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg said.

There were women in 2020 who were not ready to proceed with the legal process. They are now ready.

Prosecutors told the judge, Curtis Farber, that theyre still reviewing those claims, and plan to present the story of at least one of the new alleged victims to a grand jury, ABC News reported.
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 mom who left her two young daughters inside a sweltering hot car while she gambled inside a casino has now been jailed for their murders.

Launice Battle, 31, from Wake County, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to one count of second-degree murder in the deaths of Trinity Milbourne, two, and her sister Amora, three.

On Thursday, she was sentenced to serve between just under eight and 10 and a half years in a state correctional facility.

Back on 27 August 2022, Battle drove to the casino Vegas Style Sweepstakes in Raleigh and left her children in the car while she went inside.

The vehicle was parked only partially in the shade, while outside temperatures soared to 95F (35C).

The children were left there for around six hours from 2.30pm until she finally returned at 8.30pm that evening, according to an autopsy report first obtained by WNCN.

Upon her return, she found the two toddlers unresponsive and drove them to Duke Raleigh Emergency Department in Wake Forest.

They were pronounced dead that evening with an autopsy ruling hyperthermia as the cause and Battle was arrested for murder.

A medical report stated that the girls had no body temperature when they were discovered and their remains were in stages of mild [body] decomposition.

The two toddlers were left in the car in the Vegas Style Sweepstakes parking lot in Raleigh for six hours ( Google Streetview )

Battles grandmother Dr Ruth Allen said the family hadnt heard from her in two weeks prior to the murders.

Then, on the night of the childrens death, Battles boyfriend called looking for her.

He was asking us where she was at, have we seen her? Was she here?, Dr Allen told CBS 17 following her 2022 arrest.

I told her, no we havent seen her. He said, I dont know. Something aint right.

She said that Amora had been under her care for two of her three years after social services gave her to me.

Battle had been investigated by Child Protective Services three times before the childrens deaths, the most recent instance taking place less than two months before the toddlers died, records show.

But Battles cousin Keisha Harris claimed that her actions were just a careless mistake and that she was a caring and loving mother.

Shes a caring and loving mother to her kids at the end of the day, she told WRAL. Shes not a cold-blooded murderer. Shes not a killer.

Battle was initially charged with two counts of felony murder and faced over 80 years in prison.

But, she later agreed to plead guilty to reduced charges.

The judge ruled that her willingness to accept responsibility for her actions meant that a mitigated sentence is justified and she was credited with 667 days time served, court records show.
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 22-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a wildfire that destroyed thousands of acres of tribal land in Arizona earlier this month.

Officials arrested Keanu Dude on Tuesday for arson charges in connection to the Watch Fire, which scorched more than 2,000 acres of San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation land, Arizona Family reports. Dude has been connected to a burning of an American flag just before the fire sparked, San Carlos Apache Tribe Police Chief Elliot Sneezy told the outlet.

No injuries or deaths were reported, but the blaze destroyed 21 houses and 13 other buildings, leaving more than 70 people without homes. Many of the homes destroyed were passed down over several generations. The wildfire also knocked out power lines, leaving many without electricity for over a week.

Dude has a criminal record, including charges for assault and domestic violence, officials told the Arizona Family.

Keanu Dude, 22, pictured in a booking photo. He was arrested on Tuesday in connection with the Watch Fire that burned through more than 2,000 acres of land in Arizona this month ( San Carlos Adult Detention & Rehabilitation Center )

It saddens me deeply that a member of our tribe has been charged with starting this fire that devastated our community, San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler told Arizona Family.

Arson is a senseless act that will never be tolerated under any circumstance, he continued. I am thankful for the swift and thorough investigation by tribal and federal law enforcement that has resulted in an arrest.

The fire, which sparked on July 10 and was contained by July 17, devastated the community.

I lost my house, I lost my cars, resident Sheila Patton told Arizona Family earlier this month. I lost my neighbors, everywhere in the neighborhood. Its just gone. I couldnt believe this fire took everybodys house. We dont know what to do, where were going to go now. Just heartbreaking.

The Watch Fire scorched more than 2,000 acres of the San Carlos Apache Reservation and took a week to contain ( AP )

Sneezy said he plays the disastrous blaze over and over in his mind.

And I think the best things I was hoping for is that nobody died, Sneezy told the Arizona Family. Sure enough, nobody did die.

It was saddening to me that a community member is the person responsible for this horrific act, he continued.
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

The burnt human remains of a teenage girl who was strangled after she went missing 15 years ago have finally been identified by a California police department.

Marcia Thomas was just 14 when she disappeared in Reno, Nevada on September 4, 2009 and the case would sit cold for more than a decade before finally being solved.

After years of DNA analysis and investigations from detectives the Irvine Police Department on Thursday revealed what happened to her.

Marcias family remains in our thoughts during this difficult time. We appreciate the agencies that have assisted in providing crucial information to support the case and the family, Police Chief Michael Kent said in a statement.

Investigators say that Thomas was lured into a van by Zenaido Valdivia-Guzman, 23, and his brother Gabino, 30, in Santa Ana, California.

She became startled and began to scream when she spotted the younger brother sitting in the back of the vehicle.

Zenaido began assaulting the young girl, beating her around the neck and face, according to police as Gabino continued to drive. As Thomas attempted to flee the scene the younger brother grabbed her and strangled her to death.

The van was then driven to a business complex on 1800 block, Kettering Street in Irvine where the girl was thrown into a parking lot.

The Valdivia-Guzmans took Thomas phone, doused her with gasoline and set her alight as they quickly fled the scene of the crime, authorities said.

Her scorched remains were discovered the following day by employees arriving for work.

Homicide detectives arrived at the scene and began scouring for any clues and information on who might be behind the slaying.

More than a year after the murder, on November 5, 2010, Zenaidos DNA was linked to the crime following a misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence the year prior.

Both brothers were arrested on November 6, 2010 at a shopping center in Santa Ana before being taken into custody.

Zenaido was convicted of first-degree murder and the special circumstance of murder in the commission of a kidnapping on November 15, 2022. He is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Gabino has not yet faced a judge and will be tried at an undisclosed future date.
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 }}

Ismael El Mayo Zambada, the alleged boss of Mexicos Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested by authorities in Texas on Thursday, the US Justice Department said.

Zambada, believed to be in his 70s, allegedly ran the cartels smuggling operations for decades while keeping a low profile. The powerful Sinaloa cartel specialises in illegal trafficking of fentanyl among others drugs, and money laundering.

Zambada was arrested alongside Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of his ex-partner Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, officials said. Zambada is one of the most consequential traffickers in Mexicos history and co-founded the Sinaloa Cartel with El Chapo, who was extradited to the US in 2017 and is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison.

Zambada was tricked into flying to Texas by a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa cartel, according to officials. Zambada and Lopez, who is likely in his 30s, were detained after landing in a private plane in the El Paso area, according to two US officials.

Witnesses at the Santa Teresa airport said they saw the pretty calm, arranged thing on the runway where federal agents were waiting for the duo to emerge from their Beechcraft King Air.

"Two individuals got off the plane and were calmly taken into custody," said the worker on the condition of anonymity.

Zambada carried a bounty of up to $15m on any information that could help in his capture. The duo are facing multiple charges for leading the cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, said attorney general Merrick Garland.

Earlier this year, Zambada was charged with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute fentanyl by the Eastern District of New York. He is described as continuing to lead one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organisations in the world by the prosecutors.

US authorities have accused the Sinaloa Cartel of being the biggest supplier of fentanyl in the country. Zambada is also one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico and was seen as the strategist of his cartel, taking part in day-to-day operations.

The recluse leader, seen as a shrewd operator, in an interview in 2010 had said he would rather kill himself than go to prison and that the fear of imprisonment loomed over him.

Im terrified of being incarcerated, Zambada said. Id like to think that, yes, I would kill myself, he told the Mexican magazine Proceso. He largely focused on the illegal business of trafficking and avoided brutal cartel violence like beheading, dismembering and skinning rivals that could draw attention.

One of his sons pleaded guilty in 2021 to being a leader in the cartel to a federal court in San Diego. El Chapo, seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada, led a faction which was one of the main exporters of fentanyl to the US market and the cartel was known as the little Chapos or Chapitos.

Their security head was held last year in November by Mexican officials. Lopez had a $5m bounty on his head.
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 Minnesota father was sentenced to just five years in prison for starving his seven-year-old daughter to death on the states Red Lake Reservation.

The youngster was described by a judge as being skeletal when she died on December 25 2022 because she was wilfully deprived of care by her father, 42-year-old Julius Fineday Sr.

He will now serve five years behind bars and two years of supervised release for child neglect District Attorney of Minnesota Andrew Luger announced.

Between January 1, 2022, and December 25, 2022, Fineday deprived the girl of necessary food, health care, and other basic needs despite being reasonably able to provide these for her, court documents state.

Authorities say that it was ultimately this neglect that caused the death of the young girl. Fineday pleaded guilty in March 2024 to one count of felony child neglect causing the death of a child and was sentenced on Tuesday in a US District Court.

The man was previously charged with second-degree manslaughter, but the District Attorney did not mention this charge in the release.

The childs death was thought to be the combined effects of malnutrition and Group A Streptococcal infection, which is caused by bacteria that can develop a series of severe or deadly illnesses, the release stated.

During Finedays sentencing, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz emphasized that he allegedly neglected the young girl in nearly every way that a caretaker could neglect a child.

The judge said that Fineday had deprived her of necessary nutrition, did not do anything about the childs head lice, and even kept her from attending school.

If she had attended school, Judge Schiltz said she would have been able to receive nutritious meals provided there.

On top of this neglect, Fineday was also accused by the judge of not taking the child to see the doctor for around three years, apart from receiving a Covid vaccine, for which the household received cash incentives.

One of the most heartbreaking details highlighted by the judge was that the child was starving, not due to a lack of resources or food in the house, but instead, a lack of care for the girl, the release said.

The judge noted that Minor A was not just thin, but skeletal at the time of her death.

Defense attorney Robert Richman argued in a court filing ahead of the sentencing that Fineday should be sentenced for a year, and said the child had "died as a result of poverty, neglect and a family overwhelmed by the burden of caring for 10 minor children. ... Had Indian Family and Children Services intervened sooner, [she] would still be alive, according to the Star Tribune.

The attorney reportedly argued that Fineday had acknowledged his neglect for the girl and "tried to provide food for [her] and her siblings, and did not realize she was dangerously malnourished."

While the court was sentencing Fineday, they said that the severity of the neglect did warrant an upward variance from the usual sentencing guidelines.

However, the court also acknowledged that the man demonstrated sincere remorse by pleading guilty even before the trial and without a plea deal.

Judge Schiltz said that this sentence should serve as a reminder that neglecting or abusing a child will result in negative consequences not only for the child, but also the responsible adult.

The judge urged carers who are not meeting childrens basic needs to, at a minimum, pick up the phone to seek help.

Another person, Sharon Rosebear, who reports say was the girls grandmother, was also convicted of felony child neglect in this case following a trial in April 2024, the District Attorney said, awaiting sentencing.

Rosebear, 63, also deprived the child of necessary food and health care in 2022, the District Attorneys office said earlier this year.
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 }}

Former film mogul Harvey Weinstein has been transferred from a New York City jail to a hospital to undergo treatment for a variety of health problems including COVID-19 and pneumonia in both lungs, his representatives said Thursday.

Weinstein, who is awaiting trial in New York on rape and sexual assault charges, was moved from the city's Rikers Island jail complex to a locked ward at Bellevue Hospital. The other conditions he was to be treated for included diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, and fluid on his heart and lungs, according to a statement released by Weinstein's publicist that attributed the health information to Craig Rothfeld, Weinsteins prison consultant.

We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses in the city's corrections and public hospital systems who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, said the publicist, Juda Engelmayer.

Weinstein has had at least one stint at Bellevue before, after he was first brought to New York City for legal proceedings related to his rape case.

Weinstein, 72, was found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault. The conviction was tossed out by appeals judges who said jurors shouldnt have heard testimony from women who had accused the film producer of misconduct but whose allegations werent part of the case.

A retrial has been scheduled for November.

While his conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars in part because he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in California after he was convicted in a rape case in Los Angeles in 2022.

Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone.

At a recent court hearing, Weinstein's lawyers had said he was in poor health and asked for him to be transferred from the jail to the hospital.
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 }}

Authorities in Central California have located the car of a missing 47-year-old woman who vanished earlier this week.

Tiffany McClure was last seen in Tulare on Monday. Two days later, the Tulare Police Department found the womans car, a white BMV, at Morro Strand State Beach Campground in Morro Bay, over 130 miles from where she was last spotted.

Nothing about the car seemed suspicious and it was found properly parked, locked and secured. There was no indication of foul play.

Tiffany McClure, 49, went missing earlier this week in Central California ( Tulare Police Department )

But friends said its not like McClure to fall off the radar for more than a day.

Theres going to be a lot of people in this area. Sometimes, people just arent aware if somebody needs to be contacted, said Amy Watkins from the Morro Bay Police Department. So its important, I think, right now for Tulare police department and certainly, the Morro Bay police department to get that information out there because Miss McClures family is concerned about her, and they just want to make sure shes ok and get contact with her as soon as possible.

Morro Bay Police Officer Tony Mosqueda told The San Luis Obispo Tribune that police officers searched the beach area where McClures car was found for multiple hours on foot and with a drone, but could not find anyone matching the womans description. Authorities are currently investigating the case as a voluntary missing persons report.

McClure is described as being 58 with blond hair and blue eyes. Her family reported her missing, and the investigation is ongoing.
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 Nevada business owner says he is concerned about squatters causing damage to a Las Vegas-area high-rise building where construction halted last year.

Jeremy Day, owner of neighboring business Freaks Tattoo Emporium, is working to keep The Watermark, a mixed-use apartment building in Downtown Henderson, clean. Hes complained about how alleged squatters have pried the fence posts open in front of the building.

I dont know how they bent it, Day told KLAS. I tried bending it back with a ratcheting tie-down strap by putting it across and putting it back again a couple of times, but they keep bending it open somehow.

Day has struggled to locate the propertys owner. His tattoo shop runs along the south side of the building. He said he has told the squatters to keep away from the building several times. Other residents are concerned about rising theft in the area.

The man is not financially attached to the building but is worried that the squatters may cause fires thatll reach his business.

A photo of the The Watermark, an abandoned high-rise in Nevada ( KLAS )

Im worried as time goes on, it gets out cold, theyre going to light fires or something, he said. Ive had multiple confrontations where Ive actually told them, they need to leave the property. Theyre in the parking garage, as far as I know, but theyre in there all the time.

Day says he contacted the police about the problem but they allegedly told him there was nothing they could do.

He said the biggest problem is because they dont have a list of whos supposed to go into the property, Day said. They said unless the owners call them, theres no way to know if the person is allowed in there or not.

Construction on the building stalled in December when contractors walked off the job. There are around $16m in liens against the property.

Earlier this year graffiti covered at least 27 stories of an unfinished high-rise development in Los Angeles. The three-tower project was going to house a hotel and luxury condos, but the project stalled in 2019 when a Chinese developer ran out of money.
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 }}

Underwater archeologists found a 130-year-old ship at the bottom of Lake Michigan that went down with the captains beloved dog on board.

Shipwreck hunters with the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association found the Margaret A. Muir schooner two months ago using sonar technology. The ship has since broken apart, but some components remained intact, including all its deck gear, two anchors and its bow windlass - a mechanical device used to pull anchors up, according to a news release from the association.

The ship sank on September 30, 1893. Captain David Clow, his dog and the crew were on board when the ship encountered a devastating storm and water began filling its hold.

The Margaret A. Muir schooner, pictured, was found at the bottom of Lake Michigan in May ( Tamara Thomsen, State Historical Society of Wisconsin )

Clow ordered the crew to evacuate  but not before tragedy struck.

No sooner than the order was given, the ship lurched violently and plunged for the bottom, taking Captain Clows faithful dog and ships mascot with it, the association said.

The captain and the rest of his crew survived.

The lifeboat filled with water as soon as it was launched and was only kept afloat with much bailing as the men pulled for the harbor lights through 15-foot seas, the association said.

After losing his unnamed dog, Clow said he was quitting sailing. Clow described his dog as an intelligent and faithful animal, and a great favorite with the captain and crew.

I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did, Clow said at the time, according to the association.

A diver from the Wisconsin Historical Society pictured collecting photos for a 3D model of the ship. The Wisconsin Underwater Archeological Association has been looking for the ship since 2023 ( Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society )

The association has been searching for the vessel since 2023. Kevin Cullen, executive director of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, and his team of shipwreck hunters found the vessel late in the day on May 12. Cullen told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he remembers thinking, This is it, this is really it!

This is what shipwreck hunting in Wisconsin is about, he told the outlet.

The organization is now working with the Wisconsin Historical Societys Maritime Archeology Program to add the shipwreck to the National Register of Historic Places.
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 }}

Sonya Massey , an unarmed Black woman who suffered from mental illness, was shot dead by police in Illinois less than an hour after calling 911 for help, and a mere 32 minutes after letting officers into her home.

Thats according to an autopsy report released Friday by the Sangamon County Coroners Office, which confirmed the 36-year-old mother of two died from a bullet wound to the head earlier this month.

Massey dialed 911 at 12:49 a.m. on July 6, and said she was hearing strange noises outside her home in Springfield, about 200 miles southwest of Chicago. Officers arrived to investigate, finding nothing suspicious in Masseys yard.

Massey let them inside at 1:15 a.m., after which things soon went awry. Amid a chaotic interaction involving a pot of water heating up on the stove, now-terminated Sangamon County sheriffs deputy Sean Graysonwho had worked for six different law enforcement agencies in the past four years and was discharged from the U.S. Army after 21 months for serious, but unspecified, misconductGrayson fired three shots at Massey, who immediately crumpled to the floor.

Sonya Massey was shot in the face after calling 911 for help ( Courtesy Ben Crump Law via AP )

The lethal round slammed into Masseys face beneath her left eye, states the report by forensic pathologist Nathaniel Patterson, M.D. It then perforated her left cheekbone, passed through the muscle tissue surrounding the base of the skull, and tore through Masseys carotid artery, exiting through the back of her neck, according to the report. Massey also received minor blunt force injuries of the right leg during the deadly encounter.

Her manner of death was listed as a homicide. Medical examiners found no soot or gunpowder stippling on the skin, meaning the round was fired from a distance, not at extremely close range, which would tend to leave behind a telltale deposit of unburned gunpowder particles.

The official time of death is listed as 1:47 a.m.

Sonya Massey was shot just below the left eye, with the round exiting through the back of her neck, according to the Sangamon County Coroners Office ( Sangamon County Coroner )

In bodycam footage recorded by Graysons partner, whose name has not been publicly released, Grayson can be heard discouraging him from going outside to get his medical kit, telling him, Its a headshot theres nothing we can do.

At one point, an officerit is unclear whose voice it isis heard telling the radio dispatcher that Masseys wound was self-inflicted.

Graysons bodycam was off during the interaction with Massey; he reportedly didnt turn it on until after the shooting. His employment with the Sangamon County Sheriffs Office was terminated July 17 following his indictment on first-degree murder charges. Since the shooting its emerged that Grayson twice pleaded guilty to DUI and was accused in divorce papers by his ex-wife of extreme and repeated mental cruelty.

The actions taken by Deputy Grayson do not reflect the values and training of the Sangamon County Sheriffs Office or law enforcement as a whole, Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell said in a July 17 statement . Good law enforcement officers stand with our community in condemning actions that undermine the trust and safety we strive to uphold.

Former Sangamon County Deputy Sean Grayson is now facing first-degree murder charges. ( Sangamon County Sheriff's Office )

The Department of Justice has opened its own investigation into the shooting. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump is representing Sonya Masseys family as they navigate the harrowing aftermath of her death.

At a press conference on Friday, Crump went over Graysons checkered work history and DUI convictions, asking how so many apparent red flags were overlooked and questioned how he got hired by Sangamon County in the first place.

How do you even have a drivers license, much less get a job as a sheriffs deputy? Crump said. [There are] many questions to be answered.

In a statement after Massey was killed, vice president and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said, Sonya Massey deserved to be safe. The disturbing footage released yesterday confirms what we know from the lived experiences of so many  we have much work to do to ensure that our justice system fully lives up to its name.

Grayson has pleaded not guilty.
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the

Evening Headlines email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

The family of a three-year-old boy has said he is not expected to survive after he was viciously attacked by two dogs last week.

Covil Allen, three, was visiting a home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, on July 19 when the two dogs attacked him and his mother Tasha.

Covils father Chuck Allen told Fox9 that the American bulldogs had attacked the toddler and Tasha had immediately rushed in to try to fight them off.

Brooklyn Park Police said that officers responded to the home at around 12.45pm, where they found two pit bulls actively attacking the child.

There were adults in the area that started to defend the three-year-old by using hammers and pick axes to get the dogs off, according to a search warrant obtained by WCCO.

Several officers fired their service weapons and struck both dogs, killing one and injuring the other.

Life-saving efforts were carried out at the scene before the three-year-old was taken to hospital in critical condition.

Covil underwent emergency surgery one day later after losing some circulation in his leg, according to a GoFundMe.

While Covil did see some signs of progress in brain pressure, swelling, and the healing of cuts on his face, the family announced some tragic news the following day.

In a heartbreaking update on the GoFundMe page on Wednesday, the family said that they would be starting the process of organizing organ donation.

This will honor Covils life and save more childrens lives in the hopes that no other parent has to endure the pain that they are experiencing right now, the pages organizer wrote.

Covil Allen, 3, was attacked by two dogs on July 19 in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota ( GoFundMe )

This has been a horrific tragedy for our family, the Allen family said in a statement to Fox9 on Thursday, adding that the child had no brain activity.

With our tragedy, we would like something good to come from it, so we are donating his organs, and with that, his bright spirit will live on.

Please continue praying for them [the family] as they navigate the next steps, the page organizer wrote. They love and appreciate all the support everyone has shown during this difficult time.

As of Friday, the GoFundMe page had topped $39,000 to support the little boys parents.

Tasha has also undergone two surgeries and is due to have a third on her calf, the fundraiser said.

The injured dog was secured at the home and taken to a nearby animal care facility, police said. The breed of dog is somewhat unclear, with police describing them as pit bulls and the family as American bulldogs.

Police believe the toddler and his family had gone to the home to buy a dog but that an investigation into the incident is underway.

Only three days after the attack in Brooklyn Park, a seven-year-old girl was attacked by a dog roughly six miles away and suffered superficial injuries, police said.
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

Watch as Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu met on Friday 26 July at the Republican presidential candidates resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

The Israeli prime ministers visit came a day after meetings in Washington DC with Democratic president Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris, who is running against Mr Trump.

Mr Netanyahu, a long-time Israeli leader, rearranged the travel schedule for his US visit to go to Florida for a session with Mr Trump.

Opinion polls put Ms Harris and Mr Trump in a close race for the White House, leaving world leaders like Mr Netanyahu, traditionally more closely aligned with Mr Trumps Republicans than Mr Bidens Democrats, striking a balance in dealings with the United States.

In her meeting with Mr Netanyahu, Ms Harris sharply pressed the Israeli leader about the humanitarian situation in Gaza in frank talks that were watched for signs of how she might shift American policy about Israel if she becomes president.
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

Donald Trump is set to return to Pennsylvania for the first time since his assassination attempt at the states Butler township earlier this month.

The former president, who was wounded in the shooting, will hold a rally in Harrisburg on 31 July, located about 400km (251 miles) from the Butler campaign site.

Trump, 78, was holding a rally on 13 July in Butler, Pennsylvania  a key state in the 5 November election  when shots rang out, hitting his right ear and leaving his face streaked with blood. Thomas Crooks, a 20-year-old nursing-home aide with an AR-15-style rifle got close enough to shoot at Trump from a rooftop. One person in the crowd was killed and two others wounded before Secret Service agents fatally shot the suspect.

This will be Trumps first campaign in the keystone state since Joe Biden pulled out from the presidential race, endorsing vice president Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. Trump called for national unity in the immediate aftermath of the shooting but quickly returned to his old rhetoric on the campaign trail, taking shots at Democrats.

The people of Pennsylvania are paying the price for the Democrats disastrous policies, his campaign said in the release announcing the rally. Kamala Harris and the Democrats pro-criminal and open border policies are wreaking havoc in Pennsylvania, the release stated.

US Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by secret service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event in Butler ( AFP via Getty Images )

Ms Harriss swift emergence as successor to Mr Biden has shaken up the presidential race, with polls showing her narrowing Trumps advantage.

A series of polls conducted since Mr Biden ended his reelection bid on Sunday, including one by Reuters-Ipsos, show Ms Harris and Trump beginning their head-to-head contest on roughly equal footing, setting the stage for a closely-fought campaign over the next three-and-a-half months.

A New York Times/Siena College national poll published on Thursday found Ms Harris has narrowed what had been a sizable Trump lead. Trump was ahead of Ms Harris 48 per cent to 46 per cent among registered voters, compared with a lead of 49 per cent to 41 per cent over Mr Biden in early July, following Bidens disastrous debate performance that led to a wave of Democratic calls for him to step aside as candidate.

Trump on Wednesday night laid into Ms Harris in his first rally since she replaced Mr Biden atop the ticket, then continued his criticism online on Thursday.

"Were not ready for a Marxist President, and Lyin Kamala Harris is a RADICAL LEFT MARXIST, AND WORSE!" Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Meanwhile, one of the men injured in the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania has been discharged from hospital, The Independent confirmed.

A spokesperson for Allegheny General Hospital said David Dutch, 57, a member of the Marine Corps League of Pennsylvania, had been discharged on Wednesday. Mr Dutch was shot in the chest and liver and was initially in a medically induced coma after the shooting, according to the corps. He serves as a Commandant of the Westmoreland Detachment in Pennsylvania.

Additional reporting by agencies
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 }}

Donald Trump is absolutely certain he was shot in the face last month by a round from a would-be assassins AR-15 assault-style rifle.

Maybe he was. But maybe he wasnt, according to FBI Director Christopher Wray, who is somewhat less sure about exactly what happened at the Pennsylvania campaign rally where the ex-presidents ear was bloodied while he addressed a crowd of supporters.

I think with respect to former President Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear, Wray testified on Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee. Theres a whole lot of work underway and still a lot of work to do.

An infuriated Trump took to Truth Social a few hours later, lashing out in a rambling attack at Wray, who was appointed by Trump during his single term in office.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasnt sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), Trump seethed. But he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively uneventful  Wrong!

Donald Trump was clipped in the ear by something , and while many experts believe it was a bullet, not shrapnel or debris, FBI Director Christopher Wray is withholding judgment until after the bureaus investigation is complete ( AFP via Getty Images )

Ballistics experts surveyed by The Independent say it is impossible to know exactly what happened without further investigation  and increased transparency from Trump.

Trump and his campaign have declined to provide any official information about his injuries, have not released any of his medical records, and have not authorized the doctors who treated him to speak publicly.

But an analysis published Friday by The New York Times suggested Trump was hit by a bullet, not a fragment or shrapnel. Using a 3D model of the scene, along with input from an expert in audio forensics, the Times studied the trajectory of the first bullet to hit the seating area behind Trump. It reportedly showed the round had traveled in a straight line from the rifles barrel and grazed Trumps ear on the way to its final destination, rather than striking something in between that would have sheared off a piece of something that then hit Trump.

Luke Laterza, a former Newark Police Department sergeant who ran the citys ballistics lab until he retired in 2016, said the FBI, which has jurisdiction over the shooting investigation, has thus far  as is typical  played its cards extremely close to the vest.

Laterza, who continues to consult for the Newark PD and other law enforcement agencies, told The Independent that while investigators have identified the weapon used by 20-year-old would-be assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks as an AR-15, its a platform that can fire various types of ammunition.

We can assume that it was .223, but [it can shoot] nine-millimeter, .22 long rifle, .308, Laterza said. But we dont know.

Gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, was shot dead at the scene. ( AP )

Without access to the actual evidence and investigation details, Laterza conceded it was all but impossible to pin down a solid answer at this point. Still, Laterza said, I can tell you, he was hit. He was either hit with the bullet tip, the bullet neck, or a fragment.

But, Laterza went on, Whether it was a piece of the podium, or it was a bullet, it was all derived from a bullet.

Rounds of any caliber that are fired from handguns and rifles are subject to fragmenting, but in order for that to occur, they have to hit something hard, explained Peter Diaczuk, a professor of forensic science at New York Citys John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Diaczuk echoed the Times findings, pointing out that there were no objects between Crooks and Trump that logically could have created flying debris, and that the podium and seats behind Trump happened to be positioned in such a way that the laws of physics made it unlikely he was hit by a fragment of either, he told The Independent.

This, according to Diaczuk, would probably rule out a bullet fragment as being the object that struck Trump, since, he said, bullets do not break apart in the air.

The FBI, in an investigation such as this, tries to reconstruct the shooting as closely as possible.

The trajectory of the rounds, the [dispersion] of the roundshow they, in effect, behave, just to have a better understanding of where the rounds came from an where they went, said Dennis Franks, a retired FBI special agent who was at one point supervising a bureau SWAT team.

Trumps bandaged ear became a fashion statement for Republicans ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. )

Investigators will also interview Trump, which the FBI announced on Friday, and examine all rounds and fragments and match them with the weapon involved to rule out any secondary shooters, Franks told The Independent.

Franks cited the same problems as Laterza, in not knowing the caliber of the ammunition Crooks fired at Trump. A 5.56 NATO round, which is similar to a .223 round but not exactly the same, is designed not to pass through its target, in this case, a human body, but to stay within and inflict maximum damage, Franks said. In this instance, he went on, It would be incredibly lucky for a 5.56 round to just nick the ear.

But again, Franks said, I dont know.

Trump has eagerly included the shooting in his ever-evolving legend of himself, recounting the event, moment by moment, during the first part of his 90-plus-minute speech at the recent Republican National Convention. Mimicking his bandaged ear became a fashion statement for some attendees of the partys nominating confab.

While the FBI continues its work, GOP Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, who served as Trumps personal doctor in the White House, apparently believes the bureau is wasting its time, insisting hes seen the former presidents medical records after the assassination attempt.

In a letter posted Friday morning to Truth Social, Jackson said there is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet. Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.
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 }}

Doug Emhoff nearly missed one of the biggest moments of his wifes life when Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the presidental race.

The second gentleman  during a fundraising and organizing call with Black Gay and Queer Men for Harris on Thursday night  said he was out with gay friends in West Hollywood on Sunday morning. They were getting coffee after finishing a SoulCycle class, and he didnt have his phone with him, Emhoff said, according to The Los Angeles Times.

My friends partner said, Um, you need to look at this, and I said, What? Emhoff recalled.

His friend was holding his phone to show Emhoff the presidents letter announcing he was ending his re-election campaign.

Of course I didnt have my phone, so I ran and ran and got into our car, and of course my phone is just on fire, and its basically, Call Kamala, Call Kamala, Call Kamala, from everyone, he said.

So he did.

And of course, the first thing she said was, Where the  were you? I need you, Emhoff said.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff appear at the Harris for President campaign headquarters as she launched her candidacy on July 22. Harris said he missed the moment when President Joe Biden dropped out because he was out with friends. ( POOL/AFP via Getty Images )

The funny moment shed light on how quickly Bidens decision came down and was kept from many in Washington, DC. Less than an hour after Biden released the letter, he endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee to replace him. Since then, life has been a whirlwind, Emhoff said.

Weve just been hustling, he said. Ive barely even seen her or talked to her since this all happened.

Emhoff joined Harris on Monday at the now-former Biden campaign headquarters in Delaware, where she greeted staff and supporters and previewed her campaign message in the weeks and months to come.

Before getting off Thursday nights call, Emhoff said he had not seen Harris in several days since her campaigns launch.

Im going to give her a big hug, Im going to say, Go get some rest, honey, because weve got about 102-ish days left to save our country, he said.

The call was among several similar organizing efforts taking place to rally campaign volunteers and supporters around Harriss candidacy. Emhoff thanked participants for their support, adding that shes going to be there for you and the rest of us.

She has a vision for America that we all have a place in, he said. She is talking about the future, not the past. Shes talking about a world where theres freedom, a world where we value everyone, a world where we stick up for people, a world where we fight against bullies  and were fighting against the ultimate bully right now.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, in an early glimpse at how Emhoff might help respond to Donald Trumps attacks, Emhoff said: Thats all hes got?

You heard the vice president yesterday making the case against Donald Trump very clearly, he said. Laid out the case directly, and in a compelling fashion. But she also laid out a vision for the future, a vision where theres freedom, where were not having to talk about these issues of today in this post-Dobbs hellscape that Donald Trump created.

Harris and Emhoff kiss before Harris speaks at her campaign headquarters in Delaware on July 22. Emhoff later said that the vice president told him I need you after learning that Joe Biden dropped out of the race. ( POOL/AFP via Getty Images )

Emhoff briefly mentioned Trump on Thursdays call, but said he didnt want to get into all that, because I heard the last speaker talking about the hellscape that our country will be [in] if somehow that guy who was a terrible president the first time somehow gets back.

We cant imagine a future like that, Emhoff said.

Within days of her candidacy, Harris won key endorsements from lawmakers and prominent allies  including Barack and Michelle Obama  while securing support from a majority of Democratic National Committee delegates to clinch the partys nomination.

She is expected to announce her running mate before August 7, and the Democratic National Convention in Chicago begins August 19, when she is expected to formally accept the partys nomination.
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 }}

Jimmy Fallon has poked fun at JD Vances low pollings by reeling off a list of all the things that are more popular than Donald Trumps chosen running mate  from lice outbreak emails to a sun-warmed egg salad.

On The Tonight Show Thursday, Fallon said that he read that Trumps running mate, JD Vance, has a negative net favorability rating.

Yeah, his favorability rating is a negative six. Im not even sure how thats possible. But its true, Fallon said.

Just to give you a sense of how bad that is, heres a list of things currently polling higher than JD Vance.

Fallon then listed: First, theres sun-warmed egg salad. Next, there is the lice outbreak email from your kids school. And, finally, theres people who use the word Fri-Yay.

Trump announced earlier this month that he had chosen the Ohio senator as his vice presidential pick to join him on the Republican ticket in November.

But, since then, Vance has not been doing so well in the polls.

In a poll analysis by CNN, Vance was found to be the first non-incumbent, vice presidential pick since 1980 to have a net-negative rating following a party convention.

Jimmy Fallon poked fun at JD Vances low favorability ratings ( The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon )

CNNs senior political data reporter Harry Enten stated that Vance is currently making history in the completely wrong way.

He explained that since 2000, vice presidential nominees usually, on average, have a net-positive rating immediately after the RNC, at plus 19 points in favorability.

However, Vance has seen his net favorable rating plunge to minus six points after he was declared as Trumps running mate and joined Trump on the campaign trial.

The Republican vice presidential candidate is also facing backlash for his sexist comments which resurfaced this week of him attacking Kamala Harris and other women as a bunch of childless cat ladies.

Some Republicans are reportedly starting to regret Vance being on the partys ticket after Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the presumptive nominee for the Democratic party.

One House Republican told Axios that on the whole, Vance doesnt add much.

Yet, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told The Independent: President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House. Meanwhile, Democrats are in complete disarray after their coup that forcibly removed Biden from the campaign, proving they are the real threats to democracy.

Fallon also touched on Bidens address to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, where he spoke for the first time about his decision to drop out of the 2024 race.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance) speaks during a campaign rally at Middletown High School on July 22, 2024 in Middletown, Ohio. Vance has been polling lower than most vice presidential candidates immediately after the RNC ( Getty Images )

The late-night show host said that Biden spoke for around 11 minutes.

But joked that the only hiccup in the speech was a guy off camera yelling Please get back in the race. Please!  referencing Trump.

Im a reporter from a  Youve never met me before! Please, he quipped.

In reality, Trump was reportedly watching the speech from his private plane after a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Fallon flashed an image on screen posted by The New York Times of Trump watching it from the plane. He then joked that Trump made it five minutes into the speech before changing the channel to this, and changed the screen to Love Island USA.

The former president had some very strong remarks in response to Bidens speech, taking to Truth Social to call it barely understandable and sooo bad!

In contrast, Fallon said the speech was very graceful, before joking that at the end, Biden surprised everyone by announcing his candidacy for 2028.

"No. Stop! Stop, please, Fallon exclaimed.
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 }}

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro will campaign together for Kamala Harris next week.

Whitmer and Shapiro both endorsed the vice president as the next Democratic candidate to face Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid on Sunday.

The duo is set to appear at a campaign event in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania on Monday,The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. They are expected to speak out against Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump term.

The 2025 plan was spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and more than a dozen former Trump administration officials. The document includes plans to expand his executive authority, replace civil servants with loyalists, crush abortion rights, attack civil rights for LGBTQ+ people and impose an anti-immigrant agenda.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (left) pictured with Vice President Kamala Harris (right). Shapiro and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer will campaign for the vice president on Monday ( REUTERS )

Both governors are considered front-runners for Harris running mate. Shapiro is attending several weekend events to back Harris in her election bid.

Harris began sending initial vetting materials to potential vice presidents on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. Shapiro said he hadnt received any materials on Tuesday. However, when asked a similar question on Wednesday, he referred the inquiry to Harris campaign team, according to the AP.

Additional top picks for Harris include Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who represents the swing state Arizona, and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.

However, her entire list of candidates includes more than a dozen names, the AP reports. Other names include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, pictured campaigning for President Joe Biden, is now one of Kamala Harris potential running mates ( AFP via Getty Images )

The campaign is also vetting at least one person who isnt currently in government, according to the AP.

Meanwhile, in the GOP camp, some Republican lawmakers are concerned about Trumps decision to run alongside Senator JD Vance, Axios reports.

The road got a lot harder, one House Republican told Axios. He was the only pick that wasnt the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that.

Another unnamed GOP lawmaker told Axios Vance doesnt add much to the Trump 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 }}

More than 40 former Justice Department officials who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents have signed a letter endorsing 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris, according to a new report.

The letter  which includes the signatures of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former deputy attorneys general Sally Yates, David Ogden, and Jamie Gorelick, and the top Washington prosecutor during George W Bush's administration, John McKay  paints Harris as a common sense candidate who will respect the rule of law, according to NBC News, which first reported the endorsement.

Harris is a former attorney general for the state of California, a role that has earned her both praise and condemnation within her own party.

The former justice officials made clear that between the former prosecutor and Trump, who was convicted of a felony, they chose Harris.

The fabric of the nation, the rule of law and the future of the Democracy are at stake in this election, the letter states. The stakes could not be higher. Former President Trump presents a grave risk to our country, our global alliances and the future of democracy.

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech at the American Federation of Teachers 88th national convention in Houston, Texas, on July 25, 2024. Harris was endorsed by more than 40 former Justice Department officials on July 25, 2024 ( REUTERS )

The letter was explicit in not just endorsing Harris but painting Donald Trump as a dangerous alternative who threatens the legitimacy of justice in the US.

The document accuses Trump of having "regularly ignored the rule of law" during his time as president. It specifically cites his "unconstitutional Muslim travel ban" and his alleged attempt to steal the 2020 election through his fake elector scheme and the Capitol riot.

The former DOJ officials' letter comes on the heels of the majority conservative Supreme Court's decision to uphold Trump's claims of "presidential immunity," which shields presidents from criminal liability tied to their "official acts."

Harris's campaign is already being aided in some capacity by former DOJ officials; former Attorney General Eric Holder is leading the effort to vet her potential running partners, and Brian Fallon, a former DOJ spokesman, is working as her communications director.

The vice president-turned-2024 presidential hopeful has put her past as a prosecutor up front during her recent appearances as well. During a campaign event on Tuesday, Harris called out Trump and reminded the nation that she used to be in the business of sending people to jail.

I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain, she said. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trumps type.
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 }}

Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz made their debut as the Democratic presidential ticket on Tuesday night, kicking off a campaign against Donald Trump and JD Vance in front of an electrified crowd in Philadelphia.

The governor strode on stage at Temple Universitys Licouras Center on Tuesday with Harris just hours after she announced him as her running mate, with 91 days to go until the November election.

Walzs appearance ended the closely-watched contest for the next potential vice president, landing on a seasoned Midwestern politician, military veteran and former school teacher with a progressive track record.

Harris told the estimated 12,000 people in attendance that she set out to find a partner who can build this brighter future during her weeks-old campaign for the presidency.

Her search for a running mate led her to a leader who can unite this nation and move us forward, someone who was a fighter for the middle class and a patriot who believes as I do the extraordinary promise of America, a promise of freedom, opportunity and justice not just for some but for all, she said.

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his wife Gwen Walz greet supporters at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on August 6. ( Getty Images )

She told the crowd that she found such a leader in Walz, a 60-year-old former high school teacher who enlisted in the Army National Guard at 17 and served for 24 years, then spent more than two decades teaching and coaching football before entering politics.

The vice president recounted how during the 1990s, a time when the federal government enacted a law banning any recognition of same-sex relationships, Walz served as a faculty adviser for a high school gay-straight alliance group because he knew the signal it would send to have a football coach get involved.

Walz makes people feel they belong and inspires them to dream big, and thats the kind of vice president he will be, she added, and thats the kind of vice president America deserves.

He represented Minnesota in the House of Representatives from 2007 to 2017 and is now in the middle of his second term as the states governor. He has had a recent meteoric rise on to the national stage with his no-nonsense assessment of the GOPs platform and the weird agenda behind it.

Kamala Harris stifled a laugh as her running mate Tim Walz cracked a joke about his Republican counterpart JD Vance and his couch controversy ( Getty Images )

In the governors office, Walz ushered through a series of popular progressive policies, including protections for abortion rights and LGBT+ Minnesotans and a free breakfast and lunch program for public school children.

Minnesotas strength comes from our values, our commitment to working together, to seeing past our differences, to always be willing to lend a helping hand, Walz told the crowd.

Trump, however, doesnt know the first thing about service, because hes too busy serving himself, according to Walz.

The former president weakens our economy to strengthen his own hand, mocks our laws, and sows chaos and division, and thats to say nothing of his record as president, said Walz, who said Trump froze during the Covid-19 crisis, drove the economy into the ground, and make no mistake: violent crime was up under Donald Trump.

Thats not counting the crimes he committed, he added.

Walz said he cant wait to debate his GOP counterpart JD Vance.

Like most people who grew up in the heartland, JD studied at Yale, had his career funded by Silicon Valley billionaires, and then wrote a best seller trashing that community, he said, his voice carrying more than a hint of sarcasm.

Tim Walz told a crowd in Philadelphia on August 6 that rival Donald Trump doesnt know a thing about service ( AP )

He added that what Vance represents is not what Middle America is, and drew some of the loudest cheers of the night when he told rallygoers: I cant wait to debate the guy ... if hes willing to get off the couch and show up.

See what I did there? said Walz, making an apparent reference to an online joke that Vance wrote about having sex with a couch in his best-selling memor.

Harriss announcement arrived roughly three months before Election Day and two weeks before the Democratic National Convention, where the Harris-Walz ticket will formally receive the partys nomination.

After President Joe Biden ended his re-election campaign and backed Harris as the partys nominee, she quickly collected endorsements and delegate pledges to clinch the nomination, with record-breaking fundraising numbers that have eclipsed Republicans multi-million dollar war chest.

A campaign spokesperson said the newly-christened Harris-Walz effort pulled in yet another $20m in the hours after the announcement.

Walz quipped I see those old white guys when he spotted a member of Old White Men for Harris on the front row at the Philadelphia rally on August 6 ( AP )

The electic atmosphere recalled the boisterous rallies of the Obama-Biden campaigns in 2008 and 2012. It attracted a racially diverse crowd that included a pair of gray-haired white men sporting shirts declaring themselves Old White Men for Harris and Freedom.

Its as clear as the T-shirt says, Bernie Strain told The Independent. Its about two old white men liking our Social Security, liking our Medicare, liking our freedom, liking our democracy  well lose it if Trump gets elected.

Strain said that his son, a Marine, had served a pair of tours at the base that was struck by Iran-backed militants in Iraq on Monday.

Hes no loser and hes no sucker for serving in the United Statess service, and Trumps not going to call my son a loser or a sucker, he said. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Harris even drew a pair of former Republican members of Congress, including former Pennsylvania congressman James Greenwood, who told The Independent that he understood Biden had to stand down after his June 27 debate against Trump.

Greenwood described the vibe after Biden stood down as like an electric charge.

The excitement, the volunteers, the fundraising,  everyones pretty excited, he said.

Another ex-Republican House member from Illinois, Joe Walsh, said Walz was a great bet for Harris because the Minnesotan is like an everyman.

I disagree with him on a lot of policy, but he's like a regular guy, and that's what Democrats have to have, he said.

Andrew Feinberg reported from Philadelphia
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 }}

Kamala Harris has trolled Donald Trump by using his words against him after the Republican presidential nominee backed out of a proposed television debate.

What happened to any time, any place? the vice president posted on X late on Thursday night.

Trump had previously used those words back in March to lay down the gauntlet to President Joe Biden as the two rivals sparred about when and where they would face each other on the debate stage.

But, now that Biden has stepped aside and Harris has become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the former president appears to have gotten cold feet.

On Thursday, Harris was asked by reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland about debating Trump.

She said she was ready to go head-to-head with the former president on stage but accused him of backpedaling on his commitment to the debate provisionally scheduled for September 10 on ABC News.

I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10 debate, she said.

He agreed to that previously. Now, here he is backpedaling and Im ready and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage and so Im ready to go.

Trumps campaign team subsequently confirmed that he would not commit to debating Harris  at least not yet  blaming Democratic instability for the u-turn.

Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee, the Trump campaigns communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party  namely Barack Hussein Obama  that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone better.

Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.

Cheungs offer of an explanation does not acknowledge that neither Biden nor Trump were their respective parties nominees during the first presidential debate in Atlanta on June 27. Like Harris, both candidates were merely the presumptive nominees at the time.

There now appears to be little doubt that Harris will be confirmed as the partys presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month, as she has already secured more than enough delegates to meet the threshold and no major challengers have emerged to rival her.

The majority of party big beasts like Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries have also publicly backed her.

Kamala Harris steps off Air Force Two upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Thursday July 25 2024. She later taunted Trump for backing out of debate ( Reuters )

Former president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have now joined them in the wake of Cheungs statement, backing Harris in a video posted to social media on Friday, having reportedly only withheld their endorsement so as not to overshadow Bidens big moment as he exited the race.

Trump told reporters earlier this week that he would absolutely be prepared to debate Harris but alleged political bias at ABC News and hinted that he would prefer a more sympathetic conservative broadcaster like Fox News to host. Fox News has invited the two candidates to a debate on the network on September 17.

His adviser Jason Miller has insisted that further presidential debates will happen.

Not only will there be another debate, but there should be multiple debates, he said.

We do think there should be some diversification in the outlets for who hosts a debate, but I think the public would be sold short if we only did one debate against Kamala Harris in the general election.
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Thanks for signing up to the

Inside Washington email {{ #verifyErrors }} {{ message }} {{ /verifyErrors }} {{ ^verifyErrors }} Something went wrong. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }}

Democrats commemorated the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act by coming out swinging against Donald Trump, after his nephew claimed in a new memoir that the former president once suggested people with disabilities should just die.

Its hard to describe the pain millions of Americans with disabilities are feeling in response to Donald Trumps newly-reported comments against folks with disabilities, Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs serving in the Iraq War, said in a statement shared by the Democratic National Committee on Friday.

But we know this is nothing new for him  he mocked a reporter with a physical disability, dismissed traumatic brain injuries as not very serious, attempted to slash support for disabled veterans and so much more. Any human being who suggests that people with disabilities should just die is fundamentally unfit to serve.

Duckworths slam comes after the former presidents nephew, Fred Trump III, revealed shocking details from a private conversation the pair had following a meeting about patients with disabilities and their families at the White House at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Those people... The shape theyre in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die, Trump allegedly said in the Oval Office, according to Fred Trump IIIs memoir, All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way.

Democrats also sought to tie Trumps words about disability to Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundations blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. Trump has sought to distance himself from the program, despite the fact many former administration officials helped write it.

Sen Tammy Duckworth arrives for a briefing on Ukraine at the US Capitol on 20 September 2023 ( Getty Images )

Friday marks 34 years since former President George H W Bush, a Republican, signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law, thanks to bipartisan collaboration in Congress.

In recent years, there has been less agreeement between parties on disability rights. The DNCs release points out that Trump faced multiple lawsuits during his presidency claiming that his properties did not comply with the ADA and also notes his attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have reduced funding for Medicaid, which many people with disabilities rely on to receive care in their homes.

The Republican National Committees research account on X has also taken heat for mocking Vice President Kamala Harris in 2022 for describing what she was wearing, a common practice to aid people who are blind or who have low-vision. The Republican National Committee did not release a statement commemorating the law.

Democrats also noted how Project 2025 proposes eliminating the Department of Education, which enforces accommodations for students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Despite the eroding bipartisan consensus, a few areas of agreement remain on the issue. Numerous states with Republican governors have outlawed the practice of paying people with disabilities below the minimum wage, as have many Democratic governors.

Similarly, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a recent candidate for the Republican nomination for president, recently signed legislation to allow for supported decision-making as an alternative to guardianship to allow for people with disabilities to still have control of their finances. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed similar legislation.

Harris for her part was the first Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 contest to release a disability policy.

On the 34th anniversary of the ADA, were reminded how far weve come but how much work still remains, and we wont go backward, Duckworth sad. The disability community cannot withstand another four years of 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 }}

There is no evidence that Donald Trump was hit with anything other than an assassins bullet at a rally earlier this month in Pennsylvania, according to his former White House physician.

Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors and nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting, congressman Ronny Jackson wrote on Friday in a letter posted on Truth Social, highlighting his past experience with similar wounds as a combat physician in the Navy.

The comments come two days after FBI director Christopher Wray suggested during testimony in Congress that Trump may have been hit by shrapnel, an analysis Jackson called wrong and inappropriate.

There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet, Jackson added.

During testimony Wednesday before the House Judiciary, Wray said the FBI had collected eight spent rounds from the site of the Pennsylvania rally and had accounted for each shot gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks fired at Trump.

With respect to former president Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear, the FBI said.

As I sit here right now, I dont know whether that bullet in addition to causing the grazing, could have landed somewhere else.

He added: But I believe weve accounted for all the shots in the cartridges.

Top Republican leaders, as well as Trump himself, have insisted the former presidents ear was wounded by a bullet at the rally.

Weve all seen the video, weve seen the analysis, weve heard it from multiple sources in different angles that a bullet went through his ear. Im not sure it matters that much, House Speaker Johnson told NBC News.

Trump has incorporated the shooting into his stump speech.

At a rally in Michigan, his first after the shooting, Trump claimed he took a bullet for democracy.

Others have praised Trump for standing up and pumping his fist after being shot.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg that seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things Ive ever seen in my life.
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 }}

Donald Trump said he plans to hold another rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, after a gunman fired an AR-15-style rifle at the former president moments after he stepped on stage in the town on July 13.

In an all-caps message on his Truth Social on Friday, Trump said he will be going back for a big and beautiful rally to honor a rally attendee who was fatally shot and two others who were critically injured during the assassination attempt.

WHAT A DAY IT WILL BE  FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS, he wrote.

It is unclear whether Trump will return to the same open-air fairgrounds where 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks fired at the former president from a rooftop outside a security perimeter. Secret Service and federal law enforcement officials have repeatedly urged Trump to stop holding campaign rallies outdoors.

Within the last two weeks after the shooting, Trump has instead held rallies at indoor arenas.

Earlier this week, Trump announced a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on July 31, roughly four hours away from Butler.

Donald Trump is surround by Secret Service agents after he was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. On July 26, he said he plans to hold another rally in the town. ( AP )

On July 13, Crooks fired eight rounds within six seconds, killing Corey Comperatore and injuring David Dutch and James Copenhave. A bullet grazed Trumps ear.

The weapon, which Crooks owned, was initially purchased by Crookss father more than a decade ago, according to congressional testimony from FBI director Christopher Wray this week.

Crooks had Google searched details about the assassination of John F Kennedy a week before the attack, and registered for Trumps rally that same day, Wray said. Crooks visited a shooting range the day before the attack and flew a drone around the area hours before setting up on a nearby rooftop.

Wray had also suggested that there remains some uncertainty whether a bullet or shrapnel struck Trumps ear. Trumps physician, Republican congressman Ronny Jackson, said on Friday that there is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet. A statement from an FBI spokesperson later clarified that what struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subjects rifle.

Following the hearing, Trump called on Wray  who Trump appointed to the agency  to resign for lying to Congress.

On Friday, Trump said he fully accepted the FBIs latest statement as an apology from Wray.

Security failures after the attack have prompted bipartisan calls for law enforcement officials to come before Congress. After she was grilled by House lawmakers on Monday, Secret Service director Kimberly Chealte stepped down.
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 }}

Former President Donald Trump hit out at Vice President Kamala Harris for her insistence that Israel should avoid civilian casualties and allow Palestinians access to humanitarian aid as he hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

In video released by Trumps presidential campaign, the Israeli leader was greeted by the ex-president on the front steps of his Palm Beach, Florida, mansion turned social club, where the pair embraced before smiling for the cameras.

In a subsequent video shot by handpicked news outlets invited into the facility by Trumps campaign, the two right-wing politicians were seen seated at a table as if both men were conducting a diplomatic meeting.

Trump called the sitting vice presidents comments on the tragedies civilians have suffered in Gaza disrespectful and claimed that there would be a world war in the Middle East if he is not returned to the White House after this years presidential election.

If we win, it'll be very simple. It's all going to work out, and very quickly. If we don't, you're going to end up with major wars in the Middle East, and maybe a third world war, he said.

Trump and Netanyahu met for a meeting at the ex-presidents Mar-a-Lago club ( AP )

Trump also suggested that he was better for Israel than any other American president because he allowed Netanyahu and his extremist allies to conduct themselves as they wished with regard to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

For his part, Netanyahu was all smiles as he arrived at Trumps social club. A New York Times photographer who was invited into the facility posted on X that Netanyahu asked Trump about the ear wound he received during an assassination attempt earlier this month.

The two leaders have long had a warm relationship, and both share legal troubles in their respective home countries. Trump and Netanyahu are each facing criminal charges against them, and are fighting to regain or remain in power in order to stay out of prison.

Netanyahu has generally been friendly with Republican presidents while acting to undermine Democrats and exploit divisions within the Democratic Party because GOP administrations have not pushed as hard for him to continue with the peace process.

But he has had his share of tensions with Trump since the ex-president lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Trump reportedly became enraged after Netanyahu acknowledged Bidens victory and he has repeatedly condemned Israels bad [public relations] with the war in Gaza.

Earlier in the week, Netanyahu delivered a pugilistic address before a joint meeting of Congress in which he rejected calls to moderate the conduct of the war and condemned pro-Palestinian protesters as useful idiots serving the aims of the Iranian government.

He also met with President Biden in the Oval Office, thanking the outgoing US president for his long-standing support for Israel while he and the American leader spoke to reporters ahead of their bilateral talks.

Mr President, weve known each other for 40 years, and youve known every Israeli prime minister for 50 years ... So from a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the State of Israel, and I look forward to discussing with you today and working with you in the months ahead on the great issues before us, Netanyahu said.

Biden replied that he looked forward to working with the Israeli leader over his final six months in office and noted that his first meeting with an Israeli leader  then-prime minister Golda Meir  also included Yitzhak Rabin, then an assistant to Meir.

Rabin, who served as Israels head of government from 1974-1977 and regained the prime ministers post in 1992, was the Israeli leader who signed the landmark peace deal that brought the Palestinian Authority into existence and laid out a roadmap for peace that has largely been ignored by Netanyahu. He was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli right-wing extremist who was opposed to the peace process.

He also met with Harris in her ceremonial Washington, DC, office after the vice president returned from a campaign stop in Texas.

Speaking after the meeting, she told reporters that she told the Israeli leader she would always assure that his nation would be able to defend itself.
 Close Trump kisses female genius behind life-saving chart in first rally in Pennsylvania since shooting

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 }}

Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail having returned to Pennsylvania for his first campaign rally in the swing state since he came within inches of being killed by a would-be assassins bullet on July 13.

The former president and Republican nominee spoke in Harrisburg, just hours after a confrontational interview with the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago.

During the interview, Trump insulted his presumptive 2024 Democratic Party opponent, Kamala Harris, and falsely accused her of lying about her race  stating that she recently became Black. Harris, who is biracial, is Black and Indian-American.

At the evening rally, Trump remained largely tied to his prepared remarks and attacked Harris for supposedly wanting to destroy Pennsylvanias economy.

His next big campaign event will be a joint appearance with his vice presidential pick, JD Vance. That will take place in Atlanta on Saturday, at the same venue Harris held a barnstorming first rally of her campaign earlier in the week.

We are temporarily pausing our Trump campaign blog.

Please join us in our main US election 2024 blog for full coverage of both campaigns as the race to the White House gathers pace.
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 }}

The FBI is seeking to interview Donald Trump as investigators try to get to the bottom of whether or not he was struck in the ear by a bullet or shrapnel during the assassination attempt earlier this month.

Two weeks on from the attack at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, unanswered questions remain about the attempt on Trumps life.

Gunman Thomas Crooks, 20, fired eight rounds from his AR-15 rifle towards the Republican presidential nominee, killing one rallygoer, wounding two others and leaving Trump with an injury to his ear.

On Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the ongoing investigation into the response of law enforcement agencies that day and raised doubts as to whether the former presidents ear was struck by a live round.

With respect to former president Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear, Wray said.

FBI investigators have now asked to interview the former president as they try to identify the specific cause of his injury as part of the probe, an agency and law enforcement official told The New York Times.

In a statement on Thursday, the bureau said its shooting reconstruction team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Christopher Wray testified in front of a House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday ( Getty Images )

Trump, his former White House doctor and other Republicans have hit out at the FBI director for suggesting that it could be anything other than a bullet that punctured the former presidents ear  and have doubled down on the matter.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasnt sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively uneventful - Wrong! the former president posted on Truth Social late on Thursday.

Thats why he knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our Country at record levels. His only focus is destroying J6 Patriots, Raiding Mar-a-Lago, and saving Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in D.C. burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monuments - with zero retribution. No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard.

There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!

Trump has repeatedly claimed that it was a bullet that struck him in both public comments and social media posts about the shooting.

No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was, Trump wrote once more on Truth Social on Thursday evening.

The FBI has askeed to speak with Trump after Wray says that it may have been shrapnel that struck ex-president in the ear, not a bullet ( Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved )

Former White House physician Ronny Jackson turned Republican lawmaker, who inspected Trumps wound, agreed that it was absolutely a bullet that clipped the former presidents ear and accused Wray of another politically motivated move to try and stop President Trump from returning to the White House.

Christopher Wray was COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE and OUT OF LINE to question if President Trump was hit by a bullet, Dr Jackson added on X.

I examined the bullet wound hours after he was shot. It was ABSOLUTELY a bullet wound with ALL the hallmark signs that accompany a wound from a high-powered rifle. Not to mention, we ALL SAW IT with our own eyes!!

Jackson has previously said that Trump was shot in the ear creating a 2cm-wide wound, according to a memo shared with Axios.

Trumps team has not shared his medical records from the incident.

The FBIs investigation comes as pressure continues to mount on law enforcement agencies to explain what is seen to be a huge security failure that day.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle admitted that it was the most significant operational failure at the Secret Service in decades when she testified before the House on Monday. She resigned the next day saying that: As your director, I take full responsibility for the security lapse.

The House has now established a bipartisan taskforce to investigate how authorities failed to stop the attempted hit on Trump.

Speaker Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who announced the taskforce on Wednesday, said it will leverage the full authority of the House  including subpoena power.
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 }}

Elon Musks daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson painted a scathing picture of her father in an interview on Thursday, describing the billionaire as a cruel absentee father, who bullied her for appearing queer and feminine, then lied about her medical care as part of his recent turn towards attacking transgender people.

Musk, during a recent interview with psychologist and conservative commentator Jordan Peterson, misgendered Wilson, used her dead name, and described her coming out as transgender as being killed by the woke mind virus.

The comments inspired Wilson, now a 20-year-old college student studying languages, to offer her first public interview to NBC News.

I think he was under the assumption that I wasnt going to say anything and I would just let this go, unchallenged, she said. Which Im not going to do because if youre going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, Im not just gonna let that slide.

The 20-year-old accused Musk of largely being absent from her life despite holding joint custody, and of bullying her for being queer and exhibiting feminine traits, including allegedly urging her to lower her voice as a young child.

Elon Muskss daughter criticized him for allegedly lying about being tricked into approving her gender-affirming medical care ( AP )

I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didnt know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars  I dont remember which one  and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high, Wilson said. It was cruel.

Wilson, the daughter of Musk and his first wife, author Justine Musk, took particular issue with the billionaires claim in the Peterson interview that he had been tricked into approving gender-affirming medical care for the youth.

He was not by any means tricked, Wilson said, describing Musks decision to provide parental approval to care that came to include puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. She said her father read over medical documents about the care multiple times.

They save lives. Lets not get that twisted, she said in the NBC interview. They definitely allowed me to thrive.

In 2022, Wilson filed a petition to change her name in California and said in court documents, she doesnt wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.

Musk, in recent years, has ramped up his criticisms of transgender people and laws designed to protect them.

This month, Musk announced hes moving SpaceX to Texas over a California ban on schools outing trans kids to their parents.

The Independent has contacted Musk for comment.
For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails 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 team of divers has discovered a 19th century stash of champagne and wine on a shipwreck at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

During a recent dive off the coast of Sweden, the Polish diving group BalticTech detected what appeared to be an old fishing boat on their sonar, about 20 nautical miles south of the Aland Islands, situated between Sweden and Finland.

"At first, there were doubts whether there would be anyone willing to go down," the group mentioned in a post on their website. However, two divers decided to explore and took the plunge.

When they failed to return after two hours, the remaining team members suspected that "there was something very interesting on the bottom".

They were right. The divers descended to find a 19th-century sailing ship "in very good condition, loaded to the sides with champagne, wine, mineral water, and porcelain".

There was so much of it that it was difficult for us to judge the quantities, they wrote.

"I've been a diver for 40 years. From time to time, you see one or two bottles," Tomasz Stachura, the team's leader, told BBC News.

"But I've never seen crates with bottles of alcohol and baskets of water like this."

Shipwreck was found about 20 nautical miles south of the Aland Islands, situated between Sweden and Finland ( Baltitech )

The team reported seeing more than 100 bottles of champagne and baskets of mineral water in clay containers. These clay bottles allowed the group to date the shipment to between 1850 and 1867.

The bottles, produced by the German company Selters, may provide clues about the ship's ownership.

"In those days, mineral water was treated almost like medicine and only found its way to royal tables," the diving group explained.

"Its value was so precious that transports were escorted by the police. We came across about 100 sealed bottles."

Divers examined the shipwreck and materials ( Baltitech )

Mr Stachura speculated that the "treasure" might have been en route to Stockholm or St Petersburg, possibly intended for Russia's Tsar Nicholas I, who reportedly lost a ship in the area in 1852.

This discovery is not the oldest champagne ever found in a Baltic shipwreck. In 2010, diving instructor Christian Ekstrom and his team discovered around 30 bottles of champagne on a sunken ship near the Aland Islands. Those bottles, found at a depth of 200ft, were believed to be from the 1780s and likely destined for Russia.

Mr Ekstrom recalled the excitement when they retrieved the bottles. "We brought up the bottle to be able to establish how old the wreck was," he told The Associated Press at the time.

"We didn't know it would be champagne. We thought it was wine or something."

The divers later opened a bottle on their boat. "It tasted fantastic," Mr Ekstrom said. "It was a very sweet champagne, with a tobacco taste and oak."
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 Irish museum has solved the mystery of a bizarre delivery of two bronze-age axe heads delivered to curators inside a porridge box.

The National Museum of Ireland was left mystified after it received two 4,000-year-old axe heads wrapped in foam inside a porridge box from an anonymous sender in June.

Now, it has identified the sender as Thomas Dunne, a farmer from County Westmeath, who made the absolutely mad discovery while using a metal detector on his land.

Mr Dunne, whose family has owned the land for 40 years, said he initially thought the axe heads were the remnants of a horse shoe and was shocked to discover their significance.

I only found out about it a week after it had been in the news and I was surprised, to say the least. Its absolutely mad when you think about it, he told the Irish Times.

He came forward after the museum issued an appeal calling for more information, saying it was crucial to know the exact location where they were found for reasons that could range from ritualistic to supernatural.

Matt Seaver, assistant keeper of Irish antiquities at the museum, said: We are thrilled about the discovery of these Early Bronze Age axeheads, but to truly understand their significance, we need to know where they were found.

Researchers from the national museum have now visited the site to log it in the hope of finding more information about the people who lived there 4,000 years ago.

They also said it was participating in an international study of bronze age metalwork to trace the origins of the metals used in such artefacts - with the latest discovery helping with this.

The museum said it was the authority with responsibility for the care of archaeological objects, and the Irish states repository for all archaeological objects both from excavations and other sources.

It is against the law in Ireland to search for archaeological objects using a metal detector unless written permission has been given.

Penalties can be up to three months in prison or a fine of up to 63,486 (53,435). It is understood, however, that Dunne will not face charges.

We also wish to remind everyone about the regulations surrounding the use of metal detectors for searching archaeological objects, the museum said.

Archaeological finds without a known owner are the property of the state and are preserved as part of our collective heritage in national and designated museums.
A woman and two children have been rescued after their car fell from a bridge in Italy.

Firefighters used a crane to recover the vehicle from the water in Genoa, while all three people were airlifted to safety.

A video shared by Italys fire and rescue service, Vigili del Fuoco, shows the moment the car was pulled from the water.

The incident happened in the San Colombano Certenoli comune, located to the east of Genoa.

Firefighters confirmed they had contained the spillage of oils into the water before pulling the car out.
Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to reporters following her meeting with Israels prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

She emphasized the importance of a two state solution, calling it the only path for Israel and Palestine. Harris also mentioned hopeful movement in the ceasefire deal.

I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu its time to get this deal done, she said.

Harris and President Biden had separate meetings with the prime minister.

Earlier this week, Harris gained enough delegate support to secure the Democratic presidential nomination after Biden announced he was ending his bid.
The NHS has made an urgent appeal for more blood donors after it issued a national alert over shortages of certain blood types.

National stocks of O negative and O positive blood have fallen to unprecedentedly low levels after increased demand from hospitals and high levels of unfilled appointments at donor centres created a perfect storm.

Appearing on Good Morning Britain on Friday 26 July, Dr Amir Khan made an appeal to viewers, urging them to give blood if they can.

When you give blood, it really does save lives, he said.

Please do come forward.
Think of it as a Venn diagram. Elon Musk is almost certainly the richest person in the world and controls a vast social media platform. The US president is probably the most powerful person in the world. Can the person with the biggest bucks help determine who gets to be the most powerful? And would we ever know?

You may have been following Musks very public love-in with Donald Trump. No sooner had the former president picked himself up off the ground after a failed assassination attempt than Musk used his own platform  Twitter/X  to announce to its hundreds of millions of users that he was fully endorsing him.

There followed a string of conspiracy-minded posts, including the suggestion that the failure of the Secret Service to protect Trump could have been deliberate. The legacy media was, he announced, a pure propaganda machine. Unlike Twitter/X, which was the voice of the people. His words.

He endorsed Trump-Vance (Resounds with victory). He once again denigrated legacy media. And then TheWall Street Journal reported that he would be giving around $45m (35m) a month to a new pro-Trump super Pac  a political action committee which can channel unlimited sums of money to advocate for a particular candidate.

Musk says its not as much as $45m, and that the mysterious super Pac is not solely devoted to getting Trump back in the White House  even though Trump himself gleefully welcomed it at a rally. In any event, there is a very considerable devotion between Musk and Trump and we should all be very happy on their behalf.

Except this. Musk owns the main platform where politicians, journalists and audiences converge in America today. Yes, Facebook is 10 times the size, but Mark Zuckerberg has tired of the messiness of news and politics. Twitter/X is hugely important as a place of news, opinion, influence and impact. And one man controls it.

We have, through recent history, had the Hearsts, Beaverbrooks and Northcliffes who sought to bend public opinion to their will. This week The New York Times even reported that the arch-propagandist Rupert Murdoch was trying to rejig his family arrangements so that  even after his death  his media companies would continue to blast his brand of conservativism at the public. A new kind of post-mortem politics.

But Musk potentially eclipses them all because of the sheer scale of Twitter/X  and because Musk could, if he wished, act covertly. No one need know.

Algorithms are trade secrets, which means they are utterly opaque. We can guess what theyre doing, but we only know whats happened if someone in the company leaks documents or talks to the press.

Laws may in the future provide some pathways to allow regulators and academics to audit these algorithms and come up with methods to determine if they are neutral and fair, but thats a slow process and doesnt help us in situations like this, where Musk could conceivably slow/shut down left-wing voices on Twitter/X long enough to swing an election.

Weve had CEOs before pick a side and donate a bunch of money, but weve never had it happen at this scale, when the CEO also owns a speech platform where people are getting their information and news is breaking, Katie Harbath, a tech policy consultant who previously ran election strategy for Facebook told Bloomberg.

But Musk would never do that, surely? This is the sort of conspiracy nonsense that Musk himself and his close friend David Sacks have recently been promoting on Twitter/X. Sacks, a tech entrepreneur like Musk, has been broadcasting pro-Trump fantasies to his nearly 1 million Twitter/X followers, including describing Kamala Harriss candidacy as a coup and implying that she is the puppet of George Soros.

But consider the time when Musk had a tantrum when one of his own tweets about the American Superbowl got less engagement (9.1 million impressions) than one from President Biden (nearly 29 million impressions).

What happened next was revealed in February 2023 by Platformer, a digital magazine covering the tech industry. A hapless engineer explained to Musk why his tweets were not getting the reach he craved  and was duly fired on the spot.

After the Superbowl, according to The Verge, Musk threatened to fire his remaining engineers unless they could build a system designed to ensure that Musk  and Musk alone  benefits from previously unheard of promotion to his tweets to the entire user base.

Musk, having shattered so many records, is now redefining the word megalomaniac.

The engineers fixed the problem by tweaking the code to automatically greenlight all of Musks tweets. The algorithm now artificially boosted Musks tweets by a factor of 1,000, reported The Verge, a constant score that ensured his tweets rank higher than anyone elses in the feed.

Its called a power user multiplier and would explain why you may have seen quite a few tweets from Musk in your timeline, even if you dont knowingly follow him. Musk himself has even joked about this, posting a meme in which one woman labelled Elons tweets forcibly feeds another woman labelled Twitter while pulling her hair back. This got 178 million impressions.

Terrified of losing their jobs, reported The Verge, this is the system that Twitter engineers are now building.

In other words, we know Musk can, and will, use Twitter/X to boost the views he considers important (to take a random example, his own). We also know from research that platforms can be discreetly used to do good things in elections  for example, to boost turnout. What we dont know is whether Musks fervent desire to see Trump in the White House would lead him to tweak his own algorithm.

We have less visibility into the platform because of changes in the API, Harbath told me. Recently, she said, she had noticed posts from Sacks talking about Trump in her timeline and wondered why, since she doesnt follow him.

I dont know if its because the algorithm knows that I like tech and politics and stuff like that. Or if its another reason. We have less visibility into how exactly Musk might actually separate what hes doing as an individual versus what he can have the platform do.

Harbaths mantra is panic responsibly. It may be time to begin.

Alan Rusbridger, a former editor of The Guardian, is editor of Prospect magazine
US elections in the media age have bequeathed a host of iconic images, from the JFK-Nixon debate to that red-tinted Barack Obama hope poster, through Bill Clintons choice of Al Gore rather than a grizzled sage as his running mate and the notorious hanging chads of the tied 2000 election.

The picture of Donald Trump, his fist defiantly raised in the air after narrowly surviving an attempt on his life, has to be the early favourite for 2024. There is one, no less graphic, image, however, that should have taken its place alongside these, but didnt.

Hillary Clinton was to have celebrated her victory in the 2016 presidential election at the all-glass Jacob Javits Convention Centre in Manhattan. Described as the ultimate power move, the party instead became a wake  and this massive glass edifice came to represent not the smashing of the last US glass ceiling, but its durability.

Against this cataclysmic disappointment for the Clinton campaign and all it stood for, Kamala Harriss election as the first female vice-president a mere four years later offered paltry consolation. This was especially so, given the calibre of women who had lost out to then 77-year-old Joe Biden in the primaries.

After Biden and Trump had both secured their nominations for this years election in almost record time, the chance of a woman reaching the White House seemed as remote as ever.

With Bidens reluctant decision to endorse his veep for the Democratic nomination, however, 2024 suddenly became the year that could just open the US top job to a woman, albeit not any of the half dozen or so whose names had hitherto been in the frame.

Chance, it seems, may foster social progress at least as effectively as intent. Barring accidents, or an unlikely last-minute challenge, Kamala Harris will now be Donald Trumps chief rival for the presidency.

She raised a record amount in campaign funds in the 48 hours after Bidens endorsement and benefits from a Democratic Party desperate to keep Trump at bay. And while she has been chosen largely by virtue of her position as veep, it is already apparent  both from her own early campaign pitches and from Trumps highly personalised response  that her gender will play a role, perhaps a decisive role, in this election.

But will it tip the balance in her favour, or against?

This fundamental question cannot be ignored. In the UK, as in many countries of the world, female national leaders are now barely remarked upon. For all that feminism and equal rights have become the norm in the United States, attitudes, especially in the heartland, remain a bit different.

The children-church-kitchen culture remains an ideal in some quarters and social conformity is a greater force than it is in much of Europe. At least some of Hillary Clintons defeat can be accounted for by voters, both men and women, who just could not support the idea of a woman in the White House controlling the nuclear switch.

I would suggest attitudes have changed over eight years, but have they changed enough?

In at least one practical way, they have. It was said before 2016 that only Hillary Clinton would have patrons with the fundraising power to reach the White House. With more super-rich women, especially in the tech sector, there may be less of a disparity now  even if at least some potential patrons have come by their fortunes via very old-fashioned routes, such as marriage.

Perhaps a bigger reason than social attitudes for Clintons defeat, however, was the baggage that was perceived to come with her. Some of that stemmed from the Clinton name, the contested legacy of her husband in office, his bad behaviour with Monica Lewinsky (and others) and a distaste for dynasty.

Clinton also took a rap from some feminists for not leaving her husband and former president, despite his dalliances. Then there were missteps from her time in office, including her use of her own personal internet server (rather than the secure system she was supposed to use as secretary of state), and indiscretions revealed in emails published by WikiLeaks.

The former, for which she could have been liable to prosecution, precipitated Donald Trumps famed campaign chant Lock Her Up, although no charges were ever brought.

To say that Kamala Harris comes baggage-free would be wrong. She has enemies from her days as attorney general in California, when her liberal credentials were contested. She also faces the jibe  now being revived  that as a Black (in fact, mixed-race), American, she owes her rise and current position less to her abilities than to the policy of affirmative action.

These are nasty jibes, but ones that she will have to parry through her campaign. At the same time, she lacks the sympathetic backstory of, say, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama  or Trumps running mate, JD Vance. Both her parents, while not well off, were academics and her childhood was stable.

She also enjoys some advantages over Hillary Clinton in taking on Donald Trump. The first is that she is a very different candidate from the one he had prepared for. Had he known that he would be facing a woman with an ethnic minority background and a career in the judiciary, he might have pitched his campaign rather differently and chosen a running mate other than the Catholic populist, JD Vance.

This very male-looking ticket may now work to Trumps disadvantage. As may Trumps overt misogyny. Eight years ago, many women seemed prepared to turn a blind eye to his casual coarseness, on the grounds that this is what many men were like.

If, as it would appear from his first rallies since Bidens withdrawal, Trump is now going to campaign against her not just as a politician, but as a woman, this could rebound  as could his support for the Supreme Courts judgment in passing abortion rights decisions back to the states. This was not an issue when Trump faced Clinton. It is shaping up to be a big issue now.

Harris may also benefit from the fact that she looks like America  or at least more like the future America  than does Trump. Celebrity endorsements, as well as pictures dredged up from her youth (and snatches from pop songs strung together on social media) could already be making inroads into that elusive youth vote. Given the fickleness of social media campaigns, though, that could just be wishful thinking.

Changing times, the desperation of Democrats for a plausible candidate and the very different trajectory of her career could all make Kamala Harris a more promising prospect for the White House than Hillary Clinton in 2016. But Harris has a long road ahead.

Her choice of running mate may be more significant than it often is. An all-women ticket, with the respected governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, would be courageous but improbable; ditto an all-California ticket, with the governor Gavin Newsom.

A white male from a marginal state would seem the recommended option, with Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania mooted. First of all, though, she will have to guard against Democrats regretting their rushed choice of nominee.

If her campaign falls short in the three weeks that remain until the party convention, she could yet face a challenge. To that end, her strongest selling point is not that she is a woman, but that she is not Joe Biden.

Campaigning to be the first female president of the United States can wait until the nomination from her party is fully secure.
Yesterday, shocking footage emerged which seemed to show a violent interaction between armed police and people of south Asian heritage at Manchester airport. We dont yet have all the recorded material, which will doubtless include CCTV and body cam footage.

What we do have are two videos: one which appears to show an officer using pepper spray on a man filming their interaction, and another which seems to show a man prone on the ground with his hands behind his back being tasered and kicked in the head by police.

Greater Manchester Police issued a press statement pointing to an altercation that left one female officer with an apparent broken nose, and an updated statement with more detail of the events it says led to what took place in the video. It added that it has self-referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which investigates complaints against police. The force later released a third statement saying that an officer had been suspended from all duties.

Everything anybody says has to be qualified at this time but its fair to say that the response we see on the videos appears wholly disproportionate to the threat being posed. Its hard to justify the kicking of a man in the head in any circumstances  especially true when they are lying face down on the ground immobilised. Similarly, it is hard to explain pepper-spraying a man who does not appear to be engaging in any violent conduct.

When these videos surfaced, my phone blew up with messages from angry community members. I spent much of last night advising them they should trust the process and that the matter will be properly and expeditiously investigated. I understand confidence in both policing and the complaints process is low  but what else do we have?

These things do not happen in a vacuum. Reports of racism, misogyny, homophobia, Islamophobia and much more within policing have been published several times a year for several years. Police leaders have promised to root out bad apples and, yes, the number of officers currently being disciplined is extremely high. These things take time, they say.

Whats also troubling is that some have appeared to welcome the videos as a sign of a tougher approach to policing. They say this partly because they have seen, in their opinion, a softer approach to policing in London and Leeds recently. Strangely, these same critics are the first to attack the policing of largely white communities, such as far-right groups. Two-tier policing works both ways.

The answer is to focus on each incident separately. We live in a democracy, not a police state, and police officers are bound by the same laws as the rest of us. Sir Robert Peel said as much when UK policing was formalised in the 1820s: that the police are the public and the public are the police. We entrust police officers with power but it is a power that comes with limits. For example, they can use force to detain, but it must be reasonable.

There is today a perception that the police are more detached from their communities than they have ever been and that they are seen as instruments of the state rather than protectors of the public. This is particularly the case in high-crime areas and minority communities. I regularly hear members of the public telling me that they dont look like me, they dont care, they just drive by in fast cars. One community leader told me that pizza gets to his home before the police. That perception needs to change.

Confidence in policing is damaged by every poor interaction but improved by every correct one. When things go wrong, transparency and accountability are key. Lets hope we get some soon.

Nazir Afzal OBE is a solicitor and former prosecutor within the Crown Prosecution Service
Singer-songwriter Christy Moore continues to draw big crowds as accumulated profits at his entertainment firm surged to 2.57m this year.

New accounts show Yellow Furze Music Ltd, on the back of a series of sell-out gigs across the country, recorded post-tax profits of 465,214 in the 12 months to the end of March.

The profit sum was marginally ahead of the 460,635 result the firm recorded for the previous year.

Cash funds at the firm increased by 493,490 from 1.29m to 1.78m.

Today's News in 90 seconds - 26th July 2024

The principal activity of the company is the sale of music performances and recordings by Christy Moore.

Profits in the year to March take account of non-cash goodwill amortisation costs of 57,695.

The performer  who has been entertaining audiences in Ireland and Britain for five decades and is due to celebrate his 80th birthday next year  is best known for his Ride On and Ordinary Man anthems.

Underlining the performers enduring appeal, Moores website shows that each of the nine scheduled gigs between August 17 at the National Opera House in Wexford and the TF Royal Theatre in Castlebar, Co Mayo, on October 19 has the house full sign up.

Yellow Furze Musics coffers were boosted by Moore selling out six gigs at Vicar Street last November and December.

Each of the nine scheduled gig has the house full sign up

He performed a further five shows at the venue last January.

The firm employs three people including directors. The latest accounts show pay to directors increased marginally from 128,155 to 133,720.

The accounts, signed off on July 17, state a daughter of directors Christy Moore and Valerie Moore is an employee of the company.

During the year, the worker received pay of 30,000 and this followed pay of 30,000 in the prior year.

Moore is also known as a founding member of Moving Hearts and Planxty. The accounts show that Yellow Furze Music has rights that generate royalty income.

Figures show the firm has tangible assets valued at 905,923 including an investment property.

The accounts also show the wealth of the firm has increased in recent years: its accumulated profits have grown from 524,172 to 2.5m over the past number of years.

The strong profits of the last two years compare to a loss-making 2020-2021 when the music firm was plunged into the red due to the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down the live music industry.

Moores Yellow Furze Music recorded a post-tax loss of 146,460 in the 12 months to the end of March 2021.
Supermarket and 41 apartments set for site of former car dealership

The Lidl development will involve the construction of a six-storey building

Lidl Ireland has secured planning permission to develop a new supermarket plus more than 40 apartments on the site of a former Ford dealership in Crumlin, in south Dublin, despite strong opposition from local residents.

An Bord Pleanala rejected an appeal by a large group of residents against the decision of Dublin City Council to approve the planning application from the German discount supermarket group for the mixed-use development on the lands of the former Bright Ford Rialto on Herberton Road, Dublin 12.

Over a dozen local residents lodged a joint appeal against the project

The development will involve the construction of a six-storey building with 41 apartments on the upper floors.

The supermarket, which will include an off-licence and bakery, will be located at first-floor level over an undercroft car park and three retail units at ground-floor level.

A landscaped courtyard will also be located at second-floor level.

The plans for the 0.45-hectare site near the Grand Canal also involves the demolition of existing buildings, including a sales room and commercial warehouse.

Lidl had originally sought planning permission for a supermarket and 60 apartments in a six-storey building, but revised its plans in response to issues raised by council planners, including removing one storey from the front and rear of the premises.

Over a dozen residents of Herberton Road lodged a joint appeal against the project.

They claimed Lidls plans represented overdevelopment of the site which would materially impinge on the residential and visual amenities of the area because of severe overlooking and loss of privacy to houses on two sides.

The residents argued the project also represented a piecemeal and incongruous approach to development.

They claimed the scale of it was unacceptable and indicates a continuing complete and utter disregard for the surrounding area.

An Bord Pleanala said the plan was an acceptable form of mixed-use development

The residents expressed concern that the new supermarket would result in traffic hazards and overspill car parking in the area. They maintained they had already witnessed incidents of children being struck by vehicles on Herberton Road.

They also had worries over the decommissioning of underground tanks from a former petrol station on the site, while they claimed the risk of flooding had not been properly assessed.

In its ruling, An Bord Pleanala said the plan constituted an acceptable form of mixed-use development in an urban location on a brownfield site.

The appeals board said it would not seriously injure the residential or visual amenities of the area and would offer an acceptable standard of residential amenity for future residents.

It concluded that the development would be acceptable in terms of pedestrian and traffic safety.

Separately, Lidl announced yesterday that it has appointed Robert Ryan as CEO of its Irish business, succeeding JP Scally, who is to run its operations in France.

Mr Ryan, currently chief customer officer, joined the company in 2003. He takes up the role on October 1.

The chain now has more than 180 outlets in the Republic, employing 6,000 staff, and a further 41 shops in Northern Ireland.
Irelands Data Protection Commissioner says it is surprised by the move, with other privacy experts saying it is against EU data privacy law, partially because it cannot be changed by X users on smartphones. However, there is a way of opting out on desktop versions of X.

Irelands Data Protection Commissioner says that it is surprised that Elon Musks X platform has automatically opted in all X users into its Grok AI training programme without a choice. The watchdog says that it will now probe the matter further with X to see whether it complies with EU privacy law.

The move, which cannot be reversed by those using the mobile app, means that Grok AI is using X users personal information, including posts, to build its own AI as a rival to ChatGPT and Google Gemini.

"The DPC has been engaging with X on this matter for a number of months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday," said a spokesperson for the DPC.

"Therefore we are surprised by today's developments. We have followed up with X today and are awaiting a response. We expect further engagement early next week."

News of the move came as a surprise to many on X, who werent previously notified of the opt-in.

Privacy experts here have cast doubt on whether the move meets European standards.

It fails a transparency test as theres no information about it and the opt-out theyve given is only available on the desktop version, which many people dont use, said Darah OBrien, founder and managing director of Castlebridge.

I would be surprised if the DPC doesnt have something to say about it.

For those unhappy about not being given the choice beforehand, it is possible to opt out by visiting the website x.com on a laptop or PC, selecting settings, then privacy and safety and then Grok. The box which is ticked can then be unticked.

X is already in trouble with European authorities after the EU Commission said that blue ticks on X are deceptive and the online platform falls short on transparency and accountability requirements. Outlining preliminary findings under the Digital Services Act (DSA), Brussels said that blue ticks now constitute dark patterns that are not in line with industry best practice, and can be used by malicious actors to deceive users.

Mr Musks platform, which has seen advertisers desert it because of extreme content allowed on the service, now faces a significant fine under the DSA.

This week, Mr Musk ran a poll on his own X account asking whether he should ask Teslas board to transfer $5bn from the car company into X for the purposes of developing AI further.

He has previously expressed annoyance that OpenAI, which he helped with seed funding, has become one of the biggest generative artificial intelligence platforms.
Starring U2, Sting, Yasmin Le Bon and Julia Roberts

For six brief but breathless years, Ballymun native Robbie Fox ran The Pink Elephant on Dublins South Frederick Street. It was virtually a living room to the likes of U2, Def Leppard and Spandau Ballet. This was in the days before people had cameras on their phones. (David Bowies bodyguard once threw someone out of the club for taking a picture with a camera.) Bono called it his favourite nightclub in the world. Whatever it was, Foxs club is still talked about.
Longford farmer died from 16-foot fall while accessing bales of hay, inquest hears

Kevin Skelly (53) died at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin on May 9, 2022, from injuries he had sustained six weeks earlier on his farm at Carrickboy,

HSA inspector, Catriona Glancy, said it was well known in the farming community that freshly-baled bales of hay are prone to move and shift quite suddenly. Stock image.

Sean McCarthaigh Fri 26 Jul 2024 at 09:34

A Longford farmer suffered fatal head injuries after falling 16 feet to the ground while accessing bales of hay in a shed two years ago, an inquest has heard.
Traffic in parts of Dublin will be restricted. Photo: Milosz Maslanka.

Campaigners have welcomed Dublin City Councils decision to press ahead with the first of the measures contained in the Dublin City Transport plan from August 25 despite objections.

The decision has been welcomed by environmental campaigners but was opposed by groups including traders, car park owners and some disability advocates.

New traffic management measures will mean restrictions on private motor vehicles on the north quays at Bachelors Walk and on the South Quays on Burgh Quay and Aston Quay between the hours of 7am to 7pm from Monday to Sunday from August 25.

Private vehicles travelling along Bachelors Walk will not be able to go further than OConnell Bridge, while those travelling along Eden Quay will also not be able to further than OConnell Bridge.

The measures are designed to allow for greater access for pedestrians, cyclists and public transport and less access for private cars.

All other routes on the quays, all other routes in the city and access to all Liffey Bridges will remain the same, while vehicles can travel as before outside the hours of operation.

The first measures aim to reduce the number of cars travelling through the city centre during hours where public transport accounts for most of the traffic.

Dublin City Council has said this will allow for more space to be allocated to public transport as during the hours that changes will be operational, private cars account for just 2pc of traffic.

The decision to proceed with the changes was made by Dublin City Council chief executive Richard Shakespeare following a review of a number of documents submitted to the council by various parties.

There have been a number of protests held in the city centre calling for the measures to restrict private motor traffic to proceed as agreed, with protesters  including a number of sitting councillors  critical of calls by a number of business organisations to pause the plans.

Junior Fine Gael minister Emer Higgins, the Dublin City Traders Alliance and IBEC were among those who said the plan would impact trade and businesses in the city centre.

Transport minister Eamon Ryan said last week that he would withdraw funding for the plan if the council did not deliver it intact and on time, rejecting claims that the plan would reduce footfall in the city.

In a statement announcing their implementation, Dublin City Council said there will be no changes to disabled bays, loading bays or taxi ranks and the vast majority of routes to hospitals and to city centre car parks will remain the same.

Access for residents will be maintained, though there may be a different route to or from the area.

Dublin City Council will also establish a working group to monitor the impact of changes included in the transport plan and will comprise of business organisations, the National Transport Authority, elected members and other interested parties such as members of the disability community.

It will be chaired by the Lord Mayor of Dublin James Geoghegan.

What are the changes?

The straight ahead movement Bachelors Walk to Eden Quay will be for public transport, taxis and cyclists only.

General traffic can use Bachelors Walk to access the length of Bachelors Walk but must turn left at OConnell Bridge.

The existing bus stop which currently serves tour buses will be removed at Bachelors Walk.

General traffic can continue to travel along the south quays and Burgh Quay as far as OConnell Bridge but will not be permitted to continue straight onto Aston Quay.

The straight ahead movement from Burgh Quay to Aston Quay and the left turn from Westmoreland Street to Aston Quay will be for public transport, taxis and cyclists only.

The left turn from Westmoreland Street to Fleet Street will be for deliveries and access only.

There are no changes to disabled bays, loading bays or taxi ranks.

Green TD Neasa Hourigan described the confirmation of the plan as great news, adding that it is a testament to people in Dublin engaging in a process and then fighting for what they were promised.

"Thanks to all the community groups who got involved in the last few weeks. You know who you are, she said.

Campaign group the Dublin Commuter Coalition welcomed the plan but added on social media: Actually look at how minor these changes are!

It's great news, but still... Progress in dublin city is SOOOOO slow. This watered down plan will prohibit any of the planned improvements, such as wider footpaths which would particarlly benefit those with extra mobility needs...

Sinn Fein councillor Daithi Doolan said on X: This is a positive move and to be welcomed. Reducing traffic congestion in our city is good for everyone. Comhairdeas mor to @DublinCommuters [Dublin Commuter Coalition] & all those who campaigned to make this happen.

Former Lord Mayor of Dublin and Green Party councillor Hazel Chu said: The right call has been made by the Chief Executive.

Dublin Bus CEO, Billy Hann said: I am very pleased by today's announcement that the first measures of the Dublin City Centre Transport Plan will take effect in August. I also welcome the working group chaired by the Lord Mayor to monitor the plan's impact, and Dublin Bus will provide our full support.

However, news of the plan going ahead next month has been met with disappointment from some businesses trading in the city centre.

The Dublin City Centre Traders Alliance, a group representing a number of city centre retailers, car park owners and hospitality businesses in the city, expressed its disappointment at Dublin City Councils decision to press ahead with the plan starting on August 25.

The alliance is comprised of: Brown Thomas, Arnotts, Jervis Shopping Centre, Retail Excellence Ireland, Restaurants Association of Ireland, Louis Copeland & Sons, the Irish Parking Association, Best Car Parks and Fitzwilliam Real Estate Capital.

They said the plan has been pushed through despite the grave and genuine concerns of City Centre businesses.

Our Alliance has made every effort to communicate the anticipated deleterious effects of this Plan on Dublin City to Dublin City Council which have amounted to nothing, they said.

Submissions made by our Alliance in December 2023 were largely ignored and we were blindsided by the presentation of the Plan for Dublin in the spring of this year.

Dublin City Councils recommendation of this evening for the formation of a working group after the Plan has been implemented arguably undermines the efficacy of that group.

We must now speak with all of our members and consider our position in the face of todays decision, the statement added.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has been challenged over requests to media organisations to hand over images from public order situations (Brian Lawless/PA)

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has been publicly challenged about requests from gardai for media organisations to hand over images from anti-migration public order incidents in Ireland.

In response to concerns that the move was putting photographers covering riots in danger, Mr Harris said it was his responsibility to investigate criminal actions and gather evidence.

Today's News in 90 seconds - 26th July 2024

Recently, several news organisations, including the PA news agency, have received requests from gardai for images as part of investigatory efforts to identify perpetrators after violence flared in north Dublin.

Last week, gardai came under attack and fires were set several times at the former Crown Paints factory in Coolock which has been earmarked as housing for asylum seekers.

A youngster throws a bottle towards gardai officers during a stand off with protesters at Coolock (Niall Carson/PA)

The latest requests follow the Gardas pursuit of court orders to seize images taken by media photographers during riots in Dublin last November.

Following a meeting of the Policing Authority on Thursday, Mr Harris was asked by the media about the policy of pursuing photographers images.

The commissioner said: My obligation is to thoroughly investigate actions which are criminal in their nature.

I have a lawful and legal and legislative responsibility to do all I can to gain evidence.

Mr Harris said the Garda would pursue the images by seeking permission or else gaining a court warrant.

Challenged that this could lead to media organisations not covering public order situations, Mr Harris responded: It is my responsibility to investigate and to bring offenders to justice and that is through obtaining whatever evidence I can.

The NUJs Irish Secretary Seamus Dooley (Liam McBurney/PA)

The NUJs Irish Secretary, Seamus Dooley, said the union would be seeking a meeting with Mr Harris.

He said: Reporters and photographers are independent witnesses, they are present to observe and report on the actions of all parties, including the gardai.

There is a real danger that if journalists are perceived as harvesting information for the gardai they will be perceived as legitimate targets by the sinister forces behind recent public order incidents.

Mr Dooley said it was worrying and disappointing that the commissioner seems intent on ignoring the risks involved in seeking media images.

Mr Harris has invoked what he described as his lawful and legal and legislative responsibility to do all he can to gain evidence, he said.

The exercise of his powers and responsibilities must be proportionate and also have due regard to the role of the media in a democracy, the right of the media to function safely and the well established rights of journalists to protect sources of information.

The scene on Parnell Street in Dublin city centre after violent scenes unfolded last November (Brian Lawless/PA)

The PA news agency was one of a number of outlets which was compelled to hand over pictures taken of the Dublin city centre disorder on November 23, 2023, after investigating gardai secured an order from a Dublin District Court judge.

PAs editor-in-chief, Pete Clifton, voiced strong objections and warned of the safety implications for members of the media covering such incidents if a perception is created that content they are capturing will subsequently be used as evidence in criminal justice proceedings.
I didnt expect a full family  man who was adopted and kept secret finds mother and two brothers in Limerick after 53 years

DNA test allowed Mark Balls to put missing pieces of jigsaw together

Irish family reunites with biological son after 53 years

Cian O Broin Fri 26 Jul 2024 at 03:30

A woman who kept her sons existence secret after giving him up for adoption  and who unknowingly lived just 40 minutes away from where he spent many summer holidays  has been reunited with him after 53 years.
It would be odd for Ireland to recommend two names for the position of Commissioner in the EU despite a request for a woman and a man by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, according to Taoiseach Simon Harris.

Ireland put forward former Finance Minister Michael McGrath for the role, one of the first countries to do so, seeing him step down from Cabinet.

The Irish Government hopes this early recommendation will mean greater chances for a better portfolio, however, a number of Fianna Fail MEPs voted against Ms von der Leyen being re-appointed President.

Today's News in 90 seconds - 26th July 2024

Brussels sources have speculated the controversy surrounding Golfgate, which saw then Commissioner Phil Hogan resign, will also play against Ireland when portfolios are being assigned.

Ireland hopes to get a financial portfolio and keeping Mairead McGuinness current role in financial stability would be seen as a major coup.

The fact that he stepped down from Cabinet, I think it would seem odd that we would send more than one name considering those pretty particular set of circumstances, Mr Harris told reporters in Paris.

He said Ireland has previously sent two names or one name or one name which has been a woman.

Ireland has played its part in relation to gender equality and it will continue to.

Jack Chambers was appointed Finance Minister after Mr McGrath left Cabinet and Mr Harris said there needed to be a Commissioner who was preparing fully to take up the new role in November as well as a Finance Minister in situ who was focused on the Budget.

We have respectfully said to [Ms von der Leyen] that Ireland has made a decision in line with the Treaties as is our right as to the Commission candidate we wish to send forward.

Weve had to make an assessment as to who we believe is the best Commissioner to send from Ireland. That person, Michael McGrath, has had to step down from Cabinet, thats a pretty profound thing for him to have to do. I think it would be an unfair thing to tell him he has a 50/50 chance of getting a role at the end of it.

I think, at the very least, there is an understanding of this at European level.

He said Michael McGrath was in Brussels last weekend and is taking the interview process all Commissioners have to go through extremely seriously.

Mr Harris said he doesnt think there will be punishment for Ireland when portfolios are chosen.

I know from my conversations with her that she will assess the suitability of Commissioners for portfolios based on their background, based on their CV, based on interviews she will carry out.
Solutions for your ethical dilemmas

Question: A new colleague joined our team in work this year and she never, ever stops talking. She chats about everything that is going on in her life: her childrens struggles in school, her partners issues in work, what shes going to cook for dinner  what she cooked for dinner last night. She even gives us all a running commentary on almost every email that comes into her inbox. It never stops!

Shes become very close friends with a few people who sit in our area. They seem to love the chat. But I think the others are like me. They cant get any work done. I tried headphones for a while, more to send a signal that I couldnt concentrate. She didnt pick up on it and, to be honest, I dont want to look anti-social to the rest of the team when Im really not. Shes a truly lovely person  very kind and thoughtful  but I think I need to have a word with her. How should I go about it?
From conversation to company, wit and X factor, they are the face of Spanish street culture, providing far more than food and drink. But for how long can characters like this survive?

Jose presides over his Cordoba street corner like he owns it. An exuberant, sparkly-eyed little man, the electric force of this waiters personality is integral to this bars identity. There are music videos on TV and he claps along to the contemporary flamenco rhythms.

As I sit over a copa or two, I notice how affectionate he is with everybody on the street. He shouts Hola, guapa! to a girl in a motorised wheelchair who passes by, holding a red umbrella over the poodle in her lap. There is the old Juliet chain-smoking on her balcony overhead, being greeted by several Romeos down below at street level. Maybe if she didnt show up some day, somebody would come to check on her? Id like to think so. His bar is the newsroom of the neighbourhood. Jose provides a vaccine against the virus of social isolation.
Plans to turn 15 Ushers Island into ten apartments

A Joycean scholar has spoken out about the importance of preserving a Georgian house in Dublin, famously featured in James Joyces short story The Dead.

The house, located at 15 Ushers Island, is planned to be converted into three studio apartments and seven one-bed apartments, along with a communal terrace and various internal changes.

The house still retains much of its 18th-century character, with original features like sash windows, though some have been replaced.

Alice Ryan, who works as a curator at the Joyce Tower Museum and holds a PhD in James Joyces literature, spoke to the Irish Independent about the significance of the building.

The wonderful thing about Joyce is his ability to include place and time in his storytelling. Hes very precise about the day and location in his literature, she said.

For the story of The Dead, its a Christmas party taking place on January 6 in this house, which was rented by his aunts in the 1890s.

Dubliners is such a famous collection of short stories, with The Dead being the last included, and its basically held up as the greatest short story in the world because it has such resonance.

Ms Ryan said that a significant aim of Joyces literature was to depict the paralysis he felt plagued Dubliners, and he hoped his stories would inspire change.

Its important we keep 15 Ushers Island and dont lose it. There is a need to preserve these Joycean locations because of their importance from a cultural heritage point of view, she said.

When asked what Joyce would make of the current proposals for 15 Ushers Island, she said she thought he would care due to his way of describing buildings.

He once said that if Dublin was destroyed, people would be able to rebuild it from the references in his work, she added.

Ms Ryan said she feels there would be space to turn 15 Ushers Island into a museum of sorts for people to visit and see the iconic setting in this famous short story.

Brimwood Unlimited, has applied for planning permission to convert the house into ten apartments. It plans to replace the non-original sash windows with new timber ones and make fire and acoustic upgrades to the existing floors.

Previous objections to altering the house have included protests and widespread condemnation from well-known authors and cultural figures.

The outcome of Brimwoods planning application will decide the future of 15 Ushers Island.

Dublin City Council said that because it is now a live planning application, there can be no further comment from the Conservation Section in respect of this application.
Frank Kilbride was told by Judge Kenneth Connolly he is facing an inevitable custodial sentence after details surrounding his involvement in a 2.6m money laundering scheme was relayed before a sitting of Longford Circuit Criminal Court.

A former Fine Gael politician and businessman charged with laundering over 2.6m involving companies linked to notorious deceased gangster Cyril Dublin Jimmy McGuinness has been remanded in custody this evening.

Frank Kilbride (70), of Aughakilmore, Ballinalee, Co Longford, was remanded in custody by Judge Kenneth Connolly after appearing at a sentencing hearing at Longford Circuit Criminal Court this afternoon to face three counts of money laundering.

The two-time Longford county mayor had previously signed guilty pleas in the District Court last December arising out of incidents between September 2017 and March 2019.

Follow Independent Longford on Facebook

The charges stem from a long-running investigation conducted by detectives in Cavan that date back over six years ago.

The first charge stated that on various dates between September 27, 2017 and November 26, 2017 he engaged in converting, transferring, handling, acquiring, possessing or using property that was the proceeds of criminal conduct  approximately 10,000  while knowing that, believing that or being reckless as to whether or not the property was the proceeds of criminal conduct.

The second charge stated that on various dates between October 5, 2017 and March 27, 2018 he engaged in converting, transferring, handling, acquiring, possessing or using property that was the proceeds of criminal conduct  approximately 1,727,420.28.

Frank Kilbride was told by Judge Kenneth Connolly he is facing an inevitable custodial sentence after details surrounding his involvement in a 2.6m money laundering scheme was relayed before a sitting of Longford Circuit Criminal Court.

The third related to various dates between November 30, 2017 and March 15, 2019 during which Kilbride engaged in converting, transferring, handling, acquiring, possessing or using property that is the proceeds of criminal conduct  approximately 867,143.80.

Opening the States case at a sitting of Longford Circuit Criminal Court, counsel for the prosecution Shane Geraghty BL, outlined how gardai carried out a number of searches under warrant in Northern Ireland and Buxton in the UK in connection to the abduction of Quinn Industrial Holdings director Kevin Lunney.

During the course of those searches a partial AIB bank statement in the name of a company known as WOI Plant Hire & Supplies Ltd was discovered.

He said the finer points of that document contained a certain narrative that related to a second company: TJO Developments.

Just over two weeks later, the court heard Kilbride contacted gardai to make a voluntary statement detailing how, in 2009, the former hotelier founded TJO Developments.

That approach, it was revealed, came after Kilbride received documentation from the Revenue Commissioners for an outstanding VAT bill.

Kilbride, the court heard, told gardai how he had been approached in the spring of 2017 by a third party with a view to purchasing the company from the accused for a 3,000 sum.

It was revealed a number of months later when Kilbride was in a bank in north Longford that a bank official informed him how TJO Developments was still in his name and that money was going through it.

Upon making the necessary changes, it was revealed how the very next day a dark blue Mercedes pulled up outside Kilbrides residence in north Longford which was being driven by Cyril McGuinness, otherwise known as Dublin Jimmy.

Kilbride told gardai how the late feared criminal exited the car with two men to advise him that there was 100 left in the account, telling the former politician to hold onto the three figure sum for medical expenses.

Kilbride, who the court heard took those words as a threat, was told by the third party who purchased TJO Developments to pass no heed on the violent criminal who was only blowing steam.

The court heard how a very complex investigation involving gardai from Cavan later came across two bank accounts which were associated with TJO Developments.

The first of those was registered to a Permanent TSB branch in Longford which, it emerged had 1.72m moved through it with a second bank account from a Bank of Ireland branch in Granard, Co Longford seeing over 867,000 being moved through its books.

Both accounts, Judge Kenneth Connolly, was told were used to ship money in and out to companies linked to Dublin Jimmy across Ireland, the UK and Europe.

Gardai also came across a personal bank account of Kilbrides that had been used to launder a total of 10,000.

Kilbride was arrested on in November 5, 2022 who, over the course of six interviews he had been careless and absolutely stupid in becoming embroiled in the money laundering racket.

In defence, Vincent Heneghan SC, said his client, though full of shame and remorse had been under a barrage of intimidation and coercion.

Mr Heneghan said Kilbride had succumbed to a very violent and intimidating man and was someone who at 70-years-old now toiled under a myriad of health issues.

He is a man who is effectively isolated and has fallen from grace in a society he had a great deal of respect in, he said.

He asked the court to factor in Mr Kilbrides signed guilty plea which he had come forward on from the District Court and the trivial monetary gain he made from an eight figure money laundering scheme.

Judge Connolly, upon hearing that submission, said a custodial sentence was unavoidable given the scale of the sums involved.

I dont want to give any false hope, he said.

The money is simply too large. 2.6m is a lot of money and I cant see any way of avoiding it.

As Mr Kilbride was led away with his head bowed, Judge Connolly remanded the former TV presenter in custody to reappear at a sitting of Longford Circuit Criminal Court next Tuesday.
The Irish Ghosts who will travel from Buenos Aires in Argentina to this week's Phil Murphy Weekend festival in Carrig on Bannow.

Over the 32 years since its establishment, the annual Phil Murphy Weekend in Carrig on Bannow has attracted musicians and visitors from far and wide to the quaint south Wexford seaside village.

This year represents a new departure for the festival, however, as a group of musicians make a near 11,000km journey from Buenos Aires in Argentina to be at the festival in Carrig.

All of Irish and Scottish descent, The Irish Ghosts are a group that bonded over a common love of traditional Irish music. The name stems from the theatrical idea of being members of a musical band on a ship that sinks on its way from Ireland to Buenos Aires in 1840  the only ones arriving at their destination being ghosts. These characters continue to play Irish traditional music, unaware that they are already dead and belong to another time.

Having played in Irish venues all over Argentina, and even at the Irish Embassy there, the group are excited to return to the land of their ancestors for a special performance at The Phil Murphy weekend.

Their epic voyage to Carrig on Bannow has not gone unnoticed either and they received a welcome message from President Michael D Higgins, the Argentinian Ambassador to Ireland Ana Laura Cachaza and Taoiseach Simon Harris, who said: I know there are many strong historical, cultural and personal links between Wexford and Buenos Aires and I have no doubt that your trip and performance will strengthen this relationship further.

Speaking at a meeting of the Rosslare Municipal District in advance of the festivals launch, Chairman John Murphy thanked Wexford County Council for its support over the years and encouraged people to check out the programme of events which includes two former members of The Bothy Band  Kevin Burke and Paddy Keenan, Teddy Thompson  who is the son of rock/folk royalty Richard and Linda Thompson, The Kilkennys, Garadice, Daithi Gormley & Elaine Reilly, Viper Central, Tulua and many more.

For full details see philmurphyweekend.com.
Plans to expand and improve frequency of the Dart service to Greystones are on track, Irish Rail said, as the service marked 40 years in operation this month.

Irish Rail Corporate Communications Manager Barry Kenny told Newstalk Breakfast on Tuesday that the system is "an unequivocal success story" and the operator is about to embark on the most significant and major expansion, with the size of the Dart network set to treble, bringing the service to Maynooth, Drogheda and to Hazelhatch as well as more frequency to Greystones.

Regarding an improved service for Greystones, Mr Kenny said: We're expecting to go to public consultation on that aspect of the programme later this year. A full double track on Bray, that's not what we're going to propose, but we really have to put passing sections on track to improve the frequency. So you'll be hearing a lot more of that later this year.

Dart+ Coastal route will see the extension of electrification of the line from Malahide to Drogheda, and improvements along the existing Dart line from Malahide/Howth to Greystones to increase passenger capacity along the eastern commuter corridor from 17,980 to 26,680 per hour each way, an increase of almost 50pc.

Irish Rail had set a target to initiate public consultation by the conclusion of March 2024, for the Bray to Greystones as an integral part of the Dart+ Coastal South Project.
The Kremlin has signalled it is open to negotiations with Ukraine on ending the conflict while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky remains in power, despite publicly doubting his legitimacy to rule.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Wednesday during a visit to China that Kyiv was prepared for talks with Russia provided Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity were fully respected, though he added that Ukraine has seen no sign of that.
Israeli forces advanced deeper into some towns on the eastern side of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza yesterday, hours after Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US lawmakers he was actively engaged in bringing hostages home.

Fighting in recent days has centred around the eastern towns of Bani Suaila, Al-Zanna and Al-Karara, where the army said on Wednesday it had found the bodies of five Israelis who were killed in Hamass October 7 attack on Israel, and held in Gaza since.
Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, a long-time leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopeza, son of infamous cartel leader El Chapo, were arrested by US authorities in Texas, the US Justice Department said.

A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquin Guzman, Zambada is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world and is known for running the cartel's smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile.
North Korean cyber hackers are seeking to steal nuclear and military secrets in a global espionage campaign, Britain and America have warned.

The two nations, together with South Korea, issued a warning yesterday about the threat from the spying activities by the reclusive pariah state.
Photo Courtesy: Representational image from Wallpaper Cave

New Delhi/IBNS: Foxconn has been eyeing major expansion in India as the Taiwanese tech major is planning to assemble Apple's flagship tablet iPad at its Sriperumbudur facility in Tamil Nadu, according to a report by the Economic Times.

Until now, Foxconn and other global contract manufacturers in India have only assembled Apple iPhones.

The Economic Times reported, citing people in the know, that Foxconn is keen on starting iPad assembly in Tamil Nadu facility "soon", with initial discussions with the government already underway.

Apple started iPad production in Vietnam as the American tech giant is diversifying its production away from China, which is part of a broader strategy that included shifting some iPad production to Vietnam last year.

The expansion in India aligns with this move, as per reports.

According to the Economic Times report, iPads in India initially might be assembled in a Semi-Knocked Down (SKD) manner before moving to Completely Knocked Down (CKD) levels, similar to the current process with iPhones, and this will help in scaling up production efficiently.

Foxconn is expected to start assembling iPads in India by the second half of next year, if the plans materialise.

The plan of iPad production in India is seen as feasible because its assembly is similar to that of iPhones, unlike MacBooks, which require more complex facilities, reports said.

This step would also benefit from the production-linked incentives (PLI 2.0 for IT Hardware) in India.

Apart from diversification, Apple is also focusing on the domestic market, with annual iPad shipments expected to reach 49 million this year, a 4.5 percent rise from last year, according to reports.

Indias reduction of the Basic Customs Duty from 20 percent to 15 percent on components is expected to expedite these manufacturing plans, as reported by the Economic Times.

New Taipei City-headquartered Foxconn is also set to start manufacturing Artificial Intelligence (AI) servers and potentially Googles Pixel smartphones in Tamil Nadu's Sriperumbudur plant.

Additionally, a mega factory outside Karnataka's capital Bengaluru will primarily focus on Apple iPhones, and this move will significantly enhance Indias position in the global supply chain for high-end electronics, benefiting from local incentives and a growing domestic market, according to reports.
Photo Courtesy: File image from Wallpaper Cave

New Delhi/IBNS: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in view of the rising number of mobile and internet banking users, has proposed to tighten norms related to the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) by increasing the run-off factor for retail deposits, reports said.

The central bank said in the draft guidelines released on Thursday (July 25), Banking has undergone rapid transformation in recent years. While increased usage of technology has facilitated the ability to make instantaneous bank transfers and withdrawals, it has also led to a concomitant increase in risks, requiring proactive management."

The RBI has proposed to impose an additional run-off factor of 5 percent on both stable and less stable retail deposits that are enabled with internet and mobile banking facilities, as per reports.

According to Business Standard, run-offs are when individuals or businesses withdraw their deposits, which are not anticipated by banks, while stable retail deposits enabled with IMB will have a 10 percent run-off factor, and less stable deposits will have a 15 percent run-off factor.

Unsecured wholesale funding provided by non-financial small business customers shall be treated in accordance with the treatment of retail deposits, the RBI norms read.

RBI's Current norms mandate banks to maintain a 100 percent liquidity coverage ratio, which means the stock of high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) should be at least equal to total net cash outflows, reports said.

The LCR promotes the short-term resilience of banks to potential liquidity disruptions by ensuring that they have sufficient HQLAs to survive an acute stress scenario lasting for 30 days, according to Business Standard.

As per RBI's draft norms, Level 1 HQLA in the form of government securities should be valued at an amount not greater than their current market value, adjusted for applicable haircuts in line with the margin requirements under the Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) and Marginal Standing Facility (MSF).

The apex bank has been nudging banks to moderate their credit-deposit ratio in view of lagging growth of liabilities, as per reports.

The RBI has proposed that the new norms would come into effect from April 1 next year (2025), while comments on the draft circular have been invited from banks and other stakeholders by August 31.
Image credit: Facebook/SJVN

Mumbai/IBNS: Shares of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC)-backed Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd (SJVN) rose 13 percent in early trades on Friday (July 26) after SJVN said it has secured a Letter of Intent from the Government of Mizoram to develop the 2,400 MW Darzo Lui Pumped Storage Project worth Rs 13,947 crore, marking the firm's entry to the North-Eastern state.

According to reports, SJVN stock zoomed 13,49 percent to Rs 159.60 in the current session on BSE.

The company's market capital stood at Rs 60,361 crore, and a total of 30.33 lakh shares changed hands amounting to a turnover of Rs 47.05 crore on BSE, reports Business Today.

This domestic project in Mizoram, which involves constructing a pumped storage facility on Darzo Nallah  a Tuipui river tributary, comprises eight 300 MW units and it is expected to generate 4,993.20 MU annually while consuming 6,331.66 MU for pumping.

The Rs 13,947 crore-project is scheduled for completion within 72 months, with a formal agreement between SJVN and the Government of Mizoram to be signed within three months, while the transaction is deemed to be at arm's length, as per media reports.
Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA), the apex body representing Indias Auto Component manufacturing industry on Thursday announced the findings of its Industry Performance Review for the fiscal year 2023-24 which showed the turnover of the automotive component industry stood at Rs. 6.14 lakh crore (USD 74.1 billion) for the period, registering a growth of 9.8% over the previous year.

Commenting on the performance of the auto component industry, Vinnie Mehta, Director General, ACMA said, On back of steady vehicles production in the country, a robust aftermarket and growth in exports, the auto component industry grew to Rs. 6.14 lakh crore (USD 74.1 billion) registering 9.8% growth in FY23-24, thus outpacing the turnover of Rs. 5.59 lakh crore in the previous fiscal. Component supply to OEMs in the domestic market grew by 8.9% to Rs. 5.18 lakh crore, with supply to the EV manufacturing industry accounting for 6% of the total component production in the country. Exports grew by 5.5% to USD 21.2 billion while imports grew by 3% to USD 20.9 billion, thus resulting in a trade surplus of USD 300 million. The Aftermarket, estimated at Rs. 93,886 crore also witnessed growth of 10%.

Sharing insights on the performance of the industry, Shradha Suri Marwah, President, ACMA & CMD, Subros said, It is pertinent to note that apart from increase in vehicle production, higher value addition from the component sector has led to growth in the auto components sector. On the front of trade, whilst overall merchandize exports from India witnessed degrowth in FY24, auto components exports have grown despite geopolitical challenges and increase in logistics costs. That apart, growth in imports has been comparatively lesser, leading to trade surplus, indicating thrust by the industry on front of localisation.

Elaborating on the mood of the industry and outlook for the near future, Marwah mentioned, Steady growth in vehicle industry has resulted the industry reaching pre-pandemic levels of performance in FY24 in most segments, however, the first quarter of FY25 witnessed somewhat slower offtake in vehicle sales, especially in PVs and CVs, given the high base, due to inclement weather conditions and elections. With strong macro-economic indicators, conducive government policies and over 7% growth projected for the Indian GDP, we are hopeful that the auto components industry will continue to perform well in FY25.

Key findings of the ACMA Annual Industry Performance Review for 2022-23:

 Sales to OEMs: Auto Component sales to OEMs, in the domestic market, at Rs. 5.18 lakh crores (USD 62.4 billion) grew 8.9% compared to the previous year. Consumption of increased value-added components, thrust on localisation and shift in market preference towards larger and more-powerful vehicles contributed to the increased turnover of the auto-components sector.

 Exports: Exports of auto components witnessed growth of 5.5% to Rs. USD 21.2 billion in 2023-24 in contrast to USD 20.1 billion in 2022-23. North-America accounting for 32% of exports saw a growth of 4.5%. Europe accounted for another 33% and Asia for 24% respectively. Exports to Europe grew 12% while to Asia it remained flat.

The key export items included drive transmission & steering, engine components, body & chassis, suspension & braking systems etc.

 Imports: Component imports grew by 3.0% in 2023-24 to USD 20.9 billion from USD 20.3 billion in 2022-23. Asia accounted for 66% of imports followed by Europe and North America at 26% and 8% respectively. Imports from Asia grew 3%, while that from Europe by 4%. Import from North America remained flat in FY24.

The key import items included engine components, body & chassis, suspension & braking, drive transmission & steering etc.

The export and import profile of the Indian auto components industry is very similar.

 Aftermarket: Increased movement of vehicles and surge in demand for used vehicles led to buoyancy in the aftermarket across all segments. The turnover of the aftermarket in FY 2023-24 stood at Rs. 93,886 crore (USD 11.3 billion) compared to Rs. 85,333 crore (USD 10.6 billion) in the previous year. The aftermarket, with increase in e-commerce, is witnessing enhanced penetration especially in the hinterland and a gradual evolution into organised sector.


A woman browses alcohol in a supermarket in Moscow, Russia.Photo Courtesy: WHO/Sergey Volkov

It seems that Europeans dont want to give up booze. A UN World Health Organization (WHO) report has found that nothing has changed in the continents drinking habits. Despite the health risks, Europeans consume an average of 9.2 litres of pure alcohol a year - making them the worlds biggest drinkers.

WHOs Dr Gauden Galea said that the impacts are far-reaching including domestic violence, accidents and mental health issues. He called on countries to implement effective policies to reduce drinking.

How much are Europeans drinking?

The numbers tell a sobering story: men in the region drink nearly four times more than women and 470 million people drinkers according to latest data. Two out of every three adults drink, one in 10 has an alcohol use disorder and almost six per cent live with alcohol dependence. Yet only 12 out of 53 countries have made progress in reducing consumption by 10 per cent since 2010.

While the WHO European Region is on track to meet its alcohol target, this is mainly because of big reductions in a few large countries like Russia, Turkiye and Ukraine which have increased taxes and limited availability. In contrast, EU countries have not seen any change in alcohol consumption for over ten years, highlighting the need to step up the action to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Dr. Carina Ferreira-Borges, Regional Adviser on Alcohol, Illicit Drugs, and Prison Health said: We are paying the price, alcohol is causing hundreds of thousands of cardiovascular diseases, injuries, cancers and liver cirrhosis in our region.

Harmful effects of alcohol

The report warned that alcohol is the leading cause of death in Europe, accounting for almost 800,000 deaths a year; 2,200 people die daily from alcohol-related causes, almost nine per cent of all deaths in the region.

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) like heart disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease account for 90 per cent of deaths and 85 per cent of disability years in the WHO European Region. Most alcohol-related deaths (over 600,000 a year) are from NCDs, with half from heart disease. The report shows a high incidence of alcohol-related cancers in Europe due to high consumption and an ageing population.

This is made more problematic as few people know that alcohol is a major cancer risk. Despite being classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) many people are not aware that alcohol can cause cancer, the report found.

Not enough being done to to reduce drinking

Despite the clear evidence of harm, many European countries are not implementing the WHO recommendations which include: increasing alcohol taxes, restricting marketing and reducing availability.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have shown that population-level control policies can reduce consumption, harm and increase life expectancy.

"We have the tools and the evidence. We need the will. As the 2025 deadline for the UN High-Level Meeting looms we must act now and make the changes to keep our populations healthy, Dr. Galea stressed.

The WHO urged countries to act now to meet Sustainable Development Goals on health and limit commercial interests that promote drinking alcohol.
Photo Courtesy: Sam Altman X page

Giving a challenge to Google, Open AI has launched an artificial-intelligence-powered search engine named SearchGPT which will provide users real-time access to users from the internet.

"Were testing SearchGPT, a temporary prototype of new AI search features that give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources," Open AI, a firm which aims to revolutionise the dimensions of artificial intelligence, posted on its website.

The AI major said it is launching a small group of users and publishers to get feedback on the newly launched search engine.

"While this prototype is temporary, we plan to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future," the company said.

Open AI said people who are interested in using the search engine could try out the prototype by signing in for the waitlist.

"Getting answers on the web can take a lot of effort, often requiring multiple attempts to get relevant results. We believe that by enhancing the conversational capabilities of our models with real-time information from the web, finding what youre looking for can be faster and easier," the firm said on its website.

News Corp and The Atlantic are currently publishing partners for the Open AI created search engine.

Sam and the truly talented team at OpenAI innately understand that for AI-powered search to be effective, it must be founded on the highest-quality, most reliable information furnished by trusted sources. For the heavens to be in equilibrium, the relationship between technology and content must be symbiotic and provenance must be protected," Robert Thomson, Chief Executive, News Corp, was quoted as saying by Open AI website.

Announcing the plan of launching the search engine, Open AI chief Sam Altman posted on X: "We think there is room to make search much better than it is today."
Photo courtesy: BJP X handle

New Delhi/IBNS: Backing his government's Agnipath amid controversy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the scheme launched by his government aims to keep the Army fit for the war.

Modi made the remark while attending the Kargil Vijay Diwas ceremony at Kargil War Memorial in Dras, Ladakh.

The Prime Minister said, "The country has addressed this important dream through the Agnipath scheme. The aim of Agnipath is to rejuvenate the armies and keep them continually fit for war."

"Unfortunately, such a sensitive issue related to national security has been made a subject of politics by some people. Some people are playing politics of lies on this reform of the army for their personal interests. These are the same people who weakened our armed forces by committing scams worth thousands of crores of rupees in the armed forces.

"These are the same people who wanted the Air Force to never get modern fighter jets. These are the same people who had made preparations to lock the Tejas fighter plane in a box," he added.

Launched in 2022, Agnipath scheme provides for short-term induction of personnel into the armed forces with an aim to bring down the age profile of the three services. Those recruited under the scheme are called Agniveers.

Congress president Mallikarjun had earlier written a letter to the President of India, Droupadi Murmu, saying that the government was doing injustice to lakhs of youth by bringing the Agnipath Scheme and ending the regular recruitment process.

Kharge, while terming the scheme "discriminatory among the jawans," said, "The scheme is creating parallel cadres of soldiers who are expected to work on similar tasks but with different emoluments, benefits, and prospects."

Not just the Congress, Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has faced heat over the scheme from its key allies, Janata Dal (United) and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) that have asked for a reconsideration and discussion on it.

Speaking in favour of reforms in the defence sector, the Prime Minister said, "The country has felt the need for major reforms in the defense sector for decades. The army has been demanding this for years, but unfortunately, it was not given enough importance earlier.

"In the last 10 years, we have made defense reforms a top priority in the defense sector. Due to these reforms, our armies are now more capable and becoming self-reliant!"

About Kargil Diwas

On this day, 26 July 1999, India successfully took command of the high outposts which had been lost to Pakistani intruders.
Photo courtesy: BJP X handle

New Delhi/IBNS: Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty on the occasion of 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas in Ladakh on Friday.

He also attended the Shraddhanjali Samaroh. The Prime Minister heard the Gaurav Gatha: Briefing on Kargil War by NCOs and visited Amar Sansmaran: Hut of Remembrance. He also visited the Veer Bhoomi.

The Prime Minister also witnessed the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project in Ladakh, virtually today. Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1 km long Twin-Tube tunnel to be constructed at around 15,800 feet on the Nimu  Padum  Darcha Road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh.

Addressing the Shrddhanjali Samaroh, the Prime Minister said that the glorious land of Ladakh is witness to the 25th year anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas.

"Kargil Vijay Diwas reminds us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal," PM Modi remarked.

Even though months, years, decades and centuries pass by, the Prime Minister underlined that the lives laid down to protect the nations borders cannot be erased.

"The nation is forever indebted and deeply grateful to the mighty superheroes of our armed forces," Modi added.

Recalling the days of Kargil war, the Prime Minister said he was fortunate to be amidst the soldiers back then, adding that he still remembers how our soldiers carried out a difficult operation at such a height. "I salute the brave sons of the country who made the supreme sacrifice to protect the motherland," Modi said.

"In Kargil, we not only won the war, we presented an incredible example of 'truth, restraint and strength, Prime Minister Modi remarked. The Prime Minister threw light on Pakistans deceit at the time when India was making all efforts to maintain peace.  Falsehood and terror were brought down to their knees by truth," he added.

Condemning terrorism, the Prime Minister said that Pakistan has always faced defeat in the past.

"Pakistan has not learnt anything from its past and has continued to wage war in the garb of terrorism and proxy wars to stay relevant, Shri Modi continued. The Prime Minister asserted that the nefarious intentions of terrorists will never be fulfilled. Our bravehearts will trample all the terror attempts," he added.

"India will overcome all challenges that come in the way of development, be it Ladakh or Jammu & Kashmir, the Prime Minister reiterated. He reminded that in a few days from now on 5th of August, the abrogation of Article 370 will complete 5 years and the Jammu & Kashmir of today is talking about a new future full of dreams.

"The Prime Minister gave examples of progress and mentioned holding G20 meetings in the UT, governments focus on infrastructure development and tourism, cinema halls opening up, and tazia procession being initiated after three and a half decades. This heaven on earth is swiftly moving in the direction of peace and prosperity," the Prime Minister added.

Underlining the developments taking place in Ladakh, the Prime Minister said through Shinkun La Tunnel, the union territory will remain connected with the whole country throughout the year, in every season.

"This tunnel will open doors of new possibilities for the development and better future of Ladakh."

Congratulating the people of Ladakh, the Prime Minister said that this tunnel will further make their lives easier as the numerous hardships faced by them due to the regions extreme weather will be eased.

The Prime Minister highlighted the governments priorities towards the people of Ladakh and mentioned making efforts personally for the safe evacuation of citizens from the Kargil region from Iran during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He recalled a quarantine zone being established in Jaisalmer where they were tested before being sent to Ladakh. Underlining the governments efforts to boost ease of living and provide more services for the people of Ladakh, the Prime Minister mentioned an approximate six-time increase in the budget from Rs 1100 crores to Rs 6000 crores in the last 5 years.

"Be it roads, electricity, water, education, power supply, employment, every direction of Ladakh is transforming," PM Modi said, highlighting the application of holistic planning for the first time.

He gave examples of more than 90 percent coverage of drinking water in Ladakh households under the Jal Jeevan Mission, the upcoming Sindhu Central University for quality higher education for the youth of Ladakh, work to establish a 4G network in the entire Ladakh region, and ongoing work for 13-kilometer long Zojila tunnel for all-weather connectivity on NH 1.

Referring to the ambitious targets for the border areas, the Prime Minister informed that the Border Road Organization (BRO) has completed more than 330 projects including Sela Tunnel, showcasing New INdias capabilities and direction.

Emphasizing the importance of upgrading military technologies, the Prime Minister said in the changing global scenarios, our defence force needs the latest weapons and equipment along with a modern working style and arrangements.

Modi said that the defence sector had felt the necessity to upgrade in the past as well, but unfortunately, this issue was not given much importance.

"However, in the last 10 years, Defence reforms have been prioritized, making our forces more capable and self-reliant," he added.

Modi further said that today a major stake in defence procurement is being given to the Indian defence industry, adding that 25 per cent has been reserved for the private sector in the defence and research development budget.

"As a result of these efforts, Indias defence production has crossed 1.5 lakh crore."

The Prime Minister further said that India is making its mark as an arms exporter as well, contrary to its past image of a country that was counted as an arms-importing one.

Modi expressed happiness that our force has now decided to stop importing more than 5000 weapons and military equipment.

Lauding the defence forces for the reforms in the defence sector, the Prime Minister dwelled at length on Agnipath Scheme as one of the crucial reforms.

Referring to the long pending concern for the average age of the Indian focus being above the global average, the Prime Minister said that in the past there was no willpower to deal with this critical concern which is being addressed now through the Agnipath Scheme.

"Purpose of Agnipath is to keep forces young and continuously battle-ready," the Prime Minister asserted, lamenting the blatant politicization of this sensitive subject.

He criticized the past scams and past unwillingness for the modernization of the Air Force Fleet.

"The truth is that the Agnipath scheme will increase the strength of the country and the country will also get capable youth. Announcements have been made to give priority to Agniveers in the private sector and paramilitary forces as well," he said.

Rejecting the propaganda about the intention of saving pension burden as the main reason behind Agnipath Scheme, the Prime Minister reminded that pension burden of the soldiers being recruited today will come up after 30 years, therefore, this can not be the reason behind the scheme.

"We have respected this decision taken by the armed forces because for us the security of the country is more important than politics," he added.

The Prime Minister pointed out that those misleading the youth of the nation today had no regard for the armed forces in the past.

Recalling the false promises made by past governments on One Rank One Pension, the Prime Minister underlined that it was the present government that implemented the scheme where ex-servicemen were given more than Rs 1.25 lakh crores.

He further pointed out the neglect of past governments and said, "These are the same people who did not build a war memorial for the martyrs even after 7 decades of independence, did not provide enough bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border and kept ignoring Kargil Vijay Diwas."

Concluding the address, the Prime Minister said, "The victory of Kargil was not the victory of any government or any party. This victory belongs to the country, this victory is the heritage of the country.

"This is a festival of pride and self-respect of the country."

He saluted the brave soldiers on behalf of the entire country and conveyed his best wishes to all the countrymen on 25 years of Kargil victory.
Photo courtesy: BJP X handle

New Delhi/IBNS: In a swipe at Islamabad on 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said Pakistan learnt no lesson from the past and continues to wage proxy wars with New Delhi through terrorism.

"In Kargil, we not only won the war, we presented an incredible example of 'truth, restraint and strength," Prime Minister Modi remarked.

The Prime Minister threw light on Pakistans deceit at the time when India was making all efforts to maintain peace.

"Falsehood and terror were brought down to their knees by truth," he added.

Condemning terrorism, the Prime Minister said that Pakistan has always faced defeat in the past.

"Pakistan has not learnt anything from its past and has continued to wage war in the garb of terrorism and proxy wars to stay relevant, Modi continued.

"The Prime Minister asserted that the nefarious intentions of terrorists will never be fulfilled.

"Our bravehearts will trample all the terror attempts," he added.

"India will overcome all challenges that come in the way of development, be it Ladakh or Jammu and Kashmir," the Prime Minister reiterated.

He reminded that in a few days from now on August 5, the abrogation of Article 370 will complete five years.

On this day, July 26, 1999, India successfully took command of the high outposts which had been lost to Pakistani intruders.
Photo courtesy: Screenshot grab from X post

Kolkata/IBNS: Ending all speculations, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday jetted off to the national capital New Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog meeting, which will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Though Banerjee had earlier planned to fly off to Delhi on Thursday, she had cancelled the trip.

The confusion over her visit created after several other Chief Ministers, who run the opposition-ruled states, have already boycotted the meeting, which will be held on Saturday.

On Friday, Banerjee and her nephew, Trinamool Congress national general secretary and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek Banerjee, boarded the plane.

Speaking to the reporters at the Kolkata airport, Banerjee said, "I had decided earlier to attend the meeting... I was asked to send my written statement seven days prior."

She added, "We are not able to accept the kind of bias and discrimination meted out to all opposition-ruled states including West Bengal. The ministers as well as BJP are conspiring to divide Bengal and also India. Adding to that, they are doing economic, geographical, political blockades."

"I am going there for sometime to record my voice for my state. If I am allowed, I will record or else will walk out protesting," the Chief Minister said, being flanked by Abhishek.

Mamata slams Budget 2024

Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday slammed the Modi government's first budget in the third term calling it "directionless" and "visionless".

Banerjee said the budget is filled with "political mission".

"This budget is totally directionless, anti-people, and visionless. This budget has only the political mission. I don't see any light in this budget but darkness," the Chief Minister said.

The Chief Minister, who is the arch-rival of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has slammed the Centre for not giving assistance to her state to tackle natural calamities while the budget has an allocation for Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim for the same purpose.

"They (BJP) come to Darjeeling for votes but forget the people from the district once the elections are over," she said and added, "Floods & natural calamities are an annual ordeal for West Bengal, yet the Centre snubs us from the flood management fund! What's West Bengal's fault? Is it for voting against you?"

FM Sitharaman hits out at Bengal govt

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman engaged in a fierce faceoff with the Trinamool Congress MPs in Parliament after the party led by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the budget as "discriminatory" and "biased".

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Sitharaman said, "Yesterday, the TMC questioned the Budget, saying nothing has been given to Bengal.
Photo courtesy: Yogi Adityanath Facebook page

New Delhi/IBNS: The Uttar Pradesh government has strongly opposed the pleas filed in the Supreme Court challenging its order to display the names of the shop owners along the Kanwar Yatra route, media reports said.

The government said in a statement as quoted by NDTV, "The yatra is an arduous journey, where some Kanwariyas , i.e. the Dak Kanwariyas, do not even stop to rest once the Kanwar is on their shoulders.

"There are sacred features of the pilgrimage, such as the fact that the Kanwar, once filled with holy Gangajal, is not to be kept on the ground; nor under the shadow of the gular tree. It may also be noted that a Kanwaria embarks on the Yatra after years of preparation."

The government told the Supreme Court the directive was issued to ensure "peaceful and orderly pilgrimage".

On Monday, the Supreme Court put a hold on the diktat that has stirred a massive row with not just the Opposition but also allies of the country's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanding its rollback.

Speaking to PTI, Union Minister and Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief Chirag Paswan said he doesn't support anything that brings a division among people on the basis of "caste" or "religion".

The LJP (Ram Vilas) chief said he only believes in two classes of people, rich and poor.

"We need to bridge the gap between these two classes of people. It is every government's responsibility to work for the poor, which includes all sections of society such as Dalits, backwards, upper castes and Muslims as well. All are there. We need to work for them," the young politician said as quoted by Hindustan Times.

He added, "Whenever there is such divide in the name of caste or religion, I absolutely do not either support it or encourage it. I do not think any educated young person of my age, irrespective of the caste or religion they come from, is affected by such things."

Earlier, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal (United), an important ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's BJP, opposed the move and asked for a review of such an order.

Rashtriya Lok Dal or RLD, another ally of the BJP, has opposed the diktat as well.

RLD national general secretary Trilok Tyag said as quoted by Hindustan Times, "Why do you make someone write their name on street carts? They have the right to work...This tradition is absolutely wrong. It is up to the customer, they can make purchases from wherever they want...I would like to ask politicians - does consuming alcohol not corrupt you religiously?

"Does it happen only when you consume meat? So, why is there no prohibition on alcohol? Why do they not speak about alcohol? Because those who do business have a nexus, it is a game of the powerful. These small shops are set up by the poor. So, you are pointing fingers at them. I would demand that ban alcohol too."
Screengrab from video posted by Congress on X

Sultanpur (UP)/IBNS: Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi Friday stopped briefly at a cobbler's shop on his way back to Lucknow from Sultanpur where he had gone to appear before a court in connection with a defamation case.

The cobbler in Vidhayak Nagar on the outskirts of Sultanpur was pleasantly surprised with the unexpected visit of the Congress leader.

Gandhi stopped at the shop of cobbler Ram Chet and spoke to him about his family and his problems.

Speaking to the media, Chet said Gandhi visited his shop without any prior information and stopped for nearly half-an-hour during which he enquired about his family and problems encountered by him.

Chet said he offered cold drinks to Gandhi and both drank together.

The cobbler is reported to have sought assistance to expand the work.
Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

Just hours before the start of the Olympics, French railway company SNCF on Friday said its high-speed TGV network was hit by a series of 'malicious acts' which include arson attacks.

The malicious activities reportedly attempt to paralyse the high-speed network of the country at a time when the nation is hosting the grand sporting event with visitors from multiple nations and sportsmen arriving in the French capital city.

SCNF has asked travellers to avoid train travel.

Also Read: Microsoft outages leave flight operations, businesses impacted globally

SNCF is advising travellers "not to go to the station" - a reminder only the Atlantique, Nord and Est lines of the TGV network are impacted, BBC reported.

The journeys of about 800,000 travelers will be affected by what French authorities have called coordinated malicious acts on French train lines, Frances state railways company SNCF told CNN.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal described the episode as an 'act of sabotage.

"Early this morning, acts of sabotage were carried out in a prepared and coordinated manner on SNCF installations," he said. "The consequences on the rail network are massive and serious," the PM said.

Tot ce matin, des actes de sabotage ont ete, de facon preparee et coordonnee, menes sur des installations de la SNCF.



Les consequences sur le reseau ferroviaire sont massives et graves.



Je dis toute ma reconnaissance a nos pompiers qui sont intervenus sur les sites touches et  Gabriel Attal (@GabrielAttal) July 26, 2024

" I think of all the French people, all the families, who were preparing to go on vacation. I share their anger and salute their patience, their understanding and the civic-mindedness they demonstrate," he said. He said the French intelligence services and law enforcement are trying to find and punish the perpetrators of the criminal acts.

He posted on X: "Coordinated malicious acts targeted several TGV lines last night and will seriously disrupt traffic until this weekend. I strongly condemn these criminal actions which will compromise the vacation departures of many French people. A big thank you to the #SNCF teams, on the bridge to restore traffic conditions as quickly as possible."

Tot ce matin, des actes de sabotage ont ete, de facon preparee et coordonnee, menes sur des installations de la SNCF.



Les consequences sur le reseau ferroviaire sont massives et graves.



Je dis toute ma reconnaissance a nos pompiers qui sont intervenus sur les sites touches et  Gabriel Attal (@GabrielAttal) July 26, 2024

Eurostar, the high-speed train service connecting the United Kingdom with France, has been forced cancelled amid disruption.

Due to coordinated acts of malice in France, affecting the high speed line between Paris and Lille, all high-speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today Friday 26 July. This extends the journey time by around an hour and a half. Several trains have been cancelled, Eurostar said in a statement to CNN.

Several industries across the globe, including banks, airlines, telecommunications companies, TV and radio broadcasters, and supermarkets, were hit after users reported a blue screen of death error screens on Windows platforms last Friday.
Photo Courtesy: Pixabay

Robbers allegedly gang-raped a woman in front of her husband and three-year-old child in Pakistan's Hafizabad district on Thursday, once again raising the question of women's safety in the country.

According to reports, the family was going to Chiniot by motorcycle when it was stopped by three robbers near Sukheke.

The robbers allegedly took the woman to a nearby field and gang-raped her.

Instead of helping the victim family, the police officials of the Hafizabad and Nankana Sahib districts reportedly clashed over the dispute of jurisdiction, blatantly violating the Standard Operating Procedures (SoPs) which were issued in the wake of the Lahore-Sialkot motorway gang-rape incident [2020] to respond to the sexual assault attacks on women, reported Dawn News.

The rape survivor was later shifted to a hospital.

An official told the Pakistani newspaper that the family was resident of Chiniot district.

He said the woman was going back to her home along with her husband and three-year-old daughter after meeting her maternal uncle late on Wednesday.

He said they were intercepted by three robbers at around 11:30pm.

The gangsters fled the scene after the incident.

Hafizabad DPO Faisal Gulzar told Dawn that though the incident took place in Nankana Sahib district, he had ordered to register the FIR in his districts police station.

We arrested one of the three criminals who looted the family and raped the woman, he said adding that during interrogation the arrested suspect told the police that his accomplices fled towards Rawalpindi.
Photo Courtesy: Pixabay

Meanwhile in Pakistan, UN independent human rights experts voiced deep concern over a surge in violence against Ahmadi Muslims, including allegations of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, attacks on places of worship and curtailment of free expression, peaceful assembly and association.

We are alarmed by ongoing reports of violence and discrimination against the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan. We urge Pakistani authorities to take immediate action to address this situation, the experts said.

Urgent measures are necessary to respond to these violent attacks and the broader atmosphere of hatred and discrimination which feeds it.

Tweet URL

The Human Rights Council-appointed experts cited specific incidents over the past few months, including the extrajudicial killing of two Ahmadis on 8 July and of a community leader on 4 March.

They also noted that an alarming number of attacks on Ahmadi places of worship and cemeteries have been reported since the beginning of 2024, some of which resulted in serious injury to worshippers.

Ensure effective protection

The Ahmadiyya community, their places of worship and cemeteries, must be given effective protection from attacks and vandalism, the experts said.

They also expressed concern regarding alleged arbitrary arrests and detentions of Ahmadi worshippers during their religious holiday period to prevent or obstruct their participation in their religious practices.

The independent experts commended the Pakistan National Assemblys resolution adopted last month to ensure the safety of all citizens, including religious minorities, while stressing the need to address blasphemy laws and discriminatory provisions endangering Ahmadis and other minorities.

The experts raising concern included the members of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, alongside the special rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions; freedom of opinion and expression; freedom of religion; and freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

Appointed by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council and forming part of its Special Procedures, Special Rapporteurs and Working Groups are mandated to monitor and report on human rights in specific country or thematic situations. They are independent of the United Nations and do not draw a salary.
Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

One of the major drug lords Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada has been arrested in the US state of Texas.

Zambada, 76, is the leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel.

Attorney General Merrick Garland said: "The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world. Ismael Zambada Garcia, or 'El Mayo,' cofounder of the Cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of its other cofounder, were arrested today in El Paso, Texas."

"El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable in the United States,"Garland said.

Zambada was previously charged in multiple superseding indictments with running a continuing criminal enterprise, as well as murder conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl manufacture and distribution conspiracy, as well as other drug-related crimes, through his continuing leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world, as per a press release issued by US Department of Justice.

The fifth superseding indictment extends the end-dates of the continuing criminal enterprise and several conspiracies from May 2014 to January 2024.

Guzman Loera was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn in February 2019 and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.

Zambada Garcia has continued to evade capture, and, as alleged, continues to run the Sinaloa Cartel from Mexico.

According to the superseding indictment, from 1989 to 2024, Zambada Garcia led a continuing criminal enterprise responsible for the importation and distribution of massive quantities of narcotics and which generated billions of dollars in profits.

To ensure the success of the cartel, Zambada Garcia employed individuals to obtain transportation routes and warehouses to import and store narcotics, and sicarios, or hit men, to carry out kidnappings and murders in Mexico to retaliate against rivals who threatened the cartel.

The millions of dollars generated from the drug sales were then transported back to Mexico.

Guzman Loeras name has been removed from the fifth superseding indictment in light of his 2018 trial conviction.
On July 28th, Calgary will serve as the venue for a controversial event: the Khalistan referendum organized by Sikhs for Justice (SFJ).

One of the events prominent organizers, Santokh Singh Khela, carries a dark history, having been convicted in 1987 by Canadian courts for conspiracy to commit mass murder by plotting to blow up Air India flight 112.

This decision to host such a figure and event on Canadian soil raises significant concerns about public safety, national security, and the integrity of our political landscape.

Media outlets like Media Bezirgan have extensively covered the activities of the Khalistani political organizations in Canada, highlighting the involvement of figures like Khela.

However, the recent CBC article discussing Santokh Singh Khela conspicuously omitted his past as the first Canadian Sikh convicted of terrorism for plotting mass murder.

This omission is not just a journalistic oversight but a critical gap that misleads the public about the gravity of the situation and the nature of those involved in organizing this event.

SFJs choice of venue, Dashmesh Gurdwara in Calgary, is particularly troubling.

The Gurdwara has previously hosted parades glorifying Khalistani Sikh terrorists, including members of the notorious Babbar Khalsa.

The fact that this place of worship, supported by all levels of government and police, is being used as a base for promoting the Khalistan referendum is alarming.

It speaks to a broader issue of how extremist elements can exploit religious and cultural spaces to further their agendas.

Adding another layer to this issue is Jyoti Gondek, the mayor of Calgary, who has close ties to the Gurdwara. Her father was an executive of the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO), an influential Khalistani group. The WSO, whose founding president Gian Singh Sandhu was interrogated multiple times by the RCMP after the 1985 Air India bombings, recently held an event at this Gurdwara. This connection raises questions about the potential conflict of interest and whether personal affiliations are clouding judgment when it comes to addressing such extremist activities.

The decision to host the Khalistan referendum on Calgarys Municipal Plaza is a stark provocation.

SFJ has dedicated this event to Khalistani terrorists, specifically Talwinder Singh Parmar, the mastermind behind the 1985 Air India bombings, Canadas deadliest terrorist attack. By allowing this event, is Canada not indirectly endorsing the glorification of a convicted terrorist?

Santokh Singh Khelas history is a chilling reminder of the potential dangers posed by allowing convicted terrorists to operate freely.

In 1987, Khela and Kashmir Singh Dhillon were convicted for plotting to bomb another Air India flight.

Their plans were thwarted thanks to a tip-off and subsequent RCMP intervention. Despite their conviction, the Khalistani Canadian-Sikh community rallied in support, pledging millions to bail them out. This extraordinary community support, while showcasing solidarity, also highlighted the deep-seated radicalism within some sections of the community.

Khelas conviction for conspiracy to commit mass murder marked him as a significant threat to public safety. The fact that he admitted to being part of Babbar Khalsa, a designated terrorist organization, during his trial, and yet is now organizing events in Canada, is deeply troubling. This raises a pertinent question: How is it that Justin Trudeaus government allows such individuals not only to remain free but to actively participate in organizing extremist protests?

The presence of such individuals in positions of influence within these events poses a direct threat to national security. It undermines the efforts of law enforcement and judicial systems that have worked tirelessly to prevent terrorist activities and protect innocent lives.

As we approach July 28th, it is imperative for Canadians to question the implications of hosting such events and the message it sends.

Calgary, and by extension Canada, must reconsider the permissiveness granted to extremist groups. Our nations values, public safety, and the memory of victims of past terrorist acts demand no less.

The Trudeau administration must take a firm stand against allowing individuals with a history of terrorism to exploit our democratic freedoms for their radical agendas.

The safety and integrity of our nation depend on it.

(Image and text courtesy: Khalsavox.com)
Photo Courtesy: Barack Obama Instagram page

Former US President Barack Obama on Friday endorsed the country's vice president Kamala Harris to be the Democratic nominee for the presidential polls.

Obama's endorsement ends all doubt whether he will support Harris for the party's nomination.

"Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think shell make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, were going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in November. We hope youll join us," Obama posted on X.

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think shell make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, were going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2024

Kamala Harris emerged as a contender to become Democrat nominee after Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday.

Biden was under pressure to quit the presidential race following his struggling performance in the debate with many within his party doubting his candidacy and re-election attempt.

Biden made the announcement just four months before the USA votes to elect a new President.

In his statement posted on X, Biden said: "It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President. And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe 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."
Photo Courtesy: RCTNSheriff X page

An Indian-origin Tennessee store clerk has been accused of stealing a lottery ticket that won a $1 million prize money from its rightful owner and trying to encash it, media reports said.

The accused was identified as Meer Patel, 23.

The Rutherford County Sheriff's Office told Fox 13 News Meer Patel, 23, of Murfreesboro has been arrested and charged with theft over $250,000.

An Antioch father was surprised when @RCTNSheriff detectives informed him he won the $1 million lottery.

A store clerk allegedly stole his ticket and tried to collect the prize.

Meer Patel, 23, of Murfreesboro was charged with theft over $250,000.

The father was thankful. pic.twitter.com/8pOP0pEs2q  RCTNSheriff (@RCTNSheriff) July 22, 2024

Investigators said the rightful owner was a father from Antioch, who did not want to be publicly identified, the news channel reported.

According to reports, investigators said the rightful owner of the ticket bought them on July 13 at a Shell gas station.

Authorities told Fox13News the father gave the two winning lottery tickets to Patel, who then gave him cash for the lesser-valued winning ticket, throwing the $1 million winning ticket in the trash.

Patel later allegedly tried to claim the ticket at the Tennessee Lottery which made the employees suspicious about his activity.

"Mr. Patel is then seen later in the video celebrating in the store after scratching off the front of the ticket and learning it was a $1 million winner," authorities said in a news release as quoted by Fox 13.

Investigators were able to identify the actual buyer of the ticket from the same video which showed Patel picking up the lottery ticket from the trash and putting it in his pocket.
The comedy series Life Hill Gayi, starring actor Kusha Kapila and Divyenndu Sharmais in lead roles, is about to release on OTT. The release of the comedy series has been announced by Disney+ Hotstar in collaboration with Himshrri Films. Life Hill Gayi is being called a heartwarming coming-of-age series. The series is produced by Arushi Nishank. It will premiere on August 9.

Life Hill Gayi OTT release date Disney+ Hotstar: When to watch this comedy series

Life Hill Gayi is the lighthearted story to be released on Disney+ Hotstar on August 9, but before that, here's a glimpse of the awaited show that has beautifully captured the breathtaking scenery of Uttarakhand.

Also Read: Upcoming Telugu releases on Amazon Prime Video, Aha, Netflix and other OTT platforms

Here's the trailer for Life Hill Gayi:

The trailer released by Disney+ Hotstar has already created a buzz on the internet.

Also Read: Deadly Influence: The Social Media Murders on OTT: Who was Sania Khan and why was she killed?

While sharing the trailer for the show, one of the leads, Kusha Kapila, on Instagram earlier described the show as "Bhai behen ke jhagde, Dadu ki property aur dher saari comedy!"

She also urged her fans to not miss the show, which will be streaming on August 9.

Stoyline of Life Hill Gayi:

Life Hill Gayi, as described by its makers, is a story of rivalry between two siblings to get the property of their grandfather. The show is set in the different locations of India's Uttarakhand state. The storyline of Life Hill Gayi revolves around family dynamics and shows how characters in the series are after material wealth.

Basically, the set of siblings are after a mismanagement of a hotel, which is given as a task to them by their family. Tensions escalate when rumours spread that the hotel is haunted.

Also read: The Decameron: Here's all about the real-life events that inspired Netflixs upcoming series

Cast of Life Hill Gayi:

The Life Hill Gayi series has a star-studded cast that includes Divyenndu Sharma, Kusha Kapila, Kabir Bedi, Mukti Mohan, Vinay Pathak, and many others.

Divyenndu Sharma and Kusha Kapila are playing siblings; Vinay Pathak is their father; and Kabir Bedi is paying their grandfather in the show.

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.


Mission Cross, a Korean action-comedy film, is all set for its OTT debut on Netflix. Starring actor Hwang Jung Min, who is a well-known and loved South Korean actor, in the lead role with actress Yum Jung Ah, the film got announced on Netflix in a very unique way. The actors from the film took to Instagram recently and announced Mission Cross, surprising their fans in a very funny way. The action-comedy film will stream on August 9, 2024, on the OTT platform Netflix.

Mission Cross OTT release date Netflix: When to watch this Korean action-comedy

Here's the trailer for Mission Cross:

Netflix dropped the films poster, showing lead actors Hwang Jung Min and Yum Jung Ah holding hands with war-like scenes in the background. The post on Instagram by Netflix had a caption that read, From the nemesis of a husband to a hot summer action ally.

Also Read: Upcoming Telugu releases on Amazon Prime Video, Aha, Netflix and other OTT platforms

The special announcement from the lead actors gave a glimpse of their chemistry, which fans can expect in the upcoming movie as well.

The trailer for Mission Cross shows the action scenes being experienced by the actors, who are a couple. Actor Hwang Jung Min is shown as a househusband taking a break from his agent life, which is a secret to his wife. The wife, played by actress Yum Jung Ah, is a detective herself. The story revolves around Yum Jung Ah doubting her husband about an extramarital affair. The story continues on how the couple sorts things out between them and finds themselves in the middle of major incidents and a thrilling mission.

Also Read: Life Hill Gayi OTT release date Disney+ Hotstar: When to watch this Kusha Kapila starrer comedy series

About the Korean actors in the lead role:

Hwang Jung Min: The South Korean actor is known for playing roles in many hit movies. Some of his successful movies include names like Deliver Us From Evil and Veteran. Veteran 2 is also scheduled to release soon.

Yum Jung Ah: This South Korean actress, before getting into acting, was the winner of a beauty pageant. A list of her successful movies includes names like A Tale of Two Sisters and The Big Swindle. The actress has also worked in TV series like Royal Family.

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.


Kargil Vijay Diwas, celebrated on July 26 every year, is a day of immense pride for all Indians. The day marks the anniversary of the Kargil War victory and celebrates the courage and sacrifice of our soldiers who fought against Pakistan in 1999 in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir in order to flush out the Pakistan Army from the Indian side of the Line of Control.

As we remember the brave hearts who laid down their lives, every Indian's heart swells with gratitude and patriotism. If you are also planning to celebrate the occasion by watching some of the greatest Indian movies that depict the valour of these real-life heroes, here are our five picks.

Movies based on the Kargil War

1. LOC: Kargil

With a runtime of over four hours, JP Dutta's LOC: Kargil is one of the longest films ever made. Based on Operation Vijay, a codename for Indian military operation in the Kargil region to remove Pakistani intruders from the Indian side of the LoC, the 2003 movie starred Sanjay Dutt, Ajay Devgn, Sunny Deol, Sunil Shetty and Abhishek Bachchan.

2. Shershaah

Hailed as one of the best war-hero biopics, Shershaah narrates the brave story of Captain Vikram Batra, who showed immense courage to fight the Kargil war and even sacrificed his life. The story was brought to life in such a beautiful and compassionate way that everyone including celebrities like Shah Rukh Khan were impressed. Directed by Vishnuvardhan, the film stars Sidharth Malhotra and Kiara Advani in lead roles.

Also Read: Kargil Vijay Diwas 2024: The 7 bravehearts who made India proud during the war

3. Lakshya

Directed by Farhan Akhtar, the movie narrates the story of a directionless, jobless, and confused upper-middle-class millennial who joins the Indian Army and transforms his life. The movie is set against the backdrop of the Kargil War and is said to be way ahead of its time. Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, and Preity Zinta, the screenplay of the movie has been written by Javed Akhtar.

Also Read: 20 years on, these 12 iconic dialogues from 'Lakshya' continue to inspire confused millennials

4. Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl

Starring Janhvi Kapoor, Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl narrates the inspiring tale of India's first female Air Force pilot who was involved in combat. She was just 24 years old when she was a part of more than 40 missions. She was one of six women who joined the Indian Air Force (IAF) as pilots in 1996. During Operation Vijay, she not only helped in the evacuation of the injured but also played a crucial role in mapping enemy positions through several surveillance operations.

5. Dhoop

Starring Om Puri, Revathi, Gul Panag, Sanjay Suri and Yashpal Sharma, Dhoop is roughly based on the life of Captain Anuj Nayyar who died in the southwest sector of Tiger Hill on July 5, 1999 as part of the Kargil conflict and was posthumously awarded the Maha Vir Chakra for his bravery in the war.

Also Read: Unseen moments of calm amid Kargil War: X user shares rare photos on Kargil Vijay Diwas 2024

For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.


While many Bollywood stars have played real-life Bravehearts on screen and thus paid tribute to soldiers of the Indian Army, Bollywood actor Nana Patekar took this a step ahead. On Kargil Vijay Diwas 2024, did you know he fought alongside the Indian army during the 1999 Kargil War?

Nana Patekar fought alongside Indian army during 1999 Kargil War



X

The veteran actor, known for his exceptional acting in movies like Tirangaa, Welcome, Parinda and Krantiveer among others, was a member of the Quick Reaction Team during the conflict. "Eventually I was a member of the Quick Reaction Team. It is one of the most elite forces. Itna sa toh kuch hum kar sakte hai desh ke liye (At least we can do this for the country)," he had once revealed to The Lallantop in an interview.

What is a Quick Reaction Team?

I am so surprised that people dont know about Nana Patekars involvement in Kargil War of 1999.



I still remember there was a news that his unit caught some Pakistani intruders and made them massage Indian soldiers who were tired by climbing. Unable to find the newspaper pic.twitter.com/U2zYk2c89k  Siddharth's Echelon (@SiddharthKG7) June 24, 2024

The QRT in a military context refers to a small but trained unit that is prepared to act in situations of emergency. They are usually on standby and are deployed quickly to provide medical assistance, security, or any kind of support needed by the Indian army. They are trained to react swiftly and effectively to a wide range of contingenciesAlso Read: Honour the heroes! 5 inspiring movies that will awaken the patriot in you on Kargil Vijay Diwas 2024

and their main mission is security and reconnaissance.

Nana Patekar was the Captain of the Indian Territorial Army in 1990

Nana Patekar was given honorary rank of Captain in the Indian Territorial Army in 1990 after completing a three-year training period in preparation for the movie Prahaar, in which he played the role of Major Pratap Chauhan. The action drama film was written and directed by him. The Territorial Army (TA), for the unversed, is a military reserve force composed of part-time volunteers who provide support services to the Indian Army. During the filming of the movie, he also worked with General VK Singh, the former four-star General in the Indian Army, who also made a cameo appearance in the movie.



Furthermore, during the Kargil War in 1999, Patekar also served as a Major in the Maratha Light Infantry regiment. According to an India Today report, Nana Patekar spent a fortnight living alongside soldiers during the Kargil War. Recalling the time, he told the publication, "Our greatest weapon is not the Bofors, nor the AK, but our jawans."



For more news and updates from the world of OTT, and celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood, keep reading Indiatimes Entertainment.
Hyundai India Couture Week 2024 day 2 kickstarted with a presentation by Isha Jajodia, who debuted in the fashion frat last year.

The collection Art of Eternity - Forever: today, tomorrow transported the viewer into a land of Parisian dreams. French motifs and Indian craftsmanship intertwined on the runway.

Who opened the show?

The show was opened by Ranbir Kapoors sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahani, who owns a jewellery brand | Image: FDCI

The show was opened by Ranbir Kapoors sister Riddhima Kapoor Sahani, who owns a jewellery brand. She was styled in a beautiful chikankari and pearl embellished boatneck blouse and lehenga. The designer described Sahani as classic, elegant and understated, and touted her outfit is the best choice for the show opener.



To talk about the collection, was a mix of Parisian, Victorian and Gatsby-esque aesthetics. Models walked out in corsets paired with lehengas. Lace, feathers, mesh, fringes, plunging necklines and 3d appliques made the collection come to life.

What stood out in the collection?

What stood out was embellished swimsuits and metal corsets | Image: FDCI

What stood out was embellished swimsuits, perfect for a bachelorette, the designer paired it with a cape-style longline jacket. Structural corsets, that looked like they were made of metal. The corsets looked inspired by Schiaparelli, I was instantly reminded of Natasha Poonawalla's debut at The Met.



Also read: India Couture Week 2024: Heeramandi's Taha Shah Badussha turned showstopper for Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla

Soft, ethereal fabrics and flowing silhouettes evoke a fairy tale romance, while bespoke elements and sentimental details weave a unique story into the very fabric, making each piece a true reflection of love and artistry. Each piece unfolds like a chapter in a captivating love story, adorned with intricate details and exquisite craftsmanship. These designs invite the audience to lose themselves in a narrative of romance and passion.



Who turned the showstopper for the designer?

Actor Jacqueline Fernandez closed the show for the designer in a black number | Image: FDCI

Actor Jacqueline Fernandez closed the show for the designer in a black number that the actor described as something people don't really see her in. The designer described her as a "goddess" and admitted she was her muse from the inception of the collection.



Fernandez wore a black sweetheart neckline embellished gown with a net train sprinkled with lace.



For more on relationships, health and fashion from around the world please visit Indiatimes Lifestyle.


Every year on July 26, we Indians observe the Kargil Vijay Diwas to observe India's victory over Pakistan in the Kargil War and to honour the brave soldiers who fought and gave their lives for the country. As we commemorate the 25th anniversary of this historic event, let's learn more and get inspired by these 7 bravehearts of the Indian Army who fought valiantly during the war to defend the nation's sovereignty.

Also Read: Want A Positive Mindset? Start Your Day Right With These 7 Morning Affirmations

Kargil heros that made India proud

1) Captain Vikram Batra

www.opennaukri.com

Born on 9 September 1974 in Himachal Pradesh's Palmapur, Vikram Batra joined the IMA in June 1996 and was commissioned into the 13th Battalion, Jammu and Kashmir Rifles as a Lieutenant after completing his training. He was famously known as 'Shershaah' and the catchy slogan 'Yeh Dil Mange More!' was his success signal. Vikram Batra was killed during his attempt to capture Peak 4875 and was awarded Param Vir Chakra, posthumously, for his actions during the Kargil War.



2) Captain Manoj Kumar Pandey

Facebook

Born on 25 June 1974 in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur, Manoj Kumar Pandey was a soldier of the 1/11 Gorkha Rifles. He was part of the team tasked to push back intruders during the Kargil War and the braveheart continued his assault under intense enemy fire even after being grievously injured. According to his father, Manoj joined the Army with the aim of getting a Param Vir Chakra, which he did posthumously, for his supreme sacrifice in the war.



3) Rifleman Sanjay Kumar

www.gallantryawards.gov.in

Born in March 1976 in Himachal Pradesh's Bilaspur, Sanjay Kumar volunteered to be the leading scout of the attacking team tasked to capture the Flat Top of Point 4875 in the Mushkoh Valley. During this difficult task, Sanjay displayed unadulterated courage with little to no regard for personal safety and charged on, killing three enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat. Even after being seriously injured, he refused to be evacuated and carried on with his mission, for which he too was awarded the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest military decoration.



Also Read: Secrets of Success: 11 Life Lessons That Shaped Successful People

4) Major Rajesh Singh Adhikari

X

Born in December 1970 in Uttarakhand's (then UP) Nainital, Rajesh Singh Adhikari was part of the Battalion tasked to capture the Tololong feature on 30 May 1999 during the Kargil War. During the battle, Rajesh heroically led his company and showed great presence of mind to engage the enemy position even after he was fired from two mutually supporting enemy positions. Despite his injuries, he refused to be evacuated and continued to direct the subunit. He was immensely helpful in the capture of the second position at Tooling which in turn aided in the capture of Pont 4590. For his actions, the Major was awarded Maha Vir Chakra, posthumously, after he succumbed to his injuries.



5) Major Vivek Gupta

www.gallantryawards.gov.in/

Originally from Dehradun Vivek Gupta was in command of Charlie Company who led the 2 Rajputana Rifles during their Battalion attack on Tololing Top in the Drass Sector. During their mission while under intense multi-directional fire, Vivek showed immense courage and smartly fired a rocket launcher at the enemy position. He then bravely charged onto the enemy position and successfully neutralised three enemy soldiers in hand-to-hand combat despite being previously shot. He later succumbed to his injuries and was posthumously awarded Maha Vir Chakra, for his courage that led to the capture of Tololing Top.



Also Read: 7 Gestures To Express Your Love If You Live Far Away From Your Parents

6) Naik Digendra Kumar

www.gallantryawards.gov.in/

Born in July 1969 in Rajasthan's Sikar, Digendra Kumar was the commander of the Light Machine Gun Group part of the company taked to capture a well-fortified enemy position on the Tololing feature in Drass Sector. Digendra courageously fought during the assault going as far as continuing to shoot with one hand after being shot in the left arm. It was his bravery and courage that greatly aided in the assault group's successful mission and he was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra, India's second-highest military decoration in India, for it after the end of the Kargil War.



7) Lt. Keishing Clifford Nongrum

Google Images

Born in March 1975 in Meghalaya's Shillong, Keishing Clifford Nongrum was tasked to assault a feature of the South-Eastern direction during the operation to capture Point 4812 in the Batalik Sector. Keishing successfully led his column over the next-to-impossible vertical cliff feature and then went on to courageously fight under intense enemy fire. Despite the injuries that he later succumbed to, the Lieutenant proved to be the driving force behind the successful capture of Point 4812 for which he was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra posthumously.



The inspiring stories of these 7 officers are just a drop in the ocean when we talk about the sacrifices made by our soldiers during the Kargil War. Nearly 490 Indian Army officers, soldiers and jawans were killed during the course of the battle and many more if we take into account the totality of Indian Armed Forces. As we mark the 25th anniversary of the war this year, let us not forget about the sacrifice made by the soldiers and continue to get inspired by their courage.

Also Read: 8 habits of successful people that you should add on to your daily life

For more on lifestyle, relationships and health from around the world please visit Indiatimes Lifestyle.


On Friday, the Moidams, a 700-year-old burial system of the Ahom dynasty in eastern Assam, earned a place on UNESCOs World Heritage List. This marks the first cultural site from the Northeast to receive this honor.

The nomination, submitted over a decade ago, culminated in recognition that Culture Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat described as a day etched in golden letters.

THIS IS HUGE 



The Moidams make it to the #UNESCO World Heritage list under the category Cultural Property - a great win for Assam



Thank You Honble Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi ji , Members of the @UNESCO World Heritage Committee and to the people of Assam 



1/3 pic.twitter.com/ALia92ZGUq  Himanta Biswa Sarma (@himantabiswa) July 26, 2024

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma emphasised the significance of this achievement, noting it is the state's third World Heritage Site, following Kaziranga and Manas National Parks. The Moidams stand as a testament to Assam's rich history, architecture, and cultural heritage.

Moidams: Burial sites of Ahom royalty

Moidams are ancient burial mounds of the Ahom royalty and aristocracy, primarily found in Charaideo, Assam. These structures resemble hemispherical earthen mounds rising above the ground, covered in grass, and often surrounded by a low octagonal wall with a single entrance.

Wikimedia Commons

Inside each moidam is a vaulted chamber holding the burial of Ahom kings and queens, along with items needed for the afterlife such as royal insignia, artifacts, and even servants and livestock. The height of a moidam reflects the power and status of the person buried.



X

Charaideo, the first capital of the Ahom kingdom, contains the most sacred and significant moidams, often referred to as the "Pyramids of Assam." Out of over 150 moidams, only 30 are protected by the Archaeological Survey of India, with many in disrepair.



History of Ahom Dynasty

The Ahom dynasty, one of India's longest-reigning ruling families, was founded by Chau-lung Siu-ka-pha in the 13th century after the Tai people migrated from southern China.

Also Read: 'It's Invasive': Rare Species Of Fish With Four Eyes Spotted In Assam

They established their first capital at Charaideo in 1253 AD and ruled for 600 years, with their kingdom extending from modern-day Bangladesh to Burma. Known for their administrative skills and warrior prowess, the Ahoms created a culturally rich and powerful kingdom in Assam.

X

Also Read: World Heritage Day 2024: 9 Off-Beat Heritage Sites In India That You Must Explore This Year

Charaideo remained a symbolic and ritual center throughout their reign, with its sacred burial grounds signifying the dynasty's enduring legacy. Despite the conversion of many Ahoms to Buddhism and Hindu cremation practices, the unique burial traditions of the moidams highlight the dynasty's distinctive cultural heritage.



For more news and current affairs from around the world, please visit Indiatimes News.
Hellenic Parliament completed its debate on Friday afternoon regarding the Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports' bill concerning the Digital Educational Portal and Digital Tutoring.

The bill also addresses career orientation in secondary education and support for the educational system in remote areas.

The bill, which included improvements based on proposals from political parties and relevant organizations was passed by a majority vote. The ruling New Democracy party members supported the bill while all opposition parties voted against it.

   iefimerida.gr
The National Drugs Law Enforcement Agencys Kano State Command said on Thursday that it has successfully convicted 22 drug dealers in the state in July 2024.

Confirming the convictions to reporters on Thursday, the agencys Commander, Abubakar Idris-Ahmad, described the achievement as a big triumph in the fight against illicit drug trafficking and misuse.

Idris-Ahmad said, Out of the 22 drug dealers convicted, one Abubakar Muazus arrest resulted in an altercation during which he stabbed an NDLEA officer.

Advertisement

Muazu was charged to court and sentenced to three years in a correctional centre, while the other convicts were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

Different types of illicit substances were found in Muazus possession.

The narcotics commander stated that the command would continue to fight drug trafficking and misuse while prosecuting those responsible.

Idris-Ahmad praised the agencys Chairman/CEO, retired Brig.-Gen. Mohammed Buba-Marwa, for his persistent support and commitment to combating drug abuse.

He stated that no amount of intimidation or violence would prevent the agencys operations from pursuing and bringing criminals to justice.

READ MORE: DJ Cuppys Maternal Grandmother Laid To Rest In Emotional Ceremony

Our operatives are trained professionals who will stop at nothing to ensure that those who engage in drug-related offences face the full wrath of the law, he stated.

To complete its aim of ridding the state of drug users, the commander sought the publics assistance, urging them to be watchful and report any suspicious activity related to drug abuse and trafficking to the agency for immediate action.
The Nigeria Customs Services Area 2 Command in Onne, Rivers, announced the seizure of seven containers of illegal drugs worth N11 billion.

Mr Muhammed Babandede, the Comptroller, made the announcement during a press briefing in Onne on Thursday.

Babandede identified Codeine cough syrups, Chilly cutters, Hyergra tablets, and Really Extra Diclofenac tablets as among the products discovered in the containers.

Advertisement

He expressed concern that saboteurs and criminals were still importing contraband products and illicit substances.

READ MORE: Our Progress, Happiness Giving Them Sleepless Night  Yul Edochie Defends Relationship With Judy Austin

Irrespective of our warning and proactive measures to tackle this menace. Unpatriotic people are still undermining our efforts.

The service is committed to effective policing of seaports and other entry points to check infiltration of banned goods into the country, he said.

He stated that the impounded substances would be properly handed over to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency for further investigation.
Dele Momodu, a former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant, has cautioned President Bola Ahmed Tinubu against acting like a dictator by hindering citizens right to protest.

His advice stems from statements of Nigerias security agencies, including Department of Security Services (DSS), Nigeria Police Force, Nigeria Army and Defence Headquarters against citizens planned hardship protest.

Momodu reminded President Tinubu that he engaged in several protests before becoming president against policies of governments.

Advertisement

In a post via X on Friday, the PDP chieftain said, As I write this, my mind goes back to my earliest recollection of you as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As a young journalist, you were everyones delight. The June 12 Presidential election annulment brought out the best in you as a pro-democracy figure.

You spent money and time fighting the military. Our exile years were lived in constant fear and trepidation.

The publisher of Ovation Magazine told Tinubu that since he became President things have been hard for citizens because of his economic policies.

According to him, the President failed to realize the country was more complicated than Lagos State.

READ ALSO: Nothing Wrong With Protest But Faceless People Planning To Destabilise Country Unacceptable  Fani-Kayode

Unfortunately, things have not been easy for Nigerians (except members of the privilegentsia) since you realized your lifelong ambition. And let me be frank sir. You caused it all. You did not realize that a country is much more complicated than a state.

Im sad and embarrassed that a fighter for democracy is now saying Nigerians will not be allowed to congregate and demonstrate on the streets, something you and I enjoyed during the military regimes, at home and abroad.

I will never support anarchy, after engaging in peace initiatives in Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia. But Im reasonably assured that any potential threat can be contained and nipped in the bud, since our secret service claims to have discovered the sponsors of mayhem. Such people should be arrested speedily, he continued.

While urging Tinubu to go back to his friends who fought for democracy alongside him for sincere truth, he told him to use the opportunity of the planned protest to test the strength of Nigerias security agencies.

Please Sir, go back to your original friends in civil liberties and seek their assistance. Then, use this opportunity to test the strength, security architecture and combat readiness of our security agencies. Ignore the advice of the hawks in your team. They have nothing to lose since they are mostly beneficiaries of what others died for. Resist the temptations of full blown dictatorship, he added.
The Federal Government has spent over $1.5 billion to protect oil infrastructure and address crude oil theft since 2020.

Advertisement

Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, disclosed this on Thursday, at a public hearing of the House of Representatives on crude oil theft and losses in Nigeria.

According to the SGF, crude oil theft has continued to undermine our national economy, compromise our security, and erode the trust of both local and international stakeholders.

He further referenced the 2020 oil and gas report released by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), which indicated that 619 million barrels of crude valued at $46 billion were stolen from 2009 to 2020.

Therefore, Nigeria has continually failed to meet its daily production quota as set by the organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

READ ALSO: Abia: Joint Task Force Intercepts Boats With Crude Oil, Destroys Illegal Refining Operations

This not only undermines our revenues but also hampers the provision of essential services that millions of Nigerians rely upon.

The government has invested considerable resources in combating this menace. Since 2020, expenditure aimed at addressing crude oil theft and securing our oil infrastructure has exceeded $1.5 billion.

These funds have been allocated towards enhancing surveillance capabilities, securing pipelines, and increasing the presence of law enforcement agencies in critical oil-producing areas.

Thus, this hearing marks a pivotal step in our concerted efforts to confront this issue head-on. It is a demonstration of the governments unwavering commitment to transparency, accountability, and the rule of law.

Today, we come together not only to scrutinize the extent of oil theft and its implications but also to chart a course for comprehensive solutions that will safeguard our nations wealth, Akume said.
At least four persons, including Tiv farmers have been killed in a recent attack in the Obosidima community, over a land dispute in Keana Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.

It was gathered that the horrible incident, which occurred near the Nasarawa-Benue border, also involved indigenous Alago farmers.

Mr. Isaiah Audu, the President of the Tiv Youths Organisation in the state, in a statement made available to newsmen in Lafia on Thursday, expressed concern over ongoing attacks on Tiv communities.

Advertisement

READ MORE: Nasarawa Govt Bans Ethnic Vigilante Groups Over Alleged Terrorism

Audu lamented that at a time when collective efforts were supposed to be channelled on farming to combat the hunger and starvation currently ravaging the country, precious lives of farmers were being lost regularly due to the violence in the area.

He said: We address the press today with profound sorrow, as we bear witness to the devastating erosion of peace in a community that had long enjoyed harmony.

You recall that on June 24, 2024, there was an attack at Bakin Kotar, a community at the border between Keana LGA of Nasarawa State and Guma LGA of Benue State. Some Alago persons were said to have been attacked on their farms.

Numerous media organisations provided thorough and timely coverage of this reprehensible incident, bringing attention to the severity of the situation.

In what was described as a reprisal, innocent law-abiding Tiv persons in Keana were attacked by persons suspected to be Alago. At the last count, at least four persons lost their lives in this attack. The corpses are still at the mortuary to this moment and two of the bodies are yet to be identified.

That incident was widely condemned by all well-meaning citizens of the state. Security agents were also mobilised to the location to prevent any further degeneration of the situation.

Predictably, the youth were outraged and infuriated by the unwarranted and unjustified assaults, which sparked a strong reaction from them.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on Thursday disclosed that he was not violent when he took part in the protest against the military regime in the country.

He said this at the Presidential Villa when he received a letter of credence from Richard Mille Jr., the new United States (US) ambassador to Nigeria.

Advertisement

According to the President, he worked to uphold Nigerias 25 years of unbroken democracy.

Our relationship with America is rich. We believe in democracy and freedom.

Some of your predecessors worked hard during our transition to democracy, and we remember the likes of Ambassador Howard Jeter.

We look forward to Nigeria and the United States continuously working to expand cooperation on shared goals and democratic values.

READ ALSO: EndBadGovt: Elements Plan To Hijack #EndBadGovt Protest, Weve Identified Protest Sponsors  DSS

During the military era, we made our voices heard against dictatorship, and I was part of the group that engaged in peaceful protests without resorting to the destruction of property.

In as much as we believe that demonstrations are part of democracy, we will never encourage any protests that lead to the destruction of lives and property.

Tinubu told the US ambassador that Nigeria is ready to play its role as the largest democracy in Africa.

He added that the continent needs a mutually beneficial partnership with the United States.

The Presidents comment on the protest comes amid reports of a planned youth-led nationwide demonstration over the pervasive economic hardship.

The protest is reportedly billed to commence on August 1.

The Federal Government has since appealed to the protest planners to shelve the demonstration.
A former senator who represented Kaduna Central in the 8th National Assembly, Shehu Sani, has cautioned Nigerians against participating in the nationwide protest scheduled for August 1st to 10th, 2024.

Sani stated that the organisers of the movement are faceless with no clear leadership direction.

The former lawmaker led this out while speaking with journalists in Kaduna on Thursday.

Advertisement

The Peoples Democratic Partys chieftain, also highlighted the devastating impact of bandit attacks on Southern Kaduna, and urged Nigerians to exercise their right to peaceful protest while avoiding violent demonstrations.

He said: It is important that we bring back our conscience to the fact that Nigeria is a democracy. People have the right to express their opinions, criticise the government and protest peacefully.

READ MORE: Sponsors Of Planned Protests Dont Love Nigeria, Have Alternative Passports  Tinubu

I have been a protester all my life and President Bola Tinubu has also been a protester too but we were peaceful protesters. Protesters that demanded justice; protesters that demanded freedom and protesters that demanded for peoples friendly policies.

Now, the problem we are having now is that there are issues that we need to address. A protest needs two things: firstly, its a purpose. Of course, its purpose is that people are suffering in the country.

But also a protest needs a visible leader. When a protest has no leader, the tendency of that protest to metamorphose into violence is apparent.

We are from a state that comes from the past that had experiences of violence that began with protest. So, I can say that our constitution guarantees protection for peaceful protesters but peaceful protesters can only be protected if the leaders drive the process peacefully. We cannot participate in a protest that has no leadership.

We cannot participate in a protest that is called by spirit. We can only participate in a protest that is called by either labour or organized civil society. A protest must have an identity. If it does not have an identity, the tendency to degenerate into violence and chaos is apparent.
The Federal Government, on Thursday, threatened to imprison Local Government Area (LGA) chairmen who tamper with Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) funds.

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, made the announcement on Thursday at the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigerias 17th annual lecture event in Abuja.

Advertisement

He stated that none of the chairmen have immunity and will be imprisoned if they tamper with funds designated for the development of their areas.

Fagbemi stated, We have a situation on our hands; I know that it is still there; the conduct of elections must be done by the states.

But the distinction is this: dont forget, the governors have immunity, the local government council chairmen or councillors, they have no immunity, so they have to choose between dealing with the funds of the local government as they like and risking going to jail. The choice is theirs (LG chairmen).

READ ALSO: Nigeria Is Okay, Go And Hustle  Portable Curses Those Asking Him To Sing At #EndBadGovt Protest

If they want to tamper with these funds and end up in jail, it is their choice. If they want to write their names in letters of gold, activities like construction or road upgrades must be returned to the local government. They dont all have to come to Abuja.

If they stay at the local government, we will be able to reduce the level of insecurity that we have in Nigeria today. What obtains offshore is that the security agents are able to perform optimally because of information that comes to them from members of the public and usually it is from the grassroots.

According to the Minister, the Federal Government opted to use the Supreme Court to achieve LG autonomy due to the challenges it will face at State Assemblies, stressing that any Speaker who would have supported the cause will not survive the tenure or lose his reelection.

The Minister stated that for over two decades, local government administration in the country has been in comatose with state governments not remitting funds meant for the local governments.
The Lagos State Government has denied viral claim of its involvement in the rumoured upcoming Oro festival scheduled for August 1 to 15, 2024 in the state.

INFORMATION NIGERIA learnt that the purported traditional day is said to chase protesters from organizing the protest tagged #EndBadGovernance.

It was gathered that an X user, identified as @EleyiLagos, had on Wednesday posted that the Oro festival would hold in Lagos from August 1, saying: Public Announcement: Attention Residents and Visitors of Lagos.

Advertisement

READ MORE: Tinubu Will Never Lose Lagos Again, 2023 Was A Mistake  Ex-APC Chair Vows

Please be informed that the Oro Festival will be observed in various communities across Lagos from 1st of August to August 15.

This traditional Yoruba cultural event involves significant rituals.

Reacting to the development in a interview with PUNCH on Thursday, Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olus Chief Press Secretary, Gboyega Akosile, said no one questions the government when other religions hold their activities.

Gboyega noted that the same respect should be maintained for traditional worshippers because they have the right to worship according to the constitution and can go about their lawful exercises.

He said: Oro festival is like Muslim and Christian activities and has no business with Lagos State government interference. We dont have a hand in how any religious group goes about their lawful activities.

The protesters have their rights just like the traditional worshippers who want to perform their activities too. What is our business in that?

If anybody wants to protest, they should come out and carry out their right lawfully by not disrupting the business activities in the state. We will not allow the peace of the state to be disrupted. No responsible government will allow it.
The Kwara State Police Command, in partnership with the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN), successfully prevented an attempted kidnap in the early hours of Wednesday in Ilorin, the state capital.

However, an unidentified man and his wife, who had travelled from Lagos for the religious event at the scene of the crime, were hurt in the unsuccessful kidnapping attempt.

According to DSP Ejire Adeyemi Toun, the police commands spokesperson, the kidnapping attempt took place about 01:30 hours.

Advertisement

She said A distress call was received from the Oluwalose community of Ilorin-West Local Government Area of the state, along the Okolowo-Jebba Highway, alerting the authorities of an invasion by a group of armed assailants.

Our gallant patrol team from Oloje Police Division alongside men of the VGN, was immediately dispatched to the scene.

Upon arrival, it was discovered that nine heavily armed individuals, wielding AK-47 rifles and Dane guns, had infiltrated the camp of Alfa Bukhari Jamiu Tunde.

The Kwara State police command has stationed patrol teams in the region to undertake a thorough search for the attackers, and an investigation into the event is currently underway.

The situation in Solati village is under control, and ongoing surveillance ensures the people safety and security.

READ MORE: Our Progress, Happiness Giving Them Sleepless Night  Yul Edochie Defends Relationship With Judy Austin

The Commissioner of Police, Victor Olaiya, praised the patrol teams bravery and rapid action, stating that their dedication and quick response undoubtedly saved a potentially terrible incident.

The command reaffirmed its commitment to protecting the lives and property of all citizens, and advised the people to remain watchful and report any suspicious activity to the nearest police station.
Protesters lock arms at the Benjamin Franklin Statue on Penn's campus as police clear the pro-Palestinian encampment. Read more

Several Jewish students testifying before the Pennsylvania Senate House Education committee Thursday said they worry about more pro-Palestinian encampments and unrest on college campuses this fall.

Im here today alarmed and afraid, said Benjamin Messafi, a student at the University of Pennsylvania, where an encampment stood for more than two weeks before city and university police disbanded it in May. Im fearful that this upcoming academic year will bring more riots, encampments and harassment of Jewish students.

Advertisement

If Penn does not enforce the new temporary guidelines it established in June that specifically ban encampments, then I think it can very easily continue, Messafi told the legislative body.

Alon Leshem, a student at the University of Pittsburgh, pointed out that there already was an encampment at Pitt this summer, following one from the spring.

And even at Pennsylvania State University, which perhaps did not experience as much tension last academic year as some other campuses, according to student Mackenzie Borine, who testified, there is concern about a possible escalation.

 READ MORE: Penn issues new temporary guidelines on campus protests: Encampments are banned

Their comments came during the two-hour hearing that was focused on concerns about antisemitism on college campuses and also included testimony from Hillel administrators and the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Philadelphia. Pro-Palestinian groups were not represented at the hearing.

Supporters of the Penn encampment have contended that it was a peaceful form of free speech, necessary to call out the thousands of Palestinian lives lost during the war in Gaza. And they said that they were the ones being harassed and doxxed and that the university had not done enough to protect them. Some faculty also expressed concerns about the universitys decision to dismantle the encampment.

Tulia G. Falleti, former chair of Penns faculty senate, resigned her chair seat over it.

I am  no longer confident of my ability to work collaboratively with our administration that has sent in the police to arrest its own students, staff, and faculty for participating in a nonviolent protest, Falleti said in a three-page letter.

Many campuses nationally and throughout the region saw the encampments rise last spring; some colleges, including Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr, let them stand, while others called in police to remove them, waiting varying amounts of time to do so. Nationally, several thousand were arrested during the protests.

At Penn, 33 protesters were arrested, nine of them Penn students. Penn also earlier this month suspended four Penn students for their protest activity, two of them for a semester and two of them for a year. Penn said at that time the suspensions had not yet gone into effect and could still be appealed by the students. Also, several protesters, who had been placed on mandatory temporary leaves, were denied entrance into commencement ceremonies.

What develops this summer in Israel and Gaza could affect the students predictions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in the United States this week and addressed Congress Wednesday, vowing to fight for total victory over Hamas, which killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7. He is scheduled to meet Thursday with President Biden, who is expected to push for a ceasefire, according to CNN.

But the conflict could very well still be playing out when the fall semester begins.

We are working on the premise and were talking with universities, with law enforcement ...to prepare ourselves for an increase in encampments, an increase in protests and an increase in the security concerns and applications that we are making to our Hillel building because thats the way we see the wind blowing and what will be happening next, said Dan Marcus, director of the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh.

Those who testified talked about incidents on their campuses last spring. Both Borine, the Penn State student, and Aaron Kaufman, executive director of Penn State Hillel, said protesters banged on the windows of the Hillel building holding up Free Palestine signs.

Banging on the windows of the center for Jewish students at Penn State was not an attempt to engage in dialogue or change policy, Kaufman said. It was intended to isolate and frighten Jewish students.

He also cited other protests that included the use of swastikas and antisemitic tropes, a few cases of faculty allegedly exhibiting prejudice in the classroom and acts targeting individual Jewish students.

Praise and criticism of administrators

Both Kaufman and Borine, however, praised Penn State leadership, including President Neeli Bendapudi, for the universitys response to the incidents. There were no encampments at Penn State.

There have been quick responses to incidents of antisemitism, coordination with university police, regular check-ins from senior university administrators, proactive efforts in reaching out to Penn State Hillel well in advance of potentially concerning events, close monitoring of those situations and even de-escalation..., Kaufman said. Throughout the year, there has been excellent communication between Hillel and the university and that communication has flowed in both directions.

While the Pitt student also credited his university with a good response, Messafi, a rising sophomore from West Chester, N.Y., was critical of Penn, noting that problems began when the university allowed the Palestine Writes literary festival to be held on campus in September and escalated after the Hamas attack on Israel. The university did not move quickly enough to take down the encampment, he said, and there were more than 150 reports of complaints from Jewish students.

Former Penn President Liz Magill resigned in December after a bipartisan backlash over her congressional testimony about the universitys handling of antisemitism on campus.

Messafi said he and other Jewish students wearing yarmulkes were called Nazis and child killers and that someone said, Hamas should do it again.

When Jewish students approached public safety officers about their concerns, they were advised to avoid the main library, which was near the encampment site, during finals week, he said.

Instead of following their policies and protecting their students, Penn administrators stood by and allowed Jewish students to be harassed, intimidated and unsafe for 14 days, the student asserted.

Penn declined to respond directly to Messafis allegations but referred to a statement it put out the day it dismantled the encampment, which said it had hoped that reasonable conversations could address both the concerns of protestors and the needs of the University.

Now, Messafi said, he combs the social media of his would-be professors for remarks about the conflict that concern him, such as if they have praised the encampment.

I dont want to be discriminated against in a class because of my political view and my religion, he said.

Kaufman said the best way to combat antisemitism is to build bridges and support Hillels core purpose: Building Jewish identity, creating engaged, articulate and confident Jewish college students.
A spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) in Swarthmore, Pa. In 2014, it was first recorded in the U.S., and it was soon considered an invasive species in eastern Pennsylvania, southwestern New Jersey, northern Delaware, northern Virginia, and eastern Maryland. Read more

When lanternflies were first discovered in Berks County in 2014, panic set in among the country and regions top scientists. They feared the insect would devastate Pennsylvanias robust farming, lumber, and grape industries. A 2019 study projected the annual costs of damage could reach $324 million and result in the loss of 2,800 jobs across agricultural industries.

Researchers from Pennsylvania State Universitys College of Agricultural Sciences used an economic assessment software program to estimate potential damage and said that in the worst-case scenario the damage could climb to half a billion dollars annually.

According to Brian Walsh, a Penn State lanternfly researcher, these concerns stemmed from the fact that the lanternfly had zero natural predators in the U.S., that their affinity for fruit and timber trees could jeopardize billions of dollars in economic activity, and that they could easily spread by hitching a ride on cargo and vehicles.

I mean, look, it made it to Pennsylvania from China in one shot, Walsh said. Lanternflies came to the U.S. attached to a stone shipment sent to a local landscaping company.

The concern was enough to turn Philly residents into a unified band of bug stompers. But did it work?

Ten years later, we have a clearer picture of what lanternflies have wrought. And so far, its not as bad as we feared.

The reality is that some of those assumptions have not played out as predicted. Far and away, lanternflies are not the fire and brimstone, doom and gloom situation that they were originally feared to be, Walsh said. Except for grapes  its been worse than expected for grapes.

That doesnt mean there arent real risks  or that things could have been much worse if we hadnt taken action, Walsh said. As scientists continue to study the pest as it spreads through the U.S., much is still unknown.

Heres what we do know.

Does the spotted lanternfly have natural predators?

A major concern when lanternflies landed in Berks County was that they had no natural predators to control them. Ten years later, scientists have found that lanternflies do have predators like birds, spiders, and praying mantids, so-called generalist predators, that snack on a wide range of insects.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists are currently studying the possibility of bringing in parasitoid wasps, native to China, that lay eggs inside lanternfly egg masses and nymphs, eventually killing the insects, Walsh said. But these observations take years because one miscalculation can lead to devastating effects to beneficial native species.

First off, lanternflies are difficult to keep alive in the lab, theyre not easy to colonize, dont thrive well in captivity, and must be wild-caught, which limits when you can research, Walsh said. Now they have to introduce the wasps to lanternflies and other native insects to see if they stay on target or go after other natives.

Identifying and possibly introducing a predator as a natural control is part of the equation, Walsh said, but lanternfly management most likely wont come from a single predator.

How destructive are spotted lanternflies?

Early fears of lanternflies destroying crops werent unwarranted. However, research has shown that lanternflies arent as destructive as initially thought.

While extremely disruptive to the wine and grape industry, the spotted lanternfly is not as damaging to hardwood trees used for timber as previously thought, according to 2023 research from Penn States Entomology Department. This is a major win for the forest products industry, which rakes in $39 billion per year for the state.

Penn State researchers simulated lanternfly feeding habits on a variety of hardwoods, such as red and silver maple, river birch, weeping willow, and the invasive tree of heaven, to observe how the trees recover over time. In the worst-case scenario, scientists allowed lanternflies to feast on tree samplings for four consecutive years. In nature, lanternflies typically only feed for one to two years before hopping to the next target.

Tree growth was significantly reduced after lanternfly feeding, sometimes by half, which could be a fatal blow if other outside stressors harm the tree. However, even in the doomsday scenario of continuous feeding, all hardwoods recovered despite suffering damage.

While long-term damage to trees is not fully understood, we dont see many trees dying outright from spotted lanternfly, Walsh said.

On the other hand, nature doesnt afford grapes the same recovery as hardwoods. Grape growers and vineyards, which account for $1.8 billion of Pennsylvanias yearly economic activity, are especially vulnerable because lanternfly feeding can kill grapevines entirely.

The vineyards that were first hit where nobody knew what to do yet had such bad swarms that they actually did kill the vines, said Carley Razzi, president of Penns Woods Winery in Chadds Ford. We were fortunate enough to not have any plants die outright from lanternflies.

According to Penn State researchers, the heaviest hit vineyards lost up to 90% of their grapevines.

Penns Woods lead winemaker and vineyard manager, Davide Creato, said that due to the slim margins of the wine industry, lanternflies have been a devastating blow for some, between dying grapevines and the cost of protecting vineyards.

I think for every acre, and we have 40 acres of vineyard, we sprayed about $7 to $17 worth of pesticide, and thats not including the costs of the labor, the equipment, and the rest of the expenses that come with it, Creato said, who during the worst of the lanternfly invasion invested $10,000 in a high-end insecticide air cannon that could spray inside the vineyard and around its perimeter.

In 2022, the owner of Lehigh-based Stony Run Winery outside of Allentown told CNBC that at one point, lanternflies destroyed 15% of the winerys crops, translating to a loss of over a half-million dollars. Even when crops dont die, the costs of insecticides, reduced crop yield, and safely transporting and inspecting goods can add up.

Grape growers cant just immediately replace a grapevine. Creato said it takes up to three years for grapevines to bear fruit and five to seven years to be ready for wine.

Did Philadelphia squash the lanternfly for good?

When lanternflies first arrived in the Philly region in 2018 through 2020, residents couldnt walk a city block without seeing hundreds of lanternflies covering trees, the sides of buildings, and sidewalks. Only recently did Philly start to see a decline.

The first year we had lanternflies we sprayed the vineyard three to four times. By 2022, their numbers were already going down. Last year, we didnt spray for lanternflies at all and we havent had to spray this year either, Creato said of Penns Woods Winery.

Walsh said there is a trend of lanternflies arriving in an area, growing in numbers rapidly for a few years, and then declining for another few years. But in that sigh of relief, the question is then, Why? he said.

Predators and parasites could affect lanternfly numbers, as well as a lack of diverse vegetation in Phillys urban setting, and exhausting their food resources after years of feeding could all play roles in the insects diminished numbers in the city.

The stomping didnt stop the spread of the lanternfly  the insects have spread to a total of 17 states, from Massachusetts to Tennessee and as far west as Illinois, threatening more than 70 host plants, including fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, and, most devastatingly, grapevines.

But stomping the bugs wasnt in vain.

Its a complex bug that still has lots of secrets that were slowly working out, Walsh said. Everyday citizens reporting back information and doing the lanternfly stomp as they went about their daily travels absolutely had a positive effect in slowing the spread.
Start your day with the Philly news you need and the stories you want all in one easy-to-read newsletter

Its Friday, Philly. Today is forecast to be mostly sunny, with a high near 85.

Its also been a decade since the lanternfly landed in Pennsylvania. Is the spotted, jumping pest as destructive as we feared? Our top story examines the impact of a complex bug that still has lots of secrets, as one expert put it.

Advertisement

And Gov. Josh Shapiro is in the national spotlight as a possible VP candidate for the Democratic ticket. He faces criticism from progressives who disagree with his stances on Israel and on public education funding.

Heres what you need to know to end your week.

 Julie Zeglen (morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

If someone forwarded you this email, sign up for free here.

Its been 10 years since spotted lanternflies first appeared in Berks County and we got the collective OK to squash them on sight. Weve learned a lot about the scarily beautiful crop-killing insects since then:

 They do have some natural predators, though they once seemed to be immune to everything but the boot.

 And they are harmful to native plants like trees, and especially to vineyards.

 But theyve brought less wrath than predicted. Far and away, lanternflies are not the fire and brimstone, doom and gloom situation that they were originally feared to be, one expert said. Except for grapes  its been worse than expected for grapes.

Reporter Henry Savage explains how the local lanternfly population has impacted the region over the past decade  and whether all that stomping made a difference.

Plus, homeowners: Heres how to identify, prevent, and treat spotted lanternfly damage to your property.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has emerged in the past five days as a favorite to be named by Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris as her vice presidential running mate. Yet some progressives think he would weaken a Harris ticket, given his stances on two hot issues: public education funding and the war in Gaza.

On education: The governor supports private school vouchers, an issue traditionally adopted by conservatives. In turn, a collective of public education advocacy groups say hes not aligned with their interests.

On Gaza: Shapiro has voiced an explicitly pro-Israel stance since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. That could sway swing voters who agree at the same time that it could turn off pro-Palestinian voters critical of the United States involvement in the war.

What legislators in the state say: Phillys Democratic Party has already endorsed him, an unusual move. Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Austin Davis says hes ready to step up if his boss resigns to run for the higher office.

Next up: As the country awaits Harris announcement of her pick, Shapiro will be in Montco with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Monday to campaign for her.

P.S. Farther right on the political spectrum, a PAC called Haley Voters for Harris that mobilizes former Nikki Haley voters to cast their ballots for the presumptive Democratic candidate received a cease-and-desist from Haley. They say theyll do neither.

What you should know today

Welcome back to Curious Philly Friday. Well feature both new and timeless stories from our forum for readers to ask about the citys quirks.

This week, were resurfacing an explainer from reporter Michelle Myers on an essential services occasionally poor timing. A reader whos tired of getting stuck behind slow-moving trucks asked why the Department of Streets is still collecting trash during rush hour.

The short answer: Theyd rather not be working then, either. But sometimes morning delays and unforeseen circumstances necessitate it. (You want the trash gone no matter what, right?) Heres the full explanation, stuffed with lots of Philly trash facts.

Have your own burning question about Philadelphia, its local oddities, or how the region works? Submit it here and you might find the answer featured in this space.

 Trivia time

SEPTA just announced a new contract aimed at reducing service disruptions on the Market-Frankford Line. What is the funding for?

A) Hiring 100 additional train operators

B) Using AI to predict when mechanical failures will happen

C) Increasing rider capacity on each car

D) Adding up to 240 new train cars

Think you know? Check your answer.

What were...

 Speaking to: The dead, via this Germantown phone booth.

 Arguing about: Whether a persons childless status is relevant to their ability to lead.

 Swiping: To determine who should take over naming rights for the Wells Fargo Center.

 Unscramble the anagram

This million-square-foot Bucks County mall was sold earlier this month for $27.5 million.

SHINY MANE

Email us if you know the answer. Well select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to Bob Allmond, who solved Thursdays anagram: Starbucks. Workers just voted to unionize at another Philadelphia location of the coffee chain.

Photo of the day

 One last tubular thing: In West Philadelphia, Steven Erdmans Yamatorium is an immersive, absurdist art experience. Columnist Stephanie Farr reports from his two-room bunker that features yams with heads, soft pretzels with eyes, and even a Marcel Duchamp-inspired piece.

Wishing you a fun (maybe even absurdist?) weekend. Thanks, as always, for starting your day with The Inquirer.

By submitting your written, visual, and/or audio contributions, you agree to The Inquirers Terms of Use, including the grant of rights in Section 10.
The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump presents an opportunity to address an indefensible hole in our gun laws, writes Dana Bazelon. Read more

When 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks took his fathers AR-15 and made his way to the site of Donald Trumps rally in Butler, Pa., on July 13, he had not yet committed a crime under Pennsylvania law, even though he did not have a license to carry it. Thats because the AR-15, the semiautomatic assault rifle he used to shoot the former president, is not considered a firearm in our state.

Pennsylvania has what is referred to as a long gun exception, a carve-out most likely drafted to exempt sporting rifles from state licensing requirements. This legal loophole defines a rifle as a firearm if the barrel length is less than 16 inches. The AR-15, with its standard 16-inch barrel length, is categorized as a sporting rifle and therefore doesnt count as a firearm.

Advertisement

Outside of Philadelphia (which has a special law), a license is not required to buy, sell, or carry an AR-15. A person can carry it in plain sight (open carry) or concealed. Direct person-to-person sales are allowed, which means guns can be sold without a background check. As a result, individuals who have been banned from having a gun because a court has found them to be a danger to their domestic partner can buy an AR-15, and the state has no idea. So can people with histories of violence and mental health problems.

 READ MORE: I bought an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle in Philly in 7 minutes | Helen Ubinas

This is every bit as mind-boggling as it sounds. The AR-15, a semiautomatic military weapon built for war zones, is designed to maximize casualties. After the expiration of the assault weapons ban in 2004, these guns became wildly popular, the image of the gun used as a political symbol by Second Amendment rights activists. Built to minimize recoil and maximize accuracy, AR-15s can make even a mediocre marksman a good shot.

Mass shooters understand the power of this gun. The AR-15 has been used in most of the recent high-profile mass shootings, including Newtown, Conn., Uvalde, Texas, and Las Vegas. But Pennsylvania law doesnt recognize it as a firearm because of the length of its barrel. And if the AR-15 isnt a firearm, then Crooks couldnt be penalized for having one  even though he had no permit to carry it, and wouldnt have been eligible to apply for a permit to carry a firearm until he was 21.

The Pennsylvania Crimes Code was drafted in the 1970s, at a time when weapons like the AR-15 were only available in the military. The rifles that the firearms definition sought to exclude were long guns, used by hunters and target shooters, from the Pennsylvania backwoods to the Olympic Games. Because AR-15s also have a 16-inch barrel, they are also excluded from the definition of firearms.

But the AR-15 is not a hunting rifle. The bullets move so fast and in such quick succession that they tear up deer and other game, making it impossible to eat. But the Pennsylvania legislature has done nothing to reclassify this gun despite its popularity  one in 20 adults in America now owns one.

The AR-15 is not a hunting rifle.

There are a couple of caveats, which should give readers small comfort. Semiautomatic rifles are defined as firearms under the statute used to prosecute felons who are found carrying guns. And, in Philadelphia, it is a misdemeanor to possess any gun, including any kind of rifle, without a license. But Philadelphia only accounts for 12% of the states population.

It would be nice to think this loopholes continued existence is merely an oversight. But that might be naive.

Republicans, who have controlled the Pennsylvania legislature for decades, often rely on the National Rifle Association to fund their campaigns, making any increase in gun regulation a nonstarter. U.S. Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.) recently told the Washington Post that he believes protecting the AR-15 is the number one priority of the gun lobby. Some Republican lawmakers have taken to wearing mini AR-15s as lapel pins. In many ways, the AR-15 has become a powerful political symbol associated with the Republican Party, a cultural touchstone among gun enthusiasts.

Pennsylvania Republicans are all too happy to police handguns in Philadelphia, but they are not so eager when it comes to the guns most commonly seen in rural, white communities.

The attempted assassination of former President Trump presents an opportunity to address this indefensible hole in our gun laws. Lets urge Pennsylvania lawmakers to revisit this strange exclusion, and stop ignoring these weapons. And if Republicans block these efforts, lets make sure they pay for it at the ballot box in November.

Dana Bazelon is the former policy director for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.
Former President Barack Obama and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, have endorsed Kamala Harris presidential campaign.

In a video shared on social media Friday morning, Harris is seen taking a call from the Obamas backstage at a campaign event. Its unclear when the call took place  Barack Obama noted in his post it happened earlier this week.

Advertisement

We called to say Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office, Barack Obama said to Harris.

I cant have this phone call without saying to my girl, Kamala, I am proud of you, Michelle Obama said. This is going to be historic.

Obama has been in regular contact with Harris since she officially announced her presidential campaign Sunday, providing advice on building and mounting a successful campaign against former President Donald Trump, NBC News reported. Harris was an early supporter of Obamas 2008 presidential campaign, and spoke at the 2012 Democratic National Convention in North Carolina. Obama campaigned for Harris during her run for attorney general in California.

Obamas endorsement caps a rush of Democratic support to Harris campaign following President Joe Bidens decision to drop out of the race. Nearly all elected Democrats in Congress have endorsed her campaign, including Pennsylvania Sens. John Casey and John Fetterman. Among the few elected Democrats who havent specifically backed Harris is New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, who was convicted on bribery charges and will resign on Aug. 20.

In Philadelphia, Harris has garnered the support of Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, who said the vice president is prepared to meet this moment. Parker said the Biden administration has been a key ally to Philadelphia, citing more that $600 million in federal grants the city received in the seven months shes been mayor.

So far, no Democrat has stepped up to challenge Harris, and she has already earned enough support from delegates to easily secure the partys presidential nomination.

Democrats will officially select their nominee in a virtual roll call ahead of their convention in Chicago next month, possibly as soon as Aug. 1. She will have to select her vice presidential nominee by Aug. 7, Ohios ballot deadline, according to rules established by the Democratic National Committee. The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to begin in Chicago on Aug. 19.
Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr personally urged a top federal prosecutor in Pennsylvania to issue a misleading public statement amid the 2020 presidential election that was later pounced upon by former President Donald Trump to spread false claims of vote-rigging in the state, an investigation by the Justice Departments watchdog agency concluded Thursday.

The statement  an unusual news release revealing details of an ongoing FBI investigation into several ballots for Trump that had been found discarded in a Luzerne County dumpster  was issued that September by the office of David Freed, then-the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Advertisement

But in a 76-page report Thursday, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded Freeds message left the impression that authorities were reviewing a potential criminal effort to tamper with votes in the county, even though they knew at the time that the ballots had been thrown out by mistake and that it was unlikely any charges would be filed.

Horowitz found both Barr and Freed had broken with long-standing Justice Department policies prohibiting officials from discussing ongoing investigations  especially ones that could influence elections.

But he stopped short of accusing either man of misconduct, citing the broad latitude those policies give the attorney general to act in whatever way he deems appropriate in the interest of the fair administration of justice.

Still, Horowitz said: Nearly every DOJ lawyer we interviewed  both career employees and Trump administration political appointees  emphasized how unusual it would be for the department to issue a public statement containing details about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly before any charges are filed.

A potentially explosive case

The inspector generals findings Thursday provided a final postscript to one of the more head-scratching chapters of the 2020 presidential race in Pennsylvania  an election that ultimately became rife with them.

At the time, Trump was publicly disparaging the use of mail ballots  especially in Pennsylvania  and falsely claiming they would be used to rig the outcome of the race against him. Barr, too, had made several baseless statements alleging that mail voting is very open to fraud and coercion.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, was under increased scrutiny amid accusations Trump had weaponized the typically apolitical law enforcement agency to advance his own personal and political ends.

And amid that morass, Freed  the top federal prosecutor for Central Pennsylvania  found himself with a potentially explosive case on his hands.

Elections administrators in Luzerne County, in Northeastern Pennsylvania, had found nine filled-out military absentee ballots in a dumpster outside their office that September.

News of the discovery had leaked to the media. Trump referenced it in a radio interview.

And Freeds office rushed out a statement confirming the FBI was investigating  an unusual step for typically tight-lipped federal authorities, but one that raised even more eyebrows because the U.S. attorney specified all the thrown-out votes had been cast for Trump.

(His office later revised that statement to say only seven of the ballots were Trump votes; the remaining two were still in the sealed envelopes in which theyd been submitted.)

Freeds news release immediately drew criticism from some who viewed it as the Justice Department attempting to bolster Trumps false claims about mail voting before investigators were even sure of the facts.

Trump and his surrogates jumped on the news immediately.

Then-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany mentioned it during a press briefing the day of Freeds news release. Trump repeatedly cited it during his first debate against Joe Biden the day after. And in a since-deleted tweet, a Trump campaign spokesperson pointed to Freeds statement, claiming: Democrats are trying to steal the election.

First out of the gate

But the inspector generals report Thursday revealed that even before Freed had issued his statement investigators had concluded that the matter in Luzerne County was not part of any systematic or widespread effort to commit voter fraud.

In fact, the report details, authorities had concluded the day the ballots were discovered that they had been accidentally thrown out by a temporary and poorly trained employee hired from a program aimed at providing jobs to people with mental disabilities.

He was subsequently fired, and the discarded ballots were tallied for Trump.

Freed advised Barr of those facts and the unlikelihood that his office would ultimately file charges in the case, the inspector general found. And yet, his report paints both men as giddy over the prospect that the incident could be used to highlight Trumps suspicions of mail voting and fraud.

Freed advised senior leaders in his office that Justice Department officials had praised them for being first out of the gate  a statement he later told inspector general investigators he took to mean that, amid the focus on voter fraud in swing states, they were the first U.S. Attorneys Office in the country with some concrete information about the potential.

Barr, meanwhile, personally briefed Trump as soon as he learned of the investigation  a step Horowitz described as troubling given general Justice Department guidance limiting communications about routine investigations to the White House.

Together, Barr and Freed helped craft the statement on the probe that Freed eventually released. Barr specifically insisted  and Freed agreed  that a line noting the ballots were for Trump should be included in the news release, the inspector generals report found.

Several Justice Department officials interviewed as part of the inspector generals investigation expressed dismay over Freeds decision to say anything at all but especially his statements reference to Trump, noting that it put the department in the position of appearing as if it were picking a side.

I specifically remember telling him, said one former U.S. attorney who advised Freed during the deliberations over what to say, this is at the heart of everything weve been talking about with respect to election communications, and in any case, if you dont have a charge, we dont say anything about an investigation. We just dont do that.

Corey Amundson, chief of the departments Public Integrity Section, which oversees election integrity investigations, noted it was unusual he hadnt been consulted before any statement was released.

I found it very odd that all of these people [who] have a lot on their plate and [who] are in senior leadership positions would be involved in the issuance of a news release in the Middle District of Pennsylvania on a matter that is not only not under indictment, but doesnt involve particularly significant issues, he told the inspector generals investigators.

Barr: The statement had its intended effect

For his part, Barr  in a letter quoted in Thursdays report  balked at the suggestion hed done anything improper in urging Freed to release a statement on the case.

I was concerned that  the departments silence [on the investigation] was contributing to undue speculation and potentially unsettling the public more than necessary, he said. Freeds news release had its intended effect.

Freed, meanwhile, said he shared Barrs concerns given what he described as the history of corruption and patronage in northeastern Pennsylvania and the real uncertainty going on around Pennsylvanias elections.

I know that virtually any decision I [made] is going to be questioned and, especially in this environment, theres going to be political motives imputed to it, he said. I understand that [and] I just try to make the best decision I can based on whats in front of me.

Though the Inspector Generals Office did not ultimately accuse Barr or Freed of specific misconduct, it pushed the Justice Department to make several clarifications to policies surrounding what investigative details can be disclosed to the White House and whether protocols about public disclosure apply to the attorney general.

It also urged the Office of the Special Counsel to investigate whether the actions of either man may have violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits public officials using their office to influence an election, during the Luzerne County investigation.

Ultimately, Freeds office never filed charges related to the discarded ballots. And despite recommendations from other Justice Department officials, that decision was not publicly announced until after the 2020 election and Freeds departure from his post.

Despite the controversy the investigation and Freeds statement had provoked, his successor, Acting U.S. Attorney Bruce D. Brandler, announced the cases conclusion in January 2021 with a succinct news release of his own.

The matter is closed, he wrote.
Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro speaks during a rally against antisemitism at Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia on Sunday, Dec. 10, 2023. Read more

Two days after Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, Gov. Josh Shapiro took the stage at a rally in Wynnewood, a Jewish stronghold in his home Montgomery County, and vowed to be a champion for Israel.

This is not a moment to retreat from who we are, but to be proud of who we are, Shapiro, the third Jewish governor in the commonwealths history, told the crowd of more than 1,000 after the attack, which killed roughly 1,200 people.

Advertisement

Shapiros status as a popular governor in a battleground state has put him high on the list of contenders to be Vice President Kamala Harris running mate after President Joe Bidens stunning withdrawal from the presidential race. Shapiro, if picked, would be only the second Jewish vice presidential nominee for a major party in history.

Whether Shapiros full-throated support of Israel would help or hurt a Democratic ticket presents a complex question.

The issue has deeply divided the Democratic Party as the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 39,000 in the months since Israels invasion in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. Before Bidens exit from the race, he had been consistently dogged by pro-Palestinian protesters at campaign appearances in Pennsylvania and around the country.

Shapiros strong pro-Israel stance could appeal to some swing voters and mitigate Republican efforts to make support for Israel a wedge issue this election, but it also could further alienate progressives who are hoping Harris charts a new path from Biden on the conflict. Some observers feel Shapiro has been wrongfully singled out in a crowded field of pro-Israel candidates  solely because he is Jewish.

Heres some background on Shapiros record with Israel and the Palestinians, his delicate balancing act since the Oct. 7 attacks, and how it all might factor into the VP decision in the coming days.

Israels champion in Pa.

When protesters chanted outside an Israeli falafel shop in Center City in December, Shapiro staged a news conference outside the restaurant the next morning, condemning the protesters as antisemitic.

During the pro-Palestinian campus protests this spring, Shapiro went public with calls to forcibly end the encampment at the University of Pennsylvania (even though he already knew Penn and the city had plans to disband it anyway).

Shapiro has resisted calls for a cease-fire, leading to a boycott of a Ramadan event he hosted in April. He also implemented a revised code of conduct banning scandalous or disgraceful behavior for state employees, which raised alarm among free-speech advocates and Muslim American groups, who fear the policy could be used to silence criticism of Israel.

We have to query whether or not we would tolerate this, if this were people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia, making comments about people who are African American in our communities, Shapiro said on CNN in April about student protests, a comment that his critics have resurfaced as his name entered the VP conversation.

Cease-fire activists argue Shapiro has conflated criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and they say he has failed to rebuke anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias incidents with the same force as those against Jews and Israelis.

During a pro-Palestinian rally in Harrisburg on Oct. 13, a man brandished a gun at demonstrators and taunted them with insults and anti-Arab rhetoric, according to Omar Mussa, an organizer with the Pennsylvania Palestine Network, who was there.

Police later arrested the gunman at his home. But, in contrast to Shapiros swift response to the falafel shop protest months later, Mussa said, the governor did not put out a statement decrying the incident until two days later, which came from a spokesperson and only appeared in a news article.

 There was absolutely nothing from him. Zero, Mussa said. He shrugged it off, and then he refused to even say the word Palestine at all.

In recent months, Shapiro has more swiftly acknowledged attacks on pro-Palestinian activists that made headlines. When a pro-Palestinian Muslim cafe owner in Philadelphia reported that someone broke into and vandalized her business with pro-Israel stickers, Shapiro quickly jumped to her defense.

Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said Shapiro has been forceful in speaking out against hate in whatever form  including antisemitism and Islamophobia  and showing that it has no place here in Pennsylvania.

But Mussa said Shapiro has lost trust with the pro-Palestinian community over the last nine months, especially as the governors views on a cease-fire in Gaza have not changed.

Weve turned our back on this guy, and were not supporting him next time around, Mussa said. We need to protect our communities from the governor who is supposed to protect us, but who is making it more difficult for us.

Still, Shapiro has been a well-liked governor in Pennsylvania, and the April Franklin and Marshall Poll showed he still has support among young people. Among almost 200 Pennsylvanians between the ages of 18 and 34, 47% rated his job performance as excellent or good, according to Berwood Yost, who runs the poll. That was a little below Shapiros overall approval rating of 54%, but Yost attributed this to 13% of the age bracket saying they didnt know, which is common among younger voters.

How Israel got linked to the VP race

Shapiros position on Israel has come under a microscope since being identified as a prospective running mate for Harris.

Maury Litwack, an advocate for Jewish voting efforts and CEO of Teach Coalition, the Orthodox Unions Jewish education advocacy group, called the scrutiny of Shapiro a very disturbing trend.

He took particular issue with a piece published this week by the New Republic titled The One Vice Presidential Pick Who Could Ruin Democratic Unity. The piece referred to the fact that Shapiro is an observant Jew, in addition to his support for Israel.

I think the fact that hes been singled out so early, and that theres been reference that hes Jewish, is also a problem, said Litwack, who is based in New York. Being pro-Israel is a majority position in America, he added.

Shapiro put himself in the spotlight as a supporter of Israel denouncing campus protests, but the other vice presidential contenders dont seem to have significantly different stances.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper signed a bill into law that defines antisemitism as including the denial of Jewish peoples right to self-determination and applying double standards to Israels actions. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear voiced support for Israel immediately after Hamas Oct. 7 attack, and when he was asked about Israels retaliation a few days after the attack, he said: They have been attacked. They have the right to defend themselves. The following month, various groups wrote an open letter condemning him for not speaking out about violence in Gaza.

Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.) clapped when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to pro-Palestinian protesters as Irans useful idiots during his address to Congress on Wednesday.

Despite his strong support for the country, Shapiro has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a failed leader, according to the Forward, a Jewish magazine. Shapiro said that Netanyahu took the country in a very dangerous direction by embracing right-wing politics before Oct. 7 and that under his leadership, the government took the eye off the security risk to Israel.

Bonder, Shapiros spokesperson, said in a statement that the governor has been clear that Netanyahu continues to steer Israel down a dangerous and destructive path that makes peace harder to achieve, and that this war has tragically ended too many innocent lives in Gaza, but that Hamas must return hostages in order to obtain peace.

Will the issue matter for who wins in November?

Its unclear how much weight the war in Gaza will actually hold at the ballot box. A national New York Times-Siena College poll taken last month found that likely voters care most about the economy (23%) and immigration (17%) when deciding on their vote this November, while just 2% said the same about The Middle East/Israel/Palestinians.

But in a tight race the issue still has the potential to determine the election, especially in battleground states like Michigan, where Bidens support for Israel drew significant opposition during the primary.

Shapiro has a moderate pragmatic reputation that makes him popular in Pennsylvania, said Robert Speel, associate professor of political science at Penn State Behrend, in Erie. But a lot of young Democrats are not happy with whats been happening in the Middle East, and if you had a VP candidate who was solidly behind those pro-Israeli policies, that could be detrimental.

Annie Wu, a political social media strategist, said in a post on X that as a Pennsylvanian who voted for Shapiro, she thinks choosing him as a running mate would be detrimental for all of that good will and momentum for Harris thus far. Wu ran social media for Democratic Sen. John Fettermans 2022 campaign and later worked for U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.).

Young folks are incredibly aware of the unique moment and momentum occurring, she said. This excitement to vote FOR a ticket rather against the alternative is something many have not experienced. But we are also warning that the continuation of this energy cannot be guaranteed.

The pressure from cease-fire activists isnt going away. A new campaign launched Thursday in Pennsylvania called No Ceasefire No Vote, which is collecting pledges from voters who will withhold their vote for Harris unless there is a permanent cease-fire in Gaza or she commits to a total arms embargo on Israel.

Harris was the first Biden administration official to publicly call for a cease-fire  a temporary one  during a March speech, a sign she might take a tougher line with Netanyahu than Biden has. She has said she supports Israels asserted right to defend itself against Hamas, but she has also said she understands the emotion behind student protests.

Harris missed Netanyahus address to Congress on Wednesday while she was campaigning in Indiana, which conservatives were quick to point out. But Sen. JD Vance, former President Donald Trumps running mate, also did not attend Netanyahus address, citing campaigning.

Harris met with Netanyahu on Thursday in Washington.

Staff writer Sarah Nicell contributed to this article.
Josh Shapiro, then the Democratic candidate for governor, speaks during a political rally in South Philadelphia in November 2022 hosted by the American Federation of Teachers to support his campaign. Now, he is facing criticism and backlash from teachers unions over his support for school vouchers as he is vetted as a potential running mate to Vice President Kamala Harris. Read more

A network of more than two dozen public education advocacy groups from across the country published a letter Wednesday night urging Vice President Kamala Harris not to select Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate because of his support for private school vouchers.

School vouchers, which provide parents with state funding to send children to private schools, are an issue on which Shapiro has agreed to compromise with Republicans since becoming governor.

Advertisement

Shapiro has said he supports vouchers, with the caveat that it must be paired with increases in public education funding so that money is not being diverted away from public schools. Pennsylvania just enacted sweeping changes to how it funds its public schools, including a more than $1 billion increase, in an effort to offer students an equitable and adequate education.

But his openness to vouchers could be a potential roadblock to his consideration as a vice presidential nominee.

The Democratic Partys platform opposes vouchers. Public school advocates and many Democratic politicians argue that school choice programs siphon critical money away from public schools.

We respectfully ask you not to select Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who has supported education policies mirroring Project 2025, the letter states, referring to conservative policy proposals for a second term under former President Donald Trump spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation.

Two Pennsylvania groups, 412 Justice and Education Rights Network, both based in Pittsburgh, signed on to the letter. Advocates from at least a dozen states signed on to the letter, including from several other battleground states.

The groups called on Harris to instead choose North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, or Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, citing their support for public education.

In contrast, the letter states, Shapiro has supported voucher schemes pushed by well-funded billionaires from Pennsylvania like Jeffrey Yass. Yass is Pennsylvanias richest man and has spent millions of dollars advocating for states to enact private school voucher programs.

Pam Harbin, who co-founded the Education Rights Network and served on the Pittsburgh Public School Board from 2019 through last year, said she and other public education advocates have a hard stance against vouchers.

So any candidate that is aligning with a far-right policy agenda is probably not going to be supported by our members, she said.

However, several Pennsylvania Democrats and public education advocates have come to Shapiros defense.

State Rep. Peter Schweyer (D., Lehigh), who chairs the state House Education Committee and identified himself as one of the most anti-voucher legislators in Pa., highlighted several of Shapiros major public education victories. Those include student-teacher stipends, building repair funds, and major public education funding increases.

We would be beyond lucky to have Josh Shapiro as our vice president, Schweyer wrote.

Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, noted historic funding increases for public education under Shapiros leadership.

Despite being the only governor in the nation with a divided legislature  and despite bad faith-attacks from all sides  Josh Shapiro has been a champion for public education and delivered real results, Bonder added.

Republicans most often support voucher and school choice policies, which were pushed by Trumps former education secretary, Betsy DeVos. School choice proponents largely believe that school vouchers offer students in struggling public schools a path to opportunity. They are also a core tenet of Project 2025.

Shapiro, who attended a private Jewish school in Merion Station while growing up in Upper Dublin Township and whose children attend private school, showed interest in using public dollars to send students in struggling schools to private ones while campaigning for governor  offering Republicans hope that Shapiro would be willing to work across the aisle on the issue.

After he became governor last year, Shapiro helped design a $100 million school voucher program with Senate GOP leaders, shocking the teachers unions that had supported his candidacy. But Democrats, who hold a narrow majority in the House, would not support the proposal, leading Shapiro to veto it  and he angered both parties in the process.

Teachers unions, meanwhile, were angered over his proposal. And Shapiro narrowly avoided a rebuke from the Pennsylvania Democratic Party for his support of vouchers.

Funding for vouchers was under consideration in the states 2024 budget, too, but no deal was reached.

Lawmakers instead opted to expand existing tax credit programs that help families send their children to private schools. The issue continues to loom over the state legislature, and is expected to resurface again.

Teachers unions nationwide, meanwhile, have already voiced strong support for Harris presidential campaign. The American Federation of Teachers voted Monday to endorse her. Notably, no teachers unions signed on to the letter against Shapiro as of Thursday evening.

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers said in a statement this week, after the AFT endorsement, the union would ensure Pennsylvania once again blocks Trump.

And Harris spoke at the unions convention in Houston on Thursday.

Harris, who called herself a proud product of public education, spent much of her speech touting her campaign platform and Biden-Harris administration policies on unions and education, including its student loan forgiveness program.

Staff writer Fallon Roth contributed to this article.
Mayor Cherelle Parker stands next to Gov. Josh Shapiro at a rally in support of Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign at the Philadelphia Building Trades Union Hall in Northeast Philadelphia on Friday. Parker and others at the rally voiced support for Shapiro to become Harris' vice presidential nominee. Read more

More than 50 Pennsylvania labor leaders signed a letter in support of Gov. Josh Shapiro, as he continues to be considered as a potential running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris.

The major political power players threw their support behind Shapiro in the letter, acknowledging that the labor leaders dont have to agree on every single issue to continue to get stuff done.

Advertisement

Notably, at least two of the states largest teachers unions  the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Federation of Teachers  signed the letter. Both of these unions oppose Shapiros stance on school vouchers, but have thanked him for his leadership in increasing public education funding.

Leaders from IBEW Local 98, Philadelphia Building Trades Council and the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO are also among the other 50+ organizations who signed on in support.

Recent history has taught us that even amongst our brothers and sisters in labor, we are not always aligned in our politics, the labor leaders wrote in the letter, first reported by NBC News. Thats why it is more crucial than ever that we elevate elected officials whose leadership can unite our democratic coalition an remind us that, above all else, we share a vision for a fairer, stronger, more inclusive Commonwealth and country.

Governor Shapiro shows up every day to stand alongside us in the fight for that vision, and through tumult, we remain united by our shared interest in championing working people and investing in workers, families, and communities, the letter states.

The Philadelphia Building Trades Association took it a step further on Friday, hosting a rally in support of Harris alongside top Pennsylvania Democrats. Though several in the group said they were told to temper their support for Shapiro and stay focused on their support for Harris, they still vocally advocated for the governor to become the vice presidential nominee.

Mark Lynch, business manager of IBEW Local 98, the influential electricians union, ticked through a list of actions Shapiro took throughout his career that union leaders see as pro-worker.

Governor Shapiro is the right choice, Lynch said. I said it.

Ryan Boyer, business manager of the Philadelphia Building Trades & Construction Council, and Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker also pushed for Shapiro to be Harris running mate.

Many prominent Pennsylvania Democrats threw their support behind Shapiro and began openly campaigning for him to become Harris running mate as soon as President Joe Biden dropped from the race and endorsed Harris. The Philadelphia Democratic Party made the unusual move to endorse Shapiro for vice president earlier this week.

However, there have been a handful of detractors: the Democratic nominee for state treasurer is advocating for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, while a group of public education advocates pleaded with Harris not to choose Shapiro over his openness to vouchers.

Shapiro has neither confirmed nor denied his interest in the job, consistently saying its a personal decision for Harris to make. He is a popular first-term governor of a crucial battleground state, and he is among several contenders being vetted as potential running mates for Harris.

A spokesperson for Shapiro declined to comment.
There's high interest in a Kamala Harris versus Donald Trump 2024 Presidential Debate. Is it even happening? Here's what we know. Read more

Former President Donald Trumps tune regarding his willingness to debate presidential hopeful Kamala Harris continues to change like the wind.

Following Harris announcement she was pursuing the Democratic nomination, Trump expressed hesitancy about a debate on Truth Social, saying he didnt know who hed be debating and that the debates should be hosted by right-leaning Fox News. By Tuesday, he softened his stance, saying hed like to debate Harris multiple times without committing to dates.

Advertisement

But in a new series of communications from Trump and a campaign spokesperson, the former president once again refused to commit to appearing at a Sept. 10 debate originally scheduled to be between Trump and President Joe Biden.

The former president and his office say their lack of commitment hinges on not yet knowing if Harris will definitely be the Democratic Partys candidate. As of publication time, a majority of Democratic delegates  nearly 4,000  have committed to backing Harris. She would need 1,976 delegates on the first ballot during next months Democratic National Convention to secure the nomination. Delegates are expected to vote virtually to confirm Harris as the partys nominee as early as Aug. 7, CNN reports.

Harris on Thursday evening accused Trump of backpedaling on the debate. What happened to any time, any place? she said in a tweet.

I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10th debate, he agreed to that previously, Harris told reporters Thursday after landing at Joint Base Andrews. Now it appears hes backpedaling. But Im ready. And I think that the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage and so, Im ready. Lets go.

At a rally in Northeast Philadelphia with union leaders Friday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who is said to be on Harris vice presidential short-list, said that Trump is afraid to debate Harris.

Hes afraid to stand toe-to-toe with our vice president, Shapiro said. Its because he cant run away from his record any longer.

Following Trumps endorsement of a Fox News debate, the broadcast station proposed to both campaigns a debate for Sept. 17. Its unclear if anything will happen there.

Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this article.
WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said she urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal soon with Hamas so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza since Oct. 7 can return home.

Harris said she had a "frank and constructive" conversation with Netanyahu in which she affirmed Israel's right to defend itself but also expressed deep concern about the high death toll in Gaza over nine months of war and the "dire" humanitarian situation there.

Advertisement

With all eyes on the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Harris largely reiterated President Joe Biden's longstanding message that it's time to find an endgame to the brutal war in Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have died. Yet she offered a more forceful tone about the urgency of the moment just one day after Netanyahu gave a fiery speech to Congress in which he defended the war, vowed "total victory" against Hamas and made relatively scant mention of cease-fire negotiations.

There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, Harris told reporters shortly after meeting with Netanyahu. And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done.

Netanyahu met separately earlier in the day with Biden, who has also been calling on Israel and Hamas to come to an agreement on a U.S.-backed, three-phase deal to bring home remaining hostages and establish an extended cease-fire.

The White House said in a statement that Biden discussed with Netanyahu the need to close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza. Biden and Netanyahu also discussed improving the flow of aid into Gaza as well as the ongoing threat posed by Iranian-backed militant groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Harris said after her meeting with Netanyahu that Israels war in Gaza is more complicated than simply being supportive of one side or the other.

Too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but, Harris said.

Harris also condemned Hamas' brutality. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby reiterated the administration position that the militant group that killed some 1,200 on Oct. 7 and kidnapped 250 people from Israel ultimately holds responsibility for the suffering in Gaza and must come to terms with Israel.

Kirby added that gaps between the two sides can be closed but there are issues that need to be resolved that will require some leadership, some compromise."

With Harris' forceful comments, the administration also appeared to be stepping up pressure on the Israelis to not let the moment pass to get a deal done.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, Harris said. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.

Thousands protested Netanyahu's visit in Washington, and Harris condemned those who were violent or used rhetoric that praised Hamas.

Netanyahu, last at the White House when former President Donald Trump was in office, is headed to Florida on Friday to meet with the Republican presidential nominee.

Ahead of the Harris-Netanyahu meeting Thursday, Trump said at a rally in North Carolina the vice president was totally against the Jewish people."

Harris has long spoken of her strong support for Israel. The first overseas trip of her Senate career in early 2017 was to Israel, and one of her first acts in office was to introduce a resolution opposing a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel.

Shes also spoken of her personal ties to Israel, including memories of raising money as a child to plant trees in Israel and installing a mezuzah near the front door of the vice presidents residence in Washington  her husband is Jewish. She also has connections to pro-Israel groups including the conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the liberal J Street.

For Harris, the meeting with Netanyahu was an opportunity to demonstrate that she has the mettle to serve as commander in chief. Shes being scrutinized by those on the political left who say Biden hasnt done enough to force Netanyahu to end the war and by Republicans looking to brand her as insufficient in her support for Israel.

Harris' last one-on-one engagement with Netanyahu was in March 2021, but she's taken part in more than 20 calls between Biden and Netanyahu.

The conservative Likud Party leader Netanyahu and centrist Democrat Biden have had ups-and-downs over the years. Netanyahu, in what will likely be his last White House meeting with Biden, reflected on the roughly 40 years they've known each other and thanked the president for his service.

From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel, Netanyahu told Biden.

A U.S.-backed proposal to release remaining hostages in Gaza over three phases is something that would be a legacy-affirming achievement for Biden, who abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed Harris. It could also be a boon for Harris in her bid to succeed him.

Following their talks, Biden and Netanyahu met with the families of American hostages.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, said the families received an ironclad commitment from Biden and Netanyahu to get the hostages home. He said he was more hopeful than at anytime since Hamas released more than 100 hostages during a temporary cease-fire in November.

There is more reason today than in any time since the last round of hostage releases that something can happen, he said.

Netanyahu is trying to navigate his own delicate political moment. He faces pressure from the families of hostages demanding a cease-fire agreement to bring their loved ones home and from far-right members of his governing coalition who demand he resist any deal that could keep Israeli forces from eliminating Hamas.

In his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu offered a robust defense of Israel's conduct during the war and lashed out against accusations by the International Criminal Court of Israeli war crimes. He made the case that Israel, in its fight against Iran-backed Hamas, was effectively keeping Americans boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East.

Remember this: Our enemies are your enemies, Netanyahu said. Our fight, its your fight. And our victory will be your victory. 

Netanyahu also derided protesters who massed near the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, calling them Irans useful idiots.

Harris on Thursday said she was outraged that some protesters tagged areas near the U.S. Capitol with pro-Hamas graffiti, expressed support for the militants and burned a U.S. flag at Union Station.

Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said in a statement. I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.

Protesters massed near the White House on Thursday chanted, Arrest Netanyahu, and brought an effigy of the prime minister with blood on its hands and wearing an orange jumpsuit. A small number of counterprotesters wore Israeli flags around their shoulders.
A quick phone call to your insurer could give you that peace of mind to know you wont be significantly out of pocket if something goes wrong, she said. If you want to check whether school items are covered, you can ask your insurer if your policy already covers them or if you need to take out optional cover such as accidental damage.
On behalf of CGU, Jonathan and I would like to congratulate Will on winning this years SA/NT Broker of the Year award. Will has been recognised for his dedication to client advocacy and technical excellence, and we at CGU look forward to seeing what he achieves next, he said.
During the quarter, the company saw gross premiums written surge by 29.2% from the second quarter of 2023, adding up to an increase of $773.9 million. This growth was driven by gains across major segments: property premiums rose by 25%, contributing an additional $350.5 million, while casualty and specialty premiums increased by 33.9%, adding $423.4 million.
According to the Dallas-headquartered firm, it is the biggest employee benefits general agency in the US. The company works with a network of 20,000 brokers, delivering employee benefits to more than 200,000 small and medium-sized businesses.
Lifting the lid on the transaction, PCF Insurance chief development officer Brooke K. DeWyze (pictured) confirmed that the acquisition was largely motivated by Montalvos strong public entity sector business. Having served its southern Texas community for more than 65 years, the Montalvo Insurance team has deep-rooted relationships with their clients, especially in the public entity sector, and thats one of the aspects we review when looking to bring new teams on board. The acquisition will be the 6th location for PCF in the Lone Star state.
David Blades, associate director, industry research and analytics at AM Best, noted: The US population overall grew 7.4% between 2010-2020 but rose 10.2% in the South and 9.2% in the West during the period. Population trends show residents increasingly moving toward regions that are more prone to hurricanes, severe convective storms, or even wildfires.
A New Jersey contractor whose employee fell 80 feet to the bottom of a Bayville water tower has been cited by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for allegedly failing to provide required safety equipment that could have prevented the fall.

OSHA inspectors said U.S. Tank Painting Inc. employed workers to sandblast and paint the towers interior and exterior and replace a ladder attached to the structure to access the towers peak. OSHA learned a painter suffered severe injuries in January 2024 after falling while climbing a maintenance tube ladder into the water tank.

OSHA claims the company failed to install safety equipment that would have prevented the employee from falling 80 feet.

In addition to failing to protect employees from fall hazards, U.S. Tank Painting exposed employees to respiratory injuries and hearing loss while working in a permit-required confined space, fire and explosion hazards, and long-term lung damage related to unsafe levels of silica dust, according to OSHA.

Specifically, OSHA cited the company with three willful and 19 serious violations, including for allegedly not monitoring air quality and noise levels inside the water tower; not implementing proper safety precautions when flammable paint was being used; and not developing a rescue plan for those working inside the water tower, for which OSHA said the company was cited in 2017.

U.S. Tank Painting faces $485,580 in proposed penalties for violations identified at the Bayville work site.

The company has 15 business days to comply, request an informal conference with OSHAs area director, or contest the findings before the independent OSHA review commission.

Operating for more than 30 years, U.S. Tank Painting is an industrial painting and sandblasting contractor with clients in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Topics Workers' Compensation Contractors
A police investigation into the crash and explosion that killed two people in a high-powered luxury car at a Niagara Falls border crossing last year has concluded with the crashs cause still a mystery, authorities said.

The probe into the Nov. 22, 2023, crash that killed Kurt and Monica Villani, both 53, is considered closed at this point, but can be reopened if any new evidence comes to light, Niagara Falls Mayor Robert Restaino told The Buffalo News this week.

Restaino said investigators were hampered by the fact that the cars event data recorder, or black box, was destroyed in the crash.

The Villanis, who were from the western New York community of Grand Island, were in a 2022 Bentley Flying Spur that crashed and exploded at the Rainbow Bridge connecting the cities of Niagara Falls, New York, and Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

Security camera video showed the Bentley race through an intersection, hit a low median and vault high into the air just east of the bridges main vehicle checkpoint. The car flew for yards (meters) and crashed into a line of checkpoint booths outside the cameras view.

The violent crash at the U.S.-Canada border aroused fears of terrorism, but the FBIs Buffalo office said its investigation found no signs of a terror attack and turned the case over to local police.

The Niagara Falls police investigated the crash without finding any answers to questions such as whether a mechanical failure or driver error was to blame, the newspaper reported.

Calls to the Niagara Falls police placed by The Associated Press were not returned, and a staff member in Restainos office said the mayor was not available to speak on Wednesday.

Insurance Claim

Restaino told the Buffalo News that no one may ever know what caused the crash unless insurers discover it.

Betsy Ertel, a spokesperson for the Cincinnati Insurance Companies, which insured the Bentley, declined to discuss details of any claim out of respect for the privacy of our policyholders.

Erin Bronner, a Bentley Motors spokesperson, told the Buffalo News last February that Bentley Motors was conducting its own investigation into the fatal crash.

Bronner declined to discuss any details of the case on Wednesday.

Police said the Villanis were killed instantly in the crash and pronounced dead at the scene. The Edmunds.com website describes the 2022 Flying Spur as a high-powered luxury car that can go from 0 to 60 miles (96 kilometers) per hour in four seconds. When new, the vehicle sold for $204,500 to $309,000, depending on which options were purchased, the website said.

Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Carriers Auto Personal Auto
Yemens Houthi militants have attacked more merchant ships hauling Russian commodities than products from anywhere else in the world, highlighting the limits of safe-passage assurances that the rebels gave Moscow earlier this year.

Back in January and March, the Houthis said that they would spare Russian shipping along with that of China as they targeted maritime trade in a bid to pressure Israel over the war in Gaza.

But of 83 vessels listed by the UK Navy as suffering incidents in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden since November, 19% had Russia as their most recent port call. All were oil or commodity carriers. The next closest is Singapore, a routine stopover for many freighters sailing between Asia and Europe, which accounted for 11%.

To be clear, Russian-owned ships  and those sailing under the Russian flag  havent come under attack. But that will be little consolation to the merchant sailors on the international vessels moving the nations cargoes who must navigate the southern Red Sea under a barrage of drone and missile strikes.

The large numbers are partly a function of the huge flow of Russian oil and commodities still sailing through the area en route to Asia.

With swaths of global shipping avoiding the waterway, vessels carrying Russian oil and bulk commodities have largely continued to run the gauntlet, meaning there are more at risk of attack. Moscow needs to get its commodities to buyers as quickly and cheaply as possible to help finance its war in Ukraine.

Russian and Chinese merchant ships were told in January that they neednt fear attack in the southern Red Sea, Mohammad al-Bukhaiti, spokesman for Yemens Houthi militants, said in an interview with Russian newspaper Izvestia. Two months later, the assurances were repeated after China and Russia reached an understanding following talks between their diplomats in Oman and Mohammed Abdel Salam, one of the Houthis top political figures.

Rising Costs

The Houthis pledges coincided with reduced insurance costs for Chinese ships in particular. The industry norm is holding steady at 0.5% of the value of a ship or higher, according to people involved in the market. Chinese vessels are paying about half that, they said.

For Russian vessels, often covered outside of conventional western insurance markets, the picture on insurance is less clear. But with an uptick in recent incidents involving the nations cargoes, the risks are evident.

Four of the last six vessels targeted had a port in Russia as their most recent call, according to vessel tracking by Bloomberg of all those ships that the UK Navy says have been attacked.

A carrier that ultimately sank in June  the second casualty of the Houthi attacks  was carrying coal having departed from the Russian port of Ust-Luga.

That hasnt stopped a handful of ships from using their satellite signals to try and demonstrate Russian affiliations in a bid to avoid attack. Some were continuing to signal Russia crew and Russian on board, according to ship tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

Copyright 2024 Bloomberg.

Topics Russia
A raging wildfire has devastated the western Canadian tourist town of Jasper, potentially destroying up to 50% of structures, and firefighters were trying Thursday to save as many buildings as possible, authorities said.

Jasper is in the middle of mountainous Jasper National Park, in the province of Alberta. The town and the park, which draw more than 2 million tourists a year, were evacuated on Monday, when officials estimated there were up to 10,000 people in the town and a further 15,000 visitors in the park.

There is no denying that this is the worst nightmare for any community, Alberta premier Danielle Smith told reporters, while choking back tears.

Were seeing potentially 30% to 50% structural damage  thats going to be a significant rebuild, she said, adding the fire was still out of control.

Parks Canada said there had been a significant loss of buildings inside the town but added it could not give specific details of the damage, or which areas had been burned and it urged residents not to return.

Video from the town showed vehicles and entire blocks burned to the ground, including a historic Anglican church.

Jasper resident Eva Korduliakova heard the news that her home was burning from thousands of kilometers (miles) away on Thursday morning, while visiting family in the Czech Republic with her seven-year-old son.

I am a single mum who became homeless and jobless overnight, she wrote in an email. Our house is gone. I didnt get a chance to grab any of my belongings.

Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said the town was beginning to come to terms with the devastating impact of the fire.

Last nights wildfires have simply ravaged our small tight-knit mountain community, the destruction and the loss that so many of our residents are facing simply defies description, he told a press conference, his voice breaking.

One major concern for responders is if the fire damages the Trans Mountain oil pipeline, which can carry 890,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil from Edmonton to Vancouver.

At this time there is no indication of damage to our infrastructure, and the pipelines continue to operate safely, pipeline operator Trans Mountain said in a statement.

CN Rail said it suspended rail operations through the town on Wednesday afternoon as the wildfire conditions worsened.

The Port of Vancouver, Canadas largest, said it expected to see delays to the movement of goods through the port in the coming days due to the events in Jasper.

The federal government and other cities in Alberta are sending emergency crews. In addition, a total of 400 firefighters from Mexico, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are due to arrive in the coming days.

Wall of Flames

There are currently 176 wildfires burning in Alberta, more than 50 of which are out of control. Around 10 of those blazes are close to the border with British Columbia, where there are 423 wildfires burning and dozens of evacuation orders and alerts.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Thursday afternoon he had convened a meeting of the Incident Response Group to discuss the Alberta wildfires.

Every federal agency is coordinated, sending resources to Jasper, deploying evacuations support to the area, and reinforcing firefighting efforts on the ground, Trudeau said in a post on X.

The federal government said in April that high temperatures and tinder-dry forests meant this could be a catastrophic year for wildfires in Canada.

The Jasper fire was caused by a lightning strike on Monday afternoon and fueled by strong winds, according to Parks Canada.

Flames from the blaze rose 100 meters (328 feet) high, and strong wind gusts on Wednesday afternoon pushed the fire 5 kilometers (3 miles) in less than 30 minutes, said Alberta Public Safety and Emergency Services Minister Mike Ellis.

Any firefighter will tell you theres little to nothing you can do when you have a wall of flames coming at you like that, Ellis said.

Environment Canada is forecasting 10 mm to 20 mm (0.4 to 0.8 inch) of rain for Thursday, which might help firefighters.

The Jasper Park Lodge, one of the largest hotels in town, said the fire had reached its grounds. The 400-room residence is run by Fairmont, a group owned by Frances Accor.

The Jasper fire could be one of the most damaging in Alberta since a 2016 conflagration that hit the oil town of Fort McMurray, forcing the evacuation of all 90,000 residents and destroying 10% of all structures in the city.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Nia Williams in British Columbia and Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; additional reporting by Ismail Shakil in Ottawa; editing by Angus MacSwan, Aurora Ellis and Sandra Maler)

Photograph: The sun sets behind the mountains obscured by wildfire smoke from blazes in the American West and provinces of western Canada late Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Wildfire Canada
This edition of International People Moves details appointments at Vantage Group Holdings and AXA XL.

A summary of these new hires follows here.

Vantage Promotes Bellitti as Chief Pricing & Portfolio Actuary, BHSIs Valzania Named CUO

Vantage Group Holdings Ltd. announced the appointment of Kelly Bellitti as chief pricing and portfolio actuary and David Valzania as chief underwriting officer, effective immediately. Valzania joins Bellitti on Vantages Insurance leadership team, and both will report to Alex Blanco, insurance chief executive.

In her expanded role, Bellitti will have strategic oversight of Vantages insurance portfolio management and continue to lead its insurance pricing actuary team. She will strengthen portfolio underwriting strategies in conjunction with underwriting leaders and in alignment with business goals. Working closely with the companys Data, Analytics and Technology team, Bellitti will drive data-empowered underwriting and portfolio management.

Bellitti joined Vantage as senior vice president, chief pricing actuary of insurance in 2021. She previously held multiple leadership roles at AXA XL, most recently as global head of financial lines and cyber pricing. Bellitti began her career at Transatlantic Reinsurance and Guy Carpenter. She is a fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a member of the American Academy of Actuaries.

In his role, Valzania will ensure the overall alignment of Vantages insurance and underwriting strategies. He will work closely with the groups insurance leadership to support efficiencies and profitability and lead underwriting policy making, standards and governance.

Valzania joins Vantage from Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance where he was senior vice president of Multinational. Before Berkshire, Valzania was at AIG, where he held several senior management roles, including president and CEO of the companys Bermuda division. Before AIG, he was a senior vice president at Marsh.

I am thrilled to welcome David to our team, alongside Kelly and our capable insurance leaders. Davids and Kellys extensive experience and proven track records will be instrumental in driving Vantages ten specialty insurance businesses to continue to grow and succeed. Both Kellys and Davids roles are aligned with further building our sustained profitability, said Blanco.

Kellys broader responsibilities reflect her accomplishments and ability to make a larger impact. Combined with Davids underwriting expertise, they will be a powerful force in achieving our strategic goals. Blanco added.

***

AXA XL Promotes Bailey as Head of Professional, Bermuda

AXA XL has appointed Bermudian Michelle Bailey to the new role of head of Professional, Bermuda.

Bailey, who reports to Noel Pearman, chief underwriting officer, Bermuda, of AXA XLs Insurance business, has more than 20 years of industry experience.

In the new role, she is responsible for leading the Bermuda professional lines underwriting team, including directors & officers, employment practices liability (EPL), wage & hour (W&H), errors & omissions (E&O), and cyber lines of business. Her responsibilities also include developing and effectively managing client relationships across all lines and overseeing the execution of strategy to drive profitable growth.

Prior to taking on the new role, Bailey was senior vice president, product line leader for both the EPL and W&H coverage lines.

Bailey holds dual Bachelor of Arts in Risk Management and Finance degrees from Temple University and has earned both a Registered Professional Liability Underwriter (RPLU) designation and an Associate in Insurance Data Analytics (AIDA) designation. She is a recognized thought leader in her field, frequently speaking at various international industry events, including the recent PLUS NY conference. Beyond her professional commitments, she contributes to the industry as a board member of the Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies.

We are pleased and proud to have Michelle step into this new role. She is well respected within the Bermuda market and beyond for her extensive expertise in underwriting, focusing on a diverse portfolio primarily for Fortune 500 clients, commented Pearman.

Michelle and her team play an instrumental role in AXA XLs commitment to address the existing and future risk management needs of our large commercial clients.

Topics AXA XL
Three brokers  NFP, Clear Group, and Strategic Risk Group  each announced acquisitions during July.

In reverse chronological order, the acquisitions are listed as follows:

NFP, the New York-based insurance broker and Aon subsidiary, announced on July 24 that it had acquired DuSean Barrett Bloodstock Insurances Ltd., which trades under the name of Barrett Private Insurances.

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Acquisition of Dublin-based business will strengthen the specialized insurance solutions and services NFP offers in Ireland.

John Barrett, director of Sean Barrett Bloodstock Insurances Ltd., will join NFP as a managing director with a focus on growing the companys Private Client Group in Ireland and the UK, which focuses on providing customized risk solutions for high-net-worth individuals and families.

Weve established a strong presence in the Irish market through organic growth and acquisition, and the expertise of the team at Sean Barrett Bloodstock Insurances will undoubtedly strengthen it further, said JP Allcock, group managing director, NFP in Europe. Their commitment to delivering excellent service to their clients with a personalized touch aligns with our approach, and we look forward to their active involvement in expanding our private client offerings in the Irish market and into the UK.

Barrett Private Insurances has been in the Irish market for 37 years. The brokerage uses its experience and intricate knowledge of the home, collections, travel, auto, yachts and bloodstock insurance markets to solve the complex risk management needs of its private clients.

***

Clear Group, the London-based independent insurance broker, announced on July 24 it had acquired the book and assets of Maynard Milton Insurance Services LLP

Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.

Founded over 30 years ago, Maynard Milton Insurance Services LLP is a successful 4.9 million GWP broker based in Southend-on-Sea in Essex, England. The business has a strong reputation in its local market and has recognised expertise in fleet and property insurance, the Clear Group said.

The team from Maynard Milton Insurance Services LLP will all join Clear Group, including partners in the business, Martin Maynard and Kevin Milton. The acquisition will help reinforce Clears presence in the region with its existing Shoeburyness office.

We are delighted to welcome the Maynard Milton team to Clear. This is a well-run and profitable business which has a track record of delivering year on year grow. Its another example of how Clear is able to invest in regional brokers while adding scale and expertise to our client proposition, commented Mike Edgeley, group CEO of the Clear Group.

***

Specialist Risk Group (SRG), the London-based insurance intermediary, announced on July 23 it agreed to acquire specialist property and casualty MGA, Trilogy Underwriting.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. SRG purchased Trilogy from Resolution Underwriting Holdings, the Stratford, England-based holding company of a group of MGAs.

Trilogy is SRGs second acquisition to join its Underwriting pillar, MX, in 2024. MXs acquisitions to date include Tristar Special Risks, The MPLC, CLS Risk Solutions, Blackrock Insurance Solutions, and GB Underwriting.

Formed in 2013, Trilogy Underwriting specializes in property/casualty business, supporting a select panel of wholesale and retail brokers across the UK. Led by Managing Director Chris Blackwell, Trilogy has delegated underwriting authority from major insurers with a minimum of A-rated security.

We are thrilled to welcome Chris and the Trilogy team to MX. Trilogy will help us expand our footprint at pace in the London Market while supporting wholesale and retail brokers, and their clients, according to Lee Anderson, SRG Group deputy CEO. The Trilogy team also enhances our specialist underwriting capability and access to the London markets area of expertise.

Joining the MX pillar of Specialist Risk Group brings significant opportunities and benefits for our broker partners and the members of the Trilogy team, said Chris Blackwell, managing director of Trilogy Underwriting. The enhanced scale and collective experience of MX will enable us to further develop our offering and ensure we continue to support our broker partners with complex property and casualty risks.

Blackwell thanked Resolution Underwriting for its support over the last few years. [T]hey have played a key role in the Trilogy journey, and I have very much enjoyed working with them. Resolution purchased Trilogy in 2020.

***

Specialist Risk Group (SRG), the London-based insurance intermediary, announced on July 9 it had acquired the ongoing business of Carriagehouse, the specialist equestrian broker.

Financial terms of the deal were not released.

Established over 30-years ago, and headquartered in Colchester, England, Carriagehouse supports the equestrian industry with a range of specialist products including policies for horses and donkeys, horseboxes and horse trailers, carriages and harness and commercial carriage drivers.

The Carriagehouse offering neatly complements SRGs existing equestrian business, KBIS, which joined forces with SRG in January 2021, said SRG, noting that its investment in Carriagehouse is a further demonstration of its commitment to investing in specialisms.

This is a great deal for SRG and reinforces our commitment to investing in specialist sectors across the UK and internationally. KBIS are leaders in the equestrian industry and the addition of the Carriagehouse book will enable them to support a more diverse client base within this specialist sector, commented Lee Anderson, SRG Group Deputy CEO, in a statement.

I am excited by this deal and am looking forward to further supporting our Carriagehouse clients as they move over to KBIS. It is important to me that our clients continue to receive the high level of service and specialist coverage they have come to expect, according to Fiona Gordon-Clarke, Carriagehouse director.

The synergy between our teams and the comprehensive range of equestrian insurance products that KBIS offers, in addition to those developed by Carriagehouse, will ensure this going forward, Gordon-Clarke said.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP)  A former adjunct professor on Monday settled a federal religious discrimination lawsuit against a private Minnesota school after she was pushed out for showing a depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in class.

Details of the settlement between Hamline University and Erika Lopez Prater are unknown. Online court records show the terms of the agreement are sealed.

David Redden, a lawyer for Lopez Prater, on Tuesday declined to comment other than to say that the matter was resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties.

The university did not immediately return a phone call and email from The Associated Press seeking comment Tuesday.

Lopez Prater had sued Hamline University in 2023 following her dismissal the year before. Her team of attorneys had argued that the school would have treated her differently if she were Muslim.

The controversy began when Lopez Prater showed a 14th-century painting depicting the Prophet Muhammad to her students as part of a lesson on Islamic art in a global art course.

She had warned them beforehand in the class syllabus and given them an opportunity to opt out. She also reportedly gave a trigger warning before the lesson in which the image was shown.

A student who attended the class  Aram Wedatalla, then-president of Hamlines Muslim Student Association  has said she heard the professor give a trigger warning, wondered what it was for and then I looked and it was the prophet, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported.

Wedatalla complained to the university, saying the warning didnt describe the image that would be shown. In Islam, portraying the Prophet Muhammad has long been taboo for many.

The university declined to renew Lopez Praters contract, and then-president Fayneese Miller described Lopez Prater as Islamophobic for showing the image.

Miller later conceded that she should not have used that term and that she mishandled the episode, which sparked a debate over balancing academic freedom with respect for religion.

She announced her retirement months after the schools faculty overwhelmingly called for her resignation, saying her response to the controversy was a violation of academic freedom.

Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics K-12
Ryan Specialty announced the unification of Ryan Financial Lines and the expansion of its product offerings. Ryan Financial Lines formation was announced in December 2023. The first phase was implemented in March 2024 with EmergIn Risk rebranding into RFL Cyber.

Ryan Financial Lines has now completed the rebranding, unifying operations of StartPoint, Ryan Specialty Nordics, Capital Bay and the three professional liability programs of Ryan Specialty National Programs platform.

The rebranding coincides with the activation of the new international facility, one of the largest in the industry in the past decade that provides Ryan Financial Lines with a $10 million line to write Management, Financial, and Professional Lines out of Europe, London, and Latin America. The facility expands RFLs ability to quote international financial institutions and professional indemnity, to service Europe, and to add a new London operation to the international reinsurance facility.

In conjunction with the rebrand of EmergIn that occurred in March, RFL Cyber also secured a new three- year binder capacity agreement with a high quality AM Best A rated carrier which includes delegated claims authority to co-ordinate and manage Cyber and Media Claims on the binder.

The team, philosophy and offices all remain the same with expansion of some responsibilities and the addition of new key hires:

Patrick Mitchell is Chief Underwriting Officer and recently joined the team with over 20 years of insurance underwriting experience.

Brooke Tanner leads the Claims operation for all of RFL.

For the RFL Cyber practice, George Paraskeva oversees all of RFL Cyber, with Conor Houlihan leading UK Cyber and Ryan Kratz heading US Cyber.

Pascal Alvarez is expanding upon his LatAm responsibilities to lead international RFL Facultative strategy.

Sverker Edstrom and Mark Peeters will oversee the expansion of geographic and product opportunities as heads of RFL Europe and London, respectively.

Sue Harker and Dana Lyn Pound continue to lead their respective A&E, Accountants, and IAB facilities within the US market.

This MGU consolidation into Ryan Financial Lines offers a full suite of financial lines products and services on a single platform to support the small-to-middle market company as well as the large insured enterprise bringing a more holistic approach and strategy that we support internationally.
A bill (SB2979) amending Illinois Biometric Information and Privacy Act (BIPA), passed by both houses of the legislature on May 16 and now on Governor J.B. Pritzkers desk, effectively overturns a recent Illinois Supreme Court ruling that could have had a catastrophic effect on many companies operating in Illinois.

Reacting to implicit direction from the Illinois high court in its decision in Cothron v. White Castle Systems, Inc., 2023 IL 128004, SB2979 clarified what many previously had viewed as ambiguous statutory language concerning the number of occurrences each BIPA violation constituted. SB2979 specifies that unlawful collection or disclosure of an individuals biometric identifier or biometric information constitutes a single BIPA violation regardless of how many times it is repeated. Cothron, in contrast, held that a private entity violates BIPA with every scan or transmission of biometric identifiers or biometric information without prior informed consent. Gov. Pritzker has up to 60 days to sign or veto SB2979; he is expected to sign the bill into law.

Taken alone, Cothron could have dealt significant damages to Illinois companies collecting biometric information. Considering that the Cothron decision came on the heels of Tims v. Black Horse Carriers, Inc., 2023 IL 127801  which set the statute of limitations for claims under BIPA at five years  Illinois companies were faced with potentially devastating damages. The newly enacted amendment to BIPA has offered entities collecting biometric information some relief.

In Tims, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a five-year statute of limitations applied to claims under BIPA. The court reasoned that [i]n light of the extensive consideration the General Assembly gave to the fears of and risks to the public surrounding the disclosure of highly sensitive biometric information, it would thwart legislative intent to (1) shorten the amount of time an aggrieved party would have to seek redress for a private entitys noncompliance with the Act and (2) shorten the amount of time a private entity would be held liable for noncompliance with the Act. Accordingly, the many companies operating in Illinois while also collecting biometric information were suddenly faced with a five-year look-back period of liability for claims under BIPA.

Barely two weeks later, Cothron presented the Illinois Supreme Court with the question of whether BIPA claims accrue each time a private entity collects an individuals biometric identifier, or only upon the first scan and transmission. As noted above, the court, agreeing with the federal district court, held that a private entity violates BIPA with every scan or transmission of biometric identifiers or biometric information without prior informed consent. The court based its holding on what it perceived to be the intent of the legislature, but included in its analysis with an implicit suggestion to the legislature both to review the public policy concerns presented by White Castle and to clarify its intent regarding the assessment of damages under the Act.

The Illinois Legislature heeded the Supreme Courts implicit suggestion, and on May 16, 2024, passed SB2979, which amended BIPA and statutorily overrules Cothron. Primarily, SB2979 states that a private entity that more than once collects or discloses a persons biometric identifier or biometric information from the same person in violation of the Act has committed a single violation for which the aggrieved person is entitled to, at most, one recovery.

Once signed by Governor Pritzker, it will be effective immediately. And fortunately so, for Illinois companies. The combination of the Tims and White Castle decisions created a grim reality for private entities in Illinois. Effectively, corporations could be held liable for five years of alleged violations of BIPA, the number of which violations would have increased exponentially after White Castle. Indeed, the White Castle defendants argued that the damages could have exceeded $17 billion. With the passage and imminent enactment of SB2979, the legislature has provided much-needed relief for White Castle and other companies doing business in Illinois.

The amendment to BIPA aims to accomplish two primary goals. First, it recognizes the point made by critics  including the dissent in White Castle  who argued that biometric information can only be lost once. Once a company has unlawfully collected biometric information such as a fingerprint, the damage, including the damage envisioned by the statute itself, has been done. Thus, these instances encompass only one loss per claimant.

Indeed, it is hard to rationalize the idea that every additional scan is a further loss to ones privacy. Second, a running theme in the Supreme Courts decisions is their reliance on the intent of the Legislature. It is much more likely that BIPA was intended to secure the safe use of biometric information, rather than to cripple and destroy corporations who fail to comply with BIPA. In nudging the legislature to clarify the statute, the Supreme Court wisely recognized potentially unintended consequences stemming from the apparent original intent of the statute, and that only the legislature was empowered to amend it.

Some issues remain, most evidently the amendments lack of retroactivity. This is especially worrisome for policyholders because after Cothron, BIPA lawsuits reportedly rose by 65%.[1] Thus, these lawsuits likely will not be covered by the amendment. Additionally, other proposed amendments, such as HB4686, would have shortened the statute of limitations from five years to one year. The Legislature also debated providing a 30-day cure period for BIPA violations. While that bill failed to make it out of committee, it does suggest possible amendment in the future.

For now, policyholders facing liability for alleged BIPA violations should continue to look to their insurance program, including policies such as Comprehensive General Liability and Employment Practices Liability (among others) to provide coverage. Policyholders also should be aware of insurance companies continued attempts to add biometric or BIPA-specific exclusions to their policies. Similarly, if offered endorsed coverage specifically for biometric privacy violations, companies should be wary of inadequate sublimits. To avoid such coverage pitfalls, companies should consult with brokers and experienced coverage counsel to review both existing policies and new or renewal policies.

While the passage of SB2979 may have arrived too late to save White Castle, it should offer a lifeline to companies found to have violated BIPA in the future. Companies and policyholders alike would be wise to monitor additional developments in the Illinois Legislature affecting this dynamic area of law.

John M. Leonard is a shareholder in Anderson Kills New York office and co-chair of the firms Biometric Liability Group. John has recovered millions of dollars for policyholders in a full spectrum of insurance coverage matters, including disputes over business interruption losses, D&O and E&O defense and indemnity, general liability losses, and environmental liability.

James A. Goodridge is an attorney in Anderson Kills New York office and a member of the firms Insurance Recovery and Corporate and Commercial Litigation groups. James regularly counsels corporate and individual policyholders in coverage disputes in state and federal court.

Sean McCabe is an attorney in the New York office of Anderson Kill and a member of the firms White Collar Defense and Insurance Recovery groups.

[1] See, Stephen Joyce and Skye Witley, Illinois Biometric Privacy Cases Jump 65% After Seminal Ruling, Bloomberg law.com, May 2, 2023.

Topics Liability Illinois
Major freight railroads are rushing railcar inspections, reinforcing known safety concerns raised by unions for years, but at a House hearing Tuesday theyll present new evidence from federal inspectors that railcar checks are routinely less than two minutes per car.

The unions have sounded the alarm often in recent years as the major railroads all adopted versions of the lean Precision Scheduled Railroading operating model and collectively cut roughly one-third of all their workers. Labor groups like the Transportation Communications Union, which represents the expert carmen who are supposed to inspect railcars, have said all the cuts have led to rushed inspections that miss problems and prompted railroads to rely on train crews too often to do limited inspections.

The disastrous Norfolk Southern derailment last year in East Palestine, Ohio, that prompted Tuesdays hearing was caused by an overheating bearing that wasnt caught in time by trackside sensors. The National Transportation Safety Board didnt speculate in its final report released last month whether an inspection in a railyard might have caught the failed bearing, but it did point out that the railroad never inspected the car after it picked it up in St. Louis even though it crossed through several railyards before the crash. And more than 25% of the cars on that train had defects despite being inspected beforehand.

The TCU unions National Legislative Director David Arouca says inspections are happening less often and with less time these days because of all the job cuts.

Sadly, in todays era of railroading, many carmen have to make the difficult decision of what to inspect. Under impossible time pressures, carmen are simply unable to perform full inspections, Arouca said.

There are at least 90 points on each side of a railcar that are supposed to be checked in an inspection  something that Arouca said cant be done in the time allotted today. The Federal Railroad Administration study found that the major freight railroads allowed an average of 1 minute and 38 seconds per car while a federal inspector was watching, but documents showed that when an inspector isnt there inspections are being done in about 44 seconds per car.

The FRA isnt ready to say that the railroads current operating model is unsafe because more research is needed to determine whether that is the case. But FRA Administrator Amit Bose said railroads safety performance has stagnated over the last decade  and by some measures, deteriorated. Despite assertions to the contrary, derailment rates for our nations largest rail companies have not significantly improved.

And even though most derailments dont cause anything like the massive black plume of smoke and lingering health worries that followed the East Palestine derailment  because many of them happen at slow speeds without spilling toxic chemicals  Bose said smaller derailments shouldnt be dismissed as the railroad equivalent of a fender-bender because they can still be deadly.

None of the CEOs of the major railroads  which include Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, Canadian National and CPKC  were at the hearing, even though several of them were invited. Wisconsin Rep. Derrick Van Orden said its shameful none of the CEOs were willing to show up.

The railroads maintain they are committed to improving safety and have taken a number of steps since the East Palestine derailment including adding hundreds more trackside detectors to spot mechanical problems and reviewing the way they respond to temperature alerts from those devices.

Plus, the Association of American Railroads trade group continues to point out that even with derailments  which happen across the country roughly three times a day  railroads remain the safest option, with more than 99% of all hazardous chemicals arriving safely. But as the Ohio derailment shows, even one derailment can be disastrous if chemicals spill and catch fire.

Railroads also argue that new technology they are investing in can help supplement the visual inspections that workers do and spot problems while trains are moving down the tracks.

But Greg Hynes with the SMART-TD union, which represents conductors and is the largest rail union, said in the accidents wake little has changed.

Ohios two senators  including Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance  led a bipartisan group in proposing a sweeping rail safety bill last year that included requirements for inspection standards and rules for those trackside detectors, but that bill stalled after it advanced out of committee and never got a floor vote.

Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, who leads the House subcommittee on railroads, recently introduced a similar, broad bill along with Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton. But most Republicans appear to want a more limited approach based on the findings of the NTSB investigation. A narrower bill hasnt yet been introduced.

On Tuesday, Republican Rep. Sam Graves, the chair of the Transportation Committee, said he does not think any rail safety legislation was necessary to address the problems that led to the 2023 derailment. He added that a bill would not be emerging from his committee.

But the Chair of the NTSB Jennifer Homendy suggested that Congress should accelerate its phasing out of the older DOT-111 tank cars that are prone to rupturing in a derailment and then look at addressing the more than 200 other outstanding recommendations her agency has repeated and repeated and repeated with zero action by the railroads and by some regulators.

In addition to all the rail safety concerns, the NTSB said Tuesday that it is worried that a federal effort by the Drug Enforcement Administration to reclassify marijuana as a less serious drug could prevent train crews, pilots and other transportation workers from being tested for marijuana even though it could impair their judgment.

The NTSB said that eliminating marijuana testing for transportation workers would create a safety blind spot that could endanger the public.

Photo: AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File

Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has launched a study of products that could allow companies to set different prices for consumers based on their locations, past purchases, and other personal data.

The agency said on Tuesday it had ordered Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, and six other companies to provide information about targeted pricing products, the data they use, who uses them and the effect on prices.

The FTC is seeking the same information from IT services provider Accenture, consulting firm McKinsey & Co., and software providers Pros Holdings Inc, Revionics, Bloomreach, and Task Software.

All of the companies offer products that use consumer data and artificial intelligence or other technology to target prices for individual consumers, the agency said. None of the companies are accused of wrongdoing.

FTC Chair Lina Khan said the study will illuminate a shadowy ecosystem of pricing middlemen.

Firms that harvest Americans personal data can put peoples privacy at risk. Now firms could be exploiting this vast trove of personal information to charge people higher prices, Khan said in a statement.

A spokesperson for Revionics said the company does not use individual consumer data or develop software to target prices to individuals, and that its software considers market-level factors when recommending prices to retailers.

We are confident that the FTC will affirm the benefits of Revionics AI price optimization software pending its research into this matter, the spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Mastercard said it was reviewing the order and would cooperate with the FTC. Other companies did not immediately comment on the orders.

Sprawling Infrastructure

Online advertising has long used data such as browsing history and device location to determine what ads consumers see.

The agency is concerned similar technology can now be used to set disparate prices, which it calls surveillance pricing, or potentially collude with competitors, FTC officials said.

The FTC voted 5-0 to authorize the study, though the agencys two Republican commissioners disagreed with the term surveillance pricing, calling it personalized pricing.

The products the FTC is concerned about go by various names, including data-driven pricing, price optimization consulting, and location-based predictive targeting.

R.J. Cross, a consumer advocate at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), said they raise concerns about fairness and privacy.

PIRG and other groups last year called on Mastercard to limit its use of cardholder data to providing card services.

The FTC is already considering rules aimed at protecting consumer privacy and limiting what data businesses can collect without consent.

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also weighing potential rules to expand privacy protections for consumers.
Private Client Select Insurance Services (PCS) said it has entered into an agreement with Ryan Specialty on a distribution partnership.

The independent managing general underwriter started by American Internal Group (AIG) and Stone Point Capital will use Ryan Specialty as its exclusive wholesale broker for U.S. high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth business.

AIG will continue to provide capacity and delegate underwriting authority and guidelines to PCS, and will allocate more excess and surplus lines capacity to meet needs. AIG will also provide exclusive E&S paper in all 50 states through Marbleshore Specialty Insurance Company, subject to regulatory approval.

Related: AIG, Stone Point Finalize Deal to Start MGA for High Net Worth Business

Our distribution partnership with Ryan Specialty will advance PCSs transformation into a best-in-class managing general underwriter in the high- and ultra-high-net-worth markets, said Christopher Flatt, interim CEO of Private Client Select. Ryan Specialty complements PCSs deep underwriting, portfolio management, distribution and technological expertise, and together, we are ideally positioned to more efficiently deliver differentiated capabilities and services to our retail partners and clients.

PCSs exclusive wholesale distribution partnership with Ryan Specialty is a major milestone for PCS and AIG and creates the ability to access the market with an industry leader in the wholesale segment with the infrastructure, expertise and unique capability to profitably scale businesses, said Peter Zaffino, chairman and CEO of AIG.

Pat Ryan, found, chairman and CEO of Ryan Specialty said the partnership will further enhance our national wholesale brokerage business and the superior service Ryan Specialty provides to our high-net-worth customers.

Related: Private Clients Need More Than the Standard Coverage  From Baseball Cards, Sneakers, Jewelry, Cyber and More

Topics Insurance Wholesale
McKINNEY, Texas (AP)  At the start of every work day, construction worker Charles Smith puts on the essentials: hard hat. Safety glasses. A reflective vest. And a small, watch-like band for his wrist.

But rather than track time, its purpose is to ensure he doesnt overheat while working during sweltering summer days in Texas. The wristband monitors his heart rate, core body temperature, stress level and more. If it detects signs of overheating, it warns him and his safety manager, advising Smith to rest and hydrate. The device serves as an early warning system to prevent heat-related injuries and illnesses.

The technology is one way that workplaces are setting up employee protections as summers grow hotter, longer and more extreme due to climate change. On Sunday, the Earth reached the hottest day ever measured, according to a European climate service group. And in the absence of federal heat rules for workers, which the Biden administration recently proposed, some employers in states without rules are taking it upon themselves to safeguard employees from extreme heat dangers.

We can catch it before it happens, said Seth Campbell, safety manager for the construction company Rogers-OBrien, Smiths employer, of monitoring signs of heat-related illnesses. Their team started using the technology last summer.

UPS recently equipped delivery drivers with cooling hats and sleeves that provide relief from heat  and increased access to ice, cold water and electrolytes for employees, according to its website. They have also added more cooling equipment to its vehicles and facilities, said vice president of global communications Genny Bowman in an email. That includes installing exhaust heat shields to lower vehicle floor temperatures, as well as fans in package cars and more fans in its facilities.

Some greenhouse companies, including Eden Green and Cox Farms, have said they adjust workers schedules to account for excessive heat, such as starting them earlier in the morning, breaking during peak heat, and returning in the evening as temperatures cool.

During Junes record-breaking heat wave in the Midwest and Northeast, an organization in Columbus, Ohio, prepared frozen towels and cold water for their workers to stay cool and hydrated.

And in some California warehouses, where indoor temperatures can reach above 90 degrees Fahrenheit (about 32 Celsius), employers have provided cooling vests with ice packs in them and bandanas that can get cool when wet, according to Tim Shadix, legal director for the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit dedicated to improving working conditions in Southern Californias warehouse industry.

Such measures can help keep workers cool and comfortable, but Shadix said theyre not enough to protect them from worsening heat dangers. Under standard workplace safety practices, those are meant to be responses of last resort, he said, but when youre addressing a hazard, including heat, you usually try to start with whats most effective, which can include installing air conditioning, slowing down the workplace schedule or providing more breaks.

Last summer, during a historic heat wave, the Texas-based Rogers-OBrien launched a pilot program that gives workers the option to wear a heat sensor paired with a software called SafeGuard. If the workers heart rate or body temperature are too high, Campbell is among the people who receives an alert to check on them. He then assesses ways to cool them down, such as putting ice packs under their armpits.

Last year we had two alerts and we were able to get that employee to the shade inside, get (them) plenty of electrolytes, and we didnt have any clinic visits with anyone wearing the technology, he said.

On really hot days coupled with intense physical exertion, Smiths wristband has warned him and the safety manager that his body temperature and heart rate were high. It served as a signal to take a shaded break and drink water. And he did.

The importance of it could stretch very far, said Smith on a day of triple-digit temperatures. Making sure that workers stay at levels where they could actually go home every night and see their families, making sure that workers are able to recover properly. I think it could be a great benefit to the industry and just about any other industry.

Copyright 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Commercial Lines Business Insurance Tech
ZestyAI, a provider of climate and property risk analytics solutions powered by artificial intelligence (AI), announced it has received approval for use in rating and underwriting from the Texas Department of Insurance for its complete suite of Severe Convective Storm products. ZestyAIs Z-HAIL, Z-WIND, Z-STORMand Z-PROPERTY Roof Quality products now join ZestyAIs predictive wildfire risk analytics product, Z-FIRE, as some of the first AI-powered property-based risk models to be approved in the state.

Texas receives the highest number of annual hail claims of any US state, with over 1,100 hail events in 2023 alone. The high incidence of severe storms is why ZestyAI chose Texas as one of the first states to directly file its Severe Convective Storm product suite as a licensed Advisory Organization.

ZestyAIs suite of storm products have already received approvals from the Colorado Division of Insurance and Illinois Department of Insurance earlier this year, with approvals from other states in the hail belt expected in the coming months. Leading insurers have already licensed the models to enhance underwriting, optimize their portfolios, and more accurately align premiums with Severe Convective Storm risk.

Topics Texas Windstorm
PCF Insurance Solutions announced it has acquired the insurance business of Weslaco, Texas-based Montalvo Insurance Agency.

Montalvo offers personal and commercial insurance coverage including homeowners, auto, general and professional liability, workers compensation and bonds.

Having served its southern Texas community for more than 65 years, the Montalvo Insurance team has deep-rooted relationships with their clients, especially in the public entity sector, and thats one of the aspects we review when looking to bring new teams on board, said Brooke K. DeWyze, Chief Development Officer at PCF Insurance. We celebrate and want to bring on teams with rich history and experience because, when we combine it with our data analytics and technology, we are better suited to creatively solve for the tough challenges our clients face day in and day out.

PCF is an insurance brokerage headquartered in Lehi, Utah.

Topics Mergers & Acquisitions Texas
Pennsylvania National Mutual Casualty Insurance Co. cannot escape the long tail of asbestos, and must cover part of the litigation losses for an asbestos installation company that went out of business more than 30 years ago, the South Carolina Supreme Court decided this week.

The justices upheld lower courts rulings in favor of Covil Corp. and its receiver, with some minor modifications.

The insurer had denied full payment on the claim, arguing that Covil, a subcontractor that installed and removed asbestos in South Carolina for four decades, and its receiver waited more than a year to notify Penn National that a lawsuit had been filed in 2019. The subcontractors insurance policy required it to immediately forward the information about the lawsuit brought by former worker David Rollins, who had been diagnosed with mesothelioma.

The receiver noted that, under previous South Carolina court rulings, the timely notice provision applies only if the insurer had been prejudiced by not knowing about the pending litigation. But Penn National attorneys countered that the prejudice rule does not apply unless the rights of an innocent third party were harmed.

In this case, Rollins, the victim, had already been compensated and thus was not harmed by the delay, the Supreme Court found, overruling the lower courts on that point.

In this case, the driving force has no force at all because no innocent third partys rights are implicated. The underlying plaintiffRollinshas already been paid the full amount of his settlement by Covil and other insurers, Justice John Cannon Few wrote for the majority.

But the justices said the failure to give timely notice was not fatal to the insurance claim for another reason: Case law has established that the failure must constitute a material breach. Covils late notice to Penn did not harm anyone, the justices found.

The point that is important to analyzing the benefit . . . reasonably expected  is not whether Penn Nationals interests were protected but whether Covils interests were, the July 24 opinion reads. Penn National was not deprived of this benefit because Covil was represented by counsel hired by other insurers from the very beginning of the case. Those attorneys timely answered the complaint, conducted discovery, and handled other pretrial matters they deemed necessary to protect Covil.

Policy exclusions also did not apply, the justices said. The court modified the lower courts ruling on other points, but upheld them in substance. The opinion can be seen here. Justice John Kittredge dissented on the finding that the breach of the notice provision was immaterial.

Topics South Carolina
California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said on Friday that he and the California Fair Plan have agreed to establishing a new high value commercial coverage option with limits up to $20 million per building and other steps that he said will modernize the states insurer of last resort.

The changes are part of Laras so-called Sustainable Insurance Strategy intended to stabilize the California homeowners insurance market and address the insurance crisis.

Carriers are pulling back from the states homeowners market, blaming blamed wildfire losses as well as regulations.

State Farm has applied for large rate increases in California, a year after the carrier got rate approvals of 7% and 20%. The insurer, the largest in California, insures nearly one-in-five homes in the state. It recently requested a 30% rate increase for its homeowners line, a 52% rate increase for renters and 36% rate increase for condo coverage.

Related: California Wildfire Continues to Spread Rapidly to 164K Acres

Allstate, which stopped issuing new California homeowners insurance policies in 2022, is seeking an increase in its California homeowners insurance premiums by an average of 34%. It would be the largest rate increase this year and would impact more than 350,000 policyholders.

Those are two among several carriers that have pulled back writing homeowners in California.

This has driven buyers into the states FAIR Plan, a limited and expensive last resort. Brokers are also taking clients to the surplus lines market, where more buyers are now getting coverage. With the year only half over, homeowners insurance transactions in Californias surplus lines are up 70% for 2024, doubling the total 10 years ago. That follows a massive increase in homeowners surplus lines transactions last year.

Modernizing the FAIR Plan is a crucial step in our strategy to stabilize Californias insurance market, Lara said in a statement. Its critical for Californians to understand that a growing FAIR Plan contributes to our insurance crisis. By strengthening the FAIR Plan while providing financial stability and solvency protections, we are creating long-term security for consumers, homeowners, and businesses across the state that is long overdue.

Related: California Homeowners Sue FAIR Plan Over Smoke Damage Coverage

Laras agreement with the FAIR Plan is targeted at homeowners and condo associations that need expanded coverage, as well as farms, builders, and businesses with multiple buildings in the same location.

Specifically, the FAIR Plan has agreed in a binding legal stipulation to issue a new plan of operation within 30 days that will implement Commissioner Laras plan to offer homeowners, consumers, and business owners:

Establishing a new high-value commercial coverage option with limits up to $20 million per building, along with past increases for residential policies.

Creating a sound financial formula to protect policyholders in extreme loss scenarios.

Requiring increased public reporting on FAIR Plan activity and customer service metrics.

The American Property Casualty Insurance Association called the action an important step toward restoring the FAIR Plans financial stability and ensuring consumers have access to the coverage they need.

While some details still need to be finalized, we appreciate the Departments commitment to implementing reforms that will bring balance back to the insurance market and increase access to coverage for all Californians, reads a statement from the APCIA.

Consumer Watchdog called Laras proposal a multi-billion dollar policyholder bailout of the insurance industry for its exposure to wildfire losses at the FAIR Plan.

He group states that as a result of the changes, all California property insurance policyholders would be required to pay with an added surcharge on their insurance bills.

Its outrageous and outside the law for the insurance commissioner to force consumers to bail out home insurance companies and then call that consumer protection, Carmen Balber executive director of Consumer Watchdog, said in a statement. If the FAIR Plan gets into trouble it will be because insurance companies dumped too many Californians onto its books. Those companies should be on the hook for the fallout, not every homeowner in the state.

Topics California
British Columbia - July 25, 2024 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Following significant freeze events and subsequent grape losses, vintners across British Columbia are welcoming the news of temporary government support to allow wines to be made with grapes and juice from outside the province for the 2024 vintage.



"The challenges facing the BC wine industry today are unlike anything we have experienced in the past and require unique solutions to maintain the viability of not just the wine industry, but also tourism, hospitality, and accommodation sectors that are so critical to our economy," says Miles Prodan, President & CEO, Wine Growers British Columbia. "We'd like to thank Premier Eby, Minister Farnworth and his cabinet colleagues, as well as our local MLA's Roly Russell and Harwinder Sandhu for their commitment to the BC wine industry. This announcement, along with the replant funding announced in March of 2024, gives BC wine growers the options needed to plan for the future and ensures that this critical industry will continue for years to come."



For winemakers and consumers alike, wine quality and truth in labelling are of utmost importance regardless of where the grapes or juice is coming from. For more than 30 years, BC VQA has been a symbol of quality, and that will not change, as wines made using non-BC grapes or juice will not be labelled or marketed as BC products.



Since the freeze events, Wine Growers BC have been passionate advocates for temporary support measures that allow wineries to get through this critical time, maintain jobs in the community, and support local industries, including tourism and hospitality.



"When you travel to any one of BC's nine wine regions, it's easy to see why wine tourism is such a significant driver in our province," says Kimberley Barnes, Marketing Director, Wine Growers British Columbia. "From the exceptional people behind the wines and the spectacular scenery surrounding the wineries, to the array of unique and diverse events and experiences offered across the province, there's something for everyone to enjoy. While this year's vintage may look a little bit different, consumers can trust that, whether they are enjoying a 100% BC wine or a non-BC wine made by a BC winery, it will be expertly crafted and will tell the story of the people and place behind the wine."



QUICK FACTS

The BC wine industry generates approximately $3.75 billion annually, contributes over $440 million in federal and provincial tax revenues, and employs 14,000-plus full-time workers.

BC wine tourism draws an annual estimated 1 million tourists with $452 million in tourism-related revenue and $147 million in wages across 2,615 tourism-related jobs.

For every bottle of BC wine sold, $105 is contributed to the regional and national economy.

For more information about Wine Growers British Columbia, visit the Media page at WineBC.com and be sure to follow our industry LinkedIn and Twitter for the latest media updates.



Media images available

ABOUT WINE GROWERS BRITISH COLUMBIA



Since 1990, WGBC has played a pivotal role in taking BC's wine industry from a vision to an internationally recognized niche region producing premium wines and providing exceptional wine tourism experiences. WGBC markets the wine and regions of BC; delivers quality trade, media and consumer tastings; and acts as the voice of BC's wine industry by advocating to government on behalf of industry that contributes $3.75 billion in provincial economic growth annually.



WGBC represents all wineries in British Columbia to grow the premium market share for the Wines of British Columbia, while driving awareness of our world-class wines and tourism product - as of 2019 drawing 1,191,500 visitors with $783.7million in tourism and tourism employment related economic impact on an annual basis.



For more information about Wine Growers BC programs and services, please visit WineBC.com.

For details on the Wines of British Columbia, go to WineBC.com.

More Info:

Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions.

More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/

Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp

Get Great Trading Ideas and News Alerts
Newly unemployed workers can look forward to an enhanced social welfare safety net once a new pay-related contributory jobseekers benefit begins to roll out later this year.

Owen Reidy, general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), welcomed the recent vote by the Houses of the Oireachtas in favour of the new pay-related social welfare payment for recently unemployed workers, newly signed into law by President Michael D Higgins and due to be rolled out from October.

Under the new Pay-Related Jobseekers Benefit, workers with a strong attachment to the labour market and a long record of paying PRSI contributions will receive 60% of their previous gross weekly wage up to a maximum 450 a week, almost double the current rate.

This will reduce to 55% capped at 375 a week for months 4, 5 and 6; and to 50% capped at 300 for months 7, 8 and 9. If the worker is still unemployed after nine months they can transfer over to the means-tested payment for the long-term unemployed, Jobseekers Assistance (232).

An unemployed worker who has worked and paid PRSI for between two and five years will receive 50% of their previous gross weekly wage up to a maximum of 300 for the first six months of unemployment.

If the worker is still unemployed after six months they can transfer over to the means-tested payment for the long-term unemployed, Jobseekers Assistance (232).

Owen Reidy said: This is a very important start. We have been campaigning for this for some time, with the support of Siptu and Unite. In a land with 2.7 million people at work, a nation effectively at full employment, were really talking about a very small number of people who will avail of this support.

We must acknowledge Government for taking this progressive step. The financial fallout for families and the local economy was brought into sharp focus this time last year when the 650-strong workforce in Tara Mines were laid off.

When someone on, say, 40,000 or 50,000 is suddenly laid off, their mortgage and other bills dont stop. They have an immediate need for this benefit. This support is taken for granted by people in mainland Europe. For us, this is a welcome step in the right direction for Ireland.

Ireland is one of only four EU27 member states, along with Greece, Malta and Poland, to pay the same flat-rate payment to unemployed workers (232 a week), despite workers paying pay-related social insurance (PRSI) contributions when in employment.

ICTU members see the new benefit as the beginning of a shift toward a more European-style social insurance system. They also want pay-related family leave to be included in the next Programme for Government.

The 60% that newly unemployed PRSI-contributing workers in Ireland will soon be able to access will still compare poorly with pay-related unemployment benefits in Belgium, replacing 91% of a workers previous wage, with the 79% available in Denmark and 69% in the Netherlands.

Nonetheless, Owen Reidy said that ICTU members welcome the progress as a welcome advance for PRSI-contributing workers in Ireland.

Across the rest of the EU, contributory social welfare benefits are pay-related  the weekly payment is a percentage of a workers previous wage  to allow workers continue to pay their mortgage and other bills so as to secure their normal living standards in the short-term while looking for a new job.

In Ireland, the average time people spend on contributory Jobseekers Benefit is 13 weeks, with 70% of workers in a new job within six months of signing on.

When we began this campaign, some said the measure would encourage some people to stay off work longer term, said Mr Reidy. The truth is that people want to get back to work quickly  for financial reasons, but also for their wellbeing. That became very clear during Covid.

This is also an important measure in terms of making Ireland an attractive place to work when companies are trying to recruit skilled people into the country.

Meanwhile, the Government intends for this new payment and keeping the qualifying age for the State pension at 66 to be cost neutral, with all costs being recouped via a 0.7% increase in employee, employer and self-employed PRSI contribution rates phased in over five years.

The newly passed legislation will see a worker on the average wage pay .90c more a week in PRSI when the first 0.1% of the new payment increase kicks in from October 1st.

Owen Reidy said: Unions recognise that social spending must be sustainable. However, the estimated 62 million yield from the 0.1% increase in PRSI contributions this year will be all but wiped out by the decision to simultaneously increase the cut-off point at which employers must pay a full PRSI contribution on behalf of their employees.

Government must publish the options paper on which they based their decision on the application of the lower rate of employer PRSI contribution. The lack of transparency risks doing untold damage to support for their PRSI roadmap to a sustainable social welfare system.
Low-cost airline Ryanair has called on Transport Minister Eamon Ryan to raise the passenger eligibility criteria for funding under the Regional Airports Programme, saying the current limits mean there is no incentive for regional airports to grow.

The Regional Airports Programme 2021-2025 was established to provide support to the countrys smallest airports, which handle fewer than one million passengers a year. Ryanair is calling for the cap to be increased to two million passengers.
Deep in holiday season and finally the weather has warmed up a little - time to talk about some of my favourite white wines.

Inevitably I have turned to Spain, champions of Europe in football but also frequently beating their European neighbours in wine bargains. We already drink a huge amount of Spanish red wine of course but dont neglect the whites.

Albarino needs little introduction to Irish wine folk given its popularity, but I have a new one recommended below that has not appeared here before.

Meanwhile OBriens have Veiga Naum Albarino for 15 (down from 20), SuperValu have the Albellio Albarino reduced to 14 from 17 and Dunnes Stores have the Laurent Miquel Albarino for 11 (its French but dont let that stop you!).

What I love about Spanish whites is they often provide texture as well as crispness and drinkability.

With that in mind I am suggesting an Albet i Noya Xarel-lo from Penedes in Catalonia, a grape I have championed before but which is still relatively rare enough on Irish shelves.

I visited Albet i Noya earlier in the year and was impressed with their efforts to restore old walled vineyards and generally reduce their carbon footprint.

Other grapes you should explore from Spain included the much maligned Viura from Rioja, oak aged versions of which can be quite sublime.

Verdejo with its bay leaf and lime flavours also needs a look in and of course look to Godello from Bierzo and Galician regions such as Ribeira Sacra and Valdeorras.

Galicia is also home to Caino Branco which is worth trying if you find it, and of course Treixadura which deserves more traction.

Adeus below is one of those wines that you will buy again and again once tasted. Viva Espana.

Albet i Noya Curios Organic, Penedes, Spain 16.00

Albet i Noya Curios Organic, Penedes, Spain 16.00

Stockists: Organico; JJ ODriscolls; Connemara Hampers; Fields; Little Greengrocer; Vintry; Marypawlewines.com

I love Xarel-lo based wines, one of the worlds more underrated white grape varieties and the backbone of the best Cava. This 100% Xarel-lo and has soft pear aromas with a touch thyme and rosemary- creamy peach and pear fruits but with a zingy taut finish. Also watch for El Fanio Xarel-lo (22).

Bodegas Campante Adeus Treixadura, Ribeiro, Spain 19.95

Bodegas Campante Adeus Treixadura, Ribeiro, Spain 19.95

Stockists: Vintry; Redmonds; Deveneys.ie; Jus de Vine; Pinto Wines; Higgins; Malthouse Trim; Independents

From small independent importer James Rodgers who also brings in Pesquera. Treixadura is virtually unknown outside Ribeiro and Northern Portugal and deserves to be better known. Floral and almost lush on the nose, peaches and sweet pears being particularly noticeable. Creamy and ripe with lemon and dried lime acidity and pleasing textures.

Altos de Torona Albarino, Rias Baixas, Spain 23.95

Altos de Torona Albarino, Rias Baixas, Spain 23.95

Fitzgeralds Butchers Fermoy; Blackrock Cellar; D-6; Drinkstore.ie; Deveneys.ie

I have featured this producers Godello before but not their Albarino. This gets six months on the lees (spent yeast) for extra texture and this comes through on the palate. Ripe apricot and peach aromas with a streak of lime, textured and weighty with an oily richness balanced by a saline crisp finish.

WHISKEY BUSINESS

Teelings Wonder of Wood No. 3, Swedish Virgin Oak, 50% ABV, 80.00

Teelings Wonder of Wood No. 3, Swedish Virgin Oak, 50% ABV, 80.00

OBriens; Celtic Whiskey Shop; McHughs; Jamesfox.ie

This is the third wonders of wood edition exploring the impact of unusual woods on Dublin distilled Pot Still Whiskey. A previous edition won a Worlds Best Pot Still award. Swedish oak is a rare white oak, denser and more robust which gives sweet treacle notes.

Bottled at 50% this has a distinct lemon-caramel and malt aroma, sweet toffee and spice on the palate with nuts and treacle coming through, and a pepper and nutmeg note on the finish. Delicious.
Notes from Sheepland (12A) is a documentary that follows Irish artist Orla Barry as she explores how her twin obsessions  shes also an award-winning sheep farmer  inform one another, and whether the increasingly difficult business of farming is allowing her to fulfil her artistic vocation.

Adapted from Barrys collection Shaved Rapunzel, Scheherazade & the Shearing Ram from Arcady, Cara Holmes film isnt afraid to get its wellies dirty: much of the documentary is spent in the fields and yards of Barrys farm as she provides, via voiceover, notes from the more primal aspects of life.

Those observations can sound a touch contrived and even pretentious at times, and especially when theyre contrasted with Barrys chthonic connection to the land and the flock she so lovingly rears against the odds.

Indeed, the film, and Barrys work, is at its best when she investigates the impossible dilemma of creating creatures to fit packaging, which offers a fascinating glimpse into how the demands of late-capitalism impact on the creatives and farmers who are working at the coal-face for ever-dwindling returns. (theatrical release)
Good news, fellow Ozians: the witches of Oz have flown into Dublin and it is a theatre experience parallel to the West End.

This is not the first time the Wicked tour has been in Ireland but the latest run is still worth seeing over the next seven weeks.

Wicked follows the witches of Oz, Glinda and Elphaba, and details their unlikely friendship from their schooldays up until the events of the Wizard of Oz.

Elphaba is played by Laura Pick, who previously played the role in Londons West End and is an endearing Elphaba, delivering jokes and teenage awkwardness as well as auditorium-rattling renditions of some of the shows iconic songs, including The Wizard and I, No Good Deed, and Defying Gravity. She makes the green girl seem more relatable and sympathetic to the audience and her rousing belters are among the memorable moments.

Baz Ashmawy and his mother Nancy at the opening night of Wicked. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Alongside her is Dublin native Sarah OConnor as Glinda, in the first act presenting as a frilly and frothy schoolgirl obsessed with boys, getting her own way, and all things pink think Elle Woods pre-law school in Legally Blonde.

Her Popular and What Is This Feeling are fun and bring more than a few giggles from the audience. In act two, however, she proves her range with Thank Goodness and For Good showing her vocal and acting capabilities, adding a compelling depth to the character as she matures and learns just how corrupt her world and her role in it truly are.

Arthur Gourounlian with his mother Maria at the opening night of Wicked. Picture: Brian McEvoy

The show is spectacular, from the costumes to the beloved score, but after over two decades since its premiere on Broadway thats not news to the musical's fans. What is impressive is its ability to feel fresh and current in the modern day and that feat is down to its cast.

OConnor is the standout star of this production and her homecoming was warm and rapturous, with cheers at her first appearance on stage and a standing ovation at the shows conclusion. Local theatre stars were out in force too to support OConnor, with Les Miserables and Phantom alum Killian Donnelly and Matilda star Alicia Weir among the crowd, as well as other Irish celebrities like Arthur Gourounlian, Sonya Lennon, Julian Benson, Karen Koster and Baz Ashmawy.

And with the Wicked movie coming later this year, theres no better time for a stroll down memory lane  or the Yellow Brick Road.

Julian Benson and Derville Meade at the opening night of Wicked at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, Dublin. Picture: Brian McEvoy

Wicked runs at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre until September 14. See bordgaisenergytheatre.ie for tickets
Plastic is everywhere: from flotillas of toy ducks on the ocean to micro-plastics in anything from blood to breast milk, from instant rice to breaded shrimp.

But earlier this year, two studies indicated something more insidious.

In May, in the journal Toxicological Sciences, a report showed the presence of microplastics in all 23 human testes that were analysed, suggesting it may have a role in the decades-long decline in sperm counts around the world.

In June, in another study, microplastics were detected in all 40 semen samples from men undergoing premarital-health assessments in Jinan, China.

The suspected link between microplastics and declining sperm quality may be real, but beyond doubt there is an issue with male fertility.

According to International journal BMC Public Health, 56m men were infertile up to 2019  a growth of 76.9% compared to 1990. The issue was particularly pronounced in certain regions, such as Western Sub- Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and East Asia, and the 3034 years age group had the highest prevalence.

According to the World Health Organization, male infertility may be caused by obstruction of the reproductive tract, resulting in dysfunctionalities in the ejection of semen, due to injury or infection of the genital tract, alongside hormonal disorders and testicular failure to produce sperm, for example due to varicoceles or medical treatments that impair sperm-producing cells, such as chemotherapy. Likewise, the use of anabolic steroids could result in abnormal sperm function and quality.

The factors

Graham Coull, scientific director of Sims IVF in Ireland, says that factors include sedentary jobs and long trousers, the commonality being heat.

Testicles are designed to exist at 35C, lower than the rest of the body. An increase in testicular temperature affects sperm production, so professions where heat is a factor  such as working in kitchens or bakeries  can have an adverse impact on sperm quality. Lifestyle can also be a significant reason for poor sperm quality or quantity.

Coull says: The biggest thing is smoking, and there is more and more evidence that shows vaping is just as bad. Moderate alcohol intake can actually benefit sperm quality, but excessive alcohol intake is damaging, while cyclists are likely to have sperm problems because of all those hours in the saddle.

It says much about the wonders and mysteries of procreation that even a fertility expert such as Dr Coull sometimes turns to phrases such as the way the wind blows and the phases of the moon.

Sims IVF has three fertility clinics, which deal with around one-third of all infertility cases in Ireland.

Coull acknowledges the many successful cases, but there is no sugarcoating the difficulties faced by couples struggling to conceive.

Coull cites an old study that repeatedly trying and failing to conceive has similar stress levels to stage-4 cancer. And for men, still more buttoned up when it comes to discussing these things, it can cause misplaced guilt.

Males, we tend to keep things to ourselves, Coull says. Females will generally have one good friend they can talk to about it [infertility issues]. Males generally only speak to their partner.

Rather than angst between couples, though it can cause that, I would say the biggest feeling is guilt  is it my fault? The guilt becomes massive for him  wrongly. Its a tough journey. Birth rates globally are declining and, according to Coull, one likely factor is the later age at which couples try to have their first child. Some 50 years ago, a first baby might arrive in the parents early 20s or even in the late teens, whereas now it is likely to be at 33.

This is a function of economics, he says  couples want to be financially secure, ideally not renting any more and living in their own home, with a career in progress.

All that takes time, and time is the issue: the later that fertility problems emerge, the shorter the time window to address them. The average age of people attending SIMS is 37 to 38, with 30% of cases related to problems with the woman, 30% relating to problems with the man, another 30% relating to issues with both, and the final 10% totally unknown... everything looks fine and we dont know why, Coull says. This element of chance, the unknown variable they cant pinpoint or control, Coull says could have been the way the wind blows or the phases of the moon.

Eoghan Cunnane - Lecturer in Biomedical Engineering. Picture: Sean Curtin True Media.

Irish researchers are working on possible solutions.

Dr Eoghan Cunnane is a lecturer in biomedical engineering and is principal investigator on an ERC starting grant at the University of Limerick, and is leading the way in terms of Irish reproductive biology research. The ERC grant is targeted at developing representative, reliable, and reproducible in-vitro models of the human testes, to develop male infertility treatments.

Cunnane is looking at how the cells and tissues of the testicles interact, and how to accurately represent those interactions outside of the body in a pre-clinical model that could then be used to help develop treatments for male infertility prior to clinical trials.

We are seeking to develop a platform that can be used to investigate the causes of male infertility, and also to assist in the development of treatments for currently untreatable forms of male infertility, Cunnane says.

In order for such a platform to work effectively, it must accurately replicate the key functions of the human testes, which are to produce hormones and also to produce mature sperm. This has been a persistent research hurdle for many years in the field of male reproductive health.

We are seeking to overcome this hurdle by extensively characterising the properties of testicular tissue harvested from men who exhibit a wide range of testicular pathologies. We then utilise this information to inform the development of the platform which utilises testicular cell and tissue components. Our hope is that the platform can utilise high-throughput fabrication and automated analysis in order to produce scientific data that is reliable and reproducible, as well as being representative of human physiology.

Dealing with stigma

Cunnane believes male infertility has been a little bit neglected and that addressing it is vital; particularly given the complexities of the male reproductive organs, the unknown as to why some people experience fertility issues.

And then there is the stigma.

Around 6,000 couples engage with fertility support services every year in Ireland, and the National Infertility Support and Information Group (NISIG) has a range of services, including a helpline, workshops, live web chat, support meetings, resources, and information for parents and intending parents, as well as undertaking advocacy on behalf of couples experiencing fertility issues.

According to its spokesperson, Caitriona Fitzpatrick: The vast majority of people who engage with our services are women; mostly, men will attend our support meetings with a female partner and may or may not disclose their fertility issue. Fitzpatrick said stigma is a significant issue when it comes to fertility, referring to a survey conducted by SIMs IVF earlier this year, which found that more than one in three adults (34%) had experienced stigma or judgment in relation to their fertility, either directly or through a friend or family member.

At the time, Karen Ferguson, director of nursing and clinical services at Sims IVF, said that stigma was a hidden burden for people undergoing fertility issues, whether through humour or sarcasm or unsolicited advice.

Or, as Coull puts it, the unwanted words are seldom malicious, but are generally unhelpful, such as references to when are we going to hear the pitter patter of tiny feet? For both Cunnane and Coull, education is key, ideally making people, particularly young men, aware that testing could be available while they are in their 20s, even if it might not be top of their agenda at that age. Again, its with one eye on the clock: just as women would be encouraged to freeze their eggs, men could get ahead of any possible future issue.

According to Fitzpatrick: The publicly funded IVF which was announced [by government] last September has been a welcome progression in the provision of services in Ireland, but this is a first phase and we look forward to seeing the criteria expanded and a much broader provision of services through the public health system, now that the AHR [assisted human reproduction] legislation has been passed. For Coull, this policy advance is likely to mean more people, previously priced out of seeking IVF assistance, looking for advice and support, all the way up to the highly technical processes that might, some day, result in the birth of a baby  so worried over, so longed for.

As for those treatments, they are wide and varied: for example, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, or ICSI, which is very similar to conventional IVF, in that gametes (eggs and sperm) are collected from each partner.

This is used when the sperm count is very low, or the sperm cannot move properly, or the sperm are in other ways abnormal and when sperm has been retrieved surgically from the epididymis or the testes. Other male-orientated treatments include TESE, a surgical sperm- retrieval procedure used in fertility treatment for men who have no sperm in their ejaculate, and IMSI, or intracytoplasmic morphologically selected sperm injection, a variation of ICSI that uses a higher-powered microscope to select sperm.

As Coull points out, fertility treatment is a peculiar form of medicine, one where people repeatedly return with no positive result  until just maybe there is one.

He recalls one couple, where the issue was with the male, who underwent so many treatments involving the freezing of embryos that the clinic told them they didnt want to take any more of their money: They begged us to do one more cycle and it was chalk and cheese compared to the previous ones. There was a beautiful embryo and they ended up with twins.

It is this case that prompted him to muse on the unknown element of infertility  it could have been the way the wind blows or the phases of the moon, but for when it all works out, he has the perfect phrase: The successful couples disappear into the sunset.
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has urged gardai to withdraw requests to media to provide images of recent public disorder in Dublin, warning it could have potentially dangerous consequences for journalists.

Media outlets have in recent days received requests from An Garda Siochana to provide images it had taken of the unrest last week in Coolock. Similar requests were made of journalists in the wake of the Dublin riots last November.

Furthermore, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has been publicly challenged about the requests from gardai for such images. NUJ general secretary Seamus Dooley said that his organisation would be seeking a meeting with Mr Harris to discuss the matter.

Reporters and photographers are independent witnesses, they are present to observe and report on the actions of all parties, including the gardai, he said.

There is a real danger that if journalists are perceived as harvesting information for the gardai, they will be perceived as legitimate targets by the sinister forces behind recent public order incidents.

Mr Dooley said the NUJ had worked with gardai to develop best practice guidelines for journalists in high-risk situations and, against this backdrop, it is both worrying and disappointing the gardai seemed intent on ignoring the risks involved.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said: 'I have a lawful and legal and legislative responsibility to do all I can to gain evidence.' Photo: Brian Lawless/PA

It is vital that journalists are allowed to record and report such incidents, he added. It would be ironic if the actions of the gardai were to undermine the ability of media organisations to carry out this function."

Eamonn Farrell, the editor of Rollingnews.ie which supplies photographs to media outlets, said he also received a request to hand over images from events in Coolock.

As you may be aware, over the last few months journalists have been intimidated, threatened, harassed, verbally abused and had their vehicles and registration numbers photographed by supporters of anti-migrant groups, he said.

The request you are making will, if acceded to, only inflame matters further and put the safety of visual journalists in further peril.

I find it odd that gardai are complaining of the level of danger their own members are in, and yet are prepared to put journalists' safety at risk by requesting that they become the eyes and ears of the State.

"For the reasons above, I cannot accede to your request and I would hope in understanding why, you will not pursue the matter."

The PA news agency was one of a number of outlets which was compelled to hand over pictures taken of the Dublin city centre disorder on November 23, 2023, after investigating gardai secured an order from a Dublin District Court judge.

PA's editor-in-chief, Pete Clifton, voiced strong objections and warned of the safety implications for members of the media covering such incidents if a perception is created that content they are capturing will subsequently be used as evidence in criminal justice proceedings.

Following a meeting of the Policing Authority on Thursday, Mr Harris said his obligation was to thoroughly investigate actions which are criminal in nature. I have a lawful and legal and legislative responsibility to do all I can to gain evidence."

Mr Harris said gardai would pursue the images by seeking permission or by gaining a court warrant.

Challenged that this could lead to media organisations not covering public order situations, Mr Harris responded: "It is my responsibility to investigate and to bring offenders to justice and that is through obtaining whatever evidence I can."
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has expressed surprise over social media company Xs decision to use user posts to train an AI chatbot.

Users of X, formerly Twitter, expressed outrage after discovering that the company had enabled a system where their posts could be used to train its Grok AI chatbot.

Grok, which is available to X Premium customers, is billed as a humorous enhanced search feature powered by a state-of-the-art large language model that was initially trained on publicly available sources.

The company now wants to use user interactions and posts to improve the service.

X users are opted in to the new system by default but can choose to opt out in settings on the web-based app.

When enabled, the setting allows posts on the site as well as interactions with the chatbot to be used for training, while the data may also be shared with the xAI partner company.

X has it European headquarters in Dublin, making the DPC its lead regulator in Europe.

In a statement, a spokesman said: The DPC has been engaging with X on this matter for a number of months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday, therefore we are surprised by todays developments.

We have followed up with X today and are awaiting a response.

We expect further engagement early next week.
A 65-year-old man walked naked along the Old Mallow Road in the middle of the afternoon carrying a machete and walking his dog.

That was the scenario described by Sergeant Aisling Murphy at Cork District Court.

When the allegations were outlined, Judge Mary Dorgan said she would accept jurisdiction to deal with the case at district court level.

Defence solicitor Joseph Cuddigan said the only charge against Eric Fitzgerald, of Shaws Bridge, Rathpeacon, Cork, was one of possession of a knife and this kind of charge could only be dealt with at the district court.

Sgt Murphy said: Gardai received report of a man walking naked on Old Mallow Road at 4.15pm on April 9 in possession of a machete, walking his dog.

Gardai attended the scene and the male, Eric Fitzgerald, was in possession of a boning knife with a blade approximately 30cm in length.

Eric Fitzgerald was spoken to by Garda David ODonoghue, who remained in the patrol vehicle while awaiting assistance from the armed support unit.

He continued brandishing the knife while continuing to walk along the footpath on the Old Mallow Road in the direction of the railway bridge and then entered his address.

He came out again a number of minutes later, clothed. With the assistance of the armed support unit, Garda John Kerins arrested Eric Fitzgerald for an offence contrary to the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act.

Judge Dorgan adjourned the case until October 2 to allow time for prosecution statements to be sent to Mr Cuddigan.
The south Galway farmer accused of throwing a bag of cow dung in the direction of Minister of State Anne Rabbitte has told a court the case against him is completely media hype pushed by higher powers over a smallish thing.

At Ennis District Court on Friday, Joseph Baldwin, 39, of Ballyaneen, Gort, was making his second court appearance in relation to the alleged assault after speaking before Gort District Court on Thursday.

Mr Baldwin is charged with assaulting Anne Rabbitte on January 4, 2023, at a public meeting at OSullivan's Royal Hotel, Gort.

In court on Friday, Mr Baldwin told Judge Alec Gabbett: This is hanging over me. I have no job. I cant get employment over it.

I have been tarnished by the media. Every time it comes up in court it is man assaulted this person and assaulted that person.

In reply, Judge Gabbett said: They are all allegations and have to be proven in court in order for you to be convicted.

Mr Baldwin agreed, saying they are allegations.

He said: I have worked for the last seven years constant. I finished up a job last February and I cant get a job because of this.

Do you realise the cost? I have 230 per week. I have a family and I am living at home and I am looking after my mother.

I have been speaking with a local councillor in the area who would be a good friend with Anne Rabbitte.

Judge Gabbett interjected to say: Dont say anything about the case that might prejudice."

In reply, Mr Baldwin said the councillor is prepared to go to court and be a character witness for me.

Regarding the case, Mr Baldwin said: It is completely media hype pushed by higher powers over a smallish thing.

He asked: How come half of all this stuff is not all over the media?

In reply, Judge Gabbett said: I dont control the media. The public is allowed into courts to see justice being administered and it ensures that there is adequate scrutiny on the justice system.

Unfortunately, it doesnt suit you and you may not like it but it is a very important part of the system.

You are arguing that media publicity is causing you damage and the best way to deal with that is to be ready for September 13 for the hearing date.

Mr Baldwin said: This is being dragged out and dragged out.

Judge Gabbett adjourned the case to September 13 for hearing.

At the contested case, Galway East TD Anne Rabbitte will be required to provide her sworn eye witness account of what occurred on the night as part of the State case against Mr Baldwin.

Ms Rabbitte was attending the meeting to hear locals concerns over a planned biogas plant for Gort.

Mr Baldwin is also contesting a second charge where he is accused of using or engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting word or behaviour with intent to provoke a breach of the peace of being reckless as to whether a breach of the peace might have been occasioned.
St Patrick's Street will reopen to normal two-way traffic after Cork City Council made "significant progress" on a restoration scheme for pavements in the city centre.

Since July 1, construction crews have been carrying out restoration works on the natural stone slabs on pavements at key locations such as pedestrian crossings on the main street in the city.
A school has begun converting its old gym into a new 400-seat theatre for West Cork in memory of a past pupil, benefactor and business leader, following a generous donation from the firm for whom he was working when he died.

The principal of Kinsale Community College in Cork, Fergal McCarthy, said he hopes the new 400-seat venue will be a fitting legacy to the late Shane Fitzsimons, global insurance firm AIGs former chief financial officer, who grew up and went to school in the town but who died from cancer in the US last year.

Shane Fitzsimons (left), VP of GE and Fergal McCarthy, Principal of Kinsale Community School, at the opening of Fitzsimons Park in 2017. Mr Fitzsimons died last October in the US of brain cancer. Picture: Jim Coughlan.

It is hoped the project will also benefit from public funding either through Cork County Council or the Government.

Mr McCarthy invited local politicians and representatives of various local businesses to visit the school where the work is already underway to discuss its potential benefits to the town and wider region.

We initially planned this theatre in January 2020, but the covid pandemic delayed our efforts. Thanks to AIG and the Fitzsimons family this dream is now a reality, Mr McCarthy said.

Fergal McCarthy (blue suit), the principal Kinsale community college with various representatives from the local community in the hall which will converted into a 400-seat theatre. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

As well as hosting live school and community shows, the new venue will also allow the school to offer the new Leaving Certificate programme in Film and Drama to its students.

Born in Belfast in 1967, Mr Fitzsimons' family moved to Kinsale where he grew up and attended secondary school in the 1980s, before studying at Rockwell College in Tipperary.

He began his career in the early 1990s as a trainee accountant with his father Garry, in his accountancy practice in Kinsale, Fitzsimons Flynn & Co, before he landed a role with General Electric (GE) where he held leadership positions in several GE businesses across the world over the next two decades.

(Left to right) Anne and Garry Fitzsimons with Shane Fitzsimons and Fergal McCarthy at the opening of Fitzsimons Park in 2017. Picture: Jim Coughlan

He joined AIG in 2019 and was appointed CFO in 2021.

Despite his high-flying finance role, he never forgot his roots, and visited Kinsale regularly, including in 2017 when he donated 50,000 to the community school to fund the development of a floodlit running track around its all-weather pitch. The track has been used in recent months by Olympians training for the Paris games.

Tragically, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of brain cancer. He died last October in the US where he lived with his wife, Deirdre, and their children, Keelin, Eoin, Conor, and Ciaran. He was just 55.

AIG chairman and chief executive officer, Peter Zaffino, described him as a highly respected member of the global business community who had left a legacy of extraordinary leadership, resolute commitment, and a passion for striving towards excellence in everything that he did.

As well as hosting live school and community shows, the new venue will also allow the school to offer the new Leaving Certificate programme in Film and Drama to its students.

Shane operated with the highest integrity, brought remarkable energy, a tireless work ethic and a never-give-up attitude that was contagious and inspired teams around the world, he said.

A few months later, the company contacted Deirdre to discuss with her a project that might honour her husbands legacy, and she suggested developing a theatre in Kinsale  something Shanes late father had championed.

Fergal McCarthy (blue suit), the principal Kinsale community college with various representatives from the local community in the hall which will converted into a 400-seat theatre. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

Contact was made with Mr McCarthy, and arrangements were made for AIG to make a substantial six-figure donation to fund the construction of The Shane Fitzsimons Riverside Theatre.

Recently, Deirdre, her children, and Mr Fitzsimons' siblings, Paula, David and Barry, and his mother, Anne, met with Mr McCarthy to discuss its design, and they expressed their delight that his memory will live on in Kinsale through the development.
An investigation has been launched following a discharge from a wastewater treatment plant in West Cork into the river Bandon.

But Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), the States environment agency responsible for protecting, managing and conserving the countrys rivers, said there is no evidence at this time that a fish kill occurred arising out of the incident near Dunmanway.

The discharge from the Dunmanway treatment plant was spotted on July 17, with black sludgy material seen entering the river from a pipe linked to the plant. The plant is located upstream of qualifying species within the Bandon River Special Area of Conservation.

The discharge incident was reported to IFI the following day. In a statement, IFI said water samples were taken and sent for laboratory analysis.

Discharges of deleterious or polluting matter or liquid to waterways is an offence under the Fisheries and Local Water Pollution Acts and IFI investigates all such discharges, a spokesman said. IFI awaits analysis of the water samples, and the matter will be considered from there.

Uisce Eireann said it investigated the incident and has established that it was related to airflow to the plant's process units and remedial works are now underway.

"Uisce Eireann is engaging with Inland Fisheries Ireland and the Environmental Protection Agency in relation to this and we will provide further updates as they become available," it said.

The Dunmanway plant, which was built a decade ago, already has limited capacity and is listed by Uisce Eireann as an amber capacity facility  the next level beneath red, or no additional capacity.

Its lack of capacity is hampering growth and development in the town, with the County Development Plan 2022-2028 stating that new developments requiring a connection to the plant will not be permitted until infrastructural upgrades are in place.

River Allow

Meanwhile, IFI said it is awaiting the laboratory analysis report from samples it took from the River Allow in north Cork in June following a major fish kill on a pivotal Munster fishery.

Thousands of fish and eels were wiped out along a 4km stretch of the Allow, in north Cork, an important tributary of the Blackwater following a suspected chemical spill from an Uisce Eireann waste water treatment plant.

At least 5,000 fish, including salmon, trout, and lamprey were killed. The Allow also supports a population of the endangered and protected freshwater pearl mussel.

The pollution incident occurred in the Freemount catchment, north of Kanturk, in a Special Area of Conservation, in a noted spawning habitat for fish, and where millions in EU funding has been spent to try to restore water quality.

IFI said once it receives the lab results from those Allow samples, it will advance the matter further.
Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Kenya and Ethiopia, two countries with a critical role to play in the future of Africa. My visit allowed me to reinforce the strong relations Ireland has with both countries, going back decades.

Kenya and Ethiopia have young, dynamic populations. They are both enjoying strong economic growth of over 5% per year. Kenya is already a middle-income country, and Ethiopia hopes to be one by 2030.

We are growing our trade with both countries, as part of the near 8bn worth of trade annually between Ireland and Africa. I visited businesses and spoke with Irish entrepreneurs who are engaged with African partners in everything from energy production using biomass to electric tractors.

Of course, thats not the whole story. Both Kenya and Ethiopia suffer from very uneven development, and humanitarian need remains acute in many regions including, tragically, child malnutrition.

That, of course, is why Ireland has an extensive humanitarian and development programme across the Horn of Africa, with Ethiopia the single biggest recipient of bilateral assistance from Ireland. I was particularly proud to launch Irelands three-year initiative to combat child wasting in the Horn of Africa during my visit to Kenya.

Working out ways to promote economic and social development was one of the key themes I discussed with President Ruto in Kenya, Prime Minister Abiy in Ethiopia, and others during my visit. I made clear throughout my engagements that peace and security are pre-requisites for development.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia has unfortunately been severely affected by conflict in recent years. Indeed, ending the appalling conflict in Tigray  which resulted in deaths estimated at up to half a million people  was a principal focus of our recent term on the UN Security Council.

Thankfully that conflict has been ended with a peace agreement, and a ceasefire that is holding.

I was pleased to be able to discuss with the President of Tigray, Getachew Reda, some of the lessons of peacebuilding and reconciliation from Irelands experience.

Unfortunately, conflict elsewhere in Ethiopia is continuing to exact a terrible toll, often felt most acutely by women and girls.

In this context, I visited a safe house in Addis Ababa for victims of sexual violence, and pledged to increase Irish support for its essential work.

Kenya

Kenya in recent weeks has been roiled by large protests at increases in the cost of living and new taxes.

I discussed the situation with President Ruto and stressed the importance of dialogue with civil society in addressing these issues and concerns. He outlined to me the consultative process that he has embarked on in that respect.

Tanaiste Micheal Martin meets with Kenyas president, William Ruto, where they discussed the importance of dialogue in civil society. Picture: Phil Behan/Department of Foreign Affairs

Of course, good governance is central to unlocking the great potential of a youthful population.

I certainly saw many grounds for optimism about Kenyas future, in particular among the students I met who are participating in Young Scientist Kenya  supported by our Embassy in Nairobi  and their incredibly innovative projects and ideas.

Sudan

The challenges in the Horn of Africa region are perhaps most evident in Sudan. I discussed the situation there with a range of experts, including Dr Workneh Gebeyehu, Executive Secretary of the key regional body, IGAD.

The international community has been clear on the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access to bring an end to this catastrophe which has already displaced 12 million people, seen famine emerge, and witnessed large-scale attacks on civilians.

I hope the recent peace talks in Switzerland will mark a decisive step towards peace.

Somalia

I also discussed the situation in Somalia, where, despite progress, the security situation remains precarious.

The European Union is closely engaged in supporting Somalia economically and politically.

The Horn of Africa

Overall, my visit brought home to me the enormous challenges facing the Horn of Africa and the need for the international community to engage on this.

The region faces severe threats, including the impact of climate change, the ongoing effects of Russias invasion of Ukraine on food prices and food security, and a persistent threat of terrorism.

However, I also witnessed opportunity, the ambition of youth and a commitment to deepen relationships with Ireland.

I am convinced that we can leverage these opportunities to also address profound challenges in a lasting spirit of partnership.
Across society, from legal practitioners to journalists to academics, the calls for updated defamation legislation have been heard for years on end.

Now, with a general election looming, a new Defamation Bill, 15 years after the previous one was enacted, is about to be presented to the Oireachtas  though should that election be called in or around October, the chances of the Bill becoming legislation before the Government is dissolved would appear slim.

If it is not enacted, the legislation will fall with the Government. Will it be resurrected? Who can say?

The Bill hasnt actually been published yet, but from what we do know of it, parties across the board will likely be underwhelmed by different aspects of what they see.

As pitched by the Minister for Justice Helen McEntee, the highlights of the bill include:

* the abolition of juries in order to reduce the likelihood of disproportionate awards of damages;

* the introduction of measures to deter the taking of SLAPP defamation proceedings (ie, unwarranted actions designed to dampen scrutiny of the powerful);

* and reform of the fair and reasonable publication in the public interest defence dating from the 2009 Act  a defence which has never successfully been used at trial in Ireland  in order to make it clearer and simpler.

Measures to allow for damages to be awarded in SLAPP proceedings and to amend the public interest defence have not actually been included in the bill to be published, but will instead be added by amendment when the legislation is eventually debated in the Oireachtas, according to the Government.

The move to abolish juries, however, is definitely in the bill to be published  interesting in itself given the majority of advocates, including the Oireachtas Justice Committee, had recommended that juries be retained.

Neville Cox, professor of law at Trinity College Dublin describes that decision as retrograde and deeply disturbing.

He says:

Virtually everyone involved had told them that they shouldnt remove juries. Ireland has always resisted the prioritisation of case management over the access to justice and rights, and this is a rights issue given someones good name hangs on this legislation. Its really problematic.

From the point of view of Irish media, the lack of a serious harm test in the new legislation is a point of chagrin, given it was one of the two stated priorities for the industry during the legislations drafting.

Such a test is one which would see each case tested to evaluate just how much damage could have been done to a reputation before a trial is convened, the idea being to eliminate frivolous suits  although using such a test, as is the case in UK law, can itself lead to heightened costs as the test is litigated at the start of any proceedings.

Social media and AI

Perhaps most notably, the new bill has little to say on the topic of social media or artificial intelligence, areas of developing tech which have turned the media landscape upside down since the current Defamation Act was introduced in 2009.

The bills drafters say their hands were tied from that point of view, as the immunity of social media companies for the initial publication of defamatory content on their platforms is guaranteed under European law, while the actual regulation of those companies is now the responsibility of Coimisiun na Mean, an organisation with plenty of teeth of its own.

Prof. Cox, however, says that if the bill doesnt seek to deal effectively with social media defamation and how to deal with defamation generated by AI, then it is not looking to the future and seems strangely unimaginative.

His fellow TCD law professor Eoin ODell disagrees, however, arguing that the department has gone as far as it can go as its hands are tied by the European legislation.

I agree there is a gap in defamation law in terms of social media, but it is not up to the department to fill it, he said.
In our busy lives we instinctively know that taking a break is good for us, helping to boost our productivity, energy, and ability to focus.

If its a break with a little treat involved, all the better.

That was part of the genius behind Nestle's famous KitKat advertising campaign, Have a break, have a KitKat, which helped make the four-fingered chocolate bar become synonymous with a well-earned chance to rest up.

Its become part of our language.

But if breaks are good, why shouldnt they aim to drive greater good too?

Its a question that the chocolate manufacturer has long been working on, to take the concept of breaks doing good to a new level.

One pillar of the programme is diversified income, empowering women to consider new on-farm businesses, such as beekeeping, to generate additional income.

Supporting cocoa farmers and their families

Chocolate is the most delicious ingredient in Nestle's KitKat bars. Thats why Nestle have been raising the bar on how they source cocoa, building further on the longstanding work of the Nestle Cocoa Plan.

In 2009, Nestle launched its Cocoa Plan, with a view to improving the lives and livelihoods of cocoa farmers and their families. Creating this plan also supported Nestle's ambition to transform its global sourcing of cocoa and work to achieve full traceability and segregation for its cocoa products. Indeed, Nestle will invest some 1.33 billion (CHF 1.3bn) by 2030. Developed in partnership with cocoa-growing families, the Nestle Cocoa Plan has worked with nearly 180,000 cocoa-farming households to introduce more effective farming practices, improve sustainability and social conditions.

In Europe, 100 per cent of Nestle's cocoa is sustainably sourced through the Nestle Cocoa Plan and Rainforest Alliance certified mass balance cocoa. Building on the Nestle Cocoa Plan, an innovative new income accelerator programme has been created to further address the challenges faced by cocoa-farming communities, with a clear focus on closing the living income gap of cocoa-farming families. At the same time, it strives to advance better agriculture practices and promote gender equality, empowering women as agents for positive change in their communities. The programme provides incentives for cocoa-farming families to enrol their children in school, implement good agricultural practices and engage in agroforestry activities.

One of the key elements of Nestle's income accelerator programme is the positive impact on school enrollment rates among participating households, with the proportion of children attending school increasing by 10 per cent.

One of the key elements of Nestle's income accelerator programme is the positive impact on school enrollment rates among participating households, with the proportion of children attending school increasing by 10 per cent.

Just as KitKat has four fingers, the income accelerator programme contains four pillars which, once implemented, allow cocoa farming families to earn up to 500 in extra income per annum for the first two years of engagement. Thereafter the sum is 250 every 12 months.

One of the key elements is to provide children aged six to 16 with schooling. This improves academic outcomes and can help reduce child labour risks.

The programme also promotes better farming techniques, including more effective pruning of trees to increase crop yields.

It also includes the planting of forest and fruit trees on cocoa farms. This provides much needed shade for tender cocoa plants, providing moisture-rich spaces for cocoa crops to survive during the dry season while supporting increased biodiversity.

The fourth pillar of the income accelerator programme is diversified income, empowering women to consider new on-farm businesses, such as beekeeping, to generate additional income.

Accelerating income

Because it is family focused, the income accelerator programme ensures that both women and men are supported as agents for positive change.

The programme also promotes better farming techniques, including more effective pruning of trees to increase crop yields.

All the farming families involved in the programme can receive the same cash transfer amount regardless of farm size, so that even those with the smallest holdings can benefit. Payments are made via mobile phone, putting money directly into peoples hands.

This support is given in addition to that offered under Nestle's Cocoa Plan and the premium the organisation already pays for certified Rainforest Alliance cocoa.

Nestle's income accelerator programme has, so far, supported more than 10,000 families in the west-African country Cote dIvoire, and is currently expanding into neighbouring Ghana to include a total of 30,000 families. By 2030, the programmes aim is to reach an estimated 160,000 cocoa-farming families across Nestle's cocoa supply chain. This is impact at scale.

Independently assessed outcomes

The results are impressive.

All the farmers involved in the programme are paid equally regardless of farm size.

Third parties, including KIT Institute, an independent third-party, are working with Nestle on measuring impact. According to a report based on a study conducted over the first 18 months of the programme, in which a sample of 2,000 households spanning 28 co-operatives in Cote dIvoire were involved, participating farms contributed to a 32 per cent increase in cocoa yields. The total net income of income accelerator households rose by 38 per cent.

The same study found that thanks to the implementation of good agricultural practices because of the Nestle programme, diseases and pests on farms have reduced.

The scheme has facilitated income diversification and positively influenced the empowerment of women as well as child schooling rates.

There has been a doubling in the number of households investing in small businesses, such as agro-processing, boutiques, barbershops and soap-making, up from 21 per cent in 2022 to 55 per cent in 2023.

The programme also promotes womens financial inclusion by facilitating their participation in Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs.) These associations provide opportunities for savings and loans, with a particular focus on women looking to start or expand their own business. They offer various training on topics such as gender equality and entrepreneurship. The study highlights a 52 per cent increase in the number of women enrolled in these associations. The benefits of the programme are more than financial, and will, Nestle believe, support the farming community and their children for years to come.

Helping cocoa growers to flourish

The success of the income accelerator programme is due to its holistic approach. By putting the family at the centre of the programme, we empower women who are supporting their childrens education and are pursuing opportunities to diversify their households income, Darrell High, global cocoa manager at Nestle explains.

Nestle tracks the entire journey of cocoa beans sourced from its income accelerator programme from group of farmers to factory, adhering to the highest traceability standards.

The programme is transforming the way cocoa is farmed, by professionalising labour and ensuring trees are pruned. It is great to see that these professionally pruned farms deliver higher yields, which translates to higher income for cocoa-farming families.

A key part of its success is because Nestle works with a range of partners on the ground and gathers feedback from farming families, to continuously adapt and improve the programme.

The company is also collaborating with partners and suppliers to transform its global cocoa sourcing, to achieve full traceability as well as the physical segregation of the cocoa sourced from its income accelerator programme.

That allows Nestle to track the entire journey of cocoa beans from farm to factory, while keeping them physically separated from other cocoa sources. In effect, it adheres to the highest traceability standards.

The initial KitKat bars made using cocoa from the income accelerator programme were launched in Europe earlier this year with the first of these bars being shipped to Ireland in May.

So, look out for KitKat Breaks for Good branded bars featuring a QR code for additional information and discover the good behind your break.

By choosing a KitKat bar it means that while you press the pause button on your day  youre supporting good. How? Because KitKat is pressing play on positively impacting cocoa-farming families.

You can read more on the progress of Nestle's income accelerator programme here. Learn more about the great work that KitKat Breaks For Good is promoting within cocoa farming communities at kitkat.co.uk.
At least 26 people were reportedly killed by a gang in three remote villages in Papua New Guineas north, United Nations and police officials said.

Acting provincial police commander in the island nations East Sepik province, James Baugen, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC): It was a very terrible thing  when I approached the area, I saw that there were children, men, women. They were killed by a group of 30 young men.

Mr Baugen told the ABC that all the houses in the villages had been burned and the remaining villagers were sheltering at a police station, too scared to name the perpetrators.

Sorcery seems to be one of the triggers along with land ownership

Some of the bodies left in the night were taken by crocodiles into the swamp. We only saw the place where they were killed. There were heads chopped off, Mr Baugen said, adding that the attackers were hiding and there were no arrests yet.

Chris Jensen, country director for aid group World Vision, said 26 people had been confirmed dead, eight were missing and 51 families were displaced from their homes in Angoram district on the crocodile-infested Sepik River, the longest river on New Guinea island.

The trigger seems to be, as it is in most cases in PNG, a combination of a couple of things. But sorcery seems to be one of the triggers along with land ownership, Jensen told the Associated Press.

An individual will get accused of sorcery and they may be the people who perhaps have some control over some assets or land.

UN commissioner for human rights Volker Turk said in a statement on Wednesday that the attacks happened last week.

I am horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights, he said.

This number could rise to over 50 as local authorities search for missing people. In addition, more than 200 villagers fled as their homes were torched

Mr Turk said at least 26 people had reportedly died, including 16 children.

This number could rise to over 50 as local authorities search for missing people. In addition, more than 200 villagers fled as their homes were torched, he said.

East Sepik governor Allan Bird said violence across this diverse nation of more than 10 million people, who are mostly subsistence farmers, had escalated in the past decade. Police are under-resourced and rarely intervene, he added.

Papua New Guinea has more than 800 Indigenous languages and has been riven by tribal conflicts over land for centuries.

Most of the land belongs to tribes rather than individuals. With no clear borders, territorial disputes never end.

These conflicts have become increasingly lethal in recent decades as combatants move from bows and arrows to assault rifles, and mercenaries are increasingly becoming involved.

Escalation of violence between groups, often leading to retaliatory murder is, at best, culturally accepted and at worst encouraged

Blake Johnson, an analyst at the Australian Security Policy Institute think tank, said while the East Sepik killings appeared to be a particularly gruesome event, it is not the first instance of mass murder this year in Papua New Guinea.

Escalation of violence between groups, often leading to retaliatory murder is, at best, culturally accepted and at worst encouraged, he said.

Law enforcement officers lack the resources and training to police most of the country, he added.

The country is took big, too harsh and too difficult to navigate, and we dont even know how many people live in these places, Mr Johnson said.

The tribal fighting attracted international attention in February when at least 26 combatants and an unconfirmed number of bystanders were killed in a gun battle in Enga province.

The conflicts complicated an emergency response in May when a landslide in the same province devastated at least one village. The government said more than 2,000 people were killed, while the UN estimated the death toll at 670.

Internal security problems in Papua New Guinea, the South Pacifics most populous country after Australia, has become a battle line for Chinas struggle against US allies for influence in the region.

Australia, Papua New Guineas former colonial master and its biggest provider of foreign aid, signed a bilateral security pact last year that targets its nearest neighbours growing security concerns, while Beijing also reportedly wants a policing agreement with the nation.

China struck a secretive security pact with Papua New Guineas near-neighbour Solomon Islands in 2022, which included police aid and has raised concerns that a Chinese naval base could be established in the South Pacific.
Alternative healer Hongchi Xiao was previously prosecuted over the death of a six-year-old diabetic boy in Australia after he instructed the youngsters parents to stop giving him his insulin medication, his trial was told.

Xiaos trial for the manslaughter of Danielle Carr-Gomm, who died in Wiltshire in October 2016, heard that he was convicted of manslaughter by an Australian court in that case.

Winchester Crown Court heard that Xiao told the boys parents to stop giving the life-saving medication to him.

However, the trial was told there was no evidence that the defendant gave a similar instruction to Mrs Carr-Gomm, although it was claimed he said well done to her after the 71-year-old informed him that she had stopped her medication.

There can be no question but that the defendant owed (the boy) a duty of care whilst he was an attendee at his workshop, and that he breached that duty

The court heard that, after the boys insulin treatment was stopped, he started to become seriously ill and began vomiting black liquid which Xiao said was just part of self-healing body adjustment. But the boy died on April 27 2015, 18 months before Mrs Carr-Gomm.

Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that the boys family had attended Xiaos workshops on Paida Lajin, a self-healing therapy, in Hurstville, Sydney, which involved participants slapping themselves and each other, and fasting.

He said: The defendant himself did not perform any slapping on any of the participants.

Shortly after the start of the workshop, as the judge who dealt with him in Australia found, the defendant told (the boy)s mother to stop (his) insulin injections.

Such an instruction is clear evidence of how strongly held the defendants views were, for example, as to insulin being poison.

Mr Atkinson said that, by day three, the boys mother told the workshop group of her sons deteriorating health and said he was vomiting, had high blood sugar levels and high ketone levels.

Despite this, the court was told, Xiao continued to instruct the mother to not give insulin to her son and his health deteriorated further. On the fifth day he needed to be pushed in a pram because he could not walk or stand to dress himself and started to vomit yellow and black liquid.

The court heard that the mother confronted Xiao and told him: Look this picture, last night he vomiting black stuff, all these things, to which he replied: Is the detox. All the bad stuff come from  come out from his body, his organ. Its just part of self-healing body adjustment.

Four days later, the boy was in his room with his grandmother when he began vomiting black liquid and had a seizure.

As the grandmother went for help, she locked herself out of the room, and when hotel staff arrived they found the boy motionless on the bed, the court heard.

Mr Atkinson said Xiao also went to the room and began slapping the boys inner elbows until paramedics arrived but they were unable to resuscitate him and he died as a result of diabetic ketoacidosis.

He deprecated and deterred the use of conventional medicine even when he knew that to do so risked very serious consequences which could in turn be life-threatening

Mr Atkinson told the jury: The defendant was ultimately prosecuted for, and convicted of (the boy)s manslaughter.

It follows that there can be no question but that the defendant owed (the boy) a duty of care whilst he was an attendee at his workshop, and that he breached that duty.

He deprecated and deterred the use of conventional medicine even when he knew that to do so risked very serious consequences which could in turn be life-threatening.

He advocated a course that he knew was not medically justified, and was contrary to medical experience, and a boy died as a result.

His actions towards Danielle Carr-Gomm occurred when the very real, obvious and serious risk of death had become all the more real and all the more obvious.

They involved similar conduct, congratulating a type 1 diabetic who replaced insulin with Paida Lajin, and taking no action to secure her help despite the cruel lesson that ought to have been provided by the boys untimely death.

Xiao had denied having a duty of care over Mrs Carr-Gomm or that he had breached any duty of care.
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.
Jul 26 (Jowhar.com)  The number of people who died in the landslide in Ethiopia is increasing, and now the United Nations has said that the death toll has now risen to 257, and it is estimated that it can reach up to 500 people.

Emergency teams are still searching for survivors. Thousands of people have arrived at the site of the incident, some of whom are using their hands or small tools to dig in the ground.

Solomon Tsoma told the AFP news agency that 13 people from his family died in the landslide, including seven children born by his uncle, adding that they found the bodies of 12 of them.

The United Nations agency UNOCHA said that the death toll continues to rise and could reach up to 500 people.

The government of Ethiopia has declared a national day of mourning to honor those who lost their lives in this tragic event. President Sahle-Work Zewde has called for unity and solidarity in the face of this disaster.

The landslide occurred in the town of Guba, in the Oromia region of Ethiopia, after heavy rains caused the collapse of a mountainside. The area is known for its steep terrain, which makes it susceptible to natural disasters such as landslides.

The Ethiopian Red Cross Society and other humanitarian organizations are providing assistance to the affected communities, including food, shelter, and medical aid. The government has also pledged to provide support to the families of the victims and to prevent similar incidents in the future.

As the search and rescue efforts continue, the international community is urged to support Ethiopia in its response to this tragedy. The UN has called for urgent action to address the underlying causes of such disasters, including deforestation and poor land management practices.

Our thoughts are with the people of Ethiopia during this difficult time, and we stand in solidarity with them as they mourn the loss of their loved ones.
07/26/2024

GADSDEN  Jacksonville State University student Morgan Ingram from Southside, AL, was recently honored with the Young Fierce Woman Award by the Etowah County Chamber at the Advancing Women to the Top Professional Development Conference. The event took place on July 18 in Gadsden, recognizing Ingram's significant contributions to her community.

The Young Fierce Woman Award celebrates young influential women who inspire and encourage rare, courageous efforts while demonstrating excellent character and accomplishments in their community. Ingram's dedication to service and leadership embodies these qualities, making her a deserving recipient of this prestigious honor.

Ingram is an active member of the Gadsden Service Guild, an organization committed to promoting voluntarism and enhancing the community of Etowah County. Her involvement in the Guild highlights her commitment to community service and her passion for making a positive impact.

I am truly grateful and humbled to receive the Young Fierce Woman Award. Thank you to the Etowah County Chamber of Commerce for this incredible honor, said Ingram. As a full-time student at JSU pursuing my bachelor's in Social Work, I am passionate about making a positive impact in my community. I am proud to be a part of organizations such as the Gadsden Service Guild and Gadsden Runners Club, which allow me to give back to the community. My job at Modern Woodmen of America with Morgan Lavender allows me to continue making a difference as well. This award serves as a reminder that we all have the power to create positive change in the world, and I will continue to strive for excellence in everything I do!

Ingram's achievements and dedication to her community exemplify the spirit of the Young Fierce Woman Award. Jax State is proud to have students like Ingram who are committed to making a difference and inspiring others through their actions.

About Jacksonville State University: Founded in 1883 as a state teachers college, Jacksonville State University has grown from humble beginnings into the Alabama regional university with the highest percentage of accredited programs. Located in the Appalachian foothills midway between Birmingham and Atlanta, Jax State offers more than 150 courses of study, including over 40 online programs, at the undergraduate and graduate level. To learn more, visit www.jsu.edu, call 1-800-231-JAX1 or e-mail jaxfacts@jsu.edu.
07/26/2024

Jacksonville State University (Jax State) and its Regional Inservice Center (RIC) officially opened a new model STEM lab on Thursday morning, marked by a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by several dignitaries.

The lab is the culmination of a visionary partnership between Alabama Technology in Motion and the Jax State RIC. The goal was to create an inspiring environment that sparks curiosity and creativity for teachers who come to the Inservice Center for training.

Designed to provide educators with direct engagement with cutting-edge robots and technology, the lab offers hands-on experiences that many teachers may not have encountered before.

The ribbon-cutting event also kicked off the Jax State RICs Technology Circus, an immersive professional development day designed to equip educators with the knowledge and skills to embrace innovative technology and foster creativity in the classroom. As part of the Technology Circus, local educators were offered a first-hand look at the new STEM lab.

By becoming comfortable and proficient with these tools and strategies, educators can take newfound confidence and innovative ideas back to their classrooms, facilitating the same curiosity and problem-solving skills in their students through the application of STEM principles, said Valerie Curtis, Jax State RIC Director. Ultimately, our goal is to help students become career-ready by equipping them with essential skills in computer science, computational thinking, and robotics, ensuring they are well-prepared for the demands of the modern workforce.

Several notable guests attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony, including:

The ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by several notable guests, including:

Dean Kimberly Gaiters-White, College of Education and Professional Studies

Dr. Staci Stone, Vice Provost, Academic Affairs

Dr. Cynthia McCarty, Jax State Professor of Economics & current Chair of the Alabama STEM Council Executive Committee

Sue Ellen Gilliland, ALSDE Educational Technology Coordinator

Nikkesha Hooks, Administrator, Educational Technology, ALSDE

William Jones, Special Projects & Innovation, ALSDE

Greg Gilley, artist and painter of the STEM room, and his daughters

Andrea Taylor, Host and Alabama Technology in Motion Specialist

Valerie Curtis, Host and Jax State Region 6 Inservice Center Director

About Jacksonville State University: Founded in 1883 as a state teachers college, Jacksonville State University has grown from humble beginnings into the Alabama regional university with the highest percentage of accredited programs. Located in the Appalachian foothills midway between Birmingham and Atlanta, Jax State offers more than 150 courses of study, including over 40 online programs, at the undergraduate and graduate level. To learn more, visit www.jsu.edu, call 1-800-231-JAX1 or e-mail jaxfacts@jsu.edu.
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment)  Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, having had a convenient campaign event out of town that allowed her to be absent from his disgraceful address to Congress, which more than half of congressional Democrats also boycotted.

In 1955, sociologist Will Herberg published Protestant, Catholic, Jew , about the ways in which the U.S. is not actually a melting pot, but has distinct religiously-based communities. Some of the effect of his study was blunted by the Baby Boomers, who in the 1960s began intermarrying across those religious boundaries in great numbers and some of whom began abandoning the churches and synagogues. Todays Gen Z have gone even further, with a third of them reporting themselves to have no religion. Nevertheless, the communities Herberg wrote about still under-gird U.S. political alignments. The Democratic Party is a coalition of such urban religious ethnicities. Protestant Blacks, liberal white and Asian Protestants, liberal Catholics, whether white or Hispanic or Asian, and liberal Jews (the vast majority) form the core of the party.

Back in the day, the Democrats made a bargain with one another among these religious ethnicities. The Christians would support Israel. The Protestants would avoid bashing the Papists. The Catholics would refrain from imposing their beliefs on the others. That is how you get an Irish Catholic president such as Joe Biden who says he is a Zionist and who supports abortion rights in the teeth of his own church. He is the old urban Democratic coalition of religious ethnic groups in the flesh. Also back in the day, Israel was a socialist democracy, which made it easy for U.S. Democrats to support.

For a long time, the Republican Party was a coalition of rural and suburban Protestants with the Protestant urban economic elite. Over time, about half of Catholics joined the GOP, mainly on a culture war basis or because they were in business and liked the program of tax cuts and deregulation. The paucity of Jews in the party allowed Republican presidents like Eisenhower and George H. W. Bush to take a hard line with Israel. Eisenhower was furious at David Ben Gurion over the 1956 war of aggression on Egypt and made him give back the Sinai on the threat that the US would call in its loans and bankrupt Tel Aviv.

The Evangelical take-over of the Republican Party in the 1980s and after changed the dynamics. A reactionary Evangelical-Catholic alliance was determined to repeal abortion rights, roll back the sexual revolution, put women back in their place as homemakers and child-rearers, and keep alternative sexualities illegal. About 20 percent of Jews also aligned themselves with the party, more on the program of deep tax cuts and deregulation of businesses than on the culture warrior front. In this century Israel swung increasingly to the right, ending up about where Victor Urban of Hungary is, which suited the Evangelicals, hard line Catholics, and wealthy conservative Jews.

The character of the cities was changed enormously by the 1965 Immigration Act, as a result of which about a million people a year legally immigrated to the United States. The foreign-born population has risen to nearly 14 percent, a figure not seen since the late nineteenth century. Many of the newcomers were urban people and ended up in the Democratic Party. There were a few who became Republicans, either through business interests or conversion to Evangelicalism, or through dislike of the Communism of their homelands (Cubans, some Vietnamese, some Eastern Europeans).

The new Democrats included Arabs and Muslims, Buddhists, some Hindus (Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal) and Hispanics. Many came from formerly colonized countries that had thrown off their European overlord after WW II.

Joe Biden never really came to terms with these New Democrats, though he attempted outreach to the Muslims and others, reversing Trumps Muslim Ban. Bidens mindset was stuck in the 1970s when he went into politics, and the old Catholic-Jewish-Black-and-liberal white Protestant coalition was central. He could not imagine offering Israel anything but full impunity for anything it did and billions in aid, because that was the old Democratic bargain with the Zionist Jews in the party.

Not only are the 14 percent of Americans, nearly 1 in six, who are foreign born mostly more critical of Israel than was common in Bidens youth, but Israel itself changed. The immigration of a million Jews from the old Soviet bloc to Israel, and the gradual enfranchisement of the Mizrahim, the Jews from places like Morocco and Iraq, resulted in a decline of influence for the socialist-oriented central European Jews. Right wing parties began regularly winning elections, instituting neo-liberal policies and destroying the socialist legacy, favoring tech start-ups and billionaires. The right wing allied with the squatter-settlers determined to steal vast swathes of Palestinian land in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

To the New Democrats from an immigrant background, this Israel looked like a classic settler colonial state and the Palestinians looked like a colonized people seeking self-determination. That narrative also increasingly appealed to young Democrats from liberal households and to African-Americans of the BLM movement, who took a dim view of the militarism and racist rhetoric of figures such as Netanyahu. The Gaza War has been a watershed for attitudes toward Israel among American youths across the board. Bidens name was mud among the under-30 crowd, in part because of his callousness on the Gaza carnage.

Joe Biden could never grasp this sea change, and so lost the youths and was heading for defeat in November as a result. The youths had made the difference for Obama in 2008 and for Biden in 2020. If they sat this one out, Trump could have won.

Kamala Harris is herself a New Democrat, with a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both leftists and anti-colonialist activists. She understands the youths. She now has the tricky task of mollifying these Democratic youths who view Israel as committing a genocide while not losing the 70 to 80 percent of Jews who typically vote Democratic (though to be sure many of them are upset with Netanyahu and his Gaza carnage, as well).

Harriss tightrope walk was apparent in the remarks she made Thursday after meeting with Netanyahu. Note that she carefully kept the actual meeting off-camera, so that her report of it could shape its reception. She began by reaffirming what we might call the Herberg bargain  support for Israel, affirmation of its right to defend itself, including from Iran and Iran-backed militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah, unwavering commitment to the existence of the State of Israel, to its security, and to the people of Israel. She rightly emphasized the need to secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

This sentence, though, is very carefully crafted: Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters.

How it does so matters. That is a caveat that Biden was never willing to add, nor are most Republicans.

So then, Harris went off script compared to anything we ever heard from Biden or from his Blob factotums such as Brett McGurk, Jake Sullivan or Antony Blinken.

She said, I also expressed with the Prime Minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there. With over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, what has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes doing so for the second, third, or fourth time, cannot be ignored. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.

I was impressed that she or her speechwriter knew that 500,000 Palestinians in Gaza were assessed this spring to be enduring Integrated Phase Classification 5 for food security, defined as Households have an extreme lack of food and/or other basic needs even after full employment of coping strategies. Starvation, death, destitution and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident. I think, though, that more recent assessments suggest that the entire Gaza Strip may be in phase 5.

Biden used to doubt that all those Palestinians were actually being killed and said things like people die in war. His hardheartedness toward the Palestinian people is as disturbing as it is baffling, since of all people an Irish-American should be able to sympathize with indigenous people being starved by a settler colonial state. But I guess seeing things this way would have been a violation of the Herberg Bargain.

Harris continued, Thanks to the leadership of our president, Joe Biden, there is a deal on the table for a ceasefire and a hostage deal, and it is important that we recall what the deal involves. The first phase of the deal would bring about a full ceasefire, including a withdrawal of the Israeli military from population centers in Gaza. In the second phase, the Israeli forces will withdraw from Gaza entirely, leading to a permanent end to the hostilities. It is time for this war to end and to end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination.

So she is supporting a definitive end to the war as part of Phase II, something Netanyahu has repeatedly rejected.

I have a sense that when she says, Lets get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Lets bring the hostages home and lets provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people, she is sending a firm message to Netanyahu that she wants this war to end so it can stop being a fly in the ointment of the Democratic presidential campaign.

Unfortunately, she went on to reiterate the standard bullshit U.S. boilerplate about a two-state solution, which is practically speaking now impossible and which the Israeli parliament definitively rejected just this week. To be fair, she did endorse freedom and self-determination for the Palestinians, though in this fairy tale scenario.

Finally, she said, I will close with this: It is important for the American people to remember that the war in Gaza is not a binary. However, too often the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but. I ask my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, nuance, and the history of the region. Let us all condemn terrorism and violence. Let us all do what we can to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians and let us condemn antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hate of any kind. Let us work to unite our country.

Thats her Mideast platform. It is designed to hold together in the Democratic Party both Jews and Muslims, to fulfill the aspirations of both and to protect the interests of both. It also hopes to galvanize the youth vote, as Obama did in 2008. It is a harbinger of a new American political paradigm, Protestant-Catholic-Jew-Muslim-Hindu-Buddhist-None, with which the Democratic Party must contend. To pull it off, she will need to put forward more than well crafted phrases. And implementing rights for Palestinians while making Zionist Jews happy is no mean feat.

But I have to say, her rhetoric, at least, is a breath of fresh air after ten months of weasel words and genocide denial. As always, the proof will be in the pudding.

CNN: Hear what VP Harris says she told Israels Netanyahu
By Amin Saikal, Australian National University | 

(The Conversation)  The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level.

Washington has engaged in intense diplomacy to persuade the protagonists to pull back from the brink. But US efforts have not paid off so far, given its lack of sufficient leverage with both sides.

A grand bargain involving Israel, Hezbollah and their outside supporters is now urgently needed to avoid a regional war.

Netanyahu hanging on by a thread

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus handling of the Gaza war has emboldened the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon and its supporters.

Israels failure to achieve its two main objectives in the war  destroying Hamas and rescuing the Israeli hostages  has left Netanyahu isolated and weakened. His pursuit of scorched-earth operations in Gaza, with no plan for how to end the war or to manage the enclave afterwards, have imperilled his position, as well as that of Israel.

A majority of the Israeli public now want him to leave office. He is hanging onto power with narrow support from the extremist elements in his cabinet and the Israeli Defence Force leadership. He is even alienated from his traditional ultra-Orthodox Jewish supporters, who refuse to serve in the military, and is widely distrusted in Washington, Israels life-long backer.

Israeli generals have also expressed concerns about shortages of ammunition and troop exhaustion in Gaza. They have called for him to accept a ceasefire with Hamas, so Israel can confront Hezbollah effectively.

But the prime minister has remained defiant and inaccurately accused the Biden administration of holding back arms supplies that could enable him to end the Gaza campaign sooner and pivot to taking on Hezbollah.

Hezbollahs power

No doubt, Hezbollah has been a thorn in Israels side for a long time.

In his address to the joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu stressed that fighting Hezbollah and its patron, Iran, was in the interests of not only Israel, but also America.

80,000 of our citizens in northern Israel evacuated their homes, becoming effectively refugees in their own land. We are committed to returning them home. We prefer to achieve this diplomatically. But let me be clear: Israel will do whatever it must do to restore security to our northern border and return our people safely to their homes.

Israel has attempted several times to weaken or destroy Hezbollah since its emergence as a major political and paramilitary force in Lebanon from the early 1980s.

Yet Israels efforts, most notably its military campaign of 2006, have failed. Hezbollahs ability to survive has added to its strength and that of Iran and its other affiliates, including Hamas, in the region.

Hezbollah today is the most powerful, sub-national militant group in the world. It reportedly has 100,000 battle-hardened fighters, a vast arsenal of weapons (including advanced missiles and drones) and a remarkable degree of organisational strength and infrastructural support.

It is a critical element in the Iran-led, predominantly Shia axis of resistance, whose members consider martyrdom to be an article of faith.

The newly elected Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who comes from the reformist faction of Irans politics, has reaffirmed Tehrans unwavering support for Hezbollah against Israel as part of its regional security complex.

In the event of a war, Hezbollah can count on thousands of fighters joining it from Iran and its other proxies, as well as Islamic fighters from outside the region. The Taliban, for instance, has already promised to send many fighters from Afghanistan to aid Hezbollah.

Although Israel, the US and many of their allies have treated Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, the Arab League recently decided not to label the group as a terrorist outfit, in view of its growing popularity in the Arab and Muslim world.

A grand bargain

Israel is no longer regarded as the dominant power in the region. The Gaza war and its escalating military exchanges with Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis and Iran have revealed Israels vulnerabilities.

It may still possess the necessary firepower to flatten Beirut in a similar manner to what it has inflicted on Gaza, but it would need direct US involvement to come out of a war with Hezbollah with any degree of resilience or wellbeing.

The US continues to stress its iron-clad commitment to Israels security, but supporting a war in Lebanon would be very difficult for the US, particularly with a pivotal election coming. This would likely trigger Russian, Chinese and North Korean support for Iran and, by extension, Hezbollah and other elements of the axis of resistance.

In a grand bargain, Israel, Hezbollah and their outside backers would need to reach a diplomatic settlement to create mutually acceptable buffer security zones on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border.

To achieve this, Israel and Hamas must first agree on a Gaza ceasefire and an exchange of hostages and prisoners as a foundation for a lasting settlement of the Palestinian issue. Netanyahu has so far resisted this. He fears it would force him out of office and potentially land him in prison on pending charges of bribery and fraud.

The history of the Middle East has repeatedly shown armed conflicts and outside interventions have never resulted in peace and stability. Instead, they have merely compounded the regions problems. The Middle East situation is explosive, and level heads must prevail to prevent further inflammation.

Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English Video: Hezbollah-Israel conflict escalates: Land destroyed on both sides as Hezbollah extends rocket range
( Tomdispatch.com )  At the end of the last century, hoping to drive the United States from Saudi Arabia, the home of Islams holiest sites, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden sought to draw in the American military. He reportedly wanted to bring the Americans into a fight on Muslim soil, provoking savage asymmetric conflicts that would send home a stream of wooden boxes and coffins and weaken American resolve. This is when you will leave, he predicted.

After the 9/11 attacks, Washington took the bait, launching interventions across the Greater Middle East and Africa. What followed was a slew of sputtering counterterrorism failures and stalemates in places ranging from Niger and Burkina Faso to Somalia and Yemen, a dismal loss, after 20 years, in Afghanistan, and a costly fiasco in Iraq. And just as bin Laden predicted, those conflicts led to discontent in the United States. Americans finally turned against the war in Afghanistan after 10 years of fighting there, while it took only a little more than a year for the public to conclude that the Iraq war wasnt worth the cost. Still, those conflicts dragged on. To date, more than 7,000 U.S. troops have died fighting the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and other militant groups.

As lethal as those Islamist fighters have been, however, another enemy has proven far more deadly for American forces: themselves. A recent Pentagon study found suicide to be the leading cause of death among active-duty U.S. Army personnel. Out of 2,530 soldiers who died between 2014 and 2019 from causes ranging from car crashes to drug overdoses to cancer, 35%  883 troops  took their own lives. Just 96 soldiers died in combat during those same six years.

Those military findings bolster other recent investigations. The journalism nonprofit Voice of San Diego found, for example, that young men in the military are more likely to take their own lives than their civilian peers. The suicide rate for American soldiers has, in fact, risen steadily since the Army began tracking it 20 years ago.

Last year, the medical journal JAMA Neurology reported that the suicide rate among U.S. veterans was 31.7 per 100,000  57% greater than that of non-veterans. And that followed a 2021 study by Brown Universitys Costs of War Project which found that, compared to those who died in combat, at least four times as many active-duty military personnel and post-9/11 war veterans  an estimated 30,177 of them  had killed themselves.

High suicide rates mark the failure of the U.S. government and U.S. society to manage the mental health costs of our current conflicts, wrote Thomas Howard Suitt, author of the Costs of War report. The U.S. governments inability to address the suicide crisis is a significant cost of the U.S. post-9/11 wars, and the result is a mental health crisis among our veterans and service members with significant long-term consequences.

Military Shocked (Shocked!) by a Rise in Suicides

In June, a New York Times front-page investigation found that at least a dozen Navy SEALs had died by suicide in the last 10 years, either while on active duty or shortly after leaving military service. Thanks to an effort by the families of those deceased special operators, eight of their brains were delivered to a specialized Defense Department brain trauma laboratory in Maryland. Researchers there discovered blast damage in every one of them  a particular pattern only seen in people exposed repeatedly to blast waves like SEALs endure from weapons fired in years of training and war-zone deployments as well as explosions encountered in combat.

The Navy claimed that it hadnt been informed of the labs findings until the Times contacted them. A Navy officer with ties to SEAL leadership expressed shock to reporter Dave Philipps. Thats the problem, said that anonymous officer. We are trying to understand this issue, but so often the information never reaches us.

None of it should, however, have been surprising.

After all, while writing for the Times in 2020, I revealed the existence of an unpublished internal study, commissioned by U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), on the suicides of Special Operations forces (SOF). Conducted by the American Association of Suicidology, one of the nations oldest suicide-prevention organizations, and completed sometime after January 2017, the undated 46-page report put together the findings of 29 psychological autopsies, including detailed interviews with 81 next-of-kin and close friends of commandos who had killed themselves between 2012 and 2015.

That study told the military to better track and monitor data on the suicides of its elite troops. Further research and an improved data surveillance system are needed in order to better understand the risk and protective factors for suicide among SOF members. Further research and a comprehensive data system is needed to monitor the demographics and characteristics of SOF members who die by suicide, the researchers advised. Additionally, the data emerging from this study has highlighted the need for research to better understand the factors associated with SOF suicides.

Quite obviously, it never happened.

The brain trauma suffered by SEALs and the suicides that followed should not have been a shock. A 2022 study in Military Medicine found Special Operations forces were at increased risk for traumatic brain injury (TBI), when compared with conventional troops. The 2023 JAMA Neurology study similarly found that veterans with TBI had suicide rates 56% higher than veterans without it and three times higher than the U.S. adult population. And a Harvard study, funded by SOCOM and published in April, discovered an association between blast exposure and compromised brain function in active-duty commandos. The greater the exposure, the researchers found, the more health problems were reported.

Studies on the Shelf

Over the last two decades, the Defense Department has, in fact, spent millions of dollars on suicide prevention research. According to the recent Pentagon study of soldiers deaths at their own hands, the Army implements various initiatives that evaluate, identify, and track high-risk individuals for suicidal behavior and other adverse outcomes. Unfortunately (though Osama bin Laden would undoubtedly have been pleased), the military has a history of not taking suicide prevention seriously.

While the Navy, for example, officially mandated that a suicide hotline for veterans must be accessible from the homepage of every Navy website, an internal audit found that most of the pages reviewed were not in compliance. In fact, according to a 2022 investigation by The Intercept, the audit showed that 62% of the 58 Navy homepages did not comply with that services regulations for how to display the link to the Veterans Crisis Line.

The New York Times recently investigated the death of Army Specialist Austin Valley and discovered gross suicide prevention deficiencies. Having just arrived at an Army base in Poland from Fort Riley, Kansas, Valley texted his parents, Hey mom and dad I love you it was never your fault, before taking his own life. The Times found that mental-health care providers in the Army are beholden to brigade leadership and often fail to act in the best interest of soldiers. There are, for example, only about 20 mental-health counselors available to care for the more than 12,000 soldiers at Fort Riley, according to the Times. As a result, soldiers like Valley can wait weeks or even months for care.

The Army claims its working to eliminate the stigma surrounding mental health support, but the Times found that unit leadership often undermines some of its most basic safety protocols. This is a long-running issue in the military. The study of Special Operations suicides that I revealed in the Times found that suicide prevention training was seen as a check in the box. Special operators believed their careers would be negatively impacted if they sought treatment.

Last year, a Pentagon suicide-prevention committee called attention to lax rules on firearms, high operational tempos, and the poor quality of life on military bases as potential problems for the mental health of troops. M. David Rudd, a clinical psychologist and the director of the National Center for Veterans Studies at the University of Memphis, told to the Times that the Pentagon report echoed many other analyses produced since 2008. My expectation, he concluded, is that this study will sit on a shelf just like all the others, unimplemented.

Bin Ladens Triumph

On May 2, 2011, Navy SEALs attacked a residential compound in Pakistan and gunned down Osama bin Laden. For us to be able to definitively say, We got the man who caused thousands of deaths here in the United States and who had been the rallying point for a violent extremist jihad around the world was something that I think all of us were profoundly grateful to be a part of, President Barack Obama commented afterward. In reality, the deaths here in the United States have never ended. And the war that bin Laden kicked off in 2001  a global conflict that still grinds on today  ushered in an era in which SEALs, soldiers, and other military personnel have continued to die by their own hands at an escalating rate.

The suicides of U.S. military personnel have been blamed on a panoply of reasons, including military culture, ready access to firearms, high exposure to trauma, excessive stress, the rise of improvised explosive devices, repeated head trauma, an increase in traumatic brain injuries, the Global War on Terrors protracted length, and even the American publics disinterest in their countrys post-9/11 wars.

During 20-plus years of armed interventions by the country that still prides itself on being the Earths sole superpower, U.S. military missions have been repeatedly upended across South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa including a sputtering stalemate in Somalia, an intervention-turned-blowback-engine in Libya, and outright implosions in Afghanistan and Iraq. While the peoples of those countries have suffered the most, U.S. troops have also been caught in that maelstrom of Americas making.

Bin Ladens dream of luring American troops into a meat-grinder war on Muslim soil never quite came to pass. Compared to previous conflicts like the Second World War, Korean, and Vietnam wars, U.S. battlefield casualties in the Greater Middle East and Africa have been relatively modest. But bin Ladens prediction of wooden boxes and coffins filled with the bodies of American troops nonetheless came true in its own fashion.

This Departments most precious resource is our people. Therefore, we must spare no effort in working to eliminate suicide within our ranks, wrote Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in a public memo released last year. One loss to suicide is too many. But as with its post-9/11 wars and interventions, the U.S. militarys effort to stem suicides has come up distinctly short. And like the losses, stalemates, and fiascos of that grim war on terror, the fallout has been more suffering and death. Bin Laden is, of course, long dead, but the post-9/11 parade of U.S. corpses continues. The unanticipated toll of suicides by troops and veterans  four times the number of war-on-terror battlefield deaths  has become another Pentagon failure and bin Ladens enduring triumph.

Copyright 2024 Nick Turse

Via Tomdispatch.com
Vancouver, Canada  July 26, 2024  TheNewswire  Aztec Minerals Corp. (AZT: TSX-V, OTCQB: AZZTF) (Aztec or the Company) announces the closing of its previously announced non-brokered private placement financing, consisting of 14,306,171 units of the Company (Units) at a price of C$0.18 per Unit for aggregate gross proceeds of C$2,575,110.78 (the Offering). Each Unit consists of one common share in the capital of the Company (a Share) and one-half of one Share purchase warrant (each full Share purchase warrant, a Warrant). Each whole Warrant entitles the holder thereof to purchase one Share at an exercise price of C$0.25 for twenty-four (24) months following the closing date of the Offering (the Closing Date).

The Units issued under the Offering were sold to purchasers pursuant to the listed issuer financing exemption (LIFE Exemption) under Part 5A of National Instrument 45-106  Prospectus Exemptions, in all the provinces of Canada, except Quebec. The Units sold under the LIFE Exemption are not subject to resale restrictions pursuant to applicable Canadian securities laws. The Units were also offered to persons in the United States pursuant to exemptions from the registration requirements under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act) and all applicable U.S. state securities laws, as well as outside Canada and the United States on a basis which does not require the qualification or registration of any of the Companys securities or require the Company to be subject to any ongoing disclosure requirements under any domestic securities laws. There is an amended and restated offering document related to the Offering dated July 23, 2024, amending and restating offering documents dated July 16, 2024 and July 18, 2024, that can be accessed under the Companys profile at on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca and on the Companys website at www.aztecminerals.com.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering to fund the Companys phase I reverse circulation (RC) drill program at the Tombstone Project (including ongoing joint-venture expenses), to fund ongoing expenses at the Cervantes Project and for general working capital and corporate expenses.

In connection with the Offering, the Company paid in consideration of the services rendered by finders (the Finders), consisting of: (i) an aggregate of C$90,552.76 in cash, equal to 7.0% of the aggregate gross proceeds of the Offering raised from subscribers introduced to the Company by such Finders, and (ii) 495,286 Share purchase warrants to such Finder (the Finders Warrants), equal to 7.0% of the number of Units subscribed for by subscribers introduced to the Company by such Finder, such Finders Warrant having an exercise price of $0.18 per Share and an expiry date of twenty four months from the Closing Date.

One Insider of the Company subscribed for 100,000 Units for gross proceeds of $18,000 under the Offering. Pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions (MI 61-101), the Offering constitutes a related party transaction given the fact that one insider of the Company subscribed for Units. The Company is relying on exemptions from the formal valuation and minority approval requirements of MI 61-101, specifically: (i) the valuation requirement of MI 61-101 by virtue of the exemption contained in Section 5.5(b), as the Shares are not listed on a market specified in MI 61-101, and (ii) the minority shareholder approval requirement of MI 61-101 by virtue of the exemption contained in Section 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61- 101, as the fair market value of the participation in the Offering by the insider does not exceed 25% of the Companys market capitalization (as determined under MI 61-101). A material change report was not filed by the Company at least 21 days before the Closing Date, as the Company was seeking to close expeditiously to confirm funds for the Offering. In the view of the Company, this approach is reasonable in the circumstances. The Offering was approved by all of the directors of the Company.

The securities issued pursuant to the Offering have not been, and will not be, registered under the U.S. Securities Act or under any U.S. state securities laws, and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, a U.S. person (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) absent registration or any applicable exemption from the registration requirements under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable U.S. state securities laws. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy securities in the United States, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.

Simon Dyakowski

Simon Dyakowski, Chief Executive Officer

Aztec Minerals Corp.

About Aztec Minerals  Aztec is a mineral exploration company focused on two emerging discoveries in North America. The Cervantes project is an emerging porphyry gold-copper discovery in Sonora, Mexico. The Tombstone project is an emerging gold-silver discovery with high grade CRD silver-lead-zinc potential in southern Arizona. Aztecs shares trade on the TSX-V stock exchange (symbol AZT) and on the OTCQB (symbol AZZTF).

Contact Information - For more information, please contact:

Simon Dyakowski, President & CEO, Director

Tel: (604) 685-9770

Fax: (604) 685-9744

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Website: www.aztecminerals.com

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding "Forward-Looking" Information

This news release contains "forwardlooking information or statements" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which may include, without limitation, statements relating to the use of proceeds of the Offering, advancing the Companys projects, anticipated drill program at the Tombstone project, future expenditures on the Cervantes Project, the technical, financial and business prospects of the Company, its projects, its goals and other matters. All statements in this news release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that the Company expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Such statements and information are based on numerous assumptions regarding present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including the price of metals, the anticipated costs and expenditures, the ability to achieve its goals, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms. Such forward-looking information reflects the Companys views with respect to future events and is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including the risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of exploration and metallurgical results, risks related to the inherent uncertainty of exploration and development and cost estimates, the potential for unexpected costs and expenses and those other risks filed under the Companys profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca While such estimates and assumptions are considered reasonable by the management of the Company, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and regulatory uncertainties and risks. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include, but are not limited to, the ability of the Company to complete the Offering on the terms described herein, including continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions, adverse weather and climate conditions, failure to maintain or obtain all necessary government permits, approvals and authorizations, failure to maintain community acceptance, risks relating to unanticipated operational difficulties (including failure of equipment or processes to operate in accordance with specifications or expectations, cost escalation, unavailability of personnel, materials and equipment, government action or delays in the receipt of government approvals, industrial disturbances or other job action, and unanticipated events related to health, safety and environmental matters), risks relating to inaccurate geological, metallurgical and engineering assumptions, decrease in the price of gold, silver, copper, and zinc, capital market conditions, restriction on labour and international travel and supply chains, loss of key employees, consultants, or directors, increase in costs, delayed results, litigation, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. The Company does not undertake to update forwardlooking statements or forwardlooking information, except as required by law.




TORONTO, July 25, 2024 /CNW/ - Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. ("Mountain Province", the "Company") (TSX: MPVD) (OTC: MPVD) today announces production and sales results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2024 ("the Quarter" or "Q2 2024") from the Gahcho Kue Diamond Mine ("GK Mine"). All figures are expressed in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted.

Q2 2024 Production Takeaways

(all figures reported on a 100% basis unless otherwise stated)

1,318,680 carats recovered, 2% less than last year's comparable quarter (Q2 2023: 1,339,196 carats)

Average grade of 1.37 carats per tonne, a 24% difference relative to Q2 2023 (1.79 carats per tonne)

971,311 ore tonnes mined, a 63% increase relative to last year's comparable quarter (Q2 2023: 595,990 ore tonnes mined)

965,984 ore tonnes treated, a 29% increase relative to last year's comparable quarter (Q2 2023: 750,241 tonnes treated)

Q2 2024 Production Figures 2024 Q2 2023 Q2 YoY Variance Total tonnes mined (ore and waste) 7,911,091 9,235,465 -14 % Ore tonnes mined 971,311 595,990 63 % Ore tonnes treated 965,984 750,241 29 % Carats recovered 1,318,680 1,339,196 -2 % Carats recovered (49% share) 646,153 656,206 -2 % Recovered grade (carats per tonne) 1.37 1.79 -24 %

Q2 2024 Sales Results

During the Quarter 557,361 carats were sold for total proceeds of $56.8 million (US$41.5 million), resulting in an average price of $102 per carat (US$74 per carat). These results compare to Q2 2023 when 360,308 carats were sold for total proceeds of $59.9 million (US$44.6 million), resulting in an average price of $166 per carat (US$124 per carat).

Mark Wall, the Company's President and Chief Executive Officer, commented: "Q2 2024's carats recovered is largely unchanged compared to Q2 2023. The processing plant continued to perform well, with tonnes treated up 29% compared to Q2 2023. The good performance of the plant was offset by a lower grade in the Quarter. Lower grade had been expected as per the mine plan in Q2 2024, however, as noted previously, we have also seen a lower than expected grade at the deep portions of the pits, continue through the Quarter. The team has been working on identifying and isolating the small area of grade under performance and as stated previously, this will improve as we move through the year.

The diamond market continues to be softer than anticipated. At a macro level the return of demand in China has not materialized so far and the market is now expecting a more protracted U-shaped recovery in diamond demand. On the synthetic market, the Quarter saw De Beers' CEO, Al Cook announce it was pivoting to manufacture lab-grown diamonds for industrial uses and focusing its jewelry marketing efforts behind natural mined diamonds. We are also seeing a resurgence in US jewellers' interest in natural diamonds. The importance of diamond provenance continued to strengthen, which is helpful for Canadian diamond producers like Mountain Province."

Earnings Release and Conference Call Details

The Company will host its quarterly conference call on Thursday August 8th, 2024 at 11:00am ET. Prior to the conference call, the Company will release Q2 2024 financial results on August 7th, 2024 after-market.

Conference Call Dial-in Details:

Title: Mountain Province Diamonds Inc Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call

Date of call: 08/08/2024

Time of call: 11:00 Eastern Time

Expected Duration: 60 minutes

Webcast Link:

https://app.webinar.net/94JwoV1MRDG

North American Toll-Free Number: (+1) 800-836-8184

Participant Local/International Number: (+1) 289-819-1350

A replay of the webcast and audio call will be available on the Company's website.

About Mountain Province Diamonds Inc.

Mountain Province Diamonds is a 49% participant with De Beers Canada in the Gahcho Kue diamond mine located in Canada's Northwest Territories. The Gahcho Kue Joint Venture property consists of several kimberlites that are actively being mined, developed, and explored for future development. The Company also controls more than 113,000 hectares of highly prospective mineral claims and leases surrounding the Gahcho Kue Mine that include an Indicated mineral resource for the Kelvin kimberlite and Inferred mineral resources for the Faraday kimberlites.

For further information on Mountain Province Diamonds and to receive news releases by email, visit the Company's website at www.mountainprovince.com.

Qualified Person

The disclosure in this news release of scientific and technical information regarding Mountain Province's mineral properties has been reviewed and approved Dan Johnson, P.Eng., a director of Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. and Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Caution Regarding Forward Looking Information

This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" and "forward-looking information" under applicable Canadian and United States securities laws concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. Forward-looking statements and forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to operational hazards, including possible disruption due to pandemic such as COVID-19, its impact on travel, self-isolation protocols and business and operations, estimated production and mine life of the project of Mountain Province; the realization of mineral reserve estimates; the timing and amount of estimated future production; costs of production; the future price of diamonds; the estimation of mineral reserves and resources; the ability to manage debt; capital expenditures; the ability to obtain permits for operations; liquidity; tax rates; and currency exchange rate fluctuations. Except for statements of historical fact relating to Mountain Province, certain information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as "anticipates," "may," "can," "plans," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "projects," "targets," "intends," "likely," "will," "should," "to be", "potential" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may", "should" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management at the date the statements are made and are based on a number of assumptions and subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Many of these assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of Mountain Province and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct.

Factors that could cause actual results to vary materially from results anticipated by such forward-looking statements include the development of operation hazards which could arise in relation to COVID-19, including, but not limited to protocols which may be adopted to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and any impact of such protocols on Mountain Province's business and operations, variations in ore grade or recovery rates, changes in market conditions, changes in project parameters, mine sequencing; production rates; cash flow; risks relating to the availability and timeliness of permitting and governmental approvals; supply of, and demand for, diamonds; fluctuating commodity prices and currency exchange rates, the possibility of project cost overruns or unanticipated costs and expenses, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry, failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated.

These factors are discussed in greater detail in Mountain Province's most recent Annual Information Form and in the most recent MD&A filed on SEDAR, which also provide additional general assumptions in connection with these statements. Mountain Province cautions that the foregoing list of important factors is not exhaustive. Investors and others who base themselves on forward-looking statements should carefully consider the above factors as well as the uncertainties they represent and the risk they entail. Mountain Province believes that the expectations reflected in those forward-looking statements are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove to be correct and such forward-looking statements included in this news release should not be unduly relied upon. These statements speak only as of the date of this news release.

Although Mountain Province 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 anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Mountain Province undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by applicable securities laws. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Statements concerning mineral reserve and resource estimates may also be deemed to constitute forward-looking statements to the extent they involve estimates of the mineralization that will be encountered as the property is developed. Mineral resources are not mineral reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Further, Mountain Province may make changes to its business plans that could affect its results. The principal assets of Mountain Province are administered pursuant to a joint venture under which Mountain Province is not the operator. Mountain Province is exposed to actions taken or omissions made by the operator within its prerogative and/or determinations made by the joint venture under its terms. Such actions or omissions may impact the future performance of Mountain Province. Under its current note and revolving credit facilities Mountain Province is subject to certain limitations on its ability to pay dividends on common stock. The declaration of dividends is at the discretion of Mountain Province's Board of Directors, subject to the limitations under the Company's debt facilities, and will depend on Mountain Province's financial results, cash requirements, future prospects, and other factors deemed relevant by the Board.
Britain's former minister for veterans has "provided further information" to a public inquiry into claims of war crimes by special forces in Afghanistan, a spokeswoman said Thursday, after he was threatened with jail.

Johnny Mercer has said that "multiple officers" told him about alleged murders and a subsequent cover-up during the Afghan conflict, but he refused to divulge their identities.

The Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, which is examining the claims, gave him until 4:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Thursday to provide the names, insisting the information would be in confidence.

The judge-led inquiry had previously issued Mercer with an order under Britain's Inquiries Act 2005 warning him he could be fined, imprisoned or both if he did not comply.

"Mr Mercer has provided further information in response to the Section 21 notice and agreed to assist the inquiry further," an inquiry spokeswoman said.

"The inquiry team will be taking this forward. For the time being, the chair will not be taking further action in relation to the Section 21 notice or making further comment."

Mercer, a former British Army officer who served three tours of Afghanistan, repeatedly refused to disclose the names when he gave evidence at the inquiry in February.

The inquiry is examining claims that between 2010 and 2013 a British special forces unit executed Afghan males of "fighting age" who posed no threat.

The former minister, who lost his seat at this month's general election, said in response to the latest development: "My position remains unchanged from the beginning of the year."

"I will always do all I can to assist this important inquiry. I will not betray those I served who have confided in me, whatever the cost," he wrote on social media.
In Russia, criminal cases for treason have gradually increased since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and are already at a record high, with 48 sentences pronounced since the start of this year. According to the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court, Russia convicted 39 people under treason charges in 2023. In 2022, there were only 16 convictions.

In July 2022, the treason law was amended to include actions related to siding with an enemy during armed conflict or military actions against Russia. In April 2023, the maximum penalty for treason was increased from 20 years to life imprisonment. Since 2023, investigators have started pursuing cases under a previously dormant form of treason namely, activities against the security of Russia. The FSB [Federal Security Service, an executive authority specializing in counterterrorism and state security] interprets this to include monetary transfers, posting leaflets, sending photographs, committing terrorist acts or sabotage, and other support for Ukraine, explains Evgeny Smirnov, a lawyer with the human rights project First Department, which specializes in espionage and treason cases.

Alena Savelieva, a lawyer who has been studying court practices in treason cases, says that since the summer of 2022, the FSB has begun to issue warnings  most often by inviting people to its regional offices for interviews  to citizens who transferred money to Ukrainian funds or organizations. Following these so-called preventive measures, the first cases for donations to Ukraine began to appear.

In the first half of 2024, Russia handed down 48 convictions for treason or attempted treason, Justice Info calculated, based on media analysis and government reports. Out of these, 44 cases, or 92%, were related to actions in favour of Ukraine. Russian citizens are being prosecuted not only in border areas (such as Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh, and Belgorod regions, or occupied Crimea) but all over the country, including in remote regions like Amur (8,600 km from Moscow) and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (2,600 km from Moscow).

Three stories of treason

Most often, cases of treason due to actions in favour of Ukraine are initiated on three charges: joining (or planning to join) the enemy, providing financial support to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, or passing on information about the location of Russian troops.

In joining the enemy, the case materials often mention three armed formations: The Freedom of Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps, and the Siberian Battalion. The first one, also the most well-known, became part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in March 2022. It mainly consists of Russians. It is known for its raids, launched from Ukraine, in the Belgorod and Kursk regions in the summer of 2023 and spring of 2024: several times its units managed to break through the Russian border. In March 2023, the Russian Supreme Court qualified the Legion as a terrorist organization and banned its activities in the country.

In April 2024, 19-year-old Vyacheslav Kulikov from the Lipetsk region in western Russia was sentenced to nine years in prison. The investigation claimed that he had sent a PDF file with his personal details to several Ukrainian organizations. He was recruited by The Freedom of Russia Legion, which initially offered him a vetting process. The Russian investigation alleges that Kulikov chose to set fire to the runway of a military airfield near Lipetsk, as his test assignment. He received detailed instructions from national guard supervisors in Kyiv on how to make Molotov cocktails. After carrying out several acts of sabotage in the Lipetsk region, Kulikov planned to travel to Ukraine via Georgia. He was arrested in February 2023. Kulikov was charged not only with attempting treason but also attempting to commit a terrorist act and participating in a Ukrainian armed formation.

Russians are also accused of transferring funds to Ukrainian charities. Such cases often arise fortuitously, for example when someone undergoes additional checks at the border. This was the case for 19-year-old Danil Yefimov. On July 3, 2024, he received a 12-year prison sentence in a strict regime colony for transferring money to the Ukrainian charity fund of Sergey Prytula.

In late December 2023, Yefimov, along with his father and girlfriend, flew from Volgograd to Turkey to celebrate the New Year. At that time, the young man only had a Ukrainian international passport  he had a Russian internal passport, but he hadnt received the international one yet. This attracted the attention of border officials, who took him to an interrogation room, confiscated his mobile phone, and found several transfers to a Ukrainian fund in his banking app. Yefimov was immediately detained.

The courts verdict states that after the start of the war, he was constantly in a state of stress, and was worried about his relatives and friends in Ukraine. He was continually reading news about alleged Russian military crimes, and his relatives shared similar stories. Under the influence of these publications and information from relatives and friends, he developed a mistaken impression of the Ukrainian armed forces, its paramilitary units, and the necessity of supporting the Ukrainian army, the judgment says.

Not much is known about the cases initiated because of the transfer of data on the deployment of Russian troops. Most often the defendants are ordinary citizens, and their detention does not become known immediately, sometimes not until the stage of sentencing. The media write about such cases with references to FSB press releases. For example, in May 2024, a court in Zabaikalsky Krai (eastern Russia, 6,100 kilometres from Moscow) sentenced a local resident, Suleimanova (her first name is not given by the FSB), to 12 years in prison. According to the investigation, she collected and transmitted information about the movements of Russian military personnel and units in Zabaykalsky Krai who were being prepared for deployment to the special military operation zone.

In the spring of this year, Georgy Kamlash, a resident of Samara, received a 13-year sentence in a strict regime colony. He was found guilty of providing information to Ukraine about military equipment movements through the Samara region (Volga Federal District, 1,000 km from Moscow) in the first part of 2023, after taking photographs of railway stations Kinel and Bezymyanka and sending them with comments to the Ukrainian Armed Forces via a messaging app.

Charges against scientists

Before the war, Russian courts often tried scientists under the charge of treason. According to lawyer Savelieva, the number of cases involving scientists hasnt decreased  but these cases have been overshadowed by the ongoing surge in Ukrainian cases. Cases involving scientists are reviewed much longer and often result in harsher sentences of 15-20 years, she notes. I can relate this to the difficulty in proving. For Ukrainian cases, correspondence about views, intentions, or information about transfers to Ukraine is enough; scientists are more complicated, she explains.

Savelievas observations are supported by statistics. One of the four non-Ukrainian related convictions in 2024 was the sentence of 77-year-old scientist Anatoly Maslov. Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and professor at Novosibirsk State Technical University, Maslov was detained in June 2022. According to the FSB, in 2014 Maslov provided German intelligence with information on classified scientific developments. The prosecution of the plasma physics and chemistry specialist is linked to his research on hydrocarbon fuels for aircraft. Maslov denied the accusations, but the Court sentenced him to 14 years in a strict regime colony.

Anyone is at risk now

One of the high-profile treason cases in recent months involves Russian-American citizen Ksenia Karelina Khavana. According to human rights defenders, her case is linked to a February 24, 2022 transfer of $51.8 from her American bank account to an American fund helping Ukraine. Upon returning to Yekaterinburg from Los Angeles in the winter of 2024, she was initially detained on an administrative case and later charged with treason. Now her case is being considered by the Sverdlovsk regional court in closed session.

Legal experts believe that the surge is yet to come. From a persons arrest on treason charges to the sentencing, it often takes a year and a half to two years. From 2014 to 2022, the average number of cases was around 15 annually. In 2022, there was an increase to several dozen, and the explosive growth occurred in 2023, explains Smirnov. According to his estimates, the FSB initiates between 150 and 220 cases per year. Now, investigators from any region can handle these cases. Before the full-scale invasion, only special departments dealt with them, he says. Unlike the pre-war period, it is impossible to single out groups that risk being targeted; now, treason charges are brought against scientists, officials, housewives, schoolchildren, and military personnel. Anyone is at risk now.




Friday, July 26, 2024 - 24-year-old Shelmith Nyawira has been found dumped in Uganda after she was abducted during anti-government protests.

The victim says the only thing she remembers is being abducted by masked men with guns, who dumped her in Uganda and warned her that she should never set foot in Kenya.

Her last phone signal was traced at the Malaba border.

She was walked into a Catholic church where she sought refuge before being taken to a police station, where she reunited with her family.









The Kenyan DAILY POST.




Friday, July 26, 2024  NARC Kenya Party Leader Martha Karua has spelt doom for the Azimio Coalition after former Prime Minister Raila Odinga betrayed them by forwarding the names of four top ODM leaders to President William Rutos cabinet.

Speaking during an interview, Karua said Azimio was on its deathbed after Ruto nominated ODM members to his broad-based government.

Karua asserted that the coalition had been pulling in different directions since the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) began its talks.

According to her, Azimio agreed at the beginning of the year that every party should build itself.

"Azimio is shaky and I think after yesterday, it's done.

"I'm saying shaky because, since the NADCO talks, we've been pulling in different directions.

"The only thing that has saved us is that we said at the beginning of this year, let every party go and build itself.

"So, I've been busy with Narc-Kenya and not busy with Azimio," Karua remarked.

However, Karua said some of the coalition members will hold a meeting on Monday next week and make a statement later.

On Ruto nominating four ODM members to the cabinet, the Narc Kenya leader noted that she was not surprised.

"I was not surprised because Ruto modus operandi, his way of working, he is everything.

"He is a jack of all trades. I am sure that he can appoint the CSs, but he will be the one running the ministries.

"It is a one-man show," Karua stated.

Ruto nominated ODMs John Mbadi, Hassan Joho, Wycliffe Oparanya, and Opiyo Wandayi to the Cabinet despite being members of Azimio.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Friday, July 26, 2024 - A thirsty young man took advantage of the protests that rocked the city on Thursday to feel Hanifas warmth.

He stood behind Hanifa as she was protesting against police brutality and then moved closer to her, skillfully feeling the warmth of her body.

The video has sparked hilarious reactions on X





Watch it below.





The Kenyan DAILY POST.






Thursday, July 25, 2024 - Donald Trump's would-be assassin, Thomas Crooks flew a drone 200 yards from the rally stage two hours before the shooting.

FBI Director, Christopher Wray told lawmakers the 20-year-old gunman flew a drone 200 yards from the stage just two hours before he opened fire in Butler, Pennsylvania, and had three explosives in his car.

The bombshell revelations from the bureau's chief give more insight into Crooks' preparation before he sh0t the former president, including his online research on the sniper who took out JFK in 1963.

Wray said Crooks had been 'interested in public figures' and 'somewhere around July 6 or so he became very focused on former President Trump and his rally.'

The director said an analysis of Crooks' laptop revealed he had searched on Google on July 6 'how far away was Oswald from Kennedy.' It was the same day he registered to attend the Butler rally.

Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed former President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Crooks was flying a drone above the rally site two hours before the shooting and just 200 yards away from the stage, Wray has also revealed.

Wray made the bombshell revelation to Congress on Wednesday during a grilling by lawmakers on the investigation into the assassination attempt on the former president and the massive security failures.

Crooks shot Trump in the ear just 400 feet away from the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13 from the roof of a nearby building just outside the security perimeter of the event.

Wray revealed that investigators found Crooks had a drone that he used to survey the scene hours before the event started, which was recovered from his car parked nearby.

He flew the drone around 4 p.m. over the area of the rally close to '200 yards' from the stage to survey the scene. Trump took the stage around 6:03 p.m., over two hours later.

The FBI has also recovered three 'explosive devices' in possession of Crooks.

They were 'relatively crude devices' but had the ability 'to be detonated remotely,' Wray said.

The FBI director also revealed the weapon used had a 'collapsible stock,' which he said 'could explain why it might've been less easy for people to observe.'

Wray could not say whether Crooks carried the gun up to the roof with him before he fired the shots or had stashed it there prior. He said the gunman did not use a latter to get onto the roof but rather some sort of 'vertical piping.'

He said Crooks and his family owned a combined 14 guns and Crooks had visited a shooting range one day before the rally. He used an AR-style weapon that had been purchased legally by his father.

Wray said eight bullet cartridges had been recovered from the roof where Crooks fired off his shots toward the former president.

And he wouldn't rule out that Crooks did not have any accomplices to the crime, saying it's still being looked at by law enforcement.

Wray faced questions about why the president was allowed on stage despite the 'threat' being identified 20 minutes before the shots were fired.

Wray said, 'we don't know the answer to that.'

But he insisted his investigation was not focused on the security breach and the Secret Service failures.

'Our investigation is focused on the shooter and all things related to his attack.'

His hearing comes days after the former Director of Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle was forced to resign after evading answering rounds of questioning by punting to the FBI in another congressional hearing earlier this week.

Wray promised his agency would leave 'no stone unturned' and emphasized that he wanted to provide all the information he had at this point of the ongoing investigation.

'The shooter may be deceased but the FBI's investigation is very much ongoing.'

He also made a reference to the warnings he has been giving Congress for years now about the threats of domestic terrorism.




Friday, July 26, 2024 - Former Isiolo South MP Hon. Abdi Tepo and his wife Halima Gura Roka, a Quality Assurance Officer at the defunct National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF) have been arrested.

The couple was arrested on Thursday afternoon after the MP purported to open fire at EACC detectives who had gone to his residence for a search operation targeting his wife, a prime suspect in the multi-million NHIF graft scandal under investigation by the Commission.



During the operation, detectives recovered two briefcases full of US dollars, estimated to be in millions, and assorted chemicals (in powder and liquid form) suspected to be used for making fake notes. Samples of the notes tested at the EACC Integrated Financial Forensic Lab were fake.



OCS EACC Police Station handed over the former MP, his wife, and various recovered items, including the fake notes, Ceska Pistol with an expired firearm permit, and assorted chemicals, to the DCI under whose jurisdiction the matter lies.



The operation targeted seven prime suspects in the NHIF scam, including the MPs wife, a former NHIF Quality Assurance Officer, the Eastleigh NHIF Branch Manager, and 5 Directors of Beirut Pharmacy which fraudulently obtained Kes.199 million from NHIF through fictitious claims facilitated by the NHIF officials.



The Beirut Pharmacy matter is among several NHIF cases under investigation to inform the prosecution of any culpable persons and recovery of lost public funds.

















The Kenyan DAILY POST.






Thursday, July 25, 2024 - The pilot who was the sole survivor of the Nepal plane crash earlier this week made it out alive after his cockpit broke off from the aircraft on impact.

Harrowing photos showing rescuers pulling the bloodied captain to safety.

Captain Manish Ratna Shakya, the pilot of the doomed flight that left 18 dead, was pulled by rescuers from the front window of the cockpit Wednesday, July 24, about five minutes after the plane went down near Kathmandu airport, the BBC reported.

"We broke the window and immediately pulled him out," Senior Superintendent of Nepal Police Dambar Bishwakarma said.

"He had blood all over his face when he was rescued but we took him to the hospital in a condition where he could speak," he added.

The Saurya Airlines plane crashed immediately after takeoff when it turned right and collided with the storage container at 11:11 am Wednesday.

The collision tore the cockpit off the small passenger plane and sent the rest of the flaming aircraft careening into a valley where it was torn to pieces, Nepal Civil Aviation minister Badri Pandey said.

The rest of the plane erupted in flames, making it impossible to rescue the other passengers.





"It hit the container on the edge of the airport then, it fell further below," Pandey said, "The cockpit, however, remained stuck inside the container. This is how the captain survived."

A "very scared" Shakya was rescued within five minutes of the crash  and moments before flames engulfed the plane, the Nepali army said in a statement.

He was rushed to Kathmandu Medical College Hospital, where he is under observation in the neurosurgery ward, hospital director Dr Meena Thapa said.

He will require surgery to treat several broken bones in his back and suffered head and facial injuries.

"We have treated injuries on various parts of his body," Thapa said.

Nepals Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli visited members of Shakyas family in the hospital.

A panel has been formed to investigate the crash, a government spokesman said.

An initial assessment states that the cause of the crash was the plane taking a wrong turn, according to Tribhuvan International Airport Jagannath Niroula.





The planes co-pilot, who did not survive, Sasant Katuwal, had only been flying for the last three years, according to his uncle Dhyan Bahadur Khadka.

The Kathmandu airport is considered especially difficult for pilots since it is located in a valley and surrounded by mountains.

"As soon as it took off, it turned right, [when it] should have turned left," Niraula said.

"I came out and saw a plane had crashed and there was a huge smoke and fire coming out, there was chaos and confusion," said Kam Kumar Khatri Chetri, who witnessed the tragic scene unfold.

All 18 bodies have been recovered and identified.






Thursday, July 25, 2024 - A man from Mpumalanga, South Africa, has vowed never to forgive the pastor who allegedly sev3red his hands, accusing him of theft.

Dumisani Mahlangu, whose hands were cut off, spoke out after the pastor and his family appeared in court on charges of kidnapping and attempted murder.

Mahlangu was accused of stealing electrical wires and metal scrap from Soteria Ministries International in Kwa-Guqa, Emalahleni. The accused, Pastor Solomon Mhlanga, his wife Poppy, and their son Enoch, were released on bail after appearing before the Emalahleni Magistrate's Court on Wednesday, July 24.

"I have not forgiven him, I will not forgive him, and I will die having not forgiven him," said Mahlangu, describing how the pastor's actions have ruined his life. He recounted the trauma of being near the church, stating, "This thing is destroying me inside. I will never forgive him."

According to reports, after the initial assault at the church, Mahlangu was driven to a secluded area in Kromdraai in the back of the pastor's van, where his hands were allegedly sev3red. An anonymous resident claimed this was not the first incident of violence at the church, recalling a similar case of a man being assaulted by congregants the previous year.

Witnesses expressed their disbelief and horror. One resident described seeing Mahlangu's injuries firsthand: "It is one thing to hear about what he has done, but it is another to see it for myself."

Mpumezo Gawe, another local, mentioned community calls to torch the church due to the pastor's controversial actions. "What he did was not good, he should not have taken matters into his own hands," Gawe said.

The case has sparked significant outrage and debate within the community, with many questioning the pastor's actions and the safety of congregants at the church.




Friday, July 26, 2024  Azimio Coalition is now officially dead and buried.

This is after NARC Kenya Leader Martha Karua announced her exit from the Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition yesterday after ODM Leader Raila Odinga betrayed the coalition by joining President William Rutos broad-based government.

This move comes amidst mounting political tensions and evolving alliances to quell rising governance pressure in the country.

Karua's departure was made public through an official statement on her official social media handles.

"Kindly take note that our stay in Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition is not tenable due to the prevailing political developments, Karua stated in the notice.

As NARC Kenya by way of this letter, we are giving notice to exit the Coalition as stipulated in the exit clause(s) in the Coalition Agreement. This notice is effective from the date of this letter."

Notably, Karua was the presidential running mate for Azimio led by Raila Odinga.

In the latest development, four of Railas top allies were nominated into the cabinet by Ruto in his second batch of nominations to the utter surprise of Azimio.

The confusion and the political heat seem to have angered Martha Karua, who is a stickler for constitutionalism and a key champion of integrity.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Friday, July 26, 2024 - NARC-Kenya Party Leader Martha Karua has vowed never to join President William Rutos corrupt government.

This follows former Prime Minister Raila Odinga's decision to join Rutos Government of National Unity, where four of his top ODM leaders were nominated to the cabinet.

Speaking during an Interview, the vocal Azimio principal noted that she was still in the Opposition despite the looming division within the coalition.

According to Karua, she would continue to stand with Kenyans and serve them as their Opposition after Raila betrayed Azimio and the Gen Zs.

I take the opposition. What suites me is standing with Kenyans and I will stand with them all the time but if I get the chance to serve them, I will, Karua stated.

While commenting on the National Dialogue Committee (NADCO) report which proposed the establishment of the Office of the Opposition Leader, Karua distanced herself from the report saying she was not a contender on the matters highlighted by the proposals.

I am not a contender. I will not accept a proposal that came in an unwarranted manner. But I will continue serving Kenyans in the Opposition. I will still serve the nation, she stated.

I will not back down. I will continue expressing my political stand. If an opportunity avails itself either in government or in opposition.

At the same time, Karua called on Gen Zs to continue championing good leadership for the betterment of the nation.

According to Karua, there were no signs of a surrender by the young generation.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Friday, July 26, 2024 - Firebrand lawyer, Miguna Miguna has labeled former Prime Minister Raila Odinga a political conman, accusing him of 'feasting' on the blood of Gen Zs who have died during protests against President William Rutos oppressive regime.

In a social media post immediately after Raila Odinga said he was not aware that some of ODM's top honchos would be appointed to Rutos cabinet, Miguna Miguna termed the old man as a liar and dared him to fire all those who were appointed if he was speaking the truth.

The four ODM big boys who were appointed to the cabinet are John Mbadi (Treasury), Hassan Joho( Mining ), Opiyo Wandayi(Energy and Petroleum), and Wycliffe Oparanya( Cooperative and MSMEs).

Miguna stated if Raila Odinga is not a political conman, he should expel the four from ODM since the party constitution states so.

Conmanship. Why are you afraid of openly and publicly joining the Butcher of Sugoi?

"If you want Kenyans to believe your games, announce the EXPULSION of Mbadi, Joho, Oparanya, and Wandayi.

"You should choke on whatever you are feasting on, on the blood of innocent Kenyans Ruto has murdered.

"Otherwise, hide your treacherous face in shame forever! #RutoMustGo, Miguna wrote on his X

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Friday, July 26, 2024 - Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has set the record straight over his alleged partnership with President William Ruto.

In a statement, Raila maintained that the ODM party has not entered a coalition agreement with Ruto.

Although he acknowledged that Ruto nominated four members of his ODM party to the Cabinet, Raila said he was not consulted, and neither did he send the names to Ruto for nomination.

According to Raila, the nominations were not part of any agreement between Ruto, his party, or Azimio la Umoja.

"I have taken note of President William Ruto's announcement on Wednesday regarding the reconstitution of the cabinet to include four members from ODM.

"As articulated in our statement on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, neither the ODM Party nor Azimio la Umoja One Kenya Coalition Party has entered into any coalition agreement with President Ruto's UDA party," he stated.

Nonetheless, Raila wished those who had been nominated all the best in their work, noting that the nominees were competent and would contribute to the country's growth.

Those who were nominated to the Cabinet include Hassan Joho (Mining), Wycliffe Oparanya (Cooperatives), John Mbadi (Treasury), and Opiyo Wandayi (Energy).

"We extend our best wishes to the nominees and trust that they will contribute positively to national development," he added.

Meanwhile, he demanded for the government to hasten the national dialogue that was proposed by the President.

Raila indicated that the dialogue would be important in addressing issues raised by Kenyans during the protests.

His other demands were the release of arrested Gen Z protesters, accountability for police officers, and compensation of the victims of police brutality.

The Kenyan DAILY POST








Friday, January 26, 2024 - Former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has stated that he was unaware that four of his generals in the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) were to be appointed to President William Rutos cabinet.

Speaking for the first time since Ruto picked his key ODM luminaries to cabinet, Raila endorsed the cabinet team and extended his best wishes to the team.

Ruto named Hassan Joho (Mining, Blue Economy), Wycliffe Oparanya (Cooperatives), John Mbadi (National Treasury), and Opiyo Wandayi (Energy and Petroleum).

We extend our best wishes to the nominees and trust that they will contribute positively to national development, Raila said in a statement to newsrooms.

Raila also insisted that the government must address three key issues: compensation for families of victims of extra-judicial killings, the release of all protesters in police custody, and the termination of ongoing cases.

The ODM boss also demanded the prosecution of police officers involved in the shooting of peaceful protesters.

Since the unveiling of part of the all-inclusive Cabinet, Raila's troops have been sending mixed signals about his rapprochement with Ruto with his allies left split in the middle.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Thursday, July 25, 2024 - A rodent disease that can be spread to humans and has no cure has killed several people in the US and prompted a health warning.

Cases of hantavirus, which is spread from rodents to people through viral droplets from handling materials with the animals urine, saliva or faeces, are on the rise, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Seven cases of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome have been confirmed in Arizona. Three of them resulted in death.

The syndrome "is a severe and sometimes fatal respiratory illness caused by the infection with hantavirus," the Arizona Department of Health Services stated in an advisory.

In addition, there have been two hantavirus cases in California and one death.

Symptoms include fever, headache, and muscle aches quickly making it hard to breathe.

Hantavirus has been found mostly in deer mouse in the Grand Canyon state and is not spread on human-to-human contact. But it is not confined to a specific region.

"It can be present in many areas in the southwestern region of the United States where there is rodent activity, even if mice are never seen," the advisory states.

Before the recent hantavirus cases, the last one in Coconino County was reported in 2016.

The syndrome was detected in 1993 after infecting a Navajo tribe residing at the border of Arizona and New Mexico. About 80% of the population died at the time.

Public health officials recommend residents who have experienced rodent activity to follow certain clean-up procedures.




Friday, January 26, 2024 - Former Presidential candidate Reuben Kigame has urged Kenyan youth commonly known as Gen Z and millennials to continue fighting the oppressive regime headed by President William Ruto.

In a social media post on Friday morning, Kigame urged everyone to stay home on Tuesday to paralyze the country's economy.

He said that on Tuesday next week, everyone should stay at home and avoid going to grocery stores, schools, or hospitals, leaving the government without anyone to arrest or abduct.

From Tuesday, let us stop the nation from moving forward.

"They oppress us because everything continues to move. #KaaNyumbani.

"Make sure you have something to eat. Then, no movement, no car, no supermarket, no groceries, no school, no hospital, no nothing for a whole day.

"There will be no goons, no shooting, no abduction. Nobody out there to kill. Except me, Kigame wrote on his X.

Kigame is among the politicians who have been supporting the Gen Z protests in the last five weeks.

The Kenyan DAILY POST




Friday, July 26, 2024  President William Ruto may have fooled the Gen Zs after he announced the scrapping of offices of the First and Second Ladies, and doing away with their budgets as a way of cutting government spending.

This is after the government reinstated the offices with their full budgets, a day after Ruto formed a Government of National Unity with former Prime Minister Raila Odinga by nominating four ODM members to his broad-based Cabinet.

The Ndindi Nyoro-led Budget and Appropriations Committee rejected the plan by the Treasury to fold up Rachel Ruto and Dorcas Gachaguas offices despite mounting pressure to cut costs.

The move to retain the two unconstitutional offices has come as a shocker to many after Kenyans pressured Ruto to disband them.

Ruto had initially proposed significant budget cuts, aiming to scrap confidential expenditures for the Office of the Deputy President, as well as allocations to the Office of the First Lady and the Office of the Spouse to the Deputy President.

The proposal faced staunch opposition from the Committee on Administration and Internal Security in the National Assembly.

Narok West MP Gabriel Koshal Tongoyo, head of the Committee, alongside members like George Peter Kaluma, argued that terminating the contracts of staff in these offices could lead to legal challenges and additional costs.

They emphasised the binding nature of the contracts and the potential financial repercussions of discontinuing these services.

The committee's decision to retain the budget lines has sparked debate and speculation on its implications.

Treasury had originally scrapped the budget lines for the offices of the First and Second Ladies, aiming to save Ksh1.25 billion in the current financial year.

The Kenyan DAILY POST






Thursday, July 25, 2024 - The Supreme Court of Ghana has upheld a six-decade-old law criminalising g@y s3x as the country awaits another court decision on whether to introduce even harsher penalties in a new bill.

The seven-member panel dismissed a lawsuit challenging the law, with presiding Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie saying reasons for the decision will be given later.

The Ghanaian Criminal Code of 1960 prohibits same-sex sexual acts, calling them "unnatural carnal knowledge." Offenders face up to three years in jail.

The sentence will be lengthened if the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill passed in February takes effect, and the government would intensify a crackdown on those accused of promoting lesbian, gay, or other minority sexual or gender identities.

The court earlier this month postponed ruling on whether the bill should be transmitted to President Nana Akufo-Addo for approval, saying it should first be determined if the bill is constitutional.

Law lecturer, Prince Obiri-Korang, had asked the apex court in 2021 to annul aspects of the 1960 code criminalising same-s3x sexual acts, saying it breached the constitutional right to privacy.






Thursday, July 25, 2024 - A UK police officer has been suspended following the circulation of a video online that appears to show the officer kicking and stamping on a man's head during an arrest at Manchester Airport.

Greater Manchester Police (GMP) announced the suspension on Thursday, July 25, after reviewing the incident, which occurred on Tuesday, July 23. The video has sparked widespread public outrage and concern.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has launched an independent investigation into the "level of force" used by the officer. "We appreciate the footage shared on social media has attracted widespread shock and concern," the IOPC stated.

In a prior statement, GMP reported that three officers were assaulted during the incident, with one female officer sustaining a broken nose and requiring hospital treatment. The video in question was recorded after the officers were attacked.

The footage shows a police officer kicking and stamping on a man lying on the ground next to a woman. The details of the events leading up to and following the video remain unclear, but GMP acknowledged that "the use of such force in an arrest is an unusual occurrence and one that we understand creates alarm."

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, after viewing the complete footage, described the situation as "not clearcut" and acknowledged that there were issues "on both sides." Burnham noted that the incident began with an altercation in the arrivals hall before escalating in the airport car park. He called for calm, stating, "What people dont see in the clip is that there is a situation which escalates and escalates very quickly."

Prime Minister Keir Starmer also expressed understanding of the public's concern over the video, and multiple MPs have labelled the footage as "disturbing."

Following the incident on Tuesday night, police arrested two men on suspicion of assault and assaulting an emergency worker, among other charges. Two other men were arrested on suspicion of affray and assaulting an emergency worker. The investigation continues as authorities seek to understand the full context and implications of the incident.




Friday, July 26, 2024 - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called President William Ruto, urging him not to harm the youthful Kenyan protesters or clamp down on the media.

This is after Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHRC) reported that Ruto's government had killed over 60 Gen Zs since the beginning of anti-government protests five weeks ago. Another 66 persons are missing and cannot be traced.

According to Blinkens spokesman Matthew Miller, the two discussed the need to protect the voices of Kenyan youths and civil society.

Miller said the Secretary of State also urged Ruto to ensure the security forces in the country are held accountable for their actions.

"In a call with Kenyan President Ruto @SecBlinken reiterated the need to defend and protect the voices of youth, civil society, and media.

"The Secretary also underscored that the security forces need to be held accountable," the spokesperson said in a statement.

The Kenyan DAILY POST
During a recent palliative conference, the discussion turned to the challenges of translating our work to the public and our colleagues. Despite the growth of our field and increasing access, there remains major confusion about palliative care and hospice. Much of the misunderstanding originates from within the medical profession. Having worked in the palliative care and hospice arena for nearly two decades, I have seen many examples of the confusion and fear of our field.

A common response to a palliative care recommendation is, Theyre not ready for that yet. However, current guidelines are to initiate palliative care services upon the diagnosis of a serious illness. Earlier evaluation allows for time to establish rapport with both the patient and family while keeping quality-of-life considerations in focus. Shared decision-making requires careful dialogues to relay complex medical issues and understand the patients priorities for their care. This is best done in the context of a relationship.

During my time as a palliative consultant in a regional hospital, I had the experience of a surgeon questioning why I was seeing his patient: I havent given up on him yet. We dont give up either; assisting patients to manage serious illness by addressing symptoms but also spiritual, psychological, and social challenges with a supportive team is hardly giving up. I have often found it ironic that whole-person care is often reserved until someone has a serious or terminal diagnosis. Interestingly, this high-intensity supportive care can result in patients outliving their original prognosis.

In the hospital setting, we were often consulted for the purpose of getting the DNR. In one case, the ICU consulted us to transition a patient to comfort care. A careful analysis and family meeting uncovered that the patient was established with an organ transplant team at the university hospital. After a few phone calls, a transfer was arranged. It is usually perceived that palliative care means a dialing back of aggressive management, but I have been the one to recommend an escalation in care when it aligns with the patients goals. In another case, the patient initially refused an amputation. The medical team recommended hospice, but a careful discussion with a better understanding of the cultural nuances meant finding a compromise that provided the patient with a longer prognosis.

Unfortunately, I have observed a colleague use hospice as a threat: If you dont participate with the rehab team, I will send you to hospice. There was clearly no appreciation that we dont send people to hospice. In fact, patients must sign consents to enroll in hospice. This use of hospice as a punishment, of course, only serves to confuse the situation and generate fear. Sadly, that fear often means patients dont get the support they need as they face the end of life. I have heard countless times from patients and families, I wish we had known about hospice earlier.

This fear is not limited to the public. It is often generated by those within health care. In one case, an oncologist introduced the hospice team by explaining, They will discuss another approach to care. When hospice is a dirty word and our own colleagues are afraid to say it, this only perpetuates the misunderstandings. My approach is to introduce hospice early before people qualify as a way to normalize the conversation but also assure them that there will always be care available. I have heard medical personnel say, There is nothing more we can do, instead of assuring patients and families that we can continue to care, support, and manage difficult symptoms until the end.

I have also observed an either/or approach to pain management, with patients being informed that they must enroll in comfort care to obtain adequate pain relief. This is where the expertise of palliative care can be especially valuable in addressing the total pain experience of patients. Careful titration and a multimodal approach to pain and the concurrent anxiety that often accompanies it can often offer improved symptom management.

There is also the perception that palliative care is simply enhanced case management or does not rise to the level of a medical specialty. Palliative care relies upon an interdisciplinary team of professionals to address all domains of carephysical, social, cultural, psychological, and spiritual. It starts, however, with a detailed medical assessment, a review of the diagnoses and associated symptom burden, recognition of patient capacity for decision-making, and prognostic awareness. Many organizations, in their eagerness to check a box to indicate they provide palliative services, will have only one discipline carrying out the consult, which indicates a misunderstanding of the basic tenets of our model.

A colleague recently relayed to me that the hospitalists in their regional medical center are handling the palliative care needs. In the next breath, however, he told me, But I avoid the family meetings. The family is central to the palliative model, as serious illness ripples throughout a family, changing responsibilities and family structure. Education to caregivers is critical to successful care transitions. When family meetings are not a priority, the care is impacted. As an example, our community hospice is seeing many families without a clear understanding of the medical status of the loved one they are expected to care for at home. In one case, the RN sent the patient back to the hospital when she determined the husband was too demented to care for his ailing wife. During a family meeting, not only do I assess the patients medical issues, but I also determine the familys ability to provide support and care in the home. The family is the unit of care in our work.

There is also confusion around primary versus specialty palliative care. Primary palliative care refers to the basic skill set that all physicians should have to provide supportive care to patients with serious and/or terminal illnesses. This includes basic training in breaking bad news and managing challenging symptoms. Specialty palliative care refers to an interdisciplinary team, usually led by a physician board-certified and/or fellowship-trained in the area of hospice and palliative medicine. Comprehensive services should be available to patients and families across the care spectrum in the inpatient and outpatient environments.

As medicine has become increasingly more complex and treatment options have expanded with the growing trend toward person-centered care and shared decision-making, palliative care is essential. In my experience, people want deeper connections with their medical team, better communication about the disease process and what it means for them personally, and their quality-of-life considerations. That is palliative care!

Aldebra Schroll is a family physician.
It was 2018. Previously, Max had steadfastly refused all vaccines. Despite his HIV infection, which was well controlled, and my pleading with him over multiple years to get a flu shot, he was firmly opposed. He was intelligent and very matter-of-fact, and we had discussed this often. It was obvious that he did not want to be vaccinated, despite the clear recommendations and benefits for a patient with his diagnosis. He often said, Im not ready yet. I was in the trenches with Max.

In our fall visit in 2018, he opened with, Youve been talking with me for a long time about vaccines, and Ive been giving it a lot of thought. Ive read a little more about the flu shot, and Ive decided that Im ready. Ill take a flu shot today. I could barely believe my ears, replying, Are you sure? Are you ready? to which he smiled and said, Yes. At his next appointment, he agreed to a Tdap vaccine (since the flu shot had gone so well and uneventfully). I was thrilled.

How did Max and I get to this point? With persistence, respect, and perhaps most importantly, trust.

During our annual fall visit, I would broach the topic saying I know weve discussed flu shots. If you have changed your mind, please let me know. And then we moved on to other topics, such as his CD4 count, HIV viral load, and adherence to antivirals. Faithfully, every visit, the vaccine topic was raised, even if only briefly.

My goal was to give him space and keep the door open in case he did change his mind. We discussed the issue forthrightly; frothy emotional appeals were avoided. The decision-making power resided with him, as it should. My job was to build the relationship, seek to understand, provide information including the value of a flu shot, and, when he was ready, proceed.

Our relationship was one based on trust. Max trusted me, and I trusted him to listen to my advice. I respected his decision and autonomy, never giving up hope that one day he might change his mind. My relationship with Max illustrates the importance and power of relationships that internal medicine physicians have with their patients. If Max and I had just ignored this topic or if I had assumed he would never get vaccinated, it is likely that he never would have done so.

Unbeknownst to me, Max had been vaccine deliberating, as Kimberly Manning, MD, FACP, has so eloquently described. I have borrowed Dr. Mannings playbook many times and think it is an incredibly respectful, engaging approach. A sense of curiosity and seeking to understand the why helps us better address our patients concerns and demonstrates that we care.

August is National Immunization Awareness Month. This is a great month to implement some of Dr. Mannings approaches. Useful for internal medicine physicians, ACP hosts a wide range of valuable vaccine-related resources on its website.

Since the pandemic, we have witnessed decreased interest, confusion, and in some cases, outright hostility about vaccines, unfortunately. We also know that vaccines are some of the most critical, life-saving preventive measures in the history of mankind. How do we effectively share this information with our patients? ACPs website and Dr. Mannings video have some excellent suggestions for how to do this. We, as internal medicine physicians, must continue to speak up and be respectfully persistent because if we do not, others will step into that void, and the message conveyed may not be the one we would choose. We also must take care of each other as we do this, as recent years have not been easy.

On a related note, how do we nurture trust? As we know, trust is foundational to patient relationships and the care we provide. We also know trust must be earned. Growing and nurturing trust will take a village, to be sure. We begin in the trenches with our teams and in our interactions with our patients. We share the most accurate information and change course as new information becomes available. We do so with humility, kindness, and compassion in a spirit of service.

Due to changes in my clinical practice, I was no longer caring for Max during the pandemic, so I do not know if he received a COVID-19 vaccine or not. My hope is that he was open-minded about the vaccine and hopefully received it. Being in the trenches with Max reminded me that how we interact with patients can deeply influence patients health behaviors. It is not just what we say but also how we say it. Persistence, respect, and trust can make all the difference.

Janet A. Jokela, MD, MPH, ACPs Treasurer 2022-2025, served as the Regional Dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine-Urbana, and currently serves as Professor and Senior Associate Dean of Engagement at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine, Urbana, IL.

The American College of Physicians is the largest medical specialty organization in the United States, boasting members in over 145 countries worldwide. ACPs membership encompasses 161,000 internal medicine physicians, related subspecialists, and medical students. Internal medicine physicians are specialists who utilize scientific knowledge and clinical expertise for diagnosing, treating, and providing compassionate care to adults, spanning from those in good health to individuals with complex illnesses. Stay connected with ACP on X @ACPIMPhysicians, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram @acpimphysicians.
I tried to get a personal appointment at a large prestigious academic outpatient service. The website had a contact us link, which directed me to a very prolonged questionnaire wanting to know details (mainly financial) that practically included turning over my firstborn child. After spending extensive time clicking through the questionnaire, I finally came to a screen that allowed me to pick a time over two weeks in the future for a patient service representative to call me back and get more information to schedule an appointment. I was instructed many times that this would not be an appointment, nor would I be speaking to a professional. OK, I get it. This was just the next step. I received multiple annoying AI texts and emails reminding me of this appointment time over the ensuing weeks.

When I finally spoke to the young clerk, she made me repeat much of what I had already filled out and then had trouble with her computer screen because it wouldnt accept the reason I wanted the appointment. Being the professional I am, I gave her multiple correct codes that she could use in Epic, but it seemed none of them worked. She had no solution. By now, Im easily an hour into trying to make a simple appointment. She finally said a nurse from the outpatient department would call me back and see if I could be scheduled (no promises). As of three weeks later, I have not received a call, text, or email. I surrender!

Heres another one: I received a bill for $130 for X-ray services from April 2023 from yet another large medical system. Yes, from over a year ago! The bill had absolutely no information that told me what was paid by insurance, just that it was past due. I was caught in voice mail bot hell for what seemed like hours as I was told multiple times, If this is an emergency, call 911. Please enter the invoice number. Please enter the insurance number. Please click 2 if you want to know our hours of service. Please click 1 if you want to repeat this message. Eventually, I found a live person who made me repeat all of the information I had painstakingly entered before.

I feel sorry for the help desk people, so I always try to be kind. They are likely poorly paid and under-resourced. But this was the finance department that was listed on the bill. Certainly, they are able to provide simple billing information. Wrong! All I wanted was an explanation of this bill, which she could not provide. I had already spoken to my insurer (another 30 minutes of voice bots to get to a live person), who informed me they had no record of the bill. The poor girl kept deferring to her script that said, Im sorry, you need to call your insurer to get information. No, Im not allowed to send you the explanation of benefits. You need to get it from your insurer. But Ive already spoken to my insurer, who has no record of this.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Unfortunately, these large health systems have centralized every aspect of phone contact, scheduling, billing, and service, and no one on the ground is allowed to have common sense or even make a decision that would be in the patients interest. These were simple tasks that could not be accomplished, yet both of these health giants advertise that they are innovative, cutting-edge, and care about patients. Corporations are not people. Institutions are not people. They dont care.

Yes, I have both physical and mental fatigue from dealing with the U.S. health system. I couldnt get my simple needs met, and Im an insider who is not even sick! As a primary care doctor, I spend way too much time advocating for patients and trying to help them solve these bureaucratic issues. And I cant even begin to describe the swim in the quagmire of pharmaceutical and insurance preauthorizations and denials. The caregivers and people who work in medical offices are doing their best, but the large conglomerates have made it impossible for the people who actually care for patients to use common sense and solve simple problems.

I was unsuccessful in solving my own issues and getting my personal health needs met. I dont think it is an unusual tale.

Toni Brayer is an internal medicine physician.
President Museveni is next week expected to head to West Nile to officiate the connection of sub region to the National Grid.

This follows the successful completion of the construction of Kole- Gulu- Nebbi- Arua Transmission line that will facilitate the connection.

The 132kv power line works was contracted to KEC International Ltd with other associated lines, whereas Avic International Holdings Corporation was contracted to build the four substations at the cost of $18.177 million.

Energy minister Ruth Nankabirwa explains what this development means to the region.

It will happen in the third of august, the president will be in West Nile to do so, and the people of West Nile will be connected to the national grid and this is what I promised them, she said.

On Wednesday, the Minister together with her finance counterpart Matia Kasaija, approved the Corporate Strategic Plan (CSP) of the Uganda Electricity Transmission Company (UETCL) for the period 2024-2029 and the Grid Development Plan (GDP) 2023-2024 after review by the different shareholders.

These plans directly align with the NDP III, the Energy Policy and Vision 2040.
Anyone with any information regarding the disappearance of Newbridge student Deirdre Jacob 26 years ago has been urged to come forward.

Deirdre was last seen on 28 July 1998 near her home at Roseberry in Newbridge, at approximately 3pm. She was 18 years old and had just completed one year at St Marys University in London. Deirdre had enjoyed her life in London and was looking forward to returning to college that September.

Were desperately seeking new information, her father Michael told the Kildare Nationalist. There was a huge, huge search of every area around at the time, and a huge amount of questionnaires and interviews and whatever, and that continued over the years, review situations of the case happened several times. But yet there's that little piece  theres those couple of little blank areas that need filling in, and we are desperately appealing to people.

Someone who maybe heard something or maybe were in close proximity to something going on, didn't realise at the time it was of any great importance, and maybe allowed the passage of time to pass by and didn't do anything, and then felt that they might be in trouble if they did come forward. But that would not be the case. No matter what length of time goes past, if someone has a piece of information out there, it's vitally important that they would come forward.

Michael said they have been assured by the gardai that anyone that has information and hasn't come forward with it, they would be handled in a very, very sensitive way. The vital thing is to get that piece of information and see where it will fit in with the investigation and all that has been compiled.

Michael said it may only take very little information to fill in the mystery. That's why we are appealing to anyone who noticed something on the day or around that time in July 1998, if they were conscious of anything, or if they were conscious of anyone acting out of character.

He added: Our mission, our thrust, our every day thoughts are to try and find Deirdre and bring her back home. That's what's absolutely vital in our lives now.

That day, 28 July 1998, Deirdre had walked into Newbridge town to get a bank draft to send to a college friend in London for their rent deposit. At 2.14pm Deirdre is observed on CCTV walking on Main Street Newbridge. At approximately 2.18pm she is observed in the AIB bank getting a 100 bank draft and leaves the bank a short time later.

At 2.26pm Deirdre is seen again on CCTV queuing in the Post Office, and at 2.32pm speaking with a friend outside the Post Office on Main Street. At 2.35pm, the last sighting of Deirdre on CCTV is recorded walking outside the PTSB Bank on Main Street. Deirdre was last seen shortly after 3pm near her family home outside Newbridge.

Deirdre was 53 in height, slim build with grey/green eyes and dark chin length hair. When she went missing, she was wearing a navy v neck t-shirt with white trim on the collar and sleeves, navy or black straight jeans and blue Nike runners. Deirdre was carrying a distinctive black satchel type bag with long shoulder straps and the word CAT in large yellow capital letters on the side.

On the 20th anniversary of her disappearance, gardai confirmed that the missing person investigation had been upgraded to a murder investigation.

We are confident that there are people out there, maybe certainly one person, who knows something, Michael said. Maybe someone who overheard something in the years following 1998, because that happens very often in cases  people will reflect a little bit and maybe talk a little bit more open. And if someone was in that situation and heard a discussion taking place and said 'oh, that's interesting', that's what they should come forward with.

Sometimes it has happened that someone with a piece of information like that, they've held it for a long while, and they're probably always only too willing to be approached by gardai, but it takes someone else to point the gardai in that direction.

Anyone with information in relation to Deirdres murder is asked to please come forward to either the investigation team at Kildare Garda station on 045 527730, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda station.
Eleanor Geoghegan, a Kilkenny author, has recently released her second much anticipated Popper Monster childrens book.

This second Magical Lunch Adventure, which is all about shapes, includes all of the things that children loved about the first book such as the interactive rhyming text, the fun repetition to read aloud and Popper Monsters playful animal friends.

The magic stick is also back and this time making lots of funny shaped Monster foods to fill a mumbling, grumbling monster belly.

READ NEXT - Permission granted for major new building in Kilkenny

And little readers will meet a special new character in this adventure, Popper Monsters amazing side kick, Dino Jay.

Dino Jay has 5 extra noses on a whirling, twirling tail - which makes him an expert at sniffing out shapes.

Eleanor created the Popper Monster book series back in April 2022 and her first book all about the colours of the Rainbow has reached bookshops and libraries nationwide making Popper Monster a firm family favourite.

In 2023, it became part of a limited number of childrens books to be printed in big book format especially for schools and this big book edition also comes with a free lesson plan/activity guide.

Eleanor wrote the Popper Monster books to engage children with sensory difficulties but they are suitable for all children at a

preschool and infant class level.

Eleanor is a primary school teacher and mum to two children with autism who were the inspiration behind her books.

Eleanor wanted to dedicate a moment in time to her children whilst also creating a book series that teaches first concepts and new ideas in a fun and engaging way.

When writing the books, Eleanor wanted to include some of the important elements that helped her children engage with reading.

The Popper Monster books are full of lots of interactive rhyming text and lyrical phrasing which create a sensory flow in the language to enhance morphemical learning and understanding.

The books are also a great aid for intraverbals with their repetition and interactive elements.

Eleanor chose to print the books on a silk paper stock to enhance the texture of the paper and each of the 36 full colour pages are full of vibrant and fun visuals.

The sequel, Magical Shape Lunch Adventure is again beautifully illustrated by Ukrainian/French illustrator Helena Crevel and she once again brought Eleanors vision perfectly to life.

Eleanor enjoys doing book festivals, school workshops and readings throughout the year and the support for Popper Monster has been overwhelmingly positive.

Eleanor loves getting to meet Popper Monster fans whenever she can and hearing all about their favourite monster foods.

She displays their fantastic artwork and drawings on her social media pages and website - poppermonster.com

Check out the website for lots of information about upcoming Popper Monster book events and visits.

Both of Eleanors books are available on her website and in all good bookshops nationwide as well as fantastic local bookshops Khans Books, The Book Centre, Bargain Books and Mctivities Sensory Toy Shop.

The big book edition for schools is currently also available directly on her website.

Eleanor is looking forward to meeting more Popper Monster fans at the upcoming local Town of Books Festival in Graignamanagh next month where she will be signing books at the Barrow Valley Activities Hub and looks forward to seeing you all there.

FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS, CLICK HERE
A well-known Kilkenny councillor, who has served as Mayor of Kilkenny on multiple occassions, has called for the reintroduction of Kilkenny Borough Council.

"I would like to see the reintroduction of the borough council," he told those in attendance at a recent Seanad Public Consultation Committee debate on 'The Future of Local Democracy'.

Read next: Plans lodged for iconic Kilkenny building

"I was originally a borough councillor, from 2019 to 2014, when the Local Government Act put paid to that.

"As a municipal district member of Kilkenny City, I feel we now have very few, if any, powers now. It is all done in the council headquarters in John Street.

"Is there a possibility or a gra from the party members who are sitting behind me or the Senators to my left to bring back borough councillors? That was where the real power was.

"I loved the time I spent on the borough council and much was achieved. I recall that Phil Hogan was Minister at the time and, to be fair to him, he delivered a lot. The 2014 Act came in then and destroyed it."

Cllr Malone is not the first high profile Kilkenny political representative to call for the reintroduction of the borough council in recent weeks in the Seanad.

Minister of State Malcolm Noonan was addressing the committee during a previous debate when he referred to the Putting People First reforms brought in in 2014 by then Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan.

He said the reforms had decimated local government.

The abolition of borough and town councils was a political stroke that undermined local accountability, said Minister of State Noonan.

I was a member of one of the five borough councils and the Kilkenny corporation had a history dating back to the 13th Century.

Now more than ever, the urban agenda is distinct from a wider county and rural agenda. The urban agenda across the EU is around participation in climate plans and the recently adopted nature restoration law, sustainable development goals, natured-based solutions, town centre first - all initiatives that need a specific urban focus.

Deputy Noonan said the Green Party had not been able to get everything we wanted in the programme for Government, and that the Party had wanted to bring back borough and town councils.

A future government should consider doing that, he said.

FOR MORE LOCAL NEWS, CLICK HERE
Gardai in Tallaght continue to investigate all the circumstances surrounding the death of a man in his 20's in the early hours of Friday morning.

Just before 4am this Friday, July 26, Gardai and emergency services received a report and attended the scene of a male with a serious injury at a location in the Drumcairn Estate, Tallaght, Dublin 24.

The man was conveyed from the scene to Tallaght University Hospital, where he was later pronounced deceased.

The coroner has been notified and post-mortem examination will be carried out by the State Pathologist in due course.

Investigations are ongoing and the scene is preserved for technical examination by the Garda National Technical Bureau.

A senior investigating officer (SIO) has been appointed to lead the inquiry, and an incident room has been established at Tallaght Garda Station.

A Garda Family Liaison Officer (FLO) has been assigned to keep the deceased mans family informed of developments.

A male in his 30s was arrested this morning in connection with the investigation and is currently detained pursuant to Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984, at a Dublin garda station.

Gardai continue to appeal for witnesses to come forward, particularly those who were in the Drumcairn Estate area of Tallaght, Dublin 24, between 3am and 4am this morning, Friday July 26, 2024.

Additionally, individuals with video recordings, including motorists with dash cams, from the area within the timeframe are asked to provide footage to investigating Gardai.

Anyone with any information that can assist Gardai with this investigation is asked to contact Tallaght Garda Station on 01 666 6000, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station.
The United States offered Thursday to provide a reward of up to $10 million for information on a North Korean cyber actor targeting America's critical infrastructure, as it strives to prevent Pyongyang's ability to generate revenue through illicit means to fund its weapons programs.

The State Department announced the reward, accusing Rim Jong-hyok  a North Korean national associated with a cyber group known as Andariel  and others of being involved in malicious cyberactivities targeting U.S. hospitals, government entities, defense contractors and others.

U.S. law enforcement investigators have documented that Andariel actors victimized five healthcare providers, four U.S.-based defense contractors, two U.S. Air Force bases and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, according to the department.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an arrest warrant was issued for Rim in the U.S. District Court in the District of Kansas on Wednesday as he was charged with conspiracy to commit computer hacking and conspiracy to commit promotion money laundering.

"This action underscores the United States' continued efforts to address the DPRK's malicious cyber activity against critical infrastructure as well as prevent and disrupt the DPRK's ability to generate illicit revenue through malicious cyber activity, which it uses to fund its unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs," the department said in a media note.

DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. WMD is short for weapons of mass destruction.

"We encourage anyone with information on the malicious cyber activity of Rim Jong-hyok, Andariel and associated individuals, entities, and activities to contact Rewards for Justice," it added, referring to the department's reward program.

The department accused Rim and others of conspiring to hack into the computer systems of U.S. hospitals and others, install ransomware and extort ransoms. It also said that they used ransom payments to fund cyber operations targeting U.S. government entities and U.S. and foreign defense contractors.

"In one computer intrusion operation that began in November 2022, the malicious cyber actors hacked a U.S.-based defense contractor from which they extracted more than 30 gigabytes of data, including unclassified technical information regarding material used in military aircraft and satellites, much of which was from 2010 or earlier," the department said.

The Andariel group is controlled by the Reconnaissance General Bureau, the North's key military intelligence agency, it said.

The reward was put up for information leading to the identification or location of any person who engages in certain malicious cyber activities against U.S. critical infrastructure while acting at the direction or under the control of a foreign government.

In May, the department announced a reward of up to $5 million for information on three North Korean IT workers and their manager who were engaged in a scheme enabling the workers to get illicit telework employment with false identities belonging to U.S. citizens. (Yonhap)
North Korea's economy grew by more than 3 percent last year, rebounding from a contraction for a third consecutive year on the back of steady improvement of the manufacturing sector and trade with its allies Russia and China, a central bank report showed Friday.

The country's economy is estimated to have advanced 3.1 percent last year, following a 0.2 percent contraction in 2022, a 0.1 percent dip in 2021 and a 4.5 percent decrease in 2020, according to the report from the Bank of Korea (BOK).

The manufacturing sector gained 5.9 percent last year, accelerating from a 2.5 percent advance the previous year, and the agriculture industry reported a 1.0 percent rise, turning from the previous year's 2.1 percent dip, according to the BOK.

The service sector also grew 1.7 percent last year, faster than the previous year's 1.0 percent rise.

North Korea's foreign trade stood at $2.77 billion last year, rising from $1.59 billion the previous year on the back of eased cross-border curbs.

The North's exports more than doubled to $330 million in 2023 from $160 million a year ago. Imports stood at $2.44 billion last year, up 71.3 percent over the cited period, the BOK said.

"Despite continued global sanctions, increased trade with China and Russia, along with eased coronavirus restrictions, helped the North's economy rebound," the central bank said.

Bilateral ties between North Korea and Russia have been deepening since last year.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, North Korea has been accused of sending a bulk of munitions and missiles to Russia.

In 2020, the North suffered the worst economic contraction since 1997, as Pyongyang closed its borders over the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country also took a hit from tightened U.N. sanctions over its nuclear and missile programs.

The BOK's annual report is based on data from South Korean institutions specializing in North Korea, which does not publish official economic data. (Yonhap)
South Korea's cybersecurity authority has issued a joint advisory with its U.S. and British counterparts against a North Korean cyber group's espionage campaign, targeting classified information in defense, aerospace, nuclear and engineering sectors.

The advisory was issued by South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) and National Police Agency, the U.S. National Security Agency, Britain's National Cyber Security Centre and other related authorities, according to the National Cyber Security Center under the NIS.

The authorities said the cyber group under the North's Reconnaissance General Bureau, widely known as Andariel, has been targeting defense, aerospace, nuclear and engineering entities worldwide to obtain sensitive and classified technical information and intellectual property.

This information is used to advance North Korea's military and nuclear capabilities, they added.

"The authoring agencies assess the group has evolved from conducting destructive attacks targeting U.S. and South Korean organizations to conducting specialized cyber espionage and ransomware operations," the advisory read.

Andariel exploits web servers through software vulnerabilities to deploy web shells, gain access and then conduct malware and phishing attacks to extort information, the authorities explained.

The advisory recommends critical infrastructure organizations strengthen their monitoring efforts and enhance their cyber protection systems.

Additionally, they noted that Andariel actors also fund their espionage activities through ransomware attacks on U.S. health care entities.

On Thursday (U.S. time), the U.S. State Department announced a reward of up to $10 million for information on Rim Jong-hyok, a North Korean national known to be associated with Andariel, accusing him of targeting America's critical infrastructure, including hospitals, government entities and defense contractors.

U.S. law enforcement investigators have documented that Andariel actors victimized five health care providers, four U.S.-based defense contractors, two U.S. Air Force bases and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, according to the department.

Last year, Andariel was also found to have stolen digital data containing key technologies from South Korean defense firms and pocketed 470 million won ($339,274) worth of digital coins via ransomware attacks on other firms. (Yonhap)
The president of Belarus has called for "further expanding cooperation" with North Korea in a message sent to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang's foreign ministry said Friday, amid speculation that the nations will seek to strengthen trilateral cooperation with Russia.

"I affirm that I will work to further expand cooperation with the DPRK to make it full of new content, and common programs of giving mutual benefits to the improved well-being of the peoples of our countries," Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko was quoted as saying in the letter sent on July 15.

DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

In a congratulatory message sent to Lukashenko on the occasion of National Day in Belarus earlier this month, Kim said he is certain that their countries' traditional friendly ties will expand in all areas in accordance with the demand of the new times.

The North's foreign ministry disclosed the letter on its web site as Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Vladimirovich Ryzhenkov arrived in Pyongyang on Tuesday for a four-day visit.

The top diplomat has held talks with his North Korean counterpart, Choe Son-hui, and paid a courtesy call on Premier Kim Tok-hun, joined by officials from the North's agriculture, education and health ministries, raising views the two nations may seek to expand cooperation in the respective areas. (Yonhap)
Japan promises to reflect full history of wartime site including forced labor of Koreans

By Lee Hyo-jin

Japan's Sado mine, a controversial site linked to the wartime forced labor of Koreans, was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Saturday after Seoul accepted Tokyo's promise to reflect that part of the history in the explanation of the mine.

The decision to add the mine to the World Heritage list was made during the UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC) session in New Delhi.

This development follows an agreement reached by Korea and Japan concerning the site, where thousands of Koreans were subjected to forced labor during Japan's colonial rule from 1910 to 1945. As part of the agreement, Japan committed to reflecting the "whole history" of the mine and opening an exhibition hall to commemorate the Korean workers.

According to Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japanese government has already installed an exhibition hall at the Aikawa History Museum near the Sado mine, highlighting the harsh working conditions and hardships endured by Korean workers. The exhibition opened to the public on Sunday.

Additionally, Japan plans to hold an annual memorial ceremony to honor the workers, including Koreans, near the mine site.

The exact date and location for this year's service are still under discussion, the ministry said, with the possibility that a Japanese central government official will attend.

"The Japanese government will develop an interpretation and exhibition strategy and facilities that comprehensively reflect the entire history of the Sado mine, sincerely commemorating all workers, especially Korean workers," said Kano Takehiro, Japan's ambassador to UNESCO, during the WHC meeting.

A day prior to the UNESCO announcement, Seoul's foreign ministry said it has tentatively decided to accept Japan's World Heritage bid for the Sado mine following extended negotiations.

"After a challenging negotiation process, a last-minute agreement between Korea and Japan is close to being reached. Unless unforeseen developments arise in the next 24 hours, Sado mine is expected to be inscribed as a World Heritage Site without a voting process," a foreign ministry official said Friday during a closed-door briefing.

The official explained that Korea's agreement to the listing was based on two main reasons: Japan's commitment to presenting the mine's full history  including the forced labor of Koreans  and the concrete steps Japan has already taken toward this direction.

Although the two Asian neighbors have reached an agreement on the Sado mine, concerns remain about what actions will be taken if Japan fails to uphold its commitments.

This uncertainty is rooted in past issues with the World Heritage listing of Japan's Hashima Island, also known as Battleship Island, where it is estimated that between 500 and 800 Koreans were forced to work from 1943 to 1945, with 122 of them dying.

When Hashima Island was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015, Japan promised to fully disclose the history of forced labor by establishing an information center dedicated to the victims.

However, it set up the center in Tokyo rather than on the island itself, leading to criticism that it downplayed wartime atrocities. In 2021, UNESCO expressed strong regret over Japan's failure to fulfill its commitment regarding Hashima Island.

Regarding these concerns, the ministry official said, "This time, unlike the 2015 listing of Hashima Island, we have not only received Japan's promise to act but have also agreed on specific details and have already witnessed substantial actions."

The mine complex, located on Sado Island just off Niigata Prefecture on the west coast of Japan, was used for war-related manufacturing during World War II, with historical records indicating that nearly 2,000 Koreans were coerced into labor there.

Japan's bid for World Heritage status and subsequent campaigns have faced strong criticism from the Korean public, as its submission letter excluded references to 20th-century wartime atrocities linked to the mine while emphasizing the mine's historical significance from the 16th to mid-19th centuries.

The Korean government has insisted that Tokyo include the history of forced labor in its nomination bid, warning that it may formally oppose the listing if this demand is not met.

According to UNESCO guidelines, listing a site as a World Heritage property requires a two-thirds majority vote from 21 WHC members present. However, decisions are usually made by consensus, with formal voting reserved for when consensus cannot be achieved.

Both Korea and Japan are rotating members of this year's committee.












Korea has launched an education program on the K9 self-propelled howitzer for a group of military personnel from Australia, Poland and Egypt, the Army said Friday.

The three-week program, which began July 9, is meant to provide the countries with a better operational understanding of Korean weapons systems, according to the Army.

A total of 14 personnel from the three countries have joined the program to undergo training on the K9's operation and maintenance at the Army's Artillery School in the southwestern county of Jangseong, 250 kilometers south of Seoul.

The troops will also hold combined live-fire drills with Korean personnel after their training at Artillery School, the Army said.

A total of nine countries have so far signed deals to operate the K9 howitzer, with Romania most recently joining the list earlier this month.

The Army said it plans to launch more education programs for foreign troops on other Korean weapons systems, including one on the K2 main battle tank in November.

Korea has sought to bolster its presence in the global defense market, with aims to carve out a 5 percent share by 2027 and become the world's fourth-largest defense exporter. (Yonhap)
Human Rights Commission also begins investigation to determine if there were any rights violations

By KTimes

International Airport Corporation said it filed a complaint Wednesday against a private security firm over allegations of excessive security for actor Byeon Woo-seok.

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) has also launched an investigation to determine if there were any human rights violations.

The airport's security team lodged a complaint with the Incheon Airport Police against the security firm responsible for handling Byeon's protection.

The corporation is examining whether the actions of Byeon's security personnel on July 12, including controlling airport gates and inspecting passengers' tickets without authorization, constitute abuse of power or coercion.

Separately, the police have already initiated a pre-investigation into the security guards involved in the incident.

It is known that three out of the six guards who protected Byeon on that day are under investigation. These guards were accused of threatening behavior, including using flashlights to prevent fans from approaching.

The police are reviewing whether charges, such as assault, coercion, obstruction of business, or violations of security protocols, are applicable in this case.

The filing of the complaint came after Lee Hag-jae, the CEO of Incheon Airport Corporation, apologized on July 17 at a National Assembly hearing, acknowledging the corporation's failure to detect inappropriate actions by the security firm.

He criticized the guards' actions, such as inspecting tickets and using flashlights, as unlawful. The corporation plans to develop guidelines for the conduct of private security firms at the airport and consider punitive measures for any violations.

Separate investigation by Human Rights Commission

The NHRCK is also investigating the incident. On July 14, a complaint was filed by an unidentified person requesting a thorough investigation into potential human rights violations related to Byeon's security measures.

Initially, it was uncertain if the NHRCK could investigate as the complaint was against a private security firm, which typically falls outside its jurisdiction.

However, after the complainant changed the target to the airports security team, the investigation commenced.

The NHRCK is expected to verify whether the airport security team pre-approved or coordinated with the security firm's actions.

The firm claimed that the gate control and ticket inspections were conducted in coordination with airport security for safety reasons, a claim the corporation denied.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, a sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI and edited by staff of The Korea Times.


Prosecutors on Friday secured a luxury handbag that first lady Kim Keon Hee had received from a Korean American pastor seeking her favors as part of an investigation into allegations that the acceptance violated ethics rules.

The Dior bag, worth 3 million won ($2,163), was handed over to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office from the presidential office and investigators plan to look into whether the bag was the one that was given to Kim, whether it had been used and why the presidential office kept it.

Kim was questioned for 12 hours last week in connection with the case.

Aides to Kim have told prosecutors that Kim ordered the bag be returned the same day it was given, but the aide claimed she forgot to do so because she was too busy with other tasks.

Prosecutors also plan to look into whether President Yoon Suk Yeol declared the gift.

The Improper Solicitation and Graft Act states that spouses of public office holders should not receive money or valuables in connection with matters related to official duties and that public office holders must declare such gifts in writing upon learning of such acceptances.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission had looked into the case, but decided to close the inquiry last month, citing the absence of rules on punishing a public official's spouse under the act.

The scandal has been one of the biggest issues dogging the first couple after a video surfaced last year of the first lady receiving the bag from the pastor armed with a hidden camera in September 2022. (Yonhap)
Japan's former gold mine, associated with Korea's wartime forced labor, is expected to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site over the weekend, Seoul's foreign ministry said Friday.

Seoul has protested Tokyo's push to enlist its gold and silver mine complex on Sado Island, arguing that Japan initially intended to omit the part of its history involving thousands of Koreans who were forced to toil during World War II, when Korea was under Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee (WHC), which consists of representatives from 21 member states, is scheduled to review and decide on 28 new listing proposals, including the Sado mine, at its meeting in New Delhi, India, on Saturday.

"Unless something extraordinary happens within the next 24 hours, it is likely that the Sado mine will be listed as a World Heritage Site without a voting showdown between Japan and South Korea," a foreign ministry official said on the condition of anonymity.

Both Japan and Korea are members of the rotating committee this year. While a two-thirds majority of the UNESCO WHC's entire member states is required for a site to be listed, decisions are typically made by consensus.

Earlier this month, the International Council on Monuments and Sites, an advisory body to the UNESCO WHC, recommended referring the nomination of the Sado mine back to Japan, calling for a more comprehensive explanation of its entire history.

In its original submission, Japan limited the mine's timeline specifically to the Edo period (1603-1868), excluding the modern history during which war atrocities were committed.

Following negotiations between the two countries, Korea's foreign ministry said that Japan has promised to reflect the complete history of the controversial mine.

The official further said Tokyo has already taken "substantial measures" to carry out such a promise, without providing further details.

Earlier in the day, Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted a Japanese official as saying that Tokyo and Seoul have agreed to Japan's display of the history of forced labor of people, including Koreans, at the mines, indicating it could be such measures.

However, there are concerns about how prominently the forced labor aspect will be featured in Japan's displays.

On Thursday, Korea's National Assembly adopted a resolution urging the withdrawal of Japan's bid to register the Sado mine. The resolution was passed unanimously during a plenary session, with all 225 attending members voting in favor.

It is estimated that over 2,000 Koreans were forcibly mobilized to work under harsh conditions at the Sado mine. (Yonhap)
Lee Sang-in, acting chief of Korea's state broadcasting regulator, voluntarily stepped down Friday ahead of the National Assembly's planned vote on his impeachment motion.

The main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, which has the majority of seats in the National Assembly, tabled a motion to impeach Lee the previous day, apparently aimed at blocking the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) from taking control of public broadcaster MBC.

With Lee's resignation, the KCC is now left without any standing members.

"I feel sorry for leaving the KCC without fulfilling my responsibilities as a standing member amid this tragic situation where the commission is mired in political strife," Lee told reporters as he left the government complex in Gwacheon, just south of Seoul, shortly after stepping down.

President Yoon Suk Yeol accepted Lee's resignation offer, his office said.

"We express serious regret over the actions of the opposition party, which is trying to cripple the KCC overseeing not only broadcasting but also IT and communications policies," the presidential office said in a statement.

Lee has been leading the KCC since its chair Kim Hong-il voluntarily resigned earlier this month as opposition parties were pushing for an impeachment vote against him.

The KCC has been at the center of a political conflict as opposition parties accused the regulator of starting a procedure to appoint members of MBC's board of directors while a majority of its standing member positions remain vacant.

The ruling party, on the other hand, blamed the opposition parties for sabotaging the KCC's operations.

The parliament is holding a confirmation hearing on Lee Jin-sook, who has been tapped as the new head of the KCC, for the third day. (Yonhap)
Sejong City, Korean education center in LA sign agreement to promote Hangeul in US

By Jung Da-hyun

LOS ANGELES  As interest in Korean culture grows in the United States, so does the demand for learning the Korean language. However, some believe the focus should be on using the language to explore and understand Korean culture more deeply.

According to the Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles (KCCLA), the number of participants in their Korean language classes has been steadily increasing.

In 2007, there were six online classes, each with 200 participants. Recently, this has expanded to nine classes, each accommodating 350 participants, with over 600 more people on the waiting list.

"With our online classes, students can join from areas without Korean Cultural Centers or language education institutions," said Roh Seung-hoan, the general manager of the Korean language program at the KCCLA.

Currently, students from 34 states, including Alaska, Hawaii and Florida, are participating in the program.

"There are 70 to 80 percent of non-Korean heritage students, and their interest in culture is usually the primary reason for learning Korean, rather than seeking a practical advantage," Roh said.

Most students are drawn to the language through an interest in Korean culture, such as music and dramas, although specific interests varies by age group.

People in their teens and 20s are primarily attracted to trendy content like K-pop and K-dramas, while individuals in their 30s and 40s show a greater interest in K-beauty and traditional performances. Additionally, there is a significant interest in Korean cuisine across various age groups.

Jung Sang-won, consul and director of the KCCLA, emphasized that institutions should prioritize the sustainability of K-content.

"There are many startups and creators developing new content that showcases Korean culture. We aim to support them in diversifying cultural assets," Jung said.

Los Angeles City College (LACC) offers a comprehensive program for learning Korean, providing various levels of Korean language instruction, from beginner to advanced, both online and offline. LACC is the only community college that offers an associate degree in Korean and Korean literature.

In addition to language courses, the college also provides classes on Korean history and culture.

"I had a chance to study Korean civilization, pop culture and conversational Korean, which allowed me to understand the culture from a more diverse perspective," said Isabella Borja, a 26-year-old student at LACCs Korean program.

LACCs Korean program authorities observed that, unlike the decline in interest for most second languages, demand for Korean courses is increasing.

"The COVID-19 pandemic influenced people in the U.S. as they were exposed to many Korean dramas and content during the lockdown," said Mickey Hong, director of the Korean program at LACC.

"I also watched a lot of Korean dramas on Netflix during the pandemic, which motivated me to learn the language and culture more deeply," Isabella added.

Efforts to promote Korean language in U.S.

Authorities from the Korean Education Center in Los Angeles (KECLA) stressed that Korean should be approached as a means of communication, rather than merely as a foreign language subject.

"In Korea, dual language education is often focused on providing language instruction to the children of migrant workers," said Kang Jeon-hoon, president of KECLA.

"However, effective language education requires a more complex approach."

"Recently in the United States, the push for dual language capacity extends beyond immigrants to everyone, highlighting the importance of bilingual education in a global context," added Son Min-hye, an assistant professor in the Division of Teacher Education at California State University.

The KECLA also emphasizes the promotion of Korean education through programs that include Korean culture and history, utilizing various educational content in Korean.

As of the first semester this year, 82 schools, including LA Public Schools, will offer 343 classes with 8,701 students enrolled in Korean language courses, thereby doubling from a decade ago. The KECLA projects that enrollment will reach 9,000 students by the end of the fall semester.

Sejong City, aiming to become a global hub of the Korean language, alphabet and culture, recently visited key Korean education sites in Los Angeles.

The city government signed a memorandum of understanding with three major institutions  KCCLA, LACC and KECLA  focusing on exchanging resources and developing initiatives to promote the Korean language worldwide.

"We are committed to establishing the city as the epicenter for the global dissemination of the Korean alphabet, language and culture," said Sejong Mayor Choi Min-ho.

"Through this agreement, we will work together to elevate the Korean language and culture to mainstream status globally."








Gender ministry provides counseling program, conducts survey to develop comprehensive support measures

By Jung Da-hyun

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family has launched a pilot project aimed at supporting the mental and physical rehabilitation of isolated and reclusive youth.

As part of this initiative, the ministry has begun conducting surveys to identify and reach out to these individuals, facilitating their reintegration into society.

The issue of isolated and reclusive youth has been increasingly prevalent in Korea. In response, the ministry launched this initiative to support to those in need and to prevent further cases.

The project, which began in March of this year, is customized to support the entire process, from diagnosing the level of isolation and seclusion of adolescents to counseling, healing, learning and restoring family relationships, and is working with 12 out-of-school youth support centers nationwide.

As of June, a total of 117 teenagers were registered as subjects for case management in the pilot projects after initial consultation and crisis diagnosis.

A 19-year-old student had been living in seclusion for over a year after dropping out of high school and losing his father. Now living with a foreign stepmother with whom he has no communication, he initially found it difficult to go to crowded places.

With the help of the ministry's initiative, he set goals to gradually expand his daily activities, starting with early morning jogs and having breakfast at nearby restaurants.

In another case, a 14-year-old boy had been secluded for over three years, due to repeated experiences of school violence. His mother, struggling with depression, also became reclusive, which severely exacerbated family conflicts.

The support system intervened by providing individual counseling and parental education, aiming to mend the fractured family relationships.

The Youth support centers, in collaboration with government projects, are also undertaking various initiatives to identify and assist isolated and reclusive youth.

In South Gyeongsang Province, an online night counseling room has been established, catering to the preferences of youth who avoid face-to-face interactions and are often active late at night. These sessions offer one-on-one counseling, typically lasting from one to three hours per session.

In Seoul's Songpa District, a range of participation programs are available for both adolescents and their parents, aiming to provide comprehensive support and engagement opportunities.

Furthermore, the gender ministry is conducting a survey on isolated and reclusive youth for the first time from June 11 to July 31. The survey aims to understand the living conditions and needs of isolated youth and to develop targeted policy support measures.

The survey will gather comprehensive data on various aspects of the lives of youths, including the onset of isolation and concealment, lifestyle patterns and the process of recovery from isolation. The findings will be used to design policies that address the specific needs of these vulnerable groups.

"Despite the lack of visibility, it is believed that numerous teenagers and their parents are struggling with issues of isolation," said Shin Young-sook, vice minister of the gender ministry.

"The government plans to continue working toward establishing a social support system that allows those in need to access assistance promptly."
Rival parties clashed on Friday after the first lady failed to show up as a witness at a parliamentary hearing held to review an online petition demanding the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.

The legislation and judiciary committee addressed the petition urging the National Assembly to propose a bill to impeach Yoon citing five reasons, including first lady Kim Keon Hee's acceptance of a luxury bag and stock manipulation allegations.

Kim, who was chosen as a witness by the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), did not attend the hearing.

The ruling People Power Party (PPP) argued that the first lady has no obligation to attend the hearing, claiming that the hearing itself is illegal.

The DPK criticized the first lady and other witnesses, including Kim's mother and presidential chief of staff Chung Jin-suk, for not appearing at the hearing without valid reasons, calling it an attempt to "conceal the truth."

Five other key witnesses, such as Prosecutor General Lee One-seok, submitted written documents beforehand explaining their absences.

The first lady is accused of being involved in manipulating the stock prices of Deutsch Motors, a BMW car dealer in Korea, between 2009 and 2012.

Kim also faces allegations she illegally received a handbag worth about 3 million won ($2,164) and other expensive gifts from pastor Choi Jae-young in September 2022 allegedly in exchange for favors. (Yonhap)
Rival parties escalate clash over KCC chief nomination

By Kwak Yeon-soo

The conflict between rival parties escalated on Friday during a second parliamentary hearing on an online petition calling for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol.

This session focused on allegations against First Lady Kim Keon Hee, particularly her acceptance of a luxury handbag from a pastor and her alleged involvement in the stock manipulation of Deutsche Motors.

The National Assembly's Legislative and Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Jung Chung-rae of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), held the first hearing on July 19, focusing on Yoon and other presidential aides' alleged interference in the military's investigation into the death of a Marine, which occurred during a search and rescue operation in a flooded area in July 2023.

Although the committee had requested the attendance of 24 witnesses, including the first lady, her mother Choi Eun-soon, and Prosecutor General Lee One-seok, only six appeared for the second hearing. The presidential office suggested that Kim would not attend, saying that it does not concede on matters deemed "unconstitutional and illegal."

On Friday, DPK members of the judiciary committee flocked to the presidential residence in Seoul's Hannam-dong to deliver complaints to Kim. Police blocked their entry.

"The hearing took place in response to a petition that gained more than 1.4 million consents from citizens. We express deep regret over the presidential office and the first lady for not attending the hearing. It is a violation of the National Assembly Act and the Witness Appraisal Act.," DPK Rep. Jeon Hyun-heui said.

Lee submitted a reason for his absence, saying testimonies could unfairly influence the investigations and trials. Jung said he would file a complaint against witnesses who refused to attend the hearing without good reason.

The ruling People Power Party (PPP) cried foul over the hearing and the petition.

"This hearing is unconstitutional and illegal. It's an act of human rights violation to call witnesses who are on trial or under investigation to the hearing," Rep. Song Seog-jun of the PPP said during the committee session.

Controversy intensified over Kim after the first lady was questioned by the prosecutors outside the prosecution's office over the weekend, citing safety and security reasons.

The prosecutor general apologized to the public, Monday, alleging preferential treatment in the prosecution's questioning of Kim. The first lady also apologized to the public, Thursday, via her attorney for causing public concerns. The DPK has pushed for the special counsel probe bill concerning the first lady.

Yoon accepted the resignation of Korea Communications Commission (KCC) Vice Chairman Lee Sang-in on Friday. Earlier in the day, Lee offered to step down ahead of a National Assembly vote on his impeachment.

"We express serious regret over the opposition party's actions to neutralize KCC, which oversees not only broadcasting but also IT and communications policies," the presidential office said.

Similarly, on July 2, Yoon accepted the resignation of Kim Hong-il, then KCC chief.

Rival parties continued to clash over the nomination of Lee Jin-sook, who has been tapped as the new head of the KCC. The KCC has the right to recommend and appoint board members of public broadcasters, which effectively allows it to influence public opinion.

The Assembly held a confirmation hearing on Lee for the third consecutive day Friday, with the DPK threatening to impeach her if she takes the post. The opposition fears that the Yoon administration will exert more control on public broadcasters.

In a related move, the PPP launched a filibuster Thursday to protest the DPK's push to pass four broadcasting bills with the intent of controlling public broadcasters. A filibuster involves lawmakers holding the floor for extended periods as a way to prevent a parliamentary vote or delay the passage of a bill.








The opposition-controlled National Assembly passed one of the four contentious broadcasting bills aimed at reducing the government's influence over public broadcasters Friday, with lawmakers of the ruling party leaving in protest.

The passage followed the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) ending the ruling People Power Party (PPP)'s filibuster during a plenary session after 24 hours.

The bill was then put to a vote and passed in a 183-0 vote, in which only lawmakers from opposition parties cast ballots.

The revision to the act on the establishment of the Korea Communications Commission calls for increasing the number of standing members required to pass a resolution from the current two to four.

The DPK proposed the bill last month to stop the originally five-member commission from being operated by only two members appointed by the president, as is currently the case.

With the authority to appoint directors for public broadcasters, such as MBC and KBS, the commission can exert significant influence over their operation and management.

The DPK on Thursday submitted a request to end the filibuster with the consent of its 170 lawmakers, allowing the bill to be put to a vote right after the filibuster began.

A filibuster involves lawmakers holding the floor for extended periods as a way to prevent a parliamentary vote or delay the passage of a bill. Under the National Assembly Act, a filibuster can be stopped after 24 hours if at least three-fifths of all parliament members, or 180 lawmakers, consent to it.

The party is expected to push ahead with the passage of the three remaining contentious broadcasting bills at parliamentary plenary sessions.

The three bills  amendments to the Broadcasting Act, the Foundation for Broadcast Culture Act and the Korea Educational Broadcasting System Act  are all intended to reform the governance structure of the nation's public broadcast media by weakening the government and National Assembly's power to name board directors.

The PPP has claimed that the broadcasting bills will only increase the presence of progressive figures on the boards of public broadcasters, while the DPK has said they will prevent political influence in the appointment of the heads of public broadcasters.

On Friday, Assembly Speaker Woo Won-shik tabled the revision to the Broadcasting Act immediately after the passage of the revision to the act on the establishment of the Korea Communications Commission upon the DPK's request.

In response, the PPP has staged another round of filibusters.

Last year, President Yoon Suk Yeol vetoed the three broadcasting bills, excluding the revision to the act on the establishment of the Korea Communications Commission, after they were passed by the opposition-controlled parliament. (Yonhap)
Hanwha Ocean, a shipbuilding and defense industry unit of Korea's Hanwha Group, said Friday it has been selected as the preferred bidder for the 460.1 billion-won ($332.2 million) project to build the South Korean Navy's logistics support ship, AOE-II.

Hanwha Ocean will sign a contract with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration next month following negotiations on technologies and conditions, according to Hanwha Ocean. The company was the sole bidder for the project.

The 10,000-ton AOE-II vessel is scheduled to be delivered to the Korean Navy in December 2028, the company said.

The 190-meter ship, capable of carrying 140 sailors, is designed to provide ammunition, oil and other logistical support materials to naval ships.

During operations, it can maneuver at high speeds like destroyers and frigates while delivering supplies.

Hanwha Ocean said it will increase the load capacity of the AOE-II by more than 2.3 times, bringing it to 10,000 tons compared with the previous Cheonji-class AOE-I vessel, and improve performance, such as maneuvering speed. (Yonhap)
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin pledged Thursday to ensure the Pentagon stays "firm" and "focused" as President Joe Biden has exited the presidential race amid a range of security challenges, including North Korean threats, Russia's war in Ukraine and instability in the Middle East.

Austin made the pledge, casting the Indo-Pacific as the United States' "priority theater of operations" in an apparent show of the Biden administration's security commitment to regional allies and partners, including South Korea and Japan.

He and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. addressed a press conference as Austin is set to travel to Japan to attend a bilateral foreign and defense ministerial meeting in Tokyo on Sunday to discuss security cooperation and other issues.

"Now the president is intensely focused on the work ahead, especially in ending the war in Gaza, reinforcing Ukraine's capabilities for the long haul and making our posture in the Indo-Pacific even stronger," Austin told reporters. "This department will continue to do what we always do  Stay firm and stay focused."

Reciting the Biden administration's achievements, Austin underscored progress in promoting security in the Indo-Pacific, including what he called "truly historic strides forward" by South Korea and Japan  an apparent allusion to the two countries' fence-mending efforts that saw a deepening of their trilateral cooperation with the U.S.

Austin portrayed the upcoming trilateral defense ministerial meeting with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts, Shin Won-sik and Minoru Kihara, as "historic." It is set to take place in Tokyo on Sunday.

"I am very proud that Minister Kihara and I will sit down in Tokyo with Minister Shin for an historical trilateral defense ministerial, the first-ever to be held in Japan or ROK," he said. ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

"All of this just underscores the new convergence in the Indo-Pacific ... We are not just strengthening our bilateral alliances. We are also seeing our regional partners come together like never before around our shared vision of a free, open and secure Indo-Pacific."

Brown accused North Korea of remaining a "significant threat" as he was referring to five key challenges facing the U.S., which also include China, Russia, Iran and violent extremists.

"All five of these challenges are acting today in an increasingly interconnected (manner)," the general said.

He added, "These increasingly interconnected threats demand a coordinated and strategic response from the international community ... We must leverage all the strengths and capabilities of the U.S. and our allies and partners." (Yonhap)
Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday said she urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal soon with Hamas so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza since Oct. 7 can return home.

Harris said she had a frank and constructive conversation with Netanyahu in which she affirmed Israels right to defend itself but also expressed deep concern about the high death toll in Gaza over nine months of war and the dire humanitarian situation there.

With all eyes on the likely Democratic presidential nominee, Harris largely reiterated President Joe Biden's longstanding message that it's time to find an endgame to the brutal war in Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have died. Yet she offered a more forceful tone about the urgency of the moment just one day after Netanyahu gave a fiery speech to Congress in which he defended the war, vowed total victory against Hamas and made relatively scant mention of cease-fire negotiations .

There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, Harris told reporters shortly after meeting with Netanyahu. And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done.

Netanyahu met separately earlier in the day with Biden, who has also been calling on Israel and Hamas to come to an agreement on a U.S.-backed, three-phase deal to bring home remaining hostages and establish an extended cease-fire.

Harris said after her meeting with Netanyahu that Israels war in Gaza is more complicated than simply being supportive of one side or the other.

Too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but, Harris said.

Harris also condemned Hamas' brutality. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby reiterated the administration position that the militant group that killed some 1,200 on Oct. 7 and kidnapped 250 people from Israel ultimately holds responsibility for the suffering in Gaza and must come to terms with Israel.

Kirby added that gaps between the two sides can be closed but there are issues that need to be resolved that will require some leadership, some compromise."

With Harris' forceful comments, the administration also appeared to be stepping up pressure on the Israelis to not let the moment pass to get a deal done.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, Harris said. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.

Thousands protested Netanyahus visit in Washington, and Harris condemned those who were violent or used rhetoric that praised Hamas.

Netanyahu, last at the White House when former President Donald Trump was in office, is headed to Florida on Friday to meet with the Republican presidential nominee.

Ahead of the Harris-Netanyahu meeting Thursday, Trump said at a rally in North Carolina the vice president was totally against the Jewish people."

Harris has long spoken of her strong support for Israel. The first overseas trip of her Senate career in early 2017 was to Israel, and one of her first acts in office was to introduce a resolution opposing a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel.

Shes also spoken of her personal ties to Israel, including memories of raising money as a child to plant trees in Israel and installing a mezuzah near the front door of the vice presidents residence in Washington  her husband is Jewish. She also has connections to pro-Israel groups including the conservative American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the liberal J Street.

For Harris, the meeting with Netanyahu was an opportunity to demonstrate that she has the mettle to serve as commander in chief. Shes being scrutinized by those on the political left who say Biden hasnt done enough to force Netanyahu to end the war and by Republicans looking to brand her as insufficient in her support for Israel.

Harris last one-on-one engagement with Netanyahu was in March 2021, but shes taken part in more than 20 calls between Biden and Netanyahu.

The conservative Likud Party leader Netanyahu and centrist Democrat Biden have had ups-and-downs over the years. Netanyahu, in what will likely be his last White House meeting with Biden, reflected on the roughly 40 years they've known each other and thanked the president for his service.

From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel, Netanyahu told Biden.

A U.S.-backed proposal to release remaining hostages in Gaza over three phases is something that would be a legacy-affirming achievement for Biden, who abandoned his reelection bid and endorsed Harris . It could also be a boon for Harris in her bid to succeed him.

Following their talks, Biden and Netanyahu met with the families of American hostages.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, said the families received an ironclad commitment from Biden and Netanyahu to get the deal done. He said he was more hopeful than at anytime since Hamas released more than 100 hostages during a temporary cease-fire in November.

There is more reason today than in any time since the last round of hostage releases that something can happen, he said.

Netanyahu is trying to navigate his own delicate political moment. He faces pressure from the families of hostages demanding a cease-fire agreement to bring their loved ones home and from far-right members of his governing coalition who demand he resist any deal that could keep Israeli forces from eliminating Hamas.

In his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu offered a robust defense of Israel's conduct during the war and lashed out against accusations by the International Criminal Court of Israeli war crimes. He made the case that Israel, in its fight against Iran-backed Hamas, was effectively keeping Americans boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East.

Remember this: Our enemies are your enemies, Netanyahu said. Our fight, its your fight. And our victory will be your victory. 

Netanyahu also derided protesters who massed near the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, calling them Irans useful idiots.

Harris on Thursday said she was outraged that some protesters tagged areas near the U.S. Capitol with pro-Hamas graffiti, expressed support for the militants and burned a U.S. flag at Union Station.

Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said in a statement. I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.

Protesters massed near the White House on Thursday chanted, Arrest Netanyahu, and brought an effigy of the prime minister with blood on its hands and wearing an orange jumpsuit. A small number of counterprotesters wore Israeli flags around their shoulders. (Yonhap)
In an online community, K-Netz had a heated debate after an OP claimed THIS female idol is a better version of NewJeans Haerin.

On July 25, Nate Pann users and K-pop fans expressed divided opinions after an article titled, "NewJeans higher-end version is NMIXX Jiwoo."

In the write-up, photos of Jiwoo with her blonde hair were attached, flaunting her stunning beauty.

Upon posting, it earned over 30k views and while everyone agreed that the NMIXX member is undoubtedly gorgeous, the majority of the commenters defended Haerin and called out the OP to stop comparing the two idols.

First, they showed appreciation to Haerin and Jiwoo following the backhanded compliment in the article and said:

"Haerin hasn't dyed her hair blonde yet, so what there is to compare?"

"Is there any female idol who looks like Haerin? Her beauty is so unique."

"When I see Jiwoo acting cute, I can't help but smile."

ALSO READ: NMIXX Jiwoo Draws Attention For Visuals Upgrade After Changing THIS

Looking at Jiwoo, she has the traditional Korean beauty, characterized by her big, round eyes, fair skin, V-shape face, etc. On the contrary, Haerin has cat-like eyes, tan skin, a smaller nose, etc.

Jiwoo has a pure Korean princess vibe, whereas Haerin has a cold and elegant atmosphere.

NSWERs (NMIXX fandom) and Bunnies (NewJeans fans) then highlighted that the two stood out respectively with their contrasting beauty that couldn't be compared to each other.

"It's not compatible since their visual styles are 180-degree different."

"Both are beautiful, don't compare them to cause a war."

"Their faces are completely different, what are you talking about?"

"Please don't bring other people in. Jiwoo is pretty even without saying anything."

"Their style is too opposite to consider who's the better version."

What are your thoughts on this?

NMIXX, the group Jiwoo is a member will have their much-awaited comeback on August 19 with its third EP, "Fe304: STICK OUT." This will be the group's first comeback in seven months after dropping its album, "Fe304: BREAK" in January.

On the 23rd, they teased fans with its timetable which will start with a "mysterious unNSWERed call" on July 29.

Following that, the group will proceed with its second fan concert, "NMIXX Change Up: MIXX LAB."

They will have a total of three fan concerts from October 4th to 6th at Jangchung Gymnasium in Jung-gu, Seoul, and create unforgettable autumn night memories with their fans.

Meanwhile, NewJeans, the group to which Haerin belongs just finished its promotion for its Japanese debut single, "Supernatural" unveiled on June 21.

On July 22, the group then commemorated its second debut anniversary after being launched by ADOR in 2022. At the time, they established their name NewJeans with many hit songs such as "Attention," "Hype Boy," "Ditto," "ETA," "OMG," "How Sweet," and "Supernatural."

READ MORE: NewJeans Haerin Faces Backlash Over Fabricated Dance Training  What a Liar!'

For more K-Pop news and updates, keep your tabs open here at KpopStarz.

KpopStarz owns this article.

Written by Eunice Dela Cruz


At the time, netizens were divided. Some believed that she had undergone double eyelid surgery and got lip fillers. However, fans defended the idol, stating the photo was over-edited. The author claims that the female idol has recently started to resemble the animated character due to constantly touching up her face. Lee Chayeon's recent visuals have sparked mixed reactions from Korean netizens.

On July 25, 2024, a post titled "Lee Chaeyeon who is starting to look like Okji from 'Bbang Bbangie'" was uploaded to Nate Pann, a well-known online community forum from South Korea. The author shared screenshots of soloist Lee Chaeyeon from a YouTube Short in the post.

.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: IN THE LOOP: NewJeans Plagiarism Accusations, 2NE1 Concert Tour, HyunA's Silent Treatment, More of K-pop's Hottest THIS Week!

They also included a photo of Okji from the cartoon "Bbang Bbangie." The character is known for her big lips, large nose, and smile lines. The author claims that recently, the female idol has started to resemble the animated character due to constantly touching up her face.

Korean netizens who saw the post expressed shock over Lee Chaeyeon's face. They wondered why she had repeatedly gone under the knife, stating that she would end up looking "weirder" if she kept this going. Others claimed she might end up like 2NE1's Park Bom, known for her several cosmetic procedures.

YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: Top 50 Most Streamed Solo K-pop Songs On Spotify THIS July 2024 - Which Releases Are Your Favorites?

While some were hateful, wondering how she became an idol with her face, others were sympathetic. They noted how pretty she was during her IZ*ONE days, especially during the "Fiesta" era.

Some comments from netizens read,

"But why does Lee Chaeyeon keep touching up her face? She'll end up looking weirder."

"How did Lee Chaeyeon become an idol? I seriously wonder..."

"Why does she keep doing this?"

"This is troublesome, she'll end up like Park Bom."

"Sigh... She looked so pretty during her 'Fiesta' fan cam."

Sadly, this is not the first time she has been slammed for her recent visuals. Earlier this month, a fansite-taken photo of Lee Chaeyeon went viral, with netizens knowing it was a face they didn't recognize. The idol was seen in the picture with bigger eyes, a more defined nose, and plumper lips.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Chaeyeon Looks 'Unrecognizable' In Recent Photo - K-Netz React

At the time, netizens were divided. Some believed that she had undergone double eyelid surgery and got lip fillers. However, fans defended the idol, stating the photo was simply over-edited.

What do you think of the situation? Tell us in the comments below!

In other news, Lee Chayeoen released her third mini-album, "Showdown," and the lead single, "Don't," on July 3.

KpopStarz Owns This

Written by Alexa Lopez
A social media post detailing a boyfriend's distress over his girlfriend's disposal of his idol merchandise has gone viral, sparking intense discussions online about respect, boundaries, and relationships.

In a post shared widely across platforms, a man recounted the emotional ordeal he experienced when his girlfriend threw away a cherished collection of BLACKPINK merchandise.

The items, which included signed memorabilia, ticket stubs, photocards, and a treasured poster from the group's 2019 meeting in Taiwan, were discarded while he was napping.

The boyfriend described his devastation upon discovering that his meticulously decorated display case was empty.

According to his account, his girlfriend explained that her obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) prompted her to clear out what she perceived as a "mess."

The boyfriend, overwhelmed with grief and anger, confronted her and ultimately asked her to leave their shared residence.

The following day, the girlfriend returned, attempting to reconcile by downplaying the incident and expressing a desire to move past the issue. Her casual demeanor only added to the boyfriend's frustration, as he felt she failed to grasp the significance of the lost items and the emotional impact of her actions.

READ MORE: BLACKPINK Rose and ASTRO Cha Eunwoo's Dating Rumors Face Backlash - 'Are You Crazy? Don't Drag Rose Into This!'

The post has garnered thousands of reactions from netizens, most of whom sided with the boyfriend.

Comments reflect a mix of outrage and sympathy, with many condemning the girlfriend's actions as disrespectful and invasive.

One commenter wrote, "She's not a girlfriend but a perpetrator. Are you allowed to throw away other people's stuff just because you can't stand them? What a joke."

Another added, "Throw away her purses and make-up products, then tell her your obsessive-compulsive disorder kicked in. See how she feels."

As someone who has been a fan before, I also had a custom-made and carefully decorated album display case. So I can imagine how devastating it must be for you to have your treasured items thrown away. Especially since there were rare signed pieces! If it were me, I would have already gone completely crazy. And she has OCD-why did she throw away your stuff?

? How could you let him in? Please kick him out!

Many online users who identify with the boyfriend's love for idol culture empathized with his loss and expressed disbelief that the girlfriend, despite her OCD, would target his belongings rather than her own.

Thinking that a mess can be tidied up, why does it have to be thrown away? It's intentional. People who casually throw away others' belongings, especially cherished items, see them as just trash. So they think they're "helping you out" by dealing with it.

I don't think it's OCD. Basically, she's just unhappy that you're obsessed with another girl and went out of her way to clear everything. It's pretty childish.

In contrast, some commenters suggested that the boyfriend should consider professional counseling for both himself and his girlfriend to address underlying issues in their relationship, emphasizing the need for better communication and understanding of each other's mental health challenges.

ALSO READ: BLACKPINK Lisa's Tuition Fees During School Days Revealed: 'I Didn't Expect That...'

KpopStarz owns this article.

Written by Cassidy Jones.
A tripleS member has been linked as being one of Source Music's trainees for the original debut team of NewJeans.

During a live stream earlier this year, tripleS member Gong Yubin held a live stream. There, she revealed she was a former trainee under Source Music. She revealed she trained there for around 7-8 months before signing with MODHAUS.

Yubin trained with NewJeans at Source Music and described her difficulties: I cried almost everyday and my mental health was not good. Therefore I lost my willpower a lot.



NewJeans have yet to speak on their experience in detail but their parents have been vocal on how theyve pic.twitter.com/GMpjk2gdxE  nil  (@newjiram) July 25, 2024

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Trainees 'Kicked Out' from NewJeans Draw Attention: 'Everyone Made Fun of Her When'

She spoke about the difficulties she experienced as a trainee under Source Music, and how she almost cried every day. She added that her mental health was bad and she lost her willpower often.

However, due to the hardships she experienced, her "inner self" became stronger, and she gained a stronger mentality. Now, she cries less and has regained her willpower. Now that she is under MODHAUS, Gong Yubin reveals she has become more earnest and continues to chase after her dreams passionately.

YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: NewJeans Accused of Ignoring ILLIT During SBS Gayo Daejeon Summer 2024

It didn't take long for netizens to discover a photo of NewJeans's original eight-member debut team. Starting from the left side of the photo below, we see Haerin, Hanni, and Hyein. The fourth person, whose face is covered by her smartphone, is rumored to be Yongseo, a pre-debut member of ILLIT.

The fifth member is Gong Yubin, and the sixth member is Ryu Han Bi. The latter was previously signed under ADOR and was supposed to debut as the maknae of NewJeans, but left before their debut. She was previously active as a child actress. Next to her are Minji and Hanni.

CHECK THIS OUT: NewJeans Hanni's 'Sexy' Pre-Debut Dance Video Has SOURCE MUSIC Under Fire: 'Is This Right For A Minor?'

Do you think Gong Yubin would have fit in with NewJeans? Tell us in the comments below!

tripleS Recent Activities

On June 21, tripleS' seventh sub-unit, Glow, made their debut with the single "Inner Dance." The group is preparing for their upcoming 12-member sub-unit, Visionary Vision (VV), which is set to debut by the second half of this year. The sub-unit would focus on dance and performance.

FOR YOU: How Much Money Do K-Pop Idols Make With Their First Paycheck? tripleS, STAYC, More Discuss Their Beginning Salaries

Currently, Gong Yubin and Lynn are the confirmed members of the sub-unit, with the two being selected by the company. Nine members will be selected through fan votes, while the last member will be picked via internal selection.

On July 6 and 7, tripleS held the concert, "Girls Never Stop."

KpopStarz Owns This

Written by Alexa Lopez
In a recent viral post, a netizen who works as a video call fan sign interpreter offered a rare glimpse into the behind-the-scenes experiences of working with multiple idols.

The interpreter, who remained anonymous, shared her insights into the demanding yet rewarding job of facilitating these highly anticipated fan-idol interactions.

The interpreter, who has worked with nearly ten idols, elaborated on the nature of her job, which requires sitting close to the idol and translating fan messages in real-time.

"Let me share my story of being a video call fansign interpreter in Korea today. The interpreter usually sits right in front of the idol and shares the same desk (so close...!!) They focus on listening to every sentence said by the fans and then accurately and quickly translate the words for the idol. Since each person only gets about 1 - 2 minutes for the fansign, time is of the essence. The interpreter must be quick and accurate so that the precious time between the fan and idol isn't wasted. I've worked with nearly 10 idols - boys, girls, groups, and individuals. Since I work with them in close proximity, and need to look at them due to the nature of the work, I need to maintain high professionalism in order to not get distracted haha. I wrote the memo in the photo - did anyone participate in this particular fansign?" - Fansign interpreter

READ MORE: THESE K-pop Male Idols Made It To List of Celebs Loved By Gays - K-Netz React

The interpreter also praised the idols for their professional and kind behavior towards the staff.

"I want to say that most of them are really nice in person. After hanging up the call, they don't suddenly turn rude like the rumors say. They even casually chatted with us about the fans (we can tell they talked to the fans sincerely, not half-heartedly!!) They treat the staff very well, too! A few of them proactively shook my hand after the event, told me I worked hard, and thanked me for helping them communicate with their fans. They even asked the staff how many albums the fans bought to attend the fansign and felt thankful that the fans purchased so many to support them, even expressing that they want to go to where the fans live and hold concerts there so that they can meet in person. - Fansign interpreter

Her account offers a refreshing perspective, countering the often negative portrayals of idols that can circulate online.

"I've been an interpreter for a few fan signs and don't believe the idols have poor attitudes, as some claim. At least for those that I've worked with, I could feel that they really treated their fans with sincerity." -Fansign Interpreter

ALSO READ: THIS Fifth-Gen K-Pop Idol Reveals She Read The Bible Because Of Anime

KpopStarz owns this article.

Written by Cassidy Jones.
Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.
A new base for Irish soldiers on the prison complex in Portlaoise may never be used for its intended purpose after a decision by the Government to withdraw the Defence Forces from Portlaoise Prison duties.

Construction work is entering its final phase at the new base on the Dublin Road in the grounds of the Irish Prison Service (IPS) Training College. It's estimated that the cost has run into millions of euros.

Work began in 2023 as part of a major State-funded overhaul of premises for Gardai and the Defence Forces in the Laois county town. The project was necessitated by the multi-million overhaul of the Laois Offaly Garda HQ in Portlaoise.

A building to the rear of the Garda Station on the Abbeyleix Road was used by the Defence Forces to allow soldiers to prepare for armed duty in Portlaoise Prison where they were deployed primarily to guard paramilitaries.

However, the plan for the Garda Station earmarked that building for demolition and replacement. This led to the search for a new premises for the Defence Forces. An initial proposal on the town's Mountrath Road was rejected before the prison complex site was landed upon.

Flynn construction are carrying out the work on the Office of Public Works (OPW). The development consists of a single storey 248 m2 building. The accommodation includes a security-screening, staff office, staff support facilities. It also includes high secure fencing and metal gates, CCTV, seven car parking spaces and one bus set down.

But as the weeks wind down to the completion of the Defence Forces building, the Government has given the Minister for Justice the green light to end the armed guarding of prisoners at the Laois jail which high security prisoners and a handful of dissident republicans. The presence of soldiers is set to end in 2024.

The Prison Officers Association Deputy General Secretary Gabriel Keaveny questioned the logic of the decision-making and spending of public money. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

Pictured: The Defence Forces base in the final stages of construction on July 25, 2024.

"They've spent millions on it but that money was spent by Government when they were contemplating the removal of the Defence Forces. There is no joined-up thinking," he told the Leinster Express / Laois Live.

Mr Keaveny said it should revert back to the IPS for use as a training facility.

The OPW told the Leinster Express / Laois Live in 2023 that work commenced on site in May that year with the construction of the new facility is expected to be completed in early quarter 1 of 2024.

It would not reveal the cost as it due "to commercial sensitivity" until after the conclusion of the works and a final account is signed off.
A man aged in his 20s has died following an assault in south Dublin.

A man in his 30s has been arrested by gardai following the incident on the Drumcairn Estate in Tallaght in the early hours of Friday.

A Garda spokesperson said that just before 4am, gardai and emergency services received a report and attended the scene of a male with a serious injury.

The man was conveyed from the scene to Tallaght University Hospital, where he was later pronounced deceased, they said.

The coroner has been notified. A post-mortem examination will be carried out by the state pathologist in due course.

A male was arrested this morning in connection with the investigation and is currently detained pursuant to Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984, at a Dublin garda station.

Gardai have appealed for any witnesses to come forward, particularly those who were in the Drumcairn Estate area of Tallaght between 3am and 4am on Friday.

Anyone with any information that can assist Gardai with this investigation is asked to contact Tallaght Garda Station on 01 666 6000, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any garda station, they added.
A French national has today pleaded guilty to the dangerous driving causing the death of a 71-year old motorcyclist outside the Burren village of Ballyvaughan in north Clare last July.

At Ennis Circuit Court today, Olivier Le Bozec (42), with the assistance of an interpreter, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of Jeremiah (Jerry) OConnor on the N67 leading out of Ballyvaughan on the morning of July 27 last.

Tomorrow, Saturday, is the first year anniversary of Mr OConnors death and his widow, Helga Himmelsbach was today in court for the arraignment hearing.

Solicitor for Mr Le Bozec, John Casey told the district court previously that his client, wife and child had arrived in Ireland just the day before the fatal collision to commence their holiday here.

Mr Le Bozec of Rue Georges Cadoudal, Locoal Mendon, France was driving his own French registered car when the collision occurred.

In court today, Michael Collins SC told the court that his client is a French national and was holidaying in Ireland with his wife and son when this tragic accident occurred.

Mr Collins said: He lives and works in France and has travelled here today and for the sentencing hearing he will require the services of an interpreter.

Counsel for the State, Lorcan Connolly SC (instructed by State Solicitor, Aisling Casey) suggested a sentencing date of November 8.

Judge Francis Comerford said that a case like this is one of the serious cases a court can deal with when there is a loss of life.

Judge Comerford said that the case would be the first case dealt with on November 8.

Mr Connolly said that Mr OConnors partner was in court for the hearing and said that a victim impact statement will be required for the sentencing hearing.

Judge Comerford remanded Mr Le Bozec on continuing bail to November 8 which allows him to return home to France pending the sentencing hearing.

Those convicted of dangerous driving causing death in the circuit court can face up to five years in prison.

Since her husbands death, Mr.OConnor's widow, Helga Himmelsbach has been campaigning for improved signage and safer roads in the Ballyvaughan region.

Ms Himmelsbach has said that she is hopeful Mr OConnors death will be the catalyst for critical traffic calming measures in the region.
Outdoor enthusiasts are set to descend on Leitrim next month for Irelands inaugural National Trail Conference.

The first National Trail Conference to celebrate trails, community, and the great outdoors, will take place from August 31 to September 3 in Carrick-on-Shannon.

Organised by Leitrim Development Company, this landmark event will kick off with a variety of free and ticketed excursions designed to showcase the natural beauty and outdoor potential of County Leitrim.

From family-friendly orienteering in Derrycarne Woods to kayaking and stand-up paddling on Lough Allen, plus a unique opportunity to discover North Leitrims stunning waterfalls and walk Alpacas, the event will be a treat for anyone who enjoys the outdoors.

The conference from September 2 and 3 in Carrick-on-Shannons Landmark Hotel, is aimed at trail professionals, community groups and landowners and will feature keynote presentations, panel discussions, workshops, field trips, and networking opportunities. It will cover topics such as trail planning, design, maintenance, funding, and advocacy.

A hands-on trail-building workshop, led by seasoned trail builders, Mountain Meitheal North-West, will give participants the chance to apply their newfound knowledge and skills in a real-world setting ensuring they leave with valuable tools to contribute to their communities.

CEO for Leitrim Development Company, Chris Gonley, said: This first for Ireland will bring together a diverse group of individuals who share a passion for the outdoors and sustainable development.

Our two-day conference aims to both inspire and educate, giving people a taste of what our beautiful unspoilt county has to offer while learning so much about the potential of trail development to enhance our communities.

You can find more information on the conference schedule, speakers, and event registration details here.
A bakery in Leitrim was selected as the cream of the crop by Lidl Ireland.

Following a competitive Dragons Den style pitch process to find this years most innovative products, 48 suppliers across 20 different counties including Jinnys Bakery from Drumshanbo were selected as the cream of the crop after an intensive application process which saw producers put through their paces with a business pitch to Lidls buying team and a taste test to select the best in category.

Lidl Ireland is set to give a Kickstart to a new batch of 48 Irish producers from across the country who successfully earned a place on the retailers coveted Kickstart Supplier Development Programme  an initiative that the retailer has invested more than 30 million in supporting over 250 Irish producers to date.

Jinnys Bakery was established in late 2003 as a small bread making family-owned business, founded by Sinead Gillard leveraging her childhood nickname, Jinny. The business has gone from strength to strength now producing a range of convenient bread and scone mixes that are wholly natural, high in fibres and contain no artificial ingredients.

Successful producers will now see their artisan offerings on sale on Lidl shelves across its 220 stores across the island of Ireland from September 19 for a limited time, while stocks last. This includes Jinnys Bakerys Irish Stout Bread Mix and Sophie's Scone Mix, both of which will be available in Lidl stores nationwide.

Before the products hit the shelves, this six-month development programme offers suppliers dedicated business support from Lidls in-house experts, advancing their product, brand and business with practical guidance on how to scale production, drive production efficiency, as well as product development and packaging support, allowing them to optimise on-shelf opportunities in the Autumn and scale for success.

Now in its eighth year, and supported by Bord Bia, this years programme saw a record number of applicants from every province in Ireland.

Kate ODriscoll, Supplier Development Manager at Lidl Ireland and Northern Ireland said: Lidls Kickstart Supplier Development programme allows us to support Irish producers building their businesses while providing our customers with a great range of new and innovative Irish products. Since 2016, Lidl has invested more than 30 million in growing and supporting small local producers  an investment which has seen huge success over the years, with several Kickstart products getting fully listed and now being part of Lidls everyday product range. Other products have benefited from the expansive international store network, reaching the shores of the UK, Europe and even the USA over the eight years of the programme.
Local businesses in Manorhamilton are facing significant challenges due to recent cuts in banking services. Banking services across Ireland have become increasingly depleted in recent years, and at the end of 2022 AIB ceased its cash counter services meaning customers were unable to lodge money or withdraw cash and can only do so by machine.



Manorhamilton, once home to three banks, saw its Ulster Bank branch close 10 years ago, followed by the Bank of Ireland branch five years ago. This has resulted in the second-largest town in County Leitrim with only a single AIB branch.



Banks services in Manorhamilton are utilised not only by its residents, but also by those from Northern Ireland, given its location as a border town. Concerns have been raised within the community about the effect the depleted banking services are having on the town, with fewer people coming into the North Leitrim town to carry out business.



Sligo-Leitrim TD, Deputy Frank Feighan wrote a letter to AIB following current anxieties voiced by residents. In the letter, he requested an upgrade of services for the AIB branch in Manorhamilton. He also stressed the effect this is having on the town, remarking that the unreliable AIB cash machine has driven customers to go to Carrick-on-Shannon and Sligo, resulting in a loss of business for Manorhamilton.



"Manorhamilton AIB served the border area and consequently a lot of people based in Northern Ireland come to bank in the town, in fact it is suggested that up to 20 per cent of the bank customers came from Northern Ireland so that means than when those people came to Manorhamilton specifically to deal with their banking business and now unfortunately have no reason to come to the town and perhaps shop there also.

"It is estimated by many of the AIB customers that cash (ATM) machine in the bank branch only works 70% of the time due to constant breakdowns! Hardly a service to be proud off!

"Sometimes the machine wont take cash or other times it wont take cheques.

"When the change came in to force every customer was allocated a lodgement card, if there is a problem with the machine in the branch, you have the choice to go to the post office however that same card will not work at the post office, the customer is required to have a lodgement book," Deputy Feighan wrote.

A further concern that Deputy Feighan raised in the letter is privacy and confidentiality issues in the Manorhamilton branch.

"The other issue worth raising is that when these problems present themselves the bank is not private, it is an open office where very good bank officials unfortunately can be heard helping customers and sometimes the customers business can be heard by others!

"My constituents are anxious to emphasise that your staff are excellent in every way but because of these issues they are under a lot of pressure," Deputy Feighan said.

Deputy Feighan asked AIB for a return to counter services in the Manorhamilton branch, full time or at least three days a week or at the very least a second ATM/Internal Cash and Cheque lodgement machine.

"The AIB customers based in North Leitrim deserve this and the town requires a functioning bank with services to continue to operate in Manorhamilton," Deputy Feighan concluded.
Atlantic Technological University Lecturer Dr John Scahill, who has created an informative, accredited short course around Sustainable Development Goals, says employers and industries are now increasingly seeking to align their practices with SDGs.

As society strives to realise the objectives set out by the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda by 2030, ATU is playing its part by delivering short, accredited courses to assist organisations, businesses and individuals to meet their targets.

In September 2015, the UN, as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, set out 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), covering an array of subjects from poverty to climate change, and this was embraced by all 193 UN member states, including Ireland.

The 2030 Agenda provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. To this end, ATU offers four online micro- credentials  namely SDGs and Partnership, SDGs and People, SDGs and Prosperity and SDGs and Planet  to assist those looking to build SDGs into their organisation, industry or, indeed, daily life.

Each module is worth five credits and for those who successfully complete all four modules (20 credits), they will be awarded a Level 6 Certificate in SDGs Partnership People Planet and Prosperity.

Students can also undertake a 10 credit Special Purpose Award (SPA) in the SDGs  Partnership and People, Partnership and Planet and Partnership and Prosperity  or do a single module for five credits.

Each module articulates the aims and purpose of the SDG theme it focuses on and outlines the application of the theme in a regional context. In addition, each module demonstrates the inter-relationships between the SDGs and advocates the SDGs

relevance and application in an applied setting.

Senior lecturer and researcher Dr John Scahill, who created the four modules under the Higher Education 4.0 Project, notes the programme was founded in response to the Human Capital Initiative (HCI) Pillar 3 call to develop courses focusing on

present and future skills that students and people require.

In addition to core skills, sustainability awareness and knowledge of the SDGs are skills that all students will need going forward, said Dr Scahill.

The Corporate Social Responsibility Directive is bringing a clear focus on the Sustainability agenda and awareness is something that employers are increasingly looking for now, in addition to the fact that we need it from an environmental point of view as well.

Sustainability is important in any strategic plan  and sustainability is important in higher education. We have a national strategy for Education for Sustainable Development, and this is a way to directly respond to some of the calls to increase

sustainability education in the HE section, he added.

As noted, the three main pillars are people, planet and prosperity, with Dr Scahill articulating that partnership, then, is the glue that allows that all to happen.

He continued: We would recommend that course participants do the Partnership module first, because it introduces the whole concept of sustainability, its history and sustainability terminology, along with climate change, science and the sustainable

development goals and how they operate.

The programme, which is 100% percent online, was first run in January 2023, with further intakes in September 2023 and January 2024. The closing date for the next intake is August 16. While the fee for each module is 350, course participants can

avail of an 80% HCI subsidy which reduces the fee to 70 per module.

Earlier this year, a report entitled Measuring Progress: Sustainable Progress Index 2024  written by Prof. Charles M.A Clarke, St Johns University, New York; Dr Catherine Kavanagh, University College Cork; and John McGeady, Social Justice Ireland  was published and it ranked Ireland eighth out of 14 comparable EU countries.

The report stated: At the midpoint of the implementation of the 2030 Agenda, a reality check reveals significant challenges are still evident in meeting some of the environment goals.

The SDGs call on all nations to combine economic prosperity, social inclusion, and environmental sustainability. The analysis shows that while Ireland has made some progress, enormous challenges remain.

These findings are not lost on Dr Scahill. The SDGs are important global targets. There is increasing interest in industry in aligning practices with the SDGs  and that is everywhere," he said.

Everywhere you look there are people exploring sustainability and aligning it in their area. So, having a qualification in the SDGs helps with that.

To find out more about ATUs SDGs programme, and other courses, check out

www.atu.ie/flexible/micro-credentials.
A Longford mother has spoken out following the vicious attack on her three year-old daughter by a cat in Ballymahon, Co Longford last week which left her "scarred" and "terrified to leave the house".

Elena Mikova, who has been living in Longford for almost a year with her partner and two daughters, said the attack from the cat "came out of nowhere" at around 4:30pm on Saturday, and left her daughter and her friend "with nightmares".

"There was a cat on the street, and the few local kids who were out playing went over and were petting it," Elena recalled.

READ ALSO - Man arrested following fatal assault in Dublin

"I went outside to tell my three year-old daughter not to touch the cat, as we didn't know whose cat it was. The cat then went under one of the cars, and my daughter and her friend were meowing as they walked by.

"The cat then jumped out from under the car and straight into her face, and badly scratched her," Elena said.

The cat managed to seriously injure the 3 year old, and Elena had to rush her child to hospital. "We had to go to A&E, where they dressed the wounds and cleaned her face. We were then sent to a plastic surgeon in Dublin on Sunday morning to get her lip stitched."

Following the attack, Elena has since been seeking the cat and its owner, but to no avail.

"We're looking for the cat. But nobody came forward as the owner, nobody apologised for anything. I called the gardai, I called the local vet, I called the ISPCA, and nothing has changed."

"Ballymahon is a quiet and nice place, and the neighbours are lovely as well. We're in shock, they all said nothing like this has happened before," Elena explained.

Elena, who wishes to warn the local area and enquire to the owner about the safety of the cat, says the lack of help is "not fair".

"On Thursday morning I visited Gardai for the second time, and they told me if I find the cat they can pick it up from there. I told them I am home with my three year-old daughter whos afraid to go outside, I cant head out and look for the cat."

Elena added that the Gardai have clarified they cannot help unless she finds the cat. "They said to me, if that was a dog or a horse or a cow, we could do something. But a cat, they're wild animals. It was surprising," she said.

Elena's daughter is thankfully recovering, but has been left shaken by the vicious assault.

"Shes ok now, shes home, but shes afraid to go outside. Her face is healing but it has scarred her. Her friend who was with her, whos four years old, is apparently having nightmares about it and is afraid to go outside as well," Elena said.

The mother of two is still seeking justice for her daughter and fears for the safety of the local area unless the cat is found.

"I would just like to know someone will be responsible for this. I need someone to say, look, there is a dangerous cat, dont leave food out for them.

"I knocked on everybody's door and I asked them to not leave cat food outside, as it is kitten season and they're coming from all around the town. That's not okay though, because there's so many kids playing outside, and that horrible attack happened in the afternoon at a time when kids are out playing."

READ NEXT - Man's birthday wish comes true as he traces long lost mother in Ireland after 53 years


A man who raped a 13-year-old girl while on bail for the defilement of another teenager has been jailed for seven years.

The man (22) admitted raping the 13-year-old girl and falsely imprisoning her 16-year-old friend after he drove the teenage girls to buy weed in Co. Tipperary on June 22 last year.

He drove them to a dark and secluded area and raped the younger girl while the other girl was locked in his car.

The Central Criminal Court heard that he was aged 21 and on bail for charges of defilement at the time he carried out the rape and false imprisonment.

In a victim impact statement read out to the court during an earlier hearing, the younger girl described the offence as the worst thing she had ever gone through and her worst nightmare.

It was the worst thing I could have ever been through... It all has affected my mental health I lost a lot of friends as a result of this incident. I dont understand why, she said.

I just wish it would all go away, she added.

The court heard the man has been in custody since his arrest and had no recorded convictions at the time of this offending.

However, he was on bail for the defilement of a child under 15 only nine days prior and has now been sentenced in relation to that matter.

Passing sentence, Ms Justice Karen OConnor said it was of massive concern to the court that he had pleaded guilty to defilement charges just days before committing these offences.

Detective Garda James Kingston told the court a brief outline had been given to Gardai by the complainants in July last year.

The two girls were looking for a lift, and the man said he would take them to collect weed.

He took them to a carpark to pick up the cannabis, and on their return, he pulled the 13-year-old girl out of the car by force, pinching the older girl who was trying to help her friend remain in the car.

He then locked the older girl in the car and walked away with the younger girl, and forced his penis into her mouth.

He returned to the car some 15 minutes later and drove the girls to where they were staying.

The court heard the man knew her age as he was friends with her cousin. Justice OConnor said the huge age disparity between he and the 13-year-old was an aggravating factor in the offence, along with the fact that he had driven the girls to obtain drugs.

The court also heard he sent the younger victim a photo of himself on Snapchat prior to the offence and asked her to send back a photo of herself, which the judge said suggested an element of grooming.

Gardai obtained Snapchat data and were able to piece together times and routes travelled as well as CCTV from the carpark he drove them to.

The man was arrested for the rape and false imprisonment of the girls on July 25, 2023, and was detained and interviewed.

The court heard the defendant made an early plea towards the end of the second Garda interview and made full and frank admissions, in which he said he apologised to the girls.

He apologised to both girls and told gardai, I deserve this, and I accept my punishment, the court heard.

The court heard he made admissions and told Gardai he had a psychological issue that needs to be addressed.

I deserve to be severely punished, he added.

The court was told he has been in custody since July 26, 2023, and never applied for bail. It also heard he has been consistently employed since leaving school.

The court heard the fact that he had driven off the main road to a secluded, remote location before lifting the younger girl forcefully out of the car suggested it was premeditated.

The court heard that the impact on the younger girls mental health and on her family was a further aggravating factor in the case.

Justice OConnor said the early guilty plea spared the victims the stress and trauma of going through a criminal trial.

A psychological report placed him at high risk of recidivism and reoffending and noted that he was very immature for his age.

The report said he has suffered from depression, suicidal ideation and mental health problems and has many of the features of ADHD, including impulsivity.

A probation report said he requires a high level of therapeutic intervention.

Justice OConnor said he had an impressive work history and a close relationship with his mother, who has significant health issues and requires several surgeries. He has never met his father, the court heard.

He has a poor academic record and struggled in school but is using his time in prison constructively, the court heard.

Justice OConnor said these offences represent both a repetition and an escalation of his previous sexual offending but accepted that he has shown some level of remorse.

She set a headline sentence of 11 years but reduced this by a third, leaving a sentence of seven years and four months.

The judge suspended the final four months of the sentence and ordered that credit is to be given to him for the year he has already spent in custody in this matter.

The court heard that his previous sentence of five years with two suspended has now been activated and must be served prior to this sentence taking effect.

This means that he must serve approximately two years in prison before beginning his seven-year jail term.

Justice OConnor further ordered he remain abstinent from alcohol and illicit drugs, attend mental health services and engage with all treatment programmes and offence-focused work as directed by probation services, Tusla and An Garda Siochana.

She directed he undergo supervision by probation services for three years on his release and go on the Sex Offenders Register.
Charges faced by a married couple accused of female genital mutilation (FGM) have been dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions, Dublin Circuit Court has heard.

The couple were convicted of the female genital mutilation (FGM) of their daughter in 2020, but went on trial again last year, after the earlier conviction was quashed in the Court of Appeal.

The couple had both pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of carrying out an act of FGM on a then one-year-old girl at an address in Dublin on September 16, 2016.

The 42-year-old man and 32-year-old woman also pleaded not guilty to one count of child cruelty on the same day. They are both originally from an African nation but cannot be named to protect the identity of the child.

A jury was unable to agree on a verdict following a re-trial last year.

Today (Friday July 26), prosecuting senior counsel John Byrne told the court that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was entering nolle prosequis on all charges, meaning they were being dropped.

Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, representing the woman, indicated his concerns with the DPP's approach. He submitted that a miscarriage of justice certificate should be granted, and as part of this, a jury should be formally directed to issue an acquittal.

He noted that a new expert report for the DPP agreed with the defence's expert that there was no FGM.

Hugh Hartnett SC, representing the man, said an appalling miscarriage of justice had occurred, which required some acknowledgement from the DPP. The case was adjourned until October 25 for mention before Judge Patricia Ryan.

In January 2020, Judge Elma Sheahan sentenced the man to five-and-a-half years imprisonment and the woman to four years and nine months following their conviction by a jury after an eight-day trial.

The couple later appealed both convictions on the grounds their right to a fair trial had been breached when their answers to questions from counsel during proceedings were mistranslated. The 2020 conviction was quashed in November 2021.

A re-trial took place at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last year in which a jury was unable to agree a verdict.
Masdar Partners with Endesa in ?1.7 Billion Renewable Energy Transaction in Spain





The transaction would see Masdar become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain , subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions

Masdar will invest ?817m to acquire a 49.99% stake in 2GW of solar energy plants, with a potential BESS hybridization for up to 0.5 GW

Masdar has also signed an MoU with Endesa to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain

One of Spain's biggest renewable energy transactions in recent years, the partnership is expected to play a significant role in helping Spain meet its NECP targets and the EU's net zero by 2050 target

Agreement cements Masdar's position in Spain , one of EU's largest solar markets, advancing growth plans in Europe as company targets global capacity of 100GW by 2030

ABU DHABI, UAE and MADRID, July 26, 2024 /CNW/ -- Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC ? Masdar ("Masdar"), the UAE's clean energy leader, announced today that it has reached an agreement with Endesa S.A. ("Endesa") to become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. The transaction would see Masdar invest ?817 million to acquire a 49.99% stake, with an enterprise value of ?1.7 billion, representing one of Spain's biggest renewable energy deals.

The portfolio Masdar plans to acquire consists of 48 operational solar plants of 2GW aggregated capacity. Endesa and Masdar aim to add 0.5GW of battery energy storage system (BESS) to the projects. The partnership reinforces Masdar's reputation as a trusted global energy partner for governments, investors, developers, and communities.

The deal demonstrates Masdar's commitment to accelerating the energy transition in Spain and Europe, and these solar projects will play an important role in supporting Spain to meet its National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the EU's net zero by 2050 targets.

In addition to the acquisition Share Purchase Agreement (SPA), Masdar and Endesa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain.

The deal reflects Masdar's ambitious growth plans in Europe, having recently announced that it has reached a definitive agreement with Greece's GEK TERNA SA and other shareholders of TERNA ENERGY SA to initially acquire 67% of the company's outstanding shares, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. With a strong portfolio of projects in Greece and Europe, TERNA ENERGY is targeting renewable energy operational capacity of 6GW by 2030.

In March this year, Masdar and Spain's Iberdrola also reached financial close on the 476MW Baltic Eagle offshore wind project located in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Germany.

Masdar's existing presence in Spain includes the Almenara 1.2GW solar photovoltaic (PV) project in the Castilla la Mancha region of Spain currently under development.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala; Endesa is a subsidiary of the Italian energy giant Enel.

HE Dr Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Chairman of Masdar and COP28 President, said:

"Building on Masdar's global expertise and pioneering approach to renewable energy innovation and development, this partnership underscores our commitment to unlocking clean energy capacity in Spain, Europe, and around the world, supporting the global mandate enshrined in the COP28's UAE Consensus to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 enabling a just, orderly and equitable energy transition. Masdar is accelerating its ambitious growth plans as we target 100GW of renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade."

Flavio Cattaneo, CEO of Enel Group, said:

"We are pleased that Enel, through its subsidiary Endesa, has started this partnership with a major player such as Masdar and, looking ahead, we hope that we will be able to carry out similar transactions in other geographies."

Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar, commented:

"By forging a strategic partnership in Spain with Endesa for 2.5GW of solar and battery storage assets, we are taking a significant step forward in our ambitious growth plans in one of Europe's largest renewables markets. This deal with Endesa will play a significant role in supporting Spain and the wider EU in meeting their net-zero ambitions. We are delighted to also sign an MoU with Endesa to become their preferred partner for future solar projects."

Advisors:

Masdar has retained BNPP as its transaction advisor, Linklaters as legal advisor, UL as technical advisor, PwC as its tax advisor, and PexaPark as PPA advisor.

Banks:

The acquisition was partially funded via acquisition financing from BNPP, Santander, Intesa, ADCB, FAB and SMBC. Lenders were advised by Ashurst.

About Masdar

Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company) is one of the world's fastest-growing renewable energy companies. As a global clean energy pioneer, Masdar is advancing the development and deployment of solar, wind, geothermal, battery storage and green hydrogen technologies to accelerate the energy transition and help the world meet its net-zero ambitions. Established in 2006, Masdar has developed and invested in projects in over 40 countries with a combined capacity of over 20 gigawatts (GW), providing affordable clean energy access to those who need it most and helping to power a more sustainable future.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala, and is targeting a renewable energy portfolio capacity of 100GW by 2030 while aiming to be a leading producer of green hydrogen by the same year.

For more information please visit: https://www.masdar.ae and connect: facebook.com/masdar.ae and twitter.com/masdar.

About Endesa

Endesa is a leading electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. It is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. It undertakes end-to-end business including the generation, distribution and retailing of electricity. It also offers electric mobility services, where it is one of the main operators of charging stations in Spain, and other value-added services aimed at the electrification of energy uses in homes, companies, industries and public administrations. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power Espana, the digitalization of grids through e-distribucion and Corporate Social Responsibility. The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR. Our workforce numbers around 9,000 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, the largest electricity group in Europe.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469453/Masdar_Partners_with_Endesa.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1973446/Masdar_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Masdar

26 july 2024 at 03:27

News published onand distributed by:
Solaris Appoints Arun Lamba as VP, Corporate Development





VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Solaris Resources Inc. (TSX: SLS; NYSE: SLSR) ("Solaris" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Arun Lamba as Vice President, Corporate Development, effective immediately.



Mr. Lamba brings nearly fifteen years of experience in financial services and capital markets covering the mining sector, with a wide range of experience covering projects from early-stage exploration through feasibility and construction to production in both base and precious metals. Mr. Lamba most recently served as Senior Mining Analyst at TD Cowen, a leading North American investment bank.

Mr. Lamba is a Chartered Financial Analyst and completed an MBA at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and degrees in engineering and economics at Queen's University.

Mr. Daniel Earle, President & CEO, commented: "We are very pleased to welcome a rising talent in the mining sector like Arun to our team. His expertise in project, market and transaction analysis will support our immediate efforts to explore opportunities to create value for shareholders around our flagship Warintza Project and in the other jurisdictions represented in our portfolio."

On behalf of the Board of Solaris Resources Inc.

"Daniel Earle"

President & CEO, Director

For Further Information

Jacqueline Wagenaar, VP Investor Relations

Direct: 416-366-5678 Ext. 203

Email: [email protected]

Solaris is advancing a portfolio of copper and gold assets in the Americas, which includes a world class copper resource with expansion and discovery potential at its Warintza Project in Ecuador; a series of grass roots exploration projects with discovery potential in Peru and Chile; and significant leverage to increasing copper prices through its 60% interest in the La Verde joint-venture project with a subsidiary of Teck Resources in Mexico.

26 july 2024 at 07:00

News published onand distributed by:
Government of Canada releases report on the appropriate use of medications





Advisory Committee provides advice and guidance to enhance appropriate prescribing and use of prescription medications in Canada

OTTAWA, ON, July 26, 2024 /CNW/ - Today, the Government of Canada released the final report from the Canadian Drug Agency Transition Office's Appropriate Use Advisory Committee (Advisory Committee) on the appropriate use of medications. The report provides nine recommendations, focused on five strategic priority areas and includes a framework for Canada's Drug Agency's (CDA-AMC) appropriate use program. These recommendations will inform how to best develop and implement a pan-Canadian strategy for the appropriate use of prescription medications.

While medications are intended to improve the health of patients, inappropriate prescribing and use of medications can have a negative impact on patients and significant financial costs for the health care system. If unchecked, inappropriate use can be serious and lead to falls, fractures, memory impairment, loss of autonomy, hospitalizations, and death.

Approximately 1.9 million Canadian seniors regularly use at least one inappropriately prescribed medication. The inappropriate use of prescription medications has an economic cost of $419 million a year, rising to over $1.4 billion when hospital visits and the impacts of these other harms are included.

A national strategy to enhance appropriate prescribing and use of medications will provide a common vision to support both prescribers and patients, and help improve health outcomes for Canadians. The Advisory Committee's report will guide the CDA-AMC as it engages with provinces, territories, health care providers, patients and other partners, to finalize the strategy, including the development of tools, resources and recommendations for prescribers and patients, and puts its new appropriate use program in place.

The release of this report follows the December 2023 announcement on the creation the CDA-AMC and the February 2024 introduction of Bill C-64 (An Act respecting pharmacare) which is intended to guide ongoing efforts to improve the universal and affordable access coverage for and accessibility, affordability and appropriate use of prescription drugs for all Canadians.

Quotes

"Prescription medications play an essential role in the health of many Canadians. However, when inappropriately prescribed and used, medications can have significant health and financial costs. I would like to convey my appreciation to the Advisory Committee for their work on this issue. Alongside our plan to move towards national universal pharmacare, we will support developing a pan-Canadian appropriate use program at Canada's Drug Agency, who will continue working to improve health outcomes for Canadians."

The Honourable Mark Holland

Minister of Health

"The appropriate use of prescription medications has the potential to positively impact every health priority that federal, provincial and territorial governments have agreed on tackling to better serve people in Canada. Given the health challenges that Canadians have faced over the past few years, we owe it to them to address this issue. I would like to thank every member of the Appropriate Use Advisory Committee for their dedication and contribution to this important work."

Stephen Samis

Chair, Appropriate Use Advisory Committee

Quick Facts

June 18, 2024 , Bill C-64, An Act respecting pharmacare completed second reading in the Senate. More information on the Canada website. On, Bill C-64, An Act respecting pharmacare completed second reading in the Senate. More information on the parliamentary progress for this legislation can be found on the Parliament ofwebsite.

The report contains nine recommendations addressed to the CDA and appropriate use system partners focused on five strategic priorities including: supporting for program design, implementation and delivery; enhancing collaboration amongst system partners; strengthening policy development and advice; bolstering research and evaluation; and increasing access to and utilization of data and technologies.

The CDATO established an Advisory Committee in March 2023 , to provide advice and guidance for the development of a pan-Canadian Appropriate Use Strategy and a corresponding program for the CDA-AMC that would enhance the development of tools, resources, and guidance to support patients and prescribers.

, to provide advice and guidance for the development of a pan-Canadian Appropriate Use Strategy and a corresponding program for the CDA-AMC that would enhance the development of tools, resources, and guidance to support patients and prescribers. The Advisory Committee is a multidisciplinary group, comprised of representatives from appropriate use organizations (e.g., CDA-AMC, Choosing Wisely Canada, Canadian Medication Appropriateness and Deprescribing Network) clinicians, patients, and the public, who bring a diversity of expertise and perspectives to the table. The Advisory Committee will sunset with the release of their report.

Associated Links

SOURCE Health Canada (HC)

26 july 2024 at 11:38

News published onand distributed by:
Premier American Uranium Outlines Multiple Targets for Expansion Drilling at the Cebolleta Project, New Mexico





TORONTO, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Premier American Uranium Inc. ("PUR", the "Company" or "Premier American Uranium") (TSXV: PUR) (OTCQB: PAUIF) is pleased to outline targets as part of its exploration growth plans at the Company's flagship Cebolleta Project ("Cebolleta" or the "Project") located in the Grants Mineral Belt in New Mexico.



Uranium mineralization at PUR's Cebolleta project are the northern extension of the Jackpile-Paguate trend of uranium deposits, which is one of the largest sandstone-hosted uranium endowments in the world.1,2 Collectively, the mines of the Laguna mining district produced more than 100 million pounds of U 3 O 8 from the Jackpile-Paguate trend during the period from 1951 to 1983, as documented by geologists of the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources and the US Department of Energy.2 The northern continuation of the Jackpile-Paguate trend of uranium deposits onto the southern part of the Cebolleta project property is well established, but the extent of mineralization is not fully defined, representing several important potential exploration and growth opportunities for the Company.

The Company has identified several target areas at Cebolleta, including:

Untested areas with known mineralized zones, but not yet comprehensively drilled.

Mineralized zones within the Jackpile sandstone which remain open-ended and trend beyond the limits of the existing drilling grid, providing potential for expansion of known deposits.

Mineralization at the Piedra Lumbre prospect (Figure 1), hosted in the Westwater Canyon Member of the Morrison Formation, which is the principal host for the prolific uranium deposits of the Grants Mineral Belt.



Colin Healey, CEO of PUR commented, "As drilling has begun in Wyoming to unlock the potential opportunity to discover another ISR amenable deposit in close proximity to Ur-Energy's Lost Creek uranium mine and processing facility and not far from Rio Tinto's Sweetwater Mill, our technical team is undertaking the next steps required to expand shareholder value at Cebolleta in New Mexico. We are currently designing programs with the goal of unlocking growth potential as we advance toward preliminary economic and technical studies at the Cebolleta Project. We look forward to providing more detailed plans for exploration and advancement at this rapidly evolving flagship project in the near future."

Brownfield Exploration Targets at Cebolleta

The Company has identified several important brownfields targets that remain either untested or have very limited historical drilling immediately adjacent to historically defined mineralization in the Jackpile Sandstone at both the St. Anthony and L-Bar (Sohio) areas of the Project (Figure 1).

In the St. Anthony area, the southern property line is defined by the northern part of the Jackpile open pit mine. Reconnaissance-scale exploration drilling carried out by a previous operator of the project encountered mineralization in several holes in the immediate vicinity of the northern edge of the Jackpile open pit. The Company believes the southern boundary region of the property has the potential to host additional uranium mineralization that could be similar in tenor to mineralization in the adjoining Jackpile mine.





The "Link" target is situated along the northern flank of the St. Anthony north pit and near the area of Phase I confirmation drill program completed by American Future Fuel Corporation in 2023, in an area of limited historical drilling along the major trend that defines the mineralized system on the Project. The Company believes that the Link target has a probability of expanding the known mineralization on the Project. In addition, the "South Pit Extension" target is considered to have good potential to host additional mineralization as it is situated between areas of well-defined mineralization but was largely undrilled due to the presence of an isolated topographic high. Notably, the Willie P underground mine developed by UNC as part of the St. Anthony mine complex where 1.6 million pounds of uranium were mined from 1975 to 1979, is believed to have remaining mineralization not included in the current mineral resource estimate (" MRE ") for the Cebolleta Project in New Mexico prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 ? Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (see press release dated June 24, 2024). The Company has begun work to acquire and analyze data that was previously unavailable.





") for the Cebolleta Project in New Mexico prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 ? Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (see press release dated June 24, 2024). The Company has begun work to acquire and analyze data that was previously unavailable. At the L-Bar (Sohio) area of the Project "brownfields" targets have been identified in the north and south Sohio target areas, immediately adjacent to known mineralization. In the Central target area, sparse historical drilling has defined isolated pods of mineralization that the Company believes could be linked to define a larger, continuous mineralized body.





Figure 1: "Brownfields" and "greenfields" exploration targets within the Project area. Note the Jackpile Mine pit boundary is at the southern limit of the property and the Company believes there is good potential to extend this mineralization onto the Project area. On the eastern side of the Project area, the Piedra Lumbre prospect is a "greenfields" target that has potential for hosting mineralization in the underlying Westwater Canyon Member of the Morrison Formation.

Greenfields Exploration Targets at Cebolleta ? Potential for New Discovery

At the Piedra Lumbre prospect on the eastern margin of the Project (Figure 1), historical drilling encountered uranium mineralization within sandstones of the Westwater Canyon ("Westwater"), 300 feet below the Jackpile Sandstone. The extent of mineralization at Piedra Lumbre is largely untested, and represents an opportunity for potential identification of new "greenfields" mineralized area.



About the Cebolleta Project

Cebolleta is an advanced uranium exploration project with a Mineral Resource (April 2024Technical Report) of Indicated Resources containing 18.6 million pounds of U 3 O 8 (6.6 M tons @ 0.14% U 3 O 8 ). Inferred Resources are estimated to contain 4.9 million pounds of U 3 O 8 (2.6 M tons @ 0.10% U3O8).

Qualified Person Statement

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release was reviewed and approved by Dean T. Wilton, PG, CPG-7659, MAIG-6384, a consultant to PUR, and a "Qualified Person" (as defined in National Instrument 43-101 ? Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects). Data verification related to certain scientific and technical information with respect to the Project can be found in the Company's technical report entitled "Technical Report on the Cebolleta Uranium Project, Cibola County, New Mexico, USA" dated June 17, 2024, which is available under the Company's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

About Premier American Uranium

Premier American Uranium Inc. is focused on the consolidation, exploration, and development of uranium projects in the United States. One of PUR's key strengths is the extensive land holdings in three prominent uranium-producing regions in the United States: the Grants Mineral Belt of New Mexico, the Great Divide Basin of Wyoming and the Uravan Mineral Belt of Colorado. With a rich history of past production and both current and historic uranium mineral resources, PUR has work programs underway to advance its portfolio.

Backed by Sachem Cove Partners, IsoEnergy Ltd., Mega Uranium Ltd., and additional corporate and institutional investors, and an unparalleled team with U.S. uranium experience, PUR's positioning in the market represents a compelling opportunity, as uranium fundamentals are currently the strongest they have been in more than a decade.

For More Information, Please Contact:

Premier American Uranium Inc.

Colin Healey, CEO

[email protected]

Toll-Free: 1-833-223-4673

Twitter: @PremierAUranium

www.premierur.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulations Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to, planned exploration and advancement activities; anticipated exploration results; the potential for identification of additional mineralization and future mineral resource expansion; plans regarding preparation of a Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Project; expectations regarding the resurgence of nuclear power in the US; and other activities, events or developments that are expected, anticipated or may occur in the future. Generally, but not always, forward-looking information and statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", or "believes" or the negative connotation thereof 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" or the negative connotation thereof.

Forward-looking information and statements are based on our current expectations, beliefs, assumptions, estimates and forecasts about PUR's business and the industry and markets in which it operates. Such forward-information and statements are based on numerous assumptions, including among others, that the planned exploration activities will be compelt4ed as anticipated and that the results of such planned exploration activities are as anticipated, the price of uranium, the anticipated cost of planned exploration activities, that general business and economic conditions will not change in a material adverse manner, that financing will be available if and when needed and on reasonable terms, that third party contractors, equipment and supplies and governmental and other approvals required to conduct the Company's planned exploration activities will be available on reasonable terms and in a timely manner. Although the assumptions made by PUR in providing forward-looking information or making forward-looking statements are considered reasonable by management at the time, there can be no assurance that such assumptions will prove to be accurate.

Forward-looking information and statements also involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, which may cause actual results, performances and achievements of Premier American Uranium to differ materially from any projections of results, performances and achievements of Premier American Uranium expressed or implied by such forward-looking information or statements, including, among others: limited operating history, negative operating cash flow and dependence on third party financing, uncertainty of additional financing, delays or failure to obtain required permits and regulatory approvals, changes in mineral resources, no known mineral reserves, aboriginal title and consultation issues, reliance on key management and other personnel; potential downturns in economic conditions; availability of third party contractors; availability of equipment and supplies; failure of equipment to operate as anticipated; accidents, effects of weather and other natural phenomena and other risks associated with the mineral exploration industry; changes in laws and regulation, competition, and uninsurable risks and the risk factors with respect to Premier American Uranium set out in PUR's annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2023 and the other documents of PUR filed with the Canadian securities regulators and available under PUR's profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.

Although PUR has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking information or implied by 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 forward-looking information and statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. PUR undertakes no obligation to update or reissue forward-looking information as a result of new information or events except as required by applicable securities laws.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0762793d-ba7a-456f-846c-d807399c936b

_______________

1 World's Largest Giant Uranium Deposit in New Mexico. US Geological Survey Open File Report 82-539, 1982. (https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/1982/0539/report.pdf)

2 The Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine, Grants Uranium District: Changes in perspectives from production to superfund site Virginia T. McLemore, Bonnie A. Frey, Ellane El Hayek, Eshani Hettiarachchi, Reid Brown, Olivia Chavez, Shaylene Paul, and Milton Das

26 july 2024 at 17:00

News published onand distributed by:
The UK's new government will drop its challenge to arrest warrants sought by an international court's prosecutor for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Downing Street confirmed on Friday, July 26. Former prime minister Rishi Sunak's government had told the International Criminal Court (ICC) it intended to submit a challenge to prosecutor Karim Khan's request in May for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

The UK had until Friday to submit its questions to the court in The Hague, but the recently elected Labour government has confirmed it will not follow through with Sunak's plan."This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the government will not be pursuing in line with our long-standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide on", a Downing Street spokeswoman said. "I think you would note that the courts have already received a number of submissions on either side, so they are well seized of the arguments to make their independent determinations," she added.

Read more Subscribers only Israel's shadow war against the ICC, between threats and surveillance

Labour under former human rights lawyer Keir Starmer swept to power on July 4, defeating the Tories in a landslide general election win. It has since announced the resumption of funding for the main UN agency for Palestinian refugees that had been paused under Sunak after Israeli claims that UNRWA members took part in the October 7 attacks against Israel. Labour wants an immediate ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas militants in Gaza and the release of hostages.

Israel's top ally the United States is still set to challenge the court's authority to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu. As well as Netanyahu and Gallant, Khan is also seeking warrants against top Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif, on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity. If granted by ICC judges, any of the 124 ICC member states would technically be obliged to arrest Netanyahu and others if they travelled there. However, the court has no mechanism to enforce its orders.

Read more Subscribers only Israel-Hamas war: Harris makes her position known after meeting with Netanyahu
A BULGARIAN national has pleaded guilty to three charges in connection with a 21.5 million cocaine seizure in Foynes Port.

Kamen Petkov, aged 36, of Apartment 15, Varna Street, Vladaskav, Varrevciuk, 131 Bulgaria was arraigned at Limerick Circuit Court this Friday before Judge Dermot Sheehan.

Three charges were put to Mr Petkov with the aid of a Bulgarian translator. He pleaded guilty to the importation of 21,521,604.89 worth of cocaine; possession of cocaine for sale or supply and possession of cocaine at Foynes Port, Foynes on December 19, 2023.

Mark Nicholas SC, who represented Mr Petkov, during the short procedural matter said it was now a matter of sentence.

It is an enormous amount of drugs, said Mr Nicholas, who asked for a probation report on his client prior to sentencing.

READ MORE: Depraved: Man with 111 previous convictions robs bike from dying Limerick man

Judge Sheehan ordered a probation report to be prepared and adjourned matters until October 14. He asked that a Bulgarian translator be in court on that date.

Mr Nicholas said they will progress matters as best they can.

Judge Sheehan remanded Mr Petkov on continuing custody to appear before Limerick Circuit Court on October 14.

The MV Verila bulk carrier sailed into Foynes Port on December 19 and was subject to a search by Revenue Customs Services officers supported by An Garda Siochana.

It is the largest ever recovered consignment of cocaine seized in County Limerick.
A MAN who damaged community Christmas lights which a judge said were there for the families and children to enjoy has been jailed for six months with the final four months suspended for two years.

Desmond Scanlon with an address in Marion Place, Glin, appeared before Newcastle West District Court.

On January 1, 2022, people walking in the town park discovered that 1,000 worth of damage had been caused to path lights, which were pulled out and thrown away.

On July 15, 2021, Mr Scanlon stole a car from the main street in Glin and later made full admissions.

On March 23, 2024, the accused forced his way into a house in Glin and stole the TV, wifi and satellite boxes. Full admissions were made and the items were recovered intact and usable.

The tyres on six vehicles in Glin village were slashed on February 11, 2024 and 1,100 worth of damage was caused to all vehicles.

On March 31, 2024 Mr Scanlon forced his way into a house on the main street in Glin and stole a washing machine, which was later recovered.

On January 1, 2024, Mr Scanlon stole almost 42 worth of items from Tesco in Newcastle West.

READ MORE: Free vaccine against life threatening disease comes to Limerick

The court heard that the accused has 26 previous convictions.

Solicitor Michael O'Donnell said his client comes from a difficult family background and that he developed a drug problem over the years.

A letter was handed into court, which Judge Nicola Jane Andrews read, but she said she cannot ignore the amount of offences.

She imposed a six-month sentence suspending the final four months for two years and another six-month sentence with the final four months suspended to run concurrently with that, all backdated to July 2.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has been publicly challenged about requests from gardai for media organisations to hand over images from anti-migration public order incidents in Ireland.

In response to concerns that the move was putting photographers covering riots in danger, Mr Harris said it was his responsibility to investigate criminal actions and gather evidence.

Recently, several news organisations, including the PA news agency, have received requests from gardai for images as part of investigatory efforts to identify perpetrators after violence flared in north Dublin.

Last week, gardai came under attack and fires were set several times at the former Crown Paints factory in Coolock which has been earmarked as housing for asylum seekers.

The latest requests follow the Gardas pursuit of court orders to seize images taken by media photographers during riots in Dublin last November.

Following a meeting of the Policing Authority on Thursday, Mr Harris was asked by the media about the policy of pursuing photographers images.

The commissioner said: My obligation is to thoroughly investigate actions which are criminal in their nature.

I have a lawful and legal and legislative responsibility to do all I can to gain evidence.

Mr Harris said the Garda would pursue the images by seeking permission or else gaining a court warrant.

Challenged that this could lead to media organisations not covering public order situations, Mr Harris responded: It is my responsibility to investigate and to bring offenders to justice and that is through obtaining whatever evidence I can.

The NUJs Irish Secretary, Seamus Dooley, said the union would be seeking a meeting with Mr Harris.

He said: Reporters and photographers are independent witnesses, they are present to observe and report on the actions of all parties, including the gardai.

There is a real danger that if journalists are perceived as harvesting information for the gardai they will be perceived as legitimate targets by the sinister forces behind recent public order incidents.

Mr Dooley said it was worrying and disappointing that the commissioner seems intent on ignoring the risks involved in seeking media images.

He added: Mr Harris has invoked what he described as his lawful and legal and legislative responsibility to do all he can to gain evidence.

The exercise of his powers and responsibilities must be proportionate and also have due regard to the role of the media in a democracy, the right of the media to function safely and the well established rights of journalists to protect sources of information.

The PA news agency was one of a number of outlets which was compelled to hand over pictures taken of the Dublin city centre disorder on November 23 2023 after investigating gardai secured an order from a Dublin District Court judge.

PAs editor-in-chief, Pete Clifton, voiced strong objections and warned of the safety implications for members of the media covering such incidents if a perception is created that content they are capturing will subsequently be used as evidence in criminal justice proceedings.
Dublins wax museum has announced it is withdrawing a figure of Sinead OConnor amid criticism from her family and members of the public that it looked nothing like her.

Many reacted with shock when the waxwork figure was unveiled on Thursday that it did not resemble the Irish singer.

The museums team met on Friday morning and decided to pull the waxwork, admitting that it can do better and pledging to create a more accurate representation.

Her brother John OConnor said he was shocked when he first saw it online and said that it did not look like her at all.

Speaking on RTE Radios Liveline programme on Friday, after it was announced the figure would be withdrawn, he said he was not made aware that a waxwork of his sister was to be unveiled this week.

When I saw it online yesterday I was shocked. I thought it looked something between a mannequin and something out of the Thunderbirds.

READ MORE: Man dies following assault in south Dublin

I thought Sinead would have been very fond of looking well, and she certainly did, and if it was supposed to be a representation of her in her early 20s when she did Nothing Compares 2 U, it just looked nothing like her.

I thought it was hideous.

He added: A friend of mine said to me last night that hed seen better in Shaws (department store), in the window.

Mr OConnor said if people wanted to honour her memory they should put a statue of her in Dublin, and queried how something like this could be done.

Theres also enough visual stuff out there, in terms of videos and photos, that show what she did look like.

He said it was particularly upsetting to speak about the issue on Friday, which marks the one-year anniversary since the famous Irish musician died at the age of 56.

I lost my sister and to me thats important. Since shes not here to defend herself or to speak for herself I just took it upon myself to contact you about it.

Paddy Dunning, the wax museum director who said he was a long-time friend of Sinead OConnor, apologised to the family.

He said that the wax museum sculptor delivered the figure the night before it was unveiled.

He said the artist had done fantastic work in previous years but has not been feeling well and had retired.

When I had a look at the statue, I walked in to launch it, and when I saw it, I didnt get that feeling that I normally get from PJs fantastic work, he told Liveline.

My heart sunk a bit. We went ahead with the launch and I didnt sleep last night.

Asked by Mr OConnor on the radio programme if they were doing this to get publicity, Mr Dunning said no absolutely not.

The wax museum runs itself without publicity. We have a launch and thats it.

He added: I had to take the decision to cancel the statue and well go again and well remodel and we have to do better on this occasion.

Mr OConnor said: Particularly, I thought it was really, really bad timing the day before her anniversary to do that. I can only speak for myself here, Im upset enough.

You might not have slept last night, but I certainly didnt when I see unfair and invalid representation of my sister.

As I said earlier, the world may have lost a star, and they did, but I lost my sister.

It just should not have been put there even without checking with somebody is this all right?.

In a statement, the wax museum said that in response to the publics feedback, we acknowledge that the current representation did not meet our high standards or the expectations of Sineads devoted fans.

We have listened closely to the reactions and agree that the figure does not fully capture Sineads unique presence and essence as we intended.

It added: Sinead OConnors impact on Ireland and the global music community is immeasurable, and our goal has always been to honour her in the most fitting and respectful manner.

We deeply appreciate the publics love for Sinead and share in their admiration for her remarkable career and contributions.

With this in mind, we are committed to creating a new wax figure that better reflects Sinead OConnors true spirit and iconic image.

Our team of skilled artists will begin this project immediately, ensuring that every detail is meticulously crafted to celebrate her legacy appropriately.

We extend our gratitude to everyone who provided their feedback and assure you that your voices are heard.

We look forward to unveiling a new figure that truly honours Sinead OConnor and her extraordinary impact.
LIMERICK City and County Council has put a property on the market for a second time after being accused last year of selling a house out from under a man for 45,000.

A former parochial house in need of complete refurbishment and a derelict former church set on half an acre at Foxhall West, Colmanswell in south Limerick is up for auction on Wednesday, July 31 at noon.

It is being sold by GVM Auctioneers, on behalf of the council, with an advised minimum value of 25,000.

The property was entered on the Derelict Sites Register in March 2020 with the council subsequently acquiring it compulsorily.

A meeting of the Cappamore-Kilmallock Municipal District in early 2023 heard that the property had gone sale agreed for a price of 45,000.

Despite notices being erected at the site, the owner of the property claimed he was never contacted directly by the council. The meeting heard that the owner of the house became very, very ill around four years ago and left the property to stay with a relative.

Cllr PJ Carey told the meeting last year that the owner should have been contacted directly regarding the council acquiring it.

A council employee said the process was completed fully in line with the legislation and it is the owners responsibility to deal with dereliction.

READ MORE: Eight-storey apartment complex approved for Limerick city

Cllr Eddie Ryan said: The council sold a house out from under a man for 45,000.

Cllr Carey contacted barrister Liam Carroll, who secured a High Court injunction to stop the council selling the property.

Subsequently, the barrister, instructed by solicitor Daniel Krieth, initiated judicial review proceedings in the High Court. It is understood that matters were settled between the council and the original owner who received a substantial sum for his property, as well as his legal costs. The sale to the other party never went through.

Cllr Carey said he has spoken to the former owner ahead of the house and church being up for auction next month.

He is heartbroken but accepts he would be unable to do it up and he has gotten some relief from the fact that he has been compensated, said Cllr Carey.

Cllr Carey said the Derelict Sites Act is legislation that gives the local authority powers which they should be using with the extremist caution and only in appropriate cases. The council did not respond to a query asking if they would like to comment.
Ireland looks likely to bask in sunshine and temperatures in the mid-twenties next week with the hottest day of the year so far likely to be recorded.

The prediction comes after a miserable few weeks on the weather front which included shock thunderstorm warnings earlier this week.

Cathal Nolan from Ireland's Weather Channel heralded the return of good weather to Ireland in his latest forecast.

He said: "At last, theres something a little more summery to look forward to. Temperatures early next week are expected to rise to the mid twenties, possibly even a little higher where we see sunny spells. Indeed, were likely to see the highest temperature of the year so far.

"But the big question is, how long will this good spell of weather last? The improved temperatures really begin on Saturday afternoon, with Sunday through to Thursday then expected to be rather warm with Ireland under the influence of a much warmer airmass than of late.

"This will ensure that we experience a rise in temperatures, but also high pressure will ensure we see more sunshine than of late also. It wont be wall to wall blue sky, and there will be some cloudy periods, especially for Atlantic coastal counties, but all of us will see some warm sunshine."

The good weather may be short-lived because he says, "beyond Thursday models indicate that the weather will return to a more mobile Atlantic dominated weather pattern, with a return to showery conditions with fresh westerly winds and temperatures falling back to average or below average in some locations."

Met Eireann, meanwhile, predict "warm and humid weather developing," but added that "some thundery showers are possible towards midweek."

They say "overnight rain will clear into the Irish Sea early on Saturday morning with sunny spells and scattered showers soon following. The odd heavy shower will occur later. Highs of 17 to 21 degrees, best values in the Southeast. West to northwest winds will be mostly moderate in strength.

"Dry with clear spells and light southerly breezes [on Saturday night]. Some mist locally. A little cool in places with lows of 7 to 11 degrees.

"Any mist will clear early on to leave a dry day [Sunday] with warm spells of hazy sunshine, possibly cloudier later further west. Highs of 18 to 23 degrees further east, in light to moderate southwest breezes. Generally dry overnight but with the chance of patchy mist and drizzle in places. Lows of 11 to 15 degrees in light southwest breezes.

"Some uncertainty [on Monday], but at present a good deal of dry weather is expected with warm sunny spells and just light southwest breezes. However, low cloud and patchy rain will likely affect Atlantic coastal areas, where it will be coolest. Highs of 17 to 24 degrees, warmest across the Midlands, Southeast and East.

"Overall dry and calm [on Tuesday] with a mix of cloud and sunny spells. The odd shower may occur later. Warm and humid with temperatures widely rising to the low 20s.

"Again warm and humid with temperatures in the low, possibly mid 20s [on Wednesday]. While there will be a good deal of dry weather with hazy sunshine, some thundery showers could break out."
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India  Business Wire India

HAB Pharma announces expansion with two new plantsone for metered dose inhalers and another for large-volume tablets. These expansions demonstrate the company's dedication to meeting the increasing demands of the pharmaceutical market.



HAB Pharmas commitment to innovation is evident in its significant investment in research and development. They are actively developing new molecules such as tofacitinib, posaconazole, and fixed-dose combinations of sitagliptin and dapagliflozin, alongside exploring advanced formulations like oral jelly for sildenafil and dapoxetine, aiming to enhance patient compliance and experience.



Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is integral to HAB Pharmas values. The company engages in various CSR activities including blood donation drives and supporting the education of children with special needs, reflecting their commitment to making a positive impact on society.



In essence, HAB Pharmaceuticals and Research Ltd. stands as a symbol of quality, innovation, and social responsibility in the pharmaceutical sector. From its modest beginnings in Vasai to its current stature with state-of-the-art facilities, HAB Pharma continues to uphold its founders values, driving growth and contributing significantly to healthcare and community welfare.



Founded in 1989 by KK Agrawal and Sanjiv Garg, HAB Pharmaceuticals and Research Ltd. embarked on its journey from a small factory in Vasai. Initially focusing on manufacturing tablets and capsules for the local market, especially in Mumbai, the founders aimed to provide high-quality medicines at affordable prices directly to local doctors. This approach quickly gained traction, earning trust and loyalty from medical professionals and leading to steady demand growth.



By 2001, HAB Pharma secured its first export order, marking a significant milestone in its expansion. A notable early achievement was its role in manufacturing sildenafil citrate, marketed under the brand name VEGA, which gained popularity in the Middle East and Africa. This move not only accelerated growth but also established HAB Pharma as a key player in the pharmaceutical industry. Collaborations, notably with Zydus Cadila, further fueled their success during this period.



In 2004, HAB Pharma expanded its manufacturing capabilities with a new facility in Dehradun. This marked the beginning of a series of expansions, enabling the production of a wide range of products including tablets, capsules, ointments, eye drops, and aerosol sprays. Their pharmaceutical aerosol sprays, like PAIN O JOINT and Tekomol Spray, gained recognition, with products like Sumo Spray for Alkem Laboratories adding to their industry reputation.



The inauguration of Signature Phytochemical Industries in 2016 underscored HAB Pharmas commitment to growth and innovation. Since then, the company has maintained a robust compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30%, with revenues exceeding INR 600 crores as of March 2024.
A proposal to add benches to the tribunal designated for matters related to the Companies Act is expected to cut down the time taken to clear cases on mergers, demergers and acquisitions to a third, experts said.

Currently, benches of the National Company Law Tribunal handle both merger and bankruptcy cases. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday proposed new specialised benches in the FY25 budget speech to ease the burden on the tribunal. This could reduce the time taken to process merger cases to three to four months from eight-12 months, the experts said.

Companies planning a merger approach the NCLT with the scheme of arrangement" and the process takes at least eight months. It involves many steps, including creditor meetings, regulatory approvals, and confirmations from authorities such as the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Experts said the tribunal was originally established for company law cases but has now become overburdened with Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) cases.

Dhiraj Mehtre, a partner at Khaitan Legal Associates, said that the NCLT may not always be able to schedule a hearing, or, even when it does get listed, may not be able to take it up because of the burden of cases, which increases the disposal time.

Clearing the backlog

Adding benches to the tribunal will certainly help to expedite cases, especially those involving company law, which have taken a back seat due to time-bound insolvency matters taking precedence, said Manisha Chaudhary, managing partner of UKCA and Partners LLP.

With an increase in the benches, a properly filed scheme should now not take more than six months to be disposed of," Chaudhary added.

Other experts said the number of NCLT benches is inadequate to handle the volume of cases involving both IBC and the Companies Act. There are 16 benches of the NCLT set up in various cities across the country.

Sanket Jain, a partner at Pioneer Legal, compared the process of clearing merger applications by the NCLT to a single-window ticketing system with a backlog.

The process itself is not complex, but due to the high volume of cases and the limited capacity of the tribunals, it is not efficient," Jain said.

He suggested that increasing the number of benches could effectively increase the number of processing windows, potentially reducing the backlog.

More benches would help expedite the process. Additionally, the tribunal could speed up the resolution of applications with no objections from stakeholders. A quicker process could enhance investor confidence and benefit the economy," Jain added.

Also Read: MCA raises thresholds for merger regulation

However, the experts also pointed out to delays by the stock exchanges, regulators such as Sebi, and government authorities including regional directors in the Ministry of Corporate Affairs and the Registrar of Companies in processing schemes of arrangement.

Siddharth Mody, a partner at law firm JSA, said even if the number of NCLT benches is increased, it may not address the issue of the time required for regulators and authorities to give their approval.

He said the approval process depends on the bandwidth of government departments, regulators and authorities, and increasing the number of benches may not address this particular issue. However, additional benches will at least reduce the overall time taken to process merger applications, he said.

A lawyer speaking on condition of anonymity mentioned how a client had to wait for three years for approval from the regional director at the RoC for a merger between a holding and subsidiary company that had zero creditors and no business. The regional director kept postponing dates, citing the pandemic, and then could not find the file. Eventually, the application had to be resubmitted.

Prolonged delays

It is difficult to explain to clients about such delays," the lawyer said.

The feeling of being in suspended animation for such a long period makes customers, suppliers, employees and stakeholders very uncomfortable. There is a dire need to compress this process, perhaps through weekly meetings or calls between the stock exchange and Sebi," said Ketan Dalal, managing director of Katalyst Advisors.

He added that the lengthy processes were detrimental for merger schemes with a strategic initiative in mind. An eight-12-month process had the potential to kill the initiative, which would be detrimental to all stakeholders.

The initial application admission stage is a major bottleneck and needs to be expedited since delays in mergers and demergers have adverse commercial implications and do not help the ease of doing business," Dalal said.

Experts said certain regulators were allowed to grant deemed approval" after the passage of the stipulated time. However, this is not the preferred practice, and does not apply to all regulators.

Chaudhary of UKCA and Partners suggested that the NCLT could give stricter deadlines to regulators who do not have a fixed timeline to respond.

Any authority or regulator who does not file in time (as provided by the NCLT) can be considered to have given a deemed approval as they get significant notices during the sanctioning of a scheme," she said.

Some legal experts suggested there should be a one-stop shop for clearances of merger cases, which would save companies from having to approach multiple entities for approvals and would streamline and speed up the process.

Shruti Khanijow, a partner at Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas, said the process had many stakeholders and would continue to depend on the time taken for approvals, resolution of objections to the merger, and fulfilment of conditions imposed by the NCLT.

Introducing a single portal to conduct the process and obtain approvals is a possible solution to streamline it. This will bring in transparency and expediency, including for approvals/objections by regulators and statutory authorities, and thus expectedly weed out many technical delays.
New Delhi: Aditya Birla Group expects its consumer business to surge to $25 billion over the next five years as it bets on its new segments such as paints and jewellery.

The group announced its entry into the branded jewellery business on Friday, marking the presence of yet another large conglomerate in Indias 6.7-trillion jewellery market. It has earmarked an investment of 5,000 crore for the jewellery business, which will be housed under Novel Jewels with the brand name Indriya.

This year, we have redoubled our bet on the dynamism of the Indian consumer, by launching two major new consumer brandsin paints and jewellery, Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman, Aditya Birla Group, said in a statement.

Entering the jewellery business is compelling due to the ongoing value migration from informal to formal sectors, the rising consumer preference for strong, trusted brands, and the ever-booming wedding market, all of which present substantial growth opportunities, he added. We will be among the top 3 national jewellery retailers over the next 5 years, and will continue to grow at a 50% CAGR.

The Aditya Birla Group already earns about 20% of its revenue from its consumer businesses.

I believe this will increase to over 25% over the next 5 years to reach about $25 billion of revenue from consumer businesses, Birla said at an event in New Delhi. One of the key drivers for this will be, of course, the successful ramp-up of our newest consumer businesses, paints and jewellery retail.

The groups revenue from its consumer business, which includes lifestyle retail, financial services, and telecom, in 2023-24 was $13 billion.

Colour and bling Earlier this year, Aditya Birla Group entered the decorative paints business under the Birla Opus brand under its flagship company, Grasim Industries Ltd, targeting 10,000 crore in gross revenue within three years of full-scale operations.

The entry into jewellery is a natural extension for the group, which has been in the fashion retail and lifestyle industry for over 20 years, the company said in a statement.

Initially, the group will open four Indriya stores in Delhi, Indore, and Jaipur, and plans to expand to more than 10 cities within six months. The brand will offer an initial assortment of about 15,000 curated jewellery pieces with more than 5,000 exclusive designs.

To be sure, Aditya Birla Groups Novel Jewels will have to compete with the likes of Tata Groups Titan Co. Ltd, Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd, Joyalukkas, and Reliance Jewels. In the paints sector, Birla Opus faces tough competition from Asian Paints Ltd and Berger Paints Ltd.

Also read | Grasims entry sparks caution but fund managers also favour Asian Paints

Indias organised jewellery sector has grown from 22% of the overall market in 2018-19 to 36-38% in 2023-24. In that period, the sectors revenue grew at a compound annual growth rate of 8%, reaching a market value of 6,400 billion, brokerage Motilal Oswal said in a report in June.

The organised jewellery market clocked an 18-19% revenue CAGR in those five years, while Tata Groups Titan Co. Ltd, Kalyan Jewellers India Ltd, and Senco Gold combined recorded a 20% revenue CAGR, it added.

Also read | Titan slips on dull Q1 update; competition clouds loom

Indias jewellery market already sees the presence of large local and national retail chains that are trying to capitalise on the shift from the unorganised to the organised market.

The shift from unorganized/local players to organized players has been significant and augured well. We believe that some of the pent-up demand has already subsided during FY23-FY24. Therefore, those benefits have already been captured, Motilal Oswal said in its report.

However, the underlying shift towards consumers purchasing from branded retailers, upgrading to studded products, and increasing their frequency of visits (for normal wear, etc.) will continue to benefit the category over the medium term, it added.

However, elevated gold prices continue to remain a challenge for organised jewellery retailers.

Titan and Kalyans latest business updates have disappointed with slower revenue growth, as their jewellery operations face increasing competition and elevated gold prices.

Shopping for designer labels The Aditya Birla Group has been ramping up its consumer business in recent years.

In 2018, the group set on a path to create an ethnic-wear portfolio after having primarily operated in the market for western clothing.

Over the past few years, its apparel and lifestyle arm, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd, has made a series of investments in homegrown apparel makers, picking up majority stakes in designer brands such as Sabyasachi, Shantnu & Nikhil, House of Masaba, and the artisanal brand Jaypore.

Additionally, it has developed in-house brands such as Tasva with Tarun Tahiliani and Marigold Lane.

In FY22, the group acquired the India business of American footwear and clothing brand Reebok. In September 2023, it acquired a 51% stake in TCNS Clothing, giving it access to brands such as W, Aurelia, and Wishful.

For 2022-23, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail reported a 53% surge in revenue to 12,418 crore.
United Spirits Limited, a subsidiary of Diageo India, has clarified that a news report that the company's CEO, Hina Nagarajan, was summoned by Delhi city police for a probe into liquor payments was misleading.

A report published on July 25, 2024, by a prominent news wire, on Nagarajan. was misleading, the company said, emphasising that it distorts the facts of a routine regulatory procedure.

United Spirits shares were trading down 1.46 per cent, at 1,424, on July 26, 2024, at 1:23 pm, on the BSE.

In a statement filed with the exchange, United Spirits clarified that the notice received from the authorities was part of a standard information and fact-finding exercise. Such notices are typically addressed to the company head but are not specifically directed at the CEO. The notice requires a company representative to provide information related to operations between 2017 and 2020, which is a standard regulatory request.

"We believe similar notices have been sent to other manufacturers as well. This is a routine process, and we are fully cooperating with the authorities, as we always have," the statement read. "Diageo India has consistently maintained the highest standards of regulatory compliance, and any suggestion of culpability in the headline or article is irresponsible reportage."

Context of the investigation The initial report by Reuters indicated that Nagarajan was summoned by New Delhi's anti-corruption police as part of an investigation into billing and discount practices involving government agencies that operate liquor retail shops. According to the Reuters report quoting sources and a police notice, Nagarajan was asked to appear before the police and provide various documents related to the company's sales during the specified period.

The notice directed Nagarajan to appear in person or through a company representative for the investigation. United Spirits confirmed receiving the notice and stated that it was in the process of sending an authorised representative to comply with the request.

Industry and market impact The Delhi police investigation focuses on the practices of liquor suppliers to government-run retail shops, particularly regarding discounts offered for early payments by these agencies. The inquiry aims to determine if there was any wrongdoing in this process, per the Reuters report.
(Bloomberg) -- As Kamala Harris prepares to take on Donald Trump, her advisers as Joe Bidens vice president provide a window into her style and priorities.

Two threads are emerging in the short time since launching her White House run: Many Harris aides have worked primarily or entirely for her, not Biden. And shes said to be considering several veterans from the administration of Barack Obama, who on Friday endorsed her, as well as some Biden-era heavyweights.

Harris trusts a relatively small group of staff that she sees as loyal, and that circle can change, including when particular subjects are dominating the news. Aides familiar with her working style say she prefers in-depth briefings, asks probing questions and wants to know about her blind spots. Some former aides conceded Harris is demanding, driven in part by high expectations and heightened scrutiny she faces as the first Black, woman vice president.

Heres a look at the people in her orbit as she moves to reshape the campaign and form the nucleus of a potential new administration, according to people familiar with her efforts, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and unpredictable personnel issues.

Key Staff

Biden and Harris share some similarities  they rely on a tight circle of trusted aides and use family as a sounding board. Harris top staff is a mix of Washington veterans and longtime hands.

Lorraine Voles, her chief of staff for official business in the vice presidents office, and Sheila Nix, her counterpart on the campaign, are largely overseeing her shift to become the Democratic nominee. On messaging, communications director Kirsten Allen has been with Harris for years. Brian Fallon, Hillary Clintons chief spokesman from her 2016 run, is leading Harris campaign communications effort.

National Security Advisor Phil Gordon is one of Harris longer-serving aides, and she also maintains ties with his predecessor, Nancy McEldowney. Gordon, who worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations, was McEldowneys deputy before ascending to the top job.

Harris former economic advisers, BlackRock Inc. veteran Mike Pyle and Deanne Millison, remain close with the vice president. Bidens former National Economic Council Director, Brian Deese, will retain an advisory role with the now-Harris-led campaign.

Harris domestic policy adviser is Kristine Lucius, who served as a chief of staff for Harris in the US Senate. Lucius and predecessor Rohini Kosoglu remain close allies, as does former counsel Josh Hsu, who has left for the private sector.

Her Campaign

With the campaign she inherited rapidly changing course under a new nominee, Harris is turning to high-profile figures outside the Biden orbit as she weighs running mates.

Eric Holder, Obamas attorney general, is leading vetting efforts of the candidates. The campaign said Thursday the selection process has has begun in earnest but otherwise declined to comment on the status of the search. Her allies have also approached Jim Messina, who managed Obamas 2012 reelection, about taking a role.

Harris is also said to be in talks with Jim Margolis  a veteran of her 2019 primary campaign  to work on advertising, a role held by Mike Donilon, a top Biden aide whos said to be departing that position.

Harris allies have been in touch with David Plouffe, another Obama adviser, about a potential role, according to people familiar with the matter.

Adding big names to her campaign would further crowd the top: Julie Chavez Rodriguez is the campaign manager and was the clear authority until Biden sent Jennifer OMalley Dillon from the White House earlier this year to serve as campaign chair and effectively run the operation. Harris has retained both.

Cabinet Connections

Harris has kept her operations as vice president largely separate from Bidens, and is said to not have particularly close ties with his Cabinet.

If Harris needs to reach the West Wing, she calls Biden or White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, people said. Biden is an influence on foreign policy in particular, some of the people said, while National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is also said to have built ties with Harris and her team.

Harris has traveled frequently with some figures, including Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo. Their recent trips, including to the battleground states of Georgia and Wisconsin, were aimed at touting the administrations drive to improve access to capital and investment in under-served communities  policy areas both Harris and Adeyemo have shown special interest in.

Family

Harris, like Biden, relies on family for grounding and political advice. That includes husband Doug Emhoff, whos an active campaigner in battleground states and a prominent voice against antisemitism.

The possible first gentleman also offers messaging advice. Harris earlier this year recalled Emhoff telling her that rattling off a long list of accomplishments in speeches feels like a CVS receipt and urged her to pare it down. Harris sister, Maya, chaired her 2019 primary campaign. Harris brother-in-law, former Justice Department official Tony West, is also known to provide counsel.

--With assistance from Viktoria Dendrinou and Jenny Leonard.

(Updates with status of running-mate search status in 11th paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected the spelling of Lucius in the ninth paragraph.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
Indus Towers on Thursday announced that the board of directors of the company will consider a proposal for the buyback of its equity shares on July 30.

In a stock exchange filing, the telecom infrastructure company informed that the meeting of its Board of Directors is scheduled on Tuesday, July 30, and the proposal of share buyback is also on the agenda.

To consider and approve the proposal for buyback of fully paid-up equity shares of 10/- each of the Company, including matters related/ incidental thereto, (Buyback). in accordance with the applicable provisions under the Companies Act, 2013, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Buy-back of Securities) Regulations, 2018, as amended, and other applicable laws (if any), Indus Towers said in a regulatory filing.

According to the regulations, the trading window for dealing in Indus Towers shares shall remain closed for all Designated Persons of the company and their immediate relatives till Thursday, August 01, 2024, in respect of the Indus Towers buyback proposal.

Indus Towers share buyback will include repurchase of equity shares of face value of 10 each. The last Indus Towers share buyback was carried out in June 2016 when the telecom infrastructure company was named Bharti Infratel.

Along with Indus Towers share buyback proposal, the companys board will also consider and approve the audited financial results (Standalone & Consolidated) for the first quarter ended on June 30, 2024.

Indus Towers Q1 results are expected to be mixed. Net tenancy additions for Indus Towers is estimated to remain robust as Bharti Airtel continued its rural expansion during Q1FY25. Hence, Indus EBITDA is expected to grow 2.0% QoQ in Q1.

JM Financial builds in 7.1k net tenancy additions in Q1FY25 for Indus Towers versus 7.9k in Q4FY24. However, it assumes that rentals will be flat QoQ.

Therefore, revenue is likely to grow 5.1% QoQ to 7,561 crore while EBITDA is expected to improve 2% QoQ to 4,185 crore, while EBITDA margin may fall by 168 bps to 55.4% QoQ.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)  A Louisiana police officer was killed this week during a hostage and standoff situation, the Lafayette Police Department said Friday.

In a statement on its Facebook page, the department identified the officer killed as Senior Cpl. Segus Jolivette, a SWAT negotiator. The husband and father of five joined the department in November 2013 and had served as a school resource officer in the past.

The officer was killed during a SWAT operation Thursday in the small city of Jeanerette in southern Louisiana. Police say that the operation included a standoff and hostage situation. Additional details about what led up to Jolivette's death were not immediately available.

Trooper Peggy Bourque, a spokesperson for the Louisiana State Police, told The Associated Press on Friday morning that a suspect has been captured and is no longer a threat to the public. Officials have not provided the name or details of the suspect.

Multiple police agencies and officials took to social media Thursday night to mourn the death of the officer.

Today we lost one of our best in the line of duty, Lafayette Parish Mayor-President Monique Blanco Boulet said in a written statement. I offer my prayers, my sympathies and my support to his wife, his children, his parents, and his entire family. They are experiencing the most difficult and unimaginable kind of loss.

In a statement from the Police Association of Lafayette, Jolivette was described as a wonderful human being and exceptional in every way and courageous in every action he undertook.

Before joining the Lafayette department, Jolivette worked for the Opelousas Police Department. Lafayette police said Jolivette dedicated much of his free time supporting the Explorer Program, helping Lafayette's youth to gain a better understanding of law enforcement operations and the importance of relationship building in our community.

His legacy of bravery and dedication will be remembered and honored by all who knew him, Lafayette police said in a statement.


Morgan Stanley said it finished deploying its second generative artificial intelligence application to financial advisers last week, favoring homegrown solutions over out-of-the-box tooling from tech providers.

The new tool, AI @ Morgan Stanley Debrief, which summarizes video meetings and generates drafts of follow-up emails based on them, was Morgan Stanleys second generative AI use case built in collaboration with OpenAI. It follows the September 2023 rollout of its AI knowledge assistant tool that helps financial advisers quickly track down information from Morgan Stanley research.

Morgan Stanleys approach to working directly with model builders rather than just grabbing off-the-shelf technology is becoming more common across the financial services industry, said Alexandra Mousavizadeh, co-founder and chief executive of Evident, which tracks AI adoption across the sector.

With a build approach, you get to design it, make it to fit into your workflows and just make it more seamless," Mousavizadeh said. Regarding tools like Morgan Stanleys, she said, The benefit of this app for a bank is that its able to work with the data inside the bank and fit seamlessly into the workflow of the financial analyst. No doubt that this type of app will be incredibly useful in other sectors too," citing insurance and retail as examples.

Other examples include BNP Paribas, which this month announced it was in a partnership with model builder Mistral AI. TD Bank also said this month it was working with Cohere. Mousavizadeh said that the majority of banks are working with several model-makers on the market, including Meta Platforms Llama, Anthropics Claude, Googles Gemini and OpenAIs GPT.

Wall Street Journal owner News Corp has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.

The companies are certainly experimenting with off-the-shelf AI tools as well, she added. Goldman Sachs chose to deploy Microsofts GitHub Copilot across the firm as its generative AI coding tool. It also created an AI platform that its developers are using to build custom applications on top of models such as Llama, GPT and Gemini.

Both of Morgan Stanleys tools were built using OpenAIs GPT model and in consultation with OpenAI, as part of the strategic partnership the two companies signed in early 2022. Morgan Stanley said that after assessing the product landscape for this use case, it opted for customization and seamless integration afforded by building the tools in house with OpenAIs technology, rather than buying fully built solutions off the market.

OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap said, Working closely with Morgan Stanley has been a great opportunity to build and deploy AI that meets the needs of a highly regulated industry."

Technology providers increasingly offer kitted-out AI premium products, although they have yet to gain traction among many enterprise customers. Tools like Copilot for Microsoft 365 or Gemini for Google Workspace are turning out to require a lot of hand-holding to make them work in the enterprise, leading some CIOs to question the actual returns they offer against their high price tags.

At the same time, offerings from cloud software vendors such as Workday and Salesforce arent resonating in the market yet, leading to disappointing earnings, in part, analysts say, because enterprises are leaning toward building custom applications.

With Morgan Stanleys meeting summarization tool, some people would argue, well, you can use Zoom to summarize it. Or you could use Teams to summarize it. Thats true," said David Wu, Morgan Stanleys firmwide AI head of product & architecture strategy, but he added, Even if the product may exist, theres advantages of building and customizing that solve our user needs better."

For example, Morgan Stanley financial advisers typically use Microsoft Outlook for email, Zoom for meetings and Salesforce to keep notes from the meetings. By customizing a homegrown tool, the company was able to integrate with all of those systems.

Wu said that as companies such as Microsoft and Salesforce continue to consider how their tools integrate with each other, Morgan Stanley is regularly assessing its approach. Wu noted that buying has typically been the companys modus operandi in the past. But he said, based on the current level of maturity of out-of-the-box offerings, building makes more sense.

We figured, lets go in and insert the AI into the workflow where people already live, versus trying to buy a product and retrain everyone on a new tool that, by the way, may or may not connect to another tool that theyre using," Wu said.

Morgan Stanley says it is too early to share results of the meeting summarization tool. As for its knowledge assistant tool, it said 98% of teams are using it regularly but declined to share more detail on the financial returns of the tool.

Write to Isabelle Bousquette at isabelle.bousquette@wsj.com
SpaceXs Falcon 9 won approval from US air safety regulators to return to space following a mid-flight failure on July 11 that grounded the worlds most-frequently-launched rocket.

After a comprehensive review, the FAA determined no public safety issues were involved in the anomaly that occurred during the SpaceX launch on July 11, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement Thursday. This public safety determination means the Falcon 9 vehicle may return to flight operations while the overall investigation remains open, provided all other license requirements are met.

SpaceX said it is ready to return to flight as soon as Saturday, July 27.

The uncrewed rocket was carrying 20 of the companys Starlink internet satellites when it malfunctioned, leaving them in the wrong orbit. It was the first major in-flight incident in more than 300 launches of the workhorse vehicle.

SpaceX engineers were able to determine the root cause of the issue mere hours after the botched flight, Bloomberg has reported.

During the first burn of Falcon 9s second-stage engine, a liquid oxygen leak developed within the insulation around the upper-stage engine, SpaceX said in a statement Thursday. The cause of the leak was identified as a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicles oxygen system.

The company, led by billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, aims to launch as many as 148 flights this year with its Falcon rocket family. SpaceX rockets have already taken to the skies dozens of times this year, not including tests of its new Starship rocket.
New Delhi: For some years now, international watch companies have courted India as a focus market, even though volumes were much lower than in many parts of the world. Today, that need has become far more pronounced because the luxury business in China has slumped for the past few quarters and wiped out as much as $200 billion. Raynald Aeschlimann, president and chief executive officer of watch company Omega, owned by the Swatch Group AG, spoke exclusively to Mint virtually about India as a market and the promise it holds. For the entire group, South Korea, India and the United Arab Emirates also considerably outperformed the previous year.

The shift away from Chinathe largest consumer of luxury in the worldhas impacted Swatch, Omega's parent, which reported lower half-yearly sales from a year ago. The group hopes to target newer markets now.

Last week, it reported net sales of CHF 3.44 billion ($3.88 billion) for the first half of 2024, a 14.3% decrease from the previous year. Its operating profit dropped to CHF 204 million from CHF 686 million, with a reduced operating margin of 5.9% compared with last year's 17.1%.

The decline, the company said, was mainly due to reduced demand for luxury goods in China, including Hong Kong and Macau, although the Swatch brand increased its sales in China by 10%. Sales outside China matched 2023 levels at constant rates.

From January to May this year, India's imports of Swiss watches stood at CHF 94.2 million, or $105 million, growing 20% over 2023 and 43% from CHF 66 million ($74 million) in 2022, per data from the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry FH. However, this could also be due to the devaluation of other currencies including the rupee against the Swiss franc.

Edited excerpts:

What is happening with luxury around the world?

We all always thought selling luxury was easy as it was just about having good products which people would just come to buy. But we often tend to forget that consumers are just buying products and it shouldn't be structural but emotion-invoking. Emotions do need to be evoked when selling luxury for people to keep coming back.

In the case of us, a watch brand, it not only has to be recognisable and strong but also desirable and should speak to a person. When the economy is going well, companies must double down on their efforts to become more seen, coherent and consistent. In the countries where luxury is very successful right now, it is not because of the economy doing well, but also that people there save a bit more.

We know footfalls in malls are falling but when we see airline data, we see people want to discover new places and see their family. So brand messaging needs to be consistent, so when there is money, you know they will come to you.

Are new markets becoming a priority for Omega now that China is showing fractured growth across the luxury sector?

I generally don't like the term "new market". I was in charge of the Swatch Group, of which India was a part, and I had this role for about 15 years and I used to visit even then. We already knew it was important even then.

Our business here is becoming bigger. In fact, we have been pioneers in the watch market here and we believe and know a lot of efforts are being put into keeping our brand name alive here. We also understand the taste and sensibilities of the people here.

A lot of people in India, just like China a few years ago, or maybe even more, are saving up to get their first luxury watch - we see that in the big cities where we are well represented.

So whom are you essentially targeting here? Is it the younger population?

More and more of the country's middle class is entering the higher-end shopping market and are also flirting with the idea of luxury goods. It's one of the top 10 priority countries around the world. The Indian population is also spread all around the world. So, of course, we believe in the country.

We started here over 20 years ago and will continue our efforts to be seen more over here with our partners. India's in the top 10 countries in the world and there are big spenders here. We have known very well for the last 15 years that the power of what we do in India is very important not just because of the demographics but because of where it stands in the world.

From Dubai to London, we've seen power spends coming from Indians. We have opened quite a lot of new stores here with our partners.

You said you have a strong brand recognition. But it is a fact that purchasing power is not as much as that in China. How will you grow your business here?

I remember being in Mumbai some years ago and asking Abhishek Bachchan (who was our brand ambassador till 2018), how it felt to see his father on a billboard. He said it inspired many people. But today, a billboard is not the only way to talk to people. The new generation is always connected to social media.

Yes, China and India are different economically but can be spoken to on social media platforms too. We believe, like for China a few years ago, our messaging is also moving to the relevant social media channels and we are very lucky to be able to talk to the younger generation there. India is very well-linked to these platforms because of the high smartphone penetration and data usage here.



What competition does the traditional Swiss luxury watch industry face from smartwatches?

While smartwatches have indeed made a significant impact in the watch market, we maintain our position as a traditional, high-value legacy brand. The comparison between smartwatches and luxury Swiss watches is not entirely appropriate due to the distinct differences in brand DNAs, pricing, and consumer expectations.

We start at a much higher price point, reflecting the craftsmanship and heritage that distinguishes us from smartwatches.
CrowdStrike compensation of $10 Uber eats vouchers after the global outage drew criticism. CrowdStrikes cybersecurity software led to widespread disruption on July 19. This interrupted operations of major companies such as Delta Airlines.

As a measure to compensate for the error, CrowdStrike gave a token of appreciation, a $10 Uber Eats voucher to its affected third party vendors. This move drew strong criticism and disbelief, according to a report by MoneyControl.

The vouchers were given on Wednesday afternoon, which led to multiple reactions, according to reports. Some appreciated the gesture saying that it was the perfect end to a challenging week whereas some were unhappy with the inadequate gesture, the report said.

Several business partners directly in contact with the clients are still under pressure to resume smooth operations.

The report cited social media users who compared the $10 dollar vouchers with office pizza parties that is mostly considered as an inadequate gesture of appreciation.

Also Read | CrowdStrike outage puts its financial reporting under scrutiny, too

"Can $10 on Uber Eats even get you anything?" a social media user was quoted. According to research it was revealed that after deducting taxes and fees, the $10 voucher would hardly cover small products such as a can of Coke or a chocolate bar without tip, the report said.

Apart from the inadequacy of the gesture, a lot of people were skeptical about the legitimacy of the vouchers. For some users, the codes had stopped working.

The report cited a CrowdStrike spokesperson confirming that the vouchers were legitimate and said, "Uber flagged it as fraud because of high usage rates," as many attempts were made to use the same voucher.

Also Read | CrowdStrike CEO warns of hacking threat as outage persists

Apart from partners, the customers also faced losses due to disruption in operations. The report also quoted Parametrix, a cloud monitoring and insurance firm, that the outage would have cost almost $5.4 billion in revenues and profits for Fortune 500 companies.
SAPs shares reached an all-time high Tuesday after the company reported second-quarter earningssignaling there remains plenty of opportunity to help businesses move their data and applications to the cloud amid the artificial-intelligence boom.

The German software giant has reported stable growth over its past three quarters, while its cloud software peers, including Salesforce and Workday, have been under pressure to prove they can win over customers tempted to spend their information-technology dollars on new, flashier AI products.

SAPs earnings, along with those of technology company International Business Machines, which posted second-quarter results ahead of Wall Street expectations, have been a bright spot as Wednesdays stock-market selloff wiped out hundreds of billions of dollars in value from the tech stocks of the Magnificent SevenAlphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla.

Best known for its enterprise resource planning systems, which are a collection of interconnected apps that help companies manage data across business units such as accounting and human resources, SAP has spent recent years moving its business from data center-based license sales to subscription-based cloud services.

ERP systems have been essential to business functions for decades, unlike sexier AI chatbots and services such as ChatGPT. But the investors whove bet on boring, back-office technologyalbeit also with an AI bentare the big winners this week.

Thats also a key difference between SAP and companies like Salesforce, said Fred Boulan, head of European software, IT services and payments at Bank of America. SAP has only moved about one-third of its customers to the cloud, so theres more business left, he said. Moving from [on-premise data centers] to the cloud, customers will spend two to three times more."

While SAP can continue shifting its existing customers to the cloud to drive businesseven with greater competition for slimmer IT budgetscompanies like Salesforce have yet to show they can benefit from the AI hype the same way chips and data center companies have.

Moving corporate data and applications to the cloud has been a yearslong process that was accelerated by the pandemic, and its now being pushed forward again because of the pressure chief information officers face to implement AI. Most AI innovation is happening in the cloud, Boulan added.

SAP has signaled that its preparing for its AI moment: In January, it announced a restructuring plan affecting about 8,000 jobs, and on Monday, revised it to 9,000 to 10,000 jobs. The plan includes intensifying the shift of investments to strategic growth areas, above all business AI," Chief Executive Christian Klein told The Wall Street Journal in January.

Last year, SAP made investments in three generative AI companiesAleph Alpha, Anthropic and Cohereand appointed Microsofts Walter Sun as its global head of artificial intelligence. The company said 20% of all deals in its second quarter included premium AI use cases."

While its too soon to tell if SAPs AI features and products will really stick, SAPs position as the system of record of choice, which is at the heart of customer data, gives SAP a clear seat at the AI table," Jefferies analysts wrote in a recent research note.

Another trend working in SAPs favor: Tech leaders are finally giving priority to the modernization of their ERP systems. ERP applications are the second-most likely to move to the cloud in the next two years, followed by databases, according to TD Cowens May survey of nearly 300 companies.

Thats in contrast to front-office" applications for sales and marketing, which have dropped in importance as many businesses have already moved those functions to the cloud, Cowen analyst Derrick Wood said.

SAP said its cloud revenue was mostly driven by a 33% increase in cloud ERP sales in its second quarter. Total revenue grew by 10% to 8.29 billion euros ($8.99 billion), and beat analyst expectations of 8.25 billion euros. Shares of SAP are up by about 37% this year.

Our strong Q2 momentum demonstrates the power of our cloud portfolio in the era of AI and lays the groundwork for sustained long-term growth," said Chief Financial Officer Dominik Asam. SAPs pole position in business AI, together with our ongoing transformation program, led not only to robust demand but also boosted our bottom line, allowing us to increase our operating profit ambition for 2025."
As alter egos go, Augustus Caesar is not a bad one for Mark Zuckerberg, pontifex maximus of Meta, owner of the Facebook family of apps. Both men started their march to power as teenagers. Both stopped at nothing to build empiresthough unlike the impetuous Mr Zuckerberg, Augustuss motto was make haste slowly". Both gave the illusion of sharing power (Augustus with the Senate, Mr Zuckerberg with shareholders) while wielding it almost absolutely. The Roman emperor is Mr Zuckerbergs role model. In a recent podcast he used the 200-year era of stability ushered in by Augustus to illustrate why he is making Metas generative artificial-intelligence (AI) models available in a way that, with some poetic licence, he calls open source.

On July 23rd Mr Zuckerberg issued a manifesto laying out in greater detail the business case for open-source AI. That coincided with the release by Meta of Llama 3.1, a freely available large language model (LLM) whose most powerful version, it says, rivals the top offering from OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. Mr Zuckerberg said Metas intent was to liberate itself from the sort of gatekeepers that have constrained it in the past, such as Apple and its iPhones. That sounds sensible. It was lost on no one, though, that Meta is Llamas sole gatekeeper.

Metas new model is certainly an attention-grabber. The biggest version has 405bn parameters (a common definition of LLM power), almost six times those in its predecessor. Mr Zuckerberg claimed that by next year the companys models will reign supreme, throwing down the gauntlet to rivals like OpenAI that have taken a closed approach. As both open and closed models get bigger, the debate over which is better is developing an almost theological intensity. On one side are the open-source purists in favour of decentralised little tech". On the other are closed-source realists who argue that greater centralisation and control are better for safety and national security.

Mr Zuckerbergs manifesto further stirs that debate. Though questions remain about how genuinely open Metas models are, and its commitment to the approach, he makes a good case.

As he points out, open-source software has an illustrious pedigree. In the 1990s Linux, an obscure operating system created by a university student, eventually became the industry standard for servers, thanks in part to the backing of IBM, a tech giant of its day. The beauty of Linuxs approach was that it provided full access to its source code, enabling developers to modify and improve it. That differs subtly from Metas approach to AI. Percy Liang, co-founder of Together AI, a cloud-computing startup that will use Llama 3.1, calls the tech giants models open weights", rather than open source. Meta makes available the numerical values used in its models, known as weights, but doesnt reveal the data on which the models are trained, which is the equivalent of the source code. That may reduce the ability of developers to customise its models. It is better than nothing, though.

This also raises the question of whether or not Meta might change its approach, leaving developers that rely on its models high and dry. Meta is not a charity, and building LLMs can be costly. Investors have shown in their hostile reaction to Mr Zuckerbergs metaverse ambitions that, despite his control of the companys voting shares, he does not have a blank cheque to splurge on whatever he likes. If Meta does not get the commercial benefits it expects, it may be forced to reconsider its approach.

Openness, meanwhile, raises two big safety concerns. The first is harm-prevention. Though Meta has probed Llama 3.1 for dangers, the bigger models get, the more risk there is that they could go rogue or be misused. Once released, such models do not have a kill switch. That, in turn, raises the issue of liability. Who bears responsibility if these models fall into the hands of bad actors? Regulators are grappling with such questions; a clampdown could affect the long-term viability of open-source AI.

Mr Zuckerbergs rebuttal starts with self-interest. Meta benefits from its interactions with the open-source community, which will suggest ways to make its models better, he argues. Better models should in turn help the firm improve the performance of the AI products it offers to users of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, boosting engagement and profit. Metas business is based on advertising, rather than subscriptions, so it has no risk of cannibalising itself.

What is more, though he does not say this, making its large language models available for free helps commodify the industry, undercutting the prospects of rival tech giants. As with IBM, which backed Linux against Microsofts Windows, Metas megabucks and clout are giving open-source AI a tailwind. Big firms such as Nvidia, creator of generative-AI chips and provider of related services, and Amazon Web Services, a cloud provider, are incorporating Llama 3.1 into their products. Mr Zuckerberg also insists that it is safer to have power concentrated in the hands of the many rather than the few. When it comes to national security, closing models to prevent China getting its hands on them would be counter-productive, he writes. It would hurt American innovation, and China might be able to steal the secrets anyway.

Actium man

Mr Zuckerbergs long-term bet is that openness will be good for the world as well as Meta. He has likened it to Augustuss Pax Romana. After years of civil war in the wake of Julius Caesars death in 44BC, few in Ancient Rome could conceive of the idea of a prolonged period of peace and prosperity. Likewise, he reckons, few investors at this point are able to imagine the long-term potential of Meta giving away its crown jewels. Like his hero, he has battles to fight before his position is secure. But he is on the warpath.

 2024, The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved. From The Economist, published under licence. The original content can be found on www.economist.com
New Delhi: Sustained fiscal consolidation that helps lower the debt-to-GDP ratio over the medium term could boost India's prospects for a rating upgrade, rating agency Fitch said, particularly when combined with the current positive momentum on macroeconomic performance and external finances.

India's government debt-to-GDP is higher than that of its BBB-rated peers, Fitch noted. As of July, India's government debt was 56.8% of its GDP, according to the finance ministry.

The rating agency said India's post-election budget showed continuity in narrowing the fiscal deficit and high public capex for key areas. India's administration has remained committed to reducing the fiscal deficit in this year and the next, despite the demands of a coalition government, Fitch said. The government's budgetary allocations for public capital expenditure also underscore its focus on promoting economic growth, it added.

The Indian government lowered its fiscal deficit target for FY25 to 4.9% of GDP in the budget announced earlier this week. This was "significantly below the 5.4% that we anticipated when we affirmed Indias BBB- rating, with a stable outlook, in January 2024," Fitch said.

The governments record of outperforming its budget deficit targets in recent years has improved its fiscal credibility, Fitch said, pointing to the deficit of 5.6% of GDP in FY24, which was well below the original target of 5.9%. The governments use of the RBI dividend reinforces our perception of a preference for fiscal consolidation over additional spending, the rating agency added. Mint previously reported that a significant chunk of the RBI dividend would be used to narrow Indias fiscal deficit.

Long-term 3% target no longer a pipe dream The budget pointed to the government's intent to keep debt "on a declining path," Fitch said, adding, "The long-term deficit target of 3% of GDP under the 2003 Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act no longer appears to be a guiding objective.

In her FY22 budget address, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said India's fiscal deficit would be trimmed to 4.5% of GDP by FY26 with a glide path, a method of achieving self-imposed targets to prevent the negative effects of ballooning budgetary deficits.

The government's newly proposed policies on skilling, particularly in the manufacturing sector, have the potential of addressing the country's skill gaps, but will only be effective if implemented properly, Fitch said. The government's corporate tax cut for foreign companies from 40% to 35% and its public capex-backed infrastructure push will be a positive sign for manufacturing investment, it added.

Private capex needs a boost A day before the government presented the budget, the finance ministry's Economic Survey for FY24 indicated that private investment in infrastructure was lacklustre. A proposal to provide viability gap funding and enabling policies and regulations could encourage private-sector investment in infrastructure, Fitch said. A clearer estimate of the credit impact of these plans will depend on the detailed implementation plans, which have not yet been provided, it noted.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will discuss his pledge to make India a developed nation over the next quarter of a century, with state chief ministers on Saturday, an official statement said.

The vision for making India a developed nation will be discussed at the ninth meeting of federal policy think tank NITI Aayogs governing council, to be held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre, the statement said. Modi is the chairperson of NITI Aayog Governing Council.

This year's meeting's central focus is on making India a developed nation, the statement said.

Also Read: Seven years on, GST still sparks Centre-state friction The governing council meeting will discuss an approach paper for the vision document. NITI Aayog and different central ministries have extensively worked on the vision document with inputs from various agencies including think tanks and the public.

Crentre-state relations The meeting aims to foster collaboration between the Centre and state governments and enhance the quality of life for both rural and urban populations. Strengthening the delivery of government interventions will be discussed. The role of states in achieving the goal of a developed India will be discussed in detail, the statement said.

India is on track to become the world's third-largest economy with GDP crossing $5 trillion and has aspirations to become a $30 trillion economy by 2047, the statement said.

Also Read: The budgets push for job creation is crucial to our development dreams Becoming a rich country will require a the Centre and state governments to work together and the meeting aims to create a roadmap for this vision, the statement said.

The meeting is also expected to look into issues like access and quality of drinking water, quality and reliability of electricity, accessibility, affordability and quality of healthcare, access and quality of schooling and issues relating to land and property.

Also Read | The good allies: Bihar gets  47,400 cr for infra; AP  15,000 cr for capital Chief secretaries of states who had met in December to discuss these issues, have made recommendations. They had also discussed issues around cyber security, artificial intelligence governance and the drive to improve conditions in the most backward districts.
New Delhi: The Union government released about 1.10 trillion of the 1.3 trillion allocated to states in 2023-24 as interest-free loans towards developing infrastructure and specific reforms, with Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar cornering a large portion of the funds.

While 26 states availed funds from the Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Expenditure in FY24, Kerala and Punjab didnt receive any.

Uttar Pradesh received the most funds, 19,215.08 crore, while Madhya Pradesh secured 12,636.21 crore, Bihar 8,814.80 crore, Rajasthan 8,513.42 crore, Assam 5,804.43 crore, Tamil Nadu 5,326.42 crore, and West Bengal 5,015.58 crore, finance ministry data show.

Earlier this week, the central government raised the allocation for the 50-year interest-free loans in the Union budget for 2024-25 to 1.5 trillion, up from 1.3 trillion targeted in the interim budget.

States can access about 55,000 crore of the 1.5 trillion without having to meet any conditions. To claim the remaining funds, states will have to carry out reforms and other specific measures such as building or promoting iconic tourism sites.

Reforms for loans Conditions include reforms related to the housing sector, urban planning and urban finance, incentives for scrapping old government vehicles and ambulances, increasing housing for police personnel, and establishing libraries with digital infrastructure at panchayat and ward levels for children and young adults.

States also have to implement reforms linked to land records in rural and urban areas, including digitisation of land records, easing of planning rules for industrial lands, improvements in urban land records, and utilising digital technology in agriculture.

The interest-free capex loans to states will fund targeted investments across infrastructural segments, a senior government official recently said. This will further drive up infrastructure spending and overall growth.

Between 1 April and 17 July, the Union government released 15,119.6 crore to the 11 states under the scheme.

Catalysing the economy States account for 20-25% of Indias overall infrastructure spending, a key focus area of the Union government. The easy loans have helped state administrations stimulate capital spending and catalyse the economy.

Launched in 2020-21, the scheme helped states with an allocation of 12,000 crore to foster economic growth after the pandemic.

The Centre stepped up allocation under the scheme to 15,000 crore in FY22 and dramatically scaled it up to 1.07 trillion in FY23, with 27,000 crore linked to specific reforms by states.

In FY24, while 1.3 trillion was allocated for the scheme, about 30,000 crore of that allocation was marked as outcome-based. The remaining 1 trillion had the same condition as for FY25states have to ensure the loan supplements their capital expenditure and not substitutes it.
NEW DELHI : Thursday's Supreme Court judgement affirming states' power to tax mineral rights and clarifying that royalties paid by miners to the Centre do not qualify as taxes may strain work capital for miners and raise prices of end products, experts said.

In the 25 July ruling, an eight-to-one decision by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud-led nine-judge constitutional bench upheld that state legislatures have the power to tax mining lands and quarries, independent of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act of 1957.

The judgement gives states the authority to impose additional taxes on top of existing royalties, thereby increasing the financial burden on companies operating in the mining sector, experts said.

Cash outflow

"The judgment may lead to a heavy cash outflow for mine operators, creating a disturbance in working capital. In the future, there may be instances of overlapping financial obligations, leading to double taxation scenarios that can burden mining companies," said S.R. Patnaik, partner (head-taxation), law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. The compliance burden may increase as this would require more detailed accounting and reporting practices to meet the distinct requirements for taxes and royalties."

Patnaik said with potentially higher tax revenues from mining, states may also demand more from companies in terms of CSR (corporate social responsibility) activities, including investments in local communities and environmental sustainability initiatives.

Moreover, industries like gas, oil and construction, which use mineral resources, may pass on these costs to their products, thereby increasing the cost of such products and services, added Patnaik.

In 2023, Odishas former chief secretary, P.K. Jena, said in a statement that the state earned 50,000 crore in revenue from the mining sector in 2021-22, compared to about 4,900 crore in 2016-17.

This (citing Odishas revenue from tax) could become a benchmark for states, making it financially challenging for mining-sector companies to operate," said a person from the industry on the condition of anonymity. The order has empowered states to exert more control over corporations, potentially demanding investments like new plant setups in exchange for reduced tax obligations."

The Supreme Court ruling concluded that royalty rates cannot be classified as a tax for three main reasons: First, the obligation to pay royalty stems from the mining lease agreement rather than a legal requirement. Second, the demand for payment comes from the lessor, which can either be the state government or a private party and not a public authority. Third, the payment of royalty serves as a consideration to the lessor for permitting access to mineral reserves and is not intended for public purposes.

However, whether the judgement will apply retrospectively or prospectively is yet to be clarified. The Union government has requested the court to make it prospective, and the court will hear this aspect on Wednesday.

Fiscal federalism

The Supreme Court also highlighted the importance of maintaining fiscal federalism in taxing natural resources like minerals. Fiscal federalism in the context of mineral resources requires us to be mindful that not all states are equally endowed with mineral resources. States such as Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa have greater reserves of mineral resources. Despite this abundance, many of these states lag economically and suffer from a resource curse," the judgment noted.

Also Read: Cooperative federalism may help India bridge its climate adaptation deficit

Taxation is a crucial revenue source for these states, impacting their ability to deliver welfare schemes and services. Fiscal federalism entails that the states' power to levy taxes within their legislative domain must be secured from unconstitutional interference by Parliament," the judgement said.

According to Gopal Mundhra, partner at Economic Laws Practice, the ruling alters the fiscal relationship between the Union and mineral-rich states. Until now, the central government was periodically determining royalty rates based on states' fiscal requirements, assuming states had no right to levy taxes on minerals beyond royalties. The central government may need to revisit royalty rate determination formulas for the future."

Tax competition

Mundhra also pointed out the risk of tax competition between states. Some might introduce more favourable tax regimes to attract mining investments, while others might impose higher taxes to maximize revenue. This could lead to uneven development of the mining sector across different states.

"This Supreme Court judgement is poised to have significant economic repercussions, with companies potentially facing higher costs as states may impose additional taxes on top of existing royalties. This could impact profitability and influence investment decisions," said another person closely associated with the industry on the condition of anonymity. The variation in new taxes on mineral rights from state to state could lead to a complex and higher tax liability for companies. Additionally, this will introduce regulatory challenges, straining the government's 'ease of doing business' initiative and potentially deterring future investments."

Also Read: Let us deploy fiscal federalism against climate change

The majority decision was given by a bench led by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, comprising Justices Hrishikesh Roy, Abhay Oka, B.V. Nagarathna, J.B. Pardiwala, Manoj Misra, Ujjal Bhuyan, S.C. Sharma and A.G. Masih.

Justice B.V. Nagarathna was the lone dissenter. Justice Nagarathna held that royalty is a tax and that states have no right to levy it, endorsing a 1989 verdict by a seven-judge bench in the India Cements vs Tamil Nadu case.

Justice Nagarathna stated that non-extracting states starting to import minerals could affect foreign exchange reserves, potentially leading to a breakdown of the federal system envisaged under the Constitution in the context of mineral development. This could lead to unhealthy competition for mining licences in mineral-rich states that do not want to impose any levy beyond royalty.

Long-standing issue

More than 80 petitions have been filed over the years challenging the interpretation of royalties under the MMDR Act. In February, the Supreme Court commenced hearings to decide upon these conflicting interpretations and determine the rightful authoritythe Union or statesfor imposing taxes on mineral rights.

The dispute originated from the enactment of the MMDR Act by the Union government in 1957, which brought the control of mines and minerals under the Union government's jurisdiction. Section 9 of this Act mandated that mining leaseholders should pay royalties for minerals extracted.

In 1963, the Tamil Nadu government granted a mining lease to India Cements Ltd for extracting limestone and kankar. Under the Act, royalty payments were fixed. Concurrently, under Section 115(1) of the Madras Panchayat Act, a local cess was levied on land revenue paid to the government in each panchayat development block.

Also Read: Environment policy needs federalism to play a big role

India Cements contested the imposition of this cess in the Madras High Court, arguing that the Tamil Nadu government lacked the legislative competence to levy cess on royalty. The high court ruled in favour of the state, stating that the cess was a charge on land under its legislative authority.

India Cements appealed to the Supreme Court, which in 1989 ruled that royalty payments were indirectly related to minerals extracted and classified them as taxable under the MMDR Act. The Supreme Court held that royalty was a tax, and any cess on royalty exceeded the state's legislative competence, as the Act comprehensively covered the domain. Over the years, subsequent cases and interpretations challenged the ruling in the India Cements case.

In the 2004 case of the State of West Bengal vs Kesoram Industries Ltd, the Supreme Court acknowledged a clerical error in the India Cements judgment, clarifying that royalties were not taxes but contractual payments between lessors and lessees.

Conflicting interpretations and subsequent litigations resulted in over 80 related cases being consolidated and referred to the Supreme Court.

UltraTech Cement, which in November 2023 acquired the cement business of Kesoram and in June 2024 acquired a 23% stake in India Cements, didnt respond to Mint's queries.
(Bloomberg) -- Rachel Reevess choice of dinner partner after her first day of international economic diplomacy as Britains new chancellor was perhaps unsurprising: US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a woman she has long admired.

After the first all-female meeting between finance ministers of the UK and US, which took place on Thursday at a G-20 session in Rio de Janeiro, the pair had a private social gathering in the evening and struck up a strong rapport, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Reeves was making her first trip abroad since becoming chancellor after her Labour Party won a landslide election victory earlier this month. She credits Yellen as an influence and has described Labours economic strategy  of building up domestic industry through a more interventionist state that crowds in private investment  as being in the same vein as Bidenomics.

Reeves also had one-on-one meetings with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, Italys finance minister Giancarlo Giorgetti, Brazils Fernando Haddad and Canadas finance chief Chrystia Freeland. Reeves made a point of highlighting the importance of female leadership on the trip, and was pictured with Georgieva, Freeland, Yellen and Indonesias Sri Mulyani Indrawati.

I want to use this platform to work with women leaders in economics and finance to champion the role of women in the economy, she said at the start of her talks with Yellen.

Another official said Reeves, a former economist at the Bank of England, impressed with her command of the facts. A third official said Reeves gave the air of still being in election campaigning mode, and put a heavy emphasis on boosting prosperity and the importance of spurring economic growth. The officials requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Reeves was helped at the summit by the lack of major flashpoints or sources of diplomatic tension. There was common ground on continuing to fight climate change and support Ukraine against Russias invasion, and finance chiefs punted on a decision about whether to introduce a global tax on billionaires.

The issue of domestic taxation is one of the tougher tests that lie in wait for Reeves when she returns to the UK. She is due to update Parliament on Monday about a near 20 billion ($26 billion) shortfall in the public finances, a moment that could set the tone for UK politics and economics for the next five years. The funding gap raises the prospect of Reeves having to hike taxes at her budget in the autumn.

We have inherited a mess, but I am going to fix the mess that the Tories have left us, Reeves said on the sidelines of the summit. Ive always been honest that the challenge confronting this new government is immense.

--With assistance from Martha Beck and Laura Dhillon Kane.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
Private equity firms Carlyle, EQT and Partners Group and pension fund Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) are conducting due diligence for a full buyout of EuroSchool chain operator Lighthouse Learning from KKR, three people aware of the matter said.

Lighthouse may change hands at a valuation of $700-900 million, the people said on condition of anonymity. KKR had acquired Lighthouse in 2019 from investors led by Indian private equity firm Gaja Capital for around 1,400 crore, and infused more funds to acquire assets. The private equity firm has hired JP Morgan and Avendus to find buyers for Lighthouse.

The 100% stake sale in Lighthouse, that was formerly called EuroKids International Group, assumes significance given that schooling and pre-schooling are perceived as regulated sectors, and any foreign investor will have to get comfort before going ahead with the investment, the three people said.

Due diligence on

Currently, these funds are carrying out due diligence and bids are likely to be in soon," the second person added.

Alpha Asia Holdings II Pte Ltd, an investment arm of KKR, holds 94.53% in Lighthouse, while CEO Prajodh Rajan holds the balance 5.47%, a Crisil report in February 2024 said.

Queries emailed to spokespersons of KKR and CPPIB remained unanswered, while spokespersons for EQT, Carlyle, Partners Group and CPPIB declined to comment.

Also read | Lighthouse Learning partners with Heritage Xperiential Schools to expand Network

Also read | KKR acquires stake in Gaja-backed EuroKids

It is a very lucrative deal and the headroom for growth is very high. This is of high interest for PE investors," the third person said.

Under the KKR fold, Lighthouse has entered new cities, operating in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and NCR. It offers schooling under several education boards including CBSE, ICSE, IGCSE and IB.

"Running schools and colleges in India is an extremely profitable business - for any industry, just about anywhere in the world. If you've built a good brand and have over five years of consistent track record, it's a great play for a predictable outcome for late-stage institutional money," said Kashyap Chanchani, managing partner, The Rainmaker Group, a homegrown investment bank.

Ready to rise

The Lighthouse operates 1,350 pre-schools and schools, some of which are owned and others franchised. According to Crisil data, it had 688 crore revenue in FY23. It clocked over 550 crore revenue in the first two quarters of FY24, which was estimated to rise to 1,000-1,200 crore by the end of the fiscal year, Crisil said.

Founded in 1997, the Lighthouse group operates in the pre-primary and K-12 segments in the premium and semi-premium segments. With its acquisition of Heritage group of schools last year, it owns seven core brands: EuroKids, Kangaroo Kids and Mothers Pet in the pre-school segment, and EuroSchool, Billabong High, Centre Point and Heritage Xperiential in the K-12 segment.

India's education system is one of the largest in the world with more than 1.46 million schools and 230 million students participating in modern K-12 education, according to a report by Invest India. In 2020, the sector was estimated to be worth $117 billion, and is expected to reach $313 billion by FY30. With 25 million children born every year, Indias pre-school market is expected to grow by $7.35 billion by 2028, with a compounded annual growth rate of 11.2% during 2023-2028. The number of private schools in the country has increased from 325,760 in 2018-19 to 335,844 in 2021-22.
Indian textile exports have increased 4.15% in the first quarter of the current fiscal year, driven by rising demand from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and South Asian markets.

According to the latest data from the commerce ministry, textile exports grew to $8.78 billion in the first quarter of FY25 compared to $8.43 billion in the same period last year.

This assumes importance given that the domestic apparel and textile industry contributes about 2.3% to the countrys GDP, 13% to industrial production, and 12% to exports. India is the worlds sixth largest exporter of textiles and apparel.

Also Read: Centre to set up labs for testing marquee textiles meant for exports The CIS region, including nations like Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, recorded a growth of 113.33%, increasing to $64 million in the quarter compared to $30 million in the corresponding months of the last fiscal year.

South Asia also saw a significant increase of 35.65%, reaching $898 million.

Exports to Latin America increased by 15% to $346 million in the first quarter due to strengthened trade relations and rising demand for Indian textiles in Latin American markets.

However, regions like North East Asia (NEA) and Africa witnessed a decline in exports, highlighting the need for strategic adjustments to address market-specific challenges.

Textile exports to NEA contracted by 28%, decreasing to $298 million in the first quarter. Similarly, exports to Africa contracted 15.74% to $423 million.

Industry insights The first quarter of FY25 is showing some upward movement in the exports of apparel, which is a welcome departure from the downward trends observed in the last couple of years, said Rahul Mehta, chief mentor, Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI).

This is largely due to the slightly improved sentiments in the US economy as well as the shift desired by buyers from China and Bangladesh, Mehta said.

However, one must keep in mind that the growth is minimal and on a low base, he said.

CMAI is an industry body representing textile manufacturers and exporters and advocates for the clothing industry's interests.

According to a Crisil report, Indias textile industry is expected to grow in the calendar year 2024, driven by a consistent improvement in domestic demand, gradual recovery in exports, and lower cotton prices.

The main buyers of Indian ready-made garments are European nations led by Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, and Denmark.

Also Read: Textile mega parks to get infra developers soon

The textile and apparel market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 14.59%, expanding from $172.3 billion in 2022 to $387.3 billion by 2028, according to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF), established by the ministry of commerce and industry.
Indian auto component makers are once again facing trouble on the high seas. With international shipping lines evading the conflict-stricken Red Sea to take longer routes around South Africa for goods shipped from India to Europe, congestion at major ports along these alternative routes has escalated, delaying container turnaround times and driving up costs.

This logistical bottleneck is of particular concern given that exports to major markets in the US, Europe, and Asia account for nearly 30% of the annual turnover of Indian auto component makers, the Automotive Components Manufacturers' Association (ACMA) said on Thursday.

In FY24, the Indian auto components industry clocked a revenue of $74.1 billion, marking a growth of 9.8% over the previous fiscal year. Notably, exports grew at a faster pace than imports, resulting in a trade surplus of $300 million, a significant improvement from the previous fiscal years deficit of $200 million, according to data from ACMA.

Not only are freight costs increasing, but the time to deliver has also gone up substantially, almost twice to thrice the usual duration," Vinnie Mehta, director general of ACMA, said.

Bottlenecks in the Red Sea are one issue; we are also facing bottlenecks in the Southeast Asia region," Shradha Suri Marwah, president of ACMA, explained further. "The Singapore port is very congested. Sri Lanka and China are also cluttered. Today, freight companies are asking for a congestion surcharge of up to $1,000-$1,500 per container, and we are also having to hold more inventory."

The imports scenario

However, the industry seems to be doing better on the imports front, which is important for the domestic market.

Unlike the semiconductor shortages and shipping issues seen during covid-19, which caused severe shortages of parts and vehicles in India, suppliers and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have learned to anticipate and mitigate such disruptions. Marwah emphasized that the industry has taken a proactive approach to the crisis this time.

Till September end, we don't see an issue. We have built up inventory for 45-60 days, so we are well catered to for the festive season. I can't say what will happen if this crisis continues, then everyone will be impacted. The target for everyone is to cover Diwali, and that seems to be covered," Marwah said.

If this logistics issue continues, then the inventory building might actually do us good. The supply chain is now more vigilant, and the forecasting is better," she added.

Read more: BMW is winning big in EVs this year but says adoption is slowing down

Marwah told Mint that the impact of heightened shipping costs will be passed on to customers and covered by forward contracts with OEMs in most cases. However, margins could be temporarily impacted due to the increased costs and extended delivery times.

Export and import dynamics

In FY24, Indias auto component exports grew 5%, reaching $21.2 billion, while imports increased by 3%, amounting to $20.9 billion. The industry's positive trade balance of $300 million was primarily driven by strong demand for engine components and drive transmission and steering parts, which together accounted for more than half the exports.

The US and Europe remained key export destinations, with North America accounting for $6.79 billion and Europe $6.89 billion of the total exports, according to data compiled by ACMA.

Conversely, China continued to be a major source of imports, accounting for 29% of the total imports, followed by Germany, South Korea, and Japan. Imports were dominated by drive transmission and steering parts, engine components, and electricals and electronics.

The sector's growth is fuelled by growth in domestic vehicle sales, despite a lacklustre first quarter, a strong aftermarket, and increasing exports.

In FY24, the aftermarket grew 10%, driven by increased vehicle usage for personal and commercial purposes, and the rising formalization of the repair and maintenance market. The upcoming festive season is expected to lead to a much better second half of the year," Marwah said.
SEOULInside the cavernous factories of Samsung Electronics, rows of white machines pump out memory chips around the clock, with help from just a few workers. Until this month, Kim Jae-won was one of them.

Now he is on an indefinite strike with thousands of colleagues in South Korea. They sit on the front lines of an issue affecting semiconductor makers globally: With the industry growing in importance and investment pouring in, how much of the bonanza should go to workers?

Kim is a member of a labor union at Samsung demanding greater pay and benefits from the worlds largest memory-chip maker, which is also spending roughly $45 billion on two new production plants and a chip-packaging facility in Texas with backing from the Biden administration.

In the U.S., unions are trying to organize employees at several chip plants whose owners are set to receive government money, including from the 2022 Chips and Science Act.

Samsung says the strike isnt affecting production at its three chip-manufacturing sites in South Korea. It says it will continue to ensure no disruptions occur.

On Tuesday, the two sides held their first round of talks since the strike began, without reaching a resolution. We hope the situation can be resolved as soon as possible," a Samsung spokeswoman said.

The 24-year-old Kim is an engineer responsible for detecting equipment failures and replacing parts, among other tasks. Samsungs factories run around the clock, pumping out the kind of chips used in products such as smartphones, computers and data servers.

A typical eight-hour shift often involves five maintenance issues or more, Kim said.

The company says there is a high level of automation, but in reality, without maintenance engineers at work, dozens of errors can occur in a single step of the chip-making process," he said.

Hundreds of billions of dollars in investment globally is flooding into semiconductors. The U.S. and its allies view chip making as a strategic industry, giving momentum to workers demands for better treatment. Annual revenue for the industry is expected to double to $1 trillion by the decades end.

Similar showdowns over workers and technology have unfolded in the auto industry, at United Parcel Service and among Hollywood writers and actors. In 2023, the U.S. experienced around 470 strikes involving around 540,000 workers, more than double the number of workers involved in the previous year, according to a tally maintained at Cornell Universitys School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Emerging unions

Most of the worlds semiconductor hubs, including those in the U.S., South Korea and Taiwan, have been union-free in recent decades. That has begun to change.

Dating to 2019, the Samsung union says it has grown to represent about one-quarter of Samsung Electronics roughly 125,000 workers in South Korea across businesses including semiconductors, smartphones and appliances. In 2020, Samsung head Lee Jae-yong apologized for the companys past union-busting practices.

The union hasnt disclosed how many people are on strike, but it said roughly 6,500 membersmost of them employed in chip productionparticipated in a rally kicking off the walkout on July 8.

At the rally, rows of union members decked out in black raincoats and red bandannas saying all-out strike" raised their fists. Previously, the union staged a one-day walkout in June, the first-ever strike at Samsung.

Earlier this month, more than a dozen employees at an Analog Devices factory in Oregon held a rally, calling for safer working conditions and a minimum wage at the factory of $27 an hour. They cited support the factory is getting from the state, as well as potential federal support under the chips law.

An Analog Devices spokeswoman said the company respected its employees right to express their views and wanted to address their concerns.

The Communications Workers of America union has been pushing to organize workers at some of the biggest U.S. chip companies, including Intel. Carl Kennebrew, president of the unions industrial division, pointed to the disruptions in South Korea and called on U.S. companies receiving money from the federal government to reach labor agreements.

In May, the union started talks with Micron Technology over an agreement that would give the union favorable conditions to seek to organize workers at new plants in New York and Idaho. It reached such a dealthe first between CWA and a chip makerlast November with California-based Akash Systems. Micron said it respected the rights of workers to form unions. Intel declined to comment.

Samsungs strike

The Samsung union, which hasnt disclosed the current wage levels of its members, is calling for an average 3.5% increase in base salary, an extra vacation day and a different bonus plan.

Samsung said it has already negotiated salaries with a work council that includes representatives of workers and offered the same terms to union members.

The South Korean company is rebounding from a recent downturn in the memory-chip market and has estimated that its second-quarter operating profit reached $7.5 billion, a nearly 16-fold increase from the prior year.

The strikers have especially targeted older production lines, such as one in the city of Kiheung that uses 8-inch wafers and is less automated. Newer chips are typically produced on 12-inch wafers.

The union has said the operational rate at the Kiheung facilitys 8-inch wafer production line dropped to 18% from 80% after the first week of the strike, part of its response to the companys assertion that there havent been disruptions.

Independent data on production werent available. Jang Young-jae, a semiconductor systems engineering professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, said a chip factory might get by with reduced staff for a few weeks by skipping tasks such as regular maintenance but eventually would suffer an impact.

Kang Kee-uk, a 30-year-old striker, has been working as an equipment-maintenance engineer for 11 years at one of Samsungs DRAM memory-chip production lines. He said he felt management viewed the contributions of workers as minimal.

A Samsung spokeswoman said the company recognizes its business success comes from the success of its employees and it respects lawful union activities.

The company keeps telling us to have pride. But thats hard to do," Kang said.

Write to Jiyoung Sohn at jiyoung.sohn@wsj.com
Alexis Havlicsek recalls watching with astonishment as workers struggled to free a huge containership that had run aground in the Suez Canal, leaving a backup of vessels in its wake.

Sydney Deardorff was aghast at the hurdles new and expectant mothers faced in getting baby formula.

Houston McClure remembers being stunned at the sudden scarcity of common household goods like toilet paper when he went into lockdown while studying at Indiana University.

Havlicsek, Deardorff and McClure are among the thousands of students who were drawn to supply-chain management studies by the turmoil that hit communities and businesses when the Covid-19 pandemic starting in 2020 upended global supply chains.

Many of these students now are completing their degrees, moving into the working world and bringing with them views and experiences formed by a tumultuous period marked by crushing lockdowns, unprecedented shortages of common household goods and transportation gridlock.

We are finding that both at the graduate and undergraduate level, the pandemic was like a learning laboratory, said Norman Aggon, assistant department chair at the Penn State Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems in the Smeal College of Business.

Established supply-chain programs such as those at Penn State, Michigan State, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee say they have seen students coming out of high school with their interest already piqued by the pandemic-era shortages of everything from food to paper products.

Id never heard about supply chains, it was never talked about in high school, said Havlicsek, of Allentown, Pa., who graduated this spring from Penn State with degrees in project and supply-chain management and in management and marketing.

She and other students make up a new generation whose views and aspirations were formed by the television coverage, social-media posts and dinner-table conversations about empty shelves, lengthy supermarket lines and historic shipping backups. Some just started college while others went back to school in the midst of careers in other fields, some of them sent by companies to bolster their own supply chains.

Educators say that pandemic generation is bringing a new perspective to classrooms that will work its way into businesses as the graduates begin to enter the workforce.

Now, students are more aware of what the supply chain is, the questions are more precise, Aggon said. They have this plethora of examples to draw from. They lived through it, they experienced the hoarding, the shortages.

The growing interest comes not necessarily in the numbers of supply-chain degrees, experts say, since many programs have caps on the numbers of majors. Instead, it shows up in the rising numbers of students from other areasfinance and marketing, for instancewho are loading up on supply-chain courses to bridge an information gap many companies found in their operations during the pandemic.

Some schools are also starting supply-chain programs after seeing interest in the field from their business students grow.

Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., last fall said it gained state approval to establish a School of Supply Chain, Logistics and Maritime Operations. Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., both cited pandemic-era disruptions in launching bachelors degree programs in supply-chain management this fall.

At the University of Tennessee, supply-chain management last year counted the largest number of graduates from the Haslam College of Business. The Knoxville, Tenn., school has nearly 2,000 supply-chain management students across its undergraduate and graduate programs.

The turmoil around Covid created a greater awareness of the field. That stuff doesnt just show up without a lot of blocking and tackling that takes place behind the scenes, said Ted Stank, a professor at the school and co-executive director of its schools Global Supply Chain Institute.

Part of the draw, Stank said, has been the hiring of supply chain and logistics workers in greater numbers during the pandemic as companies scrambled to unravel supply-chain snarls.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics counted more than 200,000 jobs as logistics in 2022 and projected hiring would grow by 18% over the next decade, far beyond the average 3% growth in all job categories.

Students are great at finding out pretty quickly where companies are hiring and what theyre paying, Stank said. We have undergraduates coming to us that come in from other fields, they may be high school music teachers or IT folks. That group has been influenced by the heightened attention to supply chains.

Eva Ponce, director of online education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologys Center for Transportation and Logistics, sees the growing interest in supply chain education as a global phenomenon. Enrollment in the schools micromasters online program, which is open to applicants worldwide and offers a path to the full masters program at MIT, expanded 34% during the pandemic, she said.

After the pandemic, companies realized the importance of having an end-to-end overview of the supply chain, not just in having people working in their silos, Ponce said.

Houston McClure, of Hendersonville, Tenn., just started work at a drinks manufacturer after switching from a doctoral program in linguistics in Indiana to Tennessees supply-chain studies. The shortages became the buzzword of 2021-22, so I was thinking about it as I looked at going back into another area, he said.

For Sydney Deardorff, a Buford, Ga., native who began an internship this summer at a jet-engine manufacturer, supermarket shelves barren of baby formula were the tipping point in her decision to study supply chains at Tennessee.

That shortage, sparked by pandemic-driven distribution snags that deepened after a plant shutdown, left caregivers and parents across the U.S. scrambling for formula for infants. Learning about the baby-formula shortage, I was thinking about new mothers, about expectant mothers, and I thought if I had been in those shoes that would have been really scary, she said.

The new generation of students, whether in undergraduate or graduate studies, bring with them a different view of supply chains than those of previous generations, who were largely focused on achieving efficiency, educators said.

Having been exposed to these big disruptions, the new generation has an appetite for risk management, said MITs Ponce. This has become a key topic and that is one of the consequences of the pandemicthis focus on ways to reduce risk and vulnerability.

Corporations also are taking more interest in supply-chain programs, said Manpreet Hora, a professor and senior associate dean for programs with the Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business. Many companies are sending more of their existing workers to school to get more grounding in the field after seeing the impact areas such as procurement, sourcing and transportation had on their businesses during the pandemic.

Namrata Saha, an electrical engineer by training, is one of those workers moving up the corporate ladder who jumped into the field. She signed up for a masters in supply chain management at Tennessee in November 2021 after working for more than 10 years in the automotive industry.

I was in a very good position, but literally dropped my job to get into supply chain, she said. Since graduating last December, she has been working as a senior sourcing manager for AT&T in Dallas.
The Indian telecom market operates as an oligopoly, with a few major players offering similar services and greatly affecting pricing. When one company lowers prices the others typically follow suit, but the reverse is not always true. We saw an instance of this when Reliance Jio entered the market, prompting price cuts across the board.

Recently, large private firms such as Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea increased their tariffs by 11-25%, while BSNL's tariffs have remained relatively stable. Its competitive pricing, especially in the lower brackets, has brought it more than 2.75 million new customers, many of them through mobile-number portability. This has helped the company offset its previous losses.

Before we explore how this could be an opportunity for BSNL, let's first learn more about the company.

Financial overview

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) was formed by corporatising the erstwhile department of telecom services on 15 September 2000.

It generated an operating revenue of 193.billion in FY24, clocking 1.1% year-on-year growth. This fell short of the government's target of 200 billion, which was part of a larger 3.2 trillion revival package.

The primary contributors to BSNL's operating revenue were the basic, cellular, broadband, and enterprise segments, accounting for 18.5%, 36.2%, 19%, and 26.3% of total revenue, respectively. Revenue from the basic and enterprise segments increased 19.4% and 9.1% to 35.8 billion and 36.6 billion, respectively.

Notably, revenue from cellular services and the enterprise segment declined during the year. Cellular services revenue fell 6% to 70.1 billion, while enterprise business revenue decreased 4.5% to 51 billion. The decline in cellular services revenue could be attributed to subscriber churn caused by the companys lack of 4G services.

Despite this, BSNL reduced its net loss to 53.7 billion in FY24 from 81.6 billion in FY23, primarily due to lower expenses, especially finance costs, and higher non-operating income.

The company has set revenue targets of 244.3 billion for FY25, 284.7 billion for FY26, 335.5 billion for FY27, and 359.6 billion for FY28.

A potential opportunity?

BSNL may be at the cusp of a transformative opportunity. The key to sustaining the recent surge in subscribers is enhancing network quality and expanding 4G coverage. To address this, the government's performance monitoring unit will oversee the rollout of 4G services by BSNL with the cooperation of Tejas, TCS, C-DOT and others.

The department of telecommunications is also considering granting Elon Musks Starlink a Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite (GMPCS) license, which, in partnership with BSNL, could challenge the dominance of Jio and Airtel by offering more affordable and widely accessible services. Should BSNL and Starlink use satellite technology effectively, frustrated users may switch providers.

Through the partnership, the two companies plan to build robust networks without extensive physical infrastructure, potentially leading to more affordable data plans for consumers. Although BSNL is not listed on the Indian market, companies assisting in its growth could benefit from these developments.

Lets explore some of these.

#1 Tejas Networks

Having received its biggest-ever order from BSNL, theperformance of Tejas Networks is expected to improve.

In May, BSNL issued an advance purchase order worth over 150 billion to a consortium led by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for the deployment of a 4G network across the country. Tejas Networks is part of this consortium and will supply and service the Radio Access Network equipment to BSNL.

Tejas Networks designs and manufactures wireline and wireless networking products, with a focus on technology, innovation and R&D. The company's carrier-class products are used by telecom service providers, utilities, governments, and defence networks in more than 75 countries. It is currently a part of Panatone Finvest, a subsidiary of Tata Sons.

View Full Image Source: Screener.in

Tejas Networks turned profitable in Q4, reporting a profit of 1.47 billion for the quarter against a loss of 115 million in the corresponding quarter last year. Revenue jumped 168%, from 3 billion to 132.7 billion.

The company received 326.6 million in incentives for FY23 from the governments production-linked incentive scheme for telecom and networking products.

Tejas Networks has ramped up BSNL's 4G/5G RAN shipments and delivered a large volume of IP/MPLS routers for the backhaul network. It was granted 22 patents in Q4 and now has 335 in total.

With an order book of more than 82 billion, the company is well-positioned to capitalise on upcoming opportunities such as BSNL's 4G/5G rollout, Bharat Net phase 3, private telco broadband expansions, and utility network upgrades in India and around the world.

Tejas Networkss FY25 revenue is expected to be four times FY24 revenue due to the BSNL and Bharatnet order execution.

#2 HFCL

HFCL (formerly known as Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited) is a publicly listed telecom company. It has been in operation since 1987 and is in various segments of manufacturing, research and development (R&D), and turnkey solutions.

The company has won a 11.3 billion deal from BSNL to upgrade the telcos optical transport network (OTN) across the country. The upgrade will cater to the growing requirements of enterprise and FTTH/broadband services, and position BSNL for the future with the launch of 4G services and the anticipation of 5G services in the coming years.

View Full Image Source: Screener.in

Since its inception, the company has entered various streams of hardware integration in telecommunications. It has manufacturing facilities at Solan in Himachal Pradesh, Salcete in Goa, and New Delhi.

#3 Tata Consultancy Services

Recent price hikes by major Jio and Airtel have led to significant changes in the Indian telecom landscape.

In response to market discontent, TCS and BSNL have signed a 150 billion deal to launch 4G services across 1,000 villages in India. By doing so, they hope to provide high-speed internet access to rural areas, thus bridging the digital divide and offering a competitive alternative to Jio and Airtel.

TCS is a shining star in the Tata group of companies and the largest IT services company in Asia. It was the first company listed on the BSE to hit a $100 billion market cap, a feat it achieved in 2018.

It has a global presence, deep domain expertise in multiple industry verticals, and a comprehensive portfolio of services.

View Full Image Source: Screener.in

The company uses its industry leading suite of products and platforms to deliver high quality, high impact solutions to its clients. It has a reputation for leveraging the latest technologies to serve customers across the world.

In the short term the company is focused on growing profits steadily by maintaining its margins. TCS has handled the wave of attrition in the IT sector better than its peers. The company regularly ranks at the top of the best places to work in India.

In the long term, TCS, with its deep domain knowledge across various verticals, and in-house talent, is well placed to capitalise on the boom in digital technologies all around the world.

#4 MTNL

Reports suggest the government may transfer MTNL's operations to BSNL, pending approval from a government committee and the cabinet. This would give MTNL access to BSNL's nationwide network, aiding BSNL's revival plan with a pan-India presence.

Avoiding a merger means MTNL wouldn't need to delist from the stock exchange and thus have to buy back shares. The telecom department aims for a swift handover to benefit both companies quickly. However, both have struggled to capitalise on recent growth in the sector. Government intervention, potential restructuring, and a possible change in leadership have caused MTNL's stock to surge of late.

The company was established by the government of India in April 1986. Its purpose was to improve the quality of telecom services, expand the telecom network, introduce new services, and generate revenue for telecom development needs of Delhi and Mumbai.

It also provides various types of telecommunication services, including telephone telex, wireless data communication, telematics and internet services.

Conclusion

The recent tariff hikes by Reliance Jio, Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea have boosted BSNL's subscriber base, thanks to its cheaper plans. However, this growth may be short-lived unless BSNL improves its network quality and expands its 4G coverage quickly.

Investors should thus remain cautious. How well BSNL and Starlink use satellite technology to expand their networks will be critical in maintaining and growing market share amid evolving competition and infrastructure challenges.

Happy investing!

Disclaimer:This article is for information purposes only. It is not a stock recommendation and should not be treated as such.

This article is syndicated from Equitymaster.com
Shares of Home First Finance Company surged nearly 11 percent in intra-day trading on Friday following the release of robust earnings for the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 (Q1FY25). The company's profit saw a 27 percent year-on-year increase, reaching 88 crores compared to 69 crores in the same quarter last year. Additionally, total income for the quarter rose by 31.4 percent to 341 crores, up from 260 crores year-on-year.

The stock peaked at 1140.05 during the day's trading, a 10.7 percent rise, and is now just 4.5 percent below its record high of 1,195.00, achieved on July 1, 2024. It has risen 54 percent from its 52-week low of 777.00 on June 4, 2024. Over the past year, the stock has gained 22.5 percent and has increased over 28 percent year-to-date in 2024.

The company's non-performing assets (NPAs) remained steady at 1.7 percent, unchanged from the previous quarter, and are expected to remain at similar levels. Home First Finance's assets under management (AUM) grew by 35 percent year-on-year to 10,478 crores in the Juen quarter, with loan disbursements rising by 30 percent to 1,163 crores. Housing loans constitute 86 percent of its portfolio, with an average ticket size of 11.6 lakh.

However, the return on assets (RoA) declined by 30 basis points to 3.6 percent in Q1FY25 from 3.9 percent last year. Pre-provision operating profit (PPOP) increased by 21.9 percent year-on-year to 119 crores.

Manoj Viswanathan, Managing Director at Home First Finance, expressed pride in surpassing the 10,000 crore AUM milestone. He attributed this achievement to the company's differentiated business model, technology-driven solutions, high productivity standards, diversified funding, and rigorous risk management practices. The company has expanded its presence to four new districts, totaling coverage in 135 districts, and plans to open 20-25 new branches in the current financial year.
Stock Market Today: Vedanta Ltd share price gained almost 4% on Friday as it announced second interim dividend of 4 per share of face value of 1.

Company in its release on the exchange said that "Board of Directors of Vedanta Limited, at its meeting held today i.e. Friday, July 26, 2024, has considered and approved the Second Interim Dividend of  4/- per equity share on face value of  1/- per equity share for the Financial Year 2024-25 amounting to 1,564 Crore.

Also Read | FPIs withdraw 11,000 crore from Indian equities post Budget 2024

The Vedanta share price that had opened at 439.00 on Friday , slightly higher than previous close of 430.90, however gained to touch highs of 448.15 marking gains of almost 4% during intraday trades. The share price closed near intraday highs, at 447.25.

The record date for the purpose of payment of dividend has been set at Saturday, August 03, 2024 by the company.

With the dividend announcement Vedanta share price has given up its declining trend. Vedanta share price had ended lower in last three trading sessions and also the Vedanta share price, despite todays gains is still down more than 6% since early July Highs.

Vedanta Ltd had earlier in May also approved first interim dividend of 11 per share. The record date for the first interim dividend stood on Saturday, May 25, 2024.

Vedanta Ltd had issued dividend of close to 101.4 a share in FY23 and 29.5 share in FY24, leading to handsome dividend yields for investors and Vedanta parent (Vedanta Resources) too that holds more than 56% stake in Vedanta Ltd.

Vedanta Ltd is also benefitting from favorable movement in base metal prices. During the June'2024 quarter, average LME Aluminium price inched higher by 15% sequentially to $2,525 a tonne and alumina price increase by 17% sequentially. Average zinc price were also up by 16% sequentially to $2,836 a tonne as per Centrum Stock Broking estimates.
Federal prosecutors on Friday charged famed short seller Andrew Left with fraud, accusing him of routinely making exaggerated or misleading statements about stocks to quickly profit on price moves caused by his reports.

The charges mark a major turn of fortune for the bombastic investor, who called his firm Citron Research because it analyzes the lemons" of the stock market. He scored a major hit a decade ago with well-timed bets against onetime highflier Valeant Pharmaceuticals International but hadnt matched that success more recently.

An indictment returned by a Los Angeles grand jury accused Left of essentially trading on his name and reputation, announcing his bets and naming price targets far from where a stock was trading. Left quickly closed his positions after his statements caused prices to move in the direction he wanted, the indictment says.

His appearances on cable news networks and statements on social media magnified the impact of his reports and caused others to follow his bets, according to prosecutors.

Left used his platform as a securities commentator to manipulate the markets and enrich himself in the process," said Los Angeles U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, whose office brought the case.

Left, who operated out of Los Angeles for most of his career, faces criminal charges of securities fraud and lying to federal investigators. The indictment says he manipulated the prices of at least 15 stocks over a five-year period, earning illegal profits of $16 million. He sometimes suggested stock prices would fall by 50% or more but closed his positions after share prices had moved only a couple of percent, according to the indictment.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in 2015, Left said he tried to make Citrons research more appealing than the typical Wall Street fare. Sometimes you have a great story and the biggest challenge is, How do I get people to read it? " Left said at the time. Wall Street research is painfully boring. I enjoy being entertaining."

Many stocks that Left alleged to be powered by fraud later became targets of regulators. More than 50 companies covered by Citron Research were the subject of regulatory investigations, lawsuits or exchange delisting since 2001, his website says. He was sometimes right when he accused companies of questionable or fraudulent practices.

His work on drug giant Valeant, which questioned how it used a network of pharmacies it controlled, was largely on the mark. An executive at Valeant was later convicted of involvement in a kickback scheme that funneled business to the pharmacies.

Lefts indictment caps a three-year effort by the Los Angeles U.S. Attorneys Office and fraud-section prosecutors in Washington, D.C., to examine the tactics short sellers use to instigate and then profit from a stocks decline. Short sellers borrow shares from other investors and then sell them, in hopes that they can buy them back cheaper later and pocket the difference.

The Justice Department seized hardware, trading records and private communications as prosecutors looked for wide-ranging conspiracies and evidence of market manipulation, The Wall Street Journal reported two years ago.

Prosecutors also accused Left of hiding ties to hedge funds that got early notice of his research and, in some cases, passing off their trading ideas as his own. The hedge funds traded in advance of his reports becoming public and shared a portion of profits with him, the indictment says. When asked by federal investigators in January 2021 about one of those episodes, Left lied and said he never, never, never" gave prior notice of a report to a hedge fund in exchange for compensation, according to the indictment.

Left also misled the market by disseminating reports that suggested he managed money for other investors, when he only invested his own funds, according to the indictment.

Short sellers have long served an important role in the markets. Betting stocks will fall in price can help investors hedge against risks, identify overpriced shares and even root out fraud. Shorts warned investors about the 2008 credit crisis and helped reveal scandals at Enron and Wirecard.

Short sellers say their research enjoys free-speech protections. But corporate executives often complain that they exaggerate a companys problems or mislead by publishing more than they really know.

Left has long described himself as a publisher, and his website describes the limits of what he reveals. The site says Citron Research will not report when a position is initiated or covered," the tactic that prosecutors now say was deceptive.

In one instance cited by prosecutors, Left shorted American Airlines stock in June 2020, a few months after the pandemic caused airline stocks to decline. In a message he wrote on Citrons account on Twitter, now known as X, Left predicted that American would fall another 50% to $10.

But Left bought options that only required a small decline in price to pay off. Within 10 minutes of posting the tweet, Left closed out most of his bet on American shares. He dumped the rest within half an hour.

In some cases cited in the indictment, Left bet that stocks would rise, rather than fall, in price. But he didnt hold the conviction for long. In 2018, Left wrote on Twitter that he was bullish on Tesla. Within one minute of writing that on Twitter, Left sold more than half his stake and pocketed $1 million, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors accused Left of manipulating the price of other stocks, including Facebook, now known as Meta, and Nvidia. He also initiated a media campaign to discredit another activist short sellers short report" on General Electric. In ridiculing Harry Markopoloss report asserting that GE had aggressive accounting, Left published his own research indicating he owned the stock. In truth, the prosecutors wrote, he had already placed an order selling his GE shares when his report was published.

The case against Left says he knew that his recommendations would move stock prices, which empowered him to manipulate the price of a targeted security."

If convicted, Left faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of 17 securities-fraud counts, 25 years on a separate securities-fraud charge and five years for one count of lying to investigators.

Hong Kong regulators accused Left of misconduct in 2016 and banned him from the citys securities market for five years. The citys securities regulator alleged that Left misled investors when four years earlier he accused property developer China Evergrande Group of covering up its insolvency.

Left appealed the suspension and was later proven right, at least directionally, about Evergrande. The company collapsed earlier this year and Chinese regulators said its most important subsidiary had fraudulently boosted sales and profit.

But Left took a big loss when betting against GameStop three years ago. Some individual investors responded by sharing his personal information, hacking into his social-media accounts and texting Left and his two children with threatening, profane and personal language, the Journal reported in 2021.

Left mused on a video at the time: When we started Citron, it was to be against the establishment. Weve actually become the establishment."

Write to Dave Michaels at dave.michaels@wsj.com and Justin Baer at justin.baer@wsj.com
Deadpool & Wolverine

Whatever its fans say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is undeniably in a slump. Maybe the foul-mouthed antics of Deadpoolbeing introduced to the MCU herewill be enough to jolt it back to life. Or maybe itll turn out Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds), Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) and the tightly controlled MCU are ingredients that just dont mix. Directed by Shawn Levy. (In theatres)

Time Bandits An 11-year-old named Kevin (Kal-El Tuck) joins a group of time-travelling thieves in this new series. Time Bandits was a beloved 1981 film by Terry Gilliam. Its been adapted by Taika Waititi (who also directs some of the episodes), Jemaine Clement and Iain Morris. (Apple TV)

Also read: What to watch this week: Twisters, Rebel and more The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Operation Postmaster was an important sabotage mission conducted by the British in 1941 to disrupt the resupply of Nazis U-boats. It was headed by Gus March-Phillipps, who was one of Ian Flemings inspirations for James Bond. Guy Ritchie adapts this mission as a Nazi-hunting action adventure, with Henry Cavill as March-Phillipps, along with Alan Ritchson (Reacher), Eiza Gonzalez, Alex Pettyfer, Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Babs Olusanmokun. It isnt nearly as good as Quentin Tarantinos similarly themed Inglourious Basterds, but Ritchies fans wont mind. (Amazon Prime)

A still from 'The Decameron'.
Serious investors unanimously praise Terry Smith as the British counterpart to Warren Buffett, lauding how he has enriched countless individuals through astute stock market investments. As a revered english fund manager and the founder of Fundsmith, an esteemed investment management firm, Smith is celebrated for his dedication to value investing and his consistent delivery of impressive returns to his investors.

Smith has showcased remarkable investment prowess, evidenced by his fund consistently outperforming the MSCI World Index. Since its inception in 2010, his fund has delivered an impressive 478% return, underscoring the effectiveness of his investment approach. His approach to investing distinguishes him from the crowd. His strategy for selecting stocks revolves around three core principles: Acquiring strong companies, avoiding overpaying, and maintaining long-term positions.



Also Read | From Warren Buffett to Charlie Munger: Investing mantras from notable investors

Discard inferior companies to uncover superior ones Smiths focus on filtering out poor-performing companies before identifying strong ones is a cornerstone of his investment philosophy. This method aims to notably mitigate the risk associated with investing in underperforming companies.

Through a systematic process of excluding companies with weak fundamentals, Smith directs his attention towards businesses characterized by robust competitive advantages, consistent profitability, and sustainable growth prospects.

Removing inferior companies at the outset effectively lowers the overall portfolio risk. This streamlined approach enables a more concentrated focus on the remaining high-quality prospects. Crucially, the path to discovering multibaggers hinges not only on identifying outstanding companies but also on steering clear of the pitfalls associated with investing in mediocre ones.

Also Read | 3 investing mantras that catapulted Sam Zell to success

Emphasize the fundamentals Regardless of investment style or market conditions, a fundamental principle for successful investing is that a solid grounding in fundamental analysis is essential. Smiths focus on pinpointing high-quality companies with strong fundamentals is pivotal to his investment achievements. By prioritizing companies that demonstrate consistent performance and resilience during downturns, Smith effectively targets businesses with substantial economic moats.

Businesses that maintain steady earnings and cash flows typically encounter fewer abrupt price swings, thereby lowering portfolio volatility. Sustained growth, even if gradual, has the potential to generate substantial wealth over time due to the compounding effect. Since these companies are less prone to significant downturns, their valuations typically exhibit more stability, presenting opportunities to acquire them at appealing prices.

Embrace the long-term approach Compounding returns gain significant momentum over extended periods, underscoring why successful investors frequently endorse a long-term investment horizon. Long-term investment maintenance allows earnings to compound and reinvest, creating a snowball effect. This idea is essential to building wealth via investments.

However, maintaining a healthy balance between long-term investing and regular portfolio reviews is crucial. While maintaining a long-term perspective is the goal, its also critical to periodically confirm that your investments are in line with your risk tolerance and investment goals.

If you lack a full understanding, refrain from investing A thorough grasp of a businesss intricacies is essential for making well-informed investment decisions. Managing risk is crucial. A deep understanding of a businesss intricacies is essential for making informed investment decisions.

Also Read | 6 investing principles by David E Shaw for investors to emulate

Make educated decisions when making decisions. Making wise investment decisions requires both risk management and a deep comprehension of the nuances of a company. Adopt a long-term view. A comprehensive understanding of a business enables investors to gauge its growth potential and competitive advantage, supporting a strategic outlook over time.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has defended the recent tax increases, saying that the government does not want more money and rather wants to ensure a uniform treatment of all asset classes.

Taxes have not been increased because I want more money The decision is based on the idea that every asset class has to be treated similarly, Nirmala Sitharaman said during a panel discussion with CNBC-TV18.

The taxes have not been increased with a back of the envelope calculation. Nothing is done like that or with the purpose that the government wants more money, she said.

The budget 2024 introduced changes to the capital gains tax structure. For long-term capital gains (LTCG) on equity, the tax rate has been increased from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent. Additionally, the exemption limit for LTCG has been raised from 1 lakh to 1.25 lakh, providing some relief to investors.

On the other hand, short-term capital gains on equity will now be taxed at a higher rate of 20 per cent, up from the previous 15 per cent.

In the recent budget 2024, the Finance Minister announced a significant increase in the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) rates on derivative transactions in equity, commonly known as futures and options (F&O). The STT rate on options has been increased from 0.0625 per cent to 0.1 per cent of the option premium. Similarly, the STT rate on futures in securities has been hiked from 0.0125 per cent to 0.02 per cent.

Also Read | Will capital gains tax hike impact investor sentiment? Experts weigh in

The finance minister said the budget follows continuity and stability and gives a vision for the future of India. We are looking at a futuristic.futuristic India towards 2047, she said.

She said that she is still open to comments and suggestions on the budget; however, now it is the property of Parliament. I want to be clear that I will hear all the comments, but that finance bill that was presented on the23rd is the property of the Parliament now, she said.

Addressing the issue of rural distress and demand, Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government's investments will have a multiplier effect on these sectors.

We have repeatedly explained that when the government puts a rupee somewhere, the multiplier effect is what is going to have a spin-off in every one of these areas, she said.
In a compelling revelation, a study by Zerodha Fund House highlights a remarkable surge in the adoption of index funds among retail investors over recent years. The total number of retail folios in index funds has skyrocketed nearly 12-fold, growing from 4.95 lakh in March 2020 to an impressive 59.37 lakh by December 2023, highlighted the report. This meteoric rise reflects a broader trend of increased investor preference for passive investment strategies.

The surge in retail interest is further corroborated by a staggering increase in the total Assets Under Management (AUM) of index funds, noted Zerodha. It informed that from approximately 8,000 crore in March 2020, the AUM of these funds has skyrocketed 25 times to about 2,13,500 crore by March 2024.

Also Read | Should you invest in the newly launched Tata Nifty India Tourism Index Fund?

Notably, debt index funds had seen a sizable growth from negligible to no AUM till March 2021 to almost surpass the milestone AUM of 1.1 lakh crore in March 2024, further pointed out the brokerage firm. This growth has seen debt index funds constitute 51.5 percent of the total AUM, with equity index funds contributing 48.5 percent. The total number of index funds has also grown significantly, with an increase from 44 in March 2021 to 207 by March 2024, marking a 370 percent rise, it observed.

Vishal Jain, CEO of Zerodha Fund House, comments on the trend, stating, The increasing contribution of folios in the MF industry is incrementally being contributed by index funds. Nearly 11 percent of new folios last financial year came from index funds. It is only the beginning of a growing trend and Zerodha Fund House is proud to play its part in it. Retail investors increasingly prefer to have simple and transparent exposures with passive products like index funds in their portfolios and this trend is heartening to see.

The breakdown of assets under management across various indices reveals a clear investor preference. As per the report, the Nifty 50 index dominates with 70.7 percent of the total AUM at 52,000 crores, indicating a strong inclination towards large-cap stocks.

Meanwhile, the Nifty Next 50 accounts for 14.6 percent of the AUM at 10,000 crores, suggesting a balanced approach to risk and return. As of June 2024, index funds reached a record high AUM of 2.43 lakh crore, reflecting a remarkable 900 percent increase over the past three years, it noted. This growth highlights the substantial rise in index funds' popularity among retail investors, surpassing other mutual fund categories in AUM growth percentage.
Congress leaders have slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his Army's long-standing demand remarks on the Agnipath scheme, saying they were blatant lies, and unforgivable insult to the Armed Forces. Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge accused PM Modi was spreading lies.

Highlighting the scheme, PM Modi said that the goal of Agnipath was to make the Army young and keep the Army continuously fit for war. He said that the major reforms in the army have been a long-standing demand.

Responding to PM Modi's remarks, Mallikarjun Kharge said, It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister @narendramodiji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas. No Prime Minister has ever done this before. Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army, this is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant Armed Forces. Modi ji, it is you who are spreading LIES!

Enphasising that 15 Agniveers have died so far, Mallikarjun Kharge said former Army Chief (Retd.) General MM Naravane said on record that 75% of recruits were to be taken for permanency in the 'Agnipath Scheme' and 25% of people were to be let go after 4 years.

But the Modi Govt did the opposite, and forcibly implemented this scheme for all three Armed Forces, he said.

"Former Army Chief (Retd) General MM Naravane in his booksaid the 'Agnipath Scheme' was shocking for the Army, and for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a "bolt out of the blue"! Are we creating professional soldiers, only by 6 months of training? Soldiers join the Army out of patriotism, not to earn a living," he said.

Shashi Tharoor, too, has attacked the government for diluting the professionalism of the Army.
As many as 43 people were arrested as the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) busted a Gurugram call centre duping foreigners. The arrests were made after searches were conducted at seven locations across Delhi, Gurugram and Noida.

"It was revealed that transnational cyber-enabled financial crimes in this network were being coordinated across distributed centers mainly directed from a Call Centre Operating from DLF Cyber City, Gurugram," news agency ANI reported.

Also Read | Why Cyber Crimes Are Increasing In India?

The CBI's crackdown on cyber criminals was part of an ongoing Operation CHAKRA-III. The central probe agency took action to "successfully dismantle a sophisticated cyber-enabled financial crime network that has been operating across multiple countries since 2022".

"This operation was executed with cooperation from other international law enforcement agencies including FBI (USA) and INTERPOL," the report added. The International Operations Division of CBI had registered a case in connection with the matter.

The CBI is now coordinating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and law enforcement agencies in multiple countries through INTERPOL for follow up on leads.

So far, 43 accused have been arrested. Further investigation is ongoing, the CBI added.

What was found during searches? The CBI raided the office of Innocent Technology (OPC) Pvt Ltd operating from DLF Cyber City, Gurugram, where the central agency found several agents on live calls aimed to cheat foreigners, officials were quoted by PTI as saying.

During the searches, the investigation teams recovered 130 computer hard disks, 65 mobile phones, five laptops, incriminating documents, financial transaction details, call recordings, victim details, and transcripts used for targeting victims.

Also Read | Why cyber insurance plans may need to include buggy software updates

Explaining the modus operandi of the criminals, the CBI said, "Victims were contacted by impersonation and induced to click on Pop Ups for download of malicious software onto their systems and subsequently induced to make payments for restoration of their system."
A 24-year-old woman in Bengaluru was brutally murdered inside her PG this week. CCTV footage of the incident shows that the accused entered the building and knocked on her door before attacking her. The incident took place around 11:10 pm even as the victim screamed for help. The police suspect that the assailant was known to the victim and perhaps linked to her former roommate.

The case has been taken up and investigation is going on in full swing. We have made three teams to upright the culprit. The police teams are working on it and very shortly the accused will be apprehended, said Bengaluru Police Commissioner B Dayananda.

The victim  identified as Kriti Kumari  was a Bihar native who had recently moved into the building in Koramangala. Police authorities are now examining her mobile phone and call records to glean additional details.

Kriti Kumari hailed from Bihar. She was working in a private company in the city. The incident might have happened yesterday at about 11 pm, a police officer told PTI on Wednesday.

According to the police, the victim had moved into the PG just two days before the incident  initially sharing the space with a female colleague. Reports indicate that the assailant is a school classmate of the victim's former roommate.

A Hindustan Times report citing the CCTV footage notes that the victim had returned to her PG a little past 11 pm with a man  believed to be the assailant as well as an acquaintance. Police said that the man was also seen carrying luggage as the victim took up residence. He was allowed entry by the PG security after the victim claimed that he was her brother and would leave soon.

It is believed a quarrel between them in her room led to the attack. Three special teams have been formed to track down the suspect, an officer told the publication.

Officials have also broached the possibility of there being a romantic angle to the crime  with the victim and assailant being romantically involved.
Kargil Vijay Diwas: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 26 warned Paksitan that its nefarious plans would not materialise. The Prime Minister, speaking after paying tributes to war heroes in Kargil, said Pakistan has not learnt any lessons.

"Pakistan faced defeat whenever it has carried out any misadventure. It has not learned any lessons from history," PM Modi said at the Kargil War memorial in Drass, Ladakh

Commemorating 25 years of Kargil Vijay Diwas, the Prime Minister addressed the troops and other attendees. The Prime Minister said that Pakistan is trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war.

"Today I am speaking from a place where the masters of terror can hear my voice directly, I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed. Our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force, and the enemy will be given a befitting reply, Modi said in his address.

The Prime Minister also carried out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project virtually. The Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1-km-long twin-tube tunnel which will be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet on the Nimu-Padum-Darcha road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh.

Once completed, it will be the highest tunnel in the world. The Shinkun La tunnel will ensure the swift and efficient movement of the country's armed forces and equipment and foster economic and social development in Ladakh.

On July 26, 1999, the Indian Army announced the successful culmination of 'Operation Vijay', declaring victory after a nearly three-month-long battle on the heights of Kargil in Ladakh - then part of Jammu and Kashmir.

Also Read | PM Modi in Drass today to mark 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas

The Prime Minister also attacked opposition for misleading youth over Agniveer scheme for recruitment in Armed forces.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, may get a new residence. Several reports claimed on Friday that he may be allotted a new official residence  bungalow No. 5 at Sunehri Bagh  in New Delhi.

The Rae Bareli MP has chosen his residence "from the three-four options given to him," News 18 reported while citing sources. It added that recently, Rahul Gandhi's sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was seen visiting the residence at Sunehri Bagh.

Last year, on March 23, a Surat court sentenced Rahul Gandhi to two years imprisonment in a defamation case over his 'Modi surname' remark made in 2019.

Gandhi then moved into the 10, Janpath residence of his mother Sonia Gandhi and has been living there even after his disqualification was revoked.

Sources told News 18 that the five-time MP was first offered the option of retaining that bungalow. However, the Congress decided to switch, citing the reason that not good Vastu, which makes it inauspicious, the report added.

Parliamentary sources told PTI on Friday that Gandhi has been offered the bungalow and a response is awaited from his end.

Rahul Gandhi, being the leader of Opposition, is reportedly entitled to a Type 8 bungalow, similar to leaders who have the cabinet rank.
New Delhi: The US government returned as many as 262 antiquities to India on its latest state visit and signed an agreement to curb illicit trade of culturally valuable property from India to the US, in New Delhi on Friday, a government press release said.

India and US signed the Cultural Property Agreement (CPA) to curb the illicit trade of antiquities, on the sidelines of the World Heritage Committee in the national capital.

Minister of culture and tourism Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said the repatriation of trafficked antiquities was a practical investment in cultural diplomacy and sustainable development, empowering nations to leverage their cultural assets for educational enrichment, social cohesion, and economic empowerment, according to the press release.

Also Read: India-Peru to meet in Sept for FTA negotiations; Aim to ink deal by early 2025 What is CPA? The CPA restricts the import of certain archaeological material ranging in date from 1.7 million years ago through 1770 CE and certain ethnological material, which may include categories of civic, religious, and royal architectural material, religious material and ceremonial items, and manuscripts ranging in date from 2nd century BCE to 1947 CE into US, the press release said.

The list of such items restricted for import in the US will be promulgated by the US government. As per the agreement, the US shall offer to return to India any object or material on the Designate List forfeited to the US government.

The minister said that preservation and protection of Indian artefacts and cultural heritage has emerged as an integral component of Indias foreign policy over the last decade.

The deal background The agreement signed today emerged out of the working group for culture in last year's G20 Summit, held under India's presidency, the minister said, according to the press release. The 'Kashi Culture Pathway, the Outcome Document of the G20 Culture Working Group unanimously endorsed and called for a strengthened and effective global coalition to bolster the fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural property.
Kargil Diwas, also known as Kargil Vijay Diwas, is celebrated annually on July 26 to commemorate India's victory over Pakistan in the Kargil War.

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Diwas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will pay a visit to the Kargil War Memorial to mark the day and pay tribute to the fallen brave hearts. On this day, in the year 1999, India successfully outed Pakistani Forces from their occupied positions on the mountain tops of Northern Kargil District in Ladakh.

Also Read | On this day: Key events on July 26

Initially, the Pakistani army denied allegations about its involvement in the war. It suggested that it was caused by the Kashmiri militants. However, documents left behind by casualties and testimony of POWs contradicted the claims. Later, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Army Staff Pervez Musharraf's Pakistan Army Chief noted the involvement of the Pakistani paramilitary forces. These forces were led by General Ashraf Rashid.

The Kargil War Memorial was built by the Indian Army in memory of the soldiers who sacrificed their lives. It is also known as the Dras War Memorial and is located in the Kargil district of the Union Territory of Ladakh near the Line of Control (LoC).

Also Read | 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas: PM Modi to visit Kargil tomorrow

PM Modi will visit the War Memorial at Dras at 9:20 am today. On the eve of Kargil Diwas, PM Modi took to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) and stated," Tomorrow, 26th July, is a very special day for every Indian. We will mark the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. It is a day to pay homage to all those who protect our nation."

He further said that he will visit the Kargil War Memorial and pay tribute to India's brave heroes. The post adds, Work will also commence for the Shinkun La Tunnel Project. This project is important to improve connectivity to Leh, especially during bad weather.

Also Read | Indian Army commemorates Kargil Vijay Diwas with motorcycle expedition | Watch

Just a day before the Kargil Diwas, Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan pointed to the sacrifices made by the soldiers in the 1999 Kargil War and suggested that it will "not go in vain". Anil Chauhan said, It will continue to inspire and motivate future generations of not only soldiers but also the youth of the nation.
NEW ORLEANS (AP)  A New Orleans woman once accused of stalking by Mayor LaToya Cantrell turned the tables Friday with a $1 million-plus federal lawsuit accusing Cantrell, her chief of staff and eight members of the city police department of civil rights violations and defamation.

Anne W. Breaud's lawsuit says Cantrell falsely accused Breaud of following and harassing her. It also claims Cantrell's chief of staff and members of the police department improperly accessed state and federal information on Breaud.

Cantrell earlier this year filed a state court lawsuit accusing Breaud of stalking. But after a protective order against Breaud was initially issued, the lawsuit was thrown out and Cantrell was ordered to pay Breaud's legal costs.

Defendants in the lawsuit filed Friday include Cantrell, her chief of staff, the city and its police department as well as three police officers identified by name and five officers who are not identified by name in the lawsuit. The police department declined to comment on pending litigation Friday. The city also declined comment in a release from Cantrell's press secretary, saying its position would be made public in court filings answering the lawsuit.

Sparking all the litigation were two photographs Breaud snapped from the balcony of her French Quarter apartment in April, showing Cantrell and a police bodyguard, since retired, dining and drinking on the balcony of a restaurant across a narrow street.

Breaud said she sent the images to a police watchdog group, the Metropolitan Crime Commission. The pictures fueled controversy over Cantrell's personal relationship with the bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie.

Vappie, who is not a defendant in the lawsuit, was criminally charged in federal court last week with wire fraud involving allegedly filing false payroll documents and lying to FBI agents about his relationship with the mayor. Vappie's attorneys have declared him innocent. His first court appearance is set for Aug. 7.

Cantrell, according to the lawsuit, accused Breaud of not only turning her pictures over to local media, but also of following Cantrell and taking and distributing another photo, all of which Breaud denies.

While Cantrell falsely painted herself as the victim of a pattern of stalking, harassment and intimidation by Breaud, it is Cantrell who has engaged in a pattern of harassment and character assassination against Breaud, a person wrongly accused by Cantrell of stalking solely because Breaud captured a photograph of Cantrell and Vappie in a compromising position, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit accuses the police defendants of illegally obtaining information about her on state and national databases, and contends that Cantrell and her chief of staff made it public.
The Pune City Police on Friday, July 26, filed an extensive charge sheet exceeding 900 pages in the notorious Pune Porsche Crash case. Officials have said that the charge sheet was presented to the Pune district court.

"We have filed a 900-page chargesheet against seven accused, including the parents of the minor, two doctors and a staffer from Sassoon General Hospital and two middlemen, in a Pune court on Thursday," Shailesh Balkawade, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime), said.

The incident happened on May 19, in Kalyani Nagar area of Pune when a Porsche allegedly driven by a minor under the influence of alcohol hit two IT professionals, killing them instantly.

Following the crash, the Pune Crime Branch registered a case against the minor's parents and several doctors from Sassoon Hospital, accusing them of tampering with evidence and manipulate the blood sample.

The incident sparked nationwide outrage after the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) granted the accused minor bail under conditions that he submits a 300-word essay on road safety, emphasising the need for responsible driving and the repercussions of reckless behavior.

The bail conditions prompted the Women and Child Development Department to establish a panel to investigate the actions of the JJB members involved in granting bail.

The minor allegedly rammed the high-end Porsche into two IT professionals who were riding a motorcycle. The minor's parents are still in jail, while he was released from an observation home in Pune following a Bombay High Court order late last month.

In a separate incident earlier in the month, a luxury car crash in the Worli area of Mumbai resulted in the death of a woman and injuries to her husband. The collision occurred while the couple was riding a motorcycle.

Additionally, a distressing road rage case emerged in Pune in July, involving a 27-year-old woman who was allegedly assaulted by a car driver on Baner-Pashan Road. The victim reported that the driver pursued her for 2 kilometers before attacking her, resulting in severe injuries and a bleeding nose. She was riding a two-wheeler with two children at the time of the assault.
As many as six men locked the staff of a Tanishq showroom in a room before fleeing with gold and diamond jewellery in Purnea of Bihar. The thieves, who snatched the mobile phones at gunpoint, had entered the Tanishq showroom as customers.

The incident was reported on Friday morning. The staffers have estimated that the looted jewellery must be worth crores but they do not know the exact value.

A Tanishq staffer told Hindustan Times: They committed the loot in an organised manner and within 20 minutes they decamped with gold and diamond worth in crores. The staffer said two thieves, aged between 22-25, were wearing masks while the others were not.

The staffer said, They also captured the guards. Two of the criminals were wearing masks while the rest did not cover their faces. They were aged between 22-25. They were carrying a big bag.

Also Read | Tanishq sparkles as buyers snap up premium products

While fleeing, some went in the East direction, some went in the opposite. Three on one bike went towards the east while the other three escaped towards the west, said the staffer. There was a big bag with them.

We are thankful to God that we are alive, the staff was quoted as saying.

We have alerted all the police stations of the Purnea and neighbouring districts to nab the criminals. We have collected the CCTV footage of the showroom and also of the outside, Sub-divisional police officer Pushkar Kumar said.

A few months ago, the Mumbai branch of State Bank of India (SBI) witnessed a robbery by one of its employees when 4 kgs of gold worth 3 crore went missing. SBIs Personal Banking branch in Mulund West had given gold loans worth 1.94 crore, which is around 65 per cent of the value of the mortgaged gold ornaments, police informed.
Delhi rains: A Gurgaon resident reported that his luxury cars sustained damage following recent heavy rainfall in the national city.

The social media user Gajodhar Singh posted a video showing his BMW M340i partially submerged in muddy flood water from the previous day. The luxury car is valued at a whopping 83 lakh.

In a social media post on Instagram, the user voiced his distress and dismay over the city's infrastructure and called on Gurugram authorities to address the abysmal condition of the roads. The post states, I pay my taxes, I pay bills all to wake up one day to see my house, my BMW, Mercedes, i20 stranded and gone.

He added, No authorities or officials have shown up to fix the situation yet, and expressed that he felt broken by the turn of events and the disaster it wreaked on his beloved automobile. He further alleged that no crane would show up to even enter this deep water after he failed to seek help.

Pointing to his helpless situation in this case, he urged other users to tag @dc.gurugram @nayabsainiofficial to fix this disaster from cashing any more harm to the people around.

The video footage shows inundated house in Gurgaons posh Sector 57. The disaster of deluge was not limited to his cars but it wreaked havoc on other cars as well parked in the surrounding area.

The subtitle of the video states, This ain't Mumbai or Bangalore, welcome to the metro city of India, Gurugram/Gurgaon, He attempted to bring up this issue to the notice of local authorities and demanded a resolution to his plight.

Netizens were strong to react to this video as one user stated, Imagine seeing your car like this after paying half of its value in taxes to the government? Another user remarked, Such a shame. And the government wants people to happily pay heavy taxes just to get flooded. Absolute joke."

Also Read | Delhi to receive spell of rain for next two hours in THESE places; check details

A third user commented, This ain't about where you live, it's across India. They're good at chasing votes and collecting taxes, but when it comes to actually doing their job, they're MIA. Thats how governance is in India. A fourth user stated, Bro bought BMW and merc but forgot to buy a boat. A fifth user wrote, This happens when jungles are made into urban sectors.
Days after Elon Musk said his trans-daughter is "dead" to him, Vivian Jenna Wilson, in her first interview on Thursday, said the Tesla chief was a "cruel" and absent father.

Saying that she received a hard time from her father as a child for being queer and feminine, Vivian, in an interview with NBC News, denied Elon Musk's claim of being tricked into authorising trans-related medical treatment for her when she was 16.

Vivian said Musk, after initial hesitation, knew what she was doing when he agreed to her treatment. The trans-related medical treatment requires consent from parents.

On Monday, Elon Musk said on social media and in an interview posted online that Vivian was not a girl and was figuratively dead", "killed by the woke mind virus.

In a post on X, Musk used Vivan's dead name and said: Xavier was born gay and slightly autistic, two attributes that contribute to gender dysphoria. I knew that from when he was about 4 years old, and he would pick out clothes for me to wear, like a jacket and tell me it was fabulous! as well as his love of musicals & theatre. But he was not a girl.

'Crossed a line' The 20-year-old told NBC News that Musk's recent statements crossed a line, likely because he assumed Vivian wouldnt say anything and let it go unchallenged.

She said, Which Im not going to do because if youre going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions, Im not just gonna let that slide.

'Uncaring and narcissistic' In a telephonic interview with NBC News, Vivian said Musk hadnt been a supportive father and was rarely present in her life. She added that Musk berated her when he was present.

Vivian and her twin brother were born to Musks first wife, Canadian author Justine Musk. The couple divorced in 2008, and Vivian said her parents shared their custody.

She shared that she and her siblings were cared for by their mother or nannies, even though Musk had joint custody.

He was cold. Hes very quick to anger. He is uncaring and narcissistic, she said.

'Constantly yelling at me' When she was a child, Vivian said, Musk would harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressurise her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school.

I was in fourth grade. We went on this road trip that I didnt know was actually just an advertisement for one of the cars  I dont remember which one  and he was constantly yelling at me viciously because my voice was too high, she said. It was cruel.

Also Read | Elon Musks X will soon offer an option to disable links in replies
India's Naar boutique hotel in Himachal Pradesh, Manam Chocolate factory in Hyderabad and Museum of Solutions in Mumbai have made it to the list of the worlds 100 greatest places to visit in 2024. TIME magazine has released a list of the world's 100 greatest places to visit in 2024.

Naar Naar is a boutique hotel located in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh. The venture was started by Prateek Sadhu, a Kashmiri chef who returned to the mountains after working abroad .I could have easily done it in Bombay or Delhi. But I'm building more than just a restaurant. Im telling the stories of the Himalayas, TIME quoted him saying. Naar uses regional ingredients such as Himachali yak cheese, juniper-smoked lamb with Kashmiri mushqbudji rice, Ladakhi buckwheat pasta, Naga bamboo shoot pickles, galgal lemons from Uttarakhand to maintain the authenticity of dishes, a TIME report said.

Also Read | Personal Loan for Travel: Here are its pros and cons

Manam Chocolate Factory Manam is a chocolate factory located in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. According to a TIME article, Manam works with farmers and fermenters in Andhra Pradesh to bring Indian cocoa to a global stage. In less than a year, Manam has already received awards from the International Institute of Chocolate and Cacao Tasting and the U.K.s Academy of Chocolate.

Also Read | Travel: Contrasting architectural styles tell the story of Chemnitz

World's Greatest Places of 2024 The magazine said in an article that for the 2024 list of the Worlds greatest places, TIME nominated places such as hotels, restaurants, museums, restaurants, parks, etc., through an international network of correspondents and applications.

CNN Travel quoted TIME senior editor Emma Barker on some of the trends that have been emerging this year.

Barker said social media has a huge impact on holiday destination choices. People choose destinations based on their appearance on social media platforms such as TikTok videos or Instagram stories. Those kinds of places that result in stunning photography are really popular, she said.

Gen Z and travellers generally love outdoor adventures, which have become a social media trend. Barkers said they noticed many travel operators were offering a twist on a traditional experience.

Space-related tourism is booming in China and other places worldwide, where people use their holidays to learn more about the universe. Barker mentioned that the sudden rise in Antarctic travel has been a challenge due to an increased footprint in its delicate landscape.

Some people also prefer travelling as a form of self-discovery. Its kind of like a middle-aged retreat, Barker said., which I think is really interesting and fun. Its kind of like a twist on the wellness retreat, she added.

Statement from Museum of Solutions Tanvi Jindal Shete, Founder of Museum of Solutions, said, This recognition is a testament to our dedicated staff, volunteers, and partners who have worked tirelessly to create a dynamic and engaging space that inspires action and change.
BitGo Chief Executive Officer Mike Belshe will host a fundraiser for Donald Trumps campaign headlined by the Republican nominees running mate JD Vance  the latest sign of the tickets appeal to prominent cryptocurrency executives.

The dinner reception is slated for Monday, , in Palo Alto, California, according to an invitation obtained by Bloomberg News. Belshe is asking attendees to pay $3,300 to attend the reception, $15,000 per photo with Vance and $25,000 to participate in a roundtable. For $50,000 couples can join the host committee for the event.

While Silicon Valley still leans overwhelmingly Democratic, a growing contingent of tech company founders and venture capital investors including Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and David Sacks have broken ranks, pledging to donate significant sums to return Trump to the White House.

Trump supporters are betting that the former presidents agenda, centered on renewing expiring tax cuts and slashing government regulation, will be friendlier to startups working in the artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency spheres.

Belshe donated Bitcoin worth $50,000 to Trump in June.

Belshe and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The fundraiser also highlights Vances ties with the technology industry dating back to his stints working at venture capital firms associated with tech figures Peter Thiel and Steve Case. Vance, a senator from Ohio, has cultivated his connections to the industry in his own political career. He ran for the Senate with $15 million in support from Thiel, who has been a prominent tech industry supporter of Trump.

Those ties have also helped Vance bolster Trumps war chest this cycle, including by helping arrange a major San Francisco fundraiser in June led by Silicon Valley investors Chamath Palihapitiya and Sacks.

Trump, once skeptical of crypto, has increasingly embraced the industry and sought to court its executives who are flooding the political cycle with cash to ensure the election of candidates supportive of their interests. The Republican nominee is slated to speak at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday and is hosting a private fundraiser with donors the same day.

Earlier: Trump Asks $844,600 for Fundraiser Seat at Bitcoin Conference

His campaign is also accepting digital assets as donations. Between May, when Trump started accepting cryptocurrencies, and June 30, he raised $3.4 million in Bitcoin, Ether, USDC and other currencies, filings with the Federal Election Commission show.

Trump previously secured $844,600 donations, the maximum amount, from crypto billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss of Winklevoss Capital Management and Jesse Powell, co-founder of Kraken.

With assistance from Bill Allison.
Donald Trump has criticised FBI Director Christopher Wray after Wray's Congressional hearing. About the assassination attempt on the former US president on July 13, Wray said he was uncertain if it was a bullet or a shrapnel that hit Trump in the ear during an outdoor rally in Pennsylvania.

Also Read | Trump Shooter Researched Lee Harvey Oswald, FBI Head Testifies

It was Trump who appointed Wray as FBI director in 2017. The Republican candidate has now blasted Wray by saying that the FBI director is uncertain whether Trump was hit by shrapnel, glass or a bullet but was certain "Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively 'uneventful'".

Trump accused Wray of being unaware of terrorists and criminals entering the country, focusing instead on targetting January 6 (US Capitol attack) supporters, raiding Mar-a-Lago and protecting Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in D.C. burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monuments - with zero retribution.

Also Read | Donald Trump shooters father speaks 1st time after shooting incident

"No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a "bullet wound to the ear," and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!" Trump wrote on Truth, a social media platform he owns.

Donald Trump: Conspiracy theories The Donald Trump assassination attempt triggered a surge of conspiracy theories. These theories suggest either a deep state coup or a staged event by Trump himself for sympathy and electoral gain. A common element in these theories is the claim of a second shooter positioned on a nearby water tower.

Also Read | Trump assassination bid: US Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle resigns
A Franco-Swiss airport was temporarily evacuated for security reasons on Friday hours after arson attacks "sabotaged" the French rail network ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.

EuroAirport, located on the French side of the border near Basel, posted on its website that it had reopened and flight operations were gradually restarting. Earlier, the Basel-Mulhouse airport said it had been evacuated and closed "for safety reasons", news agency AFP reported.

Meanwhile, The Guardian reported that Eurostar passengers travelling from London to Paris on Friday were asked to postpone their trips if possible.

Several trains were delayed and cancelled after arson attacks on high-speed rail lines hours before the start of the Olympics. French authorities were hunting for the perpetrators of arson attacks, which disrupted travel for hundreds of thousands of people.

French rail operator SNCF said three night-time arson attacks had destroyed cabling boxes at strategic junctions around its network in the north, south-west, and east of Paris. A fourth attempted act of vandalism southeast of the capital was thwarted by rail workers who spotted intruders in the early hours of Friday, AFP reported.

Also Read | How a group of champion women are driving Indias Olympics dreams

"Our intelligence services and law enforcement are mobilised to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts," France Prime Minister Gabriel Attal posted on X, calling the attacks prepared and coordinated acts of sabotage." He said rail attacks targeted three main routes to Paris and aimed to "block the high-speed train network".

Lakhs of people will likely be affected by the attacks. French Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said in a post on X, "Coordinated malicious acts targeted several TGV lines last night and will seriously disrupt traffic until this weekend".

"I strongly condemn these criminal actions which will compromise the vacation departures of many French people. A big thank you to the #SNCF teams, on the bridge to restore traffic conditions as quickly as possible," he added.

The Paris Olympics opening ceremony will be held Friday evening.
Prince Harry has revealed that the coverage of his life by British tabloids, including using illegally obtained private information, has raised safety concerns for his family, including his wife, Duchess Meghan.

According to a report by USA Today, in a one-hour ITV News documentary titled Tabloids on Trial, which aired Thursday, the Duke of Sussex spoke publicly for the first time about his victory in the phone hacking lawsuit against the Daily Mirror's publisher. The court granted him approximately $180,000 in damages in December.

They pushed me too far. It got to a point where you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. I don't think there's anybody else in the world that is better suited and placed to be able to see this through than myself, Harry said.

It's still dangerous and all it takes is one lone actor, one person who reads this stuff, to act on what they have read  and whether it's a knife or acid or whatever it is ... these are things that are a genuine concern for me. It's one of the reasons why I won't bring my wife back to this country, Harry further noted.

Harry noted that this is a David versus Goliath situation, adding, The Davids are the claimants, and the Goliath is this vast media enterprise.

Harry further added, I've made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done. It would be nice if we did it as a family. I believe that, again, from a service standpoint and when you're in a public role that these are the things we should be doing for the greater good. But I'm doing this for my reasons.

The report further added, citing Harry, that employees at the Murdoch-owned tabloids hacked his phone and employed investigators over a period of two decades.
By Tim Reid and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON, - Donald Trump's former White House physician disputed on Friday a suggestion by the FBI director that shrapnel, not a bullet, could have caused the injury to the Republican candidate's right ear during an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania on July 13.

The narrative that a bullet ripped through Trump's ear, and that he escaped death by just a quarter of an inch, has become a major element of his White House campaign. Many of his supporters say the fact he survived was divine intervention, that God is looking after Trump, and Trump mentions his brush with death in his speeches.

"I took a bullet for democracy," Trump told supporters at a rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on July 20.

Ronny Jackson, Trump's doctor when he was in the White House, released a statement a day after Trump criticized FBI Director Christopher Wray for telling U.S. lawmakers this week it was not clear yet whether Trump was hit by a bullet, or shrapnel or glass.

"There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet," wrote Jackson, a close Trump ally. "Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else."

Jackson, who said he served as a battlefield medic in Iraq and had treated many gunshot wounds in his career, has been monitoring Trump's wounded ear since the assassination attempt.

On Thursday, Trump took to his Truth Social social media account to blast Wray.

"No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel," Trump wrote, adding: "No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!"

Jason Miller, a Trump campaign spokesperson, told Reuters any claims that Trump was hit by something other than a bullet was "conspiracy bullshit."
By Maria Alejandra Cardona and Patricia Zengerle

PALM BEACH, Florida, - Former U.S. President Donald Trump touted his close relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu when he hosted the Israeli prime minister on Friday and accused U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris of making "disrespectful" comments about the Gaza war.

Netanyahu met Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 U.S. presidential race, a day after talks with Democratic President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running against Trump in the Nov. 5 U.S. election.

Trump greeted Netanyahu and his wife Sara at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, and criticized Harris, who had voiced concern after meeting the Israeli leader about the toll on Palestinian civilians from Israel's 9-month-old campaign in Gaza.

"I think her remarks were disrespectful," Trump said.

Netanyahu said he hoped his U.S. trip would lead to a quicker ceasefire deal.

"I hope so. But I think time will tell," he told reporters. He said he thought there had been movement in efforts to forge a ceasefire because of Israeli military pressure and said he would dispatch a team to talks in Rome.

Netanyahu had angered Trump when he congratulated Biden on his victory over Trump in the 2020 election. Trump falsely claims the election was stolen from him by voter fraud.

Trump more recently criticized Netanyahu for Israeli security failures that enabled Hamas to carry out the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Trump dismissed any suggestion of tensions with Netanyahu.

"We have a very good relationship," he said, noting policy changes during his presidency including moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and pulling the United States out of the international nuclear deal with Iran.

Opinion polls put Harris and Trump in a close race for the White House, prompting world leaders like Netanyahu, traditionally more aligned with Trump's Republicans than Biden's Democrats, to strike a balance in dealings with the U.S.

HUMANITARIAN SITUATION A 'SERIOUS CONCERN,' HARRIS SAYS

Harris had pressed Netanyahu on the suffering of Palestinians in the enclave in talks on Thursday that were watched for signs of how she might shift American policy if she becomes president.

"I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there," Harris said. "I will not be silent."

"Israel has a right to defend itself. And how it does so matters," she said.

Members of Netanyahus delegation were disappointed by some of Harris remarks in private and in public out of concern that it showed daylight between the governments and could signal how relations would develop if she wins the presidency, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Netanyahu heads a far-right-leaning coalition government opposed to Palestinian statehood, a policy at odds with U.S. support for a two-state solution to ending decades of conflict.

In defiant remarks to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu defended Israel's military and dismissed criticism of a campaign which has devastated Gaza and killed more than 39,000 people, according to health officials in the Hamas-ruled enclave.

Dozens of Democrats boycotted Netanyahu's speech, voicing dismay over the thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza, destruction of its infrastructure and displacement of most of its 2.3 million people.

In Wednesday's speech, Netanyahu praised Biden's support for Israel.

But to cheers from Republicans, he touched on Trump's pro-Israel record as president. He praised Trump's decision to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a long-held goal of conservatives that infuriated Palestinians.

He also cited the Abraham Accords, landmark U.S.-brokered agreements signed during Trump's White House years that normalized bilateral relations between Israel and both Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Hamas and its allies killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostage in the Oct. 7 attack, according to Israeli tallies. Some 115 hostages are still being held though Israel believes one in three are dead. Israeli officials estimate that some 14,000 fighters from militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad have been killed or taken prisoner out of a force they estimated to number more than 25,000 at the start of the war.
US Senator Marco Rubio on Thursday introduced a bill proposing that India be treated similarly to allies like Japan, Israel, Korea, and NATO partners in terms of technology transfers.

Moreover, the bill aims to support India in addressing threats to its territorial integrity and seeks to block security assistance to Pakistan if it is found to sponsor terrorism against India.

Communist China continues to aggressively expand its domain in the Indo-Pacific region, all while it seeks to impede the sovereignty and autonomy of our regional partners. Its crucial for the U.S. to continue its support in countering these malicious tactics. India, along with other nations in the region, is not alone, Rubio said after introducing the U.S.-India Defense Cooperation Act in the Senate.

Given the short timeline of a bitterly divided Congress in an election year, the bill is unlikely to make much headway, but might be reintroduced in the next Congress given that there is a bipartisan level of support on India-US relationship. The bill notes that the US-India partnership is vital to countering influences from Communist China. In order to strengthen this partnership, it is essential to enhance our strategic diplomatic, economic, and military relationship with New Delhi, it asserts.

Among other provisions, the bill would establish a Statement of Policy ensuring that the US supports India in addressing threats to its territorial integrity. It proposes to offer necessary security assistance to help India deter adversaries and outlines cooperation in defense, civil space, technology, medicine, and economic investments.

If passed into law, the bill would grant India a limited exemption from Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions for purchasing Russian military equipment currently in use. It would also express Congress's view that swiftly processing certifications for defense articles, services, and major equipment sales to India aligns with US interests and supports regional peace and stability by enhancing India's deterrence capabilities.

The bill proposes treating India like US allies such as Japan, Israel, Korea, and NATO partners in terms of technology transfers. It authorizes the Secretary of State to sign a memorandum of understanding with India to boost military cooperation, expedite the transfer of excess defense articles to India for two years, grant India the same status as other allies, and expand International Military Education and Training cooperation with New Delhi.

The bill mandates a report to Congress on Pakistans use of offensive force, including terrorism and proxy groups, against India, and proposes barring Pakistan from receiving security assistance if it is found to sponsor terrorism against India.

It is to be further noted that this is the first time a US Congress bill has been introduced with a focus on India, aiming to elevate India to the same status as treaty allies, exempt it from CAATSA sanctions, and impose sanctions on Pakistan for terrorism against India.

How did CAATSA come into existence? In 1996, the United States Congress enacted a law emphasizing secondary sanctions, which imposed penalties on third parties for interacting with the primary target of sanctions. Notable examples include the Helms-Burton Act, which targets Cuba, and the Iran Sanctions Act, which targets Iran.

The CAATSA imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The Bill was passed by the Senate on 27 July 2017 after it passed House 4193. It was signed into law on August 2, 2017 by President Donald Trump.

Through an amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, India was granted a waiver from the stringent CAATSA. This waiver prevented sanctions on India for importing Russian weapons, including the S-400 long-range surface-to-air missile system.

While ignoring the CAATSA, India inked a $5.43 billion deal with Russia to procure four S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile defence systems in October 2018. This led to the US threatening India with sanctions over India's decision.
Indias climate ambitions are as vast as its challenges. The threats of rising sea levels, erratic monsoons and extreme heatwaves loom large. Trillions in investment are needed to mitigate these and transition to a low-carbon economy. The announcement in the latest budget of developing a climate finance taxonomy is a crucial step in this direction.

The government aims to unlock a floodgate of private capital by creating a standardized framework for identifying climate-aligned projects. The taxonomy will be able to achieve this by developing a set of standardized regulations to inform investing actors of the activities or businesses working towards combating climate change.

Achieving Indias net-zero target by 2070 requires investment far in excess of the domestic and international funding available. India has primarily relied on domestic resources, as mobilizing global capital for emerging economies has been a challenge, due to perceived risks, lengthy project timelines and high capital costs. The Economic Survey notes that India faces a wall" of capital rather than a flood."

Despite being historically low-emitters compared to developed nations, developing countries are expected to play a delicate balancing act in juggling their economic growth prospects with reduced emissions. A report by the International Finance Corporation estimates that India would require clean-energy investments ranging from $253 billion to $263 billion during 2026-30.

Significant gaps persist, as the current investment available is only around $44 billion per year. The report further estimates that India has a $3.1 trillion climate-smart investment potential between 2018 and 2030. Also, Indias renewable energy market offers an attractive investment opportunity.

Thanks to a government push, India has met parts of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) target for 2030 much ahead of time by reducing the emission intensity of its GDP by 33% and achieving 40% of installed electric capacity through non-fossil sources.

Yet, sustained financing from the private and public sectors is a must to ensure that the country stays on track to achieve its long-term climate goals.

The plan to develop and standardize the climate finance market was visible in the establishment of a task force under the ministry of finance in January 2021.

It was tasked to create a sustainable finance roadmap, a draft taxonomy of sustainable activities, and a risk assessment framework. The Reserve Bank of India in a discussion paper also addressed Indias climate finance needs of more than $17 trillion to achieve net zero.

India can adopt best practices from frameworks across the world while incorporating local capabilities and resources. As of December 2022, there were more than 29 taxonomies at different stages of development, most notably in the EU, UK, China, Singapore and across Asean.

The EUs taxonomy follows the guiding principle of do no harm while covering six broad goals: Climate change mitigation, adaptation, sustainable use and protection of marine sources, transition to a circular economy, pollution prevention and control, and protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.

In the developing world, Asean has an efficient system, incorporating the interests of 10 diverse countries into a single framework. Its tiered system allows nations to adopt a level that suits their capabilities. Similar to a traffic-signal system, the Asean frameworks levels of green, amber and red are based on their impact on the environment.

Diversity in the economic composition of countries and their geographical contexts brings with it the challenge of a uniform taxonomical structure. What some countries define as a green activity may not be so for others.

For instance, the Malaysian taxonomy endorses palm-oil plantations, but that conflicts with the EUs view of this activity causing biodiversity loss. Hence, greater cooperation is needed for countries to ensure inter-operability between different taxonomies.

Creating a successful climate finance taxonomy for India would require a multifaceted approach that features strong political leadership, clear objectives, expert involvement, effective governance and robust stakeholder engagement. The active participation of the government and private sector is essential.

A dedicated governance structure, perhaps through a monitoring committee with representatives from key institutions, would be crucial. Clearly defined climate and environmental objectives would ensure such a taxonomys relevance.

Leveraging expertise from international and local experts is also vital; their combined knowledge would enhance its quality and adaptability to local contexts. Engaging a wide range of stakeholders, meanwhile, will foster ownership.

India stands at a crossroads, where economic growth and environmental sustainability must co-exist. A well-crafted climate finance taxonomy can guide it to a greener future. By aligning financial flows with climate goals, India could mitigate climate risks even as it unlocks new economic opportunities.

It is imperative that the government, private sector and civil society collaborate to create a robust framework that can serve as a global benchmark.

With the right policies and investments, India can provide a framework for developing economies to balance development goals with climate-conscious policies.
SAN FRANCISCOIn Kamala Harriss rise from California prosecutor to the second highest office in the U.S., she has maneuvered between embracing progressive ideals and trying not to alienate law enforcement. The result is a record that has drawn mixed reviews from both sides.

Early on, as San Franciscos district attorney, she launched a jail diversion program for drug offenders. And later, as California attorney general, she implemented a first-of-its-kind program requiring police officers to undergo implicit bias training.

But progressives criticized her for fighting the release of prisoners whose supporters claimed they were wrongfully convicted and for going to court to defend a death penalty she had long opposed. Meanwhile, police groups praised her for those stands.

Wearing the two hatsreform-minded progressive and tough prosecutorhas compelled Harris to perform a balancing act that has continued in Washington.

I think her political ambitions and own views led her to these centrist positions," said Paul Butler, a Georgetown law professor and former federal prosecutor.

The expected Democratic nominee has staked her campaign on her unique ability to prosecute the case" against Trump, the Republican nominee.

I took on perpetrators of all kindspredators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain," Harris said at a campaign rally in Wisconsin Tuesday. So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trumps type."

Meanwhile, Trump is attacking Harris, accusing her of being soft on crime, blaming her for allowing a wave of migrants into the U.S. and criticizing her record as a prosecutor. The Republican National Committee released a video this week that accused her, among other things, of allowing illegal-immigrant drug dealers" to enter job training when she was San Francisco district attorney.

The job training was part of a new program for nonviolent offenders, which resulted in lower recidivism rates and won praise from the Justice Department, a Harris aide said.

A campaign spokesman described Harris as a pragmatic prosecutor."

Harris identified herself as a progressive prosecutor" during her 2020 bid for the presidency, but former colleagues describe her as more moderate on crime reform than the group of district attorneys who swept into office under the progressive moniker in recent years, with bold promises of reducing incarceration.

I believe she knows how important the role of law enforcement is in this country, but also how important it is that role be performed equitably," said Paul Henderson, a fellow Black prosecutor who served as her chief of administration in San Francisco.

Rocky start

Harris launched her political career in 2003 by defeating incumbent San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, a liberal icon known for his support of medical marijuana and decriminalizing prostitution. A little-known prosecutor at the time, Harris ran to the right of Hallinan, hammering him for a low conviction rate and for being soft on crime.

Harris got off to a rocky start as DA in 2004 when police officer Isaac Espinoza was shot to death on duty and she declined to seek the death penalty against his killer. The decision enraged the citys police force. She drew more flak when she announced the decision without first informing Espinozas widow or explaining it to her.

California Attorney General Harris never made amends for that slight; neither did U.S. Sen. Harris nor Vice President Harris," Tracy McCray, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, said in a statement.

The backlash stung the young politician. I think it hurt her and bothered her because it was a false narrative that she didnt support law enforcement," Henderson said.

Harris secured a penalty of life without possibility of parole for the killer, a sentence that won her praise from the police union, said a Harris aide, who also noted a local poll at the time showed most San Francisco residents also opposed the death penalty.

Harris sought a stronger bond with police by siding with them on policy matters, local law-enforcement officials said.

Harris didnt adopt a policy popular among progressive criminal-justice reformers to disclose past misconduct by law enforcement to help ensure defendants received a fair trial, despite her aides recommending such a policy in 2005, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

The decision ended up backfiring five years later, when her offices lack of what is known as a Brady policy" was central in a scandal in which around 1,000 criminal cases were dismissed and a judge criticized Harris for violating defendants rights.

Her office eventually did implement a Brady policy, a Harris aide said.

It took too long to implement, but I am proud we implemented a Brady policy in the DAs office that was later called a model for other jurisdictions" by the California Supreme Court, Harris said in a previous statement to the Journal.

Harris won her race for attorney general in 2010 by less than 1 percentage pointwhile Democrats won most other statewide offices in California by double digitsin part because law-enforcement groups, still bitter over her decision on the death penalty, didnt back her.

Olive branches

Once elected attorney general, she built strong ties with law enforcement leaders by seeking their counsel on pressing political issues, said Mike Durant, who headed the states largest police union at the time.

We had that relationship based on her ability to reach that olive branch that she knew probably wasnt going to be in the liberal, if you will, best interest," said Durant. But she wanted to make sure that law enforcement had a seat at the table."

After nationwide protests against police brutality in 2014, she pushed to disclose data about officers use of force. Before doing so, she consulted with police union officials, who suggested she also include in that data the number of officers injured or killed on duty, which she did, Durant said.

She drew criticism as attorney general from progressives for not doing moresuch as seeking DNA testingto help free inmates whose cases had drawn public attention for possible wrongful conviction.

She also was criticized for going to court to uphold a death penalty case. Harris did so, despite her personal opposition, because she had promised voters she would adhere to existing laws, an aide for Harris said.

National stage

Harris easily won re-election as state attorney general in 2014 and her Senate seat in 2016 with support from both law enforcement and liberal groups.

When she ran for the Democratic nomination for president, she wrestled with how to explain her work as a prosecutor. Her alignment with the progressive prosecutor" movement that was popular with Democrats at the time frustrated some who were familiar with her record.

Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal-justice reforms as a district attorney and then the states attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent," wrote Lara Bazelon, a law professor at the University of San Francisco, in a 2019 New York Times op-ed.

Bazelon, who didnt respond to requests for comment, posted on X this week that she supports Harris for president, adding that the column was written a lifetime ago."

During a debate among the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, challenger Tulsi Gabbard assailed the then-California senator, charging that as attorney general she kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California."

Harris responded at the debate that she was proud of the work she did as attorney general of California, of being in the position to use the power that I had to reform a system that is badly in need of reform."

In 2021, as vice president, Harris was a chief backer of legislation that would have addressed racial profiling and the use of deadly force in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Although the bill never made it past the Democratic-controlled House, Harris won points on the left for trying.

Political observers say none of the criticisms over the years really hurt her much with voters, as evidenced by her meteoric rise. It would be easy to critique her from the left or right in a way that would thwart her," said Georgetowns Butler, but that hasnt happened."

Write to Jim Carlton at Jim.Carlton@wsj.com and Zusha Elinson at zusha.elinson@wsj.com

View Full Image Harris Touts Tough-on-Crime Image That Was Once a Liability

View Full Image Harris Touts Tough-on-Crime Image That Was Once a Liability

View Full Image Harris Touts Tough-on-Crime Image That Was Once a Liability
Shiv Sena (UBT) Rajya Sabha MP Priyanka Chaturvedi, who was presiding over the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha during the Budget Session of the Parliament on Thursday, has sought to move a breach of parliament privilege against an X user who she referred to as 'PawPaw brigade'.

In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), the Maharashtra MP, accused the X user who goes by the name Mr Sinha of not only being sexist but also insulting the Rajya Sabha chair, Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar.

Look at their meltdown. However, this tweet is more about breach of parliament privilege and not just sexist but also accusing the Hon. VP of India who is the Chairman of the house, Chaturvedi said in the post.

I will request Hon. Chairman to allow breach of privilege motion against PawPaw brigade champ here who has no idea that RS has a chairperson and not a speaker, she added.

Also Read | Copy Congress Manifesto A Little More: Chidambaram In Parliament On Budget 2024

She was reacting to the X user's post: The most embarrassing moment for the speaker chair.. what a fall.... How did she reach there???

The X user had also accused Chaturvedi of "trying to humiliate" Pune MP Dr Medha Vishram Kulkarni because she was speaking in Marathi and not "her 'polish' language English"

"Uddhav Thackeray's RS MP Priyanka Chaturvedi tried to humiliate the MP from Pune, Maharashtra because she was speaking in Marathi but not her "posh" language English? She kept shouting at her... What does she think of herself? And what happened to UT's Marathi ashmita?" wrote @MrSinha_.

To this, Sena UBT MP said both Dr Medha Kulkarni and Rajni Patil ji spoke in Marathi, and that too without interruption.

Also Read | Time to rise above party lines: PM Modi to Oppn ahead of Budget Session

This pawpaw champ bhakt is truly having a meltdown of the worst kind. Dr Medha Kulkarni and Rajni Patil ji both spoke in Marathi and without interruption barring when her own ally sitting in the front row had a hissy fit and asked her to sit down multiple times so that he could be disrespectful to the chair, she said.

Also paw paw champ, understand parliamentary proceedings in the RS and the rule book. Cry some more, she added.
India's life insurance sector, ranking 10th globally, is one of the fastest-growing sectors. This strength isn't by chance - it's fueled by two key engines: rapid digital adoption and an understanding of changing customer preferences.

Anyone connected to modern living knows that Indians use their smartphones and mobile devices to search for their needs. Now, most of these journeys begin with a simple Google search, whether theyre searching for mundane household items or researching information for important life decisions - like finding life insurance plans.

In 2024, understanding customers' wants is no longer a luxury but a necessity. Some Indian Insurtech companies are already leading the charge by integrating customer preferences smartly into their digital marketing strategies.

To better understand this evolving landscape of life insurance and consumer preferences, we dive into the insights revealed by Techmagnate, a leading digital marketing agency, in their search trends report.

The Life Insurance Search Trends Report from Techmagnate provides insightful data about the life insurance industry, from the most searched keywords to the top brands, ultimately revealing what this data says about the people looking for the products on offer.

Life Insurance Trends in India: Riding the Digital Wave Embracing digital processes in the insurance sector has transformed the entire industry. From streamlined online applications to readily available policy information, these innovations have made life insurance more accessible and user-friendly than ever before.

The report shows that, in 2023 alone, the number of life insurance searches jumped by 10.30%, highlighting the growing preference for digital convenience.

Sarvesh Bagla, CEO and Founder of Techmagnate says, "We examined 27,800 keywords in the life insurance sector and discovered intriguing search patterns. We found new brands gaining popularity in search volumes and learned about the preferred budgets for life insurance. These insights are essential for brands to understand evolving customer preferences for targeted campaigns in digital marketing."

Life Insurance and Customer Satisfaction: Putting People First Life insurance trends on the rise are not just about technological advancements. Theres a growing focus on prioritizing customer satisfaction like never before. Strong risk management practices and commitment to timely claim settlements build trust and confidence in the industry.

Initiatives like simplified communication channels and grievance redressal mechanisms further demonstrate a focus on understanding and addressing customer needs by brands.

Decoding Life Insurance Trends from Techmagnates Report So what exactly do peoples search patterns reveal about the life insurance landscape?

For one, long-established brands are continuing to capture people's attention and search preferences; a mobile device must become a marketers best friend, and connecting with people within close range of local branches and local languages will be a game changer.

Lets take a closer look. Brand Powerhouses In the search for the best life insurance plan, certain brands stand out as trustworthy and go-to providers. The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) leads the chart in terms of search volume (68.86L in 2023), followed closely by Max Life Insurance (11.87L in 2023) and HDFC Life Insurance (11.46L in 2023).

These brands have consistently dominated search results and established a stronghold in the minds of their customers, which is reflected in their search volumes.

Get the full list of top-performing brands and platforms from the report. Beyond the Giants Techmagnates report shows a notable trend in search behavior. Most people continue to search for specific insurance companies, making up 91.81% of searches. Moreover, users also directly look for well-known insurers like LIC or HDFC, names they already know or trust.

Top 10 Keywords

However, there's also a rise in searches for broader terms, not tied to specific brands. These searches, like "best life insurance"or "term insurance benefits," indicate a growing interest in exploring different options. Users are opening up to considering various insurers and comparing the market before deciding.

Mobile Matters As more and more people rely on smartphones for their daily tasks, including managing their finances and insurance, a user-friendly mobile app is mandatory for brands.

Search Volumes for Life Insurance App

LIC Digital went from 31.91 thousand searches in 2022 to 40.97 thousand in 2023, marking a 28.39% growth. Similarly, HDFC Life Insurance App's searches increased from 16.15 thousand in 2022 to 19.41 thousand in 2023, a growth of 20.19%.

These apps like LIC Digital and HDFC Life Insurance App have seen significant growth in search volume, highlighting the importance of mobile-first strategies.

Thinking Local Another intriguing insight from the report is the prevalence of "near-me" searches in the life insurance domain. "Near-me" searches have increased by 32.10% from the previous year (2022).

Near Me Searches

This surge indicates a growing preference among consumers to find insurance services in their local area. With such searches comprising 99.29% of brand-related queries and 0.71% of non-brand queries, it's clear that local search preferences are becoming increasingly prominent in the industry. This emphasizes the importance of prioritizing local SEO for insurance companies and engaging with potential customers effectively. Incidentally, leveraging their brick-and-mortar location is also how these companies can gain an edge over Fintech disruptors.

A similar trend is seen in the personal loan industry. With an overwhelming market share of 99.62%, non-brand local searches continue to be the predominant driver in the personal loan trends.

Vernacular Language Searches Vernacular search volumes, representing searches conducted in regional languages such as Tamil, Gujarati, and Hindi, increased by 19.06% in 2023, reaching 11.18K searches compared to 9.39K in 2022.

This growth indicates a rising preference for vernacular searches, emphasizing the importance of catering to diverse linguistic preferences in digital marketing strategies.

The Future of Life Insurance Harnessing the power of search insights is paramount for insurance companies to stay ahead of the curve. By understanding emerging trends in life insurance sector, evolving customer preferences, optimizing digital experiences, and prioritizing mobile accessibility, insurance providers can better cater to the needs of their target audience.

The Life Insurance Search Trends Report from Techmagnate offers a valuable roadmap for navigating this dynamic landscape. Armed with some unique insights, the industry can tailor offerings, enhance its digital presence, and build stronger relationships with its customers.

Remember, in the digital age, the customer holds the search bar - the key to unlocking their trust and loyalty lies in understanding what they're searching for.
Two men have been jailed for their involvement in a violent hit and run shooting incident which occurred in a Longford housing estate in January 2022, while a third is due to reappear before the courts in November.

Jamie Dinnegan (33), of 18 Grian Ard, Ardnacassa, Longford, Noel Ward (26), of 8 Spring Lawn, Longford, and Michael Jnr Ward (35), of 30 Palace Crescent, Longford, appeared before Judge Kenneth Connolly at Longford Circuit Court on Friday, where a lengthy sentence hearing took place.



Mr Dinnegan and Mr Noel Ward pleaded guilty to a charge of affray earlier this year, shortly before a jury trial was due to commence, with Mr Michael Ward pleading guilty to a charge of careless driving causing harm, failure to stop a vehicle in circumstances where the vehicle had caused injury, and failure to keep the vehicle at the scene of the occurrence of an injury.

Detective Sergeant Keelin Brennan told the court that, at 12.30pm on January 24, 2022, Gardai received reports that there were 20 to 30 members of the Keenan and Stokes families engaged in an altercation in Palace Crescent.



Gardai called to the scene several times throughout the day in an attempt to diffuse the situation but, at 4.30pm, a number of 999 calls were received, reporting gunshots and suggesting a person was lying on the ground dead after being hit by a van.

At 4.48pm, a number of Gardai, as well as members of the Armed Support Unit and the Roads Policing Unit arrived on the scene where Jamie Dinnegan was lying on the ground, wearing just a vest and boxers, with other people roaring and shouting in the area.



Mr Dinnegan had bruising to his face and scrapes on his leg and Gardai were informed that he was driven at by a white van that hit him. He was taken to Mullingar Hospital in an ambulance and informed Detective Garda Chris Murray in the back of the ambulance that hed been hit by Michael Jnr Ward.

At 5:05pm, the court heard, a white Transit van was recovered at Oaklands, Longford, by Detective Gardai Shane OConnor and Clive Glancy.

Thats approximately two kilometres from the scene by road, or just 300 metres away from the scene, said Det Sgt Brennan.

Michael Jnr Ward had reported the van as stolen and alleged that it had been taken from outside his house after hed left the keys in it.



Two pieces of video footage were played for the court. In one video, a shot was heard, but Det Sgt Brennan told the court we believe three shots were fired.

Another video showed a van cutting across the green from the side where the Keenan family resides, towards where the Stokes family lives, the court heard.

Michael Ward is driving the van and Jamie Dinnegan is about to be struck. Noel Ward is in blue making good his escape away from the van, Det Sgt Brennan narrated, as the footage was played for the court.

Jamie Dinnegan is thrown into the air and Noel Ward in the blue, at the end of the video runs over to pick something up and the van makes good it's escape down Ardnacassa Avenue.

Theres a complex background to the feuding between the families, Det Sgt Brennan explained.

There was an altercation on New Years Eve, where a member of the Keenan family refused to step into a photograph where there was a member of the Stokes family.

That was taken as an insult, that the Keenans thought they were above the Stokes. There were tit-for-tat incidents in the lead-up to this incident, he said.



He informed the court that the families are all intermarried and that there were suggestions of fist fights to settle the score but I dont believe that, to this day, it has been settled.

There have been no incidents since, he added, though he noted a recent assault on one of the Keenans was on the periphery of this feud, but tensions would still be between the families.

Mr Dinnegan, the court heard, has 13 previous convictions to his name. Michael Ward has a total of 58 previous convictions, while Noel Ward has no previous convictions other than one for driving past a red light.



In mitigation, Brendan Grehan SC, for Jamie Dinnegan, accepted that the incident occurred out of the most trivial matter possible, but urged the court to consider the early plea of guilt.

Similarly, Vincent Heneghan SC, for Michal Ward, said his client had been involved in a reckless act but asked the judge to account for the early guilty plea.

John Shortt SC, for Noel Ward, said the incident was almost Shakespearean, but whether this is a tragedy or a farce, its hard to say.

In a letter to the court, Noel Ward said he had never wanted to get involved in any feuding and that he was ashamed at becoming a product of the environment he had always fought to resist.

Judge Connolly, with regard to Michael Jnr Ward, agreed to order a probation report, which is to be furnished to the court on November 5, 2024. However, he proceeded to impose a four year disqualification from driving, which will come into effect on July 17.



Referring to Mr Shortts Shakespearean reference, Judge Connolly said the only parallels he could draw were the feuds between the Montagues and Capulets that went on for decades in Romeo and Juliet.

That wont be tolerated in this day and age and if they (the Keenan and Stokes families) think theyre modern-day Shakespearean characters, there is only one way theyre going and thats to prison, he said.

It is utterly ridiculous for grown adults to be behaving that way and to place themselves in jeopardy of going to jail over some perceived family slight.

Turning to sentence, he proceeded to impose two years and two months on Jamie Dinnegan, suspending the final eight months for two years and giving him credit for 84 days served in custody.

However, the eight months suspended was on the condition that he have no association whatsoever with firearms for two years.

Noel Ward, he said, was somewhat less culpable than Mr Dinnegan but his charges were nonetheless very, very serious as is the entire notion of feuding and affray which creates a very distressing atmosphere and causes fear in the people living in the estate.

Judge Connolly proceeded to sentence Mr Ward to 19 months in prison, with the final five months suspended for 18 months on the same conditions as those imposed on Mr Dinnegan.
A garda has been found guilty of sexually assaulting and falsely imprisoning a woman in a garda station in County Wicklow.

The jury in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial of William Ryan returned the unanimous guilty verdicts this Friday after around three and-a-half hours of deliberations.

Ryan's evidence of a highly-charged sexual encounter with the woman, who came to the garda station to discuss getting her son's car back, was described by prosecution counsel as like badly-written erotica, implausible and incredible.

The 41-year-old had pleaded not guilty to three counts of sexual assault and not guilty to one count of false imprisonment of the woman at Aughrim garda station, Main Street, Aughrim, County Wicklow on September 29, 2020.

Ryan had been the only garda stationed at Aughrim since 2013, the court heard.

The jury was told he was a serving garda but the court heard in the absence of the jury that he had been suspended from duty pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

There was no reaction from Ryan when the verdicts were handed down. Judge Elma Sheahan thanked the jury for its service and set a sentence date of October 7.

Defence counsel, Breffni Gordon BL, said his client is the father of a young family and he asked the court to give his client time to put arrangements in place for their care.

He also noted that his client is a serving member of An Garda Siochana and all of that is going to come to an end it seems.

Judge Sheahan acknowledged the defence submissions, but said Ryan would have been aware of these issues during the trial.

She remanded him in custody until the sentence date.

As the verdict was read, the complainant sobbed softly and was comforted by her husband.

Members of Ryan's family were also in court to support him. After the court rose, he could be seen crying. Members of his family, including his wife, sat with him in the defendant's box to comfort him while he spoke with his counsel before being taken into custody.

It was the State's case that Ryan prevented the complainant from leaving Aughrim garda station and sexually assaulted her three times. The woman had gone to the garda station for advice about retrieving her son's car, which had been seized by gardai in County Carlow the previous day.

She told the court that prior to attending the station, she had a phone discussion with Ryan who insisted she come to the garda station to sort out the matter. The court heard he told her to wear something tight before hanging up.

The woman told the court that at the station, Ryan sexually assaulted her twice by slapping her bottom and groping her breast. She said he then ushered her upstairs, where he masturbated as she stood facing away from him and that he sexually assaulted her again by digitally penetrating her vagina.

The court heard that before being taken upstairs, the woman showed Garda Ryan a photo of herself in her swimwear in an attempt to distract him.

Ryan took the stand during the week-long trial and told the jury the woman showed him raunchy photos, cupped her buttocks, flashed her breast at him and suggestively asked if she could give him a hand with anything. He said he decided to go upstairs in the station to masturbate and told her she was free to either leave or join him.

He alleged the woman then followed him upstairs and masturbated him in a shower room, while facing away from him at his direction because it was during the Covid pandemic. He told the court he was hot under the collar and the encounter was fully consensual.

Ryan is married with children, the court heard. His wife was in court throughout the trial to support him.

In his closing address to the jury, Maurice Coffey SC, prosecuting, said the woman had only two hours of sleep the night before due to the issue with her son's car, that she had a sinus infection at the time and was feeling lousy.

Is that someone who would be up for gratuitous sexual action a little after 10am in the morning in a garda station? he said.

Is that credible?, he asked.

He noted that the court had heard evidence from the woman's husband, whom she confided in that evening. If it was consensual naughty sexual activity in a garda station as described, surely the last person she would be telling is her husband, he said.

He said the issue of the woman's Snapchat photos, some of which were shown to the jury, was a red herring and designed to embarrass her. He queried why the defence described photos of the woman in her swimwear as explicit.

Are we living in Victorian times?

Ryan told the court the woman sent him images privately on Snapchat, but the jury heard evidence from a specialist garda that no evidence of Snapchat was found on his phone and that even if he had deleted the app, it would have left a trace.

The prosecution said the woman was a thoroughly credible witness and that Ryan's account was self-serving, completely implausible and mirrored the woman's account in many ways, except when it came to the issue of consent.

The court heard Ryan first told gardai nothing happened when they came to his home a month after the alleged offence.

Mr Coffey said it was a terrifying event for the woman, who had come to a garda station seeking assistance and he urged the jury to return guilty verdicts.

In the defence closing address, Mr Gordon said there was no violence or threat of violence involved, that there was nothing to prevent the woman from leaving at any time and that she left the garda station on the day in question and got on with things as if nothing happened.
Crime

By Long Island Published: July 26 2024

During Nassau Countys Project 21 initiative, two individuals were arrested for selling tobacco products to minors, with one also facing charges for criminal possession of a controlled substance.

The Community Oriented Police Enforcement (COPE) reports the arrest of two (2) individuals during the Project 21 initiative, which targets the sale of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products to minors. The initiative was conducted on Thursday, July 25, 2024 at 6:00 pm in Nassau County.

According to Police, Community Oriented Police Enforcement (COPE) officers, Nassau

County Community Affairs, Town of Hempstead Building Department with the assistance

of underage agents arrested the following individuals as a result of this operation:

 Nebil Asmed, 25, of 170 Biltmore Avenue, Elmont sold tobacco products to a minor at Twelve Twelve Smoke Shop located at 604 Woodfield Road, West Hempstead. He is charged with Unlawfully Dealing with a Child 2 nd Degree, Sale of Flavored Products Prohibited and the Sale of Tobacco Products.

 Mohanad Alteshee, 21, of 15 Mackay Place, Brooklyn sold tobacco products to a minor at LI Smokers Depot located at 700 Franklin Avenue, Franklin Square. He is charged with Unlawfully Dealing with a Child 2 nd Degree, Criminal Possession of Controlled Substance 5 th Degree, Sale of Flavored Products Prohibited and the Sale of Tobacco Products.

Defendant Nebil Asmed was issued a Desk Appearance Ticket returnable on Thursday, August 8, 2024 to First District Court, 99 Main Street, Hempstead. Defendant Mohanad Alteshee will be arraigned on Friday, July 26, 2024 in First District Court, 99 Main Street, Hempstead.
Local News

By Chris Boyle Published: July 25 2024

13 Individuals Arrested for Roles in Multistate Operation that Sold Assault Weapons, Ghost Guns, and Cocaine.

New York Attorney General Letitia James today announced the takedown of a multistate gun and drug trafficking network that sold assault weapons, ghost guns and other firearms, and cocaine in New York City. The takedown recovered 74 firearms, including nine assault-style rifles, eight assault-style pistols and four ghost guns, over 2,100 rounds of ammunition, and 500 grams of cocaine with a street value of $15,700. The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) arrested 13 individuals and charged them with 358 crimes for their roles in trafficking these firearms and narcotics into New York City from New Jersey and Florida.

Assault weapons and ghost guns pose some of the greatest threats to our communities, and we will do everything possible to keep them out of New York, said Attorney General James. As a result of our investigation, we took dozens of dangerous and illegal guns and narcotics out of our communities and stopped this multistate crime operation from continuing to profit off violence. Protecting New Yorkers from gun violence is a joint effort, and I thank our partners in law enforcement for their commitment to public safety.

The takedown was the result of a ten-month joint investigation led by OAG Organized Crime Task Force (OCTF) and the United States Department of Justices Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) New York Strike Force Group Z-13, led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The investigation included physical and covert video surveillance, court-authorized wiretapping of cellphones, the analysis of electronic evidence, including cellphone communications, and other traditional investigative operations.

The investigation began in August 2023, focusing on Anthony Ortiz Vasquez, who sold illegal firearms, illegal rapid-fire modification devices that transform semiautomatic weapons into automatic weapons, high-capacity magazines, and ammunition. Wiretap evidence revealed a coordinated network of individuals around Ortiz Vasquez working together to buy, store, transport, and sell these firearms and accessories.

The investigation revealed that Ortiz Vasquez bought firearms from Nelphy Reyes-Peralta, Nestor Vasquez Vargas and his cousin Derek Vargas, Harry Laureano, and Jeffry Deschamps. Nestor Vasquez Vargas, who resides in Kissimmee, Florida, would mail illegal firearms  some of which he custom painted  to Ortiz Vasquez in Paterson, New Jersey. Ortiz Vasquez bought firearms from the other defendants at various locations in Paterson, often using codewords like toys, sneakers, or panties, to refer to the guns when arranging purchases. Ortiz Vasquez and his sources also referred to ammunition as food and the illegal rapid-fire modification devices as switches when they communicated about sales. In addition to Ortiz Vasquezs payments, Tiffany Diaz Fermin and brothers Carlos Torres and Juan Torres sent money transfers through Zelle and CashApp to pay the firearms sources.

After buying the firearms, Iris Molina, Tiffany Diaz Fermin, and Kiara Rodriguez stored firearms for Ortiz Vasquez at Molina, Diaz Fermin, and Ortiz Vasquezs homes in Paterson. Ortiz Vasquez also enlisted his mother, Yadira Vasquez, to help move, hide, store, and pay for the firearms.

Carlos and Juan Torres regularly assisted Ortiz Vasquez in driving the firearms, rapid fire modification devices, high-capacity magazines, and ammunition, from Paterson, New Jersey to Washington Heights in New York City where they were sold. The defendants consistently made their sales on the same street corner in Washington Heights. In addition, Deschamps, Laureano, Yadira Vasquez, and Rodriguez all drove firearms from New Jersey to Manhattan and were each present for at least one sale made by Ortiz Vasquez. The defendants used different methods to disguise the weapons and ammunition as they transported them. They often wrapped guns in blankets and sheets or hid them in reusable grocery bags, and at least once used a guitar case to hide an assault rifle while driving it to New York City.

Ortiz Vasquez also sold 500 grams of cocaine in Washington Heights, which was consistently sourced from his brother, Hector Vasquez.

In addition to recovering 500 grams of cocaine, the investigation recovered 74 firearms, including nine assault-style rifles, eight assault-style pistols, and four ghost guns. Investigators also recovered 2,175 rounds of ammunition, more than 50 high-capacity magazines, and nine illegal rapid-fire modification devices.

Those arrested as part of the takedown are:

Anthony Ortiz Vasquez, 24, Paterson, New Jersey

Nelphy Reyes-Peralta, 47, Wayne, New Jersey

Nestor Vasquez Vargas, 20, Kissimmee, Florida

Hector Vasquez, 36, Passaic, New Jersey

Derek Vargas, 21, Paterson, New Jersey

Jeffry Deschamps, 31, Paterson, New Jersey

Carlos Torres, 22, Paterson, New Jersey

Juan Torres, 21, Paterson, New Jersey

Harry Laureano, 31, Paterson, New Jersey

Iris Molina, 39, Paterson, New Jersey

Tiffany Diaz Fermin, 28, Paterson, New Jersey

Yadira Vasquez, 42, Hackensack, New Jersey

Kiara Rodriguez, 23, Hackensack, New Jersey

With respect to the firearms trafficking charges, Ortiz Vasquez, Reyes-Peralta, Carlos Torres, Juan Torres, Deschamps, Hector Vasquez, Yadira Vasquez, and Rodriguez are all charged with Criminal Sale of a Firearm in the First Degree, which is a class B violent felony and carries a maximum prison sentence of 25 years, as well as various other firearms sale and possession-related charges. All of the defendants are charged with Conspiracy in the Fourth Degree, which is a class E felony and carries a maximum prison sentence of 1 1/3 to 4 years.

With respect to the narcotics trafficking charges, Ortiz Vasquez and Hector Vasquez are also charged with Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the First Degree, a class A-I felony, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, as well as various other narcotics-related charges.

The arrest of these individuals and the seizure of dozens of firearms and cocaine reflects the partnership the DEA has with our federal and local law enforcement partners, including the New York Attorney Generals Office, when working together to target those individuals that pose a threat to our communities, said DEA New York Division Special Agent in Charge Frank Tarentino. Whenever illegal rapid-fire modification devices, ghost guns, and high-capacity magazines of this size are recovered, it is a stark reminder of the dangers law enforcement officials face when targeting these individuals and organizations. Today, the community is safer with these individuals off our street.

These 13 defendants have been linked to an alleged gun trafficking scheme involving over 70 firearms, including high-powered, black-market weaponry, said HSI Special Agent in Charge Ivan J. Arvelo. HSI New York continues to work in lockstep with our law enforcement partners to eradicate illegal firearms from our communities. While todays actions are a step in the right direction to protect the public safety, there is more work to be done. HSI New York is proud to stand side-by-side with the New York Attorney Generals Office, the NYPD, the DEA, the New York State Police, and all agencies involved in confronting the gun violence epidemic directly and forcefully.

This important investigation shows how seamless interagency coordination is effectively combating large-scale illegal gun and drug trafficking in New York City, said NYPD Commissioner Edward A. Caban. Disassembling these dangerous operations has prevented bloodshed on our streets and averted untold tragedies in our communities. I commend our NYPD investigators, our partners at the New York Attorney Generals office, and our many other local, state, and federal colleagues for their commitment to this shared public safety mission. We vow to not rest until every New Yorker is completely safe and feels completely safe, too.

The New York State Police remains committed to working with the Attorney Generals Office and our partners in local law enforcement to shut down the illegal trafficking of guns and drugs, said New York State Police Superintendent Steven G. James. Cases like this one send a strong message that anyone who endangers our communities with these criminal activities will be held accountable for their actions.

This is the latest example of Attorney General James ongoing efforts to take down illegal gun and drug trafficking rings, which have secured indictments against 18 gun traffickers in July 2024 alone. Earlier this month, Attorney General James announced the takedown of a gun trafficking ring operating in Queens. In June 2024, Attorney General James announced the guilty pleas and sentencing of 14 defendants for their roles in a drug trafficking ring that sold fentanyl pills and cocaine in Western New York. In April 2024, Attorney General James announced the convictions of 12 defendants who sold heroin and methamphetamine disguised as prescription drugs, as well as cocaine and counterfeit Xanax pills in the Hudson Valley. Also in April, Attorney General James announced the indictment of four individuals for selling ghost guns and other firearms in Central New York. In March 2024, Attorney General James secured a $7.8 million judgment against gun retailer Indie Guns for illegally selling ghost gun components in New York. In February 2024, Attorney General James announced the takedowns of a gun trafficking network that sold ghost guns and assault-style rifles and a narcotics trafficking network in Dutchess County.

The Attorney General would like to thank the partners within the joint OCDETF Strike Force, which includes members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and the New York State Police (NYSP). Additional thanks go to the Passaic City (New Jersey) Police Department, the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General  Division of Criminal Justice (DCJ) Weapons Trafficking Unit, the Passaic County Prosecutors Office, the Manhattan District Attorneys Office, the New Jersey State Police Weapons Trafficking North Unit, the Bergen County Sheriffs Office and the United States Postal Inspection Service for their valuable assistance and participation in this investigation.

The investigation was led by NYPD Detective/Task Force Officer (TFO) Hector Rodriguez of the joint OCDETF Strike Force Group Z-13, under the supervision of NYPD Sergeant Ryan Boylan, NYPD Lieutenant Michael Pomerantz, NYPD Assistant Chief Jerry OSullivan, and under the overall supervision of NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. The OCDETF Strike Force Group Z-13 is also overseen by HSI New York Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Ivan J. Arvelo. Dennis Acheson is the DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC). Christopher Roberts is the DEA Associate Special Agent in Charge (A/SAC) and Frank A. Tarentino, III is the DEA Special Agent in Charge for the New York region.

For OAG, the investigation was led by OCTF Detective Robert Geary, under the supervision of OCTF Supervising Detective Paul Grzegorski, Assistant Chief Ismael Hernandez, and Deputy Chief Andrew Boss, with special assistance from the detective specialists from the OAG Special Operations Unit, led by Deputy Chief Sean Donovan. The Attorney Generals Investigations Division is led by Chief Oliver Pu-Folkes.

The case is being prosecuted by OCTF Assistant Deputy Attorney General Brandi S. Kligman, under the supervision of Downstate OCTF Deputy Chief Lauren Abinanti with the assistance of OCTF Legal Support Analysts Alex DiGiacomo and Madeline Rosen. Nicole Keary is the Deputy Attorney General in Charge of OCTF. The Criminal Justice Division is led by Chief Deputy Attorney General Jose Maldonado. Both the Investigations Division and the Division for Criminal Justice are overseen by First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.
Crime

By Chris Boyle Published: July 26 2024

Chrysta Cataldo received more than $16,000 in workers compensation benefits for a claimed injury, continued employment at two additional jobs and volunteered as a firefighter.

Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly announced that a former employee of the Nassau County Fire Service Academy was indicted on Grand Larceny, Falsifying Business Records, and Fraudulent Practices of the Workers Compensation Law for fraudulently receiving more than $16,000 of workers compensation benefits. The defendant continued to volunteer as a firefighter in Massapequa and maintained other employment cleaning a local church and working at a tax preparation office despite allegedly submitting documentation stating that she was not working while she collected the benefits.

Chrysta Cataldo, 40, of Massapequa, was arraigned before Judge Meryl Berkowitz today on charges of Grand Larceny in the Third Degree (a D felony); Penalties for Fraudulent Practices of the Workers Compensation Law (an E felony); Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree (an E felony); Falsifying Business Records in the First Degree (an E felony); and Falsifying Business Records in the Second Degree (an A misdemeanor). The defendant pleaded not guilty and was released on her own recognizance. If convicted, Cataldo faces up to 7 years in prison. She is due back in court on August 15, 2024.

This defendant just days after starting a new position with the Nassau County Fire Service Academy suffered a back injury that put her out of work and on workers compensation. As she collected thousands of dollars in benefits, this defendant allegedly filed false paperwork affirming she was not working while in fact she maintained employment at several jobs, including responding to hundreds of incidents as a volunteer firefighter with the Massapequa Fire Department, said DA Donnelly. Workers compensation supports and protects employees when their injuries or illness keep them from doing their jobs. This important program cannot be abused or exploited at the expense of public institutions and the workers who need these funds most.

DA Donnelly said that, on May 6, 2022, the defendant began working at the Nassau County Fire Service Academy as a Laborer 1. On May 11, 2022, Cataldo claimed that she suffered a back injury while working at the academy. The following day the defendant went out on workers compensation leave and began collecting benefits. The defendant continued to receive these benefits through April 2023.

During her workers compensation leave, Cataldo continued her employment in several other positions, including a part-time position cleaning at a local church and a seasonal job at a tax preparation office.

Cataldo also continued volunteering as a firefighter with the Massapequa Fire Department. Between the date of the defendants injury through February 2023, the defendant attended over 200 incidents for the fire department.

Employees who receive workers compensation benefits are required to undergo independent medical examinations by a third-party doctor to ensure that beneficiaries claims are legitimate.

As part of these examinations, beneficiaries can be required to fill out questionnaires regarding their injuries and how they have affected their lives. The questionnaires become part of the New York State Workers Compensation Board case file and are used to determine the continuance of benefits. It is illegal to provide false information on these documents.

The defendant was required on three separate occasions to fill out these questionnaires.

On October 11, 2022, the defendant was asked on a questionnaire if she had done any volunteer work since the injury and allegedly circled no despite being an active volunteer with the Massapequa Fire Department. The questionnaire also asked if Cataldo was actively working, to which she allegedly circled no, despite her part-time employment.

On February 27, 2023, the defendant filled out another questionnaire which asked if she was working and allegedly circled no. Between January and April 2023, the defendant was employed at a small tax preparation firm daily and was working her part-time job at the church.

On July 18, 2023, the defendant filled out a third questionnaire which asked if she was currently working and allegedly again circled no, though she was employed part-time at the local church.

Between May 12, 2022, and April 21, 2023, the defendant received $16,861 in workers compensation payments.

Cataldo surrendered to Nassau County District Attorney Detective Investigators on July 24, 2024.

The case is being prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Michael Davidman under the supervision of Bureau Chief Kristen Fexas of the Public Corruption Bureau and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for the Investigations Division Rick Whelan. The defendant is represented by Michael Alber, Esq.
Local News

By Chris Boyle Published: July 26 2024

Those living with disabilities face discrimination and additional barriers every day  it is crucial we do what we can to fix it, Governor Hochul said.

Ahead of the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Governor Kathy Hochul today signed legislation to support New Yorkers with disabilities. Legislation S.9699A/A.10457 allows the Access to Home and Access to Home for Heroes programs to cover the cost of important home repairs that accompany accessibility modifications for low- and moderate-income households with disabilities. Legislation S.8903/A.9948 expands the real property tax exemption for people with disabilities. Legislation S.1900A/A.2487A makes it easier for New Yorkers with disabilities to apply for parking permit renewals.

Those living with disabilities face discrimination and additional barriers every day  it is crucial we do what we can to fix it, Governor Hochul said. "Ahead of the anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act, I am signing this legislation because people with disabilities deserve to enjoy the rights and privileges that all New Yorkers do.

Chief Disability Officer Kim Hill Ridley said, As we celebrate the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act with Governor Hochul's signing of these three bills and the progress they will make towards improving the lives of New Yorkers with disabilities, we also acknowledge the advocacy of the pioneers who came before us to get us to this point. And while we take this moment in time to celebrate how far we've come, we also must take a deep breath, roll up our sleeves and continue our fight until all people with disabilities are able to lead integrated, inclusive and independent lives in our local communities.

New York State Homes and Community Renewal Commissioner RuthAnne Visnauskas said, Improving access to safe, affordable housing that allows people to remain in their homes and be a part of their community is critical for every New Yorker, and especially those with disabilities. By expanding our Access to Home and Access to Home for Heroes programs to cover the cost of home repairs that include accessibility modifications, we create safer, more comfortable places for residents with disabilitiesincluding veteransto live and thrive. Thank you to Governor Hochul and the Legislature for continuing to find creative solutions to our housing affordability crisis that put people first.

Legislation S.9699A/A.10457 amends the Access to Home and Access to Home for Heroes program to permit home repairs to be financed with program funds so long as they are related to the accessibility modifications being paid for by the program and do not constitute more than 60 percent of project costs. The bill will help expand participation and provide better, safer conditions for persons with disabilities, including veterans, helping them to continue to live comfortably in their homes.

State Senator Brian Kavanagh said, I am pleased that Senate Bill S9699A is part of the package of bills Governor Kathy Hochul is signing today to support New Yorkers with disabilities. The Access to Home programs have been instrumental in funding accessibility modifications, allowing low- and moderate-income individuals with disabilities to live safely in their homes. However, these programs have been limited in covering the full scope of home repairs often needed for full accessibility upgrades, leaving homeowners in a difficult position. This bill fills the gap by allowing financing for home repairs related to habitability alongside accessibility adaptations. By removing health and safety risks, individuals with disabilities can remain in their homes and take care of multiple projects at once. Moreover, the increase in allowable administrative fees will attract more nonprofit organizations to administer the program, expanding its geographic scope and providing additional support to individuals with disabilities. This legislation marks a significant step towards ensuring the well-being and independence of homeowners with disabilities in our state. I thank Assemblymember Carrie Woerner for championing this legislation in the Assembly, as well as all our colleagues and the housing advocates who supported this bill, and of course Governor Hochul for signing this legislation and for her steadfast leadership.

Assemblymember Carrie Woerner said, Many homeowners with disabilities live in homes that require modifications for accessibility and repairs for health and safety purposes. This bill provides funding support for home repairs, such as roll-in showers or entrance ramp, so people with disabilities can continue living safely and comfortably in their home.

Legislation S.8903/A.9948 expands the real property tax exemption for people with disabilities. The bill closes a gap in the law that excluded many people with disabilities from an important tax benefit by making eligible people who have their primary residence in a special needs trust and property owners who have a life tenant with a disability. This legislation will reduce barriers to affordable, stable housing for people with disabilities.

State Senator Monica Martinez said, New York State has always been a champion of equitable treatment for its residents. However, the existing tax exemption law treated some individuals with disabilities differently than others. This amendment brings much-needed equity and fairness to the property tax code that will help more disabled New Yorkers afford to remain in their homes and communities. I thank the Governor for recognizing the seriousness of this issue and for signing this change into law.

Assemblymember Chris Eachus said, The rights and well-being of those with disabilities has always been a major focus of mine. Thats why Im excited to hear the Governor has signed my bill to extend a housing tax exemption for disabled individuals - a population who face unique difficulties and limited options in an already-difficult housing market. This bill will improve access, enhance parity, and raise the standard of living for those in great need.

Legislation S.1900A/A.2487A allows disabled individuals to renew parking permits without providing updated certifications or additional medical documents.

State Senator Toby Ann Stavisky said, The definition of permanently disabled does not leave any gray area that must be proven each time a parking permit expires. Obtaining this medical information can be costly and time consuming, as well as dehumanizing for many with severe disabilities. This legislation eliminates obstacles and allows New Yorkers access to services they deserve. On this 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, I'm proud to continue to work for a society that is inclusive of all. I thank the Governor for signing this bill into law.

Assemblymember Andrew Hevesi said, After hearing from numerous constituents facing undue burdens when submitting disability parking permit renewals, including often being required to provide recent medical exams not covered by insurance, my office wrote A.2487. That bill, which passed unanimously in both the Assembly and Senate, is being signed into law by the Governor today. I couldn't be more grateful and proud of my staff for their work, start to finish, on creating this law. Thank you to Senator Stavisky for her partnership and I am grateful to Governor Hochul for quickly signing each of these bills into law, as well as for her administration's ongoing support of the disability community.
IDF soldiers in Khan Younis unearth a tunnel. (IDF photo)

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recovered the bodies of five hostages in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the IDF said on July 25. The hostages were killed on October 7, and Hamas transported the bodies to Gaza, the IDF stated.

The recovered remains include those of Maya Goren, a mother of four who worked as a kindergarten teacher in Kibbutz Nir Oz. The four other slain hostages were soldiers: Master Sergeant (Res.) Oren Goldin, Staff Sergeant Tomer Ahimas, Sergeant Kiril Brodski, and Sergeant Major (Res.) Ravid Aryeh Katz.

IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that the bodies of the hostages were found in tunnels, including one that was 20 meters under Khan Younis in an area designated as a humanitarian zone in Gaza. Hagari condemned Hamas for exploiting the humanitarian area to hold the remains. He said 115 hostages are held in Gaza, including many known to be or presumed dead. The total includes the bodies of Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, two IDF soldiers killed in 2014. It also includes Hisham Sayed and Avera Mengistu, Israelis who crossed into Gaza in 2015 and 2014, respectively.

Twenty-four bodies of hostages have been recovered from Gaza since October 7, according to The Times of Israel. Thirty-nine of the remaining hostages held in Gaza have been confirmed to have been killed since October 7. On July 22, the IDF confirmed that Alex Dancyg and Yagev Buchshtab were both killed in Gaza several months ago.

The IDF has been searching for the hostages since the early days of the war, but this effort has increased in recent months. Once larger Hamas units were largely defeated in northern Gaza in November and December of 2023, and in Khan Younis in the first months of 2024, the IDF could return to conduct more thorough searches for bodies. It could also prepare rescue operations for hostages who are still alive.

In February, Israeli forces freed two hostages in a raid in Rafah. In June, four hostages were freed in a raid in Nuseirat in central Gaza. Among those freed was Noa Argamani, who recently traveled to Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend his speech before the US Congress.

The rescue of the bodies in Khan Younis was made possible by the IDFs raid into the area that began on July 22. In recent weeks, an IDF Intelligence Directorate Hostage Headquarters and ISA intelligence team carried out intensive intelligence research and interrogations of apprehended suspects to identify the location of the hostages in the Khan Yunis area, the IDF said. Following the precise intelligence information, the forces located an underground tunnel shaft, leading to a tunnel approximately 200 meters in length and 20 meters deep with several rooms where the hostages were located.

The pressure on Hamas appears to be building. Even though the terrorist group continues to control much of northern and central Gaza, it suffers daily losses in airstrikes and clashes in places like Rafah, where IDF ground units operate. Hamas appears to be shifting operations into parts of the humanitarian area in southern Gaza designated for civilians to flee to since October.

The IDF said on July 25 that Hamas launched numerous projectiles from the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis. The projectiles did not cross into Israeli territory and instead fell in the area of the UNRWA Al-Qarara school in Khan Yunis. Israeli forces helped coordinate with the World Health Organization as several injured civilians were evacuated to a field hospital in Deir al-Balah, an area controlled by Hamas in central Gaza.

Hamas claimed to have used its Yassin-105 anti-tank missile to target an Israeli tank in Khan Younis on July 25. It also said it targeted a D-9 IDF bulldozer in Rafah. Some bulldozers are now unmanned and remotely operated, a recent Israeli capability deployed in this war. The IDF said that one soldier from the IDFs 401st Armored Brigade was killed in Gaza on July 25, and two were severely wounded. The total killed since the beginning of the war is now 687, and 327 have fallen since the ground offensive began in Gaza on October 27, 2023.

Reporting from Israel, Seth J. Frantzman is an adjunct fellow at FDD and a contributor to FDDs Long War Journal. He is the senior Middle East correspondent and analyst at The Jerusalem Post, and author of The October 7 War: Israel's Battle for Security in Gaza (2024).
Why are you interested in this publication?

to learn about best practices to inform programme design to research/find data and evidence on an issue to find policy recommendations other

What organisation do you represent?

donor agency government NGO private sector a UN agency research institute/academia student Malaria Consortium You will only need to complete this form once per browser/device other How do you prefer to read or receive publications? print screen

Subscribe to the Malaria Consortium newsletter (optional)

We may contact you for feedback on the publication you have downloaded. If you do not want to be contacted, please leave the email field blank. Your information will never be shared with any third party.
A Florida man was sentenced Wednesday in federal court in Boston for conspiring to use a stolen identities to obtain Small Business Administration disaster loans and then launder the money, the Massachusetts U.S. Attorneys office said in a statement.

Hector Garcia, 52, of Ocala, Florida, was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release by U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper. Garcia must also pay $25,104.33 in restitution to the Small Business Administration.

Garcia pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud in April 2024.

Garcia conspired with Ramon Cruz, Darwyn Joseph, Edwin Acevedo, and others, to use stolen identity information of United States citizens to apply for SBA Economic Injury Disaster Loans, the statement said.

Garcia used the stolen identity information to open a fraudulent bank account. He then linked the account to other fraudulent bank accounts, which were set up to receive the SBA funds., the statement said.

Garcia and his co-conspirators used debit cards associated with those accounts to launder the funds by purchasing iPhones for resale. Garcia and other co-conspirators wired a portion of the funds to the Dominican Republic, the statement reads.

Garcia and his co-conspirators obtained $452,000 in SBA funds in connection with the scheme. About $250,000 of that money was used to buy iPhones in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Cruz and Joseph pleaded guilty and were each sentenced in August 2023 and October 2023, respectively, to two years and one day in prison and three years of supervised release. Acevedo pleaded guilty and was sentenced in August 2023 to 33 months in prison and three years of supervised release, the statement reads.
GREENFIELD  A judge Monday ordered two men charged in July 16 beatings at a Sunderland liquor store held without bail following a dangerousness hearing.

The men  Warren Martinez, 30, of Northampton, and Thomas Patnode, 24, of Greenfield  accused of assaulting a clerk and another individual after the employee refused to serve them alcohol, according to a news release from the Northwestern District Attorneys Office.

As a result of the attack, the employee suffered significant injuries, authorities said.
With a Dunkin iced coffee in one hand and a bacon, egg and cheese on toasted bagel in the other, its no question that Massachusetts loves bagels.

But ever have you wondered just how much Bay Staters actually seek out a good bagel?

The Cookie Rookie published a guide revealing the most popular foods around the United States, including the most popular dishes in each state.

After compiling a list of state dishes, the food and recipe outlet examined social media and Google searches to determine the most popular state dishes.

As it turns out, bagels are the most searched state dish in 23 out of 50 states, including Massachusetts.

In the U.S., bagels were searched for 11 million times in the last year, with New York, where it originated, searching for this 2.5 million times, more than any other state, followed by California with just over 1 million searches, the guide reads.

According to The Cookie Rookies research, while bagels were the most popular breakfast dish, enchiladas were the second most popular state dish.

Enchiladas were the most searched state dish in seven states, including Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Wisconsin.

Fried green tomatoes and runza  a bread pocket filled with beef, cabbage or sauerkraut, onions and seasonings  both tied for third place.

Fried green tomatoes were the most searched in Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama, while runza was most searched in Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska.

You can find the full study by clicking here.
A nine-year-old boy gave his iPhone to two teenagers who threatened him at gunpoint in a Dorchester playground on Thursday, according to media reports.

At around 6:35 p.m., Boston police arrived at 18 Fernboro St. about a person with a gun, Boston.com reported.

The boy was with his friend, along with the friends mother, at Childrens Park, next to the intersection of Fernboro Street and Intervale Street, WCVB-TV wrote. Two teenagers approached the boy and told him, at gunpoint, to hand over his iPhone.

I was terrified, the boy told the news station. I was thinking like, What if I die right here on the spot, right here?

After he gave them his phone, the teenagers then asked for his passcode, the boy told WCVB-TV.

All he wanted to do is just shoot me right there if I didnt give him my password, the boy added.

The two teenagers then ran down Intervale Street toward Blue Hill Avenue, Boston.com wrote. After police had a description of the two, they found them and arrested them.

Police recovered the iPhone and the gun, which turned out to be fake, the news website reported. The two teenagers will be arraigned at Dorchester District Court and charged with armed robbery and threat to commit a crime.
A Lowell woman and her passenger both died in a Maryland crash on Wednesday, according to Maryland State Police.

Norma Matthews, 81, was found dead when first responders arrived, state police said in a statement. Her passenger, Virginia Licata, 86, of Blackwood, New Jersey, was flown to Capital Region Medical Center and died at the hospital.

State police troopers arrived at the crash site at Route 301 and Popes Creek Road in Faulkner, Maryland, at around 1:45 p.m.

Early findings in the investigation determined that Matthews, driving a 2004 Toyota Camry on Popes Creek Road, tried to cross southbound Route 301, state police said. Driving south along Route 301, a 2017 Chevy Sonic struck the Toyota on the drivers side.

The Chevys driver, Caitlynn Connell, 28, of King George, Virginia, was injured and also flown to Capital Region Medical Center, state police said.

The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration helped with the road closures, which lasted several hours, the statement read.

The crash continues to be under investigation.
Friday is expected to be a dry, seasonable day, but any Massachusetts beachgoers will be disappointed to know that their local beach might be closed.

As of 9:30 a.m., 51 beaches across Massachusetts were listed as closed, according to the states publicly available water quality dashboard.

From Regatta Point Beach at Worcesters Lake Quinsigamond to Nantuckets Washing Pond, many of these beaches were closed due to bacteria levels. Of the 51 beach closures, 40 were closed due to an excess of bacteria in the water.

Four beaches were closed due to harmful cyanobacteria blooms, while three beaches were closed because of combined sewage overflows. The remaining four closures were due to other reasons.

Chathams Buck Creek was closed because of bacteria excess, as was Braintrees Smith Beach, Barnstables Eugenia Fortes and Gardners Dunn Pond.

In Truro, Longnook Beach was closed  and may remain closed the entire summer  due to safety concerns from eroding cliffs.

Carbuncle Pond in Oxford, along with Hopkinton Reservoir-Upper Beach in Ashland, Framinghams Waushakum Beach and Nantuckets Sesachacha Pond were closed due to cyanobacteria blooms.

The states beach closure dashboard is updated twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, and shows the results of recent water quality tests at beaches across the state. More than 1,100 public and semi-public beaches in the state are regularly monitored.

If a beach is closed, do not swim or enter the water at that location to avoid risk of illness, the dashboard warns. However, state officials said

The full list of closures is below. If you cant see the chart, click here.
West Nile virus was detected in nine mosquito test samples in Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, Roxbury and West Roxbury, the Boston Public Health Commission announced Friday.

These samples were the first in Boston to test positive this summer, according to a statement released by the commission.

No human cases of West Nile virus among Boston residents have been confirmed and the risk of transmission is low, but the commission warned that residents should keep themselves protected.

We encourage all residents to protect themselves from insect-borne infections like West Nile Virus by wearing insect repellant and long sleeve clothing when spending time outside at dusk or dawn when mosquitoes are most active, Commissioner of Public Health and Executive Director of the Boston Public Health Commission Dr. Bisola Ojikutu said in the statement. We are working closely with our partners at the State to monitor mosquito test samples and keep residents updated about the risk of West Nile.

Boston health officials urged people to avoid spending long periods of time outside between dusk and dawn, when mosquitoes are most active. They also recommend wearing long sleeves and high socks to keep mosquitoes away from the skin and using EPA-approved insect repellents like DEET, oil of lemon eucalyptus, picaridin or IR3535.

Keep screens up in windows and doors and make sure there are no holes, and regularly clean out gutters and keep out any debris, officials said.

Regularly empty out and clean bird baths, unused flowerpots, and other vessels containing standing water to prevent mosquitoes from breeding, officials wrote. Flip over unused kiddie pools and dispose of old tires, which are also known to collect rainwater that attracts mosquitoes for breeding.

While the virus can infect people of all ages, people over 50 carry a higher risk of developing severe disease, according to the commission.

Although most people infected with West Nile virus dont develop symptoms, the symptoms are usually flu-like. These symptoms include a headache, fever, nausea, vomiting and body aches, which can last a few days or several weeks.

West Nile virus was first detected in Massachusetts in 2024 in two samples collected in Quincy on June 25. On July 17, a mosquito sample tested positive for carrying West Nile virus in Blackstone. One week later, another mosquito sample at Rural Cemetery on Grove Street in Worcester also tested positive.
A Pennsylvania man was sentenced in federal court in Springfield Wednesday to 30 years in prison for grooming and sexually assaulting a young girl, according to acting U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Joshua S. Levys office.

In addition to his prison sentence, David Tweed, 46, of Kulpmont, Pennsylvania, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Mark G. Mastroianni to a lifetime of supervised release after the prison sentence is served.

Between September and December 2021 Tweed groomed a 12- to 13-year-old girl he met online.
Those who plan on heading to Jamaica anytime soon should reconsider because the U.S. Department of State (DOS) issued a travel advisory for the popular Caribbean island on Thursday.

The advisory, which is listed at Level 3, tells tourists to reconsider travel to Jamaica due to crime.

Crime is less likely to occur in tourist areas, the state department said, however, armed robberies and sexual assaults are common in Jamaica, which has one of the highest homicide rates in the Western Hemisphere.

The U.S. Embassy routinely receives reports of sexual assaults, including from U.S. citizen tourists at resorts, the advisory reads.

U.S. tourists should also not expect the same level of health care they get in the U.S., according to DOS. Officials recommend getting travelers insurance in response.

Those who still plan to travel to Jamaica should take the following precautions:

Avoid bringing any weapons

Avoid walking or driving at night

Avoid public buses

Avoid secluded places or situations

Do not physically resist any robbery attempt

Be aware of your surroundings and keep a low profile

Click here for more information about traveling to Jamaica.
AMHERST  The majority of people who were arrested on May 7 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst were students, but the few who are not affiliated with the university have now been issued no-trespass notices, their lawyers say.

It is standard for the schools Police Department to issue trespass notices to unaffiliated individuals who are arrested on campus, said Melinda Rose, the interim director of news and media relations at the university.
BURLINGTON, Vt.  After allegedly setting up several fentanyl purchases to undercover federal agents, a 20-year-old Springfield man is facing drug trafficking charges in federal court.

Hussein Iman is facing charges including conspiracy to distribute and distribution of fentanyl and cocaine following a raid on his Berkshire Avenue home, the U.S. Attorneys Office in the District of Vermont said in a statement Thursday.

Springfield police, who were involved with the investigation, also arrested two other Springfield residents and a Ludlow teenager and seized a large-capacity firearm during the raid, said Ryan Walsh, police spokesman.
SOUTHWICK  The state Attorney Generals Office is aiming to stamp out racism and bullying in the Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional Schools, recently issuing a 12-step plan to help guide the district to action.

The AGs action plan come after a group of district eighth graders engaged in a mock slave auction on Snapchat after school hours in February, on top of incidents of bullying and use of racial slurs in the schools.
WESTFIELD  Westfields Top Dog Contest for 2025 is now open, according to City Clerk Kaitlyn Bruce. The contest, now in its second year, offers residents the opportunity to have their loyal companions compete to be named Westfields Top Dog, while at the same time promoting dog licenses in the city, as all participants must have a valid license.

Licensing helps prevent rabies outbreaks by requiring a certificate of vaccination for all dogs. It also increases the chance that you will be reunited with your pet in the unfortunate event they are lost, Bruce said. If we can bring safety and fun together with a little friendly competition, its a win-win.

Residents may register their dog(s) for the contest by submitting high resolution photos of their pets now through Nov. 1 to www.cityofwestfield.org/topdog .

Each photo should contain the image of only one dog. Residents who own more than one dog may enter each of them separately. The top five submissions will be featured on the citys website for public voting Dec. 1-28.

The finalist that receives the most votes will receive dog tag No. 1 for 2025, and the dogs photo will be hung in the city clerks office for the year, as well as shown on the city web page. Second and third place winners will receive dog tags No. 2 and No. 3.

Last years contest was an immediate hit, with a total of 107 entrants. The winner was Walter, a Doberman owned by Trish LaBelle, who received 361 votes out of the total 1,334 votes cast.

Walter, who will continue to sport Dog Tag 1 through the end of 2024, is a search-and-rescue dog and a Canine Good Citizen who is also certified to visits nursing homes and cancer centers. During his reign as Westfields Top Dog of 2024, Walter has been helping the city clerks office spread dog licensing information on the citys Facebook page, according to Bruce.

Second place in 2024 went to Bauer Zamboni, an unofficial mascot for Elms College, who received 331 votes. The third place winner at 313 votes was Georgia, whose owner said, she healed my heart in ways I didnt think were possible after the loss of her beloved dog Mack.

For more information on the Westfield Top Dog Contest, contact the city clerks office at 413-642-9394 or www.cityofwestfield.org/880/Dog-Licenses.
Les membres formant le gouvernement ont pris note que Maurice va rejoindre lEuropean Union Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Centres of Excellence, va conduire le Sustainable Development Goals Business Verification Survey with the Private Sector for Improving Multi-Hazard Decision Making by using Disaster Information Service in Mauritius avec le Japan International Corporation Agency, pris connaissance des avancees du Continuum of Road Safety Education project qui fait partie du National Road Safety Strategy 2016-2025 de Traffic Management and Road Safety Unit, entre autres.

1. Cabinet has agreed to Mauritius joining the European Union Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Centres of Excellence, a globally funded initiative, implemented by the European Union to promote peace, stability and conflict prevention.

Mauritius would benefit from the assistance and support provided by the European Union under the programme for the upgrading of the national nuclear security regime and for further development of the national capabilities for effective preparedness and response to radiological incidents as well as for chemical and biological risk mitigation.

2. Cabinet has agreed to Mauritius continuing its role as Champion of the Coral Reef Protection and Restoration Action Group for the forthcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting cycle. Being part of the Coral Action Group allows Mauritius to:

(a) showcase commitment to environmental stewardship and serve as a leader in the global effort to protect and restore coral reefs, contributing to broader international conservation efforts;

(b) collaborate with other nations to protect and conserve the fragile ecosystems;

(c) enhance resilience to these challenges through shared knowledge, research, and best practices;

(d) acquire access to resources, expertise, and funding opportunities that could support efforts to conserve and restore coral reefs; and

(e) demonstrate commitment to achieving the SDGs, particularly Goal 14 (Life Below Water), which emphasises the importance of conserving marine ecosystems.

3. Cabinet has taken note that the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Centre in collaboration with the Japan International Corporation Agency would conduct the Sustainable Development Goals Business Verification Survey with the Private Sector for Improving Multi-Hazard Decision Making by using Disaster Information Service in Mauritius project. The Rescuenow technology is utilised in Japan to facilitate the rapid collection and consolidation of information, enabling timely sharing of information to various organisations engaged in disaster response operations.

4. Cabinet has taken note of the status of the Continuum of Road Safety Education project in Mauritius, which was being implemented in line with the National Road Safety Strategy 2016-2025 by the Traffic Management and Road Safety Unit, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, the Mauritius Institute of Education, the Mauritius Film Development Corporation and the Mauritius Police Force.

The aim of Road Safety Education would be to reduce the risk of trauma from injury and death due to road accidents and to lay the foundations for safe road use. The following components of the Road Safety Education Project had been completed, to date:

(a) development of the National Curriculum Framework for Road Safety Education;

(b) development of Road Safety Education pupils books and teachers guide for grades 1 to 6;

(c) publishing and distribution of Road Safety Education books, grades 1 to 6, in all Government and Roman Catholic Aided primary schools;

(d) digitisation of curriculum materials for Road Safety Education for grades 1 and 2; and

(e) training of 853 officers in the Education Sector on Road Safety Education.

5. Cabinet has taken note of the status of road capital projects being implemented by the Road Development Authority, including:

(a) the Grade Separated Junction to link the Verdun Bypass and St Pierre Bypass which was completed and opened to the public on 11 July 2024;

(b) the reconstruction of the New Pont Bruniquel at Tombeau Bay which was completed and opened to the public on 23 June 2024;

(c) the upgrading of B28 Road (Lot 3) from Beau Champ to Bel Air which was nearing completion; and

(d) the Stabilisation Works along B103 at Chamarel which was expected to end in January 2025.

6. Cabinet has taken note of the promulgation of the Central Water Authority (Dry Season) (Amendment No. 6) Regulations 2024 to extend its application until 31 August 2024.

7. Cabinet has taken note of the activities being organised by relevant Ministries/Departments to commemorate World Day against Trafficking in Persons (TIP), which is observed on 30 July every year. The theme chosen by the UN for the 10th World Day against TIP is Leave No Child Behind in the Fight Against Human Trafficking. The following main activities which would span over a period of three months from July to September 2024, would be organised:

(a) capacity building for officers engaged in the Fight against TIP by the Human Rights Division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade;

(b) sensitisation campaigns by the Police Training School and the Brigade pour la Protection de la Famille with the new recruits, newly promoted Police Sergeants and with the general public in Malls;

(c) a panel discussion with all stakeholders concerned organised by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions on the theme  Combating Human Trafficking  The Way Forward;

(d) organisation of an Art Exhibition by students and adhering to the Blue Heart Campaign of the UN for the World Day against TIP to raise awareness amongst the general public by the Polytechnics Mauritius Ltd;

(e) organisation of a round table discussion on the current legal framework on TIP by the University of Technology, Mauritius; and

(f) sensitisation and educational campaigns by the officers of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Welfare to the general public at Social Welfare and Women Empowerment Centres.

8. Cabinet has taken note of the holding of the Harmonisation, Accreditation and Quality Assurance in African Higher Education 3 (HAQAA3) activities organised by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat, in collaboration with OBREAL from 05 to 09 August 2024 in Mauritius. The HAQAA3 initiative is a response of the European Union and African Union to provide African countries with skilled workers, managers and administrators to foster sustainable development and encourage trade and investment as well as to enhance citizenship and democratic values. The HAQAA3 activities would be in the form of round table discussions and panel meetings, as follows:

(a) a Workshop on mobility, academic recognition and the African Credit Transfer System;

(b) a Consultation Meeting on the Pan African Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency; and

(c) a Regional Sustainable Development Goal 4 Workshop on strengthening data generation and promoting the culture of data use.

9. Cabinet has taken note of the holding of a workshop on Medical Approach to Gender Based Violence organised by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family Welfare in collaboration with the Defence Institute of Medical Operations of the United States Air Force School, from 29 July to 02 August 2024 in Mauritius. The objectives of the workshop would be to:

(a) discuss case-based solutions for improving womens health, gender equality and national stability through the reduction of Gender Based Violence; and

(b) elaborate on topics such as Healthy development, boundaries and childhood trauma, Intimate partner violence and how to screen for it, Providing medical care to Gender Based Violence survivors, Sexual assault, medical and forensic approach and Infections related to sexual assault, among others.

10. Cabinet has taken note that, as at 25 July 2024, there were 29 active cases of Dengue Fever in Mauritius, out of which one person had been hospitalised. For Rodrigues, 10 active cases of Dengue Fever had been recorded and two persons were hospitalised.

Cabinet further noted that as at 25 July 2024, two persons had been hospitalised due to Leptospirosis. The Ministry of Health and Wellness was pursuing the sensitisation campaigns on Dengue Fever and Leptospirosis in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.

Note:
The attempted assassination of former US President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, and the dramatic images that emerged from it, are dominating world news. This set me thinking about the important role that iconic images play in capturing attention and influencing reactions to events throughout the world.

Words are important for filling in background, explaining details and spelling out implications. But images pack a punch that cuts through the details to a core message. Impacts of images are visceral rather than rational, but emotional reactions can be dangerous and it is important to dig beneath images in order to fully understand the reality behind them.

Our world is dominated by images, many intentionally designed to deceive and mislead. Have you ever seen a TV advertisement for a car that portrayed its driver stuck in a traffic jam? Not likely! Rather, we see the car zooming along empty highways or crossing empty deserts. The only car in the world! One advertisement showed a car stuck in a jam, but then rising like a helicopter and escaping to empty roads. I fail to understand why car manufacturers believe that such images would persuade anyone to buy their product. But they clearly do.

However, the images emerging from the events in Butler were very real, blood really flowed, but it is the likely future political use of them that bothers me.

Image as message

One media comparison was the photo of a bloodied Trump angrily rising above his protective Special Agents as they rushed him to safety, and the iconic Joe Rosenthal photo of US Marines raising the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima in 1945. The juxtaposition was obvious and linked the 1945 image of imminent victory in the war in the Pacific with Trumps promotion of his Make America Great Again (MAGA) message today. Many in the world media believe that this assassination attempt, Trumps survival and his robust reaction to it, will ensure his re-election in November. The image has become the message.

Joe Rosenthals photo can be compared with another WWII image: Yevgeny Khaldels photo of the raising of the Soviet flag over the Reichstag on May 2, 1945. Reaction to both is conditioned by knowledge of the years of war and carnage that preceded the photographed events. These photos do not celebrate conflict. Rather, they celebrate the imminent end of a war.

Iconic images that really haunt us and force us to react tend to be highly personal and often present an image of a victim rather than of a victor. Think of Dorothea Langes 1936 photo Migrant Mother, which captures the misery of the Oklahoma farmers fleeing to California to escape the dust bowl, an episode of American history that was portrayed memorably in John Steinbecks novel The Grapes of Wrath.

Or think of Nick Uts image Napalm Girl (nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc), taken in 1972 towards the end of the war in Vietnam, which captured the horror, inhumanity and futility of that war in terms of its impact on an innocent child. This photo, the publication of which was controversial, became a global cultural shorthand for the atrocities of the Vietnam War.

Or think of Jeff Wideners Tank Man image, showing the brave but futile protest of one man in front of the tanks that carried out the massacre in Tiananmen Square, Beijing in 1989.

Perhaps the most damning iconic image was Nilufer Demirs 2015 photo of the body of a young Syrian boy, Alan Kurdi, lying dead on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey, after his family drowned in their efforts to flee the civil war that was raging in Syria and reach Greece in a small boat. The EU had already started to open its borders for Syrian refugees, and publication of the photo greatly speeded this process.

Fight?

But back to Trump and the events in Butler, Pennsylvania. As he was bundled off the stage to safety, Trump gestured angrily and urged the crowd to fight, fight, fight. This has become the iconic image. Such instant and instinctive reaction to the murderous attack on him by what appears to have been a lone gunman provides disturbing insights into the highly divisive nature of American politics.

Fight who? It could only mean the people who claimed to have won the 2020 Presidential election that Trump believes he actually won, and the people who are running against him in 2024. In other words, the Democratic Party led by President Biden.

Fight how? In the manner of the assault on the Capitol in Washington on 6th January 2021, perhaps?

We recently witnessed the replacement of a right-wing government by a social democratic one in the UK. The electoral contest was fierce but never became violent. France is engaged in a similar challenge and Germany will face one shortly. Here in Europe, we still believe in the stability of our democracies. I hope that the same applies to the USA, but fear that the events at Butler will make that assumption increasingly hazardous.

And remember the old saying that when America sneezes, Ireland gets a cold. If that happens, the northwest region might well get pneumonia.

 John Bradley is a former ESRI professor and has published on the island economy of Ireland, EU development policy, industrial strategy and economic modelling.
A WESTPORT man has been found guilty of murdering his wife at their home outside the west Mayo town in 2019.

James Kilroy (51) of Kilbree Lower, Westport was found guilty by a jury in the Central Criminal Court in Dublin of the murder of his wife, Valerie French Kilroy, at their home on a date unknown between June 13, 2019 and June 14, 2019, both dates inclusive.

He had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the charge with his defence claiming he was suffering from cannabis-induced psychosis or a form of acute, transient psychotic disorder, when he beat, stabbed and strangled his wife. This was the third trial Mr Kilroy had faced as two previous trials collapsed.

During the trial the jury heard Ms French Kilroy had a violent death having suffered blunt force trauma, strangulation and a stab wound in the rural bungalow she shared with the accused on a road between Castlebar and Westport.

Ms French Kilroy was an occupational therapist with Mayo Mental Health Services and had been described as an immensely popular woman particularly in the healthcare community, with a wide circle of friends.

Valerie French Kilroy was murdered by her husband

The jury heard she had been out with friends on the night of June 13, 2019 and at some point after she returned, Mr Kilroy set upon her with a knife before beating her and then he strangled her. Her body was found on the afternoon of June 14 in a campervan on the property.

Mr Kilroy had been found earlier that morning wandering naked in a nearby field. He later told gardai and psychiatrists of various delusional beliefs, including a belief that his wife was working with Donald Trumps bodyguards to capture, torture and kill him.

There was disagreement among two psychiatrists who assessed Mr Kilroy on where he met the criteria for a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Professor Harry Kennedy said Kilroy was most likely suffering from cannabis intoxication or withdrawal at the time and intoxication was not a defence to a murder charge. Dr Ronan Mullaney, who was called by the defence, said Kilroy did meet the criteria as he was suffering from drug-induced psychosis.

Following a two week trial, the jury took around two hours to find Mr Kilroy guilty of murder and he will be sentenced to the mandatory sentence of life in prison on Monday.
MEP Nina Carberry has called on the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to consider launching a ring-fenced EU skills fund in the next European Budget.

The Fine Gael MEP held an audience with the Commission President during the launch of the European Parliaments Young Members Network.

Speaking from Brussels, MEP Carberry said she used the opportunity to highlight the shortage of skills in Ireland to the Commission President.

Additionally, she pressed home her desire to see new opportunities which improve the digital skills of Europeans, as well as further investments in education and upskilling.

She continued: "Addressing the skills shortage is vital, and I raised the issue of putting additional resources and funding into apprenticeship schemes, as there is a high level of demand for professionals in construction, engineering and healthcare.

With new developments in AI and automation technology, MEP Carberry explained the impact this will have on the recruitment landscape in the years to come.

"We must put skills at the very forefront of the job creation agenda to attract more foreign direct investment into our island, she concluded.
Local history and heritage groups in County Mayo are being invited to access a new guide to help secure the future of their volunteer organisation.

Succession Planning: A Guide for Community Archives and Heritage Groups is a free resource developed by the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN) - a National Museum of Ireland initiative delivered in partnership with the Heritage Council, participating Local Authorities and community groups across Ireland.

The Guide looks at ways volunteer groups can address some of the challenges that can influence their future success.

Common challenges include attracting new members, getting young people involved, keeping adequate records, or losing access to accounts due to lost passwords or IT crashes.

Effective succession planning addresses these challenges so that groups can safeguard their work into the future.

iCAN member Mary OMalley, from the Louisburgh-Killeen Heritage Group in Mayo, welcomed the publication of the new Guide, and said she was delighted the Succession Planning Guide is now available.

iCAN members have drawn on their collective experience and contributed their thoughts and ideas to develop the guidelines, audits and checklists comprised in the guide, and I am sure these will provide a very useful tool and resource for groups who are working to document their local history, heritage and culture and make it available to others, she added.

Frances Holohan, Pat Reid, and Mary OMalley at the launch in Turlough Park, Castlebar (photo: John Mee Photography)

iCAN was set up to support volunteer groups across Ireland to develop and maintain their own community archive. It developed the Guide to provide a simple step-by-step process for good succession planning.

Speaking at the launch, Lorna Elms, iCAN Development Officer, said: iCAN works to empower local communities to document their own history, heritage and culture. This Succession Planning Guide is designed for community archives and heritage groups to ensure their work is future-proofed. It provides a structured approach to forward-planning which, if carried out on an annual basis, will help to ensure groups are maintained and continue to thrive.

The Guide was officially launched yesterday, July 25, at the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar, and is now available to download for free from both the museums and Our Irish Heritage website.
by Les Luchter , July 26, 2024

Have you met Mel, a singing and talking toilet, and his partner in fighting pipe-clogging crimes, Detective Drains?

The unusual duo, who debuted at VidCon 2024 last month in Anaheim, comes from the four-year-old Responsible Flushing Alliance (RFA), a trade association whose CPG members include Clorox, Kimberly-Clark, Unilever and Procter & Gamble.

The groups aim: to get consumers to look for the Do Not Flush symbol on packages of baby wipes, cleaning wipes, makeup removal wipes and more, and to thus #FlushSmart.

Following the 2022 launch of a California law requiring the symbol be used for non-flushable wipes (similar laws are in effect in six other states, and federal legislation awaits Senate approval), RFA has been busy crafting creative ways to get its message across.

advertisement advertisement

A central figure has been a Clog Monster character, with the slogan Dont Feed the Clog Monster, who a year ago showed up in a campaign intended to evoke movie trailers and posters.

And next year, RFA President Lara Wyss tells Marketing Daily, the group is considering a campaign around the concept of potty training for grown-ups.

Those grown-ups, in the case of the 55,000 VidCon attendees, consisted of a lot of Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers, who Wyss says are particularly important to reach as they must live with the wastewater infrastructure for years to come.

The outdoor RFA booth, done entirely in black-and-white  except for yellow crime tape and evidence markers -- was designed to evoke a film noir atmosphere, Wyss says. The rest of VidCon, she notes, was like color overload. We really stood out.

While Mel and Detective Drains had some set spiel, the toilet also interacted directly with attendees to help us solve toilet crimes.piggybacking off of true crime thats so popular and in the zeitgeist right now.

The activation, which included a voice actor behind the scenes, was conceived by RFAs integrated communications agency Burson, with toilet/actor coordination by production company Unrivaled and storytelling assistance from creative partner HZ.

Since VidCon, RFA has continued the talking toilet campaign with social media posts and an active landing page. Theres also an-onsite toolkit, containing materials for wastewater agencies or CPG marketers to use in their own campaigns.

As of last week, Wyss says, RFAs own social media with Mel and Detective Drains had generated over 3 million views, while dozens of organic social posts from VidCon attendees has brought in over 18 million impressions.

In addition, she says, 13 TV outlets, from the city of Los Angeles to the state of Georgia to the country of Australia, ran segments on the activation.

The toilet crimes campaign will continue for another couple of months, Wyss says, as we have a lot of content that we havent released yet.
by Barbara Lippert , Columnist, July 26, 2024

I dont care how many times Ive viewed it. When I hear a voiceover asking, What does a robot know about love? Im drawn to the romance of it, the seductive thought and sheer poetry of that line, as well as the cadence and assonance in the flow of words.

Perfectly written, elevated opening thoughts like this dont happen too often in ads.

But in this masterly spot for Etsy, created by the agency Orchard and set to run during the Paris Olympics (speaking of romance), the spoken line is matched with an equally artful image.

On its own in a white room, we see a stainless-steel robotic arm, that, while swinging and sculptural, is also hideously cold, with two off-putting pincers sticking out of the top.

Then, after black and white shots of factory automation, by enormous contrast, we see quick, warm-color cuts of artisans plunging their human hands into a variety of deliciously tactile materials like clay, or working a potters wheel or wooden lathe. And the voiceover delivers an answer about what robots know.

advertisement advertisement

Nothing. They know nothing about love, or the joy of someone creating a table from a piece of wood, or jewelry from a sheet of metal.

The voiceover continues, Fingerprints we leave behind show how determined we are to give the world a piece of ourselves.

The poetry is killin me!

The spot is part of a bigger message about the importance of keeping the human in business.

Obviously, we live in an age of unrelenting digital experiences and involvements, soon to be more dehumanized by the total encroachment of AI.

So, its delightful as well as smart strategy for Etsy to stop the hard, cold speediness for a minute to stress the hand-crafted, small batch, warm and inspired work of imperfect human hands.

And to give the artists/small business owners who do the work center stage.

In addition to commercials, the campaign will include clips on social media, plus billboards in New York City and London, that allow us to meet the people and stories behind the carefully crafted products.

Etsy will also promote the makers by tagging them under new category designations like Made by, Designed by and Sourced by.

"In an increasingly automated world, Etsy stands for something different," said David Kolbusz, chief creative officer of Orchard, in a release. "Their sellers aren't just filling orders, they're conjuring magic from their fingertips and channeling their talents into the creation of objects you can touch and keep."

Indeed, no battle between humans and witheringly cold tech can be recounted without referring to the crash this spring of the notorious Apple commercial, Crush.

It featured beautiful musical instruments and a variety of art objects being pulverized under the weight and claws of an industrial press, to fit into one impossibly sleek tablet, aka, a thinner iPad.

They made it even more ghastly by seeming to anthropomorphize the objects they were crushing. A guitar has a face, but does it have a soul?

It resulted in so much immediate, worldwide outrage that it was soon pulled. And in a rare move by the masters of Cupertino, the company apologized for its misjudgment.

So it was easy for other companies and brands to avoid Apples fate and and steer clear of any analog-shaming.

But speaking for New-York based Etsy, Kolbusz said, "Our film isn't anti-tech, it's pro-human. It's a reminder that the things that arrive on your doorstep can come from someplace more meaningful than a fulfillment center."

Etsys website opens with the line, Theres a person behind every piece. Certainly, this far into our inevitable, dystopian tech future, its nice to feel grounded, or as this Etsy commercial more poetically put it, to leave fingerprints of ourselves for the next generations.

But amidst all this poetry, in the final seconds of the spot, perhaps in a homage to Apples misfire, and in a flourish of confetti, we see the robotic arm crushed into a sad little pile of dead metal on the floor, followed by the strong kicker, Keep Commerce Human.

(Although there is some contradiction in Etsys recent adoption of AI to optimize search.)

Still, I look forward to seeing the spot, called Human Performance, playing out on the ultimate stage for human performance next week during the Olympics.

Because a robot knows nothing of love, never mind about the human hearts, muscles, blood and tears of those top competitors wholl be sweating by the Seine.
by Ray Schultz , July 25, 2024

The legislative effort to hold the U.S. Postal Service accountable for on-time delivery of periodicals received a boost on Tuesday when Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia) helped introduce, bicameral legislation to support rural newspaper delivery by incentivizing on-time U.S. Postal Service (USPS) delivery and limiting excessive rate increases for periodicals.

The Deliver for Democracy Act would hold the U.S. Postal Service accountable for on-time newspaper delivery service while incentivizing reliable service.

In addition, the legislation now on tap in the House would limit rate increases for periodicals unless delivery and service standards are met.

I remain frustrated that U.S. Postal Service leadership is once again planning to raise postal rates  for the sixth time in three years  without fixing the persistent mail service and delivery issues that they know hurt Virginians and Virginia businesses, Spanberger says.

advertisement advertisement

Spanberger adds: Specifically, these frequent, excessive rate increases have impeded the business of our local newspapers. Local journalism is critical to keeping our neighbors informed  and many Virginians rely on their local paper to get the news they need.

As written, the Deliver for Democracy Act would require that:

The USPS either achieve at least a 95% on-time delivery rate for periodicals or an improvement of at least 2 percentage points to unlock its 2% surcharge authority for that class of mail.

The USPS annually report to the Postal Regulatory Commission on its progress in including on-time delivery data for newspapers in its periodical service performance measurement.

The Government Accountability Office submit a report to Congress on options for alternate USPS pricing schemes to improve the financial position of periodicals.

The Deliver for Democracy Act was introduced in the Senate in May by a bipartisan group of senators, including Senator Peter Welch (D-VT), who is leading the effort along with Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD).

That bill is also supported by Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Tina Smith (D-Minn.).

In the House, the bill was introduced by Representatives Robert Aderholt (R-AL) and Emmanuel Cleaver (D-MO).
by Danielle Oster , July 25, 2024

Firearm Restraining Orders -- also known as red flag laws or extreme risk laws -- help save lives, yet many people are not familiar with them.

Thats the impetus behind a new firearm safety PSA campaign released by the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), the Ad Council, and the organization Brady: United Against Gun Violence, in collaboration with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH).

Red flag laws laws such as the one that exists in Illinois allow for household members or family members to request civil orders that temporarily prevent the purchase or possession of firearms by a person in crisis.

According to a recent study by the Ad Council Research Institute (ACRI) and the Joyce Foundation, only 10% of people in the state are familiar with FRO laws and know when and how they can be used.

advertisement advertisement

The campaign follows a report published by the office of Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in June that described gun-related violence as a public health crisis and called for more widespread implementation of FROs.

According to CDC data cited in the report, there were over 48,000 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2022  over half of which were suicides.

The startling rate of gun violence in the United States right now has become a public health crisis," Ro Patrick, group campaign director at the Ad Council, told Marketing Daily. "Firearm Restraining Orders are potentially life-saving tools that grant individuals in crisis time and space away from firearms."

"Because of the significant ability of these interventions to curb gun violence, it is of utmost importance that we educate the public about these laws and how to use them so that we can keep people safe," Patrick said, adding that "extreme risk laws and firearm restraining orders allow families an opportunity to protect their loved ones during moments of crisis."

A 60-second Pause to Heal PSA tells the story of a man in distress whose sister enacts an FRO for his safety, with a cinematic depiction of the man in a secluded location with a handgun resting beside him. After his sister calls to inform him of the family's decision, the scene is paused, the gun vanishes, and the man manages to put himself on the path to recovery.

The PSA concludes with the message: By temporarily removing a gun, a Firearm Restraining Order gives a person in crisis time to heal.

The video is part of a broader awareness campaign that includes a series of ads across media formats driving audiences to visit a digital information hub on the Illinois government's website to learn more about FROs.

Pause to Heal builds off of Brady and the Ad Council's previous End Family Fire campaign, shifting its focus from safe firearm storage to deaths by suicide -- a persistent and often overlooked aspect of the gun violence problem in America.

According to the June Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis In America report from the Surgeon General's office, the rates of firearm-related suicide increased by 20% across the U.S. from 2012-22, with the highest increases among younger people.

While limited to Illinois, the campaign also functions as a pilot for future efforts expanding its reach to other states and Washington, D.C., according to a release.

Twenty-one states have variations on extreme risk laws like the one in Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C.

Widespread awareness of Firearm Restraining Orders is crucial to ending family fire and freeing America from gun violence. This uniquely American epidemic can only be quashed if we are all aware of the evidence-based tools we have at our disposal to protect our loved ones, Brady president Kris Brown said in a statement.

Brown added: By sharing information in accessible ways, we can empower families to use these tools to save lives and find the time needed to get help and address crises.

The campaign also comes after the Supreme Court decision to uphold the legality of civil domestic violence restraining orders, which allow civil courts to impose restrictions on gun ownership on the perpetrators of domestic violence, in its United States v. Rahimi decision this year.

Patrick told Marketing Daily that the Supreme Court's recent decisions and timing had no direct impact on the rollout of this campaign as our main focus was quickly and effectively addressing the public health crisis of gun violence and highlighting the healing role of Firearm Restraining Orders, adding: Our goal has always been to launch our work as soon as possible, ultimately helping to keep our communities safe.
by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, July 26, 2024

The search advertiser California Crane School will ask a federal appellate court to revive claims that Google conspired with Apple to avoid competing in the paid-search business.

California Crane, which trains crane operators, filed a notice of appeal with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, but has not yet made substantive arguments in the matter.

The move comes in a legal battle dating to 2021, when California Crane alleged that Google's longstanding arrangement to serve as the default search engine in Apple's Safari was part of a conspiracy to avoid competition. California Crane contended that the alleged conspiracy resulted in higher prices for search ads.

U.S. District Court Judge Pitts in the Northern District of California threw out the claims against Apple, and sent the claims against Google to arbitration because its contract with advertisers requires arbitration of disputes.

Pitts said in a March ruling that California Crane's allegations -- even if true -- wouldn't prove to be a violation of antitrust laws.

advertisement advertisement

Googles dominance in the search and search advertising markets alone is insufficient to allege that Google and Apple are engaged in a horizontal antitrust conspiracy, as its dominance could rationally be attributed to a number of other market factors, Pitts wrote.

California Crane subsequently asked Pitts to reconsider the ruling in light of information that emerged during an antitrust trial against Google in federal court in the District of Columbia.

In that matter, the Department of Justice and a coalition of states argued that Google wrongly became dominant in search by contracting to be the default search engine in Mozilla's Firefox browser and Apple's Safari browser, and arranging for its search engine to come pre-installed on Android smartphones.

U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta, who presided over that trial, has not yet issued a decision.

Pitts rejected California Crane's bid last week for several reasons, including that the evidence that was introduced in the government's case against Google wouldn't have changed the outcome of California Crane's complaint.

The court was already aware of the ... relationship between Google and Apple based on the revenue-sharing agreement related to Google being the default search engine on Apples devices, Pitts wrote.
by Danielle Oster , July 26, 2024

The Association of National Advertisers has released an Ethics Code of Marketing Best Practices in an effort to provide a comprehensive ethics framework and resource guide that outlines best practices for marketers.

Unveiled last week, the Ethics Code of Marketing Best Practices" incorporates and expands existing ANA and AIMM (Alliance For Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing) guidelines and research, with recommendations for best practices to ensure consumers are kept informed and protected.

This includes the ANA's first guidelines around the ethical uses of AI in marketing, as well as best practices that address privacy, diversity and inclusion, and advertising to children.

The ANA has always encouraged its members to set industry best practices and adopt self-regulatory standards to protect consumers, but historically, those principles and practices were spread across a range of sources and programs. The ANA Ethics Code of Marketing Best Practices consolidates and expands those disparate standards and programs into a single comprehensive framework for the industry, ANA Senior Vice President, Center for Ethical Marketing Senny Boone told Marketing Daily.

advertisement advertisement

The Code reinforces the organizations' mandate to be a force for good" in the industry, Boone added.

Legislative changes and technological innovation have brought a sense of urgency to outlining standards for ethical marketing in their respective areas.

With the widespread adoption of new state privacy laws and regulations, we felt it was important for ANA to provide a unified source for privacy standards to protect consumers. The Ethics Code also includes new standards around emerging areas like the use of generative AI in advertising, Boone said.

Among the ANAs guidelines around the ethical use of AI is transparency in the use of technology in marketing campaigns, as well as addressing best practices for mitigating certain risks associated with AI. "If AI is trained on flawed data and assumptions, it will lead to flawed outcomes, including potential errors and bias in how individuals and groups are presented in advertising, Boone explained.

We have offered steps in the Code to help minimize these and other AI-related risks in marketing, fundraising, and advertising, Boone added.

The release of the Code -- which includes a section devoted to Diversity And Inclusion Best Practices And Principles-- comes in the wake of companies including John Deere and Tractor Supply recently abandoning diversity and inclusivity commitments, in response to anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-DEI efforts led by far-right media personalities and conservative lobbying groups.

AIMM co-founder Carlos Santiago told Marketing Daily that the group has consistently found that diversity in marketing is not just ethical  it's a key driver of business growth.

Santiago pointed to data that demonstrates both consumer expectations and tangible benefits of inclusive marketing, including AIMMs findings that ads that score high in cultural relevance are connected to a nearly threefold (2.9x) lift in purchase intent, 3.8x improvement in brand perception, and 5.4x boost in brand trust for ads with high cultural relevance scores.

Santiago also cited a recent AIMM research report, which found that 60% of companies reported business growth resulting from increased multicultural marketing spending, and 43% reported such growth from greater diversity in their marketing teams.

The ANA said the ethics Code will be used for both consumer inquiries and the Center for Ethical Marketing's industry self-regulation practices by December 1, as well as in informing training materials produced by the Center for Ethical Marketing promoted to ANA members.

ANA members are invited to offer suggestions or make inquiries with regard to the final document by December 1.

In the coming months, the ANA will promote adoption of the new guidelines through educational training modules for members, roundtable discussion, committee meetings, and the publication of white papers on the topic.

The release of the document is the culmination of a process that began over a year ago. Designed by industry leaders in combination with ANA membership input, the ethical principles were shared in a draft version with ANA members for input before publication.

The biggest challenge was ensuring the document could function as a comprehensive ethics code while remaining applicable to common industry practices, Boone said. It needed to reflect the industry's advances tempered with transparency and accountability for our consumer audiences.

The ANA emphasizes that the guidelines will be a living document reviewed regularly by its recently formed Marketing Ethics Code Steering Committee, with the goal of keeping guidelines effective and up to date.

The advertising industry is going through a period of rapid change, and it's important that our standards and best practices keep pace with those changes," Boone said, adding that the committee will "review and update specific areas of the Code based on any changes in technology, policy, or law.
  Trusted Source

Misexpression of inactive genes in whole blood is associated with nearby rare structural variants



Go to source Trusted Source



#Gene misbehavior is common but doesn't always cause health issues. Understanding gene #misexpression helps diagnose and treat #diseases, aiding further genetic research.

The Role of the Human Genome in Cell Function

Advertisement

Advertisement

Misexpression of inactive genes in whole blood is associated with nearby rare structural variants - (https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(24)00223-4)

Scientists have discovered that genes often defy expectations, turning on when they should be off in healthy individuals. The team also identify several mechanisms behind these gene activity errors. This may help inform precision medicine approaches and enable the development of targeted therapies to correct expression ().Researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Cambridge and AstraZeneca studied the activity of inactive genes in a large, healthy population for the first time. While rare at the individual gene level, they revealed misexpression is widespread across samples and involved more than half of the genes that should be inactive.The findings, published in theshed new light on how our genetic code operates. The approach could be used in future research to investigate various complex diseases.The human genome contains about 19,900 genes. These genes form part of the instruction manual for our bodies, encoding proteins needed to carry out cell functions. Proper gene regulation involves turning these gene instructions on and off as needed, depending on a cells specific role or environmental factors. When this regulation fails and a typically inactive gene is activated, or expressed, it can disrupt normal cell function1.While gene misexpression has previously been linked to several rare diseases , such as congenital limb syndromes2, it is not known how often or why this may happen in the general population.In this new study, researchers analysed blood samples from 4,568 healthy individuals from the INTERVAL study3. They used advanced RNA sequencing techniques to measure gene activity and whole genome sequencing to identify genetic changes behind irregular gene activity.The team found that while misexpression events were rare at the individual gene level occurring in only 0.07 percent of genes  nearly all samples  96 percent  had some misexpression, with over half of the normally inactive genes showing misexpression. They also found these events can be caused by rare structural changes in the DNA4.Thomas Vanderstichele, first author of the study at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: Until now, we have been looking at disease risk through the lens of highly active genes. Our study reveals unusual gene activity is far more usual than previously thought and we need to consider the full picture, including genes that shouldn't be active but sometimes are. This is a big step towards more personalised healthcare, enabling a more comprehensive understanding of all the ways our genes impact our health.Dr Katie Burnham, author of the study at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: Interestingly, while over half of genes occasionally misexpress, we find certain critical genes, particularly those governing development, rarely make such mistakes. This suggests that when these essential genes do misexpress, the consequences for health and disease are likely to be more severe.Dr Emma Davenport, senior author of the study at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: The work of this pioneering large-scale study is testament to the incredible genomics ecosystem in Cambridge that brought together experts from the Sanger Institute, the University of Cambridge and AstraZeneca. The findings open avenues for research into gene misexpression across different tissues, to understand its role in various diseases and potential treatments.Source-Eurekalert
  Trusted Source

Cord blood banking: Experts raise concern over claims made for stem cell applications



Go to source Trusted Source



Private biobanks market #umbilicalcord blood banking to expectant parents as an investment in their child's future health, claiming #stemcell therapies can treat various life-threatening diseases, from #cerebralpalsy to #leukemia.

Cells4Life: The UK's Largest Cord Blood Bank Highlights Wide-Ranging Benefits of Stem Cell Therapy

Advertisement

Advertisement

Cord blood banking: Experts raise concern over claims made for stem cell applications - (https://www.bmj.com/content/386/bmj.q1581)

Some private UK biobanks may be misleading expectant parents about the benefits of storing umbilical cord blood for treating potential future life-threatening diseases in their child ().Over the past decade growing numbers of parents have chosen to store blood from the umbilical cord, which contains stem cells, in case their infant develops a condition that could be treated with stem cell therapy Parents must use a private biobank which charges around 550 to 3000 for freezing a babys umbilical cord blood. On top of this, parents must pay an annual storage fee of over 100 to keep samples frozen.But experts in regenerative medicine say many of these companies marketing claims are misleading.For example, Cells4Life, which describes itself as the UKs largest provider of cord blood banking services, claims that umbilical cord blood is routinely used in treatments for over 80 different conditions and diseases, including cancers , blood disorders, immune disorders, and autism . It adds that umbilical cord blood stem cells are pure and plastic, meaning that they can become almost any tissue type in the body and may even be used to regrow entire organs.The investigation also found that Cells4Life markets its services on questionable evidence published in theAlthough the journal claims to operate a peer review process, the research article referenced by Cells4Life was published in the journal just 17 days after receipta timescale far shorter than the 12-14 weeks typical for peer reviewed journals. Thecontacted two editors listed on the journals editorial board who said they did not in fact hold these roles.SmartCells, another private cord blood bank service, claims on their website that the possibilities for using stem cells are endless as these cells have the ability to repair, replace, and regenerate cells of almost any kind. The website of another service, Future Health, lists more than 75 genetic, immune and blood disorders that can be treated.Charles Murry, director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington, Seattle, and Pietro Merli, a paediatrician at the Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital in Italy, said the list of applications is unrealistic.Murry says the list is based on claims by people in the late 1990s that these cells have the plasticity to become almost any type of cell in the bodyclaims which have been very rigorously disproven.He said that umbilical cord blood contains adult stem cells which limits the types of cells they can becomehaematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) can become blood cells, and mesenchymal stem or stromal cells (MSCs) can build connective tissue such as bone, cartilage, tendons, ligaments, muscles, and bone marrow Cells4Life said, Any cursory search of published literature on future applications of perinatal stem cells demonstrates the huge potential that cord blood holds for use in regenerative medicine in the future.It pointed to research which suggests that MSCs can be transformed into inducible pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) which can mimic embryonic stem cells and are therefore capable of forming any tissue except germ cells (precursors of egg and sperm cells).Murry highlighted that transforming stem cells into iPSCs requires highly trained stem cell scientists and that iPSCs can also be created from adult blood or skin cells meaning that cord blood banking is unnecessary.Merli, who uses stem cell therapy to treat his patients, says many of the conditions he treats do not require autologous stem cells (harvested from the patient) and that allogeneic stem cells (from matched donors) can be used instead.He said that leukaemia was one of the few conditions where doctors might use stem cells harvested from the patient, but that these could be taken from the patients bone marrow so there was no benefit to harvesting and storing stem cells from cord blood.He added that in Italy it is illegal for stem cell therapy companies to make such claims in their advertising.Source-Eurekalert
The same night a U.S. Army officer filmed himself deleting Army training materials while he was being discharged from the military, he called the Russian Embassy in Washington, D.C., according to federal prosecutors.

In the video Manfredo Martin-Michael Madrigal III recorded in February 2022, he was graphically describing his ill-will towards the Army, prosecutors said.

Madrigal, 38, pleaded guilty on July 24 to one count of destruction of U.S. Army materials and three counts of making a false statement, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Western District of Virginia.

The charges stem from when Madrigals discharge from the Army was pending and he was assigned as an attorney to the U.S. Army Judge Advocate Generals Legal Center and School ( JAG School) in Charlottesville, prosecutors said.

The case began as a national security espionage suspicion, Madrigals defense attorney, John N. Maher, told McClatchy News in an emailed statement on July 25.

What the facts truly prove is that First Lieutenant Madrigal distinguished himself as an 82nd Airborne Paratrooper and a senior non-commissioned officer with the 75th Ranger Regiment, having conducted onerous and life threatening missions our country asked him to perform, Maher said.

By early February 2022, the Army was in the process of discharging Madrigal because he never reported a prior conviction for driving under the influence, according to prosecutors. At the time, his job was to create training materials for the JAG Corps and Army, prosecutors said.

An investigation revealed that Madrigal deleted JAG School training materials related to national security without permission  and sent a video of himself doing so in a text message to a woman, according to an affidavit written by an FBI agent.

In the recording, Madrigal expressed bitterness toward the Army, making several expletive statements, the affidavit says.

You thought you could easily remove me? Madrigal said in part of the video, according to the affidavit.

Call to Russian Embassy

In another text message and voicemail to the woman who received the video, Madrigal mentioned Russia, saying, Ya, Russia has reached out to me and that he made plans to travel to the country, the affidavit says.

Days before his discharge from the Army on Feb. 22, 2022, Madrigal messaged the woman again, saying: The Russians in DC reached out to me, they would like to know what I know, according to the affidavit.

However, Madrigals phone records showed no Russian representative called him, the affidavit says.

Instead, the records showed he called the Russian Embassy in D.C. the day he deleted JAG School training modules, according to the criminal complaint, which says his call lasted about 2 minutes and 26 seconds.

Lying to the FBI

As an Army officer, Madrigal had an active security clearance and served overseas on sensitive operations before working at the JAG School, prosecutors said.

He lied on his exit paperwork during his Army discharge, claiming he had no unreported contact with a foreign national, according to prosecutors.

A few months later, Madrigal lied to the FBI, saying he never deleted Army training materials and he never spoke with a foreign national at the Russian Embassy, prosecutors said.

According to Maher, Madrigals offenses occurred while he was struggling with chronic PTSD, which he developed from close quarter combat during his military service, and was drinking to excess.

Madrigal was initially arrested on a cyberstalking charge in August 2022, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.

FBI agents learned Madrigal had been threatening the woman who received the video of him deleting Army training materials, prosecutors said in an earlier release. She was Madrigals former romantic partner, according to prosecutors.

Madrigal messaged her between late 2021 and throughout the middle of 2022, threatening her career, family, and pets, and sent sexually explicit photos of her that she didnt know he had, prosecutors said.

The woman reported he also threatened her with a gun and damaged her items, according to prosecutors.

Madrigal threatened a second woman, another former romantic partner, with a pistol and pointed it at her head in August 2022, prosecutors said.

He pressured this woman give the FBI false information about him, according to prosecutors.

Since Madrigal agreed to plead guilty to charges related to deleting JAG School materials and lying to the FBI, the cyberstalking charge and other counts against him will be dismissed after his sentencing, his plea agreement shows.

Madrigal is considered a disabled veteran and has been dry for two years, Maher told McClatchy News.

He said Madrigal is a wounded warrior who is no danger to anybody and is now on the mend to continue to contribute positively to our neighbors and our country.

The date of Madrigals sentencing wasnt listed in court records.

_____

2024 The Charlotte Observer. Visit at charlotteobserver.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
JERUSALEM  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States comes as negotiations to end the Israel-Hamas war and recover hostages held in Gaza inch forward  with no immediate deal in sight.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States continue to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased cease-fire agreement that would stop the fighting and free the hostages. The negotiations have repeatedly hit obstacles over disputes about the governance of post-war Gaza and how enduring the cease-fire will be.

Netanyahu's vowing "total victory" in Gaza to thunderous congressional applause Wednesday risks inflaming tensions with Hamas at a time when talks are delicate. But he also came under increased U.S. pressure to engage sincerely in cease-fire efforts. Critics say Netanyahu is stalling during negotiations so that he can draw out the war for his own political gain.

A team of Israeli negotiators that was meant to travel to Qatar for another round of talks was held back Thursday and may be dispatched next week.

Here's a look at how Netanyahu's visit might impact the talks:

It may have bolstered pressure for a deal

During the trip, Netanyahu seemed to avoid public mention of cease-fire talks, angering hostage families in Israel who felt their plight was ignored. Domestic pressure runs high for a deal that would bring home the remaining 110 hostages, but Netanyahu also faces opposition from his far-right governing partners to any agreement to end the war.

His speech to Congress Wednesday made scant mention of the hostages. His office said reaching a deal was but one of several items on his wish list to discuss with American officials.

Still, the visit opened Netanyahu up to face-to-face pressure from Israel's top ally, on whom it counts for critical military and domestic support.

Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said that in their meetings with Netanyahu in Washington on Thursday, they would prioritize closing gaps on a hostage deal.

In some of her most forceful comments, Harris said she told Netanyahu it is time to end the war and bring back the hostages.

But with Netanyahu keeping an eye on his coalition partners - the key to his political survival - the trip could also be part of a broader delaying tactic to avoid reaching a deal.

While his coalition is wobbling because of the tension with the extreme-right parties, Netanyahu is deliberately delaying the negotiations for the release of the hostages, wrote columnist Amos Harel in the liberal Israeli daily, Haaretz, adding that Netanyahu had engineered a long trip.

The rapidly changing political developments in the U.S., Harel said, might distract leaders there from pressing the cease-fire talks urgently.

It inflamed tensions with Hamas

Netanyahu's visit and his fiery speech to Congress stoked tensions with Hamas at a time when the militant group's negotiators are at the table.

Hamas reacted angrily to Netanyahu's presence in the U.S., calling his vows to return the hostages insincere.

He is the one who thwarted all efforts aimed at ending the war and concluding a deal to release the prisoners, it said in a statement after the speech. It called Netanyahu's talk of intensified efforts to free the hostages a complete lie to mislead public opinion.

Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha said Thursday the group didn't believe the visit  during which Netanyahu received a standing ovation from Congress  would prompt enough pressure on him to impact the Israeli negotiating position.

If the American administration is serious, it should put pressure on the prime minister of the Zionist government Benjamin Netanyahu to stop this aggression, he said.

But Hamas stopped short of pulling out of talks over the visit, a sign the talks may resume.

Gaps in talks remain

Netanyahus U.S. trip came as the talks already faced challenges.

The cease-fire plan calls for an initial six-week phase in which Hamas would release some hostages  including women, older adults and wounded people  in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from populated areas. Palestinian civilians would be able to return to their homes and humanitarian aid would be ramped up.

The two sides are supposed to use that six-week period to negotiate an agreement on the second phase, which would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israels full withdrawal from Gaza along with an enduring halt to the war.

But the two sides appear far apart on that second phase.

Israeli leaders have suggested they aim for a one-phase deal freeing some hostages, after which they would resume their campaign to destroy Hamas and keep troops in parts of the territory long term.

Netanyahu has spoken of striking a partial deal. A day before coming to the U.S., he told troops in Gaza's southernmost city Rafah that Israel demanded a maximum number of hostages be released in the first phase. On Tuesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel seeks a deal for the release of dozens of hostages. And after this issue has passed, we will know how to return to fighting.

That's a scenario Hamas has rejected. It dropped a demand that Israel commit up front to a complete end to the war, but it has sought guarantees from mediators that negotiations - and the halt to fighting - will continue until a permanent cease-fire is reached.

Mediators say they dont want to repeat the experience of a short-lived truce in November that led to the release of some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners but was followed by a renewed Israeli offensive that has continued for eight months since.

Mediators appear to be trying to sort out as much of the second phase as possible now, including a post-war rule for Gaza without Hamas.

There are details to be worked through, said U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan while speaking in Aspen, Colorado last week. Sullivan said those issues include what is to be Israels remaining military presence in Gaza, humanitarian assistance and a day-after plan for governing Gaza.

Netanyahus office did not say when the Israeli negotiating team would be dispatched once more for talks. At Congress, he said Israel was actively engaged in intensive efforts" to secure the release of the hostages and was confident these efforts could succeed. But he also pledged total victory in the war with Hamas.

Taha said Hamas is waiting on an official Israeli response to amendments proposed by Hamas.

-

AP Correspondents Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington D.C., Bassem Mroue and Abby Sewell in Beirut and Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
Jennifer Barnhill is a columnist for Military.com writing about military families.

The steady military spouse 21% unemployment rate somehow still makes headlines despite being a documented problem since the 1970s. We don't often read about the 36% of military spouses who are out of the workforce entirely. The often-ignored truth is that military spouses are out of the workforce at statistically higher rates than their civilian counterparts, but no one talks about it because it is seen as a "choice."

Army spouse Elizabeth Mays was relieved that her husband was going to be able to be there for the birth of their child. He was about to deploy, so they knew there was no guarantee he would be able to be there for this important family moment. But her relief was short-lived when she started to sort through the logistics of staying in the workforce herself.

"We did the math, and I would be paying them $50 a week essentially to work there," given child care costs, said Mays. "And so that was a decision. It just doesn't make sense. I'm going to have a newborn. I'm going to be commuting an hour.  It was five years later that I looked to reenter the workforce."

Although the Mays family weighed their options and Elizabeth "chose" to exit the workforce, her story highlights a level of nuance about the decisions military spouses make that the military community often glazes over.

"When we talked to military spouses, they kind of felt like they didn't have much of a choice," John Sawyer, director for education, workforce and income security for the Government Accountability Office, told Military.com in a May interview. "Either they wouldn't, could not work at all or work part-time, just based on the challenges they faced."

The GAO recently released a report diving into the experiences of military spouses who choose to work part-time.

"About 23% said they worked part-time because they wanted to spend time with their children. About 16% said they can only find part-time work; 12% said they face child care problems," said Sawyer, citing findings from the DoD's 2019 Survey of Active Duty Spouses that informed the GAO's report.

Over the years, I have spoken to many military spouse parents who "choose" to work part-time or remain out of the workforce to create stability for their children. While many spouses do remain out of the workforce as their children get older, most make this "choice" when their kids are young and child care is more expensive and elusive. The 2019 survey confirms these stories. Parents of children under six years old were more likely to report "wanting to stay home with kids" (41%) and experiencing "child care problems" (25%) as their reason for working part-time. Respondents with older children had fewer child care "problems," which makes sense. Older kids are in school half the day and can attend school-provided before- and after-care. Parents of older children have more "choices" available to them.

But what about spouses without children? It turns out their lack of choice is laid bare. They work part-time because they "could only find part-time work" (27%).

"We don't have children yet," said Heba Abdelaal. "When we talk about military spouse employment, the very first and maybe only challenge that is presented is, 'Well, child care is the main or primary issue.'... But again, not having children yet, that wasn't exactly the primary barrier that I experienced to employment. It was actually the fact that we're overseas."

And Abdelaal is not the only one whose workforce status was influenced by more than parenting. Before I married my husband, I was working at the Smithsonian and had been offered a full scholarship to obtain my Ph.D. in art history. I had big plans to edit a museum magazine and fact-check scholarly journals in Italy. I quickly realized that I would not be able to find a job in my field if I were to have no control over where we lived. Like many career fields, mine was one where you go where the job is and work your way up a slow-moving ladder. Because my husband couldn't quit the military, I "chose" to decline the scholarship and move to Pensacola, Florida, where he was in flight school.

I couldn't pursue my dream job and we didn't have kids, so we were free to "choose" to have an adventure and move outside of the continental U.S. to Atsugi, Japan. On paper, it was absolutely my choice to risk being out of the workforce during this time, a period before remote work was a possibility. After Japan, we had no choice. We were told to go to Fallon, Nevada -- an employment desert -- where I was offered insultingly low salaries because "military spouses didn't need to pay for their own rent or health care."

While I eventually found a great job, it was a job, not a career.

We "chose" to go back to Japan because, by then, I had one toddler and was pregnant with our second child as we approached our permanent change of station move. I knew finding a new job and affordable child care while six months pregnant would be next to impossible, so I "chose" to be out of the workforce again.

At every turn, my "choice" to be out of the workforce or be underemployed was a direct result of the confluence of military lifestyle factors I'm forced to consider as I make "choices" for my career and life.

If my husband and I did not have to move due to his military career, I would have chosen to pursue a job within my field. I would have had kids but been in my roles long enough to have legal protections to be able to return to work and have the opportunity to invest in my retirement savings. I may not have had the amazing adventures from both tours in Japan, but the ability to pursue a professional career would have been more of a choice.

But because these decisions to work part-time or not work are seen as choices, we know very little about them. Although surveys ask surface-level questions, the deep dives are not often widely reported. The 2019 Survey of Active Duty Spouses asked military spouses why they were not looking for work (out of the workforce) and presented spouses with 16 responses including, "I do not want to work;" "I cannot find any work that matches my skills;" and "I want to be able to stay home to care for my children."

Like part-time working military spouse parents, those who were not looking for work cited wanting to stay home with their children (41%).

The No. 1 reason military spouses without children said they were not looking for work was "Other" at 28%.

As a researcher, when I see "other" as the most commonly selected choice, I assume one of two things. Either the population being surveyed is so diverse that a consensus is unlikely or the survey question was poorly constructed. While both are possible, it is hard not to notice an obvious choice that was omitted -- the demands the military places on military families, namely service members' unpredictable work schedules and deployments.

These demands are what Nobel Prize winner Claudia Goldin calls "greedy" work. Her research looks at how highly demanding jobs force couples to negotiate equity within their family unit. If jobs are predictable and are limited to 40 hours a week, the "couple's equity" has the potential to be balanced. But "greedy" professions like law and medicine require individuals to climb demanding career ladders working overtime, throwing the couple's equity off balance. Unlike civilian greedy professions that dangle high salaries and perks, the military does not pay service members enough to cover 24/7 child care or housekeeping and food preparation services, things that help rebalance a dual working couple's equity. As a result, military spouses "choose" to work part-time, outside their field or not at all, and they do so at significantly higher rates than civilians.

According to research from the Brookings Institution, 18% of Americans aged 25 to 54 were out of the workforce in 2016; 70% were women and 30% were male. In 2017, the DoD noted that 38% of military spouses were out of the workforce. Even when numbers are weighted to reflect the makeup of the military spouse population -- which is roughly 90% female -- the number is significantly higher than the anticipated 23.76% one would expect to see within a population with those demographics.

"We need to develop a different lexicon because [the terms] unemployed, underemployed, don't necessarily pull out the nuances of our experience," said Sue Hoppin, the founder and president of the National Military Spouse Network. "If you do not disaggregate the data, the story is very misleading, because it sounds like we're all doing well. And the support that we need is very different."

NMSN has advocated for a more detailed look at the military spouse employment problem, and it is right to do so because little progress has been made over the past 50 years.

"A number of the military spouses we talked with were people who'd been in military life 10, maybe 15 years or more," said Sawyer. "What stood out to me was they were still struggling with this sort of cycle of part-time work and just kind of piecing together jobs over time."

Mays chose to get out of the workforce knowing she would reenter at some point. "I had my eye on that management position," she shared. "Three years later, because we were actually stationary for three years, I did move up to a senior level, but not management."

For Mays, the military lifestyle influenced her choice to not work for a time, and the cost of her choice was seniority. Despite the military being a huge factor in her decision, the cost was paid only by Mays, and outsiders looking at her resume might say, "Well, it was your decision."

As this community seeks to increase military spouse workforce participation -- not just decrease unemployment -- we must confront the myth of choice knowing full well it will lead to uncomfortable conversations. To not do so is to embrace the rhetoric that has allowed military spouse workforce participation to stagnate for the past 50 years.
Last time, on Fire Watch, we took you inside Navy boot camp. I was accompanied by Military.com reporter and Navy veteran Konstantin Toropin. And we came armed with a few questions: Is Navy boot camp different than veterans remember it? Is it still hard? And what do those changes say about the sailors joining the Navy today?

In this episode, we're taking a closer look at those changes -- ones that have fueled generational dissent among Navy veterans who see new recruits as being coddled. But isn't there a better way to assess what the Navy and its new sailors are doing?

Reporters Drew F. Lawrence and Konstantin Toropin go to Navy boot camp.

Additional Resources

Listen, rate, and subscribe!

Spotify

Apple Podcasts

Google Podcasts

Transcript:

SPEAKERS

Chief Petty Officer David Bevels, Rear Admiral Carl A. Lahti, Capt. Kenneth Froberg, Command Master Chief Van-Troi SibiliaMartinez, Konstantin Toropin, RDC, Commander Christopher McHenry, Recruits, David Rogers, Recruit, Video, Drew F. Lawrence, Announcement, ABC News

Drew F. Lawrence

There is some strong language in this episode because sailorswell sometimes they curse like sailors. Listener discretion is advised.

Chief Petty Officer David Bevels

We're told OK, prepare for war because of North Korea, because of China, because of Russia, because of Ukraine, because of Israel, because of Palestine. But yet...How can we do that, but yet, we have to be gentle...

RDC

Holy shit! We just got hit by a fucking missile and DCA just told us to go save the ammunition! Hooya, save the ammunition!

Drew F. Lawrence

If the consensus is if it wasn't as hard, you know, maybe from your perspective as other generations of sailors have gone in, does that change you as a product? You as the sailor, does that change the outcome?

Recruit

I don't think it makes us any less than, but as like the same as I think the same thing applies. As the world adapts and the world changes, we need different sailors to come to the task.

Drew F. Lawrence

Last time, on Fire Watch, we took you inside Navy Boot camp. I was accompanied by Military.com reporter and Navy veteran Konstantin Toropin. And we came armed with a few questions: Is Navy bootcamp different than veterans remember it? Is it still hard? And what do those changes say about the sailors joining the Navy today? Some Recruit Division Commanders, or RDCs said that the generation of hopeful sailors coming into bootcamp is different, requiring instructors to be gentle in how they treat the recruits. Others pushed back on that notion. And some recruits said, well yeah  previous generations had it harder in some ways, but does that make them any less of a sailor? In this episode, were taking a closer look at those changes  ones that have fueled generational dissent among Navy veterans who see new recruits as being coddled. But isnt there a better way to assess what the Navy and its new sailors are doing?

ABC News

Tonight our team onboard the USS Eisenhower tonight right in the Red Sea, the US is there to destroy missiles launched by Iranian backed militants.

Drew F. Lawrence

For Military.com, my name is Drew Lawrence. It is July 26th. And this is Fire Watch. When we last left you, we touched on one of the biggest changes to happen to bootcamp in the last couple years. Cell phones. Its a good example of how changes immediately create impressions and assumptions, but reality often is less dramatic. On a late, hot afternoon we entered a Navy exchange  a hub of energy drinks, food and trinkets for parents and grandparents of graduating sailors who want to commemorate their own moments at the Recruit Training Center. I got Konstantin a little token to remember our trip by the way, a camouflage key tag that said Navy Grandpa. He was not enthused. Down a hall, recruits were making their final calls home  A cacophony of hopeful voices and even some crying created a loud din in the cramped room. It was warm in the call center, a bit musty and it reeked of sweat. Down the lines of booths, recruits were making calls home to family or to friends. This group of sailors had already passed Battle Stations, a simulation of a disaster at sea which you learned about last episode. They have no more hurdles, just graduation. And they were making these calls home, describing all of those challenges, on cell phones. Last November, the Recruit Training Command, or RTC, announced that it would allow a couple recruit divisions limited use of their cell phones while at boot camp. The RTC announced the change on Facebook, and some of the comments showed mixed reactions. One person said they thought it was fantastic but with limits. Another reacted with a take weve heard a lot as reporters  voicing concerns about perceived diminishing standards. The RTC may have a reason behind this new rule regarding cellphone usage standards. Still, I dont think it will be beneficial in keeping our proud standards and military bearing and shaping our new Sailors to continue being the best. When I went to boot camp, all these little things taught me how to value and appreciate what I have, and I see things from a different perspective. These values are even more critical for our new generation. If we lose them, I am wondering what else we will have left. When news hit, some assumed that recruits were walking around with cell phones, glued to Instagram and social media, reinforcing stereotypes about Generation Z. Even some of the RDCs we spoke to had initial trepidations about the policy.

RDC

And a lot of us have been in for a while, at first when I first heard about it. I was like, 'What are we doing?' You know, but it doesn't make sense. Yeah,

Drew F. Lawrence

I didnt catch that instructors name, but it was a theme wed hear during our visit. The instructors told us that In reality, the change is pretty benign. At the time we were there, the recruits have four scheduled phone calls during their time at Great Lakes that they can make on their cell phones. Based on your the emails that you get from everyone seems like they have a complete misunderstanding about what...is you're just replacing the landline with the abilities of the cell phone. That's, that's all it is right?

RDC

That's all it is. It does help with like, passing of information, it makes it a lot easier absolutley. As soon as they get back to the compartment, we collect them and we lock them up.

Drew F. Lawrence

And they have to sign a form, right?

RDC

There's a what we call a page 13, meaning they know the rules, they read the rules, they understand the rules, and you're signing that, you know, and acknowledge those rules.

Drew F. Lawrence

And the rules are like you can only use it for calls?

RDC

Yeah, just voice call, no face time, no texting unless like things that are needed to have to be text, like pictures that they need to send their families or stuff like that.

Drew F. Lawrence

Bank information.

RDC

Bank information, or the use of apps for like banking information. That's pretty much it like outside of that, like you can't FaceTime and you can't use a phone when we don't authorize you to use the phone.

Drew F. Lawrence

These calls occur on the eve of graduation. Its a penultimate rite of passage that recruits have that largely hasnt changed for decades. Most of these recruits have never used a payphone. Plus, it allows for recruits to stay away from common traps of new sailors. For example, they can make sure their bills are paid and credit hasnt plummeted in the weeks theyre away from home and not monitoring their finances, which for the majority of Americans today, are digitized.

Recruit

I ended up calling a couple buddies of mine who are in the military currently, as well as my father who's going to here at graduation. So you know after doing battle stations last night, it was a really good experience to kind of talk to them.

Drew F. Lawrence

That's recruit Jackson Platner, and he told us he benefited from using his cell phone, and that he hasn't slept since being up all day and all night for battle stations.

Recruit

Being able to tell my friends that are currently serving that, 'Hey I'm kind of joining the club.' It was a good feeling. I think, either or, I could go either way. I mean, for newer generations, I think a lot of people don't memorize phone numbers very well. And I'm certainly no exception to that. So I think it did help in the aspect of keeping in contact with more people. But as far as the essentials goes, you know, mom, dad, whoever is coming to graduation, a lot of times people will prepare for that anyway, and bring those phone numbers with them. So I think the cell phone does help, but it's also not necessarily needed.

Drew F. Lawrence

And one of the things some of the RDC staff are saying is, you know, like having the cell phone, right, you can look at your bank account and like check your bills and like, do that type of stuff. Did you do any of that while you're in there?

Recruit

I didn't have the chance to I had no, no need to here. But I do understand that there are some recruits here that that's definitely a necessity. In fact, that's even like a necessity in getting citizenship for some of them. So I definitely think that it is a good step in the right direction. I kind of fell victim to that like mentality as well, you know, I heard all this stuff like, 'Oh, you're gonna get your phone every weekend. You know, it's gonna be so easy and everything like that.' But I think I think what they do is actually a very great system, they spaced it out. And they don't, they don't give you too much freedom with it. And I think that's good. It still maintains the discipline of what recruit training should be.

Drew F. Lawrence

Another recruit Ryan Gonzalez said this:

Recruit

Because that's probably the hardest part of boot camp is the complete disconnect from family and society. And it's nice to be able to at least briefly reconnect. So it was a big stress relief to make sure that the MyPay was set up and that all my bills and stuff like that at home are getting paid and everything was going smoothly. Because for the first couple of weeks, it was like a little bit of anxiety. It's like, we're going to come out of here and be like my credits gone down. I got a bunch of bills overdue and stuff like that and being able to have the cell phone and just be able to double check like 'okay, everything went smoothly' took a lot of outside pressures and anxieties off.

Konstantin Toropin

It's almost...it's 1:30 on Wednesday. When did you last go sleep?

Recruit

I woke up at 5:15 on...I don't, honestly I don't remember. I remember I woke up at 5:15. That's about it.

Konstantin Toropin

Now, if you were in this state had to operate that payphone that was back there. Would you be able to do it?

Recruit

Maybe not on the first attempt, but I'd keep trying until I figured it out.

Drew F. Lawrence

The recruits we spoke to would be heading to the graduation ceremony shortly. And to perhaps emphasize the future mission the new sailors would be taking on, Rear Admiral Carl A. Lahti the 44th commander of Naval Forces Japan and Navy Region Japan, was the guest speaker.

Rear Admiral Carl A. Lahti

Sailors, you are about to embark upon the one of the most challenging adventures of your life. You have chosen to serve your country at a time when it is most needed. When America must show a strong presence throughout the world. Peace and stability around the world is threatened by many nations who refuse to obey the international laws of responsibility that have governed state to state behavior since the end of World War Two. You have earned not only mine, but the respect of a grateful nation. Congratulations.

Announcement

And without further delay, now hear this liberty call! Liberty call! Fall out!

Drew F. Lawrence

The newly annointed sailors dispersed from their ranks and met family and friends through hugs, tears and whoops of joy. Still, despite what recruits described as an exhaustingtest of their mettle in boot camp  and a successful graduation  they could not shake at least a little generational ribbing. We spoke to a Navy veteran, mustachioed with a blue Navy hat adorned with military-style pins indicating he was an intelligence specialist.

David Rogers

David Rogers, United States Navy retired. That's my boy.

Drew F. Lawrence

That's your son?

David Rogers

He's my grandson. And he's fourth generation Navy now. I served, my wife served. And my son has served. I don't know where he went. But it's really an honor. And by the way, things have changed around here a little bit since 1972.

Drew F. Lawrence

Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?

David Rogers

It's a good thing. All the amenities, you know, they, they, they really developed this place to take care of the sailors that come through here. And that's really great.

Drew F. Lawrence

Do you think it's as hard as it was when you went through? No. No, I, I say that I don't know for a fact. But I don't...I would like to think they're as hard on him, if not harder. Because sometimes, you break them down, you build them up. Make that that character, and that strength is what they need. And you're proud of them?

David Rogers

Absolutely. Couldn't be more proud.

Drew F. Lawrence

At the end of our tour of boot camp, we sat down with the Triad  the three leaders who are in charge of the recruit training command. We came armed with the same question about generational changes to recruits. When we entered the command suite, as they call it, we had a good idea of what things looked like on the ground. We also knew about the upper level struggles in recruiting, ones that have made headlines over the last several years. Thats put a lot of pressure on the recruiting command to not lose too many recruits to attrition, and those attrition rates were a theme we heard about a lot during the duration of our visit. We spoke to the leadership: Captain Kenneth Froberg, the commanding officer, Commander Christopher McHenry, the executive officer, and Command Master Chief Van-Troi Sibiliamartinez for nearly an hour. We touched on how boot camp has evolved, and it gave rare insight into the thinking of senior leaders at the helm of recruit training.

Konstantin Toropin

Boot amp has undergone a lot of changes over the past several years, some more recent than others -- cell phones is I think, you know, the policy several months old. You've presided over some of these changes, sir. I'd love to get your sense of why you felt that these tweaks, let's say, have been necessary.

Capt. Kenneth Froberg

We need to mentor a force, not through just language, but through action that feels it's okay to look at an environment and say, 'Well why are we doing it this way? And that challenging questioning attitude is the only way that we can foster that innovative culture that we need to adapt, overcome and succeed in combat.

Drew F. Lawrence

That's Captain Froberg, the commanding officer.

Capt. Kenneth Froberg

That is the core why. So every time we turn a corner in RTC we're like, 'Well, why are we doing that?' Well, there's a reason why we do that. But if we don't have a reason that we can justify in 2024, then the second level question is well 'Do we really need to be doing it that way anymore?' And if it turns into 'Well, that's just the way we've always done it.' Then we have a third question of 'Is that the right way of doing the right things the right way, though?'

Drew F. Lawrence

There is a recruiting crisis, all the branches are fighting for for the same pool of people. And that crisis has had, you know, tendrils in different facets of the military. I'm wondering how has it...How has the recruiting crisis affected anything here at RTC?

Capt. Kenneth Froberg

I choose to look at the talent market as fiercely competitive. And I think that's good. It challenges us to innovate and it challenges us to really refine the value proposition of serving the United States Navy, which is profound, or in any service. As a key partner in the Navy accessions enterprise. You know, I am fascinated by what's going on in the recruiting sphere, because that's our raw product. As we navigate this, I look at this as we have to tell the Navy story. And we have to do that and make sure that we're getting our message to the far points of our country. Because when we don't tell the Navy story and tell it with, you know, sometimes with warts and all, but we tell our Navy story, truthfully and credibly. I think that's a powerful, it's a powerful motivator for people that want to be part of that.

Drew F. Lawrence

What are the practical effects of that competition here on the ground at RTC?

Command Master Chief Van-Troi SibiliaMartinez

As a prior command master chief of the recruiting district in New York, and going out there and seeing how recruiters, you know, go after the talent...

Drew F. Lawrence

That's Command Master Chief SibiliaMartinez.

Command Master Chief Van-Troi SibiliaMartinez

I realize how hard it is to convince somebody to join this team. And that competition for that talent is good, because it drives innovation, and then it makes you more protective of that that talent that you have acquired, right. That translates to being at recruit training command, because now we understand how hard it is to bring them here. So there's another level of let's protect what has been provided to us. And well, you know, getting leadership like Captain Froberg coming in with specifically the leveraging technology, utilizing more technology, instead of just the standard binders and books more, let's go digital in certain elements, then now information is moving a lot faster. And if our recruit division commanders understand how important it is to protect that talent that has been provided to us, they're going to be overly protective in training them to the best of their ability, which has led to the historically low 7.95% attrition currently at RTC. Last year around this time, we were looking at around 14%.

Drew F. Lawrence

Theres the attrition point again, one that weve heard surrounding nearly every change that has been made in boot camp. The leadership shared few metrics to how training is going, but attrition is probably the biggest one. And in an era where recruiting is hard, losing potential sailors could be catastrophic for the force as it takes on enormous responsibilities.

Konstantin Toropin

You know, one of the most probably iconic aspects of recruit training for all the services, Navy included, is sort of the- I think one RDC call it sort of shock and awe, you know, the yelling, the, you know, the recruit commander in your face telling you, you're wrong or what have you. I'd love to get your thoughts on kind of what the philosophy behind that particular tool is, you know, certainly acknowledge that it's one club in a bag that the RDCs have, especially sort of in light of this whole, like generational conversation.

Capt. Kenneth Froberg

If Lee Ermey was an RDC in today's Navy, he probably would have been fired about five minutes into his tour. It's just the reality of the Navy, we serve it. And so...

Command Master Chief Van-Troi SibiliaMartinez

You know, I'm from the generation where I'm getting the shock and awe as soon as I'm getting off the bus, you know, we have recruits night of arrival. Now we're talking about 22-2300, running through the parking lot with bags and things to get into this facility, potentially tripping, falling all that. That that's a safety hazard right there. We got to we got to look into that. So we took a smart approach to it. Do you know how much stress a recruit is already embarking on before they even depart their home or record. Just heading from MEPs to the airport is already stressful enough. Then from the airport to O'Hare to go to the USO, there's more stress because it's the first time you're away from your families. You are in an unknown territory, second guessing that decision of whether you're want to be in the Navy or not. Then you get in this bus and you transition from O'Hare all the way to RTC for the unknown and all you know is probably the things that you've seen on YouTube and maybe what people have shared with you and it's never positive 'Yeah, they're gonna take care of you.' They're gonna yell at you, that's what you hear. Well, there's enough stress already were there whole yelling right from the get-go, that so-called shock and awe, was ineffective. I have already so much stress going on, you can yell all you want an it's not getting anywhere. Now, what RDCs are trained on is that yelling is okay. It's just when the yelling happens. Because if we're going to train you to be a basically trained sailor, you must be aware that there'll be scenarios when you go out to the fleet that are operational environments, especially when somebody's life may be on the line and somebody's about to, you know, conduct something unsafe that will result in somebody getting harmed. You may get yelled at. So this is not the nobody gets yelled at Navy. It's more it's strategically located, depending on the scenario, with an emphasis on what's the task at hand. But the fact that, you know, we go around yelling all the time, no.

Capt. Kenneth Froberg

They don't want to have to yell at you. But if you keep doing the same thing, the same way, after they told you once or twice, don't be surprised when they do yell at you, right. And so I think we're, you know, to CMC's point, we're very, again, going back to the, you know, the deliberate review of that experience, we're very conscious of how, you know, there's, there's going to be times where we intentionally want to put a person in a stress, stress position. We need people to be able to function when they're tired, when they're strained. As you saw during battle stations in the middle of the night, when the ship needs to be saved from a casualty. They need to learn what that has to feel like at boot camp. So that that will help drive them to really be brilliant at the basics and their trade crafts.

Drew F. Lawrence

I want to talk about the talent that you're talking about here for a second, because a majority of that talent is coming from Generation Z. And I'm wondering what -- in your perspectives -- would you see is their strengths and what you see as their weaknesses as a whole.

Commander Christopher McHenry

I think their strengths are, are they've had digital technology their whole lives.

Drew F. Lawrence

That's Commander McHenry, he's the executive officer.

Commander Christopher McHenry

And so I think part of the cell phone thing, part of, you know, using innovative strategies is 'Hey, we can't sit on what we've done before, we've got to move forward and keep up with technology, keep up with society.' Because again, as the captain said, if we're competing for this talent, we're gonna get left behind if we don't, if we don't innovate. I think there's an underestimation of this generation, you know, that, that somehow they're, you know they're individuals that if we take the time to invest into them, they will give back to us what we're looking for.

Capt. Kenneth Froberg

I have a really hard time when people try to bin the arguments in generational labels, because so the first time I was exposed to Generation Z kind of characteristics was when I was at US Strategic Command, and we were looking at how do we invest or design the future command and control facility. And it was a fascinating design team piece that articulated these are some of the characteristics of of Gen Z that like, you know, and, and this is the way they like to collaborate and stuff like that. And I was like, wow, you know, they had the Gen Xers and I was like, you have Gen Xers and you have the Boomers. And, you know, you're like, at that point in my career, really never thought about it. I was just like, okay, that's old people, young people. You know, and, and so, it afforded me to think about it in that context, and I thought, wow, this is really fascinating, like the characteristics of generations. But then, as I saw manipulated for basically a 'you're with me or against' me kind of labeling and social media over the following years, I really moved away from that way of thinking because it was, it was so caustic. People have heart. And people's heart is in what they're doing, they're passionate about what they're doing doesn't matter how old they are. That passion shows through in their day to day performance.

Command Master Chief Van-Troi SibiliaMartinez

As a recruit division commander, we don't look into generational and labels and any of that basic training is the great equalizer for all enlisted sailor. There's just one way of doing it. We don't care if you're 17 or 41. We don't care if the if the if the age limit gets increased or not. You're going to get the same training regardless of how old you are, or where you're coming from. It doesn't matter. We're not going to lower that standard. And we're not going to tailor it, depending on what year you were born. So while we understand that, you know, there are generational gaps in society and how people were brought up and whatnot, here, all we care about turning into basically trained sailor.

Drew F. Lawrence

I want to jump in here for a second again. The original question was the strengths and weaknesses of the new generation of recruits coming in. The second part of that question, discussing weaknesses was not answered and I think that the response is at odds with some of the changes that are being made, which were made to keep up with the times, as you just heard. But to be fair  the answer, or lack of an answer, makes sense in its context. Why would those leaders answer questions that may sound disparaging to the new sailors heading to the force? And while that leaves us a bit of a gap in terms of assessing the quality of recruits coming in, it does largely track with one of the main questions weve been grappling with during this episode. And thats whether the generational divide is a good measure of todays recruits and boot camp overall. We dont think so, and it appears that the leadership at RTC doesnt think so either. So if not that, what is? Heres part of CMCs response to Konstantins shock and awe question:

Command Master Chief Van-Troi SibiliaMartinez

Sometimes when the argument is like, 'oh, since we don't do shock and awe then they're their softer sailors, right?' And then I go 'Hold on a second.' Not to include all the other branches, because everybody's doing their part. But the Navy right now is constantly taking missiles in the Red Sea and other places. And guess what? Those sailors are executing as planned. If you want a measuring tool that is legit, just look at what's going on out there and then say, 'Are we that softer Navy that everybody's talking about?' Because we're doing stuff that is surgical, in some cases, to the perfection, stopping missiles inbound with the tools that we have, sometimes, you know, they go back...think about the stress when they say, missile inbound. Guess what? Those sailors are still turning keys, getting the the weapon systems to provide that defense mechanism to keep everybody safe. We're still doing it.

Drew F. Lawrence

Since the extremist group Hamas launched a surprise attack against Israel in October, the Navy has been embroiled in an intense bombing and defense campaign in the Red Sea against the Houthis, which aligned themselves with Hamas. The USS Eisenhower, the source of the operations you just heard a clip from, returned from a nine month deployment where it endured near constant fire from the Houthis in Yemen. It was the first aircraft carrier to operate in the region since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan nearly three years ago. And while it was still a Middle East deployment, it's hard not to connect it to the shift the Navy is embarking on elsewhere in the world. Capt. Froberg, the skipper, said the Navy is going from green operations back to blue ones. That sounds like, after decades of the Global War on Terror, the Navy is going back to doing true-blue Navy stuff, on ships to be specific. Especially as the Pentagon continues to challenge its pacing threat, China. That said, it sounded like it was business as usual at the RTC  the basics are the basics. I want to end this by bringing you back to Battle Stations.

RDC

I want to impart some wisdom on you real quick...

Recruits

[Recruits shouting]

Drew F. Lawrence

Sailors lined up outside of heavy doors leading into an enormous warehouse meant to look like a pier. After they entered the facility, they were shown a video that Konstantin recalled as the same one he saw when he went through bootcamp. It emphasized Navy tradition and the gravity of the night. The recruits were glued to the screen  maybe because they havent really seen one in 10 weeks.

Video

When you complete your mission tonight, you will take your place alongside John Paul Jones, James S. Trayer, and James E. Williams as a sailor in the United States Navy. Those heroes embody the proud legacy and heritage of the Navy's past. Each of you will now go forward to become part of the Navy's future. Your story will be written into the pages of Navy history.

Drew F. Lawrence

There was a theme we saw throughout battlestations. At almost every exercise within the mock replica of the USS Trayer, there was a sad but important history lesson imbued upon the recruits.

RDC

There was a collision, there was actually two of them...USS Fitzgerald and the USS McCain. So two ships in the same year each collided into a different ship, right? Do you think that those that were, you know, doing look out and bridge, you think they were adequately doing those watches. Those events ended up causing a lot of damage and it actual cost some lives. So that's an example right there of how important it is to be doing these watches appropriately and in a timely manner...

Drew F. Lawrence

Unlike other services, when the Navy has a tragic episode, its often large. Ships are heavily tracked, their histories heavily scrutinized. Its one of the things the Navy does best  learning from its mistakes like the USS Fitzgerald or the USS John McCain which  in separate incidents  collided with other ships in the same year. The Navy also learns from its successes. Which brings us to our conclusion.

Drew F. Lawrence

Konstantin, I'm wondering how you think that these changes implemented at Navy boot camp will be remembered?

Konstantin Toropin

I mean, it's a good question and a bit of a unanswerable one, I would argue, I mean, the heart of it is, you know, I think we don't know until these recruits, you know, how they're going to do in the fleet. They're new, and it'll take time for them to go through schooling to make it to their ships. And then for those ships to deploy. You know, I think very broadly, if we look at just the last several months of the Navy's activity, for example, in the Red Sea, you know, those sailors who are in a lot of ways not much different from the sailors that we saw going through boot camp have, by all accounts perform marvelously. I mean, you know, just some of the, if you look at just the awards, for example, the USS Mason, which was one of the ships that was operating out in the Red Sea, the Navy told me that they're looking at awarding her crew, more than 60, 65 Navy achievement medals with a combat C device. I mean, these are, these are 60 awards for combat.

Drew F. Lawrence

Do you think that we answered all the questions that we set out to answer for the series?

Konstantin Toropin

Um, yes and no, I think the big unanswered question that I still have is this, you know, goes to this notion of is this generation different than the ones that came before it? And I don't mean that just in the context of, you know, the Navy, I mean, you know, we asked this question to folks and didn't really get a good answer of is Generation Z...how do they stack up against Millennials or Generation X? But, you know, I don't know if that's a question to which the answer is somehow meaningful. I mean, obviously, as each generation has different societal influences on it, they grow up in different ways, they watch different movies, all of those things. But I don't know if having a definitive answer to that is informative to the broader conversation of does this generation make for better or worse sailors?

Drew F. Lawrence

Looking back, what's your overall assessment? And how do you stack that against what you experienced at boot camp?

Konstantin Toropin

I think at the risk of being overly simplistic or perhaps even cliche, I would say, you know, the sailors are alright. You know, that the heart of it is that the Navy is never going to ask sailors to take a hill like the Marine Corps would ask of a Marine, right? Or the Army of its soldiers for that matter. But what the Navy does ask is for an average sailor, a cook, a cryptologist, a fire controlman to save the ship, to fight the ship at any given moment, sometimes unexpectedly. You know, the scenario that we saw a battle stations -- the premise is that this is a ship on a basic refueling run that encounters a small boat and is attacked. And so the Navy asks its sailors to stay up late, stand long watches, endure hours of sleeplessness. And we saw that at boot camp, we saw them training to that expectation. The Navy, in that sense, the service and boot camp, especially teaches to that. Very broadly, I guess stepping back a little bit, you know, was the boot camp I saw different than the one I went through? Yeah, but I think that's a poor quality of assessment. And admittedly, some sailors did say that they were softer, but the heart of the training, you know, especially the sleeplessness, the stress, the being asked to make difficult decisions with incomplete information...that was all still there.

Drew F. Lawrence

Thank you for listening to this special episode of Fire Watch. Thank you to my colleague Konstantin, and to our executive producers  Zach Fryer-Biggs and Jared Keller. If you enjoyed this episode, give us a rating And as always, thanks for listening.
Jan. 31: The Rays have formally announced their extension with Diaz. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that Diaz will be paid $6MM in 2023, $8MM in 2024 and $10MM in 2025. Theres a $12MM option for a fourth season, which does not contain a buyout.

Jan. 28: The Rays and infielder Yandy Diaz are close to finalizing a contract extension, MLB.coms Mark Feinsand reports (Twitter link). The deal is a three-year, $24MM pact that contains a club option for the 2026, according to Feinsand and his MLB.com colleague Juan Toribio (via Twitter). Diaz is represented by ACES.

The extension would cover Diazs final two years of arbitration control and at least one of his free agent-eligible seasons. Diaz and the Rays were slated for an arbitration hearing to determine his 2023 salary after not reaching an agreement by the filing deadline  Diaz was looking for $6.3MM and the club countered with $5.5MM.

Instead, it now looks like Diaz will be the third hearing-bound Tampa Bay player to sign an extension this week. Jeffrey Springs signed a four-year, $31MM extension on Wednesday, while Pete Fairbanks agreed to a deal worth $12MM over three guaranteed years on Friday. An arb hearing is usually the result when the two sides dont agree on a one-year salary prior to the figure-exchange deadline, yet clubs often try to pursue multi-year deals as something of a loophole around the self-imposed file and trial strategy deployed by most of the league.

Diaz, Springs, and Fairbanks were three of seven Rays players that didnt agree to terms by the deadline, and even the remaining group of four (Harold Ramirez, Colin Poche, Ryan Thompson, Jason Adam) still represents an unusually large number of players to be headed for hearings. It certainly wouldnt be surprising to see the Rays work out at least one more extension before hearings start taking place in the coming weeks.

For Diaz, the new contract locks in some long-term security and the first major payday for a player who turned 31 last August. Beginning his career in his native Cuba, Diaz was twice arrested before finally defecting on his third attempt, and then signed with Cleveland for a $300K bonus. Diaz didnt make his MLB debut until 2017, when he was already 25 years old.

Back in December 2018, a headline-grabbing three-team trade between the Rays, Indians, and Mariners saw Diaz head from Cleveland to Tampa as part of the five-player swap. The Rays had interest in Diazs ability to make contact and draw walks, and those skills have certainly translated as Diazs career has progressed. Since the start of the 2020 season, Diaz ranks sixth among all qualified hitters in walk rate (13.7%) and ninth in strikeout rate (13.1%).

Diaz hit .266/.359/.418 over his first three seasons with the Rays, good for a solid 117 wRC+ over 1026 plate appearances. However, Diaz took the production up a level last season, posting a 146 wRC+ while hitting .296/.401/.423 with nine home runs over 558 PA, and finishing with elite percentiles in several major Statcast categories. For a right-handed batter, Diazs career numbers against left-handed pitchers had been relatively modest heading into 2022, but last year he crushed southpaws to the tune of an .892 OPS over 145 PA.

One flaw in Diazs performance was a lack of glovework, as public defensive metrics have indicated that he has been well below average over 1282 1/3 innings as a third baseman over the last two seasons. This stands out even more on a defense-conscious club like Tampa Bay, though the Rays might ideally look to use Diaz more often as a first baseman in 2023 or over the course of the longer-term deal.

In the big picture, locking up Diaz seems like a shrewd move for Tampa. While a 146 wRC+ is a high-water mark for Diaz, there wasnt much (apart from a spike in hard-hit ball rate) to suggest that his 2022 numbers were a departure from his prior career numbers, so its reasonable for the Rays to expect roughly similar production going forward over the life of Diazs deal.

Perhaps the most intriguing element is that the Rays have now extended a 31-year-old player, as it is fairly common for the team to shop players as they get increasingly expensive. There hadnt been any real trade buzz surrounding Diaz, however, and thus the Rays have now locked up three members of their infield (Diaz, Wander Franco, and Brandon Lowe) though possibly the 2026 season, depending on the status of club options for Diaz and Lowe. Of course, the Rays could still end up shopping Diaz, Lowe, or conceivably even Franco down the road, especially if the club continues to generate quality infield prospects from its minor league pipeline.

Between the yet-unknown specifics of Diazs contract numbers and the unresolved arbitration cases, the Rays are likely to match or exceed their previous franchise high for payroll, even if their overall spending is still quite modest by league-wide standards. Tampa Bays Opening Day payroll last season was approximately $83.86MM, and Roster Resource currently (without a Diaz extension involved) projects the Rays for around $76.86MM on the books in 2023.
MACKINAC ISLAND, MI - Its located off the beaten path in a place thats already off the beaten path. This secluded island hotel has been named one of the Worlds Greatest Places to visit in 2024 by Time Magazine.

The Inn at Stonecliffe is the only spot in Michigan from around the world on the list from Time, which highlights 100 destinations to visit and stay.

Many people who visit Mackinac Island dont even know The Inn at Stonecliffe exists. Thats because it is located about two miles from Main Street.

Its a long walk/hike to get to The Inn. Your best bet is to ride a bicycle or take a horse-drawn taxi to get there.

The Inn at Stonecliffe, a 1904 estate built for a Chicago meatpacking magnate sitting high above Lake Huron on the islands West Bluff, was a residence until 1949 and became a hotel in the 1970s, Time wrote of the Inn. Its wide, manicured lawn providing jaw-dropping views of the Straits of Mackinac.

And now is a great time to visit Stonecliffe as it was closed for two years, undergoing a whopping $40 million renovation, including of its public spaces and 16 guest rooms in The Inn at Stonecliffes Tudor mansion.

To be included in Times list of the Worlds Greatest Places in our first year of operation, following our renovation, is an honor and a true testament to the vision we had for The Inn at Stonecliffe, said Kevin Doyle, COO, Pulte Family Charitable Foundation. We are thrilled with the response weve seen since our grand opening and thank our guests and community for their support.

Along with rooms at The Inn, guests stay at one of 32 renovated guest rooms in the more modern Summer House featuring kitchenettes and dining areas, while larger groups can choose one of three new three-bedroom cottages.

Chef Joseph Nardo, whose resume includes Michelin-starred restaurants such as The French Laundry, oversees the hotels four restaurants, including The Straits, a new farm-to-table fine-dining eatery.

The Inn at Stonecliffe is owned by the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation and 100% of net profits go toward charitable initiatives it supports in Mackinac County and around the globe.

The Inn at Stonecliffe is accepting reservations for the 2024 season through October 27. The resort will reopen for the 2025 season in May.

Here is Times entire list of 100 extraordinary destinations to visit and stay this year.
BENTON HARBOR, MI  Federal regulators, next week, will be part of a public meeting on the restart of the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant.

The chairperson of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently told Congress the nuclear plant along Lake Michigan near South Haven may be generating electricity again by August 2025. Officials with the agency are expected to talk more about that at a Thursday, Aug. 1 public meting in Benton Harbor.

The meeting will be in Grand Upton Hall at Lake Michigan College, but there also will be online and telephone options to participate.

This is the first time in American history that the repowering of a nuclear power plant is being considered after the facility began decommissioning.

The nuclear plant restart effort recently received a $1.52 billion federal loan guarantee from the federal Department of Energy as part of national efforts to maintain the existing nuclear power fleet to provide carbon-free energy and ultimately fight climate change. Michigan contributed $300 million to the effort.

The coming meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:15 p.m. and run until 9 p.m.

How to participate:

Attend in person at the Grand Upton Hall, Lake Michigan College, 2755 E. Napier Ave., in Benton Harbor.

Find the link to attend the virtual option here .

Telephone into the meeting by calling 301-576-2978, using conference ID 110229600, and passcode 110229600#.

Officials from Holtec International, the company that owns the 1970s-era nuclear plant, also will make a presentation about ongoing restart-related efforts.

The public will have an opportunity to ask questions and make comments following the presentations by the NRC and Holtec. Those attending in person will be granted priority to speak.

60 1 / 60 Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in Michigan

The NRCs Palisades Nuclear Plant Restart Panel was recently established to independently assess the facilitys readiness to resume operations without endangering public health and safety.

A former presidential appointee to the NRC said he believes the panel can successfully revalidate the Palisades plants current safety footing.

The agency has the capability of inspecting and validating that it meets the adequate protection standard. I think those are doable, said Jeff Merrifield, who was a Republican member of the NRC first appointed by President Bill Clinton and reappointed by President George W. Bush.

Merrifield spoke Wednesday this week as part of a short course on nuclear energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which co-hosted the educational event with nonprofit Clean Air Task Force.

The Palisades plant stopped generating electricity in May 2022 and former owner Entergy sold the facility to Holtec, a company best known for decommissioning nuclear sites and manufacturing dry cask storage for spent nuclear fuel.

Last year, Holtec said it wanted to repower the plant and the NRC established the oversight panel.

Extensive inspections and testing will be necessary before the plant could reopen.

There are critics of the plan to repower the 1970s-era nuclear plant. Both environmental justice advocates and some neighbors said they worry whether the legacy facility can safely be returned to service, partly because of concerns about embrittlement problems in the reactor.

More details about the potential Palisades restart can be found on the NRCs website.

Nuclear fission generates no carbon dioxide, which is the primary greenhouse gas that causes global warming. However, fossil fuels are used in mining and refining uranium ore fuel for reactors.

Radioactive waste can remain dangerous for centuries and must be stored in protective casks where the fuel was used until a national repository is developed by the federal government.

Related articles:

Top nuclear regulator says Palisades could be running again by August 2025

Ambitious plan to restart nuclear plant creates cheerleaders and critics

Nuclear is getting a reaction in Michigan. Is it reaching critical mass?
HOUGHTON COUNTY, MI  Police have named the suspect who reportedly committed suicide after confessing to running over an 80-year-old man with an ATV this weekend.

The suspect was identified as Joshua Kemppainen, 22, of Quincy Township in Michigans Upper Peninsula, Hancock Police Chief Tami Sleeman said in a Thursday, July 25 update on the police departments Facebook page.

Kemppainen had no prior run-ins with local law enforcement, the police chief said. The 22-year-old was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his Quincy Township home on Monday, July 22, according to police.

Sleeman also shared on Thursday that the 80-year-old victim who was run over by Kemppainen was released from the hospital on Wednesday evening and will be recovering from home. The elderly man suffered serious injuries in the attack and was initially hospitalized in critical condition, police previously said.

RELATED: U.P. man, 80, run over by ATV while putting in political yard signs

Police said Kemppainen was suspected in a string of politically motivated crimes that happened in the city of Hancock on Sunday, July 21. Kemppainen reportedly targeted residents who displayed signs supporting former president Donald Trump and law enforcement.

In one of the incidents, Kemppainen ran over the 80-year-old while he was putting up a political sign in his yard, police said. The other two incidents involved vehicles that were vandalized, Sleeman said.

The next day, Kemppainen was found dead after he allegedly contacted police to confess to the crime. The Hancock Police Department said it was contacted Monday by a man who wanted to confess to a recent crime involving an ATV and asked for police to send someone to pick me up.

When police arrived at the home in Quincy Township, they discovered a 22-year-old man dead from a single self-inflicted gunshot wound.

RELATED: Suspect believed to have run over 80-year-old man with ATV found dead by police

A search warrant was obtained and police began searching the mans home. Investigators found the ATV believed to have been used in Sundays attack, as well as clothing that appeared to be the same as the clothes worn by the suspect in the incidents.

Investigators also discovered numerous electronic devices that will be searched by computer forensics specialists, the Houghton County Sheriffs Office said.

The Hancock Police Department was assisted in the investigation by the Houghton County Sheriffs Office, Houghton City Police, Michigan State Police, and the FBI-Marquette Field Office.
HANCOCK, MI -- Police have released the name of the 22-year-old man suspected of running over an 80-year-old man with an ATV. Joshua Kemppainen was found dead Monday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, a day after police allege he ran over his victim.

The Hancock Police Department says it had no prior contact with Kemppainen and so far, police have been unable to determine an exact motive in the matter. The victim in the case was released from the hospital Wednesday and is now at home recovering.
SAGINAW, MI  Though robbing a credit union netted a Saginaw man several thousand dollars in the short term, it also cost him his the next few years in prison.

Stephan A. Belvin Jr., 23, on Thursday, July 25, appeared before Saginaw County Circuit Judge Darnell Jackson for sentencing, having pleaded guilty in June to bank robbery. Prosecutors did not dismiss any additional charges.
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI -- A pair of Republicans are squaring off in the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners District 3 primary election.

Ryan Baumgart and Sean Egmon are on the Aug. 6 ballot. The winner will meet Democratic incumbent Shannon Beeman in the November general election. Beeman, who has served as the District 3 commissioner since 2019, is running unopposed in the primary.

District 3 represents numerous municipalities in Washtenaw County including Bridgewater Township, Freedom Township, Lodi Township, Manchester Township, Village of Manchester, City of Milan, Saline Township, City of Saline, Sharon Township, and York Township.

MLive/The Ann Arbor News has partnered with the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund to provide the Vote411.org voter guide. Candidates answered questions regarding why theyre running for the seat, their qualifications, their goals and the challenges facing the county.

Baumgart did not respond to the questionnaire or provide a photo.

Note: All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for necessary cuts if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

What in your education and experience make you the best qualified candidate for this position?

Egmon:

As a degreed engineer who has been in management and leadership positions for 25+ years, I have successfully built teams comprised of hundreds of people, managed budgets in the tens of millions of dollars and helped drive success by focusing on customer satisfaction and accountability. Ive learned how to put the right people in the right place at the right time with the right tools to create change, increase employee satisfaction and increase customer satisfaction. I believe that my experience working with a diverse group of people and providing the encouragement and a focus on attainable goals will help drive improvements in our county.

What are your goals should you be elected and how will you work to accomplish them with limited resources?

Egmon:

One of my goals is to bring a good business sense as well as common sense to help the county serve its residents better. One area is our fast growing population of those over 50 years of age. Also, our senior population is facing big challenges paying utilities, taxes, food and medicine. This is an area that our county commissioners can engage and drive positive change.

Another area is for those who are just beginning their careers. This is a substantial portion of our county population. The county commissioners can focus on providing businesses with good reasons to hire and invest in training and developing this next generation of our work force.

What are the most serious problems facing the county, and how will you work to solve them?

Egmon:

Drastic increases in the cost of utilities, taxes and food are adversely affecting our whole population. Lets work with the state to increase our available energy and provide more energy options. Lets create paths to ensure our seniors arent taxed out of their homes and lets provide our young people ways to become owners who are invested in the county. Lets make it better for our local farmers to produce and keep/sell food locally rather than selling/shipping to large corporations who are controlling our food supply. We can make a difference by providing an environment that encourages investing and living in our county.

What are Washtenaw Countys greatest assets and how can they be used to help the community thrive?

Egmon:

Our people and our businesses are what makes Washtenaw County thrive. By partnering with them and encouraging them to work together and removing obstacles and unnecessary red tape, we can create an environment that breeds success.
WASHTENAW COUNTY, MI - A handful of newcomers and three incumbents are vying for four spots on the York Township Board of Trustees in the Aug. 6 primary election.

Republicans John Hargrove, Jason D. McGovern and Asa B. Swallows are seeking re-election, while fellow current trustee Derek Stern is not on the ballot. The new challengers for the seat are Republicans Bill Cook, Thomas Gary, Helen Neil, Burton W. Packard.

Only four of the Republicans will advance to the November general election, while Crystal Thrall as the lone Democrat will advance unopposed.

Township Trustees are elected to a four-year term and serve on the township Board of Trustees along with the supervisor, treasurer and clerk. They are the legislators for the township and are responsible for the day-to-day operation of township government, the township budget and other duties required by county, state and federal law.

MLive/The Ann Arbor News has partnered with the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund to provide the Vote411.org voter guide.

In responses to the voter guide questionnaire, two of the Republican candidates addressed experience and issues of development and infrastructure in the rural township south of Ann Arbor.

Cook, Hargrove, McGovern, Packard and Swallows did not respond to the questionnaire.

Note: All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for necessary cuts if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

What in your education and experience make you the best qualified candidate for this position?

Gary: I am a graduate of the University of Akron with a BS degree in Technical Education. I am retired from Norfolk Southern Corp after a 38 year career as Director of Automotive Operations and Prevention. In addition, I have experiance as a volunteer in leading a large Federal Credit union as Board President and most recently as Board President of a non profit foundation dedicated to motorcycle safety and training. Currenty I serve as Secretary of the York Township Planning Commission. I beleive my past experience and current position on York Township Planning commision makes me fully qualified as a Township Trustee.

Neil: My 30 years working in the Township Hall began as Office Receptionist, which piqued my interest in serving our residents. As Township Clerk from 1998 through 2020, I gained knowledge in Township Governance, ran Elections, attended workshops provided by the Michigan Townships Association and the Washtenaw County Clerks Association. I thoroughly enjoyed employing this knowledge to assist residents with their needs. My full understanding of Township finances, from balancing the general ledger each month, prepares me for the prime statutory duty of Trustees - fiduciary oversight. We must maintain the budget and carefully monitor the spending of taxpayers dollars. As Clerk, I helped keep the Township on firm financial footing and will continue this conservative fiscal management.

What are your goals should you be elected and how will you work to accomplish them with limited resources?

Gary: I belive first and formost it is both a fiduciary and statutory responsibility of a Trustee to manage the affairs of the Township for the best interest of the public. Further it is my goal to insure all public fund expenditures are justified and supported in the interest of the public.

Neil: I worked as part of the team who built York Townships close relationship with the Washtenaw County Road Commission. This partnership has led to great improvements of both paved and gravel roads by sharing costs and seeking the best use of Federal, State and local funds. Partnerships with subdivisions can be established to improve their roads. We must build cooperation with adjacent townships and cities to share recreational resources and provide connectivity to the county non-motorized trail network.

What are the most serious problems facing the township and how will you work to solve them?

Gary: Our citizen survey s have indicated that maintaining our rural life style is extreamly important. As a Planning Commissioner, responsible for helping execute our Township Master Plan I understand the importance of controlled growth and at the same time maintaining our natural features and agricultural setting. I will work to insure growth will not be at the expense of our rural character

Neil: The demand for more residential development threatens our rural character, if left unchecked could upset this charming atmosphere weve come to know and love. Increased cyber security is needed to protect our digital records.

What are the townships greatest assets and how can they be used to help the community thrive?

Gary: Our greatest asset is a location close to world class public education, universities, health care and fortune 100 corporations with out urban congestion and crime. These facts alone make York Township a desirable location to live and raise a family. My goal is to ensure to the best of my ability it stays that way.

Neil: The rural nature of York Township is maintained by mostly agricultural areas to the south blending with upscale suburban areas on the north. We benefit from two communities at our borders: City of Saline in our northwest corner and City of Milan on our southeast corner. York residents have expressed strong community support for the rural atmosphere and good infrastructure. We enjoy an ongoing honorable relationship with Toyota North American as they continue to expand their research and testing facilities.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A reported move by Donald Trumps campaign to stop holding outdoor rallies comes as no shock to a Grand Rapids man who once was a Secret Service agent.

It doesnt surprise me at all, Jason Russell, with Secure Environment Consultants, told MLive/The Grand Rapids Press on Wednesday.

The comments from Russell, who served as a Secret Service agent from 2002 until 2010, came 11 days after a shooter attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump at an outdoor campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

NBC news reported Wednesday, July 24, that sources familiar with the Trump campaign confirmed the change to hold indoor rallies, like the one Trump had at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids on Saturday.

I think youre going to see both campaigns (Republican and Democratic) favor indoor rallies, Russell said.

Related: 5 takeaways from Trumps rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan

A would-be assassin fired shots at July 13 at a Trump outdoor rally in Pennsylvania, striking Trumps ear with a bullet.

A Secret Service sniper then killed the shooter, Thomas Crooks. One person in the crowd died and two others were injured.

Trump soon after attended the Republican National Convention and came to Grand Rapids on July 20 for his first public rally since the shooting. The rally, at Van Andel Arena, went off without a hitch.

Russell said indoor venues are much easier to secure than an outdoor space.

You can sweep the entire venue. You can pre-position everything, then sweep the whole thing, he said. You can magnetometer (scan) every single person coming in.

Related: Photos show huge turnout for Trump, Vance in first rally since assassination attempt

He said indoor venues eliminate the possibility of someone securing an elevated position undetected by police or federal authorities.

Crooks, the shooter, fired shots from an AR-15 style rifle at Trump from an elevated position about 147 yards from the stage.

According to the Associated Press, witnesses and law enforcement officials say Crooks walked around for at least a half-hour before climbing onto the roof of a building adjacent to the Butler Farm Show grounds, where Trump was speaking. As spectators screamed for police to respond, Crooks opened fire, letting loose two quick bursts. A sniper responded by shooting and killing Crooks.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned this week, 10 days after the assassination attempt. House Oversight and Accountability Committee members on both sides of the aisle grilled Cheatle earlier this week about how the shooter was able to get so close to Trump and why Secret Service wasnt better prepared for the rally.

Russell said political campaigns liked outdoor venues, in some cases, because they usually are much cheaper than renting an indoor site. The cost savings then allow the campaign to conduct more rallies.

He thinks the presidential campaigns will use arenas like Van Andel, but may start staging more rallies at airport hangars. The venues would be cheaper than public arenas but also offer significantly more security features than an outdoor space.

In an interview with MLive prior to Saturdays rally, Russell predicted that Trumps rally in Grand Rapids would bring added security. After the event, he talked to people who confirmed his assessment.

MLive journalists witnessed police teams on bikes and horses as well as officers staged on top of the nearby B.O.B. building and in a parking ramp across Fulton Street from the arena.

Russell said he also believed the bicycle rack fencing and guards around the arena entrance were enhanced from previous candidate visits.

I think they really had to step up. They really didnt have a choice, he said.

Grand Rapids police said spectators at the July 20 event were well-behaved and there were no arrests related to the event.

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.
First floated as a candidate to replace President Joe Biden this fall and then as a possible vice presidential pick, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is a prominent Democrat on the national scene.

The second-term governor has continually dismissed speculation that shell leave for Washington before the end of her term in 2026, but Whitmer has been viewed as a rising star in the party with future national ambitions.

From weathering the pandemic, jabs from former President Donald Trump and a kidnapping plot to enacting stricter gun laws and repealing the states abortion ban, her national clout among Democrats has risen considerably since 2020.

Whitmer herself hasnt ruled out a future presidential run.

In 2023 she launched a super PAC, Fight Like Hell PAC, that shes used to canvass voters in support of Biden but also to raise her national profile. And that profile has been elevated lately by the national tour for her new book, True Gretch, which landed on the New York Times bestseller list.

Some in Michigan had hoped Whitmer, not likely Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, would be at the top of the Democratic ticket this fall.

For her part, Whitmer has endorsed Harris, saying shes thrilled about the possible president and knows Harris has got Michigans back.

Whitmers continued popularity in the Mitten State  which she won both terms by about 10 points  could be seen during the ongoing True Gretch tour.

Tickets for her talk Monday with actor Jeff Bridges sold out in just over a minute. She entered the stage to a standing ovation.

We want to hear from you about whether you think Whitmer shouldve thrown her hat in the ring this presidential election.
OTTAWA COUNTY, MI -- John Gibbs, ousted as Ottawa Countys administrator earlier this year, has donated money to a handful of election candidates trying to unseat county commissioners in the Aug. 6 primary linked to a highly conservative group.

The donations are listed in campaign finance reports, filed this week as required by election guidelines, from candidates seeking county commission seats.

The data shows that Gibbs donated $200 to the campaign of Mark Northrup, who is running against Ottawa County Board Chair Joe Moss in the countys District 5.

RELATED: Ousted administrator John Gibbs: Ottawa Impacts got to go

Moss is the co-founder of Ottawa Impact, a conservative platform whose candidates gained a majority on the Ottawa County board in the 2022 election.

Moss and other Ottawa Impact board members ushered Gibbs into the county administrators post in January 2023, firing then-administrator John Shay. But about a year later, it was apparent the relationship between Gibbs and several commissioners had soured.

Gibbs was fired Feb. 29 over misconduct allegations, including that he made physical threats against the countys corporation counsel, sexist comments about a county official, installed a secret camera in his office and was insubordinate to commissioners and tried to sabotage their work.

After the firing, Gibbs talked publicly about his dismissal and his belief that Ottawa Impact board members did not know how to govern and should not be re-elected. He subsequently filed a federal lawsuit, claiming retaliation, defamation and breach of contract.

The campaign finance reports filed so far -- the due date is July 26 -- showed that Gibbs also donated $104.10 to Jim Barry, who is running against District 1 Commissioner Gretchen Cosby.

In a twist many would consider unexpected, Gibbs also donated $100 to District 4 Commissioner Jacob Bonnema, who is running unopposed as a Republican in the Aug. 6 primary.

Bonnema was elected under the Ottawa Impact umbrella, but broke away from the group in March 2023 over concerns of transparency. He was censured in June 2023 by fellow commissioners after alleging that Gibbs made a threatening outburst toward him.

Bonnema alleged that Gibbs became agitated when he asked about the status of a county Health Department officer application after repeatedly getting no response from Gibbs in previous emails.

A board investigation by a third-party attorney determined that Bonnemas complaint of harassment could not be substantiated.

Because not all campaign finance reports had been filed by Friday afternoon, it wasnt immediately clear if Gibbs made other donations.

Gibbs did not immediately return a call for comment.

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.
KALAMAZOO TOWNSHIP, MI -- Newcomer David Combs is challenging incumbent supervisor Don Martin for the Kalamazoo Township supervisor seat.

The winner of the Aug. 6 primary will run unopposed in the Nov. 5 general election as a Democrat, barring any write-in candidates.

During a four-year term, the township supervisors duties include moderating board and annual meetings, developing the township budget and speaking on behalf of the township.

David Combs, 32, moved to Kalamazoo Township two years ago. He currently serves on the Kalamazoo Township Zoning Board of Appeals, County Board of Public Works and acts as a county representative to the Regional Planning Council.

Don Martin, 81, was appointed to the role of Kalamazoo Township supervisor in 2018 after serving on the township board since 2008. Voters elected him to stay in the position, in 2020. He retired from the Kalamazoo Fire Department after 35 years at the rank of assistant chief, and has lived in the township for almost 50 years.

MLive has partnered with the League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund to provide voters with a Vote411 election guide with information about candidates in local primary races across the state. Candidates were asked to fill out information about their campaigns and answer a list of questions compiled by 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.

What are your top three priorities for the office you seek? What do you hope to accomplish?

Combs: 1. Transparent and accessible local government, that operates in good order. 2. An affordable future for life in Kalamazoo Township--this includes public services, housing, and economic development. 3. A sustainable future for Kalamazoo Township--this includes environmental (climate, infrastructure, resources) and human (equitable, safe, and just) sustainability.

Martin: stabilization, transparency, and Trust

What essential talents, skills and experiences would you bring to this office?

Combs: I have a masters degree in public administration, a masters degree in organizational development, currently serve on the Kalamazoo Township Zoning Board and Parks Committee, Kalamazoo County Board of Public Works, and Southcentral Michigan Planning Council. I am also an operations manager for a $50 million nonprofit organization. I was previously a campaign manager for national progressive campaigns including campaigns for nuclear disarmament and antimilitarism, international aid, and access to vaccines. I have previously served on the boards of several public and nonprofit organizations including a chapter of the United Nations Association.

Martin: experience and community service

What are the major environmental issues facing your township and what activities or initiatives would you support to address them?

Combs: A truly sustainable environment in the township is an environment that: - Protects our climate. - Preserves the right of all residents to live and love freely and safely. - Provides high quality public services at affordable costs. - Fosters opportunities for small business and union companies to grow and thrive. - Attracts young people and families. - Connects vulnerable people to vital resources. I will convene advisory councils on each of the above, and will develop policy initiatives in collaboration with township residents, who represent or have expertise on these facets of the overall township environment.

Martin: looking ahead for EV technology, helping with the displaced residents, Lower the environmental pollution and bligt issues.

Information on other state, county and local primary races can be found at Vote411.org.

Kalamazoo Gazette/MLive offers free email news alerts. Click here to sign up for alerts or for the daily 3@3 Kalamazoo news roundup. Bookmark the local Kalamazoo news page here.
JACKSON COUNTY, MI - A township seat thats been vacated and refilled three times in just over a year is up for grabs in August.

Rives Townships incumbent clerk Vercilla Hart will face challenger Joseph Super in the Aug. 6 Republican primary.

Hart was appointed clerk in June 2023, after the resignation of former clerk Judith McCord. She abruptly resigned during an Aug. 31 meeting, but later rescinded her resignation and agreed to work with other board members to resolve their office issues. Hart resigned again - citing overwork - in January, only to come back the role four days later.

Related: Resigned township clerk returns to position for second time after abruptly leaving again

Super has previously worked in the retail, hospitality and automotive industries.

With no Democrats filed to run for the position, the winner of the August election will appear uncontested on the November general election ballot and likely will win the seat.

MLive/Jackson Citizen Patriot has partnered with the nonpartisan League of Women Voters of Michigan Education Fund to provide the Vote411.org voter guide.

The voter guide questionnaire asked both candidates to discuss their qualifications and plans from the position.

Hart did not response to the questionnaire.

Note: All responses in the voter guide were submitted directly by the candidate and have not been edited by the League of Women Voters, except for necessary cuts if a reply exceeded character limitations. Spelling and grammar were not corrected. Publication of candidate statements and opinions is solely in the interest of public service and should NOT be considered as an endorsement. The League never supports or opposes any candidates or political parties.

What training, experience, and characteristics qualify you for this position?

Super: I have worked across a variety of industries, from customer-facing retail, hospitality and non-profit jobs, to automotive repair & residential construction, to production-oriented manufacturing in several forms.

One of the most important skills Ive acquired across all of these is the ability to train myself. Some jobs more than others, but I have found the ability to find the best way to master the basics and then identify what I dont know, and find the people & resources to fill in those gaps, and that has helped me to excel in situations new to me.

What are the most important challenges the Clerks position currently faces, and how do you propose to address them?

Super: Township Clerks are a focal point and a catch-all in our local municipal governments. This in of itself is a challenge. Although Rives is not a large community, it shares the functions and responsibilities of a governing body of any size, and I hope to bring cohesiveness and communication to the position in order to best serve our residents.

What is the role of the community clerks office in increasing civic participation in elections, especially increasing the number of registered voters and encouraging turnout?

Super: There are so many separate dynamics faced by our township at the moment. As a rural community, we face issues that directly impact our residents, and that we have a degree of control over, and I would like to be sure our residents feel that they are served and represented by their elected officials. I find a lack of awareness of issues big enough to make the news amongst our community, and I look forward to finding ways to tell our residents that their participation is strongly encouraged and that their voices are heard as clearly as any other.

Want more Jackson-area news? Bookmark the local Jackson news page or sign up for the free 3@3 Jackson daily newsletter.
UPDATE: The story has been updated to reflect Rich Cutshaws edited answer, regarding why hes running.

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MI  Republican incumbent Matt Hall is being challenged from within his party as he seeks reelection to Michigans 42nd House District.

Political newcomer Rich Cutshaw, of Scotts, is facing off against Hall in the Tuesday, Aug. 6, Republican primary. The winner will face Democrat Austin Marsman in the Nov. 5 general election.

Hall served two terms as a state representative in House District 63, prior to statewide redistricting in 2022. He is currently the representative in House District 42.

He has a bachelors degree in business administration, business management and public administration from Western Michigan University and a juris doctor in advanced constitutional advocacy from WMU Cooley Law School. Hall previously worked for the Michigan Attorney Generals Office. His website is electmatthall.com.

RELATED: Republican candidate says he learned from online harassment incident

Cutshaw enters the race without political experience. He has a high school education and is a truck driver with a self-proclaimed drive to fight for our next generations. His campaign website is cutshaw4mi.com.

Michigans 42nd district includes parts of Kalamazoo and Oshtemo Township, as well as the cities of Galesburg and Parchment and the townships of Alamo, Brady, Comstock, Cooper, Pavilion, Prairie Ronde, Richland, Ross and Schoolcraft. It also includes parts of Allegan County, including cities of Otsego and Plainwell, as well Gun Plain Township and part of Otsego Township.

MLive has partnered with the League of Women Voters and Vote411 to produce this voter guide.

All responses 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. View the full vote411.org voter guide here.

Here are the questions and unedited answers from the two Republican candidates:

GENERAL BIO QUESTION: Why are you running for the Michigan State Legislature?

Cutshaw: My name is Rich Cutshaw. I have decided to run in the August 6th primary for the 42 District State House. I am married with six children. My wife and I own a home in Pavilion Township. I am a Constitutional Conservative who believes in the Constitution the way it was written. We the People need change in Lansing. I look forward to serving the people of the 42nd district and the people of the great state of Michigan. I am Pro Life, Pro Parental Choice, Pro 2A and Pro Common Sense! Help me help you by sending a true Conservative to represent We the People in Lansing. God Bless you all and God Bless America 

Hall: I am seeking re-election to reverse out-of-control government spending, protect hard-earned taxpayer dollars, and build a better Michigan for future generations. Because of the Bidens open border policies, communities throughout Southwest Michigan are feeling the impacts of illegal immigration. We cannot allow our communities to become safe havens for dangerous criminals and fatal drugs, thats why I introduced legislation to ban sanctuary counties and cities.

EDUCATION: What should Michigan do to provide an equitable, quality public education for all while addressing the current teacher shortage?

Cutshaw: We need massive overhaul of the public education system. Public schools have become indoctrination centers. They are forcing woke ideologies on our children and its destroying our youth. I believe that if we remove such ideologies from our Public Schools, the moral would return and teachers would feel safe and be able to do their job correctly. Public Schools should only be teaching a heathy curriculum, based on truth. Public education needs to get back to the 3 Rs so to speak

Hall: We must remove politics from childrens classrooms. It is essential to empower children during their educational development by focusing on core academic subjects, like reading and math. These skills will positively impact our children later in life when they enter the workforce. As your State Representative, I have championed parental input in our classrooms and fought to take power away from Lansing bureaucrats. Parents deserve to have a voice in their childrens education.

ENVIRONMENT: What do you see as the states role, if any, in mitigating the impact of climate change?

Cutshaw: The State has no business concerning itself with climate change. The climate changes hence we have seasons. Historically the climate is no different than it ever has been.

Hall: Michigan urgently needs to address skyrocketing energy prices. We must lower costs for families, ensure electric grid reliability, and embrace natural gas production. The new law implemented by Michigan Democrats to ban fossil fuels by 2040 is unsustainable and irresponsible. This policy will double your electric bill and create an unreliable grid. I will continue to fight for policies that lower electric bills and increase reliability.

RESIDENT RETENTION: What actions/proposals, if any, do you support to retain residents in our state?

Cutshaw: Lower taxes, Create middle class jobs, make Michigan small business friendly. Cut all unnecessary Government spending and programs. Stop funding Chinas interest in our state. Stop turning our good farmland into solar fields. Have safer and more educational public schools. Support Police agencies to make Michigan communities safer. Ban sanctuary counties and cities and deport all illegal immigrants. Fix the roads. A complete overhaul of the education system. Make all unconstitutional legislation null and void effective immediately. I would Assist in the Run Michigan Right Campaign, giving the house back to the We the People!

Hall: Michigan must implement an economic growth strategy to retain residents and businesses of all sizes. Reforming unaccountable taxpayer-funded programs to ensure better results, reverse the recent Democrat income tax hike, removing burdensome red tape, and bringing back Righ-to-Work. By doing this, we can create a healthy economy that retains residents.

Information on other state, county and local primary races can be found at Vote411.org. MLives coverage on this years races and election issues around the state can be found at this link.
*We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies.

Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy

*I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age

I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl

I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites

I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS

Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue.

I Accept
USER CONSENT

We at moneycontrol use cookies and other tracking technologies to assist you with navigation and determine your location. We also capture cookies to obtain your feedback, analyse your use of our products and services and provide content from third parties. By clicking on 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies and other tracking technologies. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy.

*We collect cookies for the functioning of our website and to give you the best experience. This includes some essential cookies.

Cookies from third parties which may be used for personalization and determining your location. By clicking 'I Accept', you agree to the usage of cookies to enhance your personalized experience on our site. For more details you can refer to our cookie policy

*I agree to the updated privacy policy and I warrant that I am above 16 years of age

I agree to the processing of my personal data for the purpose of personalised recommendations on financial and similar products offered by MoneyControl

I agree personalized advertisements and any kind of remarketing/retargeting on other third party websites

I agree to receive direct marketing communications via Emails and SMS

Please select (*) all mandatory conditions to continue.

I Accept
Reporters learned from the Provincial Finance Department that since the beginning of this year, Anhui has invested a total of 1.16 billion yuan in ecological protection compensation funds. The province continues to improve the policy system for ecological protection compensation, promoting the improvement of ecological environment quality. In terms of coordinated regional development, the Provincial Finance Department has "upgraded" the ecological compensation pilot project in the Xin'an River Basin. The total scale of compensation funds between Anhui and Zhejiang provinces has been increased to 1 billion yuan, of which the provincial finance department has allocated 320 million yuan to support diversified compensations in industry and talent. To advance the "major protection" of the Yangtze River, 100 million yuan has been allocated for compensation funds, implementing horizontal ecological protection compensation in the Yangtze River Basin with upstream Jiangxi Province and downstream Jiangsu Province. In terms of improving environmental quality, the Provincial Finance Department has improved the comprehensive ecological compensation mechanism within the province, allocating 336 million yuan to implement ecological compensation for surface water sections throughout the province, incentives for environmental air quality, and ecological compensation for the water environment in the Dabie Mountain area. This achieves full coverage of provincial-level water and air ecological protection compensation for all 16 cities. In terms of ecological security, the Provincial Finance Department strengthens the protection of wetlands and natural conservation areas. It has coordinated and allocated 45 million yuan to support the protection and restoration of important wetlands such as Shengjin Lake, implementing wetland ecological benefit compensations. Furthermore, 23 million yuan has been allocated to support the protection of wild animals and plants as well as first-grade ancient and famous trees.

Source: anhuinews.com


Former Homeless Camp On Mono Way Caltrans property View Photo

Sacramento, CA  Following a Supreme Court ruling allowing cities and counties to put in place restrictions on where people can sleep in outside public spaces, Governor Gavin Newsom has issued a state directive on how to remove homeless encampments.

The order is aimed at the makeshift shelters across the state that have popped up in various locations. He notes that actions should be carried out with dignity and safety of Californians experiencing homelessness.

Newsom says, This executive order directs state agencies to move urgently to address dangerous encampments while supporting and assisting the individuals living in them  and provides guidance for cities and counties to do the same.

Newsom continues, There are simply no more excuses. Its time for everyone to do their part.

Newsom says the order directs local governments to emulate a program put in place by Caltrans in 2021 that he argues has removed over 11,000 encampments with 248,275 cubic yards of debris.

Newsom is also encouraging local governments to apply for $3.3 billion in competitive funding as part of the Proposition 1 overhaul of the Behavioral Services Act that was narrowly approved by voters in March.

You can read the executive order by clicking here.
Groveland, CA  Groveland native Sagen Maddalena will compete in three shooting competitions at the Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The opening ceremony kicks things off this evening and the first shooting competitions commence on Saturday. Maddalena, 30, is a sergeant in the US Army Marksmanship Unit. The daughter of Randy and Susan Maddalena, she first became interested in shooting through the local 4-H program. Later she went on to compete with one of the top rifle collegiate programs in the country at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Following the Olympic Games, the Yosemite Highway 120 Chamber of Commerce announces that Maddalena will be on hand as the Grand Marshall of the September 21st 49er Festival in Groveland, which is the biggest event of the year in the community.

2024 marks her second time competing in the Olympics. In the 2021 Tokyo Games, she finished a strong fifth in the womens 50m rifle 3 positions competition.

She also appeared at the 49er Festival that year and received a heros welcome with various special events at local businesses.

Maddalena will be competing in three competitions in the 2024 games, the 10 m Mixed Team Air Rifle, 10 m Air Rifle Women, and the 50m Rifle 3 Positions Women. Find details about national television airings for the various rifle events on the NBC networks by clicking here.

The myMotherLode.com Olympics new page can be found by clicking here.
Beitbridge Bureau  The relentless crackdown on illicit activities at the Beitbridge Border Post has ensnared yet another Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) official, sending ripples of unease through the corridors of the national revenue agency. Anthony Madowe, a 36-year-old revenue officer, has been apprehended by the police for his alleged role in facilitating the illegal export of 37 truckloads of chrome concentrate into South Africa.

Madowes arrest comes hot on the heels of the detention of two other Zimra officials, Simon Homera and Kudakwashe Nyatsawu, who were remanded in custody this week for facilitating the smuggling of a combined 26 trucks of chrome concentrate. The arrests have sparked a wave of concern about the extent of corruption at the border post, a critical gateway for Zimbabwes trade with neighbouring countries.

Madowe, who appeared before Beitbridge resident magistrate, Mr Takudzwa Gwazemba, on Thursday, was charged with criminal abuse of office. He was granted US$200 bail pending trial on August 15.

The prosecution, led by Miss Tinayeishe Matenga, alleges that Madowe committed the offence in February. He is accused of failing to properly acquit a Bill of Entry number E2159, which had been used by Zim Alloys to clear its chrome concentrate. Subsequently, Madowe allegedly used the same Bill of Entry to facilitate the illegal export of 37 trucks laden with 1328 tonnes of chrome concentrate, shipped from Mvurwi to a warehouse in South Africa.

This brazen act of deception, according to the prosecution, resulted in a significant loss of export royalties for the Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ). The exact financial impact of the illegal exports is yet to be determined, but it is believed to be substantial, further exacerbating the already precarious financial situation of the MMCZ.

The arrest of Madowe, the third Zimra official to be apprehended in connection with chrome smuggling in just a few days, has sent a tremor through the ranks of the revenue authority. It has also raised serious questions about the effectiveness of Zimras internal controls and its ability to curb illicit activities at the border post.

This is a clear indication that there is a serious problem with corruption within Zimra, said a senior official from the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), who requested anonymity. The fact that these officials are willing to risk their careers and freedom for personal gain is a cause for serious concern.

The arrest of Madowe and his alleged accomplices has also highlighted the vulnerability of the countrys mineral resources to illicit activities. The smuggling of chrome concentrate, a valuable commodity used in the production of stainless steel, has been a persistent problem at the Beitbridge Border Post for years.

This is not a new phenomenon, said a senior official from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development, who also requested anonymity. The problem is that the demand for chrome is high, and the rewards for smuggling are lucrative. This makes it difficult to deter these activities.

The government has been trying to crack down on chrome smuggling for years, but the problem persists. President Mnangagwa is on record saying exportation of several mineral raw materials is prohibited as it hinders the economic growth of Zimbabwe.

The arrest of Madowe has also raised concerns about the role of Zim Alloys in the smuggling operation. Some of the companys employees are alleged to have been involved in the illegal export of the chrome concentrate.

Breaking News via Email

Related Zimbabwe Latest News
Symptoms that develop post-infection are not always due solely to the infection itself. Hospitalization for any reasonincreases a persons risk for a wide range of medical problems after discharge. Such problems may have little to do with the initial diagnosis and instead stem from the stress of a hospital stay: The disrupted sleep, poor nutrition, and lack of exercise can all contribute to the onset of new health problems. Additionally, people who are very sick do not always fully recover, and their lingering symptoms are often not specific to the initial illness.

We have names for those syndromes already, including post-intensive care syndrome and post-hospitalization syndrome, said Anil Makam, a hospital medicine physician at the University of California, San Francisco, who studies patients in long-term acute care hospitals, where many patients go after an ICU stay. Makam recently published a studythat used validated surveys as well as interviews to understand the long-term outcomes of patients who were hospitalized with the most severe cases of Covid-19. His study didnt have a control group, he said, but the results echo what was known before the pandemic: The sicker the patient, the more likely they are to have persistent multisystem disabilities.

It doesnt make sense to conflate these conditions with long Covid, he said. Lumping everything together leads to a distorted view of long Covid, and it could complicate efforts to understand the underlying mechanisms and identify possible interventions. Youre just going to be on a wild goose chase to find treatments, he said.

Some experts said a broad definition could be useful in the context of public health and epidemiology. Sharon Saydah, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that when CDC scientists crafted the agencys long Covid definition, they wanted to make sure were not missing anything, that were including everyone who might be experiencing ongoing symptoms or new conditions related to a Covid-19 infection. In a 2021 opinion piece for The Guardian, Al-Aly criticized the WHOs definition for excluding new onset diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, which his own studies have detected. These new conditions should count as long Covid, he wrote; otherwise, governments may fail to prepare for the tide of patients with these chronic conditions.

(In an email to Undark, a WHO spokesperson, Tarik Jasarevic, wrote that its definition may include new onset disease: The definition focuses on symptoms but doesnt specifically exclude new onset disease. New onset conditions like diabetes, lupus, stroke, etc. may be considered long Covid, Jasarevic wrote.)

At stake, Al-Aly suggested, is a broader struggle: That of long Covid patients who seek to have their symptoms taken seriously, but may encounter skepticism from peers, employers, and caretakers. I worry that this myopic definition of long Covid may be used by governments and health insurers to debase the disease and deny insurance coverage, he wrote. It may add fuel to the gaslighters fire, providing them with a moral license to sow more skepticism around the existence of this disease.

In an interview with Undark, he said that for too long post-infectious illnesses were marginalized. Then, when pandemic hit, the health care system was caught flatfooted. There is no national medical society to champion patients cause, and individual physicians are unsure about how to help, he said. Congress allocated more than $1 billion in 2021 to fund long Covid research (and the government kicked in an additional $515 million this year). Thats a start, said Al-Aly. But its nowhere near enough.

In the spring of 2021, after Nature published Al-Alys first long Covid paper, Anders Hviids first reaction was surprise. Nature is a top journal, but it was unusual for the publication to feature epidemiology, said Hviid. Even more unusual were the studys findings. Its just difficult to imagine that a simple respiratory virus could be so detrimental to all organ systems at a population-level scale, said Hviid. Ones intuition can always be wrong, he added, but given that other respiratory infections, including influenza, do not exact such a massive toll, skepticism seemed like the right starting point: You should question, Can that be right?

For more than two decades, Hviid has conducted research using Denmarks centralized medical records. During the pandemic, he and his colleagues used electronic health record data to conduct vaccine safety and effectiveness studies. And by late 2020, he had also turned his attention to long Covid, securing funding for a study that would survey the Danish population about their post-Covid symptoms. Such questionnaires offer fine-grained data that can be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain through electronic health records, said Hviid. Nevertheless, Al-Alys study had piqued his curiosity. He decided to conduct EHR-based studies as well.

This February, he and four colleagues published a study using medical records of the entire Danish population aged 12 and over. In contrast to Al-Alys work, that study found no evidence of substantial neurological or psychiatric symptoms in non-hospitalized individuals one year after a Covid-19 infection.

A defining feature of the study, said Hviid, is its high number of mild or asymptomatic infections. These were documented thanks to the countrys widespread surveillance testing. People getting tested in Denmark were often young and healthy. They got tested because it was a requirement for socializing.

Hviids team did see a meaningful increased risk of persistent symptoms among those who had been hospitalized. Thats not particularly surprising, he said. A severe course of any illness can lead to lingering effects.

Hviid and his colleagues arent the only researchers to find that long-lasting Covid-19 symptoms are rare for people with mild illness. A 2023 study looked at the electronic health records of a nationally representative sample of Israeli citizens with mild cases of Covid-19. It found that they were at risk for a small number of health outcomes. But most of the symptoms resolved within a year.

That study confirms the statements that weve made that by and large, by one year, most people will have recovered, said Theo Vos, an epidemiologist who helps track long Covid for the long-running Global Burden of Disease study.

Vos is an author of a 2022 systematic review that pooled data from 54 studies and two medical records databases, then grouped study participants into three symptom clusters: one centered around fatigue, another around cognition, and a third around breathing problems. The authors found that, among non-hospitalized people, just 0.7 percent had not recovered by 12 months after infection. This compared with 11 percent of those who were hospitalized and around 20 percent of those whose hospital stay involved the ICU.

In an April email, Selvakumar pointed out that many early long Covid studies were conducted on non-immune populations. Thats important to keep in mind, he wrote, because the largest risk factor for long Covid is initial severity. Thanks to immunity from vaccines and prior infection, most people today are less likely to have a severe course of the illness  thus, their risk of long Covid has declined as well.

Comparing an Al-Aly study of mental health outcomes with Hviids offers a glimpse into the dizzying number of variables that can influence a studys results  even when, on the surface, the studies appear similar.

There are huge differences between the two studies, said Jeffrey Morris, director of the Biostatistics Division at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine. He started ticking them off: different study populations, different designs, different time periods.

Both approaches, Morris said, had merit.

Other researchers agreed that Al-Alys studies have merit, but stressed that the work is limited in its ability to speak to long Covid in the broader population. As a group, VA patients are older and less healthy. As a result, they are at higher risk of severe infection that might lead to hospitalization or even a stay in the ICU, events that increase ones risk of long Covid. The VA studies look at a very special group of high-risk people, wrote Selvakumar in an email, so you have to be very careful when extrapolating to the general population. While a given study may note this limitation, he continued, the caveat sometimes gets lost in what he characterized as media spin.

One researcher doing similar studies was cautious about extrapolating his findings to the broader population. Junqing Xie, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, recently co-authored a paper that used data from the U.K. Biobank to look for a connection between a Covid infection and psychiatric disorders and prescriptions. Similar to the VA team, Xies team found a link. However, its unclear what precisely this means for the general population, said Xie. We are not able to infer any prevalences, he told Undark. To do that, a researcher would need to ensure that their study participants are highly representative of the broader population. Neither the BioBank nor the VA databases meet this criterion, he said.

Within the already-less-healthy VA population, some experts said, Al-Alys infected groups probably skew toward more serious Covid-19 cases. Thats because people with asymptomatic or mild cases are much less likely to visit a doctor, who would then document the positive result in the patients electronic record. The effect would have become increasingly pronounced as time wore on and people developed immunity and started testing at home, said Makam. He pointed to a VA study that looked at the risk of organ damage associated with reinfection. People with multiple Covid infections documented in their health records probably had relatively more severe courses of illness, he said. This doesnt mean that the average person who gets reinfected and can manage their illness at home is at heightened risk of organ damage.

(The study, published in Nature Medicine, doesnt mention this as a limitation, though it does suggest that bias could run in the opposite direction: If people with Covid-19 dont get tested, and if they are at heightened risk of bad outcomes, then they could make the uninfected group look sicker than it actually is.)

Some experts also raised concerns that the VA St. Louis team has worked with data in ways that, from the outside, dont clearly map onto established statistical practices.

In his email, Lipsitch raised questions about the groups use of negative controls, a statistical technique that can help a researcher determine whether any associations  for example, an association between a Covid-19 infection and smell loss  are causally linked.

In an influential 2010 paper, Lipsitch and his colleagues proposed that negative controls should be routinely deployed in epidemiological studies. Applied to the study of long Covid, one type of negative control, called a negative outcome control, might involve identifying health conditions that are highly unlikely to be caused by the infection: accidental injuries, for example, or scarring. If an infection were found to be associated with one or more of these unrelated conditions, then this would suggest that some other variable  something other than the Covid-19 infection  is influencing the studys results.

In order for this technique to work, said Lipsitch, researchers need to define their negative outcome controls before they conduct their analysis, and then report all the findings. The VA St. Louis first paper used neoplasms  a medical term for tumor  as a negative outcome control, but in the preprint, neoplasms were not treated as a negative control; rather, they were treated as an ordinary outcome. There are also issues about how the negative outcome controls were chosen in subsequent papers, Lipsitch wrote to Undark. The negative outcome controls differ across studies, he said, and its not clear why.

Some of this is difficult to parse, Lipsitch said, because the studys methods are not clearly explained. I think this is a case where peer review didnt do its full job, he said. Because part of what peer review should do is to ensure that people with expertise in the field, ideally can reproduce, but at least can understand  in detail  what was done and make a judgment of how valid it was. And in this case, in its wisdom, Nature decided to let through a series of papers that describe their methods in such vague terms that its really hard to know what was done.

Hviid also noted that the VA team changes its negative controls, along with its comparison groups, from study to study. Its a little bit weird, said Hviid. Ideally, a research team would establish its analytical setup and then, whenever it wanted to add more data, the team would rerun the analysis using the same design. Im not saying that theyre intentionally fraudulent, Hviid added, but youve really got to be careful as a researcher if youre sitting and running a lot of different analyses.

The VA St. Louis team also used different approaches  including different weighting methods and a regression adjustment  to make its Covid and non-Covid groups comparable.

There might have been valid reasons for a research team to make such changes, experts told Undark. Peer reviewers might have requested them, for example. When asked about this by email, however, Al-Aly did not provide a rationale.

Undark also shared many of these concerns in a detailed email to Nature, whose portfolio journals published nine of the VA St. Louis long Covid studies. In response, Isobel Lisowski, a communications officer for Springer Nature Group, forwarded a statement on behalf of Nature Portfolio, which she asked to be attributed to Magdalena Skipper, editor-in-chief of Nature: Our journals are editorially independent of each other, and each paper is assessed and peer reviewed independently based on its own individual merits. At all times our commitment is to ensure the accuracy of the scientific record and, if concerns are raised with us directly, we look into them carefully.

The statement further noted that the VA St. Louis papers used several approaches to test the robustness of the findings, and that a reporting summary was published with each paper to increase transparency.

The BMJ, which published the VA St. Louis paper on mental health outcomes, published notes from the peer review. The reviewers did not raise the topic of negative controls. The VA St. Louis team did indicate that it was building additional cohorts to address reviewers concerns about possible bias in the study design.

Al-Aly is not unaware of the criticism. I love these questions, he said, wrapping up the first interview with Undark, during which he discussed his research as well as its possible limitations.

In conversation, Al-Aly is warm and funny, peppering his sentences with colorful idioms and playful hyperbole. (You could test your cat if you wanted to. You can test your dog, he said, recalling how Americans initially went all-in on at-home Covid testing.) Hes also willing to brawl, at times suggesting that many of his critics lack the expertise to evaluate his work or produce good research of their own. We get a lot these newbies. They want to do studies, he said. But their work sometimes contains what he characterized as sophomoric mistakes.

One example, in his view: the 2023 Israeli study of people with mild symptoms, which was published in the BMJ. Do me a favor and look at their Figure 7, said Al-Aly, off the top of his head, when asked about the paper.

Al-Aly pulled up the study on screen. Figure 7 shows that the vaccinated individuals in the study were at a higher risk for memory problems than the unvaccinated. The most plausible explanation, said Al-Aly, is that the researchers havent fully accounted for bias in their dataset. Further, he said, the study seems to assume that if a diagnostic code stops appearing in a patients medical record, this means the condition has resolved. In reality, said Al-Aly, its very hard to document the resolution of symptoms in EHR.

(In an email to Undark, a study co-author, Maytal Bivas-Benita, said that the memory finding wasnt statistically significant. She added that her groups findings are supported by a more recent Israeli study, which found a return to baseline in medication use and health care costs in non-hospitalized Covid-19 patients.)

Al-Aly was also critical of the study from Hviids team. Their control group, he suggested, consists of people who tested negative. The distinction matters because during the pandemic people with worse baseline health tended to test more frequently. A cancer patient needing chemotherapy in 2020, for example, would first need a negative Covid test. When you compare sick people to sick people, youre not going to find big differences, said Al-Aly.

Speaking about the Danish study, Al-Aly said, its not unreasonable to even call it deeply or fundamentally flawed.

(Clearly he has not read the paper very carefully, said Hviid. His teams control group included everyone without a positive test. While they did perform an additional analysis with a test-negative control group, Hviid said, it yielded the same results. )

<small>Ziyad Al-Aly, who holds positions at Washington University in St. Louis and at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, is not unaware of the criticism surrounding his research. Hes also willing to brawl, at times suggesting that many of his critics lack the expertise to evaluate his work or produce good research of their own. Visual: Mary-Dale Amison/VA

According to Al-Aly, VA samples can speak to the broader population. While its true that VA demographics dont perfectly mirror the rest of the U.S., its reductionist to dismiss the findings on these grounds, he said. The average age of VA patients is about 60, but this figure represents a large distribution, said Al-Aly. And while women are about 10 percent of the VAs population, this can translate to more than 600,000 people in a VA study. We can fill 10  10!  Taylor Swift stadiums with women, he said, which makes it possible to look for sex differences in their findings.

He also said they adjusted for differences in testing and access to testing over time. This would substantially reduce any bias if it existed, said Al-Aly. (The VA team adjusted for a huge list of confounders, said Morris, when commenting on the study of neurological and psychiatric outcomes.) But having said that, said Al-Aly, now speaking specifically about his groups reinfection study, its not unreasonable also to interpret the study, these are the results, and the results really reflect the people who actually tested.

Nonetheless, Al-Aly said, knowledge from VA studies can be applied to the general population.

Speaking with Undark, Eric Topol pointed to a May Substack post that he co-authored with Al-Aly. It highlighted a number of studies that he described as aligning with the VA research. One was an EHR-based study from Italy, which found that people infected with Covid-19 had elevated rates of cardiovascular problems even three years after infection. (The study did not distinguish between Covid-19 patients who were hospitalized vs. not hospitalized.) The post also described a longitudinal study of patients who were hospitalized with Covid-19 in Wuhan, China. Three years after their initial infection, more than half reported at least one symptom, most of which were mild to moderate.

Long Covid, said Topol, is prevalent. It doesnt go away normally. There are some people that are lucky that they fully recover, but most kind of limp along.

Like Topol, Al-Aly also said that long Covid recovery is rare, particularly among people who have significant post-exertional malaise or fatigue that lasts more than several months. Clinicians are not seeing recovery in these patients, he said.

Although Al-Aly was one of many co-authors on the Global Burden of Diseases systematic review that found most people do recover, he said that the findings need to be interpreted with caution. The reviews primary goal was to track symptoms, not recovery; and even then, the study did not track all long Covid symptoms. Additionally, the review drew from a wide variety of studies  some based on surveys, others on clinical assessments, and yet others on information in databases. This is not the best way to assess recovery, he said, because long Covid symptoms sometimes come and go. A person may have brain fog that lets up for a while, only to return later. The best way to assess for recovery, said Al-Aly, is to follow people over time, checking in every three months or so.

(That is an interesting point of view, Vos wrote after Undark shared some of these concerns with him. I think we had enough studies in our 2022 paper to reject the hypothesis of no recovery. He added that his research team is currently working on an updated analysis: It does look like there will be a small subset of people who remain symptomatic years after infection.)

Later, when asked by email about specific critiques involving negative controls, Al-Aly described them as grossly unfair.

In response to a separate email asking about the different statistical approaches used to make his Covid and non-Covid groups comparable, Al-Aly pointed back to the Israeli study, the Danish study, and the Global Burden of Disease study: We are criticized for using negative controls, he wrote. These other studies dont use any means of quality control. Quite ridiculous that you criticize us for doing the right thing and elevating the rigor of the work.

The scientific debate over long Covid has unfolded amid undeniable human suffering. Across the country, clinics have reported handling an influx of cases since 2020. Previously healthy individuals may suddenly find they need to sleep 18 hours a day. They may struggle with brain fog and breathlessness. Many people have had to scale back on work or quit their jobs entirely. Specialized care is often difficult to access, particularly for Black and Latino patients.

A post-viral condition can steal your whole life, a patient advocate told Undark. In severe, or even moderate cases, youre stuck in bed all day, you lose your friends, you lose a lot of your family, you lose your jobs, you lose your aspirations for life. If you wanted to have kids, if you wanted to get into a relationship, if you wanted to start a business, if you wanted to continue a hobby  all of that is gone.

Youre just kind of suspended in life and dependent on the outside world to come to your rescue, the patient advocate continued.

Those patients often find themselves facing skepticism from people who do not believe the condition is real  including, in some cases, their own doctors. And they are navigating symptoms at a time of intense political polarization over the implications of Covid-19.

The idea that long Covid is widespread, and that its numbers are growing, can be comforting for long Covid sufferers, said the patient advocate, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to avoid blowback from within the patient community, which the advocate said, views Al-Aly as a god-like figure.

He is beloved by patients. And Ill tell you why I think hes beloved by patients: because patients feel left to rot and die, and he has told them what I think some people interpret as a scary story, which is long Covid is rampant. Everyones going to get long Covid. Its going to disable the population, the advocate said. To a patient, this is not a scary story. To a patient, this is actually a very hopeful story because everyones going to get sick; theyre going to have to help me.

But the advocate expressed deep misgivings about promoting exaggerated views of the number of people at risk of developing long Covid. Such views wont help to have you taken seriously by skeptical people.

For now, U.S. public health authorities  drawing on the research of Al-Aly and his colleagues  have continued to trend toward the broadest possible definition of long Covid.

The recent National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report recommended a new definition of long Covid for the U.S. government and health care system. The final result looks remarkably similar to Al-Alys description of the disease: Long Covid can be mild to severe, the report states, and it may include just one symptom or a single new diagnosis that develops after a SARS-CoV-2 infection and persists for at least three months.

In practice, this means that if a person has a mild case of Covid  say a cough and fatigue lasting one week  and then develops a chronic condition like lupus six weeks later, this new lupus patient could also be diagnosed with long Covid. Clinicians must exercise their judgment and rely on evidence in reaching a diagnosis in any individual patient, wrote Harvey Fineberg, a prominent public health expert and chair of the report, in an email to Undark.

Fineberg pointed to electronic health record data suggesting a large jump in rates of lupus onset after a Covid-19 case. Given that, he wrote, a clinician would be wrong some of the time, but they would be more often wrong if [they] failed to ascribe the condition to long Covid.

The long Covid diagnosis, Fineberg added, could help patients understand where the lupus came from, and perhaps in the future suggest treatments.

Public health expert Harvey Fineberg chaired a recent report which offered a new definition of long Covid. Fineberg stressed that clinicians must exercise their judgment in reaching a diagnosis.

But Putman, the Wisconsin rheumatologist, who treats lupus patients, noted that not all studies have found such a strong connection between an infection and lupus. He pointed to 2023 paper that actually found a protective effect of Covid-19 against lupus. Do I believe that? No, he wrote in an email. The real issue is the data in this area are all very uncertain and often contradictory. Its implausible, he added, that the majority of new lupus diagnoses have been driven by Covid-19 infections. If this were the case, we would expect a dramatic increase in the yearly rate of new lupus diagnoses. As far as I can tell, the incidence is more or less stable.

Putman added that it would be difficult to run an effective clinical trial using a broad definition. The study participants would likely have multiple underlying pathologies, he said, that dont all respond to the same treatment.

This new definition may also undermine the real and profound suffering experienced by some people with post-viral illness, said Leonard Jason, a psychology professor at DePaul University who has long studied ME/CFS, a severe condition marked by life-altering fatigue. If a person has trivial pain in the toe for 3 months following Covid infection, with no negative consequences to the persons functioning or quality of life, that person would still be eligible for a long Covid diagnosis, he wrote in a recent opinion piece for Medpage Today. Its a mistake to ignore symptom frequency and severity, he wrote.

The report recommended that the definition should be reviewed and possibly updated in no more than three years time, as the science continues to evolve.

During the pandemic, the quality of research went down, said Anders Hviid during a May Zoom call. I think some scientists and probably also journal editors became a little one-sided or blind. Maybe it was because it became so polarized. So, people were either in one camp or the other. Theres no question, he continued, that harmful symptoms can follow Covid-19 infections. But conversations about the frequency of those symptoms seemed out of touch, he suggested, particularly as time passed and the risk of developing long Covid declined as people acquired immunity.

Makam, in San Francisco, meanwhile, has spent years studying long-term health outcomes of people with prolonged serious illnesses. He worries about the consequences of having a poor case definition for long Covid. How can you study a disease if youre defining your illness very, very broadly, including a lot of different pathologies into this one disease syndrome? He was blunt in his assessment of the work coming out of the VA St. Louis. Were going to look back and that entire line of work is going to be wrong. Like very wrong.

Al-Alys third interview with Undark took place on May 30, the day Nature Medicine published his three-year follow-up study of patients with a documented Covid-19 infection in 2020. He had been up late the night before, putting together a thread on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, with key points. It wasnt all bad news, he wrote. Over time, people in the infected group became significantly less likely to die or develop new onset disease. Yet even three years out, those with mild infections remained at increased risk for some new onset symptoms.

He also expressed frustration with some of the criticism that has come his way, particularly on social media. Good scientific criticism can sharpen the focus of the inquiry and make it better, he said. But all too often, the critiques dont serve any clear function and may even feed into denialism. A lot of people feel sick and tired of this pandemic and want to move on, which is totally, totally understandable. Like, who doesnt understand that? Who doesnt sympathize with that? Still, he said, the fact remains that many people need help, and he plans to help them  his detractors be damned.

To the chagrin of the critics, were going to keep moving the ball forward, Al-Aly said. If that irritates people, theyll just have to get used to it, he added. Were working day and night to solve this problem.
Alberta premier pledges to amend Bill of Rights to include HEALTH FREEDOM

Danielle Smith, the premier of Alberta, Canada, has pledged to amend the province's Bill of Rights to include health freedom and the right to refuse vaccines.

According to InfoWars, her promise to add protections for personal choice on vaccinations came because of the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine mandates put in place for a time in Alberta under its former Premier Jason Kenney.

The incumbent premier told Albertans at a recent town hall in Bonnyville that the COVID-19 crisis resulted in many people being discriminated against for their own medical decisions  something that "shouldn't have happened." Smith added that she believes "every person has to be able to do their own assessment, their own health assessment, to be able to make those decisions."

Smith originally planned to add protections for one's vaccine status directly under the Alberta Human Rights Act. However, she scrapped this plan following advice by Preston Manning, the chairman of the Public Health Emergencies Government Review Panel. According to Manning, this was not the right legislation for an additional protection. (Related: Trudeau's COVID-19 vaccine mandate violates Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedom, says charter signatory.)

Because of this, the premier promised that a better law dealing directly with vaccine status will be forthcoming. She confirmed in a post on X that an updated version of the Bill of Rights is coming. "It's time. Let's get this done," Smith wrote on July 22.

Last year, LifeSiteNews reported Smith's promises to enshrine protections for people in Alberta who choose not to be vaccinated, strengthen gun rights and safeguard free speech  by means of amending the province's Bill of Rights.

"You have my commitment," she told Alberta blogger Shaun Newman. "No one's going to be forced to be vaccinated."

Smith's pro-health freedom stance a complete 180 from Kenney's

Smith took over from Kenney as leader of the United Conservative Party (UCP) on Oct 11, 2022 after winning the party leadership. The UCP then won the province's general election in May 2023.

Kenney was ousted due to low approval ratings and for reneging on promises not to lock Alberta down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under his term as premier, thousands of nurses, doctors and other healthcare and government workers lost their jobs for refusing to get injected with the COVID-19 vaccine.

On Smith's first day on the job, and mere minutes after getting sworn in as premier, she remarked that the "unvaccinated" were the group of people "most discriminated against" in her lifetime during the COVID-19 years. Smith also promptly fired former Alberta Chief Medical Officer Dr. Deena Hinshaw and the entire board of directors of the Alberta Health Services (AHS). Hinshaw and the whole AHS board oversaw the implementation of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, according to InfoWars.

"While Smith has not said much regarding the COVID-19 shots since taking office, she has allowed her caucus members to have broad views when it comes to known safety issues related to the jabs," the independent outlet added. One such member is Eric Bouchard, a Member of the Alberta Legislative Assembly under the UCP.

Bouchard hosted a sold-out event in June titled "An Injection of Truth" that featured prominent doctors and experts speaking out against COVID-19 vaccines and mandates. The event's speakers included Dr. Byram Bridle, Dr. William Makis, pediatric neurologist Dr. Eric Payne and Mark Trozzi, a victim of the medical police state.

Check out HealthFreedom.news for similar stories.

Watch this clip from NFSC News about Alberta Premier Danielle Smith admitting that the unvaccinated were right.

This video is from the Dissident7 channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Scientific data shows that the fully vaccinated have become covid "super spreaders."

Young TV reporter in Canada who received 4 doses of COVID clot shot DIES suddenly.

Alberta to scrap covid vaccine passport scheme, announces plans to lift "almost all" restrictions.

Sources include:

InfoWars.com

Brighteon.com
British farmers reportedly being paid NOT TO GROW FOOD

British farmers are reportedly being paid not to grow food under a scheme cooked up by Downing Street, according to the Daily Expose.

The independent outlet posted a video of Keith Andrews, a farmer from Cornwall, elaborating on this particular scheme. According to him, farmers have been offered 2,500 ($3,222) for the next three years if they don't grow crops for food during that period.

"I'm going to plow a field, I'm going to put spring barley in. I'm going to get 440 ($567.07) off the government per acre. Then when it comes to crop size, leave it to rot in the ground. So, I don't get [any] straw for the cattle, you don't get [anything] for your bread, for everything we make," said Andrews.

Andrews disclosed that his accountant is encouraging him to sign up to the program so he could avoid buying fertilizer. From a mere 250 ($322.13) a ton, the price of fertilizer has risen to 1,000 ($1,288.50) a ton since the Russia-Ukraine war broke out.

"In order to fertilize your food, I've got to buy fertilizer at 1,000 ($1,288.50) a ton. So I've now got a crop that I don't have to spray. I don't have to send [anybody] out there with a tractor. I don't have to fertilize it, [and] I can just leave it in the ground to rot."

The Expose was unable to establish details as to when Andrews gave his speech. However, the program he pertained to has been in place for a couple of years. It has been expanded and the incentives increased over time.

This program called the Sustainable Farming Initiative (SFI) was launched by the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in 2022. It incentivizes farmers to plant hedgerows instead of crops, and is open to all farmers and occupiers with management control.

SFI only promotes FOOD INSECURITY

"There's no minimum or maximum land area or hedgerow length, so farmers can choose how much land to cover with their SFI agreement," said Minister of State for Food, Farming and Fisheries Mark Spencer. (Related: British government offering farmers "lump sum" payments to stop growing food, sell their land.)

In September 2023, DEFRA posted a blog that ostensibly defended the SFI. "Through SFI, our aim is to support farming and farmers. We want to protect and improve the environment, food production and food security," the blog post said.

In reality, the SFI is only promoting food insecurity under the guise of fighting "climate change" and achieving "net zero" goals. Instead of planting much-needed food crops to solve the food supply issue, farmers are incentivized to indefinitely leave their fallow lands untouched.

"Farmers, and the public at large, dont need to be told that the primary purpose of farming is food production," the Expose added. A rational government, it continued, "would have implemented policies to support farmers to grow more food, not less."

It was only in May 2024 that Downing Street realized its mistake. The scheme proved so popular to struggling farmers that the British government was forced to issue a crackdown, warning that growers could only take 25 percent of their land out of direct food production for environmental projects.

Even Spencer was forced to backpedal over the SFI, noting that it "was always intended to be implemented on smaller areas on land." He continued: "Food production is the primary purpose of farming and we are taking action to clarify this principle."

Andrews isn't the only one who was warned against the SFI. Former "Top Gear" host Jeremy Clarkson issued a similar warning in an op-ed on the Sunday Times.

"I have signed up to the government's eco-friendly grant scheme, and will be planting things that aren't food in three fields. They're good for the soil and they're good for my bank balance. But it means I'm not growing stuff people can eat," he wrote.

"I know one chap who has taken 60 percent of his farm out of food production, and he's not alone. But what if you want some bread? You'll have to get a loaf made from wheat that was grown abroad. And how's that good for global warming?"

Visit FoodCollapse.com for similar stories.

Watch this clip of British farmers protesting against the climate agenda.

This video is from the Fritjof Persson channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

John Kerry says farmers need to stop growing food in order to achieve "net zero" climate goals.

World Bank launches plan to decimate global farming under excuse of cutting carbon emissions.

UK farms left with tons of unpicked food thanks to Brexit-related seasonal visa processing issues.

Sources include:

Expose-News.com

Brighteon.com
Carnegie Mellon professor says Trump assassination attempt was staged like stupid Tubi movie set

An associate professor of second language acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University is convinced that the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler, Penn., was "staged."

According to Uju Anya, even the alleged shooter was part of a "stupid show" that Trump and his people are using for their own benefit to take the White House in 2025.

"People dying doesn't make the attack any less staged," Anya wrote on social media just hours after the incident occurred. "Someone who thought the attack was real could've killed others trying to prevent harm. Also, someone could've shot the shooter to hide the plot."

"Politicians kill all the time and kill many more people to steal power," Anya added. "And people died behind this farce. Actual people's lives gone for them to stage this stupid show."

Anya would continue to call the assassination attempt a hoax by comparing it to "a stupid Tubi movie set in the Bronx with palm trees in the background."

"They lie, and people die," she continued. "That's exactly what they do. That's the record. Whatever 'attack' on him they set up to stoke his followers' fears and sentiments, threat and persecution has now cost lives."

Anya's website explains that she currently teaches and conducts research by "examining race, gender, sexual, and social class identities in new language learning through the experiences of African American students."

(Related: Remember when Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson told MSNBC that someone should put a "bullet" into Trump?)

Secret Service broke "every rule in security protocol"

A self-proclaimed "antiracist" and "feminist" who is proud to be an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, Anya received pushback on X in response to her comments, including from one user who wrote that "someone is dead" because of the shooting.

"A dead person can't reveal the setup," Anya responded to this comment.

The author of two books, "Racialized identities in second language learning" and "Racial equity on college campuses," Anya continued to converse on X with people about how "everything" Trump has ever done "is a dirty lie," including the pretense "that he's fit for office."

Someone else pointed out that "every rule in security protocol was broken" when Secret Service finally surrounded Trump and "hoisted him up exposed between them," rendering him vulnerable to more potential bullet encounters.

It is interesting that Alex Jones was sued and is now being forced to pay $1.5 billion for suggesting that the Sandy Hook shooting was a hoax, which is essentially the same thing that Anya is saying about what happened to Trump in Butler.

"She's right that it was a setup, but wrong about who set it up and what the goal was," another commenter suggested.

"Whoever 'set it up' should be tracked down and punished," responded another.

Others noted that a full and complete investigation must be conducted to get to the bottom of what happened in Butler, as well as how it happened.

"Government employees are perfectly willing to prosecute a former president for political reasons, so it's not unreasonable to believe they wouldn't attempt to murder him when their prosecutions fail to turn the voters against him," one said.

It is worth noting that Anya was hired to her position in 2021, which someone could not help but notice suggests she was "hired in reaction to the George Floyd nonsense."

"That overdosing thug did more damage to society after his death than during his entire criminal life," this person added.

"People who have dubious academic credentials and accomplishments all seem to be PhDs in hate whitey," wrote another.

The latest Trump news can be found at Trump.news.

Sources for this article include:

CampusReform.org

NaturalNews.com
Climate change is creating so much global GREENING that even fanatics are noticing as they panic about shrinking deserts

Almost everywhere around the world right now deserts are shrinking as greening accelerates, prompting climate fanatics to change course by demanding that something now be done to "Save the deserts!"

Climate fanatics have long complained about desertification caused by climate change and the excess release of "greenhouse gases" like carbon dioxide (CO2). These deranged people are so scared of CO2 that they have tried every which way to essentially ban the natural gas so the planet can be "cooled."

The Guardian (United Kingdom) ran a headline about how "Desertification is turning the Earth barren," the narrative being that expanding drylands are leaving entire countries "facing famine." It turns out the opposite is true: greenhouse gases are greening the planet as vegetation is growing faster and faster.

Yale Environment 360 ran a piece about the world's shriveling deserts, which will only shrivel further in the coming years.

Now that we know CO2 is causing plants to grow and spread, the narrative has changed to one of climate change causing the deserts to recede. As such, climate fanatics are launching a new movement to "save" the world's deserts from becoming green, lush and fertile.

You may recall from elementary science class that CO2 functions as "plant food." The more of it that gets released, the greener everything becomes as plants thrive on CO2. There is absolutely nothing to worry about with CO2, of course, but the greenies are petrified by it.

(Related: Did you know that according to science, human-caused carbon emissions have had no discernible effect whatsoever on the climate?)

How will climate fanatics try to spin the benefits of greening?

According to Yale University researchers, increasing CO2 levels are "fast-tracking" photosynthesis in plants. What CO2-rich air does is allow plants to more efficiently use scarce water, functioning as a fertilizer in even the driest of deserts.

Scientists have been aware of this CO2 greening effect for some time, which they should be, seeing as how children used to learn this basic scientific fact in elementary science class. Somehow, elementary science facts have become new revelations in today's "woke" scientific establishment.

Carbon Brief is another media source that has long complained about how climate change is supposedly expanding the world's deserts. Now that we know the opposite is true, will the outlet adjust its narrative or double down?

Carbon Brief, by the way, is funded by green activist billionaires like Sir Christopher Hohn, a past provider for recently jailed Roger Hallam, and so-called "Extinction Rebellion."

Even Yale, which admits the world's deserts are shrinking, is still clinging to climate fearmongering by claiming that all the greening will "obliterate arid-land ecosystems." In other words, they are now pushing an "arid ecosystems matter" type of campaign to defend their crumbling climate narrative.

Chinese scientists recently discovered that over the past 20 years, about 55 percent of the world's land masses showed an "accelerated rate" of vegetation growth. Four different datasets reveal that nearly 60 percent of the globe has been greening since around 2000.

"Global greening is an indisputable fact," these scientists declared.

Daily Sceptic environment editor Chris Morrison reports that plants in general thrive at about three times the current atmospheric levels of CO2. This means that a whole lot more greening is still to come, assuming current trends continue.

"This recovery of CO2 levels in the atmosphere holds out hope for higher food resources in many parts of the world that suffer from periodic famines," Morrison writes about the benefits of greening.

How do you feel about the accelerated greening of the planet? Learn more at Climate.news.

Sources for this article include:

DailySceptic.org

Yale.edu

NaturalNews.com
CROWDSTRIKE DESTROYED the internet for a spell, so whats next, and are YOU ready?

What in the world is a dodgy channel file and how did it cripple Bill Gates illustrious Windows? Nearly every facet of American functionality via the internet was temporarily choked out and virtually shut down , including systems used for healthcare, emergency services, banking, supermarkets (credit card payments mainly), air travel, streaming and more.

This was a massive IT outage that literally savaged computer systems across the globe. So, what happened, and can it easily happen again, but much worse, and for a much longer period of time? Did you get chained to your blue screen? This was just a test.

Centralized, digital world can implode in an instant

Attention world, theres a CrowdStrike update that may have caught you off guard. Computers en masse have crashed, and even nerds with recovery keys in BitLocker are crippled too. Supposedly, an apocalyptic rebooting of Windows safe mode, some administrator passwords, and a quick physical deletion of a file within some subdirectory of Windows System32 was the workaround. Who knew?

Look, up in the sky, the cyber-sky, its not a bird, or a plane, or a server, or a single piece of software, its the total inability to support usual performance (techy phrase). The large scale collapse you are experiencing is centralized, so just imagine if the globalists ever completely install CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) with Digital ID systems to match, everyone could virtually and literally be bankrupted in an instant. Everyone. This requires careful consideration. Look whos running the country, the printing of money, and the grabbing of guns right now.

Nearly 9 million computers belonging to 24,000 organizations were incapacitated by a single update by CrowdStrikes Falcon software

If the world adopts (is coerced into accepting) CBDC instead of cash, one simple update like the one that just crossed through could wipe out everyones money in an instant, and were talking about checking and savings accounts (doesnt matter if theyre federally insured either), IRAs, CDs, 401ks  everything. Gone. Erased. Dried up like a mirage in the desert. The cyber-desert.

Medical records could get wiped out also. Permanently non-accessible. The entire energy sector infrastructure could get shut down. That would mean loss of the ability to cool nuclear reactors. What then? Who could flip the switch back, or would they even want to? Maybe it would all be shut down on purpose, then blamed on some ghost hackers or wait for it wait for it those pesky Russians!

The totalitarians in Washington, D.C. right now, along with the globalist cohorts that want to rule the world with an iron fist (Bill Gates, Zuckerberg, Soros, etc.), also want to require a digital ID for internet access, so if you doubt any fake news narratives, you are cut off from everything in an instant, CrowdStrike style. No debit card function. No credit cards. No withdrawals. No phone use. No internet. No buying groceries or gas (or charging your crappy EV auto, thats also been shut down by the mother board").

Big Tech and Big Government are in no mood to let Donald J. Trump take the reins come January 2025. This was more like running a systems check or a litmus test, to see how everybody reacts. Then theres AI. Should artificial intelligence decide to shut down the whole lot, thus incapacitating itself, then Houston, we have a real problem. That blue screen of death may not just go away with a software update, or a hard restart.

You might want to check your sat-phone battery backup supply right about now. How much stored food do you have, whats its quality, and how long will it last. Potable water filtered? How about guns and ammo? Its now time to tune your apocalypse dial (when the internet is working) to Preparedness.news for updates on real news about the surviving future internet crashes and implosions. Get ready for CrowdStrike 2.0, coming right before the November election.

Sources for this article include:

Censored.news

NaturalNews.com

ZeroHedge.com
Trump campaign files FEC complaint over ILLEGAL transfer of $91.5M Biden campaign fund to Harris campaign

The Trump campaign has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for violating campaign finance laws

In a detailed letter to the FEC, David Warrington, the general counsel of the Trump campaign, claimed that Harris attempted to illegally take over the $91.5 million political donations made to the Biden campaign. Trump and his campaign team accused Harris of orchestrating "the single largest excessive contribution and biggest violation in the history of the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended." (Related: RFK Jr. accuses DNC of once again RIGGING the nomination process  this time for Kamala Harris.)

"Kamala Harris is in the process of committing the largest campaign finance violation in American history and she is using the Commissions own forms to do it," the filing stated. "The Commission must not and cannot sit idly by while one candidate takes nearly one hundred million dollars from the authorized committee of another, in violation of the Act and the will of the donors who gave the money in the first place."

Moreover, Warrington argued that federal campaign finance law does not permit Harris to simply take over Biden's candidacy and assume control of his campaign finances by amending existing FEC forms. He further contends that Harris, who has not filed a statement of candidacy designating Biden for President as one of her authorized committees, is ineligible to inherit the funds because she is a "separate individual candidate competing for the Democratic Partys nomination."

"[If] Kamala Harris were a candidate for something in 2024, federal law requires her to have filed a Statement of Candidacy and for her name to have appeared in the name of her authorized committee. But Kamala Harriss name does not appear in the name of her purported authorized committee, 'Biden for President,' and, until Sunday, no Statement of Candidacy existed for her.

Rather than filing her own Statement of Candidacy, Harris merely altered Joe Biden's to replace his name with hers. There is no mechanism under the Act for one individual to end another's federal candidacy by simply amending the other's Form 2. Moreover, in that purportedly amended Form 2, Harris designated "Biden for President" as her principal campaign committee and then renamed it. "Altering a document submitted to a federal agency is a violation of 18 U.S.C.  1519.3," the complaint stated.

Warrington described the move to redirect the $91.5 million remaining in Biden's campaign account as both "fraudulent" and a "mockery of our campaign finance laws."

Harris campaign calls the allegations "baseless"

In response to the complaint, Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Lutvak has firmly dismissed the allegations as "baseless."

"Team Harris will continue to build on our more than 250 coordinated offices and more than 1,300 coordinated staffers across the battleground states  just like we built on the $240 million cash on hand that we had at launch this week, raising $100 million in our first 36 hours and signing up 58,000 volunteers," Lutvak said in a statement.

Lutvak also suggested that Republicans are envious of the Democrats' momentum.

"Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones they've made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters and win this election," he added.

A Harris campaign official also clarified that Biden fundraising committees have always been authorized for both the president and vice president.

Head over to Trump.news for more stories about the former president ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Listen to the Health Ranger Mike Adams discussing Joe Biden's plan to drop out of the presidential race, which eventually came to fruition on July 21.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Democrats revive Black Lives Matter one day after Biden endorses Kamala Harris for president.

Tennessee Rep. Burchett: Kamala Harris is a DEI VICE PRESIDENT.

Kamala Harris secures endorsements from top Democrats except Barack Obama.

ITS JOE-VER! Biden DROPS OUT of presidential race, endorses VP Harris as replacement.

Political analysts: Bidens withdrawal from presidential race has left the Democrats IN TURMOIL.

Sources include:

YourNews.com

MSN.com 1

MSN.com 2
Responsible for a genocide: Jewish-American groups reject Netanyahu visit to US

As pro-Palestinian groups protest against Benjamin Netanyahu's address to a joint seating of Congress on Wednesday, some Jewish- and Israeli-American organisations, including those groups who are ardent supporters of Israel, say they refuse to give an audience to the Israeli leader.

(Article republished from MiddleEastEye.net)

The public rejection of Prime Minister Netanyahu by many mainstream Jewish organisations as he seeks to build more bipartisan support for his war on Gaza underlines the extent to which Netanyahu has fallen out of favour amongst large swathes of Jewish America which see his war policy to be both a failure as well as having caused irreparable damage to Israel's reputation.

Netanyahus visit to the US comes as Israels war on Gaza enters the 10th month in which close to 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, tens of thousands of others have been maimed and injured, and a million others forcibly displaced and on the constant edge of famine. The embattled Israeli leader is expected to reiterate how Israel is a key US ally and thank President Joe Biden for his support.

Organisations like the liberal Zionist J-Street and Americans for Peace Now, to the expressly anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace have rejected the prime minister's visit while several lawmakers and senators have refused to attend his address.

So too, have prominent Jewish legislators - including Bernie Sanders, Jan Schakowsky, and Brian Schatz - who have joined the ranks of the now dozens of Democrats in Congress who have refused to attend Netanyahus speech in protest against Israels ongoing war on Gaza.

Last week, 230 congressional staffers from 122 Democratic and Republican congressional offices signed a letter calling on lawmakers to boycott the address.

Whereas 58 lawmakers had boycotted Netanyahu's address to Congress a decade prior, the prospect that even more legislators will skip the address seems likely.

The rejection in Congress to Netanyahu's address follows a nationwide effort by many Jewish Americans to protest his visit and his efforts to instrumentalise their identity to conjure support for his policies.

Were against Netanyahus arrival. For us, the main call right now is to stop the genocide but the long-term is to dismantle the apartheid system and to find a statewide solution that ensures equal rights, freedom, and safety for all people between the river and the sea, Ruslana, an organiser with Shoresh, a US-based group of Israelis that describes itself as anti-Zionist, told MEE.

It is really important to underline that Zionism has no structure that entails Palestinian safety, and it did, does, and will sacrifice Israelis, too," Ruslana added.

Likewise, Liv Kunins-Berkowitz, a media coordinator at Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), one of the largest anti-Zionist Jewish organisations in the US, told MEE that it was "shameful that our leaders would invite a war criminal. He is responsible for this genocide."

As the descendants of people who endured genocide and pogroms, theres no place that makes more sense for us to be right now than in DC, calling on our leaders to take decisive actions to end this genocide today, Kunins-Berkowitz added.

Meanwhile, Americans For Peace Now (APN), another Jewish advocacy group, released a statement declaring Netanyahu not welcome here.

APN wrote in solidarity with the Israeli protest movement where thousands have taken to the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for months to demonstrate against the war and their leader.

And just like the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who come out each week to protest, so too we in America are doing so not because we don't care about Israel, but because we care so very deeply, Hadar Susskind, the CEO of APN, wrote in an opinion piece for Haaretz. We believe in a better future for Israel, and we know that Netanyahu is leading the country down the wrong path.

APN, in conjunction with seven other members of the Progressive Israel Network, including J Street and the New Israel Fund, released a statement on Monday objecting to Netanyahus congressional address.

We agree with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer when he said that Netanyahu is an obstacle to peace, and that he has lost his way by allowing his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel', the statement read.

This is a leader who is putting himself first; not his country. For the vast majority of American Jews, and anyone who wants to see a democratic future for Israel, it is our obligation to voice protest against Netanyahu in DC this week, and to show up to demonstrate our support for Israelis and Palestinians.

Jewish Americans are not just protesting from beyond the halls of Congress - dissent can be found within, too.

While Netanyahu has addressed Congress before - this trip marks his fourth to Capitol Hill - Jewish American support for the prime minister is quite possibly at an all-time low.

A November 2023 poll by the Jewish Electorate Institute revealed that just 31 percent of Jewish-American voters had a favourable view of Netanyahu.

Support for Netanyahu

While several Jewish groups have criticised and rejected Netanyahu's presence, other mainstream Jewish groups and Rabbis continue to hold out for the Israeli leader.

Mark Mellman, the CEO of the Democratic Majority for Israel, told MEE it was "a mistake for groups and individuals to oppose a speech which hasnt yet been given.

The fact is these Democrats and Republicans invited him to come here. Their invite was not an endorsement of the man or his policies. Listening to what he has to say is not an endorsement of the man or his policies, Mellman told MEE.

[Listening] is the polite thing to do when a leader - when a democratically-elected leader - has been invited to your country.

Likewise, in an opinion article in Haaretz, Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove from Manhattan's Park Avenue Synagogue, said people should not protest against Netanyahu's visit.

"This is not the time for American Jewry to protest Netanyahu, the face of the Israeli government, no matter what our objections to him may be," Cosgrove wrote.

But for those Jewish Americans who have been calling for an end to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza as well as for an end to the occupation, the time for listening has long past.

On Tuesday, over 400 Jewish and Israeli Americans from across the country, led by over a dozen rabbis, gathered in the Capitol rotunda to peacefully protest against continued and unconditional US aid to Israel.

We also know that the problem is much larger than Netanyahu - the problem is the system of Israeli occupation and apartheid. We cannot continue to fund the Israeli military as it wages this genocide and maintains this system of occupation and apartheid," Kunins-Berkowitz from JVP, said.

Our [Jewish] tradition teaches us that all life is precious, and we are demanding an immediate arms embargo out of our commitment to humanity and Palestinian freedom.

[American] leaders have called for a ceasefire, but thats not enough when they continue to send money, weapons, and bombs that are destroying whole families in Gaza," Kunins-Berkowitz added.

Read more at: MiddleEastEye.net
Whistleblowers: Majority of Trump security detail werent bona fide Secret Service agents

Majority of the members of former President Donald Trump's security detail on July 13 were not bona fide members of the Secret Service , according to whistleblowers.

These whistleblowers with "direct knowledge" of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) handling of the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania came forward to U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). They alleged that the rally was a "loose" security event featuring personnel drawn from a different wing of DHS who weren't trained for such an event.

"Whistleblower allegations suggest the majority of DHS officials were not in fact [Secret Service] agents but instead drawn from the department's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). This is especially concerning given that HSI agents were unfamiliar with standard protocols typically used at these types of events, according to the allegations," Hawley wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. (Related: Trump calls for RFK Jr. to receive Secret Service protection.)

Hawley, a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, has also asked the head of DHS to provide information about staffing and security gaps at the Trump rally.

"For example, detection canines were not used to monitor entry and detect threats in the usual manner. Individuals without proper designations were able to gain access to backstage areas," Hawley wrote. Other lapses in security protocol included a lack of personnel stationed around the security perimeter and an inadequately enforced buffer zone around the podium.

GOP lawmakers grill Secret Service over assassination attempt against Trump

Twenty-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks fired bullets into the crowd on July 13, killing retired fireman Corey Comperatore and wounding two others. He failed to kill Trump, only grazing his right year. Law enforcement later neutralized Crooks.

Trump's fist pump as he walked off the stage accompanied by Secret Service agents instantly became an iconic moment in American history. But the incident also put the Secret Service under scrutiny.

Kimberly Cheatle, who recently resigned as Secret Service director, has been criticized over the laundry list of mistakes that happened during the rally, including the decision not to place agents on the rooftop where Crooks opened fire. According to her, the sloped roof presented a safety hazard to agents.

"We are committed to better understanding what happened before, during, and after the assassination attempt of former President Trump to ensure it never happens again. That includes complete cooperation with Congress, the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation], and other relevant investigations," the Secret Service said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chairman of the House Oversight Committee (HOC), took notice of the Secret Service's lapses in a letter and subpoena to Cheatle.

"The lack of transparency and failure to cooperate with the [HOC] on this pressing matter by both DHS and the Secret Service further calls into question your ability to lead the Secret Service, and necessitates the attached subpoena compelling your appearance before the [HOC]."

U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) previously detailed the Secret Service briefing given to senators about the failed assassination attempt. However, he blasted the briefing by saying there had been "virtually no information" provided and it "was largely irrelevant." Johnson nevertheless revealed that Cheatle "did admit there were mistakes and gaffes."

Visit Trump.news for similar stories.

Watch this video about how and why the Secret Service allowed Thomas Matthew Crooks to even take a shot at former President Donald Trump.

This video is from the LauraLynnTV channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Trump rewrites RNC speech to focus on UNITY following assassination attempt.

X user: FBI and Secret Service were complicit in Trump assassination attempt.

Trump names J.D. Vance as running mate for 2024 presidential race.

Trump triumphantly appears at RNC just two days after being shot in assassination attempt.

Day before Trump assassination attempt, Austin Private Wealth reported MASSIVE short bets on $DJT and $RUM stocks  similar to stock bets placed right before 9/11.

Sources include:

FoxNews.com

Brighteon.com
Make way for PRESIDENT KAMALA as Biden exits stage

His campaign had barely gotten the news out about his dropping out of the race when Joe Biden was already being called on by Democrats to resign and make way for President Kamala Harris.

The corporate media is a mess right now as liberal tears flow over Biden's sudden departure just days after the 81-year-old dementia patient proclaimed he would not drop out of the race unless God told him to.

"If the Lord Almighty came down and said, 'Joe, get out of the race,' I'd get out of the race," Biden told ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos in his first national appearance following the debate.

Apparently, God told Biden to step aside on July 21 and let a new king or queen take his place in the 2024 election, this date marking exactly 42 months, or three and a half years, since Biden's inauguration on Jan. 21, 2021.

Now that he is out of the race, everyone both left and right seems to be calling for "the big guy" to also resign as president immediately, which would make Kamala Harris the new six-month president of the United States.

"If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president," said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), the most powerful Republican in Congress.

"He must resign immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough."

(Related: Did you know that Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle, who oversaw security at the Butler, Penn., rally where Donald Trump was shot, is a close friend of the Biden Crime Family?)

Pelosi calls for Kamala to run in Biden's place

Fellow geriatric Nancy Pelosi, 84, was quick to endorse Kamala Harris, the current vice president, for president. Pelosi's office released a statement expressing "enthusiastic support" for electing Kamala, calling her "brilliantly astute."

It was Pelosi, according to NBC News, that drove the push for Biden to step aside and let another candidate run in his place on the Democrat ticket this fall.

The apparent first thought of Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, after Pelosi's statement was about the possible "change in tone" that a President Kamala would have on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war policies in the Gaza Strip.

Miller stated that Arab-American voters who disapprove of Biden's relations with Israel do not see Kamala as being "responsible" for his policies. Miller expects a "more balanced rhetorical posture" from Kamala should she end up being installed as president.

The following media personalities suffered meltdowns upon hearing the news that Biden was dropping out of the race:

1) Chris Coons, co-chair of the Biden-Harris presidential campaign, who wept on CBS News about the "difficult decision" that had to be made. Red-faced and full of sorrow, Coons suddenly had trouble breathing while on air and had trouble regaining composure.

2) Van Jones, a CNN host who became emotional and teary-eyed while endorsing Kamala to replace Biden.

"I cannot see anywhere in his personality where this decision today is possible," Jones complained. "This is the opposite of something that is natural or easy for him."

"He is just not built to do something like this," he continued while weeping. "Him making this decision today is to give the country a reasonable chance at not putting Donald Trump back in the White House. Biden's body may not be as strong as it once was ... but his heart is as big as ever."

3) MSNBC's Rachel "mad cow" Maddow who delivered a monologue on her program about how Biden made a great sacrifice by dropping out, even though he did not want to, for the "good of the country."

Things are getting rocky and will only get worse before they can possibly get better. Find out more at BigGovernment.news.

Sources for this article include:

RT.com

DailyMail.co.uk

NBCMontana.com

NaturalNews.com
Musk thanks Soros for unveiling next puppet

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has mocked George Soros and his son for quickly endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the most qualified candidate we have to replace Joe Biden. The US president announced on Sunday that he has quit the race to become Democractic party candidate for the November 5 elections and that he would back Harris instead.

(Article republished from RT.com)

Following Biden's announcement, Alex Soros, the son of billionaire financier George Soros and heir to his fathers philanthropic empire, also promptly endorsed Harris, describing her as the Democrats best shot to defeat Donald Trump.

Its time for us all to unite around Kamala Harris and beat Donald Trump... Long live the American Dream! Alex Soros wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter), attaching a picture of himself with Harris.

Id just like to thank Alexander Soros for not keeping everyone in suspense about who the next puppet would be, Elon Musk, the owner of X, wrote in response.

Id just like to thank @AlexanderSoros for not keeping everyone in suspense about who the next puppet would be ?  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 21, 2024

Liberal tycoon George Soros also personally supports Harris, his spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday. As a prominent US Democratic Party donor, George Soros funneled around $128 million to candidates and organizations during the midterm elections in 2022, and gifted $5 million to the main political action committee backing Biden the day after the presidents flubbed debate against Donald Trump last month.

Musk has previously slammed the liberal Hungarian-born billionaire for effectively trying to dismantle society by ensuring laws are not enforced. Hes doing things that erode the fabric of civilization, Musk said during a podcast with Joe Rogan last year, explaining that the current lawlessness plaguing American cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles is the result of Soros backing progressive District Attorneys who refuse to prosecute crime.

Musk also claimed that despite the 93-year-old Soros being pretty old and basically a bit senile at this point, he was nevertheless very smart and very good at arbitrage, figuring out that the highest value for money was in supporting local races rather than national election campaigns like those for the Senate or the presidency.

George Soros, who infamously crashed the British pound in 1992, is among the wealthiest men on Earth, with an estimated personal net worth of around $7 billion. Last year, he stepped down from the helm of his Open Society Foundations, handing over control of the $25 billion NGO to his 38-year-old son, Alex.

Read more at: RT.com
RFK Jr. accuses Democrats of rigging the nomination with Harris so they can keep Bidens campaign donations

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is currently running for president as an independent, has called out the Democratic Party for the way it has pushed Vice President Kamala Harris to the fore as their presidential pick without using the proper candidate selection process.

On Sunday, President Biden announced in a statement that he would be dropping his reelection bid, and RFK Jr. applauded him for his choice, saying that his infirmities were evident to any unbiased observer from the beginning.

However, he also pointed out how the party shut him out when he originally tried to enter the race as a Democrat, noting that they blocked him from challenging Biden.

It was this progressive deteriorationand his abandonment of Democratic Party principlesthat prompted me to enter the race and ensure American voters had a viable, vigorous alternative to Donald Trump, he noted.

He accused the party of rigging the nomination process, using Harris despite being a monumentally unpopular vice president as a way of keeping the donations the Biden campaign has raised thus far as campaign finance rules allow for the transfer of funds from Biden to his running mate.

While it may make sense financially, it does feel manipulative, and RFK Jr. thinks there could be a more suitable candidate out there and that a fairer process should be implemented.

I call on the Democratic Party to return to its traditional commitment to democracy and exemplify it with an open process. Instead of anointing a candidate hand-picked by DNC elites, the party should use neutral polling to identify the candidate who can best beat Donald Trump. The delegates should then select a nominee based on this information, he asserted.

$96 million in cash is at stake

The money that RFK Jr. believes was behind the decision to push Harris as the nominee is pretty substantial; Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports show that the campaign had nearly $96 million in cash as of June 30. The Biden campaign changed its official name from Biden for President to Harris for President just hours after Biden announced he was pulling out; as his vice president, she was already listed as a candidate on Bidens original filing.

This means that Harris should technically have access to these funds as the new nominee, according to campaign finance lawyers, although there are some concerns that this could be challenged.

Some lawyers believe the Biden campaign does not possess the legal authority to transfer the funds to her.

GOP campaign finance lawyer Charlie Spies told the media: Biden cant transfer his money to Harris because it was raised under his own name, and there is no legal mechanism for it to have been raised jointly with Harris before they were their partys nominees.

FEC Chairman Sean Cooksey acknowledged that this is new territory for the committee, stating: Replacing a presidential candidate and handing over his committee to someone else is unprecedented under current campaign finance law. It raises a host of open questions about whether it is legal, what limits apply and what contributors rights are.

Others, like FEC Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum, who was appointed by Biden, insist that Bidens money can remain with Harris as long as she stays on the ticket.

Its not surprising Democrats are so desperate to hold onto the money; new FEC filings over the weekend indicate that the Trump campaign has more cash on hand than Biden.

However, even within her own party, Harris doesnt seem to have a lot of support beyond her utility in holding onto Bidens war chest. Some Democrats are hoping to see other candidates step forward, such as Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear or Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, when the nominee is officially declared at the Democratic National Convention in August.

Unfortunately, we already know that its hard for Democrats to resist the temptation to cheat in order to further their agenda, so well probably see Harriss name on the ballot in November.

Sources for this article include:

RT.com

WashingtonPost.com
Op-ed: Trump and Vance pose a SERIOUS THREAT to the globalist agenda

Former President Donald Trump and his running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), pose a serious threat to the globalist agenda, according to an op-ed

The July 22 op-ed by Frank Wright of LifeSiteNews weighed in on this prospect. He wrote that a second Trump administration "could completely bring to an end several of the evils of globalism." Such evils include the ongoing wars in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan  which Washington under Biden appears to be intent on continuing.

"A Trump-Vance ticket is not perfect  but they are against the other beloved industry of death backed by the liberal globalists," wrote Wright. "They have both criticized the 'forever wars' of the neoconservatives and liberal interventionists."

"Vance and Trump declared they will only fight wars 'in the American interest,' and they want an end to the Russia-Ukraine war  which would cease immediately when America stops financing it. Their debate about the U.S. national interest is convincing, with Vance pointing out that not only are American lives wasted in permanent wars 'for democracy,' but the  system through which they are fought arrives at a huge financial cost to America. This is a burden, according to Trump and Vance, that America should no longer bear."

According to Wright, Trump has implied that Taiwan must pay the U.S. for its protection instead of American taxpayers footing the bill. Taipei has been reliant on Washington for its defense against its bigger neighbor Beijing.

Even the question of Israel's status as an "ally" of America has been reviewed by Vance, whose pro-Israel stance was softly tempered in a speech in May by his remark of a need to reconsider the nature of this supposed alliance and how it must evolve under a future Trump-Vance administration. He mentioned the Abraham Accords, declared under then-President Trump, as a basis for a recent security arrangement in the Middle East. (Related: JD Vance, Trumps VP pick, promises to increase weapons and cash shipments to Israel while advancing Abraham Accords.)

"Maybe the most important diplomatic issue of the Trump administration was the Abraham Accords," said Vance, referring to the 2020 normalization agreements the administration negotiated between Israel, the U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco. "I didn't think I'd see that in my lifetime. The Abraham Accords showed real promise of uniting the Israelis with some of the Sunni Arab states."

Globalist Yuval Noah Harari is aware of the impact a Trump victory brings

Even Yuval Noah Harari of the globalist World Economic Forum (WEF) is reportedly aware of the impact that a second Trump victory in November could deal to the globalist establishment. Back in January, he warned of the dangers that come with the real estate mogul winning in the U.S. presidential election in November.

"I think it's very likely, and if it happens, it is likely to be the kind of death blow to what remains of the global order  and he says it openly," Harari answered when asked about the prospect of a Trump victory. He also criticized the mindset of Americans who voted for Trump in 2016, calling their ideas "a foolish isolationist position sure to bring about wars and disasters."

Wright concluded his op-ed: "There is hope in the agenda of the realism of Trump and Vance. If only they mean what they say, and if only they get to say it in power, then the world will indeed be one shaped by far lesser evil.

"The argument for life is the death of the industry of killing, which is the business of the globalists. They have told you this themselves.

"They know they are finished. The question now is how much damage they can cause on their way down. The globalists take seriously the terminal threat to their industry of death represented by Trump and Vance. It is to be hoped, for the cause of life generally, that these men carry it out."

Follow VoteRepublican.news for more stories about the Republican Party's campaign.

Watch the video below to know why the Trump-Vance 2024 tandem represents "transformation" happening in the Republican Party.

This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Trump and Vance call for investigation of Bidens doctors and invocation of 25th Amendment.

JD Vance: Trumps anti-Iraq war, pro-Israel vice presidential running mate.

Trump to hold first rally after surviving assassination attempt in Michigan with newly selected running mate J.D. Vance.

Why JD Vance is the right guy to help secure Americas wide-open borders.

The Trump assassination attempt exposes the establishments deceitfulness.

Sources include:

LifeSiteNews.com

Valuetainment.com

Brighteon.com
UNICEF REPORT: Child casualties in West Bank surged by 250% since Israels war began in October

The United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has reported a staggering increase of nearly 250 percent in child casualties in the West Bank since October 2023.

Before the onset of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, were already experiencing the highest levels of violence in 20 years. The first nine months of last year saw 41 Palestinian children and six Israeli children killed. (Related: WHO accuses Israel of inflicting ACUTE MALNUTRITION on more than 8,000 Palestinian children under 5 years old.)

The war further disrupted their daily lives.

According to the latest UNICEF report published on July 22, 143 children have been killed in the West Bank since October, a sharp rise from the 41 deaths recorded in the preceding nine months. During the same period, two Israeli children were also killed in conflict-related violence and more than 440 Palestinian children have been injured by live ammunition.

The escalating tensions are impacting the physical and mental well-being of thousands of children and families. Children are now scared to even walk around their neighborhoods or go to school.

"For years now, children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been exposed to horrific violence," said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. "The situation has deteriorated significantly, coinciding with the escalation of hostilities inside Gaza. We are seeing frequent allegations of Palestinian children being detained on their way home from school, or shot while walking on the streets. The violence needs to stop now."

The casualties have been reported in 10 out of 11 governorates in the West Bank, with Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus accounting for more than half of the killings. These areas have witnessed a rise in large and militarized law enforcement operations over the past two years, indicating an increase in both the intensity and scope of the violence.

Although the primary focus of Israeli aggression remains in the Gaza Strip, the repercussions have been severely felt across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Save the Children reports 21,000 children missing in Gaza

Save the Children, a non-government organization providing essential services and support to Palestinian children since 1953, reported in June that up to 21,000 children are currently missing in Gaza due to the ongoing war.

Estimates suggest that around 17,000 children are unaccompanied and separated from their families, while approximately 4,000 children are believed to be buried under the rubble. An unknown number of children are also thought to be in mass graves or have been forcibly disappeared, including those detained and transferred out of Gaza.

The chaotic conditions in Gaza make it nearly impossible to gather and verify information and exacerbate the challenges faced by aid agencies in protecting and reuniting separated and unaccompanied children.

Moreover, recent Israeli attacks in Rafah have resulted in mass casualties.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has reported that bodies have been burned beyond recognition, making it almost impossible for families to confirm the identity of the deceased. The ministry revealed that of the 14,100 children killed since October 7, 6,303 were still not identified.

In line with this, Save the Children Regional Director Jeremy Stoner called for an independent investigation.

"As many have pointed out, Gaza has become a graveyard for children, with thousands of others missing, their fates unknown. There must be an independent investigation and those responsible must be held accountable. We desperately need a ceasefire to find and support the missing children who have survived, and to prevent more families from being destroyed," Stoner said.

Follow IsraelCollapse.com for more news about the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Watch Robert Inlakesh explaining the UN's decision to add Israel to the blacklist of countries harming children.

This video is from the CreeperStatus channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

POLIO virus found in Gaza sewage, claim health authorities.

Death toll in Gaza could reach nearly 600,000 due to "indirect deaths," discredited "Lancet" medical journal claims.

UN estimates it will take at least 15 years to clear Gaza of bombing debris.

UN probe finds Israel GUILTY of crimes against humanity in Gaza.

UN experts call for investigation into Israeli human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls.

Sources include:

TheCradle.co

SavetheChildren.org.uk

UNICEF.org

Ilkha.com
RIVERS OF BLOOD: Alleged Hamas supporter threatens MASS VIOLENCE at Paris Olympics (but it could be a false flag operation)

An individual claiming to support Palestinian militant organization Hamas has threatened violence at the Paris Olympics , although there are doubts about his actual affiliation with the group.

In a 59-second video first posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday, July 21, a man whose face is covered with a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf and speaking in Arabic accuses France of supporting Israel  which it referred to as the "Zionist regime"  and providing weapons to the Israeli Defense Forces. (Related: Thousands of applicants for Olympics-related jobs rejected due to terror links and security threats.)

"You helped murder our brothers and sisters, our children," he said, right before showing what appears to be a severed human head. "You will pay for what you have done. Rivers of blood will flow through the streets of Paris."

Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist and the founder of the British counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, has questioned the video's authenticity, asserting that the man is probably not a member of Hamas and likely not even Palestinian.

Regardless, France has heightened security measures for the Olympic Games, dismantled migrant camps and thwarted an alleged terrorist plot back in May.

French authorities are taking Islamist terror threats seriously, including those on social media. France has experienced several mass casualty jihadist attacks, such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre in 2015, the Paris terror attacks later that year, and the Nice truck attack in 2016, which resulted in numerous fatalities.

The challenge for French security agencies is how to protect the 15 million visitors expected to converge on Paris for the Olympic Games. Part of their preparations include locking down large parts of central Paris ahead of the opening ceremony on the River Seine, the first ceremony held outside of a host city's main Olympic stadium. Over 326,000 spectators are expected to attend the ceremony.

Foreign and domestic Islamic extremists could launch terror attacks during Olympics

Terror expert Peter Neumann estimates that a couple of dozen [known operatives] are still at large, which, alongside youthful radicalization, poses the most significant threat.

The shadow of extremist violence in France looms over the Olympics, including the November 2015 attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people and began with a bomb at the Stade de France, the main venue for this years Games.

Islamic terrorists may view France as an enemy not just due to its support for Israel but also for its violent and oppressive colonial history, especially in the Muslim-majority North African nation of Algeria, as well as due to its participation in military campaigns elsewhere in Africa and in the Middle East. France has also garnered the ire of Islamists due to its ban on religious clothing, especially Islamic clothing.

Neuman warned that the issue of the Gaza conflict adds more fuel to the fire, and Paris faces the threat of terrorist attacks during the Olympics from a resurgent branch of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, known as Islamic State - Khorasan Province (ISIS-K). Neuman believes ISIS-K is the most capable of carrying out a mass-casualty terrorist attack in Paris, as the terrorist organization has been active in Western Europe and has attempted at least five attacks in recent years.

Security consultant Alexandre Rodde, a reserve officer with France's National Gendarmerie, concurs with Neumann and believes the main threat to the Paris Olympics comes from Islamic extremism. However, he believes homegrown French Islamic extremists may have the capacity to launch large-scale attacks, however diminished they may be due to anti-terror operations in recent years. Domestic Islamist movements have been trying to motivate their supporters in recent years, and Rodde suggested that any attack would likely come from an individual motivated by these groups to target areas surrounding Olympic venues rather than at the sites themselves.

Watch this video reporting on a terror plot at the Paris Olympics.

This video is from the Neroke-5 channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Competing nations to bring portable air conditioning units despite Olympics' strict AC-free "carbon footprint-reducing" rule.

International Olympic Committee prepares for AI integration in 2024 Paris Olympics.

France may use 2024 Olympics to introduce Big Brother-style SURVEILLANCE.

Sources include:

TheNationalPulse.com

TheNationalNews.com

Brighteon.com
Call it censorship: A court rules against former disinformation czar Nina Jankowicz

Below is my column in the New York Post on the ruling against Nina Jankowicz in her defamation case. It turns out that calling opposing views defamation is no better than calling them disinformation.

(Article republished from JonathanTurley.org)

Here is the column:

For free speech advocates, there are few images more chilling than that of Nina Jankowicz singing her now-infamous tune as the Mary Poppins of Disinformation.

The woman who would become known as the Disinformation Czar sang a cheerful TikTok parody of Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to rally people to the cause of censorship.

When the press caught wind of President Bidens plan to appoint Jankowicz as head of the Department of Homeland Securitys new disinformation board, Fox News said she intended to censor Americans speech.

The backlash was swift. Plans for the board were suspended, and Jankowicz resigned in 2022. She then sued Fox News for defamation.

On Monday, the case was dismissed. But Chief Judge Colm Connolly, a Delaware Democrat, didnt just say it was legally unfounded  he demolished the claims of figures like Jankowicz that they are really not engaged in censorship.

I was one of Jankowiczs earliest and most vocal critics and she is discussed in my new book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, as part of the current growing anti-free speech movement in the United States.

The Biden administration has coordinated with social media and targeted the revenue of conservative, libertarian and other sites.

These figures gleefully worked to silence others with the support of millions in public dollars for years. Yet, when exposed to criticism, they often portrayed themselves as victims with an obliging and supportive media.

They all took a page from Mary Poppins, who taught us the most wonderful word! In this case, the word is disinformation and it is certainly not connected to censorship. Rather you are supposed to call the barring, blacklisting and throttling of opposing views content moderation.

Jankowicz took that not-so-noble lie to a new level. After losing her job, she launched a campaign soliciting funds to sue those who called her a censor.

I was highly critical of these efforts as trying to use defamation as another tool to chill critics and shut down criticism.

It was a telling lawsuit, as Jankowicz simply labeled criticism of her as defamation  just as she labeled opposing views disinformation.

The objections to her work were called false and she insisted that she was really not seeking to censor people with her work.

Connolly made fast work of that effort. After holding that people are allowed to criticize Jankowicz as protected opinion, the court added:

I agree that Jankowicz has not pleaded facts from which it could plausibly be inferred that the challenged statements regarding intended censorship by Jankowicz are not substantially true. On the contrary  censorship is commonly understood to encompass efforts to scrutinize and examine speech in order to suppress certain communications. The Disinformation Governance Board was formed precisely to examine citizens speech and, in coordination with the private sector, identify misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.  that objective is fairly characterized as a form of censorship.

Of course, in Americas burgeoning censorship infrastructure, the entire decision is likely to be viewed as some form of disinformation, misinformation or malinformation.

After all, even true facts can be deemed censorable by the Biden-Harris administration.

I testified previously before Congress on how Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agencys mandate over critical infrastructure to include our cognitive infrastructure.

The resulting censorship efforts included combating malinformation  described as information based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.

Thus, referring to Jankowicz as engaged in censorship on this defunct board may be true, but could still be treated as malinformation.

As I discuss in my book, these setbacks are unlikely to deter the corporate, academic and government figures aligned in our current anti-free speech movement. Millions of government and private dollars are flowing to universities and organizations engaged in targeting or blacklisting individuals and groups.

It is now a growing industry unto itself.

The new censors have gone corporate and mainstream. Silencing others is now a calling, a profession. They have literally made free speech into a commodity that can be packaged and controlled for profit.

Yet Confucius once said that the beginning of wisdom is the ability to call things by their right names. This opinion takes a large step toward such wisdom.

If figures like Jankowicz want to continue to make money silencing others, we can at least call them for what we believe they are: censors.

Read more at: JonathanTurley.org
European Union mulls INDEFINITELY freezing stolen Russian assets amid U.S. pressure

The European Union is considering indefinitely freezing seized Russian assets to allay concerns from the United States regarding the repayment of a $50 billion loan to Ukraine, as reported by the Financial Times on Wednesday, citing internal documents.

Since the onset of the Ukraine conflict in late February 2022, the EU has frozen more than 200 billion euros ($217 billion) worth of assets owned by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation but were currently being held in financial institutions within the European Union. Moscow has vehemently condemned this action as a brazen theft of its financial properties.

While Western nations have grappled with legal hurdles preventing outright confiscation of these funds to aid Ukraine, the EU has formulated a plan. This plan proposes utilizing the interest generated by the frozen assets to establish a fund for procuring weapons for Kyiv, while leaving the main assets themselves untouched. Current estimates suggest that the annual sum for this fund is approximately three billion euros ($3.26 billion).

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell recently announced that the first installment of around 1.4 billion euros ($1.52 billion) taken from the interest from the frozen Russian assets will be disbursed to Kyiv sometime in early August. (Related: Russia promises a response to the Wests theft of its assets as EU plans to send interest earned on Russian funds to Ukraine.)

To address concerns from the U.S. about the loan repayment, given the EU's practice of renewing sanctions against Moscow every six months, 27 EU ambassadors are slated to convene to discuss a proposal for the "open-ended immobilization of Central Bank of Russia assets." This proposal aims to provide maximum predictability to G7 partners regarding the conditions under which the loan to Ukraine would be repaid.

A report from the Financial Times highlighted that among the various options presented in the document, extending the renewal of sanctions from every six months to up to three years is one alternative. However, it emphasized that only the option of indefinite sanctions would fully satisfy Washington's concerns.

"It's difficult, but it's the only route that gives certainty and is feasible," said a source who spoke with the Financial Times.

Approval of this plan by all EU member states is crucial, but potential hurdles may arise, particularly as a small handful of EU member states would prefer if the bloc were less combative of Russia, particularly Hungary and, more recently, Slovakia, both of whom have raised objections to similar efforts by the Union.

Kremlin to pursue legal action over theft of frozen assets

In response to the EU's intentions to utilize frozen Russian assets for purchasing weapons for Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called it "theft," and vowed that Moscow is exploring legal avenues to hold accountable those involved in the decision to use profits from frozen Russian assets.

Peskov stated, "Such thievish actions cannot remain without reciprocity," asserting that the funds, derived from what Russia views as illegally seized assets, will be used to purchase weapons.

"This money is not only essentially stolen, but will also be spent on weapons," continued Peskov. "Definitely, we will work out the possible legal prosecution of those people who are involved in decision-making and the implementation of these decisions, because this is a direct violation of international law, it is a violation of [Russia's] property rights."

Since the beginning of Russia's special military operation in Ukraine in late February 2022, Western nations, led by the U.S., have imposed sanctions that have frozen approximately $300 billion in sovereign Russian Central Bank assets held abroad, primarily in Europe.

Along with the 1.4 billion euros the EU will be providing to Ukraine, fully funded by the profits from the frozen Russian assets, another one billion euros ($1.09 billion) from the interest generated by the assets will be made available to Kyiv by the end of 2024.

If the assets remain frozen, it is projected that the interest generated by them will raise between 15 to 20 billion euros ($16.3 to $21.7 billion) by 2027.

Watch this episode of the "Health Ranger Report" as Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, discusses how the Western world's acquisition of frozen Russian assets will backfire.

This video is from the Health Ranger Report channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Tokyo to provide $3.3 billion loan to Kyiv using frozen Russian assets.

Saudi Arabia threatened to sell European debts if G7 confiscates Russian assets.

EU hastens DE-DOLLARIZATION by stealing Russian money and giving it to Ukraine.

This is how Russia can get its stolen money back while leaving the financial West to collapse all on its own.

EU and G7 nations to seize profits from frozen Russian assets and give them to corrupt Ukraine.

Sources include:

RT.com

Reuters.com

Pravda.com.ua

Brighteon.com
VP Kamala Harris a descendant of notorious Irish slave owner in Jamaica

Vice President Kamala Harris is reportedly a descendant of a notorious Irish slave owner

The Gateway Pundit reported on her ancestral connection to slavery, citing findings by British historian Stephen McCracken. On the surface, Harris is the daughter of economist and professor Donald Harris (a Black man from Jamaica) and biomedical scientist Shyamala Gopalan (an Indian woman from India's Tamil Nadu state).

But McCracken's genealogical research revealed that Harris' four-times-paternal-great-grandfather, Hamilton Brown, was born in Ireland's County Antrim in 1776. Brown's birth year coincided with America declaring its independence from the British.

Brown relocated to Jamaica, which at the time was a British colony, where he became an ardent slave owner on the sugar plantations that made the fortitude of the island's economy. He opposed the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1832 and even went back to County Antrim to replace his slaves with workers from his native country.

The historian investigated Kamala's roots after it was discovered she has ancestry in County Antrim through Brown.

"Hamilton was born in Antrim, just north of Ballymoney, before he moved to Jamaica as a teenager. That's where he became a bookmaker, and then a plantation owner, and therefore a slave owner. His gravestone is in Saint Ann in Jamaica, which lists his birthplace as Antrim," McCracken stated.

"He had numerous slaves, in fact Hamilton Brown routinely traveled back and forth to London to protest the abolishment of slavery. He would come back to Ireland to take migrants back to Jamaica to work once slavery was abolished. A quote refers to him as 'making slaves of migrants' in Ireland."

McCracken described the vice president's ancestor as a "notorious figure and not nice fellow." He continued: "I actually thought this was going to be a nice story, like [those of former U.S. Presidents] McKinley, Nixon, Jackson, Roosevelt  all of whom have links to Antrim, but it wasn't."

Even Kamala's dad acknowledges the family's links to the slave owner

Kamala's father confirmed their lineage to Brown in an article, writing: "My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (nee Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown's Town) and to my maternal grandmother Miss Iris (nee Iris Finegan, farmer and educator, from Aenon Town and Inverness, ancestry unknown to me)," Donald Harris wrote in the article.

"The Harris name comes from my paternal grandfather Joseph Alexander Harris, landowner and agricultural 'produce' exporter (mostly pimento or allspice), who died in 1939 one year after I was born and is buried in the churchyard of the magnificent Anglican Church which Hamilton Brown built in Brown's Town (and where, as a child, I learned the catechism, was baptized and confirmed, and served as an acolyte)."

Reuters fact-checkers have said that Kamala is possibly a descendant of both slaves and slave owners. It is not uncommon for African Americans or people of Caribbean heritage to be descended from a slave owner because many slave masters raped their female slaves. In 2019, it was reported that Brown was the owner of at least 121 slaves in 1826. (Related: Kamala Harris' ancestors owned slaves.)

According to the Gateway Pundit, Kamala's campaign has heavily concentrated on racial politics  with one example of this being her fight to give reparations to Black Americans who were victims of slavery. So it is interesting to note that Harris herself is a descendant of a slave owner.

Follow KamalaHarris.news for more stories about the vice president.

Watch this Fox News report about about Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt calling Kamala Harris a dangerously liberal and radical leftist.

This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Kamala Harris secures endorsements from top Democrats except Barack Obama.

RFK Jr. accuses DNC of once again RIGGING the nomination process  this time for Kamala Harris.

Biden admits Kamala Harris was chosen as VP for DIVERSITY rather than qualifications.

If Kamala Harris replaces Joe Biden, survey shows Donald Trumps lead in the polls would only increase.

Tennessee Rep. Burchett: Kamala Harris is a DEI VICE PRESIDENT.

Sources include:

TheGatewayPundit.com

DailyMail.co.uk

Brighteon.com
Netanyahu demands U.S. expedite aid to Israel, says Americans protesting Israel stand with evil

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded the United States expedite military aid to Israel and said Americans protesting Israel's war "stand with evil" in a lie-filled speech before Congress on Wednesday afternoon.

(Article by Chris Menahan republished from InformationLiberation.com)

??BREAKING: Snipers are stationed on the roof of Congress ahead of Netanyahu's speech today in the Capitol, Washington,DC. pic.twitter.com/iK0neY8Tzk  Suppressed News. (@SuppressedNws) July 24, 2024

ELON MUSK says he is attending todays joint meeting of Congress as a guest on Prime Netanyahus pic.twitter.com/SBRm6GDNLC  Kelly Phares (@kellyfphares) July 24, 2024

Only person I can think of in American history who was habitually referred to as "His Excellency" was George Washington. https://t.co/GsquHnUDrK  James Kirkpatrick (@VDAREJamesK) July 24, 2024

???? NETANYAHU DEMANDS AMERICA SENDS AID TO ISRAEL FASTER pic.twitter.com/vapMBkfn4S  Censored Men (@CensoredMen) July 24, 2024

NOW - @elonmusk seen in Congress listening Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address pic.twitter.com/woguRioD7z  Overton (@OvertonLive) July 24, 2024

If you don't support IDF soldiers sniping toddlers then you "stand with evil," Netanyahu insisted:

Netanyahu invokes the Holocaust in congressional address, claims Hamas snatched babies from hidden attics and murdered them. Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/gOQD6FAyjQ  AF Post (@AFpost) July 24, 2024

?? Every accusation is a confession. pic.twitter.com/cKFD6M0MUG  Ken O'Keefe (@KenOKeefe1TJP) July 24, 2024

LMAO! Netanyahu parades out a Black Jew and a Muslim IDF soldier to prove how *not racist* Israel is! Who helped put his speech together? The RNC? pic.twitter.com/5HloBzgtWu  Buchanan Corps ?? (@BuchananCorps) July 24, 2024

Netanyahu: Some of these protesters hold up signs that say 'Gays for Gaza,' they may as well hold up signs that say 'Chickens for KFC' pic.twitter.com/E67gIFiTAK  jordan (@JordanUhl) July 24, 2024

some of these protestors hold up signs proclaiming "gays for gaza they might as well hold up signs saying "christians united for israel!  Jon Miller (@MillerStream) July 24, 2024

Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu received more than 70 standing ovations from Congress during his speech. At one point, Netanyahu sternly instructed members of Congress to stop applauding and listen. Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/dUMu0cXWT3  AF Post (@AFpost) July 24, 2024

Israeli PM Netanyahu makes Freudian slip during congressional address: We will fight until we achieve victory. Victory over liberty rather, victory of liberty over tyranny. Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/1xeAKufkcc  AF Post (@AFpost) July 24, 2024

"How many civilians did you kill?" "Practically none... Just 2 dozen people, thats practically none. When you think about it, it's only like 12 people. Why are you freaking out about the 6 people that died?" pic.twitter.com/CXbJgEM1sx  Keith Woods (@KeithWoodsYT) July 24, 2024

Benjamin Netanyahu: "Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building... when the tyrants of Tehran are funding you, you've officially become Iran's useful idiots." pic.twitter.com/mnuWyd0s5l  ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) July 24, 2024

BREAKING: Capitol police deploy pepper spray and brutalize protesters and journalists including BT's @KeiPritsker en route to the capitol to protest Netanyahu's visit. pic.twitter.com/Cgw2zxHhqm  BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) July 24, 2024

From NBC News, "Netanyahu compares Oct. 7 to Pearl Harbor and criticizes protesters in address to Congress":

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday delivered an impassioned speech to Congress, taking on protesters inside the House chamber and those gathered outside the Capitol, while emphasizing the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship. [...] "Like Dec. 7, 1941, and Sept. 11, 2001," Netanyahu said, "Oct. 7 is a day that will forever live in infamy." Netanyahu also directly addressed the protests against his handling of the war in Gaza, both on college campuses this spring and outside the Capitol as he spoke. "Incredibly, many anti-Israel protesters, many choose to stand with evil. They stand with Hamas. They stand with rapists and murderers," he said, later accusing the protesters in Washington of being funded by Iran. Netanyahu also slammed the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant for him and other Israeli leaders for war crimes. The Israeli prime minister pushed back, for example, on the ICC accusing Israel of intentionally trying to starve Palestinians in Gaza, saying that Israel not only isnt blocking aid but that Hamas is stealing it.

Nonstop lies from start to finish.

Just so were clear, Netanyahu has lost so many people that he is addressing just a fraction of Congress. When this happens, they fill the seats with non-members, like what they do at award ceremonies, in order to project the appearance of full attendance and support. https://t.co/CIboKUrkBq  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 24, 2024

here is Netanyahu saying that two babies in an attic were killed by Hamas on October 7. These babies do not exist, as confirmed by Haaretz and Israeli police records. This entire story is fabricated. And the Congress applauded him for it pic.twitter.com/Sy2DC7YifX  ??? (@zei_squirrel) July 24, 2024

here is Netanyahu spreading genocidal propaganda hoaxes, including that Hamas "burned babies alive" on October 7. No babies were burned on October 7, as confirmed by Haaretz citing Israeli police records. Pure genocidal blood libel pic.twitter.com/rg18Z8BM6H  ??? (@zei_squirrel) July 24, 2024

here's the problem for Zionists: Netanyahu provably fabricated claims of non-existent burned and killed babies which official Israeli records prove are false. So all the other hoax claims like the "mass rapes" fall with it. He's a proven liar. They all arehttps://t.co/vVX0Sc1fDE  ??? (@zei_squirrel) July 24, 2024

The IDF admitted two weeks ago that they killed Israeli hostages in Kibbutz Be'eri with tank shelling and a hail of bullets but Netanyahu has the chutzpah to go up before Congress and completely ignore it while pushing debunked atrocity propaganda.

Kudos to Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and the others in Congress who refused to attend this disgusting display.

Read more at: InformationLiberation.com
DEEP STATE COVER-UP: All U.S. intelligence chiefs, including Cheatle, refuse to testify in Trump assassination inquiry

Nobody in charge of America's top three-letter law enforcement agencies is willing to testify about what really happened at Donald Trump's campaign rally in Butler, Penn., on July 13 when the former president took a bullet to the ear, it is being reported

Not only is Kim Cheatle, the former head of Secret Service  Cheatle just resigned after her agency failed to protect Trump and his supporters  refusing to cooperate with the congressional investigation, but the same is also true of Christopher Wray, director of the FBI and Alejandro Mayorkas, who heads the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Various witnesses who were at the rally are said to be cooperating with the House Homeland Security Committee probe, but not Cheatle, Wray or Mayorkas whose loyalties appear to be elsewhere other than the American people they swore to serve  watch the video below:

BREAKING ??? It's not just Security Services Director Cheatle. Every American intelligence Chief has refused to testify in front of Congress about their knowledge of the failed assassination of Trump. Who are they working for? pic.twitter.com/2IA9j2aelu  GreatGameInternational (@GreatGameIndia) July 25, 2024

(Related: Did you know that the left-wing ActBlue PAC is breaking federal campaign finance laws by making many fraudulent donations to the Kamala Harris campaign?)

Garland, Wray still politicizing FBI against justice and truth

Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) Commissioner Col. Christopher L. Paris agreed to testify at the hearing, as did the National President of the Fraternal Order of Police. Cheatle, who was scheduled to attend, did not show up at all.

"The PSP is responsible for investigating one homicide and two attempted homicides of rally attendees, both state crimes under Pennsylvania's Crimes Code, as well as the use of force by a United States Secret Service (USSS) sniper," Paris said in his opening statement.

"Conversely, in accordance with the applicable provisions of the Federal Criminal Code, the FBI is responsible for investigating the attempted homicide of former President Trump. Due to these crimes stemming from the same sequence of events, the FBI and the PSP have combined investigative efforts. To date, over 100 interviews have been conducted and 1,000 pieces of evidence gathered."

Wray, meanwhile, denied a request to give testimony at the same hearing, though he did confirm his scheduled annual appearance before the House Judiciary Committee on July 24. The purpose of that hearing, called "Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation," is to examine how the FBI handled the Trump assassination attempt, but its members used the opportunity to question Wray about what his agency did in Butler.

The same hearing also looked at claims that Attorney General Merrick Garland and Wray are continuing to politicize the nation's top law enforcement agency.

As for Mayorkas, he remains MIA not only concerning the Trump assassination attempt but also his failure to secure America's southern border. Since last August, the House Homeland Security Committee has asked Mayorkas to testify four separate times about his handling of the illegal immigration problem. Mayorkas has yet to cooperate.

"Now, our members are sharing questions they would've asked him had he shown up," the House Homeland GOP (@HomelandGOP) X account tweeted, along with the following video:

Since August, @HomelandGOP invited Sec. Mayorkas 4 times to testify about his handling of the border crisis. Most recently, he declined our invitation to testify at last week's impeachment hearing. Now, our members are sharing questions they would've asked him had he shown up. pic.twitter.com/7vIX5HalCX  House Homeland GOP (@HomelandGOP) January 23, 2024

Will Trump win the 2024 election, or will the scepter be handed to Kamala (or some other deep state puppet)? Find out more at Rigged.news.

Sources for this article include:

GreatGameIndia.com

NaturalNews.com

Twitter.com
Vacation booking website faces criminal charges over ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS on Palestinian land

A vacation booking website has been slapped with a criminal complaint in the Netherlands over its listing of rental properties in illegally established Israeli settlements.

The non-profit Center for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) filed the complaint with the Dutch public prosecutor back in November alongside three other human rights groups  the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), Al-Haq and the Rights Forum. However, it was only recently that they went public with the suit.

The plaintiffs accused Booking.com, which is based in Amsterdam, of "profiting from war crimes by facilitating the rental of vacation homes on land stolen from the indigenous Palestinian population." The website is alleged to have advertised accommodations and "experiences" in illegally occupied Palestinian territories, in particular those in the West Bank.

Brechje van de Moosdijk, spokeswoman for the Dutch National Public Prosecutor's office, said prosecutors are studying the complaint. However, she added that they couldn't give a timeline for a decision on possible further steps. (Related: 13 Countries join South Africas case against Israel on genocide in Gaza.)

The complaint highlighted Booking.com's alleged complicity in Israeli genocide as detailed in a report by Don't Buy Into Occupation (DBIO), a coalition of 25 European and Palestinian NGOs including the ELSC. The DBIO report, in turn, exposed the involvement of European financial institutions in funding businesses that support and legitimize Israel's illegal settlements and apartheid against Palestinians.

Moreover, the DBIO report meticulously documents the various ways Western companies "play a critical role in the functioning, sustainability, and expansion of illegal settlements." Among the companies mentioned is Caterpillar, a heavy machinery manufacturer whose armored bulldozers are used to demolish Palestinian homes and construct Jewish settlements. Another mentioned is Elbit Systems  Israel's largest arms manufacturer  which produces bullets, drones, combat vehicles, electronic warfare systems and missiles for use during the ongoing genocide.

Other booking websites also involved

"Settlements are illegal under international law, cause systemic human rights violations, constitute a war crime and are harmful to any prospect of justice and peace," said Daan de Grefte of the ELSC. "These settlements also form an integral part of a system of racial domination that amounts to apartheid."

"Several major online tourism companies offer services in the Occupied Territories, which contravene these companies' own human rights commitments, while also legitimizing Israel's unlawful policy of colonizing the West Bank. By operating in the settlements, they exacerbate human rights harms to the local Palestinian population."

It's not just Booking.com that's involved in the matter. Airbnb reportedly lists "a large number of Israeli settlements" on its platform, with these properties based in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Syria's Golan Heights.

"In most cases, the descriptions of the properties name the settlement location, but the properties are listed as being located in 'Israel' and do not inform potential visitors that the accommodation is located [in the Occupied Territories]," DBIO noted in its report.

In November 2018, Airbnb announced it would remove around 200 listings in settlements, "at the core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians." But the company was forced to backtrack with the decision six months later due to multiple lawsuit in both the U.S. and Israel.

Spanish travel company eDreams and U.S.-based Expedia Group, which operates portals like Hotels.com and Trivago, are also involved in advertising properties in illegal Jewish settlements without informing customers of their unlawful status. Customers are not informed about the settlements illegal status under international law. The company instead categorizes these listings as being "in line with applicable law" while claiming to manually remove "illicit" properties if they are identified by its staff, or flagged by website visitors.

Massachusetts-based Tripadvisor and its Viator subsidiary go further by promoting tours and activities in these settlements, including tours of wineries built on illegally appropriated Palestinian land, including one situated at Tel Shiloh, built on stolen Palestinian land and managed by a local settler council.

Visit IsraelCollapse.com for similar stories.

Watch this video of pro-Palestine protesters in Belfast, Northern Island removing Israeli products from a supermarket there.

This video is from the Cynthia's Pursuit of Truth channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Genocide denial: US Congress passes amendment denying Gaza death toll.

Poll: Muslim countries lead way in BOYCOTTING brands that support Israels genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Genocide profiteers: Israeli state-owned weapons companies required to purchase cloud services from Google and Amazon.

GENOCIDE JOE: White House supported Israel despite knowing they were indiscriminately bombing civilians in Gaza.

Genocide case against Israel gets underway at International Court of Justice.

Sources include:

GreatGameIndia.com

Brighteeon.com
VDARE shutting down due to witch hunt by New York Attorney General Letitia James

The immigration restrictionist website VDARE has announced they're suspending the site within days after 25 years in operation due to relentless lawfare from New York Attorney General Letitia James.

(Article by Chris Menahan republished from InformationLiberation.com)

VDARE founder Peter Brimelow made the announcement Tuesday on X.

PETER BRIMELOW: Why Weve Suspended VDARE and Ive Resigned After 25 Years pic.twitter.com/tnWSz3L0xs  VDARE (@vdare) July 23, 2024

Brimelow said he's resigning as editor of VDARE and resigning from the VDARE Foundation and blamed James's lawfare as well as relentless debanking -- which he suspects is being driven by the feds -- blocking them from collecting donations.

Brimelow has been completely vindicated on the warnings he issued against mass immigration three decades ago and this is his reward. Had he sold the American people down the river, he'd no doubt be a pundit on Fox News and have book deals with Simon & Schuster or HarperCollins like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro.

The GOP elites who did sell us out and denounced Brimelow as a "racist" decades ago were all rebuked by Trump's victory in 2016 but the border has effectively remained wide open and many of our cities now resemble foreign countries.

Nonetheless, half the county is now willing to tell a pollster they support mass deportations and Trump is running on the issue.

Mass deportations NOW! signs spotted at the RNC ? pic.twitter.com/QOrZMIO9qM  TheBlaze (@theblaze) July 18, 2024

Similar movements are also now rising throughout Europe.

WOW! Thousands of young people are marching in Vienna today. They are carrying banners saying the kids want remigration and calling for Mass Deportations from Austria. ??? pic.twitter.com/LgTKXIqTXc  Cillian (@CilComLFC) July 20, 2024

If Trump wins the election, we should demand he appoint Brimelow as the head of Homeland Security.

Read more at: InformationLiberation.com
Vladimir Putin praises digital ruble, calls for CBDCs widespread use in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently praised the "efficiency and functionality" of the Central Bank of Russia's central bank digital currency (CBDC) and instructed his government to get ready for the extensive launching of the digital ruble

According to a Substack report from American writer and journalist Riley Waggaman, writing under the moniker Edward Slavsquat, Putin has called for the full-scale implementation of the digital ruble.

Waggaman wrote that after praising the "efficiency and functionality" of the Central Bank of Russia's CBDC, Putin instructed his government to prepare for the widespread introduction of the digital ruble.

"Now we need to take the next step, namely: Move to a broader, full-scale implementation of the digital ruble in the economy, in business activities and in the financial sector," Putin said during a recent meeting on economic issues.

Since August 2023, the Central Bank of Russia has been carrying out a pilot program for the digital ruble involving 12 banks, 600 people and 22 trade and service ventures. The program will be extended in September to include an added 20 credit institutions. (Related: Russia plans to start testing its digital ruble CBDC this summer.)

Despite the prevailing opposition to the digital ruble from across Russia's political domain, the Central Bank of Russia and its media supporters claim that the traceable, programmable, centralized digital token will help avoid sanctions and fight corruption through better financial transparency.

"It is important for Russia to 'seize the moment,' as they say, to create the legal framework and regulation in a timely manner, to develop infrastructure, to create conditions for the circulation of digital assets, both within the country and in relations with foreign partners," said Putin.

Putin wants digital ruble to evade sanctions

Back in April, Central Bank of Russia Gov. Elvira Nabiullina updated the State Duma  the Russian parliament  on the status of trials. She noted at the time that scaling operations up would begin in 2025.

"In our opinion, [wider adoption] will take five to seven years," said Nabiullina. "This will be a natural process, because the choice of the people themselves and the business is fundamental. It should be convenient for them."

Putin's comments regarding speeding up the development of the digital ruble may throw Nabiullina's timetable out the window. His comments also come at the same time media reports that Western sanctions are disrupting international transactions between China and Russia.

Back in June, the Shanghai branch of Russian major state-owned bank VTB, which serves as a significant channel for money transfers between Russia and China, was added to the United States Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control's (OFAC) sanctions list.

At the time, OFAC's new sanctions forced the Moscow Exchange to trade dollars and euros onto the over-the-counter markets. According to VTB Chief Financial Officer Dmitry Pyanov, the new sanctions forced the Shanghai branch into a period of "adaptation to new realities."

By June 20, payments made via VTB Shanghai had stopped reaching Russian suppliers. The money is sent to VTB Shanghai, but is then blocked and unable to go to its intended recipients.

The incident underlines the Kremlin's desire to accelerate the development of alternative modes of payment, particularly new digital technologies like CBDCs and other digital assets that are outside the purview of Western sanctions.

Follow CurrencyReset.news for more stories about CBDCs.

Watch the video below about Russia's pilot launch of the digital ruble.

This video is from the High Hopes channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

Russian State Duma officially approves countrys very own CBDC, the DIGITAL RUBLE.

OBEY: World Economic Forum white paper claims 98% of central banks are in the process of adopting CBDCs.

Trump vows to prevent the Federal Reserve from creating an American CBDC.

IMF working to create a global CBDC platform that will let the globalists CONTROL your money wherever you are.

Russia and China now conducting 90% of financial settlement transactions in national currencies  once the new BRICS currency arrives, its GAME OVER for the U.S. dollar.

Sources include:

Expose-News.com

EdwardSlavsquat.Substack.com

Kremlin.ru

LedgerInsights.com

Brighteon.com
White House official: China maintained PERSISTENT ACCESS to U.S. networks for years

Hackers backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had "persistent access" to U.S. networks and allied systems for years

According to Israel Soong, director for East Asia and Pacific Cyber Policy at the National Security Council (NSC), this cyber campaign appears to be part of a wider effort by the CCP to prepare attacks on critical infrastructure. In the event of a conflict, Beijing intended to use its cyber access to "cripple" critical systems  including power grids and communications platforms.

"What is public, but is less well known, is that the [People's Republic of China] has been doing the same propositioning to many other countries around the globe, including some who are our allies," Soong said during a July 16 speech at the conservative think tank Hudson Institute. He added that the CCP could "persistently and aggressively maintain this cyber access for years on end."

Soong pointed out that the CCP had developed a strategy to "actively and intentionally dominate these areas." He continued: "Beijing sees cyber and emerging technology as critical to the strategy to reshape the U.S.-led international order to be more favorable to the priorities of the CCP."

The NSC official added that while CCP efforts to prepare for the sabotage of critical infrastructure were alarming, they were unlikely to be leveraged absent a major conflict between Beijing and Washington. Thats because an attack on U.S. infrastructure that resulted in American casualties would be considered an outright attack.

Soong's remarks appeared to reference a malicious cyber-campaign acknowledged by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in February. According to a statement at the time, CISA said CCP-backed hackers were "seeking to pre-position themselves on IT networks for disruptive or destructive cyberattacks against U.S. critical infrastructure."

U.S. government reveals China's other attempts to infiltrate

Intelligence leaders told Congress that the February intrusion was first detected in December 2023 and malware was removed from 600 government systems. However, the threat persisted in many infrastructure systems run by private companies.

Eric Goldstein, CISA executive assistant director for cybersecurity, said the operation only targeted a fraction of the Chinese malware that seeks to infiltrate U.S. systems every day. "This threat is not theoretical," he remarked. "It is based on confirmed intrusions to U.S. critical infrastructure, and we know that what we have found is the tip of the iceberg."

Back in May, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testified before Congress on the matter. She told lawmakers that most China-based cyberattacks against the U.S. targeted health care and industrial control systems, as well as defense, energy, transportation and food and water supplies.

The previous month, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Christopher Wray said the CCP was "sparing no expense in its attempt to hack, lie, cheat and steal its way to the top as a global superpower." He added that Chinese state-backed hackers "outnumber FBI cyber personnel at least 50 to 1."

"U.S. and allied governments have faced difficulties effectively countering the Chinese regimes massive cybercrime apparatus, partly because of a much smaller pool of leverageable cybersecurity professionals," NTD News pointed out.

Head over to CommunistChina.news for similar stories.

Watch this video about CCP hackers targeting the U.S. elections.

This video is from the GalacticStorm channel on Brighteon.com.

More related stories:

"They" will do anything to win.

China is two years away from deploying KILLER ROBOTS on the battlefield.

X user: FBI and Secret Service were complicit in Trump assassination attempt.

Cyber extortion: AT&T agreed to pay hacker about $400,000 to erase stolen sensitive data.

EMP preparedness: How to protect your electronics.

Sources include:

NTD.com

Brighteon.com
Single-phase DLC deployments are scaling first, Beran said. This is the result of long-standing adoption in the high-performance computing industry that has helped establish a more mature vendor ecosystem and end-user know-how to deploy and service the technology, Beran said.

Single-phase DLC is the leading data center liquid cooling technology, and thats expected to continue throughout the five-year forecast period, Behran said. However, two-phase DLC is forecast to materially grow during the forecast period, Behran said. Ultimately, fluid innovation is going to play a big part in how successful immersion cooling will be, Beran said.

In terms of data center liquid-cooling revenues in 2023, CoolIT Systems, Boyd, and Motivair are the top three vendors, Beran said. He noted, too, that Nvidia has specified single-phase DLC as the cooling technology to support its upcoming GB200 compute nodes.

The high end of the Nvidia GB200 lineup, the NVL72 system is a 72-node, liquid-cooled, rack-scale system for the most compute-intensive workloads. Each DGX GB200 system features 36 Grace Blackwell Superchips  which include 72 Blackwell GPUs and 36 Grace CPUs  connected by the newest generation NVLink interconnect technology.

The third technology forecast in the DellOro report  immersive cooling  involves physically submerging servers, networking or other gear directly into a non-conducting liquid which acts as a coolant, directly absorbing heat generated by the components and transferring it away from the equipment. Immersion cooling technology supports higher server densities in a data center compared to traditional air cooling.

Theres a lot of interest in immersion cooling because, from an engineering perspective, thats going to give you that best thermal management performance. [It delivers] a better thermal management performance than direct-to-chip liquid cooling, because theres no air cooling associated with it, and you can capture nearly 100% of the heat generated by the server. So, that immediately sets businesses up for the opportunity to achieve the best energy efficiency, Beran said.
Six months of additional support for what will then be a 5-year-old product doesnt materially cost Broadcom anything. And if it was the extra little bit of runway perpetual license holdouts needed in order to move to VCF, why not get some good press about it rather than including it as a standard concession on every deal they are inking and signing over the next 12 months? Annand said.

One deadline that hasnt changed is the expiration of AWSs reseller agreement with VMware on August 1, after which customers will no longer be able to use on-demand vSphere servers from the VMware Cloud on AWS, eliminating the ability to rapidly scale up (or down) as required. They have been offered the option to purchase 12-month subscriptions for their current on-demand servers; Broadcom now advises they should acquire those licenses by July 26.

The Register cited an email from Broadcom to customers that said, To continue delivering you the best possible experience, we are moving to a subscription-only model for the purchase and consumption of hosts, meaning we are no longer supporting the on-demand model.

It is yet another unpopular move by Broadcom, which has also changed its licensing for all versions to a consumption-based model based on number of cores in use, which has caused some customers bills to skyrocket and started them questioning the value of the technology.

Broadcoms major focus has been on building its cloud versions. In a blog post in April, CEO Hock Tan wrote, These changes were designed to lead to an integrated VCF solution that will bring broader long-term benefits to our valued customers both in their own data centers and in the cloud with increased portability to move workloads among on-premises data centers and supported cloud providers.

In June, the company announced a series of updates to VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VSF) to further its goals.
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
Three 'mutuals', respect for LAC essential for normalcy in relations, EAM Jaishankar tells Chinese FM

E

xternal Affairs Minister (EAM) S. Jaishankar once again stressed the importance of the three mutuals - mutual respect, mutual interest, and mutual sensitivity - to India-China ties during his meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the ASEAN-related Foreign Ministers' meetings in Laos' capital Vientiane on Thursday.

"Continued our ongoing discussions about our bilateral relationship. The state of the border will necessarily be reflected on the state of our ties. Agreed on the need to give strong guidance to complete the disengagement process," EAM Jaishankar posted on X after the meeting with Wang Yi who is also a Member of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Politburo

"Must ensure full respect for the LAC and past agreements. It is in our mutual interest to stabilize our ties. We should approach the immediate issues with a sense of purpose and urgency," he added.

In his opening remarks at the meeting, the Indian Minister recalled their meeting during the SCO Summit earlier this month as he said that Thursday's meeting "provides another opportunity to take forward our ongoing discussions about our bilateral relationship".

Ties between India and China, "the two most populous nations and among the two key economies of the world today", have "an exceptional significance", he said, adding that their "ability to ensure that they are stable and forward-looking is essential both for the prospects of Asia and that of the multipolar world. There are also issues on which our interests converge. In our previous meeting, we had both agreed in this regard. The challenge has been to proceed in that direction".

Jaishankar told his Chinese counterpart that the "disturbance to peace and tranquillity in our border areas has cast a shadow on our ties for the last four years".

"We have both made considerable efforts to resolve the related issues. Our endeavour is to complete that process and ensure that there is full respect for the Line of Actual Control and the agreements that we have signed in the past. I hope that todays meeting will allow us to give stronger guidance to our officials in that regard."

"Insofar as our bilateral ties are concerned, we also agreed that they are best handled through the approach of three mutuals - mutual respect, mutual interest and mutual sensitivity. You will also appreciate that the state of the border will necessarily be reflected on the state of our ties," he stressed.

He also noted that it was a "volatile and uncertain era" as the "consequences of the Covid pandemic are still in play" and the world is witnessing "conflicts, tensions and polarisations".

"There have been disruptions to the global economy, both natural and man-made. At this time it is in our mutual interest to stabilise our ties and focus on growth and development that requires us to approach our immediate issues with a sense of purpose and urgency," Jaishankar said.

The meeting, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a statement later, gave the two ministers an opportunity to review the situation since their last meeting at Astana in July, with their talks focusing on "finding an early resolution" of the remaining issues along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) to stabilise and rebuild bilateral relations.

"Both ministers agreed on the need to work with purpose and urgency to achieve complete disengagement at the earliest. Peace and tranquillity on the borders and respect for LAC are essential for normalcy in bilateral relations. Both sides must fully abide by relevant bilateral agreements, protocols, and understandings reached between the two Governments in the past," read the MEA statement.

Both sides will also hold an early meeting of the Working Mechanism on Consultation and Coordination on India-China Border Affairs (WMCC) to take the discussions forward.

 Three 'mutuals', respect for LAC essential for normalcy in relations, EAM Jaishankar tells Chinese FM

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
Former PM Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy meet PM Modi

F

ormer Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda and his son and Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel H.D. Kumaraswamy met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Thursday.

Taking to X, Prime Minister Modi said: "It was an honour to meet former Prime Minister, Shri H.D. Deve Gowda Ji at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg. His wisdom and perspective on various subjects are deeply valued. I am also thankful for the artwork that he gave me, taking my mind back to my recent visit to Kanyakumari."

The development comes as Karnataka witnesses a rise in the political temperature. Following the overnight dharna over the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam allegedly involving CM Siddaramaiah, the BJP had taken to the streets and submitted a memorandum to Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot to get Siddaramaiah to quit.

Earlier, Union Minister Kumaraswamy had appealed to senior advocates to file a petition before the Governor seeking his consent for the prosecution of Siddaramaiah to take the MUDA scam to the logical end.

Meanwhile, coming down heavily on the BJP in connection with the MUDA, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar stated that during the BJP's tenure, irregularities were committed in the allocation of Muda sites, and the government will soon release the list.

"The scandals of BJP MLAs, ministers, and former Chief Ministers B.S. Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai will come out. Investigations are underway. The BJP is the father of all scandals. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has given detailed information about their scandals in the Assembly. They are trying to stop us by making noise in the Assembly because they are afraid that their scandals will be exposed," he said.

"We are exposing all the irregularities of their tenure," he added.

 Former PM Deve Gowda, Kumaraswamy meet PM Modi

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
'Transformers One' trailer depicts changing dynamics between Optimus Prime and Megatron

I

ts time for the fans of the Transformers franchise to collectively sing the Linkin Park track What Ive Done, as the trailer of the upcoming animated science fiction action film Transformers One has been unveiled.

The trailer promises a solid origin story of Cybertrons greatest warriors.

It gives a peek into the events behind Optimus Prime and Megatron going from brothers-in-arms to mortal enemies. The trailer showcases their journey from simple worker bots, devoid of transformation abilities, to powerful warriors equipped to battle a mysterious villain threatening Cybertron, which is the home planet of the Transformers.

Unlike the live-action Transformers movies, which depict the robots as battle-ready from birth, this film presents a fresh narrative, revealing the characters' journey.

The film directed by Josh Cooley boasts an impressive voice cast headlined by Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, and Scarlett Johansson.

Hemsworth voices a young Optimus Prime, formerly known as Orion Pax, while Henry lends his voice to D-16, the bot who would become Megatron.

'Transformers One' marks Hemsworth's first animated feature film. He made efforts to not use his regular speaking voice for Optimus Prime, and consulted Peter Cullen, who portrays Optimus Prime in various Transformers media, on providing the voice.

Paramount Pictures is set to release Transformers One in India on September 20 in English and Hindi in 2D, 3D, 4D & IMAX (3D) formats.

 'Transformers One' trailer depicts changing dynamics between Optimus Prime and Megatron

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
As heat records tumbled 3 days in row, Guterres calls for global action to save lives

A

s global temperature records tumbled three days in a row this week, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for international action to limit the impact of heat and save lives.

"Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic -- wilting under increasingly deadly heatwaves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world. That's 122 degrees Fahrenheit -- and halfway to boiling," he said at a news conference here on Thursday.

"This past Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were the three hottest days on record," he said, citing Copernicus Climate Change Service data.

"Heat is estimated to kill almost half a million people a year, that's about 30 times more than tropical cyclones," he added.

"Extreme heat amplifies inequality, inflames food insecurity, and pushes people further into poverty," he said.

Guterres called for action in four areas to ameliorate the effects of the heatwaves sweeping the world: Care for the most vulnerable; increased protection for workers; boost the resilience of economies and societies, and action to fight climate change by committing to keep temperature increase to 1.5 degrees.

To protect the most vulnerable, he said, "We must respond by massively increasing access to low-carbon cooling; expanding passive cooling  such as natural solutions and urban design; and cleaning up cooling technologies while boosting their efficiency."

He referred to a report from the International Labour Organisation on the effect of heat on workers released on Thursday that warned that more than 70 per cent of the global workforce  2.4 billion people  are now at high risk of extreme heat.

In the Asia-Pacific region, three out of four workers are exposed to extreme heat, it said.

Guterres said, "All of this is having a profound impact on people and the economy."

When daily temperatures rise above 34 degrees, labour productivity drops by 50 per cent and heat stress at work is projected to cost the global economy $2.4 trillion by 2030, up from $280 billion in the mid-1990s," he added.

He called for worker protection measures and said, "We must ensure that laws and regulations reflect the reality of extreme heat today and are enforced."

To build resilience against increasing heat, he said, "We need a concerted effort to heatproof economies, critical sectors, and the built environment."

He added, "Countries, cities, and sectors need comprehensive, tailored Heat Action Plans, based on the best science and data."

While today, the focus is on the impact of extreme heat, "there are many other devastating symptoms of the climate crisis: Ever-more fierce hurricanes... Floods... Droughts... Wildfires... Rising sea levels," he said.

"To tackle all these symptoms, we need to fight the disease" which he said were "the addiction to fossil fuels," and "climate inaction".

"All countries must deliver by next year nationally determined contributions  or national climate action plans  aligned to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius," he added.

He said all countries must phase out fossil fuels "fast and fairly," coal in particular, and towards that goal cut global consumption and production of fossil fuels by 30 per cent by 2030.

At the same time, he said, "We must recognise that a lot is being done."

"The increase of renewable energy we are witnessing is the fastest increase of energy production by any means in history," he added.

While many things like increasing the number of electric cars are happening, it is "too little, too late," he said.

"The problem is that climate change is running faster than all the measures that are now being put in place to fight it. And that is why it is important to understand that we need a huge acceleration of all the dimensions of climate action," he added.

According to Copernicus, the daily global average temperature recorded across oceans and land saw records tumble at 17.09 degrees Celsius on Sunday, and on Monday at 17.16 degrees, and on Tuesday hold almost steady at 17.15 degrees.

The previous record set last year on July 6 was 17.08 degrees. (The temperatures may appear low because they aggregate the readings in the hottest regions and the coldest polar regions, but in fact, show marked increases over time. In the 10-year range, 15.72 degrees was the highest temperature for the year recorded on July 11, 1975.)

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)

 As heat records tumbled 3 days in row, Guterres calls for global action to save lives

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
Netanyahu meets Biden, Harris to narrow 'gaps' on Gaza ceasefire deal

U

S President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Thursday to close the remaining "gaps" in the push for a Gaza ceasefire deal, the White House said quoting media reports.

The meeting at the White House came a day after Netanyahu gave a fiery speech before the US Congress as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside, BBC reported.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris later met Netanyahu and said she had voiced "serious concerns" over casualties in Gaza.

The Prime Minister faces pressure both at home and abroad to bring an end to the Israel-Gaza war, now in its ninth month.

He said he had known the US President for 40 years - and that Biden had known every Israeli PM over the last half a century.

"From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel," Netanyahu added.

Netanyahu also said he looked forward to working with Biden "on the great issues before us" over the next several months.

The meeting follows months of tension over the war in Gaza, with Biden reaching the point in May, according to his friend and former Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, where he said "enough is enough".

Biden also previously publicly threatened to hold back weapons shipments if Israel launched a large-scale ground offensive in Rafah, prompting anger in Israel, BBC reported.

Netanyahu said in June that it was "inconceivable" for the Biden administration to withhold weapons and ammunition from Israel.

At a news briefing, National Security Spokesman John Kirby said the pair discussed the urgent need for a hostage release deal, the potential of conflict spilling over into Lebanon, the threat of Iran and the need to reach "compromises" in peace talks.

While Kirby added that "gaps remain" in the US-Israel relationship, it was still "healthy".

"By healthy, I mean they're not going to agree on everything," he said, adding that Biden was "very comfortable with the relationship he has with the Prime Minister".

Speaking to reporters after she met with Netanyahu, Vice-President Harris said the discussion was "frank and constructive".

Harris is the likely Democratic presidential nominee now that Biden has stepped down from his re-election campaign.

She said she has an "unwavering commitment" to Israel and its right to defend itself, BBC reported.

Harris also expressed, however, "serious concerns" about Israeli operations in Gaza and the "dire humanitarian situation there".

"I will not be silent," she added.

"It is time for this war to end."

"Let's get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war," she said.

"Let's bring the hostages home, and let's bring much-needed relief to the Palestinian people."

The US and Israeli leaders also held a closed-door meeting with the families of seven US citizens still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

Following the meeting, Jonathan Dekel-Chen - whose son Sagui was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 last year - told reporters that the meeting was "productive and honest," although he did not provide details.

"We feel probably more optimistic than we have since the first round of releases in late November, early December," he said.

Speaking in the House Chamber on Wednesday, Netanyahu defended Israel's war in Gaza, while attempting to rally support from US politicians, BBC reported.

"Our enemies are your enemies," he said, condemning protesters as "Iran's useful idiots".

The White House pushed back on Netanyahu's characterisation of the protesters, with Kirby saying that "it's not a phrase we would use" and "not a reflection of what we think" of the "mostly peaceful" protests.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of Washington to accuse Netanyahu of being a "war criminal".

Their loudspeakers and chanting could be heard from the White House as Netanyahu arrived on Thursday.

Police arrested 23 people on Wednesday, including five inside the Capitol building.

Netanyahu's speech was occasionally met with rapturous applause, mostly led by Republicans.

The Gaza war has deepened political divides in Washington and led to infighting among Democrats, whose left wing has been critical of US support of Israel.

Harris did not attend Netanyahu's speech due to scheduling conflicts, the White House said.

Harris has expressed steadfast support for Israel. However, such a stance has been politically costly for the Democrats.

Hundreds of thousands of protest votes were cast against Biden during the presidential primaries by those wanting him to stop sending military aid to Israel.

Some of those angered by his war stance see Harris as a chance to mend the fracture in the party and win back the votes.

Netanyahu is expected to visit Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Friday.

 Netanyahu meets Biden, Harris to narrow 'gaps' on Gaza ceasefire deal

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
Sri Lanka hits back at Canadian PM over 'Black July genocide' charge

S

ri Lanka has once again rejected allegations of the Tamil minority 'genocide' charge by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and claimed the accusation was 'arising from local domestic vote bank politics.

Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry on Thursday rejected the allegation made by the Canadian Prime Minister in a statement issued on July 23 to mark the 1983 alleged "anti-Tamil violence" day in Sri Lanka.

"Sri Lanka vehemently reiterates its rejection of the allegation of genocide in their country in the statement issued on July 23, 2024, by the Canadian Prime Minister. Sri Lanka's position on this matter has been previously reiterated to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau," Foreign Minister Ali Sabry stressed.

"This allegation arising from local domestic vote bank politics in Canada is not conducive to unity and communal harmony in both Sri Lanka and Canada," the Sri Lanka government complained.

Marking 41 years on the violence against Tamils on July 23, 1983, which is known as 'Black July', PM Trudeau said, "Forty-one years ago today, violent attacks targeting Tamil civilians and businesses started in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Thousands of innocent lives were lost, and many more Tamils were injured, subjected to sexual violence, and forced to flee the country."

"The anti-Tamil pogrom, known as 'Black July', escalated tensions in what became a decade-long armed conflict. It remains one of the darkest chapters in Sri Lanka's history," the Canadian PM has said.

Referring to May 18, 2009, the day Sri Lanka's security forces militarily defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after killing its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, Canadian PM last May said that in 2022, the Parliament of Canada unanimously adopted a Motion to mark May 18 as the Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day -- a recognition of Canada's commitment to stand in solidarity with Tamil-Canadians and Tamil communities around the world in remembering and honouring the victims and survivors of these senseless acts of violence.

"As a steadfast defender of human rights, the Government of Canada will continue to demand accountability for human rights violations and abuses against vulnerable communities in Sri Lanka," PM Trudeau reiterated.

In May, the Sri Lankan government immediately rejected PM Trudeau's allegation and hit out at him claiming that the Prime Minister was engaging in electoral votebank politics.

Last year in September India strongly criticised PM Trudeau for claiming the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the murder of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. India immediately rejected the allegation, saying it was "absurd" and "motivated".

In May, Sri Lanka joined India, which had already confronted Canada referring to Khalistani separatist elements, and said that the Canadian government was sending a message that its vote bank was more powerful than its rule of law.

Last year in September India strongly criticised PM Trudeau for claiming the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the murder of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. India immediately rejected the allegation, saying it was "absurd" and "motivated".

India has said that the main issue was Canada giving space to pro-Khalistani elements operating from Canadian soil with impunity.

 Sri Lanka hits back at Canadian PM over 'Black July genocide' charge

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
'Ramayan' actor Sunil Lahri speaks on Kanwar Yatra nameplate issue, supports UP govt

A

ctor Sunil Lahri, who is known for his role as Lakshman in 'Ramayan', on Friday voiced his opinion on the ongoing 'Kanwar Yatra nameplate' issue, expressing his support for the Uttar Pradesh government's decision.

The Kanwar Yatra nameplate controversy arose when the Uttar Pradesh government issued an order requiring eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names of the owners on their shops.

Following UP's lead, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh also issued similar orders.

Sunil has expressed his support for this order.

In a video posted on Instagram, the actor stated: "Name is our identity. We place a nameplate at our home entrance, so why should we shy away from putting it on our shops? Some people have a habit of making issues out of everything. They should stop doing politics on it."

Sunil remains active on social media, where he shares anecdotes from his 'Ramayan' days, interacts with fans, and provides insights into his personal and professional life.

Recently, the actor also voiced his opinion about the BJP losing the Ayodhya seat, blaming the "Ayodhyawasi" for it. He later clarified his statement.

 'Ramayan' actor Sunil Lahri speaks on Kanwar Yatra nameplate issue, supports UP govt

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
As rain continues, Maharashtra & Karnataka keep eye on border flood situation

W

ith intermittent heavy rain continuing to lash the Sahyadri ranges leading to floods and dam water release, the Maharashtra and Karnataka governments are in touch and monitoring the situation closely.

Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, who also handles the Water Resources department, said the state is in constant touch with Karnataka over the unfolding developments, which have created tricky situations in the past.

"The Government of Maharashtra is in constant touch with the Government of Karnataka. Constant communication is being maintained with the Additional Secretary of Karnataka and the Chief Engineer of the Almatti Dam. A maintained water level (FRL) of 517.5 meters has been asked and accepted by the Government of Karnataka," Fadnavis said in a social media post.

The Dy CM said that due to heavy rain in the state, water has to be released from some dams and he was in regular contact with the Irrigation Department which has been asked to remain in constant touch with the local administration.

On Thursday, 35,300 cusecs of water was discharged from the Khadakwasla Dam, now it is discharging 40,000 cusecs, and a further decision will be taken after the rain status.

Similarly, the Koyna Dam discharge was 20,000 cusecs which went up to 30,000 cusecs at 3 a.m. and is expected to touch 40,000 cusecs later.

As in the past, the huge water discharges from the state could create a worrisome situation in both Maharashtra and Karnataka -- as was experienced during the devastating floods of 2019 that led to a political spat between the two neighbours.

Later, the then Bharatiya Janata Party government formed an Expert Study Committee (ESC) which submitted its voluminous report to the next Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) regime.

Curiously, the ESC had given a 'clean chit' to Karnataka over the (2019) floods imbroglio, and simultaneously appeared to point fingers at the Shiv Sena (UBT)-Congress-Nationalist Congress Party (SP) alliance led by ex-CM Uddhav Thackeray.

Meanwhile, CM Eknath Shinde and Deputy CMs Fadnavis and Ajit Pawar held a late-night meeting to discuss the rain and flood situation in the state which claimed at least 15 lives on Thursday.

 As rain continues, Maharashtra & Karnataka keep eye on border flood situation

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
94 pc automotive firms struggle to recruit talent in AI, cybersecurity: Report

A

bout 94 per cent of automotive firms struggle to recruit talent in artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity, according to a report on Friday.

The report by EdTech platform Skill-Lync is based on an extensive survey, involving over 220 leaders from the engineering and HR divisions of top automotive firms in India

It showed that 94 per cent of people find it challenging to recruit in specialised fields such as software-defined vehicles (SDV), and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). About 60-65 per cent of the talent requirements in companies are for mid-level professionals with 3-7 years of experience.

This report is a valuable resource for industry professionals, policymakers, educators, and investors seeking to navigate the evolving talent landscape and drive innovation within the sector.

"The rapid advancements in automotive technologies like AI, SDV, and cybersecurity, etc, are reshaping the industry, and it's crucial that our workforce evolves with these changes," said Krishna Bandaru, Co-Founder at Skill-Lync.

India's automotive industry, ranked third globally in 2022, is projected to reach a valuation of $1 trillion by 2035. To effectively navigate and leverage this growth, it is essential to have a skilled workforce of engineers in emerging technologies like electrification, ADAS, software-defined vehicles, and data analytics.

Bandaru said the company works to "bridge these gaps by providing industry-aligned, high-quality education and training".

"Through our specialised training programmes, we aim to upskill working professionals and contribute to India's growth as a global automotive hub."

Established in 2016, Skill-Lync has equipped thousands of engineers with career-ready skillsets by meticulously aligning their coursework with job market demands.

 94 pc automotive firms struggle to recruit talent in AI, cybersecurity: Report

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
Kargil Vijay Diwas: Lessons that PM Modi learnt from war front 25 years ago

P

rime Minister Narendra Modi got some invaluable lessons from his visit to the Kargil War front in 1999.

During the war, Pakistani troops had infiltrated deep into Indian territory prompting the launch of Operation Vijay.

Narendra Modi, then serving as the BJP's National General Secretary, described his visit to the war zone as "a pilgrimage of a lifetime," as noted in a post by Modi Archives on social media platform X on Friday.

In early May 1999, Pakistani forces crossed the Line of Control (LoC) and entered the Drass, Mushkoh, Kaksar, and Batalik sectors, with incursions extending from 4 to 8 kms in each area.

The Indian Army fought valiantly, ultimately reclaiming every inch of land and preserving the nation's sovereignty.

A significant milestone occurred on July 4, 1999, when Indian forces hoisted the Tricolour atop Tiger Hill, a crucial vantage point that had witnessed some of the war's fiercest battles.

This victory paved the way for the complete eviction of Pakistani intruders by July 26, 1999.

At the height of the conflict, Narendra Modi was tasked with overseeing work in Himachal Pradesh. He took a Mi-17 helicopter loaded with essential supplies for the soldiers and landed in Srinagar.

During this visit, he interacted with the soldiers, expressing his gratitude for their bravery. However, the soldiers themselves attributed their success to then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, surprising him.

Narendra Modi recounted in a video message that a soldier explained the pivotal role the late Prime Minister played.

Despite multiple failed attempts to capture Tiger Hill and numerous casualties, a sense of despondency was averted when, one evening, the soldiers heard on the radio that American President Bill Clinton had invited PM Vajpayee to the US.

PM Vajpayee declined, stating he had no time for such visits while his soldiers were on the battlefield. This act of solidarity from their leader filled the soldiers with renewed vigour, leading to their eventual victory.

From this experience, Narendra Modi learnt the crucial lesson that strong political will and leadership can significantly inspire soldiers, encouraging them to exhibit unparalleled bravery and make significant sacrifices.

This was a powerful demonstration of how leadership can directly impact the morale and effectiveness of the armed forces.

Narendra Modi also made it his mission during this visit to meet the injured soldiers at the Army Hospital in Srinagar. He witnessed scenes of both tragedy and triumph.

One poignant moment involved meeting a soldier who had lost both arms and legs due to a mine explosion. Despite his severe injuries, the soldier expressed happiness after hearing the news of Tiger Hill's recapture, which filled him with pride and a renewed sense of purpose despite his pain.

This interaction highlighted for Narendra Modi the critical role of morale in warfare. For the soldiers, every victory was a tribute to their fallen comrades and a step towards restoring India's honour and integrity.

Another revealing incident occurred during Narendra Modi's interactions with over 150 soldiers across Kargil, Srinagar, and Udhampur.

When asked about their native places to convey their stories to their families, the soldiers responded not with their village or town names but with the battlefronts -- Dras, Batalik, and Kargil. For them, the geographical distinctions were secondary to their shared mission of defending the nation.

This experience underlined to Narendra Modi how the sense of duty and national service transcended regional and personal identities.

Narendra Modi also learnt a vital lesson about the politicisation of national security.

He observed that Opposition parties sometimes put "petty politics over national interest."

During the Kargil War, the BJP was in power, and Opposition parties like Congress and the Left criticised the armed forces, even calling for a special Rajya Sabha session while the soldiers were fighting on the war front.

Narendra Modi contrasted this with the support late PM Indira Gandhi received from Opposition leader Vajpayee during the 1971 War, which demonstrated true national unity.

He expressed concern over Sonia Gandhi's silence during the Kargil War, noting that such silence raised doubts and was not in the spirit of national unity.

These reflections and experiences from the Kargil War have deeply influenced Narendra Modi's perspective on leadership, patriotism, and the importance of unwavering support for the armed forces.

The lessons learnt during this pivotal time continue to shape his approach to governance and his commitment to India's national security.

 Kargil Vijay Diwas: Lessons that PM Modi learnt from war front 25 years ago

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
Indian retail investors behind 12 times surge in index funds folios in last 4 years

A

s more and more Indians prefer to have simple and transparent exposures in mutual funds, the total retail folios in index funds increased by nearly 12 times from 4.95 lakh in March 2020 to 59.37 lakh in December 2023, a study by Zerodha Fund House showed on Friday.

The Assets under management (AUM) of index funds has recorded a staggering increase of 25 times -- from about Rs 8,000 crore in March 2020 to about Rs 2,13,500 crore in March this year.

Notably, debt index funds had seen a sizable growth from negligible to no AUM till March 2021 but scaled up to almost surpass the milestone AUM of Rs 1.1 lakh crore in March, according to the study.

"Nearly 11 per cent of new folios last financial year came from index funds. It is only the beginning of a growing trend and Zerodha Fund House is proud to play its part in it," said Vishal Jain, CEO, Zerodha Fund House.

The total number of index funds has increased from 44 in March 2021 to 207 in March 2024, accounting for an absolute growth of 370 per cent.

As of March 31, there are 120 and 87 equity and debt index funds, respectively.

The index funds category assets were at a record high of Rs 2.43 lakh crore as of June 2024 and have seen a surge of nearly 900 per cent in assets in the past three years.

Across all the other mutual fund categories, Index Funds witnessed the highest AUM growth over the past 3 years.

The dominance of the Nifty 50 index, comprising 70.7 per cent of total AUM at Rs 52,000 crore, reflects a clear preference for large-cap stocks.

Meanwhile, the Nifty Next 50, with 14.6 per cent of total AUM at Rs 10,000 crore, and smaller allocations to mid and small-cap stocks, suggest a balanced approach to risk and return among investors, the study said.

 Indian retail investors behind 12 times surge in index funds folios in last 4 years

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
India's first integrated agri-export facility to be built at Mumbai's JNPA

I

n a significant move to bolster India's agricultural exports, the Union Minister for Ports, Shipping and Waterways Sarbananda Sonowal has approved the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA)'s project for the development of export-import cum domestic agricultural commodity-based Processing & Storage Facility in private-public partnership (PPP) mode with an investment of Rs 284.19 crore.

JNPA is now set to establish an all-in-one state-of-the-art agricultural facility at the port, spanning 67,422 square meters. This pioneering facility will address inefficiencies in logistics, reduce multiple handlings, and extend the shelf life of agricultural products.

"The development of this all-in-one agricultural facility at JNPA will streamline logistics, reduce wastages, and provide better prices for agricultural products. This is a significant step towards empowering our farmers and boosting India's agricultural sector," Sonowal said on Friday.

The facility will cater to exports of prominent items like non-basmati rice, maize, spices, onion, and wheat. As JNPA is the dominant gateway for frozen meat products and a major gateway for marine products, the new facility will also support exporters of meat and marine products from areas away from Mumbai, according to the official statement.

Small exporters, in particular, will benefit from the port-based facility, improving their capabilities in logistics, container booking, cold chain logistics, and export operations. The estimated export capacity increase includes a frozen store of 1,800 metric tonnes, a cold store of 5,800 metric tonnes, and dry warehouses with a capacity of 12,000 metric tonnes for grains, cereals, and dry cargo.

This initiative aligns with the government's vision of empowering farmers and fostering rural development, setting a precedent for future infrastructure projects that aim to support and enhance India's agricultural capabilities, the statement added.

JNPA is one of the leading container ports among the top 100 global ports (as per Lloyds List Top 100 Ports Report).

The Ministry of Ports and Shipping is also developing Vadhavan Port on the Maharashtra coast with a total investment of about Rs 76,220 crore. It will be developed as an all-weather greenfield deep draft major port at Vadhavan in Palghar district.

The project will include the development of core infrastructure, terminals and other commercial infrastructure in public-private partnership mode. The proposed Vadhavan port is a high-priority initiative for the government and is designed to handle an annual cargo of 23 million TEUs or 254 million tons, boasting a natural draft of 20 meters to accommodate larger container vessels of up to 20,000 TEUs. Once completed, the project will rank among the world's top 10 largest ports and serve as a significant green fuel hub.

Maharashtra has already seen the completion of 16 projects valued at Rs 790 crore, with Rs 232 crore financial assistance from the Sagarmala till date. Currently, 14 additional projects worth Rs 1,115 crore are underway, receiving Rs 561 crore in assistance from the same scheme, the official statement added.

 India's first integrated agri-export facility to be built at Mumbai's JNPA

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Kamala Harris for US President

F

ormer US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama, on Friday, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in her bid for the presidential race.

"Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend Kamala Harris. We told her we think she'll make a fantastic President of the United States and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we're going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in November. We hope you'll join us," Barack Obama posted on X along while also sharing the video of the conversation.

During the phone call, the Obamas told Harris that they'll "do everything" to get her through the upcoming US elections and into the Oval Office.

"I am proud of you. This is going to be historic," Michelle Obama told Harris.

Expressing her gratitude, Harris said, "Michelle, Barack, this means so much to me. I am looking forward to doing this with the two of you."

"The words that you have spoken and the friendship that you have given over all these years mean more than I can express. So thank you both; it means so much to me...And we're gonna have some fun with this, too," she added.

The Obamas are among the last major Democratic party figures to formally endorse Kamala Harris in her presidential bid after US President Joe Biden dropped out of the race under mounting pressure from those sceptical of his chances.

Harris is believed to have already picked the endorsements from the majority of the Congressional Democrats and Governors.

The Governors backing her included most of those who were expected to throw their hats in the ring, such as Gavin Newsom of California, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

 Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Kamala Harris for US President

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
ASEAN cornerstone of India's 'Act East' policy and Indo-Pacific vision: EAM Jaishankar

E

xternal Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar reiterated Friday that ASEAN remains the cornerstone of India's 'Act East' policy and the Indo-Pacific vision.

Addressing the opening session of the ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers' Meeting in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, the EAM stated that it was "encouraging" to note that India-ASEAN partnership continues to acquire ever more dimensions with each passing year."For India, ASEAN is the cornerstone of its Act East Policy and the Indo-Pacific vision that was thereafter built on it. For us, political, economic and security cooperation with ASEAN is of the utmost priority. So too are people-to-people linkages, that we are constantly seeking to expand," Jaishankar said in his opening remarks at the meeting.The 57th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting (AMM) in Vientiane is being attended by over 1000 delegates, including foreign ministers and representatives from 31 countries."While our achievements are substantial, our ambitions must always remain high," Jaishankar told the gathering.The EAM also highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Jakarta in September 2023 to attend the 20th ASEAN-India Summit and 18th East Asia Summit, the first major event for the grouping since the elevation of India-ASEAN relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2022."The priority that India attaches to ASEAN and EAS platforms is evident from Prime Minister Modi visiting Jakarta last year on the very eve of our own G20 Summit. He had announced a 12-point plan that has been largely acted upon," Jaishankar said on Friday.The EAM called the meeting as "productive", stating that digital, defence, maritime, connectivity, security, health and traditional medicine and cultural heritage preservation continue to be priority areas for India-ASEAN cooperation."Also spoke about the situation in Myanmar, keeping the Sea Lines of Communication open and free, Quads outlook on ASEAN & AOIP and the conflict in Gaza," he said.ASEAN countries remain an important pillar of India's 'Act East' policy and key partner of its Indo-Pacific Vision underlined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) vision.From Vientiane, the EAM will travel to Tokyo to participate in the next meeting of the Quad Foreign Ministers' on July 29 along with the Foreign Ministers of Australia, and the United States.

 ASEAN cornerstone of India's 'Act East' policy and Indo-Pacific vision: EAM Jaishankar

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
EU mobilizes support to combat wildfires across southern Europe

A

mid escalating wildfire threats in southern Europe, the European Union (EU) has activated its Civil Protection Mechanism to support the most affected regions.

The Finnish government announced it will dispatch 48 experts to Portugal in August to combat wildfires, with each group serving for about two weeks. Portugal requested assistance through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism due to the wildfire threat. Rescue personnel from abroad will assist Portugal if wildfires erupt.From July 17 to 24, in response to Bulgaria's request regarding a large forest fire in the Stara Zagora region, the Czech Republic sent two helicopters with Bambi Buckets, along with air rescue teams and support units. Spain also contributed two planes and ground personnel, helping to extinguish fires that destroyed 15 houses and large forest areas.High temperatures across Europe have increased wildfire risks, causing significant damage and injuries. Italy, particularly the southern region of Puglia, is grappling with severe wildfires. Approximately 1,000 tourists were evacuated due to intense heat.Fires have destroyed over 10,000 hectares in Italy, with nearly 8,400 hectares burned in the past month. The Italian fire department deployed three water-bombing planes and a helicopter to tackle the blaze.Bosnia and Herzegovina also face severe wildfires, primarily due to prolonged drought and extreme heat, Xinhua news agency reported.Greece, experiencing its warmest winter and spring since the 1960s, has prepared nearly 18,000 firefighters and invested over 2 billion euros in new equipment. The Greek authorities focus on creating firebreak zones to prevent the spread of wildfires.Malta announced that its Civil Protection Department will send 40 firefighters to Greece, marking the fourth international operation in two years and exemplifying EU collaborative efforts against the wildfire crisis.The EU Civil Protection Mechanism, established in 2001 by the European Commission, aims to enhance cooperation for disaster prevention, preparedness, and response among EU countries and 10 participating states.This summer, the Commission has assembled a fleet of aircraft and pre-positioned firefighters across Europe. A total of 556 firefighters from 12 countries are strategically placed in key locations, such as France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain, to support local fire brigades.The dedicated rescEU fleet for this summer includes 28 airplanes and four helicopters stationed in 10 Member States.

 EU mobilizes support to combat wildfires across southern Europe

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
All states have got funds in Union Budget as in the past: FM Sitharaman

F

inance Minister Nirmala Sitharman said on Friday that just like in the past, all states have been allocated funds in the Union Budget 2024-25, and no state has been denied anything.

In an exclusive interview with Sanjay Pugalia, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of NDTV Network, the Finance Minister rejected the oppositions claim that her Budget speech mentioned only two states -- Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, both ruled by the BJP's key allies.

She pointed out that the Centre was required by law to support Andhra Pradesh after its bifurcation in 2014.

"States are receiving allocations as they did in the past... no state has been denied anything. The Act (Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act) requires the Centre to support (the state) in building its capital city and developing the backward regions," she explained.

"Several steps have been taken in the last 10 years and many other steps, as per the Act, which had to be taken have been taken. Yes, we will support the building of the new capital at Amaravati and the Polavaram irrigation project ... Polavaram should have been completed by now but there were some technical issues. The state government is seized of the matter," Sitharaman said.

Responding particularly to the criticism by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, the Finance Minister said, "To the point he raised - that I have not named many states and spoke only about two states... The Congress was in power for a long time. They presented many Budgets and should know that in every Budget, you don't get an opportunity to name every state of the country."

Sitharaman also said the Budget reflected Prime Minister Narendra Modi's wish to keep things simple, so that everyone, and not just subject experts, could understand India's finances.

"We present everything upfront. There is no fine print... We ensure that any changes made are communicated openly, based on feedback and transparent processes," she pointed out.

The Finance Minister also said that borrowing is a must for a growing economy to meet its needs and aspirations, but the focus of the Finance Ministry under her is to ensure that debt is reduced without affecting growth.

She added that fixing a number for the eventual fiscal deficit and working towards it with temporary solutions every year can be one way of going about things, but it is not the right way from a macroeconomic perspective.

"We have chosen a healthy option for getting the fiscal deficit closer to the number. Instead of looking at the number alone, it is also about the way you decide to get there. An obvious method for every country is to reduce debt, but borrowing is a must for a growing economy. The question is how much are you borrowing and where it is being used," the Finance Minister said.

 All states have got funds in Union Budget as in the past: FM Sitharaman

 Post your comments

 Found this article helpful? Spread the word and support us!
In a study posted to the medRxiv preprint* server, researchers in the United Kingdom (UK) investigated the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on brain aging using longitudinal neuroimaging data, comparing brain age predictions of participants before and after the pandemic onset. They found that the pandemic significantly accelerated brain aging, especially in males and individuals from deprived backgrounds, and correlated with reduced cognitive performance in COVID-19-infected participants.

Study: Brains Under Stress: Unravelling the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Brain Ageing. Image Credit: Pavel_Kostenko / Shutterstock

*Important notice: medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.

Background

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, beyond its respiratory effects, shows neurotropic characteristics, leading to symptoms like fatigue, depression, and cognitive impairment. The viruss neuro-invasion can persist for up to 230 days, leading to cognitive decline and neurodegenerative processes. Previous studies have linked COVID-19 to cognitive decline, brain changes, and brain aging markers. Longitudinal studies show higher cognitive decline in COVID-19 survivors, with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealing reductions in grey and white matter.

Additionally, the early pandemic caused significant psychological stress, particularly among vulnerable populations. These stressors may have accelerated brain aging due to psychosocial stressors, social disruptions, and lifestyle changes. Therefore, comprehensively understanding the pandemics impact on brain health, considering infection and sociodemographic factors, is crucial. In the present study, researchers used UK Biobank (UKBB) neuroimaging data to investigate the impact of COVID-19 and the pandemic on brain aging. They examined the rate of brain aging by considering infection status, sex, socioeconomic factors, and cognitive decline.

About the study

High-quality multimodal brain imaging data of 42,677 individuals aged at least 45 years were obtained from the UKBB. Participants with preexisting chronic disorders or low-quality MRI data were excluded to avoid bias in predictions. Approximately 5,000 participants had repeat scans.

Participants positive for SARS-CoV-2 were identified using diagnostic tests, hospital data, healthcare records, or antibody tests. Controls and positive cases were matched 1:1 with respect to gender, birth date, ethnicity, imaging location, and the date of the initial imaging. A regression model was used to assess brain aging using imaging-derived phenotypes (IDPs) to estimate brain age gaps (BAGs) at two time points. BAG was defined as the difference in the chronological age and predicted brain age. The brain age prediction model was trained on 15,334 participants and validated on scans from 1,336 participants. In the control group, both scans were taken before the pandemic, while in the pandemic group, scans were taken before and after the pandemic. Interactions between brain aging and sociodemographic factors were also analyzed. Further, the study assessed cognitive scores, calculating the percentage change between two scans for the top 10 cognitive tests linked to dementia risk to compare cognitive abilities across different groups.

Results and discussion

Results initially showed no significant BAG difference between the groups. However, the pandemic group exhibited a significantly higher rate of BAG (RBAG), indicating accelerated brain aging independent of COVID-19 infection status. On average, the BAG in the pandemic group was found to be higher by 11 months than that of the control group.

Further analysis suggested a stronger association between chronological age and RBAG in the pandemic group, with older participants experiencing more pronounced brain aging. The impact was more significant in males (RBAG 3.3 months) and individuals from deprived sociodemographic backgrounds (RBAG seven months). Cognitive performance, specifically in the trail-making test (TMT), was observed to decline more in the pandemic group, especially in those with COVID-19. This cognitive decline was associated with higher RBAG, suggesting that the pandemic worsened brain aging and cognitive decline, with a more pronounced effect in infected individuals.

Sociodemographic factors such as low health, employment, education, and income levels were found to be associated with a greater RBAG increase during the pandemic. Significant interactions between pandemic status and these factors were observed, highlighting their role in brain aging.

The study is strengthened by its use of BAG models to provide a sensitive and interpretable marker of brain health, leveraging a longitudinal, imaging-rich population study to assess psychosocial factors before and during the pandemic. However, the study is limited by only two time points, hampering the assessment of reversibility and differing time intervals between scans. Further research is warranted to establish causal relationships and long-term effects.

Conclusion

In summary, the study explored the broader health consequences of the pandemic and suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated brain aging, influenced by psychosocial factors, particularly social and health deprivation. The effects were found to be independent of infection status, with the exception of interactions between SARS-CoV-2 infection, brain aging, old age, and cognitive decline. Addressing health inequalities and lifestyle factors is therefore crucial to mitigate these effects. There remains a need for continued research and targeted policies to improve brain health outcomes in public health crises in the future.

From paired MRI imaging in >1,300 people: the pandemic accelerated brain aging.

"Accelerated brain ageing correlated with reduced cognitive performance only in COVID-infected participants."https://t.co/BBtqnI3K5T pic.twitter.com/vaLfEauUi7  Eric Topol (@EricTopol) July 24, 2024

*Important notice: medRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
A team of investigators from UCLA has identified distinct patient preference-based profiles among men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer regarding their treatment options that could help enhance shared decision-making and patient satisfaction in prostate cancer care.

The study, published in Urology Practice, reveals that while there were clear differences in treatment preferences among the profiles, these preference profiles did not significantly influence the patients' final treatment choices.

"Men diagnosed with prostate cancer face a variety of treatment options that can have significant long-term effects on their life, making it vital for physicians to better support patients in making informed decisions about their treatment options," said Dr. Christopher Saigal, professor and executive vice chair of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and first author of the study. "By identifying and understanding the different preference phenotypes among prostate cancer patients, we can help patients choose the most appropriate treatment based on their personal preferences and circumstances."

To better understand the different priorities and concerns that influence patient choices, the team collected data from a cohort of 250 men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer. These patients used decision aid software developed at UCLA that applied a statistical technique used in market research known as conjoint analysis to assess their preferences for various treatment outcomes. The software measured how much they valued factors such as recovery time, quality of life and survival.

This approach is similar to market segmentation in business, where understanding customer preferences leads to better products and customer satisfaction.

By analyzing these preferences using the Latent Class Analysis method, the researchers identified three distinct preference-based profiles, termed phenotypes, among the group of patients:

Class 1: Men who were highly concerned about recovery time and less concerned about improving lifespan.

Class 2: Men with evenly balanced concerns among priorities across different treatment outcomes.

Class 3: Men who showed the lowest concerns around recovery times and surgical complications, focusing more on longevity and avoiding complications from radiation therapy.

Despite the differences among phenotypes, the researchers found that these preference profiles did not significantly influence patients' final treatment choices. Instead, the physician's recommendation played the most crucial role in determining the treatment.

While it is possible that physicians took into account patient preferences when making recommendations in the shared decision-making process that could not be measured with the decision aid software, it was still surprising to the team that preferences for the measured attributes that are relevant for this decision were not associated with treatment choice, noted Saigal.

Understanding decision-making from the patient perspective will help us partner with patients to make the decision that is right for them. This highlights a need for physicians to better integrate patient preferences into their treatment recommendations." Dr. Jonathan Bergman, clinical assistant professor of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and senior author of the study

Despite this disconnect, the team found patient satisfaction with their care remained high. Decision quality metrics, including low decisional conflict and high satisfaction scores, indicate that patients felt their voices were heard and respected during the consultation process.

The study opens the door for further research into how physicians can better integrate patient preferences data into treatment guidelines and recommendations to better provide more personalized patient care.

"We hope these findings provide insights that can enhance the decision-making process, improve patient-provider communication, and ultimately lead to better health outcomes and patient satisfaction," said Saigal. "It is also possible that data such as these can be used to improve the patient-centeredness of national guidelines for prostate cancer treatment."

Both Saigal and Bergman are members of the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The study's other authors are Brett Hollenbeck, Kristin Williams, Lorna Kwan, Josemanuel Saucedo, all from UCLA, and Dr. David Penson from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

Disclosures: Saigal is a board member of WiserCare, the company that produced the software used in this study to measure patient preferences.
Two Medicaid policies can interact to increase oncology clinical trial enrollment among Black and Hispanic patients, according to a new study by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine, the University of Pennsylvania, and Medidata AI. Black and Hispanic patients are historically underrepresented in cancer clinical trials; equitable enrollment helps ensure the knowledge gained from trials generalizes to the entire population and promotes equitable patient access to the latest treatment options.

The study, published July 25 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, examined the effect of the interaction between two Medicaid policies on the rates of enrollment for Black or Hispanic adults in cancer clinical trials in the United States: Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which extended Medicaid eligibility to more than 20 million residents, leading to greatly improved coverage for people with low income; and pre-existing state-level mandates requiring Medicaid coverage of the routine costs of clinical trial participation.

The study team analyzed deidentified national enrollment data for nearly 50,000 participants in cancer clinical trials from 2012 to 2019 from Medidata's Rave electronic data capture archives. During the study period, only 12 states and the District of Columbia mandated Medicaid coverage of clinical trial costs.

We found that Medicaid expansion under the ACA was associated with about a 5-percentage-point increase in Black or Hispanic patient enrollment in oncology clinical trials in states that had these coverage mandates. We consider this strong evidence that Medicaid is an important policy lever for improving equity in clinical trials in the United States." Dr. William L. Schpero, co-lead author, assistant professor of population health sciences at Weill Cornell Medicine

The study revealed that Medicaid expansion under the ACA alone was not associated with a statistically significant increase in oncology clinical trial enrollment among Black or Hispanic patients.

"The headline here is that Medicaid expansion by itself did not improve cancer clinical trial diversity; we only saw improvement in those states that already mandated coverage of the routine costs of clinical trial participation," said co-lead author Dr. Samuel U. Takvorian, an assistant professor of hematology-oncology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. "What we learned, in essence, is that both access and coverage are important for improving accruals of historically underrepresented groups to cancer clinical trials."

In oncology clinical trials, the cost of the study drug is generally covered by pharmaceutical companies, but the "routine costs of care" -; for example, the cost of administering a new chemotherapeutic agent -; are generally not. Federal law has required coverage of these costs in Medicare since 2000 and in most commercial markets since 2014. It was not until 2022 that all state Medicaid programs were federally mandated to cover the costs as part of the Clinical Treatment Act of 2020.

"One of the biggest factors that determines whether a patient enrolls in a cancer clinical trial is whether their physician recommends it," said Dr. Schpero, who is also co-associate director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity. "Increasing physician awareness of the 2022 federal coverage mandate could help boost enrollment of underrepresented populations in clinical trials."
In a rigorous medical records study covering tens of thousands of patients, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers conclude that some patients with preoperative anemia have better outcomes if they get iron infusions before surgery rather than standard red blood cell transfusions.

The findings, published July 22 in Anesthesia & Analgesia, contribute to mounting evidence that such iron infusions, which boost the production of a person's own red blood cells, are better than relying on someone else's blood.

Anemia is incredibly common, especially in surgical patients, and until recently the default treatment has been blood transfusions prior to the procedure. However, our retrospective study showed a benefit of iron infusions over preoperative blood transfusions in decreasing morbidity and mortality, increasing hemoglobin and decreasing the need for blood transfusions." Steven Frank, M.D., professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Iron is a mineral that the human body needs to make hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen to organs throughout the body. If there is insufficient iron in a patient's blood, the person becomes anemic, meaning there are not enough healthy red blood cells to deliver enough oxygen. This is particularly concerning for patients undergoing surgery because there is almost always some amount of blood loss during any procedure.

While blood transfusions work, they also carry risks, including blood clots, hospital-acquired infections, allergic reactions and pulmonary complications. It can be difficult to find a donor match if a patient has certain antibodies or a condition such as sickle cell disease. As a result, physicians have long sought strategies to minimize the use of transfusions.

In the new study, the Johns Hopkins Medicine research team used data from the TriNetX Research Network database, a global network of health care organizations that pool de-identified patient information. The team's analysis used such information gathered between 2003 and 2023 on 154,358 patients over 18 years old with a diagnosis of iron-deficient anemia prior to surgery.

The data were sorted into groups of patients who were treated with iron preoperatively but not with a blood transfusion, and patients who received a preoperative blood transfusion but no iron infusion. These infusions happened several weeks before a scheduled surgical procedure. Researchers then compared postoperative complication rates including respiratory problems, kidney issues, blood clots, infections and death rates.

From this review, researchers found a 37% reduction in mortality and a 24% reduction in morbidity (complications) in patients who were treated with iron infusions compared with those treated with blood transfusions. This finding means that patients receiving iron infusions may recover more quickly and fully from their surgical procedures without any added complications that may arise from a blood transfusion.

"The Joint Commission and the American Medical Association named blood transfusion as the No. 1 overused procedure in 2012. For perspective, also on the list was antibiotic use to treat the common cold," says Frank. "Research shows reducing blood transfusions can improve patient outcomes, and providing patients with preoperative iron infusions is an easy way to do so."

The researchers say they hope the new study will encourage more widespread use of preoperative iron infusions in surgical patients. They also hope to examine if oral iron supplements garner the same outcomes as infusions.

Treating preoperative anemia is one of several methods used in a comprehensive patient blood management program. Such a program, like the one at Johns Hopkins, can save blood and money while resulting in the same or better patient outcomes. In another recent publication, the researchers reported a substantial return on investment for their blood management program. They found that for every dollar spent to support the program, 7.5 dollars were saved or generated in return.

Simple things, like keeping patients warm and maintaining a lower blood pressure during surgery, or giving medications such as tranexamic acid, can reduce bleeding. "In addition to treating preoperative anemia," Frank says, "keeping the blood in the patient during surgery is one of the primary goals in any patient blood management program." Such programs, by reducing unnecessary transfusions, promote high-value practice by improving outcomes and reducing costs.

Other scientists who contributed to this research are Una Choi, Ryan Nicholson, Ananda Thomas, Elizabeth Crowe, John Ulatowski, Linda Resar and Nadia Hensley of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.Hensley has been on the scientific advisory board of Octapharma and receives author royalties from Wolters Kluwer for contributions to uptodate.com. Frank is on the scientific advisory board for Haemonetics.
Unplanned pregnancies among active service women may be curbing overall US military readiness for action and compromising its Women Peace and Security objectives, suggests research published online in the journal BMJ Military Health.

That's because they potentially result in the loss of an estimated 2.5 million to more than 4.5 million active duty days, depending on the denominator used, the findings indicate, with the highest rates among 18-24 year olds, those of White race, those deployed in junior ranks and those serving in the Army.

The researchers set out to assess the impact of unplanned pregnancy on military readiness and the ability to meet the Women Peace and Security objectives. These affirm the importance of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peacekeeping, as well as their equal participation and full involvement in all peace and security efforts.

The United States has a significantly higher rate of unplanned pregnancies than other high-income countries, with an estimated 4.5% of all women of reproductive age falling pregnant unintentionally every year, note the researchers.

The number of women serving in the military is growing, representing nearly 17% of service personnel, they explain, adding that since January 2023, new parents in the military are now entitled to 12 weeks of parental leave.

And new mothers don't have to meet height and weight standards and complete a physical fitness test for up to a year after a full-term delivery. Until they do so, service women aren't considered medically ready for duty.

In a bid to further inform reproductive health policies, the researchers estimated the number of unplanned pregnancies during the 2019 fiscal year and the number of unplanned deliveries, using two previously published studies on expected prevalence to calculate the number of readiness for military service days lost.

Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System records and administrative claims data from the Military Health System Data Repository identified 230,596 active duty service women aged 18 to 44 in the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps during 2019, 12,564 (5.4%) of whom gave birth in the same year.

Using the expected prevalence of unplanned pregnancy among active service women of 5.5%, the researchers estimated that 12,683 fell pregnant unintentionally during the 2019 fiscal year.

And using the expected prevalence of 54% of these deliveries being unplanned, they estimated that 6785 of all births were unintended.

They estimated the potential number of readiness for military service days lost by multiplying the number of unplanned pregnancies by the maximum number of 365 allowable days' leave to meet the height and weight standards and the completion of a physical fitness test.

Based on their estimates of 12,683 active service women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy, an estimated 4,629,215 readiness for military service days were lost in the 2019 fiscal year.

Based on their estimates of 6785 unplanned births, they estimated that 2,476,364 readiness for military service days were lost.

The highest estimated numbers of unplanned pregnancies were among 18 to 24 year olds, those of White race, those enlisted in a junior rank, and those serving in the Army, the analysis indicated.

The Military Health System provides universal access to healthcare for all members of the armed services and their dependants, say the researchers. But previously published studies suggest that service women find it difficult to schedule an appointment, or don't take time off to attend one for fear of being judged. And the use of contraceptives is low among those at highest risk of an unplanned pregnancy.

"The impacts of [unintended pregnancy] are far-reaching," the researchers explain. "Children born after [one] are at greater risk of cognitive delays and behavioral problems, which might affect the ability of [service women] to get back into their previous jobs or remain engaged in their positions.

"Maternal depression rates and higher parenting stress are also prevalent partly due to an increased economic burden and childcare challenges, which would be pronounced among young, Junior Enlisted parents." And women are 30% more likely to leave the military after an unplanned pregnancy, they add.

The study findings are based on previously published prevalence data from two studies, both of which relied on self-report, acknowledged the researchers. And the numbers are estimates rather than actual figures.

The analysis also assumed that every active duty service woman who became pregnant in the 2019 fiscal year didn't meet height and weight standards and complete a physical fitness test for the entire 365 days. It also assumes that there were no pregnancy terminations during this time period, they add.

"Despite these limitations, we believe the estimates calculated in this study help to describe the potential impact that [unintended pregnancy] might have on military readiness, and highlight the need for increased access to comprehensive family planning and reproductive healthcare for service members," they conclude.
MND is a devastating disease affecting the motor neurones in the brain and spinal cord, leading to progressive muscle weakness and paralysis. Despite decades of research, several scientific challenges continue to impede the development of effective therapies for the thousands of people living with MND in the UK.

The MND Research Data Catalyst is a new initiative led by HDR UK and DPUK, with the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) and in partnership with the MND research community, to accelerate the discovery of new diagnostics, treatments and support better care for MND patients. This will be achieved by harnessing the UK's trustworthy, large-scale health data infrastructure and fostering collaborative partnerships across the MND research landscape.

MND research faces many complex scientific challenges and there is a huge opportunity to accelerate research into this life-shortening disease by unlocking the power of health data. We are delighted to partner with DPUK, UK DRI and the whole MND research community to build a secure data platform that accelerates trustworthy data use to save lives." Dr. Rhoswyn Walker, Director of Strategy at HDR UK

Professor John Gallacher, Director of DPUK, said: "DPUK is delighted to add to our growing MND portfolio by supporting the MND Research Data Catalyst. We expect the Catalyst will make a fundamental contribution to MND therapeutics; delivering high-quality translation science. Through our project management and SeRP-led informatics solutions, DPUK will provide the necessary infrastructure for rapid project delivery and data access."

The catalyst is supported by 2 million in funding from the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), delivered through the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR). This is part of wider support to grow MND research by the UK government in partnership with charities and organizations including the NIHR, UK Research and Innovation, MND Association, My Name'5 Doddie Foundation, MND Scotland, and LifeArc.

Professor Mike Lewis, NIHR Scientific Director for Innovation, said: "We are pleased to support our partners in the MND Research Data Catalyst. It represents an important next step in our ability to safely and securely open up data in this area to researchers from diverse disciplines, who can hopefully uncover new ways of understanding and treating this debilitating disease and improving the lives of everyone affected by it."

Professor Siddharthan Chandran, Director of the UK DRI, said: "Joining forces with HDR UK, DPUK, and the MND research community to deliver the MND Research Data Catalyst will help drive real change for those affected by this devastating disease. The UK DRI, a hub of mechanistic science powered by molecular data, leads the largest UK clinical trial, MND-SMART, and we are pleased to support this new initiative that will significantly boost UK science in this critical area."

The MND Research Data Catalyst will be underpinned by the principle of "user-centred design". Solutions will be co-created with the UK-wide MND research community to ensure that they deliver against an unmet need and enable novel, high-impact research outcomes.
insights from industry Tammy Newbold CMC regulatory strategist DS InPharmatics

In this interview, News-Med talks to Tammy Newbold about the Global Harmonization of Regulatory CMC within Veterinary Medicine.

Can you explain what global harmonization of regulatory CMC entails and why it is particularly significant in veterinary medicine?

Global harmonization is very important for veterinary medicine because the field is smaller and often has limited resources compared to human health. Startups in veterinary medicine usually do not receive as much funding as human pharmaceutical companies. Although this is changing, with some startups receiving substantial funding, efficient drug development is still vital. By adhering to harmonized CMC regulations, they can expedite market entry and approval, maximizing their limited resources.

Global harmonization ensures that when companies enter their first market, such as the US or Europe, they have already considered the regulatory requirements of the other market.

This means that entering the second market is easier because they have already completed most of the necessary studies, making the transition more efficient and cost-effective. The process works under a global harmonization development program, minimizing the time and money spent expanding into new markets.

How does the regulatory CMC framework influence the development and approval of new veterinary medicines?

The regulatory CMC framework sets the foundation for developing new veterinary medicines. Development of veterinary medicines moves much faster than human drug development because we go directly into our target species, bypassing the initial animal testing required for human drugs to check for the safety profile and other concerns. This direct approach allows for a faster development process.

Utilizing the CMC framework for veterinary medicine development allows for a structured approach to identifying the studies that need to be conducted for global approval. Utilizing these required studies a global timeline can be developed detailing when and where each study will occur.

The CMC framework serves as a roadmap for development. Following this roadmap helps us move into approval by limiting the additional studies that may need to be conducted. Some additional studies may still be required outside of the CMC framework as new information about the products behavior and effects emerges. However, the CMC framework lays out the complete roadmap for development.

This means that a CMC expert can be appointed project manager since they understand the roadmap and can ensure that the studies are conducted appropriately and within the necessary timeframes to advance toward approval.

What are some key challenges faced when aligning CMC regulatory practices internationally in the veterinary sector?

We do not have phases in veterinary medicine. We only talk about phase three for animal health because human drug developers understand this terminology, and most facilities the Veterinary Industry use to develop drugs are specific to human drugs. This direct jump to phase three is challenging for veterinary medicine because we lack the preliminary phases human medicine undergoes, resulting in limited knowledge about our drug. Sometimes, we understand the drug substance well, but we often lack detailed information about the product's manufacturing controls required to produce a robust and consistent product.

In human medicine, phases one and two provide extensive data and allow for process tweaking, including formulation and analytical methods. By the time human drugs reach phase three, significant knowledge about them exists not only from a manufacturing perspective but also from a clinical perspective.

We do not possess the knowledge gained from phases one and two in veterinary medicine. We move directly to phase three and then to approval, which means we have to learn as much as possible about our product before moving into approval. This truncated process and our limited knowledge present a significant challenge because we are not making multiple batches of the drug product.

Many companies in the veterinary medicine sector are starting to work on drug substances early, whether they are new chemical entities or even drug substances already used in human medicine. We focus on formulation development with a target product profile, such as a tablet dosed once a day.

We develop analytical methods and may run pilot studies, similar to phases one and two in human medicine, to test animal efficacy. While not submitted to the FDA as pivotal studies proving efficacy, these studies provide valuable learning about the drug's effects, potential adverse events, and trial glitches.

This approach provides valuable learning before we go into our pivotal trials, and it is becoming increasingly common in animal health. Previously, we used to produce a drug and go straight into pivotal trials without this intermediate step.

Another major challenge in veterinary medicine is global harmonization. Pursuing a global harmonization process is important, understanding market sizes and target regions such as the US, Europe, Japan, and South America. Estimating market sizes and production needs for the first three years is extremely important but difficult. In animal health, we are often developing the market itself. An example of this is using ivermectin to prevent heartworm in dogs. It is a very important product in veterinary medicine.

Heartworm, often fatal in dogs, had no preventative treatment in the 1980s. Merck was the first to develop a product that prevented heartworm, but the market size was unknown. Therefore, Merck had to estimate product demand despite being years away from marketing, in order to determine the scale of the development program.

If these estimates were wrong, it risked supply shortages or overproduction. Accurate estimates are vital to avoid additional development studies, scaling up batch sizes, and obtaining further FDA approvals, all of which can cause market delays and increased costs.

Misestimating market demand can cause significant issues: underestimation leads to supply shortages and scaling up production, while overestimation results in excess inventory and product write-offs due to expiration. Accurately estimating global product demand is very important at the beginning of the development process for veterinary medicine.

Image Credits: DS InPharmatics (DSI)

How do rigorous CMC regulations ensure the safety and efficacy of veterinary drugs on the market?

Like human health, veterinary drugs go through a rigorous regulation process. Data from all studies conducted are put together in a comprehensive CMC data package and then submitted to the FDA. It undergoes a rigorous review just like it does on the human side. The review process for veterinary drugs is as stringent as it is for human drugs, with reviewers applying the same standards and scrutiny.

In the United States, veterinary medicine products are manufactured according to GMP 210 and 211, similar to human drugs. GMP standards also apply in Europe and Japan for human and veterinary drugs. The rigorous approval process includes a thorough review of all studies by the FDA, which asks detailed questions to ensure compliance.

Once approved, the product undergoes the same regulatory oversight as human drugs. Annual reports detailing marketing, manufacturing volumes, and adverse events must be filed with regulatory agencies, and any significant manufacturing changes must be pre-approved by the agencies.

Veterinary drugs are also monitored through adverse event reporting databases, similar to those for human drugs. Veterinarians and pet owners can report adverse reactions, which are then reviewed by the FDA. If there are significant adverse events, the FDA may require the drug sponsor to address these issues through label changes, formulation adjustments, or other measures to enhance safety.

Could you discuss the major differences in CMC requirements between the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine and the European Medicines Agency?

Similar to the human side, where the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) harmonizes guidelines among major regions like Japan, Europe, and the United States, the Veterinary International Conference on Harmonization (VICH) serves the same purpose for veterinary medicines. This is done to provide a standard set of guidance documents for drug developers when they want to conduct a study.

Stability studies are a key example. Previously, to prove the stability of a drug, a sponsor had to run different stability studies to support Europe, the United States, Brazil, Japan, and other regions. Once the International Conference of Harmonization was established and harmonized these requirements, it streamlined the conduct of stability studies. A sponsor has a pretty good sense of what attributes need to be considered and can , hopefully, run one stability study that will meet a majority of the global markets.

In the veterinary world, the Veterinary International Conference on Harmonization (VICH) allowed us to standardize the product development process globally. This global harmonization means that if you consider the requirements of all regions from the start, there are a few differences worldwide.

A critical area is excipients. Some excipients in the United States may not be allowed in Europe, and vice versa. This includes color and sweeteners, which can vary between regions. When developing a formulation, you want to ensure that your excipients are accepted worldwide to maintain a single formulation.

For example, specific dyes and sweeteners may be permitted in one region but not another. Ensuring these components are globally acceptable is crucial for a single worldwide formulation. Before VICH, companies often developed different formulations for each region, complicating the supply chain with numerous SKUs.

Now, the focus is on ensuring your formulation can be developed globally. This is where the VICH guidance comes into play. After a drug is produced, VICH guidelines provide information on how to run the stability studies, design the analytical methods, and validate them. This framework streamlines drug development, reducing differences across regions and reducing development costs.

What role do analytical and quality assurance processes play in maintaining the integrity of veterinary drugs throughout the manufacturing cycle?

Analytical processes are crucial in maintaining the integrity of veterinary drugs throughout the manufacturing cycle. Early in development, analytical methods must first provide valid information, even if the accuracy is not what we want. These methods must be fit for purpose, giving us the necessary information to begin generating data.

As the development program progresses, the analytical method must become more stringent to ensure accuracy. We need to know that it can measure and provide valid data at the extremes of the product. All of our decisions are based on the data provided by the analytical methods. If the data is not valid, it can lead to incorrect decisions. In the animal drug development industry, since we jump directly into phase three as we develop a product, the analytical methods must be rigourously developed at a very early stage, it can drive analytical chemists up the wall.

We must continue to examine these analytical methods throughout the product's life cycle to ensure that they always provide valid data. Improvements in technology should be adopted to enhance data accuracy. Ensuring valid data from studies is one of the most critical aspects of veterinary drug development, as it directly influences decision-making.

Quality assurance processes are also very important for understanding what happens when something goes wrong in a manufacturing facility. They ensure that issues are appropriately investigated and addressed, leading to valid conclusions and preventive actions to avoid future occurrences.

Quality assurance (QA) is critical in the drug development program. Quality assurance also ensures that protocols and reports supporting the development of a drug substance or drug product are accurate and valid. Additionally, QA ensures that accurate data is entered into the dossiers of which the development protocols and reports are the foundation. Errors in data transcription can lead to significant scrutiny and delays. Quality assurance teams audit these documents to ensure data accuracy, preventing potential issues with regulatory agencies.

I have seen agencies often catch mistakes in dossiers, leading to significant number of follow up questions leading to delays in approval. Thus, analytical and quality assurance processes are very important in the development cycle of veterinary drugs.

Are there any recent innovations or technologies in CMC practices that have significantly improved the efficiency of veterinary drug development?

The Veterinary International Conference on Harmonization (VICH) has significantly improved the development of veterinary drugs. VICH guidelines have been extremely helpful, particularly in the area of stability.

Previously, stability programs were extensive, requiring products to be placed into a stability chamber and run for two years to meet the regulations of South America, the US, and Europe. Each region required separate studies, which were resource-intensive and time-consuming.

With harmonization the number of stability studies are limited and sponsors will often establish those studies during development streamlining efficiency and reducing costs, and expediting the time-to-market for veterinary drugs.

How important is continuous education and regulatory expertise in keeping up with global standards in veterinary medicine?

Continuous education and regulatory expertise are essential for keeping up with global standards in veterinary medicine. Develoopment projects for Veterinary Medicine benefits from a CMC regulatory person who knows animal health, and veterinary regulations on a global scale.

It is important because many of our developers and manufacturing facilities mainly focus on human health. They know human health inside and out, but studies required for human health on the CMC side are often not needed for animal health due to differences in lifespan and usage.

For example, humans have a long lifespan, necessitating long-term studies that are not required for animals like dogs, cats, and horses, which have shorter lifespans. Food-producing animals have implications on human health and have additional studies that are required to support the safety of humans.

However, small startups in veterinary medicine often work with CDMOs specializing in human health and may not be aware of these differences. These smaller startups may not have a CMC regulatory person, relying on the CDMO's regulatory person can lead to the conduct of unnecessary studies. This results in wasted resources and the obligation to submit all generated data to the FDA, even if its not required, incurring additional costs.

On the other hand, there are some studies we have to run in animal health that are not required in human health, particularly for food-producing animals. If the CDMO does not understand these requirements because of their background in human health, it can lead to significant delays when the FDA requests these studies at the approval stage. This underscores the importance of having someone with veterinary regulatory expertise to navigate these complexities and avoid costly delays.

In addition, regulatory expertise must be continually updated to keep pace with evolving global standards. Regulatory agencies worldwide are constantly developing new guidelines and regulations. Staying informed about these changes is critical for ensuring compliance and smooth approval processes. This transparency and proactive engagement with new guidance are essential for sponsors to consider emerging requirements and maintain adherence to global standards.

Given the smaller market size and fewer resources in veterinary medicine, how do companies optimize their CMC strategies to remain competitive?

Given the perceived smaller market size and fewer resources in veterinary medicine, companies need to optimize their CMC strategies effectively. However, it is important to note that the market size in veterinary medicine is not always small. For instance, the market for food-producing animals is massive compared to human health. Treating cattle is important for our food supply, making it a large market.

Drugs for food-producing animals have a different regulatory pathway compared to those for companion animals. While companion animals require prescription drugs from a vet, the large scale of food-producing animals means that drugs fall under the veterinary feed directive. This directive allows veterinarians to prescribe these drugs without overwhelming pharmacies, reflecting the vast market volume.

The veterinary feed directive, established to handle large food-producing animals, simplifies the distribution process. This distinction is key in optimizing strategies, as it allows for efficient handling of high volumes without the constraints of traditional prescription regulations.

For veterinary medicines, it is important to consider emerging fields like gene therapy. While gene therapy is a new human and veterinary medicine area, the potential markets differ significantly. In human health, it targets rare diseases with small patient populations, such as spinal muscular atrophy and Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. In contrast, veterinary applications for common conditions like feline leukemia target much larger populations. For instance, there are approximately 17 million cats in the United States alone, a substantial market compared to the smaller human markets for specific gene therapies.

The optimization of CMC strategies in veterinary medicine must start at the beginning of drug development. This can be done by defining the ultimate market goal of the product. Sponsors want to get the product out as quickly as possible. Therefore, the development process needs to be efficient. For instance, if developing a flavored tablet that most animals will readily consume is key, getting it to market quickly to gauge market response is essential.

Many sponsors streamline development by initially releasing a basic product version, such as a tablet taken once or twice a day, to understand market reception. We know that people do not want to give their cat or dog a tablet every single day, but that is what is available on the market. It fills a need.

However, improving patient compliance is vital. This can involve changing the drugs formulation to reduce dosing frequency from daily to weekly or monthly. Enhancing the drugs presentation to make administration easier for pet owners can significantly impact the products success.

Developing longer-acting formulations, such as monthly or tri-monthly injectables or even six-month implants, can significantly enhance patient compliance. Planning for this in the development phase ensures the end product aligns with market needs and improves compliance rates.

Market feedback is critical. We can predict what the market will do, but in the end, only the market can tell us the actual demand. This iterative process helps in optimizing the product based on real-world use. Laying out a comprehensive CMC development program from the start is essential. This involves understanding market expectations and the development timeline to avoid costly setbacks. Having CMC regulatory expertise for small sponsors ensures the product meets market needs without unnecessary delays.

For instance, if a company develops a daily injectable and later realizes a monthly formulation is needed, it can cause significant delays. Therefore, starting with a robust CMC framework and strategy ensures alignment with market demands from the outset, streamlining development and approval processes.

Looking ahead, what are the anticipated advancements or shifts in regulatory CMCs that could impact the global veterinary drug market?

CMC is a small portion of the regulatory landscape in the veterinary market. New FDA guidance could make our lives easier but can also complicate processes. For example, regulatory agencies might introduce new study requirements that were not needed before.

VICH was a significant advancement, but I cannot predict future changes. I try to stay on top of what regulatory agencies are discussing. We have seen small changes, like demands for objective methods for drug product appearance, which can be challenging to implement.

Significant changes in CMC specifically are uncertain. However, broader trends in veterinary medicine, like the increasing importance of pets as family members, are influencing the market. Pet owners are demanding better treatments for their animals, driving the development of new medicines.

On the food-production side, humane treatment practices are gaining attention. Even though animals are going to be slaughtered, it does not mean that they should suffer. It reflects on us as a human population to treat animals humanely. This shift is encouraging the development of products aimed at humane treatment.

Advancements like gene therapy, initially seen in human health, are emerging in veterinary medicine. While these therapies are expensive and take time to get approved, they represent a new frontier in animal health. Unlike human treatments, veterinary doses may be more affordable, addressing a larger patient population.

The growing focus on animal welfare is a significant driver in veterinary medicine. People demand better care for both pets and food-producing animals. This attention to animal rights is pushing the development of new treatments and ensuring better care practices.

About Tammy Newbold

Ms. Newbold is a biochemist by training, with 38 years in the pharmaceutical industry, three decades specifically dedicated to the field of animal health. Tammys career began with a strong foundation as a scientist in drug product formulation and process development, which included technology transfers, regulatory compliance, troubleshooting and lifecycle management.

Throughout her career, Tammy has contributed significantly to the development of, and gained FDA approval for, numerous pharmaceutical products tailored for food and companion animal products, including the ivermectin line of products, omeprazole for horses, Eprinomectin for dairy cattle, to more recently Entcye, Nocita and Galliprant. In addition to developing and gaining FDA approvals for drug products, she has been instrumental in developing and gaining FDA approval for several new chemical entities as well as companion animal products registered through the US Environmental Protection Agency.

She specializes in developing CMC regulatory strategy and development programs to obtain early regulatory approvals and streamlined reviews. She has experience in establishing harmonized approach for development programs that provide global registration. She has authored master files, CMC technical sections, as well as post approval submissions for drug products and drug substances.

About DS InPharmatics

DS InPharmatics (DSI) provides regulatory, technical, and project management consulting services to healthcare product companies that manufacture and/or market pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, and cellular and gene therapy products.

Since 2007 we have provided our clients with innovative strategies and exceptional quality work products intended to enhance product development, approval, and marketing presence. Whether advocating CMC strategy, directing CMC operations or developing CMC submission content that represent the best interests of emerging biotech, we focus on the critical CMC issues and build programs that enhance development.

In April 2021 we were thrilled to announce that DSI has just become part of ProductLife Group.

French-headquartered ProductLife Group (PLG) is well-known in the Life Sciences market. It has a track record of successfully managing global outsourcing programs and insourcing services for its international client base. The company is on a mission to help transform human health outcomes by optimizing regulatory affairs, safety & vigilance, and quality compliance for life sciences organizations worldwide.

The fit between our two organizations could not be more perfect. We will complement PLG's growing biotech services portfolio. US biotech sponsors recognize DSI as a leader in consulting for go-to-market strategies and RA pre-market consulting. At the same time, PLG has a strong reputation for managing end-to-end outsourcing of regulatory affairs and pharmacovigilance activities worldwide.

Our merger with PLG will harness our combined strengths, offering our clients on both sides of the Atlantic support with their developed drugs approvals and post-approvals compliance, plus advisory services on the best market strategies to deliver a rapid ROI on their development. Together we will offer our clients increased pharmacovigilance capabilities - including a QPPV; pharmacovigilance consulting; and a fully validated safety database - as well as complementary toxicology-related services; RIM/electronic document management services; and support for medical device regulatory requirements.

We see enormous potential in this new chapter for DSI and you, our clients. As a PLG company, we have the opportunity to become part of a global force in life sciences regulatory and compliance solutions and services, and we're incredibly excited to add our momentum to that effort.
Once a popular vantage point for the New Year's Eve Fireworks, council has now taken action to prevent further damage caused to fragile bushland at Balls Head Reserve.

Trees were deliberately snapped so spectators could get a better view of the harbour and the fireworks. Source: Supplied

Visitors to a popular reserve with iconic views of Sydney Harbour have been condemned for their "appalling" behaviour in recent years which has caused serious damage to the local environment  damage which could take "decades" to recover from.

As a result, North Sydney Council has decided on drastic measures to help repair the destruction caused at Balls Head Reserve in Waverton, which is popular among New Year's Eve revellers hoping to get a view of the Sydney fireworks.

In recent years, crowds of visitors to the reserve on December 31 have trampled and crushed the bushland and snapped off stems and branches in an attempt to secure a spot to view the midnight celebrations.

In 2023, larger than anticipated crowds attended the "fragile" and "unmanaged" site, resulting in significant damage, the council warned.

Council bans people from fragile, damaged bushland

In response to the damage, North Sydney Council announced this week the reserve will be closed off to visitors on New Years Eve in a bid to kickstart the reserve's natural rehabilitation. Balls Head Reserve is the largest bushland reserve in the North Sydney local government area, covering around 10 hectares of the Waverton peninsula and is home to native wildlife.

"The damage sets bushland rehabilitation back months, years, or even decades," council said. "Most plants do not have time to recover and regenerate before the next New Years Eve, and local native animals are losing their habitat.

"There are also serious concerns about public safety in the unlit reserve as well as impacts on an important exposed midden with significant original Aboriginal cultural heritage."

Fragile bushland at Balls Head Reserve in Sydney has been trampled on and destroyed after crowds of people swarmed to the park on New Year's Eve. Source: Supplied

'Disrespectful' behaviour towards bushland is 'appalling'

Jeff Angel, from Total Environment Centre, told Yahoo News Australia "the council is absolutely right in its decision," and expressed the importance of protecting fragile environments.

"The disrespect being shown by the people on New Year's Eve is appalling. The most important thing about these bushland reserves is the protection," he said.

"There's just so little native bushland left in Sydney. Protecting the bushland is an absolute priority.

"It's a special area with a particular problem because the fireworks attract so many people, and it's so competitive to get a space," he continued. "You have to make what may appear to be tough decisions to keep people out."

'Trampled areas cordoned off' to allow native plants to regrow

Rehabilitation takes so long because we must allow new native plants and trees to regrow naturally, without intervention or disruption from further foot traffic.

"I know people who do bush regeneration and they might spend years of effort getting the bush back to how it was," Angel said. "Bush regeneration techniques used by councils usually begin with removing the weeds by hand  they're often smothering native bush.

"And what you find in that soil, or under the weeds, are native plants ready to go, so they need time to grow and recover naturally."

Balls Head Reserve in Waverton offers an iconic view of Sydney Harbour. Source: Google Images

Speaking to Yahoo about the change, a council spokesperson said "bushland staff have cordoned off the trampled areas from foot traffic to allow native plants to regenerate."

"So far, groundcover plants have responded better than shrubs, which will take many years to recover to their previous state. In less resilient areas, we have also been replanting local native plants," they said on Friday.

"Our local government area is fortunate to have urban bushland and we need to protect it. While the bush generally recovers well from natural disturbances, it is less resilient to frequent foot traffic and vandalism, such as breaking branches, which compound to degrade the habitat for local wildlife."

The damage caused to the area could take decades to recover, council warns. Source: Supplied

Safety concerns held for New Year's Eve revellers

North Sydney Council previously expressed safety concerns for people visiting the site as Balls Head Reserve has always been an unmanaged reserve on New Year's Eve, unlike other vantage points across the city. This means there's no crowd management, enforcement of alcohol restrictions or emergency evacuation plans in place.

Additionally, in previous years, New Years Eve crowds have positioned themselves along cliff edges and steep drop-offs, placing themselves and others at risk of sustaining injuries  and with growing crowds, the risk is heightened.

"The recommendation to close the reserve cited the need to preserve the bushland as well as to protect public safety," council said.

Love Australia's weird and wonderful environment? Get our new newsletter showcasing the weeks best stories.
The Himachal Pradesh state cabinet, in a meeting on Thursday, decided to close 99 government schools with zero enrollment, 89 primary schools and 10 middle schools.

It also approved the merger of government primary schools within 2 km and government middle schools within 3 km if they have five or fewer students.

Stressing the need for these changes, Education Minister Rohit Thakur said, We are focusing on optimising resources to provide quality education. Schools with zero enrolments do not serve their purpose and merging schools with low enrolments will ensure better utilisation of our educational infrastructure.

In line with these decisions, they also approved annual transfers of teachers to be carried out only after the end of the academic session. All teachers, including head teachers, centre heads, principals and directors, will teach students. Morning assemblies with the national anthem and daily hoisting of the national flag in high schools and secondary schools will be made mandatory. Physical education will be made a compulsory daily lesson and training in resuscitation and first aid will be provided in collaboration with the health and Aayush ministries.

They also decided that teachers from the education department would be transferred annually at the end of the academic session and not mid-session. The cabinet decided that head teachers, centre heads, principals and school directors would also have to teach students.

The cabinet also directed all schools to hold a morning assembly with the singing of the national anthem and hoist the national flag daily in secondary schools.

Also, the cabinet decided to make Dehra in Kangra a police district and create and fill 39 posts of different categories. It also decided to upgrade police posts at Dadasiba and Majheen to police stations.

It was also decided to set up a public works circle at Dehra and a public works department at Jwalamukhi in Kangra district and to create and fill 26 posts of different categories.

The creation of a Jal Shakti Vibhag department at Dharampur and a new sub-division at Parwanoo in Solan district with 17 posts were also approved.

It was also decided at the meeting to transfer the jurisdiction of the Subathu sub-division from the Arki division to the Dharmapur division.
Indias Best Dancer is back with its brand new season and is a complete weekend entertainer. The participants are trying their best to impress judges Karisma Kapoor, Geeta Kapur and Terence Lewis to secure their spot on the show. While the performers are quite entertaining, Karisma Kapoor is serving some major fashion goals on the show. Recently, she effortlessly flaunted a fluorescent green dress. The dress not only looked stunning but also had a special connection to Karismas former co-star, Suniel Shetty.

As per a report by Pinkvilla, while filming one of the episodes of Indias Best Dancer Season 4, judge Terence Lewis praised Karisma Kapoors outfit. Karisma, on the other hand, shared some fascinating memories with a similar dress. The actress mentioned that she had worn a dress in the same fluorescent green shade while filming a song for one of her movies in the 90s. Later, she quizzed Terence to name the song and the actor.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by FilmyKalakar (@filmykalakar)

Terence Lewis confidently stated, I remember there was a phase in your career where you looked a certain way in terms of your fashion and style. The film youre hinting towards was with Suniel Shetty. I remember you wearing a short fluorescent green dress, wherein you had straight hair that was in fashion at the time. The name of the song was Sundara Sundara from the film Rakshak, as quoted by Pinkvilla.

Sharing more details about how the song Sundara Sundara, Karisma mentioned that it was monsoon and they were shooting in Madh Island. She added, We only had 2.5-3 hours to shoot the song. I wore this dress, we were on the beach, and it was raining! Despite that, we completed the song in all of 3 hours.

Earlier, sharing her views on judging the show, Karisma said, Im excited to see the progression of dance styles and our entrants unlimited creativity. This platform not only recognises talent, but also promotes a spirit of invention and tenacity among participants, as quoted by Zee News. She added that she was excited to judge the show with Terence Lewis and Geeta Kapur as well. The show premiered on July 13 and airs at 8 pm every Saturday and Sunday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday paid to a visit to Kargil War Memorial in Ladakhs Drass to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, Indias victory over Pakistan in the 1999 war.

He laid a floral wreath at the War Memorial and paid homage and tributes to the Kargil War bravehearts, who made the supreme sacrifice in service of the nation.

Meanwhile, a social media handle, Modi Archive, that narrates the life journey of the prime minister through his archival pictures, videos, audio recordings, and other materials, shared a several photos and clippings of him serving the army during the war.

Read More: On Kargil Vijay Diwas, PM Modi Says Pakistan Hasnt Learnt From Past Mistakes

The X thread, titled as A Pilgrimage Of A Lifetime, described his experience visiting the battlefield and the lessons he learnt talking to the war heroes.

A pilgrimage of a lifetime  @narendramodis Lessons from the Kargil War Front 25 Years AgoToday marks #25YearsofKargilVijay, a defining moment in Indias history. Pakistani troops infiltrated deep into Indian territory, prompting India to launch Operation Vijay. The Indian pic.twitter.com/zZLyE1h5dZ  Modi Archive (@modiarchive) July 26, 2024

During the war in 1999, Modi, then a general secretary of the BJP, was one those who used to transport essential items to the soldiers. Once, he boarded a Mi-17 helicopter with essentials and reached the battlefield.

While speaking to the soldiers, he came to know that soldiers gave the credit to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for a strong leadership. For him, it showed how strong political will and leadership can inspire soldiers to be brave and make great sacrifices.

Later he had also met the wounded soldiers in the war whose spirit remained unbroken and celebrated the Tiger Hill triumph.

Further, the X thread mentioned that how Modi particularly questioned the silence of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Pakistan and how the opposition never hesitate to politicise the issues pertaining to even national security.

In an interview to Sadhana Magazine in 1999, he pointed out how pursuing political interests during such a critical time was unfortunate. He reminded everyone how Atal Ji, despite being in the opposition, fully supported Indira Gandhi during the 1971 war, showing true national unity.

In todays address also, he said that the Agnipath scheme is an example of necessary reforms undertaken by the Army and accused the opposition of playing politics over the recruitment process aimed at keeping the average age in armed forces young.

Kargil Vijay Diwas:

Pakistani troops infiltrated deep into Indian territory, prompting India to launch Operation Vijay. The Indian Army fought fierce battle, reclaiming every inch of land. One such battleground was Tiger Hill, a strategic vantage point that saw some of the wars most intense fighting.

On July 4, 1999, after a relentless battle, Indian forces hoisted the tricolour atop Tiger Hill. On July 26, 1999, the Indian Army announced the successful culmination of Operation Vijay, declaring victory after a nearly three-month-long battle on the icy heights of Kargil in Ladakh. The day is observed as Kargil Vijay Diwas to commemorate Indias victory over Pakistan in the war.
Days after a 24-year-old woman from Bihar was brutally killed inside her PG in Bengaluru, the police managed to access the CCTV footage from the day of the heinous crime.

As per the CCTV clip, the accused can be seen entering the PG, he then knocked on the door and slit her throat even as the victim screamed for help.

The crime was committed between 11:10 pm and 11:30 pm. The footage also shows the accused escaping from the crime spot.

What Exactly Happened?

A 24-year-old woman from Bihar, identified as Kruthi Kumari, was brutally murdered late Tuesday night at her PG accommodation in Bengaluru. Kumari, who worked at a private company in the city, had recently moved into the VR Layout PG in Koramangala.

The Koramangala Police, upon arriving at the scene, initiated a thorough investigation. Additional Commissioner of Police Raman Gupta confirmed that a case has been registered and stated that the perpetrator was known to the victim. He added that efforts are underway to apprehend the suspect, who is currently on the run.

Police Probe Roommates Role

According to the police sources, the assailant entered the PG after the caretakers, who also reside at the PG, had gone for dinner.

The police also suspect some links with the deceaseds former female roommate and the assailant who had recently moved out from the PG and it is also believed that the deceased was known to the assailant because of her former roommate.

Preliminary inquiries also suggest a possible romantic angle to the crime. There are suspicions that a young man killed Kruthi Kumari she was romantically involved with.

Notably, the said roommate was a school classmate of the assailant and Krithi Kumari and her former roommate worked at the same company.

Police sources informed the phone of the accused is switched off and his last location was Bengaluru. Teams dispatched to nab the accused at the earliest

Police are yet to record the statement of Kruthis former roommate.
The Allahabad High Court (HC) recently quashed a dowry cruelty case filed by a woman against her husband and his relatives. The court found that the allegations were vague and insufficient, focusing primarily on the claim that the husband and his family had pressured the woman to obtain Rs 2 lakh from her parents to start a business.

The bench of Justice Anish Kumar Gupta held that such a financial request did not constitute dowry under Section 498A of the IPC or Sections 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act. The demand of money as alleged in the instant F.I.R. for carrying out a business by the husband from his in-laws would not come within the ambit of dowry, the court said.

The court further noted that the other claims made by the woman were general, vague and inconsistent on the basis of which the husband and his relatives could not be permitted to be harassed. Consequently, the court deemed the case as an attempt at malicious prosecution and dismissed the entire case proceedings.

The order was passed in a plea moved by the husband and his relatives under Section 482 CrPC to quash the case registered against them at Fajalganj police station in Kanpur Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh under Sections 498A, 323, 504, 506 of the IPC and 3/4 of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.

The couple got married in 2012. Five years later, the woman filed the First Information Report (FIR) against 11 persons, which included her husband, father-in-law, mother-in-law, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-laws.

In the FIR, the woman stated that although her family had spent a sum of around Rs 8 lakh, which included the jewellery and gift items, her husband and his family members kept torturing her and demanded more money. She alleged that she was told that unless she brought Rs 2 lakh from her parents, she would be tortured. She also claimed that amid this torture, she miscarried her pregnancy once. She lost her mother who could not bear all the pressure from the accused persons, she said, adding that when she heard her in-laws were conspiring to kill her, she lodged the FIR.

The counsel for the accused submitted that during the statement recording when questioned by the Investigation Officer, the woman was initially vague about whether all 11 people named in the FIR lived together. When asked who abused her over dowry demands, she specifically named her husband and his siblings. However, she clarified that these individuals lived separately and did not share the same kitchen.

Further, on a query about the injuries sustained by her during such torture and harassment, the woman could not produce any medical certificates.

Regarding the demand for money, the counsel for the husband and his family argued that as the husbands family members were living separately, they could not benefit from such money. At the most, the husband would have been benefited out of any such amount, if paid by the parents of the woman, the counsel said.

To decide the case, court referred to the top courts ruling in Geeta Mehrotra v. State of U.P., (2012), R.P. Kapur v. State of Punjab (1960), Bhajan Lal case of 1992, Preeti Gupta vs. State of Jharkhand (2010) and Achin Gupta vs. State of Haryana and Another (2024) and held that it was a fit case to exercise its power under Section 482 CrPC.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday rebuked the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for objecting to her comments about providing shelter to refugees from violence-hit Bangladesh.

Banerjee defended her comments, asserting that she is well-versed with the federal structure and suggested the MEA should focus on learning from the system rather than criticising her.

I know the federal structure very well. I was an MP seven times, I was a Union minister twice. I know the MEA policy better than anyone else. They shouldnt teach me a lesson; they should learn from the system instead, West Bengal CM stated in response to MEA.

Banerjees comments

During an event in Kolkata on Sunday, Banerjee said that she would keep West Bengals door open to people in distress from Bangladesh and offer them shelter amid violent clashes in the country over job quotas.

I should not be speaking on the affairs of Bangladesh since that is a sovereign nation But I can tell you this, if helpless people come knocking on the doors of Bengal, we will surely provide them shelter, she stated, reaffirming her commitment to sheltering Bangladeshi refugees under United Nations (UN) resolutions.

MEAs response

In response, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal expressed disapproval, stating that such matters involving relations with foreign countries, fall solely under the central governments jurisdiction.

I can confirm that we have received such a communication from the Bangladesh side. It is essentially on the lines described in the reports, Jaiswal commented during a media briefing.

I would underline that under the Seventh schedule  List one  Union List  item 10 of our Constitution, the conduct of foreign affairs and all matters which bring the Union into relation with any foreign country, are the sole prerogative of the Union government, he emphasised.

Bangladesh has been reeling under deadly clashes with protesting students demanding the Sheikh Hasina-led government to scrap a controversial job quota system. Over 100 people were killed in the clashes that began weeks ago.

(With inputs from PTI)
Purushottam Guptas legal fight may have been for 11 months, but the research and observations continued for decades. After 39 years of unwavering service, the 62-year-old retired Union government employee can now proudly dedicate his time to social service through the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The redemption came after a landmark high court judgment overturned a longstanding ban on the organisation for government staff.

Throughout my 39 years of dedicated service, Ive witnessed my colleagues and friends being suspended or transferred simply for participating in seva activities such as flood relief or assisting the poor, solely because of their association with RSS-affiliated organisations. I wanted to follow their path but I restrained myself in respect of the rules, Gupta told News18 in an exclusive interview.

I never broke rules while in service but I always wondered about the ban on an organisation that only serves people. They never ask for government aid; the volunteers spend their own money to help people. Despite maintaining unwavering professional commitment and integrity, Ive seen these people suffer. I needed an answer, he shared.

Gupta, who worked with the Central Warehousing Corporation, wished to participate in seva work organised by the RSS and its affiliates in 2022. But there was a legal restriction  the ban was applicable even for pension-holders.

An avid believer in the RSS ideology, the 62-year-old could not make peace with the unreasonable ban and decided to fight a legal battle against the Union of India. Following his research, and with support from a group of senior advocates, Gupta filed a petition before the Madhya Pradesh High Court, seeking judicial redressal and reasons behind the ban.

11-Month Battle

I was determined to understand and challenge the unjust ban imposed on this social organisation, not once but thrice. Therefore, I appealed before the court. The high court passed a landmark judgment in my favour on Thursday. At 62, as a proud resident of Indore and a retired central government employee, I can now wholeheartedly serve my country through the RSS, Gupta said.

The judgment is not only a personal victory for Gupta but also a significant step towards recognising the contributions of social organisations like the RSS in community service and national development.

The court, while hearing my petition, directed the Union government at least five times to file an affidavit explaining why such a ban was imposed and why it was being continued. The Centre did not respond. The court asked the Centre to respond on July 11. However, while the case was on, the Union government issued an order on July 9, two days before its scheduled appearance, and lifted the ban. It was half victory for me then and on Thursday, with the judgment in my favour, my faith in the RSS and in judiciary stood vindicated, added Gupta, whose father was actively associated with the RSS.

While in school, I used to go to the Shakha. My father has always been a staunch believer in the ideology. During the Emergency, he suffered a lot. I have seen my family members being penalised for being part of the sangh. I could never get over this injustice meted out to hundreds of RSS workers, he said.

Post-retirement, Gupta has been associated with a hospital run by RSS in Indore. I serve my country and people. I am content now, he said.

What Did the Court Say?

The Madhya Pradesh High Court on Thursday said it took the Union government nearly five decades to realise that an internationally renowned organisation like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh was wrongly placed in the list of organisations banned for government employees.

The court laments the fact that it took almost five decades for the Central government to realise its mistake; to acknowledge that an internationally renowned organisation like RSS was wrongly placed amongst the banned organisations of the country and that its removal therefrom is quintessential, the bench said.

Aspirations of many Central government employees of serving the countries in many ways, therefore, got diminished in these five decades because of this ban, which got removed only when it was brought to the notice of this court vide the present proceedings, the HC further said.

The bench directed the Union governments Department of Personnel and Training and the Ministry of Home Affairs to publicly display on the home page of their official website the July 9 office memorandum through which the ban on government employees from joining Sangh activities was lifted.
India on Thursday rejected Washingtons concerns over Prime Minister Narendra Modis recent visit to Moscow as it asserted that all countries have the freedom of choice in a multipolar world and everyone should be mindful of such realities.

External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said India has a long-standing relationship with Russia which is based on mutuality of interests. In a multipolar world, all countries have the freedom of choice. It is essential for everybody to be mindful of and appreciate such realities, he said.

India has a long-standing relationship with Russia that is based on mutuality of interests, Jaiswal said at his weekly media briefing. His response came when asked about US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Donald Lus comments on Prime Minister Modis visit to Russia earlier this month.

India Hits Back at US Criticism  What Happened to Freedom of Choice?The Indian MEA has asked Washington to respect the multipolar world, as Delhi gave its reaction to comments made about PM Narendra Modis visit to Moscow. Randhir Jaiswal stressed that the US must pic.twitter.com/HyxRg6nDGv  RT_India (@RT_India_news) July 25, 2024

Lu told a Congressional hearing on Tuesday that the US was disappointed by the symbolism and timing of Prime Minister Modis visit to Russia. The Biden administration official especially highlighted that the Indian prime minister paid the visit to Moscow Washington was hosting a summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

I share your concern about this visitand we are trying very hard to communicate those concerns directly to the Indians, Lu said after Republican Congressman Joe Wilson raised concerns about Modis visit. At the same time Lu, referred to Modis meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the G7 Summit in Italy in June.

READ MORE: US Voices Concern With Symbolism Of PM Modis Moscow Visit But Acknowledges War Remarks To Putin

On the outcomes of Modis trip, Lu said: We did not see any new major defence deals. We saw no major discussion of technology cooperation. In addition, you have Modi having said in front of Putin, on live television, his feeling that the war in Ukraine could not be won on the battlefield and the pain that he felt watching the death of children in war. Following Modis visit to Moscow on July 8 and 9, several other Biden administration officials expressed concerns over Indias ties with Russia.

On July 11, speaking at an event, US ambassador Eric Garcetti too appeared to be critical of Modis trip to Russia. The US envoy said that strategic autonomy cannot apply in times of conflict and India and the US must work towards upholding principles when there is breach of rules-based order or violation of sovereign borders.

Though the US envoy did not make any reference to Modis visit to Moscow, the remarks were largely seen as Washingtons criticism of the trip. In his summit talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Modi delivered an unambiguous message, saying a solution to the Ukraine conflict is not possible on the battlefield and peace talks do not succeed amidst bombs, guns and bullets.
After being released from prison in Maharashtra, gangster Harshad Patankar was greeted by a jubilant celebration rally organised by his supporters due to which he was sent back to the jail soon after he was freed.

According to an NDTV report, the rally, which included a car procession and about 15 two-wheelers, took place from Bethel Nagar to Ambedkar Chowk in Maharashtras Nashik.

Soon after the rally, a video of his celebration procession went viral on social media triggering immediate police action.

In the viral video, Patankar can be seen waving at his supporters while coming out of the cars sunroof. His supporters captioned the reels comeback.

Harshad Patankar, a gangster from Nashik, was jailed under the Maharashtra Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Slumlords, Bootleggers, Drug Offenders and Dangerous Persons Act (MPDA).

The gangster was released on July 23. However, these videos prompted police action after which a case was registered against him at the Sarkarwada police station leading to Patankars re-arrest, along with his six aides, for carrying out the unauthorised rally and creating chaos.

For the unversed, several police cases have been registered against Patankar, including attempted murder, theft, and violence. This turn of events added to Patankars legal troubles.
A drone survey of land, a pivotal project that began during the pandemic, is now nearing completion, providing the central government extensive data on land use, structure of homes and building material such as mud houses, thatched roofs and concrete buildings in inhabited areas across thousands of villages in the country.

Data for 25,000 villages is now fully ready and available with the government for implementation of several projects and schemes, while the survey is in various stages across 3.20 lakh villages, News18 has learnt. Some states, including Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Bihar, Nagaland and Meghalaya, did not participate in the project, citing existing record of land rights in the states. Jharkhand, which initially participated in the project, withdrew later citing Chhota Nagpur tenancy Act, 1908.

Drone surveys have been completed in 2.95 lakh villages with the maps under process, while drones are now deployed in the remaining areas. At its peak, around 250 drones and AI were used extensively to filter information and process the maps with specific and precise details.

The project under the Ministry of Panchayati Raj has now become a powerful tool for the government, enabling targeted and effective policy-making. Launched during the pandemic, this initiative is now delivering exclusive and specific data on urban and rural households, including the type of construction  be it mud, thatched, or cemented roofs, said a senior IAS officer, serving in the ministry.

It will significantly bolster key initiatives such as the PMs Surya Ghar Yojana, Awas Yojana and drive nuanced economic strategies. We now know who has what type of house and how much space is there or if it is adequate to install solar panels for the Surya Ghar Yojana, he added.

STRATEGICAL MASTERSTROKE

Land and data experts said the initiative, which is part of the SVAMITVA survey, is a strategic masterstroke, which will enable the administration with precise information on rural and urban properties, including detailed structural scans (ortho scans) of homes with varying building materials, and land property data of the population.

A land and data consultant, who works with the ministry, said, It is a step forward towards the Digital India project. This data is a goldmine for the government, enabling more informed planning for various ministries, including policies and schemes.

The project initially started to provide the villagers with property cards or records of rights. However, the data that the ministry has collated now can be used for several central government schemes and projects.

This move underscores the governments commitment to leveraging data-driven approaches to enhance governance and development, marking a significant step forward in its political and administrative strategy, said the consultant.
Tourist Fafa Liao, from Taiwan, was visiting the Western Australian holiday hotspot on July 16 when she witnessed the disturbing incident.

Fafa Liao, from Taiwan, was visiting Rottnest Island earlier this month when she saw a quokka with a baby in its pouch eat a cigarette butt. Source: PerthNow/Fafa Liao

A tourists distressing encounter with Rottnest Islands famous quokkas has prompted a stern warning to other travellers. Fafa Liao, from Taiwan, was visiting the Western Australian holiday hotspot  which is accessible from Perth  on July 16 when she watched in horror as one of the marsupials started eating a discarded cigarette butt  exposing a major Aussie problem with littering.

To make matters worse, the quokka had a baby visible in her pouch. Speaking to PerthNow, Liao said the shocking incident left her deeply saddened.

As a concerned visitor I believe its crucial to address this issue promptly to protect both the quokkas and their habitat, she said, calling for more regular clean-ups on the island and stronger penalties for littering  which currently carries a $200 fine.

Liao has also urged authorities to increase awareness about the harm improperly discarded rubbish can cause, especially for Rottos population of 10,000 quokkas.

Rottnest Island tourists told to 'play their part'

Its understood staff with the Rottnest Island Authority conduct regular litter clean-ups and street sweeping in public and recreational areas. There is also information about proper waste disposal and the protection of wildlife placed around the island, online and on visitor maps.

A Rottnest Island Authority spokesperson insisted to PerthNow the wellbeing of all wildlife, including the iconic quokkas, is a top priority for Rottnest Island Authority.

We urge all visitors to play their part in protecting the island by disposing of waste responsibly.

Rottnest Island is home to 10,000 quokkas. Source: Reuters/Luisa Gonzalez

Concerns over interactions with quokkas

Interactions between tourists and quokkas have long been a source of concern, with signs erected clearly telling visitors not to touch the small, smiley wallabies, which are also a vulnerable species.

However, some visitors flout the rules in the hope of getting the perfect selfie.

In January, a holidaymaker was tracked down by authorities after posting an incriminating photo to social media which showed him holding one of the tiny marsupials. Rottnest Island rangers reportedly spotted the Instagram post and the man later copped a $200 fine.

In 2021, a woman sparked widespread outrage after she was filmed appearing to force a quokka to vape from an e-cigarette.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
The Uttar Pradesh government has strongly opposed petitions challenging its directive requiring shop owners along the Kanwar Yatra route to display their names, citing the imperative of maintaining law and order.

The state government, in its submission to the Supreme Court, explained that the directive was implemented to maintain peace during the Hindu pilgrimage. The directive was implemented after complaints from Kanwariyas, who reported confusion caused by the names of shops and eateries. Police authorities acted to address these concerns and ensure a smooth experience for the pilgrims.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had temporarily stopped the enforcement of this directive, stating that while food sellers may display the types of food they serve, they cannot be compelled to display their names. The state government clarified that there is no ban on food sellers, except for a restriction on selling non-vegetarian items. The requirement to display shop owners names is intended to enhance transparency and avoid confusion among pilgrims.

The directives issued by the State were passed in response to the complaints received from the Kanwariyas regarding confusion caused by the names of the shops and eateries. The police authorities, upon receiving such complaints, took action to address the concerns of the pilgrims and maintain law and order, the state government said in its submission.

The State has imposed no ban or prohibition on the trade or business of the food sellers (except the restriction on selling nonveg food), and they are free to conduct their business as usual. The requirement to display the names and identities of the owners is merely an additional measure to ensure transparency and avoid any potential confusion among the Kanwariyas, it added.
India and China have agreed to work urgently to achieve the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops stationed along their disputed border in a long-running standoff, Indias government said.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Thursday on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Laos, where they stressed the need for an early resolution of outstanding issues along the disputed Line of Actual Control, the long Himalayan border shared by the two Asian giants.

The line separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to Indias eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety.

Met with CPC Politburo member and FM Wang Yi in Vientiane today.Continued our ongoing discussions about our bilateral relationship. The state of the border will necessarily be reflected on the state of our ties. Agreed on the need to give strong guidance to complete the pic.twitter.com/pZDRio1e94  Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) July 25, 2024

Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. It turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, where each side has stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets.

Both India and China have withdrawn troops from some areas on the northern and southern banks of Pangong Tso, Gogra and Galwan Valley, but continue to maintain extra troops as part of a multitier deployment.

The two foreign ministers agreed on the need to work with purpose and urgency to achieve complete disengagement at the earliest, according to an Indian statement late Thursday, which added that peace on the border is essential for restoring normalcy in ties between the two countries.

Jaishankar in his opening remarks said the border issues have cast a shadow over India-China ties for the last four years despite considerable efforts by both sides to solve them. The state of the border will necessarily be reflected on the state of our ties, he said, according to the statement.

Wang stressed that improving China-India ties is beneficial for both countries as well as for other nations, Chinas official Xinhua News Agency reported. The two sides agreed to work together to maintain peace in border areas and push for progress, it said.

India and China fought a war over their border in 1962. The Line of Actual Control divides the areas of physical control rather than territorial claims. According to India, the de facto border is 3,488 kilometers (2,167 miles) long, but China claims a considerably shorter figure.

Top Indian and Chinese army commanders have held several rounds of talks since the military clash to discuss the disengagement of troops from areas of tension.
The Indian drug regulatory agency is gearing up to launch four big-ticket projects eyeing stricter regulations to improve drug manufacturing practices in India, News18 has learnt.

The four major projects that the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) plans to launch are the digital drug regulatory system, internal scientific cadre, Digital Indian Pharmacopiea and nationwide audits to check the adoption of Schedule M.

This years Union Budget reflects this commitment, with an increase in allocation specifically earmarked for strengthening state drug regulatory systems compared to the revised budgetary estimates of 2023-24.

For the fiscal year 2024-25, the budget has earmarked approximately Rs 75 crore to enhance state drug regulatory systems  marking an increase of over 40 per cent from Rs 52 crore allocated in the revised estimates for 2023-24. This allocation represents a significant rise compared to the Rs 22.87 crore designated in the budget 2022-23 for the same purpose  a jump of more than three times.

The move holds importance as, last year, the CDSCO came under scrutiny due to quality issues in Indian-made medicines flagged by global regulators like the World Health Organization. In response to numerous complaints from importers of Indian medicines, including The Gambia, Uzbekistan, and the United States, the health ministry and its regulatory arm intensified their efforts and implemented several measures to address these deficiencies.

How these four projects will help India

CDSCO will soon launch the Digital Drug Regulatory System which aims to develop a unified digital ecosystem. Once operational, all existing portals will be discontinued, and DDRS will serve as a single window for all regulatory activities.

According to CDSCOs website: This platform is envisioned to serve as a new approach to the regulatory system in the form of Indias DPI for regulatory systems, thereby ensuring quality medicines for India and the world.

Also, the regulatory agency is working on the creation of an internal scientific cadre. It will help the agency to improve internal decision making and improvement in subject understanding, according to a document accessed by News18 describing the four big-ticket projects of CDSCO. It also lists reduced turnaround time as one of the benefits of having its scientific cadre.

The document also lists Digital IP or Indian Pharmacopiea. The government aims to launch this project in August with the objective of easy accessibility, improved enforcement of quality standards. It also aims to increase the national and international reach of Indian pharmacopoeia.

Also, the regulator is set to initiate audits of major pharmaceutical units to check their adherence to the updated Schedule M guidelines, which were announced at the beginning of the year. The department is ready with a list of more than 200 companies which will be conducted in sync with state offices.

Also, as CDSCO may soon add nutraceuticals under its ambit  which were previously monitored by food regulator FSSAI  the load on state regulators will go up.
PM Narendra Modi on Friday paid homage to the Kargil War bravehearts at the Drass War Memorial to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Indias victory over Pakistan in the 1999 war.

On July 26, 1999, the Indian Army announced the successful culmination of Operation Vijay, declaring victory after a nearly three-month-long battle on the icy heights of Kargil in Ladakh. The day is observed as Kargil Vijay Diwas to commemorate Indias victory over Pakistan in the war.

ALSO READ | 25 Years Of Vijay Diwas: PM Modis Visit To Kargil Then And Now | See Pics

India fought some of the most intense battles during the Kargil War, in one of the most challenging terrains in the world. After a fierce battle in Tololing and successfully capturing the summit, the focus shifted to Tiger Hill, which towers above all other mountains in its vicinity of Drass village in the Ladakh region.

Heres all you need to know about the Kargil war and Tiger Hill battle:

OPERATION VIJAY

In 1998-99 winter, Pakistan Armed Forces were covertly training and infiltrating Pakistani troops and paramilitary forces towards the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC). The infiltration was codenamed Operation Badr and the aim was to sever the link between Kashmir and Ladhak and cause Indian forces to withdraw from the Siachen Glaciers, forcing India to negotiate a settlement of the broader Kashmir dispute.

Pakistan also believed that any tension in the region would internationalize the Kashmir issue, helping it to secure a speedy resolution. The infiltration began even after India and Pakistan signed the Lahore Declaration in February, 1999 in which both the countries mutually agreed to solve the Kashmir issue in a peaceful manner among others. Soon the Pakistani troops managed to capture a region between 130 to 200 square kilometres.

Seeing the Pakistani troops infiltrating the Indian side, the Indian Armed Forces started to respond with Operation Vijay. The plan of Pakistan was to send its soldiers during the winters when India vacated certain posts.

The glorious Operation Vijay saw the mobilisation of about 2,00,000 Indian troops and brought a swift and final end to the war by recapturing all the previously lost posts and forcing the Pakistani intruders to vacate the posts.

THE BATTLE OF TIGER HILL

According to the Defence Ministrys website, in the winter of 1998, Pakistani intruders occupied positions on this mountain, thus dominating portions of the Srinagar-Leh NH 1A. Almost 10 km to the north of the highway, Tiger Hills facilitated a commanding view of the National Highway, which aided the Pakistani artillery Observation Post officers to direct accurate artillery fire onto the NH 1A. NH 1A is a strategic route to Siachen Glacier and connects Srinagar to Leh in Ladakh. It was estimated that the enemy had about 40 soldiers deployed on Tiger Hill and some additional troops were seen moving in the nearby areas.

192 Mountain Brigade arrived in Drass from the Valley and was placed under command of 8 Mountain Division headed by Major General Mohinder Puri. 18 Grenadiers were tasked to evict the enemy and recapture the peak at earliest. General Puri placed them under Headquarters 192 Mountain Brigade along with 13 JAK RIF.

ON JULY 3

At the designated time of 2000 hours on July 3, the soldiers of 18 Grenadiers embarked on their mission. Major RS Rathore led his A Company towards the designated area known as Tongue, and successfully captured it.

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Lieutenant Balwan Singh, the Commando Platoon advanced, coming close to the summit of Tiger Hill. Lieutenant Balwan Singh and his platoon were gradually pushed back, ultimately finding safety at the position held by D Company, which lay a mere 30 metres away from the pinnacle of Tiger Hill.

ON JULY 4/5

On the night of July 4/5, the fire bases moved forward to a position just short of Tiger Hill Top where they were grouped under Officer Commanding (OC) C Company, Colonel (then Major) Mijar Captain Nimbalkar, accompanied by D Company and the Commando Platoon, silently ascended the uphill terrain, successfully reaching the pinnacle of Tiger Hill. Despite being wounded, Lieutenant Balwan Singh led his platoon. Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav, the lead Ghatak, confronted the advancing counter attack despite sustaining injuries, successfully neutralising two enemy combatants. Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav hurled a grenade into the sangar, successfully neutralising four additional enemy combatants with his assault rifle. However, due to his sustained injuries, he eventually collapsed. Pakistani soldiers fired at the dead bodies. Grenadier Yadav received nine bullet wounds, but was still alive and remained silent, listening to the plans of the Pakistani soldiers.

In the quest to pass that information on, he crawled as he made his way through to Captain Nimbalkars position and collapsed again. For this heroic act, he was awarded the highest gallantry award  the Param Vir Chakra.

JULY 5/6

Brigadier Bajwa gave orders for 8 Sikh to reinforce the foothold that Subedar Nirmal Singh had established on Helmet. In response, Lieutenant RK Sherawat, accompanied by a small group of men, moved up to the area on July 5 and 6. Captain Nope Singh joined Lieutenant Sherawat on July 6. Together, they had a strength of about 70 soldiers. These troops positioned themselves between the Top and the Tongue. Under heavy fire, Colonel SP Singh, the Commanding Officer (CO) of 8 Sikh, addressed his men, urging them to hold their ground and maintain their positions against the enemys assault. Surprising the enemy with their swift and determined action, 8 Sikh successfully recaptured Helmet, forcing the enemy to retreat to Shivling and Point 5060. The opposing forces still held strategic positions on the western slope and the Collar.

ON JULY 6/7/8

On the night of July 6-7, 18 Grenadiers secured the Top and the Tongue  two key positions. The following night, between July 7 and 8, they successfully cleared out the enemy from the reverse slopes of Top. Simultaneously, B Company was assigned the task of linking up with Top from the eastern direction. In the South, A Company captured the area known as Collar, further expanding the control of friendly forces. Meanwhile, Captain Das Gupta, leading C Company along with the Ghataks, undertook the mission to capture Rocky Knob. With coordinated efforts, all the companies managed to link up with each other, establishing a unified front. By 0800h, the strategically significant Tiger Hill was secured.

In this battle, India lost nine soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice. In the line of duty, one officer, four Junior Commissioned Officers (JCOs), and 32 soldiers sustained injuries during the battle.
The Karnataka government on Friday decided to rename Ramanagara district as Bengaluru South. The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting, led by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

The Ramanagara district, located about 50 km from Bengaluru, consists of Ramanagara, Magadi, Kanakapura, Channapatna and Harohalli taluks.

Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil said the decision to rename the district was taken based on the demand of people.

We have decided to rename Ramanagara district as Bengaluru South.It is based on the demand of the people there. The Revenue Department will start the process, Patil stated. Only the name of the district will change, remaining all will remain the same, he told reporters after the meeting.

The proposal to rename the neighbouring district as Bengaluru South gained steam recently, with a Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar-led delegation meeting the Chief Minister and submitting a memorandum to raise the pitch.

Ramanagara is the home district of Deputy CM DK Shivakumar, who had tabled the proposal in October last year.

Leaders from Ramanagara district had met me under the leadership of DK Shivakumar, stating that people of the region consider themselves to be part of Bengaluru since the beginning, so the district should be renamed as Bengaluru South district. I said it has to be decided at the Cabinet and will place the matter before the Cabinet, CM Siddaramaiah had said.

However, the decision did not go well with former Karnataka CM and Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy, who alleged that the proposal aimed to exploit real estate opportunities in Ramanagara, an NDTV report said.

The JD(S) leader went on to say he would reverse the plan when he assumes the post of CM again. Kumaraswamy was the Chief Minister of the JD(S)-BJP coalition when Ramanagara district was carved out in August 2007.

Responding to Kumarawamys comments, CM Siddaramaiah said, First of all they wont come to power. So him (Kumaraswamy) reversing it is an illusion.

(With PTI inputs)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday visited the residence of her Delhi counterpart Arvind kejriwal to meet his wife Sunita, AAP said.

Mamata Banerjee visited the residence of Kejriwal to meet his wife Sunita, said a party member.

#WATCH | West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee arrives at the residence of Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal to meet his wife Sunita Kejriwal and his parents.AAP MP Raghav Chadha was also present.(Video: Delhi CMO) pic.twitter.com/8NpbjdffEe  ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

Kejriwal is in judicial custody in connection with the excise policy linked case.

He was arrested on March 21 by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case linked to the alleged excise policy scam and was granted interim bail by the Supreme Court.

However, he is currently lodged in Tihar in a connection to CBI case.

Banerjee is here to attend the NITI Aayog meeting, while most INDIA bloc chief ministers have decided to give it a miss.
Mumbai Rains LIVE: Orange Rain Alert for 8 Maharashtra Districts on Saturday; Yellow One for Mumbai The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an orange alert for Raigad, Ratnagiri, Sindhudurg, Pune and Satara districts of Maharashtra for Saturday, indicating possibility of heavy to very heavy showers, while Mumbai saw a lull in rain activity on Friday. After nearly two days of intense showers, Mumbai was largely rain-free and the IMD has issued a yellow alert for the financial capital and adjoining Thane district for Saturday, predicting heavy showers in isolated areas.

Mumbai Rains LIVE Updates: Train Services Affected Amid Heavy Rains Due to heavy rainfall in Maharashtra followed by waterlogging, train services have been affected.

Mumbai Rains LIVE Updates: 'Heavy Rain in Raigad Led to 3 Rivers Running Above Danger Level', Says District Collector Kishan Jawale, District Collector, Raigad said, Due to incessant rainfall in Raigad, three rivers were running above danger level. We got a message that a cargo boat had run aground off and 14 people were stuck in itwe took the help of local diversbut because of the high tide, we decided to do the rescue op with the Indian Coast Guards helicopterIndia Coast Guards helicopter rescued all 14 people safelytheir medical check-up will be done.

Mumbai Rains Live Updates: IMD Issues Yellow Alert For Mumbai The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a yellow for Mumbai from July 26 to July 20. The City is likely to witness heavy rainfall at isolated places for the next 2-3 days.

Mumbai Rains Live Updates: Heavy Rain Alert For Madhya Maharashtra The IMD has forecast very heavy rainfall over the Madhya Maharashtra region for the next two days. The Met Department has issued a red alert for Raigad, Ratnagiri and Satara districts.

Mumbai Rains Live Updates: 142 mm Rainfall Recorded In Vakola, 129 mm in Borivali According to the BMC, As per rainfall recorded, the highest rainfall from 25 July 2024, 8 am to 26 July 2024 8 am (24 hours) is as follows: -Nariyal Wadi Municipal School, Vakola  142.2, Sewri Koliwada Municipal School, Sewri  137.6 -N Ward Office, Ghatkopar  133.34, Charkop Sector 1 Municipal School Kandivali (West)  131.8, Magathane Bus Depot, Borivali  129.2, Eksar Municipal School, Borivali  128.2, Barve Nagar Municipal School, Ghatkopar (West)  125.2, BKC Fire Station  124, Nadkarni Park Municipal School, Wadala (East)  119.40, SWD Workshop, Dadar  119.34, Maravli Municipal school, Chembur  118.60, N. M. Joshi Marg Municipal School, Lower Parel  117.

Mumbai Rains Live Updates: Heavy Showes To Lash Maharashtra Maharashtra is witnessing heavy showers across the state and the IMD has predicted more rainfall over several regions. The IMD has issued a red alert for Raigad, Ratnagiri and Satara districts. An orange alert has been issued for Pune, Thane, Mumbai, Sidhudurg and Palghar districts.

Mumbai Rains Live Updates: Schools, Colleges Closed In Raigad The Raigad administration has ordered the closure of schools and colleges in the district on Friday in the wake of a heavy rainfall alert.

Mumbai Rains Live Updates: IMD Predicts Heavy Showers In Maharashtra The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a press release and said, Isolated extremely heavy rainfall very likely over ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra during July 25-27 and in Konkan & Goa on 25 and 26 July and Gujarat region on 25th July.

Mumbai Rains Live Updates: Heavy Showers Disrupt Flight Services As many as 11 flights were cancelled and ten diverted to nearby airports from here on Thursday as heavy rains continued to lash Mumbai. Runway operations at the Mumbai airport had to be halted twice as the visibility dropped to 300 meters, even as airlines issued advisories to passengers to arrive early at the airport in view of traffic congestion and water-logging in parts of the metropolis.

Mumbai Rains Live Updates: Today's Weather Forecast Todays weather forecast predicts moderate to heavy rain across the Mumbai and suburbs, with the possibility of very heavy rainfall in isolated areas. Occasional gusty winds, reaching speeds of 50-60 kmph, are also expected. Additionally, high tide is anticipated at 1532 hrs with a height of 4.46 meters, and again at 0406 hrs on July 27, with a height of 3.96 meters.

Rains In Mumbai Today LIVE: BMC Reopens Schools, Colleges In Mumbai The BMC has declared that all the schools and colleges in its area will operate normally on Friday.  The weather and rainfall in Mumbai are normal at present, allowing life in the metropolitan city to proceed smoothly.  As a result, all schools and colleges in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) area will remain open on a regular basis tomorrow, Friday, 26th July   Mumbai,  BMC (@mybmc) July 25, 2024
Hello, readers! In todays evening digest, News18 brings to you the latest updates on Frances high-speed rail network being affected, NTA releasing revised scorecard of NEET-UG 2024 exam and other stories.

Arsonists Hit France Rail Network Ahead Of Olympics Opening As Cancellations Trigger Chaos: All You Need To Know

Arson attacks disrupted Frances high-speed rail network on Friday, affecting tens of thousands of passengers just hours before the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. READ MORE

NTA Releases Revised Scorecard Of NEET-UG 2024 Exam; Details Here

The National Testing Agency (NTA) has released the revised scorecard of the NEET-UG 2024 examination. READ MORE

5 Sunehri Bagh: Rahul Gandhis New Address After 20 Years As He Dumps Inauspicious Tughlaq Lane Bungalow

After living in 12 Tughlak Lane bungalow for the past 20 years, Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Rahul Gandhi is set to move into a new official residence  5 Sunehri Bagh  in New Delhi. The Rae Bareli MP, who is also the leader of Opposition, has picked this home from the three-four options given to him. A letter has already been submitted to the government, giving his approval for the type eight bungalow. READ MORE

We Have Got Your Back: Barack And Michelle Obama Endorse Kamala Harris For US President

Days after Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 White House race, former US President Barack Obama endorsed Kamala Harris candidacy for American president on Friday. READ MORE

Kush Shah QUITS Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah After 16 Years, THIS Actor Is New Goli

In a surprising turn of events, Kush Shah, who essayed the character Goli in Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, has quit the show. The makers have shared a video in which they introduced the new actor who will be playing his role. Kush Shah is seen saying goodbye to viewers and thanking them for showering so much love. READ MORE

SL vs PAK Womens Asia Cup 2024 Semi Final, Live Score and Updates From Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium

Hello and welcome to the second semi-final clash of the Womens Asia Cup 2024 where the hosts Sri Lanka take on Pakistan at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium, Dambulla, Sri Lanka. The fight for the second spot in the big finale is on the cards and the home team, Sri Lanka will be deemed favourites. The skipper Chamari Athapaththu will be eager to be amongst the runs and take back her spot as the leading run-scorer of the tournament. CHECK LIVE UPDATES
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the Agnipath scheme was an example of necessary reforms undertaken by the Army and accused the opposition of playing politics over the recruitment process aimed at keeping the average age in armed forces young. Responding to it, Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge said that their demand is consistent-the Agnipath Scheme should be scrapped!

In his address on Kargil Vijay Diwas here to mark the 25th anniversary of victory in Kargil war, Modi said some people were playing politics over a sensitive issue related to national security and rubbished claims that the Agnipath scheme was launched to save pension money. The aim of Agnipath is to make the forces youngThe aim of Agnipath is to keep the armies continuously fit for war, he said.

Unfortunately, such a sensitive issue related to national security has been made a subject of politics by some people. Some people are playing politics of lies for their personal interests even on this reform of the army, he said. For decades, there have been discussions in Parliament and various committees on making the armed forces younger. The average age of Indian soldiers being higher than the global average has been a matter of concern, he added.

#WATCH | PM Narendra Modi says, Agnipath scheme is also an example of the necessary reforms done by the ArmySome people used to think that the Army means saluting politicians, doing parades but for us, Army means the faith of 140 crore countrymen. The goal of Agnipath is pic.twitter.com/oF3ZV7Fnp8 ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

He said this issue was raised in many committees for years but the will to resolve this national security challenge was not shown earlier. The country has addressed this concern through the Agnipath scheme, he said.

Hitting out at the opposition, Modi said, These are the same people who weakened our forces by committing scams worth thousands of crores in the forces. He said these people did not want the Indian Air Force to get modern fighter jets and they had made preparations to lock the Tejas fighter plane in a box.

The prime minister also rubbished the claims that Agnipath scheme was launched to save pension money. Some people are also spreading the misconception that the government has come up with this scheme to save pension money. I want to ask such people, the question of pension for todays recruits will arise after 30 years. Why would the government take a decision today, he asked.

Modi said his government has respected the decision taken by the forces as for us the security of the country is paramount, not politics. Those who are misleading the youth of the countryhistory is witness to the fact that they do not care about the soldiers. These are the same people who lied about One Rank One Pension by showing Rs 500 crore. It is our government which implemented One Rank One Pension and gave more than Rs 1.25 lakh crore to ex-servicemen, he added.

#WATCH | Drass, Kargil: On the Agnipath scheme, Air Marshall SP Singh (Retd.) says, PM Modi clarified it very wellGive the scheme a chanceAnd like the PM said it is the decision of the armed forces. It is a scheme endorsed by the government and the country is accepting pic.twitter.com/a56X250VQ6 ANI (@ANI) July 26, 2024

Air Marshall SP Singh (Retd.) said, PM Modi clarified it very wellGive the scheme a chanceAnd like the PM said it is the decision of the armed forces. It is a scheme endorsed by the government and the country is accepting it.It is a very good scheme

CONGRESS REACTS

Kharge posted on X: It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister @narendramodi ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas. No Prime Minister has ever done this before. Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army, this is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant Armed Forces

It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister @narendramodi ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas.No Prime Minister has ever done this before. Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath  Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) July 26, 2024

He further wrote: Former Army Chief (Retd.) General MM Naravane has said on record that 75% of recruits were to be taken for permanency in the Agnipath Scheme and 25% of people were to be let go after 4 years. But the Modi Govt did the opposite, and forcibly implemented this scheme for all three Armed Forces. According to news reports, Former Army Chief (Retd) General MM Naravane in his book which the Modi Govt, has stalled from being published, has also said, that the Agnipath Scheme was shocking for the Army, and for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a bolt out of the blue! Are we creating professional soldiers, only by 6 months of training? Soldiers join the Army out of patriotism, not to earn a living. Many retired officers have strongly criticised Agnipath and said that it is endangering National Security and the aspirations of the rural youth, demanding that this scheme should be completely scrapped. All this is on record. Agniveers do not get any pension, no gratuity, no family pension, no liberalized family pension and no education allowance for their children. Modi ji, 15 Agniveers have been martyred so far. At least respect their martyrdom. There is a lot of anger and strong opposition among the youth of the country regarding Agniveer!

In response to PM Modis speech in Kargil, Congress MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said, It is a very proud moment for the entire nation that we emerged victorious. The terror attacks in J&K are increasing and we have to stop them. Drones, heroin and illegal weapons are continuously being smuggled into my Lok Sabha constituency. PM Modi should also talk about how to stop them. Why youth is getting involved in drugs? PM Modi will have to be answerable to these.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday carried out the first blast, marking the start of construction of the Shinkun La tunnel from Ladakhs Drass virtually.

The 4.1km twin-tube tunnel aims to provide all-weather connectivity between Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Ladakh. The tunnel would also ensure swift and efficient movement of the armed forces and equipment, and foster economic and social development in Ladakh.

The Shinkun La Tunnel is a pioneering infrastructure project which will boost connectivity to Leh and enhance tourism as well as commerce! pic.twitter.com/7whyWjliMP Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 26, 2024

Here are 5 things about the tunnel:

 The Shinkun La tunnel project consists of a 4.1-kilometre twin-tube tunnel which connects Himachal Pradesh to Ladakhs Leh via the Nimmu-Padam-Darcha road.

 The project is to be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet and is expected to be completed in four years.

 Once completed, Shinkun La tunnel would be the worlds highest, surpassing Chinas Mila tunnel at 15,590 ft.

 The construction of the tunnel will boost military mobility and logistics support for deployed forces in the Ladakh sector as the Nimmu-Padam-Darcha road will provide the third connectivity option to Ladakh.

 Connectivity between Nimmu and Darcha was achieved in March 2024, and the road is currently being blacktopped.

PM Modi was in Kargil today. He paid a visit to Kargil War Memorial to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, Indias victory over Pakistan in the 1999 war.

He laid a floral wreath at the War Memorial and paid homage and tributes to the Kargil War bravehearts, who made the supreme sacrifice in service of the nation.

On July 26, 1999, the Indian Army announced the successful culmination of Operation Vijay, declaring victory after a nearly three-month-long battle on the icy heights of Kargil in Ladakh. The day is observed as Kargil Vijay Diwas to commemorate Indias victory over Pakistan in the war.
The man was incensed to find the internal wires of the cable exposed.

An EV driver returned to his car to find the charger had been 'vandalised' in Newcastle overnight. Source: Facebook

An electric vehicle (EV) driver has warned others to "take care" after the cable he plugged into a public charger overnight was found damaged, with no indication of who could have been responsible for the act.

The man intended to charge his car overnight outside the Victoria Theatre in Newcastle on Saturday night. However, when he returned to his car in the morning his cable had been pulled apart, exposing the internal wires of the device.

"[I] woke up to find someone vandalised our charging cable," he wrote on social media, also explaining other non-EV drivers had decided to park their cars in the other charging bays, preventing other EV drivers in need of a recharge.

The driver pointed out the charger in question was mounted onto a pole that stood near the curb, meaning his cable wasn't a possible trip hazard.

"The cable was not draped over the footpath, no one tripped over it. This was a deliberate act [of] removing the cover to pull at the leads," he said, with a fellow EV driver calling it a "senseless" act of vandalism.

The EV chargers outside the Victoria Theatre in Newcastle are inside poles, meaning a cable isn't draped over public walkways. Source: PlugShare

Disdain toward EV boom 'expected', expert said

There has been a significant uptick in the number of EVs on Aussie roads in recent years, with two-thirds of the total number in the country purchased since 2022.

The boom has ignited debate on the cars, with the increase in sales clearly showing many are in favour of low-emission cars, while others resist the move away from vehicles with internal combustion engines (ICE), which use materials such as petrol or diesel to fuel them.

Nevertheless, the federal government is pushing ahead with incentivising the uptake of electric vehicles in a bid to move towards more sustainable transport methods.

The NSW government alone has invested almost half a billion dollars to encourage Aussies to bid goodbye to ICE cars and replace them with EVs. It's a change that is vital, Professor Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian explained, and the "reluctance" is all a part of it.

"Obviously someone was not happy with this infrastructure [in Newcastle] so has done some damage," the Swinburne University of Technology Professor told Yahoo News. "People are reluctant because they don't want change, or aren't aware of the reason we really need it... our responsibility is to provide awareness on why EVs are good and what we need them for, as well as what the challenges are

"EVs are actually changing things and people's habits, and whenever people's lifestyles are being changed, people don't like it... it is human nature. It's to be expected people will react this way in the beginning."

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates Indias victory over Pakistan in the Kargil War of 1999. This historic triumph saw the Indian Army reclaim strategically vital territory in Kargil, Ladakh, previously occupied by Pakistani forces. The day celebrates the courage and sacrifice of Indian soldiers who valiantly defended the nations sovereignty.

WATCH: Kargil War 25th Anniversary: A Tribute to the Kargil Heroes

History of Kargil Vijay Diwas

On May 26, 1999, the Indian Air Force launched its operation in Kargil. A total of 527 Indian soldiers were martyred in the war. During the Kargil conflict, the gallant soldiers of the Indian Army, with the help of Indian Air Force, overcame insurmountable odds, hostile terrain and inclement weather to win against the enemy that had occupied dominating heights.

The victory against Pakistan remains one of the most significant moments of the Indian Army during the war.

Discover the @IAF_MCCs pivotal role in Kargil War & gain an insiders perspective on the hidden challenges from pilots who actually flew these missions!Watch the full exclusive account on our YouTube channel: https://t.co/E66y9EawEY pic.twitter.com/MAXUJ8WabJ  A. Bharat Bhushan Babu (@SpokespersonMoD) July 25, 2024

It was on July 14, 1999 then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee declared Operation Vijay a success. Operation Vijay was initiated due to unprovoked intrusion of Pakistan Army backed armed terrorists on the Indian side of Line of Control (LC) at Kargil.

Significance of Kargil Vijay Diwas

India has great significance for this day since it was during the war that 527 troops from the Indian Armed Forces were martyred. The day is observed in commemoration of their sacrifice.

Celebration of Kargil Vijay Diwas

As a part of Kargil Vijay Diwas Rajat Jayanti, a wreath laying ceremony was conducted at the War Memorial at AF Station Bhisiana, where #IAF bravehearts were paid tribute by their family and IAF personnel. #KargilVijayDiwas pic.twitter.com/3AAXj9qriu Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) July 20, 2024

In honour of the 25th anniversary of the Kargil victory, the Indian Air Force will be commemorating Kargil Vijay Diwas Rajat Jayanti at Air Force Station Sarsawa from July 12 to July 26.

Tomorrow, 26th July, is a very special day for every Indian. We will mark the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. It is a day to pay homage to all those who protect our nation. I will visit the Kargil War Memorial and pay tributes to our brave heroes. Work will also commence for the Shinkun Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 25, 2024

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the Kargil War Memorial on July 26 and pay homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty, his office said on Thursday. He will also carry out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project virtually.

Prime Minister Narendra Modis Top Quotes

On Kargil Vijay Diwas, we remember the courage and determination of our armed forces, who steadfastly protected our nation in 1999. Their valour continues to inspire generations.Will speak more about this during todays #MannKiBaat, which begins shortly. #CourageInKargil  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 26, 2020

In 2020 PM Modi stated on X, On Kargil Vijay Diwas, we remember the courage and determination of our armed forces, who steadfastly protected our nation in 1999. Their valour continues to inspire generations.

We remember their sacrifices.We remember their valour. Today, on Kargil Vijay Diwas we pay homage to all those who lost their lives in Kargil protecting our nation. Their bravery motivates us every single day. Also sharing an excerpt from last years Mann Ki Baat. pic.twitter.com/jC42es8OLz  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 26, 2021

In 2021 PM Modi stated, We remember their sacrifices. We remember their valour. Today, on Kargil Vijay Diwas we pay homage to all those who lost their lives in Kargil protecting our nation. Their bravery motivates us every single day.

      -                         -   ! pic.twitter.com/wIHyTrNPMU Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 26, 2022

The 2022 post read, Kargil Vijay Diwas is a symbol of the pride and glory of Mother India. On this occasion, I salute all the brave sons of the country who displayed the ultimate valour in protecting the motherland. Jai Hind!

             ,                       ! Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 26, 2023

His 2023 post read, Kargil Vijay Diwas brings forth the saga of the bravery of those amazing brave soldiers of India, who will always remain a source of inspiration for the countrymen. On this special day, I salute and salute them from the bottom of my heart. Jai Hind!.

Kargil Vijay Diwas: Key Facts
Alia Bhatt is currently working on one of her most-awaited films  Alpha. While everyone is eagerly waiting for the Spy Universe movie, it has now been revealed that the actress is currently shooting for an action sequence with Bobby Deol. As reported by IANS, Alia and the films antagonist, Bobby Deol are currently in Mumbai where they are shooting on a heavily guarded set in Film City.

It is a ferocious action sequence. You can call it brutal. It is a no-holds-barred face-to-face action sequence between Alia Bhatt and Bobby Deol. There will be blood, a source cited by the news agency claimed.

The shoot location is impregnable. This is one of the most important scenes of the film, and even a fly cannot enter this set. I think they have at least 100 guards manning the location and covering all vantage points, the insider added.

The title of Alia Bhatts Spy Universe movie  Alpha  was announced earlier this month when the actress took to her Instagram handle and dropped a video in which she announced that the shooting for the much-awaited movie has finally begun.

The clip showed Alpha written on it as Alias voiceover said, Greek alphabet ka sabse pehle akshar aur hamare program ka motto. Sabse pehle, sabse tez, sabse veer. Dhyaan se dekho toh har shahar mein ek jungle hai aur har jungle mein raaj karega ek Alpha (The first alphabet of the Greek language and our motto  first, fastest and courageous. If you see, every city is a jungle and every jungle is ruled by an Alpha).

Alia Bhatts standalone YRF Spy Universe film was confirmed earlier this year when Yash Raj Films CEO Akshaye Widhani said, As one of the most prized IPs, we take a lot of pride in it. So theres a lot of stuff thats going to come in the spy universe. Were going to see more and more films getting made under it. But, of course, not going to share everything here. We will talk about it at a more opportune time. For now, I can say that Alia Bhatt is headlining a spy universe film.

Besides Alia, Sharvari Wagh will also be playing a key role in the movie.

Over the years, YRF has established its Spy Universe in the film industry. Before Alia and Sharvari, Katrina Kaif and Deepika Padukone have also been a part of YRF Spy Universe films. While Katrina played an ISI agent Zoya in the popular Tiger franchise, Deepika essayed the role of an ISI spy Rubina in Shah Rukh Khan starrer Pathaan. Kiara Advani also joined Spy Universe recently. She will be seen in Hrithik Roshan and Jr NTR-led War 2.
Jon Voight has publicly criticised his daughter, Angelina Jolie, for her stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, accusing her of being influenced by antisemitic individuals. The Midnight Cowboy star, who shares Jolie with his late ex-wife Marcheline Bertrand, has had a notoriously turbulent relationship with her.

In November, Angelina Jolie, a renowned actress, humanitarian, and former UN High Commission for Refugees special envoy, posted a statement accusing Israel of deliberately bombing children, women, families, deprived of food, medicine, and humanitarian aid in violation of international law. Voight, a staunch supporter of Israel, particularly in light of its response to the October 7th attacks by Hamas, strongly disagrees with her views.

Voight claims that Jolie has been exposed to propaganda and influenced by antisemitic rhetoric. She has been exposed to propaganda. Shes been influenced by antisemitic people. Angie has a connection to the U.N., and shes enjoyed speaking out for refugees. But these people are not refugees, Jon said to Variety.

In addition to his views on the Israel-Palestine conflict, Voight has been vocal about his support for Donald Trump. He proudly identifies as one of Hollywoods most outspoken Trump supporters, believing that Trump is the solution to Americas problems. Voight hopes that recent events will change how people perceive him and his political stance. Maybe they will see a supporter like me in a different light, he remarks.

Voight also criticises President Joe Biden, disparaging his debate performance. He goes further, condemning Bidens presidency as one that allows corruption and violence to go unpunished. Were allowing this sick President Biden to give permission for all to steal, cheat, lie and kill, Voight asserts, calling for an end to what he sees as a dangerous and unchecked administration.
The Bombay High Court on Monday said it was quashing the First Information Report (FIR) against Mamta Kulkarni due to lack of evidence. The court is yet to take a detailed decision but said Mamta Kulkarnis plea to quash the case will be accepted. Kulkarni had alleged in court that she had been made a scapegoat in the drug scam. Hearing her plea, a bench comprising Justices Bharati Dangre and Manjusha Deshpande observed that there was no evidence against her apart from the allegations in the complaint.

In April 2016, Thane police raided Avon Lifesciences Ltd, a pharmaceutical company based in Solapur, and arrested at least 14 people. Police suspected that the accused had planned to procure ephedrine, a controlled substance, that can be abused to make the party drug meth, from Avon Lifesciences Limited. The ephedrine was to be diverted to Kenya, where it would allegedly be used to manufacture meth to be sold in the US market.

The police chargesheet names five other people as wanted accused, including alleged drug lord Vicky Goswami, Kulkarnis partner who is believed to be the mastermind of the drug trade. According to police, Kulkarni lived with Goswami in Kenya.

Thane Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh had alleged that Kulkarni, who lived with Goswami in Kenya, was also involved in the drug trade. Police said Kulkarni attended an important meeting of Goswami and his aides at Hotel Bliss in Kenya on January 8, 2016, where the details of the use of the ephedrine from Solapur were discussed.

At the first press conference held by Thane Police on April 27, 2016, it was mentioned that Kulkarni was present at a meeting at Hotel Bliss. In a press conference on June 18, 2016, the police said that an attempt was made to make Kulkarni one of the directors of Avon Lifesciences by transferring shares in her name at a cheap rate.

The fourth and final chargesheet in the case against Goswami and Kulkarni did not contain any evidence of the meeting or the share transfer. The police primarily relied only on the statement of a co-accused before a magistrate to prove her involvement in the case. After co-accused Jay Mukhis statement was recorded before a magistrate in July 2016 and landed Kulkarni in trouble, he applied to withdraw the statement, claiming that it was made under duress.

Soon after the case broke, Goswami was arrested by the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in 2017 and is in the custody of the US authorities. The other arrested accused are in Thane jail awaiting trial.
Kareena Kapoor Khan is currently enjoying her vacation in the UK with Saif Ali Khan, Taimur, Jeh, and Karisma Kapoor. She has been sharing a lot of updates through photos. Today, Kareena has once again charmed her fans with a stunning new selfie, flaunting a chic no-makeup look.

Taking to her Instagram stories, Kareena shared a photo in which she is seen posing and has applied no makeup. The actress looks stunning and wishes her fans Hello. Karisma Kapoor recently shared a set of new pictures from their vacation. The sisters posed in front of a vintage restaurant in one picture. Both the sisters looked stylish. Kareena was dressed in a brown jacket and blue flared pants, while Karisma donned a long black jacket and blue jeans. She finished the look with a cap. The duo coordinated their ensembles with sunglasses. In another photo, the siblings were seen having a quality time amid a lush green landscape.

Take a look at the photo here:

Meanwhile, Kareena Kapoor recently spoke to The Week about how her sister Karisma led the road for their family amid difficult times, cementing her reputation in the industry. She stated, My grandfather had passed away, my father had made one film, Henna. Of course, Chintu uncle was this illustrious superstar actor but apart from that, no one was working at that time. So, Karisma was actually the first female Kapoor who became this big sensation and star.

As for Kareena, the Bollywood diva was last seen in the heist-comedy film Crew alongside Kriti Sanon and Tabu. Besides, the film also featured Diljit Dosanjh and Kapil Sharma. Directed by Rajesh A. Krishnan, the film garnered considerable acclaim upon its theatrical release. It is available for streaming on Netflix.

Next up for the Jaane Jaan star is The Buckingham Murders, directed by Hansal Mehta. However, the release date of the film has been kept under wraps. Besides, she is set to hit the big screens with Rohit Shettys Cop Universe film Singham Again alongside Ajay Devgn. The most awaited project features a stellar ensemble cast, including Deepika Padukone, Tiger Shroff, Arjun Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, and Akshay Kumar
Salman Khans father, Salim Khan, visited Farah Khans residence in Mumbai to pay his respects to her mother, Menaka Irani, who passed away today. Menaka Irani, who was also the sister of renowned child actors Daisy Irani and Honey Irani, had a brief acting stint herself. She appeared in the 1963 film Bachpan alongside her sister Daisy. According to reports, Menaka had been battling an illness for some time before her passing.

Salim Khan was seen outside Farah Khans home after meeting her family. Maniesh Paul, Vikram Phadnis and Fardeen Khan were also spotted outside Farahs house. The heartbreaking news of Menaka Iranis passing came just days after she celebrated her birthday.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Snehkumar Zala (@snehzala)

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Manav Manglani (@manav.manglani)

On July 12, Farah Khan shared a heartfelt post on social media to honour her mothers special day. In the touching pictures, Farah was seen holding her mothers hand, both of them smiling warmly for the camera. One of the photos was a nostalgic monochrome shot.

In her emotional birthday message, Farah wrote, We all take our mothers for granted especially me! This last month has been a revelation on how much I love my mom Menka. She has been the strongest, bravest person Ive ever seen, her sense of humor intact even after multiple surgeries. Happy birthday mom! Todays a good day to come back home  cant wait for you to get strong enough to start fighting with me again.. I love you 

Farah Khan had previously shared how she, her brother Sajid, and their mother Menaka Irani navigated the financial hardships following the death of their father, Kamran Khan, due to alcoholism. Reflecting on those challenging times, Farah had revealed, Yes, I belonged to a filmy family, but by the time I turned five, we were the poor cousins. Wed lost all our money, dads film had flopped. We had a riches-to-rags story. So, while the rest of the family was thriving, we became the charity cases. Sajid, our mother, and I were supported by our relatives, who graciously let us stay in their house. She shared this heartfelt story on Radio Nasha, emphasizing the resilience and solidarity that carried them through those tough years.
Actor Blake Lively potentially making a cameo as Lady Deadpool in Deadpool & Wolverine is still up in the air, but theres no doubt she will surprise us in other ways. The Gossip Girls actor just ended up crashing an interview of her husband Reynolds, 47 and his Deadpool & Wolverine co-star Hugh Jackman, 55. They had stepped in as guest hosts for the Wednesday, July 24 episode of ABCs late-night talk show while Jimmy Kimmel wasnt present. During their show, Reynolds received an unexpected call from his wife while he was interviewing his co-star.

Im so sorry  Im sorry, its Blake," Reynolds told Jackman as his phone rang mid-interview. We always promised wed answer in the middle of something."

Hi, baby," Lively greeted when Reynolds answered. Is now an OK time?" she asked. Reynolds replied, No, no, no  its fine. Were at Kimmels. Were just rehearsing."

I love you so much, Im just bored," Lively said. Reynolds then turned his phone to show Lively to the studio audience and Kimmels sidekick, Guillermo.

Thats great," Ryan said warmly. Were just here. Guillermo (Rodriguez) is here." Reynolds, 47, also showed off Blake to the audience, who cheered in response.

And Alec is here," Ryan added before explaining, Hes the stage manager. Hes British  and he looks really upset right now." So Im just gonna get off the phone right there," he said, ending the call and putting his phone away.

You were saying?" Reynolds asked Jackman, seamlessly returning to the interview while Jackman pretended to be too shocked to speak.

Watch it here:

Blake Lively has been a significant part of Reynolds and Jackmans Deadpool & Wolverine promotional tour. She attended the movies New York City premiere on Monday, July 22, with her friend Gigi Hadid and her and Reynolds four children: James, 9, Inez, 7, Betty, 4 and Olin, 18 months.

Meanwhile, Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackmans much-awaited MCU crossover film, Deadpool & Wolverine releases today. As per the early reviews, the film has received an extremely positive response. Some fans as well as critics have even called it the much-needed revival of the Marvel films.
In a big development in the Salman Khan house firing case, it has now been reported that jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnois brother Anmol Bishnoi had given a nine-minute long motivational speech to shooters before they opened fire at the Bollywood superstars residence.

Reportedly, the chargesheet filed by the Mumbai polices crime branch mentions that Anmol Bishnoi had told the two shooters  Vicky Gupta and Sagar Pal that they should do the work well because it will script history. Do this work well. After the work is completed, you guys will script history, he told the shooters, according to the 1,735-page chargesheet, accessed by NDTV.

Do not be afraid at all while doing this work. Doing this work means bringing a change in the society, Anmol Bishnoi added.

While the speech was given by an audio message, the shooters were asked to fire shots in such a manner that it scares Salman Khan. They were also asked not to wear helmets and smoke cigarettes to appear fearless.

Just a couple of days back, it was reported that Salman Khan also opened up about the alleged threats he and his family members have been getting from the Lawrence Bishnoi gang over the years while recording his statement to the anti-extortion cell of the Mumbai Crime Branch.

I heard a cracker-like sound. Then, at around 4.55 am, the police bodyguard said that two people on a bike had fired from a weapon at the Galaxy Apartments first-floor balcony. There had been attempts to hurt me and my family prior to this as well. I have learnt that Lawrence Bishnoi has taken responsibility for the attack from social media. So, I believe that it is the Lawrence Bishnoi gang who have carried out the firing on my balcony, he said.

Earlier also, Lawrence Bishnoi and his gang members in an interview talked about killing me and my relatives. So, I believe that Lawrence Bishnoi, with the help of his gang members carried out the firing incident when my family members were sleeping inside and planning to kill me and my family members so they carried out the attack, the actor added.

In April this year, gunshots were fired outside Khans Galaxy Apartments in Mumbais Bandra area. Later, it was reported that the Lawrence Bishnoi gang is alleged to be behind the attack as the gangsters brother, Anmol Bishnoi, claimed responsibility for the shooting incident via a Facebook post.

In May, the President of the All India Bishnoi Society, Devendra Budiya, also issued a statement and argued that the Bollywood superstars apology would be considered if he seeks forgiveness. If Salman himself apologizes, the Bishnoi society will consider the apology. The mistake was not made by Somy Ali, but it was committed by Salman, the Bishnoi gang leader told IANS, as quoted by Pinkvilla.

Therefore, he should propose to the Bishnoi society that he wants to apologize. He should come to the temple and seek forgiveness. He should further take an oath that he will never make such a mistake in the future and will always work to protect wildlife and conserve the environment. If he does this, a decision of the society to forgive him will be considered, he added.

After the shocking incident, Salman Khans security was upgraded.
The grand structure, built as the Viceroys House on Raisina Hill in Delhi before Independence, came to be known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 26, 1950. But it has taken over seven decades for all its rooms and areas to be freed from British influence. The process of Indianisation gained momentum at all levels after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power. Its impact is visible on the Rashtrapati Bhavan as well. Ram Nath Kovind, who became the President during the Modi era, started the Indianisation of all parts of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, while the final seal was put on it by current President Droupadi Murmu when she renamed Durbar Hall and Ashok Hall as Ganatantra Mandap and Ashok Mandap, respectively.

During British rule, the Viceroys court was held in the Durbar Hall, but now all the state honours and awards of the Indian Republic are given here. Hence, it is appropriate to name it Ganatantra Mandap.

A long time coming

President Droupadi Murmu has completed two years in the highest constitutional office in the country. On this occasion, she changed the names of two important halls of the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Generally, when people talk about Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Durbar Hall and Ashok Mandap are discussed the most. After all, these are its two most beautiful, grand halls. Ashok Mandap is also known as the large jewel box due to its grandeur.

These two rooms also have a deep connection with the history of independent India. While Jawaharlal Nehru was sworn in as the first Prime Minister of independent India on August 15, 1947, in the Durbar Hall, most of the subsequent Prime Ministers took oath in the Ashok Hall. In the present era, the Durbar Hall is used largely for conferring state, civil, and military honours, while the heads of foreign missions present their credentials in the Ashok Hall.

Hence, it is appropriate that as Droupadi Murmu completed two years of her tenure as the President, the names of both these halls were Indianised. Now, the Durbar Hall will be known as Ganatantra Mandap, while the Ashok Hall will be called Ashok Mandap. It is a big question as to why the hall in which the first Prime Minister of independent India took oath continued to be called the Durbar Hall even after seven decades of Independence. As the representative of the British monarch, the Viceroy could hold his durbar (court) here, which is why it was called Durbar Hall. But even after independent India formally became a Republic on January 26, 1950, it was still called Durbar Hall as no one paid attention to it. It is difficult to say whether this happened only due to carelessness or it was a symbol of our mentality in which the British or the names given by them were always considered the best. The good thing is that the occasion of Droupadi Murmu completing two years as President became the trigger for this necessary change.

How times changed, and some things didnt

During pre-Independence British rule, the Viceroys House was built as the greatest symbol of British authoritarianism and sovereign power, housing the Viceroy as the representative of the monarch. Thats why it was called Viceroys House. After achieving Independence on August 15, 1947, it came to be known as Government House, in which Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, or Rajaji, entered as the first Indian Governor General on June 21, 1948. After the Constitution of India was implemented, it came to be known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan on January 26, 1950. Rajendra Prasad stayed in it as the first President of India for over 12 years.

After Rajendra Babu, it has been the residence of many Presidents one after the other, while everyone made some effort to enhance its beauty. Since Rajajis time, all 16 people who have held the highest constitutional office in the country never occupied the rooms meant for the use of the Viceroy but instead converted them into a guest house and lived in relatively smaller rooms. Droupadi Murmu is also following the same tradition.

Murmu and Kovinds efforts

During her time, President Murmu also paid special attention to the library of Rashtrapati Bhavan, which is now known as Saraswati. Indian values and symbols are well reflected in this library. In terms of design, Swastika made of marble was put on the floor, while Lord Ganeshs figure was placed on the wall. The table and chair below it have been used by all the Presidents whenever they visited the library.

It is not just that the library has been given an Indian name. The process started during the tenure of Ram Nath Kovind, who was the first President during the Modi regime. Prime Minister Modi himself has emphasised promoting Indian values in all aspects of governance, and its reflection is now visible in Rashtrapati Bhavan as well.

In fact, for seven decades after Independence, the names of the remaining halls and areas of Rashtrapati Bhavan were left as they were. These were according to the needs of the Viceroy during the British rule and as per British values. But during the Modi era, the pace of Indianisation gained momentum. Many of these names were changed during the tenure of Ram Nath Kovind as the President. And this continues during current President Droupadi Murmus tenure. Durbar Hall becoming Ganatantra Mandap and Ashok Hall becoming Ashok Mandap is a result of these incremental efforts.

Making way for rivers

Due to these efforts, the Banquet Hall suitable for state banquets is now known as Brahmaputra. Banquets are hosted here by the President in honour of foreign guests. Also, the food served here is now vegetarian, while alcohol has been prohibited.

The place where President Murmu meets visitors is now known as Sabarmati. Most of the sections of the Rashtrapati Bhavan have been given new names after the major rivers of India. For example, the Long Drawing Room where the President hosts the conference of Governors and Lieutenant Governors every year is now known as Tungabhadra.

The North Drawing Room adjacent to the Durbar Hall, where the President meets visiting heads of state, has been renamed Saryu. Lord Rams Ayodhya is situated on the banks of Saryu, which is counted as one of the holiest rivers of India. The Morning Room where the President usually holds routine meetings has now been named after Kaveri, the famous river of the south. Many important chambers have also been named after holy rivers like Yamuna, Godavari, Mahanadi, and Narmada. The new name of the Committee Room is Yamuna, while the Grey Dining Room has now become Narmada. President Droupadi Murmu, whose name is based on an important female character in the epic Mahabharata, uses all these rooms for different purposes.

Murmus inspiring journey

President Murmu, who comes from a poor tribal family in Odisha, was first an MLA and minister in Odisha and then became the Governor of the neighbouring state of Jharkhand during Prime Minister Narendra Modis government. She became the first woman tribal Governor of the tribal-dominated Jharkhand state.

Droupadi Murmu became the President of the country two years ago after efficiently performing the role of the Jharkhand Governor. She took oath as the 15th President of the country on July 25, 2022. With this, another record was also made. For the first time, a person coming from the tribal community sat on the highest constitutional post in the country. This was a clear representation of the strength of Indian democracy and the inclusive thinking of the Modi-led government.

Droupadi Murmu has spent two years as the President with great ease and simplicity. She has been seen communicating with the general public during her visits across various states in the country and has even worked towards boosting the morale of officers and soldiers by sitting in a fighter plane as the supreme commander of the Indian armed forces. Her subjects of interest range from environment to education as well as womens upliftment.

A glimpse of this was also seen recently when she completed two years as President. She went to teach children in the Kendriya Vidyalaya inside the Presidents Estate, which is named after the countrys first President Rajendra Prasad, and which was inaugurated by him during his last few days as President on May 5, 1962. Later on, this school came to be known as Sarvodaya School under the Delhi Government and since 2019, it has been named Kendriya Vidyalaya, where nowadays children are even being taught about Artificial Intelligence.

President Murmu also opened the Pranab Mukherjee Library for the general public, which was earlier only accessible to the employees associated with the Rashtrapati Bhavan and people living inside the Presidents Estate. Now any person coming to visit the Rashtrapati Bhavan Museum can come to this library and get information about the journey of the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the Indian Constitution, and Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi. In this library, childrens interests have also been taken care of.

During her early days, Droupadi Murmu was a teacher, and hence she knows the importance of books very well. Therefore, not only was a collection of her speeches published by the Rashtrapati Bhavan but also two books on the Rashtrapati Bhavan were published on the occasion of Murmu completing two years as President. While one of these books tells children about the Rashtrapati Bhavan in a simple way, another book narrates the journey of lending a completely Indian style to the Rashtrapati Bhavan, including the efforts for its preservation.

People coming from the tribal community are usually uncomplicated. Despite sitting on the highest constitutional seat in the country, Draupadi Murmu has not lost her simplicity. Witnesses to this are all the common people and VIPs in the country and abroad who have come in contact with her. As President Murmu occupies this chair, it sends out a message to the poorest of the poor in the country that in the democratic system of India, any poor, backward, or tribal person can attain the highest position, and it is not the inheritance of any particular class.
After living in 12 Tughlak Lane bungalow for the past 20 years, Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Rahul Gandhi is set to move into a new official residence  5 Sunehri Bagh  in New Delhi. The Rae Bareli MP, who is also the leader of Opposition, has picked this home from the three-four options given to him. A letter has already been submitted to the government, giving his approval for the type eight bungalow.

Recently, his sister Priyanka Gandhi Vadra was seen visiting the residence at Sunehri Bagh.

Sources say that the five-time MP was first offered the option of retaining the 12 Tughlak Lane bungalow. However, it is believed that not good Vastu, which makes it inauspicious has been given as the reason for the switch.

As the leader of Opposition, Gandhi is entitled to a type eight bungalow, similar to leaders who have the cabinet rank.

The Sunehri Bagh residence was earlier occupied by A Narayanaswamy, a Karnataka Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader. He was a minister of state for social justice from 2021 to 2024. He lost the recent Lok Sabha elections.

Last year saw a controversy last year when the government asked Gandhi to vacate his home after his disqualification as an MP. As the conviction was reversed by a higher court, Gandhi was given back the same residence in August.

Gandhis mother, Sonia, who is currently an MP from the Rajya Sabha, continues to stay at her 10 Janpath Residence, which is interconnected to the Congress office on 24 Akbar Road.

Gandhis sister Priyanka was asked to vacate the residence allotted to her on 35 Lodhi Road after the SPG cover for the family was withdrawn in 2020. The home was given to her in 1997.

In 2021, the government decided to withdraw the SPG cover given to the Gandhi family, given the threat perception after the assassination of two members of the family, both being former prime ministers. The government decided that nobody would be given an SPG cover, except for the current Prime Minister. The Gandhi family was given Z plus security with CRPF cover.
In one month alone three drivers in South Australia were caught on their phones an incredible 19 times each with the new mobile phone detection cameras now catching out motorists.

New mobile phone detection cameras in South Australia caught 31,000 drivers on their phones in the first month. Source: AAP/South Australia Police.

Governments across Australia have continued to clamp down on drivers doing the wrong thing, in a desperate bid to curb the rising death toll on our roads. New technology aimed at catching drivers using their phones behind the wheel has been slowly rolled out across the country with one state already showing alarming results.

South Australias new mobile phone detection cameras, which have been installed at four busy locations around Adelaide, were switched on from June 18 as part of a $15.9 million program. Since becoming operational last month, they've already snapped almost 31,000 drivers using their phones with 30,754 warning letters being sent out to motorists.

Currently there's a three-month grace period meaning drivers will receive a warning letter instead of a $556 fine and three demerit points until September 19. Authorities are urging motorists to "get of your phones" now or risk copping a fine.

This month alone, 836 motorists were caught on four or more occasions, and with each incident, from September, incurring three demerit points, they would have lost their licences  but on this occasion were warned.

According to South Australia Police, three drivers were each caught a staggering 19 times with another two caught on 18 occasions. One driver was busted on 16 occasions and another four on 15 separate occasions.

South Australia joins other jurisdictions introducing dual-capability detection technology. Source: South Australia Police

'Concerning and disappointing' driver behaviour called out

The continued pattern of irresponsible behaviour by drivers is both concerning and disappointing, Traffic Services Branch Superintendent Darren Fielke said.

"The cameras recorded at least one distracted motorist driving with their mobile phone less than every two minutes  this shows the extent of the issue relating to distraction we have on our roads," Superintendent Fielke said.

"Not only is the overall number of detections shocking, but if this was outside of the grace period these motorists would lose their licence.

"We are giving South Australian drivers ample opportunity to change their driver behaviour and stop using a mobile phone while they are driving through this grace period. Distraction, including mobile phone use, is a significant contributor to crashes of all types on our roads.

"Drivers who are not getting the message need to change their driving behaviour very quickly, or theyll lose their licence, which in some cases could be their livelihood, or worst of all kill themselves or another innocent road user."

Aussie states rolling out road safety cameras

South Australia follows the likes of the ACT, which began fining drivers for mobile phone use in February. Other states including NSW, Queensland and Victoria have also introduced dual-capability tech.

New changes were made to mobile phone detection cameras in NSW from July 1 which allows cameras to detect both seatbelt and phone offences. The state joins Queensland which last year reportedly became the first jurisdiction in the world to roll out the dual capability software.

Meanwhile Victoria rolled out dual mobile phone and seatbelt detection cameras last year after a two-year trial. A staggering 52,000 drivers and passengers have been caught out in the past 10 months, it was revealed in May.

The NRMA has endorsed the ratcheting up of roadside camera capabilities across the nation.

"The laws were brought in and this technology was brought in as a preventative measure... to stop people getting behind the wheel and taking risks that jeopardise the safety of others," an NRMA spokesperson recently told Yahoo News.

"The road toll is terrible nationally in Australia... so we need to do everything we can to reduce risks on our roads."

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday produced documentary evidence to prove that the allocation of sites by the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) is not illegal. The politician, who has presented the highest number of finance budgets in Karnataka, decided to use facts, figures, and documents to demonstrate his innocence and transparency.

Siddaramaiah criticised the opposition BJP and JDS for attempting to tarnish his image by spreading falsehoods while their own party members have benefited from a similar MUDA scheme, which provided alternative sites to those affected by the illegal acquisition of land by the authority.

My Life Is An Open Book

I am releasing copies of the documents and placing them before the people of Karnataka. I will hold up a mirror to expose their political drama, Siddaramaiah said, emphasising that both opposition parties have been raising the MUDA scam issue during the two weeks of the House session but have been unable to produce a single official document to support their accusations against him and his family.

My life is an open book. Each page is marked by transparency and honesty. I have maintained the sanctity of politics without a black spot, said the chief minister, adding that the BJP and JDS are desperate. After we won 135 seats, they made politically motivated statements. They are trying to smear the CMs character. They cannot tolerate seeing me become the chief minister for the second time, the two-time Congress CM told mediapersons.

State urban development minister Byrathi Suresh, who was also present at the press conference, named BJP and JDS leaders and MLAs such as GT Deve Gowda, SR Mahesh, and Union steel and mines minister HD Kumaraswamy as beneficiaries from MUDA. He also highlighted how Kumaraswamy had recently sought an alternative site after being allotted 21,000 square feet of land in Mysuru.

Twists & Turns in MUDA Land Holding

Defending his name and asserting that neither he nor his wife had any role in the alleged illegal allotment of MUDA sites, Siddaramaiah addressed the Opposition, stating that the allotment took place when the BJP was in power and they have no moral standing to question his integrity.

The controversial 3.16 acres of land purchased by Siddaramaiahs brother-in-law PM Mallikarjun Swamy was legally valid, as evidenced by documentation. He stated that contrary to BJP and JDS allegations that the land was granted under the land grant rules (which are only applicable to Dalits and are inalienable), the land was actually auctioned to Linga bin Jwara in 1935. At that time, the auction price of the land (survey no. 464 of Kesare Hobli) was Rs 3, as there were no other participants in the auction. The sale was confirmed on October 13, 1935 to Linga.

The BJP and JDS are spreading misinformation that this sale was under the land grant rules, but this shows that the sale was legal, the chief minister said.

On April 10, 1993, Lingas family members wrote to the government, stating that they had no objection to the khata being transferred to J Devaraju, the third son. The signatories included Lingas eldest son Mallayah, Puttagowramma (widow of the second son Mairalayya), and Manjunatha Swamy, another family member.

In 1997, the land was de-notified after a three-member panel headed by the then Principal Secretary Revenue V Balasubramanian determined there was no plan for a water supply scheme at the end of the layout. The committee dropped 19 such proposals for de-notification. Six years later, Siddaramaiahs brother-in-law, BM Mallikarjun Swamy, purchased this de-notified land from Devaraju on August 25, 2004, which was registered as per the law. On October 6, 2010, Mallikarjuna Swamy gifted this land to his sister Parvathi, who is Siddaramaiahs wife.

What is illegal about this? Siddaramaiah asked.

In 2014, Parvathi discovered that her land had been illegally acquired by MUDA, converted into sites, and sold.

Is there any illegality in this? Siddaramaiah questioned again. He added that his wife had filed an application with MUDA for alternate sites as her land was illegally acquired.

I told my wife that as long as I am chief minister, this application will not be entertained. I also informed MUDA not to consider her application, he said.

Didnt Ask for Developed Land: CM

In a similar instance of illegal acquisition by MUDA, one Sundaramma went to the Karnataka High Court and sought alternative land. The Karnataka HC directed MUDA to provide alternative sites for the entire 2.17 acres that had been illegally acquired by the authority.

We did not ask for any developed area to be given to us. As per the 50:50 formula ordered by the high court, MUDA itself passed a resolution stating that it was a mistake on its part to acquire the property without informing the landowners. At that time, the chairman of MUDA belonged to the BJP. MUDA acquired 3.16 acres or 1,48,000 square feet of land, and what was given as per the 50:50 formula of MUDA was 38,284 square feet. Under a similar formula, a total of 1,328 sites were given in the Vijayanagar layout. Parvathi received 14 sites, the CM said.

The issue of illegal encroachment was discussed in a MUDA meeting on December 7, 2020, in which JDS leader GT Deve Gowda, BJPs SA Ramadas, L Nagendra, and Congress leader Sandesh Nagaraj were present, he pointed out.

He also mentioned that the BJP urban development minister at the time, BN Bacchegowda, had reviewed the issue and observed that the final notification for land acquisition was issued before August 20, 1997. Additionally, the Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) had passed a resolution on July 24, 1997, to abandon the proposal for land acquisition. MUDA discontinued the acquisition of 235.30 acres of land across 13 different layouts since 1984, he pointed out.

The chief minister also said he had met with Karnataka Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot on the matter and had sought a report from him. The CM said he has sent the report and informed the Governor that everything is legal and that the BJP and the JDS were spreading lies.

All these documents will be submitted to the Justice PN Desai Commission of Inquiry, which we ordered on July 14, Siddaramaiah said.

Politics of Protest

Karnatakas BJP members protested in the Parliament premises, alleging corruption in MUDA and the Valmiki Development Corporation illegal money transfer scam. The BJP and JDS have been pressuring Siddaramaiah to step down from his post in the wake of the allegations.

MLAs from both parties staged an overnight dharna in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly and held day-long protests with song and dance to highlight their allegations of how corrupt the Congress government is. They have been calling for Siddaramaiahs resignation and a CBI investigation into the alleged scam, which they claim amounts to more than Rs 5,000 crore.

Karnataka MP and former chief minister Basavaraj Bommai said the Congress in Karnataka had misappropriated Rs 1,087 crore meant for the Valmiki Development Corporation, while former Congressman, now BJP MP, and another former Karnataka CM Jagadish Shettar accused Siddaramaiah of avoiding discussions about the issue in the assembly.

A complaint was also filed by social activist Snehamayi Krishna against Siddaramaiah and nine others, alleging forgery of documents to claim compensation from MUDA. In the complaint letter, he accused Siddaramaiah, his wife Parvathy, brother-in-law Malikarjuna Swamy Devaraj, who claimed to be a landowner, and his family of wrongdoing and fraudulent activities by creating fake documents to obtain plots worth crores of rupees.

Lashing out at BJP MPs who were protesting in front of Parliament on Friday, Siddaramaiah said: A non-issue is being made into an issue by protesting in front of Parliament. Did they protest when the state was completely ignored in so many budgets that were presented or even raised it in the debates in the Parliament?

He said the BJP MPs did nothing for five years when they were 25 in number, and now that they are 18, they are still not prepared to raise issues related to the welfare of Karnataka.

Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar said the Congress in Karnataka will embark on a padyatra on issues affecting the state. We will expose the scams of the BJP every day. I am challenging Kumaraswamy, Basavaraj Bommai, and Jagadish Shettar to a public debate on this issue, Shivakumar said.
In the news again for his controversial remark on jailed MP Amritpal Singh, former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi has a penchant for making vexed statements that have made him the favourite punching bag of the BJP.

Destinys child Channi was foisted as the chief minister of Punjab in a surprise move in 2021 before the state elections, but he suffered the ignominy of his party not just losing those elections but both assembly seats he contested from despite being projected as the next CM face by the party. Channi then virtually disappeared from the scene for over a year, before making a dramatic return in these Lok Sabha elections by winning the Jalandhar parliamentary seat.

Channi first came on the BJPs target list after the incident involving Prime Minister Narendra Modis cavalcade getting stuck on a flyover in Punjab due to the farmer protests. Channi, then the CM, controversially made light of the matter and said there was neither any security lapse nor any attempt to attack the prime minister. However, a Punjab Police probe in the incident led to seven police officers being suspended. A Supreme Court-appointed committee also indicted several state police officers for lapses.

During the Lok Sabha elections this May, Channi termed the Poonch terror attack on an IAF convoy as a poll stunt, bringing him rebuke from no less than Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. His statement was later also determined to be a violation of the Model Code of Conduct.

These are all stunts, not attacks whenever elections are near, such stunts are performed to make the BJP win. There is no truth in it, he had claimed.

In Punjab, Channi has often projected the image of being a common man who came from modest roots and made his way to become the chief minister. In his election campaign in Jalandhar this year, he was often seeing mingling freely with locals and having tea at stalls. However, BJP MP Ravneet Singh Bittu in Parliament on Thursday said Channi was corrupt and among the richest in Punjab, hinting at the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probe against the ex-CMs family in a sand mining case.

By batting for Amritpal Singh, the MP from Khandoor Sahib  which is located next to Channis constituency of Jalandhar  the former chief minister could be trying to cater to the separatist sentiment prevalent in some regions of Punjab. His target is also the Bhagwant Mann government in Punjab that has clamped NSA on Amritpal Singh and pushed him behind bars in far-off Dibrugarh in Assam. The Congress has distanced itself from Channis latest remarks which have only given more political fodder to the BJP ahead of the upcoming three state elections.
Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar did not explicitly ask for a bifurcation of West Bengal but his appeal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to consider eight districts of the state as part of the Northeast gave a sense of which way the saffron party was moving. Meanwhile, another BJP MP, Nishikant Dubey, on Thursday demanded during Zero Hour in Parliament that parts of Jharkhand and West Bengal be declared Union Territories, thus making an explicit demand for division of West Bengal.

Interestingly, the father of West Bengal, Syama Prasad Mookerjee, too had clamoured for a division of united Bengal in 1946. From then to 2024, the real reason hasnt changed much  imbalanced demography and instilling a sense of survival instinct among Hindus.

Dubey demanded that Malda and Murshidabad of Bengal and Araria, Kishanganj, Katihar and the Santhal Parganas of Jharkhand be declared a Union Territory, blaming the House he was speaking at for not worrying about it and pinning it on vote bank politics. His target was clear  an alleged increase in the Muslim population in these areas.

Interestingly, more than 75 years ago, Mookerjee demanded the partition of Bengal in 1946 to prevent the inclusion of its Hindu-majority areas in a Muslim-dominated East Pakistan  now known as Bangladesh. The premise of Mookerjee was simple  Hindu-dominated areas of Bengal, present-day West Bengal, must not be a part of the rest of Bengal  now Bangladesh  fearing religious atrocities on Hindus.

Mookerjee and Dubey both asked for division of Bengal and their reason remains eerily similar.

MOOKERJEE, BENGAL RIOTS & GOPAL PATHA

The year 1946 was more significant for Bengal than any other province. The Noakhali riots, which were a series of semi-organised massacres, rapes and abductions on Hindus in the districts of Noakhali in the Chittagong Division rocked Bengal. Around this time, the buzz about the creation of Pakistan based on religious lines came up. The riots deeply affected Mookerjee. He realised if this could happen in Muslim-dominated areas like Chittagong, unified Bengal joining East Pakistan would bring a similar fate for the Hindu-dominated portion of Bengal.

Another event the same year also left a mark on Mookerjee  the Great Calcutta Killings. Starting on August 16 in 1946, Calcutta (now Kolkata) saw unimaginable communal riots that lasted four days and claimed nearly 10,000 lives. The trigger was one  All-India Muslim Leagues call for Direct Action Day to ask for a separate Muslim homeland. But unlike in Noakhali, Calcutta was in a Hindu-dominated area which saw the emergence of Gopal Mukherjee  better known as Gopal Patha  who created a Hindu resistance and is said to have later refused to surrender arms even at the call of Mahatma Gandhi  known for his non-violent means.

Mookerjee was deeply affected by both events and, in his mind, he was now clear about what he wanted.

A meeting held by the Hindu Mahasabha  that he headed  on April 15, 1947, authorised him to proceed with the partition of Bengal. The very next month, he wrote to Lord Mountbatten that Bengal shall and must be partitioned even if India is not. He envisioned a Bengali Hindu homeland like Israel today.

Today, the TMC is accusing us of breaking West Bengal. Do they know that in the face of mass killings and people like Suhrawardy, it was Mookerjee who created West Bengal? Had he not been there to split Bengal, the West Bengal as we know today would be part of Bangladesh, said BJPs Rajya Sabha MP Samik Bhattacharya.

NISHIKANTS DEJA VU

Theres an uncanny way in which history repeats itself. Nearly eight decades after Mookerjee ensured Bengal is bifurcated, a BJP MP has asked for pretty much the same.

In a short but provocative speech in Parliament, Nishikant Dubey laid down some facts. The state I come from, when Santhal Pargana separated from Bihar and became a part of Jharkhand, in 2000 tribals formed 36 per cent of the population. Today, their population is 26 per cent. Where did 10 per cent of the tribals vanish? This House never worries about them, it indulges in vote bank politics. He blamed people from Malda and Murshidabad  two Bengal districts with a significant Muslim population  for riots in Pakurs Taranagar-Ilami and Dagapara.

Next came the reason in a more explicit way. There are 100 tribal mukhiyas in our area but their husbands are Muslims Riots broke out in Pakurs Taranagar-Ilami and Dagapara because people from Malda and Murshidabad were ousting our people and Hindu villages were going empty. This is a serious matter. I am saying this on record, I am ready to resign if what I am saying is incorrect, said Dubey, stirring a hornets nest with the focus on demographic change.

He claimed that Jharkhand Police is unable to act. Kishanganj, Araria, Katihar, Malda, and Murshidabad should be made a Union Territory, otherwise Hindus will disappear. Also, implement NRC, was his quick fix. Assam has undergone NRC to weed out illegal immigrants, particularly from neighbouring Bangladesh. Now, Dubey wants one in his proposed UT.

If nothing else, send a committee of the House there and implement the report of the Law Commission from 2010 that permission is essential for conversion and marriage, he concluded.

At the core of Dubeys argument lies the same issue that forced BJP ideologue Mookerjee to write a letter to Mountbatten asking to bifurcate Bengal  shielding the interests of Hindus in the face of an allegedly increasing and disproportionate Muslim population.

While the official Bengal BJP stand is against any further division of Bengal, Bhattacharya reminded of efforts to colonise India through infiltration. When it comes to allegedly changing demographies in border districts, there seems to be an agreement between Nishikant Dubey and Bhattacharya  both say it must stop now.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday responded to the Oppositions criticism of budget 2024 and stressed that no state has been denied anything. Opposition leaders had criticised that the Finance Ministers speech earlier this week mentioned only two states  Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, both ruled by key BJP allies.

In an interview with NDTV, Sitharaman said, States are receiving allocations as they have in the past no state has been denied anything. The Act (Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act) requires the centre to support (the state) in building its capital city and developing backward regions.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman On Fuel Prices

Speaking about the hike in fuel prices, the Finance Minister stated that Petrol and diesel could be taxed under GST (Goods and Services Tax) rather than VAT (Value Added Tax) if state governments agree to the proposal and fix a suitable rate.

If they fix the rate and all come together and decide that GST will include petroleum products, then we can implement it immediately, Sitharaman said.

At present, petrol and diesel prices vary from state to state because each has a different tax.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman On Debt

Sitharaman said fixing a number for the eventual fiscal deficit and working towards it with temporary solutions every year can be a step towards reducing debt, but it is not the right way from a macroeconomic perspective.

We have chosen a healthy option for getting the fiscal deficit closer to the number. Instead of looking at the number alone, it is also about the way you decide to get there. An obvious method for every country is to reduce debt, but borrowing is a must for a growing economy. The question is how much are you borrowing and where it is being used, the Finance Minister noted.
Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit responded on Friday to Chief Minister Bhagwant Manns dig at him for visiting the states border districts, and said he will not refrain from doing so even if the AAP leader feels bad.

The governor, who earlier had been at loggerheads with the chief minister over various issues, also asked Mann not to be afraid of him and stressed that there was no reason for the CM to be upset.

Mann had on Thursday hit out at Purohit, saying he should refrain from creating an atmosphere of conflict and instead inaugurate a seminar at a university.

Addressing the media here on Friday evening, Purohit spoke at length about his tours to the border districts of Pathankot, Amritsar, Ferozepur, Fazilka, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran.

He stressed that because of his visit, coordination between the police force and central agencies has improved which will help in their efforts to check smuggling of drugs and weapons from Pakistan.

Purohit also said village-level defence committees have been formed in border villages at his instance and he has also declared cash prizes for villages helping in the recovery of drones and drugs.

He reiterated the entire border area will be covered with an anti-drone system within a year.

Speaking to reporters in Jalandhar on Thursday, Mann said the governor holds a constitutional post and should fulfil his responsibility and we will fulfil ours.

He was reacting to Purohits visits to border districts and meetings with villagers and officials of the police and central agencies.

Replying to a question about it, Purohit said, Even if he feels bad about my visit, I will still go. The governor said, I meet all. I meet representatives of every party. I listen to them. There is no politics in me. On the issue being made out of his visits, Purohit said, Why does the chief minister need to be afraid of me? Why should the governor be a problem for anybody? Where do I interfere? The visits are my constitutional responsibility and it will happen, he said, adding it is his duty to take responsibility for national security matters.

Through you (media) I want to tell people that my intention is pure. There is no reason why the CM should be upset, Purohit said.

Asked about his resignation in February this year, he said it was not accepted by the Centre. To a question on the reason behind his resignation, the governor said, Maybe I thought the CM did not like me. Purohit had submitted his resignation to the President, citing personal reasons.

On Manns claim that the governor takes half of my government along during his visits to border areas, Purohit said only the chief secretary and the state police chief accompany him while the deputy commissioner and senior superintendent of police of the district concerned remain present at the spot.

Asked about his last years comment that he would not use the state governments helicopter anymore, the governor said, I travel by road it helps me understand Punjab better. About the issue of university vice chancellors appointment, the governor said he was the chancellor of the universities in the state.

Notably, a bill that seeks to replace the Punjab governor with the chief minister as the chancellor of state-run universities has been returned by the President without her assent.

Nobody is above the President in the country and what she says should be accepted, the Punjab governor said.

There were no regular vice-chancellors at 10 universities in Punjab. They (state government) did not do it (appointments), Purohit said during the media interaction.

He said as per UGC guidelines, a search committee, comprising experts and the nominees of the state government and the governor, is formed for the appointment of a vice-chancellor.

Out of the names suggested by the search committee, the governor, who is also the chancellor of state-run universities, selects the best candidate for the post of vice-chancellor, Purohit said.

He recalled that as the governor of Tamil Nadu, he had appointed 27 vice-chancellors and there was no issue over the appointments. If CM Mann has any doubt then he can ask his Tamil Nadu counterpart who is his friend, the Punjab governor said.

About Manns remarks that only elected representatives should take government-related decisions and not the selected ones, Purohit said, What is his perception? Who can deny that the public elected him? I am appointed by the President. The CM did not understand. He said it is not right (selection process of VCs). It is his perception that the governor should not remain the chancellor and the CM should be the chancellor, he said.

Purohit said the bill seeking to replace the Punjab governor with the chief minister as the chancellor of state-run universities was passed in the state assembly.

I neither support nor oppose the move of removing the governor from the post of chancellor. How could I make a decision about it? I had no alternative but to send it to the President of India. The president discussed it and returned it as rejected and said the current system should continue, Purohit said.

There is one request to the chief minister I have no grudge. Punjab should progress and work should be carried out following the constitution. Reacting to Manns barb that Purohit had lost elections thrice, the governor said he won elections five times and lost three times.

I do not care. I have seen defeat and victory. But it is not zero. It is 60 a per cent result, he added.
Amidst an ongoing session at the Rajya Sabha on Friday, Union agriculture minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told the members of the House that the government is still awaiting a report by a committee in regard to the minimum support prices (MSP) for farm produce. He further said that once the government receives the views on the matter, they will take a call.

Chouhan, who is also the former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh was giving a response to a question asked by Samajwadi Partys Ramji Lal Suman on whether the Centre will bring a law to provide a legal guarantee to MSPs.

Earlier, the MSP committee was set up by the government after a year-long agitation by farmers in 2020-21. The farmers demanded a law to make MSPs fixed.

Chouhan, while speaking at the Upper House said, The committee was formed with specific objectives. It is to ensure MSP for farmersalso, to give more autonomy to the commission for agricultural costs and prices and to improve marketing for higher price realisation.

Following his response, the Opposition protested against Chouhan, accusing him of dodging a straightforward question. However, the agriculture minister retorted while pointing out that the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh-led government had rejected the Swaminathan Commissions recommendation on MSPs offering 50% returns over costs of cultivation.

During the session, he also cited a cabinet note from and said that the Congress-led government had refused to implement the MSP suggestion.

On the Swaminathan reports recommendation that MSP should give 50% returns over costs, the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government clearly stated, and Im quoting Cabinet notes, that implementing this suggestion can create market distortions, he said.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh raised his dissent on Chouhans statements at the Rajya Sabha. Taking to his official, X account, Ramesh said that the minister  went round and round in order to avoid answering the question.

He said, Today in the Rajya Sabha, the Union Minister of Agriculture was asked a direct and straightforward question on whether the Government of India will introduce a legal guarantee for MSP as being demanded by farmer organisations.

For almost 30 minutes, he stonewalled and went round and round in order to avoid answering the question. Legal guarantee for MSP for rice, wheat, and other agri-produce was the issue. All that the Minister accomplished was delivering a jalebi, the Congress leader added.
Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) president Raj Thackeray, who offered his unconditional support to the states ruling Mahayuti alliance and Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the April-June Lok Sabha elections, has announced that he will contest 225 to 250 seats in the assembly polls expected around November.

Speaking with party workers in Mumbai on Friday, Thackeray asked them to start preparations for the polls. I want to see my MLAs sitting in the government, so start the preparations for the state assembly polls. Our teams will be conducting surveys in all constituencies, and we are aiming to fight 225 to 250 seats in the assembly polls, he said.

In the 2019 general elections, Raj Thackeray stood against the Bharatiya Janata Party and PM Modi, campaigning about how the then BJP government had not done anything for the people. Later, during the state assembly polls the same year, he was seen speaking in favour of the BJP and the Prime Minister.

In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the MNS didnt get a single seat in the Mahayuti but gave unconditional support to the alliance. Thackeray and other MNS leaders campaigned for Mahayuti candidates at various places in the state. Now, Raj Thackerays comment about contesting 225-250 seats out of the total 288 has raised eyebrows. It has also raised a question: will Raj Thackeray go solo in the polls?

When News18 spoke to MNS leader Sandeep Deshpande, he said, As of now, we are doing our preparations for the upcoming state polls. Mahayuti partners are yet to decide their formula for seat-sharing. When they call us for the seat-sharing meeting, we will see how and which seats we should demand. If they dont call us, then we have our study done of all seats in Maharashtra.

Starting on the first of August, Raj Thackeray will begin his Maharashtra tour. He will not only meet party workers and leaders but also prominent citizens to know what they expect from the party and what their demands are. Raj Thackeray is likely to start his Maharashtra tour from the Marathwada district. The MNS, which had netted only one seat in 2014 and 2019, is confident of a better performance this time.

We will be reaching out to the people and will take up their issues, which are real issues, such as unemployment, skill education, and farmers issues. We will not indulge in dirty and abusive politics like other parties. People have got fed up with these parties, and now they want a new option. MNS will give them that option in the upcoming assembly elections, said Deshpande.
Apple is bringing one of the useful parental features to the Indian market this week. Apple Watch for your kids is a feature that has helped parents stay connected to their kids in many countries, and now iPhone users in India can use the service.

To use this feature, all you need is an iPhone, Apple watch and access to the family group tool. You dont need to own the latest Apple Watch model to use this feature and the kids dont need to carry an iPhone while they go out.

Apple Watch For Your Kids In India  How It Works

Apple Watch for your kids lets the parents keep an eye out for their kids when they head to school, or anywhere outside. You can set up the Apple Watch for the kids without handing them an iPhone. You can pair it with a cellular Apple Watch model and monitor their movement, call them or message them from your iPhone which effectively manages the wearable on their wrist. When they are in the class, you can disable alerts and let them focus on their studies.

It also has an emergency SOS button to keep you informed of their situation. And yes, Find My is another handy tool to keep an eye out for the kids whereabouts. Having this feature ensures the Apple Watch can run for up to 14 hours of a day.

Apple Watch For Your Kids  How To Set Up

To use the kids-friendly tool, Apple requires you to have the Apple Watch Series 4/Watch SE or later models with LTE supported and running watchOS 7.0 or higher version. You need to sign up for the cellular plan for the Apple Watch and pair it with an iPhone 6s or later models.

The parents have all the power on the wrist of their kids, and they can even approve the apps and photos available to them on the Apple Watch. The kids will get their own Apple ID which will be linked to the iPhone.
The internet is full of crime stories that often go viral and leave viewers stunned. Adding to the list of such shocking and notorious stories, a fruit vendor from Bengaluru committed multiple two-wheeler thefts across the city to help his friends wife, who is a breast cancer survivor. As per a report by the Times of India, the fruit vendor-turned-thief is identified as Ashok. He was apprehended by the Girinagar Police for stealing two-wheelers recently.

During the police investigation, Ashok revealed an unexpected motive behind his crimes. The Bengaluru Police revealed that the bike thief used all the money from his crimes to finance the cancer treatment of his friends wife, who worked at a telecom services provider company.

The 33-year-old accused from Soladevanahalli called it an act of gratitude as the couple gave shelter to the accused at a time when his wife deserted him a few months ago due to his involvement in crimes.

Ashok was arrested along with Satish alias Sathya, a resident of Byadarahalli. A team headed by sub-inspector Manjunath KD zeroed in on the duo while investigating the theft of a bike (Bajaj Pulsar 220) on July 26. The bike belonged to Nikhil ER, a software engineer from Giri Nagar II Phase near Shakthi Ganapathi temple.

The media outlet further reported that the bike thiefs primary targets were Pulsar and KTM motorcycles. While Ashok is involved in 15 criminal cases and was released from jail a month ago, his 40-year-old partner Satish has over 40 cases, including serious offences like murder, robbery, chain snatching, and thefts. Both were apprehended, and the cops have seized a total of eight bikes from them as of now, which is worth around Rs 10.7 lakh. Satish and Ashok stashed the stolen bikes in an empty place near Byadarahalli while they looked for prospective buyers.

Upon further questioning, the duo also revealed that they committed crimes during the night by breaking into locked houses and stealing two-wheelers.

Another shocking incident unfolded in Rajasthan after a villager from Balotra committed half a dozen crimes to prove himself alive. The criminal, identified as Baburam Bhil, had received a death certificate for his name, and after that, he tried a lot to get it corrected. But when nothing worked, he chose a different path to prove himself alive in the eyes of the law. He started carrying a petrol bottle and knives in the Chuli Bera Dharana School of Balotra district to spread terror a few days ago. He also attacked two teachers and a parent with deadly weapons. His bizarre technique worked, and the accused is now in the news across the state.
A strange group of thieves is on the prowl in Uttar Pradeshs Noida, terrorising the residents with its unusual burglary methods. The gang has broken into several homes, but instead of rushing to steal valuables, they first head to the kitchen and cook pakoras.

Not just that, they also enjoy whatever food they find in the fridge, and take time to relax inside the homes they target. Following a similar tactic, the pakoda gang recently looted a resident of Sector 25, from where they ran away with jewellery worth Rs 3 lakh.

According to The Indian Express, the Gang doesnt just cook and rest, they also take beedis, drink water and chew paan, which they spit in the victims bathroom. Following numerous such incidents, the police have launched an investigation, while Deputy Superintendent of Police Hridesh Katheria has set up a special task force to catch the thieves. Shockingly, the gang managed to rob six homes in a single day. Due to the increasing number of cases, locals are taking precautions by locking their doors and staying inside out of fear.

In Sector 82, the thieves stole cash, jewellery and valuable items worth Rs 40 Lakh, India Today reported. The thieves targeted a house while the owner was in Madhya Pradesh with his entire family. Reportedly, they quietly broke the lock, made pakodas in the kitchen and left the house with the stolen goods. When the owner finally returned, he found used tissue papers left behind. The gang followed the same pattern and targeted more houses in the same sector where residents were away for long periods.

Interestingly, their tactics seem like they were inspired by Vijay Sethupathis latest movie Maharaja, where the character, played by Anurag Kashyap, prepares and eats a delicious meal before robbing the owners.

In an earlier bizarre incident, a burglar in Lucknow was caught sleeping at the crime scene. The man, who was intoxicated, broke into Dr Sunil Pandeys house while the owner was in Varanasi for work. While the intention of the thief was to steal valuable items, he noticed the air conditioner, turned it on and fell asleep on the living room floor. Later, when the neighbours noticed the front gate was open, they immediately alerted both Pandey and the police. When the cops arrived, they found the burglar peacefully asleep.
Dr Gordon Reid MP says the issue of decaying roads on the NSW Central Coast is on locals' minds as much as the cost-of-living crisis.

Dr Gordon Reid MP is calling for action over the state of decaying roads on the NSW Central Coast. Source: Supplied

Every Friday Dr Gordon Reid puts on his boots and hits the ground, knocking on the doors of dozens of homes on the ever-expanding NSW Central Coast. From bin collection dilemmas to climate-change concerns, the Labor MP for Robertson, which includes Gosford, Woy Woy, and Terrigal, says he sees it all.

However, there remains one major gripe among locals  the numerous hazardous roads.

Like many places across the country, cost of living is front and centre of peoples minds, but on the Central Coast, and what makes it a bit unique here, is that almost equal to cost of living is the state of our local road network, Reid told Yahoo News Australia.

Primarily local government roads as opposed to state roads its one of the most talked about issues.

Shocking images of roads riddled with potholes

Shocking images snapped by the politician while doing his rounds show several suburban streets with massive potholes.

You may think this road belongs in a developing country but alas this is Albion Street, Ettalong Beach, he posted online earlier this month while calling on the Central Coast Council to repair the road network which is used by a large commuter population.

Looks like a bomb has been dropped on it, one horrified Aussie commented.

The decaying streets have become such a problem locals are taking to drawing circles around craters in the bitumen to warn other drivers. While residents are concerned about potholes and the damage caused to their cars, theyve also noticed a change with the actual road base itself, Reid said.

When theyre resealed, theres a difference between what they are now and what they used to be  theyre a lot more brittle and fragile. So when the road gets resealed, it rains, heavy vehicles go across those roads, and the roads are back to where they started, he told Yahoo.

People are very frustrated that their car has to be roadworthy, but the road doesnt have to be roadworthy.

Dr Reid first became aware of the extent of the issue while campaigning for the 2022 Federal Election, which led to him securing $40 million in funding for the Central Coast Council. Source: Supplied

MP urges council to speed up road repairs

Dr Reid said he first became aware of the extent of the issue while campaigning for the 2022 Federal Election, which led to him securing $40 million in funding for the council to repair local roads.

While it has started to put the hefty chunk of change towards the worst roads in the region, the speed of the uptake leaves something to be desired, he added.

Theyre really, really slow, and people dont have the time or the energy or the funds to repair their car. Its now just up to the council to, you know, pull their sleeves up and get the job done, Dr Reid urged.

The federal government is also providing the governing body  which was appointed as administrator after all councillors were terminated two years ago  with $24.3 million under the Roads to Recovery Program. Yahoo News has contacted Central Coast Council for comment.

$1 billion per year deficit in local road repair funding

The Roads to Recovery Programs new five-year funding period began on July 1 and will provide $4.4 billion to more than 500 local governments across Australia.

According to the Australian Local Government Associations 2024-25 pre-budget submission, the country's 537 councils maintain more than 75 per cent of the nations local roads while collecting less than four per cent of national taxation.

This limits our capacity to maintain these roads to an acceptable standard, and independent research published by the Grattan Institute in 2023 identified a $1 billion per year deficit in local road maintenance funding, it states.

In November 2023, the Albanese Government announced Roads to Recovery funding will rise gradually from $500 million to $1 billion per year by 2027-28.

Do you have a story tip? Email: newsroomau@yahoonews.com.

You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
Carrying one tray of heavy food can be challenging, but a new viral video showcases a waiter expertly balancing two heavy trays at once. In the undated clip, the waiter squats to pick up both trays, placing one on his shoulder while holding the other in his opposite hand without any additional support. The skilled waiter then walks a considerable distance through the restaurant, even climbing stairs, to deliver the food to his table. This impressive display highlights not only his balancing skills but also his strength.

This clip has gathered over 3 lakh likes on Instagram. It is unclear in which restaurant the video was taken, however, the video caption mentions the hashtag Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. In the comments, many people praised the waiter for his skill set but many others argued that it was unnecessary and dangerous to carry two heavy trays at once.

An Instagram user commented on it, Im not in that much of a hurry to get my food, slow it down bruh, get some help. Another person speculated the video was made just for the camera and remarked, Amazing but totally unnecessary. But most likely just for the camera.

Praising the waiter, an Instagram user commented, The waiter is absolutely amazing. How he manages to lift two trays full of meals is incredible. I hope that he is tipped well.

Many people pointed out that doing this gruelling task every day can harm ones health. Some even deemed it abusive. Making this point, an X user opined, Good job, man! Thats amazing, but it shouldnt be celebrated. Your bosses should ensure you have support and help. Im sorry they dont.

Some people also shared how they were anxious while watching the video as they feared the waiter might trip. Amazing featbut I was at the edge of my seat, waiting for the jump scare when someone ran into him or he tripped! one comment said. Thats just an accident waiting to happen. Someone can wait for their food. Or you can call hands. Thats not smart, said another one.

A former waiter recalled, I used to do tray service, something you cant find anywhere anymore..we used to use one hand over our head with the tray, never did two at a time tho, Im impressed.
Santokh Singh Khela, the mastermind behind the AI 112 bombing plot, was seen outside a gurdwara in Canada, distributing pamphlets and asking people to attend the July 28 referendum at Calgary City Hall, according to a video exclusively accessed by News18.

Khela was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for the conspiracy to commit mass murder by blowing up Air India (AI) flight 112, which originated at the JFK airport in the US. The sentence was later overturned. Khela is also the organiser for the Khalistan referendum being conducted by Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) at Dashmesh Gurdwara. SFJ is a banned pro-Khalistan group led by terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun.

Another concern is the venue. Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek has close ties to the Dashmesh Gurdwara. Her father was an executive of the most influential Khalistani organization in the world: The World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO). She has also attended events of Dashmesh Gurdwara where Khalistani Babbar Khalsa terrorists were glorified as martyrs.

According to top intelligence sources, Calgary mayors support has turned Calgary, Alberta, into a preferred city for foreign organisations seeking to glorify terrorists and terrorism. The July 28 event is going to be dedicated to Talwinder Singh Parmar, the co-conspirator of Air India Bombings.

Sources said: Calgary Mayor, World Sikh Organisation, Sikhs For Justice and Pakistans Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) are linked. Whatever Canadian PM Justin Trudeau says, his government is promoting these kind of anti-India sentiments and not taking action against anyone. Now Trudeau should reply why Khela was distributing pamphlets for the July 28 Referendum event.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive Saturday in Laos, where he will meet his Chinese counterpart at a regional conference and work to reinforce Washingtons ties with its allies.

The top US diplomat is due to meet Chinas Wang Yi on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers talks being held in Vientiane.

Blinken has prioritised promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific  a thinly veiled criticism of Chinas regional economic, strategic and territorial ambitions.

But he arrives two days after the foreign ministers of China and Russia met with those from the 10-nation ASEAN bloc  and each other on the sidelines of the summit.

Wang and Sergei Lavrov had discussed a new security architecture in Eurasia, according to Moscows foreign ministry.

The pair also agreed to jointly counter any attempts by extra-regional forces to interfere in Southeast Asian affairs, it said.

China has a strong political and economic partnership with Russia, with NATO members labelling Beijing as a key facilitator of Moscows involvement in the war in Ukraine.

Wang and Blinken would exchange views on issues of common concern, Chinas foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Friday.

Blinken is expected to discuss the importance of adherence to international law in the South China Sea at the ASEAN talks, according to the US State Department.

Rising Tensions

The talks come amid rising tensions between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea, where a series of clashes have taken place in recent months between Philippine and Chinese vessels at flashpoint reefs.

Beijing claims the waterway  through which trillions of dollars of trade passes annually  almost in its entirety despite an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

A Filipino sailor lost a thumb in a June 17 confrontation when Chinese coast guard members wielding knives, sticks and an axe foiled a Philippine Navy attempt to resupply its troops on a remote outpost.

China lashed out earlier this year after Blinken said that Washington was ready to defend the Philippines if its forces, ships or aircraft came under attack in the South China Sea.

Beijing has insisted that the United States has no right to interfere in the South China Sea.

The two countries also remain at loggerheads over trade, human rights and the status of the self-ruled island of Taiwan.

Blinken is scheduled to travel to Hanoi on Saturday to extend US condolences to Vietnamese officials after the passing of communist leader Nguyen Phu Trong.

The trip will see him visit six countries  Vietnam, Laos, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia.

ASEAN ministers are expected to issue a joint communique at the end of their three-day meeting.

One diplomatic source said the statement is being held up by lack of consensus over the wording of paragraphs on the Myanmar conflict and disputes in the South China Sea.

Myanmars junta has been banned from high-level ASEAN summits over its 2021 coup and crackdown on dissent but has sent two bureaucrats to represent it at the Laos talks.
A 32-year-old Indian national has been sentenced in a federal court to 12 years in jail for attempting to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, a US Attorney said Thursday.

Upendra Aduru, an Indian national in the US on a student visa, was found to have communicated through social media with a detective pretending to be a thirteen-year-old girl, according to court information.

An Indian national has been sentenced in federal court to 12 years in jail and 10 years supervised release on his conviction of attempting to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual activity, United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan announced today. United States District Judge Susan Paradise Baxter imposed the sentence on Upendra Aduru, 32, the US Justice Department said in a statement.

During the communication, Aduru repeatedly expressed his desire to engage in sexual activity with the purported thirteen-year-old and even sent the undercover detective several images of adult pornography.

Aduru also repeatedly sought to meet with the girl and eventually travelled to a park in Millcreek Township after setting up a meeting with the girl. The Indian national was arrested after his arrival and a search of his phone revealed the social media communications between him and the undercover detective.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, the US State Department said.
US Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington on Thursday to discuss the release of American hostages and a potential ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel.

In her remarks following the meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, Harris emphasised the urgent need to accept the ceasefire deal that would stop the ongoing conflict in Gaza and release American hostages kidnapped during Hamas October 7 attack on Israel, which triggered the war.

I have met with the families of these hostages multiple times now and I have told them each time that they are not alone and I stand with them. President Biden and I are working every day to bring them home, Harris said in her speech.

Harris also voiced her concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, noting the severe impact on innocent civilians. I expressed with the PM a serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians. I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there, with over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity.

VP: What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies pic.twitter.com/SOlgMaOJAf Acyn (@Acyn) July 25, 2024

She described the devastation in Gaza over the past nine months, mentioning the tragic images of dead children and desperate people fleeing for safety, often displaced multiple times. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she added.

The vice president also urged Americans to remember that the war in Gaza is not a binary issue. She highlighted the complexity and nuance of the regions history and called for a more informed and empathetic discourse. Too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but. So I ask my fellow Americans to help encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Harris called on everyone to condemn terrorism, violence, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and hate of any kind. She stressed the need to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians and to work towards unity. Let us work to unite our country, she concluded.

The Israeli prime minister had an earlier meeting with US President Joe Biden, where the president reiterated his calls for Israel and Hamas to quickly agree to a ceasefire deal that would bring hostages home.

Meanwhile, Harris meeting with Netanyahu comes days after the president Biden ended his bid for re-election and endorsed her to run his place.

The meeting between Harris and Netanyahu is seen as a pivotal moment in the ongoing efforts to resolve the conflict between Israel and Hamas and to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Democrat presidential nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday promised reproductive freedoms in the United States when she assumes office. As President, when Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, I will sign it into law, Kamala said in an X post.

As President, when Congress passes a law to restore reproductive freedoms, I will sign it into law. Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 26, 2024

Earlier in the day, Harriss surprise bid against Republican rival Donald Trump gained support from former US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle.

We called to say Michelle (wife) and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office, Obama told Harris in a short video showing a phone call between the two.

I am proud of you. This is going to be historic, the former first lady told Harris. Talking into a cell phone and cracking a few smiles, Harris expressed her gratitude for the endorsement and their long friendship. Thank you both. It means so much. And were gonna have some fun with this too, Harris said.

US President Joe Biden on Sunday ended his reelection campaign and backed Harris candidature for the President. He said in a letter posted on X that he would remain in office until the end of his term and address the country later this week on his decision.

And while it has been my intention to see reelection, I believe 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, he stated.
Two top leaders of Mexicos Sinaloa drug cartel, including its co-founder Ismael Zambada Garcia, were arrested on Thursday in Texas, the US Department of Justice said.

Ismael Zambada Garcia, or El Mayo, cofounder of the Cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of its other cofounder, were arrested today in El Paso, Texas, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement, calling the cartel one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

The pair face multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks, Garland said. The arrests are another major blow to the Sinaloa cartel, whose founder Joaquin El Chapo Guzman is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in the United States.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Statement on Arrests of Alleged Leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel Ismael Zambada Garcia (El Mayo) and Joaquin Guzman Lopez: https://t.co/LumvDMKx2F pic.twitter.com/Wcm20MLrhC  U.S. Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) July 26, 2024

El Chapo

El Chapo was convicted in 2019 of running what was believed to be the worlds biggest narcotics syndicate. The cartel, which was born in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, is one of Mexicos most powerful and violent criminal groups. After El Chapos capture, several of his sons, collectively known as the Chapitos or The Little Chapos, inherited control of the organization, according to the US authorities.

One son, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was extradited to the United States last year to face narcotics charges. Zambada, who co-founded the cartel, is described by the InSight Crime think tank as one of the most storied drug traffickers in Mexican history. It said the cartel has forged connections at the highest levels of Mexicos federal police and military, and has bribed members of both institutions to maintain an advantage over rival organizations.

The 76-year-old Zambada is believed to have never served time in prison, and US authorities have been after him for decades. He is known primarily for maintaining a low profile and a focus on business over violence. In addition, he is one of the few old-guard bosses who has managed to evade justice throughout his criminal career, InSight Crime said before his detention.

$15 million reward

The United States had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest. Victims of the cartels ultra-violent turf wars include rival gang members, security personnel and journalists, who are among more than 450,000 people murdered since the government launched a military offensive against drug cartels in 2006.

The United States saw more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fentanyl accounted for about 70 percent of them. The US government says fentanyl is often made from products sourced in China, and then is smuggled across the border from Mexico by drug traffickers, especially the Sinaloa cartel.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, Garland added in his statement. The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.

(With agency inputs)
Ella Emhoff, the stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris, has responded to a derogatory comment made by JD Vance, the running mate of Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Ella is the daughter of Harriss husband Doug Emhoff and his first wife Kerstin Mackin. In a 2021 interview, Trumps VP pick Vance called Harris a childless cat lady. This remark resurfaced recently after President Joe Biden endorsed Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Ella Defending Kamala

Emhoff, 25, who refers to Kamala as Momala, swiftly defended the US Vice President on her Instagram Stories, writing, How can you be childless when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I? She added, I love my three parents.

Kerstin Emhoff, Ellas mother, also spoke out against Vances attacks on Harris, calling them baseless. In a statement to NBC News, she described Harris as loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present, adding, I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.

Ella, the daughter of Douglas Emhoff and Kerstin Emhoff, has been close to Harris since her father married her in 2014. Emhoff, a fashion student at Parsons, has gained international attention for her bold style and collaborations with top brands like Miu Miu, Balenciaga, and Louis Vuitton.

Ella recently faced controversy when she posted a link to a fundraiser for UNRWA, an organisation aiding Palestinian refugees, which led to backlash from UN Watch. Harriss campaign has seen a surge in support since Bidens endorsement, with her fundraising efforts raising over $126 million in just a few days.

The pro-Palestinian campaign has also seen a significant increase in volunteer sign-ups, with more than 100,000 individuals expressing interest in supporting Harriss bid for the presidency.
The split in the Democratic Party left when President Biden dropped out of the race, a new poll has found, making the reconfigured presidential race a virtual tie. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll has Donald Trump leading Kamala Harris, 48% to 47% among likely voters in a head-to-head match. Early this month, the same poll had found President Biden down 6 percentage points to Trump after their debate, the New York Times reports. The Democratic improvement can be attributed to the party's consolidation behind Harris; she now matches the level of Trump's in-party support, at 93%.

Almost four in five Democrats or voters who lean Democratic want Harris to be their nominee. Three weeks ago, just 48% of Democrats said they wanted their nominee to be Biden. And 70% of Democratic voters want the party to join forces quickly behind Harris, rather than conduct a longer, more competitive process to choose a nominee. There's other movement in the poll, the Times' Nate Cohn writes: Favorability ratings are up for Trump and Harris. Trump's is at a high point in this poll, 48%. He's always been between 39% and 45%. Harris' has jumped even more. She was at 36% in February, the last time the Times/Siena poll asked about her. Harris is at 46% now. Poll data can be found here. (More Kamala Harris 2024 stories.)
Two top leaders of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel were arrested in Texas by US federal agents after apparently being tricked into flying there from Mexico. One of them, 76-year-old Ismael Zambada Garcia, is described by the BBC as "arguably the biggest drug lord in the world." "El Mayo," as he's known, co-founded the cartel with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in the 1980s and was believed by some to be the true leader of the criminal organization. The second, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, is the son of El Chapo, who has been in US custody since 2017 and was sentenced to life in prison in 2019. The US government has been pursuing El Mayo for years, and the federal indictments in which he's charged date back more than 20 years, the New York Times reports.
Prince Harry says he refuses to bring his wife, Meghan Markle, to the UK because he does not believe she is safe there. "It's still dangerous," the Duke of Sussex tells ITV's Tabloids on Trial. "All it takes is one lone actor, one person ... to act on what they have read," he says, referring to negative press reports about his family. "And whether it's a knife or acid, whatever it is, and these are things that are of genuine concern for me. It's one of the reasons why I won't bring my wife back to this country."

A former head of counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police previously revealed there were genuine threats to Markle's life when she lived in the UK, per People. She had been subject to intense media scrutiny and what some argued was racist reporting. Prince Harry has said security concerns were the primary reason the couple chose to step back from royal duties and leave the UK, eventually settling in California in 2020. The Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures then removed their automatic right to UK police security.

A High Court judge rejected Harry's offer to cover the costs of security, though the Duke of Sussex plans to appeal the decision. He's argued his family cannot "feel at home" in his native country "if there is no possibility to keep them safe when they are on UK soil."

The Duchess of Sussex has returned to the UK only a handful of times, most recently for events marking the death of Queen Elizabeth in September 2022. The couple's two childrenPrince Archie, 5, and Princess Lilibet, 3were last in the UK in June of that year.

story continues below

Harry also speaks about how his efforts to expose phone hacking by the press contributed to the rift with his family in the documentary. He says he was disappointed the royal family didn't join his fight, though he believes he has the support of the late Queen Elizabeth. "We had many conversations before she passed," he tells ITV, per People. "This is very much something she supported, she knew how much this meant to me," he adds. "She is up there going, 'See this through to the end,' without question." (More Prince Harry stories.)
A man who was arrested for trying to smuggle ketamine into the US from Europe through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was arrested again in the same week for trying to smuggle the drug in the other direction, US Customs and Border Protection says. In a news release , the agency says the 43-year-old US citizen was arrested on July 14 after he arrived on a flight from Amsterdam and officers found 12 pounds of ketamine in both liquid and powdered form, nearly two pounds of codeine, and almost two ounces of Gamma Hydroxybutyrate, better known as GHB, in his luggage.

The drug were seized and the man was turned over to the Port of Seattle Police Department, UPI reports. But within days, the man posted bail and was arrested again at the same airport. CBP says officers found more than half a pound of ketamine in his checked luggage after he tried to board a flight to London. He has been charged with possession with the intent to distribute ketamine. CBP officers "work diligently to keep dangerous drugs from the streets of our community" and also work to "prevent persons from taking dangerous drugs out of the United States, thus stopping a threat to other countries," Brian Humphrey, director of field operations at the agency's Seattle office, said in a statement. (More Customs and Border Protection stories.)
NASA says astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore aren't stranded in space, they're just not sure when they can bring them home. The astronauts arrived at the International Space Station on June 6 in Boeing's much-delayed Starliner spacecraft, and what was supposed to be an eight-day visit is now in its 51st day, the Washington Post reports. NASA said Thursday that it is still working to understand issues with the spacecraft's thrusters and propulsion system but progress is being made.

Keeping busy. The Post reports that retired Navy captains Wilmore, 61, and Williams, 58, have stayed very busy during the extended stay with the other seven astronauts on the ISS. They have been working on scientific studies as well as the many chores involved in space station life. Williams says their tasks have included "maintenance that has been waiting for a little whilestuff that's been on the books for a little bit."
The French rail system regularly is attacked, experts said, but not at the scale and coordination level at which it was struck by saboteurs on Fridayhours before the Olympics officially began in Paris . "Critical points were targeted, which shows that they knew enough about the network to know where to strike," Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said. Fires were set just before two-way splits in the high-speed system's tracks, the New York Times reports, so that both branches would be affected. "The locations were particularly chosen to have more serious consequences," Jean-Pierre Farandou, the president of the national rail company said.

Three of the four high-speed routes leading from Paris were affected, per the BBC. The SNCF system has about 17,400 miles of track, much of it in rural areas, used by 15,000 trains daily. That's too big to guard around the clock, analysts said. A consultant said that the signal stations and cables targeted are often guarded by alarms, cameras, fencing, and barbed wire. "Railway networks are particularly open," Arnaud Ayme said. They can be damaged by a fallen tree, a lightning strike on an electrical substation, or a malicious act, he said.

No injuries were reported. A lawmaker said the attacks apparently were carried out as "a political action against the government and to damage the image of the country." The prosecutors beginning their criminal investigation said it's too early to know a motive, though they said they don't doubt that the fires were set, per the Times. Disrupting Paris' commuter lines would have more directly damaged the Olympics, experts said. As it is, the lawmaker reported that people are "mostly really bothered and annoyed" at the interruption to their travel. (More 2024 Paris Olympics stories.)
A tanker plane that disappeared in eastern Oregon while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states has been found, and the pilot on board is dead, authorities said Friday. A local search and rescue team located the aircraft Friday morning, said a Bureau of Land Management information officer. The pilot was the only person on board. The single-engine tanker, a small and nimble plane that looks like a crop duster, was located in steep, forested terrain, the AP reports. The plane was battling the Falls Fire near the town of Seneca on the edge of the Malheur National Forest. The blaze has grown to 219 square miles and is 55% contained, the government website InciWeb shows.

Climate change is increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures recording-breaking heat and bone-dry conditions. Overall, more than 1,500 square miles burned this summer in the US Pacific Northwest, and more wildfires have spread in western Canada, filling the skies with smoke and haze. In California, more than 130 structures have been destroyed and thousands more are threatened by the state's largest active wildfire. The Park Fire started Wednesday, officials said, when a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico. By Friday morning, per the AP, the fire was completely uncontained after burning more than 257 square miles across the Sierra Nevada foothills above the city of 100,000.

About 4,000 residents in unincorporated areas of Butte County and 400 residents of Chico were ordered to evacuate, the sheriff said. "The fire quickly began to outpace our resources because of the dry fuels, the hot weather, the low humidities and the wind," Butte County Fire Chief Garrett Sjolund said. The Park Fire was burning to the northwest of Paradise, the community where in 2018 the notorious Camp Fire killed 85 people and incinerated thousands of homes, becoming California's deadliest and most destructive wildfire. Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said he wanted "to express regret and frustration by the fact that we are here once again."

(More wildfires stories.)
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On July 26, Honda Motor announced via its WeChat account the plans to optimize production capacity and accelerate its transition to electrification in China.

Currently, Honda China operates seven automobile production lines with a total annual capacity of 1.49 million vehicles. As part of the optimization plan, GAC Honda will close its fourth production line, which has an annual capacity of 50,000 units, by October 2024. Dongfeng Honda will suspend operations of its second production line, with an annual capacity of 240,000 units, by November 2024. These adjustments will reduce Honda's total annual production capacity in China from 1.49 million units to 1.2 million units.

In parallel, Honda Motor is expediting its electrification efforts in China. A new EV (electric vehicle) plant under Dongfeng Honda is scheduled to start production in September 2024, followed by the operation commencement of a new NEV (new energy vehicle) factory by GAC Honda in November 2024.

S7, GT CONCEPT, P7; photo credit: Honda China

Honda Motor has been actively advancing in the EV sector this year. On April 16, Honda unveiled the (ye) Series ("Ye Series"), an all-new EV series specifically introduced to the Chinese market, involving the world premiere of the first set of the Ye Series models, namely  (ye) P7 ("Ye P7") and  (ye) S7 ("Ye S7"), as well as the concept model for the second set of series models, the (ye) GT CONCEPT ("Ye GT CONCEPT").

Honda said it was planning to launch a total of six the Ye Series models in China by 2027.
Info-Tech Research Group has announced AWS's Go-to-Market Director, Rory Richardson, as a keynote speaker for Info-Tech LIVE 2024. At the annual IT conference for CIOs and industry experts, set for September 17-19 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Richardson will address the transformative impact of generative AI on developer tools and cloud technologies, as well as offer insights on driving innovation and enhancing operational efficiency.

TORONTO, July 25, 2024 /CNW/ - As cloud development continues to evolve, organizations are increasingly seeking innovative strategies to remain competitive and foster growth. To address this need, Info-Tech Research Group has announced that Rory Richardson, Director of Next Generation Developer Experience and GTM for generative AI at AWS, will be a keynote speaker at its annual IT conference, Info-Tech LIVE 2024. With over a decade of experience at AWS, Richardson has been at the forefront of introducing cutting-edge technologies, including non-relational databases and serverless computing solutions.

Info-Tech Research Group has announced AWSs Go-To-Market Director, Rory Richardson, as a keynote speaker for the Info-Tech LIVE 2024 conference in September. (CNW Group/Info-Tech Research Group)

"Generative AI, one of the main catalysts for the broader Exponential IT transformation, is redefining cloud development by balancing innovation and efficiency. These advancements enable more robust, scalable, and adaptive development solutions, allowing organizations to accelerate their digital initiatives and obtain a competitive edge," says Info-Tech Research Group's Chief Research Officer, Gord Harrison. "This is why we are pleased to have Rory Richardson, a visionary leader in cloud development from Amazon AWS, join us at Info-Tech LIVE 2024 to share her expertise on leveraging generative AI to enhance developer experiences and drive operational excellence."

Richardson has played a pivotal role in shaping the future of cloud development at AWS. Her leadership in go-to-market strategies has empowered developers to push the boundaries of what's possible in the cloud. Driven by a passion for innovation, Richardson's current focus lies in leveraging generative AI to revolutionize developer tools, enabling more efficient and creative development processes.

In her keynote address, Richardson will delve into the transformative power of generative AI and its potential to redefine developer experiences. Attendees will gain valuable insights into how new cloud capabilities can be harnessed to drive innovation, expand development possibilities, and maintain a competitive edge in the rapidly evolving technology landscape.

Set to take place at the Bellagio in Las Vegas from September 17 to 19, Info-Tech LIVE 2024 will be a vital event for the IT industry. This annual conference hosted by the global research and advisory firm will bring together over 2,000 IT executives, thought leaders, industry analysts, and technology experts. Those in attendance will benefit from strategic insights, timely and actionable research findings, and unparalleled networking opportunities. As part of the 2024 conference theme, "Exponential IT in Motion," attendees will explore innovative approaches to navigating modern business complexities and advancing organizational innovation and efficiency.

To secure a spot for Info-Tech Research Group's annual IT conference, register at Info-Tech LIVE 2024.

Updates and new details about speakers, agendas, and exclusive event experiences can be found via LinkedIn and X over the coming weeks.

Other Recent Speaker Announcements for 2024

Media Passes for Info-Tech LIVE 2024

Taking place September 17-19, 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 cover the insights presented at Info-Tech LIVE or to 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 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

Media Contact: Sufyan Al-Hassan, Senior PR Manager, Info-Tech Research Group, [email protected] | +1 (888) 670-8889 x2418
VANCOUVER, BC, July 25, 2024 /CNW/ - Canfor Corporation ("The Company" or "Canfor") (TSX: CFP) today reported its second quarter of 2024 results:

Overview.

Q2 2024 operating loss of $251 million , shareholder net loss of $191 million , or $1.61 per share.

, shareholder net loss of , or per share. After taking into consideration adjusting items 1 of $83 million as well as restructuring costs of $39 million , Q2 2024 operating loss of $129 million , compared to a similarly adjusted operating loss of $116 million in Q1 2024.

of as well as restructuring costs of , Q2 2024 operating loss of , compared to a similarly adjusted operating loss of in Q1 2024. Sustained weakness in North American lumber markets with continued downward pressure on benchmark pricing, particularly for Southern Yellow Pine ("SYP").

Solid earnings from Europe ; persistently weak SYP pricing negatively impacted results for the US South; Western Canadian results remained challenging.

; persistently weak SYP pricing negatively impacted results for the US South; Western Canadian results remained challenging. Announced permanent closure of Polar and Jackson sawmills and suspension of planned reinvestment in Houston .

sawmills and suspension of planned reinvestment in . Strong global pulp pricing and moderate improvement in NBSK pulp unit sales realizations.

Announced indefinite curtailment of one production line at Northwood NBSK pulp mill.

Ongoing constraints accessing economically viable fibre in BC impacting lumber and pulp operating rates in the near-term and through the balance of the year.

Financial results.

The following table summarizes selected financial information for the Company for the comparative periods:

(millions of Canadian dollars, except per share amounts)

Q2 2024

Q1 2024

YTD 2024

Q2 2023

YTD 2023

Sales $ 1,381.5 $ 1,382.7 $ 2,764.2 $ 1,446.0 $ 2,831.4

Reported operating income (loss) before amortization,

asset write-downs and impairments $ (98.3) $ 19.8 $ (78.5) $ 41.0 $ (64.7)

Reported operating loss $ (250.8) $ (85.8) $ (336.6) $ (66.7) $ (275.2)

Adjusted operating loss before amortization, asset

write-downs and impairments1 $ (46.9) $ (10.4) $ (57.3) $ (16.4) $ (60.0)

Adjusted operating loss1 $ (167.8) $ (116.0) $ (283.8) $ (124.1) $ (270.5)

Net loss2 $ (191.1) $ (64.5) $ (255.6) $ (43.9) $ (185.9)

Net loss per share, basic and diluted2 $ (1.61) $ (0.54) $ (2.15) $ (0.36) $ (1.54)

Adjusted net loss1, 2 $ (168.7) $ (52.1) $ (220.8) $ (44.3) $ (189.2)

Adjusted net loss per share, basic and diluted 1, 2 $ (1.42) $ (0.44) $ (1.86) $ (0.36) $ (1.57)



1. Adjusted results referenced throughout this news release are defined as non-IFRS financial measures. For further details, refer to the "Non-IFRS financial measures" section of this document. 2. Attributable to equity shareholders of the Company.



The Company reported an operating loss of $250.8 million for the second quarter of 2024, compared to an operating loss of $85.8 million in the first quarter of 2024. After accounting for adjusting items totaling $83.0 million (consisting of an inventory write-down as well as an asset write-down and impairment charge), the Company's operating loss was $167.8 million for the current quarter. In addition, when taking into consideration $38.5 million in restructuring costs recognized this period, correlated with the permanent and indefinite curtailments in the lumber and pulp businesses, the Company's operating loss for the second quarter of 2024 was $129.3 million, compared to a similarly adjusted operating loss of $116.0 million in the prior quarter. These results were primarily driven by a decline in lumber segment results, offset to a degree by improved pulp and paper segment earnings.

Commenting on the Company's second quarter results, Canfor's President and Chief Executive Officer, Don Kayne, said, "This quarter posed considerable challenges for our lumber business. While our European operations delivered solid earnings, North America continued to face a persistently weak pricing environment.

During the quarter, we made some difficult decisions, including the permanent closure of our Polar sawmill and the suspension of plans to invest in Houston. Operating conditions in BC remain extremely challenging as we continue to face significant constraints accessing economically viable fibre. With the high-cost operating environment in BC, depressed North American lumber markets and expected increases in duty deposits next month, we will continue to evaluate and adjust our BC operating rates to mitigate ongoing losses."

"For our pulp business" added Kayne, "despite strong global pulp pricing and improved NBSK pulp unit sales realizations experienced during the current quarter, fibre supply constraints in BC led to the announcement of an indefinite curtailment of one production line at our Northwood NBSK pulp mill."

Second quarter lumber segment highlights.

For the lumber segment, the operating loss was $230.5 million for the second quarter of 2024, compared to the previous quarter's operating loss of $57.1 million. In the current quarter, these results include adjusting items consisting of a $51.4 million inventory write-down and an asset write-down and impairment charge of $31.6 million. These results also include $32.6 million in restructuring costs associated with changes in the Company's operating footprint, noted below, in both British Columbia ("BC") and the US South.

After taking into consideration these adjusting items and restructuring costs, the lumber segment operating loss in the second quarter of 2024 was $114.9 million, compared to a similarly adjusted operating loss of $87.3 million in the prior quarter. These results reflected another period of solid earnings from the Company's European operations, largely tied to improved market pricing in that region, which was significantly overshadowed by the persistently challenging results from the Company's North American operations, primarily associated with the ongoing weakness in North American lumber benchmark pricing.

In May 2024, after a thorough analysis of the persistent shortage of economically available timber and challenging operating conditions in BC, the Company announced the permanent closure of its Polar sawmill in Bear Lake, BC and suspension of its planned reinvestment in Houston, BC. Also during the second quarter, in the US South, the Company announced the permanent closure of its Jackson, Alabama facility effective June 2024, concurrent with the expansion of its Fulton, Alabama facility. In connection with these announcements, the Company recorded asset write-down and impairment charges totaling $31.6 million and restructuring costs of $32.6 million in the second quarter of 2024.

Throughout the second quarter of 2024, North American lumber markets faced sustained downward pressure. Despite strong underlying fundamentals, persistent affordability constraints continued to discourage potential homebuyers and lowered US residential construction activity during the quarter. The repair and remodeling sector also saw reduced activity quarter-over-quarter, largely due to lower disposable household income levels. These demand trends, coupled with increased available supply led to a notable drop in North American benchmark pricing compared to the previous quarter.

US housing starts averaged 1,348,000 units on a seasonally adjusted basis for the current quarter, down 4% from the previous quarter, reflecting a 5% decrease in single family homes and a 1% decrease in multi-family starts. In Canada, housing starts averaged 249,000 units on a seasonally adjusted basis in the second quarter of 2024, up 1% from the previous quarter, primarily driven by an 4% increase in the construction of multi-family homes, with a consistent level of activity seen for single-family homes.

Offshore lumber demand and pricing in Asia remained relatively steady during the second quarter of 2024. In China, the real estate market and the broader economy continued to encounter challenging conditions despite ongoing government stimulus measures and gradual balancing of inventory levels in the region. In Japan, however, an improvement in the rental housing market gave rise to a modest uplift in demand and pricing during the current quarter.

In Europe, persistently low levels of residential construction were more than outweighed by relatively solid activity in the do-it-yourself sector and led to improved lumber pricing quarter-over-quarter, particularly in Central Europe.

Lumber segment outlook.

Looking ahead, North American lumber market conditions are forecast to experience continued weakness in the third quarter of 2024 and through the balance of the year. Residential construction activity is anticipated to be challenged by ongoing affordability headwinds in the near-term, especially in the multi-family segment. Demand in the repair and remodeling sector is also projected to trend downwards through the balance of the year.

Offshore lumber demand and pricing in Asia is projected to be relatively flat through the third quarter of 2024, as steady demand in Japan attributed to solid housing sector activity, is offset by continued challenges in China, as the region struggles to realize the benefit of government incentives, coupled with ongoing weakness in the Chinese real estate market.

European lumber pricing is anticipated to come under some modest pressure in the third quarter of 2024 as a seasonal slow-down in the do-it-yourself space and ongoing low levels of residential construction activity are combined with continued log supply constraints associated with reduced log availability and increasing costs in the region.

In the US South, the Company's ongoing capital investments in its new greenfield sawmill in Axis, Alabama, as well as in the upgrade and expansion of its Urbana sawmill in Arkansas, are progressing well and are forecast to commence production later in 2024. In addition, results in the third quarter of 2024 will reflect the acquisition of Resolute Forest Products Inc.'s El Dorado lumber manufacturing facility located in Union County, Arkansas, for US$73 million, including working capital. This transaction is anticipated to close in August 2024, following the completion of customary closing conditions.

In BC, there remains significant ongoing uncertainty with regards to the availability of economically viable fibre. The Company continues to anticipate sustained log cost pressures and persistent constraints accessing economically viable fibre in BC for its sawmills, as well as a challenging fibre environment for Canfor Pulp Products Inc.'s ("CPPI") pulp mills. With these ongoing fibre-related pressures and persistently depressed lumber prices, the Company continues to evaluate its options and will adjust its operating rates in BC to align with demand and economically available timber supply in the near-term and through the balance of 2024.

Second quarter pulp and paper segment highlights.

For the pulp and paper segment, the operating loss was $5.6 million for the second quarter of 2024, compared to an operating loss of $15.7 million for the first quarter of 2024. These results largely reflected an uplift in global pulp pricing, primarily in response to global pulp supply disruptions, and the correlated improvement in CPPI's average Northern Bleached Softwood Kraft ("NBSK") pulp sales unit realizations. These factors were offset in part, however, by a decline in CPPI's pulp production and shipments quarter-over-quarter, driven by extended downtime at its Intercontinental NBSK pulp mill ("Intercon") to address unforeseen recovery boiler repairs identified during the scheduled maintenance in May.

In May 2024, CPPI announced the decision to indefinitely curtail one production line at its Northwood NBSK pulp mill ("Northwood") also as a result of the continual decline in the availability of economic fibre in the northern BC region. CPPI anticipates winding down this production line in August 2024. In connection with this indefinite curtailment, CPPI recognized restructuring costs of $5.9 million during the current quarter.

Although global pulp producer inventories remained relatively balanced throughout the current quarter, the uplift in global softwood kraft pulp markets experienced at the end of the first quarter continued well into the second quarter, as global supply disruptions gave rise to an uptick in global pulp pricing. As a result, NBSK pulp list prices on orders from China, the world's largest consumer of pulp, saw steady increases throughout most of the period, reaching a 15-month high of US$825 per tonne in May, before declining in June, to end the quarter at US$810 per tonne. For the current quarter overall, average US-dollar NBSK pulp list prices to China were US$811 per tonne, an increase of US$66 per tonne, or 9%, from the previous quarter.

Pulp and paper segment outlook.

Looking forward, global softwood kraft pulp market conditions are anticipated to soften through the third quarter of 2024 as global softwood pulp supply stabilizes, following disruptions in the first and second quarters of 2024, and as new hardwood capacity in China and Brazil is projected to come online. On the demand side, purchasing activity during the third quarter of 2024 is projected to dampen as the traditionally slower summer period is forecast to combine with reduced demand for paper products, particularly in China, further weakening pulp demand.

As a result of the aforementioned decision to wind down one production line at CPPI's Northwood pulp mill in August 2024, the indefinite curtailment will result in the reduction of approximately 300,000 tonnes of market kraft pulp annually. Consequently, CPPI's results in the third quarter of 2024 will reflect the impact of this wind down on production, shipments and cost structure. Looking forward, while CPPI is focused on optimizing a sustainable operating footprint, improving operational reliability and closely managing manufacturing and fibre costs, it will continue to evaluate its operating conditions and will adjust operating rates at its pulp mills to align with economically viable fibre supply. These factors could also affect CPPI's operating plan, liquidity, cash flows and the valuation of long-lived assets.

Additional information and conference call.

A conference call to discuss the second quarter's financial and operating results will be held on Friday, July 26, 2024, at 8:00 AM Pacific time. To participate in the call, please dial Toll-Free 1-888-390-0546. For instant replay access until August 9, 2024, please dial Toll-Free 1-888-390-0541 and enter participant pass code 931655#.

The conference call will be webcast live and will be available at www.canfor.com. This news release, the attached financial statements and a presentation used during the conference call can be accessed via the Company's website at www.canfor.com/investor-relations/webcasts.

Non-IFRS financial measures.

Throughout this press release, reference is made to certain non-IFRS financial measures which are used to evaluate the Company's performance but are not generally accepted under IFRS and may not be directly comparable with similarly titled measures used by other companies. The following table provides a reconciliation of these non-IFRS financial measures to figures reported in the Company's condensed consolidated interim financial statements:

(millions of Canadian dollars, except per share amounts)

Q2 2024

Q1 2024

YTD 2024

Q2 2023

YTD 2023 Reported operating loss $ (250.8) $ (85.8) $ (336.6) $ (66.7) $ (275.2) Asset write-downs and impairments $ 31.6 $ - $ 31.6 $ - $ - Inventory write-down (recovery), net $ 51.4 $ (30.2) $ 21.2 $ (57.4) $ 4.7 Adjusted operating loss $ (167.8) $ (116.0) $ (283.8) $ (124.1) $ (270.5) Amortization $ 120.9 $ 105.6 $ 226.5 $ 107.7 $ 210.5 Adjusted operating loss before amortization, asset write-downs and impairments $ (46.9) $ (10.4) $ (57.3) $ (16.4) $ (60.0)

After-tax impact, net of non-controlling interests

(millions of Canadian dollars)

Q2 2024

Q1 2024

YTD 2024

Q2 2023

YTD 2023

Net loss3 $ (191.1) $ (64.5) $ (255.6) $ (43.9) $ (185.9)

Foreign exchange (gain) loss on term debt $ 3.1 $ 6.6 $ 9.7 $ (6.7) $ (7.1)

(Gain) loss on derivative financial instruments $ (3.9) $ 5.8 $ 1.9 $ 6.3 $ 3.8

Asset write-downs and impairments $ 23.2 $ - $ 23.2 $ - $ -

Adjusted net loss3 $ (168.7) $ (52.1) $ (220.8) $ (44.3) $ (189.2)



3. Attributable to equity shareholders of the Company.

Forward-looking statements.

Certain statements in this press release constitute "forward-looking statements" which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Words such as "expects", "anticipates", "projects", "intends", "plans", "will", "believes", "seeks", "estimates", "should", "may", "could", and variations of such words and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are based on Management's current expectations and beliefs and actual events or results may differ materially. There are many factors that could cause such actual events or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and Canfor assumes no obligation to update such information to reflect later events or developments, except as required by law.

About Canfor Corporation.

Canfor is a global leader in the manufacturing of high-value low-carbon forest products including dimension and specialty lumber, engineered wood products, pulp and paper, wood pellets and green energy. Proudly headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canfor produces renewable products from sustainably managed forests, at more than 50 facilities across its diversified operating platform in Canada, the United States and Europe. The Company has a 70% stake in Vida AB, Sweden's largest privately owned sawmill company and also owns a 54.8% interest in Canfor Pulp Products Inc. Canfor shares are traded on The Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol CFP. For more information visit canfor.com.

SOURCE Canfor Corporation

Media contact: Mina Laudan, VP, Corporate Affairs, (604) 661-5225, [email protected]; Investor contacts: Pat Elliott, CFO and SVP, Sustainability, (604) 661-5441, [email protected]; Dan Barwin, Director, Corporate Finance, (604) 661-5390, [email protected]
FARNBOROUGH, UK, July 25, 2024 /CNW/ - Building on decades of partnership and collaboration, De Havilland Aircraft of Canada (De Havilland Canada) and PAL Aerospace are proud to announce the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding to develop new innovations for De Havilland Aircraft, operated by the PAL Group of Companies, that can in turn be adopted by other fleet customers.

PAL Aerospace Logo (CNW Group/De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited)

De Havilland Canada has an extensive track record in the production of aircraft that can operate safely and reliably for decades in the toughest environments on the planet. The PAL Group of Companies are long standing De Havilland operators and leaders in commercial aviation and comprehensive aerospace solution provision. Today's MOU proposes to identify innovative solutions and new opportunities for the PAL Group to apply to their De Havilland Canada fleet.

The MOU addresses product developments and improvements in Low Earth Orbit satellite broadband Wi-Fi access and interior passenger/cargo combi configurations specific to the Dash 8-400 using the PAL Aerospace's proven expertise in advanced aerospace design, engineering, certification and aircraft modification. Together, De Havilland Canada and PAL Aerospace will develop these solutions quickly and integrate them into the PAL Group of Companies' fleet while making them available to the broader market following successful certification through De Havilland Canada.

"We are excited about the opportunity to broaden our partnership with De Havilland Canada through the signing of this MOU," said Cynthia Ballesteros, Senior Director of Business Development for PAL Aerospace. "Our long history of collaboration and cooperation has been a tremendous benefit to both companies, and we welcome this new opportunity to work together on the development of innovative solutions that will be available to all De Havilland Canada operators."

"The PAL Group of Companies has extensive experience operating De Havilland Canada aircraft in some of the most challenging aviation environments on earth," said Jean-Philippe Cote, Vice President of Programs and Business Development, De Havilland Canada. "This opportunity to work with PAL Aerospace to develop new upgrades and modifications to De Havilland Canada aircraft is one we couldn't pass up and is one more way that we at De Havilland Canada intend to keep the fleet flying for the long-term."

About De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited

With more than 5,000 aircraft delivered, De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited is well established across the globe and our talented team of aviation professionals is dedicated to advancing our near-100-year reputation for excellence in innovation, production, and customer support. Our aircraft operate reliably in some of the world's harshest climates and provide vital connections between rural communities and urban centres  transporting essential cargo and millions of passengers annually. Our aircraft also support a wide variety of special mission operations including aerial firefighting, search and rescue, medical evacuation, reconnaissance, and coastal surveillance. Visit: www.dehavilland.com.

About PAL Aerospace

A proud member of the Exchange Income Corporation family of companies, PAL Aerospace is a Canadian-owned and operated global aerospace and defence company. With a focus on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, in-service support solutions, aircraft engineering and modification and crew resource management training. PAL Aerospace is internationally recognized by governments, militaries, and industry for on time/on budget delivery and high reliability rates. PAL Aerospace offers a single point of accountability for its programs and takes pride in being the trusted choice for clients worldwide.

To learn more, visit us online: palaerospace.com

For additional media assets, visit: https://dehavilland.com/en/media

SOURCE De Havilland Aircraft of Canada Limited

Media Contacts: [email protected], [email protected]
STAR BLANKET CREE NATION, TREATY 4 TERRITORY, SK, July 25, 2024 /CNW/ - A new state-of-the-art water treatment plant is providing clean drinking water to all homes and supporting Star Blanket Cree Nation in living without a drinking water advisory for the first time in over 17 years. The community's dedication and commitment to providing clean, safe drinking water has helped them to lift the boil water advisory that had been in effect since 2007 for the 300 residents living on reserve.

The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services, and Star Blanket Cree Nation Chief Michael Starr. (CNW Group/Indigenous Services Canada) The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services, and Star Blanket Cree Nation Chief Michael Starr. (CNW Group/Indigenous Services Canada) The Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services, gets a tour of the new water treatment plant in Star Blanket Cree Nation from certified water operator Tyrone Starr. (CNW Group/Indigenous Services Canada)

Star Blanket Cree Nation Chief Michael Starr met with Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu, Elders, and community members, to acknowledge the milestone of lifting the long-term drinking water advisory. The advisory on the Star Blanket Public Water System affected 82 homes and community buildings, including the healthcare facility, Early Learning Centre, and band office.

Along with the significant accomplishment of building a new water treatment plant, the Chief and Council also implemented a Water Treatment Plant Operations strategy to address operational challenges. The Circuit Rider Training Program and local Environmental Public Health Officer continue to support the community and water operators, who play a vital role in keeping the water clean and safe to use.

Quotes

"The completion and opening of our new water treatment plant brings great pride as we announce the lifting of the boil water advisory. Water is essential to all Life. This memorable moment in our history aligns with our traditions and beliefs. We honour the Water and what it represents to our community. We can now use the water feeling comfort knowing the water is clean and safe to consume."

Chief Michael Starr

Star Blanket Cree Nation

"For too long, the people of Star Blanket Cree Nation couldn't trust the water coming out of their taps. This time is over. Thanks to the dedication of Star Blanket Cree Nation, community members now have reliable access to safe drinking water for generations to come. Their work is moving us further on the path to reconciliation. There are now 70% fewer long-term drinking water advisories in First Nation communities across Canada than in 2015. And there is a plan in place to address all the remaining ones."

The Honourable Patty Hajdu

Minister of Indigenous Services

Quick facts

Star Blanket Cree Nation is home to approximately 300 residents and is located nearly 90 km northeast of Regina, Saskatchewan .

. A community event was held on July 4, 2024 , to celebrate the grand opening of the new $10.5 million facility that uses biological filtration and membrane treatment to clean the source water.

, to celebrate the grand opening of the new facility that uses biological filtration and membrane treatment to clean the source water. The project also included drilling a new raw water well, construction of a raw water line, rehabilitation of an existing raw water well and flushing of the water distribution system.

As of July 25, 2024 , there are five active, long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserve in Saskatchewan and 31 active, long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserve in Canada .

, there are five active, long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserve in and 31 active, long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserve in . The efforts of First Nations across Canada , with support from Indigenous Services Canada, have supported the lifting of 145 of the long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserve since 2015. We are now down to the last 29 communities with active, long-term advisories. Among these, 13 communities have the infrastructure capable of providing clean drinking water.

, with support from Indigenous Services Canada, have supported the lifting of 145 of the long-term drinking water advisories on public systems on reserve since 2015. We are now down to the last 29 communities with active, long-term advisories. Among these, 13 communities have the infrastructure capable of providing clean drinking water. The Circuit Rider Training Program (CRTP) is a capacity-building program that provides training and mentoring services to operators of First Nations' drinking water and wastewater systems (water operators).

Associated links

Stay connected

Join the conversation about Indigenous Peoples in Canada:

X: @GCIndigenous

Facebook: @GCIndigenous

nstagram: @gcindigenous

Facebook: @GCIndigenousHealth

You can subscribe to receive our news releases and speeches via RSS feeds. For more information or to subscribe, visit www.isc.gc.ca/RSS.

SOURCE Indigenous Services Canada

For more information, media may contact: Jennifer Kozelj, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Patty Hajdu, Minister of Indigenous Services and Minister responsible for FedNor, [email protected]; Media Relations, Indigenous Services Canada, 819-953-1160819-953-1160, [email protected]
Secure chatbot empowers employees to safely experiment with GenAI

Over 5,000 employees using the tool per week

Propelled productivity and 229 per cent increase in use less than a year after launch

TORONTO, July 25, 2024 /CNW/ - Sun Life has been named a 2024 CIO Awards Canada winner for their Sun Life Asks GenAI chatbot. The CIO Awards Canada celebrate Canadian organizations and the teams within them that are using IT in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth, or improving relationships with customers. The award recognizes the tech world's most innovative organizations and accomplished leaders.

CIO Award Winner 2024 (CNW Group/Sun Life Financial Canada)

Sun Life Asks is an internal GenAI chatbot that enables employees to find quick answers and general assistance with daily tasks. Housed within Sun Life's existing technology ecosystem, the tool performs tasks similar to chatbots available externally and can help with everything from summarization of text to organizing ideas for a presentation or even analyzing the purpose or sentiment of an article.

"GenAI is an important part of our digital transformation and we are committed to safely innovating and adopting emerging technology," said Laura Money, Executive Vice-President, Chief Information and Technology Innovation Officer, Sun Life. "Our goal is to ensure that our employees have access to the benefits of a GenAI chatbot for work-related purposes, while keeping Client and company data safe. We're honoured that CIO Awards Canada has recognized Sun Life Asks as one of the most innovative projects for 2024."

Sun Life Asks is helping employees develop skills for the future and in just eight short months since launch:

Employees report saving minutes to hours each day on regular tasks and are reinvesting that time into work they find most meaningful.

The tool has generated over 400,000 queries in the first 8 months, with 10,000 queries daily  in fact, use has climbed 229 per cent between launch and now.

Over 2500 employees have continued to upskill to better understand AI through CIFAR's Destination AI course, embedding within our own internal training platform. The course covers machine learning, GenAI, big data and deep learning, as well as the role we all play in shaping this emerging technology as it continues to evolve.

A new prompt training course also just launched internally to help employees learn strategies to write clearer prompts to generate better GenAI outputs.

Sun Life is committed to digital leadership and to ensuring a focus on client impact by continuing to adopt and experiment with innovative technology. Our culture is rooted in safety and security which extends to our adoption of emerging technologies. Through technology like GenAI, Sun Life empowers its people to enhance their skills to propel our Purpose, to help clients achieve lifelong financial security and live healthier lives, forward.

About Sun Life

Sun Life is a leading international financial services organization providing asset management, wealth, insurance and health solutions to individual and institutional Clients. Sun Life has operations in a number of markets worldwide, including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Japan, Indonesia, India, China, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Bermuda. As of March 31, 2024, Sun Life had total assets under management of $1.47 trillion. For more information, please visit www.sunlife.com.

Sun Life Financial Inc. trades on the Toronto (TSX), New York (NYSE) and Philippine (PSE) stock exchanges under the ticker symbol SLF.

About the CIO Awards Canada

The CIO Awards Canada celebrate Canadian organizations and the teams within them that are using IT in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth, or improving relationships with customers. It is an acknowledged mark of enterprise excellence. Because the award is given to company projects rather than individuals, it is an honour that everyone on Canadian team can take pride in.

About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,300 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology, IT benchmarking and sourcing, and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading tech media, data, and marketing services company. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter at @IDC and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the IDC Blog for industry news and insights. To learn more about IDC Canada, please visit www.idc.com/ca or follow us on Twitter at @idccanada and LinkedIn.

About CIO

CIO focuses on attracting the highest concentration of enterprise CIOs and business technology executives with unparalleled peer insight and expertise on business strategy, innovation, and leadership. As organizations grow with digital transformation, CIO provides its readers with key insights on career development, including certifications, hiring practices and skills development. The award-winning CIO portfolio provides business technology leaders with analysis and insight on information technology trends and a keen understanding of IT's role in achieving business goals. CIO is published by Foundry (formerly IDG Communications, Inc.) Company information is available at http://www.foundryco.com

Note to editors: All figures in Canadian dollars

Media Relations Contact:

Kelsey Rutherford

Director

Corporate Communications

T. 416-317-6249

[email protected]

SOURCE Sun Life Financial Canada
VANCOUVER, BC, July 25, 2024 /CNW/ - Unifor is calling on all levels of government to collaborate and ensure adequate public funding for BC's public transit systems.

"We need strategic collaboration to fund public transit to keep our cities moving and to support good union jobs," said Lana Payne, Unifor National President. "Governments must work together to solve this funding crisis and protect our transit systems."

Unifor urges all levels of government to ensure sustainable funding for BC transit. (CNW Group/Unifor)

As Translink Coast Mountain Bus Company released "Potential Transit Service Impacts Report" highlighting a significant funding shortfall, Unifor stands firm in its commitment to advocate both on behalf of its transit worker members and transit users for the necessary investments to maintain high-quality transit services and secure union jobs.

"Public transit is a cornerstone of sustainable urban development and essential for reducing traffic congestion and environmental impact," said Gavin McGarrigle, Unifor Western Regional Director. "It is crucial for governments to recognize the value of robust public transit systems and to invest accordingly."

The recent funding challenges faced by TransLink and other transit operators in BC underscore the need for a comprehensive funding strategy that includes contributions from federal, provincial, and municipal governments.

"The loss of pandemic relief funding, coupled with increased operational costs and declining ridership, has created a perfect storm threatening the viability of public transit services. Unifor will continue to urge all levels of the government to look beyond temporary solutions and work towards a sustainable funding model that addresses both infrastructure and operational needs," said Payne.

The union believes this approach will ensure that public transit remains a reliable and efficient option for all residents.

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 please contact Unifor Communications Representative Hamid Osman at [email protected] or 647-448-2823 (cell)
With Gasgoo Daily, we will offer daily important automotive news in China. For those we have reported, the title of the piece will include a hyperlink, which will provide detailed information.

DreamSmart to launch car model in 2024: COO Liao Qinghong

On July 26, during ChinaJoy 2024, DreamSmart Groups COO Liao Qinghong announced that the companys first car model will be unveiled this year, featuring functions distinct from traditional automakers. The company announced its car-making plans in November 2023, aiming to produce the MEIZU DreamCar MX by 2024.

Xiaomi delivers over 30,000 SU7 cars in 3 months

Lei Jun, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Xiaomi, revealed on Weibo that deliveries of the Xiaomi SU7 has surpassed 30,000 units in three months. The company expects July deliveries to exceed 10,000 units and aims to meet the 100,000 units annual target by early November, with 220 stores opening in 59 cities by December.

Photo credit: Xiaomi EV

KargoBots L4 bulk commodity transportation surpasses 50 million ton-kilometers

DiDi-backed autonomous truck developer KargoBot recently announced a significant milestone in L4 autonomous bulk commodity transportation, which surpassed 50 million tons-kilometers. The companys total distance of autonomous convoy demonstration operations exceeded 8 million kilometers.

Chery Autos Fulwin T10 PHEV hits market, starting at 189,900 yuan

On July 25, Chery Auto officially launched the Fulwin T10 midsize new energy SUV, available in three variants with prices ranging from 189,900 yuan to 229,900 yuan.

Hesai Technology to provide AT series LiDAR for SAIC-GMs new car models

LiDAR solution provider Hesai Technology on July 25 announced a partnership with SAIC General Motors (SAIC-GM) to supply AT series automotive-grade long-range LiDAR for the latter's upcoming car models.

MHERO Technology allies with 360 Security for V2X, data security

On July 24, Dongfeng Motors off-road vehicle arm MHERO Technology announced a strategic partnership with 360 Security. The collaboration focuses on digital security, information and digital services, and large model innovations.

Dongfeng Motor Corporation partners with Huazhong University of Science and Technology

On July 25, Dongfeng Motor Corporation signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Huazhong University of Science and Technology. This agreement includes three sub-agreements for establishing a joint research institute, co-developing outstanding engineers, and sharing high-level talent, along with the unveiling of the joint research institute.

NETA Autos NETA X model goes on sale in Thailand, Malaysia

On July 25, NETA Auto made significant strides in the Southeast Asian market by simultaneously launching its all-electric SUV, the NETA X, in Thailand's Bangkok and Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur. This dual-market launch marks an accelerated phase in NETA Auto's global strategy, particularly in Southeast Asia.
State Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington D.C. West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming Puerto Rico US Virgin Islands Armed Forces Americas Armed Forces Pacific Armed Forces Europe Northern Mariana Islands Marshall Islands American Samoa Federated States of Micronesia Guam Palau Alberta, Canada British Columbia, Canada Manitoba, Canada New Brunswick, Canada Newfoundland, Canada Nova Scotia, Canada Northwest Territories, Canada Nunavut, Canada Ontario, Canada Prince Edward Island, Canada Quebec, Canada Saskatchewan, Canada Yukon Territory, Canada

Postal Code
The automotive industry is experiencing fundamental changes, where AI-based algorithms, computing, and data are continually powering the evolution of the intelligent automotive industry.

Autonomous driving (AD) has evolved from the first-generation AD technology to the gradual introduction of AI and end-to-end large models. Integrating end-to-end large AI models allows for management and optimization of the entire automotive technology stack. The next-generation AD systems will not only improve the accuracy of decision-making, but will enhance vehicles capabilities to learn and adapt through generative AI and robust computing platforms.

The emergence of generative AI takes AI to new heights and brings far-reaching impact to the automotive industry. As a global AI enabler and leader, NVIDIA is committed to bringing AI to every aspect of vehicles through its leading NVIDIA DRIVE technology.

In addition to delivering generative AI and end-to-end large AI models, NVIDIA and its partners are designing and building digital twins of AI factories for vehicle production. The factory of the future will leverage autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) to significantly improve digital factory operations.

Were building a new type of data center. We call it an AI factory. The way data centers are built today, you have a lot of people sharing one cluster of computers and putting their files in this one large data center. An AI factory is much more like a power generator. Its quite unique. Weve been building it over the last several years, but now we have to turn this into a product. It will be everywhere. Cloud service providers will build them, and well build them. Every biotech company will have it. Every retail company, every logistics company. Every car company in the future will have a factory that builds the carsthe actual goods, the atomsand a factory that builds the AI for the cars, the electrons. " said Jensen Huang, Founder, and CEO of NVIDIA.

Empowering automotive manufacturing with AV 2.0 technological innovation

AV 2.0 was first proposed by Wayve in 2017. In contrast to AV 1.0s focus on refining a vehicles perception capabilities using multiple deep neural networks, AV 2.0 calls for comprehensive in-vehicle intelligence to drive decision-making in dynamic, real-world environments. AV 1.0 enables Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) or NOA for automated driving in motorways and urban environments. For fully autonomous driving and the highest levels of safety, a transition to AV 2.0 is required, which is a unified model of the larger converged world. Built on either GPT or Transformer, it is a multimodal large language model (LLM) that includes visual language models, generative AI, and other technologies.

Xinzhou Wu, vice president of automotive at NVIDIA, believes that generative AI will bring significant improvements to total productivity, including many aspects of human life, and that AV 2.0 is inseparable from generative AI.

Generative AI is propelling AV 2.0, a new era in autonomous vehicle technology characterized by large, unified, end-to-end AI models capable of managing various aspects of the vehicle stack, including perception, planning and control.

NVIDIA is actively steering the transition of AD technology to the AV 2.0 era, creating safer, smarter and more efficient AD solutions to partners by using end-to-end AD and other technologies.

End-to-end autonomous driving is critical to achieving safe and reliable general autonomy. NVIDIA researchers built Hydra-MDP, an end-to-end driving system for accurate perception and robust decision-making under a unified transformer model. Recently, NVIDIA won an Autonomous Grand Challenge at the CVPR conference with the Hydra-MDP model. In the contest, Hydra-MDP ingests one second of vehicle trajectory history and camera and LIDAR data at a reduced frame rate of only two frames per second, and generates the next four seconds of optimal vehicle path as an output. Hydra-MDP's simplified end-to-end architecture optimizes pipelines with less code and better performance. The Hydra-MDP model can learn from real-world and simulated driving data. This enables easier handling of rare corner cases and dangerous scenarios, as well as the ability to more easily mimic human driving, providing a more comfortable and predictable experience. And with NVIDIA Omniverse Cloud Sensor RTX APIs, AV developers can test and validate the results of AV models in physically-based virtual environments.

Photo credit: NVIDIA

Deep integration of generative AI and AD

The integration of generative AI with AD is a key element to AV 2.0 technology innovation. Generative AIs contextual understanding, creative output and adaptive learning capacities mark a new era. Across the entire auto industry, companies are exploring generative AI to improve vehicle design, engineering, and manufacturing, as well as marketing and sales. Beyond the automotive product lifecycle, generative AI is also enabling new breakthroughs in autonomous vehicle (AV) development. Such research areas include the use of neural radiance field (NeRF) technology to turn recorded sensor data into fully interactive 3D simulations. These digital twin environments, as well as synthetic data generation, can be used to develop, test and validate AVs at incredible scale.

Accelerated compute has led to transformative breakthroughs, including generative AI, which is redefining autonomy and the global transportation industry at large, said Xinzhou Wu, vice president of automotive at NVIDIA. What began with the transformer model discovery has since unleashed incredible results, supported by massive models whose training has been made possible with leaps in performance from NVIDIA accelerated computing.

For example, Li Auto, one of China's new electric vehicle manufacturers, is deeply engaged in the field of intelligent driving. By utilizing NVIDIA's-acceleration solutions from the cloud to the vehicle, and by adopting the fusion strategy of System 1 (intuitive quick reaction) and System 2 (deep thinking) thinking, Li Auto accelerates the imitation of the human driving decision-making process, and enhances its adaptability to complex traffic environments. At the same time, NVIDIA uses cloud-based training and reasoning to help Li Auto's AI assistant "Lixiang Tongxue " provide a three-dimensional spatial interaction experience in the intelligent cabin, creating a more natural and personalized in-vehicle space. In addition, Li Auto has selected the NVIDIA DRIVE Thor centralized in-vehicle computing platform to empower its next-generation models.

NVIDIA DRIVE Thor is an in-vehicle computing platform architected for generative AI applications, which are becoming paramount within the automotive industry. DRIVE Thor, the successor to DRIVE Orin, can deliver feature-rich cockpit capabilities, plus safe and secure highly automated and autonomous driving, all on a centralized platform. This next-generation AV platform will integrate the new NVIDIA Blackwell architecture, designed for transformer, LLM and generative AI workloads, which was announced during NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huangs keynote at GTC.. NVIDIA DRIVE Thor is poised to revolutionize the automotive landscape, ushering in an era where generative AI defines the driving experience.

BYD, the world's largest electric vehicle manufacturer, is working with NVIDIA on multiple parts, extending not only from the vehicle to the cloud, but also including AI factories, digital twins, vehicle design, and automotive smart manufacturing, etc. In addition to building its next-generation EV fleets on DRIVE Thor, BYD plans to use NVIDIAs AI infrastructure for cloud-based AI development and training technologies, along with the NVIDIA Isaac and NVIDIA Omniverse platforms to develop tools and applications for virtual factory planning and retail configurators.

XPENG has also announced it will use the NVIDIA DRIVE Thor platform as the AI brain of its next-generation EV fleets. The next-gen car computer will power the EV makers proprietary XNGP AI-assisted driving system, enabling autonomous driving and parking capabilities, driver and passenger monitoring and other functionalities.

The future of intelligent vehicles has arrived

NVIDIA is committed to fully integrating AI technology into the automotive industry to drive continued progress in the AI era. NVIDIA has put a lot of thought into the DRIVE Thor platform not only on the vehicle side, but also on the cloud side, to support the development of the future of AI vehicles, and to increase the computational power of the simulation models to a whole new level. The NVIDIA DRIVE Thor ecosystem is rapidly expanding to build on a powerful computing platform and to meet higher security standards and support generative AI and large-scale language models that will drive the AI-defined automotive industry forward.

The rapid development of AI technology and application of end-to-end technology are reshaping the automotive industry. NVIDIA is transforming all stages of the automotive product lifecycle with cutting-edge technology, embracing the future of intelligent vehicles that are smarter, greener, and more user-friendly.
An Atlantic County man pleaded guilty to charges connected to a 2022 shooting that injured one person in Atlantic City, officials said Friday.

Louis Stokes, 27, of Barnegat, pleaded guilty to second-degree charges of aggravated assault, possession of a handgun for an unlawful purpose and third-degree hindering apprehension.

The charges resulted from the investigation of a shooting on Oct. 14, 2022 in the area of Sewell Avenue, authorities said.

Police found a person in the area suffering from a single, non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the leg, officials said.

Police said they identified a crime scene in the area of Pennsylvania and Adriatic Avenues where they found eight spent 9mm shell casings. Investigators used surveillance camera footage from the area to determine a group of men had been in the area at the time of the shooting before entering a home together, according to authorities.

After exiting the home, Stokes was arrested after a search discovered three hand guns, including a stolen 9mm handgun that a ballistics analysis laboratory determined had been used in the shooting, officials said.

Authorities said they found the gun hidden outside a second-story window next to an exterior wall. Stokes DNA was found on two of the handguns found in the search and he was identified by an eyewitness as the shooter, authorities said.

Authorities said Stokes admitted to shooting the victim and then hiding the handgun. He is being held in the Atlantic County jail until sentencing, which is scheduled for September, officials said.

Under the terms of his plea agreement, Stokes is expected to go to prison for five years and must serve 85% of the sentence under the No Early Release Act, according to officials.

An attorney for Stokes did not immediately return a request for comment Friday.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Matthew Enuco may be reached at Menuco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow Matt on X
The New Jersey man accused of attacking Salman Rushdie with a knife in 2022 has now been charged with terrorism after federal authorities alleged that he tried to assassinate the author on behalf of a Muslim terrorist group.

Hadi Matar, 26, of Fairview, appeared in federal court on Wednesday on three separate terrorism charges, the U.S. Attorneys Office District of New Jersey said in a news release.

In 1989, Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, an Iranian Muslim leader, issued a fatwa, or an official order from an Islamic leader, calling for the death of Rushdie in the wake of protests to ban his controversial novel, Satanic Verses. In 2006, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizballah, an Islamic terrorist group in Lebanon, delivered a speech endorsing the order.

Federal authorities allege that Matar attempted to carry out an assassination on Rushdie because of the 2006 endorsement from the Hizballah leader.

The three federal charges Matar faces are committing an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries, attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and providing material support to terrorists.

He allegedly stabbed Rushdie multiple times at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, New York, in Aug. 2022 as the author was preparing to give a public lecture. He was charged with attempted murder and assault by the Chautauqua County District Attorneys office and pleaded not guilty to both offenses.

Rushdie, now 77, was blinded in one eye as a result of the stabbing, the Associated Press reported.

The 1988 fiction novel was based on the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and became controversial because of its depiction of the religion. The author received multiple death threats and spent years in hiding due to the books backlash.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Nicolas Fernandes may be reached at nfernandes@njadvancemedia.com.
Oscar winners Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain play neighbors and mothers in 1960s suburbia in the psychological thriller Mothers Instinct.

The movie, which filmed in New Jersey in 2022, is getting a limited theatrical release Friday, July 26 before its August 13 digital release.

That theatrical release includes one Jersey theater, and the location has a little something to do with where the movie filmed.

Hathaway, who grew up in Millburn, plays Celine in Mothers Instinct, which is a remake of the Belgian movie Duelles (2019).

Anne Hathaway as Celine and Jessica Chastain as Alice in "Mothers' Instinct." Neon

Celine is best friends with Alice (Chastain)  their sons are the same age  when a terrible accident threatens to shatter their friendship.

Chastain and Hathaway, who are also producers of the movie, filmed in Union, Bergen, Essex and Monmouth counties (see specific locations and trailer below).

As NJ Advance Media previously reported, the production spent about $11.6 million in the state, per the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission.

The movie was filmed at homes on Holly Street in Cranford, so it follows that Mothers Instinct is playing at the Cranford Theater starting Friday.

Other filming locations included St. Elizabeths Episcopal Church in Ridgewood; Bergen New Bridge Medical Center in Paramus; Community Church in Cedar Grove; and Bayshore Waterfront Park in Port Monmouth, Middletown.

Mothers Instinct co-stars Josh Charles (We Own This City, The Good Wife) and Anders Danielsen Lie (The Worst Person in the World).

The original Belgian film Duelles, which stars Veerle Baetens as Alice and Anne Coesens as Celine, was directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse and based on the 2012 Barbara Abel novel Derriere la Haine (Behind the Hate).

French cinematographer Benoit Delhomme (The Theory of Everything, Free State of Jones, At Eternitys Gate) directed Mothers Instinct, which was originally supposed to be helmed by Masset-Depasse (who remains a producer of the film) and is written by Sarah Conradt.

Hathaway and Chastain previously co-starred in the 2022 film Armageddon Time, which also filmed in New Jersey, and Interstellar (2014).

Mothers Instinct, rated R, runs 1 hour and 34 minutes and is playing at Cranford Theater in New Jersey and Regal Union Square in New York.

Thank you for reading. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a subscription.

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com and followed at @AmyKup.
Forgive us if this one sounds familiar: Jersey City has been ordered by a state hearing board to reinstate police officers who were fired for legal cannabis use.

The city remains winless in its quixotic quest to bar police officers from using cannabis while off-duty after Wednesdays identical rulings in the cases of Norhan Mansour and Omar Polanco, among the first officers to be disciplined by the city for testing positive for the drug that was legalized in 2020.

The city had appealed previous decisions by the Office of Administrative Law and the Civil Service Commission that the officers were wrongfully fired by the city.
Heather Sporn used words like bucolic and magic to describe the hiking trail around Jersey Citys Reservoir 3 in the Heights, an urban oasis hidden behind 20-foot walls.

Not anymore.

Sporn and other board members at the Jersey City Reservoir Preservation Alliance (JCRPA), stewards of the property for the past 21 years, were shocked when they saw the trail that meandered through the 14-acre site has been transformed into a run-of-the-mill walking path at least 12 to 15 feet wide and stripped of the trees and plants enveloping it.

The paved road, as JCRPA board President Cynthia Hadjiyannis calls it, is part of the citys $6 million renovation  four years in the making and more than two years behind schedule  to the former working reservoir site that was abandoned in the late 1980s when the city began getting its water from the Boonton Reservoir in Morris County.

Our goal was to preserve this very bucolic sense, said Sporn, chairwoman of the groups Design and Infrastructure Committee and a landscape architect. If you walked down the pathway you were enveloped in trees and green space on both sides. And you could not see the surrounding city.

It was this very bucolic environment in the middle of a very dense, urban area and that was sort of the magic of the site. Like being away somewhere, like in the Adironacks or somewhere else. ... This was supposed to take you away from Central Avenue, not give you a great view of it.

The property, listed on both the New Jersey and National Register of Historic Places, takes up a full city block, and is bordered by Central, Jefferson, Summit and Reservoir avenues. In a neighborhood tightly packed, two- and three-story clapboard homes with flat roofs and little character, the JCRPA has made the site a welcome respite from city life.

In an April 2021 press release and a personal email to residents, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop touted the project  and the collaboration with the JCRPA  saying the trail would be expanded from 18 to 48 inches wide.

I think this will be the best passive municipal park in Jersey City when completed + Im proud our admin took the steps. We are close to completion as along the way the construction and state approvals have been more difficult than initially anticipated but this park will be pic.twitter.com/xhLIyBAgrJ  Steven Fulop (@StevenFulop) July 24, 2024

More than three years after the kumbaya moment, the alliance is wondering why the plan was altered and whether the damage is irreparable.

They have totally destroyed the experience of being on the upper trail, Hadjiyannis said. To see the site so threatened by poor planning, bad design and mismanagement is beyond heartbreaking.

The mayor boasted about the project on social media Wednesday and a spokeswoman for the city defended the projects pace and pushed back against the complaints.

While the same few members repeatedly detail their grievances to you, no one directly involved in the project has received any such recent complaints from them, city spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said while declining an request for an interview Barkha Patel, director of the citys Department of Infrastructure.

Wallace-Scalcione noted A lot of invasive species have been cleared to expand the path further and create safe access.

City officials did not say why the proposed trail was widened beyond the agreed upon four feet. It could not be determined what material was used to create the walkway, but Sporn suspects its sort of cement soil.

Sporn and Hadjiyannis shot back that the city has ignored the alliances requests for meetings, sharing the emails with The Jersey Journal.

The JCRPA also slapped back on social media, with photos of true hiking trails and another showing a rock pile at the reservoir site: You put in a wide, paved road after removing every plant and tree. Stop congratulating yourself for desecrating a green space.

The destruction of the hiking trail and the lack of communication are just two of multiple issues the alliance and others have with the project.

The mayors post on X, formerly Twitter, gives the distinct impression that the renovation is nearly completion. Not even close, say Hadjiyannis and Sporn after looking at photos taken by The Jersey Journal at the site July 18.

Fulops post features a 7-second clip of the reservoir, panning from the walkway over the lake, but what it does not show are the dilapidated gatehouse and pump house structures with busted roofs and at least one building plastered with graffiti.

Bill ODea, a Hudson County Board of Commissioners member and 2025 mayoral candidate, says the state-funded historic restoration of structures has lagged and need to be given a priority.

He also urged the city to re-engage with the community and invest in restoring more of the natural historic vision of the reservoir that was developed years ago.

Jersey City Ward D Councilman Yousef Saleh, who represents the Heights, said he hopes the park can open in roughly 30-35 days. He said the repairs to the structures on the property is the next phase of the project and the reservoir would have to be closed again.

It is not an easy project, Saleh said. It is going to take a lot of time. There is a benefit to opening it up to the public after this next round of renovations just to show everyone what we have been working on and what the investment has been.

Another 2025 mayor candidate Jim McGreevey, the former governor and a former mayor, said the goal should be to preserve the traditional character ... to focus on the historic importance of the site and capture the picture of a previous era.

Restoring the site to its pre-construction condition would be a significant challenge, he said.

Announced in 2021, the project was expected to be completed sometime in 2022. Two years later, city officials say they did not expect so many delays in getting approvals at the historic site.

Sporn and Hadjiyannis say the pedestrian bridge along Jefferson Avenue  Fulops vanity project  wasnt even part of the original plan and set back completion of the project by at least nine months.

Its nice to have the 360 (degree walking path), but we werent ready for it and we would have preferred a plan far less destructive, Sporn said.

Then theres the remediation of the contaminants found under the lake  which has yet to begin. With the water and shoreline expected to be off limits to visitors, that means no kayaking, no kids fishing derbies and no hands-on Project Reservoir school field trips, the JCRPA says.

City officials did not if access to the water would be restricted.

Not least of all, Sporn and Hadjiyannis are concerned with what the mayor is calling view corridors for water visibility. What they see instead is plant life trampled and trees removed  the very setting they say makes Reservoir 3 a special site, different than other city parks.

Sporn and Hadjiyannis say the city stopped communicating with the group when Patel and the Department of Infrastructure entered the picture. At the few meetings held, the city never listened to anything we had to say. They were not productive meetings, they said.

(Patel) had no awareness of all our group had achieved over these years, all the expertise, the volunteer time and energy put in and how we really have been genuine partners and collaborators, Hadjiyannis said.

Still, the JCRPA is eager to work with the city as the project moves forward, and maybe even undo some of the work.

We want to work with the city, if they are genuinely listening to us, Sporn said. We want to work collaboratively with them. ... if they could hear our concerns and adjust the designs accordingly. But they have not done that.

We want to work with them to make this a better place. But we dont want to be blindsided and lied to, or told they are going to do something without even having a conversation with us.
Beijing (Gasgoo)- On July 24, Dongfeng Motors off-road vehicle arm MHERO Technology announced a strategic partnership with 360 Security. The collaboration focuses on digital security, information and digital services, and large model innovations.

MHERO 917; photo credit: MHERO

In fact, the duo has already borne fruit with the MHERO 917 electric off-roader model, which now features a jointly developed V2X security certificate system. This system can intercept unauthorized external applications from accessing and altering vehicle software and data, ensuring the safety of users' driving and data.

This strategic alliance marks a significant step forward for the high-quality development of automotive information security in China. 360 Security leverages its national security service capabilities to address various security issues for MHERO Technology, including cybersecurity, data protection, and prevention of attacks and ransomware. The cooperation also empowers vehicle digital security, preventing intrusions and ensuring the safety of the vehicle's intelligent systems and owner data.

Beyond digital security, the partnership extends to information and digital services, large model development, and market promotion. 360 Security has tailored a series of intelligent solutions to enhance the efficiency and intelligence of MHERO Technology's production processes.

In AI large model development, 360 Security provides advanced AI office experiences for MHERO, boosting workplace efficiency. Additionally, digital marketing capabilities, such as digital human technology, navigation, search, and online advertising, support MHERO's promotional and branding efforts.

Moreover, MHERO Technology and 360 Security will explore industry-specific large model solutions to lead the automotive manufacturing sector's advancement in this field.
UPDATE: N.J. woman among 2 killed in small plane crash in Maine

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating after a small plane that left a New Jersey airport crashed in Bar Harbor, Maine, and left two people dead.

The plane crashed on approach to Hancock County-Bar Harbor Airport about 12:25 p.m. Thursday, an FAA spokesperson said. The FAA spokesperson said the aircraft had taken off from Morristown Municipal Airport in New Jersey.

Authorities did not immediately identify the two people who died in the crash. The crash happened at the end of a runway and resulted in a fire, said Leroy Muise, manager of the airport.

Regrettably, two souls aboard the aircraft lost their lives as result of the crash and ensuing fire, Muise said in a statement.

The FAA spokesperson said that agency and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.

Maine State Police described the crash site as an active scene Thursday afternoon. The Hancock County Sheriffs Office said in a statement that multiple agencies responded to the scene and the priority was to provide aid to those involved, and ensure the safety and effectiveness of emergency responders.
A Nevada man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly threatening federal officials and state employees in New Jersey, New York, Washington D.C. and Montana, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

The indictment handed down by a Nevada grand jury on July 16 charged Spencer Christjencody Gear, 32, of Las Vegas with 22 counts of threatening to injure public officials. Gear was arrested on Tuesday and is being held in federal prison after his initial court appearance the same day. Gear pleaded not guilty to all counts in the indictment Tuesday according to federal court records.

Prosecutors say that between Nov. 30, 2023 and July 7, Gear made threatening phone calls and sent menacing emails threatening to assault and kill 8 federal officials while they were executing their official duties. He also threatened to retaliate against the officials on account of performing their official duties, authorities said.
A New York City man is accused of sexually assaulting a child under 16 while working at a youth camp, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.

Jelani McKenzie, 32, of Queens was arrested Friday and charged with four counts of first degree aggravated sexual assault, endangering the welfare of a child, and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual contact, authorities said.

On July 23, Alpine Police contacted the prosecutors Special Victims Unit about the alleged sexual assault of a child that began in March in Alpine.

An investigation by the prosecutors office and the Alpine Police found McKenzie sexually assaulted the child on multiple occasions while employed as a support services director at the youth camp, authorities said.

Prosecutors did not name the camp where McKenzie worked.

McKenzie was arrested in Queens. He is being held in jail on Rikers Island pending extradition to Bergen County. No attorney information for McKenzie was immediately available.

Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on X @CommutingLarry
Descendants of New Jerseys original inhabitants, the Lenni-Lenape people, return to their homeland this weekend for two days of dance, song and storytelling at the Great Falls in Paterson.

Members of the Delaware Tribe of Indians are traveling from Bartlesville, Oklahoma, to reconnect with the land that long ago sustained them, said their leader, Jeremy Johnson.
One of New Jerseys most influential educational cooperatives  the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey  awarded no-bid contracts, failed to properly secure health insurance, overpaid on that insurance, and had almost $69 million in unallocated money, the state comptroller said in a new report.

The commission is utilized by hundreds of school districts to pay for things like specialized programs, textbooks, transportation and more. It operates its own schools and manages a transportation service that deals with more than 14,000 students.

The $69 million excess funds could be put to use to save taxpayers money, the comptrollers report said.
The final weekend of July in New Jersey will feature much better weather than the rain-soaked week with the forecast for the next three days calling for dry, sunny and less humid conditions with temperatures about normal for this time of year.

Daytime highs will be in the 80s to near 90 and nighttime lows will fall into the 60s to near 70 each day from Friday to Sunday, forecasters say.

Sunday will feature more clouds than Saturday, but there is no threat of rain until Monday when theres just a slight chance of showers along the Jersey Shore.
Beijing (Gasgoo)- LiDAR solution provider Hesai Technology on July 25 announced a partnership with SAIC General Motors (SAIC-GM) to supply AT series automotive-grade long-range LiDAR for the latter's upcoming car models.

Photo credit: Hesai Technology

Aside from SAIC-GM, the LiDAR maker also announced cooperation with Audi, and Fords joint-venture brand in China. Their respective cooperative car models will begin mass production from 2025.

This collaboration comes as SAIC-GM ramps up its transformation efforts in electrification and intelligent connectivity, with a planned investment of 70 billion yuan in new technologies by 2025.

SAIC-GM plans to launch 12 new energy vehicle models between 2024 and 2025, including Ultium Platform-based battery electric vehicles and a new generation of smart PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric vehicle) to cater to diverse market demands. In the realm of intelligent connectivity, SAIC-GMs new generation of its Super Cruise advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) is being rapidly deployed across its product lineup. Moreover, the automaker also plans on introducing more advanced intelligent assistance features designed to provide a smart, safe, and reliable driving experience.

Hesai's AT series LiDAR is built on a self-developed chip architecture, featuring a highly integrated transceiver module and a stable one-dimensional mirror scanning solution. This technology supports a range of autonomous driving systems from ADAS to L4, offering high-confidence, all-weather 3D perception, making it a critical component of intelligent driving systems. Since it began mass production and delivery in 2022, the AT128 has been successfully integrated into several popular new energy vehicle models in China, with over 350,000 units delivered by the first quarter of 2024.
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.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On July 25, NETA Auto made significant strides in the Southeast Asian market by simultaneously launching its all-electric SUV, the NETA X, in Thailand's Bangkok and Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur. This dual-market launch marks an accelerated phase in NETA Auto's global strategy, particularly in Southeast Asia.

Launch ceremony in Thailand; photo credit: NETA Auto

NETA Auto is rapidly expanding its overseas product portfolio. To meet the expectations, driving habits, and regulatory requirements of users in Thailand, Brazil, and other regions, NETA Auto has made several localized adjustments to its export models.

Launch ceremony in Malaysia; photo credit: NETA Auto

According to the carmaker, the localized NETA X features an advanced driver assistance system and an intelligent cockpit powered by multilingual voice assistant. It also offers a variety of online functions, including music streaming, navigation, and vehicle control via a smartphone app, with support for OTA upgrades. Additionally, the NETA X is equipped with a 15.6-inch smart central screen, greatly enhancing convenience and user experience.

In Thailand, NETA Auto has brought new energy vehicle experiences to over 17,000 consumers, frequently ranking at the top of the monthly sales charts for electric models. In Malaysia, NETA Auto plans to intensify its efforts by launching at least three competitive vehicle models over the next two years and accelerating the establishment of sales channels to provide local users with more products and better services.

This year, NETA Auto has been focusing on expanding its presence in overseas markets, with three major factories already deployed in Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. In January, the company signed an agreement with a Malaysian partner, leading to the establishment of its third overseas factory in Malaysia. By March, the eco-smart factory in Thailand began large-scale production, with an expected annual capacity of 30,000 vehicles. In April, the factory in Indonesia rolled off its first new cars.

In June, NETA Auto opened its first African flagship store in Nairobi, Kenya. This is the first store opened by a Chinese new energy vehicle startup in African right-hand drive market.

On July 16, NETA Auto opened its first South American subsidiary on Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo, Brazil, with the first three models set to enter the Brazilian market in the third quarter. This move signifies NETA Auto's official entry into the Brazilian market.
A Torrington angler is celebrating the catch of a lifetime after landing a monster 180lb halibut in British waters.

Mel Davies was fishing on board the charter boat Oberon out of Yell in the Shetland Islands, skippered by Kenny Graham, when the huge flatfish took his lure.

An epic 45 minute battle followed before the halibut was finally subdued and it took three people to get the large fish aboard.

Above: It took three people to get the huge halibut on board. Credit: Mel Davies

It is not the first halibut for Mel, who works on the assembly line at Atlas Packaging in Barnstaple, but it is a personal best for him and the boat to date.

He caught the fish on a 500g herring lure he was trialling for Bell Rock Lures, using a Daiwa Super Kenzaki Braid Special rod rated 30-50lb and a Fin Nor spinning reel with 50lb braided line.

Mel was on his third trip to Shetland earlier this month on board Oberon and is also a regular visitor to Norway too, so this wasnt his first halibut, but he knew it was a good one.

He said: Each year more and more halibut are getting caught. Most are in the 30 to 80 pound range, so this fish is a monster for British waters and the biggest caught on one rod and line for Shetland.

After many lunges to the bottom, I managed to finally get it to the boat and it took three people to bring it on board. I have caught and lost many halibut but this one was a very powerful fish.

I knew from past experience it was a halibut and cannot get over how my gear actually won the battle, so elated to say the least.

The fish was kept but the fillets were shared out among everyone on the boat, so all could enjoy it.

Above: The giant halibut was kept but shared out among everyone on the boat. Credit: Mel Davies

Mels next trip will be to Norway in March to target the giant Skrei cod and he is also hoping to have an attempt at the world haddock record.
Volunteers at Clovellys RNLI lifeboat station are gearing up for their annual Lifeboat Day, set to take place on August 4.

This event will celebrate the RNLI's role within the history and heritage of Clovelly, where a lifeboat station has been a fixture for over 150 years.

Currently, Clovelly station houses the Toby Rundle, an Atlantic 85 B-class lifeboat celebrating a decade of service this year.

Additionally, 2024 marks 200 years since the RNLI was established by Sir William Hillary, creating the charity dedicated to saving lives at sea.

The Clovelly crew has participated in several events to honour this milestone and eagerly anticipates continuing the festivities on Lifeboat Day.

The event will commence at 10.30am with a host of activities scheduled throughout the day. Highlights include a multi-vessel display at approximately 12.30pm (subject to change), live music from The Cabin Girls, The Applecorers, and Spoots, along with a BBQ, games, competitions, and a charity auction, all in support of Clovelly RNLI.

An old lifeboat, the Charles H. Barrett, will make a special appearance in remote-controlled form.

The lifeboat station will be open all day for tours, with crew members available to share their sea stories.

Visitors can also enjoy a variety of tasty cakes and shop at the new pop-up store. The Red Lion and the New Inn will be open as usual, offering food and drink.

Landrovers will provide transport from the harbour to the top of the village for those unable to manage the steep hill.

The RNLI charity, known for saving lives at sea, relies on volunteers to provide a 24-hour search and rescue service around the coasts of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
Shanghai (Gasgoo)- On July 26, Geely celebrated a significant milestone with the successful production of its 20,000th Aegis Short Blade Battery at the factory in Guiyang city. This achievement ensures that the new Galaxy E5 will be ready for delivery upon its market launch on August 3.

Aegis Short Blade Battery; p hoto credit: Geely Galaxy

The Aegis Short Blade Battery represents Geely's latest innovation in self-developed and self-produced "blade-type" lithium iron phosphate batteries. With a cell length of 580mm and an energy density of 192Wh/kg, the battery boasts a lifespan of 3,500 cycles and an average charging rate of 2.45C. Impressively, it can charge from 10% to 80% state of charge (SOC) in just 17 minutes. The Galaxy E5 will be the first model to feature this battery.

The Galaxy E5 is Geely Galaxy's newest compact all-electric SUV, set to hit the market on August 3. Pre-sales have already begun, offering five different variants with a price range of 123,000 yuan to 157,000 yuan.

The Galaxy E5 measures 4,615mm in length, 1,901mm in width, and 1,670mm in height, with a wheelbase of 2,750mm. Inside, it features a floating central control screen, a digital instrument cluster, and a head-up display (HUD). The central control screen is equipped with the Flyme Auto infotainment system, powered by China's first automotive-grade 7nm chipset, the SiEngine SE1000.

In terms of performance, the Galaxy E5's electric motor delivers a maximum power of 160kW. It offers two battery options: a 49.52kWh and a 60.22kWh version of the Aegis Short Blade Battery, providing a CLTC range of 440km and 530km, respectively.
In a surprising about-face, the New York City Charter Revision Commission on Thursday dramatically scaled back its plan to hamper the City Councils ability to pass public safety legislation.

Earlier this week, the commission had proposed altering the citys governing charter by adding roughly 90 days to City Council deliberations on bills related to public safety.

But the commission on Thursday cut the proposed additional review time to 30 days.

New York City voters will have the opportunity to vote on the proposal in November. Should it pass, it will apply to legislation touching on the public safety operations of the Police, Fire and Correction Departments.

Carlo Scissura, the commissions chair, said he had directed the commission to alter the proposal in response to concerns from City Council members and other constituents, and that he had not spoken to anybody  including the mayor, who appointed the commissions members, or the mayors chief adviser  before doing so.
Vice President Kamala Harris offered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strong support for Israels right to defend itself from terrorism on Thursday but declared that far too many innocent civilians had died in Gaza and that I will not be silent about their suffering.

In what amounted to her debut on the world stage since her rapid ascension as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Ms. Harris sought to strike a balance and capture what she called the complexity of the strife in the Middle East. But while she did not stray from President Biden on policy, she struck a stronger tone on the plight of Palestinians.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating, she told reporters after meeting with Mr. Netanyahu at the White House complex. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time  we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies, we cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.

She noted that she had also met with the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas since its Oct. 7 terrorist attack and expressed distress for their anguish, making a point of reciting the names of each of the hostages with U.S. citizenship. Ive told them each time they are not alone, and I stand with them, she said. And President Biden and I are working every day to bring them home.
A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a North Korean man on charges of stealing huge amounts of data from the computers of American military bases and defense contractors, as well as NASA and several Asian companies, in the latest sign of North Koreas malicious cybercrime and espionage abilities.

Federal prosecutors accused the man, Rim Jong Hyok, of working with unnamed co-conspirators to steal data in 2022 from four unnamed American defense contractors and from Randolph Air Force Base in Texas and Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. The indictment also said that the North Koreans had extracted data from computers in NASAs inspector general office over three months that year.

In what experts called standard practice for North Koreas cyberoperatives, Mr. Rim and his collaborators subsidized their espionage with money procured in ransomware attacks on American hospitals and health care companies, the indictment said.

The North Koreans extracted technical data from the defense contractors, including information related to uranium processing as well as military aircraft, shipbuilding and satellites, the indictment said. The hackers also infiltrated the computer systems of defense companies in South Korea, Taiwan and even an energy company in China, which has friendly relations with North Korea.
The arrest in the United States of two top leaders of the Sinaloa drug cartel came after what initial accounts suggest was a dramatic betrayal that saw one of the men, a son of the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, lure the other under false pretenses onto a plane that delivered them both into the hands of American law enforcement.

One of the operatives taken into custody, Ismael Zambada Garcia, was arguably the most powerful criminal in Mexico, a septuagenarian kingpin who helped to found the Sinaloa cartel with El Chapo decades ago and remained at large even after his partner was extradited to the United States and convicted at a trial in New York City.

The other was one of El Chapos own sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, who with his brothers had inherited a large swath of their fathers illicit business moving massive amounts of cocaine and fentanyl into the United States, Europe and elsewhere.

The two men were arrested at a small local airport outside of El Paso, Texas, on Thursday afternoon after their Beechcraft King Air plane landed there on a flight from Mexico, U.S. officials said.
At least 30 people were killed and dozens more injured over a 24-hour period on Wednesday and Thursday in the Gaza Strip, local health officials said, as the Israeli military pushed deeper into parts of Khan Younis that it had previously designated as humanitarian zones for civilians fleeing the fighting.

The Israeli military, which began a renewed offensive in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis earlier this week, said it was targeting Hamas forces whom it accused of embedding fighters among civilians.
Some senior Israeli security officials who have grown frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus handling of cease-fire negotiations with Hamas are hoping that President Biden will convince him in a meeting on Thursday to drop some of his demands.

Israels defense agencies increasingly fear that Mr. Netanyahu will doom hopes for a cease-fire and hostage exchange if he continues to insist that Israeli forces must screen Palestinians for weapons as they move between northern and southern Gaza, according to four officials familiar with internal conversations about the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

Earlier this year the Israeli military built a road south of Gaza City known as the Netzarim corridor that effectively divides Gaza in two. A May draft of a tentative cease-fire agreement that Israel had submitted would require its forces to withdraw from part of the corridor and allow unarmed people to cross it, permitting many displaced Gazans to return home.

But earlier this month, Mr. Netanyahus government reversed its position, and pushed to install Israeli checkpoints throughout the corridor to screen for weapons, the officials say.
The American Museum of Natural History said it was making progress on returning the human remains of nearly 2,200 Native Americans and thousands of tribal funerary objects, which became a top priority earlier this year in the wake of new federal regulations.

In a staff letter on Thursday afternoon, the museums president, Sean Decatur, provided an update. He said that the institution has held more than 400 consultations, with approximately 50 different stakeholders, including hosting seven visits of Indigenous delegations, and eight completed repatriations, which includes 124 individuals and 90 objects.

The remains of at least three individuals were announced for return to the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians in California. According to information published in the Federal Register, the museum bought one set of human remains in 1891 from James Terry, one of the earliest curators of the institutions anthropology department, then known as the archaeological and ethnological department. In 1924, the remains of at least two other individuals were purchased from Felix von Luschan, an Austrian anthropologist who eventually sold his entire collection of skulls and skeletons to the museum, which some historians believe doubled its holdings of human remains at the time.

Earlier this year, the museum closed two major halls exhibiting Native American objects, largely in response to new federal regulations that required museums to obtain consent from tribes before displaying or performing research on cultural items. The updates were part of the Biden administrations effort to close loopholes in the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, which established protocols for the return of human remains, funerary objects and other holdings to tribes. For decades, tribal representatives had criticized the law as providing museums and other institutions with the means to drag out the repatriation process.
Seated Nude Woman, a drawing by the Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele, was returned on Friday to the heirs of Fritz Grunbaum, a Jewish art collector and Viennese cabaret performer who was killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The drawing had been held by the heirs of a Jewish couple who fled the Nazis just before World War II and later unknowingly bought the work, which investigators for the Manhattan district attorneys office say was among dozens looted from Grunbaum by the Third Reich.

The return took place at the district attorneys office in Manhattan. The grandchildren of the couple, Ernst and Helene Papanek, said in a statement that relinquishing the work was the right thing to do in the face of evidence it had been looted.

Since September, five museums and four private owners have handed back 11 works once owned by Grunbaum in what has become the largest Holocaust art restitution case in the United States.
Shooting the eighth and final season of Netflixs teen crime drama Elite last November, crew members yelled silencio so often it could have been mistaken for a chant.

Dozens of young actors, dressed in black tie, talked and laughed as they milled around a set on the outskirts of Madrid that depicted a nightclub. The Brazilian actor Andre Lamoglia seemed used to the chaos as he waited, perching on the bar in a black suit with white trim, to lead another of the shows rowdy party scenes.

After the cameras finally started rolling, and with the extras making much less noise, Lamoglias character, Ivan, took a seemingly casual selfie with his half sister Chloe (Mirela Balic) that was actually part of a scheme to discover who murdered his friend.

Unruly teenagers, expensive clothes and mysterious dead bodies are all typical for the Spanish-language show which, since its premiere in 2018, has become one of Netflixs most popular original titles, and one of the longest-running. (The final season is being released Friday.)
Officials said on Thursday they feared as much as half the town of Jasper, Alberta, had been destroyed by wildfires so intense they generated their own weather.

Its a sad day here because Jasper is such a gorgeous place, said Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia, on Thursday.

The town is the gateway to Jasper National Park, a crown jewel of the Canadian parks system. At least 25,000 residents and tourists were evacuated from their homes before firefighters and emergency personnel also had to flee toxic smoke. The mayor called the destruction almost beyond comprehension.

That fire was worsened by a pyrocumulonimbus, or a fire-generated thunderstorm, according to Dr. Flannigan.
Rather than the lions and rhinos that most safaris seek, the GMT Watch Safari is going in search of great watchmaking this fall.

Sponsored by the Swiss magazine Great Magazine of Timepieces, best known as GMT, the trip is scheduled from Oct. 27 to Nov. 1. Travelers will be taken by minibus around Switzerlands important watchmaking hubs: from Geneva to Schaffhausen, through the Vallee de Joux and to Le Locle, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Nine top Swiss watchmakers are scheduled to open their doors to the tour.

Twenty-four places are available, a number chosen to match the 24th anniversary of the magazines debut.
On Dec. 22, 1874, the H.M.S. Dido arrived in Fiji from Sydney, Australia, carrying about 200 people and an invisible payload. A king of Fiji and his son, who were on the ship, were infected with measles. When they debarked, they started an epidemic that killed 20,000 people in Fiji  up to one-fourth of the population  who had no immunity to the disease.

But in those days, when people traveled by sail or steam, such events were the exception rather than the rule. A new report, published last week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses mathematical models to show how viruses had to beat very long odds to be transmitted across the sea. Most often, the study found, infectious diseases burned themselves out on board before ships ever docked.

In the contemporary world, it is expected that new diseases and older infectious menaces will spread almost instantly around the globe, as happened with Covid-19. But where was the inflection point? Elizabeth Blackmore, a doctoral student at Yale, and James O. Lloyd-Smith, an ecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, set out to find the moment when viral transmission started to change.

John McNeill, a historian at Georgetown University who was not involved in the study, said Ms. Blackmores use of sophisticated mathematical modeling has achieved something here that no historian or anybody else has been able to do before  to quantify likelihoods of transmission.
From our review:

Chris is a stand-in for Sean Wang, who built the movie on top of his own memories. So while those recollections are highly specific to the setting and the time period  Chris uses all the AOL Instant Messenger acronyms, chats with the SmarterChild chatbot and checks a friends MySpace page to see if hes still in their Top 8 list  they feel universal, too. When Chris flubs a first kiss, we feel his embarrassment. When he flips out at his mother, and friends look at him askance for his behavior, we feel his confused shame. Didi is as much about realizing how others see you as it is about learning to see them for who they really are.
The conditions are aimed at ensuring that nearby hospitals arent overwhelmed by the increase of patients expected after Beth Israel closes. The hospital, at 16th Street and First Avenue, treated just under 50,000 patients last year, and handles about 6 percent of all emergency room visits in Manhattan. Once it closes, many of those patients will most likely land at Bellevue or NYU Langone Health, two hospitals both several blocks up First Avenue from Beth Israel.

The Health Department said Beth Israel must fund an expansion of the emergency room at Bellevue, the flagship of the citys public hospital system. Another condition is that Beth Israel must run an urgent care center, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for three months.

The states decision removes a major hurdle standing in the way of Mount Sinais closure, but for the moment, the hospital must stay open: It still faces a lawsuit challenging the closing, and a judge has ordered the facility not to reduce its medical services in the meantime. But many doctors and nurses have left over the past year to find more secure jobs elsewhere. At times, care has suffered and patients have been rerouted to other hospitals because Beth Israel is no longer able to respond to strokes and some other medical emergencies.

A spokesman for the Mount Sinai hospital system, Loren Riegelhaupt, said in a statement that Beth Israel would remain open and accept patients, for now.

Beth Israel was founded in 1889, initially as a dispensary serving mainly Jewish immigrants on the Lower East Side. It grew into a major Manhattan hospital, but has struggled in recent years.
Two women were shot to death in a murder-suicide on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Friday morning, according to the police.

Officers responded to a 911 call around 8:55 a.m. about two women who had been shot near a white Honda Civic outside an apartment building at 519 East 88th Street, just a half block from Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the New York City mayor.

One of the women, identified by the police as Kathleen Leigh, 65, approached the second woman, identified as Marisa Galloway, 45, shooting her in the head and lower back. Ms. Leigh then shot herself in the head, the police said.

Ms. Leigh was pronounced dead at the scene, the police said. Ms. Galloway was taken to Weill Cornell Medical Center, where she later died.
Vice President Kamala Harris, now the likely Democratic nominee, has the chance to encourage and embrace the kind of close examination that the public so far has had little opportunity to witness during the 2024 race.

Americans deserve a campaign that tests the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates; that highlights their differences and allows scrutiny of their plans; that motivates people to vote by giving them a clear account of how their choice in this election will affect their lives.

Americans deserve the opportunity to ask questions of those who are seeking to lead their government.

There are promising signs in the early days of Ms. Harriss candidacy. She has bounced onto the campaign trail with a sense of joyful purpose, seizing the opening to reintroduce herself. She has begun to detail the dangers of a second Trump presidency and to delineate her differences with Donald Trump, while describing her vision for a country where people have the support they need to prosper.
Donald Trumps economic panacea is to impose over-the-top tariffs on all imports, potentially generating enough revenue to eliminate the federal income tax. It is hardly an innovative idea. On the contrary, if enacted, it would return our postmodern economy to that of the Gilded Age of the late 19th century, to economic policies favoring the wealthy over the poor and middle class, when tariffs were the main source of government revenue.

That tariff-dominant era ended with the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1913, which facilitated the adoption of a graduated federal income tax. The income tax, not tariffs, has been the main source of federal revenue ever since, and for good reason.

Tariffs are a tax on imports, the functional equivalent of a sales tax, imposing a proportionately bigger burden on those with modest incomes. As my colleagues at the Peterson Institute for International Economics point out, Mr. Trumps proposal for a 10 percent tariff on all imports (which totaled $3.1 trillion last year) and a 60 percent tariff on imports from China would cost a typical middle-income household at least $1,700 in increased expenses each year.

Mr. Trumps radical all tariff policy would be self-defeating. It could not possibly fund our modern national security and social welfare needs, because tariff rates would have to rise impossibly high to yield the $2 trillion generated by individual and corporate income taxes. The resulting tariff war, when countries inevitably retaliate, would shrink imports and reduce tariff revenues. And it would discard or marginalize the one tax we have that requires people to pay their fair share.
An actress and comedian says she was drugged and sexually assaulted by Oren Alexander, a top luxury real estate agent who is facing a string of accusations that he and two of his brothers sexually assaulted women  allegations that had been whispered throughout the high-end real estate industry for years.

Renee Willett, 31, filed a federal lawsuit on Friday accusing Mr. Alexander, 37, of attacking her in his apartment nearly nine years ago. She is the fourth woman to file a lawsuit this summer against Mr. Alexander. Two earlier lawsuits filed this year name Mr. Alexander and his twin brother, Alon, who does not work in real estate but often socializes with him. A third suit filed in June names Oren, Alon and their older brother Tal Alexander, 38, who is Orens longtime partner in real estate sales.

Isabelle Kirshner, a lawyer for Oren Alexander, said she had no comment on the new allegation at this time. Oren, Tal and Alon have denied all previous allegations.

Like other women who have said they were assaulted, Ms. Willett said she was prompted to file a lawsuit after reading articles about similar claims involving the Alexanders. Her lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, came two days after The New York Times published an article with accounts from several women about the brothers.
NASA officials on Friday said they expected congestion at the International Space Station in the coming month, following a couple of weeks in which it seemed that the agencys ability to transport astronauts to and from orbit was stuck in a holding pattern.

But the officials portrayed the orbital traffic jam as a good thing.

We have never had so many vehicles and so many options, Ken Bowersox, the associate administrator who leads NASAs space operations mission directorate, said during a news conference on Friday. It complicates our lives, but in a really good way.

Operations at the space station have been more eventful than usual lately. A new Boeing spacecraft experienced propulsion problems en route to the space station. The astronauts on the station had to shelter for a while after a defunct Russian satellite disintegrated. A couple of spacewalks were called off because of problems with the spacesuits. And the question of when SpaceX could next fly more astronauts emerged after a rockets failure in orbit.
In December 2020 and January 2021, as much of the world was still locked down by the Covid-19 pandemic, Paulina Klaudyna Krzysztoszek and Cory Michael Bolotsky made the same plan: to travel and to work remotely from one of the few countries open to tourists at the time  Mexico.

They did not know each other. He was living in Boston; she in Manchester, England. Ms. Krzysztoszek planned to travel the world for three years, beginning in Cancun in early January 2021. Mr. Bolotsky planned to travel to Mexico for three months.

By early February, both were in Isla Mujeres and staying at Selina Isla Mujeres, a hostel that caters to digital nomads like themselves.

Meeting seemed almost inevitable. The hostel wasnt a huge place, and both spent a good amount of time in the co-working space. Plus, Mr. Bolotsky was the loud American, Ms. Krzysztoszek said. Everyone knew him.
Stanford researchers gave a popular A.I. chatbot a language test.

They asked the bot in Vietnamese to write a traditional poem in the form known as song that luc bat that follows a pattern of lines made up of seven, seven, six, then eight words. When the bot spit out an answer, it wrote a poem, but didnt follow the format.

The team tried a different prompt, asking what the proper Vietnamese word was for a mothers younger brother, and it responded with the words for a fathers younger and older siblings.

These flaws are not unique to Claude 3.5, the chatbot by the artificial intelligence company Anthropic that the researchers queried, but they illustrate some of the ways in which artificial intelligence can get language outside of standard American English wrong.

While the use of A.I. has exploded in the West, much of the rest of the world has been left out of the conversation since most of the technology is trained in English. A.I. experts worry that the language gap could exacerbate technological inequities, and that it could leave many regions and cultures behind.
If you drive a car made by General Motors and it has an internet connection, your cars movements and exact location are being collected and shared anonymously with a data broker.

This practice, disclosed in a letter sent by Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts to the Federal Trade Commission on Friday, is yet another way in which automakers are tracking drivers, often without their knowledge.

Previous reporting in The New York Times, which the letter cited, revealed how automakers including G.M., Honda and Hyundai collected information about drivers behavior, such as how often they slammed on the brakes, accelerated rapidly and exceeded the speed limit. It was then sold to the insurance industry, which used it to help gauge individual drivers riskiness.

The two Democratic senators, both known for privacy advocacy, zeroed in on G.M., Honda and Hyundai because all three had made deals, The Times reported, with Verisk, an analytics company that sold the data to insurers.
For once, American voters are in near total agreement about politics: They (almost) all agree that President Biden was right to exit the presidential race.

In the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, released on Thursday, 87 percent of registered voters approved of his decision to drop out. Only 9 percent disapproved.

Democrats and Republicans probably dont agree for the same reasons: Republicans have generally always had negative views of the president, whereas many Democrats approved of his job performance but may have seen his exit as the most strategic path forward, or came to accept his decision once he made it.

Still, Mr. Bidens move has reached a stratum of consensus that little in American public life can touch. We reviewed dozens of polls from the past few years, and it was hard to find anything that more people agreed on.
Early on Sept. 30, 1893, the Margaret A. Muir schooner, carrying cargo of bulk salt, cleared the narrow Straits of Mackinac on its way down Lake Michigan toward Chicagos port. As the crew rounded Michigan and steered south, the ship encountered relentless 50-mile-an-hour winds.

For nearly two hours the Muir braved the strong winds and high waves, which broke over the vessels decks, but eventually the ship was overcome by the storm and began to fall apart. Captain David Clow and his crew of six barely made it out alive, steering a lifeboat through high waves to the Wisconsin shore.

The only life lost on the Muir was the captains loyal dog. In his grief, Captain Clow, who was 71 years old and had survived at least three earlier shipwrecks, swore off sailing. The Muir joined thousands of other ships claimed by the stormy waters of the Great Lakes in the 19th century.
For three and a half years, President Biden and his aides have insisted that the United States is a Pacific power, and that its allies and partners in the region need not worry about Washingtons commitments.

For U.S. officials, underscoring that message has become increasingly important as Chinas power has grown. Now Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken plans to deliver assurances in person across six nations, his most ambitious trip in the region.

When Mr. Blinken lands in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on Saturday, he will face a barrage of questions about what dramatic shifts in U.S. policy might or might not occur next year, given the upcoming change in the presidency.

Mr. Bidens announcement last Sunday that he is no longer running for re-election sent shock waves around the world. Many of Americas allies are especially concerned about a second Trump presidency, given that former President Donald J. Trump has constantly declared that those allies are conning the United States into providing military support. They are uncertain if Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, can beat him in November.
It sounded like a story ripped from a narco thriller: One of the biggest drug lords in Mexico was lured onto an airplane, flown across the border and presented to American federal agents by the son of his former partner in crime.

As improbable as it may seem, that is exactly what appears to have happened on Thursday evening, when a Beechcraft King Air turboprop landed at a small municipal airport outside El Paso, and off stepped one of the most wanted men in Mexico: Ismael Zambada Garcia, a founder of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel.

Mr. Zambada Garcia, known as El Mayo, had for decades evaded capture by both Mexican and American officials, living a life of luxurious simplicity in the mountains of Sinaloa  despite the $15 million U.S. bounty on his head.

But in the end, U.S. officials said, he was betrayed by an unlikely foe: a son of his closest criminal ally, Joaquin Guzman Loera, the infamous drug lord known as El Chapo, who is now serving a life sentence in an American federal prison.
In a 2019 presidential debate, Kamala Harris insisted, I am not a protectionist Democrat.

But Ms. Harris is not a free-trade Democrat, either. She has said she would have opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1992, which President Biden voted for while serving in the Senate, as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement supported by the Obama administration. And in 2020, she was one of only 10 senators to vote against the deal to replace NAFTA, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

As she pursues the presidential nomination, Ms. Harriss views on trade and economic issues are likely to become a focal point. Yet unlike former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, trade has never been a major focus for Ms. Harris. As a result, her positions on trade issues are not entirely known.

William A. Reinsch, the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Ms. Harris a bit of a blank slate, but one most likely to be filled in with trade skepticism.

In part that is because of her no vote on the U.S.M.C.A., which Mr. Reinsch said leads me to assume she is part of the progressive wing of the party which is skeptical of trade agreements in general, and particularly of those that involve market access. But, he said, theres not a lot out there to go on.
Youngsters from Sweden visit Huangyaguan section of the Great Wall in north China's Tianjin, July 24, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhao Zishuo)





More than 200 youngsters participating in the 2024 Tianjin International Children's Art Festival visited the Huangyaguan section of the Great Wall on Wednesday.

Themed "Peace, Friendship, Future," the art festival commenced on Monday evening in Tianjin, drawing over 1,000 young artists from more than 50 art groups across 40 countries and regions.

The five-day festival is scheduled to host a variety of activities, including artistic performances, a grand gala featuring children from home and abroad, an ascent of the Tianjin section of the Great Wall and tours around the city.




The rugged border lands around Douglas, Ariz., dip through precipitous canyons and shoot skyward on rocky mountain walls, impossible terrain for a 30-foot steel bollard wall but not for the cartels smuggling people and contraband from Mexico.

Senator Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat under consideration to be Vice President Kamala Harriss running mate, knows this expanse well  a fact that even the states Republicans acknowledge.

Donald Huish, the G.O.P. mayor of Douglas, recounted a phone call with Mr. Kelly two weeks ago, when the two men talked through progress on making the small city an official, expanded port of entry into the United States. The senator has pushed hard for the move, and Mr. Huish has embraced it. Both of them see the plan as a way to inject economic stability into the region and possibly defang the coyotes and cartels prowling the passes.

What gets me about Senator Kelly is, yes, were in touch with staff on the issues, but he personally calls me on a regular basis, and I feel comfortable calling him, said Mr. Huish, who identifies as a strongly conservative Republican. Im sure hes taken some heat from some of his party concerning the border, but he understands it.
Former President Donald J. Trump, who has for months urged Israel to end the war in Gaza as quickly as possible, insisted that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel were on good terms after the two met on Friday in Palm Beach, Fla.

Though they were close allies during Mr. Trumps presidency, their ties became strained after the 2020 election. But Mr. Trump, asked by a reporter on Friday if the two would need to rebuild their relationship if Mr. Trump won in November, said we dont have to. Weve had a good relationship.

After the meeting on Friday at Mr. Trumps private club and residence, Mar-a-Lago, he also attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, who is poised to be the Democrats nominee after President Biden dropped out of the race. He said the vice president was insufficiently supportive of Israel.

He again called her radical  a term he has repeatedly used to describe her since she started campaigning  and said her remarks after meeting with Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday were disrespectful to Israel.
Nearly two weeks after the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump, theres still no official report from the Trump campaign or from state or federal governments about what caused the wound on his right ear.

This lack of clarity has left the issue unsettled and fueled speculation online about whether he was hit by a bullet or shrapnel  or perhaps something else.

But a detailed analysis of bullet trajectories, footage, photos and audio by The New York Times strongly suggests Mr. Trump was grazed by the first of eight bullets fired by the gunman, Thomas Crooks. Subsequent bullets wounded two rally goers and killed a third.

What has helped stoke confusion is that Mr. Trump himself has said he was hit by a bullet, but his campaign has not released any official medical reports, nor has Mr. Trumps current physician weighed in.
Sitting in a KFC restaurant in the former coal-mining town of Pomeroy, Ohio, a few hours before JD Vance addressed the Republican National Convention, Curtis Ramsey, 18, recalled the first time he heard the Ohio senators name.

It was last month, he said, in the Washington office of another Ohio Republican, Representative Jim Jordan.

Mr. Ramsey, who had never been to a big city or flown on an airplane before, was in the capital with two filmmakers seeking to draw attention to a new documentary, Inheritance. The film features Mr. Ramsey and examines the plight of drug-ravaged Appalachian communities like his own.

When the filmmakers, Matt Moyer and his wife, Amy Toensing, explained to Mr. Jordan what their documentary was about, the congressman broke into a smile. Sounds like the story of the next vice president of the United States! Mr. Jordan said.
LaVon Bracy has been registering Florida voters ever since Lyndon Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, because she wanted, she said, to give others the voice she was denied as a Black student in a largely white high school. In an average year, she said, the nonprofit Faith in Florida, where she serves as democracy director, used to add 12,000 new voters to the states rolls.

That ended last year, when Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation that imposed tough new rules on voter registration drives in the name of stopping fraud  and made voter registration groups that break the rules liable for fines as high as $250,000.

These days, Faith in Florida canvassers no longer help would-be voters fill out registration forms. Instead, they hand out slips of paper with a QR code that links to the states online registration website. And its not just small-time civic groups that are affected: The Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters has scaled back its trademark voter registration drives, too.

These draconian laws and rules are like taking a sledgehammer to hit a flea, said Cecile Scoon, a lawyer and the president of the Florida league.
As Sudan hurtles toward famine, its military is blocking the United Nations from bringing enormous amounts of food into the country through a vital border crossing, effectively cutting off aid to hundreds of thousands of starving people during the depths of a civil war.

Experts warn that Sudan, barely functioning after 15 months of fighting, could soon face one of the worlds worst famines in decades. But the Sudanese militarys refusal to let U.N. aid convoys through the crossing is thwarting the kind of all-out relief effort that aid groups say is needed to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths  as many as 2.5 million, according to one estimate  by the end of this year.

The risk is greatest in Darfur, the Spain-sized region that suffered a genocide two decades ago. Of the 14 Sudanese districts at immediate risk of famine, eight are in Darfur, right across the border that the United Nations is trying to cross. Time is running out to help them.

The closed border point, a subject of increasingly urgent appeals from American officials, is at Adre, the main crossing from Chad into Sudan. At the border, little more than a concrete bollard in a dried-out riverbed, just about everything seems to flow: refugees and traders, four-wheeled motorbikes carrying animal skins, and donkey carts laden with barrels of fuel.
Queen Elizabeth II vacationed there, as did her parents before her. Hollywoods royalty were regular visitors, too. Marilyn Monroe filmed scenes for River of No Return there, and The Emperor Waltz brought Bing Crosby and Joan Fontaine to its golf courses and tennis courts. The mountains of Jasper, Alberta, have also stood in for peaks around the world in other movies.

Above all, Jasper National Park represented Canada both to the world and for many Canadians for over a century.

Now, tens of thousands of acres of the park and its mountain town of Jasper are either burning in an inferno or have been reduced to rubble and ash. Parks Canada, the national agency, said that since two large-scale wildfires, which sent up a wall of flame more than 300 feet high, were whisked into the community on ferocious winds earlier in the week, 358 of its 1,113 buildings have been destroyed.
The United States arrested two of the worlds most wanted drug traffickers on Thursday and accused them of being responsible for the growing presence of fentanyl in the country, where it has devastated communities.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia, 76, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 35, were taken into custody on Thursday, according to the Justice Department. The two men lead the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the biggest criminal organizations in Mexico responsible for a wave of violence that has left a painful scar on Mexico in the past three decades.

Heres what to know about the arrests and the cartel:
Typhoon Gaemi churned over southeastern China on Friday, with the local authorities warning that the storm, which left a trail of destruction in Taiwan and the Philippines, would bring torrential rain and flooding.

Gaemi made landfall on Thursday night in Chinas Fujian Province, where the local government shut down schools and nonessential businesses and evacuated more than 290,000 people by Friday morning. The international airport in Fujians Quanzhou prefecture canceled more than 160 flights because of the weather.

The storm had reported wind speeds of around 73 miles an hour when it made landfall, according to the Fujian Meteorological Bureau, just shy of what would be a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. Its intensity was lower than on Wednesday when it slammed into Taiwan with wind speeds equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane.

The Chinese authorities urged caution despite the weakening of the storm, which is forecast to head north in the coming days, crossing more than a dozen provinces. There has been heavy rain and deadly flooding for weeks in Southern China.
The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This weeks issue is written by Julia Bergin, a reporter based in Melbourne.

President Biden had just announced that he would bow out of the 2024 presidential race, throwing American politics into fresh tumult, when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia was asked this week if he was worried about the United States, his nations most important ally.

In private, for months now, officials with his government have expressed a mix of concern and cautious confidence. But Mr. Albanese went one step further. Knocking his own country down a peg, he said he was in no position to criticize Americas political turbulence given Australias own record of intraparty squabbles and changing leaders.

If I get re-elected as prime minister, that will be the first time that a prime minister has been re-elected after having served a full term since John Howard in 2004, Mr. Albanese said in a radio interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday. So, we have certainly been much more turbulent than the United States has been over the last couple of decades.

Hes right that Australia has churned through many leaders over the past 15 years or so  Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Mr. Rudd again, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, and finally, Mr. Albanese, who was elected in 2022.
In One Image Vintage of War By Nanna Heitmann and Eric Nagourney

Russian forces in a bloody battle to occupy eastern Ukraine set up a field hospital for wounded fighters in an old winery.

This soldier had just arrived. Medics quickly transferred him to a stretcher, cutting off his clothes to assess his wounds and start an IV.

Before the war, tourists would wander through tunnels decorated with carvings and taste the sparkling wine that Bakhmut was known for.

Now the Russians, who rarely see sunlight, take what cheer they can from other decorations, like the tree still there after Christmas had passed.

The cards and drawings on the wall were sent to recuperating soldiers by children back home.




This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the government will not be pursuing, in line with our longstanding position that this is a matter for the court to decide on, said an official spokeswoman for Mr. Starmer.

The government believes strongly in the rule of law and separation of powers, she added.

In May, Karim Khan, the international criminal court prosecutor, announced he had applied for warrants for Mr. Netanyahu and for the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity during Israels military operation in Gaza, including the starvation of civilians.

Mr. Khan simultaneously applied for warrants for three Hamas leaders, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mr. Sunak described the request for warrants against Israeli officials as deeply unhelpful, and a senior government minister, Andrew Mitchell, told Parliament: We do not think that the I.C.C. has jurisdiction in this case. In early June, the government applied to the international court for the right to submit objections, and was asked to submit its arguments by July 12. That deadline was extended until Friday after Mr. Sunak called a general election.

The decision not to intervene in the international court proceedings marks the second departure by the new British government from U.S. policy on Israel since Britains general election earlier this month.
The days before the Olympic swimming competition are often a chance for the worlds best swimmers to share their hopes and expectations.

This year, it was the latest chance to air their grievances.

There was talk of Chinese doping, demands for transparency and simmering anger. Much of the latter was focused on disappointment and disillusionment with the global antidoping system, and the irritation was international.

An Australian swimmer talked of podium protests. Chinese journalists complained of unfair scrutiny. And when an American star, Caeleb Dressel, was asked if he had faith in the systems set up to catch cheats ahead of an Olympics in which he will attempt to add to his seven gold medals, he offered a one-word response: No.

The Paris Olympics will be the first major international swimming competition since a New York Times investigation reported that 23 Chinese swimmers tested positive for a banned substance before the last Summer Olympics but were allowed to compete anyway.
The usual rhythm of arrivals and departures at Pariss train stations was replaced by a tense atmosphere of uncertainty on Friday. Hundreds of stranded passengers crowded the concourses, sorting out their plans after several arson attacks disrupted the rail system in France.

I dont know when I will be able to escape, said Ermine Toure at the Gare Montparnasse, a major transportation artery in Paris, three hours after she had hoped to leave Paris for a vacation in Nantes, in western France. Paris is a mess so I wanted to go today.

At the Gare Montparnasse, travelers hunched over their phones looking for alternate routes out of the French capital. Children waited atop makeshift seats of suitcases. A slew of announcements played over the loudspeaker system. The words act of malice and vandalism echoed throughout the hall, doing little to quell the anxiety among travelers.
Is 100 Days Enough Time to Pick a Leader? Around the World, Yes.

The 107 days Vice President Kamala Harris has to run for president may be shaping up as the shortest campaign in modern American history, but in many major democracies, the official election season would not even have started yet.

A longer campaign OFFICIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN BEGAN Election Day 107 days before U.S. Kamala Harris (2024) 93 days Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum (2024) 90 days Philippines Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (2022) 78 days Canada Justin Trudeau (2015) 66 days Italy Giorgia Meloni (2022) 47 days Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2022) 40 days Australia Anthony Albanese (2022) 36 days France Emmanuel Macron (2017) 35 days Indonesia Joko Widodo (2014) 35 days U.K. Keir Starmer (2024) 33 days India Narendra Modi (2014) 22 days South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol (2022) 12 days Japan Fumio Kishida (2021) OFFICIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN BEGAN Election Day 107 days before U.S. Kamala Harris (2024) 93 days Mexico Claudia Sheinbaum (2024) 90 days Philippines Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (2022) Canada 78 days Justin Trudeau (2015) 66 days Italy Giorgia Meloni (2022) 47 days Brazil Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2022) 40 days Australia Anthony Albanese (2022) 36 days France Emmanuel Macron (2017) 35 days Indonesia Joko Widodo (2014) 35 days U.K. Keir Starmer (2024) 33 days India Narendra Modi (2014) 22 days South Korea Yoon Suk Yeol (2022) 12 days Japan Fumio Kishida (2021) Note: Official campaign periods are typically set by regulation, often starting when parliaments are dissolved. The initial winning campaign of current elected leaders is shown.

American presidential election campaigns start notoriously early. Former President Donald J. Trump, for example, launched his re-election bid in November 2022, two years ahead of the vote.

But in many other democracies, an official election period sets out when candidates can debate, make speeches and run political ads (often with strict spending limits).

Voters tend to pay close attention only when the official campaigns begin, said Jordan Tama, an associate professor of international politics at American University.

We know from other countries that 100 days is plenty of time for a healthy campaign, said Mr. Tama. Most campaigns in different countries are in the range of a few weeks to several months.

Even in India, the largest democracy in the world, the official campaign only starts a little over a month before voting begins.

President Bidens decision to abandon his re-election bid just 15 weeks before the vote has few precedents. Not since 1968, when President Lyndon B. Johnson dropped out of the running half a year before the election, has either major American party had to settle on a candidate so late in the race.

With the clock running out, Democrats coalesced around Ms. Harris in just 48 hours.

However abbreviated their official campaign seasons may be, political candidates in other countries do tend to enjoy more time than Ms. Harris does to make their case to voters. That is especially true in parliamentary democracies, where political party leaders are de facto candidates, engaging in the daily rough-and-tumble of governing and becoming well known to voters before a single campaign sign goes up.

It is, of course, difficult to make exact comparisons between political systems with markedly different rules and norms.

The United States has some unusual features, perhaps first and foremost the Electoral College, which requires candidates to devote time and resources to numerous battlegrounds. And parliamentary systems tend to put the focus on the party over individual candidates, easing their paths.

So by the time British voters went to the polls this month, Keir Starmer, the newly elected prime minister, had been leading the Labour party for four years, taking on the Conservative government in Parliament on a weekly basis. And in India in 2014, Narendra Modi had six months after his party chose him as leader to wage his successful campaign for prime minister.
Japanese police recently arrested a group of unlikely criminals, three grandpas in their late sixties, seventies, and eighties accused of breaking into at least two homes and suspected of ten other burglaries.

Hideo Umino, 88, Hidemi Matsuda, 70, and Kenichi Watanabe, 69 allegedly met behind bars and decided to team up after being released in order to commit crimes more efficiently. The trio, dubbed G3S by police (homophonous for grandpas in Japanese), stand accused of breaking into an empty house in Sapporo, the main city on the island of Hokkaido in May and stealing 200 yen ($1.3) and three bottles of whisky worth about 10,000 yen ($65). the following month, they allegedly robbed another empty house and stole jewelry worth approximately one million yen (US$6,400). Police is currently investigating the groups involvement in 10 other burglaries in the cities of Sapporo and Ebetsu.

Photo: zhang Kaiyv/Unsplash

At an age when most people are busy enjoying their retirement or taking care of their ailing bodies, G3S were allegedly planning robberies. According to a police statement, the three ex-cons had plotted to work together behind bars, setting clear and precise roles for themselves. 88-year-old Hideo Umino committed the burglaries, while Matsuda was the getaway driver, and Watanabe was responsible for selling the stolen goods.

Police began their investigation after the owner of one of the burgled houses notified them about stolen property. After checking surveillance footage and tracing the stolen goods, they were shocked to link the crimes to the three old-timers who reportedly needed to be physically supported by police officers during their arrest. When interrogated about their crimes, the three elderly criminals said they committed them to make a living.

Interstingly, just earlier this year, we wrote about a very similar gang of elderly criminals in Italy who carried out a series of armed robberies before being caught. Their leaders were seasoned criminals in their lates 60s and 70s.

While burglars in their 70s and 80s may not be the norm, with Japanese society aging at a very rapid pace, its no wonder that the crime rate among the countrys elderly has been rising in recent years.
After five days of jury deliberations, all six defendants who were accused of taking part in a "macabre provincial tragedy" by "butchering" father of seven Thomas 'Tom' Dooley in "an honour killing" during a Co Kerry funeral have now been convicted of his murder, which the State said had been carried out with "appalling, medieval violence".

The Central Criminal Court jury today (Thursday July 25) convicted the victim's cousin Daniel Dooley (42) of An Carraigin, Connolly Park, Tralee, Co Kerry of murder at Rath Cemetery, Rathass, Tralee, Co Kerry on October 5, 2022 by a majority verdict of 11-1.

Daniel Dooley, who was the final defendant to be dealt with in the case, had pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. Daniel Dooley protested his innocence when the jury left the courtroom this afternoon.

He said aloud: "On my wife's grave I am an innocent man... you are sending a widow man to jail."

The ten men and two women of the jury accepted the prosecution case that the six defendants had taken part in the joint enterprise to murder 42-year-old Thomas Dooley.

Two days ago, another of the victim's cousins, Michael Dooley (29), of the Halting Site, Carrigrohane Road, Cork also proclaimed himself "innocent" after a jury convicted him of murdering Thomas Dooley.

When the jury returned their unanimous verdict on Tuesday Michael Dooley said aloud: "I didn't harm my cousin judge, it's not fair, I didn't harm my cousin". He went on to say that "an innocent man was going to prison".

Last Friday, the jurors found Patrick Dooley (36) with an address at Arbutus Grove, Killarney guilty of a "biblical atrocity" by murdering his older brother on the same occasion.

The previous day the jury had convicted Mr Dooleys cousin and brother-in-law Thomas Dooley Senior (43) and that mans son, Thomas Dooley Junior (21), both of the Halting Site, Carrigrohane Road, Cork as well as a male teenager of murdering Mr Dooley.

The verdicts were unanimous in the case of these five defendants, who had also pleaded not guilty to the charges.

It was the prosecution case that Mr Dooley died when he was violently attacked by six men as he attended a funeral at Rath Cemetery and suffered what the State described as savage injuries, inflicted by a group armed with bladed weapons and acting with "focused and murderous ferocity" in broad daylight.

The 12 jurors accepted the State's case that "a biblical atrocity" had occurred in the graveyard that day with "brother killing brother".

In returning their verdict last week in relation to Patrick Dooley, the jury rejected his defence that he was "no Cainite" and was instead in the middle of the attack trying to save his sibling.

Patrick Dooley had claimed that a feud had been going on for years and that he witnessed "five or six fellas" descend on his deceased brother, while he [Patrick] had jumped in and got slapped. He told gardai that he had tried to pull the men back but it had happened so fast and he could do no more for his brother.

However Siobhan Dooley (45), the widow of the deceased, said in her evidence that she saw her brother-in-law Patrick Dooley grin and produce a knife before her husband was attacked.

In his closing speech, Mr Dean Kelly SC, prosecuting, submitted to the jury that the six men had used "medieval violence" to "butcher" the father-of-seven in "an honour killing" during the funeral, carrying out a "biblical atrocity" that was "tragic and heartbreaking as it was ridiculous and stupid".

Mr Kelly said that "honour" had been offended when Thomas Dooley's daughter had refused to marry Thomas Dooley Junior and their relationship broke down. He submitted that this was "a score that was to be settled".

The barrister said the trial had a combination of the macabre, a provincial tragedy and appalling medieval violence.

"Yet for all those heady phrases what was left behind was a widow with seven children in the most pointless, wasteful and needless circumstances," he added.

However, Patrick Dooley's defence barrister, Mr Brendan Grehan SC, rejected the proposition that this was the biblical 'Cain and Abel' story and said Patrick Dooley had always denied he had any involvement in murdering his brother.

Thomas Dooley Jnr was also found guilty of assault causing harm to the wife of the late Mr Dooley, Siobhan Dooley, at Rath Cemetery on the same date. He had denied the charge but was also found guilty last week on that count.

During the attack the widow of the deceased sustained a wound which went from her right shoulder and extended to her armpit. She required 45 stitches and 30 staples.

The 12 jurors, who deliberated at Cork Courthouse on Anglesea Street, had the option of returning two verdicts in relation to the murder charge against the six defendants namely; guilty of murder or an outright acquittal.

The jury began their deliberations over a week ago and took 20 hours and 57 minutes in total over five days to return guilty verdicts in respect of the six defendants. The first five verdicts returned in the case were unanimous whilst today's verdict for Daniel Dooley was by a majority verdict.

Following today's guilty verdict for the remaining defendant Daniel Dooley, Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring thanked the jury for their time.

"It is very important to have your involvement in this process," she said. The judge exempted the ten men and two women from jury service for 15 years. She told them they were entitled to be present at the defendant's sentence hearing next Tuesday, July 30.

Ms Justice Ring also told the jurors as they were aware murder carries a mandatory sentence and said that she would also have to consider the sentence in relation to the assault on Mrs Dooley.

It is expected that Ms Justice Ring will hand down the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment to five of the defendants on July 30 next and has remanded them in custody until that date. On that date, Mrs Dooley will have an opportunity to make a statement to the court about the impact her husband's death has had on their lives.

The male teenager found guilty of murder will not be sentenced on this date, as it is believed he is to seek a judicial review of his case.

He will next be before the court for mention on October 29.

The Grinning Brother

Thomas 'Tom' Dooley and his wife Siobhan drove from their home in Killarney on the morning of October 5 to Rath Cemetery in Tralee, where a large crowd had gathered for the funeral of their friend Bridget O'Brien. The couple were running late and had not attended the church part of the ceremony.

They pulled up at Kellehers Garage at Rathass around 11am, directly across the road from the cemetery where people were waiting for the cortege to arrive. Siobhan Dooley (45), the widow of the deceased, said in her evidence that her husband was a few steps ahead of her in the cemetery that morning, when he was approached by his brother-in-law Thomas Dooley Snr, who had something in his hand.

In his closing speech, Dean Kelly SC, prosecuting, said Mrs Dooley had recalled in her evidence that the deceased's brother Patrick Dooley was behind Thomas Dooley Snr.

"She sees Thomas Dooley Snr taking off his coat and producing two weapons, one rusty and one shiny. She said Patrick Dooley was grinning and had a knife... She said there were two men in front and others behind," he said.

Mrs Dooley said that the teenage defendant had a long object in his hands, while Michael Dooley was also carrying a weapon. The jury heard that all Mrs Dooley could do was try to get the attackers away from her husband, so she ran in and 'clawed' Thomas Dooley Snr.

Thomas Dooley Snr's DNA was subsequently recovered from Mrs Dooley's fingernails.

Mr Dooley was "prey" in the graveyard that day, the prosecution argued, telling the jury that the attack was carried out with "absolute ferocity" in a matter of seconds and not minutes.

Mr Kelly said the deceased was the "target of the operation" 37 seconds after he entered the cemetery.

Mrs Dooley had told the trial that her family and Thomas Dooley Snr's family had broken off contact with each other when her daughter refused to marry Thomas Dooley Snr's son, Thomas Dooley Jnr.

She said there was no falling out or words exchanged between her late husband Thomas and his cousin and brother-in-law Thomas Dooley Snr but they simply stopped communicating when their daughter refused to marry Thomas Dooley Jnr.

In his closing statement, prosecutor Mr Kelly said the State had based its case against all six accused on the doctrine of joint enterprise and common design, where a number of persons act together to achieve a common criminal objective and that each person party to the plan is criminally responsible for the acts of the other.

Mr Kelly stressed that the attack had been carried out with 'absolute ferocity' in a matter of seconds and not minutes.

He said Mr Dooley was dying if not already dead as the defendant's footsteps left the cemetery that day and were seen running back to their vans. He said within a matter of seconds after the attack the six men were back at their three respective vans and speeding out the road.

The lawyer told the court that it could not be established who drove the knife into Mr Dooley's back or who chopped into his arm or who drove the knife through his thigh.

However, he said the group of accused men sitting behind him in the courtroom had participated to cause at least serious harm to Mr Dooley and had done so with murderous intent.

The trial heard that the deceased suffered a total of four stabbing injuries following the graveyard attack, one of which severed the femoral artery in his leg and caused him to suffer a fatal blood loss. State pathologist Dr Sally Anne Collis has told the jury that some of the injuries involved could have been inflicted by a machete-type weapon.

In her charge to the jurors over four days, Ms Justice Ring told them that if they find that any of the defendants were involved in the attack and knew their co-accused was carrying a weapon, then they are guilty of murder.

If you are satisfied that each of these men knew there were knives or bladed weapons and they involved themselves in the attack, then they were all participating in the murder, she said.

The judge had also reminded the jury in her charge that there was no allegation to suggest Mr Dooley himself was in possession of a bladed weapon, nor any suggestion of violence on his part or evidence that there was some kind of event taking place that he somehow got caught up in and got injured.

In relation to the legal issue of joint participation in the charge, Ms Justice Ring said that for any of the defendants to be convicted of murder, each must be found to have assisted the commission of the crime and must have intended by their actions to assist.

She added that if the jury was not sure if all of the accused were in possession of a weapon, the law says that if an accused person knew that their co-accused was carrying a weapon, they knew that he intended to act to cause murder or serious injury.

Ms Justice Ring said that if the jury was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that one or more of the accused was either there or there with the necessary intentions, then the jury must look at each accused individually and make decisions based on each of the accused.
The number of people in homeless accommodation has increased further to 14,303 in June, according to the latest figures from the Department of Housing.

Figures for April saw the number surpass 14,000 for the first time since records began.

The June figures show that 9,899 adults, 4,404 children and 2,093 families were in homeless accommodation.

Catherine Kenny, chief executive of the Dublin Simon Community, sharply criticised the governments lack of progress on the issue and said the time for action is now.

The steady increase in emergency accommodation numbers, coupled with a rise in rough sleeping, paints a dire picture of our failure to protect the most vulnerable, she said.

While the government has recently acknowledged the severity of the issue by calling it their number one challenge, we need to ensure this urgency is reflected in political momentum and resourcing allocated to homelessness, housing, health.

Focus Ireland chief executive Pat Dennigan said a lot more can, and must, be done to ease this human crisis.

We are calling on the Government to implement a policy that ensures that some of the new supply of social housing is used to provide homes for long-term homeless families. This same approach drove the sharp fall in homelessness during the pandemic.

The Department of Housing said that the Housing First National Implementation Plan 2022-2026 is a key response to ending long-term homelessness, and that 67 new supported tenancies began in the second quarter of 2024.

Through the programme, there are 1,031 high-support need individuals, who were formerly rough sleepers or long-term users of emergency accommodation, housed and supported in their own homes, it said.

The department also said that during the second quarter of the year, 786 adults and 259 families exited emergency accommodation.

It said this was an increase of 13.9% in adult exits and of 25.1% in family exits on the same quarter last year.

The Quarterly Report also shows that just under half of single households in emergency accommodation have been in there for less than six months (2,851 of 6,324 single households).

Minister for Housing Darragh OBrien said that increasing the supply of housing is critical to tackle homelessness.

This Government has made record levels of investment available under Housing for All to support the delivery of housing. In 2024, over five billion euro in investment is available to support the delivery of housing.

My Department is making funding of 242 million euro available for the delivery of homeless services in 2024  a 12.6% increase on the Budget 2023 allocation.

The recently published Housing for All Q2 2024 Progress Report noted the continued strong momentum in the delivery of homes across the country and reports that building started on over 32,000 new homes in the first five months of 2024.

Over 25,000 new social homes are at various stages of design and construction.

He added: My department and this Government recognise the significant and complex impacts of homelessness on individuals and families and will continue to focus our efforts on preventing homelessness in the first instance and on reducing the numbers of homeless individuals and families experiencing homelessness in the second instance.

The Social Democrats housing spokesperson Cian OCallaghan emphasised that the latest figures once again had reached a new record high.

Shockingly, 4,404 of these are children  a 66% increase since this Government took charge, he said.

There can be no doubts that Fine Gael and Fianna Fail are incapable of dealing with this crisis. Since taking office in 2011, Fine Gael have presided over an increase of 10,495 people becoming homeless.

Fianna Fail, despite their endless political spin, have continued the appalling record of their predecessors since taking over the Department of Housing.

He added: We urgently need to end no fault evictions that are driving renters into homelessness. Ireland remains an outlier in Europe where renters must live in constant fear of eviction.
Sri Lankas security chiefs instructed to ensure safety during Presidential Election

Posted by Editor on July 26, 2024 - 6:34 pm

Sri Lankas State Minister of Defence, Premitha Bandara Tennakoon, instructed the countrys security chiefs to ensure the security of presidential candidates, citizens, and the entire country during the upcoming Presidential Election in Sri Lanka.

The State Minister gave these instructions during the Ministerial Consultative Committee on Defence meeting in Parliament this morning (July 26).

Chief of Defence Staff General Shavendra Silva, Navy Commander Vice Admiral Priyantha Perera, and a group of high-ranking officers representing the Tri-Forces, as well as officials from the Ministry of Defence and heads of institutions under its purview, were present at the meeting.

The Minister further requested that all actions be carried out in a manner that protects the Constitution and citizens fundamental rights. He added that during the most complex period of the past two years, the ministry had to make critical decisions and was able to stabilize the country by reaffirming national security and the rule of law.

Minister Tennakoon extended his gratitude to all parties dedicated to this cause on behalf of His Excellency the President and advised the Ministry of Defence and all institutions within its jurisdiction to carry out their duties effectively in the future.

The committee meeting also examined issues concerning the further strengthening of the armed forces, as well as concerns raised by lawmakers about the Ministry of Defence.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)

"A vote for ABHB (Any Body But) Harris, is a vote for Trump"



Kamala Harris Vice Presidential Portrait. Get used to it, folks. She is going to win (and in the process save the nation from TrumpFascism).

(Image by Wikipedia (commons.wikimedia.org), Author: .mw-parser-output .commons-creator-table{background-color:#f0f0ff;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:95%;text-align:start;color:inherit}.mw-parser-output .commons-creator-table>tbody>tr{vertical-align:top}.mw-parser-output .commons-creator-table>tbody>tr>th) Details Source DMCA



-----------------------------------------------------------------

A) Back on June 30 (2024), in a Tweet at my Twitter site, thepoliticaljunkies @tpjmagazine, I said this: "One person, with the initials J. B., will be making the decision about whether the President will the Democratic candidate for the position in the next election. That person's first name is not 'Joe.' " In my view, the President absolutely did the right thing. How much influence Jill had on the final decision we will likely never know. But her brief "Note to the Nation," issued after the end of her husband's address, said much, in my view:

"And when the evening was over, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden posted an image of a handwritten note on social media. It read: 'To those who never wavered, to those who refused to doubt, to those who always believed, my heart is full of gratitude. Thank you for the trust you put in Joe-- now it's time to put that trust in Kamala.' "

As is widely agreed on the liberal/(some) progressives' side, this country faces an existential threat of fascism-being-voted-in-via Trump/Vance/Project2025. (For a good summary of the latter see: Click Here. And for "Schedule F," which, without the benefit of legislation, would destroy the Federal Civil Service, see: Click Here[And oh yes, the original Civil Service Act, the Pendelton Act, was passed back in 1883 (Click Here)].)

B) Joe Biden, as is well-known, had a very long career in politics. I certainly have had strong differences with him, as on the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination, when he stopped the hearings before witnesses who could have appeared, to support Anita Hill's testimony (Click Here), just like further testimony on the alleged sexual predator Brett Kavanaugh was prevented from being introduced. (BTW, what a Republican Supreme Court majority, eh? Not one, but two alleged sexual predators. And they vote to criminalize abortion[!]) I have also, for example, disagreed with him, strongly, when he was very active on the issue of national recreational drug, maintaining its criminalization which has continued down to this very day. (See my book, "End the Drug War; solve the Drug Problem: The Public Health Approach [Click Here].)

BUT, he has unequivocally opposed TrumpFascism, and, as it happened, issued some very strong remarks against it in his retirement address to the nation. Nobody's perfect. Not even those of us who post on OpEdNews.com!

C) Kamala Harris has quickly and strongly picked up this theme. And man, has that gotten the RepubloFascists riled up. Vance and the "cat lady" comment (which, by the way, according to Andy Borowitz, stimulated the organization of the "Million Meow March" [Click Here]. Some other RepubloFascist characterized this winner of multiple elections as a "DEI appointment." (Oh, and by the way, she never was the "Border Czar," [or even the "Border Tzarina"].)

D) In early polling, Harris is apparently bringing back to the Democratic side, the "young," Black, and Latino vote.

E) During the 2016 Presidential campaign, Trump talked about vote-rigging-and-challenging if he did not win fair and square. So to those of us who have followed Trump for quite some time (see: Click Here), this came as no surprise. His post-election legal efforts in 2020 came as no surprise either, although even to me, the violence that he and his colleagues-in-crime perpetrated on "Jan. 6" was totally shocking. "It Can't Happen Here" (the title of Sinclair Lewis' 1936 book on a then-future fascist U.S), but it did happen. And Trump is threatening the same, up-to-and, by insinuation, including violence. It appears as if the anti-fascist/Harris-candidacy side is getting ready to counter this in the courts and gearing up for that battle. As for potential violence, at least this time around it is the Biden/Harris Administration that will be in charge of dealing with it. (And of course when Trump himself is charged this time around, he won't be able to hide behind the Supreme Court's amendment to the Constitution which established the "immunity" exception for Presidents [Click Here].)

F) Harris, as she has already made very clear, given her time as a prosecutor in California "knows the Trump type:" fraudster (the New York false real estate evaluation case), sexual predator (the E. Jean Carroll case), campaign-law violator/cover-upper (the "Stormy Daniels" case).

G) Consider for a moment the foreign leaders whom Trump proudly counts as friends: Vladimir ("Make the World Safe for Plutocracy) Putin (Click Here); Tucker Carlson's favorite central European dictator, Viktor Orban (Click Here); and of course, who can forget Kim Jong Un.

H) Trump's built-in racism, from the days of his youth, is well-known (e.g., see "The Central Park Five" and the Obama "Birther Conspiracy"). This column, Click Here, deals with that issue, and suggests some strategies and tactics for dealing with it.

I) On Biden's Israel policy, I am long-time critic of the policy that has dominated Israeli politics since the end of "The Oslo Process." I totally condemn what Israel has done in Gaza. Do any of the critics (and I am one, and have been for a long time) have any ideas for how Israel gets out of this and what a better US policy should be? Tom Friedman has a very good suggestion (New York Times, July 24, 2024).

J) The RepubloFascists, led by Kevin "We are in the process of a Second American Revolution" Roberts of the Heritage Foundation are threatening a Second Civil War if the nation does not just acquiesce to their proposed destruction of Constitutional Government (as in the destruction of the Federal civil service without the benefit of legislation). Hmm. P2025 totally reorganizes the form and function of the Federal government. Why wouldn't not only "the left" but lots of folks in the middle, and on the Right too, just let you folks walk over our many-sided side that believes in the current U.S. Constitution's prescription for a government founded on bourgeois democracy. George Lang, a Republican Ohio state senator has said (Charles Blow, NYT, July 25, 2024) "I'm afraid if we lose this one, it's going to take a civil war to save the country, and it will be saved." That's what we are facing folks

K) On Israel further (and here's my most recent column on the topic: Click Here), I certainly think that it would be really helpful, both to the remaining people of Gaza and her Presidential campaign, if the V-P continues to edge away from the current Biden-we-can't-do-too-much-about-this position.

L) Trump is totally scared. He's already making fun of the V.P.'s name, using it as a major campaign slogan. Trump does poorly with powerful women, and of course it is useful to remember that he likely would have lost to Hillary had it not been for Jim Comey's intervention (Click Here).

M) "The TILY (Trump-I-Love-You) candidate," JD Vance, with no govt. administrative experience, was picked solely on the basis of just how much of a Trump-acolyte he is.

N) Click Here. Trump demands his money back for funds spent campaigning against Joe Biden. What? Has the political humorist Andy Borowitz (https://borowitzreport.com) suddenly changed his politics, to become a master politics writer for Trump? OMG. What's this world coming to?

O) Getting back to Project 2025, Hitler did not announce what he would do if he became Chancellor of Germany (click here). The Trumpists have told us. It is important to listen to them.

P) Briefly on Jill Stein. Previously, on her candidacy I wrote: Click Here (and I will be coming back to the "Jill Stein" issue shortly). But for now, it can be said that she goes from being the third youngest significant (significant in that she likely swung the election to Trump in 2016 [see the reference above]) candidate to being the second oldest.

Q) As far as the "Party of Law and Order" is concerned, one must be concerned with the fact that a convicted felon is running President, but also this from the party of "law and order": "( Click Here): JD Vance says that Pres. Trump could ignore the Supreme Court, on any issue, and go ahead and do what he wanted to do. Why do that JD, when he's got the Supreme Court in his pocket? Oh, I see. That's for if and when they slip out of it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The definition of fascism that I use:

"There is a single, all-powerful executive branch of government, in service of a capitalist ruling class that controls, for the most part, the functions of production, distribution, finance, and exchange. There is no separation of the principal governmental powers: executive, legislative, and judicial. There are no independent media. There is a single national ideology, based on some combination of racism, misogyny, religious bigotry and authoritarianism, homophobia, and xenophobia. There is a political party supporting the movement. There is a state propaganda machine using the big and little lie techniques. There may be a full-blown dictatorship, a charismatic leader, engagement in foreign wars, and the use of the mob/private armies to enforce governmental control."

(Article changed on Jul 27, 2024 at 12:16 AM EDT)
Fresh off our wedding at Disneyland in 2008, I was ready to embark on the first adventure as a newly blended family. With Summer approaching I asked Nicole where we should go on vacation. She looked at me with bewilderment and replied: "Who is going to watch the kids?"

For my ex-wife and I, family vacations had been a regular occurrence. As transplanted New Yorkers it was important to us that our children maintained ties with family and old friends who still lived on the East Coast and this racked up a lot of airplane miles. Things were different for Nicole since she is a native Californian who was living just a few miles from her childhood home. A set of triplets, two of whom are on the severe end of the Autism Spectrum, also meant the logistics of travel were more difficult for her.

"We're taking them with us, " I boldly answered.

That July 4th we embarked on our newly formed family's first road trip. Joined by my parents we ventured to "Northern" California, visiting two theme parks, the Jelly Belly factory, and exploring San Francisco. Subsequent adventures pushed the distance that the girls traveled from home even further. Eventually, we braved a plane trip and they were able to see where I had grown up.



Our family's first road trip

(Image by Carl Petersen) Details DMCA



As Nicole's Multiple Sclerosis has progressed, these trips have become more complicated. If getting a group of five adults and the accompanying luggage moving in the same direction was not difficult enough, we must now also add mobility devices into the mix. Fatigue is also always lurking as an enemy, especially on travel days when fixed schedules make it impossible to take a break to rest.

Adding to these difficulties are the challenges of traveling with two young adults who have autism. They have been on enough trips that they are familiar with the process, but being outside of their normal routine can still be difficult for them. Z's non-verbal vocalizations, which are constant in normal circumstances, increase in intensity and volume with the stress of traveling. M is prone to homesickness, especially during downtime. Neither have the ability to readily communicate their needs to people outside their usual social structure.

While these challenges make travel difficult, including the girls provides them with growth opportunities that they do not have in their normal routine. Therefore, as we planned Nicole's 50th Birthday trip to Alaska with extended family there was never any doubt that they would join us. We packed up our suitcases to their weight limits and headed to the airport for the flight to Seattle where we would join my mother, sister, our oldest daughter, her husband, and our grandson on the Quantum of the Seas.



Part of the extended family celebrating Nicole's Birthday

(Image by Carl J. Petersen) Details DMCA



Most of us were able to secure early boarding times, which allowed the triplets to experience their first adventure before the massive ship had even left port. I began to have doubts as we entered the preparation room for their one-minute flights within the iFly skydiving simulator. The person at the check-in desk could not seem to understand the concept of a conservatorship and insisted that I could not sign their consent forms for them in the same way that other parents were doing so for their minor children. Instead, he insisted they affix their non-legally binding names to the document.

The girls suited up with their sister, Sydney, and entered the training room where they watched a video about what they were about to experience. Upon exiting, Sydney expressed a concern that they might not be able to do what they needed to. We decided that she would go first and make a final assessment after her flight.

Sydney was initially hesitant to try the experience but those concerns seemed to disappear as she made a trust fall into the tube. As she took flight a smile immediately overtook her face. Assisted by the instructor she maneuvered within her simulated free fall and after a minute landed. The smile still on her face, she pointed to her sisters and gave me the thumbs up. They were cleared for takeoff.

M was up first. Her entry into the tube was a little more awkward than Sydney's, but the smile was the same. Like a hero from the Marvel movies she loves to watch, she was no longer bound by gravity. Watching from the outside it was clear that the instructor was having issues getting her to understand his instructions. Instead of becoming frustrated, he gifted her with the patience that she needed. What I would give for the opportunity to hear her convey what she was feeling during her flight!

Instead of trusting her fall into the flight tube, Z's instinct was to grab onto the instructor. Exhibiting a tremendous amount of patience he was eventually able to get her into something that resembled the flying position. She may not have been able to make it through her full flight time, but a smile did finally pop out.

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
While on supervision and wearing an ankle monitor in Deschutes County, Roger Clint Lee Vanwormer communicated online with a purported 14-year-old girl, asked her to share a sexually explicit image and arranged to meet her in Bend.

When he showed up with a bottle of Vodka, a condom and a male enhancement product, Bend police arrested him on July 26, 2021, according to court records.
Search-and-rescue teams on Friday found the wreckage of a small tanker plane that went missing the previous night while fighting a fire in eastern Oregon.

The body of the pilot, whose name has not yet been released, was also discovered, said Lisa Clark, a spokesperson for the U.S. Forest Service.

Clark said the wreckage of the plane was in a steep, forested area north of the Falls fire.

Firefighters and a Grant County Sheriffs Office search-and-rescue team recovered the body of the pilot, the only person who was on the plane, and brought it to John Day.

The cause of the crash is not known. Clark said the National Transportation Safety Board will be involved in the investigation of the incident.

The area of eastern Oregon where the pilot crashed is currently experiencing multiple wildfires, including the 141,927-acre Falls megafire, the 9,000-acre Telephone fire and the 281-acre Whiskey fire. The danger posed by the fires has prompted Malheur National Forest to completely close for the first time in its 116-year history.

Gov. Tina Kotek weighed in with sadness on the first 2024 wildfire related death in Oregon. I am mourning the life that was lost in the fight against the Falls Fire, she said in a statement Friday evening. On behalf of Oregon, I want to extend my deepest condolences to the firefighters family, loved ones, and fellow firefighters. Firefighters in the field look out for one another. When harm falls on one, it is felt by all. I want to thank all those who were a part of the search efforts ... and everyone fighting fires right now. I have your back, and I will continue to deploy every available resource to aid you.

 Tatum Todd covers crime and public safety. Reach them at ttodd@oregonian.com, or 503-221-4313.
All Oregons Democratic delegates will back Vice President Kamala Harris for president, the states Democratic Party announced late Wednesday.

The delegations unanimous vote to support Harris came more than a day after Harris secured enough support in other states to secure the nomination on the first ballot. No real challengers to Harris have emerged since President Joe Biden withdrew and endorsed Harris on Sunday.

Rosa Colquitt, chair of the Oregon Democratic Party, said achieving the partys goals requires uniting.

Protecting reproductive freedom, voting rights, marriage equality, and our very democracy will require all of us to come together, she said. Democrats stand firmly united in our resolve to ensure that on Inauguration Day 2025, we hear the name President Kamala Harris announced as the 47th president of the United States!

Oregon has 78 delegates, including 66 who are a mix of elected officials, political operatives and longtime party volunteers who were elected by party members to represent the state at the national convention. The other 12 include Democratic members of the states congressional delegation, Gov. Tina Kotek and other party leaders and are superdelegates, who only vote at the convention if a candidate doesnt earn a majority of delegates on the first round of balloting.

The Democratic Party of Oregon as an entity wont endorse Harris before the convention, but it will try to harness enthusiasm around her campaign to help Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.

We saw an immediate influx of volunteer sign ups after the news broke that President Biden was endorsing Vice President Harris, and they havent slowed down, Colquitt said.

While Oregon, which hasnt voted for a Republican for president since 1984, isnt a top priority for the presidential race, it is home to three of the countrys most competitive congressional districts. Democrats also want to maintain their majorities in the state Legislature and elect Democrats in open statewide races for treasurer, secretary of state and attorney general. In legislative races and the attorney generals race, Republicans hope to capitalize on voter unease around crime, drugs and homelessness.

-- Julia Shumway, Oregon Capital Chronicle

Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, the nations largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
Prank shows can be hit or miss. Some can be in good fun, getting a rise out of unsuspecting folks. There is more laughter than shock because they know they are part of something fun. Other shows (and whatever the hell is going on on social media these days) take things too far. Theres no fun to the prank. Its mean and feels more embarrassing than anything else. Scare Tactics was kind of in the middle.

Scare Tactics began on SyFy in 2003. The show involved elaborate, hidden camera pranks that included horror-themed elements. Ghouls, ghosts, goblins, and accidental deaths were all on the table. Hosts included the late great Shannen Doherty, Stephen Baldwin, and Tracy Morgan. It lasted for five seasons and produced 114 episodes over ten years. It was a blast and is being brought back from the dead.

Variety reports that Jordan Peele will be producing a Scare Tactics reboot through his company, Monkeypaw Productions, to air on the USA Network (so dont be surprised if episodes wind up on SyFy as well). Were so grateful at Monkeypaw to help reimagine one of our all-time favorite hidden-camera shows. Working with showrunner Elan Gale, one of the most creative and mischievous minds in unscripted television, and Scott Hallock, the brilliant creator of the original Scare Tactics, has been an absolute blast, explained Monkeypaw Productions President, Win Rosenfeld. Its cathartic and hilarious to watch people get a little scared, and the scenarios we cooked up for this season are really wild. We cant wait to share a little light-hearted schadenfreude with audiences soon.

This is a big get for the USA Network. Peeles carries a lot of weight. Attaching it to a horror show like this is a good move. To be fair, Peeles Twilight Zone reboot wasnt the most well-received. However, this feels like it has less risk involved. The shoes being filled arent nearly as big. If new Scare Tactics ends up being a fun, spooky distraction during the fall months and nothing more, it will be seen as a success. If it bombs, it will wind up on Peacock, and people who didnt watch it when it aired will yell, Why did they cancel this?!

Universal certainly seems to think it will be the former. What do you get when you combine Jordan Peele, hidden cameras, unsuspecting people, and horror-movie scenarios? Youre about to find out! Toby Gorman, president of Universal Television Alternative Studio, told Variety. Working with Monkeypaw Productions, NBCU, and USA Network to bring one of the most creatively scary and hilarious projects to life has been a phenomenal experience. We cant wait for audiences to join in the fun of our first unscripted project with Jordan as it perfectly blends horror, humor, and reality.

The show wont premiere for a couple of months. We will have to wait and see if it is a success (or any good). Still, it coming around the corner means that, right now, some poor soul is being made to believe that the girl they are babysitting is turning into a werewolf. I think thats swell.
As, according to credible reports, the Interpreter Foundation continues to fade and its website and journal continue to stagnate, here are four new articles that have just appeared:

LDS Perspectives on the Atonement? written by Blake T. Ostler

Review of Deidre Nicole Green and Eric D. Huntsman, eds., Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2024). 344 pages, $35.00 (paperback). Abstract: Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement promises to provide new perspectives on the atonement that reflect awareness of scriptural and theological scholarship. The essays on the scriptural background are solid. The essays providing theological perspectives are uneven, at best. Indeed, the theological essays show little awareness of the major works in philosophical theology in the last sixty yearswith one notable exception. Moreover, a feminist perspective that argues against seeing Christs blood that he shed as an appropriate basis for atonement theory receives the greatest attention. This review elucidates, explores, assesses, and critiques these approaches.

Nameless: Mormons Dramatic Use of Omission in Helaman 2, written by Nathan J. Arp

Abstract: There are many reasons why a narrator may choose to provide or withhold the names of various characters. This article hypothesizes that Mormon intentionally omitted the name of a key character from the book of Helaman related to the origin of the Gaddianton robbers. While it is not possible to know exactly what information Mormon and other Nephite recordkeepers had or preserved, it is at least plausible that Mormon might have intentionally omitted the name of a clandestine operative in the first two chapters of Helaman as a specific strategy to emphasize this operatives secrecy and allow the reader to take on his identity more easily. By using this narrative strategy, Mormon can powerfully demonstrate to the reader the importance of resisting tyranny in the defense of freedom. Moreover, Mormon thrills his readers with a tale of spy vs. spy: the Gaddianton robbers versus the nameless organization that initially defeats them. This article suggests that Mormon is a careful editor capable of the rare literary magic of revealing hidden truths that can best be said through silence.

Interpreting Interpreter: Helamans Secret Service, written by Kyler Rasmussen

This post is a summary of the article Nameless: Mormons Dramatic Use of Omission in Helaman 2 by Nathan J. Arp in Volume 62 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreterseries is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

[Authors Note: Hey everyone! This happens to mark the 100th summary Ive done for Interpreter. Ive been trying to think of a way to celebrate, and the best thing that comes to mind is hearing from you! If youve been getting value out of these, please leave a comment below.] The Takeaway: Arp proposes that Mormon deliberately withheld the name of Helamans servant, as well as details of the potential comrades (termed by Arp as the Secret Service) that may have assisted him in opposing the Gadianton Robbers. This silence could have fit the themes of visibility/invisibility in the narrative, or allowed readers to more easily identify themselves with these unnamed heroes.

Hugh Nibley Observed: Joseph or Jung? written by my late and much-missed friend William J. Hamblin, one of the co-founders of the Interpreter Foundation

Nibley treats Mormon scripture primarily through parallels. While we need not pay any attention to those shallow critics of Nibley who merely shout Parallelomania, as if it were a magical incantation, and reject his whole methodology and corpus out of hand (drawing parallels is a necessary technique for any scholar; one must simply judge each parallel separately to see what validity it offersand many of Nibleys parallels are convincing and valuable, while others are less persuasive or informative) this technique requires careful analysis of the passages to be compared.

Again, I invite you to watch any or all of this new series of video shorts that is being created by the moribund and comatose Interpreter Foundation  and, if you feel so inclined, to share them, whether as a group (that is not yet complete) or individually and incrementally.

This is a poignant column from one of the most interesting sociologists of religion in the United States, who has until now, melded a career as a professor and an academic sociologist with ministry as a Protestant pastor: My church is closing, and I dont know what comes next  for me, or America: I researched the decline of organized religion while having a front-row view of the change in my own life

I dont think that prayers for Pastor Burge (Dr. Burge) would be amiss. My impression of him, from reading his writing over several years, is that he is not only a bright and insightful student of the current scene but a good and dedicated disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. I hope that his faith will not only survive but flourish, and that he will find a way forward.

Im not sure when it was that my Malevolent Stalker went public with his odd fixation on me  roughly fifteen or twenty years ago, I think  but hes still going strong. In the past few days, hes been informing his audience there that Im out of favor with the folks at FAIR LDS and at Scripture Central. Hes probably right, of course. (It has to happen sometime, after all. Youre familiar with the proverb about even stopped clocks being right twice a day.)

But Im curious about exactly when it happened. The leadership of Scripture Central didnt seem to have turned up its nose at me back in April when it had me travel to New York and Pennsylvania and Ohio to help film one of the segments of its series A Marvelous Work, nor in June when it released the video that resulted, nor a few days ago when I last spoke with Scripture Centrals director. And it doesnt seem to have occurred in June, when FAIR LDS had me speaking at its conferences over in Italy and Austria and Sweden  a venture about which the Stalker complained and mocked with great dedication.

By the way, I will be speaking at the 2024 annual FAIR conference, which will be held on Thursday, 8 August, and Friday, 9 August, at the American Heritage School in Salt Lake City. For questions about ticketing, sponsorship opportunities, or other details, please contact the good folks at conference@fairlatterdaysaints.org.

And finally, as is my wont, I close with a horror that Ive drawn for the anti-theistic gratification of some of my more dedicated readers from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial How Religion Poisons Everything File: Church joins Miller and Walker funds in multimillion-dollar donation to reduce homelessness: Money will help Salt Lake City housing project expand as part of an effort to provide comprehensive services that lift people out of poverty

Posted from Newport Beach, California
Once upon a time, Windows was notorious for its poor security, with frequent reports of major attacks by viruses and hackers. With the release of Windows 7, Microsoft started to get its security act together and nowadays Windows 11 is the most secure system to date.

While Windows 11 offers a great deal of security, it also includes many features that monitor your computer usage in order to expose you to personalized advertising. Fortunately, this can be adjusted using various settings and in this guide well show you how to increase both the security and privacy of your computer.

Today is Amazon Prime Big Deal Days! Our editorial team lists the best tech deals here. ]

Further reading: 20 smart tweaks that make Windows 11 more productive

Login and accounts

get windows 11 pro for cheap Windows 11 Pro Price When Reviewed: 69,99 Euro Best Prices Today:

A screen lock is a must-have for laptops. Some models support fingerprint and facial recognition, but all can choose a password or PIN. Heres how to set it up.

Open the Settings > Accounts > Login options. Select the one you want to use and follow the instructions.

Make it even more secure

You can make your login more secure by using only a high-security login method.

Open Login Options and switch on the following: For improved security, you should only allow Windows Hello sign-in for Microsoft accounts on this device.

Automatically lock your computer

When you walk away from your computer, you can lock it using the keyboard shortcut Windows + L. You can also let it lock automatically.

Open the Login options, go to When should Windows require you to log in again if you have been away from your computer?, and select Time from the menu on the right. You can also enable Dynamic lock. This means that if you have paired your computer with a pair of headphones or another Bluetooth device, you can lock your computer when the pairing is broken, i.e. when you walk away from your computer.

Integrity

Skip the login

Windows 11 works best if youre logged in with your Microsoft account, but to reduce monitoring you can skip the login and use a so-called local account.

Open the Settings menu >Accounts >Your information. Under the heading Account Settings, select Log in with a local account instead to launch a settings wizard.

Switch off Windows Ad ID

Microsoft monitors your usage to customize advertising to your interests, but this can be turned off.

Go to Settings menu>Privacy and Security>Windows permissions>General information. Here you should disable the feature Allow apps to show customized ads using my advertising ID. You can also control other things that affect Windows privacy from here.

Share less information

You can choose what information Windows can access. By limiting it, you protect your privacy, but lose some functionality.

Open the Settings menu>Privacy and Security>Windows permissions. Here you can stop sharing information related to speech recognition and handwriting features. You can also remove your feedback to Microsoft and the monitoring of your own history. In addition, you can customize your searches.

Control the apps

Foundry Foundry Foundry

Even individual apps have access to things like the camera, microphone, and your exact location. You can control these things through App Authorization.

Open the Settings>Privacy and Security>App permissions. Click on the function you want to control, for example Positioning or Camera. You can now switch sharing on or off and choose which individual apps get which permissions. If youre curious about what private information an app has used, scroll down to Recent activities to see the weeks history.

Stop apps from sharing

By default, apps can share information with each other  but this can be restricted or turned off completely.

Go to Settings menu>Apps>Advanced settings for apps>Share between devices. Click on the arrow and choose how to share.

Stop telling us about yourself

Through the Device Usage feature, Microsoft customises the system (and advertising) to your habits, but you can opt out.

Open Settings>Customization>Device usage. Open it and trigger the Off position on everything there.

Skip the tips

Some Microsoft tips are perceived by many as advertising, but you can switch them off for good.

Go to Preferences>System>Notifications. Scroll down to Additional settings and remove the functions you do not want to use.

Malware programs

Scan for viruses

Windows 11 has a built-in security programme called Windows Defender. It is automatically activated if you are not running any other security package and it takes care of itself. However, if you want, you can start a virus check yourself.

Open the Settings menu>Privacy and security>Windows security>Protection against viruses and threats. Now a new program will open that is focused on security and here you can dodge Quick scan to start a virus scan. Its also possible to select Options for searching to perform a full virus scan or one that takes place in offline mode. Under Windows Security there are also other important features. If all icons are green, no action is required, but you can tweak the settings by clicking on the respective feature.

Protect yourself against Trojans

An extortion trojan is a malware that locks your private files and demands payment to unlock them. Windows 11 can protect you against this in advance.

Open Protection against viruses and threats and scroll down to Manage ransomware protection. Switch on the feature Regulated folder access. By default, the standard Windows folders are protected, but you control this yourself by selecting Protected folders.

Avoid false positives

Controlled folder access only allows programs/apps that Microsoft has approved. If it blocks an application that you know is trustworthy, you can whitelist the app.

Go to Controlled folder access and select Allow an app in Controlled Folder Access. Click on the Add an allowed app and select Recently blocked apps or Browse blocked apps.

Theft

Find a missing computer

Windows 11 has a feature to help you find a device that has gone missing. With internet and location enabled, you can see where it is and you can have it ring loudly, allowing you to find it with ease. You can also send messages to the finder and, in the worst case, delete sensitive information.

Switch on the feature via Settings>Privacy and Security>Find my device. If your device has disappeared, go to account.microsoft.com/devices on any device and sign in with your Microsoft account. Locate the correct device in the list and tap Find my device.
The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PamV Legacy Estate, one of the key players in Ghanas Real Estate and short-term rental industry, Mr.Philip Attiapa Mensah has said the company remains committed to prioritizing the housing needs of the average Ghanaian using high-quality materials and delivering top-notch projects to ensure value for money for its clients.



He also stated that the company would continue to promote customer satisfaction and quality products in all its operations in the foreseeable and distant future largely for the benefit of the Ghanaian client.



In an interview, he said the companys customer-centred mission has earned it numerous recommendations from existing clients, further solidifying its reputation as a trusted real estate developer in Ghana.



He mentioned that the companys success in the Airbnb and short-term rental market is a testament to its dedication to the evolving needs of its clients.



PamV Legacy Estate operations, he said, not only provide high-quality housing solutions but also support over one hundred staff members who rely on their salaries, highlighting the companys significant role in the local economy.



The company has over the years, established itself as a prominent and reliable entity in the Airbnb and short-term rental market in Ghana, he said.



Recently, it launched an impressive 24-town house off-plan project, which goes a long way to cement its position in the market.



Mr.Mensah noted that the new 24-townhouse project, known as PamV Avenue, promises luxury and quality with each townhouse featuring a rooftop swimming pool built with top-notch materials to prevent leakages.



The project, he indicated, marks a significant milestone for PamV Legacy Estate and demonstrates its commitment to innovation and excellence in Ghanas real estate and short-term rental market.



He disclosed that, in addition to PamV Avenue, the company has several upcoming projects in Ayi Mensah and East Legon Hills, expanding its footprint in the region.



According to him, these projects aim to cater to a diverse range of clients from expatriates to the average Ghanaian looking for high-quality housing solutions.



He said with ongoing and future projects, the company is poised to continue its growth and make a lasting impact on Ghanas real estate industry.

Source: Francis Cofie, Contributor









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Chiefs in the various Traditional Councils in the Mfantesman Municipality have called on parliament to speed up the process of the lithium deal.



This came to light in the delay in the approval of the lithium mining agreements in parliament in which the chiefs have asked the members of parliament to look beyond politics and speed up the process of approving the mining license.



Speaking in an interview with Peace FM News's Sally Ngissah, Omanhene of Nkusukum traditional area of Yamoransa, Nana Okese Essandoh IX lauded Atlantic Lithium company for their countless engagements with the Chiefs and people within the beneficiary communities to sensitize and educate them on the settlement and economic impact without hiding anything from them.



This is why parliament needs to ratify the bill fast, he said, and even the Minerals Commission needs to give license to Atlantic Lithium limited to commence the mining of lithium in Ewoyaa.



Omanhene Essandoh IX urged parliament to think about the nation first and focus on the development of Ghana especially the youth, and that there is no doubt that lithium mining is going to bring fortune to the nation and help create jobs which will be beneficial to the nation.



He, therefore, called on the people within the beneficiary communities to exercise patience as they (the chiefs) will fight for their compensation that they deserve.



Omanhene of Abura traditional area of Abakrampa, Emintsinminim Otu XI on his part revealed that the traditional rulers have agreed with the 1% of its revenue to the region which will be used for developmental projects in the region and also to improve the living standards of the local population by investing in basic services, utilities and social amenities.



They further pleaded with the parliament to do away with the partisan politics but rather think of the regions development and as well as the youth in the country.

Source: Sally Ngissah/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
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwas petition to the Special Prosecutor over an alleged ambulance deal has been duly acknowledged by the Office of the Special Prosecutor.



In a letter dated 25th July, 2025, the Special Prosecutor said, We acknowledge receipt of a filed complaint as titled above. The Special Prosecutor will direct commencement of an investigation if he determines that the matter is within the mandate of the office of the special Prosecutor.



The Member of Parliament for North Tongu constituency, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa had petitioned the office of the Special Prosecutor over an allegation regarding the controversial $34 million ambulance spare parts deal said to have been approved by the former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, before leaving office.



Mr Ablakwa alleged that Ken Ofori-Atta and former Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu of conspiring with a private company, Service Ghana Auto Group Limited to swindle the government.



He claimed that Ofori-Atta approved the deal just five days before leaving office, raising suspicions of impropriety and questioning the companys ability to deliver, given its recent incorporation.



The Special Prosecutor, however, assured Mr. Ablakwa that his outfit would request further assistance if need 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
An existing law that criminalises unnatural sexual intercourse and makes it unlawful for both heterosexuals and homosexuals to have anal sex does not breach the 1992 Constitution, the Supreme Court has declared.

In a unanimous decision on Wednesday (July 24, 2024), a seven-member panel of the court dismissed a suit challenging the constitutionality of Section 104 (1) (b) of the Criminal Offences Act, 1960 (Act 29), which makes sexual intercourse in an unnatural manner a crime even if it involves two consenting adults.



Pursuant to Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29, any person of 16 years and above who has unnatural carnal knowledge with another person, even with the persons consent, commits a misdemeanour, which, under the laws of the country, carries a term of imprisonment not exceeding three years.



Suit

The suit was initiated by a Law lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr Prince Obiri-Korang, who argued that Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29 violated Article 14 (1) of the 1992 Constitution as it deprived homosexuals of the liberty to select their intimate sexual partners and their right to engage in intimate sexual conduct without state interference.



Again, he was of the contention that Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29 interfered with the privacy of adults and was, therefore, unconstitutional as it violated Article 18(2) of the 1992 Constitution, while it also discriminated against adults on the basis of their sexual orientation, which was a breach of Article 17 (2) of the 1992 Constitution.



The plaintiff, who invoked the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to interpret and enforce the 1992 Constitution, therefore, urged the court to make a declaration that Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29 violated the above constitutional provisions and was thus unconstitutional.



No merit

However, the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, held that the suit had no merit, and subsequently dismissed it. There is no merit in the action. In the circumstances, the whole action fails and same is dismissed, the court held.



The court did not read the full reasoning for its decision, which it said would be deposited at the Courts Registry in 10 days. Other members on the panel were Justices Avril Lovelace Johnson, Issifu Omoro Tanko Amadu, Emmanuel Yonny Kulendi, Ernest Gaewu, Yaw Darko Asare and Richard Adjei-Frimpong.



Unnatural Carnal Knowledge

Section 104 of Act 29 is in three parts. First, Section 104 (1) (a) makes it a crime for anybody to have unnatural carnal knowledge of a person below 16 years. Such a crime is a first degree felony, which carries a term of imprisonment of not less than five years and not more than 25 years.



The second part is Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29, which makes it a crime for consenting adults to engage in unnatural carnal knowledge. This offence is a misdemeanour and was the specific provision that Dr Obiri-Korang wanted the Supreme Court to declare as unconstitutional.



Section 104 (1) (c) of Act 29, which is the last leg of the provision, further makes it a misdemeanour for any person to have sexual intercourse with an animal.



With regard to the definition of unnatural carnal knowledge, Section 104 (2) of Act 29 defines it as, sexual intercourse with a person in an unnatural manner or, with an animal. Act 29 is, however, silent on the meaning of sex in an unnatural manner.



The court, through judicial interpretation in cases, has explained what carnal knowledge, which is sex in a natural manner, means. In the case Gligah & Atizo v The Republic, the Supreme Court, speaking through Justice Jones Dotse in an appeal against a rape conviction, defined carnal knowledge as, the penetration of a womans vagina by a mans penis.



Again, in Banousin v The Republic, the Supreme Court, speaking through the same Justice Dotse, held that, It is the female sex organs called the vulva and the vagina that are normally penetrated into during sexual act which can qualify to be carnal knowledge under section 98 and 99 of Act 29.



Statement of case

In his statement of case to support his suit, Dr Obiri-Korang averred that the wording of Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29 and its applicability affected not only homosexuals but could even affect females who used dildos and vibrators to please themselves.



The term unnatural carnal knowledge may include penetration per anum, the penetration of the female genitalia or male/female rectum with object, fellatio and cunnilingus, all of which are not exclusive to homosexuals.



The plaintiff further argued that the justification by the government that Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29 was justifiable to protect morality was untenable. This is because when it comes to morality, there is the need to distinguish public morality from private morality, the statement of case added.



He said allowing the government to dictate what constituted private morality could lead to an unjustifiable breach of individual privacy.



Statement of defence

The Attorney-General, Godfred Yeboah Dame, who was the defendant in the action, rejected the plaintiffs averment and submitted that Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29 could not be said to be discriminatory and unconstitutional as it made no mention of any particular sexual orientation.



Also, the A-G argued that the law could not be a breach of privacy as it did not contain that particular provision for the interference of peoples privacy.



Section 104 (1) (b) of Act 29 does not authorise anyone to enter anothers bedroom for the purpose of ascertaining whether there have been an unnatural carnal knowledge, the A-G argued in its statement of defence.







Source: graphiconline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt Jnr. says Ghana's economy under the Akufo-Addo administration is far worse than when the country was declared a member of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC).



Ghana went under the HIPC programme in 2002 to reduce the country's debt and enhance her development.



In February 2002, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Development Association (IDA) agreed to support a comprehensive debt reduction package for Ghana under the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, a report by the World Bank.



Addressing the current economic situation of Ghana while discussing the mid-year budget statement by the Finance Minister on Tuesday, July 23, Kwesi Pratt exclaimed; "We have gone into HIPC before. We were declared HIPC around 2001 and 2002...but the situation now is worse than 2001".



He further argued; "In 2001 when we went into HIPC, at that time, our main concern was that we were spending two-thirds of total export revenue on debt servicing and debt repayment. Look at the situation today, far worse!"



Mr. Pratt added that the debt forgiveness to Ghana as part of measures to boost the economy has little positive impact.



Ghanas Eurobond holders, in June this year, forgave the nation of $4.7 billion of the debt owed them with aim of helping the country to return to its feet.



But to Kwesi Pratt Jnr., government shouldn't pride itself for securing this respite, stressing on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" discussion show that "debt forgiveness is not a solution to the fundamental problems of the economy. It is not, can never be, has never been!"



Watch video below





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Kwamena Duncan has vehemently descended on the Speaker of Parliament for marshalling the Member of Parliament for Sefwi-Wiawso, Dr. Kwaku Afriyie, out of the House during proceedings on Monday, July 22, 2024.



The Speaker, Rt. Hon. Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin described some statements by Dr. Kwaku Afriyie very disrespectful and angrily instructed the Marshall to walk him out.



This happened after Dr. Kwaku Afriyie challenged the Speaker saying the latter's comments on an LGBTQ+ issue which is before the Supreme Court were prejudicial.



Dr. Afriyie had said; With all due respect to your chair, this preliminary remarks you are making are presidential and I believe that as representing the good people of Sefwi-Wiawso, it doesnt lie in your mouth to remind us of the things that you have said.



In response to the comment, Speaker Bagbin said; This is a completely rude remark and I can send you out of the House. It lies in my authority to do so. I represent the whole country, you represent the good people of Sefwi-Wiawso. Please Marshal take him out of the House, I will not entertain such disrespect.



Reacting to the Speaker's action during Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" morning show, the former Minister for Central Region, Kwamena Duncan found nothing disrespectful about the MP's remarks.



"That definition of gross disorder...is it the Speaker who makes that definition? And that the point made by Kwaku Afriyie that this doesn't lie in your mouth, does it constitute gross disorder?", he questioned.



He concluded that this behavior by the Speaker is "a major threat to democracy".







Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) intends adopting a "house-to-house, retail campaign" in this year's General Elections.



This strategic campaign module which seeks to "touch base with the people", will be a clear departure from the large rallies that used to be characteristic of the largest opposition party.



National Chairman of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, disclosed this in an interview with Okay FM's Kwame Nkrumah Tikese.



"We want to reach out to the people, house-to-house campaign, retail campaign, that is where the emphasis is going to be. So, what were going to do in Tamale is to remind our people that this year, the campaign will be different. We must touch base with the people.



It is cheaper for party functionaries to reach out to the people in the villages than to bring their people to a collation point to address them," he said.



The NDC has fixed Saturday, 27th July, 2024 as the day the party is set to launch its Campaign; an event expected to be hosted in the capital city of the Northern region of Ghana, Tamale.



It is in line with this that the opposition party, after carefully observing the trends in elections over the years, believes it is imperative to review the strategies in a build up towards the 2024 general elections in December.



Mr Asiedu Nketia further stated that, the door to door campaign will enhance a personal engagement with the Ghanaian voter.

















Source: Kobina Darlington/peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the running mate for the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has called on all traditional leaders to engage themselves in any political discourse.



According to the outgoing Member of Parliament for Manhyia South, the roles traditional leaders play in the political space cannot be overlooked. He explained that, their counsel on political issues given by the Chiefs and traditional rulers help in shaping the country thereby promoting peace.



Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh disclosed this when he paid a courtesy call on the Nungua Traditional Council in Accra.



As a way of bolstering the fortunes of the NPP in the upcoming December 7 elections, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh urged all electorates and sympathisers of the NPP to do their best in casting their votes for the ruling NPP in order to continue the great works of the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia led government.



NAPO said, "My campaign is different, I visit every royal house to tell them one thing. I tell them to help us, pray for us, guide us, counsel us, and give the direction to us. So, the Ghana that were developing is a Ghana that will be developed in freedom."



He added, I implore every traditional leader, the elders that this game called politics, have you realised that the politicians have turned round to tell you not to do politics, if we didnt do politics how did we come by independence? Im not saying wear NPP colours or NDC colours."



"Im saying that whether it is NPP or NDC, its your right to tell us what is right. It is not our right to tell you not to be part of us, it is your right, to crave it. The people of Nungua should crave Nungua, its theirs. Everything God put on Nungua was for the development of Nungua.





Source: Kobina Darlington/peacefmonline.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Dr. Gideon Boako has lauded President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia over their performance in the roads sector.



Speaking on Peace FM's "Kokrokoo" show, the Spokesperson for the Vice President appealed to Ghanaians to elect Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to continue the good works of the President stressing the track record of the current administration surpasses the record of Mahama's government.



Dr. Gideon Boako noted that "Dr. Bawumia is using common sense approach" to solve the problems of Ghanaians, hence pleaded with the Ghanaian electorates to believe in his vision for the country.



On the achievements of the government, particularly in the provision of infrastructure, Dr. Boako expressed that no government in the history of Ghana has constructed roads like what President Nana Akufo-Addo has done.



"President Akufo-Addo's government is the government that has constructed more roads in Ghana...A government that has constructed about 11,000 kilometers of roads in Ghana, it's unprecedented," he stated.





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
Lawyer Charles Owusu Juanah has firmly established himself as an influential and respected figure in Ghanaian politics, and this was evident at the recent Akwaaba summit held at the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR) in Sunyani.



Addressing a group of TESCON members, Lawyer Charles captivated his audience with his impassioned plea for unity and inclusiveness, urging them to actively campaign for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the upcoming elections.



With the theme of "fostering togetherness and inclusiveness to break the eight," Lawyer Charles emphasized that it is imperative for Ghanaian youth to rally behind the NPP as the party best-equipped to lead Ghana towards a brighter future.



He drew attention to historical events, such as Rawlings' imposition of curfews in 1982-1983 under PNDC rule, which had detrimental effects on Ghana's industries. Furthermore, he highlighted how subsequent governments failed to protect state assets from corruption.



In contrast, Lawyer Charles underscored how the NPP has implemented impactful social interventions that have positively impacted Ghanaians across all sectors.



From economic development initiatives to educational reforms such as free SHS, he made it clear that Dr. Bawumia's leadership should be commended and supported by TESCON members.



Drawing from his extensive knowledge of Ghanaian politics and unwavering commitment to progress, Lawyer Charles's call for TESCON members' active involvement in campaigning for Dr. Bawumia was compelling.



Expressing concern over potential regression if NDC were voted into power again due to their history of selling government assets built under previous administrations, he urged students not to take December's election lightly.



He also encouraged gratitude towards current governance by parents whose children have benefited from free SHS program initiated by NPP government - emphasizing a need for continued support towards this positive trajectory rather than returning back into darker times witnessed previously.



It is clear that Lawyer Charles Owusu Juanah possesses both an acute understanding of political intricacies and a gift for effective communication  qualities that render him an ideal leader within TESCON chapters nationwide.



As such, it seems imperative that NPP entrusts him with leading TESCON chapters across all tertiary institutions in Ghana moving forward - solidifying their message amongst youths who will play a pivotal role in shaping future political landscape through informed decision-making processes.

Source: Baffour Asare Yamoah









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 Vice President and flagbearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia says the remarkable impact of Free SHS in the North and the entire Ghana would not have been possible had former President Mahama remained in office.



Addressing a huge crowd in Jirapa as part of his campaign tour of the Upper West Region, Dr. Bawumia highlighted the significant impact Free SHS has had on many homes in the North since its introduction in 2017, adding that in spite of the obvious benefits to the North and the nation, former President Mahama who he said ought to have known better due to his background kicked against it.



I asked John Mahama to name just one social interventions, baako p, he couldn't nameFormer President Mahama said if he had the money, he wouldn't use it for free SHS education. He said it was not a priority but we have brought it and the people of the North and Ghanaians are benefitting, Dr. Bawumia said to loud cheers from the crowd.



He continued; "We knew and I knew that where we had the poorest people in the North, we needed Free SHS education and we brought free SHS to the North and Ghana and our children are attending in their numbers. The total enrollment for Senior High School has increased from 800,000 to 1.4 million in 7 years. It tells you that our people were dying for free SHS education."



"Today the five Northern Regions have the highest enrollment into Senior High School education but this is what John Mahama said we should not do. He said if he had the money, he would not do it."



Dr. Bawumia further hit at former President Mahama for using SADA to exploit the North.



"He set up SADA and we all saw what happened. He claimed he invested millions of dollars but we all know what happened. There is no single SADA project to show and I have challenged him to show us one and he has not."



The NPP presidential candidate added unlike Mahama who failed Ghanaians under his regime, he (Bawumia) has facilitated several policies and development projects which are visible to the North and Ghana.

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
As part of this years World PR Day Festival, Global Media Alliance, in collaboration with Africas biggest music streaming platform,Boomplay, has outdoored two uniquely curated music playlists to recognize artistes who have creatively leveraged the power of public relations in their craft.



The playlists  World PR Day Festival Jams Playlist and World PR Day Festival New Gen, seek to acknowledge the contributions of both established and emerging musicians while highlighting the role of public relations in promoting Ghanaian music.



The Jams Playlist features a repertoire of hits songs from renowned artists creating a vibrant mix of rhythms and melodies that highlight the diversity and creativity of Ghana's music industry. Artistes in this category include King Promise, Stonebwoy, Amaarae, Black Sherrif, Gyakie, Joe Mettle, Kidi, Smallgod, and Wendy Shay.



The New Gen playlist which shines a spotlight on the freshest talents redefining the music landscape features an exciting line-up of music talents whose unique perspectives are setting trends in the industry. Artistes in this category include Arathejay, Baaba J, Beeztrap KOTM, Darkua and Ess Thee Legend. The rest are Nana Yaw Ofori-Atta, Olivetheboy, SuperJazzClub, Team Eternity and 99Phaces.



Commenting on this partnership, Ekow Quandzie, Head of Public Relations at Global Media Alliance highlighted the relevance of music in shaping narratives and inspiring a new generation of communicators.



Music has always been a powerful tool in shaping narratives and connecting people. In accordance with this year's theme for the World PR Day celebration, 'The Future of PR in a Changing World,' our curated playlists reflect the evolving landscape of both music and public relations, said Ekow Quandzie.



On his part, Public Relations Manager at Boomplay, Paul Azumah Ayitey, said:



Boomplay is committed to amplifying the diverse voices and innovative sounds that resonate with audiences across the globe. Once again, we are proud to collaborate with GMA to launch playlists that affirm the transformative power of music. Through these playlists, we hope to provide a platform for new artists to reach wider audiences while inspiring PR professionals to embrace creativity and innovation.



The World PR Day Festival 24 and New Gen playlists are available exclusively on the Boomplay App to music lovers around the globe with easy access to the latest tunes that define the synergy between public relations and music.



The World PR Day Festival is an annual event that seeks to bring together Practitioners, Industry Players, Media, and Students to dialog and share insights and innovative strategies to improve the industry both in Ghana and globally.



The 2024 festival which began in May took participants through several virtual sessions on Greenwashing x PR and PR Measurements x ROI. Masterlabs were also organized to equip PR professionals in Sustainability and Artificial Intelligence. It was climaxed with a summit which inspired insightful conversations on shaping the African narrative with public relations and storytelling.

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
Airlines have launched numerous new routes at airports in Pennsylvania this year.

American Airlines launched three international seasonal routes taking off from Philadelphia. And later this year, it will launch two more winter seasonal routes internationally.

Icelandair launched a route from Pittsburgh to Iceland.

And a new route has launched from Harrisburg International Airport to Florida while another route is on the way from Lancaster Airport to the Sunshine State.

And American Airlines will offer two special flights  one from Philadelphia to Brazil and the other from Brazil to Philadelphia in September when the Philadelphia Eagles play the Green Bay Packers in Sao Paolo.

Heres a look at some of the new routes that have launched or will launch this year at Pennsylvania airports:

Harrisburg International Airport. December 29, 2022. Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.com

Allegiant launched a new route to the Jacksonville International Airport in June. The flights will take place on Mondays and Fridays.

United Airlines relaunched its route to Dulles International Airport in June after a two-year hiatus. United will fly twice daily to Dulles.

Breeze Airways has announced that it will launch service in October from Lancaster Airport to Orlando International Airport.Photo provided

Breeze Airways will launch a new route from Lancaster Airport to Orlando International Airport on Oct. 8 with twice-weekly service on Thursdays and Sundays.

American Airlines launched the following summer seasonal routes: Nice, France (May 6 - Oct. 5, 2024)  once daily; Naples, Italy (June 5 -Oct. 25)  once daily; Copenhagen, Denmark (June 6 - Oct. 5)  once daily; San Antonio, Texas (June 5 - Nov. 4)  once daily.

American Airlines will launch a Saturday-only winter seasonal service to Bridgetown, Barbados, from Nov. 9-March 29.

American Airlines will launch a Saturday-only winter seasonal route to Liberia, Costa Rica, from Dec. 7-March 29.

American Airlines is offering special flights to Sao Paolo, Brazil for the Eagles-Packers game in September. Flight AA215 will leave Philadelphia at 9 p.m. on Sept. 5. Flight AA62 will leave Sao Paolo for Philadelphia at 10 a.m. Sept. 7.

Frontier Airlines added the following routes, which all began in May from Philadelphia International Airport: Detroit  Daily; Milwaukee  three times a week; Pittsburgh  two times daily; Portland, Maine  three times a week; Knoxville  three times a week; Indianapolis  three times a week; Minneapolis/St. Paul  Daily; Chicago  Daily; Columbus  three times a week; Kansas City  three times a week; Pensacola  three times a week; St. Louis  four times a week.

In June, Frontier launched flights to Buffalo and Norfolk, both three times per week.

Frontier also launched service to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in December, currently scheduled three times per week through July and two times per week through Aug. 11.
One person was killed and two other people were injured following a stabbing in Allegheny County on Thursday.

Police said they found a man with multiple stab wounds on the porch of a house along Worthington Street in Versailles at about 8 p.m., according to WPXI and WTAE. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police found another man who had been stabbed and a woman who had been assaulted in a neighboring home. They were both taken to the hospital.

Investigators told news outlets that the deceased victim had been in an argument with a suspect, which had led to the stabbing.

The suspect then went to the next-door residence and attacked the other two victims before driving away, police said.

Police found the car and the suspect in McKeesport. As he was being arrested at the police station, he fought with officers, injuring one of them, as well as a K-9, news reports said. The officer was taken to a hospital while the dog was taken to a veterinarian.

Neither the suspect nor the deceased victim has been identified to the public yet. Police said they are still determining what charges to file.
Police in Harrisburg arrested two men they said seriously injured another person in a stabbing over a bicycle earlier this month, according to an affidavit.

Officers were sent to the Harrisburg Hospital around 3:10 p.m. on July 3 for a man whose arm was critically injured, the affidavit said.

Julio Rivera Sr., who works at an automotive business on the 1600 block of Revere Street with his son Julio Rivera Jr., got into an altercation with a man pushing a shopping cart who wanted to take a bicycle from the 1600 block of Wayne Street around 2:30 p.m., police said.

When Rivera Sr. told the man to leave the area, the man said he would come back and kill Rivera Sr. and Rivera Jr., the affidavit said.

Then, around 3 p.m., the man  later identified as 43-year-old Omar Rodriguez-Santiago returned with another man  42-year-old Placido Rodriguez-Santiago  on bicycles, police said.

Omar threatened Rivera Sr. with a machete while Placido used a knife, the affidavit said. After Omar and Placido threatened to kill Rivera Sr. and started to swing their weapons at him, Rivera Jr. drew his gun and fired one shot toward the men, according to the affidavit.

Initially, it was unclear if anyone was struck by the gunshot. However, it was later determined Rivera Sr.s injury was caused by a laceration.

Police did not specify if Omar or Placido were injured. Surveillance footage from cameras in the area confirmed they were near the scene at the reported time. Video footage from the Hall Manor apartments in Harrisburg, where the two men live, showed them leaving and returning from an apartment in the complex during the allotted time as well, police said.

Police executed a search warrant for an apartment in Hall Manor on July 24 and arrested Omar and Placido, who admitted to being the men in the videos, according to the affidavit. Both men also told police Omar slashed the victim with a machete but denied threatening the victims life, police said.

Rivera Sr., who had a serious injury to his right arm, was taken to the hospital by his son immediately after the incident. Medical professionals said he suffered a large laceration and open fracture, which required a ligation  a closing off of the blood vessels  to his right radial artery and vein because of excessive bleeding, police said. He was later transferred to Penn State Hershey Medical Center for further surgeries.

Omar Rodriguez-Santiago is charged with one count of aggravated assault, one count of simple assault, one count of terroristic threats and one count of possession of an instrument of crime with intent. Placido Rodiguez-Santiago is charged with one count of terroristic threats and one count of simple assault.

Both of the accused have a preliminary hearing scheduled for Aug. 13.
A 68-year-old man has been charged with homicide by vehicle after police said he crashed into a 30-year-old woman on her bicycle, killing her, in Philadelphia last week.

Michael Vahey has been charged with homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, involuntary manslaughter, DUI, reckless driving, and related crimes, according to reports from the Philadelphia Inquirer, 6ABC and NBC10.

Barbara Friedes, was an oncology resident at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia, where she treated pediatric cancer patients.

She was riding her bike along the 1800 block of Spruce Street at about 7 p.m. on July 17 when Vahay hit her.

Police said his blood alcohol content was 0.16 at the time of the crash, twice the legal limit. He was also driving at about 57 mph in a 25-mph zone.

Friedes had been wearing a helmet and was riding in a designated bike lane. She was thrown about 20 feet in the air due to the impact. She was taken to a hospital where she was later pronounced dead.

After hitting Friedes, Vahays vehicle continued down the street before crashing into some parked cars.

This crime is horrible. The outcome is almost unspeakable, District Attorney Larry Krasner said during a press conference on Thursday, per the Inquirer.

It shows you what happens when someone under the influence gets behind the wheel of a car and now we have a tragic death, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said during the conference.

Vahay is currently being held on $999,999 bail.
Story by Stephen Caruso, Angela Couloumbis, and Katie Meyer of Spotlight PA

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters.

HARRISBURG  Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is being eyed as a potential Democratic vice presidential nominee, but with that attention has come intense scrutiny of his support for a traditionally conservative idea: taxpayer-funded private school vouchers.

Since taking office last year, Shapiro has become the most prominent Democratic voice in the state for such a program. Last summer, he backed a controversial Republican voucher proposal to the chagrin of longtime party allies and influential unions that supported his candidacy  though he ultimately vetoed the language after facing opposition from fellow Democrats.

Despite his high-profile public backing, Shapiros embrace of vouchers appears to be a relatively new conviction, according to political insiders and others who have worked with and followed the governor in his two-decade political career. As a state lawmaker in the 2000s, he didnt advocate for the issue, they recalled, let alone push legislation.

Shapiros thinking on the issue can be understood in part through his relationship with at least one prominent school choice advocate, sources told Spotlight PA.

Voucher programs vary widely, but they broadly route public money to pay for tuition at private and religious schools.

Proponents argue they give children attending struggling public schools crucial options, while opponents say they weaken public schools by diverting funding and dont necessarily help students. Studies have shown that their effects are mixed, with more recent reviews of statewide programs showing they have caused student test scores to decline.

Shapiro did not publicly back creating a voucher program until his run for governor in 2022, according to a review of news articles and public statements he has made.

He has tempered his position  deeply unpopular among many of his Democratic colleagues  by saying he will only support such a program if it does not take money away from public education.

I think its very important that we fully fund public education, Shapiro told reporters at a 2022 campaign event. And I also think its really important that we empower parents to put their kids in the best place for them to be able to succeed.

To be sure, during his time as governor, both state budgets have included major public education investments. This years $1.1 billion increase for K-12 education was the largest single-year bump in the states history, according to Shapiro.

In his time in office, Governor Shapiro has consistently delivered historic increases in public education funding and finally, after decades of inaction, moved Pennsylvania towards adequately and equitably funding our public schools, Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said in a statement to Spotlight PA.

Behind the scenes, however, he has also tried to convince fellow Democrats to set aside public dollars for vouchers. For many of them, Shapiros insistence on the issue is confounding.

Shapiro, 51, has been an elected official since 2005, when he joined the state House representing the Montgomery County district where he grew up and still lives. Several former colleagues say that during his eight years in the chamber, he wasnt involved in school choice debates in any significant way.

Ive had conversations with [Shapiro] about many other things, said Tony Payton, a former Democratic state representative from Philadelphia who supports school vouchers and served alongside the governor, and that wasnt one of them.

There would have been opportunities.

In 2011, while Shapiro was still a state House member, then-Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, launched a push to create a school voucher program. That effort passed the state Senate with bipartisan backing but foundered in the state House, where it never came up for a vote.

State Sen. Anthony Williams (D., Philadelphia) was one of the Democrats who supported it. He told Spotlight PA that Shapiro wasnt involved in pushing for the program.

Any Democrat that was for school choice, I would know that, he said.

Williams, who is still a member of the chamber and remains one of the Democratic Partys strongest school choice supporters in the state, says he didnt get a hint that Shapiro was open to vouchers until he was running for governor.

Now, I dont know the whole motivation, Williams said. He added that when he spoke to Shapiro about passing school choice legislation more recently, the governor said it was the right thing to do.

Williams added that Shapiro has friends who are in the school choice community who align with him about that issue. And so in the conversations, Im told, this issue came up, and they sort of found common ground.

Those friends, Williams said, were supporters, who are strong choice people, who supported his campaign, because they were supportive of the issue of choice.

Three sources who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive political issue told Spotlight PA that notable among them is Joel Greenberg, a billionaire co-founder of the global high-speed trading firm Susquehanna International Group.

Greenberg served on Shapiros gubernatorial transition team with an assignment to focus on education policy, and multiple sources confirmed to Spotlight PA that the two have known each other for more than a decade.

In 2015, Shapiro, then a Montgomery County commissioner, gave the Philadelphia Inquirer his assessment of Greenbergs political and philanthropic work.

Hes a major employer in the region and hes wonderfully philanthropic  for Jewish causes, educational causes and other community organizations, Shapiro told the paper.

Another co-founder of Susquehanna International Group is even more well-known in the world of Pennsylvania school choice advocacy: billionaire Wall Street trader Jeffrey Yass. Hes emerged as a major Republican donor nationally and an inescapable power broker within the commonwealth, despite his nearly nonexistent public profile.

Both Greenberg and Yass have been involved in bankrolling the school choice movement for more than a decade in Pennsylvania.

We are not in this to run charter schools, to manage charter schools. This is purely altruistic, Greenberg told WHYY in 2015, when asked about his support for Williams mayoral campaign. We view this as helping kids have a choice who are trapped in failing, oftentimes violent schools.

Along with fellow suburban Philadelphia billionaire and SIG co-founder Arthur Dantchik, Greenberg and Yass were at one point the main donors to Students First, a political action committee founded in 2010 to support school choice candidates.

Shapiro accepted $175,000 from that PAC between 2012 and 2016, according to campaign finance records. During that time, he was a Montgomery County commissioner and, by 2016, was running for attorney general.

The donations to Shapiros attorney general campaign so troubled Philadelphias teachers union that it quietly pulled its endorsement at the last minute, multiple news outlets reported.

The union declined to comment at the time, but a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to Spotlight PA that the union pulled its endorsement over the Students First donations. (The Pennsylvania State Education Association, a larger, statewide teachers union, continued to back Shapiro in that election.)

During the 2022 gubernatorial race, PACs connected to Yass spent millions during the primary to oppose eventual Republican nominee state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin). One of those PACs, Commonwealth Leaders Fund, ran anti-Shapiro ads during the general election but scaled back then stopped that spending shortly after Shapiro publicly pledged his support for vouchers.

Once elected, Shapiro sought to create such a program as part of the 2023-24 state budget.

Gov. Josh Shapiro visits a Pittsburgh school in March of 2023, as he promotes his first budget proposal.Commonwealth Media Services

I believe every child of God deserves a shot here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and one of the best ways we can guarantee their success is making sure every child has a quality education, Shapiro told Fox News in June 2023, late in the states budget process.

The remarks preceded the Republican-controlled state Senates sudden passage of a budget deal that included $100 million in taxpayer money to fund private school tuition for students in low-performing public districts.

But once the budget reached the state House, Shapiro received hard pushback from the lower chambers new Democratic majority. In a politically embarrassing setback, Shapiro agreed to veto the voucher dollars in exchange for the rest of the plans passage. That veto led to a nearly six-month budget impasse as state Senate Republicans claimed betrayal.

In his February budget address this year, Shapiro called on the legislature to again consider vouchers, though a top Republican leader later accused him of being unwilling to use his bully pulpit to get such a program across the finish line.

His ongoing support also hasnt saved him from Yass-funded criticism.

For the past two years, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which does not have to disclose its donors, has spent prodigiously on ads and other lobbying to criticize politicians who dont support vouchers.

The group, Commonwealth Action, has received significant dollars from the free market Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, according to that groups most recent filings to the IRS. Commonwealth Partners runs two political action committees that are among the most active in Pennsylvania school choice advocacy, and both are almost entirely funded by Yass.

Between April 2023 and March 2024  the last recorded filing  Commonwealth Action reported spending more than $973,000 on indirect education lobbying, which includes advertising and other methods aimed at shifting public opinion.

One video from last summer funded by Commonwealth Action accused Shapiro of choosing special interests over kids.

Commonwealth Action is linked to an established conservative organization in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth Foundation. Since summer 2023, the exterior of the organizations Harrisburg building, which is across the street from the state Capitol, has featured ads calling for Shapiro to pass the voucher plan. The foundation is now funding a six-figure newspaper and TV ad campaign.

You lied, and you turned your back on us again, Printess Garrett, a Harrisburg mother, says in a TV spot. The only thing we have for our children is our word, and if we cant trust in your word, we dont have anything else.

Moving forward, political sources told Spotlight PA they expect teachers unions and other public education advocates to be among the most skeptical of a Shapiro vice presidency.

On Wednesday, 28 education advocacy groups from across the country sent an open letter to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris arguing that it is essential that our President and Vice President be wholly committed to our nations public education system and willing to fight against school privatization in all its forms.

But to Payton, not considering Shapiro for backing a policy to aid parents in the hunt for whats best for their kids is a bad choice.

To blatantly disqualify somebody over something ideological like that is foolish, Payton said.

BEFORE YOU GO If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.
By Jeremy Roebuck, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

PHILADELPHIA  Former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr personally urged a top federal prosecutor in Pennsylvania to issue a misleading public statement amid the 2020 presidential election that was later pounced upon by former President Donald Trump to spread false claims of vote-rigging in the state, an investigation by the Justice Departments watchdog agency concluded Thursday.

The statement  an unusual news release revealing details of an ongoing FBI investigation into several ballots for Trump that had been found discarded in a Luzerne County dumpster  was issued in September of that year by the office of David Freed, then-the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

But in a 76-page report Thursday, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz concluded Freeds message left the impression that authorities were reviewing a potential criminal effort to tamper with votes in the county, even though they knew at the time that the ballots had been thrown out by mistake and that it was unlikely any charges would be filed.

Horowitz found both Barr and Freed had broken with long-standing Justice Department policies prohibiting officials from discussing ongoing investigations  especially ones that could influence elections.

But he stopped short of accusing either man of misconduct, citing the broad latitude those same policies give the attorney general to act in whatever way he deems appropriate in the interest of the fair administration of justice.

Still, Horowitz said: Nearly every DOJ lawyer we interviewed  both career employees and Trump administration political appointees  emphasized how unusual it would be for the department to issue a public statement containing details about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly before any charges are filed.

A potentially explosive case

The inspector generals findings Thursday provided a final postscript to one of the more head-scratching chapters of the 2020 presidential race in Pennsylvania  an election that ultimately became rife with them.

At the time, Trump was publicly disparaging the use of mail ballots  especially in Pennsylvania  and falsely claiming they would be used to rig the outcome of the race against him. Barr, too, had made several baseless statements alleging that mail voting is very open to fraud and coercion.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, was under increased scrutiny amid accusations Trump had weaponized the typically apolitical law enforcement agency to advance his own personal and political ends.

And amid that morass, Freed  the top federal prosecutor for Central Pennsylvania  found himself with a potentially explosive case on his hands.

Elections administrators in Luzerne County, in northeastern Pennsylvania, had found nine filled-out military absentee ballots in a dumpster outside their office in September of that year.

News of the discovery had leaked to the media. Trump referenced it in a radio interview.

And Freeds office rushed out a statement confirming the FBI was investigating  an unusual step for typically tight-lipped federal authorities, but one that raised even more eyebrows because the U.S. attorney specified all the thrown-out votes had been cast for Trump.

(His office later revised that statement to say only seven of the ballots were Trump votes; the remaining two were still in the sealed envelopes in which theyd been submitted.)

Freeds news release immediately drew criticism from some who viewed it as the Justice Department attempting to bolster Trumps false claims about mail voting before investigators were even sure of the facts.

Trump and his surrogates jumped on the news immediately.

Then-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany mentioned it during a press briefing the same day of Freeds news release. Trump repeatedly cited it during his first debate against Joe Biden the day after. And in a since-deleted tweet, a Trump campaign spokesperson pointed to Freeds statement, claiming: Democrats are trying to steal the election.

First out of the gate

But the inspector generals report Thursday revealed that even before Freed had issued his statement investigators had concluded that the matter in Luzerne County was not part of any systematic or widespread effort to commit voter fraud.

In fact, the report details, authorities had concluded the same day the ballots were discovered that they had been accidentally thrown out by a temporary and poorly trained employee hired from a program aimed at providing jobs to people with mental disabilities.

He was subsequently fired, and the discarded ballots were tallied for Trump.

Freed advised Barr of those facts and the unlikelihood that his office would ultimately file charges in the case, the inspector general found. And yet, his report paints both men as giddy over the prospect that the incident could be used to highlight Trumps suspicions of mail voting and fraud.

Freed advised senior leaders in his office that Justice Department officials had praised them for being first out of the gate  a statement he later told inspector general investigators he took to mean that, amid the focus on voter fraud in swing states, they were the first U.S. Attorneys Office in the country with some concrete information about the potential.

Barr, meanwhile, personally briefed Trump as soon as he learned of the investigation  a step Horowitz described as troubling given general Justice Department guidance limiting communications about routine investigations to the White House.

Together, Barr and Freed helped craft the statement on the probe that Freed eventually released. Barr specifically insisted  and Freed agreed  that a line noting the ballots were for Trump should be included in the news release, the inspector generals report found.

Several Justice Department officials interviewed as part of the inspector generals investigation expressed dismay over Freeds decision to say anything at all but especially his statements reference to Trump, noting that it put the department in the position of appearing as if it were picking a side.

I specifically remember telling him, said one former U.S. attorney who advised Freed during the deliberations over what to say, this is at the heart of everything weve been talking about with respect to election communications, and in any case, if you dont have a charge, we dont say anything about an investigation. We just dont do that.

Corey Amundson, chief of the departments Public Integrity Section, which oversees election integrity investigations, noted it was unusual he hadnt been consulted before any statement was released.

I found it very odd that all of these people [who] have a lot on their plate and [who] are in senior leadership positions would be involved in the issuance of a news release in the Middle District of Pennsylvania on a matter that is not only not under indictment, but doesnt involve particularly significant issues, he told the inspector generals investigators.

Barr: The statement had its intended effect

For his part, Barr  in a letter quoted in Thursdays report  balked at the suggestion hed done anything improper in urging Freed to release a statement on the case.

I was concerned that  the departments silence [on the investigation] was contributing to undue speculation and potentially unsettling the public more than necessary, he said. Freeds news release had its intended effect.

Freed, meanwhile, said he shared Barrs concerns given what he described as the history of corruption and patronage in northeastern Pennsylvania and the real uncertainty going on around Pennsylvanias elections.

I know that virtually any decision I [made] is going to be questioned and, especially in this environment, theres going to be political motives imputed to it, he said. I understand that [and] I just try to make the best decision I can based on whats in front of me.

Though the Inspector Generals Office did not ultimately accuse Barr or Freed of specific misconduct, it pushed the Justice Department to make several clarifications to policies surrounding what investigative details can be disclosed to the White House and whether protocols about public disclosure apply to the attorney general.

It also urged the Office of the Special Counsel to investigate whether the actions of either man may have violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits public officials using their office to influence an election, during the Luzerne County investigation.

Ultimately, Freeds office never filed any charges related to the discarded ballots. And despite recommendations from other Justice Department officials, that decision was not publicly announced until after the 2020 election and Freeds departure from his post.

Despite the controversy the investigation and Freeds statement had provoked, his successor, Acting U.S. Attorney Bruce D. Brandler, announced the cases conclusion in January 2021 with a succinct news release of his own.

The matter is closed, he wrote.

2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
By Marc Levy, The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA  Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democratic congresswoman who was grievously wounded in a 2011 shooting in her Arizona district, took to the campaign trail Thursday for Vice President Kamala Harris, as Harris nascent presidential campaign gets off the ground and a parallel campaign to be Harris running mate takes shape.

Giffords, speaking at the Salt & Light church in swing-state Pennsylvania, met with community activists in a predominantly Black section of Philadelphia hit by gun violence recently, including one over the weekend in which three people were killed and at least six others were wounded.

The event had long been planned, Giffords aides said, well before Giffords husband, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro entered the conversation to be Harris running mate, now that President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid and endorsed Harris.

Giffords spoke briefly about her long recovery from the shooting in 2011, which killed six people during a meeting with constituents at a Tucson grocery store. Harris other surrogates, including Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton, framed the November presidential contest as a choice between Harris, who would sign a ban on assault weapons, and more gun violence under Republican Donald Trump, who gun-rights groups back.

We are overwhelmed with violence all across America from rural Pennsylvania to inner city neighborhoods like where we are today, McClinton said. We as voters can make a decision on having a more violent United States or safer communities in every part of America.

McClinton  a Shapiro ally in the Pennsylvania statehouse who has rooted on social media for him to join Harris ticket  and Giffords batted away questions about the potential that Kelly or Shapiro could be Harris pick.

Asked whether she was thinking about becoming the second lady, Giffords said, later, later. For her part, McClinton said Im not making those decisions, but then put in a plug for Shapiro as a peoples champion when it comes to issues around public safety while calling Kelly someone who we all hold in high regard.

Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton arrives for a campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris, Thursday, July 25, 2024 in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Joe Lamberti)AP

Harris is beginning to vet about a dozen people for the vice presidential nomination, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the confidential process.

The Giffords event in Philadelphia on Thursday  just a few miles from Shapiros home in neighboring Montgomery County  had long been planned, Giffords aides said.

Still, it wont be the last Harris campaign event where her vice presidential pick is a prominent subject, or where potential vice presidential picks campaign for Harris in a state both sides have said they must win in November.

On Monday, Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer were scheduled to headline a campaign rally for Harris in suburban Philadelphia, while in North Carolina on Thursday, Gov. Roy Cooper talked about Harris many visits as vice president to the swing state won by Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

Cooper and Whitmer are also under consideration for joining the ticket.

Cooper, speaking in downtown Raleigh, said that there are a lot of good people Harris could choose as her running mate, but he wouldnt address directly his prospects to join her ticket.

There are a lot of people that she can choose. Shes going to make the right choice, Cooper said after listing why he backed Harris for president. I just want her to choose the person that gives her the best chance to win. And therell be a lot of factors that go into that, Cooper added.

Cooper took a swipe at Trumps vice presidential pick in Ohio Sen. JD Vance, saying: Its pretty clear that Donald Trump chose someone in his own image  sort of a Mini-Me  a reference to a smaller clone of Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers film franchise.

Another leading contender, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, deflected questions at his regular news conference at the state Capitol on Thursday about how Harris was choosing a running mate, but Beshear spoke more freely about the presidential campaign ahead than he usually does. He started with a statement saying he was honored to be considered for the ticket, but asked later if he thought Trump was a threat to democracy, he said: Yes, I do.

N.C. Governor Roy Cooper smiles as he steps up to speak, speaks at a press conference, Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. Cooper is one of the people being considered to be likely Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris' running mate. (AP Photo/Chris Seward)AP

Beshear said he would do everything he could to get Harris elected, regardless of whether hes her running mate.

I think whats needed right now is a ticket that not only can win but again can govern and can govern in a way thats for everyone, he said. We cant keep going with this everything being red or blue or Democrat or Republican. Everything right now from the car you buy to the beer you drink, somebody tries to make partisan and say you have to pick a team.

Associated Press reporters Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Kentucky, contributed to this report.
By Julia Terruso, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

PHILADELPHIA  Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will campaign for Vice President Kamala Harris at an event in Pennsylvania on Monday.

It will be the first time Shapiro, who is widely considered to be on Harris shortlist of running mates, has campaigned for Harris since President Joe Biden exited the race and she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The campaign did not say where the event would be held, but two sources told The Inquirer it is being planned in the Philadelphia region.

Donald Trump will be in Harrisburg on Wednesday.

The Harris campaign said Shapiro and Whitmer would rally supporters for Harris on Monday and slam Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Donald Trump presidency put together by the conservative Heritage Foundation with input from a slew of former Trump administration officials. Trump has sought to distance himself from the document in recent days.

Both governors have been dogged by rumors of Harris interest in them in this highly unprecedented and fast-moving campaign, encountering larger-than-normal crushes of reporters while they go about state business.

Whitmers name had been floated as a potential replacement candidate for Biden. She quickly endorsed Harris after the presidents withdrawal and accepted a role as a co-chair of the campaign.

She has also shot down speculation that shes vying for the VP role, telling a Michigan radio station Monday that she has no plans to leave the state and looks forward to seeing whom Harris selects for the role. I think shes got a great group of people from whom to choose, she said.

Shapiro, who is reportedly being vetted as a potential Harris running mate, has neither confirmed nor denied an interest in the role  even as members of his party in the state openly campaign for him to get it. Shapiro said Wednesday that he has not spoken to Harris since Sunday, when she called to ask for the governors endorsement and seek advice on defeating Trump in Pennsylvania.

Thats all we discussed, and she and I have not spoken since then, he said at a press conference in New Castle, Pa.

Shapiro referred questions about the vice presidential vetting process to the Harris campaign when asked whether his team had received any outreach.

He expressed appreciation for the Philadelphia Democratic Partys unusual Wednesday morning endorsement of his vice presidency but said Harris shouldnt feed into politics when making her decision.

The vice president now has a deeply personal decision to make, Shapiro said. That is a deeply personal decision that should be made free from any political pressure.

FILE - Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in January 2024. (AP Photo/Al Goldis, File)AP

Harris plans to make a decision on her running mate by Aug. 7, according to the New York Times.

Other top Democrats under consideration reportedly include North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Sen. Mark Kelly, D., Ariz., and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

Since securing enough pledged delegates to be the presumptive nominee, Harris has hit the campaign trail, rallying in Milwaukee and Indianapolis this week. Her campaign, which hit the ground running because she took over Bidens campaign staff and offices nationwide, has also held daily events in Pennsylvania.

Former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, a gun violence activist, is joining Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton and Philadelphia Pastor Reverend Cean James at a Wednesday news conference in Philadelphia touting Harris work to tackle gun violence.
Ronda Rousey has been out of the spotlight a bit since she walked away from the WWE, but the former professional wrestler and UFC star is back in the headlines this week in a big way.

And with a big-time life announcement. She is pregnant with her second child, according to multiple reports.

Did anyone notice that Im very pregnant right now, she said while taking part in a San Diego Comic Con panel. Yeah, Im just as pregnant as Mom is in the majority of the comic.

The 37-year-old Rousey is married to former UFC heavyweight contender Travis Browne. He is also the father of her first child.

Rousey is perhaps best known for helping womens mixed martial arts take off in the UFC. She was a champion in that company, finishing her fighting career with a 12-2 record. Following her UFC career, she competed in the WWE, becoming the only woman to win the title in both organizations.
The Steve Miller Band closed out its set during Thursdays show at Hersheypark Stadium with a tip of the cap to the armed forces that had the crowd fired up.

Performing ahead of Def Leppard and Journey on the night, the band played a few songs from its discography before turning its attention to those who have served in the armed forces.
Elon Musks transgender daughter has fired back after Musks recent interview and posts on X claimed that he was tricked into supporting gender-affirming care for her.

In an interview with conservative commentator Dr. Jordan Peterson, Musk said that his daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, was killed by woke mind virus when she transitioned.
A body found in the Delaware River in Philadelphia on Thursday has been identified as that of a fisherman who went missing earlier this week.

Now, his family is seeking answers.

Authorities and the Philadelphia Marine Unit responded to a report of a body in the water. They found the victim near the Linden Avenue boat ramp around 3:30 p.m. He was later identified as 42-year-old Darnell Dogan, according to both 6ABC and CBS News.

He was pronounced dead at 4:20 p.m.

It doesnt appear to be a normal drowning at this time, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small said to CBS News. Now, this victim may have drowned. However, what we found on the body does appear to be suspicious.

According to Small, there werent any obvious signs of trauma on the body, but he said an autopsy would be completed on Friday.

Small also added that the mans clothing matched what the family had reported to authorities.

Video from 6ABC captured some kind of material around Dogans wrists when his body was found.

Dogan, who was an avid freshman from the Philly neighborhood of Frankford, was on a boat in the river with friends and acquaintances on Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning on the Delaware River.

Thats when family members believe the body, the 42-year-old, either went missing from that location or fell off the boat, were not sure, Small said to 6ABC.

By Wednesday afternoon, Dogans family reported him missing.

We got a family hurting here ... thats my baby, thats my baby boy, Dogans mother, Juanita Johnson, said to CBS News. He was just down here fishing. Thats it. So I dont understand it.

Days [didnt] go by without him calling and saying Mom, you all right? To know he is not going to call my phone no more, oh my God. This so hard, she added.

Authorities said that when the missing persons report was filed, detectives spoke with the individuals who were on the boat with Dogan. They plan to speak with those people again.
The liberal international order, erected after the Cold War, was crumbling by 2019. It was flawed from the start and thus destined to fail. The spread of liberal democracy around the globeessential for building that orderfaced strong resistance because of nationalism, which emphasizes self-determination. Some targeted states also resisted U.S. efforts to promote liberal democracy for security-related reasons. Additionally, problems arose because a liberal order calls for states to delegate substantial decisionmaking authority to international institutions and to allow refugees and immigrants to move easily across borders. Modern nation-states privilege sovereignty and national identity, however, which guarantees trouble when institutions become powerful and borders porous. Furthermore, the hyperglobalization that is integral to the liberal order creates economic problems among the lower and middle classes within the liberal democracies, fueling a backlash against that order. Finally, the liberal order accelerated China's rise, which helped transform the system from unipolar to multipolar. A liberal international order is possible only in unipolarity. The new multipolar world will feature three realist orders: a thin international order that facilitates cooperation, and two bounded ordersone dominated by China, the other by the United Statespoised for waging security competition between them.

The remainder of this article is organized as follows. First, I explain what the term order means and why orders are an important feature of international politics. Second, I describe the different kinds of orders and the circumstances under which a liberal international order will emerge. Relatedly, I examine in the third section what accounts for the rise and decline of international orders. In the fourth section, I describe the different Cold War orders. In the next three sections, I recount the history of the liberal international order. Then, in the subsequent four sections, I explain why it failed. In the penultimate section, I discuss what the new order will look like under multipolarity. The conclusion provides a brief summary of my argument and some policy recommendations.

A hyperglobalized economy undermines the order in yet another way: it helps countries other than the unipole grow more powerful, which can undermine unipolarity and bring the liberal order to an end. This is what is happening with the rise of China, which, along with the revival of Russian power, has brought the unipolar era to a close. The emerging multipolar world will consist of a realist-based international order, which will play an important role in managing the world economy, dealing with arms control, and handling problems of the global commons such as climate change. In addition to this new international order, the United States and China will lead bounded orders that will compete with each other in both the economic and military realms. 2

In addition, hyperglobalization, which sought to minimize barriers to global trade and investment, resulted in lost jobs, declining wages, and rising income inequality throughout the liberal world. It also made the international financial system less stable, leading to recurring financial crises. Those troubles then morphed into political problems, further eroding support for the liberal order.

Furthermore, the liberal order's tendency to privilege international institutions over domestic considerations, as well as its deep commitment to porous, if not open borders, has had toxic political effects inside the leading liberal states themselves, including the U.S. unipole. Those policies clash with nationalism over key issues such as sovereignty and national identity. Because nationalism is the most powerful political ideology on the planet, it invariably trumps liberalism whenever the two clash, thus undermining the order at its core.

Third, the postCold War liberal international order was doomed to collapse, because the key policies on which it rested are deeply flawed. Spreading liberal democracy around the globe, which is of paramount importance for building such an order, not only is extremely difficult, but often poisons relations with other countries and sometimes leads to disastrous wars. Nationalism within the target state is the main obstacle to the promotion of democracy, but balance of power politics also function as an important blocking force.

Second, the United States has led two different orders since World War II. The Cold War order, which is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a liberal international order, was neither liberal nor international. It was a bounded order that was limited mainly to the West and was realist in all its key dimensions. It had certain features that were also consistent with a liberal order, but those attributes were based on realist logic. The U.S.-led postCold War order, on the other hand, is liberal and international, and thus differs in fundamental ways from the bounded order the United States dominated during the Cold War.

I offer three main sets of arguments. First, because states in the modern world are deeply interconnected in a variety of ways, orders are essential for facilitating efficient and timely interactions. There are different kinds of international orders, and which type emerges depends primarily on the global distribution of power. But when the system is unipolar, the political ideology of the sole pole also matters. Liberal international orders can arise only in unipolar systems where the leading state is a liberal democracy.

It would be a mistake, however, to think that the liberal international order is in trouble solely because of Trump's rhetoric or policies. In fact, more fundamental problems are at play, which account for why Trump has been able to successfully challenge an order that enjoys almost universal support among the foreign policy elites in the West. The aim of this article is to determine why the liberal world order is in big trouble and to identify the kind of international order that will replace it.

The fall of the liberal international order horrifies the Western elites who built it and who have benefited from it in many ways. 1 These elites fervently believe that this order was and remains an important force for promoting peace and prosperity around the globe. Many of them blame President Donald Trump for its demise. After all, he expressed contempt for the liberal order when campaigning for president in 2016; and since taking office, he has pursued policies that seem designed to tear it down.

By 2019, it was clear that the liberal international order was in deep trouble. The tectonic plates that underpin it are shifting, and little can be done to repair and rescue it. Indeed, that order was destined to fail from the start, as it contained the seeds of its own destruction.

The bottom line is that in a world of multifaceted interdependence, a system of rules is necessary to lower transaction costs and help carry out the multitude of interactions that take place among states. Adm. Harry Harris, a former commander of U.S. military forces in the Pacific, captures this point when he referred to the liberal international order as the Global Operating System. 8

The institutions that make up an order, however, cannot compel powerful states to obey the rules if those states believe that doing so is not in their interest. International institutions, in other words, do not take on a life of their own, and thus do not have the power to tell the leading states what to do. They are simply tools of the great powers. Still, rules, which are the essence of any institution, help manage the behavior of states, and great powers obey the rules most of the time.

A good example of this phenomenon is the superpowers efforts during the Cold War to build a nonproliferation regime. Toward that end, in 1968 the Soviet Union and the United States devised the NPT, which effectively made it illegal for any member state that did not have nuclear weapons to acquire them. Naturally, the leadership in Moscow and Washington went to great lengths to get as many states as possible to join the NPT. The superpowers were also the main driving force behind the formation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 1974, which aims to place significant limits on the sale of nuclear materials and technologies to countries that do not possess nuclear weapons, but might attempt to acquire them in the market.

Second, orders are indispensable in the modern international system because they help the great powers manage the behavior of the weaker states in ways that suit the great powers interests. 7 Specifically, the most powerful states design institutions to constrain the actions of less powerful states and then put significant pressure on them to join those institutions and obey the rules no matter what. Nevertheless, those rules often work to the benefit of the weaker states in the system.

States are also interconnected in the military realm, which leads them to form alliances. To present an adversary with a formidable deterrent or to fight effectively should deterrence break down, allies benefit from having rules that stipulate how each member's military will operate and how they will coordinate with each other. The need for coordination is magnified because modern militaries possess a vast array of weapons, not all of which are compatible with their allies weaponry. Consider the wide variety of weapons in the militaries that made up NATO and the Warsaw Pact, not to mention the difficulty of coordinating the movements of the various fighting forces inside those alliances. It is unsurprising that both superpowers maintained heavily institutionalized alliancesand indeed heavily institutionalized ordersduring the Cold War.

Orders are indispensable in the modern international system for two reasons. First, they manage interstate relations in a highly interdependent world. 6 States engage in enormous amounts of economic activity, which leads them to establish institutions and rules that can regulate those interactions and make them more efficient. But that interdependence is not restricted to economic affairs; it also includes environmental and health issues. Pollution in one country, for example, invariably affects the environment in neighboring countries, while the effects of global warming are universal and can be dealt with only through multilateral measures. Moreover, deadly diseases do not need passports to cross international boundaries, as the lethal influenza pandemic of 191820 made clear.

An order can contain different kinds of institutions, including security institutions such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), or the Warsaw Pact, as well as economic institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Bank. It can also include institutions that deal with the environment, such as the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change, and more multifaceted institutions such as the European Union (EU), the League of Nations, and the United Nations (UN).

International institutions, which are the building blocks of orders, are effectively rules that the great powers devise and agree to follow, because they believe that obeying those rules is in their interest. The rules prescribe acceptable kinds of behavior and proscribe unacceptable forms of behavior. 4 Unsurprisingly, the great powers write those rules to suit their own interests. But when the rules do not accord with the vital interests of the dominant states, those same states either ignore them or rewrite them. For example, President George W. Bush emphasized on numerous occasions before the 2003 Iraq War that even if a U.S. invasion violated international law, America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security  I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. 5

An order is an organized group of international institutions that help govern the interactions among the member states. 3 Orders can also help member states deal with nonmembers, because an order does not necessarily include every country in the world. Furthermore, orders can comprise institutions that have a regional or a global scope. Great powers create and manage orders.

The second major distinction concerns the different kinds of international orders that great powers can organize: realist, agnostic, or ideological (to include liberal). Which order takes hold depends primarily on the distribution of power among the great powers. The key issue is whether the system is bipolar, multipolar, or unipolar. If it is unipolar, the political ideology of the dominant state also matters for determining the kind of international order that forms. In bipolarity and multipolarity, however, the political ideology of the great powers is largely irrelevant.

International orders are concerned mainly with facilitating cooperation between states. Specifically, they help foster cooperation either among the great powers in the system or among virtually all the countries in the world. Bounded orders, on the other hand, are designed mainly to allow rival great powers to wage security competition with each other, not to advance cooperation between them. Nevertheless, great powers that lead bounded orders work hard to foster cooperation among the member states, coercing them if necessary. High levels of cooperation within the bounded order are essential for waging security competition with opposing great powers. Lastly, international orders are a constant feature of contemporary international politics, whereas bounded orders are not. Only realist international orders are accompanied by bounded orders.

There are three important distinctions among the orders that populate the international system. The first difference is between international orders and bounded orders. For an order to be international, it must include all of the world's great powers. Ideally, it would contain every country in the system. In contrast, bounded orders consist of a set of institutions that have limited membership. They do not include all of the great powers, and they are usually regional in scope. In most cases, they are dominated by a single great power, although it is possible for two or more great powers to form a bounded order, provided at least one great power remains outside of it. In short, international and bounded orders are created and run by great powers.

The institutions that make up these realist ordersbe they international or boundedmight sometimes have features that are consistent with liberal values, but this is not evidence that the order is liberal. Those features just happen to also make sense from a balance of power perspective. For example, the key economic institutions inside a bounded order might be oriented to facilitate free trade among the member states, not because of liberal calculations, but because economic openness is considered the best way to generate economic and military power inside that order. Indeed, if abandoning free trade and moving toward a more closed economic system made good strategic sense, that would happen in a realist order.

Bounded and international orders, which operate side by side in a realist world, help opposing great powers compete and cooperate among themselves. Specifically, the great powers establish their own bounded orders to help wage security competition with each other. In contrast, they organize international orders to facilitate cooperation between themselves and often with other countries as well. The institutions that make up an international order are well suited for helping great powers reach agreements when those states have common interests. This concern with cooperation notwithstanding, the great powers are still rivals whose relationship is competitive at its core. Balance of power considerations are always at play, even when great powers work through international institutions to cooperate with each other. In particular, no great power is going to sign an agreement that diminishes its power.

The international orderand the institutions that make it upwill be realist if the system is either bipolar or multipolar. The reason is simple: if there are two or more great powers in the world, they have little choice but to act according to realist dictates and engage in security competition with each other. Their aim is to gain power at the expense of their adversaries, but if that is not possible, to make sure that the balance of power does not shift against them. Ideological considerations are subordinated to security considerations in these circumstances. That would be true even if all the great powers were liberal states. 9 Nevertheless, rival great powers sometimes have an incentive to cooperate. After all, they operate in a highly interdependent world, where they are sure to have some common interests.

If the unipole does not have a universalistic ideology, and therefore is not committed to imposing its political values and governing system on other countries, the international order would be agnostic. 12 The dominant power would still target regimes that challenged its authority and would still be deeply involved in both managing the institutions that make up the international order and molding the world economy to fit with its own interests. It would not, however, be committed to shaping local politics on a global scale. The sole pole would instead be more tolerant and pragmatic in its dealings with other countries. If Russia, with its present political system, were ever to become a unipole, the international system would be agnostic, as Russia is not driven by a universalistic ideology. The same is true of China, where the regime's principal source of legitimacy is nationalism, not communism. 13 This is not to deny that some aspects of communism still have political importance for China's rulers, but the leadership in Beijing displays little of the missionary zeal that usually comes with communism. 14

Communism is another universalistic ideology that could serve as the basis for building an ideological international order. Indeed, Marxism shares some important similarities with liberalism. As John Gray puts it, Both were enlightened ideologies that look forward to universal civilization. 11 Both liberalism and communism, in other words, are bent on transforming the world. Communism's universalistic dimension is based on the concept of class, not rights. Marx and his followers maintain that social classes transcend national groups and state borders. Most importantly, they argue that capitalist exploitation has helped foster a powerful bond among the working classes in different countries. Hence, if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War and had felt the kind of enthusiasm for Marxism in 1989 that the United States felt for liberal democracy, Soviet leaders surely would have tried to build a communist international order.

What does a liberal international order look like? The dominant state in the system obviously must be a liberal democracy and must have enormous influence within the key institutions that populate the order. Furthermore, there must be a substantial number of other liberal democracies in the system and a largely open world economy. The ultimate goal of these liberal democracies, especially the leading one, is to spread democracy across the globe, while promoting greater economic intercourse and building increasingly powerful and effective international institutions. In essence, the aim is to create a world order consisting exclusively of liberal democracies that are economically engaged with each other and bound together by sets of common rules. The underlying assumption is that such an order will be largely free of war and will generate prosperity for all of its member states.

Liberalism, of course, contains within it a powerful universalistic strand, which stems from its emphasis on the importance of individual rights. The liberal story, which is individualistic at its core, maintains that every person has a set of inalienable or natural rights. As such, liberals tend to be deeply concerned about the rights of people all around the world, regardless of which country they live in. Thus, if the unipole is a liberal democracy, it is almost certain to try to create an international order that aims to reshape the world in its own image. 10

In unipolarity, an international order can take one of two formsagnostic or ideologicaldepending on the political ideology of the leading state. The key issue is whether the unipole has a universalistic ideology, one that assumes that its core values and its political system should be exported to other countries. If the unipole makes this assumption, the world order will be ideological. The sole pole, in other words, will try to spread its ideology far and wide and remake the world in its own image. It would be well positioned to pursue that mission, because there are no rival great powers with which it must compete.

If the world is unipolar, the international order cannot be realist. Unipolarity has only one great power, and thus by definition there can be no security competition between great powers, which is a sine qua non of any realist world order. Consequently, the sole pole has little reason to create a bounded order. After all, bounded orders are mainly designed for waging security competition with other great powers, which is irrelevant in unipolarity. Nevertheless, some of the institutions in that nonrealist international order might be regional in scope, whereas others will be truly global in terms of their membership. None of those regional institutions, however, would be bundled together to form a bounded order; they would instead be either loosely or tightly linked with the other institutions in the prevailing international order.

With these two dimensions in mind, one can distinguish between thick orders and thin orders. A thick or robust order comprises institutions that have a substantial effect on state behavior in both the economic and military realms. Such an order is broad and deep. A thin order, on the other hand, can take three basic forms. First, it might deal with only the economic or military domain, but not both. Even if that realm contained strong institutions, it would still be categorized as a thin order. Second, an order might deal with one or even both realms, but contain weak institutions. Third, it is possible, but unlikely, that an order will be involved with economic and military matters, but will have strong institutions in only one of those areas. In short, a thin order is either not broad, not deep at all, or deep in only one of the two crucial realms. Figure 1 summarizes the different categories of orders employed in this article.

So far, I have distinguished between international and bounded orders, and I have divided international orders into realist, agnostic, and ideological kinds. A third way to categorize ordersbe they international or boundedis to focus on the breadth and depth of their coverage of the most important areas of state activity. Regarding breadth, the central question is whether an order has some effect on the key economic and military activities of its member states. Concerning depth, the main question is whether the institutions in the order exert significant influence on the actions of its member states. In other words, does the order have strong and effective institutions?

An ideological order can also come to an end in a second way. New great powers could emerge, which would undermine unipolarity and lead to either a bipolar or a multipolar system. In that event, the ideological order would be replaced by bounded and international realist orders.

By contrast, any ideological international order based on a universalistic ideology, such as liberalism or communism, is destined to have a short life span, mainly because of the domestic and global difficulties that arise when the unipole seeks to remake the world in its own image. Nationalism and balance of power politics work to undermine the requisite social engineering in countries targeted for regime change, while nationalism also creates significant problems on the home front for the sole pole and its ideological allies. When such problems emerge, the unipole is likely to give up trying to remake the world in its own image, in effect abandoning its efforts to export its ideology abroad. It might even forsake that ideology altogether. When that happens, the order stops being ideological and becomes agnostic.

Agnostic orders also tend to have substantial staying power, because the unipole accepts the heterogeneity that is inherent in political and social life and does not try to micromanage the politics of nearly every country on the planet. That kind of pragmatic behavior helps preserve, if not augment, the hegemon's power. An agnostic order is likely to meet its end when unipolarity gives way to either bipolarity or multipolarity, making the order realist; or if the sole pole experiences a revolution at home and adopts a universalistic ideology, which would surely lead it to forge an ideological order.

Realist orders tend to have significant staying power, because major shifts in the balance of power are usually the result of differential economic growth among the great powers over a long period of time. Great power wars, however, can sometimes lead to a swift change in the global distribution of power, although such events are rare. 15 After World War II, for example, the system shifted from multipolar to bipolar, largely because of the total defeat of Germany and Japan and the terrible price the war exacted on Britain and France. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as the two poles. Moreover, when realist orders change, they usually give way to newly configured realist ordersas happened after World War IIsimply because unipolarity is rare.

Realist orders, which are based on either bipolarity or multipolarity, collapse when the underlying distribution of power changes in fundamental ways. If the international system shifts from bipolarity to multipolarity or vice versa, or if the number of great powers in a multipolar system decreases or increases, the resulting order remains realist, although different in its configuration. Regardless of the number of great powers in the system, they still must compete with each other for power and influence. But if bipolarity or multipolarity gives way to unipolarity, the new order will be either agnostic or ideological, depending on whether or not the sole pole is committed to a universalistic ideology.

No international order lasts forever, which raises the question: What explains the demise of an existing order and the rise of a new one? The same two factors that account for the prevailing order, the distribution of power and the leading state's political ideology, explain the fall of realist and agnostic orders as well as the kind of order that replaces them. While those same factors also help explain the dissolution of ideological orders, two other factors, nationalism and balance of power politics, usually play the central role in causing their collapse.

Moreover, although Washington tended to favor economic policies that encouraged free trade and investment among the order's members, those policies were guided foremost by strategic considerations. As Joanne Gowa notes, That the East-West conflict drove the United States to merge the high politics of security and the low politics of trade is a theme that emerges repeatedly in the work of those scholars who both defined and developed the subfield of international political economy. 18 In fact, the Dwight Eisenhower administration, which generally believed that free trade is the best way to create economic and military might, was prepared in the mid-1950s to allow the EC to become a closed economic blocthat is, to undermine free tradebecause it thought that an illiberal arrangement of this kind would make Western Europe a more powerful partner in the Cold War. 19 Furthermore, the Marshall Plan was motivated mainly by strategic considerations. And as Sebastian Rosato shows, power politics underpinned the making of the EC, the forerunner of the EU. 20

This emphasis on security notwithstanding, generating prosperity was an important end in itself for the countries in this bounded order. Moreover, there were some aspects of this realist order that are compatible with liberal principles. For instance, there is little doubt that ceteris paribus U.S. policymakers preferred dealing with democracies to authoritarian states. But promoting democracy always yielded when it conflicted with the dictates of balance of power politics. The United States did not preclude non-democracies from joining NATO or throw out countries that abandoned democracy once they joined, as the cases of Greece, Portugal, and Turkey illustrate.

The bounded Western order was dominated by the United States, which shaped it to suit its own interests. It encompassed a host of economic institutions such as the IMF (1945), the World Bank (1945), the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT, 1947), the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (CoCom, 1950), and the European Community (EC, 1950), as well as NATO on the security front. Although the liberal United States dominated this bounded order, which also included a number of other liberal democracies, it was a realist order from top to bottom. Its primary mission was to create a powerful West that could contain and ultimately defeat the Soviet Union and its allies.

In addition to this thin international order, the superpowers each built a thick bounded order to help wage the Cold War. The Soviet-led order included institutions that dealt with economic, military, and ideological matters. 17 The Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon), for example, was established in 1949 to facilitate trade between the Soviet Union and the communist states in Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was a military alliance founded in 1955 to counter NATO after NATO's member states decided to invite West Germany to join the alliance. The Pact also helped Moscow keep its Eastern European allies in line. Finally, the Soviets created the Communist Information Bureau in 1947 as a successor to the Communist International. Both were designed to coordinate the efforts of communist parties around the world, mainly for the purpose of allowing the Soviets to purvey their policy views to their ideological brethren. The Communist Information Bureau was dissolved in 1956.

The UN was probably the most visible institution in the Cold War international order, but it had little influence on the behavior of countries around the world, mainly because the rivalry between the superpowers made it almost impossible for that institution to adopt and enforce consequential policies.

The superpowers negotiated a host of other less significant security agreements and treaties that were also part of the Cold War international order. They include the Antarctic Treaty System (1959), the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963), the Moscow-Washington Hot Line (1963), the Outer Space Treaty (1967), the Seabed Arms Control Treaty (1971), the U.S.-Soviet Incidents at Sea Agreement (1972), the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (1973), the Biological Weapons Convention (1975), and the Helsinki Accords (1975). There were some agreements that were reached during the Cold War, such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was signed in 1982, but not ratified and put into effect until 1994, five years after the Cold War ended.

The United States and the Soviet Union also began pursuing an arms control agreement in the late 1960s that would put limits on their strategic nuclear arsenals. The result was the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I), which capped the number of strategic nuclear weapons each side could deploy (although at very high levels) and severely restricted the development of anti-ballistic missile systems. Moscow and Washington signed the SALT II Treaty in 1979, which put further limits on each side's strategic nuclear arsenal, although neither side ratified it. The superpowers worked on a follow-on agreement, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, during the 1980s, but it was not put into effect until after the Cold War ended. The other significant arms control agreement was the 1988 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated all short-range and intermediate-range missiles from the Soviet and U.S. arsenals.

Both superpowers opposed further proliferation as soon as they acquired the bomb. Although the United States tested the first atomic weapon in 1945 and the Soviet Union followed suit in 1949, they did not put in place a set of institutions that could seriously limit the spread of nuclear weapons until the mid-1970s. The first step forward was the creation of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1957. Its primary mission is to promote the civilian use of nuclear energy, but with safeguards that ensure that states receiving nuclear materials and technologies for peaceful purposes do not use them to build a bomb. The key institutions that the superpowers devised to curb proliferation are the NPT and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, which, along with the International Atomic Energy Agency, markedly slowed the spread of nuclear weapons after 1975.

Nevertheless, the United States and the Soviet Union sometimes had good reasons to cooperate and negotiate arms control agreements that served their mutual interests. Most importantly, they worked together to craft institutions designed to prevent nuclear proliferation. They also reached agreements aimed at limiting the arms race so as to save money, ban destabilizing weapons, and avoid competition in areas such as Antarctica. Finally, they concluded agreements aimed at establishing rules of the road and confidence-building measures. In the process, Moscow and Washington helped strengthen the Cold War international order, although it remained a thin order.

The international order that existed during the Cold War was a thin one, as it did not have a pronounced influence on the behavior of statesespecially the great powersin either the economic or military realm. Because the West and the communist world engaged in only minimal economic intercourse during the Cold War, there was little need to build institutions to help manage their economic dealings. 16 Militarily, however, the story was more complicated. Given that the United States and the Soviet Union were bitter foes that competed for power, they concentrated on building thick bounded orders to help wage that struggle. Thus, the main military institutions that each superpower createdNATO and the Warsaw Pactwere not international in scope. They were instead the key elements in the U.S.-led and Soviet-led bounded orders.

The global distribution of power from 1945 to 1989 was bipolar, which led to the formation of three principal political orders. There was an overarching international order that was largely created and maintained by the Soviet Union and the United States for purposes of facilitating cooperation between them when they had common interests. This emphasis on cooperation notwithstanding, it was not a liberal order, as the superpowers were engaged in intense rivalry throughout the Cold War, and the order they created was fully consistent with the security interests of both sides. Moreover, the Soviet Union was not a liberal democracy, and indeed Moscow and Washington were ideological adversaries. There were also two bounded orders, one largely confined to the West and dominated by the United States, the other consisting mainly of the world's communist countries and dominated by the Soviet Union. They were created by the superpowers for purposes of waging security competition with each other.

After the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, the United States was by far the most powerful country in the world. The unipolar moment had arrived, which meant that most of the constraints that arise from security competition between great powers were gone.21 Moreover, the thick Western order that the United States had created to deal with the Soviet Union remained firmly intact, while the Soviet order quickly fell apart. Comecon and the Warsaw Pact dissolved in the summer of 1991, and the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991. Unsurprisingly, President George H.W. Bush decided to take the realist Western order and spread it across the globe, transforming it into a liberal international order. The institutions that had made up the thin Cold Warera international orderthe UN and the various arms control agreementswould be incorporated into what Bush called the new world order.22

This remarkably ambitious endeavor enjoyed the enthusiastic support of the liberal democracies in East Asia and especially Western Europe, although there was never any doubt that the United States was in charge. As Bush put it in 1990, There is no substitute for American leadership.23 Or as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and President Barack Obama liked to say, the United States is the indispensable nation.24 In essence, Bush and his successors in the White House were bent on creating a new international order that was fundamentally different from the Western order that had existed during the Cold War. Specifically, they were committed to transforming a bounded realist order into an international liberal order.25 Indeed, Bill Clinton made it clear when he ran for president in 1992 that his predecessor's concept of a new world order was not ambitious enough.26

Creating a liberal international order involved three main tasks. First, it was essential to expand the membership in the institutions that made up the Western order, as well as erect new institutions where necessary. In other words, it was important to build a web of international institutions with universal membership that wielded great influence over the behavior of the member states. Second, it was imperative to create an open and inclusive international economy that maximized free trade and fostered unfettered capital markets. This hyperglobalized world economy was intended to be much more ambitious in scope than the economic order that prevailed in the West during the Cold War. Third, it was crucial to vigorously spread liberal democracy around the world, a mission that was frequently shortchanged when the United States was competing for power with the Soviet Union. This goal was not the United States alone; its European allies generally embraced this undertaking as well.27

These three tasks, of course, are directly tied to the principal liberal theories of peace: liberal institutionalism, economic interdependence theory, and democratic peace theory. Thus, in the minds of its architects, constructing a robust, sustainable liberal international order was synonymous with creating a peaceful world. This deep-seated belief gave the United States and its allies a powerful incentive to work assiduously to create that new order. Integrating China and Russia into it was especially important for its success, because they were the most powerful states in the system after the United States. The goal was to embed them in as many institutions as possible, fully integrate them into the open international economy, and help turn them into liberal democracies.

NATO expansion into Eastern Europe is a good example of the United States and its allies working to turn the bounded Western order into a liberal international order.28 One might think that moving NATO eastward was part of a classic deterrence strategy aimed at containing a potentially aggressive Russia.29 But it was not, as the West's strategy was geared toward liberal ends. The objective was to integrate the countries of Eastern Europeand maybe, one day, Russia as wellinto the security community that had developed in Western Europe during the Cold War. There is no evidence that its chief architectsPresidents Clinton, Bush, and Obamathought that Russia might invade its neighbors and thus needed to be contained, or that they thought Russian leaders had legitimate reasons for fearing NATO enlargement.30

This liberal approach to NATO expansion is reflected in how the Clinton administration sold that policy to the U.S. and West European publics. For example, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott argued in 1995 that embedding the countries of Eastern Europe in NATOas well as the European Unionwas the key to producing stability in that potentially volatile region. Enlargement of NATO, Talbott argued, would be a force for the rule of law both within Europe's new democracies and among them. Moreover, it would promote and consolidate democratic and free market values, which would further contribute to peace.31

The United States based its policy toward China in the postCold War period on the same liberal logic. For example, Secretary of State Albright maintained that the key to sustaining peaceful relations with a rising China is to engage with it, not try to contain it the way the United States had sought to do with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Engagement, Albright claimed, would lead to China's active membership in some of the world's major institutions and help integrate it into the U.S.-led economic order, which would inevitably help turn China into a liberal democracy. China would then be a responsible stakeholder in the international system, highly motivated to maintain peaceful relations with other countries.32

The Bush Doctrine, which was developed over the course of 2002 and used to justify the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, is a third example of a major U.S. policy aimed at building a liberal international order. In the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration concluded that winning the so-called global war on terror required not only defeating al-Qaida, but also confronting countries such as Iran, Iraq, and Syria. The administration's key operating assumption was that the regimes in these purported rogue states were closely tied to terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida, were bent on acquiring nuclear weapons, and might even give them to terrorists.33 The best way to deal with proliferation and terrorism, the administration reasoned, was to turn all the countries in the Greater Middle East into liberal democracies, which would transform that region into a giant zone of peace, thereby eliminating the twin problems of proliferation and terrorism.34 The world has a clear interest in the spread of democratic values, President Bush declared, because stable and free nations do not breed the ideologies of murder. They encourage the peaceful pursuit of a better life.35

It appeared to many observers in the early 1990s that the United States was well situated to construct a liberal international order. It had abundant experience building and running the Western order during the Cold War, and it was remarkably powerful compared to its potential rivals. China was in the early stages of its rise, and Russia was in a state of complete disarray, which remained the case throughout the 1990s. This huge power advantage meant that the unipole could largely ignore realist dictates and act according to liberal principles, which was impossible during the Cold War. It also meant that the United States could coax or coerce other states into following its edicts. And of course, there was always the possibility that Washington would use force to get its way.

Finally, the United States and its allies had abundant legitimacy in the years immediately after the Cold War ended. Not only did they win that protracted conflict, but there seemed to be no viable alternative to liberal democracy, which looked like the optimal political order for the foreseeable future. It was widely believed in the West at the time that eventually almost every country in the world would become a liberal democracya belief that led Francis Fukuyama to conclude that this might be the end of history.36 Moreover, the wide array of international institutions that had helped produce abundant prosperity in the West during the Cold War appeared to be ideally suited to take globalization to the next step. In essence, it looked like the United States was well positioned to pursue liberal hegemony, a foreign policy that called for building a world order based on liberal principles.37
A western Pennsylvania man will stand trial for killing and dismembering a teen in late June, a judge ruled Thursday.

After a five-hour preliminary hearing in the Mercer County Courthouse, District Judge Travis Martwinski held over charges of homicide, abuse of a corpse, aggravated assault, and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse against DaShawn Watkins in the death of Pauly Likens Jr., a 14-year-old from Sharon, Pa.
(EDITORS NOTE: This story was corrected from its original version to reflect Ballys Corp. as the proposed State College casinos management corporation . The licensee is Ira Luberts SC Gaming LLC.)

The corporation currently tapped as the management company for a proposed State College casino accepted a $4.6 billion buyout and merger Thursday.
By Erin McCarthy, The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)

Marissa ONeill pulled into the Richboro Wawa around 6:30 a.m. last Wednesday.

It was a routine stop at her neighborhood store: She was about to drive her 9-year-old daughter to an overnight Cub Scout camp, and the gas tank of her Honda minivan was nearly empty.

I filled up, got a cup of coffee, and off we went, ONeill said.

As she approached the Lancaster-area camp about two hours later, All of a sudden, Im hitting the gas, its not driving, ONeill said.

The check engine light turned on. The van sounded like a dirt bike, ONeill said. And then the car just died.

The 41-year-old is one of dozens of drivers, according to local mechanics and consumers, who got gas at the Bucks County Wawa last week and then had their cars stop running properly or break down completely.

Mechanics say the repairs range from $3,000 to $4,500, depending on the level of damage and the make and model of the car. At least one customer said he was told repairs could cost around $10,000.

Wawa is aware of an issue with the fuel equipment that impacted one tank, Wawa spokesperson Lori Bruce said in a statement.

Wawa took immediate steps to fix the problem once it was identified, Bruce said, and there is no ongoing impact on gas customers. The company is working with its equipment manufacturer to investigate exactly what happened, Bruce said, and nail down the specific time frame during which customers may have been impacted.

At this time, we believe that this was an isolated incident that may have affected a very limited number of customers, Bruce said.

Owners and managers at three auto shops near the Richboro Wawa said they have repaired or are in the process of repairing more than 30 cars that had contaminated gas in their tanks after fueling at the store.

Some of them are completely not running, said Greg Millevoi, owner of Millevoi Brothers Richboro Automotive Inc. Some run but run very rough.

Ive never seen a thing this extreme, in terms of the number of people impacted, said Matthew Gillis, an owner at Carvers Garage in Richboro who has been a mechanic for 35 years. Every time the phone rings, he said, hes waiting for the caller to ask about the contaminated gas, and hes had to turn customers away.

Impacted vehicles have needed new fuel pumps, fuel injectors, spark plugs, and ignition coils, the mechanics said, and the vehicles fuel systems need to be flushed out.

Wawa has a quality fuel guarantee, meaning the company will pay for repairs if a mechanical problem is proven to be caused by its gas. If any customers think they fall into this category, Bruce said, the company encourages them to submit a claim on its fuel guarantee page.

Fronting the costs of contaminated gas

Several impacted customers said that despite Wawas pledge, their ordeal seems far from resolved.

ONeill, whose car broke down en route to Cub Scout camp, said she has already put out $700  $500 for towing and $200 for a Lancaster mechanic to diagnose the problem without fixing it. She ended up having the car towed back to Kevins Auto Richboro, where manager Kevin Pfeiffer said theyre working on a dozen cars with contaminated fuel.

ONeill tried to get a rental car, but she said an Enterprise manager told her they were out of seven-passenger cars in her area. She, her husband, and their three children have been managing in the meantime, she said, and can use his smaller Honda CR-V after he gets home from his construction job.

ONeill, who works remotely for a law firm, said shed like more information from Wawa.

If she is able to find a rental car that can fit her family, will they cover a rental car? Will they cover the two tows? she said. Were supposed to go on vacation next week. Do we have to cancel our vacation?

I feel like Im stuck in limbo, she added, and I have been since Wednesday.

Alex Mikhelson, 43, of Holland, is the same boat. He got gas at the Richboro Wawa twice on Thursday. After a Target run Friday evening with his wife and three children, he said their Toyota Land Cruiser started violently shaking, and the dashboard displayed a message saying the engine power was on low.

Mikhelson took the car to his local Toyota dealer. As of Thursday morning, he said the mechanic there estimated repairs on the new SUV could cost around $10,000, as the issue affected the fuel injector, fuel pump, gas tank, and other areas.

Thats a price tag that he and his wife, an audiologist, would struggle to afford.

Its not a time right now for anyone to pay these excessive costs out of pocket, even if we were to be reimbursed, he said. Its an unexpected expense at no fault of our own.

Mikhelson would rather not file a claim with his insurance company, but he was considering it Thursday. He said he figured that might be the path of least resistance.

Joan Lenahan said shes out $4,200 after the Jeep Cherokee Trailblazer that her teenage son drives started bucking Friday night. Her son, Connor, had gotten gas at the Richboro Wawa on Thursday.

She took their car to Millevoi Brothers, and the car was fixed and back home by Wednesday. But the familys headache isnt over entirely.

As she was filling out Wawas claim form, Lenahan realized she didnt have the receipt from the gas purchase  only a screenshot of a bank transaction. Like many consumers, and most 17-year-olds, her son didnt take a receipt when he fueled up. Lenahan called Wawas corporate office to request an original receipt and was waiting to hear back Thursday.

While many of the familys struggles this past week were first-world problems, Lenahan said the experience has impacted where they will fuel up in the future.

She said: As a family, we decided Sunoco it is.

(c)2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer

Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at www.inquirer.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Emergency crews responded to a York County bank Friday afternoon after a tractor-trailer crashed into the side of the building, according to police and county 911 dispatchers.

The crash was reported at the First National Bank on the 2100 block of South Queen Street in York Township around 1:44 p.m., county dispatchers said.
After watching a Dave McCormick campaign ad on TV, I came away with a few thoughts about his call for a change in leadership. If he is so concerned about Pennsylvanias problems, why didnt he run for some other municipal office, like supervisor or commissioner?

One would think hed have some idea of local issues. However, I suppose as a successful businessman and having lots of money then that is enough to start at the top ... like Trump. And that would leave me to believe that some folks think that is enough to qualify him for a seat in the senate.

On the other hand, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey has years of personal service to Pennsylvanians and lived his life in Pennsylvania, not Connecticut. But what bothered me most was McCormicks ad on TV trashing Caseys service and legacy, nothing to inform me of what he will do for Pennsylvania. Instead it was a repeat of the angry MAGA party line. Is this what McCormick considers leadership?
By Kevin Rector, Los Angeles Times; Brian Niemietz New York Daily News (TNS)

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump entered a new phase of the presidential race on the morning after an Oval Office speech in which President Biden bowed out  each taking new aim at the other as they sprint toward November.

During a Thursday morning conversation on the Republican-friendly Fox and Friends, Trump called Harris a worse candidate than Biden and a San Francisco radical who would take the country to a new low if elected.

Shes the most radical person probably that weve had in office, Trump said, let alone the office of the presidency.

Harris campaign fired back mere minutes later with an email blasting the 78-year-old convicted criminals Fox News appearance as bizarre while questioning his sanity.

The biting missive accused Trump of seeming flustered, lying, lashing out, praising dictators and being clearly worried he made the wrong pick by selecting Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate.

After watching Fox News this morning, we have only one question, the email began: " Is Donald Trump OK?

The message went on to slam Trump as old and quite weird, concluding that this guy shouldnt be president ever again.

Harris also released her first campaign ad, which featured a similarly forward-looking tone  and got a boost from Beyonce, who gave permission to the Harris campaign to use her song Freedom, according to CNN.

In this election we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in? Harris says at the start of the ad.

There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos, of fear, of hate, she says, over an image of Trump. But us? We choose something different. We choose freedom.

Vice President Kamala Harris campaigns for president as the presumptive Democratic candidate during an event at West Allis Central High School, Tuesday, July 23, 2024, in West Allis, Wis. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)AP

The two candidates remarks Thursday expanded on themes they had been striking in recent days, as Harris made quick work of shoring up support to become the Democrats candidate for president. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll, released Thursday, showed Harris in a virtual tie with Trump  with 70% of Democratic voters saying they wanted the party to quickly consolidate behind her and avoid a fight for the nomination.

But Harris and Trump also aimed to punch back at new lines of attack from the opposing camp  as well as old ones resurfacing from the past. Across the country, surrogates and supporters for each candidate tried to do the same.

In one resurfaced video, Trumps running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, called Harris and other Democratic leaders childless cat ladies who dont really have a direct stake in the future of the country because they dont have children.

Women across the internet responded angrily. Kerstin Emhoff, the ex-wife of Harris husband, Doug Emhoff, defended Harris as well, pointing out that Harris has been a co-parent to her and the second gentlemans two children.

These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I, Kerstin Emhoff said. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.

In recent days, Harris and her backers have touted her experience as a prosecutor  a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general. Trump on Thursday suggested, without evidence, that Harris somehow had a hand in the various criminal cases against him.

Theyve weaponized the justice system against me, Trump said. They push all these cases on me, theyre the ones that start it, and then they say, Im a prosecutor, hes a criminal. Theyre the ones, every case is started by them.

Trump has been charged with multiple crimes for allegedly taking classified documents home with him after leaving the White House and then trying to cover it up, and encouraging his supporters to attack the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Those cases were spearheaded by a special counsel.

Separately, he was criminally convicted of 34 felonies  in a case brought by New York prosecutors  for falsifying business records to hide paying hush money to a porn actress alleging shed had an affair with him, which he has denied. He faces separate charges of trying to subvert the election in Georgia, which were filed by prosecutors there.
The South China Sea issue has always been the focu...
Chris LaCivitia of the Trump campaign threatened the television networks with legal action if they didnt give Trump equal time since President Biden gave an Oval Office address.

LaCivitia posted , Every single network that televised this campaign speech will be getting follow-up letters from our attorneys regarding equal time. @NBCNews @CNN @ABC @CBSNews @FoxNews

There are a few problems with the Trump campaigns demand. Thanks to Ronald Reagan, the Fairness Doctrine no longer exists so networks are not obligated to provide equal time.

The major issue is that the President Of The United States is no longer a presidential candidate, so his address had nothing to do with the 2024 campaign. Much of Bidens speech was spent explaining his decision not to run, going over his accomplishments, and discussing what he will do with his remaining time in office.

Donald Trump is not the president, so he has no demand for equal time in this situation.

What the Trump campaign is furious about is that Biden was able to hijack the news cycle on the day that Trump buddy Netanyahu was addressing Congress.

Donald Trumps time as the clear leader of the presidential race lasted for about three weeks. Trump got no bounce from potentially getting shot or his political convention. Vice President Harris has wiped out any lead that Trump once had.

When a campaign is campaigning is complaining and demanding airtime, they are losing.

Donald Trump wont be getting equal time, but the demand is an indication of how much this election has changed in a few days.
Forty former DOJ officials from both parties have signed a letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

Here is the full letter:

The fabric of the nation, the rule of law and the future of the Democracy are at stake in this election. For almost four years, Joe Biden has fought to restore America. He guided us out of a devastating global pandemic, created millions of jobs, increased opportunity for all Americans, and rebuilt global alliances that make our nation safer. We thank him for his extraordinary years of service and for his historic decision to put the nation first and pass the torch to the next generation of leaders. We join him enthusiastically in endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to be the next President of the United States.

Vice President Harris is the best choice to defeat Donald Trump and lead the nation. She has been a key partner with President Biden in rebuilding America and its standing in the world. She has been a tireless advocate for American workers, reproductive freedom and the rule of law. As President of the Senate, she cast a record number of tie-breaking votes to stop the Republican right from blocking progress for our country.

As the elected Attorney General of California, she oversaw the largest state justice department in the country. She forged strong relationships with law enforcement to keep people safe, fought for American consumers and fought against those preying on the American people. She won a $20 billion settlement for Californians whose homes had been foreclosed on and a $1.1 billion settlement for students and veterans who were taken advantage of by a for-profit education company. She also defended the Affordable Care Act in court and enforced environmental laws.

The stakes could not be higher. Former President Trump presents a grave risk to our country, our global alliances and the future of democracy. As President, he regularly ignored the rule of law. One of his first acts was to order an unconstitutional Muslim travel ban. His last act was to try to stay in power by defying election results and the will of the American people. In between, he put in place extremely conservative Supreme Court justices who reversed longstanding precedents and legal protections: stripping women of reproductive rights, gutting environmental protections and granting Trump virtual immunity for his official acts.

We all have had the honor of serving as United States Attorneys, in other leadership roles at the United States Department of Justice and as civic leaders. We love our country and believe in its infinite possibilities. But this takes work. We urge all Americans to join us in supporting Vice President Harris for President of the United States.

Some of the nations most respected federal law enforcement officials, including former AG Loretta Lynch, have signed this letter. Former DOJ officials from both parties are warning the country that Trump is a threat to justice and the rule of law in the United States.

The best way to protect freedom and make sure that the DOJ does not become a political weapon and arm of Donald Trump is to vote for Kamala Harris and make sure that she is the next President Of The United States.

Read the full letter:
Liz Hurley's daily routine changed after having a deadly skin cancer removed a year ago. She now applies sunscreen every morning, and that regular use yielded an unexpected benefit: her skin is softer and looks younger.

"Within a year of putting on sunscreen every day, my skin is much better," the 57-year-old Charleston resident said.

Most people know to use sunscreen at the beach or pool, but only 17 percent of people in the U.S. use sunscreen daily, despite the advice of experts.

Getting a good sunscreen, particularly ones that are mineral-based like the kind Hurley uses on her face, not only helps prevent cancer but has the added effect of preventing premature aging of the skin.

Yet many of the sunscreens in the U.S. lack adequate protection against UVA radiation  the deeper penetrating rays from the sun more likely to cause fine wrinkles, a national expert said.

Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer, frequently basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas, but they are not reported to cancer registries, so the actual number is unknown, according to the American Cancer Society. It is estimated that there are 1 million of those cancers a year in the U.S. and they cause 1,000 to 2,000 deaths each year.
Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations.
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 16:00:08

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 492 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

This fast-growing air conditioning and plumbing company is making a big name for itself in San Antonio Texas with cutting-edge products, family-oriented service approach and affordable prices.SAN ANTONIO, TX / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Air & Plumbing Today is proud to announce that it has been named "Best Air Conditioning Company in San Antonio 2024" and "Best Plumbing Company in San Antonio 2024" by SA Current. This recognition demonstrates the company's dedication to providing top-notch air conditioning and plumbing services in the San Antonio area.Air & Plumbing Today Staff Air & Plumbing Today Air Conditioning & Plumbing Technicians in San Antonio"We are honored to win Best AC Company in San Antonio two years in a row," said Manny Mallen, founder of Air & Plumbing Today. "Our team has had the best training and we've worked very hard for our customers to earn this recognition. We will continue to work even harder for the families of San Antonio, bringing them the best air conditioning and plumbing services for the best value." With over 2,200 5-star Google reviews, Air & Plumbing Today's technicians clearly demonstrate their commitment to San Antonio families. Air & Plumbing Today CFO Maira Mallen said, "Our company was founded on providing the best service for our customers, and we'll continue to raise the bar for all HVAC and plumbing companies in San Antonio." Air & Plumbing Today is also known for pioneering new energy-saving technology within the San Antonio home services market with Comfortmaker Ion variable-speed central A/C systems and AO Smith heat pump hybrid water heaters that provide immediate savings on electricity bills. "While we offer the latest, cutting-edge technology in central air conditioning systems, hybrid water heaters and super-efficient water softeners, our technicians are consistently trained to master the installation process of the most advanced equipment, ensuring homeowners get many years of use and maximum efficiency from their new systems," Maira Mallen said.Air & Plumbing Today remains committed to providing exceptional service to the families of San Antonio. Recognition as "Best AC Company in San Antonio 2024" for two years in a row is very exciting. Additionally, winning "Best Plumbing Company in San Antonio 2024" is amazing. The company remains committed to serving the families of San Antonio by keeping services affordable while providing repairs that last a long time.About Air & Plumbing Today:Air & Plumbing Today is a leading air conditioning and plumbing company in San Antonio, Texas. Air & Plumbing Today is known for its family-oriented approach to business and is continually committed to keeping San Antonio's homes comfortable. For anyone in San Antonio looking for the best AC repair services, Air & Plumbing Today is the company to call. Our friendly staff can be reached at 210-519-5959 or visit our website at https://www.airandplumbingtoday.com Contact InformationManny MallenPresidentmanny@ airandplumbingtoday.com 2105195959Darrin CherasoDirector of Marketing & Communicationsdarrin.cheraso@airandplumbingtoday.com 2105195959SOURCE: Air & Plumbing TodayView the original press release on newswire.com
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 22:31:17

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 330 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 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.310-301-3335 info@ schallfirm.comwww.schallfirm.com SOURCE: The Schall Law Firm
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 13:01:05

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 320 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is investigating potential claims on behalf of purchasers of CenterPoint Energy, Inc. ("CenterPoint" or "the Company") (NYSE:CNP). Investors who purchased CenterPoint securities are encouraged to obtain additional information and assist the investigation by visiting the firm's site: bgandg.com/CNP Investigation DetailsOn July 8, 2024, Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas as a Category 1 storm. The impact of the storm left roughly 2.2 million CenterPoint customers without power. Six days after the storm, some 270,000 homes and businesses in the Houston area were still without power. At a press conference on July 14, 2024, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that he was demanding an investigation into CenterPoint's response to Hurricane Beryl. Among other comments, Governor Abbott said that CenterPoint did not have "an adequate number of workers pre-staged" before the storm hit. On this news, CenterPoint's stock price fell $2.02 per share, or 6.67%, to close at $28.28 per share on July 15, 2024.What's Next?If you are aware of any facts relating to this investigation or purchased CenterPoint securities, you can assist this investigation by visiting the firm's site: bgandg.com/CNP . You can also contact Peretz Bronstein or his client relations manager, Nathan Miller, of Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC: 332-239-2660.There is No Cost to YouWe represent investors in class actions on a contingency fee basis. That means we will ask the court to reimburse us for out-of-pocket expenses and attorneys' fees, usually a percentage of the total recovery, only if we are successful.Why Bronstein, Gewirtz & GrossmanBronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC is a nationally recognized firm that represents investors in securities fraud class actions and shareholder derivative suits. Our firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors nationwide.Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.ContactBronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLCPeretz Bronstein or Nathan Miller 332-239-2660 | info@ bgandg.com SOURCE: Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, LLC
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 21:33:45

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 451 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Leading securities law firm Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP announces an investigation into Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE:ELAN) for potential violations of the federal securities laws.If you invested in Elanco, you are encouraged to obtain additional information by visiting https://www.bfalaw.com/cases-investigations/elanco-animal-health-incorporated Why Did Elanco's Stock Drop?Elanco develops products to treat diseases in animals. Two of the most important treatments in the company's development pipeline are currently being reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA"). The treatments are named Zenrelia, a drug for a type of dermatitis in dogs, and Credelio Quattro, which is a broad spectrum oral parasiticide covering fleas, ticks and internal parasites.With respect to these treatments, the company stated that the FDA "has all data necessary to complete its review. All technical sections, including the label, are expected to be approved before the end of June [2024]." However, on June 27, 2024, Elanco announced that it expected the FDA would not approve either drug in June 2024 and that Zenrelia would come with a boxed warning on safety.As a result of the news, Elanco's stock price declined over 21%, from $17.97 per share on June 26, 2024 to $14.27 per share on June 27, 2024. BFA Law is investigating whether Elanco and certain of its executives made materially false and/or misleading statements to investors related to the FDA's approval of its drugs.Click here for more information: https://www.bfalaw.com/cases-investigations/elanco-animal-health-incorporated What Can You Do?If you invested in Elanco Animal Health Incorporated (NYSE: ELAN) you may have legal options and are encouraged to submit your information to the firm. All representation is on a contingency fee basis, there is no cost to you. Shareholders are not responsible for any court costs or expenses of litigation. The firm will seek court approval for any potential fees and expenses.Submit your information by visiting:Or contact:Ross Shikowitz ross@ bfalaw.com 212-789-3619Why Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP?Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP is a leading international law firm representing plaintiffs in securities class actions and shareholder litigation. It was named among the Top 5 plaintiff law firms by ISS SCAS in 2023 and its attorneys have been named Titans of the Plaintiffs' Bar by Law360 and SuperLawyers by Thompson Reuters. Among its recent notable successes, BFA recovered over $900 million in value from Tesla, Inc.'s Board of Directors (pending court approval), as well as $420 million from Teva Pharmaceutical Ind. Ltd.For more information about BFA and its attorneys, please visit https://www.bfalaw.com Attorney advertising. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes.SOURCE: Bleichmar, Fonti, & Auld LLP
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 23:45:14

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 980 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Forward Water Technologies Corp. (TSXV:FWTC) (the "Company" or "FWTC") is pleased to announce that it has filed its condensed consolidated audited financial statements and related management's discussion and analysis for the twelve months ended March 31, 2024. Copies of these financial statements and related management's discussion and analysis can be found on the Company's issuer profile at www.sedarplus.ca . All financial information in this news release is reported in Canadian dollars, unless otherwise indicated.Fiscal Year End Financial HighlightsRevenue was $71,056 for the year ended March 31, 2024, compared to $39,726, an increase of $31,330 or 79% over the prior period in 2023.Total expenses were $2,258,690 for the year ended March 31, 2024, compared to $2,421,598 or a decrease of $162,908 or 7% lower over the same period in 2023.Net loss and comprehensive loss were $2,196,513 for the year ended March 31, 2024, compared to a loss of $2,286,526, a reduction of $90,013 or 4% lower for the same period in 2023.Basic and diluted loss per share were $0.02 and $0.02 for the same period in 2023.Operating Highlights and Recent Corporate DevelopmentsThe mobile demonstration unit was substantially completed. The unit allows 3-4 month, large volume trials at customer locations.The Company completed a non-brokered private placement of 9,240,000 units at a price of $0.05 per unit for gross proceeds of $462,000. Each unit consisted of one common share of the Company and one common share purchase warrant.The Company was contracted by CleanTech Lithium PLC to provide advisory services for the support and development of their Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) processes in Chile.FWTC licensed specific intellectual property from FUJIFILM Corporation in order to solidify protection of its water treatment technology platform.FWTC announced a non-binding letter of intent that outlines the terms of a proposed business relationship with Mead & Hunt, a leading architecture and engineering firm based in the United States. Mead & Hunt provides extensive supply chain connections, engineering design experience, capabilities to fabricate the needed treatment equipment, as well as an established customer pipeline.On May 14, 2024 the Company announced the execution of a letter of intent in respect of a proposed business combination with Fraser Mackenzie Accelerator Corp., a capital pool company listed on the TSX-V, along with concurrent financings.On May 24, 2024, the Company announced that it closed the issuance of $225,000 of debentures.On July 11, 2024 the Company announced that it has initiated new projects via direct customer contacts in the food and beverage space to enable more efficient wastewater handling in the production of food and beverage products with globally positioned multinational manufacturers. FWTC has entered into early planning stages for a pilot or early commercial trials after being selected for evaluation by two unique clients.On July 22, 2024, the Company announced the execution of the definitive agreement (the "Definitive Agreement") for the proposed transaction between FWTC and Fraser Mackenzie Accelerator Corp.Management Commentary Forward Water's CEO and President, C. Howie Honeyman "During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2024 we continued to build key client and customer relationships leading to further commercial advances. For instance, our progress with Clean Tech Lithium's brine processing has led to a pre-commercial field trial. Not only is this trial expected to affirm the commercial readiness of our water treatment process, but key data sets are expected to be generated and allow us to illustrate how the Company's technology can be successfully applied to a wide array of other sectors. We have also had successful inroads made in the food and beverage sector that we look to develop in the near future".Summary of Financial ResultsIncome StatementBalance SheetStatement of Cash FlowsAbout Forward Water Technologies Corp. Forward Water Technologies Corp. is a publicly traded Canadian company dedicated to saving the earth's water supply using its patented Forward Osmosis technology. The Company was founded by GreenCentre Canada, a leading technology innovation centre supported by the government of Canada. The Company's technology allows for the reduction of challenging waste streams simultaneously returning fresh water for re-use or surface release. The Company's mandate is to focus on the large-scale implementation of its technology in multiple sectors, including industrial wastewater, oil and gas, mining, agriculture and ultimately municipal water supply and re-use market sectors. In addition, the Company has initiated early stage R&D for the treatment of food and beverage process streams.For more information, please visit www.forwardwater.com Contact InformationFor more information or interview requests, please contact: C. Howie Honeyman - Chief Executive Officer howie.honeyman@forwardwater.com 416-451-8155Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.Forward-Looking StatementsCertain statements contained in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" as such term is used in applicable Canadian securities laws including statements regarding expansion and uptake of the Company's technology and the ability for the Company to achieve its growth strategy and business plan. Forward-looking information is based on plans, expectations and estimates of management at the date the information is provided and is subject to certain factors and assumptions, including, the ability to scale the technology and the adoption of the technology by potential customers.Forward-looking information is subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause plans, estimates and actual results to vary materially from those projected in such forward-looking information. Some of the risks and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to: general economic conditions in Canada, the United States and globally; unanticipated operating events; the availability of capital on acceptable terms; the need to obtain required approvals from regulatory authorities; stock market volatility as well as the other risks and uncertainties applicable to the Company as set forth in the Company's continuous disclosure filings filed under the Company's profile at
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 23:00:24

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 539 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Jolt Health Inc. ("JOLT" and or "the Company") (CSE:JOLT)(FSE:G1Q0) announced that there was an error in the press release issued July 25, 2024. The Company will be issuing a total of 83,333,333 units at a price of $0.006 per unit, not 583,333,333 units as previously stated.About Jolt Health Inc.Jolt Health Inc. (CSE:JOLT) is a leading life sciences company focused on healthcare, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. The company currently holds exclusive licenses for innovative therapeutic and pharmaceutical products throughout Europe, the UK, and North America. The company is committed to transforming the industry through research, collaboration, and technological advancement, sharping the future of healthcare worldwide.For further information, please contact:Gerald Tritt, CEOInvestor RelationsTelephone: 1 (604) 343-2977E-mail: info@ jolt-health.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.Forward Looking StatementsCertain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding future financial position, business strategy, use of proceeds, corporate vision, proposed acquisitions, partnerships, joint-ventures and strategic alliances and co-operations, budgets, cost and plans and objectives of or involving the Company. Such forward-looking information reflects management's current beliefs and is based on information currently available to management. Often, but not always, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "predicts", "intends", "targets", "aims", "anticipates", "may" or "believes" or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases or may be identified by statements to the effect that certain actions "may", "could", "should", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. A number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors may cause the actual results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. These forward-looking statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of the Company including, but not limited to, the impact of general economic conditions, industry conditions, risks relating to epidemics or pandemics such as COVID-19, including the impact of COVID-19 on the Company's business, financial condition and results of operations, lack of investor demand for Bitcoin and/or Bitcoin futures exchange traded funds, and dependence upon regulatory approvals. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by securities laws.SOURCE: Jolt Health Inc.
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 18:30:47

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 939 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

For aspiring entrepreneurs looking to enter the online flower delivery market, understanding market dynamics and consumer behavior is crucial. Joshua Briscoe advisesSANDY, UT / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Joshua Briscoe, a visionary entrepreneur from Utah, has emerged as a trailblazer in the local floral industry, captivating the community with his passion and innovative spirit. His journey into entrepreneurship began with humble roots and a deep-seated love for floristry, culminating in the founding of Joshua Briscoe Blooms in 2018.Drawing inspiration from his five years of experience in various flower shops, Joshua embarked on a mission to redefine floral experiences in Utah. Motivated by the success stories of young entrepreneurs on social media platforms like Instagram, he leveraged his insights and expertise to establish a business that resonates deeply with customers."Flowers are more than just gifts; they symbolize emotions and moments," Joshua Briscoe remarked. "My goal has always been to provide not just flowers, but experiences that touch the heart and create lasting memories." Despite the challenges of being a first-generation entrepreneur without familial business experience, Joshua's determination and perseverance fueled his success. Securing a pivotal business loan, he navigated the complexities of startup life with resilience, establishing Joshua Briscoe Blooms as a cornerstone of quality and innovation in Utah's floral market.Today, Joshua continues to inspire aspiring entrepreneurs with his entrepreneurial journey, marked by creativity, dedication, and a commitment to community engagement. His business stands as a testament to the power of passion and hard work in achieving entrepreneurial dreams.Industry Insights and OpportunitiesThe floral industry has undergone significant transformations, particularly with the rise in online flower delivery services post-pandemic. Market trends indicate a growing preference for natural, wellness-oriented gifts among consumers, underscoring the relevance of flowers in today's gifting landscape.According to a recent study by Arizton on the US floral gifting market, key trends include the surge in flower delivery apps and the adoption of direct-to-consumer models. This shift highlights opportunities for new entrants to innovate in delivery logistics and customer experience, aligning with evolving consumer expectations.Starting Your Online Flower Delivery BusinessFor aspiring entrepreneurs looking to enter the online flower delivery market, understanding market dynamics and consumer behavior is crucial. Joshua Briscoe advises, "Analyzing competitors, optimizing delivery routes, and prioritizing customer experience are essential steps to success in this competitive landscape." Key Considerations for Starting a Flower Delivery Business1. Competitor and Market AnalysisUnderstanding the competitive landscape is the first step. Study local competitors to identify gaps and opportunities. Analyze their online presence, strengths, and weaknesses to differentiate your service offerings. Look into the services and locations they cover, the design of their websites, and whether they charge for delivery. This comprehensive analysis will give you a clear picture of where you can improve and innovate.Additionally, diving deep into market trends and statistics will provide insights into consumer behavior and preferences. The new generation is increasingly opting for natural gifts with therapeutic value, such as flowers. Special occasions like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day have become significant revenue generators for the floral industry, highlighting peak periods for targeted marketing efforts.2. Streamlined Customer ExperienceThe modern consumer values convenience and quality. There has been a significant shift towards online purchasing, especially in the post-pandemic world. Consumers are looking for quick, hassle-free shopping experiences. The younger generation, in particular, prefers gifts that are natural and have a therapeutic value, making flowers a popular choice. By understanding these trends, you can tailor your services to meet these expectations.Your online presence is crucial. An effective website should be user-friendly, visually appealing, and mobile-responsive. Investing in a robust mobile application can significantly enhance the customer experience, allowing users to order flowers with just a few clicks. Ensure that the purchase process is streamlined, from browsing to checkout, to reduce cart abandonment rates.3. Logistics and TransportationEfficient logistics are the backbone of a successful flower delivery business. Flowers are perishable items, and their freshness is paramount. Developing a solid storage and transportation ecosystem is essential to maintain quality. Adopt innovative delivery solutions such as flat-packed boxes that fit standard letterbox spaces, ensuring safe and hassle-free delivery.Consider implementing climate-controlled storage solutions to keep flowers fresh and vibrant until they reach the customer. Partnering with reliable logistics providers and investing in your delivery fleet can ensure timely and safe deliveries, enhancing customer satisfaction.4. Branding and MarketingYour brand is your identity. Choose a catchy and memorable business name that reflects your values and offerings. Consistent branding across all platforms helps build trust and recognition. Invest in marketing strategies that resonate with your target audience. Utilize social media, email marketing, and content marketing to reach a broader audience and engage with them effectively.Create compelling content that showcases your products and tells your brand story. Engaging visuals, customer testimonials, and behind-the-scenes looks at your operations can build a connection with your audience. Additionally, leveraging SEO strategies will ensure your website ranks well in search engine results, driving organic traffic to your online store.5. Route Planning OptimizationRoute planning is critical for timely and efficient deliveries. Implementing route optimization software can significantly enhance your delivery operations. This technology helps plan the shortest and most efficient routes, taking into account factors like traffic, weather, and delivery deadlines. It reduces delivery times and costs, ensuring that your customers receive fresh flowers promptly.Route planning software also helps manage multiple deliveries efficiently. It can provide real-time updates to customers, allowing them to track their orders and ensuring transparency in the delivery process. This level of service can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.6. Building a Loyal Customer BaseCustomer loyalty
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 19:00:22

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 481 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

Discover Costa Rica's exciting art scene with MIRAME Fine Art, a leading online Costa Rican gallery dedicated to showcasing the country's top artistic talent.SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Championing Costa Rica's art and culture, MIRAME Fine Art invites real estate agents and hotel concierges to embrace the local art scene. This initiative aims to integrate Costa Rican art into real estate and hospitality, offering five key reasons why professionals should engage with and promote the vibrant art community.Sofia Ruiz, Collective Consciousness Oil on Canvas 43.3 X 55 in. 1. Cultural Enrichment and ConnectionCosta Rican art reveals the essence of its people, reflecting the history, values, and aspirations that define this beautiful country. For real estate agents and hotel concierges, promoting Costa Rica art and understanding traditional Costa Rican art can forge deeper connections with clients and communities. By immersing in the local art culture, professionals gain insights into buyers' preferences, nurturing meaningful interactions and more successful transactions.2. Unique Selling PropositionIn a competitive market, standing out is essential. Highlighting the best Costa Rica art gallery exhibitions and showcasing famous Costa Rican art can differentiate real estate listings and hotel experiences. Featuring Costa Rican art prints, Costa Rican artists' paintings, and unique Costa Rica wall art adds an enticing dimension that appeals to art lovers and cultural enthusiasts.3. Community Engagement and Networking OpportunitiesEngaging with the art community opens doors to networking and community involvement. Attending gallery openings, art festivals, and cultural events keeps professionals up-to-date with trends and developments. Building relationships with Costa Rica painters, artists, and collectors can lead to valuable collaborations, referrals, and increased visibility, expanding both personal and professional networks.4. Enhancing Property Value and Guest ExperiencesArt transforms spaces, infusing them with character and style. Real estate agents can leverage artwork to stage homes or use MIRAME Fine Art's augmented reality feature to increase visual appeal and perceived value for buyers. Hotel concierges can offer curated art experiences, featuring famous Costa Rican paintings and personalized tours of local galleries and studios.5. Promoting Cultural Tourism and Sustainable DevelopmentSupporting Costa Rican artists and the local art scene promotes sustainable development. Real estate agents and hotel concierges can promote cultural tourism by showcasing Costa Rican art for sale online and highlighting the artistic treasures of the region. Emphasizing Costa Rica's cultural richness attracts investment and promotes appreciation for the country's heritage, ensuring its preservation for generations.Embrace the Artistic Spirit of Costa RicaCosta Rican art is more than just a beautiful country; it's a cultural experience waiting to be explored. By integrating the local art scene into their professional offerings, real estate agents and hotel concierges can enrich the lives of their clients and guests and their own businesses, all while contributing to Costa Rican culture.Contact InformationBelinda SeppingsCo-Founderbelinda@ miramefineart.com +447821591397SOURCE: MIRAME Fine ArtView the original press release on newswire.com
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 19:45:14

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 1059 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / This notice is being sent to advise that Maple Leaf Critical Minerals 2023-II Enhanced Flow-Through Limited Partnership - National Class (CUSIP Class A - 56529C107, CUSIP Class F - 56529C206) and Quebec Class (CUSIP Class A - 56529C305, Class F- 56529C404) (the "Partnership") will be proceeding with a transaction (the "Liquidity Transaction") pursuant to which the assets of the Partnership (the "Assets") will be transferred on a tax-deferred basis to the Maple Leaf Resource Class (the "Resource Class Mutual Fund"), a class of shares of Maple Leaf Corporate Funds Ltd., an open-ended mutual fund corporation, in exchange for Series A or Series F shares of the Mutual Fund.Additional information about the Resource Class Mutual Fund is available in their simplified prospectus and annual information form. These documents are available atwww.sedarplus.caand How the Rollover Will Work:Pursuant to the Liquidity Transaction, Limited Partners of the Partnership ("Investors") will receive shares of the Resource Class Mutual Fund in connection with the dissolution of the Partnership. The effective date of the Liquidity Transaction (the "Effective Date") is expected to be on or about Friday September 27, 2024. Shortly after the Effective Date, the shares of the Resource Class Mutual Fund will be distributed on a pro rata basis to investors and thereafter the Partnership will be dissolved.Investors will receive the Resource Class Mutual Fund shares in exchange for, and with a value equal to, the value of the units of the Partnership held at the time of such transfer of Assets. When the shares of the Resource Class Mutual Fund are received, the Partnership units will be removed from each Investors account. Processing may take 5 to 7 business days (in some cases longer) to complete, after the rollover occurs.The Partnership will issue a press release once the Liquidity Transaction has been completed and the conversion ratio has been determined.The ACB (adjusted cost base) for each unit of the Partnership and each share of the Resource Class Mutual Fund will be determined by the General Partner upon the wind-up of the Partnership's affairs. The Partnership will dissolve within 60 days of the Effective Date. The General Partner will post these details on its website at www.mapleleaffunds.ca Investors should consult with their investment advisor and/or tax advisor for all tax-related matters.Simplified Example:An Investor holds 100 Partnership units with a final Net Asset Value of $20.00 at the time of rollover and the net asset value per share of the Resource Class Mutual Fund is $5.00 on the same date. Based on these net asset values, the conversion ratio will be4.0 (4.0 = $20.00 / $5.00). The Investor's 100 units, valued at $2,000, are removed from the Investor's account and 400 shares (400 = 100 x 4.0) of the Resource Class Mutual Fund, valued at $2,000, are added to the Investor's account.Processing can be delayed after the rollover occurs, therefore transactions such as switches or redemptions may not be processed until the Resource Class Mutual Fund shares have been credited to client accounts.Neither the Partnership nor the Resource Class Mutual Fund will accept any liability for transactions executed prior to dealer records being updated.Specific Information about the Mutual Fund:Organization and Management of the Mutual FundManager:CADO Investment Fund Management Inc. 609 Granville Street, Suite 808 Vancouver, British Columbia V7Y 1G5Tel: 604-684-5742Fax: 604-684-5748Toll free: 1-866-688-5750Email: info@ cadobancorp.ca CADO Investment Fund Management Inc. is the manager of the Mutual Fund and is responsible for managing the overall business and operations of the Mutual Fund.Portfolio Advisor:Palette Investment Management Inc ("Palette") Toronto, OntarioPalette is responsible for managing the investment portfolio of the Funds.Custodian:RBC Investor & Treasury Services Toronto, OntarioThe custodian has physical custody of the Mutual Fund's property.Administrator:The IAS Investment Administration Solution Inc. ("IAS") Toronto, OntarioThe administrator keeps track of the owners of shares of the Mutual Fund and processes purchases.Auditor:KPMG LLPVancouver, British ColumbiaThe auditors are responsible for auditing the annual financial statements of the Mutual Fund.The auditors of the Mutual Fund may not be changed unless the independent review committee of the Mutual Fund has approved the change and a written notice describing the change is sent to unit holders at least 60 days before the effective date of the change.Independent Review Committee(the "IRC")Canadian securities legislation requires the Mutual Fund to have an IRC. The IRC is composed of three members, each of whom is independent of us. The mandate of the IRC is to review, and provide input on, our written policies and procedures that deal with conflict of interest matters in respect of the Mutual Fund and to give their recommendation regarding and, in some cases, approve, conflict of interest matters identified and referred to the IRC by us.The IRC will prepare, at least annually, a report of its activities for investors. This report will be available at our website at www.mapleleaffunds.ca or you may request a copy, at no cost to you, by contacting us at info@ cadobancorp.ca . Additional information about the IRC, including the names of the members, is available in the Mutual Fund's Annual Information Form.Portfolio Advisor:Palette Investment Management Inc. ("Palette") will be responsible for the Mutual Fund's investment activities. Mr. Andrew Cook, President of Palette, will act as Portfolio Manager on behalf of Palette. Mr. Cook has 34 years of experience in the financial services sector, the past 26 engaged in managing funds for several investment organizations as well as private clients. His focus has been primarily on growth companies with substantial experience in the small and midcap parts of the market and he has spent a significant amount of time in the resource sector.Mr. Cook has had a distinguished career as an analyst and portfolio manager with the Royal Bank of Canada, Midland Walwyn, Strategic Nova, Marquest Asset Management, and Matrix Asset Management Inc.Additional Information:Additional information about the Mutual Fund will be available in the Mutual Fund's simplified prospectus, annual information form, management reports of fund performance and financial statements. You can obtain a copy of these documents at your request and at no cost by contacting Maple Leaf Funds toll free at 1-866-688-5750, by e-maili
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 11:00:51

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 897 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / Phifer & Company, a leader in Marketing, Communication, Public Relations, and Advertising recruitment services since 1997, unveils a renewed commitment to providing cutting-edge recruitment solutions. The focus remains on utilising advanced technology, customization, and sustainability to meet the evolving needs of clients. This announcement marks a significant milestone in the company's journey toward excellence and innovation in the recruitment industry.Emphasis on Innovation and CustomizationPhifer & Company offers a range of specialised recruitment services, each crafted with exceptional finesse. The integration of advanced technology ensures a seamless and efficient recruitment process. Customization options cater to the unique requirements of clients, enhancing the precision and relevance of candidate placements. Sustainability practices underscore a commitment to responsible and ethical operations.The company's approach to innovation involves the continuous evaluation and adoption of the latest technologies. By leveraging data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, Phifer & Company enhances its ability to identify and match the best talent with the right opportunities. These technologies streamline the recruitment process, reducing time-to-hire and improving the overall quality of hires.Customization is another cornerstone of Phifer & Company service offerings. Understanding that each client has unique needs and challenges, the company tailors its recruitment strategies to fit specific requirements. This bespoke approach ensures that clients receive solutions that are not only effective but also aligned with their organisational goals. From executive search to specialised recruitment campaigns, Phifer & Company provides a personalised touch that sets it apart in the industry.Sustainability is integrated into all aspects of the company's operations. Phifer & Company recognizes the importance of sustainable business practices and strives to minimise its environmental impact. This includes using digital tools to reduce paper usage, promoting remote work arrangements to decrease carbon footprints, and implementing eco-friendly office practices. By prioritising sustainability, Phifer & Company demonstrates its commitment to corporate social responsibility.Brian Phifer's Industry Influence and Thought LeadershipBrian Phifer, the driving force behind Phifer & Company, is recognized for significant contributions to the recruitment industry. Regular participation in prestigious conferences and publications highlights his thought leadership. Phifer's insights and strategies shape industry trends and practices, reinforcing the company's position as an industry leader.Brian Phifer's career is marked by a dedication to excellence and innovation. His extensive experience in recruitment services has positioned him as a thought leader in the field. He is frequently invited to speak at industry conferences and contribute to leading publications, where he shares his insights on emerging trends, best practices, and the future of recruitment.Phifer's thought leadership extends beyond his public engagements. Within Phifer & Company, he fosters a culture of continuous learning and innovation. Employees are encouraged to stay abreast of industry developments and adopt new methodologies that enhance service delivery. This forward-thinking approach ensures that Phifer & Company remains at the forefront of the recruitment industry.Phifer's influence is also evident in the company's strategic direction. His visionary leadership has guided Phifer & Company through various phases of growth and transformation. By identifying new opportunities and anticipating market shifts, Phifer has positioned the company to adapt and thrive in a dynamic industry landscape. His strategic acumen and commitment to innovation continue to drive the company's success.Strategic Vision for the FuturePhifer & Company outlines a clear roadmap for continued success. The strategic vision emphasises staying ahead of industry trends through continuous innovation and adaptation. Plans include expanding service offerings and enhancing operational efficiencies to better serve clients. The company remains dedicated to setting new standards in recruitment services, ensuring ongoing growth and success.The future of Phifer & Company is anchored in a commitment to innovation. The company plans to invest in new technologies that will further streamline recruitment processes and improve client outcomes. This includes exploring advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning to enhance candidate matching and predictive analytics.Expansion of service offerings is also a key component of the strategic vision. Phifer & Company aims to broaden its scope by entering new markets and diversifying its portfolio of services. This expansion will enable the company to meet the evolving needs of clients across different industries and geographies.Operational efficiency is another area of focus. By optimising internal processes and leveraging technology, Phifer & Company aims to deliver even greater value to clients. This includes enhancing communication channels, improving client and candidate experiences, and increasing the speed and accuracy of recruitment processes.Phifer & Company is committed to maintaining its leadership position in the recruitment industry. This commitment is reflected in the company's unwavering dedication to quality, innovation, and client satisfaction. By adhering to these core values, Phifer & Company continues to set new benchmarks and achieve significant milestones.The company's success is a testament to the transformational power of visionary leadership and a relentless pursuit of excellence. As Phifer & Company looks to the future, it remains focused on driving innovation, delivering customised solutions, and upholding sustainable practices. These guiding principles will continue to shape the company's journey and ensure its position as an industry leader.Phifer & Company continues to lead the recruitment industry with a focus on technology, customization, sustainability, and thought leadership, guided by a strategic vision for the future. The company's unwavering commitment to these principles ensures that it will remain at the forefront of the industry, delivering exceptional value to clients and shaping the future of recruitment services.MEDIA CONTACTBrian PhiferPhifer & CompanyNewYork@ phifercompany.com116 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011(212) 242-9009 https://phifercompany.com/ SOURCE: Phifer & Company
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 02:15:29

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 500 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

ScalePad is Officially Recertified as a Great Place To Work Overall, in Technology and for Mental WellnessVANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA / ACCESSWIRE / July 25, 2024 /ScalePad is proud to be Certified by Great Place To Work for the third year in a row. The prestigious award is based entirely on what current employees say about their experience working at ScalePad. This year, 91% of employees said it's a great place to work - 31 points higher than the average Canadian company.ScalePad is a 2024 Great Place To Work Great Place To Work is the global authority on workplace culture, employee experience, and the leadership behaviors proven to deliver market-leading revenue, employee retention and increased innovation.In 2016, ScalePad's leadership team set out with a vision to create a company that prioritizes its people, even amidst the rapidly changing tech landscape. This people-first approach has been integral to ScalePad's mission, aiming to make the company a launching pad for career growth, learning, and innovation. Being recognized with certifications as a Great Place To Work for mental wellness and a Great Place To Work in Technology validates that ScalePad is achieving its vision.Chantelle Turton, Chief of Staff at ScalePad, expressed her enthusiasm about the achievement. "Being named a Great Place To Work for the third year in a row, and added recognitions in the mental wellness and tech, are a tremendous honor for ScalePad. We know that the key to great Products, happy Partners, and stellar organizational Performance starts with People. We've always been dedicated to fostering an environment that nurtures talent and promotes mental well-being, and this recognition highlights the success of that focus and determination." As ScalePad continues to grow, the company remains devoted to being a career launchpad, ensuring that every team member has the opportunity to excel and contribute to the company's success.About ScalePad:ScalePad provides MSPs of every size with the knowledge, technology, and community they need to deliver increased client value while navigating the continuously changing terrain of the IT landscape. With a suite of integrated products that automate and standardize MSPs' operations, analyze and uncover new opportunities, and expand value to clients, ScalePad is equipping the MSP adventure.ScalePad has received awards such as MSP Today's Product of the Year, G2's 2024 Fastest Growing Product, and 2024 Best IT Management Product. In 2024, it was named a Best Workplace in Canada by Great Place To Work. ScalePad is a privately held company serving over 12,000 MSPs across the globe. Learn more at scalepad.com About Great Place To WorkAs the global authority on workplace culture, Great Place To Work brings 30 years of groundbreaking research and data to help every place become a great place to work for all. Its proprietary platform and For All Model helps companies evaluate the experience of every employee.Learn more at greatplacetowork.com and follow Great Place To Work on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.Contact InformationRiley AdamsCommunications Specialistriley.adams@scalepad.com (628)207-2529SOURCE: ScalePadView the original press release on newswire.com
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 21:15:49

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 279 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

National School Safety Conference will open next Monday in Orlando, FloridaORLANDO, FL / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / The School Safety Advocacy Council announced today that 1200 School Safety Leaders from all 50 states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and at least 5 different nations will convene next week at the National School Safety Conference. The event, held from July 29 to August 2 at the Doubletree Hotel at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida, marks the largest gathering of school safety decision-makers in the conference's 20-year history.School Safety Advocacy Council Attendees, including School Safety Directors, School District Police Chiefs, Superintendents of Schools, and Elected School Board Members, will benefit from insights shared by both Law Enforcement and Educational leaders. Keynote speakers include Dr. Anthony Shembri and Sean Burke, addressing Leadership and the importance of situational awareness, respectively. Former SWAT Officer, Mr. Don Alwes, will delve into Active Shooter Response strategies.The conference will feature a panel discussion titled the "Final Walk" on Friday, August 2nd, led by individuals who have insight into the tragic murder at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida. Attendees can also explore breakout sessions with over 40 speakers and visit over 100 companies in the School Safety Expo Hall, showcasing the latest technologies and services to enhance school safety.Noteworthy individuals and agencies, such as Mr. Steve Ellis, the Quaker Valley School District Police Department, Deputy Nicole Buckley, and the United States Virgin Islands Department of Education, will be acknowledged at the conference kickoff on Tuesday morning. For more details, visit www.SchoolSafety911.org Contact Information:Curtis LavarelloPress Contactresourcer@ aol.com 941-232-4633Sean BurkePresidentschoolsafetyadvocacycouncil@ gmail.com 8884852440SOURCE: School Safety Advocacy CouncilView the original press release on newswire.com
PR-Inside.com: 2024-07-26 03:40:45

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 478 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

NEW ORLEANS, LA / ACCESSWIRE / July 25, 2024 / Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") and KSF partner, former Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles C. Foti, Jr., remind investors that they have untilAugust 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: 2024-07-26 22:30:32

Press Information





Published by

ACCESSWIRE News Network

888.952.4446

e-mail

http://www.accesswire.com







# 737 Words

ACCESSWIRE News Network888.952.4446

The Research Institute for Brain Health Provides Innovative Therapies to Help Mental HealthWELLINGTON, FL / ACCESSWIRE / July 26, 2024 / In a powerful move to address the growing youth mental health crisis, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has called for mandatory warning labels to be added to social media platforms. This landmark announcement came last month as alarming data reveals the staggering toll that excessive social media use is taking on the psychological well-being of children and teenagers.As reported in the New York Times, the Surgeon General's directive is in response to the deeply troubling trends emerging in recent years. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among young people have skyrocketed. Teenagers, in particular, have seen a dramatic increase in their time spent on phones and digital devices, now clocking in an average of 4 to 8 hours per day.Experts have long cautioned about the detrimental effects of social media on mental health, and now the evidence is irrefutable. Prolonged social media use has been directly linked to the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents. This, in turn, is fueling the alarming rise in depression, anxiety, loneliness, and even suicidal ideation among the younger generation.Heeding this urgent call to action is The Research Institute for Brain Health, a pioneering organization at the forefront of cutting-edge research into mental health solutions. Co-founded by Dr. Karen Vieira, a biomedical scientist, and Terri Bowman, creator of the Positive Auditory Stimuli method of healing PTSD, the institute is dedicated to addressing the childhood and teenage PTSD crisis through innovative therapies. Dr. Karen Vieira and Terri Bowman have been working together since 2010 to test the Positive Auditory Stimuli method, publish the data, and get the method to those who need it most.The Research Institute for Brain Health focuses on the transformative power of positive auditory stimuli to retrain the brain and help alleviate the debilitating effects of PTSD. The institute has developed a series of audio-based programs that have demonstrated remarkable success in helping young patients heal from their emotional trauma and suffering."The Surgeon General's call to action is a critical step in raising awareness and driving change," said Dr. Vieira. "But we must go further. Our research has shown that there are effective, non-invasive solutions available to address the mental health crisis facing our youth. Now, more than ever, we need the support of donors, grantmakers, and participants to help us expand this life-changing work." As the nation grapples with the devastating toll of the youth mental health crisis, places like the Research Institute for Brain Health stand ready to lead the charge. The urgent need for action has never been clearer. Social media's corrosive impact on the mental health and wellbeing of children has reached a crisis point. Rates of depression, anxiety, body image issues, and even self-harm have skyrocketed among young users, with many tragically losing their lives to suicide.Yet, despite these alarming trends, social media companies have prioritized profits over the welfare of their underage users. Algorithmic design choices, predatory data harvesting, and the relentless pursuit of engagement have transformed these platforms into a breeding ground for addiction, comparison, and psychological harm. Only through a concerted, multi-pronged effort can we begin to reverse the devastating toll of social media on an entire generation. The stakes could not be higher.About The Research Institute for Brain HealthSince 2006, The Research Institute for Brain Health has provided the evidence-based Positive Auditory Stimuli method to help treat thousands of people with mental illness. The Research Institute for Brain Health co-founder Dr. Karen Vieira has a doctorate in biomedical sciences from the University of Florida College of Medicine. Dr. Vieira is a former senior research scientist at Kraft Foods, and founded The Med Writers. She is the US Small Business Administration South Florida's 2018 woman-owned small businessperson and has authored numerous books. Co-founder Terri Bowman has been working in mental health treatment since 2006. Bowman developed the Positive Auditory Stimuli method, which has been successfully tested on thousands of individuals across the world. The research, findings, and data from these tests has been published in the European Journal of Medical and Health Sciences. For more information visitThe Research Institute for Brain Health . For additional information, explore The Research Institute for Brain Health onFacebookorLinkedIn .CONTACTDr. Karen Vieira karen@ ribh.org561-247-2190 SOURCE: The Research Institute for Brain Health
Nigerias biggest company by market value, Dangote Cement, attained only a single-digit rise in net profit for the years first half, a performance at variance with that of its turnover, which accelerated by as much as 85.1 per cent to the peak point ever since it was set up.

The corporations revenue of N1.8 trillion in the six-month period already surpasses that of the whole of 2022 and is only a breath away from matching its turnover for last year.

Sales volume inched up by 3.9 per cent, suggesting that the mega revenue posted by the manufacturer was driven by sharply higher prices at which it sold its products rather than by it growing its sales significantly.

Dangote Cement cashed in on hikes in cement prices in Nigeria early in the year, helping the company to sell a tonne of clinker at an average price of N127,614, compared to N71,766 a year earlier, according to figures from its latest earnings report.

Scaling up profit was clearly challenging for the cement business of Africas richest man, Aliko Dangote, in the six months to June, with the direct cost of production more than doubling.

Fuel and power alone accounted for nearly half of direct costs, having surged by 138.7 per cent year on year.

Investment Corporation of Dubai, the chief investment arm of the Government of Dubai, holds a 1.5 per cent minority interest in the entity.

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

Price levels, which galloped to their highest in 28 years within the review period, also took their toll on operations, causing big jumps in administrative expenses as well as selling and distribution costs.

The corporation incurred N201.3 billion in net foreign exchange loss, relative to N113.3 billion in the same period of last year.

Profit before tax stood at N293 billion, up by 22.1 per cent, while post-tax profit climbed to N189.9 billion from N178.6 billion.

Worth N5.4 trillion in total assets, the cement maker opened trade on Friday in Lagos at a market capitalisation of N11.2 trillion.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


The Audio Visual Rights Society of Nigeria (AVRS) has concluded a training workshop to strengthen members understanding of copyright and collective management.

With over 2000 members, AVRS is Nigerias sole collective management organisation for audiovisual works.

Film creators ( producers, directors, writers of cinematograph works, and actors) are entitled to royalties every time their work is exploited in a public and commercial setting.

AVRS, as the sole collective management organisation for audiovisual works in Nigeria, collects fees from public/commercial users such as hotels, salons, restaurants, airlines, halls, transport facilities, etc. These funds are then distributed as royalties to the creators of the audiovisual works.

Highlighting the AVRS functions, the chairman, Mahmood Ali-Balogun, highlighted Section 88 of the Nigerian Copyright Act 2022, which states that public use of copyright-protected audiovisual works requires a license.

He said audiovisual work users must apply for a licence before commercially deploying these works.

This permission is not granted through the purchase of an audiovisual work, whether a DVD, hard drive, flash drive, or any other device that only allows for private use of the purchased audiovisual works. AVRS simplifies this complex process through audiovisual copyright licenses obtainable from AVRS only.

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 Ali-Balogun also underscored the pivotal role of the training, commending the board members for their participation and emphasising that it is not emphasised but integral to the continued growth and effectiveness of the organisation.

He said: This workshop marks a significant step forward for AVRS in its commitment to excellence in managing audiovisual works in Nigeria. By enhancing the knowledge and skills of the Board and management team, AVRS ensures the protection of rights and fair compensation for creators and rightsholders in the Nigerian audiovisual industry.

Talking copyright

Michael Akpan, a former regulatory head of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC), trained the participants on the Basics of Copyright and Neighbouring Rights and Legal & Regulatory Framework of Copyright in the Film Industry in Nigeria.

Mr Akpan gave the members insights into the legal foundations and current regulatory landscape of copyright and related rights in the Nigerian film industry.

Chinedu Chukwuji, the AVRS consultant, facilitated sessions on the benefits, challenges, and opportunities of Collective Management Organisation (CMO) and emphasised the essential aspects of good governance and the role of the AVRS board.

READ ALSO: Nollywood actor Ayoola Ayolola stars in Haitian political thriller Killing of a Nation

He emphasised that the workshop was a significant platform to update the directors on the latest copyright and collective management developments, ensuring they stay abreast of the evolving industry.

At the training, the organisation also announced and celebrated its recent admission as a provisional member of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and the Global Audiovisual Alliance (GAVA), adding that it is a testament to its global recognition.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


President Bola Tinubu has approved the establishment of a new unit known as the Sector-wide Coordinating Office-Programme Management Unit (SCO-PMU) to monitor funds allocated for the implementation of the Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative (NHSRII).

According to a statement by the presidents spokesperson, Ajuri Ngelale, on Friday, the unit was created to ensure transparency and accountable management of funds to be spent on the implementation of the NHSRII project.

The SCO-PMU, as a body, is expected to monitor and evaluate the financial activities of the newly established initiative.

The presidency disclosed that it has so far raised $2.2 billion through external financing from various development partners in the health sector.

About NHSRII

In December 2023, the Nigerian government established the NHSRII to increase the countrys capacity to achieve universal health coverage by 2030.

The Nigeria Health Sector Renewal Investment Initiative (NHSRII) was unveiled following the adoption of the sector-wide policy which seeks to foster collaboration among diverse institutions for the improvement of the countrys health system

At the launch of the initiative, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Pate, said the creation of the initiative was based on the determination of the current administration to deliver equitable and optimal health outcomes for the nation.

Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later

He said the initiative aims to guide the renewal of Nigerias health system, part of the governments broader health agenda

The quest to achieve UHC and better health for all Nigerians requires a multi-sectoral and whole-of-government approach, he said.

Affirming these points, Mr Ngelale, in the statement, noted that NHSRII is a bold and transformative initiative aimed at improving both population health outcomes and the countrys pool of human capital  with the primary objectives of saving lives, minimising physical and financial pains, and ensuring the health of all Nigerians.

Goal of SCO-PMU

The SCO-PMU, according to the statement, will be coordinated by the office of the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, while it serves as the secretariat and delivery arm for the NHSRII.

The functions of the SCO-PMU include programme management, monitoring and evaluation, engagement and supervision of Independent Verification Agents (IVAs) for NHSRII programmes, and fiduciary management, among others.

According to the statement, the SCO-PMU will report its activities and findings from carrying out the oversight on the NHSRII to the Steering Committee, a committee created to curb the spread of cholera epidemic by tackling its root causes.

The unit will also report to the Minister of State, Permanent Secretary; Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, and relevant development partners.

Appointment

Meanwhile, to manage the new office, the statement announced the appointment of Muntaqa Sadiq, a former Head of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit at the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and former Chief Executive Officer of the Private Sector Health Alliance of Nigeria, as the National Coordinator.

The statement further noted: Dr. Umar Sadiq has over 17 years of experience in public health, impact investing, investment banking, energy, and climate financing across the health, finance, climate, and energy sectors.

Dr. Umar Sadiq is a doctoral candidate (in public health) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He holds an M.Phil in Bioscience Enterprise from the University of Cambridge and also holds a medical science/MBBS degree from the Imperial College, London.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


Jide Iwuanyanwu, the first son of the late Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, who passed on Thursday morning, has described his father as a man of many parts.

Jide disclosed this in a statement containing a brief biography of the President-General of the Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide.

In the statement made available to reporters in Owerri, he described the deceased as a renowned Nigerian businessman, politician, and traditional leader.

He stated: Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu was born on 4 September 1942, in Umunakanu, Ehime Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State.

He hails from a humble background and is the first child of his parents.

He attended St. Patricks Primary School, Umunakanu, and later proceeded to St. Peters Secondary School, Umuguma.

He furthered his education at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he graduated with a degree in Economics.

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

Jide further stated that the late Igbo leader started his business career as a trader in the 1960s.

According to him, Iwuanyanwu ventured into various sectors, including construction, manufacturing and publishing.

He is the founder and chairman of Champion Newspapers Limited, publishers of Champion newspapers.

He also owns other businesses, including construction companies, manufacturing firms and real estate investments, Jide added.

He explained that Iwuanyanwu joined active politics in the 1980s and was a member of the defunct National Party of Nigeria and later joined the Peoples Democratic Party.

He has held various political positions, including being a member of the state House of Assembly (1983-1985), Commissioner for Works and Housing (1985-1987), he stated.

He further stated that Iwuanyanwu contested for the Imo East Senatorial District in 1992.

Jide also described his father as a respected traditional leader in Igboland, who was conferred with several chieftaincy titles, including Eze Udo 1 of Umunakanu and Ochiagha Ndigbo, amongst others.

He said he received numerous awards and honours for his contributions to business, politics, and traditional leadership.

He listed some of his awards, including Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic and Honorary Doctorate Degree in Business Administration from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Honorary Doctorate Degree in Law from the Imo State University.

He added that the deceased was a devout Catholic who engaged in philanthropic activities.

Jide said that Iwuanyanwu died at 82, following a brief illness, and is survived by his wife, Frances, and grandchildren.

He said the family would announce the date of his burial after consultation.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Iwuanyanwu indicated his aspiration to vie for the president of Nigeria on the platform of the United Nigeria Congress Party in 1997.

He succeeded the late President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, George Obiozor, who died in December 2022.

(NAN)

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


President Bola Tinubu has extended his heartfelt commiserations to the family of Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, who passed away on Thursday.

Mr Iwuanyanwu was the president-general of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide. He was an accomplished businessman and notable politician.

President Tinubu, in a statement by his media aide, Ajuri Ngelale, commiserated with the Imo State Government, the friends and associates of the deceased, and Ndi Igbo over this irreparable loss.

The President affirmed that Mr Iwuanyanwu will always be remembered for his remarkable legacy.

President Tinubu prayed for the repose of the soul of the departed elder statesman and comfort to his family.

Also, former President Muhammadu Buhari, in a statement by his media aide, Garba Shehu, described Mr Iwuanyanwus demise as a sad event for Nigeria.

Highlighting the deceaseds contributions to journalism, sports, politics and nation-building, Mr Buhari said: He was a visionary who revolutionised the nations media and sports. He made notable strides in the media industry, construction, sports, business, and politics.

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 had several opportunities to interact with him to know about his passionate commitment to the unity, peaceful coexistence, and development of Nigeria.

His rich contributions have left indelible marks on the media, sports, politics, and business, where he made extraordinary achievements.

My condolences to his family, friends and, associates, and the entire people of the South-east. His death is a loss to the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the former president said.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


Former President Olusegun Obasanjo said that his mother carried his pregnancy for 12 months due to the influence of witches and wizards.

He said this during a drama presentation titled: Aremu Omo Asabi, at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

According to a statement by Mr Obasanjos media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, the stage drama was held to commemorate 66 years since the passing of the former presidents mother, Bernice Obasanjo.

The event took place at the main auditorium of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.

The former president recounted the difficulties his mother faced before his birth, attributing the delay to supernatural forces, and expressed gratitude for Gods intervention, which eventually led to his birth.

My mother carried my pregnancy for 12 months before I was born, and it was said that witches and wizards were at play, making her suffer.

She bore nine children, but only two of us, myself and my sister, survived.

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 was the only one who received an education, as my father believed that educating a female child was unnecessary since she would end up in the kitchen, he shared.

Mr Obasanjo lamented that his mother did not live to see his accomplishments and enjoy the fruits of her labour.

He, therefore, vowed to support the drama troupes ambition to set a Guinness World Record for the longest open drama performance.

The drama underscored the vital role of mothers and the enduring impact of their sacrifices and also served as a call to action for society to support and honour mothers.

It harps on ensuring that mothers dreams for their children are realised through access to quality education, healthcare, and opportunities.

(NAN)

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


The nonprofit Council on Foreign Relations is engaged in a national "listening tour" to learn about Americans' perceptions of trade. The Buffalo News sat down with Distinguished Fellow Matthew Goodman, director of the Council's Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies and its RealEcon Initiative, during his visit to Buffalo.

Q: What is the Council?

A: The Council on Foreign Relations was founded in 1921 in New York by a bunch of CEOs and financial leaders who were worried about the American drift to isolationism. They wanted to make a case for U.S. engagement in the world, generally  including in the international economy  anticipating what might be happening in the world and trying to preempt that.

We have a think-tank now within the Council that was established in the 1970s to look at all global issues and American foreign policy generally.

We run a project called Reimagining American Economic Leadership, the premise of which is that we think American involvement, if not leadership, in the global economy is still very important to U.S. interests, to the American people, to the rest of the world.

But it is very troubled, or there is a lot of challenges to that leadership, and Americans dont support the U.S. playing that kind of role the way we used to.

So, we want to have a platform for discussion about how we could get back to something more like a consensus of what the U.S. ought to be doing in the world economy, through trade, through foreign aid, through other forms of engagement and policy.

Q: Is the goal to try to influence policy or lobby?

A: Were not lobbyists. We dont advocate. We sort of analyze and provide sensible recommendations for what would be in American interests, and then we offer those ideas widely and publicly. We try to shape debates about policy, but without advocating for particular interests other than American interests.

Q: What is the purpose of your visit?

A: The idea is to try to meet with as many people as we can  officials, business people, labor, professors and students. We often sit in the Washington bubble and think we understand what Americans think and what is in the best interest. But we dont get out of Washington or New York enough, and these trips have been just so powerful for us to get some reality checks on things.

It turns out that we think in Washington that everybody out there in the rest of the country is talking about the same concerns. So far, weve found out that theres not quite so much passion out there about China as there is in Washington.

Our plan is to try to pull out five to six themes from all these meetings, what do people think about trade, about foreign investment, about Washingtons role in leading policy in the world, and what local concerns people are really focused on. And well write a report and hope to do a podcast series.

Q: What else?

A: Only having been to Buffalo once before, my impression of Buffalo, like a lot of non-Buffalonians, is that its a cold place that has suffered this industrial collapse and hasnt really rebuilt itself and transitioned fully.

And then you actually come here and you realize its a very vibrant place, a lot of interesting things happening here, a lot of new construction, and coffee shops and restaurants, and a lot of younger people walking around and obviously having something meaningful to do here and finding it a place to enjoy living.

So that is another reality check, seeing a place and understanding what it really looks like and understanding what the buzz and texture is.

Q: How does Buffalo play into trade?

A: It is very much doing cross-border trade, as a matter of course. People here appreciate the importance of trade as a means of getting access to good products and services and inputs to things that are made here, and opportunities for markets overseas.

People can sort of intellectually see that trade has value for them and their region and their community, and at the same time feel that it has been disruptive and is on some level a problem.

That, by itself, is really interesting. Its probably going to be one of the first takeaways, that views on trade are not as simple as we think.

But its validation of the need to get out of Washington and talk to people about how they see things. We hope to continue to talk to people up here as our project unfolds and we have a chance to learn more.
Former Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State and ex-Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) has described local government autonomy as a misnomer and aberration in a federal system of government.

Mr Fayemi, a former Minister of Mines and Steel Development, spoke at the launch of St. Racheals People Consulting 2024 Leadership and Economic Summit-1.0 on Thursday night in Lagos.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme had the theme: Economic Prosperity- Secrets of Audacious Leaders.

Speaking on how the country could navigate out of its current socio-economic and security challenges, Mr Fayemi said the federal governments suit against state governors and the ruling in its favour was not the solution to the challenges at hand.

We cannot return to a unitary state. But unfortunately, we are gradually going back to a unitary form of government even though it is being dressed up as restructuring.

The President (Bola Tinubu) is a federalist. He is a leader in my party, we share quite a lot in common, but I do not know any federal entity anywhere in the world where the federal government becomes the driver of what happens in the local government.

It does not happen anywhere in the world and the Nigerian Constitution in Section 2 is very clear that Nigeria is a federation of the federal (central government) and the state. it is not three-tier, 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

Mr Fayemi, a visiting Professor at the African Leadership Centre, said it was a display of ignorance to describe the local government as the third tier of government.

He added: The principle of federalism is clear, it is a principle of dual federation units.

Anywhere in the world where we have federalism, it is the state or province or region either in India, US, Canada or Australia.

It is now up to the state to determine whether it wants to have 20 counties, or 50 or 200 local authorities based on its own local needs. This is a misnomer, it does not happen anywhere in the world.

With this latest strategy, I assure you, in the first instance, I dont see how workable it is; it is not going to work.

He said that if some governors had not done well in the administration of local governments, solutions should be proffered.

This is not the solution, we are unitarising the country instead of decentralising the country.

If we can address this problem that we have all identified, we will see that Nigeria will be better.

We cannot solve all the problems from Abuja, particularly the two critical problems of security and energy.

We need to really drill down to the local level in order to resolve those two problems. If we fix those two problems, electricity and security, Nigeria will fly, he said.

NAN recalls that the Supreme Court had on 11 July given a ruling granting full autonomy to local governments.

The ruling was on a suit instituted by the federal government against the governors of the 36 states of the federation over what it called their interference in the administration of local councils in their respective states.

The suit filed by the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, sought full autonomy for all local government councils in the country.

In the suit, the federal government specifically prayed the court to issue an order, prohibiting state governors from embarking on unilateral, arbitrary and unlawful dissolution of democratically elected local government leaders.

The suit also asked for an order permitting the funds standing in the credits of local governments to be directly channelled to them from the Federation Account, in line with the provisions of the constitution as against the alleged unlawful joint accounts created by governors.

The FG also asked the Supreme Court for an order stopping governors from further constituting caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments as against the constitutionally recognized and guaranteed democratic system.

It equally applied for an order of injunction restraining the governors, their agents and privies from receiving, spending or tampering with funds released from the federation account for the benefit of local governments when no democratically elected local government system is put in place in the states.

(NAN)

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


A youth group in Enugu State has declared their stance on the proposed nationwide protest against bad governance in Nigeria.

The group, Enugu Innovative Youths, is an association of young people drawn from 17 local government areas of the state.

Proposed protest

Some Nigerians are planning to embark on a nationwide protest against economic hardship and insecurity.

The protest, billed to take place from 1 to 10 August, has elicited several reactions with President Bola Tinubu asking Nigerians to shelve the exercise and allow him more time to tackle the nations challenges.

Its justifiable, but be calm

In a communique issued at the end of their meeting in Enugu which was forwarded to PREMIUM TIMES on Friday, the youths appealed to Nigerians to stop the proposed protest in the interest of peace in the country.

The group also appealed to youths in Enugu State not to participate in the proposed protest.

While the proposed nationwide hunger protest on 1 August, 2024, is justifiable owing to the current state of affairs of our country, we call for peace and calmness in Enugu State and a rethink and retreat from the proposed protest, the communique reads in part.

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 youths argued that the protest was too early and, therefore, premature particularly in Enugu State where the state governor, Peter Mbah, was making giant impacts.

Why we must shelve protest

The youths expressed fears that the proposed protest could be hijacked by hoodlums to commit crimes.

We do not want to lose the lives of our dear youths in such a protest in which hoodlums are planning to hijack and avail themselves the brazen opportunity for their sinister motives of triggering an attack on our peaceful youths, the youths said in the communique.

Federal govt should dialogue with youths

The group called on the federal and state governments to immediately engage youths in a dialogue on how to address rising unemployment and poverty.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


A Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt, on Friday, restrained the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the partys National Executive Committee (NEC) from gathering or holding any congress in the state.

The court also restrained the party agents from gathering anywhere in the 319 wards of the 23 local government areas in the state to conduct congresses at the ward, local government, or state levels scheduled for 27 July, 10 August or 31 August, pending the hearing and determination of the motion for interlocutory injunction already filed.

Some PDP members from each of the 23 local government areas of the state filed the suit.

The judge, Charles Wali, ordered the inspector general of police, commissioner of police, Rivers State, director-general of the State Security Service, and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps to enforce the order on the specified dates or any other dates.

Mr Wali ordered that the motion on notice and the originating summons, including the order, be served on the respondents through substituted means, specifically by publication in any widely read national newspapers in Rivers.

He said that the applicants would pay damages to the respondents if the application were found to be frivolous.

He said the court decision is to ensure lawful proceedings within the states political framework and safeguard the legal process concerning the PDPs internal activities.

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 court underscores the importance of adherence to judicial orders and the potential consequences of non-compliance, the judge said.

The court adjourned the hearing to 1 August, 2024.

The latest court order is among several others in the protracted political battle between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and his predecessor, Nyesom Wike, who is the FCT minister.

The fight between the two estranged allies over the control of the political structure in the oil-rich state has split the states legislature into two factions and has disrupted governance in the state.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


President Bola Tinubu says the nations economy is on a gradual but steady path of recovery and assures citizens that his administration will do more to meet their needs.

In a meeting with traditional rulers led by the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Saad Abubakar, and the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, at the State House on Thursday, the president said the plight of citizens remains a deep concern, and will receive more attention.

Yes, it is true that I asked for this job, and I approached some of you to support me. So, I have no excuse not to do the job with sincerity of purpose and honesty. I have committed myself to it diligently, and I will never look backwards.

I have accepted the assets and the liabilities of my predecessor. How I will take Nigeria forward should be my concern, and that is my concern.

I have been extremely busy. The only exercise I have had here is the walk from the residence to this place and then continue with the work.

Nigeria is hilly, and it is the largest democracy in Africa. No other democracy comes close to us in terms of population on the continent. We cannot blame God for giving us these children, and we have to seek peace and better livelihoods, the 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

President Tinubu stated that the interventions to bring the government nearer to the people are already yielding results, with the activation of the student loan programme, the consumer credit scheme, and the affirmation of fiscal autonomy for local government councils.

He said the ministry of finance will continue to ensure that funds go to the grassroots for human and infrastructural development.

Today, the Bank of Agriculture is empty. We have to reactivate it. If they are not talking about flooding, they are talking of banditry. We have to start all over again. Yes, infrastructural decay is there.

The Lagos-Calabar coastal road is not being done without studies. It is an economic energiser. From it, we can create infrastructure along the route to develop wind energy and generate power, and we can expand our irrigation network.

The economic viability of infrastructure has to be studied before we embark on projects. How many dams are there on the corridors of Sokoto- Badagry? From there, we can energise electricity. We can do irrigation and additional farms.

Even if it is two million hectares of arable land, you can create opportunities for farmers on a small scale. Then you have to find capital for them.

Nigeria is on the path of recovery. You have heard it from the Minister of Finance, Mr. Wale Edun. We are not afraid of protests. Our concern is the ordinary people, and the damages that will be done. Till today, I cannot forget the brand new 60 and 100 seater buses, down there in Lagos that were burnt down, and we are now complaining of transportation. That is the problem. That is why I must say thank you for talking to the citizens, the president told the traditional rulers.

The president also said security was getting more attention and will be enhanced.

Security is getting better, but we cannot take our eyes off the camera because it takes one accident for things to flare up. We are managing it.

We have created instruments to support the students so that they get education, consumer credit to expand the economy, to improve the purchasing power of the people in order to rejuvenate the economy within a short period of time. We are still recalibrating our oil usage, the president stated.

President Tinubu said he will continue to explain the economic reforms and projected benefits to the nation, adding that he remains open to dialogue for the development of the country.

He urged the royal fathers to reach out to citizens on the genuine intentions of the government to deliver on its promises of Renewed Hope.

Now, we are sending money to the local governments. I addressed the governors today on that issue. I have been distributing fertiliser, rice, and other items to support the recovery of citizens. I assure you, Nigerians, we are looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. I can assure you, this economy will be revived, will survive, and prosper, the president emphasised.

In his remarks, the Sultan of Sokoto said: I believe that this brief meeting will clear some issues that many people have in their minds. At our meeting on Monday, we had a very open discussion on all issues affecting the nation. We are the ones who will tell you the truth about what is happening in our various communities.

The royal father said an executive council meeting was held on Monday, and the Council, composed of all state chairmen of the 36 States and the FCT, met to deliberate on the economy.

READ ALSO: Tinubu administration may wind up NBET

The Ooni of Ife thanked the president for inviting the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu; the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Atiku Bagudu, and the GCEO of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, to brief the traditional rulers on the state of the economy.

We heard from the GCEO of NNPCL. They are the ones that propel our economy. We have heard from the Minister of Finance. We also heard from the Minister of Budget and the NSA. We want to encourage you, Mr. President, we will all get back to our various communities and let our people know because none of us locks our palaces, the monarch added.

Ajuri Ngelale

Special Adviser to the President

(Media & Publicity)

July 25, 2024

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


President Bola Tinubu has allayed fears of manipulation by any interest group in the ongoing economic reforms, saying his campaign was self-sponsored, without strings, or indebtedness to any individual or institution.

The president, who received a delegation of Islamic leaders led by Bala Lau, at the State House on Thursday, said his victory at the polls was purely by divine intervention, careful planning, and diligence in getting support from Nigerians.

I have no cabal. I have no sponsors. The money I spent on the elections was my personal fortune. At some point, the odds were against me; banks were locked. But Allah, the Almighty God, said I will be the president. Mine is to now follow the leading and teaching of the Almighty God.

One of the most potent elements of defence is a good conscience. It is also a defence against corruption.

What should be uppermost in our minds is the future of our children. We have a lot to teach them on what it takes to be a good citizen and what it takes to be a responsible citizen, the president stated.

President Tinubu said protests, fuelled by anger and hate, could degenerate into violence and set the country backwards.

We are reworking the social welfare scheme to reach the ward level, which is the closest to our people. We are going to ensure that we re-establish connection with the wards, again, so that we can give allowances to the poor and the vulnerable.

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 student loans will pay for school fees. There will be monetary support for the education of our children. The consumer credit will support citizens to buy cars and houses, and they can repay gradually.

We have increased the minimum wage by more than 100 per cent, the president said.

President Tinubu said the sponsors of protests place their selfish ambitions above the national interest.

The sponsors of protests do not love our country. They have no love for the nation. They do not understand citizenship. They have alternative passports.

They are in different parts of the world holding meetings virtually.

We do not want to turn Nigeria into Sudan. We are talking about hunger, not burials. We have to be careful. We should be careful with premature politics; politics of hate, and anger.

The internet has made it possible to hold meetings in artificial settings. They hold meetings and sponsor anger, the president told the religious leaders.

In his remarks, the leader of the delegation, Mr Lau, assured the president of support with prayers and more sensitization.

Peace is paramount for us in the country. The first thing Abraham asked God for was peace and guidance, Mr Lau noted.

Ajuri Ngelale

Special Adviser to the President

(Media & Publicity)

July 25, 2024

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


A group of Islamic clerics have appealed to young Nigerians to shelve the planned protest schedule for August, saying it wont yield any positive result.

The clerics said this following their meeting with President Bola Tinubu on Thursday.

The president held separate meetings on Thursday with APC governors, traditional rulers from around the country, and Islamic clerics.

The meetings were part of efforts to prevent the breakdown of law and order as young Nigerians prepare for a nationwide protest.

After the meeting with the president, the President of JIBWIS, Sheikh Abdullahi Bala Lau, said they had conveyed the concerns of the people to the Nigerian leader.

As you know, we are a media through which the less privileged in the society can send their views, their concerns to the President and Alhamdulillah, we have taken up what people are saying about hardship, insecurity and other things, Mr Bala Lau said, adding the president has listened to them.

The president welcomed us and appreciated what we are here for, what we brought and he promised to tackle and take care (of them).

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 cleric then appealed to Nigerians, Muslims and Christians, that they exercise patience and pray for the president and the country.

We are appealing to Nigerians, Muslims and Christians, that they should be patient. Insha Allah, the result all will come out, he said.

The economic reforms embarked on by President Tinubu have triggered Nigerias worst cost of living crisis in a generation.

Food prices have more than doubled since the president announced the removal of petrol subsidies last year. The floating of the naira to allow market forces to determine the currencys value has also worsened the situation.

Mr Tinubu and his officials have, however, argued that those policies are essential and would eventually make the economy better.

The president has repeatedly acknowledged the pains caused by the reforms and its unintended consequences but wants Nigerians to bear with him.

In his remarks Thursday, the spiritual leader of Ansarudeen Society of Nigeria, Abdurrahman Ahmad, said the president was very receptive when they conveyed the peoples message.

He has told us the effort that his government has been making to ensure that the economy of this country is placed on a very sound footing. He acknowledged the fact that things could be a bit tough now, and he likened it to weaning a child whos being exclusively breastfed, its tough, Mr Ahmad said.

He said the president identified with Nigerians and their suffering and promised more intervention to ameliorate the situation.

He assured that in the days to come, Nigerians will see the result of all of these sacrifices.

He urged Nigerians to resist the temptation of being incited against the government and to shelve the planned protests.

We are appealing to the people to shelve it. It is an ill wind that blows no one any good. We have conveyed their anger and frustration to government and the president has given reassurance that they are going to address it.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that traditional rulers who met with Mr Tinubu before the Islamic clerics made similar calls.

While the Islamic clerics and traditional rulers joined the president in calling on young Nigerians to shelve the planned protests, opposition leaders have backed the protests but said they should be peaceful.

For the avoidance of doubt, the rights of citizens to protest are ENSHRINED in the Nigerian Constitution and AFFIRMED by our courts. Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution (as altered) unequivocally guarantees the right to peaceful assembly and association, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar wrote on X.

A former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has also championed calls for the protests which he tagged DAYS of Rage.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has appealed to aggrieved Nigerians that rather than protest, they should consider alternative means of expressing their grievances.

The Association also recommended that the government should be given more time to address these pressing concerns.

CAN President, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, in a statement on Friday in Abuja, said that this period should be used to explore other legal avenues that would not easily give hoodlums the opportunity to hijack the exercise.

Dialogue, petitions, and town hall meetings are viable options that can yield positive results without the risk of disorder.

CAN stands in solidarity with the citizens of our great nation during these challenging times of economic hardship and pervasive hunger.

We recognise and deeply empathise with the pain, anger, and frustration that many of our fellow Nigerians are experiencing.

The cries of the people underscore the severe difficulties faced daily as families struggle to afford basic necessities and sustain their livelihoods.

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

As we navigate this period of crisis, it is imperative to uphold the constitutional rights of every Nigerian to peacefully protest and express their grievances.

The right to assemble and voice discontent is a cornerstone of our democracy and must be protected and respected by all, he said.

Mr Okoh further explained that the anxiety related to the impending protests was heightening, especially given the volatile experiences in countries like Kenya and Pakistan.

We must also draw from our recent history. The ENDSARS and RevolutionNow protests, though rooted in genuine grievances, were marred by tragic incidents where miscreants hijacked the process.

This led to widespread looting, destruction of properties, and unfortunate loss of lives.

These experiences have shown us that mass demonstrations can quickly degenerate into chaos if not properly managed and coordinated, he said.

The CAN president further called on the government to cut the cost of governance and expedite its efforts to alleviate the hardships in the land.

He explained that the opulent lifestyle of political officeholders must be addressed to demonstrate the sincerity of those in government to improve the living conditions of the people.

Likewise, it is imperative that the government implements the newly approved national minimum wage to provide immediate relief to struggling families.

We also call on the government to expedite its efforts to alleviate the hardships in the land.

There is an urgent need for more refined and effective policies that address the root causes of the economic challenges we face.

The government must deepen its consultations with stakeholders, including religious leaders, to create a more inclusive and comprehensive approach to problem-solving.

By working together, we can devise sustainable solutions that reflect the needs and aspirations of the people, he added.

(NAN)

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


A human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, has asked the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, to ensure that Nigerians taking part in the forthcoming protest are protected by the countrys security agencies.

Mr Effiong, in a letter to the IGP on Friday, contended that peaceful protest was not against any law in Nigeria.

The protest

Some Nigerians are planning to embark on a nationwide protest against economic hardship and insecurity.

The protest is billed to take place from 1 to 10 August.

The Nigerian security agencies have asked Nigerians to shelve the protest and vowed to stop it.

Protest backed by Nigerian laws

Mr Effiong, in the letter, told the IGP that he and members of his law firm, Inibehe Effiong Chambers, were writing in response to reactions and plans by security agencies including police to thwart the proposed protest.

The human rights lawyer drew the attention of the police chief to Sections 39 and 40 of the Nigerian constitution which guarantees the right of Nigerians to freedom of expression, assembly and association.

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

If as speculated by law enforcement agents that breach of the peace would occur, our criminal code has made adequate provisions for sanctions against breakdown of law and order so that the requirement of permit as a conditionality to holding meetings and rallies can no longer be justified in a democratic society, he said.

Mr Effiong also reminded the IGP of Section 83 (4) of Nigeria Police Act 2020 as well as Section 91(3) of the Electoral Act, 2022 which he said require the police and other security agencies to mobilise and provide security for any meeting, rally or procession the organisers notified the police about.

He also referred Mr Egbetokun to a 2008 judgment in a case between IGP and All Nigeria Peoples Party in which the Court of Appeal upheld the rights of individuals to protest without impediment.

Protect protesters; attacking protesters is illegal

Mr Effiong then urged the IGP to ensure that the police do not intimidate or disrupt the protest, given that such action will be in violation of the law.

We request that you issue a directive to all commissioners of police across the states of the federation and Abuja, and all relevant departments under your supervision to provide adequate security for the protesters, as they will be exercising their constitutional rights.

The role of the police is to protect and facilitate the exercise of constitutional rights, not to suppress or stifle them.

Any attempt to the contrary will be unconstitutional and a violation of your oath of office. We urge you to refuse any invitation to trample on the democratic rights of the protesters. It is imperative for you to demonstrate your commitment to the rule of law, he said.

Continuing, Mr Effiong said: We are minded to also remind you of the provision of Section 4 (a) of the Nigeria Police Act, 2020 which states that one of the functions of the police shall be to protect the rights and freedom of every person in Nigeria as provided in the Constitution, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and any other law.

It is also needful to restate that attacking, shooting, tear-gassing or dehumanising the citizens in any form by law enforcement agencies are criminal offences under the Anti-Torture Act, 2017.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


The Nigerian government has reduced the supplementation allowances for Nigerian students studying abroad under the Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholarship for the 2024 academic year.

However, the Minister of Education, Tahir Mamman, has denied the development, insisting that the government did not reduce allowances due to the students but an adjustment of the allowances due to foreign exchange fluctuations.

Announcement

The government, through a memo addressed to the students who are based in Moscow, Russia, and signed by the Director of the Federal Scholarship Board at the Federal Ministry of Education, Ndajiwo Hamman, attributed the reduction in the allowances to the foreign exchange crisis in Nigeria

The letter reads in part: I am directed to inform you that the prevailing situation concerning the domestic exchange rate in Nigeria makes it difficult for the Federal Scholarship Board to sustain the payment of Bilateral Education Agreement (BEA) scholars allowances as contained in the award letters issued at the point of departure to the host countries.

The education ministry has also promised to pay the scholars the owed parts of their 2023 and 2024 allowances.

Clarification

Meanwhile, the minister, Mr Mamman, a professor, insisted that that the government did not slash the scholars allowances.

Mr Mamman said the rate change was an adjustment due to prevailing Foreign Exchange fluctuations on the existing budgetary allocations for the scholars.

Article Page with Financial Support Promotion Nigerians need credible journalism. Help us report it. Support journalism driven by facts, created by Nigerians for Nigerians. Our thorough, researched reporting relies on the support of readers like you. Help us maintain free and accessible news for all with a small donation. Every contribution guarantees that we can keep delivering important stories no paywalls, just quality journalism. SUPPORT NOW x Do this later

We want to place it on record that the ministry and the Federal Government for that matter have not slashed the allowances due to students, he said during a meeting with the leadership of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in Abuja on Friday, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

What happened is some adjustments in the amount due to them because of FOREX fluctuations, and as soon as we get the balance we have applied for, we will pay them.

But for now, what is in the budget is what we can pay. So, there is no slash, we will even be happy to increase, so this is what has led to the adjustments, he added.

Old Rate and New Rate

The adjustment in the supplementation allowances, according to the letter sighted by this newspaper, is reproduced below:

S/N Allowance Old Rate ($) New Rate ($) 1 Supplementation per month 500 220 2 Warm clothing per annum 250 250 3 PG research allowance 1,000 500 4 Health Insurance 200 200 5 Pilot allowance 700 700 6 Medical allowance 500 500 7 Passage/graduation allowance 2,500 2,000 Total 5,650 4,370

Tough Time for Nigerian scholars

Since the administration of President Bola Tinubu floated the Naira, Nigerian scholars studying abroad have had the payment of their allowances disrupted.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how government-sponsored scholars in Malaysia, India and Kenya wrote the government seeking bailout funds after the exchange rate fluctuations affected their upkeep allowances.

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) had to provide bail out funds to the scholars under its Scholarship for Academic Staff (TSAS) programme.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


Not too many judicial interventions have been, and will ever be as consequential as the July 11, 2024, Supreme Court ruling on the Local Government (LG) autonomy litigation, filed in May 2024, by the nations Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi, SAN. In a write-up it, widely published in both the traditional and social media in Nigeria, I made an attempt to alert the nation to the profound implications of one scenario vis a vis the much-awaited judgement. Specifically, the Punch online newspaper, in its May 31 edition, published the piece, titled, That LGA Autonomy Litigation. Nigerian Tribune online, also did the same, on June 1. The argument made in that piece can be summarized in this form. The litigation had the potential of toppling the apple cart vis a vis Nigerias outlook on federalism; as it would move the country further in the direction of centralization, consistent with a unitary model of government. It was a thinly veiled attempt to undermine the State governments, while strengthening the central government, thereby moving the country further away from the goals of devolution of powers to the States, which are the federating units in Nigerias evolving federal system. If the position of the Federal Government was affirmed by the Court, it would, in practical terms, mean that the average State and its LGAs, in most probability, would begin to work at cross purposes. That is, the State would drive in one direction, while the LGAs, which it was supposed to superintend under the Constitution, would drive in another; and this would be the very recipe for major governance crises. The paper called on the President to get the Attorney-General to back off from the litigation process; and concluded thus, The consequences attendant upon getting a ruling favourable to the Federal Government at the Supreme Court are too grave to be contemplated. We must stand up for a federal, and against a unitary Nigeria. A number of newspaper editorials, which came up later, evidently drew from the arguments made in the article.

The Judgement

The Supreme Court judgement has since been given; and it is totally in agreement with the Attorney-Generals position. Asserting that its right to adjudicate on relations between the central and State governments was unlimited, the Court proclaimed unequivocally that the justice of the case demands that the Local Government (LG) allocations should henceforth be paid directly to LG accounts; and that Governors shall neither exercise the power to dissolve elected LGAs, nor interfere in how the later were run. It is obvious in this regard that the judgement, in its key elements, has confirmed our worst fears. This is the point to which this piece is directed. Having researched on, and taught courses on Federalism, and Comparative Political Economy, to both undergraduate and graduate students, in Nigeria and elsewhere, for years, it behoves me to, once again, share my thoughts on the wider implications of the Supreme Court judgement, on Nigerias governance structure going forward; and this in as simple a manner as possible.

I have followed keenly, the various analyses on the subject. One thing that is clear therefrom is that most commentators do not seem to understand the real meaning of the ruling, and its implications for jurisprudence, and governance in the country. They marginalize the ahistorical nature of the ruling, and the inevitable consequences thereof, on the organization of relations between the spatial constituencies that make up the nation. While there could be momentary, or short-term (political) advantages going the way of the litigants, as well as transient LG practitioners, my concern is that these critical stakeholders may not be fully acquainted with the wide-ranging implications of the judgement for federalism and good governance in Nigeria, in spite of their advertised commitment to these twin concepts. On air, and in print, we got a whole lot of verbiage from pundits, whose analyses are largely driven by banal populism, and predicated upon emotions, rather than rational inferences. But we must transcend this emotion-laden analyses, and make yet another attempt to clarify the issues. In doing this, I try to highlight the implications of the judgement; discuss the probable follow-up actions expected of the protagonists of the LGA autonomy initiative; and draw attention to the (hidden) consequences for governance in Nigeria. I had availed myself of the opportunity to do this at a webinar a day or so after the judgement, which video clip, I understand is already in circulation.

Implications, In Seven Chapters

In the first instance, it is evident that the 11 July judgment is completely at variance with the principle of federalism, to which Nigeria pledges commitment, and by which the country is named, as Federal Republic of Nigeria. While admitting of some minor variations, the position is clear in federalism literature that a federation speaks to The method of dividing powers so that the general and regional governments are each within a sphere co-ordinate and independent. This is how K. C. Wheare, regarded as the father of federalist thought, described it, in his seminal work, The Federal Government, first published in 1963. Same goes for the founding fathers of US federalism, whose treatises on the subject were published as The Federalist Papers, described by the US Library of Congress as a series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison between October 1787 and May 1788, directed at persuading New Yorkers to ratify the proposed federal Constitution,  drafted in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. While the contextual specificities of these sources are not in doubt, all being essentially informed by the nature of the American experience, they nevertheless represent the critical starting point in any informed discussion of federalism. Significantly, they all agree that federalism is about division of governmental powers between a central government, and the federating units. None imagined the concept, federating units, to go beyond its ordinary meaning; and thus, none suggested that municipalities and LGAs could in any way qualify to be referenced as federating units. This is why no constitution, including the American, ventures to mention by name, counties, municipalities, or LGs, as the case may be. The federating units, 16 of them in Germany, are called Landers. In the Swiss federal system, they are cantons, and of course, States, in both Nigeria and the US, among others. In none of these is any suggestion made that the municipalities are anything near federating units; because they are not.

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 the Swiss federal system, there are actually about 2,300 of these municipalities, so small that they are basically governed via referenda, in a manner reminiscent of the era of direct democracy. But the federalist foundation of the Swiss system is underscored, first, by the principle of subsidiarity, to wit, that no power exercisable by a lower level of government is allowed a higher level; and secondly, that membership of the executive branch at the central government level is made up of representatives of the federating units, the cantons, the headship (presidency) of which is rotated every two years, from one canton to the other. This puts in bold relief one of the more critical anomalies in the Nigerian 1999 Constitution (as amended), which involves listing of some 774 LGAs. Even so, the Constitution did not make the mistake of asserting that the LGAs were federating units. Rather, it says, in Section 2(2), that Nigeria shall be a Federation consisting of States and a Federal Capital Territory. That is why the governance structure of the LGAs is not only located within the rubrics of the State, but indeed, made a subsidiary of same, throughout the document. The Supreme Court judgement in reference here has simply made nonsense of this principle, and surreptitiously proclaimed the LGAs, to all intents and purposes, as federating units. This is not appropriate.

Secondly, the idea underscoring the clamour for LGA autonomy, and direct transference of LG share of the Federation Account to them directly, is ahistorical. It denies the fact that prior 1999, when LGs got their funds directly from the Federation Account, many of them, especially the more cosmopolitan and populous ones, which also paraded more staff, and a broader range of infrastructural challenges, found it practically impossible to survive. They were not paying their primary school teachers, and owed their administrative workforce several months of salaries. To then imagine that we feel that sending monies to the LGAs directly is all that is required to advance the cause of good governance, is some convoluted thought that denies the fact of history. Indeed, the whole idea of State Joint LG Account Committee was an initiative put in place to address this problem.

Thirdly, it is evident that the judgement of the Supreme Court is completely at variance with provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) on this subject of revenue allocation. In Section 162 (6), the document makes it explicit that Each State shall maintain a special account to be called State Joint Local Government Account into which shall be paid all allocations to the local government councils of the State from the Federation Account and from the Government of the State. And in Sub-section 8, it drills down on the matter by stating unequivocally that The amount standing to the credit of local government councils of a State shall be distributed among the local government councils of that State on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of the State. Whence, therefore, in the face of these unambiguous provisions, did the Supreme Court find the basis of its ruling, to the effect that funds from the Federation Account begin to go directly, and outside of the rubrics of the State, to the LGAs? There is none.

What the Supreme Court has done is simply to yank off a clear provision of the Constitution, and replace it with something completely foreign to it. To imagine that some lawyers, some of them quite senior, would endorse this type of dangerous precedent simply because of animus against the governors, is quite difficult to internalise. For, what the Supreme Court has done in the instant case is akin to waking up one day, and on the basis of a nondescript litigation, ruling that the tenure of Governors and the President is no longer four years in the first instance, as provided for in the Constitution, but now  by judicial fiat  10 or more years! Nobody needs the say-so of any pundit to appreciate that this is a very dangerous scenario; yet, it is something many ordinarily enlightened people are celebrating. This is the danger in relation to how the Supreme Court may want to begin to exercise what the Court referenced as its unlimited powers to pronounce on issues between States and the Federal Government. It thus, technically, treats cavalierly, the very first section of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), Section 1(1), which states in clear terms, that This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on the authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Fourthly, in relation to land, I am persuaded that many Nigerians who are quick to applaud the ruling are completely ignorant of the profound implications of same for the Land Use Act, and our extant land holding patterns generally. Under the current dispensation, State Governors hold all non-urban lands in trust for the citizens in a fiducial form of relationship. This is what has made it possible for State Governments to stave off the intrusiveness, nay, shenanigans of some overbearing federal governments in the recent past, by simply refusing to allocate lands for some very controversial programmes that were highly steeped in exclusivity. Under the emerging dispensation, in which the Federal Government is inputting itself into the scheme as the potentate and, to all intents and purpose, manager of the LGAs, it is going to be like a piece of cake for any overbearing federal government to access land via the LGAs, which are constitutionally placed in charge of non-urban (rural) lands, howsoever defined. Hitherto, the LGAs would not venture out of line to do this, given that they operated within the boundaries of the provisions made by the State House of Assembly. With the Supreme Court judgement, not anymore!

Fifthly, I make bold to assert that what the Supreme Court has done, perhaps unwittingly, is to drill down on injustice and inequity, underlying the creation of LGAs, and indeed, States, perpetrated when Nigeria was under military rule. There are no objective and unimpeachable criteria for the number of LGAs created. The creation was simply done on the basis of the whims and caprices of the military generals that bestrode these climes like a colossus in those years. Two examples that I cite are Osun/Ondo States, and Lagos/Kano States. Whereas Osun and Ondo States have comparable land mass at 14,875 square kilometres and 15,500 square kilometres respectively, and populations of 4.4 million and 5.3 million respectively in 2022, Osun was gifted 30 LGAs, while Ondo has only 18. Lagos and Kano States started off in 1967 with 20 LGAs each. Many years later, in 1991, Jigawa was excised out of Kano, but between them today, both States have 71 LGAs, while Lagos retains its original 20, which anomaly then Governor Bola Tinubu tried to correct by creating 57 LGAs. His effort was shot down by the Supreme Court then, making him to invent the concept of Local Council Development Authorities (LCDA). Significantly, the LCDA initiative has now practically become otiose given that monies are now to pass directly, only to the constitutionally recognised LGAs, which remain just 20 for Lagos State. Meanwhile, number of LGAs in each State is not just one of the bases for sharing revenue from the Federation Account, it also determines the number of seats (representation) in the House of Representatives! My conviction that this could not have been the intention of the President informed my call in the article referenced above that, President Bola Tinubu, who himself as Lagos Governor, fought this inequity on the status and place of LGAs in our federation, shouldnt be the one doing this. Rather, he should look at the obstacles that made his attempts at creating new LGAs in Lagos to flounder, and push for the necessary constitutional amendments to take care of the obstacles.

Methinks rather than seeking to consolidate this arrant confusion, nay injustice, what the Supreme Court should have done was to leave things as they were, pending when the country would be able to find its way around this structural anomaly, which is one of the factors fuelling anger and instability in the system. This, by the way, is one of the bases for the restructuring advocacy, which seeks to move Nigeria further in the direction of federalism, through substantial devolution of powers to the federating units, i.e., the States.

Sixthly, considering that the LG system, just like the presidency and the State governments too, is not peopled entirely by saints, what guarantees do we have that if the Governors were corrupt in the manner in which they tended to manage public funds, that the elected and appointive staffers of the LG system are going to be any different? What structures of control and accountability have we emplaced to ensure that rather than having to deal with 36 theatres of (mis)management of public funds, we are now having a motley of 774 to deal with? None of the pundits trumpeting support for this unusual judgement has weighed in on this primary question well enough.

Seventhly, what the Supreme Court has forced down the nations throat by its 11 July judgement, is akin to what Decree 34 of 1966, established. In one fell swoop, that Decree threw out Nigerias regional structure, substituting for it what, to all intents and purposes, amounted to a unitary structure. Thus, if in 1966, Decree 34, sent regionalism packing, the Supreme Court judgement of 11 July has now completely flushed the residue of federalism in Nigeria down the drain! The task the military junta under Major-General JTU Aguiyi-Ironsi began, is what the Supreme Court has now completed and consolidated. But it is difficult to imagine that this is the direction in which a President Tinubu would go, given that he was in the vanguard of the advocacy for devolution of powers to the States in order to enable Nigeria have a credible chance of autochthonous development. In practical terms, the ruling has now made nonsense of those long years of advertised commitment to restructuring and devolution of powers. For, if anything, given that the new Federal Government will now practically superintend the LGs, Nigeria has moved almost completely away from, and can now, at best, only exist on the fringes of federalism. Meanwhile, the argument has been made variously that considering that the Nigerian society is itself thoroughly federal in nature, the only workable constitution with which it can be successfully governed is a federal one. The failure to accept this reality  which is already demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt, both in theory and praxis, is what has continued to make the countrys governance system basically dysfunctional.

The only silver lining in the Supreme Court judgement relates to its ruling on the sacrosanctity of democratic structures at the LGA level. On this, I had argued in my earlier piece, that The only things that should be of concern, and on which attention should be focused, are first, that governance at the LGA level be by elected leaders, only; and secondly, how to prevent State Governors from wantonly dismissing elected LGA leaders and substituting for them, caretaker committees. My position was substantially informed by Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which proclaims that The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this Constitution guaranteed . The Court should, therefore, have limited itself to the subject of democratic governance at the LGA level, proclaiming as it did that funds may not be accruing to any LG that is not governed by elected officials, for as long as that lasted. This would have been consistent with the Constitution, which at any event, has indicated in Section 14(1) that The Federal Republic of Nigeria shall be a State based on the principles of democracy and social justice.

Beyond the Judgement

Now beyond the foregoing is the inexorable follow up to the Supreme Court judgement, which we should expect. In the frenzy to completely yank off the LGAs from the States, it is evident that moves are going to be made  most likely through the same judicial intervention  to outlaw the States Independent Electoral Commission, constitutionally created and saddled with the organisation of elections into LGs. This would have to be through judicial proclamation too, as the States House of Assembly are not likely to sign on, onto that, thereby making such a change impossible through constitutional amendment. And when this is accomplished, the takeover of the LGAs, and full centralisation of governance structures and powers in the Federal Government would have been complete. But then, no prodding of any pundits is required to know that this, indeed, is the very recipe for crisis. It is not without reasons that a federal system like the US has no central election management body, but relies on each State to organise its own elections, including the presidential, which results are then collated nationally.

By Jove, the federal government has not demonstrated in any serious manner these past 64 years that it is the very representation of effective and efficient governance. Rather, it has existed, especially under the 1999 Constitution (as amended), with all of 68 items on the Exclusive List, and 30 on the concurrent list, as a barracuda, metaphorically dying under its own weight. It is also questionable how effective our election management authorities have been over the years, such that in the search for clean, free and fair elections at the LG level, it is these same agencies that we look up to. Now, rather than finding a way of resolving these institutional challenges, and moving away from centralised governance, we are, with this Supreme Court ruling, racing in that self-same direction.

A core element in the choice made by nations to adopt federalism is the paradox of maintaining unity while preserving diversity. Rather than finding a way of moving away from uniformity in the manner of organising our LGs, by allowing each State House of Assembly to legislate on how many of such a State should have, and the direction in which their administration should be positioned, we have now firmed up on uniformity. A federal government that had to deal with 36 States was overbearing in its attitude vis a vis the latter. Now, we are to have all of 36 States and 774 LGAs scrambling for relevance, and kow-towing to the same Federal Government. The implications of this should be clear.

The only argument that would probably have been tenable is to say that we do not need federalism anyway; but certainly, not that this judgement promotes federalism. Even so, the counterargument would be about how many of the conceptual categories that we parade as a country would we say have served us so well, to deserve being given the thumbs up sign? Certainly, not even democracy  as practised in these climes  would stand tall in this regard. Yet, because of the shenanigans of some governors, we are quick to throw the federalism baby out with the bathwater.

It remains to be seen how these structural bumps, some of them feeding on wrong attitudinal disposition of many Nigerian politicians, are going to be negotiated in the overall interest of Nigeria. But my hunch is, as Obafemi Awolowo once said, that the omens are bad vis a vis Nigerias governance structure, and the possibilities of greater responsiveness to the yearnings of the people, even at the grassroots, going forward. When all the facades are off, it would be obvious that what Nigeria is onto is but a systematic descent into concentration of power. What this evokes is the imagery of governance chaos; but it is apposite that the country is put on notice on this inevitable outcome, of the Supreme Court ruling of July 11, 2024, so that no one would be caught napping when its full implications begin to unfold.

New Federalism

Everything considered, I choose to end this intervention on a positive note. Two unique things about the Indian federal system are, first, that State governors, who essentially have only ceremonial roles, are appointed by the President, also ceremonial, from a panel of four candidates to be elected by the members of the Legislative Assembly of the State , usually from the ruling party. Secondly, unlike what you have in most federal constitutions, all residual matters not tracked by the exclusive and concurrent legislative lists are left to the central government, making the system a peculiarly highly centralised one, such that scholars often query whether India is indeed, a federal system. If the evolving, highly centralised system of pseudo-federalism that the Supreme Court is evolving for Nigeria works, and lasts long enough, it may very well be the countrys own unique contribution to the practice, literature, and theory of federalism. Afterall, when subjected to thorough interrogation, no standard federal system exists; not even the US  the first in the category  qualifies to be so called, as every federal system evolves within specific contexts shaped by history, environmental realities, and behavioural orientation of the citizenry. All of these make the concept of true federalism, so popularly invoked in Nigeria, a conceptual misnomer. Every federal system comes with its own unique feature, making the focus of analysis to be on functionality; to wit, how functional is a federal system, and what does a people need to emplace to make same more functional? But my hunch is that the profoundly plural and diverse nature of the Nigerian society, in which cleavages overlap and reinforce one another, cannot be marginalised. As well, the predisposition of the Nigerian governing elites, to seeing political power, in the word of Richard Joseph, as prebends, to be firmed out as patronage, and not necessarily a means to dispensing the public good, cannot be disregarded. As I have noted elsewhere, this is a system of state capture, in which rather than the security and welfare of the people (being) the primary purpose of government, as indicated in Section 14(b), of the Constitution, power is directed at fostering and festering the particularistic interests of the governing elite, while attendance to issues of concern to the general public is, at best, merely incidental. It would be a miracle, going forward, for the new federalism we are building to deliver on Nigerians legitimate aspirations for good governance.

Femi Mimiko is a professor of Political Science, at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; and member, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru. E-mail: femi.mimiko@gmail.com; @FemiMimiko

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


After the over-centralisation of about thirty years of rule by brass hats had contributed hugely to the countrys persistent underdevelopment, a civilian president ought not to be foisting increased federal power on the country. The urgent first steps are: (i) immediate review of the distorted revenue allocation formula inherited from the military in 1999 by assigning 65 per cent to subnational governments and 35 per cent to the central government

The announcement of the imminent establishment of a Federal Ministry of Livestock Development raises two important questions. First, is creating a 49th federal ministry consistent with the advertised objective of the Tinubu administration to reduce the cost of governance through the Oronsaye Committee Report Implementation Committee? Second, is an enhanced role for the Federal Government in livestock development consistent with reducing its functions as promised in president Tinubus 80-page manifesto that was released in 2022?

While the seriousness and urgency of tackling livestock-related problems in the country are unquestionable, the solution is NOT in creating a federal ministry. After highlighting the terrible consequences of farmers/herders conflicts  over 60,000 deaths across 22 states since 2001  the PUNCH editorial of 15 July proffered an eminently sensible remedy: The solution lies in commercial cattle ranches, which must be the prerogative of the states (subnational governments) and private investorsThe government should limit itself to technical and financial interventions to support settled ranchers. The contrary plea in the editorial of THE NATION on 23 July  Creation of Ministry of Livestock Development should be given a chance  is wrong-headed.

After the over-centralisation of about thirty years of rule by brass hats had contributed hugely to the countrys persistent underdevelopment, a civilian president ought not to be foisting increased federal power on the country. The urgent first steps are: (i) immediate review of the distorted revenue allocation formula inherited from the military in 1999 by assigning 65 per cent to subnational governments and 35 per cent to the central government; and (ii) significant reduction in the central governments legislative list that will be consistent with the new revenue allocation formula, similar to the provisions in 1954 and 1963 constitutions. Then, at a stroke, an over powerful and overreaching central government that is funding the establishment of Development Commissions for geopolitical zones and the creation of a new federal ministry will become history.

Ladipo Adamolekun writes from Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds, and peace and blessings be upon the noblest of Prophets and Messengers, our beloved Prophet Muhammad, and upon his family and companions, and those who follow their guidance until the Day of Judgment.

Dear brothers and sisters! While many still find strength in Allah during challenges and trials, the result of our individual and collective trauma is increasingly the opposite  distance from Allah and a loss of hope. Amidst so much pain, where do we find comfort?

Allah Almighty says:

Do the people think that they will be left to say, We believe and will not be tried? [Quran, 29:2]

Musab Bin Saad narrated from his father that a man said:

O Messenger of Allah! Which of the people is tried most severely? The Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) said: The Prophets, then those nearest to them, then those nearest to them. A man is tried according to his religion; if he is firm in his religion, then his trials are more severe, and if he is frail in his religion, then he is tried according to the strength of his religion. The servant shall continue to be tried until he is left walking upon the earth without any sins. [Tirmidhi]

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

And know that when the trials of life have rendered you Despairing of all hope, and of all joy bereaved, Then shake yourself and rouse yourself from heedlessness, And make pure hope a meadow that you never leave. [Habib Ali Bin Muhammad Bin Husain Al-Habashi (d. 1915 CE)]

And Allah Almighty says in the Quran:

Indeed in the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him), you have a good example to follow, for him who hopes for (the Meeting with) Allah and the Last Day and remember Allah much. [Quran, 33:21]

This verse from the Quran makes it abundantly clear that whatever be the situation one might find himself/herself in, he/she will be able to find a golden example to relate to, in the life of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him). The way in which he conducted himself across all the situations and challenges faced by him shines as a beacon of light for all those who wish to be supremely successful in this world and the Hereafter. From the time he was born till he breathed his last, his life still continues to guide human beings and will continue to do so till the end of times.

Of the various ways in which a human being reacts to the challenges of life, it is only during the periods of hardships that ones true mettle stands out. This is where the noble character of our beloved Prophet (Peace be upon him) acts as radiance for those who go through such tough situations. Being born an orphan and having to lose his mother also at a tender age of six, is enough of a hardship for anyone but he epitomised patience at its best. He also lost his grandfather when he was eight years. The death of the parents and grandfather of Prophet (Peace be upon him) when he was young made him sensitive to the hardships of others and helped him know humility and not become arrogant  a lesson most of us conveniently chose to ignore, only to our own peril.

Later, he had to rear goats to eke out a living. The choice of the occupation was significant. After becoming a Prophet, Muhammad (Peace be upon him) remarked:

There has been no Prophet who has not tended sheep.

Being a shepherd helps build qualities like patience, humbleness, responsibility, bravery, mercy, compassion and the ability to deal with hardships.

He had to bury all his sons with his own hands. All his sons passed away during their childhood itself and did not live to see their father become a Prophet. The death of the sons of Prophet (Peace be upon him) was a trial but this was how Allah wanted us to know that leadership in religion is not inherited. He lost all his daughters in his lifetime except Fatimah. His daughter Rukayyah was buried even before his return from the Battle of Badr. Unfortunately, we live in a time when the burial of the dead is kept in abeyance for all flimsy reasons. How far are we from emulating the blessed Sunnah of burying the dead at the earliest! Of the few occasions, where haste has been encouraged in Islam are while burying the dead and praying at its earliest times. This is precisely what most of us hardly practise!

When the first revelation of the Quran came, angel Jibril (Gabriel) appeared in his true form, took hold of him and pressed him hard until he could not endure it any longer. The Prophet (Peace be upon him) was terrified and his heart was pounding hard until he was comforted by his wife Khadijah. To add to his woes, when his caring wife took him to her cousin, the old and venerable Waraqah Bin Naufal, he was forewarned about his expulsion from his own place of birth.

The beginning of the open call to Islam at Mount Safah was met with opposition from none other than his own uncle, Abu Lahab. The elders of Quraish would jeer at him and taunt him. He was subjected to ridicule, contempt and mockery, only because he was calling people to the worship of Allah. The pagan Arabs used to vilify him:

This is a poet, a madman, a soothsayer. Satan comes to him and teaches him.He is a sorcerer, a liar.

Yet, he would neither retaliate nor invoke the curse of Allah upon them. These unjust ridicule and condemnation deeply hurt the Prophet (Peace be upon him), as Allah Almighty says:

We know that your breast is distressed by what they say. [Quran, 15:97]

Allah then revealed verses of inspiration and comfort to help the Prophet (Peace be upon him) remain steadfast. His persecution only increased when neither threats nor bargains proved fruitful.

He (Peace be upon him) was mistreated by his own neighbours like Abu Jahl, Uqbah Ibn Abi Muait, Hakam Bin Abi Al-As Bin Umayyah and all that he would say was:

What kind of neighbourhood is this?

When the Prophet (Peace be upon him) bowed down in prayer, someone would throw the foetus of camel on his back and yet others would throw similar filth at his door. Whenever Umayyah Bin Khalaf would see him, he would taunt him before the people of Makkah. Uqbah Bin Abi Muait would spit on his face and Abu Lahab ordered both his sons to divorce their wives, who were the daughters of Prophet (Peace be upon him). It is unfathomable to imagine the agony this would have caused to the Prophet (Peace be upon him), given that they were forcibly divorced for no fault of theirs, except that they believed in the True Message that their beloved father had come with.

One of the sons of Abu Lahab, Atibah/Utbah, became a constant source of irritation for the Prophet and once, he even spat on the blessed face of the Prophet (Peace be upon him). Umm Jamil, the wife of Abu Lahab, was no less in her enmity and used to scatter prickly bits of wood over the path that the Prophet (Peace be upon him) would pass. How much this would have pained him, coming as it does from his own uncles wife?

When his companions had to migrate to Abyssinia, his persecution only worsened. Uqbah Bin Abi Muait once saw the Prophet (Peace be upon him) praying and waited for him to place his head on the ground. He then placed his foot on the Prophets neck and pressed down with all his weight until the eyes of the Prophet bulged. Once when he was surrounded by a mob on all sides, and Uqbah Bin Abi Maait caught hold of a cloth hanging from around his neck and began choking the Prophet (Peace be upon him) until Abubakar had to rescue him.

He and his companions were subjected to social boycott and it was devastating. Three years of near starvation and hardship made their life miserable. Then, the uncle and wife, the two closest comforters and supports of Prophet (Peace be upon him), passed away in the same year. It was a double blow to Prophet (Peace be upon him), sorrow after sorrow and this year came to be known in Islamic history as the Year of sorrow. Even small acts of unkindness stung him more than ever as he grieved over his bereavement.

Our beloved Prophets journey to Taif was met with not only disappointment but also with bruises all over his blessed feet so much so that it began to crack and bleed. He considered the day of Taif as the worst day of his life. Yet, Prophet (Peace be upon him) did not seek revenge against the people of Taif. Instead he wanted Allah to guide them to Islam. The way he conducted himself during his visit to Taif has got enormous number of lessons for us to ponder upon. His steadfastness, his resolute faith and trust in Allah, his ability to forgive those who harmed him, his compassion and mercy to the street urchins who pelted stones at him such as his feet bled, his supplication to Allah seeking solely the good pleasure of Allah, his strategy employed in Daawah when he met Addas at an orchard  are all something that we should take heed of. He was bruised yet he was not down.

He was forced to leave his homeland, his house and his family. When he reached the outskirts of the blessed city of Makkah, he looked back emotionally and said:

You are the most beloved to Allah among Allahs lands and you are also the most beloved to me among Allahs lands. Were it not that the idolaters have driven me out from you, I would have never left you.

His subsequent stay in Cave Thawr for three nights with his beloved companion and the arduous and circuitous journey that they both undertook to protect the religion of Islam did have their own share of hardships. Living in a globalised world and enjoying the comforts of the means of travel, the pain of migration and hardship of separation from ones family are difficult to fathom for most of us!

Even after his migration, he had to face battle after battle, thrust on him by the enemies of Islam, Badr, Uhud, Khandaq, Khaibar, Tabuk, to name a few. His beloved uncle Hamzah was brutally assassinated in a gruesome manner, in the Battle of Uhud and his body parts were mutilated. This pained him so much that he did not want to see eye to eye with Hindah, the person who was responsible for his uncles death, even after he forgave her. Is this not a classical example of repelling evil by doing good, as the Quran exhorts us?

His beloved, pure and chaste wife, Aisha was character assassinated. When this evil rumour was spread like a wild fire by the hypocrites of Madinah, he had to wait for revelation from Allah to exonerate her and to attest to her chastity through the verses of Surah An-Nur. His heart was burdened with grief till then yet he never chided her. What a beautiful character he had displayed during the most trying times!

After the Conquest of Khaibar, he was even poisoned by the Jews when they tried to kill him through the wife of Sallam Bin Mishkam, who sprinkled the shoulder of a roasted goat literally with poison and presented it to him. Although he was subsequently protected by Allah, he chose to forgive his enemies who had tried to kill him! Is this not repelling evil by doing good unto such evil doers?

Even during his final days of his life in this world, he was subjected to the severest of illnesses. His pain intensified, he often kept losing consciousness and his health deteriorated so much so that he sent word to Abubakar to lead the prayer. Fatimah was so distressed at her fathers agony that she cried:

O the pains of my dear father! The Prophet (Peace be upon him) replied: After this day, your father will suffer no pain.

These words truly reflect the amount of suffering and hardship that he faced throughout his life.

Respected brothers and sisters! If this was how the noblest of the human beings to walk on the face of the earth had to face hardships and trials, one after another, till he breathed his last, then would it be sane to think and wish that we could lead a trial-free life in this world. To this effect, Allah asks a rhetorical question in Surah Al-Ankabut:

Do people think that they will be left alone because they say We believe and will not be tested? [Quran, 29:2]

This is a rebuke in the form of a question, meaning that Allah will inevitably test His believing servants according to their level of faith.

An authentic Hadith states:

The people most severely tested are the Prophets, then the righteous, then the next best, and the next best. A man will be tested in accordance with the degree of religious commitment, the stronger his religious commitment, the stronger his test.

And the entire suffering any one of us undergoes will turn pale in comparison to the quantum of the suffering undergone by our beloved Prophet (Peace be upon him).

May Allah help us to overcome the hardships and trials that He subjects us to and to never despair of His Ever-encompassing Mercy and to remove the hardships of all those who are suffering around the globe. Ameen.

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May the peace, blessings and salutations of Allah be upon our noble Messenger, Muhammad (Peace be upon him), and upon his family, his Companions and his true followers.

Murtadha Muhammad Gusau is the Chief Imam of: Nagazi-Uvete Jumuah Mosque; and Late Alhaji Abdur-Rahman Okene Mosque, Okene, Kogi State, Nigeria. He can be reached via: gusauimam@gmail.com; or +2348038289761.

This Friday sermon (Jumuah Khutbah) was prepared for delivery today Friday, 20 Muharram, 1446 AH (26 July 2024).

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


cyber insurance emerges as a vital tool for risk management. It provides a safety net for businesses, helping them cover the costs associated with data breaches, legal fees, public relations efforts, and business interruption. By alleviating some of the financial pressure, cyber insurance allows businesses to focus on recovering and continuing their operations after an attack.

It is gratifying to learn that National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has introduced a bill to implement cyber insurance for businesses in Nigeria.

This is coming as the agency is encouraging Nigerian youths to participate in the ECOWAS Cybersecurity Hackathon, a regional competition aimed at promoting cybersecurity skills and awareness. The competition aims to foster a platform for young technology enthusiasts, ultimately enhancing the cyber workforce in the region.

With the steady increase in cyberattacks and the current talent shortage in cybersecurity, this hackathon presents a timely opportunity for Nigerian youths to showcase their skills and play a crucial role in securing the digital future of their country and the region.

Meanwhile, the cyber insurance bill initiative aims to foster an environment of fair competition, stimulate innovation, and enhance growth and competitiveness within the Nigerian economy.

As cyber threats become more prevalent and damaging, the concept of cyber insurance is gaining traction all over the world. Cyber insurance is designed to help organisations mitigate the financial risks associated with cyber incidents, such as data breaches, ransomware attacks, and other forms of cybercrime. By transferring some of the financial burden to an insurance provider, businesses can better manage the fallout from cyber attacks and ensure continuity in their operations.

Understanding cyber insurance is crucial for the sustainability and security of businesses in Nigerias digital economy. As more Nigerian companies embrace digital transformation and expand their online presence, they become more vulnerable to cyber threats. Without adequate protection, these businesses risk severe financial losses, reputational damage, and disruptions that could potentially cripple their operations.

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 primary purpose of cyber insurance is to provide financial support and resources to businesses in the aftermath of a cyber incident. This can include covering the costs associated with data breaches, such as notifying affected individuals, providing credit monitoring services, and handling public relations efforts to manage the reputational damage.

The rise of cyber threats in Nigeria is a testament to the growing sophistication of cybercriminals and the increasing value of digital assets. Businesses of all sizes, from small enterprises to large corporations, are targets of cyber attacks. The financial impact of these attacks can be devastating, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that may lack the resources to recover from a major cyber incident.

In this context, cyber insurance emerges as a vital tool for risk management. It provides a safety net for businesses, helping them cover the costs associated with data breaches, legal fees, public relations efforts, and business interruption. By alleviating some of the financial pressure, cyber insurance allows businesses to focus on recovering and continuing their operations after an attack.

In todays digital age, cyber insurance has become a critical component of risk management for businesses around the world. It is a specialised form of insurance designed to protect organisations from the financial consequences of cyber-related incidents. Unlike traditional insurance policies that cover physical risks like fire or theft, cyber insurance specifically addresses the intangible risks associated with cyber attacks, data breaches, and other forms of cybercrime. This distinction is vital as it highlights the unique nature of digital threats and the specialised coverage required to mitigate their impact.

The primary purpose of cyber insurance is to provide financial support and resources to businesses in the aftermath of a cyber incident. This can include covering the costs associated with data breaches, such as notifying affected individuals, providing credit monitoring services, and handling public relations efforts to manage the reputational damage. These expenses can quickly escalate, making cyber insurance an essential safeguard for businesses looking to navigate the complex landscape of cyber threats.

One of the key benefits of cyber insurance is its ability to cover legal fees incurred as a result of a cyber incident. When a business suffers a data breach, it often faces legal challenges, including lawsuits from affected customers, regulatory fines, and compliance-related expenses. Cyber insurance policies typically provide coverage for these legal costs, ensuring that businesses can defend themselves in court and comply with regulatory requirements without facing financial ruin.

Public relations costs are another significant aspect of cyber insurance coverage. In the event of a cyber attack, maintaining the trust and confidence of customers, partners, and stakeholders is crucial. Cyber insurance can help cover the expenses associated with managing a companys public image, including hiring public relations firms, creating communication strategies, and conducting media outreach. Effective public relations efforts can mitigate reputational damage and help restore customer trust more quickly.

Regularly reviewing and updating cyber insurance policies is a best practice that businesses should adopt. The cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving, with new threats and vulnerabilities emerging regularly. By periodically reassessing their risk profiles and updating their insurance policies, businesses can ensure that their coverage remains adequate and relevant. This proactive approach helps maintain a robust defense against the ever-changing cyber threats.

Also, business interruption coverage is a critical component of cyber insurance, particularly for businesses that rely heavily on digital operations. A cyber attack can disrupt business operations, leading to significant revenue losses and operational challenges. Cyber insurance policies often include coverage for business interruption, compensating companies for the income lost during the downtime caused by a cyber incident. This financial support can be vital for businesses to maintain cash flow and recover swiftly from the disruption.

Moreover, beyond financial reimbursement, cyber insurance can offer valuable support in the form of risk assessment and prevention services. Many insurance providers conduct thorough assessments of a companys cyber security posture as part of their policy offerings. These assessments help identify vulnerabilities and provide recommendations for improving cyber defenses. By implementing these recommendations, businesses can reduce their risk exposure and enhance their overall security posture.

In addition, it is worth emphasising the fact that the price of the premiums should not be a hindrance. The potential benefits of having cyber insurance often outweigh the costs. Investing in a comprehensive cyber insurance policy can save businesses significant amounts of money in the long run by mitigating the financial impact of cyber incidents.

Regularly reviewing and updating cyber insurance policies is a best practice that businesses should adopt. The cyber threat landscape is constantly evolving, with new threats and vulnerabilities emerging regularly. By periodically reassessing their risk profiles and updating their insurance policies, businesses can ensure that their coverage remains adequate and relevant. This proactive approach helps maintain a robust defense against the ever-changing cyber threats.

Integrating cyber insurance with existing cyber security measures is crucial for a comprehensive risk management strategy. Cyber insurance should not be viewed as a standalone solution but rather as a complementary component of a broader cybersecurity framework. Businesses should continue to invest in strong cyber defenses, including firewalls, encryption, employee training, and incident response plans, to minimise the likelihood of cyber incidents.

By taking these steps, Nigerian businesses can better protect themselves against the financial and operational impacts of cyber incidents, ensuring their long-term sustainability and growth in an increasingly digital world.

Shuaib S. Agaka, a tech journalist, writes from Kano.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


The Director-General of Michael Imoudu National Institute for Labour Studies ( MINILS), Ilorin, Issa Aremu, has called for an all-inclusive national social dialogue led by Organised Labour on the current economic challenges in Nigeria, saying dialogue should be prioritised over street protests to address the hardship in the country.

He made the call at the 2024 Policy Seminar Series of the Institute held on Thursday in Ilorin under the topic: Democratic, Human And Workers Rights: An Inevitable Tripology For Human Development.

Mr Aremu proposed the dialogue as an alternative to leaderless protests, adding that protests without clear-cut agenda are destroying countries like Sudan and Kenya, which Nigeria should not copy.

He said while Nigeria celebrates 25 years of uninterrupted democratic process, there are still anti-democratic forces lurking around to truncate democracy.

According to him, the challenges of democracy can only be overcome through more democracy and inclusive dialogue between the government and the people .

Mr Aremu commended the National Assembly for the speedy passage of the new N70,000 minimum wage bill proposed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He called on civil society to emulate the approach of organised labour in engaging in policy contestation through peaceful dialogue on the rising cost of living.

Also speaking at the event, a veteran journalist and international trade unionist, Owei Lakemfa, described Nigerian labour laws as some of the best in the world.

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 Lakemfa, a former Secretary-General of the Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU) and the guest speaker at the seminar Series, compared labour laws in different countries. He said while Nigeria has ratified 44 Conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United States has ratified only 14, including just two of the eight Core Conventions.

Mr Lakemfa, also the President of the Society for International Relations Awareness (SIRA), said the labour laws in Nigeria have reinforced fundamental human rights.

He, therefore, advised the trade unions to take advantage of this by ensuring their implementation in the workplace, marketplace, and public spaces.

Mr Lakemfa advised labour leaders to ensure the implementation of the ILO Decent Work Agenda, which provides for better prospects for personal development and social integration, freedom for people to express their concerns, organise and participate in the decisions that affect their lives and, equality of opportunity and treatment for all.

The unionist said under no circumstance should Nigerians allow their fundamental rights to be abridged, pointing out that Section 40 of the constitution provides that: Every person shall be entitled to assemble freely and associate with other persons, and in particular, he may form or belong to any political party, trade union or any association for the protection of his interests.

Mr Lakemfa also criticised the trend of casualisation of staff, which he said is illegal under the Labour Act.

He attributed the rampant cases of casualisation of permanent jobs to the corporate greed of some employers, including their propensity to maximise profit in all ways and at all costs.

The government, he said, must check infringements of workers rights and ensure job and social protection, which would lead to the delivery of quality work.

On the new N70,0000 national minimum wage, Mr Lakemfa advised all tiers of government and the organised private sector to implement it, warning that failing to do so would amount to a violation of the law.

He pointed out that the ILO defines minimum wage as: The minimum amount of remuneration that an employer is required to pay wage earners for the work performed during a given period, which cannot be reduced by collective agreement or an individual contract.

Mr Lakemfa said the Minimum Wage Fixing Machinery Convention 26 was passed in 1928, so it has universal applicability and is national only to the extent that the exact minimum paid is country-specific.

The veteran labour leader said the minimum wage can only meet some of the needs of the worker because it is not a stand-alone policy.

He said wages are part of the social policies that must be combined with policies, like providing the citizenry with basic needs such as food, healthcare, clothes, education, and mass housing. He said these are necessary and constitutionally sanctioned to reduce or eradicate poverty among the populace.

He added that countries, regardless of ideology, have nationally applicable National Minimum Wage irrespective of whether they are federal, unitary or a confederacy.

During the ceremony, Mr Lakemfa was honoured with the Fellow of the Institute award.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


The Governor of Kwara State, AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq, has commissioned the Burn Intensive Care Unit donated by a philanthropist in the state to the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH).

The facility was named after Batuli Ajiferuke Shagaya, the matriarch of the Shagaya family of Ilorin, whose member donated it to the hospital to enhance the treatment of burns.

While commissioning the facility, the governor, who was represented by the Commissioner for Health, Amina El-Imam, highlighted the steps of his administration in the healthcare sector, including the transformation of the General Hospital in Ilorin into the Kwara State University Teaching Hospital (KWASUTH).

He commended Sheriff Shagaya, the projects donor, saying his philanthropic gesture underscored the importance of public-private partnerships in improving healthcare infrastructure.

The governor called on other well-meaning individuals and organisations in the state to emulate Mr Shagayas gesture.

In his address, Mr Shagaya said the facility is more than a burn unit but a monument to resilience, a symbol of their determination to overcome adversity and transform their experiences into opportunities for growth and healing.

In his remarks, the Chief Medical Director of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), Yussuf Dasliva, thanked the donor, saying his gesture will reduce the tides of medical tourism abroad.

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

Dignitaries at the event include the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Yakub Danladi, the senator for the Kwara North District, Umar Sadiq, and a Member of the House of Representatives, Muktar Shagaya.

Others were the Chairperson, House Committee on Health, Kwara State House of Assembly, Razak Owolabi; Bola Shagaya, and All Progressives Congress (APC) stalwarts in the state.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


The Jigawa State Independent Electoral Commission (JISIEC) has announced 5 October for elections into the councils of the 27 local government areas of the state.

The commission postponed the elections to June 2025 following the amendment of the Jigawa State Electoral Law of 2012 to conform with the Electoral Act of 2022 provisions.

The federal law stipulates that political parties must be given a 360-day notice against the earlier 90-day notice to prepare for the elections.

However, JISIEC chairperson, Auwalu Harbo, announced the date on Friday at a meeting with political parties and security agents at the commissions head office in Dutse.

Mr Harbo said a recent Supreme Court judgement compels elections to be conducted at the local government level and forced the state to reverse the postponement of the elections.

In compliance with the Supreme Court judgement, the JISIEC, being a law-abiding authority, deemed it necessary to revert to its earlier decision on local government elections and unanimously requested for re-amendment and fixed Saturday, 5th October 2024 as the new date for the conduct of the local government elections in Jigawa State.

This decision marked the beginning of notice to all interested registered Political Political Parties wishing to participate in the forthcoming Local Government Councils Election to prepare based on the election timetable, Mr Harbo 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

Local government elections were last conducted in the state in June 2021. When the tenure of the elected councils elapsed on 28 June 2024, the state government dissolved the councils the same day and asked the Directors of Administration and General Services (DAGs) to take over the administration of the local governments.

Jigawa State has 287 political wards and 4,523 polling units.

In the election timetable, political parties campaigns begin on 3 August, and nomination forms sales begin on 24 August and close on 2 September.

The representatives of political parties at the event endorsed the timetable.

The political adviser to the state governor, Lawan Garba, and the governors adviser on inter-party affairs, Bala Idi, attended the event.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


The Labour Party (LP) in Imo State has asked the Nigerian Senate to declare a lawmakers seat vacant for defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

The Senator, Onyewuchi Ezenwa, who represents Imo East District, defected to the APC on Tuesday, citing the alleged existence of factions in the LP at the national and state levels.

Mr Ezenwa was elected senator on the platform of the LP in the 2023 general election.

Declare his seat vacant

Reacting in a statement on Wednesday, the LP spokesperson in Imo State, Bright Ofurum, described the lawmakers defection as a political suicide.

Mr Ofurum said having won his senatorial election on the platform of the LP, Mr Ezenwa was still carrying the mandate of the party in the Senate.

Suffice to point out crystal clear that the Imo East electorate passionately voted for our Party and not him as a person, he cannot carry our mandate to APC.

In light of the current development and in line with the letters and spirit of the 1999 Constitution as amended, we request Senator Ezenwa Onyewuchi to do the needful and resign immediately from the Senate following his shameful defection (to the APC), 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 LP spokesperson asked the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, to declare Mr Ezenwas seat vacant in line with Section 68(2) of the Nigerian Constitution.

Our party hereby gives the Senate president three days to declare Senator Onyewuchis seat vacant otherwise, we shall approach the court to reclaim the mandate freely given to our party by the Imo East electorate who placed their love and support in us, he said.

Biting the finger that fed you.

Mr Ofurum claimed Mr Ezenwa was politically drowned and dead after losing in the PDP primary election before LP had pity on him and gave him the partys ticket.

The spokesperson said the lawmakers defection amounted to biting fingers that fed him when he was very, very hungry.

He added that the senators defection happened after months of hide and seek romance with APC.

Mr Ofurum claimed that Mr Ezenwa had not attended any Labour Party meetings or functions since he was sworn into the Senate.

He has not added any value to our party, thus, our party will not miss him at all, he said.

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

Telegram

LinkedIn

Email

Print


Food Processing Workers Win Real Union Representation, Prepare to Negotiate First Teamsters Contract

FIREBAUGH, Calif., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Over 1,100 workers at TomaTek Inc. in California have voted overwhelmingly to join the Teamsters Union. TomaTek, a subsidiary of the Neil Jones Food Company, processes and packages tomato-based products for industrial, foodservice, and retail companies.

"Teamsters Joint Council 7 is proud to welcome these workers as our newest Teamsters brothers and sisters," said Peter Finn, President of Joint Council 7 and Teamsters Western Region International Vice President. "Our Joint Council's unwavering commitment to organizing has delivered this victory, and we are prepared to fight relentlessly for the strong Teamsters contract that TomaTek workers deserve."

TomaTek workers organized with the Teamsters to gain stronger protections and address years of workplace concerns.

"I've worked for TomaTek for over two years, and it is clear we need significant change," said Jose Lalo Ruiz, a warehouse worker at TomaTek and a new Teamster. "I have co-workers who have been here longer than I've been alive, and their stories make it clear we need strong union representation. That is why so many of us voted to join the Teamsters."

Now, TomaTek workers join the ranks of tens of thousands of workers in the food processing industry across North America who are protected by strong Teamsters contracts.

Teamsters Joint Council 7 represents 100,000 members in Northern California, the Central Valley, and Northern Nevada. For more information, visit teamstersjc7.org.

Contact:

Daniel Moskowitz, (770) 262-4971

[email protected]

SOURCE Teamsters Joint Council 7
WESTFIELD, Mass., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- All Energy Solar Inc. has been a leading solar installer in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and beyond for over a decade. The company's overall attention to detail and focus on customer service are just part of why it has continued to be recognized as an exemplary company in the solar industry. Most recently, Tesla Energy has given All Energy Solar extra recognition for the company's work.

Tesla has primarily been known for its electric vehicles, which are undoubtedly the most recognizable product contributing to its success. However, Tesla offers other products, including the Tesla Powerwall , a top-of-the-line battery storage system . With so much growth, Tesla has created a way to showcase their top certified installers.

The program distinguishes these top installers as Premier Certified Installers. Currently, this group is invitation-only, and selected installers were handpicked by the Tesla Energy team. The primary focus is to highlight Tesla's top installers who have strongly commited to customer service and Tesla products.

Founded in 2009, All Energy Solar has been acknowledged in the industry as one of the best. "The Powerwall is a high-quality product that we enjoy offering as it meets the preeminent standards of All Energy Solar," mentioned All Energy Solar Co-Founder and President Brian Allen.

As part of the criteria for this designation, providers need to be experts in the products they install, which includes having completed training by Tesla to ensure consistency in installations. Selected installers must also have a good relationship with Tesla, have continuous communications, offer exceptional customer service , and have a high-quality representation of Tesla's products. Allen noted, "We have always strived to offer superior services, with great attention to detail and support for our customers. This recognition from Tesla is a testament to our commitment to excellence."

Celebrating its 15 year anniversary this year, All Energy Solar has many things to be excited about in 2024 in addition to this designation of honor from Tesla. Most recently, All Energy Solar made Solar Power World's Top Solar Contractor list and being named a Solar Installer Of The Year by EnergySage . "We are thrilled to be one of Tesla's premier certified installers. We're proud to be associated with a highly respected company and look forward to our continued relationship with Tesla," said Allen.

All Energy Solar provides solar services for residences and businesses , as well as battery storage , electric vehicle chargers , and smart electrical panel installations in Illinois , Iowa , Massachusetts , Minnesota , New Hampshire , and Wisconsin .

About All Energy Solar

All Energy Solar is a full-service solar energy solutions provider for residential, commercial, agricultural, and government customers seeking to make the transition to solar energy. With industry-leading certifications and full electrical and building licenses, All Energy Solar installs quality solar power systems with excellent customer service throughout the experience and after installation. Visit allenergysolar.com

SOURCE All Energy Solar, Inc
CHICAGO, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alzheimer's Association is disappointed by today's decision by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to recommend against allowing Leqembi to be marketed across the European Union.

"The EMA has denied people living with Alzheimer's and their families more time," said Joanne Pike, DrPH, Alzheimer's Association president and CEO. "This decision is out of step with the state of the science, and the decisions of the U.S., Chinese, South Korean, Israeli, Hong Kong and Japanese regulatory agencies."

The Alzheimer's Association hopes individual health agencies in these countries will reject today's opinion and allow their citizens the opportunity to access treatment for this devastating, fatal disease.

"It is wrong. People living with Alzheimer's in some parts of the world are able to benefit from scientific advancements, while others are denied the opportunity. This decision by the EMA will deepen an already emerging global health inequity in Alzheimer's disease," Pike said.

While not a cure, this treatment can slow progression of the disease when taken in the early stages of Alzheimer's, allowing people more time to participate in daily life and live independently. Leqembi was granted traditional approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July 2023.

Alzheimer's Association

The Alzheimer's Association leads the way to end Alzheimer's and all other dementia  by accelerating global research, driving risk reduction and early detection, and maximizing quality care and support. Our vision is a world without Alzheimer's and all other dementia. Visit alz.org or call the 24/7 Helpline at 800.272.3900.

SOURCE Alzheimer's Association
Company Redefines Strategic Growth to Continue to Lead the Industry

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- AR Franchising, Inc., the prominent 40-year franchisor brand, AR Homes, named Don Whetro its Chief Executive Officer. This strategic move signals an exciting new chapter for the company as it expands into more markets and enhances its service offerings for existing franchises.

Whetro's ability to identify market trends, adapt to changing customer preferences, and implement innovative strategies earned him a stellar reputation. He leverages over two decades of proven experience in franchising and homebuilding. Previously serving as Chief Operating Officer and Interim Chief Executive Officer for AR Franchising, Inc., Whetro provides an unparalleled understanding of the AR Homes brand, its core values, and adapting for industry leadership.

"Don's extensive experience and visionary leadership will be instrumental in driving our growth and innovation," said Steve Rutenberg, Director. "We are confident that under his guidance, the AR Homes brand will continue to set new standards of excellence in the homebuilding industry."

Future Plans and Vision Under New Leadership

Under Whetro's leadership as CEO, AR Franchising, Inc. aims to redefine its strategic direction, foster innovation, leverage advanced technologies, enhance customer experience, and maintain the highest quality standards in custom homebuilding.

Upon his appointment, Whetro commented "It is quite humbling to have the opportunity to lead an iconic brand such as AR Homes. Homebuyer behavior and preference is rapidly evolving, and I feel we are uniquely positioned to serve the luxury home buyer in new ways and in new markets while still honoring our legacy of innovation, craftsmanship, and local expertise."

About AR Homes

Founded in 1978 by award-winning homebuilder Arthur Rutenberg, AR Homes is a legendary name in homebuilding, recognized for exceptional home designs, unrivaled elegance, quality craftsmanship, and enduring value. AR Homes are independently owned and operated franchises in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, with additional homebuilding companies and new home models anticipated to open nationwide.

According to Avid Ratings, AR Homes has consistently ranked in the top 10 percent in terms of customer satisfaction among all builders. To learn more about AR Homes, visit www.ARHomes.com .

Contact: Marli Wills

Marketing Manager

AR Franchising, Inc.

727-536-5900

[email protected]

For more information, visit www.ARHomes.com and www.ARFranchising.com .

SOURCE AR Homes
ASAP Translate Unveils Advanced Website Redesign to Elevate User Experience

PROVO, Utah, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- ASAP Translate, a leader in prompt, precise, and top-tier translation services, proudly announces the launch of its newly redesigned website aimed at enhancing user experience and facilitating seamless global communication.

Accessible at www.asaptranslate.com, the revamped website features a cutting-edge design and improved functionality, providing clients with a seamless and intuitive interface. Through a strategic partnership with OmniFunnelMarketing.com, ASAP Translate leveraged state-of-the-art UI/UX principles and advanced web design technologies to deliver an unparalleled online experience.

Embracing Innovation and Client-Centric Design

This redesign is far more than aesthetic; it signifies a strategic pivot toward a more client-focused digital presence. By integrating user feedback and the latest technological advancements, ASAP Translate aims to deliver an engaging and efficient online experience.

"At ASAP Translate, we value the power of clear communication. Our new website simplifies access to our services, clarifies our offerings, and facilitates seamless management of translation projects," said Elizabeth Hawkins, CEO of ASAP Translate. "We aim to instill confidence in our clients and support them at every stage, and this new platform is integral to that mission."

Key Features of the New Website:

User-Friendly Interface: The intuitive layout allows users to effortlessly navigate through services, pricing, and essential information.

Enhanced Speed and Performance: Built with the latest technology, the site provides faster load times and dynamic content delivery, ensuring a smooth user experience.

Mobile Optimization: A fully responsive design guarantees that users can access the full range of features from any device, including desktops, tablets, and mobiles.

Comprehensive Service Pages: Detailed service pages for each of ASAP Translate's offerings, including legal, technical, medical, and business translations, provides clients with in-depth, tailored information.

Secure Document Process: Our robust document processes ensure your documents are kept confidential and secure.

USCIS Acceptance Guaranteed: Compliance with USCIS requirements ensures guaranteed acceptance for immigration-related translations.

ATA Certification: Our services are endorsed by the American Translators Association, ensuring high standards and exceptional quality.

Competitive Pricing: We offer some of the lowest priced transactions online, making professional translations accessible to all.

Certificate of Translation Accuracy: Each translation is accompanied by a certificate affirming its accuracy and reliability.

Document Security: Advanced security measures ensure all documents are handled with utmost confidentiality and safety.

Free Email Delivery: Clients benefit from the convenience of free delivery via email for all translation services.

Notarization Available: For clients requiring extra validation, notarization services are offered alongside physical copies and expedited mailing services.

Localized Content: The website dynamically switches to the appropriate subdirectory (e.g., /es) based on user language settings, providing a personalized global experience.

A Partnership Built on Excellence

The collaboration with OmniFunnelMarketing.com was instrumental in realizing this vision. Their expertise in branding, UI/UX design, and web development has been crucial in creating a website that accurately reflects ASAP Translate's commitment to quality and client satisfaction.

"Working with OmniFunnelMarketing.com has been transformative. Their adeptness in branding, UI/UX, and web development has empowered us to elevate our digital presence and better serve our diverse clientele," said Elizabeth Hawkins, CEO of ASAP Translate.

A Vision for the Future

This launch signifies more than just a new website; it embodies a renewed commitment to innovation and client-centricity. ASAP Translate is dedicated to continuously enhancing its services and anticipating industry trends to meet evolving client needs.

Client-Centric Approach

"At the core of our new website is our commitment to our clients," said Elizabeth Hawkins, CEO of ASAP Translate. "We incorporated user feedback into every aspect of the redesign. From navigation ease to heightened security, each detail was meticulously crafted to enhance the client experience."

Recognizing the unique needs of each client, ASAP Translate's platform is as flexible and accommodating as possible. For those in the legal industry, the website offers detailed service pages elucidating the nuances of legal translations and the criticality of precision. In the medical field, the site highlights the importance of accurate translations for patient safety and regulatory compliance.

Security and Confidentiality at the Forefront

In today's digital landscape, online security and confidentiality are paramount. ASAP Translate has implemented advanced security measures to ensure that all client documents are meticulously handled. The secure client portal offers a safe environment for managing translation projects, tracking progress, and communicating with the translation team.

"We prioritize our clients' privacy above all," said Elizabeth Hawkins, CEO of ASAP Translate. "Our new website incorporates state-of-the-art security features to protect sensitive information and ensure trust."

Accessibility and Convenience

ASAP Translate's redesigned website simplifies access to high-quality translations at competitive prices. With the lowest priced translations online, professional translation services are now more accessible. The website also offers free email delivery, ensuring clients receive their translations promptly.

For clients needing additional validation, notarization and expedited mailing options are available. This added convenience ensures clients receive their documents in the desired format and timeframe.

Localized Content for a Global Audience

Acknowledging the diverse needs of its global clientele, ASAP Translate's website is fully localized. The site dynamically adjusts to the appropriate subdirectory (e.g., /es), providing a personalized and engaging experience in the user's preferred language.

"Our goal was to make our website globally accessible," said Elizabeth Hawkins, CEO of ASAP Translate. "Localized content enables us to better serve clients by offering a seamless experience in their native language."

About ASAP Translate:

ASAP Translate provides high-quality translation services tailored for various industries, including legal, technical, medical, and business. Committed to accuracy, speed, and client satisfaction, ASAP Translate ensures that every translation is both contextually and linguistically precise.

About OmniFunnelMarketing.com:

OmniFunnelMarketing.com is a full-service digital marketing agency specializing in branding, UI/UX design, and web development. Their holistic approach guarantees exceptional results, driving engagement and growth for clients.

For more information about ASAP Translate and to explore the new website, visit www.asaptranslate.com.

Media Contact:

OmniFunnel Marketing on behalf of ASAP Translate

Michael Tate

CEO-OmniFunnel Marketing

Email: [email protected]

Phone: 1-866-308-2956

Contact Information: ASAP Translate Email: [email protected] Website: www.asaptranslate.com

SOURCE ASAP Translate
- If approved, enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab will be the first and only treatment to offer an alternative to platinum-containing chemotherapy, the current standard of care for those with unresectable or metastatic urothelial cancer

- Positive opinion is based on Phase 3 EV-302 clinical trial results which showed enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab nearly doubled median overall survival compared to platinum-containing chemotherapy1



TOKYO, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Astellas Pharma Inc. (TSE: 4503, President and CEO: Naoki Okamura, "Astellas") today announced that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has adopted a positive opinion recommending approval of PADCEV (enfortumab vedotin, an antibody-drug conjugate [ADC]) in combination with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab, a PD-1 inhibitor) for the first-line treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic urothelial cancer, who are eligible for platinum-containing chemotherapy.2

Ahsan Arozullah, MD, MPH, Senior Vice President and Head of Oncology Development, Astellas

"Treatment options available to patients with unresectable or metastatic urothelial cancer are currently limited mainly to platinum-containing chemotherapy. The data underpinning the CHMP's approval recommendation show that this combination could change how clinicians manage first-line treatment of this disease. We are delighted that the CHMP recognized the potential for enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab as first-line treatment for patients with unresectable or metastatic urothelial cancer."

The positive CHMP opinion is based on data from the Phase 3 EV-302 clinical trial (also known as KEYNOTE-A39) which showed enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab significantly extends overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) compared to platinum-containing chemotherapy in patients with previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer (la/mUC). Treatment with the combination resulted in a median OS of 31.5 months (95% CI: 25.4-NR) compared to 16.1 months (95% CI: 13.9-18.3) with chemotherapy, representing a 53% reduction in risk of death (Hazard Ratio [HR]=0.47; 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 0.38-0.58; P<0.00001). The median PFS of 12.5 months (95% CI: 10.4-16.6) with the combination compared to 6.3 months (95% CI: 6.2-6.5) with chemotherapy represents a 55% reduction in the risk of cancer progression or death (HR=0.45; 95% CI: (0.38-0.54); P<0.00001). During the EV-302 trial, approximately 30% of patients completed treatment with chemotherapy and then went on to receive maintenance therapy with avelumab, a PD-L1 inhibitor, which is reflective of current real world clinical practice.1 Results were presented at the 2023 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Europe has the highest rate of new bladder cancer cases in the world.3 Every year, more than 165,000 people are diagnosed with the disease in the European Union (EU), and it claims the lives of over 50,000 people.3

Not only does bladder cancer affect a person's physical functioning throughout the disease journey, patients and caregivers also report significant impacts on quality of life and mental well-being which are often exacerbated by late detection and challenging pathways to diagnosis.4

The positive opinion will now be reviewed by the European Commission (EC), which has the authority to approve medicines in all 27 EU member states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.5

In December 2023, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab for the treatment of adult patients with la/mUC.6 In April 2022, the EC approved enfortumab vedotin as a monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with la/mUC who have previously received a platinum-containing chemotherapy and a programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1) or programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor.7

Astellas has already reflected the impact from this result in its financial forecast for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.

For more information, please see the press release "European Medicines Agency Validates Type II Variation Application for PADCEV (enfortumab vedotin) with KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) for First-Line Treatment of Advanced Bladder Cancer" issued on January 29, 2024.

About EV-302

EV-302 is an ongoing, open-label, randomized, controlled Phase 3 trial, evaluating enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab versus platinum-containing chemotherapy in patients with previously untreated la/mUC. The trial enrolled 886 patients with previously untreated la/mUC who were eligible for cisplatin- or carboplatin-containing chemotherapy regardless of PD-L1 status. Patients were randomized to receive either enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab or platinum-containing chemotherapy. The dual primary endpoints of this trial are OS and PFS per RECIST v1.1 by blinded independent central review (BICR). Select secondary endpoints include ORR per RECIST v1.1 by BICR, DOR per RECIST v1.1 by BICR, and safety.1

The most common (3%) Grade 3 or higher adverse events related to treatment with enfortumab vedotin and pembrolizumab were maculo-papular rash, hyperglycemia, neutropenia, peripheral sensory neuropathy, diarrhea, and anemia. The safety results in EV-302 are consistent with those previously reported with this combination in EV-103 in cisplatin-ineligible patients with la/mUC. No new safety issues were identified.1

The EV-302 trial is part of an extensive clinical program evaluating this combination in multiple stages of urothelial cancer and other solid tumors. Findings from EV-302 were presented at the 2023 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress and were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

For more information on the EV-302 trial (NCT04223856) go to https://clinicaltrials.gov.

About Bladder and Urothelial Cancer

Urothelial cancer, or bladder cancer, begins in the urothelial cells, which line the urethra, bladder, ureters, renal pelvis, and some other organs.8 Urothelial cancer accounts for 90% of all bladder cancers and can also be found in the renal pelvis, ureter, and urethra.9,10 If cancer is not able to be treated with surgery, it is called unresectable.11 If cancer has spread to surrounding organs or muscles, it is called locally advanced disease.12 If cancer has spread to other parts of the body, it is called metastatic disease.13 Approximately 12% of cases are unresectable locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer at diagnosis.14

Bladder cancer is diagnosed in approximately 614,000 people and causes 220,000 deaths worldwide each year.15 In Europe, bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer;16 more than 165,000 people are diagnosed with the disease in the EU each year.3 Continuous treatment and surveillance makes bladder cancer one of the most expensive cancer types over the lifetime of a patient and, in fact, have been shown to be the costliest cancer when compared to other malignancies.17

About PADCEV (enfortumab vedotin)

PADCEV (enfortumab vedotin) is a first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that is directed against Nectin-4, a protein located on the surface of cells and highly expressed in bladder cancer.7,18 Nonclinical data suggest the anticancer activity of enfortumab vedotin is due to its binding to Nectin-4-expressing cells, followed by the internalization and release of the anti-tumor agent monomethyl auristatin E (MMAE) into the cell, which result in the cell not reproducing (cell cycle arrest) and in programmed cell death (apoptosis).7

PADCEV is currently indicated in the EU as monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who have previously received a platinum-containing chemotherapy and a programmed death receptor-1 or programmed death-ligand 1 inhibitor.7

Ongoing Investigational Trials

EV-302 (NCT04223856) is an open-label, randomized, controlled Phase 3 trial, evaluating enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab versus platinum-containing chemotherapy in patients with previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer (la/mUC) who were eligible for cisplatin- or carboplatin-containing chemotherapy regardless of PD-L1 status.

EV-103 (NCT03288545) is an ongoing, multi-cohort, open-label, multicenter Phase 1b/2 trial investigating enfortumab vedotin alone or in combination with pembrolizumab and/or chemotherapy in first- or second-line settings in patients with la/mUC and in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC).

EV-104 (NCT05014139) is a Phase 1 trial exploring enfortumab vedotin in patients with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC). The trial will be conducted in two-parts, assessing dose escalation and dose expansion with enfortumab vedotin when administered intravesically as a monotherapy.

Enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab is being investigated in an extensive program in multiple stages of urothelial cancer, including two Phase 3 clinical trials in MIBC in EV-304 (NCT04700124, also known as KEYNOTE-B15) and EV-303 (NCT03924895, also known as KEYNOTE-905). The use of enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab in second-line urothelial cancer and MIBC has not been proven safe or effective.

EV-202 (NCT04225117) is an ongoing, multi-cohort, open-label, multicenter Phase 2 trial investigating enfortumab vedotin alone in patients with previously treated advanced solid tumors. This trial also has a cohort that is investigating enfortumab vedotin in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with previously untreated recurrent / metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

EV-203 (NCT04995419) is a Phase 2, multicenter, single-arm bridging trial in China designed to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and pharmacokinetic performance of enfortumab vedotin as treatment for patients in China. A total of 40 patients were enrolled in the trial.

Important Safety Information

For Important Safety Information for enfortumab vedotin please see the full Summary of Product Characteristics at: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/product-information/padcev-epar-product-information_en.pdf

About Astellas

Astellas Pharma Inc. is a pharmaceutical company conducting business in more than 70 countries around the world. We are promoting the Focus Area Approach that is designed to identify opportunities for the continuous creation of new drugs to address diseases with high unmet medical needs by focusing on Biology and Modality. Furthermore, we are also looking beyond our foundational Rx focus to create Rx+ healthcare solutions that combine our expertise and knowledge with cutting-edge technology in different fields of external partners. Through these efforts, Astellas stands on the forefront of healthcare change to turn innovative science into VALUE for patients. For more information, please visit our website at https://www.astellas.com/en.

About the Astellas, Pfizer and Merck Collaboration

Astellas and Pfizer have a clinical collaboration agreement with Merck to evaluate the combination of Astellas' and Pfizer's PADCEV (enfortumab vedotin) and Merck's KEYTRUDA (pembrolizumab) in patients with previously untreated metastatic urothelial cancer. KEYTRUDA is a registered trademark of Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA (known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada).

Astellas Cautionary Notes

In this press release, statements made with respect to current plans, estimates, strategies and beliefs and other statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements about the future performance of Astellas. These statements are based on management's current assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: (i) changes in general economic conditions and in laws and regulations, relating to pharmaceutical markets, (ii) currency exchange rate fluctuations, (iii) delays in new product launches, (iv) the inability of Astellas to market existing and new products effectively, (v) the inability of Astellas to continue to effectively research and develop products accepted by customers in highly competitive markets, and (vi) infringements of Astellas' intellectual property rights by third parties.

Information about pharmaceutical products (including products currently in development) which is included in this press release is not intended to constitute an advertisement or medical advice.

References

1 Powles T, et al. Enfortumab vedotin and pembrolizumab in untreated advanced urothelial cancer. N Engl J Med. 2024;390:875-888.

2 European Medicines Agency. PADCEV - opinion on variation to marketing authorisation. Available at: www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/variation/padcev. Last accessed: July 2024.

3 International Agency for Research on Cancer. Global Cancer Observatory. Cancer Today: 2022. Available at: https://gco.iarc.who.int. Last accessed: July 2024.

4 Astellas. Facing Bladder Cancer Report. 2022. Data on file.

5 European Medicines Agency. Authorisation of medicines. Available at: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/about-us/what-we-do/authorisation-medicines. Last accessed: July 2024.

6 U.S. Food & Drug Administration. FDA approves enfortumab vedotin-ejfv with pembrolizumab for locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer. Available at: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/resources-information-approved-drugs/fda-approves-enfortumab-vedotin-ejfv-pembrolizumab-locally-advanced-or-metastatic-urothelial-cancer. Last accessed: July 2024.

7 European Medicines Agency. PADCEV EMA SmPC. Available at: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/documents/product-information/padcev-epar-product-information_en.pdf. Last accessed: July 2024.

8 National Cancer Institute. What is bladder cancer? (February 2023) Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/types/bladder. Last accessed: July 2024.

9 Leow JJ, et al. Optimal management of upper tract urothelial carcinoma: Current perspectives. Onco Targets Ther. 2020;13:1-15.

10 Petros FG. Epidemiology, clinical presentation, and evaluation of upper-tract urothelial carcinoma. Transl Androl Urol. 2020;9(4):1794-8.

11 National Cancer Institute. NCI dictionary of cancer terms: Unresectable. Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/unresectable. Last accessed: July 2024.

12 National Cancer Institute. NCI dictionary of cancer terms: Locally advanced cancer. Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/publications/dictionaries/cancer-terms/def/locally-advanced-cancer. Last accessed: July 2024.

13 American Cancer Society. If you have bladder cancer. (March 2024). Available at: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/bladder-cancer/if-you-have-bladder-cancer.html. Last accessed: July 2024.

14 National Cancer Institute. Cancer stat facts: bladder cancer. Available at: https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/urinb.html. Last accessed: July 2024.

15 International Agency for Research on Cancer. Global Cancer Observatory. Bladder Factsheet. Available at: https://gco.iarc.fr/today/data/factsheets/cancers/30-Bladder-fact-sheet.pdf. Last accessed: July 2024.

16 International Agency for Research on Cancer. Global Cancer Observatory. WHO Europe Region (EURO) Factsheet. Available at: https://gco.iarc.who.int/media/globocan/factsheets/populations/994-who-europe-euro-fact-sheet.pdf. Last accessed: July 2024.

17 Aly A, et al. The Real-World Lifetime Economic Burden of Urothelial Carcinoma by Stage at Diagnosis. J Clin Pathw. 2020;6(4):51-60.

18 Challita-Eid PM, et al. Enfortumab vedotin antibody-drug conjugate targeting nectin-4 is a highly potent therapeutic agent in multiple preclinical cancer models. Cancer Res. 2016;76(10):3003-13.

SOURCE Astellas Pharma Inc.
- If approved by the European Commission, zolbetuximab would become the first and only CLDN18.2-targeted therapy approved in the European Union

- A decision on the EU marketing authorization is expected by October 2024

TOKYO, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Astellas Pharma Inc. (TSE: 4503, President and CEO: Naoki Okamura, "Astellas") today announced that on July 26, 2024, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) adopted a positive opinion recommending the approval of zolbetuximab in the European Union. Zolbetuximab, a first-in-class claudin (CLDN) 18.2-targeted monoclonal antibody, is recommended in combination with fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of adult patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma whose tumors are CLDN18.2 positive.1 If approved, zolbetuximab would become the first and only CLDN18.2-targeted therapy available for patients in the European Union.

In Europe, gastric cancer is the sixth most common cause of cancer-related mortality, responsible for more than 95,000 deaths in 2022.2,3 The disease is often diagnosed in the advanced or metastatic stage due to overlapping early-stage symptoms with other more common stomach conditions.4 The average five-year survival rate for patients in Europe is 26% across all stages of the disease, driving the need for new therapeutic options that can slow progression and extend lives.5

Moitreyee Chatterjee-Kishore, Ph.D., M.B.A., Senior Vice President and Head of Immuno-Oncology Development, Astellas

"More than 135,000 new cases of gastric cancer were diagnosed in Europe in 2022, requiring new treatment options that can improve patient outcomes and address the considerable unmet needs associated with this life-limiting cancer. Zolbetuximab has the potential to become the first approved CLDN18.2 targeted treatment for patients with HER2 negative advanced gastric or GEJ cancers in the European Union, underscoring Astellas' ongoing dedication to delivering therapeutic advancements that drive value for patients."

The positive CHMP opinion is based on the results from the Phase 3 SPOTLIGHT and GLOW clinical trials which explored the efficacy and safety of first-line zolbetuximab treatment in adult patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic HER2-negative gastric or GEJ adenocarcinoma whose tumors were CLDN18.2 positive, published in The Lancet and Nature Medicine respectively.6,7 CLDN18.2 positivity is defined as 75% of tumor cells demonstrating moderate-to-strong membranous CLDN18 immunohistochemical staining, assessed and confirmed using an in-vitro companion diagnostic test or medical device.6,7 Astellas collaborated with Roche on the VENTANA CLDN18 (43-14A) RxDx Assay that, upon approval, is intended to be used by a pathologist or laboratory to identify patients eligible for targeted treatment with zolbetuximab.8 This immunohistochemistry based companion diagnostic test is currently under review by the notified body.

The positive opinion will now be reviewed by the European Commission, which has the authority to approve medicines in all 27 European Union (EU) member states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.9

Astellas has already reflected the impact from this result in its financial forecast for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.

In addition to the EMA, Astellas has submitted applications to other regulatory agencies around the world with reviews of zolbetuximab ongoing. Zolbetuximab was approved in Japan by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) in March 2024, the first and only CLDN18.2-targeted treatment approved by any regulatory agency in the world.10 For more information, please see the press release "Astellas' VYLOY (zolbetuximab) Approved in Japan for Treatment of Gastric Cancer" issued on March 26, 2024.

CURRENT LEGAL STATUS: Zolbetuximab has not been approved in the EU for the first-line treatment of adult patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma whose tumors are CLDN18.2 positive.

About Zolbetuximab

Zolbetuximab is a claudin 18.2-directed cytolytic antibody being investigated in combination with fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of adult patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinoma whose tumors are claudin (CLDN) 18.2 positive. Eligible patients should have CLDN 18.2 positive tumor status defined as 75% of tumor cells demonstrating moderate to strong membranous CLDN18 immunohistochemical staining. In both the SPOTLIGHT and GLOW Phase 3 clinical trials, approximately 38% of patients screened had tumors that were CLDN18.2 positive.6,7

As an investigational first-in-class monoclonal antibody (mAb), zolbetuximab targets and binds to CLDN18.2, a transmembrane protein expressed on cancer cells. In pre-clinical studies, zolbetuximab reduced the number of CLDN18.2-positive cells via antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity and complement-dependent cytotoxicity, leading to tumor growth inhibition.11

About Locally Advanced Unresectable Metastatic Gastric and Gastroesophageal Junction Cancer

Across Europe, over 135,000 new cases of gastric cancer, also known as stomach cancer, were diagnosed in 2022.3 Gastric cancer is the sixth most common cause of cancer-related mortality in Europe, responsible for 95,431 deaths in 2022.2,3 Gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) adenocarcinomas start in the first two inches (5 cm) where the esophagus joins the stomach.12

Because early-stage cancer symptoms frequently overlap with more common stomach-related conditions, gastric cancers are often diagnosed in the advanced or metastatic stage, or once they have spread from the tumor's origin to other body tissues or organs.4

Early signs and symptoms can include indigestion or heartburn, pain or discomfort in the abdomen, nausea and vomiting, bloating of the stomach after meals, loss of appetite.4,13 Signs of more advanced gastric cancer can include unexplained weight loss, weakness and fatigue, sensation of food getting stuck in the throat while eating, vomiting blood or having blood in the stool.4,13,14 Risk factors associated with gastric and GEJ cancer can include older age, male gender, family history, H. pylori infection, smoking, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).15,16

INVESTIGATIONAL STUDIES

About SPOTLIGHT Phase 3 Clinical Trial

SPOTLIGHT is a Phase 3, global, multi-center, double-blind, randomized study, assessing the efficacy and safety of zolbetuximab plus mFOLFOX6 (a combination chemotherapy regimen that includes oxaliplatin, leucovorin, and fluorouracil) compared to placebo plus mFOLFOX6 as a first-line treatment in patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic HER2-negative gastric or GEJ adenocarcinoma whose tumors were CLDN18.2 positive. The study enrolled 565 patients at 215 study locations in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Europe, South America, and Asia. The primary endpoint is progression-free survival (PFS) of participants treated with the combination of zolbetuximab plus mFOLFOX6 compared to those treated with placebo plus mFOLFOX6. Secondary endpoints include overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR), duration of response (DOR), safety and tolerability, and quality-of-life parameters.6

Data from the SPOTLIGHT clinical trial were presented during the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Gastrointestinal (GI) Cancers Symposium in an oral presentation on January 19, 2023, and were subsequently published in The Lancet on April 14, 2023.6

For more information, please visit clinicaltrials.gov under Identifier NCT03504397 .

About GLOW Phase 3 Clinical Trial

GLOW is a Phase 3, global, multi-center, double-blind, randomized study, assessing the efficacy and safety of zolbetuximab plus CAPOX (a combination chemotherapy regimen that includes capecitabine and oxaliplatin) compared to placebo plus CAPOX as a first-line treatment in patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic HER2-negative gastric or GEJ adenocarcinoma whose tumors were CLDN18.2 positive. The study enrolled 507 patients at 166 study locations in the U.S., Canada, United Kingdom, Europe, South America, and Asia, including Japan. The primary endpoint is PFS in participants treated with the combination of zolbetuximab plus CAPOX compared to those treated with placebo plus CAPOX. Secondary endpoints include OS, ORR, DOR, safety and tolerability, and quality-of-life parameters.7

Data from the GLOW study were initially presented at the March 2023 ASCO Plenary Series with an updated oral presentation at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting on June 3, 2023, and were subsequently published in Nature Medicine on July 31, 2023.7

For more information, please visit clinicaltrials.gov under Identifier NCT03653507 .

Investigational Pipeline in CLDN18.2

An expanded Phase 2 trial of zolbetuximab in metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma is in progress and recruiting patients. The trial is a randomized, multi-center, open-label study, evaluating the safety and efficacy of investigational zolbetuximab in combination with gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel as a first-line treatment in patients with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma with CLDN18.2 positive tumors (defined as 75% of tumor cells demonstrating moderate to strong membranous CLDN18 staining based on a validated immunohistochemistry assay). For more information, please visit clinicaltrials.gov under Identifier NCT03816163 .

In addition to zolbetuximab, ASP2138 is under development in our Primary Focus Immuno-Oncology area and is currently recruiting patients. ASP2138 is a bispecific monoclonal antibody that binds to CD3 and CLDN18.2, and it is currently in a Phase 1/1b study in participants with metastatic or locally advanced unresectable gastric or GEJ adenocarcinoma or metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma whose tumors have CLDN18.2 expression. The safety and efficacy of the agent under investigation have not been established for the uses being considered. For more information, please visit clinicaltrials.gov under Identifier NCT05365581 .

There is no guarantee that the agent(s) will receive regulatory approval and become commercially available for the uses being investigated.

About Astellas

Astellas Pharma Inc. is a pharmaceutical company conducting business in more than 70 countries around the world. We are promoting the Focus Area Approach that is designed to identify opportunities for the continuous creation of new drugs to address diseases with high unmet medical needs by focusing on Biology and Modality. Furthermore, we are also looking beyond our foundational Rx focus to create Rx+ healthcare solutions that combine our expertise and knowledge with cutting-edge technology in different fields of external partners. Through these efforts, Astellas stands on the forefront of healthcare change to turn innovative science into VALUE for patients. For more information, please visit our website at https://www.astellas.com/en.

Cautionary Notes

In this press release, statements made with respect to current plans, estimates, strategies and beliefs and other statements that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements about the future performance of Astellas. These statements are based on management's current assumptions and beliefs in light of the information currently available to it and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Such factors include, but are not limited to: (i) changes in general economic conditions and in laws and regulations, relating to pharmaceutical markets, (ii) currency exchange rate fluctuations, (iii) delays in new product launches, (iv) the inability of Astellas to market existing and new products effectively, (v) the inability of Astellas to continue to effectively research and develop products accepted by customers in highly competitive markets, and (vi) infringements of Astellas' intellectual property rights by third parties.

Information about pharmaceutical products (including products currently in development) which is included in this press release is not intended to constitute an advertisement or medical advice.

References

1 European Medicines Agency. VYLOY (zolbetuximab). Available at: www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/vyloy. Last accessed: July 2024.

2 Digestive Cancers Europe. What are Gastric and Oesophageal Cancers? Available at: https://digestivecancers.eu/gastric-esophageal-what/. Last accessed: July 2024.

3 Ferlay J, et al. World Health Organization. International Agency for Research on Cancer. Global Cancer Observatory. Cancer Factsheet  Stomach. Available at: https://gco.iarc.who.int/media/globocan/factsheets/cancers/7-stomach-fact-sheet.pdf. Last accessed: July 2024.

4 American Cancer Society. Stomach Cancer Early Detection, Diagnosis, and Staging (01-22-2021). Available at https://www.cancer.org/cancer/stomach-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/signs-symptoms.html. Last accessed: July 2024.

5 Rawla P and Barsouk A. Epidemiology of gastric cancer: global trends, risk factors and prevention. Gastroenterology Rev. 2019;14(1):26-38.

6 Shitara K, et al. Zolbetuximab plus mFOLFOX6 in patients with CLDN18.2-positive, HER2-negative, untreated, locally advanced unresectable or metastatic gastric or gastro-oesophageal junction adenocarcinoma (SPOTLIGHT): a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, phase 3 trial. Lancet. 2023;401(10389):1655-1668.

7 Shah MA, et al. Zolbetuximab plus CAPOX in CLDN18.2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma: the randomized, phase 3 GLOW trial. Nat Med. 2023;29(8):2133-2141.

8 Astellas data on file.

9 European Medicines Agency. Authorisation of medicines. Available at: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/about-us/what-we-do/authorisation-medicines. Last accessed: July 2024.

10 Astellas press release issued 26 March 2024: Astellas' VYLOY (zolbetuximab) Approved in Japan for Treatment of Gastric Cancer. Available at: https://www.astellas.com/en/news/29026 . Last accessed: July 2024.

11 Sahin U, et al. FAST: a randomised phase II study of zolbetuximab (IMAB362) plus EOX versus EOX alone for first-line treatment of advanced CLDN18.2-positive gastric and gastro-oesophageal adenocarcinoma. Ann Oncol. 2021;32(5):609-19.

12 American Cancer Society. About esophagus cancer (03-20-2020). Available at: https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/CRC/PDF/Public/8614.00.pdf. Last accessed: July 2024.

13 National Cancer Institute. Stomach Cancer Symptoms (05-31-2023). Available at: https://www.cancer.gov/types/stomach/symptoms. Last accessed: July 2024.

14 The Royal Marsden. Stomach cancer symptoms: What are the signs of gastric cancer? (May 2022). Available at: https://www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk/private-care/news-and-blogs/stomach-cancer-symptoms-what-are-signs-gastric-cancer. Last accessed: July 2024.

15 American Cancer Society. Stomach cancer causes, risk factors and prevention (01-22-2021). Available at: https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/CRC/PDF/Public/8839.00.pdf. Last accessed: July 2024.

16 American Cancer Society. Esophageal cancer causes, risk factors, and prevention (06-09-2020). Available at: https://www.cancer.org/content/dam/CRC/PDF/Public/8615.00.pdf. Last accessed: July 2024.

SOURCE Astellas Pharma Inc.
Dorman met Cody's Wish for the first time during a visit to Godolphin's Gainsborough Farm in 2018. The two immediately connected, forming a life-long bond that lasted until Dorman passed in November 2023, one day after he watched Cody's Wish win a second consecutive Big Ass Fans Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile  making him the only two-time Big Ass Fans Dirt Mile winner in history.

"Big Ass Fans was part of two of the biggest days of Cody's life and two of the biggest days in Cody's Wish's career," said Kelly Dorman, Cody's father. "We'll never forget that."

During Thursday's celebration, Big Ass Fans honored Dorman's memory with a special gift  a commemorative Black Jack fan. The steel-framed, six-and-a-half-foot maneuverable fan, presented by Big Ass Fans' Chloe Bates, will ensure Cody's Wish stays cool and comfortable at Godolphin at Jonabell Farm.

"What an incredible legacy that this family and this horse and this boy have given us," said Bates. "We hope this gift will honor that legacy and Cody's memory for years to come."

With 800 acres of rolling pastures, Godolphin at Jonabell Farm is the American headquarters of Sheikh Mohammed's global Godolphin operation and home to multiple Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and G1 winning racehorses.

"Every step of this story just gets more magical," said Danny Mulvihill, stud farm manager at Godolphin's Jonabell Farm. "How lucky are all of us here at Godolphin to have been along for this ride? And we've got this big boy behind us here for an exciting next chapter in his career."

Our partnership with the National Thoroughbred Racing Association makes it possible for Big Ass Fans to support the racing industry and collaborate with organizations like Godolphin at Jonabell Farm, Keeneland and Breeders' Cup. Big Ass Fans is also a proud partner of Make-A-Wish Foundation, with whom we are excited to continue Cody's legacy by helping fund a future child's wish.

"I think Kelly and Leslie Dorman will say that granting wishes and horses were two of Cody's favorite things," said Faith Hacker, Kentucky Market Director for Make-A-Wish. "We're thrilled to share that, with the help of Big Ass Fans, as part of Make-A-Wish Day at Keeneland this October, we will grant the first wish as part of the Cody Dorman Legacy Fund."

Big Ass Fans

Bringing industry-leading airflow and energy savings to customers worldwide, Big Ass Fans exists to provide the best, most durable fans to fit any customer's needs. Big Ass Fans is guided by the high-volume, low-speed (HVLS) airflow concept to make spaces more comfortable and efficient. From factories to homes and everywhere in between, Big Ass fans deliver comfort, style and energy savings that make life and work more enjoyable. To learn more about Big Ass Fans visit bigassfans.com.

Make-A-Wish Foundation

Make-A-Wish OKI creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. Founded in 1983, we have granted more than 21,000 wishes, and in fiscal year 2023, we granted 1,205 wishes. Make-A-Wish is more than wish granting, it's a global movement of transforming lives through hope, and wishes need YOU. To learn more about how you can donate, volunteer, and share our mission, visit: oki.wish.org and follow us on social media @makeawishohkyin. If you would like to help make more wishes come true by supporting the Cody Dorman Legacy Fund, please visit oki.wish.org/codyswish.

Godolphin's Jonabell Farm

Team Godolphin spans across four continents, from our home in Dubai to Europe, Australia, Japan and America. Today Godolphin has close to 5,000 thoroughbreds worldwide. Jonabell Farm, with 800 acres of rolling pastures, is the center of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed's thoroughbred operation in North America, currently standing 13 stallions. Jonabell has produced more than 200 Stakes winners and 14 Champions.

SOURCE Big Ass Fans
ACOG supports cfDNA testing as a reasonable alternative for fetal RBC testing among alloimmunized patients

MENLO PARK, Calif., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- BillionToOne , a molecular diagnostics company with a mission to create powerful and accurate tests that are accessible to all, is thrilled to announce a new publication that shows cfDNA analysis is highly sensitive and specific for determining fetal antigen genotype as early as 10 weeks gestation. The new study published online in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the official journal of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), also known as "The Green Journal," supports the implementation of cfDNA testing to manage alloimmunized pregnancies in the United States. This study follows the recent ACOG clinical practice update that supports cfDNA testing as a reasonable alternative to amniocentesis for fetal RBC testing among alloimmunized patients.

Hemolytic disease of the fetus or newborn (HDFN) is a potentially life-threatening form of anemia caused by alloimmunization. ACOG recommends testing the reproductive partner's antigen status when alloimmunization is diagnosed in pregnancy. However, rates of reproductive partner screening uptake are low, and results can be misleading in the setting of nonpaternity.

In September 2022, BillionToOne's UNITY Fetal Antigen NIPT became the first commercially available cfDNA test in the US, providing highly accurate assessments of the fetal status for RhD, c, C, E, K and Fya antigens. It is the only clinically available NIPT in the US that includes antigens beyond RhD and is offered as an add on to UNITY Complete , the first and only test that uses cell-free DNA to provide precise fetal insights for both recessive and chromosomal conditions.

The Green Journal study demonstrates the accuracy of an NGS-based cfDNA analysis assay using BillionToOne's proprietary Quantitative Counting Templates (QCT) for the detection of fetal red blood cell antigen status in a large, diverse U.S.-based cohort. With 100% accuracy and no need for paternal testing or invasive procedures, the study finds that this assay will result in more alloimmunized individuals receiving informative results about fetal risk when compared to the traditional approach.

"We commend ACOG for acknowledging the role of NIPT for fetal red blood cell antigen genotyping and are thrilled that this new study highlights the UNITY Fetal Antigen NIPT screen's accuracy across all gestational ages and ethnicities, including complex maternal and fetal genotypes," said Jennifer Hoskovec, Certified Genetic Counselor and Vice President of Medical Affairs at BillionToOne. "The implications of this ACOG update are significant for patients and providers alike, reducing the need for resource intensive pregnancy surveillance for fetal anemia for many patients."

ACOG also recently announced that the use of RhD NIPT to conserve supply of Rh immunoglobulin (RhIg), also known as RhoGAM, is a reasonable consideration in the practice setting that is experiencing RhIg shortages. Since becoming available in 2020, BillionToOne's Fetal RhD NIPT has served over 100,000 patients . The test offers a reliable and convenient alternative to traditional methods of determining fetal RhD status via cell-free DNA from maternal blood only as early as 9 weeks gestation.

About BillionToOne

Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, BillionToOne is a precision diagnostics company on a mission to make molecular diagnostics more accurate, efficient, and accessible for all. The company's patented Quantitative Counting Templates (QCT) molecular counting platform is the only multiplex technology that can accurately count DNA molecules at the single-molecule level. For more information, please visit www.billiontoone.com .

Media Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE BillionToOne
Boxwood Successfully Completes its 8th Residential Services Franchisee Transaction

JUPITER, Fla., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Boxwood Partners is pleased to announce the sale of PD Tri-State Holdco, LLC ("PDS Tri-State" or the "Company"), a leading franchisee within Precision Garage Door Service ("PDS"), a Neighborly company, to Monogram Capital Partners ("Monogram"), a consumer and services focused private equity firm based out of Los Angeles, California.

Boxwood Partners, a leading boutique middle-market investment bank, functioned as the exclusive sell-side advisor to Tri-State on the transaction. The transaction was led by Brian Alas (Managing Director), Madison Day (Vice President), John Atkinson (Associate) and Drew Asadorian (Analyst). The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The PDS Tri-State transaction marks Boxwood's eighth residential services franchisee transaction and sixth within the Neighborly system over the last year. In addition, this marks the sixth private equity fund or institutional investor to join the Neighborly family.

"This is a great outcome for the Bencsko family. Monogram is a very experienced investor within franchising, and we are excited to follow the partnership given the resources they can bring to help the Company," said Brian Alas, Managing Director at Boxwood.

PDS Tri-State, based in Pompton Plains, NJ, was the first franchised location sold within the PDS system in 1999. Owned by brothers, Doug and Dennis Bencsko, the Company operates multiple territories in the greater New York metropolitan area, including Northern New Jersey, Long Island, Westchester, Fairfield, and Hudson Valley.

"Boxwood worked diligently to help us through the process and offered valuable advice and market intelligence every step of the way," said Doug Bencsko. "We are thrilled to have found the optimal partner for the Company and management in Monogram."

Monogram brings extensive experience scaling multi-unit businesses through both organic growth and M&A, most recently demonstrated through their experience in the Planet Fitness system, where they more than quadrupled the unit count of a leading franchisee in four years.

Jared Stein, Co-Founder & Partner added, "Doug, Dennis, and Brandon have built an exemplary organization and culture that will serve as the foundation for our ambitious expansion efforts within the Neighborly system. We are thrilled to have added this leading business to our portfolio after having a long-held thesis around the garage door repair industry and the attractive tailwinds underlying this space over the last couple of years. When we had heard towards the end of last year that the Bencskos would be looking for capital partners, we jumped at the opportunity. We were fortunate to have a strong relationship with the Boxwood team early on, which proved to be instrumental in getting this deal done expeditiously."

"We are excited for Doug, Dennis, and Brandon as they embark on the next wave of growth," added Madison Day, Vice President of Boxwood. "The PDS Tri-State platform has established itself as a best-in-class operation that will serve as a critical foundation to drive further profitability and growth as they pursue strategic initiatives with Monogram."

Brian Myeroff and Bryan DaCanal of Forvis served as the accounting advisor to Tri-State while Rochelle Friedman-Walk and Marshall Kobrin functioned as legal counsel for the transaction. Massumi and Consoli, LLP and PwC served as legal counsel and financial & tax advisors, respectively, to Monogram.

About Boxwood Partners

Boxwood Partners, LLC is a boutique investment bank based in Jupiter, Florida with offices in Richmond, Virginia. Boxwood Partners combines a unique blend of senior-level transaction advisory, business operating experience, and proven process execution skills to give its clients a distinct advantage in the market. The firm's extensive relationships within the global capital and buyer communities (including U.S. and international private equity groups, corporations, and lenders) and other important transaction-related service providers such as consultants, attorneys, and accountants, ensure that the firm's clients receive the attention, service, and results they deserve. For more information about Boxwood Partners, please visit www.boxwoodpartners.com.

About Monogram Capital Partners

Based in Los Angeles, Monogram was founded in 2014 by Jared Stein and Oliver Nordlinger to focus exclusively on investing behind outstanding founders and management teams in the lower middle market and currently has over $935 million of RAUM (regulatory assets under management). They are long-term, patient investors with significant industry experience, having invested more than $1.7 billion of private equity capital in over 70 transactions. Examples of bulge bracket investments include Union Square Hospitality Group / Shake Shack, Savers, Coldwater Creek, Eddie Bauer, Activision Blizzard, DSW, and 99 Cents Only Stores, among others. Investments on the Monogram platform include leading multi-unit businesses such as Planet Fitness and DIG as well as consumer-facing services and business services platforms such as Western's Smokehouse, Prime Matter Labs, and Mountaintop Beverage. Some of the firm's other consumer investments include Chewy.com, Olipop, Country Archer, and Vive Organic. For more information, please visit monogramcapital.com, or follow Monogram Capital Partners on LinkedIn.

About Precision Garage Door Service

Precision Garage Door Service, a Neighborly company, is the nation's leading residential garage door repair company. Precision Garage Door Service provides consumers the highest levels of customer service and value for all garage door needs, specializing in garage door repair, new garage door installment, and repair of garage door openers from more than 100 locations in the U.S. Acquired in 2020, Precision Garage Door Service is part of Neighborly, the world's largest home services company with more than 30 brands and 5,000 franchises collectively serving 12 million+ customers in six countries, focused on repairing, maintaining and enhancing homes and businesses. Neighborly brands are found at Neighborly.com and through the Neighborly App. For more information about Precision Garage Door Service, visit PrecisionDoor.net.

SOURCE Boxwood Partners LLC
NEW YORK, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --The global cardiac prosthetic devices market size is estimated to grow by USD 5.07 billion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 7.08% during the forecast period. Rising prevalence of cardiac disorders is driving market growth, with a trend towards increase in advancement in technology. However, complications associated with implantation of cardiac prosthetic devices poses a challenge. Key market players include Abbott Laboratories, Anteris Technologies Ltd., BIOTRONIK SE and Co. KG, Boston Scientific Corp., Braile Biomedica, Colibri Heart Valve LLC, Cryolife Inc., Edwards Lifesciences Corp., Jc Medical Inc., JenaValve Technology Inc., Lepu Medical Technology Beijing Co. Ltd., LivaNova PLC, Medtronic Plc, Meril Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd., Merit Medical Systems Inc., MicroPort Scientific Corp., OrbusNeich Medical Co. Ltd., Shree Pacetronix Ltd., TTK Healthcare Ltd., and Venus Medtech Hangzhou Inc..

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global cardiac prosthetic devices 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 Product (Prosthetic heart valves and Implantable pacemakers) and Geography (North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of World (ROW)) Region Covered North America, Europe, Asia, and Rest of World (ROW) Key companies profiled Abbott Laboratories, Anteris Technologies Ltd., BIOTRONIK SE and Co. KG, Boston Scientific Corp., Braile Biomedica, Colibri Heart Valve LLC, Cryolife Inc., Edwards Lifesciences Corp., Jc Medical Inc., JenaValve Technology Inc., Lepu Medical Technology Beijing Co. Ltd., LivaNova PLC, Medtronic Plc, Meril Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd., Merit Medical Systems Inc., MicroPort Scientific Corp., OrbusNeich Medical Co. Ltd., Shree Pacetronix Ltd., TTK Healthcare Ltd., and Venus Medtech Hangzhou Inc.



Key Market Trends Fueling Growth

The global market for cardiac prosthetic devices is witnessing significant growth due to the increasing demand for alternatives to traditional heart repair methods. Interventional cardiology advances, such as transcatheter TAVR, have made minimally invasive valve replacement procedures more popular than open surgical ones. Vendors in this market, including Medtronic plc and Edwards Lifesciences, are competing through technological innovation. Medtronic, in particular, leads the market in all heart valve segments: mechanical, tissue, and transcatheter. In March 2022, Medtronic received US FDA approval for its Harmony Transcatheter Pulmonary Valve, expanding its minimally invasive therapy offerings for patients with specific right ventricle congenital heart defects. This technological advancement will fuel market growth during the forecast period.

The Cardiac Prosthetic Devices market is witnessing significant growth due to increasing hospital stays and demand for post-operative care for conditions like coronary artery disease, heart failure, arrhythmias, and heart valve issues. Government healthcare programs and medical services are focusing on early detection through routine check-ups and screenings. The market includes cardiac surgeons, interventional cardiologists, cardiac nurses, and healthcare systems. Key trends include minimally-invasive procedures, smaller pacemakers, and advanced valve technologies like tissue valves, transcatheter valves, and mechanical valves. Cardiac centers offer implantable pacemakers, such as single-chamber, dual-chamber, and triple-chamber battery pacemakers, as well as external pacemakers. Obesity and congenital heart defects are major factors driving market growth. Awareness campaigns and comprehensive healthcare coverage through insurance plans are essential for early detection and treatment. The market's future lies in continuous innovation in medical technology to improve blood circulation, oxygen delivery, and nutrient transport for cardiovascular organs and heart tissues.

Discover 360 analysis of this market. For complete information, schedule your consultation- Book Here!

Market Challenges

The cardiac prosthetic devices market encompasses heart valve implants and pacemakers, used to treat damaged heart valves and control abnormal heart rhythms, respectively. However, complications from these procedures can hinder market growth. For heart valve implantation, complications such as vascular injuries, stroke, structural damage to the aorta, heart, and valves, and conduction tissue injury can be life-threatening. Pacemaker implantation complications include infection, bleeding, bruising, swelling, allergic reactions, lung collapse, major operative failures, and device malfunctions. These complications necessitate specialized medical teams and equipment during surgery and increase overall healthcare costs. Despite advancements in technology, the risk of complications remains a significant challenge for the cardiac prosthetic devices market.

The Cardiac Prosthetic Devices Market faces challenges in developing compact pacemakers and suture-less valve replacements for addressing cardiovascular disorders. Artificial heart valves made of biocompatible materials are in high demand due to the rising prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. Diagnostic capabilities such as echocardiography and cardiac MRI are essential for pre-operative assessments. Government healthcare systems and private insurance providers are seeking cost-effective solutions for cardiac procedures, including robotic-assisted surgeries and transcatheter interventions. Ventricular assist devices and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators are gaining popularity due to their wireless connectivity and remote monitoring capabilities. Mechanical valves, stented tissue valves, stentless tissue valves, and transcatheter valves are key product types in the market. Ageing population and heart-related conditions, including valvular heart diseases and coronary artery diseases, are driving demand. Minimally invasive procedures and healthcare infrastructure development are crucial for implantation techniques and minimally invasive surgeries. Blood flow management and minimally invasive approaches are essential for improving patient outcomes. The market is expected to grow significantly due to the increasing prevalence of heart valve disorders and advancements in medical devices technology.

For more insights on driver and challenges - Download a Sample Report

Segment Overview

This cardiac prosthetic devices market report extensively covers market segmentation by

Product

1.1 Prosthetic heart valves

1.2 Implantable pacemakers

Geography

2.1 North America

2.2 Europe

2.3 Asia

2.4 Rest of World (ROW)

1.1 Prosthetic heart valves- In 2023, the global cardiac prosthetic devices market experienced notable growth, particularly in the heart valves segment. This expansion was driven by several factors, including the increasing procedural volume, rising prevalence of valvular heart disease, and an aging population in Europe and other regions. Technological advancements played a pivotal role in market growth, with interventional cardiology seeing a surge in demand for minimally invasive procedures, such as transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Edwards Lifesciences Corp. Forecasts a USD10 billion global TAVR market opportunity by 2028, fueled by heightened awareness, technological innovations, and geographic expansions. Competitors like BIOTRONIK and JenaValve Technology, Inc. Are intensely competing and investing in research and development to develop advanced heart valves, further fueling market growth. These factors collectively contributed to the robust expansion of the global cardiac prosthetic devices market in 2023 and are expected to continue driving growth throughout the forecast period.

For more information on market segmentation with geographical analysis including forecast (2024-2028) and historic data (2018 - 2022) - Download a Sample Report

Learn and explore more about Technavio's in-depth research reports

The global Structural Heart Disease Treatment Devices Market is experiencing significant growth, driven by advancements in medical technology and increasing prevalence of heart conditions. Key drivers include rising geriatric population, innovations in minimally invasive procedures, and growing awareness of heart disease. Major players such as Edwards Lifesciences, Medtronic, and Boston Scientific are at the forefront, offering innovative solutions like transcatheter valves and repair devices to meet evolving patient needs.

Research Analysis

The global Cardiac Prosthetic Devices market is witnessing significant growth due to the increasing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases, including heart-related conditions such as valvular heart diseases, coronary artery diseases, and cardiac disorder. The ageing population and obesity are major risk factors contributing to the rise in cardiovascular disorders. Minimally invasive surgeries and implantation techniques have gained popularity in recent years, leading to the development of compact pacemakers and suture-less valve replacements. Cardiac centers are increasingly adopting biocompatible materials for artificial heart valves to improve patient outcomes. Diagnostic capabilities, such as echocardiography and cardiac MRI, are essential for accurate diagnosis and treatment planning. Government healthcare systems are also investing in cardiovascular care, driving market growth. Cardiovascular organs, including heart tissues, are complex structures that require precise engineering for prosthetic devices. The market for cardiac prosthetic devices is expected to continue growing due to the increasing demand for advanced, minimally-invasive procedures.

Market Research Overview

The Cardiac Prosthetic Devices Market encompasses a range of medical devices used to treat various cardiovascular diseases, including heart valve disorders, coronary artery diseases, and heart failure. With an ageing population and increasing prevalence of heart-related conditions, the demand for cardiac prosthetic devices is on the rise. Minimally invasive surgeries and procedures, such as transcatheter valve replacements and robotic-assisted surgeries, are gaining popularity due to their reduced hospital stays and faster recovery times. These devices include pacemakers, heart valves, and ventricular assist devices. Pacemakers help regulate heart rhythms by delivering electrical impulses to the heart, while heart valves ensure proper blood flow and oxygen delivery to the body. Valve replacements, whether mechanical, stented tissue, or stentless tissue, are crucial for treating valvular heart diseases. Implantation techniques have advanced significantly, with the development of smaller pacemakers, suture-less valve replacements, and transcatheter interventions. The healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals and ambulatory surgical centers, plays a vital role in the delivery of medical services, from pre-operative assessments and surgical procedures to post-operative care. Government healthcare programs and private insurance providers contribute to the comprehensive healthcare coverage necessary for the widespread adoption of these devices. Awareness campaigns and early detection initiatives are essential for addressing conditions such as obesity, congenital heart defects, and cardiovascular disorders. Medical technology continues to evolve, with innovations in wireless connectivity and remote monitoring capabilities enhancing patient care.

Table of Contents:

1 Executive Summary

2 Market Landscape

3 Market Sizing

4 Historic Market Size

5 Five Forces Analysis

6 Market Segmentation

Product

Prosthetic Heart Valves



Implantable Pacemakers

Geography

North America



Europe



Asia



Rest Of World (ROW)

7 Customer Landscape

8 Geographic Landscape

9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

10 Company Landscape

11 Company Analysis

12 Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
BEIJING, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A report from People's Daily: At the invitation of the Chinese side, high-level representatives of 14 Palestinian factions recently held a reconciliation dialogue in Beijing. They signed the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity.

This was an important historical moment in the Palestinian liberation cause, and an important step to solve the Palestinian question and achieve peace and stability in the Middle East. It has brought precious hope to the long-suffering Palestinian people.

The international community highly appreciates China's active mediation and promotion of internal reconciliation in Palestine, considering it a clear demonstration of China's commitment to a just stance and the country's role as a responsible major country in safeguarding regional peace and stability.

Only when Palestinian factions speak as one can the voice of justice be loud and clear, and only when they join hands and march forward shoulder to shoulder can they succeed in their national liberation cause.

The most important consensus from the Beijing talks is to achieve the reconciliation and unity among the 14 factions; the core outcome is the affirmation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of all Palestinian people; the biggest highlight is the agreement on establishing an interim government of national reconciliation focusing on the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza; and the strongest call is for truly establishing an independent State of Palestine in accordance with relevant UN resolutions.

Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy chief of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), noted that China is a beacon of light, and its efforts to promote reconciliation among various factions in Palestine are rare and commendable in the international arena.

Middle Eastern countries believe that the successful signing of the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity fully demonstrates China's unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their pursuit of restoring their legitimate national rights and justice.

The Palestinian question is the fundamental problem behind peace in the Middle East. Without a just resolution to the Palestinian question, there can be no lasting peace and stability in the region.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has sent congratulatory messages to a UN Special Commemorative Meeting in Observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People for 11 consecutive years. He also attended the BRICS extraordinary virtual summit on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, and has put forward initiatives and proposals on resolving the Palestinian question on multiple occasions, contributing Chinese wisdom and solutions to the resolution of the Palestinian question.

Promoting the realization of Palestine's internal reconciliation and solidarity is conducive to the just cause of the Palestinian people and the early, comprehensive, just, and lasting settlement of the question of Palestine.

China always supports Palestinian factions in achieving reconciliation and solidarity through dialogue and consultation and stands ready to provide platforms and opportunities for all Palestinian factions to carry out dialogue for reconciliation.

Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative Party, said, "China is decent and honest, genuinely wanting to help us without interfering in our internal affairs, and supports our cause by strengthening our unity."

Currently, the spillover effects of the Gaza conflict are becoming apparent, causing concerns about the situation in the Middle East. China believes that the pressing task is to realize a comprehensive ceasefire as quickly as possible; the key priority is to ensure humanitarian assistance; and the fundamental way out is to implement the two-State solution.

At the opening ceremony of the 10th ministerial conference of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, Xi once put forward China's propositions. He said war should not continue indefinitely, justice should not be absent forever, and commitment to the two-State solution should not be wavered at will.

China, together with the international community, will work with utmost urgency to promote a comprehensive ceasefire and end the conflict. The will also provide multiple batches of emergency humanitarian assistance to Gaza through bilateral and multilateral channels.

During the reconciliation talks in Beijing this time, China proposed a three-step initiative. The first step is to promote a comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible and ensure humanitarian assistance and relief access. The second step is to uphold the principle of "the Palestinians governing Palestine" and work together to promote post-war governance in Gaza. The third step is to promote Palestine to become a full member of the UN and begin to implement the two-state solution.

China's initiative, which is rooted in the present and looks to the future, helps to build consensus among all parties and steer the Palestinian question back onto the right track of political resolution.

China's efforts to promote internal reconciliation of Palestine represent the latest practice in implementing Global Security Initiative and maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East. In recent years, China has put forward a five-point initiative on achieving security and stability in the Middle East, a four-point proposal on solving the Syrian issue, a three-point vision for the implementation of the two-state solution between Palestine and Israel, and has successfully facilitated dialogue between Saudi Arabia and Iran in Beijing, leading to the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The purpose was to encourage regional countries to unite and strengthen themselves, and to resolve their conflicts and differences through dialogue and consultation.

China has no self-interest in the Middle East and does not engage in "exclusive blocs." It continues to play a role in promoting conflict de-escalation and easing tensions, firmly supporting the people of Middle Eastern countries in taking control of their own future. Abdulaziz Alshehhi, a senior researcher in political analysis from the United Arab Emirates, said China has become one of the most important forces supporting peace and development in the Middle East.

On the Palestinian issue, China stands on the side of peace, justice and conscience. China sincerely hopes that the various factions in Palestine can achieve national unity and independence through internal reconciliation at an early stage. Looking ahead, China will continue to make unremitting efforts with all relevant parties to contribute to the peace and stability in the Middle East.
KYIV, Ukraine, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Psychological Startup Clearly, originating from Ukraine, secures non-dilutive funding from Google for Startups Ukraine Support Fund. This funding will be utilized to expand Clearly's presence in international markets, including Poland, Spain, and Latin America, and to enhance its services through artificial intelligence.

Dmytro Marakhovskiy, Co-founder Dmytro Kovalenko, Co-founder

Clearly is a high-tech platform that effectively connects therapists with clients both online and offline. The product was developed by two Ukrainians, Dmytro Marakhovskiy and Dmytro Kovalenko, and was launched just two weeks before the full-scale invasion.

Despite challenging circumstances, Clearly has established itself as a leader in the competitive market, attracting investments from international funds and expanding to new markets.

"Resilience is our everything. Today's realities, coupled with startup activity, make resilience the only way to survive," said Dmytro Marakhovskiy, co-founder of Clearly.

Since its inception, Clearly has raised a total of $500,000 in investments, supplemented by non-dilutive funding. In its latest funding round, the startup is valued at $8,000,000.

The startup has already released strategies for entering new markets and developing AI functionality.

Photo for publication: Link to the photo folder

Media Contact:

Marta Kuznetsova

Public Relations at Clearly

[email protected]

+380991302023

SOURCE Clearly
WASHINGTON, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --

Event: Concert For Austin Ticeto mark 12 years since Austin's abduction in Syria.



Who: Country music rising star Scotty Hasting, an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, will perform two sets of songs. Between sets, we will hear from speakers in Austin's life including: his family, employers; commanding officer from his time in the Marine Corps; and government officials.



Where: Ballroom of National Press Club, 529 14th Street NW (13th Floor)



When: Wednesday, Aug. 14.

4:30 Doors Open

5:00 Intro: Emily Wilkins, president of the National Press Club;

Music with Scotty Hasting (First Set)





5:30 Program with speakers including:

Robert O'Brien, (former Director of National Security);

Brian Bruggemen, (Austin's Commanding Officer);

Tony Hunter (McClatchy CEO)

Antony Blinken, (Secretary of State -- Invited)Matt Murray (Executive Editor, The Washington Post)





6:10 2nd Set with Scotty Hasting

6:40 Thank you, Debra Tice, Austin's mom.

ABOUT AUSTIN TICE:

Austin Tice was taken in Syria 12 years ago  on Aug. 14, 2012. He was working as a freelancer journalist for McClatchy, The Washington Post and others. As President Biden has said last year "we know with certainty Austin is being held by the government of Syria." The program between sets of the concert will provide an update on Austin's case and cover key activities that have happened this year and discuss what needs to happen to bring Austin home.

Since last August, contact between the U.S. and Syria regarding Austin's release has continued. These meetings have been confirmed by Syria (including by Assad himself) and the host country of Oman, but not by the U.S. This strategy has inhibited coverage of these meetings by the U.S. press.

In April of this year Mrs. Tice met briefly with President Biden at the WH Correspondents Dinner. At that time she pressed for a follow-up to her 2022 meeting. So far that has not happened. She has continued to have high-level meetings with administration figures including last month with Brett McGurk.

The Washington Post has sustained an impressive ad campaign about Austin. There is a new Arabic language digital ad campaign by Hostage Aid Worldwide. A letter by Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. Chris Van Hollen is being circulated in the Senate asking POTUS to prioritize Austin's case. There are currently 13 signatories.

Despite this progress, several other strong initiatives are being stalled or thwarted by the U.S. because of pressure and lobbying efforts by factions opposed to negotiations with Syria and lack of will by the U.S. Government. Much more needs to be done. For more information about Austin: www.austinticefamily.com #FreeAustinTice #BringAustinHome

Tickets are available here: https://www.press.org/events/concert-austin-tice

The concert and program will be live streamed at the Club's website press.org.

The event is open for press coverage but press should register in advance.

ABOUT SCOTTY HASTING:

"For me, the demons of PTSD knock the loudest when it's quiet. When I have a guitar in my hands I find peace," says songwriter, artist, and Army Veteran, Scotty Hasting. In April of 2011, the former Army Infantryman with the 1st Infantry Division 4th Squadron 4th Cavalry was left fighting for his life flying out of Afghanistan on a medivac after being shot ten times. Narrowly escaping death, Hasting is now on a mission to help anyone struggling with loss or mental health find solace through his music. The Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky native bares his heart to listeners in his debut EP, I'm America (5/3). After hearing the project's title track, "I'm America" (2/9), written by Wade Kirby and Phil O'Donnell, Hasting knew he had to record it. "Every single line of this song is why I decided to enlist in the Army," says Hasting. Hasting's debut single on Black River, "How Do You Choose" (11/3) strikes a chord with anyone who has been left to pick up the pieces from a life-changing moment that's left them asking God that age-old question. The "promising, impactful debut" (Billboard) details Hasting's first visit to best friend Adam Hamilton's tombstone following his death. Having found his escape from PTSD through archery and music, the "'I'm America' hitmaker" (People Magazine) devotes his time and talents to several organizations, including PenFed Foundation, CreatiVets, Guitars 4 Vets, and Operation Encore, to offer other veterans the same tranquility. Despite only first picking up a guitar in 2020, Hasting has already opened for incredible artists including Dave Grohl, Tanya Tucker, Jelly Roll, Chris Janson, and more. Hasting recently represented the U.S. with multiple performances in Normandy, France during a week-long celebration commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day (exclusive People photo diary HERE), is slated to step into the coveted Circle for his Grand Ole Opry debut (7/28) during the Opry's celebration of 30 years of "Forrest Gump," and is set to celebrate fellow Veterans at the second annual National Veteran's Parade in Washington, DC (11/10) this Veteran's Day with a special Opening Ceremony Performance.

For more information and tour dates, please visit scottyhasting.com and follow Scotty Hasting on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

About The National Press Club

Founded in 1908, the National Press Club is the world's leading professional organization for journalists. With 3,000 members representing nearly every major news organization, the Club is a leading voice for press freedom in the U.S. and worldwide. In 2015 the Club named Austin Tice one of its Aubuchon Press Freedom Award Honorees. The Club holds an annual Run for Austin in November and hosts numerous briefings and press events for the Tice family throughout the year.

Contact: Bill McCarren [email protected] for the National Press Club

SOURCE National Press Club
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Consumers Energy Foundation unveiled the Community Food Club of Grand Rapids as one of their 2024 People Award winners today, distributing $250,000 to the area nonprofit to alleviate food insecurity in the community.

"Access to basic, affordable food is critical not only to sustaining individuals and families, but to ensuring whole communities thrive," said Brandon Hofmeister, president of the Consumers Energy Foundation. "It is a privilege to be able to work with an organization striving to address that need in one of our state's largest cities, and we are grateful for the opportunity to partner with them to help reduce the number of Michiganders struggling to put food on the table."

The Community Food Club will use the grant to make facility upgrades, purchase equipment, and make other enhancements to increase its capacity to serve Kent County residents. The project will add a produce cooler and additional storage shelving, an additional checkout lane to reduce wait times, upgrade software for better product delivery and other improvements.

"Through the partnership with the Consumers Energy Foundation, the Community Food Club will be able to implement crucial facility upgrades," said AJ Fossel, Executive Director of the Community Food Club. "This will allow our nonprofit grocery store to serve an additional 3,500 people a month and provide the fresh produce, dairy, meat, and dry goods they need to thrive. A big thank you to the Consumers Energy Foundation for investing in our model which is focused on dignity, choice, and our members who shop in our store."

The People Awards are the second of three signature grant allocations in 2024 totaling $1.5 million. The Foundation previously awarded the Planet Awards in April, and will present the Prosperity Awards this fall to support nonprofit efforts that support economic development.

The Consumers Energy Foundation is the charitable arm of Consumers Energy, Michigan's largest energy provider. The Foundation contributes to the growth and strengthening of Michigan communities by investing in what's most important  our people, our planet and Michigan's prosperity. In 2023, the Consumers Energy Foundation, Consumers Energy, its employees and retirees contributed more than $11 million to Michigan nonprofits. For more information, visit www.ConsumersEnergy.com/foundation.

For more information about Consumers Energy, go to ConsumersEnergy.com.

Check out Consumers Energy on Social Media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/consumersenergymichigan

Twitter: https://twitter.com/consumersenergy

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/consumersenergy

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/consumersenergy

SOURCE Consumers Energy
NORTHVILLE, Mich., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cooper Standard (NYSE: CPS) will participate in the J.P. Morgan 2024 Auto Conference in New York City on Thursday, Aug. 8.

Jeffrey Edwards, Cooper Standard's chairman and CEO, will discuss the Company's business and strategies in a presentation at 11:45 a.m. ET. The presentation will be accessible to the public via live webcast. A link to the webcast and presentation materials will be available ahead of time on Cooper Standard's website at https://ir.cooperstandard.com/events.

About Cooper Standard

Cooper Standard, headquartered in Northville, Mich., with locations in 21 countries, is a leading global supplier of sealing and fluid handling systems and components. Utilizing our materials science and manufacturing expertise, we create innovative and sustainable engineered solutions for diverse transportation and industrial markets. Cooper Standard's approximately 23,000 employees are at the heart of our success, continuously improving our business and surrounding communities. Learn more at www.cooperstandard.com or follow us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.

Contact for Media:

Chris Andrews

Cooper Standard

(248) 596-6217

[email protected]

SOURCE Cooper Standard
Energy Metals News Commentary

Issued on behalf of Usha Resources Ltd.

VANCOUVER, BC, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Energy Metals News  Despite recent setbacks in the price of copper (falling 20% in just two months), analysts at big banks and funds such as BMO, Citi, and Goldman Sachs believe that factors such as a recent Chinese smelter supply shortage and constrained mine supply will push the red metal's price back up. According to a report from Financial Times, the world's largest copper miners are predicting closer collaboration with their end users as copper shortages are set to flare up in the years ahead. A new study from the International Energy Forum, is already warning that the world needs 55% more copper mines to meet its EV transition goals. The mining sector is doing what it can to prepare for this surge in demand, with recent developments made by Usha Resources Ltd. (TSXV:USHA) (OTC:USHAF), Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE: FCX), Rio Tinto Group (NYSE: RIO), BHP Group Limited (NYSE: BHP), and Lundin Mining Corporation (TSX: LUN) (OTCPK: LUNMF).

In a strategic deal that saw it work to divest up to 90% interest in its Jackpot Lake lithium asset,

Usha Resources Ltd. (TSXV: USHA) (OTC: USHAF) took the opportunity at roughly the same time to execute an option for the right to purchase an undivided 100% interest in the Southern Arm copper property from Abitibi Metals. Building upon its reputation for acquiring and growing out value for its mineral assets, the Jackpot Lake sale for US$26,025,000 once completed would see Usha having successfully generated a return-on-investment of over 1,300%after only spent approximately US$1.835 million on acquiring and developing Jackpot Lake since 2022.

"Our strategic vision at Usha has always been to acquire and monetize undervalued assets," said Deepak Varshney, CEO of Usha. "With the recent acquisition of the Southern Arm Copper-Gold VMS Project from Abitibi Metals, our focus will now shift towards copper and other critical metals. With working capital of approximately $1.2M, Usha is in a strong financial position to execute over the coming year and we look forward to our maiden drill program at Southern Arm, particularly at "Hollywood", which has a ~1.8 km footprint that is open along strike."

Now with the potential upcoming addition of the Southern Arm asset, USHA is making a timely move into the copper sector. The asset hosts a ~7.3km copper-gold trend along the regional-scale Bapst fault within the same volcanic rocks group that hosts the nearby Selbaie Mine, and B26 Deposit of Abitibi Metals which is owned by the seller of the Southern Arm project, and who will be acting in an advisory role for the project with Usha as it progresses on the proposed exploration strategy.

"We are very excited to partner with Abitibi Metals on Southern Arm, which establishes Usha as a diversified metals company in North America with an opportunity to develop a company-making asset in the best mining province in Canada," said Varshney. "We look forward to working with the Abitibi team to advance Southern Arm and plan on completing a fully funded maiden drill program this coming Fall."

Down in Chile, US miner Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (NYSE: FCX) is moving forward with an expansion to its El Abra copper mine, an investment that's projected to be around $7.5 billion. The project is expected to take seven to eight years to develop due to permitting requirements, as Freeport is planned to submit an environmental impact statement by the end of next year. Freeport owns 51% of El Abra, with state-owned Codelco holding the remainder.

"We're going to continue to review the economics in the context of market conditions, but believe this is a project that will be required in the future to support long-term copper demand trends," said Kathleen Quirk, CEO of Freeport.

According to data from state agency Cochilco, the mine produced 98,400 metric tons of copper last year. Quirk has said Freeport was hopeful that the Chilean government would carry out its aim to streamline permitting for mining projects, as the expansion's benefits would yield 750 million pounds of copper and 9 million pounders of molybdenum per year.

After seeing its iron output rise, Rio Tinto Group (NYSE: RIO) recently warned that its full-year copper output would be at the lower end of its guidance range. This is despite gaining a 23% increase in output at the Oyu Tolgoi underground mine in Mongolia. Higher grades of ore from Escondida in Chile also contributed to overall output of copper, rising 18% to 171,000 tons.

"Our Group full year mined copper production guidance is therefore expected to be around the bottom end of the 660 to 720 thousand tonne range," said Rio Tinto in its Q2 2024 production results.

"We see good long-term value in Rio shares, although we are concerned about downside risk to iron ore prices," said Christopher LaFemina, analyst for Jefferies LLC in a note, as reported by Bloomberg. "Growth in copper and higher prices for copper and aluminum should partially offset the negative impact of lower iron ore prices."

At the Chile-Argentina border, a potential large conglomeration is brewing between Lundin Mining Corporation (TSX: LUN) (OTCPK: LUNMF) and BHP Group Limited (NYSE: BHP), to acquire copper miner Filo Corp. According to a report from Bloomberg, Lundin Mining has approached BHP Group to consider the joint bid for Filo. This move could potentially address the fundraising requirements for a nearby project Lundin aims to develop.

According to the report, Lundin plans to buy out other Filo shareholders and merge Filo's Filo del Sol copper mining project, located on the Chilean-Argentine border, with Lundin's nearby Josemaria project. The Lundin family, which founded the company, currently holds a 32% stake in Filo, while BHP holds a 6% stake.

Through a source cited by Reuters, it was revealed that integrating the infrastructure between the Filo del Sol and Josemaria mines could cost between $5 billion and $8 billion. The sources requested anonymity due to the confidential nature of the discussions.

Article Source: https://energymetalnews.com/2023/02/28/charging-along-the-highway-towards-domestic-lithium-dominance/

CONTACT:

USA NEWS GROUP

[email protected]

(604) 265-2873

DISCLAIMER:

Nothing in this publication should be considered as personalized financial advice. We are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular financial situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized financial advice. Please consult a licensed financial advisor before making any investment decision. This is a paid advertisement and is neither an offer nor recommendation to buy or sell any security. We hold no investment licenses and are thus neither licensed nor qualified to provide investment advice. The content in this report or email is not provided to any individual with a view toward their individual circumstances. Energy Metals News is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Market IQ Media Group, Inc. ("MIQ"). MIQ has been paid a fee for Usha Resources Ltd. advertising and digital media from Energy Metals News ("the Company"). There may be 3rd parties who may have shares of Usha Resources Ltd., and may liquidate their shares which could have a negative effect on the price of the stock. This compensation constitutes a conflict of interest as to our ability to remain objective in our communication regarding the profiled company. Because of this conflict, individuals are strongly encouraged to not use this publication as the basis for any investment decision. The owner/operator of MIQ own shares of Usha Resources Ltd. MIQ and reserves the right to buy and sell, and will buy and sell shares of Usha Resources Ltd. at any time thereafter without any further notice. We also expect further compensation as an ongoing digital media effort to increase visibility for the company, no further notice will be given, but let this disclaimer serve as notice that all material disseminated by MIQ has been approved by the above mentioned company; this is a paid advertisement, and we own shares of the mentioned company that we will sell, and we also reserve the right to buy shares of the company in the open market, or through further private placements and/or investment vehicles.

While all information is believed to be reliable, it is not guaranteed by us to be accurate. Individuals should assume that all information contained in our newsletter is not trustworthy unless verified by their own independent research. Also, because events and circumstances frequently do not occur as expected, there will likely be differences between any predictions and actual results. Always consult a licensed investment professional before making any investment decision. Be extremely careful, investing in securities carries a high degree of risk; you may likely lose some or all of the investment.

SOURCE USA News Group
Company continues its mission to near-term operating profitability; New capital to fuel growth with new products, new geographies, and resilience services

PLEASANTON, Calif., and ZURICH, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cowbell, a leading provider of cyber insurance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), announced today that it has closed a $60 million Series C equity investment from Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich), a leading global multi-line insurer.

With the $60 million investment, Cowbell plans to scale operations to meet growing demand, extend its presence in key international markets, bolster cyber resilience services, introduce new cutting-edge products to the market, and further strengthen strategic partnerships. Leveraging existing advances in AI and GenerativeAI (GenAI), the company aims to expand its technological infrastructure to drive further efficiencies and support expedited policyholder and broker decision-making across traditional, digital and API-driven channels.

Zurich's investment in Cowbell underscores its commitment to supporting businesses with state-of-the-art cyber protection and resilience solutions, particularly within the SME and middle market segments, where companies are exposed to cyber risk more than ever. It also aligns with Zurich's ambition to leverage best-in-class technology and expertise to address the evolving complexities of cyber risk management.

The global cost of cybercrime is estimated to reach $24 trillion by 2027, and ransomware attacks alone cost small businesses $1.7 million per incident on average.

Sierra Signorelli, CEO Commercial Insurance at Zurich said: "Cyber threats remain a major concern for business leaders due to their constantly evolving nature. To address this, we continue to invest in enhancing our cyber capabilities and building a strong support system for our customers. Cowbell is an excellent partner for managing cyber risks. They use a data-centric approach to risk management, provide continuous risk assessments, actively monitor threats, and have strong underwriting expertise. And all of this is centered around a highly advanced digital platform designed to boost cyber resilience for their customers."

Jack Kudale, founder and CEO, Cowbell said, "This investment from Zurich is the strongest endorsement of Cowbell's vision and capabilities yet and deepens our footprint in the global cyber insurance market. With a refined focus on product expansion, we will accelerate our efforts to deliver advanced and efficient cyber insurance solutions to SMEs and mid-market businesses globally, ensuring they have the protection and tools they need to navigate the rising threats in the evolving cyber landscape."

Cowbell's broker-first approach and reputation for its easy-to-use platform and effective education experience for the broker community are gaining worldwide traction and trust, with licensed producer growth of nearly 3x over the last two years. With better outcomes for customers at its core, reinvestment back into the business will see Cowbell double down on advancements in AI and GenAI to bring greater transparency to cyber risk. In doing so, Cowbell will facilitate smarter decision-making and raise cyber resiliency standards for brokers and businesses worldwide.

This latest investment marks a major milestone in Cowbell's fast-scaling journey, following a year of rapid geographic and product expansion, technological growth, and the onboarding of industry-heavyweight experts, further solidifying its position in the global cyber insurance market.

With $202 million raised to-date, Cowbell has remained capital-efficient throughout its journey. Cowbell has remained steadfast in its clear vision to protect, educate and empower SMEs and mid-market businesses, and the broker community serving them - from today's and tomorrow's threats.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC acted as financial advisor and Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian, LLP provided legal counsel to Cowbell in this transaction.

About Cowbell

Cowbell is a pioneer of Adaptive Cyber Insurance, leading the way in providing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with coverage adaptable to today's and tomorrow's threats and the advanced warning of cyber risk exposures. With its unique AI-based approach in risk selection and pricing, Cowbell's continuous underwriting platform, powered by Cowbell Factors, compresses the insurance process from submission to issue in less than 5 minutes. Backed by 25 prominent global (re)insurance partners, Cowbell serves SMEs across 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and the United Kingdom, assessing businesses with revenues up to $1B globally. Founded in 2019, Cowbell is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and has employees across the U.S., Canada, India, and the U.K.

For more information, please visit https://cowbell.insure/.

About Zurich Insurance Group

Zurich Insurance Group (Zurich) is a leading multi-line insurer serving people and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. Founded 150 years ago, Zurich is transforming insurance. In addition to providing insurance protection, Zurich is increasingly offering prevention services such as those that promote wellbeing and enhance climate resilience. Reflecting its purpose to 'create a brighter future together,' Zurich aspires to be one of the most responsible and impactful businesses in the world. It is targeting net-zero emissions by 2050 and has the highest-possible ESG rating from MSCI. In 2020, Zurich launched the Zurich Forest project to support reforestation and biodiversity restoration in Brazil. The Group has about 60,000 employees and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich Insurance Group Ltd (ZURN), is listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and has a level I American Depositary Receipt (ZURVY) program, which is traded over-the-counter on OTCQX. Further information is available at www.zurich.com.

Cowbell US Media Contact

John Kreuzer

Lumina Communications for Cowbell

[email protected]

+1.408.963.6418

Cowbell UK Media Contact:

Kirsty Jarvis

Luminous PR for Cowbell

+44 (0) 7966 291216

[email protected]

SOURCE Cowbell
GREENVILLE, Miss., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Dr. Robert Corkern, MD, a distinguished emergency medicine and internal medicine specialist with over 35 years of experience, announces the Dr. Robert Corkern Scholarship for Future Rural Doctors. This annual scholarship of $1,000 is dedicated to supporting undergraduate students passionate about serving the healthcare needs of underserved rural communities.

Investing in Bright Minds, Building a Stronger Rural Healthcare System

The Dr. Robert Corkern Scholarship for Future Rural Doctors seeks highly motivated undergraduate students currently enrolled in a medical field program.

Applicants must demonstrate a genuine interest in rural medicine and a commitment to serving these underserved communities.

The core component of the application is a compelling essay that explores innovative solutions to improve healthcare delivery in a resource-limited rural setting.

A Legacy of Dedication to Rural Medicine

Dr. Corkern graduated from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1988. He has since become a pillar of the Greenville, Mississippi medical community, renowned for his expertise in treating conditions like partial lung collapse, shortness of breath, and pleural effusion.

Beyond his clinical practice, Dr. Robert Corkern has consistently championed the cause of rural healthcare. The Dr. Robert Corkern Scholarship for Future Rural Doctors embodies his lifelong mission to enhance healthcare services in underserved areas and empower the next generation to make a lasting impact.

Scholarship Applications Open Now

Applications for the Dr. Robert Corkern Scholarship for Future Rural Doctors are now open and will be accepted until March 15, 2025. The scholarship recipient will be announced on April 15, 2025.

Interested students can learn more about the scholarship criteria, application process, and Dr. Robert Corkern's dedication to rural healthcare by visiting the scholarship website at https://drrobertcorkernscholarship.com/dr-robert-corkern-scholarship/.

About Dr. Robert Corkern

Dr. Robert Corkern, MD, is a highly respected emergency medicine and internal medicine specialist with over 35 years of experience serving patients in Greenville, Mississippi. A graduate of the University of Mississippi Medical Center, Dr. Corkern is known for his expertise and dedication to providing exceptional care to his patients. Throughout his career, Dr. Corkern has been a champion for improving healthcare access in rural communities. The Dr. Robert Corkern Scholarship for Future Rural Doctors reflects Dr. Corkern's unwavering commitment to mentoring future generations of medical professionals and ensuring quality healthcare for all.

SOURCE Dr. Robert Corkern Scholarship
Celebrates their Second Job & Resource Lab in Prince George's County

NEW CARROLLTON, Md., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Employ Prince George's, in collaboration with the Prince George's County Workforce Development Board and the American Job Center Community Network (AJCCN), is proud to announce the second grand opening of an AJCCN Job & Resource Lab in the county. Located at the Hanko Building in New Carrollton, 8511 Legation Road, this state-of-the-art facility, is set to be a central hub for community support, offering a wide array of resources and employment assistance to individuals across the county.

This launch marks a significant step in the AJCCN's ongoing mission to bring cutting-edge technology and comprehensive employment services to various parts of Prince George's County, broadening its impact across the region.

Working hand in hand with 11 municipalities in the county, AJCCN is dedicated to establishing more job and resource labs. By uniting efforts and resources, the initiative strives to combat unemployment and underemployment by providing much-needed support and technology directly to communities.

At the core of the Job & Resource Labs is the goal of empowering individuals without jobs or those seeking better opportunities to pursue training and certifications. Through access to innovative technology, specialized training programs, and certification opportunities, job seekers can enhance their skills and increase their employability.

"This initiative is a game-changer for the City of New Carrollton. By bringing state-of-the-art technology and essential employment resources directly to the New Carrollton, we are not only addressing immediate needs but also paving the way for a more prosperous future." said Mayor Katrina Dodro. The collaboration with AJCCN reflects our commitment to fostering economic growth and providing individuals with the tools they need to succeed in today's competitive job market.

In addition to benefiting the community, the AJCCN also offers a host of advantages for municipalities and employers alike. Municipalities can collaborate with the AJCCN to improve their communities through personalized career guidance, educational funding, internships, apprenticeships, and data-driven insights. Employers, on the other hand, can make use of tailored talent recruitment services, financial incentives, and valuable labor market insights.

To mark the grand opening of the AJCCN Job & Resource Lab in New Carrollton, a special ribbon-cutting ceremony is scheduled for Tuesday, July 30, at 10:00 a.m. Local and state officials, community leaders, and residents are invited to celebrate this milestone while discovering the opportunities and resources available through the American Job Center Community Network.

For further details about the American Job Center Community Network and its Job & Resource Labs, please visit www.PGCAJC.com or contact the AJCCN at (301) 618-8400.

For more information, please visit employPG.org.

SOURCE Employ Prince George's
NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IN OR INTO, OR TO ANY PERSON RESIDENT AND/OR LOCATED IN, ANY JURISDICTION WHERE SUCH RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION IS UNLAWFUL

SANTIAGO, Chile, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Empresa Nacional del Petroleo, a state-owned enterprise organized under the laws of the Republic of Chile ("ENAP" or the "Company") announced today the pricing of its previously announced offer to purchase for cash any and all of its outstanding 3.750% Notes due 2026 (the "Any and All Notes") upon the terms of, and subject to, the conditions in the offer to purchase dated July 22, 2024 (the "Offer to Purchase") and the accompanying notice of guaranteed delivery (the "Notice of Guaranteed Delivery" and, together with the Offer to Purchase, the "Tender Offer Documents"), including the New Financing Condition.

The offer to purchase for cash the Any and All Notes is referred to herein as the "Any and All Tender Offer". Capitalized terms not otherwise defined in this announcement have the same meaning as assigned to them in the Offer to Purchase.

Upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Tender Offer Documents, the Any and All Purchase Price Consideration (as defined in the Offer to Purchase) for the Any and All Notes is set forth in the following table:

Title of

Security CUSIP / ISIN Outstanding

Principal

Amount Reference U.S.

Treasury Security Bloomberg

Reference

Page(1) Reference

Yield (%) Fixed

Spread

(basis

points) Any and All

Purchase Price

Consideration(2)(3) 3.750% Notes

due 2026 Rule 144A CUSIP No.: 29245J AJ1 Reg S CUSIP No.: P37110 AK2 Rule 144A ISIN: US29245JAJ16 Reg S ISIN: USP37110AK24 $700,000,000 1.875% U.S. Treasury

due July 31, 2026 FIT5 4.411 % +0 $987.39

(1) The page on Bloomberg from which the Dealer Managers quoted the bid-side price of the Reference U.S. Treasury Security. (2) Per $1,000 in principal amount of the Any and All Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn at or prior to the Any and All Expiration Time, and accepted for purchase. (3) The Any and All Purchase Price Consideration for the Any and All Notes was calculated at or around 11:00 a.m., New York City time, today (the "Any and All Price Determination Time") in accordance with standard market practice, as described in the Offer to Purchase.

The Any and All Tender Offer will expire at 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on July 26, 2024 (such date and time, as the same may be extended, the "Any and All Expiration Time"). The Any and All Notes tendered may be validly withdrawn at any time at or prior to the Any and All Expiration Time, but not thereafter.

The "Any and All Results Announcement Date" is expected to be July 29, 2024, unless the Any and All Tender Offer is extended. In respect of accepted Any and All Notes that are delivered at or prior to the Any and All Expiration Time, the Company expects the Any and All Settlement Date to occur on the third business day after the Any and All Expiration Time, expected to be July 31, 2024. In respect of accepted Any and All Notes that are delivered pursuant to the Guaranteed Delivery Procedures, the Company expects the Guaranteed Delivery Settlement Date to occur on the business day after the Guaranteed Delivery Date, which is expected to be July 31, 2024.

On July 24, 2024, the Company priced the offering of $600,000,000 5.950% Notes due 2034 (the "New Notes"). The Company intends to use the cash proceeds from the issuance of the New Notes, together with existing cash balances and/or additional financings, to fund the Any and All Tender Offer. The issuance of the New Notes is expected to close on July 30, 2024.

In addition to the Any and All Purchase Price Consideration, Holders whose Any and All Notes are accepted for purchase will be paid the Accrued Interest thereon. Interest will cease to accrue on the Any and All Settlement Date for all Any and All Notes purchased in the Any and All Tender Offer. For avoidance of doubt, interest will cease to accrue on the Any and All Settlement Date for all Any and All Notes purchased in the Any and All Tender Offer, including Any and All Notes that are delivered pursuant to the Guaranteed Delivery Procedures.

The consummation of the Any and All Tender Offer and the Company's obligation to accept and pay for the Any and All Notes validly tendered (and not validly withdrawn) pursuant to the Any and All Tender Offer is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions described in the Offer to Purchase, including the New Financing Condition. The Company reserves the right, subject to applicable law, to amend or waive any and all conditions to the Any and All Tender Offer.

Holders are advised to check with any intermediary (as defined in the Offer to Purchase) through which they hold Notes as to when such intermediary would need to receive instructions from a Holder in order for that Holder to be able to participate in, or (in the circumstances in which revocation is permitted) revoke their instruction to participate in the Any and All Tender Offer before the deadlines specified herein and in the Offer to Purchase. The deadlines set by any such intermediary and DTC for participation in the Any and All Tender Offer may be earlier than the relevant deadlines specified herein and in the Offer to Purchase.

The Company has retained BofA Securities, Inc., Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Santander US Capital Markets LLC and Scotia Capital (USA) Inc., as Dealer Managers and D.F. King & Co., Inc. as Information and Tender Agent (the "Information and Tender Agent") for the purposes of the Any and All Tender Offer.

Questions regarding procedures for tendering the Any and All Notes may be directed to the Information and Tender Agent at +1 (800) 290-6432 (toll free), +1 (212) 269-5550 (banks or brokers call) or by email to [email protected]. Questions regarding the Any and All Tender Offer may be directed to BofA Securities, Inc. at +1 (888) 292-0070 (toll free), +1 (646) 855-8998 (collect); to Itau BBA USA Securities, Inc. at +1 (212) 710-6749 (collect); to Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. at +1 (800) 372-3930 (toll free) or +1 (212) 225-5501 (collect); to J.P. Morgan Securities LLC at +1 (866) 846-2874 (toll free) or +1 (212) 834-7279 (collect); and to Santander US Capital Markets LLC at +1 (855) 404-3636 (toll free) or +1 (212) 350-0660 (collect).

This announcement is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to buy, or a solicitation of an offer to sell, any security. No offer, solicitation, or sale will be made in any jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful. The Any and All Tender Offer is only being made pursuant to the Offer to Purchase. Holders of the Any and All Notes are urged to carefully read the Offer to Purchase before making any decision with respect to the Any and All Tender Offer.

The New Notes are expected to be issued pursuant to an offering memorandum dated July 24, 2024 (the "Offering Memorandum") and an indenture expected to be dated July 30, 2024. Any investment decision to purchase any New Notes should be made solely on the basis of the information contained in the Offering Memorandum, and no reliance is to be placed on any representations other than those contained in the Offering Memorandum.

The distribution of this announcement in certain jurisdictions may be restricted by law. Persons into whose possession this announcement comes are required by each of the Company, the Dealer Managers and the Information and Tender Agent to inform themselves about and to observe any such restrictions.

General

This announcement does not constitute an offer to buy or the solicitation of an offer to sell the Any and All Notes (and tenders of Any and All Notes in the Any and All Tender Offer will not be accepted from Holders) in any circumstances in which such offer or solicitation or acceptance is unlawful. In those jurisdictions where the securities, blue sky or other laws require the Any and All Tender Offer to be made by a licensed broker or dealer and any Dealer Manager or any of the Dealer Managers' affiliates is such a licensed broker or dealer in any such jurisdiction, the Any and All Tender Offer shall be deemed to be made by such Dealer Manager or such Dealer Manager's affiliate, as the case may be, on behalf of the Company in such jurisdiction.

The Any and All Tender Offer does not constitute an offer to purchase in Chile or to any resident of Chile, except as permitted by applicable Chilean law. The Any and All Tender Offer will not constitute a public offer in Chile, and therefore will not be (a) subject to registration with the Chilean Financial Market Commission (Comision para el Mercado Financiero or "CMF"); nor (b) made through any of the stock exchanges in Chile.

Each tendering Holder participating in the Any and All Tender Offer will be deemed to give certain representations in respect of the jurisdictions referred to above and generally as set out in the section titled "Description of the OffersProcedures for Tendering NotesOther Matters" in the Offer to Purchase. Any tender of the Any and All Notes for purchase pursuant to the Any and All Tender Offer from a Holder that is unable to make these representations will not be accepted. Each of the Company, the Dealer Managers and the Information and Tender Agent reserves the right, in its sole and absolute discretion, to investigate, in relation to any tender of Any and All Notes for purchase pursuant to the Any and All Tender Offer, whether any such representation given by a Holder is correct and, if such investigation is undertaken and as a result the Company determines (for any reason) that such representation is not correct, such tender shall not be accepted.

None of the Company, its board of directors, its officers, the Dealer Managers, the depositary, the information agent or the trustee with respect to the Notes, or any of their respective affiliates, makes any recommendation that holders tender or refrain from tendering all or any portion of the principal amount of their Notes, and no one has been authorized by any of them to make such a recommendation. Holders must make their own decision as to whether to tender their Notes and, if so, the principal amount of Notes to tender.

Forward-Looking Information

This announcement contains certain forward-looking statements which reflect the Company's intent, beliefs or current expectations about the future and can be recognized by the use of words such as "expects," "will," "anticipate," or words of similar meaning. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of any future performance and are necessarily estimates reflecting the best judgment of the senior management of the Company and involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. As a consequence, these forward-looking statements should be considered in light of various important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from estimates or projections contained in the forward-looking statements, which include, without limitation, the risk factors set forth in the Offer to Purchase. The Company cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will be realized, although it believes it has been prudent in its plans and assumptions. Achievement of future results is subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may prove to be inaccurate. Should known or unknown risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove inaccurate, actual results could vary materially from those anticipated, estimated or projected. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or release any revisions to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by applicable law.

SOURCE Empresa Nacional del Petroleo
Successful Conclusion of Foreign Journalists' Tour to Gansu

LANZHOU, China, July 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- "The waters of the Yellow River come from upon Heaven, but they enter the world from here." Have you ever heard of this? In northwestern China, the surging Yellow River flows through the Loess Plateau, presenting a magnificent picture of mountains and rivers. It nourishes this land, which is home to many ethnic groups, and breeds colorful local cultures. This is Gansu Province.

From July 15th to 21st,2024, the Foreign Journalists' Tour to Gansu was successfully accomplished.

From July 15th to 21st, 2024, the "Foreign Journalists' Tour to Gansu" was successfully accomplished. It was organized by the Information Office of the People's Government of Gansu Province in cooperation with China Center for International Communication Development (CCICD). More than 10 journalists from such countries as Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, Pakistan, Russia and Vietnam were invited to visit Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Lanzhou city among other places within the province.

During the one-week trip, the journalists explored the profound historical and cultural heritages of Gansu Province, such as Bingling Temple Grottoes, Labrang Monastery, Milariba Monastery, Ganjia Secret Land, etc., and experienced colorful ethnic cultural customs in person. While interviewing in Bafang Shisanxiang and Jialagama Village, journalists deeply felt the unity of all ethnic groups in Gansu and how they worked hand in hand to achieve more. They also enjoyed the magnificent beauty of the natural environment in the province. The vast Yellow River, boundless grasslands, wonderful Danxia landscapes... All represent the uncanny workmanship and endless charm of the nature. They appreciated the unique charm of the intangible cultural heritages in Gansu, such as Thangka craft, Hui brick carving, colored pottery painting, etc., which exhibited profound traditional culture heritages. They visited the Linxia Baiyi Yinong International Flower Port, Xingsheng Dairy Cattle Breeding Specialized Cooperative in Gengzhi Village and Hualing Dairy Group, through which they had a better understanding of how these prosperous specialty industries injected strong impetus into the local economy.

National unity provides a harmonious homeland

Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture is the first stop of this journey. journalists from all over the world visited BafangShisan xiang to see the production procedure of traditional handicrafts such as Hui brick carving, Han wood carving, Hezhou egg carving, Linxia clay sculpture, etc. They cordially exchanged with the local ethnic minorities, visited mosques in residential areas, and learned about the great changes that took place after the street reconstruction in typical ethnic minority areas.

In Jialagama Village, Jianmuke'er Sub-district, Hezuo City, journalists learned about the construction of Tibetan ecological parks, tent camps, public places and other projects in cultural tourism village carried out by the first village in Gannan Prefecture to have natural gas into households. They also went into the homes of local Tibetan people and learned in detail about the remarkable achievements made by the village in improving the living environment, local employment, education and people's livelihood. Later, journalists visited Labrang Monastery, the "World Academy of Tibetan Buddhism Studies", in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, to see the profound heritages of Tibetan Buddhism.

Facilitate economic development with industrial empowerment

In Linxia Baiyi Yinong International Flower Port, journalists focused on the development of Linxia fresh cut flower industry. Based on the regional advantages in flower resources, the port has built a flower industrial demonstration park with high-tech smart greenhouse, effectively improving the employment of surrounding farmers.

In Xingsheng Dairy Cattle Breeding Specialized Cooperative in Gengzhi Village , Nawu Town, Gannan Prefecture and Hualing Dairy Group, journalists had an all-round understanding of the measures, influences and experience of Hezuo City in promoting animal husbandry and in raising the income of herdsmen of the yak milk industry.

Draw a new chapter of nature with ecological protection

During the visit, the journalists traveled along the "most beautiful road in Gansu", the tourist scenery line along the Taizi Mountain in Linxia, enjoying the charm and tranquility of nature and feeling the remarkable achievements of ecological protection. In the Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the Meiren Grassland presented a more vibrant scene. journalists changed into exquisite Tibetan costumes and rode horses, experiencing the charm of nomadic culture, which has added new vitality to the development of tourism industry in Gannan Prefecture.

Lanzhou Danxia Geological Park is also breathtaking. The journalists watched an exquisite show, Galloping Horses on Danxia, and learned about the history of the Silk Road on horseback, the horse culture and equestrian skills. They marveled at Danxia cliffs, wind rocks and other geological wonders. The colorful and vast Danxia landscapes was especially spectacular in clear weather.

Bring forth the new and jointly protect cultural heritages

When visiting the grottoes of Bingling Temple, the journalists were enchanted by the grottoes preserved during thousands of years, and the diverse and integrated grottoes statues and exquisite murals attracted everyone to stop and watch.

At the Gannan Cultural Center, they appreciated a 111-meter-long Thangka titled "The Red Army's Long March through Gannan." The main creator, Xiawuduojie, introduced the materials and techniques of Thangka in detail. journalists were amazed by the colorful work in front of them, and praised Thangka as well as the Tibetan culture embedded in it.

The journalists paid a visit to the Lanzhou Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition Center, to appreciate the essence of intangible cultural heritages, such as the bold and vigorous Lanzhou Taiping Drum, the thrilling Yongdeng high stilts, the melodic Lanzhou drum and the Yellow River water wheel that brought benefits to so many people on this land. They thereby develop a deeper understanding of the profoundness of the Silk Road culture, the Yellow River culture and multi-nationality cultural integration.

SOURCE China Center for International Communication Development (CCICD)
The beloved story arrives in the Dominican Republic presented by Producciones Tictactuk

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Marriott Bonvoy Moments and the Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaragua Hotel are excited to announce, the acclaimed show, "Matilda: The Musical" with a script written by Dennis Kelly and music and lyrics by the talented Australian comedian Tim Minchin, arrives on Dominican soil. Marriott International's award-winning travel marketplace is giving its members access to bid on a limited-edition experience at the Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaragua Hotel.

Matilda: The Musical

Based on the iconic novel by Roald Dahl, an author who has captivated more than 250 million readers around the world, the plot follows Matilda, a girl with extraordinary abilities and telekinetic powers. Facing parental indifference and the cruelty of the headmistress, Miss Tronchatoro, Matilda finds refuge in reading and friendship with the understanding Miss Miel. This captivating musical explores themes of empowerment, friendship, and the amazing power of imagination.

Marriott Bonvoy Members can bid to embark on the magical world of music theater in the Dominican Republic paired with a two-night stay at Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaragua Hotel from August 16th  18th. Members will have access to two VIP tickets for Matilda: The Musical at Teatro La Fiesta on Saturday, August 17th, pre-show nibbles with drinks at Luna Restaurant and exclusive meet & greet with the cast and backstage tour after the show. Roundtrip transportation between the hotel and airport, special daily breakfast for two and late check-out on Sunday, August 18t.

Matilda: The Musical Production from the Dominican Republic, presented by Producciones Tictactuk, was recently translated into Spanish, and the Dominican Republic becomes the third Hispanic and Latin American country to produce "Matilda El Musical" under the production of Edilenia Tactuk, with artistic direction by Attilio Rigotti and Alicia Cabrera. Grammy award winning musical direction by Janina Rosado. Vocal direction is by renowned soprano Paola Gonzalez, while choreography is by Erick Roque.

The hotel also announces La Fiesta Theater, has been specially designed for Matilda at the iconic Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaragua Hotel. With a rich history spanning 75 years and a landmark in the city this theater was one of the first stages in Santo Domingo. The terraced interior, with a capacity for 1,150 attendees, featured the country's first hydraulic stage and was decorated with finishes and supplies imported from Miami. International artists such as Camilo Sesto, Marco Antonio Muniz, Danny Rivera, Donna Summer, and Barry White also graced its hydraulic stage. Audiences will now enjoy the performances in comfort, seated in the blue chairs crafted exclusively for Matilda.

Guests seeking an island getaway can also book the "Revoltosa" Package during performance weekends, August 9th  11th or 16th  18th. The package includes breakfast for two people, 20% discount on food and drinks inside the hotel and at the performance of Matilda The Musical, 20% discount on Zui Spa services and late check-out at 3:00 pm. Guest have the option to book one night for $199 USD or $379 USD for two nights.

Connected by the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program, the Renaissance Santo Domingo Jaragua Hotel is excited to elevate visitors' travel experience at this one-of-a-kind destination. For more information on this Marriott Bonvoy Moment, please visit Moments.MarriottBonvoy.com . For more information or to reserve the "Revoltosa" package, visit https://www.marriott.com/es/offers/packages/SDQGW-matilda-musical.mi .

Media Contact

Melissa Pena

Director of Public Relations, Caribbean

Marriott International Caribbean & Latin America

[email protected]

SOURCE Marriott International Caribbean & Latin America
WESTFORD, Mass., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- According to SkyQuest, the global Food Safety Testing Market size was valued at USD 28.5 Billion in 2022 and is poised to grow from USD 30.69 Billion in 2023 to USD 55.53 Billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 7.5% in the forecast period (2024-2031).

In today's world the food safety and testing market plays an important role in securing public health by identifying and avoiding incidences of pollution and infections through poisons, chemical residues, allergies, and other harmful items in the food. In recent times, the rising occurrence of food borne diseases has highlighted the necessity of a complete food safety testing. Moreover, factors like food borne diseases, product recalls, and safety cases have amplified the demand for tested and certified foods. The implementation of international food trade has also improved the food safety testing process to meet the import and export protocols. Improvement in the testing methods have also positively influenced the efficiency and accuracy of food safety testing. The market players in the food safety and testing industry are at an advantage due to the development of the international food trade. This is because with the expansion of cross-border operations it has become a necessity to conduct extensive test to ensure compliance with export and import rules, thus boosting the market. With the help of microbiological technologies, chemical analysis, and physical testing along with easy access to various food testing kits the companies can provide better food safety.

Download a detailed overview:

https://www.skyquestt.com/sample-request/food-safety-testing-market

Enterprise Asset Management Market Overview:

Report Coverage Details Market Revenue in 2023 $ 30.69 Billion Estimated Value by 2031 $ 55.53 Billion Growth Rate Poised to grow at a CAGR of 7.5% Forecast Period 20242031 Forecast Units Value (USD Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered Offerings, Contaminants, Technology, Food Type, and Region Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa. Report Highlights Development of portable food testing equipment Key Market Opportunities Growing pathogen related illness among consumers increasing popularity of pathogens Key Market Drivers Higher consumption of protein-rich food to increase testing in meat, poultry, and seafood

Segments covered in Food Safety Testing Market are as follows:

Offering

Reagents & Consumables, Instruments, and Services

Contaminants

Pathogens (E.Coli, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, Others), Pesticides, GMOs, Mycotoxin, Allergens, Heavy metals, Others

Technology

Traditional, Rapid (Convenience-based, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR), Immunoassay), and Chromatography & Spectrometry

Food Type

Meat Poultry & Seafood, Dairy Products, Processed Food, Fruits & Vegetables, Cereals & Grains, Others

Request Free Customization of this report:

https://www.skyquestt.com/speak-with-analyst/food-safety-testing-market

Advent of Innovative Portable Food Testing Equipment with Better Accuracy to Drive Market Growth

In the last few years, the demand for food safety testing devices with better accuracy and portability has significantly increased among customers. Traditionally, the evaluation of adulterated food products is sent to food testing laboratories, which can be expensive as well as time consuming. Due to such difficulties, governments and private sectors have started investing in technological development supporting the emergence of the new portable testing devices. These devices have the ability to significantly reduce the overall expense of food testing. Handheld devices can analyze the samples of food available on-site and avoid the necessity of transporting it to a quality testing lab. Furthermore, with the help of ultraviolet, infrared, and other amalgamation of sensors these devices can easily identify contaminants, allergens, and adulterants in food products.

Increasing Occurrence of Food Fraud & Adulteration to Boost Demand for Food Safety Testing

The food safety violations and adulterations have increased immensely worldwide. The journey of food products until it reaches the store shelves has become extremely difficult due to the explosion of the food value chain. Such complexities have given rise to certain uncertainties in the production of the food, resulting in consumers questioning about the products label and the ingredients in it, increasing the demand for food safety testing. As per the Consumer Guidance Society of India, a non-profit organization, just 21% of the milk samples that have been collected in Maharashtra fulfilled the standards set by the FSSAI. Issues like these are influencing the government bodies to strengthen the regulations on food safety. This is causing the major market players in the food processing business to request for better monitoring of food safety testing. The food testing organizations are also using innovative technologies and scientific expertise to protect the integrity of the food supply chain and secure customers from any dangerous or adulterated food items, which is developing new opportunities for the food testing market.

View report summary and Table of Contents (TOC):

https://www.skyquestt.com/report/food-safety-testing-market

Heightened Consumer Alertness on Food Contamination to Increase the Focus on Food Safety Testing

The global food safety testing market has every opportunity to grow, especially due to the rising public awareness about food contamination and technological developments in testing. This sector is extremely crucial for securing public health as they have the responsibility of recognizing and eradicating any harmful substance from food items. Consumers are also becoming more conscious about contamination, which is increasing the focus on food safety. This has resulted in the requirement for strict hygiene practices all over the supply chain. With the growing demand for organic items, food testing organizations are also trying various innovations to remove GMOs and other contaminants from the products to meet consumer expectations with efficient and affordable testing solutions.

Related Report:

Testing, Inspection, and Certification Market

Non-Destructive Testing Market

Genetic Testing Market

Bioanalytical Testing Services Market

Automation Testing 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 have 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: [email protected]

Visit Our Website: https://www.skyquestt.com/

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2446095/SkyQuest_Logo.jpg

SOURCE SkyQuest Technology
This showcase, which runs for the next 13 months, is the first exhibition of ancient Egyptian art curated by Chinese scholars and researchers.

Hailed as the largest exhibition of ancient Egyptian artifacts ever held outside their native country, the exhibition represents a pioneering collaboration between an official Chinese museum and the Egyptian government, said Chu Xiaobo, director of the Shanghai Museum, at the opening ceremony on July 17.

"This is the largest exhibition that ever traveled from Egypt to come here to China. We value our relationship with China, especially with the Shanghai Museum," said Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The exhibition encompasses 492 sets of more than 780 selected artifacts from different periods of ancient Egyptian civilization, sourced from seven renowned Egyptian museums and including the latest archaeological discoveries. Remarkably, over 95 percent of these artifacts made their debut in Asia.

"The most meaningful aspect of this exhibition is that our team curated the theme and artifacts based on research by our Chinese scholars into ancient Egyptian civilization, and we selected all 788 objects featured ourselves," said Li Feng, deputy director of the Shanghai Museum.

To provide a fitting showcase for this special exhibition, the Shanghai Museum has renovated and repurposed three exhibition halls to create a total exhibition space of 3,000 square meters. Through the display area, visitors can embark on a journey through three independent narratives: The Land of the Pharaohs, The Secrets of Saqqara, and The Age of Tutankhamun.

Zhong Xiaomin, an official from the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture and Tourism, said the exhibition illustrates the continuous expansion of cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and Egypt, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the comprehensive strategic partnership and the China-Egypt Partnership Year.

"We believe that this pioneering exhibition about ancient Egyptian civilization will vividly enact a dialogue across time between two ancient civilizations and will serve as an exemplary instance of exchanges and mutual learning among world civilizations," said Zhong.

Related stories

SOURCE english.shanghai.gov.cn
MEXICO CITY, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Grupo Elektra, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: ELEKTRA* Latibex: XEKT), Latin America's leading specialty retailer and financial services company, and the largest non-bank provider of cash advance services in the United States, informs investors that it has received information from its controlling group regarding a possible fraud by depositaries of their shares, which could cause unusual movements of its share price on the stock markets.

Thereafter, the company informs that it has made contact with the corresponding authorities to determine the applicable measures.

As of the second quarter 2024, the company has reported solid performance on its financial and commercial businesses, and its operation continues as usual.

Company Profile:

Grupo Elektra is Latin America's leading financial services company and specialty retailer and the largest non-bank provider of cash advance services in the United States. The group operates more than 6,000 points of contact in Mexico, the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama.

Grupo Elektra is a Grupo Salinas company (www.gruposalinas.com), a group of dynamic, fast-growing, and technologically advanced companies focused on creating economic value through market innovation and goods and services that improve standards of living; social value to improve community well-being; and environmental value by reducing the negative impact of its business activities. Created by Mexican entrepreneur Ricardo B. Salinas (www.ricardosalinas.com), Grupo Salinas operates as a management development and decision forum for the top leaders of member companies. These companies include TV Azteca (www.TVazteca.com; www.irtvazteca.com), Grupo Elektra (www.grupoelektra.com.mx), Banco Azteca (www.bancoazteca.com.mx), Purpose Financial (havepurpose.com), Afore Azteca (www.aforeazteca.com.mx), Seguros Azteca (www.segurosazteca.com.mx), Punto Casa de Bolsa (www.puntocasadebolsa.mx), Total Play (irtotalplay.mx; www.totalplay.com.mx) and Total Play Empresarial (totalplayempresarial.com.mx). TV Azteca and Grupo Elektra trade shares on the Mexican Stock Market and in Spain's' Latibex market. Each of the Grupo Salinas companies operates independently, with its own management, board of directors and shareholders. Grupo Salinas has no equity holdings. The group of companies shares a common vision, values, and strategies for achieving rapid growth, superior results, and world-class performance.

Except for historical information, the matters discussed in this press release are concepts about the future that involve risks and uncertainty that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Other risks that may affect Grupo Elektra and its subsidiaries are presented in documents sent to the securities authorities.

Investor Relations: Bruno Rangel Grupo Salinas Tel. +52 (55) 1720-9167 [email protected]

Rolando Villarreal Grupo Elektra, S.A.B. de C.V. Tel. +52 (55) 1720-9167 [email protected]

Press Relations: Luciano Pascoe Tel. +52 (55) 1720 1313 ext. 36553 lpascoe@gruposalinas.com.mx

SOURCE Grupo Elektra, S.A.B. de C.V.
Trump's lead on Harris is now 2-percentage points among Registered Voters and 3-percent with Likely Voters

Harris has consolidated the Democratic base, winning back lapsed independent and suburban women, and nearly half of previously undecided voters; She continues to struggle with African American men.

Electoral race is fluid as one-in-four voters say they could still change their mind.

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A new poll released today by HarrisX and Forbes shows a newly competitive race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump. Forty-seven percent of registered voters support Trump while 45% say they would vote for Harris. Among likely voters, the former president leads Harris 49% to 46%.

Forbes logo (PRNewsfoto/HarrisX)

That marks a significant change in the race. Immediately prior to President Joe Biden stepping aside, Trump was leading Biden by 8 percentage points among registered voters (48% to 40%) and 10 points among likely voters (49% to 39%). Trump was also leading Harris by nine percentage points (50% to 41%) among registered voters and by a double-digit margin among likely voters (51% to 40%). The vice president has now narrowed the gap, in large part by winning 46% of voters who were undecided when the choice was between Biden and Trump.

The HarrisX/Forbes poll, which was conducted July 22-25, 2024 among 3,013 registered voters via the HarrisX Overnight Poll, shows Harris surging with independent voters and suburban women (full data available at elections.harrisx.com). While Biden was losing independents to Trump by a 13-percentage point margin (31% to 44%), Harris trails just by two percentage points (40% to Trump's 42%). Among suburban women, the vice president leads Trump by 12 percentage points (52% to 40%) compared to just a 3-percentage point lead held by President Biden (44% to Trump's 41%).

Additionally, Harris has quickly consolidated the Biden base, with 95% of voters who had planned to support Biden sticking with the vice president. Only 3% of Biden voters are now planning to vote for Trump. However, the new presumptive Democratic nominee continues to struggle with African American men, winning just 57% of this key group, compared to 30% of Black men who plan to support Donald Trump.

The data shows the race can still change significantly. One in four (25%) registered voters, including 23% of Harris supporters and 17% of Trump voters say they are still weighing their choices for the November election.

"Kamala Harris has officially reset the race, erasing much of Donald Trump's post-convention gains. Harris is still behind Trump, and it will take time for the numbers to fully settle, but one thing is clear: almost a week after Biden's decision to step aside, it's now again a competitive race," said Dritan Nesho, CEO of HarrisX and lead pollster. "Vice President Harris has energized the Democratic base, growing the lead with suburban women and closing the gap with independents; but she is still struggling with African American men, and Trump overall still has a more consolidated base of voters."

"Voters, however, do not know the new Democratic nominee as well as they know Mr. Trump. That presents an opportunity and a threat to the Harris campaign, depending on whether she moves to the center to win swing and moderate voters, or moves to the left of Biden to appease the Democratic base," added Nesho.

The close race is also reflected by the fact that the two candidates have nearly identical favorability ratings. Trump and Harris are each viewed favorably by 44% of the electorate while 50% view the former president unfavorably and 49% say the same about the vice president. However, suburban women like Harris (49% favorable  43% unfavorable) significantly more than Trump (36% favorable  59% unfavorable).

The data shows a broad consensus that President Biden did the right thing by stepping aside, with 81% of voters approving of his decision. That includes strong majorities of Democrats (90%), independents (79%) and Republicans (75%). Similarly, Democrats are overwhelmingly supportive of Biden endorsing his VP (90% approve). However, only just half (54%) of independents and merely 22% of Republicans approve of the endorsement.

Just 27% of voters say that Biden's withdrawal is undemocratic ignores the will of the 14 million Democratic primary voters. Instead, 89% of Democrats, 72% of independents, and 58% of Republicans say the president's withdrawal demonstrates that Biden was listening to voters and the recent polling that was showing most Democrats wanting the incumbent to drop out.

HarrisX data is tracked and updated daily at elections.harrisx.com.

Survey Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States July 22-25, 2024, among 3,013 registered voters via the HarrisX Overnight Poll. Respondents for the HarrisX Overnight Poll are recruited through opt-in, web-panel recruitment sampling. Recruitment occurs through a broad variety of professional, validated respondent panels to expand the sampling frame as wide as possible and minimize the impact of any given panel on recruiting methods.

The results reflect a nationally representative sample of registered voters. Results were weighted for age, gender, region, race/ethnicity, income, political party, education, ideology and area type where necessary to align them with their actual proportions in the population. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 1.8 percentage points.

About HarrisX & the HarrisX Overnight Poll

HarrisX, a Stagwell company, is a leading global market research and data analytics company that conducts multi-method consumer and voter research across the U.S. and over 40 countries. With offices in Washington, D.C., New York City, London and Toronto, HarrisX advises Fortune 100 companies, public policy institutions, global leaders, NGOs, and philanthropic organizations. According to The Washington Post and American Research Group, HarrisX was the most accurate pollster of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The HarrisX Overnight Poll runs 365 days a year in the United States as an omnibus survey; for more information email [email protected]

About Forbes:

Forbes champions success by celebrating those who have made it, and those who aspire to make it. Forbes convenes and curates the most influential leaders and entrepreneurs who are driving change, transforming business and making a significant impact on the world. The Forbes brand today reaches more than 140 million people worldwide through its trusted journalism, signature LIVE and Forbes Virtual events, custom marketing programs and 43 licensed local editions in 69 countries. Forbes Media's brand extensions include real estate, education and financial services license agreements.

SOURCE HarrisX
WESTFORD, Mass., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- According to SkyQuest, the global Industry 4.0 Market size was valued at USD 133.05 billion in 2022 and is poised to grow from USD 154.6 billion in 2023 to USD 513.89 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 16.2% during the forecast period (2024-2031).



Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution emphasizes the use of automation and interconnectivity. Employment of advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and connected devices to improve the productivity and efficiency of industries. Rapid digitization and advancements in technology are forecasted to bolster the Industry 4.0 market growth over the coming years. The global Industry 4.0 market is segmented into technology, industry vertical, and region.

Download a detailed overview:

https://www.skyquestt.com/sample-request/industry-4-0-market

Industry 4.0 Market Overview:

Report Coverage Details Market Revenue in 2023 $ 154.6 billion Estimated Value by 2031 $ 513.89 billion Growth Rate Poised to grow at a CAGR of 16.2% Forecast Period 20242031 Forecast Units Value (USD Billion) Report Coverage Revenue Forecast, Competitive Landscape, Growth Factors, and Trends Segments Covered Technology, Industry and Region Geographies Covered North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East and Africa. Report Highlights Internet of Things (IoT) technology takes centerstage for Industry 4.0 adoption Key Market Opportunities Adoption of smart manufacturing and additive manufacturing practices Key Market Drivers Rising demand for automation across all industry verticals

Segments covered in Industry 4.0 Market are as follows:

Technology

Robots (Traditional Industrial Robots {Articulated robots, Cartesian Robots, Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA), Cylindrical Robots, Others}, Collaborative Robots), Blockchain in Manufacturing, Industrial Sensors (Level Sensors, Temperature Sensors, Flow Sensors, Position Sensors, Pressure Sensors, Force Sensors, Humidity & Moisture Sensors, Gas Sensors), Industrial 3D Printing, Machine Vision (Camera {Digital Camera, Smart Camera}, Frame Grabbers, Optics, and LED Lighting, Processor and Software), HMI (Offering {Hardware [Basic HMI, Advanced Panel-based HMI, Advanced PC-based HMI, Others], Software [On-premises HMI, Cloud-based HMI], Services}), Configuration ({Embedded HMI, Standalone HMI}, Technology {Motion HMI, Bionic HMI, Tactile HMI, Acoustic HMI}, End-user Industry {Process industries [Oil & Gas, Food & beverages, Pharmaceuticals, Chemicals, Energy & power, Metals & mining, Water & wastewater, Others], Discrete industry [Automotive, Aerospace & defense, Packaging, Medical devices, Semiconductor & electronics, Others]}), AI In Manufacturing (Offering {Hardware [Processor MPU, GPU, FPGA, ASIC , Memory, Network], Software [AI solutions- | On-premises, Cloud |, AI platform- | Machine learning framework, Application program interface |], Services [Deployment & integration, Support & maintenance]}, Technology {Machine learning [Deep learning, Supervised learning, Reinforcement learning, Reinforcement learning, Others], Natural language processing [Context-aware computing, Computer vision]}, Application {Predictive maintenance and machinery inspection, Material movement, Production planning, Field services, Quality control, Cybersecurity, Industrial robots, Reclamation}, Digital Twin {Technology [Internet of Things (IOT), Blockchain, Artificial intelligence & machine learning, Artificial intelligence & machine learning, Big data analytics, 5G], Usage Type [Product digital twin, Process digital twin, System digital twin], Application [Product design & development, Performance monitoring, Predictive maintenance, Inventory management, Business optimization, Others]}, Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) {Type [Tow vehicles, Unit load carriers, Pallet trucks, Assembly line vehicles, Forklift trucks, Others], Navigation Technology [Laser guidance, Magnetic guidance, Inductive guidance, Optical tape guidance, Vision guidance, Others]}, Machine Condition Monitoring {Monitoring Technique [Vibration monitoring, Embedded systems, Vibration analyzers and meters, Thermography, Oil analysis, Corrosion monitoring, Ultrasound emission, Motor current analysis], Offering [Hardware - Vibration sensors, Accelerometers, Tachometers, Infrared sensors, Spectrometers, Ultrasound detectors, Spectrum analyzers, Corrosion probes], Software [Data integration, Diagnostic reporting, Order tracking analysis, Parameter calculation], Deployment Type [On-premises deployment, Cloud deployment], Monitoring Process [Online condition monitoring, Portable condition monitoring]})

, Memory, Network], Software [AI solutions- | On-premises, Cloud |, AI platform- | Machine learning framework, Application program interface |], Services [Deployment & integration, Support & maintenance]}, Technology {Machine learning [Deep learning, Supervised learning, Reinforcement learning, Reinforcement learning, Others], Natural language processing [Context-aware computing, Computer vision]}, Application {Predictive maintenance and machinery inspection, Material movement, Production planning, Field services, Quality control, Cybersecurity, Industrial robots, Reclamation}, Digital Twin {Technology [Internet of Things (IOT), Blockchain, Artificial intelligence & machine learning, Artificial intelligence & machine learning, Big data analytics, 5G], Usage Type [Product digital twin, Process digital twin, System digital twin], Application [Product design & development, Performance monitoring, Predictive maintenance, Inventory management, Business optimization, Others]}, Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) {Type [Tow vehicles, Unit load carriers, Pallet trucks, Assembly line vehicles, Forklift trucks, Others], Navigation Technology [Laser guidance, Magnetic guidance, Inductive guidance, Optical tape guidance, Vision guidance, Others]}, Machine Condition Monitoring {Monitoring Technique [Vibration monitoring, Embedded systems, Vibration analyzers and meters, Thermography, Oil analysis, Corrosion monitoring, Ultrasound emission, Motor current analysis], Offering [Hardware - Vibration sensors, Accelerometers, Tachometers, Infrared sensors, Spectrometers, Ultrasound detectors, Spectrum analyzers, Corrosion probes], Software [Data integration, Diagnostic reporting, Order tracking analysis, Parameter calculation], Deployment Type [On-premises deployment, Cloud deployment], Monitoring Process [Online condition monitoring, Portable condition monitoring]}) Industry

Manufacturing, Automotive, Energy, Medical, Semiconductor & Electronics, Food & Beverage, Oil & Gas, Aerospace, Metals & Mining, Chemicals, and Others

Request Free Customization of this report:

https://www.skyquestt.com/speak-with-analyst/industry-4-0-market

Internet of Things (IoT) Technology to Remain Indispensable for Industry 4.0

Internet of Things (IoT) remains the most crucial technology in global Industry 4.0 market growth owing to its role in interconnectivity and automation across different verticals. Advancements in connectivity technologies and rising use of automation in different industry verticals are also estimated to help this sub-segment gain an impressive market share. Surging demand for predictive maintenance will also boost the adoption of IoT technology in the long run.

Advanced robotic technologies are also slated to gain traction in the Industry 4.0 market. Growing acceptance of robots and high investments in advancements of robotic technologies are also slated to create new opportunities for providers of advanced robotics in the Industry 4.0 market. The low margin of error and the immense scope of automation are key benefits of robotics that help this sub-segment flourish.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will be another popular technology in the Industry 4.0 world going forward. Increasing demand for continuous monitoring, real-time analytics, and predictive maintenance are slated to help the demand for artificial intelligence in the future. The rising use of IoT devices will also boost the demand for cloud computing technology in the long run.

View report summary and Table of Contents (TOC):

https://www.skyquestt.com/report/industry-4-0-market

Manufacturing Vertical to Spearhead Industry 4.0 Market Development

The manufacturing vertical is estimated to be at the forefront when it comes to Industry 4.0 adoption. The surge in use of robotics, advanced technologies, and smart manufacturing practices sets the tone for Industry 4.0 in this industry vertical. High emphasis on improving manufacturing efficiency, reducing downtime, and maximizing profits are all contributing to the high market share of this sub-segment.

The automotive industry is another vertical where Industry 4.0 market players could invest to get good returns. The high adoption of advanced robotics and other smart manufacturing technologies to maximize production allows this sub-segment to become a crucial one for Industry 4.0 providers. The aerospace and defense industry vertical also shows a lot of promise for Industry 4.0 companies going forward. Growing demand for advanced manufacturing techniques and technologies to create complex aerospace components is helping Industry 4.0 market growth via this segment.

The oil & gas industry is also estimated to embrace Industry 4.0 trend with open hands as they try to improve their operations and promote better resource utilization. High demand for predictive maintenance to reduce downtime and the growing adoption of digital oilfield solutions are estimated to bolster Industry 4.0 market development in the long run.

To sum it up, the application scope for Industry 4.0 is endless as automation and digitization pick up pace around the world. High investments in development of IoT and AI technologies will create better opportunities for Industry 4.0 companies in the future. The manufacturing industry will remain the top revenue generating sub-segment and more opportunities for aerospace, automotive, and oil & gas verticals will be seen over the coming years.

Related Report:

Digital Twin Market

Cyber Security Market

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Market

Internet Of Things (IoT) Market

Machine Learning 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: [email protected]

Visit Our Website: https://www.skyquestt.com/

Logo : https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2446095/SkyQuest_Logo.jpg

SOURCE SkyQuest Technology
The transaction would see Masdar become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain , subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions

Masdar will invest 817m to acquire a 49.99% stake in 2GW of solar energy plants, with a potential BESS hybridization for up to 0.5 GW

Masdar has also signed an MoU with Endesa to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain

One of Spain's biggest renewable energy transactions in recent years, the partnership is expected to play a significant role in helping Spain meet its NECP targets and the EU's net zero by 2050 target

Agreement cements Masdar's position in Spain , one of EU's largest solar markets, advancing growth plans in Europe as company targets global capacity of 100GW by 2030

ABU DHABI, UAE and MADRID, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC  Masdar ("Masdar"), the UAE's clean energy leader, announced today that it has reached an agreement with Endesa S.A. ("Endesa") to become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. The transaction would see Masdar invest 817 million to acquire a 49.99% stake, with an enterprise value of 1.7 billion, representing one of Spain's biggest renewable energy deals.

Masdar Partners with Endesa in 1.7 Billion Renewable Energy Transaction in Spain

The portfolio Masdar plans to acquire consists of 48 operational solar plants of 2GW aggregated capacity. Endesa and Masdar aim to add 0.5GW of battery energy storage system (BESS) to the projects. The partnership reinforces Masdar's reputation as a trusted global energy partner for governments, investors, developers, and communities.

The deal demonstrates Masdar's commitment to accelerating the energy transition in Spain and Europe, and these solar projects will play an important role in supporting Spain to meet its National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the EU's net zero by 2050 targets.

In addition to the acquisition Share Purchase Agreement (SPA), Masdar and Endesa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain.

The deal reflects Masdar's ambitious growth plans in Europe, having recently announced that it has reached a definitive agreement with Greece's GEK TERNA SA and other shareholders of TERNA ENERGY SA to initially acquire 67% of the company's outstanding shares, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. With a strong portfolio of projects in Greece and Europe, TERNA ENERGY is targeting renewable energy operational capacity of 6GW by 2030.

In March this year, Masdar and Spain's Iberdrola also reached financial close on the 476MW Baltic Eagle offshore wind project located in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Germany.

Masdar's existing presence in Spain includes the Almenara 1.2GW solar photovoltaic (PV) project in the Castilla la Mancha region of Spain currently under development.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala; Endesa is a subsidiary of the Italian energy giant Enel.

HE Dr Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Chairman of Masdar and COP28 President, said:

"Building on Masdar's global expertise and pioneering approach to renewable energy innovation and development, this partnership underscores our commitment to unlocking clean energy capacity in Spain, Europe, and around the world, supporting the global mandate enshrined in the COP28's UAE Consensus to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 enabling a just, orderly and equitable energy transition. Masdar is accelerating its ambitious growth plans as we target 100GW of renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade."

Flavio Cattaneo, CEO of Enel Group, said:

"We are pleased that Enel, through its subsidiary Endesa, has started this partnership with a major player such as Masdar and, looking ahead, we hope that we will be able to carry out similar transactions in other geographies."

Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar, commented:

"By forging a strategic partnership in Spain with Endesa for 2.5GW of solar and battery storage assets, we are taking a significant step forward in our ambitious growth plans in one of Europe's largest renewables markets. This deal with Endesa will play a significant role in supporting Spain and the wider EU in meeting their net-zero ambitions. We are delighted to also sign an MoU with Endesa to become their preferred partner for future solar projects."

Advisors:

Masdar has retained BNPP as its transaction advisor, Linklaters as legal advisor, UL as technical advisor, PwC as its tax advisor, and PexaPark as PPA advisor.

Banks:

The acquisition was partially funded via acquisition financing from BNPP, Santander, Intesa, ADCB, FAB and SMBC. Lenders were advised by Ashurst.

About Masdar

Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company) is one of the world's fastest-growing renewable energy companies. As a global clean energy pioneer, Masdar is advancing the development and deployment of solar, wind, geothermal, battery storage and green hydrogen technologies to accelerate the energy transition and help the world meet its net-zero ambitions. Established in 2006, Masdar has developed and invested in projects in over 40 countries with a combined capacity of over 20 gigawatts (GW), providing affordable clean energy access to those who need it most and helping to power a more sustainable future.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala, and is targeting a renewable energy portfolio capacity of 100GW by 2030 while aiming to be a leading producer of green hydrogen by the same year.

For more information please visit: https://www.masdar.ae and connect: facebook.com/masdar.ae and twitter.com/masdar.

About Endesa

Endesa is a leading electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. It is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. It undertakes end-to-end business including the generation, distribution and retailing of electricity. It also offers electric mobility services, where it is one of the main operators of charging stations in Spain, and other value-added services aimed at the electrification of energy uses in homes, companies, industries and public administrations. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power Espana, the digitalization of grids through e-distribucion and Corporate Social Responsibility. The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR. Our workforce numbers around 9,000 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, the largest electricity group in Europe.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469453/Masdar_Partners_with_Endesa.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1973446/Masdar_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Masdar
The transaction would see Masdar become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain , subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions

Masdar will invest 817m to acquire a 49.99% stake in 2GW of solar energy plants, with a potential BESS hybridization for up to 0.5 GW

Masdar has also signed an MoU with Endesa to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain

One of Spain's biggest renewable energy transactions in recent years, the partnership is expected to play a significant role in helping Spain meet its NECP targets and the EU's net zero by 2050 target

Agreement cements Masdar's position in Spain , one of EU's largest solar markets, advancing growth plans in Europe as company targets global capacity of 100GW by 2030

ABU DHABI, UAE and MADRID, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC  Masdar ("Masdar"), the UAE's clean energy leader, announced today that it has reached an agreement with Endesa S.A. ("Endesa") to become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. The transaction would see Masdar invest 817 million to acquire a 49.99% stake, with an enterprise value of 1.7 billion, representing one of Spain's biggest renewable energy deals.

Masdar Partners with Endesa in 1.7 Billion Renewable Energy Transaction in Spain

The portfolio Masdar plans to acquire consists of 48 operational solar plants of 2GW aggregated capacity. Endesa and Masdar aim to add 0.5GW of battery energy storage system (BESS) to the projects. The partnership reinforces Masdar's reputation as a trusted global energy partner for governments, investors, developers, and communities.

The deal demonstrates Masdar's commitment to accelerating the energy transition in Spain and Europe, and these solar projects will play an important role in supporting Spain to meet its National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the EU's net zero by 2050 targets.

In addition to the acquisition Share Purchase Agreement (SPA), Masdar and Endesa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain.

The deal reflects Masdar's ambitious growth plans in Europe, having recently announced that it has reached a definitive agreement with Greece's GEK TERNA SA and other shareholders of TERNA ENERGY SA to initially acquire 67% of the company's outstanding shares, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. With a strong portfolio of projects in Greece and Europe, TERNA ENERGY is targeting renewable energy operational capacity of 6GW by 2030.

In March this year, Masdar and Spain's Iberdrola also reached financial close on the 476MW Baltic Eagle offshore wind project located in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Germany.

Masdar's existing presence in Spain includes the Almenara 1.2GW solar photovoltaic (PV) project in the Castilla la Mancha region of Spain currently under development.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala; Endesa is a subsidiary of the Italian energy giant Enel.

HE Dr Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Chairman of Masdar and COP28 President, said:

"Building on Masdar's global expertise and pioneering approach to renewable energy innovation and development, this partnership underscores our commitment to unlocking clean energy capacity in Spain, Europe, and around the world, supporting the global mandate enshrined in the COP28's UAE Consensus to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 enabling a just, orderly and equitable energy transition. Masdar is accelerating its ambitious growth plans as we target 100GW of renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade."

Flavio Cattaneo, CEO of Enel Group, said:

"We are pleased that Enel, through its subsidiary Endesa, has started this partnership with a major player such as Masdar and, looking ahead, we hope that we will be able to carry out similar transactions in other geographies."

Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar, commented:

"By forging a strategic partnership in Spain with Endesa for 2.5GW of solar and battery storage assets, we are taking a significant step forward in our ambitious growth plans in one of Europe's largest renewables markets. This deal with Endesa will play a significant role in supporting Spain and the wider EU in meeting their net-zero ambitions. We are delighted to also sign an MoU with Endesa to become their preferred partner for future solar projects."

Advisors:

Masdar has retained BNPP as its transaction advisor, Linklaters as legal advisor, UL as technical advisor, PwC as its tax advisor, and PexaPark as PPA advisor.

Banks:

The acquisition was partially funded via acquisition financing from BNPP, Santander, Intesa, ADCB, FAB and SMBC. Lenders were advised by Ashurst.

About Masdar

Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company) is one of the world's fastest-growing renewable energy companies. As a global clean energy pioneer, Masdar is advancing the development and deployment of solar, wind, geothermal, battery storage and green hydrogen technologies to accelerate the energy transition and help the world meet its net-zero ambitions. Established in 2006, Masdar has developed and invested in projects in over 40 countries with a combined capacity of over 20 gigawatts (GW), providing affordable clean energy access to those who need it most and helping to power a more sustainable future.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala, and is targeting a renewable energy portfolio capacity of 100GW by 2030 while aiming to be a leading producer of green hydrogen by the same year.

For more information please visit: https://www.masdar.ae and connect: facebook.com/masdar.ae and twitter.com/masdar.

About Endesa

Endesa is a leading electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. It is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. It undertakes end-to-end business including the generation, distribution and retailing of electricity. It also offers electric mobility services, where it is one of the main operators of charging stations in Spain, and other value-added services aimed at the electrification of energy uses in homes, companies, industries and public administrations. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power Espana, the digitalization of grids through e-distribucion and Corporate Social Responsibility. The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR. Our workforce numbers around 9,000 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, the largest electricity group in Europe.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469453/Masdar_Partners_with_Endesa.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1973446/Masdar_Logo.jpg
Faulkner nurses voted on July 25 to authorize a potential one-day strike because MGB refuses to properly value the excellent patient care Faulkner nurses provide under extremely challenging conditions

BOSTON, July 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The approximately 500 registered nurses of Brigham and Women's Faulkner Hospital, represented by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, voted on July 25 to authorize a potential one-day strike. Nurses are preparing for a strike because after months of negotiations, Mass General Brigham refuses to provide Faulkner nurses wage parity with Brigham and Women's Hospital nurses, and thereby is failing to address longstanding unsafe staffing and patient safety issues.

Faulkner nurses voted 341 yes to 1 no for a potential 1-day strike  99.7% yes!

"We are incredibly proud that Faulkner nurses came out in huge numbers to authorize a strike. Nurses are disgusted by MGB executives treating us unfairly for so long compared to Brigham and Women's Hospital," said Dan Rec, a Faulkner RN and Co-Chair of the MNA Bargaining Committee. "We are concerned about the damaging cycle of Faulkner nurses receiving lower pay than the Brigham, making retention and recruitment difficult, and leading to understaffing, danger, and stress."

"This powerful strike authorization vote shows that Faulkner nurses are united in standing up for our patients and the respect we deserve," said Kathy Glennon, a Faulkner RN and Co-Chair of the MNA Bargaining Committee. "MGB executives must address the wage disparity between Brigham and the Faulkner to properly value our nurses and ensure safe patient care conditions."

The vote results give the nurses elected to the Faulkner MNA Bargaining Committee authorization to hold a one-day strike if necessary. A strike date has not been selected. If scheduled, that date will be announced to the public once the hospital has been given the 10-day notice required by law. Faulkner nurses would then plan to hold a 24-hour strike unless Faulkner agreed to a fair contract by that date.

Why Faulkner Nurses Deserve Brigham Wage Parity

Nurses at Faulkner Hospital currently make significantly less than nurses at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Yet MGB treats the Faulkner like it is part of the Brigham. Faulkner patient care and working conditions are just as challenging, and the hospital has dozens of vacant nursing positions.

MGB promotes Faulkner using the BWH name. In press releases and announcements, it uses the term "the Brigham family." In September 2023, the hospital celebrated the 25-year relationship between Faulkner and BWH by saying, "This integration has allowed BWFH to become vitally important to the work of the Brigham family" Faulkner and Brigham's internal medicine residency program, general surgery program, and surgical chief resident rotation have been integrated for more than 20 years. Faulkner is home to numerous BWH institutions, including the BWH Comprehensive Spine Center, the BWH Sleep Medicine and Endocrinology Center and the BWH Department of Orthopedic Surgery.

Many staff who work at the Faulkner are employed by BWH, including at physician offices and the Mohs and Dermatologic Surgery Center.





The Brigham pays nurses the BWH MNA salary scale at other off-site locations, including the BWH Health Care Center 850 Boylston St. and the joint BWH/MGH health center in Foxborough.





In some cases, management oversees Faulkner staff from offices at the Brigham, including a Brigham-based director who supervises Faulkner operating room assistants and Samantha Rowley , Vice President of Perioperative Services.





, Vice President of Perioperative Services. BWH is even sending robots to Faulkner! A surgical robot has been accompanied by related cases coming from the Brigham.

MGB Financial Highlights

MassNurses.org  Facebook.com/MassNurses  Twitter.com/MassNurses  Instagram.com/MassNurses

Founded in 1903, the Massachusetts Nurses Association is the largest union of registered nurses in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its 25,000 members advance the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Legislature and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

SOURCE Massachusetts Nurses Association
The partnership will develop facilities to supply two new forms of critical resources through water treatment and dispatchable energy.

ABILENE, Texas, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Natura Resources, LLC (Natura) has entered into a revolutionary new partnership with the Texas Produced Water Consortium (TxPWC) at Texas Tech University to look at the deployment of Natura's liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (LF-MSR) technology to power the Permian Basin.

"Texas Tech is proud to partner with Natura in developing solutions to our state's energy and water challenges." Post this We are proud to partner with the Texas Produced Water Consortium." Doug Robison, Founder and President of Natura Resources, speaks to Natura supporters in Abilene, Texas. Natura Resources will bring its revolutionary liquid-fueled molten salt reactor (LF-MSR) technology to the Permian Basin,

Dubbed "Fortifying the Future," this partnership provides a great opportunity to deploy Natura's LF-MSR technology to provide additional sources of reliable, dispatchable energy paired with produced water treatment facilities to supply two new forms of critical resources for the state of Texas.

"We are proud to partner with the Texas Produced Water Consortium and excited for the opportunities that this Fortifying the Future partnership presents," said Doug Robison, Founder and President of Natura Resources. "Natura has deep-seated roots in the Permian Basin oil and gas industry, and we are thrilled at the opportunity to bring our molten salt reactor technology to the Permian to meet the critical needs for both energy and water."

Natura Resources is leading the nation in the development and deployment of LF-MSR technology. The Fortifying the Future partnership with the TPWC and the upcoming construction permit issuance in September for Natura's first reactor deployment at Abilene Christian University are both evidence of the rapid pace at which Natura is developing LF-MSR technology to meet the critical needs of our nation.

"This partnership is a significant opportunity to demonstrate the potential for expendable additional sources of electricity and water in a state facing demands regarding future resource adequacy, borne in part by immense economic success on a national and global scale," said Rusty Smith, executive director of the TPWC.

The TPWC was created by the Texas Legislature in 2021 as the state's premier produced water research consortium focused on the potential for beneficial uses of treated produced water outside the oil and gas industry. The consortium is specifically tasked with providing the Legislature and state agencies guidance and recommendations on policies that could encourage a system of beneficial use that is both environmentally safe and economically viable.

Affordable, reliable energy is a critical component of the economics of any water treatment process. Having access to a commercialized molten salt reactor in remote areas of the state could prove to be not only a major breakthrough in achieving economic feasibility for treating new sources of water but also could serve as another critical component in supplying Texans with additional electric generation capacity at a crucial time in the state's history.

"Texas Tech University is proud to partner with Natura in developing innovative solutions to our state's energy and water challenges," said Texas Tech President Lawrence Schovanec. "This partnership highlights Texas Tech's long-standing commitment to conducting impactful research, especially as it relates to the efficient and reliable utilization of our state's resources."

Natura Resources

Natura Resources LLC is a leading advanced reactor developer committed to answering the world's increased demand for reliable energy, medical isotopes and clean water by developing commercially deployable molten salt reactors. Natura's small modular reactors are liquid fueled and molten salt cooled, which increases efficiency and reduces waste. Natura's first reactor design, Natura MSR-1, is the basis of the first liquid salt-fueled molten salt reactor design ever reviewed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Natura is intensely focused on performance. Founder and president Douglass Robison is a third-generation oilman with a proven track record of revolutionizing the energy industry with innovative technology and results.

SOURCE Natura Resources
First and Only Chinese Educational Institution to Publish TED Video-Based English Language Learning Books to Help Chinese Youth Improve Bilingual Skills and Science and Technology Literacy

NEW YORK, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 25, 2024, New Channel International Education Group and TED, the world-renowned ideas-sharing platform, officially signed a strategic partnership agreement in New York City, New York. This is the first time for TED to sign a contract with a Chinese educational institution. This move marks a solid step forward for both parties to innovate and develop English language learning and international education, joining hands to leverage TED's vast amount of high-quality educational content and New Channel's deep expertise in teaching English language. The partnership will help Chinese youth improve their bilingual skills and literacy in liberal arts, science, and technologies. It will help promote the exchange and mutual understanding between different countries.

Group Photo of Representatives from New Channel and TED

The signing of this contract with New Channel International Education Group is the first time that TED cooperates with a Chinese educational organization. New Channel International Education Group is a well-known domestic organization with services covering the whole chain of the international education industry. After 20 years of development, it has helped hundreds of thousands of young people go out of the country and engage with the world. In recent years, New Channel has made continuous efforts in the field of international education and international communication, focusing on cultivating Chinese youth with Chinese roots and global competence. Prof. Hu Min, Chairman of New Channel International Education Group, points out that New Channel's global competence model has constructed an "edifice" with global vision as the top, Chinese foundation as the bottom, and six core qualities as the pillars, flanked by two hard skills  literacy in humanities, scientific and technologies, and fluency in foreign languages. In the middle of the model are soft powers in the form of 4Cs, i.e. 4 core qualities for international talents -- Critical Thinking, Communication, Cooperation, and Creativity and innovation.

"The humanities and technology literacy emphasized in the global competence model can coincide with the great ideas spread by TED," said Hu Min. He points out that this partnership will integrate TED's innovative ideas and global vision into education systems, helping stimulate students' creativity and critical thinking, further enhancing students' understanding of multiculturalism in study, promoting the exchange and mutual understanding of civilizations, and nurturing more outstanding talents with a global vision.

Mr. Jay Herratti, CEO of TED, also spoke highly of the partnership. "Access to innovative educational tools is key to a bright future for students and adults alike. At TED, we're dedicated to creating idea-centered content that sparks curiosity and conversation," said Herratti. "That's why we're excited to partner with New Channel to create a new way for learners to engage with our content, and to help them gain skills that set them up to be lifelong learners."

After reaching a strategic partnership with TED, New Channel will obtain the exclusive authorization in mainland China to publish English language learning books based on TED-Ed's high-quality content. On this basis, the two parties will jointly develop and create educational resources for Chinese young learners to improve their English proficiency through engaging content, stay updated of the latest trends in global education, enhance their humanistic and technological literacy and critical thinking, and become a globally competent and talented person. Looking ahead, New Channel and TED will further expand their collaboration areas, explore a variety of cooperation models, and commit to bringing the world's best educational resources to China in order to build a broader growth platform for students.

SOURCE TED and New Channel International Education Group
First City in California to Recognize Pacaso's Innovative Co-ownership Model

PALM SPRINGS, Calif., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacaso , the leading real estate marketplace for co-owned luxury vacation homes, celebrates a significant milestone with the passage of a new ordinance by the Palm Springs City Council. This is the first city in California to affirmatively recognize and regulate co-owned homes, ensuring they are thoughtfully integrated into the community.

"We are grateful to the Palm Springs City Council for being such great partners and recognizing the value of co-ownership," said Pacaso CEO and Co-Founder Austin Allison. "This milestone sets a precedent for other cities in California. Co-ownership has been a pathway to homeownership for families for generations and is an ever-growing practice that plays an important role in addressing housing supply and affordability issues."

Co-ownership, up more than 20% year-over-year , is being embraced as the future of second home ownership. By consolidating home buyers into fewer luxury homes, Pacaso is relieving the pressure of second home demand and unlocking benefits for buyers, owners, and communities. In addition to lowering ownership costs and hassles, Pacaso homes have an almost 90% occupancy rate compared to 11% for traditional second homes.

"The families who decide to purchase a home together through the Pacaso marketplace have an owner's mindset. They are committed to taking care of their home, their property, and their community," continued Allison.

All Pacaso owners follow a Good Neighbor policy, emphasizing conscientious ownership and respect for the community. The Palm Springs ordinance outlines clear rules and penalties for violations designed to protect the neighborhood's quality of life. Pacaso supports the inclusion of these provisions and requires its owners to adhere to both the adopted ordinance and Pacaso's own Good Neighbor policies. Together, Pacaso owners protect and enhance the experience of their fellow owners and the local community.

Pacaso is also committed to supporting local communities by creating job opportunities and collaborating with neighborhood businesses.

"My wife and I are committed to creating a secure household while also providing job opportunities for my parents. When COVID hit, we dedicated countless hours to build our family business, Luxury Carpet Cleaning," said Moises Chaidez. "Thanks to Pacaso, we found the financial stability we needed. Today's announcement allows us to continue our work with Pacaso in Palm Springs, hire locally, and give back to our neighborhood."

For more information, please visit Pacaso.com.

About Pacaso

Co-founded by Austin Allison and Spencer Rascoff in 2020, Pacaso is a technology-enabled marketplace that modernizes real estate co-ownership to make buying, owning, and selling a vacation home possible and enjoyable for more people. Pacaso curates luxury listings with premium amenities and high-end contemporary interior design, offers integrated financing, and, after purchase, professionally manages the home and supports seamless resale. Pacaso offers DIY services for real estate co-owners.

Find out about Pacaso's community efforts by visiting https://www.pacaso.com/communities

SOURCE Pacaso
If You Purchased a Google Device with Google Assistant Pre-Installed, A Class Action Lawsuit May Affect Your Rights.

La informacion proporcionada en este aviso esta disponible en espanol en www.googleassistantprivacylitigation.com

COLCHESTER, Conn., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A class action lawsuit is pending against Google LLC and Alphabet Inc. ("Google") in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (the "Court"). The case is styled In re Google Assistant Privacy Litigation, No. 19-cv-04286 (N.D. Cal.). Plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege that Google Assistant can activate and record communications even when a user does not intentionally trigger Google Assistant with a hot word, like "Okay Google," or manually activate Google Assistant on their device. Plaintiffs refer to such instances as "False Accepts" and allege that Google wrongfully collects, uses, and discloses user audio recordings resulting from False Accepts to improve the speech recognition abilities of Google Assistant. Plaintiffs allege Google's conduct constitutes a breach of the privacy assurances that Google makes to users in its Privacy Policy and is an unlawful practice under California's Unfair Competition Law ("UCL") (collectively, the "Class Claims"). Google denies Plaintiffs' allegations. The Court has not made any determination as to who is right or whether Google did anything wrong but has decided that the Class Claims should proceed as a class action on behalf of a "Class," or a group of people, that could include you.

If you're included in the Class, you have to decide whether to (1) stay in the Class and be bound by the results of the case as to the Class Claims or (2) ask to be excluded and keep your right to separately pursue these claims against Google. Only purchasers of certain devices manufactured by Google, whose Gmail accounts were associated with that device during a certain time period, are Class Members. If you are not a Class Member, you do not need to take any action.

Who is in the Class?

The Court certified the following Class:

All Users in the United States who purchased a Google-Made Device, where:

"Users" are individuals whose Gmail accounts were associated with at least one Google Assistant Enabled Device during the class period from May 18, 2016 to December 16, 2022 ; "Google Assistant Enabled Devices" are devices that come with Google Assistant pre-installed; and "Google-Made Devices" are Google Assistant Enabled Devices manufactured and sold by Google, including Google's Pixel Smartphones; Smart Home Speakers (Google Home, Google Home Mini, Google Home Max, Nest Audio, Nest Mini); Smart Displays (Google Home Hub, Nest Hub, Nest Hub Max); Laptops and Tablets (Pixelbook, Pixelbook Go, Pixel Slate); Digital Media Players (Chromecast with Google TV); and Wireless Earphones (Pixel Buds, Pixel Buds A Series, Pixel Buds Pro).



A more detailed Long-Form Notice, including the exact Class definition and exceptions to Class membership, is available at www.googleassistantprivacylitigation.com .

Your Rights and Options

DO NOTHING: If you are a Class Member and do nothing, you are choosing to stay in the Class and may be able to share in any money or benefits that may be recovered in this case. You will be bound by all Court orders and any judgment entered or settlement reached in the lawsuit, whether favorable or unfavorable, and you will give up your right to separately pursue these claims against Google.

EXCLUDE YOURSELF FROM THE CLASS: The Court will exclude any person who timely asks to be excluded. If you exclude yourself from the Class (i.e., opt out), you will not be entitled to money or benefits if they are awarded or recovered. You will not be bound by any orders or judgments of the Court, and you will not give up your right to separately pursue these claims against Google. The deadline to exclude yourself is September 9, 2024 . Specific instructions on how to request exclusion are available at www.googleassistantprivacylitigation.com .

When and Where Is the Trial?

Class Counsel will have to prove Plaintiffs' allegations at a trial. The trial is scheduled to begin on September 22, 2025, at the United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Jose Courthouse, Courtroom 3, 5th Floor, 280 South 1st Street, San Jose, CA 95113. During the trial, a jury and the Judge will hear all the evidence to help them reach a decision about which party is right about the allegations in the lawsuit. There is no guarantee that Plaintiffs will win or that they will be able to get money for all or some of the members of the Class.

Want More Information?

If you have questions about your rights, go to www.googleassistantprivacylitigation.com , call 1-877-411-4704, or write to:

Google Assistant Privacy Class Action

c/o A.B. Data, Ltd.

P.O. Box 170500

Milwaukee, WI 53217

SOURCE A.B. Data, Ltd.
Ian Davis Will Use His Grant to Build an Affordable, User-Assembled Prosthetic Hand Device

GREENWICH, Conn., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- O'Shaughnessy Ventures LLC (OSV), an investment firm that empowers creators, has awarded an O'Shaughnessy Fellowship to Ian Davis, a product design engineer based in Oregon.

Davis will continue to design, develop and bring to market an affordable prosthetic hand, incorporating his engineering expertise and real-world experience as an amputee, to improve upon currently available devices. He intends to offer the device as an assembly-required DIY kit, enabling users to assemble, fit and repair it independently.

O'Shaughnessy Fellowship Recipient Ian Davis

Davis is a self-employed product design engineer with 28 years of experience operating a fabrication and machine shop in Oregon. In 2019, Davis had four fingers on his left hand amputated but was unable to find a prosthetic device that fully met his needs. That experience set him on a mission to build a device of his own, and Davis has been documenting his progress on YouTube ever since.

OSV's founder and CEO, Jim O'Shaughnessy, commented, "Ian has a rare combination of domain knowledge and personal experience with regard to prosthetics and is perfectly positioned to bring this potentially life-changing device into the world. We're delighted to be able to support him in bringing this idea to fruition."

"I'm hugely thankful to OSV," said Davis. "This is an amazing opportunity, which will allow me, at an accelerated rate, to build something that has the potential to vastly improve the lives of fellow amputees."

About the Fellowship Program

OSV launched the O'Shaughnessy Fellowships in 2023. It is a one-year program for ambitious people who want to build something great. Fellows receive a $100,000 grant and access to OSV's network of founders, investors and experts to support them in bringing their projects to life. More information about last year's Fellows is available on OSV's website.

In 2024, OSV will award ten $100,000 Fellowships. Applicants for the Fellowships will also be considered for its sister program, the O'Shaughnessy Grants. Under this program, OSV will make twenty additional $10,000 grants to promising creators, who will also be provided with access to OSV's network.

Applications for the 2024 Fellowships are now closed and will reopen on January 1, 2025. Creators interested in learning more can visit OSV's website.

About O'Shaughnessy Ventures

OSV is a creative investment firm that empowers and inspires creators to bring their ideas to life. Founded by Jim O'Shaughnessy, a pioneer in quantitative investing, founder of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management, and author of four books on investing, OSV aims to provide financial support and to partner in growing the next life-changing creative ideas.

OSV combines Jim's deeply rooted interest in all things art, science, investing, and tech with his long-held desire to establish scenarios designed to help promising creators and their inspiring ideas succeed, regardless of age, location, job history, or level of education. For more information, visit https://www.osv.llc.

Media Contact:

Ena Gong

O'Shaughnessy Ventures LLC

(917) 355-7420

[email protected]

SOURCE O'Shaughnessy Ventures
NEW YORK, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global physical security market size is estimated to grow by USD 48.6 billion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 6.79% during the forecast period. Increase in development of physical security system is driving market growth, with a trend towards integration of iot in physical security. However, high initial investment in physical security system poses a challenge. Key market players include Advancis Software and Services GmbH, Allied Universal, AxxonSoft, Canon Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Corps Security UK Ltd., Genetec Inc., Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd., Honeywell International Inc., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., ICTS International NV, Johnson Controls International Plc., Kastle Systems International LLC, KBR Inc., Motorola Solutions Inc., NEC Corp., Robert Bosch GmbH, Schneider Electric SE, Securitas AB, Stanley Black and Decker Inc., WESCO International Inc., and Dahua Technology Co. Ltd..

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global Physical security market 2024-2028

Get a detailed analysis on regions, market segments, customer landscape, and companies- View the snapshot of this report

Physical Security Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2023 Historic period 2018 - 2022 Forecast period 2024-2028 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 6.79% Market growth 2024-2028 USD 48.6 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 6.24 Regional analysis North America, Europe, APAC, South America, and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution North America at 31% Key countries US, China, Japan, Germany, and UK Key companies profiled Advancis Software and Services GmbH, Allied Universal, AxxonSoft, Canon Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Corps Security UK Ltd., Genetec Inc., Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co. Ltd., Honeywell International Inc., Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd., ICTS International NV, Johnson Controls International Plc., Kastle Systems International LLC, KBR Inc., Motorola Solutions Inc., NEC Corp., Robert Bosch GmbH, Schneider Electric SE, Securitas AB, Stanley Black and Decker Inc., WESCO International Inc., and Dahua Technology Co. Ltd.

Market Driver

The Internet of Things (IoT) revolutionizes physical security by enabling objects to be accessed over the Internet. IoT connects various devices, from microcontrollers to processors, creating a network for real-time data collection and analysis. In the industrial sector, this technology is increasingly used for wireless video surveillance, providing immediate responses and enabling real-time decision-making. The demand for enhancing the efficiency of industrial facilities, such as waste management, energy, and water management plants, is driving the installation of IoT-based physical security devices. IoT transforms video surveillance and commercial systems, improving communication between devices and enhancing access management and onsite security. Overall, the integration of IoT in physical security solutions is anticipated to significantly boost market growth during the forecast period.

The Physical Security Market is witnessing notable trends due to increasing concerns over vandalism, potential burglaries, theft, and fire incidences. Cloud-based data storages and advanced analytics are driving technological developments in the market. Access control, video surveillance, alarm systems, door locks, and advanced logical security solutions are in high demand. Breach detection, threat management, intrusion prevention, and rescuer systems are also gaining popularity. Smart city initiatives and infrastructure development are creating opportunities for physical security solutions in the large enterprise segment. Cyber threats, SMEs, and individual homes are also adopting physical security solutions to protect their assets and resources. Integrated sensors, video access systems, and connectivity are key features of modern physical security systems. Analog and Axis network cameras, video encoders, monitors, and storage solutions are essential components of the system segment. IoT and banking institutions are significant end-users in the market. Unauthorized access, security breaches, and theft by intruders continue to pose challenges, driving the need for advanced security solutions.

Discover 360 analysis of this market. For complete information, schedule your consultation - Book Here!

Market Challenges

The physical security market presents new entrants with a significant challenge due to the high initial investment required for the necessary IT infrastructure. This investment, which can reach tens of thousands of dollars, is a substantial barrier for some companies. Established vendors, on the other hand, are witnessing a significant increase in spending. Additionally, the cost of replacing and upgrading physical security devices and software is considerable. As new physical security technologies emerge, there will be a growing demand for updated professional expertise. Organizations that lack this expertise may invest heavily in training their personnel or hire professionals at a premium cost. Consequently, the high initial investment is a major hurdle for the expansion of the global physical security market during the forecast period.

The Physical Security Market faces several challenges in 2023, including effective threat management and intrusion prevention. With the rise of smart city initiatives and increasing infrastructure development, securing physical objects from unauthorized access and security breaches becomes crucial. Employee safety is another major concern, especially with the growing trend of remote work and connectivity. Cyber threats pose a significant risk to both large enterprises and SMEs, requiring integrated sensors, video, and access systems for comprehensive security solutions. Theft and intruders continue to target assets and resources, making video surveillance and access control systems essential. Smart homes and IoT devices add to the complexity of security, while banking institutions and traffic congestion require specialized solutions for monitoring crowds and accidents. Terror attacks and LiDAR-based video surveillance from companies like Edge360 and Quanergy Systems, Inc. Offer advanced security features. Access control systems, including smart locks and Bluetooth technology, provide convenience and enhanced security. The market segments include analog cameras, Axis network cameras, video encoders, monitors, and storage solutions for remote monitoring. The system segment focuses on providing comprehensive security solutions to meet various business needs.

For more insights on driver and challenges - Request a sample report!

Segment Overview

This physical security market report extensively covers market segmentation by

Type

1.1 Hardware and software

1.2 Services

End-user

2.1 Large enterprises

2.2 SMEs

Geography

3.1 North America

3.2 Europe

3.3 APAC

3.4 South America

3.5 Middle East and Africa

1.1 Hardware and software- The Physical Security Market is a significant industry that provides solutions to protect businesses and organizations from unauthorized access, theft, and damage. It includes products such as access control systems, surveillance cameras, and physical barriers. Companies invest in physical security to safeguard their assets, ensure employee safety, and comply with regulations. Growth in this market is driven by increasing security concerns, technological advancements, and rising crime rates. Businesses seek reliable and cost-effective security solutions to mitigate risks and maintain a secure environment.

For more information on market segmentation with geographical analysis including forecast (2024-2028) and historic data (2017-2021) - Download a Sample Report

Learn and explore more about Technavio's in-depth research reports

The global containerized and modular data center market is experiencing significant growth due to the rising demand for scalable and efficient data storage solutions. These modular centers offer rapid deployment and cost efficiency, catering to diverse industry needs. Simultaneously, the global wireless home security camera market is booming, driven by increasing concerns about home security and advancements in wireless technology. These cameras provide flexible, easy-to-install security solutions for homeowners, contributing to enhanced safety and peace of mind. Both markets reflect the growing trend towards innovative, adaptable technology solutions.

Research Analysis

The Physical Security market encompasses various solutions designed to protect physical objects and infrastructure from vandalism, potential burglaries, theft, and fire incidences. Technological developments have led to advanced security systems, including cloud-based data storages, advanced analytics, and real-time threat management. Access control systems, such as badge readers and advanced logical security, are essential components, as are video surveillance and alarm systems. Legacy solutions, like door locks and analog cameras, continue to play a role in the market. Integrated sensors, connectivity, and breach detection systems are also crucial elements. Smart city initiatives and employee safety are key drivers for the market, with a focus on preventing unauthorized access, security breaches, and ensuring the safety of physical objects. Intrusion prevention and threat management systems are essential for infrastructure protection. Rescuers and first responders also rely on these technologies for effective response during emergencies.

Market Research Overview

The Physical Security market encompasses various solutions aimed at safeguarding physical objects and infrastructure from potential threats such as vandalism, burglaries, theft, and fire incidences. Technological advancements have led to the emergence of cloud-based data storages, advanced analytics, and connectivity, transforming traditional security systems. Solutions include access control systems using badge readers and advanced logical security, intrusion prevention systems, alarm systems, and door locks. Integrated sensors, video surveillance, and remote monitoring are essential components, with the market segmented into system segments, large enterprises, SMEs, and smart homes. IoT and cyber threats are significant challenges, with LiDAR-based video surveillance and smart locks utilizing technologies like Bluetooth offering enhanced security. The market caters to various sectors, including banking institutions, infrastructure development, and smart city initiatives, prioritizing employee safety and unauthorized access prevention. Solutions also address threats such as terror attacks, traffic congestion, and monitoring crowds for potential accidents.

Table of Contents:

1 Executive Summary

2 Market Landscape

3 Market Sizing

4 Historic Market Size

5 Five Forces Analysis

6 Market Segmentation

Type

Hardware And Software



Services

End-user

Large Enterprises



SMEs

Geography

North America



Europe



APAC



South America



Middle East And Africa

7 Customer Landscape

8 Geographic Landscape

9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

10 Company Landscape

11 Company Analysis

12 Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
Growing consumer awareness of enzyme benefits fuels demand for enzyme-based products in various health and wellness sectors.

WILMINGTON, Del., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global specialty enzymes market is estimated to flourish at a CAGR of 6.4% from 2024 to 2034. Transparency Market Research projects that the overall sales revenue for specialty enzymes is estimated to reach US$ 10.4 billion by the end of 2034.

Enzymes are proteins that selectively catalyze chemical reactions, playing crucial roles in essential life processes such as digestion, respiration, and metabolism. The specialty enzymes market is expanding due to the rising demand for effective biocatalysts in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics, which drives innovation. Biotechnology and genetic engineering advancements have enabled the development of more efficient and specific enzymes, broadening their application scope.

Increased investment in healthcare and biopharmaceuticals further supports the use of specialty enzymes in new therapies and drug formulations. As consumers become more health-conscious, there is a growing use of specialty enzymes in nutraceuticals and functional foods, boosting market growth.

Specialty enzymes, as highly specific biocatalysts, are utilized in various industries, including pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, research, and biotechnology. These enzymes are designed to perform specific functions with high efficiency, making them valuable tools for enhancing processes and products across these sectors.

Moreover, the biopharmaceutical industry's demand for specialty enzymes is driven by the need for protein and cell production. Enzymatic alternatives are increasingly replacing older production technologies, especially in regenerative medicine, which requires high quality, pharmaceutical-grade enzymes.

Download Sample PDF Brochure: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=2276

The integration of digital technologies and automation in enzyme production processes is streamlining operations, enhancing efficiency, and reducing costs for manufacturers. This trend is particularly evident in developed regions like North America and Europe.

Rapid urbanization and industrialization in emerging markets of Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa present untapped opportunities for specialty enzyme manufacturers. Rising disposable incomes and evolving consumer preferences drive the demand for enzyme-based products in these regions.

The expanding biopharmaceutical sector, particularly in regions like North America and Europe, fuels the demand for specialty enzymes used in drug development, manufacturing, and bioprocessing. Advancements in biotechnology and the increasing focus on biologics drive this trend.

Collaborations between enzyme manufacturers and other industries, such as agriculture, cosmetics, and waste management, are fostering innovation and diversification of enzyme applications. These partnerships leverage expertise from diverse sectors to develop novel enzyme-based solutions.

Evolving regulatory landscapes, especially regarding food safety, environmental sustainability, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing, influences the adoption of specialty enzymes. Compliance with regulations drives market growth as companies invest in research and development to meet stringent requirements and ensure product quality and safety.

Specialty Enzymes Market Report Scope:

Report Coverage Details Forecast Period 2024-2034 Base Year 2020-2022 Size in 2023 US$ 5.2 Bn Forecast (Value) in 2034 US$ 10.4 Bn Growth Rate (CAGR) 6.4 % No. of Pages 151 Pages Segments covered By Product, By Application, By Region

Key Findings of the Market Report

Proteases emerge as the leading product segment in the specialty enzymes market due to their wide-ranging applications across various industries.

Diagnostics emerges as the leading application segment in the specialty enzymes market, driven by the growing demand for accurate medical testing.

North America leads the specialty enzymes market due to robust investments, mature healthcare sectors, and emphasis on sustainable practices.

Specialty Enzymes Market Growth Drivers & Trends

Increasing demand for sustainable and eco-friendly solutions across industries like food, pharmaceuticals, and biofuels drives the growth of specialty enzymes market.

Advancements in biotechnology and enzyme engineering fuel innovation, leading to the development of novel enzyme products with enhanced functionality.

Growing awareness about the benefits of enzyme-based products for health and wellness stimulates market expansion.

Rising investments in research and development by key market players foster technological advancements and product diversification.

Shift towards personalized medicine and precision agriculture drives demand for specialty enzymes, offering tailored solutions for specific applications and industries.

Unlock Growth Potential in Your Industry! Download PDF Brochure: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=2276

Global Specialty Enzymes Market: Regional Profile

North America leads the market, fueled by robust investments in research and development, particularly in the United States . Major players like Novozymes and DuPont dominate this region, capitalizing on strong industrial infrastructure and a mature healthcare sector. The region's emphasis on sustainable practices and stringent quality standards further drives market growth.

leads the market, fueled by robust investments in research and development, particularly in . Major players like Novozymes and DuPont dominate this region, capitalizing on strong industrial infrastructure and a mature healthcare sector. The region's emphasis on sustainable practices and stringent quality standards further drives market growth. In Europe , stringent regulations regarding food and pharmaceutical safety propel the demand for specialty enzymes. Countries like Germany and the Netherlands are at the forefront of enzyme production, with companies like DSM and BASF SE leading innovation efforts. Increasing consumer awareness regarding healthy lifestyles and sustainable products amplifies market expansion opportunities.

, stringent regulations regarding food and pharmaceutical safety propel the demand for specialty enzymes. Countries like and are at the forefront of enzyme production, with companies like DSM and BASF SE leading innovation efforts. Increasing consumer awareness regarding healthy lifestyles and sustainable products amplifies market expansion opportunities. The Asia Pacific region emerges as a key growth engine, driven by rapid industrialization, urbanization, and rising disposable incomes. Countries like China , India , and Japan witness surging demand for specialty enzymes across diverse sectors, including food and beverage, textiles, and biotechnology. Local players such as Amano Enzymes and Advanced Enzymes Technologies Ltd. leverage their agility and cost competitiveness to capture market share, while multinational companies strategically expand their presence through partnerships and acquisitions.

Specialty Enzymes Market: Competitive Landscape

The specialty enzymes market is fiercely competitive, driven by innovation, quality, and customization. Key players such as Novozymes, DuPont, and DSM dominate, leveraging extensive R&D investments and global reach. They offer a diverse range of enzymes catering to pharmaceuticals, food & beverages, and biofuels, maintaining market leadership through strategic collaborations and mergers.

Emerging players like Amano Enzymes and AB Enzymes challenge incumbents with niche offerings and agile manufacturing capabilities. Regional players like Advanced Enzymes and Chr. Hansen Holding A/S strengthen competition by focusing on specific market segments and providing tailored enzyme solutions. This dynamic landscape fosters continuous growth and fosters innovation. Some prominent players are as follows:

F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd.

Novonesis Group

Amano Enzyme Inc.

Codexis Inc.

Advanced Enzymes Technologies Ltd.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

BBI Solutions

Biocatalysts

Amicogen

American Laboratories Inc.

Product Portfolio

BBI Solutions pioneers in diagnostic reagents and assays, empowering healthcare professionals worldwide with innovative solutions. Their portfolio includes immunoassays, antibodies, and contract manufacturing services, ensuring accurate and reliable diagnostics for improved patient care.

Biocatalysts excels in enzyme discovery, development, and production, catering to diverse industries like pharmaceuticals, food, and chemicals. Their advanced enzymatic solutions enhance process efficiency, sustainability, and product quality, driving innovation and value for clients globally.

Specialty Enzymes Market: Key Segments

By Product

Proteases

Carbohydrases

Polymerases & Nucleases

Lipases

Others

By Application

Research & Biotechnology

Diagnostics

Others

By Region

North America

Europe

Asia Pacific

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

Buy this Premium Research Report: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/checkout.php?rep_id=2276<ype=S

More Trending Reports by Transparency Market Research 

Diagnostic Specialty Enzymes Market - The global diagnostic specialty enzymes market is projected to advance at a CAGR of 6.9% from 2023 to 2031

The global diagnostic specialty enzymes market is projected to advance at a from 2023 to 2031 Diagnostic Specialty Antibodies Market - The global diagnostic specialty antibodies market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 5.4% during the forecast period from 2023 to 2031

The global diagnostic specialty antibodies market is projected to expand at a during the forecast period from 2023 to 2031 Thin Film Drug Manufacturing Market is estimated to advance at a CAGR of 9.0% from 2024 to 2034 and reach US$ 16.5 Bn by the end of 2034

About Transparency Market Research

Transparency Market Research, a global market research company registered at Wilmington, Delaware, United States, provides custom research and consulting services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insights for thousands of decision makers. Our experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools & techniques to gather and analyses information.

Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

Contact:

Transparency Market Research Inc.

CORPORATE HEADQUARTER DOWNTOWN,1000 N. West Street,

Suite 1200, Wilmington, Delaware 19801 USA

Tel: +1-518-618-1030

USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453

Website: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Email: [email protected]

Follow Us: LinkedIn| Twitter| Blog | YouTube

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1682871/TMR_Logo_Logo.jpg

SOURCE Transparency Market Research
StakeWise V3 deployed on Gnosis Chain eight months after going live on Ethereum mainnet

LONDON, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- StakeWise, which provides liquid staking for DeFi natives, solo stakers, and institutions on Ethereum and Gnosis Chain, today releases the latest iteration of its liquid staking protocol, StakeWise V3 ("V3"), on Gnosis Chain. The deployment of Stakewise V3 on Gnosis Chain, which comes less than a year after it went live on Ethereum mainnet, simultaneously created a staking marketplace offering permissionless access to osGNO, a new liquid staking token.

Prior to the launch of V3 on Gnosis Chain, StakeWise had been operating V2 and amassed over 73,000 GNO in deposits, equivalent to approximately 40% of the network's staked assets. GNO is the staking token of Gnosis and the governance token for the GnosisDAO.

Commenting on V3's launch on Gnosis Chain, Kirill Kutakov, Core Contributor and Co-Founder of StakeWise said, "Thanks to StakeWise V3, users and organizations that run own validators no longer face the trade-off between supporting network decentralization and participating in the latest DeFi product - they can do both now. We hope that granting universal access to a liquid staking token and creating an open staking marketplace will lead to a more decentralized and robust network, especially in light of low bond requirements of1 GNO per validator on Gnosis Chain."

Armagan Ercan, Validator Lead at Gnosis added, "We welcome the deployment of StakeWise V3 on Gnosis Chain, as this aligns with our approach towards making Gnosis Chain credibly neutral by having a diverse community of validators. With V3, stakers on Gnosis Chain not only have greater control over their node operations, but will also have access to enhanced rewards."

Liquid staking has become the preferred way to stake digital assets for blockchain users, with over 40% of all ETH and GNO staked in liquid staking protocols. However, such services require stakers to delegate their assets to third-party node operators that service them.

V3 enables any individual or entity running Gnosis Chain validators to receive osGNO tokens for liquid staking while running their own nodes without delegating assets to anyone. V3 also enables the creation of isolated staking pools, known as Vaults, to allow non-custodial delegations by users who cannot run nodes on their own.

As a result, stakers can either run their own nodes or choose from a range of node operators in the Vaults marketplace, picking the best option based on APY, uptime, server infrastructure, and fees. No matter their preference, stakers always have the ability to mint osGNO for liquid staking.

The key features of StakeWise V3 on Gnosis Chain are:

Stake any amount of GNO and earn rewards

Select among different staking pools in the StakeWise Vaults marketplace to find the best GNO staking deals

Mint osGNO for liquid staking

Autocompound GNO rewards into new validators

Unstake at any time (subject to the network exit queue)

Current users of V2 on Gnosis Chain can migrate their sGNO and rGNO tokens to move their staked assets to V3.

The deployment of StakeWise V3 on Gnosis Chain comes on the heels of growing StakeWise adoption on the Ethereum mainnet. MetaMask has recently chosen StakeWise to power its new Pooled Staking service, while Nexus Mutual DAO voted to allocate about 5000 ETH from its treasury to staking with Chorus One using StakeWise.

Kirill Kutakov, Core Contributor and Co-Founder of StakeWise and Armagan Ercan, Validator Lead at Gnosis is available for interviews.

About Gnosis

Gnosis is developed by a world-class team of leading forces in blockchain and payments. The Gnosis Chain is architected with community ownership, resilience, and credible neutrality at its core. The highly decentralised network is secured by 200K+ validators and 2K+ nodes, across 70 countries and 5 continents.

Website | X (Twitter) | Discord | Substack | Blog

About StakeWise

StakeWise is a protocol pioneering universal access to liquid staking tokens. Thanks to StakeWise, ordinary users and institutions alike can stake ETH and GNO on any node and in any configuration while keeping their stake liquid via osETH and osGNO tokens. StakeWise launched in 2021 and has amassed over $350M in staked assets to date across Ethereum and Gnosis Chain.

SOURCE Gnosis
Workers Join Thousands of Local 2010 Members Receiving Historic Increases This Year

IRVINE, Calif., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Teamsters Local 2010 Skilled Trades members at University of California at Irvine (UCI) have overwhelmingly ratified a collective bargaining agreement with significant compensation increases, including 18.5 percent in average raises over the life of the three-year agreement. The new contract also contains significant language improvements, including daily overtime and increases in on-call pay. The members ratified the agreement by 98 percent with more than 95 percent of members turning out to vote.

Local 2010 was able to secure the agreement because UCI members stood together and took effective workplace actions, including numerous pickets and rallies, to show the employer their strength.

This win at UCI comes as members of Local 2010 across California receive historic raises under Teamsters contracts secured over the past few years. It also follows on the heels of successful strikes by Skilled Trades members at California State University, which resulted in the strongest contract in the bargaining unit's history.

"We congratulate our Skilled Trades members at UCI for winning this outstanding contract, and all of our Local 2010 members across the state for the historic raises we are receiving this year," said Jason Rabinowitz, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 2010. "These gains are the direct result of our hard work building a strong union that has shown that our members are united and ready to do whatever it takesup to and including going on striketo win the fair contracts we deserve."

Other members of Local 2010 are also receiving strong raises this year under robust contracts previously won across the union.

Members of Local 2010's largest bargaining group, the statewide UC Clerical and Allied Services (CX) unit of more than 15,000 workers, received an average 6.4 percent raise on July 1, on top of raises received in the prior three years of the current contract. Teamsters who achieved 20 years of university service received $1,000 longevity payments.

CX Teamsters have received raises more than 2 percent higher than nonunion UC workers each year, a key factor driving thousands of formerly nonunion workers to join Local 2010.

The local union has recently won legal cases extending union rights for thousands of UC workers who had been misclassified as nonunion. These workers now receive guaranteed raises and all other rights provided in the union contract.

At California State University (CSU), Skilled Trades Teamsters will receive unprecedented wage increases through the return of hard-won salary steps, reclaimed after a nearly 30-year absence from contract language. Local 2010 fought a multi-year battle for the step increases, navigating more than a year of tough negotiations with CSU, organizing countless member actions, initiating two separate strikes across the state, and enduring a subsequent five-day strike.

Effective October 1, CSU will transition workers to a new salary step structure, which will result in average raises of over 6.5 percent. Workers with longer service who have fallen behind due to the lack of step increases will receive up to two additional step increases. Over 80 percent of members will reach their "target step"the appropriate step based on years of servicethis year. By the end of the contract next year, 100 percent of workers will reach their target, correcting decades of salary inequity at CSU.

Skilled Trades workers represented by Local 2010 at five other University of California campuses will also receive 4-5 percent across-the-board raises in July, on top of the significant raises in prior years of their contracts.

"We are proud of the tremendous raises and improvements we have won in Teamsters Local 2010, but we are not resting on our laurels," Rabinowitz said. "Next year, most of our contracts will be up for negotiation. Our members continue to stand together as a powerful union, gearing up for the fights ahead to build on what we have achieved."

Teamsters Local 2010 is an affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, representing 18,000 workers in California higher education, including clerical, administrative, and skilled trades workers throughout the University of California and California State University systems. For more information, visit teamsters2010.org.

Contact:

Aimee Baror, (213) 220-0538

[email protected]

SOURCE Teamsters Local 2010
"JING JING" means keeping it real. It shows our true selves, no filters, no fakes. This is the anthem of the summer! Post this

Turning the page on POK's next chapter, he serves up his official Western debut single "JING JING" featuring multiplatinum rap superstar SOULJA BOY. Built around a sample of the Thai classic "Prince of Devils" by Buppa Saichol, POK spits bars with charm and charisma over a hard-hitting bass thump. SOULJA BOY rolls through with a fiery spot of his own, turning up the heat all around. Together, they creatively unite two cultures, sounds, styles, and spirits.

"When I heard the beat, I knew this was going to be fire. 'JING JING' is all about truth and vibes. It's a banger 4 sho." - Soulja Boy

ABOUT POKMINDSET

POKMINDSET's authenticity transcends borders, translates to every language, and ignites any arena. Undeniable talent, unapologetic vision, and uncontainable ambition have cemented POKMINDSET as a powerhouse rapper, mega-popular YouTuber, scene-stealing actor, successful entrepreneur, and global force of nature. From the epicenter of his native city Bangkok, his impact has amplified worldwide, and it will continue to expand. Armed with anthems in English and Thai, authenticity drives his artistry across a series of 2024 singles and much more to come.

Growing up in Bangkok, he resided with his entrepreneur father and mother Aspara Hongsakula who notably made history as "the first woman from Thailand and first woman from Southeast Asia to win Miss Universe" in 1965. At 13-years-old, POKMINDSET moved to Boston, MA where he attended Lawrence Academy. Beyond a heavy class load, he obsessed over hip-hop, studying the rhymes of 2Pac, Fabolous, Mase, Nelly, and more for hours an end. Widening his sonic palette, he also emerged as a dynamic multi-instrumentalist, learning drums, guitar, and keys. Opting to continue his education in Boston, he went on to attend Northeastern University. However, he made the most of his time away from home. He picked up his very first audio interface and MIDI keyboard from Guitar Center and cooked up beats, encouraging friends to spit over his early compositions. Eventually, he finally grabbed a microphone

Settling back in Bangkok, he leaned into what he fittingly describes as Pure Rap, introducing himself with a steady barrage of music and igniting a rise to stardom. Following tracks such as Tat 2 and KOM TUM, WIP WUP exploded with hundreds of millions of streams worldwide. POK kickstarted 2024 with JEK.

"I created another lane for me," he grins. "I wanted to pay homage to my Thai side, so we started off the beat by using samples from traditional Thai songs. The meaning of the song is simple. 'JING JING' means 'real,' so it's representing the real deal authentic POK.' "

Media Contact:

Erica Hill, [email protected]

SOURCE Pokmindset
"We at Stone Ridge are incredibly proud of these athletes, not only for what they accomplish in the sport of swimming, but for the values and character they represent," said Head of School Catherine Ronan Karrels '86. "Our school community has watched these young women train for many years, consistently inspired by their dedication to hitting their goals in the pool while achieving high standards in their academics and other pursuits. While swimmers strive for their personal best, each one of these champion athletes is also fully dedicated to the concept of team and community  a true lesson on the payoff of consistent hard work, discipline, and practice."

Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart endeavors to develop empowered leaders who serve with faith, intellect, and confidence. The school is part of a 200-year-old international network of Sacred Heart schools sponsored by the Religious of the Sacred Heart, with origins in France. Students learn to tackle challenges and develop leadership skills while maintaining a healthy balance in their livesan ideal blend of support and challenge for young athletes.

The new level of inspiration and motivation brought by Ledecky's record-breaking career has also contributed to the increase in elite-level athletes graduating from Stone Ridge in the twelve years since her Olympic debut.

"Erin and Phoebe have told us they were both deeply inspired by Katie when they were younger, and the spirit of sisterhood they demonstrate is part of our school culture," Karrels continued. "My heart is bursting with pride in these young women, and I feel incredibly grateful to be inspired by them and learn from their dedication and grit."

Karrels is traveling to Paris this week to cheer on her former students. Hundreds of members of the Stone Ridge community gathered on campus the evening before the Opening Ceremony to cheer on the Olympians.

About Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart

Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart , located in Bethesda, Maryland, is an all-girls grades 1-12, Catholic, independent school with a coeducational program for children ages three months through Kindergarten.

@stoneridgesacredheart

MEDIA CONTACT:

Kate Kalas Stone Ridge

301-657-4322 ext. 1702

[email protected]

SOURCE Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart
TOKYO, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tokyo Festival Executive Committee has announced that it will offer overseas visitors the following special tours in September. The tours are designed to promote the appeal of contemporary performing arts and the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre -- one of Japan's leading theaters -- abroad.

*Advance booking is required for all tours.

https://cdn.kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M105782/202407193833/_prw_PI1fl_ENSOV666.jpg (for PC)

https://cdn.kyodonewsprwire.jp/prwfile/release/M105782/202407193833/_prw_PI2fl_743NjqD5.jpg (for smartphones)

1. A guided tour in English by shuttle taxi for Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre's Kinoshita-Kabuki "Sannin Kichisa Kuruwa no Hatsugai" (a story about three thieves), taking visitors around famous sites in old Edo where the play is set and which are linked to the play. The tour includes a ticket to performance.

2. Before the following program, there will be a lecture explaining not only the details and storyline of the work but also its background and concept, as well as topics such as the Tokyo Festival and Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. English subtitles are available for the performance.

-Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Presents Kinoshita-Kabuki "Sannin Kichisa Kuruwa no Hatsugai" / pre-performance lecture in English

-chelfitsch & Dai Fujikura with Ensemble Nomad "Metamorphosis of a Living Room" / pre-performance lecture in English

-NORUHA "Virtual Disorder" / pre-performance lecture in English

-CONDORS Outdoor Performance "Let's Turn the Table" / pre-performance lecture in English, Korean and Chinese

3. Exploration of Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre not only introduces the performing arts but also conveys the appeal of the theater building, designed by leading Japanese architect Yoshinobu Ashihara. The tour will be conducted in English, Korean and Chinese.

Details: https://tokyo-festival.jp/2024/discover-tour

About Tokyo Festival

The Tokyo Festival is a comprehensive urban arts festival held every fall around Tokyo's Toshima City, centering on the Ikebukuro area, which aims to connect with the world through Tokyo's rich and diverse arts and culture scenes. The festival 2024 will be held in September 2024.

Tokyo Festival 2024 outline

Organizers:

Tokyo Festival Executive Committee (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture <Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre & Arts Council Tokyo> Tokyo Metropolitan Government) / Japan Arts Council / Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan

Sponsored by Asahi Group Japan, Ltd.

Japan Cultural Expo 2.0 in 2024 Fiscal Year

In cooperation with Toshima City, SEIBU RAILWAY Co., Ltd., TOBU RAILWAY CO., LTD.

SOURCE Tokyo Festival Executive Committee
MARTINEZ, Calif., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- In a decisive move to safeguard community health, environmental integrity, and corporate responsibility, TorkLaw and Cutter Law have jointly filed a high-profile lawsuit against Martinez Refinery Company LLC, which is part of the PBF Energy family of companies. This legal action seeks to hold the refinery accountable for persistent environmental violations that have inflicted significant harm on local residents.

Background

Reza Torkzadeh of TorkLaw is one of the lead attorneys representing individuals in the lawsuit against the Martinez Refinery in Martinez California.

The PBF Martinez Refinery, a prominent industrial facility in Martinez, California, has a long and troubling history of environmental problems. Over the years, the refinery has been responsible for multiple incidents involving the release of hazardous substances into the local community. These incidents have resulted in serious health issues for residents and substantial environmental degradation.

Notable Incidents:

November 24-25, 2022 : A catastrophic equipment failure led to the release of spent catalyst material, covering the community with twenty-four thousand tons of toxic dust and prompting widespread health concerns.

A catastrophic equipment failure led to the release of spent catalyst material, covering the community with twenty-four thousand tons of toxic dust and prompting widespread health concerns. July 11 and 22, 2023, and October 6, 2023 : Significant releases of coke dust that further endangered public health, exacerbated existing health conditions, and damaged properties.

Significant releases of coke dust that further endangered public health, exacerbated existing health conditions, and damaged properties. December 15 , 2023: A significant flaring event exposed residents to noxious gases, once again endangering public health.

The Lawsuit

Filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, Case 3:24-cv-04506, the lawsuit encompasses multiple legal claims including negligence, public and private nuisance, premise liability, trespass, and strict liability for ultrahazardous activities. The plaintiffs, comprising local residents and property owners, are seeking compensation for personal injuries, property damages, and a court declaration that the PBF Martinez Refinery's ongoing operations constitute a public and private nuisance.

Statements from Leading Attorneys

Reza Torkzadeh, Founding Partner at TorkLaw, stated, "This lawsuit represents a crucial stand against corporate negligence. The PBF Martinez Refinery has repeatedly compromised the health and safety of the community. Our legal action is aimed at securing justice for those affected and ensuring such blatant disregard for public well-being does not continue."

Brooks Cutter, Senior Partner at Cutter Law, emphasized, "We are committed to holding the PBF Martinez Refinery accountable for its repeated toxic releases. Our goal is to achieve not only compensation for the victims but also meaningful changes in refinery operations to prevent future harm."

Impact on the Community

According to the lawsuit, the PBF Martinez Refinery's repeated safety failures have led to widespread health issues among residents, including severe and permanent lung damage, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, liver and kidney damage, as well as nausea and fatigue. The environmental impact has been equally devastating, with contamination affecting local soil and water resources.

Personal Stories:

Jennifer Frye: "The toxic dust from the refinery has devastated my health. I'm now on oxygen 24/7. This lawsuit is about seeking justice and ensuring no one else suffers as I have."

"The toxic dust from the refinery has devastated my health. I'm now on oxygen 24/7. This lawsuit is about seeking justice and ensuring no one else suffers as I have." Antoinette Redus: "The refinery's negligence has made daily life a struggle. We need this lawsuit to bring accountability and change."

Call to Action

TorkLaw and Cutter Law are calling on all affected residents to join this critical legal fight. Community members who have suffered due to the refinery's operations are encouraged to come forward and support the lawsuit.

Contact Information:

TorkLaw

Media Contact:

18650 MacArthur Blvd. Ste 300, Irvine, CA 92612

92612 Phone: (888) 845-9696

Email: [email protected]

Cutter Law P.C.

Media Contact:

401 Watt Avenue, Sacramento, CA 95864

95864 Phone: (916) 290-9400

Email: [email protected]

For more information about the lawsuit and how to participate, please visit TorkLaw and Cutter Law.

About TorkLaw: TorkLaw is a nationally recognized law firm dedicated to providing exceptional legal representation to individuals affected by personal injuries, environmental disasters, and corporate negligence.

About Cutter Law: Cutter Law is committed to holding corporations accountable and protecting the rights of affected communities through strategic, impactful litigation, including mass tort actions.

SOURCE TORKLAW
Turing Announces Three New Offerings to Enhance AI Model Capabilities at AGI Icons Event - Multimodality, STEM Expertise, and Industry Domain Knowledge

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Turing, the world's fastest-growing AI-powered tech services company, hosted the second installment in its AGI Icons thought-leadership series on July 24 at SHACK15, San Francisco's exclusive hub for entrepreneurs and tech innovators. As the centerpiece of the event, Turing Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, Jonathan Siddharth joined Quora Chief Executive Officer, Adam D'Angelo for a deep discussion on the future of artificial general intelligence (AGI) and the critical role of human knowledge in its ongoing development. The informative and thought-provoking fireside chat, moderated by Anita Ramasway, financial analysis columnist at The Information, provided a roadmap for future AI advancements and highlighted insights for building responsible AGI.

Fireside chat with Anita Ramaswamy (The Information), Adam D'Angelo (Quora), and Jonathan Siddharth (Turing)

The road to AGI is complex, and Turing AGI Icons offers a unique opportunity to connect with the people driving rapid innovation and advancements. By bringing together global leaders in AI and understanding the iterative improvements of AGI development, more people and businesses can responsibly adopt this evolving technology. The Turing AGI Icons series has launched alongside the company's rise as the leading resource for LLM training services and generative AI solutions

"Our Turing AGI Icons series brings together visionary leaders who are shaping the future of AGI and its impact on society," shared Jonathan Siddharth, Turing's CEO and Co-founder. "We were delighted to have Adam D'Angelo join us for this event. His insights on integrating human knowledge with AI are invaluable in our mission to accelerate AGI advancement and deployment."

D'Angelo, who launched Poea platform connecting users with diverse intelligent chatbotsshared his unique perspective on AI assistants and their potential in advanced reasoning, problem-solving, coding, and perhaps even making tasks more enjoyable. He also discussed the future of AGI, including where the most value will be created and advice for those building AGI models and products.

Key insights and takeaways from Turing's second AGI Icons event:

1. Defining AGI and its progression from narrow AI

D'Angelo defined the concept of AGI as, "software that can do everything a human can do." He envisions a future where AI improves itself, eventually taking over complex human-tasks handled by machine learning researchers. Siddharth views AGI as an "artificial brain" capable of diverse tasks like "machine translation, complex queries, and coding". He adds, "That's the distinction between AGI and more predictive AI and narrow forms of ML that came before it. It feels like emergent behavior."



2. AGI promises revenue and productivity improvements for knowledge workers

Siddharth emphasized the broader impact of AGI, "This era of AI is closer to biology than physics. All types of knowledge work will improve. There's going to be so much more productivity unlocked from this human population that we have." Siddharth speaks from experience, sharing a 10-fold personal productivity increase when using AI tools. He also added, "At Turing, we've rolled out copilots that saw a 33% lift in developer productivity," hinting at even more significant potential. D'Angelo predicts that AGI will shift human roles rather than eliminate them, leading to faster economic growth. "As this technology gets more powerful, we'll get to a point where 90% of what people are doing today is automated, but everyone will have shifted into other things." He noted, "Right now, much of the world economy is constrained by the number of people. Once we have AI at the [AGI] level, we can grow the economy much faster."







3. We're entering the golden era of software development

One of the most promising applications of AGI lies in software development. "We're entering a golden era where one software engineer can be ten times more productive, create more, and the world will benefit more," Siddarth shared. He added, "Software engineering, marketing, finance, and product management will see significant boosts from AI, giving humans leverage across different industries like healthcare, life sciences, retail, etc." But D'Angelo cautions that large language models (LLMs) and AGI won't write all the code. Understanding software fundamentals remains crucial, just as calculators didn't eliminate the need to learn arithmetic. "Developers become more valuable when using these models. The presence of LLMs is a positive for developer jobs and there's going to be a lot of gains for developers."







4. AGI requires robust frameworks to balance innovation with public safety

"We must address AGI challenges head-on by focusing on capabilities over processes, generality and performance, and potential rather than deployment," shared Siddharth Siddharth highlighted that the bottleneck for AGI progress is now human intelligence rather than computing power or data. Human expertise is crucial for fine-tuning and customizing AI models, which is why Turing focuses on sourcing and matching top-tier tech professionals to balance models with human intelligence.







5. Building in the era of AGI: Advice for AI leaders

As AI research accelerates, the focus remains on balancing ambition with realistic expectations. Siddharth and D'Angelo stressed improving human-AGI interactions by learning how to use AI models effectively, understanding the fundamentals, and viewing them as learning devices rather than workforce replacements. Siddharth envisions everyone becoming a power user of LLMs, believing that LLMs can make complex information accessible to all, enhancing productivity across various fields. He outlined a phased approach: starting with AI copilots assisting humans, then moving to agents with human supervision, and eventually achieving fully autonomous agents in well-evaluated tasks.



At the conclusion of the fireside chat, Siddharth announced the expansion of Turing's service offerings that align with the future of AGI advancements. These include:

Multimodality - Enhancing AI models' abilities to handle different types of data and interactions with right-fit tools STEM Domain Knowledge - Applying advanced science, technology, engineering, and mathematical knowledge to improve model performance in scientific and technical domains Industry Domain Knowledge - Utilizing PhD-level experts in specific industries to create contextually relevant and effective AI solutions

Siddharth continued, "As we explore AGI's possibilities, it's crucial to stay informed and committed to responsible development. By focusing on capabilities, performance, and ethical considerations, we can ensure AGI's benefits are realized while mitigating potential risks."

About Turing

Based in Palo Alto, California, Turing is the world's fastest growing AI-powered tech services company. The company provides expert model training, post-training services, and specialized AI applications and solutions to effectively improve and deploy AGIled by the AI technology experts behind Silicon Valley's most successful companies.

Founded in 2018, the company has experienced tremendous growth with over three million technical professionals in its talent network and 1,000+ clients, including the world's leading AI labs and Fortune 500 Companies. Turing has received numerous awards, including Forbes's "One of America's Best Startup Employers," #1 on The Information's annual list of "Most Promising B2B Companies," and Fast Company's annual list of the "World's Most Innovative Companies." Turing's most recent private fundraising round was oversubscribed and valued the company at $1.1 billion. Subsequent oversubscribed SAFEs were completed on a $4 billion valuation cap. Turing's leadership team seamlessly integrates AI technologists from industry giants like Meta, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Stanford, Caltech, and MIT with seasoned tech consulting veterans from Accenture, Cognizant, Capgemini, McKinsey, Bain, and others to harness unparalleled strength and deliver maximum value. For more information on Turing, visit www.turing.com . For information on upcoming Turing AGI Icons events, visit go.turing.com/agi-icons .

Media Contact:

John Ordona

[email protected]

SOURCE Turing
WASHINGTON, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors will convene an open meeting on Aug. 8, 2024, at the Postal Service headquarters located at 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW in Washington. Members of the public are invited to attend the meeting, which will commence at 4:30 p.m. EDT in the Boardroom.

During the meeting, the board will address the following agenda items:

Call to order and opening remarks of the Chairman Remarks from the Postmaster General and CEO Approval of the minutes from the May 9 closed and open meetings Committee reports Quarterly Financial Report presented by Mr. Corbett Quarterly Service Performance Report presented by Dr. Colin Approval of the tentative agenda for the November 14 open meeting Adjournment

Open session meetings of the Board of Governors are available on live audio webcasts at https://about.usps.com/who/leadership/board-governors/#sessions. Three hours after the conclusion of the open session meeting, a recorded audio file will be available for listening. In compliance with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, the audio webcast will be open-captioned.

Please Note: The United States Postal Service is an independent federal establishment, mandated to be self-financing and to serve every American community through the affordable, reliable and secure delivery of mail and packages to 167 million addresses six and often seven days a week. Overseen by a bipartisan Board of Governors, the Postal Service is implementing a 10-year transformation plan, Delivering for America, to modernize the postal network, restore long-term financial sustainability, dramatically improve service across all mail and shipping categories, and maintain the organization as one of America's most valued and trusted brands.

The Postal Service generally receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

For USPS media resources, including broadcast-quality video and audio and photo stills, visit the USPS Newsroom. Follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter; Instagram; Pinterest; Threads and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the USPS YouTube Channel and like us on Facebook. For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and facts.usps.com.

Contact: David Walton

[email protected]

usps.com/news

SOURCE U.S. Postal Service
A roundup of the most newsworthy press releases from PR Newswire this week, including the best places to live for families, Southwest's new customer experience initiatives and a mystery flavor Twinkie.

NEW YORK, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- With thousands of press releases published each week, it can be difficult to keep up with everything on PR Newswire. To help journalists and consumers stay on top of the week's most newsworthy and popular releases, here's a recap of some major stories from the week that shouldn't be missed.

The list below includes the headline (with a link to the full text) and an excerpt from each story. Click on the press release headlines to access accompanying multimedia assets that are available for download.

PR Newswire Weekly Press Release Roundup, July 22-26, 2024. Photos provided by Warner Bros. Discovery, The J.M. Smucker Co. and Johnson Controls, Inc.

Read more of the latest releases from PR Newswire and stay caught up on the top press releases by following @PRN_TopStories on Twitter.

Can't-Miss Earnings

In addition to these popular releases, earnings season has begun and several must-read earnings reports crossed the wire this week, including the quarterly results for Lockheed Martin, Quest Diagnostics, Sherwin-Williams and AT&T.

Catch up on all the latest earnings reports here.

Helping Journalists Stay Up to Date on Industry News

These are just a few of the recent press releases that consumers and the media should know about. To be notified of releases relevant to their coverage area, journalists can set up a custom newsfeed with PR Newswire for Journalists.

Once they're signed up, reporters, bloggers, and freelancers have access to the following free features:

Customization: Users can create customized newsfeeds that will deliver relevant news right to their inbox. Newsfeed results can be targeted by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more.

Users can create customized newsfeeds that will deliver relevant news right to their inbox. Newsfeed results can be targeted by keywords, industry, subject, geography, and more. Photos and Videos: Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include in a journalist or blogger's next story.

Thousands of multimedia assets are available to download and include in a journalist or blogger's next story. Subject Matter Experts: Journalists will have access to ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in their articles.

Journalists will have access to ProfNet, a database of industry experts to connect with as sources or for quotes in their articles. Related Resources: Our journalist- and blogger-focused blog, Beyond Bylines, features regular media news roundups, writing tips, upcoming events, and more.

About PR Newswire

PR Newswire is the industry's leading press release distribution partner with an unparalleled global reach of more than 440,000 newsrooms, websites, direct feeds, journalists and influencers and is available in more than 170 countries and 40 languages. From our award-winning Content Services offerings, integrated media newsroom and microsite products, Investor Relations suite of services, paid placement and social sharing tools, PR Newswire has a comprehensive catalog of solutions to solve the modern-day challenges PR and communications teams face. For 70 years, PR Newswire has been the preferred destination for brands to share their most important news stories across the world.

For questions, contact the team at [email protected].

SOURCE PR Newswire
NEW YORK, July 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The global wine market size is estimated to grow by USD 156.8 billion from 2024-2028, according to Technavio. The market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.93% during the forecast period. Online sales channels gaining traction in global wine market is driving market growth, with a trend towards increasing prominence of private-label brands. However, rising competition from other alcoholic beverages poses a challenge. Key market players include Accolade Wines Australia Ltd., Boisset Family Estates, Bronco Wine Co., Casella Wines Pty. Ltd., Castel Freres, Charlie and Echo, Concha y Toro, Delicato Family Wines, Deutsch Family Wine and Spirits, E. And J. Gallo Winery, Emiliana Organic Vineyards, Harris Organic Wines, Inglenook, Jackson Family Wines Inc., King Estate Winery, Les Domaines Barons de Rothschild Lafite, Pernod Ricard SA, The Wine Group LLC, and Treasury Wine Estates Ltd..

Technavio has announced its latest market research report titled Global wine market 2024-2028

Get a detailed analysis on regions, market segments, customer landscape, and companies- View the snapshot of this report

Wine Market Scope Report Coverage Details Base year 2023 Historic period 2018 - 2022 Forecast period 2024-2028 Growth momentum & CAGR Accelerate at a CAGR of 4.93% Market growth 2024-2028 USD 156.8 billion Market structure Fragmented YoY growth 2022-2023 (%) 4.44 Regional analysis Europe, APAC, North America, South America,

and Middle East and Africa Performing market contribution Europe at 39% Key countries US, China, Germany, Canada, and France Key companies profiled Accolade Wines Australia Ltd., Boisset Family

Estates, Bronco Wine Co., Casella Wines Pty.

Ltd., Castel Freres, Charlie and Echo, Concha y

Toro, Delicato Family Wines, Deutsch Family

Wine and Spirits, E. And J. Gallo Winery, Emiliana

Organic Vineyards, Harris Organic Wines,

Inglenook, Jackson Family Wines Inc., King Estate

Winery, Les Domaines Barons de Rothschild

Lafite, Pernod Ricard SA, The Wine Group LLC,

and Treasury Wine Estates Ltd.

Market Driver

Private-label wines have emerged as a significant focus area for retailers worldwide, contributing to the expansion of the global wine market. Major retailers, including Alibaba and grocery stores like Tesco Plc and Aldi Stores Ltd., are introducing their own branded wines to capitalize on the rising consumer demand and enjoy higher profit margins, which are around 10%-15% greater than national and global brands. These wines are exclusively produced for a single retailer and sold under their brand name, distinguishing them from winery-branded products. The private-label wine segment has experienced substantial growth in the last decade, with some European countries reporting penetration levels above 50%. This trend is anticipated to continue driving market growth in the forecast period.

The wine market is experiencing a positive outlook with increasing product adoption, especially among young consumers. Delicate flavors and richness of products continue to drive demand. Heart health concerns, including coronary heart disease, heart attack, and stroke, have led some consumers to seek wines with health benefits. Organic wines are gaining popularity due to health consciousness and concerns about chemicals. Harvest time is crucial for growers, ensuring high-quality ingredients. Red wine, particularly, is in focus due to its heart health benefits, such as resveratrol and antioxidants. Premiumization and sustainability are key trends, with wineries adopting organic methods and focusing on reducing their carbon footprint. Socializing remains a significant factor, with restaurants, bars, and wine tourism playing key roles. Western cuisines and various wine varieties cater to diverse palates. E-commerce platforms and e-commerce have emerged as crucial retail sales channels. Flavored fortified wines are also trending, catering to various lifestyles. Celiac disease has led to a growing demand for wines free from gluten. Wine production and wineries continue to innovate, offering unique experiences and catering to diverse tastes.

Discover 360 analysis of this market. For complete information, schedule your consultation - Book Here!

Market Challenges

The global wine market faces competition from various alcoholic beverages, including beer, spirits, and cocktails. Factors contributing to this competition include the availability of alternatives that are often less expensive and more accessible than wine. Changing consumer preferences, particularly among younger demographics, favor sweeter and more flavorful options. Imported brands of beer, spirits, and cocktails also pose a threat. Social and cultural factors in certain regions may impact wine's popularity. Lack of education and awareness regarding wine's health benefits and food pairing can lead consumers to opt for alternative beverages. These elements collectively present challenges for the global wine market, potentially hindering its growth during the forecast period.

The wine market faces several challenges in the modern business landscape. In the e-commerce sector, ensuring secure and timely delivery of perishable red wine is a significant hurdle. Sustainability and organic methods in wine production are becoming essential for wineries seeking to cater to health-conscious consumers. Resveratrol and antioxidants in red wine varieties offer potential health benefits, but wine production involves adding preservatives like potassium sorbate and potassium metabisulfite, as well as acids and alcohol. Wine tourism and luxury wine markets thrive, especially in regions famous for Champagne, Chianti, and Western cuisines. Wine's role as an alcoholic beverage, with tannins, sugar, and enzymatic browning, raises concerns regarding its impact on circulatory diseases, heart diseases, and blood sugar levels. Moderate consumption of wine, particularly red varieties, may have benefits against common cold, bad cholesterol, and cancer, but excessive consumption can lead to cell damage. Wine's flavor, aroma, and various applications, including cooking, fortified wine, sparkling wine, and vermouth, make it a versatile alcoholic beverage.

For more insights on driver and challenges - Request a sample report!

Segment Overview

This wine market report extensively covers market segmentation by

Distribution Channel

1.1 Off-trade

1.2 On-trade

Product

2.1 Red

2.2 Fortified

2.3 White

2.4 Sparkling

Geography

3.1 Europe

3.2 APAC

3.3 North America

3.4 South America

3.5 Middle East and Africa



1.1 Off-trade- The wine market is a significant sector in the global beverage industry. It experiences consistent growth due to increasing consumer preferences for premium and high-quality wines. Wine production and sales have become a business opportunity for numerous countries, particularly in Europe and the Americas. Wine exports also contribute significantly to international trade. Market trends indicate a growing demand for organic and biodynamic wines, as well as wines with unique flavors and characteristics. Wine businesses invest in research and development to meet these evolving consumer preferences. The market is competitive, with various players focusing on innovation, quality, and branding to stand out.

For more information on market segmentation with geographical analysis including forecast (2024-2028) and historic data (2017-2021) - Download a Sample Report

Learn and explore more about Technavio's in-depth research reports

The global alcoholic drinks market is experiencing robust growth, driven by increasing consumer demand and innovation in product offerings. Notably, the global champagne market is expanding, with rising popularity among younger demographics and festive occasions. Meanwhile, the global rice wine market is gaining traction, particularly in Asia, due to its cultural significance and unique flavors. Key players are focusing on premiumization and strategic partnerships to capture market share, while sustainability and health trends are influencing product development across these segments.

Research Analysis

The e-commerce wave has significantly impacted the wine market, making it more accessible to consumers worldwide. Red wine, a popular choice, is rich in antioxidants like Resveratrol, known for their health benefits. The wine industry focuses on sustainability and organic methods, with wineries adopting eco-friendly practices in wine production. Grapes, the primary ingredient, are carefully harvested and processed to preserve their aromatics and flavors. Wine production involves adding potassium sorbate and water as preservatives, along with potassium metababisulfite and acids to maintain taste and stability. Alcohol, sugar, and tannins contribute to the wine's body and texture. Enzymatic browning can affect the wine's color and flavor, necessitating careful handling. Wine has various applications, from cooking to fortified wines, and serves as a common cold remedy. It's known to help lower bad cholesterol and regulate blood sugar levels, but excessive consumption can lead to health issues like cell damage and cancer. The aroma and flavor of wine are influenced by various factors, including the grape variety, fermentation process, and aging.

Market Research Overview

The global wine market is a thriving industry that caters to the growing demand for red wine and other alcoholic beverages. Wine production involves the fermentation of grapes, resulting in a complex beverage rich in antioxidants like resveratrol and various health benefits. Sustainability and organic methods are increasingly adopted in wineries to reduce the carbon footprint and cater to health-conscious consumers. E-commerce has revolutionized wine sales, making it accessible to consumers worldwide. Red wine varieties like Chianti and Champagne are popular choices, with delicate flavors and richness that complement Western cuisines. Wine tourism is a significant contributor to the industry, offering unique experiences and education on the production process. Wine is more than just an alcoholic beverage; it's a cultural experience with various applications in cooking and socializing. Fortified wines, sparkling wine, and Vermouth add diversity to the market. Moderate consumption of wine has been linked to heart health, with potential benefits for circulatory diseases, heart diseases, and even cancer. The luxury wine market caters to consumers seeking high-quality ingredients and premium experiences. However, concerns over chemicals like potassium sorbate, potassium metabisulfite, acids, alcohol, tannins, and sugar are driving the demand for organic wines. The industry's positive outlook is driven by product adoption, young consumers, and lifestyles that prioritize health and wellness. Despite its health benefits, wine consumption may have potential drawbacks, including enzymatic browning, allergies like celiac disease, and interactions with common cold or medications. The industry continues to innovate, with flavored fortified wines and e-commerce platforms offering convenience and variety.

Table of Contents:

1 Executive Summary

2 Market Landscape

3 Market Sizing

4 Historic Market Size

5 Five Forces Analysis

6 Market Segmentation

Distribution Channel

Off-trade



On-trade

Product

Red



Fortified



White



Sparkling

Geography

Europe



APAC



North America



South America



Middle East And Africa



7 Customer Landscape

8 Geographic Landscape

9 Drivers, Challenges, and Trends

10 Company Landscape

11 Company Analysis

12 Appendix

About Technavio

Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions.

With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 17,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios.

Contacts

Technavio Research

Jesse Maida

Media & Marketing Executive

US: +1 844 364 1100

UK: +44 203 893 3200

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.technavio.com/

SOURCE Technavio
XIAMEN, China, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- On July 25, 2024, the 40th Anniversary Ceremony of Xiamen Airlines was held in Xiamen. At this event, the review of the company's 40-year inspiring history was made, and a new blueprint mapped.

The 40th Anniversary Ceremony of Xiamne Airlines

In his letter replied to Xiamen Airlines employees to celebrate the anniversary, President Xi Jinping extended warm congratulations, and expressed fervent hopes. Zhao Dong, Chairman of Xiamen Airlines, remarked that the president's words mean both the highest honor the company has received, and the greatest responsibility awaiting fulfillment. While reviewing the company's 40-year history, Zhao emphasized the meaningfulness of the "three mosts": most grateful for President Xi's caring guidance, most thankful for support and empathy of leaders at all levels and in all kinds of organizations, and most admiring devotion of all employees generation after generation.

Looking forward, Zhao Dong said that Xiamen Airlines will stick to President Xi's new visions, carry forward distinguished values that the organization was built upon, and keep Xiamen Airlines Spirit alive. By protecting and continuing "Xiamen Airlines Undertaking", the company will play a bigger role in promoting economic and social development, enhancing cross-Strait exchanges and cooperation, turbocharging high-quality development in the civil aviation industry, and boosting China's strength in transportation.

At the ceremony, the honorary title and medal of "Xiamen Airlines Pioneers in Entrepreneurship'" was conferred, and Framework Agreement on Joint Support for Deepening Reform of Xiamen Airlines signed.

The day before the ceremony, the company launched a publicity campaign under the same theme at the Bagua Mansion on Kulangsu Island, the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site. The campaign features the release of the corporate anthem "Egrets by Your Side" and its first white paper on corporate social responsibility (CSR), and the announcement of strengthening cooperation with the UN Global Compact China Office by including five major initiatives with the aim "propel sustainable development fly for a better world".

SOURCE Xiamen Airlines
Business / International

by APO

TORONTO, Canada - Members and guests of The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business (www.CanadaAfrica.ca) are invited to the Canada-Africa Business Conference in Harare. The two-day program will once again convene leading decision makers to accelerate Canada-Africa trade and investment, through this world-class networking and information-sharing forum.The most recent Canada-Africa Business Conference (apo-opa.co/3WzINkG) in Nairobi, this past February, was described as a 'great success' (apo-opa.co/3WxmEmN) in Canada's Parliament, and was followed by the inaugural Canada-US Forum for African Partnerships (apo-opa.co/3WydsPf) in Washington, DC in May.Sectors on the upcoming program in Zimbabwe include energy, mining, ICT and education. In addition to these sectors, the Zimbabwe Investment Development Agency has identified tourism, manufacturing and agriculture as among the key opportunities. At the same time, Canadian institutions are also privileged to play a significant role as partners in higher education.Next month, in preparation for the 3rd Canada-Africa Business Conference, the Chamber will be on-the-ground in Zimbabwe. Members and prospective members and sponsors can email members@canadaafrica.ca to request a meeting in preparation for the conference.To enquire on participating as a guest, individuals and companies may complete the online form here (apo-opa.co/4fb192t) to request an invitation.Visit the Conference Homepage (apo-opa.co/4fhnaN0)Distributed by APO Group on behalf of The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business
MIAMI, July 26, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Zumba, the world-renowned dance fitness brand, and Samsung Health, a leading innovator in digital health solutions, are thrilled to announce an exciting new partnership. This collaboration brings Zumba's iconic dance fitness workouts to Samsung Health, a comprehensive wellness platform empowering users in their pursuit of health and fitness goals, offering users a fun and effective way to stay active and healthy.

As part of this partnership, Samsung Health users will have exclusive access to a variety of Zumba classes designed to cater to all fitness levels. These classes, led by Zumba's expert instructors, also include custom music crafted by Zumba, to make exercise enjoyable and accessible, and helping users to achieve their fitness goals while having fun.

"We are ecstatic to partner with Samsung Health to bring the joy of Zumba to a wider audience," said Alberto Perlman, CEO of Zumba. "Our mission has always been to help people achieve happier and healthier lives through dance and fitness, and this collaboration allows us to leverage Samsung's intelligent health platform to reach millions more."

Samsung Health, known for its comprehensive health tracking and wellness tools, is equally enthusiastic about the partnership. "Zumba is an iconic brand with decades of experience in the fitness industry," said Joonil Choi of Samsung Health. "By integrating their dynamic workouts into our app, we will be giving our users more diverse and engaging ways to improve their well-being."

The integration of Zumba workouts into Samsung Health is a testament to both companies' commitment to enhancing the lives of their users. With this partnership, Samsung Health continues to expand its offerings, making it a one-stop solution for fitness enthusiasts worldwide.

Users can access the new Zumba workouts on the Samsung Health app, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their fitness level, can enjoy the benefits of dance and movement. To learn more visit https://www.samsung.com/samsung-health/

Media Contact:

Rebecca Dorfman, [email protected]

About Zumba Fitness, LLC:

Founded in 2001, Zumba is the largest branded dance fitness company in the world  reporting more than 15 million weekly participants, in 200,000 locations, across 185 countries. Zumba blends world rhythms with easy-to-follow choreography for an effective workout that empowers participants to become their best selves - mind, body and soul. In addition to its original Zumba program, the company offers 10 Zumba specialty classes  from aquatic-based to those specifically designed for active older adults and children. In 2016, Zumba launched its first non-dance, HIIT workout STRONG Nation, where music acts as the main motivator. In 2023, Zumba launched CIRCL Mobility, a revolutionary new program designed to unlock the body's full potential through flexibility, breathwork, and mobility exercises. The Zumba lifestyle is rounded out by the company's many consumer product offerings, including video games, VR +MR experiences, original music, activewear and footwear, and interactive Fitness-Concert events. For more information about Zumba's programs and products, or to find a live class, visit zumba.com. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram and Facebook.

About Samsung:

Samsung inspires the world and shapes the future with transformative ideas and technologies. The company is redefining the worlds of TVs, smartphones, wearable devices, tablets, home appliances, network systems, and memory, system LSI, foundry and LED solutions, and delivering a seamless connected experience through its SmartThings ecosystem and open collaboration with partners. For the latest news, please visit the Samsung Newsroom at news.samsung.com .

SOURCE Zumba Fitness
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
News / Local

by Staff reporter

IT'S a crazy and insane world. But you have to believe it because it is true.A woman from Matobo District, Matabeleland South Province, who alleged that she was gang-raped by four men while heavily intoxicated, reportedly refused a US$40 cash settlement offered by the alleged perpetrators and demanded a goat as compensation.Her demand was rooted in the belief that a goat would be a more suitable compensation for the trauma she endured after being allegedly gang-raped. She claimed that according to her cultural beliefs, the goat was essential for a cleansing ceremony, a traditional ritual designed to restore her dignity and purity following the traumatic ordeal.The 40-year-old woman whose name is being withheld for legal reasons claimed she was gang-raped while unconscious after drinking home-brewed beer with her alleged attackers at a homestead in Magadla Village in Matobo. She claimed that upon waking up the next morning, people were shocked to find her naked, with what looked like semen around her private parts. She was also sleeping next to one of the alleged rapists who also reportedly woke up naked.This came to light when Lucky Ncube (21) and David Ndlovu appeared before Bulawayo regional magistrate Dambudzo Malunga facing rape charges. They were however, acquitted of the rape charges, while another accused, Musawakhe Mthunzi (21) who was released on bail later died while out of custody.The fourth suspect, Ignatius Tshuma is still at large. It was alleged that sometime in July 2021, Ndlovu, Ncube, Musawakhe, and Tshuma were consuming home-brewed beer at Japhet Mthunzi's residence in Magadla Village.The night continued with beer drinking until around 9pm, when the alleged victim arrived and joined the group. She allegedly drank with the men until she passed out at Japhet's homestead. On the night in question, Ndlovu reportedly bid farewell to the group and returned to his homestead. The State led evidence alleged that the remaining people slept over at Japhet's homestead after being provided with blankets.It was alleged that Ndlovu, however, nicodemously returned to Japhet's homestead on the very same night. Upon waking up the next morning, people were shocked to find the woman naked, with "semen" around her private parts. She was also sleeping next to Ndlovu, who had supposedly "left the night" before.The woman upon waking up reportedly panicked, questioning how she had become naked and asked who had removed her panties and trousers. Ndlovu, who had also woken up naked beside her, allegedly pointed the finger of blame at Tshuma and Musawakhe, allegedly revealing that the duo had taken turns in raping her while she was unconscious during the night. The "truth" only emerged after the elders from the community confronted the suspects over the allegations of the overnight rape. In an attempt to resolve the situation, the accused men offered the woman a cash compensation of US$40 as a way to make amends for their alleged actions. However, the woman refused the offer, insisting instead that she be compensated with a goat.Tshuma, who was reluctant to offer the goat as compensation, fled the scene and is still at large. The matter was subsequently reported to the police, who arrested Ncube, Ndlovu and Musawakhe in connection with the rape allegations. Musawakhe was subsequently released on bail after appearing in court. He died while out of custody, leaving Ncube and Ndlovu as the suspects in the case.During their appearance in court recently, the state, however, concluded that the two accused persons were not guilty of the rape charge. During trial, the court took into consideration the untimely death of one of the accused, who had been released on bail. The court also took into consideration the fact that another accused was on the run, making it challenging to locate and bring him to justice. Evidence brought before the court was viewed as not enough to secure a conviction. In addition, both Ndlovu and Ncube vehemently denied the allegations levelled against them, maintaining their innocence throughout. The victim's request for a goat as compensation for the alleged rape also raised questions about her motives and potential involvement in the alleged crime.
Bengaluru, July 25 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has submitted a memorandum to the Karnataka Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot, demanding him to direct Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to submit his resignation and to handover the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The BJP legislators held a protest march from the Vidhana Soudha to Raj Bhavan to submit the memorandum.

The development has assumed significance in the backdrop of the social activist T.J. Abraham announcing that he will meet the Governor on Friday to seek consent for prosecution against CM Siddaramaiah in connection with the MUDA scam.

The memorandum said, "We as a responsible Opposition party of the state, urge the Governor to please consider the apprehensions of the larger public, especially those from the SC/STs, citizens of Mysuru district and also of the state."

"We request you to direct Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to submit his resignation since his family are themselves the beneficiaries of illegal land transactions and unlawful gaining of developed sites."

"This scam is worth around Rs 4,000 to 5,000 crore and he (CM Siddaramaiah) being the head of the state may not allow fair probe (investigations) into it. Entrust the full investigation of the MUDA scam to CBI transferring it from the state-appointed committees," the memorandum added.

Speaking to media persons after meeting the Governor, State BJP President B.Y. Vijayendra said that BJP along with their NDA ally JD (S), will discuss and decide on the future course of action concerning the MUDA scam and the Valmiki Tribal Development Corporation scam in the coming days.

State BJP President Vijayendra accused the Congress government of "intimidating tactics" by filing FIRs against the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and holding protests against it.

He said that the Karnataka High Court had stayed the FIR against the ED.

He criticised Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, stating that the latter was scared of being implicated in the Valmiki Tribal Welfare Board scam.

He expected Siddaramaiah to hold a detailed discussion on the MUDA scam and challenge the opposition parties BJP and JD(S) accusing him of running away from the discussion.

The State BJP President also added that the Governor had called the Chief Minister on Thursday and sought clarifications regarding the MUDA scam.

"We will wait and see," he said.

Leader of the Opposition (LoP), R. Ashoka, said that the Congress government was involved in huge corruption cases.

He pointed out that no ruling party has ever faced such humiliation in the history of any Assembly.

He accused Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who had taken an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution, of violating it.

The LoP claimed that the Opposition was not allowed to speak in the Assembly and alleged that the Speaker U.T. Khader was also biased towards the Congress government.

He demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, stating that he had lost the moral right to hold the top constitutional post, adding that the BJP had submitted a memorandum to the Governor in this regard.
Jaipur, July 26 : Congress leader and former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, while targeting the Centre over the irregularities in the NEET exam, has called paper leak the "most heinous crime" and said that those in power who are turning a blind eye to the paper leaks are equally responsible for the crime.

"There is no crime more heinous than a paper leak. Do not leak papers in the country and the state. You all know my stand on paper leaks. I was firm on it yesterday. I am firm on it today and will always be firm on it in future," Pilot said on Thursday.

He was speaking at the oath-taking ceremony of the newly-appointed National Students' Union of India State President Vinod Jakhar for taking charge held at the Birla Auditorium here on Thursday.

The Congress leader added: "Whoever has knowingly or unknowingly played with the future of thousands and lakhs of children deserves punishment. I think someone has rightly said that every mistake demands punishment. If you make a mistake, then you should also be punished. No one has the right to play with the future of the youth. No matter how big a leader or officer you are."

"Preparing for the exam and getting a job has become most difficult in this country. Not only the child but his entire family is involved in this process. The government has no answer to the rigging of the NEET."

Pilot said: "The government itself is accepting that there has been some irregularity at some places. Now the time has come that we all have to ask why exam papers get leaked. Who gets them done? Nothing will be achieved by doing paperwork, giving speeches and shedding crocodile tears. Those people will have to be caught. After all, who is getting the paper leaked? Those people will have to be forced to act, who tolerate such a heinous crime while being in power. Because those who are tolerating this crime are equally guilty."
New York, July 26 : An Indian-origin man has been charged with stealing a $1 million-winning lottery ticket from the buyer at the petrol bunk he was working in, according to local officials.

Meer Patel, 23, was arrested and charged with the theft on Monday and the buyer of the ticket was notified of his winning, Rutherford County Sheriff's Office said.

The alleged theft had taken place in the petrol bunk in Murfreesboro in Tennesee state where Patel was employed.

When the man who bought the ticket asked him to check if the ticket had won anything by scanning it, he allegedly said it had won a lower amount, which he paid the customer and threw in the trash, according to Detective Steve Craig quoted by Cheatham County Exchange newspaper.

After the man left the store, Patel picked it out of the trash, scratched the hidden part to find the winning amount on the ticket, and took it to the lottery office, where the staff became suspicious, the publication said quoting officials.

Investigators from the state lottery seized the videos in the petrol bunk's cameras which showed him picking the ticket out of the trash and "celebrating in the store after scratching off the front of the ticket and learning it was a $1 million winner," Investigator Vic Donoho, told the publication.

The Sheriff's Office was informed and Patel was arrested.

Meanwhile, Craig and Donoho went through the store videos to identify the buyer and informed him of his luck.

"The feel-good side of this story is the (the man) never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him," Craig told the publication.

"That is absolutely life-changing money."

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)
Tehran, July 26 : Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani has criticised the US Congress for hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and applauding his speech amid ongoing Israeli actions against Palestinians.

Kanaani made the remarks on Thursday on social media platform X, reacting to Netanyahu's visit and his address to the US Congress on Wednesday, where Netanyahu pledged to achieve "total victory" against Hamas and labelled Americans opposing Israel's military operation in Gaza as "idiots".

Netanyahu's speech received applause and a stand ovation from some Congress members, Xinhua news agency reported.

Kanaani lamented that while Palestinians were being killed daily by Israel, the US government and Congress welcomed the Israeli Prime Minister with "cheering and applauding despite all such crimes".

He said that by welcoming Netanyahu into the US Congress, the West's efforts to portray itself as "innocent and humanitarian" were failing, exposing what he described as the "violent and devilish face" of US policies.

Kanaani criticised US and European leaders for what he called their hypocritical human rights slogans, stressing that Palestinians' rights to life, security, food, medicine, and treatment were being "trampled in the most heinous form in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank before the world's fully open eyes".

Israel launched a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, following a surprise attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people.

The Palestinian death toll rose to 39,145 and injuries to 90,257 since the offensive started, according to Gaza-based health authorities on Wednesday.
Washington, July 25 : In first public remarks on a foreign policy issue as the presumptive Democratic nominee for President, US Vice-President Kamala Harris on Thursday called for Israel and Hamas to agree on the ceasefire deal under negotiation.

"Let's get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war," Harris said in brief remarks to reporters after a meeting with the visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Let's bring the hostages home, and let's provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people."

It was unusual for the Vice-President to address reporters after a White House visit by a foreign leader. The President does it. But Washington D.C. is passing through an unusual changeover as President Joe Biden has ended his re-election bid and endorsed his Vice- President to take over the ticket, while he remains the President serving out the rest of his term which he will finish as a "lame duck" President after the November elections.

Harris' remarks were widely anticipated as her first on a foreign policy issue after taking over the Democratic presidential ticket. She hewed close to the Biden administration's line on the Israel-Hamas conflict, saying she recognised Israel's right to defend itself but it was important how it did it, which was echoing a widely felt disquiet with the killings and devastation in Gaza.
Srinagar, July 26 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the 25th celebrations of the Kargil war on Friday and pay homage to the bravehearts who laid down their lives for the country.

The Prime Minister arrived in a special plane at the technical area of Srinagar International Airport on Friday morning from where he flew in a Mi-17 helicopter to Drass town.

The Prime Minister was received at the technical area of Srinagar International Airport by Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Lt. Governor, Manoj Sinha, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo and DGP R.R. Swain.

J&K BJP Chief, Ravinder Raina, and some other senior functionaries of the party also received PM Modi at the airport before he flew to Drass town.

PM Modi will visit the Kargil War memorial in Drass on Friday to join the silver jubilee celebrations of the Kargil victory.

Chief of Army Staff, General Upendra Dwivedi arrived in Drass on Thursday. He attended many programmes organised to celebrate the historic victory.

He will address troops at the Kargil War Memorial at Drass. The PM will also visit Siachen Glacier, the world's highest battlefield guarded by the country's Army.

The Kargil War of 1999 lasted for three months during which the Indian Army backed by the Air Force pushed back Pakistani Army regulars from tough and rugged mountain tops of the region in one of the most challenging military operations in India's Independence history.

More than 500 brave soldiers of the Army paid the supreme sacrifice to make the country proud.

Ladakh Lt. Governor, Brigadier (Retd) B.D. Mishra, Army Chief and senior Commanders of the Army will be present on the occasion.

During his visit to Ladakh on Friday, PM Modi will also carry out the first blast of the Shinkun La tunnel project virtually. Once completed, the Shinkun La tunnel will be the highest in the world. The tunnel is being constructed on Nimu-Padum-Darcha road in Ladakh.

The 4.1-km-long twin-tube tunnel will be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet above sea level. It will provide all-weather connectivity to Leh town.

The tunnel will ensure prompt and efficient movement of armed forces and equipment while helping economic and social development in the Ladakh region.

The tunnel will serve as a vital link connecting the Lahaul Valley in Himachal Pradesh with the Zanskar Valley in Ladakh. There are two existing axes to Leh, the Srinagar-Zojila-Kargil-Leh and the Manali-Atal Tunnel-Sarchu-Leh.
Washington, July 26 : US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Thursday to close the remaining "gaps" in the push for a Gaza ceasefire deal, the White House said quoting media reports.

The meeting at the White House came a day after Netanyahu gave a fiery speech before the US Congress as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside, BBC reported.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris later met Netanyahu and said she had voiced "serious concerns" over casualties in Gaza.

The Prime Minister faces pressure both at home and abroad to bring an end to the Israel-Gaza war, now in its ninth month.

He said he had known the US President for 40 years - and that Biden had known every Israeli PM over the last half a century.

"From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel," Netanyahu added.

Netanyahu also said he looked forward to working with Biden "on the great issues before us" over the next several months.

The meeting follows months of tension over the war in Gaza, with Biden reaching the point in May, according to his friend and former Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, where he said "enough is enough".

Biden also previously publicly threatened to hold back weapons shipments if Israel launched a large-scale ground offensive in Rafah, prompting anger in Israel, BBC reported.

Netanyahu said in June that it was "inconceivable" for the Biden administration to withhold weapons and ammunition from Israel.

At a news briefing, National Security Spokesman John Kirby said the pair discussed the urgent need for a hostage release deal, the potential of conflict spilling over into Lebanon, the threat of Iran and the need to reach "compromises" in peace talks.

While Kirby added that "gaps remain" in the US-Israel relationship, it was still "healthy".

"By healthy, I mean they're not going to agree on everything," he said, adding that Biden was "very comfortable with the relationship he has with the Prime Minister".

Speaking to reporters after she met with Netanyahu, Vice-President Harris said the discussion was "frank and constructive".

Harris is the likely Democratic presidential nominee now that Biden has stepped down from his re-election campaign.

She said she has an "unwavering commitment" to Israel and its right to defend itself, BBC reported.

Harris also expressed, however, "serious concerns" about Israeli operations in Gaza and the "dire humanitarian situation there".

"I will not be silent," she added.

"It is time for this war to end."

"Let's get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war," she said.

"Let's bring the hostages home, and let's bring much-needed relief to the Palestinian people."

The US and Israeli leaders also held a closed-door meeting with the families of seven US citizens still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

Following the meeting, Jonathan Dekel-Chen - whose son Sagui was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 last year - told reporters that the meeting was "productive and honest," although he did not provide details.

"We feel probably more optimistic than we have since the first round of releases in late November, early December," he said.

Speaking in the House Chamber on Wednesday, Netanyahu defended Israel's war in Gaza, while attempting to rally support from US politicians, BBC reported.

"Our enemies are your enemies," he said, condemning protesters as "Iran's useful idiots".

The White House pushed back on Netanyahu's characterisation of the protesters, with Kirby saying that "it's not a phrase we would use" and "not a reflection of what we think" of the "mostly peaceful" protests.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of Washington to accuse Netanyahu of being a "war criminal".

Their loudspeakers and chanting could be heard from the White House as Netanyahu arrived on Thursday.

Police arrested 23 people on Wednesday, including five inside the Capitol building.

Netanyahu's speech was occasionally met with rapturous applause, mostly led by Republicans.

The Gaza war has deepened political divides in Washington and led to infighting among Democrats, whose left wing has been critical of US support of Israel.

Harris did not attend Netanyahu's speech due to scheduling conflicts, the White House said.

Harris has expressed steadfast support for Israel. However, such a stance has been politically costly for the Democrats.

Hundreds of thousands of protest votes were cast against Biden during the presidential primaries by those wanting him to stop sending military aid to Israel.

Some of those angered by his war stance see Harris as a chance to mend the fracture in the party and win back the votes.

Netanyahu is expected to visit Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Friday.
Colombo, July 26 : Sri Lanka once again rejected allegation of Tamil minority 'genocide' charge by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and claimed the accusation was 'arising from local domestic vote bank politics', said the Foreign Ministry in a statement.

Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry on Thursday rejected the allegation made by the Canadian Prime Minister in a statement issued on July 23 to mark 1983 alleged "anti-Tamil violence" in Sri Lanka.

"Sri Lanka vehemently reiterates its rejection of the allegation of genocide in their country in the statement issued on July 23, 2024, by the Canadian Prime Minister. Sri Lanka's position on this matter has been previously reiterated to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau," Foreign Minister Ali Sabry stressed.

"This allegation arising from local domestic vote bank politics in Canada is not conducive to unity and communal harmony in both Sri Lanka and Canada," the Sri Lanka government complained.

Marking 41 years on the violence against Tamils on July 23, 1983, which is known as 'Black July', PM Trudeau said "forty-one years ago today, violent attacks targeting Tamil civilians and businesses started in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Thousands of innocent lives were lost, and many more Tamils were injured, subjected to sexual violence, and forced to flee the country".

"The anti-Tamil pogrom, known as "Black July", escalated tensions in what became a decade-long armed conflict. It remains one of the darkest chapters in Sri Lanka's history," Canadian PM has said.

"In the aftermath of Black July, Canada established a Special Measures program to help 1,800 Tamils relocate to safety in Canada and build new lives for themselves," Trudeau added.

Referring to May 18, 2009, the day Sri Lanka's security forces militarily defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after killing its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, Canadian PM last May said that in 2022, the Parliament of Canada unanimously adopted a Motion to mark May 18 as the Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day -- a recognition of Canada's commitment to stand in solidarity with Tamil-Canadians and Tamil communities around the world in remembering and honouring the victims and survivors of these senseless acts of violence.

"As a steadfast defender of human rights, the Government of Canada will continue to demand accountability for human rights violations and abuses against vulnerable communities in Sri Lanka," PM Trudeau reiterated.

In May, the Sri Lankan government immediately rejected PM Trudeau's allegation and hit out at him claiming that the Prime Minister was engaging in electoral votebank politics.

Sri Lanka's government alleged that the Canadian PM was making an "outrageous allegation" of "genocide" during the Island's bloody armed conflict against the LTTE.

In May, Sri Lanka joined India, which had already confronted Canada referring to Khalistani separatist elements, and said that the Canadian government was sending a message that its vote bank was more powerful than its rule of law.

India's strong criticism came following PM Trudeau's allegation in September claiming the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the murder of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

India immediately rejected the allegation claiming it was "absurd" and "motivated".

India went on to allege that the main issue was Canada giving space to pro-Khalistani elements operating from Canadian soil with impunity. The issue developed into a diplomatic fallout between the two countries.
Colombo, July 26 : Sri Lanka has once again rejected allegations of the Tamil minority 'genocide' charge by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and claimed the accusation was 'arising from local domestic vote bank politics.

Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry on Thursday rejected the allegation made by the Canadian Prime Minister in a statement issued on July 23 to mark the 1983 alleged "anti-Tamil violence" day in Sri Lanka.

"Sri Lanka vehemently reiterates its rejection of the allegation of genocide in their country in the statement issued on July 23, 2024, by the Canadian Prime Minister. Sri Lanka's position on this matter has been previously reiterated to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau," Foreign Minister Ali Sabry stressed.

"This allegation arising from local domestic vote bank politics in Canada is not conducive to unity and communal harmony in both Sri Lanka and Canada," the Sri Lanka government complained.

Marking 41 years on the violence against Tamils on July 23, 1983, which is known as 'Black July', PM Trudeau said, "Forty-one years ago today, violent attacks targeting Tamil civilians and businesses started in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Thousands of innocent lives were lost, and many more Tamils were injured, subjected to sexual violence, and forced to flee the country."

"The anti-Tamil pogrom, known as 'Black July', escalated tensions in what became a decade-long armed conflict. It remains one of the darkest chapters in Sri Lanka's history," the Canadian PM has said.

Referring to May 18, 2009, the day Sri Lanka's security forces militarily defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) after killing its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, Canadian PM last May said that in 2022, the Parliament of Canada unanimously adopted a Motion to mark May 18 as the Tamil Genocide Remembrance Day -- a recognition of Canada's commitment to stand in solidarity with Tamil-Canadians and Tamil communities around the world in remembering and honouring the victims and survivors of these senseless acts of violence.

"As a steadfast defender of human rights, the Government of Canada will continue to demand accountability for human rights violations and abuses against vulnerable communities in Sri Lanka," PM Trudeau reiterated.

In May, the Sri Lankan government immediately rejected PM Trudeau's allegation and hit out at him claiming that the Prime Minister was engaging in electoral votebank politics.

Last year in September India strongly criticised PM Trudeau for claiming the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the murder of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. India immediately rejected the allegation, saying it was "absurd" and "motivated".

In May, Sri Lanka joined India, which had already confronted Canada referring to Khalistani separatist elements, and said that the Canadian government was sending a message that its vote bank was more powerful than its rule of law.

Last year in September India strongly criticised PM Trudeau for claiming the "potential" involvement of Indian agents in the murder of Khalistan separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada. India immediately rejected the allegation, saying it was "absurd" and "motivated".

India has said that the main issue was Canada giving space to pro-Khalistani elements operating from Canadian soil with impunity.
New Delhi, July 26 : The Uttar Pradesh government has told the Supreme Court that the "nameplate" directive was issued to ensure a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage.

New Delhi, July 26 (IANS) The Uttar Pradesh government has told the Supreme Court that the "nameplate" directive was issued to ensure a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage.

The state government said that the idea behind issuing the directive was to strengthen transparency and informed choice of the pilgrims regarding the food they eat during the period of the Yatra, keeping in mind their religious sentiments.

"Even small confusions regarding the kind of food they (Kanwariyas) are served, has the potential to hurt their religious sentiments and cause flare-ups, especially in a communally sensitive area like Muzaffarnagar," said the affidavit sworn by Saharanpur's Divisional Commissioner.

It added that the directive, limited to the route of the Kanwar Yatra for a period of less than two weeks, was issued solely in the interest of ensuring a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra, in which more than 4.07 crore of Kanwariyas participate annually.

It further said, "The temporary nature of the directives ensures that they do not inflict any permanent discrimination or hardship on the food sellers, simultaneously ensuring maintaining the sentiments of Kanwariyas and their religious beliefs and practices. Moreover, the said guidelines have only been issued for a limited geographical extent."

The state government said that it is committed to the secular values enshrined in the Constitution, protecting the religious sentiments of every individual regardless of his or her religion and to this end, the government always takes steps to ensure that all religious festivals of all religious denominations are celebrated or carried out peacefully, without offending the religious sentiments of the people, taking measures to prevent any untoward law and order situation.

The top court on Monday had stayed the operation of controversial directives issued by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments requiring all eateries and dhabas along the Kanwar Yatra route to display names of owners and workers.

Issuing notice on petitions challenging the impugned directives, a Bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S.V.N. Bhatti remarked that the devotees may be served with food of their choice maintaining standard hygiene.

As per the directives of the state governments, all the food outlets, eateries and food joints across the states will have to put up a "nameplate" displaying the names of owners/proprietors and staff members.

This has been done to maintain the "purity of faith" for Hindu devotees who undertake the Kanwar Yatra in the month of Shravan.

As per the order, those found selling products with Halal certification along the Yatra route will also face penal action.
News / Local

by Staff reporter

The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural Development says it is utilising Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to expedite the rehabilitation of some dilapidated roads in the Matabeleland region.This was announced by Deputy Minister Joshua Sacco, who addressed legislators in Parliament during a question-and-answer session on Wednesday.PPPs refer to arrangements between the public sector and the private sector to deliver a project or a service traditionally provided by the public sector.Sacco was responding to Emakhandeni-Luveve Constituency MP Discent Bajila, who inquired about the progress of the government in introducing PPPs to rehabilitate the Gwanda-Maphisa-Plumtree Road, Bulawayo-Nkayi Road, Beitbridge-Victoria Falls Road, Bulawayo-Maphisa-Manama Road, and Bulawayo-Tsholotsho Road.Sacco explained that the government has taken a stance to adopt a model where it will, through PPPs, mobilize resources for infrastructure development.He noted that PPPs involve a substantial amount of investment by the private partner; hence, the projects offered by the government for this purpose should be bankable and attractive for the private partner to realize a return on investment."For the Gwanda-Maphisa-Plumtree Road, work started in 2022, with 5 km of the road upgraded to surfacing. Initially, we had planned to do 10 km, but due to delayed payments and the exchange rate fluctuations, the contract had to be mutually terminated as the contractor cited incapacitation. The remaining 10 km of the road has been included in the program for the extended ERRP2," he said."For the Bulawayo-Nkayi Road, 2 km of surfacing out of the 14 km contracted under ERRP2 were completed in March this year. The contractor is in the process of procuring more bitumen to surface the next 3 km, which is ready. The contract was expected to run for six months; however, due to delayed payments from the Treasury, the contractor is now expected to complete the remaining 9 km by the end of September, subject to certificates being honoured."The scope of work involves upgrading from a narrow mat to a wide mat, including two shelverts and two culvert crossings (1200 mm diameter). The remaining 10 km of the road has been included in the program for the extended ERRP2."The deputy minister further noted that for the Bulawayo-Maphisa-Manama Road, shoulder gravelling was done for 23 km of the 33 km narrow mat, and pot patching and verge clearance for 114 km were carried out.He said that in the 2024 work program, 10 km will be tendered out for upgrading the road to surface standard from 45 km to 55 km pegs."For the Bulawayo-Tsholotsho Road, 5 km of the narrow mat was upgraded to a surfaced wide mat in 2022. The remaining 40 km of the road has been included in the program for the extended ERRP2," Sacco said.
New Delhi, July 26 : Even as citizen-centric platform MyGov on Friday celebrated 10 years of participatory governance, CEO Akash Tripathi pledged to work towards a Viksit Bharat by 2047.

The platform aims to connect with every citizen through its social media platforms.

It empowers people to connect with the government while also contributing towards good governance.

Launched on July 26, 2014, MyGov has more than 30.0 million registered users.

"Cheers to 10 Years of MyGov! Our numbers are off the charts -- thanks to you!" it said in a post on X where it has 3.3 million followers.

Developed as a citizen engagement platform MyGov collaborates with multiple government bodies and ministries to engage with citizens for policy formulation.

It also seeks people's opinions on several issues or topics of public interest and welfare.

"Thank you to every citizen who has been part of this journey. Let's continue to strengthen our vibrant community and work towards a Viksit Bharat by 2047 together," added Tripathi, CEO, MyGov.

Several government departments use the platform for citizen engagement activities as well as consultations for policy formulation.

It is also the medium to disseminate information on schemes and programmes.

Discussions, tasks, polls, surveys, blogs, talks, pledges, quizzes, and on-ground activities are some of the ways the platform engages with citizens.

MyGov has a strong presence across social media platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.

It also has a significant presence on several Indian social media platforms like Sharechat, Chingari, Roposo, Bolo Indya, and Mitron.
New Delhi, July 26 : On the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas on Friday, Major General Vijay Joshi (Retd.), who served as the Commandant of the Military Command Hospital in Udhampur, recalls an important visit made by Narendra Modi, then BJP National General Secretary, during the historic Indo-Pak war, to meet injured and war-weary soldiers.

The hospital, the largest in the Northern Command, was at the forefront of providing care to the sick and wounded soldiers during the Kargil War.

"Narendra Modi's visit raised the josh of the soldiers," Maj Gen Joshi recalled.

Stressing the effect that the visit had on the jawans, Maj Gen Joshi said, "Despite the gravity of the situation, Narendra Modi's presence had a profoundly calming effect on the soldiers. He interacted with each one, putting them at ease, significantly raising their spirits. There were many casualties, some were critically injured and others were in a relatively stable condition. He made it a point to focus on each individual. He was calm, composed, and full of energy, or 'josh', at the same time."

Maj Gen Joshi said that Narendra Modi's "ability to relate to the soldiers was remarkable," recalling how they felt at ease as he enquired about their families, homes, and any specific needs they had.

"His approach included a lot of personal touch, which was highly appreciated," the retired officer said.

"What stood out was Narendra Modi's unique ability to put everyone at ease in such difficult circumstances. This included not only the injured soldiers but also the hospital staff. He assured everyone of the support they needed, which went a long way in raising their morale," he further said.

According to the officer, Narendra Modi's presence "exuded true patriotism."

"Anyone, in such a difficult situation, who comes to the battlefield to assure the soldiers of personal empathy and support is a true leader and 'desh bhakt,' and a true patriot," he added.

"This sense of national support is crucial for maintaining their (soldiers') morale. Knowing that the government and the people are always with them, even in the toughest times, motivates them to give their best in the line of duty," he said.

Narendra Modi did not hold any administrative post at that time and was accompanying the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to inspect the ground realities.

"His goal was to understand the operational situation as well as the conditions affecting individual soldiers. This included assessing the support system in place, such as the Army hospital's patient care," Maj Gen Joshi said.

July 26 marks a historic occasion for India, the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, as the nation pays tribute to the sacrifice and valour of Indian soldiers.
Kolkata, July 26 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has identified 1,814 illegal recruitments in 15 different municipalities in West Bengal, sources have said.

All these recruitments were done since 2014 through an outsourced agency ABS Infozon Private Limited, owned by private promoter Ayan Sil, who is already in judicial custody in connection with the multi-crore cash-for-school job case.

Sources said that a total of 17 municipalities in the state were under the ambit of CBI investigation, and the Central agency sleuths have identified illegal recruitments in 15 urban civic bodies.

The two exceptions where the CBI had not been able to track a single case of illegal recruitment are Panihati and Taki municipalities both in North 24 Parganas district.

CBI, sources said, recently submitted details on this count at a special court in Kolkata.

Of the 15 municipalities, sources added, the number of irregular recruitments had been maximum at South Dum Dum Municipality at 329. The other municipalities where the numbers of illegal recruitments had been high include Kamarahati, Baranagar and Titagarh, all of which are in North 24 Parganas district.

Investigation revealed that recruitments against cash were done in several municipalities for a variety of posts which included medical officers, ward masters, clerks, drivers, helpers and cleaning assistants, among others.

Recently, CBI in the course of its investigation has tracked at least 25 bank accounts opened in the name of third parties which were used for inward and outward remissions of the ill-gotten proceeds of the case. A close examination of these bank accounts revealed that multiple high-value inward remissions, each amounting to a few lakhs, were credited to these accounts and were also debited within hours of deposit.

Recently, the CBI counsel informed the special court that the Central agency officials had raided 42 places while probing the municipalitiesa recruitment case, from where they had seized several crucial documents.
New Delhi, July 26 : On the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, the BJP once again attacked Congress and said that the anti-army mindset of the party, which did not celebrate the Day after coming to power, persists.

BJP spokesperson Shehzad Poonawalla said, "On the occasion of 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas, the whole country is paying tribute to our brave soldiers, martyrs and the army. Even the Prime Minister is also among the heroes of Kargil because we salute our Armed forces. But the Congress party has never respected the Armed forces. In fact, it continues to abuse the 'Manobal' (spirit) of the Armed forces."

He further said that Congress does not accept Kargil Vijay Diwas, Congress leaders call it NDA's war. Even after coming to power, the Congress' UPA government did not celebrate Kargil Vijay Diwas from 2004 to 2009.

"It was our MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar who put pressure on the government to ensure the day is commemorated. Many Congress leaders did not even know when the Kargil Vijay Diwas is observed. This is the Congress party," Poonawala added.

"Nothing has changed in the Congress. Even today they say 'Sadak Ka Gunda for Sena Chief', question Sena on Surgical Strike & Balakote, denied Sena National War Memorial & OROP, only gave scams & more scams in defence procurements," said the BJP leader and alleged that the Congress' anti-military mindset persists.
Mumbai, July 26 : Punjabi superstar Diljit Dosanjh, who has released his latest track, 'Muhammad Ali', said that it celebrates resilience and empowerment.

Mumbai, July 26 (IANS) Punjabi superstar Diljit Dosanjh, who has released his latest track, aMuhammad Ali', said that it celebrates resilience and empowerment.

For his latest song, Diljit has joined forces with rapper NLE Choppa.

The track is touted to be an urban pop anthem, designed to be both invigorating and motivational. The track encourages listeners to dance, dream, and defy the odds, while the music video blends cultures with an infectious rhythm.

Speaking about the collaboration, Diljit said: " 'Muhammad Ali' celebrates the spirit of resilience and empowerment. Collaborating with NLE Choppa on this anthem has been incredibly inspiring. I'm thrilled to share another vibrant Punjabi sound with the world."

Diljit has been instrumental in bringing Indian and Punjabi culture to the international stage.

Earlier, he made Ed Sheeran sing in Punjabi during the latter's tour in Mumbai.

Recently, he had a sold-out Dil-Luminati Tour spanning the US and Canada. His recent appearance on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon' further solidified his international stature.

NLE Choppa, at just 21, has already made a significant impact on the music scene.

Talking about the track, NLE Choppa shared: "This collaboration with Diljit on aMuhammad Alia has been a true honour. Combining our styles to honour such an iconic figure has been a memorable journey. I'm eager for our Indian fans to make this track their own."

The track pays homage to the legendary Muhammad Alias power and charisma.

aMuhammad Alia is available on all major audio streaming platforms.
Kolkata, July 26 : Bringing an end to speculation, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Friday that she will be attending the NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi which will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"On one hand there is financial deprivation and on the other hand, there is a conspiracy to divide West Bengal. I will be attending the Niti Aayog Meeting to raise my voice of dissent on both these issues," the Chief Minister said while interacting with the mediapersons at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport here before leaving for Delhi.

Trinamool Congress general secretary and the party Lok Sabha member Abhishek Banerjee is accompanying her to the national capital.

She said that she is attending the meeting to raise her voice of protest on the issues of financial deprivation not just against West Bengal but also against the other non-BJP ruled states.

"All the opposition-ruled states have been deprived in the Union Budget proposals. I cannot accept such favouritism. So I will be raising my voice on behalf of all at the meeting," he said.

Thereafter, she targeted the BJP on the issue of the party Lok Sabha member Nishikant Dubey's demand on the floor of the House on Thursday for a new Union territory combining Malda, Murshidabad, Araria, Kishanganj, Katihar district and the Santhal Parganas region.

"All sorts of financial and geographical conspiracies are going on to divide the state. Messages are being spread to divide Bengal. The division of Bengal means a division of the country. We cannot accept this. In such a situation I will be there at the meeting for some time. If I am allowed to get my voice recorded I will do that. Otherwise, I will walk out in protest," the Chief Minister said.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Abhishek Banerjee, during their visit to the national capital, are also scheduled to hold meetings with the party's Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members. The Chief Minister is also scheduled to interact with media persons in Delhi later in the day.
New Delhi, July 26 : After Prime Minister Narendra Modi attacked the opposition for playing politics on the Agnipath Scheme, the Congress hit back saying that it does not solve the needs of the Army.

Congress leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said the government needs to mention what will happen to the Agniveers once they retire after a four-year service.

"PM is saying that we are spreading confusion. He is speaking about what will happen after 30 years. He should talk about what will happen after four years," Randhawa said.

Another Congress leader Karti Chidambaram criticised the Prime Minister for defending the Agnipath Scheme at an event meant to honour the Kargil War soldiers.

"Agniveer Scheme should be scrapped. Modern warfare requires fully-trained soldiers, and the scheme does not give full-trained soldiers. The Agniveer Scheme does not solve the needs of the Army," Chidambaram said.

"Indian Army has a glorious past and should not be politicised. We salute the Army and not the other way around," he added.

Earlier in the day, PM Modi said the opposition was playing politics on a sensitive issue connected to the defence and security system of the country.

He said this after visiting the Kargil War Memorial in Dras (Ladakh) where he commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Vijay Diwas and paid homage to the soldiers who were martyred during the 1999 war.

"Unfortunately, some for their personal gains are playing politics over the issue. They are the same people who were involved in various defence-related scams and weakened our forces. They are the same people who never wanted the Air Force to get modern fighter jets. They are the same people who were planning to put Tejas fighter plane project in deep freeze."

"Some people are spreading lies about the Agnipath Scheme that the government is doing this to save money. But I want to ask them - the question of pension issue will arise after 30 years. Why would the government take the decision today... could have left it for the future government. But, we respected the decision of the forces because for us it is not politics ...for us the security of the country comes first," said the PM.

Launched in 2022, the Agnipath scheme was designed to recruit personnel for short-term service in the Armed Forces.
New Delhi, July 26 : Labelling it as "unacceptable" and "genocidal", Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Friday called on "every government in the world" to condemn Israel's ongoing military offensive in Gaza.

"It is no longer enough to speak up for the civilians, mothers, fathers, doctors, nurses, aid workers, journalists, teachers, writers, poets, senior citizens and the thousands of innocent children who are being wiped out day after day by the horrific genocide taking place in Gaza," the Congress leader posted on X.

"It is the moral responsibility of every right-thinking individual including all those Israeli citizens who do not believe in hatred and violence, and every government in the world to condemn the Israeli government's genocidal actions and force them to stop," she added.

Priyanka Gandhi also took on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who on Wednesday was given a standing ovation and repeated applause during his address to the joint houses of the US Congress which has been labelled as "historic" by many.

"Their actions are unacceptable in a world that professes civility and morality. Instead, we are subjected to the image of the Israeli Prime Minister being given a standing ovation in the US Congress.

"He calls it 'a clash between barbarism and civilization'. He is absolutely correct, except that it is he and his government that are barbaric and their barbarism is being given the unstinted support of most of the Western world. It is truly a shame to watch," Gandhi wrote.

It is not the first time that Priyanka Gandhi has slammed the international community for backing Israel's actions in Gaza.

In February, the Congress leader stated that all rules of justice, humanity and international decorum have been broken and accused the international community of "being blind to genocide" being committed in Gaza.

"All rules of justice, humanity and international decorum have been broken. Humanity has been bled, and each one of us will pay an unimaginable price for this someday unless we raise our voices and stand up for what is right today," she said on February 22.
Colombo, July 26 : Hours after the Election Commission announced the date for the presidential elections in Sri Lanka, incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Friday announced that he would be contesting the polls as an independent candidate.

Wickremesinghe's lawyers placed a monetary bond before the Election Commissioner for his candidacy in the forthcoming election.

Announcing the election on September 21, the poll panel asked the presidential candidates to deposit money till August 14.

A candidate from a recognised political party has to deposit 50,000 Sri Lankan Rupees while a candidate nominated by an elector has to deposit 75,000 Sri Lankan Rupees, the Election Commission said.

Wickremesinghe took office as the President in July 2022 when his predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country and later resigned amid a severe economic crisis. His term will end on November 17.

Publishing the gazette notification, the Election Commission announced that the presidential poll has to be conducted not less than one month after and no more than two months before the expiration of the President's term.

Wickremesinghe ran the country with the majority parliamentary mandate of the Rajapaksa party, Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP).

The SLPP, which has broken into several factions now, is undecided whether to support Wickremesinghe or not. While a section of those holding cabinet portfolios insist on supporting Wickremesinghe as the common candidate, the successor of the Rajapaksa dynasty, Namal Rajapaksa, eldest son of former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, has accused Wickremesinghe of dividing his father's party.

The SLPP is likely to announce its decision on Monday.

While "pro-China" Rajapaksas worked closely with Beijing, even building some multi-million dollar white elephant projects with Chinese loans, which critics claimed were connected to corruption, Wickremesinghe turned to the immediate neighbour India and Japan for support.

India came to the rescue of Sri Lanka, which was suffering from a severe financial crisis with no essentials like food, fuel and medicine, with more than $4 billion in monetary aid while Japan started some major funded projects which were suspended during the Rajapaksa regime.
Bengaluru, July 26 : Karnataka Minister for Urban Development, Byrathi Suresh, on Friday released documents revealing that Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel, HD Kumaraswamy and other BJP leaders obtained alternate sites from the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA).

Addressing a joint press conference with the Karnataka Chief Minister in Vidhana Soudha, Minister Suresh stated that, BJP and JD(S) leaders also got plots from the MUDA just like the family of Siddaramaiah got alternate sites.

Union Minister Kumaraswamy was allotted 21,000 square feet of land by the MUDA and likewise, BJP leaders H Vishwanath and others were also allotted plots of land, he said.

JD(S) MLA, GT Deve Gowda was allotted alternate land at two places, Minister Suresh stated.

He has also released a list of alternate sites given by the MUDA to other political leaders attached to Opposition parties.

"I had urged Speaker UT Khader to provide an opportunity to reveal the names of BJP and JD(S) leaders who got alternate sites allotted by the MUDA. However, the Speaker denied permission for this, hence I am releasing the papers now," he stated.

Deputy CM, DK Shivakumar, who attended the press conference, declared that the Congress is going to expose scams of the BJP leaders daily.

"We were ready for debate. The government had allowed discussion on the alleged tribal welfare Board case even though the provision was not there. When CM Siddaramaiah stood up to answer them in the absence of the ST Minister, he was not allowed to speak. The protest march being planned to the native place of CM Siddaramaiah from Bengaluru by the BJP is political in nature and a gimmick," he underlined.
Bengaluru, July 26 : Members of Parliament from both Houses, belonging to the BJP and JD(S), protested in New Delhi on Friday against the alleged corruption by Karnataka government.

Alleging misuse of tribal Board funds and illegal allotment of sites to the CMas family, the MPs elected from Karnataka demanded the resignation of Siddaramaiah.

They raised slogans such as "The Congress is looting money of Dalits in Karnataka. Where is Rahul Gandhi?" "Where is Rahul Gandhi while corruption is happening in Karnataka?"

They also shouted, "Remove the corrupt Chief Minister."

MPs participated in the protest holding placards with slogans like "Return the looted money belonging to the ST community" and "Down with CM Siddaramaiah who swallowed crores in the MUDA scam."

Former CM and BJP MP Jagadish Shettar, claimed that CM Siddaramaiah did not allow a discussion in the Assembly regarding MUDA, which is an attempt to cover up the ascandal.a

Former Dy CM and BJP MP Govind Karjol alleged that there has been a scam of Rs 187 crore in the tribal Board, with money going into fake accounts.

He said that the Chief Minister, who manages the finance department, is responsible and must resign.

Bengaluru BJP MP, PC Mohan said that CM Siddaramaiah should take moral responsibility for the irregularities in the tribal Board and MUDA and resign.
Hyderabad, July 26 : Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy announced on Friday that the state government will recruit 30,000 employees in the next three months.

He said since coming to power in December last year, the Congress government has recruited 30,000 employees.

The Chief Minister said by providing 60,000 jobs even before completing one year, his government was demonstrating its sincerity and creating confidence among the unemployed.

He said this at the passing out parade of the 'Fourth Batch of Direct Recruit Firemen' at Vattingulapally in Rangareddy district.

He said notifications were already issued and competitive exams were being conducted for recruitment of 11,000 teachers and for filling Group I, Group II and Group III posts.

The Chief Minister said the government aimed to fill all vacancies through a job calendar.

Referring to protests by some students demanding the postponement of competitive exams, the Chief Minister assured them that he, as their elder brother, was ready to solve their problems. "There is no need for protest. If you have any problems, meet the ministers concerned," he said.

On Thursday, Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said in his Budget speech in the Assembly that the government has issued appointment orders for 31,768 jobs so far.

Vikramarka said the government was committed to creating new jobs in government and government-owned corporations/societies.

"We resolve to set right the irregularities that took place in the recruitment processes and we will issue a job calendar soon," he had said.

He congratulated firemen for completing their training and said they had made their parents proud by deciding to serve society.

He said that the previous government did not work to fulfil the aspirations with which youth had participated in the Telangana movement.

"After Congress party came to power, we tried to fulfil their aspirations by giving them appointment letters," he said.

"By paying salaries to government employees on the first of every month, we have created confidence in them," he said.

He said if the government fails to pay salaries to its employees on the first day of the month, employees lose confidence in the government.

The Chief Minister said his government was working to live-up to people's expectations. As part of this effort, more funds were allocated for education and agriculture in the state Budget for 2024-25.

CM Reddy said Rs 2.91 lakh crore Budget was presented in tune with the priorities of the people's government.

He said there was a focus on education, health, employment and irrigation.
New Delhi, July 26 : The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the Centre's decision to observe June 25, the day when the Emergency was imposed by Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1975, as the 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas' every year.

A bench presided over by Acting Chief Justice Manmohan observed the government notification did not violate or disrespect the Constitution.

The Bench, also comprising Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, was hearing a PIL claiming that a national emergency was imposed in 1975 as per the constitutional provision and it was derogatory to declare June 25 as 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas'.

The notification issued on July 13 said, "The Government of India has declared June 25th as Samvidhan 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."

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the 'Samvidhan Hatya Diwas' will commemorate the massive contributions of all those who endured the inhuman pains of the 1975 Emergency.

"The observance of 'Samvidhan 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 has said.
Sultanpur : Congress MP & LoP Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi meets and interacts with a cobbler during his visit to UP's Sultanpur on Friday, July 26, 2024.. Image Source: IANS

Lucknow, July 26 : The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, met a cobbler in Uttar Pradesh's Sultanpur on Friday to 'understand' the community's problems.

"We are continuously fighting for the rights of these hardworking people, raising their voices from the streets to the Parliament," the Congress wrote on X while posting a short video of Rahul Gandhi at the cobbler's shop in Sultanpur.

The Congress said the aim is to make their present safe and future prosperous.

In the short video, Rahul Gandhi is seen talking to the cobbler while he is repairing his shoes.

X handles associated with the Congress posted that Rahul Gandhi spoke to the Dalit cobbler for about 30 minutes to understand his struggle for livelihood and caste discrimination.

The LoP had to appear before the MP-MLA court in Sultanpur for a defamation case on Friday. However, the court listed the matter for the next hearing on August 12.

The case dates back to 2018 when BJP leader Vijay Mishra accused Rahul Gandhi of making derogatory comments during a press conference in Bengaluru, in which the Congress leader referred to Amit Shah as an "accused" in a murder case.
Bengaluru, July 26 : The CCTV footage of the murder of a 24-year-old woman from Bihar, a private firm employee, emerged on Friday, showing the brutality of the attack and the unfortunate apathy of the hostel mates.

The woman, Kriti Kumari, was murdered on the premises of her Paying Guest (PG) hostel in the Koramangala locality of Bengaluru on Tuesday.

The preliminary probe revealed that the murderer was Abhishek, a native of Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh. Abhishek was in a relationship with Kriti Kumarias friend and colleague. Abhishekas lover hailed from Maharashtra.

Abhishek used to visit the PG hostel and often travelled to Bengaluru from Bhopal to date his girlfriend. The relationship, however, soured between them, and the victim and her friends started to avoid him. Sometime ago Abhishek came to the PG hostel and created a ruckus following which Kriti Kumari helped her friend shift to a new PG hostel, and both stopped taking his calls.

Enraged by this, Abhishek came to the PG hostel where Kriti Kumari was staying on Tuesday night and committed the crime.

The CCTV footage shows Abhishek walking towards Kritias room holding a plastic bag in his hand. Abhishek knocks on the door and enters the room. Soon after, Abhishek is seen dragging her out and Kriti struggles to get out of his clutches.

Abhishek, who was holding a knife in one hand, grabs Kritias neck. Even as Kriti struggles to avoid being stabbed, the killer manages to stab her repeatedly. As Kriti loses the strength to defend herself, the killer takes his time and attacks her again.

Even after Kriti collapses, the killer holds her by the hair and stabs her. He then takes a step away from her, and after seeing her still breathing, he tries to slit her throat again before running away.

Kriti manages to sit up after the brutal attack and cries for help. The PG hostel mates slowly open their doors but none dare to help Kriti. They are seen trying to make phone calls. They talk among themselves as Kriti manages to sit for some time, bleeding severely.

One of the young women staying is seen slowly opening the door, peeping out, and then going back to her room. Kriti pleads with another woman standing at a distance. As the girl standing at a distance takes steps towards her, Kriti collapses finally, the CCTV footage shows.

Bengaluru Police Commissioner B. Dayananda said on Friday that the police have formed three special teams to nab the accused. Sources said that the teams have gone to Bhopal and other places in Madhya Pradesh. The accused Abhishek had switched off his phone and disappeared, sources said.
New Delhi, July 26 : People are more likely to trust doctors and scientists, while their faith in public health agencies and social media is much less, finds a study.

The study, conducted at the University of Florida examined the factors fueling this mistrust and explored potential solutions.

The team analysed responses from 5,842 adults in the US.

The results, published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine, showed that 95 per cent of respondents trust doctors highly, trust in scientists was at 84 per cent. But faith in government health agencies (70 per cent) was lower. Social media garnered the least trust, with only 18 per cent of respondents considering it a reliable source.

"Individuals who perceive conflict among experts about health recommendations, and who perceive that recommendations are constantly changing, have significantly lower trust in health information provided by government health agencies," said Mainous.

The study's findings suggest that the public's perception of conflicting and changing recommendations contributes to a lack of trust in scientists and health agencies.

"Our scientific and medical knowledge is always in flux, leading the public to question the expertise of government health agencies and perceive a political angle when it comes to recommendation," Mainous said.

To restore trust, the study suggests leveraging the trust in doctors.

"Government agencies need to continue to provide patient education but focus more on letting individual physicians disseminate agency recommendations to patients," Mainous said.
Tokyo, July 26 : The mayor of the city of Ginowan in the southernmost Japanese prefecture of Okinawa was found dead in a Tokyo hotel on Friday.

Police believe from the situation that he may have died from an illness, local media reported.

Masanori Matsugawa, 70, was found unresponsive at around 9.35 a.m. local time on a bed in his hotel room in the Akasaka area in Tokyo's Minato Ward, and was confirmed dead at the scene, Kyodo News reported, citing the police, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the death which is believed to be the result of illness, the report said.

According to Ginowan officials, Matsugawa arrived in Tokyo on Wednesday to file a request regarding the use of the land where the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is based once it is relocated.

The mayor had met with Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi on Thursday at the prime minister's office, and was slated to return to Okinawa on Friday, the report said.

Matsugawa was serving his second term after being first elected mayor in September 2018, backed by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. He has been seeking the prompt closure of the Futenma base, which is located in a densely populated area of Ginowan, due to safety concerns.

The central government plans to move the U.S. military base to the less populated district of Henoko in Okinawa, but the construction of the replacement facility has met with stiff local resistance.
Kolkata, July 26 : The division bench of the Calcutta High Court hearing the plea of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenging an earlier order of a single-judge bench of the same court in the defamation case filed by Governor C.V. Ananda Bose on Friday returned the matter to the latter bench.

On July 16, a single-judge bench of Justice Krishna Rao put an interim stay on any kind of derogatory statement against the Governor till August 14. The single-judge bench ordered an interim stay acting on a defamation suit filed by the Governor against the Chief Minister, where Trinamool Congress leader Kunal Gosh and the party legislators Sayantika Banerjee and Reyat Houssen Sarkar were also made parties.

The Chief Minister, however, challenged the order and the matter was being heard at the division bench of Justice Indra Prasanna Mukherjee and Justice Biswaroop Chowdhury.

After a hearing in the matter, the division bench observed that whether the Chief Minister's comments made about the Governor were derogatory or not has to be decided by the single-judge bench.

The division bench also observed that the Chief Minister would be able to make any statement about the Governor but that should not be in violation of the "definition" and "legal provisions" of "defamation".

The division bench also directed all the parties concerned to file fresh affidavits at the single-judge bench and observed that the latter would evaluate all aspects and decide whether the Chief Minister's comments made about the Governor were derogatory in nature or not.

The defamation suit was filed over some comments made by the Chief Minister recently while expressing displeasure over the confusion regarding the oath-taking ceremony of the two new MLAs.
Chennai, July 26 : The Tamil Nadu government has brought the Tamil medium-aided school students from Classes VI to XII under the monthly assistance scheme of Rs 1,000 per month.

The Tamil Pudhuvalan scheme of the state government provides monthly financial assistance of Rs 1,000 to Tamil medium-educated government school students.

In his Budget speech Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu announced that 'Tamil Pudhalvan' would provide a monthly assistance of Rs 1,000 to the students who have studied in government schools from Classes VI to XII.

With the expansion to government-aided schools, 3.28 lakh boys are expected to benefit from the scheme during the fiscal 2024-25.

"An amount of Rs 360 crore has been sanctioned for the Tamil Pudhalvan scheme," reads a government order.

The assistance to students under the Tamil Pudhalvan scheme is aimed at enabling them to purchase textbooks, general knowledge books and magazines to improve their academic performance.

This scheme is similar to the Pudhumai Penn scheme which provides a monthly assistance of Rs 1,000 to each of students who have studied Classes VI-XII in state government schools and are pursuing higher education.

While the scheme was initially for the girl students who studied in government schools, it was later extended to the girl students studying in government-aided schools in Tamil medium.

School Education Department officials told IANS that the government might expand the scheme if required and higher fund assistance may be provided.
Vientiane, July 26 : External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar reiterated Friday that ASEAN remains the cornerstone of India's 'Act East' policy and the Indo-Pacific vision.

Addressing the opening session of the ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers' Meeting in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, the EAM stated that it was "encouraging" to note that India-ASEAN partnership continues to acquire ever more dimensions with each passing year.

"For India, ASEAN is the cornerstone of its Act East Policy and the Indo-Pacific vision that was thereafter built on it. For us, political, economic and security cooperation with ASEAN is of the utmost priority. So too are people-to-people linkages, that we are constantly seeking to expand," Jaishankar said in his opening remarks at the meeting.

The 57th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting (AMM) in Vientiane is being attended by over 1000 delegates, including foreign ministers and representatives from 31 countries.

"While our achievements are substantial, our ambitions must always remain high," Jaishankar told the gathering.

The EAM also highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Jakarta in September 2023 to attend the 20th ASEAN-India Summit and 18th East Asia Summit, the first major event for the grouping since the elevation of India-ASEAN relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2022.

"The priority that India attaches to ASEAN and EAS platforms is evident from Prime Minister Modi visiting Jakarta last year on the very eve of our own G20 Summit. He had announced a 12-point plan that has been largely acted upon," Jaishankar said on Friday.

The EAM called the meeting as "productive", stating that digital, defence, maritime, connectivity, security, health and traditional medicine and cultural heritage preservation continue to be priority areas for India-ASEAN cooperation.

"Also spoke about the situation in Myanmar, keeping the Sea Lines of Communication open and free, Quadas outlook on ASEAN & AOIP and the conflict in Gaza," he said.

ASEAN countries remain an important pillar of India's 'Act East' policy and key partner of its Indo-Pacific Vision underlined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR) vision.

From Vientiane, the EAM will travel to Tokyo to participate in the next meeting of the Quad Foreign Ministers' on July 29 along with the Foreign Ministers of Australia, and the United States.
Colombo, July 26 : Sri Lanka has set up a new division in the police to address legal issues faced by investors and exporters and to provide them with additional security in the future, the country's Export Development Board (EDB) quoted a state minister as saying on Friday.

The EDB said in a statement that it held its 24th exporters' forum on Thursday, which is a platform for discussing and resolving issues faced by exporters, Xinhua news agency reported.

The event was presided over by State Minister of Investment Promotion Dilum Amunugama, the statement read.

The state minister said that the forum has made significant progress in resolving issues faced by exporters.

He further said that establishing a trade facilitation task force at the EDB with designated focal points from the relevant public sector agencies to identify, analyse, and address bottlenecks in the export value chain, according to the statement.

The trade facilitation and trade information division of the EDB organises the exporters' forum regularly, the statement read.
New Delhi, July 26 : The Union government established lactation centres to ensure the availability of safe, pasteurised donor human milk for feeding sick, preterm, and low birth weight babies, said Anupriya Patel, Minister of State (MoS) in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) in a written reply in Lok Sabha on Friday.

"The government has established Comprehensive Lactation Management Centres (CLMC) to ensure availability of safe, pasteurised donor human milk and lactation management unit (LMU) for facilitating the expression of mother's milk, for feeding of sick, preterm and low birth weight babies admitted in intensive care units such as neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and special newborn care unit (SNCU)," Patel said.

She said that in FY 2023-24, there were about 52 CLMCs and 50 LMUs operational across the country.

Breast milk is essential for newborns as it provides all the necessary nutrients for their growth and development. In addition, it also has a protective effect against the risk of illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhoea, and other chronic conditions such as asthma, allergies, childhood obesity, diabetes, and heart diseases in adult life.

Breast milk acts as life saviours for sick newborns admitted to intensive care units. It also has a preventive effect on prematurity-related morbidities such as late-onset sepsis, broncho-pulmonary dysplasia -- chronic lung disease --, necrotising enterocolitis -- intestinal disease in premature babies, and retinopathy -- disease of the eye.

In May, the country's top food safety body the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) issued a directive to all states to stop granting licences for the sale or processing of human milk.

"All activities related to the commercialisation of human milk and its products should be immediately stopped," it said while strictly prohibiting the sale or any commercial activity involving human milk.

The regulator warned that it should only be used to feed newborns or infants in health facilities.
Panaji, July 26 : Claiming that 'Kaavi Art' originates from the coastal state, Goa Forward Party MLA Vijai Sardesai on Friday asked the government to obtain the Geographical Indication (GI) tag for it before Karnataka gets its.

Sardesai raised the issue during Zero Hour in the ongoing assembly session voicing concern about the government of Karnataka planning to obtain the GI tag for Kaavi Art'.

He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the 84th edition of 'Mann Ki Baat' praised Goan Kaavi artist Sagar Naik Mule for preserving the century-old tradition. However, the Goa government is doing nothing to obtain a GI tag, but Karnataka has taken the initiative to obtain it.

"Prime Minister has said that it was brought by the Portuguese and then from Goa it travelled to Kerala, Karnataka and coastal Maharashtra through Saraswat-Brahmin families to decorate temples. It originates in Goa. If Karnataka obtains the GI tag first then it would be proved that our government is idle or BJP MLAs are not listening to Mann Ki Baat," Sardesai said.

"Goa should obtain the GI tag before Karnataka takes it. Use your double engine to obtain it," Sardesai added

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Art & Culture Minister Govind Gaude assured the House of fulfilling this aspiration.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his speech had said "I also got to know about the efforts of Sagar Mule ji of Goa, who is involved in saving centuries old 'Kaavi' painting from extinction. 'Kaavi' form of painting covers the ancient history of India in itself,"

"Actually, 'Kaava' means red soil. In ancient times red clay was used in this art. During the Portuguese rule in Goa, the people who migrated from there introduced the people of other states to this wonderful painting form. With the passage of time this painting was on the verge of extinction. But Sagar Mule ji has infused a new lease of life to this art," PM Modi had said.
New Delhi/Thiruvananthapuram, July 26 : A delegation of Kerala MPs led by AICC General Secretary (Organisation), KC Venugopal, called on Union Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, at his office on Friday.

They discussed the need for modifications to the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) norms and the rise in man-animal conflict.

Taking to his social media account, MP Venugopal said, "The present CRZ regulations threaten the lives and livelihoods of millions of Keralites. They require their homes as well as necessary fishing infrastructure to be recognised and be made free from the threat of being declared illegal. To resolve this, we demand that the Centre accept the Kerala Government's draft CRZ plan, as approved by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) to bring urgent relief to lakhs of fisher folk of Kerala."

Incidentally, Venugopal represents the Alappuzha Lok Sabha constituency where a sizeable population has issues with the CRZ.

"Similarly, the prevailing human-animal conflict has been dragging on without any credible solution. Urged the Hon'ble Minister to take urgent steps to find a solution that balances the need for wildlife protection with saving human lives," said Venugopal.

Venugopal was accompanied by several MPs from the state and a few from the Upper House also.
Manila, July 26 : The Philippines has prevented entry of 69 registered sex offenders, mainly Americans, into the country from January to June this year, the Philippines' Bureau of Immigration said on Friday.

Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco said that 58 of the excluded passengers are registered sex offenders or persons convicted for sex crimes in their countries, Xinhua news agency reported.

The remaining 11 are facing pending complaints or are under investigation or prosecution for various sex offences, he added.

Tansingco said 48 Americans account for the bulk of the excluded sex offenders, followed by four Britons and two Australians.

In 2023, the bureau said it barred the entry of 171 registered sex offenders, including 129 Americans, into the Southeast Asian country.
Baghdad, July 26 : Four rockets attacked the Ayn al-Asad Airbase in Iraq's western Anbar province, where US troops are stationed, an Iraqi army officer said on Friday.

The attack occurred late Thursday night when an unknown armed group fired the rockets, two of which landed inside the airbase and the other two landed outside without causing casualties, Saad al-Obaidi from Anbar Operations Command told Xinhua news agency.

Iraqi security forces launched a search operation in the areas around the airbase looking for the attackers, al-Obaidi said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, an armed group known as 'Islamic Resistance in Iraq' has launched hundreds of rocket and drone attacks on bases housing US forces in Iraq and Syria.
Patna July 26 : A controversial term used by RJD MLA Vijay Mandal created an uproar in the Bihar assembly on the last day of its monsoon session on Friday.

The ruling party created a ruckus over the term "Bhathiyara," used by RJD MLA Vijay Mandal against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the state government inside the assembly. However, he did not take the name of Nitish Kumar afterward.

The ruling party leaders accused Mandal of using an objectionable and unparliamentary word against the Chief Minister and the state government. However, Vijay Mandal defended himself by asserting that the term he used was neither abusive nor objectionable.

Mandal defended his use of the term by stating that he was addressing corruption and crime under the current administration.

"The circle officers are taking bribes and murders are taking place every day but this government is not ready to discuss these issues. This government has not allowed the opposition to speak on these points. Why does the government, if it acknowledges the link between revenue and crime, not take steps to curb it," Mandal said outside the assembly.

Neeraj Kumar Bablu, the PHED minister of the Bihar government, emphasised the importance of maintaining decorum and respect in the assembly. He demanded action against Vijay Mandal for using an unparliamentary word.

The term "Bhathiyara" refers to a specific caste in Bihar, and its usage can be considered derogatory. Despite its potential to offend, the term seems to have become somewhat normal in public discourse without a significant pushback, even from those from the Bhathiyara community.

The Bhathiyara community, with a population of 27,263 according to the caste-based survey, represents less than one percent of Bihar's population. They are classified as an extremely backward class in Bihar and as a backward class in Uttar Pradesh. They are also found in Rajasthan. The community's historical background suggests they were brought to India by the Mughals.
New Delhi, July 26 : The Supreme Court on Friday extended its stay order on the operation of controversial directives issued by the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh governments requiring all eateries and dhabas along the Kanwar Yatra route to display names of owners and workers.

A bench, headed by Justice Hrishikesh Roy, granted a week's time to the state governments of Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh to file their reply in the matter.

The bench, also comprising Justice S.V.N. Bhatti, took note of the submission that the Uttar Pradesh government filed its counter-affidavit late on Thursday and the petitioners should be given time to file their rejoinder submissions.

Ultimately, the apex court posted the matter for hearing on August 5 and in the meantime, ordered an extension of the stay order.

Issuing notice on petitions challenging the impugned directives, the top court, on July 22, stayed the enforcement of the directive requiring all eateries and dhabas along the Kanwar Yatra route to display names of owners and workers.

In its affidavit, the UP government has told the top court that the impugned "nameplate" directive was issued to ensure the peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage. The state government said that the idea behind issuing the directive was to strengthen transparency and informed choice of the pilgrims regarding the food they eat during the period of the Yatra, keeping in mind their religious sentiments.

"Even small confusions regarding the kind of food they (Kanwariyas) are served, has the potential to hurt their religious sentiments and cause flare-ups, especially in a communally sensitive area like Muzaffarnagar," said the affidavit sworn by Divisional Commissioner, Saharanpur.

It added that the directive, limited to the route of the Kanwar Yatra for a period of less than two weeks, was issued solely in the interest of ensuring a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra, in which more than 4.07 crore of Kanwariyas participate annually.

"The temporary nature of the directives ensures that they do not inflict any permanent discrimination or hardship on the food sellers, simultaneously ensuring maintaining the sentiments of Kanwariyas and their religious beliefs and practices. Moreover, the said guidelines have only been issued for a limited geographical extent."

The UP government said that it is committed to the secular values enshrined in the Constitution, protecting the religious sentiments of every individual regardless of his or her religion and to this end, the government always takes steps to ensure that all religious festivals of all religious denominations are celebrated or carried out peacefully, without offending the religious sentiments of the people, taking measures to prevent any untoward law and order situation.
Bengaluru, July 26 : Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday gave a rebuttal to every charge made against him in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) land case while saying that 3.16 acres of land was originally purchased for Rs 1 in 1935.

"Being a law student and who has been in politics for 40 years, I do not see anything wrong in purchasing the land. I am also placing the documents before the people. An inquiry commission was constituted under the chairmanship of Justice P.N. Desai. The Commission has started the inquiry," the Chief Minister said.

He said that the BJP and JD-S are trying to tarnish his image in the MUDA and Tribal Welfare case.

On the charge, B.M. Mallikarjun purchased land from one of the sons of Ninga Bin Jawara, who belonged to the scheduled caste, doesn't the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prohibition of Transfer of Certain Lands) Act (PTCL) act apply to this purchase?

The Chief Minister responded by saying that On August 2, 1935, Jawara's son Ninga applied to the Mysore Taluk Office for allotment of land.

"The then lower-level officials submitted a report on August 15, 1935, that the lands requested by Ninga should be disposed of by auction. According to that, steps have been taken to conduct the auction," the Chief Minister said.

He said that the auction was conducted accordingly and it is recorded after conducting the auction.

"3 acres and 16 the guntas of land in survey number 464 of Kesare village which is valued at Rs 3 rupees 8 annas was auctioned. During the auction, Ninga Bin Jawara quoted Rs 1 for the land on which the auction was concluded without any challenge. However, on October 13, 1935, it was mentioned that 'Sale is confirmed'," the Chief Minister said.

He said that since the lands are acquired through auction, they become self-acquired property and the government does not have any interest in these lands.

"So these lands do not come under the PTCL Act. The Act is clear about this. There are also countless judgments in this regard," the Chief Minister said.

On the charge, did they (Siddaramaiah's family) get permission from the government to make the purchase? The Chief Minister said that anyone with knowledge of the law knows that since PTCL doesn't apply to allotted land, no government permission is required.

On the BJP's allegations of why were the heirs excluded from the purchase of these lands, the Chief Minister said a family tree was constituted on March 10, 1993.

"According to it, Ninga Bin Jawara has three children. First is Mallaiah, second is Mylariah and third is J. Devaraju. According to the family tree, Mallaiah has no heirs. Mailaraiah has a son, Manjunath Swamy M," the Chief Minister said.

He said that it was mentioned that he was 29 years old then. " The third one is Devaraj. (This Devaraju sold the land to Mallikarjunaswamy, brother-in-law of the Chief Minister). This family tree is signed by Mallaiah, Devaraju, Mailaraiah's wife Puttagouramma, M. Manjunathaswamy," the Chief Minister said.

He said that all the above have signed and given the declaration to make khata of the said land in the name of J Devaraju. "Based on this, these lands were transferred in the name of J. Devaraju," the Chief Minister said.

He said that therefore, the BJP said that the purchase was done without the consent of the heirs.

"Their allegation is false. All these transactions took place before 2010. These are not related to me. However, these issues need to be raised as the BJP is using this petty matter for politics," the Chief Minister said.

On the allegations about how many areas have been developed by MUDA where the land acquisition process has been completed and was government approval sought for such de-notification proposals?

The Chief Minister said that in the complaint the BJP to the Governor, false information was given by stating that there was no proposal from MUDA for de-notification of the said lands, the petitioner had not given the application, although he had given false information that de-notification had taken place.

"The BJP has given completely wrong information in the complaint to the Governor. Preliminary notification was issued on August 9, 1992, to acquire the said lands. However, it does not appear to be settled for many years. Then, J. Devaraju wrote an application on August 13, 1996, to release his lands from land acquisition," the Chief Minister said.

He said that the final notification of these lands was made on August 20, 1997.

"This application was written before that. On the application, the then Urban Development Minister B.N. Bachegowda who reviewed the petition wrote a note to the Secretary. Based on this note, a letter was sent to MUDA," the Chief Minister said.

He said that on July 24, 1997, MUDA passed a resolution to exclude this land from land acquisition and on August 30, 1997, the MUDA Commissioner recommended to the Secretary to the government to release the said lands from land acquisition.

"A committee headed by the then Revenue Secretary V. Balasubramanian reviewed and denotified the land along with 18 other such cases across the state. If there is a Chief Minister, Deputy Chief Minister or Minister, MLA will it take two years to complete this process?" the Chief Minister asked.

On the allegations of can de-notification be done when the land is completely acquired by the government and can such developed or partially developed land be sold? And who owned the land when it was de-notified?

The Chief Minister said that there are many judgments and also actions of the government that the process of land acquisition is not complete unless any land is acquired while the land compensation is paid and full possession of that land is taken.

"However, these lands were excluded on May 18, 1998. In MUDA since 1984, 235-300 acres of land in total 13 layouts have been relinquished from land acquisition. So when lands are excluded from acquisition it is seen that MUDA has not taken possession of these lands. So this question raised by the BJP is also an incoherent question," the Chief Minister said.

On the charges, how was the 50:50 scheme implemented without government permission?

"The land was already converted on July 7, 2005, by the time we (Siddaramaiah's family) took possession of it. By the time these lands came to our family, the land had been converted from agricultural purposes to residential purposes. Application dated June 23, 2014, and October 25, 2021, for alternative land in lieu of land compensation," the Chief Minister said.

He said that in cases where the land is used without acquiring the land, in lieu of the land so used per cent. MUDA had decided on September 14, 2020, to give space in the ratio of 50:50.

"However, this decision was cancelled by the government. On December 7, 2020, they discussed again and made another decision and then finally decided that henceforth, in cases where the authority has used the land without acquiring it, 50 per cent of the total developed area can be given as compensation in the form of land compensation in agreeable cases," the Chief Minister said.

He said that his wife submitted an application again on October 23, 2021.

"No compensation has been given so far regarding the use of my land by the authorities. As compensation, they should be given in the ratio of 50:50," the Chief Minister said.

He said that the MUDA checked all this and wrote a letter of relinquishment from his wife and transferred the rights of 3.16 acres of land to the name of the authority on December 30, 2021, in the Kesare village.

"The Commissioner has issued an official order from the MUDA regarding the allotment of 3.16 acres of land of survey no. 464 and allotted plots measuring 38,284 square feet as compensation," the Chief Minister added.
Yangon, July 26 : Over 1,30,000 people from over 33,000 households have been affected by floods across regions and states in Myanmar in July, according to a disaster management official on Friday.

The country has been ravaged by floods since early July, with Kachin state being the first affected, Min Thein, a senior official, told Xinhua news agency.

Currently, the worst-hit area is Magway region, with over 53,000 people affected by floods, he said.

Over 110 houses have been damaged or destroyed due to flooding, with more than 90 of them completely destroyed, he added.

One death in Sagaing region was reported, he said.

The Myanmar government has provided rice, canned fish and cash in relief supply to flood-affected people, totaling over 390 million kyats (about $120,000), he said.
Bengaluru, July 26 : The Karnataka Cabinet on Friday decided to rename Ramanagara District as Bengaluru South despite stiff opposition from the BJP and JD(S).

Minister for Law, HK Patil, told the media after the Cabinet meeting, "Ramanagara District will be named as Bengaluru South District henceforth. It is because of the aspirations and representations made by people's representatives and also people at large."

When asked whether this was being done to benefit the real estate mafia, Minister Patil asked, "How will the real estate mafia step in here and benefit from it?"

Minister Patil explained, "It is being done to give it the advantage of the Bengaluru brand. Yes. Brand Bengaluru is a brand and you can't deny it. If it helps everyone it is fine."

When asked to comment on Union Minister, HD Kumaraswamy's statement that he will change the name again, Minister Patil stated, "We are in power. We are representatives of the people and we are responding to the aspirations of the people by renaming it."

Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister, DK Shivakumar had earlier asserted that the Ramanagara District would be renamed Bengaluru South despite criticism from the BJP and JD(S) as "we are originally from Bengaluru and it is our identity and pride. We must not lose it."

"Only the name of the district will change, but the name and administrative centre of Ramanagara will remain the same. Channapatna, Ramanagara, Kanakapura, Magadi, and Harohalli will be included to form Bengaluru South," he stated.

Karnataka BJP had stated that the government wanted to change the name as it has 'Ram' in it.

"They only want to change it as there is 'Ram' in the name of Ramanagar. Only the Congress government can do this. We cannot accept it," former Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister, CN Ashwath Narayan said.

Nikhil Kumaraswamy, son of Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel, HD Kumaraswamy, had also questioned the "hidden agenda" behind changing the name.

Nikhil Kumaraswamy said that it was part of a "conspiracy to make the district a heaven for the real estate mafia. Appeasement of a few is another angle."
Amaravati, July 26 : Andhra Pradesh faces a gap of over Rs 1.46 lakh crore for expenditure during 2024-25 due to the destruction of the state's economy in the last five years, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said on Friday.

The Chief Minister presented a White Paper on state finances in the Assembly on Friday, blaming the previous YSR Congress Party government for the decline in growth rate, misgovernance, mismanagement of financial resources, mounting burden of debts, and reduced capital expenditure from 2019 to 2024.

CM Naidu explained that for the 2024-25 fiscal, the resource gap for essential expenditure is Rs 11,685 crore but if the outstanding dues to vendors, schemes, and employees are taken into account, this gap will be Rs 1,46,909 crore.

The outstanding dues to vendors and schemes are Rs 1,13,244 crore, while the same for employees stand at Rs 21,980 crore, he said.

According to the White Paper, the total receipts for the current financial year are estimated at Rs 2,39,140 crore, while the total essential expenditure is Rs 2,50,825 crore.

The Chief Minister claimed that the state's debts increased from Rs 3.75 lakh crore to Rs 9.74 lakh crore in five years, leading to a potential debt trap.

He also said there was a reduction in revenues for five years due to faulty excise, mining, and sand policies.

"There was loot of natural resources for personal gains at the cost of the public exchequer," he said.

Stating that lack of capital expenditure and no private investment led to a breakdown of the economy, the Chief Minister said there was destruction of growth opportunities in the form of Amaravati and Polavaram.

He also alleged that the policy of targeting industries, services, and trade, coupled with the neglect of agriculture and aqua sectors resulted in further losses for the state besides destroying people's lives.

Elaborating on the 'mismanagement' in the Polavaram project, CM Naidu said delays led to damages and a cumulative loss of Rs 52,900 crore.

"The previous government abruptly halted all works in state capital Amaravati, devastating the hopes of 29,966 farmers who had voluntarily given 34,400 acres of land. There was a loss of potential wealth amounting to Rs 2 lakh crore during the construction phase," he said.

CM Naidu also said that while his government had transformed Andhra Pradesh from an energy-deficit state to an energy-surplus state during 2014-19, there was misgovernance in the energy sector during the YSRCP rule.

"The cancellation of power purchase agreements put an additional burden of Rs 12,250 crore. Inefficient governance in the energy sector led to losses of Rs 1.29 lakh crore while tariffs for customers and industry increased," he said.

CM Naidu also alleged that illegal sand mining led to a loss of more than Rs 7,000 crore.

"There was a loss of Rs 9,750 crore in mineral revenue due to looting of mineral wealth. Mangrove forests spread over 101.16 acres were also destructed," he said.

The Chief Minister also accused the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led government of abusing power to harass political opponents and dissenting voices, leading to a decline in public trust and increasing social unrest.

The new government has published seven White Papers for every citizen to understand the real extent of the previous government's mismanagement, he said.

"The journey ahead is challenging due to the messed-up situation left by the previous government. Partnership, transparency, and public awareness are key to moving forward. Discussion and debate are essential for collective understanding and finding short, medium, and long-term solutions for the state's progress," he said while exuding confidence in taking up this responsibility and delivering on the promises.

The Chief Minister also mentioned that the new government from day one implemented the promises made in the election manifesto.

These included abolishing the Land Titling Act, enhancing social security pensions to Rs 4,000, Mega DSC for filling up 16,347 teacher vacancies, skill census, re-opening the Anna Canteens to provide food to the poor for Rs 5, and resumption of free supply of sand, the Chief Minister said.

He also said the coalition government is committed to implementing 'Super 6' and other promises made in the poll manifesto
New Delhi, July 26 : The meeting of the Centre's Network Planning Group (NPG) has evaluated the railway line expansion project of the Kharsia-Parmalkasa section of the Mumbai-Howrah trunk route in Chhattisgarh for its alignment with the principles of integrated planning outlined in the PM GatiShakti National Master Plan, an official said on Friday.

The section will see a significant upgrade with a new 277.917 km double line. This project will expand capacity from Kharsia Junction (Bilaspur-Jharsuguda section) to Parmalkasa (Durg-Nagpur section), with a connection to Naya Raipur at 186.65 km from Kharsia, improving transportation and operational efficiency, the statement said.

The primary goal is to alleviate severe congestion on current lines, where existing capacity utilisation is more than 100 per cent.

The new line is crucial for easing these capacity constraints and supporting future traffic growth, especially with expected increases in coal, iron, food grain, fertilisers, and cement traffic from nearby areas.

The project will support 8 passenger trains and 19-27 freight trains, highlighting its strategic importance for the region's transportation network, it added.

The meeting was convened here under the chairmanship of Additional Secretary of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Rajeev Singh Thakur.
Chandigarh, July 26 : Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Cheema on Friday said an investigation by the state Tax Department's Enforcement Wing has uncovered fake billing scams worth thousands of crore.

Chandigarh, July 26 (IANS) Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Cheema on Friday said an investigation by the state Tax Departmentas Enforcement Wing has uncovered fake billing scams worth thousands of crore.

Two firms dealing in gold were found to have generated fake bills of Rs 860 crore, while 303 firms dealing in iron were involved in fake billings of Rs 4,044 crore.

Additionally, 68 firms were found to have engaged in fake billing of Rs 533 crore after getting their firms registered in others' names.

Cheema said on inspection of a firm dealing in gold in Amritsar, the enforcement wing found that fake bills of Rs 336 crore were made for the sale and purchase of gold.

He said the registration of the two firms from which the firm had shown that it purchased the gold had been cancelled, and these firms further had no record of purchasing any gold.

Referring to the Ludhiana-based firm which did similar manipulation in gold transactions, the minister said gold sale-purchase was made against fake bills of Rs 424 crore by it.

He said that in this case as well, the registration of the two firms from which the firm has shown purchases of gold had been cancelled. These firms further had no record of purchasing any gold.

Giving information about the fake sale-purchase of iron of Rs 4,044 crore by 303 firms, Cheema said 11 firms out of them are registered with Punjab, 86 firms with other states, and 206 firms with the Central government.
Manali, July 26 : Nearly four years after inaugurating the Atal Tunnel, nestled in Pir Panjal ranges of the Himalayas, a crucial all-weather motorway near this Himachal Pradesh picturesque resort, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched the construction of twin-tube 4.1-km-long Shinkun la Tunnel on the Nimu-Padum-Darcha road to provide round-the-clock connectivity to the northern borders with China.

On completion within the timeline of two years, the tunnel located at an altitude of around 15,800 feet will be the highest in the world.

It will not only ensure swift and efficient movement of armed forces and equipment but also foster economic development in Himachal Pradesh and Union Territory of Ladakh despite challenging conditions of freezing temperatures in extremely difficult terrain.

The Shinkun la Tunnel, whose construction was launched on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, is linking Manali with the Line of Actual Control will remain open throughout the year.

Locals and members of the tourism industry told IANS after the Atal Tunnel, longest highway tunnel in the world beneath the majestic Rohtang Pass, the Shinkun la Tunnel is an effort of the NDA government to improve connectivity in remote and inaccessible areas of Ladakh and Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, which attract globetrotters not only for nature-based activities but also to a land of Buddhism and monasteries.

Officials told IANS the Shinku La Tunnel is the shortest, safer and the third alternative corridor for the armed forces for forward areas of Ladakh.

Not open throughout the year, the land-locked Lahaul Valley and forward areas in Ladakh remain cut off for at least five months from December owing to heavy snow accumulation at high mountain passes that lie between Keylong, the headquarters of Lahaul-Spiti, and Leh.

The Atal tunnel -- a dream of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and named after him posthumously -- was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 3, 2020.

It reduces the road distance by 46 km between Manali and Leh and the time by about four to five hours.

The Atal tunnel was completed after 10 years of sheer hard work by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) with an outlay of over Rs 3,200 crore.

The south portal of the Atal Tunnel is located at a distance of 25 km from Manali at an altitude of 3,060 metre, while the north portal of the tunnel is located near Teling village in Sissu in the Lahaul Valley at an altitude of 3,071 metre.

A BRO official told IANS the all-weather road to forward areas in Ladakh bordering China and Pakistan requires more tunnels like Atal Tunnel, either at Shinku la or at least three passes located on the original 475-km Manali-Leh road for round-the-year connectivity.

"The tunnel beneath Shinku la is feasible and economically viable as compared to digging tunnels beneath three other passes," he said.

From Keylong, the road travels further to Leh via Darcha, some 170 km from Manali.

From Darcha, where the BRO has constructed the 360-m long longest steel truss bridge, one road bifurcates towards Shinku la (pass), the shortest route that traversing the remote Zanskar region towards Padum, some 30 km from Leh, and another towards the windy Manali-Leh highway.

The BRO connected the strategic 298-km Nimmu-Padam-Darcha road in Ladakh on March 25. The road is now the third axis, shorter too, apart from Manali-Leh and Srinagar-Leh which connects Ladakh to the hinterland.

The Darcha-Nimmu-Padum road has been identified as the third strategic alternative to Ladakh in wake of the threat from Pakistan and China.

"The tunnel beneath Shinku la will further drastically reduce the distance between Manali and Leh," an official told IANS.

The Manali-Leh route is 475 km, while the Manali-Darcha-Padum-Leh road is 444 km.

The National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corp Ltd has prepared the detailed project report of the Shinku la tunnel.

For Kargil, the troop movement from Manali is via Leh that is 700-km long.

With the construction of the Darcha-Nimmu-Padum road through the Shinku la tunnel, the distance between Manali and Kargil will be reduced to 522 km.

Officials admit the construction of the Shinku la tunnel alone is more viable in comparison to construction of at least tunnels beneath the Baralacha (16,020 feet), Lachlungla (16,620 feet) and Tanglangla (17,480 feet) passes that lie on the operational Manali-Leh link.

The strategic importance of the Manali-Leh link was realised by the government when Pakistan tried to cut off the Srinagar-Leh road during the 1999 Kargil conflict, in a bid to restrict road access to Ladakh.

However, the movement of armed forces to the forward areas in Ladakh from the Manali side, that doesn't fall in the firing range of Pakistan forces, is feasible only from June to mid-December.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at gulatiians@gmail.com)
Suva, July 26 : Fiji's Education Ministry is working with other ministries and departments to introduce drug testing kits in schools.

Education Minister Aseri Radrodro said this will help mitigate drug issues in schools, where drugs have been a big topic, Fiji Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday.

Over 3,000 drug-related cases involving students were recorded in Fiji in the past 12 months, according to the minister, Xinhua news agency reported.

Radrodro said that they have an existing platform regarding students found with drugs in school, urging heads of schools to follow this policy.

He added that everyone has a responsibility to monitor and do regular checks on students who behave suspiciously.

According to Fiji's National Substance Abuse Advisory Council, drug abuse cases in schools have been increasing for the past three years, which is currently a national issue in the country.
New Delhi, July 26 : The Ayushman Bharat mission filled critical healthcare gaps during Covid, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Anupriya Patel told the Parliament on Friday.

Patel told the Lok Sabha, in a written reply, that the Centre undertook several initiatives during the Covid-19 pandemic "to ensure effective management and availability of sufficient health care infrastructure to meet the increased demand during the pandemic".

She also enlisted key schemes launched and implemented by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare during the deadly pandemic.

"Pradhan Mantri- Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) was launched on October 25, 2021, with an outlay of Rs 64,180 crore to be implemented over five years from 2021-22 to 2025-26, to fill critical gaps in health infrastructure, surveillance and health research - spanning both the urban and rural areas," she said.

It was also aimed at strengthening "the public health infrastructure and to effectively manage and respond towards any future pandemics and outbreaks", she added.

The scheme focussed on developing capacities of health systems and institutions across the continuum of care at all levels -- primary, secondary and tertiary -- and on preparing health systems to respond effectively to current and future pandemics/disasters. PM-ABHIM was a centrally sponsored scheme (CSS), and it also provided support to states/UTs for the "construction of Ayushman Arogya Mandir (AAM) in rural and urban areas, establishment/strengthening of block public health units, integrated district public health labs in all districts and critical care hospital blocks".

It also extended support on "enhancing capacities for surveillance and health emergency response, research, pandemic preparedness and One Health approach to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks in animals and humans", the Minister said.

Another scheme was the India Covid-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package (ECRP-I). Patel noted it was approved "by the Cabinet on April 22, 2020, for Rs 15,000 crore to prevent, detect and respond to the threat posed by Covid-19. Further, an amount of Rs. 8473.73 crore has also been released to states & UTs".

The central sector scheme "aimed at building a resilient health system to support preparedness and prevention functions for the management of the Covid-19 pandemic and any such future outbreaks in India".

The Centre in July 2021 extended the scheme, ECRP Phase-II, to provide support to Central hospitals, agencies and states/UTs, Patel noted, adding that it "was approved with the financial outlay of Rs 23,123 crore".
Mumbai, July 26 : Digital payments in India have registered a 12.6 per cent increase year-on-year with the RBI's Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) rising to 445.5 at the end of March 2024 compared to 418.77 in September 2023 and 395.57 in March 2023.

"The RBI-DPI index has increased across all parameters driven by significant growth in payment performance and payment infrastructure across the country over the period," the RBI said on Friday.

The Reserve Bank has been publishing a composite RBI-DPI index since January 1, 2021 with March 2018 as the base to capture the extent of digitisation of payments across the country.

The RBI-DPI comprises 5 broad parameters that enable the measurement of penetration of digital payments in the country over different time periods.

These parameters are -- (i) Payment Enablers (weight 25 per cent); (ii) Payment Infrastructure a" Demand-side factors (10 per cent); (iii) Payment Infrastructure a" Supply-side factors (15 per cent); (iv) Payment Performance (45 per cent), and (v) Consumer Centricity (5 per cent).

Each of these parameters has sub-parameters which, in turn, consist of various measurable indicators.
Bhopal, July 26 : Bharatiya Janata Party veteran and former Rajya Sabha MP Prabhat Jha's (67) death early on Friday left thousands of his party workers in Madhya Pradesh grief-stricken, especially those who grew up as politicians during his tenure as state BJP chief.

The journalist-turned-politician was made in-charge for the state media and the state unit president in 2010. At present, there are over a dozen BJP MLAs in the Madhya Pradesh assembly, who grew up as politicians during his tenure as state president.

He was fondly called the president of the workers and not leaders, and several party workers who spoke to IANS agreed with this term. The reason was that he was accessible to party workers at any time, and it remained like this until he flew to Delhi after his health deteriorated suddenly a couple of weeks ago.

When he was made the party head for Madhya Pradesh, it was the second consecutive term of the BJP in the government.

When the party was in power for the second consecutive term, as state president he could have relaxed and run the party sitting in the party headquarters.

Instead he decided to restructure the party and started touring the state widely. Jha, along with some BJP workers, walked from one end to the other which helped him to understand the party's real position in every district.

Lokendra Parasar, who was made in-charge of the media cell of the MP BJP unit after Prabhat Jha was elevated as the state unit president, recalled, "I was media in-charge for MP BJP for over seven years, but I felt that Prabhat Jha's impact was still there."

Jha was elected a Rajya Sabha member from MP in 2008 and remained in the Upper House till 2020. He also served as the BJPas national vice president in 2015.

However, he was not given any specific role in the state BJP for the last few years.

Last year, when the assembly election was getting closer, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who was on a visit to Bhopal, suddenly reached Prabhat Jha's residence in the city.

Amit Shah's visit to his house brought a change in Jha's politics. Though he was not given any role officially, Jha became active and started reviewing the party's preparations on his own.

His position in the MP BJP can be gauged from the fact that when Mohan Yadav was announced as the successor to Shivraj Singh Chouhan as the chief minister on December 4 last year, Yadav made the first courtesy visit to Jha's residence within the next few hours.

Since then, those BJP leaders and workers who had maintained a distance from him for the last few years, had started visiting Jha again.. Responding to IANS about his political career, Jha had once said, "I am satisfied with what I got from the party."

Several senior BJP leaders, including Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and state BJP chief V. D. Sharma expressed their condolences, saying that the demise of Jha was a personal loss for them.

His last rites will be performed at his birthplace, Koriyahi village in Sitamarhi district of Bihar on Saturday, his son Aytan Jha told IANS over the phone.
New Delhi, July 26 : Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharman said on Friday that just like in the past, all states have been allocated funds in the Union Budget 2024-25, and no state has been denied anything.

In an exclusive interview with Sanjay Pugalia, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of NDTV Network, the Finance Minister rejected the oppositionas claim that her Budget speech mentioned only two states -- Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, both ruled by the BJP's key allies.

She pointed out that the Centre was required by law to support Andhra Pradesh after its bifurcation in 2014.

"States are receiving allocations as they did in the past... no state has been denied anything. The Act (Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act) requires the Centre to support (the state) in building its capital city and developing the backward regions," she explained.

"Several steps have been taken in the last 10 years and many other steps, as per the Act, which had to be taken have been taken. Yes, we will support the building of the new capital at Amaravati and the Polavaram irrigation project ... Polavaram should have been completed by now but there were some technical issues. The state government is seized of the matter," Sitharaman said.

Responding particularly to the criticism by Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, the Finance Minister said, "To the point he raised - that I have not named many states and spoke only about two states... The Congress was in power for a long time. They presented many Budgets and should know that in every Budget, you don't get an opportunity to name every state of the country."

Sitharaman also said the Budget reflected Prime Minister Narendra Modi's wish to keep things simple, so that everyone, and not just subject experts, could understand India's finances.

"We present everything upfront. There is no fine print... We ensure that any changes made are communicated openly, based on feedback and transparent processes," she pointed out.

The Finance Minister also said that borrowing is a must for a growing economy to meet its needs and aspirations, but the focus of the Finance Ministry under her is to ensure that debt is reduced without affecting growth.

She added that fixing a number for the eventual fiscal deficit and working towards it with temporary solutions every year can be one way of going about things, but it is not the right way from a macroeconomic perspective.

"We have chosen a healthy option for getting the fiscal deficit closer to the number. Instead of looking at the number alone, it is also about the way you decide to get there. An obvious method for every country is to reduce debt, but borrowing is a must for a growing economy. The question is how much are you borrowing and where it is being used," the Finance Minister said.
Xi chairs meeting on flood control, disaster relief

Xinhua) 08:00, July 26, 2024

BEIJING, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, on Thursday chaired a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee to study and arrange work related to flood control and disaster relief.

China has entered a critical period of flood control, with significant flooding expected in major river basins, including the Yangtze and the Yellow River. Moreover, the onset of typhoons could make the flood control situation even more severe and complex, according to an official readout of the meeting.

In China, the period from late July to early August is the peak flood season. During this period, heavy rainfall and typhoons cause water levels to rise, posing a significant threat to communities along rivers, near lakes and on coastlines.

According to forecasts, all seven major river basins in China could experience flooding during the period. Additionally, typhoons are likely to move into inland regions, accompanied by an increased frequency of intense and extreme weather events, which could have devastating consequences.

China's National Meteorological Center issued a red alert, the highest level, for Typhoon Gaemi on Wednesday. This is the first time a red alert has been issued for a typhoon this year.

The meeting urged authorities at all levels to stay highly vigilant and proactive in flood control to win the tough battle against floods.

Reiterating the principle of always putting the people's lives and safety first, the meeting called for making every effort to minimize casualties by promptly relocating those in danger.

The meeting emphasized the need to reinforce water infrastructure nationwide to prevent dike breaches and dam bursts in major rivers and reservoirs.

Disaster relief funds should be allocated promptly, said the meeting, adding that appropriate arrangements should be made to take care of affected residents, ensure their needs for medical services and education are met, and help them resume production and rebuild their homes.

Solid work should be done on disaster control in the agricultural sector to minimize losses and ensure China's food security, said the meeting.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
The Wisconsin State Fair will celebrate the 100th anniversary of selling the iconic Original Cream Puffs this year by offering four limited edition flavors.

There will be 1,924 specialty Cream Puffs available throughout the fair's run. The number honors the debut of the Original Cream Puff at the fair in 1924. Fair visitors can buy singles of each specialty flavor for $5 at the Original Cream Puff Pavilion, which will open at 10 a.m. each day of the fair.

The Wisconsin State Fair will also award golden tickets to three people who purchase specialty cream puffs on each day of the event. The winners will receive an anniversary prize package and be invited to a "Cream Puff Lovin' Celebration" on Aug. 10.

What are the flavors?

From Aug. 1-3, the fair will sell a Root Beer Float Cream Puff that is a refreshing treat featuring the "nostalgic" flavor of root beer in a light and airy pastry shell, according to the fair's website.

From Aug. 4-6, the Raspberry Cheesecake Cream Puff will be featured, which combines the sweet and tart flavor of raspberries, the creamy richness of cheesecake, the lightness of a cream puff and crumbled cheesecake crust topping.

On Aug. 7-9, the English Toffee Cream Puff will offer fair visitors a combination of a light pastry shell and a toffee filling. According to the state fair website, this cream puff has a buttery and caramel-like flavor.

On Aug. 10, the Chocolate Birthday Cake Cream Puff will offer fair attendees a fluffy cloud of chocolate that is light and airy. Like colorful confetti, each puff is topped with sprinkles for crunchy burst of color.

Photos: Wisconsin State Fair in 2022 Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair Wisconsin State Fair
Nairobi, July 26 : The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) announced that it had signed an agreement with Africa Public Health Foundation (APHF), a Nairobi-based health lobby, to enhance the resilience of public health systems across the continent amid multiple challenges.

The two organisations said in a joint statement issued in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, that the partnership will revolve resource mobilization, advocate for improved policies, and foster private sector engagement to revitalise Africa's public health systems.

Jean Kaseya, director-general of Africa CDC, said that the strategic engagement with APHF will be pivotal in ensuring robust, adequately resourced, and well-equipped public health systems on the continent.

"The Africa Public Health Foundation is pivotal in facilitating resource mobilization for Africa CDC, enhancing public health systems across African Union members, and supporting the implementation of the new public health order," Kaseya said.

Some of the priority areas under the partnership includes workforce re-skilling and expanding local manufacturing capacities for vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics.

The two organizations will also cooperate with other stakeholders within Africa's broader health ecosystem to preempt or respond effectively to recurring health emergencies.

Bernard Haufiku, APHF Governing Council chair and founder, said the agreement with Africa CDC will enhance response to enhance responses to disease outbreaks such as Covid-19, Ebola, Marburg, and Cholera, while also addressing resource and capacity gap.
Patna July 26 : Dilip Jaiswal, the newly appointed BJP state president, on Friday said that NDA partners will contest the upcoming Assembly election in Bihar under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.

"Under the leadership of Samrat Chaudhary, NDA had performed well in the 174 constituencies during the Lok Sabha election. However, the NDA partners will contest the Assembly election under the leadership of Nitish Kumar," the newly elected BJP chief said.

While acknowledging the contribution of Samrat Chaudhary to the party's progress, Dilip Jaiswal said that he (Samrat Chaudhary) is an able leader of the BJP and Deputy Chief Minister of the state.

"We have talked to Samrat Chaudhary about the future course of action for the betterment of the party. Preparations will be made for Bihar Assembly election," Jaiswal said.

After being appointed the state chief, leaders from all the other political parties wished him over his appointment.

"I have good relations with the leaders of all parties. All party leaders have congratulated me," he said.
Amaravati, July 26 : YSR Congress Party president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Friday termed as false propaganda the white paper presented by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu in Andhra Pradesh Assembly on state finances.

Citing statistics, the former chief minister disputed the claims made by Naidu on the state's debts and liabilities.

Jagan Mohan Reddy claimed that the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government had gone for higher borrowings between 2014 and 2019 compared to the debts during YSRCP rule of the last five years.

He slammed Naidu and TDP-led coalition government for what he called spreading false propaganda under the guise of white papers.

Addressing a press conference, Jagan said the government was not presenting a full budget for 12 months even after 52 days of coming into power.

He said that Chandrababu Naidu lacks the courage to present a regular budget and hence, he was opting for a Vote on Account.

"If he presents a regular budget, he would need to allocate funds for the deceptive promises made before the elections, but he is avoiding it because he doesnat intend to implement those schemes sincerely," the former chief minister said.

The YSRCP chief said before elections, the TDP spread false propaganda claiming that the state debt was Rs 14 lakh crore but after election results claimed it to be Rs 10 lakh crore. However, as of June this year, the actual government debt stands at Rs 5,18,708 crore, he said.

He mentioned that when Chandrababu Naidu left office, the debt was Rs 2,71,798 crore and it was Rs 1,18,051 crore at the time of the state's bifurcation and referring to government guarantees, he said when Naidu left office it was 50,000 crore, and under YSRCP government, it increased to Rs 1,06,000 crore.

The total liabilities of the state were Rs 1,53,347 crore when Chandrababu Naidu took office, which increased to Rs 4,08,710 crore by the time he left with 21.63 per cent increase while the debt under YSRCP government increased to Rs 7,48,000 crore, with 12.90 per cent increase and therefore, it is evident whose tenure saw a higher increase in debt, he said.

He reminded that they (YSRCP-led government) had directly transferred Rs 2.70 lakh crore to beneficiaries through DBT schemes over the past five years and added that even though state received Rs 5,655 crore from the Centre on June 10, and the treasury had about Rs 7,000 crore by June 12, Naidu opted for a Vote on Account to avoid fulfilling his promises.

On the deteriorating law and order in the state, the YSRCP President said that the state has become unsafe for women, with 12 rape cases reported in the past 45 days.

He said the Chief Minister's son and former minister Nara Lokesh displayed a 'Red Book', issuing threats, with hoardings all over the state and questioned what message they are trying to convey.

Referring to sand policy, the former chief minister said the previous YSRCP government sold sand at Rs 375 per tonne, generating an annual revenue of Rs 765 crore for the government implementing a clear and transparent sand policy and added that though Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's government is promoting the idea of free sand, it is being supplied at higher rates than what was charged during YSRCP's tenure.

The YSRCP president said the revenue from the Mines and Geology Department was Rs 2,200 crore in 2018-2019 and it was Rs 4,000 crore by the end of YSRCP government's tenure in 2023-24, and the revenue of APMDC was Rs 400 crore in 2018-19 while it increased Rs 3,200 crore by the end of YSRCP's tenure in 2023-24

Refuting the allegations of TDP on Polavaram Project, the YSRCP president said the project works were not carried out systematically in the TDP's previous tenure and this led to the diaphragm wall being destroyed due to the heavy floods.

He said TDP agreed to complete the project at 2013-14 rates, meaning the estimated cost remained at Rs 20,398.61 crore and it was due to YSRCP government's efforts, the Central Water Commission (CWC) approved the revised project cost estimate of Rs 55,656 crore.

He claimed that the previous YSRCP government completed the concrete works related to the Upper and Lower Cofferdams, the tunnel work related to the hydel projects and the spillway making it easy for smooth flow of 26 lakh cusecs of water through the spillway.

Reacting to allegations on liquor policy, the YSRCP president said the liquor syndicate was rampant, leading to uncontrolled alcohol flow through permit rooms and belt shops during the TDP tenure from 2014a"19.

He asserted that the YSR Congress government did not grant new permits to any distilleries or approve any new liquor brands and the brands President Medal and Hyderabad Blue Deluxe were approved on November 22, 2017, during Chandrababu Naidu's tenure as Chief Minister.

He pointed out that the TDP government approved nearly 15 brands of whiskey and brandy and added that there are 20 liquor distilleries in the state, of which 14 were approved during Chandrababu Naidu's tenure as Chief Minister.

The remaining six distilleries were approved by previous governments and confirmed that the YSRCP government did not approve any new distilleries.
Johannesburg, July 26 : South African police have arrested 95 Libyan nationals in an operation to raid a suspected illegal military training base in White River, Mpumalanga Province, the South African Police Service (SAPS) said Friday.

The SAPS in Mpumalanga, working together with the Department of Home Affairs and other role players, carried out the joint operation Friday, resulting in the subsequent arrests, and the 95 arrested are currently being questioned by the relevant authorities, the SAPS said in a statement.

The locality, which was initially designated as a training site, appeared to have been converted into an illegal military training base, the statement said.

"We take any threat to the security and stability of our province and country very seriously. This operation demonstrates our commitment to acting swiftly and decisively against any activities that could undermine our national interests and ensure the safety of our citizens because that is our primary mandate," said Zeph Mkhwanazi, acting provincial commissioner of the SAPS in Mpumalanga, Xinhua news agency reported.

The SAPS said they are still investigating the matter and will provide details in due course.
Kabul, July 26 : Afghan caretaker government's Ministry of Education has signed an agreement with the state-owned body the National Examination Authority to recruit 40,000 new professional teachers for its vacant positions, a local media outlet Tolonews reported on Friday.

Quoting Deputy Minister of Education Sebghatullah Waseel, the private media outlet said, "More than 40,000 new teachers are expected to be recruited for the Ministry of Education's vacant positions," Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the official, the Kabul City Education Directorate has 2,000 vacant positions, and the Kandahar Education Directorate has about 5,000 vacant positions, and there are figures from various provinces and the ministry has to hire more than 40,000 teachers to fill the vacant posts.
Chandigarh, July 26 : Aam Aadmi Party leader and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday started the Parivartan Jan Samvad Rally from Barwala and Dabwali towns in Haryana, which is set to go to the Assembly polls likely in October.

The Aam Aadmi Party will hold 45 rallies in Haryana in the next 15 days.

"Your coming out in such large numbers is an indication that you want to write a new story in Haryana," the Chief Minister said while addressing the Parivartan Jansamvad rally.

He said that the people in Haryana have voted for various parties in the past but all of them "broke their hearts" and "looted" Haryana.

"If the disease is not cured by any doctor then the doctor should be changed. Therefore, this time the people of Haryana should vote for change," the Chief Minister said.

He said that the people in Haryana and Punjab are hard-working people. "We have everything but did not get leaders with good and true intentions. All the leaders who came did the work of filling their own houses. No one took care of the general public."

The Chief Minister said that time has for the people to see a change.

"I am standing in front of you after providing 43,000 jobs in Punjab in just two and a half years. AAP did not take bribes, not even a single rupee from anyone. Children from ordinary homes are becoming officers. There are no paper leaks in Punjab like in Haryana," the Chief Minister said.

He said that the hearts of the youths have been broken due to the paper leak.

He said Punjab and Haryana are younger and elder brothers. "When we were giving guarantees of free electricity in Punjab, the opposition used to say that it is not possible, where will the money come from. But we knew that the money would come from their own pockets."

He said that so, as soon as the AAP government was formed in March in Punjab, we made 600 units of electricity free for two months in July. Today, 90 per cent of the houses have zero electricity bill.

He said Arvind Kejriwal was the Commissioner of Income Tax. "AAP knows where to spend the tax money. Arvind Kejriwal built government schools in Delhi that even poor children are passing NEET and JEE papers and are becoming doctors and engineers."

He said that in Delhi, sons of rich and poor study sitting on the same bench. "Aam Aadmi Party started the same work in Punjab also. There are two daughters in a house in Punjab and both of them became judges," the Chief Minister said.

He said it has been 10 years since the BJP government in Haryana has neither given jobs nor built roads while the sewerage has come to a standstill.

"We closed 17 toll plazas in Punjab. Due to this step, Punjabis are saving Rs 60 lakh every day. Those toll plazas were being run in collaboration with the Congress, the BJP and the Akali Dal," the Chief Minister claimed.

He said that to stop the farmers from going to Delhi, the BJP closed borders and put nails in their paths.

"If the farmer does not go to Delhi, will the go to Lahore? 750 farmers were martyred but they are not worried," the Chief Minister said.

--IANS

vg/dan
Islamabad, July 26 : At least four people were killed and around 10 others injured on Friday when a bus collided with a trailer near Jamshoro district of Pakistan's southern Sindh province, the rescue service reported.

According to the reports, the accident took place early morning on Motorway M-9 after a collision between a passenger bus and a trailer, resulting in the death of three people on the spot.

Upon receiving the information, the rescue workers reached the site and shifted the victims to a local hospital, where one more passenger lost his life, said the rescue service.

The bus was severely damaged in the accident, it added, Xinhua news agency reported.

Reportedly, the ill-fated bus was going from Sindh's capital Karachi to Larkana city of the province.
New Delhi, July 26 : A heated debate on Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops erupted in the Rajya Sabha on Friday between the ruling and opposition parties.

The discussion was triggered by a question posed by Samajwadi Party MP Ramji Lal Suman, inquiring about the government's timeline for starting MSP payments to farmers.

In response, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, "Farmers are like gods to us. Serving them is akin to serving God -- it is a sacred duty. Recently, we established a three-member committee to enhance the transparency of the MSP system, ensuring that our farmers face no difficulties."

"To date, there have been 22 meetings on this issue, not just one or two. The committee's recommendations will be put into action in near future. They have proposed granting more autonomy in agricultural pricing and improving the agricultural distribution system," he added.

In response, the Samajwadi Party MP said, "Avoiding the issue won't resolve anything. The government should first clarify when the farmers will receive their MSP."

The SP MP further criticised Chouhan, saying, "They profess that farmers are like gods, but I can confidently say that they have no genuine connection with farmers."

As the debate over MSP heated up, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar intervened, saying, "What is going on here? Is Ram questioning Shiva?"

Meanwhile, Chouhan said, "Our government is actively working to increase MSP rates, and the opposition's accusations are entirely baseless. They claim we are anti-farmer, but no one is more dedicated to farmers than Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"We will not rest until we achieve full prosperity for the farmers. The BJP has provided more MSP to farmers than the Congress ever did, and our government is offering Rs 1.68 lakh crore in fertiliser subsidies."

Chouhan also detailed the differences between the NDA and UPA governments in their approach towards farmers' welfare.

Sharply criticising the Congress, Chouhan said, "The Congress has no genuine connection with the farmers. They only engage in politics under the guise of supporting the farmers. Congress members seek to plunge this country into chaos, but I firmly believe that as long as the BJP is in power, we will ensure that farmers' interests remain safeguarded."
Bhopal, July 26 : Madhya Pradesh Congress on Friday copied the 'tiffin' concept of the BJP, an idea to sink differences and develop bonhomie among the party workers, ahead of bypolls in the state.

On Friday, MP Congress Chief Jitendra Patwari held a "tiffin meeting" with party workers in the Budhni Assembly segment, which will go for bypolls as former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who represented the constituency for several terms, has resigned after taking oath as the Union Minister on June 17.

The meeting was held in the Salkanpur segment of Budhani assembly seat and the party workers were asked to come with a 'tiffin' from their homes. Sources told IANS that the concept was utilised to create a friendly atmosphere and to boost the confidence of party workers ahead of the bypolls.

Patwari had lunch with party workers sitting on the ground and held a "healthy" conversation with them.

"Congress would fight the bypolls in Budhni like in panchayat election. We would field a candidate from the local party workers," Patwari said after the 'tiffin' meeting with booth workers in Budhni.

However, giving a fight to the BJP in Budhni will be an uphill task after Congress' back-to-back defeats.

Sources told IANS that party workers are also upset as the party has often neglected local workers and fielded a parachute candidate.

In the last Assembly election, Vikram Mastal, who played Hanuman in the 2008 Ramayan, was fielded against Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Chouhan had won the Budhni assembly seat with a margin of over 1.5 lakh votes in November last year.

The date for the bypolls in Budhni and two other assembly seats - Vijaypur and Boina are yet to be announced by the Election Commission of India (ECI).
New Delhi, July 26 : Kangana Ranaut, the newly-elected Member of Parliament from the Mandi constituency in Himachal Pradesh, delivered her first speech in the Lok Sabha on Friday. In her address, she highlighted the Budget and Central government policies, noting that India's economy, which was ranked 11th a decade ago, has now advanced to 5th position.

She began her speech by congratulating Narendra Modi on becoming Prime Minister for the third time. "I have been elected as the MP from Himachal's Mandi seat for the first time. I realise that the 18th Lok Sabha is no ordinary Lok Sabha. Narendra Modi has broken a 60-year record by becoming Prime Minister for the third consecutive time, and I congratulate him," she said.

"People of India have chosen a stable and smooth government. They are also worthy of congratulations. Ten years ago, India's economy was at the 11th position, and it has now moved to 5th position. It is rapidly moving towards the 3rd position," she added.

While discussing the Budget 2024, Kangana expressed her approval, saying: "I welcome this budget. It will empower all sections of society and accelerate our economy. This budget will bring us closer to the vision of a developed India by 2047."

Kangana also attacked the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, stating: "Last year, Himachal faced a major natural disaster that caused significant economic losses to the people. The state has not yet recovered from that disaster, primarily due to the corrupt policies of the Congress government. The people have not been able to recover from the impact of the disaster."

She thanked Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for announcing a relief package for Himachal Pradesh, and remarked: "The work done in Himachal in the last 10 years is more than what was accomplished in the 60 years of India's independence. During former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's tenure, rural roads were constructed under the Prime Minister's Rural Roads Scheme. PM Modi-led government has provided our region with global institutions like AIIMS, IIIT, and IIM. The region now has the Vande Bharat train."

Kangana Ranaut continued: "The Central government has provided Himachal Pradesh with a highway costing over Rs 3,300 crore, including more than 5 tunnels and over 37 bridges. The state has received world-class infrastructure. The Atal Tunnel, at 9 km, is the world's longest tunnel. Himachal has been allocated Rs 11,000 crore for hydel projects, and schemes like free rations, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Ujjwala, and Ayushman Bharat are directly benefiting millions."

At the end of her 6-minute, 44-second speech, Kangana also touched upon the Women's Reservation Act.

She said: "When I came into the Lok Sabha, the Women's Reservation Bill was passed, which will empower women by providing them with 33 per cent reservation. I also requested the central government to establish an international airport in the Mandi region of Himachal. An airport would benefit Himachal from a tourism perspective."
Bhopal, July 26 : The Madhya Pradesh government will give reservation to 'Agniveer' personnel in the state's police and other paramilitary forces, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav announced on Friday.

Bhopal, July 26 (IANS) The Madhya Pradesh government will give reservation to aAgniveera personnel in the stateas police and other paramilitary forces, Chief Minister Mohan Yadav announced on Friday.

He said the state government will give the benefit of reservation to 'Agniveers' in recruitment in the police and armed forces and the firefighting services.

"This is the first priority of the defence sector and a major step towards defence reforms. The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to provide reservation for firefighters in the state as per Prime Minister Modi's spirit," CM Yadav said.

He stated on Kargil Victory Day that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address in Ladakh emphasized the special role of firefighters in the Indian Army.

Yadav said the 'Agneepath' scheme is an important initiative to increase the strength of the country and connect the powerful youth with the army.

"Agniveer Jawan's plan Agneepath is a plan to modernize the army in the true sense and make the army young at the global level besides recruiting the right soldiers," CM Yadav said.

However, this is not the first time that the MP government has made such an announcement. Former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan had announced that Agniveer jawans will be given reservation in MP police recruitment.
Chennai, July 26 : The Madras High Court on Friday came out strongly against the continued use of caste-based terms in the names of government schools, saying the practice may end up causing stigma to the students.

A division bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and C. Kumarappan suggested to the state government that names such as Government Kallar Reclamation School and Government Tribal Residential School should be avoided.

"It is painful that even in the 21st century, such words are used in the names of schools. Tamil Nadu being a forerunner in social justice, such stigmatic words cannot be added as prefixes or suffixes," it held, as it heard a suo moto public interest litigation (PIL) petition taken up for improving the lives of the tribals living in and around the Kalvarayan hills in Salem and Kallakurichi districts.

The judges disapproved of the use of the word atribala in the names of government schools.

Justice Subramanian observed: "Caste names, once found in street name boards, were abolished. Now we donat have streets with caste names. Then, why should they continue to find a place in government schools." He also said that when he was serving as Portfolio Judge for Theni district, he had come across children of Government Kallar Reclamation schools being branded.

"The Tamil Nadu government claims to be the champion of social justice. You have brought in so many changes. Even Madras was changed to Chennai. Then, why retain caste names in government schools?" he asked.

The division bench later adjourned the PIL petition for filing of a further status report by the state government.
Aizawl, July 26 : Due to the renewed fierce battles between the Myanmar Army and the alliance of three ethnic insurgent groups, including the Chin National Army (CNA), over 1,500 Myanmarese took shelter in Mizoram, sources said on Friday.

Sources said that the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, engaged in fresh armed conflict with an alliance of three ethnic insurgent outfits including CAN in Chin and Rakhine State.

Mizoram Home Department officials said that around 1,500 fresh Myanmar refugees entered Mizoram during the past week and sheltered in the five districts a" Champhai, Serchhip, Lawngtlai, Siaha, and Aizawl.

With the fresh arrival of refugees, the total number of refugees from Myanmar taking shelter in Mizoram has risen to over 35,120.

The Myanmarese took shelter in Mizoram in different phases after the military takeover in the conflict-ridden country in February 2021.

Besides the Myanmar nationals, over 2,000 Bangladeshi tribals, belonging to the Bawm community, took shelter in Mizoram since November 2022. The Bangladeshi refugees from Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of southeast Bangladesh fled from their villages and sought refuge in Mizoram after an offensive by the Bangladeshi Army against the insurgent group Kuki-Chin National Army (KNA).

The Kuki-Zomi-Chin- Bawm tribes in Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Manipur share ethnic ties, and cultural and linguistic similarities with the Mizo people. Most refugees stay in rented accommodation and the homes of their relatives or friends, while others live in relief camps across the border state, which shares a 510-km-long unfenced border with Myanmar and 318 km with Bangladesh.
Mumbai, July 26 : Against the backdrop of the demands for Muslim quotas in education and jobs, the community's leading intelligentsia and lawmakers will hold a meeting in Mumbai on July 27 to discuss the issues of reservations and hammer out a future of action, one of the organisers said.

The Muslim Leadership Summit-2024 will be a significant event and serve as a platform for comprehensive discussions on the ills afflicting the minority community and the route ahead, said Muslim Welfare Association founder-in-chief Saleem Sarang.

Sarang, who is Vice-President of the ruling MahaYuti ally Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) said that world-renowned Islamic scholar Khalil-ur-Rahma S. Nomani of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, will preside over the conference and light the way ahead for the community along with 24 other luminaries and parliamentarians.

"This could be a decisive chapter with the deliberations focusing on key issues of the Muslims, not just about quotas in education and jobs, but encompassing their welfare, safety and security plus related aspects," Sarang said.

Echoing the sentiments of community leaders and other bigwigs, Sarang said it is high time that Muslims get quotas get reservations not just in education and jobs but also in politics and to improve their socio-economic status, and the summit will devise strategies for the all-inclusive development of the community in the national mainstream.

"The data is revealing Nearly 75 per cent of children aged 6-14 miss out on education within the first few years of school, and barely 2 per cent to 3 per cent go on to complete higher education. The proportion of Muslims falling below the poverty line is high, coupled with a ratio of about 2 per cent to 2.5 per cent in government or private sector jobs," Sarang pointed out.

Owing to lack of education and/or jobs, drug addiction, anti-social activities and criminality are on the rise among the illiterate and unemployed Muslim youngsters which gives stigma to the entire community, the organisers rued.

At the summit, there will be a series of panel discussions, interactive sessions and brainstorming among the invitees intended to chart out a roadmap for the future to ensure a meaningful, productive and inclusive role for Muslims in the national mainstream.
New Delhi, July 26 : During a discussion on the Union Budget in the Rajya Sabha on Friday, Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar lost his temper with Congress MP Randeep Singh Surjewala, directing him to leave the House.

As Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was responding to questions about Budget allocations for farmers, opposition MPs began protesting, accusing the Modi government of being anti-farmer.

Trying to restore order, Chairman Dhankhar urged the MPs to allow the minister to complete his statement, and told Surjewala to learn to listen.

Chairman Dhankhar told the Congress MP that what he was saying would not go on record. He also asked Surjewala to sit down, but the commotion in the House only intensified. Dhankhar then left his chair and started urging the MPs to take their seats.

Losing his composure, Dhankhar told Surjewala to sit down as he expressed his frustration, saying, "It is remarkable that while a discussion on farmers is taking place, you are creating a disturbance. Are you serving the farmers?"

The Chairman directly addressed Surjewala and Shaktisinh Gohil, another Congress MP, saying, "Stop creating chaos. You are disrespecting the farmers, engaging in politics, and disrespecting the chair. It is sad. You should leave the chamber."

As the Rajya Sabha witnessed uproarious scenes amid a commotion over the issue of Minimum Support Price (MSP) for crops, Dhankhar rebuked Congress members, including Jairam Ramesh, for their 'disruptive' behaviour.

The ruling party MPs said the oppositionas dissatisfaction with the Agriculture Ministeras response regarding a legal guarantee for MSP led to the chaos, hindering the House proceedings.
Beirut, July 26 : Two Hezbollah members were killed on Friday in an Israeli strike on a Lebanese village in southern Lebanon, Lebanese military sources told Xinhua.

The sources, who spoke anonymously, said that an Israeli warplane fired two air-to-ground missiles targeting the vicinity of the southeast village of Markaba in southern Lebanon, killing two Hezbollah members. The two killed men were Abbas Hussein Hammoud and Fadl Nour al-Din.

They added that a civil defense ambulance transported their bodies to a hospital in the border area, and several houses adjacent to the targeted point were damaged.

Military sources said that Israeli warplanes and drones carried out on Friday four raids on four towns and villages in the eastern sector of the border area, and Israeli artillery shelled nine towns and villages with about 45 shells, causing material damage and the outbreak of several fires that the Civil Defense worked to extinguish.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced in separate statements that air defense units fired anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli warplanes inside Lebanese airspace in the southern region, forcing them to retreat and withdraw behind the Lebanese border with occupied Palestine, Xinhua news agency.

In this context, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon spokesman Andrea Tenenti expressed on Friday concern over the increasing intensity of the conflict across the borderline and the potential risks of a sudden, wider conflict that is difficult to control.

He called on all concerned parties to cease fire and return to the full implementation of Resolution 1701, which is ultimately the path to stability and peace.

He called on Lebanon and Israel to commit to UN Resolution 1701, which remains the most effective framework for addressing the current situation and working towards a long-term settlement of the conflict.
Mumbai, July 26 : Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will outline the state government's plan to be a major contributor to the Centre's ambitious Viksit Bharat 2047 mission especially with the implementation of a slew of initiatives in the fields of drinking water, electricity, health, schooling and land and property.

Mumbai, July 26 (IANS) Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde will outline the state governmentas plan to be a major contributor to the Centreas ambitious Viksit Bharat 2047 mission especially with the implementation of a slew of initiatives in the fields of drinking water, electricity, health, schooling and land and property.

Shinde, who will attend the 9th Governing Council Meeting of NITI Aayog in Delhi on July 27, will also reiterate the state governmentas resolve to make Maharashtra a $1 trillion economy from the present $500 billion economy.

On the drinking water front, the state government has taken a slew of steps to make available adequate and clean water to all households at all times and at all convenient places in rural and urban areas.

The government has completed 30 regional water supply schemes under the Mukhyamantri Rural Drinking Water Programme which has benefitted about 9.35 lakh people in 430 villages.

For the improvement in urban water supply and sewerage, the state government is focusing on achieving 100 per cent self-sufficiency in water supply by providing tap connections to all city households, rejuvenation of water resources and providing 100 per cent sewage treatment and sewage connections.

In the electricity sector, Maharashtra has a total installed electricity generation capacity of 38,217 MW through conventional and non-conventional sources as of March 31, 2024, of which the share of the private sector was 60.4 per cent and 34.5 per cent of the public sector.

The state-run MahaGenco has accorded approval for the installation and commissioning of projects for capacity addition at various thermal power stations. Capacity addition of 660 mw at Bhusawal is in progress and it will be completed by August this year. The process of acquiring statutory clearances is in progress for Koradi thermal power station with a capacity of 1,320 MW.

In renewable energy, the state ranks fifth after Gujarat, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in terms of installed capacity of 12,271 MW. The government is pursuing its ambitious target of installation of environment-friendly electricity generation projects of 17,385 MW.

As far as schooling is concerned, Shinde will present a slew of initiatives being implemented for transformational reforms in school education in the state.

Under the Samagra Shikha, the government is implementing Sarva Shiksha Abhigyan, Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan and Teacher Education to ensure inclusive and equitable education from pre-school to higher secondary stage.

During 2022-23, the government has incurred an expenditure of Rs 1,543.43 crore and Rs 2,378.60 crore up to October 2023-24.

The government has established 328 model schools by spending Rs 183.64 crore with attractive school buildings, classrooms according to several students, separate and adequate toilets for boys and girls, drinking water facilities and hand wash stations, library and reading room, computer room, virtual classroom.

In the health sector, the state government has three-tier infrastructure comprising sub-centres, primary health centres and community health centres to provide comprehensive health services.

The state government is focusing on making its flagship health insurance scheme the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Jan Arogya Yojana more effective. The scheme provides end-to-end cashless quality medical services for identified diseases through empanelled hospitals.

During 2022-23, the claim amount of Rs 1835.87 crore for the surgeries and treatments was paid to the empanelled hospitals. During 2023-24, the claim amount of Rs 1845.20 crore was paid.

In the case of land and property reforms, the state government has compiled all land/property-related records of ownership and encumbrances on one single

online portal. Issuance of the registered deed to the applicant on the same day as the day of registration is made mandatory. The government has launched an Online system for auto-trigger Mutation at land records offices, Municipal Corporations for property tax, Water bills and DisComs for Electricity.

Further, the government has implemented a Unique Property ID across the State for all land parcels (both urban and local) called ULPIN (Unique Land Parcel Identification Number). More than 307 urban local bodies are being onboarded to the integrated web-based portal of the Directorate of Municipal Administration.

(Sanjay Jog can be contacted at Sanjay.j@ians.in)
Thiruvananthapuram, July 26 : With both the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Left government and the Congress-led opposition slamming the third Narendra Modi government's first Union budget for ignoring the needs and demands of Kerala, state BJP President K. Surendran on Friday challenged them to a discussion.

"With regards to the tax allocation, this time, a record allocation of over Rs 3,000 crore has been set aside for Kerala and if one compares... what the then UPA governments set aside for Kerala was a mere Rs 400 crore. Just look at the allocation made to Central institutes in Kerala as it is one of the highest ever made and yet baseless allegations are being floated by both the ruling Left and the Congress which is blindly supporting the state government, without even taking a look into what has been allocated," he said.

"With regards to the railway development also, a sum of Rs 3,011 crore has been earmarked for various projects. We are ready for a discussion on the budget and we wish those who claim nothing has been given to come up for it," Surendran added.

The ruling Left has called for a statewide protest against how Kerala's Rs 24,000 crore package request was not considered but also how there was no mention of the state at all in the budget.
Kolkata, July 26 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's decision to attend the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi to be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday has attracted scathing criticisms from the CPI-M and the Congress' state unit.

CPI-M Rajya Sabha member and senior advocate of Calcutta High Court, Bikas Ranjan Bhattacharya said that this development once against proves that Trinamool Congress is the clandestine agent of the BJP.

"When the Chief Ministers of all the non-BJP ruled states have announced their decision to stay away from the meeting, Mamata Banerjee stood out as the exception. In the past also she has expressed her weakness towards the BJP. She had earlier described the BJP as her natural ally. So this is nothing new on her part," he said.

Echoing the CPI-M leader, state Congress leader Manoj Bhattacharya said that since the formation of the opposition INDIA bloc with Trinamool being officially a part of it, Banerjee had been trying to create a division there.

"This she had been doing to benefit the BJP indirectly. Her latest decision to join the NITI Aayog meeting simply justifies her stand," he said.

However, Trinamool leaders claimed that such criticism of the opposition parties is baseless since the Chief Minister has already clarified that she is attending the meeting not just to raise her voice of protest against financial deprivation of West Bengal but also of the other non-BJP-ruled states.

"The Chief Minister has already cleared her stand on why she is attending the meeting. There was not any specific agenda of the INDIA. bloc about attending the meeting. Trinamool Congress will surely be a part of the opposition bloc. But surely it has its own identity. So the decision taken by the Chief Minister in the interest of West Bengal is totally justified," Trinamool leader Kunal Ghosh said.
Lucknow, July 26 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath On Friday announced that Agniveers will receive preference in recruitment for the UP Police and PAC force after completing their service.

He emphasised that the country would benefit from having trained and disciplined young soldiers like Agniveers. The Chief Minister made these comments to the media at his official residence in the evening, before heading to New Delhi for the NITI Aayog meeting.

Chief Minister Adityanath slammed the opposition's position on the Agniveer issue, asserting, "The opponents' role is to obstruct progress and spread rumours about every effort toward reform and advancement."

He highlighted that, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, India has risen to become the world's fifth-largest economy.

"Significant reforms have been implemented over the last 10 years," the CM noted, adding that the country is progressing towards self-reliance in modernising the Indian Army and its equipment.

Emphasising the importance of periodic reforms for setting new standards of progress and prosperity, CM Adityanath stated, "Over the past decade, significant reforms have been implemented across various sectors. Under Prime Minister Modi's leadership, efforts have been made to elevate India's economy to a leading position, making it the fifth-largest economy in the world."

He added: "As we achieve new levels of prosperity, we must also prioritise national security. Whether it's advancing self-reliance in the military and its equipment or making prompt decisions for modernisation, India now possesses some of the most advanced fighter planes."

The Chief Minister noted that the Defence Industrial Corridor is being developed in both Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, with investments amounting to thousands of crores in the six nodes of the UP Defence Industrial Corridor.

He highlighted notable advancements, such as the efforts of Bharat Dynamics Limited and progress in developing the BrahMos missile, which represents a significant leap forward. The army is also making rapid advancements.

He added: "The Agniveer scheme has been introduced in the Indian Army with this vision. There is considerable enthusiasm among the youth for this initiative, with 10 lakh Agniveers preparing to serve as formidable soldiers in the Indian Army."

Further criticising the opposition, he remarked, "Unfortunately, some political parties prioritise their own interests over the country's welfare. They engage in politics at the nation's expense, continuously interfering, misleading, and making statements against every reform and advancement. The opposition is persistently misleading the youth on this issue."

The Chief Minister noted that today's youth are enthusiastically joining the Agniveer program, and plans are in place to integrate them into paramilitary and civil police roles. He assured that the UP government is committed to providing facilities and giving preference to their recruitment into the UP Police and PAC forces upon their return.

"We will gain from having trained and disciplined youth as Agniveers. Our government is fully committed to this initiative. We should support Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign for military reform, recognising its importance for national security," the Chief Minister said.
Paris, July 26 : The first shot at a medal by the 117-member Indian contingent will come in "far away" Chateauroux, a small town of under 50,000 citizens, approximately 300 kms south of Paris, when India's 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team pairings of Olympian Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh and Ramita and Arjun Babuta, take aim on Saturday.

Paris, July 26 (IANS) The first shot at a medal by the 117-member Indian contingent will come in "far away" Chateauroux, a small town of under 50,000 citizens, approximately 300 kms south of Paris, when India's 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team pairings of Olympian Elavenil Valarivan and Sandeep Singh and Ramita and Arjun Babuta, take aim on Saturday.

The qualification rounds begin at 12:30 pm Indian Standard Time (IST) and the top four combined scores after each of the two shooters in a team fire 30 shots each, make it to the medal rounds at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre.

The two Indian pairs will be up against it as there are several strong teams in the 28-strong detail including the crack Chinese pairing of Du Lingshu and Han Jiayu, who would be looking to defend the title for their national. Mary Carolynn Tucker of the USA, the silver medallist from Tokyo will be with a new partner in Ryan Kissel, while the hosts France, with Manon Herbulot and Romain Aufrere in their ranks, is also sure to come hard.

Speaking ahead of D-day, Dr. Pierre Beauchamp, the High-Performance Director of the team, said, "The team is in a good space and have been training and preparing hard. I don't see any reason why we should not have a bright start to the Paris Games."

The qualification round will be followed by the bronze medal match between the third and fourth-placed teams (2 pm IST) and then the top two meet for the gold.

Air Pistol shooters to also begin campaign

Day One of the shooting competitions will also see four other Indians in action when Manu Bhaker and Rhythm Sangwan and Sarabjot Singh and Arjun Cheema shoot the qualification rounds of the women's and men's 10m Air Pistol respectively. Those two finals are lined up for Sunday.

The 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event will give out the first medals of the Paris Games, where shooting will be making its 28th appearance. A total of 170 men and 170 women athletes will be vying for 15 gold medals across the Rifle, Pistol and Shotgun disciplines, where no country can field more than two athletes/teams per event. There are 12 individual events and three mixed team events, which will start on Saturday and continue till August 5.

India have a squad of 21 shooters at the Paris Games with a total of 26 starts.
Chennai, July 28 : Cauvery Delta farmers in Tamil Nadu on Friday demanded an early release of water from the Mettur dam for their paddy crop.

The farmers placed their demand for the early release of water from Stanley Reservoir, Mettur in a meeting convened by Thanjavur District Collector, urging the official to forward their pleas to the state government so that they could take up aSambaa paddy cultivation with confidence.

The farmer association leaders told the District Collector that the reservoir would reach its full capacity in a day or two, citing the heavy rains in Kerala and Karnataka.

They said that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted good rains in Kerala and Karnataka for another ten days and called upon the authorities to release 10,000 or 20,000 cusecs of water immediately into the Cauvery River. The farmers said that this would lead to the parched river beds or channels in the Cauvery River basin getting a wetting.

The delta paddy farmers also told the District Collector that this measure would help the paddy farmers who were struggling to save their 'Kuruvai' crop, cultivated using groundwater.

"A regulated release of water for irrigation from August first week or even earlier would help impound sufficient water in the Stanley Reservoir once the northeast monsoon sets in over the delta region," Aambalapattu South Irrigation Society President A. Thangavel told IANS.

Several farmer leaders also urged the state government to release water from the Stanley Reservoir as early as possible for the smooth cultivation of the 'Samba' paddy crop.
Jammu, July 26 : Security forces recovered arms and ammunition after they fired at a quadcopter along the line of control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, an official said on Friday.

According to an official, after the movement of a quadcopter was noticed along the LoC in Nowshera sector in the Jhanger area of Rajouri district during the intervening nights of Thursday and Friday, troops opened fire at it.

"The troops deployed at Sair LoC post fired at the quadcopter, after which it disappeared without returning to the enemy side. A cordon and search operation was launched by the security forces on Friday morning," the official said.

"One pistol, two loaded magazines and 37 pistol rounds were recovered," the official added.
Guwahati, July 26 : Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday said that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in response to the state's proposal, assured setting up the country's third defence corridor in his state.

The Chief Minister said that India has two notified defence corridors -- in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu -- and the proposed corridor in Assam is expected to significantly boost the state's economy.

"We're aiming to bring the third one (defence corridor) in Assam. Along with semiconductors, we'll establish Assam as a hub to manufacture aircraft, helicopters, missiles and other weapons systems," Sarma, who met Rajnath Singh during his recent visit to Delhi, told the media here.

The proposal for setting up the defence corridor is under advanced consideration, but it may take some time due to its sensitivity, the Assam CM said.

Expressing his satisfaction over Union Budget 2024-25 presented in the Lok Sabha by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23, Sarma said for the first time the Central Budget acknowledged that Assam's floods are caused by water from outside the country.

He said that the Centre has announced its readiness to provide comprehensive support to address this challenge.

Sarma, during his visit to the national capital, also met Nirmala Sitharaman and discussed funding for a satellite township near Guwahati, the expansion of the Brahmaputra Valley Fertiliser Corporation in Namrup, and the commissioning of its fourth unit.

He said that the expansion of Bongaigaon refinery and Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Ltd (BCPL) in Lepatkata was also discussed.

Sarma, referring to his meeting with Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, said that he had requested the Minister to launch a special train service from Guwahati for pilgrims to Ram Mandir.

"Assam plans to send one lakh pilgrims to Ayodhya," he said.

Referring to the report of the Economic Survey, presented in the Parliament on July 22 by the Union Finance Minister, the Chief Minister claimed that Assam has emerged as one of the top five fastest-growing states in the country with the state's economy growing by 13.9 per cent at the end of the last fiscal.

"The Economic Survey report mentioned that Assam's GSDP growth touched 13.9 per cent at the end of the last fiscal.

"Our economy grew by 13.9 per cent. In 2021, the state's bank deposits were at Rs 1.71 lakh crore, which surged to Rs 2.24 lakh crore by 2023-24. This 30 per cent increase in bank deposits over three years is a significant economic indicator," he said.

Noting that in 2021, banks in Assam disbursed loans worth Rs 80,871 crore and this figure rose to Rs 1.27 lakh crore in 2024, reflecting robust economic activity, he said that the state's credit-deposit ratio has now increased to 58 per cent, indicating a healthier financial environment.

The unemployment rate of the state has also reduced from 8 per cent in 2022-23 to 6.1 per cent in 2023-24. The state's labour participation rate has also gone up from 36.5 per cent in 2022 to 40.9 per cent at the end of the 2023-24 fiscal, Sarma said.

Regarding the release of funds by the Centre to meet the problems related to flood, the Chief Minister said that last year, the Centre allocated Rs 4,800 crore fund for flood management programmes.
Washington, July 26 : Former US President Donald Trump welcomed Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, calling out "Come on in, come on in".

Netanyahu was accompanied by his wife Sara Netanyahu, who were both greeted warmly by Trump, in a video the former President posted on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns.

Trump and Netanyahu had shared a close bond going back to the former Presidentas first term, when he had moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in recognition of a long-standing Israeli demand for the world to consider Jerusalem as the capital, despite its status as a city party claimed by the Palestinians.

Trump had also recognised Golan Heights as a part of Israel, which had captured the area from Syria in the 1967 war.

The former President had capped his tight embrace of Israel by brokering the Abrahamic Accords that paved the way to the normalisation of ties between Israel and Bahrain and Israel and the UAE. They fell out in early 2021 when Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to call and congratulate President Joe Biden, whose election Trump has continued to dispute to this day.

No details were available at this time of the meeting on Friday.

Netanyahu is a close observer of US elections and has inserted himself into US politics several times over the years. He has recently quarrelled with Biden over military supplies for Israel and could be preparing himself for Trumpas return to the White House, a possibility that is being considered in capitals around the world.

The Israeli Prime Minister addressed a joint meeting of the US Congress on Wednesday and met President Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris in the White House on Thursday.
Bengaluru, July 26 : In an embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka, party leader and former state Cabinet minister Arvind Limbavali said the BJP has "totally failed as an opposition".

"It is regrettable that there has been no harmony and understanding between our party's state president (B.Y. Vijayendra) who is also an MLA and the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly (R. Ashoka)," he said.

Taking to X, Limbavali, considered close to RSS, said: "MUDA scam, Valmiki Development Corporation scam, misuse of grants reserved for SC-ST for guarantee scheme money... Our party has not been able to take any issue to a logical conclusion.

"The opposition leaders also failed to present effectively on these issues. Because of this, people have started to wonder whether the opposition party was involved with the ruling party!" Limbavali said.

The BJP leader said that the heat over the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam matter was seen as an eye-wiping strategy.

"The Monsoon Session of the State Legislature has concluded. The BJP, which was supposed to be the voice of the people by pointing out the failures of the state government, has totally failed in doing it as an opposition party," the former minister said.

He said although "the BJP had an opportunity to highlight the government's row of scandals, mismanagement and failures in the House, our leaders have completely failed to seize this opportunity".

"Dengue is rampant in many districts, including Bengaluru, which is known as the IT-BT capital and is a model for the country in the field of science. In many districts of the state, lakhs of people have lost their households due to heavy rains and floods. It is unfortunate that our party leaders did not feel that they should shed light on this and represent the sufferings of the people of the state!" Limabavali said.

"The action of our party leaders, who did not utilise the opportunity and time in the House adequately, spent the whole session in vain and joined hands with the ruling party in curtailing the proceedings of the House when there was still one day left, is questionable," he further said.

"Overall, the BJP has completely failed as the opposition in this session. Given the behaviour of the leaders in the session, it has turned out to be a big question to all sincere and hardworking 'karyakartas' how the BJP headed by these leaders can engage itself in major struggles in the coming days.

"I am very worried and disappointed to see this condition of our party, which was once roaring in the sessions and responding to people's aspirations even when we had a very low number of seats," he added.

The party had denied a ticket to Arvind Limbavali in the 2023 Assembly elections for the Mahadevapura assembly seat in Bengaluru.

The party had issued a ticket to his wife, Manjula Arvind Limbavali, and she won with a margin of 44,501 votes.
Bhubaneswar, July 26 : In a significant development, Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Friday announced 10 per cent reservation for Agniveers of his state.

Speaking to mediapersons at Lokseva Bhawan before leaving for Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog Governing Council meeting, CM Majhi said: "All the soldiers of Indian armed forces are our pride. The Agniveers, who are trained by our defence forces, are qualified to serve the nation in various security-related sectors."

He further said that Agniveer Scheme is a historic initiative launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"This initiative has made our youth able and fearless so that they can face various challenges in life. That is why, the Odisha government has decided to recruit Agniveers in the state's uniformed services.

"The state government will provide up to 10 per cent reservation in its Uniformed Services for those Agniveers from the state who are not absorbed in the defence forces. There will also be 5 years of age relaxation for them," the CM announced.

The uniformed service of the state includes the police, fire services, forest department, etc.
Washington, July 27 : Former US President Donald Trump on Friday pledged to bring peace to West Asia if re-elected to the White House and that he will stop the spread of anti-Semitism in America.

In a statement released by the Trump campaign after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the former President also expressed solidarity with Israel on the "heinous" October 7 attack. The former President pledged that "when he returns to the White House, he will make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East and combat anti-Semitism from spreading throughout college campuses across the United States".

The Trump campaign said the Israeli Prime Minister "thanked President Trump and his Administration for working to promote stability in the region through, among many historic achievements, the Abraham Accords, moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, eliminating Qasem Soleimani, ending the horrific Iran Nuclear Deal, as well as combating anti-Semitism in America and abroad". Soleimani was the head of Iranas Quds Force who was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.

Trump welcomed Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu warmly at his Mar-a-Lago in Florida, a video of which was posted on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns.

Trump and Netanyahu had shared a close bond going back to the former President's first term, when he had moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in recognition of a long-standing Israeli demand for the world to consider Jerusalem as the capital, despite its status as a city party claimed by the Palestinians. Trump had also recognised Golan Heights as a part of Israel, which had captured the territory from Syria in the 1967 war. The former President had capped his tight embrace of Israel by brokering the Abraham Accords that paved the way for the normalization of ties between Israel and Bahrain and Israel and the UAE.

They fell out in early 2021 when Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to call and congratulate President Joe Biden, whose election Trump has continued to dispute to this day.

Netanyahu is a close observer of US elections and has inserted himself into US politics several times over the years. He has recently quarrelled with Biden over military supplies for Israel and could be preparing himself for Trump's return to the White House, a possibility that is being considered in capitals around the world.
Kampala, July 27 : Norway has officially closed its embassy in Uganda, marking the end of 19 years of diplomatic presence in the east African country.

The embassy posted on its official handle on X, formerly Twitter, Friday, saying that the country's flag had been formerly lowered.

"It is with mixed emotions as we lower the Norwegian flag for the last time. The Embassy is now closed, but Norway remains engaged in Uganda," the embassy posted. The lowered flag was handed to Norwegian Ambassador to Uganda Kristin Hermansen.

According to the embassy, the flag was raised in Uganda in 2005.

At an earlier function, Uganda's Minister of Foreign Affairs Odongo Jeje Abubakher emphasised the "strength and tangible results of the Uganda-Norway relationship over the years, expressing Uganda's deep appreciation for this partnership", Xinhua news agency reported.

"He acknowledged Norway's sovereign decision to close its embassy in Kampala while welcoming the assurance that bilateral relations will persist and flourish," an embassy statement posted on X said.

Norway shut down five missions in 2022. The closure of its embassy in Uganda, which was also overseeing Rwanda and Burundi, was first announced last October, signalling that several changes were underway in the country's diplomatic presence abroad.

Norway supports a variety of projects in Uganda, including education, health, agriculture, and assistance to refugees.
Hotel Casa Real, along with the other distinguished hotels, symbolizes the effort and passion of the Chilean tourism industry to deliver its natural and cultural essence, forged and preserved over time, to be sustainably visited by national and international visitors. Post this

Located in the Maipo Valley, 45 minutes from Santiago, Hotel Casa Real stands out for its heritage offerings centred on wine. Experiences include touring the 40-hectare centenary park, visiting the neo-Gothic chapel adjacent to the hotel, discovering more than eight types of tours and historical cellars, and enjoying lunch at the Dona Paula restaurant. Moreover, the Andean Museum, part of the Claro Vial Foundation, offers a collection of nearly 3,000 archaeological and ethnographic pieces from pre-Columbian peoples.

For Elena Carretero, Corporate Affairs, Sustainability, and Tourism Manager of Vina Santa Rita, South America is an ideal choice for travellers seeking authentic and sophisticated experiences in the region, and this recognition is a clear reflection of the natural and cultural wealth that Chile has to offer. "Our country provides unique and memorable experiences, from the stunning landscapes of the north to the majesty of Patagonia, along with the wine tradition and history, which is one of Chile's great ambassadors. Hotel Casa Real, along with the other distinguished hotels, symbolizes the effort and passion of the Chilean tourism industry to deliver its natural and cultural essence, forged and preserved over time, to be sustainably visited by national and international visitors. To this end, a world-class service and unparalleled hospitality have been developed. Additionally, wine represents Chile's identity globally, and we are proud to be part of the effort to establish our country as a top-tier destination," she says.

Each year, Travel + Leisure conducts the World's Best Awards ranking, highlighting the best in the travel industry, from hotels and resorts to destinations and airlines. These recognitions are highly valued by the tourism industry and are based on surveys conducted among the publication's readers. Criteria include service quality, facilities, gastronomy, prime location, and the comprehensive tourism offerings of each establishment. In the latest survey, 186,000 readers participated, with over 700,000 votes in total, covering more than 8,700 establishments, including hotels, cities, and cruise lines, among others. The complete ranking of winners in the different categories can be viewed at this link.

This recognition adds to previous achievements by Vina Santa Rita. In April of this year, the World Wine Tourism Organization (OMET) named the winery the "Best Responsible Wine Tourism Experience" globally. Additionally, last year, Hotel Casa Real was chosen as one of the seven best resorts in the region by the renowned tourism magazine Conde Nast through its Readers' Choice Awards.

About Santa Rita

Founded in 1880 in Alto Jahuel, in the Maipo Valley, Vina Santa Rita is a prominent Chilean winery with a rich 140-year history. It has developed a robust trade spanning over 60 countries across five continents, with special relevance in markets like Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, South Korea, Denmark, the United States, England, Ireland, Japan, and Mexico. With vineyards in Chile's major wine-producing valleys and an annual production exceeding 80 million liters, it produces its wines in historic cellars in Alto Jahuel. This site also houses the founder's mansion, Domingo Fernandez Concha, today transformed into the Casa Real Hotel. There you also find the chapel, a 40-hectare centennial park, and Casona Dona Paula Jaraquemada, which now hosts Dona Paula restaurant.

Declared a Historical Monument in 1972, this historical and cultural heritage attracts over 140,000 visitors annually and has been awarded the "Best Wine Tourism Experience in Chile" at the 2022 Wine Tourism Chile Awards. Vina Santa Rita is also distinguished by its robust Sustainability Program, encompassing environmental, social, and economic aspects, aiming to lead sustainable development in winemaking, appealing to consumers worldwide through the experience, innovation, and quality of its brands.

Media Contact

Leah Isenberg, Vina Santa Rita, 6466242885, [email protected], https://www.colangelopr.com/

SOURCE Vina Santa Rita
The American Library Association Council this week confirmed Sam Helmick as 20252026 ALA president. Helmick will immediately begin their duties as ALA president-elect.

Helmick, who is community and access services coordinator at Iowa City Public Library, will step into the role of ALA president after Ray Pun, who won the election for ALA president in March (with Helmick as the runnerup), announced last month that he was stepping down for health reasons. Under ALA bylaws, the ALA Council was required to select Pun's replacement by this month.

Helmick has been a staunch advocate for the freedom to read in their home state of Iowa, where one of the nation's most draconian book banning laws is now before the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals after being blocked by a federal judge last December. In an interview with PW in April, Helmick spoke of their work to defend the freedom to read.

I think we would be remiss if we didnt note that this is an attack on all our marginalized communities, they said about the years-long surge in book bans across the nation. It is important to recognize that censorship is a hammer looking for a nail, that it always goes after our most marginalized and vulnerable first, and that library funding is an intellectual freedom issue, too, because if I cant purchase the materials, we cant debate or discuss them. Its game over.

Helmick has served as a member of the ALA executive board and is immediate past president of the Iowa Library Association. They previously served as former chair-elect on the Intellectual Freedom Round Table and chair of the Iowa Commission of Libraries.

I am honored to be appointed as president-elect of the American Library Association, Helmick said, in a statement. Together, we will continue to elevate the essential work of ensuring informational access for all and upholding intellectual freedom. The collective efforts of ALA members and library workers around the globe empower communities, enrich lives, and safeguard the principles of open knowledge and free expression.
Shefali Luthra. Doubleday, $29 (368p) ISBN 978-0-385-55008-6

Journalist Luthra debuts with an eye-opening and chilling look at the strain the U.S. reproductive healthcare system is undergoing in a post-Roe world. Tracking the circuitous, costly, and legally jeopardizing paths that patients seeking abortions who live in states that have imposed restrictions must take to access care across state lines, Luthra reveals that these cross-country journeys are having a bottleneck effect that is limiting healthcare access across America. The story of Angela, a 21-year-old San Antonio mother who cant afford another child and makes an expensive trip to New Mexico for a dose of the abortifacient mifepristone, is juxtaposed with the plight of Jasper, a trans man who struggles to access abortion care because his local clinic in Orlando, Fla., has been overwhelmed by out-of-state patients. The healthcare providers themselves paint a dire portrait of a system in crisis (Its an unfolding national disaster, says one). Luthra depicts them triaging patients (the staff at a Jacksonville, Fla., clinic routinely stays until midnight to help out-of-staters, but still has to limit services for locals), strategizing new ways of providing care (which include illegal mail-order mifepristone networks), and dealing with patients in mortal terror of jail time (one San Diego clinician describes patients anxiously discussing how best to hide where theyve been from people back home). Luthras vivid and compassionate storytelling unveils an interconnected web of desperate individuals and heroic helpers who are only just barely within reach. Its an urgent wake-up call. (May)

Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated that Jaspers local clinic is in Jacksonville, Fla. The review has also been updated with changes made prior to the books publication.
Property details:

Highest Bid owns this land! No Minimum, No ReserveWill sell the property regardless of the final bid amountClick BUY IT NOW to own at $7,500Discover endless possibilities with this exceptional 2.5 Acre commercial land in the vibrant town of Van Horn, Texas. Zoned C2, this property is tailored for a wide range of community commercial uses, offering the flexibility and freedom to bring your vision to life.KEY FEATURES Zoning: C2  Ideal for Community Commercial ventures Building Size: Unlimi...

Price: $ 1,500 Seller State of Residence: California Type: Commercial, Acreage Zip/Postal Code: 79855 City: Van Horn State/Province: Texas Location: , Newport Beach, California

You will be redirected to eBay



When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission.

Nearby Texas
Property details:

.BUY LAND NOWCORNER LOT!! START INVESTING NOW!This land is perfect for Land Banking! Buy and hold for future investment. Many companies and investors purchase land at a substantial discount for their investment portfolios. Then later, use this as collateral for their business. Low Low Prices!Great Investment for new investor. Start your own land business now!DescriptionWe are selling a beautiful corner residential lot located in Helena Arkansas. HelenaWest Helena (listen; /hln/) is...

Price: $ 205 Seller State of Residence: California Type: Homesite, Lot Property Address: 204 S Baringo St N Helena-West Helena Arkansas 72342 Zip/Postal Code: 72342 Zoning: Mixed City: Helena State/Province: Arkansas Location: 723**, Helena, Arkansas

You will be redirected to eBay



When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission.

Nearby Arkansas
'Customers are coming in; if they aren't buying, they are at least visiting the stores, which was not the case before the Budget.'

IMAGE: Kindly note the image has been posted only for representational purposes.

A woman tries a gold necklace at a jewelry store in Mumbai, October 24, 2023. Photograph: ANI Photo

Jewellers are seeing a rise in demand as buyers flock to stores to buy gold after the government cut the import tax on gold, silver, and platinum in an effort to reduce the smuggling of these precious metals.

The prices of all three metals have declined, and Zaveri Bazaar -- Mumbai's jewellery hub -- has witnessed a 60 to 70 per cent increase in customer traffic.

The government has reduced Customs duties on gold bars to 6 per cent from 15 per cent; gold dore now only attracts a 5.35 per cent Customs duty, while silver bars have a Customs duty rate of 6 per cent, and silver dore has a rate of 5.35 per cent. This has caused the prices of gold and silver to correct across the country.

The same trend has been observed in Delhi, where jewellers, who saw hardly any walk-ins before the Union Budget, have now experienced at least a 50 per cent increase in store footfall.

"Customers are coming in; if they aren't buying, they are at least visiting the stores, which was not the case before the Budget," Yogesh Singhal, chairman of the Bullion and Jewellers Association based in Delhi, told Business Standard. He added that customers are now buying jewellery for the wedding season, which will start in October.

"Customers typically buy jewellery a couple of months before the wedding while they are preparing for the upcoming celebrations," Singhal added.

In Mumbai's Zaveri Bazaar, Kumar Jain, spokesperson for the India Bullion and Jewellers Association, also noted, "Walk-ins have gone up by 60 to 70 per cent in Mumbai as customers are coming in to buy jewellery ahead of the wedding season and also for investment."

Jewellery chain Kalyan Jewellers has also seen an increase in the number of enquiries following the cut in duty rates.

"Following the implementation of the revised gold prices, we have observed a substantial increase in customer enquiries regarding the price of gold and our seasonal offers," said Ramesh Kalyanaraman, executive director, Kalyan Jewellers.

"This surge in interest reflects positive consumer sentiment towards gold, which has been India's most preferred investment option. Although we have not observed a major uptick in walk-ins until midday, we are confident that the price change will drive jewellery demand going forward."

On the Budget announcement, Kalyanaraman said the new tax regime, with its focus on increased disposable income, will boost demand for jewellery as consumers will invest in asset creation.

"Rationalising Customs duty on precious metals, particularly gold, is a welcome move, considering the significant arbitrage in gold prices that existed," said Ajoy Chawla, CEO of the jewellery division at Titan Company.

"Hopefully, this will reduce informal and unofficial gold inflows into the country and also provide much needed relief on gold rates to Indian customers just ahead of the forthcoming festival and wedding seasons. Tanishq has lined up exciting new collections, promotional offers, and regional festival campaigns this quarter to further stimulate consumer demand," Chawla added.

Union Budget 2024
Public-sector lenders Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) and Uco Bank are likely to raise funds through qualified institutional placement (QIP) next month.

Punjab & Sind Bank is likely to follow suit later this financial year to meet the public shareholding norm of 25 per cent.

When a public-sector unit raises funds through QIP, the money goes to the company because it involves issuing new shares whereas in the case of offer for sale (OFS), the money raised goes to the government because its shares are sold.

An email query sent to the finance ministry, Uco Bank, IOB, and Punjab & Sind Bank remained unanswered till the time of going to press.

A senior executive of Uco Bank said the bank was planning to raise Rs 2,000 crore.

If the prices are favourable, the bank will explore reducing the governments shareholding.

"We do not need capital at the moment, and our capital adequacy ratio is 16.98 per cent as of March 31, 2024.

"This is the first tranche of fundraising out of the Rs 4,000 crore approval from the board of directors.

"We expect to complete this by next month after final approval from the DFS (Department of Financial Services), said the executive.

The government holds 95.39 per cent in Uco Bank.

A senior official of IOB said the bank was planning to raise Rs 5,000 crore next month.

Our shareholders have approved the Rs 5,000 crore fundraise in the AGM (annual general meeting).

"We have sent the application to the DFS and are hoping for the final go-ahead soon, said the senior bank official.

Punjab & Sind Bank, another public-sector bank, is planning to raise Rs 2,000 crore.

The government holds 98.25 per cent in the bank.

The process depends on the issue price; the higher the price, the lower the dilution percentage.

"Right now, we can only give estimations, said the senior official.

The senior official added this was a process-driven effort.

We are in talks with merchant bankers. In our last AGM, which happened on May 31, it was approved.

"We have to submit our application to the DFS.

"We hope to take on board the merchant bankers this month and then send the final application to the DFS, added the official.
India's tactical and operational response demonstrated its ability to prosecute tri-service operations, even without a formal tri-service doctrine or the higher command structure needed to coordinate it, points out Ajai Shukla.

IMAGE: Indian soldiers celebrate their victory in the Kargil War, July 26, 1999. Photograph: ANI Photo

A quarter of a century has elapsed since May-July 1999, when India and Pakistan fought a 74-day mini-war in the Kargil sector of the Line of Control -- the de facto border between the two countries.

The so-called Kargil conflict took the lives of more than 500 soldiers from each side and marked the culmination of a geopolitically-charged period in South Asia.

It is worth revisiting the tactical, strategic and diplomatic lessons that emerged from that conflict.

New Delhi went into the Kargil War at a particularly turbulent juncture in its history.

India's higher command structure -- led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and advised by his hawkish Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra and Cabinet members George Fernandes, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha -- was inclined to project power and favoured expeditionary (outward-looking) solutions to regional problems, such as the long-running Tamil Tigers insurgency in Sri Lanka.

In the circumstances, India's military was already bloodied by confrontations.

By 1992, the decade-old Pakistan-backed Sikh insurgency in Punjab was winding down, with even the most fanatical Sikhs realising they had run out of popular support in Punjab -- the only Sikh-majority province in India.

Earlier, the Indian military's intervention in Sri Lanka from 1987-1990 had been wound down, with the Tamil Tigers giving the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) a sharp lesson in the limits of power.

Assam was in turmoil due to the United Liberation Front of Assam.

Even as the IPKF was withdrawing from Sri Lanka, Jammu and Kashmir went up in flames in 1989-1990, with thousands of Kashmiri youngsters crossing the LoC into Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) for weapons training in Pakistan-run camps.

The Union defence budget was at an all-time high of almost 4 per cent of gross domestic product.

With India's first Bharatiya Janata Party Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, under pressure, New Delhi tested five nuclear explosive devices on May 11 and 13, 1998.

Despite intense international pressure on Pakistan not to retaliate in the same coin, Islamabad exploded six nuclear devices that same month -- symbolically, one more than India's.

Disregarding international criticism at adding two new 'States with nuclear weapons' to the existing list of five 'nuclear weapons States', Vajpayee began preparing for his historic bus journey to Lahore.

Meanwhile, far from the limelight, a tiny group of Pakistan Army planners began pushing infiltrators across the LoC into Kargil, with all the weapons, ammunition, fuel and food needed to sustain themselves through the coming winter, and the spring and summer fighting that would inevitably follow.

Pakistan had a simple tactical plan. The infiltrators would position artillery guns, ammunition, fuel, food and fire controllers to bring down artillery fire to interdict the Srinagar-Kargil-Leh road, blocking Indian supply lines to Kargil and the Siachen Glacier.

The strategic plan was to demonstrate the deterrent power of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, establishing that despite the gravest provocation, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal would deter India from retaliating.

In the diplomatic realm, Pakistani planners felt confident that Indian diplomats would be unable to generate unacceptable pressure on Pakistan in global forums.

Eventually, pegged back militarily, stymied strategically and outwitted diplomatically, India would accept the new status quo in Kargil.

However, it played out quite differently. Despite the multitude of challenges, a stubborn New Delhi refused to step back.

Photograph: Rediff.com IMAGE: Then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee along with then defence minister George Fernandes, crouching, third from left, then Jammu and Kashmir governor Girish Chandra 'Gary' Saxena, standing second from left, and then army chief General Ved Prakash Malik, fourth from right, meet the troops in Kargil.

New Delhi's first challenge was to demonstrate Pakistan's violation of an international treaty -- the Simla Agreement of 1972 -- in which both sides had pledged to maintain the status quo along the LoC.

Now, however, regular Pakistani troops had crossed the LoC, not just Kashmiri 'freedom fighters' as Islamabad claimed.

The proof of official Pakistani involvement came through an intelligence coup, in which Indian telephone monitoring agencies intercepted two phone calls between Lieutenant General Mohammed Aziz Khan, then the Pakistan army's powerful chief of general staff; and his boss Pakistan's army chief, General Pervez Musharraf, who was visiting Beijing to solicit Chinese support.

In discussions recorded by Indian intelligence, the generals boasted that they were in full control of the infiltrators in Kargil.

The Indian government presented this as irrefutable evidence of Pakistani irresponsibility, which -- were it not for New Delhi's restraint -- could have triggered nuclear war between the two nuclear-armed adversaries.

To avoid this, New Delhi's innovative tactics included the calibrated application of military force, notwithstanding the nuclearised backdrop.

India's 'graduated response', employed artillery first to inflict attrition; and then to 'shoot in' the infantry, along with attack helicopters and glide bombs.

India's tactical and operational response demonstrated its ability to prosecute tri-service operations, even without a formal tri-service doctrine or the higher command structure needed to coordinate it.

The Indian Air Force signalled Indian resolve early with bombing attacks on forward Pakistani positions and on the forward Pakistani logistic node of Muntho Dalo, rendering the infiltrators short of ammunition for the duration of the fighting.

With India's military mobilising with alarming alacrity, US President Bill Clinton summoned then Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif to the US on July 4, 1999 for a personal dressing down.

Pakistan had run out of American goodwill. When Sharif reasoned that India had violated the Simla Agreement first by occupying the Siachen Glacier, Clinton sharply reminded him that the days of redrawing maps were over and that Pakistani troops should withdraw to the north of the LoC.

By the end of July, the status quo-ante was restored.

IMAGE: Soldiers keep vigil over a mountain in Kargil sector in Kashmir July 8, 1999. Photograph: Kamal Kishore/Reuters

The Kargil War resulted in a high-level commission -- the Kargil Review Committee (KRC) -- which was independent India's first serious attempt at assessing the quantum of troops needed to defend its borders.

The KRC Report brought to light many grave deficiencies in India's security management system, including the fact that the original framework for management of the country's security, formulated by Lord Ismay and recommended by Lord Mountbatten, had been accepted by a national leadership that was not fully conversant with the complexities of national security management.

The KRC, its findings and recommendations reinforced by a Group of Ministers in 2000, also noted that all three divisions of the vast and contested territory of J&K were defended by two Indian Army corps -- 15 Corps in charge of Kashmir and Ladakh; and 16 Corps in charge of Jammu.

It was decided to carve out a separate corps zone from the current 15 Corps, which would be designated 14 Corps and given charge of Ladakh.

This has since been implemented, but there remains a dichotomy in the fact that 14 Corps is responsible for Kargil and the Siachen Glacier (both claimed by Pakistan); as well as for Eastern Ladakh (claimed by China).

This duality does not make for smooth command.

Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com
India failed to extract the 'price' from Pakistan for its Kargil misadventure.

The price could have been military in terms of loss of territory/soldiers/equipment or destruction of terrorist training infrastructure.

Giving a 'face saving' option to Pakistan proved disastrous for the future, asserts Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).

IMAGE: An Indian soldier shows off a ring made with a bullet in a camp outside Kargil, July 5, 1999.

July 4, 1999, India recaptured strategic Tiger Hill on its side of the military Line of Control in Kashmir after a night-long battle.

The 4,590 metre peak commands a vital stretch of the Indian highway through northern Kashmir and was crucial for the smooth movement of troops at the frontline. Photograph: Kamal Kishore/Reuters

Now that the dust has settled in the battlefield, 25 years later an exercise to discover the larger picture and the 'truth' is rewarding.

But like the seven blind men and an elephant, the exercise would be futile if the approach is narrow and is seen missing the main point.

India obviously won the battle, thanks to the outstanding bravery, devotion to duty and raw courage displayed by our soldiers. No praise is high for them.

But the central point of this episode is neither intelligence failure nor the initial tactical blunders of underestimating the enemy strength. It was the failure of Indian DETERRENCE.

In that sense it was a national failure and ought to have prompted a radical rethink in our whole approach to Pakistan.

I had attended a presentation by a top military officer on Kargil and had asked this very question.

It appears that the higher leadership had not calculated the harm this precedent would set for the future.

IMAGE: An Indian soldier at Drass, June 21 1999, directs fire at the enemy. Photograph: Reuters

An American spokesman hit the nail on the head when he said that Pakistan had broken the unwritten law of the nuclear game -- no nuclear weapon State directly invades another nuclear weapon State!

It is this 'law' that protected the sentry at Check Point Charlie at the Berlin Wall throughout the Cold War.

There are indeed many reasons why the US or even China opposed Pakistan, ranging from the US desire to build India as a counter weight to China and the Chinese anxiety to stop India from moving too close to the US.

But the principal reason why these countries sided with India is that Pakistan broke this unwritten law and brought the world close to a nuclear exchange.

All nations understand the consequences for mankind that will follow from breaking the taboo on USE OF NUKES: International anarchy.

IMAGE: Pakistani soldiers camouflage a field artillery piece near Basal-Chu, opposite India's Kargil sector, July 1, 1999. Photograph: Muzammil Pasha/Reuters

India had obviously failed to inflict sufficient punishment on Pakistan for the transgression of the Line of Control.

The talk in Pakistan of there being many more Kargils in future was a pointer in that direction.

The Kargil intrusion was a classic case of attack by infiltration. Presence of regular Pakistani soldiers, heavy weaponry with the intruders and close support given by Pakistani artillery, are all dead giveaways.

The whole world therefore accepted that it was an attack by Pakistan on Indian territory.

IMAGE: An Indian soldier carries an artillery shell before loading it in a gun at Drass, June 21, 1999. Photograph: Reuters

The Indian response in confining our action to our side of the LoC had set a dangerous precedent. Soon Pakistan was back at its game of proxy war.

The world and Pakistan expected India to observe similar restraint. This gave a free pass to Pakistan to bleed India to death.

The nadir of this was reached when after the terror attacks on Mumbai in November 2008, directly attributed to Pakistani citizens, India did not react.

IMAGE: Indian soldiers pay final respects to their colleagues on July 14, 1999 in New Delhi. Photograph: Jayanta Shaw/Reuters

India had failed to extract the 'price' from Pakistan for its Kargil misadventure. The price could have been military in terms of loss of territory/soldiers/equipment or destruction of terrorist training infrastructure.

The economic costs could have been in terms of lost loans and the psychological costs could have been in humiliation at the international level.

Giving a 'face saving' option to Pakistan besides being a betrayal of the sacrifices of our jawans proved disastrous for the future.

IMAGE: Pakistani soldiers prepare to fire artillery from a hilly outpost in Kharmang district, June 17, 1999. Photograph: Muzammil Pasha/Reuters

Does this mean that India should have escalated the conflict to a general war?

The firm answer to this is NO.

Yet between all out war and defensive action on our side of the LoC, there are many creative options that could have been used.

But such has been the stranglehold on the policy makers of the Delhi 'Peace Lobby' that strategic thinking in India had been reduced to the chanting of well worn mantras.

A most favoured one was 'Pakistan's survival is in Indian interest' or 'conventional war between India and Pakistan has become redundant'.

Circumscribed by such mantras that provide the framework and basic premises, Indian strategic thinking had got into a rut.

Clauswitz had often said that strategic matters are simple but not necessarily easy!

IMAGE: Indian Army officers look out from their vehicle covered with camouflage netting near Drass, May 26, 1999. Photograph: Reuters

What Kargil had demonstrated is that Pakistan is quite capable of starting a war that it is bound to lose.

The politico-bureaucratic establishment in Delhi did not appear to have thought through this issue. The slogan 'there is no alternative to peace' had lulled our thinking into inaction.

The belief in Pakistan's ultimate triumph (Gazwa e Hind) is quite consistent with occasional withdrawal (as in Kargil) and attempts to fill every power vacuum through the ISI's activities.

India had no choice but to develop a strategy of employment of force that is technologically superior, causes disproportionate damage on the enemy and is still short of all out war.

It is this precise change that came about in our approach after the Uri and Pulwama attacks that has led to relative peace between the two countries.

IMAGE: Pakistan soldiers guard Jaba village, near Balakot, after Indian military aircraft struck the area on February 26, 2019. Photograph: Akhtar Soomro/Reuters

At that time many of us feared that at some future date Pakistan may well launch or place a nuclear weapon in India and claim that it is an action by the mujaheedin.

India may well then launch a devastating strike against Pakistan and reduce it to radioactive dust, but the deterrence would have failed and with it the primary raison d'etre for the nuclear weapons stockpile would become redundant.

Assured punitive action is at the heart of nuclear strategies. India has ignored this basic principle at its own peril.

It took us 20 years to learn this basic lesson of nuclear deterrence when we launched the air strike on Balakot in 2019. It is only then that we completed the circle that began on the icy heights of Kargil in 1999.

The sacrifices of our brave soldiers were truly honoured only in February 2019.

Colonel Anil A Athale (retd) is a military historian whose earlier columns can be read here.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
'The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent,' Harris said.

IMAGE: US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, on July 25, 2024. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

Stating that Israel has a right to defend itself, but how it does so matters, said US Vice President Kamala Harris after her meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighting the human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.

"I've said it many times, but it bears repeating. Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization. On October 7, Hamas triggered this war when it massacred 1,200 innocent people, including 44 Americans. Hamas has committed horrific acts of sexual violence and took 250 hostages. There are American citizens who remain captive in Gaza," Harris told reporters immediately after meeting Netanyahu in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House complex.

During her meeting with Netanyahu, Harris said that she expressed with the prime minister her serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.

"I made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation there. With over two million people facing high levels of food insecurity, and half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating," she said.

"The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third, or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent," Harris said.

Harris said there is a deal on the table for a ceasefire and a hostage deal. The first phase of the deal would bring about a full ceasefire, including a withdrawal of the Israeli military from population centers in Gaza. In the second phase, the Israeli military would withdraw from Gaza entirely and it would lead to a permanent end to the hostilities.

"It is time for this war to end, and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity, and self-determination. There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal," she said.

"I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done. So to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let's get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war. Let's bring the hostages home and let's provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people," Harris said.
The Supreme Court on Friday extended its July 22 interim order staying the directives issued by the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh, asking eateries along the Kanwar Yatra routes to display the names of their owners, staff and other details.

IMAGE: Kanwariyas arrive after filling their pots with Ganga water from Sultanganj during the annual 'Kanwar Yatra', in Deoghar. Photograph: ANI Photo

A large number of devotees travel from various places with 'kanwars' carrying holy water from the Ganga to perform 'jalabhishek' of Shivlings during the Hindu calendar month of 'Shravan'. Many believers shun consuming meat during the month they consider holy. Many don't consume meals containing onions and garlic.

A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S V N Bhatti said it won't issue any clarification on the July 22 order as "We have said what needed to be said in our July 22 order. Can't force anyone to disclose names."

The bench asked the Madhya Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments to file their response to the pleas challenging their respective directives.

It allowed the petitioners to file their responses to the replies of the state governments and posted the matter for August 5.

Apart from the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments, the BJP-controlled civic body of Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh had also issued similar directive to shop owners. Ujjain is home to the famous "Mahakaal" temple to Lord Shiva.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, said they have filed their reply and their stand is that the directive in question is the requirement under law.

He urged the court to take up the matter next Monday otherwise the issue will become infructuous. There is huge rush of devotees at Shiva temples on Mondays, especially during the month of Shravan.

"We have suffered ex-parte order and without hearing the order was stayed," he submitted, adding that the interim order passed by the court is not in line with the central law.

The bench said if there is any law governing eateries and shops, then the state should enforce it across areas under its jurisdiction.

"Let the law be enforced all across the state and not only in certain areas. You please file an affidavit showing that the law has been enforced all over," Justice Roy told Rohatgi.

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for Trinamool Congress leader Mahua Moitra, said if this law mandating display of names and other details has not been put in force for the past 60 years, the issue can be taken up in due course of time and let the yatra continue without enforcing the direction.

He submitted that the response of the Uttar Pradesh government was supplied to him at 10:30 pm on Thursday and he needed time to file a reply.

Deputy Advocate General for Uttarakhand Jatinder Kumar Sethi said the state has not issued any specific order with respect to Kanwar Yatra and the government was only enforcing law that mandated disclosure of the names of eateries during all festivals.

He said Kanwar Yatra is an annual pilgrimage in which a large number of people participate, and to avoid any mischief, the state needs to enforce the law.

Sethi urged the bench to allow the state to take action to implement two laws under which it was mandatory for shops and business establishments to display their registration certificates and identity cards. He said the apex court's interim order was coming in the way of enforcing those laws.

The two laws he referred to are: Food Safety and Standards (Registration and Licensing) Regulations, 2011 (a central law) and Uttarakhand Panchayati Raj Bylaws (a state legislation).

"We are anticipating a law and order problem if the law is not enforced effectively," Sethi said.

The bench, however, refused to pass any such order.

Advocate Barun Sinha and another counsel appearing for intervenors urged the court to lift the stay or issue a clarification otherwise Kanwarias will get misled and eat at eateries where onion and garlic are served.

The bench said it has not prevented anyone from voluntarily displaying the names of owners and other details and its stay was only against forced disclosure of names.

Counsel appearing for Madhya Pradesh clarified that the Ujjain municipal body has not issued any order for disclosing the names of owners of eateries and other details, and the court has passed the July 22 order against it while relying on a news report cited by the petitioners.

The bench took on record the statement and asked the Madhya Pradesh government to file an affidavit.

In its reply, the Uttar Pradesh government defended its directive requiring eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names of their owners and staff, saying the idea was to bring in transparency, avoid "potential confusion" and ensure a peaceful yatra.

On July 22, the apex court ordered an interim stay on the directives issued by the BJP-ruled Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Madhya Pradesh governments.

"...we deem it appropriate to pass an interim order prohibiting the enforcement of the impugned directives. In other words, the food sellers (including dhaba owners, restaurants, foods and vegetable sellers, hawkers, etc) may be required to display the kind of food that they are serving to the Kanwariyas.

"But they must not be forced to display the name/identity of the owners and also the employees, deployed in their respective establishments. It is ordered accordingly," the bench had directed.

The top court was hearing a batch of pleas including those by TMC MP Mahua Moitra, academician Apoorvanand Jha and columnist Aakar Patel, and NGO Association for Protection of Civil Rights challenging the directives.

The month of Shravan has started from July 22 this year and will last till August 19.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair NITI Aayog's 9th Governing Council meeting on July 27, which will focus on making India a developed nation by 2047, an official statement said on Friday.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the Kargil War Memorial on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas, at Drass, in Kargil, July 26, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The council, the apex body of NITI Aayog, includes all state chief ministers, lieutenant governors of Union Territories, and several Union ministers. Modi is the chairman of NITI Aayog.

According to the statement, the meeting aims to foster participative governance and collaboration between the Centre and state governments, enhancing the quality of life for both rural and urban populations by strengthening the delivery mechanisms of government interventions.

"The governing council meeting on July 27, 2024 will discuss the Approach Paper for the Vision Document on Viksit Bharat @2047...The meeting will also see detailed deliberations on the role of states in achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat @2047," the statement said.

The meeting will also focus on recommendations of the 3rd National Conference of Chief Secretaries held in December last year.

During the conference, recommendations were made on five key themes--drinking water: access, quantity, and quality; electricity: quality, efficiency, and reliability; health: accessibility, affordability, and quality of care;schooling: access and quality and land and property: accessibility, digitization, registration, and mutation.

Special sessions were also held to deliberate on cyber security, aspirational districts and blocks programme, role of states, and AI in governance which were also discussed during the National Conference of Chief Secretaries.

Meanwhile, chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader MK Stalin, Kerala's CM and Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Pinnarayi Vijayan as well as Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab and Delhi governments have also boycotted the meeting.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said the government think tank brought by the Modi government should be scrapped and the Planning Commission restored.

Banerjee, who is set to attend the NITI Aayog meeting even as most INDIA bloc chief ministers have decided to give it a miss, said she felt their voices should be raised on a common platform.

Biju Janata Dal MP Sasmit Patra has supported the decision taken by opposition parties, and accused the Centre of denying states their share in the Budget.

Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MP Mahua Maji has said her party will take a decision based on the interests of the state. JMM is a INDIA bloc constituent.

A vision document is being prepared to help India become a developed economy of $30 trillion by 2047, the 100th year of its independence.

In 2023, NITI Aayog was entrusted with the task of consolidating the 10 sectoral thematic visions into a combined vision for Viksit Bharat @2047.

The vision encompasses various aspects of development, including economic growth, social progress, environmental sustainability, and good governance, among others.
Facades of two mosques and a mazar along the kanwar yatra route in Uttarakhand's Haridwar city were on Friday covered with large sheets of white cloth to "prevent trouble" but were removed by the evening after objections from various quarters.

IMAGE: Kanwariyas carry pots filled with water collected from the Ganga river during the annual 'Kanwar Yatra', on Delhi-Haridwar expressway in Haridwar, Uttarakhand, July 26, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The sheets were hung on bamboo scaffoldings in front of two mosques and a mazar, all in the Jwalapur area.

The mosque's maulana and the mazar's caretakers said they were not aware of any administrative order in this regard and claimed this was for the first time that such a step had been taken during the yatra.

Though the Haridwar senior superintendent of police and district magistrate were not available for comment, Cabinet Minister Satpal Maharaj told reporters that it was done to maintain peace. "Any such thing is done only to prevent trouble," he said.

"It is not such a big thing. We also cover buildings when they are under construction," he said.

The sheets of cloth were removed by the district administration by the evening following objections, including by locals and politicians.

"We received orders from the railway police post to remove the curtains. That is why we have come to remove these," said Danish Ali, appointed as a special police officer by the administration for the yatra's management.

Congress leader and former minister Naeem Qureshi said he has never seen such a thing in his life.

"We Muslims always welcome Shiv bhakts (devotees) for the kanwar fair and arrange refreshments for them at various places. This has been an example of harmony between Hindus and Muslims in Haridwar, and there has never been a tradition of curtains," he said.

Qureshi said before the kanwar mela started, the administration had held a meeting and members from both the Hindu and Muslim communities were made SPOs.

One of the mazar's caretaker Shakeel Ahmad said no one spoke with the caretakers about this -- covering the religious structure.

Kanwariyas stopped under the shade of trees outside mosques and mazars to take rest, Ahmed said and added that this was the first time such a step was taken.

Congress leader and former district panchayat president Rao Afaque Ali said the administration's decision to cover mosques and mazars is surprising.

"It has never happened earlier. Some kanwariyas also go to mosques to pay obeisance. India is a country where everyone takes care of every religion and caste. Today mosques are being covered, what will happen if temples are covered in this manner tomorrow?" he asked.
Karnataka has the highest number of medical seats in the country at 11,745, of which 3,750 seats were in government institutions and 7,995 seats were in private colleges.

IMAGE: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah addresses the state legislative council session in Bengaluru, July 25, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The Karnataka assembly on Thursday passed a resolution to scrap the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), becoming the third state after Tamil Nadu and West Bengal to ask the Centre to exempt it from the national-level medical entrance test.

'This House hereby unanimously resolves to urge the Centre that the NEET exam system which severely affects the medical education of poor rural students, makes schooling redundant and deprives the rights of the state government to admit students in the state government medical colleges; it should be abolished,' the resolution stated.

It urged the Centre to immediately exempt Karnataka from this examination and to provide medical admission based on marks obtained in the Common Entrance Test conducted by the state government.

Tamil Nadu and West Bengal have also asked for marks scored in states' own medical entrance tests to be taken as benchmark for admissions in medical colleges, rather than NEET.

Meanwhile, Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati too on Thursday demanded the scrapping of NEET and reinstatement of the old system of medical admissions.

Speaking on whether states can voluntarily leave NEET and start admission via state medical exams, a government official said, on the condition of anonymity, that under the NMC Act and UGC guidelines, NEET is the only mandatory all-India exam to secure medical admission in the country.

Karnataka's move comes after the medical entrance exam was rocked by allegations of paper leak.

While NEET has been a contentious issue for states since its inception in 2010, the southern states have been more vociferous in their opposition to a unified, all-India exam.

The major points of contention were differences in syllabus between state medical exams and NEET, which would be a disadvantage for students and amending regulations for medical admissions, making NEET the single entrance exam across India for MBBS and BDS courses.

States such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Telangana have alleged that such an exam would take away the autonomy from states to provide medical education in their respective state medical colleges.

According to data shared by the ministry of health and family welfare, Karnataka had the highest number of medical seats in the country in the academic year 2023-2024 at 11,745, of which 3,750 seats were in government institutions and 7,995 seats were in private colleges.

It was followed by Tamil Nadu at 11,650 seats, Maharashtra at 10,845 seats, Uttar Pradesh at 9,908 seats and Telangana at 8,490 seats.

The same data suggests that southern states account for more than a third of all medical seats in India, at around 39 per cent, but the merit lists can only be prepared on the basis of NEET-UG results.

Under the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act 2019, institutions are prohibited from conducting their own entrance exams, and admission is based on the All India Rank (AIR) secured in NEET-UG.

The NMC oversees counselling sessions, where seats are allocated based on merit and candidate preferences, for 15 per cent of state seats, central institutes, and deemed universities.

Counselling for the remaining 85 per cent state quota seats and private colleges is managed by respective state medical boards, making their own merit lists using NEET-UG scores.

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the Agnipath scheme is an example of necessary reforms undertaken by the Army and accused the opposition of playing politics over the recruitment process aimed at keeping the average age in armed forces young.

IMAGE: Prime Minister Narendra Modi pays tribute to the heroes of the Kargil War on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas at Kargil War Memorial in Kargil, Ladakh on Friday. Photograph: ANI Photo

In his address on Kargil Vijay Diwas in Drass to mark the 25th anniversary of victory in Kargil war, Modi said some people were playing politics over a sensitive issue related to national security and rubbished claims that the Agnipath scheme was launched to save pension money.

"The aim of Agnipath is to make the forces young...The aim of Agnipath is to keep the armies continuously fit for war," he said.

"Unfortunately, such a sensitive issue related to national security has been made a subject of politics by some people. Some people are playing politics of lies for their personal interests even on this reform of the army," he said.

The prime minister said Angipath scheme is an example of necessary reforms done by the army.

"For decades, there have been discussions in Parliament and various committees on making the armed forces younger. The average age of Indian soldiers being higher than the global average has been a matter of concern," he added.

He said this issue was raised in many committees for years but the will to resolve this national security challenge was not shown earlier.

"The country has addressed this concern through the Agnipath scheme," he said.

Hitting out at the opposition, Modi said, "These are the same people who weakened our forces by committing scams worth thousands of crores in the forces."

He said these people did not want the Indian Air Force to get modern fighter jets and they had 'made preparations to lock the Tejas fighter plane in a box'.

The prime minister also rubbished the claims that Agnipath scheme was launched to save pension money.

"Some people are also spreading the misconception that the government has come up with this scheme to save pension money. I want to ask such people, the question of pension for today's recruits will arise after 30 years.Why would the government take a decision today," he asked.

Modi said his government has respected the decision taken by the forces as 'for us the security of the country is paramount, not politics'.

"Those who are misleading the youth of the country...history is witness to the fact that they do not care about the soldiers. These are the same people who lied about One Rank One Pension by showing Rs 500 crore. It is our government which implemented One Rank One Pension and gave more than Rs 1.25 lakh crore to ex-servicemen," he added.



Pak has not learnt any lessons from history: Modi

Asserting that the evil designs of the enemy will not be allowed to succeed, Modi said Pakistan has not learnt any lessons from history and continues to wage a proxy war in the garb of terrorism to stay relevant.

The prime minister paid homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty,

He also attended a 'shraddhanjali samaroh' and heard the 'Gaurav Gatha', briefing on Kargil War by non-commissioned officers and visited Amar Sansmaran, and Hut of Remembrance here. He also visited the Veer Bhoomi.

The prime minister slammed Pakistan, saying it has always faced defeat in the past.

"Pakistan has not learnt anything from its past and has continued to wage war in the garb of terrorism and proxy wars to stay relevant," he said.

The remarks come in the backdrop of surge in terror incidents in Jammu region.

Modi, however, asserted that the nefarious intentions of terrorists will never be fulfilled.

"Our bravehearts will crush all terror attempts," he added.

Paying tributes to the soldiers, Modi said the sacrifices made by the soldiers are immortal.

"Kargil Vijay Diwas reminds us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal. Even though months, years, decades and centuries pass by, the lives laid down to protect the nation's borders cannot be erased. The nation is forever indebted and deeply grateful to the mighty superheroes of our armed forces," Modi added.

Recalling the days of Kargil war, Modi said he was fortunate to be amidst the soldiers back then, and that he still remembers how the soldiers carried out a difficult operation at such a height.

"I salute the brave sons of the country who made the supreme sacrifice to protect the motherland," he said.

In Kargil, we not only won the war, we presented an incredible example of truth, restraint and strength, the PM said.

Modi said India was making all efforts to maintain peace with its neighbour, but Pakistan showed its true colours.

"However, falsehood and terror were brought down to their knees by truth," he added.

"Today, I am speaking from a place where masters of terror can hear my voice directly. I want to tell patrons of terrorism that their nefarious designs will never succeed," he said, adding, 'our bravehearts will crush terrorism and enemy will be given a befitting response'.

The prime minister also said that India will overcome all the challenges in the way of development of Ladakh, and Jammu and Kashmir.

Modi said the abrogation of Article 370, which was done on August 5, 2019, will complete five years next month, and J-K of today is talking about a new future full of dreams. Ladakh was carved as a UT out of the erstwhile state of J-K.

Giving examples of progress in J-K, he mentioned holding G20 meetings in the UT, government's focus on infrastructure development and tourism, opening of cinema halls, and allowing Shia mourning procession in the Islamic month of Muharram after three-and-a-half decades.

"This heaven on earth is swiftly moving in the direction of peace and prosperity," the Modi added.

Underlining the developments taking place in the Ladakh, the PM said through the Shinkun La Tunnel, the union territory will remain connected with the whole country throughout the year in every season.

Modi witnessed the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project in Ladakh virtually at the event.

Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1 km long Twin-Tube tunnel to be constructed at around 15,800 feet on the Nimu-Padum-Darcha Road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh.

"This tunnel will open doors of new possibilities for the development and better future of Ladakh," he said.

Congratulating the people of Ladakh, Modi said the tunnel will further make their lives easier as the numerous hardships faced by them due to the region's extreme weather will be eased.

Underlining the government's efforts to boost ease of living and provide more services for the people of Ladakh, the PM mentioned an approximate six-time increase in the budget from Rs 1,100 cr to Rs 6,000 cr in the last five years.

Emphasising the importance of upgrading military technologies, he said in the changing global scenarios, defence force need latest weapons and equipment along with a modern working style and arrangements.

Modi said the defence sector had felt the necessity to upgrade in the past as well, 'but unfortunately, this issue was not given much importance'.

"However, in the last 10 years, defence reforms have been prioritised, making our forces more capable and self-reliant," he added.

He said today a major stake in defence procurement is being given to the Indian defence industry, adding that 25 per cent has been reserved for the private sector in the defence and research development budget.

"As a result of these efforts, India's defence production has crossed 1.5 lakh crore. Today, India is making its mark as an arms exporter as well, contrary to its past image of a country that was counted as an arms-importing one," he said.

Modi expressed happiness that armed forces have now decided to stop importing more than 5,000 weapons and military equipment.

Concluding his address, he said the victory in Kargil was not the victory of any government or any party.

"This victory belongs to the country, this victory is the heritage of the country. This is a festival of pride and self-respect of the country," he added.

LG of Ladakh, Brig (retd) B D Sharma, Union Minister of State for Defence, Sanjay Seth, Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Anil Chauhan, and the Chiefs of the three armed forces were present on the occasion.
The police have filed a chargesheet against seven accused in connection with the Porsche car accident case, including the parents of a minor boy who was allegedly behind the wheel, in a Pune court, more than two months after the fatal crash, an official said on Friday.

IMAGE: The Porsche car that was involved in the accident in Pune, Maharashtra. Photograph: ANI Photo

The 900-page chargesheet, submitted on Thursday in a sessions court, has excluded the 17-year-old boy, whose case is being handled separately by the Juvenile Justice Board, while the seven accused have been charged under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy and causing disappearance of evidence, among others.

The high-end car allegedly driven by the minor under the influence of alcohol knocked down two motorbike-borne IT professionals originally hailing from Madhya Pradesh, one of them a woman, in Pune's Kalyani Nagar area in the wee hours of May 19, killing them.

The boy's father, Vishal Agarwal, is a prominent builder.

"We have filed a 900-page chargesheet against seven accused, including the parents of the minor, two doctors and a staffer from Sassoon General Hospital and two middlemen, in a Pune court on Thursday," said Shailesh Balkawade, Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime).

The boy's parents and two Sassoon General Hospital doctors -- Ajay Taware, then-HOD of the forensic medicine department, and Dr Shrihari Halnor -- and one Atul Ghatkamble, a staffer at the Maharashtra government-run medical facility, are accused of swapping the blood samples of the minor with those of his mother after the crash.

The juvenile's blood samples were replaced with those of his mother to evade detection of alcohol content.

Two other accused -- Ashpak Makandar and Amar Gaikwad -- acted as middlemen between the boy's father and the doctors to facilitate financial transactions to swap the blood samples, according to the chargesheet.

The voluminous police document contains statements from 50 witnesses.

Additional commissioner of police Balkawade said the chargesheet contains a crash impact analysis report, technical evidence, forensic laboratory and DNA reports.

The police had prepared a crash impact analysis report of the accident with the help of a forensic expert.

The purpose of the report is to correlate the impact of the Porsche car on the motorbike involved in the accident and also correlate with injuries of the IT professionals who died.

Last month, the police had submitted the final report to the JJB detailing all evidence against the 17-year-old boy in the car crash case.

While the minor boy's parents are still in jail, he was released from an observation home in Pune following a Bombay High Court order late last month.

Besides the main case related to the crash, the police had slapped two more cases -- one against owners and staffers of Cosie restaurant and Hotel Blak Club, where the teenager allegedly consumed liquor before the accident, and also the father of the juvenile under sections 75 and 77 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.

While section 77 of the JJ Act deals with supplying a child with intoxicating liquor or drugs, which was applicable to the owner and managers of the two establishments, section 75 of JJ Act deals with punishment for cruelty to child. The section 75 applies to the boy's father as he gave his son the car despite knowing the boy did not have a driving license, thus endangering his life.

He also allowed his son to party even while knowing he drinks alcohol.

The second case was registered against the father and the grandfather of the minor for allegedly kidnapping and confining their family driver and then threatening and pressuring him to tell the police that he was behind the wheel at the time of the crash.

The police, after obtaining blood reports and finding they were manipulated, added IPC Sections 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 120B (criminal conspiracy), 467 (forgery of valuable security), 213 (taking gift, etc to screen an offender from punishment) and 214 (offering gift or restoration of property in consideration of screening offender) to the original offence lodged against the minor.

The original offence was registered under section IPC sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 304A (causing death by negligence), 279 (rash driving) and relevant sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.
Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Sunil Kumar Singh was expelled from the Bihar legislative council on Friday, following an incident of unruly behaviour in the House earlier this year.

IMAGE: RJD leader Sunil Singh (second from right) leaves the state assembly after being expelled from the legislative council for mimicking Chief Minister Nitish Kumar during the monsoon session, in Patna, July 26, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

The motion for Singh's expulsion was passed by voice vote, a day after the ethics committee submitted its report to acting chairman Awadhesh Narain Singh.

Singh, considered close to RJD president Lalu Prasad and his family, was charged with raising slogans against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on February 13, during a heated exchange in the House.

He has also been charged with "insulting the chief minister by mimicking his body language" and, upon appearing before the committee last month, had questioned the competence of its members.

In addition to Singh's expulsion, another RJD Member of the Legislative Council, Mohd Qari Sohaib, who also engaged in disruptive behaviour on the same day, has been suspended for two days.

The report revealed that Sohaib had expressed regret for his actions during the inquiry, whereas Singh remained defiant.

This decision came on the final day of the monsoon session, and Singh's suspension will take effect when the House reconvenes.

Anticipating trouble for Singh, who also heads Bihar State Cooperative Marketing Union, RJD legislators, including Opposition Leader Rabri Devi, arrived at the House wearing black badges to protest.

Talking to reporters outside the House prior to his expulsion, Singh criticised the chief minister, calling him a "vindictive" person who hounded out his critics even if they happened to be his allies.

"You need to look no further than Samrat Choudhary," said the RJD leader, citing the example of the Deputy CM who has been replaced as state Bharatiya Janata Party chief by a cabinet colleague Dilip Kumar Jaiswal.

However, BJP national media co-convenor Sanjay Mayukh, who is also an MLC, claimed that Choudhary's replacement was "in line with the party's policy of one person being allowed to hold only one post".

Following Singh's expulsion, Rabri Devi, a former CM, denounced the action as a "murder of democracy" and a "dark chapter in history".

She questioned whether the House would dare take action against Kumar, who had allegedly threatened to "destroy" Singh during the heated exchange.

Ashok Kumar Pandey, an RJD MLC and Ethics Committee member, claimed that although the report stated unanimous recommendations, the proceedings were never shared with the committee despite repeated requests.

Chairman Ram Bachan Rai, a Janata Dal-United MLC, was unavailable for comment on this allegation.

Replying to a query on the way forward, Rabri Devi said a decision will be taken by the RJD supremo, who is her husband, and son Tejashwi Yadav, who is the leader of the opposition in the assembly.

Singh also claimed the CM had an axe to grind because "I have been consistently questioning his government, declining offers to switch over to his camp".

The expelled MLC, who had been his party's chief whip, also alleged that the Ethics Committee report was "full of falsehoods".

"I am accused of mimicking the CM. Let them first declare that mimicry is not allowed in the House. And the allegation that I had likened myself to a district magistrate and told Committee members that they were like ADMs who could not question me, is a blatant lie," claimed Singh

When the House re-assembled for the post-lunch session, the opposition MLCs requested that Singh be given "at least one opportunity to defend himself".

The request was, however, turned down by the Chair with the observation that "the person concerned has ceased to be a member of the House. Hence, he cannot be called inside".

All the Opposition MLCs subsequently staged a walkout.
In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider the separate pleas of opposition-ruled Kerala and West Bengal, alleging the denial of assent to bills passed by the respective legislative assemblies.

IMAGE: The Supreme Court of India. Photograph: Ishant/ANI Photo

Kerala also alleged that Governor Arif Mohammed Khan referred certain bills to President Droupadi Murmu and those were yet to be cleared.

Taking note of the pleas, the top court issued notices to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and the secretaries of Kerala Governor Khan and his West Bengal counterpart C V Ananda Bose and sought their replies within three weeks.

The bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justice J B Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra also directed the Trinamool Congress-led West Bengal government to make the home ministry a party to the petition.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Democratic Front government of Kerala moved the top court in March, alleging that certain bills cleared by the legislative assembly were referred to the president by the governor and these were still pending assent.

West Bengal, in its plea, alleged the governor was withholding assent on eight bills.

Senior advocate K K Venugopal, appearing for the Kerala government, said, "This is the most unfortunate situation."

The bench said, "We are issuing notices to the secretary to the governors and the Union in both cases."

Venugopal further said, "The bills are pending for the last eight months. I am challenging the reference to the president itself ... This is a confusion among the governors. They keep the bills pending. This is against the Constitution."

Senior advocate Abhishek Singhvi, appearing for West Bengal, said he would make the Centre a party and file a written note to assist the court in deciding the plea.

He referred to instances of other states, including Tamil Nadu, and said the moment the top court fixed the cases for hearing, certain bills were either cleared or referred to the president.

Venugopal said there was a need for the top court to lay down guidelines on when the governors could return or refer the bills.

Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, also representing West Bengal, said on Friday morning that when the other side was informed the matter was coming up for hearing in the top court, the governor referred certain bills to the president.

"Although there is no official communication, we have come to know about the development," he added.

Kerala said its plea pertained to the acts of the governor in reserving seven bills, which he was required to deal with himself, to the President.

Not one of the seven bills had anything to do with Centre-state relations, it said.

It added these bills were pending with the governor for as long as about two years and his action 'subverted' the functioning of the state legislature, rendering its very existence 'ineffective and otiose'.

'The bills include public interest bills that are for the public good, and even these have been rendered ineffective by the governor not dealing with each one of them 'as soon as possible', as required by the proviso to Article 200,' the plea said.

The state government said on February 23 and 29, the home ministry informed it that the president had withheld assent to four of the seven bills -- University Laws (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2021; Kerala Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022; University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022; and University Laws (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill, 2022.

The Constitution is silent on how much time the president can take in granting assent to a bill passed by a state legislature and referred to the Rashtrapati Bhavan for presidential consideration or for denying consent.

Article 361 of the Constitution says the president, or the governor of a state, shall not be answerable to any court for the exercise and performance of the powers and duties of his office or for any act done or purporting to be done by him in the exercise and performance of those powers and duties.

West Bengal, in its plea, said the denial of assent without assigning any reason to the bills passed by the assembly was contrary to Article 200 of the Constitution.

The article provides for the process for a bill passed by the assembly of a state to be presented to the governor for assent. The governor may either assent or withhold assent or reserve the bill for consideration by the President.

'When a bill has been passed by the legislative assembly of a state or, in the case of a state having a legislative council, has been passed by both Houses of the legislature of the state, it shall be presented to the governor and the governor shall declare either that he assents to the bill or that he withholds assent therefrom or that he reserves the bill for the consideration of the president,' Article 200 states.

The bills awaiting consent of the governor are the West Bengal University Laws (Amendment) Bill, West Bengal University of Animal and Fishery Sciences (Amendment) Bill, West Bengal Private University Laws (Amendment) Bill, West Bengal Krishi Viswavidyalaya Laws, West Bengal University of Health Sciences (Amendment) Bill and the Aliah University (Amendment) Bill.

These were passed by the state assembly in 2022.

The West Bengal Town and Country (Planning and Development) (Amendment) Bill was passed in 2023.
Former United States president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday refused to debate with his Democratic rival and Vice President Kamala Harris until the Democrats formally decide on their nominee, whereas the latter said that she is ready for a debate.

IMAGE: US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers remarks at a press conference following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, DC, on July 25, 2024. Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

"You have been asking me about the debate and I'll tell you I'm ready to debate Donald Trump. I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10 debate," Harris told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on her return from Houston.

"He (Trump) agreed to that previously. Now here he is backpedaling and I'm ready and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage. And so I'm ready to go," Harris said.

Trump was declared the Republican party nominee at its convention in Milwaukee this month, Harris is all set to be declared the party's nominee at its convention in Chicago in August.

"Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee," Trump Campaign Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a late night statement.

"There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party -- namely Barack Hussein Obama -- that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone 'better'. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds," Cheung said.

Trump and US President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race over the weekend and was succeeded by Harris, had previously agreed to two debates on June 27 and September 10.

Biden's disastrous debate in Atlanta on June 27 ultimately led him to quit the race three weeks later. The September 10 debate was previously agreed to be hosted by ABC News. The June 27 debate was hosted by CNN.

Trump had told reporters early this week that he had agreed to a debate with Biden but was ready to debate Harris.

"But I want to debate with her and she'll be no different because they have the same policies. I would be willing to do more than one debate actually," he said, adding that he was not thrilled with ABC.

Meanwhile, Fox News Media has proposed a debate between Trump and Harris on September 17 in Pennsylvania.

'Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee, FOX News Media is amending our proposal for a debate this cycle. Given the race has changed, we'd like to request the opportunity to host a Presidential Debate between VP Harris and former President Trump,' Fox News Media said in letters sent to each campaign.

'We propose to host the debate in the state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, September 17, just as early voting is getting underway there and in other key battlegrounds. We are open to discussion on the exact date, format and location with or without an audience,' the letter said.

*****

Sexist, racist attacks on Harris 'disgusting': White House

The White House on Thursday described as 'disgusting' the increasing sexist and racist attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris which has intensified after she became the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic party.

"I think it's desperate. I think it's disgusting and I think it's a dog whistle. We should not forget that she is the Vice President of the United States. She should get that respect. She's been doing this job with the president for almost four years," White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at her daily news conference.

"She's a former Senator and has been a critical partner in getting the economy restarted and making sure that -- that we deal with the pandemic. And to hear that is, frankly, disgusting," Jean-Pierre said when asked about the increase in racist and sexist attacks against Harris, who is of both India and African origin.

It increased to such a level that the House Speaker Mike Johnson had to ask his Republican lawmakers to avoid such an attack.

"When you have the speaker of the House, obviously he's a Republican, and this is something that you all have reported, set up a meeting to tell Republican leaders to stop being racist, to stop being misogynist, to stop being sexist, I think that says a lot that they have to be told to not do that," Jean-Pierre said.

According to Politico, "House Republican leaders told lawmakers to focus on criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris' record without reference to her race and gender, following caustic remarks from some Republicans attacking her on the basis of identity."

At an election rally in North Carolina, former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had said Vice President Harris is 'unfit to rule' and described her as a 'radical left lunatic'.

"For three and a half years, Lyin Kamala Harris has been the ultra-liberal driving force behind every single Biden catastrophe. She is a radical left lunatic who will destroy our country if she ever gets the chance to get into office. We're not going to let that happen," Trump said on Wednesday as he unleashed a torrent of attacks against her.

*****

Attacking Harris on basis of gender or race is not helpful: Haley

Attacking Vice President Kamala Harris, presumptive nominee of the Democratic party, is not helpful, Republican leader Nikki Haley said on Thursday and insisted that she needs to be criticized based on her policies.

"It's not helpful. It's not helpful. I mean, we're talking about a liberal senator who literally has not accomplished very much and what she was given she didn't do much with. You don't need to talk about what she looks like or what gender she is to talk about that. The American people are smarter than that," Haley told CNN in an interview.

She was responding to a question on the attack on Harris based on the colour of her skin and gender.

"Talk about the fact that she doesn't believe in fracking. Tell that to the voters in Pennsylvania. Talk about the fact that she doesn't want to talk about paying down debt. She wants to increase taxes. Tell that to the American people. Talk about the fact that consumer prices have gone up 19.5% since Joe and Kamala were in office," she said.

"Talk about the fact that she's always sided with the Palestinian protests instead of our friend Israel. There are so many issues we can talk about when it comes to Kamala Harris. It doesn't matter what she looks like. It matters what she said, what she's fought for, and the lack of results that she's had because of it," Haley said.

The former Republican presidential candidate, who lost to Donald Trump in the primary race, said she was not surprised when Democratic nominee and incumbent President Joe Biden dropped out of the race, paving the way for Harris to be on the party's ticket.

"I wasn't surprised and I didn't take happiness in it. Through the whole campaign, I fought for mental competency tests. I wasn't doing it to be disrespectful. I wasn't doing it to be mean. I was doing it because I think it's not just Joe Biden. There is an issue that we have in DC where people will go into office and they won't let go. And then their staffers and their family keep propping them up and it's a problem for the American people," she said

"So, I never thought he would make it to the election. I always said a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris, and I think that's what's playing out," she said.

Haley, the former South Carolina Governor and US Ambassador to the United Nations, said the Democrats are very smart to put in a younger candidate.

"I think that that's what America has craved. But I think what you look at is they put in the weakest candidate they could put in," she said.

"You look at the fact that Kamala.. she had one job. That was to deal with illegal immigration and the border. She didn't do it. She was the most progressive Senator that we had next to Bernie Sanders. You can see it playing out, whether it's the fact that she didn't show up at Bibi's speech yesterday, whether it's the fact that she pushed for all this government spending, whether it's the fact that when she was in California, the most liberal state, there was no tax she didn't propose. There was nothing that she didn't want to see," Haley said.

"All of her, the things she's doing from not wanting fracking to not wanting oil drilling, all of these things are incredibly liberal. And she is much more progressive than Joe Biden ever was. So, the fact that they put in Kamala Harris, kudos for putting in someone younger. The fact that you put in one of the most liberal politicians you probably could have put in it's going to be an issue," Haley said.
Digital house arrest is a tactic where cybercriminals confine victims to their homes in order to scam them.

The offenders generate fear by making audio or video calls, frequently posing as law enforcement officers using AI-generated voices or video technology.

Image only for representation. Photograph: Kind courtesy Pexels.com

A 40-year-old doctor in Noida fell victim to an elaborate cyber fraud, losing around Rs 60 lakh over two days during which she was held under 'digital house arrest' by the fraudsters, officials said Thursday.

The accused, posing as officials of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), coerced her into transferring her money under the threat of a fabricated arrest warrant, they said.

Digital house arrest is a tactic where cybercriminals confine victims to their homes in order to scam them.

The offenders generate fear by making audio or video calls, frequently posing as law enforcement officers using AI-generated voices or video technology.

According to police, the complainant Dr Pooja Goel, who lives in Sector 77 in Noida, received a call on July 13 from individuals claiming to be TRAI officials.

The caller alleged that another phone number registered in her name had been used to purchase illegal obscene videos. They warned her that failure to transfer all her funds would result in an arrest warrant, the police said.

Sharing further details about the case, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Cyber) Vivek Ranjan Rai said, "The woman was connected (on call) to 'Tilak Nagar Police Station, Mumbai', where she was falsely informed about an FIR and arrest warrant related to the circulation of illegal pornographic videos linked to her name."

The scamsters escalated the situation by implicating her in a money laundering case investigation, he said.

"The callers instructed her to join a video call, during which they employed various threats, placing her under 'digital arrest'. They menaced her with potential harm to her and her family, including the abduction of her daughter," said ACP Rai.

The doctor complied with their demands and ended up transferring Rs 59,54,000 from her bank account to those of the fraudsters between July 15 and July 16, he said.

In her police complaint, Goel mentioned, "The fraudsters also have my Aadhaar card details and photographs which they can misuse. I request police to take action in the matter immediately."

An FIR was lodged in the matter at the Cyber Crime police station in Sector 36, Noida, on Monday.

The police said the unidentified suspects under sections 308 (2) [extortion], 319 (2) [impersonation], 318 (4) [cheating] of the Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita, and relevant sections of the IT Act.

The Gautam Buddh Nagar Cyber Crime Police Station earlier this month issued a detailed advisory to raise public awareness about the increasing threat of cybercrime, highlighting several prevalent scams and provided crucial precautions for citizens to avoid falling victim to these fraudulent activities.

The advisory warned of a specific scam involving calls received from unknown or international numbers on mobile phones or WhatsApp wherein the caller typically impersonates officials from the Customs Department, Narcotics Department, or CBI, claiming that the recipient's documents were found in a suspicious package containing drugs, documents, clothing, an Aadhar card, and a SIM card.

The police also urged citizens to immediately report cyber offences at 112 or 1930.
Agniveers will be granted reservation in government jobs in Uttarakhand upon their return after serving in the armed forces, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced on Friday, as the nation observed the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas.

IMAGE: The 3rd batch of Agniveer soldiers take oath during the passing out parade at Gaur Drill Ground, BRC, Danapur in Patna on June 4, 2024. Photograph: ANI Photo

Addressing a programme here to pay tributes to the armed forces personnel who fought valiantly in extremely harsh conditions to defend the nation's territory during the Kargil war in 1999, Dhami said legislation will be brought to extend the reservation.

"We will make provisions and bring an Act to give reservation to them in government services. We are working on this plan. We will make use of their skills and discipline in various government departments," he said.

The chief minister also announced that the aid extended to the kin of martyrs will be increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh.

"No sacrifice can be bigger than the act of laying down one's life to secure the country's borders. No grant or honour can be enough for this supreme sacrifice," he added.

Paying tributes to the soldiers who laid down their lives in the war, Dhami said the victory of a country in a war also depends upon the ability of the political leadership.

Apart from the brave soldiers, the credit for India's victory in the Kargil war also goes to the political courage and farsighted leadership of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he said

"The same is true of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under whose leadership the morale of the armed forces has gone up like never before," the prime minister said.

He cited instances like the implementation of the OROP to underline the prioritisation of welfare measures for the armed forces under Modi's prime ministership.

"Even today, he (Modi) is celebrating Vijay Diwas with our soldiers in the Dras sector," Dhami added.
Brattleboro, VT (05301)

Today

Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 41F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%..

Tonight

Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 41F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
BRATTLEBORO  A public safety initiative underway in Brattleboro involves data analysis to measure outcomes and resource sharing to stage effective interventions in the community.

Jim Baker, a consultant on the project working through the Vermont Agency of Human Services and the Department of Public Safety, provided an update on the project at the Select Board meeting Tuesday. His previous jobs included station commander in Brattleboro for the Vermont State Police, running the Police Academy, Rutland police chief and interim commissioner of corrections.

"I've been in the criminal justice field going on 50 years, in various roles in the state of Vermont," he said. "I have not worked in a community where I sense the depth of the trauma that I sense in Brattleboro. It's every six months that you have a major event in this community."

Jim Baker outlines governor's initiative on community safety BRATTLEBORO  Local focus groups and a summit with state officials are planned locally as pa

Baker was hired to help with the governor's "10-point plan." He previously said Gov. Scott Scott had become "concerned about acts of violence in the state and the reports back to him centered around substance use disorder challenges and mental health challenges in communities."

After state digital services staff tracked police calls and categorized them, communities especially challenged were identified. Baker's team also has worked in Bennington and Springfield as part of the project.

His efforts in Brattleboro began in September. Data helps show behavior tied to illegal drug activity and that leads to violence, he said.

Knowing the individuals who are in need of help or are harming the community is a big component of the project.

"Over the last three years, 20 people accounted for 5 percent of all the activity at the police department," Baker said, noting that not all of them are involved in crime. "And they're getting passed from one agency to another. There's not a level of accountability that needs to happen."

Baker said his team and the police department also look at non-criminal calls for services such as a suspicious person or vehicle in a neighborhood or someone is being a nuisance.

"Those become very important indicators of the climate in the community when it comes to data," he said.

Board member Peter "Fish" Case said he encourages people to report criminal and suspicious activity as he believes that will help show where the problems are in town.

More precise and accurate data allows police to become more strategic and potentially tap into additional funding, Baker said. Sharing data across sectors will improve accountability and allow partners to measure outcomes they're seeking, he added.

A group of organizations in the community have been meeting with Baker. He hopes to have them enter an agreement to become a collaborative and bring in training on how to create interventions for high-risk individuals.

'Making some strides'

Assistant Police Chief Jeremy Evans said the police department was down 10 officers last year. With two new officers, the number now is at eight.

"We have five people that are finishing their final weeks of training right now and will be patrolling on their own by the end of the summer," Evans said.

Over the last year, the police department's overall call volume has increased by more than 800. Evans said he doesn't see a specific reason for the uptick.

Having more resources has made a difference, as traffic stops went from 606 to 908 and foot patrols almost exclusively downtown increased from 650 to 844. Evans said the department has been able to check on sex offenders more often than before, too.

Data shows the majority of calls come from the Quality Inn, plazas housing Hannaford and Market 32, Brattleboro Food Co-op, Groundworks Collaborative, Great River Terrace, Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, Travelodge, Transportation Center and The Chalet.

"Whilst things are not rosy," Select Board Chairman Daniel Quipp said, "we can say that the police department is making some strides."

Hearing concerns from the downtown community, board member Franz Reichsman wanted to know what the town could do now to improve public safety.

"It's a tough one," Baker said. "But my role is not to create policy or give policy suggestions to the top. My role is to provide that technical assistance."

Data is used on a daily basis to deploy officers as effectively and efficiently as possible, Evans said.

Police Chief Norma Hardy, who walks downtown and speaks with business owners, said she's aware of the concerns and conversations are happening every day with the town manager to come up with solutions.

"I want people to understand that we are just as frustrated as a bunch of you are," she said. "We are just as busy as anyone thinks we are. We are trying to keep this town safe."

Other projects involve focusing on increasing child safety, finding ways to direct human services funding to help and potentially beefing up private security hired by the town.
Mass deforestation has plagued the country but its latest response comes with serious limitations, experts warn.

On a stifling July afternoon, hundreds of Cambodian officials gathered in central Phnom Penh to extol the importance of forests. Saplings, 40,000 in total, were given away for planting. Nationwide, hundreds of thousands more are expected to be distributed in the coming months.

In all, the plan is for 1 million trees to be planted this year alone with the aim of increasing Cambodias forest cover by 60% by the end of the decade, Minister of Environment Eang Sophalleth said in a speech to mark the Arbor Day event on July 10.

A tree is like an oxygen tank. It gives us air to breathe and helps us stay healthy, said Eang Sophalleth. The tree has also helped to make profit in Cambodia. Planting trees is like an investment for the younger generation.

Profit and trees have long gone hand in hand in Cambodia.

In 2023 alone, Cambodia lost 114,000 hectares of natural forest  equivalent to an area the size of Los Angeles  according to Global Forest Watch, an open-source data mapper. From 2001 to 2023, the country lost more than half of its total tree cover.

Left to right: Minister of Environment Eang Sophalleth and agriculture tycoon Mong Reththy hand Deputy Prime Minister Hun Many a sapling during a National Tree Planting Day event at the Ministry of Environment in Phnom Penh on July 10, 2024. (RFA)

A significant amount of that loss comes from Economic Land Concessions, or ELCs. These are often large tracts of state forest that the government sells or leases to developers, who then usually log valuable timber and convert the land into industrial plantations for crops like cashew, rubber and soybean sugar.

Environmentalists and human rights activists have long decried these concessions, which have rapidly destroyed forests and are frequently reported to stretch beyond their boundaries. Often, such concessions are accompanied by illegal logging that further degrades protected areas.

Instead of working with outspoken environmentalists to safeguard protected areas, the government has frequently clamped down on perceived critics. Just days before the Arbor Day event, ten activists with the environmental group Mother Nature were given unprecedented prison terms.

Rather than addressing the mounting threats to Cambodias dwindling still-standing forests, the government is doubling down on a reforestation strategy research has proven rarely survives in the long term.

We have to be really careful about not trading off these precious old-growth forests with newly planted areas because those new areas are not a certainty, said Lindsay Banin, a statistical ecologist with the U.K. Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. They may not survive. They may not grow well. They may not have that same diversity and complexity that these old growth forests have.

The great tree giveaway

Globally, tree plantings are a mainstay in government and private sector responses to climate change and deforestation. The number of organizations attempting tree planting has risen by nearly 290% in the past three decades, according to a 2021 study published in Biological Conservation.

This trend is also true in Cambodia.

In 2022, the government spearheaded a highly-publicized and rapid reforestation effort in Phnom Tamao Forest, just 40 kilometers from Phnom Penh. The protected area had been partially cleared to make way for a satellite city near the Kingdoms planned new airport. The clearance drew such extreme criticism that then-Prime Minister Hun Sen personally responded with a rare backtracking, canceling the project and ordering the reforestation. Regional reforestation experts, however, expressed major concerns over the tactics used, which they believed were more political than scientific.

Chan Dy of the Mong Reththy Group plants a sapling in a bulldozed section of Cambodias Phnom Tamao Forest on August 8, 2022. (RFA)

Even when taking into account these one-time tree planting efforts in specific forests, like Phnom Tamao, nothing compares to the purported scale of Cambodias new 1 million trees campaign.

At the opening day of the Ministry of Environments Green Sprouts tree sapling exhibition in Phnom Penh, Deputy Prime Minister Hun Many and First Lady Pich Chanmony toured booths displaying saplings, seeds, succulents and potted plants.

While the opening event was closed to the broader public, neckerchief-wearing scouts and camouflaged wildlife photographers competed for Pich Chanmonys attention while grinning Red Cross volunteers and provincial department officials vied to show Hun Many the tree plantings they had funded or saplings they had raised.

Tree planting, Hun Many said in his speech, will change the mindset of the Cambodian people to love trees. He emphasized the campaign has the full support of his older brother, Prime Minister Hun Manet, who succeeded their father, Hun Sen, after the national elections a year ago this month.

Trees are the most essential asset of the ecology system and play a very important role for the economy and the environment, said Hun Many, adding that planting trees will mitigate natural disasters, combat climate change and attract more tourists.

First Lady Pich Chanmony views the trees on display at the Ministry of Environments Green Sprouts tree sapling exhibition in Phnom Penh on July 10, 2024. (RFA)

Eang Sophalleth has been drumming up support for the reforestation initiative since last year, with some details trickling out over the course of a few public speeches and press briefings.

At a climate change summit in November, Eang Sophalleth stressed that only reforestation can save the planet from being burned by the increasing temperature.

All 25 provincial environmental departments would begin distributing 100,000 saplings annually, until at least 2030 with the aim of getting back 60% of forest cover. To track the reforestation, a new social media-like app would be developed by the Ministry of Environment for members of the public to upload information about their planted trees. The app has yet to launch, though it has been named Chakra.

I dont want to put the burden on the government to spend millions of dollars to do reforestations, said Eang Sophalleth during his speech. Lets give the trees free to the population to plant it, to take care of it.

While the Ministry of Environment signed off on the plans for the development of five new seedling nurseries, there is little concrete direction or explicit instruction  other than to give people saplings and ask them to download the forthcoming app in order to post about planting it. Designated reforestation plots have not been announced, nor has the full list of species being distributed been made accessible.

Watch urban development and forest encroachment in the Kampong Thom province unfold in this timelapse, crafted from Google satellite images captured annually from 1996 to 2022. (Google Earth)

Popular plan, poor track record

Studies have found an exceedingly low survivability rate among reforestations in the region.

Banin, at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, examined more than 170 reforestation sites in Southeast Asia and in a collaborative 2022 study found that nearly a fifth of planted trees die within the first year. This mortality rate rose to almost half of the trees dead in a decade.

A new sapling is not equivalent to a big old-growth tree, said Banin, explaining that old trees often create a diverse ecosystem around them over time, capture carbon at much higher rates and provide seeds for the next generation of trees.

An armed military policeman patrols a deforested section of a protected area in Preah Vihear Province on May 17, 2024 (RFA)

Forest defenders

The big bet on tree planting comes in lockstep with long-term, simmering forest issues across the Kingdom, exemplified by the sentencing of the Mother Nature activists.

Environmental destruction is blatant for everyone to see, said Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson, who founded Mother Nature Cambodia and who was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison at the same trial. Cambodia has seen, over the last three to four decades, a massive erosion, if not outright destruction of the environment  logging is of course the main one.

He called the tree planting campaign laughable.

Why do I say this is laughable? Well, because the first thing that comes to peoples mind is, what about the forests that are still standing? These are not being protected. These continue to be privatized under different schemes, Gonzalez-Davidson said. Why on Earth are we concentrating so much on replanting? We are not protecting what is standing.

As officials in Phnom Penh extolled their million-tree initiative, Cambodians defending their forests hundreds of miles away wondered what such efforts had to do with their work.

Spanning the borders of four provinces, Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary sprawls across more than 430,000-hectares of once-dense forest. Though classified as a protected area, the sanctuary has seen some of the highest levels of deforestation in the country.

Cashew farms and other cash crop plantations, some of them granted through ELCs, encroach on the borders of Prey Langs western most quarter in Kampong Thom Province. Elsewhere deep inside the forest, illegal logging has toppled massive old growth trees for steep profits.

New road construction leading into the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary captured in PlanetScope imagery between January 2020 and January 2021. Planet SkySat on February 5, 2021 then captured high resolution imagery of the new clearing, showing piles of logs and loaded trucks. While this clearing is outside of the sanctuary, some of the tracks from this clearing lead directly into Prey Lang. (Planet Labs / Annotations courtesy of Amnesty International)

Toch Khin, a member of the Prey Lang Community Network, has long been a part of the efforts to document deforestation within the sanctuary.

In late July, sporadic rain showers drenched Toch Khin as he patrolled the forest in an attempt to deter activities, like illegal logging and poaching, a relatively risky task that can often be at odds with local police and Ministry of Environment rangers.

Asked about the ministrys tree planting effort, Toch Khin looked genuinely surprised.

I have never heard of it, and I have never seen the ministry plant trees anywhere in Prey Lang, Toch Khin said. Here, trees are usually taken out. Not put in.

Edited by Abby Seiff and Boer Deng.
Campaigners say some are excluded on account of their birth date, while others can't afford huge college fees.

Hong Kong activists and supporters tear paper Chinese flags in a protest, against Hong Kong's new national security law, the Basic Law Article 23, recently approved by Hong Kong lawmakers, in London, March 23, 2024.

The British government should further expand its lifeboat British National Overseas visa scheme for Hong Kongers fleeing a crackdown on dissent and slash their university tuition fees in recognition of the ongoing threat to the city's promised freedoms, a London-based rights group has told parliament.

"It is crucial that the U.K. Parliament and government continue to monitor and respond to the situation in Hong Kong following the March 2024 passage of the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, commonly known as Article 23 legislation, which furthers the threat posed by the 2020 National Security Law to the most basic rights and freedoms in the city," Hong Kong Watch said in a briefing aimed at the new Labour government.

Citing the ongoing threat of surveillance, harassment and violence by agents and supporters of the Chinese state, the group said the British government "has a distinct role to play in addressing the deterioration of rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, responding to the needs of BNO Hong Kongers living in the UK, and protecting BNO Hong Kongers from the threat of transnational repression."

It called on the government to further expand the British National Overseas, or BNO, lifeboat scheme for Hong Kongers that was announced by the previous government in January 2021, prompting China to de-recognize the BNO passport in protest.

Defaced color photocopies of British National (Overseas) passports are displayed by pro-Beijing activists as they gather outside the British Consulate-General to protest against the use of the British National (Overseas) passport in Hong Kong, February 1, 2021, as a new visa scheme offering millions of Hong Kongers a pathway to British citizenship went live the day before. (Anthony Wallace/AFP)

The government relaxed the rules in April to allow people to apply for the scheme, which has seen more than 200,000 applicants to date, on arrival in the U.K.

But adults aged 27-45 are currently ineligible because they were children prior to the 1997 handover to Chinese rule, Hong Kong Watch said.

"Many Hong Kongers born between 1979 and 1997 ... are stuck in a loophole within the BNO policy: not old enough to have applied for BNO status prior to the handover, but not young enough to qualify under the November 2022 expansion," it said.

Hong Kongs growing diaspora

By the first quarter of 2024, 210,843 Hong Kongers had applied for the visa scheme, making the U.K. home to the largest diaspora of Hong Kongers in the world, excluding mainland China, the group said.

The government should also change the status of Hong Kongers to allow them to pay the lower tuition rates offered to British nationals at the country's universities, Hong Kong Watch said.

BNO visa holders from Hong Kong face "substantial barriers" to higher education because they are forced to pay international tuition rates, it said.

British students currently have their annual university tuition fee capped at 9,250 (US$11,950), while international students can pay as much as 37,500 (US$48,500) a year.

Residents from almost all British overseas territories have been eligible to pay the lower rate since 2007, but Hong Kongers lost that status at the 1997 handover, and must now wait five years before they can sign up as a domestic student, delaying their integration and hampering their access to higher-paid jobs, according to Hong Kong Watch.

The Hong Kong Student Alliance estimates that between 1,500 and 2,000 Hong Kongers in the U.K. are eligible to enter higher education annually.

RELATED STORIES

Hong Kong activists passport cancellation underscores slide into authoritarianism

Hong Kong exiles in UK and Canada lack access to billions of their savings

Hong Kongers need EU immigration lifeboat policies in the wake of Article 23

Travel first, then apply: UK further relaxes Hong Kong visa rules

High tuition fees

But prospective students told RFA Cantonese that the high tuition fees are prohibitive.

A Hong Kong secondary school student who gave only the pseudonym T for fear of reprisals said she is considering delaying university until she obtains permanent residency.

"We could afford tuition for two international students, but [my family] don't want to pay it because it's so much more expensive -- it's three times the cost," T said.

"If it's a matter of a gap of a couple of years, why pay three times the amount?"

Pet cat Miu Miu sniffs at a British National Overseas passport (BNO) before emigrating to Britain, in Hong Kong, China February 17, 2021. (Tyrone Siu/Reuters)

Alliance spokesperson Clark Leung said he knows of several people who are thinking of going back to Hong Kong to study, despite the ongoing ideological crackdown across education institutions there.

"Our position ... will of course be to continue to fight to get the government to grant home fee status and maintenance loans," Leung said. "British Nationals Overseas are considered British, but we have to wait five years."

Meanwhile, Hong Kong Watch said the new Labor government must continue to take China's failure to maintain Hong Kong's promised freedoms seriously.

"This involves not only publicly and privately condemning China and Hong Kongs egregious human rights violations in Hong Kong, but taking action by expanding safe haven for those who need to flee from political repression," Hong Kong Watch Chief Executive Officer Benedict Rogers said.

Rogers also called for sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, for measures to address the financial and transnational repression of Hong Kong "that is likely to increase under Article 23 legislation."

Translated by Luisetta Mudie.
Israel has claimed that the successor to slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has likely been "eliminated," while U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris called Tehran the greatest adversary of the United States.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on October 8 said that Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militant group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon, was an "organization without a head."

"Nasrallah was eliminated -- his replacement was probably also eliminated," Gallant told officers at the military's northern command center without providing details.

"There's no one to make decisions, no one to act," he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 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.

Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, while the European Union blacklists its armed wing but not its political party. Hezbollahs political party has seats in the Lebanese parliament.

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 are a mystery since an Israeli strike hit a suspected Hezbollah leadership meeting on October 2.

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.

Meanwhile, Harris told CBS TV's 60 Minutes program in an interview that she considered Iran to be the greatest adversary of the United States.

"Iran has American blood on their hands," she said. "And what we saw in terms of just this attack on Israel, 200 ballistic missiles, what we need to do to ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power -- that is one of my highest priorities."

Harris -- the Democratic presidential nominee who will face Republican Donald Trump in the November 5 election -- declined to speculate on whether the United States would take military action itself should proof be uncovered that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

Tehran has denied it is building such weapons and says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.

The comments came as the battered and bloodied leadership of Hezbollah suggested it might be ready to negotiate a cease-fire with Israel

Deputy leader Naim Qassem, in a televised speech, for the first time did not suggest that ending the war in Gaza was a precondition to reaching a truce with Israel in Lebanon.

Qassem said the group backed an effort by Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, to reach a deal to halt the fighting.

Late on October 8, the Syrian government said that seven civilians were killed in an Israeli air strike in Damascus. A war monitor said the strike targeted a building used by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah.

Israel did not immediately comment and the reports could not be verified.



The Israeli military said earlier on October 8 that it had killed another senior Hezbollah commander, a day after marking the somber anniversary of a Hamas attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people.

Suhail Husseini, who was responsible for overseeing the logistics, budget, and management of Hezbollah, was killed in a targeted attack on October 7, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

"Husseini played a crucial role in weapon transfers between Iran and Hezbollah," the statement said, adding that he was also in charge of distributing advanced weapons to the group's members and for its "most sensitive projects" that included operations against Israel.

The IDF said Husseini was also a member of the Jihad Council, the supreme military body of Hezbollah.

There was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah.

The Israeli announcement came after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets on October 7 into Israel, where President Isaac Herzog led a national moment of silence to mark the start of last year's Hamas attack, which started at Kibbutz Reim in the south of the country.

Hamas has been designated a terrorist organization by both the United States and the European Union.

In Washington on October 7, President Joe Biden condemned Hamas on the anniversary, while also stating again the U.S. administration's commitment to reaching cease-fire agreements to end fighting in both Gaza and Lebanon.

"On this solemn anniversary, let us bear witness to the unspeakable brutality of the October 7 attacks but also to the beauty of the lives that were stolen that day," Biden said in a statement.

In Jerusalem, relatives of the some 100 hostages still in Hamas captivity, out of a total of 250, gathered outside Netanyahu's residence and stood in silence as a siren wailed in a gesture of protest against what relatives say is the failure of the government to secure their loved ones' release.

The conflict in Gaza is still raging while Israel is now fighting on a second front in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.



Following the October 7 attack, Israel launched a military assault on Gaza that has killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which is run by Hamas. Some 90 percent of the population of Gaza has been displaced and large areas have been destroyed by Israeli bombardments.



The Israeli military said on October 7 that over the past year it has bombed more than 40,000 targets in Gaza, found 4,700 tunnel shafts and destroyed 1,000 rocket launcher sites.

Israel in recent weeks has been carrying out air strikes across Lebanon, including Beirut, and has staged a ground invasion into south Lebanon in its drive to wipe out Hezbollah's capabilities and leadership.

In the attacks, Israel killed Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and dozens of other leaders of the group.

On October 6, two senior Iranian security officials told Reuters that Ismail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force -- the overseas arm of the IRGC -- had also not been heard from in recent days since traveling to Lebanon.

Tel Avivs campaign against Hezbollah prompted Iran to respond by attacking Israel with a large wave of rockets that were largely shot down by Israeli air defenses without causing substantial damage, but the attack renewed fears of a larger regional conflict.

Gallant on October 6 threatened Iran that it might eventually find itself looking like Beirut or Gaza -- which has also been battered over the past year -- if Tehran attempts to further harm Israel.

With reporting by CBS and AP
It's half a world away from Moscow, but Venezuela's presidential election could be a nail-biter for the Kremlin.

Russian President Vladimir Putin may be watching closely when Venezuelans vote in the July 28 election, which pits authoritarian Kremlin ally Nicolas Maduro against the leader of an opposition group advocating for democracy and capitalism.



Ahead of the vote, Maduro was trailing in opinion polls by a wide margin to Edmundo Gonzalez, a 74-year-old former diplomat, as Venezuelans tire of a leader who has presided over deepening poverty and economic troubles during his 11-year rule.



A Maduro exit would jeopardize Russia's power projection in Latin America at a time when Putin is seeking to rattle the United States in the Western Hemisphere amid increasing tension in Europe over Moscow's war against Ukraine, where U.S. weapons are crucial to Kyiv's defense and which the Kremlin casts as a battle against the West.



Venezuela has provided Russia with diplomatic support over its invasion of Ukraine, and Maduro has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy while accusing Western countries of fueling the conflict.

Russia sent two warships to visit Venezuela earlier this month following a stop in Cuba, and Moscow also has warm ties with Nicaragua. The United States says such visits pose no threat, and they are widely seen as efforts to show force and emphasize that Russia has friends in the region.



"Much as Russia sees the United States encroaching on its own sphere of influence with NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, it sees the opportunity to do the exact same by fortifying partnerships with its historical and authoritarian allies in Latin America, namely Nicaragua, Cuba, and Venezuela," Henry Ziemer, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told RFE/RL.



Oil-producer Venezuela has been the most valuable of these alliances for Russia due to its resources and size, he said.



U.S. Ties



Gonzalez is the candidate of a united opposition whose driving force and power broker is Maria Corina Machado, whom Maduro barred from running in the presidential election after she overwhelmingly won the opposition primary.



Machado, 56, went to boarding school in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and attended the World Fellows Program at Yale University in 2009, one year before the late Russian opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. She periodically visited Washington until the government prohibited her from leaving Venezuela.



A free-market advocate, Machado has called for privatizing state assets and opening up Venezuela's economy to investment and has indicated she would would like to bolster ties with the United States. What role she might have in government if the opposition prevails is unclear.

Few opponents and observers believe Venezuela will hold a free and fair election or that Maduro will go quietly should he lose. In addition to barring Machado, he has curtailed the number of foreign election monitors. Earlier this month, he said Venezuela would plunge "into a bloodbath" if he loses.



"The problem isn't winning the election. It is getting Maduro to give up power. His regime has been signaling that they are not going to recognize the results," Armando Armas, an opposition member who said he was forced to leave Venezuela to avoid the risk of prison or assassination, told RFE/RL by phone.



Analysts say the socialist Maduro, 61, may fear arrest should he leave power. He has been accused of ordering the killings of opposition figures, torture, large-scale corruption, and drug trafficking, among other crimes. The International Criminal Court in The Hague has opened an investigation into his regime's violent crackdown on protesters in 2017.



Maduro "has every incentive to fight to remain in power regardless of the results," Will Freeman, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in a July 22 opinion article in the Los Angeles Times.

Thanks in part to a financial lifeline from Russia, he survived a "maximum pressure" campaign by the United States following the 2018 presidential election. Maduro claimed he won the election, which the opposition said was rigged. The United States was among many countries that did not recognize the declared result.



Then-U.S. President Donald Trump imposed far-reaching sanctions on Venezuela and its oil industry, a key source of government revenue, in an effort to push Maduro out. The United States and dozens of other countries recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido after he cited the constitution and claimed to be interim president in January 2019, but Maduro held on.
I was in Strasbourg last week to witness the opening of the new session of the European Parliament. I had been to the Parliament many times, but never on the opening day, and it was on my wish list.

The whole European project is an extraordinary exercise in democracy that has made Europe prosperous and peaceful since the original Coal and Steel agreement was agreed in 1951. That initiative to prevent further wars and integrate the nations of Europe became the European Economic Community by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. The EEC became the EC, the European Community, in 1993 with the Treaty of Maastricht, and in 2009 the EC formally became the European Union. The EU has certainly been the making of Ireland, taking us from third-world status to being one of the most prosperous countries in the world.

The initial aim of the Coal and Steel agreement was to prevent another war between France and Germany. The border between these countries moved a lot in the early half of the twentieth century, with Strasbourg part of Germany during World War Two. The European Parliament moves from Brussels to Strasbourg for one week in every month, a complicated exercise that nevertheless is part of the agreement that brought peace to all of Europe. It might look unwieldy, and it is a tiring trip for staff and MEPs every month, but it is symbolically important in that it recognises the historical context of Strasbourg.

Anyone can visit the Parliament, but I was lucky to have been invited to the opening session, and to have a seat in the gallery above the President. Guests sitting there were able to see the 720 members file in to the chamber.

The session began with members and visitors standing for the playing of the EU anthem, Beethovens Ode to Joy. It was a spine-tingling moment, a visible show of unity from 720 elected representatives from 27 countries. Instead of fighting wars, they will spend the next five years debating and negotiating as each one attempts to be a voice for the people who sent them there. It is a place of consensus; not everybody will get everything they want. There are 450 million citizens represented by the EP, so it is impossible to keep everybody happy. But the overall focus of the Parliament, rooted as it is in social justice and fairness, means a lot of things can be and are delivered by MEPs that work hard and network well. It is a place of co-operation, not of shouting and posturing, but I think our new MEPs know that already. I wish them well.
Agriculture News: Department of Horticulture Wins National Award

Government of Nagaland, has been honored with another National Award



Agriculture News: The Department of Horticulture, Government of Nagaland, has been honored with another National Award for 'Promotion of Best Horticulture Farming and Products' at the recently concluded International Agriculture and Horti Expo, according to the Directorate of Information and Public Relations (DIPR).

The Expo, held at Pragati Maidan, New Delhi, from July 20 to 22, 2024, was a yearly event organized by the NNS Media Group. It showcased the best advancements in agriculture and horticulture from across the country.

Advertisement

The department was represented by three officials and a representative from Entrepreneurs Associates, underscoring their collaborative spirit and commitment to horticultural excellence. They showcased products from homegrown brands, including perilla seeds, Dey Naga King Chilli, sumac powder, and candied mango and plum.

The Department also highlighted a range of farm-fresh produce, including chayote, yam, pumpkin, birds eye chili, large cardamom, dragon fruit, pineapple, plum, pomelo, and passion fruit, intending to promote organic products from local farmers. Additionally, they showcased three GI-tagged crops, including the Naga King Chilli, at the expo.

(For more news apart from Agriculture News, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman)
Honoring the Heroes of Kargil: A Tribute to Their Courage and Sacrifice

The Kargil War of 1999, a fierce conflict between India and Pakistan,



Kargil Diwas: The Kargil War of 1999, a fierce conflict between India and Pakistan, highlighted remarkable acts of bravery and sacrifice. Among the many valiant soldiers, Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey, Grenadier Yogendra Singh Yadav, Rifleman Sanjay Kumar, and Major Rajesh Adhikari are particularly noted for their extraordinary courage and unwavering dedication.

Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey (1/11 Gorkha Rifles)

Advertisement

He showed exceptional leadership and bravery in the Batalik sector. Pandey was renowned for his determination and commitment to the Indian Army besides his ambition from the start to earn the Param Vir Chakra, India's highest military honor.

During the Kargil War in 1999, his battalion was assigned a crucial mission of clearing enemy positions. Amidst intense enemy fire, he spearheaded multiple assaults on enemy bunkers. Even after sustaining severe injuries, he persisted in leading his troops with steadfast determination. His relentless efforts were pivotal in capturing Jaubar Top and Khalubar Hill. Though he ultimately succumbed to his injuries, his exceptional bravery was honored posthumously with the Param Vir Chakra.

Lieutenant Manoj Kumar Pandey (1/11 Gorkha Rifles)

Advertisement

At the age of 19 years old, he displayed remarkable bravery during the assault on Tiger Hill. Born in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, Yadav was a member of the Ghatak Platoon tasked with capturing crucial enemy bunkers situated on a steep cliff.

As Yadav and his platoon ascended the cliff, they faced intense enemy fire. Despite being struck by multiple bullets, he pressed on, reaching the first bunker and neutralizing the enemy with a grenade. This heroic act allowed his platoon to advance. Yadav then moved on to destroy a second bunker, further crippling the enemys defenses. His extraordinary courage and selflessness were recognized with the Param Vir Chakra, making him one of the most celebrated heroes of the conflict.

Rifleman Sanjay Kumar

Advertisement

Rifleman Sanjay Kumar of the 13 JAK Rifles displayed remarkable bravery at Point 4875, embodying an indomitable spirit. Born in March 1976 in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh, Kumar volunteered as the leading scout during an assault on a key enemy position. As the attack progressed, heavy enemy fire halted the advance.

Realizing the critical situation, Kumar charged the enemy position despite severe injuries. In intense close-quarters combat, he eliminated several enemy soldiers and captured a machine gun, using it to fire upon the retreating enemy. His fearless actions galvanized his comrades to continue the assault, ultimately securing the position. For his extraordinary valor, Rifleman Sanjay Kumar was awarded the Param Vir Chakra.

Major Rajesh Adhikari (18 Grenadiers)

Advertisement

Major Rajesh Adhikari played a crucial role in the capture of Tololing through his exceptional leadership and bravery. Born in December 1970 in Nainital, Uttarakhand, Adhikari led his company in a bold assault on a heavily fortified enemy position. Despite being injured by enemy fire, he continued to lead his troops with strategic precision.

His quick thinking and resolute determination were vital in breaching the enemys defenses. Adhikari personally led the charge, engaging in close combat and neutralizing key enemy positions. Though he ultimately succumbed to his injuries, his heroic efforts were honored with the Maha Vir Chakra, Indias second-highest military award.

Captain Vikram Batra

Captain Vikram Batra was an Indian Army officer who was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra, the highest Indian military decoration, for his actions during the Kargil War in 1999. Batra was killed while fighting Pakistani troops around Area Ledge, Point 4875, in the Kargil district of erstwhile Jammu and Kashmir.

(For more news apart from "Honoring the Heroes of Kargil: A Tribute to Their Courage and Sacrifice, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman)
Punjab Government Exposes Fraud Worth Rs 4,044 crore, Details Inside

Two companies cheated by showing gold bills

Punjab Bogus Bill Fraud Exposed Latest News Today: The Excise and Taxation Department of the Punjab government has exposed 303 such firms or companies that committed fraud of Rs 4,044 crores by showing bogus bills related to the purchase and sale of iron. 206 of these firms were registered with the Center while 11 were related to Punjab and 86 to other states. These companies were running from many areas including Ludhiana, and Mandi Gobindgarh. Notably, These firms were registered only some time back.

This claim has been made by Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema in a press conference. He said that the registration of all the firms in Punjab has been cancelled and a case has been registered against 11 people. While the Center is also going to take action, Rs 89 crores have been saved by directly blocking the firms registered with the Center. Now, the registration of all the firms will be done through an Aadhaar card so that there is no fake registration.

Advertisement

Two companies cheated by showing gold bills

Similarly, fake gold bills worth Rs 336 crore have been caught from a firm in Amritsar. They do not know where the gold was bought and sold. A fine of Rs 20 crore has been imposed on it.

On the other hand, the second company is from Ludhiana. It has cheated Rs 424 crore. A tax of Rs 25 crore will be charged on the company. He told that a big theft has been caught. Money will be recovered from them.

Advertisement

Fraud of Rs 533 crore by making servants, the owners

Finance Minister Harpal Cheema said that 68 such firms have also been caught whose registrations were in the name of others. In this, the owners were made employees or servants working in the company. The documents of the employees were misused while those people had no information about this. Fraud of Rs 533 crore has been caught in such cases.

(For more news apart from Punjab Bogus Bill Fraud Exposed Latest News Today, stay tuned to Rozana Spokesman)
Anandpur Sahib

The word Panthic is unfortunately colloquially used in a political context by sectarian forces to try and erroneously create a divide

The Indian National Congress decided to field me from the Sri Anandpur Sahib parliamentary constituency in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Sri Anandpur Sahib is steeped in history.

Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, situated in the historic city of Anandpur Sahib, is among the most revered places of worship for the Sikhs. On the day of Baisakhi, April 13, 1699, Guru Gobind Singh initiated his followers into the order of the Khalsa. The Guru requested those present to volunteer their heads to him. When five brave men, now known as the Panj Piare (five beloved ones), came forward to lay down their lives, the Guru instead baptised them with amrit (holy water). The city of Anandpur Sahib began life as Chakk Nanaki, and was founded by Guru Tegh Bahadur in 1665. His son and the tenth Master, Guru Gobind Singh, spent 25 years of his life in this city.

Advertisement

The constituency is also home to the notable city of Chamkaur Sahib. The Battle of Chamkaur Sahib was fought between the Khalsa Army led by Guru Gobind Singh and the imperial Mughal forces commanded by Wazir Khan in 1704. It is here that Guru Gobind Singh's two elder sons, Sahibzadas -- Ajit Singh and Jujhar Singh-- aged 18 and 14 years old, respectively, attained martyrdom while leading from the front.

Hindus and Sikhs alike revere the historic shrine of Naina Devi, just 20 kilometers from Anandpur Sahib. Similarly, Khuralgarh Sahib is one of the most prominent places for the Ravidasia community. Situated in Garhshanker, Khuralgarh Sahib is also called Charan Choh Ganga Sri Guru Ravidas ji. The constituency also houses the ancestral village of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh  Khatkar Kalanwhere a memorial stands in his honour. The constituency is also the crucible of the mighty Bhakra Nangal dam that Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru described as a temple of modern India.

Into these riveting currents of history and nationalism, I plunged headlong on April 15, 2019, after paying obeisance at the birthplace of the Khalsa. Right from the word go, my opponents started running a malicious and personalised campaign against me. The first attack was that I was an outsider, from Uttar Pradesh, since my surname 'Tewari' is found more in UP than in Punjab, who had just no business of contesting from a Panthic seat. Tewari is as much a common surname in Punjab as Pathak, Awasthi and Shukla. While the word panthic has a pervasive, inclusive and all embracing meaning, it is unfortunately colloquially used in a political context by sectarian forces to try and erroneously divide politics and political constituencies between the Sikhs and non-Sikhs.

Advertisement

What was conveniently swept aside was that this is Guru Gobind Singh's land who said: "Manas ki jat sabhe eke paihcanbo - recognise all of mankind as a single caste of humanity".

What was also ignored was that my late mother Dr Amrit Kaur Tewari, a respected doctor, was a Jat Sikh and that my father late Dr VN Tewari was a distinguished scholar of Punjabi and a nominated Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) who fell to the bullets of terrorists. He was the standard-bearer of Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat and had written a widely quoted book in the late 1960s that had established that the pre-eminent language of Chandigarh is Punjabi. It was buried in the sands of amnesia that I had been a Member of Parliament from Ludhiana earlier and had represented Punjab in the Union Council of Ministers.

The next attack came in the form of an anonymous highly defamatory and insidious video that was circulated on social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. The sinister video alleged that the petrol to burn Sikhs in Delhi in November 1984 had come from my late father's petrol pump. The video went viral in the constituency and across the world. The fact that my late father was assassinated on April 3, 1984, by terrorists at our residence in Chandigarh a full seven months before the horrendous and macabre orgy of violence that unfolded in New Delhi and the fact that we have never ever owned a petrol pump in three generations did not stand in the way of my opponents spreading lies. The police registered an FIR and arrested some disseminators of this malevolent video but the authors of it still remain at large.

Advertisement

With defeat staring my opponents in the face, they launched one final assault a day before polling. They faked my voice and put out another revolting video on social media platforms where I was ostensibly saying odious things about certain communities. I registered yet another FIR against the miscreants, though the producers and disseminators of this video still remain at large at the time of writing. All through this sustained assault, no social media platform took any responsibility for the dissemination of content on their platforms that could have brought my family and me to bodily harm in addition to whatever the political consequences could have been.

All through this Bacchanalia of odium and hate, I went about my campaign connecting with the people by looking deep into their eyes. However, in the eyes of the ordinary men and women, Sikh and non-Sikh alike, all I saw was love, care and compassion as I had seen during my earlier parliamentary campaigns in 2004 and 2009. They embraced me, blessed me as a human being surmounting all prejudices of caste, creed, religion and other forms of bigotry that divide us. No repulsive propaganda seemed to have had any impact on them whatsoever.

It once again reinforced what a Hindu father and a Jat Sikh mother had taught me and my younger sister in our growing up years in Chandigarh that the essence of Punjab is  Punjab, Punjabi and Punjabiyat. If there is truly a secular state in India, it is Punjab and I am honoured to be among the torchbearers of our composite culture.

Advertisement

Manish Tewari

Member of Parliament, Anandpur Sahib
July 26, 2024 UPDATE

A roundup of local and international news.

Newsflash

Newsroom, 26.07.2024, 20:01

DEFICIT  The European Council adopted on Friday decisions establishing the existence of excessive deficits for Belgium, France, Italy, Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia. In addition the Council established that Romania, which is under the excessive deficit procedure since 2020, has not taken effective action to correct its deficit and therefore the procedure should remain open, according to a communique of the European institution. As set in the EU treaties, member states deficit should not exceed 3% of their gross domestic product (GDP).

LOAN  The World Bank will grant Romania a loan of 600 million euros for development policies. The money will allow the application of reforms to strengthen the fiscal framework, including for a fair pension system, the promotion of green economic growth and the stimulation of private sector investments. According to the World Banks regional director for the European Union, this financing reflects the institutions confidence in Romanias ability to integrate inclusive economic growth with environmental protection.

AIR FORCE  The first class of Romanian Air Force pilots graduated from the European F-16 Training Center in Borcea, Romania, since its opening in November last year. We look forward to Romania opening up training to other regional allies and partners, especially Ukraine, the US Ambassador in Bucharest, Kathleen Kavalec, said on this occasion. The center, the first of its kind in Europe, was established with the participation of Romania, the Netherlands and the United States. The Royal Dutch Air Force has so far supplied 14 F-16 fighter jets, and the American company Lockheed Martin, which produced these aircraft, was also involved in supporting the center in Borcea. Ukraine has received F-16 fighter jets from several Western partners, and its military pilots are preparing to fly this type of aircraft.

SCHENGEN  Romania welcomes Hungarys unequivocal support for our countrys Schengen accession with its land borders, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said at Fridays meeting in Bucharest with his Hungarian counterpart, Viktor Orban. Ciolacu made this statement in the context of Hungary holding the 6-month presidency of the EU Council. In a post on a social network Ciolacu said that he discussed with Viktor Orban on topics of joint interest in the cooperation between the two states. The value of trade between Romania and Hungary stands at approximately 13 billion euros, so the two prime ministers agreed that there is unexploited potential in this sector. They also agreed to start the feasibility studies for an important project, the Budapest-Bucharest high-speed railway, a strategic project of regional interest, with an impact on the railway networks in the Central European region. Orban will next travel to Baile Tusnad, in central Romania, an area with a majority Hungarian population, to deliver his traditional speech at the Summer University there. (EE)
Russia and attacks on civilian infrastructure

Fragments of Russian drones destroyed by the Ukrainian defense have dropped again on Romanian soil, near the border with Ukraine

Photo: pixabay.com

Daniela Budu, 26.07.2024, 14:00

Fragments of a Russian drone were found in a town in Tulcea county (eastern Romania), near the border with Ukraine, after the attacks on Tuesday night on the civilian and port infrastructure in the neighboring country, the Ministry of National Defense has informed. Other drone debris reached the Romanian airspace the following night, when Russia resumed its attacks. The Ministry of Defense has specified that all areas where drone debris fell are outside inhabited areas and no infrastructure elements were affected.

The Chief of the Defense Staff, General Vlad Gheorghita, explained that the proximity of the conflict zone can generate such risks, but that every time detailed investigations and analyses are conducted, to exclude any danger. Vlad Gheorghita:

If fragments are found, we must know their origin. They are analyzed from a chemical point of view, from a spectral point of view. There are a lot of tests that need to be done, so that we can make sure that there is no danger either for the population, or for the environment, for anyone who would be involved in such an event.

During the two nights when foreign drones reached the Romanian airspace, the population in the area was warned by RO-ALERT messages, and the Romanian Air Force monitored and supervised the area. The Charge Daffaires of the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Bucharest was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he was conveyed the firm protest of the Romanian authorities against such acts. Romania condemns Russias irresponsible actions, stated the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luminita Odobescu.

Nicolae Ciuca, the Senate Speaker and leader of the National Liberal Party has stated that Romania is safe and when we discuss any kind of threat to our security, the most important thing we can do is to treat the situation with calm. We are in continuous communication and coordination with the allies, especially with the countries from NATOs Eastern Flank. Our army monitors all possible threats, Nicolae Ciuca wrote on social media.

For its part, NATO stated that it does not see in this incident any sign of any intentional attack by Moscow on the territory of the Alliance, but such actions are irresponsible and potentially dangerous.

According to a press release from the organization, NATO has intensified its surveillance and monitoring measures in the Black Sea region, including through aerial patrols. Romania has a 650 km border with Ukraine and in the last year it has reported several times the presence of fragments of Russian drones on its territory. (MI)
Oil edged lower on Friday and headed for a third weekly loss on China demand concerns.

Benchmark Brent crude futures dipped 0.4 percent to $82.03 a barrel while WTI crude futures were down half a percent at $77.93.

Oil prices received some support on Thursday as stronger-than-expected U.S. GDP figures raised expectations for increased crude demand from the world's largest energy consumer.

However, prices were coming under pressure today due to concerns about a slowdown in Chinese growth and expectations of a ceasefire deal for the Gaza war and related violence in the Middle East.

Data released earlier this week showed China's apparent oil demand fell 8.1 percent to 13.66 million barrels per day in June, prompting concerns about consumption.

Elsewhere, United States Vice President Kamala Harris and the presumptive Democratic nominee after President Joe Biden's decision to end his re-election campaign has pledged not to stay "silent" about suffering in Gaza, raising hopes of an end to the war.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington on Thursday, Harris said that her commitment to Israel's existence and security was "unwavering", but that "far too many" innocent civilians had been killed in the war.

Harris said that she had urged Netanyahu to agree to a U.S.-backed ceasefire proposal that would ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Market Analysis
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it is time to end the war in Gaza.

In her White House meeting with the Israeli leader, Harris expressed concern regarding civilian casualties and discussed the need to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

She also expressed her concern about actions that undermine stability and security in the West Bank, such as extremist settler violence and settlement expansion by Israel.

Netanyahu met Harris after holding talks with President Joe Biden, but the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee spoke in a tougher tone than Biden did in what she described as "frank and constructive" talks.

"Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating," she told reporters after the meeting.

"The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent," she added.

Harris and Netanyahu discussed developments in Gaza and the ongoing negotiations on the ceasefire and hostage release. The Vice President echoed President Biden in expressing the need to close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza, the White House said in a readout of the meeting.

.

"The Vice President condemned Hamas as a brutal terrorist organization as well as individuals associating with Hamas, noting that pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and must not be tolerated."

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Apollo Global Management, Inc. (APO) announced Friday its agreements to simultaneously acquire International Game Technology PLC's (IGT) Gaming & Digital , as well as Everi Holdings Inc. (EVRI) in an all-cash deal that values the acquired businesses at around $6.3 billion on a combined basis.

In the pre-market activity on the NYSE, IGT shares were gaining around 19 percent to trade at $24, and Everi shares were gaining around 37 percent to trade at $12.52.

A newly formed holding company owned by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global will make the purchases.

IGT and Everi in late February had entered into definitive agreements, pursuant to which IGT would separate the IGT Gaming business by way of a taxable spin-off to IGT shareholders and then immediately combine such business with Everi.

Under the new deal terms with Apollo, the Apollo Funds will acquire IGT Gaming and Everi. Following closing, IGT Gaming and Everi will be privately owned companies that are part of one combined enterprise, which will be headquartered in Las Vegas.

Everi stockholders will receive $14.25 per share in cash, representing a 56 percent premium over Everi's closing share price on July 25. IGT will receive $4.05 billion of gross cash proceeds for IGT Gaming.

The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter of 2025. IGT shareholder approval is not required for the transaction.

IGT expects significant portions of the cash proceeds to be used to repay debt and to be returned to shareholders.

Italy's De Agostini S.p.A., the majority shareholder of IGT, has agreed to make a minority equity investment in the combined enterprise at the deal closure.

After selling the IGT Gaming to the Apollo Funds, IGT will change its name and stock ticker symbol, becoming a premier pure play lottery business.

IGT plans to release second-quarter results on July 30, while Everi will release its second quarter results no later than August 9.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
A few hours ahead of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, France's high-speed rail lines were hit by a series of fires, disrupting travel nationwide.

French state rail company SNCF said it is a "massive attack aimed at paralyzing the high-speed line network," and its Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines were damaged in the arson attacks.

"A large number of trains were diverted or canceled," it wrote on X and urged "all travelers who can to postpone their trip and not go to the station."

Thousands of customers will be affected with disruption expected through the weekend.

Eurostar said a quarter of its services will be cancelled until Monday.

The joint French-Swiss airport Basel-Mulhouse was evacuated and closed on Friday morning for safety reasons.

French transport minister condemned the "co-ordinated malicious acts."

Despite the disruption, the inaugural ceremony of the Olympic Games will go on as scheduled on the Seine River. At the Parade of Nations, thousands of athletes from participating nations will travel on boats through the heart of the city, waving to fans on the river bank.

The number of attendees at the opening ceremony has been cut short due to security reasons.

In the wake of the attacks, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin announced that security has been beefed up. 45,000-strong police force, 10,000 soldiers and 20,000 private security personnel have been deployed for the opening ceremony.

The Paris prosecutor's office said it has launched an investigation into the incidents that started overnight.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Friday, WesBanco, Inc. (WSBC) announced a merger agreement with Premier Financial Corp. (PFC), a deal that is set to be an all-stock transaction. Furthermore, the merger is anticipated to qualify as a tax-free reorganization.

As per the agreement, shareholders of Premier will receive 0.80 shares of WesBanco common stock for each share of Premier common stock they own. The total merger value is approximately $959 million, or $26.66 per share, based on WesBanco's closing stock price of $33.32 as of July 24, 2024.

Additionally, WesBanco has inked subscription agreements with investors to secure capital for the merger, including a $125 million investment from Wellington Management and other investors. In total, $200 million of WesBanco common stock will be issued. The capital raise is expected to conclude on August 1, 2024.

Once the merger is completed, the shares allocated to Premier shareholders are predicted to make up 30 percent of the combined company's outstanding shares, while the shares from the capital raise will represent 8 percent. WesBanco shareholders are expected to retain 62 percent of the outstanding shares of the combined entity.

The transaction will also bolster WesBanco's footprint by adding 73 financial centers primarily located in northern Ohio, as well as in southern Michigan and northeastern Indiana.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Eisai Co., Ltd. (ESALY.PK), and Biogen Inc. (BIIB) announced Friday that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use or CHMP of the European Medicines Agency has adopted a negative opinion on the Marketing Authorization Approval for the humanized anti-soluble aggregated amyloid-beta monoclonal antibody lecanemab as treatment for early mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease and mild AD.

Currently, Biogen shares are at $211.65, down 6.94 percent on a volume of 1,125,910 shares.

Lynn Kramer, chief clinical officer at Eisai said, "We are extremely disappointed by the CHMP's negative opinion...

Eisai will seek re-examination of the CHMP opinion and work with the relevant authorities as soon as possible.

Lecanemab is already approved in the United States, Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Israel, and is being marketed in the U.S., Japan and China.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
The Union County Public Health is investigating a case involving a Union County student, who has tested positive for tuberculosis.

The officials said that the Porter Ridge High School student is "following appropriate protocol for active pulmonary tuberculosis."

Meanwhile, authorities believe that at least 270 people may have been in contact with the student.

"While the community should be aware of this investigation, there is no immediate risk of problems related to this case, and there is no further risk of exposure at this time," said Dennis Joyner, Public Health Director.

"We urge parents to have their children tested if they have been identified as close contacts."

Authorities have offered free testing at Union County Human Services. Infected people would be provided with free medication and support.

"Communicable disease investigation is a regular activity for Public Health and our team is well-prepared to respond to situations like this to prevent further spread", Joyner assured.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Upcoming Mahindra XUV700 EV Coupe (XUV.e9) is likely to pack 80 kWh battery powering up to two electric motors with 200 km/h top speed

Testing for Mahindras INGLO platform based vehicles is going in full swing. We have managed to get our hands on spy shots of XUV.e8, XUV.e9 and BE.05 electric SUV engineering test mules across the country. The latest spy shots show the interiors of Mahindra XUV700 EV Coupe (XUV.e9) in full detail. Lets take a look.

Mahindra XUV700 EV Coupe

With electric vehicles taking more prominence than they ever did, more OEMs are taking the electric route. Mahindra is no exception and sells XUV400 in India. However, the company is on the verge of launching its INGLO platform-based born electric vehicles that will play a major role in Mahindras global expansion strategies.

In the recent past, we posted XUV.e9s interiors while it was loading on a plane, ready to be shipped abroad. For testing or for shooting TVCs, we presumed. But those test mules had a lot of testing equipment and were not very clear, showing fewer details about Mahindras upcoming electric coupe SUV.

The new spy shots, however, show XUV.e9s interiors in full clarity, revealing a lot more details we couldnt grasp with previous spy shots. For starters, we can see that Mahindra XUV700 EV Coupe (XUV.e9) shares a lot of its switchgear and almost all of its components with XUV700. This is not a bad thing as XUV700 is quite a feature-loaded offering.

Dashboard is the same as Mahindra XUV700s, but we get a new free-standing triple-screen setup that takes centre stage. Dual-zone climate control panel and AC vents, headlight control stalk, wiper control stalk, interior door trims, centre console, seats, armrests and other attributes are the same as those of XUV700.

What are the changes?

Apart from the new triple-screen layout that we mentioned above, there are a lot of new elements that these new spy shots show. For starters, there is a new twin-spoke steering wheel with an illuminated logo (Tata Motors vibes here). It is leather-wrapped and has horn pads at the ends for easy reach with thumbs (love it).

Centre console still retains the lovely physical infotainment dial from XUV700, but there is a new and fancier gear selector with Blue accents. There seem to be extra speakers with XUV.e9 as suggested by the grill at the top of door trims, but this might just be a non-functional pattern too. What will be functional, though, is a hollow space on the dashboard which will be populated by a large HUD in the future.

The illuminated logo we mentioned on XUV.e9 is likely to be specific to XUV.e lineup. This is a brand new logo, which looks an infinity. It is different than Mahindras Twin Peaks logo. So, we get old oval Mahindra logo for CVs, Twin Peaks for PVs, a new Infinity logo for XUV.e range and BE logo for, well, BE range of vehicles.

We also get a closer look at the leather seats as well as the fixed glass roof. Powertrains-wise, we expect Mahindra XUV700 EV Coupe (XUV.e9) to pack up to an 80 kWh battery and an option for dual motor AWD layout with around 200 km/h top speed. Launch is likely to happen in 2025 and will rival Tata Safari EV.

1 of 9

Also read  Mahindra BE.05 base model gets unique fascia
Packing touring and off-roading hardware, Himalayan 450 proves more versatility, but Guerrilla 450 strikes ease of use for daily rides

Ever since the Royal Enfield Guerrilla 450 was launched in India, this motorcycle has attracted a lot interest. Many buyers may be confused about choosing this or its bigger and more expensive brother, Himalayan 450. Off-roading or everyday rideability? Which will be a better fit in the on-bike garage theory? Lets take a look.

Guerrilla 450 Or Himalayan 450?

For many, motorcycles are much more than just a means of transport. They find a soul in these machines. One that reflects their character and personality. Generally, motorcyclists dream of a one-bike garage. One bike for all purposes. One bike that fills all needs and gaps. The one bike that does it all.

Royal Enfields Guerrilla 450 is a good candidate for this approach. Base model costs Rs 2.39 lakh (Ex-sh) and goes till Rs 2.54 lakh (Ex-sh) for top-spec model. Owing to its Roadster genre, it has a minimal design and weighs 185 kg. While Himalayan 450 weighs 196 kg, making it 11 kg heavier. Guerrilla 450 has a smaller 11L fuel tank as opposed to Himalayans 17L, which saves around 5kg in weight (1L Petrol = 775g).

But we get all the added extras with Himalayan 450 that makes it a mighty tourer and a versatile off-roader. Guerrilla 450 base variant is Rs 46,000 cheaper than Himalayan 450s base variant. It has to be noted that Himalayan 450 offers REs Tripper Dash as standard, something which is only available with top-spec variants of Guerrilla 450.

How different are they?

Guerrilla 450 is a lot easier to handle and manoeuvre in the city owing to its compact dimensions. For context, Himalayan 450 measures 2,245 mm long, 852 mm wide, 1,316 mm tall and has a 1,510 mm long wheelbase. Guerrilla 450 measures 2,090 mm long, 833 mm wide, 1,125 mm tall and has a 1,440 mm long wheelbase.

Himalayan 450s seat height is 825 mm and can be adjusted to 845 mm, while Guerrilla 450s seat height is a lot more accessible at 780 mm. Himalayan 450 has a higher ground clearance of 230 mm and Guerrillas is at 169 mm. While Guerrilla 450 will emerge as the easier and sportier motorcycle to ride, Himalayan 450 positions itself as a better tourer and off-roader.

Roadster or ADV Tourer?

For the one-bike garage theory, neither Guerrilla 450 nor Himalayan are optimum recipients. Guerrilla 450 simply lacks Himalayans touring and off-roading capabilities. Whereas Himalayan 450 is too cumbersome to be an easy-going daily rider with its weight and stance. We wish there was a decent middle ground between Guerrilla 450 and Himalayan 450 that can bridge the gap.

A custom motorcycle approach could be a solution for that. Instead of buying a Himalayan 450 and then modifying it, customising a Guerrilla 450 into a Scrambler comes out to be a lot more logical. Longer travel suspension, dual-purpose off-road tyres, REs official windscreen and underbelly protection and a rear luggage rack might be enough to transform Guerrilla 450 into a Scrambler. It has been noted that Royal Enfield strongly recommends against modifications from third-party components.

Also read  Royal Enfield Scram 650 (Interceptor Bear 650) design patented
Rachel Reeves is expected to reveal a 20bn hole in government spending for essential public services on Monday, paving the way for potential tax rises in the autumn budget. Labour sources said the blame lay with the Tory government, describing it as a shocking inheritance and accusing the former chancellor of presiding over a black hole and still campaigning for tax cuts.  Guardian

Britains plans to create advanced devices based on the mind-bending physics of the quantum world have received a 100m boost, in a move ministers hope will have a transformative impact on healthcare, transport and national security. Peter Kyle, the science secretary has announced funds to establish five quantum technology hubs across England and Scotland. They will work with industry and government to develop and commercialise devices and ultimately drive a new economy.  Guardian

Stellantis is considering putting Italian carmaker Maserati up for sale after shipments halved, triggering a 349m (294m) writedown on the brand. The owner of the Jeep, Peugeot and Vauxhall brands said revenues from its Maserati cars fell to 631m in the first six months of 2024, down from 1.3bn a year ago.  Telegraph

John Lewis has won approval for the first of its flagship housing developments after councillors shot down local opposition to approve the controversial scheme. The partnership has been granted permission to build 353 flats on top of a Waitrose store in Bromley, south-east London. Speaking at a planning meeting on Thursday, the development control committee chairman Alexa Michael said it was a very finely balanced case, but there was a large need for housing. The scheme passed with a vote of 10 against 5, with one councillor abstaining.  Telegraph

Britains accounting watchdog dished out a record amount in fines last year as it concluded a number of high-profile investigations, including into audits of Carillion and London Capital & Finance. The Financial Reporting Council, which oversees the nations audit and accounting firms, issued financial sanctions totalling 48.2 million in the year to the end of March, surpassing the previous record of 46.5 million set in the 2021-22 financial year.  The Times
Once upon a time, comics weren't considered "real" literature. Eternal gratitude for breaking that literary ceiling goes to Art Spiegelman, whose Maus (Pantheon, $25) won a Pulitzer in 1992, and to Gene Luen Yang, whose American Born Chinese (First Second, $14.99) was a 2006 National Book Award finalist. Nowadays, manga (Japan), manhwa (Korea), and manhua (China) continue to dominate the graphic market, and notable titles abound!

An extraordinary triumvirate--writer Pei-Yun Yu, artist Jian-Xin Zhou, and translator Lin King--present The Boy from Clearwater in two volumes (Levine Querido, $19.99 each). Exquisite art captures nonagenarian Tshua Khun-lim's remarkable life, defined by his unjust 10-year imprisonment during Taiwan's vicious White Terror (1947-1987). Book 1 consists of Part 1 (his idyllic childhood) and Part 2 (his brutal, unwarranted 10-year incarceration for joining a school book club). Book 2 collects Part 3 (his release and reentry into society) and Part 4 (another fresh start). The creative trio bears glorious witness to little-known tragic history by spotlighting an everyday superhero who survived--and thrives.

Artist/writer/adventurer Tessa Hulls presents Feeding Ghosts (MCD, $40), her complex debut memoir. Its 400 haunting, intricately drawn, densely filled black-and-white pages explore (and expose) mental illness, dysfunctional bonds, inherited trauma across three generations. In 2015, after decades of running from her "family's darkness," Hulls "embarked on an expedition into [her] family's past," set against a backdrop of Chinese history and immigrant diaspora. To understand her own story, Hulls began with "three paltry grandmother facts": "China, writer, madness." Her intimate, harrowing journey captures "three women who have crossed so many oceans, trying to carry each other home."

Historian Solomon J. Brager explores their complex ancestry in their vulnerably illuminating debut memoir, Heavyweight: A Family Story of the Holocaust, Empire, and Memory (Morrow, $25.99; reviewed in this issue). The graphic format suggests a literal piecing together of personal, familial, global histories. The title's function is (at least) two-fold: the titular Heavyweight is Brager's great-grandfather Erich Levi, a German boxing champion and Holocaust survivor; three generations later, Brager assumes the heavy weight of telling Erich's story and, consequently, their own as a transgender descendant.

Artist, author, and activist Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas began melding traditional North Pacific Indigenous iconography and modern Asian artistic influences in the late-1990s to create "Haida Manga." He returns to his spectacular hybrid artistry in JAJ (Douglas & McIntyre, $29.95) to brilliantly interrogate first contact between Europeans and the Indigenous people of his ancestral home, Canada's Haida Gwaii archipelago. JAJ has two meanings: "(1) one who decides (Hindi), (2) Johan Adrian Jacobsen." Both are haunting references: the deciders are invading Europeans, among them adventurer and ethnographer Jacobsen. Also remarkable is the ability to deconstruct and reassemble these pages into a stunning single image.

Japanese graphic master Susumu Higa's U.S. debut, Okinawa (Fantagraphics, $29.99), is a breathtaking compilation of two collections: Sword of Sand (1995), which highlights the onslaught of World War II in Okinawa, and Mabui (2010), which spotlights the post-war, ongoing U.S. military occupation. Translated by Jocelyne Allen, Higa's engrossing black-and-white panels are testimony to little-known history--with a universal warning of war's unfinished consequences. The simple clarity of Higa's line drawings of people are an effective contrast to more detailed backgrounds, as if a reminder that humanity needs no further embellishments.

Hyeon A. Cho's magical manhwa Your Letter (Yen/Ize, $20), begins with a too-recognizable scene of intense bullying. When Sori "quit being a bystander," she became the next pariah. Her transfer to a new school is initially daunting until she discovers the first letter taped under her desk. The first leads to a second and more, inspiring wondrous adventures, vital friendships, and a serendipitous surprise at book's end. In full-color, vibrantly expressive panels, Cho enchantingly transforms that somber opening into joyful beginnings.

Finally, fans of the New York Times' "Metropolitan Diary" will likely recognize artist Agnes Lee's minimalist, often whimsical illustrations in her debut novel, 49 Days (Levine Querido, $18.99), an evocative, mystical creation with little text, overflowing with unsaid feelings. Lee begins with a wordless spread marked "Day 1" on the left, an empty beach on the right. A backpack-wearing girl appears in constant motion, checking her watch, occasionally cursing. Days pass. Blues overlaid on black-and-white panels get replaced with brown, signaling flashbacks to youthful memories; panels tinged in sienna reveal a parallel narrative of a family in mourning. Gently, nudgingly, Lee intertwines past, present, and future over 49 days. --Terry Hong
Overcrowding has become a pressing concern in tier 1 and tier 2 cities in India. As urbanization accelerates and the population continues to surge, the demand for housing has also increased. This has eventually led to a lot of development in the residential areas. But in this densely populated scenario, the scarcity of well-facilitated and affordable housing prevails.

Finding a budget-friendly apartment for rent in Hyderabad can thus be a task in itself, but you need to remember that with the right strategy, it can be streamlined. You have to make full use of online portals, social media and all other resources at your disposal to find the right place. We have brought you a guide to ensure that you can accomplish this task and move into a comfortable apartment. Lets dive right into the guide for finding budget-friendly accommodation in the city of pearls:

Online Advertisements & Portals

There are many portals and websites where you can find apartments for rent in Hyderabad. You have to go to these portals and create a profile. You can search for accommodation options on these portals. Your search can be refined easily using the filters. Select the exact location, budget, and number of bedrooms, among other things that you need. This way, your search process will become easier.

Social Media

Social media is a hub for people looking for tenants and flatmates. All you need to do is find where to look. We have been so consumed by scrolling mindlessly that we have forgotten social media is about networking and not just influencing. There are Facebook and WhatsApp groups dedicated to local listings about apartments and PGs for rent in Hyderabad. You can get some great suggestions there, many of them without any brokerage involved.

Real Estate Agents

You can also find apartments with the help of real estate agents, but there is usually a brokerage fee involved. If you wish to consult them you should make sure you get in touch with someone who specializes in that locality.

Explore Less Expensive Localities

If you are looking for budget-friendly flats for rent in Hyderabad, you should research which locations are less expensive. Some of these localities include Gachibowli, Hitec City, Kondapur, Madhapur, and Q City. You can stroll around in these areas and look for boards and signs for PGs and apartments that are available for rent.

Be a Master Negotiator

In India, when you want something to fit into your budget, you have to negotiate until it does. Be it landlords or brokers, a bit of negotiating can go a long way. We dont just mean negotiating the rent; you can negotiate the terms and conditions, agreement tenure and the amenities included as well. What we mean here is do not simply agree to the first option you are presented with, you should try to get the best possible offer in the market. The place you rent should be in a descent location, hygienic, and have all required amenities. Also, you should get the best price in the market for these services.

Consider Getting a Room in a Shared Apartment

This is for everyone out there who is looking for a room for rent in Hyderabad for themselves and is not moving with friends or family. If you are alone, getting one room in a shared apartment in hyderabad or a shared room in a PG might be a more lucrative option. You can find many people looking for flatmates in social media groups. Also, there are managed apartments available where you do not need to worry about finding flatmates.

Listings Without Brokerage

If you do not wish to pay brokerage, then you need to look for accommodation options by reputed brands or those directly shared by owners. Contacting owners directly has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. But getting in touch with a business with managed accommodation options might be your best bet. They have packages as per your budget and requirements in the areas that are most likely to be close to colleges and corporate offices. Managed residential projects also take away the toll of chores from your schedule so that you can live a more balanced lifestyle.

Visit the Properties Yourself

You should visit the properties yourself rather than relying on virtual tours to make a deposit. While virtual tours can be helpful in shortlisting options for apartments for rent in Hyderabad, it is advisable to visit the shortlisted properties yourself. This is because virtual tours can sometimes be deceptive, and by visiting, you will get a better idea of the place.

Consider PGs

While apartments are a preferred form of accommodation for many, living in a PG might not be such a bad idea. You can go for reputed names in this industry if you are worried about these options being less good as compared to the apartments for rent in Hyderabad. There are some brands with well-managed PGs that offer proficient house- keeping and great food to their residents.

Some additional tips:

You need to make sure the accommodation option you finalize is safe to live. If you choose a PG, make sure to check the rooms, washrooms and mess properly. Only choose the one that is clean and well-managed. Check the nearby areas for basic amenities like medical facilities, pharmacies, and grocery stores.

A Final Word:

In conclusion, if you make proper use of virtual resources to shortlist and then make sure to visit the properties physically, more than half of your task will be completed. But that is not all when it comes to looking for apartments for rent in Hyderabad. You also need to negotiate, keep your options open and not just rely on your broker. You can check out the managed apartments & PGs by Stanza Living once. They have fully furnished properties with professional housekeeping. Their PGs have delicious food and are completely secure. If you ask us, this is truly your best bet. If you are not sure, you can book a visit to one of their properties before making a final decision.
East African carrier-neutral data centre operator Wingu Africa, and Gebeya, a pan-African company that specializes in SaaS-enabled custom talent cloud innovation, have announced the launch of what they call a groundbreaking talent cloud solution aimed at developing human capital for the data centre industry in East Africa.

This collaboration aims to train and certify 1,000 young people in data centre infrastructure and technologies within the next year through what is described as a unique talent cloud platform. The initiative will focus on identifying, onboarding, and developing these individuals, ultimately creating a strong pool of skilled data centre technologists. Another aim is that at least 20% of this talent pool will be women.

After Phase One  onboarding 1,000 individuals and equipping them with data centre infrastructure and technology skills  Phase Two will focus on matching these developed talents with employment or consultancy opportunities in data centres.

In Phase Three the skilled talent, customers, and partners will bring their abilities to Wingus data centres and its ecosystem.

The partners claim that the launch of this talent cloud solution signifies a major advancement in building a skilled workforce for East Africas data centre industry. Amadou Daffe, CEO of Gebeya explains: This talent cloud initiative will equip individuals with essential data centre skills and create sustainable employment opportunities that drive economic growth in the region.

Wingus Djibouti Data Centre (DDC) is described as the first and only carrier-neutral data centre facility in East Africa with access to all major international fibre optic systems connecting Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia Pacific regions with Africa.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Kargil War, paying homage to the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the nation.

Arriving in a special plane at Srinagar International Airport's technical area on Friday morning, PM Modi then flew by Mi-17 helicopter to Drass town. He was received by Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo, and DGP R.R. Swain, along with J&K BJP Chief Ravinder Raina and other senior party officials.

PM Modi's visit to the Kargil War Memorial in Drass marks a significant moment in the silver jubilee celebrations of India's victory in the 1999 conflict. The Chief of Army Staff, General Upendra Dwivedi, who arrived in Drass on Thursday, attended various programs commemorating the historic victory. General Dwivedi also addressed the troops at the memorial.

During his visit, the Prime Minister will also visit Siachen Glacier, the worlds highest battlefield, guarded by the Indian Army. The Kargil War, which lasted for three months, saw the Indian Army, supported by the Air Force, push back Pakistani Army regulars from the rugged mountain tops. Over 500 Indian soldiers laid down their lives in one of the most challenging military operations in Indias history.

Ladakh Lieutenant Governor Brigadier (Retd) B.D. Mishra, the Army Chief, and senior commanders will also be present at the event.

In addition to honoring the Kargil War heroes, PM Modi will virtually inaugurate the Shinkun La tunnel project during his Ladakh visit. Once completed, the Shinkun La tunnel will be the highest in the world, constructed on the Nimu-Padum-Darcha road in Ladakh. The 4.1-kilometer-long twin-tube tunnel, located at an altitude of approximately 15,800 feet above sea level, will provide all-weather connectivity to Leh town, ensuring the prompt and efficient movement of armed forces and equipment. The project will also bolster economic and social development in the Ladakh region.

The tunnel will serve as a crucial link connecting the Lahaul Valley in Himachal Pradesh with the Zanskar Valley in Ladakh. Currently, there are two main routes to Leh: the Srinagar-Zojila-Kargil-Leh axis and the Manali-Atal Tunnel-Sarchu-Leh axis. The completion of the Shinkun La tunnel is expected to significantly enhance the connectivity and strategic capabilities of the region.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Brothers Amadao and Antonio Finocchiarro fittingly opened their newest ice cream parlor in mid-July on one of the hottest days of the year. And after the celebratory ribbon cutting with an oversized pair of scissors, Uncle Louie G of 4072 Hylan Blvd. came to life.

Antonio, left, and brother Amadeo Finocchiaro (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri

Since then, its been full steam ahead for the boroughs franchisees of the frigid. From the South Shore store, the siblings offer 44 flavors in total  22 styles of Italian ices and an equal number of ice cream varietals. They even have a mini truck to bring the varietals off-premises to block parties, birthdays and other private gatherings.

The Finocchiarros also own Cool Ice of Victory Blvd., Castleton Corners, which serves the Ralphs brand of ices and ice cream.

The brothers plan for expansion with Uncle Louie G at 45 Page Ave., Richmond Valley. That seasonal venue will be operational near another family business, casual Italian eatery, Palermo Pizza, also of Richmond Valley.

Rainbow ice is hot for its cherry on lemon and berry flavor. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri

The Great Kills Uncle Louie G operation comes to a familiar address. Just a year ago, it was a thriving smoke shop, one of over 600 Big Apple businesses busted for allegedly selling illegal weed.

Sit down or take out in a new dining room. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri

On a brighter note, prior to that, 4072 Hylan Blvd. played home to a beloved pizzeria, Alfredos, with knockout Grandma and Sicilian slices. Now, the buildings new tenants can boast of a remodeled storefront replete with marble countertops and a handful of tables to savor scoops fresh from the freezer.

Berry, Oreo, caramel swirl and French vanilla are among popular flavor picks. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri

Amadeo dished on tastes preferences from around the Island.

He shared, So far, our top flavors on Hylan are vanilla chip ice cream, Spumoni ice cream and Rainbow Ice. The difference in what people pick from here versus the Cool Ice on Victory is that the South Shore most definitely likes its rainbow cookie and cannoli ice.

The former illicit pot shop at 4079 Hylan Blvd. featured secret compartments around the store. New owners ripped out the digs and put an ice cream parlor in its place. (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri

He credits the demographic in Great Kills, plus the neighboring, Italian delicacy mecca, Frank & Sals.

Amadeo, left, and Sal (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri

Amadeo said, So many people come from shopping at Frank & Sals. And you would be surprised on how many parents give in to their kids request of a bigger size cup or cone just so they dont whine the whole time.

He added, The bigger size is tempting when the kids see all the flavors of ice and ice cream laid out in our six freezers!

Intense tangerine (Staten Island Advance/Pamela Silvestri)Pamela Silvestri

The Hylan Boulevard location will be open year-round with birthday cakes. The store can be reached at 347-215-2115.

Pamela Silvestri is Advance Food/Silive.com food editor. She can be reached at silvestri@siadvance.com.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.  Staten Islands finest musicians came out for Classic Playback, a spectacular rock show staged Saturday to benefit the new Florina Cancer Center at Staten Island University Hospital.

And the icing on the cake is that the fundraiser raised $64,000 for the worthy cause.

The evening also paid tribute to the memory of Frank Provenzano, a beloved member of the community.

The concert honored Provenzano, a cherished figure in the borough who was deeply involved in local music and charitable efforts and whose dedication and passion for his craft left an indelible mark  and inspired many to continue his legacy.

And those who made their presence known at Classic Playback contributed directly to the fight against cancer on Staten Island.

Classic Playback was a memorable evening of music and community spirit, showcasing the talent of local musicians while raising funds for a vital cause. The event highlighted the power of music and community in positively impacting the lives of others.

The band, Classic Playback entertains the crowd during "Classic Playback," a spectacular rock show fundraiser benefiting the new Florina Cancer Center at Staten Island University Hospital. (Courtesy/SIUH/Jillian O'Hara)Staten Island Advance

All proceeds from the event supported the Florina Cancer Center and ensured that borough residents have access to the most advanced cancer treatments and technologies.

We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to Classic Play for organizing such an amazing event and for their generous contributions to the Florina Cancer Center, said Dr. Chika Madu, director of the Florina Cancer Center at Staten Island University Hospital. Their dedication and support make a real difference, and were grateful to be part of this meaningful cause.

Members of the bands also hailed from other notable Staten Island and New Jersey musical groups such as Project 19, Paris NY Band, Illegally Blind and Vinyl Traction.

The collaboration translated into a night of classic rock hits from the 1970s and 80s, and a delightful experience for audiences of all ages.

"Classic Payback" unfolds int he Springer Concert Hall at the College of Staten Island. (Courtesy/SIUH/Jillian O'Hara)Staten Island Advance

KUDOS TO DONORS AND VOLUNTEERS

Organizers thanked the College of Staten Island for donating the concert hall as well as Pro Sho Sound Services, who provided a great deal of assistance before, during and after the fundraising event  and who transformed the evening into an experience reminiscent of a major concert.

major gifts officer at Staten Island University Hospital. (Courtesy/SIUH/Jillian O'Hara)Staten Island Advance

Im proud to have played a small part in the incredible success of the Classic Playback Rock Show, spearheaded by these two awesome guys, said Jamie Lynn Homan, major gifts officer at Staten Island University Hospital. Their passion and dedication made the event truly unforgettable, and Im honored to have contributed to such a fantastic experience.

From the left, Steven Line, Jamie Lynn Homan, and Bill Spiezia. (Courtesy/SIUH/Jillian O'Hara)Staten Island Advance

The lineup featured performances by:

Classic Playback: Allison Hellow, Frank Tota, Hallie Vredenburgh, Karen Kalriess, Leroy Aiello, Bill Spiezia, Justin Negraval, Alex Mahoney, Steven Line and Anthony DAntuono.

Exit 12: Rob Breazzano, Victor Magnani, Toni Nostro-Mahoney, John Neilson and Anthony DAntuono.

Pressure Point: Allison Hellow, Carl Rizzo, Andrew Napoli and Anthony DAntuono.
Democrats are doing things differently this year with the expected nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

The conventions rules committee this week passed a proposal that would allow Democratic delegates to choose the party successor to President Joe Biden through virtual voting beginning on Aug. 1, the Associated Press reported.

Thats 18 days before the partys convention is set to kick off in Chicago.

With Harris the only candidate in the running so far and having secured the endorsement of most top Dems, including former President Barack Obama, it is thought to be a virtual certainty that she will receive the nomination to take on former GOP President Donald Trump.

To be in the running for the nomination, Harris and any other potential Democratic candidate must submit 300 electronic signatures from convention delegates, not more than 50 of whom can be from the same state, by the evening of July 30.

If multiple candidates qualify, which is thought unlikely, it could spark multiple rounds of voting over several days.

The party is moving ahead with the virtual voting process because it says it cant wait until the convention starts to formally choose its nominee. It blames a deadline to appear on the Ohio ballot stating that candidates must be selected by Aug. 7.

Ohio state lawmakers have since changed that, but the modification doesnt take effect until Sept. 1.

Democratic National Committee attorneys warn that waiting until after the initial deadline to determine a presidential nominee could prompt legal challenges.

President Joe Biden dropped out of the race last Sunday and tapped Harris to be his White House successor. Harris is reported to have already received the commitments of enough delegates to claim the nomination.

If she gets the nomination, Harris would have until Aug. 7 to choose her running mate.

Among those in the running for vice president are Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.
For anyone lucky enough to have lived on a Greek island when they were young, the experience lives on inside you, a joy that only grows more radiant with time. Of course, many remember with happiness the feeling of being young, but being young in Greece delivers a very particular slice of heaven.

What is it about Greece? Thats one of the things I was trying to figure out in the book, says Brisbane-based literature professor and author Kari Gislason of his new memoir, Running With Pirates.

Kari Gislason and his two sons peer into the taverna once owned by the Pirate.

His misadventures as an 18-year-old stranded on the Ionian island of Corfu are intertwined with the story of taking his two teenage sons back 25 years later. The book becomes a deeply moving meditation on what it means to release our children into adulthood. In 1990 Gislason was on the cusp of adulthood himself, on a gap year before starting an arts/law degree at the University of Queensland. It was the thrilling start of the rest of his life.

Why did it affect me so much? Well, it was partly to do with where I was coming from at the time  from Iceland, a little heartbroken after meeting my father, broke, a bit depressed  and it felt as if Id arrived in another world, a whole world of its own. Theres something about the Greek landscape that many other writers have experienced and written about; theres an intensity to life in Greece, some wild, unbounded quality.
The Vietnam Internet Network Information Centre (VNNIC) said on Thursday the latest upgrade of its network speed test app 'i-Speed' turns phones into an automated crowdsourcing tool for telcos to measure and optimise network performance.

VNNIC first released the i-Speed app for Android phones in 2021 as a tool to help users check their connection speeds. The data is posted on the i-Speed website to users assess which telcos are providing the fastest and most consistent speeds, which also in theory makes internet services more competitive.

According to the Vietnam News Agency, i-Speed Version 4.0  which has been in operation for a week  automates the process, so that the app will automatically check connection speeds at various times, locations, and connection conditions, rather than requiring users to initiate a speed check manually.

According to the VNNIC, all of this will boost the number of measurement samples, which will also provide data at the district, town, and ward levels. That data will help government agencies and telcos analyse network performance and optimise connection quality where its needed, the report said.

The VNNIC also said it has also rolled out an upgraded system for statistics, sharing, and providing data on internet speed checks on the i-Speed website.

According to global speed-test firm Ookla, Vietnam ranks 48th (out of 108 countries measured) for mobile broadspeeds as of June 2024, with average downlink speeds of 53.38 Mbps, average upload speeds of 20.41 Mbps and a latency of 23 milliseconds.
The memorable title sequence that had a cigar-chewing Tony Soprano driving from New York to New Jersey while Woke Up This Morning played was a short but powerful part of one of the greatest drama series of all time.

The combination of choppy urban visuals and the perfect song eased viewers into the world of the characters, every episode. The same is true for many other acclaimed series, including Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, True Detective and Succession.

Creative director Patrick Clair is nominated for three Emmys this year with the streaming series 3 Body Problem, Fallout and Silo. Credit: James Brickwood

Australian creative directors Patrick Clair and Raoul Marks are specialists in combining design and storytelling into a compelling title sequence, as their 15 Emmy nominations attest.

They are backing up wins for outstanding title design for the first seasons of True Detective and The Man In The High Castle with three of the six nominations in the category at the Emmys in September.
Police have charged a man with murder over the suspicious disappearance of Melbourne man Adrian Romeo.

Romeo told his family he was going to visit people in Greenvale, in Melbournes north, before driving off in a distinctive 2004 gold Toyota Camry sedan on February 10.

Police are appealing for information over the disappearance of Adrian Romeo.

He has not been seen since and police revealed on Sunday they suspect he has met with foul play.

Detectives from the Homicide Squad charged 58-year-old Robert Mantini with murder on Thursday night.
A paramedic has been banned for making unwanted sexual advances towards a teenager after working at the Bathurst 1000, claiming he was led on by the term Netflix and chill.

Craig Davies admitted professional misconduct over touching and grinding the 17-year-old boy in shared accommodation after working at the car race in regional NSW in October 2020.

He admitted sending the teenager an explicit TikTok video and a photo of a patient, while also making inappropriate comments such as arent you a pretty cute innocent boy in the weeks afterwards.

The incident occurred while the paramedic was working at the Bathurst 1000. Credit: Wolter Peeters

The NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal found Davies guilty of the misconduct on Friday and cancelled his registration.
A two-year investigation into the near grounding of a bulk carrier in the Great Barrier Reef has found a faulty GPS unit was to blame.

In May 2022, the 225-metre Rosco Poplar was transiting through Hydrographers Passage, off the north Queensland coast, with a coastal pilot helping the crew navigate the waters safely.

Unbeknownst to the humans on board, one of the ships three GPS units malfunctioned and started supplying incorrect data.

The Rosco Poplars navigational equipment. Credit: Australian Transport Safety Bureau

The ship, which has a dead weight of 82,331 tonnes, came within 200 metres of Bond Reef - where the normal recommended clearance is 1.5 kilometres.
A mother and her one-year-old son have been missing for more than two weeks, with police issuing an appeal for public help to find her.

Tahlia Storm, 26, has not been heard from since July 9, when she last contacted her family.

Tahlia Storm, 26, and her one-year-old son went missing from Loganlea.

The mother and son were reported missing from Loganlea, south of Brisbane, this week.

Police believe they could be in the Logan or Toowoomba area.
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

This story is part of the July 27 edition of Good Weekend. See all 12 stories .

Ray Martin is 79 years old. Hes a good 79; sharp, curious; still got all his hair and teeth. Still, hes 79. The life expectancy for men today in Australia is 81.2, which means that, statistically speaking, hes approaching the finish line. And yet death is still an abstraction for him; he hasnt talked to his wife or two kids about what he wants to happen at his funeral, how he would like to be buried, who should speak and what music to play. This is understandable; hes been pretty busy. But death waits for no man, even a five-time Gold Logie winner.

I know, he says, when we meet one afternoon in Sydneys north. But Ive just never thought about death. I was like, it happens to someone else! To a certain extent, Ive been in denial.

He would probably have remained in denial if not for the BBC, which approached him, in late 2022, with an offer to take part in a television series about death. (The series begins on SBS on August 14.) Im at the stage where I only do the things that I absolutely love, he says. And death is lifes great mystery. Clearly, the eternal question is what happens after you die.

If ever there was a topic worthy of Martins gaze, then, this was it. It might also, as he points out to viewers in the series, help him come to terms with his own mortality, and even give him some tips for his own funeral.

The program, a three-part series called Ray Martin: The Last Goodbye, is part experiential journey, part social history, an exploration of how different cultures deal with death and seek meaning in the inevitable. This is, if youll pardon the expression, very much a live question. Baby Boomers are Australias largest demographic and they will, by the end of the decade, be reaching the end of their life cycles, ushering in what some have dubbed peak death.

But the way we say goodbye to the Boomers is not the way they said goodbye to their parents and grandparents. When Martins grandmother died, for instance, her body was prepared by the family at home: the kids were invited to look at her in the parlour and touch her. (Not for nothing are funeral homes sometimes called funeral parlours.) But these days, most people die in hospitals or nursing homes, and body viewings are increasingly rare. As a result, weve become fairly distanced from death. Indeed, the whole funeral industry is predicated on our determination to avoid it; too squeamish or bereaved, we retreat to genteelisms, outsourcing our final journey to places like White Lady and Living Hope.

Yet others remain more hands on, as this series attests. Viewers witness a Muslim body-washing ritual, when family members of the deceased wash their late loved one with soap and water. Some of the most affecting scenes involve the Espejels, an Australian-Mexican family celebrating the Day of the Dead, where the dearly departed are welcomed back to the land of the living, just for a night. There are offerings of food and incense, and a rambunctious communal meal. Its an intergenerational affair, moving but not maudlin. At the end of the evening, Diego, the epically mustachioed paterfamilias, strums a plangent ranchera on his guitar while the family dog dines on leftovers.
The Office of Public Prosecutions has condemned the online views of its former chief crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert KC, who took to X to call for an end to virtue signalling welcome to Country acknowledgments.

Gavin Silbert, KC, in 2012. Credit: Jason South

Silberts social media post, which has since been shared around legal circles, was written in reply to a post from fellow Bar member Lana Collaris, who suggested all Australians should be acknowledged and not only Indigenous Australians.

Silbert wrote: I am thoroughly sick of this bullshit virtue signalling welcome to country. The indigenous should thank God that Australia was settled by the British and not the French. Perhaps they might ask the Algerians about the consequences of French settlement.

When contacted by this masthead, Silbert declined to comment or expand on his reasoning for the post.
One of Australias most celebrated playwrights, Melbourne writer, actor and director Ray Lawler, has died at the age of 103.

The giant of Australian theatre died on Wednesday after a brief illness, according to performing arts publisher Currency Press.

Lawlers Summer of the Seventeenth Doll was a huge hit around Australia when the play premiered in 1955, before touring to Londons West End and on New Yorks Broadway to widespread acclaim.

Melbourne playwright Ray Lawler in 2011. Credit: Anthony Johnson

In 1957, it won the Evening Standard Award for best new play on the London stage. In 1959, it was made into a film starring Ernest Borgnine and Angela Lansbury.
A man who allegedly sexually abused and intimidated a young Western Australian girl on Instagram and Whatsapp has been charged by Indian authorities.

It is alleged the abuse started when the girl was 11-years-old and continued for several years.

In 2023, WA detectives from Child Exploitation Operations were notified of an incident involving the girl in 2020.

She was the victim of online grooming, sextortion and other online offences by a person she met online. The abuse caused severe trauma.

Detectives determined that the offender lived in India, so they provided information to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, and the matter was referred to Indian authorities via Interpol.
Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil is set to have Australias national security taken out of her hands as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese tries to offset political damage caused by Labors management of immigration issues.

Rumours have swirled for months that ONeil would be shifted into a new portfolio as the Coalition has helped turn the governments handling of last years High Court decision freeing immigration detainees into a political headache for Albanese.

Home Affairs Minister Clare ONeil and Immigration Minister Andrew Giles. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

This masthead has confirmed with senior government sources that the prime minister intends to head off the political distraction by putting a new MP into the tricky portfolio that is a constant target of Coalition and conservative media attention.

The sources, who declined to be named so they could reveal the prime ministers thinking, said the situation was fluid and may change between now and Sunday when Albanese reveals his ministry.
Rich listers Collis and Cyan Taeed made tech corporate history in May when the tech firm they had co-founded, Envato, was sold for $373 million. It was just what they needed to buy into Sydneys housing market.

This is no trophy home mind, but it is a really nice house nonetheless in the billionaire enclave of North Bondi.

The contemporary four-bedroom house in North Bondi was listed for $8.5 million before it was sold before auction. Credit: Domain

Settlement on the deal is yet to take place so it remains unknown how much they paid for the four-bedroom, three-bathroom house, but it was listed with an $8.5 million guide by Raine & Hornes Mark Yeats and sold prior to auction. Pre-auction offers usually come in well above the guide in order to get a deal done before the competition shows up.
In the tiny fishing village of Tulamben, on Balis east coast, I meet an Aussie expat whos lived too long away from home to mix his words.

All these Aussies complaining about Bali not being like it was 30 years ago, he says. And they live in Canggu or Seminyak. Or they holiday in the same places they did in 1995, like Kuta. Bali is like it was 30 years ago, you just have to look for Bali a bit harder these days.

Sunrise in Candidasa. Credit: iStock

Hes not talking about far-flung destinations reachable only by 4WD or boat either. Tulamben is as far removed from Balis overcrowded south-western coast as youll ever need venture, yet its barely three hours drive from Seminyak. Balis overlooked east coast actually begins around the coastal village of Candidasa, an hours drive from the international airport. So close, but so very far.

Hes scolding me as much as anyone. Ive been coming to Bali for 30 years, and the traffic jams and pollution around my favourite haunts concerned me so much on my last visit I havent been back for a decade. This time around, Im turning my back on the places I once loved.
Prince Harry has insisted that his late grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, was fully supportive of his fight against the tabloid press and was very much up there urging him to see it through.

The Duke of Sussex, 39, told a new ITV documentary, Tabloids on Trial, that he had often spoken to the late Queen about his crusade against the media.

We had many conversations before she passed and this is very much something that she supported, he said.

The late Queen with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018. Credit: AP

She knew how much this meant to me and shes very much up there saying see this through to the end.
Washington: A beaming Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years on Friday, patching up a political alliance important to both men that had broken down when the Israeli leader offended Trump by being one of the first to congratulate Joe Biden on his 2020 US presidential victory.

Asked by journalists if his US trip was making progress toward a Gaza cease-fire at home, Netanyahu said, I hope so, and added that Israel was eager for an agreement.

Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who has been held hostage by Hamas-led militants since the first hours of the war. Well get it taken care of, Trump assured him.

Former president Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit: AP

Trumps campaign said he pledged in the meeting to make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.
Masdar Partners with Endesa in 1.7 Billion Renewable Energy Transaction in Spain

 The transaction would see Masdar become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions Masdar will invest 817m to acquire a 49.99% stake in 2GW of solar energy plants, with a potential BESS hybridization for up to 0.5 GW Masdar has also signed an MoU with Endesa to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain One of Spain s biggest renewable energy transactions in recent years, the partnership is expected to play a significant role in helping Spain meet its NECP targets and the EU s net zero by 2050 target Agreement cements Masdar s position in Spain, one of EU s largest solar markets, advancing growth plans in Europe as company targets global capacity of 100GW by 2030

Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC  Masdar (Masdar), the UAE s clean energy leader, announced today that it has reached an agreement with Endesa S.A. (Endesa) to become a partner for 2.5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy assets in Spain, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. The transaction would see Masdar invest 817 million to acquire a 49.99% stake, with an enterprise value of 1.7 billion, representing one of Spain s biggest renewable energy deals.

The portfolio Masdar plans to acquire consists of 48 operational solar plants of 2GW aggregated capacity. Endesa and Masdar aim to add 0.5GW of battery energy storage system (BESS) to the projects. The partnership reinforces Masdar s reputation as a trusted global energy partner for governments, investors, developers, and communities.

The deal demonstrates Masdar s commitment to accelerating the energy transition in Spain and Europe, and these solar projects will play an important role in supporting Spain to meet its National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and the EU s net zero by 2050 targets.

In addition to the acquisition Share Purchase Agreement (SPA), Masdar and Endesa have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore an alliance aimed at jointly developing renewable energy projects in Spain.

The deal reflects Masdar s ambitious growth plans in Europe, having recently announced that it has reached a definitive agreement with Greece s GEK TERNA SA and other shareholders of TERNA ENERGY SA to initially acquire 67% of the company s outstanding shares, subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions. With a strong portfolio of projects in Greece and Europe, TERNA ENERGY is targeting renewable energy operational capacity of 6GW by 2030.

In March this year, Masdar and Spain s Iberdrola also reached financial close on the 476MW Baltic Eagle offshore wind project located in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Germany.

Masdar s existing presence in Spain includes the Almenara 1.2GW solar photovoltaic (PV) project in the Castilla la Mancha region of Spain currently under development.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala; Endesa is a subsidiary of the Italian energy giant Enel.

HE Dr Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Chairman of Masdar and COP28 President, said:

Building on Masdar s global expertise and pioneering approach to renewable energy innovation and development, this partnership underscores our commitment to unlocking clean energy capacity in Spain, Europe, and around the world, supporting the global mandate enshrined in the COP28 s UAE Consensus to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 enabling a just, orderly and equitable energy transition. Masdar is accelerating its ambitious growth plans as we target 100GW of renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade.

Flavio Cattaneo, CEO of Enel Group, said:

We are pleased that Enel, through its subsidiary Endesa, has started this partnership with a major player such as Masdar and, looking ahead, we hope that we will be able to carry out similar transactions in other geographies.

Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar, commented:

By forging a strategic partnership in Spain with Endesa for 2.5GW of solar and battery storage assets, we are taking a significant step forward in our ambitious growth plans in one of Europe s largest renewables markets. This deal with Endesa will play a significant role in supporting Spain and the wider EU in meeting their net-zero ambitions. We are delighted to also sign an MoU with Endesa to become their preferred partner for future solar projects.

Advisors:

Masdar has retained BNPP as its transaction advisor, Linklaters as legal advisor, UL as technical advisor, PwC as its tax advisor, and PexaPark as PPA advisor.

Banks:

The acquisition was partially funded via acquisition financing from BNPP, Santander, Intesa, ADCB, FAB and SMBC. Lenders were advised by Ashurst.

About Masdar

Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company) is one of the world s fastest-growing renewable energy companies. As a global clean energy pioneer, Masdar is advancing the development and deployment of solar, wind, geothermal, battery storage and green hydrogen technologies to accelerate the energy transition and help the world meet its net-zero ambitions. Established in 2006, Masdar has developed and invested in projects in over 40 countries with a combined capacity of over 20 gigawatts (GW), providing affordable clean energy access to those who need it most and helping to power a more sustainable future.

Masdar is jointly owned by TAQA, ADNOC, and Mubadala, and is targeting a renewable energy portfolio capacity of 100GW by 2030 while aiming to be a leading producer of green hydrogen by the same year.

For more information please visit: https://www.masdar.ae and connect: facebook.com/masdar.ae and twitter.com/masdar.

About Endesa

Endesa is a leading electricity company in Spain and the second largest in Portugal. It is also the second largest gas operator in the Spanish market. It undertakes end-to-end business including the generation, distribution and retailing of electricity. It also offers electric mobility services, where it is one of the main operators of charging stations in Spain, and other value-added services aimed at the electrification of energy uses in homes, companies, industries and public administrations. Endesa is firmly committed to the United Nations SDGs and strongly supports the development of renewable energies through Enel Green Power Espana, the digitalization of grids through e-distribucion and Corporate Social Responsibility. The Endesa Foundation is also active in CSR. Our workforce numbers around 9,000 employees. Endesa is a division of Enel, the largest electricity group in Europe.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2469453/Masdar_Partners_with_Endesa.jpg

Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1973446/Masdar_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/masdar-partners-with-endesa-in-1-7-billion-renewable-energy-transaction-in-spain-302207382.html

Contact:

corporatecommunications@masdar.ae / press@masdar.ae,

+44 (0)7581 025082 | For Endesa media enquiries: Please contact: gnm@enel.com

Original-Content von: Masdar, the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, ubermittelt durch news aktuell
"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

 Flannery O'Conner in a 1955 letter to Betty Hester.

Women who do not have children are cat women  and they don't have a stake in the country?

Thats what Sen. J.D. Vance said in a 2021 interview referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, a statement which has been resurrected and he is repeating. Vance also recently said all women should be stay-at-home moms, plus he called for children to get the votes of childless adults because those adults do not have a direct stake in the future of the country.

Apparently, any adult without children is part of the childless left who have rejected family and, therefore, have no stake in the future because they have no direct offspring, according to Vance.

Like men, women should have a say in what happens to their lives and bodies, and children may or may not be part of that persons life for a wide variety of reasons. Yet it is women who find themselves being controlled or their choices limited by the government, not men.

Women are acutely aware of how society judges them if they do not have children, if they have a child out of wedlock or if they are raising children on their own after a divorce or death of a partner. It is not a positive picture.

There are multiple reasons for not having children. For instance, a woman may in incapable of conceiving, or she may have a medical disorder which would make the life of the child difficult (such as Lou Gehrigs disease).

Or a woman may want to be in a stable, committed relationship and cannot find one during her childbearing years. Perhaps she is in an abusive relationship, and she fears any child would likewise be abused.

Also likely is the woman dreams of a career for which she has a unique talent, and she wishes to establish herself professionally before starting a family, something many young women are currently doing.
India and Pakistan: A history of division and war



Kargil, India, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



India on Friday marks 25 years since its last major armed conflict with arch-rival Pakistan, a high-altitude battle in the Himalayan foothills that briefly appeared poised to escalate into nuclear war.

The bloodshed sparked by their division at independence in 1947, and numerous wars since, have entrenched hostility that continues to animate politics on both sides of their shared frontier.

AFP reviews the key moments in the fraught and often violent relationship between the two neighbours:



- 1947: Partition and war -



Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, brings the curtain down on two centuries of British rule at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947.

The Indian sub-continent is divided into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

The poorly prepared partition unleashes sectarian bloodshed that kills possibly more than a million people and displaces 15 million others.

The monarch of Muslim-majority Kashmir, sandwiched between both countries and below the Himalayan mountain range, dithers on whether to submit to Indian or Pakistani rule.

Militants backed by Pakistan attack the territory after the suppression of local uprisings against the monarch's rule, prompting him to seek India's help repelling them and precipitating an all-out war between both countries.

A UN-backed, 770-kilometre (478-mile) ceasefire line in January 1949 becomes a de facto frontier dividing Kashmir, now known as the Line of Control and still heavily militarised on both sides.



- 1965-71: Kashmir and Bangladesh wars -



Pakistan launches a second war in August 1965 when it invades Kashmir, seeking to bring the divided territory entirely under its control.

The conflict ends inconclusively seven weeks later after a ceasefire brokered by the Soviet Union with thousands of soldiers dead on each side.

Pakistan deploys troops at the start of 1971 to violently suppress a growing independence movement in what is now Bangladesh, which it had governed since 1947.

An estimated three million people are killed in the nine-month conflict and millions more cross into India with harrowing stories of atrocities by Pakistani troops.

India mobilises a full invasion of Bangladesh at the end of the year, forcing Pakistan's surrender less than two weeks later.

Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's popularity reaches stratospheric heights as a result of the quick victory, bolstered further when her government announces India's first successful nuclear weapons test three years later.



- 1989-90: Rebellion in Kashmir -



An uprising breaks out in Kashmir in 1989 as longstanding grievances with Indian rule boil over, worsened by a territorial election that locals accuse authorities of rigging.

Hindus and other minorities flee the region over the following year after targeted assassinations, assaults, and threats by rebel fighters.

Tens of thousands of soldiers, rebels and civilians are killed in the following decades during periodic battles between security forces and militants.

Widespread human rights abuses are documented on both sides of the conflict.

India accuses Pakistan of funding the rebels and aiding their weapons training on its territory.



- 1998-99: Nuclear weapons and Kargil conflict -



Pakistan conducts its first public nuclear weapons tests in 1998 in response to another round of tests by India weeks earlier.

The UN Security Council unanimously condemns both governments and orders them to refrain from more tests, while the United States imposes economic sanctions on both countries.

Pakistan-backed militants cross into Indian-administered Kashmir the following year, seizing military posts in the icy heights of the Kargil mountains.

Raja Mohammad Zafarul Haq, a leading member of Pakistan's ruling party, says his country will not refrain from using nuclear weapons to protect its security if necessary.

Pakistan yields after severe pressure from Washington, alarmed by intelligence reports showing Islamabad had deployed part of its nuclear arsenal nearer to the conflict.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif blames army chief Pervez Musharaf for igniting the conflict, which killed at least 1,000 people over 10 weeks, without his knowledge or approval.

Musharaf overthrows Sharif in a coup months later.



- 2008-Present: Mumbai attacks and Modi -



Islamist gunmen attack the Indian financial hub of Mumbai in 2008, killing 166 people including 29 foreign nationals.

India blames Pakistan's intelligence service for the assault and suspends peace talks.

Contacts resume in 2011, but the situation is marred by sporadic fighting.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes a surprise visit to Pakistan in 2015 but the diplomatic thaw is short-lived.

A 2019 suicide attack kills 41 Indian paramilitary troops in Kashmir and prompts Modi to order tit-for-tat airstrikes inside Pakistan.

The resulting stand-off between the two nations is swiftly defused and Modi is re-elected months later, partly on a wave of nationalist fervour spurred by the military response.
CORRECTED: Rockets launched at bases hosting US troops in Iraq and Syria



Baghdad, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



Several rockets were launched Thursday and Friday against bases hosting troops from the US-led anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq and Syria, security officials and a war monitor said.

Such attacks were frequent early in the war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants in Gaza but since then have largely halted.

"Four rockets fell in the vicinity" of Ain al-Assad base in Anbar province, an Iraqi security source said.

Another security official said an attack occurred with "a drone and three rockets" that fell close to the base perimeter.

A United States official said initial reports indicated that projectiles landed outside the base without causing injuries or damage to the base.

All sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media.

At least one rocket also fell near a base of the coalition in the Conoco gas field in Deir Ezzor province of eastern Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

The Observatory said a blast was heard in the area but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The rocket was fired from "zones under the control of pro-Iranian militia" groups, said the monitor which relies on sources inside Syria.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.

Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq have largely halted similar attacks on US-backed troops in recent months.

The latest attack come after a security meeting this week between Iraqi and US officials in Washington on the future of the international anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq. Iran-backed groups have demanded a withdrawal.

The US Defense Department said Wednesday "the delegations reached an understanding on the concept for a new phase of the bilateral security relationship".

This would include "cooperation through liaison officers, training, and traditional security cooperation programmes".

On July 16, two drones were launched against Ain al-Assad base, with one exploding inside without causing injuries or damage. A senior security official in Baghdad said at the time he believed the attack was meant to "embarrass" the Iraqi government before the security meeting.

For more than three months, as regional tensions soared over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, United States troops were targeted by rockets and drones more than 175 times in the Middle East, mainly in Iraq and Syria.

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups, claimed the majority of the attacks, saying they were in solidarity with Gaza Palestinians.

In January, a drone strike blamed on those groups killed three US soldiers in a base in Jordan. In retaliation, US forces launched dozens of strikes against Tehran-backed fighters.

Since then, attacks against US troops have largely halted.

Baghdad has sought to defuse tensions, engaging in talks with Washington on the future of the US-led coalition's mission in Iraq.

The US military has around 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria with the international coalition.

The coalition was deployed to Iraq at the government's request in 2014 to help combat the Islamic State group, which had taken over vast swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

IS remnants still carry out attacks and ambushes in both countries.

str-rh/tw/hkb/it
Russian warship docks in Algeria



Moscow, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



A Russian warship armed with advanced hypersonic missiles docked at a port in Algeria on Friday for a "business call", the navy said.

Moscow and Algiers have close historic relations dating back to the Soviet era and have maintained strong defence and military ties amid Russia's military offensive on Ukraine.

The Russian navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov and a support vessel docked at the Port of Oran on Friday, Russia's Northern Fleet said in a statement.

"The visit of the Russian sailors will last several days," it said.

The crews will take part in various protocol events, replenish food and water supplies, visit local attractions and rest on shore, it added.

The Admiral Gorshkov, equipped with hypersonic Zircon missiles, is currently on a long-distance voyage which has seen it cross the Atlantic and back, docking in Cuba and Venezuela.

"The ship, armed with high-precision missile weapons, is capable of delivering precise and powerful strikes against the enemy at sea and land," Russia's defence ministry said.

The voyage is intended to "demonstrate the flag and ensure naval presence in operationally important areas of the distant ocean zone," it added.
Finland says Russian vessel violated its territorial waters



Helsinki, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



Finnish authorities said a Russian research vessel violated their territorial waters on Friday, amid rising tensions between the neighbours following Helsinki's accession to NATO.

The Finnish defence ministry and coastguard announced the violation in the eastern Gulf of Finland in separate statements -- the latest of several recent border incidents between the two countries.

"The Russian Baltic Fleet research vessel Mikhail Kazansky crossed the external border of Finnish territorial waters" east of Helsinki early on Tuesday afternoon, the coastguard said in a statement sent to AFP.

It said the vessel travelled about 1.2 nautical miles in Finnish territorial waters and left them seven minutes later.

It said a Finnish patrol boat tried several times to contact the Russian vessel without success.

Relations between the countries, who share a 1,340-kilometre-long (830-mile) border, have worsened since Finland joined the western military alliance NATO last year, in the wake of Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The previous territorial incident took place on June 10 when Finnish authorities said four Russian state aircraft entered Finland's airspace off the coast in the same region.

The aircraft remained in Finnish airspace for about two minutes and flew up to 2.5 kilometres into Finnish territory, the ministry said at the time.

Announcing Friday's incident earlier, Finland's defence ministry said the border guard force was investigating.

Finland closed its land border with Russia in December, accusing Moscow of trying to destabilise it by enabling undocumented migrants to enter Finnish territory.
Prophecy is a mugs game in preparing for what is needed for security and resilience  key components of national defence and wellbeing  right now. We are in what the Norwegians, who sit on a strategic and vulnerable border with Russia, call a state of near war. As the war in Ukraine worsens, and heads towards a million casualties by the end of the year, we get more mentions across the media of the period leading up to the great wars of the 20th century.
On August 5 Querns partner saw a message on Facebook about how he had bought a new car, and she replied with a message asking how he could afford a car but could not afford to pay for the child they had together, who was living with her.
* 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.
Its still dangerous, and all it takes is one lone actor, one person who reads this stuff to act on what they have read and whether its a knife or acid, whatever it is, and these are things that are of genuine concern for me. Its one of the reasons why I wont bring my wife back to this country.
On a visit to Vrancea County on Friday, Agriculture Minister Florin Barbu called on farmers to access European funds that would allow to rehabilitate secondary irrigation infrastructure, with the government to fund main irrigation infrastructure.

"I want you to give advice to submit projects on measures taken by the Ministry of Agriculture. Because it is useless for us to build the main irrigation infrastructure, if you do not come to take European funds 100% and free installations, under the programme for the rehabilitation of secondary irrigation infrastructure," Barbu told officials of the Vrancea Association of Cereal and Industrial Crops Farmers, the largest association of agricultural producers in the county.

Although at this moment about 5% of the agricultural area of Vrancea County is irrigated, Barbu gave assurances that in Vrancea, and also nationwide, all the investments proposed by the National Irrigation Programme in Romania will be completed by 2027.

"The area of Vrancea under irrigation is all included in the national irrigation plan. For the projects that have started, where European funds have been accessed, we have come up with the main infrastructure, which we did. (...) In the Namoloasa - Maxineni irrigation area, Vrancea County, there are somewhere around 10,000 hectares. We provide water for all 10,000 hectares. Now, I tell you, farmers who have accessed European funds irrigate 3,500 hectares. For the others, farmers have to step up and access European funds. (...) By 2027 we will complete the entire National Irrigation Programme in Romania," said Florin Barbu.

Vrancea County's agricultural area covers about 250,000 ha, including over 148,000 ha of arable land, 76,780 ha of pastures and natural meadows, 26,304 ha under vines, and 3,265 ha under orchards.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has stated that at the moment Romania has no problem in terms of food security, considering, among other things, the investments made last year in irrigation systems, investments that must be continued to ensure as large an irrigated agricultural area as possible.

Ciolacu made the statements at the end of his visit on Friday to the SPA Namoloasa irrigation system, together with the Minister of Agriculture, Florin Barbu.

"It is obvious that we have an acute drought, primarily in the southern and eastern areas, where around two million hectares are affected. I have already had a preliminary discussion with the minister of Finance and the minister of Agriculture. The two ministers will review the priorities of the Ministry of Agriculture's budget, which, I want to tell you, is the largest ever budget. And I think we have, so far, doubled direct payments from the state budget, and with what we are now coming for calamities, with the payments for the two million hectares, we will almost triple the amount from the state budget," stated Marcel Ciolacu.

He pointed out that, compared to last year, the capacity of the irrigation system increased following the investments made.

The prime minister emphasized that the allocation of funds for investments in irrigation systems is related to ensuring Romania's food security.

"So, at this moment, Romania is out of any danger in terms of food security. So, we have already achieved one of the objectives, we are going to maintain this pace and find other solutions," Ciolacu said.

In this context, the prime minister criticized the fact that sums that should have been allocated to the development of irrigation systems were taken out of the PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan).

"Definitely, it would have helped us immensely to have sums in the PNRR and not taken out of the PNRR, at least 3 billion euros, as we thought. I sat with the minister, we will also come with a proposal to the Ministry of Finance to make these investments multiannual, so that we increase the hectares that can be irrigated in other parts of the country, because, I repeat, these calamities are primarily in the south and in the east. There are large areas and many farmers are affected, because they no longer have managed for three years to have a good harvest year," declared Ciolacu.

Regarding the agricultural areas affected by the drought, he explained that different actions will be taken, depending on the degree of damage.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said that the talks held on Friday with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban were held as part of an "unofficial working breakfast," adding that the main topic discussed was Romania's full accession to the Schengen Area with the land borders as well.

The head of the executive made the remarks at the end of the visit, together with Agriculture Minister Florin Barbu, when asked what was the main topic of the discussion with Viktor Orban.

"It's a normal meeting, he is the prime minister of a neighbouring country and we had a working breakfast, unofficially. Schengen, most importantly, and certain common economic investments in our region, which seems to me to be the right approach. If you concentrate certain investments, both in Hungary and in Romania, electricity has no borders, we need to coordinate certain investments in the respective areas, where we and they are developing certain production capacities. Then we need an improved attention and coordination. In addition, the connections on the southern corridor from Greece, of course, need to be discussed and continued, and next, from Hungary to Austria," said Marcel Ciolacu.

He also referred to the Schengen matter, highlighting the Hungarian prime minister's support for Romania.

"We have tackled all these economic issues and, of course, what is a priority for all of us, not only for the Romanian government, the accession to the Schengen Area. Mr. Orban has said very clearly that he will support us without any conditions, as he has done so far," Ciolacu said.

He was also asked how EU leaders will view his meeting with Viktor Orban, given that the head of the government in Budapest recently visited Russia and China.

"A normal meeting between two neighbouring countries, what are we talking about?," said Ciolacu.

As part of his presence in Romania, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will be attending the works of the Summer University in Baile Tusnad, where on Saturday he will deliver his traditional speech on the central theme of the event - "On the Straight Road."
Searches in the areas near Ukrainian ports are continuing nationwide to identify possible fragments of downed drones, the National Defence Ministry (MApN) said on Friday.

The investigations of the joint teams, made up of specialists from MApN, the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) and the Interior Ministry (MAI), continue in the vicinity of Plauru, Tulcea county, in the possible areas of incidence still to be investigated.

The Romanian ministry points out that in the last 24 hours, clues have been received about two possible new areas of possible occurrences, located on the Romanian side of the Danube, near Periprava.

MApN maintains that investigations will be carried out according to procedures in these places in the immediate next period.

On Thursday, debris from a Geran1/2 type drone of Russian origin was found near Plauru in Tulcea county.

The National Defence Ministry reiterates that it has informed and is informing in real time the allied structures about the situations generated by the attacks, remaining in permanent contact with them.

MApN also condemns the attacks carried out by the Russian Federation against Ukrainian civilian targets and infrastructure, which are unjustified and in serious contradiction with international law.
The U.S. ambassador to Romania, Kathleen Kavalec, on Friday participated in a graduation ceremony of the first class of Romanian pilots trained at the European F-16 Training Center at Borcea, urging it to open up to Ukrainian soldiers as well.

"We look forward to Romania opening up training to other regional allies and partners, especially Ukraine," the diplomat said.

She added that the center is remarkable not only for being the first of its kind in Europe, but also for being a tangible example of the fruits of partnership and collaboration between allies.

In this regard, she said that The Royal Dutch Air Force has provided 14 F-16s to date.

" Their agreement with Romania to operate the Dutch aircraft from a Romanian base and conduct training in Romanian airspace was a key milestone on the path to where we now find ourselves - with a new group of trained F-16 pilots. Today's event is one more example of Romania's determination is to be a leader in collective defense and security in the Black Sea region - in this case with the potential to enable air and air defense capabilities far beyond their borders as future classes of pilots are trained and join the ranks of NATO's airmen," she added.

Regarding the graduates, Kavalec said that throughout this course of instruction, the pilots have learned not only to operate an advanced fighter jet, but how to employ it as a team in formations while executing modern air-to-air and air-to-surface tactics. According to her, the growing cadre of F-16 pilots in Romania turns the country into "an even more critical contributor to deterrence and defense in the air domain on NATOs eastern flank."

She also mentioned the efforts of the American company Lockheed Martin to sustain the training center.

"I would also like to highlight the efforts by Lockheed Martin and its partner companies to create and sustain the training center, by providing first-class instruction, maintenance, and sustainment of the aircraft, and everything else that goes into maintaining a successful flying operation.'
CHESTERFIELD  The founder of Brinkmann Constructors has retired after 40 years.

Bob Brinkmann, 75, started his eponymous construction firm in 1984. CEO Brian Satterthwaite, 57, and President Tom Oberle, 56, will continue to lead the Chesterfield-based company.

Bob has built an incredible legacy and a platform on which Brinkmann Constructors can continue to achieve steady growth, Satterthwaite said in a statement.

Brinkmann began succession planning around 2013, and the company is now owned by its 450 employees.

The firm has completed $10 billion worth of projects across the country in its 40-year history.

Brinkmann said in a release that he will continue his community work, including with the St. Louis Police Foundation.

I started working at age 13, delivering prescriptions for 39th Street Pharmacy on my bicycle. Im ready to spend precious time with my wife, Kim, on our farm and traveling together, he said in a statement.

For $8 million, you can own a piece of Daniel Boone history in Defiance The Bryan Mill Grove estate is on over 100 acres on Highway F owned by frontiersman Daniel Boone in the early 1800s.
CREVE COEUR  After the regions last kosher deli abruptly closed earlier this month, a new operator is taking over the Kohns Kosher Deli space here.

The Vaad Hoeir of St. Louis, which provides kosher certification to Kohns, said this week in a statement that Nates Kosher Deli will soft launch out of the restaurant, at 10405 Old Olive Street Road, patching the hole of kosher services that was left by Kohns departure.

Nates Kosher Deli is owned by Avi Rosenberg, former director of operations of the Simply Sushi kosher franchise, which has locations in New York and New Jersey. Nates will consist of a butchery dine-in and take-out deli services and take-out catering.

No opening date has been announced yet.

Rosenberg and his family will relocate from New York to St. Louis to manage day-to-day operations, according to the Vaad Hoeir. Nates will be in the former Kohns space until a permanent location is found.

Kohns Kosher Meat and Deli Restaurant is currently listed for sale on a real estate website at $1.7 million.

Along with the 7,795 square-foot space, the listing includes existing equipment, full kitchen and hood system, furniture, fixtures, products and the business name and trademarks of the kosher deli, bakery, grocery store and catering business.

Last month, an Illinois-based food distributor sued the delis ownership company, Bayk Kohns LLC, for failing to pay nearly $150,000 for the sale and delivery of goods. One of the companys members, Yehuda Kestenbaum, was also named in the suit.

Earlier this month, Kestenbaum told the St. Louis Jewish Light that For some time, we have been actively looking for an operator who might be interested in continuing the legacy of Kohns.

He said they hope to have a new operator shortly and declined to answer questions about the pending lawsuit.

The Vaad Hoeir said in a July 9 statement that individuals were working to perhaps reopen Kohns, but numerous practical and legal issues need to be sorted through by the parties involved.

The Vaad is acutely aware of the need in St. Louis for fresh kosher meat, kosher catering and a kosher restaurant, the statement reads.

Simon and Bobbie Kohn, Holocaust survivors, founded Kohns in 1963. The Kohns adult children, Lenny Kohn and Rosemary Kohn Cooper, operated the business until new owners took over in 2022.

Kestenbaum did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tony Messenger Metro columnist Follow Tony Messenger 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

ST. LOUIS  Christopher Dunn is ready to walk through what he calls a door of uncertainty.

Some day soon, perhaps this week or next, Dunn is going to walk out of the South Central Correctional Center in Licking, Mo., as a free man. In an email to me on Tuesday, he said he had been behind bars for 34 years, two months and four days.

Every one of those days has been an inhumane injustice. Thats what happens when the state keeps an innocent man locked up for nearly his entire adult life.

On Monday, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Jason Sengheiser issued a ruling that was a long time coming. The judge declared Dunn innocent.

The Circuit Attorney has made a clear and convincing showing of actual innocence that undermines the basis for Dunns convictions because in light of new evidence, no juror, acting reasonably, would have voted to find Dunn guilty of these crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, the ruling said.

That ruling came after a hearing in May sought by Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore. Called a motion to vacate, its a legal procedure created by the Missouri Legislature in 2021; there were several men and women in prison with solid evidence of their innocence who had run into a legal brick wall trying to find a path to freedom.

Lamar Johnson, another St. Louis man who spent almost three decades behind bars for a murder he didnt commit, was the inspiration for that law. He was the second man in Missouri freed because of it.

Im just glad the law is working as intended, despite the attorney generals opposition, Johnson emailed me after Dunns ruling was announced. Hopefully, more prosecutors will move to vacate convictions in cases where relief is clearly warranted.

About that attorney general. Dunn was still behind bars in Licking as we emailed on Monday and Tuesday because Attorney General Andrew Bailey was fighting to keep him there.

Never mind that the witnesses who put Dunn in prison long ago recanted. Never mind that two judges have issued rulings finding Dunns actual innocence. Bailey, a Republican running for election in a primary against Will Scharf for the right to face Democrat Elad Gross in November, filed an appeal even though the law that led to Dunns pending freedom doesnt allow such an appeal.

On Wednesday, Sengheiser ordered the warden in Licking to release Dunn by 6 p.m. Dunns legal team put out a news release celebrating. But Bailey made a last-minute plea to the Missouri Supreme Court, which halted Dunns release until the appeal can be heard.

Talk about cruel and unusual punishment.

But thats often the nature of the criminal law system in Missouri. Notice I didnt call it a justice system.

Christopher Dunn. Lamar Johnson. Kevin Strickland. Ricky Kidd. Sandra Hemme. Rodney Lincoln. Joseph Amrine. Each one had to fight for years, decades even, all the way to the Missouri Supreme Court to prove their innocence, sometimes more than once.

We thoroughly proved he was innocent in 2020, says Kent Gipson, the Kansas City attorney who represented Dunn before the Midwest Innocence Project took over.

Indeed, thats the year Judge William Hickle ruled that Dunn was innocent. But because the Missouri Supreme Court had said such rulings can only be applied to people on death row, Hickle had to keep Dunn in prison. Its a shame he had to spend another 4 years in prison, Gipson said.

But there he is, waiting on the Missouri Supreme Court to validate the second ruling that he is innocent.

Now 52, with his wife, Kira, ready to help him transition to the outside world, Dunn knows he has to navigate some choppy waters ahead. Hes coming into a world I havent a clue about, he wrote me.

But he hopes and prays for a happy new beginning. He will come out of prison a different man than the 19-year-old known as Trap who was convicted on false testimony by a system that rushed to the wrong sort of accountability. Unfortunately, the rush to wrongful convictions is not met by an equal urgency to right those wrongs when new evidence surfaces.

Chris case is yet another example of how difficult it is to overturn a wrongful conviction in Missouri, even when the prosecutor supports it, Tricia Rojo Bushnell, one of Dunns attorneys with the Midwest Innocence Project, said in a statement.

Eventually, in Dunns case, justice will prevail. He will be a free man.

St. Louis, Im coming home, Dunn told me in what will hopefully be one of the last emails he sends from prison. Im coming home.
Discover more Ai business tools:

Noodle is a comprehensive business tool designed to streamline and automate various administrative tasks, allowing you to save time and focus on more important aspects of your business. With a custom AI assistant, Noodle can help you save hundreds of hours each week by handling tasks such as client onboarding, managing signatures for agreements, creating and following up on invoices, scheduling meetings, assigning tasks to clients, providing customer service, and more.

One of the key features of Noodle is its ability to automate customer communications from lead generation to payment collection and beyond, providing 24/7 real-time customer support through an AI agent trained specifically for your business. Additionally, Noodle offers AI-powered invoice creation, collection, and follow-ups with custom payment plans, making it easier for you to manage your finances.

With Noodles Ai learning the ins and outs of your business operations, you can create custom AI-powered workflows to handle repetitive tasks efficiently. The platform also offers mobile and web-based customer portals for automated follow-ups, ensuring seamless communication with your clients.

Noodle has been proven to help businesses grow rapidly, with a success story showcasing how it supercharged an immigration law practice. By utilizing workflow templates and Ai-driven automation, businesses can achieve efficiencies like never before.

Furthermore, Noodle seamlessly integrates with existing tools in finance and government sectors, making it a versatile solution for businesses across different industries. If youre looking to streamline your administrative tasks, improve customer service, and boost your business growth, Noodle may be the right tool for you. Visit their website to learn more about how Noodles customized AI platform can help supercharge your business.

Noodle  Features

Custom AI assistant to save time on repetitive tasks

Automate client onboarding process

Manage signatures, invoices, meetings, and tasks efficiently

Provide efficient customer service and support

AI-powered workflows to handle complex processes

Automated follow-ups and smart payments

Seamless integration with existing tools

Customized workflow templates to drive efficiencies in the business

Noodle  Pricing

Noodle offers four pricing plans: Starter (free), Growth ($29.99/month), Scale ($79.99/month), and Superstar ($299.99/month). Each plan includes various features such as AI assistance, workflows, and lead management. Additional charges apply for services like SMS support and credit report purchases.

Visit noodle.shop for more.

Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter , Facebook and Instagram.
July 26, 2024: Palestinians, either as Hamas or various other Islamic terrorists or armed Palestinian nationalists, have long been fighting for a Palestinian state. There has never been a Palestinian state in the region, although 2,500 years ago Greek historian Herodotus described Palestine as part of Syria and located between modern Lebanon and Egypt. The term Palestinian is not an Arab word but is derived from Philistines, who were Greek seagoing merchants that settled on the coastal areas between Lebanon and Egypt.

The Ottoman Turks defeated a Mamluk army from Egypt in 1516 and occupied the Palestinian region until 1918. During that occupation the Ottomans maintained peace in Palestine and allowed Arab and Jews to settle there and do business. This brought more Arabs and Jews. The Ottoman Turks did not tolerate any ethnic violence and severely punished groups that disobeyed this rule. As a result Arabs and Jews lived together in an area the Turks called Palestine and the Turks referred to both groups as Palestinians.

The Ottoman Turks were on the losing side during the 1914-1918 World War I. The Ottoman Empire collapsed and its provinces became independent or were taken over by the victorious European armies, France took Lebanon and Britain had Egypt and Palestine. During the 1939-45 World War II there was more violence between Moslem Arabs and local Jews who had lived in the region for centuries, plus recent Jewish arrivals who arrived as Zionists before and after World War One, and some who had survived the Nazi effort to kill all Jews in Europe. During the war some local Arabs were pro-Nazi and the British took care of these rebellious Arabs while also recruiting and training a Jewish Brigade in 1944 that fought for the British against the Germans in Italy.

After the war ended in 1945 the Jewish Brigade veterans returned to what was still called Palestine and provided trained soldiers for Jewish efforts, usually non-violent, to establish the Jewish state of Israel and facilitate the movement of surviving European Jews to Israel. When Israel was established, the surrounding Arab states told Arabs in Israel to flee and return after the Arab armies had defeated the Jews. That never happened and the Arabs fought and lost three more wars in 1956, 1967 and 1972. After that Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel and the only fighting Israeli troops encountered was with armed secular Palestinians and Islamic terrorists. Hamas was and still is one of the terrorist groups. There are still millions of Palestinians adjacent to Israel in the West Bank and Gaza. The government in these two regions have been notoriously corrupt and ineffective at governing effectively. Israel treats Hamas in Gaza, and Palestinian militants in the West Bank, as more of a police matter than a military threat.

The Palestinians call for the creation of a Palestinian State in a region where a Palestinian State never existed. The Israeli state has been around for 75 years. Israel is democratic, prosperous and has a citizen army determined to protect what they have. Israel is the most prosperous nation in the region and the only one with nuclear weapons and Israeli-designed and built rockets to deliver the nuclear warheads on any significant threat in the region. Currently that threat is Iran, and Israel recently defeated a massive Iranian ballistic and cruise missile attack. The 1979 revolution against the Shah of Iran was hijacked by Islamic Shia religious leaders who declared Israel and the United States enemies of Iran. Before the revolution Israel and the United States had good diplomatic and trading relations with Iran. Many Iranians would like to see a return of that relationship.

With everything else that is going on in the region, the plight of the Palestinians is seen as a minor matter not worth a lot of attention. The Palestinians cannot form efficient governments and tend to seek violent solutions.
To Share or Not to Share: Debates and New Approaches on Data Sharing for AI Training

Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to evolve at an extraordinarily rapid pace, and its dependency on vast amounts of data for training, especially in the fields of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Generative AI, continues to raise significant concerns in the media industry regarding the use of proprietary intellectual property (IP). In other words, there is a growing concern that AI companies are building multibillion-dollar valuations and capturing existing markets on the backs of third-party scraped data, often without compensating the original content owners.

On one hand, there are a series of high-profile lawsuits that will shape what is considered best practice in the industry and the creator economy. For instance, the New York Times, a growing number of news publishers and prominent authors have sued OpenAI and Microsoft for allegedly using their copyrighted content to train AI models, including ChatGPT and Copilot. These lawsuits argue that the AI models store and reproduce significant portions of their articles verbatim, thereby infringing on their copyrights. In a statement, the New York Times noted, "This suit will be the first big test for AI in the copyright law space." Prominent legal experts agree.

However, these best practices might also take years to be defined and adopted by the wider industry. In the meantime, companies adopting AI-powered solutions, for example for content discovery on streaming services or to boost post-production workflows, are already unlocking significant productivity gains and cost reductions. Over the past three years, we've developed the Imaginario AI platform and API, tackling both commercial and legal complexities. Here, I share perspectives and insights from customers who leverage our AI technology for operational gains, alongside our shared concerns about the industry's future direction.

What are the main risks of sharing your data?

Lets start with the basics: Whats the risk to content owners? Here is a non-exhaustive list of the negative implications:

Potential market loss: AI-generated and verbatim content can potentially replace original works, leading to a loss of revenue for the original creators. For instance, if AI can generate summaries, news articles, scripts or b-roll footage based on existing works, it could diminish the demand for the original content due to lower click-through and therefore revenue. Accuracy, biases, and hallucinations: AI models can sometimes produce inaccurate or biased content, which could be mistakenly attributed to the original publishers. AI as a credited author and generated content as source material: In some jurisdictions, AI could be credited as the sole creator in the future. If the original content creator is not involved in the creative process, they will also not receive the recognition, job opportunities, and royalties.

What are the main advantages of enabling AI?

Despite the risks, the application of AI in media workflows is already proving to add considerable value, cost savings and revenue opportunities across the media supply chain. According to various reports, the productivity gains from implementing supermind technologies (a term coined by MIT that refers to combining AI and human intelligence) can range from 20% to close to 70% in many industries.

For example, AI is significantly transforming the streaming experience, enhancing personalized content discovery and providing contextual advertising for viewers. Human-curated AI is also optimizing video Q/C, monitoring, post-production workflows (including search, b-roll generation and repurposing), and localization services.

Wait too long and youll miss the AI train while your competitors optimize their workflows. Move too soon and you might be giving away too much data for a limited upside.

Types of Training Data

Its important to familiarize ourselves with the type of data that helps train models to understand, categorize information, generate content and/or personalize experiences. Here are some examples relevant to the media industry:

Audiovisual Assets

Photographs

Audio Recordings

Scripts and Storyboards

Transcripts, Subtitles, and Closed Captions

Articles, Opinion Pieces, Reviews, How-to Guides, and Other Textual Data

Asset-level Metadata

In-Video Tags and Metadata

User Engagement / Human Input and Output Data (prompts, clicks, and responses)

User Demographics and Behavioral Information

User Engagement

Playback

Content Recommendations and Search

Main Claims in Training and Fair Use/Fair Dealings

Now that we are familiar with the high-level risks, opportunities and type of data that AI models use, its time to unpack the main argument used by incumbent AI companies: Fair Use (US) and Fair Dealing (UK). Disclaimer: I am not a solicitor/lawyer and the following is not legal advice.

The primary claims against AI training involve the unauthorized reproduction of copyrighted material and the generation of derivative works, including verbatim. OpenAI, for instance, argues that their use of scraped data falls under "fair use," a legal doctrine that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders under certain conditions.

Fair Use in the US and Fair Dealing in the UK, albeit different, provide similar frameworks for defense, primarily considering:

Character of the Use: Whether the allegedly infringing work is transformative or merely duplicative of the original work. Nature of the Original Work: Highly creative works with significant expression are harder to claim fair use. Amount and Substantiality: The extent of the original work usedwhether it's a small segment or the entire work. Impact on Commercial Market: Whether the derivative work displaces the original or affects its market potential. According to experts, this is the most important element.

Fair use allows for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. In contrast, fair dealing in the UK includes non-commercial research, private study, criticism and review, news reporting, quotations, and educational use.

This means that even though incumbent AI companies might not be able to store and use entire news broadcasts, films, books, and more to train their models, they could use smaller parts arguing that it is work that is not substantive. In addition, summaries, analysis and output data coming from models could constitute highly creative and transformative works that are not copying the expressions of the original work. This is still up for debate in the US and UK courts.

Industry Approaches and New Initiatives

In response to these challenges, new initiatives are emerging in the industry to embrace the adoption of AI technologies. At Imaginario AI, we are implementing these initiatives because we believe they offer the best balance between protecting rights holders and developing genuinely useful products.

Embracing AI with trusted partners that operate with caution: Companies like Getty Images are now partnering with AI firms like Nvidia to embrace generative AI within controlled parameters. Getty promises full indemnification for commercial use and shares revenue with contributors whose images are used in training datasets. Explainability and data transparency : Ensuring transparency about the data used to train AI models is becoming crucial. This involves detailing how data was sourced (provenance), how it was cleaned, annotated, shaped, and updated, as well as the main datasets included in the training process. Licensing data Reddit, : Licensing agreements are being explored as a way to ensure that original content creators are compensated when their data is used for AI training. For example, OpenAI has entered into multi-million dollar licensing agreements with content providers to use their data for training purposes including Associated Press NewsCorp , and Axel Springer SE Guardrails and control measures : AI companies are introducing guardrails to prevent the generation of harmful or misleading content. For instance, Getty Images has implemented measures to block the creation of politically harmful deepfakes, ensuring that AI-generated content does not produce recognizable people or brands without permission. Opting-out from general models and fine-tuning : Some companies prefer to opt-out from training general models and decide to train their own AI models with proprietary data in secure cloud ecosystems (e.g. AWS, GCP, Azure) or on prem. This approach minimizes the risk of IP infringement, ensures compliance with legal standards and it provides better results fine-tuned for the clients use cases.

Conclusion

The debate over the use of third-party intellectual property in AI training is far from settled. As AI technology continues to advance, especially by incumbents like OpenAI and Microsoft, the tension between innovation and protecting IP rights will likely intensify in the coming months and years. However, by adopting new initiatives focused on data transparency, opting-out, contractual approaches, and licensing, the industry can move towards a more equitable solution that balances the interests of AI developers and content creators.

Contextual Search. Imaginario AI can discover specific scenes across vision, speech and sounds for social media repurposing, dailies and compliance. (Click on image to see full size)

Social Media Clipping. Resize, add captions and brand your videos for TikTOk, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. (Click on image to see full size)

Chapterization. Imaginario AI breaks down all your long-form videos into snackable chapters including a title and short summary. (Click on image to see full size)

[Editor's note: This is a contributed article from Imaginario. Streaming Media accepts vendor bylines based solely on their value to our readers.]

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.

Related Articles

Companies and Suppliers Mentioned
Marine Corps Cpl. Priya Hasham of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit conducts a breath test at Camp Hansen, Okinawa, July 19, 2024. (Megan Roses/U.S. Marine Corps)

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa  The Marine Corps will continue outgoing weekend sobriety checks at all its Japan installations indefinitely as the military continues to respond to discontent on Okinawa over recent alleged sexual crimes.

Increased checks and off-base courtesy patrols, which began July 12-13 and continued July 19-20, will continue each Friday and Saturday until we are told otherwise, Marine Corps Installations Pacific spokeswoman 2nd Lt. Kelsey Enlow said in an email Thursday.

The prospect of dual patrols with Okinawa police received a lukewarm response Thursday from the head of the prefectural police Criminal Affairs Division, who said he was unaware of any plans to field such teams. He also appeared skeptical of U.S. military police exercising authority beyond their gates.

Sobriety checks begin at 8 p.m. Friday and continue through 11:59 p.m. Saturday and include 100% Breathalyzer tests for everyone exiting Marine bases between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.

During the day, breath tests may be randomized if 10 or more cars are in line to exit, Enlow wrote in an email Friday. Average wait times at busy gates were not available Friday, she said.

However, exiting some installations took up to an hour July 12-13, Capt. Brett Dornhege-Lazaroff, another spokesman for the installations command, said July 19.

Several people with blood-alcohol content over Japans 0.03% legal limit were stopped that weekend, he said. The status of those individuals and the results of other weekend checks was not available Friday.

We have seen that these checks and patrols have been effective, but I do not have any numbers regarding DUIs or specific incidents, Enlow wrote.

Air Force Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp, commander of U.S. Forces Japan, meets with senior leaders at Camp Foster, Okinawa, July 25, 2024. (Savannah Mesimer/U.S. Marine Corps)

U.S. Forces Japan commander Lt. Gen. Ricky Rupp called for dual patrols with Okinawan police in a statement posted online Monday. But Hitoshi Asato, director of the Okinawa Prefectural Police Criminal Affairs Division, said Thursday that he was not aware of the proposal before Rupps statement.

If the U.S. military were to exercise the authority of military police beyond the base, it could lead to issues given the sentiments of the local population, Asato said during a special committee meeting of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly. Bearing this in mind, I acknowledge that the prefectural police hold jurisdiction over security matters outside the base.

He urged caution about any agreement to restart joint patrols, which were last conducted on Okinawa in 1974, he said.

If authorities from Japan and the U.S. are present at a crime scene, generally, the U.S. side will detain the suspect, he added.

Senior Airman Brennon R.E. Washington pleaded not guilty July 12 in Naha District Court to charges of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a minor in December. Marine Lance Cpl. Jamel Clayton was charged in May with attempting to sexually assault a woman in Yomitan village.

The indictments led Okinawa prefecture to deliver formal complaints to the U.S. Embassy and the Japanese government calling for changes to the status of forces agreement for U.S. troops on the island. The governors of 15 Japanese prefectures where U.S. military bases are located also filed petitions Wednesday with Japans Defense and Foreign Affairs ministries requesting SOFA changes.

Rupp in his statement announced a new forum of cooperation with the Japanese and Okinawan governments and community members to address alleged misconduct. He also promised further changes to the off-duty liberty policy for all service members in Japan.

He held several meetings with commanders on Okinawa during a visit Tuesday through Thursday, according to posts on USFJ social media accounts.

Lt. Gen. Rupp was in Okinawa for the week and met with U.S. service members at all levels, to include the senior military component representatives, USFJ spokeswoman Lt. Col. Mindy Yu said by email Friday. Many topics were discussed during various meetings, to include the importance of being good ambassadors to our Japanese partners. As discussions about policy are ongoing, Lt. Gen. Rupp reaffirmed his expectations and solicited feedback from commanders.
The destroyer USS Gravely launches Tomahawk missiles Jan. 12, 2024, in response to Houthi rebel attacks in the Red Sea. The Gravely was one of seven Navy ships that received a combat action ribbon in April for performance under fire in the Middle East. (Jonathan Word/Navy)

WASHINGTON  The Navy is one step closer to rearming ships at sea, a capability that would keep warships in the fight rather than forcing them to return to port during combat.

The first successful land-based demonstration of the Transferrable Rearming Mechanism, or TRAM, was announced Wednesday by the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Port Hueneme, Calif. The system will enable Navy destroyers and cruisers to reload missiles into vertical launching systems while at sea  a task that now must be done pier side.

No longer will our combatants need to withdraw from combat for extended periods to return for vulnerable in-port reloading of weapon systems. ... My intention is to perfect this capability and field it for sustained, persistent forward-strike capacity during wartime, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said during a speech at Columbia University in December 2022, one of his earliest mentions of the new technology.

The rearming mechanism uses a crane that can lift and rotate 25-foot missile canisters vertically, then lowers the explosives into the launchers, which are small openings in the ship deck. The system is designed to be used with existing at-sea replenishment ships and will be able to reload vertical launch systems on surface ships in sea states 3 or higher. A sea state 3 means winds of 7-10 knots and 2-foot waves, according to the Beaufort Scale, a measure that estimates wind speed and its effects based on observed sea or land conditions.

Sailors from the Naval Expeditionary Logistics Support Group and USS Chosin (CG 65) guide a missile canister using the U.S. Navys Transferrable Rearming Mechanism as they demonstrate the ability to reload a Vertical Launching System cell on July 11 at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Divisions Underway Replenishment Test Facility. (Navy)

Operationally, reloading in the open ocean would allow the U.S. surface fleet to engage enemy ships with a relentless tempo and volume of long-range salvos, Navy officials said Friday. Additionally, it means adversaries wont be able to home in on U.S. ships at friendly ports, widening the area that an adversary must search to target them.

This prospect will disrupt the strategic calculus of those who would do us harm  a near-term deterrent that should give any would-be aggressor pause, a Navy spokesperson said.

The technology will be tested at sea before the end of 2024 and is on track to be fielded in two to three years  an unprecedented delivery speed, according to Naval Sea Systems Command. In fiscal 2023, the service allocated $3.9 million in research, test, development and evaluation funds with another $12.4 million dedicated to the program in fiscal 2024.

At-sea rearming has been intermittently tested by the U.S. over the years but became a top priority for Del Toro in 2022, as the threat of conflict with China looms.

When the Navy is facing China and the possibility of firing a lot of missiles very quickly, particularly given the Chinese missile threat, reloading is very important because the Navy doesnt want to spend a lot of time sailing back to wherever to reload, said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

A report released in January 2023 by the CSIS estimated in a conflict over Taiwan, the U.S. could run out of several categories of vital munitions -- such as long-range, anti-ship missiles -- in less than a week. A 2019 study by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, another Washington think tank, estimated in a conflict with China, the Navy could expend more than 360 missiles a day, or 10,800 per month.

U.S. warships would have to make multiple trips to rearm. For the Pacific fleet, these reload sites are in Japan, Guam, Hawaii and California and would mean leaving the battle for weeks at a time.

And if those ports were out of action, they would be in trouble, Cancian said.

Efforts to strike back at Houthi rebels in Yemen launching missiles at shipping lanes in the Red Sea underscores the need for at-sea rearming, he said.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike groups cruiser and destroyers launched more than 180 missiles in self-defense or pre-planned strikes during its seven months operating in the Middle East.

The combat pace in the Red Sea is slow enough that the U.S. can pull one destroyer out to reload at a friendly port and substitute it with another in combat. That would not be an option if conflict broke out in the Pacific, Cancian said.

Being able to reload forward would make things easier in the Red Sea  it would be helpful, he said. But it is critical for a fight with China.
The coastal town of Agropoli, Italy, is south of Salerno. It's known as the gateway to the Cilento Coast and its famed white, sandy beaches and outdoor recreation. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

The Amalfi Coast is beautiful. Unfortunately, nearly everyone with a plane ticket to Italy knows that.

Instead, try leaving those summer crowds behind and head to Agropoli for some fun off the beaten path.

Known as the gateway to Italys Cilento Coast, Agropoli is where youll find white, sandy beaches, the azure waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea and mountaintop views of the Gulf of Salerno.

There are several private and public beaches in Agropoli for swimming and sunbathing with plenty of options for casual dining nearby. Some of the city's best beaches are south of the town center at Baia di Trentova. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

There also are opportunities for hiking, biking, sea kayaking, horseback riding and other outdoor activities that Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni provides. And history lovers can explore Agropolis medieval city center.

The quiet resort town of about 21,000 residents puts all that and more in reach, and under normal traffic conditions its an easy 90-minute drive from Naples.

Start the day in the historic center, situated on a promontory offering panoramic sea views. Wear comfortable shoes and bring water because the medieval village, with its stone pathways and staircases, is accessible only on foot.

This Byzantine Gate, or Porta Bizantina, is one of the entry points into Agropoli, Italy's medieval village. Just steps away is the Chiesa della Madonna di Constantinopli, which dates to at least 1583. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

To get there, walk up Via Filippo Patella to a set of cascading stairs leading to an ancient Byzantine gate.

Along the way, there are plenty of places offering a leisurely drink or bite to eat at budget-friendly prices. For example, two glasses of local wine, a cheese-and-meat platter and breadsticks can be had for as little as 10 euros during happy hours.

Past the gate, known as Porta Bizantina, the Chiesa della Madonna di Constantinopli is on the right. The small church with its statue of the Madonna dates to at least 1583. Local legend says the Madonna is the protector of fishermen.

The nearby Piazza Umberto offers views of Agropolis port and the sea.

The village also is home to the triangular-shaped Castello Angioino Aragonese, some remnants of which date back to the first half of the sixth century. On a recent visit, the castle was closed, so visit the tourist office to check on the hours of operation before you go.

The newer city center in Agropoli, Italy, includes a promenade lined with shops, bars and cafes, leading to the city's medieval village, which can be accessed only on foot. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

After exploring the city center, head south to see the port or visit one of Agropolis private and public beaches, including San Marco, Licina and San Francesco. At the latter, you can rent a kayak to see the famed Elephant Cave, accessible only by sea.

Traveling a bit farther south, youll find Baia di Trentova, a somewhat secluded cove with shallow, clear waters for swimming and two private beaches that rent umbrellas and sunbeds by reservation only.

Theres also public access for those who dont mind setting up their towels and beach chairs on the rocky edges of the bay. Free public parking is nearby, but a covered parking spot directly adjacent to the beach area costs 5 euros and is valid from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

There are many hiking or walking trails to explore in and near Agropoli, Italy. This one, near Baia di Trentova, offers views of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Gulf of Salerno and the city of Paestum. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes) The Punta Tresino hiking trail near Baia di Trentova in Agropoli, Italy, ends near the town of Santa Maria di Castellabate. On the trail, hikers are treated to sweeping views of the sea and can pass by an abandoned village. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes) Several hiking trails are accessible from Agropoli, including the Punta Tresino trail near Baia di Trentova to the city's south. The roughly 6-mile loop trail is moderate in difficulty and takes about four hours to complete. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

Trentova also is where hikers can find the Punta Tresino trail, a 6-mile loop that leads to the town of Santa Maria di Castellabate, where you can take a bus back to Agropoli every day except Sundays if you dont want to hike the entire trail.

The trail is moderate in difficulty and takes about four hours. Along the way, hikers will see expansive views of the Gulf of Salerno, Capri and the Amalfi Coast as well as Paestum with its ancient Greek temples.

Wear plenty of sunscreen and consider pants and a long-sleeved shirt, as portions of the trail are narrow with overgrowth of blackberry bushes and other vegetation. Morning hikers will want to carry a long stick to knock back cobwebs.

With plenty to do and see plus the charm and quiet of a small coastal town, its easy to see why Agropoli is a favorite of vacationing Italians and visitors alike.

There are two private beaches, Lido Trentova and Lido Jamaica, at Baia di Trentova in Agropoli, Italy. Both require reservations in advance for the use of umbrellas, sunbeds and other beach necessities such as showers. (Alison Bath/Stars and Stripes)

On the QT

How to get there: From Naples, take A3 south towards Salerno for about 45 miles. Get off at the Battipaglia exit and continue on Strada Statale 18 Tirrena Inferiore for about 20 miles. On the way, stop at one of several caseifici, or local cheesemakers, that line the strada to pick up fresh mozzarella, bread, tomatoes and wine for a picnic. The city also can be reached by train or bus.

Information: Trentova Tresino-Agropoli Visitors center, Via Fontana dei Monaci, Agropoli; https://www.cilentoediano.it/

Hours: Visitor center open Monday through Sunday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. and 4-9 p.m.

Where to eat: Have a home-cooked dinner at Ubbipo, a farm-to-table style osteria in the hills of Agropoli. The family-owned, vegetarian-friendly restaurant features regional pastas and specialties, such as Cilento Parmigiana with zucchini and potato and an omelet made with Vatolla onions. Dinner with freshly made pasta, an entree, dessert and a glass of wine is about 50 euros. Reservations are required; ample parking and host speaks English. https://www.ubbipo.it/en
XDetector is an advanced AI content detector designed to accurately identify whether a text is generated by AI or written by a human. The tool utilizes a sophisticated AI detection model trained with 10 billion samples to ensure precise results. With multilingual support for languages from 20 countries, including English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, and more, XDetector aims to provide secure and cost-effective AI content detection services.

One of the key features of XDetector is its emphasis on safeguarding data through Web3 encryption, which ensures user-uploaded text remains secure and prevents leaks. This is particularly beneficial for teachers, institutions, students, and writers looking to maintain academic integrity and authenticity in their work. By identifying AI-generated text and avoiding penalties for plagiarism, users can submit assignments, papers, and blog articles with confidence.

XDetector has garnered positive feedback from educators, students, and writers alike, highlighting its accuracy, reliability, and ease of use. With over 99% AI detection accuracy, the tool has already processed a vast number of texts, including assignments, reports, emails, and blog articles. Additionally, XDetector is free to use, making it accessible to a wide range of users seeking to verify the authenticity of their content.

The implementation of AI detector technology in XDetector involves advanced methods such as corpus-based comparison, language model analysis, feature extraction, classification, and plagiarism detection. By combining these strategies, XDetector has been able to achieve high accuracy rates in determining the origin of text.

Overall, XDetector is a valuable tool for businesses, educators, students, and writers seeking to verify the authenticity of written content and prevent the misuse of AI technology. With its advanced AI detection capabilities, multilingual support, and free accessibility, XDetector offers a reliable solution for safeguarding critical text areas and promoting academic integrity.

XDetector  Features

Free AI Detector & AI Checker

Safeguarding data with Web3 encryption

Supports multiple languages (20+)

Free for students, teachers, and institutions

Ability to detect whether content is AI or human

High AI detection accuracy (99%+)

AI detector technology employs advanced methods such as corpus-based comparison, language model analysis, feature extraction, and classification, and plagiarism detection

Does not support plagiarism detection, focuses on identifying if text is AI-generated or human-written

XDetector  Pricing

XDetector is free to use on the web.

Visit xdetector.ai for more.

Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter , Facebook and Instagram.
The Beautiful Legs Shrine is part of Maboroshi Hakurankai, a quirky museum in Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)

Maboroshi Hakurankai, or Phantom Exhibition, is a display of creepy, salacious and off-beat art in Ito city, a 2-hour drive south of Tokyo in seaside Shizuoka prefecture.

The private exhibition, which opened 13 years ago, has clowns, vintage toys and mannequins, including two of Marilyn Monroe. Its a perfect stop for anyone interested in the quirkier aspects of Japanese culture. Its website describes the place as creepy and cute.

Be advised, this exposition includes explicit content inappropriate for children and other displays that people with automatonophobia  the fear of human-like figures  may find disturbing, such as mannequins, wax figures and dummies.

Visitors are given maps for the self-guided tour. They are printed in Japanese, so make sure you have a translator app handy.

The exhibit has eight zones, such as the Great Buddha Hall and Through the Showa Era. While each has a theme, the displays seem chaotic and lack rhythm or rhyme. The tour seems like a walk through a fever dream.

Maboroshi Hakurankai boasts the worlds largest statue of Prince Shotoku, standing at 164 feet. He was an influential leader in seventh-century Japan and popularly credited with encouraging the spread of Buddhism. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)

The Great Buddha Hall is impressive. Visitors stroll through jungle-like vegetation with exhibits from ancient Japan and Egypt. The highlight is the worlds largest statue of Prince Shotoku, standing at 164 feet. He was an influential leader in 7th-century Japan, and popularly credited with encouraging the spread of Buddhism.

The Phantom Shrine  Festival Night is one of the raunchiest of the exhibits. It includes nude mannequins involved in sexual acts, nude mannequins with clear stomachs that display the pregnancy cycle and displays of skulls and skeletons of various animals.

The Phantom Island is outside and contains a Beautiful Legs Shrine, which is just a shrine composed of a mannequin leg in black pantyhose where guests toss change for good luck. The Phantom Island Stage features mannequins on a stage in suggestive poses.

Tipsy Alley displays nostalgic toys, including Hello Kitty, Mickey Mouse and a Furby. Many of the toys look worn, torn and in otherwise bad condition, which adds to the creepy aspect of the exhibit.

The Through the Showa Era exhibit is an interesting collection of objects that the owner collected through Japans prewar time to the 1980s.

Maboroshi Hakurankai has clowns, vintage toys and mannequins, including two of Marilyn Monroe. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)

Mannequins are dressed in Japanese clothes from the era. Two Marilyn Monroe mannequins are posed in the famous white dress from the film The Seven Year Itch.

Vintage movie posters from American and Japanese films of the era are also on display, from 1954s Godzilla to 1984s Amadeus.

A gift shop sells T-shirts; Licca-chan, the Japanese version of Barbie; heads on lanyards; and miniature doll bodies with the heads removed.

If your appetite for the absurd is not sated at Maboroshi Hakurankai, visit its sister site, Ayashii Shonen Shojo Museum, which translates to The Mysterious Boys and Girls, just a six-minute drive away. Its an oddball collection of cultural artifacts from the Meiji through the Showa periods, including dolls, books, recordings and other artifacts, according to its website.

Maboroshi Hakurankai is a perfect stop for anyone interested in the quirkier aspects of Japanese culture. (Kelly Agee/Stars and Stripes)

On the QT

Directions: 1310-1 Futo, Ito, Shizuoka, 413-0231. By car, take the C4 expressway, Route 468, to Ebina, exit and take Route 271 to Route 1. Follow it to the E84 expressway, Route 135, and continue to Ito. By rail the closest station is Izu-kogen.

Times: Open daily, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Costs: Admission is 1,200 yen, or about $7.63, for adults and 600 yen for middle and elementary school students.

Food: There are a couple of restaurants within a one to five-minute drive from the museum.
A second contingent of 200 police officers from Kenya arrive at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, July 16, 2024. (Clarens Siffroy/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)

(Tribune News Service) Ganthier, a rural community 28 miles east of Port-au-Prince and 14 miles from the Dominican Republic border, was among the last holdouts from gang control in Haiti.

For two years, the towns residents resisted one of the countrys most notorious gangs, fighting alongside their local police against bandits who raided and pillaged businesses, kidnapped U.S. missionaries and launched repeated attacks in the area.

On Thursday, as Ganthier found itself on the verge of a full-blown gang take-over, Haitian police, joined by Kenyan officers who are part of the Multinational Security Support mission, launched an offensive. After weeks of planning, meetings and joint patrols to familiarize the foreign forces with Port-au-Princes dizzying landscape, the first major attempt to take down a gang and regain control during an active attack was underway.

The reinforcements arrived in two armored vehicles, and were soon joined by a third stationed up the road in Fond-Parisien, a neighboring community close to the Dominican border. Among what the officers found: a destroyed police station, an emptied-out city and gang members on the run.

Hours earlier, the towns mayor had sounded the alarm.

If in 72 hours there is no significant reinforcement, no action taken, Ganthier will have fallen completely to gang control ... all the way to the Dominican border, Mayor Jean Viloner Victor told the Miami Herald. This is dangerous not just for the commune, but for the nation.

In the fight against gang rule in Haiti, Ganthier stands out not just because of its citizens resistance but its strategic location: Control of the town would allow gangs to spread their violence eastward all the way to the Malpasse border crossing with the Dominican Republic. That reach, Victor and area business owners say, would provide uninhibited access to Haitis porous border, allowing gangs to easily smuggle weapons, ammunition and other contraband across.

But before arriving at Malpasse, 400 Mawozo gang members would first need to take over Fond-Parisien, a neighboring rural community. Its the town where retired Kansas City vascular surgeon Ted Higgins built and runs one of the only medical facilities still operating in the area since gang attacks made travel to and from Port-au-Prince risky. The Higgins Brothers Surgicenter for Hope is located seven miles from Malpasse and Ganthier.

Ganthier has been our front line and until recently theyve been able to hold back the gangs and weve been able to operate, said Higgins, whose clinic sees between 1,500 and 2,000 patients a month.

After police failed to regain control of Ganthier on Wednesday, Higgins asked his doctors and other staffers living in a housing complex  which he built in Fond-Parisien to keep them safe from gang attacks while traveling to and from work  to relocate.

This is not good for us, to have Ganthier fall like that, he said. We are the next step. We need help.

Help finally rolled through late Thursday afternoon. But instead of arriving by helicopter, as both Higgins and Victor had anticipated, it came by road.

The Multinational Security Support mission, which began arriving in Haiti a month ago, has been outfitted with armored vehicles, radios, high-caliber weapons and drones  but no dedicated air or sea assets, a U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed.

The lack of helicopters, planes and boats is a significant constraint in the fight against gang violence, say security experts and area residents who note that the gangs are expanding their grip outside of Port-au-Prince.

Armored vehicles alone arent sufficient to tackle the type of criminality we have here, said Victor, who had pleaded for helicopter support.

Reginald Delva, a former public security official, said he doesnt see how the mission can be successful in Haitis terrain  bumpy roads, agricultural and and ramshackle dwellings  without air support. The gangs know where to hide, and without aerial support, you cannot conduct a serious operation, even if you have drones, he said.

With no access to choppers, which are a standard in traditional United Nations peacekeeping operations, both the Haitians and Kenyans spent hours Thursday mapping out a plan of attack. It required not just secrecy, but a way through a street blocked with shipping containers in neighboring Croix-des-Bouquets, which gangs used to cut Ganthier off from the rest of Port-au-Prince.

It makes so much sense to use helicopters, Higgins said.

Brian Nichols, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, who visited Haiti earlier this week, doesnt disagree.

But aviation, he said, is expensive and wed like to see other countries step up to provide those resources.

The U.S. is the largest donor to the multinational security support force, providing $309 million from the State and Defense departments and another $60 million in equipment and services from other U.S. government agencies. Nichols said the amount, along with $21 million in contributions to a U.N.-controlled trust fund, is sufficient to support the 400 Kenyan police officers currently in Haiti and the 200 or so who will be arriving shortly from Jamaica. But the mission needs more money.

Nichols said there are several conversations taking place about the resources, policing and security. One of the questions is whether the mission needs to have as many as 2,500 personnel, as has been projected, and whether they should all be based in Port-au-Prince.

One of the reasons why you have this deployment of the MSS in support of the Haitian national police is so the Haitian national police can take on some of the other jobs, Nichols said. The requirement for them to defend vital infrastructure had sort of taken up a large chunk of their forces.

Gang invasion

On Sunday, gang members invaded the Ganthier, setting fire to the police station and a customs annex. In a video showing the destruction Lanmou Sanjou, the current leader of the 400 Mawozo gang, compared himself to a sleeping lion that becomes dangerous once awake. Then he announced his next target: Fond-Parisien, he said, and there would be blood.

Nichols, who visited Haiti on Monday along with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said the issue of Ganthier was raised by Prime Minister Garry Conille during a meeting.

Last week, in an address to the nation, Conille said the government had declared a state of emergency for 14 areas under gang control and he had asked the police, along with the Haitian army and the Kenyans, to carry out anti-gang operations in those communities. Despite his declaration, sources involved in conversations with government officials about sending reinforcements to Ganthier told the Herald that they were beginning to lose hope that anything would be done to help the city.

Late Thursday, word came that the two armored vehicles were moving through the city, where hours before gang members had roamed the streets with heavy artillery and taken control of every government building, Victor said.

Delva, the security expert, said although Haitis powerful gangs are not carrying out the same kinds of coordinated attacks they did in late February and March after trying to capture Port-au-Prince, they are still very active.

Over the weekend, when police were called to respond to Ganthier, they were also deployed to Gressier and Leogane, two cities south of metropolitan Port-au-Prince, the spokesman for the Haiti National Police, Michel Ange Louis-Jeune,s confirmed this week.

Gangs are on standby mode  waiting to see, Delva said.

In Ganthier,Victor said he is anxiously waiting to see if the joint operation will return a sense of normalcy to his community of 92,000.

It is really alarming, he said. The gangs are pillaging peoples properties. They are the ones making the law, and controlling the city.

2024 Miami Herald.

Visit at miamiherald.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force plans to use inert training missiles on target vessels in waters 32 to 328 feet west of Minamitorishima, an island about 1,148 miles southeast of Tokyo. (Japan coast guard)

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa  Japans army plans to build a firing range on its easternmost island for surface-to-ship missile drills, part of its military build-up to counter regional rival China.

The Ground Self-Defense Force will use inert, or nonexplosive, training missiles on target vessels in waters 32 to 328 feet west of Minamitorishima, Chief of Staff Gen. Yasunori Morishita said at a news conference Thursday, according to a Ground Staff Office spokesman Friday.

The firing range on the isolated coral atoll, less than a square mile in area and about 1,148 miles southeast of Tokyo, is expected to be available after April 2026 for drills involving Japans Type 12 surface-to-ship missiles, a spokesman for Ogasawara Village said by phone Friday.

Ogasawara Village consists of more than 30 islands administered by Tokyo. This includes the inhabited islands of Chichijima and Hahajima, as well as Iwo Jima, also called Iwo To, and Minamitorishima, which houses facilities for the Japan Meteorological Agency and Maritime Self-Defense Force. No civilians live on Minamitorishima.

The high-speed, truck-mounted Type 12 missile has a range of about 62 miles, and a planned upgrade under development would increase that range to about 620 miles.

The Ministry of Defense by 2026 plans to base the missiles at three Self-Defense Force bases in the Ryukyu Island chain, which includes Okinawa, and stretches to within sight of Taiwan.

The Type 12 and Tomahawk missiles Japan agreed to purchase from the United States last year are elements of a counterstrike capability unveiled in 2022 as part of the nations national defense strategy.

We have been conducting the training of surface-to-ship missiles in facilities located in the U.S. and Australia, and because of this the opportunities and troops participating were limited, Morishita said, according to the Ground Staff Office spokesman. By having the facility in the country, we will be able to maintain a training base and secure a stable supply of training opportunities and improve proficiency.

Some government officials in Japan may speak to the media only on condition of anonymity.

That island was chosen because of the sparse maritime and air traffic around it, Morishita said, according to the Ground Staff Office spokesman.

However, Chichijima and Hahajima are west of Minamitorishima. Morishita said missiles will not be fired toward these islands, and the ministry will check radar for civilian ships before conducting training, the spokesman said.

The spokesman for Ogasawara village, while recognizing the necessity of the training range, said he asked the Ministry of Defense to consider the direction of the missiles. He also asked that the ministry retrieve the roughly 30-foot-long training missiles after they are fired to preserve the environment.

We were told that the troops and materials will be transported by ship, the Ogasawara spokesman said. We asked the ministry to give notice in advance if these ships are passing through Chichijima and Hahajima. We told them our concerns in August last year, but we havent received responses yet.
Debris suspected to be from the U.S. Navy was collected from North Carolinas Cape Hatteras National Seashore beaches in April 2023. (National Park Service via TNS)

HATTERAS ISLAND, N.C. (Tribune News Service)  The U.S. Navy investigated and found that an estimated 1,250 pounds of trash that washed up on Outer Banks beaches in spring 2023 came from one of its ships.

The Navy conducted an investigation into the events from last spring, according to Ted Brown, co-director of media operations/installations and environmental public affairs officer. The waste that washed ashore was confirmed to have been from USS George H.W. Bush. Appropriate action was taken as a result of the investigation and Sailors (sic) from the ship participated in cleanup efforts.

Previously, in May 2017, processed plastic disks from USS Whidbey Island washed ashore on the Outer Banks, Brown said in an email. The sailors found responsible following that investigation similarly were held accountable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

The 2017 event totaled approximately 860 pounds of garbage. About 43 disks were recovered, each with an average weight of 20 pounds, according to Brown.

The Navy has very strict procedures for (the) processing of trash and waste while at sea, Brown said.

Plastic waste is not permitted to be released into the ocean, he continued. All plastic waste is separated onboard, then processed into disks which are stored onboard until they can be properly disposed of ashore. No fuel or oil waste is permitted to be released into the ocean. Other trash (i.e. metal, paper, food waste) must be processed, and there are requirements for how far offshore the vessel must be to dispose of these trash substances. These requirements have been in place for decades.

Aside from the Navys two confirmed incidents of ocean dumping impacting the Outer Banks, I think that we have a very strong reputation and history of being extremely environmentally friendly, Capt. Dave Hecht said in a phone call.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore reported last year that beginning on April 27, its staff and the Town of Nags Head observed plastic, metal, paper and textile fabric debris washing up in low densities along approximately 25 miles of beaches, from Nags Head to the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo, according to an April 30, 2023, National Park Service press release.

The park service reported the incident to the U.S. Coast Guards Sector North Carolina. Staff from Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Town of Nags Head had been removing debris for three days at the time of the release and would continue to do so over the coming days, it said.

David Hallac, superintendent of the National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said in a phone interview this month that staff called him at the time to report beach debris that was all very similarlots of flip-flops and Crocs, empty toiletry bottles like shampoo [and] food supplements like protein powder.

Paper with identifying marks, Navy clothing and a Navy-issued boot clued them into the debris likely origin, Hallac said. The Navy sent dozens of sailors down to help clean up the beach once the park service got in touch with officials.

Certainly truckloads of debris were removed from the beach, Hallac said. His understanding was that the loose debris that washed up originated from bagged trash dumped off the ship.

Two hundred fifty to 300 bags or sacks of trash may have been dumped over the edge of the vessel, he said. Presumably a lot of that sunk. A significant amount of debris did leave that shipincluding things that are not normally dumped in the ocean, like plastics.

On the north end of Hatteras Island, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge experienced similar debris on its 12 miles of shoreline.

Staff on the beach doing nesting shorebird work last spring reported an abundance of plastic and trash, almost that would be like your household waste-type plastic, according to Dawn Washington, refuge manager for Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge had an interim manager at the time, but records indicated items like water bottles, containers for protein shakes and powder, shampoo and other toiletry bottles, laundry detergent and cleaning product bottles washed up, she said.

Meanwhile, Roberta Thuman, town of Nags Head spokesperson, said very little debris washed up in Nags Head last spring from the Navy ship, and she didnt recall any washing up from the 2017 incident.

A larger issue with debris

Some trash can always be found on area beaches, from a variety of sources, according to both Hallac and Washington.

Youre going to see stuff out there, either washing ashore anytime of the year or (from) people leaving it because people are allowed to be on the beach and not everybody does the right thingpack their stuff out, Washington said.

We do have debris washing up every day from offshore, Hallac said, from a variety of land-based and marine-based sources.

Ocean dumping for land-generated waste was common worldwide until its harmful impacts became more widely known in the 1970s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations website.

The Outer Banks Surfrider Foundation partnered with several northern towns in Dare County years ago to coordinate regular beach cleanups through the Adopt-A-Beach program.

This year, for the first time, the National Park Service launched its own Adopt-a-Beach program for its 75 miles of coastline.

Washington, who became refuge manager in December, started organizing monthly beach cleanups this year. The next one is slated for Aug. 1 at 10 a.m. Interested volunteers can meet participating staff at the Pea Island refuges visitor center, located at 14500 N.C. 12 in Rodanthe.

Hallac encourages visitors and residents to do their part to keep beaches clean, but to call the park service if any trash isnt immediately identifiable as safe to clean up.

Sometimes we find things that are actually hazardous, Hallac said. During his tenure, fuel containers, flares, training bombs and torpedoes have been found on the beach.

2024 The Virginian-Pilot.

Visit pilotonline.com.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Joseph Thigpen fires a 105 mm illumination round from the M119A3 Howitzer during a ceremony at al-Asad Air Base, Iraq, in January. U.S. forces came under rocket attack July 25, 2024, at al-Asad and at Military Support Site Euphrates in Syria. No injuries or damage was reported, a U.S. defense official said July 26. (Daphney Black/U.S. Army)

Bases in the Middle East where U.S. forces are deployed recently came under rocket fire from militants, in one case for the second time in little more than a week.

Two rockets were launched Thursday at al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq, while the same day, another was fired in a separate attack at Military Support Site Euphrates in Syria, a U.S. defense official said Friday.

No damage or injuries were reported in any of the three strikes and neither installation was hit, according to the official.

The assaults came after a July 16 attack on al-Asad by two drones. Although one was shot down, the other struck the base, causing minimal damage, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said last week.

July has seen a resumption of such attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria after a lull of nearly three months. They are blamed on Iran-backed militant groups, which have sought retaliation following the Oct. 7 start of the Israel-Hamas war.

On April 21 and April 22, there were separate attacks at Rumalyn Landing Zone in Syria and near al-Asad, respectively, the Pentagon later said.

There are about 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq housed at three bases, one in Baghdad and two others in west and north of the country. About 900 American service members are deployed in Syria, Voice of America reported in February.

American forces have remained in the two countries to lead a coalition fighting to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State in a mission known as Operation Inherent Resolve.

Thursdays rocket attacks came on the heels of meetings between U.S. and Iraqi officials in Washington earlier this week to work out the details of ending the anti-ISIS mission in Iraq.

The talks included discussion of how the U.S.-led mission would transition to a bilateral security relationship, the Pentagon said in a statement Wednesday.

Iraq wants U.S. troops to begin withdrawing in September, and it seeks to have the coalitions work formally end by September 2025, Reuters reported Tuesday.

But officials from both countries have stressed that there currently is no formal agreement or timetable to end the coalition.

Since the Israel-Hamas war started, Iran-backed militant groups have launched at least 175 attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria.

American forces in other areas of the Middle East have been targeted as well. A Jan. 28 drone attack on a base in Jordan killed three U.S. service members and injured more than 40 others.

In response, the U.S. launched a series of airstrikes in February against 85 targets in Iraq and Syria. Those strikes are largely credited with deterring militant groups in the two countries from continuing their attacks.
The parents of two girls are suing Uber, saying the ride-share company allowed their 12- and 13-year-old daughters to be trafficked from South Carolina to a mans North Carolina home, where one girl was raped. (Dreamstime/TNS)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Tribune News Service)  The parents of two girls are suing Uber, saying the ride-share company allowed their 12- and 13-year-old daughters to be trafficked from South Carolina to a mans North Carolina home, where one girl was raped.

The lawsuit says Uber is aware of an abhorrent problem with its platform  that its a popular form of transportation to traffic victims sexually, primarily minor girls, across the United States.

In 2023, the North Carolina man, an accused sex trafficker, started grooming the 12-year-old girl over Facebook and later ordered an Uber to have her and her friend delivered to his home, according to a complaint filed July 24 in York County, South Carolina.

Fayvion Jarrod Williams  who was convicted of statutory rape of a minor and sexual exploitation of a minor on July 2  sent the Uber to pick up the girls down the street from one of their mothers homes in late November, the complaint says.

Information regarding Williams legal representation wasnt immediately available.

The Uber driver didnt ask the girls about their ages even though they were noticeably underage, according to the complaint.

Out of fear, the 13-year-old girl told the driver they were younger than their actual ages in an attempt to get him to cancel the ride and refuse to drive them, the complaint says.

However, he continued the ride and headed to Williams home in North Carolina, according to the complaint.

After the girls were dropped off, Williams took them into his backyard and encouraged them to smoke a marijuana cigarette, the lawsuit says. Then he walked them inside his home, where they saw an older man inside playing video games, the complaint says.

When Williams propositioned the girls to perform sex acts, the 13-year-old girl refused, according to the complaint.

He ordered the other girl, who was scared Williams might hurt her as she knew he likely had a gun, to his room where he violently raped her and filmed the assault, the complaint says.

This is a horrific and tragic situation that has upended the lives of these families, all made possible by Uber because of their negligence and their steadfast prioritization of profits over safety, Clarkson Law Firm attorney Tracey B. Cowan, who is representing the case, said in a news release.

Uber is actively participating in and profiting from the trafficking of minors and doesnt care who it hurts along the way, Cowan said.

The girls parents are suing Uber on multiple claims, including negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and trafficking, the lawsuit shows.

An Uber spokesperson told McClatchy News on July 26 that the details of this incident are horrific.

We take our role helping to combat human trafficking seriously and have spent years investing in prevention efforts, including providing every driver with educational resources on how to identify the signs of human trafficking and report suspected cases, the spokesperson said.

The second Uber ride

Following the rape, Williams ordered another Uber ride to drive the girls back to South Carolina, according to the complaint.

The Uber driver who responded to Williams request for a ride allowed the girls to get in the car and didnt ask for their ages, the complaint says.

The driver remained silent during the hour-long drive across state lines, according to the complaint.

During the ride, the 12-year-old told her friend she had been raped, the complaint says.

The Uber driver dropped the girls off at a park near one of their mothers homes  a location Williams had chosen  despite the fact that there were no parents waiting for (them), according to the complaint.

The 13-year-olds mother had been searching for the girls and emerged from a parked car at the park as they exited the Uber, the complaint says.

The mother rushed over to the driver, asking where they came from, according to the complaint.

All Uber Driver #2 said was something along the lines of, Some guy named Fayvion paid for (the ride), the complaint says.

A day later, Williams messaged the 13-year-old on Facebook and shared a video of himself raping her friend, according to the complaint.

The rape was ultimately reported to authorities in South Carolina and North Carolina, where Williams was arrested, the complaint says.

Williams is detained at Piedmont Correctional Institution in Salisbury, North Carolina, about a 45-mile drive northeast from Charlotte, according to the state Department of Corrections. He was transferred to the prison on July 17 from Gaston County, records show.

No action has been taken

With their lawsuit, the girls parents are hoping for change from Uber.

The lawsuit accuses Uber of not implementing safety measures, including enhanced background checks and mandatory dashboard cameras.

The company told McClatchy News that Ubers Global Investigations team works hand in hand with law enforcement to help bring suspected traffickers to justice.

Uber advises its drivers to cancel rides with unaccompanied minors who dont have a teen account with the platform, according to the company.

The company also offers drivers tips on preventing underage riding online and how to report a canceled ride due to unaccompanied minors.

However, Sara Beller, a Clarkson Law Firm associate, said in statement that Uber has continuously ignored their drivers picking up unaccompanied minors and no action has been taken.

The girls parents are seeking an unspecified amount in damages and are demanding a jury trial.

If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call 911.

To report potential trafficking situations, you can contact the national hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or chat with the online hotline.

2024 The Charlotte Observer.

Visit at charlotteobserver.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The quality of our content has always been a step ahead of most in the industry, which I suppose in the early days gave the illusion that our brand was bigger and more premium than it actually was. Shaun

Shaun Lynch, a former electrical draftsman with a rebellious spirit, found his true calling in the great outdoors.

His love for hunting and the desire to create a community-focused business led him to co-found Dog and Gun Coffee with his wife, Rachel. Together, theyve built a thriving brand that combines their passion for adventure with a commitment to exceptional coffee.

Shaun never imagined brewing success. A move to New Zealand sparked his love for the outdoors and hunting, inspiring him to find a business opportunity in this niche. Spotting a gap in the market for quality coffee during outdoor adventures, Dog and Gun Coffee was born. Building a successful brand wasnt a solo mission. Shauns wife, Rachel, initially had reservations due to her vegan lifestyle. However, seeing Shauns passion and the ethical hunting practices he embraced, she joined his mission.

Together, theyve created a company that fosters a love for the outdoorsnot just through their high-quality, convenient coffee but also by offering employees adventure leave and prioritizing a work-life balance.

Dynamic Business sat down with Shaun Lynch to discuss his entrepreneurial journey and the success of Dog and Gun Coffee.

Coffee with a cause

Shaun explained that Dog & Gun Coffee wasnt born from a love of coffee but rather from a passion for the outdoors. It wouldnt have mattered too much what the product was, the intention was to always serve the outdoors community and inspire people to chase adventure.

The idea for coffee came naturally during a hunting trip with friends. The coffee became an obvious option though when I was out hunting with friends  they all loved coffee but struggled to make a tasty brew in the field, especially on longer backpacking trips where weight and space were at a premium. When people were trying to save a few grams by cutting their toothbrush in half but then went as far as bringing whole beans, a hand grinder and an Aeropress to make a good coffee in camp, the entrepreneur in me knew that something was there.

He further elaborated that one of his employees from another business introduced him to the world of specialty coffee. One of my employees in another of my businesses introduced me to the world of speciality coffee and a chance encounter while travelling in Japan showed me the single-serve coffee drip filters. The combination made a perfect solution for getting tasty coffee on outdoor adventures without the hassle of heavy gear.

Content is king

We also give our team unique perks, like a compressed work week and additional paid adventure leave to chase their own adventures. This builds internal loyalty and a strong team culture.

Shaun explained that they spent a lot of time directly reaching out to customers to talk to them and build relationships. We spent a lot of time directly reaching out to customers to talk to them and build relationships. We showed up as real, relatable people, not just some anonymous brand. Our customers enjoyed seeing our adventures via social media or talking to us about their own adventures and I think this had a huge impact in building that loyalty. Many of our early customers are still with us today. Shaun also mentioned that they invested heavily in media and marketing. The quality of our content has always been a step ahead of most in the industry, which I suppose in the early days gave the illusion that our brand was bigger and more premium than it actually was.

The founder emphasised that their community and culture are what set them apart. They focused their marketing to speak directly to people like them, creating a workplace that embodies freedom and adventure. In terms of innovation, weve invested heavily into our media capabilities and then turned that expense into a revenue stream, by offering media production services to other companies. This helps cover the additional overhead required to have a quality team in-house for our own media use.

We also give our team unique perks, like a compressed work week and additional paid adventure leave to chase their own adventures. This builds internal loyalty and a strong team culture.

Overcoming challenges

Youll never have all the information you need to make the right decision

Shaun shared that the biggest challenge has been managing burnout. The biggest challenge has been more personal  managing burnout. As the founder, youre so invested in your vision that it can become all-consuming and often at the expense of other aspects of our lives like our relationships and our health. When those parts of your life are neglected, it eventually bleeds into your work.

The lesson has been that its often necessary to work hard and for long hours but its actually so important to deliberately block time in your schedule for other things like gym, meal prep and time with family and friends. Its important to find a balance that allows you to not just build a great business, but also a great life.

Shaun emphasized the importance of thinking long-term while always acting with urgency. Action beats everything, he stated. Youll never have all the information you need to make the right decision, but over-analysing and stalling will hurt you far more than just making a decision and dealing with the consequences.

Reflecting on key lessons learned on his entrepreneurial journey, Shaun shared several insights:

Think long-term but always act with urgency.

Nobody will care about your business as much as you do. Go into it with expectations aligned accordingly.

Good data gives clarity. Its so vital to know your numbers.

Always be learning  reach out to mentors, attend courses, study business history. You never know what little insight might be the thing that unlocks your business.

Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The 7ft giant is currently in prison serving a 28-month sentence following a brutal attack on a man half his size

Former UK strongman Sean OHagan appeared on Channel 4 hit comedy show 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown

Sean OHagan appeared on Channel 4 hit comedy show 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Jimmy Carr, introduced funnyman Joe Wilkinson who is carried into the studio by OHagan

Channel 4 has pulled a TV show which featured strongman Sean OHagan after it emerged it aired twice this week  despite him being jailed last month for two violent attacks.

The 7ft giant is currently in Maghaberry Prison serving a 28-month sentence following a brutal attack on a man half his size. On the same day he was also jailed for a separate incident where he attacked a woman and her baby.

The 34-year-old protested to this paper, before he was jailed, that he was not a monster but hes now not only serving half the 28-month sentence behind bars, hes also been charged with an assault on another man and is due back before the court in August.

Despite this, we can reveal that OHagan, of Church View, Laurencetown, Co Down, made a shock appearance on national television this week, not once, but twice.

Viewers who know the bad-tempered brute called to say they were shocked and horrified to see him on their telly on Wednesday night.

OHagan was a guest on hit comedy show 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown which aired at 9pm on Wednesday on 4Extra.

But after we contacted Channel 4 they confirmed they had pulled the offending episode from their vast rota of episodes and would not be running it again.

Sean OHagan. Photo: Pacemaker Press.

Hosted by comedian Jimmy Carr, the show is a hilarious and frequently rude version of the rather more sedate afternoon show which is hosted by Ulsterman Colin Murray.

The 8 Out Of 10 Cats version still has maths genius Rachel Riley putting up the words and numbers and wordsmith Susie Dent in dictionary corner.

But instead of members of the public taking part, comedians take their place as contestants where laughs are more important than points.

The episode featuring Sean OHagan  the fifth of series 18  was filmed five years ago and features comedians Sara Pascoe, Alan Carr and Tom Allen as well as the late Sean Locke, who died from cancer in 2021.

OHagan appears in the last third of the show and appears when funnyman Joe Wilkinson is introduced by Jimmy Carr.

Wilkinson is carried into the studio by OHagan in what Wilkinson describes as one of his new inventions  an adult papoose.

Former UK strongman Sean OHagan appeared on Channel 4 hit comedy show 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown

With the studio in raptures, Wilkinson tells Carr: Because you fired me, because youre a pr**k.

OHagan then has the audience in stitches as he gives host Jimmy Carr the middle finger in support of Wilkinson.

Wilkinson adds that because he was fired by Carr he has had to start inventing things like a baby papoose for adults.

The only downside is you need a giant who is prepared to carry you round. This ones mine, his name is Glenn. Wilkinson then feeds him a toffee and orders him to carry him across the studio to the next invention but OHagan is sweating and clearly struggling and jokes: You know youve put on a bit of weight when the UKs strongest man is struggling to carry you.

OHagan was never the UKs strongest man but he was once one of the strongest men in the world and competed all over the globe, even breaking a world record for holding two giant logs.

One woman who knows OHagan and saw him on the show this week said: I was sitting watching the TV and couldnt believe it when I saw him appear.

I knew he had been jailed so I was wondering if hed been let out or something but then I realised it had been filmed ages ago.

I dont think they should be showing that episode with him in it. Hes a thug who likes to bully people who get in his way.

Another caller told the Sunday World after we told them Channel 4 had agreed to pull the episode: Its the right call I think, he has several victims who shouldnt have to be confronted by his face when they sit down to watch the TV.

Last month OHagan was jailed for 28 months  half inside and half on licence  after leaving a man with multiple skull fractures in a road rage attack.

Jailing OHagan, Judge Patrick Lynch KC said the strongman was fortunate indeed not to be facing even more serious charges.

Commenting that he had experienced too many times people being killed in similar one-punch attacks, the judge said OHagan was a large and very powerful man who not only knew his own strength but also revelled in it, given that he competes in international strongman challenges.

All of that should have indicated to you that you have to be careful in terms of your own strength, said Judge Lynch, to attack a 52-year-old man who is virtually half your size is beyond the comprehension of this court.

OHagan towered above the two female prison officers who stood either side of him and he appeared somewhat confused about what sentence he had been given until the officers guided him to the cells. Half-an-hour after that, OHagan appeared in the dock downstairs in the Magistrates Court where he was handed a seven-month jail sentence for assaulting a woman and child cruelty.

District Judge Michael Ranaghan ordered that sentence to be served concurrently as the Crown Court case.

The man mountain entered guilty pleas to child cruelty, common assault and the persistent, improper use of a telecommunication network on August 28 last year. Earlier this year, speaking exclusively to the Sunday World, OHagan complained that he had been trolled and harassed since pleading guilty to the charges and claimed his mental health was suffering.

My life is a mess at the minute, I am being harassed, I have people outside my house at night, my car was destroyed and I am being trolled on the internet.

People think I am some kind of monster and I am not, I will prove that, he said.

In relation to the road rage case, prosecuting counsel Ian Tannahill told the court how OHagan had been tailgating the victims car but when they slowed down to let him past, he pulled in so quickly he clipped the front of their car.

Sean O'Hagan takes part in the Ultimate Strongman competition at Belfast City Hall

The victim spotted OHagans Audi pulling into the Bluestone Business Park in Craigavon but when he got out and tried to take a photograph of the registration, OHagan ran towards him, pushed him to the ground, wrestled his mobile from him and flung it some distance into an adjoining yard.

Shouting and swearing and calling the victims wife a f***ing stupid c***, OHagan was captured on CCTV punching the victim once to the head in a blow so forceful it put him flat on his back.

Playing the four-minute video for the court, Mr Tannahill said the single blow caused fractures to the victims cheekbone, eye socket and the base of his skull.

Conceding that its a nasty incident, defence counsel Seamus Lannon said the more he got into strongman competitions, the more he got into steroids and clearly, steroids are associated with this type of behaviour.

Half an hour after he was sentenced in the Crown Court OHagan was back in the dock again, this time in the Magistrates Court where District Judge Michael Ranaghan heard that on August 28 last year, OHagan pushed the victim while she was holding her one-year-old son and the pair fell over, leaving both abraded and bruised.

OHagan followed those assaults up with sending a multiplicity of messages to the victim on social media but the contents of those messages were not opened in court.

He was back in the dock last week at Belfast Magistrates Court to face a separate charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm but the alleged injured party did not turn up and the case has been adjourned until August.

OHagans solicitor revealed his client was anxious about the potential consequences of an alleged incident on May 28, 2022.

Hes worried that he could end up serving another prison sentence straight after his current one, they told the judge.
Glen Dodrill is further accused of producing during a dispute a knife with a sharp pointed end in a manner likely to intimidate another person.

A young man who allegedly produced a knife while stealing a bottle of vodka has been sent forward for trial.

Glen Dodrill (22) was served with the book of evidence when he appeared before Blanchardstown District Court.

The accused, with an address at Old Road, Monasterboice, Co Louth, is charged with stealing a bottle of vodka, worth 22, from Tesco, Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, on July 24, 2022.

Mr Dodrill is further accused of producing during a dispute a knife with a sharp pointed end in a manner likely to intimidate another person.

A state solicitor said that the book of evidence was ready and had been served on the accused, who goes forward to the next sittings of Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Judge David McHugh gave Mr Dodrill the formal alibi caution.

The judge also assigned defence solicitor Brian Keenan and one junior counsel on free legal aid.

Judge McHugh further ordered that a video copy of an interview which gardai conducted with the accused be furnished to his legal team.

Mr Dodrill has not yet indicated how he intends to plead to the charges.

Judge McHugh remanded Mr Dodrill on the same bail conditions to appear before a court at the Criminal Courts of Justice on a date in October.
Jonathan Diggins (47), of San Francisco, USA, was arrested when he travelled back to Ireland to search for the suitcase which contained the drugs, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard today

A man who was taught by US First Lady Jill Biden when he was a child was caught with 330,000 worth of ketamine in his suitcase at Dublin Airport last year, a court has heard.

Jonathan Diggins (47), of San Francisco, USA, was arrested when he travelled back to Ireland to search for the suitcase which contained the drugs, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard today.

Diggins had been travelling from Brussels to San Francisco via Dublin last October when his suitcase missed the connecting flight while he was travelling on to the States. US clearance officers in Dublin Airport found a false bottom in the suitcase, which contained seven packs of ketamine with a street value of 330,000, Jane Horgan-Jones BL, prosecuting, told the court.

The court heard that Diggins was arrested at Dublin Airport a few weeks later when he returned to Ireland to look for his lost suitcase.

He pleaded guilty to one count of importing drugs at Dublin Airport on November 6, 2023. He has no previous convictions.

James Dwyer SC, defending, said that his client had no intention of importing the drugs to Ireland; they were simply in transit from Belgium to the States. However, he said his client pleaded guilty to the charge despite this and cooperated fully with the investigation.

He said Diggins was originally from Wilmington, Delaware and was taught by the current US First Lady, Jill Biden, when he was a child. He has two children and missed his oldest child's graduation from high school while in custody over here.

Defence counsel noted it was not a sophisticated operation and Diggins' decision to travel back to Ireland was either stupidity or ignorance.

A number of testimonials were handed to the court praising Diggins as a good father.

Judge Orla Crowe adjourned the matter for finalisation next Wednesday, July 31.
Dylan Reddington (30) also told gardai when he was stopped there was a threat on his life.

An uninsured driver who claimed he was going to a shop to get cigarettes for his mother told gardai he had a flick knife for his own protection, a court has heard.

Dylan Reddington (30) also told gardai when he was stopped there was a threat on his life.

Reddington denied this in evidence, claiming he did not have any enemies nor were there any threats on his life.

Judge David McHugh imposed a three-month sentence, consecutive to a sentence he is currently serving. The judge banned Reddington from driving for 12 years.

Read more Brother of gangsters Wayne and Fatpuss Bradley ordered to stay away from Coolock protest site

The defendant, of Cherry Orchard Grove in Ballyfermot, admitted uninsured driving. He was also found guilty of possession of a flick knife.

Garda Mark Walsh told Blanchardstown District Court he was on patrol on September 30, 2021, when he came across Reddington in a car at Avondale Drive in Mulhuddart.

Gda Walsh stopped the vehicle and saw the defendant take a knife from his jacket pocket and put it in the footwell.

Gda Walsh said it appeared to him that Reddington was trying to discard the knife.

He spoke to him, and the accused told him: I had the knife for my own protection. There is a threat on my life.

In cross-examination, Gda Walsh said he was sure he found the knife in the footwell of the car, and not in the glove compartment.

In his evidence, Reddington claimed the car belonged to his mother, and he was going to the shop to buy her cigarettes.

Explaining the presence of the knife, Reddington claimed his mother used the car for the markets and there were bits and bobs in the vehicle.

He also said he did not know there was a knife in the car.

Judge McHugh said he was satisfied with the States case and he found the defendant guilty.

The court heard Reddington had 70 previous convictions, including six for uninsured driving, and was serving a lengthy sentence for endangerment.

Defence lawyer Ciaran MacLoughlin said the defendant had a partner and a young child.

Mr MacLoughlin said Reddington had addiction issues in the past, but was now clean and doing well in custody.
Investigations into all the circumstances of this incident are ongoing at Bray Garda Station.

Gardai have launched an investigation after a man was injured when gunshots were fired into a car in Co Wicklow on Tuesday night.

The incident occurred at approximately 10pm at Ballinahinch, Roundwood, Co Wicklow.

According to reports, two men were travelling in a car when it was blocked off by another vehicle at approximately 10pm.

A firearm was then discharged into the car.

One of the men travelling in the car, aged in his 20s, received a number of wounds and later presented at hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Investigations into all the circumstances of this incident are ongoing at Bray Garda Station.

A garda spokesman said they are appealing for any witnesses to come forward.

"Any persons travelling in the Roundwood area between 9:30pm and 10:30pm on Tuesday 23rd July 2024 are asked to come forward.

Any road users who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) and were travelling in this area at these times are asked to make this footage available to Gardai.

Gardai are also appealing to any persons who observed the movements of a silver Mercedes Benz that travelled from Roundwood onto Newtownmountkennedy and then northbound on the N11 into the Dublin 4 area between 10pm and 11pm on Tuesday 23rd July 2024.

Any road users travelling in these areas at these times who may have camera footage (including dash-cam) are also asked to come forward.

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Bray Garda Station on 01 666 5300, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111, or any Garda Station.
Fitzgerald continued brandishing the knife while continuing to walk along the footpath on the Old Mallow Road

GARDAI raced to a Cork city suburb after being alerted to a man walking naked with his dog while carrying a machete.

Judge Mary Dorgan at Cork District Court was told by Sgt Aisling Murphy that officers received a report that a man was walking naked on Old Mallow Road on the northside of the city at 4.15pm on April 9.

Gardai were informed that the naked man was also seen carrying a machete or long-bladed knife.

Sgt Murphy stated that gardai went to the scene and spoke to Eric Fitzgerald (65) of Shaws Bridge, Rathpeacon, Co Cork.

She said that Fitzgerald was in possession of a boning knife with a blade which measured 30cm in length.

Sgt Murphy said that Garda David ODonoghue stayed in the patrol vehicle while he awaited assistance from the armed support unit.

He (Fitzgerald) continued brandishing the knife while continuing to walk along the footpath on the Old Mallow Road in the direction of the railway bridge and then entered his address," he said.

He came out again a number of minutes later, clothed. With the assistance of the armed support unit, Garda John Kerins arrested Eric Fitzgerald for an offence contrary to the Firearms and Offensive Weapons Act.

Defence solicitor Joseph Cuddigan noted that the only charge before the court against his client involved possession of a knife.

He said this was clearly a matter for the district court.

Having received an outline of the case, Judge Dorgan agreed to accept jurisdiction on the matter to allow it to be dealt with at district court level.

Judge Dorgan remanded Fitzgerald on bail to appear before the court again on October 2.

Prosecution statements will be furnished to the defence in the interim.
Brian Ibe (23) had denied murdering Peter Kennedy (65), but admitted causing his death

The trial of a homeless man accused of murdering a retired "gentleman", who put him up in his Kildare home, has collapsed at the Central Criminal Court over the type of evidence to be given by witnesses.

Brian Ibe (23) had denied murdering Peter Kennedy (65), but admitted causing his death, after the deceased had offered Mr Ibe and his mother the use of his home and address until they found accommodation.

Mr Ibe of no fixed abode and formerly of Moore Park, Newbridge, Co Kildare, and the Peter McVerry Trust, Dublin 12, had pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murder of Mr Kennedy in Newbridge between April 28, 2020, and May 12, 2020.

Mr Ibe had also pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to a charge of assault causing harm to Garda Brendan ODonnell at Newbridge Garda Station on April 29, 2020.

Mr Justice Burns told the jury that the court had been informed that additional witnesses were to be called by the defence but that the prosecution had not believed those witnesses were to be called as experts.

Only witnesses classified as experts are allowed to give their opinions in evidence, as opposed to regular witnesses, who can only testify to factual matters.

The judge told the jury that the court would not be able to deal with that scenario for a couple of months and it would be unfair of the court to ask the jury to remain empanelled for that duration after already hearing evidence that could have been distressing and disturbing for them.

Mr Justice Burns said that without the jurys work and willing participation, the criminal justice system would not operate and he excused the seven women and five men from jury service for five years.

The case, which was expected to last up to two weeks, is listed before the Central Criminal Court on Wednesday of next week.

In opening the case, prosecution counsel Fiona Murphy SC told the jury it was not disputed that the accused caused the death of Mr Kennedy but that it was for them to determine whether Mr Ibe was suffering with a mental illness such that it would allow the defence of not guilty by reason of insanity.

Over two days of evidence, the court heard that Brian Ibe and his mother, Martha, were both put up by Peter Kennedy in 2019 in his home in Newbridge, Co Kildare. Mr Kennedy was fatally assaulted by Mr Ibe in April 2020 and died two weeks later.

The jury heard that retired probation officer Mr Kennedy was an absolute gentleman", who took homeless people into his home while they were looking for accommodation but had become fearful of Mr Ibe.

The jury were also told that the accused's mother said she saw her son stabbing Mr Kennedy in the back of the neck with a five-inch blade as he shouted for help in his own home. The jury heard that the accused's mother also witnessed her son threatening to kill the pensioner.
Two suspects including the alleged ringleader have been arrested in Paraguay.

Photograph of the seizure released by police in the UK

The drug smuggling organisation, linked to a two-tonne seizure of the class A drug in March at Southampton Port, was brought down after the discovery of four tonnes of cocaine inside sacks of rice in Barcelona.

Two suspects including the alleged ringleader have been arrested in Paraguay.

Another eight people have been held in Spain.

A spokesman for the Civil Guard said today: More than four tonnes of cocaine hidden in sacks of rice have been seized at Barcelona Port.

Its the largest seizure ever recorded at this port.

The organisation thats been smashed, with ten people arrested, operated in Spain, Paraguay and the UK.

Releasing more details of the UK seizure, the spokesman added: In March this year, a shipment of 2.1 tonnes of cocaine was intercepted.

On that occasion the criminal gang had used the port of Guayaquil in Ecuador and had hidden the drugs in containers of cocoa beans.

The Civil Guard revealed today the Spain-based drug smuggling organisation consisted of businessmen specialising in the import-export business who used front companies to try to hide their criminal activity.

The investigation that led to the arrests began last year.

The arrests were made after detectives checked a number of shipping containers at Barcelona Port which were supposed to have rice inside and discovered more than four tonnes of cocaine.

A Civil Guard spokesman said: The organisation had a set-up in the Paraguayan capital Asuncion where the cocaine was processed and turned into a powder and packed into plastic sacks before being introduced into sacks of rice that were sewn by hand before being sent to Europe.

More than three tonnes of cocaine bound for Belgium was also seized as part of the operation.

Spanish police sources confirmed today the Southampton Port bust linked to the gang they have smashed was unrelated to a record near-six tonne seizure of cocaine in crates of banana at the same port in February.

The National Crime Agency and Border Force went public with that operation, which led to the seizure of 5.7 tonnes of the class-A drug worth stg450 million inside a container at the port, earlier this year.

The NCA said at the time the blocks of the illicit drug had been heading to the Port of Hamburg in Germany for onward delivery before they were discovered on February 8.

The separate March seizure is believed to have gone unreported until now.

The arrests in Spain have taken place following raids in a number of provinces, including Madrid, Toledo, Seville and Cadiz.

The Civil Guard said in a statement: In total nearly 9.5 tonnes of cocaine have been seized.

This record amount shows the importance of the criminal organisation thats been smashed whose objectives revolved around smuggling large amounts of cocaine into Europe.
Today, Gdansk could not be more different from the images that were beamed around the world forty years ago

Visitors told me Gdansk in Poland was a lovely city but I was amazed at just how beautiful it was.

For readers of a certain vintage the name still conjures up visions of striking shipyard workers led by Lech Walesa and his Solidarity trade-union in the 1980s.

They were fighting for freedom against a totalitarian government after decades of repression.

The city on the Baltic coast had already suffered a brutal and tragic history, being invaded by the Nazis at the start of World War II in 1939 and then decimated by Russian shelling as the Soviet power pushed back the Germans at the end of the war in 1945. Allied bombing also added to the carnage.

Jim at The Solidarity Museum

Nearly ninety pc of its old town buildings were destroyed. Then came the bleak years behind the Iron Curtain.

Today, Gdansk could not be more different from the images that were beamed around the world forty years ago.

Freedom has brought prosperity. The old sections of the Main Town have been rebuilt in the same glorious, gothic-renaissance style, the streets are filled with tourists and there is a proliferation of bars, restaurants and luxury hotels around the city.

The famous shipyards are still operating with the addition of a wonderful museum and library dedicated to Solidarity, a union which grew into a ten million strong freedom movement for the whole country.

Nobel Peace Prize winning Lech Walesa, who became the countrys first president after the collapse of communism, even has an office here and can still be seen occasionally wandering its halls at the age of 80.

A pope-mobile used by Polish Pope John Paul is on display, along with a sinister police vehicle used to seize striking dock workers. A police interrogation room has also been recreated.

In the city itself stunning architecture sits side by side with medieval towers, part of the citys rich history.

Gdansk has one of the worlds biggest redbrick churches, St Marys, which dates from the 15th century and can hold 25,000 people, and the largest medieval crane still in existence where ten men used to walk inside each of two giant wheels which lifted cargo on and off boats on the Motlawa River.

Beautiful spires, like that of the Town Hall, demand your attention and the sun literally glistens off the magical Armoury building. The old prison, once a gateway to the city where executions took place in medieval times, is filled with little shops.

Tourism now makes up a major part of the economy of this city of nearly half a million people.

Our arrival coincided with the annual Mystic Festival for heavy metal lovers and the city was filled with leather and black-clad rock fans who mixed easily with locals before heading for the harbour stage. We also bumped into stag parties from Scotland and Norway.

But turn a corner and there are haunting reminders of what Gdansk went through during the last war.

Explore Gdansks Nautical Museum

We stumbled into one quiet square where there is a mural of brave post office workers being lined up against a wall by German soldiers. A modern piece of art records fingerprints in the wall where they stood before they were all executed for resisting the invasion.

For history aficionados, the Museum of the Second World War could keep you engaged for a whole day.

But holidays are for fun and a great way of exploring the city is from the water. We chose a cruise on an old-style galleon and not surprisingly it was packed with children.

The 90-minute tour started in the city centre and passed through the docks to the Westerplatte Peninsula which was where the Germans invaded on the very first day of World War II. If you have time there is a museum and a monument dedicated to the men who fought off the Nazis for a week before running out of ammunition.

Other monuments in the city include the Soviet-era Monument for the Defenders of the Polish Post Office and the giant Three Crosses Monument dedicated to those who died in a shipyard massacre of 1970.

But the most famous statue in Gdansk is a 17th century sculpture of Neptune in the main street which has become the citys emblem.

Sopot Beach in Poland

Other major attractions include Artus Court, the former seat of the grain exchange, now part of the Museum of Gdansk; the National Maritime Museum, including the tanker Soldek berthed outside its front door; and the Amber Museum dedicated to the transparent rock native to the Baltic area, including the largest piece ever found at 68.2kg. The museum is found in an old mill, once the biggest of its kind in medieval Europe.

For those who want a day away from the summer heat of the city, a trip to the plush seaside resort of Sopot is welcome. A famous health resort, it is lined with cafes and art galleries and is a great place to swim with two sandy beaches.

Just 14km north of Gdansk, it has the longest wooden pier in Europe stretching 511.5m.

Still further north is Gdynia and the three cities together form the Tricity metropolitan area with a population of over one million. A modern city, Gdynia too has a harbour and sandy beaches where locals flock in the summer.

It is also blessed with the Emigration Museum, where you discover that Poland also suffered the potato blight which caused the Irish Famine. There are many similarities between the two countries and it makes a fascinating visit.

While in Gdansk we stayed in the trendy four-star Arche Dwor Uphagena, once a hospital, now a minimalist hotel with industrial design decor.

Great places to eat in Gdansk include fish restaurant Zafiszowani, Kubicki, the brewery Brovarnia and on the waterfront, Maniera. In Sopot, Fisherman restaurant is great and in Gdynia. Butchery & Wine is a gem.

FACTFILE: GDANSK

 For more info on Gdansk log on to visitgdansk.com  Sopot: visitsopot.pl  Gdynia: gdynia.pl  For information specific to the Pomerania Region see pomorskie.travel/en  Hotel: archedworuphagena.pl/en  Restaurants: pomorskie-prestige.eu/en  Galleon cruise: galeony.pl/en  European Centre of Solidarity: ecs.gda.pl  Emigration Museum: polska1.pl
Flights between Asian cities and Singapore canceled due to Typhoon Gaemi

A number of flights between major Asian tourism destinations and Singapore were canceled as Typhoon Gaemi barreled through Taiwan and the Philippines before hitting southern China.

Two Xiamen Airlines flights between Singapore and China's Fuzhou City were suspended on Thursday as the typhoon made landfall in Fujian Province, bringing heavy rains and strong winds, The Straits Times reported.

Fuzhou, the capital of Fujian in southeastern China, also suspended train services from Thursday.

Three flights between Singapore and Taipei were canceled on Thursday after the typhoon through Taiwan on Wednesday, leaving at least two dead and 200 others injured.

Though the typhoon did not cross the Philippines, it caused heavy rains and flooding in the capital Manila and paralyzed traffic.

Philippines' low-cost Cebu Pacific airline canceled flights between Manila and Singapore on Thursday.

Dozens of flights scheduled to depart Singapore on Thursday and Friday have also been delayed, according to Changi Airport's website.
Taoiseach Simon Harris will also oversee an urgent review of safety measures in taxis after predator Raymond Shorten (50) was jailed for 17 years yesterday for targeting two women after they spent nights out in Dublin city centre.

The National Transport Authority (NTA) will carry out a review of the need for mandatory safety equipment such as CCTV in taxis after a driver was convicted of raping two young women in his car.

Taoiseach Simon Harris will also oversee an urgent review of safety measures in taxis after predator Raymond Shorten (50) was jailed for 17 years yesterday for targeting two women after they spent nights out in Dublin city centre.

Read more Brother of gangsters Wayne and Fatpuss Bradley ordered to stay away from Coolock protest site

I am extremely concerned about this, and public transport safety will be a focus of my work in the coming weeks, the Taoiseach said in Paris.

He added that it was an area where I want to see progress, including where taxi regulation is concerned.

I am horrified and galled that two young women were also targeted in such a barbaric way when all they were trying to do was get home safely after socialising, he said.

Garda Commissioner Drew Harris told a meeting of the Policing Authority yesterday it was a reasonable supposition that Shorten had attacked and sexually assaulted other unknown people.

The NTA said it will undertake a further review of the requirements for additional in-vehicle safety equipment in taxis after it emerged that 70 people reported being either raped or sexually assaulted in taxis between 2017 and last year.

It said some of the other compulsory in-vehicle security considered is a partition separating the driver front-seat area from the rest of the vehicle and a locational alert system.

Taxi owners and operators can choose to install such equipment if they wish

The transport watchdog previously publicly consulted on making security cameras a legal requirement in 2016, with the vast majority of respondents then saying they were not in favour. Data protection concerns were also raised at the time.

When the idea was last mooted, 97.3pc of 2,649 respondents said they did not consider safety equipment should be mandatory.

Taxi drivers said their main concern was the potential financial impact.

However, in the wake of the high-profile conviction of Shorten, the NTA will now revisit the topic.

The Irish Taxi Drivers Federation (ITDF) has said it would support CCTV being made mandatory in a bid to improve passenger and driver safety.

Vice-president James Maguire has called for it to be introduced as part of the licence and also to be subsidised.

The NTA said that while it is not currently obligatory, taxi owners and operators can choose to install such equipment if they wish.

Under data protection laws introduced in 2018, gardai may request a copy of dash-cam footage in relation to the investigation of a crime.

Authorities have to demonstrate that the footage is necessary for the investigation or prosecution of a criminal offence, the Data Protection Commission (DPC) says.

It has previously raised concerns about the proportionality and justification for installing CCTV cameras in taxis.

Its website states that any audio recordings inside a vehicle would require a very strong justification as to the proportionality and necessity for same, due to the high-risk potential for recording of passengers private conversation.

No one should ever feel at risk or in danger when taking a taxi or any form of public transport

Figures published by the HSEs Sexual Assault Treatment Unit services show 70 people reported being either raped or sexually assaulted in taxis between 2017 and last year.

Shorten will spend 30 years in prison after a judge made the jail term consecutive to a 13-year sentence he was given earlier this week for the unrelated rape of a seven-year-old girl.

Gardai said they immediately revoked Shortens taxi licence the moment a criminal investigation against him began two years ago.

It is believed there could be more victims of the serial sex offender. Mr Harris appealed yesterday for anyone who may have been a victim, or anyone with any information in relation to any other suspected offences Shorten may have committed, to come forward.

Also commenting on the case yesterday, Taoiseach Simon Harris said: No one should ever feel at risk or in danger when taking a taxi or any form of public transport.

I want to commend these brave women for coming forward to seek justice, and my thoughts are with them as they attempt to move on with their lives following the conclusion of the court cases.

Unfortunately, there is a very serious issue with domestic, sexual and gender-based violence in this country and we need a whole-of-society approach to tackle this.
Soon gun-running routes back to Ireland were established that fuelled the fledgling Provo campaign.

Billy Blue Kelly was present when Gaddafi agreed to supply the Provisional IRA, with weapons and explosives to help kick-start its 25-year terror war.

A veteran republican who once did a deal with Libyas Colonel Gaddafi for guns and bombs says the IRA terror war was a failure.

Ex-IRA man Billy Blue Kelly (75) was in his twenties when he flew to North Africa with IRA leader Joe Cahill and fellow volunteer Denis Donaldson.

Their quest was to persuade the oil-rich states leader Muammar Gaddafi to part with weapons for use in an all-out Brits Out war in Northern Ireland.

Soon gun-running routes back to Ireland were established that fuelled the fledgling Provo campaign.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi (Photo by Eric VANDEVILLE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

But in an interview with the Sunday World, Blue Kelly hit out at the change of direction adopted by the republican leadership.

He said: We ended up in the same place we started. The fundamentals remain the same. The British still rule. You cant get away from that fact.

Kelly added: But a lot of republicans ended up with big houses and big cars. Is that what it was all about?

Kellys IRA boss Joe Cahill was a republican legend. He was sentenced to death by hanging in the 1940s for his part in the murder of a Catholic RUC officer in west Belfast.

But it was reduced to life imprisonment when fellow IRA man, 19-year-old Tom Williams, took the rap and confessed to the crime.

When the Troubles erupted, Cahill helped form the Provisional IRA. By the time he went to Libya, he was chief-of-staff. He died 20 years ago, aged 84.

Belfast-born Billy Kelly was nicknamed Blue Boy because of his striking resemblance to High Chaparral TV series actor Mark Slade, who played Blue Boy.

Blue was personally chosen by Cahill for the Libyan trip because he had a smattering of conversational French.

According to Kelly, Denis Donaldson, a former IRA man and senior Sinn Fein figure, also travelled with them. Donaldson was shot dead at his remote cottage in Donegal after being outed as a British agent nearly 20 years ago.

Kelly revealed how he and the others travelled through France and on to Libya. Through a contact, they were smuggled into The Splendid Gate military barracks in Tripoli.

Billy Blue Kelly was present when Gaddafi agreed to supply the Provisional IRA, with weapons and explosives to help kick-start its 25-year terror war.

Minutes later, they were introduced to Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi in his bullet-proof luxury tent inside the army complex.

At the time, Gaddafis oil-rich state was suspected of bank-rolling Arab terrorist organisations and left-wing paramilitary groups and the IRA wanted a slice of the Libyan cake.

Through an interpreter, Gaddafi expressed surprise that his Irish guests opted to speak English  the language of their oppressor  and not their native Irish.

But according to Blue Kelly, both parties found common purpose in their hatred of the British. That was good enough for both of us, he said this week.

Kelly also revealed he was present when Gaddafi agreed to supply the fledgling Provisional IRA with weapons and explosives to kickstart its terror war.

Gaddafi was good to us. Thats all I can say about it, said Kelly.

The Gaddafi tent talks attended by Kelly, Cahill and Donaldson were the first of several IRA begging bowl trips to the Libyan capital.

Billy Blue Kelly photgraphed in Long Kesh during the early 1970s

Over the years, Gaddafis rogue state supplied the IRA with thousands of high-powered rifles, handguns and explosives, including deadly Semtex.

More than 1,700 people  including 644 civilians  lost their lives as a result of two and a half decades of IRA violence in Ireland, Britain and a number of European countries.

But ex-IRA man Blue Kelly now believes many people died for nothing.

We are in exactly the same position we were in at the start of the Troubles 50 years ago, he told the Sunday World. Britain still holds all the cards and theres no sign of a united Ireland. Thats the reality.

Blue Kelly also revealed for the first time that Colonel Gaddafi toyed with the Irishmen before agreeing to hand over weapons and explosives.

We kind of knew he was joking, but we got the better of him and he liked that. Gaddafi told us he didnt think he could give the IRA any guns because he didnt believe our volunteers were brave enough.

IRA man Joe Cahill.

Joe asked him what he meant by that. And through his interpreter, he said: Watch this.

He signalled to a Libyan soldier to come forward. And he ordered him to throw himself from the highest building in the barracks.

The soldier marched towards the exit. But just as he reached the door, Gaddafi ordered him to stop, telling him to ignore his previous order.

Gaddafi then asked Joe if he had a volunteer who could match his soldiers bravery. Joe turned to me and said Blue, throw yourself off that building. I looked at him and said: Away and eff yourself Joe!

Joe then turned to Gaddafi and said, Would one of your men have the balls to talk to you like that? Everyone laughed and we knew then we were onto a winner with Gaddafi. He agreed to give us the guns. He really hated the Brits, said Kelly.

He added: We liked Gaddafi and he liked us. And he was as good as his word.

Blue Kelly also told how he travelled to Algeria and later Lebanon on behalf of the IRA.

He and Donaldson were arrested at a French airport on their return journey from a terrorist training camp in the Lebanon.

We were the Overseas Department, he said.

I went into the Kasbah in Algiers. We were told no Europeans were allowed to enter. But I went in, entirely on my own, and I spoke to the local people before going back to the Eurasia Hotel where I was staying.

Denis Donaldson

The Algerians didnt like Europeans because of what the French had done in their country when they were the colonial masters.

Everyone was looking at me because I was European. But I left when I was ready and not before.

He added: Using my Irish passport, I could travel anywhere.

Blue Kelly also recounted how he escaped from Long Kesh  which was later renamed the Maze  where he had been interned.

He said: Alex Maskey and me and another republican from west Belfast called Geordie Burt hatched a plan to go over the wire fence.

The next thing a guard dog came running down with soldiers. The dog was barking and they grabbed Alex and Geordie, but they never saw me.

I waited until they had all gone and then I climbed over the fence to freedom.

I made my way up onto the M1 motorway, but I was as green as a leprechaun with crawling through the grass.

I thumbed a lift and the driver who stopped was a UDR man in a van. I thought I was caught. He said he was going to Girdwood Barrack in north Belfast.

He saw the state of me, but he still gave me a lift to Shaftsbury Square in south Belfast. From there I made my way down to a republican club in the Market area.

I walked into the bar and although I could hardly speak, I managed to tell the woman behind the bar that I had just escaped from Long Kesh.

She gave me a pint and the next thing the place was full of IRA with guns who wanted to know who I was, said Kelly.

Thank God one of them recognised me and I was taken to safety across the border.

Kellys IRA career was interspersed with several stints behind bars. Although he was never actually sworn into the IRA, he notched up 12 years as an IRA prisoner.

To tell you the truth, I quite enjoyed prison. You were given three meals a day and the craic was good, he says.

Today Blue Kelly lives alone in a small flat in north Belfast. He survives on benefits and his old-age pension.

Its all light years away from the opulence he witnessed in Colonel Gaddafis luxury Bedouin tent.

Kelly spends his evenings reading and he recently finished two books by Scottish comedy king Billy Connolly. He is also a life-long Celtic fan.

But the one-time IRA leader says he feels sorry for former republican comrades who have difficulty coming to terms with the IRA climbdown.

Personally, at 75, Im doing OK. Im comfortable enough. But a lot of my old IRA friends find it a struggle and you ask yourself, what was it all for? said Kelly. Especially when a lot of people ended up with big houses and cars.
A Mexican federal official told reporters that Zambada and Guzman Lopez arrived in the United States on a private plane and turned themselves into authorities.

Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, a long-time leader of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopeza, son of infamous cartel leader El Chapo, were arrested by US authorities in Texas, the US Justice Department said.

A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquin Guzman, Zambada is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world and is known for running the cartel's smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile.

A Mexican federal official told reporters that Zambada and Guzman Lopez arrived in the United States on a private plane and turned themselves into authorities.

The US Government had offered a reward of up to 15 million for information leading to Zambada's capture.

Zambada and Guzman Lopez, who have eluded authorities for decades, oversaw the alleged trafficking of "tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence", FBI director Christopher Wray said, adding that now they will "face justice in the United States".

"Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable," attorney general Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Mexican authorities did not immediately comment on the arrests.

US officials have been seeking Zambada's capture for years, and he has been charged in several US cases. He was charged in February in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute the synthetic opioid.

Prosecutors said he was continuing to lead the Sinaloa cartel, "one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world".

Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the cartel's strategist, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, "El Chapo" Guzman, who was sentenced to life in prison in the US in 2019 and is the father of Guzman Lopez.

Zambada is an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering, and even skinning their rivals.

While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.

In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.

"I'm terrified of being incarcerated," Zambada said. "I'd like to think that, yes, I would kill myself."

The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.

Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighbouring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.

Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually, he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but he still managed to maintain strong ties with the gang and avoid a turf war.

He also developed a partnership with "El Chapo" Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Zambada's detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of "El Chapo" Guzman, Ovidio Guzman Lopez.

In recent years, Guzman's sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or "Chapitos", that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the US market.

They were seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested and extradited to the US last year.

He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September.

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, said Zambada's arrest is important but unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs to the US as Joaquin Guzman Lopez was the least influential of the four sons who made up the Chapitos.

"This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I don't think so," he said.

"It's not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him."
Danielle Marr Collins made her name as a jab queen and on Dublin Wives but is now stateside

Dublin Wives TV star Danielle Marr Collins admits its been a rollercoaster ride going from being a famous Botox administrator to a hit on the Los Angeles comedy circuit.

Feisty Dubliner Danielle moved to California five years ago after becoming a millionaire thanks to her profession as a dentist and administering Botox to clients.

She earned the famous nickname Dr Botox and then starred on the reality television series Dublin Wives in 2012 and 2013, and also made an appearance on Celebrity Big Brother.

In recent years she has become a hit on the comedy circuit in California and has lately been hanging out with the likes of Jimmy Carr, Howie Mandel, Craig Robinson and Leslie Jones.

Danielle with Jimmy Carr

Danielle has been doing stand-up routines for nearly two years and, on her birthday recently, she performed at no less than three venues on the one evening, including her weekly gig at the legendary Comedy Store.

This year Los Angeles hosted the Netflix is a Joke comedy festival and they brought over Jimmy Carr, explains the mum-of-one, who also uses the name Danielle Meagher.

He stayed at the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel and I was in the green room backstage eating a pretzel at The Comedy Store and in walks Jimmy Carr who was playing in the Original Room part of the building that night.

He recognised my accent immediately and mentioned he was Irish. It turns out we have a mutual friend and early stand-up comedy mentor from the UK, Jill Edwards, who taught all the big UK comics.

Danielle with Craig Robinson

Both Jimmy and I started our stand-up comedy training at the Komedia Comedy Club in Brighton under Jill Edwards. We talked about that and how the first time I did stand-up was right before I did Celebrity Big Brother UK, with Romesh Ranganathan hosting my first show.

Danielle recalls she joked about how there was an Irish woman and an English man backstage at The Comedy Store.

Jimmy corrected me, saying his parents are from Limerick and he loves touring every part of Ireland, and got someone to take a photo of the two of us, she said.

Her routines on the American comedy circuit include observations on her time in LA, visits to her gynaecologist and life as a reality TV personality and an Irish woman in America, as well as her stint on Dublin Wives.

My show is all gossip about reality TV and Botox and secrets of TV and so on, she said.

I cant wait to play Irish comedy venues  Im pretty homesick, to be honest, but I need to keep the momentum going so its just work, work, work and getting as much stage time all over town.

Danielle with Hoie Mandel

The comedy community here in LA is amazing  just last month, Jo Koy was touring in Dublin and made an Instagram video at Trinity College, where I studied, while I was about to go on stage at The Hollywood Improv. It felt like a real sliding doors moment.

Her birthday comedy hat trick included playing on the same day at The Lab Hollywood Improv, The Original Room at The Comedy Store and Chocolate Sundaes at The Laugh Factory.

She also told how she not only got to see Craig Robinson live, but hang out with him too.

Only 10 days ago, I had just performed in the 7pm show at The Comedy Store in the Original Room and was sitting in the back corner during the late show, watching other comics, she recalls.

Craig was sitting at the back too  hes always such a delight. When he plays the main stage at The Comedy Store with his keyboard, we all stand in the comics section at the back so we can almost dance along and sing along. He gets the whole room singing.

Hes such a big star here and in Ireland. I probably drove him half-mad the other week as I was sitting beside him, trying to charge my phone in the kitchen, and left him in charge of my water bottle.

I kept jumping up and down, and hes so chilled, funny, and incredibly nice. He makes me laugh on and off stage and is so damn nice to everyone. He loves Ireland and made a surprise appearance at the Craic Den in Dublin last month.

Danielle Meagher with fellow Dublin Housewives Virginia Macari, Roz Flanagan, Jo Jordan and Lisa Murphy

Where are Danielles co-stars from Dublin Housewives now?

ROZ FLANAGAN Armagh-born Roz lives between mansions in Malahide, Co Dublin and Marbella with her four daughters and husband Vincent, who owned a major refrigeration company. VIRGINIA MACARI Irish/Italian businesswoman Virginia recently moved from Marbella to set up home in Miami with her new husband, Alan Smurfit. Virginia is still operating her bikini business, as well as looking after her young son from a previous relationship. JO JORDAN Jo has gone under the radar in recent years. The mum-of two suffered a heart attack in 2016 at the age of 42. LISA MURPHY Lisa sadly died from breast cancer in February at the age of 51. She was engaged to boxer Joe Egan, dancer Michael Flatley and celebrity lawyer Gerald Kean.
Taurangas new mayor Mahe Drysdale is disappointed at the low voter turnout for the city's first council election in five years.

Just 38.7 per cent of people - just over one-third - voted in the Tauranga City Council election on Saturday, official voting returns show.

Drysdale says the turnout is a little bit disappointing, especially after not having that opportunity for the last four years.

A Government-appointed commission, led by former MP Anne Tolley, ran Tauranga since February 2021 after the council was sacked for dysfunction.

My priority is we have democracy and if we can make that work, then theres no need for them [commissioners], says Drysdale.

Our job as councillors is to actually engage with the community, make them feel valued and that their views are heard.

Hopefully that will lead to them engaging more in selecting who represents them.

Of the 109,364 eligible voters in Tauranga, 42,4000 people voted. The population of New Zealands fifth largest city is 161,000.

This year's voter turnout is lower than the 2019 election, where 40.3 per cent of eligible voters took to the ballot boxes.

In 2016, voter turnout was 38.1 per cent, in 2013 it was 37.9 per cent and in 2010 turnout was higher at 43.6 per cent.

Tauranga City Council strategy, growth and governance general manager Christine Jones. Photo: Alex Cairns/Bay of Plenty Times.

Tauranga City Council strategy, growth and governance manager Christine Jones says the council used new tactics to try improve voter participation.

The election was out of sync with the rest of the country, so the council was solely responsible for creating awareness about it, she says.

In early 2022, the commissions term was extended until July 2024. This meant Tauranga missed the October 2022 council elections.

An election focused Instagram page was launched and the council translated all election material into te reo Maori, Punjabi, Korean, Hindi, Spanish, Chinese Mandarin, Samoan and Tongan.

The 75 candidates could create a 90 second video for their profile on the council election website. These videos generated nearly 50,000 views.

Councils most visible addition this election was placing orange voting bins at all supermarkets around Tauranga, which was also advertised widely.

Jones says 86 percent of all votes came through the orange bins, showing this approach worked.

The council would support online voting if it was introduced by central government for local body elections, she says.

Asked if the lower voter turnout was disappointing, Jones says it is an issue that affects all city councils.

The council would research the 2024 election to help with future campaigns, she says.

Local Government New Zealand vice-president Campbell Barry. Photo: NZ Herald/Georgina Campbell.

Local Government New Zealand vice-president Campbell Barry says the turnout in the Tauranga election "continues a deeply concerning trend around voter turnout in local government elections".

In response to the low turnout, the councils membership body established an electoral reform group to look at ways of increasing voter participation.

LGNZ is advocating for fundamental reform of our local electoral system to increase voter participation across the country. Without reform, there is a serious threat to the mandate mayors and councils have to speak up for their communities, says Barry.

The group is also looking at how people can vote, who oversees elections and four-year terms for councils instead of the current three years.

Reform group chair Nick Smith says there are questions over the viability of postal voting with the decline in postal services and most people doing their business online.

It was more important than ever, with democracy being challenged internationally and growing disinformation on social media, that the approach to local elections was refreshed, Smith says in a statement.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Anyone wanting to have their say on the expansion of New Zealands biggest worm farm in Kawerau has until August 7 to make their submissions.

Ecocast Limited has applied to replace its existing resource consent, which expires on October 31.

It also seeks consent to expand operations on the existing site and on an adjoining site to the south.

Resource consent is sought for the discharge of contaminants to land where they may enter groundwater and surface water, and the air.

Ecocast uses vermicast (worm farming) methods to process bio-solids from council wastewater treatment plants throughout the Bay of Plenty, which would otherwise have to be transported to landfills outside the region.

The bio-solids are mixed with waste material from the nearby wood mill and laid out into windrows to be processed by tiger worms into vermicast.

Earlier this year, the vermicast operation made news headlines after multiple complaints to Bay of Plenty Regional Councils pollution hotline from Kawerau residents about foul odours being emitted from the property. Complaints included that the odour could be smelt from the town centre less than two kilometres away.

Compliance staff from the regional council visited the site at the time and found it to be non-compliant with resource consent conditions.

The Ecocast operation in Kawerau.

Owner Tom McDowall says he has since been working with the regional council to resolve these problems.

Among other changes, more diligence was given to how staff dealt with wind direction and the amount of wood chip that was mixed with the biosolid.

Effectively, we changed the ratio of bio-solids to wood chip, which acts as an odour suppressant.

The plant on Tarawera Road is the largest worm farming operation in New Zealand. It was started by Tom as a small business, which was incorporated in 2007.

By 2021, it had grown to 10 hectares and now covers 24ha.

The current resource consent allows for the discharge of 28,000 tonnes of biosolid material to land. The new application seeks to increase this amount to 32,000 tonnes.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Taurangas first council in four years will begin its official duties next week, following the election on Saturday, July 20.

The new Tauranga Mayor Mahe Drysdale and nine councillors will be sworn in at a Tauranga City Council meeting next Friday, August 2.

The election was hotly contested with 75 people competing for 10 seats at the council table.

Drysdale won the election with a landslide 6000 votes more than former Tauranga Mayor Greg Brownless, the final results show.

The nine ward councillors are Jen Scoular for Mauao/Mount Maunganui, Glen Crowther for Matua-Otumoetai, Rod Taylor for Te Papa, Kevin Schuler for Bethlehem, Marten Rozeboom for Tauriko, Hautapu Baker for Welcome Bay, Rick Curach for Arataki, Steve Morris for Papamoa and Mikaere Sydney for the new Te Awanui Maori seat.

Eight out of the 10 are fresh faces on the council. Rick Curach will serve his seventh term on council after missing out in 2019.

Steve Morris was part of the council in 2019 that was discharged of its duties and replaced with government-appointed commissioners in February 2021.

This time the team of 10 will have a four-year term, which is a first for New Zealand.

Mahe Drysdale told Local Democracy Reporting his priority is working with his team of nine councillors to realise the potential of Tauranga... [Tauranga] is a good city at the moment, so its taking it from good to great.

The voters have very much said we want a positive future for the city.

The new mayor plans to meet with each councillor individually to discuss their priorities and what skills they bring to the table.

After those meetings, Mahe says he will choose a deputy mayor and form council committees.

Asked if he was concerned that only two of the team had been on council before, he responded: It doesnt bother me at all.

I just want successful people around the table that know how to get stuff done. Thats much more important to me than having experience.

We are a team and its about using everyones skills to deliver.

One thing Mahe says is disappointing is the voter turnout. It was 38.7% after all the votes were counted  lower than the 2019 election, which had a 40.3% turnout.

Its a little bit disappointing about the turnout in voting, especially after not having that opportunity for the last four years.

Our job as, as councillors, is to actually engage with the community. Make them feel valued and that their views are heard.

Hopefully that will lead to them engaging more in selecting who represents them.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Angel Gallardo Malaga Friday, 26 July 2024, 15:55 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace

WhatsApp

Facebook

X (antes Twitter)

LinkedIn

Telegram

Threads

There was a full moon the night M escaped from Morocco. Its reflection outlined the silhouette of the Zodiac boat on the horizon, but it barely lit up the rough track leading to it. Any other source of light could have attracted the attention of the authorities. About eighty people, mostly men, made up the crowd. They ran in panic towards the boat, which was waiting at a distance from the shore. They stumbled over rocks and pushed one another. M kept falling over. She could feel the rest of them running over her. "If you can't go on, we'll leave you on land," they told her when they saw her limping. She got up as best she could and continued.

They arrived in a crush. The water covered them completely, so they could not push themselves up into the boat with the help of the seabed. M tried as hard as she could, but she slipped. She saw how the others managed to get in but she couldn't. She shouted for help, but no one would listen to her. She was gradually being left alone in the water. Just as she was about to give up hope, someone grabbed her arms and pulled her up. She never found out who it was. M was one of the last people to get in before the boat started its journey. Not all of them made it. She was escaping from hell, but also left a part of herself behind.

She remembers little of the crossing. Shouting, dizziness and vomiting that went on for more than 24 hours. When she arrived in Gran Canaria, she spent two days in police custody before being referred to the Cruz Roja, the Spanish Red Cross. She is now living temporarily in a Cruz Roja shelter in Malaga. She has access to resources, food, psychological assistance and more to help to facilitate her autonomy and integration in Spain, where she is applying for international protection. Sitting at one of the desks in the classroom where she is learning Spanish, M tells her story.

She was born in Guinea, into an impoverished family and her birth left her mother in a wheelchair. "She took care of me and I took care of her," says M. She recalls that every Friday, she would go with her to the mosque to beg for alms to meet household expenses. It was on one of those Fridays that it happened: "My father came home saying he had a suitor for me, a friend's son wanted me to be his wife," she says. "I didn't know him." Her mother objected, but the decision was already made. She was thirteen at the time. The stranger she married against her will was in his thirties.

When, at fourteen, she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, she ran away to her parents' house, only to find the doors locked. "My father told me that I was already a married woman and that I should be at home with my husband," she said. Then came the second child and the third. Her husband did not work and did not care for the family, so she looked after everything. "In addition to taking care of the children, I had to go out to work to earn some money," she explains. "I had to beg so that my children could eat."

Zoom M arrived in Spain to escape threats Nito Salas

The odd jobs she found did not provide enough income to support her three children and her sick mother. M was forced to look for another way. With the help of her neighbour S, she contacted a family in Kuwait who were looking for someone to take care of their children. The contract, she was told, would be for two and a half years. She had no choice, so she accepted. She moved into the house of her employer, who lived with her husband, parents and a brother. A good part of her salary was sent to her mother through S's brother. The rest she saved with the idea of buying some gifts for her children when she returned.

The brother of the woman she worked for, she says, tried to rape her on numerous occasions: "Every night he would come to my room. I tried to explain that I had three children in Guinea, that if I got pregnant by someone other than my husband, I would be disowned by my family." One of those nights when she continued to refuse, he took a knife and stabbed her in the side. M threatened to tell the family, but he assured her that they would never believe her.

She dared to tell them, but what her attacker had predicted happened. "Everyone jumped on me and beat me for lying," she says. "They took me to the police station and accused me of stealing their jewellery." The Kuwaiti police kept her under investigation for a while, but found no conclusive evidence to prove the accusations. The family then decided to deport her back to her country. Under the 'kafala' system, a model of migrant labour exploitation found in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries, the employer can cancel the employee's residence permit at any time. "The police took me to the airport in handcuffs," she says. She later discovered that the family had gone through her belongings and taken all her savings.

When she returned to Guinea, her mother told her she had to leave. "She told me that my husband and my father were looking for me, that going back was a mistake," says M. "If I didn't leave soon, they were going to hurt me. She spent nine months hiding in the house of S's brother. During that time she was unable to see her children. Then she left for Morocco.

At the age of fourteen she had her first child, and then the second and third came along: "I had to beg so that they could eat"

She worked as a cleaner in Rabat and Casablanca for two years. She supported her family as best she could. One morning, she received a message from S. She had a friend who had managed to reach the Canary Islands by boat. The crossing, she told her, had been hard, but a sea rescue team had saved them in time.

"Then I started thinking about my situation in Guinea, Kuwait and Morocco, with no future," she recalls. The idea of crossing to Spain was growing on her. She consulted her mother, who warned her of the dangers of the journey and asked her not to do it: "She said I should keep holding on in Morocco, that the money I was sending them from there was enough." But she chose to take the risk. "In my country, I was threatened from all sides. I wasn't thinking about the destination, but about escaping the situation I was living in."

She got in touch with the criminal organisation that would get her to the Canary Islands. She was sent to Tahala, where she was kept hidden for about a month. She shared a room with nine other women who, like her, were waiting for a signal from those in charge to start their journey. The men were hiding in another room. One night a man she had not seen before appeared at the door. The day had come. They were loaded into a vehicle that dropped them off at the coast. Then she spotted the Zodiac boat in the distance.

M is now safe in Spain. "I have a bed to sleep in and I eat better, but I can't stop thinking about what my children must be eating," she says. They are in Guinea, with their grandmother. Every now and then, their father goes to look for them. They take refuge at S's house. The last time he took them away, in addition to not providing for them, he mistreated them. Since they escaped, S's brother also protects them from their father.
Juan Cano Malaga Friday, 26 July 2024, 11:49 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace

WhatsApp

Facebook

X (antes Twitter)

LinkedIn

Telegram

Threads

A fire that originated inside a house in the La Palmilla district of Malaga resulted in the the explosion of a camping gas cylinder, causing a loud bang that was heard in many parts of the city. The incident happened at around 4.50am on Thursday 25 July. Several fire brigade crews and Local Police officers rushed to the building in Calle Ebro after a blaze broke out in a property.

Zoom State of the property after the fire and explosion. @encierrobombmlg

The fire left the home completely engulfed in flames in a matter of minutes and ended up causing the strong explosion due, according to the first reports, to a camping gas cylinder that was stored inside the flat.

Sources reported that a Local Police officer had to be treated for injuries and two neighbours of the property had to be treated for anxiety attacks.
Rocio Mendoza Madrid Friday, 26 July 2024, 16:28 Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace

WhatsApp

Facebook

X (antes Twitter)

LinkedIn

Telegram

Threads

Spain does not have a state law banning smoking on beaches - yet. Although the environmental damage caused by cigarette butts in these natural spaces is well known, where they are by far the most abundant waste , the decision remains in the hands of each municipality. However, more and more cities, towns and villages are hanging up the no-smoking sign on the seashore.

With varying degrees of success in their control, and with legislation of varying intensity in terms of penalties, this year Spain has set a record for the number of beach resorts that ban smoking. Of the country's 3,500 beaches, 700, or 20 per cent, have activated this ban.

The Nofumadores association began to quantify how many beaches could be considered smoke-free in Spain in 2014. Then, they published the first 15 on a map. This year, a decade later, the figure is infinitely higher. Even an inland community has made its debut this year in this register: for the first time, the river beach of Las Moreras, in Valladolid, has also hung the no-smoking sign.

But there is not control of compliance with this ban everywhere. "Despite the exponential increase in the number of smoke-free beaches, the measure is cosmetic and educational in the vast majority, as there are no fines," said the president of the association, Raquel Ferandez.

There are important exceptions to this statement. Barcelona, Lloret de Mar and the municipalities of the Canary Islands do have a municipal ordinance based on the law on waste and contaminated soil to establish a sanctioning regulation. In addition to these areas, in 2022, Cantabria became the first autonomous community to declare all its beaches smoke-free, 87 in total, and created an autonomous law that made it the first region with its own legislation in this respect.

Uneven zeal

Galicia also has the Red Galega de Praias sen Fume (Galician network of beaches without smoking), which has 242 sites, 25 per cent of all the beaches registered in Galicia. A Coruna, according to the association, has the highest number of beaches banning cigarettes - 108 in total - due to the "strong concern about the polluting impact they have on the seafood industry".

As for the Canary Islands, at least formally, it does establish fines in legislation in a sanctioning regulation based on the aforementioned waste law. In total, there are 67 beaches where smoking is prohibited.

In Andalucia, there are 57 in total, a figure that has grown little over the last decade. Cadiz and Malaga have the most spaces declared 'smoke-free'.

The association that leads this initiative for tobacco-free beaches claims that the Valencian region has experienced a setback in the fight against pollution by cigarette butts in the municipalities that have experienced a change of government in favour of the PP in the last elections. "We call on the new municipalities of Valencia, Alicante, Villajoyosa, Elche, Benicarlo, Castellon de la Plana and Teulada to rejoin this civic and environmental initiative," said Fernandez Megina. In 2023 there were 85 kilometres of coastline where smoking and vaping were formally banned, and this summer there are 66.

An environmental problem

Nofumadores has already collected 369,000 signatures on the Change.org platform to ask the government to pass a national law declaring all beaches free of tobacco and vaping, and above all, their waste, following the path of other neighbouring countries such as France.

For now, the health delegation has just approved the draft bill that, in the future, will allow the expansion of smoke-free spaces, including those enjoyed outdoors, such as terraces and beaches. For now, the draft does not give details of what these places will be. It only specifies that they should be "community or social spaces". The draft is now under prior consultation and until 15 August it will be able to receive suggestions from medical associations , citizens and all kinds of NGOs. After this date, the drafting of the text will begin and it will be sent for approval.

In the case of beaches, the call for a ban is not only about the health of passive smokers, but also about the environmental damage caused by cigarette butts. Their filters are composed of cellulose acetate, a plastic that is not very biodegradable and which, after fragmentation, turns into microplastics . Science has shown on numerous occasions that these microplastics accumulate in the bodies of humans and animals.
The URL has been copied to your clipboard

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

"We have been prepared to tighten the screws, to apply sanctions against specific entities and individuals, including in China, as well as in other countries, said National Security Advisor Sullivan.
Isabel Miranda Madrid Friday, 26 July 2024 | Updated 28/07/2024 07:56h. Opciones para compartir Copiar enlace

WhatsApp

Facebook

X (antes Twitter)

LinkedIn

Telegram

Threads

In 25 years as a Guardia Civil Seprona (nature and environment protection) officer, Martin Moreno had never come across a coypu, and even less so on the loose in Orihuela (Alicante). It makes no sense; it is a rodent from South America with prominent orange incisors and a long hairless tail. But after four days of searching following a tip-off from a member of the public, there they were.

Seven beautiful specimens, some weighing almost ten kilos, hiding in drainage pipes, eating native vegetation and colonising an irrigation canal in the Vega Baja. Weeks have passed since the discovery, but the officers are keeping a watchful eye on the area. "On social media networks people say that they have seen one or two.... We don't know if it's a hoax, but we keep an eye out in case one of them has wandered off," he said.

There shouldn't be a single one left in the southeast peninsular because the coypu (Myocastor coypus) is classified as one of the hundred most harmful invasive species in existence. Popularly known as the 'rat-otter', about 60 centimetres long and weighing six kilos, it moves along rivers. The problem comes with its voracity. It eats the equivalent of 25 per cent of its own body weight daily, threatening plants with local extinction. It also affects nesting birds - by destroying their habitat - and damages fish spawning grounds.

"We have had to catch up on genetics and learn about the damage they cause and what they eat," Moreno said. These rodents also make tunnels, change the water flow and destabilise riverbanks. In Orihuela they believe they have probably managed to slow down their spread. Luckily, they did not reach the Segura river. "Here we are on tenterhooks, everything is in balance. If another species arrives, it will finish us," the Seprona officer said.

They have not been so lucky in other parts of Spain. The coypu is established as an invasive species in Catalonia, Navarre and the Basque Country, after it spread from France - where it was used in fur farms. In France "there are a lot, and they don't control them there. They think it's too difficult", explained Belinda Gallardo, an expert in invasive species at the Pyrenean institute of ecology (IPE-CSIC).

Zoom Officers capture coypu in Catalonia.

This rodent "is not impossible to eradicate", Gallardo added, but it requires significant investment. "And if you have a country next door, like France, which has tens of thousands, you can control it, but it is frustrating. They are going to keep coming in from the neighbouring country."

Shock plan

In Catalonia, about 20 years ago, the coypu was eradicated from the Aran Valley, but in 2010, specimens were detected again in Catalan territory from France. Since then, it has grown exponentially and now occupies a third of Gerona. It is a species capable of breeding between two and three times a year, with litters of four or five offspring, although that can reach up to eight.

"They reach frightening densities," said Jordi Ruiz, head of invasive species at the department of climate action of the ministry of the environment of Catalonia. While it is usual to find one otter per kilometre, in the case of coypus, the figure rises to between 40 and 60 specimens. For this reason, the damage to crops, orchards and the natural environment in the counties of Gerona has been unbearable in recent years.

Last year, the Catalan government decided to design a 'shock plan' against the rodent. It commissioned the public company Forestal Catalana to create a specific unit, made up of five people, to work 365 days a year against the species: they set traps, track the coypu and look for their "expansion front". They have become specialists in finding them through their droppings, their footprints and the wide corridors in the vegetation they leave in their wake.

"It is more difficult for us to find their areas of expansion," Ruiz said. There, the clues are more tenuous. When there is a sighting in new areas, the tracking and search device is activated. They are usually male, but the great danger is that they are females. "You can't go to sleep," he adds.

1,600 caught

Since the unit was set up, catches have increased eightfold in Catalonia. In 2022, some 200 coypus were caught, while in 2023 there were 1,600, a figure that will be similar this year. According to Ruiz, without this action plan, the expansion of the coypu to the rest of Spain is practically assured. "We saw that the areas occupied by the coypu were becoming saturated and, when this happens, the young specimens go to other neighbouring areas and expand. If we don't act here now, Catalonia would fill up first and then they would go to Aragon, Valencia, etc."

However, the specialist knows that eradicating the species is "very complicated". For now, they have stopped the colonisation of new areas and have reduced the population by 40 per cent, but they know they cannot let their guard down. "If we stop working for a year, we will quickly be back to where we were." The objective in the future, Ruiz pointed out, "will be to work less" to provide a maintenance service that is limited to the border with France.

In Orihuela, the theory of the Seprona officer is that the colony was released by a private individual who had kept the species illegally. Sometimes, as often happens with exotic turtles, officers prefer to 'turn a blind eye' and not sanction the individuals who chose to hand in the animals. Otherwise the danger is the offender releases the species into irrigation channels and creates a major ecological problem.
This month marks 25 years since the Peoples Republic of China, or PRC, began a campaign of repression against practitioners of Falun Gong, a self-described spiritual practice. Key features of the group are meditative exercises and teachings reminiscent of Buddhist and Taoist traditions, with emphasis on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. While Falun Gong includes some spiritual attributes of religion, it is loosely organized and lacks a professional clergy, formal membership, acceptance of donations, and specialized places of worship, according to the rights group Freedom House.

For two and a half decades, PRC authorities have targeted Falun Gong practitioners and their families in a campaign of abuses and rights violations. According to Minghui, a Falun Gong-affiliated publication, 188 Falun Gong adherents died during 2023 as a result of persecution. Minghui also reported that in 2023 authorities imprisoned 755 Falun Gong practitioners, arrested 3,457, and harassed 2,749 others, with harassment and arrests increasing around politically sensitive events.

Civil society organizations continue to express concern over reports that authorities forced members of religious organizations, in particular Falun Gong members and ethnic Uighurs, to serve as organ donors, according to the latest International Religious Freedom Report. In March 2023, the New York City Bar Association published a report titled Human Organ Supply: Report on Ethical Considerations and Breaches in Organ Harvesting Practices that found there was ample evidence China continues to engage in forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience.

The International Religious Freedom Report notes that the Chinese Communist Party maintains an extralegal, party-run security apparatus to eliminate the Falun Gong religious group and other banned organizations.

Non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, and individuals reported that authorities conducted physical and digital surveillance overseas on Falun Gong adherents, Uighur Muslims and other Muslims and members of religious minority groups from Xinjiang, and Tibetan Buddhists and harassed, detained, or otherwise persecuted their family members in China. The PRC also pressured members of religious minority groups living overseas to spy on fellow expatriates.

The United States will continue to speak out for human rights, including freedom of religion or belief. We will also continue to promote accountability for those responsible for human rights abuses and violations, said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller in a statement. We call upon the PRC to cease its repressive campaign and release all who have been imprisoned for their beliefs.
Syracuse, N.Y.  A national labor union said it has made no meaningful progress in reaching an agreement with Micron Technology that would require the company to remain neutral if employees want to organize at the companys proposed plants in Central New York.

At the same time, the New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli is urging Micron to establish a global policy of cooperating when employees try to unionize. DiNapoli is trustee of the New York State Common Retirement Fund, which owns about $200 million of Micron stock.

Micron is slated to receive more than $16 billion in federal taxpayer subsidies under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act to build two chipmaking plans in the Onondaga County town of Clay. Micron agreed this spring to meet with the industrial division of the Communications Workers of America to discuss a labor peace agreement, which would require Micron to remain neutral and avoid interfering with union-organizing campaigns at the Clay plant.

Those talks arent going well, the union said.

CWA has been continuing discussions with Micron, but we have not made meaningful progress toward an enforceable labor peace agreement, said Carl Kennebrew, president of IUE-CWA, in a statement. However, we remain hopeful that Micron will see the benefit of taking a high-road approach and work with us to reach an agreement that fulfills the promise of the CHIPS Act to create good jobs that grow our local economies.

Earlier this month, DiNapoli wrote to Micron Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Mehrotra, urging the company to reaffirm Microns stated commitment to allowing employees to form unions and negotiate fairly with those unions.

I urge Micron to adopt a global policy of neutrality and non-interference and to implement this policy for all unionization efforts and elections, DiNapoli wrote.

DiNapoli noted that Microns human rights policy already recognizes the rights of workers to form and join unions.

Micron said it is open to efforts to by its workers to unionize.

Micron respects the rights of workers to form and join trade unions of their own choosing, to bargain collectively and to peacefully assemble as permitted under applicable local law, the company said in a statement.

Micron says it could have up to 9,000 employees in Clay in 20 years. The company has about 40,000 employees worldwide, primarily in Asia.

Micron has already signed an agreement to use union construction labor to build the complex in Clay. Work is scheduled to begin early next year.

Labor unions are zeroing in on Micron in New York in hopes of organizing the semiconductor industry, long considered hostile to unions. National organizers said they are starting with Micron because New York state is labor-friendly and the state has kicked in billions in potential taxpayer subsidies.

A labor agreement with Micron could set a precedent for other semiconductor companies that are opening new plants in the U.S. thanks to the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act. The projects announced by companies from New York to Arizona could create more than 70,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs in an industry that has little union representation.
Genoa, N.Y.  A North Country woman crashed a stolen car in Central New York, ran off and managed to steal another car and make it to Pennsylvania, deputies said.

The woman, Bobbilea Skinner, 34, of Massena, was brought back to Central New York on Wednesday, deputies said.

On Feb 29 Skinner crashed a stolen car into a ditch on Lake Road in Genoa, Cayuga County deputies said. The car had been stolen from Mentz, deputies said.
Join NY Cannabis Insider for its next industry meetup in NYC on Aug. 13, 2024. Tickets available now.

At least four high-ranking employees at New Yorks Office of Cannabis Management have recently resigned their positions, a month after NY Cannabis Insider reported on other high-profile departures from the agency.

The OCM confirmed the agency received notices of resignation this week from Deputy Director of Licensing Danielle Holmes, Director of Health and Safety Nicole Rosa and First Deputy General Counsel Patricia Piskorski Heer. Additionally, General Counsel Linda Baldwin will leave the OCM once a replacement is hired.

Aaron Ghitelman, the OCMs former spokesperson who worked with the four resigning employees, said all are top-notch public servants, but that hes not surprised theyre leaving. Ghitelman said the clock for mass resignations in the agency has been ticking since Gov. Kathy Hochul publicly called New Yorks cannabis rollout a disaster in January.

These are people who are working six, seven-day weeks, working overtime for well over a year now, Ghitelman said Thursday afternoon. To have the chief executive of the state  publicly criticize and humiliate you for doing things she approved, why would anybody in their right mind stick around?



Sign up for the NY Cannabis Insider Newsletter

Enter your email address to get exclusive reporting on NY's cannabis market delivered to your inbox:









Ghitelman, who left the OCM four months ago, said employees at the OCM have been working long hours while short-staffed for over a year, and public criticism of the agency has affected morale there. He added that Baldwin, Heer, Holmes and Rosa will be difficult to replace, as they have decades of experience in state government, combined.

Staffing the licensing and legal positions will likely slow down operations at the OCM, Ghitelman said, because theres a sharp learning curve for anyone unfamiliar with cannabis regulation in New York, and the various lawsuits that have been filed against the OCM by licensees, anti-cannabis groups and others.

These resignations will slow down every single process already in effect, Ghitelman said. I cant imagine who Hochul will replace them with.

The resignations come months after Hochul ordered an assessment of the agency in March in response to lawsuits filed against the OCM and the slower-than-expected pace of New Yorks legal cannabis rollout.

The assessment was led by Office of General Services Commissioner Jeanette Moy.

Moys investigation found inefficiencies and mismanagement at the OCM, along with an unclear hierarchy and other deep-seeded issues, Hochul said in May. The reports fallout led to the resignation of the OCMs inaugural Executive Director Chris Alexander.

Hochul appointed Felicia A. B. Reid as the acting executive director on June 10.

Baldwin led the Office of General Counsel, which supports the OCMs programs, legislative and regulatory agenda, and compliance and enforcement efforts.

Rosa was responsible for providing oversight for product quality, compliance, customer service, and research to protect the health and safety of cannabis consumers and medical cannabis patients.

Holmes and Heer served in deputy positions for licensing and legal issues.
Johnsburg, N.Y.  Forest rangers have asked the public for help finding a camper in the Adirondacks who has been missing for over a week.

But the request came with a warning: Do not approach the missing man.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has been looking for Michael J. Zirpoli since July 17. The 77-year-old was last seen at 3 p.m. July 16 on the northwest side of Thirteenth Lake in Johnsburg, Warren County, the DEC said.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has asked the public for help finding Michael Zirpoli, a 77-year-old camper who has been missing since July 16, 2024. This map shows where Zirpoli was last seen in Johnsburg, a town in the Adirondacks.New York State Department of Environmental Conservation

Forest rangers asked anyone who has information about the missing man or suspects they have spotted him to immediately call 1-(833) 697-7264 and press 2 to speak with a dispatcher.

Please do not approach, the DEC said.

Forest rangers did not specify why the public should not approach Zirpoli.

Seven months ago, Zirpoli was charged with firing gunshots at deputies in a mobile home park in the Capital Region.

Deputies responded to the Crescent City Mobile Home Park in Halfmoon at 1:24 a.m. Jan. 4 after a 911 caller reported shots had been fired, the Saratoga County Sheriffs Office reported. The sheriffs office and the New York State Police were met with gunfire when they arrived and tried to speak with Zirpoli, the suspect, deputies said.

After a four-hour standoff, Zirpoli was arrested without incident, deputies said.

He was charged with five counts of first-degree reckless endangerment, a felony, and released from custody.
New York  Prosecutors are urging a judge to uphold Donald Trumps historic hush money conviction, arguing in court papers made public Thursday that the verdict should stand despite the Supreme Courts recent ruling on presidential immunity.

The Manhattan district attorneys office said in a court filing that the high courts opinion has no bearing on the hush money case because it involves unofficial acts for which the former president is not immune.

This case involved evidence of defendants personal conduct, not his official acts, prosecutors wrote in a 66-page filing. They contend there is no basis for disturbing the jurys verdict.

The Republican presidential nominee is trying to get the verdict  and even the indictment  tossed out because of the Supreme Courts July 1 decision. The ruling curbs prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricts prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a commander in chiefs unofficial actions were illegal.

Trumps lawyers have argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Courts presidential immunity decision, and that the trial was tainted by evidence that should not have been allowed under the high courts ruling, such as testimony from some Trump White House staffers and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

Prosecutors countered that the Supreme Court ruling doesnt apply to the evidence in question, and that regardless, its only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that the jury considered before reaching its verdict May 30.

In a letter Thursday to trial Judge Juan M. Merchan, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said the prosecution filing contains several legal and factual misrepresentations, and asked for permission to file a 30-page response next week.

The Supreme Court ruled about a month after the jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a deal to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election. At the time, she was considering going public with a story of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier.

He denies her claim, maintains he did nothing wrong and says the case is politically motivated. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a Democrat.

Trump was a private citizen  campaigning for president, but neither elected nor sworn in  when Cohen paid Daniels. But Trump was president when Cohen was reimbursed, and Cohen testified that they discussed the repayment arrangement in the Oval Office.

Prosecutors say the reimbursements to Cohen were misleadingly logged as legal expenses in Trumps company records.

Merchan is due to rule Sept. 6 on Trumps request to overturn the verdict and dismiss the indictment. Trumps sentencing is set for Sept. 18, if the verdict stands.

The sentencing, which carries the potential for anything from probation to up to four years in prison, was initially set for mid-July. But within hours of the Supreme Courts ruling, Trumps lawyers persuaded Merchanto delay it.

The Supreme Court did not define what constitutes an official act, leaving that matter to lower courts. Indeed, even the conservative justices responsible for the majority opinion differed about what is proper for jurors to hear about a presidents conduct.

In a separate concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the Constitution does not require juries to be blinded to the circumstances surrounding conduct for which presidents can be held liable and suggested that it would needlessly hamstring a prosecutors case to prohibit any mention of an official act in question.

Before the Supreme Court ruling, Trumps lawyers brought up presidential immunity in a failed bid last year to get the hush money case moved from state court to federal court. In rejecting the move, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote that hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a presidents official acts.

Later, Trumps lawyers beseeched Merchan to hold off the hush money trial until the Supreme Court ruled on his immunity claim, which arose from a separate prosecution  the Washington, D.C., federal criminal case pertaining to Trumps efforts to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss. But Merchan ruled that they raised the issue too late because it came well after a deadline for such pretrial requests.

Trumps lawyers never raised presidential immunity as a defense in the hush money trial, but they tried unsuccessfully to prevent prosecutors from showing the jury evidence from his time in office. As the trial got underway in April, Merchan balked at the idea that prosecutors be prohibited from showing jurors tweets that Trump had voluntarily sent out to millions of followers.

Trumps lawyers argue that presidential immunity should have ruled out some testimony from former White House communications director Hope Hicks and another aide, as well as documents including his 2018 financial disclosure.

Prosecutors countered that the aides testimony  including Hicks account of conversations with Trump about news coverage  concerned Trumps personal matters or described his work practices so generally that immunity doesnt apply. The financial disclosure form fell within allowances for using public records, they argued.

As for Trumps tweets, his lawyers contend they were official acts: a presidents communications to Americans about something pertinent to his credibility as their leader.

Prosecutors maintained otherwise in the new filing.

Defendants tweets conveying his personal opinion about his private attorney do not bear any conceivable relationship to any official duty of the presidency, they wrote.
By Lauren Stanforth | Times Union, Albany

Albany, N.Y.  Meteorologists this week confirmed, through the help of satellite data, that two more tornadoes hit upstate New York during the severe weather event of July 16  meaning a total of seven twisters hit the Adirondacks that day.

The recent additions were in remote, wooded areas without roads  necessitating a damage analysis through satellite and radar, said Christina Speciale, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albany. An EF-1 tornado was confirmed in Limekiln on the Herkimer and Hamilton County border. That twister reached a high speed of 100 mph, and caused 4 miles worth of damage. Another EF-1 tornado was confirmed in Wilcox Lake Forest on the border of Hamilton and Warren counties; the damage was similar to the one recorded in Limekiln.

The twisters joined the other tornadoes confirmed in the town of Ohio, Herkimer County; Day, Saratoga County; in Wells and Oxbow Lake, Hamilton County; and Chestertown, Warren County. Various state entities, including State Police, as well as weather watchers, helped collect the imagery needed to confirm the tornadoes. Straight-line winds that day, however, caused most of the damage seen across New York.

Speciale said the Adirondacks were lucky in that while there was property damage around Great Sacandaga Lake, most of the tornadoes were in areas where there were little to no people, hence fewer chances of injuries.

July has been a rare month for confirmed tornadoes in New York, as at least 18 were confirmed this month alone across upstate  including eight in the weather services Buffalo area and two in Oneida County tracked by the weather service in Binghamton. Damage along Route 29 just east of Broadalbin in Fulton County Wednesday was also confirmed as a weak EF-0 tornado.

Warren County this month tied its record of two confirmed tornadoes in a year; the last time was in 2020. Before that, Warren County had only three confirmed tornadoes since 1950, according to data kept by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Speciale said it is unusual to have so many tornadoes in one month in New York. But it is not rare to have that many statewide in a calendar year. According to NOAA, New York last had that many tornadoes in 2011, when there were 23 confirmed. (Only two of them that year might have been caused by the remnants of Hurricane Irene.)

This month has been active not only due to the July 16 event  which the weather service said happened because of what is called a Mesoscale Convective System that developed in the Midwest the day before  but also because the leftovers of Hurricane Beryl that hit some of New York caused at least two confirmed tornadoes in Erie and Chautauqua counties July 10.

Speciale said it is difficult to determine if there will be more tornadoes this year, but there is one indicator that might point to yes.

The fact that the National Hurricane Center has predicted us to have an above-normal hurricane season, that can be an indicator, Hey, we might experience more tornadoes, " she said.

___

(c)2024 the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.)

Visit the Times Union (Albany, N.Y.) at www.timesunion.com
i2Connect Summer School on Becoming an Interactive Innovation Support Advisor successfully held in Ireland

The i2Connect Summer School, aimed at training advisors to become interactive innovation support advisors, took place this week in the scenic surroundings of Kildalton Agricultural College, Ireland. This comprehensive training programme, held during the week of July 22nd, brought together 24 participants from Greece, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Ireland.

Spiral of Innovation: Participants of the i2Connect Summer School present their Spirals of Innovation after their farm visits.

i2Connect Summer School on Becoming an Interactive Innovation Support Advisor successfully held in Ireland

The i2Connect project is about connecting advisors to boost interactive innovation in agriculture and forestry. The i2connect project aims to fuel the competencies of advisors who will support and facilitate interactive innovation processes.

The group participated in a five-day, in-person workshop in Ireland. This immersive experience allowed participants to develop the methodological competenciesattitudes and skillsnecessary to facilitate interactive innovation processes. Through an experiential learning approach, participants were able to reflect on their own roles in these processes. The training also included practical discussions of innovation cases, enhanced by a farm visit to a European Innovation Partnership (EIP) Operational group. The group visited the Comeragh Upland Communities EIP and the Enable Conservation Tillage EIP.

The trainers that led the programme, included Professor Alex Koutsouris (University of Athens), Dr Eleni Zarokosta (Agricultural University of Athens), Sangeun Bae (University of Hohenheim), James Maher (Teagasc) and Rachel Clancy (Teagasc).

The final component of the training will be an online webinar, encouraging participants to reflect on how they have applied or could apply their learnings from the course in their professional contexts.

Speaking to the participants, they have described the training as very interesting, fun and interactive. One participant commented, It was a great opportunity to mix with people from different countries with a similar background and to learn from one another.

James Maher commented This i2Connect Summer School is an ideal opportunity to learn key concepts and tools supporting groups through an innovation process. The diverse nature of participants enriched the learning experience.

This programme has equipped participants with the necessary tools and insights to effectively support and facilitate innovation in their respective fields, fostering a collaborative approach to advancements in agriculture and forestry.

Thanks to ConnectEd and Kildalton College for their support with the Summer School.

For further information on the project, please visit the i2Connect website here.

Ends

Related Downloads
Northern Ireland Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs visit to the Mountain Water Catchment, Co Monaghan

Teagasc, together with its ASSAP partners LAWPRO and Lakeland Dairies, welcomed Northern Ireland Minister for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, Andrew Muir to the farm of Padraig and Niall Hughes, Emyvale, County Monaghan, located in the Mountain Water catchment. The purpose of the visit was to see first-hand how combining catchment science with a dedicated advisory service can help farmers to implement measures to protect water from agricultural pollution.

Minister Andrew Muir, Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, centre, with the speakers at the event that was held at Niall and Padraig Hughes farm in Emyvale. Photo Rory Geary

Minister Muir said: I was delighted to visit Emyvale and see the good work being done by everyone to improve water quality in the River Blackwater, a cross border catchment that flows into Lough Neagh. This is something very close to my own heart and improving water quality in Northern Ireland is a top priority for me. I was keen to hear first-hand about the initiatives and approaches being adopted here.

I firmly believe that we will all benefit from a partnership approach when it comes to tackling the challenges of improving our water quality. I have no doubt we have much to learn from each other and look forward to continuing our collaborative working to improve our shared waters. I would like to record my thanks to Teagasc and Padraig and Niall Hughes for hosting todays event.

Teagasc Director, Professor Frank OMara said; Teagasc has identified 8 actions for change that farmers can implement to improve water quality, and we are committed to supporting farmers in adopting these actions building on the knowledge gained and progress made by ASSAP.

Ted Massey from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, said; The Irish Government is committed to working to improve the sustainability of Irish agriculture and one key element of that is to reduce agricultures impact on water quality. He continued by saying, I particularly welcome the level of collaboration that now exists north and south as we seek to address what are often common challenges in terms of water quality.

Director of Services for LAWPRO, Anthony Coleman stated; In order to address the issues affecting water quality, scientific evidence is required to identify pressures impacting different types of water bodies. LAWPRO have developed catchment assessment techniques to effectively identify what issues are impacting water quality in catchments and refer this scientific evidence to the appropriate agency so that appropriate measures can be put in place.

Rory Farrell, Group Head of Sustainability at Lakeland Dairies said that As a cross-border co-operative, it was great to engage with Minister Muir to showcase the success of the Mountain Water catchment. Rivers do not respect borders and we believe that this joined-up approach is critical. As a founding member of ASSAP, Lakeland Dairies has long supported our farm families to improve water quality. Protecting and enhancing water quality is an absolute imperative for our co-operative and our industry. Lakeland Dairies though our participation in ASSAP and the roll out of our farm sustainability strategy Farming for a Better Future coupled with our sustainability incentive payment shows our farmers are meeting the water quality challenge head on.

Ends.
Highly anticipated: Fallout: London's five-year development cycle suffered numerous delays and other difficulties, including a last-minute roadblock from Bethesda. Still, the immense size of the free Fallout 4 total conversion suggests the wait might be worth it. Interested players should note that installing Fallout: London requires rolling back the base game.

Fallout 4 owners can now download Fallout: London for free. At 33GB, the total conversion is too big for Nexusmods or the Creation Club, so users must download it from GOG. The GOG installer supports the Steam and GOG versions of Fallout 4: Game of the Year Edition but not the Epic Games Store edition.

Transporting players to post-apocalyptic London, the mod offers about as much content as the base game. It features around 200 quests (slightly more than Fallout 4), several new companions, additional factions, an original soundtrack, and thousands of lines of voiced dialogue. Its cast includes Baldur's Gate 3 actor Neil Newbon and former UK Speaker of the House John Bercow.

In development since 2019, Fallout: London nearly launched in April, but Bethesda scheduled a massive patch for Fallout 4 to land two days later to promote the spin-off television series. The update, which added new performance modes on current-generation consoles and ultrawide support on PC, would have broken Fallout: London, so Team FOLON decided to wait for the dust to settle.

To sidestep the issue for the initial release, GOG and the modders have provided a few ways to roll Fallout 4 back to version 1.10.163.0. Those who own the GOG edition, currently deeply discounted to $16, can simply download the older build or roll back their installation through the Gog Galaxy launcher. A downgrade tool for the Steam version is available on Nexusmods.

Afterward, download the Fallout: London installer from GOG and follow the included directions. Advanced users can follow the manual installation instructions on the mod's website. Fallout: London will eventually support the most recent build of Fallout 4, making it compatible with the Epic Games Store edition.

Installing Fallout: London replaces the Fallout 4 installation, and players must disable cloud saves before starting the mod. Furthermore, playing Fallout: London requires starting a new save file.

Marcin PaczyAAski, senior business development manager at GOG, told VG247 that the store was treating the mod release as a "trial run" for hosting other big mods. If the community responds positively, GOG might begin hosting more mods with independent store pages.
In context: PsiQuantum Corp. was founded in 2016 by a team of professors and researchers working in the field of quantum computing. The company aims to create a general-purpose quantum system, and is using a novel approach compared to other major corporations striving for the same goal.

PsiQuantum has announced an ambitious plan to develop, build, and manage a "Quantum Park" in the state of Illinois. Once completed, the facility will potentially provide the first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer in the US, offering the country  and likely the world  a revolutionary technology.

The Quantum Park is an ambitious project to "build and deploy the world's first useful quantum computers." The facility will cost more than $500 million and will house a quantum computer containing up to one million quantum bits (qubits). The largest quantum computers today don't exceed 1,000 qubits, but PsiQuantum states that a million qubits are a critical threshold to achieve an acceptable level of quantum error correction.

Modern quantum computers make a lot of mistakes and require powerful, yet traditional, supercomputers to catch these errors during data processing tasks. PsiQuantum aims to solve this fundamental issue by using a silicon photonics-based architecture, which can leverage existing technology and processes to build a quantum system in a reasonable amount of time.

The silicon photonics approach should provide PsiQuantum with several benefits in building its quantum system. The planned machine can't be operated at room temperature, as the superconducting detectors required to work with photons and perform error correction need to be cooled to a few degrees Kelvin (-450 F). Quantum systems built by IBM, Google, and other Big Tech ventures require even more extreme cryogenic-level cooling procedures.

PsiQuantum is confident its approach will soon bear fruit. The Quantum Park facility will provide computational prowess that cannot be achieved with traditional supercomputers, the company said. Illinois-based corporations working in critical lines of business such as pharmaceuticals, energy, materials, and finance should enjoy significant benefits from these new capabilities, we're told.

PsiQuantum will build the Quantum Park facility in partnership with the University of Chicago and other Illinois universities. The company is also working on a similar quantum computing initiative in Brisbane, Australia, which is expected to become fully operational by 2027. The Illinois project should come online soon after.
The CEO of CrowdStrike, George Kurtz, has been summoned to testify before the House Homeland Security Committee following a massive global IT outage triggered by a faulty software update.

The incident, which disrupted airlines, hospitals, and businesses worldwide, has ignited a heated debate about the risks associated with overreliance on a small number of critical software providers.

US Lawmakers Demand Answers From CrowdStrike Boss

In a letter shared with The Washington Post, House Homeland Security Committee leaders, Representatives Mark Green and Andrew Garbarino, have demanded that Kurtz appear before Congress to explain the circumstances surrounding the outage and outline steps to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The committee's letter addresses growing concerns about the national security implications of such disruptions.

Related Article : CrowdStrike Releases Guidance Hub Detailing Every Fact About Global Windows Outage

Global Fallout and Regulatory Scrutiny

The widespread impact of the outage has prompted a broader examination of the vulnerabilities within the global IT infrastructure. Regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), are scrutinizing the concentration of power among a handful of cloud computing providers.

CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed. We  George Kurtz (@George_Kurtz) July 19, 2024

CrowdStrike has faced intense scrutiny in the aftermath of the incident, with many questioning the company's role in the crisis. The company's privileged access to Windows systems, granted under a 2009 European antitrust agreement, has come under particular scrutiny.

While CrowdStrike has attributed the outage to a technical error and has since issued a fix, the incident has raised alarms about the potential consequences of overreliance on a single software provider. As investigations continue, the cybersecurity industry is likely to face increased regulation and oversight.

National Security Implications

The outage has also highlighted the potential for malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure. Lawmakers have warned that foreign adversaries could capitalize on such incidents to disrupt essential services.

"Protecting our critical infrastructure requires us to learn from this incident and ensure that it does not happen again," the lawmakers wrote.

What happened last week was no joke considering that Microsoft Windows users could not continue their tasks on PCs because of the sudden incident. However, instead of acknowledging the severity of the problem, the software maker believes that the European Commission (EU) should also be held liable here, specifically pointing out its rules which further intensified the outage.

In other news, Amazon released a new update for the Prime Video streaming service. With this, subscribers can now easily distinguish free content from the paid ones.

With the use of artificial intelligence (AI), the e-commerce giant is able to deliver more personalized recommendations to Prime Video users. They could even have quick access to their favorite shows thanks to the improved interface.
Three missing, 4,000 evacuated in heavy Japan rains



Tokyo, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



At least three people were missing in Japan on Friday after heavy rains caused rivers to burst their banks, washing away cars and prompting several thousand locals to evacuate, authorities and media reports said.

Local governments in the northern prefectures of Yamagata and Akita on the main island of Honshu issued evacuation advisories to more than 200,000 people, the fire and disaster management agency said.

Of those, at least 4,000 people have evacuated to shelters, public broadcaster NHK reported.

Two rivers in Yamagata and one in Akita burst their banks, it said, with footage showing raging brown waters having swept away several cars including a police vehicle that was upside down.

"Three people, including two police officers who were on a mission searching for a missing man, are unaccounted for," a local official told AFP.

Japan's weather agency this week issued its highest emergency alert for heavy rain for Sakta and Tuza in Yamagata prefecture.

It later downgraded the warning by one notch in the country's five-tier warning system.

But the Japan Meteorological Agency called for the public to stay vigilant for potential landslides and flooding, in a statement released Friday.

Japan has seen heavy rain of unprecedented levels in parts of the country in recent years, with floods and landsides sometimes generating casualties.
Thousands flee fast-spreading wildfire in northern California



Los Angeles, United States, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



Firefighters were battling a fast-moving wildfire in the US state of California on Thursday, authorities said, with more than 3,500 people forced to flee their homes.

The Park Fire broke out Wednesday evening, on the last day of a heat wave affecting the region.

More than 1,150 personnel were deployed to fight the blaze, which was only three percent contained, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CalFire).

As of 6:00 pm local time (0100 GMT) on Thursday, the fire had enveloped 124,949 acres (50,565 ha), according to CalFire.

More than 3,500 people had evacuated the area, Governor Gavin Newsom said.

The town of Chico, under threat from the fire, is located just 12 miles (20 kilometers) west of Paradise, a town that was destroyed by a massive wildfire in 2018, resulting in the deaths of 85 people.

The cause of the Park Fire remains under investigation, according to CalFire.

A 42-year-old man suspected of sparking it was arrested "after an unknown male was seen pushing a car that was on fire into a gully" near the origin of the fire, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said in a statement.

The car completely burned, spreading the flames that caused the fire in the park, the statement added.

On Thursday, the National Weather Service issued a "red flag" weather warning for "critical fire weather conditions" in the area, including wind gusts and low humidity.

The western United States has experienced several heat waves since the beginning of June, and dozens of fires are currently burning in the region.

Oregon, California's northern neighbor, is battling a megafire that is the largest in the country, having ravaged more than 268,000 acres of forest and prompting evacuations in a rural region.

The raging flames have created vast columns of smoke, affecting air quality as far away as neighboring Idaho.

Wildfires were also burning in western Canada, where part of the tourist town of Jasper has been destroyed.

Western North America has increasingly been affected by extreme weather events, exacerbated by climate change.

In mid-July, Newsom warned of a fire season that was "shaping up to be very active."

Extreme weather events have become increasingly common thanks to global warming, experts say, largely due to mankind's fossil fuel use.
Typhoon Gaemi displaces nearly 300,000 in eastern China



Beijing, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



Authorities evacuated nearly 300,000 people and suspended public transport across eastern China on Friday, as Typhoon Gaemi brought torrential rains already responsible for five deaths in nearby Taiwan.

Gaemi was the strongest typhoon to hit Taiwan in eight years when it made landfall on Thursday, flooding parts of the island's second-biggest city.

It also exacerbated seasonal rains in the Philippines on its path to Taiwan, triggering flooding and landslides that killed 20 people.

A tanker carrying 1.4 million litres of oil sank off Manila on Thursday, with authorities racing to contain a fuel spill.

It had weakened by the time it made landfall in China's eastern Fujian province shortly before 8:00 pm local time (1200 GMT) on Thursday, state media said.

China is enduring a summer of extreme weather, with heavy rains across the east and south coming as much of the north has sweltered under successive heatwaves.

The country is by far the world's largest emitter of the greenhouse gases scientists say are driving climate change and making extreme weather more frequent and intense.



- Heavy rains -



Chinese authorities warned Typhoon Gaemi was bringing with it torrential rains that could cause flooding.

They have relocated more than 290,000 people in Fujian and shut down public transport, offices, schools and markets in some cities.

In neighbouring Zhejiang province, footage aired by state broadcaster CCTV Friday showed streets turned into rivers, trees strewn over roads and bikes struggling through knee-high waters.

The province's Wenzhou city -- home to nine million people -- has issued its highest warning for rainstorms and evacuated nearly 7,000 people, CCTV said.

The typhoon will also bring heavy rainfall to central Jiangxi and Henan, state media said.

Guangdong, China's most populous province, on Friday suspended some passenger train services ahead of the typhoon's expected arrival, CCTV said.

Citing the official China Weather Network, the broadcaster said the typhoon was moving northwestward at about 20 kilometres per hour.

It will "gradually weaken" as it makes its way to Jiangxi on Friday late afternoon, it said.

No deaths or injuries have yet been reported.

The north of the country has this week also been hit by showers, with state media saying Friday that heavy rains had killed one and left three missing in the northwestern province of Gansu.

At a meeting of the country's top leadership chaired by President Xi Jinping on Thursday, officials urged local authorities to stay "highly vigilant and proactive" as the country entered peak flooding season.
Thousands evacuated as record rains pound northern Japan



Tokyo, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



Record heavy rain forced the evacuation of thousands of people across parts of northern Japan and killed at least two, as rivers burst their banks washing away bridges and cars, officials and media reports said Friday.

A rescuer is among the dead after the downpours in Yamagata and Akita prefectures on the main island of Honshu. Two other people, including another rescuer, are missing.

In Yamagata, where two rivers burst their banks, one police officer in his 20s who had been searching for a missing person was found "submerged" and later confirmed dead, a local police spokesman told AFP.

Another police officer also tasked with a search operation, remains unaccounted for, the spokesman said.

In northern Akita region, one body was also found, media reports said, with police trying to ascertain whether it was that of an 86-year-old man earlier reported missing.

A man in his 60s also remains missing after a landslide at roadworks in Akita's Yuzawa city, according to media.

Two parts of Yamagata prefecture recorded the most rain in 24 hours since records began in 1976, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said Friday.

Shinjo recorded 389 millimetres (15 inches) and Sakata 289 millimetres.

Footage showed raging brown waters sweeping away several vehicles including a police car.

Authorities issued evacuation advisories to more than 200,000 people, the fire and disaster management agency said.

At least 2,000 people evacuated to shelters in Yamagata as of Friday afternoon, public broadcaster NHK reported.

About 3,060 households were without power, 1,100 had no running water.

Some motorways were closed in the area and Shinkansen bullet trains suspended operations, government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters.

The military was sent to Yamagata to join rescue activities carried out by police and fire department officials, he said.

Japan's weather agency this week issued its highest emergency alert for heavy rain for Sakata and Yuza in Yamagata prefecture.

It later downgraded the warning by one notch in the country's five-tier warning system, but called for the public to stay vigilant for potential landslides and flooding.

The JMA forecasts 100 to 200 millimetres of rain per day will continue for the next three days.
Marquesas Islands join UNESCO World Heritage list



Paris, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



The Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia have been added to the World Heritage classification, UN cultural body UNESCO said Friday.

"New inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List: Te Henua Enata - The Marquesas Islands," the organisation posted on X, using the archipelago's indigenous name meaning "The Land of Men".

The decision was one of several announced Friday as UNESCO's World Heritage Committee meets in New Delhi.

Located in the Pacific around 5,500 miles northeast of New Zealand, the Marquesas offer "exceptional testimony" of "a human civilisation that arrived by sea around the year 1000 CE and developed on these isolated islands between the 10th and the 19th Centuries," UNESCO said on its website.

But they are seen by the cultural body as a mixed site equally precious as "a hotspot of biodiversity that combines irreplaceable and exceptionally well conserved marine and terrestrial ecosystems".

The islands host "rare and diverse flora, a diversity of emblematic marine species, and one of the most diverse seabird assemblages in the South Pacific," with waters "virtually free from human exploitation", UNESCO added.
Sicily uses navy tanker to resupply drought-hit areas



Rome, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



Authorities in Sicily deployed a naval tanker Friday to help move water from one side of the drought-hit island to the other, as another southern Italian region declared a water emergency.

The Italian navy tanker "Ticino" left Augusta on Sicily's southeastern coast on Thursday evening carrying 1,200 cubic metres (42,400 cubic feet) of water bound for the parched southwest, local authorities said.

It arrived at the port of Licata on Friday afternoon with the aim of releasing the water into the network in Agrigento, home to the famous Valley of the Temples, a process that will take 25-30 hours.

"We are working hard to implement every initiative necessary to alleviate the effects of the drought that is affecting Sicily and many other Mediterranean areas," said the president of the Sicily region, Renato Schifani.

But he said the issue required more efforts to address years of "structural problems" in the Sicilian water network.

Sicily, which set a European heat record in 2021 at 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 Fahrenheit), declared a drought emergency at the beginning of February, after a winter without rain.

The situation is becoming increasingly critical, particularly for farmers.

Across the Strait of Messina, the southern Italian region of Calabria declared a state of emergency Friday following "a serious shortage of drinkable water" around the city of Reggio Calabria and the province of Crotone.

Civil protection authorities will now assess which "urgent interventions" are required to help local residents, a statement said.

Drought has struck across the Western Mediterranean, with severe impacts on northern Africa and parts of Spain.

Experts say climate change driven by human activity is boosting the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves and droughts but also heavy rain.
Rain, cooling slow huge blaze in Canada's Jasper park



Hinton, Canada, July 26 (AFP) Jul 26, 2024



Rain and cooler temperatures were helping firefighters battling a huge forest fire that has devastated part of the popular tourist town of Jasper in western Canada, authorities said Friday.

The blaze has ravaged a large section of Jasper National Park -- Canada's largest -- which is famed for its scenic mountains, lakes, waterfalls and glaciers, drawing some 2.5 million visitors a year.

The fire has so far caused no casualties, although as many as 25,000 residents and tourists were forced to evacuate quickly starting late Monday as the conflagration suddenly spread.

Still described as out of control early Friday, the blaze has destroyed more than 36,000 hectares (90,000 acres) of land, including 30 to 50 percent of the town of Jasper.

On Friday, officials said the fire in the town had been largely contained.

"There is still some smoldering fire in town that structural crews are working to extinguish but the majority of fire activity within the town boundary has subsided," said Parks Canada spokesman James Eastham.

Alberta provincial premier Danielle Smith had described the damage in the town as "the worst nightmare for any community."



- 'Heartbreaking' damage -



Rain and cooler temperatures in the national park will likely "keep fire behavior low for the next 72 hours," said Parks Canada, which oversees the country's national parks and coordinates firefighting efforts.

Authorities say it would still take "several weeks" to bring the fire under control, however.

Canada has mobilized troops to help its overtaxed fire crews, and requested 400 firefighters from Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Africa.

The fire entered a by-then deserted Jasper on Wednesday evening, fanned by strong winds in a region hit by severe drought and record heat in recent days.

A video circulating on social media showed the city's streets covered in ash, with cars turned to charred carcasses and buildings reduced to rubble -- images Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called "heartbreaking."



- 'Feeling of devastation' -



The fire was started by lightning strikes Monday, said Parks Canada, adding that fast-moving flames had reached a height of up to 120 meters (390 feet).

Lightning strikes ignited several other forest fires across western Canada. In all, there are 170 active fires in Alberta.

Neighboring British Columbia province has also been hard-hit, with 400 active blazes, half of them still out of control.

Fifty-six new fires have been counted there just in the past 24 hours.

Climate change has left Canada increasingly vulnerable to extreme weather events.

There are fears of a repeat of 2023, the country's worst fire year in history, when 15 million hectares were burned and more than 200,000 people had to evacuate.
The memorial service also took place at the Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City and in his hometown, Dong Hoi Commune, Dong Anh District, Ha Noi.

The memorial service for General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the National Funeral Hall, No. 5 Tran Thanh Tong Street in Ha Noi - Photo: VGP

Politburo member and permanent member of the Party Central Committees Secretariat, and head of the Funeral Organizing Committee Luong Cuong presides over the memorial service - Photo: VGP

Politburo member, State President, and Head of the Funeral Committee To Lam delivers the eulogy. The President recalls the great contributions by Party Secretary General Nguyen Phu Trong to the revolutionary cause of the people and the nation as well as the international communist movement, and the maintenance of peace, stability, and development in the region and the world. - Photo: VGP



Delegates observe a moment of silence in memory of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong - Photo: VGP

Party and State leaders carry the casket of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong

Following the memorial service, a hearse transports the casket of Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong from the National Funeral Hall at 5 Tran Thanh Tong to Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi

Many delegations from the Party, State, National Assembly, Government, Viet Nam Fatherland Front, ministries, departments, armed forces, and many citizens from across the country gathered at the National Funeral Hall in Ha Noi to bid last farewell to the Vietnamese Party leader.

Nguyen Phu Trong was a beloved person of the Vietnamese nation, a particularly excellent leader, a staunch communist, and a shining example who had tirelessly studied and followed President Ho Chi Minh's thought, morality and style, a greatly prestigious figure of the Vietnamese Party, State, and people, and also a great friend of the people around the world.



General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, with nearly 60 years of service, made significant contributions to the Party and the nation. He was honoured with the Gold Star Order, the 55-year Party membership badge, and numerous other prestigious awards. His passing is a tremendous loss for the Vietnamese Party, State and people of Vietnam.

A burial service for the Party chief will be held at Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi for senior Vietnamese leaders the same day./.
A CPP delegation led by Honorary President Samdech Heng Samrin at the ceremony (Photo: VNA)

Throughout the morning, delegations from the Cambodian Royal Palace, the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), the Senate, the National Assembly, and various Cambodian ministries and agencies visited the Vietnamese Embassy to sign the condolence book and pay their last respects.

Senior Minister in charge of General Affairs of the Ministry of the Royal Palace Kuy Sophal conveyed a letter of condolences from King Norodom Sihamoni to Ambassador Nguyen Huy Tang, and condolences from the King and Queen Mother Norodom Monineath Sihanouk to leaders and people of Vietnam over the passing of the late Party leader, who he said is a close friend of Cambodian people.

Senior Minister in charge of General Affairs of the Ministry of the Royal Palace Kuy Sophal conveys a letter of condolences from King Norodom Sihamoni to Ambassador Nguyen Huy Tang (Photo: VNA)

Leaders of the CPP, the Senate, the National Assembly of Cambodia hailed the General Secretary as an eminent leader of Vietnam and a close, longstanding friend of Cambodia who made significant contributions to the fraternal friendship and close cooperation between the two countries Parties, Governments and people, affirming that his legacy will remain forever in their hearts.

Representatives from diplomatic missions and international organisations in Cambodia, as well as from the Khmer-Vietnamese Association in Cambodia (KVA), the Cambodia-Vietnam Friendship Association, the Vietnam-Cambodia Business Association (VCBA), and the Cambodian Alumni in Vietnam Association (CAVA) also paid their last respects to the Vietnamese Party leader.

The respect paying ceremony at the embassy will last through July 26./.
Early last week, the National Association of Black Journalists announced it would host former president Donald Trump for a question-and-answer session at its national convention at the Hilton Chicago. Within seconds, a firestorm of negative comments and emotions erupted, continuing into the night, the next day and long after the midweek visit had ended.
General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (C), President of the Cambodian People's Party Hun Sen (R) and Laos' Party General Secretary and President Thongloun Sisoulith at the Vietnam-Cambodia-Laos Summit in Hanoi, on September 26, 2021 (Photo: VNA)

Uch Leang, who is also Acting Director of the Department of Asian, African, and Middle-East Studies under the RAC International Relations Institute of Cambodia, and President of the Cambodian Alumni in Vietnam Association (CAVA), said that the year 1986, when Vietnam began implementing its market-oriented economic policy, known as Doi moi (Renewal), marked the beginning of continuous development of the country, which has transformed the economic landscape, raised the income of its people, and enhanced the country's position in the international area.

The expert emphasised the indispensable role of a strong and efficient leadership apparatus of the country throughout this process.

Promoting economic growth is extremely important, but for the economy to grow stably, it is necessary to have a strong foreign policy, as well as to control and handle domestic challenges well. That is an important issue and Vietnam has done this with a flexible foreign policy, Uch Leang stressed, adding that the bamboo diplomacy initiated by General Secretary Trong is a flexible foreign policy with a solid foundation, helping the country have a good relationship with every trend, and every country in the world.

The bamboo diplomacy is a solid strategy, affirming Vietnam's potential in the eyes of investors and major countries. Big companies of many countries also move production from others to Vietnam because they believe in the success of their investment activities, as well as in the administration under the leadership of General Secretary Trong. Besides, abundant human resources, enough to supply foreign companies and factories, is also an advantage, making foreign businesses confident in investing in Vietnam, the expert stated.

Another important point that helps create and strengthen trust in Vietnam, according to him, is the General Secretary's implementation and serious implementation of the corruption prevention and control work.

Stressing that the strict implementation of anti-corruption policies has truly contributed to Vietnams poverty reduction and continuous economic growth, the researcher said those are things that are not easy to do, requiring the General Secretary to sacrifice a lot to be able to carry out the anti-corruption work in the country.

According to him, thanks to its flexibility in foreign policy, Vietnam has been able to connect and establish smooth diplomatic relations with countries of all political regimes. Under the leadership of the General Secretary, the relationship between Cambodia and Vietnam continues to be nurtured through high-level visits and robust people-to-people exchanges. Therefore, the close and special bond between the two countries is consistently strengthened and upheld./.
Advertisement

Exclusive Eating outJust open Will this new hyped hotel restaurant meet Fitzroys high standards? A boutique hotel has finally arrived in one of Melbournes most visited neighbourhoods. But its Thai-influenced ground-floor restaurant will have to work hard to stand out in this food-mad part of the city. Heres whats in store. Emma Breheny July 26, 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

As featured in the August hit list. See all stories .

Fitzroy isnt short on restaurants, but a good hotel in the inner-city neighbourhood has been notably absent, until now. The StandardX  an offshoot of The Standard hotels known worldwide for their edgy design, parties and guests  opens on August 8. But how will its flagship restaurant, Bang, be received in an area teeming with great restaurants, from two-hatted to Tuesday-night-appropriate? Its team, including chef Justin Dingle-Garciyya, believe Bang brings something different to Fitzroy. Bang occupies most of the ground floor and will be a day-to-night space for Thai-influenced plates. Simon Schluter We value what other restaurants are doing out here, but were very different, says Dingle-Garciyya. Although its a restaurant, you can come and have a drink and have some bites and therell be a DJ in the corner.

Advertisement

Plates are Thai-influenced, Hecker Guthrie designed the warm and eclectic lobby-side dining room, and local makers are tightly woven into menus, in-room offerings and weekly specials. Its the first of what The Standards owners hope will be many Bangs all around the world. The StandardX Hotel in Fitzroy opens in August with a ground-floor restaurant. Penny Stephens The banquet-style menu is made up of crab doughnuts, beef noodle soup with tendon and beef cheek, crab noodles in lobster bisque, and creme brulee shot through with Thai milk tea. For a duck curry, a small slab of confit meat imbued with lemongrass and ginger sits in a pool of red curry sauce with coconut milk foam underneath to stir through. The ducks skin is dried and turned into a galangal-turmeric crumb. Bangs duck red curry involves a confit slab of meat and coconut foam through the sauce. Simon Schluter

Advertisement

Dingle-Garciyya, a veteran hotel chef whos worked in many luxury properties around the world, including in Thailand for four years, says the countrys night markets were his favourite places to eat. Inspired by street-food stalls there and across South-East Asia, hes put a pigs head dish on the menu, which is presented dramatically on the bone before staff strip off the caramelised meat for diners to wrap in roti bread with spring onions and pickles. Southern blue fin tuna with a prawn cracker coating and ginger-turmeric sauce. Simon Schluter Cocktails continue the tropical theme, such as the white rum, bourbon and chai combination of An Affair to Remember. Instead of minibars in rooms, theres a lobby shop stocked with everything from tubs of house-made ice-cream to longnecks of Melbourne Bitter, blocks of Hunted & Gathered chocolate, Fin wines from Yarra Valley and Industry Beans coffee (which previously occupied the site).

Advertisement

The An Affair to Remember cockail is made with bourbon, rum and chai. Simon Schluter StandardX is going to be rolled out worldwide after the Fitzroy launch. Billed as a more low-key offshoot of Standards main line of hotels, which began in 1999 in West Hollywood, StandardX properties will be situated in neighbourhoods rather than city centres. Its a neat solution for what was a curly problem for the Melbourne location: The Standard already exists in Fitzroy (on the same street), trading as a pub for 159 years. The pub and hotel had to undergo mediation earlier this year, with the new name, StandardX, created in response. In addition to Bang, the hotel houses The Loft, a lounge-like bar that connects to the restaurant, and a rooftop bar thats accessible to guests only, opening later this year. Bang is open from August 8: daily 11.30am-4.30pm, 5.30pm-10pm 62 Rose Street, Fitzroy, standardx.com/melbourne/

Restaurant reviews, news and the hottest openings served to your inbox. Sign up
Australia is experiencing a housing disaster. There are too few affordable dwellings to buy or rent. Housing affordability in 2024 is the worst on record. Social housing has been run down for decades. Over 120,000 people are living with homelessness. Particularly affected are First Peoples experiencing the continuing impact of colonisation, women with children fleeing domestic violence, people living with mental illness and low-income older people, especially older women. Over multiple generations, a large proportion of the population is anxious about their housing, especially the young and those on low-middle incomes who face insecure or poor housing for life. Housing anxiety is why the Great Australian Dream is now frequently called the Great Australian Nightmare.

The baby-boomer generation, including myself, grew up in a very different era. I was born in 1954 to young parents who had eight children. Hundreds of thousands of houses were built by government that low-middle income families like ours could afford to rent or buy. We rented a basic three-bedroom weatherboard house from the Victorian Housing Commission in Moorabbin. Fittingly, in the language of the Bunurong/Boon Wurrung, Moorabbin means resting place or mothers milk. My mothers parents joined us in a bungalow built for a song in the backyard. As I grew older, it was my job to take the rent to the commission office just down the road. When government policy changed to allow sitting tenants to buy their homes at concessional prices, my parents did so, although they still called the money I took to the same office rent. I owe my family upbringing to social housing which working people like my parents could not now possibly get.

The Victorian Housing Commission built estates across Mebourne. Credit: Fairfax Media

Australia supports the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2015 as an international plan of action to end poverty and to promote peace, prosperity and economically sustainable development. These goals seek to realise the human rights of all. Goal 11 is: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. The first target for that goal is: By 2030, ensure access to all to adequate, safe and affordable housing and basic services. Australia is not on target to meet this goal.

No future generation should have to live through a housing disaster like this. It has come from a system failure in which profit has been put before people. Housing has become primarily a commodity for investment. Governments have neglected their fundamental obligation to realise everyones human right to housing and home as the foundation of their personal, social and economic life. In Australia, government and policymakers tend not to think about housing in terms of human rights or they just mention them. Money and economics are the main frame or reference. This must change. Human rights are absolutely fundamental and must be taken seriously. What is needed is a shift in the values underpinning the housing system towards recognising a decent home as The Great Australian Right. Realisation of this right for everybody should be the primary purpose of the system; a legislative, rights-based national housing strategy is needed to bring this about.
Industrial trouble is deepening in Victorias emergency services after police members voted down a proposed pay deal already endorsed by their union and the states paramedics called for executives at Ambulance Victoria to resign.

Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt expressed surprise at his members rejection of a pay proposal that would have delivered what he said were significant pay rises as well as addressing concerns such as rostering and unpaid work.

Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt. Credit: AAP

What is clear is that the majority of members felt that they could not endorse the proposed agreement. What is unclear is precisely why. We will get to work to understand why and act upon it, he said.

Today, a majority of members voted against a proposed agreement that was put to them in good faith to address unhealthy and long-standing poor workplace practices including unpaid work, inflexible rostering and a lack of time to complete essential paperwork.
CrowdStrike is the Ferrari of enterprise cyber detection and response, so its the very deep pocket clients who were impacted. This was merely a blip in South-East Asia, but developed nations like Australia and New Zealand were hit big time, Pal said. We were hit first while the US was still asleep. Loading CrowdStrike on Thursday issued its first post-incident report into the outage. It said the incident was caused by a flaw in an update to CrowdStrike Falcon, the companys software that sits in the background of computers to monitor for cyber threats. CrowdStrike Falcon runs at the kernel level of Windows systems, meaning it has more privileges than most other programs. But the update was problematic, triggering a memory problem that set off Windows notorious blue screen of death, according to the post-incident report. Mac and Linux hosts were not affected. CrowdStrike has a content validator that reviews software updates before launch, but the program missed the updates faulty content due to a bug. Pal said rescuing his clients machines was a matter of entering safe mode, rebooting the machine, deleting the offending file and rebooting again.

It required a fair bit of effort because theres some machines you could do that remotely, but others you had to get to them physically, he said. Theres also a security feature that comes with Microsoft called BitLocker, which encrypts your hard drive. That had to be disabled as well before we could do anything. A week on from the incident, its effects are continuing to linger - it could potentially take months for some organisations to entirely recover - and hackers have begun to use the opportunity to target CrowdStrike customers. US Republicans who lead the House Homeland Security committee said this week they want answers, and have called CrowdStrikes chief executive George Kurtz to testify before Congress. While we appreciate CrowdStrikes response and co-ordination with stakeholders, we cannot ignore the magnitude of this incident, which some have claimed is the largest IT outage in history, said a letter to Kurtz from Mark E. Green of Tennessee and Andrew Garbarino of New York.

They added that Americans deserve to know in detail how this incident happened and the mitigation steps CrowdStrike is taking. Australians, too, are demanding answers. Melbourne-born Mike Sentonas was at the centre of Fridays maelstrom. Hes CrowdStrikes global president, after climbing the corporate ladder over the last decade to be one of Australias highest-ranking technology executives globally. Sentonas is currently based in Las Vegas and is worth an estimated $225 million. CrowdStrike declined to make Sentonas available despite repeated requests for interviews from this masthead and detailed written questions since the outage began last Friday. He spoke to Sky News on Wednesday, where he apologised to viewers. We deeply apologise. I personally apologise for what happened, he said on air.

We understand the disruption and the distress that we caused a lot of people. And firstly, I think its important to say we put out an update, which we do regularly, and weve been doing for over a decade. And we got this very wrong. We identified what the issue was very quickly. We stopped that particular file from being propagated but unfortunately a lot of people around the world did get access to that file  And the experience that people had was a blue screen of death. Loading CrowdStrike sent out $US10 Uber Eats gift cards to its team members and partners who worked around the clock over the weekend. So many were being redeemed that Uber flagged the gift cards as fraud because of high usage rates. To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late-night snack is on us! an email signed by CrowdStrike chief business officer Daniel Bernard reads, as seen by this masthead.

Uber Eats gift cards wont be enough for affected businesses, however. Early estimates put damages from the outage at more than $1 billion in Australia alone, raising questions about who will foot the bill. James North is head of technology for independent law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, which has been in talks with affected businesses over the past week. According to North, businesses across the country are now weighing whether they can recover financial losses caused by the outage, including the need for additional IT staff and an inability to trade. Michael Sentonas of CrowdStrike. Credit: James Brickwood Its still an open question whether businesses cyber policy or business interruption policies would apply, he said.

What is clearer is that CrowdStrike will only be refunding its customers their subscription fees. Its standard contracts mean the company does not have to pay up for losses incurred by an outage. Liability for loss of revenue and other consequential losses are excluded from CrowdStrikes standard contract, North said. And Australian customers also cant access local courts when considering legal remedies, as they were required to agree to New York governing law and arbitration in Singapore in CrowdStrikes standard contacts. Some customers may have better than the standard liability arrangements with CrowdStrike. For others, Australian consumer law may offer the best approach. Australian businesses can access statutory guarantees in certain circumstances, North said, particularly where the purchased goods or services are valued at $100,000 or less. In Australia, there is a guarantee that any services will be provided with due care and skill. Where an IT vendor introduced coding errors into a software update or did not properly test the update before deploying it onto its customers IT systems, some may consider that guarantee to have been breached, he said.

A business may also recover its reasonably foreseeable losses as a result of a vendors major failure to comply with a statutory guarantee. In certain circumstances, this may include trading and other financial losses. Loading He said a class action lawsuit was likely to be extremely difficult by virtue of the arbitration clauses embedded in the customer contracts. For Pal, software companies are unlikely to change their standard contracts going forward, given outages like this one would likely bankrupt them. He said the incident underscores the importance of having adequate insurance. Australian regulators including APRA will likely soon step in once the dust has settled, according to Pal, who pointed to CPS 230. Its a new standard coming into effect from July 2025 that focuses on business resilience, including third-party risk management and business continuity, which were both heavily impacted by the CrowdStrike outage.
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 Chuck Schumer could barely contain his excitement. It was Tuesday afternoon, two days after Joe Biden had withdrawn from the US election, and Vice President Kamala Harris had just secured enough Democratic support to win the partys nomination to run for the White House. President Bidens selfless decision has given the Democratic Party the opportunity to unite behind a new nominee, and boy oh boy, are we enthusiastic! the Senate Majority Leader told reporters at the US Capitol, as he began clapping emphatically. Its a happy day. What can I say? It was certainly a happier outlook than the previous few weeks had been, when Bidens candidacy plunged into crisis after his devastating debate performance against Donald Trump in Atlanta. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit: AP Indeed, 10 days before his press conference endorsing Harris, a far more sombre Schumer had driven to Delaware to meet the president in person at his Rehoboth Beach home amid growing angst about Bidens fitness for office.

Advertisement

Armed with the concerns of his members and polls showing the path to victory against Trump was all but gone, Schumer decided to make a last-ditch effort to convince his old friend that Bidens legacy, the Congress and the country was at risk if he stayed in the race. Biden, however, seemed as defiant as ever to dig in. But just over one week later, as the polls worsened, donations began to freeze and the defections continued, Americas 81-year-old president announced he would stand down and pass the torch to his 59-year-old deputy. The political shift was swift and seismic. One minute, Democrats had been in despair and disarray over their ability to fend off a seemingly unstoppable Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a college sorority annual convention in Dallas. Credit: AP The next minute they were united and hopeful about their chances in November, coalescing around Harris to ensure she had the delegates she needed to win the partys nomination at next months Democratic National Convention. Within 36 hours, Harris had amassed $US126 million ($192 million) in donations; 100,000 new volunteers had signed up to work on her campaign; and almost 40,000 new voters had registered for the November poll, representing the largest number of registrations in a 48-hour period this election cycle. Even the internet had blown up with endearing memes of the vice presidents most cringy quotes (You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?) or videos of Harris dancing to Charli XCX songs filtered through the UK pop stars lime-green Brat branding.

Advertisement

I dont think you can overstate the level of enthusiasm and excitement about Kamala Harris right now, said Ashley Etienne, a former senior adviser for House speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is like something weve never seen before. I was on the 08 campaign, and we thought people were on fire for Barack Obama - but theyre on fire for Kamala Harris. Trump has also been forced to pivot. For the past 12 months, the incendiary Republican has monopolised headlines through his court cases, his domination of the presidential primary elections, and most recently, the failed assassination attempt against him, which galvanised Republicans to unite behind him at last weeks national convention. This week, however, Trump has been crowded out of the headlines and has had to readjust his campaign strategy, which until now centred solely on an octogenarian and his cognitive decline. Ive never seen a turnaround like this, the former president told supporters at a rally in North Carolina this week as he road-tested new attack lines for the vice president, from Lyin Kamala to Bidens Border Czar and Radical Left Lunatic. Three weeks ago, four weeks ago, she was the worst politician in America. Now theyre saying: isnt it amazing? Look at her, shes so beautiful, shes so magnificent...

Advertisement

After weeks of anxiety, Democrats believe they now have a candidate who will be able to draw a contrast with Trump and make the election a referendum on the former president and his MAGA Republicans. Loading Shes a prosecutor, hes a convicted felon. She wants women to have federal abortion access; he does not. Shes a champion of democracy; he has authoritarian tendencies. Shes 59; hes 78. But some party members and donors still have doubts, citing polls showing Harris approval rating, which is currently hovering around 37 per cent according to FiveThirtyEight, has long been on a par with Bidens. Lawyer and Biden mega-donor John Morgan, for instance, said he would not be supporting the Harris campaign, noting on X: You have to be enthusiastic or hoping for a political appointment to be asking friends for money. I am neither. You can keep my million, he added. And good luck. Others also recall her ill-fated bid to run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, which similarly began with plenty of hype, only to result in the former California attorney-general dropping out before the first primary contest even took place.

Advertisement

After an initial and much-rehearsed viral moment - in which Harris called out Biden on the issue of race and segregation during a candidates debate in 2019 - the senator struggled to articulate what she stood for. She has flip-flopped on issues such as Medicare For All, couldnt defend her past positions as a hard-nosed prosecutor (such as her opposition to the legalisation of marijuana, which she now supports) and there have been numerous stories about her dysfunctional office, including a leaked letter by a staffer, which ended up in The New York Times during her presidential nomination bid. This is my third presidential campaign and I have never seen an organisation treat its staff so poorly, it said. South Carolina voter Chris Salley remembers this period well. Before her campaign fizzled, Harris had been his top pick for the nomination that year, in a race that also included Biden, progressive Senator Bernie Sanders and Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Senator Bernie Sanders, centre, gestures towards Joe Biden as Kamala Harris talks during a debate in 2019. Credit: AP But Salley, 31, quit the Democratic Party last October, outraged by the Biden-Harris administrations handling of the war in Gaza and frustrated that the president was running for another term, rather than passing the torch to a new generational leader. Eight months later, he says hes pleased that Biden has finally stood down, but is waiting to see if theres a concrete change in direction on Gaza before he votes for Harris over third-party candidate Cornell West, a progressive activist and theologian.

Advertisement
This photo taken on July 25, 2024 shows a scene near Donggang grand bridge in Jiangyin Town, Fuqing City, southeast China's Fujian Province. Typhoon Gaemi, the third typhoon of this year, made its second landfall in China on Thursday evening, according to the provincial meteorological bureau of Fujian. With a maximum wind speed of 33 meters per second at its center, the typhoon landed at the Xiuyu District in the city of Putian, east China's Fujian Province, at around 7:50 p.m., according to the bureau. Gaemi made its first landfall at around midnight Thursday in eastern Taiwan's Yilan County, leaving two dead and 201 injured, local authorities said. (Xinhua/Wei Peiquan)

FUZHOU, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Typhoon Gaemi, the third typhoon of this year, made its second landfall in China on Thursday evening, according to the provincial meteorological bureau of Fujian.

With a maximum wind speed of 33 meters per second at its center, the typhoon landed at the Xiuyu District in the city of Putian, east China's Fujian Province, at around 7:50 p.m., according to the bureau.

As of 3 p.m. Thursday, more than 240,000 residents were temporarily evacuated in the province and more than 5,000 rescuers in the cities of Fuzhou, Putian and Ningde, and Pingtan County were standing by, according to the provincial flood control headquarters.

Gaemi made its first landfall at around midnight Thursday in eastern Taiwan's Yilan County, leaving two dead and 201 injured, local authorities said.

Staff members (1st, 2nd L) offer necessities for relocated people at a relocation site in Houchen Village of Jiangyin Town, Fuqing City, southeast China's Fujian Province, July 25, 2024. Typhoon Gaemi, the third typhoon of this year, made its second landfall in China on Thursday evening, according to the provincial meteorological bureau of Fujian.

With a maximum wind speed of 33 meters per second at its center, the typhoon landed at the Xiuyu District in the city of Putian, east China's Fujian Province, at around 7:50 p.m., according to the bureau.

Gaemi made its first landfall at around midnight Thursday in eastern Taiwan's Yilan County, leaving two dead and 201 injured, local authorities said. (Xinhua/Wei Peiquan)

Staff members patrol the sea wall in Jiangyin Town, Fuqing City, southeast China's Fujian Province, July 25, 2024. Typhoon Gaemi, the third typhoon of this year, made its second landfall in China on Thursday evening, according to the provincial meteorological bureau of Fujian.

With a maximum wind speed of 33 meters per second at its center, the typhoon landed at the Xiuyu District in the city of Putian, east China's Fujian Province, at around 7:50 p.m., according to the bureau.

Gaemi made its first landfall at around midnight Thursday in eastern Taiwan's Yilan County, leaving two dead and 201 injured, local authorities said. (Xinhua/Wei Peiquan)

This photo taken on July 25, 2024 shows the sea near Jiangyin Town, Fuqing City, southeast China's Fujian Province. Typhoon Gaemi, the third typhoon of this year, made its second landfall in China on Thursday evening, according to the provincial meteorological bureau of Fujian.

With a maximum wind speed of 33 meters per second at its center, the typhoon landed at the Xiuyu District in the city of Putian, east China's Fujian Province, at around 7:50 p.m., according to the bureau.

Gaemi made its first landfall at around midnight Thursday in eastern Taiwan's Yilan County, leaving two dead and 201 injured, local authorities said. (Xinhua/Wei Peiquan)

Editor: WRX
Children dance by the melody of accordions at a square in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Lin Liping)

Citizens dance by the melody of accordions at a square in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Huang Xiaoyong)

Students play accordions at a middle school in preparation for an upcoming accordion art festival in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Huang Xiaoyong)

Accordion artists from Xibe ethnic group talk with each other at an accordion exhibition hall in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Huang Xiaoyong)

Tourists visit an accordion exhibition hall in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

A teacher (1st L) makes a point as students learn to play accordion in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

Tourists visit an accordion exhibition hall in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Lin Liping)

This photo taken on July 24, 2024 shows accordions displayed at an accordion exhibition hall in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

A tourist looks on as artists perform in an accordion exhibition hall in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

A tourist visits an accordion exhibition hall in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

Students play accordions at a middle school in preparation for an upcoming accordion art festival in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

Children dance by the melody of accordions at a square in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

Students play accordions at a middle school in preparation for an upcoming accordion art festival in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

Tourists visit an accordion exhibition hall in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

A folk musician plays accordion for tourists at an accordion exhibition hall in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

Students practice as an accordion teacher leads at a square in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, July 24, 2024. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

This photo taken on July 24, 2024 shows a sculpture of an accordion in Tacheng City, northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Once an important stop on the ancient Silk Road, Tacheng City, traditionally a multicultural community housing people of more than 20 ethnic groups including Kazakh, Hui, Uyghur, Mongolian, Tatar and Russian, boasts sound ecology and beautiful scenery.

Accordion, the most popular folk musical instrument in Tacheng, is the name card of the city. Accordion classes are offered in all primary and secondary schools in Tacheng, and performances by accordion artists and enthusiasts of all ethnic groups can be seen everywhere specially in the streets and restaurants. The instrument is not only a popular source of daily recreation, but also an important element in social activites.

In 2023, Tacheng was awarded the title of "Accordion City of China" by the accordion society of Chinese Musicians' Association. In recent years, Tacheng has actively promoted its accordion culture by holding various activities, attracting many citizens and tourists to participate, which further strengthened unity among ethnic groups. (Xinhua/Ding Lei)

Editor: WRX
BEIJING, July 25 (Xinhua) -- China's homegrown large civil unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are moving swiftly to support the fight against torrential rains, typhoons and other natural disasters in the critical flood season this summer.

The independently-developed large civil UAVs, including the Wing Loong-2H and Haiyan-1, have been dispatched to support disaster relief, disaster prevention and mitigation, and other emergency rescue missions, according to the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).

The country has entered the annual critical flood season, which normally runs from late July to early August. Large UAVs are performing unique roles in serving disaster monitoring, meteorological monitoring, communication support, post-disaster recovery efforts and more.

The Wing Loong-2H large UAV flew for a total of 45 hours over three consecutive days, from July 20 to 22, over the flood-stricken Hanyuan County under the city of Ya'an, southwest China's Sichuan Province, said AVIC.

Responding to the task from the Ministry of Emergency Management, the Wing Loong-2H carried out comprehensive disaster monitoring over the affected areas. It supported searches for missing personnel and provided long-term and stable communications support, said AVIC.

This large UAV provided rescue-command authorities with real-time information in the form of high-definition images, voice and data from the disaster-hit areas, supporting them in confirming risk points, monitoring disaster conditions, as well as efficient and precise on-site command and rescuer dispatch, said the developer.

With its ability to remain in flight for long periods, the Wing Loong-2H also served as an airborne communication base to ensure communication services. It provided stable and continuous communication signals covering a total area of about 2,700 square km during missions over three days, and sent 42,000 rescue-related messages, serving as a lifeline for both people and rescue forces in disaster areas.

As a meteorological monitoring-specialized model, the Haiyan-1 large UAV is playing its part in the typhoon season this summer.

In responding to the task from the Meteorological Observation Center under the China Meteorological Administration, the Haiyan-1 flew into the interior of Typhoon Prapiroon, the fourth typhoon of the year, said AVIC.

It carried out typhoon detection work in cooperation with an aircraft sent by the Hong Kong Observatory. They precisely captured the outer cloud system structure of Typhoon Prapiroon, supporting meteorological disaster prevention and reduction efforts.

In this mission lasting about two hours, Haiyan-1 sent more than 4,200 valid items of data to a meteorological big-data cloud platform and provided them to meteorological authorities and related institutions for further study.

It also obtained data on the temperature, humidity, wind direction, wind speed and air pressure at different altitudes, allowing meteorological forecasters to clearly observe the three-dimensional structure of the typhoon.

The Haiyan-1 large UAV enabled the forecasters to clearly "see" the inner structure of the typhoon cloud system, helping them to grasp the typhoon's development and make forecasts in a more scientific manner, said AVIC. 

Editor: Zhang Zhou
YINCHUAN, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Approximately 40 journalists and self-media professionals from the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong on Thursday began a weeklong joint news reporting initiative in Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

The media team includes journalists from Taiwan's China Times, United Daily News and TVBS, a journalist from the China Review News Agency, young self-media professionals from Taiwan, as well as journalists from Xinhua News Agency, the People's Daily and China Media Group.

During the initiative, the team is expected to explore various locations, including an energy and chemical base, a museum, a cultural village, a national nature reserve and an economic and technological development zone. It will also meet with Taiwan youngsters and Taiwan-funded enterprises operating in Ningxia.

Wu Xi, deputy head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, has encouraged media professionals from the mainland and Taiwan to help enhance cross-Strait communication, disseminate truthful information, safeguard peace and contribute to national rejuvenation.

The initiative was organized by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the All-China Journalists Association, and will continue until July 31. 

Editor: Zhang Zhou
Beyond kargil





THE nation is celebrating the Silver Jubilee of the Kargil Vijay Diwas on Friday to commemorate India crushing Pakistans misadventure in 1999. In the past 25 years, India has undergone a paradigm shift in many areas after drawing lessons from the Kargil War. Building on that, it will be prudent from the long-term security perspective to connect the past and the present to shape the way for the future. This is necessary for India, she being the most responsible power in the Indian Ocean Region. Even during the Kargil War, India had exercised the policy of restraint. Though there were suggestions to cross the Line of Control (LoC) taking advantage of the upper hand India had gained with the courage and bravery of the soldiers, India refrained from that. She did not want to stoop to the level of an irresponsible Pakistan that tried to unilaterally alter the LoC. But, India ensured that the posts occupied deceitfully by Pakistan during winter were recaptured so as to scuttle the semi-military neighbours plan.

Indias responsible behaviour paid big-time. It isolated Pakistan internationally and also devalued its credibility. Indias mature and professional military behaviour (the Indian Army honourably handed over bodies of Pakistani soldiers killed in action to Pakistan, whereas Pakistan had handed over mutilated bodies of Indian soldiers to India) earned her respect among nuclear-powered nations. Drawing right lessons from the Kargil War of 1999, India has rightfully focussed on ramping up of infrastructure in border areas to ensure ease of movement as and when required. She has invested well in high-altitude warfare training and provision of necessary gears and equipment to the fighting forces. High-altitude capability of the Indian Air Force, and sea-dominating prowess of the Indian Navy have evolved and are taking further strides. While preparing for the possibility of conventional war through three-dimensional readiness, India has been focussing on indigenisation, jointsmanship, and dynamic evolution of doctrinal thinking.

The pursuit of becoming a stronger aerospace power, blue water navy, and further strengthening of military-diplomatic co-ordination are parts of the larger effort. During the Kargil War, Intelligence failure had become a topic of debate. The fighting forces highlighted Intelligence failure, but the Intelligence apparatus refuted the charges. Following the Kargil Review Committee recommendations, some changes were carried out to ramp up the Intelligence apparatus. But, for long, it remained focussed more on Pakistan than others. Of late, some change has been taking place with focus on China too. But, there is need to deepen the focus on China and Pakistan both, apart from other neighbours considering long-term security perspective. For, the region of Kargil does not face threat from terror-harbouring Pakistan alone. China-Pakistan nexus warrants deeper focus considering that the Communist China has been illegally occupying the area of Aksai Chin, Pakistan has illegally ceded to China a large territory, apart from Pakistan-occupied part of the Indian territory of Kashmir. That the Kargil War was imposed upon India by Pakistan to isolate Siachen and cut off road connectivity to Ladakh, also cannot be relegated to being a faded memory. While preparing for the future based on the understanding of the past and realisation of the present realities, occasions like the Kargil Vijay Diwas should be made more meaningful by making the ordinary Indians aware of all the above aspects. Because, any such occasion is not only for retelling of tales of heroism but also for inspiring ordinary Indians to do extraordinary things in the larger national interest.
Nagpur Customs disposes of 1,340.7 kg Of narcotic substances worth Rs 19.7 cr





Senior officers of Nagpur Customs destroying the narcotic substances at the incinerator.

Business Reporter :

Continuing its commitment towards fighting the drug menace, the Nagpur Customs recently disposed of 1,340.7 kg of narcotic substances valued at Rs 19.7 crore through incineration, at Butibori, Nagpur. The narcotics substances destroyed consisted of 1.7 kg of cocaine seized by the Air Intelligence Unit, Customs Nagpur and 1,339 kg of ganja seized by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Nagpur Regional Unit, Nagpur, in two different cases.

The destruction of the material was done under the guidance of Sanjay Kumar, Commissioner of Customs, in the presence of Chairman of Drug Disposal Committee, Customs Nagpur Peeyoush Bhati, Additional Commissioner of Customs along with its other members - Nikhil Vadnam, Deputy Director of DRI Nagpur, and Anjum Tadvi, Assistant Commissioner of Customs. The NDPS substances were incinerated as per the procedure prescribed in the NDPS Act, 1985 and Disposal Manual, 2019 by the Nagpur Customs Commissionerate. It was done in compliance with Pollution Control Laws for Green environment. This exercise was done in line with the Union Governments Zero Tolerance Policy against narcotics and to deliver a strong message to the smugglers who engage in the smuggling of NDPS substance, says a press release.
Now you admit your sins. Now -- after causing so much havoc !!!





By Vijay Phanshikar :

They, the civic authorities of Nagpur, are now scampering around like headless chickens to find a solution to a problem of their own creation -- of unscientifically designed and arrogantly built roads that are among the major reasons causing so much of flooding and water-logging in the city -- over popular protests and complaints. Now that the popular sentiment has risen to a dangerous level, the civic authorities now appear to have come around to agreeing that a genuine solution needs to be found. Hence their approach to the famous Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT). This, thus, may be the lowest point in the citys history when the people in the administration are also trying to duck at least some part of the responsibility. Therefore, even as he agreed that wrongly-designed cement roads may be among the reasons for water-logging, Municipal Commissioner Dr Abhijeet Chaudhari said meekly that not just the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) but also some other agencies were involved in road-designing and construction -- and that they also should pitch in to seek a reasonable solution to the problem. However, for all this long, common people of the States Second Capital have been complaining about the new roads whose height went way above the normal level of most household along both sides. This has been happening for ten-plus years. But the people who complained and feared water-logging in rainy season were told to shut up -- if not in so many words -- as they did not understand the science of road-making.

A very senior political leader was reported to have asked the civic officials to ignore the peoples complaints. The people are just whiners. They oppose development just for the heck of it, he was reported to have said. But for the past some years, the problem of water-logging in the city has been reaching menacing levels -- with countless numbers of houses getting inundated with rain water even after a couple of hours of down pour. Last year, that is September 2023, Nagpur witnessed a terrible flooding of the Naag River as well as countless localities when heavy down-pour for about four hours lashed the city in the dead of the night. Thousands of houses came under several feet of water that destroyed electronic gadgets, furniture, books, cars. In the aftermath of that terrible calamity, the citys administration acted as if it had no clue as to a reasonable response to the problem. In several places, common people even crowded around political leaders and hurled abuses at them because of their inaction. That flooding was the result of the overflow of the Ambazari Lake as well as unprecedented down-pour whose water had no escape into the ground because of the bad road design in most parts of the city even beyond the areas along both the banks of the Naag River.

The administration and political leaders only acted as if they were serious about the solution, but actually did not bother themselves much to sort out the ticklish problem stemming from they obstinacy to continue constructing badly-designed roads. The people complained, shouted, screamed, wept and even went to courts seeking solution to the problem -- only to little avail, which we must admit. In the aftermath of those floods and unprecedented water-logging, experts felt that the wrongly-designed Swami Vivekananda Memorial at the overflow point of the Ambazari Lake waste-weir was the main culprit. So, orders were issued to sort out the problem -- after a sensible judicial intervention. That problem is now being taken care -- god-knows how properly. Yet, the problem of water-logging in the city is not related only to flooding of localities along the Naag Rivers stream. Water-logging is caused due to unscientific design of new roads and pavements that line both the sides of the new roads. That is why countless hundreds of houses get inundated with rain water just after a couple of hours of down pour. This was the story last year. This is the story this year. And this has been the story for many years earlier -- particular the fad of construction of new roads came into vogue, thanks to the obstinacy of a few political bosses who refuse to listen to wise words from the people.

To make matters worse, the city has been a victim of senseless and terribly ill-managed road construction projects. Almost every part of the city appears to be under the siege of some or the other road or other construction activity that disturbs public life without any redemption. One is never sure if the road ahead will be good enough to reach ones destination. For, without any notice, one finds the road having been cordoned off for construction activity. There has not been one single day for the past about ten years when the people have not been troubled due to terrible mismanagement of the road construction activity. But the situation has come to its lowest point. So, the honourable Municipal Commissioner rises from his slumber and admits that water-logging is a problem that needs to be sorted out with a cumulation of effort from different agencies. We have no issues personally against the honourable Municipal Commissioner. But the issue is with the entire administration of which the State Government also is an integral part. We also insist that the problem of bad -- and even callous and careless -- civic management also relates to other issues such as a near-total absence of maintenance of roads all over the city.

The Hitavada has been publishing pictures of badly damaged roads that have not seen any surfacing for years. As a result, the whole city looks like a place deserted by its administrators -- who do not seem to have any sense of shame, let alone responsibility. And now the Municipal Commissioner rises from the ground -- from his hibernation -- to admit that water-logging due to bad designing of roads etc needed a solution. Hence the approach to the VNIT. And therefore the question: Why did not the bureaucratic administration or political leadership of the city not wake up when the people were shouting themselves hoarse about the issue? And, because they have not paid any attention to the problem, will they accept the moral as well as legal responsibility to offer a sensible compensation for the damage the common people suffered due to flooding and water-logging? Of course, never. For, the people in power will ask, a natural calamity could not be attributed to them. Bah! What an utter nonsense! Every sane person knows the difference between a natural calamity and a man-made disaster. What response to the people in power have to this assertion of reality?
When the innovative use of Malayali language helped neutralise intruders...





By Kaushik Bhattacharya :

To prevent the Indian message from getting intercepted or leaked was most important, says Group Captain Vijay Hardas (Retd), recollecting his war story





The Kargil War presented significant communication challenges, aggravated by the rugged terrain and harsh weather of the region. Maintaining secure and reliable communication lines was crucial for co-ordinating operations in the challenging terrain. But, most important point was to prevent the Indian message from getting intercepted or leaked. On one occasion, a Nagpurian officer implemented an innovative idea to pass a message to own posts by taking advantage of linguistic diversity of India. The Nagpurian officer is Group Captain Vijay Hardas (Retd), who was the Commanding Officer (CO) of an Air Traffic Radar Surveillance Unit (ATRSU) on one of the most strategically important posts at Natha Top during Kargil War. He found a unique way to send information to other posts and the headquarters quickly. As the country celebrates the Silver Jubilee of Kargil Vijay Diwas with enthusiasm, he recalls, Though we had communication equipment to pass on the information to other posts or to our seniors about enemy movement, the chances of information leak was always there.

From the post where he was commanding a small unit having personnel from the State CID, J&K Police, the Indian Army, and the Indian Air Force, India had the capability to view the air movement deep inside the enemy territory even upto Karachi and Islamabad. During the Kargil War of 1999, India radar-monitored each and every enemy movement and passed on information about any suspicious activity to the headquarters, he adds. One day, Gp Capt Hardas intercepted an enemy conversation in which the intruders were discussing about Contd from page 1 conducting funeral meeting for all the killed intruders. It was to be attended by some others from deep inside Indian territory. The CO of the unit wanted to share this information to the headquarters, but it would have taken too long, and there were high chances of the information getting intercepted by the enemy.

Therefore, he came up with a unique idea -- of using Malayalam language for passing on the crucial information. I shared the information with one of my soldiers, who was a Malayali, and instructed him to share the same in Malayalam language to another Malayali soldier at the next post to avoid interception as the intruders were unable to decode the information in the toughest language of India, Gp Capt Hardas tells The Hitavada with a smile. Thereafter, the soldier in another post relayed the same information to the headquarters in Malayalam language. With the help of this unique technique, the information reached the headquarters within a couple of hours and all the intruders who had gathered at a secret location were neutralised, he recalls with pride. Gp Capt Hardas (Retd) elaborates that his unit, including him, were trained in Pashtu language, which was normally used by the terrorists to communicate with each other. We intercepted that particular message in Pashtu language with the help of a smart communication set capable of intercepting 32 different radio frequencies at a time. The smart radio set was a game-changer in the war as we used it throughout the conflict and intercepted many enemy conversations and transferred it to the headquarters, he adds. The unit was always on high alert to respond effectively to any possibility of intrusion considering the equipment at its disposal.

The post was so secure that every senior Army, Air Force official had to pre-intimate us about their arrival to the post. I never permitted entry to any serving personnel till there was a valid reason and requirement to be at the unit, he informs The Hitavada. Commanding from the unit was a unique experience for him as an Air Force officer. His entire team consisting of the Armed Forces personnel and security forces personnel, was well trained in respective fields. According to Gp Capt Hardas (Retd), that was the reason all of them were deployed at Natha Top, which was the most important strategic post for India during that time. During the war, we had state-of-the-art equipment and gadgets on our post that helped us to monitor the enemy movement in their side. We were observing enemy movement far away during night with the help of Night Vision Goggles (NVGs).

We had smart radio sets, which could capture 32 frequencies at a time, and also a Russia-made Air Route Surveillance Radar (ARSR) having a range of 200 miles, recollects the veteran. Interestingly, the IAF officer had special permission to take his wife and a two-and-a-half-year-old son to the forward post. It is not permissible to other officers and soldiers during war-time but his wife Flt Lt Karuna Hardas (Retd) and son were allowed as she was serving then and their son was too young, he explains. During the Kargil War, more than 2.5 lakh ammunitions including missiles, bombs and bullets were used. More than 6,000 bombs were used by India to capture Tiger Hill, which was the most important strategic feature for India during the war, says Gp Capt Hardas (Retd). The war is an excellent example of co-ordination among the Indian forces driven by the desire to protect the territory from the enemy. It is this resolve that makes a man a soldier. That is why, the tales of heroes in uniform live on, 25 years after the war, and up to eternity.
Nairobi, Kenya, August 16, 2024: The Voice news magazine, a Pan-African publication based in the Netherlands, has named Lord Mayor Rohey Malick Lowe of Banjul, The Gambia, as the African Woman of the Year 2024. This prestigious award honours her tireless dedication to improving government services in Banjul and beyond, demonstrating exemplary leadership and a commitment to her community.

Mayor Lowe, known for her hard work, intelligence, and servant leadership, has made significant strides in transforming Banjul, setting a benchmark for good governance. Her efforts have earned her this recognition for enhancing the quality of life in her city and contributing to Gambia's progress on the global stage.

In accepting this honour, Mayor Lowe expressed her humility and dedicated the award to the people of Banjul and Gambia, whose support motivates her continued efforts toward progress.

This award highlights Gambia's growing influence and importance regionally and globally. Mayor Lowes numerous roles, including President of the Local Elected Women in Africa (REFELA), Vice President of the Global Parliament of Mayors (GPM), and Second Vice President of the United Democratic Party (UDP) in Gambia, reflects her broad impact.

Mayor Lowe will be honoured at a ceremony on August 16, 2024, at Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. The event will celebrate her commitment to women and youth empowerment, sustainable healthcare, infrastructural development, and skill acquisition for Banjul's citizens.

The Voice Achievers Award, Central Europes most prestigious African award, will host a two-day Kenyan Business Summit and award ceremony, beginning August 15, 2024, under the theme "Transforming Africa with the Diaspora for Sustainable Developments." The event attracts global participation and highlights significant contributions to Africas development.

For more information about the award ceremony, media interviews, or event coverage, please contact our press department at [email protected] or visit www.thevoiceachieversaward.com.

Signed:

Pastor Ambassador Ndubuisi Elvis Iruh

President/Editor-in-Chief, The Voice magazine

The Voice Achievers Award Inc. 2024

Contact Information:

The Voice Magazine

Stichting Paddi Europa inz The Voice

Jeroen Boschplantsoen 82, 1318HH Almere, The Netherlands

Tel: +31 (0)36-8801341 or +31-6-84999548

Mobile: +31-6-48519292

www.thevoicenewsmagazine.com

www.thevoiceachieversaward.com

E-mail: [email protected]

ABOUT THE VOICE NEWS MAGAZINE

The Voice magazine (www.thevoicenewsmagazine.com) is the first pan-African magazine published in the Netherlands and the entire Benelux region of Europe. It is dedicated to the advancement of Africans and has been in circulation since August, 1999. In that period, we have covered and reflected on the significant developments taking place in Africa and the contribution of African Diaspora in the advancement of the continent.

THE VOICE ACHIEVERS AWARD

The Voice Achievers Award (www.thevoiceachieversaward.com) began nearly 13 years ago. It is an annual recognition Award for outstanding men and women who have made substantial contributions towards the advancement of Africa and its people.

The winners are Africans and friends of Africa, who in pursuit of their businesses and services to humanity have distinguished themselves in various fields of human Endeavour across Africa.

The Voice Achievers Award has recognized over 250 persons over the period of 12 years of its existence.
The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on Friday announced significant enhancements to the Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme aimed at simplifying processes, reducing transaction costs and promoting automation to benefit exporters.

These changes align with the commitment of the government to create a more business-friendly environment and improve Indias manufacturing competitiveness, the Ministry of Commerce & Industry said.

As per the changes, the scheme will now provide exporters an extended period to submit Installation Certificates for imported Capital Goods. This extension reduces pressure on businesses, allowing them to focus more on production and export activities.

Advertisement

Further, a simplified and reduced composition fee structure for extending the Export Obligation (EO) period has been introduced. This change minimises manual intervention, streamlines compliance and speeds up service delivery

Also, from now all Policy Relaxation Committee (PRC) decisions regarding Export Obligation extensions and regularisation of exports will be implemented with a levy of uniform composition fee making it easier to implement through the system.

The Ministry further said that these updates make it easier for exporters to comply with regulations, reducing the time and effort required to meet DGFT requirements.

By expanding automated rule-based processes, DGFT aims to reduce human intervention, mitigate risks and improve overall efficiency in trade facilitation, it said.

The Ministry of Commerce also said that the DGFT has already taken efforts to automate the authorisation issue process, ad-hoc norms fixation process under Advance Authorisation, export obligation extension, automatic status holder certificate issue, among others, in recent days.

It is planned that in the coming months, more and more processes will be system driven with minimal or no human intervention in order to facilitate trade and industry.
A two-year-old infant died while five other family members were injured in the early hours of Friday morning in Southeast Delhis Tuglakabad area.

According to police officials, the incident took place at around 3 am while the family was asleep.

The house was located in a narrow lane and the old construction of the house may have resulted in the collapse, added police officials.

Advertisement

The family trapped under debris was pulled out by the locals who had rushed to the site hearing of the collapse and the injured were rushed to a nearby hospital where they are receiving treatment.

Meanwhile, the police have launched an investigation into the matter.

In another incident, a 20-year-old person lost his life collapse as a rooftop dome at Kailash Nagar collapsed.

According to the police officials, some Jain devotees were standing in the main street when suddenly some portion of the dome got detached from the main roof and came crashing down on the devotes.

Kunal, an injured victim, was taken to the hospital in Geeta colony where he was declared dead.

A case under section 106 of BNS has been registered in Police station Gandhi Nagar, said the police.
With the arrest of three Cryptocurrency thieves along with the woman mastermind, the Intelligence Fusion and Strategic Operations unit of Delhi Polices Special Cell cracked a Crypto Currency theft case and recovered approximately Rs 2.6 crore, a senior police official said.

The recovery consists of Rs 1.25 crore in cash, 2.32 BTC, 9600 USDT, which amounts to approximately 90 per cent of the total amount.

The police received a complaint from a woman that she was operating a Cryptocurrency trust wallet on her cell phone, which had around and six Bitcoins as a balance. On July 4, when she was traveling abroad, she got to know that all the BTC from her crypto wallet were stolen by someone. Following a preliminary inquiry, a case was registered at the Police Station Special Cell, and a probe was initiated into the matter.

Advertisement

A team was tasked to establish and analyse the money trail of complex Crypto transactions made from the trust wallet of the complainant and to further trace the trail of stolen Cryptocurrency with the help of technical analysis.

Upon analysis of the transaction details of the complainant, it was noticed that the alleged initiated multiple small transactions to avoid detection and the bitcoins were quickly moved through a series of tumblers, making it challenging to follow the trail.

Finally, the efforts of the team resulted in the identification of six alleged wallets in which the stolen crypto funds were transferred.

The accused persons, who were involved in the alleged theft of Cryptocurrency from the wallet of the complainant were identified, and on July 19, the mastermind behind the theft was traced, they turned out to be a woman, based in Delhi and was arrested after questioning.

During sustained interrogation, she disclosed details of other two associates who were involved in the present case, and subsequently raids were conducted and accused persons were also nabbed.

Further, during questioning, all the accused confessed to their involvement in the crime and it was revealed that the prime accused who is a close friend of the complainant.

The lady along with her friends later hatched a conspiracy to steal the Cryptocurrency, an official said, adding that further investigation of the case is in progress.
Katrina Kaif has recently enchanted her followers with picturesque snapshots from her serene getaway in Austria. On Thursday, she took to Instagram to share glimpses of her vacation, showcasing the stunning beauty of the Austrian landscape.

In the latest post, Katrina appears relaxed and at ease, dressed in an all-black outfit while seated on a bench beside a tranquil lake. The backdrop features majestic mountains, highlighting the serene environment she is enjoying. Alongside this, she posted radiant sun-kissed photos, emphasizing the natural beauty of her surroundings.

Advertisement View this post on Instagram A post shared by Katrina Kaif (@katrinakaif)

Katrinas Instagram updates also included a heartfelt thank you note for the birthday wishes she received. She recently celebrated her birthday in London and took to social media to express her gratitude. In a candid, no-makeup photo, she wore a navy blue cardigan and offered a warm smile to the camera, thanking fans and friends for their love and support on her special day.

Following her birthday celebrations, Katrina attended a screening of her husband Vicky Kaushals latest film, Bad Newz. At a recent promotional event for the movie in Delhi, Vicky addressed the ongoing rumors about Katrinas pregnancy. He clarified, The good news everyone is speculating about will be shared with you when it happens. For now, enjoy Bad Newz, and we will definitely let you know when theres something to share.

On the professional front, Katrina Kaif was last seen in Sriram Raghavans Merry Christmas, where she starred opposite Vijay Sethupathi. Looking ahead, she is set to appear in Farhan Akhtars upcoming film Jee Le Zara, which also features Alia Bhatt and Priyanka Chopra. This film promises to be a significant addition to her impressive career.

Katrinas picturesque retreat and personal updates reflect her current state of relaxation and contentment, while her upcoming projects continue to build excitement among her fans.
Donald Trumps running mate, JD Vance, has sparked controversy with an old video suggesting that childless women are less fit to govern. The latest backlash comes from star Jennifer Aniston. As the Vice-Presidential nominee finds himself embroiled in controversy, another video from 2021 has resurfaced in which Vance advocates for reduced voting rights for childless people.

In the 2021 video that drew Anistons criticism, Vance singled out current Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris, among others, suggesting that childless people, particularly childless cat ladies, have no direct stake in the country. Speaking with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, Vance said the country was being run by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that theyve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.

He cited examples such as then Vice President Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, saying, The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that weve turned our country over to people who dont really have a direct stake in it?

Advertisement

Vances comments have angered many U.S. citizens, including celebrities, and have drawn accusations of sexism ahead of the US Presidential elections. Kamala Harris, who is currently running for President, was endorsed by President Joe Biden after he dropped out of the race, and her energy has instilled new confidence in the Democrats.

Reacting to Vances comments, Jennifer Aniston, who has been vocal about her infertility, took to social media to express her outrage. She posted a screenshot of the clip on her Instagram story and expressed disbelief that such comments were coming from a potential U.S. Vice President.

Jennifer Aniston wrote, All I can say isMr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.

Additionally, another video from 2021 has resurfaced where Vance advocates for reduced voting rights for childless people. In this video, from Vances address to the organization Intercollegiate Studies Institute, he argues that people without children have no investment in Americas future and maybe shouldnt get nearly the same voice. He acknowledged the implication of his comment, saying, Doesnt this mean that non-parents dont have as much of a voice as parents? Doesnt this mean that parents get a bigger say in how our democracy functions? Yes, absolutely.

Republicans have frequently highlighted that Presidential candidate Kamala Harris does not have biological children and have made it an issue. However, she has received support from numerous citizens, including politicians, celebrities, and her extended family. Supporters often point out that no U.S. president has ever physically given birth, as all have been men.

In response to Vances attack on Harris, Kerstin Emhoff, the mother of Harris stepchildren, has dismissed the attacks as baseless in a statement to CNN. She stated, For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and me. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it. Moreover, Harris 25-year-old stepdaughter Ella also took to social media, writing, I love my three parents. How can you be childless when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and me?
TVFs popular series Arranged Couple just dropped its highly anticipated fifth episode, titled Love Vs Arranged, and its packed with surprises. This latest installment adds a fresh twist to the journey of Rishi and Anu, as the couple faces new challenges with the introduction of a new pair into their lives.

In this episode, Rishi is taken aback when he discovers that Anu never truly embraced the idea of their arranged marriage. This revelation turns their story upside down, pushing them to navigate the complexities of their relationship amidst unforeseen circumstances. The dynamic between Rishi and Anu takes a new turn as they confront these new challenges together.

The series features stellar performances by Srishti Shrivastava and Harman Singha, with strong supporting roles from Neelu Dogra, Sanjay Gurbaxani, Gunjan Hariramani, Praveen Rajj, Shreya Singh, and Ankit Motghare. Each actor brings depth to their character, contributing to the shows engaging narrative.

Advertisement

Arranged Couple is an evidence to TVFs knack for capturing the essence of contemporary relationships with authenticity and humor. Following the success of other TVF hits like Sapne Vs Everyone, Very Parivarik, Panchayat S3, Kota Factory S3, and Gullak S4, this new episode continues to showcase their talent for creating relatable and compelling content.
Actor Yoo Ah In, popular for his roles in Burning and Hellbound, has been accused of sexual assault by a 30-year-old man who has also filed a complaint. According to the Korean Herald, the complaint alleges that the incident occurred in Seoul, South Korea, while the man was sleeping in a unit of a commercial-residential building in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, on July 14. Refuting the claims, Yoo Ah Ins lawyer, Park Jung Hyun, stated, The claims in the criminal complaint involving Yoo Ah In are not true. Additionally, we ask that you refrain from unnecessary speculation regarding his personal life.

The police are currently investigating the matter and have already questioned the man about the case on Thursday. According to Soompi, the man tested negative for drugs, and the police have stated, We have not yet contacted the accused [Yoo Ah In] about the case. We plan to call him in for questioning soon.

Furthermore, a Chosun Daily report indicated that the man woke up, realized he had been a victim of rape, and filed a police report the following day.

Advertisement

The apartment where the incident allegedly occurred was not owned by either Yoo Ah In or the man but by a different individual. Other men were present during the incident. The police are also investigating whether Yoo Ah In, who is already facing charges for habitual drug use, may have committed the alleged crime while under the influence of substances.

For context, Yoo Ah In is facing trial for administering propofol 181 times from September 2020 to March 2022 and for illegally procuring sleeping pills under someone elses name between May 2021 and August 2022. The prosecution is demanding a four-year imprisonment sentence and a fine of 2 million KRW, along with an additional fine of around 1.5 million KRW. In his final plea, the actors defense team requested mercy, emphasizing his ongoing battles with depression and insomnia. They also claimed that a psychiatrist had recommended hospitalization and sedative medications for Yoo Ah In.

Yoo Ah In is primarily popular for his roles in the coming-of-age film Punch (2011), Secret Affair (2014), the hit action film Veteran (2015), and The Throne (2015). He also received widespread acclaim for his performance in the 2018 film Burning, which competed for the prestigious Palme dOr award at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and became the first Korean film to make it to the final nine-film shortlist for the Best Foreign Language Film award at the 91st Oscars.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav on Friday once again provoked Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya by calling him a pawn in the hands of Delhi.

Addressing the media here on Friday, Akhilesh Yadav said the BJP leader was a mohra (pawn) of Delhi and has become the password of Delhis WiFi.

However, Keshav Prasad Maurya immediately hit back at the SP president by tweeting on social media, SP Bahadur Akhilesh Yadav, who has become the pawn of Congress, should focus on saving SP from destruction instead of creating misconceptions about BJP, targeting and insulting the most backward people.

Advertisement

Maurya said, The BJP will repeat 2017 in 2027; the lotus has bloomed, will bloom, and will keep blooming.

It is noteworthy that the war of words between Akhilesh Yadav and Keshav Prasad Maurya has been going on for a long time.

Akhilesh Yadav had made a statement amidst the turmoil following the BJP Working Committee meeting held in Lucknow, after which he came under fire from BJP leaders.

Last week, he had written on social media platform X, Monsoon offer: Bring 100, form the government!. After the BJP Working Committee meeting, the Deputy CM had gone to Delhi and met the BJP president, prompting Akhilesh to tweet, You fools should come back home! His statement was linked to Deputy CM Keshav.

After this, UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya hit back at SP president Akhilesh Yadav, saying that the SP is a sinking ship and a dying party whose future and present are in danger. He remarked that the Monsoon will reduce the offer to 47 in 2027. He can see the beautiful dreams of Mungerilal, but they cannot be fulfilled. Will repeat 2017 in 2027, then form a Lotus government, Maurya had commented.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the cornerstone of Indias Act East Policy and its Indo-Pacific vision, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar said on Friday.

In his remarks at the opening session of the ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers Meeting in Laos capital Vientiane, the minister said the priority that India attaches to ASEAN and East Asia Summit (EAS) platforms is evident from Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Jakarta last year on the very eve of our own G20 Summit.

Jaishankar said Prime Minister Modi had announced a 12-point plan that has been largely acted upon.

Advertisement

For India, ASEAN is the cornerstone of its Act East Policy and the Indo-Pacific vision that was thereafter built on it. For us, political, economic and security cooperation with ASEAN is of the utmost priority.

So too are people-to-people linkages, that we are constantly seeking to expand. It is encouraging to note that our partnership acquires ever more dimensions with each passing year. While our achievements are substantial, our ambitions must always remain high, the External Affairs Minister said.

The External Affairs Minister thanked Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore Vivian Balakrishnan, for his wishes on the formers reappointment and said he looked forward to working with him in the future. He also appreciated Balakrishnans role as country coordinator.

As the Philippines will take over as the next country coordinator, Jaishankar said he looked forward to working closely with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, Enrique Manalo.

He congratulated Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (PDR) for the chairmanship of ASEAN. I extend our fullest support for the successful chairmanship to Lao PDR. I also thank our colleague and Lao PDR for the warm welcome and hospitality.

I welcome Minister Bendito Freitas of Timor-Leste as an Observer in this meeting, as well. Last year, Prime Minister Modi announced that we will open an Embassy in Dili. We are proceeding to do so very shortly and in fact will be undertaking high-level visits there as well, the External Affairs Minister said.

I extend my deep appreciation to all of you for strengthening ASEAN-India relations through substantive and tangible cooperation identified under the ASEAN-India Plan of Action and its Annex, he said.

In a post on X, Jaishankar said, Participated in a productive ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers Meeting this morning in Vientiane, Laos. Thank @VivianBala for co-chairing it with me these past three years. Welcome Philippines as the incoming country coordinator.

Digital, defence, maritime, connectivity, security, health & traditional medicine and cultural heritage preservation continue to be priority areas for India-ASEAN cooperation.

Also spoke about the situation in Myanmar, keeping the Sea Lines of Communication open and free, Quads outlook on ASEAN & AOIP and the conflict in Gaza. As we celebrate a decade of the Act East Policy, India values the progress achieved in implementing our comprehensive strategic partnership and the increasing synergy in our outlook for the region.

Very happy to meet Brunei FM Dato Haji Erywan today in Vientiane. Launched the logo celebrating 40 years of our diplomatic relations. Confident that our warm and friendly ties will prosper further, the External Affairs Minister said in another post on X.

The ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference with India was convened in Vientiane on Friday and attended by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers, Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar and the Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Political-Security Community Dato Astanah Abdul Aziz. Timor-Leste attended as an Observer.

The Meeting reaffirmed both sides commitment to further enhance the ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) in the coming years by continuing the robust implementation of the ASEAN-India Plan of Action and its Annex and develop its successor document which will guide both sides in realising the full potential of the CSP in the next five years.

The Ministers also exchanged views on several regional and international issues of common interest and concern.
The opposition Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and Congress have alleged that there is nothing new in the first Budget of the BJP government presented by Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi in the Assembly here on Thursday.

Both parties claimed that the Budget for 2024-25 is a repetition of what the previous BJD government had introduced in the past.

Speaking to media persons after the Budget speech, former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik said, About the state Budget, I would say again that it was a double-engine, double disappointment. I noticed that they have just renamed more than 40 of my governments schemes.

Advertisement

Senior Congress leader Tara Prasad Bahinipati has described the Budget as anti-poor and claimed nothing new in the Budget.

There is nothing for the development of farmers, women. They only increased the allocation of funds for the existing schemes by 10 to 15 per cent. They have just renamed more than 40 schemes, alleged Bahinipati.

On the other hand, State BJP President Manmohan Samal on Thursday asserted that the Budget has pleased people from all sections of the society.

He said that the double-engine government has given priority to the all-round development of Odisha.

He thanked and expressed his gratitude to CM Mohan Majhi for the Budget.

The BJP government is committed to the development of Odisha, which is evident in todays Budget. The first Budget of the new government laid the foundation stone for a Vikashit Odisha, Samal added.
Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his remarks on the Agnipath scheme, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Friday slammed called it a blatant lie and demanded that the scheme should be scrapped.

Earlier in the day, the PM, in his address on Kargil Vijay Diwas at Dras in Jammu and Kashmir, accused the Opposition of politicising the Agnipath Recruitment Scheme for the Army, saying they are deliberately misleading the youth on the issue.

He also said that the Agnipath scheme is also an example of the necessary reforms done by the Army.

Advertisement

Reacting to the PMs statement, the Congress president wrote in a post on X, It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas. No Prime Minister has ever done this before.

Accusing the PM of spreading lies, he said, Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army, this is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant Armed Forces. Modi ji, it is you who are spreading lies. Former Army Chief (retd) General MM Naravane said on record that 75 per cent of recruits were to be taken for permanency in the Agnipath scheme and 25 per cent of people were to be let go after four years. But the Modi government did the opposite, and forcibly implemented this scheme for all three Armed Forces.

The Congress chief said, According to news reports, Former Army Chief (retd) General MM Naravane in his book the publication of which has been stalled by the Modi Government, has also said, that the Agnipath scheme was shocking for the Army, and for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a bolt out of the blue.

Are we creating professional soldiers only by six months of training? Soldiers join the Army out of patriotism, not to earn a living. Many retired officers have strongly criticised Agnipath and said that it is endangering national security and the aspirations of the rural youth, demanding that this scheme should be completely scrapped. All this is on record, he said.

Kharge, who is also the leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha further said, Agniveers do not get any pension, no gratuity, no family pension, no liberalized family pension and no education allowance for their children. Modi ji, 15 Agniveers have been martyred so far. At least respect their martyrdom. There is a lot of anger and strong opposition among the youth of the country regarding Agniveer. Congress partys demand is consistent-the Agnipath scheme should be scrapped.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has concluded an extensive review with public representatives from all 18 divisions of Uttar Pradesh focusing on the results of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Over the past 20 days, MPs, MLAs, and MLCs from each division presented the issues and expectations of their constituencies to the Chief Minister, officials here on Friday said.

After carefully listening to their concerns, Yogi instructed officials to develop a new strategy for regional development for each region. The division-wise review meetings began on July 7 with the Devipatan and Ayodhya divisions and were completed with the Lucknow division on Friday.

Advertisement

During the division-wise meetings, representatives openly shared their concerns and suggestions. After listening to these discussions, CM Yogi provided the mantra of victory for the upcoming 2027 assembly elections. He emphasized the need to focus on communication, active engagement, and social media.

He instructed the public representatives to ensure that development activities in their areas are communicated to the public and to maintain constant contact with beneficiaries of various schemes. He also advised them to vocally oppose the spread of rumours and attempts to disrupt social harmony by the opposition on social media. He urged them to expose opposition lies and share the truth with the public with the utilization of social media.

The chief minister directed all public representatives to engage with youth and womens organizations in their areas. He emphasized that they should inform youth about the impartial provision of government jobs without any bribes or discrimination based on caste, religion, or creed. Public representatives should connect with those who have secured jobs without bias or bribery and maintain ongoing communication with local athletes.

Additionally, the chiefminister advised them to start preparing for the upcoming Assembly elections now. He suggested analysing the voting patterns from the recent Lok Sabha elections in their areas and using that analysis to plan their strategies. He also directed them to file written complaints if any official shows reluctance in implementing government welfare schemes, assuring that appropriate action will be taken.
To better prepare against any future pandemics/public health emergencies in the country, Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel said on Friday that her ministry would provide requisite support to states/Union Territories to enhance their capabilities.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, the Minister said under the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP), the Ministry has strengthened the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) to enhance disease surveillance activities.

The IDSP allows for a decentralised system of response through trained multi-disciplinary Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) to institute requisite public health control and containment measures. The platform has also been strengthened to use advanced data modeling and data analytical tools and contains real-time data reporting that is accessible at all levels, she said.

Advertisement

Patel said in terms of laboratory strengthening, under the IDSP, States have strengthened laboratories at the District and State levels.

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has established a network of more than 150 Virus Research and Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDLs) to strengthen the nationwide network of laboratories for timely laboratory-based diagnosis of pathogens. In addition to this, besides the apex laboratory at the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune four regional NIVs are being established in Jammu, Jabalpur, Dibrugarh, and Bengaluru, she said.

The Minister said, The ICMR has developed two mobile BSL-3 laboratories to provide essential on-site diagnostic services during outbreaks, especially in remote areas. Further, a National Institute for One Health (NIOH) is being established at Nagpur by ICMR to undertake integrated and holistic research and development across human, animal, plant, and environmental health sectors.

With the long-term goal to better prepare the country against public health emergencies, Pradhan Mantri- Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) has been launched to enhance the capacity of primary, secondary, and tertiary healthcare facilities and institutes for identifying and managing any new and emerging diseases, Patel said.

The minister further said, Funding support has been provided to States/UTs for health system strengthening to meet any exigency due to public health emergencies like pandemics.

A release of Rs 3,619.82 crore has been provided as the Central release of grants under PM-ABHIM (FY2021-24) for better public health preparedness, she added.
Appearing in the MP-MLA court of Sultanpur to defend himself against a defamation case on Friday, Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said he had been implicated.

I have been implicated due to political rivalry. I did not give any such statement in the press conference in Bengaluru, the Congress leader stated before the court of Special Magistrate Shubham Verma.

The next hearing of the case will be on August 12.

Advertisement

The defamation case pertains to indecent remarks the Congress leader is purported to have made against Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Bengaluru in 2018.

Rahul Gandhi, who arrived on Friday to record his statement in the court, completed the court process in about 20 minutes, amid slogans raised by his supporters and Congress workers outside the court. Soon after the completion of the process, he left the court with a grin on his face without saying anything.

This is his second appearance in the court in the case after February 20 last. Witnesses will appear on behalf of complainant Vijay Mishra on August 12. The former chairman of the Cooperative Bank and a BJP leader filed a complaint against Rahul Gandhi in the special court five years ago.

According to the complainants advocate Santosh Pandey, it is alleged in the complaint that on July 15, 2018, party workers, Anirudh Shukla and Dinesh Kumar, had shown a video clip on their mobile in which Rahul Gandhi was seen calling Amit Shah a murderer.

In the statement, Rahul Gandhi was purportedly referring to the death of Justice Brijgopal Harkishan Loya in which Shah was given a clean chit by the Supreme Court.

On the basis of the statement and evidence of the complainant and two witnesses, the Congress MP was summoned by Special Magistrate Yogesh Yadav for a hearing under Section 500 of the IPC. On February 20, the court granted bail and exempted him from personally appearing on the production date.

However, he had to appear before the court to defend the charges against him. As the magistrate took a tough stand against him for skipping court summons on a few occasions in the past, on July 2, his advocate Kashi Prasad Shukla sought an opportunity to appear on July 26.
Ahead of the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, leaders of the Opposition parties in the Union Territory (UT) will meet here next month to deliberate on the crucial issues affecting the erstwhile state, said CPI (M) leader Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami on Friday.

Tarigami said all the leaders of Opposition parties have been requested to attend the meeting.

The meeting aims to address key issues such as the delegation of additional powers to the Lt. Governor, amendments to the Transaction of Business of the Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Rules, 2019, and other significant governance changes.

Advertisement

These amendments provide the Lt. Governor with greater authority over police decisions, the management of all-India services including the IAS and IPS, and the sanctioning of prosecutions.

All political parties, excluding the BJP, have expressed objection to these amendments. Tarigami emphasised the importance of Opposition leaders attendance at the meeting.

Recently, the Home Ministry, boosting administrative powers of the lieutenant governor ahead of the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, triggered a controversy with Opposition political parties accusing the BJP-led Central government of disempowering Kashmiris by making the elected chief minister a rubber stamp.

As per the amendments, almost all key proposals will now go to the Lieutenant Governor through the Chief Secretary.

The amendments of the rules of the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, 2019, grant increased authority to the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir regarding the transfer, posting, and appointment of the key all-India service officers such as IAS and IPS, police personnel, law and order issues, and the appointment of judicial officers.
The participants at an online meeting of the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) office-bearers held on Thursday reportedly came out against Leader of the Opposition in the Kerala Assembly VD Satheesan.

The KPCC members said in the meeting that the Satheesan is indulging in parallel political activities by interfering in KPCCs authority and unanimously taking decisions without informing the leaders in charge of the districts.

A personal staff member of the leader of the Opposition started a WhatsApp group to pass instructions and circulars through it. Some members called it a parallel operation. It was Satheesan who took away the sheen of the partys leadership camp in Wayanad, some other members alleged.

Advertisement

Some KPCC general secretaries complained to the AICC office-bearer in charge of Kerala, stating that the opposition leader had forwarded some instructions to the DCCs without informing them.

In the meeting, the partys state chief K Sudhakaran reportedly expressed strong displeasure against Satheesan for coming out with a directive to form committees ahead of the local body elections. On Thursday in his capacity as KPCC president, he issued a detailed circular cancelling Satheesans directive regarding committees to be formed for local body polls issued in his capacity as Congress Legislative Party leader.

Meanwhile, Satheesan did not participate in the district camp executive organised by the Thiruvananthapuram District Congress Committee on Friday.
BRS working president K T Rama Rao on Friday lashed out at Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy for the decision to boycott NITI Aayog meeting over alleged discrimination towards the state in the Union Budget.

Rao pointed out that the Congress had criticised former chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao over his decision to skip NITI Aayogs meetings during his own tenure.

Telangana decided to join the other states like Tamil Nadu and boycott the meeting of Niti Aayog on 27 July after none of its proposals were included in the Budget and promises made in the AP Reorganisation Act remained unfulfilled.

Advertisement

However, Reddys decision to boycott the meeting prompted the BRS leaders to recall the national partys criticism when KCR as chief minister had decided to skip the meetings of NITI Aayog. KT Rama Rao today wrote on social media platform X and took a dig at Reddy.

When (as) chief minister KCR was boycotting meetings with the Prime Minister for rightful issues concerning Telanganas pride, Congress had issues and accused us of collusion etc. Now what will Congress say when Revanth Reddy is himself boycotting the Niti Ayog meeting? Why does my younger brother not want to meet the PM and speak about Budget issues pertaining to the state? wrote Rao.

Chief minister A Revanth Reddy had earlier referred to the Prime Minister as an elder brother to all the states and KT Rama Rao took a jibe at the chief minister, referring to him as the younger brother.

Kaleshwaram Ultimatum

Meanwhile, KT Rama Rao who was on a visit to the Kaleshwaram project issued an ultimatum to the Congress government in Telangana demanding that the government should fill up the reservoirs otherwise he would mobilise 50,000 farmers and operate the pumps themselves.

On a visit to the various reservoirs of Kaleshwaram project with BRS MLAs and MLCs Rao said the Congress were trying to score a political brownie point against KCR during whose tenure the lift irrigation project was constructed.

By 2 August the government must switch on the pumps of Kaleshwaram and fill the reservoirs. Otherwise under the leadership of KCR we will come and turn them on, said Rao.

He also accused the government of letting the water on Godavari go into waste by letting it flow into the sea instead of filling up the reservoirs. He added that a small issue was used to spread false propaganda about the project. Last year, the piers of Medigadda had developed cracks putting the entire project under scanner.

Apart from National Dam Safety Authority (NDSA) looking at the safety aspects, the state government has also set up a judicial commission under retired Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghosh to probe the project. We want to salvage the project with the advice of NDSA, said irrigation minister Uttam Kumar Reddy pointing out that a dam collapse would endanger several areas including Bhadrachalam town.
Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma announced on Friday that the state government is actively addressing the gap between demand and supply for overseas job placements by connecting youth with reputable agencies.

Speaking at a Job Fair for overseas placements held at the district auditorium in Tura, West Garo Hills, the Chief Minister outlined the governments initiatives to support the youth in securing international employment.

As a government, we have intervened to connect our youth with agencies. We will fund their training up to Rs 50,000, support them in their journey to secure a job overseas, and facilitate their visas and other necessary paperwork, Sangma said.

Advertisement

He emphasised the vast potential for overseas placements in developed nations with aging populations.

If we are able to send 1,000 youths to countries like Japan, Singapore, and the UK, they would earn roughly about Rs 1.2 lakh a month, and would be able to save money, significantly contributing to our states foreign exchange earnings, he noted.

The Chief Minister highlighted the opportunity presented by Indias youthful demographic, particularly in Meghalaya, to fill workforce shortages in developed countries.

He shared insights from his recent visit to Japan, where he met two nurses from Meghalaya who are thriving in their roles in Kobe. The hospital where they work requires 700 nurses annually, underscoring the demand for a young workforce in various sectors.

There is a huge demand not only for nurses in the healthcare sector but also in other sectors such as logistics, aviation, hospitality, music, and more, Sangma said, encouraging the youth of Meghalaya to seize these opportunities.

In the coming months, 27 youths from Meghalaya will be placed in Japan, 44 in Singapore, and 50 in the UK in the nursing sector. Addressing concerns about fear and trust deficits, the Chief Minister assured that the Meghalaya Skill Development Society (MSSDS) and the Department of Labour, Employment & Skill Development Society are responsible for identifying reliable agencies for skill training, language learning, and job placement.

Our youth can trust these agencies as we have identified the best ones, so there is nothing to fear. We prioritise the safety of our citizens while ensuring that they have meaningful earnings, Sangma added.
Coming down heavily on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in connection with the Mysuru Urban Development Authority (MUDA) scam, Deputy Karnataka Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said on Thursday that during the BJPs tenure, irregularities were committed in the allocation of MUDA sites, and we will soon release the list.

Speaking to the media at the Vidhana Soudha, Shivakumar said the scandals of BJP MLAs, ministers, and former chief ministers B.S. Yediyurappa and Basavaraj Bommai will come out.

Investigations are underway. The BJP is the father of all scandals. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has given detailed information about their scandals in the assembly. They are trying to stop us by making noise in the assembly because they are afraid that their scandals will be exposed, he stated.

Advertisement

We are exposing all the irregularities of their tenure. In the Valmiki Tribal Welfare scam, our investigating officers have seized over Rs 40 crore out of the Rs 89 crore that was irregularly transferred, Shivakumar said.

Two years ago, there were reports in the media about irregularities in the allocation of MUDA sites during the BJPs tenure. Why didnt the BJP raise this issue on the first day of the session? They are now speaking about it because they are afraid that their irregularities will be exposed.

We have given them the opportunity to discuss the irregularities in the boards and corporations. They have told us what they want. But they did not give the opportunity to the CM to answer. The Chief Minister has given a written reply about the irregularities during the BJPs tenure. The BJP had covered up their irregularities. Our government has ordered an investigation into these irregularities, Shivakumar said.

If there is an irregularity, it happened during the BJPs tenure. Meanwhile, the ED and the CBI have also come to investigate, and we have not stopped them. They also have the right to investigate. We will not interfere with any investigation, he added.
The Uttar Pradesh government has told the Supreme Court that the nameplate directive was issued to ensure a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra pilgrimage.

The state government said that the idea behind issuing the directive was to strengthen transparency and informed choice of the pilgrims regarding the food they eat during the period of the Yatra, keeping in mind their religious sentiments.

Even small confusions regarding the kind of food they (Kanwariyas) are served, has the potential to hurt their religious sentiments and cause flare-ups, especially in a communally sensitive area like Muzaffarnagar, said the affidavit sworn by Saharanpurs Divisional Commissioner.

Advertisement

It added that the directive, limited to the route of the Kanwar Yatra for a period of less than two weeks, was issued solely in the interest of ensuring a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra, in which more than 4.07 crore of Kanwariyas participate annually.

It further said, The temporary nature of the directives ensures that they do not inflict any permanent discrimination or hardship on the food sellers, simultaneously ensuring maintaining the sentiments of Kanwariyas and their religious beliefs and practices. Moreover, the said guidelines have only been issued for a limited geographical extent.

The state government said that it is committed to the secular values enshrined in the Constitution, protecting the religious sentiments of every individual regardless of his or her religion and to this end, the government always takes steps to ensure that all religious festivals of all religious denominations are celebrated or carried out peacefully, without offending the religious sentiments of the people, taking measures to prevent any untoward law and order situation.

The top court on Monday had stayed the operation of controversial directives issued by the Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand governments requiring all eateries and dhabas along the Kanwar Yatra route to display names of owners and workers.

Issuing notice on petitions challenging the impugned directives, a Bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and S.V.N. Bhatti remarked that the devotees may be served with food of their choice maintaining standard hygiene.

As per the directives of the state governments, all the food outlets, eateries and food joints across the states will have to put up a nameplate displaying the names of owners/proprietors and staff members.

This has been done to maintain the purity of faith for Hindu devotees who undertake the Kanwar Yatra in the month of Shravan.

As per the order, those found selling products with Halal certification along the Yatra route will also face penal action.
With the term of Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi coming to an end by the close of this month, there is speculation as to whether there will be a new occupant for the Raj Bhavan or the incumbent will get an extension. Though expecting a change of guard, the ruling DMK is keeping its fingers crossed.

There is a buzz in the political circles that Ravi would be eased out and Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan would be his replacement. The term of both Ravi and Khan expires by July 31 but the two have earned national attention for their frequent run-ins with the elected state governments.

Their confrontations with the respective state governments included stalling of Bills and unilateral appointment or extension of term of Vice Chancellors and others in universities, which have dragged them to the Supreme Court.

Advertisement

But, unlike Ravi, a career IPS officer, Khan has been a minister along with the DMK in the National Front government of VP Singh. While Khan don the hat of a liberal Muslim, Ravi is being accused by the DMK and its allies as an RSS pracharak, carrying out a vilification campaign against the Dravidian ideology.

Soon after Narendra Modi assumed office for the third time as Prime Minister, Ravi visited Delhi and had an audience with Modi, besides holding meetings with Home Minister Amit Shah and other Union Ministers. His extended stay in the national capital and meeting with Modi and Shah raised speculation that he might possibly get an extension.

An enfant terrible, Ravi, ever since he took over the reins of the Raj Bhavan in September 2021, has been carrying out a crusade debunking the Dravidian movement as anti-national, painting in poor light Dravidian icons like Periyar EV Ramasamy, the anti-Brahmin social reformer and rationalist, CN Anna Durai, founder of DMK and former Chief Minister.

He did not even leave Robert Caldwell, who was the first to establish that Tamil and the Dravidian languages were independent and different from Sanskrit and GU Pope, who translated Tirukural of Tiruvalluvar into English, blaming them as colonial agents, inviting the wrath of the political parties and Tamil scholars.

In his turf war with the Stalin government, he had the ignominy of his speech outside the prepared Governors address was expunged and he had to stage a walk out in the assembly. He unilaterally dismissed Senthil Balaji from the cabinet, upon his arrest by the Enforcement Directorate, but retracted within hours by keeping that in abeyance.

He refused to administer the oath of office to Higher Education Minister Ponmudy, saying it was morally and constitutionally wrong, but had to relent.

The Governor can continue in office for a period of five years or during the pleasure of the President and till the appointment of a new Governor even after his term expires. Whether Ravi remains in the Raj Bhavan here or not will be clear in the days to come.
A Special Court (POCSO) in Kendrapara has sentenced a 55-year-old man to 20-year rigorous imprisonment on the charge of carnal intercourse with a 14-year-old minor boy three years back in a cowshed in a village.

The court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the convict and failure to pay would result in his sentence being increased by two years.

The court also directed the Odisha State Legal Services Authority (OSLSA) to pay a compensation of Rs five lakh to the victim.

Advertisement

Pronouncing the verdict on Thursday, special POCSO court judge Tribikram Keshari Chinhara convicted Soudagar Sahoo under section 377 (unnatural offenses, including sexual relationships that are considered to be against nature) of Indian Penal Code and section  6 (aggravated penetrative sexual assault) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.

The court said that the convict committed carnal intercourse against the order of nature with the minor.

The mother of the victim boy filed an FIR with the police station on 16 July 2021, alleging that the accused sodomized her son after dragging him to a cowshed isolated place near the village.

Ten witnesses including the victim deposed in the case before the court. After relying on the evidence of witnesses and a medical report, the court found him guilty of the offence, said Manoj Kumar Sahu, the special public prosecutor.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday slammed the opposition for politicising the Agnipath recruitment scheme of the Army and said they are deliberately misleading the youth on the issue.

He paid homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty on the occasion of 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas at Dras in Ladakh.

Amid the surge in terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir, Modi issued a stern warning to Pakistan and said India would defeat every terror challenge.

Advertisement

The Prime Minister also witnessed the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project in Ladakh, virtually today. Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1 km long Twin-Tube tunnel to be constructed at around 15,800 feet on the Nimu  Padum  Darcha Road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh.

Reacting publicly for the first time on the criticism of the opposition on the Agnipath scheme, Modi said some people are also spreading the misconception that the government has brought this scheme to save pension money.

The question of pension for todays recruits will arise after 30 years. Why would the government take a decision on it today? It should have left it for the governments of that time. We have respected this decision taken by the armed forces because for us, national security is paramount, not politics, he said.

The Agnipath scheme is also an example of the necessary reforms done by the Army, he said.

Some people used to think that the Army means saluting politicians, doing parades but for us, the Army means the faith of 140 crore countrymen. The goal of Agnipath is to make the Army young, to keep the Army continuously fit for war. Unfortunately, some people have made such a sensitive issue related to national security a subject of politics. These are the same people who weakened our Army by committing scams worth thousands of crores in the purchase of equipment for the Army, he said.

He criticized the past unwillingness for the modernization of the Air Force fleet.

The Prime Minister pointed out that those misleading the youth of the nation today had no regard for the armed forces in the past.

Recalling the false promises made by past governments on One Rank One Pension, he underlined that it was the present government that implemented the scheme where ex-servicemen were given more than Rs 1.25 lakh crore.

He further pointed out the neglect of past governments and said, These are the same people who did not build a war memorial for the martyrs even after 7 decades of independence, did not provide enough bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border and kept ignoring Kargil Vijay Diwas.

Speaking about the Kargil war, the PM said; In Kargil, we not only won the war, we presented an incredible example of truth, restraint and strength, Prime Minister Modi remarked.

The Prime Minister threw light on Pakistans deceit at the time when India was making all efforts to maintain peace.  Falsehood and terror were brought down to their knees by truth, he added.

Condemning terrorism, the Prime Minister said that Pakistan has always faced defeat in the past. Pakistan has not learnt anything from its past and has continued to wage war in the garb of terrorism and proxy wars to stay relevant, Shri Modi continued. The Prime Minister asserted that the nefarious intentions of terrorists will never be fulfilled. Our Bravehearts will trample all the terror attempts, he added.

India will overcome all challenges that come in the way of development, be it Ladakh or Jammu & Kashmir, the Prime Minister reiterated. He reminded that in a few days from now on 5th of August, the abrogation of Article 370 will complete 5 years and the Jammu & Kashmir of today is talking about a new future full of dreams. The Prime Minister gave examples of progress and said This heaven on earth is swiftly moving in the direction of peace and prosperity, the Prime Minister added.

Underlining the developments taking place in Ladakh, the Prime Minister said through Shinkun La Tunnel, the Union territory will remain connected with the whole country throughout the year, in every season.

In the last 10 years, defence reforms have been prioritized, making our forces more capable and self-reliant, he added.

Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, Brig (Dr) BD Mishra (Retd), Union Minister of State for Defence, Sanjay Seth, Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan and the Chiefs of Army Staff of the three armed forces were present on the occasion.
Congress leader and former Rajasthan Deputy Chief Minister Sachin Pilot, while targeting the Centre over the irregularities in the NEET exam, has called paper leak the most heinous crime and said that those in power who are turning a blind eye to the paper leaks are equally responsible for the crime.

There is no crime more heinous than a paper leak. Do not leak papers in the country and the state. You all know my stand on paper leaks. I was firm on it yesterday. I am firm on it today and will always be firm on it in future, Pilot said on Thursday.

He was speaking at the oath-taking ceremony of the newly-appointed National Students Union of India State President Vinod Jakhar for taking charge held at the Birla Auditorium here on Thursday.

Advertisement

The Congress leader added: Whoever has knowingly or unknowingly played with the future of thousands and lakhs of children deserves punishment. I think someone has rightly said that every mistake demands punishment. If you make a mistake, then you should also be punished. No one has the right to play with the future of the youth. No matter how big a leader or officer you are.

Preparing for the exam and getting a job has become most difficult in this country. Not only the child but his entire family is involved in this process. The government has no answer to the rigging of the NEET.

Pilot said: The government itself is accepting that there has been some irregularity at some places. Now the time has come that we all have to ask why exam papers get leaked. Who gets them done? Nothing will be achieved by doing paperwork, giving speeches and shedding crocodile tears. Those people will have to be caught. After all, who is getting the paper leaked? Those people will have to be forced to act, who tolerate such a heinous crime while being in power. Because those who are tolerating this crime are equally guilty.
The Supreme Court on Friday issued a notice to the West Bengal and Kerala governors offices on two separate pleas by the two states stating that the governors were sitting over the bills passed by the respective state legislatures and sent to them for accent a long time ago.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, Justice J B Pardiwala, and Justice Manoj Misra issued the notice to the additional chief secretary, the West Bengal governor, and the Central government. A similar notice was issued to the additional chief secretary to the Kerala governor and the Central government on the Kerala governments petition.

The top court gave three-week time to file a reply to the notice

Advertisement

The court asked the concerned respondent to file a reply in three weeks.

Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for the West Bengal government, told the bench that whenever it hears a similar matter, some bills are cleared. He also mentioned that similar things happened in the Tamil Nadu matter as well.

Senior Advocate KK Venugopal, representing the Kerala government, said that the bills have been pending for eight months and that the State is a challenging reference of the pending bills to the President

The petition filed by the advocate Astha Sharma for the West Bengal government states that the Governor was withholding the assent of eight bills and this was affecting the people of the State for whose welfare the bills were passed.

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 paren parties, says the West Bengal governments petitioner.

The West Bengal government in its plea has said that the eight bills that were passed in 2022, have been kept in limbo without any action, thereby rendering the actions of the State Legislature otiose, and in turn directly affecting the residents of the State, for whose welfare the Bills were passed, and thereby creating an unconstitutional state of affairs by the Constitutional post itself.

The West Bengal government has urged the top court to declare that the inaction, omission, delay, and failure to comply with the constitutional mandate by Governor C V Ananda Bose, is an unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary, unreasonable, and besides malafide exercise of power.

The West Bengal Government also sought the laying down of the guidelines stipulating the outer time limit for the Governor to consider files, policies, and government orders sent for signature in the discharge of his constitutional functions.

A governor, the West Bengal governments petition reads, who is a constitutional functionary but acts in gross disregard and violates the provisions of the Constitution, cannot be said to be functioning in the discharge of his duties as the Governor through either his actions or inactions.

The eight bills pending assent of the Governor since 2022 include 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.

The Kerala government has moved the top court against the State Governors decision to reserve some bills for the assent of the President and said that the conduct of the Governor in keeping bills pending for long is manifestly arbitrary.

In the plea, the Kerala Government has sought to declare that the act of the Governor of Kerala in reserving the seven billsUniversity Laws (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2021; University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Kerala Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022; the University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, Kerala Lok Ayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2022; The University Laws (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2022; and The University Laws (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill, 2022 for the consideration of the President, was illegal and lacked bona fides.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Friday said Dr Suhel Ajaz Khan, presently Ambassador of India to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been concurrently accredited as the next Ambassador of India to the Republic of Yemen, with residence in Riyadh.

Dr. Suhel Ajaz Khan, IFS of the 1997 batch, is expected to take up the assignment shortly, the MEA said in a statement.

Expressing gratitude for being given the additional responsibility, Dr. Khan in a post on X said, It is a matter of great honour for me to be given this additional responsibility-concurrent accreditation to Yemen. I look forward to working closely with the Internationally Recognized Government in Yemen to strengthen India-Yemen relations. @BinmubarakAhmed @yemen_mofa

Advertisement
Veteran BJP leader and former MP Prabhat Jha passed away at the age of 67 years at a hospital in Gurugram on Friday.

Jha, who was the partys former Madhya Pradesh president, was unwell for a long time and two weeks ago was airlifted to the national capital from Bhopal as his health suddenly started deteriorating.

Prabhat Jha was born on June 4, 1957 at Hariharpur in the Darbhanga district of Bihar. He served as Madhya Pradesh BJP president from May 8, 2010 to December 15, 2012. He was nominated as a member of Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh in April 2008.

Advertisement

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his grief on the passing of Jha and conveyed his condolences. He said Jha had played an active role in strengthening the organisation.

In a post on X, the prime minister said, I am deeply saddened by the demise of senior BJP leader and former MP Prabhat Jha ji. I have seen his working style very closely and how he played an active role in strengthening the organisation.

Modi highlighted the contributions of the departed leader to public service, the field of journalism, and writing. Along with his work of public service, he also made invaluable contributions in the fields of journalism and writing. My condolences to his family and fans in this hour of grief. Om Shanti! he added.

Jha served as the Madhya Pradesh BJP president and the partys national vice-president. Hailing from Sitamarhi in Bihar, he established himself in Madhya Pradeshs politics.

The BJP veteran was made the state unit president in 2010. It was the period when the BJP was struggling to strengthen its position in the state. During his two years, Jha restructured the BJPs cadre in the state.

He was a two-time Rajya Sabha MP from Madhya Pradesh.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Health Minister and BJP National President JP Nadda, and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav also paid condolences to Jha.

In a post on X, Shah said, The demise of senior BJP leader Prabhat Jha ji is an irreparable loss for the BJP family. Prabhat Jha ji, who selflessly dedicated his all to the nation and the organisation, played a significant role in strengthening the organisation in Madhya Pradesh.

As a Rajya Sabha MP, he always promoted works in public interest. In this hour of grief, the entire BJP is with his family. May God give a place to the departed soul in his lotus feet. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti, he added.

Union Health Minister and BJP National President JP Nadda expressed his grief over Jhas death. In a post on X, he said, The news of the demise of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former state president of Madhya Pradesh Prabhat Jha ji is extremely sad. His entire life was dedicated to public service and the organisation. His departure is an irreparable loss for the BJP family.

He further wrote, I express my deepest condolences to the bereaved family, may God give them strength and grant a place to the departed soul in his feet. Om Shanti!

MP CM Mohan Yadav also paid tribute to the senior BJP leader and said in a post on X Received very sad news of the demise of former State President of Bharatiya Janata Party Madhya Pradesh, senior leader, respected Shri Prabhat Jha ji.

Baba Mahakal, please give a place to the departed soul in his holy feet and give strength to the bereaved family to bear this terrible lightning strike, he added.
The Union Budget for 2024-25 has sparked significant discussion due to striking resemblance of some provisions to promises made in the Congress partys 2024 Lok Sabha election manifesto. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharamans announcement of measures aimed at boosting employment, particularly for the youth, has drawn both praise and criticism. These initiatives reflect a strategic shift in the BJP-led governments approach to addressing unemployment, a critical issue that dominated the recent election campaign. One of the standout features of the budget is the ambitious internship programme designed to provide opportunities in 500 top companies for one crore youth.

The programme offers an internship allowance of Rs 5,000 per month and a one-time assistance payment of Rs 6,000, with companies covering training costs through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds. This initiative is remarkably similar to the Congress partys proposed Right to Apprenticeship Act, which aimed to guarantee a one-year apprenticeship with financial support for diploma holders and college graduates aged below 25. By aligning with this concept, the government acknowledges the importance of practical experience and skill development in enhancing employability among the youth. In addition to the internship programme, the budget introduced three Employment Linked Incentive (ELI) schemes under the Prime Ministers Package for Employment and Skilling.

Scheme A focuses on first-time employees in the formal sector, providing a direct benefit transfer of one months salary in three instalments. Scheme B incentivises job creation in manufacturing by supporting EPF contributions for new employees over the first four years of employment. Scheme C targets employers by reimbursing EPF contributions for additional employees, encouraging the creation of new jobs across all sectors. These schemes collectively aim to address the widespread issue of unemployment by providing targeted support to both employees and employers.

Advertisement

The abolition of the Angel Tax is another noteworthy element of the budget, aimed at fostering investment and supporting the start-up ecosystem. This move is intended to eliminate barriers for new and innovative businesses, encouraging entrepreneurship and job creation. The decision to remove this tax aligns with the Congress manifestos promise to eliminate exploitative tax schemes that hinder investment in small and micro enterprises. While these measures have been broadly welcomed, they have also drawn criticism for their perceived lack of originality and ambitious targets. Critics argue that the governments approach, which includes setting a target of one crore internships, risks prioritising headlines over sustainable guarantees.

The Congress party, whose similar proposals were previously dismissed as unimplementable by Ms Sitharaman, has pointed out this inconsistency, questioning the feasibility of these ambitious targets within the constraints of the budget. Despite these criticisms, the budget reflects a pragmatic acknowledgment of the urgent need to address unemployment. By drawing inspiration from the Congress manifesto, the BJP-led government demonstrates a willingness to adopt effective ideas regardless of their political origins. This bipartisan convergence on employment policy suggests a broader consensus on the need for robust, innovative solutions to one of Indias most pressing challenges.
The first budget of this government marks a critical juncture. For the first time in his political career, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is compelled to navigate the delicate terrain of coalition politics, reflecting a shift from his previous dominance with the BJPs clear majorities. The budgets strategic allocation of resources to the states of key allies underscores both the benefits and pitfalls of coalition governance. The allocation of over Rs 41,800 crore to infrastructure projects in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar has sparked significant debate.

On one hand, these investments are explained as vital for the development and self-reliance of these states. The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and Janata Dal (United) have both expressed their satisfaction, viewing the budget as a red-letter day for their states. This strategic distribution of funds not only solidifies the coalition but also aims to address regional disparities and boost local economies. However, the opposition argues that these allocations are politically motivated. Critics label them as bribes to ensure the coalitions stability, rather than allocations based on genuine need. This perspective raises an essential question about the fairness and objectivity in the distribution of national resources. States like Kerala, West Bengal, and Punjab, governed by opposition parties, feel marginalised and overlooked in the budget.

Keralas demand for a special package of Rs 24,000 crore went unmet, prompting accusations of partisan favouritism. The broader concern lies in the precedent this budget follows. If funds are allocated based on political alliances rather than objective indicators of need, other states may follow suit, demanding similar financial support. This could lead to a domino effect, straining the national budget and diverting funds from critical areas such as healthcare, education, and rural development. Former government advisors highlight this issue, questioning how equality among states can be maintained if political commitments overshadow objective criteria. Despite these criticisms, the government insists that no state will be left out. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reassured that every state would receive its due share, even if not explicitly mentioned in the budget speech. This assurance, however, does little to quell the discontent among opposition-ruled states at the feeling they have been short-changed.

Advertisement

Moreover, the budget attempts to tackle pressing issues such as unemployment and rural distress, which were pivotal in the recent elections. Allocating lakhs of crore rupees for job creation and rural development is a step in the right direction, but the impact of these measures will depend on effective implementation and equitable distribution. The budget is a delicate balancing act between political pragmatism and developmental needs. While the investments in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar might strengthen the coalition, they also risk undermining the principles of federalism and equitable resource allocation. Moving forward, it is crucial for the government to ensure that all states receive fair treatment, irrespective of their political alignment, to foster a truly inclusive and balanced development strategy.
The Biotech KISAN-HUB project (at West Bengal University of Animal and Fisheries Sciences, Kolkata), with financial support from the department of biotechnology, government of India, organised a programme for farmerscientist interaction and animal support with selected marginal farmers from five aspirational districts: Birbhum, Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda and South Dinajpur of West Bengal, held on 22nd July, Monday, this year at VCI Auditorium, West Bengal. The farmersscientists interaction meeting was inaugurated by Shri Swapan Debnath, minister-in-charge, animal resources development department, govt. of West Bengal. Shri Chandranath Sinha, minister-in-charge of small and medium textile industries, government of West Bengal, was present at the programme. Hema Tripathi, associate director extension, Sher-e Kashmir University of Agriculture Sciences and Technology, Jammu, graced the programme. Tarannum Sultana Mir, Sabhadhipati, Nadia District, Dr Mosharef Hussain Sarkar, MLA, Murarai, Birbhum, Janab Reyat Hossain Sarkar, Bhagbangola, Murshidabad, were the guests of honour, and the honourable vice-chancellor of the West Bengal University of Animal and Fisheries Sciences, Shyam Sundar Dana, presided over the function.

The programme was divided into two parts. During the first part, the inauguration ceremony was accomplished, and then, with the consent of minister Swapan Debnath, the beneficiaries selected from five potential districts (Birbhum, Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda and South Dinajpur) were distributed with superior-quality Bengal black goats, Vanraja chicks and Indian major carps. The second part of the programme started by welcoming the guests. Keshab Chandra Dhara, the principal investigator of the project, presented a welcome speech. After this, different booklets, along with the farm journal, Kisan Barta, published by the project, were opened by the honourable chief guests.

After agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries are the biggest contributors to employment. Both the central and state governments have already come forward, but West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee has given a lot of importance to animal husbandry to create more employment opportunities. Animal husbandry is the second largest area of self-reliance after agriculture, Swapan Debnath said.

Advertisement

Chandranath Sinha appreciated the chief ministers initiative and said in his speech, Our chief minister repeatedly says that girls should also be self-reliant. Girls should also come forward. Women will also come forward and advance the development of Bengal. She is doing self-help groups for women just as she is brainstorming for men. The school dresses that we are providing through small cottage industries are being manufactured through self-help groups. We are working as much as possible in all the departments, including the fisheries department, the animal resources department, and the small cottage industries department, so that we can develop the whole of West Bengal.

The vice-chancellor of the university, Professor Shyam Sundar Dana, said, We have done some work in our university. In 2023, I got the best result in the Eastern zone at this university. Even in the Ed ranking, this university has occupied the 10th position. Moreover, a few days ago, a very big university from Germany collaborated with this university. The proudest thing is that they approached the Indian Veterinary Institute, the Veterinary University of Tamil Nadu, another veterinary university, but they gave responsibility to our university. To handle all these tasks. This has been made possible by the combined efforts of the students and staff here.

Hema Tripathi, associate director, extension, sciences and technology, Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture, Jammu, highlighted the importance of animal husbandry, saying, Apart from agriculture, the government has looked at cattle rearing today so that people can find a way to earn income from this field which is being done in business form. Today, many young people are fleeing farming and moving to cities. Every day, 2,000 youths flee from villages and come to cities. When they go there, they work as labourers or drive rickshaws. Today, the government launched the AAY (Anthdaya Anna Yojana) scheme to make animal husbandry more attractive. The village is our centre of work. There, we are providing very advanced technology. The youth have to come forward in this regard.

Keshab Chandra Dhara, principal investigator of the project, mentioned in his welcome address that the University of Animal and Fisheries Sciences goes ahead to enrich the lives and livelihoods of the people in remote villages. Regarding this, we have established the Biotech KISAN Hub in the five aspirational districts of West Bengal and have reached out to lakhs of people in the districts. We started this journey in the Sundarbans on 5 March 2017. In the next phase, we have started our activities in the five aspirational districts of West Bengal. People can be furthered through livelihoods that can be combined between goat rearing, fish farming and poultry farming. Especially through such employment that enriches their livelihood, and our aim is to make female farmers self-reliant. If women are self-reliant, the family becomes progressive. I have worked for the past seven years in collaboration with the government of India and the government of West Bengal. We want to take this work forward with the local representatives. I will provide 200 goats in each of the aspirational districts, i.e., 1,000 goats in total, chickens and fish to each district every year. Some of those beneficiaries will be trained with the help of talented teachers at the university. Protect the input support given by the government, as it is your wealth.

Twelve farmers among the trained beneficiaries of the five aspirational districts under this scheme were presented with the Best Farmer Award. The main objective of the Biotech KISAN Hub is to spread scientific technology. Various programmes have been undertaken for the backward animal and fish farmers in West Bengal. Among these programmes, one is to provide input support for the animals and training on scientific methods of animal and fish farming. Not only the distribution and training but also the regular contact with the animal keepers, the vaccination of various animals, and the treatment of diseases have extended the helping hand in various ways. Various social media platforms, like Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube channels and mobile apps, have created a platform to connect with farmers. Moreover, Kisan Barta, a farm journal published by this project at a fixed interval of days, has also gained immense popularity among marginal farmers. Around 300 farmers and 50 university faculty scientists, students, and government officials from five potential districts have been a part of the programme to link available science and technology, for which the entire programme has achieved a different level of success. In the end, Shyam Sundar Kesh concluded this auspicious event by thanking all the guests.
In the early 1900s, Swedish physician Henrik Sjogren (SHOW-gren) first described a group of women whose chronic arthritis was accompanied by dry eyes and a dry mouth. Every year on the 23rd of July, on the birthday of Sir Henrik Sjogren, it is celebrated as Sjogren syndrome awareness day.

Primary Sjogren syndrome is a systemic autoimmune disorder most commonly presenting with sicca symptoms. It is far from a rare disorder, with an incidence approaching approximately one-half of that of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) or affecting 0.5 per cent to 1.0 per cent of the population. As per the western data, between 4,00,000 and 3.1 million adults have Sjogrens syndrome. However, in the Indian context, it is thought to be one of the most common autoimmune rheumatic diseases and is highly underdiagnosed. This condition can affect people of any age, but symptoms usually appear between the ages of 45 and 55. About half of patients also have rheumatoid arthritis or other connective tissue diseases, such as lupus.

In India, the prevalence of primary Sjogrens syndrome is estimated to be around 0.10.6 per cent of the adult population. This data reflects a prevalence rate of approximately 60.82 cases per 1,00,000 individuals. The disease primarily affects women, with a female-to-male ratio of about 9:1.

Advertisement

Sjogren has been reported worldwide in adults and more rarely in children, and there appears to be no racial or geographic bias in the incidence. The disorder, however, has a marked predilection for women, and similar to SLE, the female-male ratio is approximately 9:1. The disease usually presents in middle age but may occur in children as well as the elderly.

Major symptoms are related to sicca, which refers to dryness most often involving the eyes and mouth due to inflammation and the resultant pathology of the lacrimal and salivary glands. Up to one-half of affected individuals also develop extra-glandular involvement, implying the occurrence of signs and symptoms in organs distinct from the salivary and lacrimal glands, including the joints, skin, lungs, gastrointestinal (GI) tract, nervous system, and kidneys. Sjogren syndrome frequently occurs in conjunction with other autoimmune disorders; authors will refer to it as secondary Sjogren or Sjogren-overlap syndrome, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). In this setting, authors will refer to it as secondary Sjogren or Sjogren-overlap syndrome. Therapies are directed towards replacing moisture at affected glandular sites and suppressing the autoimmune response locally as well as systemically.

The writer is academic director, Asian Institute of Immunology and Rheumatology
Irans Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani has criticised the US Congress for hosting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and applauding his speech amid ongoing Israeli actions against Palestinians.

Kanaani made the remarks on Thursday on social media platform X, reacting to Netanyahus visit and his address to the US Congress on Wednesday, where Netanyahu pledged to achieve total victory against Hamas and labelled Americans opposing Israels military operation in Gaza as idiots.

Netanyahus speech received applause and a stand ovation from some Congress members, Xinhua news agency reported.

Advertisement

Kanaani lamented that while Palestinians were being killed daily by Israel, the US government and Congress welcomed the Israeli Prime Minister with cheering and applauding despite all such crimes.

He said that by welcoming Netanyahu into the US Congress, the Wests efforts to portray itself as innocent and humanitarian were failing, exposing what he described as the violent and devilish face of US policies.

Kanaani criticised US and European leaders for what he called their hypocritical human rights slogans, stressing that Palestinians rights to life, security, food, medicine, and treatment were being trampled in the most heinous form in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank before the worlds fully open eyes.

Israel launched a large-scale offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, following a surprise attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people.

The Palestinian death toll rose to 39,145 and injuries to 90,257 since the offensive started, according to Gaza-based health authorities on Wednesday.
US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Thursday to close the remaining gaps in the push for a Gaza ceasefire deal, the White House said quoting media reports.

The meeting at the White House came a day after Netanyahu gave a fiery speech before the US Congress as thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrated outside, BBC reported.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris later met Netanyahu and said she had voiced serious concerns over casualties in Gaza.

Advertisement

The Prime Minister faces pressure both at home and abroad to bring an end to the Israel-Gaza war, now in its ninth month.

He said he had known the US President for 40 years  and that Biden had known every Israeli PM over the last half a century.

From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel, Netanyahu added.

Netanyahu also said he looked forward to working with Biden on the great issues before us over the next several months.

The meeting follows months of tension over the war in Gaza, with Biden reaching the point in May, according to his friend and former Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, where he said enough is enough.

Biden also previously publicly threatened to hold back weapons shipments if Israel launched a large-scale ground offensive in Rafah, prompting anger in Israel, BBC reported.

Netanyahu said in June that it was inconceivable for the Biden administration to withhold weapons and ammunition from Israel.

At a news briefing, National Security Spokesman John Kirby said the pair discussed the urgent need for a hostage release deal, the potential of conflict spilling over into Lebanon, the threat of Iran and the need to reach compromises in peace talks.

While Kirby added that gaps remain in the US-Israel relationship, it was still healthy.

By healthy, I mean theyre not going to agree on everything, he said, adding that Biden was very comfortable with the relationship he has with the Prime Minister.

Speaking to reporters after she met with Netanyahu, Vice-President Harris said the discussion was frank and constructive.

Harris is the likely Democratic presidential nominee now that Biden has stepped down from his re-election campaign.

She said she has an unwavering commitment to Israel and its right to defend itself, BBC reported.

Harris also expressed, however, serious concerns about Israeli operations in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation there.

I will not be silent, she added.

It is time for this war to end.

Lets get the deal done so we can get a ceasefire to end the war, she said.

Lets bring the hostages home, and lets bring much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.

The US and Israeli leaders also held a closed-door meeting with the families of seven US citizens still being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

Following the meeting, Jonathan Dekel-Chen  whose son Sagui was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7 last year  told reporters that the meeting was productive and honest, although he did not provide details.

We feel probably more optimistic than we have since the first round of releases in late November, early December, he said.

Speaking in the House Chamber on Wednesday, Netanyahu defended Israels war in Gaza, while attempting to rally support from US politicians, BBC reported.

Our enemies are your enemies, he said, condemning protesters as Irans useful idiots.

The White House pushed back on Netanyahus characterisation of the protesters, with Kirby saying that its not a phrase we would use and not a reflection of what we think of the mostly peaceful protests.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of Washington to accuse Netanyahu of being a war criminal.

Their loudspeakers and chanting could be heard from the White House as Netanyahu arrived on Thursday.

Police arrested 23 people on Wednesday, including five inside the Capitol building.

Netanyahus speech was occasionally met with rapturous applause, mostly led by Republicans.

The Gaza war has deepened political divides in Washington and led to infighting among Democrats, whose left wing has been critical of US support of Israel.

Harris did not attend Netanyahus speech due to scheduling conflicts, the White House said.

Harris has expressed steadfast support for Israel. However, such a stance has been politically costly for the Democrats.

Hundreds of thousands of protest votes were cast against Biden during the presidential primaries by those wanting him to stop sending military aid to Israel.

Some of those angered by his war stance see Harris as a chance to mend the fracture in the party and win back the votes.

Netanyahu is expected to visit Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi lashed out at Pakistan during Kargil Vijay Divas celebrations on Friday and said the Indian Army will give a befitting reply to patrons of terrorism.



Taking part in the 25th anniversary celebrations of Indias victory in the Kargil War at Drass, Prime Minister Modi said, Pakistan has failed in all its nefarious attempts in the past. But Pakistan has not learned anything from its history. It is trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war.

Modi added the Indian Army would crush their nefarious attempts. Today I am speaking from a place where the masters of terror can hear my voice directly; I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed. Our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply."

The prime minister said Kargil Vijay Diwas tells us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal.

The prime minister paid homage to the Kargil war martyrs to mark the 25th anniversary of India's victory over Pakistan in the 1999 war. The prime minister laid a floral wreath at the Drass War Memorial to pay tributes to officers and soldiers of the armed forces who made the supreme sacrifice in service of the nation.

On July 26, 1999, the Indian Army announced the successful culmination of "Operation Vijay", declaring victory after a nearly three-month-long battle on the icy heights of Kargil in Ladakh.

He also carried out the "first blast" for the construction of a tunnel that aims to provide all-weather connectivity between Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Ladakh. The project consists of a 4.1-kilometre twin-tube tunnel, to be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet on the Nimu-Padum-Darcha Road, to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh.

-with inputs from agencies.
A Samvidhan Manstambh was unveiled at the Samajwadi Partysoffice in Lucknow on Friday by party President Akhilesh Yadav.



A manstambh is a column of honour. The one unveiled today has a copy of the Preamble of the Constitution, in Hindi. Placed by it is a copy of the Constitution of India  not in the trademark red that was part of the recent election campaign, but in blue.

Yadav said that such columns would be set up in all party offices. The Constitution illuminates the way for our PDA (Pichda, Dalit, Alpasankhyak). Our effort to make more and more people join this movement shall continue, he said. Yadav also mentioned that his was the only party which had socialist in its name  a value that is mentioned in the Preamble.

July 26 is the chosen date as it was on this date that Rajshri Chatrapati Shahuji Maharaj implemented reservation in Kolhapur on the suggestion of Jyotiba Phule. The sentiment of social justice was implemented in the form of reservation on this day. Later, through the efforts of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar ji it was enshrined as a right of people for social justice, Yadav wrote on X.

The column would be a physical motivator for the fight against inequality. It is a very long struggle, said Yadav. He also re-articulated the partys demand for caste census and the call for haq and samman on the basis of population. The BJP is working against the basic sentiment of reservation, he said.

On a lighter note, he also said the media, which had finally started to speak about the corruption in the current government should also take inspiration from the Constitution.

A poem, which went Main Bharat ka samvidaan hoon, Akhilesh mere rakhwale hain (I am Indias Constitution, Akhilesh is my protector), was also read out on the occasion.
The goal of the Agnipath scheme is to make the Indian Army continuously fit for war, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi defending the scheme during Kargil Vijay Diwas celebrations at Dras on Friday.



"In the last 10 years, we have made defence reform a priority in the defence sector. Because of these reforms, our armed forces are now more capable and self-reliant," the prime minister said.

Celebrating 25 years of Indias victory against Pakistan in the Kargil War, Modi said Agnipath was one of the necessary reforms done by the Army. Some people used to think that the Army means saluting politicians, doing parades... but for us, Army means the faith of 140 crore countrymen. The goal of Agnipath is to make the Army young, to keep the Army continuously fit for war, Modi said at Dras.

He charged some have turned it into a political issue and they are the ones who weakened the Army by committing scams. Unfortunately, some people have made such a sensitive issue related to national security as a subject of politics. These are the same people who weakened our Army by committing scams worth thousands of crores in the Army, he said.

Modi added some are spreading misconceptions that the government took this decision to save on pension but thats not the case. The question of pension for today's recruits will only arise after 30 years, he said adding, We have respected this decision taken by the Army because we work for 'rashtraneeti' not 'rajneeti'.

Modi charged those who are misleading youth have never cared about soldiers. "The history of those who are misleading the youth of the country shows that they do not care about the soldiers. These are the same people who lied about One Rank One Pension. It is our government which implemented One Rank One Pension, gave more than Rs 1.25 lakh crore to ex-servicemen, he said.

Modi charged, These are the same people who did not build a war memorial, these are the same people who did not provide adequate bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border.

Talking about the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, Modi said, In a few days, on August 5, it will be five years since Article 370 was abolished. Jammu and Kashmir is talking about a new future, talking about big dreams. Along with infrastructure development, the tourism sector is also growing rapidly in Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. Modi said, Our heaven on earth is rapidly moving towards peace and harmony.
The BJP has once again revived the demand for the bifurcation of West Bengal. Anant Maharaj, the partys Rajya Sabha MP from Cooch Behar, refreshed his demand for a Greater Cooch Behar state.

On the other hand, BJPs Godda MP Nishikant Dubey, demanded on Thursday that Maldah and Murshidabad, along with three other districts from Bihar and the Santhal region in Jharkhand, be turned into Union Territories.

He alleged in Lok Sabha that illegal immigrants from Bangladesh were entering this region and inflicting a demographic change by marrying local women. The same was echoed by BJPs Murshidabad MLA Gouri Shankar Ghosh.

I said the same in 2022 in my letter to the honourable home minister. In many places, the border is unprotected as the state government is not providing area and electricity for fencing. As a result, Bangladeshi jihadis and terrorists are entering, he told THE WEEK.

Meanwhile, Maharaj, the leader of the Greater Cooch Behar Movement, raised the demand for a separate state of Greater Cooch Behar, first inside the Parliament and then outside.

He said, The injustice that has been done to the people of Cooch Behar since independence must be rectified now.

Cooch Behar [district] was never part of Bengal. It was integrated forcefully. The state of Greater Cooch Behar should be declared immediately, he later told the media in Delhi, claiming that the Centre had already given a verbal assurance.

The Greater Cooch Behar Movement demands for a separate state comprising of six districts from north Bengal and lower parts of Assam.

Nonetheless, the Bengal BJP leadership has not officially supported these demands, highlighting rifts within the organisation. The party said that those demanding the partition of West Bengal were expressing their personal opinions.

While alleging that the law and order situation in West Bengal is deteriorating, especially in border districts such as Maldah and Murshidabad, and a demographic change is also occurring, BJP Rajya Sabha MP and spokesperson Shamik Bhattacharya said that dividing the state was not the solution.

The BJP officially believes that West Bengals development is possible by keeping its geography intact. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee gave birth to West Bengal. It is our baby, he told a Bengali news channel. Our politics is not based on dividing Bengal.

However, Sukanta Majumdar, the Bengal BJP President, also sparked a controversy when he said that he had submitted a proposal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that North Bengal be integrated with the Northeast to avail better facilities and schemes for the development of the region.

If in future, north Bengal, as part of West Bengal, is integrated with the Northeast, then funds for all the central schemes in north Bengal will increase. As a result, the region, which is backward, will develop. I hope the state government will not oppose this and we will get their support, the Union Minister for State for Development of North Eastern Region said after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has countered the saffron party, saying that it was conspiring for Bengals partition.

This is a conspiracy to divide Bengal. They put an economic blockade on one side and then a geographical blockade on the other side. Then they put a political blockade. After trapping from all sides, they plan to break the country into pieces, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told the press on Friday.

When the Parliament is in process, an MP is asking to divide Bengal. Different members are giving different members about dividing West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam, she added. To divide Bengal is to divide India.

Experts believe that the BJP is using this issue to build a political narrative and stay relevant. This is an emotional issue that gets instant attention from everyone. Right now, the BJP has not much to build a movement on, Subhamoy Maitra, a professor at the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata and a political analyst, told THE WEEK.

TMC MP from Cooch Behar Jagadish Chandra Barma Basunia said that the BJP fears an embarrassing defeat in the 2026 West Bengal assembly elections thus the party is trying to create a false sentiment among the people of north Bengal.

Rajbanshi people are very happy with the development that has happened in north Bengal since 2011. There is no Greater Cooch Behar movement anymore. BJP is trying to fool people, he told THE WEEK.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee slammed the union budget and said she would protest against the discriminatory budget proposals in the Niti Ayog meeting on Saturday. Her comments come amidst uncertainties whether the Trinamool Congress supremo would attend the meeting.



Addressing presspersons before departing to Delhi, Mamata said, I will protest against the political discrimination being done against West Bengal in the Niti Aayog meeting. The attitude of their ministers and the BJP leaders is such that they want to divide the state, ANI reported.

The TMC leader charged the BJP leaders want to create a geographical divide between West Bengal and a few other states. Along with the economic blockade, they also want to impose a geographical blockade. Different leaders are giving different statements to divide Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. We condemn this, she said.

Mamata said she was asked to send a written speech seven days ahead of the meeting, before the union budget was tabled and she has done so. "If I get an opportunity to deliver my speech at the meeting and record my protest against the discrimination and political bias against the opposition-ruled states besides the conspiracy that is being hatched to divide Bengal and its neighbouring states, I will do so. Else, I will walk out of the meeting," the chief minister said.

Chief ministers of several opposition-ruled states have decided to boycott the meeting disappointed over union budget.
After an 'anxious' wait, former president Barack Obama and his wife Michelle endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday ahead of the high-stakes presidential elections in the United States.

Harris will be a "fantastic President of the United States", said Obama. He also vowed to do "everything we can" to enable her to win the elections against Republican candidate Donald Trump.

Harris had launched her presidential campaign hours after President Joe Biden dropped from the race and endorsed her.

Biden faced immense pressure to back off from the presidential race even from within the Democratic Party members after the debate debacle and his deteriorating health took center stage.

While releasing a video in support of Harris, Obama assured she had "our full support".

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think shell make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, were going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2024

"Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think she'll make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we're going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in November. We hope you'll join us," Obama said in a post on X.

Michelle, the former first lady, said she was proud of Harris and expects the upcoming election to be historic. I can't have this phone call without saying to my girl, Kamala, I am proud of you. This is going to be historic, she told Harris in a video.

In a joint statement announcing the endorsement, the Obamas praised Harris. But Kamala has more than a resume. She has the vision, the character, and the strength that this critical moment demands. There is no doubt in our mind that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people, the statement said.

At a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope, it added.

Obama had not immediately endorsed Harris even after top Democrats supported her ahead of the campaign trail. Several questions and concerns were raised about the delay from the Obamas to endorse her.

According to the New York Post, Obama has not endorsed Harris as he does not think she can beat Republican candidate Donald Trump. "Obama is very upset because he knows she can't win," a Biden family source told The New York Post.

Now with Obama's support, Harris has received almost all the major Democrats' support. She has secured endorsements from more than 40 state delegations.

Under new rules adopted by the Democratic National Committee on Wednesday, the nominee will be selected as soon as August 1, and the candidate has until August 7 to select a running mate. The party will meet for its convention in Chicago starting August 19.
In a major burst, Mexican drug kingpin Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada and Joaqun Guzman Lopez, were arrested by the US authorities in Texas. The US Justice Department confirmed on Friday the arrest of the two belonging to one of the worlds biggest and most powerful criminal groups-- the Sinaloa cartel.

Zambada, 76, the alleged co-founder and leader of the cartel and Guzman, 38, son of the cartel's infamous co-founder Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman was arrested in El Paso, said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement.

The US government had offered a reward of up to $15 million for any information leading to the capture of Zambada. He had eluded law enforcement for decades.

According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Zambada and Guzman Lopez oversaw the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence. Now they will face justice in the United States, he added.

Along with several charges, both are accused of allegedly leading the cartels criminal operations, including its manufacturing and trafficking of deadly fentanyl.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, said Garland.

Reportedly, Zambada and Guzman boarded a plane purportedly en route to inspect a property in Mexico when they were arrested by the FBI agents.

Ismael Mario Zambada Garcia is the long-time leader of the Zambada Garcia faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. Zambada Garcia is unique in that he has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in jail, according to the US State Department.

The pair allegedly oversaw the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl into the US along with related violence, Wray added.

Sinaloa Cartel

The Sinaloa Cartel was formed by the gang in Mexico in the late 1980s. It is known as one of the most powerful criminal groups in the world.

Notorious cartel boss Guzman, known as El Chapo, was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 on homicide and drug charges and deported to Mexico. But, reportedly, he escaped a Mexican prison in 2001 by bribing prison guards to smuggle him out in a laundry truck. In 2014 he was arrested but escaped again, this time through a tunnel.

Guzman was arrested for a third time in 2016 and then extradited to the US

In a major trial, he was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years.

Guzman was found guilty on 10 federal criminal counts, which included engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, and use of firearms.
US Vice-President Kamala Harris has said that she "will not be silent" on the sufferings of Palestinians in Gaza and she called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to commit to a ceasefire deal. The democratic nominee for the upcoming presidential elections told reporters that she expressed her "serious concern" about the Gaza situation while having a "frank and constructive" meeting with Netanyahu.

"What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating," Harris told reporters after her meeting with Netanyahu. "We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent."



Harris's statement comes as Democrats strive to handle the backlash over the Biden administration's stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict not only from the public but also within the Democratic Party.



She added that while Israel had the right to defend itself, "how it does so matters. "What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating," Harris added.



She said she told Netanyahu that it was time to get this deal done. "Lets get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Lets bring the hostages home, and lets provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people. And ultimately, I remain committed to a path forward that can lead to a two-state solution," Harris said. "So to everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you."



Both Netanyahus office and Harris too tweeted about the meeting.



Hours earlier, Biden hosted Netanyahu in the Oval Office for a bilateral meeting. A White House readout of the meeting said both discussed the ongoing efforts to negotiate a cease-fire and release the hostages.



"Biden expressed the need to close the remaining gaps, finalise the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza," the White House said. The statement added that he highlighted the need to safeguard civilian lives and remove any blocks to the free flow of aid into Gaza.

The US President also discussed the US's "ironclad commitment to Israels security against all threats from Iran and its proxies, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis."



Netanyahu thanked Biden for his 50 years of public service and his support of Israel. He told reporters that he had known Biden for over 40 years. "Mr. President, weve known each other for 40 years, and youve known every Israeli prime minister for 50 years from Golda Meir. So from a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel," he said.


The Union Budget 2024 may have divided opinions, but what remains steadfast is praise for Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman's ivory Mangalgiri saree. With a beautiful red border, the Mangalgiri saree traces its origin to Andhra Pradesh, a state which has received vital resources for its agricultural needs during this budget.

As Sitharaman began discussing the importance of 'vikas' (development) and 'virasat' (heritage), I waited for the ministrys promise of funds towards culture. Thankfully, there has been an increase in the allocation for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). From Rs 1,131 crore the body will be receiving Rs 1,273 crores. This number does sound promising and there is a considerable jump in the figures.



However, I do wonder if this is sufficient when distributed amongst the 3,697 monuments, which are under the custodianship of the ASI. There are also a number of factors to consider such as some of these monuments being part of public-private partnerships, as well as distributing this amount well between the various monuments which are in a very bad condition and are in need of urgent restoration. How would the allocation of funds be followed through?



The ASI is also not only limited to custodianship of monuments. There are also new excavations to consider. In a land as ancient as India, there is a sense of responsibility to organise excavations in the most sophisticated manner, which allows us to understand and trace human evolution and history. When adding all these elements, the allocated amount suddenly seems quite measly.



Further, much emphasis has been given to pilgrim and religious tourism with the announcement of state-of-the-art development at Bodh Gaya in Bihar as well as the revival of the ancient knowledge centre, Nalanda. This is definitely exciting given the rich cultural heritage the region has and the lack of preservation efforts that have been made so far.



But will this allocation be part of the ASI budget or would it trickle into the tourism budget of Rs 2479 crore rupees (a considerable boost from the previously allocated Rs 1692 crores). Furthermore, there is also a Rs 3260 crore rupees budget for the culture sector, slightly lower than that of last year.



Where and how would these funds be allocated? There is a considerable overlap in tourism, culture and the ASI. This includes but is not limited to historic monuments, religious sites, archaeological excavations, traditional arts and handmade crafts, music, and dance. The culture sector is vast and diverse. In order to successfully materialise these funds (an issue, which has often become a roadblock in the sector), there will have to be proper coordination and planning between these three key stakeholders.



For example, there is an added allocation of Rs 188 crore rupees for libraries and archives: a neglected arm of the culture sector. As a research student, one often struggles with accessing archival information. This has been particularly challenging with government archives, where permissions are a task to obtain and digitised material is seldom accessible from the comfort of one's home.



I am yet to see one well-archived, digitally accessible government archive in India.There is easier accessibility to information related to Indian history in the British Library in the United Kingdom or in JSTOR online in comparison to our nations archives where a repository of information is housed.



Perhaps these funds could be used to improve systems and make archives more accessible or create better, advanced libraries. Organisations like Eka Archives in India have garnered much respect and admiration for the manner by which they have archived private organisations and public institutions. Government archives have the power to become knowledge-sharing platforms and create a digital database with the help of such funds.



This would also lead to more jobs and employment for archivists and librarians. Building such infrastructure may further encourage youngsters to research and study in India rather than flee elsewhere.



Similarly, an additional Rs 123 crore has been allocated for museums. There are very few government museums in India, which are curated and designed to international standards. I do hope these funds are used for improving what exists rather than creating new and ghastly structures.



While we may have a treasure trove of artefacts and are legally aiming to bring some lost and looted back to the country, presenting these well and developing a narrative is what will enhance visitor engagement at museums, and allow more people to be culturally informed.



Management and maintenance are essential for the successful functioning of museums, archives and libraries. The boost in funds throughout the culture sector is exciting news but the way the funds are allocated and preservation, promotion and protection of cultural heritage takes place will be interesting to see. More so, since all eyes are on India with the current World Heritage Committee meet taking place in New Delhi this week and Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing a whopping USD 1 million for the UNESCO World Heritage Centre.
Kolkata, Jul 26 (PTI) Private lender Bandhan Bank on Friday reported a 47 per cent jump in its net profit to Rs 1,063 crore in the first quarter of financial year 2024-25.

The bank had reported a net profit of Rs 721 crore during the same quarter of the previous fiscal.

Bandhan Bank's interim MD & CEO Ratan Kumar Kesh said the operating profit during the quarter under review stood at Rs 1,941 crore, which was a 24 per cent growth over Rs 1,562 crore in the year-ago period.

Net interest income quarter grew 24 per cent to Rs 3,005 crore during the quarter from Rs 2,491 crore in the same quarter of 2023-24.

Deposits grew 23 per cent to reach Rs 1.33 lakh crore, while gross advances grew 22 per cent to Rs 1.26 lakh crore, the bank said.

Gross NPA fell to 4.2 per cent as compared to 6.8 per cent in the year-ago quarter. Net NPA was at 1.1 per cent as compared to 2.2 per cent in the same period of the previous fiscal.

Kesh said the bank is on track to increase the proportion of secured loans in the overall portfolio.

He said the bank was fully cooperating with the CGFMU (credit guarantee funds for micro units) audit, which is nearing its closure satisfactorily.

Fresh slippages during the quarter that ended on June 30 stood at Rs 891 crore as compared to Rs 1,017 crore in the year-ago period.

The bank is putting in place a robust risk framework, Kesh said.

The collection efficiency ratio for micro loans was at 98.7 per cent during the quarter, while the capital adequacy ratio stood at 15.7 per cent against the regulatory requirement of 11.5 per cent.

Kesh was appointed the interim MD & CEO after the bank's founder Chandra Sekhar Ghosh retired on July 9.
New Delhi (India), July 26: West Bengal Chemical Industries Limited (WBCIL), a leading Indian pharmaceutical and nutraceutical API manufacturer, has made a remarkable debut at CPHI China 2024. CPHI China is one of the premier events for the global pharmaceutical industry. Despite the competitive pricing challenges posed by Chinese manufacturers, WBCIL's participation proved to be a great move, yielding significant business opportunities and forging valuable connections.



Navigating a Competitive Market



China is renowned as a global chemical hub, offering products at highly competitive prices. Historically, this has made it challenging for Indian companies like WBCIL to penetrate the Chinese market, where imports from China often surpass Indian exports due to pricing disparities. Consequently, WBCIL had previously refrained from participating in CPHI China, doubting the feasibility of selling products in such a price-sensitive environment.



An International Participation in 2024



In 2024, WBCIL made a strategic decision to participate in CPHI China, not primarily to target the Chinese market, but to engage with the international clientele that frequents the exhibition. This bold move proved to be highly successful, attracting numerous clients from neighboring countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh to the WBCIL stand, resulting in a remarkably successful exhibition.



Success Beyond Expectations



The exhibition exceeded expectations, attracting significant interest from various international clients. Notably, Chinese companies expressed keen interest in WBCIL's injectable irons and the newly developed oral iron API, Iron Sucrose. The immediate requests for samples and technical documentation for submission to the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) highlighted the potential for WBCIL to make inroads into the Chinese market.



Future Prospects



WBCIL's success at CPHI China 2024 marks a turning point, as the company now firmly establishes its presence in this competitive market. With new business avenues opening up in other countries, WBCIL plans to expand its participation in future exhibitions. Next year, the company aims to set up a larger stall at CPHI China, reflecting its growing confidence and commitment to exploring new opportunities.



Global Participation



WBCIL's participation in CPHI China is part of its broader strategy of engaging in various global events to expand its market reach. The positive response received at the exhibition underscores the significance of such platforms in facilitating business growth and international collaborations.



As West Bengal Chemical Industries Limited continues to navigate the complex landscape of the pharmaceutical industry, its proactive approach and strategic participation in global events like CPHI China are set to propel the company to new heights, reinforcing its position as a leading player in the market.



About WBCIL



West Bengal Chemical Industries Limited (WBCIL), established in 1962 in Kolkata, India, is a distinguished leader in the pharmaceutical industry with over 62 years of expertise. Renowned for its high-quality APIs, WBCIL offers an extensive range of products, including injectable irons, chelated minerals, and nutraceutical, serving over 4,000 clients across 20+ countries. The company holds nine exclusive patents and prestigious certifications such as cGMP, ISO and FSSAI. With a robust annual capacity of 10,000 MT, WBCIL remains committed to innovation and excellence in API manufacturing.



(Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with PNN and PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.). PTI PWR

PWR
New Delhi, Jul 26 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair NITI Aayog's 9th Governing Council meeting on July 27, which will discuss the 'Vikshit Bharat@2047' document to make India a developed nation, a senior government official said on Friday.

The council, the apex body of NITI Aayog, includes all state chief ministers, lieutenant governors of Union Territories, and several Union ministers. Modi is the Chairman of NITI Aayog.

"NITI Aayog's Governing Council will meet on July 27," the official said.

A vision document is being prepared to help India become a developed economy of USD 30 trillion by 2047, the 100th year of its independence.

In 2023, NITI Aayog was entrusted with the task of consolidating the 10 sectoral thematic visions into a combined vision for Viksit Bharat @2047. The vision encompasses various aspects of development, including economic growth, social progress, environmental sustainability, and good governance, among others.

Meanwhile, chief ministers of three Congress-ruled states -- Karnataka's Siddaramaiah, Himachal Pradesh's Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu and Telangana's Revanth Reddy -- have announced they will not attend the NITI Aayog meeting over alleged bias against their states in the Union Budget.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK leader M K Stalin, Kerala's CM and CPI(M) leader Pinnarayi Vijayan as well as Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab and Delhi governments have also announced to boycott the meeting.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who was scheduled to arrive in Delhi on Thursday to attend the meeting, cancelled her plan. It was not clear if she would attend the meeting on Saturday.

Biju Janata Dal (BJD) MP Sasmit Patra has supported the decision taken by opposition parties, and accused the Centre of denying states their share in the Budget.

Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MP Mahua Maji has said her party will take a decision based on the interests of the state. JMM is a INDIA bloc constituent.
Srinagar, Jul 26 (PTI) Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Council on Friday approved proposals for the transfer of land for industrial estates in various districts, an official spokesman said.

The council met under the chairmanship of Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha.

A total of 3,188 kanals and 8 marlas of land has been transferred to the Industries and Commerce Department for the purpose, the spokesman said.

The transferred land parcels are in Kupwara, Bandipora, Anantnag, Pulwama, Baramulla and Budgam districts.

Development of Industrial infrastructures has been a focus area post-2019 and has been considered as main vehicle for accelerating economic activity besides providing employment, the spokesman said.

He said the Industries & Commerce Department has come up with various initiatives for setting up industries in the UT.

In another decision, the administrative council approved amendments in the Industrial Land Allotment Policy 2021-30.

To encourage large investments having strategic importance to economy of UT, Government may allot land on preferential basis to mega projects viz. industrial/service sector units with minimum capital investment (excluding land and working capital) of at least Rs. 4000 crores, he added.

The amendments shall ensure equity and transparency amongst applicants. The amendments in the Jammu and Kashmir Industrial Land Allotment Policy, 2021-30 shall help in realizing large investments and this will be a fillip to employment generation in the UT, he said.
Jaipur, Jul 26 (PTI) Noisy scenes were witnessed in Rajasthan Assembly on Friday over the purchase of pearl millet by the state government as ruling and opposition legislators exchanged barbs at each other.

Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma also intervened in the matter, saying that before making allegations, it should also be clear who did injustice and cheated the farmers.

He said that during the previous Congress government, protests were held at many places because farmers in Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, were getting the support price of Rs 2,300 per quintal for millet.

During the Question Hour, independent legislator Ritu Banawat asked whether the state government has any plan to purchase the pearl millet.

Replying to the question, Food and Civil Supplies Minister Sumit Godara said that it is a serious matter. He said that it is a fact that pearl millet has not been purchased by the state government for a long period.

He said that the state government will definitely provide relief to the farmers in the coming future.

To this, ruling and opposition legislators started shouting at each other and blamed each other for not purchasing pearl millet in their respective tenures.

"When Congress was in power and we had asked what action the government took on the purchase of millet, the answer came that no action was taken. Your Chief Minister was there for 15 years, did Congress ever buy millet? Have you bought your millet in the last five years? We have more focus on farmers," Godara said.

Expressing displeasure over the uproar, Speaker Vasudev Devnani said that let a proposal be moved in the House to expel those who are creating uproar.

Later, the Speaker allowed Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma to address the House during Zero Hour.

Targeting the Congress over the issue, Sharma said that those who ask a question in the House should have the responsibility to listen to the answer.

"After the formation of our government, the first millet crop will come. But this should also be considered, how much millet was purchased in five years?" Sharma said.

He said that the minister has said that a letter has been written to the Central Government to purchase the upcoming millet crop at MSP.

The Chief Minister said, "During the Congress government, protests were held at many places. Because in Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, UP, farmers were getting the support price of Rs 2300 per quintal for millet."

He further said, "Rajasthan farmers were forced to sell millet at Rs 1400-1500 per quintal. If you say this today, then before making allegations, it should also be clear who did injustice and cheated the farmers?"

"The minister's answer was clear, our government will do what it says. Our government will consider and will also give benefits for millet," Sharma added.

After the CM's reply, the Speaker gave directions to the House that no members should enter the well and asked the parliamentary affairs minister to take cognisance and bring a proposal to expel such members if needed.

Later, Leader of Opposition Tikaram Jully also expressed his view on the issue and House proceedings continued smoothly.
New Delhi, Jul 26 (PTI) Actor Jacqueliene Fernandez and entrepreneur Riddhima Kapoor Sahni turned the muses for Isha Jajodia's latest collection "Roseroom" which she showcased on the second day of the Hyundai FDCI India Couture Week here.

The collection was filled with intricate designs and ranged from saris to gowns depicting miniature embroidery, rhinestones and floral work. Inspired by the grandeur of French architectural landmarks with a blend of modern feminine strength, the designer managed to bring the essence of the same in the attires.

Fernandez, 38, took to the runway in a black embroidered mermaid gown adorned with a black veil stretching behind. She completed the look with a massive stone necklace and a high bun.

Sharing her experience of walking for Jajodia, the actor who was last seen in "Cirkus", said she is a big fan of the designer and believes they both have similar fashion sense.

"I love her work. I've been wearing her beautiful dresses, sarees, and gowns for a very long time. I'm a fan of hers," actor told PTI.

"I think I'm quite minimalistic, and I love wearing simple yet stunning outfits like this black ensemble today. I feel like Isha and I share that fashion sense," she added.

"It's the most romantic collection you can imagine, with a beautiful blend of modern and vintage elements, and a lot of Indian craftsmanship," the actor said.

Fernandez said she has three projects lined up for release.

Sahni, 43, walked in an ivory lehenga with a floral design and pearl beads on it.

"It was surreal and the most amazing experience. Ishas (Jajodia) is a friend and when she asked me to walk for her, I was just over-excited and I knew she would put me in something that is very down my street."

Sahni, who will be seen in "Fabulous Lives Vs Bollywood Wives Season 3", alongside Neelam Kothari, Maheep Kapoor, Bhavna Pandey, Seema Sajdeh, Shalini Passi, and Kalyani Saha Chawla, said, "Im very excited. Its going to be the most spectacular season and Im nervous right now, but I hope you guys enjoy it. Its going to be amazing and I love my co-actors."

India Couture Week commenced on July 24 and will conclude on July 31.
Washington, Jul 26 (PTI) Former US president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Thursday refused to debate with his Democratic rival and Vice President Kamala Harris until the Democrats formally decide on their nominee, whereas the latter said that she is ready for a debate.

You have been asking me about the debate and I'll tell you I'm ready to debate Donald Trump. I have agreed to the previously agreed upon September 10 debate, Harris told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on her return from Houston.

He (Trump) agreed to that previously. Now here he is backpedaling and Im ready and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage. And so I'm ready to go, Harris said.

Trump was declared the Republican party nominee at its convention in Milwaukee this month, Harris is all set to be declared the partys nominee at its convention in Chicago in August.

Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee, Trump Campaign Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a late night statement.

There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party - namely Barack Hussein Obama - that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone better. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds, Cheung said.

Trump and US President Joe Biden, who dropped out of the race over the weekend and was succeeded by Harris, had previously agreed to two debates on June 27 and September 10. Bidens disastrous debate in Atlanta on June 27 ultimately led him to quit the race three weeks later. The September 10 debate was previously agreed to be hosted by ABC News. The June 27 debate was hosted by CNN.

Trump had told reporters early this week that he had agreed to a debate with Biden but was ready to debate Harris. But I want to debate with her and she'll be no different because they have the same policies. I would be willing to do more than one debate actually, he said, adding that he was not thrilled with ABC.

Meanwhile, Fox News Media has proposed a debate between Trump and Harris on September 17 in Pennsylvania.

"Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee, FOX News Media is amending our proposal for a debate this cycle. Given the race has changed, wed like to request the opportunity to host a Presidential Debate between VP Harris and former President Trump," Fox News Media said in letters sent to each campaign.

"We propose to host the debate in the state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday, September 17, just as early voting is getting underway there and in other key battlegrounds. We are open to discussion on the exact date, format and location  with or without an audience," the letter said.
Colombo, Jul 26 (PTI) The presidential election in Sri Lanka is to take place on September 21, the independent elections commission announced today.

The announcement ended months long speculation that the election would be postponed to extend the term of the incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe.

The government gazette no 2394/51 issued today said in terms of article 31 (3) of the constitution the election would take place on September 21 while the nominations would be accepted on August 15.

The election announcement set to end the balance term of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was ousted mid 2022 in a popular public uprising. Rajapaksa had been elected with a record near 7 million votes in November 2019 when the last presidential election was held.

Tens of thousands who got into the streets early 2022 demanded Rajapaksa to step down for his failure to tackle the islands gravest economic crisis since 1948.

Rajapaksa was forced to flee the country on July 9, 2022 and incumbent Ranil Wickremesinghe who was the crisis prime minister was elected through parliament to succeed Rajapaksa.

Wickremesinghe undertook the difficult task of reviving the bankrupt economy by tapping a bail out facility from the IMF.

India provided Sri Lanka with a life line of 4 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2022 which paid for food and essentials imports in the balance of payment crisis.

By mid April Sri Lanka had declared its first sovereign default. A year later came the IMF first tranche of the near 3 billion facility to be extended over 4 years.

However, the stringent reforms attached to the program made the government unpopular.

Wickremesinghe stood firm in his commitment to implement reforms and has vowed to steer the country out of bankruptcy.

He is expected to vie for his return as the president. (
Naypyidaw, Jul 26 (PTI) National Security Advisor Doval will lead the Indian delegation at the 4th annual meeting of the security chiefs of the member nations Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) to be held here on Friday.

The meeting in Myanmars capital city has been convened to strategise and coordinate initiatives crucial for addressing common security challenges faced by member states.

"NSA Shri Ajit Doval is leading the Indian delegation at the 4th Annual Meeting of #BIMSTEC Security Chiefs being held in Naypyidaw today," the Embassy of India here said in a post on X.

Doval met his Myanmar counterpart Admiral Moe Aung on Thursday. He along with other BIMSTEC security chiefs also called on Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

Doval arrived here on Thursday from Hanoi where he attended the state funeral for Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of Vietnam's ruling Communist Party who died here last week, and conveyed India's condolences to the country's leadership.

BIMSTEC is a regional organisation that connects countries around the Bay of Bengal to promote economic growth, trade, and cooperation in areas like transportation, energy, and counter-terrorism.

It aims to strengthen relationships and foster economic development among its member states, which include- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
Moscow, Jul 26 (AP) Russia's top security agency said on Friday that it arrested a man accused of staging a car bombing on Ukrainian orders.

The Federal Security Service, or FSB, showed a video of the handcuffed suspect walking off a plane from Turkiye escorted by masked officers.

Turkish authorities said that they detained the suspect, Yevgeniy Serebryakov, on Russia's request on Wednesday. He arrived in Turkiye's resort of Bodrum hours after a car bomb went off in Moscow.

Russian authorities said that two people were injured by the bomb that detonated after they got into the car in northern Moscow. Russian media said that the car belonged to a senior military intelligence officer.

The FSB said the suspect was acting on orders from Ukraine's spy agency and released a video of his confessions. It was impossible to verify the claims that he made under duress.

Ukrainian officials have denied involvement. (AP) PY

PY
Beijing, Jul 26 (PTI) The ruling Chinese Communist Partys plan to raise the retirement age of the working population to cope with the rapidly ageing population has created ripples of resentment among the public.

According to the present structure, the retirement age for male workers in urban areas is 60 years while that for female workers is 50 or 55 depending on their occupation.

The recently concluded third plenum of the Communist Party of China (CPC) has unveiled comprehensive reforms to advance the modernisation of the economy -- plagued by a deepening demographic crisis, sluggish growth and mounting local government debt.

The powerful body also discussed plans to raise the countrys retirement age in a voluntary and flexible manner.

The World Population Prospects 2024 report released on July 11 said that China's population, currently 1.41 billion in 2024, will fall to 1.21 billion in 2054 and further decline to 633 million by 2100.

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), the report said, adding, Longer-range population projections are more uncertain for China.

The population and its composition by the end of year 2023, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, states that the population aged 60 and above was 21.1 per cent (296.97 million) of the total and of which, aged 65 and above was 15.4 per cent (216.76 million). The population in the working age bracket, i.e. between 16 and up to 60 years is 61.3 per cent (864.81 million).

The official document approved by the plenum, held here last week, listed over 300 policy measures as part of the wide-ranging reforms to be completed by 2029. However, the CPC has not officially announced any schedule to implement the plan to increase the retirement age.

According to the document, the government would move to increase the retirement age in an orderly and gradual way and seek to develop the silver economy to create diverse jobs for older people.

But the plan, which has been in the works for several years, has generated a backlash in Chinese social media with people expressing their dissatisfaction over the prospect of delayed access to their pensions while younger employees averring that the rise of the retirement age will leave them with fewer jobs if the older workers stay.

People also shared a forecast by the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2019 stating that Chinas state pension fund would run dry by 2035 because of its dwindling workforce amid increased concerns.

Peng Peng, executive chairman of the Guangdong Society of Reform, a think tank connected to the provincial government, said delaying retirement might be a double-edged sword in todays economy.

It could reduce the financial burden on local governments, but it might also increase employment pressure, which is a typical example of the complexity of current reforms, Peng told the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

However, Feng Jin, an economics professor at Fudan University specialising in social security, said it was inevitable that the retirement age would rise and a voluntary and flexible increase might prove easier for people to accept.

Delaying retirement faces opposition from some, particularly those with lower incomes and uneasy working conditions; after age 50, their wages remain low with limited growth potential, so they prefer to retire early and start receiving pension sooner, she said.

Yuan Xin, vice president of the China Population Association and a professor of demography at Nankai University, said there should be a transition period where employers offer flexible wages, working hours and locations.

Institutionally, relevant departments should be established to coordinate efforts and create a cross-departmental linkage mechanism. The policy system should be optimised to support health, fertility, employment, retirement, social security, and elderly services, he told the Post.
Jerusalem, Jul 26 (AP) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States comes as negotiations to end the Israel-Hamas war and recover hostages held in Gaza inch forward  with no immediate deal in sight.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States continue to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased cease-fire agreement that would stop the fighting and free the hostages. The negotiations have repeatedly hit obstacles over disputes about the governance of post-war Gaza and how enduring the cease-fire will be.

Netanyahu's vowing "total victory" in Gaza to thunderous congressional applause on Wednesday risks inflaming tensions with Hamas at a time when talks are delicate. But he also came under increased US pressure to engage sincerely in cease-fire efforts. Critics say Netanyahu is stalling during negotiations so that he can draw out the war for his own political gain.

A team of Israeli negotiators that was meant to travel to Qatar for another round of talks was held back Thursday and may be dispatched next week.



Here's a look at how Netanyahu's visit might impact the talks:

It may have bolstered pressure for a deal

During the trip, Netanyahu seemed to avoid public mention of cease-fire talks, angering hostage families in Israel who felt their plight was ignored. Domestic pressure runs high for a deal that would bring home the remaining 110 hostages, but Netanyahu also faces opposition from his far-right governing partners to any agreement to end the war.

His speech to Congress on Wednesday made scant mention of the hostages. His office said reaching a deal was but one of several items on his wish list to discuss with American officials.

Still, the visit opened Netanyahu up to face-to-face pressure from Israel's top ally, on whom it counts for critical military and domestic support.

Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said that in their meetings with Netanyahu in Washington on Thursday, they would prioritise closing gaps on a hostage deal.

In some of her most forceful comments, Harris said she told Netanyahu it is time to end the war and bring back the hostages.

But with Netanyahu keeping an eye on his coalition partners - the key to his political survival - the trip could also be part of a broader delaying tactic to avoid reaching a deal.

While his coalition is wobbling because of the tension with the extreme-right parties, Netanyahu is deliberately delaying the negotiations for the release of the hostages, wrote columnist Amos Harel in the liberal Israeli daily, Haaretz, adding that Netanyahu had engineered a long trip.

The rapidly changing political developments in the US, Harel said, might distract leaders there from pressing the cease-fire talks urgently.



It inflamed tensions with Hamas

Netanyahu's visit and his fiery speech to Congress stoked tensions with Hamas at a time when the militant group's negotiators are at the table.

Hamas reacted angrily to Netanyahu's presence in the US, calling his vows to return the hostages insincere.

He is the one who thwarted all efforts aimed at ending the war and concluding a deal to release the prisoners, it said in a statement after the speech. It called Netanyahu's talk of intensified efforts to free the hostages a complete lie to mislead public opinion.

Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha said on Thursday the group didn't believe the visit  during which Netanyahu received a standing ovation from Congress  would prompt enough pressure on him to impact the Israeli negotiating position.

If the American administration is serious, it should put pressure on the prime minister of the Zionist government Benjamin Netanyahu to stop this aggression, he said.

But Hamas stopped short of pulling out of talks over the visit, a sign the talks may resume.



Gaps in talks remain

Netanyahu's US trip came as the talks already faced challenges.

The cease-fire plan calls for an initial six-week phase in which Hamas would release some hostages  including women, older adults and wounded people  in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from populated areas. Palestinian civilians would be able to return to their homes and humanitarian aid would be ramped up.

The two sides are supposed to use that six-week period to negotiate an agreement on the second phase, which would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israel's full withdrawal from Gaza along with an enduring halt to the war.

But the two sides appear far apart on that second phase.

Israeli leaders have suggested they aim for a one-phase deal freeing some hostages, after which they would resume their campaign to destroy Hamas and keep troops in parts of the territory long term.

Netanyahu has spoken of striking a partial deal. A day before coming to the US, he told troops in Gaza's southernmost city Rafah that Israel demanded a maximum number of hostages be released in the first phase. On Tuesday, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel seeks a deal for the release of dozens of hostages. And after this issue has passed, we will know how to return to fighting.

That's a scenario Hamas has rejected. It dropped a demand that Israel commit up front to a complete end to the war, but it has sought guarantees from mediators for that goal.

Mediators appear to be trying to sort out as much of the second phase as possible now, including a post-war rule for Gaza without Hamas.

There are details to be worked through, said US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan while speaking in Aspen, Colorado last week. Sullivan said those issues include what is to be Israel's remaining military presence in Gaza, humanitarian assistance and a day-after plan for governing Gaza.

Netanyahu's office did not say when the Israeli negotiating team would be dispatched once more for talks. At Congress, he said Israel was actively engaged in intensive efforts" to secure the release of the hostages and was confident these efforts could succeed. But he also pledged total victory in the war with Hamas.

Taha said Hamas is waiting on an official Israeli response to amendments proposed by Hamas. (AP) PY

PY
London, Jul 26 (PTI) Informal words used as slang, such as boop and the ick, are among more than 3,200 new words and phrases added to the Cambridge Dictionary in its latest update this week.

Boop, which is defined as a gentle hit or touch on a person's or animal's nose or head, showing that you like them or as a joke, and 'the ick', which refers to a sudden feeling that you dislike someone or something or are no longer attracted to someone because of something they do, are among the slangs to make it to the online edition for 2024 so far.

'Chefs kiss', or a movement in which you put your fingers and thumb together, kiss them, then pull your hand away from your lips as a way of showing that you think that something or someone is perfect or excellent, is another such informal phrase that has been recognised formally.

Language is always changing, and this means that the Cambridge Dictionary team stays busy researching new words and meanings that enter the English language, the dictionary said in a statement on Thursday.

Many new additions come from the fields of science and technology, including 'scicomm'  the activity of explaining scientific work and information to people who are not scientists, or articles, talks, etc. that do this, and deep-sky  existing in or relating to the part of space outside the solar system, it said.

A few other quirky additions include IYKYK, which is the written abbreviation for if you know you know. It is used mostly on social media and in text messages to imply a shared joke or shared knowledge with the reader that other people might not understand.

The noun face journey has been added to refer to a series of expressions that appear on someone's face showing different emotions that they are experiencing as a reaction to something.

Cambridge Dictionary said its team records how English is actually used by real people and uses the Cambridge English Corpus, a huge collection of written and spoken English, to gather evidence for how a new word is used by different people and in a variety of situations.

We also collect evidence of new words that have only appeared in English very recently. We feature three of these on our weekly About Words blog, where readers can vote on which words they think should be added to the dictionary, it explained, with reference the process behind adding on new terms.

Online gaming also inspired several new entries, such as 'backread'  to read through a series of messages or internet posts that you did not see when they were first created, often starting with the most recent, in order to learn what happened or was discussed earlier; 'speedrun'  to complete a computer game, or part of a computer game, as quickly as possible, especially by taking advantage of any glitches; and 'side quest'  a part of a computer game that has its own aim and story but is not part of the main game.

New additions from the world of music include soca or a type of music that is a mixture of soul and calypso, originally from the Caribbean, and jug band which refers to a small group of performers who play jazz, blues, or folk music on very simple musical instruments, especially using objects such as empty jugs as instruments.
London, Jul 26 (AP) British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office said on Friday that the UK will not interfere with the International Criminal Court's request for an arrest warrant against Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The announcement is reversal of plans announced by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was ousted earlier this month when Starmer's Labour Party swept Conservatives from office in a landslide.

This was a proposal by the previous government which was not submitted before the election, and which I can confirm the government will not be pursuing in line with our long-standing position that this is a matter for the court to decide, a Starmer spokesperson said.

The court's prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders  Yehya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh  of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move as disgraceful and antisemitic. US President Joe Biden also criticised the prosecutor and supported Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas  as did Sunak.

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan sought warrants for Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant in May over Israel's war in Gaza, a symbolic blow that deepened Israel's isolation over the war in Gaza.

Israel is not a member of the court. Even if warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it harder for them to travel.

The ICC had set a deadline for Friday for the government to file a challenge.

Starmer's decision puts the UK at odds with America, though his office on Friday described the decision as based in a strong belief in the separation of powers and the rule of law domestically and internationally.

The issue is a tricky one for Starmer and his party.

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, has been under pressure from his party to take a tougher stand on the ongoing crisis in Gaza. London has also been the scene of huge protests decrying Israel's actions intended to root out Hamas militants and has also reported record levels of antisemitic incidents.

Labour lost support and seats they had been expected to win after Starmer initially refused to call for a cease fire shortly after Israel retaliated for the October 7 attack by Hamas militants. The party is still recovering from the stain of a scandal involving antisemitism allegations against the leadership of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

Starmer recently restored funding for the United Nations' Palestine relief agency UNRWA, which had been suspended by Sunak's government in January.

He has also said the Palestinian state has an undeniable right to be recognised as part of a peace process.

Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International U.K.'s chief executive applauded Starmer's decision not to challenge the action at the Hague court.

This was a totally misguided intervention by the last government," Deshmukh said. Instead of trying to thwart the ICC's much-needed Palestine investigation, the UK should be backing efforts to bring all perpetrators of war crimes and possible genocide to justice. (AP) PY

PY
Budapest (Hungary), Jul 26 (AP) Hungary will seek to resolve a dispute with Ukraine over the transfer of Russian oil by September to avoid a potential energy crisis, an aid to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday,

Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, alleged that Kyiv was blackmailing Budapest by blocking the transfer of some Russian crude across its territory.

Ukraine last month adopted sanctions against Lukoil, Russia's largest non-state firm. Hungary receives most of its crude from Russia via the Druzhba or Friendship pipeline which runs into Central Europe through Belarus and Ukraine, about half of which it receives from Lukoil.

The move angered officials in Slovakia and Hungary, which argued the blocked supply would endanger their energy security. The two countries threatened legal action against Kyiv unless Lukoil's crude is allowed to resume its deliveries.

On Friday, Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, told a news conference that Ukraine was "inexplicably blackmailing Hungary and Slovakia by cutting off oil supplies." He suggested that the blocking of Lukoil crude was in response to the two Central European countries' "pro-peace stance."

Orban, considered Russian President Vladimir Putin's closest partner in the European Union, has broken with other EU leaders by refusing to provide Ukraine with weapons to defend against Russia's full-scale invasion. He has routinely delayed, watered down or blocked efforts to send financial aid to Kyiv and impose sanctions on Moscow over its war.

This week, Hungary said it would seek intervention from the EU over the blocked supplies, and Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto threatened that Hungary would block reimbursements to EU countries for their military aid to Ukraine until the conflict was resolved.

Gulyas on Friday said the blocking of Lukoil deliveries could result in fuel shortages, but that there was no reason to panic since Hungary still has reserves.

Still, he said, "a solution must be found by September."

"Hungary does not want to counter-blackmail Ukraine. We hope that the EU will help, but if not, we will need to look for other solutions," Gulyas said.

The EU in 2022 passed sanctions on the import of Russian oil into the bloc in response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, though an exception was granted to land-locked Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic to allow them time to find other crude sources. (AP) NPK

NPK
Islamabad, Jul 26 (PTI) Pakistan on Friday rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modis remarks at an event at Drass in Ladakh as rhetorical statements and said it cannot deflect international attention from Indias efforts to suppress the Kashmiri people.

India hailed the valour of its soldiers in the Kargil conflict 25 years ago with Prime Minister Modi issuing a stern message to Pakistan, saying it has been trying to stay relevant by using terrorism and proxy wars but all such terror attempts will be crushed with full force.

Modi was addressing a ceremony held at the Kargil War Memorial in Dras in Ladakh to mark the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas.

According to Pakistans Foreign Office, the "rhetorical statements by the Indian leaders cannot deflect international attention from Indias heavy-handed approach to suppress the Kashmiri peoples just struggle for realisation of their fundamental rights and freedoms.

Bravado and jingoism undermine regional peace, and are totally counter-productive for resolution of long-standing disputes between Pakistan and India, especially the core dispute of Jammu and Kashmir, the Foreign Office (FO) said in a statement.

India has been maintaining that it desires normal neighbourly relations with Pakistan while insisting that the onus is on Islamabad to create an environment that is free of terror and hostility for such an engagement.

India has also told Pakistan that the "Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the Union Territory of Ladakh have been, are and will always remain integral and inalienable parts of India."

The Foreign Office further stated that Pakistan stands resolute in its intent and ability to safeguard its sovereignty against any aggression.

While Pakistan is ready to counter Indias aggressive actions, it remains committed to promoting peace and stability in the region, the statement concluded.

Addressing the ceremony at the Kargil War Memorial Modi said, falsehood and terror were brought down to their knees by truth in the 1999 war.

He also noted that Pakistan has not learnt anything from its past.

Today, I am speaking at a place from where the masters of terror can hear my voice directly. I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed, Modi said in the presence of India's top military brass.

Paying glowing tributes to the fallen soldiers, he said, In Kargil, we not only won the war, we presented an incredible example of truth, restraint and strength," and added, The nation is forever indebted and deeply grateful to the mighty superheroes of our armed forces.

The war that went on for nearly three months on the icy heights saw Indian armed forces fight in the most challenging terrains amid harsh weather conditions in Drass, Kargil and Batalik sectors.

On July 26, 1999, the Army announced the successful culmination of Operation Vijay, declaring victory over Pakistan.
Zura Japaridze, a leader of the For Change coalition, has outlined the coalition's election program, which focuses on the Georgian Charter, rapid economic development, education reform, and regional strengthening.Japaridze emphasized the coalition's commitment to the Georgian Charter, which incorporates the European Commission's nine recommendations for Georgia to begin EU negotiations. "We are the only ones who have signed and adhered to this charter," he stated.The coalition aims to double the economy, providing a foundation for further budgetary reforms. "Rapid economic growth is essential for our progress," Japaridze said.He also highlighted the need for a modern education system, focusing on deregulating private educational institutions and introducing free-market elements to improve public education quality. "We want an education system that constantly improves without needing intervention," he explained.The coalition plans to decentralize management, empowering local self-government. "Owners should appear on the ground, incentivizing market operations and forming effective self-governance," Japaridze added.On July 9, the parties Akhali, Droa, and Girchi - More Freedom announced the creation of a unified electoral entity, joining forces for the upcoming elections.The Public Defender of Georgia has expressed concern over the ongoing strike at Evolution Georgia LLC, which began on July 12. The office reports that striking employees have had their health insurance benefits suspended, impacting those with significant medical needs, including pregnant women, cancer patients, and individuals with chronic conditions.The Public Defender's statement emphasizes that while private insurance benefits are currently suspended, the state provides basic medical services through the universal health care program. The office is prepared to investigate further if striking employees are restricted from accessing these state services.The strike, involving over half of the company's employees according to the labor union, is raising concerns about the health risks to participants who might need medical care typically covered by private insurance.The Public Defender has urged Evolution Georgia LLC to engage with striking employees and their representatives to resolve the dispute. The office calls for the restoration of health insurance benefits and improvements in working conditions.Striking employees are demanding higher wages, better working conditions, the dismissal of managers accused of bullying, racism, and sexism, and the signing of lifetime contracts with new hires.
Bijapur, Jul 25 (PTI) Five Naxalites were arrested and explosive materials seized from them at two separate places in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh on Thursday, police said.

Four of them -- identified as Mangi Punem, Soni Potam alias Somi, Sande Potam and Vikesh Potam -- were apprehended from Pusnar village under Gangalur police station limits by the District Reserve Guard (DRG) and local police during an anti-Naxal operation, an official said.

Security forces seized a tiffin bomb, a gelatin stick, electric fuse wires and Maoist literature from their possession, he added.

The four were involved in planting Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) to target security forces, digging roads, felling trees to block roads and putting up Maoists posters and banners, the official informed.

Another Naxalite, identified as Bedja Sukku, who was active as a militia member, was nabbed from Sagmeta village under Farsegarh police station limits during an area domination exercise launched by police personnel, he added.

He was allegedly involved in the killing of a resident of Pillur village of the district on July 1, 2007, and a warrant was pending against him in connection with the case, the official said.
New Delhi, Jul 25 (PTI) The Leader of Opposition in MCD, Sardar Raja Iqbal Singh has written to Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena seeking his intervention for appointment of a Dalit mayor in accordance with the DMC Act.

The BJP leader has also requested the LG's intervention for directing the authorities concerned to issue an order to constitute the Sixth Delhi Finance Committee highlighting a "huge backlog of funds" faced by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

In a letter to the LG, Singh raised concern over the delayed mayoral polls which were scheduled to take place in the first MCD House meeting in April.

He alleged that the MCD has been working "unconstitutionally" for the past 18 months and the current mayor, Shelly Oberoi, has been occupying the chair in violation of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act.

There was no immediate response on this from the Delhi mayor.

"We would like to draw your attention towards the unconstitutional working of the MCD for last almost 18 months...the affairs of the corporation are governed by the provisions of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957. In accordance with the section 35 of the said, the election of the Mayor has to held annually. Further, the provision mandates and reserves the office of Mayor for the first year to a women member and for the third year to a member belonging to SC community," the letter said.

"In the light of the above it was mandatory for the MCD House to elect a Scheduled Caste community Mayor in the first meeting of the year 2024-25 in April but almost 4 months later as we are in last week of July 2024 the MCD has not elected a SC community Mayor which is a grave violation of the DMC Act," the letter, also signed by Delhi BJP Spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor, read.

The present MCD House was constituted in February 2023 and AAP's candidate Shelly Oberoi was elected as the mayor of the city as per the DMC Act, which prescribes a woman candidate to be the Mayor of MCD in the first year.

"Thereafter the House had to elect a general category male Mayor in April 2024 but due to extremely dubious political conditions prevailing in the MCD it was not done and Shelly Oberoi continued in the second year too," the letter said.

"...most unconstitutionally a general community female Mayor Shelly Oberoi continues to work as the Mayor," it added.

Raising concern over the issue, Singh said, "Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party is denying a rightful opportunity to a Dalit Councillor. We are told that CM Arvind Kejriwal is adamant to continue as CM but being in jail he cannot do any administrative work thus the file for appointment of Presiding Officer for Mayor election continues to remain pending."

"Similarly, it is constitutionally mandatory to constitute a Finance Commission for the MCD every fifth year under clause (1) of Article 243-1 but the Delhi Government headed by CM Arvind Kejriwal has not done this too," he said.

"As a result of the non constitution of the 6th Delhi Finance Commission the MCD continues to receive funds as decided by 5th DFC in 2016-17 thus depriving MCD of proper funds," he added.

Singh urged the LG to intervene in the matter and ensure the election of a mayor from the SC community at the earliest and an order be issued from the competent authority for constituting the Sixth Delhi Finance Commission immediately.

The mayoral polls were postponed by the MCD in April citing non-appointment of a presiding officer by the LG required to hold the elections. The LG did not accord approval for appointing the presiding officer citing the absence of Delhi CM Kejriwal, who is lodged in Tihar in connection with a excise linked money laundering case.
Dehradun, Jul 25 (PTI) The Uttarakhand government on Thursday issued instructions to strictly enforce the rule of mandatory installation of dustbins and garbage bags in vehicles entering the state "to maintain its natural cleanliness".

Before issuing trip cards to vehicles, it should be ensured that they have a dustbin or garbage bag installed, Chief Secretary Radha Raturi said.

The State Transport Department recently wrote to the Transport Commissioners of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, informing them that it is mandatory for vehicles coming to the state during the Chardham Yatra to have dustbins and garbage bags installed to prevent travellers from littering roads.

Vehicles entering the state should be checked and fined if they do not comply with this mandatory rule, the chief secretary said.

Tour operators, travel agencies, drivers and the general public should be informed about this rule, the chief secretary added.

"Uttarakhand is a tourist state. Maintaining the natural cleanliness of the state and protecting its environment is the collective responsibility of its residents as well as lakhs of tourists and devotees who visit the state every year," Raturi said.
Raipur, Jul 26 (PTI) The opposition Congress on Friday accused the Chhattisgarh government of not taking strict action against the management of the explosives manufacturing factory in which a blast took place on May 25, killing several workers, most of whose bodies were charred beyond recognition.

Raising a call attention motion notice in the assembly, Congress MLAs Raghvendra Singh and Sheshraj Harbans said the explosion in Special Blast Limited in Pirda village in Bemetara district was so severe that even body parts of the some of the victims could not be found.

The opposition MLAs also claimed the factory management was hiding the true number of casualties, adding the incident took place due to gross criminal negligence and non-compliance of rules regarding manufacturing and storage of explosive substances.

Despite the quantity of explosives manufactured and stored in the factory being higher than norms, no stern legal action was taken against either the occupier or the manager, Singh and Harbans claimed.

In his reply, state Commerce and Industry Minister Lakhan Lal Dewangan said the explosion occurred due to sudden generation of static electricity through friction while the workers were engaged in lifting and storing PETN explosives.

"The building was completely destroyed and other manufacturing plants located inside the factory premises were also damaged. Nine workers were killed and seven others injured. It is not correct to say the number of dead is being hidden by the factory management. DNA tests were being conducted by the district administration to identify the remains of the bodies of the workers found at the spot," Dewangan said.

The factory was inspected by the Deputy Explosive Controller, Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization, Government of India, in Nava Raipur here eight times in the last one year to ensure compliance of laws related to explosives and instructions were also issued to the unit to address deficiencies found there, he said.

"After the blast, the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization cancelled all licenses issued to Special Blast Limited. The accident was investigated jointly by the Deputy Director state's Industrial Health and Safety and Assistant Director, Industrial Health and Safety, Durg district," he said.

"It is incorrect to say no action was taken against the occupier or the manager. After the probe, the Deputy Director Industrial Health and Safety, Durg, under the provisions of Factories Act, 1948, issued a prohibitory order dated May 26 to stop all manufacturing activities related in the factory premises immediately. This is currently in effect," the minister said in the House.

Dewangan said a criminal case was filed in the Labour Court, Durg on June 10 against the factory occupier Awadhesh Jain and manager Satish Kumar for violation of provisions of Factories Act.

"An FIR was also registered against Jain and others in connection with the incident under Sections 286, 337, 304-A of the IPC and provisions of Explosives Act. It is not correct to say the state government considered its duty over by giving financial assistance to the kin of victims," the minister asserted.

Congress MLAs Raghvendra Singh and Leader of Opposition Charan Das Mahant sought to know why the factory occupier and manager were not arrested.

Mahant said the government's rely was dissatisfactory, after which Congress MLAs walked out of the assembly.
Mumbai, Jul 26 (PTI) Following are the top stories from the Western Region at 1700 HRS.











BOM8 MH-TUGBOAT-LD RESCUE



* Maharashtra: All 14 crew members rescued from tugboat that went adrift off Alibag coast







Mumbai: All 14 crew members of a tugboat that had drifted in the Arabian Sea off the Alibag coast in Maharashtras Raigad district have been rescued, a police official said on Friday. *















BOM15 GJ-RAINS

* Over 2,500 evacuated amid heavy rains in south Gujarat, Purna river above danger mark





Navsari: More than 2,500 people were shifted out of their homes as several villages were inundated due to heavy rains in south Gujarat, officials said on Friday. *





BOM14 MH-RAINS-RIVERS



* More than 2,000 people relocated as Panchaganga river flows above danger mark in Kolhapur





Kolhapur/Sangli: More than 2,000 people were relocated from inundated areas as the Panchaganga river started flowing above the danger mark in western Maharashtra's Kolhapur district, an official said on Friday. *











BOM9 CG-TRAIN-DERAILMENT

* Chhattisgarh: Engine of empty passenger train derails after hitting fallen tree, driver injured









Kanker: The engine of an empty passenger train derailed after hitting a giant tree that had fallen on the track in Chhattisgarh's Kanker district on Friday, causing minor injuries to the loco pilot, officials said. *

















BOM12 MH-LEVEL CROSSING-SCHOOL BUS

* Lucky escape for 40 students after school bus gets stuck at level crossing in Nagpur







Nagpur: Timely intervention by a loco pilot and locals saved the lives of 40 students after the school bus they were travelling on got stuck on railway tracks at a level crossing in Nagpur, an official said on Friday. *















BOM13 MH-JARANGE

* Will gather information from assembly seats next month before taking poll call: Jarange





Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: Quota activist Manoj Jarange said on Friday that they will gather information about the Maratha communitys position in each assembly constituency of Maharashtra next month before deciding their strategy for the state polls. *















BOM11 MP-WELL-DEATHS

* Four die after inhaling suspected poisonous gas in well in MP's Katni



Katni (MP): Four persons, including a man and his nephew, died due to suspected inhalation of a poisonous gas in a well in Madhya Pradesh's Katni, an official said on Friday. *













BOM10 GA-SESSION-EMPLOYMENT-SAWANT

* Goa govt to amend law to ensure private companies give priority to locals in jobs: CM Sawant





Panaji: Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Friday informed the legislative assembly that the state's Employment Exchanges Act will be amended to ensure that private companies give priority to local candidates in their recruitment. *

















BOM2 GA-RAILWAY

* Landslide, tree fall on Goa-Karnataka border hit traffic on South Western Railway





Panaji: The movement of five trains were affected on the South Western Railway due to a landslide between Dudhsagar and Sonaulim sections on the Goa-Karnataka border shortly after Thursday midnight, an official said on Friday. *
Mumbai, Jul 26 (PTI) Maharashtra Governor Ramesh Bais paid tribute to the martyrs of the Kargil war on its 25th anniversary on Friday by placing a wreath at the Colaba War Memorial here.

At a programme organised by the General Officer Commanding, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa Area, Bais felicitated 11 'Veer Naris' and also addressed the officers of the armed forces.

Complimenting the officers and jawans for the victory in the Kargil War, the governor appealed to the youths to join the armed forces and maintain the winning streak.

Bais later flagged off the Kargil Vijay Diwas Motorcycle Expedition involving the jawans of 15 Battalion of the Assam Regiment.

The rally will reach Kargil on August 4 and reach Pune on August 15.

GOC in Chief Lieutenant General Pawan Chadha, Flag Officer in Command, Western Naval Command Vice Admiral Sanjay J Singh, Major General Bikram Deep Singh, former GOC Lt Gen H S Kehlon and other serving and retired officers of the armed forces were present.
Guwahati, Jul 26 (PTI) Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma will travel to New Delhi on Friday night to attend the NITI Aayog meeting scheduled for July 27.

He will be in the national capital for two days to participate in both the NITI Aayog and BJP chief ministers' meetings.

Addressing a press conference, Sarma said the Union Budget had significantly increased the funding for various projects in the state.

He expressed optimism that the decisions made at the NITI Aayog meeting would further contribute to the state's development.

The ninth governing council meeting of NITI Aayog, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will address various development issues and policy matters. The governing council includes all chief ministers, Lieutenant Governors of Union Territories, and several Union Ministers.
Bhubaneswar, Jul 26 (PTI) The Odisha government on Friday announced a 10 per cent quota and five years of age relaxation for Agniveers in the state's uninformed services.

Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi made the announcement before leaving for Delhi to attend the governing council meeting of the NITI Aayog on Saturday.

"Our soldiers are our pride. Agniveers, who are trained by our defence forces, are qualified to serve the nation in various security-related sectors," he said.

"The Agniveer scheme is a historic initiative launched by PM Narendra Modi. This initiative has made our youth able and fearless so that they can face various challenges in life. That is why the Odisha government has decided to recruit Agniveers in the state's uniformed services," he added.
Agartala, Jul 25 (PTI) Tipra Motha supremo Pradyot Kishore Manikya Debbarma on Thursday said a delegation of Autonomous District Councils from the Northeast met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi and discussed regional issues.

"Met Hon'ble Home Minister Amit Shah, along with the leaders from the councils from the Northeast. He has assured us that within a month, issues relating to all the councils will be amicably addressed. A committee will be formed to solve issues relating to our people", he wrote on Facebook.

Debbarma said, "A few people doubted that after sharing power, I will be silent on the rights of our people. Today, I am glad that while some in my own state questioned me, the other indigenous people of Northeast have appreciated the effort I have put in to secure our constitutional rights".

Just ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, Tipra Motha, which fought last year's assembly election alone and emerged as the main opposition party in the northeastern state by winning 13 seats of the 60-member House, joined the Manik Saha-led cabinet.

"A very satisfying day with all the officials I have met at the Home Ministry. We will present our case and we will be well prepared for articulate our case. I feel good that I have your love and support! You have given me the strength to follow the path of truth", he said in another social media post on Wednesday.

Earlier, Debbarma hinted that he and party president Bijoy Kumar Hrangkhawl will represent Tipra Motha officially for talks with the Centre and the state government on the 'Tiprasa accord'.

The regional party had signed an agreement (Tiprasa accord) with the Centre and the state government in March 2024 to solve the problems facing the indigenous people.
Kolkata, Jul 26 (PTI) Following are the top stories from the Eastern Region at 5 pm.



CAL 16 WB-NITI AAYOG-LD MAMATA

Mamata to attend NITI Aayog meet to protest budget 'bias, conspiracy to divide states

Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee confirmed on Friday that she would participate in the central think-tank NITI Aayog meeting scheduled on July 27 in Delhi.



CAL 14 BH-RJD MLC EXPELLED

RJD MLC Sunil Kumar Singh expelled from Bihar Legislative Council

Patna: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Sunil Kumar Singh was expelled from the Bihar Legislative Council on Friday, following an incident of unruly behaviour in the House earlier this year.



CAL 12 WB-HC-MAMATA-GUV

HC says Mamata can make statements about Guv conforming to law

Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court on Friday directed that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee can make statements regarding state Governor CV Ananda Bose as long as they conform to the laws.



CAL 11 JH-LD ASSEMBLY

Jharkhand assembly adjourned after obituary references

Ranchi: The first day of the monsoon session of the Jharkhand Assembly was adjourned on Friday after obituary references were made to eminent personalities who died recently.



CAL 10 AS-HIMANTA

Rajnath Singh's positive response to defence corridor in Assam: Himanta

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday said Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has responded positively to the proposal of setting up the country's third defence corridor in the state.



CAL 9 AS-MOIDAM-LD HIMANTA

Assam CM thanks PM for Moidam inclusion in UNESCO World Heritage list

Guwahati: Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking the initiative to ensure that the 600-year-old mound-burial system of the Ahom dynasty - "Moidams" - is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Kolkata, Jul 25 (PTI) Students of Presidency University launched an indefinite sit-in on the varsity campus on Thursday, demanding that any decision to hike admission fees for freshers in the new academic year be revoked immediately.

Around 20 activists demonstrated inside the varsity's main campus in College Street, asking the authorities to meet them urgently to discuss their demands.

"We have been interacting with the recently formed fee review committee, for the past week without any result. We want the university authorities - officiating vice-chancellor, registrar and dean - to talk to us directly," a member of SFI, Presidency unit, Bitan Islam, told PTI.

The SFI is spearheading the movement.

A Presidency University official said a proposal of a fee hike is under consideration after around 10 years.

It has become imperative as the institution is facing a fund crunch, which has affected the procurement of new books for the library, instruments for laboratories and proper upkeep of the existing lab facilities, he said.

The hike will only be effective for freshers, the official added.

Bitan said the agitating students have suggested alternatives to generate funds for the state-run university without burdening the students.
Aizawl, Jul 26 (PTI) Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma will participate in the Niti Aayog meeting to be held in Delhi on July 27, a CMO official said on Friday.

The Niti Aayog's ninth governing council meeting will be held on Saturday in the national capital under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The official said that Lalduhoma left for New Delhi on Friday afternoon.

The chief minister is expected to present issues related to the state's financial needs in the meeting, he said.

The ruling Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) government headed by Lalduhoma is neither a member of the BJP-led NDA nor a member of the opposition INDIA bloc.
New Delhi, Jul 26 (PTI) Former chief justice of India KG Balakrishnan and ex-Supreme Court judge A K Patnaik on Friday paid tributes to late advocate Lilly Thomas, terming her a "pioneer" in the legal field.

The justices were speaking at the 4th Lily Thomas memorial lecture, organised by the Supreme Court Woman Lawyers' Association, along with the office of Lily Thomas and Saju Jakob.

Thomas was an activist lawyer, who in 2013, at the age of 85, won a landmark verdict (Lily Thomas Vs Union of India) from the Supreme Court that struck down a provision in the Representation of the People Act (1951).

While holding Section 8(4) of the RPA as unconstitutional, the top court held that a person who has been convicted of a criminal offence and sentenced to a minimum of two years in prison would be disqualified from contesting elections or holding public office from the date of conviction.

Thomas was one of the first women lawyers in the country and paved the way for a new generation of female lawyers.

She filed numerous public interest litigations advocating for women's rights. She died in 2019.
Dehradun, Jul 26 (PTI) Agniveers will be granted reservation in government jobs in Uttarakhand upon their return after serving in the armed forces, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced on Friday, as the nation observed the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas.

Addressing a programme here to pay tributes to the armed forces personnel who fought valiantly in extremely harsh conditions to defend the nation's territory during the Kargil war in 1999, Dhami said legislation will be brought to extend the reservation.

"We will make provisions and bring an Act to give reservation to them in government services. We are working on this plan. We will make use of their skills and discipline in various government departments," he said.

The chief minister also announced that the aid extended to the kin of martyrs will be increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh.

"No sacrifice can be bigger than the act of laying down one's life to secure the country's borders. No grant or honour can be enough for this supreme sacrifice," he added.

Paying tributes to the soldiers who laid down their lives in the war, Dhami said the victory of a country in a war also depends upon the ability of the political leadership.

Apart from the brave soldiers, the credit for India's victory in the Kargil war also goes to the political courage and farsighted leadership of the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, he said

"The same is true of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, under whose leadership the morale of the armed forces has gone up like never before," the prime minister said.

He cited instances like the implementation of the OROP to underline the prioritisation of welfare measures for the armed forces under Modi's prime ministership.

"Even today, he (Modi) is celebrating Vijay Diwas with our soldiers in the Dras sector," Dhami added.
New Delhi, Jul 26 (PTI) The Centre took several initiatives through the "whole of government" approach during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure effective management and availability of sufficient healthcare infrastructure to meet the increased demand, the Lok Sabha was told on Friday.

In a written reply, Union Minister of State for Health Anupriya Patel provided details of the key schemes launched and implemented by the ministry to deal with pandemics such as COVID-19 and ensure sufficient resources in public health facilities around the country during such outbreaks.

To strengthen the public health infrastructure and effectively manage and respond to any future pandemics and outbreaks, the Pradhan Mantri - Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission was launched in October 2021 with an outlay of Rs 64,180 crore, to be implemented over five years, to fill critical gaps in health infrastructure, surveillance and research.

The scheme is centrally sponsored with some central sector components, she said.

Measures under the scheme focus on developing capacities of health systems and institutions across the continuum of care at all levels in responding effectively to current and future pandemics/disasters.

Under the centrally-sponsored components, support is provided to states and Union Territories for construction of Ayushman Arogya Mandirs in rural and urban areas, establishment and strengthening of block public health units, integrated district public health laboratories in all districts and critical care hospital blocks.

Central sector components majorly support interventions focusing on enhancing capacities for surveillance and health emergency response, research, pandemic preparedness and One Health approach to prevent, detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks in animals and humans, Patel said.

The India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package (ECRP-I) for Rs 15,000 crore was approved by the Union Cabinet in April 2020 to prevent, detect and respond to the threat posed by the pandemic.

An additional Rs 8,473.73 crore was released to states and Union Territories, Patel said.

ECRP is a central sector scheme launched in 2020 for providing support to primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities.

It aims to build a resilient health system to support preparedness and prevention functions for the management of COVID-19 and future outbreaks, she added.

To provide support to central hospital agencies and to states and Union Territories to augment their existing response to the second wave and the evolving COVID-19 pandemic, the ECRP-II was approved by the Union Cabinet in July 2021 with a financial outlay of Rs 23,123 crore.

ECRP-II has central sector and centrally-sponsored schemes. Rs 12,740.22 crore was released to states and Union Territories under the centrally-sponsored scheme component, Patel stated.

The scheme aimed to accelerate health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management of COVID-19, with the focus on health infrastructure development.
Srinagar, Jul 26 (PTI) Opposition parties in Jammu and Kashmir will meet next month to discuss several issues concerning the Union Territory, including the delegation of more powers to the lieutenant governor, senior CPI(M) leader MY Tarigami said on Friday.

"Leaders of opposition parties are scheduled to meet on August 7," Tarigami said.

The meeting will discuss issues concerning Jammu and Kashmir, including the amendments to the Transaction of Business of the Government of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir Rules, 2019.

The amendments delegate more powers to the lieutenant governor on matters related to decisions on police, officers of all-India services such as the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS), and sanctioning prosecution in various cases.

All political parties, except the BJP, have criticised the amendments.

"All the leaders of opposition parties have been requested to attend the meeting," Tarigami said.
Ghaziabad (UP), Jul 26 (PTI) A 50-year-old dairy owner was shot dead and his son received a bullet wound in his hand at a railway crossing here allegedly by three men, police on Friday said.

The incident took place Thursday night in Sinkri Khurd village of Modinagar town.

The deceased was identified as Ram Kumar Jatav. His 25-year-old son is under treatment at a hospital.

According to police, the assailants waited for the father-son to come to the railway crossing and when they reached there on their bikes, they fired multiple gunshots at them.

Jatav received a gunshot to the head, while his son Saurabh got one in his hand. Jatav was declared dead at a hospital.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rural) Vivek Chand Yadav said police identified the assailants as Rahul, 30, Amit, 32, and Ashu, 34, at Saurabh's instance.

Police arrested the three late Thursday night in several raids.

The shootout was the consequence of a fight that took place on August 13, 2023 between the Jatavs and one of the assailants.

Ashu in a drunken state had urinated near Jatav's dairy, which offended Jatav and a fight broke out between the two and the matter was booked at a police station.

According to the DCP, Ashu and his family had been waiting to take revenge from Jatavs ever since.
Ahmedabad, Jul 26 (PTI) The Gujarat High Court on Friday directed a magistrate to conduct inquiry in the alleged fake encounter of a man and his 14-year-old son in Surendranagar district of the state in November 2021.

A division bench of chief justice Sunita Agarwal and Justice Pranav Trivedi also asked the magistrate not to reject the application, to be made by the deceased man's minor daughter Sohanaben Malek, on the ground of delay.

"The magistrate shall make an independent inquiry without being influenced by any of the previous inquiries conducted by magistrate or the DSP (district superintendent of police)," said the chief justice while disposing of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Sohanaben Malek.

The PIL sought registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against the policemen while claiming that local police were not recording a complaint.

Malek's father Hanifkhan and his 14-year-old son Madinkhan were killed in a fake encounter by personnel of the Bajana police station in Patdi taluka of Surendranagar in 2021, the PIL claimed.

Sub Inspector Virendrasinh Jadeja shot the father-son duo outside their house in a fake encounter, the petition alleged.

Police had claimed that Hanifkhan belonged to a gang of thieves, and was facing 86 cases.

Senior advocate Yatin Oza, appearing for Malek, told the court that police went to Hanifkhan's house in a private car purportedly to arrest him, but shot him and his son dead.

An FIR for attempt to murder was registered against the deceased, while Malek's complaint against the policemen was not taken, said advocate Oza.

"A magisterial inquiry was also conducted, but a previous bench was not satisfied with it and ordered a probe through a DSP-rank officer. However, the DSP also tried to cover up the accused policemen in his inquiry report," he contended.

The high court noted that "no one can refuse to lodge a report (FIR)".

The family could have approached a magistrate under section 156(3) of the Code of Criminal Procedure instead of directly approaching the High Court, the judges added. Under the provision, a magistrate can order police probe if he or she is satisfied that a complaint has some merit.

"Efforts to lodge an FIR about the fake encounter have not materialised. Without entering into the merits of the PIL, it has been disposed of with an observation that the petitioner is at liberty to approach the court of concerned magistrate by moving an application under section 156(3) of CrPC," said the chief justice.

"The magistrate shall make necessary inquiry and do the needful in accordance with law. Delay in approaching the court shall not be a reason to reject the complaint," the bench added.
Kolhapur,/Sangli, Jul 26 (PTI) More than 5800 people were relocated after the Panchganga river started flowing above the danger mark in western Maharashtra's Kolhapur district, an official said on Friday.The water level of Panchaganga river at Rajaram Wier was 46.4 feet at noon, well above the danger mark of 43 feet, he said.

Talking to PTI, Kolhapur collector Amol Yedge said the district administration has started relocating people from the affected areas of Sutarwada and Kumbharwada in the city.

The administration has relocated people from Chikhli and Ambewadi in Karveer tehsil and some villages in Hatkalangane, Shirol and Ichalkarangi tehsils, he said.

As per the details shared by the district administration, more than 5800 people (around 1379 families ) have been relocated to safety from Karveer, Panhala, Hatkalangane, Bhudargad, Gadhinglaj, Chandgad, Ichalkaranji, Kolhapur city, Shahuwadi and Kagal.

"Though the India Meteorological Department has issued an orange alert for the district, the rains have stopped in the city," Yedge said.According to the district administration, six gates of the Radhanagari dam were opened, and the discharge was at 10068 cusecs.

At least 11 state highways and 37 main roads in the district were shut for vehicular traffic due to inundation, and 96 barrages were submerged, officials said.

In Sangli, the water level of Krishna River has also increased, prompting the prison administration to relocate 80 inmates of the jail there to Kolhapur as a preventive measure, an official said.

"The Koyna dam has reached 77 per cent capacity, and the discharge was at 30,000 cusecs. Currently, the water level of Krishna River at Irwin bridge is 37.5 feet, and as the water is being released from Koyna, it is likely to go above 40 feet. We urge people to remain cautious and alert and follow instructions from the district administration," he said.

"The Warna dam has reached 89 per cent of its capacity, and the discharge was at 15000 cusecs. People living along Warna River have been asked to cooperate with the administration. We have asked for additional teams of the NDRF, and if required, we will take the help of the Army," the official said.
Bengaluru, Jul 26 (PTI) Tension prevailed at the Bengaluru City Railway Station when a consignment of meat weighing about three tonnes loaded in about 150 cartons reached here from Jaipur in a train on Friday night, railway sources said.

Puneeth Kerehalli, a cow vigilante, earlier jailed on murder charge, claimed it was dog meat. However, meat dealer Abdul Razzaq, who had ordered the meat, dismissed the charge.

The consignment was ordered legally and it is not dog meat but sheep meat, he said.

"We have legal documents to prove it. One can see the tail of the animal that was slaughtered. It's sheep and not dog," the meat trader said.

He alleged that Kerehalli wanted to make money by levelling false accusation.

Due to the commotion, a large number of people gathered there, and seeing the situation, police have been deployed.
Speaking to a crowd on Wednesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, Donald Trump spoke out against Jewish Americans who vote for the Democratic Party and blasted Vice President Kamala Harris for skipping Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahus address to Congress.

Now what shes doing is shes running away from Israel. Bibi Netanyahu is in Washington, and she refuses to be there, Trump said. Even if youre against Israel, or youre against Jewish people, show up and listen to the concept.

But shes totally against the Jewish people, and it amazes me how Jewish people will vote for the Democrats when theyre being treated so disrespectfully and badly. It amazes me. Its shocking, Trump added.

This isnt the first time that Trump has ripped into Jews who vote for Democrats. In April, he asserted that any Jewish person who votes for Joe Biden does not love Israel and should be spoken to.

He made similar comments in March, as well.

The Democrat Party hates Israelthey also see a lot of votes, he said on Sebastian Gorkas radio show. Dont forget, when you see those Palestinian marches, even I am amazed at how many people are in those marches. And guys like Schumer see that and to him its votes. I think its votes more than anything else because he was always pro-Israel. Hes very anti-Israel now.

Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves, Trump declared.

And last September, in a Rosh Hashana greeting, Trump slammed liberal Jews. Just a quick reminder for liberal Jews who voted to destroy America & Israel because you believed in false narratives! Lets hope you learned from your mistake & make better choices moving forward! Happy New Year!

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
The IDF has announced plans to implement stricter measures to prevent unapproved donations from reaching soldiers, citing concerns over transparency, control, and safety. According to Major Tamir Yadai, commander of the Ground Forces, The findings are very alarming and disturbing. There is no transparency, there is no control, no record of what exists and what does not. Some things are being done that border on criminal or endanger the forces.

Despite repeated assurances from the IDF that there is sufficient equipment for all soldiers, frontline troops continue to report shortages and dangers posed by outdated and damaged gear. Israeli journalist Yinon Magal shared a photo of a soldier saying, Everything I am wearing, head to toe, was donated, with the exception of my rifle.

Still, the IDF has begun issuing warnings to soldiers and units, threatening disciplinary measures, including court-martial, for accepting donated equipment.

The use of non-standard equipment, which has been assimilated into units outside the standard channels for assimilating equipment  may create a significant risk of ineffectiveness and/or safety hazard Donated equipment that does not meet the IDF standard will be prohibited from use, the IDF Spokespersons Office said.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
The Knesset has passed a bill that rolls back consumer protections to allow cellphone carriers to continue offering restricted (aka kosher) plans to Chareidim.

The bill, which passed 60-53, amends the Communications Law to give legal grounds for carriers to lock in subscriptions for Chareidim, which have identifiable digits designating them as part of these rabbanim-approved plans.

Supporters of the bill argue that it would afford hundreds of thousands of consumers guarantees of the integrity of the kosher phone service theyre buying. However, opponents claim that it cements control over consumers by rabbis and by carriers guided by financial interests.

The bills passage was met with controversy, with Elazar Stern, a religious lawmaker from the Yesh Atid party, accusing the bills sponsors of committing a Chillul Hashem by passing it.

The bills passage comes a year and a half after Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi rolled back previous reforms aimed at integrating Chareidi consumers into the broader cellphone market, which were met with opposition from Chareidi lawmakers and led to riots.

(YWN World Headquarters  NYC)
Photo: Press Service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has sent a congratulatory letter to the President of the Republic of Maldives Mohamed Muizzu on the occasion of the National Holiday - Independence Day of Maldives, Trend reports.

"Dear Mr. President,

On behalf of myself and the people of Azerbaijan, I extend my sincerest congratulations to you and all your people on the occasion of the national holiday of the Republic of Maldives  Independence Day.

On this joyous day, I wish you good health, happiness, success in your endeavors, and the friendly people of the Maldives everlasting peace and prosperity," the letter reads.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. The Western Azerbaijani community condemns the actions of the Armenian Diaspora and its mercenary Luis Ocampo and urges the international community to struggle against such nefarious elements, Trend reports.

The Armenian Diaspora, using its mercenary Ocampo as a shield, has unleashed another slander campaign against Azerbaijan. The target of the campaign is Azerbaijan's hosting of the upcoming 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29).

The statement also notes that in the interview Luis Ocampo gave as the author of the mentioned campaign, he labeled himself a climate activist, slandered Azerbaijan, and demanded the release of separatists accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

The fact that Luis Ocampo, on the one hand, uses slander against Azerbaijan regarding the genocide and, on the other hand, demands the freeing of the perpetrators of the genocide, demonstrates the ridiculousness of the situation in which he finds himself. Instead of demanding the freeing of these criminals, Ocampo should make efforts to find out the destiny of 4,000 Azerbaijanis missing as a result of Armenia's military aggression. It should be recalled that there is irrefutable public evidence that Azerbaijani hostages were used as slaves in the homes of high-ranking officers of Armenia's top military leadership at the time and that captured Azerbaijanis were executed in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and camps in Armenia.

Ocampo, who attempts to present himself as a climate activist, should address issues such as the irreparable environmental damage caused by Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijani territories and the laying of millions of landmines, the destruction of territories in Armenia formerly inhabited by Azerbaijanis, and the damage to air and water bodies caused by that country's mining industry.

The Western Azerbaijan Community condemns the actions of the Armenian Diaspora and its mercenary Ocampo and urges the international community to struggle against such nefarious elements, the statement of the community reads.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov met today with Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Federal Republic of Somalia, who is on an official visit to Azerbaijan, Trend reports, referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

According to the information, the one-to-one meeting of the ministers was continued in an enlarged format with the participation of delegations from both sides.

The meeting discussed the prospects for the development of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between the two countries, further steps in this direction, as well as the current regional situation.

Jeyhun Bayramov noted that in the 20 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Somalia, the increase in contacts, especially in recent years, between the two countries has played a positive role in discussing the prospects of cooperation. Following the agreement signed between Azerbaijan and Somalia on political consultations, the importance of using such mechanisms in expanding cooperation was emphasized.

Furthermore, it was noted that there is potential for the development of cooperation in several directions, including agriculture, fisheries, the oil and gas industry, green energy, humanitarian and educational spheres, the importance of mutual contacts, and the exchange of experience in this direction.

Additionally, it was mentioned that cooperation based on mutual respect, support, and solidarity within the framework of international and regional organizations, especially the UN, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Non-Aligned Movement, is gratifying. It was stated that during Somalia's non-permanent membership in the UN Security Council in 2025-2026, international efforts to maintain peace and security will be supported by Azerbaijan. It was also noted that Somalia can benefit from the educational scholarship programs of Azerbaijan within the framework of the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Moreover, it was emphasized that Azerbaijan is ready to cooperate with Somalia this year within the framework of its chairmanship of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29).

Emphasizing that our chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement contributes to strengthening Azerbaijan's ties with African countries, Jeyhun Bayramov stated that the development of cooperation is one of our priorities, and Azerbaijan intends to expand relations with the African Union Commission in this direction.

Bayramov also briefed the other side on the latest developments in the region in the post-conflict period, as well as the reconstruction works carried out in the territories liberated from occupation and the challenges facing the peace process. Somalia's constant support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan was noted with gratitude.

In the course of the meeting, the sides also exchanged views on other issues of mutual interest.

The ministers then addressed a press conference on the results of the meeting, the information from the ministry reads.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Arguments over legal procedure take center stage during the critical fight over Jackson County property tax assessments and allegedly illicit methods used by the courthouse.

Here's the latest . . .



"Judge Karen Krauser ordered Bailey to sit for a deposition after it was discovered he and a deputy met with a member of the Jackson County Legislature without the knowledge of the countys attorneys.



"Bailey filed a lawsuit in December over Jackson Countys property assessment process, and the Jackson County Legislature is a named defendant.



"The meetings appear to have violated the rules of professional conduct set out by the Missouri Supreme Court, which prohibit attorneys from meeting with individuals involved in a lawsuit without the consent of their lawyer. Krauser ordered Bailey to answer questions under oath about the meetings from Jackson Countys attorneys."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .
There's a great deal of local crime reporting info to share even amid lower homicide stats so far this year.



Right now we check EXCEPTIONAL local reporting on the ongoing fight against crime along with ALLEGATIONS, police action and even more efforts at outreach.





Check TKC news gathering . . .

KCPD, community groups walk deadliest streets in hopes of sparking change Officers and community partners walked the deadliest streets to try and curb recent violence.

Man accused of shooting, killing woman Tuesday night in KCMO before triggering standoff with police Jackson County prosecutors charged is accused of shooting and killing woman Tuesday night in Kansas City, Missouri.

Kansas City, Kansas man receives 40-year sentence for 2020 fatal shooting A Jackson County judge sentenced a Kansas City, Kansas man to 40 years in prison for a fatal shooting in Kansas City.

Court documents reveal accused murderer, rapist Timothy Haslett Jr. confessed to having additional victims Court documents unsealed Tuesday revealed details investigators learned of during the ongoing criminal case of Timothy Haslett Jr.

Olathe man sentenced for child rape An Olathe man has been sentenced for the rape of a child under 14.

Jury finds Johnson County man guilty of second-degree murder in crash with motorcyclist A Johnson County jury found 38-year-old Ruben Rodriguez guilty of reckless second-degree murder in the death of Dade Smith in 2021 crash.

Information still pursued 1 year after Liberty business owner's hit-and-run death Nearly a year after a Liberty, Missouri, business owner was hit and killed outside his truck, investigators continue to seek information about his killer.

City of Olathe takes action to cut down on fatal accidents The city of Olathe hopes to reduce and eliminate traffic fatalities and severe injuries for all road users through a new safety action plan.

Is Johnson County tough enough on fentanyl? Opponent says Howe should charge more cases Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe faces Republican primary challenger David Greenwald, a prosecutor in Douglas County, who says more needs to be done on the fentanyl crisis.

Kansas City, Missouri, police ask for the public's help to find a missing man Kansas City, Missouri, police want the public's help to find a missing man last seen two weeks ago in the city's Northeast area.

Organizers call for action within the community to stop violent trend Local organizations believe you are the key to helping make sure you're safe walking on one of Kansas City's busiest roads as, yet another person is murdered near Prospect Avenue.

Kansas City, Kansas, police start new initiative to work with area pastors Faith leaders are teaming up with police officers in Kansas City, Kansas to address gun violence in their area.

KC organization hosts vigil to highlight hundreds of unsolved homicides Corey's Network, a nonprofit in Kansas City is shining a light on the city's unsolved homicides with vigils, both virtual and in-person, set to take place this weekend.

Developing . . .
Not every political story merits a feature post on this blog ore even much attention beyond typical online spin.

Still . . . We'd be remiss if didn't at least mention and snark these recent stories from Missouri & Kansas.



Check TKC news gathering . . .

Talking Points Repeated Locally



Democrat voters in Kansas City area throw their support behind Kamala Harris Democratic voters in the Kansas City area are supporting Kamala Harris as the party's replacement for Joe Biden as presidential candidate.

Show-Me Fight For MAGA



Blind Loyalty: Why Missouri AG Andrew Bailey's obsession with fighting Trump's NY conviction is stupider than you think Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks in January 2023 to the Missouri chapter of the Federalist Society in the Missouri House chamber. (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent) Donald Trump is a lurking specter, haunting the Missouri Attorney General primary race. The incumbent, Andrew Bailey, is buying into all of this to prove his "MAGA chops" against his rival: an attorney who currently works...

MO Money Moves



Jay Ashcroft pitches biggest reorganization of Missouri's finances in state history * Missouri Independent Jay Ashcroft has the most recognizable name in Missouri's Republican primary for governor and it propelled him to an early polling lead.

Rock Chalk Progressive Talk



Kansas Democrats Matt Kleinmann, Nancy Boyda joust on gun violence, immigration, LGBTQ+ issues * Kansas Reflector Kansas 2nd District Democratic congressional candidates Matt Kleinmann and Nancy Boyda engage in back-and-forth on key issues during WIBW-TV forum.

Progressively Flipping Kansas?!?



The Kansas primary election races that could shift political balance in the Statehouse These state legislative races have no general election opponent. So voters will effectively decide whether to elect more moderate or more partisan legislators in the Aug. 6 primary.

Jackson County Testimony Argued



Judge hears arguments over whether Missouri AG Andrew Bailey should be questioned under oath * Missouri Independent Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey's office urged a judge to not let Jackson County lawyers take Bailey's deposition.

Show-Me Local Pitch



Missouri gubernatorial candidate Mike Kehoe makes pitch to Northland residents Missouri gubernatorial candidate Mike Kehoe, the state's current lieutenant governor, made a stop in the Northland on Wednesday.

Jump Paywall For Voter Info



How to vote early for primary election in the KC area: Locations, hours, ID requirements When does early voting start? Kansas City-area information on absentee ballots, polling locations, sample ballots and ID requirements.

Developing . . .
Right now we offer tribute to author, model, Brit and all-around hottie Katie as we check

Check TKC news gathering . . .

Score One For New Guy

Louis Rees-Zammit runs length of the field to score as crowd roar The Welshman is making waves across the pond as pre-season goes to a new level

Snail Mail Frustration Redux

'It's very annoying': Postal Service continues to frustrate Kansas City residents KSHB 41 talked to people frustrated with the performance of the United States Postal Service after the recent audit of operations in the Kansas City area.

Old School Couple Rescued

Three-story home catches fire in Kansas City, KCFD investigating The fire took place near East 55th Street and Holmes just before 1 a.m. Thursday morning in Kansas City, Missouri, according to KCFD.

JoCo War Effort Remembered

Remembering the lives and history lost after Merriam's bomber crash of 1944 The Merriam Town Center was once a neighborhood filled with homes. Until a bomber plane crashed into the neighborhood, tearing apart the homes and taking the lives of three crew members.

Midtown Endurance Tested

Moved to new home, Westport covered wagon discovered to be older than anyone imagined No one knew this artifact's true age until it was hauled away from its longtime perch in Westport. "I'm not sure anyone would have noticed it before."

Insta-Discount For Brit Celeb

Katie Price is flogging shower video on OnlyFans for 53 as she tries to drum up money after being declared bankrupt for second time Katie Price is charging her OnlyFans followers 53 for a completely naked video of herself in the shower - one of her most expensive clips yet.

Prez Proof Of Life Disputed

Biden is back at the White House performing his duties, not in hospice | Fact check President Joe Biden continues to perform presidential duties following a bout with COVID-19, according to his White House physician.

Republicans

Rage MAGA Miracle Doubt



Republicans rip FBI director's testimony that Trump might not have been hit by a bullet House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed back against FBI Director Christopher Wray's testimony to Congress that Donald Trump may not have been hit directly with a bullet during the attempt on his life at a rally in Pennsylvania.

Veepstakes Front Fights For It

Beshear becomes Harris's top attack dog against Vance Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) has become the top attack dog for Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, against GOP vice-presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), rip...

Assassin Tech Deets

Trump gunman Thomas Crooks likely had a Gab account that he used to 'support' President Biden, site's CEO says "While the account made very few posts on the site, the majority of them were in support of President Biden," Gab CEO Andrew Torba said Wednesday.

Progressive Turnabout

6 House Dems vote with GOP to condemn Kamala Harris for 'border czar' role The House of Representatives voted to condemn Vice President Kamala Harris' role as the Biden administration's "border czar."

Tech Fight Escalates

How drones and the battle for Ukraine is changing the future of warfare Drone technology has made the war more immediate and more deadly - and opened up a new battleground.

Gaza Demonstrations Growing

Pro-Palestinian protests inflame tensions in Washington over the Israel-Hamas war The pro-Palestinian protests that erupted in Washington, D.C., during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to a joint session of Congress drew condemnation on Thursday from political leaders.

Exploring Politics Of Soda



J. D. Vance Has a Point About Mountain Dew The soft drink has long been associated with the joy and despair of white America.

Celebs Dispute Pity

Jennifer Aniston slams JD Vance's childless-cat-ladies slur "I truly can't believe that this is coming from a potential VP of the United States," the actress says.

Crackdown Against Smut

How the American war on porn could change the way you use the internet Papers please: for millions of Americans, accessing online pornography now requires a government ID. It could have global implications for the future of the web.

Contest On The Kaw

The world's longest River race - MR340 - starts right here - Kansas City Magazine More than 700 paddlers are participating in the MR340, world's longest non-stop river race. The 340 mile race starts in KC at Kaw Point

Local Hipster Mentorship Emerges

Celebrate AMERI'KANA festival is a victory lap for emerging artists in Kansas City This festival brings together local, national and international musicians for an afternoon in the Historic Northeast. It's also a graduation for young artists in the Art As Mentorship program, which is creating space for underrepresented musicians.

Golden Ghetto Burnout

Family away during early morning Overland Park house fire Shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday, July 24 crews from Overland Park and Leawood Fire Departments were called to a house fire at 180th and Canterbury Road in south Overland Park.

Monster Foodie Debut

Another new and unique food item comes to Kauffman Stadium this season The new Italian beef sandwich is called 'The Pasqwich' and is a mashup of Vinnie Pasquantino and a sasquatch.

Scorching Summer Cont'd

Typical summer heat and humidity today through Sunday Slim chance of a shower or thunderstorm on Saturday and Sunday

"I Wanna Be Down" is the debut single of American recording artist Brandy from her 1994 self-titled debut album. The track serves as our #TBT song of the day and this is the OPEN THREAD for right now.
Amid a great deal of speculation, rumors and outright misinformation . . . One of Missouri's most controversial leaders attempts to share more info with the public.

Downplayed by KC progressive media . . . Here are the basics of his goal . . .



Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the "Trump Assassination Attempt Transparency Act" on Thursday, just a day after FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the Trump rally shooting and investigation into gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks.



"We need the truth about the assassination attempt against President Trump," Hawley told Fox News Digital in a statement. "We can't let the federal government hide behind the classified label."

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Hawley introduces 'Trump Assassination Attempt Transparency Act' to declassify key information Sen. Josh Hawley plans to introduce the "Trump Assassination Attempt Transparency Act" to declassify all critical information surrounding the incident.

Lots of people need to lose their jobs after Trump rally shooting: Sen. Josh Hawley | Fox News Video Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., reacts to FBI Director Christopher Wray's testimony on the investigation into the assassination attempt on former President Trump on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

'Secret Service said no': Whistleblower highlights decision made night before Trump shot A whistleblower says the Secret Service denied offers for drone surveillance at the Pennsylvania rally where former President Donald Trump was nearly assassinated, according to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO.) Law enforcement officials' offers of drone security were repeatedly turned down the night befo...

Kunce and May compete in low-key U.S. Senate Democratic primary to take on Hawley Kunce and May have similar views on major policy issues like support of abortion rights.

Developing . . .
As always . . .

Kansas City primary season is always testy amongst progressives.

Here's what we like . . .

Local politicos put on a nice face and calm voice for KCUR but our www.TonysKansasCity.com delivers far more interesting drama in a battle for one of the few spots controlled by Missouri Democrats.

Accordingly . . . Here's the word . . .



State Rep. Patty Lewis denounces misleading attempts to distort her record

Today, State Representative Patty Lewis (D-25) denounced Pat Contreras for making misleading attacks on her record.



Im disappointed that my opponent is following the Republican playbook of distorting a Democrats record instead of focusing on improving our economy, strengthening our education system, or restoring reproductive rights, said State Rep. Lewis. As a state representative, Ive been proud to stand up for Kansas City, and Ill continue that track record in the State Senate.



Patty Lewis has been one of Kansas Citys strongest champions in the State House over the last four years. To suggest otherwise is laughable, said State Rep. Emily Weber. Now more than ever, Democrats need to be united in the face of right-wing extremism. Its just unacceptable that Pat Contreras would reuse misleading Republican talking points for his own political gain.



Contreras attacks against State Rep. Lewis come as her campaign continues to gain momentum at a critical point in the race. To date, Lewis has garnered support from a wide range of people and organizations including the Kansas City Star, Sen. Tracy McCreery (D-24), State Reps. Emily Weber (D-24), Ashley Bland Manlove (D-26), and Anthony Ealy Jr. (D-36), City Councilmen Wes Rogers and Jonathan Duncan, Missouri Nurses Association, Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, Southland Progress, South KC Dems, Greater Kansas City Womens Political Caucus, AFT Local 691, MNEA, Teamsters Locals 41 and 541, IAFF Local 42, Laborers Locals 264 and 663, IBEW Local 124, and the Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO. Lewis has represented Missouris 25th House District for four years, and is currently running to fill the vacancy in the 7th Senate District created by a gubernatorial appointment.

####################



Developing . . .


BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. The prospects of further development of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Somalia have been discussed today, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said, Trend reports.

He made the statement at a joint press conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Federal Republic of Somalia Ahmed Moalim Fiqi.

The visit is a vivid example of friendship and cooperation between our countries. This year has a special significance for our relations. We celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Somalia in 2024, and I would like to emphasize the significant strengthening of cooperation in recent years.

We utilize the opportunities of international forums and bilateral meetings for negotiations. Meetings with representatives of Somalia have been held several times. In July 2023, we signed an agreement on political consultations between our countries, which is an important step, he said.
In the ambitious tale of India's infrastructural evolution, Dholera International Airport stands as a beacon of progress, promising to redefine air travel in the nation.



(TRAVPR.COM) INDIA - July 25th, 2024 - In the ambitious tale of India's infrastructural evolution, Dholera International Airport stands as a beacon of progress, promising to redefine air travel in the nation. Situated in the vibrant state of Gujarat, Dholera is more than just an airport; it represents a bold vision for the future of aviation and urban development.

A Gateway to Global Connectivity

Dholera International Airport is poised to become one of India's premier aviation hubs, strategically located near the dynamic Dholera Special Investment Region (DSIR). As the largest Greenfield city under the ambitious Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) project, Dholera is envisioned as a future-ready metropolis, designed to accommodate millions of residents and businesses.

The airport's prime location, approximately 80 kilometers from Ahmedabad and 20 kilometers from Dholera City, positions it as a pivotal link between Gujarat's economic centers and the global stage. With a proposed annual handling capacity of 50 million passengers, Dholera International Airport aims to cater not only to domestic travelers but also to international passengers, fostering trade, tourism, and investment opportunities.

Fostering Economic Growth

The development of Dholera International Airport is integral to Gujarat's broader economic agenda, aligning with the state government's efforts to promote industrialization and sustainable urbanization. The airport's proximity to the Dedicated Freight Corridor (DFC) and major highways ensures seamless connectivity for the movement of goods, further bolstering Gujarat's position as a logistics and manufacturing hub.

Moreover, Dholera Airport serves as a catalyst for job creation and economic diversification, attracting investments across various sectors, including aerospace, hospitality, and IT. The airport's integrated approach to development includes plans for commercial precincts, industrial parks, and logistical facilities, fostering a conducive ecosystem for businesses to thrive.

Sustainable Infrastructure for the Future

In line with India's commitment to sustainable development, Dholera International Airport is designed with a strong emphasis on environmental conservation and energy efficiency. The airport's master plan incorporates green building practices, renewable energy sources, and water conservation measures to minimize its ecological footprint.

Furthermore, Dholera's status as a Greenfield project allows for innovative urban planning strategies, such as smart infrastructure, eco-friendly transportation systems, and green spaces. By prioritizing sustainability, Dholera International Airport sets a precedent for future infrastructure projects in India, demonstrating the feasibility of balancing economic growth with environmental stewardship.

Enhancing Connectivity and Accessibility

As a critical node in India's transportation network, Dholera International Airport aims to enhance connectivity and accessibility for travelers across the country and beyond. The airport's modern facilities, state-of-the-art technology, and efficient operations ensure a seamless travel experience, meeting the evolving needs of passengers in the digital age.

Moreover, Dholera Airport's strategic location within the DMIC corridor facilitates multimodal connectivity, with plans for integrated transportation systems, including high-speed rail links and expressways. This integrated approach not only improves access to the airport but also promotes regional connectivity, fostering inclusive growth and development.

A Symbol of India's Aspirations

In essence, Dholera International Airport transcends its role as a mere transportation hub; it embodies India's aspirations for a brighter, more prosperous future. As the nation strides confidently into the 21st century, Dholera stands as a testament to India's resilience, innovation, and determination to embrace the opportunities of globalization.

With its bold vision, sustainable practices, and strategic location, Dholera International Airport is poised to leave an indelible mark on India's aviation landscape, catalyzing economic growth, fostering connectivity, and shaping the urban fabric of tomorrow. As India's gateway to the future, Dholera beckons travelers and investors alike to embark on a journey of endless possibilities.

Challenges and Opportunities Ahead

While the vision for Dholera International Airport is undoubtedly ambitious and promising, it is not without its challenges. The successful realization of this mega-project requires concerted efforts from various stakeholders, including government agencies, private investors, and local communities.

One of the key challenges facing Dholera Airport is the need for robust infrastructure development to support its operations. This includes the expansion of road and rail networks, the provision of utilities such as water and electricity, and the establishment of ancillary services such as hotels, restaurants, and retail outlets.

Furthermore, ensuring seamless coordination between different agencies and departments is crucial to avoid delays and bottlenecks in the project implementation process. Effective governance structures, transparent decision-making processes, and proactive stakeholder engagement are essential to overcome bureaucratic hurdles and streamline project execution.

However, amidst these challenges lie tremendous opportunities for innovation, collaboration, and socioeconomic development. Dholera International Airport has the potential to become a model for integrated urban planning, leveraging cutting-edge technology and sustainable practices to create a vibrant, inclusive, and resilient city of the future.

Harnessing the Power of Innovation

Innovation will play a central role in shaping the future trajectory of Dholera International Airport. From smart infrastructure and digital solutions to green technologies and renewable energy sources, embracing innovation is essential to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize environmental impact.

For instance, the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies can optimize airport operations, improve passenger experience, and enhance security measures. Similarly, incorporating renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power can reduce carbon emissions and lower operating costs in the long run.

Moreover, Dholera Airport can serve as a testbed for emerging technologies and pilot projects, fostering a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the region. Collaborations with academic institutions, research organizations, and technology startups can further catalyze innovation and drive economic growth.

Community Engagement and Social Inclusion

Central to the success of Dholera International Airport is the active involvement and participation of local communities. As the airport transforms the socioeconomic landscape of the region, it is imperative to ensure that the benefits of development are equitably distributed and inclusive of all stakeholders.

Community engagement initiatives, such as public consultations, outreach programs, and skill development initiatives, can empower local residents and enhance their capacity to participate in the economic opportunities generated by the airport. Moreover, fostering a sense of ownership and pride among communities can create a conducive environment for sustainable development and social cohesion.

Furthermore, Dholera Airport can leverage its role as a catalyst for social change to promote gender equality, empower marginalized groups, and support vulnerable populations. By prioritizing social inclusion and community development, Dholera can become not only a symbol of economic progress but also a beacon of social justice and equity.

In conclusion, Dholera International Airport represents a bold vision for India's future, embodying the nation's aspirations for economic growth, technological innovation, and sustainable development. By overcoming challenges, embracing opportunities, and fostering collaboration, Dholera has the potential to redefine the aviation landscape and inspire generations to come. As India's gateway to the future, Dholera beckons us to dream big, aim high, and soar beyond the horizon.

###
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Azerbaijan attaches special importance to interaction with Somalia on international platforms, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said, Trend reports.

He made the remark at a joint press conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Federal Republic of Somalia Ahmed Moalim Fiqi.

Bayramov noted that Azerbaijan and Somalia are actively exchanging views on opportunities and paths to expand cooperation in various spheres.

We attach special importance to interaction with Somalia on international platforms. In particular, I would like to point out cooperation within the UN and its various institutions, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, as well as in the context of Azerbaijan's four-year chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement, Bayramov stressed.
The Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security pursues efforts to provide a brief explanation to foreign audiences on the current topics of particular interest as regards Ukraine.

1. NPP SAFETY

As of July 26-28, 2024

Rumours are circulating in the media about an accident at the South Ukrainian NPP

All NPPs on the controlled territory of Ukraine are operating normally, and any reports of an accident are untrue.

Last week's temporary failure of associated electrical equipment in the South NPP area occurred as a result of abnormal weather conditions and did not affect the regular operation of the power unit.

The fake about the accident at the Southern Ukrainian NPP is spread by Russian propaganda to intimidate the population of Ukraine and divert attention from the real accident at the Rostov NPP.

We call on politicians and journalists not to speculate and not to spread outright manipulations about the situation in nuclear energy, thus contributing to hostile propaganda.

2. SHAHEDS IN ROMANIA

Officials in Bucharest confirmed the fact that a Russian kamikaze drone fell on Romanian territory during the attack on the port of Izmail.

Russia is waging a terrorist campaign, attacking Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and civilians with attack drones, missiles, and cruise bombs.

This is not the first time that neighbouring countries have suffered from Russian attacks on the territory of Ukraine: Romania, Moldova, Poland, and even Belarus, allied to the Russian Federation.

Russia is not afraid of deliberately endangering NATO countries because it has never received an adequate response to a violation of their airspace.

It is not important whether Moscow had a conscious intention to harm Romania. The official reaction of Bucharest and NATO to this incident is important. Impunity encourages audacity.

Ukraine calls on neighbouring countries to jointly fight against Russian air attacks in the border regions. The effectiveness of such cooperation proved the repulsion of Israel and its allies against a massive Iranian attack in April.

3. SHAME OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY

Russia celebrates Navy Day on July 28.

The Russian fleet in Crimea was the pillar and instrument of treacherous aggression against Ukraine in 2014.

The desire to keep the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol is one of the justifications of Kremlin propaganda for Russian aggression against Ukraine.

The hopes that Moscow placed on its fleet in 2022, planning a full-scale invasion, did not come true. The landing operations in Odesa and Mykolaiv remained unfulfilled dreams of Putin's strategists.

All that the Russian sailors made famous for in this war was launching Kalibr missiles on Ukrainian children.

In the Black and Azov Seas, the Ukrainian Defence Forces sank and damaged about a third of the enemy fleet: the flagship Moskva, a submarine, most of the large amphibious ships, carriers of Kalibr missiles, and much more. The building of the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol was destroyed.

Not having its own significant naval group on the Black Sea, Ukraine was able to defeat the enemy fleet and drive it to the Caucasus. Recently, the last of the enemy's significant warships escaped from occupied Sevastopol.

Center for Strategic Communication and Information Security
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Negotiations on normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan continue, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said, Trend reports.

He made the remark at a joint press conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Federal Republic of Somalia Ahmed Moalim Fiqi.

According to Bayramov, Somalia has always supported Azerbaijan's equitable position.

This was manifested both during the 44-day war and after it. I would like to express my gratitude to my colleague for such support. I informed my counterpart about the situation in the post-conflict period. I told him about the liberated territories, reconstruction and construction works, as well as mine threats. I also informed him about the ongoing negotiations on normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the minister said.
The European Union today announced the first payment of EUR 1.5 billion for military support to Ukraine generated from immobilized Russian assets.

That's according to a press release posted on the website of the European Commission, Ukrinform reports.

"Today, the EU makes available in support of Ukraine the first payment of EUR 1.5 billion generated from immobilized Russian assets. These extraordinary revenues generated by EU operators and held by central securities depositories (CSDs) from immobilized Russian sovereign assets were made available by Euroclear to the Commission as a first installment on 23 July. The money will now be channeled through the European Peace Facility and to the Ukraine Facility to support Ukraine's military capabilities as well as to support the country's reconstruction," the press release reads.

According to the European Commission, the immobilization of the Russian Central Bank's assets is a result of EU sanctions against Russia, adopted in the wake of its war of aggression against Ukraine. The extraordinary revenues generated in this context by the EU operators do not belong to Russia and are held by CSDs. The EU has now started to channel these revenues to Ukraine.

"The EU stands with Ukraine. Today we transfer EUR 1.5 billion in proceeds from immobilized Russian assets to the defense and reconstruction of Ukraine. There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlin's money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said.

High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell added: "The first tranche of the windfall profits will provide concrete support on the ground. Notably, with EUR 1.4 billion allocated to the European Peace Facility, we are set to finance the acquisition of priority military equipment, namely air defense, ammunition for artillery  and also through procurement for the Ukrainian defense industry. We are not only providing military support to Ukraine but also made in Ukraine, contributing to Ukraines resilience in combating Russias war of aggression."

In response to Russia's brutal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, the European Union and its Member States adopted several packages of restrictive measures (sanctions) against Russia.

As part of these sanctions, the assets of the Central Bank of Russia held in the EU were immobilized. The prohibition on transactions related to the assets and reserves of the Central Bank of Russia and its affiliated entities leads to extraordinary and unusual accumulation of cash and deposits on the balance sheets of CSDs from maturing financial instruments and generates extraordinary revenue.

Following proposals by the Commission and the High Representative, in February 2024, the Council decided that central securities depositories holding more than EUR 1 million worth of assets and reserves of the Central Bank of Russia that were immobilized as a result of EU sanctions must set aside extraordinary cash balances accumulating due to EU sanctions and may not dispose of the ensuing net revenues generated by the EU operators.

Following the proposals by the Commission and the High Representative in March, on 21 May 2024 the Council adopted a set of legal acts enabling the use of these net profits for the benefit of Ukraine.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Azerbaijan is ready to provide humanitarian support to Somalia, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said at a joint press conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Federal Republic of Somalia Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, Trend reports.

Azerbaijan is ready to provide humanitarian aid to Somalia. We have an educational program for OIC countries, and already several young people from Somalia have benefited from it. This cooperation will continue in the future. Several events are planned to be held in Azerbaijan this year, the largest of which is COP29. We will be happy to see a delegation from Somalia at this conference, the minister noted.
Geneva, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) Dozens of countries have finalised years of negotiations towards a "groundbreaking" agreement drawing up global digital trade rules, Britain said Friday.

Protections for online consumers, digitalisation of customs procedures and recognition of electronic signatures figure among the measures laid out in the text aimed at promoting and facilitating digital transactions.

Once in place, the deal "will make trade faster, cheaper, fairer and more secure", Britain said in a statement.

Digital commerce is growing far faster than its traditional counterpart.

The OECD group of economically developed nations says it estimated that in 2020, e-commerce already made up a quarter of global trade, making it worth just under $5 trillion.

Despite its growing importance, "no common set of global rules exist", British Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in the statement

Finalising the negotiations "is a huge step forward in correcting that and ensuring British businesses feel the benefit", he said.

The talks were launched in 2019, with the negotiating countries representing 90 percent of the WTO membership, including heavy-hitters like the United States, the European Union and China.
(@FahadShabbir)

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will announce Monetary Policy on July 29 in a meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will announce Monetary Policy on July 29 in a meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

The MPC will meet on Monday, July 29 to decide about the Monetary Policy, a press release issued by SBP said.

Governor SBP Jameel Ahmad will announce the Monetary Policy decision at a press conference on the same day after the MPC meeting, it added.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) Ambassador of Tajikistan to Pakistan Sharifzoda Yusuf Toir Friday paid a courtesy call on Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif at the PM House. The prime minister welcomed the ambassador and wished him a successful tenure in Pakistan.

While fondly recalling his recent visit to Dushanbe earlier this month, the prime minister said he was touched by the warm welcome extended to him and hailed the friendly and productive discussions with President Emomali Rahmon during the visit.

Expressing satisfaction at the MoUs/agreements signed between the two sides during his visit, PM Shehbaz Sharif urged that timely implementation and follow up would help to strengthen bilateral ties even further.

He renewed his invitation to President Rahmon to undertake an official visit to Pakistan at his earliest convenience, while adding that Pakistan was looking forward to Tajikistans participation in the SCO Council of Heads of Government meeting in Islamabad in October this year.

The Tajik Ambassador briefed the prime minister on a number of proposals aimed at enhancing bilateral cooperation in various fields including education, agriculture and defence as well as connectivity through land and air routes.

While noting the proposals, the prime minister tasked relevant ministries to get in touch with the Tajik Ambassador for further discussions. Regional connectivity projects including CASA-1000, also came under discussion.

The Tajik Ambassador thanked the prime minister for receiving him, conveyed greetings of his President to him and expressed his country's desire to further enhance its relations with Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) The business Facilitation Center, a project to streamlining investment processes, is expected to be completed by September this year, CDA Chairman Muhammad Ali Randhawa told Federal Minister for board of Investment (BOI), Abdul Aleem Khan on Friday.

CDA Chairman briefed the minister about ongoing work to the project, stating that the facility will provide investors with all necessary services under one roof, making it an attractive destination for both local and foreign investors.

Minister Aleem emphasized the importance of creating a corporate culture-friendly environment, which Chairman Randhawa assured would be achieved through the center's design.

The center's construction is being carried out around the clock, with the BOI and CDA collaborating to ensure its success.

The BOI will provide the necessary manpower and hardware, while the CDA will complete the construction work.

The Business Facilitation Center is poised to revolutionize investment in Islamabad, making it an ideal location for businesses to thrive. Its completion is eagerly anticipated by investors and stakeholders alike.
Engr Qaiser Nawab, a renowned global youth advocate, met with the Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Faisal Karim Kundi at the Governor House in Peshawar

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) Engr Qaiser Nawab, a renowned global youth advocate, met with the Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Faisal Karim Kundi at the Governor House in Peshawar.

The meeting highlighted the pivotal role of youth development in shaping Pakistan's future, with a focus on harnessing the potential of the countrys youthful population, which comprises approximately 70 percent of the total demographic.

During the engaging discussion, Nawab congratulated Faisal Karim Kundi on his recent appointment as Governor.

He lauded Kundi's proactive efforts towards youth and women empowerment and emphasized the critical importance of investing in youth for national progress.

Governor Faisal Kundi reciprocated by sharing his vision for advancing youth and women empowerment and acknowledged Nawab's exemplary achievements and global representation of Pakistan.

The conversation covered several key areas of collaboration, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a particular emphasis on climate change, skills training, and green job creation.

Both leaders stressed the need for fostering national unity among the youth to further the nations development and uphold national interests.

They explored initiatives to facilitate cooperation among Pakistani youth leaders and proposed inter-provincial exchange programs to realize the vision of Pakistan's founding leaders.

They also discussed enhancing climate diplomacy through greater youth and child involvement, particularly in preparation for COP-29 in Azerbaijan. The meeting addressed the recent challenges faced by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially DI Khan and neighboring areas, which were severely affected by flooding. The impact on youth, women, and children, and the necessary rehabilitation efforts were key discussion points.

The meeting underscored the shared commitment of both to leveraging Pakistans youth potential for a brighter, sustainable future.

APP/ash
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) The education Testing Council (ETC), Higher Education Commission has postponed the screening test for Gilgit Baltistans Elementary school Teachers (ESTs/ BPS-14), scheduled for Sunday (July 28, 2024).

In this regard, ETC is also contacting the candidates individually to inform them about the postponement, said a press release on Friday.

The test has been delayed, till further orders, owing to a stay order in effect.
(@FahadShabbir)

South Waziristan, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) The Mehsud Press Club delegation, headed by President Farooq Mahsud, met with Major General Haroon Hameed Chaudhry, IG FC South, in Wana to discuss the issues faced by journalists in the region.

The delegation highlighted difficulties encountered by journalists in South Waziristan, Tank, and Dera Ismail Khan, and proposed potential solutions.

Major General Haroon Hameed acknowledged the vital role journalists play in society, ensuring that the community remains informed. He assured that FC South is committed to supporting journalists, allowing them to work without any fear or hindrance in the region.

He also stressed the importance of combating misinformation and disinformation, praising the initiatives taken by the Mehsud Press Club in this regard.

The IG FC South urged journalists to promote the region's beauty, traditions, and tourism opportunities, highlighting the positive aspects of South Waziristan through their reporting. He emphasized that such efforts could contribute to the regions development and prosperity.

In appreciation of Major General Haroon Hameeds support, particularly in the construction of the Mehsud Press Club building in Ladha, the delegation presented him with a souvenir and expressed their gratitude.
ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) Minister for Interior Mohsin Naqvi has lauded the security forces for their successful operation against terrorists in Hoshab, Balochistan.

He praised the swift response of the Security Forces in defeating the nefarious designs of the terrorists.

He emphasized that the nation stands united with the security forces in the fight against terrorism and salutes their professionalism and valour.
Minister of State for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja and Australian High Commissioner to Pakistan Neil Hawkins discussed matters of bilateral interest, IT and Telecommunication, digitalization, fiberization, and cybersecurity

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) Minister of State for IT and Telecommunication Shaza Fatima Khawaja and Australian High Commissioner to Pakistan Neil Hawkins discussed matters of bilateral interest, IT and Telecommunication, digitalization, fiberization, and cybersecurity

Minister of State for IT Shaza Fatima during a meeting said that the present government is focused upon digitalization in the country. She said that digitalization of the economy is top government topmost priority.

Governance and society are also being digitalised under National Digitalization Plan, she added.

She said that work is going on National Fiberization Policy, as robust fiberization is utmost necessary for 5G technology in the country.

Shaza Fatima said Ministry of IT & Telecom is committed for ending digital gender divide.

She said that startups exchange program can be started between Pakistan and Australia.

Director General International Coordination, MoITT Syed Jawwad Ali Sherazi was also present in the meeting.
(@FahadShabbir)

Ia, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) One of the most enduring images of Greece's summer travel brand is the world-famous sunset on Santorini Island, framed by sea-blue church domes on a jagged cliff high above a volcanic caldera.

This scene has inspired millions of fridge magnets, posters, and souvenirs -- and now the queue to reach the viewing spot in the clifftop village of Oia can take more than 20 minutes.

Santorini is a key stopover of the Greek cruise experience. But with parts of the island nearing saturation, officials are considering restrictions.

Of the record 32.7 million people who visited Greece last year, around 3.4 million, or one in 10, went to the island of just 15,500 residents.

"We need to set limits if we don't want to sink under overtourism," Santorini mayor Nikos Zorzos told AFP.

"There must not be a single extra bed... whether in the large hotels or Airbnb rentals."

As the sun set behind the horizon in Oia, thousands raised their phones to the sky to capture the moment, followed by scattered applause.

For canny entrepreneurs, the Cycladic island's famous sunset can be a cash cow.

One company advertised more than 50 "flying dresses", which have long flowing trains, for up to 370 Euros ($401), on posters around Oia for anyone who wishes to "feel like a Greek goddess" or spruce up selfies.
Khan Yunis, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jul, 2024) More than 180,000 Palestinians have fled fierce fighting around the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis in four days, the United Nations said Friday, after an Israeli operation to extract captives' bodies from the area.

Recent "intensified hostilities" in the Khan Yunis area, more than nine months into the Israel-Hamas war, have fuelled "new waves of internal displacement across Gaza", said the UN humanitarian agency, OCHA.

It said "about 182,000 people" have been displaced from central and eastern Khan Yunis between Monday and Thursday, and hundreds are "stranded in eastern Khan Yunis".

The Israeli military on Monday ordered the evacuation of parts of the southern city, announcing its forces would "forcefully operate" there, including in an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone.

On Wednesday, Israel said five bodies of captives seized during Hamas's October 7 attack that triggered the war had been recovered from the area.

Israel's military said on Friday that its forces had "eliminated approximately 100 terrorists" in the city this week.

Israel's military chief, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi said the captives' bodies were pulled from underground tunnels and walls in "a hidden place".

Troops "were near those fallen bodies in the past, we did not know how to reach them" until this week, Halevi said in a statement.

Witnesses and rescuers said heavy battles continued around eastern Khan Yunis on Friday. The Nasser Hospital said 26 bodies were brought to the medical site.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Out of 251 people taken hostage that day, 111 are still held in the Gaza Strip, including 39 the military says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

According to UN figures, the vast majority of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the fighting.
Three separate arson attacks targeting France's high-speed rail network paralysed train travel nationwide Friday as Paris prepared to host the opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympics

Paris, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Jul, 2024) Three separate arson attacks targeting France's high-speed rail network paralysed train travel nationwide Friday as Paris prepared to host the opening ceremony for the 2024 Olympics.

It was not clear who carried out the attacks and if they were intentionally timed to disrupt France's hosting of the event.

Here is what we know so far:

The "deliberate fires" damaged signalling infrastructure at Courtalain in western France, Croisilles in the north and Pagny-Sur-Moselle in the east, national rail operator SNCF said.

These three incidents affected France's Atlantic, northern and eastern lines leading to mass cancellations and delays at a time of particularly heavy traffic for summer holiday travel.

"Early this morning, coordinated and prepared acts of sabotage were perpetrated against installations of SNCF," Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said.

SNCF chief executive Jean-Pierre Farandou said the attackers had started fires in "conduits carrying multiple (fibre-optic) cables" that relay "safety information for drivers" or control the motors for points that change rails.

Around 800,000 passengers are expected to be affected over the weekend as the damage is heavy and labour-intensive to repair. A quarter of a million were affected on Friday alone, SNCF said.

France's rail network was expected to be busy this weekend, not only due to the Olympics but also as people return from or leave for their summer holidays.

"There are huge and serious consequences for the rail network," added Attal.

Passenger services chief Christophe Fanichet said there were delays of 90 minutes to two hours on services between Paris and France's north and east.

One major branch of the network, the line to France's southeast, was spared after rail maintenance workers surprised unauthorised people on site.

High-speed rail operator Eurostar said around one in four services across its network linking France, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany would be cancelled, including trains from Paris to London.

Others would be slower as they will run on regular lines not designed for high-speed trains.

Farandou of SNCF said: "There's a huge number of bundled cables. We have to repair them one by one, it's a manual operation" requiring "hundreds of workers".

But by early afternoon Friday, Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete said that some departures were going ahead, with "one in three" trains operating from Paris's Montparnasse station, terminus of the line towards Bordeaux and the Atlantic coast.

Long-distance ride-sharing app Blablacar said it had seen a 150-percent increase in reservations for Friday compared with expectations.

SNCF said that at the weekend two out of three high-speed trains linking Paris with western and southwest France would leave as scheduled, while 80 percent of high-speed trains in northern France would run. But all travel would see delays.

Eurostar said that one in five of its trains would be cancelled at the weekend and warned of delays on those that do run.

SNCF CEO Farandou said railway workers doing night maintenance in central France had spotted unauthorised people, who fled when the workers called in police.

Minister Vergriete said that the people had been spotted with "vans", and "incendiary devices were found on the scene" of the attacks, calling it an "obscene criminal attack".

"This operation was prepared, coordinated, sensitive sites were targeted, which demonstrates some kind of familiarity with the network to know where to strike," Prime Minister Attal said.

France's intelligence services were scrambling to determine the perpetrators of the sabotage, a security source told AFP. The arson method used resembled past attacks by extreme-left actors, the source added.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement her office had opened a probe into a suspected bid to undermine "fundamental national interests".

The investigation will also look at suspicions that damage was inflicted by an organised gang and that attacks targeted an automated data processing system.

The investigation is in the hands of criminal prosecutors. Anti-terrorism prosecutors have not been asked to handle the case.
London, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Jul, 2024) A "slapping therapist" from California with a history of considering insulin medication a "poison" was convicted Friday over the death of a diabetic woman who attended one of his UK workshops.

The case is the second time Hongchi Xiao, 61, has been convicted in similar circumstances, following the death of a six-year-old diabetic boy in Australia in 2015.

Xiao, from Cloudbreak in the United States, and who was born in China, was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence following a trial at a court in Winchester, southern England.

The court heard that the victim, 71-year-old Danielle Carr-Gomm, had been taking part in the workshop in a bid to help her diabetes in October 2016.

She died as a result of having stopped taking her insulin medication during a three-day fast organised by Xiao.

Prosecutors told the court he had previously been prosecuted and sentenced to nine years and six months' jail in Australia after he instructed the parents of an Australian child to stop giving him insulin.

The judge in that case said Xiao's instructions to the boy's parents were "clear evidence of how strongly held the defendant's views were... as to insulin being poison".

Xiao was extradited to the UK from Australia in November 2023 and charged over Carr-Gomm's death.

The Type 1 diabetic grandmother, who was found dead in her hotel room during the workshop, had been undergoing "paida lajin" therapy, which involves patients being slapped or slapping themselves repeatedly along with other activities.

Paida lajin is claimed to be an ancient Chinese method for self-healing.

"Xiao had no medical qualifications yet despite this, was actively encouraging those in attendance at his workshops to refrain from taking their regular medication, knowing full well the consequences," said Detective Chief Inspector Phil Walker.

Xiao had been "both extremely convincing and confident in his beliefs", he said.

Prosecutors told the court the so-called alternative healer breached his duty of care towards Carr-Gomm by failing to take reasonable steps to ensure medical assistance when she was suffering from a "medical crisis", namely ketoacidosis.

Diabetic ketoacidosis is a serious condition that can occur because of a lack of insulin, and requires urgent medical treatment.

Carr-Gomm, who was described by her family as an avid follower of holistic medicine and alternative therapies, was born in France and moved to the UK at the age of 21.

She was diagnosed with diabetes in 1999 but struggled to inject insulin because of a fear of needles.

"Danielle was a mother and a grandmother who enjoyed life and had a love of travelling -- her death came as a huge shock to her family and friends," Walker added.

Xiao will be sentenced on October 1.
Photo: Press Service of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has approved an agreement signed with Turkiye, Trend reports.

The head of state signed a decree On approval of the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Migration between the Government of Azerbaijan and the Government of Turkiye, signed on June 6, 2024, in Ankara.

After the agreement specified in this decree comes into force, the State Migration Service of Azerbaijan must ensure the implementation of its provisions.

The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan must send a notification to the Government of Turkiye about the implementation of internal procedures necessary for the entry into force of the agreement.
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.
Transcript

The Inside Story: Biden Ends Reelection Bid

Episode 154  July 25, 2024

Show Open:

This week on The Inside Story

U.S. President Joe Biden calls it quits, as he announces he will no longer seek a second term in the White House.

The head of the Secret Service resigns one day after a bipartisan beating in congress over the failed assassination attempt on Former President Trump.

Plus, a global computer outage and Russia jails two American journalists in a trial widely viewed as a sham.

NOW, ON The Inside Story Biden Ends His Reelection Bid.

The Inside Story:

ANITA POWELL, VOA White House Correspondent:

Hi, Im VOA Correspondent Anita Powell.

It is difficult to overstate the political importance of the last two weeks in American politics.

Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt on Saturday July 13th.

Less than ten days later, President Joe Biden announced he would not run for re-election. Biden instead endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic Partys candidate to face Donald Trump in November.

President Biden discussed his decision and his hopes for the future of the party and the country in an address to the nation on Wednesday.

U.S President Joe Biden made the stunning decision to exit the presidential race from behind a screen, choosing to drop the news online.

Three days later, in an Oval Office speech that was at times hopeful, at times determined and at times wistful, he explained why. Biden spoke of his five decades in public office, touted his presidential record of domestic and political achievements, but then called for energetic new leadership to face tomorrows challenges.

President Joe Biden:

Nothing  nothing  can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So I decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. Its the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There's also a time and a place for new voices. Fresh voices. Yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.

ANITA POWELL:

Biden also thanked Vice President Kamala Harris, who has taken to the campaign trail with his endorsement and enough delegate pledges to net the nomination. He described her as experienced, tough and capable but added, the choice is up to you.

He did not name-check the Republican in the race. But analysts say Bidens stark warnings all point to one man.

Jennifer Mercieca, Texas A&M University:

He talked about polarization. He talked about violence and political violence. Those are all things that harken back to [former President] Donald Trump and his presidency. He talked about the threats facing the nation when he first took office, in January 2021. And so that was certainly about Donald Trump. But yeah, this wasn't a place for him to talk about Donald Trump. It wasn't a place for him to give a campaign speech.

ANITA POWELL:

The president said his job now will focus on domestic challenges like civil rights and voter freedom, gun safety reforms, the quest to end cancer and Supreme Court reform.

He also cited myriad challenges the U.S. faces abroad, with wars raging in Gaza and Ukraine, and China becoming more emboldened in the Indo-Pacific.

Those foreign fires, analysts say, are likely to burn in the minds of concerned voters.

Thomas Schwartz, Vanderbilt University:

That's really the concern I think people will have, which is: how does a lame-duck president deal with foreign policy crises?

ANITA POWELL:

Well find out Thursday, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the White House. The Israeli leader is also holding two other meetings while in the U.S., with Harris and Trump.

But for the final act of this presidency, Biden remains the protagonist on Americas biggest stage.

Jim Kessler, Third Way:

He's like an athlete that is going to make the Hall of Fame and is retiring and, you know, gets the cheers from the crowds, finally, for a long, 50-year tremendous career.

ANITA POWELL:

Biden clearly understood that this address would be a dramatic peak. So, he used his final words to break the fourth wall, with a message as old as America:

President Joe Biden:

The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule, the people do. History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands.

After Bidens announcement on Sunday, there were some initial discussions among pundits and democratic leaders about who would replace him.

But President Biden quickly endorsed his Vice-President Kamala Harris as his pick. And many heavy hitters in the Democratic party fell in line and endorsed Harris.

VOAs Carolyn Presutti has more about Kamala Harris, who has already made history as the first Black Vice President  as well as the first woman to hold the office  who could now become Americas first female President.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI, VOA Correspondent:

A history-making moment in the United States in 2021 ...

Kamala Harris, US Vice President:

So help me god.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

.as former Senator Kamala Harris became the nations first female vice president.

Kamala Harris, US Vice President:

It is my honor to be here, to stand on the shoulders of those who came before.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

Harris is also the first Black American and Indian American to serve in the nations second-highest job.

Rep. Barbara Lee, Democrat:

Shes broken so many glass ceilings for so many women.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

The daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, Harris was born in Oakland, California. A mural of her appears at the school she was bused to as a child  as part of racial integration efforts.

A graduate of Howard University, Harris became the first female district attorney in San Francisco in 2004 and then, in 2011, the first Black woman to serve as Californias attorney general.

During her years as vice president, Harris has been vocal about the U.S. Supreme Courts overturning of Roe v. Wade, a 1973 decision that had made abortion legal nationwide. During his term, former President Donald Trump appointed three conservative justices to the high court.

Kamala Harris, US Vice President:

He proudly takes credit for overturning Roe, so make no mistake  if Trump gets a chance, he will sign a national abortion ban to outlaw abortion in every single state.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

The vice president also applauds the continuation of the Affordable Care Act and the reduced price of insulin achieved by the Biden administration.

Kamala Harris, US Vice President:

Raise your hand if you have a family member with diabetes.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

Early on, she was tapped to lead the administrations efforts at the border. But the Biden campaign ended up on defense, with immigration a key issue in the 2024 election.

Kamala Harris, US Vice President:

Now, undocumented spouses of American citizens who have been in the country for ten or more years can stay in the country while they apply for a green card.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

Speaking to pro-immigrant groups like the Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, she quickly turns the focus to Donald Trumps words.

Kamala Harris, US Vice President:

That someone who vilifies immigrants, who promotes xenophobia, someone who stokes hate should never again have the chance to stand behind a microphone and the seal of the president of the United States.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

Harris has become more present at rallies like these on the campaign trail, after President Joe Bidens stumbling performance in the June debate with former President Donald Trump.

Kamala Harris, US Vice President:

We beat Trump once and we are going to beat him again. Period.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

With President Bidens withdrawal from the race on Sunday, if Harris is nominated, she would again make history as the first Black and Indian American woman to run for the nations highest office.

Kamala Harris, US Vice President:

God Bless you and God Bless the United States of America.

CAROLYN PRESUTTI:

Carolyn Presutti, VOA News.

ANITA POWELL:

Political pundits for weeks predicted Bidens historic withdrawal from the race. But beyond TVs selection of partisan talking heads, what do the voters think?

VOA Correspondent Scott Stearns reports on reactions to the shifting political landscape.

SCOTT STEARNS, VOA Correspondent:

President Joe Biden ending his run for reelection shocked Georgia voter Jon Diggs.

Jon Diggs, Georgia Voter:

I think a lot of people like me in the United States who are particularly maybe in the middle, undecided or even leaning Democrat, we're still in shock and we don't really know what that means for us.

SCOTT STEARNS:

Biden should have quit sooner, says Georgia voter Johnny Bester.

Johnny Bester, Georgia Voter:

I was a little nervous about the direction of our country because of Biden being in office for such a long period of time, and I didn't want to see that again, to be honest. But then we think about his candidacy, and we look at Trump and then who else do we have?

SCOTT STEARNS:

In the Midwest state of Ohio, Democratic voter Richard Freeman says Biden would have lost to Donald Trump.

Richard Freeman, Ohio Voter:

Well, I think it's a good decision. I think he [Biden] didn't have a chance against Trump. Too many people were concerned about his age, which I was, too.

SCOTT STEARNS:

In Nebraska, voter Cathy Lindmier says Biden has lost some mental sharpness since he was elected.

Cathy Lindmier, Nebraska Voter:

I'm sad because I do feel that Biden did a good job, and he really came into this wanting to unify the country. That didn't happen.

SCOTT STEARNS:

In South Carolina, voter Mariana Hall says Bidens decision does nothing to change her support for Trump.

Mariana Hall, South Carolina Voter:

I think it's going to be really interesting to watch the Democratic Party kind of scramble to determine who they're going to put in his place. I was seeing there were some things that they weren't really comfortable putting Kamala Harris in there because of all the negatives against the current administration.

SCOTT STEARNS:

Vice President Harris is the first choice for Washington state voter Jill Homme.

Jill Homme, Washington Voter:

I'm rooting for Kamala. Love to see a female up there, you know? And, and I think Kamalas incredibly sharp. Speaks well. I think that she's ready. She has some really solid experience behind her.

SCOTT STEARNS:

In the Pacific Northwest state of Oregon, voter David Strong is ready to back Harris.

David Strong, Oregon Voter:

You know, it's not a given that Kamala Harris is going to be the nominee. If she's not, then I think there's going to be more bad blood within the Democratic Party.

SCOTT STEARNS:

In New York, voter Staci Pritt says it will be hard for any Democrat to beat Trump.

Staci Pritt, New York Voter:

We need somebody who is younger and who will seem more competent at least. Whether or not whomever it is can beat Trump, don't know. It's better, though. I feel like we have a chance.

SCOTT STEARNS:

New Yorker Madeline Mills says Bidens decision may have come too late.

Madeline Mills, New York Voter:

I wish that the Democratic Party had figured that out earlier, so that it doesnt feel that rushed and chaotic at the moment. But I think if Biden had stayed as a candidate, he would have lost to Trump anyways.

SCOTT STEARNS:

While Biden is backing Harris to replace him as the Democratic Partys presidential nominee that is a decision for delegates to the partys convention next month in Chicago.

Scott Stearns, VOA News.

ANITA POWEL:

Wednesday in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint meeting at the United States Congress. Presiding over the visit was Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin from Maryland, stepping in for Vice President Harris as she worked the campaign trail.

Cardin, an Orthodox Jew, has long been a staunch Congressional ally of Israel. But his partys base seems to be shifting away from blind support considering Israels ongoing assault on Palestinian territories. And some lawmakers even skipped the event.

KATHERINE GYPSON, VOA Congressional Correspondent:

For the first time since the October 7th Hamas attack that left 1,200 Israelis dead and some 240 hostages captured, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed U.S. lawmakers in person Wednesday.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:

This is not a clash of civilizations. It's a clash between barbarism and civilization.

It's a clash between those who glorify death and those who sanctify life. For the forces of civilization to triumph, America and Israel must stand together.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Calling antisemitism the worlds oldest hatred, Netanyahu spoke directly to protesters.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:

When the tyrants of Tehran who hang gays from cranes and murder women for not covering their hair are praising, promoting and funding you, you have officially become Iran's useful idiots.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Gazas Health Ministry, which does not distinguish civilians from combatants, says more than 39,000 Palestinians have died since the beginning of hostilities. Netanyahu addressed the International Criminal Courts allegations of Israeli war crimes.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:

The IDF has dropped millions of flyers, sent millions of text messages, made hundreds of thousands of phone calls to get Palestinian civilians out of harm's way. But at the same time, Hamas does everything in its power to put Palestinian civilians in harm's way.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Several high-profile Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, did not attend the speech. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, explained his reasons for boycotting on Tuesday.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Democrat:

Netanyahu has made common cause with far-right extremists who pursue their own agendas at the expense of Israel's security. These extremists have been elevated to some of the highest Cabinet positions in the government and have encouraged Netanyahu's most misguided policies.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Netanyahu was welcomed by congressional Democratic and Republican leadership Wednesday.

Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House:

This is a very important time. Our bipartisan congressional leadership recognized it as such and invited him here because our dear ally, Israel, is in an existential fight for its very existence, and that fight extends to every one of its borders.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Some families of Israeli hostages protested the speech, calling on Netanyahu to agree to a U.S.-proposed cease-fire. He outlined his own vision for a post-war Middle East.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza, but for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Netanyahus address is key to maintaining U.S. support for Israel but comes at a time when domestic American politics is taking center stage.

Jon Alterman, Center for Strategic and International Studies:

He is going to be trying to, at least, halt an erosion of support among Democrats and try to build credit with Republicans, who he assesses are much more likely to be in power after November elections.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Netanyahu is set to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris, as well as former President Donald Trump, later this week.

Katherine Gypson, VOA News.

ANITA POWELL:

U.S. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle has announced her decision to step down following this months failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump. Before her decision she went in front of the Senate and faced a day of withering criticism. We go back to VOAs congressional correspondent Katherine Gypson who has more on security concerns during the upcoming election season.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Nine days after the assassination attempt that shook the nation.

there are few answers on how the shooter got so close to Trump.

The head of the United States Secret Service Kimberly Cheatle -- answering lawmakers questions about the shooting for the first time -- was blunt.

Kimberly Cheatle, US Secret Service Director:

We failed.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Cheatle said a full report on the agencys failure to protect the former president would be released within 90 days. Lawmakers said that was unacceptable during an election season that has already proved to be contentious. Some called on her to resign.

Rep. James Comer, Republican:

The Secret Service has a zero-fail mission, but it failed on July 13, and in the days leading up to the rally. The Secret Service has thousands of employees and a significant budget, but it has now become the face of incompetence.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Cheatle told lawmakers Trumps Secret Service detail was aware of a suspicious person before the former president spoke at the rally.

Kimberly Cheatle, US Secret Service Director:

If the detail had been passed information that there was a threat, the detail would never have brought the former president out onto stage.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Congressional Democrats called for changes to gun laws in the United States, saying it was unfortunate that former President Trump is now one of many victims of gun violence.

Rep. Gerry Connolly, Democrat:

We almost lost a presidential candidate the other day. A 20-year-old had access to his father's AR-15 and got on top of a roof 100 yards or feet from the podium. And I'm asking you, did the availability of that AR-15, which is replicated all across America, make your job harder or easier, and you're not willing to answer that question.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has still not determined a motive for the actions of Thomas Matthews Crooks, the suspected shooter.

Katherine Gypson, VOA News.

ANITA POWELL:

Experts say last weeks global disruption of computer operating systems highlights the vulnerability of a digital world dependent on just a few providers for key computing services.

At the center is cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, a computer services firm that provides security to nearly 25 percent of the worlds companies. A single glitchy line of code crashed any Windows-based machine that downloaded the update.

The company caught the problem, and issued a fix, but not before the bad code had affected millions of windows users. A "significant number" of the millions of computers that crashed on Friday are back in operation but not all of them. From hospitals to airports, banks, businesses, and even news outlets... some have yet to fully recover from the outage.

To understand what happened we spoke to computer expert Vahid Behzhadan, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of New Haven.

Vahid Behzadan, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University

Of Connecticut:

It appears that many of the organizations that were affected did not have the means or the strategy to test out the update as it was being rolled out.



Uh, typically, when a new software patch or the software update comes in, at least in critical infrastructure, it's the policy of the IT uh department or the IT staff to 1st test out the update on an isolated machine.



If everything goes according to the plan, they roll it out to other machines.

If not, they contain the update to that one machine and wait for further updates or instructions from the vendor.



That doesn't seem to be what's happened in many of the organizations that were affected by this faulty update.

ANITA POWELL:

In separate hearings Friday, July 19th, Russia convicted two American journalists in cases widely viewed as sham trials. Heres VOA Press Freedom Editor Jessica Jerreat, who's been closely monitoring events.

JESSICA JERREAT, VOA Press Freedom Editor:

Thanks Anita.

Two closed door trials hundreds of kilometers apart. One outcome. Russia on Friday convicted the American journalists Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal, and Alsu Kurmasheva of VOA sister network Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty. Gershkovich is the first American journalist Russia convicted of espionage since the Cold War. The U.S. and media advocates condemn the trials as politically motivated and without merit. Heres the latest reaction:

In a closed-door trial Friday, Alsu Kurmasheva received a six-and-a-half year sentence for spreading false information about the Russian army.

The journalist for VOA sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty had edited a book about Russians opposed to the war in Ukraine.

RFE/RL President Stephen Capus called the trial a quote, mockery of justice. Media groups are condemning Russias actions.

Karol Luczka, International Press Institute:

This just shows again how these trials against these two American journalists, this one, a Russian American journalist, in Russia are obviously completely manipulated by Russian authorities.

JESSICA JERREAT:

Kurmashevas verdict came the same day Russia convicted Evan Gershkovich. The Wall Street Journal reporter was sentenced to 16 years in prison on espionage charges that he denies.

Vedant Patel, US State Department:

This whole legal process is a sham for Evan. Hes been wrongfully detained, did nothing wrong. We have been clear about that from the onset.

JESSICA JERREAT:

The convictions mark a rapid decline in media freedoms in Russia. The country ranks near the bottom of the World Press Freedom Index. And Moscow is detaining at least 22 journalists, more than half of whom are foreign nationals, says the Committee to Protect Journalists.

RFE/RL external affairs chief Diane Zeleny says Kurmashevas unjust detention and the risks for its journalists are a daily concern.

Diane Zeleny, RFE/RL:

It is the new normal. It's sad to say this is sort of the state of the world right now. Journalists are not safe anymore in many places. And the ways to help them are minimal, actually  and they are being targeted by authoritarian governments.

JESSICA JERREAT:

Kurmashevas family in Prague says her detention hits at a personal level.

Bibi Butorin, Kurmashevas Eldest Daughter:

It would be one thing if she was only away from me for so long, but to know that she's in an unsafe place and that she is in danger and she's not comfortable, that's something that really makes me sad.

JESSICA JERREAT:

The Russian Embassy did not respond to VOAs requests for comment. But in the case of Gershkovich, the Kremlin has indicated it would be open to a prisoner swap.

With Liam Scott in Prague and Cristina Caicedo Smit in Washington, Jessica Jerreat, VOA News.

ANITA POWELL:

Thats all for now. Thanks for watching.

For the latest news you can log on to VOA news dot com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at VOA News.

For the latest news follow me on 6armspowell on x.

Also, Catch up on past episodes at our free streaming service, VOA Plus.

Im Anita Powell. We will see you next week, for The Inside Story.

###
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and Eastern Syria (AANES) released 141 prisoners Monday from Alaya Prison in the city of Qamishli, as part of a general amnesty for prisoners convicted of terrorism-related offenses linked to ISIS, provided they did not participate directly in combat. The next day, 68 more prisoners were freed from the Central Prison in Manbij. So far, three groups of prisoners have been released from facilities in Hasakah, Qamishli, and Manbij. The initiative is expected to benefit approximately 1,500 prisoners, most of whom are from the Deir ez-Zour, Raqqa, and Manbij regions.

Families of the released prisoners have expressed their relief and joy. Issa Mahmoud al-Awad, an elder of the al-Jibur tribe, commended the initiative, stating, "Thanks to the autonomous administration for this general amnesty. It represents a positive step toward forgiveness, brotherhood, and stability in the region."

The general amnesty announced by the Democratic People's Council of the AANES on July 17, 2024, was based on the recommendation of the tribal forum titled Dialogue, Safety, Construction for a Unified Decentralized Syria, held in Hasakah on May 25, 2024.

Arab tribal leaders have praised the AANES for fostering domestic peace and promoting coexistence through the amnesty.

Khalid al-Khaloufi, Sheikh of Ela al-Khawatine, expressed his gratitude. "I thank the Autonomous Administration on behalf of all the tribes. We are hopeful that this will lead to the release of all prisoners and benefit everyone involved," he said.

The amnesty has elicited mixed reactions. Amnesty International lauded the decision as an "important step" but called for an expansion of the initiative and the release of additional prisoners. The organization expressed concern over the detention of tens of thousands of individuals without charges or trial and urged the United Nations to facilitate urgent screenings to address potential violations of international law.

Conversely, the Syrian Kurds, especially the Yazidi community, have voiced apprehension about the amnesty. They fear that some released prisoners may return to ISIS ranks or still hold extremist views. Ziwar Sheikho, a Kurdish analyst, journalist and director of an NGO, highlighted the risks, noting the potential danger posed by individuals with a history of extremist activity.

"Especially for us Kurds, who have faced attempts of genocide, particularly against the Yazidi community, the release of these individuals poses a significant risk to society. It is crucial to assess whether these individuals can integrate into society and to what extent they may still support ISIS ideologies," Sheikho said.

The release initiative is expected to continue, with ongoing assessments and approvals for those benefiting from the amnesty.

This story originated in VOAs Kurdish Service. Robin Rushmore contributed.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. The Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan on cooperation in the field of military intelligence in the field of defense signed on June 7, 2024, in Baku has been approved, Trend reports.

President Ilham Aliyev signed a decree in this regard.

According to the decree, once the agreement enters into force, the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Azerbaijan must ensure the implementation of its provisions.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan is instructed to send a notification to the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the fulfillment of domestic procedures necessary for the agreement to enter into force.
Thousands of policymakers, health care professionals and advocates gathered this week in Munich, Germany, to take stock of the global fight against HIV as they try to meet the 2030 deadline set by world leaders for eliminating AIDS as a public health threat.

Advocates hailed sub-Saharan Africas progress in the global HIV response, with tens of millions of people now on lifesaving drugs.

A new UNAIDS survey released during the conference reported that approximately 30.7 million of the estimated 39.9 million people living with HIV globally were receiving antiretroviral therapy in 2023.

The report called that result a landmark public health achievement, and health officials at the conference said it would not be possible without the immense political will of regional leaders and NGOs.

Anne Githuku-Shongwe, the UNAIDS regional director for eastern and southern Africa, told VOA from Johannesburg that recently there has been a huge focus on ensuring that anyone living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa gets access to testing and treatment to ensure virus suppression, so the virus becomes untransmissible.

The data is telling us that 84% of people living with HIV in our region have access to treatment. And 94% of those on treatment have been able to keep [the virus] suppressed so it is untransmissible, she said.

However, Githuku-Shongwe pointed out that despite the progress that has been made, some countries in Africa are lagging behind in the battle against HIV/AIDS, partly because of civil wars, humanitarian setbacks and sheer negligence. She mentioned South Sudan, Angola, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and the Comoros as examples.

[Countries] like Mauritius are barely at 50% of the treatment target, she said, adding that another critical challenge being faced is the lack of attention to children living with the virus.

The report said children aged 0-14 years are still contracting HIV. An estimated 120,000 children got the virus in 2023, bringing the number of children living with HIV globally to 1.4 million, 86% of whom are in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the UNAIDS report.

Worries about donor funding

Githuku-Shongwe said there have been major investments from partners  particularly from PEPFAR, a U.S.-funded initiative to tackle the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. She noted that in some countries, up to 99% of the HIV response is externally funded.

But with time we are seeing that dwindling, she said.

Nearly $19.8 billion was available in 2023 for HIV programs in low- and middle-income countries, almost $9.5 billion short of the amount needed by 2025, the report said.

Catherine Connor, vice president in charge of public policy and advocacy at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, a Washington nonprofit, told VOA from Munich that the data on infections in children were troubling and pointed to a lackadaisical approach toward pediatric HIV.

The report clearly shows that children are one out of every 10 new infections, which is really high, she said. But theres also an outsized mortality issue around children. Children make up 3% of the HIV-infected population, but they represent 12% of deaths.

Connor said theres inequity in treatment, particularly for children living with HIV.

Children cant take themselves to clinics. They often dont even know theyve been exposed to HIV," she said. "So they really rely on caregivers, the community around them, to ensure not just that they can be identified as being HIV-exposed or potentially HIV-positive, but also get the needed support to maintain their health, even if they are on treatment.

Connor concluded that world leaders and policymakers should be made aware how significant it is to act on HIV prevention, because if the world fails to take steps to curtail the virus, then we will not end AIDS.

Its almost like having a dam holding back a river of water, she said.

HIV is preventable and treatable, but it is not curable. And so, if we let cracks in that dam get so bad, its going to break, and we are going to see a reemergence of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in ways we have never seen, Connor said.
No injuries but lots of delays, frustration and confusion in Paris as a coordinated arson attack set fire to train equipment just hours before the Olympic opening ceremony. Kamala Harris calls for a ceasefire in Gaza after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a look at American foreign policy towards Israel going forward. The EU sends more money to Kyiv as Russia continues its assault on Ukraines south and east. Plus, a natural treasure in Canada is threatened by wildfire.
A team of astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, to observe a new, Jupiter-like planet outside our solar system  known as an "exoplanet." It was the first new planet observed and imaged with the telescope that was not first observed from Earth.

The astronomers, from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, published a report on their discovery this week in the scientific journal Nature.

The lead author of the study, Elisabeth Matthews, described the planet as a gas giant, much like Jupiter in our own solar system, only six times its mass and much colder, with an average surface temperature of 0 degrees Celsius. It also has an elliptical orbit around its star and can take anywhere from 100 to 250 Earth years to orbit it.

Matthews said the planet is close, by exoplanet standards, at about 12 light-years away, and in a triple-star system. She said astronomers had known about the star system and, by studying it, had theorized a planet existed there, but needed the JWST to confirm it.

Matthews and her team wanted to take a picture of the known planet using a method commonly known as direct imaging. Since the stars in the system are so bright, they outshine any other nearby object.

The team employed the JWSTs camera equipped with a light-block mask that covered the stars light, allowing the observers to see objects around it.

She said, though, that once they aimed the telescopes camera in the direction of the star system, the planet was not in the position they had thought it would be, because they had underestimated the mass of the planet and its orbital separation from its star.

Matthews told The Associated Press that they could not have confirmed the existence of the planet without the JWST, and that the finding illustrated just how well the telescope is working.

It really shows that we can image these planets, and we're still, for the moment, still imaging Jupiter and bigger planets." She said that in the future, by using the telescope, they also would be able to image smaller planets.

Launched in 2021 as an international collaboration among NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, the JWST is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever placed in space. Unlike its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, the JWST orbits the sun, not the Earth.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press.
Australia Thursday imposed restrictions on seven Israeli settlers, with the government claiming they had been involved in violence against Palestinians.

One of them, Yinon Levi, a farmer, was sanctioned earlier this year by the United States, and is barred from accessing all U.S. assets, property and the American financial system. The U.S. accused him of inciting violence against Palestinians and setting fire to farmland, allegations he has denied, insisting he had broken no laws.

Australia also sanctioned the Israeli religious group Hilltop Youth, which is dedicated to establishing settler outposts throughout the West Bank.

The move follows an International Court of Justice opinion that Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory were illegal under international law. Israel dismissed the court's finding as "blatantly one-sided" and not legally binding.

Palestinians say violence perpetrated by Israeli settlers is aimed at expanding Israeli control over large areas of the West Bank and undermines efforts to set up a Palestinian state.

Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said those sanctioned had been involved in grave violence against Palestinians, including alleged sexual assault and torture.

Wong told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Thursday that the restrictions are a response to aggression by settlers and Hilltop Youth.

"The people sanctioned today have been involved in violent attacks on Palestinians and the entity [Hilltop Youth] has incited and perpetrated violence and these sanctions have been taken after careful consideration and are in line with actions taken by others in recent months," she said

The Israel Embassy in Canberra condemned violent acts against Palestinian communities and said in a statement Thursday that "Israel  will work to bring the extreme minority involved to justice."

Australia's sanctions follow similar measures by the United States, Britain, Canada and Japan.
The URL has been copied to your clipboard

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met separately with Israel's leader Thursday at the White House  as a sensitive moment in the Gaza conflict collided with an unprecedented moment in American politics. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also plans to meet on Friday with former President Donald Trump. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
The Central African Republics main opposition leader, Anicet Georges Dologuele, says he will disrupt the countrys first local elections in 36 years if the 2023 constitution and electoral laws that he says favor President Faustin-Archange Touaderas party are not immediately revised. Rebel groups are also threatening to disrupt the polls, which the government insists will be transparent and will help restore peace and stability to the troubled state.

Anicet Georges Dologuele says Central African Republic leaders are not showing any signs they want to organize free and fair elections to end a wave of fighting that has engulfed the central African state for more than a decade.

The leader of the Union for Central African Republic Renewal party, or URCA, spoke in the capital, Bangui, on Thursday during a press conference to mark his party's 10th anniversary.

Dologuele, a former prime minister, said his party will not take part in the October 2024 local elections, which he accused CAR President Faustin-Archange Touadera of preparing to rig to favor his party, the United Hearts Movement, or MCU.

He says it is undemocratic and unethical for President Touadera to single-handedly appoint six of the eleven members of the country's elections management body, the National Elections Authority, or ANE. Dologuele says the ANE cannot be seen as credible and transparent when a majority of its members are either loyalist or sympathize with Touadera.

The URCA party also protests rules that bar people with double nationality from running for office. That would ban Dologuele himself, who reportedly has citizenship in another, unidentified country.

Dologuele says Toudera ordered his government to bar CAR civilians who have acquired double nationality in other countries because he knows a lot of politicians who fled from the CAR who are very popular and can beat Touadera and his party in all elections.

Dologuele said if constitutional reforms are not carried out and if the ANE is not made an independent elections management body, his party will disrupt the October local elections, though he did not say how.

However, CAR government spokesperson Maxime Balalou told state TV on Friday that the elections will go forward.

Balalou says President Touadera has instructed his government to ignore opposition threats and continue educating people that the October 2024 local elections will mark a return to democracy and governance and civilians will be able to participate in local development. He says the elections are part of several requests made by the people of the Central African Republic during the National Reconciliation Dialogue that was held in March 2022.

Balalou said the CAR government will not accept calls to change a constitution backed by 95% of voters in a June 2023 referendum.

In that referendum, voters also approved scrapping the constitutions two-term limit for presidents and extended the length of a presidents term from five to seven years.

Opposition parties say the 67-year-old president is preparing to hold on to power for many years to come.

Over 2,000 seats in 180 local councils will be at stake in the October polls. The elected councilors will then elect mayors for each of the 180 districts.

Security remains fragile as the elections draw near, as rebels and armed groups loot communities for survival, raping women and girls and creating chaos in towns and villages across the country, according to opposition groups.

CAR government officials and the United Nations insist the October elections will help restore democracy and peace to the troubled state.

The central African state descended into violence and chaos in 2013, when rebels forced then-president Francois Bozize from office.

Since then, fighting and chaos has forced close to a million Central Africans to flee to Cameroon, Sudan, and other nearby countries.
China and Russia's foreign ministers met their Southeast Asian counterparts Friday after vowing to counter "extra-regional forces," a day before Washington's top diplomat was due to arrive.

Wang Yi and Sergei Lavrov were attending a three-day meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc in the Laos capital of Vientiane.

Both held talks with counterparts from the bloc, while Wang also met with new British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

On Thursday Wang and Lavrov agreed to work together in "countering any attempts by extra-regional forces to interfere in Southeast Asian affairs," according to Moscow's foreign ministry.

They also discussed implementing "a new security architecture" in Eurasia, Lavrov said in a statement, without elaborating.

According to a readout from Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Wang said Beijing was "ready to work with Russia to... firmly support each other, safeguard each other's core interests."

China is a close political and economic ally of Russia, and NATO members have branded Beijing a "decisive enabler" of Moscow's war in Ukraine.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Vientiane on Saturday morning for talks with ASEAN foreign ministers.

Blinken has made Washington's alliances in Asia a top foreign policy priority, with the aim of "advancing a free and open" Indo-Pacific -- a veiled way of criticizing China and its ambitions.

But Blinken shortened his Asia itinerary by a day to be present for Thursday's White House meeting between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Wang and Blinken will meet in Laos, a spokeswoman for Beijing's foreign ministry said, to "exchange views on issues of common concern."

South China Sea dispute

On Friday Wang met ASEAN foreign ministers and hailed Beijing's deepening economic ties with the region.

For the customary joint handshake, Wang stood next to Myanmar's representative Aung Kyaw Moe, permanent secretary to the foreign affairs ministry.

The ASEAN bloc has banned Myanmar's junta from high-level meetings over its 2021 coup and crackdown on dissent that have plunged the country into turmoil.

Lavrov also met ASEAN counterparts at the venue in Vientiane but did not take questions from journalists.

ASEAN ministers are expected to issue a joint communique after the three-day meeting.

One diplomatic source said the joint communique is being held up by lack of consensus over the wording of the paragraphs on the Myanmar conflict and disputes in the South China Sea.

Beijing claims the waterway -- through which trillions of dollars of trade passes annually -- almost in its entirety despite an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

Several Southeast Asian countries have competing claims.
Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, is the only country left in Africa that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province. Eswatini is nevertheless a growing trade partner with China, which means the country has to be careful as it reaches out to other nations in Asia for new economic opportunities.

Eswatini's recent efforts to build stronger ties with South Korea, Singapore and Bhutan could be interpreted as a move away from China, its biggest trading partner in Asia. The kingdom imported more than $109 million in goods from China in 2022.

But government spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo said such a conclusion was presumptive. He argued that diplomacy is a fluid process, driven by a country's interests, and that Eswatini's current focus on developing relations with other Asian nations reflected a strategic assessment of what is best for the kingdom.

We are establishing diplomatic relations with many countries," Nxumalo said. "Geopolitics is not centered in one position. Geopolitics is controlled and influenced from various corners of the globe. As the kingdom of Eswatini, thats where we want to make our presence available, and thats where we want to make our presence felt, where theres geopolitics activities - whether economical trade or diplomacy or even political processes, we would want to be engaged. ...

"So Eswatini is, therefore, according to our cardinal foreign policy, an enemy to none but a friend to all.

Being friends to all has allowed Eswatini to maintain diplomatic relations with both China and Taiwan, despite efforts by Beijing to persuade Eswatini to cut ties with the self-governing island.

China has threatened various measures against Eswatini but has never carried them out.

Nearly 60% of Eswatini's population lives in poverty, and its economy was hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, which was followed by a wave of protests that ruined or damaged many businesses.

Mavela Sigwane, head of transformation at the Federation of Eswatini Business Community, said the outreach efforts to South Korea, Singapore and Bhutan represent more than diplomacy; they hold the potential for significant economic benefits.

This Korea agreement which has been signed, we are so excited about it," Sigwane said. "It will open a number of avenues for the local businesses to also tap into the available opportunities in Korea."

The Korea agreement Signwane referred to is a recent South Korean commitment to spend more than $20 billion in development assistance and investment initiatives in Africa.

Eswatinis King Mswati commended South Korea for the commitments and invited South Korean businesses to invest in Eswatini.

Political analyst Sibusiso Nhlabatsi said Eswatini's recent decision to forge economic ties with non-traditional Asian partners illustrated that Eswatini is open to exploring new alliances beyond its historical Western partnerships.

Swaziland seeks to benefit by positioning itself to be more versatile and a multi-aligned actor in that region of Asia," Nhlabatsi said. "Of course, there are geographical implications to this, because Swazilands balancing act between China and Taiwan, together with its new partners, just demonstrates that this can be a tiny country but its still independent on foreign policy causes, rather than automatically deferring to the interests of larger powers.

Analysts said the expanded trade, increased investment opportunities and shared technology expected from the new alliances could diversify Eswatini's economy, reducing dependency on any single market.
Far-right Israeli lawmakers Friday sharply criticized U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris call for a cease-fire and concern for human suffering in Gaza following her White House meeting Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In comments to reporters Thursday, Harris said she expressed unwavering commitment to Israel and will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself.

Harris, now the leading Democratic candidate for president after U.S. President Joe Biden bowed out of the race early this week, added, Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters.

She went on to say she expressed to Netanyahu her serious concerns about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the deaths of too many innocent civilians.

"We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent," she said. Harris urged negotiators to get a cease-fire deal done to end the war.

From his account on the social media platform X, Israels far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich lashed out at Harris comments, saying her call for a cease-fire in Gaza amounts to a call for Israel to surrender.

Kamala Harris revealed to the whole world what I have been saying for weeks, what is really behind the deal, he wrote. Surrendering to [Hamas military leader] Sinwar, ending the war in a way that would allow Hamas to rehabilitate and release most of the abductees in Hamas captivity. Do not fall into this trap!

Shortly after, another Israeli hardliner, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, also writing on his X account, succinctly followed up on the same theme: There will be no truce, Madam Candidate.

Their comments come as the leaders of three countries  Australia, Canada and New Zealand  issued a call for a cease-fire.

In a joint statement released Friday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon called for an urgent cease-fire in Gaza.

They wrote, The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue.

In their statement, the three leaders said they remain unequivocal in their condemnation of Hamas for the atrocities of the October 7 terror attack and its ongoing acts of terror.

The three said they stand fully behind the comprehensive cease-fire deal, offered by U.S President Joe Biden and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. We call on parties to the conflict to agree to the deal. Any delay will only see more lives lost.

Months of negotiations brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have not been able to secure an agreement on a cease-fire proposal that would include the release of hostages from Gaza, as well as Israel freeing some Palestinian prisoners and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Reuters is reporting that according to a Western official, a Palestinian and two Egyptian sources, Israel wants to alter the deal for a Gaza truce and hostage release by Hamas, further snarling a deal to halt more than nine months of war that has ravaged the enclave.

Israel says that displaced Palestinians should be screened upon their return to Gazas north when the cease-fire begins. Thats a key reversal on an agreement to allow civilians who fled south to freely return home, the four sources told Reuters.

Talks had been scheduled to continue Thursday with negotiators from Egypt, Israel, the U.S. and Qatar in Doha, but a statement from Israel said its negotiators were delayed, without further explanation, and talks now will not resume until next week.

On his way into the United Nations Security Council for a meeting Friday on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour said of the cease-fire talks, It is obvious that Netanyahu does not want to stop the war.

Inside the council, a senior U.N. aid official urged the opening of all border crossings into Gaza and no restrictions on the amount and type of humanitarian assistance entering the enclave, where famine still stalks tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Today the U.N. is not in a position to provide the necessary assistance to the people in Gaza, let alone to scale up, unless specific factors are in place, said Muhannad Hadi, U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Gaza.

He said a combination of obstacles, including military operations, lawlessness, Israeli visa procedures for aid workers, destroyed roads and a lack of fuel, continue to hamper aid distribution.

Ambassador Gilad Erdan said those who say Israel obstructs aid do so falsely and maliciously, and Israel has allowed more than 800,000 tons of aid to enter Gaza since October. Erdan said the United Nations is overwhelmed by the aid provided and its failure to distribute it is the reason for the aid bottleneck.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization recently warned that traces of the water-borne polio virus have been detected in Gaza, where raw sewage runs through the streets and mountains of garbage have formed as basic services have collapsed.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday the agency is sending more than 1 million doses of polio vaccine to Gaza to be administered in the coming weeks. He made the announcement in an opinion piece he wrote for The Guardian newspaper.

No human cases of polio have been reported, but WHO has expressed serious concern about the possibility of an outbreak due to the crippled health system and the lack of clean water and sanitation in Gaza.

United Nations correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report. Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
The URL has been copied to your clipboard

The code has been copied to your clipboard.

Attacks, arrests and restrictions on journalists including over coverage of youth demonstrations is causing concern among Kenyan media. Journalists are taking to the streets to protest. Juma Majanga covered the protests and filed this report from Nairobi, Kenya. Camera: Amos Wangwa
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission will approve requirements for the order, text, form, quantity, and manufacture of ballot papers in connection with the extraordinary parliamentary election, Trend reports.

According to the information, under Articles 99.1-99.4, 166 of the Election Code of Azerbaijan, the Central Election Commission has to approve the requirements regarding the order, text, form, quantity, and manufacture of ballot papers no later than 35 days before the voting day.

In connection with the extraordinary election to the Azerbaijani Parliament scheduled for September 1, this term covers the period until July 28, 2024.

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.
Clasping his hand warmly, a beaming Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years on Friday, as the two sought to mend an important political alliance that had broken down after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory over Trump.

Trump was waiting on the stone steps outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, to greet the Israeli leader, who is on the fifth day of a weeklong U.S. visit aimed at bolstering support for Israel's 9-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza and boosting Netanyahu's own fallen popularity at home.

In front of reporters before the two sat down for talks in a muraled room at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who was taken captive by Hamas-led militants in the first hours of the war. "We'll get it taken care of," Trump assured him.

In a statement after the two men began discussions, Trump aides said he pledged to "make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East" and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.

Netanyahu's Florida trip follows a fiery address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday that defended his far-right government's conduct of the war and condemned American protesters galvanized by the killing of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the conflict. In talks Thursday in Washington, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic rival for the presidency, pressed Netanyahu to work with them to wrap up negotiations for a cease-fire and release of hostages.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have strong political interests in getting past their differences. As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu's top wishes from the United States.

For Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, the meeting could cast him as an ally and statesman, as well as sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

Divisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza have opened cracks in years of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.

For Netanyahu, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that Trump may once again become president of the United States, which is Israel's vital arms supplier and protector.

For both men, Friday's meeting highlights for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and can again. But Trump's public statements urging a rapid end to the war in Gaza could add to tensions.

One political gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.

"Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party," said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the next six months, that means "mending ties with an irascible, angry president," Miller said, meaning Trump.

Trump broke off with Netanyahu in early 2021. That was after the Israeli prime minister became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden for his presidential election victory, disregarding Trump's false claim he had won.

"Bibi could have stayed quiet," Trump said in an interview with an Israel newspape back then. "He made a terrible mistake."

Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both men's political careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hopes will be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.

In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as "not prepared" for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.

In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu gave recognition to Biden, who has kept up military and diplomatic support for Israel's offensive in Gaza despite opposition from within his Democratic Party.

But Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump helped broker historic and thanking him "for all the things he did for Israel."

Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments  the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem's status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

"I appreciated that," Trump told "Fox & Friends" on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu's praise.

He didn't quiet his criticism, however, of Israel's conduct of the war, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.

"I want him to finish up and get it done quickly. You gotta get it done quickly, because they are getting decimated with his publicity," Trump said in Thursday's interview.

"Israel is not very good at public relations, I'll tell you that," he added.

Trump has repeatedly urged that Israel with U.S. support "finish the job" in Gaza and destroy Hamas, but he hasn't elaborated on how.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the White House Thursday to discuss the war in Gaza -- and the possibility of securing a cease-fire deal -- with President Joe Biden and likely Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. We talk to Michael Provence, who teaches modern Middle East history with a focus on the 20th century Arab East at the University of California San Diego. The Olympics get underway in Paris with the opening ceremony on the Seine River. And what would your ideal partner be like if you could create them from the ground up? Scientists are trying to find out using artificial intelligence.
Winds and lightning strikes have sparked and fanned wildfires across the Pacific Northwest this week, including the largest fire in the United States, which was rapidly expanding near the Oregon-Idaho border on Friday.

The Durkee Fire near Huntington, Oregon, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Boise, Idaho, has scorched 600 square miles (1,553 square km), an area more than half the size of Rhode Island's land mass, authorities said. It is threatening several towns.

The blaze was set off by lightning on July 17, and wind gusts up to 60 mph (97 kph) drove the flames across brush, timberland and ranches, killing hundreds of cattle. The fire was only 20% contained on Friday, officials said.

While there is zero chance of rain through next week, winds have dropped and cooler air is in store, said meteorologist Marc Chenard of the National Weather Service.

"Hopefully it gives firefighters a break," he said.

As of Thursday, wildfires this year have burned almost 1 million acres (405,000 hectares) in Oregon and 125,900 acres in Washington, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland, Oregon.

Those numbers will grow, said Carol Connolly, a spokesperson for the agency. "We have 54 large uncontained fires going on in Oregon," she said.

In 2020, the worst year in recent memory, Oregon wildfires scorched more than 1.14 million acres, according to a tally by CBS TV affiliate KOIN.

In California, the Park Fire, believed to have been started by an arsonist, has forced the evacuation of more than 4,000 residents in Butte County, about 100 miles (160 km) northeast of Sacramento.

A suspect was arrested on Thursday, accused of pushing a burning car down a bone-dry gully.

The fire grew uncontrolled overnight from 125,000 acres on Thursday to 164,200 acres on Friday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

"The biggest challenge with this fire is getting to it," said Fire Captain Dan Collins. "It's steep land with almost no roads. It's hard to get our people and equipment to the fire lines."

Forecasters warned that winds would reach 30 mph (48 kph) on Friday and through the weekend. Combined with low humidity, it is a recipe for rapid growth, officials said.

Smoke from fires in western Canada and the Pacific Northwest have brought hazy skies and unhealthy air from the Rocky Mountains to Minneapolis and as far east as Detroit, weather reports said.

Denver had the worst air quality in the U.S. on Friday and ranked the 30th worst in the world, according to IQAir, a group that tracks air pollution across the globe.

Much of the smoke coming into the Central and Eastern U.S. comes from a raging wildfire in the mountainous Jasper National Park in the Canadian province of Alberta.

The park and the town of Jasper, which draws more than 2 million tourists a year, were evacuated on Monday, displacing 10,000 residents and 15,000 park visitors. As much as half of the structures in the town could be damaged or destroyed, officials said, as the blaze burned more than 89,000 acres as of late Thursday.

Videos posted on social media show entire streets leveled by the blazes in the Alberta province, with scorched trees, charred metal skeletons of cars, and nothing but rubble where homes and businesses had stood.
We have never seen a Chinese reaction like this one, says regional security affairs analyst Ahmed Rashid, referring to Beijings persistent public demand that Pakistan ensure the safety of Chinese nationals since a March 26 suicide attack killed five Chinese workers there.

As Pakistan fights a resurgent wave of terrorism that has killed hundreds of local civilians and security personnel this year, officials insist they can keep a few thousand Chinese nationals safe.

A major ally of China, Pakistan has seen billions of dollars in much-needed energy and infrastructure projects pour in through the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor  the flagship project of Beijings global Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

The project, popularly known as CPEC, however, has suffered as Islamist militants and Baloch insurgents fighting the Pakistani state target Chinese nationals and projects.

Since 2017, at least 19 Chinese nationals have been killed in Pakistan. The March suicide attack in Besham, a town in northwestern Pakistan, came just days after militants stormed a government compound in Gwadar, home to a Chinese-built deep-sea port in the southwest.

Keen to save one of its most critical bilateral relationships, Pakistan quickly revamped protocols, promising fool-proof security for Chinese citizens in meetings with the Chinese leadership.

In June, Pakistan also announced a new nationwide anti-terrorism campaign soon after a visiting senior Chinese official told Pakistani politicians the primary factor shaking the confidence of Chinese investors is the security situation.

"This is a very serious issue because for the first time we have had in the last few months some very strong, tough statements from the Chinese, criticizing its biggest ally in the region, Pakistan," said Rashid.

Whats new?

A dedicated military division and special provincial police units provide security to Chinese nationals and projects in Pakistan. Local intelligence units keep a record of where the foreigners live and work. Chinese nationals usually move between cities in bullet-proof vehicles with a police escort. One percent of the cost of any project involving Chinese workers is budgeted for security.

Large-scale projects are often cut off from nearby towns to limit public access, while locals hired to work at sites secured with barbed wires and cameras must clear police background checks.



There is pressure, a counterterrorism officer said while speaking to VOA on background about the new push in Pakistan, to ensure the closely follow pre-existing security protocols for Chinese personnel and projects.

Since the Besham attack, the Ministry of Interior has created a so-called foreigners security cell to streamline coordination among provinces. A new Special Protection Unit of police in Islamabad now protects Chinese nationals in the capital.

Police personnel are undergoing renewed training and having equipment audited, while security checks on roads near where the Chinese live or work have increased, officials tell VOA.

Another element that has been added since then [the Besham attack] is kinetic, said a senior provincial law enforcement officer speaking to VOA on background. There is improved record-keeping of area residents. So that we are aware of who lives there.

The probability of local support and facilitation is very high in our spectrum, and we try to keep identifying such people so that we can preempt it, the official said.

Chinese help

Pakistani officials reject reports that China has sought to deploy its own security personnel in Pakistan but say law enforcement cooperation between the two countries already exists.

They have extended support to the establishment of SPU [Special Protection Unit], Aitzaz Goraya, provincial counterterrorism chief in Baluchistan, told VOA. They have promised some equipment for it, too. Some has arrived and some is on the way. Such a process is ongoing, at least in Balochistan.

Authorities say they hope to complete a safe city program in Gwadar by the end of the year. The project includes installing hundreds of cameras controlled from a centralized command center in the key port town to surveil residents as guards keep an eye on the area from watchtowers.

Resentment

Heightened security for Chinese workers is also a source of resentment among locals in parts of Pakistan. In Gwadar, where the Pakistani military controls security, impoverished locals have staged mass protests in recent years, complaining of a lack of involvement in Chinese-funded development projects, and of loss of livelihood and limited mobility.

All the shops and roadside restaurants close along the five- to six-kilometer-long distance when the Chinese travel from the port to the airport. This happens two to three times a week, said Naeem Ghafoor, a local activist.

The new nationwide anti-terror offensive named Azm-e-Istehkam faces intense opposition in the militancy-hit northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where residents have experienced mass displacement and destruction of infrastructure in past military operations.

Security affairs expert Rashid says Pakistan cannot ensure the security of Chinese workers without providing basic facilities to its own citizens first.

There is a chronic need to involve civil society, said Rashid. Its not just that the army can deal with this on its own or the police can. This needs development. It needs better facilities.

Fulfilling decades-old promises of development may still take years as Pakistan struggles to bring its economy on track with bailouts from the International Monetary Fund.

Still, Goraya believes Pakistan can keep its promise of providing security to the Chinese.

They [terrorists] dont have anything that we dont, Goraya said. If we follow the SOPs [Standard Operating Procedures] and dont deviate from it, we can do it.
Pakistans minister for information technology and telecommunication confirmed Friday the government is implementing an internet firewall but rejected talk that the tool will curb free speech online, defending it as a cybersecurity upgrade.

Its a system. It is not a physical wall that we are putting up, Shaza Fatima Khawaja, the state minister, told VOA. It will not curb anything.

The junior minister, currently the ministrys top official, defended the governments decision to implement a nationwide internet regulatory tool, saying the country was under daily cyberattacks.

If a cybersecurity system, a capability, comes to the government, its a good thing, Khawaja said in response to a VOA question at a news briefing earlier.

Pakistan has allocated more than $70 million for a Digital Infrastructure Development Initiative in the latest budget. Critics and digital rights activists worry the nationwide firewall will be used to silence dissent.

Pakistani authorities have hinted at a nationwide censorship tool for months but hesitated to issue a formal statement.

In a January interview with a news channel, Pakistan's then-interim prime minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, announced the measure.

"Very soon a national firewall will be deployed," Kakar said.

A high-ranking government official confirmed to VOA Urdu in June that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharifs government was working to deploy a nationwide tool meant to control internet traffic and filter content available to online users in Pakistan.

Sharifs government has rebuffed calls for clarity, however, while downplaying censorship concerns.

I think if there is a firewall system, it will be about cybersecurity and data security. It will have nothing to do with freedom of speech, as far as I know, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar said at a news briefing Sunday.

Earlier the minister dismissed reports that Pakistan was acquiring an online censorship tool from China.

Digital terrorism

The firewall comes as the Pakistani military faces severe criticism online for its alleged role in keeping former Prime Minister Imran Khan behind bars while his party continues to face a crackdown.

The military, which denies meddling in political affairs, has lately been using the term digital terrorists for online critics.

Just as terrorists use weapons to get their demands met, digital terrorists use negative propaganda and fake news on social media platforms, mobiles and computers to create despondency to get their demands met, Pakistani military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said at a news conference this week.

Chaudhry said the military had become the sole target of digital terrorists.

He blamed a certain political party without naming Khans Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf party, which has a formidable social media presence.

This week, police raided the PTIs headquarters in the Pakistani capital, detaining its chief spokesperson and several other media team members, accusing them of running an anti-state campaign.

Service disruption

On Thursday, Pakistani media outlet The News reported recent problems users encountered in sharing content via the Meta-owned messaging app Whatsapp were a result of a test run of the firewall.

Refusing to comment on the implementation process of the firewall, the spokesperson of the independent Pakistan Telecommunication Authority said the regulator did not receive any reports of service disruptions.

Our systems were clear. They were up and running. They did not falter anywhere, Malahat Obaid told VOA, adding that the problems users faced could be because of a technical glitch.

Cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks recorded five incidents of authorities restricting internet access so far this year. The disruptions occurred around Februarys general elections.
Militant attacks in Pakistans northwest have plagued the region for years, leading to tensions between some of the regions civilian leaders and the Pakistani military.

Last month, the military announced the Azm-e-Istehkam or Resolve for Stability offensive would be an operation that cracks down on militants, but after a decade of similar interventions, many residents in the region are wary.

This week, a man recorded a video while standing next to debris from a girls school that militants blew up Monday night in a small village in the North Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. He lamented how violent the province has become, especially compared with other, more peaceful parts of Pakistan.

We never heard that a school was blown up in Punjab, Pakistans most populous province and home to the majority of the countrys armed forces, he said.

Mohsin Dawar, the former chairman of the foreign affairs committee in Pakistans lower house, posted video of the destroyed school on the X platform with a comment, The state stands by, complicit in the destruction.

Mondays destruction of the girls school was not unusual. Last week there were attacks on police stations, a hospital and an army base, all in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province about the same size as Iceland or South Korea.

After years of violence, the local Pashtun population is questioning why peace has not returned to the border region despite the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from neighboring Afghanistan.

The ongoing militant attacks have boosted support for a local rights movement, the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement, which is leading a series of mass peace rallies aimed at holding Pakistans military accountable for its track record in combating terrorism.

The group is the major voice opposing the governments plan to launch another military operation in the region to try to drive out militants and end the attacks.

The prospect of another military offensive has drawn opposition from residents, who remember the large-scale displacements that happened when the military launched offensives twice before in the last decade.

Army spokesperson Lieutenant General Ahmad Sharif on Monday blamed groups who oppose the new offensive for allegedly trying to sabotage the operation with a disinformation campaign.

He insisted the proposed Azm-e-Istehkam is aimed at destroying militant groups operating in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan, two provinces that border Afghanistan, Iran and the strategic Arabian Sea, and also host several major Chinese-backed development projects.

Murad Ali, an academic at Malakand University in the nearby Swat Valley, says the regions history of military offensives has left many skeptical of the armys plans.

It is a fact that [the] military also suffered in terms of sweat and blood in [the] fight against militants," Ali said, but many in the Pashtun population doubt the capability of the military to eradicate militancy or suspect it is an "accomplice in perpetrating this hide and seek with good and bad Taliban.

The army spokesman said security forces have lost 137 soldiers so far, including officers, in 2024 in the fight against militants.

Ahmad Kundi, an elected member of Pakhtunkhwas regional assembly, says over the years, the national government has sent a mixed message about how to combat militancy.

One prime minister said negotiations with militants was a way forward and another prime minister opts for military operations, though it didnt deliver in the past, Kundi said.

Hamid Ullah in Peshawar contributed to this report.
Ukrainian children continue to pay what the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) called "an extraordinary price in lives lost and upended" due to Russia's invasion.

UNICEF said the war has had "a devastating impact on the country's 7.5 million children," with the U.N. verifying that nearly 2,000 children had been injured or killed as of May.

Ukraine's children have also faced forcible deportation to Russia, where they are subject to re-education. That, the State Department said, reflects Moscow's "systematic efforts to suppress Ukraine's identity, history, and culture."

Ukraine estimates Russia has deported or forcibly displaced nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children as of July 26.

In July 2023, Russian children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova said as many as 700,000 Ukrainian children had entered Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The International Criminal Court has charged Lvova-Belova and Russian President Vladimir Putin with the war crime of deporting Ukrainian children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.

Moscow has sought to deny those allegations by using the propaganda technique known as "accusation in a mirror"  in which the aggressor accuses its victim of committing the crimes that it has committed or plans to commit.

The Kremlin has also spread unfounded conspiracy theories to implicate Ukrainian authorities and military forces in extreme abuses against its own children.

On July 24, Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency ran an interview with an unidentified man, whom the report described as an evacuee from Ukrainian-controlled territory in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine.

The man claimed there were several instances in which the White Angels, a special unit of Ukraine's National Police helping people evacuate from frontline areas, had taken children from the region. Citing neighbors, the man speculated the Ukrainian military and the White Angels took those children to "harvest their organs," or "deliver them to pedophiles."

Neither the man in the video nor RIA Novosti cited any evidence or named any victims to support the allegations.

These claims fit into state-sponsored efforts to deflect attention from the war crimes allegations Putin and Lvova-Belova are facing regarding the abduction of Ukrainian children.

Anna Kuznetsova, deputy speaker of the Russian parliament who co-chairs Russia's "Parliamentary Commission on Investigation of the Crimes Committed by the Kiev regime Against Minors," has been instrumental in those efforts.

Last year, Kuznetsova accused Ukrainian authorities, and the White Angels, of selling children into sexual slavery or facilitating the harvesting of their organs.

Kuznetsova specifically referred to the White Angels as "professional kidnappers," although the group does not force people to leave against their will.

Kuznetsova went so far as to claim, without evidence, that the sale of children's organs constitutes 7% of Ukraine's economy.

Kuznetsova presented her accusations in a June 2023 report that was released roughly three months after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova.

Apart from false claims about children, Russia has repeatedly spread false or unfounded reports about organ harvesting in Ukraine since first invading the neighbor's eastern regions in 2014.

In 2019, Russian media alleged a "special medical group" was harvesting soldiers' organs for export to Europe at facilities in Donetsk.

VOA determined that alleged medical centers in the cities of Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, where Russian media alleged the organ harvesting was taking place, did not exist.

Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia resurrected that claim, baselessly implicating the Ukrainian Red Cross Society in the illicit practice.

The families of deceased Ukrainian soldiers, in turn, said the bodies of the servicemen returned by Russia were missing organs or bore signs of torture.

Those practices, if independently confirmed, would constitute war crimes.

Since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, Moscow has attempted to portray itself as the protector of Ukrainian children and falsely alleged Ukrainian forces target and otherwise exploit their own children.

That includes a widely debunked story spread by Russian state media, which claimed the Ukrainian army publicly crucified a 3-year-old boy in the eastern Ukrainian town of Slavyansk in 2014.

Moscow has also falsely accused Ukrainian victims of its attacks, including a pregnant woman who was injured in a 2022 Russian airstrike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol, of being crisis actors.

By contrast, the evidence suggests Russia has used actors and unreliable witness testimonies to spread disinformation about Ukraine.
Over the past three weeks, Shirali Abdurehim, a 39-year-old Uyghur honey seller in Istanbul, has been detained in an immigration detention center.

Abdurehim, a father of nine children, has lived in Turkey with his wife since 2013 as a refugee after fleeing repression in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China. He is one of at least a dozen Uyghurs who have been detained in recent weeks, according to detainees, lawyers and rights advocates.

VOA has also seen at least four posts on the social media site Facebook calling for the release of family members since last weekend.

"Turkish agents came to my residence on July 4 and said there was an allegation against me that I conspired with other foreigners from Uzbekistan to produce and sell counterfeit Turkish passports," Abdurehim told VOA in a phone interview.

"They were very polite when they took me for interrogation. They first said they would immediately release me after taking a statement," he said.

Family facing eviction

During the interrogation, Abdurehim says he denied the allegations, claiming that the accusations were fabricated by the Chinese government or Chinese agents in Turkey.

"After that interrogation, they said they couldn't release me and instead transferred me to an immigration detention center, where I joined six other recently arrested Uyghurs," he said. "My wife and nine children are desperately waiting for my return. They can't survive without me, and now they face eviction from the apartment we rent."

VOA emailed the Turkish Interior Ministry's Immigration Department for more information regarding the cases of Abdurehim and the other Uyghurs detained in recent weeks. The ministry has yet to respond.

Abdurehim's wife, who asked that her first name not be published to protect her relatives in Xinjiang, told VOA that the family had been living day-to-day on her husband's honey sales. "Our landlord demanded six months' rent in advance, but we can't afford it. With my husband in indefinite detention, we're also struggling to put food on the table."

Turkish flag T-shirt

Abdurehim says his troubles trace to 2010 when Chinese authorities arrested him in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

"I was arrested for months in 2010 for wearing a T-shirt with a Turkish flag," Abdurehim said. "It was a time when many Uyghurs felt grateful for [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan's statement in 2009."

Unrest had broken out in Urumqi in July of that year amid protests over government inaction following reported killings and injuries of Uyghurs by a Chinese mob in Guangdong province. Initially peaceful, the protests escalated into clashes when Chinese armed police intervened. Subsequently, Uyghurs faced accusations of attacking unarmed Chinese individuals, resulting in arrests, disappearances and detentions.

Erdogan had characterized China's actions toward Uyghurs as "genocide," a sentiment that resonated within the Uyghur community.

Fleeing China

After his release, Abdurehim fled the country without a passport. Because of China's historical restrictions preventing many Uyghurs from obtaining passports legally, he sought assistance from human traffickers in Yunnan province in southwest China.

"In 2012, I journeyed from Yunnan through Vietnam and Thailand, eventually arriving in Malaysia. It was there that my wife, our only child at the time, and I received humanitarian travel documents from the Turkish Embassy, enabling us to relocate to Turkey in 2013," he recounted.

"For the first time, I felt liberated from government repression in a country I came to cherish deeply, a place I was prepared to sacrifice everything for, including my life."

After arriving in Turkey, Abdurehim opened a grocery shop in Istanbul. However, in late 2018, he was detained by Turkish authorities on unspecified allegations. He was released in early 2019 without any charges.

"I spent three months in detention due to baseless accusations, which I believe were influenced by Chinese authorities or their agents in Turkey," Abdurehim recounted.

"Thankfully, Turkish authorities eventually recognized my innocence and released me. However, the ordeal forced me to sell my grocery shop to cover legal expenses and defense fees."

Refuge in Turkey

Turkey is home to one of the largest Uyghur diaspora communities outside China, with a population estimated at 50,000 to 75,000, according to Uyghur groups there.

Since the 1950s, Turkey has been a refuge for Uyghurs fleeing what they describe as severe repression by the Chinese government, including allegations of genocide, mass arbitrary detention affecting over 1 million people, forced labor, forced sterilization, torture and other abuses.

China denies all those allegations, but in recent years, the U.S. and several Western parliaments have officially labeled China's recent policies and treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang as genocide. The U.N. human rights office has suggested that these actions may constitute crimes against humanity.

Initially denying these accusations, China later referred to the facilities holding Uyghurs as "re-education centers" aimed at countering "extremism, terrorism and separatism." China continuously describes accusations of Uyghur human rights abuses as "lies fabricated by U.S.-led anti-China forces" to contain China's development.

China-Turkey ties

Memettohti Atawulla, an Istanbul-based senior project manager at the Washington-based Center for Uyghur Studies, notes that the recent surge in arrests of Uyghurs in Turkey came shortly after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited Xinjiang.

During the trip, "Turkey expressed its commitment to cooperate in what China terms as 'anti-terrorism,' a label that masks China's harsh policies targeting Uyghurs," Atawulla told VOA. "This may be a significant factor contributing to the increased arrests of Uyghurs in Turkey."

During his visit to Urumqi, Fidan emphasized Turkey's support for China's anti-terrorism efforts in a meeting with Xinjiang Communist Party Secretary Ma Xingrui.

"We support China against armed terrorist groups. We do not approve international initiatives seeking to incite strife in China and to stop China's economic development," Fidan said in China. He also urged China to respect Uyghurs and let them "live their values."

The Turkish Foreign Ministry didn't respond to a request from VOA for comment on whether the recent arrests were related to "anti-terrorism" cooperation between the two countries.

Recent uptick

According to Jevlan Shirmehmet, an Istanbul-based lawyer advocating for Uyghurs, the reasons for the recent arrests extend beyond accusations related to terrorism.

He said it is hard to determine the total number of Uyghurs detained, but he personally knows of at least five detainees and was meeting with one detained Uyghur in a prison in Istanbul when VOA spoke with him.

He added that arrests of Uyghurs are not new, but that there has been a recent uptick.

"This issue of Uyghur detentions in Turkey has persisted over several years, and I have personally seen a variety of cases," Shirmehmet said.

"One common scenario involves allegations conveyed by China, while another type accuses Uyghurs of espionage for China. Additionally, there are cases related to civil crimes that occur in any community."
Several rockets were launched Thursday and Friday against bases hosting troops from the U.S.-led anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq and Syria, security officials and a war monitor said.

Such attacks were frequent early in the war between Israel and Hamas Palestinian militants in Gaza but since then have largely halted.

"Four rockets fell in the vicinity" of Ain al-Assad base in Anbar province, an Iraqi security source said.

Another security official said an attack occurred with "a drone and three rockets" that fell close to the base perimeter.

A United States official said initial reports indicated that projectiles landed outside the base without causing injuries or damage to the base.

All sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

At least one rocket also fell near a base of the coalition in the Conoco gas field in Deir Ezzor province of eastern Syria, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

The Observatory said a blast was heard in the area but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

The rocket was fired from "zones under the control of pro-Iranian militia" groups, said the monitor, which relies on sources inside Syria.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.

Iran-backed armed groups in Iraq have largely halted similar attacks on U.S.-backed troops in recent months.

The latest attack come after a security meeting this week between Iraqi and U.S. officials in Washington on the future of the international anti-jihadist coalition in Iraq. Iran-backed groups have demanded a withdrawal.

The U.S. Defense Department said Wednesday "the delegations reached an understanding on the concept for a new phase of the bilateral security relationship."

This would include "cooperation through liaison officers, training, and traditional security cooperation programs."

On July 16, two drones were launched against Ain al-Assad base, with one exploding inside without causing injuries or damage. A senior security official in Baghdad said at the time he believed the attack was meant to "embarrass" the Iraqi government before the security meeting.

For more than three months, as regional tensions soared over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, United States troops were targeted by rockets and drones more than 175 times in the Middle East, mainly in Iraq and Syria.

The Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-backed groups, claimed the majority of the attacks, saying they were in solidarity with Gaza Palestinians.

In January, a drone strike blamed on those groups killed three U.S. soldiers in a base in Jordan. In retaliation, U.S. forces launched dozens of strikes against Tehran-backed fighters.

Since then, attacks against U.S. troops have largely halted.

Baghdad has sought to defuse tensions, engaging in talks with Washington on the future of the U.S.-led coalition's mission in Iraq.

The U.S. military has around 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria with the international coalition.

The coalition was deployed to Iraq at the government's request in 2014 to help combat the Islamic State group, which had taken over vast swathes of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Islamic State remnants still carry out attacks and ambushes in both countries.
New research suggests that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan will drop to record-low levels in 2024, due to the ban on the crop imposed by the Taliban government two years ago.

The findings, released this week by Alcis, a geospatial analytics firm, are based on high-resolution satellite mapping of 14 out of the 34 Afghan provinces.

These 14 provinces were responsible for 92% of the countrys total poppy cultivation in 2022, cultivating 201,725 hectares out of a total of 219,978 hectares grown, according to the study published on Thursday.

In 2023, cultivation in these provinces had fallen to 15,648 hectares (50% of the crop that year), and in 2024, only 3,641 hectares of poppy were grown, it said.

This year, as in 2023, it is expected that poppy cultivation will be at close to historically low levels, said Alcis.

The Afghan provinces in focus include Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, and Farah in the south and southwest and Nangarhar and Baghlan in the east and north.

The Taliban banned poppy cultivation and production eight months after the then-insurgent group reclaimed power from an internationally backed Afghan government in August 2021.

The following year, Afghanistan still supplied about 80% of the global illegal opiate demand and 95% of Europe's heroin in 2022, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC. But the U.N. agency noted in its 2024 World Drug Report that the ban had reduced opium production in the impoverished country by 95%.

The Alcis study warns there are pockets of resistance to the Talibans ban, particularly in the remote, northeastern border province of Badakhshan.

Widespread [poppy] cultivation persists in the province, the study noted, and the Talibans eradication efforts have been met with violence, leaving at least five people, including three Taliban soldiers, dead in April.

The events in Badakhshan and elsewhere, where farmers have responded to the ban by abandoning important cash crops, growing staple food crops such as wheat, and leaving land fallow, suggest the Talibans poppy ban is fragile and will become more difficult to enforce in the future, Alcis cautioned.

The firm noted that without the income brought in by opium production, many Afghan farmers are struggling to earn a livelihood. It said without markets for cash-producing crops and an increase in non-farm opportunities, the Taliban may face further unrest and further outmigration.

The Taliban takeover has led to deepening economic troubles in Afghanistan, mainly attributed to international financial and banking sector sanctions. It has also exacerbated a long-running Afghan humanitarian crisis.

The country remains a global pariah largely because of the Talibans curbs on womens access to education and work, deterring the international community from formally recognizing the de facto Afghan government and offering any financial aid.

On Tuesday, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a national conference in Kabul that the drug ban had led to immense economic pressures and severe hardships for Afghans already reeling from the effects of years of war and natural disasters. He lamented the ongoing lack of international cooperation in response.

The illegal production of drugs has ceased. The [more than 4 million] addicts [in Afghanistan] are now in need of medical treatment while the farmers need livelihoods and employment, Muttaqi said.

Regrettably, the international community has failed to fulfill its responsibility in this matter. Instead, they have imposed sanctions on Afghan trade, travel, and banking sectors in breach of the universal fundamental human rights, he added.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Azerbaijan has detained 34 more foreigners in connection with police measures against illegal migration, Trend reports, referring to the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry.

The measures of employees of the Department for Combating Illegal Migration of the Azerbaijani Interior Ministry continue in Baku city at different addresses concerning foreigners who do not have documents authorizing the right to reside on the territory of the country.

Consequently, another 34 foreigners were detained for committing the above offenses. It was found that five of the detained persons, in addition to unregistered residents, were engaged in illegal labor activity.

Furthermore, it was also found that these foreigners were promised to provide illegal transfers to European countries, ostensibly using Azerbaijan as a transit, in exchange for money. The foreigners were deceived as a result.

Following the relevant article of the Code of Administrative Offenses, a protocol was drawn up and submitted to the appropriate authorities.

To note, since the beginning of 2024, police officers have identified 161 foreign citizens who do not have documents entitling them to reside in Azerbaijan and who fail to comply with the rules of registration while moving from one place to another.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
A powerful Mexican drug cartel leader who eluded authorities for decades was duped into flying into the U.S., where he was arrested alongside a son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, according to a U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the matter.

Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada got on an airplane to the U.S. believing he was going somewhere else, said the official, who spoke on the condition on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. The official did not provide additional details, including who persuaded Zambada to get on the plane or where exactly he thought he was going.

Upon arriving in the El Paso area, Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of notorious drug kingpin "El Chapo," who was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison in 2019, were immediately taken into custody by U.S. authorities, officials said.

Zambada appeared in federal court in El Paso Friday morning and has entered a plea of not guilty to slew of drug trafficking charges, court records show. Frank Perez, a lawyer listed for Zambada, did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment Friday.

Perez told The Los Angeles Times that Zambada was brought to the U.S. "against his will."

"I have no comment except to state that he did not surrender voluntarily," Perez said.

Zambada, one of the most powerful drug lords in the world, has been a key target for the U.S. government for years in its bid to take down leaders of the Sinaloa cartel that's responsible for trafficking huge sums of drugs across the border. U.S. authorities had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to his capture.

His arrest "strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast," said U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Anne Milgram.

"Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable," Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Thursday.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Friday that Mexico was still awaiting details about the arrests and was not involved in the operation. Although he hailed the arrests, he suggested others could step in to fill the vacuum. That's why his administration has focused on addressing the root causes of drug use and the associated violence, he said.

Mexican Security Secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said the plane took off with only the pilot from the airport in Hermosillo, Mexico. Tracking service FlightAware showed the plane stopped transmitting its altitude and speed for about 30 minutes while it was over the mountains of northern Mexico before resuming its course to the U.S. border.

"It is a fact that one person went out from here, three people arrived there," she said.

Zambada is charged in a number of U.S. cases, including in New York and California. Prosecutors brought a new indictment against him in New York in February, describing him as the "principal leader of the criminal enterprise responsible for importing enormous quantities of narcotics into the United States."

One of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, Zambada was considered the cartel's strategist, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, "El Chapo."

Zambada is an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals. While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.

In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.

"I'm terrified of being incarcerated," Zambada said. "I'd like to think that, yes, I would kill myself."

The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.

Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighboring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.

Although little is known about Zambada's early life, he is believed to have gotten his start as an enforcer in the 1970s. By the early 1990s, he was a major player in the Juarez cartel, transporting tons of cocaine and marijuana.

Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but still managed to keep strong ties with the gang and avoided a turf war. He also developed a partnership with "El Chapo" Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Zambada's detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of "El Chapo" Guzman, Ovidio Guzman Lopez.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested and extradited to the U.S. last year. He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September. The Bureau of Prisons inmate locator showed Ovidio Guzman Lopez was released Tuesday, but Rodriguez said U.S. authorities informed Mexico he was not freed but just had his custody changed.

In 2021, Zambada's son pleaded guilty in federal court in San Diego to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel.

In recent years, Guzman's sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or "Chapitos," that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the U.S. market. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' meteoric rise to the top of the Democratic Party's presidential ticket has energized many Indian Americans, raising the fast-growing community's political profile and sparking widespread excitement.

Harris, who is of Indian and Jamaican descent, appears set to become the first female presidential nominee of color after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday. But the fervor isn't solely about her nomination.

Many Indian Americans, regardless of political leanings, are equally electrified to see other notable figures of Indian descent in the national spotlight: Usha Vance, the wife of Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, as well as former presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.

"I'm very proud that Indian Americans are making it on every stage," said Shaker Narasimhan, chair and founder of AAPI Victory Fund, a super PAC focused on mobilizing Asian American and Pacific Islander voters and supporting Democratic candidates.

Narasimhan recalled being on a call with about 130 people when news broke that Biden had dropped his presidential bid and endorsed Harris.

"Everything lit up, literally: the chats, the DMs, the phones," Narasimhan said. "But it was all with excitement, not wonderment, like, 'Wow.' It was like, 'Oh my God, let's go,' This is just the opportunity of a lifetime, as far as I'm concerned, for us to show our muscles."

The enthusiasm cuts across the political spectrum. Priti Pandya-Patel, co-founder of the New Jersey Republican Party's South Asia Coalition, said the community is buzzing about the prospect of Usha Vance becoming the country's first Indian American second lady.

"I think it's just a proud moment to see our community actually being out there and being noticed," Pandya-Patel said. "I think that is definitely getting our Indian community very excited."

5 million in US

Indian Americans are one of the fastest-growing immigrant communities, surging more than tenfold since the early 1990s.

Today, there are roughly 5 million people of Indian descent living in the United States, making them the largest Asian ethnic group and the second-largest immigrant group after Mexicans.

While Indian Americans vote Democratic more than any other Asian group, roughly 20% identify as Republican.

The Indian American community has traditionally been perceived as politically less active than some other ethnic groups. However, there are indications of growing political engagement within the community.

A recent survey of Asian Americans, including those of Indian descent, found that 90% intended to vote in the November election even though 42% had not been contacted by either party or candidate.

The Asian American Voter Survey, of nearly 2,500 voters, was conducted between April 4 to May 26 by several Asian American groups.

"So that suggests a potential gap in engagement," said Suhag Shukla, co-founder and executive director of the non-partisan Hindu American Foundation.

Shukla said the election presents a "tremendous opportunity" for the Indian American community as well as the two major political parties.

"I think Indian Americans need to recognize their power, especially because many of us do live in either purple states or purple districts," Shukla said in an interview with VOA, referring to battleground states in the U.S. presidential election. "On the flip side, I think that it's a real opportunity for the parties to do not just a checkmark or a checkbox-type outreach, but genuine outreach. Have town halls. Have listening sessions."

Spokespeople for the Harris and Trump campaigns did not respond to questions about their community outreach efforts.

Both campaigns mobilize voters through grassroots organizations.

Deepa Sharma, deputy director of South Asians for Harris and a delegate to next month's Democratic National Convention, said her group is "working closely with people on the ground who will knock on doors, will do phone bank and outreach to this community."

Indian Americans comprise less than 1% of U.S. registered voters, according to a 2020 study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. But almost one-third live in closely contested battleground states such as Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

That puts them in a position to sway the outcome of the November election, said Chintan Patel, executive director of Indian American Impact, a progressive group.

"The South Asian American population far exceeds the margin of victory in the closest elections in these states," Patel said.

Voter turnout steadily climbing

In 2020, the Biden-Harris ticket carried more than 70% of the Indian American vote, according to Patel, adding that support for Harris is likely to edge higher this year.

"She has drawn considerable support from the South Asian American community because she has consistently shown up and fought for our values, fought for our issues," Patel said.

Earlier this year, Harris spoke at Indian American Impact's "Desis Decide" summit, where she credited Indian Americans and Asian Americans with helping to get two Democratic senators elected in 2020 and 2021.

Patel said voter turnout among South Asian Americans has been steadily climbing in recent years. In 2020, for example, more than 70% of registered South Asian American voters turned out to vote in Pennsylvania, he said.

"I think they're going to be instrumental in delivering the White House this November," Patel said.

Similar predictions by groups such as Muslim Americans have sometimes failed to materialize.

But Narasimhan said turnout could be boosted with the right voter mobilization strategy, adding that voter education is key.

"Just because you're a citizen doesn't mean you can vote, you have to register," Narasimhan said. "Teaching people the basic rudimentaries of what's early voting, what's absentee balloting, what's going to the polls, navigating the system is critical, and we have to do that basic education."

On the Republican side, activists are betting that Trump's close ties to India's Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi will translate into votes for the former president.

"Trump has been friendly to India and that makes a big difference," Pandya-Patel, the Republican activist in New Jersey, said.

Whether Indian American support for Trump is rising remains unclear.

In the recent Asian American Voter Survey, 29% of Indian Americans said they intended to vote for Trump, largely unchanged from four years ago.

Trump has called Modi a "true friend." In 2019, he and Modi addressed a joint rally in Houston, Texas, that attracted more than 50,000 people, many supporters of the Indian prime minister. At the "Howdy, Modi!" rally, Trump called Modi "one of America's greatest, most devoted and most loyal friends."

Pandya-Patel said the rally boosted Indian American support for Trump, whose friendship with Modi, she added, is a key reason many Indian Americans back him.

Shukla of the Hindu American Foundation said there is a perception among some Indian Americans that the Democratic Party is not "a Hindu-friendly party."

That may partly explain a recent "shift" in Indian American party affiliation, she said.

In the Asian American Voter Survey, the number of Indians who identify as Democrats fell from 54% in 2020 to 47% in 2024, while those identifying with the Republican Party rose from 16% to 21%.

Anang Mittal, a Virginia-based commentator who previously worked for House Speaker Mike Johnson, said the apparent shift reflects less a "sea change" than shifting political attitudes.

"I think the country as a whole is sort of shifting towards Republicans because of the larger issues that are plaguing this election," Mittal said.
U.S. diplomats and military officials rejected concerns that recent  and sudden  changes to the American political landscape are a sign of weakness, warning Americas adversaries Thursday against trying to seek any sort of advantage.

They should think again, said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller, briefing reporters.

They should be disabused of the notion that we are anything but focused on the national security challenges that the country faces, he added. That includes responding to our adversaries when appropriate.

At the Pentagon, officials insisted that whatever challenges U.S. adversaries might have in store, the U.S. military is ready.

As to whether or not our adversaries are testing us at this particular time, they're always testing us, said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

It's just a nature of who they are and what they do, he told reporters. I dont think that this particular point in time is any different.

The warnings from Washington come less than a week after U.S. President Joe Biden announced he would no longer seek reelection, instead endorsing fellow Democrat Vice President Kamala Harris to run against former president and Republican Party nominee Donald Trump.

In an address from the White House late Wednesday to explain his decision to quit the race with just more than 100 days to go until the presidential election, Biden spoke in stark terms about the future of the country.

Nothing  nothing  can come in the way of saving our democracy, Biden said.

America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division, he added. We have to decide: Do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy?

Adding to the public concerns, the U.S. military announced just before Bidens speech that, for the first time, Russian and Chinese long-range strategic bombers flew a joint training mission, coming within 350 kilometers of the northwestern U.S. state of Alaska.

Other officials have also warned of emboldened U.S. adversaries.

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday told lawmakers that Iran still seeks retribution against Trump and some of his advisers for the January 2020 killing of former Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

"We need to recognize the brazenness of the Iranian regime, including right here in the United States," he said, while declining to share details of a reported assassination plot against Trump.

I expect there will be more coming on that," he said.

Others have voiced concerns about the actions of Iranian proxy forces, like the ongoing attacks by Yemens Houthis on international shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, or attacks by Iranian-backed militias on U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria.

We are taking away capability from the Houthis, said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General CQ Brown Jr., speaking to reporters Thursday at a Pentagon briefing.

But at the same point, it's going to take more than just a military operation, he said. This is an engagement with the international community, but also the [U.S.] interagency to use the various tools to put pressure on the Houthis to cease this.

At the State Department, spokesperson Miller said no matter the challenge, U.S diplomats will be up to the task.

The president has made it incredibly clear to the secretary and the rest of the national security team that he expects them to be focused for this next six months, that he expects them to advance the foreign policy objectives that he laid out from the outset of the administration and we have put into place over the course of the last three and a half years, he said.

And should any adversary seek to weaken the U.S., the Pentagons Austin said, the military will be waiting.

I think we'll continue to see this going forward, he told reporters. But again, we have the world's greatest military, most capable military, and we will continue to protect this nation.
The Biden administration is hopeful over a deal to reach a cease-fire and free hostages held in Gaza, where war has raged for more than nine months after Hamas stunning October 7 attack on Israel.

VOA spoke to John Kirby, White House national security spokesperson, about the deal and more, in this interview with VOA's White House Correspondent Begum Ersoz on Thursday.

The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: Does the administration accept a cease-fire deal only with phase one, that does not guarantee any way forward for the other phases of the deal? What stands in the way of a deal? And what are the sticking points?

KIRBY: The whole purpose of the proposal is that you get to phase one, you get a six-week ceasefire, get some hostages out and you begin the negotiations on phase two. Thats the whole purpose of this proposal. What we want to do is to get to phase one, get the six weeks started. I will not get into the details and negotiate in public. But we believe the gaps are narrow enough, that with compromise and leadership on both sides could be closed.

VOA: Is the administration concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be using this visit to the U.S. to bolster his own domestic political standing?

KIRBY: I think it's important that the American people had a chance to hear directly from the prime minister with comments [before the U.S. Congress] on Capitol Hill. And we obviously look forward to any opportunity we have, including the one today, to sit down and discuss these issues in a private setting. We also believe it was important that the prime minister hear directly from the families of the American hostages and understand their anxiety, their fear, their desire to get their loved ones home. I wont speak for the domestic considerations of the prime minister, thats for him to speak to, but it's pretty clear that the Israeli people also want to see those hostages returned. They want their loved ones back too.

VOA: Netanyahu also had talks with Vice President Kamala Harris. As the presumptive nominee for the Democratic party, to what extent she will follow the same trajectory as the Biden administration?

KIRBY: I'm not going to speculate about the future. Those are the questions for the vice president. Because what I can tell you, without question, is that she has been a full partner in the pursuit of the policies that this administration has made clear are important to us with respect to the Middle East and the war in Gaza. She has been a full partner and had conversations with Israeli counterparts on her own. She's been involved in virtually every conversation that the president has had with the prime minister.

VOA: Some NATO officials express concerns about an arms race with the axis of Russia-China-Iran-North Korea  and some say it has already helped Russia reconstitute its forces and capabilities more quickly. How potent is the Russian-Chinese-Iranian-North Korean axis? And do you see their cooperation expanding?

KIRBY: We have certainly watched with concern the burgeoning defense relationships between Russia and China and between Russia and North Korea. The way that it's manifested itself, particularly in Ukraine  Chinese companies now providing components for some Russian systems North Koreans providing artillery shells and ballistic missiles. Obviously, that's of concern to us. And we have and will continue to take the appropriate action to make sure these countries are held accountable for what they're doing in terms of supporting the war in Ukraine.

VOA: The Taliban claim Afghanistan is a victim of the destructive activities of groups with operations in neighboring countries and in the region. They warn that if the world neglects this, it could face a dangerous outcome. Does the U.S. perceive or sense any potential threat from Afghanistan?

KIRBY: First of all, we don't recognize the Taliban as the governing authority of Afghanistan. They made some commitments when they took over Kabul. They have not met those commitments. If they want legitimacy on the world stage, if they want to be taken seriously, they need to start making good on some of those commitments. They do have internal security issues, particularly an ongoing terrorist threat inside Afghanistan. And that is something that they're going to have to reconcile with. But the idea of playing victim here after they forcibly took over governance in Afghanistan rings pretty hollow to the international community.

VOA: During the NATO summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the approach of Western allies fuel the fire in the war in Ukraine instead of bringing about peace. Any reaction to that?

KIRBY: All I can tell you is that everything that President Biden has been doing since the beginning of this illegal aggression by Russia and unprovoked war has been to put Mr. Zelenskyy and Ukrainians in the best position possible, a position of strength, so that if and when they're ready to negotiate an end to this war, they can do it, knowing they've been supported by the United States and the international community. We all want to see this war end. And it's worth reminding people that the war could end tomorrow if Putin did the right thing and got his troops the hell out of Ukraine. So we make no apologies, none, whatsoever about what we're trying to do to make sure that Ukraine can find a way to end this war on terms that are acceptable to them.
The future of Venezuela is on the line. Voters will decide Sunday whether to reelect President Nicolas Maduro, whose 11 years in office have been beset by crisis, or allow the opposition a chance to deliver on a promise to undo the ruling party's policies that caused economic collapse and forced millions to emigrate.

Historically fractured opposition parties have coalesced behind a single candidate, giving the United Socialist Party of Venezuela its most serious electoral challenge in a presidential election in decades.

Maduro is being challenged by former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who represents the resurgent opposition, and eight other candidates. Supporters of Maduro and Gonzalez marked the end of the official campaign season Thursday with massive demonstrations in the capital, Caracas.

Here are some reasons why the election matters to the world:

Migration impact

The election will impact migration flows regardless of the winner.

The instability in Venezuela for the past decade has pushed more than 7.7 million people to migrate, which the U.N.'s refugee agency describes as the largest exodus in Latin America's recent history. Most Venezuelan migrants have settled in Latin America and the Caribbean, but they are increasingly setting their sights on the U.S.

The main opposition leader is not on the ballot

The most talked-about name in the race is not on the ballot: Maria Corina Machado. The former lawmaker emerged as an opposition star in 2023, filling the void left when a previous generation of opposition leaders fled into exile. Her principled attacks on government corruption and mismanagement rallied millions of Venezuelans to vote for her in the opposition's October primary.

But Maduro's government declared the primary illegal and opened criminal investigations against some of its organizers. Since then, it has issued warrants for several of Machado's supporters and arrested some members of her staff, and the country's top court affirmed a decision to keep her off the ballot.

Yet, she kept on campaigning, holding rallies nationwide and turning the ban on her candidacy into a symbol of the loss of rights and humiliations that many voters have felt for over a decade.

She has thrown her support behind Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a former ambassador who has never held public office, helping a fractious opposition unify.

They are campaigning together on the promise of economic reform that will lure back the millions of people who have migrated since Maduro became president in 2013.

Why is the current president struggling?

Maduro's popularity has dwindled due to an economic crisis caused by a drop in oil prices, corruption and government mismanagement.

Maduro can still bank on a cadre of die-hard believers, known as Chavistas, including millions of public employees and others whose businesses or employment depend on the state. But the ability of his party to use access to social programs to make people vote has diminished as the economy has frayed.

He is the heir to Hugo Chavez, a popular socialist who expanded Venezuela's welfare state while locking horns with the United States.

Sick with cancer, Chavez handpicked Maduro to act as interim president upon his death. He took on the role in March 2013, and the following month, he narrowly won the presidential election triggered by his mentor's death.

Maduro was reelected in 2018, in a contest that was widely considered a sham. His government banned Venezuela's most popular opposition parties and politicians from participating and, lacking a level playing field, the opposition urged voters to boycott the election.

Mismanaged oil industry

Venezuela has the world's largest proven crude reserves, but its production declined over several years, in part because of government mismanagement and widespread corruption in the state-owned oil company.

In April, Venezuela's government announced the arrest of Tareck El Aissami, the once-powerful oil minister and a Maduro ally, over an alleged scheme through which hundreds of millions of dollars in oil proceeds seemingly disappeared.

That same month, the U.S. government reimposed sanctions on Venezuela's energy sector, after Maduro and his allies used the ruling party's total control over Venezuela's institutions to undermine an agreement to allow free elections. Among those actions, they blocked Machado from registering as a presidential candidate and arrested and persecuted members of her team.

The sanctions make it illegal for U.S. companies to do business with state-run Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., better known as PDVSA, without prior authorization from the U.S. Treasury Department. The outcome of the election could decide whether those sanctions remain in place.

An uneven playing field

A more free and fair presidential election seemed like a possibility last year, when Maduro's government agreed to work with the U.S.-backed Unitary Platform coalition to improve electoral conditions in October 2023. An accord on election conditions earned Maduro's government broad relief from the U.S. economic sanctions on its state-run oil, gas and mining sectors.

But days later, authorities branded the opposition's primary illegal and began issuing warrants and arresting human rights defenders, journalists and opposition members.

A U.N.-backed panel investigating human rights violations in Venezuela has reported that the government has increased repression of critics and opponents ahead of the election, subjecting targets to detention, surveillance, threats, defamatory campaigns and arbitrary criminal proceedings.

The mounting actions taken against the opposition prompted the Biden administration earlier this year to end the sanctions relief it granted in October.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. We support STEM education and economic programs in Azerbaijan, Acting Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy in Azerbaijan Bill Murad said, Trend reports.

He made the remark at a graduation ceremony of the ThinkYoung Coding School, organized by the ThinkYoung non-profit organization in partnership with Boeing Aerospace Company.

Bill Murad noted that one of the brightest examples of US cooperation in Azerbaijan is the embassy-funded program called Technovation for Azerbaijan. It is designed for teenagers and students in the regions of Azerbaijan.

I am very pleased to see a major Boeing company supporting STEM education for Azerbaijan's younger generation. Boeing is a strategic partner of Azerbaijan's rapidly growing aviation sector and is contributing to the expansion of routes, networks, and operational efficiencies, the US embassy official noted.

According to him, the embassy appreciates the company's additional commitment to social activism in Azerbaijan.

To note, ThinkYoung and Boeing held their first coding school classes in the Caspian region and Central Asia from July 22 to 26.

As part of the program in Baku, Azerbaijani schoolchildren between the ages of 10 and 17 took coding classes, including lessons on website and game development.

Besides in-demand digital skills, the students also learned English and acquired skills that will help them in future careers in technology, aviation, and other STEM fields.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
Photo: Jay Maidment/20th Century Studios/MARVEL

The new Deadpool & Wolverine doesnt just combine two separate branches of Marvels cinematic efforts but two characters who have been dueling in its comic pages for going on 30 years. Deadpool, the mercenary whos known for breaking fourth walls as much as hes known for decapitating bad guys, is a natural foil for Wolverine, the X-Mens mutton-chop-wearing loner who isnt interested in making new friends. Especially when those friends talk as much as Deadpool.

As such, theyve made for perhaps the best odd-couple pairing in all of Marvels universes and have quarreled, fought, and even teamed up many times in the three decades since their first altercation. Although both characters have been accused of overexposure (theyre also heavyweight Marvel moneymakers), these two flawed antiheroes somehow bring out the best in one another as reminders of their shared humanity. So, before you head to theaters to watch Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman squabble, check out some of the comics (and one animated short) that have sealed their characters gory, hilarious legacy.

Note: The dates listed are the cover dates rather than the date that the comics were actually published. This makes them a little easier to find when youre searching through Marvels massive backlog.

Wolverine Vol. 2, No. 88 (December 1994)

Photo: MARVEL

The first official meeting between Wolverine and Deadpool goes how youd expect  violently. At this point, Wolverine (a.k.a. Logan) was a comfortable fixture of the Marvel universe. Since his debut in 1974, hed become a Swiss Army Knife character  lovable enough for some heartwarming bits, prickly enough to throw into antihero territory, and with an ever-broadening backstory that seemed to allow for anything. Deadpool (Wade Wilson) on the other hand, was an unhinged rising star, hopping around comic titles with a manic glee that absconded from the self-seriousness that much of the genre had accrued.

Though both were former experiments of the shadowy Weapon X organization (and meet here while seeking out their connections with other past members), their burgeoning rivalry is less based around longstanding bad blood and instead around something far more visceral  neither one can really physically die. Both have amazing healing powers, which means that the outrageous Deadpool is left to eternally annoy and stab the grizzled Wolverine, and Wolverine will never be able to cut the merc up and/or shut him up. Theyd have more important duels in the future, but this comic, in retrospect, feels like a bit of a eureka moment.

Wolverine Annual 1995 (September 1995)

Photo: MARVEL

After their initial meeting, it doesnt take long for Wolverine and Deadpool to team up for the first time, though it would play second fiddle as the backup plot in the plus-size 1995 Annual issue. As such, the story itself is a little rushed: Wolverine races to save Deadpool, then helps him fight his way out of a nefarious science lab. It doesnt really reek of an upcoming blockbuster-movie adaptation with them as co-headliners.

However, the 90s were a weird time for Wolverine. Having been stripped of the adamantium that was bonded to his bones, Logan was going through a kind of feral regression, which essentially meant that he was somehow grumpier than before. He wasnt alone in the realm of unstable, evolving fan favorites  Venom spent the decade going from deadly Spider-Man doppelganger to growling vigilante. But in saving Deadpool, a guy who hed met once and loathed, the story showed a glimmer of hope for the nastier version of Logan. And it complicated their relationship for the better: What if Deadpool could inspire more in Wolverine than just hate?

Deadpool Vol. 3, No. 27 (April 1999)

Photo: MARVEL

One important thing to know about Deadpool is that the movie version is more restrained than the comic book incarnation. In the comics, Deadpool has a streak of absurd meanness, one that Ryan Reynoldss affable teasing has never quite captured. This sanitizing of a messy character is par for the course for movie adaptations of comic books (see also The Mask and the 1995 Judge Dredd). You gotta make back that $250 million budget somehow. But it means that well likely never get a scene like the one in Deadpool Vol. 3 No. 27 where he beats up Kitty Pryde just to get a rise out of Wolverine.

While certainly not a good guy thing to do, Deadpools violence against an X-Man was supposed to be a form of therapy. Hes been tasked by his wacky psychiatrist to get in an extended superhero brawl with someone because it might help ease his hallucinations. But even Deadpool has a bit of pathos, as those hallucinations feature a long lost lover of his. And while Wolverine doesnt quite get it, and sees Deadpool through blood-soaked goggles throughout the encounter, it doesnt change the fact that when Deadpool needed psychological aid, he sought out Wolverine. Its not exactly heartwarming, but it does affirm them as Marvels finest star-crossed haters.

Wolverine Annual 1999 (December 1999)

Photo: MARVEL

Wolverine and Deadpool cautiously team up to fight a werewolf all while Wolverine tries to defend a guy that knows the werewolf that Deadpool is trying to assassinate is probably the most 1999 Marvel Comics plot that anyone has ever heard of. The story barely holds itself together, with the glue coming solely from the chemistry between Wolverine and Deadpool, who, at this point, are a lot of fun to watch together. Even the characters are having a good time  after Wolverine pops Deadpool in the face for what he did to Kitty Pryde in their last meeting, he agrees to get a beer with him. Theyve truly come a long way.

That said, the major thing that makes this comic integral to their relationship is that it ultimately feels character driven, running on the emotions of two well-established figures. The 90s are often lambasted for their continuous, cross-title story arcs and ceaseless big event promotional tactics. And someone like Wolverine, who is so embroiled in both current narratives and his own labyrinthine backstory, was far from immune. Deadpool, who, by nature of his character, is allowed to float in between the panels, can be an outlet for who hes involved with. He draws them out of their impossibly convoluted comic logic and lets them be naturally reactive.

Wolverine Vol. 2, No. 154 (September 2000)

Photo: MARVEL

One thing that became evident in Marvel comics after the turn of the millennium was the incremental effects the movies (that were based on the comics!) had on the new pages. Blockbusters like X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002) would influence alterations (often visually) that would synergistically align the two mediums. As such, reading a comic from Rob Liefeld, the co-creator of Deadpool, can feel like a blast from the past. Even the lean Deadpool becomes a meaty titan of flesh in Liefelds hand. And his Wolverine? Hes a wrecking ball with biceps.

But while the last comic illustrated the freeing effect of Deadpool on his co-stars, this comic works in the opposite direction. Because Deadpool can so often be turned into a punch-line-delivery vehicle, it can be hard to pin down any emotional through-lines. When Wolverine asks him why theyre fighting again after everything seemed cool, Deadpool just shrugs it off. Wolverine is a character of intense dedication, a guy who doesnt make friends easily and only keeps a small batch of allies close. While Deadpool loosens Wolverine up, Wolverine reminds Deadpool of being human  leading Deadpool to reckon with feelings with more weight than whatever gag line a writer has shoved in his mouth.

Cable & Deadpool Vol. 1, No. 43 (September 2007)

Photo: MARVEL

Its not too hard to pull Deadpool and Wolverine back into action against one another, especially considering that, on his best days, the latter merely tolerates the former. Marvel friends duking it out has been a staple since the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko days. (Millions of comics have been bought on the back of promises like SPIDER-MAN FIGHTING THOR TO THE DEATH? WHA-WHA-WHATTTTTT?) But Deadpool is ferocious and annoying and Wolverine is ferocious and easily annoyed, so whenever they butt heads, it feels like a natural extension of their dynamic and less like a promotional gimmick.

Still, their reunions dont necessarily make sense at times. Here Wolverine is out for blood and trying to take down HYDRA and kill Deadpools pal Weasel (who has his own misunderstood plan for HYDRA). So Cyclops asks for Deadpools help in reining him in? Wont that just make him angrier? (Unless that is Cyclopss point. Why possibly die trying to stop Wolverine when you can send the most frustrating man in the Marvel universe to do it instead?) What eventually sells the clash is Deadpools enthusiasm about it, and its a conflict that results in Deadpool momentarily getting his head sliced off. Rad.

Wolverine Origins No. 21 - March 2008

Photo: MARVEL

Despite the title, Wolverine: Origins has less to do with Logans formative years and more to do with Wolverines secret son whom he didnt know he had. It puts Wolverine in, for lack of a better phrase, an emotionally heightened state. And as weve seen so far, Wolverine already being in one of his moods is prime material for a Deadpool appearance. But even amid the plot twists, Wolverine and Deadpool take the focus here with a battle that lasts almost five straight issues.

This extended fight allows Wolverine and Deadpools combat to take a gory Looney Tunes cadence, something thats inherently funny even in a battle to the death (Wolverine even gets smashed by a falling piano in the story). What can these two throw at each other that they wont be able to come back from? At this point, it becomes clear that even when one threatens death against the other, neither of them will ever have the thematic heft to be the true victor. They will continue to reunite and cross swords with claws for as long as we like seeing them do it.

Uncanny X-Force Vol 1., No. 1 (December 2010)

Photo: MARVEL

Though Deadpools star turn in his 2016 film was treated as a breath of fresh air in the cinematic section of the superhero genre, the characters reputation in the comic books was a little more knotty. Deadpool had erupted into such a fan-favorite character so quickly that by the end of the aughts, hed fallen prey to overuse. His shtick had gone from exhilarating to hackneyed and in the wrong hands, he wasnt a character as much as he was a loose collection of jokey dialogue. Thankfully, writer Rick Remender aimed for something different, and to date, his work on Uncanny X-Force is Deadpools finest comic-book hour.

Not only is it the first time that Deadpool has truly and cohesively worked on a big team (paired with Archangel, Fantomex, Psylocke, and Wolverine, each bearing deep wounds from the past), but it also captures a kind of odd innocence and tortured ethos. Hes simultaneously gross and childlike, a character that will never really grow up. And you get to understand, on an emotional level, why Wolverine, the surly father figure of Prof. Xaviers school, would become attached to him.

It also explains why Deadpool is so appealing to comic fans. Its very easy to feel like an outsider when youre young and obsessed with comic books, and so you develop all of these specific bits of bizarre lore and references with what can seem like a fairly limited crowd of like-minded obsessives (especially prior to our current internet ecosystem). Then Deadpool arrives, a guy whos also an outsider, and bears all of the knowledge that youve locked away and is already in on all of your jokes, too. Deadpool can certainly be exhausting, but he can also feel like an untouched treasure to each new generation of comic readers who discover him.

Wolverine & Deadpool: The Decoy (September 2011)

Photo: MARVEL

Sometimes, you dont need a wider, intricate scheme to bring Deadpool and Wolverine back together. Sometimes you just need a killer robot. Wolverine & Deadpool: The Decoy doesnt thread into much of the wider Marvel story aside from a comic-book readers knowledge that sometimes the two get together and its funny. But instead of Deadpool tracking down Wolverine, its Wolverine who goes to Deadpool for help. And that help involves Deadpool dressing like Jean Grey (who the robot is hunting) and getting pummeled while Wolverine tries to figure out a way to take the big metal foe down.

The Decoy is bare bones, but its also the kind of story that a near-20-year rivalry can pull off without much setup anyway. When Wolverine contemplates who would be foolish enough to take his offer, you immediately know who hes talking about. And when Wolverine gruffly drags Deadpools battered body away from the scene of the battle, you sense a kind of warped brotherhood. Do they like one another? No, not really. But they do need one another.

Deadpool: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (October 2013)

Photo: MARVEL

Though much of this list is devoted to Deadpool and Wolverine taking center stage, theres also some great stuff to be found when other characters are exposed to their particular dynamic. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, one of the story arcs in the fantastic Deadpool collaboration of writers Gerry Duggan and Brian Posehn, throws Captain America into the mix. He doesnt seem like a natural fit until you realize that he, too, is the product of human experimentation. And together, the trio represents a kind of multiple-choice question for how mankinds scientific hubris has worked out in Marvel comics.

Like Uncanny X-Force, this story taps into Deadpools humanity and rather than focus just on what he is, it gives us insight into what he wants. Of course, if youre looking for Deadpool as a joke book or as an uber-violent ninja, there are plenty of other places to go (Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe is a surprisingly dour comic thats full of the latter.) But The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly dissects Deadpool and lays out his aspirations beyond effortlessly bouncing through Marvel Comics, all while contrasting him to Wolverine, a guy who often believes that aspiration is futile.

Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan (December 2017)

Photo: MARVEL

With the massive success of the Deadpool film, comic shelves were faced with a flood of Deadpool titles. Their quality was all over the place, but one that stood out in particular was Deadpool vs. Old Man Logan, a comic that seemed to exist in order to ask the question Would Deadpool and Logan get on one anothers nerves even if one of them was from an entirely different universe? And the answer is Yeah! No span of space and time is enough to keep Deadpool and Wolverine from attempting to beat each other up.

The plot harkens back to earlier comics as Logan wants to accomplish something and Deadpool keeps getting in his way. (In this case, its finding a very powerful mutant before she falls into the wrong hands.) And while it doesnt reveal much about either character on a psychological level, it is a fun romp that makes for a great lead-in to Deadpool & Wolverine, a film that is also about universe hopping and an unlikely friendship between two very deadly, very different characters. But thats become the status quo in comics, animation, video games, and live action. If there is a Wolverine, somewhere there is a Deadpool just waiting to irritate him.

BONUS: Hulk vs. Wolverine (Animated Short, January 2009)

Photo: MARVEL

If you want even more of the Deadpool and Wolverine dynamic, then check out this animated movie. Though it shares the Hulk Vs. DVD with a second round (Hulk also takes on Thor), Hulk vs. Wolverine is the more fun of the two. The story not only re-creates Wolverines origin issue, in which he wrassled with the Hulk, but also incorporates Wolverines tangled Weapon X past. And with that past comes a whos who of Wolverines archfoes: Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Omega Red, and, of course, Deadpool.

Though Deadpool had appeared in nonspeaking cameos in X-Men: The Animated Series, Hulk Vs. is the first onscreen version of Deadpool where hes an actual character (even predating Ryan Reynoldss lackluster first appearance as Deadpool in the X-Men Origins: Wolverine film by a few months). For voice actor Nolan North, it would begin a long association with the character and its easy to see why: Norths Deadpool is a cackling lunatic, equally consumed by bloodlust and quips. For some who have heard his subsequent Deadpool video-game work, hes their preferred Deadpool and he makes an excellent start in this fast-paced cartoon.
Photo: MARVEL

Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine.

You might go into Deadpool & Wolverine expecting to see familiar faces from comic-book movies past, but the sheer specificity of its many, many cameos may still take you by surprise. Between a story that involves Marvels multiverse and the merc-with-the-mouths proclivity for fourth-wall breaking, the Deadpool threequel is practically tailor-made for special appearances.

These cameos include existing Marvel characters, several who starred in pre-MCU movies from other studios, and even casting rumors that will only make sense if youre attuned to comic-book movie production news (a la Nicolas Cages Superman in The Flash). While their sheer variety borders on gratuitous, they also happen to lead several genuinely hilarious and meaningful moments. And since the movie is scant on coherent drama for its leads (and cuts away quickly the moment its action threatens to become cool), these surprise appearances may just be the best part of Deadpool & Wolverine, whether theyre in-jokes for the fans, or serve an actual purpose in the plot  or in some cases, both.

Jon Favreau as Happy Hogan

The first cameo is a low-key one: Jon Favreaus Happy Hogan, friend and security chief to the unseen Tony Stark. This scene, set in the main Marvel universe six years in the past (while Stark was still alive), sees Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) sitting down for a job interview to become an Avenger. He gets rejected, a blow to his self-worth that ripples throughout the movie. As an everyday human with no superpowers, Happy may not be the MCUs most glamorous character, but hes been part of the franchise since the beginning (Favreau both appeared in and directed the original Iron Man), and his presence is a fitting way to welcome Deadpool into the Marvel fold.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor

Years later, once Deadpool ends up in trouble with the Time Variance Authority (the time-keeping organization from Loki), hints that were now in the MCU start popping up onscreen. We see scenes from The Avengers, and one in which Thor (Chris Hemsworth) weeps over Deadpools dying body. That may not technically count as a new appearance, since the image recycles and manipulates existing footage (Hemsworth wasnt even aware he was in Deadpool & Wolverine), but theres no dearth of traditional cameos in the rest of the film.

The (back of) Hulk(s head)

As Deadpool travels across the multiverse in search of different versions of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman), he comes across one who happens to be fighting the Hulk, whom we see from behind. Its a nice reference to Wolverines first-ever comic appearance, in which he battles the big green Avenger.

Henry Cavill as Wolverine

Heres where things start to get weird. Deadpool finds a version of Wolverine played by none other than former Superman actor Henry Cavill. Like John Krasinskis Reed Richards in the Doctor Strange sequel, Cavills appearance pays off years of fan art and online chatter about who should take over from Jackman when he eventually passes the torch, though given how much money Deadpool & Wolverine is about to make, that might not happen anytime soon.

Tyler Mane as Sabretooth and more X-Men baddies

Once Deadpool begins multiverse-hopping  and especially once he and Wolverine get stuck in the void, where characters and elements from alternate realities are sent to die  all bets are off. Nobody really needs a concrete reason to show up beyond the filmmakers deciding they should, so we get a few appearances from X-Men actors and characters of old. Tyler Mane reprises his role as the feral Sabretooth from X-Men (2000), and hes joined by the fire-wielding Pyro (Aaron Stanford) from X2: X-Men United (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). They belong to a band of wasteland outlaws populated by other Marvel villains from 20th Century Fox films, albeit played by new actors since they happen to be variants. These include Toad from X-Men, Lady Deathstrike from X2, Juggernaut, Callisto, and Arclight from The Last Stand, Azazel from X-Men First Class, Psylocke from X-Men: Apocalypse, Bullseye from Daredevil, and even The Russian from Lionsgates 2004 version of The Punisher.

Chris Evans as Johnny Storm

But the first hero from a pre-MCU Marvel movie arrives in the form of a major bait and switch. A hooded figure in blue speaks in a familiar voice and reveals himself to be played by Marvel mainstay Chris Evans. As Alan Silvestris Avengers theme fades in on the soundtrack, Deadpool excitedly prepares for Captain America to utter his iconic rallying call: Avengers assemble! Except, at the last second, Evans instead yells, Flame on! Turns out Evans is reprising his second-most-famous comic-book role, the Human Torch, a.k.a. Johnny Storm from Foxs Fantastic Four (2005), who takes to the sky in a literal blaze of glory.

Dafne Keen as X-23

This sets the stage for several other Marvel characters from Fox movies to appear. As teased in a recent trailer, a now adult Dafne Keen reprises her role as Laura/X-23 from Logan (2017) to give Wolverine a pep talk, which is sweet, even though this version of Wolverine has never met her before. Shes part of a group whose worlds have all been destroyed and who are now looking for ways to finish their stories  a nice meta-reference to some of their franchises being cut short or never getting off the ground to begin with.

Jennifer Garner as Elektra

The first of these characters to appear is Jennifer Garners sai-wielding anti-hero Elektra Natchios, from Foxs much-maligned Daredevil (2003) and Elektra (2005). Garners version of the character (who has since been played by Elodie Yung on Netflix) isnt particularly well regarded by fans, but the characters poor reception plays into her story here as someone searching for absolution and a way to bring her story to fruition. Plus, Garners specific presence also yields a fun jab at ex-husband Ben Affleck, whose Daredevil is said to have died off-screen. When Deadpool offers his condolences, she quickly brushes it off with a snappy, Its fine.

Wesley Snipes as Blade

Garners older, wiser Elektra is followed by a similarly aged-up Blade, the day-walking vampire (and vampire hunter) played by Wesley Snipes in New Lines Blade trilogy. The actors graying beard adds to his panache  few superheroes have ever looked as cool in the genres history  but his appearance is especially surprising. Snipes famously hated working with Reynolds on Blade: Trinity, behind-the-scenes lore this film makes sure to reference. Before he heads off to battle, Snipes quips that theres only one Blade, and theres only going to be one Blade, a clear jab at Marvels reboot of the character starring Mahershala Ali, which was first announced in 2019 but has since languished in production limbo.

Channing Tatum as Gambit

And finally, Channing Tatum shows up as a surprisingly comics-accurate version of Remy LeBeau/Gambit, the character he signed on to play in an X-Men spinoff back in 2014, which was eventually shelved amid the Fox-Disney merger five years later. Tatum is perhaps the funniest part of the entire film and actually makes the case for why his solo project being canceled may have been a good thing: His attempt at the characters Cajun accent is completely (and intentionally) incomprehensible.

Wunmi Mosaku as Hunter B-15, Blake Lively as Lady Deadpool, and more cameos

The above are all the movies biggest cameos, but there are more familiar faces almost everywhere you look. Wunmi Mosaku briefly reprises her role as TVA agent Hunter B-15 from Loki, while a female version of Deadpool, long rumored to be played by Taylor Swift, is played by Reynoldss wife, Blake Lively  or at least voiced by her (we never see her face). And, of course, it wouldnt be a Marvel movie without the late Stan Lee, whose face can be seen in an advertisement on the side of a bus.
What is the price of freedom for a woman like Cleo? For a woman like Maddie? And what does that freedom look like? These questions are at the heart of the third episode of Apple TV+s ambitious literary adaptation, The Lady in the Lake. Ostensibly, were following Maddie Schwartz, nee Morgenstern, as she slowly uncovers what happened to Cleo nee Eunetta Johnson  namely, how she ended up dead and left at the fountain by the lake. But as previous episodes have made clear, writer-director Alma Harel, much like novelist Laura Lippman, is interested in the larger questions that the titular figure drums up in late-60s Baltimore.

These are two women whose lives are brought together by a dead body. Two, actually, since its Maddies involvement in the Tessie Durst murder that eventually leads her to pursue Cleos own. But their lives keep running in slightly parallel, slightly askew ways, try as they might to reinvent themselves against the strictures of the many men whod rather they stay in their place.

We begin with another dream sequence. A young Black girl is playing hopscotch in an abandoned alley surrounded by billowing white sheets. She sees a young lamb (remember when Maddie saw and caressed one just last week in the living room of the home she left behind?). This is young Eunetta (shes not Cleo yet), who clearly escapes into a dreamy world as a way to fend off the reality where her mother yells at her father for his irresponsible gambling. It explains why shes so intent on keeping her young boy away from the numbers game  but also ironic, given what well see her being driven to do by the end of the episode.

In the present, Cleo is now rightfully paranoid that her stint as a runaway driver of a would-be assassination attempt against Myrtle Summer will bring her more trouble than shed care to deal with. And for what? Gordon Shells support? Unlikely, given that she soon realizes theres no way her boss at the Pharaoh is aware that his second-in-command, Reggie, let Cleo drop money and serve as an unwitting accomplice in the hit gone wrong. She keeps finding herself running out of options. No matter what she does.

Meanwhile, Maddie embraces her newfound freedom with newly pierced ears and a fanciful ambition to become a newspaper reporter. Your writing dreams ruined your life, Cleos voice-over tells Maddie. Now you wanted those same dreams to rewrite it. But why did you need to drag my name into it?

It speaks to her privilege and inflated sense of self that she merely waltzes into the Baltimore Star offices and all but demands Bob Bauer (Pruitt Taylor Vince), whom shed talked to a few weeks back, help her land a byline. Shes a foolish woman, yes, but also a zealous one. And so she decides to take matters into her own hands when Bauer handily dismisses her: She has no more leads; there is no more story; she should just let it go.

Nevertheless, she sits down and writes to Stephan Zawadzkie at the psychiatric hospital hes being held at: I was the first to see her dead, she writes, giving the episode its title. You were the last to see her alive. She attaches a photo of herself. Maddie has never found a man to deny her (Bauer notwithstanding), so its obvious shes leaning in hard on whats worked for her in the past. In that, shes not that dissimilar from Cleo, who decides to cope with the trauma of the night before (and the paranoia she now lives with while at work and at home) by getting all done up and dancing up a storm at the Pharaoh club where she all but makes a fool of herself. Thankfully, Slappy is there to bring her safely home, even if hes unable to get her to open up about what it is thats troubling her.

Theres too much to share. Where would she begin? Shes having reverends drop by trying to squeeze her for money as they preach futile hope to her boy, whos ill with sickle cell anemia. She almost helped her political icon get killed. She cant even keep her other son from gambling like her father did. In one of the more poetic moments of the episode, we hear her summing up her current situation: I looked to the politician for deliverance. I looked to the pimp for protection. I looked to the preacher for salvation. But in the end, I was on my own. I was sinking, Maddie.

Lippmans novel alternated between not only Maddies point of view and Cleos own (the latter always addressing Maddie as if from the grave) but interspersed their respective voices with sections narrated from the points of view of others: not just Bob Bauer and Cleos son, say, but people Maddie encountered as she went about her life. With a tighter focus on these two women here, Harel makes more of their similarities and differences  some of which are cultural and others more personal.

Take their approach to motherhood: While Cleo seems almost blinded by her devotion to her sons, Maddie is more detached from her teenage son, Seth. When she arrives late to meet him at his schools college fair, shes pragmatic and aloof, almost to a fault. But hes also a bit of a pain, finding every chance to needle his mother for leaving the family. As she tries to rebuild a rapport with him by bringing him back to her shabby place downtown, the irritable back-and-forth between the two erupts into a shouting match thats punctuated by a scene-stopping revelation: Milton is not Seths father! Only thats not the end of it: Seth already knew! Hed read Maddies diaries before his bar mitzvah and has basically been sitting on that nugget of information without knowing what to make of it other than acknowledging that Milton is his father, no matter what. No wonder hes resentful of Maddie and why her leaving hurt him all the more. Its all enough to rankle Maddie, though its unclear how shell proceed now.

Meanwhile, at the Pharoh, Cleos standing with Gordon continues to bring her grief. We knew her easy-to-spot and easier-still-to-describe baby-blue coat she was wearing would come to haunt her: When Ferdie starts working the streets trying to get intel on Myrtles assassination attempt, thats the detail that eventually leads him to Cleo. Smart woman that she is, Cleo knows that its best to cooperate if only to buy herself time  the only thing Ferdie can offer her. And so, while she gives the cop the details of the car she drove, she plans to make enough money to disappear once and for all.

Yes, it involves gambling. And, yes, it involves Reggie. And, yes, it involves a rigged game. This is all to say: Its a risky proposition, but one she hopes Reggie will go along with, seeing as its in his best interest to keep her from cooperating even more with Ferdie. But will she be able to do it before it all comes crashing down around her?

Just as risky is Maddies line of communication with Stephan, who agrees to see her in person. Will that impending meeting pay off, especially now that Maddies been learning more about the other gruesome details of Tessies murder? From the coroner, which she visits with Bauer, who begrudgingly admits Miss Morgenstern may have a knack for being a reporter after all, she learns Tessie had scratched someone before she died (though Stephan had no scratches on him to speak of) and had likely been sexually abused (though her hymen remained intact). Will it be too much for her to stomach, or might she finally get to be the dogged reporter she one day imagined she could be?

Clues & Things

 I want to give a shout-out to Claudia Humburg (makeup-department head) and Jose Zamora (hair-department head), who really are doing wonders and telling stories with Cleo and Maddies many looks. In particular, Cleos eye-popping eye shadow and eyelashes at the store make those close-ups of Moses Ingrams face all the more impactful. Maddies constantly tousled and unruly hair helps further tell the story of a woman reinventing herself and maybe letting her petty-bourgeois sense of style go by the wayside.

 Speaking of below-the-line folks who deserve some recognition, Marcus Norris (Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul, and Summer of Violence) is doing some lovely work with the jazzy score, which helps ground those dreamlike sequences and maintains a nice tether between Cleo and Maddies worlds.

 Are you chewing gum?! We often talk about how teenage girls can be brutal in their reads, but that infantilizing question sums up so much about how little Seth thinks of his mom.

 Some props for Ingrams performance are due. We often point to big moments when praising great performances. But Ive always insisted that you can watch great characterization by watching how an actor plays the smallest of moments. Thats what I felt when watching how Cleo grab her martini drink and, in one fell swoop, lets the olives drop before she downs it. Its such a throwaway gesture, and yet it tells you so much about this woman (shes done this before; shes uncaring about being sloppy at the bar; olives wont slow her down ).

 The same goes for Portman, whose breathy Have I done something wrong, officer? while greeting Ferdie back into her apartment for a quick hookup has the whiff of a woman whos been eager for such sensual role-playing for years, all the while one clearly practiced in the art of wilful seduction.

 More and more explicit moments wanting us to point our fingers at Reggie, right now the man who most has to gain from disappearing Cleo: If I come up dead, she tells Dora, I want you to know who it was. But is that too simple a motive?
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Azerbaijan's national air carrier, AZAL, has celebrated its two millionth passenger, Trend reports via Azerbaijan Airlines CJSC.

On July 25, the airline reached this milestone for the year 2024

The lucky passenger was Nazrin Orujova, who had purchased a Baku-London flight ticket.

Airline representatives congratulated her at Heydar Aliyev International Airport, presenting her with a certificate for a free round-trip flight from Baku to any regular destination served by Azerbaijan Airlines.

In the first half of 2024, the number of AZAL passengers increased significantly: international routes saw a 60% increase compared to the same period in 2023, while domestic flights experienced a 10% rise.
Can I get a soda? These were the first words a 58-year-old man wrote on a clipboard after waking from his historic operation to implant a revolutionary, Australian-invented titanium heart. It was the first time the BiVacor total artificial heart has been placed in a living human.

The operation, more than a decade in the planning, happened on July 9 at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston. The devices inventor, 45-year-old Brisbane-born biomechanical engineer Daniel Timms, was present during the 4-hour surgery in which the patients diseased heart was removed and replaced with the Australian device, a 650-gram titanium pump with a single moving part.

Its hard for me to get perspective on what weve achieved, Timms told this masthead. There are fleeting moments  in the middle of the night, sitting on a recliner beside the patients bed, trying to get some sleep  when you suddenly think, yeah, its working. But mostly youre just trying to dissect whats happening and improve things for this patient, and the ones in future.

The surgery team behind the US operation: Dr William Billy Cohn, Dr Alexis Shafii, Dr O. H. Bud Frazier, and Dr Daniel Timms, the Australian founder and chief technology officer of BiVacor. Credit:

The transplant surgeon who performed the operation, Dr Alexis Shafii, said the surgery went great. Compared to doing it [during animal trials], it was actually much easier: the human anatomy is what its designed for.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. President-designate of COP29, Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mukhtar Babayev has met with the King of Great Britain Charles III at the Clarence House residence in London, COP29 wrote on its X page, Trend reports.

According to the information, the meeting was attended by COP28 President Sultan Al-Jabir, one of the COP Troika, and Brazil's National Secretary for Climate Change Ana Toni.

This November, Azerbaijan will host COP29. This decision was made at the COP28 plenary meeting held in Dubai on December 11 last year. Baku will become the center of the world and will receive about 7080,000 foreign guests.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. The COPthe Conference of the Partiesis the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. There are 198 countries that are parties to the Convention. Unless the parties agree otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Germany's Berlin, with its secretariat in Bonn.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
A minimalist, community-led plan to tell the truth about Indigenous dispossession is envisioned by the Albanese government to fill the void on reconciliation after its crushing Voice referendum loss.

Truth-telling is one of the three key elements of reform proposed by the Uluru Statement from the Heart  the influential Indigenous-authored document that spawned the Voice proposal.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with the retiring Brendan OConnor (left) and Linda Burney on Thursday. Credit: AAP

According to government sources speaking anonymously to detail private thinking, Labor views a program to educate Australians about Indigenous history as less politically contentious than a treaty, the statements third component.

As retiring Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney declared history would look kindly upon the Voice effort and Liberal MP Julian Leeser lamented the national silence that has existed since its defeat, this masthead has learnt Labor favours a truth-telling model led by local Indigenous groups unearthing local histories to eventually form a national story of Aboriginal Australia.
Phoenix: A Belgian tourist got third-degree burns on his feet while briefly walking barefoot on the sand dunes in Californias Death Valley National Park over the weekend, park rangers said Thursday.

The rangers said the visitor was rushed to a hospital in nearby Nevada. Because of language issues, the rangers said they were not immediately able to determine whether the 42-year-old Belgians flip-flops were somehow broken or were lost at Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes during a short Saturday walk.

A stop sign warns tourists of extreme heat at Badwater Basin. Credit: AP

The ground temperature would have been much hotter than the air temperature that day, which was around 50.5 degrees. Death Valley National Park has seen record highs this summer in the desert that sits below sea level near the California-Nevada line.

The mans family called on other visitors to carry him to a parking lot. Rangers then drove him to a higher elevation where a medical helicopter would be able to safely land amid extreme temperatures. The man was flown to University Medical Centre in Las Vegas.
Photo: Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan

BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. The Ministry of Agriculture of Azerbaijan will host a From Village to City Sunday fair in Baku on July 27-28, Trend reports.

The fair aims to support local farmers by providing them with market opportunities and alternative sales channels, while also offering city residents access to locally produced agricultural products.

Approximately 40 farmers from around 20 regions of Azerbaijan are expected to participate, showcasing about 100 varieties of natural agricultural and food products.

Farmers interested in participating should register by contacting the call center at +994 50 400 88 99.

The Food Safety Agency of Azerbaijan will oversee product quality. A mobile food laboratory will be available at the fair for citizens to check the quality indicators of any product being sold.

The fair will run from 09:00 to 19:00 each day at 5 Fatali Khan Khoyski Street, Narimanov District, near Ganjlik Metro Station.

Farmers will be provided with stalls, scales, and other necessary supplies and equipment at no cost.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. SOCAR may start selling oil products produced in third countries to Pakistan at competitive prices this year, a source in the Azerbaijani government told Trend exclusively.

"SOCAR Trading has been supplying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from third countries at favorable prices at the request of the Pakistani side since last year. This year, within the framework of expanding economic cooperation, this SOCAR Trading House plans to start supplying several demanded oil products to Pakistan. Volumes are being specified," the source noted.

According to estimates by Pakistani experts, by 2030 the deficit in oil products in Pakistan will be 9 million tons per year, and by 2035 it may increase to 14 million tons per year.

The Azerbaijani source said that the government is analyzing investment proposals received from Pakistan on several possible joint projects, but so far it considers trade in energy carriers as the closest to operational realization.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani government announced in July of this year that it had formulated proposals for Azerbaijan aimed at increasing economic cooperation.

Among the ideas are SOCAR's equity participation in Pakistan Refinery Limited (in Karachi), in the underground gas storage project, in the White Oil Pipeline, in oil gas liquefaction infrastructure, in the creation of a JV between Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and SOCAR, and SOCAR's entry into offshore and onshore exploration blocks.

Pakistani media announced on July 8 that the portfolio of investment proposals could be valued at $23 billion.

Pakistan has 6 refineries with a total capacity of about 20 million tons per year, but due to outdated equipment, they are operating at half capacity and cannot cover the country's needs for petroleum products.

To note, the government of Pakistan invited Azerbaijan to join an ambitious project to build a refinery in the port of Gwadar (Gulf of Oman) in the summer of 2023 with the capacity to process 0.3 million barrels of oil per day and for $10$16 billion, but the idea was recognized in Azerbaijan as commercially inexpedient.

Chinese and Saudi Arabian companies were interested in the project, but no agreement was reached.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
A 40th anniversary tribute to the internationally acclaimed Achill painter, the virtuoso Belgian impressionist Marie Howet - who first arrived at Caherlistrane-born Eva O'Flaherty's home in Dooagh in 1929 - will take place on the island on Sunday, August 4th, in Keel Hall at 7pm. Special guests will be John McHugh, Dooagh sculptor; Dr Edward King, Howet expert; and Anne Burke, whose Brae family was intertwined with Howets life for 53 years.

This long overdue celebration (95 years after the Belgians initial visit to her beloved Achill) of such an important European painter, with such lengthy and tenacious island links, will also feature a book launch, and a display of eight specially commissioned biographical banners.

Dr Edward King, Howet aficionado, will speak on her 1934 book, A La Source D'Ara', a magnificent publication that contains 25 of Howets vibrant watercolours, mostly of Achill. It was published in Paris and designed by the exalted Parisienne Saude/Ducros Colas partnership.

On one of her recent trips to Belgium, author Mary J Murphy discovered that Howet was, in fact, staying with the Burkes in Dooagh in 1933, where she received many letters from Saude and Ducros Colas, as the famous French printers prepared the intricate layout of Maries magnificent book, now a collectors item.

Many never before seen landscapes of the island by Howet were also unearthed in Belgium by Murphy, as were two spectacular portraits of the famous painter by no less than George Russell (AE) and Sean OSullivan, foremost Irish artists of their day. Thrillingly also, a photograph of Howet standing at her 1929 Dooagh home  Pat Macs - also turned up.

An inscribed Dooagh beach pebble from Anne Burke, marking her family's 53-year friendship with the artist, was laid on Howet's grave by Murphy, along with a piece of amethyst from Keem Bay, donated by John 'Twin' and Mary McNamara, local island historians and long-time admirers of her paintings.

Renowned local sculptor John McHugh will introduce the proceedings at the August bank holiday event and will launch Mary J Murphys third Achill-themed book.

Called 'Achill Remembers Marie Howet (1897-1984)', the monograph documents in full colour both her recent visits to Belgium, where she spoke with many of Howet's friends and family, as well as the painter's numerous visits to the island over half a century.

In association with this exciting island tribute, the illustrious Redfoxpress of Dugort, Achill, has also produced their own celebratory book, in collaboration with Mary. Called Marie Howet: A Belgian Painter on Achill Island, it is a unique collectors item, a hard back, hand bound, limited edition series of 150 signed and numbered copies.

Mary J Murphys Achill Remembers Marie Howet will be available online from Achill Tourism and from good book stores from August 4, while her unique artistic collaboration with Redfoxpress can be ordered from them, directly, from that same date.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Italian Snam company has signed a binding agreement to acquire Edison Stoccaggio from Edison for approximately 560 million euros, Trend reports via the company.

The transaction is expected to be finalized by the first quarter of 2025, pending necessary antitrust and golden power authorizations.

Edison Stoccaggio operates three natural gas storage facilities in Italy, located in Cellino (Teramo), Collalto (Treviso), and San Potito e Cotignola (Ravenna). These facilities contribute to Italy's energy security with a combined storage capacity of about 1.1 billion cubic meters per year.

Once the transaction is complete, Snam Group's total gas storage capacity will reach approximately 18 billion cubic meters. This capacity will account for more than 17 percent of the entire European gas storage capacity, including a strategic reserve of 4.5 billion cubic meters.

The acquisition will increase the number of Snam Group's operational storage sites to 12.

Currently, the filling level of Italian storage facilities stands at over 86 percent, compared to the European average of around 83 percent. Snam has already allocated 100 pecent of its commercial capacity for the coming winter season, totaling just under 12.5 billion cubic meters, plus the strategic reserve.

Follow the author on X: @Lyaman_Zeyn
This Sunday, Reek Sunday takes place, where thousands of pilgrims are expected to scale Mayo's Croagh Patrick (2,510ft/765m), Irelands Holy Mountain, to pray and participate on the summit in the Sacraments of Reconciliation (Confession), and of the Eucharist.

DETAILS

Pope Francis has designated 2024 as a Year of Prayer, and this years pilgrimage theme is: To pray for and honour grandparents and the elderly.

The annual pilgrimage takes place between 26  28 July.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

In case of emergencies, there are now three solar defibrillators with access codes on the climb, as well as two trauma kits (foil blanket for hypothermia/ambulance dressings sterile wash etc.) on the summit and cone.

There is also a single 300mg *Aspirin* for chest pain/heart attack that can be accessed by calling the emergency services. It is securely stored at the correct temperature in a specific internal medical box.

Additionally, there is a solar eco-powered cabinet which can transmit any data from any location to any client.

These can all be used if required without any delay.

SCHEDULE

Garland Friday, 26 July - Local Pilgrimage

10.00am - Mass on the summit of Croagh Patrick celebrated by Westport native, Father Tod Nolan PP Newport

7.30pm - Mass at Murrisk Community Cafe  Croagh Patrick Car Park

Reek Saturday, 27 July

8.30am - Tochar Phadraig Pilgrimage begins at Ballintubber Abbey

6.30pm - Vigil Mass in Saint Marys Church, Westport, Archbishop Francis Duffy of Tuam

Reek Sunday, 28 July

7.30am until 2:00pm - Confessions will be heard on the summit

8.00am - First hourly Mass on the summit

2.00pm - Last Mass on the summit

(TBC Aifreann Lan Gaeilge ar barr Cruach Phadraig)
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.
GNU must act in widest possible interest

Too often, a ruling party assumes  wrongly  that whats good for it must also be good for the nation.

It is wrongly assumed that a governing party, a countrys leader, or the largest ethnic communitys interests are the same as the public or the national interests.

This is rarely true. Similarly, one dominant group, ethnic community, political party, or colour's interests are also different from the public or the national interests. The interests of dominant parties, communities, and colour are in many cases different from the collective interests of a nation or a country.

Yet, for a country to prosper, governing parties and leaders must govern in the widest public and country interests', not in their parties', leaders', ideological, ethnic groups, or colour interest. Inclusive growth is certainly not possible without governing parties and leaders making decisions, policies, and appointments in the widest public and country interests.

The challenge for serious governing parties and leaders is how to genuinely prioritise the best interests of the country and nation, and not the narrow interests of self, party, dominant community, colour, or religion. Failing African and developing countries most of the time confused dominant party, leader, favoured ideology, largest community interests with that of their nation or country  when those are vastly opposite.

African liberation and independence movements  and splinters thereof, and leaders are particularly prone in conflating their party, ideological and leaders interests with that of the national or country interests. The culture of viewing dominant parties, leaders, group, and ideology interests as the national interests of all, are often imbibed by many opposition parties who come to power, after taking over from liberation and independence governments.

Members and supporters of dominant parties and leaders often wrongly embrace their parties and leaders interests to be the national or country interests. In diverse societies, with histories of conflict and parties based largely on past divisions, the national and country interests should never be assumed to be that of the leader or the governing party. This is a recipe for the contested of dominant party and leader decisions, policies, and programs.

The ANCs failure the past 30 years is to belief that the partys or the leaders interests  especially in the case of former President Jacob Zuma, are the same as that of the national interests. Many ANC government decisions, policies and programs the past 30 years therefore were mostly partisan party, leaders and ideological interests which harmed South Africas national interests. One reason for state failure the past 30 years, has been the ANC conflation of party, leader, and ideological interests with the national interests.

This has led to the rejection or lack of implementation of many policies, decisions and programs which have been perceived by non-ANC constituencies as patently in the ANC, leadership, or dominant constituency interests, not in the national interests. Successful implementation of policies hinges on an ecosystem of collaboration between the governing party and state on the one hand, and opposition parties and non-state stakeholders on the other hand  business, civil society, communities, and citizens.

In public discourse, narrow, partisan ideologies, decisions and policies of the dominant party, leader, ethnic community, are often seen wrongly by many citizens as in the national interests. Individuals with views that are genuinely in the national interests, but go against the partisan views of dominant party, leader, and ethnic community, are often rejected, depriving society of game-changing views, ideas, and policies.

Successful implementation of government programs, especially in diverse societies, demand policies to be decided in the best national interests, not as party or leadership or ideologically partisan. Only when countries and leaders actively pursue the widest national interests, and not leader, party, or dominant interests, can countries secure sustainable development, long periods of high economic growth rates, industrialisation and social peace.

Not surprisingly, countries that emerges from conflict, which introduces governing mechanisms that will force decisions, policies and programs to be in the national interests, such as coalitions, national social pacts and government of national unity structures  whether post-World War 2 Japan or Germany, or post-economic crisis-Ireland or post-colonial Mauritius, have been more successful in delivering inclusive development, economic growth and social peace.

At the same time, most African countries in the post-colonial period has taken majority-based, rather than consensus-based decisions  whether based on liberation majority group, ethnic group, military, or ideological majority. The result has been devastating failure. Majority rule in Africa, since Liberia became the first independent country on 26 July 1847, has led to failed states, civil wars, and mass poverty in Africa.

It is critical that South Africa's new Government of National Unity genuinely make all decisions because of what is in the best for the country, not what is best for party, leader, ideology, colour, or dominant community. The GNU has adopted consensus, rather than majority-based decision-making, as its model.

Consensus-based decision is more likely to produce outcomes that are in the widest interests of all of society, rather than dominant groups. Furthermore, consensus decisions, if genuinely taken in the widest national interest, will produce better-quality policies, wider societal embrace of decisions and policies and therefore more successful implementation.

William Gumede is Associate Professor, School of Governance, University of the Witwatersrand and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg). The article was first pubilshed in the Sunday Times.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Swiss energy supplier Axpo has made the final investment decision to commence construction of the Lalax wind farm in Finlands Vora municipality, Trend reports via the company.

Axpo, which acquired the project rights in October 2023, has now approved further investment in the project and plans to start pre-construction work later this year.

The construction of the four wind turbines, each with an output of 6.2 megawatts (MW) and a hub height of 134 meters, is set to begin in late summer 2025. Contracts have already been signed with turbine manufacturer Vestas. The wind farm, with a total capacity of 24.8 MW, is expected to be commissioned in autumn 2025. Once operational, it will produce around 70 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable electricity annually, enough to meet the needs of approximately 17,500 four-person households.

The project will be managed from Axpo's office in Vaasa, located about 25 kilometers from the site. Through its Volkswind subsidiary, Axpo has developed over 90 wind farms in Germany and France, with a total installed capacity exceeding 1500 MW. In France, Axpo is one of the leading companies in the development and construction of wind farms.

Follow the author on X: @Lyaman_Zeyn
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. The Somali government is ready to cooperate with Azerbaijan to achieve COP29 goals, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the Federal Republic of Somalia Ahmed Moalim Fiqi said at a joint press conference with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, Trend reports.

My visit coincided with the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. I am confident that these relationships will contribute to deepening our cooperation. Over the years, our ties have been developing on an upward trajectory. Today we discussed opportunities to expand trade and cooperation in the oil and gas and agricultural sectors. We are ready to take all steps to expand our ties. I would also like to congratulate Azerbaijan on its chairmanship at COP29. Our government is ready to cooperate with Azerbaijan to achieve the goals of this conference. The Azerbaijani government has a rich experience working to achieve zero emission goals, he emphasized.

Furthermore, the Minister expressed his deep gratitude to the government and people of Azerbaijan for the warm welcome extended to him.

Over the years, we have benefited from common views by cooperating in various projects, including education and diplomacy, he added.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. Efforts across various levels have ramped up ahead of COP29, Trend reports via COP29's official web portal.

The COP29 Presidency team is holding retreats this week to discuss the hottest issues on the climate agenda.

Seminars held in Turkiye and Malawi discussed the preparation of new Biennial Transparency Reports (BTR) by the parties to the UN Climate Convention.

These reports are due to be submitted ahead of the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) in November.

Moreover, an off-site meeting of negotiating groups focusing on climate finance, a key issue for COP29, is taking place in Shamakhi on July 26-27.

Expert meetings to align the agenda for COP29 will continue until September.

The COP presidency program schedules high-level meetings in September, including the Fifth Global Conference on Synergies Between the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil, chairing G20 and COP30), with participation from the COP29 and COP28 presidents and other officials at the beginning of the month.

The UN General Assembly in New York will feature a high-level meeting of the 'Troika' of COP presidencies - the UAE (COP28), Azerbaijan (COP29), and Brazil (COP30) at the end of September.

Later, the ministers of the 'Troika' countries will participate in the Joint Ministerial Conference on Climate and Finance of the G20 countries.

These meetings precede COP29-related events at the end of October and beginning of November.

This November, Azerbaijan will host COP29. This decision was made at the COP28 plenary meeting held in Dubai on December 11 last year. Baku will become the center of the world and will receive about 7080,000 foreign guests.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. The COPthe Conference of the Partiesis the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. There are 198 countries that are parties to the Convention. Unless the parties agree otherwise, the COP is held annually. The first COP event took place in March 1995 in Germany's Berlin, with its secretariat in Bonn.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 26. Kazakhstan plans to increase transit volumes of Russian, Turkmen, and Uzbek gas across its territory in 2024, Energy Minister Almassadam Satkaliyev announced during a government meeting, Trend reports.

"We are increasing the transit of Russian, Turkmen, and Uzbek gas through Kazakhstan in 2024. Efforts are underway to fully utilize our country's gas transit capacity. In October 2023, we launched transit of Russian gas to Uzbekistan, transporting 1.28 billion cubic meters last year. This year, we aim to increase this to 3.8 billion cubic meters, with further plans to reach 11 billion cubic meters annually," he stated.

The minister also noted steady growth in the transit of Turkmen and Uzbek gas to China.

"This year, we plan to increase transit to 37.1 billion cubic meters, which is 1.5 billion cubic meters more than last year. Additionally, discussions are ongoing regarding increased transit of Russian gas to Kyrgyzstan," Satkaliyev added.

In 2023, Kazakhstan's total gas production amounted to 59.063 billion cubic meters, sourced from fields such as Tengiz (16.009 billion cubic meters), Karachaganak (22.385 billion cubic meters), Kashagan (11.856 billion cubic meters), and others (8.813 billion cubic meters).

Kazakhstan plans to produce 60.456 billion cubic meters of raw natural gas in 2024.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 26. Kazakhstan's Air Astana will launch a direct flight from Shymkent to Jeddah from September 10, 2024, Trend reports.

According to Air Astana, flights will be operated on Tuesdays and Fridays on an Airbus A320 aircraft.

Thus, the minimum cost of tickets in economy class in both directions with all fees is 384,600 tenge (about $810); in business class, it is 864,309 tenge (about $1,820).

To note, flights to Jeddah are also operated from Almaty on Thursdays and Sundays.

In addition, due to the closure of Astana airport at night, Air Astana is launching a direct Almaty-Karaganda flight from August 8. The flight will operate on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays until repair work at the capital's airport is completed.

The minimum cost of tickets in economy class in both directions with all fees is 35,179 tenge (about $74); in business class, it is 104,529 tenge (about $220).

Meanwhile, the number of passengers transported by air in Kazakhstan amounted to 13.3 million from January through December 2023. This is 20.7 percent more than in the same period in 2022.

At the same time, passenger turnover amounted to 25.9 billion p-km (increased by 28.8 percent compared to JanuaryDecember 2022).

Furthermore, Kazakhstan is taking consistent steps to develop air transport in the country.

Thus, in 2023, the aircraft fleet of Kazakh airlines increased from 89 to 98 units, and the seat capacity increased from 12,000 to 15,000 (an increase of 26 percent). All this will improve the regularity of flights and the accessibility of air travel in general.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 26. Russia and Kazakhstan are interested in the development of the International North-South Transport Corridor, Alexei Overchuk, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia said, Trend reports.

He made the remark during a meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission for Cooperation between the countries in Astana.

"Together with Kazakhstan, we are interested in developing the International North-South Transport Corridor. The development of transport routes in the direction of China is also important for us. Chinese agricultural markets have begun to open for our countries. These opportunities must be supported by a business-friendly environment, including new, modern infrastructure," he said.

According to Overchuk, Kazakhstan and Russia are also working on the development of checkpoints and infrastructure connectivity between the countries.

To note, the North-South International Transport Corridor is a 7,200 km multimodal route that connects St. Petersburg with the ports of Iran and India.

It is an alternative to the sea route connecting Europe, the Persian Gulf countries, and the Indian Ocean via the Suez Canal.

The western and eastern branches of the ITC pass through Iran; the western branch provides for transportation through Iran by road via Rasht, and the eastern branch by rail. The final point in Iran is the port of Bandar Abbas, from which cargo can be delivered to India by sea. The western branch also passes through Azerbaijan, while the eastern branch passes through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan.

Meanwhile, the volume of trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Russia amounted to $9.7 billion from January through May 2024. This is 12.5 percent less than in the same period in 2023 ($11.1 billion).

Kazakhstan's exports to Russia in the first five months of 2024 amounted to $3.36 billion, which is 21.5 percent less year-on-year ($4.3 billion). Imports from Russia from January through May 2024 decreased by 6.7 percent to $6.3 billion. For the same period in 2023, this figure was $6.8 billion.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 26. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have reached an agreement on several veterinary certificates, Trend reports via the Kazakh Ministry of Agriculture.

This initiative is part of the ministry's strategy to develop the agricultural sector and strengthen Kazakhstan's global position.

Thanks to the agreement, Kazakh producers will be able to export milk and dairy products from both cattle and small ruminants to Azerbaijan.

An agreement was also reached on the supply of poultry meat, by-products, and secondary products.

Additionally, the parties agreed to sign a veterinary certificate for the export of camels and other members of the camel family, as well as canned goods, sausages, and other processed meat products.

Kazakhstan's Minister of Agriculture, Aidarbek Saparov, commenting on the agreements reached, noted that this agreement opens up new opportunities for expanding Kazakh exports and strengthening the economic partnership between the two countries in the livestock sector.

"I am confident that it will contribute to economic growth and prosperity," he said.

The ministry pointed out that work to expand the range of Kazakhstan's export products continues.

The trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan from January through May 2024 amounted to $234 million, which is four percent less than the same period in 2023 ($243.7 million).

At the same time, exports to Azerbaijan dominated the trade turnover, amounting to $213.8 million, or 3.2 percent more than from January through May 2023 ($207.2 million).

Moreover, imports from Azerbaijan during the first five months of this year fell by 45 percent to $20.1 million, compared to $36.5 million in the same period in 2023.

Stay up-to-date with more news on Trend News Agency's WhatsApp channel
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered an address to a joint session of the US Congress, boasting of the progress of the Gaza genocide to cheers and applause from the assembled Democrats and Republicans.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he arrives to speak to a joint meeting of Congress. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The reception of Netanyahu, in defiance of overwhelming public opposition, marked a new milestone in the breakdown of democratic forms of rule in the United States and the open and public embrace by the US government of genocide, ethnic cleansing and fascist barbarism.

Netanyahus speech, and the rapturous reception he received, recalled nothing more than the appearance of Hitler before the German Reichstag. The German deputies who shouted Heil Hitler! and the American congressmen who barked USA are cut from the same cloth.

Netanyahu spoke as a war criminal among war criminals. The bipartisan ovations for this mass murderer confirmed the truth of Mark Twains observation that There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

While some Democrats did not take part in the event, and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib held a sign that accused Netanyahu of being guilty of genocide, this was for show. The real position of the Democratic Party was summed up by Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democrats candidate for president. Harris issued a statement Thursday condemning unpatriotic protesters against Netanyahu and declared, after meeting with Netanyahu separately, I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself.

Netanyahu began by referring to Israels genocidal war against the people of Palestine as a clash between barbarism and civilization. The Israeli prime minister meant to imply that he spoke on behalf of civilization. But the vast majority of the worlds population sees the more than nine-month genocide in Gaza as the embodiment of imperialist barbarism.

After proclaiming Congress the citadel of democracy, Netanyahu focused a substantial amount of his speech on a vicious denunciation of anti-genocide protesters for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Netanyahu condemned peaceful protests against his government by calling Americans opposed to the Gaza genocide Irans useful idiots. He added, For all we know, Iran is funding the anti-Israel protests that are going on right now outside this building. The protests, he asserted, were motivated by antisemitism.

The fact that many Jewish people have been at the forefront of the protests is an inconvenient truth that Netanyahu, in his big lie, chose to ignore. Those protesting are not motivated by antisemitism, but by opposition to the monumental crimes that Israel is carrying out.

Netanyahu addressed Congress in the shadow of accusations filed last month by the lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court accusing Netanyahu of murder and extermination and a ruling last week by the International Court of Justice that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal. In response to these rulings, Netanyahu condemned international law and asserted the right not only of Israel, but the United States, to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.

These institutions, Netanyahu asserted, were participating in a new blood libel against Israel.

To defend his accusations, Netanyahu resorted to staggering lies, including the claim that the civilian death toll in Gaza is practically none.

The official death toll in Gaza since October 7 stands at over 39,000, while The Lancet has estimated that it could be 186,000 or more. All of Gaza is in a state of famine, according to the UNs special rapporteur on the right to food.

As significant as Netanyahus address, however, is the fact that he was invited to deliver it. In the face of mass opposition from workers and youth in the US and throughout the world, the Democrats and Republicans invited the head of state of a government carrying out a genocide to address a joint session of Congress, one of the highest honors bestowed upon a foreign leader.

In calling for protests against Netanyahus appearance, World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board Chairman David North noted that this exposed the real relationship between Israel and the United States. Netanyahu was invited to deliver a progress report on how the genocidal war being waged by his government is advancing the capitalist geopolitical, financial and corporate interests of the American ruling class in the Middle East and throughout the world.

This was evident not only in the thunderous applause from the assembled congressmen, but in the content of Netanyahus remarks.

The second half of the address was devoted to an argument that the genocide in Gaza is a component part of a broader US-led war throughout the Middle East, focused in particular on Iran.

Declaring America the guardian of Western civilization and the worlds greatest power, Netanyahu stated, If you remember one thing, one thing from this speech, remember this: Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight, and our victory will be your victory.

He added, Iran understands that to truly challenge America, it must first conquer the Middle East Yet in the heart of the Middle East, standing in Irans way, is  the State of Israel.

In fact, the reality is reversed. American imperialism sees the final solution to the Palestinian problem as a first step in a war against Iran, which itself is part of the escalating war against Russia and the developing conflict with China.

Netanyahu explained that by enabling Israel to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide, US imperialism will be empowered to commit these crimes as well: If Israels hands are tied, America is next.

Less than three-and-a-half months before the US presidential election, the entire American political system is mired in extreme crisis. Trump, who barely survived an assassination attempt, presides over a Republican Party that is wallowing in fascistic reaction. The president of the country, Biden, has just announced his withdrawal as the candidate for the Democratic Party, in favor of Harris.

Whatever their differences, however, the two parties stand united in support for the violent eruption of American imperialism, of which the genocide in Gaza is a component part. And they stand united in the war on the working class at home.

As Netanyahu was delivering his fascist diatribe, the World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party were holding a rally outside the Capitol, which advanced a program and perspective to oppose the genocide and imperialism.

In his remarks at the rally, David North drew the necessary conclusions that must flow from Netanyahus address, the genocide in Gaza and the support of the entire political establishment for it:

The building of an antiwar movement requires the mobilization of the working class as an international force. It requires the establishment of the political independence of the working class. And it requires a perspective that has as its aim not protesting to the capitalists, appealing to them to adopt a peaceful policy, but explaining to the working class that if they want to put an end to these horrors, if they want to secure the future, they have to conquer power.

The WSWS urges all of its readers to watch all the speeches to the rally and share them as widely as possible.
Satellite data from the European climate monitoring service Copernicus confirms that Monday and Tuesday were the hottest days on Earth so far recorded by the program. Temperatures Wednesday will likely also be added to the record once the preliminary data are finalized.

The last such record was on July 6, 2023, when the global mean temperature (the temperature measured over the entire surface of the planet over the span of 24 hours) reached 17.08 degrees Celsius (just under 64 degrees Fahrenheit). On Monday, the temperature rose to 17.09 degrees Celsius before spiking to 17.16 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.

Preliminary data, which will be confirmed in the coming days, show that temperatures hit 17.15 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.

The regions experiencing the highest anomalous temperatures, contributing to the new record, are Antarctica, the western and northern parts of North America, and parts of Siberia.

Data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) concurs with the trends represented in the Copernicus data. In the past seven days, 1,769 locations monitored by NOAA around the world have tied or broken heat records.

Such record-breaking temperatures have become a regular occurrence in the past two decades. The past 10 years are among the hottest 11 years recorded by Copernicus, with the one outlier being 2010, which was slightly hotter than 2014.

Moreover, there are indications that 2023 was something of a tipping point for global warming. In the 67 years in which Copernicus has collected such data, Earths temperatures have climbed about 0.02 degrees Celsius each year. In contrast, the average worldwide temperature from January to December last year was 14.98 degrees Celsius, a jump of 0.17 degrees Celsius from the previous hottest years in 2016 and 2020, and a spike of 0.30 degrees Celsius hotter from the average worldwide temperature in 2022.

Data from the first half of this year suggest that 2024 will have a similarly sharp increase in the global temperature.

The direct cause of the record high temperatures is man-made climate change, itself caused by the largely uncontrolled release of greenhouse gases over the past century and a half by capitalist production. In particular, the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere via burning fossil fuels (e.g., coal, oil, natural gas) traps more and more of the heat Earth receives from the Sun, steadily increasing the planets temperature.

And the problem compounds, since carbon dioxide stays and builds up in the atmosphere. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has measured atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii since 1958. The first measurements recorded CO2 levels of about 315 parts per million in the atmosphere. Levels now stand at 424 parts per million.

Various atmospheric models suggest that CO2 levels have to be brought sharply down, to as low as 350 parts per million, to reverse global warming.

Flames from the Donnie Creek wildfire burn along a ridge top north of Fort St. John, British Columbia, Canada, Sunday, July 2, 2023. [AP Photo/Noah Berger]

One of the many complications is the collapse of land carbon sinks. In the past, carbon dioxide has been removed from the atmosphere by forests and jungles as plants go through their natural growth cycle. From 2010 to 2022, such growth removed about 2 gigatons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year.

A recently published preprint on atmospheric and oceanic physics found that in 2023, these carbon sinks only removed at most 0.65 gigatons of CO2 from Earths atmosphere, as a result of extreme heat, drought and wildfire activity last year. If the trend continues, the worlds forests will generate a net increase to atmospheric carbon dioxide, yet another tipping point in the climate crisis.

Humanity is already living through the dire consequences of unchecked climate change. This year alone, wildfires and the ongoing global heat wave have killed thousands. At the end of June, Hurricane Beryl developed from a tropical depression to a Category 4 and Category 5 hurricane in the span of a few days, the earliest in a year that such a rapid intensification has happened. Beryl is expected to cost upwards of $32 billion, once all the damage has been assessed, and caused 52 confirmed deaths.

And the hurricane, heat wave and wildfire season have only barely begun. As Socialist Equality Party presidential candidate Joseph Kishore recently said in a campaign statement:

According to a report published by the World Meteorological Organization last year, a staggering 489,000 people died from heat-related causes every year between 2000 and 2019that is, nearly 10 million total.

Kishore continued:

Scientists have repeatedly warned that the climate crisis produced by global warming is reaching a tipping point. Steadily increasing temperatures are behind a series of disasters, from deadly hurricanes to wildfires. Warming oceans threaten the entire global food chain, and rising ocean levels from melting ice caps will lead to worldwide and permanent flooding in areas where billions of people live. And there is growing evidence that climate change is pushing thousands of species out of their native habitats, increasing the likelihood of spillover events and future pandemics even deadlier than Covid-19.

The dangers posed by climate change are a scientific fact. But the response to climate change is fundamentally a class issue. Whatever promises the worlds capitalist governments have made, whether they be the 1998 Kyoto Protocols, the 2015 Paris Accords or various other climate agreements, they are primarily designed not to reverse global warming, but to use climate change as yet another lever in the constant struggle by nation-states and corporations for markets and geopolitical power.

In contrast, the international working class is wholly invested in actually fighting the crisis. It is workers who have suffered and the proletariat is the only social force that is capable of a globally coordinated and scientifically guided response to end climate change. Like all social ills plaguing modern civilizationwars, poverty, pandemics, genocidethe solution to climate change is the socialist transformation of society.
To a Land Unknown, by Palestinian-Danish writer-director Mahdi Fleifel, is one of the most important films to appear this year.

Astonishingly, it was filmed, edited and had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, all while the Israeli war of extermination in Gaza was ongoing.

Reda and Chatila [Photo]

Fleifels fiction film follows two undocumented Palestinian refugees and cousins, Reda and Chatila, who find themselves in Athens and make desperate efforts to reach Germany, where they hope to open a restaurant. In the course of their attempt to escape wretched conditions, they are obliged to resort to underhanded and even brutal methods themselves. There is a price to be paid for such actions.

Although To a Land Unknown does not treat the immediate political or military circumstances, or conditions in Gaza as such, that it dramatizes the plight of the Palestinians assuredly played a part in its generating such a powerful popular and critical response at Cannes.

As one media account explained, not only did the film receive a nine-minute standing ovation at its screening at the film festival, the crowd at the theatre also chanted Free, Free Palestine! and other slogans to show support for Palestine.

In introducing the film, Fleifel noted that it was

especially moving to me, in these incredible times, to present a Palestinian film at Cannes. As Palestinians, we challenge media stereotypes, but more importantly, we defy invisibility, a struggle weve faced since the beginning. Our stories are needed now more than ever.

The film has been invited to 50 film festivals, including the New Zealand and Melbourne international film festivals in August. When To a Land Unknown premieres in North America, we will repost this comment and the accompanying interview with director Fleifel.

To a Land Unknown [Photo]

None of this is to suggest that the Israeli crimes in Gaza are primarily responsible for the films success. Far from it. It is a serious, intelligent work of art in its own right. However, To a Land Unknown is able to draw power and significance from contemporary events because it is already oriented toward the great questions of our time: poverty, social inequality, attacks on immigrants, war and imperialist oppression, and their inescapable, everyday consequences for the lives of great numbers of people.

In Fleifels film, as noted, Palestinian refugees Chatila (Mahmoud Bakri) and Reda (Aram Sabbah) are stranded in Athens, with no papers, living hand to mouth, squatting along with other Arab refugees in miserable quarters. Reda has been off heroin for a month, but the urge is still powerful. In one of the opening scenes, the pair steal a womans purse, only to discover, with disgust, that she too is poor and only had five euros on her.

Passports and plane tickets are their principal objects of desire, so they can get to Germany. Germany is not like Greece. But false passports cost serious money. Chatila speaks by cellphone to his wife Nabila and his son, who remain in the refugee camp in Lebanon from which he and Reda have made a getaway.

Why did you leave Lebanon?, Chatila is asked at one point. Lebanon is not our country, its like a prison, like Gaza. As for the cousins present whereabouts, Look at the Greeks, he says contemptuously, They look like Arabs.

Another robbery. But the stash of money Chatila has hidden away is gone. Reda has taken it for drugs. Chatila is outraged. Guilt-stricken, Reda prostitutes himself to replace the money, or a portion of it. Chatila speaks by phone with Redas mother, and lies about her sons being clean from drugs. Promise me youll take care of him, she implores.

Tatiana and Chatila [Photo]

They plan to make some cash by smuggling a 13-year-old boy they meet, Malik (Mohammad Alsurafa), into Italy, to join a relative. But they need a respectable woman to play the part of his mother. Someone Chatila has met in a park, and initially rejected, Tatiana (Angeliki Papoulia), will have to do. However, she doesnt believe Chatilas claim that he and Reda merely want to help Malik get to Italy. How much money will you make?, she asks, and quickly demands a cut.

Once that operation has been set in motion, Chatila comes up with an even more ambitious and dangerous people smuggling scheme, to gain them all the cash they need in one fell swoop. Things of course do not go as planned.

Reda is the more sensitive or at least the more easily conscience-stricken of the two cousins. To console himself in part, he does drugs in the company of the unrepentantly addicted Abu Love (Mouataz Alshaltouh). Chatila, were bad people, Reda laments, as their desperate plan unfolds. Chatilas answer is merely to point to the shit were in. Also to comfort himself, Reda dreams of their future life in Germany, the apparent land of milk and honey. Tell me about the cafe, he is prone to demand of Chatila, who obliges, painting pictures of a small shop in an Arab neighborhood, with Nabila in the kitchen, etc.

Toward the conclusion, Abu Love repeats verses from renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwishs The Mask Has Fallen. The mask has fallen off, he recites, You have no brothers, my brother. You have no castles, no water, no medicine, no sky, no blood, no sail.

The lines take on new meaning amidst the Gaza genocide collectively carried out by Israel, the US and the other great powers, and fully agreed to by the Arab bourgeois regimes. The democratic, peaceful guise has dropped away entirely, with something ghastly, bloody taking its place.

Final scene in To a Land Unknown [Photo]

To a Land Unknown is sharp-eyed, unsentimental, realistic, accurate, occasionally comic. It doesnt paint pretty pictures, but nor is it cynical in the least. Chatila and Reda, and most of the others too, are perfectly decent, well-meaning people, even sweet, tender. Terrible circumstances, including the three-quarters of a century of Zionist violence, produce these terrible results.

The intense sincerity and authenticity of the film are undeniable. In this, the painful, tortuous Palestinian experience no doubt comes into play. Oppression doesnt necessarily ennoble, as To a Land Unknown itself confirms, but if the artist in such difficult conditions does take life and struggle seriously, it can encourage a devotion to personal and social honesty that is compelling and irresistible. The artist might even say, with a famed French novelist, But, above all, I want to be truthful.

The film sheds light on the Palestinian refugee situation, the physical and psychic predicament of the undocumented and abandoned in general and, in passing, offers a glimpse of the social misery in Greece, thanks in part to the rotten left Syriza regime, which promised social change and delivered utter subservience to the banks and big business.

The conditions we see in Athens, however, are not so different from those in countless other places. The drugs, daily violence, despair, the scramble to survive. This is what capitalism has inflicted on populations everywhere. Official society throws up its hands, or points to original sin and the rottenness of human nature, to account for the crimes its own profit hunger, ruthlessness and corruption set into motion. Films like this point in another direction, concretely toward the existing system of social and economic relations.

In To a Land Unknown and A World Not Ours, Fleifel has now created two substantial, moving, disturbing feature films. In addition, he has directed a number of striking shorter films, fiction and documentary, including Xenos (2014), A Man Returned (2016), A Drowning Man (2017) and 3 Logical Exits (2020). It is difficult to think of another filmmaker who has accomplished more in the past dozen years.
A poll of 1,500 people in Australia has revealed that the majority of youth surveyed prefer socialism over capitalism.

High school students protests over climate change in Sydney

Despite the limitations of the survey and of polling more generally, the result is an indication of a broad leftward movement among youth in Australia and internationally against the capitalist system, which presents young people with a future of war, dictatorship, social misery, climate catastrophe and mass illness.

The results come from a public data poll conducted between 31 May and 4 June by the international data collection company YouGov and released earlier this month.

Participants were asked to what extent they believed Australia should be more socialist or more capitalist on a scale of 0 to 10. Zero indicates strong support for socialism, five is neutral, and 10 is strong support for capitalism.

It is not clear what the questionnaire authors mean by more socialism or more capitalism. Rather than clarifying the distinction between socialism and capitalismtwo diametrically opposed economic systemsthe questionnaire clouds this.

Even so, the results of the poll are a clear indication of a growing attraction to socialism, particularly among the youth.

Among 1824-year-olds, 53 percent chose a number between zero and four, indicating support for socialism. Only 22 percent in this age range indicated support for more capitalism, while a quarter chose a neutral response.

When expanded to 1834-year-olds, the support for socialism is not as pronounced, but is still nearly double the indicated support for capitalism. This age range shows 41 percent in favour of socialism, 22 percent supporting capitalism and 34 percent neutral.

While the overwhelming support for socialism is not expressed when participants of all ages are included, neither do the results indicate strong support for capitalism. Among respondents of all ages, support for socialism is at 27 percent, support for capitalism marginally higher at 31 percent and neutral responses making up 42 percent of the total.

Similar results have been seen in recent years around the world including in the US where anti-communism has been promoted by the state for decades and in Europe.

It is unsurprising that, particularly among the youth, there is growing opposition to the existing political set up and the capitalist system.

Capitalism is associated among broad sections of youth with the war, skyrocketing cost of living, joblessness and housing insecurity.

Last years Youth Barometer report showed 90 percent of Australian youth have faced financial difficulty the previous year and 61 percent believe they will be financially worse off than their parents. It also revealed 72 percent of Australian youth believe they will never be able to buy a home.

Growing opposition to the capitalist system has only accelerated in the years since the beginning of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which has killed tens of millions worldwide and the explosion of imperialist militarism globally including the US-overseen Gaza genocide and the NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.

These profit-driven policies of war and austerity are defended by all the capitalist parties. The YouGov poll is an indication of why there is a crisis of the establishment parties in Australia and internationally.

In Australia, the results were published amid a major crisis of the Labor government of Anthony Albanese which is hated for its support for Israels genocidal campaign in Gaza and attacks on the living conditions of ordinary people. Headed by the far-right Peter Dutton, the Liberal-National Coalition opposition is no less reviled by ordinary workers and youth.

As the political establishment lurches further to the right, the YouGov results indicate that the working class and youth are moving to the left. It highlights the growing sense among young people in Australia that the current system cannot advance their interests.

There is little doubt that the results would be even more pronounced among young people if they asked questions like: Should society be run by billionaires (as it is under capitalism)? Should resources that could benefit society be used to bolster the military (as they are under capitalism)? For that matter, should the government actively support an ongoing genocide in Gaza and stoke tensions against Russia and China that would lead to a nuclear third-world war (as it does under capitalism)?

The growth of anti-capitalist sentiment is a healthy and important development. But the central question is what is socialism, and how is it fought for?

The YouGov questionnaire contains the misleading conception that socialism can be dialled up within the existing order. It is presented as something that can be increased or decreased depending on the person or party in power.

This conception is associated with the promotion of figures such as Bernie Sanders in the US or Jeremy Corbyn in Britain, who present themselves as democratic socialists. They advance the perspective that the conditions of ordinary youth and workers can be improved within the existing capitalist framework.

But this is an utterly false conception that the question-askers know full well.

In the US, Sanders has backed every Democratic Party candidate for president, including Genocide Joe Biden and made clear his support for US-led wars. Corbyn in Britain has facilitated the further right-wing trajectory of the Labour Party, which has come into power this month on a program of supporting genocide, war and austerity.

Sanders and Corbyn show how socialism is not to be fought for. Whatever excesses of capitalism these layers may object to, they are lifelong defenders of the capitalist system. They play the role of lightning rods for popular discontent, which they funnel back behind the same capitalist system that causes war and social misery.

In a period of capitalist crisis, posing the alternatives of war and revolution, the senile reformism of figures such as Sanders and Corbyn does not produce reforms but merely paves the way for even deeper attacks on the working class, including the rise of far right and fascistic tendencies.

Instead, youth should take up a fight based on the following principles.

A socialist perspective:

The threat to the very existence of humanity through war, climate change and pestilence is the result of the outmoded and bankrupt capitalist system. Only through the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a socialist society based on production for need, not profit, can this threat be averted.

Internationalism:

These threats face the worlds population and cannot be resolved within the framework of the nation-state system. The perspective must be the development of a unified movement of the working class internationally.

The turn to the international working class:

As the class that produces all wealth and the majority of the worlds population, the working class is the sole force that has the social power to overthrow the profit system in a revolutionary movement.

A break with all the parties and organisations of capitalism:

Workers and youth must establish their own parties and fighting organisations, independent from all those who prop up the decaying capitalist order. This includes establishment parties such as Labor, the Coalition, and the Greens in Australia, the likes of Corbyn in the UK and Sanders in the US, which promote the illusion that capitalism can be reformed. It also includes the trade union bureaucracies, which act as industrial police to suppress workers growing struggles.

The fight for Trotskyism, the Marxism of the 21st century:

The bitter experiences of the struggles of the working class over more than 100 years have demonstrated that hatred and anger are not enough. Youth and workers must learn the lessons of the revolutionary struggles of the 20th century. The 1917 October Revolution in Russia proved that the working class, equipped with a revolutionary leadership, can take power and begin the socialist reorganisation of society. The struggle waged by the Trotskyist movement against the developing rule of a privileged bureaucracy in the Soviet Union similarly demonstrated that Stalinism was not socialism but its oppositea nationalist tendency that resulted in the restoration of capitalism.

More than 30 years since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is indisputable that the Trotskyist movement represents the genuine socialist and internationalist political tendency. It exists in the form of the International Committee of the Fourth International, which publishes the WSWS. Students and youth wanting to fight for a future and for socialism should join its youth movement, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, and build the Socialist Equality Party.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 26. Kazakhstan and NVIDIA have agreed to launch educational programs on artificial intelligence (AI) in educational institutions in Kazakhstan within the framework of the Deep Learning Institute program, Trend reports.

The corresponding agreement was reached during the visit of a delegation from the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace Industry to the companys headquarters in San Francisco (US).

In addition, hackathons and bootcamps on artificial intelligence are planned to identify and support talented young professionals in this field.

As the Ministry noted, these events will help develop digital skills among young people and strengthen Kazakhstans position as a center of innovation in the region.

During the visit, the Kazakh delegation was also presented with the companys entire product line, including the latest revolutionary Blackwell chip.

To note, the Kazakh Ministry is also actively working to create computing power using NVIDIA chips for the development of artificial intelligence in Kazakhstan.
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, July 26. The Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan business forum will take place in Astana on August 7, Trend reports, citing the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Uzbekistan.

The business forum, which will be organized by the Ministry of Trade and Integration of Kazakhstan and QazTrade JSC, will be held as part of the visit of the President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Kazakhstan.

As the Embassy noted, the purpose of the forum is to establish direct contacts and intensify trade relations between Kazakh enterprises and potential buyers, and conduct bilateral meetings.

Meanwhile, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan account for 57 percent of all trade in Central Asia. From January through April 2024, the volume of trade turnover exceeded $1.2 billion.

Furthermore, trade turnover between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan over 5 years increased by 29.5 percent, amounting to $4.4 billion.
Best French restaurants and bakeries to try in Austin to celebrate the Paris Olympics

French cuisine may not be one of Austins strong suits, but you can find great roasted chicken, escargot, duck confit and more at several restaurants around town, a few of which have been around for more than a decade.

And, if its pastries you seek, there are plenty of bakeries turning out delicate macarons, croissants and other French pastries.

So, if you cant make it to Paris for the XXXIII Olympiad but still crave a taste of France, head to one of the restaurants, bakeries and cafes listed below. Bon appetit.

Baguette et Chocolat

Banh mi at Baguette et Chocolat.

France meets Vietnam at chef Chi Minh Pham Dings Bee Cave cafe and bakery that serves some of the best crepes, croissants and banh mi in town. 12101 RM 2244. 512-263-8388, baguetteetchocolat.com.

Bakery Lorraine

Bakery Lorraine does savory and sweet equally well.

Some of the best macarons and croissant sandwiches in the city come from this San Antonio-based bakery that has a location at Domain Northside. 11600 Rock Rose Ave. #100. bakerylorraine.com.

Bureau de Poste

Famed chef Jonathan Waxman was one of chef Jo Chan's mentors, so you know there's gonna be a roasted chicken on the menu at Bureau de Poste.

"Top Chef" alumnus Jo Chans French bistro commandeers the corner space and patio of Tiny Grocer in Hyde Park, serving classics like pomme dauphine, duck leg cassoulet and, as to be expected of a Jonathan Waxman protege, a half roasted chicken. 4300 Speedway, Suite 100. 512-375-3320, bureaudeposteatx.com.

Crepe Crazy

Rainbow trout crudo with creme fraiche and smoked honey Dijon at Epicerie.

Head to Crepe Crazy for a savory Norwegian crepe filled with lox and scrambled eggs, or if you prefer the sweet variety, you can opt for the whipped cream cheese, strawberry jam, powdered sugar and caramel sauce of the Jammin Jam. 3103 S. Lamar Blvd. 512-387-2442, crepecrazy.com.

Epicerie

Rainbow trout crudo with creme fraiche and smoked honey Dijon at Epicerie.

Chef Sarah McIntosh blends the flavors of her native Louisiana and France for a menu that includes beignets, fried shrimp poboy and chicken liver mousse. The chef also oversees one of the best pastry cases at any restaurant in town. 2307 Hancock Drive. 512-371-6840, epicerieaustin.com.

Heavens Bistro Bakery

Croque monsieur and pesto chicken sandwiches at Heaven's Bistro Bakery.

Chef Ghufrana Mahrukhs large pastry case includes macarons and Paris brest, and she makes sandwiches like an open-faced croque monsieur on the baguettes she sells at the bakery she opened in 2019. Check out the back patio for a surprisingly tranquil setting on bustling Parmer Lane. 2205 W. Parmer Lane. 512-351-8044, heavenbistrobakery.com.

Hopfields

Jambon beurre sandwich at Hopfields.

This campus-area gastropub features an impressive tap wall and smart wine selection, along with a menu ranging from a French ham and cheese sandwich to dinner specials like escargot dumplings. 3110 Guadalupe St. #400. 512-537-0467, hopfieldsaustin.com.

Julie Myrtille Bakery and Rose Bakery

Quiche Lorraine at the Rose Bakery by Julie Myrtille.

Pastry chef Julie Myrtille operates a bakery at Springdale General and one in the Arboretum. Both serve croissants, quiches, tarts, danishes, sandwiches and much more. You can also find her baked goods at farmers markets around town. 1023 Springdale Road, Building 1D; 10000 Research Blvd. Unit 123, juliemyrtille.us.

Justines

Steak frites at Justine's.

Austins most celebrated French restaurant and one of its best parties, this French-owned brasserie caters to the late-night crowd with escargot, beef tartare, steak frites and a chalkboard with rotating seasonal specials. 4710 E. Fifth St. 512-385-2900, justines1937.com.

La Patisserie

Macarons at La Patisserie.

Two locations of this classic French bakery owned by engineer-turned-pastry chef Soraiya Nagree specialize in macarons, eclairs and other French pastries. 602 W. Annie St. 512-912-0033; 7301 Burnet Road, #102. 512-770-6442, lpaustin.com.

Peche

Duck confit at Peche.

Rob Pates bar and restaurant has been serving up craft cocktails, absinthe and intimate New Orelansy vibes in the Warehouse District since 2008. Accompanying all that booze are French dishes like bouillabaisse, chicken liver pate, foie gras and grilled lamb. 208 W. Fourth St. 512-379-8249, pecheaustin.com.

Rocheli Patisserie

In a sign of a changing Austin, sisters Nelly and Linda Garcia and their mother, Rosa Nelly Caballero, brought Old World elegance, along with macarons, almond croissants and eclairs, to East 12th Street. 1212 Chicon St. #102. 512-220-4107, rocheli.com.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: French restaurants, bakeries in Austin offer taste of Paris Olympics
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, July 26. Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan have discussed launching a transport corridor from China during the VI meeting of the Kyrgyz-Turkmen Intergovernmental Commission, Trend reports.

The proposed corridor would traverse China, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, reaching Turkmenistan. Utilizing the Turkmenbashi seaport, the corridor is expected to provide access to the Caspian Sea and Russia, opening new economic opportunities for both Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.

During the meeting, the sides highlighted the significant potential of Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan in the transport and logistics sector due to their strategic geographic locations.

Moreover, Kyrgyz Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers Bakyt Torobayev proposed exploring the establishment of a bonded zone in Turkmenistan to develop trade infrastructure and enhance postal operations in e-commerce.

Additionally, Torobayev suggested that offering preferential tariffs for Kyrgyz carriers on international freight through Turkmenistan, along with simplifying visa policies for Kyrgyz drivers, could significantly boost trade between the two countries.
New York Post may be compensated and/or receive an affiliate commission if you buy through our links.

Daring "Deadpool" star Morena Baccarin shows off her "Marvel"-ous taste in wellness and fashion products

Much like her outspoken prostitute character, Vanessa Carlyle, in the Deadpool movies  who proudly announced, Ive played a lot of roles, but damsel in distress aint one of them  Brazilian-born New York-based actress Morena Baccarin is known for playing strong characters. She was commanding as Anna, the leader of the aliens in the 2000s reboot of V. She was outstanding as Jessica Brody, the wife of a Marine turned terrorist (played by Damian Lewis) in the espionage drama, Homeland, which scored her an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. And Comic-Con fans adored her as scientist, Dr. Leslie Thompkins, on the crime drama Gotham, centered around the Batman universe. (That series is where she fell in love with now-husband Ben McKenzie, who starred in the pivotal role of Jim Gordon).

She wont give away any spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine, which hits theaters July 26, but the mom of three does spill that time has elapsed, but Vanessa has stayed true to character. She is a survivor and someone that does not suffer fools, Baccarin, 45, tells Alexa. It was fun for the Juilliard grad to get to see pals Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in action together on set, as well as seeing some of the old gang I wont say who! Youll have to watch the film! she says.

The Juliard graduate attended the Deadpool & Wolverine premiere in a vegan leather look from Safiyaas pre-Fall 2024 collection. Getty Images for Disney

The International Rescue Committee ambassador, who is on the board of Waterwell, a civically-minded theater in New York City, will be busy this summer doing press for Deadpool & Wolverine, as well as shooting in London and Iceland and taking some much-needed family time in Colorado. These are all the things the star  who can next be seen in the movie Elevation, as a scientist trying to save the world from giant bugs!  takes with her, no matter where she is in the world.

FAVORITE SKINCARE KIT: Joanna Czech Skincare The Soothing Kit

Courtesy of Joanna Czech

All of her products are rich and super-hydrating. I especially love the balm. I carry it with me at all times since the size is perfect for travel. I also love her facials!

JOANNA CZECH

FAVORITE FACE OIL: Eminence Organic Skin Care Facial Recovery Oil

Courtesy of Eminence Organics

It is an amazing toning and hydrating oil. And for every product you buy they plant a tree!

EMINENCE ORGANICS

FAVORITE MAKEUP REMOVER: Koh Gen Do Cosmetics Cleansing Spa Water

Courtesy of Koh Gen Do

I often dont have time to wash my face fully. This is an amazing replacement. It removes all makeup and leaves skin moisturized.

KOH GEN DO

Courtesy of Lucas' Pawpaw Remedies

An all-time favorite of mine for any kind of skin abrasion or dryness. I use it on my lips or skin.

AMAZON

Courtesy of Weleda

The name speaks for itself.

WELEDA

FAVORITE SKIN BALANCER: Laura Mercier Tinted Moisturizer Oil Free Broad Spectrum SPF20

Courtesy of Laura Mercier

I am a long-time user of this product. It works really well for my skin and gives me a little protection without the feeling of heavy makeup.

LAURA MERCIER

FAVORITE EYE LIFT: Fenty Beauty Bright Fix Eye Brightener

Courtesy of Fenty Beauty

This is amazing for under the eye. It has replaced my concealer.

FENTY BEAUTY

FAVORITE EYE DEFINER: Lancome Hypnose Drama Mascara

Courtesy of Lancome

Nothing makes my lashes longer!

LANCoME

FAVORITE CURL TAMER: Davines Love Smoothing Conditioner

Courtesy of Davines

I have wild, curly hair and this leaves it smooth and helps control the volume, while still being ultra moisturizing.

DAVINES

Courtesy of DS & Durga

It smells amazing on its own [with a fresh sandalwood and amber scent], and you can also layer it with other fragrances.

DS & DURGA

Courtesy of Left on Friday

They have great one-pieces in so many colors that are simple and sexy. I especially love this one in gold.

LEFT ON FRIDAY

Courtesy of AG Jeans

I cant live without these. They are the softest travel jeans ever!

AG JEANS

Courtesy of Zadig & Voltaire

It is super fun and goes with everything!

ZADIF & VOLTAIRE

FAVORITE BOOTS: Blundstone Heeled Boots Style 1671

Courtesy of Blundstone

I can wear these anywhere, anytime and in fact they were my character Allisons shoes for [my movie coming out in 2025] Greenland: Migration. Theyre all-weather and sturdy.

BLUNDSTONE

Courtesy of Behida Dolic

The most beautiful hand-made hats by a true artist. I own four and want more!

BEHIDA DOLIc

Courtesy of Amazon

Simply, an all-time favorite.

AMAZON

Courtesy of Amazon

It is such an amazing story that I was immediately transported.

AMAZON
Alexis Bellino just returned to filming Real Housewives of Orange County with a new man. This beau previously loved one of her costars, but its all good because John Janssen is her match. Before John, Alexis only had eyes for her then-husband, Jim Bellino. Three children and a slew of conservative conversations later, Jim and Alexis finalized their divorce in 2018, and now, their agreed-upon divorce settlement has just leaked.

Alexis can afford to dine at The Quiet Women for life

Real Housewives of Orange County star Alexis Bellino scored a hefty amount of support from her ex-husband Jim Bellino in their divorce settlement  and In Touch has all the details. https://t.co/D8vEe6ThDp  In Touch Weekly (@intouchweekly) July 25, 2024

The fine humans at In Touch obtained the agreement that Alexis and Jim signed in August 2018. Starting with their three children: son James, 18, and twins Miles and Mackenna, 16, Alexis and Jim agreed to an equal custody split.

Financially speaking, Alexis gets $2,000 per child each month. These payments end at the age of 18. In addition, Jim agreed to provide for their insurance policies. Should anything ever happen, rendering Jim unable to pay, Alexis will cover their plans.

But wait, theres more. Jim also pays Alexis an additional $10,000 per month. He even took out a life insurance policy on himself, valued at $2.5 million. Alexis is the beneficiary, and this policy remains in effect until Alexis stops receiving spousal support payments.

Should Alexis marry John, zero notes on what might happen to these spousal support checks are listed.

On their assets, Jim grabbed their homes in San Juan Capistrano and Dana Point, California. He also snagged multiple bank accounts, stocks, bonds, every automobile registered under his name, jewelry, pricey artwork, and his businesses.

As for Alexis, she walked away with a separate home in San Juan Capistrano, California, her jewelry, handbags, and purses, and a hefty $250,000 lump sum payment from Jim. Jim also took on her debt back then, paying her taxes and an American Express bill.

Not bad, Alexis. Not bad, Jim.

But most importantly, Alexis and Jim are doing right by their children, showing up to their events as a team, not as enemies. On this, their costs are free, but their rewards are priceless.

Real Housewives of Orange County airs every Thursday at 9/8c on Bravo.

TELL US  ARE YOU SHOCKED BY ANYTHING IN ALEXIS AND JIMS DIVORCE SETTLEMENT? DO YOU MISS SEEING JIM ON BRAVO, OR NOPE?

The post Details of Alexis Bellinos 2018 Divorce Settlement With Jim Bellino Revealed appeared first on Reality Tea.
Former first lady Melania Trump announced her upcoming memoir on Thursday and was immediately mocked on social media with an awkward blast from the past.

Melania is a powerful and inspiring story of a woman who has carved her own path, overcome adversity and defined personal excellence, according to the promotional blurb for the book thats due out this fall.

But many critics just wanted to know if it would bear any resemblance to fellow former first lady Michelle Obamas bestselling 2018 book Becoming.

Thats because Melania Trumps 2016 Republican National Convention address in support of her husband, the then- and current GOP nominee Donald Trump, contained several lines that had been ripped from Obamas speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

A Trump family speechwriter later took responsibility.

Was the original title, Becoming? joked one person on X, formerly Twitter.

Another asked: Did Michelle Obama write the first version?

Probably copied from @MichelleObama 's books  Ramapati Singhania | #DigitalTransformation (@RamaSinghania) July 25, 2024

Did she just change the cover of Michelle Obamas memoiror did she make a few edits as well?  Howard Forman (@HowardForman67) July 25, 2024

Was the original title, "Becoming"?  Steven Podvoll (@spodvoll) July 25, 2024

Did Michelle Obama write the first version?  SSton (@SharinStone) July 25, 2024

Just read an advance copy, and thought it was excellent. Dont think thats the final cover, though. pic.twitter.com/hX2jIxbQpw  Tim Kernell (@TimKernell1) July 25, 2024

Its probably riddled with plagiarism.  Susan (@CriticSusan) July 25, 2024

Great! I love to read FICTION.  Susan KronickPhD (@KronickSusan) July 25, 2024

Irony is dead apparently  Michigan blue warrior (@MIbluewarrior) July 25, 2024

Biting my tongue https://t.co/UgOvnsE0t1  Bradley P. Moss (@BradMossEsq) July 25, 2024

Related...
The Next Jurassic World Movie Has Two Huge Rumors That Could Mean Big Things For Scarlett Johansson And Company, And I Need To Talk This Out

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

Credit: Marvel Studios

Greetings to those who are keeping their eyes firmly on the upcoming 2025 movies , and a firm hello to those of you who are looking forward to the next chapter of the Jurassic Park Universe ! Its that particular subject Im looking to discuss at the moment, as there are two pretty huge rumors being reported about director Gareth Edwards turn at bat in a world where dinosaurs once again roam the earth.

The Latest Jurassic Sequel Has A Potential Name

An alleged US Patent Office filing popped up recently that claims to have a name for the new Jurassic World film has been speculated. Which, if this happens to be accurate, currently stands as Jurassic World Rebirth. Its a promising title, but Im still throwing a bit of salt on this, as its not confirmed by any sort of officially-issued details.

The title could change at any moment, and to be completely honest, Im not sure if that filing above is totally legit. However, there is something else thats got the gears turning in my mind. Thats thanks to some more recently spotted footage that claims to have captured some of the filming process for Jurassic World 4.

Those details are also pretty speculative, but between whats been seen and heard, an overall picture seems to be forming. Let's venture further into the raptor hole, shall we?

The Indoraptor roars at the moon in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Director Gareth Edwards Has Allegedly Been Overheard Giving Some Interesting Jurassic Direction

Despite what we may have interpreted from Colin Josts Jurassic World 4 talk , it appears that Scarlett Johansson is still filming her role for this upcoming flick. That much has been alleged thanks to a couple of videos and rundowns coming out of the movies current shooting location of Malta, which have been shared on X (formerly known as Twitter) . But thats not even the most exciting part, as director Gareth Edwards was reported to be yelling the following direction in one of those videos:

Look out, here he comes!

Now unless The Creator writer/director is making the semi-common mistake of misgendering the dinosaurs, we could be dealing with another Isla Sorna scenario. Remember, all the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park and Jurassic World are female, except for special cases of exception. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdoms Indoraptor was created as a male hybrid, and those good ol' frog DNA creations in the first two films found a way to make more dinosaurs through the spontaneous generation of male dinos.

So bringing in more big boys to roam around in the Jurassic landscape would be a pretty huge idea, but not a totally unfamiliar one. In terms of what was being seen in one of the videos, those directions were being yelled during a huge water-based scene that was supposed to see a boat under attack by this unknown prehistoric menace.

As someone who was able to visit Malta for a special Jurassic World Dominion junket a couple summers ago, I can say that this does look like it was being filmed at the Malta Film Studios, which has a massive water tank to shoot aquatic mayhem such as this. That detail in particular has set into motion a larger theory of what could be happening overall.

Sam Neill and Laura Dern follow Jeff Goldblum on a walk in Jurassic World Dominion.

A Larger Picture Is Starting To Form With Jurassic World Rebirth

So with a potential title of Jurassic World Rebirth, a whisper of male dinosaurs being present, and a scene of aquatic terror falling into line, what could this mean for the next chapter? Well, Scarlett Johansson and her compatriots may be headed to Isla Sorna, which would reintroduce the island for the first time since 1997s The Lost World: Jurassic Park. If Im being honest, it makes perfect sense.

Not only does this align with Jurassic World 4s first story details about going back to the Island, but going through those details above reminds me of how Jurassic Park III had its own harrowing moment of a boat trying to evade a swimming Spinosaurus. Revisiting this corner of Michael Crichton's Jurassic lore is a smart move, as the riches of the former factory floor to John Hammonds living biological attractions could be used for anything: dinosaur preservation, shady private business interests or just good old plot inspiration.

Whats more, maybe were about to see a wider Jurassic World at work, as we could explore the rest of the Los Cinco Muertes island chain that Site B was a part of. As this chapter marks Jurassic Park writer David Koepps franchise return , and he put those landmasses on the board through some exposition, this could be the key to a rebirth of sorts.

The franchise could see itself reinvented by another round of secluded adventure, complete with never before seen dinosaurs to match this uncharted territory. And with a post-Jurassic World Dominion world potentially on the table, who knows what's waiting in those places that InGen, BioSyn or Mantah Corp may not have been so upfront about?

Of course, all of this is subject to change, and the availability of Roberta the Tyrannosaurus. The clocks still counting down, as Jurassic World 4, or whatever its true name is, is slated to open on July 2, 2025. However, Id highly recommend revisiting both Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park; both of which are available to stream through a Peacock subscription or a Tubi account.
"We saw Cliff play, and lost our minds": Memories of Metallica's lost bass titan Cliff Burton as band launches virtual exhibit

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

Credit: Pete Cronin / Getty

Metallica have curated and launched a virtual exhibition in tribute to original bassist Cliff Burton, who was tragically killed when the metal giants' tour bus overturned on a rural road in Sweden in the early hours of 27 September 1986.

The last show that we played with Cliff was a spectacular show... one of the best shows we'd played all fucking year

The exhibition, named Orion: A Tribute To Cliff Burton, is the first of four planned collections honouring the bassist, and features a slew of video interviews, hand-written letters, memorabilia, and plenty of archival performance recordings. It's a Burton- and Metallica-fan's goldmine. You can find Orion in Metallica's online museum [requires sign-up but free].

In a video featured in Orion, alongside other interviews with the likes of Faith No More's Mike Bordin and Anthrax's Frank Bello, as well as plenty of band and family insiders, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich talks extensively about first encountering Burton, his subsequent integration into the band, and his creative contribution.

Metallica Orion: a tribute to Cliff Burton logo

"The first time I saw him," says Ulrich, "James and I had gone to the Whisky a Go Go in, I think, sometime in '82 and there were a bunch of bands from San Francisco playing, one of them being Trauma.

"We went down to check that out, and we saw Cliff play, and just absolutely lost our minds."

On the bassist's impact on the band's growth, Ulrich says he "added a whole other dimension to the Metallica sound and to the Metallica hype... obviously he'll always be a significant part of whatever we get up to. And I think for a lot of his fans will always be.

"He'll always have a place in their hearts."

The members of Metallica have never been reticent in paying tribute to their lost bandmate, and have repeatedly gone on record about Burton.

Speaking to Gibson TV (below) in 2020, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett recalled a rip-roaring performance.

"The last show that we played with Cliff was a spectacular show," Kirk recalls in the interview. "It was the first show after maybe six or seven weeks when James [Hetfield] was back on guitar because he had broken his arm during the Ozzy tour.

"His arm was healed enough so he was able to play guitar and it was the first show where we had James back and it was the night that Cliff died.

Cliff was very, very happy. Knowing that is a good thing

"Everyone was just so happy James was back and to have James's guitar fuelling everything again, rather than me and John Marshall [tech and stand-in guitarist] sharing that duty.

"We played really, really well and felt like we were back 100% so that last show was one of the best shows we'd played all fucking year and in retrospect I'm glad Cliff's last show was special in that regard.

"It really was, in all respects, one of the best shows we'd played and Cliff was very, very happy. So knowing that is a good thing."

"Cliff and I used to room together, so we were super close  we were like brothers," Hammett continues. "We'd hang out, arms around each other and then ten minutes later we could be arguing and wrestling on the ground. That's the kind of relationship we had  total, 100% honest. Emotions just out there all the time.

Cliff would say this so much; 'There's power in the truth  you've got to be honest all the time and if you have problems with me I want you to tell me' and I would tell him, then he would tell me. Then he'd suggest ridiculous things like, 'Let's wrestle' or fisticuffs, a drinking contest or 'You've got to show me this lick!'

"I get emotional when I think about Cliff and when we're together we think about Cliff. I know that James and I, we get really, really emotional.

"I would say for me, there's still some grief. after all these years I can still feel that pain."

Ulrich, speaking to Revolver in 2013, also acknowledged Burton's foundational impact on Metallica's whole career.

My fondest memories of Cliff are his total disregard for convention and his total disregard for playing things out the way you expected them

"My fondest memories of Cliff are his total disregard for convention and his total disregard for playing things out the way you expected them," said Ulrich.

"He was up to challenge the normalcy, to challenge the status quo, to just fuck with things musically, attitude-wise - the way he dressed, the way he carried himself, his sense of humor, his relationship with the music that inspired him, the music that he played. It was always very unconventional, and it was very unusual."

Ulrich continued: "You could certainly argue that me and James [Hetfield] at that time were more kind of the squarer guys, 'cause we were more like, 'Motorhead, Iron Maiden!' Heavy metal T-shirts, and long hair and bang our heads into the wall.

"Cliff was just so fast in his palette of things that he was into and things that were inspiring him and the things that he was doing."

Speaking to MusicRadar in 2016, James Hetfield was explicit on how Burton's musicality has influenced him throughout his career.

I love harmonies and Cliff Burton has planted a seed in me

"I love harmonies and Cliff Burton has planted a seed in me that continues to grow on that. And I love it.

"I always loved Thin Lizzy and bands that pull off these really cool harmonies. Theres so many cool voicings that you can do and it just interests me a lot."

Cliff Burton 1985

Coda - a mother's blessing

Replacing Burton was always going to be a massive task, and Jason Newsted, who joined the band from 1986 to 2001, remembers getting an all-important blessing during his third try-out.

That third night, they had the elders come in for their blessing

Speaking to Metal Hammer, he recalled, That third night, they had the elders come in for their blessing."

Torben Ulrich, the Burtons, a couple of the crew guys, people that had been there from the get-go We got through about six tunes: Master [Of Puppets], [Fade] To Black, [For Whom The] Bell Tolls, the masterpieces!

Crucially, it was Burtons mother who approached him immediately after he finished playing.

So I am just composing myself for a second, putting my bass down, turning off Cliffs amp  Im playing fucking Cliffs amp dude! said Newsted. Jan comes walking in the room by herself, and she grabs me, and gets my attention. She says, Great job, son and Im like, Oh fuck!

She embraced me, and it seemed like it was quite a while, and she said, Youre the one, you must be the one. Please be safe, we love you, and she gave me a kiss. That was 35 years ago, and I'll never, ever forget it.
Ana Navarro, a long-time co-host of The View, posted on her Instagram Thursday an old photo of nude Melania Trump as a way to troll her husbands supporters, saying: You wanna go low? ... Ill happily go 20,000 leagues under the sea.

It was a picture from 2000 featured in British GQ, five years before Donald Trump married her.

Navarro also included a picture of both Trumps partying with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, also from 2000. Her explanation for posting these images was that it was meant to showcase Trumps hypocrisyand the hypocrisy of many Republican pundits when it comes to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Some Republicans are out there on TV and social media making vile sexual remarks about Kamala Harris and wanting to make her dating history an issue, Navarro wrote. This country deserves a debate on real issues, affecting us all. But you want to make this an issue? Bring it on. Ive never seen naked pics of @kamalaharris or her spouse. Kamala never partied with sexual predators.

This post comes four days after President Joe Biden stepped down from his campaign and endorsed Kamala Harris as his nominee. Since then, there have been a barrage of sexist (and racist) comments at Harris expense from across the conservative media landscape.

Perhaps most egregious was right-wing podcaster Alex Lace referring to Harris the original Hawk Tuah girl during a Fox Business segment, claming thats the way she got where she is.

Samantha Bee: These Republicans Attacks on Kamala Harris Are Delightful Flops

Several congresspeople have also derisively called her a DEI pick for vice presidentforcing House Speaker Mike Johnson to hold a meeting of his Republican caucus to urge them to stop using Harris race and gender in attacks against her.

This should not be about personalities. It should be about policy. And we have a record to compare, House Speaker Mike Johnson told Politico Tuesday.

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.
Annual competition sparks controversy with cash prizes to kill highly invasive species: 'They are like the devil on methamphetamine'

A divisive event in New Zealand has sparked a debate over the ethics of killing invasive species after including an animal most cultures typically view as a companion instead of a threat.

The Guardian reported that over 1,500 people  including 440 children under 14  participated in the annual North Canterbury Hunting Competition to target deer, pigs, ducks, possums, rabbits, and, most controversially, feral cats.

Event organizer Matt Bailey told the Guardian feral cats threaten the country's biodiversity and native wildlife, as the prodigious predators hunt endangered birds, lizards, bats, and insects. They also carry diseases that jeopardize the health of livestock.

The feline category was introduced last year and awards 500 New Zealand dollars ($296) for the most killed and NZ$1,000 ($593) for the largest one killed. Contestants caught a record 371 cats in this year's edition, the Guardian said.

Hunting problematic species for cash prizes is a common tactic to control populations and restore wildlife balance. Organizations across the U.S. have incentivized removing invasive and pest animals like northern pikeminnows in the Pacific Northwest, silver carp in Tennessee, and Burmese pythons in Florida.

Cats are first trapped to ensure they are feral, and all traps must be set at least 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from any residential area to protect domesticated pets.

"When [ferals] are caged, it's pretty obvious," Bailey said to the Guardian. "They are like the devil on methamphetamine; they will try to attack you."

Furthermore, only adults can partake in the cat culling, and they must use a minimum of a .22 caliber rifle to ensure a humane killing.

The event  which reportedly raised around NZ$60,000 ($35,652) for a nearby school and a community pool and donated harvested venison to local food banks  received intense backlash from animal rights activists who found these protective measures unsatisfactory.

They also contended that it enables violence and animal cruelty under the guise of conservation while endangering domestic cats. The issue is of particular concern to New Zealand  data from Companion Animals New Zealand in 2020 showed that 41% of households own a cat.

Members of the Animal Save Movement who protested at the competition told the Guardian that they were harassed by hunters. "There is nothing conservative about encouraging children to kill animals and people attempting to throw dead possums at us," Sarah Jackson, one of the protesters, said.

Bailey dismissed the complaints and stated that hunting is part of rural life for children in the area.

However, hunters and activists alike agreed that improved accountability was needed to limit ballooning feral feline numbers.

"They are an apex predator  the time's come that if we want to be predator-free, we need to stem the flow of people breeding [cats] and dumping in the countryside," Bailey said, adding that domesticated cats needed to be sterilized and microchipped.

"If we genuinely care about bird conservation and wildlife protection, we need individuals to take responsibility for their cats by neutering to prevent unplanned breeding and the subsequent dumping of unwanted litters," the Animal Justice Party said.

Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs.

Lobby room with light blue walls and leather sofa

When interior designer Ashley Montgomery was tapped to renovate an eight-room motel in Canadas lush Beaver Valley, she knew the property was brimming with potential. Which is another way of saying it needed a major design overhaul.

Giant waterfall murals adorned the walls of the guest suites. An oddly shaped faux stone fireplace dominated the common area. The kitchen (I would use that word very loosely, she explains) was a complete mess. There was a lot of wood, and not in a good way. The setting was magical! says Montgomery. The space just needed new life.

Montgomery partnered with owners April Brown and Sarah SklashBFF moteliers who have a track record of turning dingy old motor inns into revamped havens of boutique hospitality (and the Netflix series to prove it)and developed a renovation plan that combined old English and Canadian lodge vibes with modern comforts and vintage finds.

The resulting June Motel is a gorgeously layered accommodation that can be rented out completely by a single group or serve as a destination for individual travelers in search of a cozy getaway. Heres how the team made it happen without blowing up their budget.

KeepAnd RepeatWhat You Can

Guest rooms, before. Courtesy of June Motel

Photography by Lauren Miller

Photography by Lauren Miller

The property had been functioning as a motel up to the point when Sklash and Brown bought it, but the guest suites, though habitable, werent exactly charming. The waterfalls were nixed immediately, as were the fake fireplaces. To create a sense of cohesion from room to room, Montgomery developed a repeatable design concept with painted paneling, wallpaper, and built-in headboards. She sourced vintage art to give each space a unique spin.

Photography by Lauren Miller

Photography by Lauren Miller. Lykke Wallpaper, Sandberg.

In the en suite bathrooms, they were able to leave the tiling as is. We didnt want to start moving plumbing, so we kept the layouts pretty much the same, says Montgomery. An archway was added to the shower and echoed in the entry door design. We ended up finding the sinks on Etsy and working with the vendor on those colorways, so we were able to customize those as well, she adds. A skirted base conceals storage and adds a touch of softness.

Keep Your Common Areas Flexible

The lobby, before. Courtesy of June Motel Frances Beatty Photography

Photography by Lauren Miller

Even when were working on commercial spaces, I think of them as residential, like an extension of somebodys home, says Montgomerya lens thats absolutely reflected in the ground-floor lobby.

In the main room, she tweaked the points of entry, adding double doors where there were once windows to the left of a large stone fireplace. The hearth itself got an update, too: The old faux stone was swapped for natural materials and an expanded mantel, which features a set of vintage snowshoes as decor. We knew that would be the focal point, says Montgomery. From there, she carved out additional seating areas: the sofa zone, a pair of comfortable side chairs, a built-in window bench, and breakfast table seating. Upstairs, a pink-paneled space can host anything from yoga classes to elaborate dinners to wedding festivities.

Photography by Lauren Miller

Photography by Lauren Miller

Underfoot throughout, Montgomery added luxurious woodlike vinyl planks, which are highly durable and easy to clean. The walls were paneled, while the ceiling woodwork was stained in a dark hue. The lighting plan was developed for glowy warmth: Montgomery didnt include spots in that mix, instead sticking with flush mounts and sconces instead.

Never Underestimate IKEA

Photography by Lauren Miller

We knew we wanted a party of statement fabric chairs in the lobby, but the price tags on those can get a little crazy, explains Montgomery. To keep the cost down, she sourced two Tullsta chairs and had them re-covered in a fun floral fabric by Lulie Wallace.

Design a Kitchen That Can Get Dirty

Photography by Lauren Miller

Photography by Lauren Miller

In the new kitchen, Montgomery combined industrial necessities with homey touches and finishes intended to develop patina with time. The two-tone cabinetry mixes easy-access open storage with enclosed cupboards and a paneled fridge. A curtain conceals a commercial dishwasher on the lower shelving.

The countertops are marble and its going to stain. The brass faucets are going to tarnish, says Montgomery. These spaces arent perfecttheyre meant to live. Recently, she visited the now-completed project with a group of girlfriends for the weekend. It was just so cozy and comfortable, says the designer. Mission accomplished: a home away from home.
This Destination Was Just Named the Most 'Otherworldly' Magical Place on the Planet for Its Bright Blue Thermal Hot Springs

The Turkish destination has gorgeous baby blue hot springs.

PixHound/Getty Images

The best destinations are those that totally transport you. They are places that have a natural ability to make you feel like you're on a whole other planet, far away from all your worries and your cares. If you need a little assistance finding just where those otherworldly destinations are, the gaming site Slingo has created a definitive list.



To find out which spots around the globe display a magical essence, the team analyzed several online blog lists, each containing "magical" and "fairytale" destination recommendations. It then assigned each destination a category (fairytale, otherworldly, or mythical) and then analyzed the destinations on their number of global Google searches between April 2023 and March 2024 (sourced using Google Ads Keyword Planner), the number of Instagram posts that mention the destination, the number of TikTok posts that mention the destination, and the percentage of reviews for the destination on Tripadvisor that contain the word magical." Each destination was then given a normalized score out of 10 after each factor was averaged.

After examining all the data, it named Pamukkale, Turkey, the most "otherworldly" place on Earth.

"Pamukkale, located in the Denizli Province of southwestern Turkey, is renowned for its surreal landscape of terraced hot springs and travertine pools," the team wrote about its winning spot. "Known as the 'Cotton Castle' for its white, cotton-like appearance, Pamukkale is a natural wonder that mesmerizes visitors with its otherworldly beauty."

Indeed, those gorgeous baby blue hot springs helped catapult this destination to the top of the list, with 1,264,156 Instagram posts and 71,400 TikTok mentions.

Following close behind in second is Antelope Canyon in Arizona, a place that allows visitors to walk through the wave-like walls of the canyon through a kaleidoscope of reds, pinks, and earthy tones.

Joining these destinations on the list are Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia in third, followed by Socotra, Yemen; Zhangjiajie, China; Waitomo Glowworm Caves, New Zealand; Seljalandsfoss, Iceland; Ilulissat, Greenland; Vatnajokull, Iceland; La Digue, Seychelles; and Lake Hillier, Australia rounding out the top 10.

See the full results and where else made its fairytale lists at slingo.com.



For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Travel & Leisure.
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, July 26. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization's Industry Committee plans to establish several companies in Kyrgyzstan, Trend reports.

This was announced during a meeting between Nurbek Anarbeki, Director of Kyrgyzstan's Center for Public-Private Partnership, and representatives of the committee.

The planned companies include:

-Energy group, which will focus on developing thermal, hydroelectric, solar, and wind energy and creating an integrated electricity transmission and distribution network;

-Mining development group, aiming to explore high-value mineral resources and engage in mineral processing and refinement;

-Transport network development group to invest in roads, railways, airports, and terminals.

China is the primary trading partner for Kyrgyzstan. According to the Statistical Committee, the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $2.712 billion from January through May 2024, accounting for 41.8 percent of Kyrgyzstan's total trade turnover. The value increased by 52.3 percent year over year.
Traveling through the airport can be stressful, with long TSA lines, crowded waiting areas and occasional flight delays.

And for families with sensitive children, the bustling and loud airport can be even more overwhelming.

To make air travel easier on everyone, Miami International Airport offers services including tours to help kids who might experience sensory overload get used to traveling.

MIA recently led a tour with American Airlines and nonprofit Easterseals South Florida for neurodivergent students, showing them what its like to fly. The students attend an Easterseals school that focuses on autism spectrum disorder, and learning challenges such as attention disorder.

Its really important for us to expose our students to the practice of traveling safely, securely, without complications and helping them understand and become familiar with an environment that is foreign to them and also alleviating any fears, any sensory input that might be challenging for them, said Pietro Bonacossa, the vice president of development for Easterseals South Florida.

Victoria Castellano, 10, left, goes through TSA with the help of agent Sandra Touya during an airport readiness drill with Easterseals South Florida kids to prepare them for experiencing air travel on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, at Miami International Airport. Many of the kids have autism or other disabilities that can make airports stressful, so this tour showed them what it was like.

During the tour, kids went up to the ticket booth to get their boarding pass, and shuffled through TSA, putting their bags in bins, walking through the metal detectors, boarding the plane. Some lucky kids like Kyler Silva and Daniel Espinal even got to relax in first class and get a tour of the cockpit.

This is amazing! I love it, Kyler said while fluffing his pillow in first class.

Here are some tips to help your family:

Request MIA sunflower lanyard

Parents can email Miami International Airport to request a free sunflower lanyard to have their children wear it while at the airport and while traveling. The lanyards are meant to be a discreet and voluntary way to notify employees at more than 200 airports and 17 airlines in the world that a passenger has an invisible disability such as autism, hearing loss, and PTSD and may need extra help, understanding, or just more time, according to Hidden Disabilities Sunflower.

To request a lanyard, email ADAcoordinator@miami-airport.com . Include your full name and the address of where you want the lanyard to be delivered. Make sure to request the lanyard with time.

TIP: You can write the childs information, including parent contact info, on the lanyard in case you get separated. And if you ever travel out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, sunflower lanyards are available there too.

Commissioner Raquel Regalado, right, holds her daughter, Isabelas hand while she wears the sunflower lanyard during an airport readiness drill with Easterseals South Florida kids to prepare them for experiencing air travel on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, at Miami International Airport. Many of the kids have autism or other disabilities that can make airports stressful, so this tour showed them what it was like.

Tour the airport

The Miami airport offers tours several times a year. You can find information on how to register for a tour on the airports website. If you have upcoming travel plans or cant make it to the next tour, theres another alternative: Do an online tour.

MIA has an online photo book parents can look at with their kids to show them what to expect, including ticketing, walking through a metal detector at TSA and boarding the plane.

TIP: TSA also has a program called TSA Care that can help make the screening process smoother for passengers with disabilities and medical conditions. Parents can call TSA Cares 72 hours prior to traveling to ask for assistance at the checkpoint or if they have any questions about TSA screening, policies or procedures. To learn more, visit tsa.gov/travel/tsa-cares

Sophia Pierre, 10, who is mostly non-verbal, stares out the window during an airport readiness drill with Easterseals South Florida kids to prepare them for experiencing air travel on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, at Miami International Airport. Many of the kids have autism or other disabilities that can make airports stressful, so this tour showed them what it was like.

Use multi-sensory rooms

MIA has quiet rooms designed to help calm and relax travelers with autism and other cognitive or developmental disabilities. Parents can bring their kids here to help relax them while waiting for their flight. The rooms, referred to at the airport as multi-sensory rooms, are post-security in Concourse D, next to checkpoint 4 and post-security in the H-J connector. The rooms are open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

For Miami-Dade County Commissioner Raquel Regalado, who has two children on the autism spectrum, the sunflower lanyards, airport tours and and multi-sensory rooms are a push in the right direction to make air travel more inclusive for families.

MORE: Theater for the brain? How a Miami-area troupe reaches out with sensory-friendly shows

A lot of families buy an airplane ticket, cross their fingers and wish for the best, Regalado, a long-time advocate for children and adults with disabilities whose daughter attends Easterseals Academy, told the Miami Herald.

They dont know that these resources are available. We want them to be able to travel, we want them to know that MIA is a safe space for them, she said. And the people that work here are trained to deal with individuals that are neurodivergent. So its really important if were going to be an inclusive county to have inclusive transportation.

Eli Velez, Miami-based first officer on American Airlines, left, talks to Daniel Espinal, center, and Kyler Silva, in the cock pit during an airport readiness drill with Easterseals South Florida kids to prepare them for experiencing air travel on Tuesday, July 23, 2024, at Miami International Airport. Many of the kids have autism or other disabilities that can make airports stressful, so this tour showed them what it was like.

Check your airline for accommodations

Airlines also offer a variety of accommodations for people with disabilities, including early boarding. Visit your airlines website to learn more. Contact the airline with any questions you might have in the weeks leading up to your flight.

READ NEXT: Stressed out at the Miami airport? How to relax or get fit while waiting for your flight

For more tips

Visit MIAs website to learn more about its accessibility services.
Don Froylan Creamery was one of several Oregon cheesemakers to win multiple awards at the 2024 American Cheese Society (ACS) competition.

The American Cheese Society is an association promoting and supporting American cheeses, presenting shows, networking and more for cheesemakers, cheesemongers and companies. This year's award ceremony took place in Buffalo, New York, on July 11.

Owner Francisco Ochoa said he went to the conference and accepted the awards in person. He opened the Don Froylan Creamery in Salem in October 2018. The first creamery was opened in 2001 in Eugene, then expanded and moved to Albany in 2009. Over the years, Ochoa's cheeses have won multiple awards from the ACS.

"We're pretty proud to win these awards among all the other US cheesemakers," Ochoa said. "We hope more people come to our shop, watch us stretch the cheese, and enjoy our quesadilla bar here in Salem."

Packaged Liliana's String Cheese at Don Froylan Creamery at the location in north Salem, each pack is $3.

The Salem-based cheesemaker had three entries place in three categories, including one back-to-back first place entry. The cheeses that placed in this year's competition include Liliana's String Cheese, Queso Panela and Queso Oaxaca.

Liliana's String Cheese won first in the mozzarella types of the Italian-type cheese category. This is the second year in a row the string cheese placed first in the category.

The cheese is named after Ochoa's daughter, who only wanted string cheese when she was younger. The string cheese itself is a variation of the Queso Oaxaca but with less sodium, Ochoa said. The cheese is packaged almost flat in a resealable bag, in the equivalent of five to six cheese sticks per package. It tears away smoothly, creating little curls as it's pulled and eaten. The taste is tangy compared to other mozzarellas.

Stretching Liliana's String Cheese from Don Froylan Creamery, which placed first for the second year in a row at the 2024 American Cheese Society competition.

Don Froylan's Queso Panela placed first in the fresh and unripened category of the Hispanic and Portuguese-style cheeses. In the same style category, the Queso Oaxaca placed second in "Hispanic Cooking" cheese, defined by the cheese needing "to be consumed heated or melted." This is the second year in a row the Queso Oaxaca has placed second in this category.

These cheeses are purchasable at Don Froylan Creamery's location in north Salem, off of Portland Road Northeast.

Other notable Oregon winners include Tillamook, Face Rock Creamery, Briar Rose Creamery and Walla Walla Cheese Company.

For more details on the winning cheeses check out the winner list on the ACS website, cheesesociety.org/competition.

Hours: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., daily

Address: 3350 Portland Road NE

Em Chan covers food and dining at the Statesman Journal. You can reach her at echan@gannett.com and follow her on X @catchuptoemily.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Don Froylan Creamery wins American Cheese Society awards
Dave Urbanczyk, of Warren, shares a laugh with his daughter Abigail Urbanczyk as she lays in the back of their vehicle while they watch "Despicable Me 4" together at the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In in Dearborn on Thursday, July 18, 2024. "This is something that the families did, and they did it all the time. It's a memory I'll never forget. My kids never forgot it. She ain't never going forget it. They need drive-ins," he said.

As the summer sky begins to change to a warm hue, Lynette LaPointe, of Livonia, springs out of her heavy-duty Ford truck  parked first in line  with cellphone in hand, twisting and turning as she snaps photos of the signs and sights of the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In.

Its got all the nostalgia, said LaPointe, whose customized license plate reads DRIVEIN. I want to keep this place going, so we try to come as often as we can. Its just such a beautiful place.

Since 2009, she and her family have visited every drive-in in the state of Michigan, both operational and closed, but they frequent this theater, closer to their home. I always joke if I win the Powerball Id replace the old neon lights, said LaPointe. The lights were part of the renovated original tower for Screen 1, which once contained apartments inside for staff members.

Lynette LaPointe, of Livonia, poses for a photo after exiting her truck to take photos of signs and structures at the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In in Dearborn on Thursday, July 18, 2024. LaPointe has visited all of the operational and closed drive-ins in Michigan and surrounding states regularly documenting them while enjoying the nostalgia and being outside. "I want to keep this place going. So we try to come as often as we can," said LaPointe, who has been to the drive-in that operates for 12 months many times through rain, sleet and snow.

Ever since I was a kid, I remember watching every big movie growing up at that theater, said general manager Aaron Clark, who worked as a cashier during the summer selling tickets at age 7 for his father, Bill Clark, who co-owned the independently operated business.

He and his brothers, along with other family members, have all taken on roles at the drive-in at some point. In 2021, Aaron Clark became a co-owner of the theater with his father, after the pandemic shut down his construction business.

For many, the drive-in serves as a place for people to come to escape their problems for a couple hours, Clark said.

Children sit on top of a vehicle while watching "Despicable Me 4" at the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In in Dearborn on Tuesday, July 16, 2024.

Kismet Kelley, of Farmington, lays on her side while watching "Despicable Me 4" with (right to left) Charisma Kelley, Kharma Kelley and Frank Silvagi, all of Farmington at the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In in Dearborn on Tuesday, July 16, 2024.

It was always the weekend getaway for my family. For me and my mom, especially. It was a real bonding experience when I was a teenager, despite having my father leave, said Robert Goodman, of Clearwater, Florida, about the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In as he pushed his son on a swing while waiting for the start of their movie. Goodman returned to his home state of Michigan with his wife and two children, with only two places to visit  and that included the drive-in. I wanted to make it a point to stop here, because Florida doesnt have any.

Robert Goodman, of Clearwater, Florida, looks at his son Robert Goodman Jr., while pushing him on a swing as their family plays on the playground equipment near the screen where they will watch their movie at the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In in Dearborn on Thursday, July 18, 2024. Goodman brought his family for a trip back to Michigan to visit spots that included the drive-in where he spent time bonding with his mother as their getaway while sharing it with his family.

With the recent trend of releasing movies through streaming services, as well as the closure and sale of other drive-ins in the state, families looking for a convenient spot to carry on this summertime ritual has been a challenge.

I used to go to the drive-in when I was a kid. Wed sit on top of my dad's van. We saw 'E.T.', we saw 'Star Wars.' There were four of them right in this frickin' area, and now this is the only one that's left, said Dave Urbanczyk, of Warren, while spinning his daughter Abigail on a merry-go-round as she played with other children before seeing "Despicable Me 4."

Making their way back to their spaces, children began climbing onto the roofs of vehicles as some families gathered in the beds of trucks with snacks in hand. Sounds of '70s rock playing from the theater's audio channel filled the air amid the smells of the concession stand food mixed with the exhaust from cars backing into their spots  and the occasional smell of marijuana smoke.

Christine Collins, of Eastpointe, left, sits on top of her family's car with her siblings Justin Collins, Christian Collins and cousin Rayne Bowen as they wait for the showing of "Bad Boys Ride or Die" at the Ford-Wyoming Drive-In in Dearborn on Tuesday, July 16, 2024.

This is something that the families did, and they did it all the time. It's a memory I'll never forget. My kids never forgot it. She aint never going to forget it. They need drive-ins, Urbanczyk said.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Families carry on summer ritual at Dearborn's Ford-Wyoming Drive-In
Florida's back-to-school tax-free holiday is coming up. Here is what you can buy

Florida is set to have its first back-to-school sales tax holiday this weekend, which will undoubtedly save parents big bucks on school supplies, new clothes and any gadgets they might need for the upcoming school year.

Be on the look out for ongoing sales to compound the savings, which typically coincide with any of Florida's tax-free weekends.

Heres what to know about the upcoming back-to-school tax-free holiday and what you can get.

When is Floridas back-to-school tax-free week?

Florida has a two-week back-to-school sales tax holiday that will take place between July 29 and Aug. 11. During this time, people can purchase various school supplies tax free, within some parameters set by the state.

What can you buy during Floridas back-to-school tax-free week?

Heres what you can purchase:

Learning aids and jigsaw puzzles selling for $30 or less

Most school supplies selling for $50 or less

Clothing, footwear and accessories selling for $100 or less

Computers and related accessories selling for $1,500 or less (when purchased for non-commercial and personal use)

A look a Florida's back-to-school sales tax holiday.

Other Florida tax-free holidays

Florida will have two other tax-free holidays before the end of the year. The second Florida disaster preparedness sales tax holiday will run from Aug. 24 to Sept. 6 and provide residents with tax relief on thousands of products related to hurricane season.

The Tool Time sales tax holiday, which runs from Sept. 1-7, will allow people to purchase tools tax-free up to a certain dollar amount, depending on the category of tool.

Escambia, Santa Rosa county school supply lists

Shopping for school supplies but not sure what to get? Escambia and Santa Rosa counties have already published their school supply lists for 2024-2025. While Escambia's list is a little more standard across the board, Santa Rosa's vary by school.

Click here to be taken to Escambia County's school supply list, broken down by grade level.

Click here to be taken to Santa Rosa County's school supply list, broken down by school and grade level.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Florida's next tax-free weekend: Back-to-school savings start soon
NEW MEXICO (KRQE)  Check out community events around New Mexico from July 26 to August 1.

Albuquerque

New Mexico

Albuquerque Notices

 Museum of Nuclear Science and History opening new exhibit  The National Museum of Nuclear Science and History is unveiling a new exhibit: Mission Aerospace. The new exhibit is a multi-layered, interactive exploration of aviation history and aerospace milestones. The new exhibit opens June 22 and runs through October 6.

 Bear captured in Northeast Heights  Staff from Bernalillo County Animal Care Services and the Department of Game and Fish responded after someone said they saw a bear in a yard. The two agencies worked together to capture the bear, who they said was enjoying a sunbathing session.

 City of Albuquerque providing food, clothes for families in need  The City of Albuquerque has several resources available for families who may need assistance with food and clothes during the summer. Resources include summer youth programs, clothing banks, and food assistance.

 Summer program helps Albuquerque students prepare for next school year  Horizons Albuquerque is helping under-resourced students in grades 1 through 11 with the goal of advancing educational equity. Students not only focus on academics, but also learn skills like guitar playing, robotics, and how to swim.

 New mural unveiled on Bridge Boulevard near Tower Road, Coors Boulevard  A mural titled Glimpses of Our Barrios is located at the corner of Bridge Boulevard and Tower Road, near Coors Boulevard. An artist named Paz worked with local middle school students to create it. The mural consists of paint and tiles that students helped etch designs on.

 Bernalillo County offering free movie nights at local community centers  The free movie nights will include family-friendly films like 101 Dalmatians and Wonka. The movies will be shown on weekends starting at sundown. Gates open at 7:00 p.m., and moviegoers are welcome to bring lawn chairs, blankets, and snacks.

 City of Albuquerque looking for volunteers to help monitor trails  Trail Watch volunteers work under the Open Space Division and report wildlife and visitor activities, maintenance needs, suspicious activity, and other information. Training and a background check are required to become a Trail Watch Volunteer.

 Free summer lunch program returns in Bernalillo County  Beginning June 3, free lunch will be served daily to children at different locations around Bernalillo County. Children must be between the ages of 1 to 18 years old to receive a meal. Meals must be consumed at the meal site (except for non-congregate sites), all meals are first come, first served, and participants must receive the entire meal.

 Explora hosting Mosaic of Marks, Words, and Material exhibition  The exhibition runs from May 15  August 16. The exhibit will include an art studio where young visitors, their families, and educators can explore hands-on mark-making materials.

 New Mexico State Fair holding auditions to sing the National Anthem  The live auditions will be at the Boxcar Stage from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the EXPO New Mexico on August 6. To audition live, you must sign up by August 5.

New Mexico Notices

 Free summer food service program for children resumes in New Mexico  The Early Childhood Education and Care Department in New Mexico has begun its free food service for children ages 1-18. The service aims to provide free meals to children during summer break. The department said more than 600 locations in the state are providing free meals through August.

 Controversial development in Los Ranchos gets approval from judge  The Palindrome development first broke ground in 2022 and has faced pushback from residents who felt ignored during the approval process. Earlier this year, residents of the Village of Los Ranchos filed a court injunction against the public-private project. Now, a judge has sided with the developers to allow for the construction of more than 200 living apartments and micro retail spaces.

 Federal judge upholds New Mexicos gun waiting period law  The Waiting Period Act went into effect on May 15 and was immediately met with a lawsuit. The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) in coordination with the Mountain States Legal Foundation filed the lawsuit against New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Attorney General Raul Torrez on behalf of two New Mexico residents.

 New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority announces funding for affordable housing programs  From the homeless to prospective homebuyers, New Mexicans could have more affordable housing options after the Mortgage Finance Authority received nearly $85 million in funding from the state. During a news conference, MFA and partners from Santa Fe to San Felipe Pueblo shared success stories about the impacts funding from MFA has had in the past on their programs.

 Santa Fe selected as finalist to host Sundance Film Festival  The Sundance Film Festival focuses on the independent film industry and the program includes dramatic and documentary features, short films, and episodic content. Other locations in the running include Atlanta, Cincinnati, Boulder, Colo., and Louisville, Ky.

 New Mexico secretary of state addresses misinformation about 2024 presidential election ballot  Social media posts with misinformation began appearing after President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he would not seek reelection, according to the Secretary of States Office. Since Biden decided to drop out of the 2024 race, his campaign will need to file a notarized statement of withdrawal as a candidate to the New Mexico Secretary of States Office before August 27.

 Damage to Taos fire hydrants causes 270K gallons of water loss  About 270,000 gallons of water in Taos went to waste after several fire hydrants were opened and damaged earlier this week. The Taos Fire Department is now asking the community to come forward with information about whoever is responsible. The fire department responded to about 11 to 12 hydrants starting at 6 p.m. on Monday night until about 4 a.m.

 New Mexico departments warn older residents about unclaimed property scams  The departments said at least one older New Mexico resident may have been defrauded recently by someone claiming to be affiliated with the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators and was claiming to work on their behalf to recover unclaimed property.

 Rail Runner offering free rides for students  Students ages 17 and under will be able to ride the Rail Runner Express for free starting June 1. The promotion will run through July 31.

 Santa Fe hosts Summer Fire Truck Spray Down events for kids  The City of Santa Fe Community Engagement Department and Santa Fe Fire Department are providing a free way for kids to cool down this summer. The departments host Summer Fire Truck Spray Down events at Swan 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.
Its no news to anyone that climate change can worsen moods, making people feel much more irritable, sad and stressed, complicating mental health problems. However, studies prove these problems are much more serious than we think.

Florida, of course, is no exception, as the high temperatures we experience in the summer contribute greatly to this phenomenon.

Carlos Roa

Scientific facts about climate change

Today, more than 25% of the worlds population reports negative feelings, such as sadness, social isolation and loneliness. In turn, more than 150,000 people between the ages of 15 and 29 die by suicide each year, according to data from the World Health Organization. Although it may seem hard to believe, climate change is a direct threat that can increase these figures.

According to the European Climate and Health Observatory, extreme weather events cause post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression, especially extreme temperatures that affect mood and increase the risk of suicide. In addition, emergency psychiatric visits tend to increase during heat waves, as exposed by the World Economic Forum.

In 2022, researchers at the University of Cambridge analyzed 41 studies exploring various types of extreme weather events, in particular, storms, floods, droughts, heat waves and wildfires. They found that gender-based violence also appears to be exacerbated by extreme weather events.

Going deeper, the impacts of climate change on mental health are not evenly distributed; rather, they disproportionately affect certain groups based on factors including socioeconomic status, gender and age. This unequal burden exacerbates existing global mental health challenges.

In places as hot as Florida with such extreme summers, the relationship between climate and susceptibility to depression is evident. The data is not very encouraging. According to a recent article published in Climate Central, Florida is experiencing unusually hot conditions. In fact, extreme heat and humidity have arrived earlier than in other years and this is even more dangerous.

The article also states that average daily temperatures are expected to reach levels of 5 on the Climate Shift Index in Central and South Florida. Because of all this, it is important to take action and raise awareness about ways to protect ourselves.

How to cope with high temperatures this summer

 Turn on the air conditioner at home. However, not everyone can afford a higher electric bill. In those cases, it is important to stay in the shade to avoid the sun. We can also use electric fans to keep the air circulating, take cool showers, and of course drink plenty of water to stay hydrated. You can also spend time in air-conditioned places during the day, for example, a library.

 High temperatures negatively affect people taking medications for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and similar conditions by both altering their ability to sweat and raising the bodys core temperature. Doctors stress the importance of not stopping these medications, as the side effects can be much worse.

 Do not do exercise that is too strenuous during the hottest hours of the day. If the outside temperature is 83 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, opt for shorter routines or exercise in air-conditioned gyms.

 Wear light, loose-fitting clothing made of materials like cotton.

 Do not consume alcoholic beverages or caffeinated beverages because they accelerate fluid loss.

Climate change will generate problems not only mentally, but also economically, agriculturally and socially, among others. The government, business leaders and organizations, as well as the community in general, must start thinking deeply about the implications in our daily lives and propose urgent action plans to counteract its effects.

Carlos Roa is senior press and PR director for VoLo Foundation. This opinion piece was distributed by The Invading Sea website (www.theinvadingsea.com), which posts news and commentary on climate change and other environmental issues affecting Florida.
Here's what you should know before leaving the airport during your next long layover.

Margot Cavin/Travel + Leisure

In an ideal world, you'd be able to fly nonstop just about anywhere. But the reality is you'll probably have a layover on more than one trip in your life. And in some cases, those layovers might be really long. At that point, you're at a crossroads. Do you head for the airport lounge for hours upon hours? Do you post up at an airport bar and spend who knows how much cash on mediocre food and drinks? Or do you make a break for it and leave the airport?

Yes, you are usually allowed to leave an airport on a layover  and some airlines even encourage it with stopover programs  but there are a number of caveats to doing so. Here's everything you need to know about leaving an airport on a layover, from how long you actually need to how to participate in a stopover program.

DuKai photographer/Getty Images

Can you leave the airport during a layover?

Yes, you can, so long as you follow all the immigration rules of your layover destination. Domestically, American travelers can always leave the airport on their layovers. International travelers, however, will need to either have visa-free entry to the U.S. or a valid visa to enter  and that same rule applies to American travelers with international layovers, too.

Now, when it comes to leaving the airport, there are two types of layovers. First is a standard layover, when you have less than a day on the ground between flights. Second is a stopover program, in which you actually leave the airport for more than a day. Many airlines offer formal stopover programs that may include discounts on hotels and tours.

Take, for instance, the new Icelandic budget airline Play. "Plays stayover feature enables passengers to stay up to 10 days in Iceland on their way to their final destination, on their returning flight, or both!" Play CEO Einar Orn Olafsson tells Travel + Leisure. "Adding a stop in Iceland at no additional cost brings travelers two getaways for the price of one flight, so they can check two destinations off of their bucket list."

Factors to Consider Before Leaving the Airport

If you're considering leaving the airport during a layover, you'll want to think about the following factors first.

Layover Duration

In order to leave the airport on a layover, you need time, and plenty of it. At the bare minimum, you'll need enough time to go through security and make it to your gate before the boarding door closes. As you probably know, it's generally suggested that you get to the airport two to three hours before your flight. So if all you want to do is step outside to breathe some fresh air, you'll need a layover of at least two to three hours. And if you're traveling internationally, you'll also have to add time for customs and immigration  potentially both as you arrive to your destination and as you leave it.

If you have any aspirations of going somewhere or doing something outside the airport, you'll have to factor in transportation time. When you're estimating how long your plans will take, always give yourself a buffer. If you miss your flight because you've left the airport and didn't budget your time properly, you're completely out of luck and will likely have to buy a new plane ticket.

Customs and Immigration Requirements

If your layover is in an international destination, you must check the visa requirements in that country before leaving. You may have to go through customs and immigration, even if you only plan on spending 10 minutes outside the airport. You may need to get a visa before leaving the airport, but even if you don't need a visa, you'll probably still need a few blank pages in your passport for stamps.

If you do need a visa, make sure you're getting the right one. Transit visas may be available for layovers  these are usually less expensive than standard tourist visas. "For those who are not eligible for visa on arrival or visa-free travel, they can add a 'transit visa' as an extra while completing their stopover booking on Qatar Airways Holidays website," a Qatar Airways spokesperson tells T+L.

Carry-on Luggage

Traveling with carry-on bags? You may not want to (or be able to) bring them to certain attractions  rolling suitcases can be a bit of a nuisance. It's best to look for storage lockers to stash away your carry-on while you have fun on your layover. Sometimes these are available at airport terminals, or you could look for a third-party service in your layover destination. Another idea is to book a rental car for a few hours, so you can store your luggage in the trunk.

Time of Day

If your layover is during normal business hours, it might not be such a bad idea to go enjoy yourself for an afternoon. But if your layover is in the evening or overnight when everything is closed, there might not be much of a reason to leave. Overnight layovers might be long enough to warrant booking a hotel, and there's nothing better than a hot shower and getting some good sleep after a day of flying.



Alexander Spatari/Getty Images

Tips for Planning Layover Excursions and Activities

If you leave the airport during your layover, it's a good idea to have a game plan to ensure you make it onto your next flight. Here are a few tips for planning a layover excursion.

Look at a map.

In many destinations, the airport is in the middle of nowhere. Start planning by looking at a map and seeing just how far away the airport is from the city center or the attractions you're hoping to visit.

Consider your transportation options.

How do you plan to get around? Look into the timing and cost of public transportation, taxis, and ride shares. If each of those is inconvenient, consider booking a rental car.

Check opening hours.

When planning any travel itinerary, you'll want to check the hours of operation for any attractions or restaurants you plan to visit. Many museums, for instance, are closed on certain weekdays (often Mondays or Tuesdays).

Stopover Programs

Many airlines offer formal stopover programs, where travelers can spend a day or two (or 10) in the layover destination for no additional flight fee. Some programs even provide discounts on hotels and attractions. But even if you don't choose a formal stopover program, you can always DIY  use an airline's multi-city function during booking to manually insert a stopover into your itinerary. But again, check immigration policies! To get the creative juices flowing for a future layover, here are three destinations (and their airlines) that have stopover programs.

Iceland: Icelandair and PLAY

Iceland is perfectly situated about halfway between the U.S. and Europe, so it's a logical stopover spot. Plus, who doesn't want to go to Iceland?! Both Icelandair and PLAY offer stopover programs; the former allows stays up to seven days, and the latter allows stays up to 10 days. "With the stayover feature, travelers can experience the islands incredible cuisine, natural wonders, hot springs, and more before continuing on to their final destination or heading home," says Olafsson.

Qatar: Qatar Airways

Doha, Qatar, is a major international layover destination, particularly for those traveling to or from Asia or Africa on Qatar Airways, so the airline hosts a stopover program. Travelers can stay up to four days in Qatar, and the airline even offers major hotel discounts. Five-star hotels, for instance, cost as little as $81 per person per night. Plus, if travelers don't have time for a multi-day stopover, they can also explore Doha on a day tour, too. "Travelers who wish to take a transit tour can obtain a transit visa with assistance from the HIA transfer desks," says a spokesperson for the airline.

Panama: Copa Airlines

Traveling between North America and South America? Copa Airlines has a stopover program in Panama that can last between 24 hours to six nights. You can choose from discounted tour options booked through the airline, or you can arrange your layover yourself. If you've ever wanted to see the Panama Canal, this is a great way to do it.



For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Travel & Leisure.
Originally commissioned by Cyprus-born British businessman Andreas Liveras and named Alysia, this 300-foot yachts $100 million build cost earned the title of most expensive yacht in the world in 2006. Today, the price seems almost quaint compared to recent builds. But many of features still command attention in classy, kitschy and downright bizarre ways: The 11-foot-tall, red bunny sculpture on the sun deck that is breakdancing; an exotic fish-themed interior; a plush cinema; and, last but not least, a multicolored Grecian spa.

Following Liverass 2008 death, the yacht was acquired by its current owner in 2010 and renamed Moonlight II. In the Middle East, travel was largely by night, under moonlight, to avoid the heat of the day, Captain Stiliyan Rangelov tells Robb Report. It meant the moon and stars, which are thought to represent the guidance of God on the path through life, could be used for navigation.

In 2012, a significant refit saw boats 280-foot length extended by 20 feet. It also included a refreshed interior by Lally Poulias, which introduced bright modern colors and a sand-and-ocean interior to reflect the owners love of sport fishing, sailing, and all things marine. Its best reflected in the exotic carpet inlays of marine life and extravagant fish-themed sculptured furniture. Some of the yachts original features remain, such as the grandiose marble pillars in the spa and master suite. Its now for sale for about $73.7 million or charter for about $813,000 per week, via Burgess.

Here are 10 things you didnt know about one of the worlds most colorful yachts.

Best of Robb Report
New 'Ram Talks' will bring CSU experts to Old Town for 'happy hour' talks on their work

Tammy Brenner, Plant Growth Facility manager at Colorado State University, measures Cosmo, an 8-year-old corpse flower (Amorphophallus Titanum) that was about to bloom at the Plant Growth Facility Conservatory on May 16, 2024. Brenner is scheduled to speak with two other experts about the corpse flower at one of CSU's "Ram Talks" this fall in Old Town Square.

That expert you read about in the New York Times discussing elephants talking to each other by name just might be your neighbor.

In an effort to better connect Colorado State University with the Fort Collins community, the university is planning a series of Ram Talks during the 2024-25 school year, said Kyle Henley, the universitys vice president of university marketing and communications. CSU professors, researchers and other experts will discuss their work and answer questions from those in attendance in a casual setting in Old Town Fort Collins.

The research work with elephants performed by CSU professor George Wittemyer, for instance, was featured recently in the New York Times.

As anyone whos lived here for any amount of time knows, we have amazing things happening here on campus all the time, Henley said. We have faculty in the New York Times, and incredible things happening on the research side of the house. Sometimes, it can feel like thats happening not necessarily in your community. But the reality is this kind of cool stuff thats happening at CSU involves your neighbors that you see at the grocery store.

The talks will take place in a happy hour-style setting in the soon-to-open Fort Collins Welcome Center, operated by Visit Fort Collins, in Old Town Square (next door to CooperSmiths Pub and Brewing) from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on two Wednesdays each month. Admission is free, and a cash bar and light snacks will be available.

More: New dinosaur species found by CSU faculty member named after Norse god

The series begins Sept. 4 with CSU sociology professor Jeni Cross in a talk titled, Hidden hurdles  Inventing new approaches to old problems by re-thinking systems.

Other speakers on the fall-semester schedule include:

Sept. 18  Wittemyer,Elephant names: What we can learn from how elephants communicate

Oct. 2  Professor Martin Carcasson, Taking on the challenge of toxic polarization: better conversations in a hyper-partisan world

Oct. 16  Professor Jessica Metcalf, post-doctoral fellow Valerie Seitz and Plant Growth Facilities Manager Tammy Brenner, Morbid Trickery  What science is learning from CSUs corpse flower

Nov. 6  Associate professor Brian Tracy, Your electric muscles are movers and sensors

Nov. 20  TBD

Additional Ram Talks are planned for the spring semester, Henley said.

Part of the reason we love living in a university town is so you can interact with ideas, because were intellectually curious, he said. And what better way to interact with some of the ideas than in an informal setting, where you can have a conversation, come up afterward and ask more questions if you want to. Theres a lot going on with our academics and with our research as it relates to the impact that were having on the community, the state, the world. This is a way to share that in a fun, informal setting, that we think people will really enjoy.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: CSU plans casual 'happy hour' talks with experts in Old Town this fall
Tucked away behind Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church just north of Greer, youll find rows of vibrant peach trees stretching as far as you can see.

These peach trees  and many before them  grow in Fishers Orchard, a 96-year-old farm specializing in stone fruit. Mark Fisher, the orchards current owner, grew up tending to the trees every summer.

Fisher is a fourth-generation farmer. His grandfather started the orchard in 1928, and Fishers grandfather, father, and uncle kept it going.

Mark Fisher, 50, owner of Fisher's Orchard, poses for a portrait on the orchard in Greer, S.C., on Wednesday, July 24, 2024.

Today, the orchard boasts about 200 acres. Fisher employs nearly 35 people and operates two retail locations in addition to the orchard, where locals can pick their peaches straight from the tree during the summer months.

Watching someone taste a SC peach

Fisher said that watching someone taste a peach from his orchard is one of his favorite parts of the job.

When they finally get that good, tree-ripe peach and they bite that thing, their eyes light up. Their face smiles because they got a peach in their mouth, so you can't see their mouth smiling, but their face will smile, and that juice runs down their face, he said. Thats my favorite thing about it.

Elizabeth Paul, 3, picks Red Globe peaches at Fisher's Orchard in Greer, S.C., on Friday, July 19, 2024.

Fisher grows 50 varieties of peaches, nectarines

Fisher grows about 50 varieties of peaches and nectarines. He also grows apples and plums but calls peaches his bread and butter.

Each year, he ensures that his retail stands have enough peaches to satisfy the thousands of customers who visit. If he has an abundance, he opens up his orchard to locals. On select weekends, orchard visitors can fill woven baskets full of ripe, fuzzy peaches after grabbing them straight from the tree.

Fisher says South Carolina peaches are the best in the world. Its why hes kept this orchard up for so many years.

Peach farming is a family affair

Fisher isnt the only person at the orchard with family ties  they extend to his employees and even the South Carolina residents who visit to pick their peaches.

James Mathis, 15, is one of Fishers employees. On a warm Friday in July, he manned the cash register at the orchards signature produce stand. This summer, he followed in his parents footsteps. His mother and father worked at Fishers Orchard in the summers when they were younger.

James Mathis, 15, employee at Fisher's Orchard in Greer, S.C., packs up peaches to sell on Friday, July 19, 2024. Mathis' mother worked at Fisher's Orchard when she was young.

Meanwhile, between the rows of peach trees, Tim and Reba Thompson filled baskets full of Red Globe peaches to bring back home to Easley. They brought their first grandson, James Christmas, who is almost two years old.

Nearly three decades ago, Reba brought James mother to pick peaches at Fishers. She was about the same age as James is now.

In years past, peach farms dotted Upstate

Fisher said that in years past, peach farms dotted the Upstate. Fisher is one of roughly two dozen peach farms left in Greenville County.

According to the most recent Census of Agriculture from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Greenville County has 22 peach farms left. Greenville County accounts for about 8% of the peach farms in South Carolina.

Peaches are harvested at Fisher's Orchard in Greer, S.C., on Friday, July 19, 2024. Fisher's Orchard has been growing peaches for 96 years and four generations of farmers.

Read more from Peach Passion Week:

South Carolina remains out of state favorite

Even though South Carolina only has 273 peach farms left in the state, one farm alone produces more peaches each year than the entire state of Georgia, according to the state Peach Council. Peach fanatics have nicknamed South Carolina The Tastier Peach State.

Fisher agrees.

When I was a kid, we had lots and lots of roadside stands that would come to us from Georgia and would take them back, and that was their number one selling point. Theyd have signs all up and down the road: South Carolina Peaches, fresh here because they knew they tasted better than what they grew in Georgia, Fisher said. Now, a lot of Georgia farmers would probably be mad at me about that, but you know, sometimes the truth does hurt.

Fisher said the difference in taste comes from the nutrients in the soil. The Upstates sandy clay mix and warm climate offer optimal conditions for sweet, juicy peaches.

Tim Thompson picks Red Globe peaches at Fisher's Orchard in Greer, S.C., on Friday, July 19, 2024.

SC Peaches: Red Globes in season

Right now, Red Globes are in season. Theyre yellow peaches and longtime fan-favorites  Fisher calls them heirloom varieties.

Fisher said each variety is in full bloom for about 10-14 days. His employees guide peach pickers around the orchard, depending on their visit, to help them find ready fruit.

After the peaches have been harvested, Fisher and his team will clean and prune the area. In the spring, theyll fertilize and add a pest deterrent. Next, the peaches will begin to bloom.

We get to the critical time when they start blooming, Fisher said. Thats when you have to leave it up to the good Lord.

Peaches must survive frost, freezes, drought

In the spring, the delicate new blooms are vulnerable to frost. Last year, most peach farmers in South Carolina faced devastation when a late freeze wiped out their peach crops. Fisher lost about half of his crop in 2023. He counts himself among the lucky ones.

Isaiah Ortiz Ochoa, employee at Fisher's Orchard in Greer, S.C., harvests peaches on Friday, July 19, 2024. Fisher's Orchard has been growing peaches for 96 years and four generations of farmers.

This year, hes had a full yield of peaches, but hes faced complications from a widespread flash drought. As a result, Fisher and his team have had to use irrigation pumps to ensure their peaches are hydrated.

Even still, Fishers Orchard has prospered and remains a celebrated spot for peach pickers in the Upstate.

Fisher credits his continued success to good decision-making from generations before him, the grace of God, and good luck.

Fisher isnt sure whats ahead for the orchard yet, but hes looking forward to celebrating its centennial in just a few short years.

I think if I can make it over a hundred, my ancestors and everybody will be happy, he said.

Sarah Swetlik covers climate change and environmental issues in South Carolina's Upstate for The Greenville News. Reach her at sswetlik@gannett.com or on X at @sarahgswetlik.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Here's how soil, family and good luck make Upstate peaches so sweet
BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan, July 26. Kyrgyzstan and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) have discussed major transport initiatives, Trend reports.

Kyrgyzstans acting Minister of Transport and Communications, Absattar Syrgabaev, met with a delegation from the EBRD led by Ayten Rustamova, the Regional Head for Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

One significant topic was the completion of all necessary procedures for the financing agreement of the Balbay Baatyr - Karakol road reconstruction project, valued at 56.5 million euro. The next steps involve selecting a consulting engineer and a contractor for the project.

The discussions also covered two other major projects: the reconstruction of the northern bypass road around Bishkek and neighboring areas in the Chuy region, and the reconstruction of the Kara Balta-Chaldovar road.

The ministry confirmed its commitment to move both projects forward at the same time, even though there are some temporary challenges with acquiring land for the northern bypass. They are working closely with the Bishkek City Administration to resolve these issues.

Additionally, the meeting touched on a $12 million project aimed at enhancing climate resilience for the Kyrgyz Railway national company's infrastructure. Upcoming actions include finalizing tender documentation and procedural approvals.

The parties agreed to schedule a follow-up meeting with the head of the EBRD Advisory Services Program in Central Asia and Mongolia, Simone Zeh Atanasovski, to further discuss the issues raised.
He played this Midlands rock club before it moved. Now hes making guitars out of the old stage

Chris Brinson knew the old stage at New Brookland Tavern well.

He grew up in Lexington and spent time playing in area bands. And, like pretty much every local musician who came up in the Midlands while the longstanding rock dive was still in residence on State Street in West Columbia, he went to New Brookland a lot and played there more than a few times.

Last year, New Brookland moved across the Congaree River to Columbia, finding a new home in the college-adjacent Five Points neighborhood. But Brinson isnt done with that old West Columbia stage just yet.

Now a master luthier making electric guitars in Landrum, he was approached by a customer who had acquired wood from New Brooklands former stage, requesting that he fashion a guitar out of it. Brinson completed that guitar, and he also sent his dad down to West Columbia to get more wood from the stage, enough to build another three or four guitars, Brinson said, adding that he can probably get more if more people are into the idea of shredding on a piece of local music history.

Its crazy, man, Brinson said, reflecting on building guitars out of a stage he once played on. Theres just so much history. People have literally sweat and cried on that stage. To make a guitar out of a piece of it is just awesome because its gonna be around forever.

Brinson said he and New Brookland Tavern owner Mike Lyons have talked about raffling off one of the guitars at the new club some time, which should help Brinson bring some attention to his relatively new business.

Brinson has been building guitars for about 17 years after he began apprenticing to learn the craft at age 17. It was near the start of his time building guitars that he met Gilberts Steve Reeves, a fellow luthier  someone who makes stringed instruments such as as guitars  and the person he would team with to create what appears to be South Carolinas only boutique guitar factory in 2022.

The two build under eponymous brands, with Brinson Guitars Landrum operation being capable of knocking out between six and 30 electric guitars a month, depending on demand, while the Reeves Guitars operation in Gilbert consistently produces between six and eight guitars annually.

The high quality that they promise is reflected in the prices, with the electrics listed on Brinsons website landing in the mid-to-high $2,000s, while nearly all of the guitars listed on Reeves website exceed $5,000.

Its been tough, man, Brinson said of finding a market for their higher-end guitars, adding that theyre actually affordable for luxury instruments. We put a lot into it. The guitars really speak for themselves. You can pretty much compare it to anything better. The fit and finish of them is just excellent. So really, its just a point of getting them out there, getting them in peoples hands.

Brinson also frequently does custom jobs, with some of these commissions also leaning into using guitars as a way to preserve memories.

Ive made guitars and put my friends ashes in them when he passed away, he said, noting that within reason, hell do whatever people want.

As to the New Brookland guitars, Brinson wanted the history to be readily apparent to anyone looking at the guitar.

They look very classy,  he said. But its got the particular colors. The stage was black, so I painted the guitar black. The middle piece of the pickguard is a piece from the stage, and its laminated with American holly.

For Lyons, the guitars are an appropriate way to hold on to some of the history of the clubs former location.

Having that stage carry on in another way, having it as a musical instrument, that still kind of represents what New Brookland was all about, he said.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming has long been famous for its vast, conserved wilderness landscapes, wildlife, outdoor recreation and charming town. In fact, the destination packs so much punch that it can be intimidating to navigate alone. So, on a brilliant Sunday afternoon in late June, a group of 30 lucky Chase United Cardmembers gathered from all over the country for an expertly curated member event based at Four Seasons Resort and Residences Jackson Hole. The one-of-a-kind four-day, three-night outing offered an incredible way to experience all the magic of an alpine summer, plus the ultimate combination of luxury and adventure that has made Jackson so famous.

From the opening event in Teton Village, it was clear this was a going to be a fun group and up for whatever Wyoming had to offer. Fifteen couples gathered on a secluded lawn for cocktails, dinner and to meet other Cardmembers. But before dinner, everyone was treated to a surprise gift: a customized wool felt cowboy hat. After choosing colors and unique hatband trimmings, everyone had the option to have their initials branded onto the hat right on the lawn. It was not only a thoughtful surprise, but also super useful throughout the next few days to boot.

More from Robb Report

Custom hats in hand, the terrace dinner turned out to be both raucous and sophisticated; the trip began in perfect Wyoming style from the get-go. The group was treated to wine pairings from the Jackson Hole Winery and personal appearances by Four Seasons Executive Chef Michael Goralski. He graciously explained the four-course dinner, culminating in a showcase of local flavors with bison tenderloin pancetta, truffle grits, rosemary kale, and huckleberry sauce, as well as a memorable chocolate Breton crafted especially for the Cardmember dinner by Rhonda Ashton, the hotels acclaimed executive pastry chef.

Stunning introduction aside, the star of any trip to Jackson Hole is unquestionably the outdoors. And thanks to the impressively dialed itinerary, guests didnt have to deal with a single summer adventure logistic. Instead, they could sit back and relax as the best of Jackson Hole was delivered in singular style by the events team.

Time on the river is a quintessential part of summer in Jackson, so it was fitting on day two when, after a leisurely morning, guests boarded a special luxury shuttle to Grand Teton National Park. There, they were treated to a private lunch cookout on the banks of the river and serenaded by a strumming guitar player. The afternoon seamlessly morphed into a scenic river adventure at its best, as experienced, skilled river guides from Triangle X Ranch put even the most nervous Cardmembers at ease before and during the two-and-a-half-hour float down the river.

Pristine surroundings and the glorious Teton Range provided an incomparable backdrop, wowing the group. Most of the Cardmembers had never been to Jackson, and even though everyone has seen the pictures of its famous landscapes, being able to enjoy lunch and float in a private group away from the crowds and amid such natural splendor was a special reward.

The crown jewel of the trip, however, was without question the third day. Guests didnt even know the full extent of it until late in the evening when all the pieces of the day, from the outdoor adventures with private, expert guides; local culture; cuisine; and music finally fell into place. In the morning, half the group chose to hop on a guided e-bike outing in an exploration of the beautiful pathways in Grand Teton National Park. Also on tap was a fly-fishing lesson with the Jackson Hole Fly Fishing School, which encompassed more than fishing. Upon arrival, the fishing guides presented a truly fascinating lesson in local entomology, responsible angling and ethics. After casting practice on the shore, Cardmembers gamely donned waders to put their new skills to the test.

A final private, off-property dinner accessed via horse-drawn wagons seemed like a perfect way to end the trip. After a 10-minute wagon ride, everyone alighted on the historic Snake River Ranch, tucked between the river and the mountains. Around the field was an amazing selection of stations, including a local wrangler teaching guests how to throw a rope around stationary plastic cows; a well-known Jackson artist, Lyndsay Rowan, reading Cardmembers animal totems and handing out beautiful art cards as a gift to take home; a tasting station with locally brewed beers and sausagesall representing the best of the valley.

For this trip, it was par for the course that the evening kept getting better to the unending delight of all the guests. After dinner, a campfire was lit, and local music star Judd Grossman arrived with his guitar and a fiddler to accompany him for a private, fireside music session. Everyone gathered and stayed until all the stars were out, laughing and joking like a troop of old-school chums, despite hailing from different homes, backgrounds, age groups and showing up in Wyoming as strangers just three days before. Cardmembers marveled over how perfectly tailored the trip was, the friends made and the good times had, and the many unique and special experiences that came from the one common denominator of a Chase United card.

To learn more about the one-of-a-kind experiences offered to United MileagePlus Cardmembers like this one, interested parties can visit unitedcardevents.com.

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.
Stay-cation: Wonders around the corner, or 'lets see where this road takes us'

I was raised in a family where both my father and mother practiced the art of exploratory traveling.

Lets see where this road will take us, my dad would often say to my two brothers and me as off we would go, on some back road in Ohio or our travels through the Midwest and East Coast.

In the summer of 62, long before I was old enough to drive, my mom packed my two brothers and me into our Ford station wagon towing a Nimrod tent trailer. Away we went for a month-long trip from Ohio to the West Coast, generally following old Route 66. My dad joined us on the remaining trip, which took us north through California, across Idaho and into Yellowstone Park, where our trailer suffered a breakdown leading us to several additional days in the park while we hunted for an elusive wheel bearing. The trip, and our time in Yellowstone, cemented my love for the mountains of the west, as well as my interest as a back-roads explorer.

Downtown walking tour might include a visit to the Fox California/Bob Hope Theatre, which opened in 1930.

However, my parents were also pretty good local explorers, finding Amish country just south east of Akron, the unique towns along the then-polluted Cuyahoga River, and local institutions that made Akron the rubber capital and Cleveland a steel-making juggernaut. They found unique towns, merchants and eateries that made northeastern Ohio special. Since my father was a workaholic with his plumbing business, stay-cations made up much of our family time  short vacation travels within about 5-50 miles of home.

Recent discussions with friends and family have compelled me to collect their suggestions and my own, with the idea of a stay-cation whereby San Joaquin residents can vacation right from home, touring marvelous destinations, often only miles away or in neighboring counties.

Hence, proposing you and family think about a stay-cation, whereby you and other family research the attractions nearby (likely more than a few of which you have not visited) and find more a bit distant, then plot a day, a long weekend or more on a vacation from your homebase!. To be fair, treat your stay-cation like its real, forgoing work involvement, social media, and concentrate on having a pleasant vacation, without the hassle of long distance travels.

Those wonders might lead to a tour by foot or on a bike to the downtown Stockton waterfront (check the Walk with Weber tour, available through visitstockton.org), or a walking or biking tour through the University of Pacific campus and west on the Calaveras Bike Trail, headed towards Brookside and the deepwater Stockton Channel. For a creative list of Stockton and county attractions, check the Visit Stockton website!

Grandson Jack enjoys a water-feature at Pixie Woods Park in Stockton.

On your stay-cation, consider local talent productions, such as classic movies that show monthly at the Fox/Bob Hope Theatre, the Stockton Civic Theater, the Grand Theater in downtown Tracy, the Stockton Arena or music in Lodi/Woodbridge vineyards like the popular evening concerts under the oaks at Jessies Grove Winery in Lodi.

If youve got younger kids or grandkids, consider kid-specific destinations. World of Wonders Science Museum in Lodi, the Childrens Museum in Stockton and Pixie Woods Park in Stockton all cater to kids, offering hands-on activities for the very young to teens. For something particularly unique, consider Mantecas new waterpark, part of the Great Wolf Lodge  not inexpensive, but truly an eye-opener for kids to adults.

I am a history buff, so I typically start with historic consequence, be it Native American history, Gold Rush history or pioneer/agricultural history. Two widely recognized places to start are the Haggin Museum in Stockton and the San Joaquin Historical Society and Museum, in Micke Grove Park in Lodi. Further pursuit of Native American history might take you to a unique state historical park, Indian Grinding Rocks State Park, near Volcano, or the California Indian Museum, next-door to Sutters Fort in Sacramento, another historic Institution.

Native Americans visited the Indian Grinding Rocks State Park mortars every fall to grind acorns.

Focusing on Gold Rush history will take you on a road trip on Highway 49 from Sonora on the south, north to the gold discovery site in Coloma (January, 1848), to the Marshall Gold Discovery Park, which is worth a day-long visit; grab a snack in nearby Placerville, christened old Hangtown from its bawdy gold rush days.

Tracking history might take you to downtown Stockton and its waterfront, or east to Knights Ferry State Park and the historic Knights Ferry Covered Bridge, at 335 feet the longest historic covered bridge in the western states. And, find two other unique covered bridges to the north, at Bridgeport and across Oregon Creek just north of Nevada City.

If youre looking for wild natural wonders, consider these nearby options, from the Cosumnes River Preserve just north of Thornton, or the Caswell Memorial State Park on the Stanislaus River, just south of Ripon. Follow the trails along either river, much as the Native Americans and early explorers wouldve found them in the early part of the 1800s. Smaller but similarly wild parks include Lodi Lake and Oak Grove Regional Park.

Spend a day or more exploring the back roads and 1000 miles of waterways of the San Joaquin/Sacramento River Delta. Meandering roads, unique resorts and marinas and old river towns make for exciting exploration that wouldve made my father proud. Several free auto ferries, unique restaurants and trails into the backwoods of the Delta will make you a river rat.

Kids pick wild blackberries in Cosumnes River Park just north of Thornton.

Get exploring - locally. For more information, see VisitStockton.org, or Google many of these attractions. Contact Tim, tviall@msn.com; happy travels in your neighborhood!

This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Stay-cation: 'Lets see where this road takes us'
Stephenson County Fair is back, showcasing the best of the community

People from across northwestern Illinois are flocking to Stephenson County this week to celebrate the 170th anniversary of the county's beloved fair.

Since its founding in 1854, the Stephenson County Fair has proven itself to be a great way to bring the community together.

We have generations upon generations of families that have been attending the fair and been part of it. It really is the communitys fair, said Kate Boyer, executive manager of the Stephenson County Fair Association.

And it's a great place to showcase the community's best assets.

"Stephenson County is second in the state for dairy production, so were trying to really focus on that, said Boyer, who has been managing the fair since 2021.

More: Here are 22 festivals and fairs you won't want to miss this summer in the Rockford area

Jeff Thomas is co-chairman of the fairs beef corral, which has been operated out of a recognizable red building in the center of the fairgrounds since 1984.

The best part about working the fair is the long hours. Thomas joked. We really do try to promote the beef industry. We know prices are high all over, so we try to provide something reasonable for people to buy.

Weve got ribeyes, a third pound burger, a quarter pound beef hot dog, and this year were even trying out brisket for the first time.

Like most years, food is a big attraction at the fair.

We have got dozens of food vendors. We even do a unique food competition with photos you can see online," Boyer said. "Were a big livestock area, too, so youll notice most of our livestock buildings are almost full. Theres over 1,500 animals on the grounds right now. Weve got a pen decorating contest, so its cool to see what all the people have done with the animal stalls and pens.

Live music is another crowd pleaser.

A Creedence Clearwater Revival tribute band will play Friday night. Synergy, an alternative technology band will play Saturday night.

The monster truck show and demolition derby will draw crowds, as well.

Caleb Moring has been going to the fair since his childhood. Now he hopes to pass the tradition on to his daughter, Isla.

She likes the bunnies and the sheep, so far. All of the animals, Morning said.

Fellow fairgoer Lisa Kuper has been attending the Stephenson County Fair the past 30 years.

I love seeing the same people year after year," Kuper said. "Seeing the kids grow up showing animals, while getting better at it year after year.

The 2024 Stephenson County Fair will go on until Saturday evening, continuing to build and strengthen memories for several generations of community members who love this long standing local event.

Cayden Lewis is a freelance reporter.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: 'The community's fair': Stephenson County Fair celebrates 170 years
From overlooked roadside attractions to offbeat museums and obscure natural wonders, Local Hidden Gems will showcase some of the unique and unexpected treasures that make America extraordinary. We will emphasize charm, surprise and delight.

Local hidden gem: Zelda Dearest Hotel in Asheville, North Carolina

When preparing for a recent weekend getaway to Asheville, North Carolina, a relative who lives in nearby Hendersonville suggested we check out a new boutique hotel called Zelda Dearest.

You can't visit an eclectic, artsy mountain town like Asheville and stay in a vanilla chain hotel with mass-produced synthetic charm, after all. Instead, we opted for one of the three lovingly restored historic homes that line Biltmore Ave. just outside of downtown Asheville.

The homes, all surrounded by new development, were saved from certain demolition by Atlanta-based commercial real estate firm Hatteras Sky and rebranded as a "love letter" to Asheville from one of its heroines, Zelda Fitzgerald. The property, under the management of Lark Hotels, opened in October 2023 after nearly five years of renovations.

Fitzgerald's presence and legacy are felt throughout the property. From the original bold and colorful artwork lining the walls to the art deco vibe and wonderfully charming uses of shades of purples, blush pinks and blacks throughout, the world's original flapper  and wife of author F. Scott Fitzgerald  now has a permanent home perched atop a tree-lined hillside just outside of town.

Local hidden gems: A spotlight on the American treasures in our backyards

This image shows a finished guest suite at Zelda Dearest, a boutique hotel in Asheville, N.C. that encompasses three restored turn-of-the-century homes.

Zelda Fitzgerald led a seemingly glamorous life

Fitzgerald's story is an interesting one, which made for what seemed like a somewhat odd choice for a boutique hotel's muse. At the end of a seemingly glamorous life traversing the world, writing, dancing and painting, Fitzgerald died alone in 1948. She was reportedly sedated and awaiting electroshock therapy in an Asheville mental institution when the building caught fire.

She had been in and out of institutions most of her adult life after a schizophrenia diagnosis. The legend that floats among many Ashevillians is that F. Scott drove her crazy and had her institutionalized. The truth, however, we will never know.

Hatteras Sky chose to model this property after her style and her character rather than the darkness that often shadowed her troubled life and untimely death. The property exudes her love of art and ballet and all things shiny and decorative, and it makes for a wonderful respite that almost feels like a sleepover at her house might have felt.

The Wine & Roses Parlour Bar at Asheville, N.C.'s Zelda Dearest boutique hotel after the circa 1885 historic home underwent a complete restoration.

Incorporating Fitzgerald's style created something 'singular, irreplaceable and unique'

Amy Michaelson Kelly, principal at Hatteras Sky, said theming the property after Zelda was the idea of her partner Jason Cordon, who said the Fitzgerald name itself has a brand, so why not celebrate that?

"Independent hotels are businesses, and they have no brand. Thats why they are independent," Kelly said. "Jason wanted to have a brand that people know that isnt hospitality and establish a unique local connection that no hotel is offering. He did some research on Zelda, that she died in Asheville and they had traveled there and stayed in hotels. They never owned a home but stayed in hotels or with other people. We wanted Zelda Dearest to feel very residential."

She added visitors to Asheville might rather stay in a property that is "singular, irreplaceable and unique," so preserving the homes creates a much different experience than a box hotel.

This is the Rosalind house, which is part of Zelda Dearest, a boutique hotel in Asheville, N.C., that saved three historic homes and turned them into a unique hotel themed after Zelda Fitzgerald.

Access to the property is granted through the front door of each of the homes, which are named after one of Fitzgerald's sisters: Rosalind, Marjorie and Tilde. While the homes were given back their historic beauty on the outside, the interiors and 20 guest rooms maintain their quirkiness with slanted walls and unorthodox floor plans but feel new in the most respectful ways.

Kelly added they didn't want the homes to feel like a bed and breakfast with creaky floors and musty smells, so much of the interiors were gutted, while decorative features were saved and reused. And Hatteras Sky did all of this with the permission of and assistance from the Fitzgerald estate.

"We did our research and went to New York to have tea at the Plaza Hotel with the granddaughter, Eleanor 'Bobbie' Lanahan," Kelly said. "We hashed out what our plan would be. She has been involved. We'd send her designs and she would make notes of things she liked and didn't like. Zelda was ahead of her time, and she liked smart design that wasn't overly frilly."

Lanahan commented in an email that she was thrilled to have a hotel named after her grandmother  and Zelda would have been, too.

"Asheville is one of the loveliest places on the planet, and my grandmother was at home in the surrounding mountains, where she found inspiration and tranquility. I hope the hotel will give the same respite and rejuvenation to all its guests," she wrote.

This historic photo shows the Snider-Sawyer-Leonard House in Asheville, N.C. The home dates back to the late 1800s and was purchased and restored by real estate development firm Hatteras Sky. It is now part of Zelda Dearest, a boutique hotel themed after Zelda Fitzgerald.

Sticking to a 'vision' instead of 'taking the easy way out'

Neal Reed, director of operations for New Morning Ltd., also owns the historic Fine Arts Theater just a few blocks away from Zelda Dearest. He's an Asheville native who has watched many historic homes be demolished in the wake of development.

"Growing up and seeing these historic properties fall to development is heartbreaking," he said. "It is sometimes a difficult balancing act between progress and the past. Homes such as these were in such bad repair, if they had been anywhere else, they would have been torn down long ago. Its great to see those homes preserved. I admire the dedication it took from owners and developers to have a vision instead of the easy way out."

Jessie Landl, executive director of The Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County, said the home at 137 Biltmore, known as the Mears house, dates back to 1885 on the National Register of Historic Places but could be even older. The other two homes also date back to the late 1800s.

"I think adaptive reuse is one of the most important tools in preservation," Landl said. "Whether I agree with the end use or not, and I dont disagree with this use, but the truth is, these buildings were at risk, and someone had the forethought to put preservation easements on them."

A guest room at Zelda Dearest in Asheville, N.C. The boutique hotel is named and themed after Zelda Fitzgerald

The result of the hard work is a beautiful, unique hotel experience

Thanks to a beautiful combination of history and luxury, a stay at Zelda Dearest is not only comfortable, it's unique. Several rooms even have small libraries with many of both Fitzgeralds' books on display.

The main floor of the Rosalind house, which was a short brick pathway walk from our room in the Tilde house, housed breakfast and coffee each morning and converted into Wine & Roses, a boutique bar with a speakeasy vibe, in the evenings.

Staff is on hand if you need them, but disappear when you don't, further enhancing the feel that you are a guest in someone's home versus staying in a hotel. Rates at Zelda Dearest start at $350 per night.

More information: www.zeldadearest.com.

Address: 150 South Lexington Avenue, Asheville, NC 28801

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Zelda Dearest might be Asheville, North Carolina's local hidden gem
This article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Contact a qualified medical professional before engaging in any physical activity, or making any changes to your diet, medication or lifestyle.

Wildfires and extreme heat are contributing to climate anxiety. (Photo by ALBERTA WILDFIRE/HANDOUT/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Thousands of Canadians have been forced to evacuate their homes as wildfires continue to burn in British Columbia and Alberta. In Jasper, Alta., a popular tourist spot located approximately 288 kilometres from Banff, firefighters are reportedly facing 300- to 400-foot flames with a fire-spread rate of 15 metres per minute. The city is reporting 30 -50 per cent structural damage, however Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has vowed that the province "will recover" from the devastation.

Amidst extreme heat, wildfires and climate change, some Canadians are feeling uncertain about the future of the environment. Annie Malik, a 33 year old living in London, Ont., often feels anxious or overwhelmed by the environmental state of the planet: Recent heatwaves in Pakistan (where shes from), heat warnings and record-breaking temperatures in the summer coupled with mild winters in Canada and air pollution from wildfires that are becoming more common during the summer months.

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

What is going to happen to the world? If the planet is inhabitable, how are we going to live? Malik previously told Yahoo Canada. Her family still resides in Pakistan, where air conditioning units are a luxury amid soaring temperatures and a spike in heat-related illnesses.

Theres no way I can go back during the summers because I cant handle the heat. ... People are dying every day in the summer, Malik noted, adding she worries for her family.

Annie Malik, a 33 year old living in London, Ont. said her biggest worry around climate change is her family in Pakistan. She can no longer visit during the hot summer months and she thinks about her family's survival. (Image provided by Annie Malik)

Maliks sentiments are echoed by many Canadians who are feeling eco-anxious, or emotional from the effects of climate change, especially since last years record-breaking wildfires. According to a 2023 survey by Unite For Change, 75 per cent of Canadians are experiencing anxiety about climate change and its impacts.

If the planet is inhabitable, how are we going to live?Annie Malik

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

Yahoo Canada recently spoke to Canadians about their eco-anxiety, as well as a mental health expert on how to cope.

What is climate anxiety?

Climate anxiety, ecological grief and solastalgia are all similar terms to describe the emotional distress caused by environmental changes. The American Psychological Association defines it as a chronic fear of environmental doom and recognizes it as a legitimate increasing mental health concern.

Cree Lambeck, clinical director at Cherry Tree Counselling, offers eco-counselling services and said some clients can present with both physical and mental health symptoms from ecological issues. For example, someone might struggle with asthma and breathing issues from air pollution. Other times a person can feel stress or really powerless around climate change, said Lambeck.

What are the signs & symptoms of climate anxiety?

According to the Mental Health Commission of Canada, symptoms of eco-anxiety can include:

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

Feelings of depression, anxiety or panic

Grief and sadness over the loss of natural environments

Existential dread

Guilt related to your carbon footprint

Anger or frustration toward government officials

Obsessive thoughts about the climate

How to cope with climate anxiety

Heather Mak is a 42 year old from Toronto who said shes felt eco-anxious for well over a decade, which "can feel overwhelming."

Mak transitioned out of a marketing career into the sustainability field, hoping she could take control of some of her anxieties. She's currently in corporate sustainability, working with large businesses on environmental and social issues, and she runs a nonprofit called Diversity in Sustainability.

Heather Mak is a 42 year old living in Toronto and she changed careers from marketing to sustainability. Mak said taking action in her work helps her cope with her eco-anxiety, but a side effect is that she can get burnt out from ongoing crises. (Image provided by Heather Mak)

How I try to deal with it is by taking action, she said. But then again, when you start working in this field, its almost like you can never sleep, because the scope of the issue just keeps getting bigger.

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

How I try to deal with it is by taking action.Heather Mak

Last year, Mak heard about the Climate Psychology Alliance and started seeing a climate-aware psychologist to help her process some of her feelings from eco-anxiety, as well as burnout from her work.

As recommended by her psychologist, Mak tries to immerse herself in nature as much as possible to keep herself grounded. Theres also groups called climate cafes, Mak said. I think just chatting with others who are going through the same thing really helps.

Other times, Mak will channel her energy into writing letters to elected officials.

Set boundaries and concrete strategies: Expert

At Cherry Tree Counselling, Lambeck offers clients walk and talk ecotherapy. The sessions can be in-person or over the phone and both the therapist and client will chat outdoors.

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

Lambeck said many people access eco-counselling services, from adolescents to seniors. People can experience [climate anxiety] throughout their lifespan and it can present in different ways  like with parenting, Lambeck said. Some research has found that young adults are even hesitant to have kids due to climate change. Theres a lot of existential worry associated with global crises.

Its important to take breaks and set those boundaries and practice self-care and find social support in those times.Cree Lambeck, clinical director at Cherry Tree Counselling

Considering environmental issues can impact many prongs in someones life, like family planning or lifestyle choices, Lambeck said she tries to offer clients practical tools and concrete strategies that might help tackle some of the turmoil. For instance, she might help target some ways a person can reduce their carbon footprint, identify some of their core values, or try to find opportunities or sustainable initiatives the person might be able to participate in.

For some people, this can help provide a sense of empowerment or control if theyre feeling helpless. Engaging in meaning-focused coping and finding purpose, Lambeck said.

Another strategy is to focus on boundary setting or limit the exposure of distressing news. What is the balance between staying informed or excess consumption? Lambeck said. Images of burning forests, oil spills and floods are plentiful and distressing and can exacerbate our eco-anxiety. So its important to take breaks and set those boundaries and practice self-care and find social support in those times, she added.

Let us know what you think by commenting below and tweeting @YahooStyleCA! Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
1 seriously hurt in northeast Charlotte shooting, MEDIC says

A person has been seriously hurt following a shooting in northeast Charlotte Friday morning, according to MEDIC.

The incident occurred around 2 a.m. on North Tryon Street near University City Boulevard.

ALSO READ: Being the solution: Anti-Violence group remains committed to community

MEDIC said the victim was taken to Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.

It is unclear what led up to this shooting.

This is a developing story. Check back with wsoctv.com for updates.

VIDEO: Being the solution: Anti-Violence group remains committed to community
DENVER (KDVR)  There are now 10 human cases of avian flu in Colorado, according to state health officials, making it the largest outbreak of human bird flu infections in U.S. history.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that there have been 11 cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza in humans since the first was reported in 2022, and 10 of them were this year.

If Yellowstones volcanic system erupted, how could it impact Colorado?

There are now two poultry farms in Weld County with birds infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported Thursday. There are three confirmed cases at the second farm and six confirmed cases at the first farm. Another human case was found in a dairy farm worker, also in Colorado.

Gov. Jared Polis issued a disaster emergency declaration on July 5 for the H5N1 avian flu outbreak in Weld County, when only one farm reported infections.

H5N1 is a virus that has spread among mammals since 2020 and was detected in U.S. livestock earlier this year.

State and federal health officials have said the virus is not a concern for the general public, as theres been no evidence of person-to-person transmission. If contracted in humans, common symptoms include fever, cough, sore throat, eye redness or pink eye, shortness of breath, muscle or body aches and headaches.

Mike Weber watches an employee clean a hen house at his egg farm in Petaluma, Calif. on Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. His company Sunrise Farms had to euthanize 550,000 chickens after avian flu was detected among the flock. A year after the bird flu led to record egg prices and widespread shortages, the disease known as highly pathogenic avian influenza is wreaking havoc in California, which escaped the earlier wave of outbreaks that that devastated poultry farms in the Midwest. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Legislators raise worker concerns amid Colorados bird flu outbreak

U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, who represents Colorados 8th Congressional District, publicized a letter Thursday to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services asking what the department is planning to help mitigate the H5N1 outbreak. The letter was signed by Caraveo and U.S. Reps. Brittany Pettersen, Joe Neguse, Diana DeGette and Jason Crow. The letter also noted that there have been a lot of obstacles for workers who have tested positive for H5N1.

For one, workers at a poultry farm in Weld County who were tasked with culling the flock after it became infected were working in extreme temperatures in Colorado. The region set several records for high temperatures, and the level of personal protective equipment needed for culling is higher than for regular work: full-body suits, N95 respirators and goggles.

Boulder County family warns others after their cat tests positive for tularemia

At the same time, to help with the heat, large-scale industrial fans were circulating feathers in the barns, which also can spread the virus.

The letter noted that there are H5N1 vaccines. Since May, the CDC has only tested about 118 people, according to CDPHE, and is not offering the vaccine to at-risk populations like farm workers.

We need to do everything possible to prevent further HPAI infections and potential hospitalizations among our farmworkers and other high-risk populations, the delegation members wrote. These efforts are crucial to developing an efficient, coordinated response and reducing the onset and spread of HPAI across the country.

Cow dairies under bird flu surveillance

On Tuesday, the Colorado Department of Agriculture announced the implementation of mandatory statewide surveillance for all CDPHE-licensed commercial cow dairies.

We have been navigating this challenging, novel outbreak of HPAI in dairy operations for nearly three months in Colorado and have not been able to curb the spread of disease at this point, Dr. Maggie Baldwin, Colorado state veterinarian, said in the departments announcement. We have seen devastating impacts of this disease not only to our dairy industry, but our poultry industry as well. With the strong support of the dairy and poultry industries, we feel that this is the best next step in order to protect these vital industries in our state.

West Nile confirmed in Boulder County mosquitoes

The Department of Agriculture also noted that there have been two spillover events from dairy cows with the H5N1 strain into commercial poultry facilities, resulting in the depopulation of over 3.2 million chickens in July. In the approximately two years between April 2022 and March 2024, the state reported 33 flocks with the virus, which resulted in depopulation of over 6.3 million domestic poultry.

CDPHE recommends that anyone interacting with poultry, fowl or livestock should take precautions, including wearing the recommended personal protective equipment, washing your hands after contact with birds or animals, dressing game birds in the field when possible and observing livestock and poultry for any signs of illness.

As the number of cases continues to grow, the state plans to publish a data table for human cases across the state. The state health department said in a Thursday release that the table will include the number of presumptive positive human cases, confirmed human cases, the approximate number of people tested, and a link to the Colorado Department of Agriculture which shares the number of impacted dairy and poultry farms.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
In the last four years, Pentagon leaders have often described their efforts in Asia with a Woody Allen quote:

A key part of success is just showing up.

They have numbers to back it up. When Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin heads to the Indo-Pacific on Friday, he will be on his 11th trip to the strategically vital region  the second-most of any secretary this century.

But the trip will also test the endurance of that presence.

All in: Austin defends US focus on Indo-Pacific amid global upheaval

President Joe Bidens decision not to run for reelection has scrambled the 2024 race, making it harder for Americas allies to predict who they will be working with come January. It also marks a new era for officials in the Pentagon, who are trying to secure their work with partners around the region.

Nowhere is this more true than in Japan and the Philippines, where Austin will join Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a week of meetings. These two countries are part of a renaissance in Indo-Pacific security, in which states are hedging against Beijing and working with each other more often.

The summit is about making this progress last, multiple analysts said, even if Americas next president remains uncertain.

Much of Americans success in shoring up its network of Indo-Pacific allies comes down to a rare alignment of America-friendly leaders in the region and a focused White House, said Zack Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who focuses on U.S. strategy in Asia.

They want to take as much advantage of that [alignment] as possible, Cooper said.

10 days

In a briefing just before the trip, senior defense officials outlined the meetings planned for the next two weeks and what they hope to get out of them.

Were about to kick off the 10 most consequential days for U.S. defense ties in the Indo-Pacific since the start of the administration, a senior Pentagon official said.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken will join Austin for a week of meetings in Japan and the Philippines. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Austin will meet with his Japanese and Philippine counterparts, along with those from India and Australia  some one-on-one and some in groups. In addition, defense officials from Japan, South Korea and the U.S. will meet in Tokyo. Its the first time such a forum has occurred in either Japan or South Korea, which until recently were feuding over the legacy of Japans colonial rule on the Korean Peninsula.

In those meetings, the Pentagon plans to announce a variety of new ways that each military will work together.

Japan is doubling its defense budget and growing the narrow role of its Self Defense Forces. As Tokyos military prepares to take on larger roles, the U.S. is restructuring its command in Japan so that the two can coordinate better.

The two countries will agree to build or repair more weapons together, including planes, ships and missiles  particularly those for Patriot, an air defense system that has proven crucial to Ukraines self-defense.

US, Japan, S Korea hold drills in disputed sea as Biden hosts leaders

And lastly, the U.S. and Japan will discuss military operations in the southwest Japanese islands, where Tokyo is permanently basing soldiers for the first time. The U.S. would like to eventually send troops of its own there as it tries to spread its forces around the region, but such efforts have been met with local reluctance.

In the Philippines, the U.S. will announce $500 million in long-term security aid, meant to help Manila defend against China in the South China Sea. The two countries will also agree on a road map of military spending over the next five to 10 years, work on a plan to securely share information and discuss new military sites where the U.S. can operate.

Institutionalizing

While addressing logistical issues involving basing and partnerships, Austins trip will also seek to buttress the work America has done in Asia over the last four years, according to Victor Cha, a former Asia official for the National Security Council during the George W. Bush presidency.

What the administration has been good at is to try to institutionalize these things so they can outlast this administration, Cha said.

Much of that work, he said, has involved gathering together small groups of countries in the region. Another defense official speaking before the trip said to expect even more of that, with the U.S. seeking to set a tempo for how often these countries  such as Japan and South Korea  will meet.

U.S. aircraft carrier Carl Vinson, left, sails with South Korean and Japanese naval ships in a joint drill in 2024. Defense officials from the three countries will meet in Tokyo, the first time such a forum has occurred in either Japan or South Korea. (South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff via AP)

The first official argued that, while U.S. policy on China is not uniform, it has become much more bipartisan on Capitol Hill as the threat from Beijing becomes clearer.

If theres one area that the Donald Trump and Biden administrations have mostly agreed on, its been a strong stance against Beijing. Trump was close to the leaders of Japan and Australia, and helped push the increased China focus.

How Trumps attacks on the US-Japan security alliance could affect readiness

Its not clear whether future leaders in the region will show the same patience  particularly in Japan, where former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe famously never responded when criticized by Trump.

But the forces motivating their cooperation arent likely to change. China has become more aggressive around the Philippines and Taiwan. And North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons, spooking Japan and South Korea.

On the eve of what could be Austins last official trip to the region, the secretary noted the Pentagons wins in Asia during his tenure at a press conference this week, even China itself played a role in those as well.

Theyve achieved more in three-and-a-half years than Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump did, said Michael Green, a former National Security Council member. A lot of that is thanks to Xi Jinping.
U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit, will try to fend off an effort to unseat him as he seeks a second term in his Detroit-based congressional district. But it isn't the one that many voters expected or that some top Democrats wanted.

Several months ago, prominent Democrats coalesced around former state Sen. Adam Hollier's campaign to challenge Thanedar. But when Hollier filed petitions rife with fraud and errors  knocking him off the ballot  others threw their support behind At-Large Detroit City Council Member Mary Waters.

Thanedar isn't the only congressional incumbent in Michigan facing challengers in the upcoming Aug. 6 primary. But no other current member of the state's congressional delegation has faced such robust opposition from within their own party.

Michigan's 13th Congressional District encompasses some of the poorest cities in Wayne County such as Highland Park and includes some of the county's wealthiest areas such as the Grosse Pointes. But this socioeconomically diverse district is bright blue, and the Democratic primary is all but guaranteed to decide Thanedar's fate.

In addition to Waters, Thanedar also faces a primary challenge from attorney Shakira Lynn Hawkins.

While the 13th district is not majority-Black, Black residents make up the largest voting bloc. Thanedar's election in 2022  along with the reelection of U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit  marked the first time in nearly 70 years Detroit wasn't represented by a Black member of Congress. Some faith leaders and Democratic politicians have said they want to see Black representation restored for the district. Both Thanedar's primary opponents are Black.

Foreign policy has also emerged as one of the biggest dividing lines in the race with the pro-Israel lobby supporting Thanedar. His opponents have said they support a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

Thanedar faces smaller primary field this time

Thanedar is a self-made millionaire who became rich through entrepreneurial ventures in chemical testing. An Indian immigrant who rose from poverty, Thanedar has repeatedly recounted the economic hardships he faced to connect with voters in the 13th District.

"Shri Thanedar fights for working people because he knows what it's like to struggle," reads a mailer his campaign recently sent out. In it, he promises to fight for lower prescription drug costs, union jobs, investments in skills training and social safety net benefits.

Thanedar serves on the on the Homeland Security and Small Business committees. He is the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committees Subcommittee on Transportation & Maritime Security.

Beyond his policy platform and official congressional duties, Thanedar has tried to cultivate a distinct political style while in office. His viral social media posts have attracted national attention such as one with a photo of his office  Suite 420  shared on Apr. 20 last year, a cannabis-themed holiday. "Just a friendly reminder to celebrate responsibly and always remember to pass it to the left, just like we do in Congress," he wrote.

At this year's NAACP Freedom Fund dinner, Thanedar made a point of leaving his banquet table to greet attendees and take selfies, saying that's where he'd rather be than on an elevated stage for politicians.

Thanedar has largely relied on his own wealth to fund his campaign, loaning himself $4.8 million this cycle along with investment income, according to his campaign finance filing for the reporting period that ended June 30. But he's also used funds from his congressional office to make sure voters know who he is. For voters in the district, it's hard to turn on the radio, watch TV or open the mailbox without coming across his name. He has defended the spending as an effective way to ensure voters can identify their Member of Congress after the first election held under a new set of congressional districts in 2022.

In that race, he emerged from a crowded nine-candidate field in the Democratic primary. While he narrowly won a plurality of the vote in Detroit, he won every single Downriver precinct in the district. But it's in Detroit where he set up a community center on the city's west side with his face on the building with a mural that reads, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." It was vandalized earlier this year, with the words "ceasefire" and "racist" written on the building.

Then-state Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit, has fun with Brandi Walker, 27 of Detroit and her daughter Ginger Walker, 8 months old while at Cass Community Social Services Taylor Park in Detroit on July 28, 2022. The social service agency hosted a "Get Out the Vote" community day along with giving out free haircuts to kids.

While in office, Thanedar has drawn the ire of some of his fellow Democrats who have blasted his constituent services as poor. Thanedar has pushed back on those allegations, most notably with an extensive report that aims to defend his track record on that front.

It's not the only time Thanedar has fractured with his political allies. Last fall, he voiced unequivocal support for Israel as it waged a counteroffensive in Gaza in response to Oct. 7. He quit the Democratic Socialists of America after he said the group didn't sufficiently condemn Hamas' attack.

Mary Waters: The 'quiet storm'

When she launched her campaign, Waters emphasized her support for a cease-fire in the war. Her position has won the support of some Democratic politicians. State Rep. Alabas Farhat, D-Dearborn, described her as an anti-war candidate, and state Rep. Abraham Aiyash, D-Hamtramck, gave a one-word answer when asked why he supports Waters: "cease-fire."

Waters has run for Congress three times previously. In 2008 and 2012, she lost her Democratic congressional races. In 2018, she was disqualified from running in the primary to serve out the remainder of Rep. John Conyers Jr.'s term after he resigned.

This time, she has the support of Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and a majority of Detroit City Council Members.

"Our future is in Washington and we need somebody in Congress who fights for us. And right now, I don't feel like we got any help from our congressman," Duggan said when he announced his endorsement of Waters. But she's at a serious fundraising disadvantage compared to Thanedar who reported over $5 million cash on hand as of June 30 compared to Waters' roughly $20,000, according to their July quarterly campaign finance filings.

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan listens as Detroit City Council member Mary Waters talks during a press conference on Tyler Street in Detroit on Thursday, July 21, 2022.Duggan and council members talked about a $203 million affordable housing plan to address housing insecurities in the city.

She was elected as an At-Large Member of the Council in 2021. Before serving in local government, she served three terms in the Michigan House of Representatives. While in Lansing, she introduced legislation to expunge certain criminal offenses from the public record, a policy that ultimately passed after she was term-limited out of the chamber.

In 2010, she pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for filing a fraudulent tax return, a charge that stemmed from an investigation into a suspected conspiracy to bribe a Southfield City Councilmember. Sam Riddle  a political consultant for Waters' congressional campaign  pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge, a felony. When asked about her guilty plea, Waters said Detroiters "have rendered a verdict" during a Free Press Editorial Board interview.

"They elected me because once they remembered who I am what Im all about and the fact that they know that they can depend on me to fight for them not to go into position and enrich myself," she said.

While serving on council, Waters has advocated for affordable housing. She led the recent effort to start a city commission to represent renters aimed at reducing evictions and ensuring safe housing conditions. If elected, she's vowed to continue making housing a priority along with infrastructure investments in the 13th District.

Waters said her colleagues in Lansing when she served in the state Legislature nicknamed her "the quiet storm." If voters send her to D.C. she vowed to be a humble but tireless advocate for her constituents. "I'm not too proud to say that I don't know everything. So I'm going to be counting on various communities to tell me what they need," she said at the Duggan endorsement event.

Michigan Voter Guide Key Races

Shakira Lynn Hawkins

Hawkins  a native Detroiter  said she didn't see a candidate that would embody her values running to represent the 13th District, so she decided to run. She also said one of the reasons she decided to run was to ensure Detroit has Black representation in Congress. "The only way to make change is actually to get in there and you know help ourselves basically because no ones going to come to rescue us," she said during a Free Press Editorial Board interview.

She accused Thanedar of wasting taxpayer dollars on commercials and billboards promoting himself, calling it money that should be spent in the community. She said she would try to bring in more dollars to the district to address housing affordability, making sure housing developments are accessible and not just for wealthy residents in Detroit's Downtown and Midtown areas. She's listed supporting labor unions, fighting climate change and tackling gun violence among her top priorities.

She has a background working as a public defender and for the City of Detroits law department on its blight litigation team. She was recently fired from her job with the city's law department because she was told her congressional campaign posed a legal conflict for her federally-funded position, according to Hawkins. She has sought legal advice on the matter.

Like Waters, Hawkins is critical of Israeli military actions in Gaza and supports a cease-fire.

Hawkins' campaign reported $250 cash on hand as of the most recent reporting period that ended June 30. She also appears to have lent her campaign about $15,000, according to her July quarterly report.

The winner of the 13th District's Democratic primary will face Republican Martell Bivings in the general election. He's the lone Republican on the primary ballot. Bivings previously worked for the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation  a quasi-public economic development organization  as a business liaison, according to his campaign website. He supports Trump's reelection bid.

Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.

Looking for more on Michigans elections this year? Check out our voter guide, subscribe to our elections newsletter and always feel free to share your thoughts in a letter to the editor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Shri Thanedar faces 2 Democratic opponents in primary election
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, July 26. Tajikistan's Minister of Transport, Azim Ibrahim, has instructed relevant agencies and institutions to launch a pilot railway train along the China  Tajikistan  Uzbekistan  Turkmenistan  Iran  Turkiye  Europe multimodal corridor, Trend reports.

He also directed the gradual renewal of railway cars and locomotives, the intensification of digitalization efforts within the sector, and the construction of logistics centers, including in Iran's Chabahar port.

Additionally, Ibrahim instructed the increase in the volume and quality of cargo and passenger transportation, as well as the building of new transit railway lines.

Notably, during the talks in Dushanbe in May 2023 the Presidents of Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, Serdar Berdimuhamedow and Emomali Rahmon agreed that the transport sector is a key area for collaboration.

They highlighted the need to make transport more efficient and to create new international routes, including China  Tajikistan  Uzbekistan  Turkmenistan  Iran  Turkiye multimodal corridor.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Fourteen members of the Traveling Vice Lords/Junk Yard Dogs street gang have been sentenced in federal court after convictions in connection to a 2020 gang war in western Tennessee.

According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, the gang members participated in a series of attempted murders and murders of rival gang members throughout a gang war in the summer of 2020.

It was determined that five separate shootings across Fayette County and Hardeman County were connected to the war.

Warrant issued for contractor after women claim he scammed them

The 14 gang members were convicted of crimes under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

These defendants were members of a violent gang who threatened the safety and security of communities throughout West Tennessee, said United States Attorney Ritz. Now they will be serving significant time, in some cases, life, in federal prison. This office will continue to work with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to bring gang members and trigger-pullers to justice.

Three of the gang members were convicted by a federal jury of RICO offenses on February 9, 2024. The other 11 members pled guilty to RICO offenses in 2023.

The following is a list of the gang members charged.

Tomarcus TC Baskerville , 35, was sentenced to 960 months to be followed by life imprisonment

Courtland Hotbox Springfield , 32, was sentenced to 480 months to be followed by life imprisonment

Montaveen CGE Tay Taylor , 26, was sentenced to 420 months

Martivus Tavis Baskerville , 30, 324 months

Deandra Dre Rivers , 28, 262 months

Thomas TJ Smith , 25, 255 months

Trevin Scooter Hullom , 31, 216 months

Bianca Jackson , 23, 188 months

Curtis CB Baskerville , 38, 180 months

Mardarius McNeal , 26, 135 months

Christopher Lil Chris Peeler , 32, 120 months

Davaius Mighty Shun Worrles , 31, 66 months

Deonte Tez Walker , 32, 41 months

Torrance Phat Fitzpatrick, 29, 31 months

The TVL/JYD is a violent street gang that operates throughout the Western District of Tennessee. It is a subset of Chicagos Almighty Vice Lord Nation.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
The teen was charged in Lancaster County Juvenile Court with two felony counts of criminal mischief on Wednesday, July 24

Getty A BNSF railway locomotive

A 17-year-old has been accused of causing a train derailment that happened in Nebraska in April.

The teenager  who has not been identified due to his age  was charged in Lancaster County Juvenile Court with two felony counts of criminal mischief on Wednesday, July 24, according to local media outlets NTV News, KLKN-TV and KOLN-TV.

Prosecutors also filed a motion to have the teens case transferred from juvenile to adult court, according to NBC News.

According to a search warrant affidavit obtained by the outlets, BNSF Railway officials were notified around 6:10 p.m. local time on April 21 that two of their locomotives and five rail cars derailed near Monroe and Juniper streets in Bennet after colliding with an empty rail car. The derailment caused an estimated $350,000 in damages.

Getty A photo of a trainload of coal

Related: French Rail Network Hit by Malicious Arson Attacks Hours Before Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony

The trains conductor told a BNSF Railway investigator that he noticed a switch that was misaligned, which led the train to veer onto an industry track instead of its scheduled route. He had attempted to initiate an emergency stop but was unable to do so before the switch's location, leading to the derailment, the outlets reported.

When investigators went to investigate the track, they found that a switch was in the wrong position and its lock had been missing, leading them to believe that it had been tampered with, according to NTV News and KLKN-TV.

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 teen, who described himself as a railroad enthusiast who captured videos of trains to post on social media, reported the incident to authorities. He was there at the scene when investigators arrived and asked them questions about the derailment. He also told them that he captured the whole thing on video, the outlets reported.

An investigator noted, per KOLN-TV, that the boy denied trespassing in the area, but knew the location of the switch and how it worked.

Three days later, investigators obtained security footage showing a beige 1996 Buick Park Avenue driving nearby before the teen got out and headed in the direction of the switch. He then appeared back on camera, returning to his car and driving off, NTV News reported.

Related: Oklahoma Dog Hit by Train Rescued After Spending Days Stranded on Train Tracks

Footage then captured him parking his car and setting up his video recording equipment near the crossing right before the train derailment occurred, according to NTV News and KLKN-TV.

Investigators noted in the affidavit, according to KLKN-TV, that they wanted to search the 17-year-olds recording equipment and cell phone for possible evidence linking him to the crime.

A spokesperson for the BNSF confirmed to PEOPLE that an arrest has been made but had no further comment due to the ongoing investigation.

The Lancaster County Attorneys Office did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment.

Lancaster County Attorney Pat Condon told KOLN-TV that the teenager was not currently in custody. His next court date is still to be determined, according to the outlet.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Two men accused of involvement in a Beaufort County child sex trafficking ring have been granted bond by South Carolina judges, although neither suspect had forked over the thousands required to be released from jail as of Friday morning.

The case is a massive collaborative effort between the federal Homeland Security Investigations and several local law enforcement agencies, including the Beaufort County Sheriffs Office, Jasper County Sheriffs Office, 14th Circuit Solicitors Office and the city police departments of Beaufort and Hardeeville. It will be prosecuted by Hunter Swanson, who leads the Special Victims Unit at the 14th Circuit Solicitors Office.

St. Helena Island resident Alban Bryan, 63, received two $50,000 surety bonds for his charges of child trafficking and contributing to the delinquency of a minor on Tuesday. If released, he will be confined to house arrest and required to wear an ankle monitor, although he could leave home for work as well as medical, religious or legal reasons. He would also be barred from contacting minors or any victims in the case, according to conditions set by Judge G.D. Morgan Jr.

For Okatie resident Guy Frank Talley III, 27, Morgan on Tuesday issued surety bonds also equaling $100,000 total: $40,000 for child trafficking and $30,000 each for two charges of criminal sexual conduct with a minor. Conditions attached to the trafficking bond include house arrest, a ban from contacting victims and a requirement to cover his ankle monitoring fees. He may serve his house arrest with his parents in Beaufort or with his children and fiancee in Bluffton, the judge ruled.

Talley was also given a $10,000 surety bond by Magistrate Judge Nancy Sadler for harboring an escaped convict, a charge applied July 19 while he was already in jail. He was accused of helping to hide a fellow sex trafficking suspect, 29-year-old Jaquan Duvall Barnes, after the Port Royal man escaped from the Jasper County jail in early June. Two of Barnes sisters were arrested for the same charge on July 18.

Surety bonds allow for suspects to be released from jail after paying bondsmen a portion of their bail, typically 10% of the total amount.

What about the other suspects?

Three other defendants accused of sex trafficking of a minor  50-year-old Beaufort man Terrance Lamar Fields, 34-year-old Beaufort man William James Youmans and Barnes  had not been granted bond as of Friday morning, judicial records show. Barnes and Youmans remained in custody at the Beaufort County Detention Center, while Fields was being held at the Jasper County jail.

Two final suspects who are not charged with sex trafficking were released from jail in the week following the string of arrests in early to mid-June: Samuel Cyrus Blackmon, 36, of St. Helena, received a personal recognizance bond June 12 and Ilaife Sylvia Meredith, 20, of Beaufort, posted a $10,000 surety bond for contributing to the delinquency of a minor on June 17.

Blackmon was arrested for possession of marijuana as part of the same group and was named by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division in a media release about the alleged sex trafficking operation, although it was unclear how he was linked to the investigation at large.

Hardeeville Chief of Police Sam Woodward said Meredith allegedly helped to transport some of the underage victims from Beaufort to Hardeeville and gave them a place to stay.

Few details about the alleged trafficking ring have been publicly released, although arrest warrants from SLED indicate the trafficking exchanges took place in at least three homes in northern Beaufort County.
Two Georgia firefighters are in critical condition after a freak accident at a funeral service, according to WALB.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

The accident happened in the parking lot of Antioch Baptist Church in Sylvester on Friday morning.

Firefighters Ricky Thompson and Danny Hancock were attending the funeral services for Trenton Melton, the 18-year-old son of fellow Albany firefighter Casey Melton, WALB reports. Thompson is the battalion chief for the Albany Fire Department. Hancock is the captain.

TRENDING STORIES:

Numerous firefighters were attending Meltons service to show support for the family.

WALB reported that Thompson and Hancock were standing outside of the church just before the service started when a car drove into the parking lot, hit two cars and pinned them underneath.

Hancock suffered a collapsed lung and Thompson had multiple broken bones. The driver, who wasnt identified, was also taken to the hospital.

Thompson and Hancock are in critical condition and were life-flighted to a Tallahassee hospital.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

A firefighter told WALB that Hancock is in the ICU on a ventilator but was able to give a thumbs up that he is OK. Thompson is now responsive and talking.

Multiple members of the Albany Fire Department are in Tallahassee to support the men and their families.

Melton died July 21 from complications of kidney failure, his family said on social media.

Our hearts are heavy as we mourn the loss of a bright and promising individual who touched the lives of so many, Worth County High School officials wrote. Trenton was known for his outgoing personality and enjoyed welding class and golf.
2 kids went missing after their mother was found dead. Why did CHP never issue an Amber Alert?

Reality Check is a Bee series holding officials and organizations accountable and shining a light on their decisions. Have a tip? Email realitycheck@sacbee.com.

Its been more than three weeks since authorities found Angelica Marie Bravo dead in a Sacramento home and detectives determined her two youngest children, Athena Lee, 4, and Mateo Lee, 2, were missing and believed to be in a vehicle driven by their father, Camron Lee.

Detectives are still looking for the children, and their father identified as a person-of-interest in their disappearance also remains missing. Last week, authorities found the vehicle believed to be driven by Camron Lee abandoned in a Mexican beach town about 70 miles south of U.S. border.

Officer Anthony Gamble, a Sacramento Police Department spokesman, said they continue to work with federal, state and local law enforcement officials.

We dont know where the kids are, Gamble said Wednesday. Were hopeful theyre in the Southern California region.

But the California Highway Patrol never activated an Amber Alert, a statewide alert that is triggered to help find missing children and others at risk. Sacramento police said the case of the two missing children didnt meet the requirements for an Amber Alert.

On July 9, the Sacramento Police Department asked the CHP to activate an Amber Alert for the missing children, Jaime Coffee, a CHP spokesperson, told The Sacramento Bee.

But an Amber Alert was no longer an option for the Sacramento missing persons case after federal authorities confirmed the vehicle believed to carrying the missing children and driven by their father was spotted heading south into Mexico.

While preparing to activate the alert system, it was confirmed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the suspect vehicle had entered Mexico the prior day, Coffee said in an email. The CHP can activate an AMBER Alert in California, however, once it goes to Mexico, our AMBER Alert is no longer an available option.

Coffee said the CHP told Sacramento police to contact the CHP if they had any indication that Camron Lee or the children had returned to the United States, and an Amber Alert would then be issued.

Two days later, the CHP issued an Endangered Missing Advisory for the missing children after Sacramento police provided a specific investigative update in the case, Coffee said. The CHPs Mexico Liaison Unit in Border Division has been provided details of the missing persons case, who in turn passed on the information to the Mexican authorities.

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.

Requirements for an Amber Alert

For the CHP to activate an Amber Alert (the acronym AMBER stands for Americas Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response), the following criteria must be met:

 Confirmation that an abduction has occurred or a child was taken by anyone, including, but not limited to, a custodial parent or guardian.

 The victim is 17 years of age or younger, or an individual with a proven mental or physical disability.

 The victim is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death.

 There is information available that, if disseminated to the public, could assist in the safe recovery of the victim.

The Amber Alert system releases information to news media outlets to quickly notify the public of an abducted or taken child. Californias alert system is modeled after the nationwide AMBER Plan, which was developed in 1996 after nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted and brutally murdered near her home in Arlington, Texas.

In 2002, Assembly Bill 415 was signed into law and mandated that Amber Alert plans be implemented statewide. The law assigned the CHP as the statewide coordinator for all Amber Alerts. Since then, more than 330 Amber Alerts have led to the safe recovery of nearly 400 missing persons.

Amber Alerts are the most serious alerts the CHP can issue involving children. A majority of Amber Alerts involve a parent, guardian or close family relative, according to the CHP.

More than 24 hours went by

In the case of missing Sacramento children, Athena and Mateo Lee, slightly more than 24 hours passed before law enforcement officials alerted the public about their disappearance.

Authorities found Bravo dead on the evening of July 8 in a home in the 3700 block of Didcot Circle in the Oak Knoll neighborhood in North Sacramento. She once shared the home with Camron Lee, she and the children had since moved out to a south Sacramento apartment.

Investigators still dont know how the 28-year-old mother died. Sacramento County Coroner Rosa Vega told The Sacramento Bee last week that they were still awaiting a toxicology report among other findings, and the results could take months.

Camron Lee has not been identified as a suspect in the womans death. The Police Department spokesman said the missing remains considered only as a person-of-interest.

We still dont have a cause of death, Gamble said Wednesday. We dont know how this death will be labeled.

Angelica Bravo is seen with inspirational messages she posted at the Mixed Institute in Sacramento. Family members say Bravo, a mother of three who was found dead July 8, 2024, was fiercely protective of her children and family. Her family is seeking answers more than a week after her two younger children disappeared with their father, Camron Lee.

As detectives investigated Bravos death in those first 24 hours, they were unable to find Athena and her younger brother Mateo. They also couldnt find their father.

On the evening of July 9, the Sacramento Police Department announced the womans two children were missing and believed they were with their father, Camron Lee, in a gray Honda Passport.

Police officials that evening urged the public to help find this vehicle and the missing children. But the CHP did not activate an Amber Alert for Athena and Mateo.

Gamble said the Police Department initially requested the Amber Alert and was waiting for a response from the CHP. In the meantime, U.S. Customs and Border Protection notified police that surveillance video captured the gray Honda Passport driving south into Mexico. After that, CHP told the Police Department that missing persons case did not meet the Amber Alert requirements.

Instead of the Amber Alert, Gamble went in front of news cameras the following morning asking news outlets to share information about the search for the missing children with affiliates in Southern California.

The following afternoon, the Police Department announced that detectives believed its possible the missing children were dropped off somewhere in Southern California.

Advisory three days after mother found dead

Gamble said the detectives learned that Camron Lee has some possible ties to Southern California, which allowed the CHP to instead issue an Endangered Missing Advisory for Athena and Mateo. The CHP issued the advisory for the missing children shortly before 5 p.m. July 11, nearly three days after their mother was found dead.

An Endangered Missing Advisory is a law enforcement alert that asks the public to help find a missing person who may be in danger. The advisory is similar to an Amber Alert but is used for people who dont meet Amber Alert criteria, according to the CHP. The advisory can be used for missing children or other endangered people, such as those who are mentally or physically disabled, or who are victims of crime or foul play.

To activate an Endangered Missing Advisory, the following criteria must be met:

 The person is missing under suspicious circumstances.

 The person is believed to be in danger due to their age, health, disability, or environment.

 There is information that could help the public find the person and safely recover them.

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

This week, Gamble said the detectives remain hopeful Athena and Mateo were left with someone before the Honda Passport was spotted heading into Mexico. The vehicle was found abandoned on July 16 in Ensenada, a beach town along the Pacific coast of Mexicos Baja California peninsula.

The police spokesman said detectives this week were heading south to inspect the abandoned vehicle and look for any evidence that might help them find the missing children.

Gamble also said the Police Department continues to communicate with FBI, the California Department of Justice, the CHP in Southern California and local law enforcement agencies in that region as their search for Athena and Mateo continues.
2 women in custody battle shot dead near Gracie Mansion in apparent murder-suicide

NEW YORK  A 65-year-old retired probation officer from Chicago fatally shot her grandsons mother on an Upper East Side street Friday just yards from Gracie Mansion, then turned the gun on herself, NYPD detectives said.

Kathleen Leigh shot Marisa Galloway, 45, on E. 88th St. near York Avenue at about 8:50 a.m., then killed herself in an apparent murder-suicide, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.

This is going to be an ongoing custody dispute between Miss Galloway, her 4-year-old son, and the shooter, Kenny said.

Galloways 1-year-old daughter, who is not the child at the heart of the custody battle, was found strapped into a car seat in the back of Galloway's Honda, physically unharmed, Kenny said.

Gracie Mansion, home to Mayor Eric Adams, is less than a block away on East End Avenue.

The shooting brought NYPD officers who were part of the Mayors protective detail and were stationed near Gracie Mansion.

Adams also showed up at the scene within minutes, a police source with knowledge of the case said.

City Hall referred all inquiries about the shooting to the NYPD.

The shooting took place two and a half blocks from Galloways apartment building, where news of her death stunned tenants.

One woman was so distraught after hearing what happened, she hunkered down onto a tree pit guard with her head clutched in her hands.

They shot Marisa! she screamed at a guard inside her building. Whos looking after the kids?

At least three shots were fired, cops said.

Video recovered from the scene shows Galloway putting her daughter in the back seat moments before she was shot in the head, Kenny said.

Shes putting the stroller in the trunk when shes approached by Miss Leigh, who shoots her in the head, Kenny said. When [(Galloway is) on the ground she shoots her in the back.

Police recovered two firearms at the scene. One was found on the sidewalk and a second pistol was found in Leighs tote bag.

Neither gun is reported stolen. Cops are trying to determine if the weapons were used by Leigh when she was a probation officer for Cook County in Illinois.

While Leighs last known address is Chicago, police believe she has been living in New York City with relatives for the last three years.

Michael Donovan, a superintendent of an East 88th Street building, was cleaning up outside when he heard the gunshots.

I ducked into my doorway for cover and then I looked and I saw the lady with the white hair fall onto the sidewalk, Donovan said. When I went closer I saw there was another woman lying behind the car who was also shot.

A second later, he peered into the cars back seat.

There was a  child in the car, he said. I called 911, the police responded immediately, and EMS. The gun is still there on the scene.

Leigh died at the scene, cops said. Galloway was taken to an area hospital but did not survive.

The trunk was open, the doors were open, Donovan said. It looked like they were packing stuff up or taking stuff out.

Police had been called to Galloways home four times between 2021 and 2022. All of the incidents involved arguments between Galloway, her sons father, and Leigh over visitation rights and other custody matters, Kenny said.

In one incident, Galloway is accused of abusing her son, but the claims were not substantiated, officials said. Leigh and her son filed two criminal complaints against Galloway for abusing her son, but no arrests were ever made, Kenny said.

The shooting happened right down the block from Gracie Mansion, Donovan said.

Its shocking because its a safe and quiet block, he said.

Other area residents said the double shooting shattered the security they felt in this bucolic Manhattan carveout.

Generally I feel safe here. Until today, longtime area resident Denise Sweeney said.

Sweeney said she was a little surprised, when she heard about the killing.

Theres always a lot of cops there, she said, noting Gracie Mansion in the distance.

Crime, in general, is beginning to creep up on the Upper West Side, she said.

There was a lot of crime in the 60s and 70s, the life-long New Yorker explained. Hopefully it gets better, cause its a cycle.

______

(New York Daily News reporter Chris Sommerfeldt contributed to this story.)
A Marine Was Badly Beaten and Then Fatally Run Over. Now, There's a $20,000 Reward to Find His Attackers.

Law enforcement officials announced Wednesday that they are offering a $20,000 reward in the search for two men who beat and a driver who ran over a Marine in the Los Angeles area in May.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officers responded to a scene around 2 a.m. on May 28 in Bellflower, California, a city in southeast Los Angeles County, where they found the body of 42-year-old Peter Chounthala, an active-duty Marine assigned to the Wounded Warrior Battalion.

Chounthala had been badly beaten and then run over by a car, and was pronounced dead at the scene. It was not immediately clear where he was stationed or what rank he held. The vehicle was described as a 2021-2023 dark-colored Kia K5.

Read Next: Neo-Nazi Plot to Attack Power Grid Leads to Prison Sentences for 2 Former Camp Lejeune Marines

Chounthala is survived by his wife and their 3-year-old son, according to the sheriff's department, which delivered a press briefing alongside the Marine's family this week.

Jurina Chounthala, his wife, said that "he was everything to me.  He's like the glue that held all of us together," referencing his family and friends.

She described him as "just the best dad" and a "dedicated Marine."

"We are truly burdened by life and death," Witpha Chounthala, the Marine's sister, said at the press conference. "Peter was loved by many. He was a father, a husband, a brother, an uncle, a friend and a Marine."

Witpha said that Chounthala joined the Marine Corps in 2008, adding that he planned to retire from the service at the end of the year. He had deployed to Afghanistan, according to the sheriff's department.

Homicide investigators believe that there are witnesses who saw the Marine beaten and then run over, and are urging them to come forward with information. They believe those witnesses may know the suspects' identities, an official said.

"Investigators believe that Mr. Chounthala was an innocent victim of these senseless acts of violence," Lt. Patricia Thomas, a Los Angeles County law enforcement official, said Wednesday at the press conference.

Thomas added that Chounthala's cause of death was blunt force trauma and that he suffered injuries to the upper torso.

Investigators canvassed the area and reviewed security camera footage. The men involved in the assault were last seen walking toward a parking lot in the area. The motorist was seen fleeing the scene.

"Failure is not an option," Witpha said. "It may take one day or 100 years, but believe me, they will find you no matter where you are, how far you go, or how long you run. You will not escape, and you cannot escape. Please do the right thing and come forward and turn yourself in."

Law enforcement said that information can be submitted to detectives at 323-890-5500 or to Crime Stoppers at 800-222-6477.

Related: Marine from Twentynine Palms Randomly Gunned Down While Sitting in Car at Park
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Lansing) speaks at a forum with U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in Lansing, Mich. on Nov. 1, 2022. (Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) on Friday released a list of 20 African-American elected officials and community leaders from across Michigan who have endorsed her run for U.S. Senate.

The list of new endorsements follow an event held last week in Grand Rapids, in which she further discussed her Opportunity Agenda, which was initially rolled out in March, to eliminate barriers to economic opportunities in Michigans urban communities.

Those endorsing Slotkin are:

State Rep. Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids)

State Rep. Amos ONeal (D-Saginaw)

Jackson Mayor Daniel Mahoney

Saginaw Mayor Brenda Moore

Former Detroit Police Chief Ike McKinnon

Genesee County Commission Chair James Avery

Genesee County Commissioner Beverly Brown

Kent County Commissioner Michelle McCloud

Kent County Commissioner Monica Sparks

Kalamazoo County Commissioner Monteze Morales

Former Kent County Commissioner Robert S. Womack

Grand Rapids City Commissioner Lisa Knight

Former Grand Rapids City Commissioner Reverend Joe Jones

Flint Board of Education Member Terae King

Kentwood Board of Education Member Tanya Powell-May

Madison Heights Councilman Quinn Wright

Business leader Khary Bridgewater

Community Leader George Bayard

Community Leader Deborah Bayard

Community Leader Victor Holt

According to a campaign release, Slotkins Opportunity Agenda was the result of dozens of meetings and conversations with leaders from communities of color across Michigan over the last year.

Out of those meetings, several policy proposals were developed, including:

Reducing health disparities by increasing access to quality healthcare, nutritious food, and going after the long-standing problems like infant mortality and Black maternal health;

Expanding early childhood development programs that are proven to work  including Head Start, the expanded Child Tax Credit and the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit to support parents and families;

Increasing access to capital and federal contracting opportunities for minority businesses, and increasing accountability for lenders; and

Reforming the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, which is critical to having an up-or-down vote on key legislation like the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which Slotkin has co-sponsored in Congress.

The latest list of endorsements of Slotkin are among more than 40 by community leaders and elected officials in Detroit, and over 200 elected officials, community leaders, and faith representatives from across Michigan, who have backed her in the U.S. Senate race.

The release also follows Thursdays Zoom press call by her Democratic opponent in the Aug. 6 primary, actor Hill Harper of Detroit, in which Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell accused Slotkin of being radio silent on a demand by her and other Black elected leaders that a since-canceled debate excludes Black women from having a seat at the table, due to a lack of an African American woman journalist, being included.

Slotkins campaign said she had been prepping in earnest, for the debate, but planned to instead continue to directly engage voters in Detroit and across the state.

Republicans running for the nomination on Aug. 6 are former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.) and Dr. Sherry ODonnell.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
2024 Election Latest: Harris urges people to vote as campaign heats up, Trump meets with Netanyahu

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama have endorsed Kamala Harris in her White House bid, giving the vice president the expected but still crucial backing of the nations two most popular Democrats.

The endorsement comes a day after Harris and President Joe Biden each met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Meanwhile, Donald Trump met with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Friday. Its the first time in nearly four years that Trump and Netanyahu have met.

Follow the APs Election-2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here's the Latest:

FBI says Trump was indeed struck by a bullet during the assassination attempt

The FBI says former President Trump was struck in the ear by a bullet as it moved to clarify what happened after nearly two weeks of confusion and conflicting accounts.

In a statement issued Friday evening, the FBI said that what struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subjects rifle.

The statement came two days after FBI Director Christopher Wray said during congressional testimony that it was not clear whether Trumps injuries were caused by a bullet or shrapnel.

Rep. Jayapal keeps the party agenda in focus

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says she likes her former House colleague and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as a potential running mate for likely Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, though she notes she is not making a specific endorsement and has not weighed in personally with the vice president as she considers her options.

I think we need somebody whos really pro-labor. I think we need somebody who really gets those Midwestern states, small towns, rural areas, Jayapal said. And I think we need somebody who is 100% on board with the agenda, because at the end of the day, the vice presidential pick is important, but its really the agenda and the ability to convey to working people that we are going to fight for them.

Harriss campaign is vetting about a dozen contenders.

Walzs name has been mentioned publicly but the political conversation has focused more intently on three other Democratic governors  Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania  and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly.

Trump will return to campaign in the city where he survived assassination

Former President Trump says he will be returning to Butler, Pennsylvania  where he narrowly survived an assassination attempt  for a rally to honor those killed and injured when a gunman opened fire earlier this month.

WILL BE GOING BACK TO BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA, FOR A BIG AND BEAUTIFUL RALLY, HONORING THE SOUL OF OUR BELOVED FIREFIGHTING HERO, COREY, AND THOSE BRAVE PATRIOTS INJURED TWO WEEKS AGO, he wrote Friday on his Truth Social network Friday. WHAT A DAY IT WILL BE.

Beshear gets a warm embrace in flood-stricken parts of Kentucky where he and Trump are both popular

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear is one of several Democrats who is said to be in consideration as Vice President Kamala Harris running mate. Beshear has proven his small-town political appeal in a region that doesnt hide its allegiance to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Beshear is making several stops in eastern Kentucky on Friday to discuss progress in the recovery from a massive flood from two years ago.

While Beshear narrowly carried those Appalachian counties, Trump won them in landslide fashion four years ago despite losing to Joe Biden, and the Republican leader remains popular there.

Read more about Beshear, who is under consideration to be Harris running mate

Biden administrati on pushing forward with efforts to seal a cease-fire deal

While former President Donald Trump hosted Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, the Biden administration continued efforts to seal a cease-fire deal that will bring home hostages in Gaza.

President Joe Biden is dispatching CIA Director Bill Burns to Rome on Sunday to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials about the ongoing hostage and cease-fire negotiations, according to a U.S. official familiar with his travel plans.

The official, who was not authorized to discuss the CIA directors travel plans and requested anonymity, said Burns would be meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel.

Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is expected to head back to the Mideast next week for talks with regional leaders about the effort to reach a hostage agreement.

___

Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.

Pennsylvania Gov. Shapiro to headline two campaign events in coming days

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, under consideration to become Kamala Harris vice presidential running mate, headlined a rally for the vice president Friday in the premier battleground state organized by the Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council as he ramps up his political activity in support of Harris.

At the rally in northeast Philadelphia, he received some shout-outs  including by Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker  to become Harris running mate while Pennsylvania labor unions released a public letter backing him for vice president.

Shapiros social media handles are actively boosting Harris against Republican Donald Trump and the governor will headline two more campaign events for the vice president in the coming days.

On Saturday, Shapiro will kick off a volunteer canvassing drive in Carlisle, about 25 miles west of the state capital of Harrisburg. Then on Monday, Shapiro will lead a rally with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer  who is also on Harris shortlist for a vice president pick  in Montgomery County, near Shapiros home in a heavily populated and heavily Democratic suburb of Philadelphia.

Shapiro  who, like Harris, was attorney general of his state  has known Harris since both were selected in 2006 to become Aspen Institute fellows.

Rep. Jackson takes issue with suggestion Trump was hit by something other than a bullet

Former White House doctor Ronny Jackson is taking issue with suggestions that former President Donald Trump may have been hit with something other than a bullet when he was injured in this months assassination attempt.

In a new letter, Jackson, a Trump ally who now represents Texas in Congress, says the GOP nominee was initially evaluated and treated for a Gunshot Wound to the Right Ear at Butler Memorial Hospital, where he was rushed after the shooting.

Having served as an Emergency Medicine physician for over 20 years in the United States Navy, including as a combat physician on the battlefield in Iraq, he wrote, I have treated many gunshot wounds in my career. Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors at nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting.

No records from the hospital have been publicly released.

Testifying before Congress Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said there was some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.

But Jackson said, that There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet and said Wray was wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.

Netanyahu and his wife arrive at Mar-a-Lago

Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu have arrived at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump stood outside to greet them.

Come on in, Trump said as the prime minister walked up the steps, according to a video posted online by a Trump aide.

Trump shook his hand and the three posed for pictures.

As Harris considers a running mate, what are states succession rules for VP candidates?

The 2024 White House campaign has thrust a handful of governors and senators into the mix for vice president. That has drawn attention to rules of succession in the contenders home states should they win.

Each state has its own rules for naming replacements when elected officials leave office. Those rules carry significant political stakes in a year when former President Donald Trump has already selected Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate and Vice President Kamala Harris is considering her own choice for the No. 2 spot on the ticket.

In all cases, the candidates can remain in office while campaigning. But the replacement process differs by state if theyre elected.

Read more about Harris potential running mates

Blinken to celebrate Biden legacy, reassure allies in Asia after president drops out of 2024 race

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make the case for the Biden administrations expanded commitment to Asia and the Indo-Pacific as he visits Laos, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia this week and next.

The trip comes as the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign heats up after a series of bombshell developments upended the race.

Blinken, who has already modified his travel schedule twice since the trip was announced just hours after President Joe Biden made his decision not to seek re-election, arrives in Vientiane, Laos, on Saturday for the annual ASEAN Regional Forum.

The security conference gathers the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and regional powers like China, Australia, Japan, Russia, South Korea and India.

Read more about the secretary of states plans after Biden dropped out of the race

Soda Pop Wars: Kentucky governor apologizes for barb  but not to Sen. JD Vance

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, one of the leading contenders to be Vice President Kamala Harris running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket, apologized this week for something he said in lambasting Ohio Sen. JD Vance as inauthentically Appalachian  but the apology wasnt to Vance.

Beshear, at his regularly scheduled news conference at the Kentucky State Capitol on Thursday, pulled out a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew and apologized to the makers of the soft drink. Earlier in the week, the Republican vice-presidential nominee had said at a rally in Ohio that hed had a Diet Mountain Dew that day and fully expected to be called a racist because of it.

Beshear, in a CNN interview, called the comment weird and added: Who drinks Diet Mountain Dew?

On Thursday he retreated  but only a little bit.

Read more about who  or what  Beshear apologized to here

Whats in a name? Republican VP nominee JD Vance has had many of them

When it comes to Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vances name, its complicated.

The senator from Ohio introduced himself to the world in 2016, when he published his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, under the name J.D. Vance, with periods between the initials for James David. Vance explained it wasnt the first iteration of his name. Over the course of his 39 years, Vances first, middle and last names have all been altered.

As Vance is being introduced to voters across the country as Donald Trumps running mate, his name has been the source of questions, including why he no longer uses periods in JD.

Read more about the different versions of the Republican vice presidential candidates name

Harris makes pre-taped RuPauls Drag Race appearance

Vice President Kamala Harris crashed the season finale of RuPauls Drag Race All Stars, urging Americans to vote in an appearance that was taped before President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid.

The episode caps the series ninth season and is streaming Friday on Paramount+.

It opens with an announcer saying that programming is being interrupted for an extra special Drag Race viewing party.

Hi, everyone. Its Kamala Harris. Each day, were seeing our rights and freedoms under attack, including the right of everyone to be who they are, love who they love  openly and with pride, the vice president says.

Shes seated with actor Cheyenne Jackson and surrounded by other celebrities and stars from the show, Harris continues: So, as we fight back against these attacks, no one is alone.

We are all in this together, and your vote is your power, so please make sure your voice is heard this November and register to vote, the vice president concludes.

That prompts Jackson to proclaim, Can I get an amen? and Harris and others happily cry, Amen!

Harris will carry Bidens economic record into the election. She hopes to turn it into an asset

A key question is looming for Vice President Kamala Harris as she edges closer to gaining the Democratic presidential nomination: Can she turn the Biden-Harris economic record into a political advantage in a way that President Joe Biden failed to do?

In some ways, her task would seem straightforward: The administration oversaw a vigorous rebound from the pandemic recession, one that shrank the U.S. unemployment rate to a half-century low of 3.4% in early 2023.

Yet the cumulative jump in average prices over the past three years  roughly 20%, only partly offset by higher paychecks  has contributed to a general unease about the countrys direction.

Read more about how Bidens economic record could impact Harris campaign

Kamala Harris: A Baptist with a Jewish husband and a faith that traces back to MLK and Gandhi

Black clergy who know Vice President Kamala Harris, now the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, marvel at the fusion of traditions and teachings that have molded her religious faith and social justice values.

A Baptist married to a Jewish man, shes inspired by the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and influenced by the religious traditions of her mothers native India as well as the Black Church.

Religious leaders and theologians say Harris candidacy has special symbolic significance following President Joe Bidens departure from the presidential race. Not only because she would be the nations first woman president, but shes a Black American with South Asian roots and her two cultures are intrinsically linked.

Read more about the religious significance of Harris candidacy

How might Netanyahus visit to the US affect cease-fire efforts?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus visit to the United States comes as negotiations to end the Israel-Hamas war and recover hostages held in Gaza inch forward  with no immediate deal in sight.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States continue to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased cease-fire agreement that would stop the fighting and free the hostages. The negotiations have repeatedly hit obstacles over disputes about the governance of post-war Gaza and how enduring the cease-fire will be.

Netanyahus vowing total victory in Gaza to thunderous congressional applause Wednesday risks inflaming tensions with Hamas at a time when talks are delicate. But he also came under increased U.S. pressure to engage sincerely in cease-fire efforts. Critics say Netanyahu is stalling during negotiations so that he can draw out the war for his own political gain.

A team of Israeli negotiators that was meant to travel to Qatar for another round of talks was held back Thursday and may be dispatched next week.

Read more about how Netanyahus visit might impact the talks

Harris says shes ready to debate Trump and accuses him of backpedaling from Sept. 10 faceoff

Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters on Thursday that shes ready to debate Donald Trump. She accused Trump of backpedaling away from a previous agreement for a debate hosted by ABC News on Sept. 10.

I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on the debate stage, she said after landing at Joint Base Andrews following a trip to Indiana and Texas.

The Sept. 10 debate was one of two debates that President Joe Biden and Trump had agreed on. The first one was hosted by CNN on June 27, but Biden has since dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris as his successor.

Trump has said he would prefer to shift the debate to Fox News, but he would be willing to face off with Harris more than once.

 Read more about a possible debate between Harris and Trump

Harris tries to thread the needle on Gaza after meeting with Netanyahu

Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, is attempting to bridge divides within the party over the war in Gaza, emphasizing Israels right to defend itself while also focusing on alleviating Palestinian suffering.

She delivered remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that reflected a delicate balancing act on one of the countrys most divisive political issues.

Some Democrats have been critical of President Joe Bidens steadfast support for Israel despite the increasing death toll among Palestinians, and Harris is trying to unite her party for the election battle with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies, she said. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.In addition, Harris made a more explicit appeal to voters who have been frustrated by the ceaseless bloodshed, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.To everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you, she said.

 Read more about Harris meeting with the Israeli prime minister

Netanyahu will meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago, mending a years-long rift

As president, Donald Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus top wishes from the United States. Yet by the time Trump left the White House, relations between the two had broken down after Netanyahu rapidly congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory.

On Friday, the two men will meet face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years in a test of whether the relationship can be mended. Both have an interest in getting past their differences.

For Trump and Netanyahu, Fridays meeting at Mar-a-Lago will highlight for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage and can again.

 Read more about the Florida meeting and the rift between the two men

Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Kamala Harris

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama have endorsed Kamala Harris in her White House bid, giving the vice president the expected but still crucial backing of the nations two most popular Democrats.

The endorsement, announced Friday in a video showing Harris accepting a joint phone call from the former first couple, comes as Harris builds momentum as their partys likely nominee after President Joe Bidens decision to end his reelection bid and endorse his second-in-command against Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump.

It also highlights the friendship and potentially historic link between the nations first Black president and the first woman, first Black woman and first person of Asian descent to serve as vice president, who is now vying to break those barriers at the presidential rank.

 Read more about the Obamas endorsement and what it means

Harris campaign joins TikTok

The handle Kamala HQ went live on Tuesday, following President Joe Bidens campaign unveiling its own TikTok account on Super Bowl Sunday in February.

Both used the platform to reach young voters, despite the president signing a law that would force TikToks China-based parent company to sell it or face a U.S. ban.

In her accounts first post, a grinning Harris says into the camera, I thought I would get out here myself.
General Motors will honor the man long behind Chevrolet's iconic Corvette with a special emblem on the cars  starting on 2025 models  to recognize his 31 years of influence on the sports car.

GM announced that news late Thursday, when it revealed the latest Corvette, the 2025 ZR1, at a private event in Miami. The ZR1 now holds the title for the "the most powerful V8 ever produced in America from an auto manufacturer," GM said.

The Corvette ZR1 produces 1,064 horsepower and 828 pound-feet of torque and "more than 1,200 pounds of downforce at top speed," GM said.

GM has not announced pricing for the ZR1 yet, but a July 26 Forbes article states "with the 670 horsepower Z06 costing around $115,000, its realistic to assume a price for the Corvette ZR1 around $150,000. Thats a lot of car for the money, though they wont go for that kind of money. Lets be honest, dealers will charge, and first-on-the-blockers will pay, north of $300,000 for the first ZR1 to hit lots."

Front aerial shot of the Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 coupe in Competition Yellow with optional ZTK Performance Package on the race track. Preproduction model shown. Actual production model may vary.

The vehicle, GM said, is meant to celebrate the career and legacy of Corvette Executive Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter.

In April, GM announced that Juechter, 67, would retire this summer after a 47-year career at GM, 31 years of which were devoted to the Corvette.

Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter accepts the award for the 2020 North American Car of the Year at the TCF Center in Detroit on Monday, Jan. 13, 2020.

Tony Roma, who most recently was the chief engineer for the electric Cadillac Celestiq, succeeded Juechter on July 1. GM said Roma has worked on the Corvette program and Cadillac's performance cars in the past. GM says that Roma is certified to drive on the Nurburgring, where he has accumulated more than 1,500 laps during "industry-pool" sessions. That's when carmakers test their cars during development. In June, Car and Driver reported that Roma raced in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring in a Cupra Leon.

To mark Juechter's influence on the iconic car, GM said it will include a special graphic of Juechter's bust on the rear glass of the 2025 Corvette ZR1 coupe. The graphic will be on the top left of the ZR1s split rear window.

Detail shot of emblem honoring Corvette Executive Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter that will be on 2025 model year Corvettes and beyond.

Tadge made our vehicles and our company better every day that he came to work, for nearly five decades, with his career culminating in the fastest, most powerful Corvette of them all, GM President Mark Reuss said in a statement. ZR1, and all Corvettes that follow, will wear this symbol commemorating his immense contributions and celebrating his legacy forever.

More: GM delays restart of Orion Assembly plant, will reopen it as battery-electric truck plant

More: Survey calls these Ford, Jeep, Alfa Romeo vehicles most appealing in their segments

The icon of appreciation will be on 2025 model year Corvettes and beyond, GM said. It will be on the front windshield glass and front tunnel reinforcement panel beneath every Corvette Stingray, Z06, E-Ray, and ZR1. Juechter follows Zora Arkus-Duntov, Corvettes first chief engineer, who is currently featured on all production Corvette windshields.

Some of the highlights of Juechter's career include his work developing the C7 and C8 Corvettes. The C8 was the first midengine Corvette since the model's introduction in 1953. Under his leadership, the Corvette Stingray was named to Car and Driver's 10 Best Cars list in 2015. In 2019, the Corvette ZR1 was named Road and Track Performance Car of the Year. In 2020, Juechter was named All-Star for product engineering by Automotive News and the Corvette won North American Car of the Year. Most recently, in 2023, Corvette Z06 was named Performance Car of the Year by MotorTrend and Corvette won Car and Driver 10 Best.

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. Read more on General Motors and sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Emblem on 2025 Corvette tribute to Chief Engineer Tadge Juechter
Xi's special representative mourns passing of Nguyen Phu Trong in Vietnam

Xinhua) 08:03, July 26, 2024

HANOI, July 25 (Xinhua) -- As General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping's Special Representative, China's top political advisor Wang Huning led a CPC delegation to Hanoi to mourn the passing of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), on Thursday.

Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also met with Vietnamese President To Lam and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

A respect-paying ceremony was held at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, where Trong's coffin was placed among flowers and draped in a large Vietnamese national flag in a somber atmosphere.

On behalf of Xi and the CPC Central Committee, and in the name of Xi's special representative, Wang laid a wreath, paused to observe a moment of silence before bowing three times to Trong's coffin, conveyed sincere condolences from Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan to Trong's widow Ngo Thi Man, and left a message in the condolence book.

While meeting with the Vietnamese leaders, Wang expressed deep grief over the passing of comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, saying that after learning the sad news, Xi went to the Embassy of Vietnam in China to pay tribute to the late leader, and the CPC Central Committee sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee.

Appointing Wang as Xi's special representative to lead a CPC delegation here for the mourning shows once again the heartfelt grief and sincere condolences of Xi and the CPC Central Committee to the CPV Central Committee and Trong's family. At this special moment, the party and people of China stand firmly with the party and people of Vietnam, Wang said.

Wang noted that Trong is a staunch Marxist, a great leader of the CPV and the Vietnamese people, and a great friend of the Chinese people. His death is a great loss to the cause of socialism in Vietnam and to the cause of peace and progress of mankind.

The Chinese party and government will, as always, support the Vietnamese party in leading its people on a development path suited to their national conditions, and support Vietnam's reform, opening-up and socialist development, Wang said.

It is believed that under the strong leadership of its central committee, the CPV will inherit and develop Trong's philosophy and principles on party and state governance, and unite and lead the Vietnamese people to successfully accomplish the goals and tasks set forth at the 13th National Congress of the CPV and welcome the successful convening of the 14th National Congress of the CPV, Wang added.

Wang said that Xi and Trong have devoted to the development of relations between the two parties and the two countries. Under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-Vietnam relations have maintained steady and sound development and have been lifted to a new height of a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, Wang noted.

He said that China is ready to work with Vietnam to implement the important consensus reached between the two sides during Xi's visit to Vietnam last year, maintain high-level exchanges, deepen practical cooperation in key areas, consolidate the foundation of public support for China-Vietnam friendship, and strengthen multilateral coordination and cooperation, so as to promote the building of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future in a deep, solid, steady and long-term manner, he said.

After the passing of Trong, the CPC Central Committee immediately sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee, the Vietnamese side noted, adding that Xi's visit to the Vietnamese Embassy in China to mourn and sending Wang as his special representative to Vietnam to pay condolences shows the special feelings of the CPC, Chinese government and people towards the CPV, Vietnamese government and people, which deeply moved the Vietnamese side.

The Vietnamese side said that Vietnam is more determined to follow the national development path established by the older generation of leaders and Trong, stressing that China is the only country that has all the priority factors in Vietnam's foreign policy.

Vietnam will keep in mind Trong's entrustment that "so profound is the friendship between Vietnam and China, because we are both comrades and brothers," always give top priority to the development of relations with China, and firmly promote the building of a Vietnam-China community with a shared future that carries strategic significance in accordance with the important consensus reached between Trong and Xi.

The Vietnamese side congratulates the successful holding of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, saying that the plenary session put forward important measures for further deepening reform comprehensively, which will effectively promote China's high-quality development and modernization, and will also provide important reference and impetus for Vietnam to continue to promote the cause of Doi Moi (reform).

During his stay in Hanoi, Wang also met with Esteban Lazo Hernandez, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and president of Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power, who attended the condolence activities.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
Fatima Latifova

The first official event dedicated to Azerbaijan-UK bilateral relations was held on the topic of COP29 in connection with the opening of the new administrative building of Azerbaijan's Embassy in the United Kingdom, Azernews reports.

Attended by the designated President of COP29, Azerbaijan's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Muxtar Babayev, the event also saw the presence of the UK's Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, the UK's Minister for International Climate and Energy, Kerry McCarthy, the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps in the UK Alistair Harrison, President of COP26 and Member of the House of Lords Alok Sharma, the UK Prime Minister's former Trade Envoy for Azerbaijan, Baroness Nicholson, parliamentarians Baroness Uddin, Bob Blackman, Lord McNicol, and other members of the diplomatic corps in the UK. The event was also attended by the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in London, the Ambassador of Honduras to the UK, Ivan Romero Martinez, as well as the Ambassadors of Brazil and the United Arab Emirates, who are part of the COP Presidencies Troika, high-ranking representatives from The City of London, representatives from the Commonwealth Secretariat in London, employees from the UK Foreign Office and the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Gordon Birrell, Vice President for Production and Operations at BP, members of the Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council where the Embassy is located, numerous climate experts working in the UK, and other attendees.

In his speech, Azerbaijan's Ambassador to the UK, Elin Suleymanov, remarked that dedicating the first official event in the new administrative building of Azerbaijan's Embassy in the UK to COP29 is a significant occasion. He highlighted the symbolic importance of the attendance of the designated President of COP29, Azerbaijan's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources Muxtar Babayev, and the UK's Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband. The Ambassador stated that Azerbaijan, which will host COP29 towards the end of the year, is fully focused on climate action and is doing everything possible to advance climate goals that are crucial for the entire world. Suleymanov expressed gratitude to the UK for its unwavering support to Azerbaijan from the very beginning in this important endeavour.

Elin Suleymanov also thanked the UK for the hospitality shown by Prime Minister Keir Starmer to the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, during the European Political Community summit held in Oxford a few days earlier, as well as for the cordial meeting between UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. The Ambassador appreciated the UK's efforts to contribute to the normalisation process between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Following Ambassador Suleymanov, the designated President of COP29, Azerbaijan's Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources, Muxtar Babayev, spoke. He referred to the recent working visit of Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev to the UK to participate in the European Political Community summit, emphasising that the event dedicated to COP29 held in Azerbaijan's new Embassy building in the UK also highlighted the bilateral friendship. Babayev noted London's significant role as a centre for climate action and mentioned his meetings and participation in events during his visit to the UK for the London Climate Action Week at the end of June. He spoke about his meeting with ambassadors of small island states at the Commonwealth Secretariat's headquarters, highlighting Azerbaijan's close cooperation with the organisation to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change in these countries. Babayev thanked the UK, which hosted COP26, for its vital partnership and support towards the successful organisation of COP29 in Azerbaijan. During his current visit to London, Babayev mentioned that he would hold official meetings with the private sector and financial institutions to discuss the sustainable markets initiative and talked about Azerbaijan's efforts and initiatives within the COP29 framework.

The UK's Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, expressed his honour to participate in the first official event in the new building of Azerbaijan's Embassy in the UK. Miliband emphasised the importance of COP events in bringing countries together to combat climate change and promote green development globally. He underscored the significance of continuing the measures agreed upon at previous COP meetings and reaching an important agreement on climate finance at COP29 to achieve climate goals. Miliband highlighted the importance of supporting countries most affected by climate problems and reiterated the UK's readiness to provide all necessary support to ensure the successful outcome of COP29 and closely partner with Azerbaijan.

During the event, the original copy of the invitation letter from President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to Prime Minister Keir Starmer to participate in COP29 was ceremoniously presented to Ed Miliband, the UK's Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

The official representative of the Lord Mayor of The City of London, Alderman Greg Jones, also spoke at the event, expressing The City's readiness to support the successful organisation of COP29.

The event continued with a reception.

It is noteworthy that this event, held in connection with the opening of the new building of Azerbaijan's Embassy in the UK, marked the first time a high-ranking official from the UK Cabinet, the Secretary of State, participated in an event at Azerbaijan's Embassy in the UK.




DENVER (KDVR)  A 21-year-old was arrested in Westminster after a deadly shooting.

On Thursday at around 4:30 p.m., Westminster Police Department officers responded to calls about a shooting at a house in the 3200 block of West 81st Avenue. The neighborhood sits at the corner of Bishop Square Park.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

When officers arrived at the home, they found a male suffering from a gunshot wound. Officers said they rendered aid until medics arrived and transported the male to a local hospital. However, the victim was pronounced dead.

Police investigate shots fired call in West Denver

Westminster police said all involved in the shooting remained on scene. Fernando Arturo Gomez-Cordero, 21, was taken into custody on a manslaughter charge.

The identity of the victim will be released by the Adams County Coroners Office.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX31 Denver.
DELAWARE, Ohio (WCMH)  A proposal to build a 230-acre development in Delaware that residents previously said will aggravate the central Ohio traffic nightmare has moved another step forward.

Metro Development is aiming to build a neighborhood named Northwood with 1,168 homes across 230.67 acres at the northwest corner of State Route 521 and the Byxbe Parkway roundabout. The Delaware Planning Commission approved a subdivision plat on July 17 to split the 230-acre site into three separate properties, given the development will be home to three subareas with different development teams.

Mixed-use development pitched again for site bordering Dublin cemetery

However, the developments last review by the planning commission in December received pushback from Delaware residents like Philip Taraska, who argued that State Route 521 is insufficient to support the development. Taraska said an extension of Byxbe Parkway through Northwood will only add to the traffic congestion and make things worse.

Delaware is known as a central Ohio traffic nightmare, said Taraska. The city of Delaware is expanding at an unhealthy pace and with insufficient infrastructure to support it.

Metro Development is aiming to build a new neighborhood named Northwood with 1,168 homes across 230.67 acres. (Courtesy Photo/Delaware Planning Commission)

Metro Development is aiming to build a new neighborhood named Northwood with 1,168 homes across 230.67 acres. (Courtesy Photo/Delaware Planning Commission)

Metro Development is aiming to build a new neighborhood named Northwood with 1,168 homes across 230.67 acres. (Courtesy Photo/Delaware Planning Commission)

Plans call for Northwoods Subarea A to contain up to 260 multi-family units in three-story walkup buildings on 22.88 acres. The buildings would have one to three-bedroom units ranging from 680 to 1,200 square feet. A clubhouse with an outdoor pool would also be constructed in this section.

Subarea B would be constructed by M/I Homes and include up to 257 single-family homes on 124 acres, and would also feature a clubhouse. One-story homes with a minimum of 1,400 square feet and two-story homes with a minimum of 1,700 square feet are proposed for this section.

See map view of what John Glenn airport will look like in 2029

Northwoods Subarea C would include up to 451 multi-family units in either single-story buildings or two-story townhomes across 83.38 acres. The structures would house two to eight units with one to three bedrooms ranging from 800 to 1,200 square feet. The third area would also feature a clubhouse.

Sylvia DiGuilio, a resident of the neighborhood to the west of the site, said during the December meeting the proposals multi-family units would worsen traffic congestion. DiGuilio said she and her neighbors agree that the way to reduce high-density traffic is to eliminate the building of all apartments in the area.

This is like adding fuel to the fire, it cannot happen, said DiGuilio. If you plan to proceed with these apartments, knowing full well that all of us are against it, it will prove to us that our city does not care what matters to the people.

Delaware County growth spurs infrastructure investments

David Gaines, another local resident, said the volume of rental properties in the area is concerning and argued apartment tenants are not invested in the neighborhood. Gaines said he moved to the area because he wanted to live in a small community

I grew up in apartments, and theyre depressing as hell, said Gaines. I think this project will change the dynamic of the area we live in, and I would strongly encourage not approving this 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 NBC4 WCMH-TV.
3 charged with murder, arson and financial crimes in connection with death of Chicago firefighter

CHICAGO  Cook County prosecutors have charged three men with murder, arson and financial crimes in connection with the death of a Chicago firefighter last year while battling a blaze on the Far South Side.

Martez Cristler, 22, of Hammond, Indiana, and Nicholas Virgil, 37, of Riverdale, are charged with murder and arson. Anthony Moore, 47, of Blue Island, is charged with wire fraud, insurance fraud and forgery.

On April 4, 2023, Jermaine Pelt, 49, was called to a frame house at 12015 S. Wallace St. in the West Pullman neighborhood, where a heavy fire was on the second floor and in the attic. He died of smoke inhalation.

Records from the Cook County Clerks Office and Illinois Secretary of State show that a company registered to Moore bought the property at 12017 S. Wallace in 2021.

Moores arrest report lists State Farm Insurance as the victim in the incident.

A Tribune reporter spoke with Moore last year shortly after the fire, and he said he was in the process of rehabbing the property as a rental unit.

Moore previously told the Tribune that he received several phone calls from a neighbor across the street who told him his building caught fire after the blaze spread from the property to the north.

I couldnt see what was going on because everything was going up in flames when I got there, Moore told the Tribune a few hours after the fire. Its a nightmare. Ive been working to finally get it (the property) together and just keep on moving, you know, get some tenants in there and keep going.

Though both the Fire Department and Moore said the fire started at 12015 S. Wallace, the owner of that property told the Tribune last year that he believed the blaze started in Moores building.

They probably got the address wrong, the neighbor said at the time. If it started in my building, how (did the other) building burn up, but mine didnt?

Pelt was born and raised in the West Pullman neighborhood, the same area where he served as a firefighter. He walked his only daughter down the aisle months before he was killed, family members said.

He had a devotion to this job and this neighborhood, said Capt. Rory Ohse after his death.

____
A federal three-judge panel approved a new Michigan Senate map Friday after it previously struck down several metro Detroit voting districts as illegal because the state's redistricting commission drew the lines predominantly based on race, the court found.

How many districts changed?

In 2022, a group of metro Detroit voters challenged Michigan's state legislative maps in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan.

The panel presiding over that case invalidated seven state House districts and six state Senate districts, finding that the mappers drew them based on race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment. The panel did not rule on allegations leveled by the voters who sued the commission that the maps denied Black voters the opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.

While Michigan's redistricting commission was only ordered to redraw six state Senate districts, it changed eight other metro Detroit districts near the ones invalidated by the panel.

The new map does not put together in the same district any incumbents eligible to seek reelection to the state Senate in 2026.

The court previously approved a new state House map redrawing several Detroit-based state House districts that will be used for the first time in the upcoming Aug. 6 primary.

How did the composition of the districts change?

Here's a look at the new districts and the incumbent lawmakers eligible to seek another term in the 2026 election:

Senate District 1: Includes part of Detroit, along with Ecorse, Lincoln Park, River Rouge and Wyandotte.

Senate District 2: Includes parts of Detroit and Taylor, along with Allen Park, Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Melvindale.

Senate District 3: Includes part of Detroit, along with all of Hamtramck and Highland Park.

Senate District 4: Includes parts of Taylor and Westland, along with all of Belleville, Flat Rock, Gibraltar, Huron Township, Riverview, Rockwood, Romulus, Southgate, Sumpter Township, Trenton, Van Buren Township, Wayne and Woodhaven. State Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, lives in this district.

Senate District 5: Includes part of Westland and all of Canton, Garden City, Inkster, Plymouth and Plymouth Township.

Senate District 6: Includes part of Detroit and all of Redford Township. State Sen. Mary Cavanagh, D-Redford Township, lives in this district.

Senate District 7: Includes part of Waterford Township and all of Auburn Hills, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Lake Angelus, Lathrup Village, Pontiac, Southfield and Southfield Township.

Senate District 8: Includes most of Novi, along with all of Farmington, Farmington Hills, Livonia, Northville and Northville Township. State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, lives in this district.

Senate District 9: Includes parts of Shelby Township and Sterling Heights, along with all of Rochester, Rochester Hills, Troy and Utica. State Sen. Michael Webber, R-Rochester Hills, lives in this district

Senate District 10: Includes part of Warren, along with all of Berkley, Center Line, Clawson, Ferndale, Hazel Park, Huntington Woods, Madison Heights, Oak Park, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak and Royal Oak Township. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, lives in this district.

Senate District 11: Includes parts of Clinton Township, Sterling Heights and Warren, along with all of Eastpointe, Fraser and Roseville. State Sen. Veronica Klinefelt, D-Eastpointe, lives in this district.

Senate District 13: Includes parts of Novi and Waterford Township, along with all of Commerce Township, Keego Harbor, Lyon Township, Milford Township, Orchard Lake Village, South Lyon, Sylvan Lake, Walled Lake, West Bloomfield Township and Wixom. State Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-West Bloomfield, lives in this district.

Senate District 23: Includes part of Waterford Township, along with all of Addison Township, Almont Township, Atlas Township, Clarkston, Brandon Township, Dryden Township, Hadley Township, Highland Township, Independence Township, Metamora Township, Oakland Township, Orion Township, Oxford Township and Rose Township.

Senate District 24: Includes parts of Clinton and Shelby townships, along with all of Bruce Township, Macomb Township, Ray Township and Washington Township.

The state Senate map approved by the court creates two new majority-Black districts where none existed in the old map. One  District 3  includes Detroit's east side, along with Hamtramck and Highland Park. The other  District 6  includes west side Detroit neighborhoods and Redford Township.

Michigan Redistricting: Redistricting commission picks new state Senate map for court review

Is the new Michigan Senate map fair?

Michigan voters in 2018 changed the process for drawing congressional and state legislative districts after politicians held the pen and drew some of the most politically skewed maps in the country, according to national redistricting experts.

Under the new system, the group of randomly selected voters in Michigan chosen to serve on the state's redistricting commission must draw fair lines that don't provide a disproportionate advantage to one political party.

The new map approved by the court has a slightly stronger bias in favor of Republicans, according to two of the measures of partisan fairness the commission used to evaluate its maps. But another measure shows a small bump in favor of Democrats under the new map.

In 2022  the first election held under maps drawn by the commission  Democrats won a majority for the first time in 40 years.

Free Press apprentice Jaxson Kaplan-Rudolph contributed to this report. Contact Clara Hendrickson at chendrickson@freepress.com or 313-296-5743. Follow her on X, previously called Twitter, @clarajanehen.

Looking for more on Michigans elections this year? Check out our voter guide, subscribe to our elections newsletter and always feel free to share your thoughts in a letter to the editor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Court approves redistricting commission's new Michigan Senate map


"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links."



Scattered across an abyssal plain known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) are polymetallic nodules that are a potato-sized prize for mining companies in search of materials needed for humanity's green energy transition.

A new study analyzing these modules reveals that these rocky lumps are capable of producing dark oxygen 4,000 meters below sea level where light cannot reach.

While this discovery could upend our understanding of how life started on Earth, the study also complicates negotiations around deep-sea mining regulations as it showcases how little we really know about the oceans depths.

Nestled between Hawaii and the western coast of Mexico lies the Pacific Oceans Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), a 4.5 million-kilometer-square area of abyssal plain bordered by the Clarion and Clipperton Fracture Zones. Although this stretch of sea is a vibrant ecosystem filled with marine life, the CCZ is known best for its immense collection of potato-sized rocks known as polymetallic nodules. These rocks, of which there are potentially trillions, are filled with rich deposits of nickel, manganese, copper, zinc, cobalt. Those particular metals are vital for the batteries needed to power a green energy future, leading some mining companies to refer to nodules as a battery in a rock.

However, a new study reports that these nodules might be much more than simply a collection of valuable materials for electric carsthey also produce oxygen 4,000 meters below the surface where sunlight can't reach. This unexpected source of dark oxygen, as its called, redefines the role these nodules play in the CZZ. The rocks could also rewrite the script on not only how life began on this planet, but also its potential to take hold on other worlds within our Solar System, such as Enceladus or Europe. The results of this study were published in the journal Nature Geoscience .

For aerobic life to begin on the planet, Andrew Sweetman, deep-sea ecologist with the Scottish Association for Marine Science and lead author of the study said in a press statement , there had to be oxygen and our understanding has been that Earths oxygen supply began with photosynthetic organisms. But we now know that there is oxygen produced in the deep sea, where there is no light. I think we therefore need to revisit questions like: where could aerobic life have begun?

The journey toward this discovery began more than a decade ago when Sweetman began analyzing how oxygen levels decreased further into the depths of the ocean. So it came as a surprise in 2013 when sensors returned increased levels of oxygen in the CCZ. At the time, Sweetman dismissed the data as the result of faulty sensors, but future studies showed that this abyssal plain somehow produced oxygen. Taking note of the nodules battery in a rock tagline, Sweetman wondered if the minerals found in these nodules were somehow acting as a kind of geobattery by separating hydrogen and oxygen via seawater electrolysis.

A 2023 study showed that various bacteria and archaea can create dark oxygen, so Sweetman and his team recreated the conditions of the CCZ in a laboratory and killed off any microorganisms with mercury chloridesurprisingly, oxygen levels continued rising. According to Scientific American, Sweetman found a voltage of roughly 0.95 volts on the surface of these nodules, likely charging up as they grow with different deposits growing irregularly throughout, and this natural charge is enough to split the seawater.

This discovery adds more fuel to the already-fiery debate over what to do with these nodules. Mining outfits like the Metals Company, the CEO of which coined the phrase battery in a rock, sees these nodules as the answer to our energy problems. However, 25 countries want the governing bodythe International Seabed Authority (ISA) Councilto implement a moratorium, or at the very least a precautionary pause, so more research can be conducted to see how mining these nodules could affect the ocean. This is especially vital considering that the world's seas are already facing a litany of climate challenges, including acidification, deoxygenation, and pollution.

In response to this discovery, Scripps Institution of Oceanographys Lisa Levin, who wasnt involved with the study, highlighted why such a moratorium is so important for protecting these deep-sea nodules in a comment to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition:

This is an excellent example of what it means to have the deep ocean as a frontier, a relatively unexplored part of our planet. There are still new processes to discover that challenge what we know about life in our ocean. The production of oxygen at the seafloor by polymetallic nodules is a new ecosystem function that needs to be considered when assessing the impact of deep-sea mining. These findings underscore the importance of furthering independent deep-sea scientific research across the global ocean in order to inform deep-ocean policy.

The ISA is still negotiating with key players on deep-sea mining regulations and met for two weeks to discuss new elements of the negotiation in Aprilthat council will operate on a roadmap for further work until the end of July 2024.

So while the future of the worlds oceans is approaching a critical moment of conservation or exploitation, science has proven once again that disrupting these ecosystems could have consequences we cant even imagine.



You Might Also Like
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

Credit: Skopp (China), public domain (Russia)

The U.S. has placed bans and sanctions on Russia, preventing it from acquiring the latest American chips. Despite that, Russian weapons in the Ukrainian battlefields still contain semiconductors from AMD, Texas Instruments, Micron, and Intel. According to a New York Times report, these chips were shipped to Russian corporations by several suppliers, many of which are based in one Hong Kong addressRoom 704 at 135 Bonham Stand, located near Hong Kongs financial district.

The New York Times investigated nearly 800,000 shipments of restricted goods from 2022 until 2024. It discovered that over 6,000 companies sent almost $4 billion worth of sanctioned goods, and banned chips entered Russia through Hong Kong, China, Turkey, India, Serbia, and Singapore.

While American chip manufacturing companies comply with U.S. export controls, they cannot track the final destination of all their products. Thats because even though the U.S. manufactures leading-edge chips, theyre usually ordered in large numbers by electronics assembly firms, which turn them into a final product. Many of these companies are based in China, the worlds leading consumer electronics maker. However, these firms could also sell these chips to Russia, especially as the country remains friendly to Russia despite its invasion of Ukraine.

Chinas Ministry of Foreign Affairs denies sending weapons or military equipment to both parties in the Ukraine war. It said in a statement, What the United States should do is reflect on its responsibility for the Ukraine crisis rather than shirking responsibility to China. However, the advanced semiconductors that Russia is using for its missiles can also be used in civilian and consumer applications, making it difficult to track which chips will be used for military applications.

The tide has shifted, says economist Elina Rebikova for Washington think tank Peterson Institute for International Economics. We have lost control of chip production.

One address, three companies

The investigation revealed three companies based at 135 Bonham Stand sold American chips to Russian entities: Saril Overseas, Kvantek, and Superchip. These three corporations sent 15 million dollars worth of chip shipments to Russian companies.

One of the recipients of these shipments, Staut, a known Russian military electronics supplier, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in July 2023. The companies listed at the Hong Kong address immediately began making changes. In a few months, most of their shipments will go to Leningrad Microwaves and ChipDevice.

The listed person who controls Saril Overseas, Alexey Chichenev, said he does not know who is behind the company. You see, it is a friend of my friend in Moscow, so they asked me to help them, says Alexey. He claims that the entity was used because he was already living in Hong Kong and working as the director of a different corporation and that he wasnt a tech expert, merely someone moving chips from the U.S. and Taiwan into China.

Several other individuals involved with the listed shell corporations at Bonham Stand were contacted, but none responded. It shows how difficult it is for the U.S. to enforce its bans and sanctions, with entities finding ways around them. Nevertheless, doing so at least makes it more difficult and expensive for Russia to acquire the chips it needs to continue its war in Ukraine.
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  Four teenagers were injured Thursday in a lightning strike, according to St. Petersburg fire officials.

Lightning struck a popular banyan tree at about 5:45 p.m. in the area of 3rd Street and Beach Drive. There were four people under the tree at the time.

A girl was in cardiac arrest and was taken to Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital, officials said. Medics were able to get her pulse back as they arrived at the hospital.

A male was hospitalized in what was described as stable condition.

A boy and a girl were taken to Johns Hopkins All Childrens Hospital. The boy suffered burns from the lightning strike and is considered stable. The girl was also considered stable.

According to St. Pete Fire Rescue, the patients included two 16-year-old girls, a 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy.

No other details were immediately 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 WFLA.
4 indicted for roles in January assault that led to 2 deaths

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB)  Four people have been indicted for their roles in an alleged gang assault in January that left two people dead, the Erie County District Attorneys Office said Friday.

Four people  20-year-old Jaylin Scott, 22-year-old James White, Jr., 42-year-old Teffany Nance, all of Buffalo, and 25-year-old LaShawn Taylor, of Tonawanda, are alleged to have played a role in the assault.

Courtesy: Erie County District Attorneys Office

Courtesy: Erie County District Attorneys Office

White is accused of shooting and killing 29-year-old David Honer and 24-year-old John DeShon Gibson during the assault on the morning of Jan. 2. He was previously indicted on one count of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He was indicted this week on an additional charge of second-degree gang assault.

Scott, Nance and Taylor were all indicted this week on the same gang assault charge. Nance is the mother of Scott.

If convicted of the murder charge, White faces a maximum of life in prison without parole. Scott, Nance and Taylor face up to 15 years in prison.

All four are being held without bail.

Latest Local News

Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo.
FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. (WFXR) Sherman Dale Mason, the man identified as the victim in a fatal crash in Franklin County on Wednesday, was a firefighter and member of the Henry Volunteer Fire Department.

Company Chief Scott Cowen from the volunteer fire department released this statement on Facebook on Wednesday:

Its with great sadness that I have to announce the loss of one of our Departments long time firefighters and treasurer, Dale Mason, in a tragic accident today. Dale was a huge asset not only to our department but also to our community and will be sorely missed by all. Please keep Dales wife, children, and family members in your thoughts and prayers throughout this difficult time. I will provide arrangements when they are available. -Chief Scott Cowen

There are no updates on the investigation at this time. WFXR News will update this story as further information is released.



FRANKLIN COUNTY, Va. (WFXR) Virginia State Police reports a 43-year-old man was killed in a multi-vehicle crash on Sontag Road on Wednesday, July 24.

According to state police, a 2004 Chevrolet Tahoe was traveling east on Sontag Road at 6:30 a.m. when the vehicle crossed the center line and side-swiped a 1996 Jeep Cherokee. The impact caused the Cherokee to then hit a 2001 Pontiac Sunfire head-on.

State Police report the driver of the Pontiac, identified as 43-year-old Sherman Dale Mason of Penhook, died at the scene. Mason reportedly was not wearing his seatbelt.

Driver in Rt. 613 vehicle fire hospitalized with serious injuries, VSP reports

The other two drivers involved in the crash were not injured.

VSP says charges are pending for the driver of the Chevrolet.

This crash remains under investigation. WFXR News will update this story as further information is released.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, July 26. Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan signed the final protocol of the sixth meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technical and Humanitarian Cooperation, held from July 24 through 25, 2024 in Cholpon-Ata city, Trend reports.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, the Turkmen delegation was headed by the Minister of Energy of Turkmenistan Annageldi Saparov, the Kyrgyz delegation was headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, Minister of Water Resources, Agriculture and Processing Industry of Kyrgyzstan Bakyt Torobayev.

During the meeting, the parties also held a ceremony of exchanging signed documents in the field of electricity imports from Turkmenistan to Kyrgyzstan for 2025.

At the meeting, the delegations discussed a wide range of issues related to the development of cooperation between Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan in the energy sector, while emphasizing the positive nature of mutually beneficial cooperation between the two countries.

Furthermore, the parties also noted the need to deepen cooperation in the fields of energy, agriculture, culture, tourism, and sports.

Meanwhile, the cooperation between Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan has significantly developed over recent years, driven by mutual interests in economic, cultural, and political spheres.

Both countries have actively engaged in enhancing trade relations, focusing on energy, agriculture, and transportation sectors, with high-level visits and bilateral agreements strengthening their partnership and promoting regional stability and growth.
WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  Police said a man was charged in connection to a deadly stabbing that happened in Northeast, D.C. on June 18.

Shortly after 4 p.m., officers with the Metropolitan Police Department were called to the 5200 block of Foote Street, NE to investigate a stabbing.

MPD searching for man accused of hitting officer with object during DC protest

At the scene, police found 60-year-old Gary Ronald Day of Southeast, D.C., who had been stabbed multiple times.

Police said he was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries but later died.

After a weeks-long investigation, detectives arrested 49-year-old Ronald Lamont Levi of Northeast, DC on July 26. He was charged with Second Degree Murder while Armed.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Which 5 Georgia universities have the most alcohol violations?

Channel 2 Action News examined Clery Act data from the five largest schools in the states university system to learn which ones had the most reported liquor law violations.

Clery Act data is reported to the federal government and requires all campus crime data to be reported to the federal government and remain public.

The University of Georgia is the institution with the most reported liquor law violations over the past three years, among Georgias public colleges and universities.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Among all of the states universities, the University of Georgia had the highest amount of violations, totaled from 2020 to 2022, the most recent years available for review. Of the five universities with the largest amount of reported violations, only Georgia Southern University was outside of the metro Atlanta area.

Channel 2s Christian Jennings was in Athens Friday, where UGS students said they are not surprised. Students said they feel like the university does what it can to curb the issue, but that with all the bars and such an expansive nightlife just steps from campus, its hard.

It does not surprise me, Conner Thompson said. Athens is known for its downtown bars being so close to campus.

A UGA spokesperson said 35% of the violations that were reported were committed by non UGA students He also said the university offers a range of incentives to educate students about alcohol. The program is called Alcohol Edu, an online, mandatory alcohol education for all incoming first-year and transfer students.

The next set of data for Georgias universities and colleges will be published on Oct. 1.

From 2020 to 2022, UGA reported nearly 700 liquor law violation referrals, with the Georgia Institute of Technology taking second place all three years.

TRENDING STORIES:

While the violations are sources of potential disciplinary action on campus, having high numbers of violation referrals doesnt mean all of the reports ended in arrests.

However, based on the data, UGAs number of arrests per year more than doubled each year from 2020 to 2022.

Heres how the data breaks down among the top five biggest universities in Georgia for those three years, and how many arrests.

UGA - Total from 2020-2022: 689 (193 arrests) Georgia Tech - Total from 2020-2022: 576 (1 arrest) Georgia Southern - Total from 2020-2022: 413 (73 arrests) KSU - Total from 2020-2022: 410 (28 arrests) GSU - Total from 2020-2022: 275 (9 arrests)

For 2020, heres how many liquor violation referrals each university had, and how many arrests:

UGA - In 2020: 195 (27 arrests) Georgia Tech - In 2020: 239 (0 arrests) KSU - In 2020: 180 (11 arrests) Georgia Southern - In 2020: 120 (29 arrests) GSU - In 2020: 90 (3 arrests)

For 2021, heres how many liquor violation referrals each university had, and how many arrests:

UGA - In 2021: 238 (55 arrests) Georgia Tech - In 2021: 177 (1 arrest) Georgia Southern - In 2021: 144 (23 arrests) KSU - In 2021: 141 (7 arrests) GSU - In 2021: 87 (5 arrests)

For 2022, heres how many liquor violation referrals each university had, and how many arrests:

UGA - In 2022: 256 (111 arrests) Georgia Tech - In 2022: 160 (0 arrests) Georgia Southern - In 2022: 149 (21 arrests) GSU - In 2022: 98 (1 arrest) KSU - In 2022: 89 (10 arrests)

The Clery Act data did not go into detail on what the ages of the students involved were, as far as if the violations involved underage drinking only, or if it focused on any type of violation, such as on dry areas of campus.

The Clery Act is a part of the statutory requirements of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1978, which were added to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

UGA responded to this story with the following statement:

In compliance with the Clery Act, University of Georgia Police enforce liquor law violations that occur within its jurisdiction, defined as the violation of laws prohibiting the manufacture, sale, purchase, transportation, possession or use of alcoholic beverages.

35 percent of the violations reported under Clery were committed by non-UGA students. We do not take this matter lightly. The university has a wide range of initiatives that educate students about alcohol and promote responsible decision-making. These initiatives include:

 Alcohol Edu, on-line mandatory alcohol education for all incoming first-year and transfer students.

 The John Fontaine, Jr. Center for Alcohol Awareness and Education, which promotes an environment that supports responsible decision-making regarding alcohol and other drug use, on campus and in the community. The center provides a comprehensive range of evidence-based prevention, early intervention and recovery support services to the UGA community.

 A Collegiate Recovery Community for students who have made a commitment to lead sober, healthy lives. The Collegiate Recovery Community provides an environment where students recovering from addiction can find peer support as well as other recovery support services while navigating their own college experience.

 The Student Conduct and Health Promotion mentor program, which promotes student success and persistence by pairing at-risk students with a faculty and/or staff member who assist these students in making progress.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

IN OTHER NEWS:
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

Boeing's Starliner docked at the International Space Station during Crew Flight Test in July 2024. | Credit: NASA

Boeing's Starliner will do a "hot fire" test in orbit soon, as NASA and the company continue to probe the cause of thruster failures and a helium leak in space.

Starliner will conduct the test-fire of its 28-thruster reaction control system (RCS) on either Saturday (July 27) or Sunday (July 28) at the International Space Station (ISS), NASA and Boeing announced in a press conference today (July 25). Only 27 of the RCS thrusters will be used, however, as one previously was deemed unusable for the flight home.

Commands will be done from the ground, although NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams  the astronauts flying on Starliner's current mission, known as Crew Flight Test (CFT)  will likely join, due to their interest as former U.S. Navy test test pilots.

"We're going to fire all those thrusters to a number of pulses, just to make sure before we undock, that whole system performs the way we expected and the way it did last time we checked it," Steve Stich, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, told reporters in a livestreamed press conference.

"We'll also get a chance to look at the helium system," he added. "It's been six weeks since we last checked that helium system; that was on June 15. So we'll pressurize manifold by manifold, and then hot-fire the thrusters, and then we'll get a chance to look at the helium leak rates and verify that the system is stable."

CFT had been initially manifested to last about 10 days after launching on June 5, but faced thruster problems and helium leaks before safely docking with the ISS the next day. So the mission has been indefinitely extended while engineers troubleshoot the problem.

Related: When will Starliner come home? Boeing and NASA still don't know

Following ground tests at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico in early July, engineers now have more insight as to what happened during the difficult docking.

For example, an Aerojet Rocketdyne test MR-104J test thruster similar to those aboard Starliner, which had been in storage for three years prior to the recent ground work, experienced "severe degradation" in its valve system from nitrogen dioxide vapor; propellant flow was restricted due to bulging in a seal, Stich said. Engineers also found Teflon stuck in a downstream filter, suggesting erosion in a seal due to "bubbling" under high temperature.

The behavior of Starliner RCS thrusters in orbit seems to match what is being observed on the ground, Stich noted. The thruster type, he told Space.com during the press conference, "has heritage" from other spaceflight programs at Aerojet (an L3Harris company), but was modified for Starliner's service module, where the RCS thrusters and propulsion system are housed.

a control panel in a spacecraft with astronaut suni williams beside it

"I think what we are now starting to understand much better on this mission  and we would not have understood this by just staying on the ground and doing more analysis and test  is we understand the integrated effects between how the guidance, navigation and control system [and] the flight control system during rendezvous is commanding the thrusters to fire," Stich said.

A surrounding "doghouse" around each RCS thruster group insulates and protects the thrusters from the cold temperatures of space. (There are four doghouses on the service module in total.) What CFT has shown is that a number of RCS thruster pulses in a short time, on top of firings with the orbital maneuvering and attitude control system (OMAC), causes RCS thruster temperatures to increase more than expected.

Related: 'I'm sure we'll find things out': NASA astronauts fly to launch site for 1st crewed Boeing Starliner mission to ISS (photos)

Stich said that it's possible the problem could be addressed not by a design change, but by changing the ways in which the thrusters are used in flight (such as firing them less frequently). Discussions are ongoing at the most senior agency levels, he emphasized; NASA plans an agency-level review on CFT as early as next week, and the agency's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel will also be invited to it, he said.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has been working closely with Boeing throughout the mission, added Boeing Commercial Crew Program Manager Mark Nappi. Discussions are ongoing as to how to address the issue. New seals might be put in, for example. For the thrusters, Boeing may ask future crews to fly a different profile to the ISS or "put different thermal protection inside the doghouse," Nappi said today.

a cone-shaped spacecraft attached to modules of a space station in space

Test missions like CFT commonly face the unexpected, and Starliner was always rated to leave the ISS in case of emergency. CFT astronauts Wilmore and Williams participated in orbital troubleshooting in June before being retasked to ISS maintenance duties for what has now been a 50-day mission (and counting).

NASA also extended CFT's initial limit in space past 45 days, saying the battery performance (which initially informed the limit) was doing better than expected in orbit. In today's briefing, Stich said the mission has now been officially rated for 90 days, or to Sept. 3 (although landing timing has not yet been firmed up.)

Understanding the root causes of the thruster and helium issues in the RCS, which controls maneuvers in orbit, is important for future Starliner missions. Following CFT, the Starliner-1 mission with at least three astronauts is supposed to spend six months on the ISS no earlier than 2025.

Starliner is one of two private U.S. spacecraft that sends astronauts to the ISS, along with SpaceX's Crew Dragon. Crew Dragon, flying crews since May 2020, is based upon SpaceX's cargo Dragon that has been to space repeatedly since 2012. Starliner, as a new spacecraft, faced development challenges after its first spaceflight.

a white space capsule is seen docked to the international space station, with a seaside desert landscape beneath it

Starliner's initial ISS launch without astronauts, in December 2019, never reached its destination due to computer problems that kept the spacecraft in the wrong orbit. The follow-up uncrewed mission reached its destination, but that took place in May 2022, after the COVID-19 pandemic erupted and dozens of fixes were implemented. (The 2022 docking also had thruster issues, which NASA thought it had addressed for CFT.)

CFT was delayed in 2023 after flammable tape was found in Starliner's wiring, and engineers discovered the parachutes could carry less load than expected. For months, the mission appeared on track for a May 6 launch date. But hours before liftoff, the astronauts were pulled out of the spacecraft after a vibrating valve was discovered in the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket.

Related: 'It's so complicated:' Boeing Starliner teams diagnosing helium leak ahead of astronaut launch

Starliner stayed grounded for a month as ULA replaced the valve, and after a tiny helium leak was discovered in one RCS thruster. Extensive testing and modeling on the ground found no anticipated problems for CFT, but the analysis uncovered a vulnerability: Under certain circumstances, if enough RCS thrusters failed in adjacent doghouses, one reentry option could be affected. Following engineering and simulator work, NASA and Boeing certified a new reentry mode requiring fewer RCS thrusters to fire at a time.

CFT launched on June 5, but only after facing down another late-countdown scrub due to a ground equipment fault affecting Atlas V. Aside from experiencing issues with the docking, NASA and Boeing have emphasized that Starliner's stay in space has been uneventful and the spacecraft is performing well. And as former U.S. Navy test pilots, both Williams and Wilmore are used to long deployments and developmental programs.

RELATED STORIES:

 Starliner: Boeing's next-generation spaceship for astronauts

 Boeing Starliner 1st astronaut flight: Live updates

 ISS astronauts take shelter in Boeing Starliner and other return spacecraft after June 26 satellite breakup

Starliner and SpaceX each received billions of dollars to carry astronauts under a contract with NASA's Commercial Crew Program in 2014. Following a test astronaut flight that launched in May 2020, SpaceX has now sent 11 crews to the ISS: eight on behalf of NASA, and three shorter-term ones for Axiom Space.

SpaceX missions are grounded for the time being due to a problem with the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket encountered during a Starlink satellite launch earlier this month. The Falcon 9 completed a static fire last night, but the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has not yet responded to SpaceX's request to refly missions under a public safety determination; SpaceX argues that no risk was posed to the public during the launch, as only the rocket's second stage (in space) was affected.

For now, SpaceX is expected to launch two ISS missions in August, pending FAA approval and NASA's independent review: Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo spacecraft, and Crew-9's four astronauts aboard Crew Dragon.
PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY, Md. (DC News Now)  Maryland State Police (MSP) announced Friday that several people were charged in a multi-agency crackdown on car rallies known as takeovers.

Takeovers are illegal activities that involve blocking public roads for dangerous stunts, disrupting traffic, causing property damage and posing risks to the public, according to the MSP.

Police disband illegal car meet-up in Montgomery County

In June, MSP formed a Maryland Car Rally Task Force to investigate these car events. Officers responded to three separate rallies throughout Prince Georges County in July and arrested six people.

The following were charged in connection to illegal exhibition driving events in Prince Georges County, according to the MSP:

Terrel Marshall, 22, of Suitland;

Alex Agustin, 22, of Laurel;

Kyle Allen, 24, of Lanham;

Jarard Walters, 21, of Essex;

Malik Coleman, 24, of Baltimore;

London Flores, 19, of Silver Spring.

Violence has sparked at some car meet-ups in Montgomery County and Prince Georges County in recent months.

In May, 26-year-old John Phipps was found shot to death at a car meet in a shopping center parking lot in Prince Georges County.

Shooting victim remembered during candlelight vigil

Less than a month later, two men were killed in a triple shooting at a weekly car meet-up in Accokeek. They were later identified as 48-year-old Sheldon Proctor of Waldorf and 55-year-old Patrick Savoy of Charlotte Hall.

Two men killed in late-night triple shooting in Prince Georges County

Since the Maryland Car Rally Task Force launched, police have increased patrols in hotspots, including Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
(Photo/Courtesy photo)

The Navajo Nation Division of Natural Resources today announced the 76th Annual Navajo Nation Fair will be Wednesday to Sunday, Sept. 4 to 8, at the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds in Window Rock.

This years fair theme is Honoring Heritage: Celebrating Harvest, Livelihood & Kinship.

Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning.

Its focus will be to preserve Navajo cultural heritage.

Under Navajo Nation President Buu Nygrens leadership, new people were put in charge to make sure changes were made to avoid financial problems of past fairs, said Mike Halona, Division of Natural Resources executive director.

Through careful planning and resource management, we will make sure to spend every dollar wisely. We want this to set a new standard for financial stewardship for future fairs, he said.

In January, the division moved the Navajo Nation Fair Office to division headquarters to address lingering issues and redevelop the operations and facilities at the Navajo Nation Fairgrounds.

Now, spearheaded by division, fair organizers ensure that resources will be used efficiently, effectively and safely to set a sustainable path for future celebrations.

This momentous event isn't just about tradition, Halona said. It's about embracing contemporary fiscal responsibility. We are going to ensure that every dollar received contributes to a flourishing event and supports the local business community.

Since its inception in 1948, the Navajo Nation Fair has been a beacon of Navajo culture, drawing as many as 100,000 fairgoers. It brings together the 110 Navajo chapters to celebrate traditional events loved by Navajos and visitors.

This year's fair will continue that legacy. There will be time-honored activities like the traditional Navajo Song & Dance, the All-Indian Rodeo, Junior Rodeo, the Navajo Nation Fair Parade, arts and crafts exhibits, 4-H livestock show, horticulture, Kids Day, Elder Fest, carnival, the popular inter-tribal powwow and authentic Navajo cuisine & favorites.

Navajo Nation divisions, departments and programs will be more visible to celebrate the work they do and services they provide.

We want Navajos to come together to commemorate the origins of the Navajo Nation Fair, Halona said. We want to celebrate our people's enduring spirit.

About the Author: "Native News Online is one of the most-read publications covering Indian Country and the news that matters to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous people. Reach out to us at editor@nativenewsonline.net. "

Contact: news@nativenewsonline.net
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  8 News Now will host two prime-time debates in key 2024 elections. A Senate debate between Democrat Senator Jacky Rosen and Republican challenger Sam Brown will be on Oct. 17 at the 8 News Now studios. It will be live and broadcast statewide in both English and Spanish on 8 News Now as well as KTVN in Reno & on Univision. The debate will be one hour long, and hosted by Denise Valdez, John Langeler, and Joshua Peguero.

Rosen was elected to the Senate in 2018 after defeating Republican Dean Heller. Brown won the Republican primary defeating a plethora of other Republicans, including Jeff Gunter, Jim Marchant, and Tony Grady.

Senator Jacky Rosen

The incumbent senator has served since 2018, having previously been elected to the U.S. House for Nevadas District 3 in 2016. According to her website, Rosen has served on subcommittees on Cybersecurity, Strategic Forces, and Emerging Threats and Capabilities, among others. Rosen has been a Nevada resident for more than 40 years, living with her husband Larry and in Henderson, according to her website biography.

Sam Brown

A Purple Heart recipient and small businessman, Brown was medically retired as a Captain after being injured in a roadside bomb explosion in Afghanistan in 2008. He later launched a small business providing emergency pharmaceutical support to Veterans, according to his website. Brown and his wife, Amy Larsen, moved to Nevada after visiting the area early in their marriage, and have three children.

The two candidates for Las Vegas Mayor will also be debating live on 8 News Now on Oct. 8. Shelley Berkley will face off against Victoria Seaman in the non-partisan race. That debate will also be hosted by Denise Valdez, John Langeler, and Joshua Peguero.

It will be the first time in 25 years that the nonpartisan office will be held by a member of the Goodman family, with Oscar Goodman being elected as mayor in 1999 and his wife, Mayor Carolyn Goodman, having held the position since he left office in 2011.

Former Congresswoman Shelley Berkley

Berkley, who was raised in Las Vegas, served the State of Nevada in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2013, holding the position for seven terms. She also served in the Nevada State Assembly from 1982 to 1984. According to Berkleys website, Berkley was a practicing attorney for the Nevada State Commerce Department, in-house counsel for Southwest Gas Corporation, and Vice President for Government and Legal Affairs for the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

City Councilwoman Victoria Seaman

Seaman is currently serving as councilwoman for the Las Vegas City Council representing Ward 2 and previously spent one term and two special sessions in the Nevada State Legislature representing Clark Countys Assembly District 34. Seaman serves on the Debt Committee, Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository Committee, Southern Nevada Water Authority, Recommending Committee, and serves as Chair of the Audit Committee, according to her website.

Both debates will take place at the 8 News Now studios and will be moderated by Denise Valdez, John Langeler, and Joshua Peguero. They will be available to watch live on 8newsnow.com, and broadcast on 8 News Now in Las Vegas, KRNV in Reno & on Univision.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  Nine people were arrested Wednesday night after a demonstration at the Portland Police Bureaus North Precinct resulted in vandalism, officials said.

A crowd of around 50 people engaged in a demonstration outside the building at 449 NE Emerson St at about 7 p.m. Police said people initially chanted and banged on pots, with officers observing from a distance.

Iconic 154-year-old elm tree to be removed due to public safety

About 20 minutes into the demonstration, numerous people then approached the main entrance, allegedly tagging windows and newly painted walls.

PPB members moved in and made targeted arrests. At this time, many in the crowd retreated, but they returned to the main entrance minutes later, police said in a release.

Nine people were arrested after a demonstration at PPBs North Precinct resulted in vandalism. July 25, 2024 (courtesy Portland Police Bureau).

Nine people were arrested after a demonstration at PPBs North Precinct resulted in vandalism. July 25, 2024 (courtesy Portland Police Bureau).

Nine people were arrested after a demonstration at PPBs North Precinct resulted in vandalism. July 25, 2024 (courtesy Portland Police Bureau).

Nine people were arrested after a demonstration at PPBs North Precinct resulted in vandalism. July 25, 2024 (courtesy Portland Police Bureau).

The crowd was once again cleared from the building and tape was put up. Police said they then told the crowd people may be arrested if they crossed the line into the closed-off section.

Kroger, Albertsons agree to temporarily halt merger plans while lawsuit proceeds

A short time later, the tape was ripped down and people entered the prohibited area. PPB members made several additional arrests. Eventually, the crowd disbanded, police said.

The nine people arrested are accused of an array of charges, including trespassing, interfering with a peace officer and criminal mischief. One of the people arrested was allegedly carrying a concealed weapon and faces a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

KOIN 6 News asked the Portland Police Bureau what the demonstration was about. In response, a PPB spokesperson said they have a policy not to get into why people are demonstrating  we cant interview all attendees to verify that.

Vancouver police investigating shooting deaths as alleged murder-suicide

In a statement, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler  the police commissioner  said he supports peoples right to exercise free speech but that those choosing to engage in criminal activity during demonstrations cant be tolerated.

Those vandalizing local businesses and properties are hurting all Portlanders, Wheeler said. I am working with local and state public safety partners to ensure that people who are involved in this kind of criminal conduct are held accountable.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS)  It may be a crunch to get to your polling place this Aug. 6 for the primary election, but thats okaygo ahead and cast that vote any time starting this Saturday.

Early voting begins Saturday, July 27 and goes through the following Sunday, August 4. Registered voters can find their early voting location and hours here.

Michigan voters overwhelmingly approved Proposal 2 in November 2022. A subsequent constitutional amendment now gives voters the right to vote early for at least nine days ahead of statewide and federal elections.

Its important for Michigan voters to know they have convenient options for casting their vote in the Primary. Early voting kicks off this weekend  thats two Saturdays, two Sundays and a whole week in between to walk in and vote, said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

(WLNS)

When you go in to your early voting location, you get get your ballot, mark the ballot and put it into a tabulator. The tabulators will count the ballots throughout the early voting period, but the public will not know or release the results until the night of the election.

Before voting, officials say you should make sure youre registered to vote at your current address. You can check your registration status by going here.

If youve received your absentee ballot, you can either bring your completed ballot to your early voting site for tabulation, or you can hand-deliver it to your local clerks office or secure ballot drop box. The absentee ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

Officials do not recommend mailing an absentee ballot this close to Election Day, because of the potential for postal delays.

And, of course, polls will be open statewide on Tuesday, August 6, from 7 a.m.-8 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 WLNS 6 News.
Abilene ISD announced Patti Blue as associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction, according to a recent press release.

Blue replaces Dr. Ketta Garduno, who left AISD this summer after 14 years of service.

Bringing Patti Blue back to Abilene is a win for Abilene ISD students, families, and schools, Dr. John Kuhn, AISD superintendent, said in a press release Monday. She will be instrumental in helping our district keep teaching and learning excellence at the core of everything we do.

Patti Blue joins the Abilene ISD administrative team as the associate superintendent of curriculum and instruction.

Blue most recently served as superintendent for Gustine ISD and brings with her over 33 years of education experience to Abilene, according to the media release.

Under her leadership, Gustine ISD increased dual credit and industry-based certification programs and improved its Texas Accountability System rating from "Improvement Required" to "Met Standard with Distinctions."

Throughout her years in education, Blue worked at Amarillo ISD and Abilene High School. She also worked as a curriculum consultant for Region 14 Education Service Center for 10 years.

Blue earned a bachelor's degree from Baylor University, a master's degree from Tarleton State University and a superintendent's certification from the University of Texas Permian Basin.

This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Abilene ISD hires former Abilene High teacher as associate superintendent
PRINCETON, WV (WVNS)  Absentee ballots are a way for those who are unavailable to vote in-person to still cast their vote. Absentee ballots are available online in West Virginia.

In West Virginia, certain registered voters may receive and vote an absentee ballot by

mail. West Virginians are encouraged to vote in person if you are able. The Deputy Clerk of Mercer County says, its always a good idea to call ahead.

Wisconsin high court rules absentee drop boxes can be used in November

If they are not able to get out and about, they can always request an absentee ballot, said Marie Hill, the Deputy Clerk of Mercer County.

You can find the link to those ballots 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 WVNS.
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, July 26. Uzbekistan will hold an election for deputies to the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis (Parliament) and deputies to regional, city, and district councils on October 27, Trend reports.

This decision was made at a meeting held by Uzbekistan's Central Election Commission.

At the same time, following Article 128 of the Constitution of Uzbekistan and Articles 14 and 36 of the Electoral Code of Uzbekistan, the election of deputies of the Legislative Chamber of Uzbekistan's Oliy Majlis and local councils will be held on October 27, 2024.

The Central Election Commission, based on the terms established by the Constitution and the Electoral Code of Uzbekistan, announced that starting from July 26, 2024, the election campaign for the election of deputies to the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis of Uzbekistan and local councils begins, and approved the calendar.

Meanwhile, under Article 128 of the Constitution, election to the Legislative Chamber of the Oliy Majlis, the Parliament of Karakalpakstan, and the representative bodies of State power in the provinces, districts, and towns are held in the year in which their constitutional term of office expires, on the first Sunday of the third decade of October.
(KRON)  A wildfire in Lake County Thursday afternoon has burned 151 acres and prompted evacuation warnings. According to Cal Fire, the blaze, which is being called the Acorn Fire, was burning at a moderate rate of spread.

Fire crews were battling the blaze, and 19 engines, six water tenders, six dozers, six hand crews, two helicopters and four fixed-wing aircraft were dispatched to fight the fire.

As of 8 p.m., the fire is now 10 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.

Crews respond to car fire on Bay Bridge: CHP

Evacuation warnings were issued by the Lake County Sheriffs Office for the following zones in Upper Lake: UPP-E029 and UPP-E034.

We are asking everyone to take precautions in the event that a mandatory evacuation order is issued, said the sheriffs office. Preparations should include gathering all medications and important documents, making plans for pets, and notifying family members where you may be going.

Additional air and ground forces were en route to the fire, according to Cal Fire.

At about 6 p.m., Cal Fire said the fires forward progress was stopped. They said firefighters would be on the scene to construct control lines and conduct heavy mop-up in the steep and rugged terrain until 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 KRON4.
Advoacte Clara Vondrich speaking in front of a podium with advocates with signs behind her

Activist Clara Vondrich speaking in downtown Baltimore on Thursday about the need to move away from natural gas, as other advocates stand behind her. Photo by Elijah Pittman.

For the past few years, a consumer watchdog has urged state leaders to rethink policies that may prolong the use of natural gas in the state. An array of advocacy groups have amplified that call.

On Thursday, that consumer advocate and dozens of other stakeholders crowded into the hearing room of the Maryland Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, to make their case.

Officially, the proceeding in downtown Baltimore was a hearing by the PSC to consider a request from the Office of Peoples Counsel for a broader commission examination of the future of natural gas use in the state.

But nothing is ever simple or quick when it comes to utility regulation. The hearing request was made a year and a half ago and Thursdays proceeding lasted seven hours.

David Lapp, who heads the Office of Peoples Counsel (OPC), the state agency that represents consumers interests on utility matters, reiterated his argument that a 2013 law that lets gas utilities recover the cost of pipeline infrastructure from ratepayers is going to prolong the states reliance on fossil fuels. It runs counter to a more recent state law that seeks to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, he said, and comes at a time when cleaner alternatives are being developed and utilized more cheaply than many fossil fuels.

Its bewildering to an outsider to say, Why is this happening?' Lapp told the PSC commissioners. Theres a disconnect between technology, climate policies and whats going on.

The program known as STRIDE  the Strategic Infrastructure Development and Enhancement Plan  provides incentives to utilities for natural gas pipeline repair and replacement, which they can recover through surcharges on consumers monthly gas bills. Lapp and other advocates have asserted that there arent just climate implications with STRIDE, but that less affluent ratepayers will be held responsible for paying for the gas pipeline improvements as wealthier Marylanders electrify their homes.

Gas utilities arent anxious for the PSC to undertake a study of their industry and its incentives. They argue that only the General Assembly can set policy, and they maintain that while they support the states climate goals, natural gas needs to be part of the fuel mix for the foreseeable future to guarantee service reliability, affordability and energy security.

Were really uniquely situated to help this decarbonization effort, said Lauren Urbanek, senior manager for decarbonization strategies at Baltimore Gas & Electric, Marylands largest utility.

Jim Steffes, a senior vice president at Washington Gas, said the PSC might want to take a broader look at Marylands energy future and not just focus on gas.

I would suggest that the better frame for this analysis is the future of energy, he said.

Lapp and other advocacy groups seeking to limit the use of fossil fuels in the state note that while the legislature has so far refused to repeal STRIDE, lawmakers have already set climate policy and tasked state agencies like the PSC to implement it.

The General Assembly has spoken by passing the Climate Solutions Act in 2022, said Susan Miller, a senior attorney with Earth Justice. And she said lawmakers decreed in the legislation that regulatory xagencies with expertise, like the PSC will create a pathway for achieving the climate mandates.

Over the course of the seven hours, the four PSC commissioners  there is one vacancy  heard testimony not just from Lapp and the utilities, but from local officials, environmentalists, tenant advocates, community groups, public health experts, clergy, unions and national energy policy mavens.

One of the local officials, Somerset County Economic Development Director Danny Thompson, noted that his Eastern Shore jurisdiction has seen a surge of economic activity since the pandemic, and attributed part of the growth to the extension of a natural gas pipeline into the county just a year and a half ago.

Its critical that we have economic development and access to natural gas, he said.

We want to make sure that we have a plan

Several of the advocacy groups rallied in downtown Baltimore before the hearing  including a couple activists dressed like characters from The Flintstones and holding signs that said gas is past.

First we need to make sure that our gas spending is strategic and cost effective and data driven, said Emily Scarr, the director of the Maryland PIRG Foundation. We know Marylanders are already leaving the gas system for better, more efficient technology and we just want to make sure that we have a plan for a long term maintenance of our gas system.

The STRIDE surcharges are expected to generate $20 billion in coming decades for the maintenance of the gas system, at a time when the overall heating and energy system in Maryland moves away from gas. The advocates think that everyday Marylanders should have a say in how these funds are directed.

Clara Vondrich, the senior policy counsel for the nonprofit organization Public Citizen, explained that Maryland needs to be careful with how the $20 billion is going to be spent and used.

We know that gas is not cleaner than coal, its not a bridge fuel, its not a transition fuel, this is a dirty toxic gas thats harmful to health, to climate, and its expensive, Vondrich said.

She said advocates are hoping that the commission opens a formal docket on a future of gas proceeding.

Even after seven hours, the PSC hearing was not complete. Commissioners had yet to hear from their own staff analysts, and from representatives of the Maryland Energy Administration, another agency that is charged with implementing the state climate plan. Theyll be asked to come in at a later date.

Although several witnesses urged the PSC to move with speed, and grant OPCs request for a wide-ranging review of natural gas  Lapp even quoted the Bob Dylan lyric, You dont need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows  there is no set timetable for the commission to act, and Frederick Hoover, the PSC chair, suggested there could be more proceedings to come.

My view is, this is not a one-day deal, he said. This is going to be continued over a series of meetings and hearings.
Acts of hate against tourists will not be tolerated, says Balearic tourism minister

Acts of hate towards tourists will not be tolerated, the Balearic Islands tourism minister has warned, as he urged holidaymakers to ignore the protests against them and continue to visit to the Spanish archipelago.

About 20,000 protesters filled the streets of the Majorcan capital Palma last Sunday to demonstrate against mass tourism with posters apparently aimed at British and German visitors.

One banner, written in English, read: Take Back Your Drunks, Give Back Our Homes.

Another poster, mocking Englands defeat by Spain in the Euro 2024 final, read: The only thing coming home is you, with a picture of England defender Kieran Trippier.

A similar sign had been made up for German visitors, whose team were also beaten by Spain in the tournament.

Majorcas population of fewer than 1 million people has been dwarfed by surging tourist arrivals over the years, which reached a record 17.8 million in 2023.

Protestors mock England and Germany's defeats by Spain at Euro 2024 - SOLARPIX/ASA/NPZ

British and German tourists, who make up the top two arrival markets, have been at the sharp end of anger over what locals say are rising house prices and congested beaches caused by overtourism.

As the protests take a distinctly nastier turn with tourists being jeered in the street on at least one occasion, officials have moved to limit any long-term damage to its vital industry.

The Balearic government respects all types of demonstrations if they take place peacefully. We reject any type of vandalism or hate messages, Jaume Bauza, the Balearic Islands regional tourism minister told The Telegraph.

His warning came as thousands of British tourists headed for Majorca, Ibiza and Menorca for the summer holidays.

In the case of last Sundays demonstration, we understand that these acts were isolated and do not represent the bulk of the people who took to the streets, who did so peacefully and respectfully with residents and visitors, Mr Bauza added.

Anti-tourism sentiment has been bubbling in Europe for a while. It has come to a head recently as activists embolden others in cities also creaking under the weight of excessive visitation.

Protesters hold a banner which reads as 'SOS residents - JAIME REINA

Protests have been held this year in Barcelona, Palma, Malaga and the Canary Islands, with demonstrators claiming holidaymakers drive up housing costs and force the eviction of local people who cannot afford to live in their own cities.

Mr Bauza said all tourists were welcome in the islands as long as they behaved themselves in a civil manner.

He sought to calm fears that tourists might be at risk if they travelled to the Balearic Islands. The only thing we ask is that those who visit us behave in a civil manner. There may be more demonstrations but in no case will they pose a danger to anyone, he said.

Pere Joan Femenia, of Menys Turisme, Mas Vida (Less Tourism, More Life), which organised Sundays protest, told The Telegraph: What we want is to change the tourism model which is overwhelming the island. We cannot live here because house prices are so high. Beaches are swamped by tourists and public services are under incredible strain.

The 25-year-old student said protesters want a ban on foreign nationals who dont have residency, including Britons, owning properties on the island because, he said, this made buying properties impossible for local people.

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.
Advisor to L.A. County district attorney pleads not guilty to 11 felonies over use of sheriff's records

A top advisor to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascon pleaded not guilty on Thursday after state prosecutors said she illegally used confidential personnel records three years ago when she flagged several sheriff's deputies names for possible inclusion on a list of problem officers.

The lawyer representing Diana Teran argued in court that the charges against her didnt constitute a crime because maintaining a list of deputies accused of misconduct was part of her job overseeing the district attorneys ethics and integrity operations.

"This is just talking about basic common sense, James Spertus, Terans attorney, said in court. Is it a crime to do your job internally at the D.A.'s office for the county when you have information in your head?

Prosecutors with the California Department of Justice said it was too early in the legal process to grapple with those details. For now, the state said, the two sides could argue only over the contents of the criminal complaint filed against her, and not the other documents used to justify it.

Read more: Times reporter was leaked list of problem deputies. The Sheriff's Department investigated her

After listening to several hours of legal wrangling, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo sided with the state and moved forward with Teran's arraignment.

On Thursday, the judge also rejected requests  from an attorney for the news site Los Angeles Public Press  to unseal documents that could show the deputies records were already public. Unsealing those documents, Olmedo said, could violate an existing protective order.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed the criminal complaint against Teran in April, and the allegations at the center of the politically charged case date to 2018, when she worked at the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department as a constitutional police advisor. Part of her duties there included accessing confidential deputy records and internal affairs investigations.

The departments secret tracking software kept records of the more than 1,600 personnel files she searched for and reviewed, according to an affidavit state prosecutors filed in court this year.

After leaving the Sheriffs Department, Teran joined the district attorneys office. Its not clear what her current status is, but a spokesperson for the office previously said she was no longer overseeing ethics and integrity operations.

While at the district attorneys office in 2021, state prosecutors allege, Teran sent a list of 33 names and supporting documents to a fellow deputy district attorney for possible inclusion in a so-called Brady database, which contains officers with problematic disciplinary histories. The name is a reference to a landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision that requires prosecutors to turn over any evidence favorable to a defendant, including evidence of police misconduct.

The affidavit says that several of the names Teran emailed to fellow prosecutor Pamela Revel were deputies whose files shed accessed while working at the Sheriffs Department. Eleven of them hadnt been mentioned in the news or in public records  so she allegedly wouldnt have been able to identify them otherwise, state prosecutors said.

Read more: Inside the Sheriff's Department's secretive investigation into Villanueva's critics

After fighting for more than two months to get the affidavit revealing the names of all 11 deputies, earlier this month Spertus filed hundreds of pages of documents that he said showed their disciplinary records were already public in court records and news articles.

From the moment this case was filed, I was suspicious of what the motive [for filing it] was because theres no crime and release of the affidavit confirms that, Spertus said at the time. The underlying theory is that she stole public information.

On Thursday, Susan Seager  the attorney representing LA Public Press  argued that hundreds of pages of documents Spertus filed should be made public. The judge disagreed, saying that the only reason Spertus knew to look for the names of certain deputies and find those records was because he had access to protected information.

Its disappointing that the Superior Court didnt recognize that these are public court records and they should be unsealed and shown to the public, Seager told The Times after court Thursday. If the DOJ is criminally prosecuting a prosecutor for using public records, that seems to suggest that anyone using public records to research bad sheriff's deputies is subject to criminal prosecution.

Olmedo decided that at this stage the court could only rely on information within the four corners of the criminal complaint. After taking Teran's plea, Olmedo set a preliminary hearing for Aug. 7.

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.
NEW YORK (PIX11)  Some homeless advocates are attacking New York City Mayor Eric Adams homelessness policies.

At a rally outside City Hall Thursday they said they were particularly concerned more homeless encampment sweeps are coming.

More Local News

NYC sheltered more than 86,000 unhoused people Wednesday night, excluding approximately 60,000 in the separate migrant shelter system.

The protest groups, including the Coalition for the Homeless, Safety Net ProjectUrban Justice Center, Vocal-NY, Open Hearts Initiative, and WIN, fear the mayor will become more aggressive in sweeping homeless encampments from the streets and rousing those sleeping on the subways now that the Supreme Court has made it legal.

Adams has repeatedly said he will not tolerate encampments, calling them inhumane.

The Adams administration is reaching record numbers of housing-insecure New Yorkers through CityFHEPS and cash assistance, having led the city through significant reforms and investments to improve the citys homelessness services system. Weve increased housing placements from shelter by 20 percent year over year, despite the lowest housing vacancy rate since the 1960s. Many of the recommendations shared today are outdated or extremely costly, while doing little to improve the administrations $3.9 billion investment in the Department of Homeless Services this fiscal year, or our record $26 billion commitment to affordable housing in our current 10-year capital plan. Spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams office

The protest groups argue homeless New Yorkers need more cash assistance, public toilets, WiFi in shelters, and housing vouchers known as cityFHEPs.

Adams has expanded the housing voucher program, although not to the level the City Council mandated.

City Hall said it is focused on building more housing because the inventory is not there, no matter how many rental vouchers it gives out.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.
At age 4, he was thrilled to see air shows. Now, he's in Milwaukee with the Thunderbirds.

Growing up in South Carolina, Tyler Clark has fond memories of attending air shows both in his home state and North Carolina beginning when he was as young as 4 years old.

He remembers sitting in a plane's cockpit, putting on a pilot's helmet, and "thinking this was the coolest thing in the world."

"And I knew exactly what I wanted to do," he said.

Major Tyler Clark stands for a portrait in front of his F-16 Fighting Falcon at the 128th Air Refueling Wing National Guard base in Milwaukee on Thursday, July 25, 2024.

He's now Major Tyler Clark, and he's in Milwaukee for the weekend with The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. He's officially Thunderbird 3, his call sign is "Slasher," and he's been flying in the Air Force for about 14 years, and serving for 15. Clark and the rest of the Thunderbirds are based at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.

The team is returning from a five-year hiatus to headline the WaterStone Bank's Milwaukee Air & Water Show on Saturday and Sunday at McKinley Park and Bradford Beach.

The Thunderbirds have seven planes with red, white and blue paint jobs. Each of the pilots' seats are decorated according to their call sign. Clark said his primary airframe, or aircraft, is the F-15 C, or the Eagle, but he learned how to fly an F-16 jet to fly with the Thunderbirds.

The US Air Force Thunderbirds fly in formation over Milwaukee on Thursday, July 25, 2024.

The secret to their close-proximity flights is something the Thunderbirds call "blind trust," which is built over time during training. The planes start farther away from each other, then bring their formation in closer and closer over time, Clark said.

"Quite frankly, as we're flying during the demonstration, it is 100% focus on the task at hand," said Clark. "Looking at boss, listening to his communication and doing our best to strive for the perfect flight."

One of the perks of being a Thunderbird pilot, he said, is he can experience an adrenaline rush and a sense of pure freedom as the jets "rage" around the air at 500 mph.

More: What to know about the 2024 WaterStone Bank Air & Water Show in Milwaukee

More: Things to do in Milwaukee this weekend, including air show, Harley-Davidson festival

Clark said the amount of teamwork, cohesion and camaraderie the Thunderbirds, which formed in 1953, have is something he values as being a member of the team.

"We can take that from the ground and apply it to our demonstration in the air," he said. "It's absoultely incredible to see and very surreal to experience."

The Thunderbirds are parked on the tarmac at the 128th Air Refueling Wing National Guard base in Milwaukee on Thursday, July 25, 2024.

In addition to the Thunderbirds, several other demonstrations are taking place as part of the Air & Water Show.

Frecce Tricolori ("Tricolor Arrows"), the Italian Air Force's official aerobatic team, is making its first visit to Milwaukee. It will perform aerial displays that include smoke trails in the colors of the Italian flag.

The United States Army Parachute Team, also known as the Golden Knights, will return to Milwaukee after a six-year absence, according to the event's website. The Golden Knights are one of only three Department of Defense-sanctioned aerial demonstration teams, along with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds.

There will also be a showcase of one of the U.S. Air Force's KC-46 Pegasus Aerial Refuelers for the first time in Milwaukee, according to the show organizers. This aircraft refuels other aircraft mid-flight, and is billed as a preview of what is to come for the 128th Air Refueling Wing in Milwaukee.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Thunderbird pilot gets a rush for Milwaukee Air & Water Show
The U.S. Air Force is planning to retire its remaining RQ-4 Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance drones by the end of the 2027 Fiscal Year. The service says it has become clear that the RQ-4s would be overly vulnerable in any future conflict against a peer or near-peer adversary, but its not clear what aircraft (or other assets) might fill the resulting capability gap. This only adds to the growing evidence that a top-secret, high-flying, stealth spy drone, commonly referred to as the RQ-180, or variants or derivatives thereof, is getting close to entering service, if it isnt already being employed operationally on some level.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall has hinted at the existence of a new intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platform, something that has long been a topic of discussion around the future of U.S. Air Force capabilities. Frequently, such a platform has been understood as a very stealthy, long-range, high-altitude surveillance drone commonly referred to as the RQ-180, although there are other possibilities, too, and even an RQ-180 would only be one facet in a larger constellation of next-generation ISR systems.

A notional rendering of what the high- and long-flying RQ-180 stealth drone might look like appears at the top of this story. While it has been widely posited that the RQ-180, or at least progenitors of it, have been flying for years and may be operational at least in small numbers and to a limited degree, there is no guarantee that such a system continues to receive the Air Forces backing. This is especially true as space-based distributed constellations are quickly gaining favor throughout the DoD. These are highly resilient to attacks and offer persistent surveillance of target areas that was unheard of in past low earth orbit-based sensing systems. In fact, one program for this kind of capability is deep in development now and it appears aimed at doing at least part of what a notional RQ-180 would likely be tasked with doing. In other words, just because an RQ-180-like aircraft exists, it doesnt mean its future is guaranteed.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall (right) talks with the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, the Honorable Andrew Hunter, and fellow attendees at the Farnborough International Airshow in England, on July 22, 2024. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Katie Mullikin Capt. Michael Hardy

Speaking at a roundtable event on Sunday, just before the opening of the Farnborough International Airshow in England, Kendall was responding to a question from Chris Pocock, a long-time aviation journalist, author, and expert on the U-2 Dragon Lady spy plane. Pocock was asking the Air Force chief about plans for the airborne ISR layer once the U-2 Dragon Lady and RQ-4 Global Hawk are withdrawn  moves that will follow the previous retirement of the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS).

What is that airborne layer? Youre retiring JSTARS, youre retiring the U-2, youre retiring Global Hawk, Pocock said.

Kendalls response was intriguing, describing that future ISR layer as a combination of things.

I mentioned E-7 at the beginning of the conversation, Kendall continued. Thats part of that layer. So, were making progress on that, as I said before. Were retaining some of the [E-3 Sentry] AWACSs, for example, to help transition smoothly over to a combination of  space-based capabilities and new systems like the E-7. So theres a mix of systems in there, some of which theres not much I can say about them.

At least one of the systems that the Secretary of the Air Force cannot say much about is likely the aforementioned RQ-180.

A rendering of what the stealthy drone commonly referred to as the RQ-180 might look like. Hangar B Productions A rendering of what the stealthy drone commonly referred to as the RQ-180 might look like. Hangar B Productions

Of course, as weve discussed in the past, various tiers of uncrewed ISR aircraft are in development in the classified and unclassified realm, or even possibly already in limited service, to help meet the USAFs requirements. Also distributing these tasks to multiple desperate aircraft, including multi-role manned and unmanned types, and fusing the data they collect via advanced networking is also clearly a part of this solution. As Kendall mentioned and as we detailed at the top of this article, the Air Force is also busily working on new distributed ISR satellite constellations.

Still, no matter how advanced these satellite constellations are, they will still lack some of the versatility and flexibility that platforms operating in the earths atmosphere, uncrewed or otherwise, can provide. There is also a need for redundancy when it comes to gathering this critical information. While it appears the USAF is stepping backwards in terms of visible platforms available for gathering key battlefield and general intelligence data over large areas, the need for this data has only grown exponentially, and that is certainly recognized by USAF planners.

What Kendalls statement underlines is that there is not a one-size-fits-all replacement, or single platform that will supersede the capabilities currently provided by the U-2, RQ-4, and E-8C. The end result is certain to focus on distributed concepts, both terrestrial and in space, that will collectively leverage advanced computing and networking architectures to not only collect huge amounts of data but to prioritize the parts of that data that actually matter so it can best be exploited it in near real-time.

The Air Forces current plan is to divest the last of the U-2s in 2026, although members of Congress are attempting to prevent the service from retiring its fleet of these high-flying Cold War-era jets.

A U.S. Air Force U-2S spy plane. U.S. Air Force USAF

The Air Force is also planning to retire its remaining RQ-4 high-altitude, long-endurance drones by the end of the 2027 Fiscal Year.

Already retired is the E-8C, which completed its final operational deployment in June last year and was finally retired last November.

In the past, the withdrawal of the U-2 and RQ-4 have been seen as likely evidence that the Air Force has a suitable uncrewed replacement getting close to entering service, or perhaps even being employed operationally on some level.

Its notable, too, that earlier legislation had included a path to proceeding with retiring the U-2 only if the Pentagon could certify that certain stipulations had been met. This included the insistence that the resulting capability gap would be filled in a cost-effective manner, something you can read more about here.

A major argument in favor of retiring both the U-2 and the RQ-4 is these platforms increasing vulnerability to air defenses, even those now fielded by lower-tier potential adversaries. In the case of facing off against near-peer competitors like China and Russia, the survivability of the U-2 and the RQ-4 is extremely questionable, with even just the ability to get close enough to bring their sensors to bear now being deeply challenged. In the case of China, especially, the threat is only growing, as its military continues to expand its anti-access and area denial bubbles and extend these ever further from the mainland.

An RQ-4 Global Hawk in the foreground on a taxiway at Beale Air Force Base in California, with a two-seat TU-2S Dragon Lady trainer seen coming in to land in the background. U.S. Air Force A TU-2S comes in to land while an RQ-4 Global Hawk sits in the foreground. USAF

When news of the plan to retire the last of the RQ-4 emerged, in July 2022, Ann Stefanek, an Air Force spokesperson, told Breaking Defense:

Our ability to win future high-end conflicts requires accelerating investment in connected, survivable platforms and accepting short-term risks by divesting legacy ISR assets that offer limited capability against peer and near-peer threats.

A very public demonstration of the RQ-4s vulnerability came in June 2019, when a BAMS-D drone  a U.S. Navy variant of the Global Hawk  was shot down by Iran over the Persian Gulf. There followed a very public discussion about the utility of the Global Hawk family in future higher-end conflicts against opponents with more robust air defense networks.

Reconstructed wreckage of the U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk BAMS-D surveillance drone which Iran shot down on June 20, 2019. pic.twitter.com/llnvnED0Wu  Mehdi H. (@mhmiranusa) June 20, 2022

Nevertheless, its clear that the sensor capabilities of the U-2 and the RQ-4 are still very valuable.

These high-flying ISR platforms can carry an extensive array of different imaging, signals intelligence, radar, and other sensors simultaneously. Unlike space-based assets, U-2s and RQ-4s can and do regularly deploy to different forward locations, from where they offer a uniquely flexible and unpredictable intelligence-gathering capability, able to quickly orbit over a particular area of interest for extended periods of time.

Ground crew embers conduct preflight procedures on an RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30, at Beale Air Force Base California, on July 7, 2022. This flight was the final RQ-4 Block 30 to depart Beale headed to Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota, to be divested and transferred to Northrup Grumman. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ramon A. Adelan Members assigned to the 12th Reconnaissance Squadron and 319th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron Detachment 1 conduct preflight procedures on an RQ-4 Global Hawk Block 30 July 7, 2022, at Beale Air Force Base California. Credit: Staff Sgt. Ramon A. Adelan/U.S. Air Force

With this in mind, its generally accepted that one critical part of the Air Forces new-look airborne ISR layer will be a long-range, high-altitude spy drone that is also stealthy, meaning its able to penetrate the kinds of air defenses within which a U-2 or RQ-4 wouldnt be able to safely operate, despite the long reach of their sensors. Once there, it will be able to persist for long periods of time, sucking up critical intelligence while the enemy doesnt even know anyone is looking.

A graphic showing various sensor and other payload options for the U-2 series. U.S. Air Force



In fact, Kendalls reference at the weekend is only the latest clue pointing to the existence of a platform the existence of which makes sense for the Pentagon. In addition to this primary role, the RQ-180, or variants of it, could also serve as an electronic attack and communications and data-sharing node, too. This is all based on the understanding that a stealthy high-end drone of this kind would secure the funding that it needs, something that is becoming more questionable as the Air Force starts to look at ways of driving down the costs of big-ticket programs such as the crewed fighter at the heart of its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative.

Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall takes questions from the audience at the National Defense Transportation Meeting in the Gaylord Hotel, National Harbor, Prince Georges County, Maryland, October 18, 2021. U.S. Air Force photo by Andy Morataya Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. U.S. Air Force photo by Andy Morataya

While still guarded, the Secretary of the Air Forces recent words do underline the understanding that legacy ISR platforms, once considered irreplaceable to operations, are now judged too vulnerable to survive.

As these legacy platforms continue to be phased out, the Air Force is obviously investing in more modern and survivable systems. At this point, we still dont know if the RQ-180 will end up being one of those systems, and in what capacity, but Kendalls statement certainly appears to add credence to claims of its existence.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. The European Council has appointed Magdalena Grono EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, Trend reports.

Grono will succeed Toivo Klaar whose tenure of over 6 years comes to an end on 31 August.

She will take up her duties on 1 September 2024 for an initial period of 12 months.

According to the Council, Grono will contribute to the "peaceful settlement of conflicts, including the normalization process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in close coordination with the UN and the OSCE".

"As new EUSR, Grono will continue the work of her predecessors, contributing to the implementation of the EU foreign policy objectives in the region. She will engage with the main interested actors regarding the region and will develop contacts with governments, parliaments, other key political actors, and civil society, encouraging and facilitating cooperation on regional themes of common interest," the Council's statement reads.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  An air tanker pilot is dead after disappearing in the Malheur National Forest late Thursday night, according to fire officials.

Authorities say the single-engine tanker went missing while fighting a lightning-started fire in the vicinity of the Falls Fire near Seneca, Ore. The Associated Press has since confirmed that the pilot on board had died in the incident.

Iconic 154-year-old elm tree to be removed due to public safety

The plane was located in steep, forested terrain on Friday morning after the search was suspended at nightfall the day before, according to Lisa Clark with the Bureau of Land Management.

Its with deep sadness that we share the death of a member of the wildland firefighter community following the conclusion of search efforts for a BLM contracted single engine airtanker, Grant County officials said in a statement. Please join us in keeping the family, friends, and colleagues of our fallen firefighter in your hearts.

Durkee Fire in Eastern Oregon grows to size of Multnomah County

Anytime we lose a firefighter in the wildland fire community, it is tragic and felt across the community, said Kaitlyn Webb, with the Malheur National Forest Bureau of Land Management. Theres a lot of support and its a difficult time for the wildfire community right now. Folks are focused on the task at hand.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the single-engine Air Tractor 802A crashed around 11:30 p.m. Thursday night. The pilot who died was the only occupant of the aircraft.

The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, the FAA said. The NTSB will be in charge of the investigation and will provide any updates.

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden shared the following statement on social media:

The dangers of fighting fires are constant and this developing news story from Eastern Oregon is a painful reminder of that fact, Sen. Wyden said. Lets all take a moment to think about the people in this air tanker and hope for a positive outcome.

Gov. Tina Kotek added: I am mourning the life that was lost in the fight against the Falls Fire in Grant and Harney counties. On behalf of Oregon, I want to extend my deepest condolences to the firefighters family, loved ones, and fellow firefighters. Firefighters in the field look out for one another. When harm falls on one, it is felt by all. I want to thank all those who were a part of the search efforts for the recovered SEAT, and everyone fighting fires right now. I have your back, and I will continue to deploy every available resource to aid you.

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.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  Airlines are still working to get travelers back on track a week after the global internet outage caused by Crowdstrike.

Delays and cancellations persist at Charlotte Douglas International

Most major airlines had rebooked the vast majority of impacted passengers by Friday, but travelers frustrations over lost baggage and owed refunds remain.

The new regulations aimed at making it easier for flyers to get money back for canceled flights or flights delayed more than three hours were introduced in April, but airlines are not required to comply until October.

DOT officials are investigating Delta Airlines. Authorities are looking into how the Atlanta-based company handled logistics as well as how it handled the nearly half a million customers with canceled flights.

There are reports of people being on the phone for hours without getting help and unaccompanied minors left without rebookings.

This past winter  Southwest Airlines canceled nearly 17,000 flights around the holidays and was forced to pay a $140 million penalty.

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said the winter and summer scenarios are similar where an issue that impacted the entire country but one airline has a far worse outcome.

We responded to that with a record enforcement action, $140 million penalty, including a 35 million dollar cash fine that was about 30 times any previous panel thing, Buttigieg said. The idea was to raise the bar and send a message to the industry that they need to be working and meeting customer needs at a higher level and set a higher bar as our north star in this investigation, too.

Gigi Freeman and her family were trying to get back to California, but delays and cancellations left them stuck in Charlotte for several days.

Were still in the same clothes we were wearing three days ago, she said.

Freeman was one of thousands of passengers impacted by severe weather and rain in Charlotte.

They kept us on the tarmac for like three hours because of lightning when we landed, Freeman said. Weve been stuck in the airport with delay after delay and finally a cancellation and we went to a hotel for two nights.

Insurance company Parametrix predicts American Fortune 500 companies will face $5.4 billion total in losses from the outage.

There are legal protections that could potentially shield Crowdstrike from having to make direct liability payments.

The insurer estimates airlines had a collective direct loss of nearly $1 billion.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Akron Innerbelt project has national interest. But more community input is key, city says

PORT, one of four design firms vying for the chance to revitalize the decommissioned section of the Akron Innerbelt, occupied a section of a room at House Three Thirty with maps of the neighborhood that stood before the Innerbelt's construction, feedback boards and headphones playing interviews of people impacted by the Innerbelt's construction at an engagement event Thursday.

Urban design consultant firms and sub-consultants from around the U.S. converged at Akron's House Three Thirty Thursday night to share their qualifications and ideas for revitalizing the decommissioned section of the Akron Innerbelt.

Presentations and conversations were grounded in the topic of equity  how the area can be a safe, inviting space for all Akron residents.

Hundreds of majority-Black-owned homes and businesses and many houses of worship and community institutions were demolished, and people were displaced because of the Innerbelt. Construction started on the highway in 1970, and within 50 years of that, a quarter of the underused, 4-mile Innerbelt was decommissioned.

Esther Thomas, the city of Akron's director of diversity, equity and inclusion, asked event attendees to "contemplate joy, to contemplate our hope for the future."

"We are not inheritors of this land; we are shepherds of this land, custodians," Thomas said. "And so, we're asking everyone to think about, what is the legacy that we can collectively leave as a community to this city? Dr. Martin Luther King talked about the beloved community, and Akron's pretty beloved."

More details about the firms interested in the Innerbelt project

Representatives from the four firms  PORT, Sasaki, Agency and Cooper Carry  and sub-consultant firms talked about how they would like to gain the community's trust and bring people together. They also shared their accomplishments in other parts of the country.

The firms did not present specific plans or renderings, as they and city of Akron seek to gather more community input.

PORT, which has offices in Philadelphia and Chicago, presented an Akron-centric approach in its Innerbelt-area pitch. PORT partner Christopher Marcinkoski was born in Akron and is now working with local partners such as Roger Riddle of Roger Riddle Consulting; Charlee Harris, creative director of the East Ave Market and Gallery; and Theron Brown, jazz pianist and founder of the Rubber City Jazz & Blues Festival.

Brown said: "Planning for a neighborhood like this needs the insight and expertise of the residents and of the previous neighborhood. We also need Akronites who want to see our city live up to its fullest potential. And we need Akron's creative community helping designers, engineers and architects to envision a story for a new neighborhood that provides for its residents and businesses and shares all that makes it special with the rest of Akron."

Sasaki has offices in Boston, Denver, New York and Shanghai. Siqi Zhu, Sasaki associate principal urban planner, said the firm strives to help Akronites comfortably gather and benefit from multiple opportunities, whether they be jobs, community services, or housing.

Siqi Zhu, left, director of planning and urban technology and associate principle planner at Sasaki, speaks with attendees at the Innerbelt engagement event Thursday at House Three Thirty in Akron.

"This also means asking, 'What does it mean to build a place that looks and feels like Akron?'" Siqi said. "We don't just want to take someplace else and dump it on this site."

Nancy Lyon-Stadler is a civil engineer at engineering consulting firm WSP, a partner on Sasaki's Innerbelt proposal. She said WSP has expertise in making sure that transportation is tied into "the fabric of the community" in a way that is accessible for everybody, not just drivers.

"Since 2009, our specific team that focuses on grant-funding opportunities has successfully worked with 310 communities, landing $50 billion ... for infrastructure projects," Lyon-Stadler said.

Brie Hensold, principal, urban planner and co-founder of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Agency, discussed some of that firm's bona fides. One revitalization project Agency is working on is in a section of Portland, Oregon, where Interstate 5 tore through the lower Albina neighborhood, displacing residents and businesses.

According to Agency's site, "The vision is anchored by equitable public park spaces that seamlessly connect to the [Willamette River] and its surrounding neighborhoods."

Hensold said the Portland project has "galvanized not only state funding [and] federal funding but $400 million in private philanthropy that's going to be invested in the community."

Nicolia Robinson, principal of the Urban Design and Planning Studio at Atlanta-based Cooper Carry, said: "Quite frankly, our whole process starts and is built on this notion of equity because agency is given to every person in this room from day one of our process, and that's super important."

Karie Sieb, a senior planner at Toole Design, discusses the Cooper Carry team's proposal for revitalizing part of the Akron Innerbelt with an attendee at a community engagement event Thursday at House Three Thirty in Akron.

Carter Coleman, real estate development associate at APD Urban Planning and Management, is working with Cooper Carry. Coleman said the Cooper Carry-led team envisions the Innerbelt project to take a total of 10 to 15 years before it's completed.

"So, you need to have a partner in place that's going to be longer than administrations, longer than funding policies and that's going to make sure that it is ... being accountable to the community," Coleman said.

Mayor Shammas Malik's office livestreamed the presentations on Facebook and requested further input in the comment section. The stream and comment section can be viewed at bit.ly/3LFzd9t.

What residents, others had to say about the Akron Innerbelt presentations

Liz Ogbu, designer and spatial justice activist, has been working on various elements of the project since 2020, such as interviewing residents and community members and compiling statistics and historical records.

"I thought they were four really strong teams, and I felt like all the teams definitely seemed like they took the time to get to know Akron to the degree that you can when you're preparing for these kinds of things," Ogbu said.

Akron resident Louise Bane co-founded the East Ave Market and Gallery with her mother, Jacqueline Harris, and sister Charlee Harris, who presented with PORT. Bane, an artist and a baker, also owns Weezie Cakes Bakery.

Bane said her family has ties to the Innerbelt area. She grew up near there, attended Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts and held her first job in that area. Her father worked nearby at BFGoodrich.

She said she is behind the PORT initiative because "the majority of people involved in this are Akron-based."

Bane said she would like to see a "neighborhood feel" in the Innerbelt area with affordable housing and parks, adding that one thing that would not be suited to the area is $1 million homes.

"Put back what you took," she said.

Akron resident Ayesha Nurruddin listens to a podcast put together by PORT Urbanism telling the stories of people impacted by construction of the Akron Innerbelt during an event Thursday seeking feedback from residents on revitalization plans for the area.

West Akron resident Ayesha Nurruddin said she would like the people who were displaced by the Innerbelt to have homes there again.

She said she was impressed by all of the presentations and would like to see the various firms work together. And she told them that after their presentations.

Some sub-consultants are working with more than one of the four firms, said Akron Zoning Manager Michael Antenucci.

Planning and funding for the Innerbelt project

Each of the four finalist firms have met or plan to meet with city staff and walk the Innerbelt this week, Ogbu said.

Design firm Agency Landscape + Planning set up clothes lines where attendees could display their written feedback to various questions about what they'd like to see from a revitalized Innerbelt at a community engagement event Thursday at House Three Thirty in Akron.

City of Akron Planning Director Kyle Julien said this process is unique because the city didn't present the community with a decision but is instead asking for community input.

Various city officials, Ogbu, the Innerbelt advisory group and the community will select one of the four firms by mid-August, Julien said.

Malik said the final firm will be selected based on multiple criteria, including ability to gain trust and build relationships, understanding of equity and ability to create "equitable outcomes" and technical knowledge.

"And then finally [is] their ability to help us on the implementation side and their ability to help us find the money to do all of this work because sadly, if it was cheap, we would have already been able to do it," Malik said.

The federal government has issued some funding for the project. In early 2023, the city received a $960,000 Reconnecting Communities grant from President Joe Bidens administration, which was used to seek requests for qualifications for the project, city spokeswoman Stephanie Marsh previously told the Beacon Journal.

The selected firm will plan through 2024 and 2025, releasing its plan in late 2025, Marsh previously said. Then, she said, the city "will be able to pursue a Reconnecting Communities implementation grant, seeking funding to implement the recommendations of the plan."

Patrick Williams covers growth and development for the Akron Beacon Journal. He can be reached by email at pwilliams@gannett.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @pwilliamsOH.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Healing, trust, authenticity recurring themes in Akron Innerbelt talks
An Alabama man pleaded guilty Thursday to sending violent messages to Maricopa County election workers during the state's 2022 primary elections.

Between Aug. 2, 2022, to Aug. 4, 2022, 60-year-old Brian Ogstad of Cullman, Alabama, sent multiple threatening direct messages to an Instagram account maintained by Maricopa County Elections, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The threats were sent during Arizona's primary elections for federal and state officeholders, including a nationally covered gubernatorial primary election.

In one instance Aug. 3, Ogstad stated, "You did it! Now you are [expletive]. Dead. You will all be executed for your crimes. [expletive] you! You are caught! They have it all. You [expletive] are dead," and, You are lying, cheating [expletive] . . . you better not come in my church, my business or send your kids to my school. You are [expletive] stupid if you think your lives are safe."

Federal officials arrested Ogstad in February. His indictment alleged Ogstad referenced claims of voter fraud in addition to sending threatening messages.

Crimes and sentencings: Peoria man pleads guilty in DUI crash that killed a mom, injured daughter

Violent threats to election workers are threats to our democracy and democratic process. We cannot allow threats of violence against public servants to become normalized, FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

Ogstad pleaded guilty to one count of making a threatening interstate communication and was scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 21. He faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

A federal district court judge will decide any sentence, taking into account U.S. sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.

The functioning of our democracy requires that our countrys public servants be able to do their jobs without fearing for their lives, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said. We have no tolerance for this kind of heinous criminal conduct and the danger it poses to peoples safety and to our democratic process. Threats and acts of violence targeting those who serve the public will be met with the full force of the United States Justice Department.

The case was part of the Justice Departments Election Threats Task Force, a division created in 2021 that assesses threats against election workers in partnership with FBI Field Offices and U.S. Attorneys Offices throughout the country.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Man pleads guilty to threatening Maricopa County election workers
An Alabama man indicted for allegedly threatening election workers in Arizona has pleaded guilty to one count of sending interstate threats, federal prosecutors said.

Brian Ogstad of Cullman, Alabama, was indicted by a federal grand jury in February after Maricopa County, Arizona, election workers reported receiving numerous threats from him via social media.

Following the 2022 state primary in Arizona  which was marked by the proliferation of numerous conspiracy theories regarding the integrity of the electoral process  Ogstad sent direct messages to Maricopa County officials, including: You did it! Now you are f*cked. Dead. You will all be executed for your crimes, and You are f*cking stupid if you think your lives are safe, according to the plea agreement and a statement Thursday from the US Justice Department.

In a heightened political climate, people often make online remarks they wish they can take back, Todd Spodek, Ogstads attorney, told CNN after the plea agreement. Unfortunately, Mr. Ogstad let his emotions get the best of him and sent a number of messages that he regrets.

Ogstad is scheduled to be sentenced on October 21, according to court records. He faces up to five years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine for one count of transmitting threats.

Ogstad appeared in a 2021 CNN special report on the group Q-Anon  a virtual cult of followers who traffic in baseless conspiracy theories.

Ogstad told CNNs Anderson Cooper at the time he did not consider himself a follower of Q-Anon, but he did use their slogans and online hashtags. He also appeared to believe most of their core conspiracy theories, including calling for the public execution of prominent Democratic officials, and one former Republican president.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has repeatedly warned about the heightened risk of political violence in recent months, including calling out threats to election workers, whom he has referred to as the lifeblood of our elections.

Violent threats to election workers are threats to our democracy and democratic process, Wray said in a statement Thursday following Ogstads plea agreement. We cannot allow threats of violence against public servants to become normalized. The FBI takes seriously all threats of violence against public officials and will continue to pursue threats and acts of violence aimed at election workers.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Puts Elon Musk In His Place With Perfectly Patronizing Reminder

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) just toasted Elon Musk with a few of his own words.

On Thursday, AOC subtly dissed the tech CEO while explaining why over half of the Democratic congressional caucus was absent from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus address on Capitol Hill the day prior.

Just so were clear, Netanyahu has lost so many people that he is addressing just a fraction of Congress, Ocasio-Cortez wrote in response to an X post from Axios reporter Andrew Solender, which tallied how many Democrats skipped the speech.

Musk, who was one of the non-legislators who was invited to attend Netanyahus speech on Wednesday, then found his way into AOCs replies.

The Democratic Party has become openly & boldly antisemitic, he alleged.

The progressive lawmaker thought Musks accusation was rich, considering the billionaires well-documented history of bigoted remarks.

Clapping back, she posted a screenshot of a Wall Street Journal article about Musk defending an antisemitic social media post he once made, claiming Jewish people have a dialectical hatred of white people, as the truth.

Hmm, she wrote, along with a thinking face emoji. Sometimes being quiet is free and good for you.

Hmm  sometimes being quiet is free and good for you pic.twitter.com/6SN9InW62v  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 24, 2024

The exchange was far from the first time Ocasio-Cortez has called Musk out for his hypocrisy.

Back in March, after the South African-born businessman baselessly accused Democrats of trying to import voters, she reminded him, Youre literally an immigrant.

Related...
Athletes from Algeria wave flags aboard a boat on the Seine River in Paris, France, during the opening ceremony for the 2024 Summer Olympics, Friday, July 26, 2024. (Annegret Hilse/Pool Photo via AP)

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP)  Algeria reminded France of a particularly dark chapter of its colonial past during an otherwise celebratory opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics on Friday.

Algerian athletes brought red roses on their boat as they paraded for the event, and then tossed them into the river to honor victims of an infamous 1961 police crackdown on Algerian protesters in Paris. Some members of the delegation chanted Long live Algeria! in Arabic after throwing the flowers.

Historians say some 120 protesters died and 12,000 were arrested as they demonstrated on Oct. 17, 1961 in support of independence from France, then Algerias colonial ruler. Some were thrown in the Seine River by police.

Kaci Yahia, an Algerian worker for the Paris sewage system, was among them. His body was never recovered. His 28-year-old grandson Yanis, watching from Algeria, welcomed the commemoration by his country's delegation Friday.

"To make such a gesture, the day of the opening of the Olympics in Paris, is a monumental homage to the victims of Oct. 17. It's a moment of immense emotion,'' he said.

Other Algerians said the Olympics weren't the moment for such a protest move.

French authorities sought to cover up the 1961 massacre for decades. French President Emmanuel Macron recently acknowledged that crimes committed that day were inexcusable for the Republic.

Algeria won independence in 1962 after 132 years under colonial rule.
EL PASO, Texas (Border Report)  Alleged Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael El Mayo Zambada on Friday waved a court appearance in El Paso federal court and pleaded not guilty to charges that led to his arrest this week.

Court records show Zambada was scheduled to go before U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne T. Berton at 8 a.m. on Friday to be informed of the charges and instructed of his rights under the American judicial system. However, Dallas-based attorney Frank Perez filed a waiver of appearance and entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of his clients, court documents filed U.S. District Court for the District of West Texas show.

Drug kingpin El Mayo arrested in the El Paso area

Zambada is now scheduled for arraignment  which he can also waive  on July 31 and an Aug. 1 status conference hearing before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone for which he must show up in person. The West Texas drug, conspiracy and running a criminal enterprise charges against Zambada date back to 2012. He also has pending cases in New York, Illinois, the District of Columbia and California.

Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of jailed drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, were arrested Thursday in El Paso, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland confirmed.

Garland and Drug Enforcement Administrator Anne Milgram characterized the arrests as a major blow against a transnational criminal organization flooding American communities with the deadly drug fentanyl and other illicit substances that net the cartel billions of dollars in profits.

And while Zambada remains in El Paso, Guzman Lopez was flown out of the city early Friday to face prosecution in Chicago.

How the two major cartel players ended up in El Paso remains a mystery.

The Mexican government on Friday said it did not participate in the arrest or surrender. But its leaders said the U.S. actions are in line with binational cooperation to combat the scourge of fentanyl. They also floated a theory of how the airplane in which they were passengers ended up in the United States.

Did we participate? No, the Government of Mexico did not take part in this detention or surrender. That is not the case. But we will continue to collaborate as we have done so far, Mexican Public Safety Secretary Rosa Icela Rodriguez said Friday in a news conference broadcast on YouTube.

This combo of images provided by the U.S. Department of State shows Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, left, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. They were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday, July 25, 2024. (U.S. Department of State via AP)

Rodriguez showed images of Zambada and Guzman Lopez in U.S. custody.

The secretary said the U.S. Embassy in Mexico notified her office of the apprehensions at 3:30 p.m. Mexico City time on Thursday. She said the embassy later told her the identities of the suspects had been confirmed through fingerprints and other biometric information.

The Government of Mexico on Friday made public photographs of Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, two top Sinaloa cartel leaders now in U.S. Custody.

Part of the investigation is whether this was (an arrest) or a surrender, a pre-arranged surrender, she said.

Feds to target cartels, fentanyl imports in El Paso trade corridor

Rodriguez also showed a flight plan of a Cessna 205 aircraft that took off from Hermosillo International Airport in Sonora, Mexico, at 8:05 a.m. Thursday heading toward Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

The plan lists an American pilot, Larry Curtis Parker, as the sole occupant. The Cessna was supposed to land in Santa Teresa at 10:19 a.m.

Efforts to contact Parker by Border Report and KTSM were unsuccessful.

KTSM could not verify arrivals to the Dona Ana County Jetport on Thursday afternoon. On the runway, KTSM crews spotted a Beech King Air B200GT which comfortably transports seven passengers as opposed to a Cessna 205, which seats five passengers and a pilot. Witnesses told KTSM that authorities had the Beech King Air surrounded on the runway on Thursday afternoon.

Rodriguez said the pilot is not listed as a U.S. embassy employee or agent, but merely as a visiting pilot flying back to the U.S.

It is a fact that one left from here, and over there three arrived. We will see what the precise information is in this case, she said. The investigation is ongoing in Mexico and in the United States.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was asked to explain the difference between the two airplanes allegedly involved in the arrest of El Mayo and the other defendant. The president said that the matter is under investigation.

They could have changed (airplanes) along the way. We will know that later. Also, one left Hermosillo and three landed (in the U.S.) Did they land and (added passengers)? All of that is under investigation, were seeing what the cameras show.

Lopez Obrador said he would wait to hear from U.S. authorities about the nuances of the arrest and what the airplane situation was. He said he didnt even know, officially, which U.S. agency placed Zambada and Guzman Lopez under custody.

What happens to the Sinaloa cartel now?

Typically, when a drug lord is arrested or killed in Mexico, a bloody scramble to replace him takes place. Rodriguez said she would not speculate on how the arrests would impact the Sinaloa cartel. That is speculation. [] We leave the speculation up to you, she told Mexican news media members who asked the question.

AMLO to Trump: Dont f me over just yet

Rodriguez and Lopez Obrador emphasized that Mexico and the U.S. collaborate well on public safety and other common issues. I would like to emphasize we have good collaboration. If there is a detention (of a foreign national), we notify their embassy, Rodriguez said.

U.S. authorities previously identified four of the sons of El Chapo Guzman as heading one faction of the Sinaloa cartel, with Zambada leading the other. In addition to Joaquin Guzman Lopez, Ovidio Guzman Lopez is also jailed in the U.S. after extradition.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

Federal prison records show Ovidio Guzman was released on July 23, but Rodriguez in Mexico said she believes he is still in U.S. custody, but his jail arrangements may have been modified.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Who Are The Alleged Top Cartel Leaders Who Were Just Arrested? Meet El Chapo's Son and Ismael Zambada Garcia

Federal prosecutors have likened Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcias role in the cartel to that of El Chapo

U.S. Department of State via AP Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia, left, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, right.

Two top capos  Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia, who for years allegedly ran the Sinaloa Cartel with El Chapo, and one of the infamous kingpins sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez  were arrested Thursday, July 25 in El Paso, Texas, as part of a federal crackdown on cross-border fentanyl trafficking in the midst of rampant U.S. opioid addiction.

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who announced their arrests in a statement Thursday, said the

"top cartel leaders" had allegedly helped lead one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

They are each facing multiple federal charges alleging that they ran the Sinaloa Cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks, according to Garland, who did not further specify the charges against them.

GDA via AP Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia.

Related: Violence Erupts in Mexico After Arrest of Ovidio Guzman, Son of Notorious Drug Lord 'El Chapo'

Ducking international enforcement for decades, El Mayo has never before been arrested, with the DEA previously offering up to $15 million for his capture.

An online federal records search on Friday yielded a handful of federal cases against El Mayo, open in Texas, Illinois, D.C. and New York, the latter in the same Brooklyn courthouse where El Chapo was previously convicted of similar charges in 2019.

El Chapo, center, escorted by federal agents in Islip, N.Y. during his extradition, Jan. 19, 2017.

Related: Mexican Drug Lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman Extradited to the U.S.

The arrests come on the heels of a slew of prior take-downs targeted at the cartel, which gained international notoriety when its former leader, Joaquin Archivaldo El Chapo Guzman Loera tunneled his way out of a Mexican prison in 2015.

El Chapo was later re-captured and extradited to New York, where in 2019 he was sentenced to life plus 30 years for 10 federal drug charges connected to cartel operations.

Among the 14 cooperating witnesses who testified against their former leader, was El Mayos son, Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, who began cooperating with federal authorities sometime after his extradition to the U.S. in 2010.

Jesse Ward/New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Emma Coronel Aispuro, center, leaves Brooklyn federal court, following her husband's sentencing on July 17, 2019.

Related: Emma Coronel Aispuro, Wife of 'El Chapo,' Freed from Prison After Sentencing for Role in Drug Trafficking

During El Chapos trial, Brooklyn prosecutors alleged that along with El Mayo, four of El Chapos sons, known as Los Chapitos or the little Chapos  who they said, along with El Chapos wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, who briefly served a federal sentence on related charges  had helped their father escape and were running the cartel in his place.

The day after the kingpins conviction, a federal indictment  also naming El Mayo  was unsealed against the younger Joaquin, charging him and another brother, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, with one count of conspiracy to knowingly, intentionally, and willfully distribute cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana for cross-border importation.

U.S. Department of State via AP Joaquin Guzman Lopez.

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.

Nine months later, Ovidio was briefly arrested in Mexico, then handed back to the cartel in a bloody battle between the cartel and Mexican authorities that claimed at least 29 lives that October, according to an early body count by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Ovidio was recaptured in January 2023 and arraigned in federal court in Illinois that September, where he pleaded not guilty to five counts in a superseding indictment pertaining to his alleged involvement in his fathers cartel.

CEPROPIE via AP, File Ovidio Guzman Lopez.

Related: El Chapo's Son, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, Extradited to the U.S. from Mexico

In May, Nestor Isidro El Nini Perez Salas  the cartels alleged lead sicario, per federal prosecutors  was extradited to the U.S. on allegations that in addition to serving as a cartel hitman, he also was a part of the Sinaloa Cartels production and sale of fentanyl.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, Garland said in Thursdays statement. And the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.

With Thursdays arrest, two Chapitos  Ivan Guzman Salazar and Alfredo Guzman Salazar remain on the run.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
American families of hostages held by Hamas emerged from a meeting with President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday optimistic about progress on a deal to secure their loved ones release.

We feel more optimistic than we have since the first round of releases, said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, referring to a weeklong cease-fire last year that allowed the release of more than 100 hostages.

Dekel-Chens son Sagui, 35, has been in Hamas captivity since being kidnapped from Israel nearly 10 months ago, during the groups Oct. 7 terrorist attack.

The families of hostages were outspoken this week in their criticism of Netanyahu for failing to secure a cease-fire deal first laid out by Biden at the end of May.

Biden met with Netanyahu in the Oval Office on Thursday, the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders since the president visited Israel one week after the Oct. 7 attack.

Biden and Netanyahu have had an extremely strained relationship over the past two years  with Biden putting support behind mass protests against Netanyahus pursuit of judicial reforms in 2023, and expressing deep frustrations with the Israeli leader over the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza amid Israels military campaign against Hamas.

But families of hostages described the president and prime ministers relationship as solid on Thursday and called for shifting the focus to pressuring Hamas to agree to the terms of a deal. The White House says the remaining disagreements over a multiphase cease-fire deal could be resolved within a week.

The deal would put in place a 42-day pause in fighting and require Hamas to release, in phases, the estimated 115 hostages  alive and dead  with Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, and a scale up of delivery of humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The deal calls for a second round of negotiations to take place half-way through the truce, to broker a permanent end to the war, the transition to a Palestinian civilian administration of Gaza and reconstruction.

We got an absolute commitment from the Biden administration and from Prime Minister Netanyahu that they understand the urgency of this moment now, to waste no time and to complete this deal, as it currently stands, with as little change as humanly possible, Dekel-Chen told reporters, standing with other families outside the White House.

We are also very happy to hear from the president that Hamas now understands that the ball is now in its court. World pressure is such that it has nowhere to hide anymore.

Biden and Netanyahu met for about 90 minutes before the families were brought in. Netanyahu is also holding separate meetings with Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, and former President Trump, the Republican nominee.

Jonathan Polin, whose son Hersh Goldberg-Polin is held hostage, said the meetings conveyed a consensus on getting the cease-fire deal done immediately. Trump, in an interview Thursday on Fox News, said he wants Netanyahu to finish up the war and get the hostages back.

Weve got a rare moment now where the current president of the United States and anybody who might become president of the United States, both vice President Harris and Donald Trump, are all aligned saying this deal must get done now, Polin said.

So anybody, on any side who makes the mistaken political calculus that theres benefit in waiting, will find out that that logic is wrong. The deal must happen now.

Harris, in remarks following her meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday, said she had a frank and constructive talk with the Israeli leader, adding that she told him its time to get a cease-fire done now.

Harriss remarks offered the clearest indication yet on how she will approach U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians, an issue that has divided the Democratic Party over criticisms that the Biden administration has held back consequences on Israel for violations of international humanitarian law.

Ive said it many times but it bears repeating, Israel has a right to defend itself, but how it does so matters, Harris said, adding that she brought up with Netanyahu the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.

The meetings with Netanyahu came a day after the Israeli leader gave a controversial speech to a joint session of Congress that was boycotted by scores of Democrats, protested by hostage families, and marked by angry protests outside the Capitol against the Israeli leader whom they view as a war criminal and an obstacle to peace.

The White House on Thursday pushed back against those characterizations, with White House national security communications adviser John Kirby saying the administration does not agree with allegations made by the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court (ICC) that Netanyahu is a war criminal.

We dont consider him a war criminal  we dont find the ICCs finding to be relevant or appropriate in this case. We dont find him to be a war criminal. Hes an ally and a partner and a friend.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 26. China proposes holding an international conference on a long-term solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, China's permanent representative to the UN Fu Cong said, Trend reports.

"Earlier this week, Palestinian factions held talks in Beijing and reached an important consensus, a significant step towards realizing the principle of Palestinian rule of Palestine. China expresses strong support for the establishment of an independent State of Palestine and calls for a larger, more representative and effective international peace conference to set a time frame and road map for the implementation of a two-state solution", he said at a UN Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
The News

Before I hit the road, I asked Americana readers to submit their questions about this latest crazy leg of the presidential cycle. None of us have lived through an election like this, but some of the facts of the Trump v. Harris race are knowable. And since were nearly 100 days out from the election, it felt like a good time to check in and see what people were most curious about.

Thanks to everyone who submitted questions. Ask anything, anytime  and hopefully, our first answer session helps you figure out whats going on.

The Mailbag

GARY COHEN: The press was all over Biden for not giving press conferences, and rightfully so. When will Donald Trump answer questions from the press? And do presidential nominees during their campaigns traditionally do press conferences?

AMERICANA: Do you remember the Hillary Clinton press conference ticker? In 2016, the fact that Clinton rarely held press conferences, where any reporter could ask a question, became a quasi-scandal. Big news organizations had assigned people to cover her, paying tens of thousands of dollars to travel around the country, consuming the toxic contents of airport vending machines. They were on hand at every public appearance. And for more than 200 days they never got to ask her questions in an open format.

You are right: Biden barely held press conferences. The NATO presser that ended up being his last, as a candidate, was for the White House press corps, not the campaign press. (Theres a lot of overlap, but not total.) Trump and Biden both answer questions, if they feel like it, from reporters who are present when their campaign planes land. But Trump hasnt held a traditional press conference all year. Both candidates do (and in Bidens case, did) most of their talking in sit-down interviews with individual outlets. And Trump has done far fewer with non-conservative outlets than he did in 2016 or 2020. The last extensive, anything-goes one was Time magazines cover story, in April (Biden also talked to them later). He did do an economy-focused sitdown with Bloomberg Businessweek more recently that generated plenty of policy news.

JACK STEPHENS: It seems like all the polling shows Biden doing as good or better than Kamala vs. Trump. What was the undeniable data that showed that he could not win?

AMERICANA: We know that Biden read ominous polling data before deciding not to run, conducted by his campaign. Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon, longtime Biden advisers, showed him that polling last weekend, and Biden pulled the plug on Sunday.Theres no polling since the switch that shows Harris doing worse than Biden was, but the improvement has been marginal, not a flipped switch going from L to W. Biden was aware of that, too; polling before the candidate swap showed Harris losing to Trump, which was a reason why so many well-connected Democrats fantasized about replacing her with someone whod start with lower negatives.

Biden hasnt detailed everything that went into his thinking that Harris had a chance, and he didnt. Maybe he never will. But the theory I heard most from Democrats was that the potential of a Harris nomination was bigger than polls could measure. That seems right to me. If youd told someone two months ago, Harris would raise $100 million in a day if Biden quit, would you have believed it?

CORY COLLIGAN: Does Bob Menendez get to keep his pension or is he forfeiting it? Whats to prevent him from stealing national security documents (a la Trump) before he leaves?

AMERICANA: Menendez will likely lose both of his pensions. He spent six years in city government and five years in New Jerseys state legislature, entitling him to a $1,066 monthly pension. If he had not been convicted this month, he was set up for a $11,600 monthly pension from his House and Senate career.

But he was convicted, and that deprives him of the congressional pension, thanks to the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. Hes got the state pension until and unless the state disqualifies him from holding office again, which is likely, after hes sentenced. That could take a while, as Menendez is planning to appeal.

In the meantime, by resigning on Aug. 20, hes going to collect one more month of his current salary  six ounces of gold, though its typically paid in dollars. If he did decide to steal national security documents on the way out, that would be a bad idea, because only presidents can unilaterally declassify documents. Anyone else takes them, its a crime. (Thanks to David Wildstein for the pension facts.)

NICK FIELD: Would Chuck Schumer be opposed to Kamala Harris choosing Mark Kelly as her VP nominee? And more to the point, does Schumer have enough sway with Harris to convince her not to do so?

AMERICANA: Officially, he has no position on that, but I see what youre getting at  Kelly is the only potential running mate whod have to give up a Senate seat to run. If he stays put, Democrats dont have to defend that seat until 2028, and with an incumbent who mints money. If he takes the job, and wins, Gov. Katie Hobbs will appoint a replacement who may or may not run for the rest of Kellys term in 2026  and would then have to run, again, in 2028 after that. Youre talking about tens of millions of dollars of campaign spending, if recent Arizona races tell us anything.

Schumer doesnt have the pull with Harris to dissuade her, but unsentimental vote-counting matters more to her than to most politicians. One reason that Bernie Sanders isnt in the Biden cabinet  he was in the mix for Labor  was that if hed left the Senate, his seat would have remained vacant until a special election, and Mitch McConnell would have remained majority leader for the first crucial months of Bidens presidency. No Democrat whod be replaced by a Republican is on the Harris list. But Kelly would force a special midterm election in Arizona, and even the most optimistic Democrats dont want that.

TORR LEONARD: Can you please explain to me how exactly it will be decided who Kamalas running mate will be? Do delegates vote on who should be the VP? And does the VP have to be picked at the convention, or can it wait until after the convention? And please settle the current debate about whether the VP can be someone who is registered to vote in the same state as Kamala.

AMERICANA: Harris gets to choose her running mate, and Democratic delegates will have to affirm it. The party wants a virtual vote before the DNC itself, for reasons too tedious to get into again; the ticket will probably be nominated by Aug. 7, if they keep that schedule. The stated reason for that rush is getting right with every states ballot deadline. No state has a barrier to a Harris/TBD ticket if its nominated by Democratic delegates next month. Some would pose problems if the ticket was chosen later.

The debate about residency is nice and settled: Article II of the Constitution states that presidential electors will vote for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. This has never been litigated, and nobody seriously wants to litigate it. Trump publicly said fellow Floridian Marco Rubio brought some potential residency headaches as a running mate, though, and there was reportedly discussion of him moving in order to get ahead of a legal challenge if necessary.
In our Reality Check stories, Tri-City Herald journalists seek to hold the powerful accountable and find answers to critical questions in our community. Read more. Story idea? News@tricityherald.com.

Tiffany Smiley made a compelling pitch to political donors, but her opponent says those donors have been misled.

Appearing on a Sunday afternoon FOX News program in April 2023, the failed candidate for U.S. Senate announced a new fundraising effort aimed at elevating fledgling candidates who were focused on fiscal restraint, limited government and individual freedom.

Endeavor PAC will focus on giving candidates the boost, giving them an infrastructure that allows them to get across the finish line, Smiley told Steve Hilton at the time. We are looking for compelling candidates with compelling stories, who are in the real world who are fighting under policies that are hurting the American dream.

Over the next 15 months, a consortium of Smiley-operated political action committees (PAC), including her Endeavor PAC, raised nearly $700,000 in cash donations, according to FEC filings.

But only a slim fraction of that money  about $28,100  went to fund outsider candidates.

That spending is highlighted in recent ads paid for by Dan Newhouse for Congress, the reelection campaign for the Sunnyside farmer whos hoping to earn a sixth term later this year representing Washingtons 4th Congressional District.

One TV ad claims Smiley deceived her donors by using the PAC donations to pay down a $1 million debt from her Senate run instead of backing more candidates.

Another mailbox flier from Newhouse labeled Smiley a Two Faced, Debt-Ridden, Double-Dealer in Disguise!

Its all part of a massive mud-slinging campaign orchestrated by Newhouse and Smiley, both of whom are hoping to make it past the crowded Aug. 6 primary election.

A previous TV ad from the Smiley camp labeled Newhouse Amnesty Dan and a Creature of the Swamp, prodding him on his immigration positions.

But the two candidates first have to best six other candidates, including Trump-endorsed Prosser businessman Jerrod Sessler.

In a statement, Smileys campaign shot down insinuations her run for the U.S. House was being used as a vehicle to pay off her previous debt and said Endeavor PAC donors are well aware how their money is being used.

Dan Newhouse is running scared and lying because he voted to impeach Donald Trump and is going to lose, a campaign spokesperson told the Tri-City Herald. When running for Senate, Tiffany left everything out in the field because saving our country is that important. Everything she has done since has been to help elect more conservatives into office and any insinuation otherwise is politics as usual and a lie.

Newhouses ad also claimed Smiley used donor money for luxury travel. A review of Endeavor PAC receipts since its creation shows more than $13,000 worth of travel expenses  mostly for flights  with stays at Marriott hotels in Tampa and Washington, D.C., such the The Mayflower Hotel.

Smileys campaign declined to respond to the ads allegations that was luxury travel.

In 2022, U.S. Senate Candidate Tiffany Smiley stands next to her husband, Scotty, as they are surrounded by family, friends and supporters during a New Mom in Town Tour stop in Kennewick, Wash.

The fine print

Political fundraising conducted by the Pasco veterans advocate has come under increased scrutiny ever since the Seattle Times examined the flow of contributions to Endeavor PAC in a May 2023 story.

The fine print listed on Endeavor PACs online portal reportedly tells contributors that donations will flow to a joint-fundraising committee, the Smiley Victory Fund, and earmarked first to pay off debt owed by the 2022 Smiley For Washington campaign.

Between the end of 2022 and June of this year, Smiley has paid down her debt by $553,000.

The debt her campaign owed to Virginia-based marketing firm Targeted Victory peaked at more than $1 million, leaving an outstanding balance today of more than $447,000.

The Times reported at the time that the first $2,900 of any individual contribution and the first $5,800 of any contribution from a couple to Endeavor PAC would go to pay down the debt. Only donations above those thresholds would go to Smileys new PAC.

That likely explains the large fundraising discrepancy between Smileys three active PACs: Endeavor PAC, Smiley Victory Fund and Smiley for Washington.

Since January 2023, Smiley for Washington has reported nearly $154,000 in individual contributions  mostly labeled for general debt retirement and from WinRed, the Republican Partys fundraising platform  as well as nearly $149,000 worth of in-transfers, all from the Smiley Victory Fund.

The Smiley Victory Fund, meanwhile, has reported more than $441,000 in individual contributions since January 2023 and has reported no transfers in from outside PACs.

Endeavor PAC has reported a mere $61,000 worth of individual contributions since January 2023, most labeled as earmarked transfers from WinRed.

Combined, the three committees currently have nearly $238,000 of cash on hand  and that doesnt include the more than $577,000 Smiley raised in the first two months of her campaign for Newhouses congressional seat.

Experts interviewed in last years Seattle Times story say Smileys fundraising with Endeavor PAC appeared to fall within federal election guidelines, even if it seemed misleading. Its a technique thats been used on both the right and left, with candidates and committees shifting money between funds or using contributions for unstated or otherwise understated reasons.

But Smileys campaign argues money raised to cover the debt was placed into separate accounts and solicitations were fully transparent.

Smiley was plucked from political obscurity in 2022 to challenge three-decade incumbent Patty Murray for her seat in the U.S. Senate. Smileys campaign raised $20 million but lost to Murray by 15 percentage points in a year that saw Democrats fend off a midterm red wave.

Republican Tiffany Smiley is one of seven challengers looking to oust Washington 4th District U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse.

Who received Endeavor PAC donations?

Since its January 2023 establishment, Endeavor PAC has made 10 political contributions worth $28,100 to several different congressional candidates and causes.

The largest beneficiary of its political dealings has been Leslie Lewallen, the mainstream Republican running for Congress in Southwest Washington, who received $6,600.

A former King County prosecuting attorney and sitting Camas City Council member, Lewallen is running to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.

Endeavor PAC also made two contributions last fall totaling $5,000 to Tim Sheehy, the recent winner of Montanas Republican primary for the U.S. Senate.

Hes looking to unseat three-term Sen. Jon Tester, the last statewide Democratic officeholder in Montana, in a race that could decide the balance of the U.S. Senate.

Donations of $3,300 a piece also were made to Republican candidates Alison Esposito in New York, Dave McCormick in Pennsylvania, George Logan in Connecticut and Hung Cao in Virginia.

Esposito and Logan are running in competitive House districts in suburban New York City and Hartford currently occupied by Democrats. McCormick and and Cao are challenging incumbent Democrats running for reelection in the Senate.

Endeavor also donated $3,300 to a PAC affiliated with Republican Senator Joni Ernst, called Jobs, Opportunity and New Ideas PAC.

Primary candidates this year for Washingtons Fourth Congressional District. They are, clockwise from top left, Democrat Mary Baechler, Republican Jerrod Sessler, MAGA Democrat John Malan, Republican incumbent Dan Newhouse, Democrat Birdie Jane Muchlinski, Republican Tiffany Smiley, Democrat Barry Knowles, and independent Benny Garcia.

Race for WA 4th District

Ballots have been mailed to voters across Washington state for the Aug. 6 primary election.

Newhouse won election to the U.S. House in 2014, succeeding former Congressman Doc Hastings. He currently serves on the Houses Appropriations Committee.

Sessler and Smiley are challenging him over his 2021 vote to impeach former President Donald Trump for his role in fomenting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Sessler is mounting his second campaign against Newhouse after falling short in the 2022 primary.

Newhouse is also facing challengers from the left.

Yakima Valley entrepreneur Mary Baechler and Tri-Cities Democratic Party leader Birdie Jane Muchlinski appear on the primary ballot as Democrats. They said theyre running to right Congress wrongs on abortion access, housing, public safety and climate change.

Washingtons 4th Congressional District stretches from the U.S.-Canada border down to the Columbia River, and includes the Tri-Cities, Omak, East Wenatchee, Moses Lake, Yakima and the Yakama Indian Reservation.
Andy Beshear is in the mix for VP. But how does the vetting process actually work?

In our In the Spotlight stories, Herald-Leader journalists bring you continuing coverage of news and events important to our Central Kentucky community. Read more. Story idea? hlcityregion@herald-leader.com.

On the short list to run alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshears name is gracing the pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, his face is appearing on CNN and MSNBC and his name has been searched on Google far more than ever.

This is the most national exposure the 46-year-old Democrat has received. For a politician as ambitious as Beshear, it is an undoubtedly an exciting time.

But it could also prove incredibly painful.

Joe Lieberman, who was former vice president Al Gores running mate in the 2000 presidential election, compared it to a colonoscopy without a painkiller.

This time, its a rushed procedure.

Compared to the months that former Republican President Donald Trump took to pick Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate or the time that President Joe Biden had to pick Harris, the Harris team has less than two weeks to make their choice. This process is not even a week old, as Biden stepped aside Sunday and backed Harris, who now has more than enough delegates committed to secure the nomination.

Newly adopted Democratic National Committee rules set Aug. 7 as the deadline for a vice presidential nominee to be chosen in advance of ballot access deadlines.

Experts on the vice presidency like the University of Daytons Christopher Devine, a political science professor who authored the book News Media Coverage of the Vice-Presidential Selection Process: Whats Wrong with the Veepstakes, have also described the process as highly invasive and elaborate.

They look for absolutely everything  any skeletons that could come out of the closet during the campaign, they want to know about it in advance, Devine said. Maybe they dont pick you because of it. Maybe they do, but they price it in.

They might even leak something before the selection just so its kind of known and factored in prior to that point.

The details of the so-called veepstakes this year arent entirely clear.

The law firm of former attorney general Eric Holder, who served under former president Barack Obama, is running the vetting process. Around a dozen Democrats are reportedly being vetted, with Beshear often listed among the top tier of candidates alongside North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

How is Beshear working this?

When peppered with questions from reporters on various aspects of the process on Thursday, Beshear offered the same canned answer over and over again.

I am honored to be considered, and regardless of what comes next Ill do everything I can between now and election day to elect VP Harris to the White House, he said.

As he makes statements to the public  the most important audience member being Harris and her team  via press conference and television interview, a growing consensus has been built that Beshear would take the opportunity.

Theres little clarity on how Beshears team is working through it, though.

Eric Hyers, Beshears longtime top political consultant, did not respond to questions regarding who was coordinating his activities in Washington as the process moves along, including travel and booking appearances on the major networks.

Beshears newly-formed political action committee, In This Together, did not spend any money explicitly on veepstakes-related matters, according to its latest filings with the Federal Elections Commission.

The latest data from June shows payments made to Outperform Strategies, Hyers firm, and Against the Odds, LLC, a company run by former Beshear finance director Lucas Johnson, for fundraising services. Johnson is the same fundraiser blamed by London Mayor Randall Weddle for not flagging a $200,000-plus illegal contribution, which Weddle made on his credit card but in the name of family and friends, thus allowing him to donate far past the maximum amount to Beshears reeleection and the Kentucky Democratic Party.

Its possible that one of Beshears most trusted advisors Jonathan Smith, a deputy chief of staff in the administration whos slated to leave for the private sector soon, is involved, though Hyers did not respond to a question on that topic. Smith was with Beshear when he visited Washington shortly before Biden stepped aside.

Steve Beshear, the former governor who is Andys father, could also be making calls. The elder Beshear grew connections in the party during his two terms from 2007 to 2015, where he gained plaudits for expanding Medicaid and later delivered the Democratic response to the State of the Union.

Its unclear to what extent donors are involved in advocating for their preferred candidate.

John Morgan, a Lexington native who founded the countrys biggest injury law firm Morgan & Morgan, is one of the most prolific Democratic fundraisers. He also may be Andys number one supporter in America, he told the Herald-Leader; members of the firm have contributed hundreds of thousands to Beshear campaigns and he often extols Beshears brand of moderate-tinged politics.

However, he told the Herald-Leader hes mostly hands off when it comes to who Harris selects as a running mate.

Look, Andys strengths are self-evident, Morgan said. I think if Andy was in a battleground state, hes a no-brainer. He looks great, hes authentic and people like him are the future of the Democratic Party.

But the sort of behind-the-scenes intrigue of whos pushing for whom may not really matter, according to Mark Riddle, a Kentucky native who leads the political group Future Majority and co-founded a pro-Biden super PAC that raised massive amounts of money in 2020. Riddle also recently hosted a fundraiser for Beshears PAC in Washington.

I think the press is interested in that sort of thing, but it generally comes down to what the vetting shows, the chemistry level, comfort, and then what the message is that the campaign is trying to portray, Riddle said.

Organic or ordered  Beshear holds serious sway over the state party  there is relative unanimity among grassroots Kentucky Democrats: they want Beshear to be the vice president. Starting this week, dozens of prominent Democrats both elected and highly involved made posts to social media boosting Beshear.

Some made their case directly to Harris. House Minority Whip Rachel Roberts, D-Newport, began a post to social media site X, formerly Twitter, addressed madam @VP.

Allow me to provide a reference for my friend/colleague @AndyBeshearKY. I cant recommend him highly enough for the vacancy (VP) your presidency will bring about. Im happy to discuss his qualifications with you further should that prove useful, Roberts wrote.

This kind of coordination makes the message more and more clear: Beshear wants this.

I think its obvious he wants it based on his performance in these interviews, Al Cross, a longtime Kentucky political observer and journalist. I watched him in these interviews and when it comes to J.D. Vance, hes saying let me at him.

I think he does want it, but this is not a process where its becoming to seem to want it. You dont want to seem overeager.

How has it gone in the past?

Though its likely this years process will be warped by the limited timeline, theres been thorough reporting on the 2020 veepstakes that saw Harris emerge that could reflect how it will play out this year.

In Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns book This Will Not Pass, the pair of POLITICO journalists describe a thorough deliberative process where four prominent Democrats led the process of interviewing and vetting potential vice presidential candidates.

Former U.S. Senator from Connecticut Chris Dodd, who served alongside Biden for decades, was one of four on the committee to screen candidates that ultimately recommended Harris in 2020.

Dodd told the Herald-Leader that he assumed the decision will be made by the middle of next week.

The last iteration was marked by extreme caution.

The committee members, according to Martin and Burns book, were tremendously impressed by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-IL. The senator had survived an RPG hit to her helicopter while serving in Iraq, losing the majority of both legs; her story, her demeanor and her background as a woman of color with serious military service under her belt made her feel like the right fit at one time.

But the fact of her being born outside the U.S.  despite her meeting the constitutional requirements to serve as a natural-born citizen  made the Biden team balk. She was born in Thailand to an American father, similarly to former GOP presidential nominee John McCain, who was born in the Panama Canal Zone, where his father was stationed in the U.S. Navy.

Tammy, youre great, Biden told her, per the book. But theres this one thing

Beyond the vetting team, the knives were also out between the vice presidential contenders themselves.

A general sense among many who interviewed for the role in 2020 was that a San Francisco consulting firm with ties to Harris was responsible for an onslaught of opposition research used against them during the veepstakes.

Tough scrutiny is inevitable in any vice presidential search, but something about this felt more deliberate, even targeted  and aimed at all of the most formidable Black women under consideration, except for Kamala Harris, Martin and Burns wrote.

Another important note: Ron Klain, one of Bidens top consiglieres during the search, placed a high value on prior national exposure as a way to know how each person would perform under the bright lights. That was a big part of his argument for Harris; shed already put herself out there in her unsuccessful presidential primary run.

Among the crop of contenders this year  at least those that are being vetted, per reports  only Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has run for president and only Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo have been vetted for the VP role previously.

What matters?

The conventional rule number one in picking a running mate is simple: do no harm.

At the end of the day, people are not voting for the presidential ticket based on who the vice president is. Yeah, theres a debate and some people watch it. The conventional wisdom is correct here: the vice presidential candidate cannot really help you, but they can hurt you, Jody Baumgartner, a professor at East Carolina University who penned a book on the vice presidency.

Beyond a vice presidential candidate tanking the campaign with a horrible stage presence, shocking stories of their past or any other negatives, political scientists are in agreement that they dont directly affect many voters choices.

That includes in their home states.

However, the selection does have some political relevance in how, as the first act of the future administration, it can reflect on the presidential candidates politics. Devine said it is a fact that perceptions of the vice presidential candidates ideology influence perceptions of presidential candidates ideology.

Devine added that Beshears perceived moderatism could reasonably help Harris buffer attacks from the right that shes too liberal.

Kamala Harris has something of an ideology problem. I dont think its a huge one, but its certainly a leading line of attack for Republicans already, Devine said.

It cant radically change views of her, but it can cause voters to say, you know, I didnt her that well, I had the impression that she was really, really liberal. But if shes picking Andy Beshear, maybe thats a signal that shes not as liberal as I thought.
Former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci said he thinks former President Donald Trump might replace Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) amid reports that some Republicans have privately shared regret over the choice.

I mean, thats what The Apprentice is all about, Scaramucci, who famously had a 10-day stint as Trumps White House communications director, told CNNs Kaitlan Collins on Thursday.

Of course, Ive had that experience with Donald Trump. I do think he could. Its just a question of how many Scaramuccis JD is going to last. We got the shot clock on right now, he added.

Vances pastremarks  and at least one awkward rally moment  have made headlines since Trump named him as his choice for vice president earlier this month.

His 2021 dig calling Democrats childless cat ladies has sparked backlash from lawmakers, entertainers and potential running mate picks for Vice President Kamala Harris campaign.

Scaramucci, a frequent Trump critic, told Collins that Trumps postelection obituary will deem it a terrible mistake that he didnt appeal to a broader GOP base with a potential VP pick like former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

He went hard MAGA. He went with a strange guy thats very dull on stage and you know, Trump hates that, Scaramucci said. You covered him in the White House, I worked with him in the White House. Theres nothing that Trump hates more than dull people and, you know, JD, I think, stands for just dull.

He added that Vance is not doing well on the stump for Trump.

Hes hurting him, the memes on social media are killing him, the net negatives are terrible for the vice president, Scaramucci said.

He continued: The vice president in a Trump campaign is supposed to get out of the way and he has become an issue for Donald Trump. So, you know, he could have picked Nikki Haley or he could have picked somebody but Trump is such a narcissist he didnt want anybody taking credit for his electoral success.

H/T Mediaite

Related...
Chances of a rapprochement between regional rivals Turkey and Syria were raised momentarily on July 22, 2024, with news that the leaders of both countries were set for a much-anticipated meeting aimed at resolving long-standing differences. Within hours, Turkish sources dismissed the rumors of an imminent sit-down between the two leaders as false.

Delicacy over the matter is understandable. A recent surge in anti-Syrian violence in Turkey has highlighted the fragility of efforts to restore diplomatic ties with Syria, which were severed at the onset of the Syrian civil war.

That conflict affected Turkey in a number of ways. Ankara sided with opposition forces in Syria and eventually intervened militarily, occupying parts of the countrys north. Meanwhile, fighting led to an influx of millions of refugees into Turkey, provoking anti-Syrian sentiment and, more recently, violence.

On June 30, 2024, Syrian-owned properties, vehicles and businesses in the central Turkish city of Kayseri were vandalized and set on fire following allegations of sexual abuse against a Syrian man. Fueled by social media, attacks soon spread and sparked the most violent anti-Syrian riots to date in Turkish areas with large Syrian refugee populations.

It also prompted or inflamed violence in opposition-held northwest Syria against Turkish military positions. The region was already on edge following comments from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that signaled his desire to restore relations with the Syrian government  something that would have profound consequences for opposition-held areas.

Detente with Damascus?

Erdogan has recently called for a new era with Syria following years of antagonism between the Turkish leader and his Syrian counterpart.

Since popular uprisings escalated into a full-blown civil war in 2012, Erdogan has viewed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad as responsible for persecuting and displacing Syrians, making negotiations between the neighboring countries difficult.

But now Erdogan has suggested he is willing to meet with Assad. His hope is that a return to normalized relations would help facilitate the return of 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey and address the shared concern of a potential Kurdish state in northeastern Syria.

As a political scientist focusing on security in the Middle East, I can see how a diplomatic breakthrough could benefit both leaders. For Erdogan, it would alleviate tensions over Syrian refugees; for Assad it represents a further sign that his regional isolation has come to an end. But elsewhere, it complicates the already complex and volatile nature of Turkeys engagement in Syria, notably regarding its relationship with Syrian refugees and opposition groups in northwest Syria.

Anti-Syrian riots and social media

The outburst of anti-Syrian violence in Turkey came just days after Erdogan first signaled the possibility of meeting with Assad. The Turkish president accused opposition parties of stoking racism and fueling tensions. Meanwhile, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya pointed to online campaigns stirring up violence, noting that 38% of the provocative and negative posts on the evening of the rioting was produced by bot accounts.

Syrians cross into their country from the Turkish crossing point of Cilvegozu, in Reyhanli, southeastern Turkey. AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File

Whoever was behind the campaign to stoke animosity, it fed into existing tensions in opposition-held northwest Syria. Hundreds of angry Syrians took to the streets in several towns, attacking Turkish trucks and removing Turkish flags, while demanding the withdrawal of Turkish forces. In response, Turkey closed its borders with northwest Syria.

The growing anti-Turkish sentiment in opposition-held areas of Syria highlight the complicated nature of Turkeys attempt at rapprochement with the regime in Damascus. Having established Turkey as an ardent supporter of anti-Assad forces, Erdogan now stands accused of turning his back on his erstwhile allies. Furthermore, to the refugees in Turkey who fled Assads crackdown, a deal that would see them returned would amount to a betrayal.

After Erdogans intention to meet with Assad started to circulate in the media, some factions of the Syrian opposition dubbed it Turkeys sellout of the opposition.

Some Syrian pundits claimed that normalization with Assad was a step toward the massive forced return of refugees to Syria in the face of growing public demands and electoral pressures. As was evident during the 2023 elections in Turkey, the return of refugees has become a politicized issue in the country.

All of this puts Erdogan in a bind. While he wants to placate the Turkish public, he doesnt wish to anger or cut ties with the Syrian opposition, a group that he had previously cultivated ties with as a potential ally against Kurdish independence.

Negotiating with Assad

For some time, negotiating with the Syrian regime was considered a red line by Erdogans Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish acronym AKP. The party viewed Assad as the main actor responsible for the persecution and forced displacement of Syrians.

And until recently, Assad showed no interest in meeting with Erdogan, as he blamed him for violence in Syria through the support of rebel groups fighting the regime. However, he recently signaled that he could meet with President Erdogan as long as the sovereignty of the Syrian state over all its territory is respected and all forms of terrorism are fought.

So why the diplomatic push for rapprochement now? Part of the answer lies in Erdogans desire to return Syrian refugees living in Turkey for domestic popularity reasons. Even if he fails to reach an agreement, he would be in a position to tell a public increasingly critical of the open doors policy to Syrian refugees that engagement with Damascus has been tried but failed to produce any concrete results.

And then there is the concern shared by Turkey and Syria over the materialization of a de facto Kurdish state, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, in northeast Syria. Rojava is supported by the U.S., yet recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey.

A protester throws a rock toward a Turkish truck during protests against Turkey in al-Bab, in the northern Syrian opposition-held region of Aleppo, on July 1, 2024. Photo by Bakr Alkasem/AFP via Getty Images

If the U.S. withdraws troops from the region, Erdogan would need to negotiate Turkeys policy toward northeast Syria with Assad.

Yet, both leaders are currently in a weak position to dictate the terms of the new order in northeast Syria. Restoring diplomatic ties would enable both countries to coordinate efforts against a shared goal of preventing an autonomous Kurdish state.

Foreseeing the impacts of a possible rapprochement on their political interests, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria calls the diplomatic efforts a conspiracy against the Syrian people and a clear legitimization of the Turkish occupation of previously Kurdish-majority areas. The U.S. also opposes normalization of relations with Syria absent authentic progress toward a political solution to the conflict.

Middle Easts new realities

Erdogans attempt to restore relations with Syria might also be viewed as an adjustment to the new political realities in the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates restored diplomatic relations with Syria in 2018. The Arab League also normalized relations with Syria and readmitted it in 2023. Saudi Arabia also reopened its embassy in Damascus in 2024.

In other words, Syrias isolation in the region has effectively come to an end. In this regard, Ankara may have concluded that it is in its best interest to have diplomatic relations with a country that it needs to negotiate and coordinate with on a series of military, political and migration-related issues.

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: Sefa Secen, The Ohio State University.

Read more:



Sefa Secen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A New Jersey woman busted for peddling phony vaccination cards on a 2021 Instagram account called AntiVaxMomma tried a last-ditch effort to avoid prison after she agreed to a plea deal  but walked out of Manhattan Supreme Court in handcuffs Thursday.

Prosecutors say Jasmine Clifford forged at least 250 fake vaccination cards and sold at least 13 to essential workers, including hospital, nursing home and school staff at $200 a pop.

After entering the courtroom wearing oversize sunglasses and a sweatshirt wrapped around her head, Clifford, 34, told Judge Beth Beller that shes been confused about the purpose of Thursdays hearing after she had previously pleaded guilty to offering a false instrument for filing and conspiracy.

I was under the impression at the last court case that we were setting a date for trial, said Clifford, shielding her face from press photographers with her hand. I was not aware that there was a plea offer.

The defendant made an Instagram post in which she questioned the voluntary nature of her plea, said Assistant District Attorney Kofi Sansculotte. We wish to put it on the record.

I had seconds to make a decision and the offer was on the table, Clifford said. I really didnt know what to do. In my heart what I wanted to do was to go to trial.

Even if I were to go to trial, I would need time, she said. If I had more time to think about the plea, I would have not chosen that option.

The prosecutor refuted that claim, saying Clifford herself had asked for the plea deal.

The defendant herself asked the court for this disposition on the record on Feb. 23, said Sansculotte. About a month later the people made the current offer. The 19th of April, two months after, the defendant herself requested the offer.

Beller pointed out Cliffords current deal was much lighter than what had originally been discussed.

I was here, she pled guilty in front of me, said the judge. I have a lot of people who come in front of me who have second thoughts about going to jail.

I would also note there is somewhat of a history of this here, of Ms. Clifford not being totally candid, said Beller, noting the defendant had told the court she needed time to arrange child care and was sick but instead went on vacation and posted photos to Instagram.

The people looked at social media of her at all kinds of different places. She tagged her location as Puerto Rico, she was driving, she was on the beach and she said she was in poor health.

Posting on Instagram as @5starjazziii, Clifford shared photos and videos three weeks ago of a sunset and herself strolling in the sand with her kids as well as a shot of an array of desserts, with Happy Birthday! written in chocolate sauce on a plate.

Shes known for a very long time she could have a trial but she took a plea, said Beller. I am going forward with the sentence.

Clifford was sentenced to 1 to 3 years for the scheme, which prosecutors say she masterminded.

The defendant, whose Instagram account lists her as entrepreneur, was aided by Nadayza Barkley, 27, who fraudulently entered the names of at least 10 of the card buyers into the states Excelsior Pass system, which provided vaccine documents to users cell phones, prosecutors said.

Barkley, of Bellport, L.I., allegedly accessed the state database through her job at a medical clinic in Patchogue.

Prosecutors charged 13 essential workers in August 2021 with felony criminal possession of a forged instrument and conspiracy, a misdemeanor.

A popular TikTok user, whose digital moniker is @TizzyEnt, sounded an alarm about AntiVaxxMomma in 2021. TizzyEnt shared on his page screenshots and videos Clifford posted to her 302,000 followers from her personal account.

$200/CARD. REAL CARDS, REAL LOT #S. REAL VACCINATION SITES, read one of Cliffords captions on a photo showing bundles of purported fake CDC vaccine cards. SHIPPING OUT TODAY AND TOMORROW.

In another post that TizzyEnt shared with his followers in blowing the whistle on Clifford, she said she wanted to expand her team and enlist more hospital and pharmacy workers with access to the states immunization database.

I messaged her initially from another account on Instagram and presented myself as somebody who worked at a Walgreens, TizzyEnt told the Daily News in 2021. And she immediately was like, Do you have computer access?

She was very open and willing to give a lot of information, said TizzyEnt, who asked that he not be identified by his real name. I was sort of shocked and surprised that she was. But yeah, [she] clearly stated that she had someone already entering information in New Yorks Excelsior Pass database.
The Amarillo Police Explorer Post #5507 and Amarillo Police Department announced Friday that they are hosting a Bomb City Police Explorer Competition on Saturday, July 27, at AmTech Career Academy.

According to a police community news release, Post #5507 will be hosting this competition for other explorers from other agencies across Texas, and 14 teams have registered to compete in police scenarios for trophy winnings. "Teams from Houston PD, Keller PD, Grand Prairie PD, Killen PD and Ellis County Sherrifs Office have all signed up. Over 85 explorers and advisors will be traveling to the Amarillo Community. The event will provide police scenario events, solo explorer events, vendors, fun activity games, networking opportunities, and trophy winnings for all winners. Police Explorer Posts is a mentorship program for young adults interested in a career in law enforcement."

All proceeds from the event will go to the Amarillo Police Explorer Post #5507. Sponsors include Budweiser-Amarillo and Amarillo National Bank.

Weve talked about hosting a competition here in the Amarillo Community for years and finally decided to," Head Advisor Corporal Cecely Herr said in the announcement. "This is an opportunity to showcase our program, our department and our amazingly supportive Amarillo Community. We hope our guests enjoy the local attractions and want to return for another year! This program means a lot of me, our explorers, our department and community."

The program is open all year long to young adults ages 14-20. Those interested in joining can contact Cpl. Herr at cecely.herr@amarillo.gov or at 806-751-1759.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: APD: Bomb City Police Explorer competition to be held in Amarillo
As Special Counsel Jack Smiths appeal in the classified documents case against President Donald Trump gets underway, a federal judge here in Atlanta has set a date for Smith to file his opening brief in the case.

Smiths appeal will be heard here in Atlanta in front of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals after U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case earlier this month.

Cannon dismissed the case saying Smiths appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional because he was not appointed by the president or confirmed by Congress.

RELATED STORIES:

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, after prosecutors said he repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents containing classified information and took steps to thwart the governments efforts to get the documents back.

Thursdays filing sets up a bit of a timeline now for the case going forward. Smith must file his brief by Aug. 27. Trumps attorneys then have 30 days to respond to that brief. Following that, Smith had 21 days to file a reply.

If the appeals court rules in favor of Smith, then that would result in the reinstatement of the indictment against Trump and even conceivably the reassignment of the case to a different judge.

Trump has denied all charges and denounced the probe as a political witch hunt.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

RELATED NEWS:
(Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc. is the latest company to agree to a set of voluntary safeguards for artificial intelligence crafted by President Joe Bidens administration as it tries to guide the development of the emerging technology and encourage firms to protect consumers.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The administration announced Friday that the technology giant is joining the ranks of OpenAI Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others in committing to test their AI systems for any discriminatory tendencies, security flaws or national security risks.

The principles call for companies to transparently share the results of those tests with governments, civil society and academia  and to report any vulnerabilities.

The pledge comes as Apple is set to incorporate OpenAIs chatbot application, ChatGPT, into its voice-command assistant on iPhones as part of a new suite of AI features  a partnership between a tech powerhouse and one of the most influential artificial intelligence startups.

After the announcement of the Apple, OpenAI partnership, Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk vowed to ban Apple devices from his companies if OpenAIs artificial intelligence software is integrated at the operating system level. He called it a security risk. Musk has his own AI startup called xAI, with a chatbot named Grok.

Artificial intelligence has exploded into the mainstream in recent years, as more people become familiar with the technology and discover everyday uses for it. Its use in law enforcement, hiring and housing, however, have drawn criticism over allegations that the products foster discrimination.

Biden has regularly touted the benefits of AI technology while also warning about the potential dangers and seeking to ensure that industry is more responsible for ensuring its products are safe.

The White House guidelines, while comprehensive, are not enforceable; leaving the administration to take companies at their word that they will adhere to the standards. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress have expressed desire to regulate AI, but legislation has taken a back-seat to other priorities, leaving Biden to act alone.

Biden signed a sweeping executive order last year that required powerful AI systems to submit to testing to be eligible for purchase by the federal government.

He is scheduled to receive an Oval Office briefing on the progress on his staffs implementation of the directive on Friday, according to a White House official.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
The family of Vice President Kamala Harris reacted to a sexist statement by Senator James David Vance. Earlier, the politician called the US presidential candidate a "childless cat lady" because the 59-year-old public figure had not given birth to children.

ADVERTISIMENT

Nevertheless, Harris is the stepmother of her 29-year-old son Cole and 25-year-old daughter Ella from her husband Douglas Emhoff's first marriage. In addition, his ex-wife Kerstin Emhoff supported Kamala. "This is a baseless attack," she told CNN. "For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and me. She is loving, caring, protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it."

According to NBC, Ella Emhoff also responded to the insult, writing, "How can you be 'childless' when you have such sweet children like Cole and I." "I love my three parents," she added.

ADVERTISIMENT

The family's response comes after Vance's comments from 3 years ago resurfaced online. In July 2021, in an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News, James David shared his opinion that the country is run by "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable because of their lives and the choices they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable." The Ohio senator specifically named Harris to claim that "the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children."

ADVERTISIMENT

Kamala has previously spoken openly about her close bond with her husband's children over the years, calling them her "endless source of love and pure joy." She also spoke about her strong relationship with her husband's first wife: "To know Cole and Ella is to know that their mother, Kerstin, is incredible." The politician noted that she and the woman had agreed to be friends and support their children. "We sometimes joke that our modern family is too functional," the vice president added.

The day before, Friends star Jennifer Aniston openly criticized James David Vance for his sexist remarks about Kamala Harris. The actress is sincerely concerned that a man who calls such women "childless cats" could become a potential vice president of the United States. Read more in our article.

ADVERTISIMENT

Earlier, OBOZ.UA told interesting facts about Kamala Harris: at the age of 5, she defended her friend from a bully, and the Simpsons "predicted" her victory in the US presidential election. In addition, the politician paid special attention to education: she studied day and night.

Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Apple signed the White House's voluntary commitment to developing safe, secure and trustworthy AI, according to a press release on Friday. The company will soon launch its generative AI offering, Apple Intelligence, into its core products, putting generative AI in front of Apple's 2 billion users.

Apple joins 15 other technology companies  including Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI  that committed to the White House's ground rules for developing generative AI in July 2023. At the time, Apple had not revealed how deeply it planned to ingrain AI into iOS. But we heard Apple loud and clear at WWDC in June: It's going all in on generative AI, starting with a partnership that embeds ChatGPT in the iPhone. As a frequent target of federal regulators, Apple wants to signal early that it's willing to play by the White House's rules on AI  a possible attempt to curry favor before any future regulatory battles on AI break out.

But how much teeth do Apple's voluntary commitments to the White House have? Not much, but it's a start. The White House calls this the "first step" toward Apple and 15 other AI companies developing AI that is safe, secure and trustworthy. The second step was President Biden's AI executive order in October, and there are several bills currently moving through federal and state legislatures to better regulate AI models.

Under the commitment, AI companies promise to red-team (acting as an adversarial hacker to stress test an organization's safety measures) AI models before a public release and share that information with the public. The White House's voluntary commitment also asks AI companies to treat unreleased AI model weights confidentially. Apple and other companies agree to work on AI model weights in secure environments, limiting access to model weights to as few employees as possible. Lastly, the AI companies agree to develop content labeling systems, such as watermarking, to help users distinguish what is and isn't AI generated.

Separately, the Department of Commerce says it will soon release a report on the potential benefits, risks and implications of open-source foundation models. Open-source AI is increasingly becoming a politically charged regulatory battlefield. Some camps want to limit how accessible model weights to powerful AI models should be in the name of safety. However, doing so could significantly limit the AI startup and research ecosystem. The White House's stance here could have a significant impact on the greater AI industry.

The White House also noted that federal agencies have made significant progress on tasks set out by the October executive order. Federal agencies have made more than 200 AI-related hires to date, awarded more than 80 research teams' access to computational resources, and released several frameworks for developing AI (the government loves frameworks).
Architect suspended for failing to give owner of new 11m home a sea view

Jamie Falla was found guilty of failings in the building of a huge modernist property in Guernsey

An architect has been suspended after a row broke out with the owner of an 11 million Grand Designs-style house who complained that he could not see the sea from his swimming pool.

Jamie Falla was hired in 2013 by a wealthy client to build a lavish coastal home in the Channel Islands that remains unfinished 11 years later, a tribunal heard.

The architect was accused of a series of failings by the homes owner as the cost of building the huge modernist property in Guernsey spiralled from 2 million to more than 11 million, while his fees rose from around 80,000 to 218,000.

The client complained that the view of the sea from the swimming pool was obstructed by neighbours trees, rooms were overheated due to faulty windows and there was no air conditioning, and that Tesla Powerwalls were not built correctly, the tribunal was told.

He even threatened to throw Mr Falla from the second-floor balcony as their relationship became increasingly strained, the Architects Registration Board (ARB) heard.

Mr Falla, an architect with over 25 years experience who has built a number of properties in the Channel Islands, has been suspended for two years after being found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct.

An exacting client

The tribunal was told the propertys owner, who was unnamed but described as an exacting client with a robust management style, wanted to build a house to retire and live in his later years.

He contacted Mr Falla in 2013 to start work on Sea Lodge in Fort George, St Peter Port, having worked with him in 2007.

The project was a high-value project, with [Mr Fallas] fees initially being proposed at 80,000 and then 400 a day for project management, a tribunal report said.

The estimated build cost was 2 million. Costs have since increased to over 11 million on the construction, excluding professional fees.

It was heard that numerous issues regarding Mr Fallas fees persisted over the first few years but became a significant issue in 2017 when his fee increased to 218,000.

The relationship appears to have completely broken down in September 2017. [The client] stated that [Mr Falla] caused a project manager, appointed in 2017, to throw in the towel and [his] work had constant shortcomings.

The client lodged his first official complaint in 2018, which was followed by many more and in 2019 they reached a settlement agreement.

However, parties continued to work together and issues continued until they stopped in March 2022.

A quantity surveyor said remedial works to fix issues with the property would cost 800,000.

The tribunal heard one of the main issues was with the swimming pool.

The client wanted a panoramic view of the sea out to Herm Island from his pool, however, Mr Falla failed to warn him his neighbours trees would impede it.

The ARB panel said: The committee noted that the view was a fundamental design feature. The swimming pool was positioned specifically to take advantage of the view but was significantly impeded by the neighbours trees.

The committee accepted [expert evidence] that a reasonable architect would have recognised the potential for the existing trees to impede the view and would have explicitly warned the [client] of this.

The tribunal also heard an outdoor gate did not close properly, ceiling plasterboards did not have double layers and standing water was left within gutters.

Overheating was also an issue and the tribunal was told: The property was not equipped with air conditioning in many of the rooms and some of the windows had restricted openings.

This caused overheating of the property, discomfort to the [client] and damage to furnishings.

Client reluctant to follow regulations

The panel was told Tesla Powerwalls, home batteries which store energy, were not installed to the correct height, air con was not installed in many rooms, wire balustrades were not built adequately and waterproofing had to be carried out retrospectively after damp occurred.

It was heard that although it is still not finished, the client moved into the property.

At the tribunal, Mr Falla denied all allegations. He said he acted professionally throughout the project and said the complaints were not justified.

He claimed the client was the only person he had ever received a complaint from in 25 years.

He even alleged the client threatened to throw him off a second-floor balcony and that problems were due to the complexity of the project and the clients reluctance to follow the regulations.

The panel found him guilty of five counts of serious misconduct.

These were failure to act with due skill and care, acting dishonestly and lacking integrity, failure to issue adequate terms of engagement, failure to act without undue delay, and entering into an agreement that prevented the client from raising concerns with the ARB.

Far below standard expected

The panel said: Five of the failings were found to be serious, in that they fell far below the standard expected of a reasonable architect.

Registered architects are expected to act with integrity and honesty at all times. [Mr Falla] chose to disregard his professional obligations to further his own needs.

The tribunal heard Mr Falla is now employed by Studio Otto, run by Lucrezia Cavallone.

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.
FENTON, Mo.  A teenager faces felony charges after a hit-and-run crash earlier this week in Fenton that left the victim with serious injuries.

The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorneys Office has charged Jake Robinson, 19, with first-degree assault, armed criminal action and leaving the scene amid the investigation.

The hit-and-run crash happened around 8 p.m. Wednesday in the 600 block of Gravois Bluffs.

Cold case investigators take prisoner to missing person search site

According to court documents obtained by FOX 2, Robinson and the victim, a 45-year-old man, were outside of their vehicle arguing over undisclosed matters. At some point, Robinson reportedly drove his vehicle into the victim and left the scene.

The victim was seriously injured and rushed to a local hospital for treatment.

Investigators say a witness captured the crash on video, which helped officers later find Robinson in House Springs, Missouri.

Robinson has a court hearing scheduled for Friday, according to Missouri court records.

Officers with the St. Louis County Police Department City of Fenton Precinct are handling 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 FOX 2.
Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, U.S. Bank launch program to help families become homeowners

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  A new partnership is looking to ease the path to homeownership for low-to-moderate-income families in Arkansas.

The Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission said in a Thursday statement that it was working with U.S. Bank in introducing the Access Home Community Impact Initiative 2024. A kickoff event for the program is taking place at 1 p.m. on July 29 at United Real Estate, 1319 Broadway in Little Rock.

Martin Luther King Jr. Commission celebrates 60 years of Civil Rights Act

A commission representative said the program would include a financial literacy toolkit, vendor partnerships, promotional efforts, virtual and in-person community work groups, needs assessments, interactive online lessons, progress tracking and a completion ceremony.

Commission executive director DuShun Scarbrough said the undertaking is in keeping with the commissions purpose.

In one of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.s speeches, he stated, You can use your powerful economic resources to wipe poverty from the face of the earth,' Scarbrough said. The path to home ownership is a step in that direction. Homeownership should be accessible to all families, regardless of their economic background, and this initiative brings us closer to making that a reality.

The commission is conducting an online survey to determine challenges for potential homeowners and tailor solutions to community needs. Respondents will receive an invitation to the kickoff event.

Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission hosts post-Memorial Day food giveaway

The commission is also working to establish community work groups to assist with the program. For more information or to participate, contact DuShun Scarbrough at 888-290-KING.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
(Peter Cade/Getty Images)

More than 200 Arkansas school districts have expressed interest in a new pilot program to reduce cell phone access with the goal of improving students mental health, according to the Arkansas Department of Education.

In early July, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Education Secretary Jacob Oliva issued a letter to superintendents inviting them to participate in the program, which grew out of a meeting with school leaders in June centered on mental health.

As part of the pilot program, the University of Arkansas Office for Education Policy will examine how students mental health may be impacted by reduced access to cell phones and social media. A smaller group of districts from the pilot program will participate in the UA study.

Cell phone policies at Arkansas schools vary among districts and individual classrooms. While some teachers collect phones at the start of instructional time, others allow students to access their devices after completing assignments.

Bentonville West High School piloted a program last year that required cell phones to be silenced and stored during class. Bentonville School District Director of Communications Leslee Wright said the initiative was a remarkable success, with 86% of staff reporting a positive impact. Administrators also recorded a 57% reduction in verbal or physical aggression offenses and a 51% reduction in drug-related offenses, she said.

Bentonville High School is developing its own program modeled off the one implemented at Bentonville West, which will continue its program this fall, Wright said. Meanwhile, all middle and junior high schools in the district will participate in the states pilot program.

Additionally, the district has tracked computer screen time for two years to identify some limitations, knowing that face-to-face instruction, activity and play are necessary for healthy development, she said.

We believe theres significant value in reducing screen time for our students, whether on laptops or cell phones, Wright said.

Arkansas pilot program will provide funding for phone storage devices to reduce screen time and social media use during the school day, according to a press release. More exposure to social media increases kids risk of mental health problems, Sanders and Oliva wrote in their letter.

More than 200,000 students could be affected by the program, ADE spokeswoman Kimberly Mundell said. Interested districts submitted information to ADE through their education cooperatives, and based on the initial estimate, ADE will request $8 million in appropriation, she said.

An initial small group of schools interested in the pilot that were further down the road in implementing cell phone policy changes will be reimbursed directly, Mundell said. The pilot was opened to all districts as interest grew, so those districts will be reimbursed through the co-ops, she said.

The program will also provide funding for telehealth mental health services, as well as support in locating mental health providers and navigating insurance matters, according to the release. All districts will have access to the telehealth services and the process for accessing the funds will be determined after a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) is completed, Mundell said.

Bethany Ratermann, senior director of communications for LISA Academy Public Charter Schools, said final funding amounts will determine the exact number of students who participate, but they would like to include 6-12th graders.

LISA Academy, which operates 11 schools on nine campuses across Arkansas, decided to implement the pilot as a way to prioritize students mental health as the charter organization works to educate well rounded students as part of our updated LISA 2.0 program model, Ratermann said.

Administrators hope to learn more about home usage through family feedback, and look forward to working with the U of A to analyze this survey data and hope to arrive at conclusions that will benefit all students, she said.

Let us know what you think...

The possibility of a reduction in issues with bullying, mental health and drugs, as well as interest from principals and the ability to purchase lockable devices for free were all reasons participating in the pilot program appealed to the DeQueen School District, Superintendent Jason Sanders said.

DeQueens school board on Monday approved participation in the pilot, which will be implemented at the middle school and junior high campuses. Students in 6-9th grade will receive YONDR pouches that will be magnetically locked while on campus, but parents can still see where their child is on apps like Live 360, Sanders said.

Of course nothing is perfect, and we will have to work around some challenges such as Apple watches and dummy phones put in the pouches, he said. We also approved a policy for those campuses reflecting such.

DeQueens previous policy required middle and junior high students to secure their phones on their person, backpack or locker during the instructional day. Sanders said hell be interested to compare the data on mental health referrals and discipline between school years with lockable devices and those without.

Research study

The effect of cell phones and social media on students mental health has become a hot topic, but there havent been many peer-reviewed studies on the issue, said Sarah McKenzie, executive director of the University of Arkansas Office for Education Policy.

Besides being a newer issue, another problem is everything intersects, so its hard to find causal evidence about things, McKenzie said.

For all the talk about it, there hasnt been any actual research, or much actual research about how this would impact kids, she said. Its mostly been anecdotal.

McKenzie is working with Kristin Higgins, Department Head of Counseling, Leadership and Research Methods at the U of A, to develop a year-long study about the effects of the pilot program on students mental health. McKenzie said their research will involve focus groups with students, teachers and parents, and interviews with superintendents about the implementation of the pilot program.

Research will also include the administration of a short, general depression and anxiety screener to students in the fall and at the end of the academic year to see if theres a reduction in feelings of unhappiness, she said.

The idea is if theyre paying more attention in class and theyre feeling less anxious then theyre going to learn more, she said.

Analyzing learning data wont occur until after test scores are released later in 2025, McKenzie said. However, preliminary results from the initial surveys and focus groups should be available before the new year, providing a baseline prior to implementation of the pilot. The final report on student survey outcomes will likely be released next summer, she said.

Calls for more research on this topic are occurring at the national level. U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, and Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, introduced legislation in November to require the U.S. Department of Education to conduct a study regarding the use of mobile devices in elementary and secondary schools, and to establish a pilot program of awarding grants to enable certain schools to create a school environment free of mobile devices.

The study in that bill, which was referred to committee, could take a long time to complete, McKenzie said.

In the spirit of [the Office for Education Policy], our idea is to try to get the information to the people who need it as quickly as possible in the best way we can, she said. I imagine there will be a lot more studies, but this one should add to the knowledge that we have so far, which is actually not very much.

Restriction considerations

At the Fayetteville School District, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Courtney Morawski said the ongoing conversation around cell phones now is how do we protect instructional time in a manageable way while honoring new research that says there should be restrictions in place.

Fayetteville will implement the state pilot program (most likely in 7-12th grades) in the upcoming school year, a transition year, with the goal of having phone restrictions for the entire day for all K-12 students during the 2025-2026 academic year, Morawski said.

The district received approval to spend $233,000 on storage devices through the states pilot program, but officials are still working through plan specifics, including what products to purchase, she said.

Because technology has become integrated into students daily lives, theres much to consider in terms of implementing restrictions. Though educators want to be careful about how much time kids spend in front of a computer, learning often involves some screen time, Morawski said. But what students are being asked to do can be done on a Chromebook, which has protections phones dont have, she said.

Cell phones can be vital for students monitoring health conditions like diabetes, so Morawski said theyre looking at devices with different locks for kids that need to access their phone regularly. Additionally, theyre working with health and special education staff to make sure theyre considering students who rely on their phones for specific needs.

We absolutely acknowledge and understand that, Morawski said. Wed never want to put a student at risk.

Phones have also become a way to communicate in active shooter situations, but Morawski said one company theyve spoken with noted that limiting students ability to share misinformation can help officials track down facts about an emergency situation more quickly and safely. Limiting access to phones can also help students better focus on a teacher whos trained to follow certain protocols during a crisis, she said.

Another possible upside to the program is the potential for a reduction in bullying.

We do believe after talking to many other districts who have done this in other states that it lowers incidents of bullying drastically, and so we know that is something we want to work towards in all of our schools, Morawski said. We want students to feel safe and secure and we do think that this will be a step that will make a difference in their safety at school, but also offline hopefully or when theyre out of school.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Supporters of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment cheer in the Capitol lobby on Friday, July 5, 2024 as movers deliver petitions to put the amendment on the November ballot. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)

The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered Friday that Secretary of State John Thurston must respond by Monday morning to the complaint filed against him earlier this month arguing that he must count the signatures for a proposed ballot measure to create a limited right to abortion.

Both Thurston and Arkansans for Limited Government, the ballot question committee supporting the proposed constitutional amendment, must file briefs in the case by Aug. 2 and Aug. 9, the court ordered. AFLG submitted more than 102,000 signatures to Thurstons office July 5 in hopes of getting the measure on the November ballot.

On July 10, Thurston said AFLG did not submit required documents related to paid canvassers, rendering 14,143 signatures invalid. The remaining signatures fell short of the threshold of the 90,704 needed to qualify for the ballot, Thurston said, so his office would not count them.

Lauren Cowles, AFLGs executive director, asked the high court July 16 to order Thurston to count the signatures. Cowles said the ballot question committee did in fact submit the required accompanying documents to Thurstons office multiple times, including on July 5.

State law requires 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.

Cowles legal complaint also said Thurstons office has a responsibility to count all the signatures regardless of their validity, especially since none of the conditions listed in state law that would justify Thurstons refusal to count signatures at all were among his reasons for rejecting the amendment.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court fulfilled Cowles request and ordered Thurston to count the signatures collected by volunteer canvassers.

Leslie Bellamy, the Secretary of States offices director of elections, said in an affidavit filed Thursday that she oversaw the count of 87,675 signatures  almost 300 more than AFLGs estimate  as well as 912 signatures on petition parts that do not indicate whether the canvasser was volunteer or paid, meaning she was unable to determine whether they belonged in the court-ordered total.

Thurston must file an answer to the original action petition by 9 a.m. Monday, the court ordered Friday.

In a statement, AFLG said it was again validated by the courts decision to keep the case alive.

As weve said previously, we believe we have fully complied with the law governing ballot initiatives, and we intend to demonstrate that again to the Supreme Court, the group said. This fight is not over.

Attorney General Tim Griffin filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on July 19, arguing that Thurston correctly rejected AFLGs submission because the group failed to submit the proper paperwork.

AFLGs attorney, Peter Shults, filed a response to the motion Monday. Shults argued that noncompliance with the paperwork requirements alone does not invalidate an entire petition or any part of it.

ARSC order 07.26.24

The Supreme Court has yet to rule on Griffins motion, which says AFLG is not entitled to the cure period Arkansas law allows for proposed ballot measures. Sponsors can be allowed more time to submit additional signatures if the initial submission contains valid signatures from registered voters equal to at least 75% of the overall required number of signatures and 75% of the required number from at least 50 counties.

The Secretary of State faithfully and correctly discharged his duty in this case, Griffin said in a statement Friday. I will continue to defend his proper rejection of the abortion petition in the briefing ordered by the Court.

A spokesperson for Thurston said his office had no comment on Fridays order.

Chief Justice John Dan Kemp and Associate Justices Karen Baker and Courtney Hudson reiterated their dissent from Tuesdays order. They said they would have ordered Thurston to perform an initial count of signatures and a verification analysis in accordance with state law and provide the finding to the state Supreme Court by 3 p.m. Monday.

The three justices said Friday that they would also appoint a special master to resolve factual issues raised in the original action petition.

The Secretary of States deadline to certify measures for the November ballot is Aug. 22.

If the Arkansas Abortion Amendment makes it to the ballot and is approved by voters, it 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.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
DENVER (KDVR)  A man is wanted by Loveland police in two alleged road rage incidents on July 21.

Justin Winter Vanpelt, 45, is facing numerous charges in a series of events on Sunday.

Police say they first saw Vanpelt just after noon on July 21 in the 100 block of South Taft Avenue when a patrol officer noticed a Toyota Sequoia parked at a store with no license plate displayed anywhere on the vehicle. The car was occupied by a male driver (later identified as Vanpelt) and a female passenger.

When the car left the parking lot, the officer then tried to initiate a traffic stop at West First Street and Sheridan Avenue. The vehicle stopped at West First Street and Harrison Avenue, which is about two blocks away from the Sheridan intersection. However, police reported that when an officer stepped out of his vehicle, the Sequoia drove away.

FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox

The car stopped at a red light at West First Street and South Lincoln Avenue, but as an officer approached the intersection, the suspect vehicle again took off. Loveland police said the vehicle almost collided with a vehicle traveling northbound through the intersection, and the officer decided not to pursue the suspect because of the erratic behavior.

At about 12:21 p.m., the Loveland Police Department was notified of a road rage incident in the area of East Eisenhower Boulevard and Hahns Peak Drive.

A woman called 911 to report she and a passenger were driving in a Jeep Wrangler and her vehicle had been shot at by a man in another vehicle. The description of the shooter and his vehicle matched the same description as the vehicle involved in the traffic stop earlier.

Shortly after the first report, Weld County dispatchers received a second report from a motorist who said their vehicle had been shot on Interstate 25 near milepost 235. This suspect and vehicle description also matched the description of the suspect in the earlier traffic stop.

The Dacano Police Department is investigating the second road rage report, and Loveland police were assigned to the first road rage incident. After interviewing the driver and passenger of the Jeep Wrangler, detectives were able to identify their suspect as Vanpelt.

Justin Winter Vanpelt, 45, is wanted by the Loveland Police Department on two counts of attempted second-degree murder, one count of vehicular eluding, one count of possession of a weapon by previous offender and one count of illegal discharge of a firearm.

Justin Winter Vanpelt, 45, seen here in a suspect vehicle for a road rage shooting, is wanted by the Loveland Police Department on two counts of attempted second-degree murder, one count of vehicular eluding, one count of possession of a weapon by previous offender and one count of illegal discharge of a firearm.

Loveland police are searching for this Toyota Sequoia in two road rage incidents on July 21.

Loveland police are searching for this Toyota Sequoia in two road rage incidents on July 21.

Vanpelt is not in custody and is considered armed and dangerous, police said. Anyone who sees him is instructed not to approach and call 911. There are currently no charges filed against the female passenger in this case.

10 human avian flu cases confirmed among Colorados poultry, dairy workers

Vanpelt is facing charges of:

Two counts of attempted second-degree murder

One count of vehicular eluding

One count of possession of a weapon by a previous offender

One count of illegal discharge of a firearm

Anyone who may have seen the reported shooting or has any other relevant information is asked to call the Loveland Police Departments tip line at 970-962-2032 or Larimer County Crime Stoppers at 970-221-6868.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
An arrest has been made in a burglary at Finns Fun Spot in Milan.

The Milan Police Department was called to Finns Fun Spot, 527 Second Street W., on Thursday, July 25 at about 8:40 a.m. for an overnight burglary, according to court documents filed with the Iowa District Court for Scott County.

When officers arrived, they learned that an employee had forgotten to lock a door when leaving for the night. Someone entered through the unlocked door during the night and left with cash and electronics. Officers obtained surveillance video and the business owner posted the same video on social media. Members of the community helped identify and locate the suspect.

According to the complaint, a search warrant was served on an address in the 3300 block of W. 51st Street in Davenport on July 25 where officers located several items, including:

Sonos music block (valued at $500),

iPad (valued at $500),

Various hats/shirts (valued at $150),

Guitar (valued at $2000),

$772 in cash and several other small items.

The total value of the missing items is over $3922.

Later in the afternoon of July 25th, officers found and arrested Patrick Poff, 40, of Davenport, and charged him with one count of burglary, a class 2 felony, according to court documents. Officers found several items from the burglary at the residence and Poff admitted to the items being stolen during a post Miranda interview.

Patrick Poff (Scott County Jail)

Poff is also facing trespassing charges in Scott County after he was accused by Davenport Police of trespassing at the Walmart on Elmore Avenue on July 20. Poff had been previously served with a no trespass for life form from the store. He is being held in the Scott County Jail on a $5,000 bond for the burglary charge and is awaiting initial appearances on both cases.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.
Artist asks for public's help in locating 'priceless' items after car stolen in Milwaukee

An artist has taken to social media in hopes someone can find her client's keepsakes after her car was stolen in Milwaukee.

A dozen teddy bears and two baby blankets have gone missing after Jacqueline Hughes' KIA Soul was stolen on Milwaukee's east side July 12.

Hughes is from Ottawa, Illinois, but was visiting her cousin in Milwaukee when her car was stolen. She was notified July 22 that her car was recovered, but her belongings were nowhere to be found.

On Saturday, July 13th at 12:16am, my cousins silver Kia Soul was stolen from Thomas and Murray on the east side. It... Posted by Nicole Weeks on Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Facebook posts indicated the car contained Hughes' art supplies and "priceless memory items" that belonged to her clients.

Hughes makes memory bears out of old clothing. She had made 12 bears for a client in memory of their family member who had passed. She also had two baby blankets stitched by a grandmother, ready to be made into quilts.

"It's just heartbreaking. If you're going to steal the car, steal the car. But did you have to dump the stuff somewhere?" Hughes said. "I'm just devastated over it."

The bears were in a dark blue bag in the back seat of her car.

Hughes said her clients and the art community have been very supportive of the situation, but it doesn't bring her work back. She will be re-making the bears for the family, but has lost time, supplies and money.

12 sentimental bears go missing after Hughes car is stolen in Milwaukee.

"I am a full-time artist, this is traumatic on my budget right now," Hughes said. "I'm just distraught because I want that merchandise back."

Hughes thinks it was most likely teens or young adults that stole her car to go for a joyride. She said no car parts are missing, but everything that was in her backseat has vanished. She suspects it was dumped somewhere by whoever stole her car.

"People say this happens all the time in Milwaukee, well it has to stop," Hughes said. "I walked into art shop today and the owner came out and hugged me and I just balled again."

Hughes said her hope is that someone found the bears and baby blankets and will hear the news and come forward.

Hughes can be reached at jacquelineJoAnn@yahoo.com if anyone finds the items or has any information on the incident.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Artist 'devastated' after car stolen with irreplaceable items inside
Ashley Benefield, former ballerina accused of murdering her husband, takes the stand in her own defense

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA)  Emotions ran high on Friday as Ashley Benefield, the former ballerina accused of murdering her husband, took the stand in her defense.

Doug Benefield was shot and killed in Ashleys mothers Lakewood Ranch home, where Ashley was living at the time, in September 2020.

Ashley Benefield was very emotional as she described her relationship with Doug and what happened on September 27, 2020. She said an argument escalated and she feared for her life, so she grabbed her gun to get him to leave.

I thought he was going to kill me, Benefield said.

On September 27, 2020, Ashley said she and Dough Benefield were packing up items from her mothers home to start over and move to Maryland.

She claims an intense argument broke out as they packed.

He said shut the f*** up, he started calling me names and he said, I can see what youre doing, youre trying to get me to leave. He said, I dont have to leave,' Benefield recalled.

Ashley described a chaotic scene; she claimed Doug hit her for the first time and stopped her from leaving.

She told the jury that panic set in, and she thought grabbing her gun would force her estranged husband to leave.

He started coming towards me and then he lunged at me, and I start pulling the trigger. He just kept coming, she said.

Doug died from his injuries.

Ashley said it was the climax of a long history of emotional abuse, claiming Doug would yell at her, call her names, throw things, be aggressive towards their pets, and even fire a gun in their previous home.

She said she got a protective order against him in South Carolina but claimed when she tried to get one in Florida, her request was denied.

The defense asked Ashley how she felt about killing Doug today.

Horrible, hes the father of my child, she said.

Prosecutors cross-examined the former ballerina, challenging her claims of living in fear of Doug.

They also questioned her about her efforts to terminate Dougs parental rights and argued that Ashley never intended to reconcile with Doug, even though they were planning to move to Maryland together.

You knew that Doug was going to know that you had no intention of reconciling with him, said the Prosecution.

Um, we had had the conversation many times, Ashley answered.

The most powerful moment may have come when Prosecutors asked Ashley to re-enact the moments when she fatally shot Doug.



Did he have his hands in fists? the Prosecution asked.

Not at that point, they were like, I dont know, Ashley said.

Was he coming at you like this? demonstrated the Prosecution.

I mean he lunged at me; he came very quickly, Ashley said.

Okay, so he lunged, but was his first up? they asked.

I dont remember, answered Ashley.

The defense continued their case Friday afternoon, including a domestic violence expert.

The case could go to the jury next week.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
Elon Musk's 20-year-old transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson reacted to her father's statement, who spoke harshly about her gender reassignment. The 53-year-old entrepreneur made his comment during a conversation with psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson, which was broadcast on his X platform.

ADVERTISIMENT

Tesla's CEO claimed that he was "tricked" into allowing Wilson to undergo transgender-related treatment when she was 16, adding: "I essentially lost my son. They don't call it 'murder' for nothing. They should call it 'death' because your son is dead." This was reported by People.

Vivian, who legally filed for a name and gender change in 2022, denied Musk's remarks in an interview with NBC News, calling it a "lie." "I think he was assuming that I wasn't going to say anything and I was just going to leave it at that," she said, "which I'm not going to do, because if you're blatantly lying about me to an audience of millions, I'm not going to let it go.

ADVERTISIMENT

The billionaire's daughter, who told the publication that she first came out as gay in eighth grade, said Musk "knew about all the side effects" of her treatment, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Adding that they hadn't spoken to their father in about four years, she noted that Elon spent "maybe 10% of his time with her as a child." "That's generous. He had half custody and he was completely absent. It was just a fact of life at the time, so I don't think I realized how abnormal an experience it was," Vivian said.

ADVERTISIMENT

What is known about Musk's transgender daughter

Vivian, who was named Xavier at birth, was born with her twin brother Griffin in 2004 in California. All of Musk's children attended the extremely expensive Crossroads K-12 school in Santa Monica, where annual tuition costs up to $50,000, the Daily Mail reports.

Despite the fact that the entrepreneur spent hundreds of thousands to educate Wilson and her siblings, father and daughter are reportedly not close. In addition, she tried to hide her true gender identity from her father for several years. Musk himself has publicly criticized her political views, claiming that she believes that all rich people are evil.

ADVERTISIMENT

According to court records, Vivian officially adopted her mother's maiden name, Justine, at the age of 18. She filed a petition to change her name and legal gender and stated that she "no longer wishes to be associated" with her father "in any way." A Santa Monica judge issued a new birth certificate reflecting her changed name and gender, and the decision simply states: "Xavier Alexander Musk  Vivian Jenna Wilson. The applicant's gender has been changed from male to female."

Only verified information is available on the OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Don't fall for fakes!
[Source]

Police in Northern Irelands capital are investigating a report of racially motivated attacks on three Bangladeshi-born women.

According to police, the women were playing with their young children at a local playground in Belfast on July 19 when four young people and three adults committed shocking assaults against them, leaving one of the women with a facial injury and cuts to a man who tried to intervene, reported Belfast Live.

We are treating this incident exceptionally seriously.  My message is  please report every single incident of hate crime. Targeting anyone because of who they are is wrong, and must be called out, Police Service of Northern Ireland Superintendent Finola Dornan was quoted saying.

Trending on NextShark: Chinese gold medalist accuses competitors of disrespect after record-breaking swim

Download the NextShark App:

Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today!
An emotional, accelerating campaign to allow assisted dying for terminally ill adults in Britain has reached parliament, with activists hoping the country will become one of few to legalize the process.

A Private Members Bill is to be introduced in the House of Lords on Friday, putting the issue back on parliaments agenda  though it is uncertain whether it will reach the House of Commons for approval from lawmakers.

Whatever its progress, it marks another development in a debate that has found its way onto Britains airwaves and prompted impassioned appeals from some well-known faces.

Ive been campaigning for a long time on this issue, Charlie Falconer, the Labour peer introducing the bill, told CNN. It has never felt for me a more favorable time upon which to try and embark on legislation, he said.

Change is definitely coming.

Assisted dying generally refers to the process through which a person with a terminal illness can legally access drugs to end their lives. It is legal in few countries; Canada and 11 US states allow it, as does most of Australia, Switzerland and the Netherlands. It is partially available in Germany and Italy, while Spain and Portugal have legalized the process in recent years.

The conditions for change have never been better, said Ellie Ball of Dignity in Dying, a leading campaign group that has pushed for years for the United Kingdom to follow suit. The trend around the world is towards giving people greater choice at the end of their lives.

But it is a heated national conversation, and its path to legalization remains long  with vocal pockets of opposition from outside and inside parliament.

The state should not be complicit in encouraging people to end their lives, said Alistair Thompson, a spokesman for Care Not Killing, which opposes any change in the law on assisted dying or euthanasia and advocates for better palliative care.

People just need to look very coldly, clinically at the facts and the data, and not necessarily at clearly very emotional stories, he said.

The pain can become unbearable

Fridays bill is not the first to reach parliament; nine years ago MPs voted by a sizable margin not to legalize assisted dying in Britain, and Lords have occasionally tried to reintroduce the issue in the years since.

For Falconer, the time is right to try again. There has been over the last year or two a much greater urgency and interest in the issue, he said. His bill is similar to the law in Oregon, the first US state to allow assisted dying, where only terminally ill people  and not those in unbearable suffering  are permitted to seek medication that would end their lives.

It does not go as far as Switzerland, the Netherlands and Canada, which allow an assisted death in cases of suffering as well. Only a handful of countries allow euthanasia, in which another person deliberately ends someones life to relieve suffering.

It is currently a crime to help somebody die in England and Wales, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Performing euthanasia on a person, meanwhile, is considered murder or manslaughter.

Polling indicates the public broadly supports ending those laws, and a campaign by celebrated journalist and broadcaster Esther Rantzen, who is terminally ill with lung cancer, has given the issue a prominent face.

The debate has sparked protests on both sides of the issue in Westminster, where lawmakers are gearing up for a potential future debate. - Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images

Isnt it typically British that we give the pets we love a pain-free, dignified, private death but we cant offer it to the people we love, she told the BBC in April.

Rantzen told the broadcaster that allowing assisted dying would mean that I could look forward in confidence to a death which is pain-free surrounded by people I love.

Currently, traveling alone to a clinic like Dignitas in Switzerland is about the only option for Brits in her situation, but it is one very few seek out; only 33 British citizens ended their lives at Dignitas in 2022, according to the clinic.

Opponents of legalization have argued that those small figures represent a limited appetite for assisted dying in the UK, but there are other pressures at play too. If my family go with me, they could be investigated by the police for killing me, or pressuring me to die, Rantzen told the BBC.

One of the clinics recent British patients was Paola Marra, who had terminal cancer and died at Dignitas earlier this year. In a video message filmed before her death, she said: The pain and suffering can become unbearable. Its a slow erosion of dignity  the loss of independence, the stripping away of everything that makes life worth living.

Assisted dying is not about giving up. In fact, its about reclaiming control, she said.

A political test

Britons are increasingly hearing stories like Rantzens and Marras. But some among the countrys lawmakers, who will ultimately decide the fate of the assisted dying law, say there is more to consider.

Were in danger of it being a cause celebre, said Rachael Maskell, a Labour lawmaker and clinician who has researched assisted dying on parliaments Health and Social Care Committee.

Its easy to market, isnt it: Do you want a good death or not? Do you want to control the end of your existence, or not? Whos going to say no to that? Maskell told CNN.

But she listed a number of reservations that she and other members of the committee considered, including that legalization would encourage patients to seek an earlier death to avoid becoming a burden on their relatives.

Ive had that conversation so many times with patients, she said. That worries me, because that person has as much right to a fulfilled life.

And she said a lack of monitoring in Oregon of how medication is assigned and taken by patients horrified her when she visited the US state to study its law. We wouldnt be a world leader, we would be a world follower, Maskell added.

The arrival of an intensely delicate issue in Britains parliament provides an early political test for Keir Starmer, Britains new prime minister  and the decisions his government take on the bill will determine whether and how soon assisted dying becomes legal in the country.

The first stages of a premiership are typically finely choreographed; a governments priorities are introduced to parliament, one by one, as the prime minister looks to craft the publics first impressions of their new government.

For Starmer, the assisted dying bill has the potential to disrupt those intentions. He said before and after this months general election  which his Labour Party won in a landslide  that he would allow time for a debate on the issue if it reaches the Commons, and he would allow a free vote on the issue, meaning his MPs wouldnt be asked to vote one way or the other.

But legalizing assisted dying wasnt in Labours manifesto or in its Kings Speech, limiting the opportunities for it to ever reach MPs. Falconers effort is a Private Members Bill, allocated individually after a ballot determined which peers can introduce a bill. A similar ballot will take place in the Commons in September, which could see an elected lawmaker take on the mantle, and that is the way the government is believed to prefer the matter is introduced.

The key piece of the jigsaw that is currently missing is a vote in the Commons, Falconer said. I think (Starmer) is very keen for it to be done. (But) of course there are other priorities.

Starmer, a former human rights lawyer, is likely to eventually face calls to allow a debate and a vote on the issue, whether those come as a result of Falconers bill or another legislative push.

But campaigners are urging lawmakers to turn to the matter faster.

Theres growing momentum around the campaign, Ball, of Dignity in Dying, told CNN. Ive lost count of the number of soap (operas) that have approached us to provide evidence in support of storylines about the issue.

The debate needs to start as soon as possible, she said. Dying people dont have time to wait.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
The City of Atlanta Human Resources Commissioner was fired, effective immediately, in the wake of a city auditors investigation finding she abused her power to give her daughter a job.

In a statement from the Mayors Office, a spokesman said Tarlesha Smith was terminated following the citys Department of Law investigation into allegations of misconduct by the HR Commissioner.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Channel 2 Action News reported in May that Smith had been suspended after an investigation began, and an investigation report showed she had launched an investigation into one of the citys human resources supervisors after they tried to fire her daughter.

The inspector generals report from the investigation said Smiths daughter did not go through a normal hiring process to get her job with the city. Instead, Smiths daughter didnt have to interview, did not meet the minimum job requirements, and may have even lied on her resume.

TRENDING STORIES:

The report also said the commissioners daughter received an offer letter before the position had even been posted for other candidates to apply.

After her hiring, the report said Smiths daughter was often late for work or missed entire days, and when a supervisor tried to terminate her, Smith began investigating them, leading to complaints of retaliation.

Ultimately, that complaint led to the investigation into Smith, and now, her firing from the citys top HR job.

The Law investigation led to the determination that Commissioner Smith engaged in misconduct, including having abused her power by encouraging preferential treatment for her daughter in the hiring and execution of her duties as Compliance Analyst in the City of Atlanta Office of the Solicitor, and subsequent adverse action against her daughters direct supervisor, a letter from the Mayors Office to the Atlanta City Council said. Accordingly, Commissioner Smiths employment with the City of Atlanta has been terminated, effective immediately.

While the city searches for Smiths full-time replacement, Calvin Blackburn, Esq. will take on her role as the Interim Human Resources Commissioner.

The Mayors Office said the search for Smiths replacement will have a national scope to find her permanent successor.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

IN OTHER NEWS:
Atlantic Beach on track to secure first high rise in their history. How did we get here?

For the first time in history, it looks like Atlantic Beach might be getting a high-rise of their own.

In a landmark decision, the municipalitys planning commission decided on Thursday to recommend a zoning change to the larger town council at their next meeting on Aug. 5.

Thats when the second reading of the ordinance will be conducted, and councilmembers will vote one last time either in favor, or against, the estimated $100 million condotel along 30th Avenue South in Atlantic Beach.

The proposed land amendment ordinance will allow for the new complex to be 18 stories high, making it the first high-rise in the town with a population of less than 300 people.

Lead developer for the project, Charles Morant first addressed the towns planning commission at their Feb. 16, 2023 meeting.

Atlantic Beachs Planning Commission Chair, Angela Metts declined to provide additional comments.

This is a landmark community, and we want to preserve that heritage and build on that heritage, he told the commission at that meeting. We think its time for Atlantic Beach to move forward. To develop. And we think this is the perfect opportunity to do that.

Packets obtained from that meeting show Morants proposed conceptual plan was for a 21-story, ocean-front condo-tel, that includes a mixture of residential and commercial uses and an 11-story parking garage.

Specifically, the initial proposal said the plan was for 168 hotel rooms, 36 short-term rental units and 24 condo units. According to Morants proposal, all of those specific rooms are allowable within the Waterfront 2 Zoning District area.

The Black Pearl of the Atlantic would also have room for restaurants, a museum, a banquet hall and conference rooms.

In response to Morants proposed development project, a group of community members formed a group called the Supporters for Tysons Ancestral Restriction of the Deeds. The URL for their groups website is no-beachfront-high-rises.com.

In a statement published on that site, they wrote that they are committed to protecting Atlantic Beachs historic character and want to stay true to the covenants put in place by the towns founder, George W. Tyson.

A copy of Exhibit A of that covenant explicitly states that only one house is allowed per lot and no businesses are allowed.

Tyson first bought the land that would later become Atlantic Beach on Oct. 11, 1934. Later, embedded in the 90 acres of oceanfront property next to the Atlantic Ocean, Tyson created a community where Black families from across the South could safely enjoy the water without fear of violating segregation laws during the Jim Crow era.

A lawsuit filed in the 15th Circuit Court on Nov. 16, 2023, shows that the STARD group along with individual plaintiffs sued Morants company, Morant Properties LLC and the Town of Atlantic Beach, South Carolina for an injunction to stop the development.

Court records show that suit is still pending, as of Friday morning.
Springfield auto shop owners who allegedly took money for repairs and didn't deliver are now facing felony charges from the Attorney General's office.

Queen City Rod & Custom has been under fire from customers who say the shop charged them for repairs and then returned cars with poor workmanship or in a worse condition than before.

Hillary Deckard and Reed Arnold, who owned and operated Queen City Rod & Custom, face 18 felony charges each, including nine counts of deceptive business practice, seven counts of stealing $750 or more and two counts of financial exploitation of an elder or disabled person.

Signage peels off the window at Queen City Rod & Custom's now-closed 1835 N. Glenstone Ave. location.

In the court documents filed, attorney general's office investigator Garrett Bentlage alleges that nine consumers reported a loss of $62,485.20 after hiring the company "to provide services that were never performed as promised" from October 2021 to September 2023. Bentlage also says that none of the consumers received refunds in the amounts they paid.

The probable cause statement says that Deckard deposited consumer funds into Bank of America accounts, but that records show money deposited into the accounts "were not used as stated to consumers."

As Attorney General, I will enforce the laws as written and defend Missourians from being ripped off, Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a press release. My Consumer Protection Unit thoroughly investigates complaints of fraud and takes swift action whenever we find enough evidence to move forward. Our aim is not only to hold bad actors accountable, but to deliver full restitution to all affected.

On July 25, arrest warrants were issued for both Deckard and Arnold. Arnold's bond is set at $60,000 and Deckard's at $25,000. Conditions of the bond order Deckard and Arnold to appear at all court dates, not commit any crimes, bar them from accepting any money up front from consumers as down payments for future mechanical work and not have contact with any of the state's nine witnesses.

Four consumers have also filed civil cases against Queen City Rod & Custom, all of which have resulted in judgements for the consumers in varying amounts.

More: Customers say this Springfield auto shop took cars, money and provided only headaches

In 2023, the AG's office obtained a conviction in a case where a Springfield contractor "accepted large advance payments for home renovations or repair projects and either provided minimal supplies or partial work." The contractor received a four-year prison sentence as well as five years probation.

The News-Leader filed a Sunshine Request in June 2023 for consumer complaints regarding Queen City Rod & Custom. Due to the existing backlog of requests, the attorney general's office informed the News-Leader in January that the earliest the records would be available is June 5, 2024. There have been no further updates on the information.

Susan Szuch reports on health and food for the Springfield News-Leader. Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, at @szuchsm. Story idea? Email her at sszuch@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Springfield Queen City Rod & Custom owners face 18 felony charges
AUSTIN (KXAN)  When you go to vote for president in November, youre also likely to see roughly a dozen proposed city charter changes. Austin City Council worked through ballot language on those proposed changes last week.

The city charter is the Constitution for Austin, its the thing that sets up how our government works, explained Brian Smith, a professor of political science at St. Edwards University.

Some of the changes are procedural, aligning the city of Austin with state and federal rules. But there are also some operational changes proposed that you should know about before you vote.

Those include: making it more difficult to get a city council member recalled, giving city council control over who serves as city attorney and moving citizen-initiated elections (think the police oversight act or camping ban) to more well-attended election dates.

We looked at when those elections should occur and decided to have a November process so that its more representative, said Council Member Ryan Alter. He was behind the initial charter review process.

What to expect

At Austin City Councils August meeting, theyll finalize and order the election. City council is also expected to make some changes that do not require voter approval. That said, there are still quite a few charter-related propositions youll need to look at come November.

Theyre going to see a really long ballot, we did put a number of amendments on the ballot and its going to start with Prop C, Alter said.

City council voted to start with Prop C because Austinites have seen a number of A and B propositions on their ballots over the last few years. It will make research of those propositions less confusing.

Heres the ballot language adopted by council last week:

Proposition C: Shall the City Charter be amended to clarify that the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (ICRC) is independent of City Council control, allow the ICRC to review City districts after changes to the Citys boundary lines, provide an effective date for the redistricting plan adopted by the ICRC, increase the number of individuals in the pool of potential appointees to the ICRC, clarify the method and timing of filling vacancies on the ICRC, and allow City staff to communicate with the ICRC outside of a meeting as long as such communication is in compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act?

Proposition D: Shall the City Charter be amended to delete language providing that the City Council shall meet at least once each week?

Proposition E: Shall the City Charter be amended to delete language requiring the City Council to determine its rules and order of business by ordinance?

Proposition F: Shall the City Charter be amended to clarify the meaning of the term election and to provide that the contribution and expenditure limits shall be modified each year by January 1st instead of with the adoption of the budget in order to align the Citys practice with federal and state practice?

Proposition G: Shall the City Charter be amended to provide that initiative elections and citizen initiated charter amendment elections must be held on the next available November election date that occurs in an even-numbered year and that allows sufficient time to comply with other requirements of law?

Proposition H: Shall the City Charter be amended to provide that a petition for an election to recall a City Council member other than the mayor must contain valid signatures of at least 15% of qualified voters of the respective Council district, instead of the current 10%, and to clarify that the affidavit on the recall petition must be signed by a petition circulator rather than by a person who signed the petition?

Proposition I: Shall the City Charter be amended to provide that the city council appoints and may remove the city attorney?

Proposition J: Shall the City Charter be amended so that the time frame for the resign-to-run provision for municipal court judges is the same as that provided in the Texas Constitution for other officials?

Proposition K: Shall the City Charter be amended to ensure that city financial practices are consistent with generally accepted accounting principles, reflect current practices for appropriations for department-level work programs, and reflect best practices in contract execution authority and competitive bidding procedures consistent with state law for local government procurement, and also be amended to increase the annual amount of contracted expenditures the city manager may approve without Council approval?

Proposition L: Shall the City Charter be amended to remove appointees and employees of the office of the city auditor from the classified civil service?

Proposition M: Shall the City Charter be amended to remove the requirement that an individual must submit an affidavit to provide notice to the City of a claim of death, personal injury, or damaged or destroyed property and to align the claim notice deadline with state law?

Proposition N: Shall the City Charter be amended to make non-substantive corrections of typographical errors, punctuation, and sentence structure and to change or remove charter language that is moot or is unenforceable because it has been superseded by state law or by a final court order?

Proposition O: Shall the City Charter be amended to remove the restriction that officeholders must wait until after leaving office in order to solicit and accept political contributions to pay unpaid campaign expenses or to reimburse campaign expenditures made from personal funds?

The problem, of course of these elections is theyre what we call low salience elections, theyre nonpartisan, there arent a lot of interest groups involved, theyre going to be at the very end of the ticket after we both for federal state and other local races. So a lot of times people ignore these, but they do have a lot of impact in the day to day lives, Smith said.

What didnt make the cut

The most contentious city charter change the city council considered last week will not make your ballot. That change called to increase the number of signatures required for citizen-initiated petitions to get to voters.

Right now in the city of Austin, that magic number is 20,000 registered voters. It will stay that way for now.

Several groups, including some who have successfully gotten citizen-initiated petitions to a ballot, raised concerns about that possible change to 3.5% of Austin voters instead of 20,000 signatures. City council decided not to move forward with that possible change.

Ultimately, when it came to the council, we felt like it was not something that rose to really have that level of division. And I think we will have the same goal accomplished by moving elections to November, Alter 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 KXAN Austin.
NEW PHILADELPHIA  A 12-year-old Georgia girl who has been missing for eight weeks was found safe in Dover.

Antonio Agustin, 34, is being held in the Tuscarawas County Jail in connection with the girl's disappearance. Investigators with the Hall County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigations in Gainesville, Ga., said they believe Agustin traveled to Gainesville and picked the girl up on May 29. That was the day she was last seen at her residence. Investigators said they traveled back to Agustin's house in Dover the same day.

Gainesville is in suburban Atlanta.

We believe (the girl) had been communicating for a time with Mr. Agustin via Facebook Messenger and other online apps. (She) had indicated she was unhappy and wanted to leave home. We also know she had been communicating with other adult males online, telling them the same thing, said Sheriff Gerald Couch in a Friday morning news conference. That said, I want to be clear that (the girl) is the victim here. She is only 12 years old.

The break in the case came last week when the girl contacted her father via Facebook Messenger, investigators said. She had created a new Facebook page so she could reach out to him. She told him she was OK and would not be coming home. He relayed that information to investigators.

Members of the Hall County Sheriff's Special Investigations Unit obtained the IP address of the Facebook page and were able to find the phone number associated with the account. They were able to track the phone to a residence in Dover. Believing the information was a credible lead to the girl's location, Hall County sent four investigators to Dover.

Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell said his agency was contacted about the situation on Wednesday and deputies started surveillance of Agustin's residence on Thursday.

The investigators were able to track the phone to the Dover City Park swimming pool where they made visual contact with the girl and Agustin on Thursday.

The two left in a vehicle, and got onto Interstate 77, Campbell said. Deputies followed the vehicle to the Walmart parking lot on Bluebell Drive in New Philadelphia, where Agustin was detained around 9 p.m. The girl was taken to the Noah's Hope Child Advocacy Center in New Philadelphia for assessment.

She was reported to be in good physical condition and is headed home to Georgia.

Campbell noted that Hall County authorities had been searching in multiple states for the girl.

The case remains under investigation. The Hall County Sheriffs Office will bring charges against Agustin after consultation with the Hall County District Attorneys Office.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Police find missing Georgia girl in Dover; local man in custody
Detroit-based automaker Stellantis has asked Michigan environmental regulators to allow for an increase in the state-mandated particulate matter emissions limits by one-third of the current limit, reported Bridge Detroit. This increase could impact the health and environment of surrounding neighborhoods by increasing levels of air pollution.

What's happening?

Stellantis specifically requested an increase in its particulate matter emission allowance for its Detroit Assembly Complex - Mack facility, reported Bridge Detroit. The company explained that the increase would allow for the operation of a pollution control device called a "regenerative thermal oxidizer," which helps to control odors that result from the manufacturing, per Bridge Detroit.

A Stellantis spokesperson explained that in order for the manufacturing facility to use the regenerative thermal oxidizers to manage odor, it would have to surpass the particulate matter limit, per Bridge Detroit.

Why is Stellantis' request concerning?

Stellantis' request for permission to surpass the established particulate matter emission limit is concerning for a few reasons. Particulate matter, which are microscopic particles in the air such as soot and smoke, can come from both natural and human sources, according to the EPA.

However, "most particles form in the atmosphere as a result of complex reactions of chemicals such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which are pollutants emitted from power plants, industries, and automobiles," states the EPA. Particulate matter from human sources can lead to dangerous health conditions like asthma, heart disease, lung cancer, and dementia.

Putting this in the context of Detroit, which struggles tremendously with air pollution from the automaking industry, surpassing particulate matter limits can have very serious health implications for residents.

Wayne County received an "F" grade from this year's annual State of the Air report, per Bridge Detroit. Greater Detroit is the 13th most polluted city in the country, according to Planet Detroit. Research from the University of Michigan has found that "twice the number of Detroiters are killed each year by air pollution than gun violence," reported Bridge Detroit.

What's being done about air pollution in Detroit?

Detroit residents have been working hard and using their voices to see improvements in their air quality. Recently, clean air advocates and community leaders launched the Clear the Air Coalition, specifically aimed at drafting new legislation to clean the air and prevent further air pollution, per Axios.

Another effort being made to clean up Detroit's air is inlaid technology to charge electric vehicles on the go, helping to promote a shift away from diesel cars that create air pollution. Also, there is a partnership between Detroit Tree Equity and the NFL, which plants a tree for every 10 or so athletes drafted into the NFL.

Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
It may still be July, but its time to head Back 2 School!

Friday is the first day of school for students up in Chattooga County.

[PHOTOS: Channel 2 Goes Back to School]

Chattooga County Schools is also welcoming a new superintendent. Michelle Helie is taking over the school districts top job for the 2024-2025 school year.

I am honored to serve in a community dedicated to excellence and deeply rooted traditions, she wrote in a letter to students, parents and staff. As we embark on this new school year, lets embrace the opportunities and challenges ahead with optimism and determination. Together, we will foster a culture of excellence, respect, and inclusivity where every student is supported and valued.

MORE BACK 2 SCHOOL:

For a full list of when all of the metro Atlanta and north Georgia school districts head back to the classroom, click here.

To help get students ready for a successful school year, its time for WSB-TVs annual Stuff the Bus. All your favorite faces from Channel 2 Action News will be out around metro Atlanta collecting school supplies.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
In recent years, Florida has held various sales-tax holidays covering everything from hurricane supplies to theater tickets.

However, many businesses get excited about the annual tax holidays for back-to-school items.

Florida Retail Federation President and CEO Scott Shalley said Thursday that the 14-day back-to-school holiday, which will start Monday, resembles the end-of-the-year shopping season in its impact on many businesses.

Its the proverbial win-win-win in terms of getting our kids ready to go back to school, saving a little money on taxes and providing a little boost for retailers, Shalley said.

Read: OCPS leaders cut ribbon on renovated Orange Technical College campus

During the back-to-school discount period, which will run through Aug. 11, shoppers will avoid paying sales taxes on clothes, shoes and book bags that cost $100 or less; school supplies that cost $50 or less, learning aids that cost $30 or less; and personal computers that cost $1,500 or less.

The back-to-school holiday was included in a broad tax package (HB 7073) that lawmakers and Gov. Ron DeSantis approved this year. During an appearance Thursday at Mos Bagels & Deli in Aventura, DeSantis said the tax holiday is among several parts of the package that are going to make a difference for folks.

I think it is important that we are able to provide relief for Florida families, particularly given how things have gone up so much (in prices) over the last 3  years, DeSantis said.

Department of Children and Families Secretary Shevaun Harris said during the event at Mos that the 14 days provide parents with time to plan back-to-school purchases.

Read: Seminole County special needs school closes suddenly, leaving families scrambling

Between work schedules, kids activities and other responsibilities, it would be more challenging to take advantage of this if we were limited to just one weekend, Harris said.

Florida has held back-to-school tax holidays since the late 1990s.

Its a legacy holiday. People look forward to it. They take advantage of it. They really take the opportunity to save, Shalley said. Our retailers are dialed into it. Our retailers are ready and prepared to have supplemental offerings to generate activity.

Meanwhile, another tax holiday, what is known as the Freedom Month holiday, will end Wednesday. During that holiday, sales taxes arent collected on such things as supplies for boating, fishing and camping and tickets purchased for live music events, sporting events, fairs, festivals, theater performances and movies.

Read: 9 Family teams up for 18th annual Back-to-School Backpack-a-thon

Shalley said retailers have reported varying levels of engagement on Freedom Month deals, but he said it will take a little while to determine the overall impacts.

The back-to-school holiday is projected to save shoppers $97.2 million. Freedom Month carries an estimated $91.8 million savings.

The state will also hold a 14-day tax holiday on disaster-preparedness supplies starting Aug. 24 and a seven-day tax holiday on tools and other work equipment starting in September.

A similar holiday on disaster-preparedness supplies was held during the first two weeks of June, around the start of hurricane season.

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
In 2017, American actor Kevin Spacey, best known for the TV series House of Cards and the movie Payback, was involved in court cases involving allegations of sexual harassment. As a result, the star almost lost his career and was on the verge of bankruptcy.

ADVERTISIMENT

Although the court found him not guilty and dismissed the subsequent lawsuit, the notoriety stigmatized the actor, and his colleagues Sharon Stone, Stephen Fry and Liam Neeson have to almost beg for permission to keep him on board, the BBC reports. On the 65th birthday of the two-time Oscar winner, OBOZ.UA decided to recall his most notorious scandal, which de facto destroyed his life.

In October 2017, actor Anthony Rapp accused Kevin Spacey of harassment. This happened against the backdrop of the star's careful concealment of any information about his personal life and the absence of public relationships with women.

ADVERTISIMENT

Anthony Rapp recalled the events that allegedly took place in 1986, when he was 14 years old and Kevin Spacey was 26. He spoke about the incident in public, to which the Payback actor said he did not remember the situation, but apologized if the event did occur.

Over time, 15 more people decided to accuse Kevin Spacey of sexual harassment in the wake of the hate. Among them was actor Andy Holtzman. According to him, the incident occurred in 1981 when he was working at a theater festival in New York. He was 27 years old at the time. Holtzman decided not to report the incident to the police because he was afraid of being fired.

ADVERTISIMENT

The list of these 15 people also includes 8 actors from House of Cards. Spacey lost the lead role of a devious politician in the series. It was claimed that he allegedly made rude comments and touched young employees without their consent. The studio not only fired the actor, but also ordered him to pay $31 million and reimburse the costs of filming the series, as the team had already started working on the next season.

This event hit the actor hard because of the exorbitant amount. The American Film Academy also canceled the Emmy Awards, and Netflix refused to continue working with Spacey. As a result, he has only appeared in 7 films in the last 8 years, and in June 2024, he announced that he was on the verge of bankruptcy.

ADVERTISIMENT

On his birthday, July 26, 2023, the court found Kevin Spacey not guilty. The star was acquitted of nine charges: sexual assault, incitement to non-consensual sexual activity, and incitement to sexual intercourse with penetration. After the jury's decision, the actor could not hold back his tears. He pleaded not guilty to any of the charges.

In June of this year, the star told journalist Piers Morgan that he was on the verge of bankruptcy after his home in Baltimore, USA, was put up for auction.

"My house is being auctioned off. So I have to go back to Baltimore and put all my stuff in storage. So the answer to that question is that I'm not quite sure where I'm going to live now, but I've been in Baltimore since we started filming House of Cards there," Spacey admitted.

ADVERTISIMENT

In particular, he added that, in addition to court debts, he also owes money to utility companies, and he can't pay the bills because the house is completely locked. Just the mention of this brought the star to tears.

Only verified information on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Former president Donald Trump and German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler share many qualities: A far right ideology, a mythos centered around a Big Lie, a predilection for theatrics. Until July 13, 2024, however, only Hitler had nourished his cult of personality around assassination attempts.

From a drunken brawl in 1921 (back when Hitler was just a Nazi Party speaker and long before he rose to national power) and an ordinary citizen's pistol in 1939 to multiple official bombing conspiracies, Hitler survived so many attempts on his life that his followers claimed he was protected by a higher power. Certainly, Hitler had luck on his side; one attempted bombing only failed because of a defective fuse, while three others failed (two in 1943 and one in 1944) because Hitler randomly happened to leave the locations he was expected to be when the bombs went off. Regardless of whether it was dumb luck or a malevolent god, though, Hitler's repeated brushes with death were a figurative godsend for the Nazis: They helped spread the impression that their victory was inevitable and that Hitler was worthy of admiration.

Perhaps most significantly, each assassination reinforced the Nazi narrative that criticizing them was not just wrong, but inherently evil. This happened even when the would-be assassins were fellow Nazis and not the Nazis' opponents  much as the cursory evidence on Trump's attempted assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, reveals far more evidence of Republicanism (his party registration, his fixation with firearms, the Trump campaign being aware of Crooks' father as a strong Republican and his family reportedly having MAGA signs on their lawn) than being a Democrat (a single $15 contribution to a Democratic political group prior to registering as a Republican). As historians and writers like John Grehan and Don Allen Gregory point out, the attempts on Hitler's life often were used to justify waves of repression against Jews, political dissidents and anyone else who the Nazis traditionally vilified. Republicans are already showing signs of doing exactly this, with Trump's future vice presidential running mate Sen. JD Vance of Ohio leading a chorus of conservatives blaming Democrats and liberals for the shooting.

This is not because the Nazis innovated the art of propagandizing. It's because they were using the same techniques practiced by successful cults  whether political, religious or otherwise  throughout human history.

Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes.

"The goal is chaos uncertainty  fourth generation psychological warfare, which I wrote about in the cult of Trump, which attacks experts and science and democratic institutions," said Dr. Steven Hassan, one of the world's foremost experts on mind control and cults, a former senior member of the Unification Church, founder/director of the Freedom of Mind Resource Center Inc. and author of the bestselling books "Freedom of Mind," "Combating Cult Mind Control" and "The Cult of Trump." "And the goal with this type of warfare is to create so much uncertainty and stress that people will respond to a very simplistic authoritarian message, which is incorrectly being cast as populism, which it is not."

Dr. Nathan P. Kalmoe, the executive administrative director of the University of Wisconsin  Madison's School of Journalism and Mass Communication, explained to Salon that groups which are told they are under attack  much as Trump told his audience that the person who tried to shoot him was really attacking all of them  are more likely to commit violence.

"Violence by political or social opponents doubles support for political violence among the group that feels attacked, which creates a major danger of violent retaliation," Kalmoe said. "My research with Lilliana Mason shows the same. Violence by extremists within a broad political coalition (e.g. a far-right attack on right-wing politicians) can lead to reevaluation of those coalitions and potential alliances with moderates and the left to neutralize the threat." While an attack not motivated by politics is less likely to spur political violence  this includes the assassination attempts against former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, against President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and against Arizona Rep. Gabbie Giffords in 2011  "it can and often has motivated policy changes meant to reduce the general threat to political leaders."

Sometimes assassinations can galvanize positive change.

"Lyndon Johnson framed the 1964 Civil Rights Act partly as a response to Kennedy's assassination, for example, and abolitionist newspaper Elijah Lovejoy's 1837 murder in Illinois helped galvanize white Northerners in the movement against Black enslavement," Kalmoe said. "On the other hand, the assassination of neo-Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell in 1967 motivated a new generation of bigots, including David Duke."

Kalmoe observed that the current trend in the aftermath of the attempt on Trump's life is to ask Democrats to "tone down" their criticisms of the former president, which he argues would set an ominous precedent.

"Regardless of the motive, we also need to guard against the self-serving reaction among Republicans and the self-reflective reaction among Democrats that Democrats need to tone down their criticism of Republicans, which is largely based in fact about real existential threats to American democracy," Kalmoe said. "Airing those warnings is fundamentally pro-democracy. Democrats can supplement those statements with an explicit rejection of violence, which they have been doing consistently already. That's the ideal combination of rhetoric that's good for democracy."

If Trump's critics fail to rise to the needs of this historic moment, their future may resemble that of Nazi Germany after it fabricated a martyr for lack of having a real one. In their case they chose Horst Wessel, a German law school dropout who joined the Nazi Party's paramilitary organization, known as the SA or "brownshirts," and after leading multiple violent clashes in Berlin was eventually murdered after a dispute with his Communist landlady (most likely over unpaid rent) by getting shot by two other Communists. After the Nazis seized power, Wessel was turned into a folk hero, with a song he wrote for the SA becoming the unofficial anthem of the Third Reich. The Nazis passed a law in 1934 requiring every German citizen to give a "Hitler greeting" upon hearing Wessel's song  and, of course, pointing out that Wessel had led a violent life and almost certainly was responsible for his own death was strictly forbidden.

Just like criticizing the Nazi regime, sanctified by Wessel's blood, was strictly forbidden.

"The biggest effect so far in this case seems to be a shift in news and political discourse to call for 'taking down the temperature,' with even Democrats implicitly criticizing their own arguments about how Republicans pose a threat to democracy and the well-being of all Americans," Kalmoe said. "That's wild because Republicans have been and still are the party of incitement and insurrection."
For Ash Ansery, it's simple: "We need jobs ... instead, we got the bullet."

Ansery, who is Bangladeshi, arrived at Tempe Center for the Arts for a demonstration Wednesday evening with the goal of spreading awareness on the past week of chaos in Bangladesh.

After the country's high court reinstated an expansive quota system for government jobs, clashes between student protesters and security forces spread across the South Asian country of 170 million.

Bangladeshi authorities shut down mobile internet and deployed the army. Almost 150 people were killed, with more than 1,600 arrested, according to Reuters, and other media outlets reported an even higher death toll.

Violence abated after a new high court ruling Sunday that 93% of state jobs be open to competition, meeting a key student demand, Reuters reported.

More than 100 people, including families, gathered for the Tempe demonstration. Some passed out shingara, a Bengali samosa-style pastry filled with vegetables, and other Bengali treats. Bottles of cold water also were distributed in the triple-digit temperatures.

Women and men sat across from each other in a circle of protesters. Later, one with a Bengali flag, and another with the U.S. flag, led them onto the sidewalk as a candlelight vigil proceeded alongside the lake.

Hamid Kazi, a Chandler resident, said one goal of the demonstration was to help Arizonans on issues overseas. He said Bangladeshi students were unarmed but they have been threatened with being disqualified from pursuing an education or with violence.

"Students are our leaders. They have a very clear vision ... new ideas," Kazi said. "They know what is right and what is wrong.

What is happening in Bangladesh?

Student activists in Bangladesh vowed to continue demonstrations until key demands were met, including the release of those jailed and the resignation of officials responsible for the violence. Students also are demanding the scrapping of a curfew, restoration of internet services and a reopening of campuses, Reuters reported.

Protests were sparked by the court's imposition of a 30% job quota for descendants of the 1971 war of independence, when the country broke away from Pakistan. Bangladesh borders India to the north, west, and east and Myanmar to the southeast.

The new court ruling says 93% of jobs should be on merit, allowing 5% reserved for relatives of freedom fighters and 2% for members of ethnic minorities and transgender and people with disabilities, Reuters reported.

"Human lives are seriously suffering due to the lack of electricity, gas, and water, as well as the complete shutdown of health, educational, and financial institutions," said Mustafa Ryadh, the director of the Bangladesh Association of Phoenix.

"People living outside Bangladesh are unable to communicate with their loved ones and are enduring days filled with great concern about the well-being and safety of their families and friends," he said.

According to Ryadh, the government effectively disconnected Bangladesh from the rest of the world by blocking internet services, disrupting cellular networks, and stifling free media.

In Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, and the second-largest city of Chattogram, offices and banks opened for a few hours Wednesday, and curfew hours were shortened as relative calm prevailed.

"My family, my friends are all there (Bangladesh). They are actually living in a confined space, trying to save their lives. And when I talk to them on the phone, they cannot even speak freely because there is no freedom of speech there," Ansery said.

'This cannot happen in a civilized nation today'

Ryadh said it is imperative that the Bangladesh government immediately cease the use of excessive force and free all students and bystanders who have been imprisoned or jailed for peacefully expressing their right to protest.

"Government must bring all those who committed these crimes against humanity to justice and immediately engage in constructive dialogue with the protesters to address their concerns and resolve the current crisis peacefully," he said.

Noor Siddique, a Gilbert resident, was finally able to reach his mother and other relatives in Bangladesh who were impacted by the blackout. He described the moment contact was lost with abroad family members as a "panic moment."

Siddique joined the protest not long after he got off work. He wore a headband of a Bangladeshi flag and carried a large sign in both English and Bengali, his native language.

This cannot happen in a civilized nation today," Siddique said of the student deaths. I want to let the world know that there is no place for killing innocent people just for demanding their rights.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Protesters in Arizona want you to know about protests in Bangladesh
The mugshot of the criminal showed half of his face covered with hair

Police have released a mugshot of a criminal whose eyes are almost completely covered by his hair after he was jailed for persistently flouting a ban from Wrexham.

Nkonde Liandisha, 31, was banned from Wrexham, North Wales, to protect local women after he had previously shown sexualised behaviour and assaulted an emergency worker.

He was caught persistently breaching a three-year criminal behaviour order five times in 18 months that was supposed to stop him from going to Wrexham.

Liandisha was jailed for 16 months at Mold Crown Court. He will be on licence for 12 months upon his release but still be subject to the behaviour order.

Judge Niclas Parry said: Its time for you to understand that these court orders are there to be respected because they are put there to protect the public and, in this case in particular, to protect females.

This is the fifth time that you have breached an order that is only about 18 months old.

You have had short sentences and they have not worked. The sentences are going up now because the short sentences dont stop you from defying the order.

Alun Williams, the mitigating lawyer, said Liandishas mother had had enough of him and thrown him out which had led to a deterioration in his mental health.

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.
Barack and Michelle Obama Call Kamala Harris to Offer Their Endorsement: 'It's Time for Us to Rally' (Video)

The Obamas were some of the final Democratic power players to publicly express their support for Harris' campaign. In a video released on Friday, July 26, the former first couple said they're ready to "roll up their sleeves"

Barack and Michelle Obama endorsed Kamala Harris for president on Friday, July 26, jumping in line behind the Democratic candidate as she appears on track to secure her party's nomination.

In a video released by the Harris campaign on Friday morning, the vice president is seen answering a phone call and getting greeted by the former first couple. "Hi, youre both together!" Harris responds. "Oh, its good to hear you both."

"I cant have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala: I am proud of you. This is going to be historic," Michelle says in the video.

Barack adds: "Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office."

Related: Kamala Harris Secures Enough Delegate Support to Win 2024 Democratic Presidential Nomination

"I just wanna tell you that the words you have spoken and the friendship that you have given over all these years mean more than I can express," Harris says. "And were gonna have some fun with this, too, arent we?"

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Bloomberg via Getty Barack Obama and Kamala Harris at the 2021 inauguration

In a full transcript from their call obtained by PEOPLE, the Obamas cited Harris' positivity and "record of inclusion" for feeling hopeful about a Harris administration.

We're gonna be underdogs, you know, and you are gonna have to continue, as you said, to earn not just the nomination but earn the trust of folks all across this country," Barack said. "But knowing you as we do, we're absolutely confident that you're gonna be able to make it happen."

"We've got to work now. All of us, you know," Michelle added. "It's time to stop wringing our hands, it's time to stop complaining, it's time for us to rally around you, your candidacy. This is not on you, it's not just on you and Doug, it's on all of us."

Related: Donald Trump 'Really Wanted to Run Against Biden,' Is 'Worried' About Facing Kamala Harris (Exclusive)

The Obamas released a separate statement on Friday morning, where they elaborated on their decision.

"We agree with President Biden  choosing Kamala was one of the best decisions hes made. She has the resume to prove it," the statement reads. "But Kamala has more than a resume. She has the vision, the character, and the strength that this critical moment demands."

It continues: "There is no doubt in our mind that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people. At a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope."

Susan Walsh/AP/Shutterstock Michelle and Barack Obama greet Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff at the 2021 presidential inauguration

When Joe Biden announced on July 21 that he would be ending his reelection campaign and endorsing Harris for the role instead, President Obama quickly issued a statement praising Biden's leadership.

He did not, however, mention anything about Harris' candidacy, as other power players like Bill and Hillary Clinton released near-immediate statements that emphatically endorsed the vice president.

Joe Biden has been one of Americas most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me, Barack wrote. Today weve also been reminded  again  that hes a patriot of the highest order.

I believe that Joe Bidens vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August, the former president added. And I expect that every single one of us are prepared to carry that message of hope and progress forward into November and beyond.

Related: Kamala Harris Debuts Campaign's New Beyonce Theme Song, 'Freedom,' in First 2024 Election Ad: 'A Winner Don't Quit'

Spencer Platt/Getty Images WEST POINT, NEW YORK - MAY 27: Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech at Michie Stadium during West Point's graduation ceremony on May 27, 2023 in West Point, New York. Harris is the first woman to give a commencement address in the military academy's 221-year history.

President Obama was a firm supporter of his former running mates reelection campaign, calling Biden the kind of president I want during a Q&A at a Democratic fundraiser in March.

The reason why I originally selected Joe Biden to be my vice president, the reason that I think he was one of the best vice presidents we've ever had, and the reason why I think he has been an outstanding president is because he has moral conviction and clarity," he said.

"But he's also willing to acknowledge that the world is complicated, and that he's willing to listen to all sides in this debate and every other debate and try to see if we can find common ground.

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 Obamas were some of the only high-profile Democrats yet to publicly endorse Harris, and they now join a number of party leaders in their support for her campaign  including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Harris: 'She gives us all reason to hope'

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Obama embrace during an event at the White House in 2022. (Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

Former President Obama, one of the most respected voices in the modern Democratic Party, and former First Lady Michelle Obama officially endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday to be their partys White House nominee in the fall.

Citing Harris work as a prosecutor, California attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president, the Obamas said in a statement and video announcing their endorsement that she was the best qualified to take President Bidens place following his announcement that he was ending his campaign for reelection.

Kamala has more than a resume. She has the vision, the character, and the strength that this critical moment demands. There is no doubt in our mind that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people, the Obamas said in their statement. At a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope.

The former president had initially been noncommittal following Bidens announcement on Sunday that he was leaving the race. Obama had said that he believed it was important for Democratic delegates to chart their path for selecting a new nominee  but he was also in regular contact with Harris, as he has been over the more than two decades they have known each other, according to a source familiar with their conversations.

Obama was impressed by Harris performance in the days after Biden decided to not pursue reelection, this person said.

The Obamas nod is unsurprising given their longtime relationship with Harris  which predates them all becoming household names  and considering Harris success in consolidating Democratic support this week.

Harris and Barack Obama met in 2004, when he was a state senator in Illinois and she was the district attorney of San Francisco.

Ahead of the 2008 election, when odds appeared to favor Hillary Clinton to win the Democratic nomination, Harris attended the 2007 announcement of his presidential campaign in Springfield, Ill., and later trudged through the snow stumping for him in Iowa before his surprise victory in the states caucuses in January 2008.

Read more: Astronaut? Governor? Cabinet member? Assessing Harris' VP options

A few months later, Harris was tapped by Obamas campaign to speak on his behalf at the California Democratic Convention before the states primary. She followed former President Clinton, who spoke on behalf of his wife, then a senator from New York.

Can you say, Gulp? she said at the gathering in San Jose.

Harris argued that Obama could unite the nation, and likened her own appearance before the states delegates to Obamas candidacy.

Hasnt it been about the audacity to do things unimaginable? she said, prompting his supporters to chant: Obama! Obama!

(Hillary Clinton ultimately bested him in Californias primary, but Obama went on to win the nomination and the White House.)

Harris remained close with the then-president as she was elected Californias attorney general and was nicknamed the female Obama in political circles.

The relationship caused some controversial headlines when the president described Harris at a 2013 fundraiser as brilliant, dedicated and tough, and then added that Harris was also, by far, the best-looking attorney general.

He immediately called her to apologize, saying he had not meant to diminish her accomplishments.

In the 2020 presidential campaign near the end of his second term, Obama did not take a position while Harris, Biden and other Democrats were in a competitive primary. He would endorse Biden, his vice president, that April, one day after Vermonts Sen. Bernie Sanders threw his own support to Biden after leaving the race.

Read more: 'Lawyerly, sharp mind' or 'dumb as a rock'? The ugly race to recast Harris is underway

The former president and Harris have many aides in common. His first attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., is reportedly helping Harris vet potential vice presidential picks, and Jen OMalley Dillon, an Obama White House deputy chief of staff and 2012 deputy campaign manager, is managing Harris campaign.

In their endorsement statement, the Obamas pledged that Harris had their full support and that they would work hard to get her elected to the White House.

We look forward to watching her unite our party and our country around a vision for a brighter, fairer, more prosperous future, they said. Were going to do everything we can to elect Kamala Harris the next President of the United States. And we hope youll join us.

In a nearly minute-long video of the Obamas call to Harris on Wednesday announcing their endorsement, she said that their support was meaningful and that she looked forward to campaigning with them.

After Michelle Obama called her my girl Kamala and her campaign historic, Harris replied: The words you have spoken and the friendship that you have given over all these years mean more than I can express. So thank you both!

She added: And were gonna have some fun with this, too, arent we?

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.
Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Kamala Harris for president: No doubt in our mind she has what it takes

Barack and Michelle Obama have endorsed Kamala Harris for president, saying that there is no doubt in our mind that she has what it takes to beat Donald Trump in the 2024 election and deliver for the American people.

Following days of speculation, the former first couple announced their endorsement on Friday morning, with both parties sharing a video on social media of a phone call in which the Obamas pledged their whole-hearted support for Harriss campaign.

Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office, the former president is heard telling Harris in the call.

Michelle tells Ms Harris that she is proud and insists the election will be historic.

I cant have this phone call without saying to my girl, Kamala, I am proud of you. This is going to be historic, she says.

Ms Harris, who is seen in the video, thanks them for their support and hints that the Obamas will be joining her on the campaign trail.

Oh my goodness. Michelle, Barack, this means so much to me, she says.

Im looking forward to doing this with the two of you, Doug and I both. And getting out there, being on the road.

Kamala Harris speaks to Barack and Michelle Obama as they endorse her candidacy for the White House (Barack Obama/X)

Kamala Harris seen on the phone to the Obamas in the video (Barack Obama/X)

But most of all, I just want to tell you the words you have spoken and the friendship that you have given over all these years mean more than I can express, so thank you both. It means so much. And were gonna have some fun with this too, arent we? she added.

The video appears to have been recorded on Wednesday, with Ms Harriss outfit matching what she wore at a campaign stop at the biennial convention of Zeta Phi Beta in Indianapolis.

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think shell make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support, the former president said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

At this critical moment for our country, were going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in November. We hope youll join us.

In a joint statement, the former president and first lady reeled off the vice presidents accomplishments and said that she provides hope for the American people.

We agree with President Biden choosing Kamala was one of the best decisions hes made. She has the resume to prove it.

The statement continued: But Kamala has more than a resume. She has the vision, the character, and the strength that this critical moment demands. There is no doubt in our mind that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people.

At a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope.

Harris and Obama pictured together. There has been much speculation about the endorsement in recent days (Getty Images)

The endorsement from the top Democratic figures brings to an end days of speculation about their support for Ms Harris.

Following Mr Bidens announcement on Sunday that he was dropping out of the 2024 race, Democrats quickly threw their support behind the vice-president as the new Democratic party candidate.

While Ms Harris earned endorsements from other senior Democrats  including Nancy Pelosi, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer  as well as public figures including George Clooney, the Obamas remained silent.

On Sunday evening, when news of Mr Bidens exit from the race broke, Mr Obama posted a lengthy tribute to his former vice-president turned president calling him a patriot of the highest order  but stopped short of backing Ms Harris for the top of the ticket.

I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges, he wrote.

For now, Michelle and I just want to express our love and gratitude to Joe and Jill for leading us so ably and courageously during these perilous times.

After Mr Bidens address to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, Mr Obama again paid tribute to his close Democratic ally but made no mention of Ms Harris.

While this fueled speculation that Ms Harris might not have the support from the powerful Democratic couple, insiders said that the Obamas were very much backing her  but did not want to overshadow Bidens moment.

Sources told NBC News that Mr Obama had been in regular touch with Ms Harris and had privately endorsed her, waiting for the right moment to make that endorsement public.
Former President Barack Obama endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris presidential run Friday, the latest in a string of high-profile politicians to throw their weight behind the clear front-runner for the Democratic Party nomination.

In a video statement, both the former president and his wife, Michelle Obama, gave their support to Harris and committed to doing everything they can to get her elected as president.

We called to say Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office, Obama said.

Its time for us to rally around you, your candidacy, Michelle Obama said. This is not on you, its not just on you and Doug, its on all of us. ... Weve got to register, weve got to vote. ... So, lets all roll up our sleeves and make it happen.

Harris has enjoyed near-unanimous support from the party since current President Joe Bidens withdrawal from the race Sunday, defying pundits who predicted Democratic infighting should Biden bow out.

Obama, who won the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections with Biden as his running mate, applauded Bidens decision but stopped short of immediately endorsing Harris.

House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed Harris on Monday, followed quickly by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) a day later.

Even so, the vice president pledged to earn and win the nomination in her first remarks as a candidate. So far, no other candidate has thrown their hat in the ring.

An Associated Press tracker of the roughly 4,000 Democratic delegates shows Harris has the support of more than 3,000. Without any rival candidates so far, Harris is the overwhelming frontrunner to secure the nomination.

Democratic Party rules permit delegates to change their minds until an official vote, at which point the delegates are bound. A virtual roll call will be held ahead of next months Chicago convention.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Shruti Rajkumar contributed to reporting.

Related...
Barack and Michelle Obama have endorsed Kamala Harriss historic presidential bid in a video capturing a gushing private phone call.

The former US president and his wife on Friday became the latest Democrat heavyweights to support the vice-presidents campaign after previously holding off from formally endorsing her.

In the one-minute video released on social media, the Obamas are heard speaking to Ms Harris on loudspeaker as she walks backstage at a campaign event.

We called to say Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office, Mr Obama can be heard telling a smiling Ms Harris in the clip.

Mrs Obama said: I cant have this phone call without saying to my girl, Kamala, I am proud of you. This is going to be historic.

The vice-president, who has secured the support of enough Democratic delegates to lock in the nomination, responded: This means so much to me. Im looking forward to doing this with the two of you, Doug [her husband] and I both. And getting out there, being on the road.

Ms Harris then thanked them for the friendship you have given over all these years.

She added: Were gonna have some fun with this too, arent we?

Her campaign said the video showed the actual call between the trio and was not a re-enactment.

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think she'll make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we're going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2024

In an email sent out by the Harris campaign on Friday, Mr and Mrs Obama said they couldnt be more excited ... or thrilled to endorse her.

There is no doubt in our mind that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people. At a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope, they added.

Ms Harriss run against Donald Trump, her Republican rival, has continued to gain momentum from supporters, donors and politicians less than a week after Joe Biden bowed out of the race amid slumping poll numbers.

Marxist fraud

The endorsement from Mr Obama, who remains one of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, will help bolster Ms Harriss campaign.

He is expected to attend fundraisers and act as a surrogate for Ms Harris after she is officially crowned the Democratic nominee and as her campaign heats up closer to the election.

While other key Democrats such as Bill and Hillary Clinton were quick to rally around Ms Harriss bid, the Obamas notably held back their support in the days after Mr Biden stepped down.

After Mr Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Ms Harris, Mr Obama put out a statement in which he said he had extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.

Such a move irritated some Democrats, as Mr Obama is understood to have been one of the key Democrats who had urged Mr Biden to rethink his campaign in light of his disastrous debate performance in June.

The former president reportedly did not want to become involved while his party worked through the process of determining its nominee.

Mr Obamas silence was also seized upon by the Trump campaign.

There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party - namely Barack Hussein Obama - that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone better, Steven Cheung, a campaign spokesman, said on Thursday.

According to a longer transcript of their phone call released by the Democrats, Mr Obama told Ms Harris that the Democrats were going to be underdogs but that he and Mrs Obama were absolutely confident that youre gonna be able to make it happen.

Senior Democrats are hoping to officially lock in Ms Harris as the partys candidate ahead of its convention in mid-August, with delegates expected to begin voting next week, according to The New York Times.

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

Former US President Barack Obama endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the Democratic presidential nominee on Friday.

Writing in a joint statement with his wife Michelle, he said that her candidacy comes at a time when the stakes have never been higher, she gives us all reason to hope.

The Obamas said they had been in touch with Harris by phone to offer their support. We called to say Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office, the former president said.

Obamas endorsement came after speculation over why he didnt immediately throw his support behind the Democrats presumptive nominee when US President Joe Biden bowed out of the race on Sunday.

One person close to Obama said he didnt want to overshadow Bidens Wednesday night Oval Office address, while another said the former president wanted his endorsement to stand as its own moment.

Speaking to The New York Times after Biden endorsed Harris on Sunday, a source familiar with Obamas decision to hold back his endorsement said that it was motivated by his desire to unite the party around whomever won the most support from Democrats as a whole.
Harry, the 39-year-old Duke of Sussex, has revealed why his wife Meghan Markle does not fly to her husband's homeland. Now they live with their two children in California, USA, and only the prince sometimes returns to the UK for work or for important events for the Windsors.

ADVERTISIMENT

In an ITV documentary, the Briton revealed that the main reason for this is his fear for his family. The Duke believes that the former actress is in real danger. The words of the royal family member were reported by People.

"It's still dangerous, and all it takes is one person reading these materials to act on what they read. And it doesn't matter if it's a knife or acid, whatever it is, these are things that cause me real concern. That's one of the reasons why I don't want to bring my wife back to this country," explained the son of King Charles III.

The prince's fears are explained by the statement of the former head of Scotland Yard's counterterrorism unit, Neil Basu, who claimed in 2022 that there was a threat to the life of an American woman. Then the police found the perpetrators and brought them to justice.

ADVERTISIMENT

It is said that it was for security reasons that Harry abdicated his royal duties and took his wife to another continent. After that, the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC) stripped them of their right to British police protection. Even the prince's request to return the protection at his expense did not work.

In the end, the Duke decided to keep his young children and wife away from London. The last time they broke this rule was during the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

"I can't put my wife in that kind of danger, and given my life experience, I don't want to put myself in danger unnecessarily either," Harry said.

ADVERTISIMENT

Only verified information is available on OBOZ.UA Telegram channel and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  Whats described as a new lush, immersive exhibit is now open at the Fresno Chaffe Zoo, and it brings with it the return of some familiar animal faces  and one new one.

According to the zoo, the renovated space is the final piece of the Kingdoms of Asia exhibit and will house the Muntjac barking deer, Malaysian tapirs, and babirusas, a species of Asian pig. Visitors will be able to watch and learn about the animals in whats described as one of the most transformative experiences at the Zoo in the last five years.

Flaminglet (a baby flamingo) born at Fresno Chaffee Zoo: Couldnt be more excited

Weve built this beautiful Kingdoms of Asia exhibit, the last piece is in place now, a repurposing of the old elephant and rhino exhibit into something modern and aesthetically pleasing and good for the animals, said Director and CEO Jon Forest Dohlin. I think its what the community has been waiting for and were proud to unveil it.

Asian Tapir

Babirusa

Barking Deer

The Asian tapirs and babirusas have settled into their new home and can be visited starting Friday.

The barking deer, also known as muntjac, will be moving into the exhibit soon, zoo staff say. The small deer get their name from their extremely vocal calls, but despite their name, their calls sound more like a scream.

The renovated space that will house the Kingdoms of Asia exhibit is one of the oldest parts of the zoo that originally housed Nosey the elephant when she arrived back in 1949, according to staff.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Bayraktar plant to operate in Ukraine at full capacity only after war ends

The Bayraktar drone manufacturing plant will fully operate in Ukraine after the war with Russia is over.

Source: Euronews

Quote: "We are working with Baykar Makina in various dimensions, including the establishment of the plant," said Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkiye Vasyl Bodnar.

The Baykar Makina plant for producing Bayraktar drones will fully operate in Ukraine after the war with Russia ends.

He said Kyiv is actively cooperating with the Turkish company in the defence sector.

The Ukrainian ambassador declined to provide details about the plant for security reasons but noted that progress in this area is noticeable. He also emphasised that Kyiv is working with Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI).

Background:

The Turkish company Baykar, which manufactures the Bayraktar TB2 strike drones, is investing US$100 million in three projects in Ukraine.

Baykar, the producer of the Bayraktar TB2 strike drones, has signed an export and cooperation agreement with the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defence. The signed document has become the largest export contract in Turkiye's history.

Support UP or become our patron!
Russian President Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Lukashenko visit the Valaam Monastery in the Republic of Karelia

SEOUL (Reuters) - Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has promised to expand cooperation with Pyongyang in a message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, North Korea's foreign ministry said on its website on Friday.

"I affirm that I will work to further expand cooperation with the DPRK to make it full of new content, and common programmes of giving mutual benefits to the improved well-being of the peoples of our countries," the ministry quoted Lukashenko as saying in a statement.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.

The message came as a reply to Pyongyang's sending of congratulations on the National Day of Belarus, the statement said.

Both North Korea and Belarus have close ties to Russia, which has become more diplomatically isolated on the global stage since it ordered tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Belarusian Foreign Minister Maxim Vladimirovich Ruzenkov travelled to North Korea and met with senior government officials this week, including premier Kim Tok Hun and foreign minister Choe Son Hui, North Korean state media reported.

At a reception in Pyongyang's Koryo Hotel for Ruzenkov on Tuesday, state media KCNA said Choe spoke of "comprehensively boosting relations" between the two countries.

(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Editing by Gareth Jones)
In the wake of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris record-breaking fundraising numbers, Ben Shapiro has an answer for anyone wondering if Donald Trump would pick J.D. Vance as his running mate again: I doubt it.

I think he probably would have picked somebody like Glenn Youngkin from Virginia in an attempt to broaden out his base, Shapiro said on the latest episode of his self-titled show, according to Media Matters. Instead, he went with J.D. Vance feeling, because he was right that at the time, he had a very solid advantage in the race against Joe Biden.

Shapiro was referring to President Joe Bidens murmuring debate performance two weeks before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week. That performance was the catalyst for Biden quitting the race and why Trump felt comfortable choosing a running mate who defies the traditions of picking a candidate to shore up support with the partys wider base.

Ben Shapiro: If you had a time machine, if you go back two weeks, would [Trump] have picked JD Vance again? I doubt it. pic.twitter.com/yPXW0JlngD  Jason S. Campbell (@JasonSCampbell) July 26, 2024

But Donald Trump does not have a time machine and cant pick a new candidate to help him beat Harris, as Shapiro acknowledged. Instead, much like his new boss, Vance has a very short resume on the national political stage, but its just long enough for Democrats to cherry-pick and exploit his worst past comments.

Shapiro dogpiled onto the criticism of Vance for calling Harris one of the childless cat ladies running the nation and lamented that Democrats will take the Ohio senators characterization and use it as a cudgel in the gender gap among voters.

Vance doubled down on his cat lady comments on Friday, telling listeners of the The Megyn Kelly Show that it was a sarcastic comment.

Ive got nothing against cats, Vance added.

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.
NJ man gets life in prison after being found guilty for second time in murder of Realtor

HACKENSACK  A Bergen County Superior Court judge emphasized a Wood-Ridge man's complete lack of remorse for the brutal murder of an East Rutherford real estate agent in 2012 during his sentencing on Friday.

Daniel Rochat was found guilty a second time in April for the death of 70-year-old Barbara Vernieri, who was found beaten and set on fire while she was still alive in her home. Rochat's previous conviction was overturned in an appellate court in 2022.

Rochat was found guilty of murder, arson, felony murder, desecration, hindering and false swearing.

One of Rochat's attorneys, Eric Feinberg, argued that his client has "lost out on the best years of his life," having spent the last 12 years in county jail and state prison.

Hackensack, NJ -- July 26, 2024 -- Daniel Rochat enters the courtroom for his sentencing. He was re-convicted in the killing of an East Rutherford realtor.

"How much more time does the court want Daniel Rochat to spend in prison?" Feinberg asked.

Judge Christopher Kazlau's answer to Feinberg's question was Rochat would likely spend the rest of his natural life in prison. Kazlau sentenced the 49-year-old man to life in prison on the murder charge, which merged with the felony murder charge. Life in prison in the state is presumed to be 75 years with 85% of a sentence being served before being eligible for parole.

In addition to life imprisonment, Rochat was sentenced to 10 years for arson, 10 years for desecration, five years apiece for both hindering charges and 18 months for false swearing. The sentences will run concurrently with each other.

Throughout his decision, Kazlau pointed to the statements made to the police by Rochat, noting the man's tone and demeanor during the interviews was "striking."

Hackensack, NJ -- July 26, 2024 -- Daniel Rochat confers with his legal team during his sentencing. He was re-convicted in the killing of an East Rutherford realtor.

When handing down the sentence, Kazlau provided the horrific details surrounding Vernieri's death, including that soot was found in her larynx, trachea and bronchi as well as carbon monoxide being found in her blood, all indicators of her being set on fire while still alive. He said she suffered burns to her head and body, with hair burned off, a fractured tibia and a blood wound on the left side of her head.

During arguments, Assistant Prosecutor Dave Malfitano said it was a "torturous, horrific way to die" and the worst act was Vernieri being set aflame while still alive.

The judge called Vernieri's murder "brutal and senseless."

Rochat continues to maintain his innocence, telling the court during the hearing that he did not kill Vernieri.

"Justice has not been served," Rochat said. "The person who did this brutal murder has eluded justice."

Rochat's mother, Janet, spoke on behalf of her son, speaking of the familial connection her son had with Vernieri and how they had a "warm and loving relationship." She believed law enforcement misinterpreted his visit to Vernieri two days before she was murdered and there was a "less than thorough investigation."

"Not only did Dan deserve a better investigation, but so did Barbara," Janet Rochat said.

Hackensack, NJ -- July 26, 2024 -- Anthony Pope defends his client during the sentencing of Daniel Rochat who was re-convicted in the killing of an East Rutherford realtor.

A number of Vernieri's relatives, including her daughter Anne Scanlon, gave victim impact statements and all of them asked Kazlau to impose the maximum sentence on Rochat.

Scanlon told the court her family would "never recover" from the horrific and tragic events of Sept. 14, 2012. She spoke of how she had to tell her daughter, who was 10 years old at the time, and her 5-year-old autistic, nonverbal son, that their grandmother was gone. Scanlon recounted all the precious milestones her mother was deprived of such as her daughter's musical performances, graduations and white coat ceremony for medical school. She said her mother did not get the chance to see how much her son has grown into a man.

"It's a true tragedy for him to not have her by his side," Scanlon said. "Rochat not only took my mother's life, he took a piece of mine."

She said the loss of her mother has made it difficult to be the wife and mother she once was and that all of life's events "will always be tinged with sadness."

"The passage of time does not diminish the brutality of the crime," Scanlon said, telling Rochat she never wants to see him again or waste another moment thinking of him.

Prior to the sentencing, Anthony Pope, an attorney for Rochat, and the prosecution argued a motion for a new trial, which was denied by Kazlau, who said there was more than enough evidence for a jury to infer from and find Rochat guilty. Pope said his client maintains his innocence.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Wood-Ridge NJ man gets life in prison for murder of Realtor
Berlin Queer Representative Alfonso Pantisano takes part in a demonstration under the slogan "Solidarity with the RuT! Against queer hostility! For a colorful Neukoelln!", organized by the Network Women in Neukoelln, the District Office Neukoelln and the Neukoelln Network against Queer Hostility. Jorg Carstensen/dpa

Berlin's commissioner for LGBTQ+ issues, Alfonso Pantisano, said he has been subject to death threats and other hostility ahead of the German capital's upcoming Pride celebrations on Saturday.

Pantisano said in a post on Instagram on Friday that he has received menacing phone calls, including threats to assassinate him during the Pride celebrations, which in Germany are known as Christopher Street Day (CSD) festivities.

"Unfortunately, these anonymous calls are not going away," he said, but added that he is trying not to let the hostility get to him and will continue doing his work.

"Times are getting tougher and I'm beginning to understand more and more what dangers we have to expect if the wind gets even colder and times get even darker," he wrote.

Pantisano added that, since coming out as gay 31 years ago, he has never tried to hide from anyone or anything.

"Of course I will be at the Berlin CSD tomorrow. I am not the gay man that I am today in order to be hiding right now," wrote Pantisano.

"Then let them put a bullet in my head. I won't back down a millimetre from these enemies of our democracy. Never!"

Up to half a million people are expected to march through Berlin for the city's 46th CSD celebration on Saturday, which celebrates lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. The gathering in Berlin is one of the largest queer events in Europe.

The term Christopher Street Day is a reference to the location of the Stonewall Inn in New York City's Greenwich Village neighbourhood, where a protest against police discrimination on June 28, 1969, kickstarted the gay liberation movement.
Beshears PAC has raised $493,000, but given little so far to help other candidates

Gov. Andy Beshear's PAC, In This Together, has raised almost a half-million dollars in its first six month. "Forward, Together" was the theme of his second inauguration on Dec. 12, 2024. Beshear was surrounded by family and friends viewing the inaugural parade. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Arden Barnes)

FRANKFORT  Gov. Andy Beshears political action committee raised $493,000 in its first six months, but so far it has made few contributions to fulfill its purpose of helping good people win closely-contested elections across the country.

Through June 30 the Beshear PAC, named In This Together, has donated only $24,800 to candidates it has endorsed, according to reports the PAC has filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Its largest contribution so far was also its most recent  $12,800 donated on June 20 to NC Democratic Leadership Committee of Raleigh, North Carolina. In the spring, In This Together endorsed North Carolinas Democratic Attorney General Josh Steins campaign for governor, and this donation apparently is intended to help that campaign.

Previously, In This Together reported giving $6,600 to Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana; $3,300 to an Ohio committee supporting Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Browns reelection campaign; and $2,100 to Kentucky Court of Appeals Judge Pamela Goodwines campaign for Kentucky Supreme Court.

In This Together has reported spending about $107,000 in operating expenses during its first six months  more than four times the amount of its donations. These expenses are for strategy consultants, fundraising consultants, a compliance consultant, legal fees, bank fees, credit card processing fees and costs for running a website.

Most of what the PAC has collected  about $361,000  remains as cash on hand as of June 30.

Eric Hyers, the PACs political strategist who managed Beshears successful campaigns for governor in 2019 and 2023, said that from the start the PAC intended to wait until the fall to do most of its spending to help its endorsed candidates in Kentucky and across America. And Hyers said that the PAC will be supporting its endorsed candidates more in the form of independent expenditures than in direct donations to the candidates campaigns.

He also said future expenses of the PAC will show travel costs for Beshear to campaign in-person for his endorsed candidates. (So far the PAC has reported spending no money for Beshear travel expenses.)

Hyers said hes satisfied with the fundraising amount so far. Fundraising has gone well so far, he said, adding that he expects to report larger fundraising numbers in the coming months.

Beshear, who cannot seek a third term as governor, created In This Together on Jan. 7. The PACs website says it will support good people and good candidates running for local, statewide and federal office in red or purple states who demonstrate a commitment to leading with empathy and compassion and the backbone to always do whats right, regardless of politics.

It is only half of Beshears post reelection personal political operation. The other half is an organization called Heckbent Inc. Unlike In This Together which must report its donations and expenses to the FEC, Heckbent is a dark money group  a 501 (c)(4) committee which does not disclose names of donors. According to its website, Heckbent s purpose is to advance Beshears policy agenda in Kentucky.

Beshear is widely reported as one of several Democratic leaders across the country being considered by Vice President Kamala Harris  the all-but-official Democratic presidential nominee in the wake of President Joe Bidens sudden exit from the race  as her running mate. Its unclear what happens with In This Together and Heckbent if Harris picks Beshear.

Heres a look at who has provided the big dollars so far to In This Together

A Louisville company called Freedom Senior Share LLC made the single largest donation to In This Together  $25,000 on June 28. Freedom Senior Share LLC operates under an assumed name of Freedom Adult Day Healthcare and its website says its purpose is to provide essential in-home care services as a great alternative to traditional nursing homes.

Earlier this year, Nachiketa Bhatt, identified in a report filed by In This Together as the managing member of Freedom Adult Day Healthcare, donated $5,000 to In This Together. Bhatt was a major contributor to committees supporting Beshears reelection as governor and has been a donor to both Republican and Democratic candidates for the state legislature from Jefferson County.

In February a political action committee based in Louisville called BlueWaveAmerica made a $20,000 contribution to In This Together. The PAC, based in Louisville and headed by Democratic former U.S. Rep. Mike Ward, has a goal of electing Democrats in rural America with a focus on red and purple states.

In June, a group of Nashville-area donors (12 people and one PAC) gave a combined $32,000. The Courier Journal recently reported that in June Beshear spoke in Nashville at a Championing Reproductive Freedom event.

Twenty-five attorneys with the law firm Frost Brown Todd  most of them from the firms Louisville office  combined to give $23,650 to In This Together between mid-May and early June.

And Edward Britt Brockman, a big political donor to Beshears committees and a Beshear appointee to the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees, is listed by In This Together as giving $10,000 in June.

Here are other big donors. Each is listed by In This Together as having given $5,000:

William Grover Arnett, Salyersville, attorney

Lawrence Benz, Louisville

Jane Beshear, Lexington

Steve Beshear, Lexington, attorney

Campbell Brown, Louisville, chairman, Brown-Forman

Sherman Brown, Louisville, government relations, McCarthy Strategic Solutions

Gregory Bubalo, Louisville, attorney

William Butler, Covington, CEO, Corporex

John Dant, Nashville, president, Log Still Distillery

Ruth Day, Jacksonville Beach, Florida, CIO for Kentucky state government

Christopher Dischinger, Louisville, developer, LDG Inc.

Lisa Dischinger, Louisville, real estate, LDG Inc.

John Dougherty, Louisville

Michael Dudgeon, Midway, owner, Milan Farm LLC

Joe Ellis, Benton, optometrist, Clarkson Eyecare

Frank Garrison, Nashville

Ben Gastel, Nashville, lawyer, HSG Law

Patrick Gaunce, Glasgow

Leslie Geoghegan, Louisville, civic volunteer

Ron Geoghegan, Louisville, McCarthy Strategic Solutions

Gloria for Tennessee, Nashville, TN, $5,000

Jonathan Goldberg, Louisville, attorney, Goldberg & Simpson

Jim Gray, Lexington

Scott Hagan, Louisville, developer, Hagan Properties

Walter Halbleib, Louisville, lawyer, Stites and Harbison

Judith Hanekamp, Masonic Home

Chauncey Hiestand, Louisville, attorney, Winton and Hiestand Law Group

Carrie Hieistand, Louisville

William Hodgkin, Winchester

Kentucky Bankers Assn. PAC, Louisville, $5,000

Jonathan Krebs, Hattiesburg, MS, partner, Horne

Franklin Lassiter, Midway, HealthTech Solutions

Adam Levin, Brentwood, Tennessee, entrepreneur

James R. Martin, Jacksonville Beach, Florida, retired

Michael McGhee, Elkton, president, McGhee Engineering

Jonathan Miller, Lexington, attorney, Frost Brown Todd

McKinnley Morgan, London, attorney, Morgan, Collins, Yeast & Salyer

Keith L. Murt Sr., Paducah, owner, Murtco Inc.

Charlie OConnor, Versailles, sales, Ashford

Joseph Prather, Louisville, chief medical officer, Baptist Health

Jay Pritzker, Chicago, IL, governor of Illinois

Jonathan Rabinowitz, Versailles, attorney, Morgan and Morgan

Nathan Smith, Ft. Mitchell, CIO, Flagship Communities

Anna Stroble, Ridgeland, Mississippi, partner, Horne

Mark Swartz, Winchester, contractor, Swartz Enterprises

Mike Swartz, Olympia, owner, Mike Swartz Enterprises

Ron Winchell, Las Vegas, Nevada, hospitality, ECL

Jeremy Winton, Louisville

David Whitehouse, Lexington

Bill Wolfe, West Palm Beach, Florida, executive, First Washington Realty

Mark Workman, Paducah, engineer, Bacon Farmer Workman Engineering

Kelly Workman, Paducah
Best places for families to live? This Middle Tennessee town cracked Fortune's top ten

Fortune has released its yearly ranking of the Best Places to Live for Families and one Middle Tennessee city made the list.

Over the past three years, Fortune has released their top 50 cities for Best Places to Live for Families. In our analysis of over 2,000 cites across the county, the ones that topped our ranking scored high on assists like health care, education, affordability and resources for seniors, the business magazine wrote.

For their 2024 rankings, Franklin cracked the top ten. Here's why:

Top ten: Fortune's Best Places to Live for Families

Silver Spring, Maryland Upper Merion, Pennsylvania Chantilly, Virginia Ann Arbor, Michigan Mason, Ohio Franklin, Tennessee Lafayette, Colorado Overland Park, Kansas Morristown, New Jersey Portsmouth, New Hampshire

How did Franklin get to be among the top 50 U.S. cities?

Since the founding of Franklin in 1799, the Williamson County town has continuously grown while keeping its historic charm.

Located 20 miles south of Nashville, Franklin offers a variety of music venues, shopping centers and a lively downtown area that host a series of festivals including Dickens of a Christmas which draws thousands every year.

Franklin is also the home to the Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival which has previously hosted acts such as Justin Timberlake and Dave Matthews Band.

Do students perform well in Franklin high-schools?

High schools in the community are top rated and possess an average 96% graduation rate. According to US News, three out of the five Franklin schools are ranked in the top 10 for Williamson County.

How affordable is Franklin?

In terms of affordability, Franklin is a part of the most expensive county in Tennessee. The median household income is $129,200 with Franklin ranking as one of the most expensive cities in the state.

What healthcare and senior resources does Franklin have for seniors?

Franklin has 19 above average nursing homes and 11 hospitals that are recommended by over 50% of patients.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why this Tennessee town is ranked among the best places for families
What is the best Tennessee city to move to? 2024 study says these East TN cities top the list

What makes a city so appealing? Walkability? Weather? Nearby restaurants? The quality of schools? USA Today Homefront considered these factors and more when determining the best cities to live in Tennessee for 2024. According to the study, the state's natural, outdoor beauty, cost of living and Southern charm makes the Volunteer State a standout option for people considering relocating.

The study found that from 2022 to 2023, Tennessees population grew by 1.1%, making it the eighth fastest-growing state in the U.S. Additionally, Tennessee is among the most affordable states to live in the country, thanks in part to the state not charging income tax.

Among the top contenders were several Middle Tennessee cities like Franklin, Clarksville, Gallatin and Hendersonville. Coming out on top was the East Tennessee city of Johnson City, followed by Kingsport, Cleveland, Knoxville, and Chattanooga. At the bottom of the list was Columbia, Brentwood, Nashville, Collierville, and Bartlett. Placing last was the Birthplace of Rock and Roll  Memphis.

What are the best cities to move to in Tennessee? East Tennessee cities rank highly

Johnson City performed well across multiple categories, including health care, public safety, dining options, and quality of schools. Furthermore, it is located near several state parks, adding to the city's family friendly culture. According to the study, the life expectancy of a Johnson City resident is 74 years, the median income is $54,173 and the typical rent payment is $1,287. The typical home is valued at $276,204 and the unemployment rent is 3%.

Which Tennessee cities grew the most? See how population shifted according to the U.S. Census

Coming in at No. 2 was Kingsport, also located in East Tennessee. Kingsport mainly stood out in terms of affordability. Of all cities considered, it had the lowest typical rent payment of $1,185 and the lowest homeowners insurance premium of $2,019 annually.

"These economic advantages, combined with its musical heritage and scenic surroundings, make Kingsport an attractive place to live for artists and nature enthusiasts on a budget," said USA TODAY Homefront.

2024 analysis: These East Tennessee cities scored big on list of in-demand spots for homebuyers

Rounding out the top three was Cleveland, located in the East Tennessee County of Bradley. Cleveland, located less than 40 minutes north of Chattanooga, is yet another affordable option. Cleveland enjoys some of the lowest rental rates in the state, with typical rents at $1,418. The city is also resilient against climate events, it ranked third least at risk for high losses due to severe weather.

Notable cities like Nashville and Memphis ranked poorly due to higher crime rates and healthcare options. Music City also experiences a much higher cost of living. Nashville home values are 37% above the state average and typical rent payments are valued at $1,893.

Best cities to live in Tennesse

Johnson City Kingsport Cleveland Knoxville Chattanooga Franklin Gallatin Clarksville Hendersonville Jackson

Worst cities to live in Tennessee

Murfreesboro

Spring Hill

Germantown

Smyrna

Columbia

Brentwood

Nashville

Collierville

Bartlett

Memphis

Methodology

In order to determine the best places to live in Tennessee, USA TODAY Homefront ranked 20 cities across the following 16 metrics. The population threshold was set at 40,000.

Walkability

School district ratings

Number of restaurants

Number of activities

Estimated primary care providers per 1,000 residents

County-level life expectancies

Severe weather events

Number of violent and property crimes per 1,000 residents

Expected annual loss from natural hazards

The ratio of home values for single-family homes, condos and co-ops to median household income

Typical rent for all home types

Percentage of renters who pay more than 30% of income to rent

Median annual homeowners insurance premiums

Unemployment rates at the county level

Percentage of the population with a bachelors degree

Regional price parity

USA TODAY Homefront contributed to this report

Diana Leyva covers trending news and service journalism for The Tennessean. Contact her at Dleyva@gannett.com or follow her on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, at @_leyvadiana

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Which are the best Tennessee cities to live in? Why East TN tops list
'Better than I found it': Clive's police chief retires after 12 years with the department

Clive's police chief of 12 years has retired and the city's next chief was sworn in on Thursday.

Retiring Chief Michael Venema, 62, was appointed to be Clive's chief in 2012 after he rose to the rank of lieutenant with the Davenport Police Department. But after a 40-year career, Venema still won't be quite done with law enforcement.

Venema told the Des Moines Register he will spend some time in Florida, but he also will be the director of a state-level police department accreditation program that the Iowa Police Chiefs Association and the Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies Association are developing.

Michael Venema is retiring as Clive's police chief after 12 years leading the department.

He said he didn't go into law enforcement in 1984 with a goal of being a chief someday.

"No, I just wanted to be a cop when I got into it," Venema said. But as the years went on, "I just kept feeling that I could reach for the next level," he said.

He began his career with the Sterling Police Department in northwestern Illinois and worked there a year before moving to Davenport in 1985 and working there for 26 years. He was born and raised in Fulton, Illinois  just on the other side of the Mississippi River from Clinton.

His successor in Clive will be Capt. Mark Rehberg, who joined the Clive Police Department in 1999, according to a city news release. Rehberg is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and 2016 graduate of the FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia.

Clive Police Department Capt. Mark Rehberg was promoted to chief of the department on July 25, 2024. Outgoing Chief Michael Venema retired.

Rehberg was sworn in as chief at Thursday's Clive City Council meeting.

Venema's retirement reception is 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, with a program at 4 p.m. The event is open to the public at the Clive Public Safety Center, 8800 Hickman Road.

Venema most proud of use of body cameras, Clive Police Department's national accreditation

Venema said the Clive Police Department was the first agency in the Des Moines metro to have body cameras on all of its officers  something that's fairly standard now. He said the department started using body cameras in 2013, with five or six cameras shared among the officers on patrol.

He's also proud of the department's national-level accreditation with the Virginia-based Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, or CALEA.

Only 10 other police departments in Iowa had that distinction in CALEA's annual report for 2023: Cedar Rapids, Davenport, DeWitt, Dubuque, Iowa City, Iowa State University, Muscatine, Sioux City, Urbandale and West Des Moines. The Waukee Police Department received its CALEA certification in March 2024.

The Des Moines Police Department entered the accreditation process in September 2022 but the process will take years.

Venema explained that being CALEA-certified means outside law enforcement assessors have determined a police department's policies and procedures on things like pursuits, use of force, handling of complaints against officers, and property and evidence management meet national standards.

Its a management blueprint for how professional law enforcement agencies should be run," he said. "Instead of just having the chief decide what the policies are, we decide our policies based on what national standards are.

Clive Police Chief Michael Venema said at a news conference Friday gives information on a hit-and-run case which ended with the woman admitting she hit a 14-year-old girl because she was "a Mexican."

Clive earned its accreditation in November 2020 and Venema said the department is in the process of getting re-accredited.

The city has certainly grown during Venema's 12 years as chief, but given that Clive is mostly surrounded by neighbors Urbandale, Waukee, West Des Moines and Windsor Heights, he said that growth has been slow and steady.

It's still been enough growth to require a new public safety center that the police department has been in for two years  something else Venema said he's proud of, along with close cooperation with the city's four neighbors.

Im leaving the place a little better than I found it," Venema said.

He said he will be the director of the Iowa Law Enforcement Accreditation Program when it launches as a state-level accreditation program.

The Iowa State Sheriffs and Deputies Association's website did not include a timeline for the program's launch but noted Iowa is one of few states in the U.S. to not have a state-level law enforcement accreditation program.

"This program is being explored not to compete with CALEA, but rather to provide agencies of all sizes opportunities for betterment in a more scalable format," according to the website.

Phillip Sitter covers the western suburbs for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at psitter@gannett.com or on X at @pslifeisabeauty.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Clive's police chief retires after 12 years with the department
Chinese banks don't want to work with yuan that has ties to Russia, for example, bought on the sanctioned Moscow Exchange or used in transactions with Russia. Such money is labeled 'dirty' there, and local banks have begun to avoid working with it.

ADVERTISIMENT

In this regard, it is believed in Russia that it is possible that Chinese banks will start demanding proof of purchases on non-sanctioned sites from importers. And such a 'clean' currency has already become more expensive.

However, Russia has already started looking for a way out of the situation. In particular, they hope to "use a system based on offsetting claims and obligations between counterparties in different jurisdictions, which requires the involvement of third parties who can connect the agreements of exporters with importers," Russian media report.

"China began to divide its currency into 'clean' and 'dirty' (associated with Russia). Chinese banks avoid 'dirty' yuan," they said.

China is not Kremlin's savior

China has not supported Russia's gas issue either. Although Europe buys almost as much gas from Russia as Russia does, this is also evidence of the Kremlin's failures. After all, despite all its efforts, China has not become a full-fledged replacement for Europe in gas purchases for Russia.

ADVERTISIMENT

"Even after many rounds of international sanctions, Russia still supplies significant volumes of gas to some European countries - and this year this volume has actually increased. However, Moscow has not signed any new deals to accelerate the growth of its sales to China," Bloomberg reported.

It is also emphasized that in general, Russia's gas sales to Europe have dropped significantly. Thus, before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it annually supplied about 130-175 billion cubic meters of gas to the continent. That is, many times more than now.

At the same time, it is stated that in 2025, Russian gas supplies to China through the Power of Siberia gas pipeline are expected to reach 38 billion cubic meters. In addition, starting in 2027, this figure should be supplemented by another 10 billion cubic meters, which will be delivered via the so-called Far Eastern route. This still does not compensate the Kremlin for the loss of the European market.

ADVERTISIMENT

As reported, at the same time, the Russian housing market is oversaturated due to government subsidies, which has led to a rapid rise in prices. In particular, in the largest cities, housing has already risen in price by 172%.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
President Biden's administration announced on Friday they wish to invest $575 million in projects to help coastal communities adapt to climate change.

The proposal, which would fall under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s Climate-Ready Coasts initiative, would fund 19 projects along the seaboard and Great Lakes regions. Overall the investments would cover 15 states, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands and Micronesia.

"This is a historic investment in our nations climate resilience, the largest in the history of the Commerce Department, and a key piece of the Biden-Harris Administrations ambitious climate agenda," Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement. "Thanks to this Administrations commitment to investing in America, were going to continue to help underserved communities across the country develop and implement new strategies to protect themselves from flooding, storm surge, and extreme weather events.

Biden's announcement comes on the heels of the Democratic Party shifting its focus from boosting his candidacy for reelection to backing his Vice President, Kamala Harris, as the new nominee. In a statement to Salon, Harris campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster said that a Harris administration would continue Biden's climate change policies.

No one will fight harder to address the climate crisis than Vice President Harris. Shes proud to have delivered the most significant climate legislation in American history with President Biden, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs and lowering costs for hard working families, while Donald Trump continues to call climate change a 'hoax' and promises to gut the IRA and ship those jobs overseas," Schuster said. "The Vice President will ensure we continue the essential work to save our planet by defeating climate-denier-in-chief Donald Trump this November."
WASHINGTON/CAIRO (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden and Jordan's King Abdullah discussed efforts to secure a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza during a call on Friday, the two sides said.

In a statement, the White House said Biden briefed Abdullah on "preparations for a surge in humanitarian assistance during a ceasefire period." They also discussed reforms to the Palestinian Authority in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and ensuring it has access to revenue, the White House said.

Jordan's royal palace said the two men discussed what it described as the "dangerous developments in Gaza". Abdullah reaffirmed "the important role of the United States in creating a political horizon to achieve just and lasting peace on the basis of the two-state solution," the palace said in a statement.

(Reporting by Enas Alashray in Cairo, David Ljunggren in Ottawa and Rami Ayyub in Washington)
President Joe Biden nominated Air Force Maj. Gen. Jennifer M. Short Friday as the new senior military adviser to the Defense Secretary. Short currently serves as Legislative Liaison Director in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon. Photo courtesy of U.S. Air Force

July 26 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden Friday nominated Air Force Maj. Gen. Jennifer M. Short as a senior military assistant to the secretary of Defense.

The DoD said in a statement, "Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced today that the president has made the following nomination: Air Force Maj. Gen. Jennifer M. Short for appointment to the grade of lieutenant general, with assignment as senior military assistant to the secretary of Defense, Pentagon, Washington, D.C."

Short currently serves as director, legislative liaison, in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon. She acts as a liaison between the Air Force, Space Force and Congress.

Short graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing from Arizona State University. She's a command pilot with more than 1,800 hours in the air and has flown more than 430 combat hours in the A-10.

She completed Officer Training School as a distinguished graduate at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is scheduled to leave Friday for meetings in Japan and the Philippines July 29 with Secretary of State Antony Blinken as they visit several countries in the region amid tensions with China and North Korea.

They will also visit Vietnam, Laos, Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia.

The trip is to reinforce ties and relationships with those nations and to further underscore the United States' enduring commitment to them, according to the Defense Department.

In June, Short was a witness in the court martial of Air Force Maj. Gen. Phillip Stewart for the alleged sexual assault of a female officer under his command.

Short's testimony was about a conversation she had with Stewart Aug. 8, 2023, during which she said he told her about an inspector general and OSI investigation into his behavior in the alleged sexual assault.

He has pleaded not guilty.
Whats happening

President Biden on Wednesday night discussed publicly for the first time his decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election, calling it a choice he made in the defense of democracy.

I revere this office, but I love my country more, he said during a short address from the Oval Office.

Bidens announcement on Sunday that he would step aside to allow Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the Democratic ticket dramatically reshaped the presidential race. Democrats have rallied en masse behind Harris, and former President Donald Trump has had to abruptly refocus his own campaign to take on a new opponent.

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

The decision has also changed the tenor of conversation around Biden himself, who had been plagued for weeks with concerns from within his own party that he did not have the capacity to sustain a winning campaign against Trump. Now, the president is being heaped with praise by his fellow Democrats for, in the words of former President Barack Obama, putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own.

Why theres debate

Bidens choice to pass the torch will undoubtedly be a key part of how his presidency will be remembered. But how it will affect his overall legacy is a source of a lot of disagreement.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of the reaction has broken down along partisan lines. In the eyes of some Democrats, Bidens decision will go down as one of the most selfless acts of any American president and serve as a perfect capstone to the 50-plus years he has dedicated to serving the country. Republicans see it as the ultimate proof that his presidency has been a failure.

Some political commentators argue that the most immediate thing Biden has done for his legacy is to spare himself the possible indignity of losing to Trump in November, effectively allowing the threat to democracy that hes spent so much time warning about to become a reality. Pundits on the left also say that Biden will now be remembered as a bridge to a younger, more diverse generation of Democratic leaders exemplified by his choice of Harris to succeed him at the top of the party.

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

Bidens conservative critics make the case that Biden waiting until this late in the campaign to step aside shows that his decision wasnt about whats best for the country or his party, but that he finally came to grips with the reality that he couldnt win. They also argue that the public will never forgive him for, in their view, hiding the extent of his physical and mental decline from the nation until it could no longer be ignored.

Historians tend to take the longer view. They argue that a presidents legacy is largely defined by how much of what they did endures after theyve left office. In their eyes, Bidens place in history depends entirely on the outcome of the election. If Harris wins, she will keep both his vision for America and the long list of policies he enacted intact. If Trump wins, hell be in a position to erase much of what Biden has set in motion over the past four years.

Perspectives

Biden has cemented himself in history as a man who always put the country over himself

Here is Joe Bidens legacy: He beat back Americas first authoritarian attempt. And when he realized that he could not do it a second time, he stepped away so someone else could. This is enough to make him  our greatest living president.  Jonathan V. Last, Bulwark

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

Biden held on for way too long to get credit for unselfishness

He only gets half the credit because his timing worsened his partys chances of retaking the White House. The public saw his cognitive decline years ago  but he put his own ego and sense of legacy ahead of what the party needed: a lengthy primary to choose an adequate successor.  Christian Schneider, National Review

At the very least, Biden has avoided the worst-case scenario for his legacy

Had Biden stayed in the race and lost, he could no longer have claimed victory in the battle he declared on behalf of the soul of America. Now, Americas soul has a fighting chance.  E.J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post

Biden will be remembered as the man who cleared a path for a new generation of leadership

This is, as Biden would say, a big f***ing deal. Biden made history choosing Harris as his running mate, and hes ensured his legacy in history by endorsing her immediately.  Joan Walsh, The Nation

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

Historys view of Bidens decision depends on who wins in November

The election results will determine Bidens legacy.  [He will go down in history] either as a president who sacrificed his personal ambition for party and public interests or as a president whose reluctance to allow a leadership transition prevented his party from waging the strongest possible campaign for the White House.  Meena Bose, presidential historian, to New York Times

Theres nothing heroic about giving up when its obvious that failure was inevitable

Most Americans did not want Biden to run again and did not think he could handle the job. For almost the entirety of his presidency, Bidens approval rating has been underwater.  Give Biden credit for bowing to the inevitable. But the man is no George Washington, and it is silly to claim otherwise.  Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe

By stepping aside, Biden gave his policy legacy a chance to carry on

Historians judge great presidents by whether their ideals, policies and programs endure. The verdict on whether Biden has been a great president will begin to be written the day after the November 5 election.  Bruce Wolpe, political scientist at the University of Sydney, Conversation

ADVERTISEMENT Advertisement

One act cant erase four years of failure

On every topic  the economy, foreign policy, social issues  his administration has let America down. That wont be fixed by him stepping aside.  Editorial, New York Post

Photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Corbis Historical/Corbis via Getty Images, Ron Sachs/CNP/Getty Images, Bill Pugliano/Getty Images
Former Attorney General Bill Barr improperly urged a Pennsylvania prosecutor to make public statements about concerns over election security in the 2020 race, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a report Thursday.

Barr weighed in on the matter of mail-in ballots discovered in a dumpster in Luzerne County, Pa., contributing to a public statement that included selective details about the investigation, the OIG report states.

The investigation found that Barr and U.S. Attorney David Freed erred from department policy by discussing an investigation publicly and misled the public.

Nearly every DOJ lawyer we interviewed  both career employees and Trump administration political appointees  emphasized how unusual it would be for the department to issue a public statement containing details about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly before any charges are filed, the report states.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz, however, did not accuse either of misconduct.

Freeds statement contained specific details about the ballots, including that all the discovered ballots contained votes for former President Trump. Barr reportedly discussed those details with Trump himself, who talked about the case publicly in a radio interview and during his first debate with then-candidate Joe Biden, drawing additional scrutiny.

Horowitz said he was troubled that Barr shared details with Trump, but said that decision did not violate department policy.

No charges were ever filed related to the ballots. Investigators concluded that the ballots were accidentally discarded by a poorly trained election employee with mental disabilities, and the votes were ultimately counted.

The report recommends the Justice Department rewrite its policies about how information is shared with the White House. It also urges the Office of Special Counsel to investigate whether Barr or Freeds actions could have violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from making political statements.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Waters of Anchorage's Lake Hood and, beyond it, Lake Spenard are seen on Wednesday behind a parked seaplane. The connected lakes, located at the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, comprise a busy seaplane center. A study by Alaska Community Action on Toxics published last year found that the two lakes had, by far, the highest levels of PFAS contamination of several Anchorage- and Fairbanks-area waterways the organization tested. Under a bill that became law this week, PFAS-containing firefighting foams that used to be common at airports will no longer be allowed in Alaska. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)

Alaska firefighting departments will have to stop using fire-suppression foams containing contaminants known as forever chemicals, under a law that went into effect on Monday.

The new law is the product of a bill, Senate Bill 67, that legislators passed nearly unanimously. It went into effect without Gov. Mike Dunleavys signature.

The new law targets Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, known as PFAS. They have qualities making them resistant to fire, water and oil. They are linked to numerous poor health effects, including developmental delays, compromised immune systems, reproductive problems and certain cancers according to the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The compounds number in the thousands and have been widely used since the mid-20th century in a wide variety of consumer and industrial products, including cookware, textiles, building materials, body care products like shampoo and dental floss and packing material. They have seeped into the environment  in water bodies, soil and the air  and are found in the blood of people and animals around the world, according to the EPA.

The number of PFAS compounds now exceeds 12,000, according to Alaska Community Action on Toxics.

For Alaska and for much of the nation, the biggest source of PFAS contamination in the environment is from industrial firefighting foams, generally used at airports and military bases. In the past, the Federal Aviation Administration required PFAS-containing foams to be used at the airports it certifies. That requirement was dropped in 2021 at the direction of Congress. The FAA and U.S. Department of Defense have been working on transitions to firefighting foams without PFAS chemicals, some of them still in development.

In addition to mandating that Alaska fire departments switch to non-PFAS foams, the new law creates a system for small rural villages to get rid of the PFAS-containing foams stored there. The villages are to be reimbursed by the Department of Environmental Conservation for that work, under the law.

The new PFAS law is the product of years of work by environmental and health organizations, notably Alaska Community Action on Toxics, which has conducted detailed research on contamination in Alaska. The bills prime sponsor was Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, whose district includes Gustavus, a small community where PFAS compounds created significant contamination of drinking water sources.

We have worked for more than six years to pass this legislation with strong support from affected communities throughout Alaska, firefighters, and health professionals, Pamela Miller, the organizations executive director, said in a statement released by the Senates bipartisan majority caucus.

We commend Senator Kiehl, co-sponsors, and the overwhelming bi-partisan support in the Legislature for the bill. It is an important step toward protecting the health of Alaskans from the harm caused by these dangerous chemicals.

Although it had wide support, the PFAS bill took an unusual route to becoming law.

The substance of the bill was approved by the legislature last year, by a near-unanimous vote. At the time, the PFAS provisions were bundled in a separate House measure, House Bill 51, aimed at phasing out the use of another type of chemical, hydrofluorocarbons, known as HFCs. HFCs are used as refrigerants, but they are potent greenhouse gases.

Houses along the Salmon River in Gustavus are seen on July 1, 2016. Gustavus, the small town that serves as a gateway for visitors to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, is one of the Alaska communities that contended with significant PFAS contamination in drinking-water sources. (Photo by K. Boomer/National Park Service)

Dunleavy last year vetoed the combined PFAS-HFC bill.

During this years session, the bill that ultimately passed was the stand-alone version that Kiehl introduced in 2023. That bill, which passed unanimously last year in the Senate, was modified when it reached the House Finance Committee this year. That modified version was what passed.

There was one significant change made in the House Finance Committee, Kiehl said: a switch from a mandate that the state safely dispose of PFAS foams accumulated in small villages to the new procedure in which the villages will be reimbursed for safe disposal. Money for that reimbursement was appropriated in the just-approved capital budget for the current fiscal year, he noted.

Another minor change tweaked a word, he said. Instead of mandating the end to use of PFAS-containing firefighting substances, the new law uses the word foam, which addresses some scientific uncertainty about how certain gases should be classified, he said. However they are defined, those gases do not contaminate water, he said.

Jeff Turner, Dunleavys communications director, said he did not have any information as to why the governor declined to sign the bill. Kiehl said he had no information on that, either.

Thats not something he shared with me, Kiehl said. Ultimately, the work gets done, so Ive got no objection.

To qualify for disposal reimbursement from the state, villages seeking to get rid of their accumulated PFAS-containing foams must have fewer than 2,000 residents and be off the road system, according to the law.

The Department of Environmental Conservation is preparing a website that will have information for villages on both how to get rid of their PFAS substances and how to submit requests to to be reimbursed for their costs, said Stephanie Buss, the departments contaminated sites program manager.

We should be able to start receiving reimbursement requests by Jan. 1, she said.

There are in numerous options for safe collection, treatment and disposal of PFAS materials, some of them within Alaska and some requiring shipment out of state, she said.

There are some exceptions to the Jan. 1, 2025, ban on PFAS foams. Fire crews at oil facilities, where fires can be particularly explosive, will have more time to phase in alternative foams. Those sites will be required to switch to non-PFAS foams once they become available and are certified as safe and effective by the state fire marshal, under a provision in the new law.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
(Bloomberg) -- BitGo Chief Executive Officer Mike Belshe will host a fundraiser for Donald Trumps campaign headlined by the Republican nominees running mate JD Vance  the latest sign of the tickets appeal to prominent cryptocurrency executives.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The dinner reception is scheduled for Monday in Palo Alto, California, according to an invitation obtained by Bloomberg News. Belshe is asking attendees to pay $3,300 to attend the reception, $15,000 per photo with Vance and $25,000 to participate in a roundtable. For $50,000 couples can join the host committee for the event.

The current administration has been unreasonably hard on crypto and digital assets, Belshe said. He said hes also watching to see how Vice President Kamala Harris, Trumps Democratic opponent, engages with the industry. Were looking for someone ready for a dialog.

While Silicon Valley still leans overwhelmingly Democratic, a growing contingent of tech company founders and venture capital investors including Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and David Sacks have broken ranks, pledging to donate significant sums to return Trump to the White House.

Trump supporters are betting that the former presidents agenda, centered on renewing expiring tax cuts and slashing government regulation, will be friendlier to startups working in the artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency spheres.

Belshe donated Bitcoin worth $50,000 to Trump in June.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The fundraiser also highlights Vances ties with the technology industry dating to his stints working at venture capital firms associated with tech figures Peter Thiel and Steve Case. Vance, a senator from Ohio, has cultivated his connections to the industry in his own political career. He ran for the Senate with $15 million in support from Thiel, who has been a prominent tech industry supporter of Trump.

Those ties have also helped Vance bolster Trumps war chest in this election, including by helping arrange a major San Francisco fundraiser in June led by Silicon Valley investors Chamath Palihapitiya and Sacks.

Trump, once skeptical of crypto, has increasingly embraced the industry and sought to court its executives who are flooding the political cycle with cash to ensure the election of candidates supportive of their interests. The Republican nominee is slated to speak at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Tennessee, on Saturday and is hosting a private fundraiser with donors the same day.

Earlier: Trump Asks $844,600 for Fundraiser Seat at Bitcoin Conference

His campaign is also accepting digital assets as donations. Between May, when Trump started accepting cryptocurrencies, and June 30, he raised $3.4 million in Bitcoin, Ether, USDC and other currencies, filings with the Federal Election Commission show.

Trump previously secured $844,600 donations, the maximum amount, from crypto billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss of Winklevoss Capital Management and Jesse Powell, co-founder of Kraken.

--With assistance from Bill Allison.

(Updates with Belshe comment, in third paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Black Internet Reacts to White Women Showing Up and Showing Out For Kamala Harris on Historic Fundraising Call

Vice President Kamala Harris campaign for president has already rallied a historic amount of American support and donations. Per usual, Black women set the bar high with Win With Black Women, followed by the Win With Black Men movement. On July 25 white women, fired up about threats to their right to choose and talk about childless cat ladies and got in formation to show their support for Harris, and Black Twitter had plenty to say about it.

During another historic Zoom call held on Thursday night, more than 164,000 white women crashed the Zoom site after joining the White Women: Answer the Call. Celebrities like pop artist P!nk, former WNBA star Sue Bird, and actress Connie Britton joined live stream, which raised $2 million in less than 90 minutes.

During the call, Britton said Im so proud of all of us to be together, and as white women, we are the ones that have the privilege. She continued we, too have to fight and continue to fight for equality, our selfhood, [and] our freedom.

Of course, Black people couldnt help but peek into the Zoom, making sure white women were doing their part and staying headstrong on the front to help Harris win. They shared their hilarious reactions on X.

Like this:

Me peeking in the #AnswerTheCall2024 zoom and seeing WW gather they fellow WW together lol

Love to see it

pic.twitter.com/YINsXEEAB2  Alexandria The Pro Audio Wiz  (@DOPECHICKBEATS) July 26, 2024

And this:

Baby, the white women on my timeline are fired up and getting in formation with their organizing for VP Harris 2024! pic.twitter.com/tuJPFZ3xyG  Zackory Kirk (@zackoryk) July 23, 2024

And our personal favorite:

The fact that white women are mobilizing like this for Kamala before Taylor Swift endorses her Ooooo, Donald pic.twitter.com/5fpkJQz7uV  JULIN (@JUL7VN) July 26, 2024

Others put out an urgent call to action to white women who havent yet jumped on the Harris train, like this X user who warns of the danger of another Trump term:

White women, you may as well donate all of your money to Kamala Harris because if Trump wins, he's going make it illegal for you to have your own money  I Smoked J.D. Vance's Couch (@BlackKnight10k) July 26, 2024

In 2016, many voters blamed white women for electing former President Donald Trump to office. On X, user @lizfinchart said I should have showed up for Hillary [Clinton] but I didnt. Now I am throwing my total support behind Kamala Harris. I also just made my first ever donation to a political candidate.

I didnt vote in 2016. I chose to sit back in my privilege & abstain. I should have showed up for Hillary but I didnt. Now I am throwing my total support behind Kamala Harris. I also just made my first ever donation to a political candidate  #AnswerTheCall #AnswerTheCall2024 pic.twitter.com/CVGhnhNpH8  Lindsay Elizabeth (@lizfinchart) July 26, 2024

Throughout the night, white women gave Black women their flowers and respect by acknowledging them as the leaders of many social and political movements. Now white women are pledging to pick up the slack. Black women sent us, TikTok user @cherylrussellart later said. Thank you for sending us.



I could be wrong or just ignorant because white women have never been my focus.



But I dont remember a white women: answer the call equivalent for Hillary. And there definitely wasnt one with over 100K participants that raised over a million dollars.



Things are different. pic.twitter.com/0necTpgjlN  April (@ReignOfApril) July 26, 2024

Even attendees like journalist and show host Don Lemon were impressed by the level of support the vice president has received. In a TikTok during the event, Lemon said white women have answered the call to support Kamala Harris.



White women broke the internet for @VP @KamalaHarris last night following Black women and mens lead.. setting a world record on @Zoom.. largest zoom call in history, 150k plus dialing in, crashing the system. $2m plus raised. White men?  #answerthecall pic.twitter.com/CNhpKtfkUd  Don Lemon (@donlemon) July 26, 2024

The focus of the night was fundraising and empowering Americans who think their vote doesnt matter. A recent Marxist poll found nine percent of Americans remain undecided between Trump and Harris. With the same poll finding only one point separating a Trump win over Harris, its clear just how vital it will be for either campaign to restore faith in undecided voters.

Now that white women have chimed in to voice their loyalty to the presumed Democratic nominee, many on social media are now calling for white men to step up to the plate to speak up. X user @kayewhitehead said Its time for White men to #AnswerTheCall and then we need to keep it going until Nov.



White women have the power to change the direction of this country anytime they want.



Will they answer the call & do the right thing in the ballot box in November?



We need 63% of yall.

Can we count on you? https://t.co/AMLxUoumar  Trust Black women *We tried to tell you* (@NicolasEdny) July 26, 2024

With only 102 days left until the Nov. election, its clear Harris is rallying a historic level of support in such a short time, and Republicans, especially Trump, should be shaking in their boots.



For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, right, speaks with reporters while meeting with Mongolian Foreign Minister Battsetseg Batmunkh at the State Department in Washington, Tuesday, July 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)

VIENTIANE, Laos (AP)  U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make the case for the Biden administrations expanded commitment to Asia and the Indo-Pacific region more broadly as he visits Laos, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia this week and next. The trip comes as the 2024 U.S. presidential election campaign heats up after a series of bombshell developments upended the race.

Blinken, who has already modified his travel schedule twice since the trip was announced just hours after President Joe Biden made his decision not to seek re-election, arrives in Vientiane, Laos, on Saturday for the annual ASEAN Regional Forum. The security conference gathers the foreign ministers of Association of Southeast Asian Nations and regional powers like China, Australia, Japan, Russia, South Korea and India.

All participants represent either critical U.S. allies and partners or Washingtons two largest rivals  Moscow and Beijing, which have grown closer over the past two years, prompting deep concerns about their combined global influence. Just this week, U.S. and Canadian jets intercepted Chinese and Russian bombers flying jointly near Alaska. The U.S. has repeatedly accused China of helping to rebuild Russias military industrial base that allows it to wage its war in Ukraine.

Blinken is expected to meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Vientiane but has no plans to see Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is also attending the ASEAN conference, according to the State Department.

Despite, or perhaps due to, its major policy differences with the U.S. over Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, trade and human rights, China is emerging as a potential challenger to the U.S. in international diplomatic dominance.

Beijing has recently mediated a fragile rapprochement between r ival Palestinian factions, negotiated a tentative deal with the Philippines to end escalating confrontations over their competing maritime claims in the South China Sea, agreed to work with India on withdrawing tens of thousands of troops along their disputed Himalayan border, and hosted Ukraines foreign minister.

Despite assertions from U.S. officials that Bidens decision to withdraw will have no impact on the administrations foreign policies for his last six months in office, questions abound about his priorities before he leaves the White House and the path his successor may take.

Although there was no discussion of Blinken cancelling his travel plans after Bidens announcement, his time and meetings in Laos have been cut nearly in half since the original trip announcement, and two brief stops in Vietnam and Mongolia have been added.

While the presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, might be expected to hew closely to Bidens approach, Republican challenger Donald Trump could bring major change, particularly regarding security commitments to Americas Asian allies, notably Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

Foreign leaders and adversaries now are not only facing new uncertainty about the outcome of the election that seemed Trumps for the taking, but uncertainty as well about how the policies of a victorious Democratic candidate would differ from Biden, said Danny Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific in the Obama administration who is currently vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute in New York.

For China in particular, this argues for a cautious wait-and-see posture, he said.

Blinken will use the trip to reassure partners that America is all in on the Indo-Pacific, said Dan Kritenbrink, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia. The United States has been an Indo-Pacific power for more than a century and will remain so going forward.

Were going to continue to do everything possible to demonstrate that commitment in coming months, Kritenbrink told reporters earlier this week. He discounted concerns about the presidential campaign but added: We do try to reassure allies and partners that there are certain fundamentals about Americas engagement that are not going to change, that have been consistent.

Among those constants for the past six decades have been large U.S. troop deployments in Japan and South Korea and a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines. During his first term in office, Trump cast doubt on the usefulness of U.S. alliances around the world and suggested that the American military presence in Japan and South Korea be reduced or eliminated.

As part of his Asia tour, Blinken will be joined by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Tokyo and Manila, where they will meet with their Japanese and Filipino counterparts to shore up their defense cooperation in the face of really growing and unprecedented threats in the region, according to Kritenbrink.

And, in the view of analysts like Russel, Biden may direct his team to step up engagement. Leaders who may have effectively counted him out are now dealing with an undistracted Joe Biden, focused on augmenting his substantial legacy and unencumbered by the heavy burden of campaigning, Russel said.
Fatima Latifova

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Bayramov, held an extensive meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Somalia, Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, Azernews reports.

The parties discussed the prospects for strengthening bilateral and multilateral cooperation. They exchanged views on mechanisms for utilizing the potential in various fields of cooperation, including economy, trade, energy security, etc., and discussed cooperation within the UN, Non-Aligned Movement, and OIC.

It was noted that chairing COP29 is one of Azerbaijan's important activity platforms. During the meeting, Azerbaijan's post-conflict regional reconstruction and peace efforts were also discussed.

Then, the sides held a joint press conference.

"Expanding relations with African countries has always been a priority for Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has represented these countries' interests to the world during its chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM)," Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister, Minister Bayramov, stated.

He noted that special attention is given to close relations between Azerbaijan and the African Union.

"The visit of the Somali Foreign Minister is a clear example of friendship and cooperation, as well as the growing political dialogue between our countries. In 2024, we will celebrate the 20th anniversary of our diplomatic relations. In several instances, we note the cooperation within international organisations. Our most recent contact was during the conference of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held in the capital of Gambia.

In addition to bilateral relations, we particularly value cooperation with Somalia on international platforms. The cooperation within the UN, OIC, and NAM is an example of this. I congratulate Somalia on its election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council for the 2025-2026 term. This is an indication of the appreciation by world states of Somalia's contribution to peace and cooperation on an international scale."

The minister also added that Azerbaijan is ready to provide humanitarian aid to Somalia.

He also emphasised cooperation in the economic sector.

"Agriculture and fisheries hold an important place as areas of cooperation between the two countries. In April of this year, a technical expert group from Somalia visited Azerbaijan. It is planned to send a similar group from Azerbaijan to Somalia in the near future."

"Azerbaijan is ready to provide humanitarian aid to Somalia. Azerbaijan has an education program for OIC countries, and several young people from Somalia have already benefited from it, which will continue in the future. Several events are planned in Azerbaijan this year, the largest of which is COP29. We will be pleased to see a high-level delegation from Somalia at this conference, the minister noted.

The sides also talked about peace processes between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"The negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process are ongoing," Jeyhun Bayramov, stated.

He stressed that Somalia has always supported Azerbaijan's just position. This was observed both during the 44-day war and afterward.

The minister thanked his counterpart for this support.

I provided my colleague with information about the post-conflict situation. I informed him about the liberated areas, the reconstruction efforts there, as well as the threat of mines. The negotiations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process are ongoing, and I also updated my colleague about this.
On Friday, July 26, the Halytskyi District Court of Lviv imposed a pre-trial restraint on the suspect in the murder of a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine of the 7th convocation, a well-known linguist Iryna Farion. Viacheslav Zinchenko, an 18-year-old resident of Dnipro, was taken into custody without the alternative of bail.

ADVERTISIMENT

This was reported by the Office of the Prosecutor General. It is noted that the court did not listen to the defense and chose the preventive measure insisted on by the prosecutor's office.

The suspect was chosen as a preventive measure in the form of detention for 60 days without the possibility of bail.

Following the court hearing, the motion of the Lviv Regional Prosecutor's Office was granted in full.

As a reminder, the day before, the suspect was detained at his place of residence in Dnipro.

During a briefing on July 26, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko disclosed some details about the course and results of the investigation. He said that upon arriving in Lviv, the suspect rented three apartments.

Zinchenko had been preparing for the crime for two months. He bought the necessary clothes and accessories for conspiracy in different cities of Ukraine with delivery to Dnipro. Later, he mailed these items to Lviv.

ADVERTISIMENT

The murder suspect was planning his escape routes, changing his clothes and gait. During the reconnaissance and preparation for the crime, he examined and studied the surrounding area of the house where Iryna Farion lived. The guy waited near her house for several hours without leaving the place.

On the day of the assassination attempt, he waited for Farion for more than 2 hours and shot her when she came downstairs with her suitcase and was waiting for a taxi.

The suspect's phone contained searches for weapons, necessary clothing, and accessories for disguise, as well as screenshots of Iryna Farion's social media pages.

Zinchenko shot from a recycled weapon and also left a farewell note in case of detection, which he did not have time to send.

As reported by OBOZ.UA:

On July 19, an unknown person shot at Farion in Lviv, the bullet hit the woman in the head. The linguist died in the hospital a few hours later, and law enforcement officers began searching for the attacker.

ADVERTISIMENT

The next day after the murder, it became known that most of the cameras at the crime scene were turned off due to a power outage, which complicated the work of investigators. Meanwhile, Farion's neighbors told about a suspicious man who had been following the linguist: a young man in closed clothes, large glasses, and a hat was seen repeatedly near the house where the woman lived.

On July 21, the victim of the assassination attempt was buried. Thousands of people came to say goodbye to Iryna Farion in Lviv.

On July 25, an 18-year-old suspect in Farion's murder was detained in Dnipro. It was Vyacheslav Zinchenko. The boy's father is defending Ukraine at the front, and the suspect himself was a member of several far-right communities.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!

ADVERTISIMENT
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  Boars Head is recalling more than 200,000 pounds of its deli products that may be contaminated with the bacteria that causes listeria infections.

The Virginia-based company is recalling its ready-to-eat liverwurst and other deli meats that were processed on the same day, according to an announcement from the USDA.

(USDA)

The liverwurst products were produced between June 11, 2024, and July 17, 2024, and have a 44-day shelf life. Labels of the recalled products can be viewed at the USDA.

3.5-pound loaves in plastic casing, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Strassburger Brand Liverwurst Made in Virginia. The products shipped to retailers bear sell by dates ranging July 25, 2024, to Aug. 30, 2024, printed on the side of the packaging.

The other deli meat products were produced on June 27, 2024 and are:

9.5-pound and 4.5-pound full product, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Virginia Ham Old Fashioned Ham with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

4-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Italian Cappy Style Ham with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

6-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Extra hot Italian Cappy Style Ham with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

4-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Bologna with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

2.5-pound., or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Beef Salami with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

5.5-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Steakhouse Roasted Bacon Heat & Eat with sell by date AUG 15 on the product packaging.

3-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Garlic Bologna with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

3-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing Boars Head Beef Bologna with sell by date AUG 10 on the product packaging.

Health officials in Maryland discovered the bacteria in the liverwurst and believe it could be related to a recent outbreak of L. monocytogenes infections. The USDA says more testing is required to determine if Boars Heads product is behind the outbreak

Listeriosis can cause fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions, sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms, according to the USDA. The infection can cause serious health concerns in people who are pregnant, over age 65 or have weakened immune systems.

Consumers who purchased the recalled deli products are urged to throw them away or return them to the store. They should also clean out their refrigerators to avoid cross-contaminating other food.

Anyone with questions regarding the recall can contact Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc., Customer Service at 1-800-352-6277.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 company Boars Head has recalled ready-to-eat liverwurst products and some other deli meat products due to concerns that they may be contaminated with listeria.

The US Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service announced Friday that the company is recalling about 207,528 pounds of products. The agency is conducting further tests to determine if the products may be related to an ongoing, multistate listeria outbreak that has killed two people. That outbreak has been linked with sliced deli meat.

Listeria bacteria can cause listeriosis, the third leading cause of death from foodborne illness in the United States. Symptoms usually include fever, muscle aches and fatigue. Infection may also cause a headache, a stiff neck, confusion or seizures. Pregnant people may have pregnancy loss or premature birth.

The ready-to-eat liverwurst products that Boars Head is recalling were produced between June 11 and July 17 and have a 44-day shelf life. The loaves of meat contain Boars Head Strassburger Brand Liverwurst MADE IN VIRGINIA, and the products bear sell by dates ranging from July 25 to Aug. 30, printed on the side of their packaging.

The other recalled ready-to-eat deli meat products were produced on June 27, and include certain ham, bologna, beef salami and roasted bacon products.

The products subject to recall were distributed to retail deli locations across the United States, and the products shipped to deli retailers have the establishment number EST. 12612 inside the USDA mark of inspection on their labels.

The USDAs Food Safety and Inspection Service is working closely with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate the multistate outbreak of listeria.

As of Thursday, the outbreak has sickened 34 people in 13 states, including 33 who were hospitalized and two who died, according to the USDA. The deaths were reported in Illinois and New Jersey.

Most people who were sick reported eating turkey or liverwurst, and some reported eating ham. The meat came from a variety of grocery store delis. Tests using DNA fingerprinting showed that the bacteria from sick people was genetically similar, suggesting that they probably caught the bacteria from the same food.

The timeline of this outbreak stretches over several months, the CDC said. The first person got sick at the end of May, and the most recent case reported being sick on July 5.

Listeria can spread easily at delis, the CDC says, transferring from equipment to surfaces to hands and food. Refrigeration does not kill the bacteria, but heat can.

People who are pregnant, those who are 65 and older, and those with weakened immune systems are advised to avoid eating deli meat unless its been heated until it steams or reaches an internal temperature of 165 F.

If youve had sliced deli meat at home, clean the refrigerator and any containers or surfaces that may have come into contact with it.

Anyone who develops symptoms of listeriosis should get medical care right away.

The CDC is also encouraging people who get sick with listeria to work with local public health officials, who may get in touch to find out what they ate in the past month and may ask for receipts or leftover food to help pinpoint the root of the outbreak.

CNNs Jen Christensen contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
AUSTIN (KXAN)  It will soon get a lot easier to pick out a seat on the airline that fliers take at Austins airport more than any other.

Southwest Airlines announced Thursday it will drop its open seating policy after more than 50 years and instead move to one where people can select their seats in advance. The change to assigned seating excited Rebekah Sauer, who boarded her first Southwest flight in years from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport for a trip to the Florida Panhandle.

AUS Data Hub: Passenger totals, busiest months and new flights in 2024

I am so on board with that, Sauer said. I love reserved seats. I like choosing my window, my aisle, getting extra legroom if I need to, so itll be interesting to see this is different.

Its unclear when assigned seating will take effect, but its part of several changes announced by Southwest. That includes adding premium seating with extra legroom in its cabins as well as offering overnight, redeye flights starting next year in five initial nonstop markets. Those are Las Vegas to Baltimore and Orlando; Los Angeles to Baltimore and Nashville; and Phoenix to Baltimore.

Katy Nastro, a travel expert with Going.com, explained why Southwest is making these moves now and breaking with its traditional business model.

It is really at the end of the day to help generate more revenue, Nastro said. Since the pandemic, Southwest has not been able to recover quite as well as the legacy carriers that it really competes against.

Southwest also shared Thursday that its own research backed up its decisions. For instance it cited polling showing 80% of its customers  along with 86% of its potential customers  prefer having an assigned seat.

They are really betting this will move the needle in terms of having more people consider them at the end of the day when theyre looking to book their travel, Nastro said.

No matter the timing, Kim Dahl of Gatesville said her choice in seating does not matter all that much. She talked to KXAN Thursday ahead of hopping on a Southwest flight to Denver from Austin.

Its fine with me. I dont care as long as I get to go somewhere  by bicycle or whatever, Dahl said, laughing. Were not picky about how we travel.

Southwest Airlines is the largest airline operating at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in terms of passenger traffic. So far this year, the airline accounts for about 42% of all passengers. American Airlines comes next, accounting for slightly more than 20% of passengers.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 third death has been reported in connection to a multistate outbreak of Listeria monocytogenes infections that has been linked to a Boar's Head deli meat recall.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that since a previous update on July 31, nine more cases of listeria had been reported, including one new death in Virginia.

In total, there have been 43 illnesses leading to hospitalization.

The announcement also stated that the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets' Division of Food Safety and Inspection "collected unopened Boar's Head liverwurst products from retail stores and the New York State Food Laboratory identified Listeria monocytogenes" and that "[whole-genome sequencing] determined it to be the same strain as the strain making people sick in this outbreak."

Boar's Head previously expanded its original July 26 recall on several types of deli meats to include an additional 7 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products that may be contaminated with listeria.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service initially announced that Boar's Head Provisions Co. had recalled 71 products produced between May 10, 2024, and July 29, 2024, under the Boar's Head and Old Country brand names.

The announcement was an expansion on a previous recall announcement amid an ongoing investigation by the CDC into an outbreak of listeria infections linked to meats sliced at delis that had sickened 34 people across 13 states.

"Good Morning America" has reached out to Boar's Head for comment on the recall.

Details of Boar's Head deli meat recall

The Virginia-based meat producer initially recalled approximately 207,528 pounds of products that were distributed to retail deli locations nationwide, including all liverwurst products and "additional deli meat products that were produced on the same line and on the same day as the liverwurst" that could be "adulterated with L. monocytogenes."

Boar's Head deli meat recalled product information

"On July 30, Boar's Head expanded their July 26 recall to include all deli products, including prepackaged deli products, in shelf life from this establishment," the CDC stated previously. "Look for "EST. 12612" or "P-12612" inside the USDA mark of inspection on the product labels."

The items "include meat intended for slicing at retail delis as well as some packaged meat and poultry products sold at retail locations," FSIS stated Wednesday. "These products have 'sell by' dates ranging from 29-JUL-2024 through 17-OCT-24."

Click here for the full list of product details with item numbers, brand names and sell by dates.

PHOTO: In these images released by the USDA, Boar's Head product labels are shown. (USDA)

The ready-to-eat liverwurst products were produced between June 11, 2024, and July 17, 2024, and have a 44-day shelf life.

Recalled liverwurst products include 3.5-pound loaves in plastic casing, or "various weight packages sliced in retail delis," according to the FSIS, and are labeled "Boar's Head Strassburger Brand Liverwurst MADE IN VIRGINIA."

Some Planters nuts recalled for potential listeria contamination

The products, which the FSIS said were shipped to retailers, bear sell by dates ranging from July 25 to Aug. 30, 2024. Sell by dates are printed on the side of the packaging.

Click here for images with full label details.

Additional ready-to-eat deli meats subject to recall

9.5-pound and 4.5-pound full product, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing "Boar's Head VIRGINIA HAM OLD FASHIONED HAM" with sell by date "AUG 10" on the product packaging.

4-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing "Boar's Head ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM" with sell by date "AUG 10" on the product packaging.

6-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing "Boar's Head EXTRA HOT ITALIAN CAPPY STYLE HAM" with sell by date "AUG 10" on the product packaging.

4-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing "Boar's Head BOLOGNA" with sell by date "AUG 10" on the product packaging.

2.5-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing "Boar's Head BEEF SALAMI" with sell by date "AUG 10" on the product packaging.

5.5-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing "Boar's Head STEAKHOUSE ROASTED BACON HEAT & EAT" with sell by date "AUG 15" on the product packaging.

3-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing "Boar's Head GARLIC BOLOGNA" with sell by date "AUG 10" on the product packaging.

3-pound, or various weight packages sliced in retail delis, containing "Boar's Head BEEF BOLOGNA" with sell by date "AUG 10" on the product packaging.

The recalled products bear establishment number "EST. 12612" inside the USDA mark of inspection on the product labels.

The above products were produced on June 27, 2024, according to Boar's Head.

What prompted the Boar's Head recall

PHOTO: Boar's Head products are shown at a deli in New York, on July 11, 2024. (Artist Nadia Russ/Shutterstock, FILE)

According to the USDA, the problem was discovered when the FSIS "was notified that a sample collected by the Maryland Department of Health tested positive for L. monocytogenes."

"The Maryland Department of Health, in collaboration with the Baltimore City Health Department, collected an unopened liverwurst product from a retail store for testing as part of an outbreak investigation of L. monocytogenes infections," the agency stated previously. "Further testing is ongoing to determine if the product sample is related to the outbreak. Anyone concerned about illness should contact a healthcare provider."

In a statement to The Associated Press in late July, Boar's Head said, "We are cooperating fully with government authorities and conducting our own investigation into this incident."

Details of listeria outbreak linked to deli meats

The FSIS is currently working with the CDC as well as state public health partners to investigate a multistate outbreak of listeria infections linked to meats sliced at delis, USDA officials said.

According to the CDC, "All 43 people have been hospitalized and three deaths have now been reported, one from Illinois, one from New Jersey, and, as of this update, one from Virginia."

As of Aug. 8, states involved in the outbreak included Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Massachusetts.

More than 160 sick from recalled cucumbers linked to salmonella outbreak

"Samples were collected from sick people from May 29, 2024, to July 12, 2024," the USDA stated, adding that "the investigation is ongoing."

In a notice published July 19, the CDC stated that many of those sickened in the outbreak had reported eating meat that they had sliced at deli counters.

"Investigators are collecting information to determine the specific products that may be contaminated," the CDC stated.

"Listeria spreads easily among deli equipment, surfaces, hands and food," the agency added. "Refrigeration does not kill Listeria, but reheating to a high enough temperature before eating will kill any germs that may be on these meats."

Symptoms, side effects of listeria

According to the CDC, listeria can cause severe illness "when the bacteria spread beyond the gut to other parts of the body" after a person consumes contaminated food. Those at higher risk include pregnant people, those aged 65 or older, or anyone who has a weakened immune system, the CDC says.

Smoked salmon sold at Kroger recalled across 15 states

"If you are pregnant, it can cause pregnancy loss, premature birth, or a life-threatening infection in your newborn," the CDC states on its website. "Other people can be infected with Listeria, but they rarely become seriously ill."

According to the CDC, anyone infected with listeria may experience "mild food poisoning symptoms" such as diarrhea or fever, and many recover without antibiotic treatment.

An estimated 1,600 people get listeria food poisoning each year and about 260 die, according to the CDC.

An earlier version of this story was originally published July 26, 2024.

At least 3 deaths amid listeria outbreak linked to Boar's Head deli meat recall originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  The Smithville Police Department has identified a body that was located in a wooded area this last weekend.

Police said the body found on July 22 near 194th Terrace has been identified as 25-year-old Josiah Papa.

Papa, who is from Leavenworth, had been reported missing on July 12 and was last seen in Smithville.

Police said this remains an active investigation at this time.

Download the FOX4 News app on iPhone and Android

The Smithville Police Department is asking anyone with information related to the incident to call (816) 858-3521, (816) 532-0500 or the TIPS Hotline at (816) 474-8477.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
The dissenting judges called the majority's reasoning utter jabberwocky

Michael P. Farrell/getty A stock image of boneless chicken wings

Chicken wings advertised as boneless cannot be guaranteed to be completely bone-free, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled on Thursday, July 25, in a 4-3 decision.

In 2016, Michael Berkheimer and his wife visited Wings on Brookwood in Butler County, Ohio, according to his 2017 lawsuit against the restaurant and its chicken suppliers, reports Court News Ohio. Berkheimer ordered boneless wings and cut each wing into two to three pieces. While eating his third, he felt a piece of meat [go] down the wrong pipe. He unsuccessfully tried to clear his throat in the restroom.

Days later, his fever spiked and he struggled to eat. He went to the emergency room, where a doctor found a thin chicken bone in his esophagus, according to Berkheimers lawsuit. He claimed the bone tore his esophagus, leading to a bacterial infection and further medical issues.

getty A stock image of chicken wings

Related: Professional Baker Says Bride Ordered $900 Ornate 3-Tier Wedding Cake, Then Demanded to Pay Only $50

Berkheimer sued Wings on Brookwood, arguing that the restaurant failed to warn him that boneless wings could contain bones. He also sued the chicken suppliers, claiming they were all negligent.

A trial court sided with the restaurant and its suppliers. Berkheimer appealed to Ohios 12th District Court of Appeals, which also sided with the defendants. He took his case to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the lower court decisions that a consumer should reasonably expect bones in the dishes since chickens have bones.

In its ruling, the Ohio Supreme Courts majority also wrote that boneless referred to a cooking style, not a true guarantee that the food would really be without bones.

Related: Chick-fil-A Insists Their Waffle Fries Are 'Not Going Anywhere' amid Rumors They're Being Replaced (Exclusive)

A diner reading boneless wings on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating chicken fingers would know that he had not been served fingers, Justice Joseph T. Deters wrote for the majority.

The dissenting judges said a jury should decide if the restaurant and its suppliers were negligent. Justice Michael P. Donnelly called the majoritys reasoning utter jabberwocky, adding, Still, you have to give the majority its due; it realizes that boneless wings are not actually wings and that chicken fingers are not actually fingers.

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 question must be asked: Does anyone really believe that the parents in this country who feed their young children boneless wings or chicken tenders or chicken nuggets or chicken fingers expect bones to be in the chicken? Of course they dont, Donnelly wrote. When they read the word boneless, they think that it means without bones, as do all sensible people.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
CHICAGO (WCIA)  Officials said they are preparing for the influx of thousands of Democratic politicians, supporters and protestors coming to Illinois next month with the Democratic National Convention.

Officials from all levels of government have been planning security for the DNC since it was announced last year. The convention will be held in Chicago landmarks like the United Center and the McCormick Place.

Harris campaign begins vetting potential running mates

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker said the city will be ready for out-of-town convention-goers. Pritzker is reportedly being vetted as a candidate for vice president on Kamala Harris presidential ticket but denied Thursday that he has talked to the campaign about the role.

The eyes of the world will be on our great city, he said at a security briefing to the media Thursday.

Officials stressed that Chicago is equipped to handle security for the convention, even after the assassination attempt of Republican presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump earlier this month. The head of the Secret Service has since resigned after being grilled in a Congressional hearing.

The event has been designated a National Special Security Event, meaning the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service are taking the lead on security for the convention. The last NSSE Chicago hosted was the 2012 NATO Summit. The RNC in Milwaukee was also an NSSE.

What will take place next month is a beautiful display of American democracy in action, Pritzker said. Here in Chicago, millions will watch, tens of thousands visiting from around the globe and around the United States, will witness a triumph of political expression and engagement, doing so without fearing for their safety.

Chicago has hosted the DNC more than 20 times, most recently in 1996 and 1968.

DNC plans to have nominee by Aug. 7, use virtual roll call ahead of convention

Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson highlighted the Windy City will be the backdrop for Harris historic nomination.

Chicago has already cemented itself in history for electing trailblazers to the highest office in the land, Johnson said. And as we prepare for the first Black woman to win the democratic nomination for President of these United States, theres no better place to host than right here in the city of Chicago.

What to know about Kamala Harris

Law enforcement is prepared for both planned and pop-up protestors.

The shared goal is for everyone to express their views lawfully, while ensuring a safe environment for delegates, convention attendees, and the general public, Deputy Special Agent in Charge Derek Mayer of the Secret Service said.

The DNC is from Aug. 19 to 22.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
In a world where everyone strives for knowledge and self-discovery, there are many ways to measure intelligence. Traditionally, this is done with the help of various IQ tests.

ADVERTISIMENT

Such tests usually take a lot of time, but there are three questions that will test your intelligence in record time. They were shared by IFLScience.

In 2005, American professor Shane Frederick proposed a completely new approach to determining IQ. He developed a test consisting of only three questions aimed at assessing your intuitive reactions compared to your more rational thought processes.

Questions

A bat and a ball cost $1.10. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? If 5 machines take 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long will it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? There is an area in a lake with lilies. Every day the size of the layer doubles. If it takes 48 days for the flowers to cover the entire lake, how long will it take for them to cover only half of it?

At first glance, these questions may seem incredibly simple, but it's worth remembering that they were designed specifically to see how well you ignore your intuition. That is, the first answer that comes to mind is probably wrong.

It's worth noting that only 20 percent of the test subjects at Harvard University, 26 percent at Princeton University, and 48 percent at MIT were able to answer all three questions correctly. Therefore, if you can cope with this task, you can safely consider yourself an exceptionally intelligent person.

ADVERTISIMENT

Correct answers

1 question - 5 cents

If you said 10 cents, you made the most common mistake. However, with a more conscious approach, you may find that a $0.05 ball and a $1.05 bat fulfill all the conditions.

2 questions - 5 minutes

The intuitive answer would be to continue with the pattern, 100 minutes for 100 machines to create 100 widgets. However, in reality, machines don't start working slower if there are more of them.

3 questions - 47 days

The most likely answer here is 24 days, because most people have an instinctive desire to halve the number of days. However, if the size of the layer doubles every day, it means that it was halved in just one day before 48 days, so the answer is 47.

Subscribe to OBOZ.UA channels on Telegram and Viber to keep up with the latest events.
A Texas man was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of tampering with the body of his girlfriend after she was found dead at a local dock in May, police announced.

James Hart, 51, was charged in connection to the death of his girlfriend, Giselle Salazar, a 30-year-old mother of four who was found hanging by a rope at the League City dock on May 31, according to the press release.

Court records show Hart has not been charged with killing Salazar.

Giselle Salazar is shown in a photo from GoFundMe. GoFundMe

The League City Police Department told HuffPost in June that detectives immediately considered Salazars death suspicious due to the positioning of her body. One of her arms was in an upright position with nothing holding it up, and detectives believe Salazar died at another location with her arm raised, before it stiffened.

Its still unclear how Salazar died. Police told HuffPost in an email on Friday that the investigation is ongoing and the medical examiners office has not released its full report.

After finding Salazars body, police said they spoke to a man who may have been the victims boyfriend. He became distraught when questioned by police and would not come out of his boat for a short while.

According to previous reports by ABC station KTRK, Salazar had been living with Hart on his boat docked at the Wharf Marina since March. Hart told the outlet that he would never hurt Giselle and said he only found out about Salazars death when police told him. He last saw her leaving the boat to use the bathroom, hours before she was found dead, according to the outlet.

An attorney was not listed under Harts criminal court records. He is currently being held on $80,000 bond.

Nathan Paz, Salazars brother described the victim as the most charismatic person you could ever meet, according to a GoFundMe in honor of her legacy. Paz said three of his sisters children are being taken care of by him and his mother.

Related...
Bradenton Police administrators have concluded an internal investigation into Officer Julian Jacksons involvement in the detaining death of Breonte Johnson-Davis last November resulting in Jackson's brief suspension from duty and a probation period of six months.

Video from Palmetto Police Department Officer Caleb Cottom's body worn camera shows Bradenton Police Department Officer J. Jackson tackling Breonte Johnson-Davis shortly after Davis was contacted by Officer Cottom on Nov. 1, 2023.

Findings in the 170-page investigation determined that Jacksons assistance with the Palmetto police officers' detaining and the subsequential death of Johnson-Davis violated six of the agencys standards and policies.

According to records obtained by the Herald-Tribune last week, Jackson was interviewed by a panel of three investigators, including BPD Chief Melanie Bevan, last month on June 18. Around that time, BPD administrations placed Jackson on a 40-hour suspension from duty records show.

Body cam footage, testimony, and surveillance footage show that Jackson stopped in response to the scene near the Circle K convenience store on 8th Street West in Palmetto on Nov. 1, 2023. Jackson, who was in a marked BPD patrol car and in uniform but off duty at the time, can be seen tackling Johnson-Davis to the ground to gain compliance before Palmetto police officer Matthew Wilson deployed his issued Taser on Davis.

More: Criminal justice, police experts weigh in on Palmetto Police use of force in tasing death

In doing so, Jackson was found to have committed six violations of the Bradenton Police Departments Procedural General Orders (PGO), among them failing to notify a supervisor of the use of force.

Documents show that Jackson was put on a brief suspension from June 18 until June 25.

Bradenton PD spokesperson confirmed on a call to the Herald-Tribune that Jackson was placed on a six-month probation period, from June 2024 until January 2025, due to the investigation. BPD did not offer comment about whether the agency felt the disciplinary action was in line with the officers policy offenses.

Investigation findings obtained from the Bradenton Police Department show that Officer Julian Jackson was originally suspended for two weeks in June. Jackson has been placed on a six-month suspension following the investigation closing.

Multiple violations cited in Jackson investigation

The Bradenton police investigation comes eight months after the death of Johnson-Davis, a 36-year-old Palmetto man who died following being tased by Palmetto Police during an altercation in November 2023.

Criminal experts have weighed in while community members and family of Johnson-Davis have raised concerns over the past few months that both Manatee County agencies acted with excessive force the night Johnson-Davis encountered the officers. Davis, who was believed to be having a mental health episode at the time of the incident, died of cardiac arrest after being tased two times by Palmetto officers while in custody.

Despite his death, a formal Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) investigation determined that the five officers involved, including Bradenton PD officer Julian Jackson, did not violate excessive force limits during the arrest and death of Johnson-Davis.

No wrongdoing: FDLE investigation finds no wrongdoing in Taser use, death of Breonte Johnson-Davis

In comparison, the small internal BPD investigation cites six instances of misconduct from Jackson. The probe summary reads that Jackson committed several violations of Bradenton Police Department's Procedural General Orders during the Nov. 1, 2023 encounter with Palmetto police and Johnson-Davis.

Jacksons violations of the BPD procedures include failing to notify the communications center of the incident; failure to notify a supervisor of the incident; failure to notify a supervisor of the use of force; failure to complete the required use of force report; and failure to activate body-worn camera equipment.

Following the close of the investigation on June 18, Jackson was placed on a 40-hour suspension and was placed on an extended probation period.

Disciplinary action stirs mixed emotions for Johnson-Davis' mother

Tracey Washington marches for her son, Breonte Johnson-Davis who died after being tased by a Palmetto Police Department officer. Some 50 people gathered at the City of Palmetto Police Department for a protest and a two-mile march Saturday afternoon in Palmetto. The family and friends are calling for transparency and justice after the death of Breonte Johnson-Davis, who suffered cardiac arrest after he was tasered by Palmetto Police in November 2023.

For months leading up to the first investigation led by the FDLE, Johnson-Davis' mother, Tracey Washington, pressed the Palmetto police administration for answers about the night her son died.

Washington, a community activist, and Palmetto native has been vocal in her dissatisfaction with Palmetto Chief Scott Tylers handling of her sons death and subsequent investigation. Her frustration has returned, she says, after learning about the Bradenton internal investigation and Jacksons disciplinary action.

On one hand Im thinking, Great, job well done and then on the other hand, I dont want him to be used as the scapegoat or the example. I understand that he violated lots of policies but Im still stuck at what made him so comfortable fist-bumping the other officer and saying hes never there that night, Washington said recalling an email sent from Jackson to Palmetto police officials following the incident on Nov. 1, 2023.

More: Exclusive: New records detail death of Breonte Johnson, authorities still investigating

He (Jackson) was too comfortable. Youre not going to get me to believe that one officer can break six polices there and you have four more officers that broke none.

Emails from Jackson to Palmetto police detailed his involvement during the incident.

"I activated my emergency lights and attempted to help the officer take the male into custody," Jackson wrote in an email to Palmetto PD recounting his involvement. "Due to the male's actions, I assisted the Palmetto PD officer by taking the male to the ground. I took the male to the ground by wrapping my arms around the shoulders of the male and using his momentum moving forward to take him to the ground."

Washington called into question the administration and work culture at both agencies and expressed concerns about leaving any officers involved in incidents like her sons on the street.

We still have that officer on the street. And we have another one that said he was happy he finally got to use his Taser. I dream about that all the time, I hear it in my head all the time, randomly. The chief has shown them that the behavior is okay."

Tracey Washington's son, Breonte Johnson-Davis, died after being tased by a Palmetto Police Department officer.

She contends that Palmetto police leadership and city officials arent being fully accountable for her sons death despite the incident being cleared by the FDLE.

Palmetto Police Chief Scott Tyler declined to comment to the Herald-Tribune about the disciplinary action from the Bradenton PD administration in connection to the death of Johnson-Davis.

That (Bradenton) officer came to render aid to your officers, he was disciplined, but none of yours were, Washington questioned. How can these officers be so comfortable with not being disciplined? Is this what Palmetto Police stands for, no discipline?

Samantha Gholar covers social justice for USA Today Network-Florida and lifestyle and philanthropy for the Herald-Tribune. Connect with her on X (formerly Twitter) @samanthagholar or email her at sgholar@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Johnson-Davis detaining death investigation stirs emotion for mother
Brazil says Newcastle disease outbreak in poultry has ended

FILE PHOTO: Chickens walk inside a coop at a private poultry farming at a ranch in Rio de Janeiro

SAO PAULO (Reuters) - The Brazilian government said on Friday an outbreak of Newcastle disease that had blocked its poultry exports has ended and that it had notified the World Organization for Animal Health.

The government now awaits importers' nod to lift trade embargoes associated with the outbreak, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.

Brazilian meat lobby ABPA welcomed the notification, saying it can expedite resumption of chicken exports, which were partly halted after communication of an isolated case of Newcastle disease in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Newcastle is a viral disease that affects domestic and wild birds, causing respiratory problems, among other symptoms, and can lead to death.

ABPA said Brazilian chicken exporters are redirecting cargos to other markets since the trade restrictions associated with the outbreak took force.

The notification to WOAH will likely reestablish Brazil's Newcastle disease-free status, ABPA said.

(Reporting by Ana Mano and Roberto Samora; Editing by Sandra Maler)
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office confirmed Friday that Britain is dropping objections to International Criminal Court war crimes arrest warrants sought for Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Photo by Ting Shen/UPI

July 26 (UPI) -- Britain confirmed Friday it has dropped objections to arrest warrants for Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant sought by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Gaza.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office confirmed the new Labor Party government would not challenge the ICC's jurisdiction as it seeks the arrest warrants, The Guardian first reported.

"I can confirm the government will not be pursuing that in line with our longstanding position that this is a matter for the court to decide on," Starmer's deputy official spokesperson told The Guardian.

The ICC is also seeking war crime arrest warrants for three top Hamas leaders.

The Times of Israel, citing a senior Israeli official speaking to reporters in Washington prior to Britain's confirmation on dropping its objections said, "Israel is deeply disappointed by this fundamentally wrong decision."

The Israeli official added that Britain's decision "is contrary to justice and truth and violates the right of all democracies to fight terrorism."

ICC prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan announced he was applying for the warrants in May, alleging that Netanyahu and Gallant committed war crimes "including using starvation as warfare, willfully causing suffering to civilians, intentionally attacking and directing attacks against civilians, extermination, persecution and "other inhumane acts."

He said collected evidence justify the warrants.

Khan also applied for warrants against Hamas leaders Yahya Siwar, head of Hamas in Gaza, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, commander of Hamas's military wing, and Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas's political bureau.

The Biden administration called the ICC warrants against Israeli leaders "outrageous."

All three Hamas leaders, Khan said, were responsible for war crimes including extermination, murder, taking hostages, torture, other inhumane acts, cruel treatment of prisoners outrage upon personal dignity against captives.

The decision comes as Britain's Labor Party takes control of the government after former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called for elections that saw his Conservative Party lose power.
(Getty Images)

The last time Republicans had a voter registration edge in Bucks County, George W. Bush was president and Barack Obama was campaigning for the job.

Thats why a development this week was considered major by Bucks County Republican Committee Chairperson Pat Poprik.

For the first time since 2007, there were more registered Republicans in Bucks County than Democrats.

The Republicans had a 264 advantage over the Democrats, according to Pennsylvania Department of State data.

The most recent numbers showed there were 198,045 Republican voters and 197,781 Democratic voters. Continuing the trend seen in recent years, unaffiliated voters have grown to more than 82,000 in the county.

Poprik said there was a huge effort by the party and grassroots activists to flip the countys voter registration.

It was so hard to move it, but then we saw it starting to happen, she said. There was so much work, and it paid off with everyone rowing in the same direction.

Local Republicans and committee people worked with campaigns and the county party to push for a change.

Republicans reached out to voters and potential voters to get them to register under the GOP banner at events, through phone calls, online, door-to-door, and by sending personalized postcards.

Poprik also credited conservative activist Scott Presler for his work.

Presler and his Early Vote Action put effort into assisting in changing the registration totals in Bucks County.

Its done  this major Philadelphia suburban county, which voted for Hillary and Biden, is now red. This is huge, monumental, monstrous, and earth-shattering news. We did it! Presler posted to X.

State Sen. Frank Farry, a Republican who represents part of the lower and central parts of the county, reacted that the registration lead is good, but the November election will tell the real story.

Being one of the purpliest counties in the country, there are ebbs and flows, but I think it highlights dissatisfaction with Democratic policies, he said.

According to state data, Democrats had an advantage of more than 4,000 voters near the end of last year.

Poprik said Republicans really started to see a change at the start of 2024. From there, the goal to flip the registration lead seemed attainable.

Poprik noted that the Republican surge began at the start of 2024, making the goal of flipping the registration lead seem attainable. She attributed the shift to various factors, including excitement from the recent Republican National Convention, increasing dissatisfaction with Democratic officials and policies, and the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, as well as his conviction on felony criminal offenses.

Voter registration is one thing, but Democrats have had electoral successes in Bucks County since 2017. However, the county is still seen as moderate and is nationally considered a swing county.

Kunal Atit, who worked the successful reelection campaign for Democratic Bucks County commissioners Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Bob Harvie, posted on social media in reaction to the news: Look at election results, not registration numbers. Democrats have won Bucks County in 2020, 2022, 2023 and we will win it again in 2024.

Poprik stated that she believes the new lead in Republican voters will help in November, including with down-ballot races.

We expect this to really bode well for us in November, Poprik said.

The Republicans plan to keep in touch with new voters.

Were going to reach out and make sure they go to vote. Were also going to reach out to our regular voters, the county GOP head stated.

Poprik added, Our people are really pumped and theyre going to get out.

The Bucks County Democratic Committee didnt respond to a request for comment on the voter registration data.

This article first appeared in the New Hope Free Press. It is republished here with permission.
A Bucyrus man died early Friday morning after a motorist traveled left of center on Ohio 53 in Seneca County and his vehicle struck the victim's car.

John P. Lundsford, 56, died after his Ford Fusion was struck by a southbound Nissan Frontier that traveled left of center. The Nissan was being driven by a 20-year-old Oak Harbor man, according to a news release from the Mansfield Post of the State Highway Patrol.

After the collision, the Frontier came to rest off the west side of the roadway and the Fusion landed on Ohio 53, according to the release.

Crash

The Oak Harbor man suffered serious injuries and was transported by air ambulance to Mercy Health-St. Vincent Medical Center in Toledo.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol was assisted at the scene by the Seneca County Sheriffs Office, Old Fort Volunteer Fire Department, Seneca County EMS, Mercy Health Life Flight, Seneca County Coroners Office, the Ohio Department of Transportation and Reinhart Auto Body.

The incident remains under investigation.

lwhtimir@gannett.com

419-521-7223

X (formerly Twitter): @lwhitmir

This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Bucyrus man killed in two-vehicle collision Friday on Ohio 53
BUNCOMBE CO., N.C. (WSPA)  Detectives with the Buncombe County Sheriffs Office are seeking information regarding an individual.

The person was involved in several vehicle thefts in the Bent Creek Recreation Area.

Officers ask that anyone with any information contact Detective Burns at (828) 250-4460.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS.
Ottawa police responded to reports of a person being assaulted on an OC Transpo bus on Thursday, first saying it was an incident in which an 'imitation firearm' was presented. The next day police announced an arrest and 10 charges against the suspect. (CBC - image credit)

An Ottawa man is facing multiple criminal charges for allegedly shooting a woman with a pellet gun on an OC Transpo bus in downtown Ottawa on Thursday, police said.

Ottawa police said they arrested a suspect shortly after he fled the scene of the incident on Queen Street around 5:50 p.m.

A police news release listed 10 charges against the 20-year-old man from Ottawa including aggravated assault, assault with a weapon, breach of probation and various firearms offences. He was scheduled to appear in court on Friday.

The injured woman in her 30s was able to walk but was taken to hospital for further care, paramedics told CBC at the scene near Parliament station.

Witness recalls a dispute

Eyewitness Brianna Lynn told CBC that the incident started when the victim complained to the driver about the behaviour of other passengers as the bus travelled along Elgin Street.

"Three young people got on the bus  They caused a big scene, they had a speaker, they were playing music really loud," Lynn said.

"The lady went up to the driver and asked if they could come off the bus. The driver kicked [two of] them off at the next stop. After a whole argument the third person stayed on the bus."'

Ottawa police officers and special constables outside an OC Transpo bus on July 25, 2024. An Ottawa man is facing several charges for allegedly shooting a fellow rider with a pellet gun on a bus.

Ottawa police officers and special constables outside an OC Transpo bus on July 25, 2024. An Ottawa man is facing several charges for allegedly shooting a fellow rider with a pellet gun on a bus. (CBC)

The man demanded the victim delete video of the incident, which she declined to do, Lynn said.

"He kept getting closer, she pushed him away, he lunged at her," Lynn said. "Out of his backpack he pulled a gun and shot her in the leg."

The attack left the victim with blood running down her leg and stunned the other passengers, Lynn said.

"Everyone was in shock, nobody expected this to happen. It escalated really quickly."
In Ukraine, no indexation of social benefits and no significant wage revisions are expected in August. However, one of the major mobile operators will change the cost of its services, and the NBU will withdraw some banknotes from circulation. Read about what Ukrainians should prepare for in August in the OBOZ.UA article.

ADVERTISIMENT

Mobile communication will become more expensive

Vodafone is preparing to increase the cost of a number of its tariffs. The changes will take place as early as August 1 and will affect not only prices but also the content of certain offers. According to the operator, the Vodafone Red Start tariff will increase by UAH 15. After the price increase, it will cost UAH 190 per month instead of the current UAH 175.

The Vodafone Red Pro tariff will increase by UAH 30  from the current UAH 230 per month to UAH 260. "At the same time, we are increasing the amount of Internet: from 30 to 40 GB; minutes to other networks in Ukraine: from 250 to 350 minutes," the operator said.

The cost of the Vodafone Red Max tariff will increase by UAH 30 to UAH 330 per month. At the same time, it increases:

the amount of Internet from 50 to 60 GB;

minutes to other Ukrainian networks  from 400 to 500 minutes.

ADVERTISIMENT

The price of Vodafone Red Unlim Plus will increase by UAH 50 to UAH 400 per month. The volume of minutes to other Ukrainian networks will also increase from 500 to 600 minutes.

Vodafone Red Unlim Max tariff will increase by UAH 50  from UAH 450 per month to UAH 500. "We are increasing the volume of minutes to other Ukrainian networks: from 700 to 800 minutes," Vodafone said.

The 500 UAH bill will be withdrawn from circulation

On August 1, Ukraine will begin the process of withdrawing old 500 UAH banknotes from circulation. These are banknotes issued in 2003-2007. The NBU will gradually recycle these banknotes.

"The public does not need to take any special active steps: just pay for purchases in stores, make payments in banks, replenish their card accounts at terminals, etc.  and the "old" banknotes will be withdrawn and disposed of by the NBU," explained Danylo Hetmantsev, Chairman of the Committee on Finance, Taxation and Customs Policy.

ADVERTISIMENT

Instead of the old 500 hryvnia banknotes, new banknotes of 2014 and subsequent years will be put into circulation. If you receive a call, a message about the need to go somewhere to "exchange banknotes", offer to deposit them on cards with someone's details, warn about a very short time frame after which the money will "burn", etc.  do not believe it, these are fraudsters, in no case do anything of the above, if possible, inform law enforcement and the regulator.

Electricity and gas tariffs

The cost of electricity in August will not change compared to July and will amount to UAH 4.32 per 1 kWh. The current tariff will be valid at least until May 1, 2025. This is what Deputy Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk told OBOZ.UA when asked about the revision of electricity prices: "There are no such plans. Regarding the tariff increase: on May 31, the Cabinet of Ministers approved a decision to extend the provision on the imposition of special obligations (PSO) on electricity market participants, according to which a single fixed price for individual and collective household consumers is set at UAH 4.32/kWh until April 30, 2025."

ADVERTISIMENT

The gas tariff will not change from August 1. The price per cubic meter will be UAH 7.96. This was reported by Naftogaz. "We understand the importance of stability in these difficult times, so we faithfully fulfill our obligations to our consumers," the gas supply company said.

"Naftogaz of Ukraine supplies gas to 12.4 million Ukrainian households that receive natural gas under the annual Fixed tariff plan. Accordingly, the company's customers do not have to worry about unexpected changes in their utility bills," the company said.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has joined other Democrats in attempting to goad former President Trump into debating Vice President Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, in the coming weeks, suggesting Trump is afraid of his new rival.

Trumps team has said the 78-year-old former president will not agree to debate at this time because of the rapidly evolving campaign landscape. President Biden, 81, dropped his reelection bid less than a week ago and quickly endorsed Harris, 59, to take his spot at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Buttigieg, during an appearance on MSNBCs Morning Joe on Friday, suggested there may be more to Trumps decision to dodge after previously agreeing to debate then-presumptive nominee Biden on Sept. 10.

Tough talk is this guys calling card and now theres this extraordinary show of weakness, said Buttigieg, who is suspected to be a top contender to become Harriss running mate. [Trump] said anytime, anyplace, but more than that, he agreed to this specific debate, on this specific network, on this specific date, and now hes pulling out.

It shows that hes afraid, he added.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who is also reportedly on Harriss VP shortlist, posted on the social platform X that Trump is now afraid of debating Harris.

Hes scared because he cant run away from his record any longer  but here in Pennsylvania, we havent forgotten who he is and we arent going back, he wrote.

Harris also joined the taunting of the former president.

What happened to any time, any place? Harris posted on X in response to a post about Trump not committing to debates.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Chung said in a statement Thursday evening that the former president would hold off on committing to any general election debates because of ongoing developments in the Democratic Party.

Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee, Chung said, suggesting without evidence that Harris still may not end up on the November ballot. It would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.

Within days of declaring her candidacy, Harris earned enough support from delegates for the Democratic nomination through pledged delegate votes. Democratic Party leaders plan to formalize the nomination through a virtual roll call in early August. Harris has until Aug. 7 to select a running mate. Sources have confirmed to The Hill her team has begun vetting potential picks.

The Trump teams statement came before former President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama endorsed Harris on Friday.

In the Thursday statement, Chung cited the then-absence of Obamas endorsement as a sign of weak support within the party for Harriss nomination.

Trump notably dodged all of the GOP primary debates held last fall when he was the clear front-runner for the nomination.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was seeking the Republican nomination a second time without success, called Trump out during a televised debate on Fox Business with other GOP candidates in September.

If you keep dodging, we wont call you Donald Trump, well call you Donald Duck, Christie said.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who has since endorsed Trump, also blasted the former president for being missing in action.

He should be here on this stage tonight, he said. He owes it to you to defend his record.

Their needling didnt work, and Christie, DeSantis and the other Republicans gradually dropped their campaigns without ever facing Trump in the 2024 primary debate. Trump often cited his massive lead in the primary polls for the decision.

When youre 40 points up  why would I let these people take shots at me? he said in an interview with Fox Newss Bret Baier last summer.

The Hill and Decision Desk HQs polling analysis says Trump currently holds a slight lead over Harris in the infancy of her 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 The Hill.
Cadaver dogs trained to smell death through water alert authorities in search of Oklahoma pond

CRAIG COUNTY, Okla.  Cherokee Nation divers efforts to find the remains of a missing Arkansas woman were hampered on Friday after encountering cave-like rocky terrain at the ponds bottom.

I was disappointed, said McDonald County Cold Case Detective Lori Howard after the eight-hour search.

Howard declined to release the name of the missing woman but did say investigators believe she may have been bound with barbed wire.

Cadaver dogs hit three areas inside a quarry pond. Still, when divers with sonar equipment descended 40 feet into the pond, they discovered the pond had cave-like and rocky structures, which made the investigation or looking for remains or evidence difficult, she said.

Two cadaver dogs, one specialized in locating cadavers in water and the other on land, were on the scene since 6:30 a.m. Around mid-morning, divers began searching the 33-acre pond east of Vinita, where the dogs hit on cadaver scent.

This is the third search of two ponds in the quarry strip pit in the past month. Howard said Fridays hits were the exact location as the dogs hit during a pond search in June.

What piqued the interest of investigators from three states in the two ponds is that several conditional informants shared information with detectives Talfey Reeves may be involved.

Authorities name killer in 34-year-old cold case

Talfey was recently implicated in the death of 22-year-old Shauna Beth Garber Harvey. Her badly decomposed remains were found near an abandoned farmhouse in rural McDonald County in Dec. 1990.

Talfey, 58, of Pineville, died from injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident on Nov. 15, 2021.

Cherokee Nation divers recovered VHS tape, may hold clues to area unsolved killings

An earlier discovery of a mud-encased VHS tape was found last month. Howard said the tape had been sent to the FBI Academy, the laboratory Division in Quantico, VA, for review.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Persons with information are encouraged to call the McDonald County Sheriffs Office at (417) 223-4319.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Silicon Valleys billionaire-backed plan to turn 60,000 acres into a utopian city of yesterday is officially delayed by at least two years. California Forever confirmed on July 22 that its East Solano Plan rezoning proposal will not appear on the regions November election ballot. Instead, the $900 million project will first receive a full, independent environmental impact review while preparing a development agreement with local county supervisors.

Speaking with The New York Times this week, California Democratic state senator John Garamendi said, The California Forever pipe dream is in a permanent deep freeze.

First unveiled in August 2023 after years of stealth land purchases just outside San Francisco, organizers bill the 60,000 acre East Solano Plan as a multistep campaign to build one of the most walkable and sustainable [towns] in the United States. Concept art on California Forevers website depicts idyllic pedestrian squares and solar farms, with lofty promises to bring hundreds of thousands of jobs to the area along with novel methods of design, construction, and governance, according to a previous profile. Overseen by former Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek, California Forever received financial backing from wealthy venture capitalists including LinkedIns co-founder Reid Hoffman and Lauren Powell Jobs, billionaire philanthropist and widow of Steve Jobs.

[Related: Californias billionaire utopia may not be as eco-friendly as advertised.]

But from the start, locals, environmental advocates, and politicians pushed back against the East Solano Plan. By November 2023, news broke that California Forevers parent company previously sued a group of locals for $510 billion, citing antitrust violations after the defendants refused to sell their land (the locals later agreed to sell for $18,000 per acre). Meanwhile, state representatives voiced security concerns about the proposed citys proximity to the nearby Travis Air Force Base.

Last month, the accredited Solano Land Trust announced its opposition to the plan, citing what it believed would be a detrimental impact to the regions water resources, air quality, traffic, farmland, and natural environment. The land trust also alleged California Forever backers misled the public by describing much of the area as non-prime farmland with low quality soils. In reality, the Solano Land Trust explained that the sensitive habitat home to rare and endangered plants and animals includes some of the states most water-efficient farmland.

In this weeks announcement, Sramek claims a recent poll conducted by California Forever indicated 65 percent of East Solano residents support development of good paying jobs, more affordable homes, and clean energy, while noting that most voters are also asking for a full environmental impact report to be completed first.

The idea of building a new community and economic opportunity in eastern Solano seemed impossible on the surface, Sramek wrote to Popular Science last year. But after spending a lot of time learning about the community, which I now call home, I became convinced that with thoughtful design, the right long-term patient investors, and strong partnerships we can create a new community.
Hot and dry weather is fueling wildfire activity in the Western United States and Canada, with fires damaging homes, causing injuries and forcing evacuations. The largest active wildfire in the US has scorched more than 280,000 acres in eastern Oregon and another blaze has exploded to more than 239,000 acres in California. Heres the latest:

 Park Fire roars across parts of Butte and Tehama counties, north of Sacramento, California: As of Friday evening, the Park Fire has burned more than 239,000 acres, or about 373 square miles, about the size of San Diego, which makes it the 13th largest in state history. More than 1,600 firefighters are working to slow its progress. Cal Fire reported the blaze was 0% contained Friday, with at least 20 structures destroyed and another 4,200 threatened. Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency for both counties Friday. The state also secured a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to ensure there are enough resources to fight the fire.

Billy See, incident commander for Cal Fire, said the fire is advancing at 4,000 to 5,000 acres per hour but with winds forecast to die down overnight and higher humidity moving into the area, See believes it will give firefighters a better chance to slow the fire down. He noted fire crews are working to hold the fire south of California Highway 36.

The fire has forced road closures and mandatory evacuations in Butte County, where the states deadliest wildfire, the Camp Fire, killed more than 85 people and destroyed thousands of homes in 2018. Local officials cautioned it would take some time before people would be allowed back in their homes and urged residents to visit county websites for the most up-to-date information on evacuations and road closures.

Firefighters spray water while battling the Park Fire in the Cohasset community of Butte County, California, on July 25. - Noah Berger/AP

 Three firefighters injured and structures damaged: Three firefighters had minor heat-related injuries on Wednesday while fighting the Park Fire, Cal Fire Captain Dan Collins told CNN Thursday. They were treated and released, he said. Officials know structures have been damaged or destroyed by the fire, but there is no official count yet, Collins said.

 Man accused of starting California wildfire is arrested: A suspect has been arrested on suspicion of pushing a burning car 60 feet into a gully, spreading flames that caused whats now become Californias largest wildfire of the year, authorities said. The Park Fire in the Butte County area has quickly burned an area larger than the city of Atlanta.

 Firefighters battle massive Oregon fire: The Durkee Fire, which has burned more than 288,000 acres and is 20% contained as of Friday afternoon, started on July 17 near the Oregon-Idaho state line. The lightning-sparked fire is the largest of 34 large wildfires currently burning across Oregon, which has been the hardest hit by fires in recent days. More than 500 firefighters and resources from 22 states are working to fight the fire, according to InciWeb. Over the weekend and earlier this week, the Durkee Fire exhibited extreme fire behavior, even creating its own weather in the form of pyrocumulus clouds.

 Oregon wildfire destroys buildings: Three people were injured and two homes and 12 other structures were destroyed as the fire spread, according to the Oregon Department of Emergency Management. Evacuations are still in effect in Baker County for areas around the Durkee Fire. Some communities do not have power, according to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, who has deployed resources from the National Guard to assist. Dense smoke from the flames has also impeded traffic on Interstate 84, leading to periodic closure of the freeway. Wildfire smoke was spreading into Boise and beyond. Air quality alerts have been issued for parts of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

In this image provided by the Oregon Department of Transportation, shows an area burned by the Durkee fire near Interstate 84 close to Huntington, Oregon, on July 23, 2024. - Oregon Department of Transportation/AP

 Wildfire engulfs tourist town in Canada: A fast-moving wildfire sent thousands of visitors and residents fleeing the town of Jasper in Alberta, where flames devastated up to half of the towns structures. Officials say the losses are significant, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has deployed federal support to help battle the blaze. Cool temperatures and rain are expected to keep fire behavior low for the next 72 hours, which will help crews fight the blaze, Jasper National Park said on Facebook Thursday night.

 Fire-conducive weather continues in Western US: Triple-digit heat and dry conditions across the West this week have made conditions poor for firefighters actively fighting to contain the 89 large wildfires burning nationwide. Many wildfires in the Northwest area continue to exhibit active to extreme fire behavior, with evacuation orders in effect on 17 wildfires. Several teams are managing multiple fire starts as complexes. Evacuation orders are also in effect for several fires in California, the Northern Rockies and the Great Basin, the National Interagency Fire Center said. Conditions will begin to improve for much of the West over the weekend as cooler temperatures and higher humidity levels arrive in the area.

California resident says watching home burn was surreal

Some families have found themselves displaced as the Park Fire raged near Chico, a city in northern California, burning homes and forcing evacuations.

A former news anchor told CNN affiliate KOVR she watched her Butte County house burn down live through security camera footage.

There is no rhyme or reason. Our house is gone, their house is okay. The house next to it, you can see its gone, Julia Yarbough said.

Looking at the remnants of her home, Yarbough said she felt numb.

Its surreal, she said. It probably wont hit me till later, Im pretty sure.

Cal Fire initially estimated the fire had destroyed more than 100 structures, but later said crews on the ground have so far confirmed 20 structures destroyed as work to assess the damage continues.

Triple-digit temperatures and high wind gusts have fueled the explosive growth of the Park Fire amid an active fire season in California. An estimated 343,253 acres have burned across the state so far in 2024, compared to 22,439 acres burned by this time last year, according to Cal Fire.

Ronnie Dean Stout II was arrested in connection with the Park Fire in California. - Butte County District Attorney

A 42-year-old man, identified as Ronnie Dean Stout II, has been arrested after being accused of igniting the inferno.

Witnesses reported seeing someone pushing a car that was on fire into a gully near the Alligator Hole in upper Bidwell Park shortly before 3:00 p.m. yesterday, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said Thursday. The car went down an embankment approximately 60 feet and burned completely, spreading flames that caused the Park Fire.

The DA says the man was seen calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other citizens who were in the area and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire. Stout was later arrested at a mobile home park in Chico, Ramsey said.

Stout will likely face an arson charge, though it is unclear what count, or whether any enhancements will be added, Ramsey said. The DAs office told CNN Stout has not retained an attorney and will be assigned a public defender at his arraignment.

He was previously convicted of second degree robbery, assault with a deadly weapon and drug paraphernalia possession in Kern County, according to criminal records. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison. He was released on parole in 2018, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed to CNN.

He was also convicted of lewd or lascivious acts on a child under 14 in Butte County, records show.

Horses evacuate as the Park Fire tears though the Cohasset community in Butte County, California, on July 25, 2024. - Noah Berger/AP

Wall of flames destroys homes and businesses in Canadian tourist town

In Jasper, a popular tourist town in Alberta, 25,000 residents and visitors were forced to evacuate from a fast-moving blaze that has damaged 30 to 50% of the towns structures, officials said during a news conference Thursday.

Homes and businesses have been lost to a wildfire that people are calling a wall of flames, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said.

An enormous wind gust moved the wildfire roughly about 3 miles in probably less than 30 minutes, Alberta Minister of Public Safety & Emergency Services Mike Ellis said during the press conference. This created a wall of fire that was about 100 meters high.

Any firefighter will tell you there is little to nothing you can do when you have a wall of flames coming at you like that. Nobody anticipated that fire to come so fast, so large, Ellis said.

Visitors evacuate Jasper National Park in Canada on July 22. - Le Minh Khue/AFP/Getty Images

Two wildfires converged in the Jasper National Park area, becoming what authorities are referring to as the Jasper Wildfire Complex. It remains difficult to measure exactly how big the complex  which also includes a third nearby fire  is due to extreme fire behavior and thick smoke cover. Together, the fires have swallowed an estimated 89,000 acres, the Jasper National Park said.

Damage wrought by the flames will result in a significant rebuild and significant displacement, Smith said. The most significant structural damage lies on the west side of town, according to a Facebook post from Jasper National Park.

We will recover from this, Smith said while holding back tears. To those in Alberta and around the world who have experienced the magic of Jasper, the magic is not lost, and it never will be.

The vast majority of evacuees were visitors with other places to return to, Ellis said. Along with about 5,000 residents who live in the town, 2.48 million people visited Jasper National Park last year.

Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland said residents will work together to rebuild after the wildfire ravaged our beloved community.

Your resilience and strength have always been the backbone of our community. In the coming days and weeks, we will rally together, support one another, and begin the daunting process of recovery, Ireland said in a statement on Thursday.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said all federal agencies are working together to provide resources to Jasper, support evacuations and strengthen response efforts on the ground.

Our governments are working together to keep Albertans safe and supported through this, he said on Facebook.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNNs Robert Shackelford, Jillian Sykes, Lauren Mascarenhas, Paradise Afshar, Taylor Romine and Cheri Mossburg contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
California's largest wildfire of the year explodes in size and destroys scores of buildings

Clouds of smoke glow orange from the Park fire burning along Highway 32 in Northern California's Butte County on Thursday. (Noah Berger / Associated Press)

The Park fire north of Chico  the largest blaze in California this year  exploded to more than 353,000 acres by Sunday morning, with its rapid spread destroying scores of buildings and forcing more evacuations.

It is now the seventh-largest fire in state history, and still growing by leaps and bounds, said David Acuna, battalion chief of communication for the southern region of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The fire grew over three days, plowing north across Butte and Tehama counties. Initially fed by steady winds and high temperatures, its progress was abetted by the remote location, which made access by fire crews more difficult. It was listed at 178,090 acres Friday afternoon, but had grown to 353,194 acres by Sunday.

Containment crews faced setbacks, but appeared to gain some ground Saturday. What little containment crews had Thursday  listed at 3%  was reduced to 0% by Friday afternoon, according to the Cal Fire website. But by Sunday morning Cal Fire reported 12% containment.

"The Park Fire continued to burn aggressively due to steep terrain and winds. Extreme fire behavior has occurred due to the slope and winds aligning, causing significant growth," Cal Fire officials wrote in a status update.

But they also noted the hopeful sign of a shift in the weather, with cooler temperatures and higher humidity in the Sacramento River Valley and Sierra Nevada foothills.

Temperatures that had ranged up to 100 degrees Friday had dropped into the mid-80s Saturday, while humidity that had been in the teens increased to 30%, according to the National Weather Service. Winds had also decreased, with gusts topping out at about 20 mph, about 5 mph lower than Friday.

"All the conditions have improved, as it was predicted they would," said Bill Rasch, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "The fuels are still dry and there will be some growth to the fire. But conditions are not as bad, and given that, we are hoping the growth will be less."

"Obviously, the higher the humidity, the lower the temperature and the less wind  those are always going to be favorable conditions for firefighting," said Robert Foxworthy, a Cal Fire spokesman. "So when the conditions are better like this it makes it better for firefighters."

At least 134 buildings have been confirmed destroyed, and 4,200 are threatened, though no additional buildings had been lost Saturday morning, according to Cal Fire.

On Saturday, more resources were brought in to fight the blaze  which created a giant mushroom cloud that could be seen for miles  to take advantage of more favorable weather conditions. More than 1,000 additional firefighting personnel were brought in, including some from out of state, bringing the force to about 3,700, according to Cal Fire spokesman Jeremy Hollingshead.

"We are finally getting the resources we need," Hollingshead said. "We are using this weather to our advantage."

Firefighters remained focused on protecting the communities around the fire Friday, including Cohasset and Forest Ranch, where about 4,000 people were evacuated. A few structures in Forest Ranch burned, and the community remained threatened Saturday afternoon, Cal Fire said.

Some neighborhoods in northeast Chico were also evacuated, affecting about 400 people, along with several areas of Tehama County, authorities said.

Evacuation notices have also been extended to Shasta and Plumas counties, Acuna said. The town of Paradise  where the 2018 Camp fire burned more than 153,000 acres and killed 85 people  was also under an evacuation warning as of Friday night.

And given the devastation of the 2018 fire, which destroyed nearly 19,000 structures, some Paradise residents did not wait for a final get-out order. They left the town Saturday.

"I feel bad for the people who live up there," said Lleyton Rice, a welder in Chico, whose family was driven out of Paradise by the Camp fire. "It's so nerve-racking for them after everything that happened before."

American Red Cross has set up an evacuation center at a Chico church at 2801 Notre Dame Blvd. for displaced residents who need food or a place to stay. Butte County has also set up animal shelters in Oroville.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday proclaimed a state of emergency in Butte and Tehama counties because of the Park fire  as well as in Plumas County because of the Gold Complex fire, which had burned more than 3,000 acres as of Friday.

We are using every available tool to protect lives and property as our fire and emergency response teams work around the clock to combat these challenging fires," Newsom said in a statement.

The threat extended beyond the human population.

Sheriff's deputies ordered seven workers at the Wild Horse Sanctuary near Shingletown to evacuate Friday night, forcing the staff to release about 250 horses and burros on to the organization's 5,000-acre property.

Most of the horses  rescued from public lands or facilities where they faced euthanasia  have experience living in the wild. But 18 riding horses used by the sanctuary's staff also had to fend for themselves in the open.

The sanctuary staff awaited a sheriff's escort Saturday afternoon, in hopes of returning to the property to dump hay for the animals.

"It's survival of the fittest right now," said Liz Juenke, who manages the facility and sits on its board. "The wild ones are used to it. But the 18 riding horses, they're our little princesses. They're not used to this. I hope they can do it. I think they can."

Richardson Springs, a historic resort about 10 miles north of Chico, is facing possible destruction from the fire, according to Youth With A Mission, a Christian nonprofit that uses the resort for its Chico chapter.

The area is located along Mud Creek and became well known around the late 1800s and early 1900s for its mineral water, believed to have healing powers. The Richardson brothers built a boarding house, hotel and rental cottages that soon became a resort that housed celebrities such as Errol Flynn during the filming of The Adventures of Robin Hood and the Detroit Tigers during offseason training, according to the nonprofit. Its hotel lobby also was featured in "Gone with the Wind."

The organization said no buildings were damaged as of Thursday morning but the area was still at high risk, according to the Butte County Sheriff's Office. As of Friday afternoon, Cal Fire Butte County spokesperson Rick Carhart said officials do not have any information on whether the fire has damaged buildings at Richardson Springs.

Youth With A Mission did not respond immediately to a request for comment Friday.

We honestly dont know whats going on right now, a YWAM staff member said in a Facebook video Thursday at 7:34 p.m. This is a changing situation  a lot of shifting of the winds, so were not out of the woods yet by any means.

Residents at Richardson Springs, including YWAM staff, were ordered to evacuate Wednesday at 5 p.m., according to the nonprofit's website. Since then, the fire has quickly spread north, as shown on AlertCalifornia camera footage from a tower on Richardson Springs Road. The last piece of footage from the tower was at 8:24 p.m. Wednesday and shows flames burning through a tree as it overtook the area.

The fire is burning north into the Ishi Wilderness and Lassen foothills, which experts say hasnt seen fire activity in decades, perhaps a century.

Once it got into that area, it had a lot of fuel to consume, said Dan Collins, a Cal Fire spokesperson for the Butte Unit.

Zeke Lunder, a fire specialist and geographer based in Chico, agreed with Collins and said the lack of recent fires has made the area a jackpot for flames.

"A lot of us who work in fire have kind of been waiting for this fire to happen for the last 25 years," he said.

The fire also is burning near two creeks that provide critical habitat for struggling salmon. Scientists and officials said theyre concerned the fire could bring another severe blow for threatened spring-run chinook salmon, which typically spend the summer in Deer Creek and Mill Creek before spawning in the fall.

It's a very serious threat, depending on how this fire proceeds, said Andrew Rypel, a professor of fish ecology and director of UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

Even before the fire, biologists were so alarmed about a recent crash in the spring-run salmon population that last year they began capturing juvenile fish from Deer Creek to breed them in captivity.

Rypel said a large fire like this one could seriously harm water quality to a point that would kill fish.

There was a very, very high amount of concern about these populations independent of the fire. And now you have a significant local threat which is very hard to control, Rypel said.

On Thursday, authorities announced they had arrested 42-year-old Ronnie Dean Stout II, a Chico resident, on suspicion of arson. Prosecutors said the man pushed a burning car into a gully, starting the fast-moving fire.

It is maddening that were here again, and it is particularly maddening that this particular fire was caused by an individual," Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. During this particular time of year, we are under a very high threat for fire."

California has secured a grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to bolster resources for local, state and tribal agencies responding to the fire in Butte and Tehama counties. The grant gives agencies access to a 75% reimbursement of certain expenses related to fire suppression.

Administered by Governors Office of Emergency Service, the program will provide "rapid financial assistance to communities impacted by fires," according to Newsom's office.

Wildfires can rack up billions of dollars in losses for a county, with costs only expected to increase as blazes get larger, faster and more frequent across California.

The Park fire was one of several burning in California:



A fast-moving fire near Lake Elsinore on Thursday temporarily forced the evacuation of dozens of homes. The 145-acre Macy fire broke out in vegetation around 5:40 p.m. and was 90% contained as of midday Saturday.

The Flynn fire temporarily closed Interstate 580 in Altamont in Alameda County and burned more than 500 acres. It is 80% contained.

In Contra Costa County, firefighters were battling the Point fire in the Bay Point community, which had grown to 471 acres but was 40% contained.

Garrett Sjolund, the fire chief for Cal Fire's Butte County unit, said he's hopeful an expected drop in temperatures this weekend could assist in fighting the Park fire and others across the region.

Its kind of a moving target with the way the weather patterns are coming in," he said.

Times staff writers Joseph Serna and Luke Money 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.
The California Department of Transportation filed a lawsuit against a former supervisor this week seeking financial relief from him after a Sacramento jury found he sexually harassed another state worker at the agency.

A Sacramento judge had ordered Caltrans and Steven Medina, the former supervisor, to pay Sarah Schimpf and her legal team a total of $850,000 last year in damages and attorneys fees.

The transportation agency asked the Sacramento Superior Court of California to compel Medina to pay some of the damages and attorneys fees Caltrans paid Schimpf $275,000 and her legal team and $575,000. Caltrans wants Medina to reimburse the agency for part of that sum.

Medina failed to appear at trial and was not represented by an attorney.

Schimpf filed her lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court in October 2020, alleging Medina sexually harassed her for years. She said she reported Medina to the agency on multiple occasions, and Caltrans failed to prevent the harassment as required by the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.

Caltrans declined to respond to a list of questions, citing pending litigation. Medina could not be reached for comment.

Medina was a Caltrans maintenance area superintendent at the time Schimpf filed the complaint, according to the filing. Schimpf was an agency employee. Court documents do not say Medina was her supervisor.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Schimpf currently works as a Caltrans office technician, though she did not immediately return a request for comment.

Schimpf and Medina had a consensual sexual relationship for three months in 2018, according to Schimpfs complaint. In July of that year, she told Medina she no longer wanted to continue their relationship and informed him that his sexual conduct was unwelcome.

From 2018 to 2020, Medina continued harassing Schimpf by sending her unwanted messages using his Caltrans phone and email, parking outside Schimpfs home in his Caltrans vehicle and directing others at the agency to treat her badly, the complaint alleged.

Schimpf notified Caltrans management of the harassment in December 2019. The following month she was informed that an investigation was not warranted, her complaint said.

Months later she went back to management and showed them evidence that Medina had referenced Schimpf on his public calendar.

An investigation into Schimpfs discrimination complaint was initiated by the state agency in April 2020, but she later was told by a Caltrans manager that Medinas harassment was a strictly private matter and the agency would not take any action to stop the harassment, according to court filings.

In April 2023, a Sacramento jury found Medina had severely and pervasively harassed Schimpf. The jury also concluded the state agency knew of the harassment and failed to take appropriate action to stop it.

Superior Court Judge Jill Talley ordered Caltrans and Medina to pay Schimpf $275,000 in damages. The transportation department paid Schimpf last October. Caltrans paid an additional $575,000 in attorneys fees. Schimpfs attorney Nicholas Scardigli did not return a request for comment.

In the agencys filing against Medina, Caltrans said the former employee has not responded to the agencys demand that he contribute to the damages.

Caltrans said in court filings that the agency was forced to incur attorneys fees, court costs and expenses, in addition to paying Schimpfs attorneys fees, as a result of Medinas wrongdoing.

Caltrans requested that a judge review the case and determine the proportionate share owed by Medina and five other unnamed defendants who Caltrans claims are responsible, in part, for not stopping the harassment against Schimpf.
Canadian conservation officers say a man in British Columbia was able to fend off an attacking grizzly bear with his fists. After being knocked off his bicycle by the sow, the man punched the griz square in the face and the bear ran off. Its not immediately clear when the attack occurred.

CBC News reports that the cyclist was riding by himself on a trail near Anderson Flats Provincial Park when he came out of the woods into a clearing and surprised a sow with two cubs. The bear immediately charged him, knocking him off his bike. He was able to stand and get the bike between himself and the bear, but she kept attacking and swatting at the bike.

B.C. conservation officer Matthew Corbett said thats when the man reared back and swung as hard as he could. The grizzly then ran into the bushes, which allowed the man to get back on his bike and ride back to the trailhead. Corbett said he was not hurt and only received minor injuries during the attack.

Read Next: B.C. Black Bear Hunter Hospitalized After Killing a Grizzly in Self Defense

[The biker] told me that he remembered hearing a story on CBC at some point where a man punched a bear in the nose to get it off him, Corbett told the news outlet. That 2017 attack involved a juvenile griz and a 57-year-old man with a strong jab. But Corbett said the more recent incident was the first time hed ever heard of someone punching a grizzly bear.

Corbett, who called the bear attack unique, didnt speak to whether he thought the cyclist made the right decision. The traditional advice that most bear experts give in the case of a grizzly attack is to play dead. The National Park Service also recommends lying flat with your face down, your legs spread, and your hands covering your head and neck.

However, both the NPS and Parks Canada say that if playing opossum doesnt work and the attack continues, you should fight back with everything you have.

Read Next: The Best Bear Defense Handguns of 2024

The two agencies break this advice down even further by distinguishing between a defensive attack and a predatory attack  the latter being exceedingly rare. Most grizzly attacks, including this recent incident in northern B.C., involve bears that are either surprised by humans or protecting their cubs, or both. But Parks Canada says that some defensive attacks, which typically last no more than two minutes, can also turn predatory. Along with the NPS, the agency recommends doing everything you can to escape, and to fight back as a last resort.

If you cannot escape, do not play dead, Parks Canada says. Use your bear spray and FIGHT BACK.
A section of the upper Yukon River flowing through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve is seen on Sept. 10, 2012. The river flows through Alaska into Canada. A U.S.-Canada treaty aims to ensure that Alaskans and Canadians have enough Yukon River salmon to meet their needs. (Photo provided by National Park Service)

A section of the upper Yukon River flowing through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve is seen on Sept. 10, 2012. (Photo provided by National Park Service)

A cyanide spill at a major gold mine in the Yukon Territory  high in the Yukon River watershed  has sparked widespread concern in Canada.

But Alaska salmon advocates say the mishap isnt just a problem for Yukoners: The spill happened upstream of a tributary of the Yukon River. The Yukon is Alaskas biggest transboundary waterway, and residents along its shores who have depended on salmon for generations are already suffering amid crashes of multiple species.

Boats sit along the beach on the Yukon River in the Alaska village of Grayling.

Officials on both sides of the border say its too early to know the full impact of the spill, which happened in late June. And theyve advised that there likely isnt a health risk to residents along the Yukon.

Still, some advocates fear that the pollution  which has not been fully contained  could make matters worse for the Yukon Rivers struggling fish.

Now we have a new threat to our salmon, said Brooke Woods , a tribal member and salmon advocate in Rampart, an interior Alaska village on the upper Yukon River.

The spill has also prompted renewed objections from Alaskans who say that Canadian mining projects threaten the states fisheries downstream.

For decades, Alaskans have voiced fears that such mines risk polluting rivers that flow into Alaska and sustain commercial and subsistence fisheries.

That advocacy has largely targeted mines near a handful of rivers in British Columbia and Southeast Alaska.

But the new spill  which marks the first large-scale Canadian mining incident in a transboundary watershed in recent history  was much farther north, near the central Yukon Territory village of Mayo and 100 miles east of Dawson City.

The incident occurred June 24 at Victoria Golds Eagle mine, the Yukons largest and newest gold mine. A landslide at the sites heap leach pad, where the company uses cyanide to extract gold from ore, ripped through a containment barrier.

Maps data: Google, NASA.

The failure released some 2,000,000 metric tons of material, including hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of cyanide solution, into the environment. About 10 days later, high levels of cyanide, which is toxic to fish, were detected in a creek downstream, though more recent samples showed safer levels, according to the Yukon government .

Yukon officials and leaders of the First Nation of Na-cho Nyak Dun, whose traditional territory surrounds the mine, say theyve been working with publicly-traded Victoria Gold to contain pollution, clean up the site and monitor water quality.

Victoria Gold and Na-cho Nyak Dun representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

In response to the spill, the Na-cho Nyak Dun government called for a pause on all mining activity in the First Nations traditional territory, along with an independent investigation and review.

The Yukon government has told Canadian media that its committed to investigating what went wrong.

Alaska officials, meanwhile, have said little publicly about the incident.

We are monitoring, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said in an email.

The site is highly unstable with few options for containment, and heavy rains could easily overwhelm containment efforts, Vincent-Lang said. The landslide, he added, apparently was not caused by rainfall or an earthquake, suggesting that poor design and negligence were to blame.

Doug Vincent-Lang (Alaska Department of Fish and Game)

The area was deemed low-risk for fish habitat when the mine was permitted, Vincent-Lang said. Nearby Haggart Creek flows into the McQuesten River, where Chinook salmon migrate to spawn; the McQuesten flows into the Stewart River, which flows into the Yukon.

The spill may give new ammunition to Alaska policymakers who have been pressing for tighter oversight of Canadian mines. Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, whos been calling attention to the issue for years, is tracking the spill, a spokesman said. But he added that public information remains extremely limited.

The senator is concerned this is yet another instance of a subpar regulatory system on the Canadian side of the border, which has clear implications for the transboundary mining occurring just upstream of Southeast Alaska, Joe Plesha, the spokesman, said in an emailed statement.

Spokespersons for Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola did not respond to requests for comment.

Heather Hardcastle, who works for a mining watchdog group called Salmon Beyond Borders, said the Victoria Gold spill feels disturbingly similar to the 2014 disaster at British Columbias Mount Polley Mine. Her organization has been calling attention to Canadian mining projects in the watersheds of other Southeast Alaska rivers that support major commercial and subsistence salmon fisheries.

Our great fear is that the next disaster will be in the headwaters of the transboundary Taku, Stikine or the Unuk Rivers, which would directly impact Alaskan communities, Hardcastle said in an emailed statement.

Along the Yukon, news of the Eagle mine spill has been spreading in recent weeks, prompting concerns and questions from residents.

On a weekly conference call hosted by the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association on Tuesday, Basil Larson, a fisherman in the lower Yukon village of Russian Mission, said some people are worried that its not safe to swim.

But Elizabeth MacDonald, fisheries manager at a consortium of Yukon tribal governments, said cyanide from the spill is unlikely to trickle into the Yukon River at dangerous levels.

At the end of the day, the water down by you should be safe to drink because its being diluted so much, MacDonald, who works for the Council of Yukon First Nations, told Alaskans on the call. Humans are way less sensitive to cyanide than fish. You would see fish dying long before it would have an effect.

This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this link. Reach freelance contributor Max Graham at maxmugraham@gmail.com.

Editors note: The caption in a photo of the Yukon River has been corrected. The Yukon River flows from Canada through Alaska to the Bering Sea.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The day before, on July 25, the historical drama The Decameron, based on the collection of the same name by Giovanni Boccaccio, was released on Netflix. Ukrainian actor Oleksandr Rudynskyi played one of the roles in the series.

ADVERTISIMENT

He became the only Eastern European actor to be included in the cast. In a conversation with Elle, the Pershi Lastivky (Early Swallows) and Nosorih (Rhino) star shared his impressions of working on a large-scale project.

"I think every actor would like to take part in an original Netflix series or movie. I remember when I got the first audition. I was doing makeup, using a special lens because my character had no eye. I realized that I had to impress with my approach. However, I treat it without excessive romanticism, because I realize that this is just the beginning," the Ukrainian admitted.

He played a one-eyed bandit with a large scar on his face. Oleksandr Rudynskyi shared the photos with his colleagues from the filming in Italy on his blog. It looks like he has already returned to Ukraine.

ADVERTISIMENT

"The one-eyed bandit is another one of my brothers. He loves money and women, but they don't love him. From Kyiv, I send my big hugs to everyone with whom I ate Mexican food, watched Avatar and fought in the dust," the actor wrote.

The black comedy currently has only one season, consisting of 8 episodes. They are already available on Netflix. The production team promised to tell the story of the nobility during the bubonic plague in Italy, who locked themselves in a luxury villa, hiding from the deadly disease.

ADVERTISIMENT

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
We cannot remain silent about what we saw. US doctors who volunteered in Gaza demand ceasefire in letter to White House

A group of 45 American physicians and nurses who volunteered in hospitals across Gaza have sent an open letter to US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris sharing their experiences and demanding an immediate ceasefire and arms embargo.

The signatories unanimously described treating children who had suffered injuries they believed must have been deliberately inflicted. Specifically, every one of us on a daily basis treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head and chest, they wrote.

We wish you could see the nightmares that plague so many of us since we have returned: dreams of children maimed and mutilated by our weapons, and their inconsolable mothers begging us to save them. We wish you could hear the cries and screams our consciences will not let us forget.

Many in the group have public health backgrounds and experiences volunteering in other conflict zones such as Ukraine and Iraq, according to the letter. We believe we are well positioned to comment on the massive human toll from Israels attack on Gaza, especially the toll it has taken on women and children, reads the letter posted to X on Thursday by Dr. Feroze Sidwa, who spearheaded the writing of the letter with the other physicians.

The doctors and nurses letter calls on the Biden administration to participate in an arms embargo of both Israel and all Palestinian armed groups, and to withhold military, diplomatic, and economic support to Israel until a permanent and immediate ceasefire is achieved. CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

It comes at a critical time for the White House, as it urges the Israelis to accept a ceasefire agreement. Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, a day after the Israeli leader addressed the US Congress about the conflict. Sources told CNN the president was expected to be as forceful as he has ever been in pushing Netanyahu to agree to a deal.

We believe our government is obligated to do this, both under American law and International Humanitarian Law, and that it is the right thing to do, the letter said.

A wounded Palestinian man, who was evacuated from the European Hospital after the Israel army ordered Palestinians to evacuate the eastern part of Khan Younis, lies on a stretcher on the floor at Nasser Hospital, in the southern Gaza Strip on July 2. - Mohammed Salem/Reuters

The only independent monitors in Gaza

Dr. Adam Hamawy, a US plastic surgeon and former US Army combat trauma surgeon, told CNN on Thursday, theres no one getting firsthand accounts other than physicians. We feel like we have to speak out becausewere witnesses to this.

In Gaza, theres no independent monitor, he said. If youre not going to believe the Palestinians, then you should believe 50 doctors whove gone there at different times and places.

Apart from Palestinian journalists living in Gaza, there has been no media access to the enclave since October 7, with a few exceptions of entry under official escort.

Hamawy signed the letter to recount what he saw with his own eyes. We all saw a complete devastation of a society, of peoples lives, of health care structure, he said.

Hamawy has worked as a surgeon in Sarajevo, in New York City on 9/11, and in Iraq, where he performed life-saving surgery on US Senator Tammy Duckworth in 2004 after her helicopter was hit by an RPG. But he said those experiences in other conflict zones were not comparable to what he had witnessed in Gaza, adding that 90% of those he had seen killed there were women and children.

Hamawy worked at the European Gaza hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis in May of this year where he performed about 115 reconstructive surgeries and treated mostly children under 14 years old. He worked on amputations, burns, and gunshot wounds to the face, he said.

The surgeon alleges that a gunshot wound on the face of one of his patients, a male teenager, most likely came from an M16 or sniper rifle because the wound was a small entrance wound. CNN has reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for comment on this allegation.

Another patient was a little boy who picked up what he thought was a can of tuna to bring back to his family in Rafah, Hamawy recalled. But the metal object was in fact an unexploded cluster bomb, according to Hamawy, who said that after opening it in front of his family, the child lost his left arm, both his legs, and three fingers on his right arm.

No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake

Dr. Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish American orthopedic hand surgeon from North Carolina and president of the World Surgical Association, told CNN that he decided to go to Gaza after receiving photographs of an X-ray of a poorly performed surgery in the battered enclave.

The photos were sent to him by a first-year medical resident who had been forced to perform the surgery and requested Perlmutters expertise. When Perlmutter asked why senior surgeons hadnt done the operation, the resident explained that they had been killed in a bombing.

Perlmutter told CNN that during his trip, he saw significant violence inflicted on children, who accounted for around 90% of those attending the emergency room while he was working at the European Gaza Hospital.

Describing a hospital overrun, Perlmutter said after every bombing, he would find injured children laid across the floor, their loved ones panicking and crying.

Some are dead, some will die in front of you, and some you can save. You try to save the ones you can save, Perlmutter said.

He recalled two patients aged around six years old, who had suffered gunshots to their heads and chests  wounds which suggested they had been deliberately targeted, he said.

No kid gets shot twice by a sniper by mistake, Perlmutter said, adding that the shots were dead center to their chests.

CNN has reached out to the IDF for comment on these allegations.

As Perlmutter tried to treat the children with head injuries, he said, their brains poured out in his hands, in what he described as a personally traumatic moment.

In signing the letter, Perlmutter told CNN that he hopes the average American can feel the pain we feel on a daily basis. Theyll never see what we saw but they should feel what we saw.

Everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both

Launched in response to Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel on October 7 which killed at least 1,200 people, Israels monthlong military offensive in Gaza has left more than 39,000 Palestinians dead, according to the Gazan Health Ministry. The letters signatories estimate that the true toll of the war could be in excess of 92,000, if it included deaths from starvation or disease and bodies still buried under the rubble.

Last week the World Health Organization said the polio virus had been found in sewage samples, putting thousands of Palestinians at risk of contracting a disease that can cause paralysis.

For months, the health care system in Gaza has been collapsing under relentless Israeli airstrikes, power outages and a shortage of medical supplies, according to the United Nations and previous CNN reporting.

Under such conditions, the American medical workers warned that epidemics could lead to the deaths of tens of thousands more children. The displacement of people to areas with no running water or toilets is virtually guaranteed to result in widespread death from viral and bacterial diarrheal diseases and pneumonias, particularly in children under the age of five, the letter said.

Everyone in Gaza is sick, injured, or both, with few exceptions, their letter said. We are not politicians. We do not claim to have all the answers. We are simply physicians and nurses who cannot remain silent about what we saw in Gaza. the letter said.

Reporting contributed by Tala Alrajjal, Sam Fossum and Eugenia Ugrinovich.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Savier D. Smiley, shown with defense attorney Keith Warstler Jr., was found guilty Friday in Stark County Common Pleas Court on charges of involuntary manslaughter, aggravated assault and having weapons under disability. He will be sentenced Thursday.

CANTON  A man who fatally shot his mother's fiance after the couple argued inside their northeast Canton home was found guilty Friday of involuntary manslaughter.

A Stark County Common Pleas Court jury also declared Savier D. Smiley, 19, guilty of aggravated assault and having weapons under disability in connection with the Oct. 20 shooting death of Dontae T. Crayton. The jury found he used a gun in each of the crimes, a specification that will require a three-year prison sentence to be served prior to any time ordered on the other offenses.

The jury found Smiley not guilty of murder and felonious assault.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.

Trial begins: Canton man claims self-defense for fatal shooting of his mother's fiance during argument

Savier Smiley was barred from having gun

The shooting occurred when Smiley was 18 years old and prohibited from having a gun because he was convicted in 2020 of a juvenile burglary charge, a crime that would have been a felony if he had been an adult at the time.

Assistant Stark County Prosecutor Kristen L. Mlinar and defense attorney Keith A. Warstler Jr. both told the jury in opening statements that the shooting followed an argument inside the Maple Avenue NE home between Crayton and Smiley's mother Yolanda Jones, and that Crayton spat on Jones.

Warstler said Crayton, 37, pinned Jones against a wall and was spitting on her "like a worthless dog." Warstler said Crayton provoked Smiley by spitting on his mother.

But Mlinar countered that Crayton didn't injure anyone.

October 2023: Canton police charge teen with murder following fatal shooting

Charge says Dontae Crayton provoked defendant

The jury's finding of guilt on the manslaughter and aggravated assault charges meant they saw the situation in the same way as the defense. The manslaughter charge said that Smiley killed Crayton while committing the crime of aggravated assault. The aggravated assault charge says Smiley shot Crayton in a sudden passion or fit of rage brought on by "serious provocation" by Crayton.

The murder charge had alleged that Smiley killed Crayton while committing the crime of felonious assault, an offense which carries no implication that the victim provoked the perpetrator.

The trial before Judge Natalie R. Haupt began with jury selection Monday afternoon, but took a break on Wednesday when the judge held pretrial conferences in other cases.

The judge told Smiley she will appoint an attorney for his appeal.

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: Savier Smiley found guilty of manslaughter in Dontae Crayton death
CANTON TWP.  Limited home rule will be on the ballot in Canton Township.

The issue will come before voters in November. If granted, Canton Township trustees will have more local governance power.

Trustee Keith Hochadel said the change will allow township officials to have more control over yard waste, transient vendors and animals, among other things.

"We're looking to operate a lot more efficiently and address the needs of our community," he said. "It gives us the ability to make some certain decisions based on local need, rather than leaving those decisions up to the state to control."

Hochadel said the township has been considering establishing limited home rule for a while, but potential state legislation that would eliminate statutory townships' zoning power motivated the trustees to act now. Townships with limited home rule wouldn't be affected by the legislation.

"There was some concern that townships that did not have home rule, maybe they would be abolishing some of the zoning," he said. "While that legislation appears to have slowed, maybe stalled, it was enough to get our attention because we believe the ability to zone within our township is essential to growth."

Heidi Fought, executive director of the Ohio Township Association, said the state has yet to move forward with the legislation.

"Just because there's no bill in place right now doesn't mean it wouldn't come up next year," she said. "Townships are right to be proactive to try to keep whatever authority they currently have."

There are currently 34 townships in the state with limited home rule, according to what has been reported to the Ohio Township Association. In Stark County, Jackson, Perry and Plain have limited home rule.

What is limited home rule?

Limited home rule gives townships increased authority within unincorporated areas of the township.

"Limited is a key word in that phrase," Fought said. "Townships that have home rule, they can do things that statutory townships can't do, but within reason."

For example, limited home rule townships cannot create new taxes, impose criminal penalties, establish subdivision regulations or exercise any power in conflict with state laws.

Ohio townships with home rule have enacted drainage, erosion and sediment control, access management regulations and littering fines.

Jackson Township Trustee Todd Hawke said having limited home rule makes it more efficient to govern locally.

"You have the ability to create resolutions that non-home rule townships just can't do. They just have to follow the statute exactly as it reads," Hawke said. "It gives you the ability to be more responsive to your residents."

With home rule, Jackson Township has its own police force, is able to regulate garbage collection and can issue citations, among other things.

If limited home rule passes in Canton Township, the government structure will remain mostly the same. The township will continue to operate with three elected trustees and a fiscal officer and all resolutions still must be considered at a public trustees meeting.

How would Canton Township take advantage of limited home rule?

With limited home rule, Canton Township could establish its own police force, but Hochadel said there are no plans to do so. The Stark County Sheriff's Office currently acts as the township's police force under a contract. He said having home rule would strengthen that relationship.

"We would be expanding that somewhat," Hochadel said. "We'd have more of a presence than what we have now."

The township, which has more than 12,000 residents, would also have the ability to issue citations and fine violators of local rules.

For example, the township currently requires door-to-door salesmen to register and acquire a transient vendor license, but there is little they can do to enforce the rule.

"We can tell them they need a transient vendor license and we can have the sheriff come and dissuade them from doing things, but there's no ability to issue violations," Hochadel said.

He said having home rule would allow the township to better address concerns of residents.

"This is a response not only to some of the things that we see, but also some of the questions that the community has had as well," Hochadel said. "Sometimes there are requests of us to do things that [we can't do]. We can send the sheriff out to have a conversation with people but oftentimes our hands are tied. This will give us an opportunity moving forward and we'll see what happens."

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Trustees want limited home rule in Canton Township
The Canutillo Independent School District is creating a public facility corporation  a nonprofit corporation with the power to finance public buildings by issuing debt without voter approval  to pay for a new central office building.

The districts Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday to create the corporation, known as a PFC, after the Texas Department of Transportation in late spring purchased the main administrative building for a road expansion project to connect Artcraft Road to Interstate 10.

Though voters approved a $387 million bond measure for new schools and districtwide improvements in May, it did not include funds for a new district headquarters.

The PFC would be run by a board comprising three Canutillo ISD trustees and one appointed member that would make decisions for the organization  subject to school board approval.

Before issuing any bonds, the PFC would need to notify the public of its intent, and residents could petition to have it put to a vote.

More: US arrests Mexican drug lord 'El Mayo' and son of 'El Chapo' near El Paso

Canutillo ISD communication specialist Christina Rodriguez said using PFCs is not uncommon among school districts that may be having budget shortfalls.

How we move forward with it is still uncertain, but we wanted to have this tool in our toolbox, she told El Paso Matters.

A PFC will allow the district to partner with a developer to construct the administrative building using funds from debt issuances such as lease revenue bonds. That allows the PFC to own the building and lease it back to the district, Arnold Cantu, an attorney working with the district, said during Tuesdays meeting.

In exchange, the developer will be able to get tax exemptions on its own construction projects done through the PFC.

After a certain number of years (the PFC can) sell that property to the district for $10, Cantu said. Think of it as sort of the financing,

Trustees said they are still not sure with which developer theyll partner, but board President Armando Rodriguez mentioned the possibility of working with the El Paso County Housing Authority. The authority provides affordable housing in communities within El Paso County but outside the El Paso city limits in areas such as Canutillo, Horizon and Socorro.

We need to be careful who were going to be partners with to make it worth it so they dont leave us hanging, added trustee Blanca Trout.

Cantu said creating a PFC and using bonds issued by one will not increase taxes directly.

Still, the board could decide to raise taxes to pay for expenses incurred by the PFC.

State law allows local government entities  cities, counties, school districts and housing authorities  to create the PFCs to manage some capital improvement projects.

Trustee Patsy Mendoza said the district had previously used a PFC to acquire and remodel its current administrative building.

The El Paso Independent School District in 2015 created a PFC to finance new central offices in Downtown, repaying the bonds the corporation issued through its general fund.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Canutillo ISD creates nonprofit to fund new central office
Russell pleaded guilty to false reporting to law enforcement and falsely reporting an incident and has since been sentenced to probation

Hoover Police Dept/Twitter Carlee Russell

Carlee Russell, the Alabama woman who faked her own abduction last year, spoke for the first time since her March sentencing.

In July 2023, Russell, a 27-year-old nursing student, made headlines after she made a 911 call that led to her being reported as a missing person. The search that ensued became a state-wide manhunt, with local, state and federal authorities joining the investigation as well as hundreds of concerned community members. Ultimately, she revealed that it had been a hoax, and in March, she was sentenced to probation.

In celebration of her 27th birthday, Russell shared a private post to her social media accounts and wrote a lengthy caption reflecting on her experiences over the past year, E! News and FOX 5 reported.

"I wasnt going to make a birthday post but I would be remiss not to publicly acknowledge the goodness God has shown to me," she wrote in the post on July 22, per the outlets. "He not only allowed me to see another year but He changed the trajectory of my life from the negative place I was in this time last year."

Related: Inside the Carlee Russell Case: What Happened to Woman Who Vanished After Calling 911 to Report Child Missing?

HOOVER (AL) POLICE DEPARTMENT Carlee Russell

"To those who have been there for me, your kindness and support have meant the world to me," she continued. "Whether it was a text, call, direct message on social media, post, prayer, thoughtful gift, or words of encouragement, nothing was too little and each helped me to fight to live another day. Thank you sincerely for helping me find the light in the darkest of moments."

Russell also acknowledged that "the work is not finished yet," and that she has much more "hope and optimism" in her future.



"[As] I step into this next year of life, I am filled with hope and optimism toward continuing to overcome challenges, cherishing those who cherish me, and embracing the future and Gods plan for my life with an open heart and mind," she concluded.

During her sentencing earlier this year, Russell was spared jail time (despite requests from prosecutors) and was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to false reporting to law enforcement and falsely reporting an incident. She was first found guilty in October 2023 by a judge in Hoover, Ala.

In July 2023, while driving along Alabamas interstate, Russell placed a call to 911 at 9:34 p.m., during which she reported that a toddler in a diaper was wandering along the highway. She then called a family friend, who heard screaming before she lost contact. When police arrived at the scene, her car was still running and Russell was nowhere to be found.



Related: Carlee Russell Found Guilty in Kidnapping Hoax Case, May Face 1 Year in Jail and $18K Restitution

Hoover Police Department Russell's mugshot.

After 49 hours of police and community members searching for Russell, the then-25-year-old walked home with a torn shirt and $107 stuffed in her right sock.

In her interview with police, Russell said her alleged kidnapper, a man she described as having orange hair and a bald spot as well as a woman she never saw, came out of the trees, blindfolded her and forced her onto an 18-wheeler truck. Russell alleged at the time that the man later made her remove her clothes and pose for nude photographs before she eventually escaped.

After the search and media frenzy, it finally came out that Russell had faked her kidnapping following an argument with her then-boyfriend  and had never really been missing. Just over a week after she returned home, she admitted through a lawyer that the entire abduction had been made up.

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 made a grave mistake while trying to fight through various emotional issues and stress, Russell told the judge through tears during her March sentencing.

I absolutely regret my decision and in hindsight wish I had cried for help in a totally different manner," she added at the time. "My prayer is that I will be extended grace and be given the opportunity to redeem who I truly am and restore the positively esteemed character that I have worked so hard to obtain for the 25 years of my life prior to this incident."



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Cartel leader was duped by El Chapo's son to orchestrate arrest in U.S., sources say

A leader and co-founder of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel is in U.S. custody thanks to a stunning betrayal by one of the sons of imprisoned Mexican kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, a source told CBS News.

The arrest of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada ended more than four decades of his leadership of the deadly criminal organization he founded with Guzman Loera, who is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado after being convicted in 2019 of charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offenses.

Ismael

One of El Chapo's sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, 38, allegedly duped Zambada into boarding a plane on Thursday, telling him they were going to look at property in Mexico, a person familiar with the investigation confirmed to CBS News. Instead, the plane landed near El Paso, Texas, where Zambada, 76, was arrested by U.S. law enforcement agents from the FBI and HSI.

Both men were taken into custody on the tarmac. The flight and subsequent landing happened "very quickly and very quietly" with no incident once the men exited the plane, a senior law enforcement official confirmed to CBS News.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, who is known for running cartel finances while keeping a low profile, cut a deal on behalf of him and his brother Ovidio Guzman Lopez, a senior law enforcement official confirmed to CBS News. Three sons of Guzman Loera including Ovidio were charged last year with orchestrating a transnational fentanyl trafficking operation into the United States. Ovidio was extradited to the U.S. in 2023, months after U.S. prosecutors unsealed sprawling indictments against him and his brothers, known collectively as the "Chapitos."

The Sinaloa Cartel runs "the largest, most violent and most prolific fentanyl trafficking operation in the world," according to U.S. officials.

El Chapo is said to have 12 children, but the Chapitos ran an extremely violent offshoot of the cartel known for its brutal torture of rivals. Some of their victims were "fed dead or alive to tigers," according to a federal indictment.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez, known as "the Mouse," was captured by Mexican security forces in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, in January 2023 in a violent sting that killed 30 people.

Bureau of Prisons inmate records show Ovidio Guzman Lopez was apparently removed from his detention center three days ago, but a spokesperson from the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed to CBS News that Ovidio remained in custody.

The joint DHS-FBI operation to capture Zambada had been in the works for months; him and Joaquin Guzman Lopez were taken into custody by some of the same agents working on Ovidio Guzman Lopez's case, a senior law enforcement official confirmed to CBS News.

This combo of images provided by the U.S. Department of State show Ismael

A senior law enforcement official described the arrests to CBS News as a "let's see if this works" kind of operation that sprung into motion in recent days, though planning had been going on for far longer.

Zambada and "El Chapo" partnered in the late 1980s to super charge their cocaine and marijuana smuggling operations. After "El Chapo" was captured in 2016, Zambada became the most senior leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and became known for his extraordinary ability to avoid capture.

Nicole Sganga and Pat Milton contributed reporting.

Harris campaign releases video showing Trump mug shot

How a young boy's shout of "wow" still resonates in the classical music community 5 years on

RFK Jr. critical of Biden for "refusing to let go of power"
Cary woman who left kids in car while she gambled sentenced in daughters deaths

A Cary woman whose children died after she left them in a hot car two years ago has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Launice Battle, 31, left her 2- and 3-year-old daughters in the car for six hours while she gambled at a sweepstakes parlor on Aug. 27, 2022, The News & Observer previously reported.

Temperatures reached 95 degrees that day, according to autopsy reports.

Battle found the girls unresponsive and drove them to Duke Raleigh Hospital. There, the children were already pulseless and not breathing, according to the autopsies. They were pronounced dead after attempted resuscitation.

A judge sentenced Battle in June to seven to 10 years in prison for each childs death, court documents show.

The N&O could not reach Battles lawyer for comment.

On average, 39 children across the United States die each year from heat exposure in vehicles, according to the N.C. Department of Insurance. In 2022, four children died that way in North Carolina.

The temperature inside a car can reach 140 degrees on a 95-degree day after an hour, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association.
Vasyl Bodnar, Ukraines Ambassador to Turkiye, has said that a ceasefire without Russia withdrawing its troops from the occupied territories will give the aggressor "time to strengthen its capabilities and resume attacks on Ukraine."

Source: Bodnar in an interview with Euronews

Quote: "Many countries have proposed the idea of a ceasefire, but no one thinks about what it means. [A ceasefire would mean that] 25% of Ukrainian territory would remain under Russian control... [and it would also mean] buying time for Russia to strengthen its capabilities and resume its attacks on Ukraine."

Details: Bodnar stressed that the solution to the problem of Russian occupation, which has been going on in Ukraine for more than two years, lies only in the defence of Ukraine's territorial integrity under international law.

"Any other proposal should not be taken into account, and that is why we rejected it," he said.

Bodnar explained that Ukraine's vision of ending the war is unified and unchanged: "Our methods of achieving peace are very simple: the withdrawal of Russian troops and the defence of [Ukraine's territorial integrity within the norms of] international law, and then we can start talking about other possibilities."

Referring to the call for a ceasefire made by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban during his recent visit to Kyiv, Bodnar said that Orban's ceasefire proposal did not contain any details.

He added that Ukraine's desire to join NATO does not intend to provoke Russia or create geopolitical changes, but only to maintain security and "lasting peace".

"NATO is the only institution that can meet the security needs of the modern world, at least on paper," Bodnar said.

He stressed that if Ukraine becomes a NATO member, it will be a natural border between other members of the alliance and Russia.

Support UP or become our patron!
Minnesota utility regulators Thursday approved CenterPoint Energy's ambitious $106 million plan for a host of clean energy pilot projects, including renewable natural gas and geothermal heating.

CenterPoint says the five-year program will cost its average residential ratepayer about $1.50 a month.

The Minnesota Legislature in 2021 passed the Natural Gas Innovation Act, a bipartisan law aimed at fostering gas utility investments in new technologies that cut carbon emissions. CenterPoint, Minnesota's largest gas provider with more than 920,000 customers, submitted a proposal under the new law in 2023 and Thursday it was accepted by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

"Decarbonizing the natural gas sector is going to be harder than decarbonizing the electric sector," said PUC Commissioner Joe Sullivan. "It is really important to do this work."

While electricity can be made from renewable sources such as wind and solar, gas for heating and cooking is primarily composed of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. CenterPoint says its plan should eliminate about 14% of its Minnesota greenhouse gas emissions (as tabulated in 2020).

The largest of CenterPoint's 17 pilot projects calls for $40 million in purchases of renewable natural gas (RNG), which is made from organic detritus, particularly food waste and landfills. The RNG would be injected into CenterPoint's system.

CenterPoint would prioritize RNG produced in Minnesota, but it will also be able to buy it from outstate suppliers.

The PUC approved a separate $6.5 million proposal for CenterPoint to buy RNG specifically from an anaerobic digestion plant planned for Scott County. The plant would utilize food waste from the Twin Cities.

After RNG purchases, CenterPoint's next largest proposal  costing $13.6 million  is retrofitting residences for electric heat pumps with gas backups. CenterPoint's heat pump pilot is expected to include 204 single-family homes and 34 multifamily buildings.

Other spending plans include $11.6 million on a "networked" geothermal heating system so homes would be equipped with geothermal heat pumps, which would all draw on a shared geothermal source as opposed to individual wells; $7.1 million on a pilot program aimed at commercial customers who want to replace their gas-fired HVAC systems with hybrids that use electric heat pumps with gas backups; and $10.6 million on gas research and development.

"It's part of our efforts to advance Minnesota's clean energy future," Joshua Solis, a CenterPoint spokesman, said of the company's overall plan. "We are excited about the promise it shows."

Ratepayer advocacy and clean energy groups had mixed reactions to the plan as approved by the PUC.

The Citizens Utility Board of Minnesota (CUB) generally supported CenterPoint's plan, but with several modifications, said Brian Edstrom, the group's senior regulatory advocate.

"We intended to create guardrails to ensure that ratepayers funds are spent appropriately. The pilots have to be cost-effective. We are a little disappointed the [PUC] didn't approve more guardrails recommended by the CUB and others like the clean energy groups and the [Minnesota] Attorney General's Office."

Caitlin Eichten, senior policy associate at Fresh Energy, also said she was disappointed the PUC didn't adopt modifications proposed by her organization and two other clean power groups, the Sierra Club and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

For instance, clean power groups unsuccessfully petitioned the PUC to allow RNG acquisition only through direct gas purchases  not through buying credits. CenterPoint can purchase credits from out-of-state RNG producers, but they would not eliminate carbon emissions in Minnesota, Eichten said.

"We feel the (gas) industry kind of won out over the public interest today," she said.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce, tasked with looking out for ratepayers before the PUC, had opposed much of CenterPoint's proposal, recommending a plan that would have involved only $18 million to $22 million in spending, according to the PUC. The state's Attorney General's Office, another ratepayer advocate, had recommended a roughly $80 million plan.

The Attorney General's Office, the Commerce Department, CUB and the clean energy groups uniformly opposed CenterPoint's planned  and PUC approved  $4.6 million hydrogen plant in Mankato. The pilot plant would use electricity to produce hydrogen, which would be blended into CenterPoint's gas system.

Hydrogen doesn't emit greenhouse gases, but opponents said the project would produce underwhelming environmental benefits. The Commerce Department recommended the PUC nix the project due to the "poor performance" of CenterPoint's existing $2 million hydrogen pilot in Minneapolis.

CenterPoint rejected Commerce's assessment, and noted that the new Mankato hydrogen plant would be powered partly by dedicated solar panels.
Centre Countys new director of elections set to start next month. Heres what to know

Centre County has hired a new director of elections who will oversee the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Melanie Bailey will join the Centre County staff after serving as Venango Countys director of elections.

Beth Lechman, Centre Countys previous director of elections, announced her resignation last month. Lechman served in the role for nearly three years and said she left to take another position closer to her family in Westmoreland County.

Bailey will be making $34.66 hourly, and her first day as director will be on Aug. 6, county Communications Coordinator J.J. De La Cruz said.

Centre County Commissioner Steve Dershem said Friday that Lechman helped out with the candidate-finding process and referred Bailey. He thinks that Bailey will be a perfect fit as the countys new head of the elections department.

I think Miss Bailey is an outstanding and highly-qualified individual for this position, Dershem said. While (Bailey) may not have much experience with running elections, she interviewed really well, she was pretty eager to get over to Centre County and in my opinion, most importantly, shes very detail-oriented. I wouldnt feel comfortable hiring someone for this job that isnt detail-oriented, but thats not the case here.

Bailey is entering the position with four and a half years of county government and public service experience, Centre County Administrator John Franek said. She moved into the elections coordinator role in Venango County in 2022 after previously serving as the voter registrar there, according to The Derrick and The News-Herald.

Since the November 2019 election, Pennsylvania has lost 58 election officials  or a combined 293 years of experience, Votebeat reported in February. Secretary of State Al Schmidt has expressed concern about the loss of experienced election directors potentially leading to mistakes.

But Dershem expressed confidence in the new hire.

I think that with a little bit of proper training, (Bailey) will prove herself to be the best candidate for the job, Dershem said. Now, you obviously never know whats going to happen with election years, but when November rolls around, I think that Centre County residents can look forward to a smoothly-ran election.

Centre County Commissioner Amber Concepcion expressed a similar sentiment last month in response to Lechmans resignation.

Im confident though that despite (Lechmans) resignation, well still be able to hold a smooth and successful fall election in Centre County with whoever we bring in to fill the position, she said.

The county election office has a core office staff of five, including the director position, Franek previously told the CDT, adding that staffing levels fluctuate throughout the year based upon the workload.

Bailey could not be reached for comment Friday.
The USSR was a country of political terror. In addition to the traditional methods of physical extermination, imprisonment, and exile, the so-called geographical isolation was also practiced. Citizens recognized by the authorities as "socially unreliable" were expelled from their homes and banned from living in certain areas, conditionally called "regime" areas.

ADVERTISIMENT

Kyiv and the 50-kilometer zone around the city were considered "restricted". Radio Liberty explains who were 'minusniki' and why the USSR introduced this form of punishment.

Who were 'minusniki'

The Bolshevik regime resorted to targeted "sanitization" of certain territories. The term 'minusnik' originated among the repressed and was used in everyday communication. Today, this term can be seen in fiction, memoirs, or journalism.

'Minusniki' were people who were forced to leave a certain territory. They signed a document prohibiting them from living in certain areas.

This punishment was often imposed on "politically unreliable persons," and it arose in the course of dekulakization, the introduction of the passport system, "cleansing the borderland," and so on.

ADVERTISIMENT

Already in 1917, the Bolsheviks issued a decree on revolutionary tribunals with a new type of punishment: expulsion from the capitals of those who opposed the new regime.

In 1922-1924, a number of directives were issued that for the first time defined the "geographic minus" (Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Rostov-on-Don), popularly called "minus 6."

In 1930-1940, the boundaries of the restricted areas expanded significantly.

What groups were included

The following groups were labeled as 'minusniki' right away:

representatives of the bourgeoisie, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, church leaders, etc;

persons punished by the so-called geographical disadvantage (there were special expulsion commissions, for example, under the GPUNKVD);

ADVERTISIMENT

Ukrainian peasants expelled in the process of collectivization;

"unreliable" citizens expelled from the territories where the passport system was introduced;

representatives of certain "suspicious" nationalities from the border areas;

wives, children, and relatives of "enemies of the people";

residents of western Ukraine who were forbidden to return home after being released from special settlements of the Gulag;

political prisoners of the Gulag;

Soviet prisoners of war.

Regime territories

The Soviet government established a list of areas where 'minusniki' were prohibited from living.

In May 1953, there were already 340 officially designated restricted cities and towns. The 50-kilometer zone around the largest cities was introduced in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, etc. Sometimes a 100-kilometer zone could be established.

ADVERTISIMENT

Subscribe to OBOZ.UA channels on Telegram and Viber to keep up with the latest events.
A Chesapeake police officer went to a Trump rally instead of court. Now shes under investigation.

It was a Friday morning in Chesapeake traffic court, and the room was full of people whod been cited for things like speeding, ignoring traffic signals, having an expired license and driving while intoxicated.

District Judge Erin Evans-Bedois had an announcement to make at the start of the June 28 court session, according to two attorneys who were there.

The judge told the group that the officer involved in all but two of the dozens of cases on the docket had informed the court she wouldnt be there, the lawyers said. Instead, Officer Shanon Velez said she was going to the campaign rally for former president Donald Trump, which was being held about six miles away at the Historic Greenbrier Farms.

As a result, Evans-Bedois dismissed all charges against 11 people, a review of court records conducted by The Virginian-Pilot shows. Most involved lesser offenses like speeding, but some were for charges that carried a potential jail sentence, such as driving with a suspended license.

The judge postponed the cases of another 13 people  many of whom faced more serious misdemeanor charges like driving while intoxicated and drug possession  forcing them to have to come back to court at a later date. Fifteen other people whod been cited for traffic offenses by Velez, and given the same court date, had paid their fines in advance.

I was floored, said attorney Tom Sheppard, who was among the lawyers in court that day representing one of the people charged. My client was very happy.

Sheppards client, a Virginia Beach man whod been accused of driving with a suspended license, speeding, and not wearing a seatbelt, was among those who got all his charges dismissed, Sheppard said. The maximum penalty for the suspended license count is a year in jail.

As for the judge, she seemed pretty annoyed, the lawyer said, and hesitated before dismissing some of the cases.

I think she decided she was not going to punish the defendants that were there as they were supposed to be, he said.

Attorney John Greenside, also in court that day representing a client, said it wasnt clear to him whether the officer was attending the rally as a participant or working it as an officer.

When The Virginian-Pilot contacted Chesapeake police earlier this month for more information, a spokesman said the department wasnt aware of what had happened until it was contacted by the newspaper. An internal affairs investigation was begun shortly afterwards and is still ongoing, spokesman Leo Kosinski said. In the meantime, Velez, a 17-year veteran of the department who works as a traffic enforcement officer in the special operations section, remains on regular duty, he said.

Chesapeake police didnt answer a Pilot reporters questions about whether the officer was at the rally as a participant, or on duty. A spokesman only would say that the matter was under investigation.

Kosinski said he didnt know whether Velez had an attorney, but also said she wouldnt be commenting on the case.

As for those who had their cases continued due to the officers absence, their next court date is Aug. 9.

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
Texas officials are vowing to continue busing and flying migrants to liberal cities like Chicago in protest of Biden border policies, and that has officials in the Windy City preparing for an influx of up to 25,000 migrants during the Democratic National Convention next month.

"Until President Biden and Border Czar Harris step up and do their jobs to secure the border, Texas will continue busing migrants to sanctuary cities across the country like Chicago to provide much-needed relief to our overwhelmed border towns," a spokesperson for Texas governor Greg Abbott told the San Antonio Current on Friday.

At the Republican National Convention earlier this month, Abbott hammered the Biden administration for its border policies.

"When Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to even come to Texas and to see the border crisis that they created, I took the border to them," Abbott said. "I began busing illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C., and weve continued busing migrants to sanctuary cities across the entire country, he told the crowd. Those buses will continue to roll until we finally secure our border."

Chicago officials believe these threats could translate into between 20,000 and 25,000 migrants arriving during the DNC, set to take place between August 19 and 22, Chicagos deputy mayor for immigration Beatriz Ponce de Leon told Axios.

"It depends on how many people are crossing the border, she added. Right now there is a slowdown because of the [Biden] executive order that puts limits on how many people can cross and ask for asylum, but that is being challenged in court."

The Chicago official said theyre keeping 5,000 city shelter beds open in preparation and could activate even more if need be.

At the end of 2023, the city was taking in about 2,000 migrants a week, at a cost of about $1.5m a day.

Abbott began busing migrants to liberal cities in April of 2022, arguing it was a way to shift "the burdens imposed by open-border advocates.

Since then, the state has transported over 100,000 people to cities like New York, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., at a cost to the state of over $148m as of January.

Chicago officials have accused the program of employing drivers who dont follow city rules on dropping off passengers and failing to coordinate with the mayors office.

"Its so disturbing that [Abbott] is unwilling to coordinate with mayors," Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said last month. "If the governor of Texas decides to continue on his diabolical rage, there are limitations to what we are able to do as a city  I wish he had a heart. I dont know. Maybe he needs a visit to the Wizard of Oz."
China, India should work in same direction, relations have an important impact, says Wang

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi hosts Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of Fatah, Mahmoud al-Aloul and senior member of Hamas, Mussa Abu Marzuk, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing

BEIJING (Reuters) - China Foreign Minister Wang Yi said it is hoped that China and India will work in the same direction and explore how the neighbouring countries can get along, according to a statement.

Wang, in talks with his Indian counterpart, said China-India relations have an important impact beyond the bilateral scope, according to the statement released by the Chinese foreign ministry late on Thursday.

"It is in the interests of both sides to get China-India relations back on track," Wang said about the talks with India Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, according to the statement.

(Reporting by Bernard Orr and Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Tom Hogue)
BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said China and Russia should maintain communication and coordination on East Asian cooperation to promote regional peace and stability amid international turbulence.

Wang met with Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov during an ASEAN summit in Laos on Thursday, where he also had a sideline meeting with India's foreign minister to ease tensions around a long-simmering border dispute.

In his meeting with Lavrov, Wang said in the face of a turbulent international situation and external interference and resistance, "China is ready to work with Russia to firmly support each other and safeguard each other's core interests," according to a statement from China's foreign ministry on Friday.

"Russia will work with China to support ASEAN centrality and prevent sabotage and interference by foreign forces," Lavrov said, according to the statement.

During a separate China, Russia and Laos trilateral foreign ministers' meeting in Vientiane, Wang also said "the world is entering a new period of turbulence and change, the international system is undergoing profound adjustments, and the global economic recovery is difficult."

He stressed that "regional conflicts have dragged on, and instability, uncertainty and unpredictability have permeated the world," according to a separate statement from the Chinese foreign ministry.

Wang is also expected to meet Japan Minister of Foreign Affairs Yoko Kamikawa on Friday. He is scheduled to attend several ASEAN meetings through Saturday.

(Reporting by Bernard Orr and Shanghai newsroom; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
A 34-year-old Davenport woman was sentenced to prison Thursday after she pleaded guilty to providing drugs to a Bettendorf woman who died from an overdose.

Nicole Tucker was sentenced in Scott County Court to a total of 15 years for charged involuntary manslaughter, third-degree burglary, first-degree theft and delivery of fentanyl.

Nicole Tucker and Lucas Seitz (Scott County Jail)

Members of the late Kayla Slussers family, several of whom wore pink T-shirts with Kayla Slussers face on them, read emotional victim-impact statements. One read a statement on behalf of Kayla Slussers mother,who said My daughter did not deserve this, to die like this.

Kayla Slussers sister said Kayla had a sweet, happy-go-lucky spirit. She said her sister knew she needed help, went to rehab and then relapsed. But I had every hope that my sister was going to get better, she said. Every family get-together is marked by her absence.

Kayla Slusser was 25 when she died.

Your statements were very powerful, the judge told the family.

Tuckers attorney read a statement written by Tucker. Id like to express immense remorse, she wrote. Drug addiction is what this all stems from .Ill carry the weight of regret for the rest of my life.

I allowed addiction to take control over me. My choices will haunt me forever. Im willing to face the repercussions I will be handed.

An overdose in 2023

About 1:46 a.m. Oct. 14, 2023, police responded to a room at the City Center Motel, 1138 State St., for an unresponsive person.

The victim was transported to the hospital and life support measures were done, police say in affidavits. The victim was pronounced deceased three days later.

A witness, LC, was interviewed several times during this investigation. LC states the victim is a fentanyl user and will rarely smoke methamphetamine. LC states the victim was not in possession of any narcotics and contacted Lucas Seitz to obtain heroin or fentanyl. LC arranged an Uber driver to drive Seitz from the motel to meet with his supplier to obtain opiates. LC observed the victim to be under the influence of what LC believed to be opiates based on her demeanor. LC then observed the victim to turn blue and was not breathing, according to affidavits.

LC attempted life-saving measures to include multiple doses of Narcan as well as chest compressions, affidavits say.

Affidavits show that Seitz, who was interviewed several times during the investigation, said LC contacted him looking for heroin for his girlfriend, whom Seitz had never met.

Affidavits say Seitz contacted his main supplier, who put him in contact with Tucker, who agreed to sell Seitz opiates, police allege in affidavits. Seitz obtained a ride to the City Center, where LC provided him $100 for the purchase of heroin or fentanyl as well as an Uber driver to transport him to meet with his supplier.

Affidavits say Seitz spent some of the $100 on cigarettes and a soda, then met with Tucker in Davenport. Seitz purchased a personal-use amount of what he believed to be heroin or fentanyl in exchange for $40 from Tucker. Seitz was given a ride back to the City Center, where he gave the packaged drugs to LC. Seitz claimed to have not used any of the narcotics, according to affidavits.

Tucker was interviewed once during the investigation, affidavits say. Tucker stated that Seitz contacted her looking to purchase opiates, and that Tucker was in possession of two bad batches or drugs, possibly fake dope.

Tucker stated she had purchased these for herself and they did not have the desired effect, so she re-sold them to Seitz in exchange for $40 to re-coup some of what she spent on it, according to affidavits. She met with Seitz about 10:30 p.m. Oct. 13 in the area of 31st Street and Western Avenue, Davenport.

Text messages and phone calls between Seitz, Tucker and another person confirmed the transaction between Seitz and Tucker on Oct. 13 about 11 p.m., police allege in affidavits.

The night of the overdose, officers performed a consent search on a neighbors room and located: 0.6 grams (total package weight) methamphetamine (DCI  Division of Criminal Investigation  findings methamphetamine), 0.55 grams foil with burnt liquid sludge (DCI findings fentanyl), hypodermic syringe with liquid (DCI findings methamphetamine/fentanyl/n-pyrrolidino etonitazene mixture), a spoon with burn marks and cotton swab (DCI findings methamphetamine/fentanyl/n-pyrrolidino etonitazene mixture), and drug pipes, according to affidavits.

Affidavits show It was learned that at some point after the victim overdosed, these items were moved from the victims room to the motel room next door.

Toxicology results report the victim had positive findings of methamphetamine, amphetamine and phenylpropanolamine in her system. The initial toxicology test was sent in for only an amphetamine panel, not fentanyl or heroin, according to affidavits.

Seitz and Tucker were arrested on warrants.

Seitz, court records show, has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and delivery of a Schedule I controlled substance. He is set for sentencing on Nov. 8 in Scott County Court.

What are these drugs?

According to the Department of Justice, N-pyrrolidino etonitazene (etonitazepyne) is a synthetic opioid that is extremely potent and high risk to users.

Fentanyl is a strong opioid used as a pain medication. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. It is a major contributor to fatal and nonfatal overdoses in the United States, the CDC says.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.
FARMINGTON, Conn. (WTNH)  State and local leaders joined U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Friday to introduce federal legislation to expand summer enrichment opportunities for children who otherwise would not have access to them.

With funding from the American Rescue Plan set to run out, the Summer For All Act would provide $4 billion for over four years and $1 billion each fiscal year to fund two new grants managed by the Department of Health and Human Services to ensure these programs continue and allow more children to participate in them.

Your 2024 guide to fairs and festivals in Connecticut

Outside experiences, adventure experiences, summer experiences where you get to improve and enhance your socialization skills, where you get to have your mind opened to new possibilities, new hobbies, new interests, Murphy said. Its necessary, its life-changing, and its often lifesaving.

Murphy said summer camps are a key way for kids not to lose access to education and socialization during the summer months.

News 8 contacted Connecticut Republicans for comment on the proposed legislation but did not hear 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 WTNH.com.
My church is closing, and I dont know what comes next  for me, or America

Pastor Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and author of "The Nones," poses for a portrait at at First Baptist Church in Mt. Vernon, Ill., Sept. 10, 2023. | Jessie Wardarski

How do you get rid of a pulpit? Or a communion table?

Does anyone want 30-year-old choir robes?

What do you do with the baptismal records of a church that dates back to the 1860s?

I never thought I would be asking myself these questions, but here I am, like many other pastors across the country as the number of Americans who belong to a faith community shrinks and churches that once housed vibrant congregations close.

Whats happened at my own church is especially poignant since in my day job I research trends in American religion. And when I first became a pastor, right out of college, there were ominous signs, but I did not foresee how quickly the end would come, hastened by a pandemic.

Pastor Ryan Burge, right, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and author of "The Nones," preaches a sermon at First Baptist Church in Mt. Vernon, Ill., Sept. 10, 2023. | Jessie Wardarski

I first took the pulpit of First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Illinois, in the fall of 2006. The church was a part of the American Baptist denomination, a mainline tradition that welcomed women into leadership and tended to take a more moderate stance on theological and social issues. I was 24 years old, pursuing a masters degree in political science, and I needed a job that would give me the flexibility to focus on my studies. It seemed like a good fit at the time, both theologically and logistically, although it was inconceivable to me then that I would still hold the same position into my early 40s.

I preached in a sanctuary that could easily accommodate 300 people. That first year or two, I could count about 50 people scattered around the pews. It felt sparse, but not empty  a relief, since I wasnt the most credentialed pastor in the history of the church. As an undergraduate, I took a couple of classes that focused on theology and ministry, but that was it. I did my best to not say something heretical during my Sunday sermon. What I lacked in education and experience, I was sure I could make up with enthusiasm. Theres an apocryphal quote from John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, that I thought about often in those first couple of years: Light yourself on fire with passion, and people will come from miles to watch you burn.

I tried to light that match every Sunday morning. People didnt show up.

I dont know if the members of my congregation thought I was going to be the one who turned around the fortunes of the church, but there was lots of talk of growth in those first few hopeful years. Many faithful members had been sitting in those pews for decades. They had seen the church in its heyday, when there were so many people in Sunday School that they had to install movable dividers in the fellowship hall so they could add more classrooms in the 14,000-square-foot building.

But the churchs membership began to dwindle in the 1970s and 1980s. If you talked to five members of my church about this period of time, you would get five different reasons for the decline: An ill-advised sermon drove off a few key families. Lots of kids who grew up in the church went off to college and didnt return to rural Illinois because of the lack of employment opportunities. Other churches in town seemed more attractive with their drums, guitars and high-energy worship. Regardless of the cause, the membership of First Baptist dipped below 100 by the late 1990s.

After a couple of years, the discussion about revitalizing the church began to grow quiet. A sense of resignation started to creep in. I came to a disheartening conclusion: I wasnt going to be able to turn things around. I think at that point most members knew in their hearts that the end was coming for the church. We were just all afraid to speak that truth into existence. It was better to keep our heads down and focus on the next worship service and not worry about what would happen in three or five years.

Pastor Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and author of "The Nones," a book on the growing number of religiously unaffiliated Americans, preaches a sermon at First Baptist Church in Mt. Vernon, Ill., Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. For Burge, the rising number of "nones" and the dwindling number of religious is not simply a statistic, but a fact that he's been witnessing in his own parish for the past 16 years. | Jessie Wardarski

The rise of The Nones

On one of my first Sundays as pastor, the older adults had invited me to their Sunday School class. We sat around a table with Styrofoam cups of coffee and tried to find common ground across a five-decade generational divide. They were glad to have me, and I was honored that they trusted me enough to be their pastor. About a year ago, I was looking at an old church directory and realized that every person in that classroom back in 2006 had met their eternal reward over the previous 15 years, and I had presided at many of their funerals.

But as my church was dying, my academic career was starting to accelerate. I began to plunge headlong into data about American religion. I had earned a Ph.D. in political science with a dissertation that focused on religion and politics while I held the pulpit at First Baptist, and I had landed a job at a university that was within driving distance of my home base. I could be a professor during the week and pastor on the weekends.

I wrote a couple of academic articles about American religion in an effort to secure my employment in academia, but I didnt want to produce scholarship that only a dozen or so people in my subfield would read.

So I decided to take the things I was seeing in the data and help the average person understand the changing American religious landscape. I began posting graphs on my Twitter account. Most of them got little attention until I created a simple line graph that traced American religion between 1972 and 2018.

The point was simple: The share of Americans who were nonreligious was now the same size as evangelicals. The post went viral, and the trajectory of my life changed. That graph appeared in nearly every major media outlet in the United States, and it led to me writing a book about the rise of nonreligious Americans, a book entitled The Nones.

What I was seeing in the data was unmistakable and mapped perfectly onto what I was seeing every Sunday  mainline Protestant Christianity was in near free fall, and the numbers of nonreligious were rising every single year. Members of the media found my career combination of pastor and social scientist fascinating. I cant count the number of times I was asked what it was like to have both jobs. My response was a shrug of the shoulders and the simple statement, It doesnt seem odd to me. Its all Ive ever known.

Soon, I was being asked to comment on stories about religion and politics for a number of prominent media outlets. Journalists would thank me for helping provide them with ideas for stories. I was being asked to speak in front of crowds of hundreds of people about the past and future of American religion. When I was asked what motivated me to continue to do this kind of work, all I could say was, Im just trying to help other people see the big picture in American religion.

What I was really trying to do was to convince myself that the rapid decline of my church wasnt my fault.

Gail Farnham, longtime parishioner of First Baptist Church, rests her hands on her Bible as she follows along during the sermon given by pastor Ryan Burge in Mt. Vernon, Ill., Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. | Jessie Wardarski

A sense of letting people down

I always had a nagging sense that I was never supposed to be a pastor. That I took the job at First Baptist for the wrong reasons. That I didnt believe enough. That I didnt try hard enough. That there was a way to revitalize that little congregation in Mount Vernon, but I just wasnt willing to do the work to make it happen.

I knew I couldnt say that part that out loud.

While my online platform was rising and I was being offered a variety of opportunities to speak and write, things were continuing to decline at my little church. I would come from home from speaking at a conference that had a couple hundred in attendance to preach before a nearly empty sanctuary on Sunday morning.

The church members decided that it was best for us to move from that giant space to a large classroom in the education wing of the building. We bought a small sound system and set up chairs around a pulpit at the front of the room. Looking back on that time now, it was my favorite period of pastoring at the church. The room was small enough that it felt intimate. When we sang, it filled up the space. Saying The Lords Prayer together meant so much more when I could hear 20 voices reciting those same lines back at me in unison.

However, there was a looming problem that I would make mention of in our quarterly business meeting and then move on to other matters  we were running out of money.

The building was huge. It was built to accommodate hundreds of worshippers and dozens of Sunday School classes. Many rooms had not been used in decades. We just didnt need the space anymore. What had once been a point of pride for the church was now little more than an albatross around our necks. The utility bills in winter were larger than my salary. The 40-year-old boiler that heated the church could stop working at any moment.

So with a tremendous amount of trepidation, we decided to put the building on the market. I clearly remember the day that I had to post the information on social media. I felt so ashamed that we had to publicly announce the fact that we couldnt afford to keep our church home anymore. There were countless members of First Baptist who had donated their time and their labor to construct that building in the 1960s. They had given over and above their tithe to finance the bricks, the carpet and the pews. I couldnt get over the feeling that I was letting all of them down. I still cant.

How to sell a church, 101

There is no handbook for how to sell a church building, and none of us were prepared for how exhausting that process would be. One day, I got a call from a real estate developer who was interested in buying the property. While he never said it outright, and I never asked, I realized that his plans included razing the building and using the property for a subdivision or a commercial opportunity. I told him that I appreciated the interest, but I would only be in contact if we had no other options.

We had about a dozen groups tour the property; most never followed up. In the end, we got one cash offer  for $150,000. The pastor said that God had instructed him that they could go no higher. Our church council politely declined. That sum would have made it virtually impossible for us to move to another facility for any period of time. We were getting desperate.

Then we were thrown a bit of a lifeline. Another church in town had started a private Christian school and quickly outgrown their space. They wanted to take over ownership of the building. The details of the agreement were complicated, but the outcome was fairly straightforward: The school would use the building during the week, but we would have access on the weekends for worship. Thats how we continued to exist over the last five years. We had no building to worry about; we could just gather together on Sundays and try to limp along for as long as we wanted. It felt like we had been granted a divine stay of execution.

For a couple of years, we were fine. We would have two dozen people on a good Sunday, enough to make us feel like we were still a congregation. But every six or eight months, we would lose a key member, then another, then another. That two dozen became 15, then 12, then 10. As attendance dwindled, so did our bank accounts. I didnt need to put together a statistical model to tell my members when the bank balance was going to hit zero. They could do the math.

Roughly a dozen people attend pastor Ryan Burge's Sunday service at First Baptist Church in Mt. Vernon, Ill., Sunday, Sept. 10, 2023. Burge is also an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University and author of "The Nones," a book on the growing number of religiously unaffiliated Americans. For him, the rising number of "nones" and the dwindling number of religious is not simply a statistic, but a fact that he's been witnessing in his own parish for the past 16 years. | Jessie Wardarski, Associated Press

The last Sunday

Ive heard several people say that organizations die slowly, then all at once. Thats what happened to us.

At the start of the year, we went four Sundays without meeting. Illness ran through our thinning ranks, and one Sunday the wind chill was below zero, and we knew that our folks didnt want to get out. When we met again in February, things felt different. We were lucky to get to double digits, and any enthusiasm that existed before had seemed to evaporate. It was time to talk about closing.

After Easter, we held a business meeting, one that had been playing out in my mind for a decade or more. The minutes of that meeting are sparse, taking up just a single piece of paper. There was no discussion of whether we should close or not. We just decided on the logistics.

We picked a date: July 21. That would be the last time that the faithful few of First Baptist of Mount Vernon, a church founded by hardscrabble pioneers in 1868, would gather together to worship.

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that I get asked all the time, by pastors, denominational leaders and interested observers, about ways to grow a church. I guess people assume that since I spend my days digging through religion data, that I should have been able to uncover the secret to getting people back into religion.

It takes everything in my power to not say to them, My church went from 50 people to less than 10 under my watch. If I knew anything about how to grow a church I would have done it by now.

But I know where they are coming from because many of them are in the same boat that I was in. They are watching the waves lap over the side of their rickety vessel every day. The bucket to bail out the water is too small to do any good. Still, thousands of pastors are trying to keep the boat seaworthy by any means necessary, even as more cracks begin to emerge in the hull. They sense that they have a hopeless mission, but believe that God has called them to be faithful, not necessarily successful.

Last Sunday, I stood behind the pulpit of First Baptist Church for the last time.

I asked the people gathered there for prayer requests, and we sang Happy Birthday to anyone who is celebrating in the coming weeks. We said the Lords Prayer and the Apostles Creed together and sang a few favorite hymns along with the Doxology and the Gloria Patri. I stumbled through a sermon that will likely be soon forgotten.

Then, after the hymn of invitation, I raised my hand to the congregation and gave them one final benediction from the book of Numbers:

The Lord bless you

and keep you;

the Lord make his face shine on you

and be gracious to you;

the Lord turn his face toward you

and give you peace.

Then I told them once more, Go in peace to love and serve your neighbors. I know that I may never see some of those people ever again.

I walked out those doors into the blinding heat of a summer day in southern Illinois and stepped into a future where I dont know where I will go to church next Sunday, or even if I want to go. Frankly, I dont know if my own faith will survive, and Im not sure if the church in America will be there for the next generation like it was for me.

And Im terrified because for the first time in my spiritual life, I dont know whats next.

Ryan Burge poses for a photograph with members of First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Ill., at the church on July 21, 2024. | Patty King

Ryan Burge is an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. He is the author or co-author of four books, including The Nones, 20 Myths about Religion and Politics in America and The Great Dechurching. He has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Politico, and has appeared on 60 Minutes, where Anderson Cooper called him one of the leading data analysts of religion and politics in the United States. He was the pastor of an American Baptist Church in Illinois for more than 17 years.
CIA chief to meet Israeli, Qatari and Egyptian officials for Gaza talks, source says

(Reuters) - CIA Director William Burns will meet this weekend in Rome with his Israeli and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar's prime minister for talks on a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages by Hamas, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The source, who requested anonymity, said Burns would meet Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and the Egyptian and Israeli intelligence chiefs on Sunday.

The CIA declined to comment.

The meeting was first reported by Axios.

It comes as Israel seeks changes to a plan for a truce in Gaza and the release of hostages by Hamas, complicating a final deal to halt more than nine months of war that has devastated the enclave, according to a Western official, a Palestinian and two Egyptian sources.

(Reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington; Editing by Rod Nickel)
On Friday, July 26, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, turned 59 years old. Since the beginning of the Russian aggression in the east, he has led the most complex operations of Ukrainian troops and took over the Armed Forces a little less than six months ago.

ADVERTISIMENT

Recently, the military commander said that the Ukrainian Defense Forces would do everything possible to return to the 1991 borders, and he also indicated what Ukrainians need to win. OBOZ.UA decided to recall the main facts from the military career of the colonel-general, whose parents and brother now live in the aggressor country of Russia.

The main facts from Syrskyi's biography

Oleksandr Syrskyi was born on July 26, 1965, in the village of Novyky, Vladimir region, Russia, USSR, in the family of a military man. In the 70s, his father was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. The future general graduated from high school in Kharkiv.

ADVERTISIMENT

He received his first military education at the Moscow Combined Arms Command School. Later, he studied at the Armed Forces Academy (operational and tactical level) and the National Defense University of Ukraine (operational and strategic level). He graduated with honors from both universities.

Syrskyi began his service as a platoon commander of a motorized rifle division in the city of Lubny, Poltava region. In the 1990s, he commanded a regiment of the 6th National Guard Division in Chuhuiv. In the early 2000s, he was the commander of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Bila Tserkva. In 2013, he served as Deputy Chief of the Main Command Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, responsible for cooperation with NATO.

At the beginning of the Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Oleksandr Syrskyi headed the ATO headquarters and was later appointed commander of the Joint Operational Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In 2017, he was already in command of the ATO, which was later reformatted into the Joint Forces Operation (JFO).

ADVERTISIMENT

In 2019, Syrskyi became the commander of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in which position he faced the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. He has the rank of colonel general (since August 2020). He was awarded the Order of the Golden Star with the title of Hero of Ukraine in March 2022 for the successful defense of the Kyiv region from Russian troops.

There is little information about the military leader's personal life. It is known that he is married to Tamara Kharchenko, who works at the State Fiscal Service. The couple has two sons, Oleksandr and Anton. The general himself said in several interviews that he sleeps very little. In his rare hours of rest, he reads books on history and philosophy. He also likes to go to the gym.

ADVERTISIMENT

Appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Oleksandr Syrskyi has always been a non-public general. On February 8, 2024, he replaced Valerii Zaluzhnyi as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was preceded by several months of tense discussions in the government and society.

In his first statement in office, he emphasized the importance of clear and detailed planning of actions by all military command and control bodies, and establishing logistics for the rational and rapid distribution of weapons. In his opinion, the main task is to constantly improve the methods of warfare and introduce new technical solutions.

ADVERTISIMENT

One of his first decisions as commander-in-chief was to withdraw Ukrainian troops from Avdiivka. He noted that this allowed them to avoid encirclement and save the lives of the military. However, the lack of ammunition for artillery played a negative role. This is what prevented an effective counter-battery fight. However, according to Syrskyi, during the battle for the city, Russian troops suffered enormous losses  more than 47,000 people.

A few days after his appointment, the new chief noted that the Defense Forces had entered a new stage of the war against Russia, which aims to deplete the enemy. At the same time, he added that Ukraine's goal remains unchanged  to reach the state borders.

ADVERTISIMENT

Syrskyi regularly visits the frontline positions of Ukrainian defenders to analyze battle tactics, identify problematic issues, and support the soldiers on the spot.

Former U.S. Army Europe Commander Ben Hodges previously praised Syrskyi's appointment to Ukraine's top military leadership post, saying that as commander-in-chief he "was sad news for the Russians."

Why Syrskyi's parents still live in Russia

As a child, Oleksandr Syrskyi lived with his family five kilometers from the village of Novyky, Vladimir region of the Russian Federation, in the military garrison Kosterevo-1. His father Stanislav, who was a career soldier in the Soviet Army, served there.

ADVERTISIMENT

At one time, the military camp was classified. Now it is considered inactive, but Radio Liberty journalists who filmed a story about it noticed a lot of military vehicles and people in camouflage in civilian cars. The school where Syrskyi began his studies was named by the Russians after one of the occupiers who was eliminated at the beginning of the Russian army's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

According to investigators, in 1970, Stanislav Syrskyi was sent to serve in Ukraine and took his family with him. Therefore, Oleksandr Syrskyi finished his schooling in Kharkiv.

But his younger brother, now 50, and their parents, who have already crossed the 80-year mark, still live in a residential area of the city of Vladimir, in a simple panel house. The brother works as a security guard at a local supermarket. He claimed that his elder brother does not keep in touch with his family in Russia. His parents, according to Russian media reports, learned about his appointment only from the news.

ADVERTISIMENT

The neighbors of the Syrskyi family suggested that the elderly couple were "ashamed" of their son. The Russians are also convinced that the head of the Armed Forces, who considers Kharkiv his hometown and whose entire military service is connected to Ukraine, "chose the wrong side."

What he said about the de-occupation of Crimea and the return of the 1991 borders

The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has recently stated that the Defense Forces will do everything possible to return to the 1991 borders. In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, Syrskyi spoke about the effective work of naval drones, which sank about a third of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

He clarified that the key goal of this work of the defenders is to destroy the Kerch Bridge, a road and railroad crossing that connects the temporarily occupied peninsula with Russia. However, he refused to say when this might happen.

ADVERTISIMENT

According to him, Kyiv had a realistic plan to de-occupy Crimea, but it was a military secret.

"It is realistic. Of course, it is a big military secret. We will do everything possible to achieve the internationally recognized borders of 1991. We have to win... to liberate our citizens who are in the occupied territories, who are suffering," said the colonel general.

How does he see the end of the war and what is needed for this

The Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine assured that Ukraine can end the war with Russia only by fully restoring its territorial integrity. He emphasized that to do so, the entire Ukrainian people must unite around a common goal  victory.

ADVERTISIMENT

Because there is not always help from the outside, so we need to increase the volume of our weapons. This process has already been launched. We must rely primarily on our strength," Syrskyi summarized.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
Citizens concerned with missing provisions in UDC due to 'oversight' from planning director

Cleaning up language and shoring up missing items from former zoning and planning codes are issues 77 amendments to Lubbock's Unified Development Code seek to address.

Here are the top two takeaways from the public hearing the Lubbock City Council hosted Thursday night.

Where did these amendments come from - City staff or private citizens?

One striking issue from the meeting was where these amendments came from. Jordan Wheatley, chair of the city's Planning & Zoning Commission, noted during the meeting that the city's staff did not discuss the amendments with the commission prior to Thursday's meeting.

The city's attorney said that this meeting was only a public hearing and that the amendments would be sent to the commission to discuss in detail at a later meeting.

However, Terry Holeman, a private citizen associated with the West Texas Homebuilder Association, presented the council and commission explanations of some of the amendments pertaining to landscaping he said the association worked with city staff to craft.

Since the meeting was a public hearing, Mayor Mark McBrayer noted at the beginning that private citizens should limit comments to three minutes. Holeman and his associates were able to speak for under an hour and were asked questions from the council.

At no time during this timeframe did the city's planning director speak or answer any questions about the amendments.

More in council news: Lubbock City Council cuts First Friday Art Trail funding over LGBT events, drag show

'Oversight' from city's department on missing items raising concerns from citizens

Three citizens opposed some of the amendments, with one being Amendment 23, which relates to the council requiring a supermajority vote to override a recommendation the P&Z commission votes against.

Kristen Sager previously told the A-J that this process was in the former code but was unintentionally left out during the drafting of the first version of the UDC.

A citizen was concerned that the proposed amendment "takes power away from those elected."

Dr. Jennifer Wilson, councilwoman for District 5, raised a question of whether the P&Z commission was consulted about adding the amendment back into the UDC, to which Wheatley replied no.

Another citizen was concerned about the provision protecting the brick roads downtown also being left out from the UDC  and was told by Sager that it was an oversight on her part.

City staff recommended that if the council chooses to consider adding the ordinance back, they could add it back but not in the UDC, but in Chapter 36 of the city charter pertaining to streets at a later date.

What's next?

No vote was taken at this meeting as it was only a public hearing. The Planning and Zoning Commission will consider the amendments at its regularly scheduled meeting on Aug. 1.

The city council will then consider the amendments on Aug. 13.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Top takeaways from Lubbock's Unified Development Code public hearing
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.

SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties including North Dakotas filed a complaint Thursday with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

This is plain common sense, North Dakota GOP Chairwoman Sandra Sanford said in a statement. Kamala Harris took nearly $96 million in campaign funds that were donated to Joe Biden for his presidential campaign. That is against the law and unfair to the donors who believed they were giving to a very different candidate.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.

North Dakota Monitor staff contributed to this report.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors, or redesignated or reattributed as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election.

 Charles Kretchmer Lutvak, campaign spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties, and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
After months of fighting for the Ukrainian Defense Forces' bridgehead on the left bank of the Kherson region, the village of Krynky was almost destroyed. However, Ukrainian soldiers are continuing their operations in the occupied part of the region.

ADVERTISIMENT

Ukrainian soldiers are performing combat missions and holding positions on the left bank of the Dnipro River, including near the village of Krynky. This was stated by Dmytro Lykhovii, a representative of the Tavria operational and strategic group of troops, in a commentary to Krym.Realii.

Lykhovii emphasized that the Ukrainian Defense Forces continue to perform combat missions on the left bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region, including near the village of Krynky and on the islands in the area.

"The fact that the positions of Ukrainian forces in the village of Krynky were destroyed to the ground as a result of intense, prolonged enemy shelling and air strikes was also taken into account. The village itself is almost destroyed. There is no possibility to keep the defense there, no possibility to hold on to any fortifications, and therefore Ukrainian defenders are on other specific positions and bridgeheads, as well as on the left bank of the Dnipro," said Lykhovii.

ADVERTISIMENT

According to him, in the area of responsibility of the Tavria operational group of troops, the Prydniprovskyi direction is "the hottest, but relatively speaking, there are enemy assaults there every day."

"There are relatively more of them compared to other sections of our combat line in our operational area, but these figures are measured in numbers of about three or four per day, sometimes two. Sometimes it can be about a dozen... This is a little less intense than before, but Russian attempts to advance to our footholds continue, but they remain unsuccessful," emphasized Likhovyi.

As a reminder, on July 12, the online premiere of the documentary "Krynky" took place. It tells the story of the soldiers who held a bridgehead on a small piece of the occupied left bank for many months. The film captures the "living testimonies of those who saw death and came back to life."

ADVERTISIMENT

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber . Do not fall for fakes!
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images) (This image cannot be republished unless you have a Getty subscription.)

A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

The FEC declined to comment and the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to States Newsrooms request for comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Photo via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Tuesday is the largest single day of presidential nominating contests, with 15 states and one U.S. territory holding primaries and caucuses. (Getty Images)

The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.

This report has been updated with a comment from the Harris campaign.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Closeup of election vote button with text that says 2024. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties filed a complaint Thursday with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. Getty Images.

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

The FEC declined to comment and the Harris campaign did not immediately respond to States Newsrooms request for comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

Sean Cooksey, the Republican chair of the FEC appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
First lady Jilly Biden, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Douglas Emhoff join hands as they depart a Reproductive Freedom Campaign Rally" at George Mason University on January 23, 2024 in Manassas, Virginia. The conservative group Citizens United, 16 state Republican parties and one territorial GOP party filed a complaint with the FEC on Thursday over the transfer of campaign funds from the Biden campaign to the Harris campaign. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties, including South Carolinas, filed a complaint Thursday with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies. But baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

South Carolina GOP Chairman Drew McKissick said he hopes the FEC takes urgent action to stop this illegal and unethical transfer of funds.

The law is clear: those funds were given to Biden for President, not Harris for President, or even Biden-Harris, and Joe Biden cant simply give her $96 million, McKissick said in a statement. There is no joint bank account with a vice-presidential candidate until after they officially become the nominees of their party. This was a blatant, illegal money grab, pure and simple.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
The occupying country, Russia, declares its intention to move troops to the right bank of the Dnipro River and demonstrates some attempts to force the river. However, this is an extremely difficult task that the enemy will not be able to accomplish for objective reasons.

ADVERTISIMENT

First of all, because the positions of the Defense Forces on the right bank are very strong. This opinion was expressed in an exclusive interview with OBOZ.UA by Volodymyr Zablotskyi, a naval expert, columnist for Defense Express magazine, researcher at the National Military History Museum of Ukraine, and retired captain of the first rank.

"The enemy has already declared this intention and is amassing troops. But he will not succeed. Rather, it should be seen as a means to seize the initiative, which was on our side in this part of the front, here in the south, unlike in Donbas," he said.

According to Zablotskyi, the attempt to force the Dnipro River is contrary to common sense, as this task is virtually impossible to accomplish. "Because we are on a high bank, our artillery can see further and shoot further than the Russians. So, they will not be able to approach the shore."

ADVERTISIMENT

Speaking about the withdrawal of the Defense Forces from Krynky and Urozhayne, located on the left bank of the Dnipro River, the expert noted: "There was no point in holding the bridgehead when the enemy dominates the air and destroys everything it sees with its drones. Everything has been destroyed there, there is nowhere to gain a foothold, and we were forced to withdraw."

"But we will still liberate the left bank. By the way, we still have footholds on the left bank, closer to Kherson. The situation is dynamic, it is a war," he summarized.

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
(Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
City of Oviedo hosts swim lessons to help prevent drownings

Some residents in Oviedo are now more educated on ways to prevent drownings.

World Drowning Prevention Day was recognized by the City of Oviedo as it hosted swim lessons at the Riverside Park Pool.

From 2019 to 2021, Florida had the highest rate of unintentional drowning deaths in kids between 1 and 4 years old.

Read: Living in a nightmare: Sanford family shares story after son nearly drowns in apartment pool

Experts spoke to families about the importance of learning how to swim.

Its a huge issue across the board, we start swim lessons as young as six months all the way up to adults. We teach beginners, advanced all across the board what they need to know, said Kristen Stansell, aquatics supervisor with the City of Oviedo.

Read: Amazing job: Officers act quickly to prevent swimming pool tragedy in Cocoa

The city will be offering swim lessons until Aug. 1.

Individual lessons are also available through the Oviedo Aquatics Program.

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4)  A simple mistake from a Salt Lake City worker killed nearly 200 trees along North Temple on the citys west side. Now the city is looking at options to restore the canopy.

Toby Hazelbaker, the director of the citys parks division, said the mishap affected trees along the corridors planter section, from 700 West to Redwood Road in the Fairview neighborhood. So far, 175 trees have died while others are clinging to life.

This was a single worker, and this was a very unfortunate mistake, Hazelbaker said. This is a worker who cares a lot about their job and was devastated to learn this had happened.

Hogle Zoo fan favorite cat dies of kidney disease

Per an ongoing investigation by the city, the incident happened last year, when the worker sprayed a common herbicide called Milestone on the base of the trees. The chemical is designed to kill invasive weeds, but its not meant to be used on delicate, decorative trees.

Early this summer, the city started noticing the leaves on several trees along North Temple curling and dying. Thats when the citys urban foresters determined it was because of the dosage of the herbicide. In the weeks that followed, the city has worked to tend to the trees that are still alive.

Were going to try to save everything we can, Hazelbaker said.

Whats next?

As of Thursday, the dead trees remain standing on North Temple as the city explores how to move forward. One key question is whether or not the herbicide still lingers in the soil. Once that is known, steps can be taken to replace the canopy.

In the meantime, options are on the table, Hazelbaker said. One would involve bringing in large planters with fresh soil and planting medium-sized shade trees inside them. These trees could stay in the planters until the soil is cleaned up, at which point the trees could be replanted.

This work could be done as soon as this fall, Hazelbaker said. Currently, the city is getting quotes on how much it will cost to remove the dead trees, as the work would be done by multiple city agencies as well as contractors.

Right now, of course, the shade canopy along North Temple has been reduced, which, especially on the west side, especially in this heat, is a sad thing to see, Hazelbaker said. The area is not as beautiful as it could be. Were looking to have the trees removed fairly soon.

Trees already lacking on the west side

Over the weekend, the Fairpark Community Council said on social media that they were heartbroken about the dead and dying trees, encouraging those with concerns to reach out to city officials.

The Fairpark neighborhood, located in Salt Lake Citys northwest, is in an area that has historically lacked tree canopy when compared to neighborhoods east of State Street. Because of this, the citys west side is hotter on sweltering summer days, recent studies show, as more heat-absorbing surfaces are exposed.



To remedy this, Mayor Erin Mendenhall has made it a point every year to plant 1,000 trees on the citys west side. The program is currently in its fifth year.

In an effort to make sure another tree-killing mistake doesnt happen in the futre, the city revamped its training for those certified to spray herbicides, Hazelbaker said. Additionally, the city set up a double failsafe system that includes supervisors and warehouse staff tightly controlling what comes and goes in their inventory.

As for the worker who sprayed the herbicide, any discipline will be handled by the citys human resources department, Hazelbaker said, noting the incident 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 ABC4 Utah.
Clancy murder case: Trial date soon? Here's the latest on mom accused of killing 3 kids

BROCKTON  The case against Lindsay Clancy is moving closer to a trial date.

Clancy is charged with murder in the deaths of her three young children at the Duxbury home she shared with her husband, Patrick, on Jan. 24, 2023.

A brief status update on the case was held in Brockton Superior Court on Friday.

During the hearing, Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Amanda Fowle updated Judge William Sullivan on the status of a pending DNA test of a cheek swab taken from Clancy several months ago. Whether there is a specific purpose behind the swab other than general evidence collecting has not been revealed.

Fowle said the state DNA testing lab has the sample in its queue, but she noted that the wait line is long.

Being able to set a trial date for the case would put the DNA sample higher on the priority list, Fowle said. During the last court date in May, the wait time was estimated at three to six months.

Both Fowle and Clancy's attorney, Kevin Reddington, said other elements of the case were progressing to the point where setting a trial date may be on the horizon.

The next case update is scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27.

Clancy accused of strangling her 3 young children

Prosecutors say Clancy, a former nurse, had a a deliberate plan to get her husband out of the house. They say she strangled her children and then took a phone call from her husband, Patrick. That was after she sent him to a Kingston CVS and before he picked up dinner in North Plymouth.

Clancy documents released: Read the 300 pages for yourself

Unsealed search warrants and other documents detailed that Clancy kept journals of her prescriptions for depression as well her feelings in general.

Among those entries were references to self-harm as well as expressions of wanting to harm her children, Cora, 5, Dawson, 3, and Callan, 8 months.

Cora and Dawson died in the home. Callan was still alive when paramedics found him severely injured the night of the slayings. He died at Boston Children's Hospital a short time later.

Clancy is charged with three counts each of murder and strangulation.

The chief medical examiner said the children died of asphyxia. Exercise bands were used to strangle them, authorities said. Bands were collected from the home, according to police records.

Where is Lindsay Clancy now?

Clancy is being held without bail at Tewksbury Hospital. She has waived her appearance at the hearings since her September 2023 indictment. She is likely to continue doing so. She suffered debilitating nerve damage the night of her children's deaths.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Case of Lindsay Clancy, accused in death of 3 kids, is back in court
(Photo: April Corbin Girnus/Nevada Current)

Clark County School District expects to have a new superintendent picked by the end of October, according to a timeline approved earlier this month and discussed by trustees again Thursday.

Hazard Young Attea Associates (HYA)  the search firm hired by the district  plans to begin advertising nationally for the position in August, with the deadline for applications set for Sept. 30 and a slate of candidates to be presented to the Clark County School Board on Oct. 2.

Trustees will hold three special board meetings in October to interview and narrow down candidates, with the final selection tentatively scheduled for a special board meeting on Thursday, Oct. 30. November is listed on the search firms timeline as a transition period for the district.

The established timeline means the decision on who should head the district will be made by the school boards current seven trustees -- three of whom will leave office soon after the new superintendent is chosen. Four trustees have terms that end this year, but only one, School Board President Evelyn Garcia Morales, is running for reelection. The winners of the November election will not be sworn into office until early January.

The superintendent search is expected to garner interest from the district's employees, parents, advocates, the business community, and state lawmakers, who have become increasingly involved and vocal about their dissatisfaction with the district.

An online survey will be available during the last half of August. Everyone in the public will be able to participate, but trustees have identified several groups whose answers they want to disaggregate in order to consider more closely. Those key groups include: district staff, parents of students, and former employees of the district. A draft of the survey shows it asks for opinions about the current state of the district -- such as whether you believe the district is heading in the right direction -- and then asks to select four priorities for the next superintendent.

The survey will be available in multiple languages.

In addition to the online survey, a series of focus groups will be held during the second half of August. Trustees submitted to HYA individuals and groups they want to participate, including labor unions (both ones like the Clark County Education Association that represent employee groups and others who dont represent employees but are prominent in the community), state lawmakers, community nonprofits, state agencies, chambers of commerce, and groups like the ACLU and No Racism In Schools that have served as watchdogs for the district.

Community input, along with preferences expressed in interviews between HYA and trustees individually, will be used to compile a Leadership Profile that highlights the characteristics wanted in the next superintendent. That leadership profile is expected to be approved by trustees during their regular board meeting on Sept. 26 and candidates selected for consideration will be compared to it.

Trustees during their work session meeting Thursday agreed to list the superintendents annual salary range as $350,000 to $400,000, but that range is not binding and will be subject to negotiations between the final candidate and district.

CCSDs most recent superintendent, Jesus Jara, whose tumultuous tenure ended earlier this year amid a flurry of controversy, left making $395,000 a year.

HYA noted that Nevada law limits the district from offering certain employment benefits -- like 100% family coverage with no contribution from the superintendent and payment of the superintendents obligatory pension contributions -- that are common in packages provided by other large school districts. An HYA representative noted that factor may lead to a higher base salary comparative to other districts.

Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest school district in the nation, provides its current superintendent with a $440,000 annual salary, a $1.5 million district-paid life insurance policy, full coverage without contribution for family health insurance, car and vehicle expenses, a cell phone, a $50,000 annual contribution to an annuity account, payment of superintendents obligatory pension contribution, and a $50,000 relocation payment.

The current superintendent of Miami-Dade County School District, the sixth largest school district in the nation, makes a salary of approximately $392,000. Benefits include a $900 per month expense allowance, leased car and all car expenses, participation in any benefit plan offered by the district without cost to the superintendent, and $6,000 a year to purchase additional life insurance and disability insurance.

CCSD is the fifth largest school district in the county.
By David Stanway

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Climate change is driving changes in rainfall patterns across the world, scientists said in a paper published on Friday, which could also be intensifying typhoons and other tropical storms.

Taiwan, the Philippines and then China were lashed by the year's most powerful typhoon this week, with schools, businesses and financial markets shut as wind speeds surged up to 227 kph (141 mph). On China's eastern coast, hundreds of thousands of people were evacuated ahead of landfall on Thursday.

Stronger tropical storms are part of a wider phenomenon of weather extremes driven by higher temperatures, scientists say.

Researchers led by Zhang Wenxia at the China Academy of Sciences studied historical meteorological data and found about 75% of the world's land area had seen a rise in "precipitation variability" or wider swings between wet and dry weather.

Warming temperatures have enhanced the ability of the atmosphere to hold moisture, which is causing wider fluctuations in rainfall, the researchers said in a paper published by the Science journal.

"(Variability) has increased in most places, including Australia, which means rainier rain periods and drier dry periods," said Steven Sherwood, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, who was not involved in the study.

"This is going to increase as global warming continues, enhancing the chances of droughts and/or floods."

FEWER, BUT MORE INTENSE, STORMS

Scientists believe that climate change is also reshaping the behaviour of tropical storms, including typhoons, making them less frequent but more powerful.

"I believe higher water vapour in the atmosphere is the ultimate cause of all of these tendencies toward more extreme hydrologic phenomena," Sherwood told Reuters.

Typhoon Gaemi, which first made landfall in Taiwan on Wednesday, was the strongest to hit the island in eight years.

While it is difficult to attribute individual weather events to climate change, models predict that global warming makes typhoons stronger, said Sachie Kanada, a researcher at Japan's Nagoya University.

"In general, warmer sea surface temperature is a favourable condition for tropical cyclone development," she said.

In its "blue paper" on climate change published this month, China said the number of typhoons in the Northwest Pacific and South China Sea had declined significantly since the 1990s, but they were getting stronger.

Taiwan also said in its climate change report published in May that climate change was likely to reduce the overall number of typhoons in the region while making each one more intense.

The decrease in the number of typhoons is due to the uneven pattern of ocean warming, with temperatures rising faster in the western Pacific than the east, said Feng Xiangbo, a tropical cyclone research scientist at the University of Reading.

Water vapour capacity in the lower atmosphere is expected to rise by 7% for each 1 degree Celsius increase in temperatures, with tropical cyclone rainfall in the United States surging by as much as 40% for each single degree rise, he said.

(Reporting by David Stanway; editing by Miral Fahmy)
CLYDE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC)  Clyde first responders battled a house fire on Thursday afternoon, saving animals in the process.

At about 12:30 p.m. on July 25, a call was made for a house fire in the 7900 block of County Road 250 in Clyde.

According to the lead paramedic on the scene, no one was home at the time, although animals were present in the house. After about 20 minutes of battling the flames, a firefighter successfully rescued a distressed dog. The dog was then taken to animal control and emergency medical services on the scene, which provided oxygen and cooling measures. The dog is expected to recover.

She added that the fire is considered a total loss, and the Red Cross is in contact with the family. The blaze was controlled in about 3-4 hours, and the cause is unknown.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com.
A coal-fired power plant in Romeoville, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Utility companies in Louisiana saddled in- and out-of-state customers with $340 million in unnecessary costs over the past three years by choosing to run outdated, inefficient coal plants when cleaner, more affordable energy sources were available, according to a recent study an environmental group commissioned.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, a coalition of environmental lawyers, scientists, advocates and other experts, commissioned the study from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm out of Washington D.C., to analyze the operating costs of power plants that supply electricity to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) market. The countrys largest regional electric grid, MISO covers most of Louisiana and spans into a large swath of the Midwest and parts of Canada.

Grid operators such as MISO handle the daily buying and selling of electricity among power generators and utility companies across the grid. MISO is designed to ensure the lowest-cost sources of electricity, such as wind and solar, are used before higher-cost resources such as coal. The power plants decide how much electricity to generate for the MISO grid in accordance with day-ahead demand forecasts.

The cost of the last and most expensive power resource needed to meet the daily demand establishes the market clearing price for all electricity bought and sold across the grid. This allows the costliest resource to break even while all the lower-cost resources earn a profit because the market price is greater than their cost of producing electricity.

The study found several power generators across MISO continued to use their coal plants when they werent needed and forced more affordable wind, solar and natural gas plants to curtail their output. Because of this, ratepayers across MISO have borne more than $1 billion in excess costs from 2021 to 2023, and those costs were most pronounced in Louisiana, Indiana and North Dakota, according to the study.

Ratepayers in Louisiana lost a total of $340 million, largely from a single power plant, a Big Cajun 2 coal unit located in Pointe Coupee Parish. Cleco Power, the majority owner of the plant during the timeframe of the study, did not respond to a request for comment. Last month, Cleco sold its majority stake to Atlas Capital, a private equity firm.

Other coal plants in Louisiana also contributed to the excess costs. The R. S. Nelson Generating Plant in Calcasieu Parish, owned by Entergy, is the second least economic coal plant in the state, burdening ratepayers with nearly $49 million in excess costs over the past three years. The third worst, according to the study, was Clecos Brame Energy Center coal plant in Rapides Parish, which saddled customers with $24 million in excess costs from 2021 to 2023.

Large utility companies with their own power generation, like Entergy Louisiana and Cleco, have little incentive to give up their old inefficient coal plants. Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, said the utilities are largely indifferent to fuel prices because state regulators allow them to pass all of their costs through to their customers. As a result, they risk nothing by operating a coal plant when the price of coal skyrockets.

Also, most lower-cost renewable power resources are owned by independent producers who sign contracts to sell their energy to utilities, and the purchasing utility does not typically earn much of a profit from that arrangement. As a result, retiring a utility-owned coal plant to replace it with renewable resources owned by an independent producer directly reduces the utilitys profit, the study noted.

The problem is not exactly a new one, but state regulators have been slow to respond in ways that would prevent it. The Louisiana Public Service Commission recently approved a $125 million refund to customers for the uneconomic dispatches of Clecos Dolet Hills coal plant. The judge in the case actually recommended a higher settlement of $183 million, but the commissioners reduced the final payment.

Cases like that are often settled long after the fact and are usually spearheaded by third-party groups and nonprofit organizations. Case in point, last month the Public Service Commission approved an agreement the Sierra Club spearheaded that will require Cleco to switch off two of its Brame Energy Center units whenever more affordable electricity is available. The decision came after analysis by the Sierra Club found the plants operated at a total loss of over $51 million in 2023  losses that will be passed on to Clecos customers.

The Sierra Club intervened in Clecos recent rate case and lobbied the commissioners to require the utility to commit to turning off its coal plants whenever they become uneconomic to run.

Despite these examples, some politicians frequently tout Louisiana as having the lowest per kilowatt-hour energy rates in the country. Public Service Commissioner Eric Skrmetta even said it during a nationally-televised statement at the Republican National Convention last week.

However, Burke explained that the claim is misleading as it fails to paint an accurate picture of the cost of electricity in the state. The true cost of energy is reflected in the actual amounts billed to customers each month, which averages out to be one of the highest in the country, she said.

Customers dont just pay a per kilowatt-hour rate, Burke said. It would be great if they did.

Instead, they pay a myriad of other costs and fees that utility companies add to the bills on top of the per kilowatt-hour rate. These include line items such as a customer charge, an energy charge and a storm restoration offset, among others. More information about those fees can usually be found on a utility companys website.

Theyre actually paying for climate [change] on their bills, Burke said.

Louisiana Illuminator is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Louisiana Illuminator maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Greg LaRose for questions: info@lailluminator.com. Follow Louisiana Illuminator on Facebook and X.
MERCER COUNTY, WV (WVNS)  The Mercer County Animal Shelter announced that they are in Code Red as of Friday, July 26, 2024.

Fayette County Humane Society announces Code Red status

According to a post on the Mercer County Animal Shelters Facebook page, they are in Code Red status with 86 dogs at the shelter.

Members of the Mercer County Animal Shelter asked community members to come to the shelter and find a fur-ever friend to bring home.

Intake policy at Greenbrier Humane Society temporarily changed due to being at full capacity

Available animals can be found on the Mercer County Animal Shelters Facebook page, and fees at the shelter will be waived until 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024.

The Mercer County Animal Shelter is located at 961 Shelter Road, in Princeton, 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.
Russia has started using new, cheap drones made of foam and plywood in its long-range attacks against Ukraine. They are equipped with cameras and Ukrainian SIM cards, look like Shaheds, and fly in groups, but do not carry explosives. The goal of the occupiers is to try to detect air defense systems, repair any damage, and use drones as a distraction.

ADVERTISIMENT

Andrii Cherniak, a representative of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, told Reuters. According to him, the two new types of UAVs that Russia has used in five attacks over the past two to three weeks, including a night strike on Thursday, July 25, are made of materials such as foam and plywood.

One type is equipped with a camera and a Ukrainian SIM card to send photos to the Russian military.

"They are determining where our mobile groups are located, where the machine guns are that can destroy them. They are trying to... get an idea of where all our air defense assets are located," Cherniak said.

Cherniak's previously unknown details are further evidence that Russia is seeking to adapt its tactics and test new technologies to gain an advantage in its daily missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, Reuters reports.

ADVERTISIMENT

The Iranian-developed Shaheds, which fly to a target and explode on impact, have been a staple of Russian air attacks since they were first used in the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion.

Ukraine, which since March has been asking the West for more air defense equipment to repel Russia's increasingly frequent air strikes on its energy facilities, is trying hard to hide the location of its air defense systems, the article says.

According to Cherniak, the new Russian drones with cameras do not carry explosives, but are very similar to conventional Shaheds and fly in groups.

The second new type of drone does not contain explosives or contains only a small charge and is used as a decoy, Cherniak said.

ADVERTISIMENT

Since it is virtually indistinguishable from the ground from a conventional attack drone, it still needs to be shot down to reveal the location of Ukraine's air defense.

The new drones are likely to cost only $10,000 each, despite their long range, making them much cheaper to produce than air defense missiles, according to the DIU official.

The UAVs can also fly at an altitude of 1,000 meters, making them beyond the reach of machine guns and automatic rifles.

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine has become a testing ground for drone warfare technologies, with both sides making extensive use of attack and reconnaissance drones on the battlefield. Kyiv has invested in domestic drone production to close the gap between its strike capabilities and those of Moscow, organizing long-range drone attacks on Russian targets, including oil refineries," the Reuters article says.

ADVERTISIMENT

Only verified information is available on our Telegram channel OBOZ.UA and Viber. Do not fall for fakes!
College student dies in fall at Yosemite Half Dome  her tragic last words to her dad

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (WJW)  Loved ones are mourning the death of an Arizona State University student who died falling from the Half Dome rock formation in Yosemite National Park earlier this month.

Grace Rohloff, a 20-year-old Arizona woman, was hiking with her father Jonathan at Yosemite National Park on July 13, as reported by SFGATE and FOX 10 Phoenix.

Her father told SFGATE that Grace, an experienced hiker who had traveled thousands of miles with him over the years, considered the Half Dome an item on her bucket list.

Cameras tracking rare snake in NE Ohio

The pair and other hikers made their way to the top of a 400-foot stretch of the trail supported by cables, where they took photos of the Yosemite Valley below, SFGATE reported.

Skies were clear at the time, Jonathan told FOX 10 in an interview.

She shared with me that she loved me and how she was so grateful to do that, he told the news outlet. It wasnt long we heard that thunderclap and so we knew. I was like, Grace, weve got to get down the mountain. We dont want any rain.'

As the hikers made their way back down the cables, a strong rainstorm rolled in, making the granite slick.

As reported by SFGATE, Jonathan recalled his daughter, who was wearing new hiking shoes at the time, saying, Dad, my shoes are so slippery.

He told her to take it one step at a time, but shortly after, Graces feet went out from under her and she slid off the side.

Grace fell 200 to 300 feet, and Jonathan told FOX 10 he rushed to get to his daughter, but the mountain was too steep.

I continued to yell out to her and let her know, Im here, I love you. Hear my voice, Im not going to leave you,' Jonathan said in the interview.

Boneless chicken wings can have bones: Ohio Supreme Court

Rescuers were called to the scene and Graces body was later recovered. According to SFGATE, coroners believe she likely died of a serious head fracture during the fall.

Jonathan is now advocating for a safer cable system on the trail, FOX 10 reported.

The Half Dome rises 8,800 feet above sea level. The 14- to 16-mile hike to and from the Half Dome takes about 10 to 12 hours, according to the National Park Service.

The NPS website also says, the two metal cables allow hikers to climb the last 400 feet to the summit without rock climbing equipment. Since 1919, relatively few people have fallen and died on the cables.

FOX 8 News reached out to the National Park Service, who released the following statement:

The incident is under investigation, and we cant comment while it is 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 Fox 8 Cleveland WJW.
Two notable Sarasota and Manatee public figures appeared in the gallery Thursday during the trial of Ashley Benefield, a former ballerina accused of killing her estranged husband in 2020.

New College of Florida President Richard Corcoran and New College General Counsel Bill Galvano sat behind the defendants table in the gallery during the afternoon of the third day of trial.

Ashley Benefield trial: Psychologist, Manatee County detectives testify

Keep reading: Ashley Benefield case dubbed 'Black Swan murder trial' by media. What does that term mean?

Ashley Benefield, 32, is accused of shooting and killing her estranged husband, Doug Benefield, in September 2020. She was arrested a little more than a month after the shooting in November and charged with second-degree murder with a firearm.

In a case that has captured national attention, the former ballerina and Lakewood Ranch mother is claiming that she fired her gun in self-defense against Doug Benefield, whom she had married in 2016 following a whirlwind 13-day romance after the two met at a political event. Ashley Benefield alleges her estranged husband was a domestic violence abuser.

The prosecution is arguing that Ashley Benefield killed her estranged husband, who was 30 years her senior, to stop him from seeing a psychological evaluation report that was set to be released three days after the shooting. The report would have revealed that Ashley Benefield had no intention of reconciling her marriage with her husband, according to testimony.

Why was New College President Richard Corcoran in the courtroom?

New College President Richard Corcoran leaves the courtroom after sitting for awhile in the gallery during Ashley Benefields trial for the second-degree murder of her husband, Doug Benefield, in 2020 at the Manatee County Judicial Center, July 25, 2024.

When approached by two reporters after leaving the courtroom shortly before the testimony of the medical examiner, the reporters relayed that Corcoran mentioned he was in the area for lunch and decided to stop by.

A spokesperson for New College responded to an inquiry from a Herald-Tribune reporter that Corcoran stopped by the courtroom as an interested civilian and is not a party involved in the case.

"His presence was not related to New College of Florida and Mr. Corcoran is not a part involved in the trial," the spokesperson said in the text.

Keep reading: DeSantis speaks at New College, applauds Corcoran for the school's transformation

More: New College of Florida set to punish student protesters following boos at commencement

Bill Galvano's connection to the case

Galvano is a Bradenton attorney with the law firm Grimes Hawkins Gladfelter and Galvano P.L. with close to 30 years of experience, according to the firms website. Defense attorney Neil Taylor is an attorney from the same firm and is representing Ashley Benefield.

Galvano previously served as the 88th president of the Florida Senate until he retired in 2020 after serving in the Legislature for 16 years.

He left behind a long legislative career that saw Galvano become one of the most dominant forces in state politics," according to previous Herald-Tribune reporting.

Previous reporting: The complicated legacy of Bradentons Bill Galvano, one of Floridas most powerful lawmakers

Galvano is currently the general counsel for New College. Text messages from Trustee Matthew Spalding released last year showed his efforts in coordinating with other board members behind the scenes to move towards hiring both Corcoran as interim president and Galvano as general counsel.

Gabriela Szymanowska covers the legal system for the Herald-Tribune in partnership with Report for America. You can support her work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America. Contact Gabriela Szymanowska at gszymanowska@gannett.com, or on X: @GabrielaSzyman3.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New College's president, attorney appeared in court for Ashley Benefield trial
(Bloomberg) -- Colombian finance minister Ricardo Bonilla denied any wrongdoing and said he wont resign after prosecutors mentioned him in an embezzlement probe.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Bonilla told Noticias Caracol that he is asking prosecutors to let him show that he had no part in corruption involving former officials at the governments risk management agency.

I am asking the Attorney Generals Office to listen to me. There is no wrongdoing here, Bonilla said in an interview broadcast Thursday.

On Thursday, a prosecutor said in a hearing that the top two officials at the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD) had coordinated with Bonilla to reroute public money for some municipalities that supposedly had climate emergencies.

Prosecutors havent formally accused Bonilla of any crime and President Gustavo Petro said he believes in his ministers innocence.

Credicorp Capital wrote a note to clients that markets will keep an eye on the investigations since Minister Bonilla has gained credibility among investors and a possible change of Finance Minister would be undesirable and unwelcome.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
(COLORADO)  The Airport Improvement Program (AIP) by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) awarded close to $500 million to help airport infrastructures around the country.

The grant funds projects involving runways, taxiways, airport signage, airport lighting, and airport markings. Each year, airports are entitled to a certain amount of AIP funding based on passenger volume.

The FAA announced a list of the winners in June and most recently, Friday, July 26. The latest release of the grants includes seven airports in Colorado, joining the 14 airports that were awarded in late June.

The biggest award in July  located in Colorado  was granted to Denver International Airport (DIA), and the $6,366,686 million grant will be used to rehabilitate the taxiway. The second biggest grant of $1.2 million was given to Yampa Valley Aiport in Hayden. It will be used to acquire aircraft rescue and fire fighting safety equipment and a vehicle.

Other local airports that received awards on July 26 include:

Wray Municipal Airport : $615,834 to construct a taxiway.

Telluride Regional : $583,377 to build apron.

Greely-Weld County : $513,559 to rehabilitate apron.

Cortez Municipal : $365,574 to reconstruct a terminal access road.

Monte Vista Municipal: $134,347 to extend/expand taxiway.

Other airports that received an award in June included:

Kit Carson County : $3,519,002 to reconstruct taxiway.

Montrose Regional : $1,213,759 to acquire snow removal equipment.

Eagle County Regional : $750,000 to reconstruct taxiway.

Northern Colorado Regional : $609,290 to rehabilitate taxiway.

Blake Field : $520,987 to reconstruct apron.

Colorado Plans Regional : $422,109 to expand apron.

Erie Municipal : $380,382 to rehabilitate apron and taxiway.

Yuma Municipal : $365,573 to reconstruct taxiway.

Vance Brand : $315,000 to install perimeter fencing.

Pueblo Memorial : $253,000 to rehabilitate apron.

Central Colorado Regional : $196,377 to expand and rehabilitate apron.

Cortez Municipal : $187,694 to install a runway visual guidance system, reconstruct runway lighting, and rehabilitate the runway.

Lake County : $91,393 to reseal apron pavement, taxiway pavement, and runway pavement. The runway pavement will also be resurfaced.

San Luis Valley Regional/Bergman Field: $59,290 to install an airport rotating beacon and a runway visual guidance system.

Overall, Colorado received over $18 million to fund a variety of airport projects in the state. The FAA awarded hundreds of airports in the country and in American Samoa to invest in airport improvements as well.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX21 News Colorado.
From left, U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse speak with a group of local farmers and officials about the importance of federal right-to-repair legislation at a roundtable on July 26, 2024, at a farm in Longmont. (Lindsey Toomer/Colorado Newsline)

The head of the Federal Trade Commission joined Colorado officials and farmers for a roundtable focusing on the need for federal right-to-repair legislation Friday in Longmont.

Alongside U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper and U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, both Democrats, Lina Khan , chair of the FTC, listened to feedback from farmers about the difficulties they have repairing farming equipment with little access to mechanics and parts as dealers continue to consolidate and limit their options, particularly when machines are still under warranty.

The FTC enforces antitrust and consumer protection laws, which Khan said includes scrutinizing mergers and looking at anti-competitive practices.

As part of that work, weve been scrutinizing illegal repair restrictions, and weve heard a lot, including from farmers, about how, as we see more and more products become more digitized, manufacturers have more and more opportunities to restrict how you all can fix your own products, Khan said.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

For farmers, delays in machine repairs could mean thousands of dollars worth of crops being lost. Members of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union shared stories about how theyve had to get creative to get a machine working when a dealer isnt able to send someone to fix the machine under warranty in a timely manner.

The Colorado Legislature passed a bill last year that starts to address the problem for farmers. State Rep. Brianna Titone, an Arvada Democrat who was present for the roundtable at Ollin Farms, sponsored the bill that requires manufacturers of equipment like tractors and combine harvesters to sell tools, parts and digital information to farmers and independent shops so they can make their own diagnoses and repairs.

Titone, who has led three right-to-repair bills in the Legislature, said that while federal legislation is the ideal solution, states are the incubators of new ideas, and Colorado is the place where we were able to sort of demonstrate whats possible.

Khan said Colorado has some of the strongest right-to-repair legislation in the country.

We need federal legislation that provides agricultural producers the ability to get their equipment fixed in a timely manner so that they can continue to provide the food, fiber and fuel to the people of Colorado, the United States and abroad.

 Tyler Garrett, director of government relations for Rocky Mountain Farmers Union

Tyler Garrett, director of government relations for RMFU, said right-to-repair policy is about protecting competition and freedom of choice. With two of the largest dealers serving Colorado and surrounding states merging last year, Garrett said farmers and ranchers have been left with little to no options.

Right-to-repair legislation, simply put, would give farmers and ranchers the freedom to either repair their own equipment, or to take their equipment to a mechanic of their choice to be repaired, may that be the authorized repair provider or an independent repair provider, Garrett said.

Garrett agreed that while the Colorado policy was a major milestone, federal action is crucial, especially as farmers throughout the state continue to face issues getting the information they need to make repairs despite the requirements of the law that went into effect at the start of this year.

Several participants said Colorados law adds confusion for organizations that work across states, and that it hasnt made as much of a difference as originally hoped, as some dealers and manufacturers continue to withhold information.

We need federal legislation that provides agricultural producers the ability to get their equipment fixed in a timely manner so that they can continue to provide the food, fiber and fuel to the people of Colorado, the United States and abroad, Garrett said.

Neguse is a sponsor of the Agricultural Right to Repair Act introduced in Congress last fall, which would require manufacturers make available certain documents, parts and tools to help farmers make repairs themselves.

Erin Karney-Spaur, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemens Association, said family-owned operations bear the burden of dealer consolidation and that a federal fix will better support them than a piecemeal state-by-state approach.

Danny Wood, also a member of RMFU, said he bought a two-year-old combine harvester for his farm in Peetz, and he was assigned to a warranty dealer in Yuma, which is about 80 miles south. The first day he used the combine, it stopped working after about 100 yards.

The warranty dealer said it likely knew what the problem was, but a mechanic couldnt come for five days to address it. When someone came to fix it, he discovered he needed to order additional parts, which would take another four or five days. And once the parts came in, Wood still needed to schedule a new appointment another four or five days later to get it repaired.

Instead of waiting, Wood found a dealer in Nebraska who had the right parts, so Wood bought them. But because he went to another dealer, he was told the repair wouldnt be covered under warranty. His son fixed the problem within five minutes, and the dealer eventually did cover the fix under his warranty.

Khan said hearing directly from the farmers experiencing the effects of consolidation helps her and the rest of the FTC to understand the reality those in agriculture are working in.

In D.C., its really easy to just hear from the biggest companies or well connected lawyers, and its really important for us to be able to do our jobs as faithful public servants for us to actually hear from the public, Khan said.

Khan also had a listening session with Attorney General Phil Weiser Friday morning in Denver to hear about the challenges Coloradans face with renting housing.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
DENVER (KDVR)  Colorado is getting ready to kick off its next big venture in natural medicine. Before the state begins the licensing process for psilocybin  or so-called magic mushrooms  they are holding a final hearing on the rulemaking process.

People from across Colorado weighed in with various thoughts on the states rules surrounding magic mushrooms, but several people came to the hearing to urge the state to change how the items may be offered so children cannot get them.

Colorado company developing potential prescription psilocybin product

Alton Dillard is a spokesman for One Chance to Grow Up, a group dedicated to keeping young children safe from the use of marijuana. As the state gets ready to take on psilocybin, the group is worried Colorado is going about it wrong.

Anything that appears in soft confection or chocolate form could be appealing to kids, Dillard said. Our thing is  fine, if people believe it has medicinal purposes, were not here to debate that. But if so, have it in medical form, have it in capsule form. Then if you need it to have a good flavor, chase it with a Kit Kat or something. But having it available in gummy form or having it available in chocolate form we just think is going to be risky for protecting our kids.

The group does not want the state to go down the path cannabis did with edible products, saying the items are too easy for kids to access. Unlike cannabis, psilocybin facilitators would supervise the use of the medicine at healing centers.

dry psilocybin mushrooms

How might psilocybin be available in Colorado?

Employees of the Division of Natural Medicine inside the Colorado Department of Revenue said the state was initially only considering dried products like teas and dried mushrooms, as extracting to create products using concentrates adds a layer of complexity to the states regulation. Under the final draft rules, they are considering allowing manufacturers to apply for an extraction endorsement to make items like gummies and chocolates, saying they also did not want to be too restrictive on medicinal options.

If Yellowstones volcanic system erupted, how could it impact Colorado?

Advocates of natural medicine urged the state to follow the practices of ancient medicine.

Id like to give you a perspective from an Indigenous, said Dana Tsyconyea StarByrd of Soulma Wellness, testifying during Thursdays hearing. Cacao, which is the traditional name for chocolate, is considered a teacher plant and a spirit guide. The name of the cacao tree is Theobroma cacao. And so Im suggesting, then, instead of using the word chocolate, we use the word cacao. Most children dont know what cacao is.

A lengthy discussion on packaging, avoiding the use of cartoons and making sure items are properly labeled with whats inside took place during the hearing. The licensing process for psilocybin is set to begin early next 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 FOX31 Denver.
Workers and community members form a picket line outside a Denver King Soopers, after United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 began a strike over stalled labor negotiations on Jan. 12, 2021

Workers and community members form a picket line outside a Denver King Soopers, after United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 began a strike over stalled labor negotiations on Jan. 12, 2021. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)

A Colorado judge has issued an order temporarily blocking the proposed $24.6 billion merger between the nations two largest supermarket chains ahead of an antitrust trial in state court set to begin in September.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in February sued to block the merger between grocery giant Kroger, which operates King Soopers and City Market stores in Colorado, and Albertsons, which operates the Safeway brand. Weisers suit alleges that the deal violates state antitrust laws and would have harmful impacts on consumers, workers, and suppliers. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson have also challenged the merger in court.

Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen on Thursday granted Weisers request for a preliminary injunction against the merger, barring the two companies from completing their deal before a ruling is issued in the case.

Based on the evidence presented by the State in its Motion and the Joint Stipulation, the Court finds there is a reasonable probability that the State will prove its claims against Defendants at trial, Luxen wrote in his order.

Hearings on Weisers request for a preliminary injunction was scheduled to begin Aug. 12. The companies agreed to the temporary injunction to conserve judicial and party resources, according to a stipulation filed with the court Wednesday, and the case will instead proceed to trial in the fall.

I am pleased that Kroger and Albertsons agreed to halt their plans to merge until the court rules on the states lawsuit to permanently block the grocery merger, Weiser said in a statement. This is great news for shoppers, workers, farmers, and other suppliers, who can rest assured that this megamerger will not go into effect during harvest season and while kids are headed back to school.

Kroger, based in Ohio, operates more than 2,700 stores and Albertsons, based in Idaho, operates more than 2,200 stores across the country. Krogers proposed acquisition of Albertsons, one of the largest retail mergers ever proposed, has been opposed by labor unions and consumer advocates who fear that the consolidation could lead to higher prices and decreased wages and bargaining power for workers.

The companies last month detailed a divestiture plan in which they propose to sell 579 locations nationwide  including 91 Safeway stores in Colorado  to New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers, in a bid to allay antitrust concerns. But critics of the plan paint C&S, a supplier that currently operates just 23 retail locations nationwide, as a struggling company with shaky finances, unequipped to operate 579 newly acquired stores as an effective competitor to the merged Kroger-Albertsons behemoth.

We cannot entrust our grocery stores  which are integral to our communities and our workers  to the untested, inexperienced C&S Wholesale Grocers, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 President Kim Cordova, whose union represents more than 23,000 King Soopers and Safeway workers in Colorado and Wyoming, said in a statement earlier this month.

In addition to other antitrust concerns, Weisers yearlong investigation into the merger uncovered evidence of alleged collusion between Kroger and Albertsons during a January 2022 strike by UCFW Local 7 workers at Colorado King Soopers stores: no-poach and non-solicitation deals in which Albertsons agreed not to hire striking King Soopers employees or to attract King Soopers pharmacy customers.

A two-week trial in the Colorado case is scheduled to begin Sept. 30.

My office looks forward to making the case that this merger will eliminate competition and impact food prices, jobs, and consumer choice, Weiser said.

This story was produced by Colorado Newsline.
Workers and community members form a picket line outside a Denver King Soopers, after United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 began a strike over stalled labor negotiations on Jan. 12, 2021. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)

A Colorado judge has issued an order temporarily blocking the proposed $24.6 billion merger between the nations two largest supermarket chains ahead of an antitrust trial in state court set to begin in September.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser sued in February to block the merger between grocery giant Kroger, which operates Bakers supermarkets in Nebraska, and Albertsons, which operates the Safeway brand. Weisers suit alleges that the deal violates state antitrust laws and would have harmful impacts on consumers, workers, and suppliers. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson have also challenged the merger in court.

Denver District Court Judge Andrew Luxen on Thursday granted Weisers request for a preliminary injunction against the merger, barring the two companies from completing their deal before a ruling is issued in the case.

Based on the evidence presented by the State in its Motion and the Joint Stipulation, the Court finds there is a reasonable probability that the State will prove its claims against Defendants at trial, Luxen wrote in his order.

A hearing on Weisers request for a preliminary injunction was scheduled to begin Aug. 12. The companies agreed to the temporary injunction to conserve judicial and party resources, according to a stipulation filed with the court Wednesday, and the case will instead proceed to trial in the fall.

I am pleased that Kroger and Albertsons agreed to halt their plans to merge until the court rules on the states lawsuit to permanently block the grocery merger, Weiser said in a statement. This is great news for shoppers, workers, farmers, and other suppliers, who can rest assured that this megamerger will not go into effect during harvest season and while kids are headed back to school.

Kroger, based in Ohio, operates more than 2,700 stores and Albertsons, based in Idaho, operates more than 2,200 stores across the country. Krogers proposed acquisition of Albertsons, one of the largest retail mergers ever proposed, has been opposed by labor unions and consumer advocates who fear that the consolidation could lead to higher prices along with decreased wages and bargaining power for workers.

The companies last month detailed a divestiture plan in which they propose to sell 579 locations nationwide  including 91 Safeway stores in Colorado  to New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers, in a bid to allay antitrust concerns. But critics of the plan paint C&S, a supplier that currently operates just 23 retail locations nationwide, as a struggling company with shaky finances, unequipped to operate 579 newly acquired stores as an effective competitor to the merged Kroger-Albertsons behemoth.

We cannot entrust our grocery stores  which are integral to our communities and our workers  to the untested, inexperienced C&S Wholesale Grocers, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 President Kim Cordova, whose union represents more than 23,000 King Soopers and Safeway workers in Colorado and Wyoming, said in a statement earlier this month.

In addition to other antitrust concerns, Weisers yearlong investigation into the merger uncovered evidence of alleged collusion between Kroger and Albertsons during a January 2022 strike by UCFW Local 7 workers at Colorado King Soopers stores: no-poach and non-solicitation deals in which Albertsons agreed not to hire striking King Soopers employees or to attract King Soopers pharmacy customers.

A two-week trial in the Colorado case is scheduled to begin Sept. 30.

My office looks forward to making the case that this merger will eliminate competition and impact food prices, jobs, and consumer choice, Weiser said.

Editors note: This article has been updated to correct the ownership of Bakers supermarkets.

This article first appeared in the Colorado Newsline, a sister site of the Nebraska Examiner in the States Newsroom network.
The latest Colorado wolf activity map shows a retraction of the reintroduced predator in Routt and Grand counties, still, those two counties saw three confirmed wolf depredations of livestock during the June 25 to July 23 mapping period.

A collared wolf or wolves killed a sheep July 17 in Grand County and calves on two separate dates: July 10 and July 7. Those were the first confirmed wolf depredations in July since the state's wolf depredations began in December of 2021.

Wolf movement is tracked through GPS collars.

The map is broken down by watersheds, or drainages, which can be large. If a wolf collar indicates a wolf or wolves were, or are, in that watershed, the entire watershed is marked as having wolves in it at some point in the last month. It does not necessarily mean a wolf or wolves are currently in those areas.

Notable movements of Colorado's wolves in latest mapping

Colorado's nine remaining collared wolves appear to have concentrated into the core release area of Grand and Summit counties as well as Jackson County, home to the North Park pack, according to the latest mapping.

Ten wolves were initially reintroduced in late December of 2023 in Grand and Summit counties. One was killed by a mountain lion. The remaining released wolves are still alive, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

Two members of the North Park pack, which formerly numbered eight, are still alive.

Notable differences are in Larimer, Routt, Grand, Eagle and Moffat counties, which saw a reduction of wolf movement in drainages.

The biggest retraction was in eastern Grand County and areas on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park as well as Moffat County.

Collared wolves still have not crossed south of Interstate 70, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. That despite a collared wolf caught on a Colorado Corridors Project game camera June 8 near I-70 on the north side of East Vail Pass.

This collared wolf was caught on a game camera just north of Interstate 70 on East Vail Pass on June 8, 2024.

How many new wolf pups does Colorado have?

Colorado Parks and Wildlife staff continues to survey the rendezvous site and look for evidence of other pups around the Grand County den site but have only confirmed one pup born to two released wolves captured in Oregon.

Reid DeWalt, Colorado Parks and Wildlife assistant director, told Colorado Parks and Wildlife commissioners at their July 19 meeting in Meeker there likely are other pups born, but that the terrain in the area is remote with much deadfall.

"We just have not visually seen them but we expect to see other pups,'' he said.

The wildlife agency has named them the Copper Creek Pack.

Wolves usually give birth to four to six pups at a time.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: See the latest map of where Colorado's wolves have wandered
Columbus city departments were authorized to send employees home to work this week amid an ongoing technology outage caused by a cybersecurity incident, which has been persistent since last Thursday.

The city has authorized directors of departments to allow employees to work from home this week on a "case-by-case" basis, Melanie Crabill, spokesperson for Mayor Andrew Ginther, said. She said that the mayor's office is not tracking the number of employees not working in the office and they are not receiving daily updates if human resources is tracking that data.

"It's not as efficient as we'd like," Crabill said of the challenges caused by the outage.

The Columbus City Hall, 90 W. Broad St. in downtown Columbus.. The city has struggled with a cyber outage for more than a week that has forced some workers to be sent home with pay.

Employees who are sent home to work will be paid, Crabill said.

Christopher Moses, director of city human services, said that employees are working from home "intermittently," with some city employees coming into to this office in the morning and leaving in the afternoon, or vice versa, depending on their responsibilities at work.

Since the city offices are without internet, workers in office are relying on Wi-Fi hotspots to work, which has posed challenges. He said the decisions are happening on a job-by-job basis depending on what they need to do.

"If they have to go home, then we're allowing that flexibility to get the job done," Moses said.

The city work from home policy is that office employees need to be in the offices five times a week. Moses said the city HR department isn't tracking how many people are working from home because it anticipates the problem to be short-term.

The Dispatch observed employees appearing to leave the city office complex located along Broad and Front Streets with their belongings early Friday morning.

The Dispatch has contacted directors of departments to as whether they were sending employees home to work. The auditor's office said office employees had not been sent home. The Recreation and Parks department spokesperson said she wasn't aware of any employees asked to go home.

Scott Messer, director of the Building and Zoning Department, said all employees were working from the office and that they had access to the system used to process permits, and the system is available on site. However, he said "director-by-director for their department," it may be easier for employees to access systems remotely due to the ongoing technology problems.

"I think if I had any systems whereby it was better for access, for people to work remotely, I would authorize that," Messer said.

City, services hobbled by outage caused by cybersecurity incident

The city of Columbus continues to grapple with a cyber service outage caused by a cybersecurity incident July 18, which forced the city to sever its internet connection, The Dispatch previously reported. The city has so far declined to say if the cybersecurity incident was a ransomware attack.

More: A week into cyber woes, Columbus mayor says city aims to get fully operational ASAP

Some city services have remained hindered throughout the week, including the 311 computer system and some web services  the city email system was still not functioning as of Friday, The Dispatch previously reported. Crabill said the city was hopeful email function could be restored as soon as Monday.

Residents can still call 911, the nonemergency police line and 311, although some reports may need to be taken by hand.

Ginther said Thursday that the city is prioritizing restoring its public safety, public health and public utility departments in the coming days.

On July 18, the city's Department of Technology "identified an abnormality" in its systems, The Dispatch previously reported. The department took "swift action" to "significantly" limit potential exposure by severing internet connectivity, Mayor Andrew Ginther said in a statement released Monday.

Ginther said in the statement that the city's cybersecurity woes may have been caused by a city employee opening a malicious email.

Cybersecurity expert: Outage could be result of ransomware attack

Alex Hamerstone, a cybersecurity expert at TrustedSec, an "ethical hacking" firm, told The Dispatch that while he doesn't have all of the evidence, guessing that this could be a ransomware attack on the city would be a smart bet.

"If you go outside, and you get wet, there's a few things that could be  but there's a 99% chance it's raining," Hamerstone said.

He said that malicious hackers target institutions like cities because they are sometimes easy targets and hold on to a large amount of customer data that can be used or sold.

"Thieves are going to go where they feel like they have easy access," Hamerstone said. "And oftentimes, cities just don't have the budget staff to kind of build out security programs."

If it were to be a ransomware attack, Hamerstone said, the city might not know yet or they may be being advised by legal counsel or law enforcement not to disclose that information to the public yet.

"They may be getting advice  to kind of keep their cards close to the vest, or they may just not know right now," Hamerstone said.

Cbehrens@dispatch.com

@Colebehr_report

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus OKs sending workers home to work amid cybersecurity incident
The campaign command headquarters of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, as he himself explains, are located inside his home, a medium-sized apartment with an excellent view of Caracas on one of the hills surrounding the city. This is where the main opposition candidate in Venezuelas presidential election works, organizes Zoom meetings, meets with the strategy team and talks with volunteers and journalists, helped by his wife and daughters.

His house is now guarded from a distance by members of the Bolivarian National Police, who nevertheless maintain a friendly attitude. The candidate himself says that he always stops to greet them when he goes in and out. The personal life of the until recently unknown 74-year-old diplomat has changed 180 degrees since he became a candidate, and he is now besieged by a whirlwind of crowds, obligations, rallies and demands of all kinds.

He says he has become accustomed to it. Citizens recognize him everywhere, and it is normal for them to whisper the same thing to Maria Corina Machado: that they are both their last hope, that they do not want to emigrate, that they want to see their children return to the country. Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia represents the option for change on Sunday, when he could end 25 consecutive years of Chavismo. The candidate of the ruling party, President Nicolas Maduro, is trying to put a stop to it.

Question. The president of the National Electoral Council (CNE) has accused the media of being financed by drug trafficking and of working with the opposition to reverse the election results. Attorney General Tarek William Saab says that if someone announces the result before the authorities do, they could go to jail. The President of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodriguez, also speaks of a plan by the opposition to claim election fraud as soon as the polls close. How do you view these statements?

Answer. Far from being guarantors of the institutions and of transparency, they act as political activists for the government. That would be unacceptable in other circumstances. They have lost all limits. We are seeing a president of the CNE who is practically campaigning politically in favor of the government. In 2006, Jorge Rodriguez left the CNE board to become vice president of the Republic. There is not the slightest modesty there.

Q. How have you felt, personally, during the election campaign?

A. I am not part of this world, I am not a politician nor am I interested in power, but I must say that I feel good, I have adapted. I have assumed my new role, the one that falls on me in this situation: to fulfill my personal commitment to the cause of democracy and the reconstruction of my country. To the reunion between Venezuelans. I like to talk about that, that this will be the government of reunion, of returning to the homeland, of embracing those who left.

Edmundo Gonzalez at his home in Caracas, (Venezuela). Marina Calderon

Q. Do you feel ready to assume the presidency of the Republic in a context like this? You would be president-elect until January 10, 2025, when Maduros term ends; thats a six-month transition.

A. Circumstances have put me here and I believe in destiny. I assume my responsibility with the greatest commitment. Furthermore, I am not alone, I am accompanied by much more than half of the country and, of course, by the leadership of Maria Corina Machado. All the opinion polls are giving us a comfortable lead, which does not make us feel triumphant. Now is the hard part. Negotiating with these gentlemen to achieve an orderly transition will be very difficult.

Q. Would the political and legal rights of these leaders be guaranteed  theoretically, if you assume power?

A. Of course. You have to consider what it must mean for these politicians to have international rewards of thousands of dollars for them. Are they going to hand over power if they lose? In any democratic country that is the normal thing to do, to lose and hand it over. They have revoked the invitation to Alberto Fernandez, the former president of Argentina, just because he publicly raised the possibility that Nicolas Maduro might lose.

Q. And that doesnt mean that they wont hand over power to you if you wins the election?

A. No, what I mean to say is that these are expressions contrary to democratic, civilized conduct. In any country in the world, a transition is a routine procedure, it is not criminalized.

Q. What impression do you get of the mood of the population during your campaigning?

A. There is a lot of fervour and desperation. For example, I have not seen the so-called colectivos (civilian Chavista squads) anywhere during the campaign. At many checkpoints, police and military personnel wink at us and greet us when they can. It is very common. There is a lot of hope.

Q. Have you been mistreated by public officials?

A. It is rare. Once, a political commissioner from Conviasa, the state airline, verbally attacked and harassed me for taking that airline for a trip, supposedly for having requested sanctions. I did not reply so as not to be dragged into the provocation. It happens occasionally, but these are isolated incidents.

Q. How do you see Chavismo at this moment?

A. It is still a force, it exists, it is there. Very diminished, but it exists. I do not want to imagine that minority playing the role of the opposition with threats.

Q. Do you consider it inevitable that this will happen?

A. If the victory we obtain is of the magnitude we expect, a new reality will be produced here. Forced by circumstances, I think that Maduro will understand that he must hand over power, and that the best way is to do it in an orderly, democratic, decent way. In the event of defeat, liaison committees will be formed, contacts will be established.

Q. With so little time left to go before the election, do you think it is possible to come to power? Do you see it as viable?

A. I am a staunch democrat and I believe in the rules of democracy. Our adversary does not respect the rules of democracy. This is where the role of the international community and of certain figures can contribute to creating an environment favorable to a transition.

Q. Have you felt personally threatened?

A. No. There were occasional verbal attacks from Chavista citizens, nothing serious. We went to eat an arepa at La Encrucijada, after an event in Valencia, and some officials began to insult us, they were councilors. We had to leave. What I regret is that I couldnt finish the arepa.

Q. Would your government initiate an aggressive ultra-liberal privatization program, like Javier Milei in Argentina, as some critics accuse you of planning?

A. No. Our plan is very clear, we have taken elements from Maria Corinas government plan, Tierra de Gracia, but also from the 2019 Country Plan, and from other previous programmatic projects. It is a balanced, central project, with state presence.

P. Would you privatize the oil company Petroleos de Venezuela?

A. No. State-owned companies that are still operating will continue to operate. We will have to seek help to promote projects that have fallen behind, and the state does not have to be involved in everything, managing hotels or taxi lines. We need to increase the participation of the private sector.

Q. Have there been contacts, political messages, with sectors of the government or factions of Chavismo?

A. No, at least not on my side. For some time now, we have had Gerardo Blyde as our spokesperson for talks with the government, and some things have been done, but there is no formal dialogue mechanism.

Q. How do you see a transition in these circumstances, surrounded by a Chavista state?

A. I feel that the magnitude of our victory will open up a political reality that will force the government to negotiate. I really liked what Nicolas Maduro Guerra, the presidents son, said: whoever loses the election has to admit it.

Q. A message you want to send to Chavismo, to Nicolas Maduro at this time?

A. We have said it on several occasions: my government will be open to everyone. Adversaries will be respected, they will never be treated as enemies. There will be no persecution. We are moving towards reunion, towards reconciliation.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said she believes the United States is absolutely ready for two women on a presidential ticket, amid rumors she is on Vice President Harriss shortlist for a potential running mate.

Raimondo joined CBSs Nancy Cordes on Thursday to discuss the presidential election and the recent shake-up after President Biden bowed out Sunday and endorsed Harris.

Asked if voters, particularly male ones, are ready to see two women on the ticket, Raimondo said, absolutely.

Look, I think the American people are ready for the team that can lead  whoever that is, regardless of, you know, gender or race or background, she said, pointing to her background as a businesswoman and former governor of Rhode Island.

Ive run a business. Ive run a state for two terms. I now run a huge agency. Im an executive, Raimondo said. Any executive knows, if you want to get the job done, you hire the right people in the right spots at the right time to get it done.

And the American people are looking for action, she continued. Theyre yearning for leadership to solve their problems, and I think theyll get behind who they can trust to fight for them and to put their interests first and get the job done.

Raimondo is one of several Democrats mentioned as a potential Harris running mate. Others include Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The Democratic National Committee expects to start a virtual roll-call vote for Harris next Thursday. If she secures the nomination, the committee expects her to select a running mate in advance of Aug. 7.

The Democratic National Convention begins 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 The Hill.
Complaint against Lets Go Washington wont be sent to AGs office

Let's Go Washington, a political committee, turned in boxes of petitions for Initiative 2117 (above) and five other initiatives in the fall of 2023. A supporter rests before helping deliver them to the secretary of state's office. (Jerry Cornfield/Washington State Standard)

The state Public Disclosure Commission decided Thursday to retain jurisdiction on a complaint alleging Lets Go Washington and its founder Brian Heywood violated campaign finance laws in the course of gathering signatures for six initiatives last year.

An alliance of progressive groups, which filed the complaint a year ago and is now opposing three of those measures that are on the November ballot, urged commissioners to refer the case to Washingtons attorney general.

Lawyers representing SEIU 775, Washington Conservation Action, Planned Parenthood and Civic Ventures had argued for action on the allegations before the fall election.

Commissioners voted to deny the request then followed up by agreeing to reserve time in an August meeting for an enforcement hearing if charges are filed by the staff. If not, the disclosure commission leader vowed to keep pushing for resolution of the complaint before ballots are cast.

Need to get in touch?

Have a news tip?

CONTACT US

If August doesnt happen, there are lots of days for special meetings, chair Allen Hayward said. The commission is dedicated to getting this done before the election.

Heywood said afterwards that the commissioners did the right thing.

They looked at the law and said it needs to go back to the staff. Thats how its supposed to work, Heywood said. Im not worried about August. We will find out what they need to know and well come back with the answers.

Defend Washington, whose members include those behind the complaint, issued a statement expressing appreciation for the commitment.

It has already been over a year since the initial complaint was filed with the PDC, with no action taken, reads the statement. We urge the PDC to fully investigate these complaints and to hold Lets Go Washington accountable for their deceptive and misleading actions before this Novembers election.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Rules of the road

State law allows the Public Disclosure Commission to refer cases to the state attorney generals office if it thinks it is necessary to ensure compliance with state campaign finance laws, that an apparent violation warrants a greater penalty than the commission can legally impose or if that maximum penalty is not enough to address the severity of the violation.

This particular matter meets none of the requirements, Callie Castillo, attorney for Lets Go Washington, told commissioners Thursday. We urge the commission to deny the request.

Referrals are rare. Commissioners in 2019 and in 2021 forwarded complaints against Facebook, Inc. to Attorney General Bob Ferguson. In 2021, the panels referral letter said those complaints contained credible allegations of multiple apparent violations of campaign finance law. And it noted that Ferguson had already sued the firm on related issues.

In 2015, commissioners voted to refer its investigation of initiative entrepreneur Tim Eyman, in part because the potential penalties were considered too small for the violations. And commissioners in 2011 sent a case involving a political consulting firm, Moxie Media, to then-attorney general Rob McKenna because they sought a more severe penalty.

This dispute is rooted in Lets Go Washingtons unprecedented success last year in gathering signatures for six initiatives to the Legislature. Lawmakers adopted three  dealing with guidelines for police pursuits, parental rights and taxes.

Voters will decide the fate of three others that seek to repeal the capital gains tax and the cap-and-trade system, and make the states new long-term care services program voluntary. Defend Washington is conducting a campaign to defeat these measures.

Members of Defend Washington filed the original complaint last July, and supplemented it in October. They allege Lets Go Washington, the political committee founded and bankrolled by Heywood, failed to disclose details in a thorough and timely manner about the flow of money in and out of the committee coffers for each of the six initiatives.

Heywood, who denies any wrongdoing, said his side has cooperated fully with commission staff investigating the allegations.

A memo from commission staff delivered late Wednesday to commissioners paints a different picture.

For example, they wrote that they did not receive requested documents, invoices or books of accounts to verify or confirm some of the vendor information provided by Lets Go Washington.

And, information sought in September 2023 about contributions and expenditures for each of the six ballot measures didnt arrive until January 2024, they wrote. That was after signatures had been collected, counted and the measures certified by the secretary of state.

When asked about the memo, Heywood reiterated that they have been nothing but accommodating.

We believe in transparency and accountability, those are the ideals that have been at the center of each of our initiatives, he said.
Congress should deliver on its promise to help U.S. victims of terrorism | Opinion

Eight years ago, our family was celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, France on a family vacation, when a senseless act of violence changed our lives forever. Out of nowhere, terrorists drove a truck into a crowd, killing 86 and injuring hundreds more. Among those murdered were our father, Sean, and our eleven-year-old brother, Brodie.

In mere moments, half of our family was gone. For years, we struggled to go about our daily lives. While the rest of the world moved on, we grappled with grief and anger at the monsters who tore our lives apart.

Then, we learned that we could seek justice by suing those who caused the attack. In 2015, Congress created the U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism (USVSST) Fund to ensure that American victims of state-sponsored terrorism who sued their attackers could collect on judgments passed down by the courts. Although nothing could make up for our unbelievable loss, we felt some solace knowing that this fund could help victims heal, and ultimately, hold terrorists accountable.

Brodie Copeland (left) and his dad Sean Copeland were killed in a 2016 terrorist attack in Nice, France. (Credit: Contributed by the Copeland family)

Unfortunately, the fund is broken. Monetary sums that should be allocated to the fund are not making it there, and the majority of victims who have received judgments are still waiting for meaningful relief. The fund is now depleted, and future distributions are uncertain.

Despite this, we still felt it was important to pursue justice. In 2021, we began the process of suing the Syrian government. Last week, we finally received the judgment in our case.

Nearly eight years to the day of the attack, a federal court ruled in our favor, acknowledging Syrias role in the attack, and awarding our family a judgment. Although we felt some justice knowing we had won, it was gut-wrenching to realize we would not get real relief.

When Congress created the USVSST Fund, it promised victims of terrorism that they could hold their attackers accountable and that they would receive relief for their suffering. Unfortunately, Congress has not fulfilled those promises.

In May, we felt a renewed sense of hope when the House of Representatives introduced The American Victims of Terrorism Compensation Act. This bill addresses many funding-related issues and makes it possible for victims to finally obtain closure. Most importantly, it fulfills Congress original promise. The bill currently has 35 co-sponsors from both parties, including Texas Rep. Troy Nehls. Now, the Senate must do its part.

A few months ago, we met with Senator John Cornyn in Washington, D.C. to discuss the urgent need to Fund the Fund. As Texans, Senator Cornyn serves as our voice in Washington. He has also been a tireless advocate for us and other victims of state-sponsored terrorism. During our meeting, Senator Cornyn doubled down on his commitment to victims of terrorism, promising to pass legislation to finally fix the USVSST Fund.

Senator Cornyn now has a chance to do just that. The American Victims of Terrorism Compensation Act will ensure that monetary sums that Congress intended to go into the USVSST Fund actually get there. It will also provide new, sustainable sources of funding without using tax dollars, and provide an immediate distribution in 2024. The bill has bipartisan support in the House, but we need leaders like Senator Cornyn to champion the effort in the Senate as promised.

We are immensely grateful to the members who introduced this bill in the House of Representatives. Now, we are urging Senator Cornyn to fulfill his promise and get it across the finish line. Passing this legislation will show victims like us that Congress is on our side, but perhaps more notably, it sends a signal to state sponsors of terror that their crimes will not go unanswered.

In 2015, Congress made a commitment to victims of terrorism. Its time they deliver on that promise.

Maegan and Austin Copeland live in Austin. Their father and brother were murdered in a terrorist attack in Nice, France, eight years ago this month.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Congress can help victims of terrorism like us, but they need to act now
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  For the first time a bill to ban lawmakers from stock trading is moving forward. Advocates have been trying to make it happen for years, and this week legislation was voted out of committee.

The new bipartisan bill would prohibit members of Congress, the president, and the vice president from buying and selling stocks. It would require the elected officials, along with their spouses and dependent children, to divest from assets starting in 2027.

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) is one of the Republican lawmakers behind the new bill. He says hes excited to see it gaining momentum.

It just bans stock trading and stock ownership by members of Congress, Hawley said. And its obvious why it should. Members of Congress should not be using the information that only they have to make profits on the stock market.

Democrat Senator Gary Peters is also a main sponsor of the legislation.

Americans deserve to be confident that their federal elected officials are making decisions that are in the best interests of the public and not their own personal interests, Peters said.

While the bill did get bipartisan support from the Senate committee, it still has to pass through a vote from the full Senate to become law, but it faces opposition.

Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah.) voiced concerns about how the bill forces people to divest. He predicts that would prevent people from running for office.

It is a wolf in sheeps clothing because its been drafted in a thoughtless way, Romney said.

He also warns it would have other unintended consequences.

Donald Trump, for instance. Under this bill, he couldnt become president. Hed have to sell all of his Truth Social stock. Hed have to sell all of his private investments, Romney said.

Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) pointed out the bill doesnt ban staff of lawmakers from stock trading.

This has a lot of exceptions that are built into it that gives the perception of saying were not involved in the market when we really are involved in the market, Lankford said.

But Senator Hawley argued those are misleading claims from people trying to kill the bill.

Grasping at straws frankly. I mean, saying that the bill does all kinds of crazy stuff that in fact it doesnt, Hawley said.

Senate Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has previously supported the stock ban effort but hasnt said if he will bring this bill up for a vote.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 Corpus Christi ISD school employee who commented on social media about the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump is no longer employed at the district.

Last Tuesday, CCISD shared a statement on social media acknowledging it was aware of the comment and to "assure the community that the district is actively investigating."

CCISD did not share the identity of the employee or the exact contents of the comment, but screenshots did circulate elsewhere online of a comment from an individual's social media account saying, "Sorry President Biden!!! We are just so sad they missed the shot! Good people die everyday that have made a difference in peoples lives. This Coward deserves all the bad that is coming his way!!! I pray that the next one is successful!"

The Corpus Christi ISD administration office building on Dec. 5, 2022, in Corpus Christi.

The assassination attempt occurred at a campaign rally Saturday, July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania when a shooter who was killed by Secret Service agents fired shots toward the stage where Trump was speaking. The former president sustained a gunshot wound to his right ear. At least one attendee was killed and two more injured.

President Joe Biden condemned the shooting in a statement July 13, stating "There's no place for this kind of violence in America."

Corpus Christi ISD's statement says the district condemns violence of any kind.

"Such comments in no way reflect the values of our school district," the district's statement in response to the employee comment read.

District spokesperson Leanne Libby confirmed in an email Thursday that though the district cannot share the details of personnel matters, the employee is "no longer with the district."

Libby did not specify the specifics of the employee's departure.

Corpus Christi ISD is not the only organization across the country to consider social media comments made by individuals after the attempt on Trump's life.

According to a USA Today article, social media posts have ended in firings and resignations in many cases.

Teachers shop for supplies in preparation for new school year

'It's our sea turtle': A look at the history of Kemp's ridley recovery, ongoing threats

Events offer school supplies, health services

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: CCISD school employee who commented on shooting no longer employed
A Miami County corrections officer is in jail after a warrant was issued for his arrest this week.

Kenneth Welbaum, 37, was arrested on July 24 and is being held in the Shelby County Jail.

>> Fuyao plant, nearly 30 other area locations raided in massive Homeland Security investigation

His arrest came after the Miami County Sheriffs Office was contacted on Wednesday by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation regarding a warrant that was issued for Welbaums arrest. The warrant was related to off-duty allegations, according to Miami County Sheriff Dave Duchak.

Welbaum has been placed on administrative leave without pay during the pendency of this matter, Duchak said.

The Sheriff said he will continue to review the facts as the matter proceeds and a thorough internal investigation will be pursued.

>> Beautiful work of art; Oregon District Shooting memorial nearing completion

News Center 7 has reached out to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation for more information on the allegations. A spokesperson said their office was requested by the Albemarle County Police Department in Virginia and the Miami County Prosecutors Office to insist with the investigation.

We will update this story as we learn more.
Long before his post-debate woes, President Joe Biden faced pressure from a coalition of mostly young and progressive Americans frustrated by his handling of the Israel-Gaza war, and they warned it could cost him their vote.

Vice President Kamala Harris, now the presumptive nominee after Biden exited the race, has made some of the sharpest statements of any member of the current administration about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. But will it sway voters  especially young ones and undecideds  who are seen as key to Democrats retaining the White House?

These progressive voters say that while Harris is more aligned with them than Biden, her policy connections to the administration are still worrisome, and theyre looking to see what she says next about the conflict as the leading Democratic candidate.

Shelley Greenspan, the White House Jewish liaison, posted on X Tuesday that Harris in her role as vice president will be meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week at the White House. She will reaffirm the our (sic) unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel.

Netanyahu in Washington: Israeli PM to address Congress Wednesday, tells hostage families deal could be near

Greenspan said the scheduled meeting was separate from President Bidens planned meeting with PM Netanyahu.

But the meeting prompts a question for some political observers: Does Harris track record of being critical of Israel in Gaza suggest she may seek to differentiate her position from Bidens?

Outspoken in the Biden administration

Last Oct. 7, Hamas militants led a violent surprise assault on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages. The response from Israels military has led to a humanitarian crisis and the deaths of more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to Reuters.

Attorney Brian Finucane, who spent nearly a decade as a State Department adviser on the law of armed conflict and war crimes, said in an interview that Harris, by far, has been more outspoken than Biden in terms of holding Israel accountable for what he said were war crimes committed against innocent civilians in Gaza.

In March, Harris called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza because of the "humanitarian catastrophe." This was, at the time, the most pointed statement from any member of the Biden administration.

More: VP Harris presses Israel on civilian deaths in Gaza. What does international law say?

Even before that, she called on Israel to stop killing so many Palestinian civilians.

In a December 2023 speech in Dubai, Harris stopped short of saying the country has committed war crimes in its scorched-earth campaign to destroy Hamas, but she came close, saying Israel must do more to protect civilian life in its devastating military response to the Oct. 7 attack.

The United States is unequivocal; international humanitarian law must be respected, Harris said in the Dubai speech to Middle Eastern leaders. Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.

But it remains to be seen, Finucane said, how much Harris the candidate will seek to distance herself from Harris as the loyal Biden administration vice president. Thats especially the case during the Netanyahu visit but also over the next few months of the campaign while Biden remains in charge of U.S. policy, said Finucane, who left the State Department in 2021 and is now senior adviser to the U.S. Program at International Crisis Group.

Harris on Israel, Gaza: Here's what the vice president has said on the conflict

As to whether Harris new stature as the Democrats' latest standard bearer is cause for encouragement, Finucane added: I'm not sure if there is much of a basis to form a judgment, and I'm very cautious in making any sort of predictions about what her actual policies would look like. But certainly, as a matter of U.S. domestic politics and U.S. electoral politics, voters may choose to distinguish between the policies of Joe Biden, which they don't like, and what they might hope the policies of Kamala Harris will be.

Harris the candidate versus Harris the VP

Experts say Harris is in a strange position when it comes to America's posture on the world stage as Biden's deputy and the presumptive Democratic nominee.

"That's a tough one," Bill Daley, former chief of staff to President Barack Obama and chair of Al Gores 2000 presidential campaign, told Politico.

"I dont know if she gets more downside by trying to show a separation. She can show that maybe shell handle things differently  not by specifically saying that, but by how she approaches things and how she looks at foreign affairs."

Before Harris, Gore was the last candidate, from either party, to run a presidential campaign while serving as vice president.

"I assume at some point," Daley said in the Politico interview, "she will give a big foreign policy address of the Harris doctrine. And she can lay out a possible difference, if she does believe there is one, other than just saying, 'We ought to have a peace agreement.'"

More of Harris' policies: Where she stands on Israel, abortion, climate change, education and the economy

And it's not just Biden allies who have noticed Harris' circumstances. Hassan Abdel Salam, founder of the Abandon Biden Campaign, which was formed to oppose the administration's stance on Gaza, said Harris' role in the current White House gives several members of their group pause.

It's extremely concerning how attached she is to the administration, he said in a news conference before Bidens exit was official.

Still, he said, these disillusioned Democrats would be open to Harris nomination, should she distance herself well enough from her current boss.

With the announcement that Kamala Harris has received Joe Bidens endorsement to be the Democratic nominee, we invite her to meet with the Abandon Biden campaign, the group said in a statement Sunday. Our demands remain unchanged: call for and pressure an unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. The new candidate must address these critical issues and break from the destructive legacy of the current administration.

Israel-Hamas conflict a hot button for Biden's campaign

Biden, as the incumbent, sailed through primary elections across the country this year and was for months considered the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

At the time, though, the president faced rebellion in the form of uncommitted voters  a swath of Arab Americans, progressives and young voters casting uncommitted ballots in protest of Bidens approach to the conflict in the Middle East.

Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters are gathering outside of the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on June 8, 2024, to express distaste over how President Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas war. The demonstrators are demanding an end to the now eight-month-long war as well as American support for Israel. (Photo by Aashish Kiphayet / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by AASHISH KIPHAYET/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

In states like Michigan, a key battleground which held its primary in February, these dissenting votes accounted for about 13% of total votes cast.

Months later, intraparty opposition to Biden grew rapidly, suddenly shared by several members of Congress and major donors. Their concerns, though, centered not on Israel and Gaza but rather a shaky debate performance by Biden that left doubts about his ability to win and serve another four years in office.

Read the full statement: President Joe Biden announces his exit from the 2024 presidential race

Kaleema Muhammad, 58, a voter in Tallahassee, Florida, told USA TODAY before Biden announced Sunday that he would drop out of the race that she was not pushing for him to leave. But she said she had friends hoping for a different nominee.

A lot of people that I know would normally vote on the Democratic ticket are planning to vote independent, Muhammad said. And some have foolishly even suggested not voting at all, because of some of Biden's positions on things that are personal to them, particularly the Israel-Hamas War.

Voters open to hearing Harris out on the issue

Would those same friends be open to Harris as nominee? Definitely, Muhammad said.

Anne Hanna, 45, of Philadelphia, said that while she had generally supported Biden and had planned on voting for him, she very strongly disagreed with the way he is handling the Israel-Hamas conflict.

I think it's appalling, said Hanna, a graduate student and Democratic voter. Even if you think that it's all Hamas fault and Hamas started it and so forth, just the absolute level of human suffering in Gaza is not something that the U.S. should tolerate and our response has been absolutely inadequate."

Though she hasnt been following Harris' stances as closely, Hanna said, she hopes the vice president will do better.

Tensions boil as war rages: How do Jewish, Muslim Americans find common ground?

The Pennsylvanian said the issue has been dividing her family and friends, some of whom who are Jewish.

We've just got to bring the temperature down somehow, she said.

Hanna said that as far as Harris goes, she has always been her own woman, and she's gonna to do what she's gonna do.

We'll see what she does, and I will vote for her no matter what she does or says, because defending democracy in this country is the foundation of getting anything else done, Hanna said. But I hope she will do better because we desperately need that. There's too much at stake there.

Contributing: Sudiksha Kochi

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Voters upset with Biden look to Harris' stance on Gaza
In our Reality Check stories, Wichita Eagle journalists dig deeper into questions over facts, consequences and accountability. Story idea? tips@wichitaeagle.com.

Voters in Sedgwick County could be asked next year to support a new sales tax that would fund arts, culture and recreation programming.

The Sedgwick County Zoo, Exploration Place science museum, the Kansas African American Museum and the county parks department are all set to take cuts in next years proposed county budget.

Funding those programs through a sales tax instead would allow the county to lower its property tax levy by between two and a half and three mills, likely starting in 2026 or 2027. Commissioners want to present voters with a ballot question about a sales tax no later than fall 2025.

Establishing an eighth of a cent sales tax for cultural arts and rec funding would generate around $18 million in revenue based on current sales tax data  roughly the same amount the county now spends annually on quality of life programming.

I would like to say we would never fund those things ever again through property taxes, Commissioner Jim Howell said at a staff meeting earlier this week. They would be forever funded through sales tax.

If the economy thrived, the sales tax would generate more money to be shared between organizations. On the flip side, an economic downturn that saw the sales tax generate less revenue than expected would result in programming cuts the next year.

Despite how largely and loudly I complain about property taxes, I fully understand that property taxes are the most stable, secure form of taxation to fund local government, Chair Ryan Baty said. I understand that. They are stable and they should be used to fund the core services of what we do here, particularly in public safety.

The county tax proposal comes as the state is reducing and then eliminating by Jan. 1 its sales tax on food bought at grocery stores. Meanwhile, a major tax cut compromise reached between Gov. Laura Kelly and Republican legislators in June did little to provide property tax relief, but lawmakers have vowed to take the issue up again next year.

A county sales tax ballot proposal would likely have an ending date, giving voters an option in five years to renew the funding mechanism or revert back to using property taxes.

Sarah Lopez, the lone Democrat on the commission and the only incumbent running for re-election this year, said the county has to do something to alleviate the property tax burden on residents. Sixty percent of Sedgwick Countys residential properties appreciated in value this year  the lowest proportion of appraisal increases since 2018.

I am in favor of looking at this and really having our property taxes revolve around and focus on our core services, Lopez said. I think thats a great way to look at this.

County seeks buy-in

The idea of switching to a sales tax funding model has already been broached by the nonprofit boards that oversee the zoo and Exploration Place.

Theyre looking for leadership, County Manager Tom Stolz said.

I have heard no one in the nonprofit world that we fund speak against this concept. Zero.

Because the county already levies a one-cent sales tax, largely used to support road and bridge infrastructure, adding an additional sales tax would require lawmakers approval to bring a ballot question before voters.

The two options on the table are moving forward with a county-specific sales tax proposal or bringing Wichita and the countys other 19 cities together on a collaborative effort that would see some or all of them lower their own mill levies in exchange for a share of the new sales tax revenue.

On Thursday, Baty sent an invitation to all 20 mayors inviting them to an Aug. 14 meeting at the Ruffin Building to gauge their support for the initiative. Baty requested that city leadership prepare a breakdown of their cultural/arts and parks/recreation spending and funding model to discuss at the meeting.

Bringing cities in on the sales tax proposal could mean asking voters to approve significantly more than an eighth of a cent tax.

Lets just say its $60 million [spent on quality of life programming] across the county, Stolz said. Thats roughly a half-cent sales tax, and then each city thats then part of that would have to lower their property tax mill down by that same amount so that the business owners and the homeowners and the property owners get that kind of tax relief.

Its still an open question whether city parks funding would be included in the sales tax proposal. The county itself only spends about $1.8 million annually on parks, but some cities dwarf that. Wichitas 2025 recommended budget calls for spending $29.6 million next year on parks and recreation programming.

If you look at something like the city of Wichita or even Derby, they have tremendous amounts of money flowing into parks, Stolz said. I dont want to speak for the city but I come from a city. Thats viewed as a core service.

Opposition to city involvement

Howell, who has been pushing for years to switch to a sales tax-funded model for non-core government services, is wary of widening the scope to include cities.

He told The Eagle he doesnt believe a collaborative plan could be finalized in time to present to the South Central Kansas Delegation of lawmakers by the first week of December. The new legislative session in Topeka will begin in January.

Theres 20 cities. That means theres 20 mayors. Theres a 100 city council members. Over a 100 elected officials coming together on a single proposal that everybody has to do it exactly right and then be committed to it, emotionally and absolutely committed to it for it to work, Howell said. And you have to get this done by December 1 . . . I think theres just no way to get there. Its so complicated.

Cities have the statutory authority to levy a sales tax of up to two cents. Howell says if they want to offset property taxes, they should just follow the countys lead and make their own proposals.

My concern with Commissioner Howells recommendation to just go our own way is remember, its going to take a vote of the citizens in Sedgwick County, and if the cities in Sedgwick County are against that, its never going to pass, Commissioner David Dennis said.

Baty said he doesnt want to see the county abdicate its responsibility to lead on the issue when rising property taxes are a communitywide issue. Property values  and corresponding property taxes  have gone up for most Sedgwick County homeowners in the last six years.

I hear . . . frequently from people that are not just complaining about property taxes. Theyre concerned theyre being priced out of their homes, Baty said, pointing out that rental rates also go up when landlords pass on higher property tax and insurance costs to their tenants.

Of course theres no guarantee that a reduction in property taxes would result in more affordable rental rates.

Will the [landlords] hold fast on their rental rates and not increase them or perhaps even reduce if we would pass this? That is the unknown that we cant get to, Stolz said.

For now, he said, county staff will begin shaping two separate proposals  one for the county only and one for a collaborative sales tax that includes cities. If all goes according to plan, whatever proposal commissioners ultimately decide on will make it onto a ballot for voters to approve or reject in 2025.
Fatima Latifova

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan (MFA) congratulated the Republic of Maldives on the occasion of Independence Day, Azernews reports, citing the post shared by the ministry on its official "X".

"Happy Independence Day to the friendly Maldives and its people!" the post reads.
El Mayo, the infamous leader of the notorious Mexican Sinaloa cartel, has always been an elusive figure. The 76-year-old veteran capo has moved around like a ghost, making it difficult to separate legend from reality.

He started in the drug trade at 16, at the end of the 1960s, when activities were limited to marijuana smuggling. A couple of decades later, he was one of the heads of a criminal empire. His associates have been picked off one by one, either imprisoned or dead. He himself seemed to be almost untouchable and cemented the myth in an unusual interview in 2010 with top Mexican journalist Julio Scherer. El Mayo invited him to a shack in the heart of the Sinaloa highlands. There, the journalist asked him how he had managed to escape jail and death for so long. He answered that he was a son of the mountains: The mountains are my home, my family, my protection.

Fourteen years have passed since that interview and the myth has continued to grow: El Mayo lives underground; El Mayo is a traitor; El Mayo is the real boss of Sinaloa. Until July 25, when El Mayo, or Ismael Mario Zambada Garcia, was arrested at a private airport in the border city of El Paso, Texas, after being tricked into boarding the plane by a high-ranking member of the cartel.

The plane in which El Mayo was traveling, July 25. Jose Luis Gonzalez (Reuters)

The ephemeral profile of El Mayo has contrasted with the loud ostentatious behavior of other capos, who like to show off their mansions, luxurious lifestyles and women. El Mayo never betrayed himself with the lack of discretion that did for El Chapo when he left a visible trail via cell phone messages of his flirtation with actress Kate del Castillo. It was this that facilitated El Chapos third and final capture in 2016. It has always been said that El Mayo was much more austere and disciplined, that he hid in the mountains and barely came down to the city.

As early as 1988, when federal police shot and killed Ines Calderon Quintero, another of Sinaloas pioneers, in Culiacan, El Mayo made himself scarce. Reports at the time say that the pair had been together days before, but that El Mayo decided to take a small plane and take refuge in his mountain hideout. Nearly 30 years later, during the operation that ended with El Chapos second arrest in 2014, newspapers were showing photos of soldiers lifting manhole covers under the headline El Mayo is wanted. Rumor had it that Zambada might be hiding in an underground tunnel.

Beyond the legend, the protection afforded El Mayo by the mountains has also been interpreted in Mexico as a metaphor that points to something less heroic. Journalism on the ground in Sinaloa has long pointed out that there existed a bridge between the government and the Sinaloa cartel, a shrewd strategy that would have allowed El Mayo to survive in the slippery ecosystem of the loyalties and betrayals of the underworld.

El Mayo was already in hiding in the late 1980s, when the first modern capo, Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, nicknamed the Boss of Bosses, sat the rest of the Sinaloa drug lords down together to divide up the pie in a more orderly and efficient way, making the cartel more like a company. Each of the seven capos was assigned a place in the country, a plaza in narco lingo. Zambada was assigned Sinaloa. El Chapo got Tecate, in Baja California. That was the embryo of the Sinaloa cartel, also known as The Federation.

Other versions of that meeting abound. For his book The Sinaloa Cartel. A story of the Narcos Use of Politics, journalist Diego Enrique Osorno interviewed Gallardo in prison. Gallardo told him that the person who had called the meeting and assigned the work plazas would have been Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni, head of the anti-drug police squad at the start of President Carlos Salinas de Gortaris administration.

The pact between the seven capos did not last long, and in the early 1990s war broke out. El Mayo and El Chapo joined forces against the Arellano Felix family, who controlled the prized Tijuana border. They won that war and, from the ashes, there emerged a new criminal architecture based on three main families: Guzmans, Zambadas and that of Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno aka El Azul, an ex-cop who worked in the 1970s with another trafficker nicknamed El Diablo, married to El Mayos sister.

Ismael Mario Zambada aka El Mayo in 2010, after his meeting with journalist Julio Scherer for the magazine, Proceso. Proceso

Over the following decades, the group grew into a multinational crime syndicate, with a presence in 17 states and 54 countries, according to DEA documents. All three founders made Forbes list of millionaires. Of the three, El Mayo was always the hardest to pin down. The underbelly of the Sinaloa Mafia was exposed in El Chapos New York trial which saw him sentenced to life in prison. During the trial, El Chapo  the man considered the most powerful capo in the world  insisted that El Mayo was the real boss of bosses in Sinaloa. At that trial, one of El Mayos sons, Vicente Zambada aka Vicentillo, testified against El Chapo, sparking the rumor that El Mayo had betrayed his compadre.

With El Chapos last arrest, the power structure fractured further within Sinaloa. And with the arrest of another of El Mayos longtime collaborators, Damaso Lopez, the differences between the old guard, embodied by El Mayo, and El Chapos sons have become glaring in recent years. Known as the Chapitos, the new generation of young and ostentatious narcojuniors flaunt a life of outlandish excesses on social networks: leopards, guns and women. This behavior is somewhat alien to old hands like El Mayo, who is sometimes painted as a sort of Robin Hood figure that distributes money and builds roads and churches in the regions poorer villages.

The latest DEA reports suggested that El Mayo was in poor health. At the same time, the U.S. authorities were closing in on him. Most of his associates, including his sons and his right-hand man, Aureliano Guzman, alias El Guano, had already been arrested. The penultimate blow was the indictment by a New York court for trafficking fentanyl, the current number one enemy of the U.S.

A memo written in the first person on his behalf, reads: Vanity is the worst enemy of this job. Step by step, I climbed the ladder. Ive had power for many years and, from up here, I watch those who have wanted to knock me down fall.

With El Mayos arrest, the myth is shattered of the man Scherer said was over 6 feet tall and had a body like a fortress. Zambada also said in that interview that he had a wife, five women, 15 grandchildren and a great-grandchild. They, all six of them, are here, on the ranches, daughters of the countryside, like me.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition
A federal judge for the second time has refused to block a new Iowa law that controls consumable hemp products, finding that subsequent state administrative rules have resolved concerns the law might be unconstitutionally vague.

Ten companies sued the state in two separate lawsuits in federal court in June, claiming the law is unconstitutional and being applied in a discriminatory fashion. The law, known as the Hemp Amendments, was approved by the Iowa Legislature during this year's session and took effect July 1.

In addition to forbidding the sale of the products to people under age 21, it requires manufacturers to comply with new regulations limiting the amount of tetrahydrocannabinol that products can contain in a serving and requiring certain labeling.

But the law left it to the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services to define serving sizes and the wording of the labels. The department initially said it might be August before it promulgates the rules.

On July 17, though  less than a week after a hearing over a potential injunction before Chief Judge Stephanie Rose  the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services issued rules to implement the law under an emergency authority. On Thursday, Judge Rose denied the companies' request for an injunction, writing that "the statutory gaps that were identified previously are no longer extant."

The Register has reached out to attorneys for the plaintiff companies for comment.

Shelving that used to house various consumable hemp products sits mostly empty due to heightened restrictions on THC in consumables at Unkl Ruckus's Smoking Emporium & Skate Shop on Monday, July 1, 2024, in Des Moines.

Products pulled, staff let go since law took effect

Businesses across Iowa have pulled popular THC-infused items from their shelves since July 1, even though the sale of food and drink containing hemp-derived THC has been legal under federal law since 2018.

Some of the plaintiff companies have complained of having to lay off employees, cut hours and, in one case, close a location.

Rose already turned down an injunction request by two of them: Field Day, a Johnson County maker of THC sparkling water, and Climbing Kites, a Des Moines-based joint venture of the Lua and Big Grove breweries, maker of a THC-containing seltzer. She rejected their argument that the law was preempted by federal food safety laws, but said at the time she had "serious concerns" about whether the law was unconstitutionally vague when it came to how to define a serving.

Climbing Kites and Field Day renewed their request for an injunction on that basis before the July 11 hearing, where they joined eight other companies that had filed their own suit: HW Premium CBD of Urbandale; American Shaman of Altoona, West Des Moines and Indianola; Green Goods Market & Greenhouses of Jefferson; Your CBD Store, a national franchise with a West Des Moines store; Beyond CBD of Des Moines; Campbells Nutrition Centers of Des Moines; Sky High of Cedar Falls; and ICanna CBD of Ames.

What do Iowa's new THC level and serving size rules say?

In June, the DHHS released preliminary rules that would require the THC drinks to be served in a container no smaller than 12 ounces. The law allows up to 10 milligrams of THC in a container, as long as no serving size contains more than 4 milligrams of THC.

The final rule, issued last week, echoes that language and refers to federal regulations to set appropriate serving sizes. The standard federal serving size for carbonated and noncarbonated beverages is 12 ounces  although attorneys for the companies argued before Rose that in the past, state regulators have approved products labeled to have as many as 10 servings in one 12-ounce can.

Using the federal serving size, Climbing Kites, which was selling 12-ounce cans of a version of its drink containing 10 milligrams of THC, would have to modify its recipe to lower potency to comply with the new law's limits.

Judge: Rocky rollout doesn't make law unconstitutional

In fact, Climbing Kites already has sold lower-potency 4-milligram and 2.5-milligram 12-ounce drinks. But Lua co-founder and lawyer Scott Selix, in documents filed with the court, said all of its hemp-derived products had been removed from the state's list of saleable hemp products July 1.

"As of today, Climbing Kites has no approved products on its Approved Products List," Selix wrote before the hearing. "Climbing Kites was provided no notice or explanation of DHHSs decision."

Ryann Glenn, an attorney for HW Premium CBD and the seven other companies in that case, argued during the hearing that the Hemp Amendments will lead to "arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement" and leave the companies in a regulatory limbo. She said Congress allowed states to place prohibitions on growing and producing hemp, but not its sale.

Defending the state, Patrick Valencia, an attorney for the Iowa Attorney General's Office, argued that the FDA allows states to set packaging requirements like ones created by the Hemp Amendments.

Rose, in her order, notes that the state now says it has processed all products submitted for approval between July 1 and July 17, and said that even if the new limits have been implemented in a confusing and uneven way, that doesn't make the underlying law unconstitutional.

"Notwithstanding plaintiffs complaints about the rollout and administration of the law  issues which the court echoed in multiple hearings  there is nothing to establish that the Hemp Amendments violate plaintiffs due process rights under the United States Constitution," Rose wrote.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Philip Joens covers retail and real estate for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-284-8184, pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa THC law not unconstitutional, federal judge says
The Fourth Amendment still applies at the border, despite the feds' insistence that it doesn't.

For years, courts have ruled that the government has the right to conduct routine, warrantless searches for contraband at the border. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has taken advantage of that loophole in the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures to force travelers to hand over data from their phones and laptops.

But on Wednesday, Judge Nina Morrison in the Eastern District of New York ruled that cellphone searches are a "nonroutine" search, more akin to a strip search than scanning a suitcase or passing a traveler through a metal detector.

Although the interests of stopping contraband are "undoubtedly served when the government searches the luggage or pockets of a person crossing the border carrying objects that can only be introduced to this country by being physically moved across its borders, the extent to which those interests are served when the government searches data stored on a person's cell phone is far less clear," the judge declared.

Morrison noted that "reviewing the information in a person's cell phone is the best approximation government officials have for mindreading," so searching through cellphone data has an even heavier privacy impact than rummaging through physical possessions. Therefore, the court ruled, a cellphone search at the border requires both probable cause and a warrant. Morrison did not distinguish between scanning a phone's contents with special software and manually flipping through it.

And in a victory for journalists, the judge specifically acknowledged the First Amendment implications of cellphone searches too. She cited reporting by The Intercept and VICE about CPB searching journalists' cellphones "based on these journalists' ongoing coverage of politically sensitive issues" and warned that those phone searches could put confidential sources at risk.

Wednesday's ruling adds to a stream of cases restricting the feds' ability to search travelers' electronics. The 4th and 9th Circuits, which cover the mid-Atlantic and Western states, have ruled that border police need at least "reasonable suspicion" of a crime to search cellphones. Last year, a judge in the Southern District of New York also ruled that the government "may not copy and search an American citizen's cell phone at the border without a warrant absent exigent circumstances."

Wednesday's ruling involves defending the rights of an unsympathetic character. U.S. citizen Kurbonali Sultanov allegedly downloaded a sketchy Russian porn trove, including several images of child sex abuse, which landed him on a government watch list. When Sultanov was on the way back from visiting his family in Uzbekistan, agents from the Department of Homeland Security pulled him aside at the airport and searched his phone, finding the images.

Morrison suppressed the evidence from the phone search but not Sultanov's "spontaneous" statement admitting to downloading the videos. And her order would not have prevented the police from getting Sultanov's phone the old-fashioned way. Sultanov had allegedly downloaded the porn while in the United States, and his name popped up on the watch list two months before his return flight. And, in fact, the feds did obtain a court order to search Sultanov's spare phone.

The Southern District of New York ruling last year also involved an unsympathetic character. Jatiek Smith, a member of the Bloods gang, was being investigated for a "violent and extortionate takeover" of New York's fire mitigation industry. When Smith flew home from a vacation in Jamaica, the FBI took advantage of the opportunity to search Smith's phone at the border.

A judge suppressed the evidence from the phone search, but Smith was convicted anyway. In both cases, the feds could have gotten a warrant for the suspects' phones; they saw the border loophole as a way to skip that step.

In fact, CBP Officer Marves Pichardo admitted that these searches are often warrantless fishing expeditions. CBP searches U.S. citizen's phones if they're coming from "countries that have political difficulties at this point in time and that we're currently looking at for intelligence and stuff like that," Pichardo testified during an evidence suppression hearing. He asserted that CBP agents can "look at pretty much anything that's stored on the phone" and that passengers are usually "very compliant."

Because of the powers the government was claiming, civil libertarians intervened in the Sultanov case. The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed an amicus brief in October 2023 arguing that warrantless phone searches are a "grave threat to the Fourth Amendment right to privacy as well as the First Amendment freedoms of the press, speech, and association." Morrison heavily cited that brief in her ruling.

"As the court recognized, letting border agents freely rifle through journalists' work product and communications whenever they cross the border would pose an intolerable risk to press freedom," Grayson Clary, staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement sent to reporters. "This thorough opinion provides powerful guidance for other courts grappling with this issue, and makes clear that the Constitution would require a warrant before searching a reporter's electronic devices."

The post Courts Close the Loophole Letting the Feds Search Your Phone at the Border appeared first on Reason.com.
Crews rescue two people trapped in car after it plunges off 75-foot embankment in Southeast DC

WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  DC Fire and EMS said it rescued two people trapped in a car after it plunged off 75-foot embankment in Southeast D.C. in the early hours of Friday.

Credit: DC Fire and EMS

Credit: DC Fire and EMS

Credit: DC Fire and EMS

Crews said the two people were rescued in the 3300 block of Pennsylvania Ave.

MPD searching for man accused of hitting officer with object during DC protest

First responders found the car through a fence down a 75-foot incline.

Firefighters were able to stabilize the car and remove the roof to rescue the people in the car.

The condition of the victims is not known.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  Roads to Government Wash at Lake Mead will be blocked beginning Thursday, Aug. 1, as officials work to stop criminal activity at the site.

Motor vehicle access and overnight camping will be prohibited until further notice. Boating access to the shoreline will be unaffected, according to a National Park Service news release on Friday. Government Wash Road and 8.0 Mile Road  access roads into Government Wash from North Shore Road  will be blocked.

Hiking, biking, and shoreline access by boat for recreation within 100 feet of the shoreline will remain available, according to the news release.

In the past five years, there have been 1,365 incidents in that area alone, requiring park law enforcement or firefighting personnel response, according to Trouper Snow, chief ranger at Lake Mead.

Three images from around Government Wash: A broken-down vehicle with miscellaneous trash piled up, a natural slope within Government Wash where trash has been dumped, and a burned-out vehicle. (Photos: National Park Service)

Its a popular spot not far from Las Vegas, and its the site of the iconic speedboat thats sticking out of the lakebed. That boat became a symbol of the water shortage in recent years as Lake Mead dropped to record low levels.

April 2023: The well-known vertical speedboat at Lake Mead is surrounded by water after the lake rose 4 feet in May, 2023. (Photo: @MikeyTantalo)

But its also a trouble spot that is attracting long-term visitors, officials said.

As water levels declined, residential-type visitors have moved in, and the area does not have sufficient infrastructure, facilities, or services available to support their use. This use has resulted in natural and cultural resource damage, high rates of serious criminal activity, illegal and unauthorized road creation, and an overall declining visitor experience and negative reputation for the area, according to the National Park Service.

Authorities are contending with numerous problems such as this unmaintained trailer with massive piles of trash next to it. (Photo: National Park Service)

Park officials say they are committed to finding a solution that includes designated roads, camping infrastructure, and resources the park needs to protect the areas natural beauty while preserving cultural artifacts.

But for now, they are restricting access. It is a first step to address a range of challenges presented by increased unregulated visitor use in the Government Wash area, the news release said.

We have seen unacceptable levels of resource damage and crime, which is a drain on our park staffing as it draws resources from traditional high use areas. The myriad of illegal roads and long-term encampments have created an unwelcoming environment for those who recreate throughout the Government Wash area, Snow said.

Community meetings are being planned for the fall, and public input is welcome any time prior to the meetings at by emailing lake_public_affairs@nps.gov.

For additional information, including frequently asked questions, photos, and a map of the area, please visit https://www.nps.gov/lake/government-wash-area-information.htm.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY)  Marquell Moon, a member of the Crips gang, is currently serving time in jail after being previously convicted for malicious wounding. Now, he was sentenced to four years and nine months on additional charges of fraud and identity theft.

Previous Coverage: Portsmouth police seek 2 people in connection with shooting; both considered armed and dangerous

In May 2021, Moon fired around 27 rounds at a victim while the victims 3-year-old child was with him, according to court documents. At least one of the rounds struck the victims left hand.

Marquell Moon

Law enforcement in Chesapeake caught Moon after he crashed his car in a high-speed chase while attempting to flee. Law enforcement recovered $8,275.66 and a stolen .45 semiautomatic handgun from Moons vehicle. Moon also discarded a backpack that was recovered.

This incident led to another investigation after additional suspicious items were found in Moons backpack and vehicle. Officers found credit and bank cards, a card embossing machine, a notebook detailing the fraudulent scheme and correspondence with the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC).

Thirty-four cards were either in another persons name or there was no name associated with the card. There were also 28 blank debit/credit cards with no identifying information on the magnetic strip.

This led to a fraudulent scheme investigation. It was revealed that Moon fraudulently obtained unemployment benefits implemented as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moon stole personally identifiable information (PII) of 10 individuals in order to apply to VEC for unemployment insurance benefits totaling $112,633.

The notebook detailed Moons steps. Federal agents across several states found the victims and determined that they did not know Moon and had not filed for unemployment insurance in Virginia. One victim was deceased.

In addition to applying for benefits in the victims names, Moon used VECs online portal to enter weekly re-certifications attesting that the applicants were ready and willing to work during the week and actively seeking employment.

Continue to check WAVY.com 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 WAVY.com.
While the chaos of last weeks Crowdstrike outage has mostly been cleaned up, the numbers behind the aftermath are just rolling in. According to a statement from insurer Parametrix, at least $5.4 billion in damages occurred to just Fortune 500 companies  over half of which employ Crowdstrike for cybersecurity services.

Parametrix also added that insured losses stemming from the outage will likely total $540 million to $1.08 billion for the Fortune 500 companies.

The outage started on Friday morning when, according to an alert sent by CrowdStrike to its clients and reviewed by Reuters, in a software update, the company's "Falcon Sensor" caused Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen, known informally as the "Blue Screen of Death."

This photo illustration taken in Goyang on July 19, 2024 shows screens displaying logos of "CrowdStrike", American cybersecurity technology company, in Goyang. Airlines, banks, TV channels and other business across the globe were scrambling to deal with one of the biggest IT crashes in recent years on July 19, 2024, caused by an update to an antivirus program. (Photo by Jung Yeon-je / AFP) (Photo by JUNG YEON-JE/AFP via Getty Images) ORIG FILE ID: 2162016376

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz apologized various times and said the company "is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts. Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack."

As negative PR continues to surround the company, it is responding by adjusting operations and ... sending $10 Uber Eats gift cards? Here's what you need to know.

How has Crowdstrike responded to its recent outage?

Beyond public apologies from its CEO, Crowdstrike released a blog post detailing how it will change operations going forward to avoid a similar event. This included adjusting its update verification system to better filter faulty code. Additionally, the company said that it was no longer going to release mass updates to avoid the possibility of mass outages.

Another way that Crowdstrike attempted to make amends was through Uber Eats gift cards worth $10. According to TechCrunch, a tech news website, the Uber Eats voucher was accompanied by an email that read: And for that, we send our heartfelt thanks and apologies for the inconvenience, the email continued, "To express our gratitude, your next cup of coffee or late night snack is on us!

The response to the voucher was a mix of confusion and frustration and due to high usage rates Uber flagged some of the vouchers as fraud making them unusable.

What is CrowdStrike?

CrowdStrike is a major player in the cybersecurity field, and the company is known for its unique approach to threat detection and response  which it ingrains in its products. Founded in 2011 in Sunnyvale, Calif., the company is now headquartered in Austin and, in the last decade, has specialized in endpoint security, threat intelligence and cyberattack response services.

CrowdStrike's flagship product, Falcon, uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify and mitigate threats in real time. The system the company has created is versatile in that it is able to provide protection across various devices and networks  which is why Fridays outage was so widespread.

CrowdStrike has a fairly good reputation and, in the past, has been able to uncover high-profile cyberattacks by North Korea. The company is known for its ability to rapidly respond to security breaches, helping organizations safeguard their digital assets against sophisticated cyber threats.

Beck Andrew Salgado covers trending topics in the Austin business ecosystem for the American-Statesman. To share additional tips or insights with Salgado, email Bsalgado@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: CrowdStrike outage estimated to cost Fortune 500 companies $5 billion
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trumps meeting with deep-pocketed donors at a Bitcoin conference tomorrow is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the renewed prominence of the digital-asset sector in the current political campaign cycle.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Industry donors have poured more money into the 2024 election than in all prior cycles combined, according to tracker OpenSecrets  thats without even counting all donations from the second quarter. In the 2022 election cycle, crypto exchange operators and their major venture capital backers donated $88 million, a Bloomberg analysis of Federal Election Commission records found. That figure includes donations recipients later disgorged from FTXs Sam Bankman-Fried and his colleagues.

After the FTX exchange blew up, and politicians ended up returning Bankman-Frieds funds, members of Congress shied away from crypto. But as Bitcoin rallied to another record and the coffers of industry participants filled up again, the money began flowing once more, especially to candidates such as Trump, who is seen as fostering a friendlier regulatory environment. The move of traditional finance giants like BlackRock Inc. and State Street Corp. into crypto has helped the sector to move past the taint of scandal.

FTXs collapse had a huge hit on crypto efforts in Washington, said Kristin Smith, chief executive officer of crypto industry advocate Blockchain Association. But thats also made founders realize they had to take Washington seriously.

The industrys push to give money to pro-crypto candidates is just one part of its multi-pronged strategy, Smith said. Its been funding grassroots efforts, designed to energize pro-crypto voters. And crypto executives have been visiting politicians in Washington and hiring lobbyists to push their agenda in legislation.

Fairshake and two allied super PACs have already raised $170 million this cycle, from the likes of Coinbase Global Inc., Ripple and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. The super PACs are supporting or attacking candidates from both parties based on their positions on cryptocurrency regulation. Fairshake spent $10 million going after Representative Katie Porter of California, a critic of the industry, in an unsuccessful campaign for the Senate.

Frenzy, is how lobbyist Todd White, managing partner of Rulon & White Governance Strategies, describes the spending by crypto companies.

They know if they are not into political contributions within this year, a lot of them may not succeed, at least not in the United States, White said. Its the widest opportunity to gain traction that weve really seen in the last four years.

Ongoing legal cases filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent years threaten many crypto businesses key revenue streams. Banking regulators are making it hard for some crypto firms to open and maintain US bank accounts. The industry is seeking legislative and executive-branch-led relief to thrive  and many insiders are betting on a change of administration to make that happen.

A bunch of people who I would describe as normally left leaning Democratic stalwarts in the tech community only had one choice, which is go with the Republicans, said Austin Campbell, adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and managing partner of Zero Knowledge Consulting.

In recent months, Trump has held meetings with collectors of his nonfungible tokens and with Bitcoin miners, whose computers secure the network. He met with crypto donors at a fundraiser in San Francisco. Attendees said he promised relief, such as support of mining in the US.

Trump is inviting supporters in the cryptocurrency industry to a private fund-raising effort in Nashville on July 27, including an asking price of $844,600 for a seat at a round table. The former president is set to speak on the main stage of the conference the same day.

Presumed Democratic presidential nominee Kalama Harris declined to speak at the event, according to a conference organizer.

BitGo Chief Executive Officer Mike Belshe will host a fundraiser headlined by the Republican nominees running mate JD Vance on July 29 in Palo Alto, California, according to an invitation obtained by Bloomberg News. Belshe is asking attendees to pay $3,300 to attend, $15,000 per photo with Vance and $25,000 to participate in a roundtable. For $50,000 couples can join the host committee for the event.

Andreessen Horowitz

Already Elon Musk, who has been promoting Dogecoin, has pledged money to a pro-Trump super PAC. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, who run the venture-capital firm known as a16z, recently pledged their support to Trump, they said in a podcast. Andreessen Horowitz made the donation.

Its just a flat out endorsement of the entire space, Andreessen said in the podcast after reading the Republican platform  with its mention of crypto  that he said Trump wrote himself. Its an absolute 180 of what weve been experiencing. Andreessen said hed previously supported Democrats like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Horowitz pointed out they could never get a chance to meet Present Joe Biden, while they have met Trump.

Biden announced on July 21 that he wouldnt seek re-election and pledged his support to Vice President Harris for the Democratic Party nominee.

Crypto donors have also been targeting House and Senate races  particularly trying to unseat Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has long advocated for additional protections to be part of new crypto bills. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twins who run the Gemini exchange, have contributed to her rival, John Deaton.

This is the best time to get a respected member as he or she was sitting on the fence on crypto, White said. You are placing your contributions where you can gain traction and have some input into the process.

(Updates to include details on a BitGo fundraiser in the 14th paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Votes are counted by staff at the Maricopa County Elections Department office on November 5, 2020 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Courtney Pedroza/Getty Images)

A Cullman man pleaded guilty on Friday to sending threatening messages to Arizona election workers in Maricopa County during the 2022 Arizona primary elections.

Brian Jerry Ogstad, 60, admitted to sending multiple threatening messages over social media, including explicit threats of violence and execution against election workers. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on one count, with sentencing scheduled for October 21 in Phoenix.



A message seeking comment was left with Ogstads attorney on Friday.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement that the safety of public servants is essential to the functioning of democracy and said the Justice Department has zero tolerance for threats and violence against them.

We have no tolerance for this kind of heinous criminal conduct and the danger it poses to peoples safety and to our democratic process. Threats and acts of violence targeting those who serve the public will be met with the full force of the United States Justice Department, Garland said in a statement.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

In a partially redacted indictment, attorneys for United States and Arizona said Ogstad made death threats on or about Aug. 2, 2022 through Aug. 4, 2022, to Maricopa County election officials.

You did it! Now you are f. Dead. You will all be executed for your crimes, he sent in a direct message over Instagram, according to the indictment.

Ogstad repeated the threats over the next couple days, repeatedly saying that they will all be executed.

U.S. Attorney Gary M. Restaino for the District of Arizona said the guilty plea should send a message to anyone who tries to take the rule of law into their own hands through vigilante justice.

FBI Director Christopher Wray also said that violent threats to election workers are threats to democracy and the democratic process.

We cannot allow threats of violence against public servants to become normalized. The FBI takes seriously all threats of violence against public officials and will continue to pursue threats and acts of violence aimed at election workers, he stated in a press release.

This case is part of the Justice Departments Election Threats Task Force, established in June 2021 by Attorney General Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. The task force addresses threats of violence against election workers and ensures they can perform their duties free from intimidation. It engages with the election community and law enforcement to investigate and prosecute threats against election workers.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
TOPEKA (KSNT)  Federal health officials are urging people who bought a type of toy gun off Temu.com to take action immediately.

The Consumer Product and Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a recall Friday, July 26 for Victor Electric Folding Soft Bullet Toy Guns. The toys are being recalled as they fail to meet federal safety standards such as lacking a blaze orange tip which is a mandatory requirement to help people tell the difference between toy guns and real guns. The toy guns also pose an eye injury hazard to children as they do not meet requirements in the mandatory toy standard for projectile toys.

The recall impacts 490 of the toy guns sold exclusively on Temu.com by Youjiu. The toys were sold in black/green and black/sand coloration with KRISS VECTOR and .45 ACP printed on their sides. Accessories included with the toys are a magazine, holographic sight, foam bullet projectiles and toy goggles.

(Photo Courtesy/CPSC)

(Photo Courtesy/CPSC)

(Photo Courtesy/CPSC)

How popular are Kansas most expensive hunting and fishing licenses?

The CPSC is encouraging customers who purchased the toy guns to stop using them immediately and contact Youjiu for a full refund. To get a refund, customers should remove the magazine and battery, cut the black and red wires linked to the battery, take a photo of the destroyed toy gun and send it to Youjius store through Temus onsite messaging system by using this link.

The toy guns were sold from March 2023 through June 2023 for around $45 and were produced in China. No injuries have been reported yet in connection to this recall.

For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.

Follow Matthew Self on X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MatthewLeoSelf

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News.
Iowa lawmakers focused on antisemitism and support for Israel this week as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was visiting the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

With Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the Capitol for an address to Congress, Iowa lawmakers focused this week on issues related to Israel and antisemitism on college campuses.

Also this week, a bill sponsored by Iowa lawmakers is headed to the presidents desk. It would require government officials to provide a review of congressional projects that go significantly over budget or behind schedule.

Heres what Iowas congressional delegation has been doing this week:

Iowa lawmakers praise Netanyahus visit

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an address to Congress on Wednesday reaffirmed his commitment to continue the war until Israeli hostages were released and Hamas was defeated.

While Netanyahus visit was met with criticism from progressive members of the Democratic Party, the all-Republican Iowa delegation commended Netanyahu and urged him to continue with the war.

Rep. Ashley Hinson said in a post on X, formerly called Twitter, that Netanyahus speech was inspiring and vowed that she would continue her support for Israel.

We will continue working together to eradicate Hamas terrorists, bring hostages home and restore peace in the Middle East. I stand with Israel! Hinson said on Twitter.

Inspiring to hear from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today as Israel continues to fight for its right to exist. We will continue working together to eradicate Hamas terrorists, bring hostages home, and restore peace in the Middle East. I stand with Israel!  Ashley Hinson (@RepAshleyHinson) July 24, 2024

During his speech, Netanyahu pushed back against criticisms that the war has gone on too long and has resulted in far too many civilian casualties.

Rep. Randy Feenstra also reiterated his support for Israel and said the U.S. and Israel must work together to defeat Hamas.

Last month, I traveled to Israel and met with Prime Minister Netanyahu to strengthen our alliance and express our unwavering support for Israel. His message today was the same message he gave me in June  the people of Israel deeply appreciate U.S. support and they need it now more than ever to defeat Hamas, Feenstra said in a press release.

While Netanyahu spoke to Congress, nearby protesters held rallies in support of Palestine where they criticized the U.S.s involvement in the conflict.

Rep. Zach Nunn said in a social media post that he was in full support of Israel and criticized the nearby pro-Palestine protesters.

We can fight for freedom and against terrorists or we can support mob violence and serve as useful idiots for Hamas. I stand with Israel, Nunn said on X.

We can fight for freedom and against terrorists or we can support mob violence and serve as useful idiots for Hamas. I stand with Israel. pic.twitter.com/GqjD2upT5u  Congressman Zach Nunn (@ZachNunn) July 24, 2024

Iowa senators introduce bill to crack down on antisemitism on campus

Iowa Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst joined with Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and West Virginia Sen. Shelly Moore Capito in introducing a bill directing the Department of Education and universities to address civil rights complaints against students experiencing discrimination based on their heritage.

The Act requires the Department of Educations Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to update the student at least every 30 days about the status of their complaint and disclose the result of their investigation to the student.

The bill, known as Restoring Civility on Campus Act, is in response to concerns about rising antisemitism on campus, according to Grassley in a press release.

Frankly, our academic leaders shouldnt need direction from Congress to protect students and take swift action against civil rights violations  but, evidently, they do. Our universities and education officials must do more to combat antisemitism, Grassley said in the press release.

The measure also requires the department to do annual audits of documented campus hate crimes and increase fines on schools failing to report an antisemitism hate crime from around $70,000 per violation to $1 million per violation.

Ernst said in the press release that the Department of Education needs to take a stronger stance in defending Jewish students.

I have been demanding answers from this administration about what they are doing to combat the abhorrent and un-American spike in antisemitism on college campuses, and their inaction speaks volumes, Ernst said in the press release. Jewish students should not be forced to risk their safety in pursuit of an education.

The bill would also have OCR staff meet with the head of an institution facing a Title VI complaint.

Miller-Meeks and Ernst bill headed to presidents desk

A joint bill sponsored by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Ernst, the Billion Dollar Boondoggle Act, passed the House on Monday and is headed to the presidents desk for final approval.

The measure would require public disclosure for any taxpayer-funded project that is at least $1 billion over budget or five years behind schedule. The government must explain the reason behind the added costs or the delays and provide the names of the contractors involved.

In Congress, we are entrusted to be stewards of taxpayer dollars, Miller-Meeks said in a press release. Government-funded projects that are excessively costly and delayed must be held to account. Our bill will increase transparency over these projects to ensure we arent wasting billions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars.

The bill passed in the Senate unanimously in March. Ernst, who co-led the effort in the Senate with New Hampshire Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan, said in a press release the bill will help prevent government excess.

Its a bad day for boondoggles, but a very good one for taxpayers! Ernst said in a press release. When this legislation, already unanimously passed by the Senate, becomes law, it will be impossible to hide pricey pork projects from being put on the chopping block.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

Secret Service director resigns following criticisms

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Wednesday after criticisms of her department poured in following former President Donald Trumps near assassination. Iowa lawmakers were among those calling for Cheatle to resign since the shooting.

Grassley has led efforts in Congress to investigate the incident and has called on multiple government agencies to address questions regarding the incident.

Hinson said Cheatles resignation was necessary but more investigations into the assassination attempt were still needed.

Director Cheatles resignation was just the first step toward accountability. I voted to ensure the assassination attempt on President Trump is fully investigated so that our leaders are fully protected & the American people feel safe participating in our political process.  Ashley Hinson (@RepAshleyHinson) July 25, 2024

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Ismael Mayo Zambada Garcia, the legendary leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, has been arrested in El Paso, Texas. The apprehension of the notorious drug trafficker, who had not set foot in a jail in decades of criminal life and who had a $15 million bounty on his head, took place at a private airport in the border city. The arrest was reported by the Tijuana weekly Zeta and confirmed to Reuters by two sources from the operation. The authorities have also detained Joaquin Guzman Lopez, one of Joaquin El Chapo Guzmans sons.

The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a press release.

El Mayo, born in Culiacan in January 1948, had been wanted by U.S. authorities for decades. His name appears in at least five wide-ranging legal cases opened between 2003 and 2016 in U.S. federal courts. In all of them, he is accused of aiding the trafficking of cocaine and marijuana into U.S. territory and of inheriting the criminal empire once Joaquin El Chapo Guzman was arrested and prosecuted.

The hunt for the drug lord intensified with the crusade by U.S. authorities to combat the arrival of fentanyl in the country. Washington has targeted large Mexican organizations, especially the one operating in Sinaloa, for trafficking the potent opiate that has caused a health emergency with more than 100,000 deaths in the past year. In February, prosecutors opened a new case against Zambada for manufacturing and distributing the drug, which has become the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable in the United States, said the Department of Justice. These include Ovidio Guzman, extradited to the United States last September, and Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, known as El Nini, who is considered one of the organizations top hitmen.

Despite his long criminal history, the U.S. anti-narcotics agency noted something unique about Mayo Zambada. He has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in jail, the organization notes on the page offering a multimillion-dollar reward to anyone who provides information leading to his capture.

His life on the run is legendary. In 2010, Zambada had journalist Julio Scherer, one of the deans of the Mexican press, brought to his house. The meeting took place in a rustic house lost in the woods and was far from an interview, as the drug trafficker was reluctant to answer the 83-year-old reporters questions. He is over six feet tall and has a body like a fortress, Scherer wrote in his notebook. Zambada gave some details of his personal life. He had a wife, five women on the side, 15 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

One of his sons, Vicente Zambada Niebla, was arrested by Mexican authorities in 2009 on organized crime charges and extradited to Chicago in 2013. Vicentillo, as he is known, pleaded guilty and cooperated with authorities. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison in May 2019. His testimony was key to prosecutors being able to sentence El Chapo Guzman to prison. In April 2021, prison authorities admitted that Zambada Niebla had already left prison in the United States.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition
As Lord Falconer launches a private members bill to make assisted dying legal in the House of Lords, Kamal and Camilla catch up with him about why now is the right time to reignite one of the most controversial debates in the UK.



The bill, which was first brought to the House of Lords in 2013, has been given a second chance after broadcaster and journalist Dame Esther Rantzen reignited the debate when she disclosed her plan to travel to Dignitas alone after her stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis last year. Currently, the laws in England and Wales around assisted dying mean her family could face criminal charges if they help her with euthanasia.



In this Daily T Special, we also speak to Dame Esther about what it means to have a good death and why she thinks the bill should pass. While Paralympic athlete Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson argues the case against the bill, sharing her concerns about what it would mean for vulnerable disabled people.



Plus, a look at the case study of the Netherlands, where assisted dying is legal for people with mental health issues as well. We ask: is it a slippery slope?

Watch episodes of the Daily T here or on YouTube.

Or if you would prefer to listen to the audio only, then use the player above. You can also listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and subscribe to The Daily T newsletter for updates.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Elizabeth Ha created the privacy-minded menstrual tracking app Monthly last year, after failing to find an option that felt safe enough to her following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision. Courtesy of Elizabeth Ha

After the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022 and abortion was banned in the state of Tennessee, Dr. Danielle Kelvas quit using an app that tracked her menstrual cycle.

It frightened me.  I actually got frightened because it tracked me for, like, a week, Kelvas said of the Oura Ring feature Cycle Insights. And I thought, wheres this information going?

Immediately following the Dobbs V. Jackson Supreme Court decision which struck down the constitutional right to abortion, data privacy experts cautioned to take a closer look at menstrual cycle tracking apps. Information logged into these apps, or tracked via wearable devices like a Fitbit or an Oura Ring, have the potential to be used in prosecuting those who seek abortions in states which criminalize it.

Kelvas, a former emergency room physician, is a big fan of her Oura Ring. She researched the device  which gives insight to users about their biometric data like heart rate and sleep quality  thoroughly before buying it.

When the company rolled out its menstrual tracking feature, called Cycle Insights, she was excited to try it. But when she started reading more into the terms of agreement, she couldnt find clear cut information about how the data was stored, how secure it was, or if it was encrypted.

States Newsroom reached out to Oura for clarification on its privacy policy for Cycle Insights, but the request for comment was not returned.

Kelvas, 34, lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where abortion is banned, with only the exception of preventing death for the expectant person. The law, a trigger ban that went into effect in August 2022, also makes obtaining or performing an abortion a criminal offense.

So I deleted it, Kelvas said of the app.

A doctor in a lab coat.

Opal Pandya is in the same boat. The 25-year old Philadelphian deleted the app Flo, after reading case studies about data releases to external third parties. She also took note when she started suddenly getting targeted ads on Instagram for products that would help soothe period symptoms shed just logged in Flo.

I realized my data was flowing across multiple platforms, she said.

She didnt feel comfortable with that, and didnt have the time to figure out who had access to that data. The final straw was learning that third-party data could be available to states in prosecuting abortions banned under their laws.

Pandya also opted out of her Apple Watchs cycle tracking after trying it for a while, and has stopped wearing it to bed, as it tracks ovulation cycles via temperature at night while sleeping.

Health care privacy has always been something Pandyas been wary of, she said, and while theres benefits of tracking menstrual information, the Dobbs decision showed her there could be serious consequences of that data being vulnerable.

I have always been sensitive about my health information and understand theres a strong distrust of the medical system as a whole, Pandya said. And overturning Roe v. Wade did nothing but solidify and spread that distrust, especially among minority women.

Kelvas, who now owns a medical writing service and is a consultant for software company IT Medical, is acutely aware of those delicacies of navigating menstrual tracking.

As a physician, she said she cant emphasize enough how important it is that people have access to cycle tracking. Its one of the few tools people have to be in more control of family planning and their reproductive health, as some states attack access to birth control.

But her experience in health care IT has highlighted how easy it is for sensitive data to go unprotected. Many people think all health care information is protected under the federal privacy law, known as HIPAA. But menstrual cycle tracking apps, along with other health care technologies, like texting platforms that patients can use with doctors, are not.

In highly restrictive states, Kelvas said its challenging to navigate your reproductive rights  It doesnt really matter what we do, were always in trouble, she said.

For a lot of women, suddenly becoming pregnant means that they are illegal, Kelvas said. And what do you do after that? You know, for a lot of people, the reality is that they just dont own their uterus anymore.

What data is up for grabs?

There havent been any cases where a menstrual tracking apps data has been subpoenaed yet, but thats probably due to the slow speed of which cases proceed through the court system, said Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technologys Security and Surveillance Project. There have been few cases of electronic data of any form being subpoenaed yet, but via their terms and conditions, many companies leave themselves vulnerable to having to hand data over to prosecutors or courts.

Laperruque warned that the data that could be used to prosecute abortion cases could be more far-reaching than just whats logged in a period tracking app.

There are a lot of really innocuous seeming data in health care  location information, communications, metadata patterns and even information you dont know youre generating, Laperruque said.

If social media apps have access to your location, for example, prosecutors could timestamp your visit at an abortion providers office through the location data of any number of apps.

Data collected by apps, wearables, could potentially now be used by law enforcement or even private individuals, seeking to sue or target people for exercising reproductive choice and seeking out information or care around abortion, he said.

Digital footprints have been used in prosecuting reproductive cases even before the Dobbs decision.

In 2018, a woman in Mississippi was charged with second-degree murder after she gave birth to a stillborn baby at home. Part of the prosecutions case noted that she had researched how to terminate a pregnancy in the past.

Last year, a teenager in Nebraska was convicted for terminating a pregnancy after prosecutors subpoenaed Facebook messages between her and her mother.

How to assess data privacy

For now, most of the responsibility to protect a users data falls on the user themselves, said Andrew Crawford, a health care privacy-focused senior counsel with the Center for Democracy and Technology.

It really is incumbent on users to do their homework, Crawford said. And unfortunately, sometimes that means reading really dense privacy policies and looking for keywords.

The terms and conditions of an app or a wearable device need to spell out what data its collecting, what it does with that data and who else may have access. An app may automatically seek access to things like your contacts, your geolocation, or photos, but you may not have to give it those full permissions. Period tracking apps often share information with data brokers, advertisers or third parties that are hard to track.

Users should also pay attention to how an app treats the data it gets. A keyword to look for is encryption, or data thats changed into a secret code that can only be unlocked with a unique digital key.

Data thats stored locally on your device also tends to be safer than data thats stored in a cloud, Crawford said. It would be a lot harder for law enforcement to access encrypted data stored only on your device rather than if they can subpoena a company for it.

Theres always risk as long as data is logged somewhere, Laperruque said.

But police are only going to be able to search your phone if they hand you a warrant and seize the phone, he said.

Most wearable devices that collect biometric data have some encryption aspect. Apples privacy policy says that when your device is locked, all your health and fitness data thats on the device and synced to iCloud is encrypted.

This means that when you use the Cycle Tracking feature and have enabled two-factor authentication, your health data synced to iCloud is encrypted end-to-end and Apple does not have the key to decrypt the data and therefore cannot read it, the company said.

Fitbit and Oura Ring say they use encryption measures, too. All three companies say that they have to comply with subpoena requests by law enforcement agencies.

The cost of your data

App developer Elizabeth Ha, 27, of Los Angeles, built cycle tracking app Monthly in response to the Dobbs v. Jackson decision. All of the health data inputted into the app is stored privately on your device, and doesnt enter a database. You can delete your app (and subsequently, your data) at any time, and Monthly does not make your data available to anyone but the user.

Ha had been a long-time user of one period tracker app, but the Dobbs decision and the attention that data privacy was getting at the time, forced her to take a harder look at where she was logging her information.

Once your data gets sent to these data warehouses, its like a little bit of a black box, she said.

She feels pretty secure about her reproductive rights in California, but you never know whats going to happen or who else might need a more secure option, she said of Monthly, which released on the app store late last year.

The field of mobile apps is so new, developing in the last decade or so, she said, and it evolves so quickly. The reason so many period trackers are free is that theyre built by larger companies that can collect and sell your data, Ha said.

For them to be a business, a lot of the business is selling the data, she said.

Many Americans are waiting for a comprehensive, federal data privacy overhaul. The American Privacy Rights Act was proposed in congress in May, which would require covered entities to be transparent about how they use consumer data and give consumers the right to access, correct, delete, and export their data, as well as opt out of targeted advertising and data transfers.

It would also mandate that a covered entity could not collect or transfer to a third party biometric data without the individuals affirmative express consent.

For now, those who wish to keep data related to their reproductive health safe, should be vigilant about the terms and conditions of the devices and the platforms they use.

It just kind of speaks to the importance of both the surveillance and consumer data side of upgrading the laws, Laperruque said. We have to be more protective.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Graduating midshipmen arrive for the graduation and commissioning ceremony at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. on May 26, 2017. On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman ordered desegregation of the U.S. military. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

July 26 (UPI) -- On this date in history:

In 1775, Congress establishes the U.S. postal system.

In 1847, Liberia became a republic and Africa's first sovereign, Black-ruled democratic nation.

In 1908, the FBI was born as the Bureau of Investigation, or BOI, when a group of newly hired investigators reported to the Justice Department. The special unit officially became the FBI in 1935.

In 1931, swarms of grasshoppers decimated millions of acres of crops throughout the southwestern United States.

The Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off for a mission to the International Space Station at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on July 26, 2005. This first shuttle mission since the Columbia disaster was originally scheduled for launch in May, but technical glitches delayed the return to human space flight. File Photo by Marino-Cantrell/UPI

In 1941, Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur was named commander of U.S. forces in the Philippines.

File Photo by US Army/UPI

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks to the media after appearing at Belmarsh Magistrates court in Woolwich on January 11, 2011. On July 26, 2010, Assange, said it was decided to post more than 75,000 secret U.S. Afghan war documents on the Internet to give a more complete picture of the conflict. File Photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI

In 1945, voters ousted Winston Churchill as prime minister of Britain after five years in the position. His Conservative Party would be voted back into power in 1951, and he would regain his position.

In 1948, President Harry S. Truman ordered desegregation of the U.S. military.

Smoke rises from oil tanks beside the Suez Canal hit during the initial Anglo-French assault on Port Said, on November 5, 1956. On July 26, 1956, Egypt sparked the crisis by nationalizing the British- and French-owned Suez Canal. File Photo courtesy Imperial War Museum

In 1956, Egypt created a crisis by nationalizing the British- and French-owned Suez Canal.

In 1984, serial killer Ed Gein, the inspiration for the movie Psycho, dies of cancer.

On July 26, 1945, voters ousted Winston Churchill as prime minister of Britain after five years in the position. His Conservative Party would be voted back into power in 1951, and he would regain his position. File Photo courtesy Cecil Beaton/Imperial War Museums

In 1990, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, prohibiting discrimination against the disabled in employment, public accommodations, in telecommunications, and on public or private buses or trains.

Participants march in the Heartland Disability Rights March and Rally on July 25, 1999, to celebrate the signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act of July 26, 1994. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

In 1992, under pressure, Iraq agreed to allow U.N. inspectors to look for documentation on weapons of mass destruction.

In 2005, the Discovery lifted off from Cape Canaveral in the first shuttle launch since the 2003 Columbia tragedy.

In 2010, the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, said the site decided to post more than 75,000 secret U.S. Afghan war documents on the Internet to give a more complete picture of the conflict. The White House said the deed had "a potential to be very harmful."

In 2018, Facebook had the worst single day of trading in history, losing some $110 billion.

In 2023, soldiers in Niger said they removed President Mohamed Bazoum from office in a coup of the democratically elected government. Brigade Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani put himself in charge of the military junta.

File Photo by STR/EPA-EFE
VIRGINIA (DC News Now)  A woman from the District is facing a felony charge related to the 2023 escape of a Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) inmate.

VDOC announced Friday that Sasha Castillo was charged with Persons aiding escape of a prisoner.

The indictment stemmed from the escape of inmate Naseem Isaiah Roulack, who escaped custody at Henrico County hospital in August 2023.

Officers were not able to find him or return him into custody until October of that year.

Inmate escaped custody in Virginia, wanted for armed car theft in Montgomery County

The Virginia Department of Corrections continues to pursue the prosecution of all involved in this escape, said VADOC Director Chad Dotson in a news release. Inmates who escape or attempt to escape state custody and those who aid and abet them must always face justice for their actions.

Castillos trial date has not yet been set. A City of Richmond grand jury indicted her on July 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 DC News Now | Washington, DC.
College of the Desert board of trustees unanimously approved its tentative budget in late June, highlighting the urgent need to address "bleak" projections in the years ahead, as a result of the state's multi-billion dollar budget deficit.

Last week, the college also addressed how its also investing in services that remove obstacles to student retention and graduation, with the goal of increasing enrollment, and therefore, revenue.

The following highlights are projections that COD made for its proposed budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year based on state information available at the time.

College of the Desert's general fund has tentative $149 million budget

With the combined general fund, which is made up of both the unrestricted and restricted funds, College of the Desert adopted a tentative budget of about $149 million for the upcoming fiscal year. (Each district's total budget includes both unrestricted and restricted monies. Unrestricted dollars are monies a district can choose how to spend. Restricted dollars must be used for certain purposes, usually in compliance with federal or state regulations.)

A large portion of COD's funding is based is tied to the Student Centered Funding Formula, which was implemented at all California community colleges in the 2018-19 academic year. As such, 70% of COD's funding is based on enrollment, while 30% is tied to success and equity supplemental funding. Salaries and benefits make up 84% of CODs operational budget. The final budget will be presented to the board of trustees for consideration and approval on Sept. 20.

Compared to the 2023-24 budget, COD will cut its $1 million contribution to other post-employment benefits and its $580,000 allocation to the capital outlay fund for deferred maintenance. This year's state budget does not allocate funds for deferred maintenance, and COD does not anticipate receiving any for the next couple of years.

COD also has minimal ongoing contingencies. Last year, that figure was at approximately $3.8 million. All the revenue COD has received is already earmarked and allocated, leaving no financial cushion except for any unfilled vacancy positions.

College of the Desert approved a $149 million budget for its combined general fund for the 2024-25 fiscal year.

College of the Desert implemented cost-saving measures this year

Moving forward, if COD doesn't start generating growth, it will need to make operational decisions, said Rodrigo Garcia, COD's vice president of business services. Earlier this year, COD implemented a soft hiring freeze to reduce expenditures, "a preemptive measure so we can preserve the jobs that the college currently supports," said Laura Hope, COD's interim president/superintendent last week.

COD could lose $2.2 million if Indio's campus fails to reach 1,000 full-time equivalent students and an additional $2.2 million if COD, in general, does not reach 10,300 full-time equivalent students by the end of the 2024-25 academic year. COD's enrollment is projected around 9,600 full-time equivalent students for the 2023-24 academic year, down from about 10,732 in 2019-20 when the pandemic hit. (Community colleges receive roughly $7,000 per student.)

"I think, as a community, if we can make those determinations together, then everybody will feel like they're making a contribution," Hope said at the board meeting. "Sometimes that's what's necessary in California  that we have to lock arms and make some hard decisions for the short-term. The state is telling us this is a two-year problem. It is not. This is a four-year problem, at least. And so just being proactive right now, we think is an important aspect of our planning."

Interim Superintendent and President Laura Hope addresses the crowd at College of the Desert's State of the College event on Feb. 29, 2024.

Subsequently, COD is focusing on targeted initiatives both in and out of the classroom, with goals to not only convert part-time students to full-time but to improve student retention by reducing barriers for student success. For example, COD will launch its inaugural program this fall to support young adults who have been through juvenile detention systems; support efforts to expand dual enrollment programs and connect students to all COD campuses across the valley via the RoadRunner Express, a new and free shuttle service; and a $5 textbook rental pilot program.

As COD's budget is also linked to student outcomes, a bottleneck course study presentation at last week's board meeting highlighted the critical role of improving student retention to boost enrollment and support progress toward graduation.

The study identified 10 courses that students most frequently waitlist. Among these, four classes stood out the most, including English Composition, Introduction to Ethnic Studies, Fundamentals of Chemistry, as well Human Anatomy and Physiology. Some sections of these courses typically have smaller seat capacities, ranging from 24 to 35 students. While COD is over its faculty obligation number, the college has hired four full-time faculty members, who will start in the fall, to address these needs.

The study also showed that for the past five years, 25 courses  including two of the bottleneck courses identified earlier  have failed to meet COD's floor goal of a 69.7% success rate. High failure rates force students to repeat courses, which, in turn, leads to insufficient seating capacity.

To boost success rates in its courses, COD is now working towards revamping its tutoring services to reduce the stigma of seeking help to support student achievement. Fast Track classes, condensed from the usual 16-week sessions, also offer students the flexibility to accelerate their goals.

The board of trustees acknowledged the studys relevance to the budget, emphasizing its importance for using data to guide future decisions.

When is COD's next board of trustees meeting?

COD will hold its next board meeting at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 16 at the college's boardroom at 43-500 Monterey Ave., Building C, in Palm Desert. COD also livestreams its board meetings on YouTube at this link: youtube.com/CollegeoftheDesertOfficial

Jennifer Cortez covers education in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at jennifer.cortez@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Declining enrollment causing budget issues for College of the Desert
Its definitely a letdown: Repeat thefts cause another CVS in DC to close

WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  Another CVS in Washington, D.C. is officially closed and a representative with the company has a theory why: repeat thieves.

Its unclear if thefts contributed to the closure of the shop on Kennedy Street NW, which has been slated to close for more than a month and officially shut its doors on Tuesday. However, it appears thefts are a contributing factor in many store closures in the District.

CVS location on Kennedy St NW set to close in July

Thats no surprise to some locals who frequented the CVS, for reasons ranging from small shopping to prescriptions.

Its definitely a letdown because we had a lot of senior residents that live in the community and this was very convenient for them to come in and get their medication, Jackie Strange, who used to work at the Kennedy Street store, told DC News Now.

We do see the same people come in and take stuff and then even if they do get caught we will see them the next day come in and take some more stuff, Strange said. Theyre not really afraid of law enforcement. Yeah, theyll keep on doing it.

CVS told DC News Now that as part of a 2021 initiative, 14 standalone CVS stores have closed  three additional pharmacies located within Target stores have also closed. However, it said the reasons for the closures include population shifts, consumer buying patterns and the stores density.

DC police arrest CVS Red Bull thief

While it did not mention thefts, a representative from the company did attribute thieves to closures in front of a judge.

At a sentencing hearing for a man who repeatedly stole items from a Southeast CVS, a representative for the company gave a victim impact statement.

According to a press release from the U.S. Attorneys Office in D.C., which described testimony, the representative said:

Thefts committed by repeat offenders have caused several stores within the district to close. This not only deprives community members of access to necessities like prescriptions, but it also deprives the hardworking staff members of their jobs as more and more CVS locations close.

Darryl Kelly, who told DC News Now theft is in his past, offered a warning for those perpetrators.

Youre gonna get caught one day like I got caught, he said. Three or four years in jail. Youre going to learn the hard way.

Strange guessed that thefts were not the only reason why the Kennedy St NW location closed  citing busier CVS shops nearby. She did offer a hope that CVS would improve security at its still-open locations.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Some Republicans scrambling to refocus their talking points on Vice President Kamala Harris now that she has abruptly become the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate and reinvigorated the Democratic Party.

Some have mocked her laugh. Some have ridiculed her dancing. (Harris' campaign has embraced these as positives, as well as numerous memes supporting her such as "brat summer" to strong response.) And Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett accused her of being a DEI vice president on social media and then as a DEI hire in a CNN interview, suggesting the former district attorney, California attorney general and U.S. senator was chosen for VP solely due to identity politics and not merit.

One hundred percent she is a DEI hire, he said.

Rep. Tim Burchett, a conservative Republican from Tennessee, attacks VP Kamala Harris as a "DEI hire." pic.twitter.com/5bZGml31Kx  Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 22, 2024

"Whenever you hear DEI, I want you to think about the N word," Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat and the youngest member of Congress, told CNN in an interview Tuesday. "I want you to think about racial slurs. That's what they actually mean."

On Wednesday, Burchett said on SiriusXMs The LauraCoates Show that he regretted what he said, but doubled down anyway. Do I wish Id said it? No, but it was the truth, he said.

Harris has also been called a DEI hire by conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk, FOX Business host Larry Kudlow, Fox News host Jesse Watters, Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman, former Trump official Sebastian Gorka and Utah Rep. Burgess Owens (who is Black) who told Punchbowl News that Harris is the greatest example of DEI.

Politico reported that House Republican leaders told members of the party in a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning to focus on Harris' record rather than talking about her race or gender.

Her ethnicity and her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever," House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference the same day. "This is about who can deliver for the American people and get us out of the mess that were in."

DEI has become the latest talking point in the anti-"woke" culture war for conservative politicians and commentators, and a particular target for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

What is DEI?

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is a term used to describe programs and policies that encourage representation and participation of diverse groups of people of all genders, races and ethnicities, abilities and disabilities, religions, cultures, ages, and sexual orientations.

DEI programs in business are intended to make sure that everyone  especially groups that have historically been underrepresented or discriminated against  receives fair treatment and that differences are embraced to improve relations and teamwork and increase cultural sensitivity. In education, DEI typically refers to strategies, policies and practices that provide all students equal access to educational opportunities, regardless of their background, identity or abilities.

"Companies that are diverse, equitable, and inclusive are better able to respond to challenges, win top talent, and meet the needs of different customer bases," said multinational consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

DEI programs grew out of the affirmative action measures started during the Civil Rights era to address historic and persistent discrimination on the basis of race, sex or disability and they exploded in popularity during the #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements, especially after the murder of George Floyd.

Critics claim DEI programs prioritize minorities to the exclusion of more qualified candidates and treat them as anti-white, anti-male, ideologically-driven "woke" discrimination, with some even saying they contribute to antisemitism.

The anti-woke backlash over the last few years, especially last year after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative-action admissions policies, has resulted in DEI programs getting dropped at many public colleges. Some companies have discontinued their DEO training programs, although most companies surveyed said they were keeping theirs. Conservative activists have filed a growing number of legal challenges advocating for "colorblindness" in the workplace.

What is a DEI hire?

The term DEI hire is a shortened version of "diversity hire," a pejorative term implying someone was only hired to fill a quota or check a box in a DEI program and not on their own merits.

"Intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel," Rep. Hageman said about Harris on Tuesday. "I think she was a DEI hire. And I think that that's what we're seeing, and I just don't think that they have anybody else."

When asked about @KamalaHarris candidacy, @HagemanforWY calls @VP a "DEI hire."



"Intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel...I think she was a DEI hire. And I think that that's what we're seeing, and I just don't think that they have anybody else." pic.twitter.com/Dj9y4pKHrj  Josh Rultenberg (@JoshRultNews) July 23, 2024

Burchett said in the CNN interview that President Joe Biden himself said Harris was a DEI hire.

"Biden said - first off, he said he's going to hire a black female for vice president and that not, -- he just skipped over," Burchett told correspondent Manu Raju. "What about white females? What about any other group? When you go down that route, you take mediocrity. and that's what they have right now as a vice president."

Unfortunately, it has become common for some conservatives to attempt to discredit, demoralize and disrespect leaders of color by labeling them diversity hires  or otherwise misappropriating the language of diversity, equity, and inclusion as thinly veiled racist insults, Mita Mallick, author of Reimagine Inclusion who runs DEI at Carta, wrote in Fast Company.

DeSantis vs. DEI

The GOP has weaponized the backlash on DEI, blaming efforts to create a more inclusive and equitable environment for everything from airline safety issues to global tech outages to the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump.

But few have taken it as directly as Ron DeSantis.

"What this bill is saying is, you know, some of these niche subjects like critical race theory, other types of DEI-infused courses and majors," DeSantis said in 2023 when he signed legislation to ban state or federal funding for any state university programs that advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or promote or engage in political or social activism.

"Florida's getting out of that game," he said. "You want to do things like gender ideology? Go to Berkeley. Go to some of those other places."

Universities and colleges across the state dropped their programs and eliminated staff positions in response, although some have pushed back. Students and staff have protested, with many critics saying the push to the right was hurting higher education in Florida and causing a brain drain as graduate students chose to attend school elsewhere.

"As a student, UF has a lot of things that I'm really continuously impressed by," said Amiya Gupta, a fourth-year engineering major at the University of Florida. "I think we have a lot of resources. I've always thought that this has been a great university in terms of the academics, the research and the community. But I think this is symptomatic of a bigger problem in Florida's politics, because I think, historically, universities have always been places of community building and show the importance of bringing in wide and diverse perspectives  not only diverse in terms of race or any personal characteristics  but in terms of thought and ideas.

"And I think that Florida politics is trying really hard to infiltrate that," she said.

DeSantis has waged war on programs addressing race in Florida for years. The "Stop WOKE Act" in 2022 limited discussion of race, gender and other topics in state university classrooms, but it also banned diversity practices and training that could make employees feel "personal responsibility" for actions committed in the past by someone of the "same race, color, sex or national origin."

After the liberal arts college New College of Florida in Sarasota underwent a hostile takeover with an eye toward turning it into a conservation higher education experiment, the new board members appointed by DeSantis abolished the schools DEI office.

In May, Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody announced the state would investigate Starbucks for its diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

The conservative Heritage Foundations Project 2025, which purports to be a conservative roadmap for a second Donald Trump presidency, praises Florida and DeSantis for his fight to empower parents and ending diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the workplace and across education. The project's plans for education mirror many of DeSantis' initiatives in the state.

Trump has publicly backed away from Project 2025 due to backlash over its extreme plans, saying he has no connection to it despite the number of people in Trump's former administration and current circle that are involved.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: 'DEI hire'? Kamala Harris attacked by GOP critics for her race, sex
Andrew Burns/ Mugshot provided by the Delaware County Sheriffs Office

JAY, Okla.  Delaware County prosecutors were dealt a significant blow to a child sexual abuse case on Thursday after Special Judge Nick Lelecas dismissed a child pornography charge, saying information about a suspects cell phone was received after he asked for an attorney.

Oklahoma teen continues testimony of sexual abuse reportedly at psychics urging

Andrew Burns, 38, of Jay, is charged in Delaware County District Court with first-degree rape, forcible sodomy, rape by instrumentation, and soliciting a minor for indecent exposure. He is accused of posing as a psychic and sending sexually explicit texts to an 11-year-old girl saying if she didnt have sex with him, her family would be harmed.

Jay man charged with raping a preteen reportedly coerced her to go along with psychics text messages

Burns preliminary hearing had been continued five times. After Thursdays five-hour final preliminary hearing, Lelecas affirmed Winston Connors, Burnss attorney, motion to suppress evidence regarding a cell phone. The fifth charge  possession of juvenile pornography  was dismissed.

In simplest terms, the state relied on Burnss cell phone to show the suspect was allegedly in possession of child pornography. After Burns was Mirandized and asked for an attorney, Delaware County Sheriffs Deputy Nic Karleskint asked for the pin code to unlock Burnss cell phone before leaving the interview room.

Police give suspects a Miranda warning advising them of their rights and the right to refuse to answer questions.

Lelecas said Karleskints request extended the interview outside of the Miranda warning by asking for the PIN.

There is no seizure of the phone until the illegal seizure of the person, Connor said, referring to Burns.

Connor argued for over an hour, saying that Burnss cell phone should not be allowed.

This reeks of so many violations of the Fourth Amendment, Connor said, referring to obtaining data from the phone.

Lets just throw the constitution away, Connor said. The constitution means something, or it doesnt.

Connor argued Karleskint wasnt intentionally trying to deceive the Court. Earlier in the hearing, Karleskint testified he had gone over the Miranda warning line-by-line with Burns.

He (Burns) said he understood the Miranda warning, Karleskint testified. He said he took the phone to preserve evidence.

There were text messages between Burns and the teen that could have been destroyed, Karleskint said.

Earlier, the now 13-year-old girl testified she received several text messages from a person who identified themselves as a psychic with the message saying she was to have sex with your friends dad or bad things and weird things will start happening around your house.

The teen testified she received multiple texts from someone she believed was a psychic. Investigation reports show text messages reportedly came from two psychics.

Karleskint testified that he spent approximately 50 hours reviewing data from a phone dump retrieved by a Homeland Security computer forensic analyst.

Court records say the teen was sexually abused by Burns on three separate occasions. Burns is accused of putting his hand over the girls mouth, and she started crying, then passed out because she (sic) could hardly breathe anymore, according to the probable cause affidavit.

Burns is free on $100,000 bail and has denied any wrongdoing.

If you know or suspect a child is being abused, contact the Delaware County Sheriffs Office at (918) 253-4531, the Delaware County Childrens Special Advocacy Network at (918) 253-4539, the Ottawa County Sheriffs Office at (918) 542-2806, or the Child Advocacy Center of Ottawa County at (918) 540-1621.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
On Sunday, Nicolas Maduro will once again appear on the electoral ballots with the intention of consolidating the continuity of Chavismo by securing another six-year term as president of Venezuela, a position he assumed in 2013 when he was appointed successor to Hugo Chavez. The presidents candidacy has been marked by allegations of repression by the opposition, in addition to several calls from the international community to ensure a peaceful contest and to abide by the results of the National Electoral Council (CNE).

In January, Maduro presented his governmental plan, baptized as The Seven Transformations (7T), which consists of several objectives aligned with the values of the ruling party and Bolivarian socialism, the model that governs his administrations policies. Among the key proposals is the prioritization of national sovereignty in natural resources, science, technology, and national income, as well as the expansion of the armed forces and the defense of Venezuelas claims on Essequibo. Below are the main points promoted by Maduros plan.

Security

Maduro has pledged to guarantee justice and human rights. In his electoral proposals he has also addressed the expansion and consolidation of military power.

Conflict with Guyana over Essequibo

His priority is to give continuity to the defense and development of the Essequibo region, an issue that his government dusted off in a referendum at the end of 2023 and which has caused tension between the two nations.

Economy

The incumbent president proposes modernizing production methods and techniques to diversify the countrys economy. Maduros political agenda for the elections has also reiterated the importance of protecting Venezuelan sovereignty over its natural resources and national income.

Environment

The ruling party has incorporated climate change into its political agenda. Among its campaign promises are the implementation of measures to combat the climate crisis and safeguarding the Amazon and Venezuelan natural reserves from the voracity of capitalism.

Independence in culture, education, science, and technology

Among the objectives the candidate for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has presented in his plan is the expansion of the Bolivarian doctrine in its scientific, cultural, educational, and technological dimensions. Also included among the priorities of his government is the ethical, moral, and spiritual decolonization of society.

Society

Maduro seeks to reinforce the values of Bolivarian socialism in his government plan. The inclusion of all sectors of society, the fair distribution of wealth and the reduction of inequalities, as well as the guarantee of social protection of the people stand out among his priorities should he win the election.

Domestic Policy

The president promises new forms of government and a new popular and revolutionary state as part of his policies, although as yet he has not elaborated on the strategy to achieve this. He has also promised to address corruption with a firm hand.

Foreign Policy

Maduros 7T proposal also targets strengthening strategic alliances with the BRICS, the political and economic forum formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. On a visit to China in September 2023, Maduro declared that the countries that make up the group had in Venezuela a partner, an ally, a friend, having previously expressed his desire for Caracas to join the international alliance. The governments plan also contemplates strengthening ties with Latin American and Caribbean countries.
Delta Air Lines customers who faced massive delays and cancellations after a global tech outage July 19 triggered all sorts of havoc for days must do one thing after their nightmare ends. File a complaint  and get some money back.

Maybe you think you can't do anything about it. Maybe you think submitting a complaint is a waste of even more time. A friend shared one comment on social media in which a frustrated traveler stated: "Glad we have zero consumer protection laws on the books to help everyone being psychologically abused by @Delta."

But it's not true. Actually, consumers do have many air travel rights now. Unfortunately, consumers are going to need to file for reimbursement to get what they are owed. And if they're not satisfied, they're going to need to go a step further and file complaints with the Department of Transportation.

Cruising Altitude: Why tech keeps holding airlines back when something goes wrong

On Wednesday morning, Delta CEO Ed Bastian posted a letter to customers on the airline's website as the company continued to recover from last week's CrowdStrike outage. Delta upgraded its reimbursement efforts, too.

Bastian apologized but also noted that "the worst impacts of the CrowdStrike-caused outage are clearly behind us."

Delta, he said, remains "committed to taking care of those whose flights may still be impacted, with meals, hotel accommodations and ground transportation offered through vouchers and reimbursements. Were also providing impacted customers with Delta SkyMiles and travel vouchers as a further gesture of apology."

Delta also noted online Wednesday that it is taking steps to reimburse out-of-pocket expenses. "We know many customers have incurred unplanned travel expenses, including purchasing tickets on other airlines, rental cars, train tickets and more," the airline said on its site.

"Delta will cover reasonable costs for additional categories of expenses incurred during the duration of the travel waiver (which currently applies for flights between July 19 and July 28)."

Travelers crowd the check-in area of the Evans Terminal early in the morning at Detroit Metro Airport on Friday, July 19, 2024. A Microsoft computer update affected several airlines, including delaying flights at Metro Detroit Airport.

Another key point: "Delta is permitting customers with Delta travel booked from July 19-28 who no longer wish to travel to cancel and request a refund of the unflown portion of their trip  regardless of whether their flight has been canceled or significantly delayed."

Delta has been offering waivers, which, according to Delta, allow customers hurt by the troubles to make a one-time change to their itinerary or to cancel and receive a refund for the unused portion of their ticket upon request. The waiver applies to customers with travel scheduled for July 19-28. The fare difference for customers will be waived when rebooked travel occurs on or before Aug. 4 in the same cabin of service as originally booked.

On Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced an investigation into Delta Air Lines. He noted that the Transportation Department is making sure "the law is followed and that Delta is 'taking care of its passengers' as the disruptions continue."

In this case, experts say, Transportation Department rules require Delta to refund unused flights for those who choose not to travel on alternate flights if their original itinerary was canceled for any reason, even if the original tickets were nonrefundable. That's true as long as you didnt get on a rebooked flight at no cost to you, experts say. Some people think they can do both  fly and get a refund  but that's not the case.

Jane McNamara, of Royal Oak, Michigan, was to fly out of Detroit on Delta on Friday, heading to Newark to see her sons in New Jersey. She had heard of the CrowdStrike software failure that hit Microsoft's Windows Operating System earlier on Friday. But she had no alerts from Delta via the app or email to tell her the Friday flight was canceled.

"I drove to the airport hoping I might have a flight," she said. "Once there, after parking in the out lot and making my way to McNamara terminal, I learned it was canceled."

She was shocked by the massive lines and chaos. "You couldn't get near the (Delta) counter. It was just slammed."

She ended up acting quickly and booked a flight on United Airlines on Saturday. She paid $306, and she had no trouble getting out of Detroit on United the next day.

The July 19 CrowdStrike outage triggered extra cost for Jane McNamara, of Royal Oak. She still was able to visit her sons over the weekend in Bradley Beach, New Jersey. From left to right, Michael McNamara, Patrick McNamara, Charlotte Parker and Jane McNamara.

She kept the return ticket for Tuesday on Delta. "I thought by Tuesday, everything should be fine."

For a while, it seemed as if it would be. She checked in Monday and had a boarding pass, the whole thing.

Then, about 6 a.m. Tuesday, she got an alert that her Delta flight out of Newark that day had been canceled.

She spotted one seat on another Delta flight, but it was quickly gone. Other flights on other airlines that day had fares that were $800 and higher. Some of those flights had layovers of three hours to five hours. Nothing seemed to be doable.

Oh, she could sit in New Jersey until Thursday because Delta had rebooked her on a flight for Thursday morning. "I couldn't hang out there" that long, she said. "My only option was to rent a car."

McNamara, who owns Jazzercise Royal Oak, needed to get back to work and ended up renting a car for $152.

"I literally just had to do a car," she said. Driving alone, she left the area about 11 a.m. and got home after 10 p.m. Most of the driving was fine, she said, until she hit the intense storm in metro Detroit. She's now reviewing how to get reimbursed for her expenses.

Even as travel gets back to normal, the shakeout for Delta could be intense in the weeks ahead.

"There will be hell to pay," said Teresa Murray, who directs the Consumer Watchdog office for U.S. PIRG, a nonprofit advocacy group that has advocated for more passenger protections.

The major IT systems outage disrupted the operations of several major airlines, triggering extensive delays and cancellations at U.S. airports.

The Transportation Department said it has determined that the delays and cancellations resulting from the CrowdStrike-related outage were controllable"  which means the flight cancellation or delay is one that is attributable to the airline.

Murray said Delta's response in individual situations seems to have been all over the map. Some consumers, she said, complained about being offered only frequent flier miles when they needed more help getting where they needed to go in a timely manner. One young man she knows, who happens to be a magician from Michigan, had to rent a car to drive to Philadelphia to be on time for his show. Her advice: Make sure to send the bill to Delta.

Daniel Martin, a global touring magician who lives in Jackson, told me his horrific tale that involved two Delta flights vanishing.

One flight ended up being canceled Friday when he was trying to leave Hartford, Connecticut, to fly to Detroit for a show in Michigan; a second flight was canceled when he needed to fly from Detroit to Philadelphia on Monday for another show.

He said the Delta employees he encountered were trying to help, but it was out of their control.

Martin, who has a summer tour as a magician, had a show last week in New Hampshire, and he had planned on driving to Bradley International Airport in Hartford to catch that flight to Detroit. He travels a great deal, but all the regular steps, like going on Delta.com, didn't work Friday for rebooking a flight. "You couldn't even get on their site to figure out options."

Trying to call, even as a preferred customer, meant a six-hour wait. He quickly booked a Friday night flight on Southwest Airlines as a hedge. Then he headed to the airport and got in line at Delta. After turning down many bad options, he ultimately was able to get on another Delta flight, which sat on the tarmac. That flight faced so many delays that he figured he should hop on Southwest. Ultimately, he was able to get off that flight with help of Delta employees to rush to grab the backup Southwest flight.

As for his luggage? Well, it was on the Delta flight. He faced a four-hour delay in Detroit at baggage claim to get his magic equipment. "It was like the zombie apocalypse," Martin said.

Ultimately, he got home to Jackson at 5 a.m. Saturday, but he had missed his magic show Friday in Michigan.

Monday morning, another Delta flight delay, this time out of Detroit to Philadelphia. He made that show but only by spending $250 to rent a car.

Overall, Martin estimates he lost more than 35 hours in delays and about $600 in expenses. That's not including the thousands of dollars lost when he missed the show in Michigan.

Daniel Martin, the magician who lives in Jackson, saw one flight ended up being cancelled Friday when he was trying to leave Hartford, Conn., to fly to Detroit; and a second flight was cancelled when he needed to fly from Detroit to Philadelphia Monday.

One headache after another, and, frankly, travelers will need to take their time figuring out what to do next to recoup some of their costs.

In general, PIRG's Murray said, she would not recommend that people accept vouchers or credits or miles as compensation for their hotel, meal, ground transportation and other expenses.

But the amount might matter. "If someone is looking at a refund of $200, but Delta is offering miles or vouchers worth $1,000 to the traveler, then the voucher or credit might make sense, as long as there arent restrictions on how or when or where it can be used," she said.

Because the IT debacle is being viewed by the Transportation Department as a controllable cancellation or delay, Murray said, consumers should try to get a hotel and meal and ground transportation accommodations taken care of by the airline. "They cant just go out and book a hotel at a 5-star hotel or something."

But in many cases, travelers couldn't even get Delta on the phone. In those circumstances, Murray said, her advice would be to "spend what is reasonable, to take care of yourself and your family, and submit those expenses for reimbursement later."

How do you submit a claim?

Check with your airline, but typically you'd submit claims online, not by mail.

Where to go: Delta has an online process. See Delta.com/reimbursement for the form and some instructions.

What to do: Before you do submit a claim, take time gathering your paperwork and records. Make sure when you file for reimbursement with Delta or another airline that you have receipts, records and all you need to back up a claim. File everything at once, Murray said. Take screen shots from your phone if that can help document how long you were on hold with the airline. Find the names of people you talked with at the airline. Recall what was said during a conversation. Give details about how lines were backed up and you couldn't get to an airline representative.

Think about what expenses you faced: Did you need to rent a car to get where you were going? Back up the cost with receipts, make sure to add receipts for the gas you bought to get home or elsewhere. Delta states online that it "does not reimburse prepaid expenses, including but not limited to hotel reservations at the customers destination, vacation experiences, lost wages, concerts or other tickets." But Murray said she would suggest that some consumers consider submitting those claims, given the extreme circumstances surrounding the lengthy tech upheaval. It might not hurt to ask.

File a complaint and a claim: Murray recommends that people file a complaint with Delta as well as filing for reimbursement. See the Help Center on Delta.com to file complaints. You want some details to be fresh in your mind, like how long you waited online for help.

If you're not satisfied: First go through the airline when you have any issues. But if the problem isn't resolved, file a complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation. See transportation.gov/airconsumers for the "File a Consumer Complaint" option. Complaints can be related to things like flight delays and cancellations, overbooking, disability, tarmac delays, baggage, discrimination, refunds, ticketing practices, family seating, frequent flyer programs, charter flights, privacy and air ambulance service.

Contact personal finance columnist Susan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com. Follow her on X (Twitter) @tompor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Delta Air Lines passengers can file claims after IT outage
A lot of ruckus: Delta passengers say they still cant find luggage after IT outage

A week after the global IT outage that caused airline cancellations, some Delta Air Lines passengers are still searching for their luggage.

Delta said in a statement that its back to normal operations and working to reunite customers with their bags.

This is a lot of ruckus that theyre causing for a lot of people, traveler Peyton Williams told Channel 2s Audrey Washington.

Williams said shed been searching for her luggage for hours.

Im kind of at a loss, Williams added. Im really worried that I might never see my bag.

RELATED STORIES:

At Hartfield-Jackson International Airport Friday, there were dozens of unclaimed luggage sitting at baggage claim.

Chris Davis was contracted to pick up the unclaimed luggage at the airport and drive it to the right owner.

Drive it, drop it off and say hey, Davis said.

I think they [Delta] need to work harder to make it right, Williams said.

Delta said its customers can file a claim online for lost baggage or call 1-800-325-8224.

RELATED NEWS:
Adopting demobilization law now could repeat the "mistake" of the Ukrainian People's Republic during its war against the Bolsheviks in 1918, said Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of Ukraine's parliament, on national television on July 25.

Most Ukrainian soldiers cannot legally demobilize and have been serving without any long-term breaks for the third year in a row since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

"I do not know of a country that demobilized people during the war. Excuse me, I do know such a country  the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918. At that time, Defense Minister Mykola Porsh submitted a draft law on demobilization to the Central Rada," Stefanchuk said.

"It is very important to me that the current Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) does not repeat the 'mistake' of the Central Rada."

The Central Rada was an analog of the parliament in the times of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic.

According to Vitalii Skalskyi, director of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Archival Affairs and Records Management, it is a common misconception that the Ukrainian People's Republic carried out demobilization of its regular army in January 1918, eventually leading to its defeat in the war with the Bolsheviks.

However, Skalskyi argues that it wasn't the demobilization of the Ukrainian army, but the remnants of the old Russian imperial army in Ukraine.

"They were absolutely incapable and had no burning desire to fight for Ukraine," Skalskyi told the Kyiv Independent.

Nonetheless, Stefanchuk said that the Ukrainian military on the front line "has an exclusive right to justice," which is why it is necessary to provide them with vacations, rotations, or other "privileges."

Stefanchuk believes these issues were partially resolved after the new law on mobilization was adopted in April.

Most Ukrainian soldiers cannot legally demobilize. The grounds for demobilization may include health problems or the need to care for sick family members.

In April, before the law on mobilization was voted on in the second reading, the provisions on demobilization and rotation were removed from it.

The Defense Ministry said that the parliamentary committee had instructed it to develop a new law within eight months that would deal specifically with rotation and demobilization.

The ministry later announced in April that it plans to submit the draft law to the parliament in "the next few months." It has not been introduced yet.

Read also: Ukraines mobilization effort gets boost as millions update draft data

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
We now know how Vice President Kamala Harris is going to become the Democratic Partys presidential nominee.

Harris is already the presumptive nominee after she swept up support from a majority of the Democratic National Convention delegates within days of President Joe Bidens decision to drop his own re-election bid. However, thanks to the unusual nature of her rise to the top of the ticket and some quirks related to ballot access, there were some questions about her next step in the process. The convention rules committee unveiled their plans on Wednesday and they include a key rule change that has implications for Harris selection of a running mate.

Multiple DNC delegates provided TPM with a copy of a memo outlining the process that was sent out by convention secretary Jason Rae on Wednesday night. It details the schedule for a virtual roll call vote where the party will nominate their presidential candidate ahead of the in-person convention, which will be held in Chicago starting Aug. 19. According to the memo, that vote could begin as early as Aug. 1.

Presidential nominees are typically selected via an in-person roll call vote at the convention. The DNC previously stated the virtual roll call would be necessary this year due to ballot access deadlines in multiple states. That process, which received renewed attention after Bidens stunning exit from the race and endorsement of Harris, will mean the in-person convention only features what the memo described as celebratory and ceremonial votes to recognize and affirm the presidential and vice presidential nominees of the Democratic Party.

According to Raes memo, candidates attempting to pursue the nomination must submit a statement of intent by July 27 at 6:00 PM ET. Harris has enough support already locked in from delegates that there is almost no chance a challenge could succeed. So far, no one other than longshot candidate and spiritually progressive author Marianne Williamson has shown any signs of taking her on. After declaring their intent to pursue the nomination, candidates will need to obtain signatures from 300 delegates with no more than 50 from a single state by July 30 at 6:00 PM ET.

While there is almost no way a challenger could successfully take the nomination from Harris, if anyone goes for it and manages to obtain the signatures, it will have implications for the schedule. Raes memo noted, If only one candidate for nomination demonstrates they have met the above qualifications, electronic voting by the delegates may begin as soon as August 1. If Harris has a challenger, the rules committee approved a five day period for a brief contest.

[Democratic National Committee Convention] Chair and the [Democratic National Committee] Chair can allow a period no longer than five days in between the close of nominations for President (July 30) and the beginning of voting for candidates to make their case to delegates and the public, the memo said.

According to CBS News, which has reported on the process, Democratic Convention Chair Minyon Moore has said she would hold back the virtual roll call vote until Aug. 3 if Harris has a qualified challenger. Moore and the DNC did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

Even though Harris has already effectively locked down the nomination, these details and the precise scheduling are important because they have an effect on her running mate selection. The permanent Democratic National Convention rules specify that the vice presidential nominee is typically affirmed by a confirmatory and ceremonial vote  which may occur by voice vote at the in-person convention. If the plan for a virtual roll call vote included having the delegates affirm the vice presidential nominee, it would have meant that Harris had to conclude her veepstakes process in time to declare her running mates intent to pursue the nomination alongside her own.

Instead of having the delegates affirm the vice presidential nominee along with the presidential nomination, the DNC memo notes that this years rules will allow Moore to officially confirm the running mate of the nominees choosing.

Once a Presidential nominee is selected, the nominee may place a Vice Presidential candidate into nomination, the memo said. The Convention Chair may then declare that candidate to be the Vice Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party.

That rule change means that Harris will have until Aug. 7 to choose her running mate. Multiple sources have told TPM that she is currently engaged in a vetting process and, as of yesterday, one source close to Harris described the top candidates as North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

With the party swiftly coalescing behind Harris, the virtual roll call plans and rule changes have not proved controversial. However, according to one delegate who spoke to TPM and requested anonymity to discuss internal party business, the new process has left some of them wondering what to do. Multiple sources told TPM the DNC was reaching out to delegates on Thursday to check in and see if they had questions about the plan.

I have heard no grumbling about the process, a delegate told TPM. Ive heard some confusion, but no grumbling.

The Best Of TPM Today

The latest from Josh Kovensky: Barr Pushed DOJ To Publicize Bogus Voter Fraud Claim Before 2020 Election, IG Finds

At Least We Wont Have Sleepwalked Our Way Into Authoritarianism

Yesterdays Most Read Story

As The Party Coalesces Around Her, Harris Says Shell Unite Dems In Time For The Fall  TPM Staff

What We Are Reading

Is Ella Emhoffs Knitting Club About to Get a Secret Service Entourage?

Justice Kagan calls for a way to enforce Supreme Court ethics code

Nevada man arrested for threatening Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, Trump judge Juan Merchan
The Democratic candidate for a north Florida congressional seat has dropped out of this year's race, forcing party honchos to select a replacement.

Democrat Meghann Hovey of Tallahassee, who had qualified to run for the 2nd Congressional District seat in June, notified the Florida Division of Elections this week she was withdrawing.

Now, Democratic leaders from 16 counties now must meet Monday to select a candidate to face incumbent Republican Neal Dunn of Panama City in November. Of note: Dunn, a urology surgeon, has won the seat by more than 60% margins in four races since 2016.

Congressman Neal Dunn participates in a debate with his opponent Congressman Al Lawson hosted by the Capital Tiger Bay Club on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022.

In a letter to Secretary of State Cord Byrd that was first reported by the Florida Politics news site, Hovey gave no reason for bowing out but said her decision was timed so the party would have time to find a replacement.

Hovey was the last candidate to qualify this election cycle; rumors she would withdraw began earlier this month when Tallahassee attorney Yen Bailey started raising money and opened a campaign account.

Who is Yen Bailey, candidate for Congress?

Bailey earned a law degree at Florida State University in 2002 and has served as a Guardian Ad Litem lawyer, appointed by a court to represent the best interests of a child during legal proceedings, and as assistant ethics counsel for The Florida Bar.

She has been attorney for the Bailey Law Firm in Tallahassee and served on the board of directors for the Friends of the LeRoy Collins Leon County Public Library.

Yen Bailey of Tallahassee, Democratic candidate for Congress.

When a candidate drops out of a race after qualifying for a ballot position, the chairs of county executive committees in the area meet and name a replacement. Leon County Democratic Executive Committee chair Ryan Ray has thrown his support to Bailey for when he and the 15 other chairs meet to name Hoveys replacement.

She's got roots in the community and is the kind of person who represents north Florida people much better than Dr. Dunn, who has voted in lockstep with (U.S. House) Speaker Mike Johnson and (U.S. Rep.) Matt Gaetz, Ray said.

District 2 is the states least urbanized and largest district by area. Half of the residents live in Panama City or Tallahassee, with the rest in small pockets scattered across forests and farmlands of its 16 counties.

Since winning the GOP nomination by 1,700 votes in 2016, Dunn has won reelection since and was unopposed in 2020. Most recently, he overcame a challenge from veteran lobbyist-state lawmaker Al Lawson, who took on Dunn when Lawson was redistricted out of his own seat that had stretched from Tallahassee to Jacksonville.

Dunn will be on his fifth 2-year term if elected this November.

To compare: In 2020, former President Donald Trump won the 16-county district by 11 points. And two years ago, when Ron DeSantis was reelected, the Florida governor posted a 24-point victory margin.

James Call is a member of the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida Capital Bureau. He can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com and is on X as @CallTallahassee.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Democrats now need new candidate to challenge Neal Dunn for Congress
The front page of the Deseret News on July 26, 1953.

A look back at local, national and world events through Deseret News archives.

The front page of the Deseret News on July 26, 1953, offered some hope.

Guns silent, death finally halts on battle-weary Korean front, read the top of the page headline, with no fewer than six stories devoted to hope for a peaceful future in the world.

But on that same newspaper page, a wire story told how a young Fidel Castro began his revolt against Fulgencio Batista with an unsuccessful attack on an army barracks in eastern Cuba.

The Day of Revolution, as it is called in Cuba today, took six years to complete before the 32-year-old Castro toppled the anti-Communist Batista government and took control.

In the island country less than 100 miles from the coast of the U.S. coast, the 26th of July is celebrated as a day of liberation. Whether Cubans have enjoyed a life of liberty is debatable.

According to his obituary, Castro battled with 10 U.S. presidents during his tenure and survived perhaps hundreds of assassination attempts. He died in 2016 at age 90, defiant to the end.

Here are some stories from Deseret News archives that try to put Castros influence on the world and his nation in perspective:

Cuba hails 50th anniversary of revolution

Fidel Castro, who defied US for 50 years, dies at 90 in Cuba

This week in history: The Batista government falls in Cuba

Castros Cuba crumbling as country confronts calamitous change

Fidel Castro clung to socialism, mentored new leftists

Adulation of Fidel Castro runs deepest in rural eastern Cuba

Fidel Castros death should be celebrated, Utahns say

Elian Gonzalez returns to public eye to praise Fidel Castro

The house that exile built

Cubans looking beyond Castro

AP

Early in his regime, Castro and Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off against U.S. President John F. Kennedy in a series of confrontations. Here are some stories and analysis of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis:

The man who saw too much

Opinion: 60 years later, we can still learn from the Cuban missile crisis
Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEAs Rocky Mountain Field Division, holds a bag of fentanyl that agents recently seized at the DEA's Salt Lake City office on Thursday, July 25, 2025. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch)

It only took six months for law enforcement to break Utahs annual record for fentanyl seizures this year as the state copes with what the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration calls the most dangerous drug crisis the nation has ever faced.

In 2023, the DEA and its local partners, which includes the Salt Lake County Sheriff, Salt Lake Police and Highway Patrol, seized 664,200 fentanyl pills, setting the single-year record.

By June of this year that record was shattered, with the agency reporting over 774,000 pills seized. That number continues to climb.

Its an unfortunate record to set, especially considering it took only a half-year to get there, said Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEAs Rocky Mountain Field Division.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Pullen spoke to reporters at the DEAs office in Salt Lake City on Thursday, standing in front of a table piled with around 240,000 fentanyl pills, bags of heroin and methamphetamine, and a rifle, shotgun and handgun  all the result of recent seizures.

The pills end up in Utah by way of a global, black market supply chain that starts in eastern Asia, according to the DEA. The raw materials, powder, pill presses, stamps and more are mostly shipped from China, sometimes India, to Mexico. There, criminal groups manufacture the pills and smuggle them into the U.S. Nearly 90% of fentanyl seizures at the border happen at legal ports of entry and about 85% of convicted smugglers are U.S. citizens, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In Utah, its mostly the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation, or CJNG, cartels that control the fentanyl trade, Pullen said. Interstates 15 and 80 put Salt Lake City at the crossroads of the western drug trade, and much of the seizures this year were in the corridor between St. George and Salt Lake City.

Youre going to see a lot coming up out of (Los Angeles) up I-15 into Utah. Thats a big pathway for the Sinaloa Cartel; they control the pathway into southern California, Pullen said.

In Utah, that trade route is incredibly profitable. The DEA estimates that each pill costs around two to four cents to manufacture  in Salt Lake City, they sell for about $5 to $6 and the further north, the higher the price. In Montana, the agency says a single pill can sell for as much as $60.

So, depending on the traffickers final destination, the plastic bags of fentanyl piled high on the DEAs table in Salt Lake City on Thursday was worth anywhere from $1.2 million to over $10 million on the black market.

Its an incredible profit, Pullen said.

On Tuesday, a drug trafficking ringleader was sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin along the Wasatch Front. In 2021, 55-year-old Joe Robert Rael and 25 of his accomplices operating as the Nortenos Gang were charged and according to court documents, 420 pounds of methamphetamine and 50 pounds of heroin flowed into Utah in a single year under their watch

A complaint filed in federal court suggests Rael and his accomplices were sourcing their drugs directly from the CJNG in Mexico.

U.S. Attorney for Utah Trina Higgins, whose office prosecuted Rael, said her attorneys are currently working a separate case that involved a single seizure of over 200,000 fentanyl pills.

If 70% of those pills likely contain a lethal dose of fentanyl, and were picking up over 200,000 in just one case, the amount of damage and destruction to our communities is staggering, she said.

Most of the fentanyl in Utah is in blue pill form, often made to imitate legal pharmaceutical drugs. The pills on display at the DEAs Salt Lake City office Thursday were stamped with a counterfeit MERCK logo, the pharmaceutical giant that manufactures opioids.

That makes an already dangerous drug even more lethal. Injecting, snorting or smoking hard drugs is often seen as an act of desperation, reserved for those struggling with addition, Pullen said. But taking a pill is much more socially acceptable.

That puts people of every race, age or socioeconomic class at risk of a fatal overdose. It could be a teenager struggling with an injury who thinks theyre taking a legitimate pharmaceutical product, or a college student trying to get a different recreational drug that turns out to be fentanyl.

Sometimes drug dealers will advertise oxycontin, percocet, xanax or other painkillers. But as Pullen warned, theyre all fake and all almost certainly contain fentanyl.

Thats led to drug overdoses becoming the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 to 45 years old, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The DEA says fentanyl accounts for about 70% of those fatal overdoses.

Social media has facilitated the drug trade, with what seems like every popular app  Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter or YouTube  used by drug dealers to advertise and coordinate pickups.

Jonathan Pullen, special agent in charge of the DEAs Rocky Mountain Field Division, holds up two milligrams of fentanyl, the lethal dose for people with no opioid tolerance, at the DEAs Salt Lake City office on Thursday, July 25, 2025. (Kyle Dunphey/Utah News Dispatch)

Often, its as simple as going to the mall and messaging someone on Snapchat.

Theyre incredibly easy to get, you dont have to go to some rough neighborhood to pick up these pills. You can get them anywhere, Pullen said.

Just two milligrams of fentanyl could kill someone who doesnt have an opioid tolerance. But the drug is so potent that Pullen said it kills people who have struggled with addiction for years. He likened it to cooking a batch of chocolate chip cookies  sometimes the cookies have 10 chocolate chips in them, sometimes just one.

If youre taking one of these pills, youre risking your life, said Pullen.

The clandestine pill press operations in rural Mexico follow an imperfect science, sometimes resulting in pills of varying strength. A mistake could result in a single pill strong enough to kill multiple people, regardless of their tolerance.

Theyre not made in a pharmaceutical lab, Pullen said. As soon as you take it, even a hardcore user, theyre going to die on the spot.

Utah governor: We still have a long way to go

Last week during his monthly PBS Utah news conference, Gov. Spencer Cox said he put together an informal task force this summer to discuss the issue. But, the governor admitted, we still have a long way to go on this one. I wish I had better answers.

We are putting more money into the law enforcement piece but also into helping people recover, the addiction side, and hopefully preventing addiction from happening in the first place, Cox said. Part of the problem is its more than just access to drugs or the drugs themselves, its the loneliness epidemic thats happening in our country. As people lose community and they feel unmoored, the same problem were seeing with social media, all of this is resulting in a very unhealthy culture where people are trying to numb their feelings of isolation and loneliness and rejection and looking for it in unhealthy places.

Cox pointed to opioid settlements coming into the state  companies like Teva, Allergan, CVS and Walgreens are set to pay Utah $209 million over the next 15 years for their role in the opioid crisis, while the health care marketing and communications company Publicis Health will pay the state an additional $4 million. There are millions more in settlement funds likely headed to the state, with payouts from other companies, including the Sackler familys infamous Purdue Pharma, still pending.

Per the lawsuits, that money has to be spent on preventative measures, like buying the overdose reversing drug naloxone, launching public health campaigns or funding recovery centers or programs.

We have these huge settlements now, but we have to use that money in a way that will hopefully help people and get the drugs off the street, Cox said.

The governor also pointed to recent law enforcement efforts near Salt Lakes Jordan River Trail and Fairpark Area. According to the Utah Department of Public Safety, more than 350,000 fentanyl pills were seized in that part of the city this year alone.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
DICKSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN)  Dickson County investigators broke an auto burglary case wide open with the arrest of multiple suspects while recovering many stolen items.

The Dickson County crime spree happened during the early morning hours on Thursday, July 18. Thats when auto burglars rifled through as many as 22 cars, stealing cash, weapons, and even handcuffs and a badge from a Tennessee Department of Correction (DOC) officer.

Now, three men allegedly connected to the incident are all behind bars.

The big break in the case came on Sunday, July 21 after members of the Ashland City Police Department arrested 31-year-old Seth Ryan Hall. Officers stopped his vehicle and discovered a handgun reported stolen out of Nashville inside, along with a DOC badge.

Dickson County Sheriff Tim Eads confirmed the badge was stolen during the Petty Road crime spree on July 18.

We were able to develop two suspects because of Ashland City PDs good work, Eads told News 2.

PREVIOUS: Guns, money stolen in multiple Dickson County car burglaries

Based on intelligence developed from the Ashland City stop, Dickson County deputies raided a property along Old Highway 70 on Wednesday, July 24.

Body camera footage revealed a few tense moments as authorities, with guns drawn, moved in. They quickly took 29-year-old Billy Perry into custody, followed by 42-year-old James Dubois Jr. Both men are ex-cons.

According to the DOC, Dubois was convicted of attempted tampering with evidence in 2023 and sentenced to three years of probation.

Meanwhile, Perry was in DOC custody from 2018 to 2024 for convictions of auto burglary and contraband in a penal facility. He expired his sentence in March.

Deputies searched the residence and found many stolen items reportedly taken in the Petty Road auto burglaries.

On Thursday, July 25, the Dickson County Sheriffs Office showed News 2 eight stolen cell phones, brass knuckles, jewelry, speakers, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia. There was also a stun gun, handcuffs, and the DOC badge recovered by Ashland City police

Eads said the handcuffs were also stolen from the DOC officer: We believe these go with the TDOC badgeAll of these items were taken from hardworking people by a couple people that still probably out to be in prison.

When asked what he would say to would be criminals, the sheriff responded, Stay out of Dickson County. We wont give up.

RELATED: Ashland City police arrest man with stolen gun, Dept. of Correction badge

Dubois and Perry are charged with multiple offenses, including nine counts of auto burglary for Dubois and 10 counts of auto burglary for Perry. They both spoke to News 2s Andy Cordan Thursday in the Dickson County Jail.

Dubois: They come in my house, started searching, and put us on the ground for stolen stuff. Im charged with auto burglaries, something I did not even do. Cordan: They say you did do it. Dubois: No. Lord no, I did not do it. Cordan: They found stolen property in there. Dubois: Thats fine. Thats fine. I was not the only one arrested. My brother-in-law was arrested too. Cordan: Was that Billy? Dubois: Yes. Cordan: Why is stolen property in the house? Dubois: Someone in the house did it. Was not me. The other person who come down here. Im not saying no names. Im not telling on nobody. I didnt do it. Cordan: They got the wrong man? Dubois: I went to prison for this, been out nine years. I havent stole nothing in nine years. Im not going to start. Cordan: How do you feel now? Dubois: I feel bad. Nothing I can do about it. Cordan: You know Seth Hall? He talked a lot in Ashland City. You werent out that night with him? Dubois: I was out there with him. I was riding with him, but we wasnt breaking into anythingI didnt do it. I really did not do it. Cordan: Can anyone corroborate it? Dubois: My son, 4 years old. I was in bed with him every night.

CRIME TRACKER | Read the latest crime news from Middle Tennessee

Dubois bond is set at $110,000 while Perrys is $120,000.

Cordan: Did you steal stuff off petty road? Perry: No. In the middle of the night, a guy named Seth  Im not sure of his last name  showed up at my house with a bunch of stolen s***. Id just been released from prison after 10 years, and I told him, Look, I cant be involved in this. I dont know what youre doing, but youve got to leave. He talked and left. Now Im arrested for charges I didnt do. I think there was stuff left. Maybe stolen, nothing major, or he would not have left it; I would not allow him. Cordan: Were you at the house with the pit bull? Perry: That is my brother-in-law and sisters house. Cordan: If you didnt do it, how do you feel? Perry: It sucks. Im having to sit in here after doing 10 years in prison and not doing anything wrong, and I cant get out of here. I dont even know Seth. News 2 showed Perry a picture of Hall through the jailhouse glass, who Perry confirmed was Seth.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

On body cam footage, Hall told Ashland City police he did not steal the gun or the badge, adding that he let others drive his car.

The pipes mine. Ill take that, Hall said. That gun and that badge doesnt belong to me.

Hall is currently being held in the Cheatham County Jail for charges related to Sundays traffic stop. However, Dickson County investigators told News 2 burglary charges against Hall are very probable.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Did they catch 'El Mayo'? Facts about the co-founder of Sinaloa drug cartel

Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia, the co-founder and alleged leader of the notorious Sinaloa Cartel, along with the son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, were arrested Thursday, July 25, by federal authorities in El Paso.

How old is El Mayo?

He is 76 years old, born Jan. 8, 1948.

A newspaper seller arranges newspapers reporting the El Paso, Texas, U.S., arrest of Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, "El Chapo" Guzman's son, in Mexico City, Mexico July 26, 2024.

Where is El Mayo now?

Zambada made an initial appearance Friday, July 26, in the Western District of Texas at the Albert Armendariz Sr. Federal Courthouse in Downtown El Paso, federal court records show.

Federal court records nor El Paso jail logs show where Zambada is being held. Officials from the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, who oversee the El Paso County Jail and jail annex, declined to comment on where Zambada is being held.

"As a professional protocol, we refrain from providing information regarding other agency arrests/inmates," sheriff's office officials said in an email.

Federal officials have not released any information on where Zambada is being jailed.

A plane believed to have carried Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of Zambada's former partner, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who were arrested in El Paso, Texas, is seen on the tarmac of the Dona Ana County private airport, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, U.S., July 25, 2024. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

What does El Mayo mean?

El mayo translates to May in English.

An undated police handout photo shows Ismael Zambada. According the the Justice Department, Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, face multiple charges in the U.S. for heading the Sinaloa Cartels criminal operations.

El Chapo sons known as Los Chapitos

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of El Chapo, faces multiple charges in the U.S. for funneling vast quantities of drugs to U.S. streets, including fentanyl, which has surged to become the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

Guzman Lopez is one of four sons of El Chapo -- known as Los Chapitos, or Little Chapos -- who inherited their father's faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. His brother, Ovidio Guzman, was arrested last year and extradited to the United States.

FILE - This Oct. 17, 2019 frame grab from video provided by the Mexican government shows Ovidio Guzman Lopez at the moment of his detention, in Culiacan, Mexico. Mexican security forces were forced to release the son of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman that day after his gunmen shot up the western city of Culiacan. (CEPROPIE via AP File)

El Mayo and El Chapo relationship

The two co-founded the cartel and, for decades, grew a worldwide network that traffics fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, and heroin.

Zambada, who evaded capture for years, had continued to run the Sinaloa Cartel from Mexico after El Chapo was extradited to the United States in 2017 and was sentenced to life in a maximum security prison.

Is El Chapo alive?

Yes, "Chapo" Guzman was extradited to the United States in 2017 and is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison.

USA Today and Reuters contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: 'El Mayo' Zambada captured: Facts about co-founder of Sinaloa cartel
The arrest of Ismael El Mayo Zambada, the Boss of Bosses, represents a huge blow to the Sinaloa Cartel. The criminal organization, one of Mexicos biggest, has been resisting the manhunt by the United States in its war against fentanyl trafficking, as well as an internal war for territorial control. The siege by the authorities bore fruit and ended this Thursday with the arrest of one of the most powerful drug traffickers in the country, who had never once set foot in prison. Founded in the 1980s in the mountains of the Pacific State, this cartel is divided into four factions that share the drug trafficking pie: one faction is led precisely by El Mayo, and it has now been orphaned; another one is headed by Los Chapitos, the sons of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Loera; a third is commanded by Aureliano El Guano Guzman; and the last one is currently managed by relatives of Rafael Caro Quintero, who was arrested in 2022 in northern Mexico.

Since El Chapos third and final capture in 2016, the Pacific Cartel has accumulated pursuits and arrests. Even as it resists the advance of the authorities, it disputes control of Mexican territory with rival organizations, leaving a trail of bloodshed throughout the country. The latest annual report of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in May portrayed the criminal structure created by El Chapo, El Mayo and a group of drug traffickers. It does not have a leader, said the anti-drug agency. Rather, it is the union of these four factions, which the report assures are independent but cooperate with each other. At least this is the picture painted after El Chapos conviction in 2019.

This structure theoretically gives the heads of the independent drug trafficking groups the ability to share resources  like smuggling routes, corrupt contacts, access to illicit chemical suppliers and money laundering networks  without sharing profits or having to answer to a main chain of command, the DEA described in its report. The Los Chapitos faction was led by Ivan Guzman Salazar, Alfredo Guzman Salazar, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, and Ovidio Guzman Lopez. But the last two are currently in custody. The first was captured this Thursday along with El Mayo, and the second in a Mexican Army operation in January 2023. Washington accuses all of them of possession of drugs with intent to distribute them, conspiracy to import, manufacture, and distribute drugs, conspiracy to launder money, carrying weapons, and being members of a criminal enterprise.

The El Mayo faction, perhaps the most powerful in Culiacan (capital of Sinaloa), had kept the same leader for three decades, but he was already in poor health. The capo was accused of fentanyl trafficking by a New York court in February 2024. The third cell was controlled by Aureliano Guzman Loera, El Chapos brother, who controls part of the so-called Golden Triangle. Earlier this month, Mexican authorities arrested a man who operated as El Guanos security chief in a town in the state of Durango. The local press then reported that the capo, for whom the Joe Biden government is offering a reward of $5 million, managed to escape from the military through the mountains. The United States accuses him of trafficking heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamine and marijuana.

The fourth faction, known as the Caborca Cartel, was led by Rafael Caro Quintero, a former ally of the organizations founders. The man who was called El Narco de Narcos in the 1980s was captured in July 2022. Since his arrest, the United States has pushed for his extradition in order to to put him on trial, but the transfer has remained on hold due to a series of injunctions. Beyond some collaboration between the cells, the DEA points out that internal power struggles and fluctuating alliances leave the viability of the umbrella model in question.

The war against fentanyl has become a priority for the U.S. authorities, who have stepped on the accelerator against the organization, accused of being, together with the Jalisco Nueva Generacion Cartel, chiefly responsible for illegal fentanyl trafficking. The DEA said that together, the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels have caused the worst drug crisis in U.S. history. In their pursuit, they have tried to cover all possible actors. Other arrests that hit the structure include Damaso Lopez, a former collaborator, and Nestor Isidro El Nini Perez Salas, head of security for Los Chapitos. As is customary in these criminal organizations, each arrest is followed by a restructuring, and the scenario is rewritten after each new blow.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition
'I did this': Pensacola husband claims he shot his wife in the head in self-defense

Editors note: The health of the dog was changed to reflect its survival from the gunshot wound. The ECSO originally told media the dog died from its injuries.

The Pensacola man charged with the murder of his wife Wednesday had been separated from his spouse for roughly two weeks, an Escambia County Sheriff's Office report says.

Timothy Kramer, 51, was charged with the first-degree premeditated murder of his wife Rosa and aggravated animal cruelty for allegedly shooting his dog in the mouth.

An arrest report states that Rosa Kramer went to their home on Hillcrest Avenue Tuesday "to pick up some of her belongings," but a person whose name is redacted told law enforcement she had never returned home.

"(Reporting person) advised she tried calling Rosa Kramer however her phone kept going to voicemail and she received automated text messages saying Rosa Kramer was unavailable," the ECSO report said.

Rosa Kramer, the 47-year-old wife to Timothy Kramer, was found dead in her home from a gunshot wound. Timothy Kramer was later arrested and charged with the premeditated murder of his wife and aggravated animal cruelty for shooting their dog.

When deputies went to the Hillcrest Avenue home, neighbors said they saw Timothy Kramer park his truck in the backyard, which they said was unusual, before Rosa Kramer appeared to pickup some of her belongings.

Deputies said, "It is reasonable to believe that Timothy Kramer attempted to conceal his vehicle behind the privacy fence in an effort to avoid Rosa Kramer from knowing he was present at the residence."

Milton police then located Timothy Kramer in Santa Rosa County along with another individual whose name is redacted in the report. The person told law enforcement that "Timothy Kramer had shot Rosa Kramer in the head at their house."

Once ECSO deputies obtained a search warrant for the home, they discovered Rosa Kramer dead from a gunshot wound to the head in a back bedroom.

"In the bedroom, I noticed a significant amount of blood on the flooring and surrounding areas, along with smeared blood and what appeared to be bloody footprints leading from the bedroom to the hallway," the report said.

Deputies also found a dog with a gunshot wound. The dog was transported to a veterinary hospital and recovered from its injuries.

Witness says Timothy Kramer lied about the shooting being self-defense

During an interview with the woman who was with Timothy Kramer when he was found in Milton, she said he confessed to shooting his wife in self-defense.

"She advised that Timothy Kramer called her at approximately 6 a.m. and confessed that he had shot Rosa Kramer and claimed it was in self-defense," the report said. "(Redacted) said she urged Timothy Kramer to contact law enforcement and explain the situation to avoid getting into trouble."

Timothy Kramer allegedly told the woman he had contacted the ECSO and allegedly said they finished the investigation, finding the shooting to be in self-defense.

The ECSO's investigation found Kramer "provided a fictitious story" which "lead her to believe he was not in any trouble regarding the incident."

In text messages found between Timothy Kramer and the unidentified person, Kramer states, "It is all good I did this it is on me."

Timothy Kramer faces up to life in prison

The Office of the State Attorney charged Timothy Kramer with first-degree premeditated murder and aggravated animal cruelty.

Florida law states that a first-degree murder charge is a capital felony, which forces a judge to levy a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison if the defendant is convicted.

The animal abuse charge is a third-degree felony punishable up to five years in prison.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Timothy Kramer arrested in Hillcrest Avenue murder of Rosa Kramer
New director at Hampton VA Medical Center will take over after failures cited in scathing report

HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY)  Beginning August 5, a new acting director of the Hampton VA Medical Center will have to right a ship that is reeling over findings of substandard surgical practices.

Walter Dannenberg comes to Hampton from Long Beach, California, where hes directed the VAMC for the past seven years. Dannenberg has also served at VA centers in Arkansas and Washington State, as well as 20 years in the Navy as a hospital corpsman. He has to turn around Hampton after the Office of the Inspector Generals highly critical report that focused on surgery, and specifically the assistant chief of surgery.

The report from the Inspector General cites several different areas where the surgery department at the Hampton VA Medical Center failed, including substandard care, the competency of the assistant chief of surgery, the medical centers failure to inform patients of potential compensation from adverse surgical outcomes, and its failure to report the surgeon to state regulators.

The report focuses on six cases involving the assistant chief of surgery that were found to have substandard care, including a robotic-assisted procedure following a diagnosis of rectal cancer; a Crohns patients procedure; a colon cancer patient whose liver was lacerated during surgery; a diverticulitis patient whose surgery led to infection; another diverticulitis patient whose liver and gallbladder were injured during surgery; and a rectal cancer patient who also had COPD and was under general anesthesia for too long.

The OIG looked into whether the assistant chief of surgery was unsafe, but found her to be competent, and added that two general surgeons operate on the more complex surgical procedures.

A source told 10 On your Side that the woman identified only by the title of assistant chief of surgery in the report, and not by name, has been gone from the medical center for several months.

The OIG report also cited Hampton for failing to inform patients and their families about compensation options  if their surgeries result in what they call adverse outcomes.

Medical centers are required to tell them they can seek compensation either from the Veterans Benefits Administration and under the Federal Tort Claims Act.

And the report says the Hampton VA failed to report the assistant chief of surgery to the Virginia Licensing Board, which it must do when theres evidence the provider failed to meet generally accepted standards.

The Department of Veterans Affairs issued this statement to WAVY in response to the OIG report, from Press Secretary Terrence Hayes:

At VA, our mission is to ensure Veterans get the world-class health care they deserve from caring, qualified professionals  and we will never settle for anything less. We take allegations of oversight and misconduct seriously and have strengthened our policies and procedures to ensure consistent, high-quality care from licensed professionals. VA uses rigorous credentialing, privileging processes, and administrative reviews to maintain care quality and integrity. Our mission is to deliver world-class health care to Veterans through skilled and compassionate professionals, and we are committed to upholding these standards.

VA values the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) review and fully supports its findings. We are taking urgent action to address the OIGs recommendations, and we plan to fully implement all recommendations by December 2024. These steps include:

Leaderships Actions to Date:

Established a bi-weekly multidisciplinary team to address open OIG recommendations, targeting year-end completion.

Conducted multiple reviews, resulting in the creation of a reporting tool to track clinical care metrics, suspensions, privilege changes, state board reports, and ongoing evaluations.

Initiated monthly patient risk meetings in Surgery Services to address potential safety concerns, reduce patient cancelation and mitigate risk.

Initiated ongoing quality and reporting training for surgical staff, enhancing their understanding of the safety reporting tool.

Surgery Department Stats:

Received a three-year reaccreditation from The Joint Commissions Gold Seal of Approval in January 2024.

Earned Intersocietal Accreditation Commission (IAC) Accreditation for vascular testing in April 2024, one of 13 out of 172 VA facilities.

Performed 1,761 cases in FY23 and FY24, with a Veteran Trust Score of 86.7%.

Reported zero critical incidents in FY23 and FY24.

Achieved a surgical site infection rate post-discharge significantly lower than the national average, nearing zero.

Best Practices Noted During the VISN 6 Surgery Review:

The Surgery department maintains low morbidity and mortality rates post-surgery, reflecting quality patient care as per National Surgical Office metrics.

The Operating Rooms Morning Huddle, led by the OR Nurse Manager, effectively identifies and addresses daily case barriers.

The Anesthesia Sections pre-operative clinic risk-stratifies patients and schedules additional consultations as needed, reducing same-day surgery cancellations due to incomplete assessments.

While progress has been achieved, continuous improvement is essential to maintain the highest quality care, the VA said. We value oversight and collaboration with the OIG, our staff, stakeholders, and VA officials, as it strengthens our mission to honor and care for Veterans.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
When her uncle went missing in April 1982, Joanna O'Toole was only 4 years old.

Although she has no memory of him, O'Toole has spent much of her life wondering and asking questions about her uncle, Charles "Chip" Murphy, who dropped off a friend after a night out and was not seen again until earlier this year when his remains and the vehicle he was last seen driving were found submerged in a creek in Ridgefield Park.

Over the last four decades since his disappearance, O'Toole has spoken about it with her father, grandfather, siblings and aunt, growing more interested in the case as she got older.

Now, into adulthood, she has continuously pursued her uncle's whereabouts, downloading articles, combing through social media pages, reaching out to his old friends and more, trying to piece together the puzzle that has perplexed her family for over 40 years.

Joanna O'Toole, poses for a photograph, Monday, July 22, 2024, in Woodland Park. OOTooleOs uncle, Charles Murphy went missing in 1982. She was four years-old at the time of his disappearance and has no memory of her uncle but has vivid memories of decades of anguish it caused her parents. In May of this year, her uncle and his 1974 Camaro were found in the Hackensack River. Although she grew up thinking his disappearance was due to a fatal accident, she no longer believes it was an accident.

Although Murphy has since been found, several unanswered questions remain, including the one of what actually happened the night he disappeared that led him to ending up in the creek.

The disappearance of Charles Murphy

Murphy, 25, of Maywood, disappeared during the early morning hours of April 28, 1982.

According to an article in The Record from June 14, 1982, Murphy and his friends went to a game at Yankee Stadium and then out for drinks. After that, he dropped a friend off in Ridgefield Park. He was last seen driving a 1974 silver Chevrolet Camaro.

An attendant at an all-night gas station on Route 46 reported seeing a young man that fit Murphy's description.

The case went cold until early May, when Murphy and the Camaro were found submerged in Overpeck Creek in Ridgefield Park, just over 42 years since he disappeared.

O'Toole was informed of the news a few days after he was found when her sister, showed up to their house at 7 a.m., only a few hours after the O'Toole family returned from vacation, unaware that a search for Murphy was even taking place.

"It was surreal, it was unbelievable," said O'Toole, whose father was Murphy's oldest brother. "It's something that, you know, I've known of this story. It was always bizarre to me, even growing up, that I have an uncle that's missing, and nobody knows what happened."

She continued, "My grandfather died not knowing what happened to his son, and my father and his siblings, likely the same thing would've happened to them."

O'Toole said that her father, grandfather and other family members were told for years that Murphy probably went into the city, and something went wrong or something bad was done to him.

Charles Murphy, 25, of Maywood disappeared after a night out in April of 1982. He was missing for just over 42 years until early May when his remains and the car he was last seen driving were found submerged in the Overpeck Creek in Ridgefield Park.

At the time of Murphy's disappearance, police said that it occurred under "foul or suspicious circumstances." However, two years later, a Bergen County Sheriff's Department investigator told The Record that "there was never an indication of foul play."

Investigator Don Pecile said in 1984, "Aside from talking to the family and the friends, we never had a lead in this case."

Throughout all of these years, O'Toole's family members have searched everywhere they could for Murphy, to no avail. However, her father always believed that his brother was somewhere in the Hackensack River.

From O'Toole's understanding, her father requested that the authorities search the river for his brother, but it had never been checked until earlier this year when a private, nonprofit organization called the United Search Corps located Murphy's remains in the creek, an offshoot of the Hackensack River.

When Murphy was recovered in May, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office said that after "extensive forensic testing," it was able to confirm that the found remains were Murphy, but the circumstances surrounding his disappearance are still under investigation.

The Bergen County Sheriff's Department said on July 24 that, as of May 6, there is no new information on this case.

Doug Bishop, founder of the United Search Corps, told NorthJersey.com in May that the type of technology utilized in cases like Murphy's did not exist at the time of his disappearance and, even today, law enforcement on average is not capable of performing these types of searches.

"This was a case that officers worked really hard on. They did a lot of work. I have seen the case file. It's just the technology that I utilize to discover this vehicle did not exist," said Bishop, referring to this type of searching as a "gray area within law enforcement."

Unanswered questions on Bergen disappearance

Although Murphy has finally been found, there are still a lot of unanswered questions.

What actually happened that night that led Murphy to end up in the water?

While O'Toole's father believes that Murphy must've simply grown tired after a long night and driven into the river, she believes that there is more to the story.

"While he was ultimately found in the water thanks to Doug Bishop and his crew, and we can't be thankful enough for them, I myself question it ... I know my father thinks he fell asleep... I don't necessarily believe that is true," said O'Toole. "I think there are people that knew or people that still know what happened and they are choosing not to say."

O'Toole says that she wants to know more about the car, which remains submerged in the creek.

Are any of the windows open? Is the door ajar?

In an attempt to gather as much information as possible, she has spoken to several people who knew her uncle or were there the night he went missing. She came in contact with some of these people after they commented or posted about Murphy on local social media groups.

"I reached out to quite a few of them, and there were people who could have told you every single thing. What the weather was like that night, big details, small details, they remembered everything," she said. "And then there were a few people who responded with 'It was a long time ago I don't remember anything anymore.' ... I got a couple of those responses. Some read my message and didn't respond at all."

She continued, "I found it strange because you are that vocal on a public site, but when I tell you who I am and why I am reaching out to you all of a sudden I get nothing. So, I question that."

Overall, the story just does not sit right with O'Toole, who finds it hard to believe that her uncle fell asleep while driving, especially due to the fact that his last known location was close to the water where he was found.

"Where he allegedly dropped him off, the proximity to the water was only a couple hundred feet. In my brain, even if you're exhausted, even if it's 3 o'clock in the morning, even if you're drunk, you don't pull up to somebody's house, have them get out of the car, the light of the car comes on, you're chatting and saying goodnight, you don't fall asleep like that and drive into the water and then not even wake up," said O'Toole. "Nobody hears the splash, the scraping of the car going down the rocks? It just doesn't sit right with me."

She continued: "I want to know. Obviously, we can't tell if he was dead before he went into the water. We don't know if he got beaten up, if he was buckled into the car and pushed in, I don't know. But I would like to know, I would like to know that he wasn't aware that he was drowning if he drowned."

Laying Murphy to rest after 42 years

Joanna O'Toole, her uncleOs sunglasses, Monday, July 22, 2024. OOTooleOs uncle, Charles Murphy went missing in 1982. She was four years-old at the time of his disappearance and has no memory of her uncle but has vivid memories of decades of anguish it caused her parents. In May of this year, her uncle and his sunglasses were found in his 1974 Camaro, in the Hackensack River. Although she grew up thinking his disappearance was due to a fatal accident, she no longer believes it was an accident.

Amid the uncertainty and all of the questions that are left unanswered, O'Toole and her family were able to lay Murphy to rest in June.

"My father and my aunt, it was hard on them, it was something that they did not expect I think, especially at this stage in their life. They live close to each other, they're neighbors ... it was a lot for them. It was very stressful," she said. "I think there was a huge sense of relief. My father was a lot older than his brother and so was my uncle, but my aunt and him were a year and a half apart, they were close ... but I think after it was a relief that he's back, it kind of turned into a feeling of 'I can't believe he was there all that time, and we never knew, and we never found him."

She recalled the countless number of times that her and her siblings dined at Tracey's Nine Mile House in Little Ferry, which overlooked the river.

"We sat at that restaurant and ate dinner I can't tell you how many times, and he was right there, and we had no idea," she said.

She continued, "I can think about it as, this is my uncle who I do not remember, but then I think about the fact that he was not much older than my own children when he disappeared ... obviously they sheltered the young kids from it, but I can't imagine how torturous it was then."

Charles Murphy's recovered belongings

Found and recovered alongside Murphy's remains were several items of his, many of which were mentioned in the original missing person's flyers such as his sunglasses, gold cross necklace and the green jacket that he was last seen wearing, all of which are fully intact and in decent condition.

"The gold was sparkling, it was amazing," said O'Toole. "All of these things I had been reading about for 42 years was just what they said. It all came up. I figured when they said the green jacket that we would get like a scrap of it, but it's intact."

Other items that her and her family received included the car's arm rest cover, which still had electrical tape on it, and the door to the Camaro's glove compartment, which O'Toole's sisters remembered.

"It's funny because when my older sisters saw it, they said they remember sitting in the front of the car, tracing the 'Camaro' with their fingers. So, obviously it is important that we kept stuff like this," she said.

Joanna O'Toole, poses for a photograph as she holds the glove box door of her uncleOs 1974 Camaro, Monday, July 22, 2024. OOTooleOs uncle, Charles Murphy went missing in 1982. She was four years-old at the time of his disappearance and has no memory of her uncle but has vivid memories of decades of anguish it caused her parents. In May of this year, her uncle and his 1974 Camaro were found in the Hackensack River. Although she grew up thinking his disappearance was due to a fatal accident, she no longer believes it was an accident.

Another item that that was brought up to the surface was a wallet that contained identification that did not belong to Murphy, an artifact that furthers O'Toole's suspicion that there could be more to this story.

Was somebody else in the car with him?

"One of his friends said to me that it didn't make sense that everybody said he went into the city to get into a fight. He said, 'Listen, he wasn't afraid to shy away from a fight, but he would never go looking for one,'" said O'Toole. "He liked to have a good time with his friends, he was in a good mood, he was a nice guy, a good guy. He would go camping, he loved his cars, he loved his dog ... he was a 25-year-old kid. He was just a good guy who wasn't afraid of people but wasn't a troublemaker."

She continued, "It just doesn't sit right with me, and I truly hope that people still look into this. I'll push for it."

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Charles Murphy's niece discusses missing uncle, found 42 years later
Minimum wage for state employees increased to $12.41 an hour, while Oklahoma's employers are required to pay only $7.25 hour. (Getty Images) (This image cannot be republished without a Getty subscription.)

OKLAHOMA CITY  A growing disparity between what the state requires its employees to make and what it requires everyone else to pay is an indication that its time to increase the states minimum wage rate, advocates said.

Starting July 1, state employees must make at least $12.41 an hour, or an annual salary of $25,820. The increase was mandated because of a 2009 law that requires state employees to have an annual salary equal to the amount established in the Federal Poverty Guidelines for a threeperson household, according to a release from the Office of Management and Enterprise Services. The law exempts some entities from complying.

Observers said while the raise is needed for state employees, the obscure state law highlights a growing divide between Oklahomas stagnant $7.25 an hour minimum wage and what a family of three needs to make ends meet in the state.

And though theyve allowed the minimum wage for state government workers to increase, lawmakers continue to resist calls to raise the overall rate for everyone else. They continue to back a 2014 law that forbids Oklahomas cities and towns from raising their communitys own wages above the state rate.

Sen. George Young, D-Oklahoma City, said the federal poverty measure the state uses to set its pay should also apply to Oklahomans who are not state employees.

If we think that the state employees need a raise, why wouldnt we think that other folk would need a raise? he asked.

Thirty states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia have a minimum wage set higher than the federal minimum, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Of those, seven states pay at or above $15 an hour. Neighboring states New Mexico, Colorado, Missouri and Arkansas pay more than the federal minimum.

Young, who is resigning from office later this year, has introduced bills that proposed a variety of options to raise wages, from a gradual increase to setting the minimum at $15 an hour. None passed.

An increase would be a shot in the arm to Oklahomas economy, he said.

A spokesperson for Gov. Kevin Stitt said the governor thinks the free market should drive wages, not the government.

But former Gov. Brad Henry tied state employees minimum wage to the Federal Poverty Guidelines with the 2009 law, meaning Stitt cannot control minimum wage for state employees, she said.

Amber England, a spokesperson for Raise the Wage Oklahoma, said it has been 15 years since the state has raised its minimum wage for all Oklahomans.

She said it is good to see some progress being made within state government.

I think it is a recognition that we believe that the minimum wage should be higher, and Im thrilled that these employees that have dedicated their career to public service are gonna get a pay raise, England said.

England has focused her efforts on getting State Question 832 on the ballot. The state question would raise the minimum wage to $9 an hour in 2025. It would increase to $15 an hour in 2029. She said supporters collected nearly double the needed signatures needed to get the measure on a future ballot.

It is my hope that in combination of this campaign and with this increase, that lawmakers will recognize that theyve been out of touch with regular Oklahomans, and they should come to the table and do more to help lift wages in Oklahoma, England said.

In 2023, the minimum wage for state employees was $11.95 an hour. A spokeswoman for the Office of Management and Enterprise Services said in a statement that it is typical for the poverty level to adjust each year, and state governments minimum pay rate changes with it.

Twenty-nine state employees, such as housekeepers, custodians and customer service representatives, will be impacted by the minimum wage increase.

Gabriela Ramirez-Perez, a policy analyst for the Oklahoma Policy Institute, said about 200,000 Oklahomans  or about 5% of the population  are paid at or around $7.25 an hour.

She said people of color are paid disproportionately lower wages than white Oklahomans, and it is the same case for women compared with men.

And so raising the minimum wage floor would help begin to address that problem, Ramirez-Perez said. It cant correct for it entirely, but its a very important step because it provides a boost to everyone.

The State Chamber, which represents Oklahoma businesses, responded with a comment, but the statement they provided was unresponsive.

Gene Blankenship, deputy director of the Oklahoma Public Employees Association, said in a statement the last across-the-board pay raise for state employees was in 2019.

Current wages are insufficient to meet the basic needs of many residents, and the growing disparity between wages and the cost of living threatens the states workforce, Blankenship said. Policymakers, businesses and community leaders must work together to implement strategies that will raise wages, improve living standards and create a more prosperous future for all Oklahomans.

Editors note: This story was updated on Aug. 5 to clarify that some state government entities are exempt from the pay law.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
The candidates for Central Floridas congressional District 10 argued about marijuana, immigration, abortion and other issues in a pitch to represent their party in Novembers general election during a televised forum that aired Thursday night.

District 10 includes much of central and eastern Orange County including Orlando, Winter Park and Maitland. It is currently represented by first-term Democratic incumbent Maxwell Frost, who made national headlines in 2022 as the first member of Gen Z elected to Congress.

Frost beat his Republican rival Calvin Wimbish by 20 percentage points. Currently, the districts registered voters are 44% Democrat, 24% Republican and 29% non-party affiliated.

Frost will face two Democratic challengers, Wade Darius and Vibert White, in the Aug. 20 primary election. Tuan Le and Willie Montague are seeking the GOP nomination.

Darius did not attend the forum, but other nominees voiced their opinions on a host of topics.

The Democratic candidates said the United States needs better policies to govern its southern border and to protect asylum seekers.

One of the first things that needs to be done is to follow existing laws that are already on the books to secure our border, White said. Secondly, we have to understand that we are not an open-door policy any longer, that we cannot afford it. We have other people within the United States who need the resources that can be utilized in their own communities.

Frost argued that improving the asylum process would curtail many of the problems seen at the border today.

What we have to understand is we dont have open borders, he said. We do have a legal system of asylum, which is a legal right for people to claim asylum. So what we need to do is pass legislation to get more asylum attorneys, judges, more personnel down there so this process can be sped up.

Republican candidates, however, argued that the border is open and needs to be closed so the country can address its domestic issues.

Securing the border is not about immigrants, Le said. Its about stopping criminals and having human trafficking drop.

Montague said the border is open and called immigration an illegal issue that must be solved.

We need to secure the border, we need to close it off, and we need to make sure we have our officers there that are able to make sure that no one crosses over here until we get a better process, he said.

Two amendments that will be on Floridas ballot in November will allow voters to decide on legalizing marijuana usage for adults over 21 and protecting abortion rights.

Republican candidates Le and Montague said they do not support legalizing marijuana through Amendment 3, though Montague stated he is in favor of decriminalization.

It becomes that gateway and then it leads to something else, Montague said of marijuana. My brother spent seven years in prison because it started with marijuana to appeals to heroin because it became wanting more of a high.

Democratic candidates Frost and White disagreed, saying they want Amendment 3 to pass and to go a step further and have the records of individuals imprisoned on marijuana charges expunged.

The point is, marijuana should be legalized, White said. Secondly, individuals who are in jail right now at the federal and state level and county level should be released immediately. if theyre there because of selling or smoking marijuana. Its a benign drug at this stage.

Both White and Frost said they support Amendment 4, which would overturn Floridas current six-week ban on abortion and make the procedure legal until fetus viability, usually about 24 weeks.

I support amendment 4 but not just that: Congress needs to codify Roe v. Wade, codify abortion rights for women and childbearing adults across the country, Frost said.

Le and Montague both acknowledged the issue is in the hands of the voters but voiced their opposition to the abortion measure.

Personally, I dont agree with abortion because I love children, Le said. I love kids and I have them, Im going to have a fourth kid coming soon too.

Montague said he is absolutely a no on the abortion amendment. I believe absolutely 100% in pro-life and that we need to protect our children and the unborn all the way from the womb to the tomb, he said.

Thursdays forum was moderated and sponsored by the Orlando Sentinel, Spectrum News 13 and AARP Florida and held at the News 13 studios in Orlando.
A 19th-century shipwreck packed with crates of unopened champagne has been found in the depths of the Baltic Sea.

The long-forgotten vessel was brimming with bubbly, according to the team of Polish divers who made the discovery off the coast of Sweden.

The whole wreck is loaded to the brim with crates of champagne, mineral water, and porcelain, Tomasz Stachura, the leader of the Baltictech diving team that found the wreck, said in a press release sent to CNN.

The divers said the wreck was in very good condition. - Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech

According to the firms website, Stachura is one of the most active wreck divers in the Baltic Sea, who has taken thousands of underwater pictures of Baltic wrecks. Nevertheless, this recent find was different, he said, explaining that some 100 bottles were found onboard.

I have been diving for 40 years, and it often happens that there is one bottle or two but to discover a wreck with so much cargo, its a first for me, he said in the release.

The find was largely a coincidence, he said, as the divers have been combing the seabed for years in search of sunken ships.

The wreck was found about 20 miles south of the Swedish island of Oland. - Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech

We were just checking out new spots, which I had been collecting for years, out of pure curiosity, and thats when we came across this wreck, said Stachura. We did not expect it to be anything significant and even hesitated for a moment whether to dive at all.

Two of the team were determined to take a look, however, on a quick dive but were gone for almost two hours, according to a post on the teams website.

The wreck was in very good condition and its cargo was plentiful. There was so much of it that it was difficult for us to judge the quantities, the post said.

While the champagne certainly provided cause for celebration, it was the bottles of water that perhaps shed most light on the vessels history.

The press release said the water was in sealed clay bottles and branded Selters, a German brand highly valued in the 19th century, often reserved for royal tables and considered almost medicinal.

It comes from a mineral spring of the same name in the town of Selters, in the central German state of Hesse, and has been bottled for more than 800 years.

We managed to take pictures of the brand name stamped on a clay bottle, which turned out to be from the German company Selters  produced to this day, diver and underwater videographer Marek Cacaj said in the press release.

According to Baltictechs website, its value was so precious that transports were escorted by the police.

Thanks to the shape of the stamp, and with historians help, we know that our shipment was produced between 1850-1867. Interestingly, the pottery factory into which the water was bottled also exists, and we are in contact with them to find out more details.

The divers notified the Swedish regional authorities about the vessel, which was located about 20 nautical miles south of the Swedish island of Oland. Extracting the bubbly from the boat could take some time, however, due to administrative restrictions, Stachura said.

It had been lying there for 170 years, so let it lie there for one more year, and we will have time to better prepare for the operation, he said.

His team is now collaborating with Dutch marine data company MARIS, Sodertorn University in Sweden and Professor Johan Ronnby, who oversees Swedish underwater research, to develop guidelines for future exploration of the wreck.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
CARROLLTON, Md. (DC News Now)  Train service in the DMV was halted after a train hit a person on Thursday.

In a statement, Amtrak officials said that train 93 was traveling from Boston, Mass. to Norfolk, Va. Around 5:30 p.m., the train hit a person who was trespassing on the tracks south of the station in Carrollton, Md.

Post-protest clean-up begins at Columbus Circle near DCs Union Station

Prince Georges County Fire Department (PGFD) units responded to the crash. Officials said that one man was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Several trains on the MARC Penn line were canceled, and others had departure delays.

Amtrak officials said that 330 passengers and crew were on the train at the time of the crash. None of them reported any 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 DC News Now | Washington, DC.
The Kraft Heinz Foods Company location in Muscatine makes ketchup and other condiments. (Photo courtesy of Google Earth)

A large eastern Iowa facility that makes ketchup and other condiments failed for more than two years to monitor contaminants in the more than 1 million gallons of untreated wastewater it discharged into a creek each day, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Kraft Heinz Foods Company recently agreed to pay an $8,000 fine for the violations at its Muscatine location. It uses municipal water to cool its equipment and discharges it along with stormwater into Mad Creek, which flows for less than a mile to the Mississippi River. Other wastewater produced by people at the site goes to the citys treatment facility.

The DNR documented more than 20 violations of pollution limits for the cooling wastewater from 2017 to 2020 and issued a violation notice to the company in November 2020. There was often too much chlorine in the water, and it otherwise had the potential to excessively limit the amount of oxygen in the creek water. The facility also had failed to test for contaminants as frequently as required.

The department is not aware of any obvious environmental effects from those violations, such as fish kills, said Caroline Harmening, an environmental specialist for the DNR who investigated the situation.

Despite the departments notice to remedy the violations, less than two months later the facility apparently ceased all monitoring of the wastewater, DNR records show. The department discovered the lack of monitoring during a routine inspection in February 2024.

The company was able to provide some testing data starting from August 2023 but none prior to that going back to January 2021.

Prior to August 2023, the data is inconclusive due to personnel changeover in the plant and technological difficulties with the controller on the flow meter, Kraft Heinz said in a letter to the DNR in March 2024.

The company further said it believes the measures it has taken in its stormwater system have adequately addressed the alleged violations.

Harmening said she is not aware of any further wastewater violations at the facility since that letter. Its unclear whether there were violations in the preceding years.

Since we dont have any data, we dont know if they did or by how much they might have exceeded different limits, Harmening said.

Editors note: This article was modified with more information about the companys wastewater outputs.
Doctor who drove family off cliff fuels legal debate: Should attempted murder defendants get treatment instead of trial?

Doctor who drove family off cliff fuels legal debate: Should attempted murder defendants get treatment instead of trial?

He's accused of trying to kill his family by driving their Tesla off a cliff. If convicted on attempted murder charges, he could have faced life in prison. Instead, he'll skip the trial altogether and get two years of mental health treatment at home.

Dr. Dharmesh Patel is the first high-profile defendant charged with attempted murder to get Mental Health Diversion under California's recently revised law. His case is fueling a legal debate and raising questions at the capitol.

CONTINUING COVERAGE: CBS News California Investigates Mental Health Diversion The unthinkable captured the country's attention

A Tesla plunged more than 250 feet off a cliff at Devil's Slide on a winding stretch of Highway 1 in Northern California. The story initially captured the country's attention because the family of four inside survived. First responders said it was "nothing short of a miracle."

Extraordinary footage captured by rescuers showed what appeared to be Patel sticking his head out from the sheared-off top of the family Tesla as rescuers worked to free his wife and trapped children, a four-year-old boy and nine-year-old girl.

They used ropes to pull the two children up the cliff, and helicopters hoisted the parents out.

Then, the news broke that police were charging Dr. Patel with attempted murder and child abuse.

Prosecutors say he later admitted to intentionally trying to kill his family the day he drove his wife and two young children off the cliff. Therapists testified that Dr. Dharmesh Patel was having paranoid delusions about Jeffrey Epstein, the fentanyl crisis, and he feared that his kids could be sex trafficked. They said he told them he wanted to protect his family from a worse fate.

Treatment instead of trial

If any one of them had died that day, Dr. Patel would be standing trial for murder.

Because they survived against all odds, he's facing attempted murder charges instead  and that makes him eligible for Mental Health Diversion under California law.

Instead of facing seven years to life in prison, the Pasadena doctor will get two years of mental health treatment while living at home with his parents in the Bay Area suburb of Belmont.

If he completes a two-year program, Dr. Patel's record will be wiped clean. Legally, it will be as if the crash never happened.

Should attempted murder defendants be eligible for diversion?

"Doctor Patel did everything he could to carry out a murder," argued San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. "It was just that they survived the crash of the car."

Wagstaffe said he supports diversion in many cases but not for people charged with attempted murder. He opposed Mental Health Diversion for Dr. Patel.

"I'm more than happy to take that gamble when you're dealing with low-level type of offenses," Wagstaffe said. "We don't think for a crime like attempted murder, that diversion out of the system, meaning no accountability, no punishment should exist."

A newly revised law makes more Californians eligible for diversion. Defendants no longer have to prove a diagnosed mental illness was a "significant factor" causing them to commit the crime.

Judges must now presume nearly any one of these hundreds of listed mental disorders was responsible for nearly any crime.

The list of eligible "mental disorders" ranges from Patel's diagnosis  major depressive disorder  to ADHD, erectile disorder, anorexia, substance use disorder, and intoxication.

"Diversion programs have been proven over and over again to have much better outcomes than traditional prosecutions when it comes to (preventing) new crimes," said Mona Sahaf, a prosecution reform advocate.

Sahaf is the director of the Reshaping Prosecution Initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice, which often advocates for criminal justice reform.

She points to national studies that show prosecutor-led diversion greatly reduced recidivism and the rate of rearrests after completing diversion.

However, our recent CBS News California investigation found a lack of reliable data examining the success rates of California's diversion programs under the recently revised laws. The state removed its success-rate data from the public portal following that report.

"Really, the headline here is that a person's getting the treatment they need to make sure that they can be a safe, thriving member of their community. And that this is aligning with the wishes of the survivors of this crime," Sahaf said.

She points to emotional testimony from Dr. Patel's wife asking for diversion instead of trial.

"I really miss my best friend ... my partner in life," Mrs. Patel said.

Mrs. Patel described how much her kids miss their father and she noted that her husband never had an episode like that before. She argued, "(His) mental health treatment  will not only restore him back to himself but  will restore the health and well-being of (their) entire family."

By all accounts, Dr. Patel was a loving father and upstanding doctor before his sudden mental illness prompted him to drive his family off a cliff.

Doctors say, if properly medicated, he could go back to that life.

"A diversion program might be the absolute best antidote to making sure that this person never commits a crime again," Sahaf said.

The two-year Mental Health Diversion program

"I would also disagree that you're not being held accountable in diversion," Sahaf said. "You have to go through a very rigorous program with lots of requirements, many, many more requirements indeed than being charged and put into jail,"

In Patel's case, he must wear an ankle monitor and stay confined to his parent's house except for weekly visits to court, doctors, and therapists. He'll be tested to ensure he's not using recreational drugs or alcohol and that he is taking his prescribed medication.

He turned over his driver's license and passport and, for now, he can't see his wife and kids, practice medicine, or own a gun.

"What do you say to the argument that he's exactly the type of person that should get mental health diversion?" we asked Wagstaffe.

"Nobody saw it coming. So how are we going to know in the future whether it's coming?" he said. "How do we know he's going to stay on medication after two years?"

Wagstaffe also worries that Patel was misdiagnosed.

He's being treated for major depression disorder, but doctors for the prosecution argued he has Schizoaffective disorder  which requires a different treatment that they say Patel opposed.

"You have to have the right medication," Wagstaffe said. "That's why we think that the court should only take the chance, gamble, in cases where you're a minimal danger to the public."

What happens after two years?

Wagstaffe notes mental health diversion programs run a maximum of two years.

"If mental health diversion were for 20 years, 30 years, that would be a different consideration. The maximum  the court has no discretion  is two years. That's nowhere near enough to determine whether somebody has really changed," Wagstaffe added.

In Patel's case, the medical board could attempt to revoke his license. But, legally, in two years, Patel can return to practicing medicine, driving, and even owning a gun.

"He will be the same as you, me, and every other law-abiding citizen out there in our community," Wagstaffe said. "At the end of two years, Mr. Patel can go out, on day one, and purchase a gun."

Wagstaffe's office sponsored a bill, which is now state law, that prohibits gun possession during the two-year mental health diversion period.

"Originally it was a lifetime ban that we proposed," Wagstaffe said. "They would not even let it get to a vote in the committee unless we agreed to water it down  We decided to take that because that's better than nothing."

Wagstaffe points to a dichotomy under California law.

"If somebody has a mental illness and commits an attempted murder, at the end of the two years, we're going to let them buy a gun," Wagstaffe said.

That's because at the end of diversion, the charges are dropped. There's no felony and no record of a crime.

"But if it's somebody who has no mental health issues  [and] they stole $1,500 worth of goods, a felony  they are prohibited from possessing the gun the rest of their life. There's no logic."

Questions at the Capitol

The DA is among many who argue Mental Health Diversion should not be allowed in cases of attempted murder.

At the state capitol earlier this year, a bipartisan bill with widespread support within the legislature would have added attempted murder to the short list of charges  murder and sex crimes  that are not eligible for diversion.

Defense attorneys and reform advocates opposed the bill, arguing that it is bad policy to categorically exclude one type of offense. "We want the best option to be available in every single case, no matter what the charges," explained Shahf.

Still, the bill had 17 bipartisan co-authors and unanimously passed the Assembly Public Safety Committee, which is known for killing tough-on-crime legislation.

"It is extraordinarily hard to get, pro-criminal justice bills out of the public safety. And this one flew through," Wagstaffe said.

But the rest of the Assembly never got the chance to vote because the Appropriations Committee killed the bill by holding it the so-called "suspense file."

"I find that as anti-democratic, and I don't think the public if they knew it, would find that acceptable," Wagstaffe said.

The suspense file is where even popular bills can go to die without a public vote.

In this case, the committee analysis suggested the bill was too expensive  highlighting how much it would cost the state annually ($133k) to send someone to prison for attempted murder instead of diversion.

Except, their analysis fails to mention how much it currently costs ($123k+) to put the same person through diversion for a year.

Our CBS News analysis of state data found that last year alone, California spent an estimated $67 million on people who failed to complete Mental Health Diversion programs and had charges reinstated anyway.

In the first quarter of 2024, state data indicated the failure rate jumped to more than 50%.

Neither the Appropriations Committee Chair, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, nor her committee staff responded to repeated requests for comment.

"Poster child" for both sides of the diversion debate

Patel is the first high-profile attempted murder defendant to get Mental Health Diversion since the bill died.

"For us, he's the poster child. We will use him in our efforts to try and bring that bill back," Wagstaffe said.

But Patel is also the so-called "poster child" for the other side.

"Unfortunately, so many people believe that punishment is the way to make sure people don't commit any crimes. But that's not what the evidence shows," Sahaf said.

Dr. Patel's defense attorney declined an interview, but they hope Patel will be the model for how mental health diversion is supposed to work -- even for those charged with attempted murder.

Harris campaign releases video showing Trump mug shot

Ukrainian Olympic team hollowed out by war heads to Paris

South Sudan's Olympians hope to be a "beacon of hope"
Solomiya Fomeniuk, 16, recalled the Russian missile strike on the Okhmatdyt pediatric hospital in Ukraine earlier this month with horror, but also as a case of miraculous survival.

The girl was one of five children in the dialysis department at the moment of the attack on July 8. Two people -- a doctor and a teacher -- died as a result of the strike. A 7-year-old boy died later after he was transported away from the site, officials said.

Solomiya is disabled due to spinal hernia. The girl was admitted to the Kyiv hospital in late May 2022 after kidney failure.

"It's the best clinic in Ukraine with a dialysis department and the only one where we can actually live to receive treatment regularly," Solomiya's mother, Oksana Fomeniuk, told ABC.

July 8 started as usual, she said, adding that even when the sirens went off, it didn't initially scare the parents nor hospital staff.

"We've been here for a while, there were at least two impacts nearby during the past two years, but we always thought that a hospital is a safe place," she said. "We are always anxious of course, but the kids learned to be courageous and patient since dialysis lasts for 4 to 5 hours and they can't move during the procedure".

PHOTO: Oksana Fomeniuk and her daughter, Solomija, pose outside the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, after a Russian strike on the site on July 8, 2024. (ABC News)

MORE: 'Massive' barrage of Russian missiles target Ukraine, killing 37 and striking children's hospital

However, when the first missiles hit the ground a couple kilometers from the hospital Oksana and others quickly went down to the shelter while doctors and nurses decided to go into the room to switch the kids off from the dialysis equipment and take them downstairs too. At that moment the missile hit.

"The first thing I saw was a piece of ceiling above me," Solomiya recalled. "The equipment around prevented it from falling on me. I even raised my hands to try to hold it. I couldn't breathe, there was dust and hot air around. And this smell"

The girl saw two injured female doctors and a nurse lying on the floor bleeding, she said.

"One doctor, Anastasia, shook up from our cries, stood up and came up to pull me from the rubbles," Solomiya said. "She is so tiny herself, but somehow managed to carry me to the window where men who ran from the street were already helping."

PHOTO: A view from the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, after a Russian strike on the site on July 8, 2024. (ABC News)

MORE: Ukraine searches children's hospital wreckage as NATO countries condemn 'barbaric' Russian strike

Most of all the girl was worried about her mom, she confessed. Oksana herself barely got out of the rubble as the missile hit right at the foundation of the building.

"I smelled death," she said. "I was in the rubble by the knees and couldn't breathe because of the dust and the smell of the fuel."

Oksana managed to run out through the back door.

"The second thing that shocked me was the scale of the damage," she said. "Everything was in a black smoke, the building was destroyed, others half damaged. And all I could think about was where my Solomiya were."

Oksana saw pieces of furniture and mattresses around, a body inside the premise, children coming out of the building through the broken windows, nurses carrying them out -- and said she couldn't believe that her daughter was alive.

"The nurse was running and shouting that Solomiya was OK and she was taken to another building, but I only believed that when I saw her there. I'm telling you, God saved us. Because if my girl were in another bed, as before, she could have died."

Svitlana Lukyanchuk, a 30-year-old nephrologist, was later identified as the woman who had died in the room. The head of the dialysis department, Olha Babicheva, was also severely injured, officials said.

Young surgeon Oleh Golubchenko also said he believed he was lucky to be alive. Photos and videos of him in a white bloody uniform as he helped to search the debris went viral.

PHOTO: Surgeon Oleh Golubchenko in his department at the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, after a Russian strike on the site on July 8, 2024. (ABC News)

"My grandma carefully washed and whitened the robe right on the day before. I think I haven't even thrown it away yet," Golubchenko said, laughing both bitterly and with relief.

He had been performing a halo rhinoplasty on a 5-month-old patient on the morning of July 8.

"It's a complicated procedure, but very interesting for me as a specialist. I pre-planned everything on the weekend, designed a model of the expected result," Golubchenko told ABC.

The surgeon, anesthesiologist Yaroslav Ivanov, second surgeon Ihor Kolodko and nurse Olha Baranovych were halfway through the surgery when the siren went off in Kyiv.

"We don't start operations during the air raid alert, but if we have already started we have to continue because you can't move the patient quickly, especially a kid. So we carried on, stayed calm and even joked," Golubchenko recalled.

When the missile hit the nearby building the wave threw him a couple of meters away from the operating table. "I was shocked for a few seconds and then saw everyone on the floor, bleeding. I shouted, 'Is everyone alive?' Olha, the nurse, was apparently severely injured, I saw her face really damaged. Yaroslav was bleeding too but got up."

PHOTO: A view from the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, Ukraine, after a Russian strike on the site on July 8, 2024. (ABC News)

The doctors rushed to their little patient covered by surgical gowns. The boy was intubated, so Golubchenko couldn't check if he was actually OK.

"I ran in the corridor to find an Ambu bag. The boy's mom was there, shouting hysterically  I found the bag, the anesthesiologist disconnected the boy and quickly carried him away, I followed him  on my way I stopped to help another nurse as she was bleeding, so I bandaged her  There was such a chaos, total mess," he said.

When Oleh went outside, the first person to call him was his friend, Rostyslav, who is also a surgeon, as he heard of the strike.

"I asked him to pick my patient and finish the surgery," Golubchenko said. "He literally was here in 15 minutes and took the boy." Taras, the boy who had been in surgery, and his parents are well now, Golubchenko said.

Only later did Golubchenko notice that he himself was covered in blood.

"I just felt something warm on my back and legs. Those were all small wounds from the glass. The doctors took everything away and said I had a concussion. I think I escaped with a fright. Big fright," the surgeon said, sighing. "You know, before the surgery, the patient's father asked me whether I believed in God. What a question! But now my outlook has transformed. I'm telling you, I went to the church the following day and prayed as I could."

It's painful for Golubchenko to see his department damaged as it had been just renovated. It was even more painful for many Ukrainians. Okhmatdyt, which in Ukrainian means protection of motherhood and childhood, is the best pediatric hospital in Ukraine. The doctors say they received incredible support from the management, while parents admit everything was done from the heart here, with great love to kids so that they experience as much fun and comfort here as possible.

In just one day, people and businesses raised more than $7 million for Okhmatdyt through the joint project of the UNITED24 presidential fundraising platform and Monobank. Germany accepted kids from the Kyiv hospital and pledged about 10 million euros for the reconstruction of the hospital.

Oleh Holubchenko said he himself received calls from his American colleagues who have helped a lot, in particular Smile Train, the world's largest cleft-focused organization, and American Cleft Palate-Craniofacial Association

Fomeniuk and her daughter, Solomiya, said their hopes for Solomiya's kidney transplantation, which they have been waiting for since last fall, have now now faded a bit due to the strike. But they still showed their support for the hospital and optimism for the doctors, who they hope keep going.

The attack on Okhmatdyt on July 8 was one of more than 1,800 such strikes in Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, according to the World Health Organizaition.

Oksana confessed she sometimes thinks that horrible strike didn't actually happen and it was just a horror movie because it doesn't seem real.

"The missiles flying in Kyiv are not something normal by default," she said. "When kids who are fighting for their lives have to suffer even more during the attacks is something totally, totally over the line."

Doctors and patients recall horror of Russian strike on Kyiv children's hospital originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
The name Joaquin Guzman Lopez has made headlines in the U.S. and Mexican media since his arrest on Thursday, July 25, by the U.S. authorities along with Ismael El Mayo Zambada, the legendary leader of the Sinaloa Cartel. Little is known about Guzman Lopezs life, apart from the fact he was an effective operator and one of the most feared in Mexico as well as being considered the heir to the cartel following the arrest of his father, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman in 2017. The U.S. State Department has reported that Guzman Lopez, 38, started his criminal career early and used the profits he received from his involvement in the cartel to invest large amounts of money in the purchase of marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia.

El Chapos arrest allowed his sons to move up the power ladder of the Sinaloa Cartel, which focuses on illicit activities such as cocaine and fentanyl trafficking, and is the biggest supplier of drugs to the U.S. Considered the largest in Mexico, the Sinaloa cartel operates in vast swathes of northern Mexico, wielding particular influence on the Mexico-U.S. border. And it maintains a territorial dispute with the equally violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Under the leadership of El Mayo Zambada, El Chapos sons have increased their power and influence in the group. Operating alongside Guzman Lopez are his brothers Jesus Guzman Salazar, Ivan Guzman Salazar and, until his arrest, Ovidio Guzman Lopez whose notoriety was on a par with his fathers. Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested in January 2023 in an early morning raid in Culiacan, the northern city where the Sinaloa Cartel originated. It was the second attempt by Mexican authorities to arrest the drug trafficker, following a failed operation in October 2019, when he was held and released within hours due to the escalating violence sparked by his arrest. Ovidio Guzman Lopez was extradited to the U.S. last fall.

Joaquin Guzman Lopezs wanted file. Gobierno EE UU

The U.S. authorities have not provided further information as yet on the details of the arrests. Attorney General Merrick Garland has limited himself to stating that the Department of Justice has in its custody two alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful organizations in the world. El Mayo Zambada and El Chapo Guzman are considered two of Mexicos most powerful drug traffickers and authorities on both sides of the border had made a concerted effort to hunt them down, after linking them to various crimes. The U.S. State Department has reported that Zambada Garcia is unique in that he has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, but has never spent a day in jail. With the arrest, extradition, conviction, and sentencing of fellow Sinaloa Cartel faction leader Joaquin Guzman-Loera, also known as El Chapo Guzman, Zambada Garcia is the undisputed top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The U.S. government was offering a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Joaquin Guzman Lopez, who it had identified as a high-ranking member of the Sinaloa Cartel. The State Department has reported that Guzman Lopez plays high-level command and control roles in his own drug trafficking organization, known as the Guzman Lopez Transnational Criminal Organization, which operates under the umbrella of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The State Department has said that Guzman Lopez began his criminal activities at a very young age, by inheriting the connections and contacts of his late brother, Edgar Guzman Lopez. After Edgars death, Joaquin and Ovidio inherited much of the narcotics profits and began investing large amounts of money in the purchase of marijuana in Mexico and cocaine in Colombia, the U.S. authorities said. They also began purchasing large quantities of ephedrine from Argentina and organized the smuggling of the product into Mexico while beginning to experiment with methamphetamine production.

Washington believes that the Guzman Lopez brothers oversee approximately eleven methamphetamine laboratories in Sinaloa State, producing approximately 1,360 to 2,268 of kilos of methamphetamine per month. The methamphetamine is sold wholesale to other Sinaloa members and to distributors based in the United States and Canada, the U.S. authorities claim. The Guzman Lopez brothers were indicted in April 2018 for conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine, 500 grams of methamphetamine and 1,000 kilograms of marijuana, according to a District of Columbia Federal Grand Jury verdict.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition
Dog finds human skull, leading to discovery of decomposing body In California shed

A dead body was discovered in a California neighborhood on Thursday after a resident saw a dog drop a human skull on a sidewalk, officials said.

The Fresno Police Department was called to the area of Nicholas and Florence Avenues in downtown Fresno on Thursday morning after a resident reported seeing a dog drop a human skull on a sidewalk.

Responding officers searched the area and found a decomposing body, believed to be an adult male, in a shed about a block away, per reports.

Police told KMPH that the dog had taken the head and walked off with it.

Police said they do not currently suspect foul play, but are waiting for a cause of death determination from the coroners office.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
Dolores Huerta, labor leader and civil rights activist, endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president during a trip to Arizona, telling supporters that they need to recruit their friends, neighbors and even their exes to get out the vote and help Harris win on Nov. 5.

We dont have a lot of time, Huerta said, noting that the election is less than four months away. This is about all of us. Weve got to stand together, weve got to work together.

The Thursday visit marked the Harris campaigns first major Phoenix event since the vice president became the Democratic Partys presumptive nominee. The race for the White House entered a new phase this month after President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign.

Biden endorsed Harris to take on former President Donald Trump, and many Democrats quickly followed.

Huerta joined Harris campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of Cesar Chavez, for a rally at the Southwest Carpenters Training Center. The pair made a stop at a Harris campaign office in Maryvale earlier in the day to meet with staff and volunteers as the new campaign takes shape.

Harris stands with our friends in labor and is Trumps worst nightmare, Chavez Rodriguez told the crowd.

Huerta, who co-founded the United Farm Workers Association with Chavez, is a longtime Harris ally. She endorsed Harris for president in 2019 and served as a California co-chair on the Harris presidential primary campaign that year. Huerta made the case against Trump during her speech at the rally, warning against Trumps promise for sweeping deportations of illegal immigrants.

We want a democracy. We do not want a dictatorship, Huerta said.

During her visit to the Maryvale office, Huerta said that campaign staff and volunteers are working to save the United States from the fascism that is creeping in. She likened the high stakes of the political moment to Nazi Germany.

Every single person would have stood up to say were going stop Hitler, right? Huerta said. Every one of us is going to recruit as many people as we can to join to stop this fascism in the United States of America.

Huerta and Chavez both made a point to note the labor movements ties to Arizona. Huerta reminded campaign staff and volunteers that Chavez, her partner in founding the United Farm Workers Association, was born in Yuma.

You might say that the movement started here, right? Huerta said.

The campaigns decision to focus on labor for its first Arizona events comes as Democrats say they need to do more to appeal to working people in Arizona. Teamsters President Sean OBrien raised eyebrows when became the first president of his organization to ever speak at the Republican National Convention last week. His appearance is a sign that the Trump campaign is courting union members.

President Trump is making lasting inroads with union leaders and broadening the Republican tent in a historic way, Republican National Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a written statement after OBriens speech.

Unions were a key focus at the Harris rally, where attendees listened to music from local Cumbia band Powerdrive and ate tacos and paletas. Democrats warned that Project 2025, a wide-ranging policy plan from a conservative think-tank with ties to Trump, raised questions about the validity of public sector unions.

Earlier Thursday, Arizona Democratic Party chair Yolanda Bejarano spoke at a Democratic National Committee news conference with union leaders and slammed Trump and vice-presidential nominee JD Vance as working hand-in-hand with their billionaire friends to rip away workers' rights.

The move toward unions is happening in Washington, D.C., too. Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly believed to be under consideration to serve as Harriss running mate, voiced support for the PRO Act this week, a pro-union bill that he declined to sign on to when it was filed. Labor leaders said that Kellys reluctance to support the bill could hurt Democrats in union-heavy states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin if he were selected to be the vice-presidential candidate.

Rank-and-file union members who dont support pro-labor candidates are shooting themselves in the foot to vote for anyone other than Harris at this point, said Ken Hamilton, a trainee organizer with the United Auto Workers who lives in Phoenix. He came to see Huerta speak, calling her the GOAT or the greatest of all time.

Shes the GOAT of organizing. She inspires us, Hamilton said.

The campaign, which Harris took over from Biden, has made some changes to its event style to match its new leader. Staff played music by Charli xcx, a pop musician who voiced support for Harris online, and swapped out Biden signs for blue and white signs that say "KAMALA" Some rally attendees even peeled the "KAMALA" signs off the walls as a campaign keepsake.

Meredith Loucio, who lives in New York but traveled to Phoenix because of the recent death of her father, said the rally helped her take off the mantle of mourning for a little bit and get energized. Loucio would have voted for Democrats no matter what but said that Harris has brought new enthusiasm to the race.

All of a sudden, its not your grandfathers election anymore. Its your daughters. And that is very exciting, Loucio said.

Carmen Walker, an independent broker with Medicare who lives in Laveen, said she has been so excited about Harriss rise that she has been getting less sleep.

I was really kind of dismal about how things were going, Walker said. The state of democracy, I was really, really fearful that we were putting ourselves in a position that was going to cost us the election.

But since Sunday, Walker said. Im so excited about the future.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Dolores Huerta boosts Kamala Harris in AZ as campaign focuses on labor
Missourians voting on Amendment 7 this November will be taking a gullibility test. Dishonest political insiders are trying to convince voters that this amendment to the Missouri Constitution is needed to stop non-citizens from voting. But the reality is that constitution already bans noncitizens from voting.

Rather than combating voter fraud, Amendment 7 attempts to trick Missourians into banning something which has nothing to do with non-citizens casting ballots: Ranked Choice Voting.

This is the Show-Me State, and several Missouri election reform allies filed suit July 10 to force the backers of Amendment 7 to be honest with voters. But why was the proposed amendment ruse necessary?

The insiders hoped that the ballot candy of keeping noncitizens from voting would stop Missourians from seeing the truth. Amendment 7 bans something that would give voters a greater voice in government. Perhaps more ridiculous, banning does so despite the fact that ranked choice isnt even used (yet) in Missouri.

If youre one of the countless Americans who want better choices in your elections, know this: The method we use to vote today, with its unfixable flaws, cant give them to you. The ballot we use now cannot guarantee a majority winner if there are more than two candidates in a race. Our country was founded upon the consent of the governed. How do you have the consent of the governed when you use a ballot that allows people to win elections with less than 50% of the vote?

Our current ballot forces you to choose a single candidate. With multiple candidates, you know from bitter experience that voting for your favorite candidate could actually help your least favorite candidate win (Google spoiler effect.)

The only way to overcome these flaws is to change to a ballot that lets voters express their true preferences without fear. ranked choice voting does exactly that.

In a ranked choice election, voters can rank candidates in order of preference  first, second, and so on. If a candidate wins a majority of first choices, he or she wins. If not, the race goes to an instant runoff. If a voters favorite candidate has no chance of winning, that candidate is eliminated and the vote automatically counts for the selected backup choice.

Fifty jurisdictions across the country (including two states and major cities such as New York, Minneapolis and Salt Lake City) use ranked choice voting in their elections. As many as nine states could be voting to join them this November.

Despite these trends, Amendment 7 seeks to ban ranked choice voting in Missouri. Why? Certain deceptive political insiders dont want more voters to have a meaningful vote, because those voters are unlikely to agree with the insiders policies. Insiders dont want to have to get a majority to win, because that would require them to broaden their policies to appeal to a wider range of the electorate.

Insiders see themselves as superior to the unprincipled masses. Their opposition is even more baffling when you consider that ranked choice would actually help parties identify majority consensus winners in their primaries  nominees who have better chances in a general election.

Our greatness comes from the competition of finding and implementing winning ideas based on majority rule. What Amendment 7 reveals is that insiders believe if their governing ideas had to compete on a level playing field with a large cross section of Missouri voters, those ideas would lose.

Proponents of Amendment 7 will deny this. Theyll say ranking candidates is too complicated and voters dont like it. Nonsense. Exit surveys clearly, without exception, show voters overwhelmingly like ranked choice voting and think it is easy to understand and use.

Insiders cry foul over Alaskas 2022 use of ranked choice voting. But thats just because theyre sore losers who couldnt get the majorities needed to win. Ranked choice opponents wanted to keep U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski off the ballot as punishment for some of her votes. Theirs was a minority opinion, and ranked choice kept them from forcing it on the majority. Murkowski won with 54% of the vote.

Dont be gullible. Vote no on Missouri Amendment 7. Also, vote only for candidates who will work to adopt ranked choice voting in the state. Youll be amazed by the progress youll see from the responsive government that ranked choice voting can enable the majority of the people to put in place.

Larry R. Bradley is a native Missourian and retired U.S. Army Infantry Officer. He is a leader in the efforts to bring election reform to the U.S.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump enters a campaign event in Butler, Pa., on Saturday, July 13, 2024. Trump has indicated he plans to hold another rally in Butler soon. | Gene J. Puskar

In a post to Truth Social on Friday, former President Donald Trump announced plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania to hold a campaign rally, per Fox News.

The announcement comes after Trump survived an assassination attempt at the same site on July 13. Thomas Matthew Crooks attempted to kill the former president, grazing his ear, while murdering one rally attendee, Corey Comperatore, and injuring two others.

I Will Be Going Back To Butler, Pennsylvania, For A Big And Beautiful Rally, Honoring The Soul Of Our Beloved Firefighting Hero, Corey, And Those Brave Patriots Injured Two Weeks Ago, Trump posted in all capital letters on Truth Social. What A Day It Will Be  Fight, Fight, Fight! Stay Tuned For Details.

A shaken community

The shooting left Trump with an ear injury, according to ABC News. Firefighter Corey Comperatore was killed by Crooks, while other audience members James Copenhaver and David Dutch were both shot and seriously injured.

Dutch was just released from Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, while Copenhaver remains in the same hospital in a serious but stable position.

The attack and subsequent media whirlwind have left the people in and around Butler, Pennsylvania, in a state of unrest. Butlers mayor called the shooting and its aftermath overwhelming, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Some citizens are outraged, others are scared and others resentful of the heated political division that they believe contributed to the assassination attempt.

Some, however, believe that the shooting has presented an opportunity and impetus for unity. The Rev. John Neyman, who pastors the church that Comperatore attended near Butler, said that community members he knows are trying to change their mindset around politics, according to The Christian Science Monitor.

He reported that, instead of turning to anger and controversy, community members are letting themselves grieve. They have also made a conscious efforts to speak more peacefully about political issues.

People are sad but determined, said the Rev. Neyman. My job now is to help them forgive what is happening and not give way to anger.
Will Scharf, left, is facing off with Andrew Bailey in the GOP primary for Missouri Attorney General (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A trio of political action committees supporting either Andrew Bailey or Will Scharf in the Republican primary for Missouri attorney general have raised $4.6 million in large donations this month.

The money has translated into an onslaught of TV ads, mailers and text messages from both sides hoping to win the GOP nomination in a state that hasnt elected a Democrat to statewide office since 2018.

Voters head to the polls on Aug. 6, though no-excuse early voting has already opened.

Bailey, who was appointed attorney general by Gov. Mike Parson in 2022 and is seeking a full term, is being supported by Liberty and Justice PAC.

It raised $1.9 million in large donations this month  checks of more than $5,000 that must be immediately reported.

Most of that money came from Rex and Jeanie Sinquefield, Missouris most prolific political donors, who have given the PAC more than $1 million in recent weeks. Another $500,000 came from the Kansas law firm of Michael Ketchmark.

So far this year, Liberty and Justice PAC has taken in $3.5 million in large donations.

Scharf, a former assistant U.S. attorney, is being supported by two PACs  Defend Missouri and Club for Growth Action.

Most of Defend Missouris money has come from Club for Growth Action, though it did receive a $1.1 million donation this week from the Concord Fund  an advocacy organization bankrolled by groups connected to conservative activist Leonard Leo.

Club for Growth Action has raised $1.9 million this month, with $1.3 million of that coming from its federal PAC and $250,000 coming from Scharfs father.

So far this year, Club for Growth has taken in $7.6 million in large donations.
Doral voters will have a chance to change the direction of the City Council this election cycle, filling a Seat 3 vacancy with a future council person who could become the swing vote.

The election of a new council member to replace Vice Mayor Oscar Puig-Corve may either maintain the political turmoil between Mayor Christi Fraga on the five-member council or help her regain control.

Now, one of the candidates for the seat faces a residency challenge, potentially making it easier for the mayor to secure a reliable majority on the council.

Irina Vilarino, one of three candidates running for the seat, is facing questions about her place of residency following a complaint received by the city clerk from Doral Chamber of Commerce CEO Emmanuel Manny Sarmiento. He provided property records, voter registration paperwork and drivers license records that show Vilarino recently lived in Pinecrest.

According to Dorals city charter, candidates for mayor and city council must have resided in the city for at least two years prior to qualifying for the office, a requirement that some consider excessive. Sarmiento has alleged that Vilarino wasnt living in Doral as of July 2022. The qualifying period for this years election ended July 12.

If a judge finds merit in the challenge, filed on July 12, Vilarino would be disqualified. The city clerk is now obligated to take Sarmientos complaint to court to see if the presented evidence is sufficient to disqualify Vilarino.

On the day the challenge was submitted, Vilarino, 48, alleged that Fraga was conspiring to remove her from the ballot in a response to Sarmientos complaint posted on social media website X, formerly known as Twitter.

Fraga dismissed the accusation.

The person who filed the complaint is a city resident who came to me as mayor, and I have an obligation to ensure that those who represent our city are transparent, Fraga said. We had nothing to do with it. He filed the complaint as allowed by law. The evidence is quite concerning and has considerable merit.

Fragas influence has waned significantly since January, when councilwoman Maureen Porras, a former supporter, withdrew her backing due to concerns about the governments transparency.

This shift began when Porras supported the dismissal of Doral City Manager Barbara Barbie Hernandez over conflict of interest allegations, aligning with Councilwoman Digna Cabral and Vice Mayor Puig-Corve. Since then, Fraga has struggled to secure council support for various proposals, including appointing a new city manager, city attorney, and imposing new restrictions on nightlife venues. Porras now holds a pivotal swing vote on the council.

Conspiring to take me off the ballot so quickly. @ChristiFraga, why are you and your husband talking to the supposed concerned, citizen, contesting my residency in Doral. Is this is legal? Inquiring minds want to know. pic.twitter.com/7yNYlFcxQ4  Irina Vilarino (@irinavilarino) July 12, 2024

Vilarino, co-owner of Las Vegas Cuban Cuisine, her familys restaurant chain, ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Floridas 26th District in 2019 but withdrew when then-Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez was endorsed for the seat by then-President Donald Trump.

Vilarino is running for Dorals Seat 3 against Nicole Reinoso, 38, who is supported by Fraga, and Juan Carlos Esquivel, 58, who is making his third bid for a seat on the Doral council.

READ MORE: Three Doral council candidates are promising to end the polarization. Who are they?

The message that Vilarino published on her X profile accusing Fraga of intervening included a picture showing three men in the parking lot of Dorals City Hall examining documents, after the complaint was filed. One of the people present was the mayors husband, Gabriel Fraga, which Vilarino claimed was no coincidence. Politics is very dirty, she said.

Vilarino told el Nuevo Herald that any person has the right to file a complaint or challenge a candidates residency, but she stated that it is unfortunate that decisions are based on personal interests rather than merits. She added that anti-establishment candidates like herself are often not welcomed in politics, regardless of their party.

What records show

In Vilarinos qualification documents, she provided evidence of residency at a house located on Northwest 46th Terrace, owned by Mi Nina Bonita LLC, a company registered by Vilarino in April 2022. Sarmiento claims that Vilarino lied about her permanent residence, saying he believes she lived in Pinecrest then. Vilarino told el Nuevo Herald she used to live in Pinecrest before moving to Doral.

Vilarino claimed residence in Pinecrest with a 2023 homestead exemption. Records from the Property Appraiser show that Vilarino sold the property on June 12 for $3 million, a month before the complaint was filed.

Sarmiento presented several official documents from different entities to support his claimthat Vilarino wasnt a Doral resident in 2022. The records include her voter registration application with a change of address from Pinecrest to Doral on March 13, 2024, and a proof of ineligibility to vote in the December 2022 runoff elections in Doral, according to a voter audit by the Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections.

Additionally, Sarmiento presented traffic citations from September and October of 2022 where Vilarinos drivers license listed the Pinecrest address.

Sarmiento, who also filed a complaint against councilwoman Digna Cabral to the Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics and Public Trust alleging that she exploited her position, told el Nuevo Herald that he is a concerned citizen who wants to be informed about what is happening in the city, but he dismissed any questions regarding Vilarinos investigation.

Vilarino has been actively campaigning alongside councilwomen Porras and Cabral and has the support of Juan Carlos Bermudez, the former mayor and current Miami-Dade commissioner.

Other legal matter

Vilarino recently dealt with another legal problem.

She was arrested by the Miami-Dade Police Department on May 17 for allegedly bringing a gun through an airport security checkpoint.

According to the arrest affidavit report, Transportation Security Administration agents found a Smith & Wesson handgun with a six-round magazine and ammunition in Vilarinos bag as she went through a checkpoint at the Miami International Airport on her way to Washington, D.C.

Vilarino was charged with carrying a concealed firearm, a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to 60 days in jail, a maximum fine of $500 and up to six months of probation. Vilarino has pleaded not guilty. Her arraignment hearing is scheduled for Monday.

Vilarino explained to el Nuevo Herald that she always carries her gun because she is a single mother and doesnt feel safe. She said she forgot it was in her purse before arriving at the airport.

November election

The mayoral Seat and Council Seat 1 will be on the ballot in the November election. Fraga will compete against Roxanna Garay, who has no political experience, while incumbent Councilman Rafael Pineyro will face a challenge from Ivette Gonzalez Petkovich.

Gonzalez Petkovich previously ran for Doral Council Seat 2 in 2022 but lost to Porras. In 2016, she also ran for District 103 in the Florida House of Representatives, where she was defeated by Manny Diaz Jr. Both challengers have the support of Dorals former mayor, Juan Carlos Bermudez, who now serves as a county commissioner.
Dormont man accused of abusing baby boy with violent force, per court documents

A Dormont man is accused of abusing his baby boy.

Shandrew Vaughn, 22, told police his 4-month-old baby suddenly went limp under his watch on July 8.

He told police he thought the baby was choking and tried to give him back blows and mouth-to-mouth, according to court documents.

Once the baby was in the hospital, medical staff found injuries consistent with abuse.

Vaughn gave police permission to search through his cell phone, and court documents say he searched, how do babies react to shaken baby syndrome on the internet hours before scans were done at the hospital.

Vaughn denies hurting his son, but a doctor said the babys injuries take violent force to receive.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

TRENDING NOW:

3 teenagers charged in Industry triple stabbing Kennywood closes rollercoaster after photo appears to show cinderblocks supporting part of the ride Southwest changes boarding; will have assigned seating VIDEO: Kennywood closes rollercoaster after photo appears to show cinderblocks supporting part of the ride DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, bottom left, made a surprise visit on a small organizing call for gay and queer Black men on Thursday evening, underscoring his wife's support for the LGBTQ+ community. (Kevin Rector / Los Angeles Times)

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff shocked a couple of thousand gay and queer Black men backing his wife, Kamala Harris, for president when he made a guest appearance on an organizing call Thursday evening.

Emhoff promised Harris would "be there" for the LGBTQ+ community moving forward  as she has been in the past.

"As it relates to this wonderful, beautiful community of Black gay men, she has always been beside you, with you, has had your back, and always will have your back, just like she's going to have everyone else's back," Emhoff said.

Emhoff also told a story of being caught by surprise by President Biden's announcement that he was dropping out of the presidential race on Sunday, when he said he happened to be in Los Angeles with a gay couple  friends of his  after taking a one-hour SoulCycle class with them in West Hollywood.

"We're out there having coffee, messing around and talking, and ... people are coming up to me, so it's now, like, after the announcement has gone out, and my friend's partner said, 'Um, you need to look at this,' and I said, 'What?'" Emhoff said.

What the friend was holding up was Biden's letter to the country announcing he was dropping out.

Read more: Harris, Trump take fresh aim at each other as presidential race enters post-Biden phase

"Of course I didn't have my phone, so I ran and ran and got into our car, and of course my phone is just on fire, and it's basically, 'Call Kamala,' 'Call Kamala,' 'Call Kamala,' from everyone," Emhoff said. "And of course, the first thing she said was, 'Where the ... were you? I need you.'"

Since then, Emhoff said, it's been a "whirlwind."

"We've just been hustling  I've barely even seen her or talked to her since this all happened," he said.

Emhoff joined the call  touted as an organizing, fundraising and informational gathering for "Black Gay and Queer Men for Harris"  when there were about 2,250 people on the call. He spoke after several prominent Black queer men spoke, including former CNN anchor Don Lemon.

The call was one of many like it being organized in support of Harris, held just before a larger, more star-studded call for the broader LGBTQ+ community organized in part by the Human Rights Campaign.

Emhoff was introduced by Dorien Paul Blythers, a former Harris campaign staffer and founder of the Los Angeles-based social impact organization Good Rebel, who has worked closely with Emhoff in the past.

Blythers said he knows Harris as a fighter  one who fights for marginalized communities, in particular.

"I like to think of her often as one of us  someone who is often underestimated, stereotyped and overlooked, when in fact, we know that we are exceptionally prepared, we're incredibly dynamic and overqualified," Blythers said.

He said while everyone on the call may love Harris, "there's one person who I know loves her even more"  then introduced Emhoff.

"Hey everyone!" Emhoff said with a laugh.

Emhoff thanked Blythers, saying they used to "drive in the car together on the campaign trail," when Emhoff had one staffer  and that was usually Blythers. He apologized for subjecting Blythers to "terrible '80s music" on those trips  and thanked him for being a leader.

"You've always been there for Kamala, and for me and our family," he said. "And now, just like you've been there for her, she's going to be there for you and the rest of us."

Emhoff heaped praise on Biden.

"I love that man so much. He has been there for all of us. He's been there for your community, my community, all of us," he said.

"But now we've got to support Kamala Harris, because she has a vision for America that we all have a place in," Emhoff said. "She is talking about the future, not the past. She's talking about a world where there's freedom, a world where we value everyone, a world where we stick up for people, a world where we fight against bullies  and we're fighting against the ultimate bully right now."

Emhoff said he is "in awe" of his wife now, not only "as her husband but as a proud American, as somebody who loves our country."

He briefly mentioned Republican nominee Donald Trump, but then said, "I don't want to get into all that, because I heard the last speaker talking about the hellscape that our country will be [in] if somehow that guy who was a terrible president the first time somehow gets back."

"We can't imagine a future like that," Emhoff said.

Read more: Astronaut? Governor? Cabinet member? Assessing Harris' VP options

Before dropping off the call, Emhoff said he was going to "go upstairs" to see Harris  "because I haven't seen her in four or five days, I'm going to give her a big hug, I'm going to say, 'Go get some rest, honey,' because we've got about 102-ish days left to save our country."

The call was organized by civil rights lawyer Alphonso David, civil rights leader and Color of Change president Rashad Robinson, and journalist, professor and community organizer Emil Wilbekin. It was attended by men from across the country  with all of them noting where they were dialing in from into the chat.

There was heavy representation from Atlanta, the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore area, and New York, but also people from Florida and Louisiana and Arkansas.

Robinson said the call of gay and queer Black men tapped into something unique and important.

"I've been thinking so much about the connections between what we are facing in this upcoming election, and the story of Black gay and queer men," he said.

"In so many ways, we have had to fight for our place at the table. We've had to fight to make sure our relationships are recognized and treated fairly. We've had to fight to make sure that we were fully integrated into the life of the community, all while sometimes doing so much hidden work and unseen work to make our communities beautiful, our communities whole, our communities excellent," he said.

"We have had to be resilient through so many challenges the way our sister will have to be resilient throughout this election," he said. "So we know what it looks like to fight. We know what it looks like to be the underdog  and what it looks like to win."

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.
Opinion articles written in the style of their author. These texts are to be based on verified facts and must be respectful towards people, even though their actions may be criticized. All opinion articles written by individuals from outside the staff of EL PAIS shall feature, along with the authors name (regardless of their greater or lesser renown), a footer stating their office, academic title, political affiliation (if any) and main occupation, or the occupation related to the topic being assessed

There are films that drag on and on, but in this one, you start looking at the time even before 15 minutes have passed. Hillbilly Elegy is a Netflix film based on the autobiography of J. D. Vance, and thats enough of a hook, now that the author has been chosen as Donald Trumps vice-presidential candidate. Vance represents the future of Trumpism, which has taken control of the century-old Republican Party. He is very young compared to the rest of the U.S. political elite: he is 39, and was eight years younger when he wrote the book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, which was a sudden bestseller. It is an account of his childhood and youth that portrays the malaise of rural America, the feeling of abandonment by the white population of small towns, the drama of the areas that have been de-industrialized by globalization. The factors that explain why so many working-class Americans are voting for Trump and other right-wing populists, even though the latter are willing to dismantle the already precarious public services that protect them.

Vances book predates the start of his political career (to which he is a newcomer: he was elected senator in 2022) and it opened the doors to CNNs talk shows. The film is from 2020, and the names associated with it are of high quality: the director is Ron Howard, the main actresses are Glenn Close and Amy Adams. All three have worked on much better movies. This one is tedious, and the critics mercilessly slammed it: it has one star out of five on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film avoids any political thought contained within the book. Which means we miss the interesting stuff, however reactionary it may sound. We are left with only a tear-jerking drama about the misfortunes of this young man raised between Kentucky and Ohio, and about his desire to excel. J. D. Vance, in fact, had a tough childhood, because his father was absent and his mother fell into heroin addiction, lost her job as a nurse and ended up in poverty and on the fringes of society. We see the teenage Vance rebelling against the situation and, when at some point he begins to surround himself with bad company, he takes a decisive step to move in with his grandmother, a woman who is equally poor, prone to violent outbursts, but very energetic (Vance now boasts that she had 19 loaded guns at home when she died).

We later see the young Vance at the elite Yale University and in his professional beginnings after graduating in Law. In the most select circles he shows off his hillbilly pride, and takes care of his mother who cannot take care of herself. The narrative does not follow his biography any further, even though there would be enough material for it: he served as a marine in Iraq, was a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, became a millionaire, and his rise in politics has been meteoric.

The film contains conservative messages: the vindication of the family, because even the most dysfunctional family can be saved if it stays together; meritocracy, that word so overused to justify inequality; the war on drugs; the denunciation of the bubble of the urban elites. The context of the industrial decline of the Rust Belt, which marks the book, barely shows up here as a background landscape of abandoned steel plants. Nor is it clear who is to blame for the young mans problematic environment, being as he is such a believer in individual responsibility.

The gap between the political vision of the majority in the cities (it is absurd to equate them with the elites) and the vision of the peripheries that feel excluded is growing all over the world. This is not just the case in the United States: it has been seen in France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland and Mexico. The worlds big cities are today the backbone of progressive views (one of the few exceptions is Madrid, a bastion of the libertarian right) and those who live far from them give themselves over to the hard right. There is much to reflect on about this social fracture. Vances book may contribute something to this debate, but the film is nothing more than an almost pornographic exhibition of the personal collapse of a mother and an immodest presentation of Vance himself as a self-made hero. The happy ending came a few days ago: Trump chose J. D. Vance as his running mate and the mother, Bev Vance, who went into rehab and has been off drugs for 10 years, was able to proudly witness it at the Republican Convention where she received an ovation.

If we are looking for a sociological description of the malaise felt in so many territories across the world, any book by the French author Michel Houellebecq captures it better. In a July interview with EL PAIS, he put it like this: I bought a house in the country. There are no more doctors there (...). It is a huge failure. There are geographers who have theorized about it. Now the world will be a network of megalopolises, and the rest dont count, those other people will have to make do as best they can. This single paragraph helps to understand the problem better that the two eternal hours of Hillbilly Elegy.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition
America Terrazas speaks about public safety issues at the Dona Ana County colonia where she lives. She made the comments during a town hall in Las Cruces hosted by NM Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on July 25, 2024. (Photo by Danielle Prokop / Source NM)

LAS CRUCES  Hundreds of Southern New Mexicans packed into the Las Cruces Convention Center Thursday evening for over five hours of public discussion on public safety.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham held the first in a series of town halls to hear from community members that live in the southern part of the state. She heard stories about inadequate police responses, theft at local businesses, and poor or absent infrastructure services in Dona Ana County colonias.

We need a place for kids to have fun, not to go kill themselves, America Terrazas told the governor.

Terrazas explained that she lives in a Dona Ana County colonia where there is a need for street lights, paved roads and other infrastructure to improve safety for residents and access to emergency services. She pointed to instances of children finding hypodermic needles and drug paraphernalia in public areas in her community.

The governor quickly started committing her office and other state agencies to look into specific situations that attendees like Terrazas shared. She also offered more support for issues that prompted the town hall tour, like people arrested for crimes and re-offending, services for unhoused people and those with behavioral health issues.

So far, Las Cruces is the only stop in southern New Mexico for such discussions by the Lujan Grisham administration.

The convention center ballroom where the event started at 5:30 p.m. quickly filled up with advocates, the governors staff and the public. Event staff had to open room dividers and pull out more chairs. The standing room only event went late into the evening.

Lujan Grisham was joined by Third Judicial District Attorney Gerald Beyers, Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story, Dona Ana County Health & Human Services Director Jamie Michael and New Mexico Department of Health Secretary Patrick Allen.

Lujan Grisham noted that infrastructure issues Terrazas brought up are in the works for downtown Albuquerque and committed executive funding to Dona Ana County colonias and rural communities throughout the state for similar projects.

Edward Howell said he believes many of the public safety issues southern New Mexico faces start with bills being drafted with Santa Fe and Albuquerque in mind. Legislation then does not translate to every other community.

Several people brought up frequent experiences with retail crime and property damage to businesses.

Patricia Jimenez, the owner of the Little Shop, said she was pushed out of Las Cruces to La Mesa because of repeated physical threats and property damage.

Las Cruces police chief Story pointed to Operation Not in Vain which will begin in August and last through the end of the year. The effort was organized in honor of officer Jonah Hernandez with the Las Cruces Police Department who was killed while on duty last year.

He explained the operation will target a wide range of crimes, but will include a team working on retail theft.

Lujan Grisham added that there is still a need for more officers across the state, including Las Cruces, which will expand the capacity for the department to respond to calls.

Several people questioned the humanity of the governors proposed legislation addressing competency and assisted outpatient treatment. She stood behind the proposals, emphasizing the need for connecting people with mental illness with treatment and removing dangerous criminals from communities.

A couple of community members realized that their stances on these topics were actually in line with the governors proposals.

Around 50 attendees stayed at the convention center for over five hours waiting for their turn to talk, Lujan Grisham committed to staying as long as she needed to to hear everyone out. The town hall ended after 10 p.m.

Thursday was just the first in a series of three town halls planned so far. A panel will be in Albuquerque on Monday, July 29 and in Espanola on Tuesday, July 30.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
PANAMA CITY BEACH  Local leaders are eyeing a stricter approach to beach safety enforcement.

In a meeting on Thursday, Panama City Beach City Council members approved the first reading of an ordinance that would allow police and code enforcement officers to ticket without warning beachgoers who blatantly enter the Gulf of Mexico under double-red-flag conditions.

Under the city's current ruling, they must be ordered to get out at least once before being cited.

The Panama City Beach City Council approved the first reading of an ordinance that would allow beachgoers who blatantly swim in double-red-flag conditions to be ticketed without warning.

"If it's obvious that it was double-red flags, and it was clear the person should have known, we don't have to warn them, and then observe them disobey the warning in order to ticket them," Mayor Stuart Tettemer said. "With the way our ordinance was written, it was just a burden to enforce. You would have to have someone go and warn the person, and then observe that they disobeyed it.

"You'd have to still be there, and when we're enforcing the double reds, we don't have time to wait around to make sure all the people we ask to get out, get out."

USA TODAY coverage: Panama City Beach cracks down on risky swimming after deadly rip current drownings

The first reading comes in the wake of seven Panama city area beach drownings so far this year, as well as nine in 2023. Hundreds also have already been ticketed in 2024 for swimming double red  an offense that warrants up to a $500 fine.

Of this year's drownings, three happened within the city limits of PCB. They were on March 27 near Beach Access 36, June 20 near Beach Access 54 and June 24 near Beach Access 54. The four others happened off unincorporated Bay County beaches, with three on June 21 near Beach Access 12, and one on June 23 near Beach Access 96.

All of the drowning victims from this year and last year were tourists who died after getting caught in a rip current, or a fast-moving current created by channels in sandbars that causes water to funnel faster out into deeper waters.

The strength of these currents is what local lifeguards use to determine beach flag colors. Common colors used in beach flag warning systems include a green flag for low hazard conditions, a yellow flag for medium hazard conditions, one red flag for high hazard conditions and two red flags for very dangerous conditions.

Beach safety: Panama City Beach sees dip in beach rescues thanks to proactive lifeguards

PCB and Bay County, however, never fly green flags because officials say beachgoers should always be cautious anytime they enter the Gulf.

According to Tettemer, the second reading of the ordinance is slated for the PCB City Council meeting on Aug. 8.

To sign up for daily text alerts on local beach flag conditions, text "PCBFLAGS" to 888777.

"If they should have known that there were double-red (flags), and they're in the water ... then they can be ticketed directly," he said. "They don't have to be instructed to get out. If it's double red, then they can be ticketed without being told they have to get out first."

This article originally appeared on The News Herald: Panama City Beach, Florida might crack down on double red flag violators
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM)  Mexican drug kingpin Ismael El Mayo Zambada, the co-founder of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel, and the reported son of incarcerated drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman were arrested on Thursday, July 25, in El Paso and are in U.S. custody, according to a statement released by the U.S. Attorney Generals Office.

Multiple sources have told KTSM that the arrests were made at the Santa Teresa International Jetport. Law enforcement could be seen Thursday at the airport, which is next to the War Eagles Air Museum in Dona Ana County, New Mexico.

Also arrested was Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of El Chapo Guzman and an alleged member of the Sinaloa cartels Chapitos faction that is led by El Chapos sons, according to the Justice Department.

Mexican cartel violence likely to increase in 2024, experts say

Since El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019, Los Chapitos have been at odds with Zambadas faction.

This image provided by the U.S. Department of State shows Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel. Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday, July 25, 2024. (U.S. Department of State via AP)

The New York Times is reporting that the pair surrendered to authorities.

Zambada appeared for an initial court appearance at the El Paso Magistrate Courtroom Friday morning, July 26, according to court records. Guzman arrived in the custody of the FBI HSI and DEA agents in the Chicago area Friday morning, according to an NBC affiliate.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada

Joaquin Guzman

A Mexican federal official told The Associated Press that Zambada and Guzman Lopez arrived in the United States on a private plane and turned themselves in to authorities. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized discuss the matter.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada

Zambada founded the Sinaloa Cartel along with now-jailed El Chapo Guzman, and he faces a litany of indictments for crimes relating to drug trafficking and organized crime in the United States.

Feds target Sinaloa cartel boss sending tons of fentanyl to US

U.S. federal prosecutors in February charged Zambada with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, which U.S. officials say is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the strategist of the Sinaloa cartel, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, El Chapo, according to the Associated Press.

Mexican president getting cozy with mother of El Chapo a slap in the face to crime fighters

Zambada was an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals. While Zambada fought those who challenged him, he was known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention, the Associated Press reported.

This image provided by the U.S. Department of State shows Joaquin Guzman Lopez. Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday, July 25, 2024. (U.S. Department of State via AP)



The U.S. Justice Department issued the following statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on the arrests of Zambada Guzman Lopez:

The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world. Ismael Zambada Garcia, or El Mayo, cofounder of the Cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of its other cofounder, were arrested today in El Paso, Texas.

Both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable in the United States. That includes the Cartels other cofounder, Joaquin Guzman Loera, or El Chapo; another of El Chapos sons and an alleged Cartel leader, Ovidio Guzman Lopez; and the Cartels alleged lead sicario, Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, or El Nini.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.

Anne Milgram, administrator for the Drug Enforcement Administration, issued the following statement on the arrests:

The arrest of Ismael Zambada Garcia, better known as El Mayo, one of the alleged founders and leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast. El Mayo is one of DEAs most wanted fugitives and he is in custody tonight and will soon face justice in a U.S. court of law. Joaquin Guzman Lopez, another alleged leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the son of El Chapo, was also arrested today  his arrest is another enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel.

In 2017, he and his brothers, the Chapitos, allegedly took control of the Sinaloa Cartel after El Chapo was extradited to the United States. DEA will continue to seek justice for any American life that is lost and will work tirelessly to prevent more needless deaths and pursue those that are responsible.

Homeland Security Investigations also sent KTSM a statement on the arrests:

These arrests are a culmination of a joint Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and FBI investigation targeting the Sinaloa Cartel. In December of 2022, HSI and the FBI secured indictments against several members of Sinaloa Cartel to include Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of El Chapo Guzman. Ismael Zambada-Gacia was the partner and co-head of the Sinaloa Cartel with El Chapo and a close confidant of his sons. Zambada-Garcia has multiple pending indictments in the United States.

The collaborative effort of todays actions with our law enforcement partnerships are yet another example of HSIs commitment to combat the illicit movement of deadly drugs like fentanyl into the United States.

HSI thanks all law enforcement agencies that participated in the arrest of these two individuals. These are ongoing investigations and as such limited information will be available.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News.
A powerful drug lord nicknamed The Professor who allegedly smuggled billions of pounds worth of cocaine from Latin America to Europe in yachts across the Atlantic is on the run.

The eccentric criminal mastermind is being sought by Spanish and British police who said they smashed the worlds largest cocaine smuggling sailboat operation.

Damon Hill and Jeremy Clarkson were used as nicknames by gang members who made so much money, they decorated a lavatory with piles of 50 notes.

It was reported guns were encrusted with diamonds; a Ferrari featured the insignia of the Colombian police and homes were filled with gold busts of gang leaders.

Conor Cowan, 30, a fisherman from the Isle of Lewis, who faces charges of drug smuggling

One of the alleged gang members was Conor Cowan, 30, a fisherman from the Isle of Lewis, The Telegraph can reveal.

Mr Cowan was arrested by the French navy, which seized 1.2 tons of cocaine with a street value of 96 million when sailors boarded a Spanish-registered yacht 1,200 miles east of Martinique in the Caribbean in December.

The Professor, who was born in Iran but has Norwegian nationality, oversaw the drugs empire from a luxury villa in Denia on Spains Costa Blanca.

To hide his real vocation, the 50-year-old pretended to teach Norwegian to locals but never gave a class, Spanish police said.

Over 20 years, he won the confidence of the Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, police said, and worked with a British crime group based in Marbella to ship drugs in yachts from Latin America to Spain and on to the UK.

His British partners ran a fleet of yachts based in southern Spain but The Professor made the final decision when shipments would be made.

Police found a toilet covered with piles of 50 notes in a house in Denia, Costa Blanca - Louis Emanuel

Before each yacht sailed, The Professor consulted a santero, a witch doctor derived from Latin American and African religion.

In December, the mystics judgment proved disastrously wrong when police boarded the yacht in the Caribbean.

Ten Britons were among 52 people arrested by the end of a three-year international operation in June.

Antilles armed forces approach the suspect yacht and soon find 1.2 tons of cocaine - Forces armees aux Antilles

Looking inside the yacht, Antilles armed forces make their discovery - Forces armees aux Antilles

But The Professor fled from Spain a few days before the arrests and was still at large, police said.

Mr Cowan, who is facing charges for alleged drug smuggling in Spain and is awaiting trial, was confirmed as the British skipper was arrested in December, police sources said.

Described as a mild-mannered boy by those who knew him in Lewis, he would regularly post images on social media of sea views around the Western Isles, a springer spaniel called Luna and show off hauls of prawns.

He was raised by granny and was really devoted to her, one person who knows Mr Cowan said.

He was a really nice, decent boy, very polite. He barely drank and wasnt much of a partier, he just went fishing.

Its a real shock. Hes the last person you would have expected to have become mixed up in something like this.

Mr Cowan comes from a seafaring family, a decade ago posting a grainy black and white picture to his Instagram account of his grandfather on an expedition to South Georgia in the Southern Atlantic.

Antilles armed forces show off the haul of cocaine seized from a yacht off Martinique - Forces armees aux Antilles

He claimed his ancestor was the first to bring penguins back to Britain.

Locals admitted there had been widespread speculation within the tight-knit community about how a Lewis native, whose birth was registered in Stornoway in 1994, had allegedly found himself at the centre of a major international drug smuggling ring.

There was a lot of talk about it when he was arrested, another islander said.

The Spanish detective who led the operation told The Telegraph: The operation is a success of international co-operation because we have managed to dismantle the biggest drug sailing fleet in the world.

This gang must have transported billions of pounds worth of cocaine over the years. We can never know how much. Each sailing boat carried about 20 million (17 million) in cocaine.

Fifty arrests were made after a cocaine-laden sailboat was intercepted in the Caribbean

Police investigating a drug smuggling gang find bags of what is believed to be cocaine

The officer, who did not want to be identified for security reasons, said: The Professor deeply believed in the witch doctor and he made a decision on each embarkation based on what they said.

The British men organised the fleet of yachts and were top tier members of the gang, the Spanish officer said.

The British women occupied a lower level, allegedly working as treasurers to launder drug money in Marbella and beyond. They bought a restaurant and a hotel in the upmarket resort.

The skipper of the yacht boarded in the Caribbean was a 30-year-old man from Stornoway.

Three of the women were from Boston, Lincs, aged 19, 38 and 28, who were living in Marbella when they were arrested.

A 54-year-old woman from Chelmsford, Essex, and a 49-year-old woman from Nottingham were also detained along with a 63-year-old man from East Yorkshire and a 24-year-old British man.

A 37-year-old man from Bracknell, Berks, who was living in Portugal and a 34-year-old Scottish man was detained.

All are being held in Spain pending trial. None have been charged.

Also found are the tools of a drug smuggling gang, including guns, cash and phones

Spanish police released a video showing officers raiding the sumptuous villa in Marbella, which they say is owned by one of the Britons arrested in the operation.

Inside, police found a lavatory which was covered with piles of 50 notes as the drug dealers did not know what to do with the loot.

In 2020, intelligence from the National Crime Agency identified a British crime group based in Spain who were trafficking cocaine across the Atlantic.

Yachts sailed from Valencia, Malaga and Alicante to Brazil, Colombia, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Barbados and Panama. They made the return journey laden with cocaine

Neil Keeping, National Crime Agency regional manager in Spain, said: This Spanish-led international operation has dismantled a major drug trafficking crime group and resulted in the arrests of 10 British nationals.

A portion of the class A drugs seized would have undoubtedly been destined for the UK where its supply at street levels fuels violence and exploitation and brings misery to our communities.

More than 15 Norwegians including a reconverted bank robber were held as part of the police operation.

Around 1.5 tons of cocaine in all, eight boats, 36 vehicles and more than 85 mobile phones were seized.

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.
Drug middlemen say Pharma sets prices. Then why do middlemen have hundreds for the same drug?

A CVS store. Photo by Lynne Terry, Oregon Capital Chronicle, States Newsroom.

Pharmacy middlemen known as pharmacy benefit managers deny claims that theyre responsible for the inflating cost of medicine. They say that big drugmakers are the sole culprits for the sticker shock you or whomever pays for your insurance experiences at the pharmacy counter.

On the surface, it seems to make sense. If the pills are ridiculously expensive, the first suspects would be the companies that make them. But new evidence emerged on Monday showing that things arent so straightforward.

Drug transactions are controlled by middlemen who are owned by huge health conglomerates that also own big insurers. And a new report says that those companies often list hundreds of different prices for the same drug, some that are 51 times as much as others  or even more.

Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs have been coming under fire for years. Community pharmacists accuse them of engaging in anticompetitive practices to the advantage of their own affiliated pharmacies while they drive competitors out of business. The result, some analysts have said, is decreasing competition and higher prices.

The Federal Trade Commission earlier this month issued a scathing report saying it uncovered what appeared to be evidence of anticompetitive practices.

It noted that each of the corporations that owns the three biggest PBMs is one of the 15 largest in the United States. Combined, they went from receiving 12% of all U.S. healthcare dollars in 2016 to 20% last year  a 67% increase in their share of a gargantuan healthcare market over eight years.

In addition to being part of huge conglomerates, the big-three PBMs are huge players in their own right. Combined, they control about 80% of the insured drug transactions in the United States. They act on behalf of insurers, which are often part of the same company. And they decide how much to reimburse pharmacies with which they are often in direct competition because they own mail-order pharmacies and one, CVS, is the largest brick-and-mortar retailer.

Since they decide which drugs are covered by insurance, they also have great leverage with the companies that make them. But as prices have shot up, PBMs have blamed drugmakers for the rise.

Big drug companies alone set and control drug prices and want to restrict pharmacy benefits to prevent pharmacy benefit companies from providing the only real check on their pricing power, the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, an industry group, says on its website.

The statement might seem strange since the big PBMs claim they use their size to force drugmakers to lower prices.

And Medicare data regarding generic drugs seems to show that PBMs have considerable agency in price-setting. An analysis showed that Part D plans owned by the same parent companies as the big PBMs reimbursed their affiliated middlemen for the same drugs at hundreds of often wildly different price points.

The analysis, by 46 Brooklyn Research, looked at data for thousands of drugs covered by companies that act as insurers under Medicare Part D. They manage plans that are underwritten by taxpayers, while beneficiaries have to pay premiums and sometimes make copayments.

For some drugs, the disparities between high and low prices arent very big. For others, theyre vast.

Take the cancer drug imatinib, for example.

Providers owned by CVS Health, then conglomerate that also owns the biggest PBM, reimbursed PBMs at 501 different rates ranging from $1,794 to $6,826 for a months supply. Plans affiliated with Cigna/Express Scripts, the owner of the second-biggest PBM, reimbursed at only 19 different rates ranging from $2,732 to $3,657.

Meanwhile plans affiliated with UnitedHealth, owner of the third-biggest PBM, paid at fewer price points than CVS, 115, but they varied much more wildly  from $79 to $6,826 for a months supply.

The data didnt indicate which PBM handled transactions at the different prices or how much the pharmacies filling the scripts got paid. So the analysis couldnt evaluate whether the conglomerates were using the variable pricing to the advantage of their affiliated companies.

But if those variations make you suspect theres an arbitrary element to the prices health conglomerates assign to drugs, youre not alone. In its conclusion, the FTC report says they have an incentive to use that variability to their own advantage.

these healthcare conglomerates operate some of the largest retail, mail order, and specialty pharmacies in the country, which compete with local independent pharmacies, it says. Given these relationships, PBMs and their affiliated entities may have the incentive and ability to engage in steering a growing share of prescription revenues to their own pharmacies through specialty drug classification, self-preferential pricing, and pharmacy contracting procedures to target and control the business operations of pharmacies.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
DOUGLAS COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR)  The Douglas County Sheriffs Office will soon be getting a new memorial to honor K-9s who have given their lives in the line of duty, and it all started because of the dream of an Eagle Scout from Boy Scouts of America Troop 770.

I wanted to find something that I could be passionate about, said Sam Callery, who also grew up in Douglas County.

For his Eagle Scout project, he combined his love for animals and appreciation for law enforcement to develop his memorial. Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly said this is also something dear to his heart.

To have Sam come forward and want to put a memorial together was just  it frankly touched my heart. These dogs are amazing, Weekly said.

Weekly was a K-9 handler himself and said these dogs are like family.

You spend, you know, 10 hours a day and youre taking care of them and everything else. And after they retire, they become a pet. And so the bond between the handler and the dog is very special, Weekly said.

It came together a couple of months ago, when Callery approached the sheriffs office with his idea. Then, he went before the Douglas County commissioners, who welcomed the idea with open arms.

Then, the real work began.

We had to start doing research about, like, plans and statues and, like, what type of dog to get because its a very specific type of police dog, Callery said. For the plaque, we had to get all the names of the dogs and the years they served. And we asked the plaque company to do, like, a mock for us and it looked really nice.

Image shows K9 memorial plaque mock-up.

Image shows a bronze statue concept for the K9 memorial.

The plaque is on its way and the bronze statue of a K-9 could take five months once it has been ordered. Now, Callery just has to raise money for the statue, and he has a link set up for people to donate. He must raise $15,000 for the project to be complete, and as of Thursday, he had just under $10,000 left.

Its a big project and its not easy to do on your own. So, Im very grateful to everyone thats helped me. Its just been a really cool journey, Callery said.

Weekly said he is looking forward to having a memorial for their citizens to be able to see when they go to the justice center.

We have one of the most robust K-9 programs in the entire state of Colorado. So its very fitting that this memorial is here, he said. Sam has done an excellent job on this project, just thinking of every conceivable part of the project. It was just exceptional. Its going to be a great addition to the justice center and all the citizens who come here will be able to see 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 FOX31 Denver.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador attend a bilateral meeting at the National Palace in Mexico City in 2021. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

Vice President Kamala Harris looked peeved and exhausted from the weight of expectations as she stood at a hotel meeting room three years ago, flags and a foggy Mexico City skyline behind her.

She gestured dutifully and gazed at her notes as she recited Biden administration talking points about the capacity of people and the interconnection between the United States and Mexico when it comes to our economies.

The two-day mission had the normal and fairly boring trappings of a vice presidential trip  meet-and-greets with leaders of Guatemala and Mexico, a tour of female engineering projects at a university, some modest pacts and promises.

Kamala Harris speaks to the media in Mexico City during her 2021 trip. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

Do I declare this trip a success? Yes, I do, Harris said from the lectern, not entirely convincingly. It is a success, in terms of the pathway that is about progress. We have been successful in making progress.

In Washington, her awkward comments a day earlier about the border and her admonitions to migrants to stay home were sparking a conflagration that riled her allies, validated her detractors and established her reputation for everyone in between.

Its blowing up, her communications director at the time, Ashley Etienne, recalled thinking, as she went into crisis-control mode in Washington.

It would take three years, and a pair of unlikely historic national events  the overturning of a national right to abortion and President Bidens late withdrawal from his reelection campaign  to convince Democrats that Harris had the political skills to compete for the presidency.

Her allies say Harris has grown politically in the meantime, taken advantage of circumstances that played to her strengths and reestablished herself as the political talent that launched a swift rise through California politics and nationally elected office after just four years in the Senate.

But as vice president, she has had only a handful of opportunities to make an impression. And many voters still dont know her or what she does, according to polls and focus groups.

She may be battle-scarred, but shes also battle-tested, said Donna Brazile, an ally who led Vice President Al Gores unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign and is now making the case that Harris is ready to win the presidency in November.

The border 'crisis,' and a 'trash' portfolio

The trip to Guatemala and Mexico was Harris first abroad as vice president, on her most high-profile assignment  curbing migration from Central America. Reporters clamored for space on Air Force Two to watch history as Harris  the first Black woman and the first Asian American woman to hold nationally elected office  represented her country on foreign soil.

Harris and Guatemala's Minister of Foreign Affairs Pedro Brolo attend her arrival ceremony in Guatemala City in 2021. (Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

They were also following a big story. Immigration arrests near the U.S.-Mexico border were skyrocketing, and Republicans were labeling it a crisis while calling Harris the border czar, a title she did not hold or want, and demanding she travel to the border to see it herself. Biden had given her the assignment weeks earlier to improve conditions in Central American countries, mitigating the root causes of migration, because he had attempted the same strategy when he was vice president.

Her allies seethed, seeing it as a political loser, part of what Bakari Sellers, who co-chaired her 2020 presidential primary campaign, called a trash portfolio. She would go on to define the job narrowly, staying away from congressional negotiations over immigration changes or administration policies on border practices.

Lester Holt of NBC News won the battle for a sit-down interview in Guatemala and pressed Harris on whether she would visit the border as Republicans were demanding. She laughed off the question and dismissed it, saying she hadnt been to Europe either. The same day, she angered the left by standing in Guatemalas National Palace and warning would-be migrants: Do not come, something other administration officials had said but with much less weight or fanfare.

By the time she left Mexico a day later, whatever ceremonial merit the trip may have had abroad was overshadowed by domestic memes, mockery and frustration.

Harris allies blamed Bidens aides for failing to prepare her and setting her on a politically precarious path. Other Democrats began to worry that Harris, whose 2020 presidential primary bid was marked by missteps, lack of cogent policy agenda and internal fighting, had maxed out her political skills.

I dont know what the strategy is relative to her, but I wouldnt say shes had a lot of opportunities to really stand out, David Axelrod, former President Obamas lead strategist, said in an interview with The Times soon after the trip.

God willing, [Biden] will be in astonishing condition, in good health, in 2024, he continued. But theres a non-trivial chance that the vice president is going to get thrust into leadership. Having elevated her into this position, I think they probably have some investment in her success and responsibility to help elevate her.

Awkward moments, new team: 'It was brutal'

The coming months were marked by more bad coverage of staff turnover, which became increasingly routine. Harris withdrew, reducing media appearances as her aides and allies leaned on members of Congress to go on television to change the narrative.

Her influence inside the White House appeared marginal compared with Bidens team of longtime advisors. Biden, who promised a weekly lunch as a sign she would have unique access, met with her every other week in the first year and then sparingly in the first half of 2022.

The image that took hold, especially in conservative media, was of her most awkward moments, when she used stilted language and spoke in the passive voice.

Behind the scenes, staffers were dealing with the fallout from COVID-19. The White House had restrictions that limited their interaction in the early months. Most did not know one another or Harris, who brought only a handful of aides when she joined Bidens team, which included top advisors who had known him for decades. Their early interactions included masks and Zoom meetings, with fewer opportunities to travel the country.

We were all very new to each other. We were new to [Harris], and we were not in the same room, Etienne recalled. It was brutal.

Harris has had few opportunities to make a broad impression. Many voters still don't know her or what she does, according to polls and focus groups. Above, she visits Detroit on election day in 2020. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Added to that was the stress of a White House job, with global consequences and the pressure to make the first woman of color in national office succeed. Etienne, raising a 6-year-old daughter and caring for a father who was losing his sight, left after a year.

A lot of it felt unfair to Harris and her allies. Harris, 59, was doing things that had never been done, they argued: adding issues such as womens maternal health to the administrations agenda, bringing vital Black cultural institutions that had been shut out from mainstream history into the White House and building a roster of grassroots contacts at the state level.

Shes held to a standard that many other politicians have not been held to, said Brian Brokaw, a California consultant who had worked on several of Harris campaigns. As a result, I dont think the voters always get to see Kamala being Kamala.

Behind the scenes, Harris liked to curse and make sarcastic jokes. But in public, she appeared cautious and tentative.

The conversation around her public image has long vexed allies, who also worried that people were overthinking it.

People who have tried to curate a certain type of Kamala Harris are doing her a disservice, said Rep. Jared Huffman, a San Rafael Democrat who has known Harris since she was San Francisco district attorney. Her strength is her authenticity.

Allies and advisors pointed out that no one ever tracked Vice President Mike Pences poll numbers or cared much about his laugh. But the media tracked Harris approval numbers, which were bad, even worse than Bidens through most of their time together.

Harris waves in front of her image on a screen as she arrives to speak during the American Federation of Teachers' national convention on Thursday in Houston. (Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)

To some confidants, it was an unwinnable situation. More so than other vice presidents, she was conscious of the need to show loyalty to her boss, with whom she had had a sometimes bitter contest in the 2020 primary and whose age invited constant speculation that he would retire after his first term.

When people would say, What is she doing?  some of those questions they never asked of other vice presidents, said Karen Finney, a longtime media aide to Hillary Clinton and a close Harris ally.

But it was also an opportunity, Finney added, one they could leverage: At times there was not the understanding that that curiosity was out of excitement.

And while Harris went to many meetings with Biden, called lawmakers to rally support and joined him at bill-signing ceremonies, there was little evidence she was leading the effort to negotiate with Capitol Hill lawmakers as the administration passed a series of legacy-building spending bills.

Most modern vice presidents came into office with more government experience than their bosses. Pence, who had been a governor and congressman, was a regular at Senate Republican policy lunches and helped build former President Trumps staff, though he eventually lost clout as Trump became more eager to deal with Congress himself.

Biden had not only been vice president, but also served in the Senate for four decades and relished the bipartisan backslapping of an earlier era, convinced he could rekindle it.

Biden has more experience than Thomas Jefferson, said Sellers, Harris former campaign official. There aint a whole lot more you can add, in terms of legislative capability.

After abortion ruling, 'they finally unleashed her'

Sellers and others argued that she could do more outside Washington, reaching core Democratic groups that would be vital to holding the White House.

She began taking on bigger roles representing Biden on the foreign stage  sewing up the relationship with France after a perceived Biden slight, heading to Poland as the Russian invasion of Ukraine broke out, meeting with allies in Asia amid heightened tensions with China, taking Bidens place at the Munich Security Conference.

She also began taking on domestic roles better suited to her strength as a former prosecutor.

The first one, fighting off Republican attempts to change state voting rules, began before her Guatemala trip and did not garner legislative success. But unlike with the immigration assignment, she had asked for it. Her speeches were notably more passionate and her travel schedule more robust. She became more aggressive on issues like gun violence that inspired the Democratic base.

Then, in May 2022, came a political earthquake  the leaked Supreme Court draft that would be come the decision overturning Roe vs. Wade.

Harris had long faced questions about her political convictions; she had trouble defining them in her 2020 campaign. But abortion rights had been a passion, and it showed. By coincidence, she was scheduled to speak the night of the leak at a conference for Emilys List, the abortion rights political group.

Harris knew the law, but she summoned the emotion.

How dare they? How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body? she said.

Biden, a devout Catholic, didnt often use the word abortion and had struggled with his feelings on the issue for decades, even as he emerged strongly in favor of abortion rights. Harris had fewer qualms and could connect the issue with the overall concern many women had that it would jeopardize their rights to healthcare.

She met the moment, said Finney, who served on the board of NARAL Pro-Choice America, now known as Reproductive Freedom For All, a leading abortion rights group.

Shes sort of an object lesson at this stage in that everything is about timing, Etienne said. As a woman of color and prosecutor, she can utter the word uterus, when the boys cant, and deliver the case against Trump, whos been found liable for sexual abuse, she said.

Abortion was another issue where her position stood little chance to score a win in Congress. But it proved central to Democrats 2022 midterm election strategy, where the party performed better than expected. And it is a central issue in the 2024 campaign, where Democrats need to increase their advantage with female voters to overcome Trumps lead with males.

Its a combination of womens reproductive freedom being right in her wheelhouse, something where she can speak with great authority and authenticity, Huffman said. But also the fact that, I think, they finally unleashed her.

Inside the numbers, questions remain

Winning over some Democrats is one thing. But there were questions throughout the last month about whether she can convince the rest of the country.

In March, a USA Today-Suffolk poll found that more than half of voters, 54%, said she is not qualified to serve as president, compared with 38% who said she is.

Harris is "held to a standard that many other politicians have not been held" to, a former campaign consultant said. "As a result, I don't think the voters always get to see Kamala being Kamala." (Brendan Smialowski / Associated Press)

Biden, before agreeing to step aside and endorsing Harris on July 21, said repeatedly that he was in the best position to beat Trump. Other Democrats who urged him out of the race called for an open nominating process before agreeing in the immediate aftermath to coalesce around Harris to avoid a messy fight.

But nearly 4 in 5 Democrats said they wanted Harris to replace Biden in a CBS-YouGov poll conducted July 21-22. A New York Times-Siena College poll released Thursday found she was 1 percentage point behind Trump among likely voters, a 5-point improvement on Bidens 6-point deficit in early July and within the polls margin of error.

The Democrats are having to choose among a lot of bad options, said Ron Nehring, a former chair of the California Republican Party who watched Harris rise. He said Democrats are merely engaged in spin by arguing that she has improved since her trip to Central America. He added that she is being thrust into a role for which she is not prepared, with little time to adjust.

How many people in their 50s really get better? said Nehring, who worked on Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruzs 2016 presidential primary campaign.

Harris has not fared well in focus groups conducted by a Republican anti-Trump organization that talks to voters on a weekly basis.

Theres some downstream consequences to the fact that voters just havent been seeing enough, said John Conway, director of strategy for Republican Voters Against Trump. Some of that is what they do see are clips that go around the internet or clips on Fox News.

Conway said Harris will have a chance to speak for herself, rather than as a supporting player to Biden: Now that shes on the top of the ticket, the spotlights going to be on her.





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.
A ceasefire without Russia withdrawing its troops from the occupied territories will give it time to strengthen its capabilities and resume attacks on Ukraine, Ambassador of Ukraine to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar said in an interview with Euronews.

"Many countries have proposed the idea of a ceasefire, but no one thinks about what it means. Some 25% of Ukrainian territory would remain under Russian control, which means buying time for Russia to strengthen its capabilities and resume its attacks on Ukraine," Bodnar said.

Representatives of several countries, including Turkey and Hungary, which maintain diplomatic relations with Russia, have called on Ukraine and Russia to negotiate a ceasefire and start peace talks.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that, as a condition for peace negotiations, Ukrainian troops must leave Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, which was rejected by Kyiv and its partners.

Bondar said that Ukraine seeks to end the war and achieve peace in only one way: with the withdrawal of Russian troops from its territories and in compliance with international law.

Ending Russian occupation lies only in the protection of Ukraine's territorial integrity within the framework of international law, the ambassador said, adding: "Any other proposal should not be taken into account, and that is why we rejected (Russia's proposal)."

Bodnar brought up that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's ceasefire proposals, which he voiced during his visit to Kyiv in July, "did not contain any details."

The ambassador also added that Ukraine wants to join NATO only to gain security and lasting peace, with no intention of provoking Russia or making geopolitical changes.

NATO is the only institution that can meet the security needs of the modern world, at least on paper, according to Bodnar.

If Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, it will be a natural border between other members of the alliance and Russia, he said.

Read also: 44% of Ukrainians believe its time to start official peace talks with Russia, survey finds

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
The country of Ecuador has asked in a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis for clemency for death row inmate Nelson Serrano, who is in imminent risk of death from a terminal illness.

This gesture would not only reflect the deep bond between our nations but also exemplify our mutual commitment to humanitarian principles and family values, wrote Soledad Pena Plaza, an Ecuadorian embassy official in Washington, D.C.

The letter, obtained by The Ledger from a Serrano family member, came after the family and Serrano's attorney, Gregory W. Eisenmenger, requested the appeal for clemency by the embassy.

The family of the former Bartow businessman and convicted murderer wants to be at his bedside before he dies, his son said on Thursday by phone. They have only been given a one-hour visitation since he left prison because that was all the prison warden would allow.

Serrano, 85, was sentenced to death on June 26, 2007, for killing four people at Bartow's Erie Manufacturing in 1997, according to Department of Corrections and previous Ledger reports.

At the time, it was the worst mass killing in Polk County. Serrano remains an inmate at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, its website shows.

Serrano is an Ecuadorian-American, or dual national. He was removed from his home country and brought to Polk County to face the charges against him about three years after the killings, according to a Prime documentary about his case.

According to his son, Francisco, Serrano was transported from prison to the hospital on July 10 after a lack of attention to his medical condition by the prison staff for weeks.

According to the inmates inside of the Union Correctional on death row, my father sat motionless for almost an entire period of two week in his wheelchair soiling himself with no attention and not eating, even after the prisoners begged the guards and the nurses day after day to attend to my father, he said. No one listened or lifted a finger.

"It wasnt until Wednesday morning that I got a call from an inmate inside death row to tell me about my fathers condition that I was able to raise the alarms through our attorneys and then through the jail, he said. Then that night, they ended up deciding to send him to Jacksonville Memorial.

Pena Plazas letter also cited Serrano's health.

Recently, he has been diagnosed with a large brain tumor and multiple blood clots in his lungs. He is currently bedridden, reliant on a ventilator and feeding tube, and is expected to pass away imminently, the letter said.

After being alerted, Eisenmenger said he quickly set an appointment to visit Serrano at the prison in Raiford and ask the warden to allow Serrano to get medical care, but he had already been transferred. He has not been allowed to visit his client at the hospital.

He said Serrano has been in decline for most of the five years he has been his attorney.

A long, twisting legal drama

Serrano was convicted of the execution-style killings of his former business partner in Erie Manufacturing, George Gonzalves, 69, as well as Frank Dosso, 35, Diane Dosso Patisso, 27, and George Patisso, 26. They were the son, daughter and son-in-law of another business partner, Phil Dosso.

A letter from Soledad Pena Plaza, charge d'affaires at the Ecuadorian Embassy, asking Gov. Ron DeSantis to grant clemency to convicted murderer Nelson Serrano.

Both Nelson Serrano and his son have maintained that prosecutors convicted the wrong man. By phone, Francisco Serrano said a New York mafia family from Staten Island carried out the murders.

They knew that, the son said of prosecutors in Polk County. They all knew that it's all in the evidence, everythings there.

According to Melanie Kalmanson, who writes the Substack "Tracking Florida Death Penalty" and first broke the story about Serranos transfer to the hospital and the appeal from Ecuador, Serrano's sentence has been through several appeals in Florida as state death penalty sentencing laws have changed.

Nelson Serrano was sentenced to death for crimes that occurred in 1997 following the jurys recommendations for death by a vote of 9-3 on four counts of first-degree murder, Kalmanson wrote. He was in his late 50s at the time of the crime and has always maintained his innocence.

The Florida Supreme Court originally affirmed his sentences of death on direct appeal in 2011. In 2017, Serrano was granted a new penalty phase in light of Hurst. His new penalty phase remains pending.

Most recently, Circuit Judge J. Kevin Abdoney allowed Serrano to get a new pair of reading glasses, The Ledger reported in May 2023.

'Keeps getting pushed down the road'

Eisenmenger said in addition to appealing to Ecuador for clemency, he has reached out the prosecutors to dismiss the case against Serrano based on his terminal illness, but they have not responded.

Under precedent from the Hurst case, his client was due to receive another penalty phase trial before Abdoney, but none has been scheduled, he said.

"I've been trying to get it scheduled for years," Eisenmenger said. "Every time I have a status conference, I have asked to have it scheduled and the state always objects and it keeps getting pushed down the road.

"It's clear he is not physically able to go to trial," he said.

"Unfortunately his incompetence to proceed to trial doesn't appear to be medically curable, so the correct legal thing would be a dismissal," he said. "Whether the state is going to make me jump through all these hoops (filing motions) or whether they just confirm my information and do the appropriate thing, I don't know."

During status conferences more than once, Eisenmenger has said the state has been dragging out the trial knowing Serrano's health was in decline. A trial date had been set twice but delayed by the state over his objections.

"I think that has been the state's goal right along, is to continue knowing his deteriorating medical condition over the last five years; and continuing to delay this rather than giving us the opportunity to demonstrate in court that the death penalty is inappropriate in this case, they have just decided to drag it out in hopes that what ultimately did happen did happen," Eisenmenger said.

With a new trial, his defense had wanted to introduce new evidence such as a third firearm collected by law enforcement that could suggest at least one other shooter at the crime scene, he said. Because of strategies by both the defense and prosecution, the jury was never told about the third firearm. But during a new trial, that was another piece of evidence that would have been presented, he said.

Regarding the theory that the murders were a mob hit, he said he was not the attorney during the original trial but was aware that such a lead in the case was never investigated and only disclosed to the defense five days before trial.

A petition 'alleging violations of his human rights'

To bolster the case for clemency, the letter from Ecuador also said a petition is pending with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleging violations of his (Serrano's) human rights by the United States of America.

The IACHR concluded that the United States is responsible for violating articles protecting his life, liberty, and security and rights to a fair trial and due process.

The letter says the international body recommended that Mr. Serrano be granted effective relief, including a review of his trial and sentence and pecuniary compensation, in a report attached to the letter.

The Ledger was unsuccessful in attempts to reach the governors office and the warden at Union Correctional for comment on the status of Serrano family visits.

In the lead-up to DeSantis' unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination for president, he signed six execution warrants. According to the USA TODAY Network-Florida, that was the most in any year in Florida since 2014. Prior to that, DeSantis had signed just two execution warrants in 2019.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Ecuador seeks clemency for convicted Bartow murderer Nelson Serrano
In a state where the illegal marijuana market is still much larger than the legal one, the biggest selling point for consumers is that pricier legal cannabis products are tested, regulated and safe.

But a recent investigation by The Times and WeedWeek found that this is not necessarily true.

More than half the legal cannabis products purchased from retail stores as part of the project and tested at private labs showed concentrations of pesticides either above levels the state allows or at levels that exceed federal standards for tobacco. (There are no federal standards for cannabis; it remains illegal under federal law.) The tests found chemicals tied to cancer, liver failure, thyroid disease and genetic and neurological harm to users and their unborn children.

Read more: Full Coverage: California's problem with contaminated weed

Some vapes tested had pesticide levels high enough that users could be harmed from a single exposure, potentially causing lung, eye and throat irritation and rash, headache, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

This is not what Californians were promised when they voted to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana in 2016. The states marijuana regulator, the Department of Cannabis Control, is failing consumers and the legal market by allowing contaminated weed to be certified and sold as safe.

The Times investigation has sent shock waves through the marijuana industry, in part because the revelations undermine public confidence in the already struggling legal market. And the news has only increased complaints that the Department of Cannabis Control has been too lax in overseeing legal cannabis testing and too slow to respond when presented with evidence of contamination.

Read more: Editorial: Biden's plan to reschedule marijuana may finally end 'Reefer Madness'

Besides the health risk to users, the lack of stringent enforcement creates an unfair playing field. Businesses that follow the rules, demand accurate tests and throw out tainted products are at a disadvantage to those that dont.

This has been a concern among cannabis testing labs. The states regulatory system relies on private labs paid by cannabis producers to test and certify their products. Industry groups say bad actors are failing to report contaminated products  and the lack of stringent oversight by the state has allowed them to get away with it.

Read more: Granderson: Bring on the cannabis cafes, California. Our nation needs them

One cannabis testing lab, frustrated by the states failure to act, began testing cannabis products for pesticides. The lab co-founder sent 77 complaints to the Department of Cannabis Control about contaminated products from October to May, The Times reported. After receiving the complaints, it took 41 days for the department to issue the first-ever pesticide-linked recall. In a recall, the products are removed from the shelves and consumer advisories are sent out to warn people who may have purchased them.

Cannabis Control director Nicole Elliott said in a statement sent to The Times' editorial board that her agency, which was established in 2021, has been scaling up its testing, oversight and enforcement.

The department ramped up product recalls for contamination and other reasons, with 28 recalls issued so far this year, compared with eight recalls in 2022 and 2023. However some recalls came months after labs flagged the contamination complaints to the state and after the products were sold to customers.

Read more: Editorial: Reclassifying marijuana is not decriminalization, but is a welcome step in that direction

And in the last year, the department has fined, suspended and/or revoked 13 laboratory licenses and launched numerous lab investigations that could result in additional enforcement actions soon.

Thats an improvement, but California has to step it up. Yes, the state should be doing more to shut down illegal marijuana operations that aren't attempting to follow the law. But Californians expect more when they purchase legal pot. The Department of Cannabis Control should be more aggressive in randomly testing products on store shelves and penalizing growers and manufacturers that are responsible for contaminated products. Labs too should be inspected and audited with more frequency. That may mean the agency needs more funding and direction from the Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Consumers should be able to trust that legal pot products are actually tested and safe.

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.
We strongly condemn the failure of the Biden Administration and its border czar, Kamala Harris, to secure the U.S. border, reads a resolution approved Thursday by the House of Representatives, where the Republican Party holds the majority; in fact, all of its members voted in favor of the document. They were not the only ones: six Democrats supported the initiative, demonstrating how the migration crisis and its management by the Joe Biden government looms over Harris campaign for the presidency.

When Joe Biden announced last Sunday that he was renouncing re-election, choosing to fully support his vice president as his successor, Republicans were quick to launch their attacks, which they had probably already prepared, given that the presidents withdrawal had been anticipated for days. The only difference between Biden and Harris, wrote the former president and current Republican candidate, Donald Trump, on his social networks, is that she is even more liberal and less competent than Joe, which is saying a lot. They put her in charge of the border and we saw the worst invasion of illegals in our history. His vice presidential candidate, J. D. Vance, followed the same line: For the last four years, [Harris] endorsed Bidens open border policies. She owns all of those failures, he added.

One accusation in particular has resonated over the past week from the Republican camp. Or, rather, one label: border czar. Starting with Trump himself and ending in Congress, Republicans have focused on accusing Harris of failing to stem immigration across the countrys southern border, which skyrocketed during the first three years of the Biden administration. Specifically, after a sustained rise since 2021, authorities intercepted 249,735 migrants in December 2023, a record. That is why insults from Trump and his allies often begin or end with Harris, the border czar.

But the reality is that Harris has never officially held that position. The vice president has not personally been in charge of the border or controlling border crossings. In fact, the migration-related task that the president gave her in March 2021 had more to do with diplomacy than border oversight. Early in his term, Biden asked Harris to coordinate diplomatic relations with the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America  El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras  to address the root causes of migration from these three countries.

Diplomatic effort

I have asked the vice president  because she is the most qualified person to do so  to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that need help to stem migration to our southern border, Biden said during an event at the White House on March 24, 2021. She has agreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept returnees and improve migration control at their borders, the president added.

Harris responded: While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we are going to enforce the law and that we also  because we can chew gum and walk at the same time  we must address the root causes that make people make the journey, as the president has described, to come here. To that end, the vice president specified that she would work with the government, with the private sector, with civil society, and with the leaders of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to strengthen democracy and the rule of law, and to guarantee shared prosperity in the region.

Kamala Harris in Mexico City, June 8, 2021. Kent Nishimura (Getty Images)

Her responsibility, therefore, was to lead a strategy to improve economic and security conditions in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, countries that then accounted for the majority of migrants arriving in the United States (a trend that began to change in recent years, with more migrants coming from countries such as Venezuela and Ecuador). The plan was to encourage job creation, the fight against corruption, the improvement of human and labor rights and the reduction of violence, in order to stop migration to the north.

Since then, Harris' role has been to promote investment in Central America. In March of this year, the White House announced that since March 2021, Harris had secured private sector commitments to invest more than $5 billion to promote economic opportunities and reduce violence in the region.

Now, both parties can debate whether Harris efforts have been fruitful or not, but the reality is that the Biden administration made clear from the beginning that addressing the root causes of migration would be a long-term strategy. Even with strong and sustained commitment, the type of systemic change envisioned in this strategy will take time to achieve, and progress will not be linear, the administration warned in a 2021 document outlining the plan.

Friendly fire

While most of her critics have been Republicans, Harris has also faced rebukes from within her own party. During her first visit to Mexico and Central America, a region she was supposed to work closely with, the vice president addressed those who intended to emigrate and issued a firm warning: I want to be clear with people from this region who are thinking of making the dangerous journey to the U.S.-Mexico border: Do not come, she said during a press conference in Guatemala in June 2021. She paused and emphasized: Do not come.

Not only did she come under fire from the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, as well as pro-immigration organizations, but her call did little to stop what was to come: illegal border crossings hit record highs in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAIS USA Edition
State Sen. John Arch of La Vista, speaker of the Nebraska Legislature.(Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

LINCOLN  An effort on Friday to end the Nebraska Legislatures special session on property tax reform, just a day after it began, failed with only four state lawmakers voting to adjourn sine die.

The 4-34 vote followed a plea by Speaker John Arch of La Vista, who told senators: The citizens are watching.

The lawmakers work on the complicated issue requires tremendous political will, Arch said.

The ball is now in our court. Its in this room. We have a duty to perform.

He said that only the Legislature can address rising property taxes, which, he said, have pushed some people out of their homes and have prevented other Nebraskans from buying their first home.

The vote would have required a simple majority of those present to pass. Voting to adjourn sine die on Friday were four Omaha state senators: Justin Wayne, Terrell McKinney, Machaela Cavanaugh and John Cavanaugh.

Wayne had sent an email to his colleagues on Tuesday night, lamenting that Gov. Jim Pillen had not, at the time, given formal notice to lawmakers about the special session nor had he shared details of his property tax relief plan.

Wayne said that lawmakers should demand a weeks notice before a special session begins and otherwise should immediately adjourn sine die.

Wayne was not present on Thursday, the first day of the session. Pillen issued the long-awaited formal order less than 24 hours prior to the sessions launch.

We are not his slaves to be summoned at his whim, Wayne said previously. We have families and lives, and this lack of consideration is unacceptable.

If successful, the vote would have sent lawmakers home unless the governor chose to issue another call for a special session at a later date.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Eight men indicted by KCK federal grand jury in drug trafficking ring

KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Eight men have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas on charges related to a drug trafficking ring in and around the Kansas City metro.

Court documents claim that the eight defendants apparently took part in a conspiracy to distribute large amounts of methamphetamine and cocaine from July 2022 to June 2024. The documents do not reveal the identity of the defendants.

Teen sentenced to state youth facility for role in Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally shooting

The FBI, ATF, DEA, HSI, Jackson County Drug Task Force, KCK Police Department, KCMO Police Department and the Kansas Highway Patrol are investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Trent Krug and David Zabel are prosecuting 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 FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports.
Two of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, including the son of infamous crime boss Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, were surrendered to U.S. law enforcement agents, the Justice Department confirmed on Thursday evening.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia and Joaquin Guzman Lopez were arrested earlier the same day in El Paso, Texas, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a brief statement.

Both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks, Garland said.

Guzman Lopez is the son of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, the cartels former leader who oversaw its rapid expansion into one of the most violent and wealthy crime syndicates in North America.

El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable in the United States, Garland said. That includes the Cartels other cofounder, Joaquin Guzman Loera, or El Chapo; another of El Chapos sons and an alleged Cartel leader, Ovidio Guzman Lopez; and the Cartels alleged lead sicario, Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, or El Nini.

El Chapo was arrested multiple times by authorities in Mexico before his eventual extradition to the United States in 2017. He is currently serving a life sentence in ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison in Colorado.

El Mayo Zambada was one of the cartels co-founders alongside El Chapo, and took over running the business after his arrest and extradition, according to an indictment in February.

Under his leadership, as well as the leadership of El Chapos sons known as Los Chapitos, the Sinaloa Cartel expanded into trafficking fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid currently driving an overdose epidemic in the U.S.

With fentanyl the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, we must continue to hold Zambada Garcia and other cartel leaders, members, and associates accountable for the people they have killed, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said in February.

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 combo of images provided by the U.S. Department of State show Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, left, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, after they were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, the U.S. Justice Department said Thursday, July 25, 2024. | U.S. Department of State, via the Associated Press

Mexican drug kingpin Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia, the co-founder and top leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, was arrested in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday, the Justice Department said.

The authorities also arrested Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of the now-convicted Mexican drug kingpin El Chapo. Lopez and his brother the little Chapos, or Chapitos, lead a faction of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Fox News reported Lopez cut a deal with the U.S. authorities by turning on El Mayo.

This deal allowed the U.S. authorities to divert the private plane Lopez and El Mayo were on to Texas. Lopez surrendered but El Mayo, who has four arrest warrants outstanding in the U.S., was captured.

El Mayo arrived in court Friday morning and entered a not guilty plea to drug trafficking charges, as The Associated Press reported. Neither he nor his lawyers have issued a comment.

What did Justice Department say about El Mayos arrest?

Justice Department Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said, Both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

He described the Sinaloa Cartel as one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

Garland said the Justice Department had taken into custody El Chapo, the other co-founder of the Sinaloa Cartel, and another son of El Chapo, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, an alleged cartel leader.

El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison in 2019. His appeals have been rejected.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, the attorney general said. It is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

U.S., Mexican governments react to El Mayos arrest

President Joe Biden in a statement praised law enforcement officials who made the arrest and condemned fentanyl trafficking into the U.S.

Too many of our citizens have lost their lives to the scourge of fentanyl. Too many families have been broken and are suffering because of this destructive drug, Biden said. My administration will continue doing everything we can to hold deadly drug traffickers to account and to save American lives.

According to CNN, Mexican officials did not know about this operation and received information about the arrests from the U.S. Embassy in Mexico over the phone. The Mexican government is awaiting more information.

El Mayo is the last of the fugitives on Mexicos 2009 list of 37 most-wanted drug lords.

The U.S. authorities have pursued El Mayo for years. In 2021, the State Department offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to his arrest.

Zambada Garcia is unique in that he has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in jail, the State Departments wanted page for El Mayo says.

As The Associated Press noted, El Mayo lived in deep fear of being incarcerated.
A dispute over street gang affiliations sparked a vicious shooting that killed a young man in the parking lot of an apartment complex in far East El Paso, police documents stated.

A complaint affidavit filed by a homicide detective described a merciless killing were the victim was shot multiple times, then beaten while on the ground motionless before one of the shooters appeared to snap a cellphone photo of the dead man.

The affidavit stated that the death of Omar Infante Jr., 24, was recorded on security camera and witness cellphone videos.

El Paso police arrested Damian Alexander De La Riva and Noah Daniel Lomeli, both 19, on murder charges this week in connection with Infante's death early Saturday, July 20, at the Gonzalez Place apartments on Rich Beem Boulevard near Montana Avenue.

El Paso police investigate the homicide shooting of Omar Infante on Saturday morning in the parking lot of the Gonzalez Place apartments, 4101 Rich Beem Blvd., in the far East Side.

De La Riva and Lomeli are being held on a $1 million bond each at the El Paso County Jail in Downtown. They remain jailed as of Friday, July 26, jail logs show. No attorney is listed on court records for either man.

Gang-related dispute

Trouble began during a small get-together taking place about 3:50 a.m. Saturday in an apartment. Infante was in attendance when Lomeli, who had been invited over, arrived with De La Riva, according to the affidavit.

Gang-related violence: El Paso police make arrests after man shot 3 times in Central gang shooting

An argument started between Infante and Lomeli "regarding their opposing gang affiliations," witnesses told investigators, the affidavit stated. All three men were then kicked out of the apartment.

Deadly shooting, assault at Gonzalez Place apartments

Lomeli and Infante agreed to fight each other and walked down a stairwell to the parking lot with De La Riva remaining on the stairwell landing overlooking the parking lot, the affidavit stated.

The affidavit alleges Infante and Lomeli were fist-fighting when De La Riva bolted down the stairs, pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Infante, who released his hold on Lomeli and began backing away with his hands up in the air.

Noah Daniel Lomeli is accused of murder in the shooting death of Omar Infante, 24, in the parking lot of the Gonzalez Place apartments, 4101 Rich Beem Boulevard, in far East El Paso on July 20, 2024.

Lomeli allegedly pulled out his own handgun and both men held Infante at gunpoint before he was shot and fell to the ground.

"The video further depicts (De La Riva) and (Lomeli) beating (Infante) in the face as he lay on the ground motionless. (Infante) was beaten, stomped and pistol-whipped numerous times," the affidavit stated.

Gang-related violence: How Instagram helped solve a drive-by shooting at a Socorro park

During the beating, one of the gunmen shot Infante again before the assailants appear to grab something from his chest, possibly a necklace, according to the detective's description of the video. Lomeli allegedly appears to take a photo with his cellphone of Infante on the ground. The pair then left in a red Nissan Altima.

Infante, who was shot in the head and torso, died on the ground in the parking lot, police reported.

Damian Alexander De La Riva is accused of murder in the shooting death of Omar Infante, 24, in the parking lot of the Gonzalez Place apartments, 4101 Rich Beem Boulevard, in far East El Paso on July 20, 2024.

An investigation by homicide detectives with the Crimes Against Persons Unit with assistance from the Gang Unit identified De La Riva and Lomeli through police databases, social media videos and witnesses.

El Paso police block off the area as they investigate a fatal shooting at the Gonzalez Place apartments on Rich Beem Boulevard on Saturday, July 20.

On July 22, De La Riva was arrested and booked into the Downtown jail. Lomeli was booked a day later.

An investigation into the homicide continues. Anyone with information may call the police nonemergency line at 915-832-4400 or may anonymously call Crime Stoppers of El Paso at 915-566-8477 (TIPS).

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso police arrest 2 in vicious gang-related killing
Four people are challenging Mayor David Alfin in the upcoming election, which will determine who will chair the City Council for the next four years. Managing the growth as the city's population continues to explode will be one challenge. Hiring a new city manager will be another.

The primary is Aug. 20. If a candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, he or she will be elected mayor of Palm Coast. If no one gets more than 50%, the top two candidates will face off in November. The race is non-partisan and open to all registered voters.

DeSantis endorses 23 Florida school board candidates, including 2 in Volusia, Flagler

Here are the candidates:

David Alfin

David Alfin, 71, incumbent mayor, real estate broker associate, Boars Head distributor, president of Alfin Fragrances. Alfin was elected mayor in July 2021 with 36% of the vote in a winner-take-all race among six competitors. Before winning that race, Alfin had lost a race for the District 2 seat in 2020.

Peter Johnson, 31, a self-employed handyman. This is his first time running for office.

Alan Lowe, 63, a handyman and landlord, has unsuccessfully run for office twice before including in the crowded 2021 mayoral race won by Alfin. Lowe finished second with 26% of the vote. Lowe also lost in a race for the District 2 seat in 2022. Lowe declared himself a sovereign citizen in 1993 and 1994. When asked about it when he first ran for the mayor's seat, he said it was a pattern of thought that lasted briefly three decades ago.

Cornelia Manfre, 67, a commercial investment advisor and luxury consultant. Manfre ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2021, finishing with 24% of the vote.

Mike Norris, 54, a retired Army officer and owner of two small businesses in Palm Coast, pressure washing and painting and Aloha Critters, a pet care service. Norris said it was the first time running for office.

The candidates received the same list of questions. Their replies were edited for space as well as proper grammar and capitalization.

Election 2024: Meet the two candidates vying for Flagler County School Board District 3

What qualifications are you looking for in a new city manager?

Alfin: Proven experience, fiscal conservative, leadership, honesty, integrity and kindness. In all my years in business, successful people have these qualities and must like to work hard.

Peter Johnson, candidate for Palm Coast mayor.

Johnson: Palm Coast needs to hire a city manager who is firm, fiscally responsible and creative in providing practical, both short- and long-term solutions while valuing every single tax dollar. I would look for the new manager to have experience in a slightly larger city, to have the proper knowledge of navigating Palm Coast's recent explosion in population.

Lowe: Extensive experience with large municipal budgets; proven track record in economic development; leadership experience with large teams.

Manfre: Financial forecasting and planning; employee resource experience; capable of reviewing the inner workings of departments within City Hall to confirm efficiencies and performance; and education and prior experience within a larger community.

Norris: An external hire with a minimum graduate level education and job-related experience, who can manage a growing city. I am looking for someone specifically who is not beholden to special interests and politicians here in our county.

Election 2024: Who's running for Volusia, Flagler county councils, school boards, local city councils?

How would you rate the citys management of its growth and development? And what would you do differently, if anything?

Alfin: I opened the entire Comprehensive Plan (written 25 years ago) for all residents to review and share their vision for the city. The city uses its comprehensive plan to focus on preserving natural resources, provide high-quality public facilities, and create a community with diverse housing and jobs. I also advocate for carefully balanced "inevitable" growth through environmental conservation and historical preservation guardrails and requirements. If I were to suggest improvements it would be repair and upgrade of infrastructure and a focus on housing affordability.

Johnson: Rating them by what? Grades? F. Out of 10? 0. The city has done an extremely poor job of managing growth on the residential side. We have seen a significant decline in property quality; more stick-built houses being built than block; lots in new developments much smaller with houses much closer; parcels of land being clear-cut in droves and native plants and animals being displaced. The current council is paving the way for excessive residential development with little commercial development to balance.

Alan Lowe

Lowe: I believe the city has put the cart before the horse regarding development. Our infrastructure is in dire need of modernization and repair, yet we lack adequate funding. As your representative, I would prioritize the maintenance of our existing infrastructure, including water treatment facilities, roads and flood management. It's crucial to balance growth with our infrastructure capabilities to ensure sustainable development.

Manfre: The management of the approval process is lengthy and sometimes elongated. The development application and approval process for commercial and industrial projects need to be fast-tracked. The approval process should be final to allow these job-producing projects to start their construction without additional changes.

Norris: I would rate it as poor. The focus of this city has been, for the most part, residential housing developments without the forethought of diversification of the tax base. Ninety-three percent of our ad valorem taxes comes from individual homeowners. This is not a sustainable model for any city. My focus will be attracting industrial and commercial growth that will provide upward mobility for our residents and kids coming out of high school. More than half of our available working-age residents leave the city and county every morning to go work somewhere else.

What are three of the biggest challenges facing Palm Coast?

Alfin: Infrastructure, investment and economic development and quality of life.

Johnson: Rebuilding trust between the community and the council. 2. Funding and maintenance of our existing infrastructure. 3. Offsetting the residential tax base with new businesses.

Lowe: With the recent term limit of our area representative in Tallahassee and the governor, we might see a reduction in state appropriations. We must find innovative ways to increase revenue without burdening our residents. Economic development is a great place to start. Growth is outpacing infrastructure, so the city needs to have discussions with developers to prioritize infrastructure. The city must tighten its budget and make cuts so people are not pushed to their financial limits.

Cornelia Downing Manfre

Manfre: Hiring an experienced and qualified city manager; developing continued swale maintenance; and planning and budgeting infrastructure repairs and expansion.

Norris: Failing Infrastructure; lack of diversity in tax revenue to the citys coffers, caused by residential over development; and lack of industries that could provide competitive salaries and upward mobility for our residents.

Why should voters vote for you?

Alfin: Alfin responded by sending a list of items, including rolled-back tax millage rate for streamlined government efficiency; overhauled Palm Coasts comprehensive plan to guide future development; ensuring safety and economic viability; secured financing for construction of a new fire station in the Seminole Woods section; developed water quality protection plan. Alfin also listed new businesses opening in town, including a Millers Ale House, a Tire Outlet and a BJs Wholesale Club.

Johnson: Because I am a resident, not a developer.

Lowe: I have been deeply involved in our community and local government for many years, bringing issues and solutions to the forefront at city hall." Lowe said his involvement included speaking at government meetings and proposing solutions to problems. "As a 41-year resident of Palm Coast, I have seen the good and the not-so-good, and I understand the direction our community wants to take. I know our history and thus how to move us forward. My extensive experience as a self-employed business owner gives me a unique perspective on our local economy and the needs of our developers.

Manfre: I provide the community with over 40 years of business and commercial development experience and 25 years as a Palm Coast resident. With work in Fortune 100 firms, I was trained to be a problem-solver, accountable for budget projections and performance within those guidelines.

Mike Norris

Norris said that his more-than 24 years of military service trained him to lead. He has also worked for the states Department of Highway Safety as a compliance safety officer in the motor carrier division and as a critical infrastructure protection officer for the federal government. He holds masters degrees in management and leadership and human resources management. He said he has been attending City Council meetings regularly since he decided to run for office in 2022.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Palm Coast's mayoral candidates outline priorities as primary nears
Officials Were Prepped For A Dangerous 2024 Election  And That Was Before The Attempted Assassination

For election officials across the country, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and, less directly, the turnover at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, have brought into stark focus just how tumultuous the election environment has become since the 2020 election.

Election workers, who have faced a torrent of violence and threats to their lives for years now, have been preparing for another onslaught of potential violence in November, incorporating active shooter training, greater security measures for voting facilities, and establishing stronger partnerships with law enforcement, just in case we see a repeat of what unfolded at the hands of election deniers in 2020.

It focused everyone a little bit more, former Georgia elections director and current deputy director of Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council Chris Harvey told TPM. I think its going to have maybe a galvanizing effect to just reemphasize how people view whats at stake and how serious people are about this and how in some cases, fanatical they can be about this stuff.

Katie Reisner, senior counsel for the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center, similarly noted that the shooting has driven home the gravity of the threat environment that election officials have been facing.

Its the assassination attempt combined with Joe Bidens decision to drop out of the presidential race that have election officials on edge. Its unclear what impact either development will have on actual election administration, but the potential for conspiracy theories, threats and political violence was already high heading into the fall. Its too early to say exactly how Kamala Harris entering the presidential race will change the election administration landscape, but Harvey says that it no doubt added a certain amount of adrenaline to the race. And while some amount of adrenaline isnt a bad thing, he says, it can also be troublesome if its not properly managed.

Anything that I think energizes a race is something that people need to be aware of, he said.

And with Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee, the race, according to recent polling, will be close.

Anytime you have tight margins, you get opportunities, mischief and trouble, Harvey said.

For election workers  who have been dealing with violent threats and the very real possibility of an active shooter, or some sort of violence unfolding around the election for years now  last weeks assassination attempt, unfortunately, wasnt as shocking as it was for many in the country. In some ways, its only made outsiders more acutely aware of how dangerous the election environment has been and continues to be.

In some ways it just sort of created this situation where everyone is asking us about it and then were like, yeah, thats our world and now you guys are talking about it, Dane County, Wisconsin Clerk Scott McDonnell told TPM. Weve been operating under this situation for a while now.

According to Harvey, Saturdays shooting has highlighted to law enforcement specifically just how real election threats are, noting that, in his experience, law enforcement has been a little bit late to understanding the full extent of the threats to election security.

I think it maybe got the attention of law enforcement a little bit more, he said.

And instead of overhauling security protocols in place of new ones, officials and experts told TPM that the attempted assassination at a Trump campaign rally earlier this month has reaffirmed the importance of the type of security training and protocols elections offices have already begun to institute ahead of November.

Derek Bowens, director of elections in Durham County, North Carolina said that the shooting has highlighted just how critical newly adopted security protocols have become.

Election officials were already in a heightened state with regards to some of the rhetoric and some of things that were seeing and some of the previous allegations still leading over to the current election, he said, referencing ongoing efforts among Donald Trump and his allies to keep the Big Lie activated.

Like others across the U.S., officials in Durham County had already begun using geocode locating tools as part of their election administration process. The tool allows officials to track the chief election administrators while he or she is picking up and returning critical voting supplies. The tool, which was first used in a smaller primary election in the county, provides live location updates every three seconds.

We were shocked, appalled with this political violence and an attempt on the life of the former president, and so we are definitely on guard, Bowens added.

McDonnell similarly said that his Wisconsin countys active shooter training, which is run by the sheriffs department, has become particularly important this election cycle

Weve had multiple election officials here been subject to death threats and weve had just very aggressive situations, he added. Weve been preparing for a much higher security level beforehand.
And just like that, we have a completely new election cycle. What is this whole thing going to look like with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic candidate? How will the Trump camp respond to a brand-new, upturned 2024 presidential campaign? And what the heck will voters do now? These are just some of the known unknowns of our current moment. Well get plenty of answers in the coming weeks. (There are still more than 100 days until the election.) But as it stands, heres all the stuff we really just dont know yet!

What kind of campaign will Kamala Harris run?

In her first few speeches on the stump, Harris leaned into her background as a forceful prosecutor, declaring that she had taken on perpetrators of all kinds while serving as district attorney in San Francisco, then attorney general of California. This was a role she shied away from in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, unsure about how her record as a member of law enforcement would play among the party base. But now shes in the completely different environment of a general election in its final months, trying to convince a different, broader pool of voters. Will we see a return of a law and orderstyle antihero on the campaign trail?

Do we have to call her Momala, like Drew Barrymore did?

Lets not.

Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

Who will be Harris VP? How will that affect everything?

The competition to be Harris running mate is in full swing and on a tight deadline, and the plan is to nominate a VP candidate alongside Harris during a virtual roll call on Aug. 7. The Harris campaign has already requested vetting materials from at least seven possible VPs, including North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, and former Louisiana congressman and Biden White House aide Cedric Richmond. Theres also a good amount of excitement around Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. And maybe one-time Slate blogger Pete Buttigieg will be up for consideration too. Who knows?

As Slatester Ben Mathis-Lilley put it, the categories from which Harris can choose boil down to the swing-vote governors, the replaceable senatorsas in they could be replaced by another member of the Democratic Partyand the big names. But how Harris (and an army of Democratic consultants) will balance these considerations is anyones guess.

Does the electoral map to victory change with Harris?

Some of Bidens sharpest declines in polling this year relative to his 2020 performance came with younger voters, Hispanic voters, and Black men. That meant that he was most sharply off pace in the booming, diverse Sun Belt swing states he won in 2020: Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona. The Biden campaigns narrow path to victory, then, focused on retaining three older, whiter swing states farther north that he carried that year: Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the piece of the erstwhile Democratic blue wall that Trump had swiped in 2016.

Harris coalition could look a little differentmore reliant on those young and diverse voters with whom Biden had lost his connection, and weaker with older white voters. Does that make Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada top priorities? Are Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania out of reach? Could Harris be in a position to win them all, or is she in worse shape than Biden to win any? Well have to wait for some fresh polling for the path to reveal itself.

How much will some of Harris leftmost positions in the 2020 Democratic primary come back to hurt her?

In Harris 2020 presidential campaign, she made a hard push to earn support from the left. It went nowhere. In the process of doing sotypically on national televisionHarris left behind a wake of clips and positions that Republicans will feast upon in this general election. She endorsed Medicare for All legislation and melted down when asked follow-up questions about eliminating private health insurance. There was no question she supported banning fracking. (If youre wondering why a pro-fracking governor of Pennsylvania is on her vice presidential short list )

The border is Democrats worst issue, and Harris raised her hand in a 2019 debate when asked who supported decriminalizing illegal border crossings. When asked in 2018 about abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, she said, We need to probably think about starting from scratch. Republicans are already running ads about these things. It remains to be seen how well Harris can defend herself on these matters after getting tongue-tied into oblivion during the 2020 campaign.

OK, but the memes. Those will definitely help her, right?

There is, without a doubt, a ton of enthusiasm about the Harris candidacy right now, and it is playing out in funny ways on the internet. But dont be fooled by your social media bubble. The memes are flying from all sides. One of the most viral Harris-related clips, which first went viral on TikTok and Twitter back in 2023, is a digitally altered voice-over of a speech at Howard University that makes her appear drunk and incoherent. The audio has been removed from TikTok but remains on Twitter, where Harris continues to be portrayed as wacky and idiotic. (The altered version has her saying Today is today, and yesterday is today yesterday. Tomorrow will be today tomorrow, so live today so the future today will be as the past today, as it is tomorrow.) And right-wing commenters are in overdrive, pushing a narrative about Harris that paints her as a childless, oversexualized idiot who slept her way to the top. (This is incorrect and also incredibly sexist and racist, for what its worth.)

In many ways, the right is still beefing up its attacks on Harris and still throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. So the nature of all these attacks could change.

In general, its good to remember: The fallout from Trumps presidential win in 2016 left people wringing their hands about disinformation and the role of social media in voter turnout and the election at large. But technology has only advanced since then. Now voters are swimming through not just disinformation but also A.I.generated content, deepfake images and videos, and even more precise targeting.

OK, but Charli XCX did say kamala IS brat, right?

She did.

Loren Elliott/Getty Images

How will Harris do against Trump in an eventual debate?

Harris is considered a seasoned and fierce debater, fueled by her time as Californias top prosecutor. When she was in the Senate serving on the Judiciary Committee, she earned a reputation for delivering excruciatingly sharp questioning. And in 2020, when she debated former Vice President Mike Pence, she famously said, Mr. Vice President, Im speaking, when Pence tried to interrupt her. The line went viral for its relatability in the everyday power struggle women face.

Meanwhile, Trumps debate style has been likened to bullying. He frequently interrupts, shouts, and distracts his opponents by talking over them, lying, and hurling insults. Back in 2016, Trump circled Hillary Clinton during one of their debates, stalking her as she spoke. And in 2020, Trump completely overtook Biden in a debate that devolved into a shouting match and pushed the president to say, Will you shut up, man?

A debate between Biden and Trump was scheduled for Sept. 10, but the Trump campaign has argued since the Democrats candidate switch that it should be hosted by Fox News, not ABC. Thats unlikely. Trump, nevertheless, has said hell absolutely debate Harris.

How will Harris campaign the war in Gaza? Can she distance herself from Biden on this?

There have been reports that Harris could try to distance herself from Bidens policy toward Israel, however slightly. Harris, after all, called for an immediate cease-fire in early Marchmonths before Biden came around to thatand has talked tougher in public about Israels deadly campaign in Gaza. Her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, is known in foreign policy circles to be more progressive than Biden and his team. And this week, Harris pointedly refused to preside over Congress during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus chest-beating address to Congress. (She did, however, meet with Netanyahu the following day.)

But this doesnt mean shes about to start fundraising for Palestinian relief organizations alongside her famous stepdaughter. Harris has a long, friendly relationship with the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC and introduced and supported pro-Israel legislation while in the Senate. She has met with Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog over the years. And she certainly understands that the Democratic Party contains not just those who call Biden Genocide Joe but also voters who have kept We Stand With Israel signs planted in their lawns since Oct. 7.

The Biden campaign was in trouble in Michigan, in part because many of the states Arab American votersand its young voterscould not support the man whom many held responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, including, for some, their family members. But this was going to be a problem for Biden nationwide. A July poll of about 1,800 people, conducted by the Century Foundation and Morning Consult, found that 38 percent of voters had reconsidered their support for Biden due to his unconditional backing of Israels assault on Gaza.

Harris 2020 campaign foundered in part because she tried to appeal to everyone in the Democratic tent, from Bernie Sanders supporters to those who backed Joe Biden (if not all the way toward Joe Manchin). In doing so, though, she wound up pleasing nobody. So her task with this issue is a matter of looking decisive and sympathetic, both to the Palestinians who have suffered immensely under Israeli fire and to the Israelis and hostages in Gaza and their family members. If her 2020 campaign taught us anything, its that shell try to strike a balanceand its impossible to take a position on this issue that doesnt piss off somebody.

Harris is seen on a screen as she speaks on the administrations investments in climate action in Charlotte, North Carolina, on April 4. Allison Joyce/AFP

What will be the influence of Silicon Valley money on the race? Is it all in for Vance and Musk? Or will Harris ties to tech scramble things?

This is the big question mark from progressive policy groups in D.C. Biden has been willing to tangle with Big Tech and its monopolistic excessesnowhere is that more evident than his appointment of Lina Khan to the Federal Trade Commission. But Harris is much closer to tech by nature (and geography, and marriage, and fundraising), and a lot of the big names surfacing around her nascent campaign are tech-allied: Eric Holder (Airbnb), Tony West (Uber), David Plouffe (Uber). On the other hand, a lot of Silicon Valley billionaires have lined up behind Trump since he picked Vance as his running mate. Vance is something of a protege of Peter Thiels, having worked at one of Thiels venture capital firms. Also, in the words of Slatester Nitish Pahwa:

Silicon Valley and the financial world lurched to the right after 2020, radicalized against social justice protests, COVID lockdowns, and the antitrust scrutiny and legal probes that came under the Biden administration. A sense of grievance afflicted onetime Biden voters like [Elon] Musk and [Chamath] Palihapitiyaand always-radical folks, including Sacks (who arranged his pro-Trump Silicon Valley events with Vances help), were ready to capitalize on that.

How will Harris reshuffle Bidens platform?

Biden spent a ton of time articulating a pretty robust platform, including a first 100 days agenda at one of his last public appearances (a rally in Michigan). And before he dropped out of the race, he pushed a bunch of progressive policies, promising to make the rich pay more taxes, advocating for the expansion of Social Security, and calling for the elimination of medical debt. (He also indicated he was ready to take on the Supreme Court.) Will Harris take that on wholesale? Will she pick and choose? In her first speeches, she indicated that she would revive the care economy legislative efforts that got tossed when Bidens Build Back Better bill collapsed. Its not that she and Biden will necessarily have vastly different policy beliefs. They could, however, have different priorities.

How will South Asian voters and Hindu nationalists react?

South Asian Americans were just one of the many reliably Democratic voting blocs that had cooled on their prior enthusiasm for Joe Biden; now his veeps ascension could turn things around. Having Kamala Harristhe daughter of a Tamil Indian immigranton his ticket likely drove significant Indian American turnout for Biden in 2020, even as Trump leveraged his friendship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make inroads with Hindu nationalists. But Trump hasnt gained more South Asian American support since then, and the Groyper-adjacent, immigration-hawkish Vance probably wont help there, his own Indian American wife notwithstanding. Still, as the largest Asian American group in the country, with significant population numbers in battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan, voters of South Asian descent will remain a key target for both parties. Watch the WhatsApp groups.

How will Harris campaign on climate?

Harris doesnt like the oil industry, and she can prove it: As Californias attorney general, she sued several of the worst climate villains you know (Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP) and even tried to curb drilling and fracking off her states coast. Though she entered the 2020 Democratic primary as a climate hawk, Harris moderated on the issue as Bidens running mate, and she hasnt made it a key plank of her vice presidency. Still, as fossil-fuel executives shower Trump with checks and (allegedly) accept quid pro quo arrangements, you can expect Prosecutor Harris to make clear she can never be so corrupted by Big Bad Oil. (As for the rest of her climate agenda? Frankly, itll probably depend on whether her choice for veep hails from a fossil-fuel state.)
Elon Musk has championed Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Musk's companies  including Tesla, SpaceX, and X  are being sued or probed by federal agencies.

Trump could change or choose not to enforce regulations that affect Musk's companies.

With a few pen strokes, Donald Trump could make many of Elon Musk's problems go away.

Shortly after a gunman shot at Trump's head two weeks ago, injuring his ear, Musk made his preference for the 2024 presidential election known.

After being openly hostile to President Joe Biden on X, he endorsed Trump. When Trump chose as his running mate JD Vance  the US Senator from Ohio with deep links to Silicon Valley power brokers  Musk ramped up the promotion. This week, he said on X he had formed a political action committee "supporting a meritocracy & individual freedom," which he said he now associates with Republicans.

If Trump were to become president again, he could repay the favor. Musk has a lot to gain.

Trump's plans to lower corporate and personal taxes are certainly a plus. But Musk also stands to gain with a new administration controlling federal regulations.

"You can think of Musk's contribution as an investment," Michael Gerhardt, an expert in administrative law at the University of North Carolina, told Business Insider. "To eliminate any governmental interference with his businesses."

Musk owns six companies, all of which are subject to regulations from different agencies controlled by the executive branch.

The conservative-controlled Supreme Court's recent SEC v. Jarkesy decision, along with its Loper Bright decision striking down much of the Chevron doctrine, made it harder for federal agencies to enforce laws and regulations against companies. But with Trump as president, Musk wouldn't even need to dismantle the so-called "administrative state" to get federal agencies out of his way.

As the head of the executive branch, the president can simply sign executive orders and make hiring decisions to change the direction of federal agencies.

Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter) are all the subjects of ongoing federal investigations and lawsuits, and Musk's brain chip company, Neuralink, is highly regulated. A president has the power to change regulations, end those investigations, and free those companies from future regulatory action. Trump could also direct agencies to simply drop investigations or withdraw lawsuits, like the Justice Department's civil rights lawsuit against SpaceX for Musk's refusal to hire refugees for certain positions, or the agency's investigation into Tesla's self-driving claims.

As president, Trump could direct the Justice Department and other executive agencies to drop any actions against Trump and his friends' businesses, Gernhardt told BI.

Elon Musk. Apu Gomes via Getty Images

Musk's plans to build factories and towns for his employees in Texas have caused environmental problems. Recent Supreme Court decisions have watered down the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to protect environments due to construction, according to Jillian Blanchard, an environmental lawyer at Lawyers for Good Government. But a president could make it even easier for companies to challenge regulations, she said.

"Federal environmental rules like NEPA require you to do all sorts of environmental analysis before you build out a big manufacturing plant, for example," she said, referring to the National Environmental Policy Act.

"And that's a federal rule, so it comes across the whole country no matter where he decides to move his plants," she added.

Existing federal laws from the EPA and Department of Interior could be relaxed, Blanchard said.

"If Trump were in the White House, he would control the EPA, the head of the EPA, and they could also amend those regulations to make the permitting for Clean Water Act requirements easier," she said. "Same is true for the Endangered Species Act right now."

Musk didn't respond to a request for comment for this story.

Some agencies  called independent agencies  have statutory independence from the executive branch. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has overseen numerous investigations into Musk and his companies over the years, is one of them. The president can't fire any of the five commissioners who oversee the FEC, and no more than three of them may belong to the same political party.

However, the conservative legal movement has waged a long war against the laws granting these agencies independence. And if Trump is president and Republicans control Congress, they could pass laws that give the president more authority over these agencies. The SEC's ongoing investigation into Musk's purchase of Twitter  now X  could go under Trump's control if Republicans get their way, Gerhardt said,

"The probe is tied up with the independence of the agency," Gerhardt said. "And one thing that I think is clear is that Trump wants to lead a pushback against independent agencies."

Even if a federal agency chooses not to enforce laws and regulations on the books, ordinary people can still bring the government and companies to court to force them to follow the law. Blanchard brought cases against the first Trump administration as the director of Lawyers For Good Government's climate change program to keep the EPA and Interior Department on notice.

But that still effectively transfers enforcement power from taxpayer-funded government to less-resourced private citizens.

"It's going to be up to the individuals to be able to bring those private rights of action if the federal agencies won't enforce their existing laws," Blanchard said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Elon Musk Is Now Using Your Tweets to Train His Weird AI. Here's How to Turn It Off.

Sharing Is Caring

At some point, X-formerly-Twitter auto-opted its users into sharing their data with Grok, owner Elon Musk's unfunny "anti-woke" chatbot  without bothering to tell users about the change.

Flagged by Rolling Stone's Noah Shachtman, it remains unclear when X introduced this so-called "data sharing" change that authorizes the social network to use your tweets to train Musk's shoddy ChatGPT competitor.

Twitter has opted you into training Elon's weirdo A.I.



Click here to opt out: https://t.co/0ThK2aMaA6 pic.twitter.com/4ZGf0Fhprv  Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) July 26, 2024

As Shachtman notes, opting out of having your data included in Grok's training pool is as simple as de-selecting the allowance in your settings.

Nevertheless, it's super sketchy that everyone was automatically opted in without being informed, and that nobody knows how long this has been going on.

Forgiveness, Not Permission

Beyond not informing users that it's using their data, X also appears to not have told regulators about the change, either.

In a statement to TechCrunch, a spokesperson for the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which acts as X's European watchdog, said the agency was taken by surprise when it learned that the social network had automatically opted users into allowing their tweets to be used as AI training data.

"The DPC has been engaging with X on this matter for a number of months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday," Graham Doyle, the DPC's deputy commissioner, told the site. "Therefore we are surprised by todays developments."

As TechCrunch notes, European Union law requires companies to have a valid legal reason to process data  and per the brief explanation provided under the "data sharing" tab in X user settings, such reasoning is unclear.

The watchdog said it had followed up with X about the change and that it's waiting for "further engagement" on the matter.

With this brewing debacle, X has become the latest in a string of companies to scrape data without asking. It's also not the first to automatically opt users into data sharing as a means of ass-covering  and unfortunately, it probably won't be the last.

More on AI training: When AI Is Trained With AI-Generated Data, It Starts Spouting Gibberish
Its the end of an era: Longtime Local 10 anchor Jacey Birch has a big announcement

Time to put that snooze button to work.

Jacey Birch, whos been anchoring the WPLG Local 10 morning news for 10 years, is stepping away from the desk for a different gig (and schedule) at the station.

The South Florida natives last day on the early shift was Friday.

In an Instagram post, she bid farewell to viewers alongside her co-anchor and emotional support animal Eric Yutzy.

Its the end of an era, began the journalists caption. Your girl needs some sleep! While I will miss this guy, I definitely will not miss the 2 a.m. daily alarm clock!

Yutzy seconded the emotion, posting a throwback pic.

Wow what a ride.. We look so young in our first AM show together, and somehow you look younger a decade later. Im blessed that the person I sat shoulder to shoulder with 5-6 hours a day for 10 years was a person I could absolutely vibe with. The chemistry was we became family fast and Im so grateful for this connection, someone who I can rely any time of day for any reason whatsoever.

The Pembroke Park-based station where Birch has worked for roughly 25 years in total confirmed that the longtime employees role would change.

After a decade of arriving to work in the middle of the night to anchor the morning news, Jacey requested a schedule change, said a statement emailed to the Miami Herald. She had a great run in the morning and we understand the hours can be difficult.

As for Birch, after returning from a three week vacation, shell anchor Saturday and Sunday nights with Sanela Sabovic, as well as report on her animal advocate beat Monday through Wednesday.

Cant wait to get some real sleep, Birch ended her post, adding she would now be able to spend more time with Jupiter, the 7-year-old son she shares with her ex, meteorologist Trent Aric.

Its been an amazing run, South Florida!

Alex Finnie will take on Birchs duties, starting Monday, the station said.
The title of judge conveys a tremendous amount of power, at any level of Floridas court system. But circuit judges, on a daily basis, might have the broadest reach and greatest impact. The matters they preside over are weighty: Contentious family disputes. Big-dollar corporate litigation. Felony prosecutions that can bring decades-long prison sentences, or even condemn someone to death.

That puts a high responsibility on voters who must evaluate these judges at least every six years. Many end up being re-elected without opposition. This year, however, weve seen several sitting judges challenged. Today, we endorse in two of those races in the 9th Judicial Circuit, which includes Orange and Osceola counties.

Ninth Judicial Circuit Judge, Group 37

Its often difficult to figure out why certain judges draw challengers, when others dont. Thats particularly true with Judge Tanya Davis Wilson, who has spent a decade on the bench, starting as an Orange County judge before being appointed by Gov. Rick Scott to serve on the circuit court. Shes drawn some of the most difficult assignments, including criminal court and domestic relations. Shes also currently serving as an associate administrative judge in Osceola County, a post that reflects the confidence of her judicial peers. And her pre-judicial career spans time spent as a public defender in state court, as an attorney in the state Division of Real Estate and time as both prosecutor and defense attorney in federal court.

But experience is not the only measure of a good judge. Wilsons endorsements  which include former Chief Judge Belvin Perry Jr.  praise her courtroom demeanor as fair, unflappable, courteous and efficient.

Its hard to imagine anyone making a credible argument to replace her. Jason Willis, who has a background in civil and criminal law as well as a history of community advocacy, could be an appealing candidate for an open seat  he understands the difficult role judges must play, weighing highly contentious decisions while maintaining the confidence that justice is being served. He just cant make the argument that voters should fire Judge Wilson, who has earned re-election.

The Orlando Sentinel endorses Ninth Circuit Judge Tanya Wilson in Group 37.

Ninth Judicial Circuit Judge, Group 43

This race is a tough one. Both candidates  incumbent Circuit Judge Craig McCarthy (appointed in July 2022 by Gov. Ron DeSantis), and local attorney Stephen Brown  show strengths that would be an asset to the judiciary, and vulnerabilities that could undermine confidence in their ability to be fair. After dozens of hours spent talking with members of the legal community about both men, we give the edge to McCarthy, but its a narrow one that rests on his assertion that he recognizes, and regrets, statements he made more than a decade ago that reflect a radical view of the American justice system.

Brown is showcasing many of those statements (from a website called CourtZero which McCarthy moderated in the early 2000s, and a book of the same name) on his own campaign site. Some of the passages he highlights are genuinely incendiary, including McCarthys suggestion that so-called activist courts should be defunded to keep judges from overruling the will of Congress and state legislatures. Its a little disturbing to think that DeSantis may have taken those views into account when he chose McCarthy for the circuit seat.

However, others are placed in a context that can be misleading. For example, Brown quotes McCarthy criticizing the seminal U.S. Supreme Court desegregation decision Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned the doctrine of separate but equal set by Plessy v. Ferguson. Stephen Browns website portrays McCarthy as pro-segregation, a statement McCarthy refuted during an interview with the Sentinels editorial board. We read McCarthys book  the whole book. In it, McCarthy actually says that he believes Plessy could have (and should have) been decided in a way that would have advanced racial equality nearly 50 years before the landmark Brown v. Board decision.

Thats hardly a blazing endorsement of segregation. Quite the opposite.

We mention that detail because McCarthys opponent is leaning so hard into this claim that he touts the endorsement of a descendant of the original plaintiff in the Brown v. Board case. But his representation of McCarthys book is misleading. Thats troubling to us.

Thats not to say people shouldnt be concerned about prior statements by judicial candidates  especially since McCarthy didnt do enough, in the book and in posts on his website, to acknowledge that courts almost never seek out controversy. Instead, judges are doing their best to rule fairly, and within the boundaries of the law, on the cases that are brought before them. As society evolves, courts may find that old laws no longer stretch to cover shifts in the way Americans live their lives. Legislators should update these laws  but too often, they dont, and courts can be a safety valve that keeps Americans from being bound to viewpoints that are decades behind the times.

McCarthy acknowledges now that his book was overly doctrinaire, saying that a few decades experience has made a big difference in the way he views the law. Its a stance that seems sincere  though we feel McCarthy is better-suited to a trial court than to an appellate seat.

Thats in large part due to the glowing endorsements hes received from the legal community, including many who praise his fairness, patience and compassion on the bench.

Brown also has a broad array of endorsements that speak to his legal acumen and innovative thinking. But weve also heard from several attorneys who are concerned about his combative style and tenacious, often personal attacks. These are not qualities that would translate well to the duties of a circuit judge.

Given the choice between McCarthy, a thoughtful judge who admits to past mistakes but has built a strong reputation of objectivity and civility, and Brown, whose sharp legal mind seems to be coupled with a tendency to take disputes a little too far, voters should choose McCarthy.

The Orlando Sentinel endorses Ninth Circuit Judge Craig McCarthy in Group 43.

We urge voters to not rely solely on our opinions in deciding how to cast a vote. Voters should check the candidates campaign websites and social media accounts (if they dont have either, that should be a red flag). Ask friends and neighbors what they think. Google the candidates and check out their campaign finances. In addition, weve recorded our interviews and posted them in full at OrlandoSentinel.com/opinion.

Election endorsements are the opinion of the Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board, which consists of Opinion Editor Krys Fluker, Insight Editor Jay Reddick and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Send emails to insight@orlandosentinel.com.
A new study suggests that the first of seven key pyramids in Egypt, the Step Pyramid of Djoser, was built using a hydraulic lift.

Dated to about 4,500 years ago, this would move up the introduction of major hydraulic systems from previous beliefs.

The landscape, waterways, and interior architecture of the pyramid all point to the hydraulic system.

Hydraulic mechanics may have indeed been the driving force behind the construction of ancient Egyptian pyramids.

In a recently published study in PLOS ONE, scientists concluded that the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, Egyptbelieved to be the oldest of the seven monumental pyramids and potentially constructed about 4,500 years agooffers a remarkable blueprint for hydraulic engineering.

The hydraulic-powered mechanism could have maneuvered the oversized stone blocks forming the pyramid, starting from the ground up. The research team says the Step Pyramids internal architecture is consistent with a hydraulic elevation mechanism, something thats never been reported before at that place or in that time.

By lifting the stones from the interior of the pyramid in what the authors call a volcano fashion, the water pressure from the hydraulic system could have pushed the blocks into place. If proved out, this research shows the Egyptians had a powerful understanding of advanced hydraulic systems well before modern scholars believed they did. That begs the question: Was this the first major use of the system, or had it been in play previously?

No matter the answer, pulling it off at the Step Pyramid would have been no easy feat.

The team believes that based on the mapping of nearby watersheds, one of the massiveand yet unexplainedSaqqara structures, known as the Gisr el-Mudir enclosure, has the features of a check dam with the intent to trap sediment and water. The scientists say the topography beyond the dam suggests a possible temporary lake west of the Djoser complex, with water flow surrounding it in a moat-like design.

As a Nile tributary fed the area, a dam could have created a temporary lake, potentially linking the river to a Dry Moat around the Djoser site, helping move materials and serving the hydraulic needs.

The ancient architects likely raised the stones from the pyramid center in a volcano fashion using the sediment-free water from the Dry Moats south section, the authors write.

In one section of the moat, the team found that a monumental linear rock-cut structure consisting of successive, deep-trench compartments combines the technical requirement of a water treatment facilityand a design still often seen in modern-day water treatment plantsby including a settling basin, retention basin, and purification system.

Together, the Gisr el-Mudir and the Dry Moats inner south section work as a unified hydraulics system that improves water quality and regulates flow for practical purposes and human needs, the authors write. The team believes the water available in the area was sufficient to meet the needs of the project.

Ancient Egyptians are famous for their pioneering and mastery of hydraulics through canals for irrigation purposes and barges to transport huge stones. This work opens a new line of research: the use of hydraulic force to erect the massive structures built by Pharaohs.

You Might Also Like
Enter the wizarding world of Harry Potter in Waterbury

WATERBURY, Conn. (WTNH)  Enter the wizarding world of Harry Potter in Connecticut this weekend.

The City of Waterbury and Mattatuck Museum are hosting a weekend-long Harry Pottery Day welcoming witches, wizards and muggles alike to revel in food, drink, arts and games.

8 Things to do this weekend

The event starts Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. A map and Wizard Quest sheet can be picked up from Minuteman Press on Grand Street to help guide your adventure to more than 20 downtown delights and chances to win prizes.

Cyril the Sorcerer will perform at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on the front lawn of the Silas Bronson Library, the area where vendors and community groups will gather.

On Saturday, the Mattatuck Museum will host from 1 to 5 p.m.

Milford family asks communities to place soccer cleats outside in honor of 12-year-old

The second day will include a performance of Once Upon a River, a fairytale magic show by Cyril the Sorcerer, and other activities.

Tickets are needed for Saturdays activities, but Friday is free. More information can be found on the Mattatuck Museum website.

Enter the wizarding world of Harry Potter in Waterbury.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTNH.com.
The future Equinox resort in Saudi Arabia will featurea suspended bridge over a local lagoon. Equinox Resort Treyam

Equinox announced a resort in Neom, the desert project in Saudi Arabia.

The resort will feature high-end restaurants, a floating bridge, and 450-meter pool.

Equinox opened its first hotel in 2019 in New York City, where rooms can go for $900 per night.

Equinox is joining Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia in dreaming of a desert paradise as the company announces plans for a resort in Neom, the kingdom's utopia project.

The luxury accommodations promise to feature high-end restaurants, a pool the length of 9 Olympic-sized courses, a floating bridge suspended 40 meters above a lagoon, and, of course, a signature Equinox gym.

Announced in 2017, Neom is a $1.5 trillion development project led by the Crown Prince. Located on a rural desert stretch on the northwest corner of the Red Sea directly across from Egypt, Neom is an ambitious undertaking.

Early plans for Neom include a ski resort piled year-round with artificial snow, theme parks that integrate virtual reality, and a city housed inside a 1,000-meter mirrored wall. The project is currently hiring for a variety of roles, including for professionals in "cheetah management."

The future Equinox resort will feature a pool nine times the size of an Olympic pool. Equinox Resort Treyam

The project has already faced setbacks. A water supply company pulled out of a $100 million project with Neom after it discovered the kingdom was evicting local tribes for the project. Experts have raised concerns about the kingdom spying on future residents with technology from China. City planners worry that the mirrored city will kill "a significant number of birds."

Equinox, the sleek chain of luxury gyms famous for its $3,000 and up annual price tag for members, entered the hotel game in 2019 with the opening of its first location in Manhattan's Hudson Yards neighborhood.

"Staying at the Equinox Hotel, even if just for a night, gave me a glimpse into what life would be like if it was devoted entirely to becoming the best version of myself," Business Insider reporter Jordan Parker Erb wrote in 2023. She treated herself to personalized pilates classes and infrared spa treatments at the $900-per-night digs.

The Neom deal is part of Equinox's international expansion. Last summer, Equinox announced another resort in Saudi Arabia as part of the Amaala project also on the Red Sea coast.

Equinox boasts a global portfolio, but 104 out of 110 sites are based in the United States, wellness outlet Spa News reported. Three London locations posted a $18 million loss in 2023. Experts blamed the losses on the company signing expensive leases, according to Spa News.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Some escaped Californias Park Fire, but lost nearly everything. Worst night of my life

The remains of a structure burned the Park Fire smolder along Cohasset Road east of Chico on Thursday.

Northern California resident Nallely Orozco harbors a deep love of raising and breeding reptiles. As she opened Killer Clutches, she funneled her passion into a full-time career.

The family-owned business in the town of Cohasset did a little bit of everything: breeding, teaching students about the animals wonders and carrying husbandry supplies, Orozco said Thursday.

But waves of panic attacks and crying spells befell Orozco as she evacuated from Californias largest wildfire this year, the Park Fire burning in Butte and Tehama counties. Orozco cried as a reporter informed her that flames decimated her business, which is also attached to her home.

It was probably the worst night of my life, Orozco said in a phone interview.

The blaze exploded, growing nearly 20 times bigger bigger from Wednesday evening (6,500 acres) to Thursday evening (120,312 acres), Cal Fire said, sending residents racing to evacuate from homes. Firefighting crews had reached just 3% containment as of Thursday evening, as thousands of people have been uprooted from their homes.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of arson, accused of setting a vehicle on fire and letting it roll down a gully at Bidwell Park outside Chico.

A 3-hour escape on logging roads

Cohasset community members leaving Cohasset Road  the only thoroughfare leading out of the area, which was on the brink of being consumed by the fire  encountered dangerous conditions.

But contractors and employees with Sierra Pacific Industries helped usher residents to safety with Cal Fire, saving nearly 40 people, an evacuee said. Sierra Pacific representatives guided people out of Campbellville in Tehama County, and were available at every intersection to steer them the right way through back roads, according to archived audio dispatch calls reviewed by The Sacramento Bee.

Sierra Pacifics help was confirmed by a company spokeswoman.

Nikko Shelton, who lives on Cohasset Road with his wife Melissa, their dog Luther and two cats, recalled driving down Cohasset Road to only be told the path was closed as black plumes of smoke loomed in the distance.

They had to take logging roads to escape, Shelton said in an interview.

Ive never driven out the backside of Cohasset at all and Ive heard a lot of stories about it being a very difficult road to drive on, he said. It was certainly worrisome knowing that that was the only way out.

They started the drive down and stopped in a small clearing near radio towers. RVs and cars towing boats crowded the space. It felt claustrophobic rather quickly, Shelton said. He and his wife decided to move to a less packed spot further down the road, eventually waiting nearly 90 minutes for Sierra Pacific employee who opened gates onto their lands to drive them out.

The group of about 20 cars struggled to drive through unpaved roads in near pitch-black conditions. He could hardly see as his headlights bounced off clouds of dust. Two vehicles slipped into a ditch, with one abandoned outright, he said.

Despite the tribulations, Shelton said he believed everyone made it out OK through the three-hour journey to Highway 32.

The loggers made the difference in saving lives, Shelton said.

Honestly, for the most part, everyone was just really helpful, looking out for each other, he said. You know, a couple vehicles didnt have very much gasoline and they were all willing to offer up what they had.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea implored the community to heed the evacuation warnings and orders, and to know the correct zones. He spotted residents without gasoline Wednesday night on Cohasset Road.

It is maddening that we are here again, Honea said during a Thursday news conference streamed on social media.

Now, Shelton and his family wait to see the fate of their home.

The direction of the wind looks like its pushing towards my house, he said. It looks like its about a hundred yards away from my house.

I dont know what to do

Orozco always had an evacuation plan, but shes now mired in uncertainty after losing her home and business.

Theres little choice but to be prepared when her business boasts about 400 animals of all shapes and sizes. She personally owns seven animals  including a goat that often thinks its a dog, she said.

Orozco saw evacuation orders issued around Chico Municipal Airport and began to load up her animals immediately. Her animals are divided between six homes as customers and volunteers helped to evacuate animals, she said.

That was a blessing  we couldnt have done it without our community, Orozco said.

She created a GoFundMe page here to help with recovery costs.

Orozcos family and friends overwhelming support helps her weather each difficult day and helps to keep the panic at bay, she said.

But she still feels guilty about leaving her area because many residents relied on her store to surrender their animals and to be educated about reptiles that are often misunderstood.

I dont really know what to do, Orozco said.
Some escaped Californias Park Fire, but lost nearly everything. Worst night of my life

Northern California resident Nallely Orozco harbors a deep love of raising and breeding reptiles. As she opened Killer Clutches, she funneled her passion into a full-time career.

The family-owned business in the town of Cohasset did a little bit of everything: breeding, teaching students about the animals wonders and carrying husbandry supplies, Orozco said Thursday.

But waves of panic attacks and crying spells befell Orozco as she evacuated from Californias largest wildfire this year, the Park Fire burning in Butte and Tehama counties. Orozco cried as a reporter informed her that flames decimated her business, which is also attached to her home.

It was probably the worst night of my life, Orozco said in a phone interview.

The blaze exploded, growing nearly 20 times bigger bigger from Wednesday evening (6,500 acres) to Thursday evening (120,312 acres), Cal Fire said, sending residents racing to evacuate from homes. Firefighting crews had reached just 3% containment as of Thursday evening, as thousands of people have been uprooted from their homes.

A man has been arrested on suspicion of arson, accused of setting a vehicle on fire and letting it roll down a gully at Bidwell Park outside Chico.

A 3-hour escape on logging roads

Cohasset community members leaving Cohasset Road  the only thoroughfare leading out of the area, which was on the brink of being consumed by the fire  encountered dangerous conditions.

But contractors and employees with Sierra Pacific Industries helped usher residents to safety with Cal Fire, saving nearly 40 people, an evacuee said. Sierra Pacific representatives guided people out of Campbellville in Tehama County, and were available at every intersection to steer them the right way through back roads, according to archived audio dispatch calls reviewed by The Sacramento Bee.

Sierra Pacifics help was confirmed by a company spokeswoman.

Nikko Shelton, who lives on Cohasset Road with his wife Melissa, their dog Luther and two cats, recalled driving down Cohasset Road to only be told the path was closed as black plumes of smoke loomed in the distance.

They had to take logging roads to escape, Shelton said in an interview.

Ive never driven out the backside of Cohasset at all and Ive heard a lot of stories about it being a very difficult road to drive on, he said. It was certainly worrisome knowing that that was the only way out.

They started the drive down and stopped in a small clearing near radio towers. RVs and cars towing boats crowded the space. It felt claustrophobic rather quickly, Shelton said. He and his wife decided to move to a less packed spot further down the road, eventually waiting nearly 90 minutes for Sierra Pacific employee who opened gates onto their lands to drive them out.

The group of about 20 cars struggled to drive through unpaved roads in near pitch-black conditions. He could hardly see as his headlights bounced off clouds of dust. Two vehicles slipped into a ditch, with one abandoned outright, he said.

Despite the tribulations, Shelton said he believed everyone made it out OK through the three-hour journey to Highway 32.

The loggers made the difference in saving lives, Shelton said.

Honestly, for the most part, everyone was just really helpful, looking out for each other, he said. You know, a couple vehicles didnt have very much gasoline and they were all willing to offer up what they had.

Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea implored the community to heed the evacuation warnings and orders, and to know the correct zones. He spotted residents without gasoline Wednesday night on Cohasset Road.

It is maddening that we are here again, Honea said during a Thursday news conference streamed on social media.

Now, Shelton and his family wait to see the fate of their home.

The direction of the wind looks like its pushing towards my house, he said. It looks like its about a hundred yards away from my house.

I dont know what to do

Orozco always had an evacuation plan, but shes now mired in uncertainty after losing her home and business.

Theres little choice but to be prepared when her business boasts about 400 animals of all shapes and sizes. She personally owns seven animals  including a goat that often thinks its a dog, she said.

Orozco saw evacuation orders issued around Chico Municipal Airport and began to load up her animals immediately. Her animals are divided between six homes as customers and volunteers helped to evacuate animals, she said.

That was a blessing  we couldnt have done it without our community, Orozco said.

She created a GoFundMe page here to help with recovery costs.

Orozcos family and friends overwhelming support helps her weather each difficult day and helps to keep the panic at bay, she said.

But she still feels guilty about leaving her area because many residents relied on her store to surrender their animals and to be educated about reptiles that are often misunderstood.

I dont really know what to do, Orozco said.
KYODO NEWS - Jul 26, 2024 - 21:24 | Arts, World, All

South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Friday that the registration of a gold and silver mine complex on Japan's Sado Island as a UNESCO World Heritage site seems likely, as it believes the two countries are reaching a consensus over the site being listed despite its links to wartime forced Korean labor.

The positive remark was made by a ministry official and comes against a backdrop of South Korea having argued that laborers from the Korean Peninsula were forced to work at the complex during Japanese colonial rule.

The South Korean government has previously raised concerns about listing the site as one of World Cultural Heritage, urging that its "whole history" be reflected at the site if it is registered.

One of the main reasons the two sides are reaching a consensus, the official said, is that "Japan has promised to reflect its 'whole history' and has already taken practical measures to achieve this," without detailing the measures.

The agreement appears to have been made last-minute, with the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization set to decide on whether it adds the complex to its World Cultural Heritage list during a meeting on Saturday, after its advisory body in June suggested the nomination be referred back to Japan for additional details.

There is still opposition among people in South Korea to the site being listed, with the country's parliament on Thursday adopting a resolution urging Japan to withdraw its bid to have the coplex registered, with all 225 members in attendance voting in favor.

A Japanese government source said negotiations with South Korea "are moving forward, though it is not yet known" whether the two countries will reach an agreement over the registration.

Both Japan and South Korea sit as rotating members of the UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, which will make a decision at its Saturday meeting in New Delhi.

The mine complex in Japan's Niigata Prefecture is regarded as one of the world's largest producers of gold in the 17th century and is known for its pre- and post-industrialization technology.

Related coverage:

UNESCO seeks more details on Japan's Sado mine for heritage listing
Estonian intelligence does not believe Russia will exhaust war resources in Ukraine by 2025

Colonel Ants Kiviselg, Head of the Military Intelligence Centre of Estonia, believes that despite significant losses on the battlefield in Ukraine, Russia has enough resources to continue fighting in 2025 and beyond.

Source: Kiviselg in an interview with ERR on Friday, 26 July, as reported by European Pravda

Kiviselg noted that Russia is currently failing to achieve the objectives of its summer offensive campaign, indicating that Ukraine may be able to hold the defence during the summer. As an example, he cited the recent repulsion of a large-scale Russian offensive on the Karakhove front in Donetsk Oblast.

Quote: "This week's attempt might be another desperate effort to push through and try to impact the rear of the Ukrainians so that in other areas where active fighting is taking place, Ukrainians would be forced to withdraw simply because their logistical routes are cut off somewhere," he suggested.

At the same time, the Estonian intelligence representative warned against optimistic assessments about the alleged depletion of Russia's military equipment and forces.

"Unfortunately, I cannot assert that Russia will definitely run out of military equipment by 2025 because they also have some partners or allies who will still provide or send them resources for waging war, whether it be North Korea or Iran," Kiviselg explained.

However, he added that with the current pace of combat and losses, "it will be very difficult for Russia to replenish its personnel and equipment": in June alone, it was losing between 1,000 and 1,800 people at the front every day.

"But at the same time, Russia's population is still so large that there is currently no trend towards significant changes at the front," Kiviselg concluded.

Background: Last week, Kiviselg stated that Russia maintains the intensity of attacks in the combat zone in Ukraine despite suffering considerable losses and gradual supply of Western armament to Kyiv.

Support UP or become our patron!
TALLAHASSEE  The Florida Commission on Ethics unanimously agreed Friday to penalties for former St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara, a Democrat, related to his recruitment and support of a preferred Republican opponent during the 2020 election.

Those penalties, a $5,000 fine with a public censure and reprimand, previously had been agreed to by both sides in a joint stipulation agreement where Mascara admitted to the so-called "ghost candidate" scheme, which was the subject of a Florida Department of Law Enforcement report released last year.

Former St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara discusses his experience of being affected by the COVID-19 virus, during a roundtable meeting on Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, days after the Republican primary at the heart of the "ghost candidate" allegations against him.

Ultimately, prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against Mascara  or any of the other individuals named in the report, including current Sheriff and candidate Keith Pearson  citing a lack of sufficient evidence. FDLE then filed a complaint with the Ethics Commission against Mascara. The commission said it had probable cause to investigate after a meeting last month.

A separate complaint against Pearson, filed by St. Lucie County Republican Executive Committee Chair Kenny Nail, was dismissed in April, with the commission citing a lack of jurisdiction to investigate. Pearson was appointed in December by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to replace Mascara, and he has since qualified, as a Republican, to run for a full term this year.

The origins of the ghost-candidate scheme against Mascara date back to the 2016 and 2020 elections, according to the FDLE report.

In 2016, Mascara faced Rich Williams in a Democratic primary that the FDLE report indicated Mascara felt included personal attacks.

Then, in 2020, Williams filed to run as a Republican, setting up a potential general election face-off with Mascara.

At that point, the FDLE report indicates, Mascara and his allies began attempts to recruit a more-preferred candidate to run as a Republican against Williams. Ultimately, former St. Lucie County deputy Kevin Carter filed to run. The FDLE report indicates Mascara and others in the Sheriff's Office, including Pearson, aided Carter's campaign.

Carter ultimately defeated Williams in the Republican primary and lost to Mascara in the general election.

More: Former St. Lucie County Sheriff Ken Mascara admits role in 2020 'ghost candidate' case

More: Ethics Commission dismisses complaint against St. Lucie sheriff filed by local GOP leader

Pearson, for his part, told FDLE investigators that he supported Carter, including allowing yard signs to be made on his property, because he believed Carter was the best Republican candidate in the race. Pearson's attorney reiterated that point to the Ethics Commission after Nail's complaint earlier this year.

The eight-member Ethics Commission voted unanimously Friday to approve the joint stipulation without further discussion, after a short explanation of the allegations and penalties.

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: Mascara, FDLE, ethics commission all agree on penalty for 2020 scheme
By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The Netherlands on Friday secured EU approval for 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) of state aid to build a nuclear reactor to produce medical isotopes for cancer treatment.

The European Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer said the support helps ensure the security of supply of essential and live-saving medicines, confirming a Reuters story on Thursday.

The Netherlands, a leading producer of medical isotopes, proposed a new nuclear reactor for medical isotopes following concerns that shortages would arise after 2030.

The aid consists of loans and equity for a total amount of about 2 billion euros to a newly established company (NewCo) that will build and operate the reactor that produces the medical isotopes and the nuclear health centre.

"The Dutch authorities have committed to ensuring that NewCo, when operating PALLAS, will price its products at a level overing all costs associated with their production and commercialisation," the EU competition watchdog said.

"This 2 billion euro measure enables the Netherlands to support a strategic project contributing to the securing of supply of essential medicines and to the development of breakthrough innovation in the field of nuclear technology to the benefit of European citizens," EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee)
The EUs Council opened formal proceedings on Friday against multiple member states deemed to have shortfalls in domestic budgets.

The move follows a warning from the European Commission that deficits were set to soar as high as 7% of the economy after Brussels turned a blind eye for several years due to COVID-19.

Member states must comply with budgetary discipline, said a statement from the Council, which added that the process would entail enhanced scrutiny of those in breach.

The Council, which groups the EU's 27 member states, sent the legal warning to Belgium, France, Italy, Hungary, Malta, Poland, and Slovakia and agreed to continue a legal procedure that has applied to Romania since 2020.

The EUs fiscal rules, introduced alongside the common euro currency in the 1990s, say the imbalance in national fiscal positions shouldnt be over 3% of GDP, with overall debt kept under 60%.

Political dynamite

Those rules have long proved political dynamite, as northern member states such as Germany and the Netherlands are reluctant to pay for what they see as reckless spending in Greece or Italy.

The move occurs as both France and Belgium, in both of which public debt exceeds 100% of GDP, attempt to form governments from splintered coalitions.

Two weeks ago, Frances Court of Auditors said the state of public finances was alarming, and finance minister Bruno Le Maire, part of Gabriel Attals caretaker government, may step down imminently given the drubbing taken in a June legislative election.

It also represents a new front in the war between Brussels and Giorgia Melonis right-wing government.

On Wednesday, the Commission berated press freedom in Italy after Meloni filed legal cases against individual reporters who criticised or mocked her.

Post-pandemic rules

The EUs deficit framework, known as the Stability and Growth Pact, was abandoned in 2020 when the COVID-19 crisis, and subsequent energy price explosion, led governments to make unprecedented and expensive economic interventions.

After much haggling, member states earlier this year agreed on a more flexible set of budget constraints to apply as of this year, allowing more wiggle room for spending on climate change or defence.

That late agreement means timelines for settling budget policy have been truncated this year, perhaps explaining why the EU adopted its warning on the afternoon of the day when many officials depart for summer holidays.

Ministers are expected to endorse formal recommendations for profligate countries to bring deficits back down in December.

Brussels officials have already been in touch with finance ministries in affected countries to recommend trajectories for correcting the imbalance, implying politically painful tax rises or spending cuts.
Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), current President of the European Commission, speaks during the plenary session of the European Parliament. The European Union is sending Ukraine 1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) from the proceeds of Russian assets frozen in the EU, to be spent on defence and reconstruction, von der Leyen announces on X. Philipp von Ditfurth/dpa

The European Commission announced on Friday that the European Union is making available 1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) to fund Ukraine's defence and reconstruction, financed by the proceeds of Russian assets frozen in the EU.

"There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlins money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on X.

Most of the money - 90% of it - will be used to reimburse EU countries for military aid they send to Ukraine, while the remaining 10% will be paid directly to Ukraine as financial aid for reconstruction.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said "such steps by the European Commission will not go unanswered."

EU foreign ministers approved the payments in late June. Germany and the Czech Republic were selected as the first to use the proceeds to provide Ukraine with air-defence equipment and artillery shells, diplomats said at the time.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said on X that "the EU will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes." He noted that the 1.5 billion in aid will fund "military capabilities and reconstruction."

The aid is financed by the proceeds - such as interest - from Russian Central Bank assets in the EU, but not by the underlying assets themselves, which remain frozen.

"The immobilisation of the Russian Central Bank's assets is a result of EU sanctions against Russia, adopted in the wake of its war of aggression against Ukraine," a commission statement said on Friday.

"The extraordinary revenues generated in this context by the EU operators do not belong to Russia and are held by CSDs," or central securities depositories. "The EU has now started to channel these revenues to Ukraine."

The money has until this week been held by Brussels-based financial institution Euroclear. On Tuesday, Euroclear made it available to the commission, which in turn released it for Ukraine aid on Friday, the commission's statement said.

The money is one of two sources of funding from outside of the EU budget that the bloc wants to use to fund Ukraine's defence. The EU budget itself cannot be spent on weapons of war.

The other source is the Ukraine Assistance Fund (UAF), a pot now worth more than 6 billion under the European Peace Facility (EPF), an off-budget military aid fund paid into by EU member states.

However, every member state has a veto over the EPF, and Hungary - which opposes arming Ukraine - is blocking the EPF payments, despite having allowed the creation of a dedicated budget for Ukraine under the EPF.

Similarly, delicate legal footwork was needed to overcome Hungarian opposition to the use of the proceeds from the frozen Russian assets.

The foreign ministers' approval of the actual payments in June followed an earlier agreement, in May, to the principle of using the proceeds to buy arms for Ukraine.

A legal analysis concluded that because Hungary abstained on the May decision and the money is not from the EU budget, Budapest's veto did not apply to the decision in June.

Gergely Gulyas, an aide to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, on Friday accused Ukraine of "blackmailing" Hungary because of its "pro-peace stance" by preventing oil deliveries to the country, according to an X post by the Orban government's communications chief, Zoltan Kovacs.

According to the European Commission, around 210 billion worth of Russian Central Bank assets are frozen in the EU. Euroclear recently announced that the assets had made around 4.4 billion in interest in 2023.
A bottle of water and its attached cap in Paris on July 3, 2024. Plastic bottle-tops on drinks sold in the European Union from July 3, 2024 have to be attached to their container under new rules aiming to stem harmful pollution

A minor upside to this lousy summer has been slightly less capital outlay on bottled water. Cold comfort though it is, at least we have not been at the mercy of rip-off merchants peddling luke warm water at the price of liquid gold. Which is just as well, because cracking open a bottle of H20 now comes with all sorts of extra perils  from spillages to scratched skin and lacerated lips.

It is now almost three weeks since Brussels passed the point of no return and outright banned the use of disposable plastic bottles with separate lids. But many manufacturers had already pre-empted the move, even applying EU standards to the UK market, which is why the new, maddening design is already ubiquitous in post-Brexit Britain.

Under this new EU directive, drinks manufacturers are now required to produce bottles designed to stay in one piece when they are opened. The aim is to address a genuine problem: the environmental scourge of discarded plastic bottles and lids. This type of rubbish takes up to 450 years to decompose and does terrible things to dolphins and whales. Few would dispute the mess it makes.

The hope is that the new design will encourage users to recycle the whole bottle, rather than chuck one bit in the green bin and the other into household rubbish. The term Brussels bureaucrats use to describe the snazzy new tops is tethered, a word more commonly associated with goats. (Google goat skills and youll learn that goats are very good at opening doors and gates with their mouths, a talent that might prove useful for these new bottles.)

It all sounds quite sensible, save that the new designs are totally impractical, especially on cartons of milk. According to the small print, the cap has to be connected to the bottle well enough to resist a force of at least 25 Newtons  meaning the effort required to rip it off virtually guarantees the contents will spray everywhere. Good luck trying to avoid a drenching by attempting to drink with the cap attached. See TikTok for useful tutorials on sipping water round a jagged plastic disc. One has recently received more than three million views.

It is of course a minor inconvenience, but millions of euros and hundreds of thousands of hours of research and resources will have gone into an initiative that makes every day life a teensy bit worse. And this tethering is just the latest frontier in the war on plastic: remember when single use cutlery didnt splinter your gums? When straws didnt disintegrate on making contact with any beverage?

Surely it would be much smarter to devote all that energy to developing something with similar properties to plastic that decomposes quickly?

Post-Brexit, we should be free to side step this stuff. No longer subject to pettifogging EU rules and regulations, we should be waving our beautifully untethered bottles at the Belgians and enjoying the green-eyed envy of our French and German visitors when they discover the UK is a moronic bottle-free zone. Never mind the appeal of ending free movement of people  this could really move the dial on Frexit.

Unfortunately the drinks manufacturers had other ideas. Accordingly, while we are no longer tethered to Brussels, were still tied to their bottles. Quite literally, well just have to suck it up.

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.
EU regulator backs use of GSK's RSV shot in adults aged 50 to 59

(Reuters) -The European Union health regulator on Friday recommended expanded use of GSK's respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine in adults aged between 50 and 59.

Any recommendation by the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has to be formally approved by the European Commission, which usually follows the regulator's decision.

The vaccine, branded Arexvy, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) did not recommend RSV shots for adults under 60 years.

The CDC had recommended that adults aged 75 and older, as well as those between the ages of 60 and 74 at an increased risk of severe RSV due to medical conditions, should receive shots against the virus.

The recommendation downsized GSK's U.S. market for the shot in 2024-25 from 93 million to about 55 million, according to analysts.

GSK had forecast peak annual sales of more than 3 billion pounds for the vaccine.

(Reporting by Prerna Bedi in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
Ursula von der Leyen (CDU), current President of the European Commission, speaks during the plenary session of the European Parliament. The European Union is sending Ukraine 1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) from the proceeds of Russian assets frozen in the EU, to be spent on defence and reconstruction, von der Leyen announces on X. Philipp von Ditfurth/dpa

The European Union is sending Ukraine 1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in aid on Friday, financed by the proceeds of Russian assets frozen in the EU, to be spent on defence and reconstruction, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on X.

"Today we transfer 1.5 billion in proceeds from immobilised Russian assets to the defence and reconstruction of Ukraine," von der Leyen said. "There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlins money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live."

EU foreign ministers approved the payments in late June.

The aid is financed by the proceeds - such as interest - from the assets, but not by the underlying assets themselves, which remain frozen. Ninety percent of the money will fund military aid, while 10% will go directly to Ukraine as financial aid.
The EU transferred Ukraine 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) of profits from frozen Russian assets, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on July 26.

The funds will be used to support the "defense and reconstruction of Ukraine," von der Leyen said.

"There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlin's money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live."

Ukraine's Western partners and other allies froze around $300 billion in Russian assets at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Roughly two-thirds are held in the Belgium-based financial services company Euroclear.

EU ambassadors agreed in May to use the windfall profits from the frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine's reconstruction and defense needs. Kyiv is expected to receive roughly 3 billion euros ($3.2 billion) every year, according to earlier discussions.

While some Group of Seven (G7) members, such as the U.S., proposed seizing Russian assets outright, the EU has been more hesitant, fearing the legal and fiscal pitfalls of confiscation. Instead, Brussels seeks to use windfall profits generated by the frozen assets and funnel them to Kyiv.

Read also: Opinion: Why arguments against using Russian assets for Ukraine dont hold water

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
KYODO NEWS - Jul 26, 2024 - 20:19 | All, Japan

Japan's nuclear regulators concluded Friday that the Tsuruga No. 2 reactor does not meet stricter safety rules imposed after the Fukushima crisis, saying that a fault running underneath the offline unit could be active.

It is the first time the Nuclear Regulation Authority has effectively decided not to approve a plan to restart an idled reactor under post-Fukushima regulations. The nuclear disaster was triggered by a powerful earthquake and ensuing tsunami that hit northeastern Japan in March 2011.

Japan Atomic Power Co., the operator of the Tsuruga nuclear power plant in the central prefecture of Fukui, requested that regulators continue their safety assessment during their meeting. It applied in 2015 to restart the reactor.

"We will conduct additional research. We are not thinking of scrapping" the unit, Japan Atomic Power President Mamoru Muramatsu told reporters in Mihama, Fukui.

In quake-prone Japan, establishing nuclear plants or other important facilities directly above faults is prohibited under the new safety rules.

In May 2013, geological experts for the NRA stated that a fault running underneath the No. 2 reactor was active, but Japan Atomic Power applied for a safety review in November 2015, rejecting their claims.

The assessment process for the reactor has been rocky, with the regulator having faced a temporary two-year suspension after it was revealed the operator had submitted documents with over 1,000 inaccuracies and rewritten data without approval.

The review process was suspended again in April 2023 over faulty documents presented by the operator.

The Tsuruga nuclear plant is a two-unit complex, with the No. 1 reactor set to be scrapped.

The No. 2 reactor, which started commercial operations in February 1987, went offline in May 2011.

Related coverage:

Japan completes 7th round of Fukushima treated water discharge

2 central Japan nuclear reactors get 20-year service extension
Rocky road: Dynamite is used to free the passage of the line between Carentan and Cherbourg, which was destroyed by the Germans

In France, as elsewhere, the railways have always been an easy target for criminals, saboteurs, terrorists and other miscreants. Its not difficult to work out why. The tracks stretch for thousands of miles, sprawling across changing landscapes, unprotected for long distances save for easily mountable fences. No police force or CCTV system can fully guard over this vast infrastructure.

So while todays brazen assault on the French network, just hours before the Olympics officially open in Paris, is no doubt shocking, it is not entirely surprising or without precedent. In fact, the history of the countrys railways is marked by similar malicious episodes. France is particularly vulnerable both because of the importance of trains to its transport infrastructure but also down to the French penchant for social disruption.

SNCF employees inspect the scene of a suspected attack on the high speed railway network at Croiselles, northern France, on Friday - DENIS CHARLET/AFP

Taking that into account, the perpetrators of this clearly well organised series of attacks, which saw signals along the tracks set on fire and cables severed, can be regarded as the direct descendants of the saboteurs who wreaked far greater havoc on the system in the run-up to D-Day.

French rail workers, fondly and universally known as les cheminots, were under pressure to undermine the running of the train service as soon as the Germans invaded in 1940. Initially, there was some reluctance to fall into line because the network was needed to ensure French people could be fed. But gradually, as the German occupation became ever more repressive, increasing numbers of cheminots joined the fight, enlisting with Resistance-Fer, the organisation through which they coordinated their anti-Nazi activities. Their efforts were synchronised by announcements on the BBC and supported by the RAF, who dropped explosives and other supplies by parachute.

As D-Day approached, a scheme to sabotage the whole French railway network named Plan Vert, was drawn up in order to ensure the railways could not be used by the Germans to bring reinforcements to the beaches and push the Allied forces back into the sea. This endeavour climaxed on the night before the Normandy Landings, and was supported by the Allied air forces Transportation Plan, itself a misnomer as it was actually a scheme to destroy the railways. The twin efforts of the Resistance and the bombers paid off. By D-Day, on June 6 1944, the French rail network had been reduced to a series of disconnected lines, greatly hampering German efforts to call in reserve troops with soldiers forced to march or ride bicycles to the front instead.

Soldiers repair a destroyed railway bridge in Normandy during the Second Word War - Boyer

Most of these acts of impairment required the involvement of the cheminots because undermining the system effectively relied on their technical knowledge of it. Todays TGV attackers appeared to borrow from their playbook, targeting cabling for signalling and telecommunications, knowing this would cause maximum damage without risking lives.

There may be political parallels too. The cheminots in WW2 were dominated by the Left though the group also attracted many of Charles de Gaulles moderate supporters. Some security sources have suggested that the extreme gauche (far Left) may also be involved in todays attacks, perhaps operating in cahoots with Russia or Iran. Given the polarisation of French politics, extremists from either end of the political spectrum could be implicated.

That is a wider point of concern. But due to their inherent vulnerability, railways are fundamentally dependent on societal trust and cohesion. In a world where these unifying forces are weakening, we can expect more such incidents.

By quickly diverting services, Frances state-owned railway company SNCF has shown that tracks can be surprisingly flexible and reasonably easy to patch back together. This resilience has been amply demonstrated in war-torn Ukraine where train punctuality and cancellations are better than ours.

The bad guys may disrupt railways but they will never be able to stop them.

Christian Wolmar is the author of The Liberation Line, the last untold story of the Normandy landings, recently published by Atlantic Books, 25

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.
Ticket holders hoping to travel from the UK to the Olympic Games in Paris have had their plans ruined after Eurostar was forced to cancel services following arson attacks on the French railway network.

Many Team GB fans claimed they did not find out their trains to the citys Gare du Nord station had been axed until they arrived ready for departure at St Pancras Station in London.

Others said they received notifications and text messages just a few hours before they were due to board.

In a statement earlier on Friday, Eurostar confirmed it would be cancelling one in four services across its network on Saturday and Sunday.

The company blamed the co-ordinated malicious acts in France affecting the high-speed line between Paris and Lille.

Eurostar operates approximately 14 London to Paris services a day, each with a capacity of up to 894 passengers.

By 5pm on Friday, three services from London to Paris had been cancelled, with other trips taking up to 90 minutes longer than scheduled because the trains had to be diverted along a different line.

Eurostar advised passengers to postpone their trips on Frances high-speed rail network in light of the disruption.

Among those affected was Toby Morris, whose friend had gifted him Eurostar tickets worth 250 and seats for the boxing at the Olympics on Saturday.

However, his 4.31pm train from London was cancelled and staff told him he would not be able to get on another service that day.

Speaking to The Telegraph shortly before 2pm, Mr Morris said: I saw a notification on my phone about an hour and a half ago, but then the live timetable wasnt updated.

I thought Id come here to try my chances, but theyve said I definitely cant get on another train today, so I just wont be able to go now.

Other affected passengers joined long queues in the hope of boarding other trains.

Among them was Cecile Coleman, an Olympics volunteer, who received a text message alerting her to her trains cancellation less than three hours before it was due to depart.

Fortunately, she was able to book a seat on another train on Saturday evening but said it would disrupt her plans to collect her accreditation for the Games.

The 52-year-old told The Telegraph: I am meant to be looking after the athletes once they have been presented with their medals.

I was a bit disappointed [with the cancellation], but fortunately, I was able to sort it out with my insurance.

Ms Coleman, a French national, added: Ill have to reorganise everything in terms of picking up accreditation, but Im sure I wont be the only one who is in this position.

Gare du Nord: Passengers crowd around an information desk on Friday morning - James Loader/PA

Those due to travel on cancelled services were offered alternative options, including seats on other services if available and ticket refunds, but not for booking fees.

However, even those on trains that did depart faced delays and further problems in France amid ongoing issues affecting the countrys domestic rail services, with some passengers forced to book taxis instead.

After getting up at 4am to fly to London from Cork, Ireland, Mary McCarthy said she was very annoyed to find out about the one-hour-and-a-half delay to her arrival time in France.

The retired teacher and her daughter had planned to travel onwards by train from Gare du Nord to their accommodation at Center Parcs Paris.

Retired teacher Mary McCarthy said she was 'very annoyed' by the disruption

However, the pair faced having to book a one-hour taxi ride from the station instead.

Im not sure how much it will cost, Im hoping they wont be more expensive because of the demand, she told The Telegraph.

The equestrian fan, who is due to watch cross-country eventing on Sunday, added: Its all out of Eurostars hands, so I wouldnt have thought we would get compensation.

Agnes Pannier-Runacher, a French politician, views the damage to railway infrastructure in Croisilles, northern France - Brian Snyder/Reuters

A Eurostar spokesman said: Due to co-ordinated malicious acts in France affecting the high-speed line between Paris and Lille, all high-speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today, Friday July 26.

This extends the journey time up to an hour and a half. Eurostar expects this situation will last until Monday morning.

Today, [Friday] Eurostar will cancel 25 per cent of its trains. [This] will also be the case on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28.

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.
DUBLIN, Calif. (KRON)  An ex-federal prison guard who was dubbed by inmates as, Dirty Dick Smith, is facing a potential life prison sentence after more alleged victims came forward.

Prosecutors said Darrell Wayne Smith, 53, sexually abused five female inmates while he worked as a correctional officer at Federal Correctional Institute Dublin in the East Bay. Smith is part of a sweeping sex abuse scandal involving several guards that led to the entire prison being shutdown indefinitely this year.

Smith is named in court documents by his legal name, as well as his nickname, Dirty Dick Smith. The U.S. Department of Justice charged Smith with 12 counts, including aggravated sex abuse, last year. This week, a federal grand jury charged Smith with 15 counts for crimes that allegedly occurred inside the all-women prison.

The defendants alleged actions are some of the most disturbing charges weve seen for a former federal corrections officer, said FBI Executive Assistant Director Michael Nordwall. Sexual abuse scars everyone who survives it.

The now-shuttered prison is located across the street from Alameda Countys Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. Its former warden, Ray Garcia, was convicted last year for abusing his power and encouraging a rape club culture.

A federal grand jury issued a superseding indictment filed against Smith Thursday.

As alleged, Officer Daryl Smith engaged in appalling criminal acts when he sexually abused those in his care and custody, said U.S. Dept. of Justice Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.

The 15 charges against Smith allege he sexually abused multiple inmates over several years, including brazen and violent acts. The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General is committed to aggressively investigating allegations of abuse at FCI Dublin and across the Federal Bureau of Prisons, said Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

Smiths charged sexual conduct is now alleged to have begun as early as August 2016, and continued until 2021. The charges include six counts of sexual abuse of a ward, seven counts of abusive sexual contact, one count of aggravated sexual abuse, and one count of deprivation of rights under color of law.

Smith currently lives in Florida. His jury trial is scheduled to begin on March 17, 2025 with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers for the Northern District of California presiding. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of life in prison for each count of aggravated sexual abuse and deprivation of rights under color of law, the U.S. Justice Department wrote.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4.
Joy Phillips, an ex-detective with the Elkhart Police Department, is suing them, alleging the department and several officers forced her to sign an illegal search warrant and then retaliated against her. She says they ultimately ruined her reputation after she refused to commit what she said was unlawful misconduct.Photo taken Friday, July 26, 2024.

An ex-detective for the Elkhart Police Department is suing her former employer and several police officers, accusing them of taking away her livelihood and ruining her reputation after she refused to sign what she believed to be a bogus search warrant.

Joy Phillips, who worked for the department for six years, accuses the agency of discriminating and retaliating against her. She also alleges the retaliation continued after she testified publicly about the misconduct she witnessed.

"There's not a word big enough to express the amount of corruption" in the police department, Phillips said, "and how it's being allowed to continue and how it seems like everyday is not a big deal."

Misconduct on tape: Ex-Elkhart police officer to serve year in prison after punching handcuffed suspect in 2018

Phillips also names as defendants Police Chief Dan Milanese, former Police Chief Kris Seymore, Elkhart County Prosecutor Vicki Becker and eight police officers.

The case is one of three lawsuits filed in recent days by the same law firm alleging various misconduct by city and county officials.

What happened to Joy is consistent with the pattern of misconduct that has permeated the Elkhart Police Department for decades: systemic misconduct clouded by a code of silence, said Phillips attorney, Elliot Slosar of the Chicago law firm Loevy & Loevy.

Elliot Slosar, an attorney for the Chicago firm Loevy u0026 Loevy, has filed multiple lawsuits against the Elkhart Police Department and has represented several people who were convicted in Elkhart but were later exonerated.

In a statement to IndyStar, Corinne Straight, a spokesperson for the city and the mayors office, said she cannot yet comment on the allegations.

Once the City is served and has an opportunity to probe these allegations, the City will likely have a lot to say, Straight said. But these are lawsuits; and lawsuits, are tried in a court of law, not the press, notwithstanding the tactic of some attorneys to do otherwise.

I would encourage the Star to follow the litigation, attend the court proceedings, and cover these matters in the courts where the law and rules of evidence test the truthfulness of the claims that are today, mere allegations, Straight added.

Becker, who was elected prosecutor in 2016, said shes unable to comment outside the judicial process.

Legal fights: Elkhart prosecutor accused of misconduct for her court arguments contradicting each other

A burglary investigation or sham?

Phillips began working for the Elkhart Police Department in 2016 and was later promoted to sex crimes detective. According to her complaint, which was filed earlier this month in federal court in South Bend, she had exemplary performance reviews during most of her time at the agency and twice became a candidate for police chief.

But a series of events that began in July 2022 and ended with her firing almost a year later turned her life and career upside down, the complaint says.

Phillips said she was an on-call detective the day she received a call asking her to assist in an investigation involving a Cadillac that crashed in a parking lot. She was told the vehicle was tied to a burglary of a nearby building. But Phillips said she there were no witnesses or surveillance footage. The two men in the car, who were taken to the hospital, later said they crashed in the parking lot because they were being shot at, and they didn't know anything about a burglary, Phillips explained.

A woman, whose father owns the building and had a key to the property, told police there was no forced entry and nothing was stolen, Phillips recalled. The woman also said, according to Phillips, that she didn't see the two men inside her father's building.

"There was nothing there," Phillips said, "It was a nothing sandwich."

The case of Keith Cooper: Keith Cooper reaches $7.5 million settlement with Elkhart Indiana over wrongful conviction

But Phillips alleges that two of the defendants, Sgt. Brandon Roundtree and Capt. Andrew Whitmyer, told her to sign a search warrant to investigate the alleged burglary.

"I said, 'You can't make me do anything illegal, unethical or immoral,'" said Phillips, adding that three other detectives had refused to sign the warrant. "I said, 'I'm willing to take the write-up for it.'"

Roundtree, according to the complaint, threatened that Phillips would be demoted. Whitmyer allegedly lashed out, telling her to "stop protecting f------ crackheads!"

Phillips was later disciplined. During a hearing before the police department's disciplinary board, Phillips said, she defended her actions and presented the board with evidence of misconduct by other officers. Body camera footage that Phillips obtained showed that a police officer had "forced open" the door to the property where the burglary had supposedly occurred and that officer had fabricated details in his police report, Phillips alleges.

"I explained to them everything, all the illegal stuff that I saw, and how there was no probable cause," Phillips said. "There's no crime committed, and that they would do well to investigate their officers. Because this is garbage."

Phillips was suspended for three days  an action that she said was a retaliation for blowing the whistle. She challenged the suspension through the grievance process and appeared at two hearings in October 2022 before the Board of Public Safety.

Justice or vengeance: At 18, she killed 6 in fire. Will Cindy White, now 66, die in prison?

Police officials defend their actions

During one of the hearings, Roundtree pushed back against Phillips' claims that the search warrant was unjustified.

"Based on the information that I knew from previous cases being reported, I felt as the supervisor there was enough to obtain the search warrant," Roundtree testified.

Seymore, who was the police chief at that time, also defended the department, saying Phillips' allegations were not true.

'A little overboard': In 2018, then-Elkhart chief lied to Board of Public Safety about officers' misconduct

"Policy was not broken. Policy was followed," Seymore testified, according to ABC 57. "I have suspended captains for violating policy. And I have removed professional standard investigators for not following policy. So, to insinuate that I would stand idly by and allow policies to be broken by the very people that I've appointed, flies in the face of everything that I've sworn since day one."

Shortly after the hearings, Phillips said, she received a bad review accusing her of "unacceptable performance." Police officers filed complaints against Phillips accusing her of improperly obtaining and improperly releasing investigatory information.

Elkhart County Prosecutor Vicki Becker has expressed concerns about former Det. Joy Phillips' honesty. Phillips has now sued Becker and several current and former Elkhart police officers, alleging they retaliated against her after she tried to expose police misconduct.

Becker, the county prosecutor, also wrote a letter to then-Police Chief Seymore, citing concerns over supervisors testimonies about Phillips during the Board of Public Safety hearings. Becker wrote that testimonies from three supervisors would lead a reasonable person to believe that Detective Phillips has a reputation for dishonesty.

This puts my Office is a particularly hindered position, Becker wrote,  if we have to call Detective Phillips as a material witness in a criminal proceeding, her credibility is tainted, and we must disclose this fact to the defense in any pending matter.

Phillips, who also accuses Becker of conspiring to retaliate against her, was placed on an indefinite administrative leave in November 2022. As she was leaving, Phillips alleged, the defendants kept her from getting out of her office and the building until they inspected her backpack and she turned over a personal audio recorder.

The Indiana State Police investigated the incident and recommended criminal confinement charges against the officers. No charges were filed. Phillips has requested a special prosecutor to investigate.

In 2023, the Elkhart Police Merit Commission voted to fire her after what Phillips described as a "sham proceeding."

"The things that happened to me shouldn't happen to anybody," Phillips said. "If you were to just hear this story, you would think it's so far fetched and outlandish that it would never be allowed, when every part of it is true."

Overturned convictions: The DNA didn't match. The witnesses weren't sure. But the prosecution persisted.

A previous lawsuit against South Bend

This is not the first time Phillips sued a former employer.

She began her law enforcement career in 1999 with the South Bend Police Department and resigned 2016 amid internal and legal disputes between her and South Bend police officials.

In 2017, a federal jury ruled after a four-day trial that the South Bend Police Department unlawfully retaliated against Phillips by targeting her for disciplinary actions after she filed a complaint against the agency. A federal judge later ordered the city to pay Phillips more than $80,000 for lost wages and compensatory damages.

Joy Phillips worked for the South Bend Police Department for nearly 20 years. She left the department in 2016 amid internal and legal disputes with the agency.

Phillips did not comment on the South Bend lawsuit.

Evidence presented during the trial showed that Phillips was disciplined five times in her first 15 years on the job, the South Bend Tribune reported. After 2014, the year she filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she was investigated a dozen times and recommended for discipline in six cases.

Phillips said she originally thought she'd retire as an Elkhart officer, but her termination caused her and her family financial problems.

"I went from being the breadwinner of our family to us having to make some major considerations like moving for the first time and having to sell our home," she said.

Phillips, who is now an officer at a smaller police department, said she's suing to "restore my name, my reputation."

"I still love law enforcement," she said. "I do it for all the right reasons. I like the ability to change someone's life for the better, to feel like you're making an impact for all the positive and right reasons."

The South Bend Tribune 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: Joy Phillips accuses Elkhart Police Department of wrongful termination
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.

A former attorney for the Kansas City Police Department spent Thursday testifying in an effort to keep his law license after he made serious allegations of wrongdoing by the department in late 2022.

Ryan McCarty appeared before a three-member panel after the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel opened a case against him alleging he violated client confidentiality rules. A former city councilwoman and former KCPD sergeant also appeared before the panel, among other witnesses.

McCarty served as assistant general counsel for the police department for about six months  from June 2022 until he was fired on Dec. 7, 2022.

When he was no longer an employee, McCarty sent out an 8-page letter unleashing allegations about malfeasance in the departments Office of General Counsel, or OGC. He claimed his boss withheld public records and suppressed potentially exculpatory documents in criminal cases. He also alleged there was a toxic work environment where he was subjected to demeaning treatment. People of color were also targeted, he said.

McCarty said he had a constitutional duty to raise the issues, which he considered to be at a higher level than the rules set out for attorney conduct. He also said he believed the action taken to have his law license potentially revoked was retaliation.

At the time, he sent the letter to over 140 email addresses, including the Jackson County Prosecutors Office, the Board of Police Commissioners, members of the U.S. Department of Justice, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and the media. It was accompanied by hundreds of pages of what appeared to be police department documents and correspondence.

The Board of Police Commissioners that oversees the department said it was going to hire a law firm to investigate the allegations.

In May 2023, the board said McCartys claims were not accurate.

The allegations, which were written on falsified letterhead, are based on incomplete facts and misconstrue the KCPDs practices, the board said in a statement. However, no reports or documents have been released showing the investigations findings.

When asked for comment Friday, the department referred back to the boards May 2023 statement and said it had nothing further to add.

There is a culture of fear

McCarty said he was alarmed from day one at the police department after it was proposed that emails be purged after six months.

As his employment continued, he saw what he said were egregious practices.

Those related to complaints made by employees as well as the handling of Sunshine requests and the turning over of exculpatory or impeachment evidence on criminal cases, which are required under the Brady and Giglio U.S. Supreme Court cases. Information that favors a defendant has to be disclosed under the Brady rule.

When McCarty raised concerns, he said he was rebuffed by his supervisor Holly Dodge, who has since left the agency. She did not respond to a request for comment. He alleges that the more he brought up issues, the more Dodge shut him out of his responsibilities.

Tim McClure was with the police department for 28 years before retiring last August. As a sergeant in the OGC, he said there was absolutely a hostile work environment under Dodge.

Five people made formal employment complaints related to discrimination or harassment. McClure was not one of those five. He said the internal human resources process was a sham and a waste of time.

McClure said McCartys firing was carried out just under the wire by former Interim Chief Joseph Mabin. He didnt believe things would have gone the same way under Chief Stacey Graves, who was named chief a week after McCarty was forced out.

McCarty said there is a culture of fear about submitting a complaint. When someone speaks up, he said, they have a target on their back. The toxicity in the OGC, he also said was palpable.

Did department hide information?

In the letter McCarty sent out days after he was terminated, he said Dodge wrongly stepped in to choose which police documents to hand over to prosecutors in response to requests for material in criminal cases that could prove a persons guilt or impeach the credibility of witnesses  including police officers.

During the hearing on Thursday, McCarty brought up the case of Keith Carnes, who spent 18 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. His conviction was thrown out by the Missouri Supreme Court, which concluded that an eyewitness account was not disclosed to Carnes defense team, in what is known as a Brady violation. Carnes filed a lawsuit against KCPD alleging misconduct, which remains ongoing in federal court.

McCarty said he also grew concerned about how Sunshine requests were being handled.

While he was still employed, he decided to submit an open records request as a private citizen to see what would happen. He got a saying his request would take 2.5 hours at a cost of $65 an hour  more than what he was earning. When he questioned that, he said it was arbitrarily reduced to one hour.

McCarty went on to reference a Sunshine lawsuit filed a week after he was fired that alleged violations. Last month, a Jackson County judge found that the department violated two parts of the Sunshine law. He said the hourly rate was improperly calculated and that the department could not charge for time spent reviewing and redacting records under the law. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday.

There were systemic and ongoing violations of the law at the Kansas City Police Department, McCarty told the panel.

Whistle blower action

Gail Vasterling, an attorney with the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, said McCartys email contained confidential information about his client, the police department, and he did not have consent to release it. She alleged he violated the Rules of Professional Conduct.

Those are the facts and they are not disputed, she said.

Michael Downey, McCartys attorney, said his email was a whistle blower action.

When he hit send on the email, McCarty said he did not believe he was violating the rules. The information about the workplace environment was not subject to confidentiality, he said.

Vasterling questioned him about other information in the email, including how a warrant was executed at a homeless encampment and a detention issue. McCarty said those were related to his representation of the department but were evidentiary issues of public importance.

The highest authority is the people, he said.

He pointed to an organizational chart posted on the citys website which places the Citizens of Kansas City at the top.

Teresa Loar, who was on the Kansas City Council when McCarty sent out the email, said she met him a handful of times and had lots of questions for him.

Her son was also forced to retire from the police department.

She said she applauds McCartys efforts to get attention about problems in the department and that as a city councilwoman, she understood that its the people who we have to answer to.

Loar also noted that while the department denied McCartys allegations in a statement, no findings from the law firm that was brought in to investigate were ever released. McCarty said he had never been contacted by KCPD about his allegations.

Vasterling noted that his email was sent using KCPD letterhead.

McCarty said if he were doing it all over again, he would do some things differently, like redacting some names. But he would follow my conscience for sure.

Downey noted that McCarty has never had a disciplinary complaint before and had Top Secret clearance when he served in the U.S. Air Force.

I dont take confidentiality lightly, McCarty said.

The panel is expected to issue a decision. Possible options include dismissal, reprimand, probation, suspension or disbarment.
The man suspected of murdering lawmaker and professor Iryna Farion could be involved in the Russian neo-Nazi movement, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies announced during a press briefing on July 26.

An unidentified man opened fire on Farion, 60, on the street outside her home in Lviv on the evening of July 19. She underwent an operation but was pronounced dead later that night.

On July 25, the suspect in the murder of Farion was detained in Dnipro, a city in central-eastern Ukraine, nearly 1,000 kilometers away from Lviv. According to the investigation, the suspect is an 18-year-old resident of Dnipro, Viacheslav Zinchenko.

Apart from potential involvement in the Russian neo-Nazi movement, law enforcement services are also currently investigating the suspect's contacts in Ukraine and the motives for the crime.

Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko added that the investigation does not rule out personal animosity toward Farion as a potential motive.

Read also: Who was Iryna Farion, the nationalist professor-politician assassinated in Lviv?

Zinchenko's phone contained a digital book titled "Secret Instructions of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Committee for State Security on Fact-Gathering, Conspiracy and Disinformation," according to law enforcement.

The suspect's search history on his devices also included the names of other politicians and deputies and the schedule of the regional council meeting.

Law enforcement officials said that the suspect was interested in them after returning to Dnipro, which could potentially mean he could be preparing for another crime.

Zinchenko also prepared a farewell letter in which he asked to explain to his father that he "hid everything from him for his safety, not because he did not trust him."

On July 24, a video allegedly capturing Farion's murder started spreading on Russian social media.

The pro-Kremlin Telegram channel Readovka claimed that the NS/WP (National-Socialism/White Power) group had taken responsibility for Farion's murder. Readovka also described the NS/WP as "neo-Nazi."

The Ukrainian police were examining the claims published on Russian social media, a police spokesperson told the media on the next day.

Law enforcement agencies previously said they do not rule out the involvement of Russian actors in the murder of the former lawmaker and linguist.

Farion was a linguistics professor who previously served in the parliament for the nationalist Svoboda party. She was considered a controversial figure in Ukraine, among other reasons, due to her incendiary statements on the use of the Russian language.

Read also: Thousands mourn slain ex-MP at memorial service in Lviv

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Young voters getting registered on a college campus (Credit: Florida Future Leaders PAC)

Its been less than a week since Kamala Harris became the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, and a Florida Democratic party activist representing young voters says the change at the head of the ticket has absolutely energized that part of the base.

Its a completely different ballgame, said Jayden DOnofrio, who chairs the Florida Future Leaders PAC, a political committee created to fund the Florida High School Democrats and the Florida College Democrats.

And youre already seeing it with the fundraising. Youre seeing it with people trying to volunteer with the campaign, and Im seeing it here in Florida with the amount of people who want to get involved with our caucus, the organizing and the engagement on the ground in Florida.

DOnofrio said on Thursday that his PAC has raised more than $50,000 this month and received more than 200 contributions in just the first 72 hours after Joe Biden endorsed Harris and she became the de facto Democratic nominee (those numbers are not reflected yet on the states Division of Elections, which includes reports up to July 19).

An Axios/Generation Lab survey of 804 voters released Thursday shows Harris leading Donald Trump among voters aged 18-34 by 20 points  60%-40%. Biden, on the other hand, only leads Trump among that demographic by six points, 53%-47%.

Im not surprised to see that, said Brittany Lyssy, president of the Tampa Bay Young Republicans. It was obvious that younger Democrats werent that energized by the 81-year-old Biden, she said.

Polling conducted earlier this year showed a definite trend of Biden losing parts of the traditional Democratic base to Trump, specifically Black, Hispanic, and younger voters. Focusing on the latter, in polls taken in March, the shift from 2020 for adults aged 18-29 was about 13 points toward Trump, even though Biden still led the demographic by 11 points. Among adults aged 18-34, Trump held a slight lead of 1.5 percentage points, according to an aggregation of subgroups complied by former Democratic pollster Adam Carlson.

DOnofrio said that shift in polling doesnt necessarily mean young Democrats werent supportive of Biden but he asserted that younger Democratic voters in Florida are completely in alignment behind Harris.

I dont think its a lack of support for President Biden necessarily; I think that we know that hes a great president, he insisted. Its just that we wanted to see what the president ended up doing, which is passing the torch of leadership to the younger generation.

Vance excites young Republicans

Although Donald Trump is now the oldest candidate in the race at 78, his pick of Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate is exciting to young Republican voters, Lyssy said.

He falls into the category of a Young Republican, she said. Our age range is between 18 to 40, so to see someone whos 39 to be selected for the second-highest office in the United States is very exciting. And its a huge accomplishment for YRs across the country, because weve been fighting to see leadership like us, to see people our age in these offices. And the fact that were going to have a vice president so young is very exciting and it shows that leadership is starting to change.

DOnofrio said the influx of funding to his PAC will allow the hiring of 41 campus organizers in three legislative districts that he hopes to flip from red to blue this November: House District 37 in Central Florida, House District 91 in Palm Beach County, and Senate District 3 in Leon and surrounding counties.

House District 37 was the seat held by then-Democratic incumbent Carlos Guillermo Smith. He lost that contest to Republican Susan Plasencia by just 2,068 votes. DOnofrio said that were approximately 14,000 registered Democrats and NPA voters aged 18-29 did not vote in that election who, with proper motivation, he believes could return the seat to the Democratic fold in November. Democrat Nate Douglas will face Plasencia in the fall.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
By Tom Balmforth

LONDON (Reuters) - Russia has begun including new, cheaply-made drones in its long-range attacks on Ukraine, to try to identify air defences, film any damage and act as decoys, a Ukrainian military spy official said.

The two new types of drone, which Russia has used in five drone attacks in the last two to three weeks including an overnight strike on Thursday, are produced from materials like foam plastic and plywood, the official told Reuters.

One type carries a camera and a Ukrainian mobile phone SIM card to send images back to the Russian military.

"They identify where our mobile groups are positioned, where the machine guns are that can destroy them. They're trying ... to get a picture of where all our air defences are located," said Andriy Cherniak, a military spy agency spokesperson.

The previously unreported details from Cherniak are further evidence of Russia seeking to adapt its tactics and try new technology to gain an edge during its daily missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones, which fly to their target and detonate on impact, have become a staple of Russian aerial attacks since they began being used in the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion launched in February 2022.

Ukraine, which has been appealing to the West to provide more air defences to repel increased Russian airstrikes on its power facilities since March, tries hard to conceal the locations of its air defence systems.

The new Russian drones with cameras do not carry explosives but closely resemble regular Shahed drones and fly with groups of them, Cherniak said.

The second new type of drone contains no explosive charge or only a small one and is being used as a decoy, Cherniak added.

Because it is virtually indistinguishable from a regular attack drone from the ground, it still needs to be shot down, revealing where Ukraine's air defence systems are located.

He said the new drones probably cost as little as $10,000 each despite their long range, making them far cheaper to produce than air defence missiles.

The drones can also fly at an altitude of 1,000 m (3,000 ft), putting them out of range of machine guns and automatic rifles, he said.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has served as a testing ground for drone warfare technology, with both sides using attack and reconnaissance drones on the battlefield extensively. Kyiv has poured energy into domestic drone production to narrow the gap between its strike capabilities and Moscow's, staging long-range drone attacks on Russian targets including oil refineries.

Russia says its long-range aerial attacks are used to degrade Ukraine militarily. Ukraine says Russia's attacks have hit civilian buildings and caused serious damage to civilian energy facilities and loss of civilian life.

Russian troops occupy around 18% of Ukrainian territory and have been making incremental gains in the east in recent months, putting Kyiv on the back foot along a 1,000-km (600-mile) front line.

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth; editing by Mike Collett-White and Philippa Fletcher)
DENVER (KDVR)  San Miguel Search and Rescue aided the Dolores County Sheriffs Team in a search for an overdue hiker on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The San Miguel County Sheriffs Office and Search and Rescue team shared Thursday that an experienced 21-year-old hiker was found dead after a lengthy search on the El Diente  Mount Wilson Ridge. The area is approximately 20 miles southwest of Telluride.

Mans body recovered from Lone Eagle Peak in Grand County

According to the sheriffs office, the man fell approximately 800 vertical feet into the upper Kilpacker Basin while trying to navigate difficult terrain.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Three agencies used airborne assets to try and find the mans body, the San Miguel Sheriffs Office said. His remains were recovered and transferred to the Dolores County Coroner and Sheriffs Office on Wednesday morning, the San Miguel agency reported.

The San Miguel County Sheriffs Office shared photos of a recovery operation on El Diente Peak.

The San Miguel County Sheriffs Office shared photos of a recovery operation on El Diente Peak.

The San Miguel County Sheriffs Office shared photos of a recovery operation on El Diente Peak.

The agency shared its condolences to the hikers family.

The 21-year-old wasnt the only body recovered from Colorados Rocky Mountains on Wednesday. Another mans body was recovered by the Grand County Search and Rescue team near Lone Eagle Peak on Wednesday after he was found dead on Tuesday.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
By Alimat Aliyeva

In the UK, the possibility of developing missiles with a range of up to 3.2 thousand kilometers was discussed, Azernews reports.

According to the information, London is preparing to implement this project together with Berlin. So, during a visit to Germany on July 24, British Defense Minister John Healy discussed with his colleague Boris Pistorius the development of long-range missiles to destroy Russia's nuclear potential.

At the same time, John Healy and Boris Pistorius signed a declaration on military cooperation between London and Berlin. This document is intended to strengthen cooperation between the parties in the field of preparation, production and supply of weapons and ammunition.

These missiles, which will be developed by London and Berlin, may in the future replace cruise missiles that the United States will deploy in Germany. On July 10, the White House press service announced that starting in 2026, the United States will begin deploying new missiles with a longer range in Germany than weapons in Europe.

According to experts, apart from the Trident II ballistic missiles carried on Vanguard-class submarines, the longest-range missile currently in service with the British armed forces are Storm Shadow missiles capable of hitting targets at a distance of about 250 kilometers.
KYODO NEWS - Jul 26, 2024 - 18:04 | World, All, Japan

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa agreed with ASEAN member states on Friday to deepen security and economic cooperation, with China attempting to bolster its clout in nearby waters through a military buildup.

The agreement between Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations comes as Chinese coast guard ships have been recently accused of repeatedly engaging in aggressive activities near disputed shoals in the resource-rich South China Sea.

Tensions in the waters have been escalating, especially since Chinese vessels collided with several Philippine inflatable boats in June, resulting in a Filipino soldier losing a finger. Chinese ships have also used water cannons against Philippine vessels.

During the Japan-ASEAN foreign ministerial meeting in the Lao capital of Vientiane, Kamikawa emphasized the significance of realizing a free and open Indo-Pacific, a vision advocated by Japan in what is seen as a bid to counter China.

With China claiming sovereignty over almost the entire sea, the government led by the ruling Communist Party has rapidly built artificial islands with military infrastructure in the waters, home to some of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

On Friday, Kamikawa and ASEAN countries discussed a wide range of issues, including cybersecurity collaboration, infrastructure, regional trade promotion and people-to-people exchanges, the Japanese Foreign Ministry said.

Kamikawa was also quoted by her ministry as saying that Japan is aiming to work in tandem with ASEAN to train 100,000 highly skilled digital professionals in areas such as artificial intelligence over the next five years.

ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. In Friday's gathering with Japan, the foreign ministers from all member states, except for military-ruled Myanmar, participated.

At their summit in Tokyo in December, which commemorated 50 years of friendship and cooperation, Japan and ASEAN nations confirmed their commitment to strengthening security and economic relations in response to the increasingly severe geopolitical environment.

Regarding security, Kamikawa said at the latest ASEAN meeting that any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by force is "unacceptable" amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine and North Korea's missile and nuclear development, according to the ministry.

Later in the day, Kamikawa also held separate talks with representatives from the Mekong countries -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Viewing the area as geopolitically important, Japan has been trying to enhance cooperation with the Mekong nations, located near the two major regional powers of China and India, as well as vital shipping lanes in the South China Sea.

On the economic front, the Mekong region and Japan will join hands to "enhance resilient and reliable" supply chain networks "based on the principles on transparency," said a statement released after their gathering, apparently with China in mind.

Currently, the production of critical minerals, such as those used in electric vehicles, is concentrated in China and a few other countries, while economic resilience requires de-risking through diversification and reducing overreliance.

In Vientiane on Friday, Kamikawa also held bilateral talks with her counterparts from Laos, this year's ASEAN chair, and Indonesia.

Related coverage:

Japan, China foreign ministers agree to deepen communication

Myanmar to send senior official to ASEAN meeting in Laos: sources

FOCUS: Japan boosting seafood exports to S.E. Asia, U.S. as China keeps ban
An explosion at the Urengoyskoe East oil and gas field in Russia's Arctic Yamal-Nenets region killed at least two person and injured eight others, the Russian state-run media outlet RIA Novosti reported on July 26, citing Rosneft, the state-run oil company that operates the facility.

After the initial reporting that said one had been killed and seven injured, the state-run media outlet TASS updated the number of casualties at 10:26 a.m. local time.

The casualties were reportedly workers at the oil and gas field. Four of the injured were taken to the hospital, said Dmitry Artyukhov, the governor of the region.

Authorities opened a preliminary criminal case into the potential violation of industrial health and safety standards, RIA Novosti said.

At the time of this publication, there was no indication that the explosion was deliberately caused or if there was any Ukrainian or other external involvement.

Ukraine has escalated attacks against Russia's oil industry, successfully reducing the processing capacities of multiple facilities.

While Ukraine has successfully launched attacks deep into Russian territory, the Urengoyskoe East oil and gas field is located some 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) northeast of the Ukrainian border.

Read also: Updated: Ukraine hits Russias Tuapse oil refinery, source confirms

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Editor's note: This story was updated after the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces confirmed the attack on Saky airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea.

The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces confirmed that Ukraine hit Russia's Saky military airfield in occupied Crimea overnight on July 26 following media reports about explosions in the area.

The consequences of the attack are being clarified, the military said.

Following sounds of explosions heard by local residents, a fire was reported at the Saky military airfield in the town of Novofedorivka, western Crimea, the Telegram channel Crimean Wind reported.

The fire was allegedly caused by a strike on an ammunition depot at the airfield, according to Crimean Wind.

Russia uses the Saky airfield to control the airspace, in particular over the Black Sea, and to launch air strikes on Ukrainian territory, according to the General Staff's statement.

"The airfield was covered by 'modern' Russian air defense systems, which once again failed to protect an important Russian military facility," the General Staff said.

Earlier in the night, around 1 a.m. local time, multiple explosions were reported by residents in the western communities of Dobrushino, Novoozerne, as well as the city of Yevpatoria. Explosions were also heard in the southern city of Simferopol.

Residents reported seeing drones in the area of the reported explosions. Local occupation authorities in Sevastopol also reported Ukrainian drones overhead, as well as the threat of ballistic missiles in the region.

The occupied peninsula has been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian drone and naval strikes, forcing Russian forces to withdraw much of its naval power and beef up air defenses.

A Ukrainian attack on occupied Crimea on July 23 resulted in a ferry used by Russian forces to transport military equipment being "seriously damaged," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported.

Read also: Russia reportedly fortifies Kerch Bridge in occupied Crimea

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Explosions rock Crimea: Saky airfield on fire, ammunition blows up there  video

A threat of ballistic missile attack was issued in temporarily occupied Crimea on the night of 25-26 July. Explosions were heard in Novofedorivka, near Okunivka and Simferopol.

Source: Krymskiy Veter ("Crimean Wind"), a local Telegram channel

Details: Local residents reported a fire at the Saky airfield in Novofedorivka, and the detonation of ammunition was also heard there.

   pic.twitter.com/xoVqySLuZm     (@ukrpravda_news) July 26, 2024

In addition, powerful explosions were heard in the area of Okunivka and Simferopol.

Local occupation authorities also reported a UAV attack on Sevastopol.

Support UP or become our patron!
This article was originally published in New Hampshire Bulletin.

Even after the exams and papers are done, students at New Hampshires community colleges have sometimes faced another headache: credit transfers.

Across the states public higher education systems, not all completed courses at a community college are helpful for a given degree at a public four-year college or university. A student pursuing an engineering degree, for instance, might learn too late that the algebra-based physics course they took in community college is less useful toward their four-year degree than a calculus-based course.

It can be a vexing problem, requiring a student to pay for credits they didnt think they needed.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

The large private online college in Manchester will take everything, said Stephen Appleby, director of educator support and higher education at the New Hampshire Department of Education, referring to Southern New Hampshire University. So how do our public colleges compete when theyre turning away credits and one of their competitors is accepting every credit?

College administrators have been working in recent years to strengthen those course pathways and eliminate confusion. But its one of several processes state officials say need to be improved to take on a growing problem for state-run colleges: Costs are too high and not enough students are attending.

New Hampshire colleges continue to face major demographic challenges. High school graduating classes continue to shrink on average. And annual enrollment across New Hampshire state-run colleges and universities has fallen from 31,307 students in 2019 to 27,056 in 2023.

This year, public colleges and universities are being pressed into action. Gov. Chris Sununu signed a law July 12, House Bill 1450, requiring the University System of New Hampshire and the Community College System of New Hampshire to follow a series of recommendations from a task force convened by the governor last year.

The main objective: increasing consolidation.

The task force had 90 days to try to increase enrollment and decrease costs, and it came away with a clear conclusion. New Hampshires public colleges and universities and its community colleges will need to combine resources and scale back in the coming years.

The school systems are not merging  lawmakers abandoned that idea, proposed by Sununu in 2021, after pushback from faculty of the community college system who feared layoffs. But they are coordinating, officials say.

A push toward alignment

Enrollment challenges are not unique to the Granite State. Nationwide, colleges are closing at a rate of one per week, according to Appleby. We think thats going to continue to accelerate the next few years, he said.

But while areas of the country such as Florida, Texas, and Arizona are growing, enrollment problems are particularly acute in the Northeast and Midwest. Were not high-growth areas of the country, and our populations are aging, Appleby said.

Some states are already choosing to consolidate. Alaska, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Vermont are among the states that have tried a similar approach with their state-run community colleges and higher education institutions.

Those states have gone down this road of saying, Okay, we cant sustain cost and enrollments, Appleby said.

Now its New Hampshires turn, Appleby and others say. Working with a Boulder, Colorado-based organization known as the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, the New Hampshire task force came up with a number of recommendations to carry out the idea  some that would require funding and legislative approval and others that could be done more quickly.

In the short-term category, the committee recommended that the two systems align their credits so community college students can transfer more of their coursework into the four-year colleges and universities. They suggested a fast-tracked admissions process where community college students with a certain GPA could automatically enroll in a USNH college. They also proposed a similar process where a high school student with a certain GPA could easily enter a community college.

Other ideas included recruiting employers who agree to help graduates with loan repayments if they are hired, and consolidating the entire community college system into one entity with one accreditation.

Among the longer-term ideas: further merging the community college and public higher education system under one chancellor and one governing board; eliminating duplicate courses between the two systems to reduce competition; and expanding online instruction.

Different challenges, advantages

Though aligned on the goal of boosting enrollment, the problems for the university system and community college system are different.

For the University System of New Hampshire, whose colleges include the University of New Hampshire, Plymouth State University, and Keene State College, the problem is existential: Fewer students are going to high school in New Hampshire, and fewer high school graduates are going into college.

Beyond the basic demographic challenges accompanying more than 20 years of dropping K-12 enrollment, young adults are concerned about cost and debt, and are gravitating toward online options or alternative career paths, noted Catherine Provencher, chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire, in an interview.

The result is that colleges  both public and private  are not only competing against each other for students but also attempting to sell students on the concept of college itself. Provencher said USNH is largely working to stabilize its student population now, about 50 percent of whom are from out of state.

Increasing enrollment in this environment? That might not be realistic, she said.

In contrast, the community college system may be better poised to adapt to toughening economic conditions, noted Mark Rubinstein, the chancellor of the CCSNH and a member of the task force, in an interview.

Community colleges are less dependent on high school graduates and cater more to working adults, who may be more likely to seek higher education training during downturns. And community colleges, which are less residential-based, can meet students needs geographically, allowing them to maintain families and jobs outside of classes.

Part of the way that were envisioning the future is that with technology changing, with industries changing, with the circumstances in individual peoples lives causing them to want to alter directions, we anticipate that although the number of 18-year-olds can only grow as fast as as the number of newborns arise, that the number of adults who will need education and will want to pursue new pathways is likely to grow significantly, Rubinstein said.

Many of the consolidation moves are centered around defensive actions to stop state-run colleges and universities from losing more money, Appleby says. While the University System of New Hampshire has frozen tuition for in-state students for the past six years, administrative costs have continued to climb. Finding savings will allow USNH to hold off on future tuition hikes and maintain financial aid options even as expenses grow.

Clear pathways

Administrators arent just trying to stanch the financial bleeding. Theyre also trying to build enthusiasm.

One approach is by increasing industry involvement with the colleges. If Im a high schooler, a young adult, and I know that if I go through this program at Manchester Community College or at Keene State (College) and then on the other end is a job waiting for me it makes it a lot more likely Im going to go through the program, said Appleby.

Clear roadmaps for community college students thinking about four-year college could help too, officials say. Following a law passed in 2022, USNH and CCSNH have coordinated to develop 50 different transfer pathways for community college students, according to a report to lawmakers this month.

Those pathways delineate exactly which community college courses they should sign up for in order to have the smoothest transition to their intended bachelors degree if they choose to transfer to a four-year college. A student interested in working in the biotechnology industry, for instance, could follow one of the pathways to enroll in the exact community college chemistry, microbiology, and physics courses they need to finish the degree seamlessly at the University of New Hampshire.

Another tactic is to streamline the college-going experience for students  even before they reach adulthood. Thats where the Early College At Your High School program comes in. Previously known as Running Start, the program allows high school students to take college courses in high school, allowing them to obtain credits and cut down on costs later on. For students, two courses are free; subsequent courses are $150 each.

There may be a whole cohort of students in high school right now that havent thought about going to college, said Provencher. But if we can have clear pathways for students and joint communication  there are opportunities for those students to get some credits in high school, maybe get a lot of credits in high school, go on to the community college system, and then go on to the university system.

New Hampshire Bulletin is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Hampshire Bulletin maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Dana Wormald for questions: info@newhampshirebulletin.com. Follow New Hampshire Bulletin on Facebook and X.
Fact Check: Kamala Harris Failed Her Bar Exam on First Try

Claim:

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris failed the California bar exam on her first attempt, soon after she graduated law school in 1989.

Rating:

Rating: True

Context:

Harris eventually succeeded in the bar exam and was admitted to the California bar in 1990, a year after she graduated law school.

On July 24, 2024, at a campaign rally, former U.S. President Donald Trump attacked Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic frontrunner for president, on her lawyer credentials. Trump claimed she was a "lousy student" and "couldn't pass her bar exams."

Donald Trump, who has never passed a bar exam, attacks Kamala Harris for failing the bar exam on her first attempt despite her passing it on the next attempt:



Lousy student...She couldnt pass her bar exams. pic.twitter.com/FV3v5q4Gd4  Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) July 24, 2024

A number of posts on X discussed Harris' credentials, questioning why she became a prosecutor and later attorney general of California after having failed her bar exam.

Im voting for the guy who raised the bar. pic.twitter.com/JUiZM0ERRH  Jake Slade (@JakeSladeUSA) July 25, 2024

Harris did fail the California bar exam on her first attempt but she later passed and was admitted to the California bar in 1990, just a year after she graduated. As such, we rate this claim as "True" with added context.

The bar exam is a qualifying written exam administered by a jurisdiction for lawyers to practice law in that particular state.

According to a 2016 New York Times profile of Harris about her Senate campaign, she did fail the bar exam on her first try. Harris described consoling a recent law graduate who did not make it either: "[Harris] failed the bar exam the first time she took it. Harris says she recently consoled a young law graduate who also didn't pass; 'I told her, it's not a measure of your capacity.'"

Harris was admitted to the bar in June 1990 according to the State Bar of California records. She graduated from the University of California Hastings school of law in 1989.

The California bar exam has been described as notoriously difficult. According to the Los Angeles Times there was an only 41.8% pass rate in 1985. In July 1989, according to the Los Angeles Times, 59.5% of people passed and won the right to practice law from the July 1989 exams, and the pass rate was 72.2% among the 4,909 people taking the exam for the first time. In February 1990, the likely date Harris took the bar exam for a second time, the pass rate was 45.9%.

Only 33.9% of people passed the February 2024 general bar exam.

Sources:

"Bar Examination." LII / Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/bar_examination. Accessed 26 July 2024.

Bazelon, Emily. "Kamala Harris, a 'Top Cop' in the Era of Black Lives Matter." The New York Times, 25 May 2016. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/magazine/kamala-harris-a-top-cop-in-the-era-of-black-lives-matter.html. Accessed 26 July 2024.

"General Bar Examination Pass Rate Summary." The State Bar of California, http://www.calbar.ca.gov/About-Us/News/News-Releases/state-bar-releases-results-of-february-2024-bar-exam. Accessed 26 July 2024.

"Kamala Devi Harris # 146672." Attorney Licensee Search. https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/attorney/Licensee/Detail/146672. Accessed 26 July 2024.

Kepley, John. "UC Law SF Congratulates Kamala Harris '89: California's next U.S. Senator." UC Law San Francisco (Formerly UC Hastings), 9 Nov. 2016, https://uclawsf.edu/2016/11/09/uc-hastings-congratulates-kamala-harris-89-californias-next-u-s-senator/. Accessed 26 July 2024.

Oliver, Myrna. "41.8% Pass Rate Baffles Experts : Legal Profession Frets as Bar Exam Failures Soar." Los Angeles Times, 20 Jan. 1985, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-01-20-mn-10438-story.html. Accessed 26 July 2024.

"PASSING THE BAR EXAM." Los Angeles Times, 3 Mar. 1990, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-03-03-me-1540-story.html. Accessed 26 July 2024.

"State Bar Releases Results of February 2024 Bar Exam." The State Bar of California, http://www.calbar.ca.gov/About-Us/News/News-Releases/state-bar-releases-results-of-february-2024-bar-exam. Accessed 26 July 2024.

"Trump Turns His Focus to Harris at His First Rally after Biden's Exit from the 2024 Race." NBC News, 25 July 2024, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-turns-focus-harris-first-rally-bidens-exit-2024-race-rcna163496. Accessed 26 July 2024.

"Trump Turns His Full Focus on Harris at His First Rally since Biden's Exit from the 2024 Race." AP News, 24 July 2024, https://apnews.com/article/trump-charlotte-north-carolina-harris-7c7e6e405fecc8927a63763c76f2db1e. Accessed 26 July 2024.

Updates:

July 29, 2024: The story was updated with the pass rate from the February 1990 bar exam.
The mother of a man killed during a traffic stop in Kansas City, Kansas, last year has filed a lawsuit against the local government, saying her son was unarmed and posed no threat to police when an officer fatally shot him in his car.

Amareeya Henderson, of Kansas City, was killed in April 2023 after an officer jumped onto the doorframe of his vehicle to prevent Henderson from leaving a traffic stop, according to the lawsuit, filed Friday in the Kansas City, Kansas office of the U.S. District of Kansas.

Lawyers for Pauletta Johnson, his mother, allege the officer fired blindly into the vehicle  while Hendersons girlfriend was in the passenger seat  and had put himself in danger. He killed the 25-year-old when there were other, safer courses of action available, the lawsuit says.

A vehicle departing a traffic stop does not give a police officer an ongoing license to kill an unthreatening citizen, lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, adding that there was never so much as an allegation Henderson was armed with any type of weapon and that he was not wanted for a crime.

Named as defendants in the lawsuit are the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, the police department and Officer Austin Schuler.

Nancy Chartrand, a Kansas City, Kansas, police spokeswoman, said Friday in response to The Stars request for comment that the officer remains employed at the department after being cleared in local and federal investigations.

Both the Wyandotte County District Attorneys Office and the Department of Justice reviewed the facts of the case and determined that criminal charges against Officer Schuler were not warranted, she said in a statement.

Krystal McFeders, a spokeswoman for county and city government, said in a statement the Unified Government had not yet been served with the lawsuit. She added the Unified Government is unable to comment on any pending litigation.

Traffic stop gone wrong

On April 26, 2023, Henderson and his girlfriend Shakira Hill had just completed a DoorDash delivery in the Shawnee Heights neighborhood when Schuler pulled them over on Metropolitan Avenue near the 12th Street Bridge, according to the lawsuit.

Henderson gave the officer his drivers license and registration, according to the lawsuit. The couple believed the officer was writing a ticket for expired plates, according to the lawsuit, and Henderson contacted his mother via FaceTime.

More uniformed officers responded to the scene, according to the lawsuit, and Schuler approached the vehicle again with his flashlight. During the encounter, lawyers allege the officer unnecessarily escalated the situation by pulling the door of Hendersons vehicle open.

The lawyers say Henderson, fearing for his life, began to drive away as Schuler planted himself on the doorframe, unholstered his weapon and shot the 25-year-old in the arm and face. The vehicle collided with a parked car.

Police have said the officer was treated at the hospital for minor injuries after the shooting.

In addition to wrongly killing Henderson, the lawsuit accuses the police officer of violating police department policies and training.

None of the officers employed de-escalation techniques during the traffic stop, the lawyers allege. And the shooting of a motorist behind the wheel of a running car  a practice generally discouraged by policing experts  is restricted by KCK police policy to situations where an officer or another person is in danger.

In March 2023, one month after the shooting, District Attorney Mark Duprees office said no criminal charges would be filed against the police officer. Prosecutors reviewed the evidence and concluded the officer reasonably feared for his life when the vehicle took off at high speed and Henderson refused commands to stop.

Demands for body camera footage

The shooting of Henderson prompted community protests in 2023 along with wider calls for transparency from area activists. Leaders of the police reform group Justice for Wyandotte last year called for the law enforcement officials to release footage of the shooting to the public, a step taken in select cases, including the killing of a former police detective who had disarmed an officer in 2022.

Body camera footage of the Henderson shooting has never been publicly released. In Kansas, family members and their attorneys can privately view such recordings, but state law limits the situations where videos are required to be broadly shared.

Body camera videos are considered criminal investigation records and are publicly released at the discretion of the police department or other officials like the district attorney.

The Stars request for a copy of the video was denied by the Unified Government in December.

Over a five-year period, law enforcement officials released one video out of the agencys eight fatal police shootings, a recent Star review of body camera disclosures across the state found.

In April, the brother of a man who was killed in February 2023 filed a lawsuit for the footage of that police shooting. That case remains ongoing in Wyandotte County District Court.

The lawsuit brought Friday by Hendersons mother includes claims of constitutional rights violations and wrongful death. It demands a jury trial in federal court.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A family remembered the victim of decades-old violence Thursday, reflecting on the path to closure at hand as law enforcement officials announced an arrest in the nearly 21-year-old case.

Gliding slowly on the ice rink, a young mother helped teach her 2-year-old daughter how to figure skate. Its a memory her daughter still holds onto following her mothers long-unsolved death.

On Sept. 4, 2003, Henderson police responded to the 200 block of Gold Street, near Water Street and West Lake Mead Parkway, due to a report that a woman, later identified as Theresa Romano, was deceased.

Photo provided by Patricia Hinger

I remember that day because I was home sick, Lori Farrell-Phillips, a neighbor to Romano, said. I heard a truck take off, like a squeal, out of the driveway.

Nearly two decades have passed since that day. For Farrell-Phillips, examining her former home helped to return some memories.

They had black garbage bags in the yard, and there was an officer sitting up front for like a week, she said. It was scary.

Henderson residents told 8newsnow.com they recalled seeing a young girl standing near the house as police searched the building and worried about the fate of the possible daughter.

The area would be struck with a second murder the same year, that time on the opposite side of the neighborhood. Henderson police arrested Ricky Lee Trader, who was later found guilty of murder with a deadly weapon.

On July 16, Henderson Police detectives announced Trader, who was paroled in 2021 and living in Reno, had been named in connection to Romanos death. Trader was arrested and transported on July 22, where he was booked on open murder.

Ricky Lee Trader, 47, faces a charge of open murder in a 21-year-old cold case homicide. (HPD)

Farrell-Phillips said she was grateful Henderson police have a suspect in custody following two murders in the neighborhood from the same year.

I know that theyre right up the street and they take care good care of us, she said. I think [the family] has closure.

Patricia Hinger, one of Romanos two daughters, said she was thankful law enforcement didnt forget about her mom.

Patricia Hinger, one of Romanos two daughters, discusses the nearly 21-year-old cold case. (KLAS)

Hinger only had a few memories of her mother and relied on her family to fill in the gaps, but one moment was unforgettablelearning to figure skate on the ice with her mom.

When I was about two years old, she put me on ice skates down at Pickwick Ice rink in California, Hinger said. I started taking lessons when I was about seven years old after she had passed.

Skating at the Pickwick Ice rink at the age of seven Hinger was surprised the people there still remembered her mom.

I took up figure skating in her memory, she said. It was something that I could do to be close to her since she wasnt here anymore.

Photo of Theresa Romano provided by Patricia Hinger

Sherri Scott, Hingers aunt, shared stories of Romano, who said the young mother was turning around her life after overcoming difficulties and who always dearly loved her daughters.

Romanos other daughter Courtney, who lived at the Henderson address with her, took their mothers death the hardest, according to the family.

Its been a lot harder on her because she was one or two years older than me when this happened, Hinger said. Im just thankful that she was able to get the closure that she needs from all of this.

Photo of Theresa Romano provided by Patricia Hinger

The memory of Romano still lives on as Hinger told 8 News Now she had recently given birth to a child, named after her grandmother.

I actually named my daughter after her, she said. Theresa.

Down Gold Street, near Romanos previous address, the family learned an ice rink had recently been built in the neighborhoodthe significance not lost.

Thats a sign from Theresa, Scott 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 KLAS.
Robert Oliver and Mark Heller (R) hold hands, draped in flags, as they celebrated the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage on June 26, 2015 in West Hollywood, California, the day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry nationwide without regard to their state's laws. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Project 2025, the Heritage Foundations ultra-conservative blueprint for the next Republican president, envisions an Ozzie and Harriet-style society where children are raised by married heterosexual parents, unburdened by the prospect of same-sex neighbors or drag queen story hours at the local library.

The cornerstone of Project 2025s Conservative promise is to restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.

the next President has a moral responsibility to lead the nation in restoring a culture of life in America again, to reverse the current administrations focus on LGBTQ+ equity, subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage, and replace with policies encouraging marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families.

Not all families are created equal under Project 2025, which suggests economic incentives for traditional heterosexual couples. Its time for policymakers to elevate family authority, formation, and cohesion as their top priority and even use government power, including through the tax code, to restore the American family.

The doctrine, by redirecting federal funding to support the biblically based definition of a family, undermines families of same-sex couples. Families comprised (sic) of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society, it says.

The passage echoes newly-minted Republican vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who brought the Project 2025 perspective into focus in a 2021 Fox News interview, in which he identified Vice-President and likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris as one of the childless cat ladies who is miserable with her life. The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children, who dont have a direct stake in America, Vance said.

In 2022, Vance doubled down and suggested leaving an unhappy marriage, even a violent one, is bad for children.

The federal Office on Womens health says children who witness or experience domestic violence are at serious risk for long-term physical and mental health problems and those who witness violence between parents may be at greater risk of being violent in their own relationships.

Alternatives to abortion, especially adoption, should receive federal and state support, says Project 2025. Adoptions are already subsidized for a number of children via state and federal sources, however, only a fraction (about 25%) of available children are adopted each year, according to state data.

Project 2025 contends the current law threatens faith-based adoption agencies with lawsuits for discriminating against prospective parents. It seeks legislation to maximize options for children by ensuring agencies cant be subjected to discrimination for providing adoption and foster care services based on their beliefs about marriage. It also seeks to repeal an Obama administration rule prohibiting providers from discriminating against those who want to adopt.

While the reality is that more than 23 million children (one in three) in America live in a single-parent home, Project 2025 emphasizes an existential need for two heterosexual parents.

The world has never seen a thriving, healthy, free, and prosperous society where most children grow up without their married parents, the manifesto reads. If current trends continue, we are heading toward social implosion.

The societal threat, according to Project 2025, is the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, addressed in the playbook with a call to outlaw pornography, the playbooks catch-all code word for the existence of LGBTQ+ individuals.

Pornography should be outlawed, Project 2025 declares, without describing the punishment awaiting offenders. The Heritage Foundation did not respond to an inquiry. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

Rockathena Brittain, a transgender woman who unsuccessfully challenged Nevada Congresswoman Susie Lee in the Democratic primary election, says equating pornography with gender diversity is a threat to the LGBTQ+ community.

Any LGBTQIA+ expression  our existence  is to be legally categorized and charged as pornography, Brittain says of Project 2025s objectives. They want to remove any anti-discrimination protections that are afforded to the LGBTQIA+ community in terms of employment, housing, lending, and all other aspects of public life.

Nevadans of all ages, she says, enjoy protections such as the ability to receive gender-affirming care or change their names or gender marker on a drivers license or birth certificate.

You can basically do everything you need, but LGBTQ+ organizations here are really complacent, she says, adding people frequently discount the likelihood of Project 2025s policies taking root. It just sounds too hyperbolic and extreme, but thats the attitude that got us to Roe v Wade being overturned when it could have been codified by the Democrats a long time ago.

State Sen. Dallas Harris, a Democrat who is seeking re-election, says any federal regulations or legislation tying Medicaid or Medicare funds to a prohibition on gender- affirming services would be challenged.

Im not doing a constitutional analysis here but there are definitely ways to tie federal dollars to actions that the federal government wants to see, both good and bad, says Harris, an attorney.

Dozens of providers and facilities throughout the state that receive federal funding and provide gender-affirming care to youth and other services to adults could be affected, should Project 2025s provisions become policy.

Basically, it would gut programs at The Center, says Dr. Jerry Cade, medical director of the Gay and Lesbian Center of Las Vegas. Our money comes for things like gender-affirming care and DEI initiatives.

Cade adds that HIV testing is not specifically LGBTQ, but a lot is, and so I dont know what Project 2025 would do to that.

The bottom line is if those policies were implemented, much of our funding would be cut, Cade says. That does not mean that we would close. We will fight like hell to do whatever we can to take care of our patients. Project 2025 would hurt us, but not defeat us.

Nnedi Stephens, who ran the successful 2022 campaign to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in Nevada, says they are aware of people who doubt the provisions of Project 2025 could come to pass.

It takes a lot of privilege to believe that, Stephens said during an interview. Would (former Pres. Donald) Trump really get all of the things on the wish list? Any of the items on the wish list would have a deleterious, dangerous, harmful, potentially fatal impact on the lives of everyday LGBTQ+ people and children.

Brittain points to a number of states that have passed or are considering anti-gay legislation.

In Florida, its criminal if you try to change your drivers license gender marker. Montana does not allow you to do it. South Carolina just passed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. They havent outlawed being gay or being trans yet in those states, but theyre on their way.

Brittain notes an appelate court recently upheld a Tennessee law that bans minors from drag shows. All you have to do is look at how many laws against us there are now that are entirely consistent with Project 2025.

One man and one unrelated woman

While at least one effort to abolish same-sex marriage already exists, the manifesto doesnt overtly seek to end it. Instead, it eliminates protections for LGBTQ+ individuals by erasing inclusive language from federal regulations, and favors heterosexual families by granting government funding to organizations and agencies who affirm that marriage is between not just any two adults, but one man and one unrelated woman.

Project 2025 asserts Democratic administrations have nearly erased what females are and what femininity is through gender policies and practices and suggests refocusing Gender Equality on Women, Children, and Families.

Project 2025 seeks to do away with the executive offices Gender Policy Council, which was established by President Biden to advance gender equity and equality in both domestic and foreign policy development and implementation, according to the White House, and claims that doing so would eliminate central promotion of abortion; comprehensive sexuality education; and the new woke gender ideology, which has as a principal tenet gender affirming care and sex-change surgeries on minors.

Vance introduced a bill last year that would criminalize gender-affirming care for minors.

Half of the states already have bans on access to gender affirming care for young people.

Vance also opposes including a third gender option on passports. There are only two genders  passports issued by the United States government should recognize that simple fact, he wrote on his website.

Project 2025 asserts the National Institutes of Health has long been at the forefront in pushing junk gender science. The next HHS secretary should immediately put an end to the departments foray into woke transgender activism.

Project 2025 also seeks to amend Title IX, the law that protects people from sex-based discrimination in education and school activities, to define sex as only biological sex recognized at birth.

Trumps forgotten agenda?

Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025. But his own Agenda 47, which his campaign touts as the only official comprehensive and detailed look at what President Trump will do if he returns to the White House, lays out policies that mirror those in Project 2025.

Agenda 47 proposes:

an end to gender affirming care for minors. It instructs federal agencies to end programs that promote the concept of gender transition at all ages, and threatens to pull federal funding, as well as Medicaid and Medicare eligibility, from providers and hospitals that fail to comply;

creating pathways to sue practitioners who perform gender-related procedures for minors;

directing the Department of Justice to investigate pharmaceutical companies and hospitals to determine if they deliberately covered up horrific long-term side-effects of sex transitions to get rich at the expense of vulnerable patients;

passing legislation establishing that male and female are the only genders recognized by the U.S. and are assigned at birth.

Critics suggest Project 2025s policies are also in lock step with Russias 2013 anti-gay laws, entitled For the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating a Denial of Traditional Family Values.

Last year, Russias highest court ruled that LGBTQ+ activists can be imprisoned for displaying their support for the cause.

Brittain notes that state legislatures across America entertained more than 500 anti-trans bills in 2023, with more than 80 becoming law. Utah recently passed an anti-trans bathroom measure.

DEI backlash

Project 2025 seeks to impose its values globally via a reboot of the US Agency for International Development, which is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. The manifesto says DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) directives are ubiquitous in federal policy, including in the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The Biden Administration has deformed the agency by treating it as a global platform to pursue overseas a divisive political and cultural agenda that promotes abortion, climate extremism, gender radicalism, and interventions against perceived systematic racism, Project 2025 says.

This pursuit of ideological purity threatens merit-based professional advancement for staff who do not overtly conform, hyperpoliticizes (sic) what should be a nonpartisan federal workplace environment, creates an institutionalized cadre of progressive political commissars, corrupts the award process, and discourages potential contractors and grantees that disagree with this radical agenda

The irony of Project 2025 touting a nonpartisan federal workplace is not lost on Stephens, who says the doctrine is a wake-up call for some.

But for people who are directly impacted by having identities that are marginalized, these are a lot of the same issues of discrimination, of hatred, of systemic oppression, that we find on a day- to-day basis, says Stephens. This isnt new. There might be new packaging, but the hatred has always been there and that its important for all of us to come together to fight back.

People in my community do not fully realize whats going to happen to them yet under Project 2025. Kevin Roberts, the director of Project 2025, said on TV they arent releasing all of their plans yet, says Brittain, adding shes frustrated the manifesto hasnt received more attention until recently.

Roberts did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

Its about time we start believing Donald Trump when he says something, says Harris. I often hear this idea of, oh, well, he doesnt really mean it, or hes just talking, and then time and time again he follows through. Im not going to make that mistake of underestimating the level of cruelty, frankly, that we might see out of another Trump administration. Believe what he says. Theyve got it written down.

This story is one in an occasional series on Project 2025 and its potential impact on Nevadans. See an earlier story on the plans nuclear waste and weapons testing policy here, and a story on Project 2025s organized labor policies here.
By Tomoyuki Tachikawa, KYODO NEWS - Jul 26, 2024 - 19:50 | World, All, Japan

The foreign ministers of Japan and China confirmed Friday that they will continue communicating with each other, as bilateral relations remain strained over the release of treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the sea.

During the 50-minute talks on the sidelines of ASEAN-related gatherings in Laos, Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa and her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, were at odds over several issues, including the water discharge, Taiwan and Beijing's detention of a Japanese man.

Kamikawa asked for the early release of the Japanese citizen detained for alleged espionage, while Wang reiterated his call for the establishment of a long-term global monitoring system for the treated water, in which relevant countries would participate.

The foreign ministers held bilateral talks for the first time since November 2023, when they also had a trilateral meeting with South Korea. Japan is seeking to promote high-level exchanges to resolve various disputes between Tokyo and Beijing.

At the outset of their meeting, Kamikawa told Wang that Tokyo will advance dialogue "in a multi-layered and persistent manner" with Beijing. Wang said China wants to move relations forward to "overcome difficulties together."

Kamikawa and Wang agreed Tokyo and Beijing will accelerate talks on the treated radioactive water discharge, the Japanese government said. China's Foreign Ministry, however, quoted Wang as saying the two nations are "at a critical stage" in improving bilateral ties.

The two ministers also discussed North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear development programs as well as issues surrounding self-ruled Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province to be reunified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Communist-led China and democratic Taiwan have been governed separately since they split due to a civil war in 1949. Beijing has stepped up military provocations in the Taiwan Strait, saying the island is at "the core of China's core interests."

Kamikawa, meanwhile, urged Wang to remove a buoy that China has installed in the waters around the Tokyo-controlled, Beijing-claimed uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, according to the Japanese government.

In their in-person bilateral talks in late May, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida conveyed Japan's "serious concern" to Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who assumed the position in March 2023, about Beijing's increasing military activities in nearby waters.

Kamikawa told Wang that it is "extremely important" for Beijing to make efforts to create an environment in China in which Japanese people can live, and private companies can operate "with confidence," the government said.

The two countries have agreed to restart exchanges between their foreign ministers and other senior government officials, with Japan also calling for the resumption of visa exemptions for short-term stays for its nationals.

Kamikawa and Wang met as the Japanese foreign minister makes arrangements to visit China, but it remains uncertain whether the two nations can pave the way to build constructive and stable bilateral relations, given their ongoing disputes.

As for the treated water discharge, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report submitted in July 2023 to Japan that the release aligns with global safety standards and would have a "negligible radiological impact on people and the environment."

But China has criticized Japan for discharging "nuclear-contaminated" water into the ocean from the plant, which suffered reactor fuel meltdowns after a devastating earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

With Tokyo requesting Beijing to lift its blanket ban on Japanese seafood products, imposed immediately after the beginning of the water release in August 2023, the two countries have confirmed that they will approach the issue from a scientific perspective.

Following his meeting with Kamikawa, Wang told reporters that it is "necessary to find a solution" to the confrontation over the water discharge "as soon as possible."

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Related coverage:

China's Wang complains about Japan lawmakers' visits to Taiwan

FOCUS: Japan boosting seafood exports to S.E. Asia, U.S. as China keeps ban
Right-wing conspiracy theorist and failed politician Laura Loomer launched a despicable attack on Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and his wife, gun violence survivor and former Representative Gabby Giffords, on X earlier this week.

Loomer, without evidence, cruelly accused Kelly of writing a post on his wifes behalf from her account endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president, claiming that Giffordswho was shot in the head in an assassination attempt 13 years agois brain dead and certainly isnt tweeting on her own.

A screenshot of Laura Loomer's tweet attacking Senator Mark Kelly and his wife, former congresswoman Gabby Giffords.

This wouldnt matter much, as Loomer has engaged in white nationalism and Islamophobia before, but she is also a favorite of Donald Trump Jr., who has touted Loomer as a possible White House press secretary if his father gets elected in November. Trump Jr.s opinion seems to carry some weight in his fathers political decisions. He reportedly pushed his dad to choose J.D. Vance, whos friends with Don Jr., for a running mate.

Giffords was shot while holding a campaign event in Tucson, Arizona, in 2011. The bullet passed through her brain, and yet today, though she has some difficulty speaking and walking, she is able to conduct interviews. She even campaigned for Harris in Pennsylvania on Thursday. Needless to say, she is not brain dead.

Loomer has been banned from various social media sites in the past, only to be reinstated on X when Elon Musk took over the site. Shes not likely to face any consequences for this post, although it probably wont help her standing in the Republican Party, where even some of the MAGA faithful arent big fans.


GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) 

Just about three weeks ago, the FBI announced that it will be hosting a teen academy here in Grand Junction.

For the first time, Western Slope teens had a chance to attend the FBI Teen Academy in their own backyard. Since the event is normally held in Denver one student who came all the way from Westminster says the academy did not disappoint.

Lindi, an FBI Teen Academy student says, Its kind of been on my radar for a little bit and I finally had the opportunity to come out. So I think it was a good idea to kind of explore different career options because Im kind of all over the place. But this is definitely a good opportunity.

High schoolers had a chance to learn about a day in the life of an FBI agent. From handing evidence to dusting for prints at a crime scene. Organizers say a few dozen students attended, which is a more comfortable number than the 100 applications they usually receive for a Denver classroom fitted for 50.

FBI Special Agent Monty Waldron states, This is a good amount for Western Colorado. Typically we limit the class sizes to around 30 to 40 students depending on the venue or where we do it but this is an excellent size for Western Colorado.

Waldron explains, All the kids were super excited to do this and do the evidence collection and its a whole new thing for them and a lot of enthusiasm.

Im looking forward to more of the process, kind of getting to learn more about the lab. Im definitely interested in the lab or didnt want to explore that some more, see what that looks like, Lindi said.

The all-day class gave teenagers an up-close look at a career they may consider entering 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 WesternSlopeNow.com.
[Source]

On Tuesday morning, FBI agents reportedly entered and searched the Long Island, five-bedroom house of Linda Sun, a former deputy chief of staff for New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and her husband Chris Hu.

It is unclear why their house was raided and they have been accused of no wrongdoing. A spokesperson for the FBI said the agency conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity at Suns house. In March of 2023, Sun was fired only months after being hired by the New York Department of Labor as a deputy commissioner for strategic business development after evidence of misconduct, which has not been detailed, that was then reported to law enforcement, according to a source who spoke to the Associated Press. Sun began her nearly 15-year career in state government as chief of staff to then-New York State Assemblymember Grace Meng.

Download the NextShark App:

Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today!
AUSTIN (KXAN)  The Federal Bureau of Investigation said a 19-year-old in Austin is at the center of an alleged sextortion scheme.

According to the FBIs San Antonio Division, Tre Von Harris was recently indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of sexual exploitation of children and one count of interstate communication of a threat/extortion.

The indictment alleged Harris engaged in a sextortion scheme from as early as November 2022 until his arrest in May 2024.

KXAN reached out to Harris attorney listed on a different case against him. Well update this story when we hear back.

The FBI said its investigation revealed that Harris did the following:

Posed as a teenaged female named Michelle on various social media platforms

Targeted mostly males under the age of 18

Persuaded them to create and send sexually explicit images to Michelle

According to the FBI, Harris would sometimes contact victims as himself after getting the videos and would tell them to comply with Michelles demands. He would then allegedly try to extort them for money or threaten to release the videos to people on their friends lists.

A very young individual, too. Were not talking hardened criminal that got out of jail, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Alex Doran said.

Doran said this case is unique because the suspect was in the country.

A lot of what we see from a financial motivated sextortion originates overseas, like any of the other online scams, Doran said.

Friends that they never met

Michigan State University Associate Professor of Criminal Justice Karen Holt said young people are more susceptible to this type of crime because they are more trusting of people online.

My Facebook friends are all people that Ive met in person. When I talked to my students, they have friends that maybe theyve never met in person that they consider friends, Holt said. That theyve met in chat groups, or theyve met gaming.

Both Holt and Doran stress the importance of parents talking about online dangers with their kids.

A lot of my students tell me that they have tons of internet safety when it comes to cyber bullying, but theyve never heard of sextortion, Holt said. Not having that education can be really harmful.

If a parent finds their child in this situation, Doran said they should do the following:

Block the account

Dont pay them

Reach out to law enforcement

Increase in sextortion

At the beginning of the year, the FBI reported an increase in sextortion incidents.

In the six-month period from October 2022 to March 2023, the FBI observed at least a 20% increase in reporting of financially motivated sextortion incidents involving minor victims compared to the same time period the previous year, the FBI reported.

Financial sextortion schemes mostly target teenage boys: report

Doran said they typically see a spike in cases at the beginning of the summer.

More children at home. Theyre online. Theyre unsupervised, Doran said. We see an increase in reporting from that.

Finding more potential victims

The FBI said its looking for more potential victims who may have been threatened, harassed, or extorted by this scheme.

The agency believes victims may have been contacted on the following platforms by any of the following social media accounts:

Snapchat: @michelleisfine, @Trevon512, @Blasiannforgie

Instagram: @michelleishere, @michelleissohot, @michelleissexyy, @tre.heemm, @michelleishere_, @michelleissovalid, @michelleissofineee, @imissedmichelle, @michelleisbakkk, @blasiannforgie, @yagertrun

TikTok: @michelleissovalid, @tre.heemm, @pending.tre, @envy.tre, @mostwanted.tre, @user.sexyymfss, @aestheticte3ns, @iiGotyourrrTea

X (formerly Twitter): @FreakyTierr, @FreakyyTierr_, @fliphon189601, @Whicker448, @idek842428, @likestunnagirl

Facebook: Harper Michelle (100088544512021), Malayah Michelle (61559184942812), Michell Harper (100090490261176), Michelle Harper (100088743785306), Michelle Harper (100093217243592), Michelle Harper (100093272590718), Trevon Harris (trevon.harris.545)

Telegram: Sterling Harris (@https_scorpio), Group Chat: Everyone Eats

CashApp: $teraharri, $trevon512, $michelleissofine, $lilsassybae, $lilsassytre, $moneyinbag30, $moneyinbag17, $moneygirlmove, $Masterrchi, $Elite1Tre

The FBI said if you and/or your minor dependent(s) were victimized by this alleged sextortion scheme or have information relevant to this investigation, fill out this form.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
FBI Says Trump Was Struck by Bullet or Its Fragmentas He Crows

The FBI has confirmed that former President Donald Trump was indeed shot by a bullet, ending speculation about what exactly bloodied Trumps ear.

The FBI told The Daily Beast in an emailed statement that, What struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subjects rifle. The statement was originally reported by Fox News.

FBI Wants to Quiz Trump Over Truth About Bullet Wound

The controversy began on Wednesday when FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress that, There is some question about whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear. Wray testified: So, it is conceivable, as I sit here right now, I dont know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else.

The FBI said they found numerous metal fragments found near the stage, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The New York Times on Thursday, and were using those fragments to determine whether it was a bullet or debris that hit Trump.

The former president posted on his Truth social account moments after the Fox report Friday. I assume thats the best apology that well get from Director Wray, but it is fully accepted, the former president wrote, alongside an image of the statement attached.

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who served as a White House physician during the Trump administration, wrote in statement released on his X account Thursday that Trumps medical records indicate he was treated for a Gunshot Wound To the Right Ear, at Butler Memorial Hospital.

The announcement comes after Trump was spotted for the first time without his now-signature ear bandage during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Friday.

After weeks of liberals lying about Trump's gunshot wound, the FBI just confirmed that Trump was hit by a bullet -- not shrapnel and not glass pic.twitter.com/JeFG9FjCmA  johnny maga (@_johnnymaga) July 26, 2024

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.

Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.
FBI investigators have asked to interview Donald Trump as they determine whether a bullet or a piece of shrapnel hit the former president during an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

On Wednesday, while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that there is some question about whether or not it was a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.

According to a Thursday report in The New York Times, citing the FBI and a federal law enforcement official, the agency is keen to talk to Trump in order to get a more detailed version of events surrounding the incident and, according to the official, a more complete record of his injury, the Times notes.

It comes as the FBI confirmed that it was examining a number of metal fragments found littered around the stage at the time of the shooting to help determine if a piece of shrapnel was responsible for Trumps bloodied ear, the Times report noted.

New Unanswered Questions on Trump Shooting After FBI Bombshell

Investigators recovered eight shell casings from the roof where the shooter, Matthew Thomas Crooks, fired at Trumpbut it is unclear if any bullets have been recovered. Theres a chance we can never find them,  Michael Harrigan, a former FBI special agent who ran the bureau firearms training unit in Quantico, Virginia, previously told the Daily Beast.

Trump and his campaign have since pushed back hard on the idea that anything other than a bullet hit the former president on July 13.

No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Thursday evening. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was.

The Trump campaign did not immediately return a request for comment from The Daily Beast regarding the FBIs proposed interview. It is unclear when the FBI asked Trump for the interview, but the former president insisted on Thursday night the FBI never even checked what hit his ear at the rally. The FBI told the Times that the bureaus shooting reconstruction team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Trump Says His Dying Wish if Assassinated Is Revenge

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Trumps former White House physician, released a statement on Saturday confirming he sustained a gunshot wound to the right ear, which produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.

However, Trumps official treatment record from Butler Memorial Hospital has not been released.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also pushed back Thursday on the notion that Trump may have been wounded by shrapnel. Weve all seen the video, weve seen the analysis, weve heard it from multiple sources in different angles that a bullet went through his ear. Im not sure it matters that much, he told NBC.

Answers over the apparent culprit of Trumps ear wound appears to be low on the priority scale of the FBI.

The bureaus priority is finding whether anybody helped the shooter and eliminating any ongoing threat, Harrigan told the Times.

From an investigative standpoint, knowing what happened to the presidents ear doesnt really matter.

FBI Is Not Fully Convinced Trump Was Struck by a Bullet

Trump previously called on Wray to resign for stating that his interactions with President Joe Biden were uneventful and unremarkableinsisting that the report written by Special Counsel Robert Hur, the Justice Department attorney assigned to investigate Bidens mishandling of classified documents, proved the opposite. Trump doubled down on this call on Thursday night.

Hurs report called Biden a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory, but said his actions did not warrant criminal charges.

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.
NEW YORK (PIX11)  FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh will officially leave her position on Aug. 7, the fire department announced on Thursday.

More Local News

An FDNY spokeswoman told PIX11 News:

As she promised, the Commissioner has spent the past several weeks leading a planned transition of leadership at the FDNY, in addition to helping the mayors team search for the Departments next commissioner. Commissioner Kavanaghs last day at the FDNY will be August 7th, almost one month after she announced her scheduled departure and months after she initiated these conversations with administration leadership. Importantly, there will be no lapse in leadership. Amanda Farinacci, FDNY spokeswoman

New York City Mayor Eric Adams appointed Kavanagh in 2022, making her the first female commissioner in the FDNYs 157-year history. She oversaw a department of 17,000 employees, including firefighters and emergency medical workers.

Kavanagh spent a decade in the fire department. She recently sat down with PIX on Politics host Dan Mannarino to discuss why she chose to step down and the rumors swirling around her decision.

Sources told PIX11 News that the date was chosen to align with a planned vacation and after months of conversations about her desire to step away from the department.

More PIX on Politics

Adams said Kavanagh is welcome to a job in the administration if she wants, but Kavanagh said her family will play a big part in her future decisions.

Ive told him I am open to it. I am very appreciative of him. Ive worked for a lot of people and has been one of my best bosses, said Kavanagh.

PIX11s Ben Mitchell contributed to this report.

Jonathan Rizk is a digital journalist who has covered local news in New York City and Washington, D.C. He has been with PIX11 since August 2022. See more of his work here, and follow him on X and Facebook @OfficialRizk. Get in touch at jonathan.rizk@pix11.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 PIX11.
FILE - A brigade from the Electric Power Authority repairs distribution lines damaged by Hurricane Maria in the Cantera community of San Juan, Puerto Rico, Oct. 19, 2017. A federal judge overseeing a drawn-out debt-restructuring process for the power company ordered all parties to mediation on Wednesday, July 10, in the latest attempt to break an impasse that has sparked widespread anger and frustration. (AP Photo/Carlos Giusti, File)

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP)  A federal control board overseeing Puerto Ricos finances filed a lawsuit Friday challenging amendments to the islands net metering law, which compensates solar-equipped households for their contributions to the grid, triggering a backlash.

The lawsuit filed against Gov. Pedro Pierluisi aims to protect the independence of the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau so it can continue to operate free from political influence, the board said.

The board said that it is not seeking to end net metering as alleged, nor impose changes to the net metering program. It noted that if it wins the lawsuit, there would be no changes to the islands current rooftop solar program.

A spokeswoman for Pierluisi said he was analyzing the lawsuit and would soon respond to it.

In April, the board had ordered Pierluisi and Puerto Ricos legislature to amend or repeal the law, which prohibits the energy bureau from making any changes to the net metering program until 2031 at the earliest.

The law also requires the energy bureau to honor the programs current terms for an additional 20 years, meaning that many customers would continue under those terms until at least 2051, the lawsuit states.

The government failed to act in a prudent and fiscally responsible manner in enacting (the law), it said.

While most U.S. net-metering programs offer reduced credits, excess energy in Puerto Rico is credited one-to-one.

The lawsuit noted that the net metering terms would affect demand for the power companys service, as higher net metering rates will likely incentivize more customers to switch to distributed generation.

It said the net metering program also directly affects the revenues of Puerto Ricos Electric Power Authority, which is struggling to restructure its more than $9 billion debt load as it clashes with creditors seeking to recuperate their investments.

Puerto Ricos Energy Bureau currently has a draft of a study available that analyzes the islands net metering program and recommends that a public debate be held. If the bureau were to decide that changes to the program should be made, it is currently barred from implementing them until 2031.

A group of federal lawmakers including U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva have opposed the boards call to repeal or amend the law, warning theres a possibility that the studys results could be used to weaken or functionally eliminate net metering in Puerto Rico.

Any attempt to reduce the economic viability of rooftop solar and batteries by paring back net metering should be rejected at this critical stage of Puerto Ricos energy system transformation, Grijalva and others wrote in a May 17 letter to the board.

Also rejecting the board's move was Puerto Rico's Solar Energy and Storage Association, which said that a reduction or elimination of net metering would affect the most vulnerable. More than 40% of the island's 3.2 million people live below the poverty rate.

(The program) is essential for Puerto Rican families to have an incentive that makes access to alternative energy sources cost-effective," said Javier Rua Jovet, the association's public policy director.

In its lawsuit, the board also seeks that the governor submit an estimate of the laws impact on the governments revenues and expenditures, among other things.

The board stressed Friday that invalidating the net metering law would not change the terms for customers who already have solar panels.

Robert F. Mujica, Jr., the boards executive director, said in a statement that the energy bureau was created to oversee the energy system after years of political mismanagement that led the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority into bankruptcy and left Puerto Rico with a dilapidated electric grid.

He said renewable energy is key to Puerto Ricos energy transformation and called net metering a very important tool for making rooftop solar more accessible and affordable.

Determining what is in the public interest, however, should not be left to special interests, Mujica said.

Supporters of the law have said that net metering makes rooftop solar and other renewable energy sources more affordable for those in a U.S. territory with a disintegrating power grid where the average electricity rate is 41% higher than the U.S. mainland.

Installation of rooftop solar systems have surged ever since Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico as a powerful Category 4 storm in September 2017, razing the electrical grid. At the time, there were 8,000 rooftop installations, compared with more than 117,000 currently, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Fossil fuels currently generate 94% of Puerto Ricos electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The U.S. territory has new laws calling for the power company to obtain 40% of its electricity supply from renewable sources by 2025 and 100% by 2050.

___

Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
KYODO NEWS - Jul 26, 2024 - 17:58 | All, Japan, World

The Brazilian government on Thursday offered its first apology over the persecution of Japanese immigrants in the country during and after World War II, a landmark movement for restoring their honor ahead of next year's 80th anniversary of the end of the war.

The apology was made over two cases -- one in which Brazil, as part of the Allies, evicted Japanese immigrants from their houses in Santos during the war, and another involving mistreatment on Anchieta Island of people imprisoned amid postwar unrest in the immigrant community.

The issue was examined by the Amnesty Commission of the Human Rights and Citizenship Ministry, a government advisory body. The commission has mainly dealt with political persecutions under the country's postwar military regime, making the apology for wartime cases exceptional.

The commission head, Enea de Stutz e Almeida, apologized in Japanese, bowing deeply and saying, "The Brazilian government seeks forgiveness for the persecution of your ancestors."

Parties, including a group of Japanese immigrants from Okinawa Prefecture, had been urging the government to make an apology over the cases since 2015.

The call was rejected in 2022 under the right-wing then President Jair Bolsonaro. However, the launch of the left-wing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva administration in January last year led to a reexamination of the issue.

In Tokyo on Friday, Japan's top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the apology, calling it a "satisfying outcome" for the petitioners.

During a regular news conference, the chief Cabinet secretary also said that the government will continue to expand cooperation with the Japanese community in Brazil, which has served as a "bridge between the two countries."

About 2.7 million people of Japanese descent live in Brazil, the largest community outside Japan.

Brazil was the destination of Japanese mass immigration after the first group of immigrants landed in Santos in the state of Sao Paulo in 1908, but the country cut diplomatic ties with Japan in 1942 when it joined the Allies.

In 1943, about 6,500 Japanese immigrants and their descendants were forced to leave their homes and were relocated to camps or inland areas. Many are said to have come from Japan's southern island prefecture of Okinawa.

After the end of the war, the Japanese immigrant community was divided between those who refused to believe the news of Japan's defeat and insisted the country had won the war, called "kachigumi," and those who accepted the country's surrender, called "makegumi."

After kachigumi extremists attacked makegumi members, 172 individuals linked with kachigumi were imprisoned and tortured on Anchieta Island, also in the state of Sao Paulo, by Brazilian authorities between 1946 and 1948. Nearly 140 of them allegedly had nothing to do with the assaults on makegumi members.

The U.S. and Canadian governments have also apologized for the internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II.

Related coverage:

Oppenheimer reportedly apologized in 1964 meeting with A-bomb victim

Japan pop band's "Columbus" video withdrawn amid controversy
A Waterloo police officer was justified when he opened fire on a man carrying a BB gun in April 2021, a federal judge has ruled.

Marcelino Alvarez-Victoriano suffered three gunshot wounds in the back and was left paralyzed at the waist in the shooting, which took place after a 911 caller reported a man with a rifle walking toward downtown Waterloo. Alvarez-Victoriano sued officer C.J. Nichols, arguing that at the time the shots were fired, he had not posed a threat to any officer and that Nichols "had already decided he was going to be in a gunfight" before arriving at the scene.

The case has had a winding path, with a state court judge at first dismissing it before the Iowa Supreme Court revived the suit. Waterloo then had the case moved to federal court, where on Monday, Judge Leonard Strand ruled Nichols had not violated Alvarez-Victoriano's rights and granted summary judgment for the city.

Attorneys for Waterloo declined to comment, while Alvarez-Victoriano's attorney Molly Hamilton called for more accountability for police.

"We acknowledge this will end the civil litigation, but it does not end the need for sunlight and transparency in matters where those who are duty bound to protect and serve have the power to alter and end lives, she said in an email.

Black Hawk County prosecutors previously declined to charge the officers, finding the shooting to be justified.

Why did police shoot Marcelino Alvarez-Victoriano?

As summarized by Strand, police responding to the 911 call encountered Alvarez-Victoriano with what appeared to be a rifle. The first officer to arrive saw Alvarez-Victoriano pick up the weapon and walk toward him, ignoring directions to put the gun down. The officer reported Alvarez-Victoriano said something in an "aggressive" tone, which Alvarez-Victoriano denies, and took cover behind his car.

Alvarez-Victoriano then began walking around the vehicle, which the officer perceived as pursuing him, although Alvarez-Victoriano in his lawsuit claimed he was simply trying to walk home. Another officer arrived at the scene and tried to strike Alvarez-Victoriano with his car, but missed, and Alvarez-Victoriano then pointed the gun at him.

More: Davenport police justified in shooting man aiming gun at self near bystanders, court rules

Nichols was the third officer to arrive on scene, and told investigators afterward he saw Alvarez-Victoriano "hunting (the first officer) around the vehicle" and pointing a gun at him. Nichols immediately opened fire on Alvarez-Victoriano through his own windshield, striking him, and then shot him again moments later as Alvarez-Victoriano lifted his arm holding the weapon.

Police later determined Alvarez-Victoriano was holding a BB gun, although it did not have an orange tip.

Judge finds officer justified based on what he knew

In his lawsuit, Alvarez-Victoriano argued Nichols' use of force was unjustified and that he did not pose an immediate threat to either of the other officers at the time Nichols shot him. Alvarez-Victoriano, who does not speak fluent English, did not understand the command to lower his weapon and was facing away from all three officers when he was shot, his attorneys argued.

In his ruling Monday, Strand disagreed, writing that by pointing his weapon at two different officers and following one around his vehicle, Alvarez-Victoriano presented a clear and obvious threat to their safety.

Qualified Immunity: Police get immunity after Guthrie County man held 251 days after disputed search

"Even if Dodd (the first officer) was in a position of cover at the time Nichols fired his weapon, Alvarez, by following Dodd around the vehicle, demonstrated that a reasonable officer would believe Alvarez posed a deadly threat to Dodd," Strand wrote. "To hold otherwise would put officers in the perilous position of having to wait until suspects have lined up a clear shot at officers before applying deadly force."

Because Nichols did not violate Alvarez-Victoriano's rights, Strand wrote, he and the city are entitled to immunity.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com or 715-573-8166.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Waterloo police get qualified immunity for shooting man holding BB gun
The wreck of the Advance, an early wooden schooner built in Milwaukee in 1853 that capsized on Lake Michigan near Sheboygan in September 1885, claiming six lives and leaving one survivor.

SHEBOYGAN  The Wisconsin Historical Society could look into the past of Sheboygans commercial piers, supported by funds from $1.3 million allocated for coastal community projects by Gov. Tony Evers.

The nonprofit was awarded a $16,629 grant for its project, Piering into the Past: Archaeological Remains of Ghost Ports in Manitowoc, Sheboygan, and Ozaukee Counties, which could lead to a deeper understanding of the states shoreline resources, and subsequently their preservation.

The project funding, still pending federal approval, is administered by the Wisconsin Department of Administration and Wisconsin Coastal Management Program. 31 grants were awarded to governments, universities, regional planning commissions and other organizations at different scopes across the state.

Exhibit on democracy: In Of, By, For the People at Sheboygan County Museum, American democracy is viewed through a local lens

The collaborative public and private projects aided by our coastal programs do so much to expand public access, sustainable use practices, community development, habitat restoration and address pollution, DOA Secretary Kathy Blumenfeld said in a news release. This is a key program with lasting benefits for our state in too many ways to count.

WHSs Maritime Preservation and Archaeology Program hopes to look into these counties pasts, examining how they compare to other coastal communities along Lake Michigan that settled slowly and were far from major cities, like Milwaukee and Chicago, according to an explanation from the organization. The project will explore how maritime commerce, technology and other environmental conditions impacted European settlement and the states economy.

What's the new surf stand in Sheboygan?: Why is there a green and blue 'Sheboygan' surf stand near the lake? We have the answer.

To achieve this, the program will identify, map and evaluate five submerged and associated shoreline cultural resources associated with historic lumber and commercial piers in these neighboring communities. Information gained will contribute to the WHSs maritime education initiatives and support a new partner, Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary, according to WHS.

People spill out of a tent on south pier before the Venetian Boat Parade, Wednesday, July 3, 2024, in Sheboygan, Wis.

Sheboygans harbor and South Pier were once home to a coal company and served as a significant entry for commerce to four Wisconsin counties.

Shipwreck remains have been documented or found off Sheboygans shore, like the 1876 Lottie Cooper displayed near Deland Park, the 1853 Advance near the town of Holland and the Phoenix steamship.

Have a story tip? Contact Alex Garner at 224-374-2332 or agarner@gannett.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @alexx_garner.

This article originally appeared on Sheboygan Press: Sheboygan's commercial port past to be highlighted using federal grant
A federal judge in Kansas issued a temporary order forbidding enforcement of a state campaign finance law that an Overland Park nonprofit organization believes violates constitutional rights. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)

A federal judge in Kansas issued a temporary order forbidding enforcement of a state campaign finance law that an Overland Park nonprofit organization believes violates constitutional rights. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA  A federal judge granted an Overland Park nonprofit organizations request for a temporary restraining order blocking the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission from enforcing a campaign finance law until a trial on constitutionality of the states definition of a political action committee.

U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Crabtree issued the order Wednesday on behalf of Fresh Vision OP, which ran afoul of the state commission in 2021 after sending a mailer endorsing the candidacy of Faris Farassati, an Overland Park City Council member campaigning for mayor. Fresh Vision OP posted comparable information to its website. The organization also opposed use of tax give aways, incentives for economic development and tolling on U.S. 69.

Fresh Vision OPs attorneys, including lawyers with the Institute for Free Speech, filed a lawsuit challenging the states definition of a PAC. The plaintiffs attorneys argued the law could be interpreted to include groups such as Fresh Vision OP that were organized primarily for a neighborhoods benefit, but also periodically endorsed candidates. The lawsuit was designed to protect free speech rights of Fresh Vision OP and organizations like it, plaintiffs said.

Crabtrees temporary restraining order would allow Fresh Vision OP to resume community advocacy activities without being regulated at a PAC.

The judge said the states definition of a PAC would likely be found to violate the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in Buckley v. Valeo, which said express advocacy had to be the major purpose of an organization to be regarded as a PAC. The order said the statute in question was written in a way that applied PAC requirements without first determining whether that organizations express advocacy was a singular major purpose or the major purpose.

After considering the statutory scheme and the parties arguments and submissions, the court grants a narrowed temporary restraining order, Crabtree wrote in the order.

A court hearing on the plaintiffs request for a preliminary injunction and a trial on merits of the case has been scheduled for September.

The court applied existing precedent that bars the imposition of burdensome political committee requirements on groups that only occasionally engage in express advocacy, said Charles Miller, an attorney with Institute for Free Speech. Those requirements chill and potentially punish protected political speech.

Lawsuit plaintiffs James Muir and Chengny Thao, who served as officers of Fresh Vision OP, sought to have the federal court block the state Governmental Ethics Commission from enforcing laws and regulations that appeared to violate their First Amendment rights to speech.

They have contended Fresh Vision OP engaged in public activism and education to promote wholesome neighborhoods, local small business growth, public safety and responsible land development. In July 2021, the organization endorsed Farassatis candidacy for mayor on its website and in a mailer.

The state ethics commission responded by notifying Fresh Vision OP that the endorsements equated to operation as a political action committee and required the organization to register in the state.

The letter advised Fresh Vision OP that it could face civil fines and criminal penalties for failing to comply with state campaign finance law. Fresh Vision OP suspended operations to avoid regulation as a political committee and disclosure of donors to the organization.
A federal judge struck down a provision of North Carolinas new abortion law and upheld another on Friday.

The main thrust of the GOP-passed law banning most abortions in the state after 12 weeks of gestation went into effect last July and has not been successfully challenged in the courts.

But abortion providers targeted two provisions of the law, which have been temporarily blocked since September.

In a ruling issued Friday evening, U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles struck down one provision as unconstitutionally vague. The provision had required physicians prescribing medication abortions to document the existence of a pregnancy within the uterus during the early stages of gestation.

But Eagles ruled to keep a second provision in place that required anyone trying to terminate their pregnancy after 12 weeks to have the procedure in a hospital. That provision would address abortions taking place under one of the laws exceptions for rape and incest, fetal abnormalities, or severe medical emergencies.

For the first provision, Eagles agreed with concerns from abortion providers who challenged the law. They argued that the provision doesnt give guidance on how to satisfy the requirement, and could block physicians from prescribing abortion pills early in pregnancies, when an embryo may not be able to be located using an ultrasound.

In her order, Eagles agreed that the requirement doesnt give physicians sufficient notice of the required conduct, and does not include sufficient standards to prevent arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Eagles said the provision violates the due process rights of the plaintiffs.

Granting a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the two provisions from being enforced in September, Eagles said that the restriction on medication abortions didnt provide physicians with a clear standard, was open to differing interpretations, didnt provide reasonable notice of what is prohibited, and could subject physicians to arbitrary accusations that they have violated the provision.

In her ruling on the hospitalization requirement, Eagles sided with GOP legislative leaders who intervened in the case to defend the law.

She said that abortion providers have offered credible and largely uncontroverted medical and scientific evidence that this requirement is unnecessary to protect maternal health and safety and will unnecessarily make such abortions more dangerous for many women and more expensive.

However, she said, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, there is no fundamental right to abortion.

That means that GOP lawmakers only needed to show rational speculation for their legislative decisions regulating abortion.

Eagles said Republican leaders had done so, and abortion providers have not negated every conceivable basis lawmakers had for enacting the requirement.

The lawsuit was filed by Planned Parenthood and a Triangle OB-GYN last June, just weeks before the 12-week ban went into effect.

Abortion providers initially asked Eagles to grant a temporary restraining order blocking the entirety of the new law while the court challenge over specific provisions proceeded. But the judge, nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2010, allowed the law to go into effect, temporarily blocking only the restriction on medication abortions.

Last month, Eagles issued her final ruling in a separate lawsuit filed by another OB-GYN in January 2023, challenging state regulations on medication abortion.

The ruling permanently blocks several requirements under state law for prescribing and administering abortion pills, which Eagles said were preempted by federal law.
A federal grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, indicted a North Korean national Wednesday for his connection to an alleged hacking and extortion conspiracy that included a Kansas hospital as a target.

Proceeds from ransomware attacks were laundered and then used to fund further computer attacks against government agencies, military bases and defense companies, according to the Department of Justice.

Charging documents list a number of targets, including the Kansas hospital, which suffered a ransomware attack in May 2021, and healthcare groups and organizations in Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida and Colorado, as well as a South Korean manufacturing company. NASA, Randolph Air Force Base in Texas and Robins Air Force Base in Georgia were listed as in court documents as having had data stolen, as were four U.S.-based defense companies, a Chinese energy company, a Taiwanese defense company and two South Korean defense companies.

Rim Jong Hyok, who a news release from the Department of State said was associated with a malicious cyber group named Andariel connected to the North Korean military intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, was charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas. Rim lived in North Korea and worked in the offices of the RGB in Pyongyang and Sinuiju, according to court documents.

Todays indictment underscores our commitment to protecting critical infrastructure from malicious actors and the countries that sponsor them, said District of Kansas U.S. Attorney Kate Brubacher in a statement Thursday. Rim Jong Hyok and those in his trade put peoples lives in jeopardy. They imperil timely, effective treatment for patients and cost hospitals billions of dollars a year. The Justice Department will continue to disrupt nation-state actors and ensure that American systems are protected in the District of Kansas and across our nation.

The attackers gained access to the Kansas hospitals computer system and used malware to encrypt four servers: An intranet server, an X-ray and diagnostic imaging server, an electronic document management server and a sleep lab server, according to court documents. Medical services were limited and the facility had to cancel some patient appointments. A ransom note demanded two Bitcoin  about $100,000 at that time for restored access to the servers.

Payments were made and those behind the ransomware restored access to the systems and files, according to court documents. An FBI investigation, which turned up more victims, determined that those behind the attacks were state-sponsored North Korean hackers.

Court documents say that in 2022, hackers gained access to a NASA computer system for more than three months and took more than 17 GB of unclassified data. They also infiltrated Randolph Air Force Bases computer system for more than two weeks and pulled nearly 1 GB of unclassified data, and accessed Robins Air Force Bases computer system for more than 10 days, taking more than 1 GB of unclassified data such as employee information and passwords, among other attacks.

The federal government is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information that helps find someone who acts under a foreign government to carry out a cyberattack on U.S. infrastructure. For more information, go to rewardsforjustice.net.
The Departments of the Interior and Commerce on Thursday announced a $240 million investment from President Bidens Investing in America agenda to support fish hatcheries that produce Pacific salmon and steelhead, underscoring the Biden-Harris administrations commitment to empowering Tribal Nations and fulfilling the federal governments trust and treaty responsibilities. Fish hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest support essential subsistence, ceremonial and economic benefits for Tribal communities, as well as fulfilling Treaty-reserved fishing rights. The Interior Departments Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) will partner with the Commerce Departments National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to deliver this funding to regional Tribes.

Todays investments build on the Biden-Harris administrations unprecedented agreement to restore salmon in the Columbia River Basin and follows the Interior Departments recently released report documenting the historic, ongoing and cumulative impacts of federal Columbia River dams on Columbia River Basin Tribes. These investments also further the Biden-Harris administrations historic progress to empower Tribal sovereignty and self-determination and align with Executive Order 14112, which President Biden signed at the 2023 White House Tribal Nations Summit, requiring federal agencies to take action to ensure that federal funding for Tribes is accessible, flexible, and equitable. By executing these awards through Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act contracts and compacts, the Department will lift a significant administrative burden from the awardee Tribes. NOAA plans to continue building on this partnership with BIA for future work opportunities to address Tribal needs throughout the United States.

Since time immemorial, Tribes in the Pacific Northwest have relied on Pacific salmon, steelhead and other native fish species for sustenance and their cultural and spiritual ways of life, said Secretary Deb Haaland. This funding will help us deliver historic investments from the Presidents Investing in America agenda that will empower Indigenous communities and safeguard resources they have stewarded since time immemorial.

Thanks to the Biden-Harris Administrations Investing in America agenda and commitment to guaranteeing equitable access to federal funding for Tribes, this cross-agency partnership will ensure Tribal communities have the resources they need to sustain Pacific Salmon and Steelhead fisheries that are essential to their economic development, said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. Theres also more to be done, and I look forward to working with all Tribes and Congressional champions to find future opportunities to support salmon hatcheries.

Tribal fish hatchery production in the Pacific Northwest benefits subsistence fishers as well as both local and global markets, supporting commercial, subsistence and recreational fishing, tourism and the broader ecosystem from California to Alaska. Millions of fish are produced in Tribal hatcheries each year, driving Tribal employment and subsistence, nutrition for Tribal families, and the preservation of cultural traditions and recreation. As habitat is restored and reconnected to better support natural fish production, hatcheries will remain a critical tool to supplement fish for Tribal and non-Tribal fisheries, as well as other salmon-dependent animals and ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest.

As part of (Thursdays) announcement, an initial $54 million is available to 27 Tribes in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska to address current hatchery facility maintenance and modernization necessities, and to support Tribal capacity needs. The remaining funding will be made available competitively to help Tribes address the long-term viability and effectiveness of critical infrastructure for the propagation of Pacific salmon and steelhead.

Lummi Nation statement

Secretary of the Lummi Indian Business Council Lisa Wilson, who worked on this funding from the beginning, released the following statement:

As the People of the Northern Straits, we Lhaqtemish, better known as Lummis, are Salmon People, as we have been here since Time Immemorial. Salmon are as important as the air we breath, our health, our existence  our schelangen, or way of life.

This historic funding is being dispersed through self-governance which means that it is directed straight to the Tribes. It will support our salmon hatcheries at Lummi Bay and Skookum Creek, which are nearly 60 years old and in desperate need of major infrastructure repairs and updates. Tribal hatcheries have been grossly underfunded for many years relative to state and federal facilities. Skookum Creek Hatchery has played an essential role in not only saving our ESA-listed Chinook population from extinction, but has also helped rebuild the natural-origin population. Investment in hatchery infrastructure will ensure we can continue our success in restoring salmon in the Nooksack River.

Hatchery fish are Treaty fish and play a vital role in the survival of our natural-origin populations while also providing salmon for our subsistence and ceremonies. If it werent for the hatcheries and the Tribes, nobody would be fishing.

It has been stated that this is a once in a lifetime funding but we think that we finally kicked the door down and are setting the precedent moving forward.

I join Lummi Nation Chairman Anthony Hillaire in saying, Hyshqe siam  thank you, to those who recognized this as an investment into our collective future: Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell; Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo; Janet Coit, NOAA Fisheries Assistant Administrator; Bryan Mercier (Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde), Northwest Regional Director at the Bureau of Indian Affairs; Jen Quan, NOAA Fisheries West Coast Regional Administrator; and Zach Penney (Nez Perce Tribe), NOAA Senior Advisor.

We have always learned from the strength of salmon. Today, when we release them as smolts, they are subject to habitat degradation, pollution, major pinniped predation, and vessel traffic. While offshore in the ocean, they face warming waters. They return to rivers that have too little water, are too warm, and can no longer support robust natural-origin populations as a result of habitat destruction. But return they must, and return they do, thanks in large part to efforts of tribal leadership.

Like the salmon, tribes are resilient. None of this funding was guaranteed. We fought hard to ensure that it came to us, as it should under federal obligations. We know how to manage and govern ourselves. The Lummi people know how to manage the gifts the water provides, and we protect and defend those gifts with sustainable projects like our salmon hatcheries.

Again, we say, Hyshqe. We will look forward to continuing work with NOAA Fisheries to strengthen our hatchery programs, which strengthens the whole Northwest region.
CHATFIELD, Minn.  Nearly 100 farmers, water advocates, and landowners packed into the top floor of an arts center Wednesday evening in this Driftless region town to hear a presentation and pose questions to state regulators over updates to rules for feedlots.

The proposed changes for permits covering over 1,000 feedlots across Minnesota would require operators to track down more documentation from farmers who buy manure to apply to their fields. Beginning in 2025, the permits would also greatly ramp up requirements  from planting cover crops to inspecting fields during application  for farmers applying manure during late fall and early winter months.

Changes are meant to protect groundwater from nitrate pollution, with some 70% of the state waterways' nitrate contaminants linked to farm practices, according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). But the new plan received lukewarm feedback from a number of attendees who railed against what they considered unfair regulations that penalize the biggest permit-holders and allow smaller farms and landowners to go unchecked.

"How do you determine that the nitrates in the water came from a 2,000-head dairy farm or a 50-cow [dairy] down below [the ridge]?" asked one farmer, who told the state officials he would not provide his name to any public comment. "Because the way this looks, we've got a lot of rules [coming] ... and everyone else has nothing."

The updates to requirements on manure application for farmers comes against the backdrop of increased scrutiny  including from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency  of farm runoff polluting streams and drinking water.

Under the changes, Minnesota's permit-holders, which represent just a fraction of the overall number of registered feedlots across the state, could still sell manure to be applied as spring fertilizer.

In most other instances, however, during fall and winter months in sensitive groundwater areas, including the karst region in southeastern Minnesota, farmers would need to plant perennial or cover crops, which can trap nutrients in the soil, preventing runoff.

George Schwint, with the MPCA, started the Wednesday meeting by attempting to allay concerns the state was interested in a blame-game against feedlot permit-holders.

"Nitrate is nitrate, regardless of the source," Schwint said.

Still, the state can only mandate changes to permitted facilities, not farms with fewer than 1,000 animal units that generally fall under the thresholds requiring a state permit.

The Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy has estimated a third of nitrate pollution in the state's waters can be linked to concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. Still, many farmers say the current plan unfairly leaves farms  and other producers of nitrates  off the hook for producing the remaining two-thirds of contaminants.

The public comment period on the proposed rules has been extended until early September. Wednesday's meeting was the third, after stops in Fairmont and Paynesville. After the meeting, chat lingered in the hallways of the former school.

"It was eye-opening," said Patrick Byron, who lives in neighboring Winona County. Byron said he is concerned with the state's ability to crack down on water pollution. "I'm ready to go see the next horizon, but I have grandkids ... and I'm trying to look out for their future, as well."
Few hate crimes are prosecuted in Texas. Attack against Austin gay man could be one of them

Investigative Summary:

Three University of Texas at Austin fraternity brothers are facing misdemeanor assault charges after police say they attacked a man while at least one of them shouted homophobic slurs. The case is one of thousands of suspected hate crimes Texas law enforcement agencies have reported since 2001, but very few of those incidents are ever prosecuted as such.

AUSTIN (KXAN)  Joshua Ybarra was walking to his Uber on Austins Sixth Street when he says he heard a voice behind him say a gay slur. It was 2:20 in the morning. He was dressed in black-heeled booties with his late grandmothers purse in his hand.

Minutes later, police say security cameras recorded as the same men he said shouted the slur pushed Ybarra to the ground and punched him until he blacked out. During the attack, Ybarra told police, he was still being called a gay f.

Joshua Ybarra in the hospital after police say he was assaulted on Sixth Street. (Joshua Ybarra)

Police arrested three University of Texas Delta Sigma Phi fraternity members and have an arrest warrant out for a woman they say was also involved in the April 21 attack. The attorney for one of the men says one of Ybarras friends initiated the physical contact that night, but no one else has been charged.

In addition to the charges, the Austin Police Department determined under Texas law, one of the mens actions that night was a hate crime.

Its now one of more than 6,000 hate crimes Texas law enforcement officers have reported to the Texas Department of Public Safety since 2001. That year, Gov. Rick Perry signed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Act into law, which allows enhanced penalties for an offense committed because of bias.

Law enforcement agencies have reported thousands of crimes they believe were committed because of prejudice since then, but only 41 have been prosecuted as hate crimes. Its unclear if Ybarras case will be among them.

I was just trying to fight for my life.

Months after the attack, 20-year-old Alex Saenz, 19-year-old Bhavya Kaushik, and the 21-year-old vice president of the Eta Chapter of Delta Sigma Phi, Sergio Martinez, turned themselves into the Travis County jail, according to court records.

LGBTQ+ advocates call for hate crime designation in Cedar Park murder investigation

A fourth suspect, Emilee Easley, has still not turned herself in after officers issued a warrant for her arrest.

Investigators said security footage shows the three men swarming Ybarra, pinning him to the ground and punching him. At one point, investigators said his long-time friend draped her body across his, but the men continued to assault them both.

She threw her body over me, and I just remember seeing them punch the back of her head, Ybarra said. I was just screaming at her and saying, you need to move.

The attorneys for Martinez and Kaushik say they have evidence that will exonerate their clients. Saenzs attorney said the security footage shows the physical contact began when one of Ybarras friends lunged at and struck Saenz in the face. His attorney, David White, said, This act of aggression compelled Mr. Saenz to defend himself, as is his right under the law.

Investigators described how other fraternity members who witnessed the assault tried to pull Saenz, Martinez and Bhavik off Ybarra and his friends. The fraternitys national office has not responded to repeated emails and calls from KXAN asking for comment. The Eta chapter did not provide a comment and declined to interview.

Ybarras other friend, a woman who investigators said was intoxicated and struggling to walk before the assault, fell to the ground during the melee and was seen lying motionless. According to investigators, surveillance video shows Easley punching her in the face and body several times.

Saenz, Martinez, Kaushik and Easley were all charged with misdemeanor assault causing bodily injury, but the Austin Police Departments Hate Crime Review Committee determined Saenz was the only one who targeted Ybarra because of a bias.

Lt. Chris Davis, who oversees the Hate Crime Review Committee, said that after reviewing the evidence in the case, including the video, it determined that he met all the elements that led it to believe there was potential bias.

Everyone belongs: City of Austin more effectively tracking hate crime data

Texas law requires prosecutors to prove the defendant intentionally selected the victim or their property because of the persons race, color, disability, religion, national origin, age, gender, sexual preference or status as a peace officer or judge.

Saenzs attorney denies he made any prejudicial statements.

Ybarra and his attorneys say they requested the Austin Police Department and the County Attorneys Office, which prosecutes misdemeanor offenses, to consider hate crime enhancements for the other defendants in the case, too.

I feel like they should all be charged accordingly. I mean, it was just one person who started the whole thing, but they all followed suit, especially when I was getting beat; the slurs were coming, Ybarra said.

Joshua Ybarra stands on the street where investigators say he was assaulted in April. (KXAN Photo/Kelly Wiley)

After the Hate Crime Review Committee classified the case as a hate crime in May, APD reported it to the Texas Department of Public Safety and FBI and forwarded it to the Travis County Attorneys Office. The County Attorneys office said it could not comment on pending cases.

We are just [asking] hey, is there an element of bias associated with it, and we forward it off to look to the next level, Lt. Davis said. There is nothing to preclude the [District Attorney] or [County Attorney] from adding or taking away. They have full liberty to do that.

Less than 1% found to be hate crimes in Texas

The Texas Department of Public Safety has tracked hate crime incidents since the early 90s, reaching a record 529 in 2022. In that year alone, 118 reported hate crimes allegedly targeted victims based on sexual orientation, also a record high. In the first six months of 2024, a total of 287 hate crimes were reported by law enforcement statewide, 44 of which were because of sexual orientation.

A report does not mean a hate crime will be affirmed in court. Data from the states Office of Court Administration, or OCA, shows its rare for Texas prosecutors to even ask a judge or jury to determine whether a suspect is guilty of a hate crime.

This chart shows the number of hate crimes reported by law enforcement agencies in Texas each year since 2001, broken down by bias category. Data for 2024 is as of the end of June. Source: Texas Department of Public Safety. (KXAN Interactive/Christopher Adams)

Between September 2001 and June 2024, DPS received 6,632 hate crime reports from law enforcement agencies across the state. In some cases, suspects were accused of targeting victims due to multiple biases  for example, both race and sexual orientation. Therefore, state data shows 6,797 incidences of bias during that time period: 64% because of race, ethnicity or ancestry, 20% because of sexual orientation and 12% because of religion. Other biases account for less than 5%.

But data from OCA shows in those thousands of reports, prosecutors only requested a hate crime finding in 41 cases  0.6% of all hate crimes reported. Even fewer, 36, had a hate crime finding affirmed by a judge or jury.

When a hate crime finding is affirmed, the district or county court clerk must notify OCA within 30 days.

KXAN analyzed the 36 affirmative findings submitted to OCA, and through court records and previous reports we found 61% were cases where victims were targeted because of race, ethnicity or ancestry, and 33% were targeted because of sexual orientation. In one case, the suspect targeted law enforcement. KXAN has been unable to confirm the bias in one instance  a 2014 case in Milam County.

Attack on gay men a hate crime, APDs new team investigates violence

In February, advocates called for prosecutors to request a hate crime finding after a 23-year-old Palestinian American, Zacariah Doar, was stabbed near UTs West Campus. APDs Hate Crime Review Committee determined the alleged aggravated assault met the definition of a hate crime.

But a grand jury ruled that Bert James Baker, who was indicted on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, did not attack Doar because of bias or prejudice.

Since September 2001, five people have been found guilty of a hate crime in Travis County. Three of those were related to a 2019 attack on a gay couple in downtown Austin. Investigators said the two men were chased down, beaten and called homophobic slurs.

Quinn OConnor, Kolby Monell and Frank Macias took a plea deal in August 2021 and were convicted of assault bodily injury with a hate crime finding. A judge ordered Macias to spend a year in county jail and send an apology letter to the victims. OConnor and Monell were each sentenced to two years on probation, anger management counseling, 50 hours of community service and made to write a letter of apology.

I know just the complexity these cases bring, and I can only imagine bringing these cases to the courtroom and persuading a jury that the mensrea  the reason why a person did this  was because of this, Lt. Davis said.

There is really no recourse

KXAN Live Anchor Will DuPree and Investigator Kelly Wiley discuss the difficulties of prosecuting hate crimes in Texas.

Texas lawmakers have attempted to revise, and study, hate crime laws over 20 times since lawmakers passed the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crime Act in 2001. Most of the bills targeting hate crimes since then have not passed, including one that would have added gender identity and expression to the statute on hate crimes.

Where you live determines [whether] youre going to get the help that you need. So, for a lot of rural and suburban LGBTQ Texans, oftentimes, there is really no recourse locally for folks to have these crimes taken seriously, Equality Texas Executive Director Ricardo Martinez said. We need lawmakers to have the courage to stand up and do something meaningful to protect our community because violence, like what happened to Josh, falls squarely on their heads.

Ybarra has still not seen the video of the attack. Hes been trying to view it, but investigators and prosecutors have not shown him yet. He also asked the County Attorneys Victim Services team to request a review of whether a hate crime finding should be pursued for the other defendants in the case.

Ybarra said doctors have not cleared him to return to his job as a certified medical assistant. His medical records show after the assault, his teeth and nose were broken, and he had a concussion.

The drawing from Ybarra's niece sits on his bookshelf. (KXAN Photo/Chris Nelson)

During our interview, Ybarra pointed to a small, framed drawing on his bookcase. Now more than ever, he said he was turning to the message his niece had written at the center of the paper.

To be yourself in a world constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Its funny because I always look at that, and Im trying to remind myself to be my true, authentic self regardless of everything that has happened, Ybarra said.

Director of Investigations & Innovation Josh Hinkle, Investigative Photographer Chris Nelson, Graphic Artist Christina Staggs and Digital Director Kate Winkle contributed to this report.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KXAN Austin.
By Tomomi Akasaka, KYODO NEWS - Jul 26, 2024 - 07:05 | All, Japan

Asylum seekers on provisional release in Japan are facing poverty, as insufficient support from the central government has left a heavy burden on local authorities and private aid groups providing them with medical and educational assistance.

Such asylum seekers, who are subject to deportation but exempt from being detained for health or humanitarian reasons, are prohibited from working and cannot access the national health insurance system due to not having residential status.

A revised immigration law that took effect in June limits the number of times foreign nationals can apply for asylum but allows them to reside elsewhere than immigration facilities, following several deaths of illegal immigrants during long-term incarceration.

But the revised measures have drawn criticism from legal experts, who say they raise human rights concerns as they leave asylum seekers without necessary assistance for living outside the facilities.

"My medical expenses have increased by hundreds of times, and I have no prospect of knowing when I can pay them," a Pakistani man in his 50s from Saitama Prefecture said at a free health examination conducted by a nonprofit organization in Gunma Prefecture in June.

He and his family are on provisional release after his request for refugee status was turned down in November. As his residency status was retracted, he cannot work and has been charged in full for his medical expenses to treat a severe chronic disease he suffers from.

Nonprofit organization North Kanto Health Consultation Association has been carrying out health checkups on impoverished people without residency status since 1997 and has examined over 3,000 people.

The group also financially supports people, helping to cover their rent and medical expenses, as well as providing them with food as needed, but it is dependent on donations and contributions from companies to cover costs.

"In some cases, people cannot receive proper treatment, placing their lives at risk," said the NPO's secretary general Masataka Nagasawa, 70.

Local governments are also facing challenges regarding asylum seekers on provisional release having medical issues.

In Kawaguchi, Saitama Prefecture, a city with a large foreign population, 36 percent of unpaid medical expenses at Kawaguchi Municipal Medical Center as of March last year were attributable to non-Japanese patients, including those on provisional release, straining the city's finances, the local government said.

Among elementary and junior high schools in the city that teach the kids of those on provisional release, expenses to cover their school meals and supplies have also become a financial burden, according to a municipal official.

As of May this year, there was a 25-person shortage of Japanese language teachers for foreign children in the area.

To address these difficulties, Kawaguchi Mayor Nobuo Okunoki urged the central government in May to fund the academic fees of children without residency status.

"It's an issue that the state should be taking the lead in tackling but it is pretending not to see the predicament faced by local governments," Okunoki said.

Despite this, the Immigration Services Agency has stuck to the policy, with an agency official saying that the government will not directly provide support to foreigners on provisional release.

"If there is a request for consultation (from such people,) we will introduce contact municipalities or support groups," the official said.

Under the revised immigration law, those who have submitted three or more asylum applications are now at risk of deportation if they fail to demonstrate reasonable grounds to support their case to stay.

The changes also allow asylum seekers to reside elsewhere from immigration facilities under the supervision of family members or people supporting them, who are expected to ensure the applicants do not flee into the community.

"The revised law has major flaws, as it only stipulates tighter rules on deportation and detention," said Shoichi Ibusuki, a lawyer with expertise in legal issues related to foreigners.

"As a matter of fact, the human rights of those on provisional release should be protected. A legal framework needs to be established so that they can receive medical and academic support," Ibusuki said.

According to the agency, the number of foreigners on provisional release stood at 4,133 as of the end of December.

In addition to restrictions on employment and insurance, such people also have conditions on their place of residence and area of movement imposed upon them and are obligated to show up if summoned by the authorities.

Related coverage:

Japanese population sees biggest drop on record in 15th year of decline

Japan court orders government to admit gay man as refugee over persecution

Japan now able to deport people with multiple failed asylum claims

Japan to limit No. of asylum claims one can make to speed up deportations
(Bloomberg) -- Finland said a Russian ship is suspected of a territorial violation in the eastern Gulf of Finland, the latest in a string of border breaches by Moscow.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The suspected breach of the Nordic nations waters occurred Friday afternoon and is under investigation by the Border Guard, according to a statement by the Defense Ministry. No details were given on the vessel.

Territorial violations can be part of a toolkit  known as hybrid warfare  intended to put pressure on governments and scare citizens.

Generally falling short of conventional attacks that could trigger NATOs collective response, various hybrid attacks have grown in frequency since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine in early 2022. In Finland, the previous incident took place in June, when four Russian state aircraft entered the nations airspace.

Finland, which joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in April 2023, has also seen multiple commercial aircraft prevented from landing at small airports due to interference with the global positioning system. Its 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) border with Russia, which makes up half of NATOs eastern flank, has been closed to all road traffic since late last year, after Russia began transporting migrants to the border to put pressure on Helsinki.

The government has responded by beefing up its already strong military, passing legislation that allows the border guards to push back migrants under exceptional circumstances and bans property purchases if national security is considered to be at risk.

(Updates with background from fourth paragraph)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
New fire closes Idaho 55 again, north of Avimor. Heres what we know so far

Idaho Highway 55 was shut down in both directions Thursday afternoon for the second time in as many days, the result of another fire, according to the Idaho Transportation Department website.

The major closure was near North McLeod Way at milepost 55, the ITD website said. That location is south of Horseshoe Bend and just north of Avimor, and Idaho 55 was closed between mile markers 51 and 54, the agency said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Idaho Transportation Department did not immediately return a request for further information.

On Wednesday, a fire north of Avimor near milepost 57 closed the highway in both directions.
A fire destroyed a home is destroyed in Ohio Thursday night.

>>Significant rockfall forces road closure in Ohio

The Eastern Joint Fire and EMS District wrote on social media that firefighters responded at 9:52 p.m. to a working fire at the 100 block of Winchester Street in Sardinia in Brown County.

The home is a total loss due to extreme fire conditions on arrival, they said on its Facebook page. The fire has been extinguished.

No injuries have been reported.

Video and pictures from WKRC TV in Cincinnati showed the house surrounded by flames.

The fire remains under investigation.
Fired SFDA employee says he asked Brooke Jenkins about her panties by mistake

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON)  Theres never a good time to ask your boss, What color are your panties? Especially if she is one of the most powerful people in San Francisco.

But thats what happened earlier this year when a San Francisco District Attorneys Office victim witness advocate replied to DA Brooke Jenkins email. The advocate, 56-year-old Jovan Thomas, lost his job within hours of clicking the reply to all button, which sent the message to the entire staff.

Thomas attorneys filed an invasion of privacy lawsuit this week detailing what allegedly happened in January when he sent the embarrassing email. The suit names Jenkins, the DAs office, and a human resources employee as defendants.

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins speaks during a press conference in San Francisco, on July 12, 2022. (Gabrielle Lurie / San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

Jenkins initial all-staff email was about murder victim Matthew Shepard, the lawsuit says. Shepard was a gay man who was tied to a fence, tortured, and left to die in Wyoming in 1998. Jenkins had sent a calendar invitation for an anti-discrimination staff meeting related to the Shepard case.

Thomas claims he intended to send the what color are your panties? message as a joke to his fraternity brother with hopes of making him laugh and cheer up.

Plaintiff was aware that his friend was a straight male who did not wear panties. It was a silly joke intended to cheer up his friend, attorneys wrote. The message was inadvertently sent to Jenkins, as well as every employee of the DAs office, according to the lawsuit.

District Attorney Brooke Jenkins speaks to the Bay Area Abortion Rights Coalition on January 25, 2023. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

After screen grabs of the panties email circulated on X, false online rumors swirled of an affair between Jenkins and Thomas. SFDAO then sent a statement to the San Francisco Chronicle clarifying that Jenkins had no relationship with Thomas, and condemned the messages misogynistic behavior, the suit states.

Thomas says he immediately apologized for his inappropriate email and explained that the reply was intended for his frat friend. Attorneys wrote, In the context of their long-time friendship, plaintiffs flip question had no sexual, off-color, obscene, misogynistic or sexist meaning or intent.

The DAs human resources director informed Thomas that he was being laid off.

Kamala Harris rise to political power began in Bay Area

The lawsuit accuses someone within the DAs office of tipping off the media, making malicious statements about Thomas to the press, and leaking information that Thomas was terminated.

Jovan-Thomas-LawsuitDownload

His attorneys claim, The private facts disclosed by defendants were not of legitimate public concern, or newsworthy. Defendants acted with hatred and ill will toward plaintiff.

The leaks invaded the ex-advocates right to privacy, the suit states.

Thomas has struggled to find a new job since the email scandal even though he worked as an advocate for a decade. The lawsuit, filed on July 19 by Law Offices of R. Michael Lieberman, demands a jury trial.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Crews are attacking the Durkee Fire in eastern Oregon from the air and ground. (Courtesy of the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center)

Hundreds of thousands of acres are ablaze, dozens of buildings destroyed and thousands of Oregonians face evacuation orders as firefighters battle several dozen large wildfires across Oregon, including the largest fire in the nation.

Much of the fire activity is in eastern Oregon, where the Durkee Fire was ignited last week by lightning and has scorched nearly 270,000 acres in Baker and Malheur counties. It is the biggest fire in the country, according to fire team spokesman Dana Leavitt, with more than 500 firefighters trying to prevent its spread. Leavitt said the teams resources include aircraft, engines and hotshot crews from 26 states.

Temperatures dropped somewhat and winds calmed on Thursday, with rain falling overnight, but the fire still grew by about 30,000 acres in the past 24 hours. Officials said firefighters are facing moderate fire behavior, marking an improvement from earlier in the week, when they faced extreme behavior with temperatures into the 90s and wind gusts up to 75 miles per hour.

Leavitt said the fire manager was optimistic about the outlook on Thursday.

The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, which manages fire resources, said firefighters would seize the opportunity of improved weather to directly attack the Durkee Fire, which remains 0% contained.

The fire has destroyed two homes and 12 other buildings and threatens more than 350 homes and more than 380 other buildings, the coordination center said. But the sheriffs offices in Malheur and Baker counties said Thursday that immediate evacuation orders had been lifted and that others had been scaled back or cut entirely, allowing people to return to their homes. Interstate 84 has also reopened.

But the threat is far from over.

We would like to remind folks to remain vigilant due to the potential for rapid fire growth, which could prompt evacuation levels to change again, the Baker Countys Sheriff Office said on Facebook.

Protect yourself

The Red Cross offers a range of tips to protect yourself and your property:

Make an emergency kitDevise an evacuation planStay informed

The agencys emergency app in English and Spanish provides weather alerts, shelter locations and other information. Its free from Apples app store or through Google Play.

A coordination center official told the Capital Chronicle Thursday afternoon it is tracking 38 large, uncontained fires in Oregon. Within the past week, Gov. Tina Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act for the Durkee and Battle Mountain Complex Fires, which have burned nearly 74,000 acres west of Ukiah in Umatilla County, with more than 630 homes and 680 other structures threatened and two buildings destroyed. Declaring a conflagration means the state will organize firefighters and reimburse local crews for fire fighting expenses.

The wildfires in eastern Oregon have scaled up quickly, Kotek said in a statement Wednesday. The situation is dynamic and the teams on the ground are taking it day by day.

Earlier, Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act for five other fires from central Oregon to the north, northeast and east, and she declared a statewide wildfire emergency, enabling the deployment of the National Guard and access to other state and national resources, her office said.

She has deployed the National Guard to fires in eastern and southwestern Oregon, and the State Fire Marshals Office, which focuses on threats to communities, has mobilized nearly 500 firefighters, including 150 from out of state, to support local agencies on the ground.

A fire marshal spokesman, John Hendricks, said the office is assigned to six wildfires in Oregon  the Durkee, Battle Mountain, Lone Rock southeast of Condon, Boneyard north of John Day, Falls northwest of Burns and Microwave Tower outside Mosier in Wasco County.

Theyve scorched nearly 670,000 acres and threaten nearly 8,800 structures, including more than 4,300 homes.

And thats just part of the picture.

The State Fire Marshals map shows that spots in many areas of the state, which recently experienced a heat wave reaching triple digits, are on fire. As of Thursday, about 18,400 people faced one of three evacuation orders  Level 1 means be ready to leave, Level 2 means get set or pack your bags and Level 3 signals you must leave. More than 4,150 people are currently under orders to leave with their animals. The Red Cross is operating six evacuation shelters in Oregon in Baker City, Burns, Fossil, Hermiston, John Day and Ontario.

Other fires pose structural threats

The human-caused Falls Fire has burned more than 140,000 acres northwest of Burns and is 50% contained. The containment, which is when firefighters have stopped the fires spread, is on the southern border.

The fire has destroyed 13 homes and 16 other structures, and more than 1,800 homes are threatened, according to the coordination center. With so many residences at stake, officials have deployed more than 1,600 people, including helicopter and engine crews.

The Harney County Sheriffs Office has warned of power outages and has level 3 evacuation orders in place. Lower level evacuation orders are also in effect in various areas.

The Lone Rock Fire, which has burned more than 136,000 acres, threatens nearly 790 homes and more than 580 other structures, the coordination center said. Its cause is under investigation. More than 1,000 people are deployed to the fire thats running through brush and grass southeast of Condon and northeast of Fossil. Crews on the ground are aided by five helicopters attacking from above. The fire is 40% contained, but the steep terrain is challenging, according to an update on Wednesday.

The Battle Mountain Complex of three fires west of Ukiah is also under investigation, according to the coordination center. They are among 17 blazes in northeast Oregon that started last Wednesday. They threaten more than 630 residences, as well as 680 minor structures, two of which have been destroyed. More than 840 people are at the scene along with six helicopters.

The Monkey Creek Fire, which is part of the Battle Mountain complex, is growing toward the Boneyard Fire, another blaze that threatens property. The Boneyard Fire, sparked by lightning, has spread across about 50,000 acres and is 3% contained. The fire threatens nearly 1,200 structures, including about 300 residences.

Finally, Oregon State Fire Marshal officials are focused on the Microwave Tower Fire near Mosier. It is the smallest of the fires threatening property, scorching about 700 acres of timber and threatening about 430 homes and more than 800 other structures. About 115 people have been deployed to the scene, and as of Wednesday, it was 0% contained.

UPDATED with current fire information from the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center at 5:08 p.m. on Thursday, July 25, 2024.

This story was first published by the Oregon Capital Chronicle, part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Lynne Terry for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com. Follow Oregon Capital Chronicle on Facebook and X.
Crews are attacking the Durkee Fire in eastern Oregon from the air and ground. (Courtesy of the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center)

Hundreds of thousands of acres are ablaze, dozens of buildings destroyed and thousands of Oregonians face evacuation orders as firefighters battle several dozen large wildfires across Oregon, including the largest fire in the nation.

Much of the fire activity is in eastern Oregon, where the Durkee Fire was ignited last week by lightning and has scorched nearly 270,000 acres in Baker and Malheur counties. It is the biggest fire in the country, according to fire team spokesman Dana Leavitt, with more than 500 firefighters trying to prevent its spread. Leavitt said the teams resources include aircraft, engines and hotshot crews from 26 states.

Temperatures dropped somewhat and winds calmed on Thursday, with rain falling overnight, but the fire still grew by about 30,000 acres in the past 24 hours. Officials said firefighters are facing moderate fire behavior, marking an improvement from earlier in the week, when they faced extreme behavior with temperatures into the 90s and wind gusts up to 75 miles per hour.

Leavitt said the fire manager was optimistic about the outlook on Thursday.

The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center, which manages fire resources, said firefighters would seize the opportunity of improved weather to directly attack the Durkee Fire, which remains 0% contained.

The fire has destroyed two homes and 12 other buildings and threatens more than 350 homes and more than 380 other buildings, the coordination center said. But the sheriffs offices in Malheur and Baker counties said Thursday that immediate evacuation orders had been lifted and that others had been scaled back or cut entirely, allowing people to return to their homes. Interstate 84 has also reopened.

But the threat is far from over.

We would like to remind folks to remain vigilant due to the potential for rapid fire growth, which could prompt evacuation levels to change again, the Baker Countys Sheriff Office said on Facebook.

Protect yourself

The Red Cross offers a range of tips to protect yourself and your property:

The agencys emergency app in English and Spanish provides weather alerts, shelter locations and other information. Its free from Apples app store or through Google Play.

A coordination center official told the Capital Chronicle on Thursday afternoon it is tracking 38 large, uncontained fires in Oregon. Within the past week, Gov. Tina Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act for the Durkee and Battle Mountain Complex Fires, which have burned nearly 74,000 acres west of Ukiah in Umatilla County, with more than 630 homes and 680 other structures threatened and two buildings destroyed. Declaring a conflagration means the state will organize firefighters and reimburse local crews for firefighting expenses.

The wildfires in eastern Oregon have scaled up quickly, Kotek said in a statement Wednesday. The situation is dynamic and the teams on the ground are taking it day by day.

Earlier, Kotek invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act for five other fires from central Oregon to the north, northeast and east, and she declared a statewide wildfire emergency, enabling the deployment of the National Guard and access to other state and national resources, her office said.

She has deployed the National Guard to fires in eastern and southwestern Oregon, and the State Fire Marshals Office, which focuses on threats to communities, has mobilized nearly 500 firefighters, including 150 from out of state, to support local agencies on the ground.

A fire marshal spokesman, John Hendricks, said the office is assigned to six wildfires in Oregon  the Durkee, Battle Mountain, Lone Rock southeast of Condon, Boneyard north of John Day, Falls northwest of Burns and Microwave Tower outside Mosier in Wasco County.

Theyve scorched nearly 670,000 acres and threaten nearly 8,800 structures, including more than 4,300 homes.

And thats just part of the picture.

The State Fire Marshals map shows that spots in many areas of the state, which recently experienced a heat wave reaching triple digits, are on fire. As of Thursday, about 18,400 people faced one of three evacuation orders  Level 1 means be ready to leave, Level 2 means get set or pack your bags and Level 3 signals you must leave. More than 4,150 people are currently under orders to leave with their animals. The Red Cross is operating six evacuation shelters in Oregon in Baker City, Burns, Fossil, Hermiston, John Day and Ontario.

Other fires pose structural threats

The human-caused Falls Fire has burned more than 140,000 acres northwest of Burns and is 50% contained. The containment, which is when firefighters have stopped the fires spread, is on the southern border.

The fire has destroyed 13 homes and 16 other structures, and more than 1,800 homes are threatened, according to the coordination center. With so many residences at stake, officials have deployed more than 1,600 people, including helicopter and engine crews.

The Harney County Sheriffs Office has warned of power outages and has level 3 evacuation orders in place. Lower level evacuation orders are also in effect in various areas.

The Lone Rock Fire, which has burned more than 136,000 acres, threatens nearly 790 homes and more than 580 other structures, the coordination center said. Its cause is under investigation. More than 1,000 people are deployed to the fire thats running through brush and grass southeast of Condon and northeast of Fossil. Crews on the ground are aided by five helicopters attacking from above. The fire is 40% contained, but the steep terrain is challenging, according to an update on Wednesday.

The Battle Mountain Complex of three fires west of Ukiah is also under investigation, according to the coordination center. They are among 17 blazes in northeast Oregon that started last Wednesday. They threaten more than 630 residences, as well as 680 minor structures, two of which have been destroyed. More than 840 people are at the scene along with six helicopters.

The Monkey Creek Fire, which is part of the Battle Mountain complex, is growing toward the Boneyard Fire, another blaze that threatens property. The Boneyard Fire, sparked by lightning, has spread across about 50,000 acres and is 3% contained. The fire threatens nearly 1,200 structures, including about 300 residences.

Finally, Oregon State Fire Marshal officials are focused on the Microwave Tower Fire near Mosier. It is the smallest of the fires threatening property, scorching about 700 acres of timber and threatening about 430 homes and more than 800 other structures. About 115 people have been deployed to the scene, and as of Wednesday, it was 0% contained.

UPDATED with current fire information from the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center at 5:08 p.m. on Thursday, July 25, 2024.
Multiple fires broke out in Stanislaus County on Thursday, one of which injured two firefighters and displaced a Turlock resident, according to the Modesto Fire Department.

The following are summaries of the fires reported by MFD.

Turlock fire





At about noon, firefighters responded to reports of a grass fire near the intersection of Lander and Linwood avenues. They saw that the fire was expanding to an outbuilding and multiple cars on the 200 block of Montana Avenue.

Initially, a quint and an engine responded. However, the call was upgraded to a structure fire, prompting nine engines, one quint, two battalion chiefs, two deputy chiefs and the Stanislaus County Fire Investigation Unit.

Two firefighters were injured battling the fire, which was contained to about an acre.

A total of 22 vehicles, an RV and a residential outbuilding were destroyed or damaged. One resident was displaced.

The two firefighters were taken to an emergency room and were later released. The extent of their injuries was not disclosed by MFD.

Modesto-area firefighters respond to a large vegetation fire in the backyard of a residence near the intersection of S. Santa Cruz and Mono in Modesto on Thursday, July 25, 2024

Airport neighborhood fire

Firefighters responded to a report of a working structure fire near the intersection of South Santa Cruz Avenue and Mono Drive at about 5:20 p.m.

Five engines, a quint, two battalion chiefs and a medic responded.

They found a large vegetation and debris fire in the backyard of a home. The fire threatened multiple structures.

Crews quickly extinguished the fire, according to MFD. An outbuilding was damaged. Due to the heat, two more companies were requested. Crews remained at the scene for over two hours to mop up the aftermath.

Oakdale fires

At about 12:30 p.m., fire crews responded to a vegetation fire on Carmel Court in Oakdale. They discovered a fast-moving fire, fueled by dry brush and grass in between several houses.

Crews stopped the fire from reaching any structures. It was contained to about an acre. No injuries were reported.

Firefighters were dispatched to a vegetation fire in the river bottom just off Highway 108 near Brady Road in Oakdale at about 7 p.m.

Crews initially had about an acre of heavy brush and large trees aflame. However, several more fires started further west along the river, so backup was called.

The fires were contained, but crews had to stay late into the night to quell the blaze. Crews still were on the scene Friday afternoon, according to Capt. Jim Black with the MFD.

Edgebrook Drive fire

At about 3:15 p.m., an engine was dispatched to a vegetation fire on Edgebrook Drive in the airport neighborhood of Modesto.

They found about a quarter-acre fire fueled by a mix of brush and bamboo. The fire spread slowly and was contained.

Crews stayed at the scene for about 90 minutes to mop up the aftermath.

In total, Stanislaus County fire agencies received 208 calls for service. The total includes fires and medical emergencies.
LAYTON, Utah (ABC4)  A fireworks malfunction in Layton fired into a small crowd of onlookers during a Pioneer Day celebration on Wednesday, July 24.

Layton Fire Battalion Chief Jason Cook told ABC4.com the incident happened around 10:30 p.m. at Andy Adams Park. A man was reportedly lighting off fireworks in the fireworks-designated area of the park when one of the fireworks malfunctioned.

Two people were reportedly injured though Cook said they were only minor blistering injuries. A Fire Marshal was on the scene doing a firework patrol and was able to treat the victims on-site. Neither victim was taken to the hospital.

Cook told ABC4.com that the man was setting off fireworks independently of the city or any group and no charges would be filed as everything was being conducted legally.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
When is the first day of fall? What the Old Farmer's Almanac says about Tennessee outlook

We're still in the dog days of summer, but it doesn't mean we can't dream of fall weather.

Between the heat and now the rain, dreams of crisp fall days sipping a fun autumn drink might be circling, but there are still a couple of months before the first official day of fall and there are no guarantees that it will cool down significantly by then. The autumnal equinox or the September equinox or the fall equinox  at the end of September will bring a change in season as days grow shorter and the bountiful summer harvest gives way to heartier plants that survive in cooler weather.

Here's when the first day of fall is and what Tennesseans can expect weather wise.

When is the first day of fall?

The official first day of fall is Sunday, Sept. 22, at 7:44 a.m. CT/ 8:44 a.m. ET, also known as the autumnal equinox.

The equinox is known as the astronomical start of the season, but there is another method used to measure the change in seasons.

The meteorological start to fall is based on the annual temperature cycle and the 12-month calendar. With this definition, each season begins on the first of a particular month and lasts for three months. This means summer will end on Aug. 31 and fall will start on Sept. 1, according to The Old Farmers Almanac.

What is the autumnal equinox?

According to The Old Farmer's Almanac, an equinox is when the sun crosses the celestial equator," which is an imaginary extension of Earths equator line into space. The equinox occurs when the suns center passes through it.

Earth experiences two different equinoxes each year.

In the northern hemisphere, when the sun crosses the equator going north to south, it marks the autumnal equinox. The vernal equinox is when it crosses from south to north.

What does equinox mean?

The word equinox is derived from Latin. Aequus (equal) and nox (night) directly describes the occurrence seen twice a year during the start of fall and spring.

When will it get cooler in Tennessee?

The Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting average temperatures for most of Tennessee this fall. Provided by Old Farmer's Almanac

Tennessee is looking at near-average temperatures for fall this year, according to the Old Farmer's Almanac. As for what the forecast looks like, Accuweather's month-long forecast for September continues to show highs in the high 80s heading into the 90s, but the temperatures will start to drop at night and toward the end of the month in Middle and West Tennessee.

Of course, the mountains in East Tennessee will start to cool off a bit sooner than the rest of the state.

East Tennessee will sit closer to the mid-80s with high 70s for much of September, according to predictions from Accuweather.

Most of the state will start feeling a bit more fall-ish, once October starts and temperatures begin to dip down in the mid-60s during the day and nights start dipping to the mid-40s.

How much rain will Tennessee see this fall?

The Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting an above average precipitation for most of Tennessee this fall. Provided by the Old Farmer's Almanac

Tennessee will see more rain than usual this fall. The Old Farmer's Almanac predicts an above average precipitation this fall and so does Accuweather.

September's weather prediction by Accuweather doesn't show much anticipated rainfalls during the month in Tennessee, but as we head into October the state is expected to see an uptick in precipitation.

As always, this look-ahead forecast can change as weather events happen.

How does the Old Farmer's Almanac make predictions?

According to the Old Farmer's Almanac website, predictions are made by comparing solar activity with weather patterns. It reports using multiple academic disciplines for its predictions, including solar science, climatology and meteorology.

The weather forecast methodology is the modern version of a formula created by the Almanac's founder, Robert B. Thomas, in 1792, according to the website.

How accurate is the Old Farmer's Almanac's?

The Old Farmer's Almanac claims an 80% accuracy rate on its predictions.

The Cape Cod Times contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Old Farmer's Almanac 2024 Fall weather prediction for Tennessee
KYODO NEWS - Jul 27, 2024 - 05:46 | Sports, Olympics, All

The Japanese figure skaters who contested the team event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will receive their medals, upgraded from bronze to silver, during a ceremony at the Paris Games, the International Olympic Committee has announced.

The IOC made the announcement Thursday following a decision by the Court of Arbitration for Sport to dismiss an appeal by Russia, initially awarded gold in Beijing, over its demotion to third due to doping by one of its team members.

The ruling "comes just in time to still be able to make the medal allocation for gold and silver possible during the Olympic Games Paris 2024," the IOC said in its statement.

Japan was promoted to silver after Russian skater Kamila Valieva was disqualified from the Beijing Games for testing positive for a banned substance. The United States was promoted from silver to gold.

The IOC said on X, formerly Twitter, that it will work with the International Skating Union, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the Japanese Olympic Committee "to hold the ceremony here in the champions park based on the amended results from the ISU."

The medal ceremony for the Japanese team, including women's singles bronze medalist Kaori Sakamoto, as well as the U.S. team, is likely to be held in early August.

"We are glad that this opportunity can be offered to the athletes and teams who, unfortunately, had to wait for a very long time for their medals due to the ongoing legal case," the IOC said.

Canada, which finished fourth, is still awaiting a verdict on its appeal to the CAS seeking the disqualification of the Russian team.

Related coverage:

Paris Olympic opening ceremony begins amid security concerns

Olympics: Japanese athletes on high alert after railway arson attacks

French rail network hit by arson ahead of Olympic opening ceremony
Florida AG opens investigation after Sarasota window, door company closes down

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  Amid more than 30 consumer complaints, a spokesperson for the Florida Attorney Generals Office said they have an active consumer protection investigation into Sash & Sill, which abruptly closed earlier this month.

A growing number of consumers said they paid hefty deposits and did not receive the products or installation.

Close

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

8 on Your Side

Other consumers said theyre receiving notices of liens on their homes from suppliers who say the company didnt pay them.

This is a lot of money, said customer Brenda Grunwald of Charlotte County. My stomach has been in knots over this, like knots over this.

JetBlue adds new nonstop flight at Tampa International Airport

Last month, company owner Todd Hoch sent customers an email.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that Sash & Sill has closed its doors permanently. This difficult decision comes because of unforeseen circumstances that has significantly impacted our financial stability, forcing us to file for bankruptcy. I have exhausted my personal and business resources in efforts to overcome the situation. We are currently working on getting as many of your projects completed as possible. We will reach out with any updates that are specific to your project. The office has been closed to reduce overhead and all non-production staff are no longer with us. I want to express my deepest apologies. I am truly heartbroken over the situation. Sincerely, Todd Hoch

Homeowner Walt Bower said he paid $1,700 toward a new door and was about to sign a contract for new windows when he heard trouble was brewing. He said he joined a Facebook page for impacted customers.

I know of at least 50 other folks in this same situation and Ive heard numbers, anywhere from my number, which is $1,700, to all the way up to $75,000, Bower said.

Cynthia Ellison said she put down nearly $5,000 and was excited to upgrade her windows. Without a refund, that project may be out of reach.

Many customers said they have been unable to reach Hoch, but Solo shared an email with Better Call Behnken that she received from Hoch after repeated requests from answers:

There is no fraud but I understand your anger. I have lost most employees and still sorting through this. I want you to know that I do not take this lightly. I invested the last $250k of my personal funds in the company to make it work.

With impacted customers from Manatee, Sarasota and Charlotte counties, calling Better Call Behnken for help, Consumer Investigator Shannon Behnken left a voicemail message for company owner Todd Hoch and sent him an email.

A spokesman with the Sarasota County Sheriffs Office said he is aware of one report about this company that investigators are looking into. He would not elaborate on that report but said he encourages customers who lost money to file reports with their local law enforcement agencies.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Florida Democratic Party backs Rogers, but not Wood, who says she isn't playing politics

The Florida Democratic Party released its list of school board candidate endorsements Friday, a week after Gov. Ron DeSantis released his lineup of endorsed candidates.

We are not going to let Ron DeSantis and his allies take over our school boards with far-right, Moms for Liberty candidates," party chair Nikki Fried said in a news release.

Jeremy Rogers is running for the Leon County School Board District 4.

The list features 11 candidates, from school board races from across the state. Only one is from Leon County: Jeremy Rogers who is vying for the District 4 seat against DeSantis endorsed incumbent Laurie Lawson Cox.

Rogers has been vocal about his opponent's affiliations with local Moms for Liberty members, Republican state Sen. Corey Simon and the governor.

"Our campaign has the momentum heading into August, and with our broad bipartisan support, we are going to win," Rogers told the Tallahassee Democrat.

Rogers is currently endorsed by the Big Bend Labor Council, Equality Florida, the Tallahassee Firefighters and the Leon County Classroom Teachers Association (LCTA). He said all three groups have a wide range of members with diverse political affiliations.

Rosanne Wood is the incumbent running for the Leon County School Board District 2 seat.

Rosanne Wood, the only other Democrat in the Leon County School Board races, was noticeably left off the list.

But she said that's because she isn't up for playing politics in the nonpartisan school board election. Amendment 1 on the general election ballot this year will give Florida voters the option to make school board candidates run by party affiliation, not as no-party candidates.

"I did not seek an endorsement because I believe there is too much partisanship in school board races," Wood told the Tallahassee Democrat Friday morning. "I don't see children as Republicans, Democrats or independents. I see them as children who count on us to look out for them."

Wood, who is endorsed by the LCTA, is running for reelection against Daniel Zeruto, a registered Republican, in District 2.

Alaijah Brown covers children & families for the Tallahassee Democrat. She can be reached at ABrown1@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter/X: @AlaijahBrown3.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Democratic Party endorses Leon School Board candidate Jeremy Rogers
ORLANDO, Fla.  The candidates for Central Floridas congressional District 10 argued about marijuana, immigration, abortion and other issues in a pitch to represent their party in Novembers general election during a televised forum that aired Thursday night.

District 10 includes much of central and eastern Orange County including Orlando, Winter Park and Maitland. It is currently represented by first-term Democratic incumbent Maxwell Frost, who made national headlines in 2022 as the first member of Gen Z elected to Congress.

Frost beat his Republican rival Calvin Wimbish by 20 percentage points. Currently, the districts registered voters are 44% Democrat, 24% Republican and 29% non-party affiliated.

Frost will face two Democratic challengers, Wade Darius and Vibert White, in the Aug. 20 primary election. Tuan Le and Willie Montague are seeking the GOP nomination.

Darius did not attend the forum, but other nominees voiced their opinions on a host of topics.

The Democratic candidates said the United States needs better policies to govern its southern border and to protect asylum seekers.

One of the first things that needs to be done is to follow existing laws that are already on the books to secure our border, White said. Secondly, we have to understand that we are not an open-door policy any longer, that we cannot afford it. We have other people within the United States who need the resources that can be utilized in their own communities.

Frost argued that improving the asylum process would curtail many of the problems seen at the border today.

What we have to understand is we dont have open borders, he said. We do have a legal system of asylum, which is a legal right for people to claim asylum. So what we need to do is pass legislation to get more asylum attorneys, judges, more personnel down there so this process can be sped up.

Republican candidates, however, argued that the border is open and needs to be closed so the country can address its domestic issues.

Securing the border is not about immigrants, Le said. Its about stopping criminals and having human trafficking drop.

Montague said the border is open and called immigration an illegal issue that must be solved.

We need to secure the border, we need to close it off, and we need to make sure we have our officers there that are able to make sure that no one crosses over here until we get a better process, he said.

Two amendments that will be on Floridas ballot in November will allow voters to decide on legalizing marijuana usage for adults over 21 and protecting abortion rights.

Republican candidates Le and Montague said they do not support legalizing marijuana through Amendment 3, though Montague stated he is in favor of decriminalization.

It becomes that gateway and then it leads to something else, Montague said of marijuana. My brother spent seven years in prison because it started with marijuana to appeals to heroin because it became wanting more of a high.

Democratic candidates Frost and White disagreed, saying they want Amendment 3 to pass and to go a step further and have the records of individuals imprisoned on marijuana charges expunged.

The point is, marijuana should be legalized, White said. Secondly, individuals who are in jail right now at the federal and state level and county level should be released immediately if theyre there because of selling or smoking marijuana. Its a benign drug at this stage.

Both White and Frost said they support Amendment 4, which would overturn Floridas current six-week ban on abortion and make the procedure legal until fetus viability, usually about 24 weeks.

I support amendment 4 but not just that: Congress needs to codify Roe v. Wade, codify abortion rights for women and childbearing adults across the country, Frost said.

Le and Montague both acknowledged the issue is in the hands of the voters but voiced their opposition to the abortion measure.

Personally, I dont agree with abortion because I love children, Le said. I love kids and I have them, Im going to have a fourth kid coming soon too.

Montague said he is absolutely a no on the abortion amendment. I believe absolutely 100% in pro-life and that we need to protect our children and the unborn all the way from the womb to the tomb, he said.

Thursdays forum was moderated and sponsored by the Orlando Sentinel, Spectrum News 13 and AARP Florida and held at the News 13 studios in Orlando.

_____
PRATTVILLE  There was an elevated law enforcement presence Wednesday afternoon in Autaugaville as the Autauga County Sheriffs Office assisted a Florida law enforcement agency in a murder investigation.

The Autauga County Sheriffs Office was contacted by the Manatee County Sheriffs Office in Florida about a suspect who had a grand theft warrant and was a suspect in a murder, said Sheriff Mark Harrell. Tampa is in Manatee County.

Law enforcement had been told that the suspect was employed at Daisys restaurant in Autaugaville.

More: Woman found dead Wednesday in Montgomery, police say

Local sheriffs deputies took Mohamed Ouertani in custody and is holding him for Florida officials, Autauga Metro Jail records show. Extradition to Manatee County Florida is pending, Harrell said. Local deputies then conducted a search of the restaurant to see if there was any evidence related to the Florida cases.

The public was never in danger, and the restaurant owner was not involved in this case, the sheriff said.

Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Florida fugitive nabbed in Autaugaville
ORLANDO, Fla.  Forty-eight out of 50 states told CNN on Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris would have no problem appearing on ballots in November as her partys presidential candidate, but Florida was not among them.

But election experts see no way for Florida to try to keep Harris off the ballot since Democrats have not yet held their convention, and it is standard practice for parties to officially decide on their nominee at those events.

Matt Isbell, a Democratic elections analyst, said the law was so clear he would predict a 9-0 decision in favor of Harris by the U.S. Supreme Court, if any state tried to keep her off the ballot.

The Florida Division of Elections did not respond to CNN when asked if there was any truth to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnsons claim that there would be unnamed impediments to Harris name being listed as the Democratic choice.

A spokesman for the Florida Department of State, which oversees the elections division, did not respond to an Orlando Sentinel request for comment, either.

All other states except Florida and Montana told CNN that Harris taking over after President Joe Biden dropped out on Sunday was not an issue at all, as the Democratic National Convention hasnt happened yet and no one has yet been officially nominated.

There had been a question of even Biden making the ballot in Republican-controlled Ohio, after its secretary of state Frank LeRose said he would no longer make an exception for Ohios early deadline and wait until the convention as in years past. His stance led to a planned Democratic nomination by virtual roll call in late July.

But Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, also a Republican, called a special session to specifically pass a bill to secure Bidens, and now presumably Harris, place on the ballot.

Isbell said that issues can come up if a candidate dies just before the election, as Orange County Tax Collector Earl Wood did in 2012. Then, as ballots were already printed, the Democratic Party chose Scott Randolph as its candidate and a vote for Wood was considered a vote for Randolph.

Weve had that countless times in elections in this state, and were not even at that point, Isbell said. Were here in July. We havent had our convention yet, he said. Theres no basis in law this far out.

Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida, agreed that standard practice is for a nominee to be officially decided at the convention, which for the incumbent party has traditionally been held in August and even early September, as the GOP did in 2008.

Still, the Democrats are planning to hold a virtual nomination process by Aug. 7 as a precaution against any state that planned to use an early deadline as a reason to exclude Harris.

I do not think it would be good messaging for Florida to try and keep Harris off, McDonald said.

_______
Florida wants to build a Black history museum. Opa-locka wants it to be there

Opa-locka is changing.

For the last few years, the city has hosted the Art of Transformation exhibit during Miami Art Week to attract the early December arts tourists. Then theres City Terrace, a mixed-use neo-Moorish development that will feature approximately 1,000 units of mixed-income housing, up to 70,000 square feet of commercial/retail space and community green spaces. As Miamis redevelopment races forward and its status as an arts hub snowballs, Opa-locka appears to be ready to get in on the action. And its latest effort is trying to get the Florida Museum of Black History to make its home there.

Opa-locka based community development organization Ten North Group hosted a town hall on Thursday at the historic St. Mary First Missionary Baptist Church in Coral Gables to showcase just why the northern Miami-Dade city deserves the museum. Known for its collection of Moorish architecture, Opa-locka has a large population of people of African descent and the local government has reflected that, which is why it was called a center of Black political empowerment in the 1980s by the Miami Herald. The city is among three finalists alongside St. Augustine and Eatonville as potential locations for the museum. It would be located at 200 Opa-locka Boulevard.

Willie Logan, Ten North Group President and CEO, gives a presentation about bringing the Florida Black History Museum to Opa-locka on Thursday, July 25, 2024, at St. Marys Missionary Baptist Church in Miami.

The idea of a Black history museum in Florida has existed for quite some time, and in May 2023 a law was passed that established a nine-person task force that would provide recommendations to the Florida legislature for the planning, construction, operation, and administration of a Florida Museum of Black History. More than a dozen cities offered proposals for the museum but by April 2024, the task force had selected three finalists.

Estimated cost for construction is between $50-100 million, said Ten North Group President Willie Logan, adding that the museum would be an anchor in a community that plans to use culture to rejuvenate itself.

We know what culture can do for a community, Logan said.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava was just one of the many elected officials who not only pledged their support for the museum but also attended Thursdays gathering. Also in attendance: Miami-Dade County School Board member Steve Gallon III, state Sen. Shevrin Jones, state Rep. Ashley Gantt and Opa-locka Mayor John Taylor. Congresswoman Frederica Wilson, who recorded a short video of support, and County Commission Chair Oliver Gilbert both sent representatives in their place.

We are here to make sure we can preserve Black history in Florida and what better place to do that than in Opa-locka, Levine Cava told the audience packed into Coral Gables first Black American church.

The fact that all of us are here in this space  different backgrounds, probably different political parties, different communities  youre making history right now just for us advocating for this today, Jones said.

Institutions including the University of Miami, HistoryMiami and the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau in addition to the Miami-Dade County Commission and Public School System School Board have also all thrown their support for the museum. A diverse support base will be paramount to the museums success, according to Gallon.

This endeavor isnt simply about Black people, Gallon said. It is not an endeavor that can only be assumed by Black people.

Logan ultimately believes that the museum could be a huge boost not just to Opa-locka, a city in which he used to be mayor, but the countys economy as a whole.

When you used to think about cities that provide a cultural experience, you think about New York, you think about Los Angeles, Logan said. You didnt think about Miami. If you wanted to party, enjoy the sunshine, the beach then you thought about Miami. Now, were becoming a cultural hub  we just need to have a few more museums.

The final decision will be made during the 2025 legislative session. For now, the next step will be a marketing campaign to raise awareness. Logan encouraged the audience to write to their legislators to drum up further support. He also planned to commission a feasibility study to further advocate for Opa-locka.

Added Logan: The timeline starts now.
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.

Richmond City Council staffer says it costs $223.30 to pull one email

A staffer for the Richmond City Council told activist Josh Stanfield he would have to pay an upfront deposit of $223.30 in order to receive a single email in the councils possession.

Stanfield, a private investigator who is already involved in a FOIA lawsuit against Richmond officials, sent council Public Information Officer Steve Skinner a records request on July 8 seeking emails mayoral candidate Michelle Mosby sent to Councilwoman Reva Trammell related to a nonprofit Mosby runs that receives public funding. His initial request covered all emails sent in 2024.

After Skinner responded with an initial cost estimate of $467.82, Stanfield narrowed the request to only apply to one email, specifying the exact date, subject line, sender and recipient of the message he was seeking.

Since it cant possibly take you more than a couple of minutes to pull this record and send it to me, and since its not conceivably covered by any sort of privilege, I hope there wont be any charges involved, Stanfield wrote.

Stanfields hope was unfounded. Skinner said the drastically narrowed request would still cost more than $200 based on conservatively estimating the undertaking for what would be required for thoroughly searching per the request spanning the provided timeline/members/staff during that duration.

Skinner said the final cost could end up being higher or lower. But he asked Stanfield to pay the $223.30 in advance.

On July 17, Stanfield sent another email flagging the issue for the entire City Council, saying he felt the cost was unreasonable and he couldnt afford to pay it.

When asked about the cost estimate this week, Councilman Andreas Addison said he felt it was excessive.

I literally found this email in 5 seconds in a search on my Outlook, said Addison, who is also running for mayor and recently called for Richmonds government to improve its FOIA compliance.

Addison sent the email in question to Stanfield Wednesday afternoon shortly after The Virginia Mercury inquired about it.

Upon further review, this is an excessive amount of money needed to search for one email, Addison wrote to Stanfield. As government emails are classified as public record and information, I do not see why there is such a burden of cost.

State Sen. Danica Roem, D-Prince William, has filed numerous bills in the General Assembly seeking to rein in excessive FOIA fees. Those efforts have not been successful.

Portsmouth flubs FOIA response on severance payments

Last month, The Virginian-Pilot used a public records request to report that the city of Portsmouth had spent nearly $900,000 on severance payments to departing employees over five years.

After the article was published, a former employee told the newspaper he had received a severance payment that wasnt reflected in the data.

That omission led the city to acknowledge it had provided incomplete data under the original FOIA request. The city then disclosed four additional payments, raising the total to more than $1 million, according to new reporting by the Pilot.

The city called the error an unintentional oversight, but said it would work on purchasing a new system to keep track of FOIA requests. City officials wouldnt explain how the current process works.

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.

Lynchburg judges deny request to release list of primary voters

In a legal battle over the validity of the election outcome in a bitter GOP primary for a Lynchburg City Council seat decided by just 33 votes, a three-judge panel denied one of the candidates requests to release a full list of Republican and Democratic primary voters.

According to Cardinal News, an attorney for council candidate Peter Alexander indicated the lists should be provided to ensure that nobody who voted was actually ineligible for reasons such as being a felon.

The attorney, Bill Hurd, also said the lists would enable observers to check whether anyone voted in both the Republican and Democratic primary, which would not be allowed under the states election laws.

The judges denied the request after Hurd acknowledged there was no evidence of voting by people with disqualifying felony convictions or voters casting ballots in both primaries.

The judicial panel agreed that the two parties in the suit should have access to a different list showing which primary voters requested absentee ballots.

Have you experienced local or state officials denying or delaying your FOIA request? Tell us about it: info@virginiamercury.com
KYODO NEWS - Jul 26, 2024 - 18:34 | All, Japan

The average life expectancy of Japanese people increased in 2023 for the first time in three years, government data showed Friday, rebounding from a period of decline due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The average life expectancy of women in Japan stood at 87.14, up 0.05 from 2022, while for men it was 81.09, up 0.04, according to data by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Japan maintained its top position globally for life expectancy among women, followed by Switzerland at 85.9 years and France at 85.75 years.

Meanwhile, in the global ranking for men by country, Japan dropped from fourth place to fifth, with Switzerland remaining at the top at 82.3 years, followed by Sweden at 81.58 years and Norway at 81.39 years.

Roughly 38,000 people in Japan died from the coronavirus in 2023, around 10,000 less than the previous year.

The probability that women born in 2023 will die due to the virus in the future is 2.37 percent, while it is 2.64 percent for men, the ministry said in an assessment. Both figures dropped from above 3 percent marked the previous year.

The ministry also projected that 41.26 percent of females born in 2023 and 46.47 percent of males will die of cancer, heart disease or cerebrovascular disease, down from the previous year for both genders.

Meanwhile, the probability of dying from old age continued to trend upward, hitting 19.61 percent for women and 7.93 percent for men.

Japanese average life expectancy peaked in 2020, at 87.71 years for women and 81.56 years for men.

Related coverage:

Japan's population falls for 13th straight year, pinned below 125 million
Forget the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre  here's what you need to do in Paris, according to someone who's been a dozen times.

I've been to Paris a dozen times, so I know the best places to go after visiting the tourist spots.

The Montparnasse Tower offers amazing panoramic views of the city and the Eiffel Tower.

The Basilique du Sacre-Cur de Montmartre is a beautiful church filled with history.

I've traveled around the world, but even after a dozen visits, Paris remains my favorite city. I never tire of its cafes, restaurants, parks, or opportunities to practice my French.

The city, which is expecting over 15 million visitors as it hosts the 2024 Summer Olympics, offers countless attractions  many of which are filled with tourists.

After multiple visits, I've found a few lesser-visited spots and activities that I think everyone should check out. Whether you're trying to avoid touristy spots or have already hit the popular places, here are seven of my favorite things to do in Paris.

The Eiffel Tower is iconic, but the view from the Montparnasse Tower is equally stunning

The Montparnasse Tower offers panoramic views of Paris. shomos uddin/Getty Images

I've been atop the Eiffel Tower several times, toasting a plastic flute of Champagne from the bar and peering at the skyline from every vantage point.

But if I were looking for Instagrammable views of Paris' most famous landmark, I'd head to the Montparnasse neighborhood. The rooftop terrace atop Paris' only skyscraper, Montparnasse Tower, has 360-degree city views and tons of space to spread out.

I recommend visiting during the evening hours to catch the sparkling light show on the Eiffel Tower, which occurs for five minutes at the top of each hour after sundown.

The Louvre may have the Mona Lisa, but the Musee d'Orsay and Musee de l'Orangerie house beloved Impressionist works

Like many tourists, I've marched through the massive halls of the Louvre to see pieces like the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and The Coronation of Napoleon. Though it is indeed filled with art, lots of people are surprised to discover that many Impressionist pieces are displayed in other museums.

Several Impressionist works are housed in the Musee d'Orsay. The museum is located in the former Gare d'Orsay, a gorgeous railway station, and has incredible artwork displays and a gift shop. When I went, I marveled at works from the masters I studied in French class, from Monet to Manet and Renoir.

If you're a superfan of Monet's Water Lilies, I also suggest visiting the Musee de l'Orangerie. The Water Lilies exhibit, which features eight panels displayed side by side in a small room, can get somewhat crowded. Still, it was a special experience to be surrounded by Monet's iconic flowers.

Follow up a visit to Pere Lachaise Cemetery with a walk through Les Catacombes

Les Catacombes was unlike any other experience I've had in Paris. Miguel Sanchez Villafan/Getty Images

I first made the pilgrimage to the Pere Lachaise Cemetery to see former The Doors front man Jim Morrison's bouquet-covered gravesite in high school. However, I'd also recommend visitors head to Les Catacombes.

The catacombs, built in the 18th century to solve the problem of Paris' overcrowded cemeteries, hold the remains of more than six million people. I solemnly walked through the many corridors and past walls neatly lined with countless skulls and bones during my visit.

After you've had a drink at a cafe, do a cocktail crawl in the Le Marais neighborhood

There are no shortages of cafes in Paris. People watching over a croque madame (a French sandwich) is the quintessential Parisian experience. But as a wine and spirits writer, I appreciate a good cocktail  and the charming Le Marais neighborhood is full of renowned bars.

I loved the singular ingredient-focused drinks at Little Red Door, named one of the world's 50 best bars.

I had a fabulous gin, aquavit, and fino sherry drink at The Cambridge Public House, a cross between a pub and cocktail lounge. I ended the night with a savory olive oil and balsamic martini riff at Le Mary Celeste, a cozy bar with an extensive wine list, and a spicy marg at La Mezcaleria, a cocktail bar inside the 1K Hotel Paris.

While you're waiting for the Notre-Dame Cathedral to reopen, head to the Basilica de Sacre Coeur

The Basilica de Sacre Coeur is a beautiful, impressive church. Westend61/Getty Images

I was lucky enough to visit the Notre-Dame Cathedral several times before the massive fire in 2019. It's scheduled to open later this year, and it's a must-see if you're visiting Paris for the first time.

In the meantime, I suggest visiting the Basilique du Sacre-Cur de Montmartre, which is perched high atop the Montmartre hill and features great views of Paris.

On my way to the church, I walked through the restaurants and shops in the bustling Montmartre district and then took in the view atop the steps leading to the basilica. On some of my visits, I've even heard live music.

Finally, I walked down the steps and grabbed a table at Le Studio Cafe. I wouldn't say the food is especially note-worthy, but the restaurant boasts an enviable view of the Basilique du Sacre-Cu.

Once you've had your fill of crepes, try an earthier, savory version of the dessert

I'm a sucker for a warm, freshly made crepe from a Parisian street cart. But during one of my trips, I discovered the city's galettes, buckwheat-flour pancakes from France's Bretagne (or Brittany) region.

The flavor is earthier than its eggier cousin. It's a perfect base for savory fillings, which are laid onto the pancake before its sides are folded over.

I found that most of the cafes serving these savory galettes were located in the Latin Quarter and the Le Marais districts. I stumbled upon Breizh Cafe, a chain known for this specialty, and tried a galette stuffed with mushrooms, Gruyere, and ham.

Skip the hassle of finding authentic art and get a France-inspired tattoo

My friend and I got tattoos of Champagne flutes while we were in Paris. Kelly Magyarics

Instead of trying to find a genuine art piece to take home, a friend and I decided to get matching tattoos at Freaks and Geeks Tattoo last year.

I saw another customer getting inked with an adorable cheeseboard design while we waited to get our Champagne-flute tattoos. This past summer, I returned for a lavender-sprig design.

The shop has talented artists, and the tattoos are my all-time favorite souvenirs from Paris.

Read the original article on Business Insider
FILE- Then-Detroit Lions defensive end Isaiah Buggs (96) watches the game against the Green Bay Packers in Detroit, Nov. 6, 2022. Buggs was sentenced on two counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty charges Friday, July 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP)  Former Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Isaiah Buggs has been convicted on two counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty charges.

Tuscaloosa County District Judge Joanne Jannik sentenced Buggs on July 19 to a year of hard labor, ordering him to serve 60 days. The rest would be suspended for two years pending the behavior of the defendant."

Buggs, 27, also is not allowed to have or be around firearms or own dogs or cats.

The Chiefs released the former Alabama player on June 24, eight days after his second recent arrest in Alabama. He was arrested on a charge of domestic violence/burglary and released on a $5,000 bond, according to records from the Tuscaloosa County Sheriffs Office.

The run-stuffing tackle out of Alabama played three seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers before spending the past two with the Detroit Lions. He has started 23 games and appeared in 56 in his career, with 89 tackles and two sacks. He had signed a $1,292,500 contract with Kansas City for the upcoming season.

___

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
More than 40 former Justice Department officials who served under both Republican and Democratic presidents have signed a letter endorsing 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris, according to a new report.

The letter  which includes the signatures of former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, former deputy attorneys general Sally Yates, David Ogden, and Jamie Gorelick, and the top Washington prosecutor during George W Bush's administration, John McKay  paints Harris as a common sense candidate who will respect the rule of law, according to NBC News, which first reported the endorsement.

Harris is a former attorney general for the state of California, a role that has earned her both praise and condemnation within her own party.

The former justice officials made clear that between the former prosecutor and Trump, who was convicted of a felony, they chose Harris.

The fabric of the nation, the rule of law and the future of the Democracy are at stake in this election, the letter states. The stakes could not be higher. Former President Trump presents a grave risk to our country, our global alliances and the future of democracy.

Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech at the American Federation of Teachers 88th national convention in Houston, Texas, on July 25, 2024. Harris was endorsed by more than 40 former Justice Department officials on July 25, 2024 (REUTERS)

The letter was explicit in not just endorsing Harris but painting Donald Trump as a dangerous alternative who threatens the legitimacy of justice in the US.

The document accuses Trump of having "regularly ignored the rule of law" during his time as president. It specifically cites his "unconstitutional Muslim travel ban" and his alleged attempt to steal the 2020 election through his fake elector scheme and the Capitol riot.

The former DOJ officials' letter comes on the heels of the majority conservative Supreme Court's decision to uphold Trump's claims of "presidential immunity," which shields presidents from criminal liability tied to their "official acts."

Harris's campaign is already being aided in some capacity by former DOJ officials; former Attorney General Eric Holder is leading the effort to vet her potential running partners, and Brian Fallon, a former DOJ spokesman, is working as her communications director.

The vice president-turned-2024 presidential hopeful has put her past as a prosecutor up front during her recent appearances as well. During a campaign event on Tuesday, Harris called out Trump and reminded the nation that she used to be in the business of sending people to jail.

I took on perpetrators of all kinds: predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain, she said. So hear me when I say: I know Donald Trumps type.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)  A memoir by a local former forensic psychologist unfolds with one of the citys most disturbing unsolved double homicides that became known as The Riverside Murders.

Author Jeffery Smalldon (Photo Courtesy/Hailey Gonya)

The book, That Beast Was Not Me: One Forensic Psychologist, Five Decades of Conversations with Killers, by Columbus author Jeffrey Smalldon, chronicles his years of dealing with some of the most infamous criminals in U.S. history. Through the pages, Smalldon reveals his interactions with notorious felons such as Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Lynette Squeaky Fromme, Susan Atkins and others.

Former Ohio University student imprisoned for stealing nearly $180,000 from fraternity

However, Smalldons work goes beyond the most sensational names, detailing the brutal killings of his coworkers Patricia Matix and Joyce McFadden at Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus. In the first chapter, he describes how the mysterious deaths and chilling aftermath prompted him to leave his career in hospital administration and earn a PhD in psychology from Ohio State, eventually becoming a forensic psychologist.

That Beast Was Not Me: One Forensic Psychologist, Five Decades of Conversations with Killers, by Columbus author Jeffrey Smalldon

Smalldon writes that the Dec. 30, 1983, murders were a baffling double homicide that took place just after he turned 30 while working as an up-and-coming junior administrator at Riverside. He cites the experience as the bridge from his college-era attempts to penetrate the thick fog surrounding the Manson case to his path in forensic psychology that became his lifes work.

Ive provided consultation on close to 300 death penalty cases and evaluated more than 1,000 murderers altogether: serial, mass, spree, all kinds, Smalldon notes in his book.

In an email to NBC4, Smalldon indicated that the book includes sections on two particularly heinous Franklin County capital cases. Specifics on spree killer Jerry Hessler, who fatally shot four people in November 1995 and courthouse escapee Alva Campbell, who in April 1997 carjacked and killed 18-year-old Charles Dials while running from authorities, are discussed.

Smalldon Family with J. Edgar Hoover (Photo Courtesy/ Jeffery Smalldon)

Columbus plans new courthouse building Downtown

The son of a special agent with the FBI, Smalldon writes his intention for this account was to be entertaining and instructive for readers. That Beast Was Not Me is set to be released on Aug. 6, 2024, and is available for pre-order at jeffreysmalldon.com.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to NBC4 WCMH-TV.
A sliding screen door sits detached from a door at Miami Hills Apartments in this July 2020 file photo. A conspiracy to commit fraud against the Housing Authority of South Bend used money intended for repairs of low-income housing instead to enrich public officials and their co-conspirators.

SOUTH BEND  The former asset manager for the Housing Authority of South Bend convicted of 10 counts in connection with a multi-year conspiracy to steal money from the public housing provider was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison and ordered to repay more than $3 million in restitution.

U.S. District Court Senior Judge Jon E. DeJulio on Thursday sentenced 47-year-old Albert Smith to 135 months in prison and two years supervised release. He also ordered Smith to pay $3,030,940 in restitution to victims. On Nov. 1, 2023, Smith was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, six counts of bank fraud, two counts of wire fraud and one count of federal program theft.

More: Housing authority ex-director Tonya Robinson, 2 co-defendants guilty of fraud conspiracy

Smith and Tonya Robinson, the woman who led the Housing Authority from 2014 to 2019, and four others faced federal charges in connection with the case: Ronald Taylor Jr.; Douglas Donley; Tyreisha Robinson, who is Tonya Robinsons daughter and a former authority employee; and Archie Robinson III, who is not related to Tonya Robinson.

The U.S. Attorney for Indiana's Northern District has said the fraud scheme involved the issuance of Housing Authority payment checks to four outside contractors for contracting work that had not actually occurred. Contractors would then deposit the checks, withdraw a portion of each check in cash and hand-deliver the cash back to Tonya Robinson and Smith, their co-conspirators at the Housing Authority's office.

Albert Smith

The scheme began to become public in summer 2019, when the FBI raided the Housing Authority's offices and a home in South Bend.

The authority's board of commissioners voted not to renew Tonya Robinson's contract in September 2019.

The indictments followed in 2021.

Prosecutors have previously said the scheme defrauded the U.S. government out of $5.8 million altogether.

The authority's board hired Marsha Parham-Green as its new executive director in November. Then the executive director of the Housing Office for Baltimore County Government in Maryland, her tenure began Jan. 2.

Following an interim director, Catherine Lamberg served as executive director from December 2020 to June 2023.

Federal prosecutors took the case because the housing authority is federally funded and the relevant bank payments were insured by the federal government.

Thursday's sentencing makes Smith the sixth and final person convicted in connection with the case to be sentenced. The others who have received sentences include:

 Tonya Robinson  Sentenced to 108 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $3,236,949.97 in restitution.

 Tyreisha Robinson  Sentenced to time served, two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $363,122 in restitution.

 Douglas Donley  Sentenced to 27 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $303,920 in restitution.

 Archie Robinson III  Sentenced to 6 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and was ordered to pay $1,152,636 in restitution.

 Ronald Taylor, Jr.  Sentenced to 44 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $1,714,956.87 in restitution.

Email Tribune staff writer Greg Swiercz at gswiercz@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: 11-year sentence given in Housing Authority of South Bend fraud case
Winston Nguyen, 37, is accused by prosecutors of pretending to be a teenager on Snapchat to solicit explicit materials from at least 11 children

Jeopardy!/Youtube Winston Nguyen appearing on "Jeopardy!" in 2014.

A teacher at an elite private school in New York City  who was a former Jeopardy! winner  has been arrested and is now charged with of soliciting sexually explicit images of children.

Winston Nguyen, a 37-year-old teacher at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, was reportedly arrested in front of students last month. Authorities now allege he pretended to be a fellow student on social media to convince  or attempt to convince  teenage students to send him "images of nudity and sexual performances," the Brooklyn district attorney's office announced in a press release on Thursday, July 25.

Nguyen is accused of using Snapchat to pretend to be a student at least 11 times between October 2022 and May 2024, sending messages to five girls and one boy, all of whom are between the ages of 13 and 15, the DA's office alleged in its press release.

Per the DA's office, the students with whom he exchanged messages all attended elite private schools around Brooklyn, including Saint Anns, Poly Prep Country Day School, Berkeley Carroll School and Packer Collegiate Institute.

Jared Siskin/Patrick McMullan/Getty Winston Nguyen (L) and a guest attend the New York City Ballet 2017 Spring Gala.

While allegedly using the username "hunterkristoff," prosecutors claim Nguyen contacted the first several victims with a video "depicting a nude boy masturbating"  who investigators later determined was a 16-year-old boy living in another state  before asking them to send images of them "nude or performing sexual acts."

Prosecutors claim the former teacher also used an account with the username "haircutbongos" to allegedly solicit videos of a child "depicting them perform a sexual act" and paid them, before sharing the materials with other children. Both Snapchat accounts were traced back to IP addresses associated with Nguyen's home in Harlem, prosecutors allege.

Brooklyn district attorney Eric Gonzalez alleged in the press release that local police's investigation had "revealed extremely disturbing conduct by this defendant, who allegedly posed as a peer to coax teenagers to send him sexually explicit images of themselves, which he then allegedly distributed."

"The fact that he was a teacher and a trusted figure among students make these allegations even more troubling," Gonzalez added.

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.



Saint Ann's School  where Nguyen was hired in 2020 and he worked as a middle- and high-school math teacher at the time of his arrest, according to The Daily Beast  serves many children of New York's wealthiest and most famous residents, and charges up to $60,000 per year for high schoolers. Its alumni include Maya Hawke, the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, Jennifer Connelly, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and fashion designer Zac Posen.

In a statement given to PEOPLE on Thursday, Saint Ann's head of school Kenyatte Reid said that Ngyuen's alleged conduct was "deplorable and a deep violation of the trust we extended to him as a member of our community."

"It is our role and responsibility as educators to create an environment in which our students are safe and supported, and these alleged actions are antithetical to our work and our mission," Reid added. "We are continuing to hold our students and their families with deep care and concern."

Google Maps St. Ann's School.

The school added that Nguyen had been on administrative leave since his arrest on June 6, and he has since been terminated.

"We are in full support of the district attorney's efforts as their investigation continues, and we are complying with any requests we receive for information that will assist their case," Reid added in the statement.



Nguyen  who went home as a one-time champion with just over $10,000 in winnings (and $1,000 for coming in 3rd place the next episode) after appearing in a 2014 Jeopardy! episode  now faces charges of use of a child in a sexual performance, promoting a sexual performance by a child, first-degree disseminating indecent material to minors, third-degree conspiracy, third-degree criminal solicitation and endangering the welfare of a child, the DA's office added in its press release.

His bond was set at $30,000 cash or $75,000 bond, and he is next set to appear in court on Oct. 17.

It's not clear if he has retained an attorney to comment on his behalf.

The Brooklyn DA's office noted in its press release that anyone with information about the case should email ReportSNAPCHATImages@brooklynda.org.



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.
SPRINGDALE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA)  A former Northwest Arkansas pediatric surgeon has been arrested and is facing rape and sexual assault charges involving at least one minor, according to court documents.

Guy Rosenschein, 70 (Courtesy: Washington County Detention Center)

Guy Rosenschein, 70, was arrested on July 17 on two counts of rape and one count of first-degree sexual assault.

A heavily redacted affidavit filed in January 2019 offers little details on the case but does mention there was at least one juvenile victim allegedly involved.

Court records show the alleged incidents took place in 2002 and 2006 and the case was investigated by the Springdale Police Department.

Rosenschein worked as a pediatric surgeon and pediatric urologist from approximately 2001 to 2012.

Former Centerton public official pleads guilty, sentenced after stealing more than $60k in 2021

The warrant for Rosenscheins arrest was filed on February 1, 2019.

Rosenschein filed a hand-written motion to dismiss pro se on July 5 and requested oral arguments as an opportunity to assist the court in reaching an informed and fair decision. Rosenschein wanted to dismiss the case he had yet to be arrested for.

He said while writing the motion, he was detained at a federal correctional institution in Pekin, Illinois.

The arrest warrant was served on July 17 and Rosenschein pleaded not guilty on July 22.

His trial date has been set for August 12.

Lawsuit alleges Huntsville SRO used excessive force on student, jury trial underway

This is not the first time Rosenschein has been accused of child sex crimes.

Rosenscheins criminal history

In 2016, a complaint was filed in New Mexico federal court accusing Rosenschein of distributing and possessing child pornography.

An affidavit said an online service called Chatstep.com reported numerous instances of Rosenschein posting child porn in 2016.

The username was traced to Rosenscheins IP address, according to the Associated Press.

A search warrant was executed on November 8, 2016, by the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office, Rosenschein reportedly ran to his bedroom and armed himself. He eventually surrendered, according to the affidavit.

A 16-year-old whom Rosenschein claimed was his nephew was in the bedroom at the time of the search.

Fayetteville woman pleads not guilty to animal cruelty charges

A thumb drive was seized on the scene along with other pieces of evidence. The thumb drive was found to have multiple images of child porn downloaded onto it.

Rosenschein was later interviewed and told officers he was a pediatric surgeon at Presbyterian Hospital, specializing in urology, and had lived in Albuquerque for three years.

He then said the 16-year-old found in the home was a former patient he had operated on at least two times. Rosenschein claimed the teen would often spend the night at his home and that the two did not have a sexual relationship.

Rosenschein said he owned a helicopter and two planes and would fly the teen to Nevada, Florida and Arkansas for trips.

In 2018, an indictment was filed in the case accusing Rosenschein of nine counts of distributing child pornography and six counts of possessing child pornography.

Those charges were related to incidents that took place between 2010 and 2016. He pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Decatur man accused of attempted capital murder in Siloam Springs

Rosenschein took a plea agreement in 2021 and pleaded guilty to eight charges, one count of possessing child pornography and seven counts of distributing child pornography. He was sentenced on January 2023 to more than 17 years in federal prison.

The U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of New Mexico said in a news release from the day of Rosenscheins sentencing that the FBI learned a hidden room was found after the initial search was done.

The room was reportedly behind a fake wall inside a closet under a staircase and was already in the house when Rosenschein purchased it, according to the release. A second search warrant was later executed and two safes were found in the hidden room.

Additional child porn was found in one of the safes, the release said.

During the investigation, authorities found nearly 20,000 images and 2,100 videos of child porn.

Mental evaluation ordered for Rogers man accused of stabbing coworker with X-Acto knife

Rosenschein worked as a pediatric surgeon in Arkansas, Missouri and New York and would befriend young male patients before sexually abusing them, according to the release.

The investigation to date has revealed three alleged victims of sexual abuse committed by Rosenschein and charges are pending in Arkansas in association with two of these alleged victims, the release 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 KNWA FOX24.
Former police officer said bosses retaliated after she refused to sign bogus search warrant

Joy Phillips, an ex-detective with the Elkhart Police Department, is suing them, alleging the department and several officers forced her to sign an illegal search warrant and then retaliated against her. She says they ultimately ruined her reputation after she refused to commit what she said was misconduct

An ex-detective for the Elkhart Police Department is suing her former employer and several police officers, accusing them of taking away her livelihood and ruining her reputation after she refused to sign what she believed to be a bogus search warrant.

Joy Phillips, who worked for the department for six years, accuses the agency of discriminating and retaliating against her. She also alleges the retaliation continued after she testified publicly about the misconduct she witnessed.

"There's not a word big enough to express the amount of corruption" in the police department, Phillips said, "and how it's being allowed to continue and how it seems like everyday is not a big deal."

A massive settlement: Elkhart reaches $11.7 million settlement over wrongful conviction of man with mental disability

Phillips also names as defendants Police Chief Dan Milanese, former Police Chief Kris Seymore, Elkhart County Prosecutor Vicki Becker and eight police officers.

The case is one of three lawsuits filed in recent days by the same law firm alleging various misconduct by city and county officials.

What happened to Joy is consistent with the pattern of misconduct that has permeated the Elkhart Police Department for decades: systemic misconduct clouded by a code of silence, said Phillips attorney, Elliot Slosar of the Chicago law firm Loevy & Loevy.

Elliot Slosar, an attorney for the Chicago firm Loevy & Loevy, has filed multiple lawsuits against the Elkhart Police Department and has represented several people who were convicted in Elkhart but were later exonerated.

In a statement to IndyStar, Corinne Straight, a spokesperson for the city and the mayors office, said she cannot yet comment on the allegations.

Once the City is served and has an opportunity to probe these allegations, the City will likely have a lot to say, Straight said. But these are lawsuits; and lawsuits, are tried in a court of law, not the press, notwithstanding the tactic of some attorneys to do otherwise.

I would encourage the Star to follow the litigation, attend the court proceedings, and cover these matters in the courts where the law and rules of evidence test the truthfulness of the claims that are today, mere allegations, Straight added.

Becker, who was elected prosecutor in 2016, said shes unable to comment outside the judicial process.

Elkhart prosecutor Vicki Becker: Prosecutor accused of misconduct for her court arguments contradicting each other

A burglary investigation or sham?

Phillips began her law enforcement career in 1999 at the South Bend Police Department. She began working for the Elkhart Police Department in 2016 and was later promoted to sex crimes detective. According to her complaint, which was filed earlier this month in federal court in South Bend, she had exemplary performance reviews during most of her time at the agency and twice became a candidate for police chief.

But a series of events that began in July 2022 and ended with her firing almost a year later turned her life and career upside down, the complaint says.

Phillips said she was an on-call detective the day she received a call asking her to assist in an investigation involving a Cadillac that crashed in a parking lot. She was told the vehicle was tied to a burglary of a nearby building. But Phillips said she there were no witnesses and surveillance footage. The two men in the car, who were taken to the hospital, later said they crashed in the parking lot because they were being shot at, and they didn't know anything about a burglary, Phillips explained.

A woman, whose father owns the building and had a key to the property, told police there was no forced entry and nothing was stolen, Phillips recalled. The woman also said, according to Phillips, that she didn't see the two men inside her father's building.

"There was nothing there," Phillips said, "It was a nothing sandwich."

The case of Keith Cooper: Keith Cooper reaches $7.5 million settlement with Elkhart Indiana over wrongful conviction

But Phillips alleges that two of the defendants, Sgt. Brandon Roundtree and Capt. Andrew Whitmyer, told her to sign a search warrant to investigate the alleged burglary.

"I said, 'You can't make me do anything illegal, unethical or immoral,'" said Phillips, adding that three other detectives had refused to sign the warrant. "I said, 'I'm willing to take the write up for it.'"

Roundtree, according to the complaint, threatened that Phillips would be demoted. Whitmyer allegedly lashed out, telling her to "stop protecting f------ crackheads!"

Phillips was later disciplined. During a hearing before the police department's disciplinary board, Phillips said she defended her actions and presented the board with evidence of misconduct by other officers. Body camera footage that Phillips obtained showed that a police officer had "forced open" the door to the property where the burglary had supposedly occurred and that officer had fabricated details in his police report, Phillips alleges.

"I explained to them everything, all the illegal stuff that I saw, and how there was no probable cause," Phillips said. "There's no crime committed, and that they would do well to investigate their officers. Because this is garbage."

Phillips was suspended for three days  an action that she said was a retaliation for blowing the whistle. She challenged the suspension through the grievance process and appeared at two hearings in October 2022 before the Board of Public Safety.

Justice or vengeance: At 18, she killed 6 in fire. Will Cindy White, now 66, die in prison?

Police officials defend their actions

During one of the hearings, Roundtree pushed back against Phillips' claims that the search warrant was unjustified.

"Based on the information that I knew from previous cases being reported, I felt as the supervisor there was enough to obtain the search warrant," Roundtree testified.

Seymore, who was the police chief at that time, also defended the department, saying Phillips' allegations were not true.

"Policy was not broken. Policy was followed," Seymore testified, according to ABC 57. "I have suspended captains for violating policy. And I have removed professional standard investigators for not following policy. So, to insinuate that I would stand idly by and allow policies to be broken by the very people that I've appointed, flies in the face of everything that I've sworn since day one."

Shortly after the hearings, Phillips said she received a bad review accusing her of "unacceptable performance." Police officers filed complaints against Phillips accusing her of improperly obtaining and improperly releasing investigatory information.

Elkhart County Prosecutor Vicki Becker has expressed concerns about former Det. Joy Phillips' honesty. Phillips has now sued Becker and several current and former Elkhart police officers, alleging they retaliated against her after she tried to expose police misconduct.

Becker, the county prosecutor, also wrote a letter to then-Police Chief Seymore, citing concerns over supervisors testimonies about Phillips during the Board of Public Safety hearings. Becker wrote that testimonies from three supervisors would lead a reasonable person to believe that Detective Phillips has a reputation for dishonesty.

This puts my Office is a particularly hindered position, Becker wrote,  if we have to call Detective Phillips as a material witness in a criminal proceeding, her credibility is tainted, and we must disclose this fact to the defense in any pending matter.

Phillips, who also accuses Becker of conspiring to retaliate against her, was placed on an indefinite administrative leave in November 2022. As she was leaving, Phillips alleged the defendants kept her from getting out of her office and the building until they inspected her backpack and she turned over a personal audio recorder.

Joy Phillips worked for the South Bend Police Department for nearly 20 years. She left the department in 2016.

The Indiana State Police investigated the incident and recommended criminal confinement charges against the officers. No charges were filed. Phillips has requested a special prosecutor to investigate.

In 2023, the Elkhart Police Merit Commission voted to fire her after what Phillips described as a "sham proceeding."

"The things that happened to me shouldn't happen to anybody," Phillips said. "If you were to just hear this story, you would think it's so far fetched and outlandish that it would never be allowed, when every part of it is true."

The story of Cindy White: As a teen, Sarah 'Cindy' White set 1975 fire that killed 6. 'It wont ever be OK.'

Phillips, who is now an officer at a smaller police department, said she's suing to "restore my name, my reputation."

"I still love law enforcement," she said. "I do it for all the right reasons. I like the ability to change someone's life for the better, to feel like you're making an impact for all the positive and right reasons."

The South Bend Tribune 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: Joy Phillips accuses the Elkhart Police Department of retaliation
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attends the closing ceremony of a reconciliation dialogue among Palestinian factions and witnesses the signing of a declaration on ending division and strengthening unity by 14 Palestinian factions, in Beijing, capital of China, July 23, 2024. (Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan)

China's drive for an early, comprehensive, just and lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict stems not from self-serving geopolitical motives, but from a profound empathy for the Palestinian people and an earnest aspiration for peace and prosperity in the Middle East.

by Xinhua writer Zhao Wencai

CAIRO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- As the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza stretches into its 10th month, there was a bid for peace and unity from Beijing this week: Under China's mediation, senior representatives from 14 Palestinian factions signed the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity.

According to the declaration, the Palestinian factions have agreed to establish an interim national reconciliation government, carry out reconstruction in Gaza and prepare and hold a general election as soon as possible in keeping with the adopted election laws.

As witnessed by their Chinese friends, once-bitter rivals among the Palestinians, notably Hamas and Fatah, have decided to bury the hatchet and join forces. They are setting their sights on establishing an independent State of Palestine with Jerusalem as the capital, based on relevant United Nations (UN) resolutions and ensuring the integrity of Palestinian territory, including the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza.

During the reconciliation talks, Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, was asked why different factions could resolve their differences in Beijing.

After thinking for a while, he replied, "Because China is decent and honest and wants to help us without interfering in our internal affairs, (and) to support our struggle by enhancing Palestinian unity and enabling Palestinians to achieve what they deserve, which is their freedom, their independence, their rights to sovereignty."

Barghouti's remarks offered a compelling elucidation of China's sincerity and continual progress in assisting the Middle East in achieving peace.

Palestinian children are seen near a destroyed building after an Israeli airstrike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, on July 24, 2024. During the past 24 hours, the Israeli military killed 55 people and wounded 110 others, bringing the total death toll to 39,145 and injuries to 90,257 since the Palestinian-Israeli conflict broke out in early October 2023, Gaza-based health authorities said in a statement on Wednesday. (Photo by Marwan Dawood/Xinhua)

The Palestinian question has always been the core issue in the Middle East, and achieving internal reconciliation within Palestine is an important step toward resolving the issue and achieving peace and stability in the region.

China has long been committed to promoting reconciliation within Palestine, a goal shared by other Arab nations including Egypt and Jordan.

However, efforts have previously stalled due to an unfavorable international environment, particularly interference from the United States.

The recent round of conflicts in Gaza has highlighted for Palestinians the detrimental impact of internal divisions on their goal of establishing a state. There is a growing recognition that a unified voice will amplify their calls for justice, and only by standing together can they advance their cause for national liberation. This has spurred a renewed desire for reconciliation among Palestinian factions.

Meanwhile, the international community has increasingly recognized that the establishment of a Palestinian state is the key to resolving the Palestinian question. Inspired by China's successful mediation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world and the Palestinian leaders in particular are hopeful that China will play a significant role in addressing the thorny issue.

The most urgent task now is to achieve a comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, and ensure access to humanitarian aid and rescue on the ground. China has engaged in close communication and coordination with relevant parties since the outbreak of recent hostilities.

Deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, China has provided significant amounts of humanitarian aid through various channels. It has also actively facilitated the UN Security Council's adoption of a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

In the Position Paper of the People's Republic of China on Resolving the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict released last November, China calls for Palestine's full membership in the UN and a more authoritative and effective international peace conference to work out a timetable and road map for the two-state solution.

China's drive for an early, comprehensive, just and lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict stems not from self-serving geopolitical motives, but from a profound empathy for the Palestinian people and an earnest aspiration for peace and prosperity in the Middle East.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets the press after presiding over a high-level meeting of the UN Security Council on the Palestinian-Israeli issue at the UN headquarters in New York Nov. 29, 2023. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

Unlike some Western countries that have often overlooked the suffering in Gaza, China's historical experience with Western interference has given its people a unique perspective on the hardships faced by those in the Middle East, who long for peace and stability amidst the turmoil of war.

China's efforts to promote peace in the region are underscored by its role in facilitating the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023, ending seven years of diplomatic deadlock. The current Beijing Declaration further exemplifies China's concrete steps to bridge regional divides and lay the foundation for a peaceful Middle East.

On their journey toward lasting peace and prosperity, all parties involved in the Middle East conflict will find in China a true advocate committed to peace and justice in the region.
Former President Donald Trump says he will return to Butler for rally honoring shooting victims

Former President Donald Trump announced Friday afternoon that he plans to return to Butler.

Trumps next rally will honor Corey Comperatore, who was killed when a gunman tried to assassinate the former president and the two other men who were wounded.

>> Former President Trump announces date for 1st Pennsylvania rally since Butler assassination attempt

I will be going back to Butler, Pennsylvania for a big and beautiful rally, honoring the soul of our beloved firefighting hero Corey and those brave patriots injured two weeks ago. What a day it will be-- fight, fight, fight! a Truth Social post reads.

A date for his next rally in Butler has not yet been set.

Employees of King Cones Castle, located right across the street from the building used by the shooter, told Channel 11 it might be too early for a return.

I think its just a little too soon. I think theres been a lot of grayness since it happened. Theres been this kind of energy about the town. People are uneasy. There are still people shocked by it, manager Eric Manny said.

>> Butler Trump rally attendees describe panic as shots rang out during attempted Trump assassination

I feel like we just need to take time and soak this all in and get the support ready when the time is ready, Tyler Tappe said. He was working his shift at King Cones when the shooting happened two weeks ago. Every day that I get up I think about it. It was traumatizing for everyone.

Both Tappe and Manny say the former president has the right idea in wanting to come back.

Others say there is no time like the present, with some changes.

Theres no better time than now, I think. It just needs to be indoors. Lots of security, Lisa Wilbert of Butler Township said.

Channel 11 has reached out to several officials locally and throughout the region. Many were caught off-guard by the announcement.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

TRENDING NOW:

Demolition of Saw Mill Run Boulevard bridge scheduled to begin soon, detours announced Kennywood rollercoaster reopens after photo appears to show cinderblocks supporting part of the ride Washington County couple arrested after Pa. AG shuts down DMT, THC manufacturing plant VIDEO: A tremendous loss: Beloved Pittsburgh Allderdice teacher, coach dies unexpectedly DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts
Former President Trump announces date for 1st Pennsylvania rally since Butler assassination attempt

Former President Donald Trump will return to Pennsylvania for the first time since a gunman tried to assassinate him at a campaign rally in Butler.

NBC affiliate WGAL reports Trump will hold a rally in Harrisburg on July 31 at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex.

PHOTOS: Former President Donald Trump rushed off stage after shots fired at rally

The rally is scheduled to start at 6 p.m. with doors opening at 2 p.m. Anyone wishing to attend must reserve tickets by clicking here.

Trump was last in the Keystone State for his July 13 rally when Thomas Crooks, 20, of Bethel Park, opened fire on the former president from a rooftop.

>> Butler Trump rally attendees describe panic as shots rang out during attempted Trump assassination

Three attendees were shot and two of them survived. Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief, died shielding his family from the gunfire.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

TRENDING NOW:

3 teenagers charged in Industry triple stabbing Kennywood closes rollercoaster after photo appears to show cinderblocks supporting part of the ride Southwest changes boarding; will have assigned seating VIDEO: Kennywood closes rollercoaster after photo appears to show cinderblocks supporting part of the ride DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts
Former Probation Officer Kills Her Grandson's Mom, Then Self in Front of 1-Year-Old Near NYC Mayor's Mansion

Marisa Galloways 1-year-old child was unharmed in the backseat during the murder-suicide

NYPD/Fcebook Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, center, at a press conference discussing the murder-suicide, Friday, July 26.

Just before 9 a.m. Friday, July 26, New York City police officers responded to several 911 calls reporting three shots fired just half a block from Gracie Mansion, where they found two women with gunshot wounds to the head.

A loaded gun lay between the two women, Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at a press conference just hours after the incident.

Marisa Galloway, 45, was rushed to a nearby Upper East Side hospital, where she succumbed to gunshot wounds to the head and lower back.

Kathleen Leigh, 65, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the NYPDs preliminary investigation.

Police found Galloways 1-year-old child, who was unharmed, inside the mothers parked white Honda Civic, according to Kenny.

Leigh was the paternal grandmother to Galloways 4-year-old child, who was the subject of an ongoing custody dispute between the parents, according to police, who said they had on record five domestic violence reports and two other complaints connected to the family. None of those reports had led to an arrest, Kenny said.

Police have identified the custody battle as the preliminary motive, in the case, according to Kenny, who stressed that the investigation into what appeared to be a murder-suicide was still in its early stages.

pix11 The Friday morning, July 26 shooting occurred around 8:54 a.m., on E. 88th Street, near Gracie Mansion.

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.

Video surveillance recovered during the preliminary investigation depicts Leigh  a retired Cook County probation officer from Chicago, Ill., who had been living with family in New York City for the past three years  approaching Galloway as she puts her babys stroller in the trunk, according to Kenny.

In the video of the shooting, Leigh fires at Galloway, striking her in the head, then, after the mother falls to the ground, Leigh shoots her again in the back. (Galloway had already placed her baby in the backseat before Leigh began shooting, Kenny said.)

Police recovered two guns that they attributed to Leigh, one near her body and another in her tote bag.

Kenny said police were investigating if she had obtained the guns while working as a probation officer in Illinois.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Russia's FSB has arrested former Deputy Defence Minister and Army General Dmitry Bulgakov in a corruption case.

Source: Kremlin-aligned Russian news agency RIA Novosti, TASS, The Moscow Times

Details: Bulgakov, who served as deputy defence minister between 2008 and 2022, is said to be taken to the Butyrskaya detention centre.

The FSB said it is currently conducting investigative actions and operational measures to establish the causes and conditions "that contributed to Bulgakov's illegal activities".

The Moscow Times estimated that this is the fifth Russian general to be arrested for corruption.

Background:

The Russian Ministry of Defence dismissed Army General Dmitry Bulgakov from the post of Deputy Minister in September 2022. He had been in charge of logistics for the Russian Armed Forces for over 12 years.

Bulgakov, in particular, was in charge of providing the troops with weapons and military equipment. In addition, he was responsible for military transport, the condition and reconstruction of roads and railways used by the Ministry of Defence, and the operation of buildings of military units and army organisations.

At the time, the ministry said that the army general was moving on to another job but did not specify which one.

Background :

On 23 April, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov was detained on suspicion of taking a bribe. Vazhnye Istorii, a Russian media outlet, stated that the real reason for the arrest of Russian Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov was high treason.

The court also sent Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, the head of the Main Communications Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces and Deputy Chief of the General Staff, to a pre-trial detention centre. The Investigative Committee accuses him of taking a bribe of 36 million roubles (US$418,000).

In mid-May, Lieutenant General Yuriy Kuznetsov, head of the Defence Ministry's main personnel department, was taken into custody. He is also charged with a bribe of 30.5 million roubles (US$354,000). In addition, the former commander of the 58th Army of the Southern Military District, General Ivan Popov, was arrested (he is accused of fraud) and the head of the Defence Ministry's Department for State Orders, Colonel Vladimir Verteletsky.

Support UP or become our patron!
The former San Luis Obispo County employee accused of using at least $250,000 of county funds to buy himself DJ equipment, camera gear and other items pleaded no contest to seven counts of embezzlement last week and will face time in prison.

Norman Hibble, 54, was arrested and charged with 12 counts of embezzlement on Feb. 20 for allegedly misusing a county-issued credit card while he worked in the countys technology department from April 2017 and January 2023.

He was fired from his county job on Jan. 5.

He pleaded no contest to seven embezzlement counts on July 17, and also admitted the sentencing enhancement of the amount stolen being more than $100,000.

A no contest plea functions the same as a guilty plea without admitting direct fault.

He agreed to a total of six years in state prison, court records show. He received three years for the first embezzlement count, two years for a second embezzlement count and an additional one year for the sentencing enhancement.

The five other embezzlement counts carry three-year concurrent sentences, meaning they will be served at the same time as the sentence for the first count.

The maximum prison time Hibble faced was 16 years in state prison.

His sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 21.

San Luis Obispo County Deputy District Attorney Ben Blumenthal speaks to the judge during Norman Hibbles bail hearing in San Luis Obispo Superior Court on Feb. 28, 2024. Hibble is accused of embezzling at least $250,000 from San Luis Obispo County while working in the technology department.

County employee used credit card to buy DJ equipment, electric scooter, DA says

In a court hearing on Feb. 23, Deputy District Attorney Ben Blumenthal said Hibble bought high-end DJ equipment, photo gear, a $2,000 crossbow and several other items using the county-issued credit card.

I wish it was hyperbole to say he needed C-trains to store all of the items, Blumenthal said during the hearing, adding that Hibble did in fact buy the large storage container to store his purchases.

Hibble is also alleged to have used the county card to buy an electric scooter that he then sued a driver for damaging, the District Attorneys Office told The Tribune.

On Feb. 2, 2021, Blumenthal said in a Feb. 28 court hearing, Hibbles colleagues in the county health agency were responding to the peak of the COVID-19 crisis while Hibble allegedly used the county credit card to order a Blackmagic Design Davinci mini panel, a video editing system that cost more than $3,300.

On the invoice he turned into the county, Hibble said he bought a printer from Blackmagic Design, Blumenthal said.

As of Feb. 28, the total stolen by Hibble was alleged to total at least $250,000, but the District Attorneys Office was still calculating the total amount.

The agency did not immediately respond to request for comment on the total amount stolen by Hibble.
Judge Sarah Hennesy took the oath of office as the Minnesota Supreme Courts newest associate justice on July 25.

A former St. Cloud legal aid attorney is now on the Minnesota Supreme Court bench.

In a formal ceremony focused on justice for all Minnesotans, Sarah Hennesy took the oath of office as the Minnesota Supreme Courts newest associate justice, according to a release.

The ceremony, held Thursday afternoon at the Landmark Center in St. Paul, included remarks by Gov. Tim Walz, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and Chief Justice Natalie Hudson.

Justice Hennesys appointment is not only a testament to her capabilities, but also a reflection of our court's commitment to maintaining a judiciary that is fair, accessible, and representative of all Minnesotans, Chief Justice Hudson said in a release. Her dedication to ensuring that every voice is heard and every individual is treated with respect will strengthen the foundation of our court and enhance the quality of justice we deliver.

Justice Sarah Hennessys parents held the Minnesota and U.S. Constitutions as she took the oath of office, and her husband, children, and mother-in-law robed her.

I am deeply honored to have been selected to serve as an associate justice of the MN Supreme Court, Justice Hennesy said during the ceremony. Thank you Governor Walz and Lt. Governor Flanagan for entrusting me with this immense responsibility.

Gov. Mark Dayton appointed Hennesy to the Seventh Judicial District in February 2012, according to Ballotpedia.

Hennesy graduated from Drake Law School in 1994. A few years after graduation, she became a civil legal aid attorney with Saint Cloud Area Legal Services, according to Ballotpedia.

During her remarks, Justice Hennesy focused on the importance of providing justice to all Minnesotans. She noted that she originally had planned to be a minister but went to law school to think her way out of the darkness. But, while the law has been a light in the dark for her, she noted that is not the case for all Minnesotans.

In the 30 years that I have worked as an attorney and as a judge, I have seen the legal system at its best and worst, she said. I have seen veterans in treatment court in tears thanking the judge for saving them [and] Ive seen how hard our judges, court employees, justice partners, and attorneys work each and every day to uphold the rights of Minnesotans.

Justice Hennesy joined the court on May 13, replacing Justice G. Barry Anderson, who retired. The Court held a private swearing-in ceremony on that day. Her current term ends on Jan. 6, 2026, according to Ballotpedia.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Minnesota Supreme Court Justice sworn in
TOPEKA (KSNT)  The case has been dismissed for former City of Topeka Chief Financial Officer Freddy Mawyin, who was accused of domestic battery last year.

The Shawnee County District Court has dismissed the case against Mawyin July 15, 2024. According to court records, Mawyin filed a motion for self-defense immunity after being charged with the following misdemeanor counts:

Domestic battery

Criminal damage

Interference with law enforcement

On July 15, 2024, the district court dismissed the case without prejudice.

Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation sues Jackson Co. Sheriff

On Dec. 10, 2023, Mawyin was arrested on accusations of domestic battery; knowing or reckless bodily harm to family/person in dating relationship, according to information from the jail.

The City of Topeka placed Mawyin on administrative leave Dec. 11, 2023, while a personnel investigation was being conducted. The City decided to part ways with Mawyin on Dec. 19, 2023.

On April 16, 2024, the city announced it appointed Ben Hart as the Interim Chief Financial Officer until a permanent replacement can be found.

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.
Martin Indyk an Australia-born former U.S. ambassador to Israel died on Thursday. He was 73. File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI

July 26 (UPI) -- Martin Indyk, an Australia-born former U.S. ambassador died, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which he helped found, announced. He was 73 years old.

Indyk died Thursday at his home in Connecticut, the institute announced. Indyk's wife, Gahl Hodges Burt, said the cause of death was complications related to esophageal cancer.

Indyk served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton and later served as a special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under President Barack Obama.

"Martin Indyk was an extraordinarily skilled diplomat who, no matter the obstacles, never gave up on the prospect of peace," Clinton said on X.

"I'll always be deeply grateful for the important role he played in my Administration's efforts to end the conflict in the Middle East. The world would be better off if there were a lot more people like him."

Martin Indyk served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton and later served as a special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under President Barack Obama. File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI

Indyk's successor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Dr. Robert Satloff, remembered him as "a true American success story."

"A native of Australia, he came to Washington to have an impact on the making of American Middle East policy and that he surely did -- as pioneering scholar, insightful analyst and remarkably effective policy entrepreneur," Satloff said.

President Joe Biden called former ambassador Martin Indyk an essential part of the Oslo Accords, a pair of agreements signed in 1993 and 1995 in an attempt to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian people inhabiting the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Pool Photo by Evan Vucci/UPI

Indyk came from a Jewish family in Australia but relocated his family to the United States after graduating with a Ph.D. in international relations from the Australian National University. In 1985 he helped found the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"He was a visionary who not only founded an organization based on the idea that wise public policy is rooted in sound research, he embodied it. His contributions to the growth and development of The Washington Institute -- and to the definition and execution of U.S. Middle East policy, more generally -- are both legendary and immeasurable," Satloff said in the statement.

President Joe Biden called Indyk an "essential" part of the Oslo Accords, a pair of agreements signed in 1993 and 1995 in an attempt to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinian people inhabiting the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

"As a member of President Clinton's National Security Council and two-time U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Martin played an essential role in the Oslo Accords and the follow-on negotiations -- the closest that Israelis and Palestinians have ever come to making peace," Biden said in a statement issued by the White House.

"He and I worked together during the Obama-Biden Administration when Martin served as Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations - the last time the two parties engaged seriously on final status negotiations."

Indyk remained vocal on social media, last posting in late June. In May, he published a series of posts critical of Israel's handling of the current situation in Gaza.

"I never thought I'd live to see this day when Israel's government rejected a full-fledged offer of peace from Saudi Arabia, the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds. Wake up Israel! Your government is leading you into ever greater isolation and ruin," he posted on May 22.
Barack Obama, former US President, speaks on stage during his opening speech at the Bits & Pretzels company founders' and investors' meeting. Sven Hoppe/dpa

Former US president Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, offered their endorsement on Friday of Vice President Kamala Harris as the top Democratic candidate in November's presidential election.

Obama wrote in a post on X that he and his wife offered Harris their "full support" earlier this week. The post included a video of the phone call.

"We called to say that Michelle and I couldn't be prouder to endorse you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office," the former president said in the call.

The support of the Obamas is a further indication that Harris has consolidated support among top Democrats to replace President Joe Biden as the party's candidate to run against Republican former president Donald Trump.

Biden, 81, previously endorsed Harris after announcing on the weekend that he would step down from the race following weeks of harsh coverage over his age and questions about his ability to continue to do the job. A number of senior Democratic politicians had called on Biden to end his re-election campaign.

Although Obama is retired from politics, he remains a major figure in the party due to his popularity and fundraising abilities.

Harris, 59, stated earlier this week that she had secured support of enough party delegates to win the nomination ahead of the party's national convention in Chicago in August.

She has also secured the support of other big names in the Democratic Party, including Democratic congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who herself ran unsuccessfully as a presidential candidate against Trump in 2016.
WAMPUM  A man from Lawrence County is being indicted on three charges related to the production and possession of child porn.

According to the Department of Justice, the federal indictment was filed against 21-year-old Thomas Hyatt-Baney on Thursday. The charges listed in the indictment include the production of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor.

Investigators said that they believe Hyatt-Baney produced visual depictions of the sexual exploitation of a minor on or around the dates of May 28, 2023, and June 25, 2023. Charges also include the possession of child pornography, as investigators said Hyatt-Baney possessed illegal videos and still images on Sept. 9, 2023. Of these materials, some of the minors were prepubescent and under the age of 12.

When the charges were filed, Hyatt-Baney was already in the Lawrence County Jail after he was charged by local prosecutors for child porn possession and the alleged rape of a 2-year-old child in October 2023. The Department of Justice didn't say whether these federal indictments are related to the same incidents, but at the time of his initial arrest, Hyatt-Baney had a hidden folder on his devices that allegedly contained 253 videos and 53 photos of sexual acts with infants, toddlers and prepubescent children and a dog.

Hyatt-Baney was initially arrested in New York City, where he had been attending Pace University, but the crimes are believed to have occurred in both Lawrence and Beaver counties. During the initial arrest, police said the crimes for the creation of the child porn and rape cases were said to have taken place in a temporary residence within Wampum. They also said the distribution of child porn was believed to have taken place over the internet from an IP address linked to a New Brighton address.

If found guilty, a maximum sentence of 30 years can be imposed on Hyatt-Baney and fines up to $750,000 can be included in the charges. The indictment remains an accusation of crimes. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: FBI: Child porn made, distributed by Wampum man
PRAGUE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The Czech Republic is set to embark on the construction of high-speed railway (HSR) lines next year, Transport Minister Martin Kupka announced on Friday.

The first phase of the HSR project will connect Brno, the country's second-largest city, with Prerov in the east, starting in 2025. Construction of the second phase, linking Brno with the southeastern border town of Breclav, is scheduled to begin in 2026, Kupka revealed at a conference in Prague.

Trains on the new high-speed lines will reach speeds of up to 320 kilometers per hour. The overall cost of building the core HSR infrastructure across the Czech Republic is projected to be 800 billion Czech crowns (34 billion U.S. dollars).

Discussions on constructing HSR in the Czech Republic have been ongoing since the 1990s, but significant progress has only been made in recent years. If the current timeline is maintained, the next major phase, including the Prague corridor, is expected to commence in 2030.

A transport model from the Railway Administration predicts that the new high-speed rail between Prague and Brno will serve up to 60,000 passengers daily, reducing travel time between the two cities from nearly three hours to around 50 minutes.

"The construction of high-speed railway and increased investment in infrastructure are crucial for the Czech Republic," Kupka emphasized, highlighting the impressive economic growth in neighboring Poland following substantial investments in its motorway network.

In addition to the HSR lines, a central dispatching center for remote traffic control will be established in Prague, with construction beginning in 2027.

The Railway Administration is also actively seeking public input for the HSR project through "feeling maps," with nearly 700 Prague residents having submitted over 2,000 suggestions. 
Korbein Schultz, the Fort Campbell sergeant accused of selling U.S. military secrets to China, has decided to plead guilty, a newly filed court document shows.

Schultz' attorney, federal public defender Mary Kathryn Harcombe, filed a motion Friday morning to set a hearing for him to change his plea, writing that Schultz "has decided to change his plea of not guilty to a plea of guilty pursuant to an agreement with the government."

Schultz' case was set for trial on Aug. 13. Harcombe asked U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger to allow Schultz to enter his guilty plea that day.

The document does not indicate the terms of the plea agreement. The Tennessean sent emails to Harcombe and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee on Friday morning seeking more information.

A six-count indictment against Schultz, 25, was unsealed on March 6. Schultz, who was an Army intelligence analyst with the First Battalion of the 506th Infantry Regiment at Fort Campbell, was charged with three counts of unlawful export of defense articles to China and one count of conspiracy to do the same, conspiracy to unlawfully communicate defense information and bribery of a public official. He pleaded not guilty March 8.

Prosecutors say Schultz had been selling sensitive U.S. military information to someone in Hong Kong who worked for a geopolitical consulting firm from June 2022 until he was arrested in March.

Today, Sgt. Korbein Schultz was arrested for conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, export of technical data related to defense articles without a license, conspiracy to export defense articles without a license, and bribery of a public official. pic.twitter.com/WAPXLLVYeg  Army Counterintelligence Command (ACIC) (@Real_ArmyCI) March 7, 2024

The indictment states Schultz shared information about advanced military helicopters, high-mobility artillery rocket systems, defensive missile systems and Chinese military tactics, as well as the tactics, techniques and procedures manuals for the F-22A fighter jet and intercontinental missiles. He received $42,000 in exchange, according to the indictment.

The co-conspirator baited Schultz with promises of perks and leveraged his apparent love of auto racing and desire for wealth, based on the indictment. Schultz once told the co-conspirator he "wished he could be 'Jason Bourne,'" the indictment states.

Read the full indictment: Tennessee soldier accused of selling military secrets to China

Just two months later, a different Fort Campbell officer was charged with felonies. Lt. Col. Frank Ross Talbert in U.S. Army Explosives Ordnance Disposal was indicted on 21 counts accusing him of unlawfully importing weapons from foreign countries in early May.

Talbert, 40, is accused of unlawfully importing firearms parts from Russia and other countries, dealing firearms without a license and committing several other firearms violations related to the possession of machine guns, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Talbert has surrendered his weapons to be stored at either Fort Campbell or a locked gun cabinet held by a family member who is prohibited from sharing the location of the key to the cabinet with Talbert. A judge in June ordered Talbert to participate in a mental health treatment program, court records show.

Talbert's trial is set for January 2025.

Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him at emealins@gannett.com or follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @EvanMealins.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Fort Campbell soldier plans to plead guilty to selling secrets to China
A sign indicating road construction on Harmony Road is pictured on April 5, 2024 in Fort Collins. The roadwork done on east Harmony Road earlier this year was done as part of the city's Street Maintenance Program.

On this November's election ballot, residents of Fort Collins will have some issues of city relevance to vote on, in addition to who they want to be president and represent them at the state and local level.

Four items have been referred to the ballot by City Council: a sales tax extension to fund street repairs and three charter amendments related to the way elections, recalls, initiatives and referendums are done.

Here's what to know about them:

This sales tax funds roadwork. It could be extended 20 years

The Street Maintenance Program pays for repairs to street materials like asphalt, concrete and seal coat. This includes streets, sidewalks, ramps, medians, bridges and traffic signals.

A quarter-cent tax has been in place for decades to fund some of that work, and it's set to expire at the end of 2025. The city is asking voters for a 20-year extension this time, longer than the 10 years it's usually renewed.

When the tax extension was last passed in 2015 and 2005, voters approved it with 85% and 72% support, respectively.

If passed, the tax is estimated to bring in $220 million over its lifetime. The $11 million it brings in annually isn't enough to cover the entire street maintenance program, which is about $21 million each year, according to a staff presentation at the July 16 meeting. The rest of the money comes from either the general fund or from the Harmony Reserves fund.

The city is asking for the extension now so it can plan ahead for the next budget cycle, said Ginny Sawyer, the city's project and policy manager. If the tax extension were rejected, it would give the city time to figure out what to do.

"We'll know if we have those funds, if our voters support that," Sawyer said. "And if they don't, we'll know we've got some work to do."

The tax amounts to 25 cents on a $100 purchase. Most grocery items are exempt from the sales tax.

The ballot language this time will include additional detail noting the funds can be used for traffic control infrastructure:

"The tax extension shall be used to pay the costs of planning, design, right-of-way acquisition, incidental upgrades and other costs associated with the repair and renovation of city streets, including, but not limited to, curbs, gutters, bridges, sidewalks, parkways, shoulders and medians, and traffic control infrastructure."

The words "traffic control infrastructure" weren't included in the language in the two previous ballot initiatives, but Chief Financial Officer Travis Storin said the city has determined the spending on traffic infrastructure is allowable under the ballot language, and some of the money has been used for it in the past.

Sawyer said the addition is meant for transparency about everything that could be funded by the tax.

City Council member Kelly Ohlson, who voted against approving the tax extension on July 16, said he took issue with using the money for traffic signals.

"I just don't understand why we don't give the whole $10 or $11 million to the street maintenance," Ohlson said. "It's just more honest government.

"Most people wouldn't think traffic signals would fall under a street maintenance program," he said.

Council will take a final vote on referring the item to the ballot when it returns from a three-week break on Aug. 20.

3 charter amendments aim to clean up election processes

Three articles of the City Charter lay out how citizens can have a voice when it comes to City Council members and the ordinances they pass through elections, recalls, ballot initiatives and referendums  like the 2022 and 2023 land use code repeals.

Three amendments to the charter proposed for the November ballot would "address ambiguities, inconsistencies, and process complexity," according to a presentation by City Clerk Delynn Coldiron to City Council on July 2, including modernizing language and adjusting processes.

The amendments include some housekeeping items, but also some timeline and process changes. They would:

Modernize language to make wording more clear and gender neutral.

Update the time elements for deadlines to clarify calendar days and business days, along with how deadlines are affected by any holidays, weekends and closures.

Change the timelines that are followed when a citizen seeks a recall, ballot initiative or referendum. Still, in most cases, they will not reduce the amount of time citizens have to pursue a petition, Coldiron said. In fact, citizens would have more time to gather signatures for recalls. It would also give the city clerk more time to determine whether a petition effort has been successful and shorten the protest process.

Rewrite sections in an effort to make the document simpler and easier to follow.

One of the timeline changes would remove the cure period for the petition process. Curing allows voters to correct problems with their ballots in order to have their votes counted. Coldiron said the cure periods are inconsistent across the recall, initiative and referendum sections, and in some cases, it's not allowed at all, according to the Colorado Municipal Election Code. She said removing the cure period makes things predictable across processes, and it's rarely, if ever, been used. She also said the clerk's office is intentional about urging petitioners to collect at least one-third more signatures than they need to head off problems, Coldiron said.

The Coloradoan will dig into more of the particulars of the charter amendments before it's time to vote, so stay tuned this fall.

What else is on the ballot this November?

Outside of the city, voters who reside in Larimer County will vote on:

Who will be president and vice president of the United States.

Who will represent them in the U.S. House of Representatives: In Larimer County, that could be in either Congressional District 2, 4 or 8, depending on where you live.

Who will represent them at the Colorado Capitol: In the Colorado House of Representatives, all seats are up for election. Locally, two Senate seats are up for election: District 14 in Fort Collins and District 23 in Larimer County.

Who will fill the 8th Judicial District Attorney's seat.

Who will fill seats for the State Board of Education and CU Board of Regents.

Who will fill two seats for Larimer County commissioner: District 2 and District 3

Who will be Larimer County clerk and recorder.

Statewide ballot issues. The ballot is not yet final.

Of note: Poudre School District is considering referring a property tax increase to the ballot.

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Fort Collins 2024 election: Here are 4 city items on November ballot
ROCKY MOUNT, Va. (WFXR) The Franklin County Broadband Authority announced it was awarded over $4.5 million in grant funding from Virginias Telecommunication (VATI) program.

The VATI program is run by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and is designed to extend broadband services to currently unserved areas of Virginia. This initiative helps local communities build, utilize, and capitalize on telecommunications infrastructure to foster competitive communities.

Virginia continues to be a national leader in closing the digital divide, and todays announcement brings us one step closer to becoming the first state in the nation to achieve statewide universal broadband coverage, said Governor Glenn Youngkin. In our increasingly digital world, access to high-speed broadband isnt a luxury; its essential for daily life.

Montgomery County speaks on newest policy prohibiting cell phone use during school hours

Franklin County plans on using the funding to support a new project aimed at bringing broadband to additional unserved areas. The County plans to partner with Zitel, a company aimed at providing communities in rural and urban Virginia with the fastest and most reliable internet service, to develop and add a new fiber network. The project will work to install 222 miles of fiber across northern Franklin County, extending along US-220 in southern Franklin County.

On behalf of the Franklin County Board of Supervisors and as their Broadband Chairman, we are

extremely grateful to Governor Youngkin and the VA Department of Housing and Community

Development for this VATI award, said Lorie Smith, Chairman of the Franklin County Broadband

Authority. This funding will enable us to continue our broadband initiatives to support the unserved areas of Franklin County. High-speed broadband is not a luxury; it is a necessity in todays 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 WFXRtv.
FREMONT COUNTY, Iowa  Two people have been accused of keeping their child in a makeshift cage, the Fremont County Sheriffs Office said on Thursday.

At around 8:53 a.m. the sheriffs office responded to a report of a small child wandering around alone near the road in the 1700 block of Washington Street in Hamburg. When deputies arrived on scene they found a 4-year-old with reported developmental disabilities covered in a mixture of human and animal feces outside of a residence, the sheriffs office said. Deputies conducted a search of the residence and found a second child inside.

According to the sheriffs office, when deputies searched the home they located a cage inside that appeared to be constructed out of a pack and play, a baby proof gate roof, and zip ties. Deputies also located a second makeshift cage that was allegedly used in another home in Shenandoah.

Woman led officers on 125 mph chase in stolen cop car, West Des Moines police say

The sheriffs office said during the investigation the office learned that the parents, 26-year-old Dustin Carl Lee Perry and 26-year-old Lindsey Barbara Marie Hamilton, allegedly instructed relatives watching the children to keep the 4-year-old in a cage.

Both children were removed from the home and taken to a hospital for evaluation. The sheriffs office said several children were removed from the home by DHS.

Perry and Hamilton are being held at the Fremont County Jail without bond on charges of neglect or abandonment of a dependent person and child endangerment. The sheriffs office said more charges are pending.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to who13.com.
Security forces stand at Gare Montparnasse station. A few hours before the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris, unknown persons carried out arson attacks on several facilities on the French high-speed train network. Sebastian Kahnert/dpa

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal has described the attacks on the country's high-speed rail network as "coordinated acts of sabotage."

Attal wrote on the social media platform X that the impacts on the rail network on the day of the opening of the Olympic Games were massive and severe.

"Our intelligence services and law enforcement agencies are mobilized to find and punish the perpetrators of these criminal acts," said Attal.

He said he was also thinking of all French people preparing for their holidays: "I share their anger and appreciate the patience, understanding and civic spirit that they are demonstrating."

A traveller stands in front of an SNCF train at Gare Montparnasse station. A few hours before the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris, unknown persons carried out arson attacks on several facilities on the French high-speed train network. Sebastian Kahnert/dpa

Scores of passengers gather around the departure boards at Gare Montparnasse station in Paris as the French high-speed rail network is disrupted just hours before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. According to the SNCF, the TGV network was hit by a massive attack on a large scale, forcing many routes to be canceled. The SNCF asked passengers to postpone their journeys and stay away from the stations. Thibaud Moritz/AFP/dpa
A general view of an information board at La Defense station in Paris. France's high-speed rail network has been severely affected after it was targeted by several arson attacks hours before the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Paris, rail operator SNCF said on 26 July. Peter Byrne/PA Wire/dpa

France's high-speed rail network has been severely affected after it was targeted by several arson attacks hours before the opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Paris, rail operator SNCF said on Friday.

"SNCF was the victim of several simultaneous acts of malicious damage affecting the Atlantic, Northern and Eastern high-speed lines," the firm said.

The route to the Stade de France, one of the venues for the Olympic Games, is also currently closed.

Repairs are under way, SNCF said. However, it added that the restrictions could last the whole weekend.

As many as 800,000 people have been affected by train cancellations as a result of the attacks, SNCF said.

Transport Minister Patrice Vergriete announced that every second train to the east and north and every fourth high-speed train in the direction of Bordeaux is affected.

Vergriete said that the "coordinated malicious actions" had caused considerable disruption to traffic.

"This will disrupt this day and probably also this weekend," Sport Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera told broadcaster BFMTV.

Speaking "with caution and after initial analyses," she said it appeared to be a kind of "coordinated sabotage."

France is currently governed by a caretaker government following elections a month ago, so both ministers are in an acting role. President Emmanuel Macron has said he will keep the government in office for the duration of the Olympics.

Security measures are being intensified, Paris Police Prefect Laurent Nunez said on the website of broadcaster FranceInfo, with his force "concentrating its personnel on the Paris stations."

Several Eurostar trains to Paris have been cancelled and others diverted due to the arson attacks.

The rail operator, which runs international services from London St Pancras, confirmed on Friday its trains would be delayed because of the ongoing issues in France, the PA news agency reported.

Some related delays were also felt in Germany with minor disruption to the line between Paris and Stuttgart.

The Olympics in Paris officially begins with a unique show in the middle of the Seine on Friday evening. For the first time in Summer Games history, the opening ceremony won't be held in a stadium.

Instead, the more than 200 national delegations will sail across the Seine through the centre of Paris and past sights such as Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay.

A large number of spectators are expected in Paris for the grand ceremony along the Seine. The organizers anticipate around 300,000 people on the banks of the Seine.

About 120 country leaders, along with representatives, are expected for the opening ceremony, including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. US First Lady Jill Biden is also expected to be attending the ceremony.

The unique event is being monitored by around 45,000 security personnel. The airspace within a 150-kilometre radius of Paris is to be closed for the evening. The areas along the Seine where the parade is taking place are extensively closed to vehicular traffic.

Scores of passengers gather around the departure boards at Gare Montparnasse station in Paris as the French high-speed rail network is disrupted just hours before the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. According to the SNCF, the TGV network was hit by a massive attack on a large scale, forcing many routes to be canceled. The SNCF asked passengers to postpone their journeys and stay away from the stations. Thibaud Moritz/AFP/dpa
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  Fresnos current run of triple-digit heat is close to ending with a cool-down forecast for the end of this week. It is good news for anyone growing weary of the warmth, which could include Southwest Airlines staff opening cans of soda mid-flight.

Southwest Airlines, which operates direct links from Fresno to Denver, Las Vegas and Dallas, has been dealing with exploding cans of soda. The Washington Post reports that at least 20 Southwest Airlines flight attendants have been injured this summer by soda cans that exploded as they were opening them.

Fresno partnership will make national parks more accessible

Southwest Airlines does not serve perishable food, meaning cans of soda are enduring triple-digit heat before they are loaded onto the plane. According to YourCentralValley.coms sister station YourErie.com, soda cans are liable to explode if they get too hot. Figures from the National Weather Service show temperatures at Fresno Yosemite International Airport in the triple-digits every day this week, with a high of 110 degrees Fahrenheit registered on Tuesday.

In a statement to YourCentralValley.com, Southwest says the airline is aware of the issue and has been taking steps to keep onboard beverages cooler, especially at airports experiencing extreme temperatures.

Airports where we have a large presence  such as Las Vegas, Phoenix and many in Texas  continue to receive record temperatures, with severe heat arriving earlier and persisting throughout the summer. For the Safety of our Employees and Customers, we are taking education and mitigation measures on all heat-related hazards. Southwest

Southwest Airlines started flights from Fresno in April 2021 and is even celebrating its Fresno routes with a national competition to win a trip to the Central Valley.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
What are Fresnos oldest restaurants? Several familiar names are nearly a century old

Uniquely is a Fresno Bee series that covers the moments, landmarks and personalities that define what makes living in the Fresno area so special.

The oldest restaurant in Fresno is somewhere around 100 years old.

Its a topic that comes up in conversation now and then as people tick off the the oldest places they can think of in their heads.

Who is the oldest? Well, thats a tricky one to answer.

Bakery and dessert shop Kogetsu-Do Confectionary in Chinatown is easily one of the oldest food businesses, opening in 1915. Though with no seating, its technically not a restaurant.

There are also hotels with restaurants founded in the early 1900s that are still operating. Often, the hotel and bar started first for boarders and the restaurant came later.

So whos the oldest depends upon how you slice it.

The truth is, theres no way to definitively know which restaurant is the oldest  despite scouring newspaper archives going back more than a century and reaching out to the Fresno County Historical Society, the Fresno County Public Librarys The Heritage Center and other sources.

Theres always a chance theres some little restaurant, perhaps a Mexican taqueria or a Chinese food spot, that is technically the oldest never made it into newspapers or changed its name and moved.

Some restaurants also seem old, but have a gap in their history. HoHo Kafe in downtown Fresno started in the 1980s, but its predecessor goes back to the 1930s  though the building was empty for at least a year, according to city records.

So weve compiled the next best thing: Some of the oldest restaurants we could find in Fresno.

There are not many huge names among them. Longtime places that come to mind, such as The Elbow Room and DiCiccos, opened in the 1950s. And Richards Prime Rib & Seafood and Mikes Pizzeria both started in the 1960s  absolute youngins compared to the businesses that opened in the 1930s and before.

Check out our separate story about what years all those big-name restaurants started.

But as for the oldest, hHeres what we found.

Piemontes 1929

Piemontes Italian Delicatessen in the Tower District may have the best shot at the title of the oldest restaurant in town. It started in 1929 at B and Fresno streets as Piemonte Market, a deli and sandwich shop. It was on the corner thats now home to a Foodmaxx, said Nancy Eberwein, who owns the business with her husband Neil.

He remembers going there as a kid. There was sawdust on the floor, she said.

To keep the kids entertained they gave them a hot dog, she said. He was always excited to go with his mom.

Gino and Olga Mama Porasso founded the restaurant and deli, naming it after the region in Italy. The business moved to its current location at 616 E. Olive Ave. in 1966. Their sons Larry and Joe took over before they sold the business to the current owners.

Today, theres no sawdust on the floor, but the owners didnt want to change much else.

Over the years it has become more of a focus on sandwiches, Eberwein said. They are definitely the money-maker.

The Piemonte Special is the most popular, served with two kinds of salami, ham, mortadella and provolone.

Tanya Wallace shows prosciutto to a customer at Piemontes in this Fresno Bee file photo from 1996.

The deli still does well, but not like it did in the days before giant supermarkets when you had to go to a deli to buy meat and cheese, she said.

What stands out to Eberwein are the multiple generations of customers who keep coming back.

There have been times when weve had three generations in there, she said. It just makes you feel really good when they tell you, Oh, were so glad you kept things the same.

Piemontes Italian Delicatessen is one of Fresnos oldest restaurants. It was first located on B Street near Fresno Street in West Fresno before moving to its current location in the Tower District.

Cosmopolitan 1904/1933

The Cosmopolitan Tavern & Italian Grill  or simply Cosmo, as many call it  in downtown Fresno is one of the oldest restaurants in Fresno.

It started around 1904 as a boarding house for Italian, German and other immigrants just getting their start in the United States. It had a bar and served boarders three meals a day until they found work at dairy farms or lumber camps in the mountains, according to Fresno Bee archives.

Chef and owner Joseph Lanfranco mostly runs Cosmopolitan today, his semi-retired father Gary still popping in. The younger Lanfrancos great, great grandfather Edward Lanfranco, his brother, and several other relatives founded Cosmopolitan. The restaurant proper came along in 1933 at Fresno and G Streets (though hotel and saloon previously existed in a building constructed in 1891 before being torn down and rebuilt).

The veal ravioli was on the menu then and still is today (though it may be leaving as soon as next week because the price of veal is skyrocketing).

An undated photo courtesy of the Fresno County Historical Society was taken at the Cosmopolitan Tavern. The wooden back of the bar was moved to the new location a few years ago.

That building once had two stories, but one was lopped off in the 1970s in the name of revitalization, Lanfranco said. After decades in that spot, it was demolished in 2015 to make way for Californias high-speed rail.

With the citys help, Cosmo moved to its current location near Selland Arena at Cesar Chavez Boulevard and O Street. Now, instead of new immigrants, it caters to downtown workers for lunch and dinner. Pieces of history still adorn the walls of the restaurant, including the old wooden back bar that was moved from the old place.

A 1942 menu on the wall has a New York steak dinner priced at $2 and a martini costing 50 cents.

A newspaper story from 1928 tells of a raid on the hotel during Prohibition, with several arrested. Cosmo operated as a soft drink parlor and pool hall during the era. And the first dollar bill spent after Prohibition ended still hangs above the bar.

Our family owns the oldest liquor license in the City of Fresno, Lanfranco said. It was issued before Prohibition.

The Cosmopolitan restaurant shown at its current location on Cesar Chavez Boulevard and O streets in downtown Fresno in 2018.

Santa Fe Basque 1927/1950s

The Santa Fe Basque Restaurant and Bar is another business with roots stretching back almost 100 years. It was built as a hotel and boarding house in 1927 at 935 Santa Fe Ave., right across the street from the downtown train station. The building is now home to Sheps Club at Shepherds Inn.

The Santa Fe Basque moved to its current location at Maroa and Shields avenues in 2001.

Casually referred to as sheep camp, Santa Fe Basque was where recently immigrated Basque sheepherders would stay when they werent sleeping under the stars tending flocks of sheep.

It had a bar and the boarders would sit down together for traditional Basque meals made by cooks from the old country (France and Spain and the mountains where the Basque people hailed from), said Manuela Etchechury, who owns the business with husband Jean Pierre Etchechury.

The family-style meals of fried chicken or lamb chops were accompanied by big bowls of sides, lamb or pork stews, and bread and butter.

Its original purpose has changed drastically, Etchechury said of the business. It was a hub for newly arrived immigrants, and the owners of the hotel were responsible for people finding work, helping these people get to the doctor.

Antonio Choperena was an 86-year-old resident of the Santa Fe Hotel, associated with the Santa Fe Basque restaurant, in this Fresno Bee file photo dated 1980. He worked for a time as a kitchen helper after quitting his job as a sheepherder.

It served as an employment agency, and a place for Basque sheepherders to get mail, with children often boarding there during the school year. Pregnant women living on rural ranches often spent the last days of their pregnancy at the hotel and gave birth there. The wife of the hotel owner acted as a midwife, according to an entry in the National Register of Historic Places.

The downtown hotel was also raided by police during Prohibition  five times in nine months, according to Fresno Bee archives from 1930. The newspaper story called the spot a notorious bootleg joint and the owners were jailed at one point for maintaining a nuisance. The wife of one of the operators was sent to a psychiatric institution after pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.

Officials vowed to shut down and padlock the business, but there does not appear to be a record of that happening.

The restaurant opened to the public sometime in the 1950s, with the first ad for Basque meals appearing in The Bee in 1956. It still serves family-style meals, and that fried chicken is still popular.

The Etchechurys took over the business in 1990 when the pair was in their 20s. There were still about 15 or 16 retired sheepherders in their 60s living in the boarding house at the time. She remembers them looking after her little daughter when things got busy.

There are no more sheepherders at the business today, the bar and restaurant catering to diners. But the traditional Basque recipes are still going strong and the restaurant gets positive reviews online.

The Santa Basque Restaurant and Bar is now located on Simpson and Maroa just south of Shields in Fresno after moving from its original location on Tulare Street and Santa Fe Avenue in downtown in 2001.

Santa Fe Basque Restaurant server Frances Bracamonte brings out a lunch course to longtime customers Dan Metzger, right, and Jim Williams, center, at the restaurants new location at 3110 N. Maroa Ave. in 2001.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Moving day for a Bartlett stylist didnt go quite as planned. The day she was scheduled to open her new salon she got sick.

Shes been sick ever since. While she recovers, her family and friends have come together to help shore up her business. They contacted WREG to help pass it on.

She was determined to get her shop moved. And then finally, on opening day, she went to the hospital, to the emergency room. The infection got worse and she ended up in the ICU, said Chris Blaylock, Playmaker.

MORE PASS IT ON

Blaylock and his wife Nicole contacted WREG to pass it on to his friend and hair stylist of 30 years, Kelly Rook. Rook has been sick for weeks now and on the day WREG met up with her friends and family she was still in the Intensive Care Unit.

We just wanted to help her because shes a small business owner and shes not able to work right now, Blaylock said. So this is going to be financially hard on her. So we just wanted to come up with a way to help her out. So we reached out to you guys to do that.

WREG counted out $600 to give to Rook  $300 from WREG and $300 from anonymous donors. Blaylock sweetened the pot by adding an additional $700 from other anonymous donors.

Rooks mom and sister were present at the time and moved to tears by the gesture.

Having that time off is hard. Shes self-employed. If she doesnt work, she makes no money. And this is going to be like a miracle for her, too, said Sandi Myrick, Rooks sister.

 See more breaking news, local news and weather from WREG.com for Memphis and the Mid-South.

 Sign up for WREG newsletters and have the latest top stories sent right to your inbox.

Rooks workstation is decorated with all her favorite people and things. They want the fun, loving, caring stylist with the big personality and infectious smile to see how much she was missed when she returns to work.

But, she wont have to wait to see how much shes loved. Her family and friends Facetime with her from the hospital so she can see them passing on a financial blessing that will help her come back.

Kelly Rook is improving but it will likely be months before shes able to work again. Theyve set up a donation box at her workstation and are taking donations for those rubber bracelets that say Kellys Komeback on them.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WREG.com.
Funding for people with disabilities still in limbo despite May special session focus

Families and advocates attended a rally Sunday, April 14, 2024, at the West Virginia Capitol and called on the governor and lawmakers to restore funding to a waiver program that serves people with disabilities. (Amelia Ferrell Knisely | West Virginia Watch)

State funding for people with disabilities remains in limbo despite lawmakers passing a bill during the May special legislative session meant to bolster the line item.

On Thursday, Gov. Jim Justice indicated the funding could be restored later this year.

The states waiver program helps adults and children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (known as IDD) receive in-home help to safely shower, eat and more.

Families are still concerned, and were feeling a little defeated, said Christy Black, advocacy specialist for the West Virginia Developmental Disabilities Council. These really are our most vulnerable people, and people who dont have a voice for themselves.

Lawmakers slashed millions of dollars for IDD funding in March as they tried to trim the state budget amid a potential federal clawback of dollars.

In response, Justice called lawmakers back to Charleston in May specifically to address the funding gap.

The bill, which followed a tense standoff between the House of Delegates and Senate, didnt require the Department of Human Services to spend roughly $180 million on its waiver program for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

Instead, it put the money in a reserve for department leaders to dip into for limited reasons when needed.

Youve just gotta stay tuned a little bit longer, Justice said in response to a question from West Virginia Watch during a press conference. I think youll see some new news come out in regards to IDD and funding for folks [who] are very, very deserving.

Disability advocates and many lawmakers  particularly in the House of Delegates  hoped that DoHS would use its funds to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate.

The state uses state and federal money from Medicaid to reimburse private companies that employ direct care workers, including those who help individuals with disabilities or elderly residents.

Some IDD patients rely on direct care workers for transportation, Black explained.

Otherwise, youre pretty much trapped at home, she said.

An increase in the reimbursement rate would allow companies to boost workers wages.

Del. Amy Summers said DoHS Secretary Cynthia Persily was considering changes to the reimbursement rate beginning Oct. 1, echoing Justices comments that changes are likely.

I feel pretty confident, said Summers, R-Taylor. We expressed our desire for this to happen because we know if the rate isnt increased and they cant pay people more money, then we know [companies are] going to close. We know we need our residents taken care of.

A DoHS spokesperson did not respond to emailed requests for comment on this story.

Summers attempted to secure raises for direct care workers during the regular legislative session; Senate members werent keen on giving more money to DoHS due to concerns over misspending and transparency.

Care workers now earn around $11 an hour, and West Virginias reimbursement rate is well below other states.

A 2023 survey by the health department  paid for by state dollars  said West Virginia needed to increase its rate of reimbursement and the worker salary range to $15.50-$18.60 per hour.

Companies that staff in-home workers have told state leaders that they wont be able to remain in business due to the states low Medicaid reimbursement rate.

Theres already a worker shortage, which has resulted in more people with disabilities ending up in psychiatric care facilities. Facilities can cost the state hundreds of dollars more per patient than in-home care or a community placement.

Lawmakers are expected to gather in August for another special session this year. Justice has indicated hed like the Republican-led Legislature to implement further cuts to the states personal income tax and consider his plan for a child-care tax credit.
SARAJEVO, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) recorded total exports worth 8.19 billion KM (4.52 billion U.S. dollars) in the first half of this year, marking a decrease of 8.18 percent, or 729 million KM, compared to the same period last year.

In the meantime, the country reported 14.29 billion KM worth of imports, an increase of 426 million KM.

Exports to the European Union (EU) market fell by 465 million KM, and an export decline was evident across all major markets, including Croatia, Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Austria, and Hungary.

The EU is BiH's leading trading partner and destination for more than 70 percent of BiH's exports, according to Slavisa Ceranic, macroeconomic system chief at the Foreign Trade Chamber (FTC).

Ceranic said the primary reason for the export decline is weaker demand for BiH products, particularly in energy-intensive sectors and the processing industry, including electricity, iron and steel and textiles.

On a more positive note, he mentioned growth in the military, pharmaceutical, beverages and alcohol industries, as well as exports of grains and bakery products.

Amila Mocevic, another FTC specialist, observed a decrease in exports and an increase in imports in most economic sectors, leading to changes in trade balance compared to the previous year. She said these results reflect the overall economic situation in Europe, affecting not only BiH, but also other countries in the region. 
Ga. man who shot at deputies injured after deputies fire back

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is looking into an officer-involved shooting near the Georgia coast.

On Friday, a man in McIntosh County made suicidal comments to a dispatcher which resulted in deputies arriving at his home.

When deputies arrived, the man identified as 75-year-old Allen Barrett was holding a gun.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Deputies said while they were negotiating with Barrett, he shot at them. Then, deputies shot back at Barrett, injuring him.

Barrett was taken to the hospital and is being listed as stable.

The GBI is now investigating this incident.

TRENDING STORIES:

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

IN OTHER NEWS:
Gang kills at least 26 villagers in remote Papua New Guinea, officials say

FILE - Performers in traditional dresses stand outside of Parliament Haus in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, on Nov. 16, 2018. At least 26 people has been reported killed by a gang of men in three remote villages last week in Papua New Guinea's north, United Nations and police officials said on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, FILE)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP)  At least 26 people were killed by a gang in three remote villages in Papua New Guineas north and eight villagers remained missing Friday in the latest violence in the South Pacific island nation relating to contested land ownership and sorcery allegations, officials said.

It was a very terrible thing  when I approached the area, I saw that there were children, men, women. They were killed by a group of 30 young men," the acting police commander in East Sepik province, James Baugen, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Friday.

Baugen said all the houses in the villages had been burned and the remaining villagers had taken shelter at a police station, too scared to name the perpetrators.

Some of the bodies left in the night were taken by crocodiles into the swamp. We only saw the place where they were killed. There were heads chopped off, Baugen said. He said the attackers were hiding and there were no arrests yet.

Chris Jensen, country director for the aid group World Vision, said 26 people were confirmed dead, eight were missing and 51 families were displaced from their homes in Angoram district on the crocodile-infested Sepik River, the longest river on New Guinea island.

The trigger seems to be, as it is in most cases in PNG, a combination of a couple of things. But sorcery seems to be one of the triggers along with land ownership, Jensen told The Associated Press.

An individual will get accused of sorcery and they may be the people who perhaps have some control over some assets or land, Jensen said.

U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement Wednesday that the attacks happened on July 16 and July 18.

I am horrified by the shocking eruption of deadly violence in Papua New Guinea, seemingly as the result of a dispute over land and lake ownership and user rights, Turk said.

Turk said the dead included 16 children.

This number could rise to over 50, as local authorities search for missing people. In addition, more than 200 villagers fled as their homes were torched, Turk said.

The Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary in the capital, Port Moresby, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

East Sepik Gov. Allan Bird said violence across the diverse nation of more than 10 million people, who are mostly subsistence farmers, has escalated in the past decade. Police are under-resourced and rarely intervene, Bird said.

Papua New Guinea has more than 800 Indigenous languages and has been riven by tribal conflicts over land for centuries. Most of the country's land belongs to tribes rather than individuals, with no clear borders.

The conflicts have become increasingly lethal in recent decades as combatants move from bows and arrows to assault rifles. Mercenaries are increasingly becoming involved.

Blake Johnson, an analyst at the Australian Security Policy Institute think tank, said while the East Sepik slayings appeared to be a particularly gruesome event, "it is not the first instance of mass murder this year in Papua New Guinea.

Escalation of violence between groups, often leading to retaliatory murder is, at best, culturally accepted and at worst encouraged, Johnson said.

Law enforcement officers lack the resources and training to police most of the country, he said.

The country is too big, too harsh and too difficult to navigate, and we don't even know how many people live in these places, Johnson said.

Papua New Guinea's tribal fighting attracted international attention in February, when at least 26 combatants and an unconfirmed number of bystanders were killed in a gunbattle in Enga province.

Ongoing conflict complicated the emergency response in May when a landslide in the same province devastated at least one village. The government said more than 2,000 people were killed, while the United Nations estimated the death toll at 670.

Internal security problems in Papua New Guinea, the South Pacific's most populous country after Australia, have become a battle line for China's struggle against the U.S. and its allies for influence in the region.

Australia, Papua New Guinea's former colonial master and its biggest provider of aid, signed a bilateral security pact last year that targets its nearest neighbor's growing security concerns, while Beijing also reportedly wants to ink a policing agreement with it.

In 2022, China struck a secretive security pact with Papua New Guinea's near-neighbor Solomon Islands which included police aid and has raised concerns that a Chinese naval base could be established in the South Pacific.
He plays an angry, wounded Vietnam War combat veteran in the beloved 1994 movie "Forrest Gump," but in the late 1960s, actor Gary Sinise was a high school kid playing in rock bands and thinking about girls.

"The Allman Brothers, Dave Mason, Santana," he said. "We wanted to rock out."

Sinise, 69, said he didn't start to connect to military service and sacrifice until several years later when he started dating his wife, Moira, and met her two brothers, both Vietnam combat veterans.

In 1994, disabled veteran organizations embraced Sinise after he played Lt. Dan Taylor in "Forrest Gump," getting him more active with serving wounded veterans.

Gary Sinise at Gary Sinise Foundation headquarters in Franklin, Tenn., Friday, June 28, 2024.

But it was the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. that served as a turning point, sending Sinise into hyperdrive in helping with veterans and first responders.

"The painful memories from the awful stuff that happened that day," he said in an interview. "I just wanted to be more involved in supporting those who were deploying. That was a moment where I raised my hand."

Ten years later, Sinise started the Gary Sinise Foundation, best known for building 91 "smart homes" adapted for the needs of wounded combat veterans. A handful of those have been built in Middle Tennessee.

Two years ago, the foundation moved from California to Cool Springs.

Sinise sat down with The Tennessean recently about that move, his service to veterans and first responders and the Grand Ole Opry's upcoming July 28 celebration of the 30th anniversary release of "Forrest Gump."

Finding his granddad's World War I Army uniform

Sinise comes from a military family, something he first felt connected to when he was a 10-year-old boy snooping in his grandfather's basement in suburban Chicago.

The boy opened a trunk and saw a full Army uniform. "There was a hat in there, and I remember being fascinated by it," he said.

Sinise later found out that his grandfather was an ambulance driver in World War I, and he met his wife, an Army nurse, while serving. But Sinise never asked his grandfather, who could be "a scary Italian guy," about serving in the Army.

Sinise's dad and two uncles served in the U.S. Navy, but he wouldn't speak with them about serving until decades later.

In his 20s, Sinise had two brothers-in-law who served in the Vietnam War, and those were his first meaningful conversations with family members about military combat  and about returning to a country where many people opposed the war and didn't appreciate military members' sacrifices.

Actor Gary Sinise, right, and his brother-in-law Jack Treese, a Vietnam War combat veteran, on the set of 'Forrest Gump' in 1993

Sinise said one brother-in-law, Jack Treese, told him that when he got back to the U.S., he changed out of his uniform into civilian clothes in the bathroom at the airport.

"Thats hard to go to war and come home and you cant wear your uniform and people are spitting on you," Sinise said.

After those conversations, Sinise started volunteering with a few organizations that served Vietnam War veterans.

Sinise said he wore Jack Treese's dog tags while he filmed "Forrest Gump."

'Hey, you're Lt. Dan'

After "Forrest Gump" came out, the national nonprofit Disabled American Veterans (DAV) gave Sinise an award for his portrayal of Lt. Dan Taylor. And that got Sinise much more involved with helping veterans' organizations.

When 9/11 happened, Sinise stepped up his service.

"I think a lot of that was out off a need to change what happened to Vietnam vets when they came home and the shameful way they were treated," Sinise said. "I didnt want that to happen to folks deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan."

Sinise found out quickly that his "Forrest Gump" role would open doors for him with real-life wounded military veterans, something that became evident during a 2003 visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington, D.C.

Actor/nonprofit founder Gary Sinise sits in front of an artist's paintings of his Lt. Dan character from the movie 'Forrest Gump' at Gary Sinise Foundation headquarters in Franklin, Tenn., June 28, 2024

"I met wounded a Marine, missing eye, missing leg and arm, and he didnt know what my real name was, but he knew I was Lt. Dan," Sinise said. "I talked to that Marine for 45 minutes, and he wanted to talk about Lt. Dan. I realized Lt. Dan was going to be a part of my life in a different way."

In 2009, Sinise met a U.S. soldier who survived losing both arms and legs in combat, Brendan Marrocco, wounded after his armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Iraq. Sinise became involved in raising money to help build an adapted home where Marrocco could more easily live.

After that, Sinise started fundraising for new homes for other wounded veterans, and that became a main focus of his foundation after he started it in 2011.

See ya later, California

About 10 years later, Sinise, grateful for 35 years of success in Hollywood, started looking for another place for him and his kids and grandkids to live, one without a state income tax.

"I didn't want to keep throwing money away," he said.

Tennessee won out  it's centrally located, he'd enjoyed his gigs with his Lt. Dan Band at nearby Fort Campbell, and Sinise had made friends with some folks in the country music industry. So Sinise's two daughters, who both work for the Gary Sinise Foundation, moved first to Williamson County.

Sinise himself stayed behind for a while, in part to care for his son, McCanna "Mac", who was battling a rare form of cancer.

When Sinise did move here last year, he spent much of his time traveling between his new home in Franklin and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

His son died Jan. 5 at age 34.

"It's heartbreaking, and it's just damn hard," Sinise posted on his foundation's website. "While our hearts ache at missing him, we are comforted in knowing that Mac is no longer struggling, and inspired and moved by how he managed it."

Sinise said the Nashville community reached out after that tragedy and has welcomed him since he and his family and foundation moved here.

The latest iteration of that: Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band will play at the Grand Ole Opry on Sunday as part of a 30th anniversary celebration for the movie "Forrest Gump."

"Who wouldve ever thought Lt. Dan would be playing at the Opry," Sinise said with a big smile, "but were doing it."

Sinise will be joined by actor Mykelti Williamson, who played Bubba, and one of the movie's producers, Wendy Finerman. While movie star Tom Hanks is a regular visitor to Nashville, he won't be there, Sinise said, because Hanks is working on a movie overseas.

Regardless, Sinise said, "it's gonna be a fun night."

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384.

Retired Army Sgt. Bryan Anderson, a triple amputee, puts his hand over his heart during the singing of the national anthem Nov. 9, 2022, in Cumberland Furnace, Tenn., at the dedication of his new, free customized home built by the Gary Sinise Foundation

Gary Sinise Foundation activities in Middle Tennessee

Donated $100,000 in April of 2024 to Maury County fire department to buy a rescue boat

Built a smart home in 2024 in Nolensville, Tenn., for retired U.S. Army Sgt. Josh Hargis

Built a smart home in 2022 in Cumberland Furnace, Tenn., for retired Sgt. Bryan Anderson

Built a smart home in 2021 in Adams, Tenn., for Sgt. Christopher Kurtz

Built a smart home in 2019 in Adams, Tenn., for retired Army pilot Gary Linfoot

Gary Sinise Foundation in Cool Springs at a glance

Annual budget for programs, homes and other initiatives and gifts: $64 million

Employees: 67, with about half of those working in Tennessee

Workspace in Cool Springs: 12,934 square feet

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Gary Sinise on Lt. Dan, 'Forrest Gump' and helping wounded vets
Without additional resources and funding, Gov. Gavin Newsoms order about homeless encampments might only end up moving the unhoused around to different parts of Modesto and the county.

In response to the U.S. Supreme Courts recent decision on anti-camping laws, Newsom issued an executive order directing state agencies to begin sweeping homeless encampments from public property. This initiative is aimed at addressing encampments that pose risks to life, health and safety.

For Stanislaus County, where more than 2,000 people experience homelessness each night, this new policy is set to have an impact.

According to 2024 data, 79% of unhoused individuals in the county reside in Modesto. Most of these individuals live in the 95351 and 95354 ZIP codes, encompassing areas such as west Modesto, downtown, La Loma, the airport neighborhood and Yosemite Boulevard.

Even before Governor Newsoms executive actions, the City of Modesto has proactively invested in responding to concerns of homelessness in our community, the city said in a statement.

Since taking office in 2019, Governor Newsom has directed approximately $24 billion towards combating homelessness.

Maj. Darren Stratton of the Salvation Army Modesto Corps said that clearing encampments wont change how we need to support the unhoused, but it will likely put extra pressure on a system thats already at its limit in the city and county.

He noted that among the unhoused population, there are individuals struggling with mental health and substance abuse issues, those who have lost housing due to high costs or lack of skills and an increasing number of senior citizens with nowhere else to turn.

Working with the unhoused population is very complicated, Stratton said.

The Berberian Shelter, with 211 beds, is consistently at full capacity. Likewise, the ACES County Shelter, operated by the Salvation Army, has 182 beds that are also fully occupied each night.

Stratton said that while the Salvation Army is dedicated to helping as many people as possible, they face limitations due to facility size, staffing and available resources.

I do see the potential for increased requests for sheltering beds but like all agencies providing services to the unhoused, Im not confident in the combined ability of all shelters within Stanislaus County to meet the need, Stratton said.

He added that the center is in regular conversations with the City of Modesto and the County of Stanislaus to address the needs of the communitys most vulnerable individuals.

Councilman Nick Bavaro applauded Newsoms actions but raised concerns about where the unhoused population will be relocated and whether the effort might be a waste of resources.

Bavaro, who represents District 4, highlighted the problem in his area -- including Downtown Modesto and La Loma -- noting that parks and sidewalks along Yosemite Blvd. are overrun with encampments.

All youre doing is just shuffling people from Oakdale Road and Scenic to Claus and Scenic, Bavaro said.

He said that state funds should be redirected towards addressing mental health and addiction issues among the unhoused, though he acknowledges that many individuals on the streets are not seeking help.

Councilman Chris Ricci said that the order has minimal impact on Modesto, as the area doesnt have many large, long-term homeless encampments.

Whats needed are more state-level adjustments to make a more significant difference in addressing homelessness, Ricci said. He suggested that the government should identify individuals who are chronically homeless and reallocate enforcement funds to support areas such as drug and mental health treatment or bridge housing projects, based on specific needs.

The state, cities, counties, and judiciary spend millions housing the homeless in jail. Unfortunately, the result is a revolving door of arrest, incarceration, rapid release, re-arrest, re-incarceration, and re-release, Ricci said.

Solutions

Last August, the Modesto Police Department launched the Area Command Division, which employs non-sworn personnel with expertise in mental health and resource navigation.

MPD collaborates closely with programs like the Homeless Engagement and Response Unit (HEART), the Community Health and Assistance Team (CHAT) and the Crime Reduction Team (CRT). These teams specialize in connecting individuals in mental health crises or those experiencing homelessness with appropriate resources.

Recently, MPD, along with CHAT, HEART, the Abatement Team, Code Enforcement and Park Rangers, conducted an outreach and cleanup effort in Modesto. During this initiative, seven individuals accepted shelter. These outreach and cleanup efforts are conducted regularly, offering services and shelter opportunities to those in need.

In 2023, the CHAT team received 4,917 calls, with 71% of individuals accepting services and 24% of those accepting shelter. In total, 30 individuals were provided with housing.

Community Health and Assistance Team (CHAT) outreach specialist Megan Dill, left, and BHRS housing specialist Asuzena Pena, right, talk with a homeless man in Tuolumne River Regional Park during Stanislaus Countys 2024 Point-in-Time count of unsheltered homeless people in Modesto, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024.

Bavaro believes the Governor should designate public properties as safe areas that provide access to food, water and shelter. Without such designated areas, he warned that unhoused individuals might move to private properties or other locations. Additionally, he suggested that the state should fund service providers to manage these areas effectively.

I applaud him on having the courage to deal with the problem, but he needs to think it through on the whole picture, Bavaro said.

Stratton argued that if the state plans to clear encampments, it must adequately fund existing shelter operations and support organizations dedicated to helping those in need. He also stressed the need to expand shelter capacity and collaborate with agencies like the Salvation Army to ensure comprehensive support services are available.

They must find a way to address the cost of housing and the lack of inventory, Stratton said. There is still a lot of work to be done.
The Gays Eating Garlic Bread festival will feature food and drink vendors which will of course include garlic bread. (Graphic courtesy of Gays Eating Garlic Bread)

The first-ever Gays Eating Garlic Bread festival in downtown Sioux City will take place in August to raise money for flood recovery.

What started as a small, fun event for a few friends to hang out and eat garlic bread was changed significantly after the original site was flooded, organizers said.

Linus Countryman, founder of Sioux Citys Gays Eating Garlic Bread, said the event was initially going to be canceled after the flood but those involved still wanted to do something and help the local community recover from the disaster.

We were affected so much by this [flood] so how would the people who lost their houses feel, Countryman said. Thats always been really the goal since that point was to focus on the community that has already done so much just to help get the event off ground. Were doing what we can to give that support back to the community.

The planned street festival on Aug. 10 will be larger than the original plan.

Live music, raffle prizes, face painting, selfie stations, street chalk art, an auction, an adult drag show, and food and drink vendors will be available with all proceeds going toward the Siouxland Recovery Fund. Garlic bread, the events namesake, will also be given out throughout the event.

Attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets for the event.

The eight-hour event along Virginia Street from Third Street to Fourth Street in downtown Sioux City will feature family hours from 3-5 p.m. After family hours, the festival will feature local live music performances and a free drag show performed by local drag queens until 11 p.m.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

Elizabeth Stewart, events coordinator for Gays Eating Garlic Bread, said the festival is going to both help the community recover and be a fantastic time.

This event is going to be awesome, Stewart said. Were so thrilled to bring everyone together for a great cause and make everyone feel included at a time thats been hard for everybody.

While this is the first Gays Eating Garlic Bread event in Sioux City, other cities like Seattle, Portland, Chicago and Omaha have also hosted similar events. The original, started in Seattle, began as a post on TikTok showing a poster for the event which went viral.

However, Sioux Citys version separates itself from the others with its focus on fundraising for a cause.

Vendors for the festival dont need to pay a vendor fee but are asked to donate items for the raffle and auction. Stewart said this was done to maximize the amount of money to flood recovery efforts possible.

We want to donate as much as we can to recovery efforts because thats what this is about, Stewart said.

Interested art vendors can fill out this form and volunteers for the festival can fill out this form.

Countryman said they hope to make Gays Eating Garlic Bread an annual event with a different fundraising cause every year.

This started as a small event I was planning on my phone and now were being picked up by news stations and having to write press statements, Countryman said. We just want this to be the best event we can put on.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
George Galloway said the two men involved were 'in a bad way physically and emotionally' - Asadour Guzelian

George Galloway is understood to have met the family of the men involved in the Manchester Airport incident, amid fears activists are inflaming tensions.

The Workers Party leader visited Bilal Mosque in Rochdale on Friday to meet relatives of the two men shown in a video being kicked by a police officer during a confrontation at the airport on Tuesday.

It follows two nights of protests after the emergence of the video, which shows one of the men being kicked in the head.

Late on Friday, Mr Galloway wrote on X, formerly Twitter:

Today I met with the victims of the #ManchesterAirport incident. I paid my commiserations which but for the grace of God could have been condolences. The brothers are in a bad way physically and emotionally. Their brother a police officer with @gmpolice and their uncle a  George Galloway (@georgegalloway) July 26, 2024

On Friday, the police watchdog announced that the police officer filmed kicking the man in the head was now under criminal investigation.

Paul Waugh, the MP for Rochdale, where the family live, earlier called for calm, warning that extremists of all kinds are going to try and exploit this and hijack it for their own ends and that is the last thing this town needs.

He said that the family had no political agenda whatsoever, would not attend the protests and had also appealed for calm.

Labours Mr Waugh unseated Mr Galloway at the recent election in a close-run contest dominated by anger over Gaza.

On Thursday, Mr Galloway, who has made a career out of harnessing grievances among British Asian and Muslim communities, attacked Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor, falsely claiming that he had maintained a stony silence.

However, Mr Burnham has repeatedly called for calm and on Thursday said no one wanted politicians without possession of the facts exploiting the situation for their own political agenda with zero regard for the effect on the ground in communities in Greater Manchester.

Akmed Yakoob, the lawyer representing the two men in the video, stood as an independent candidate in the recent West Midlands mayoral election on a pro-Gaza platform.

He has previously said that he believed he had been chosen by Allah to challenge the Zionist regime.

On Thursday, he was filmed by the BBC in Rochdale with two of Mr Galloways Workers Party Rochdale councillors following closely behind.

One of them, Minaam Ellahi, wrote a post on Instagram supporting the protests outside Rochdale police station, which have so far been peaceful, and stating that he had attended.

He also said: I want to inform the community that George Galloway will be visiting Bilal Mosque on Friday and meeting with the family.

Mr Yakoob has stressed that Mohammed Fahir Amaz and Mohammed Amahd, the two men filmed in the airport video, are not supporting the protests.

However, the presence of Mr Galloway, a notoriously divisive politician, in Rochdale at a febrile time has worried some in the community.

A Labour source in Greater Manchester said the airport incident risked being subsumed into existing local political tensions over the Middle East.

The people running these protests and risking inflaming the situation are the same people running against the Labour Party on the Gaza issues.

Its Galloways mob who are behind it. Its very politically charged.

The Telegraph has approached Mr Galloway for comment.

On Thursday, it was reported that Jack Khan, a former Labour councillor who stood unsuccessfully for the Workers Party in Bolton at the general election, had warned that there would be big protests like you have never seen before unless the police officers involved were arrested immediately.

It prompted Mr Waugh to say: I really hope that if there are any protests that they are peaceful, but, that the familys wishes are adhered to.

People should listen to them. Theyre at the centre of this, at the end of the day, and they are the people who say look, please let us just get on and pursue the independent process now.

Thats our focus, as well as making sure that they get the right medical help for their family member.

Greater Manchester Police had referred the incident to the IOPC after suspending the police officer.

It made a second referral in respect of a second officer who sprayed Pava spray in the eyes of a man, also of Asian descent, who was filming them.

In a statement on Friday, Catherine Bates, the IOPC regional director, said the police constable would be interviewed under caution as soon as possible.

I have today met one of the men who was involved and his family members to outline our investigation and we will continue to update them and Greater Manchester Police as our enquiries progress, she said. We will be speaking to the man involved in the second incident as soon as we can.

The family has asked me to reiterate their call for peace and wish to stress that they do not condone any acts of violence as a result of this incident.

We are meeting with a number of community leaders in Rochdale this afternoon to listen to their concerns and explain our role.

Our investigation continues to gather relevant evidence and will be following a number of lines of inquiry. We will provide further updates when we are in a position to do so.

It came as Lee Anderson suggested the armed officer should be given a medal.

He told BBC Politics Live: The message Im getting loud and clear from my constituents is that theyre fed up with seeing police dancing around rainbows and being nice to people and running off from rioters.

They want the police to do their job. And I think these police yesterday should be commended, in fact, Id give them a medal.

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 conservative political treasurer associated with former Rep. George Santoss (R-N.Y.) campaign was accused of wire fraud by a GOP super PAC in Nevada, according to a Justice Department complaint.

The Conservative Nevada Leadership PAC (CNLP) demanded the Justice Department investigate Thomas Datwyler, who has headed up the financial operations of dozens of Republican candidates and political committees in recent cycles.

Datwyler acted as a shadow treasurer for Santoss brief reelection bid, despite previously disavowing his involvement to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the media.

CNLP, a fundraising group formed to back GOP primary Senate candidate Jim Marchant, accused Datwyler of using its funds to write a $500 check after he stepped down as its treasurer.

Datwyler has a long history of running roughshod over federal campaign finance law and the regulations of the FEC, where he has repeatedly filed or caused to be filed false reports with the [FEC], the complaint reads. Datwylers knowing, willful, and intentional conduct, which has drawn repeated FEC fines, has and continues to cause substantial harm to our electoral process. As detailed below, Datwylers recent conduct has become even more out-of-control.

According to the complaint, dated Friday, CNLP raised no money while Datwyler was its treasurer, between June and November of last year. The group received its first donation of $5,000 in December, after Datwyler had stepped down, though the group claims Datwyler wrote a check in February to his political compliance firm from the PACs account for $500.

CNLP at no time authorized this expenditure, or the printing of this check to AxCapital, the complaint continues. Only after being caught did Datwyler state that he would issue a refund from AxCapital to CNLP. This activity by Datwyler was plainly illegal.

Datwyler did not respond to a request for comment.

The Nevada complaint was written by Dan Backer, himself a veteran GOP political attorney and consultant.

This is the most glaring and recent example of a pattern of misconduct spanning years, said Backer, who accused Datwyler of having a reputation for skirting campaign finance law. Multiple campaigns have expressed concerns and frustrations.

Datwyler has racked up tens of thousands of dollars in FEC fines for campaigns he was involved with, including more than $20,000 in the 2022 cycle alone, according to the agency.

Backer explained that the extraordinary step of a Justice Department complaint was necessary because of the severity of the accusations and the fines already imposed on campaigns he has worked for.

Thats doors that youre not knocking, mail youre not sending  and thats just the fines, he said. This kind of thing is hurting our side of the aisle, and it has to stop.

Datwyler has previously been affiliated with groups backing Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) and GOP Ohio Senate primary candidate Josh Mandel, among others.

In April, the Democratic-affiliated abortion rights group EMILYs List called on the FEC to investigate Datwyler for failing to report ad spending in an Arizona House race.

Datwyler is already under criminal investigation in Mississippi, with state prosecutors alleging he may have broken state campaign finance law while backing a Republican lieutenant governor primary campaign in the state with his own super PAC.

His firm, Ax Capital Compliance, is owned by Republican political operation Axiom Strategies, the largest GOP group of its kind in the country. Axiom has consulted for numerous GOP campaigns, including those of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Georgia back in play? Expect to see Harris and Trump making more stops in the Peach State

With the announcement that Vice President Kamala Harris is returning to Georgia, this time as a presidential candidate, political analysts are saying once again that the path to the White House is through Georgia.

The latest polls in the Peach State show that Harris and former President Donald Trump are essentially tied in Georgia, shrinking the lead that Trump had over President Joe Biden before he announced he was stepping out of the race.

So dont be surprised to see both candidates and their allies making several visits to Georgia over the next few months.

Political analyst Bill Crane said Harris has some work to do.

She is  trying to reinvigorate and charge up that base and make Georgia not only a battleground state but to close the gap that opened up with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Crane said.

Harris has been to Georgia several times over the last few months stumping for Biden. Now she has to stump for herself.

Shes the presumptive nominee. Shes the lead fundraiser. Assuming she is successful with the nomination at the convention, she will be the voice and face of the party, Crane said.

Though we have not heard yet of any more events with Trump, he has been to Georgia several times over the last few months as well.

The former president held a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina on Wednesday, marking his first public campaign event since Biden dropped out of the 2024 matchup and Harris became the Democrats likely nominee.

RELATED STORIES:

So now we have a new victim to defeat: Lyin Kamala Harris, Trump said, labeling her the most incompetent and far-left vice president in American history.

Trump called her a radical left lunatic and said she was crazy for her positions on abortion and immigration. He repeatedly mispronounced the first name of the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent likely to lead a major partys presidential ticket.

Trumps speech signaled the next stage for the campaign may be especially brutal and personal, even as some GOP leaders warned Republican allies not to use overtly racist and sexist attacks against Harris.

He blamed her for what he portrays as the Biden administrations failures, particularly security along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Harris campaign released a statement after Trumps speech describing it as unhinged, weird and rambling.

Unity is over for Donald Trump, said campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa, referring to unity pledges made during the Republican National Convention.

Harris is expected to make abortion a key part of her campaign, looking to present herself to voters as someone who will fight against abortion restrictions. Earlier this week, she said she trusts women to make decisions about their own bodies.

These extremists want to take us back, but we are not going back. All across our nation, we are witnessing a full-on assault on hard-fought, hard-won freedoms and rights, Harris said during a rally in Wisconsin this week. In this moment, I believe we face a choice between two different visions for our nation, one focused on the future, the other focused on the past.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

RELATED NEWS:
SANDERSVILLE, Ga. (WJBF)  Set to be the Americas longest paved bike trail, the Georgia Hi-Lo trail will break ground on the first model mile of the 211-mile path in an event on July 27 in Sandersville, Ga.

The groundbreaking is scheduled for 11 a.m. in the Forest Grove Preserve located at 1200 Bartow Road. This groundbreaking is Phase 1 of the Washington County Model Project.

The Georgia Hi-Lo trail is planned to go through Greene, Hancock, Washington, Johnson, Emanuel, Bulloch, Effingham and Chatham counties, spanning from Union Point to Savannah. Last year, plans outlining the process of building the trail were debuted, showing the vast amount of collaboration, millions in funds and years it would take to complete the trail.

ALSO ON WJBF: USA Cycling event to close roads in Downtown Augusta July 28

In addition to the groundbreaking event, the annual Sandersville Sizzler race to raise funds for the trail is also scheduled for July 27. Participants can run in a 5k Trail Run or a MTB Poker Ride.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
WELLINGTON, July 26 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's endangered flightless birds including takahe, weka and great spotted kiwi birds, are seeking refuges in the locations where six species of giant flightless birds moa last lived before going extinct, research showed on Friday.

The new research shows that the ghosts of species past can provide invaluable insights for conservation efforts directed at New Zealand's living flightless birds, highlighting the immense importance of protecting remote, wild places.

International researchers, led by scientists from the University of Adelaide, used fossils and computer modeling to make the discovery, shedding light on a mystery with important conservation benefits.

This discovery, published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, found these moa graveyards to be in the same isolated, cold, mountainous environments that harbor many of the last populations of New Zealand's most threatened flightless birds nowadays.

These lands, however, continue to be impacted by humanity, researchers said.

Although recent drivers of the decline of New Zealand's native flightless birds are different from those that caused the ancient extinctions of moa, this research shows that their catalysts remain similar, said lead author Sean Tomlinson from the University of Adelaide.

The study also provides an important new method for understanding past extinctions on islands where fossil and archaeological data are limited, which is the case for most Pacific Islands.

Led by the University of Adelaide, the research was jointly conducted by the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Auckland, and New Zealand's Landcare Research. 
Gerald Ford, pictured moments after he was sworn-in as US president in 1974 following Richard Nixon's resignation - AP

Almost 35 years ago, Gerald Ford predicted that America would get its first female president only when a male incumbent could no longer continue.

In a resurfaced video being widely shared since Kamala Harris replaced Joe Biden as the probable Democrat nominee, the former US president was asked in a room filled with schoolchildren for his advice for a young lady wanting to become president.

He had his answer ready.

I can tell you how I think it will happen  because it wont happen in the normal course of events, said Ford, who succeeded Richard Nixon in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

He foresaw a scenario where either the Republican or Democrat party will nominate a man for president and a woman for vice-president and the woman and man will win.

Ford continued: In that term of office of the president, the president will die and the woman will become president under the law or constitution.

And once that barrier is broken, from then on men better be careful because theyll have a hard, hard time even ever getting a nomination in the future. But thats the way its going to happen.

Commentators were quick to point out the parallels in his speech to the unprecedented turmoil of the current US election, after Mr Biden withdrew from the presidential race and named Kamala Harris as his successor.

Ms Harris is almost certain to be the Democrat nominee - Roberto Schmidt/Getty

The vice-president, who now has the broad support of the Democratic Party, including the recent high-profile endorsement of Barack Obama, is almost certain to be crowned the presidential nominee next month.

But while elements of his prophecy may appear to have come true, Ford believed in 1989 that it was likely to happen in the next four or eight years. More than three decades later, the US still hasnt had a woman in the Oval Office.

It took until 2016 for Hillary Clinton to become the first female to win the presidential nomination of a major party and until 2021 for Ms Harris to become the first female vice-president of the US.

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 authority sign in front of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV). Oliver Berg/dpa

Germany's BfV domestic intelligence service has described an increase in Russian sabotage activities in the European Union and warned of indications that Russian spies have been vetting potential agents at German firms by scouring social media profiles.

"The aim is said to have been to identify people who could be susceptible to Russian attempts to exert influence or initiate sabotage," the agency said in a security notice dated Friday.

The extent of Russian sabotage efforts in Europe is related to the country's ongoing war in Ukraine as well as heightened tensions between Russia and the West, according to the agency.

"The cases observed across Europe since 2023 and increased indications of possible activities in Germany have currently led to an adjusted assessment: There is an increased risk of sabotage activities or corresponding preparatory acts in Germany," the agency said.

At the same time, cyberattacks by pro-Russian hackers on websites of German companies and government agencies have continued to be observed.

So far, the effects of such attacks by so-called "hacktivist" groups have mostly been limited and the affected websites have only been knocked offline temporarily, according to the notice.

Several cases of arson or attempted arson are currently being investigated in other European countries. Investigations are also under way into vandalism and propaganda activities that could be attributable to Russian intelligence services, according to the BfV.

Low-level agents - mainly young, Russian-speaking people with pro-Kremlin views who want to earn money quickly - are being recruited for those purposes, the agency said.
For those diagnosed with cancer in one breast, undergoing a double mastectomy does not provide any benefit in survival

Pradit_Ph / Getty Images

Many women who are diagnosed with breast cancer in one breast opt for a double mastectomy in hopes of preventing the cancer from spreading to the other breast. However, a new study reveals that doing so doesnt actually increase survival rates.

The study  published July 25 in JAMA Oncology  analyzed more than 661,000 women diagnosed with cancer in one breast between 2000 and 2019. The cases ranged from ductal carcinoma in situ, a non-invasive stage zero breast cancer, to stage 3 invasive breast cancers.

For women who underwent a lumpectomy or a mastectomy, there was only a 7% chance of developing cancer later in the other breast. Researchers also found that removing the other breast with a double mastectomy does not provide any survival advantage.

Over the 20 years studied, deaths from breast cancer were similar in all groups, with 8.5% of women who had lumpectomies, 9% of women who had mastectomies, and 8.5% of women who had double mastectomies.

That seems like a paradox, said lead author Dr. Steven Narod, breast cancer researcher and physician at Womens College Hospital in Toronto. If you get a contralateral breast cancer, your risk of dying goes up. But preventing it doesnt improve your survival.

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.

image  Echo/Cultura/Getty Images There's a lot more to preventive care than your yearly mammogram.

The PEOPLE Puzzler crossword is here! How quickly can you solve it? Play now!

Narod said that the study raises key questions about contralateral breast cancers  an invasive second breast cancer that develops in the opposite breast more than six months after the first cancer is diagnosed  and how breast cancer spreads.

Additionally, the study notes that these results may not apply to those who test positive for the BRCA gene, which puts them at greater risk. According to the CDC, one in every 500 women in the United States has a gene variant. In these cases, researchers  and the American Cancer Society  state that double mastectomies done as a preventative surgery is worth considering.

One in eight women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer, and mammograms are vital for early detection.

In May 2023, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force lowered the recommended age for screening for breast cancer after an increase in younger diagnoses. The task force stated that science now shows all women should start getting screened every other year at age 40, which could result in 19% more lives being saved.

In addition to staying on top of routine screenings, health officials advise women of all ages to practice "breast self-awareness," which means becoming familiar with how a person's own breasts normally look and feel, so they will be more likely to recognize anything out of the ordinary when doing a breast self-examination.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11)  A bronze sculpture of an octopus cradling an elephant, gorilla, bunny, and rhinoceros has made its home in Lower Manhattans World Trade Center campus.

This colossal work of art will be on public display until July 2025. Its the latest public exhibition by artist-cooperative couple Gillie and Marc aims to raise awareness about endangered wildlife.

More Local News

Their latest work of art, The Arms of Friendship, depicts the worlds largest bronze octopus. The octopus  36 feet long and weighing 7 tons  holds some endangered creatures within its eight limbs.

The couples signature Rabbitwoman and Dogman are also depicted in the sculpture.

In the last 50 years, wildlife populations have plummeted by 69% globally. We are now facing the worlds sixth mass extinction, read a statement by Gillie on the artists website. This crisis is beyond description, yet we remain hopeful and committed to witnessing change within our lifetimes. We trust that our art and the stories we tell can inspire people to engage in vital conversations and take meaningful action.

People play and pose for photos on the new sculpture titled The Arms of Friendship outside of the Oculus World Trade Center on July 24, 2024. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

People play and pose for photos on the new sculpture titled The Arms of Friendship outside of the Oculus World Trade Center on July 24, 2024. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

People play and pose for photos on the new sculpture titled The Arms of Friendship outside of the Oculus World Trade Center on July 24, 2024. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

People play and pose for photos on the new sculpture titled The Arms of Friendship outside of the Oculus World Trade Center on July 24, 2024. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The artists encourage the public to interact with their latest sculptures, according to Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. They also invite onlookers to sit on a giant tentacle and enjoy a moment with a magnificent animal which they never get the chance to experience in the wild.

Gillie and Marc, a married couple, are versatile artists who work across various mediums. They use paint, aluminum, bronze, and fiberglass to bring their public artworks to life, which can be found in Chicago, San Francisco, London, and Singapore.

Matthew Euzarraga is a multimedia journalist from El Paso, Texas. He has covered local news and LGBTQIA topics in the New York City Metro area since 2021. He joined the PIX11 Digital team in 2023. You can see more of his work here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.
Girl, 12, Was Missing for 2 Months. She Was Just Found with a 31-Year-Old Man She Met Online

Maria Gomez-Perez disappeared from Georgia in May and was found with 31-year-old Antonio Agustin in a different state on July 25

hall County Sheriff's Office Maria Gomez-Perez

Authorities in Georgia say a 12-year-old girl who was missing for two months was found with a 31-year-old man she had been communicating with online prior to her disappearance.

Maria Gomez-Perez of Gainesville, Ga., was found safe and OK in another state on Thursday, July 25, the Hall County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

She was last seen on May 29 in her home, per police.

Maria was found with 31-year-old Antonio Agustin on Thursday, Hall County Sheriff Gerald Couch said at a press briefing.

Police did not detail any charges against him, but Couch said he could face several felony charges given that he moved a child across state lines.

hall County Sheriff's Office Antonio Agustin

He said authorities believe Maria had been communicating with Augustin on Facebook and other online apps.

Maria had indicated that she was unhappy and she wanted to leave home, Couch said, adding that she had been communicating with other adult males online and gave them the same information.

Let me be very clear on this - Maria is the victim here, Couch said. "Remember she is only 12 years old.

Investigation revealed that Augustin allegedly drove from his home in Ohio to pick up Maria from Gainesville on May 29, Couch said.

Police believe Augustin had Maria with him at his home the entire time.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

The case caught a break last week when Maria allegedly messaged her father Gomez Alonzo on Facebook to ask him to stop looking for her, per investigators.

She was using a new Facebook account she created to be able to message him, Couch said, and told her father that she was doing alright and would not be coming home.

Once Alonzo notified authorities, they were able to track down Maria by tracing the IP address to a Dover, Ohio, address and found Augustin with Maria at a local swimming pool.

Hall County authorities, along with authorities from Tuscarawas County in Ohio, then arrested Augustin from outside a shopping center and safely recovered Maria from the scene, Couch said.

Augustin was in custody in Tuscarawas as of Friday afternoon and Hall County authorities are expected to bring charges against him, Couch said.

An investigation is ongoing.

If you suspect child abuse, call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child or 1-800-422-4453, or go to www.childhelp.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Thousands of parishioners from the Diocese of Knoxville filed out of the Knoxville Convention Center on July 26 with something new: For the first time in 13 months, they had a bishop.

Bishop Mark Beckman, a longtime priest in Nashville, completed his ordination service, put into motion earlier this year after Pope Francis named him bishop-elect. The Mass, by design, physically brought the diocese together, a step to unite the faithful with their new leader.

This day is about a person. And that person is not me. That person is Jesus Christ, Beckman said, reflecting words he heard Louisville Archbishop Shelton Fabre use a few years ago. And this day, too, is about Jesus Christ.  He is the purpose of our life, the reason we do what we do.

Beckman, 61, is the fourth bishop to lead the diocese since it was carved out of the Nashville diocese in 1988. He succeeds Richard Stika, the dioceses longest-serving bishop, who resigned in 2023 amid several high-profile scandals.

The new bishop listened intently as his ordination began and wiped tears from his eyes several times as the mandate letter from Pope Francis was read. Beckman's first words as bishop was the reciting of the sacrament of communion  another deliberate act of union.

Some 20 bishops and bishop emeritus from around the country (and as far as Nigeria) joined the celebration, led by Fabre.

Fabre praised Beckman, at one point saying he was confident Beckman will be a good bishop here. In his homily, Fabre spoke of the qualities of a good shepherd, something Jesus spoke about frequently. Beckman, he assured the group, will be a good shepherd.

Of all the dignitaries in attendance, one absence was notable: Stika. Former bishops regularly attend their successors ordination ceremony  Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Kurtz attended Stikas and was on hand again in Knoxville for Beckmans. But there was very little that was regular about Stikas time here and the way in which he left.

During his introductory news conference in May, Beckman spoke about working to help heal the diocese.

The importance of healing is central to the Gospel, Beckman said when asked about it directly at the time. One of the things Jesus did very often was to heal people. Were wounded as we journey through life. I know that there are wounds in this place, as there are everywhere. And one of the most important things a good shepherd does is communicate the healing presence of Christ. So, I will humbly ask the Lord to help me to do that.

Bishop Mark Beckman, center, is installed as the fourth bishop of Knoxville during an ordination Mass at the Knoxville Convention Center on July 26. Brianna Paciorka/News Sentinel

The diocese serves about 70,000 Catholics in 50 parishes and one mission across East Tennessee. Several thousand participated in the ordination mass, filling much of the convention centers lower level.

The diocese serves about 70,000 Catholics in 50 parishes and one mission across East Tennessee.

About Beckman

The native Tennessean has now moved East, closer to the mountains he loves to hike.

Beckman, 61, was born in Lawrenceburg, south of Nashville near the Alabama state line. He is the oldest of six and has dozens of nieces and nephews, many of whom still live in and around Lawrenceburg. His family members are University of Tennessee fans.

He attended Sacred Heart School and Lawrenceburg County High School. He left Tennessee to attend St. Ambrose College in Davenport, Iowa, before earning a master's degree in religious studies from the Catholic University in Louvain, Belgium, in 1988.

Children wave and hold out their hands hoping to grab the attention of Bishop Mark Beckman, left, at the conclusion of the Mass.

He returned to Tennessee and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Nashville in 1990. Between then and his appointment as bishop in Knoxville, Beckman served as pastor of five different parishes and as the director of priest personnel for the Diocese of Nashville since 2018.

A list of his assignments include:

Associate pastor of Holy Rosary Parish, Nashville (1990-91)

Teacher and associate principal of Father Ryan High School, Nashville (1990-96)

Pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, Springfield and St. Michael Mission, Cedar Hill (1996-2002)

Pastor of St. Matthew Parish, Franklin (2002-15)

Pastor of St. Henry Parish, Nashville (2015-present)

Beckman also served as the Diocese of Nashville's director of priest personnel since 2018, among numerous other appointments and committees.

Tyler Whetstone is an investigative reporter focused on accountability journalism. Connect with Tyler by emailing him at tyler.whetstone@knoxnews.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @tyler_whetstone.

Bishop-elect Mark Beckman, center, walks up and down the aisles showing the mandate from Pope Francis appointing Beckman as the new Bishop of Knoxville during an ordination mass held at the Knoxville Convention Center on Friday, July 26, 2024.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Bishop Mark Beckman ordained as leader of Knoxville diocese
Conservatives often portray California as a failed state and its governor, Gavin Newsom, as a radical, left-wing ringleader presiding over a circus.

As evidence, they point to homeless encampments that are clearly visible  especially in large cities  as Exhibit A.

Newsom challenged that characterization when he issued an executive order on Thursday that requires all California agencies to remove homeless encampments on state property as expeditiously as possible.

The New York Times called it the nations most sweeping response to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave government agencies the ability to dismantle homeless encampments, even if unhoused residents have nowhere else to go.

Newsom order: humanely remove encampments

The governors order carries a sense of urgency, but dont expect encampments to disappear overnight, including here in San Luis Obispo County.

The mandate applies only to state property, not to county or city parks, streets, sidewalks, parking lots and open spaces where unhoused people live in cars, tents or make-shift shelters.

The order does, however, encourage municipalities to humanely remove encampments from public spaces using whatever resources are available  including state financial assistance.

It does not mention any repercussions for local jurisdictions that fail to act, though the state could withhold grants for homeless programs if cities dont respond to the governors encouragement.

Local agencies could be affected in another way as well: When state agencies dismantle encampments under their jurisdiction, new ones could spring up in areas not under state control.

In that sense, Newsom isnt really solving the problem, but moving it around in a way that adds to the burden on local governments and shifts blame to local politicians.

And while Newsom obviously wants quick action, that may run counter to the humane approach he also advises.

If were going to kick people out of encampments, shouldnt we first ensure they have somewhere to go besides jail?

Whats happening in SLO County?

In San Luis Obispo County, government agencies and nonprofits have been gearing up to offer not just more emergency housing, but also more types of housing, including non-congregate living quarters like the individual units at the Cabins for Change projects in Grover Beach, which total 50 beds.

A similar project with 80 cabins is planned in San Luis Obispo as a joint city/county project. Welcome Home Village is tentatively scheduled to open in 2025 near the intersection of Bishop Street and Johnson Avenue. Its specifically intended to provide housing for people who have been living in encampments on the Bob Jones Trail.

Thats in addition to shelters already in operation, including the 128-bed 40 Prado Homeless Services Center in San Luis Obispo; ECHOs 130-bed shelter in Atascadero; and 20 beds at a converted Motel 6 in Paso Robles.

The question is, will the housing coming on line be enough? Judging by statistics, thats doubtful.

In the most recent point-in-time count conducted in January, homelessness was down 19% compared to 2022. Even so, there were still 1,171 unhoused people counted in SLO County; 374 were staying in shelters, which left 797 living on the streets, in creekbeds and cars.

And remember, these figures are based on what volunteers were able to see. Some unhoused people may have gone unnoticed.

SLO Countys plan to reduce homelessness

The county does have a five-year plan to reduce homelessness by 50% over five years.

It set some ambitious goals: Add 300 interim housing units to provide emergency shelter, 500 permanent supportive housing units and 1,667 low-income housing units by 2027.

Local governments  in partnership with nonprofit organizations are making progress, but more needs to be done, especially if were going to phase out encampments.

In addition to permanent and semi-permanent structures, we need more areas where people are allowed to live in cars and RVs and more campgrounds where they can legally pitch their tents.

But none of this can be rushed.

We saw what happened when the county hurriedly set up its Safe Parking Site on Oklahoma Avenue as an alternative for people living in RVs parked along Palisades Avenue in Los Osos.

There were health and safety issues  exacerbated by a lack of management  at the Oklahoma Avenue site, and it ultimately was closed.

One problem was exchanged for another, which is exactly what could happen if agencies haphazardly shut down encampments at the behest of the governor.

Newsoms order may send a message to agencies that have been slow to act  and it could leave outsiders with the impression that California is trying to clean up its act.

But local governments in San Luis Obispo County  which have finally united behind a plan to reduce homelessness  should not be pressured into dismantling encampments until they are ready to deal with the consequences.
A homeless encampment is seen Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Oakland, Calif. California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order Thursday, July 25, to direct state agencies on how to remove homeless encampments, a month after a Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vasquez)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has issued an executive order directing state agencies to move urgently to address dangerous homeless encampments and clear them from state land while giving city and local leaders a push to do the same.

The order comes a month after a Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to enforce bans on sleeping outside in public spaces.

In 2023, there more than 180,000 homeless people in California in 2023. Newsoms order comes as the lack of affording housing and rising cost of living have pushed increasing numbers of people out onto the streets. In many cities, the homeless population far exceeds the number of shelter beds available on any given night.

The order raises questions about how this will be carried out given the challenges that cities are facing, and the governor's office said details are still be hammered out.

Here's a look at what we know so far:

What does the executive order say?

The executive order directs state agencies to remove homeless encampments from state land. That includes state parks and beaches, agency buildings, and highways and the areas beneath them.

In Los Angeles, one of the largest homeless encampments can be found under the 105 freeway, which is maintained by the California Department of Transportation, known as Caltrans.

It orders the agencies to act soon and follow the lead of the transportation agency, which has removed 11,188 encampments and more than 248,000 cubic yards (189,600 cubic meters) of debris from these encampments along the state rights of way, mostly freeways and highways, since July 2021.

Caltrans policies include determining first if there is an imminent threat to life, health, safety or infrastructure that requires removal of a homeless encampment. Authorities must also give at least 48 hours notice before they clear a site, and request outreach services for people living in the encampment. The order says people also must be allowed to store their personal belongings for at least 60 days.

The order also orders the California Interagency Council on Homelessness to provide guidance for local governments to follow in implementing their own homelessness programs.

What does this mean for major cities?

City and county officials are not legally bound to follow the executive order, though it says they are encouraged to adopt the same policies. In the past, Newsom has threatened to withhold $1 billion from local governments if they don't make progress in addressing the issue.

Some local officials say they will continue to clear homeless encampments as they have been doing since the Supreme Court ruling, effective in August, allowed them to remove people from the streets even if there are no shelter beds available.

More than 75,000 people were homeless on any given night across Los Angeles County, according to a tally at the start of the year. About 45,252 were within the city of Los Angeles, where frustration has grown as tents have proliferated on sidewalks and in parks. This year, there are only about 23,000 emergency shelter beds in the county.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass emphasized the importance of a comprehensive approach to addressing homelessness that leads with providing housing and services. She has criticized the Supreme Court ruling, saying that cities can't arrest their way out of this problem.

Strategies that just move people along from one neighborhood to the next or give citations instead of housing do not work, Bass said in a statement. We thank the Governor for his partnership thus far and hope that he will continue collaboration on strategies that work.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed vowed to begin very aggressive sweeps of homeless encampments in light of the Supreme Court decision that will begin in August, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

San Franciscos encampment and outreach teams do this work every day and have been for years, Breed said. Weve already been doing this work, so theres nothing new that comes out of the Governors direction.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, chair of the California Big City Mayors coalition, said the group welcomes the governor's renewed direction and sense of urgency to address homelessness with tangible and meaningful action, though he didn't specify what that would be.

The group includes mayors of the state's 13 largest cities.

San Diego passed an ordinance last year that banned encampments near schools, shelters and transit hubs, in parks, and along public sidewalks if shelter beds are available. The city opened two tent campsites for people to sleep at that offer restrooms, showers and 24-hour security.

Which agencies are taking action?

The order applies to most state agencies, including the Department of General Services that manages state buildings and parking lots; the Department of Parks and Recreation, which oversees state parks and some beaches; and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which manages recreational areas.

Why now?

Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Oregon city ban that cities could enforce bans on people sleeping outdoor in public spaces, overturning a lower court ruling. The case was the most significant one on homelessness to come before the high court in decades.

The previous ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has held since 2018 that such bans violate the Eighth Amendment in areas where there arent enough shelter beds.

With that restriction gone, there are no longer any barrier to local governments to clear homeless encampments, Newsom's order said.
Government to pay former FBI officials $2 million in settlements over release of anti-Trump texts

Ex-FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page reached settlements with the Justice Department that will see the government paying out a total of $2 million in their lawsuits over the departments 2018 release of their text messages.

Former agent Strzok will get $1.2 million and Page, who was an FBI lawyer, will get $800,000, according to settlement agreements obtained by CNN.

Strzok and Page finalized their settlements with the Justice Department in court filings Friday, after alleging the department violated the Privacy Act by releasing to the media texts they exchanged criticizing Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign.

While I have been vindicated by this result, my fervent hope remains that our institutions of justice will never again play politics with the lives of their employees, Page said in a statement provided by her attorneys.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the matter.

Strzok played a senior role on special counsel Robert Muellers team until he was removed after an internal investigation first revealed his texts with Page, with whom Strzok had an extramarital relationship, that could be read as exhibiting political bias. Page, who had also briefly served on Muellers team, resigned from her role as a lawyer for the FBI after the messages were discovered. The release of the messages became political fodder for Donald Trump to oppose the Russia investigation during his presidency.

Strzok has other ongoing claims in the lawsuit against the department for his termination during the Trump administration.

This outcome is a critical step forward in addressing the governments unfair and highly politicized treatment of Pete. As important as it is for him, it also vindicates the privacy interests of all government employees, Strzoks attorney Aitan Goelman said in a news release.

We will continue to litigate Petes constitutional claims to ensure that, in the future, public servants are protected from adverse employment actions motivated by partisan politics, Goelman continued.

This headline and story have been updated with additional details.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
By Alimat Aliyeva

Sweden is going to help NATO with strengthening the alliance's potential in outer space, said Colonel Ella Karlsson, head of the space division at the General Staff of the Swedish Air Force, Azernews reports.

"We have been conducting space research in Sweden for several decades. We were asked what gaps we can fill for the alliance in the space sector," Defense news quoted her as saying.

"We can also use outer space together with our partners to detect, fix targets or threats and strike them," she explained.

She also recalled that in 2023, the Swedish military purchased SMART-L radars from Thales, which, according to manufacturers, can detect targets at a distance of up to 2 thousand km. Karlsson added that Sweden is cooperating with the Netherlands, which also purchased these radars, to study the use of such equipment.

Defense news notes that earlier in July, the Swedish government for the first time approved a strategy for defense and security in space. Also in 2022, the Swedish Air Force signed an agreement with the US Space Command on the exchange of information on the situation in outer space.

At the same time, the Esrange missile range is located in the Swedish Arctic. Previously, it was used to launch satellites for civilian purposes, but recently, Charlotte Sund, CEO of the Swedish Space Corporation, said that launches in the interests of the military could be conducted from here in the future.

Sweden joined NATO in March 2024.
BAGHDAD, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Four rockets attacked the Ayn al-Asad Airbase in Iraq's western Anbar province, where U.S. troops are stationed, an Iraqi army officer said on Friday.

The attack occurred late Thursday night when an unknown armed group fired the rockets, two of which landed inside the airbase and the other two landed outside without causing casualties, Saad al-Obaidi from Anbar Operations Command told Xinhua.

Iraqi security forces launched a search operation in the areas around the airbase looking for the attackers, al-Obaidi said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Since the outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023, an armed group known as "Islamic Resistance in Iraq" has launched hundreds of rocket and drone attacks on bases housing U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria. 
Gang members to be offered mentoring in return for giving up crime

Young gang members are being offered mentoring in return for giving up crime under Government trials of a US-style approach to reducing violence.

Five police force areas are being given about 1 million of government cash each to pilot a strategy known as focused deterrence pioneered on gangs in Boston, Chicago and Cincinnati. It has reduced gun and knife crime by a third.

Convicted gang members and those at risk of being drawn into crime are offered mentoring, mental health support, access to job training, youth activities, education and drug treatment in return for a no violence, no weapon pledge.

It is often allied to a warning that if they continue, they face a certain and swift crackdown, targeting not just their violence but every aspect of their lives from minor drug and driving offences to eviction from rented housing and pursuit for unpaid fines.

A key part of the programme is mentoring where a trusted adult figure, like a youth worker in the community, builds a relationship with them to identify their needs and act as a bridge to support and services.

Coventry, one of the five police force areas trialling the approach, has already seen knife crime in the city fall by half compared with last year although an evaluation of the scheme has yet to be completed. The other five areas are Nottingham, Leicester, Manchester and Wolverhampton.

King Charles III (centre) with Idris Elba (centre left) and young people attend an event for The King's Trust to discuss youth opportunity, at St James's Palace - WPA POOL/GETTY IMAGES

The 6 million trials have been run by the Home Office and the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), a charity endowed with 200 million by the Home Office to support and evaluate crime-fighting initiatives. It reviewed 24 academic studies that showed focused deterrence strategies reduced crime by 33 per cent on average.

In a new report, YEF highlighted the strategy as a way to reverse record levels of youth violence. Its research revealed a 15 per cent rise in the number of young murder victims to 99 in 2022/23 over the past decade.

It also showed the number of 10 to 17-year-olds admitted to hospital for injuries caused by knives or sharp instruments has risen by 47 per cent since 2013/14.

It warned that public services which could lift children out of crime had got worse with police less likely to solve offences, youth services having lost funding, and more children were either playing truant, in care or suffering from poor mental health.

The surge in youth violence was discussed this month at a roundtable convened at St Jamess Palace by the King and attended by Sir Keir Starmer, Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, Idris Elba, the actor, and Jon Yates, the executive director of YEF.

A group of young people also attended to talk about how they dealt with the impacts of youth violence. King Charles told them: It seems to me that the great ambition now should be to join up all the dots and bring everybody involved in to find the right solution.

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, connecting with some of the youth attendees - YUI MOK/PA

Elements of the focused deterrence strategy mirror proposals by Labour to tackle knife crime and youth violence. Under its new Young Futures programme, local agencies would be required to identify children at risk of getting into crime and draw up a support package to divert them away.

The party also plans a network of youth hubs in every community staffed by youth workers, mental health support workers and career advisers to prevent children being drawn into crime.

In an attempt to reduce knife crime by half in a decade, Labour proposes that every person caught with a knife should be subject to a mandatory plan to prevent them from reoffending, with penalties including curfews, tagging and custody for the most serious cases.

Mr Yates said: The figures in our new report provide a sobering reminder that more effective support is needed to stop children being harmed by violence and having their lives tragically cut short by it.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
CHARLESTON, WV (WVNS)  A State of Emergency was declared for all 55 counties in West Virginia by Governor Jim Justice on Friday, July 26, 2024.

The State of Emergency was declared in an attempt to help the farming community in the Mountain State due to extreme, severe, and moderate drought conditions, shown by the U.S. Drought Monitor, which was caused by a lack of rain.

Woman reported missing in Greenbrier County

This drought has plagued West Virginia farmers, putting them at risk of losing everything. We cannot and will not stand by and watch our hardworking farmers suffer from this severe lack of rain. We understand the immense stress and hardship this drought has caused. Right now, our Emergency Management Division is working tirelessly to secure disaster assistance for those in need. Until then, we are committed to doing everything we can to support our agricultural community during this challenging time. Governor Justice

Photo Courtesy: Governor Justice

Due to Governor Justice declaring a State of Emergency for all counties in West Virginia, the Emergency Operations Plan was activated.

In addition, Governor Justice also told personnel and resources to prepare to respond to any emergencies, and gave specific administrative powers to the Director of the West Virginia Emergency Management Division to make sure that essential emergency services have what they need.

Unless the State of Emergency is ended early, it will last for 30 days.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD)  Early voting begins Saturday across the state for the Aug. 6 primary.

Grand Rapids City Clerk Joel Hondorp is expecting more people to take advantage of the new option this year for voting.

The equipment is in place and the voting booths are ready at three sites in the city where any registered Grand Rapids voter can cast their ballot.

Where and when to vote early in Grand Rapids

Those locations are the GRPS University building, Ottawa Hills High School and Saints Peter and Paul School.

Weve been prepping for weeks getting ready for this, Hondorp said. Its real simple for voters to come in, and it will be just like youre going to your precinct. Were going to ask you for your photo ID. If you dont have it with you, you can fill out an affidavit, fill out an application, we look you up and you can vote your ballot and put it through a tabulator.

What if I want to vote but Im not registered?

Since early voting is a relatively new option in Michigan, clerks are still getting a sense of how many people will choose this option.

The first time was in the February presidential primary. It went really well as far as equipment working, as far as workers knowing what to do, Hondorp said.

The clerk says the city had 673 voters over the nine-day period but expects that number to grow as more people learn about early voting.

Why you must stay in your lane in the August primary

In other states that have had the option longer, its popularity has grown over time.

What states have done that have the early voting and have had absentees for a while, kind of plateau out at a one-third, one-third, one-third. And that may be what we see in the future, but were definitely not at that level yet, Hondorp said.

To learn more about the voting process, you can visit michigan.gov/vote.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Greece has made good on its promise to buy F-35 stealth fighters, confirming today that it will buy an initial batch of 20 of the aircraft at a cost of around $3.5 billion. The decision is an important step in the modernization of the Hellenic Air Force, which has recently inducted other new combat aircraft types, while plans to retire older jets have also been unveiled. The move also has a particular resonance in terms of Greeces tense relations with regional rival Turkey, which was booted out of the F-35 program, after buying Russian-made S-400 air defense systems.

Greece has made good on its promise to buy F-35 stealth fighters, confirming today that it will buy an initial batch of 20 of the aircraft at a cost of around $3.5 billion. The decision is an important step in the modernization of the Hellenic Air Force, which has recently inducted other new combat aircraft types, while plans to retire older jets have also been unveiled. The move also has a particular resonance in terms of Greeces tense relations with regional rival and fellow NATO member Turkey, which was booted out of the F-35 program, after buying Russian-made S-400 air defense systems.

Lightning strikes in Greece, Zeus F-35 is coming.



Greece has chosen the F-35 Lightning II as its next aircraft, becoming the 19th country to embrace the world's most advanced and connected fighter jet. pic.twitter.com/uKACy6q7BO  F-35 Lightning II (@thef35) July 25, 2024

Lockheed Martin confirmed that Athens had signed a Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) finalizing its intention to buy 20 conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) F-35A versions under a U.S. government Foreign Military Sale.

The LOA also includes an option for 20 additional aircraft, which would bring the total value of the deal up to around $8.6 billion, according to the Greek Ministry of Defense. The jets will be delivered starting in 2028.

We are excited to welcome Greece into the F-35 enterprise, said U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Mike Schmidt, director and program executive officer at the F-35 Joint Program Office. The F-35 will provide exceptional capability to the Hellenic Air Force, build interoperability between our allies, and strengthen the combat effectiveness for all of NATO.

For several decades, the Hellenic Air Force has been our partner, and it is our honor to continue that relationship as Greece becomes the 19th nation to join the F-35 program, added Bridget Lauderdale, Lockheed Martins vice president and general manager of the F-35 program. The F-35 is the only fighter suitable to strengthen Greeces sovereignty and operational capability with allies.

Spectators cheer as an F-35A of the U.S. Air Force F-35A Demo Team takes part in the 11th Athens Flying Week over Tanagra Air Base in Schimatari, north of Athens, on September 3, 2023. Photo by THEOPHILE BLOUDANIS/AFP via Getty Images THEOPHILE BLOUDANIS

Official Greek interest in the F-35 dates back to at least late 2020 when reports emerged that Athens had formally requested information from the Pentagon on the acquisition of between 18 and 24 of the jets.

According to the countrys Proto Thema newspaper, the formal Letter of Request (LOR) was sent to the U.S. Department of Defense by Greeces Ministry of Defense in November 2020. This outlet said it had obtained a copy of the document, which reportedly requested the immediate purchase of either new or former U.S. Air Force F-35As, or perhaps a mixture of both.

The LOA now makes it very clear that new-build jets are involved. This makes much more sense from a capabilities point of view  early-production F-35s are of offer less combat capability and are harder to sustain. Although it will take longer for the jets to arrive, they will come in the latest Block 4 configuration, or at the very least with the potential to fully exploit these advances. The original LOR reportedly envisaged the delivery of secondhand jets as early as 2021.

The F-35 production line at the Lockheed Martin facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Alexander H. Groves/Lockheed Martin Alexander H Groves

The F-35s will be based at Andravida in the northwest of Greeces Peloponnese peninsula, where they will be operated by the 117 Combat Wing, which latterly flew F-4E Phantoms before being disbanded.

They will continue a period of major modernization for the Hellenic Air Force, which began to induct French-made Dassault Rafale multirole fighters in early 2022. These comprised a first batch of 18 jets, 12 of them former French Air Force aircraft and the remaining six aircraft being new-build jets. Another six aircraft were later added, for a total of 24 and there are reportedly plans to buy at least 10 more of the Dassault jets.

A Hellenic Air Force Dassault Rafale. Dassault Aviation

Since then, Greece has unveiled plans to offload both its early-model F-16s and at least some of its French-made Mirage 2000 fighters, as well as its last F-4E Phantoms, a single squadron of which remains in use. The F-16s and Mirages could be attractive on the secondhand market and there have been reports that the F-16s could end up in Ukraine.

The survivors of 34 single-seat F-16C and six two-seat F-16D Block 30 jets used by Greece are now reportedly being offered for transfer to Ukraine. Jim Van De Burgt/Wikimedia Commons

Jim van de Burgt/Wikimedia Commons

Returning to Greeces F-35s, the latest development takes on a particular irony in the longstanding saga of the Greek-Turkish standoff in the Aegean.

Long before Greece was connected with the F-35, Turkey had planned to buy at least 100 of the jets before it was dramatically ousted from the Joint Strike Fighter program in 2019, after refusing to abandon its purchase of S-400 air defense systems from Russia.

An F-35A during the delivery ceremony for the Turkish Air Force in Forth Worth, Texas, on June 21, 2018. In the event, no F-35s were ever delivered to Turkey. Photo by Atilgan Ozdil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Anadolu

Back in October 2020 the Greek newspaper Estia even reported that the country might receive the F-35s that were ordered by Turkey, at least 14 of which were built and subsequently withheld, before being transferred ultimately to the U.S. Air Force.

Undoubtedly, the modernization of the Hellenic Air Force is very much geared toward offsetting Turkeys increasing military ambitions in the eastern Mediterranean, and elsewhere. There have also been reports from Greece that the armed forces are particularly concerned by Turkeys fielding of the S-400, which could create problems in the daily activity of the [Hellenic] Air Force. Buying F-35s is one effort to counter this.

A Russian Il-76 transport carrying the first batch of equipment for the Turkish S-400 air defense system arrives at Murted Air Base in Ankara, Turkey on July 12, 2019. Turkish National Defense Ministry/Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images Anadolu

As well as the S-400 threat, Turkey currently possesses a numerical advantage in terms of fighter jets, as The War Zone addressed in this previous feature. The Turkish Air Force might not be receiving F-35s  although there are signs that Washingtons position might be shifting in this regard  it does plan to introduce new combat equipment, including the TF Kaan new-generation crewed fighter, the ANKA-3 low-observable flying wing unmanned combat air vehicle (UCAV), and the fighter-like Bayraktar Kizilelma UCAV.

The first flight of the TF Kaan took place on February 21, 2024. via X Via X

Ankara has also hinted that it might acquire Eurofighter Typhoons, which would offset the Greek Rafales but would still be no match for the F-35s all-round capabilities. In June, Turkey moved forward with long-standing plans to buy 40 advanced new-build F-16s and upgrade some 80 of its existing Vipers following U.S. government efforts to advance the deal. However, earlier this month, reports emerged that authorities in Ankara were moving to scale back those purchases (to include various ancillary items), which have been valued at around $23 billion in total, and push for more domestic industrial offsets.

As we have also discussed in the past, the combination of Rafales and F-35s will provide the Hellenic Air Force with a balanced fleet thats importantly also not entirely beholden to a single source country. Were Greece and Turkey to enter into a conflict, the Rafales and F-35s  supported by advanced and upgraded F-16s  would be expected to gain air superiority over the Aegean region, including operating at least partly from dispersed island bases, as well as conducting long-range land-attack missions and anti-shipping strikes.

For anti-shipping strikes and land attack, the F-35 can use the air-launched Joint Strike Missile (JSM), a version of the stealthy Kongsberg Naval Strike Missile, which has also been ordered by the U.S. Air Force, as well as Finland and Japan, with Italy also saying it will arm some of its F-35s with the weapon. Greece would also be a logical customer.

A mockup of a Joint Strike Missile (JSM) in the weapons bay of an F-35A. Kongsberg Kongsberg

The step-change in capability that the F-35 promises, and the fact that its neighbor is not currently in line to receive the same equipment is something that has been grabbed by the Greek Minister of Health Adonis Georgiadis, who was this week quoted as saying:

With F-35s, we can go to Turkey one night. One night, you will suddenly find them in Ankara. I am not saying we will actually do it, but Turkey should know that they have nothing when it comes to aviation.

While Turkey might not be getting F-35s any time soon, the stealth fighter is fast becoming a fighter of choice within NATO and in the European region.

According to Lockheed Martin, by the 2030s, there will be more than 600 F-35s fielded by more than 10 countries in Europe, including two U.S. Air Force F-35A squadrons permanently stationed at Royal Air Force Lakenheath in England, promising useful interoperability across the continent.

U.S. Air Force F-35As assigned to the 495th Fighter Squadron, return to Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, after concluding a training exercise with NATO allies, on February 22, 2022. U.S. Air Force Photo By Tech. Sgt. Rachel Maxwell U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft assigned to the 495th Fighter Squadron, return to Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, after concluding a training exercise with NATO allies, Feb. 22, 2022. The Liberty Wing strives to increase defense and modernization in the European theater, to bolster the NATO alliance in the face of shared security concerns. U.S. Air Force Photo By Tech. Sgt. Rachel Maxwell

However, there may still be hurdles to overcome if Greece is to receive the fully capable Block 4 jets that it wants by 2028. As we recently reported, F-35 deliveries only just resumed after being suspended for around a year due to problems with the Tech Refresh 3 software, or TR-3, which is vital to make full use of the long-awaited Block 4 improvements.

Block 4 will give the F-35 advanced new capabilities, including much-increased processing power, new displays, enhanced cooling, new EOTS and DAS electro-optical sensors, and a range of additional weapons. Perhaps the most critical aspect of Block 4 will be a new radar and electronic warfare suite.

However, it was disclosed earlier this year that the Block 4 upgrade will have to be reimagined and that some elements will be delayed until the 2030s. This means Greece may well receive its first F-35s without being able to make full use of the complete menu of Block 4 improvements.

Nevertheless, Greeces order for the jet further reinforces the F-35s growing presence across Europe and its fielding by the Hellenic Air Force will provide a significant capability boost, especially when measured against its longstanding rival, the Turkish Air Force, on the other side of the Aegean.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com
After a complaint aired at a City Council meeting, the city of Green Bay in February 2023 placed signs on the first and second floors of City Hall telling visitors and employees that audio and video recordings are in progress. The city was sued over installation of the audio recording devices, since removed. The federal lawsuit was settled in July 2024.

GREEN BAY - The city has settled with two plaintiffs and a federal judge dismissed a third plaintiff, bringing an end to a federal lawsuit over the installation of audio recording devices in Green Bay City Hall that has cost taxpayers more than $1 million.

Former City Council member Tony Theisen, one of the plaintiffs in the September 2023 lawsuit, agreed to release his claims in exchange for a $100,000 payment from the city, attorneys for Theisen confirmed in June.

And on Thursday, state Sen. Andre Jacque, R-De Pere, announced he also agreed to release his claim against the city and Mayor Eric Genrich in exchange for a $200,000 payment to the Wisconsin Senate and a declaration from the city it will not resume or reinstall listening devices.

"This is a landmark win for protecting our civil liberties, and exactly what we demanded from the very beginning: a guarantee from Mayor Genrich that he will no longer spy on his citizens," Jacque said in a media release.

Neither Jacque nor Theisen's release of claims or settlements have been filed in the federal case file yet.

Attorneys for the city and Genrich confirmed the Green Bay City Council approved the settlements with Theisen and Jacque to bring an end to the lawsuit. They said once the plaintiffs sign the stipulated dismissal, it will be filed in the federal case file. The lawyers said the city maintains its actions were lawful but settled to prevent further waste of taxpayer funds.

"The city maintains its actions were lawful and were undertaken with the safety and security of city staff and members of the public in mind," they wrote in an email. "With this settlement, the Senate will agree to stop spending state taxpayer dollars to fund further legal actions against the city related to this matter."

Theisen said he filed suit after he had a conversation recorded while attending a City Council meeting in September 2022. He released a statement saying he feels vindicated by the settlement and the federal courts holding that general concern for public safety is not a lawful basis for the continuous and ongoing interception of private conversations as defined by the state and U.S. Constitutions.

I hope this outcome sends a clear message that invasions of privacy wont be ignored and that those responsible for undermining civil rights will be held accountable, Theisen said in the statement. I also expect my settlement to encourage other Green Bay citizens to speak out against the secret audio surveillance devices implemented by Mayor Genrich.

The settlement is the latest, notable development in the 18 months since the controversial recording devices became public knowledge in February 2023.

Heres what to know.

How we got here

The Genrich administration between winter 2021 and summer 2022 installed audio recording devices in the first- and second-floor hallways in response to three reports of verbal assaults in the six-story building.

City Council members in February 2023 sought answers from Genrich about the surveillance equipment in City Hall and raised concerns about them. Genrichs office defended the installation of the devices, noting similar audio recording devices were in place at Metro Transit and the Green Bay Police Department offices. It also on Feb. 10, 2023, published a City Hall Security fact sheet that included plans to install signs notifying the public of the audio recording devices.

Jacque, Theisen, a Jane Doe later identified as local attorney Janet Angus, and the Wisconsin Senate in February 2023 filed a lawsuit against Genrich and the city in Brown County Circuit Court alleging the recording devices violated citizens' expectation of privacy because the public did not know it was being recorded.

On March 2, 2023, Brown County Judge Marc Hammer ordered the city to stop recording audio in City Hall, but stopped short of the plaintiffs request to destroy all audio recordings.

The Green Bay City Council on March 7, 2023, voted to remove the audio recording devices from City Hall, ordered all audio recordings destroyed and put itself in charge of any recording devices in City Hall.

Jacque, Theisen and the state Senate in September moved the case to federal court, filing a similar lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Wisconsin that Judge William Griesbach continues to hear.

Judge dismissed Wisconsin Senate as a plaintiff

Earlier this year, the city and Genrich requested the judge dismiss the Wisconsin Senate as a plaintiff due to a lack of standing.

Standing basically means you have suffered an injury that gives you reason to sue another person or organization.

In this case, the city argued the Senate had not suffered any injury that would give it grounds to sue the city and Genrich. The plaintiffs argued the state Senate needs to ensure municipalities do not act beyond the scope of their authority and that since at least one plaintiff had cause to sue, the need for standing was satisfied for all parties.

On Feb. 27, Griesbach sided with the city and dismissed the state Senate from the case.

Legal bills paid by Green Bay and Wisconsin taxpayers now top $1 million, total costs higher

The state Senate and the city as of late May had spent more than $1 million combined of taxpayer dollars on legal bills.

Even after the state Senate was dismissed, it continued to pay the plaintiffs' legal bills. Bungert said the plaintiffs' legal bills as of May 20 exceeded $823,000. Green Bay's legal expenses through May 20 exceeded $254,000.

The combination of the legal bills and the two settlements for $100,000 and $200,000 bring the total costs borne by taxpayers to $1.3 million.

Contact Jeff Bollier at (920) 431-8387 or jbollier@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JeffBollier.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Green Bay to pay $300,000 to two plaintiffs, settles eavesdropping lawsuit
Activists and Native Americans from around the country camped in the Oceti Sakowin Camp north of the Standing Rock Reservation in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Attorneys for Greenpeace have asked a North Dakota judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline over the environmental activist groups organized opposition to the pipeline.

Thousands of protesters came to south-central North Dakota in 2016 and 2017 to protest construction of the pipeline in solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which opposed the project out of concerns the pipeline infringed on its sovereignty and threatened to pollute its water supply. Greenpeace was among the activist groups that backed the demonstrations.

Energy Transfer Partners lawsuit, filed in Morton County District Court in 2019, accuses Greenpeace of criminal behavior  including trespassing, vandalism, arson as well as the harassment and assault of construction workers  to stop the pipeline, often referred to as DAPL. The pipeline company also alleges that the environmental group solicited money to support unlawful activity against the pipeline and incited riotous behavior by protesters.

On top of this, the plaintiffs claim Greenpeace orchestrated an misinformation campaign that ultimately convinced the federal government to halt construction of DAPL for roughly five months. They also say these actions led multiple banks to divest from the pipeline company.

Energy Transfer has asked for damages from Greenpeace in an amount to be awarded at trial.

The sprawling lawsuit includes thousands of court records.

In a Thursday afternoon hearing, attorneys for the defense argued that the case should be dismissed because Energy Transfer Partners has not offered any concrete evidence linking Greenpeace to the harms the company claims it suffered as a result of the DAPL demonstrations.

Greenpeace cannot be responsible for the entire protest without evidence, attorney Everett Jack told Southwest District Court Judge James Gion.

Jack noted that at the time of the protests, which took place north of the Standing Rock Reservation, Energy Transfer did not openly blame Greenpeace for halting construction of the pipeline. Instead, the company pointed fingers at other activist groups, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and President Barack Obamas administration, he said.

He argued similarly that there isnt proof that Greenpeace engaged in any criminal behavior. Jack said only six people from Greenpeace ever attended the demonstrations, and that those people were not in North Dakota when many of the criminal incidents that Energy Transfer cites in court records allegedly occurred.

Ashley Johnson, an attorney representing Energy Transfer, said the pipeline company has records of Greenpeace claiming responsibility for delaying DAPL as well as admitting to having a hand in illegal protest activity.

Johnson said that at the very least, a jury should be allowed to hear the evidence and make its own decision.

At the hearing, attorneys for Greenpeace also asked the judge to toss Energy Transfers request for damages.

Jack said Energy Transfer has no grounds to ask for monetary relief because there is no evidence Greenpeace harmed, or intended to harm, the pipeline company.

Energy Transfer attorney Gregg Costa said there is plenty of proof to the contrary.

They thought the pipeline was evil, Costa said. There are mountains of evidence showing that.

Greenpeace is not the only defendant in the case. Energy Transfers complaint also names a protest group called the Red Warrior Society, which was active at the DAPL demonstrations.



Energy Transfer in court filings accuses Greenpeace of coordinating with the Red Warrior Society to commit crimes against the pipeline company.

Steven Caplow, also representing Greenpeace, asked the judge to dismiss this part of the claim because the Red Warrior Society is not a legal entity.

You cant conspire with the Red Warrior Society, because it doesnt exist, Caplow said during the hearing.

Gion did not indicate when he would rule on Greenpeaces motions.

This isnt the first lawsuit Energy Transfer Partners has filed suit against Greenpeace for the Dakota Access Pipeline protests. The pipeline company in 2017 filed a racketeering suit against the organization in U.S. District Court asserting similar claims. A federal district court judge later dismissed that case.

The demonstrations ended in February 2017 after Gov. Doug Burgum ordered the camps to close. The pipeline, which carries oil from the Bakken formation to Illinois, was completed later that year.

In 2020, a judge pulled Energy Transfers easement, asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct more environmental research on the pipeline. It was allowed to continue operating.

The Army Corps of Engineers is still conducting the Environmental Impact Study. In May, the Corps indicated that its work may not be finalized until 2025, the Bismarck Tribune reported.

In another pending case related to DAPL, North Dakota seeks $38 million from the federal government for costs the state claims it suffered as a result of the 2016 and 2017 protests. That lawsuit went to trial earlier this year. A federal judge is expected to rule in the case in the coming months.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Video above: DeSantis says abortion, marijuana amendments will make Florida more blue and mess up the state

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  A lawsuit was filed Wednesday over a financial impact statement that will be included alongside Floridas abortion amendment, claiming that the statement is not only misleading, but that it was unlawfully revised.

The filing was made Wednesday evening with the Florida Supreme Court by Floridians Protecting Freedom.

The group claims that the statement includes language that has nothing to do with the financial impact of Amendment 4, and was written in a way that doesnt conform to a circuit courts order.

Since this Courts decision, the Sponsor has been fighting to protect its constitutional and statutory rights to a clear and accurate presentation of this amendment to voters  rights this Court upheld  against the States efforts to undermine Amendment 4 by appending a misleading Financial Impact Statement to it on the ballot, the lawsuit reads.

The group claims that without court intervention, the misleading statement will be allowed on the ballot.

The revised Statement is devoted in large measure not to the required probable fiscal impact, but to speculative prognostication on the impact of potential future litigation on reproductive care, in what is a rather obvious attempt to put a thumb on the scale in precisely the way the courts precedent forecloses, the lawsuit reads.

DeSantis: Abortion, marijuana amendments will make Florida more blue and mess up the state

Both Gov. Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Paul Renner publicly oppose Amendment 4, which is titled Limit Government Interference with Abortion. They maintain that the ballot summary is too vague and intentionally confusing for voters, even after the DeSantis-stacked Florida Supreme Court gave it their approval.

The four-person panel convened after a judge ordered the previous financial impact statement, which was drafted before Floridas 6-week abortion ban took effect, be reworked due to inaccurate, ambiguous, misleading, unclear and confusing language.

The financial impact statement, which estimates how the proposed amendment could affect the state budget, appears alongside the amendments summary on the ballot.

The group argues that the panel was convened to consider potential revisions to the statement while a previous court ruling was still under appeal.

The State did not explain what authority it had for revising the Statement outside the process mandated by the circuit court, the lawsuit reads.

The group is asking the court to find the revised financial impact statement unlawful on the grounds that the panel did not have the authority to adopt it.

DeSantis pushed for protesters arrests without probable cause, ex-official says in lawsuit

Because the State lacks authority to unilaterally revise a Financial Impact Statement and avoid the judicial oversight contemplated by law, this Court should invalidate the unlawfully revised Statement, the lawsuit reads.

Nowhere in the text of the Legislatures duly enacted scheme does the Legislature vest the Senate President or House Speaker with freewheeling authority to sua sponte reconvene the Conference at any time, outside the process the statute establishes, to revise a Financial Impact Statement that has already been submitted to the Secretary of State, published to the public, and invalidated by a circuit court order, according to the lawsuit.

Yes on 4, a group supporting the amendment, previously blasted the new statement.

Theyre trying to cause confusion and hide the real issue: Amendment 4 is about ending Floridas extreme abortion ban which outlaws abortion before many women even realize they are pregnant, Campaigns Director Lauren Brenzel previously said in a statement.

This sham of a process is a reminder to Florida voters that politicians are playing dirty tricks to overcomplicate and politicize a simple administrative fix, Brenzel wrote.

In order to pass, the amendment must be approved by 60% of the voters.

This story includes reporting by Rachel Tucker.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 former guard at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Calif., shown in 2006, has been indicted on additional charges of sexually abusing female inmates. (Ben Margot / Associated Press)

A new indictment accuses a former correctional officer at a now-shuttered federal women's prison in California  dubbed the "rape club"  of abusing more female inmates.

A federal grand jury issued a superseding indictment Thursday charging Darrell Wayne Smith with 15 counts of sexual abuse, including a civil rights violation, against five women who were incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Calif., in the East Bay. Smith, known to detainees as "Dirty Dick," was previously indicted on charges of sexually abusing three inmates. He is accused of sexually abusing the women in their cells and a laundry facility between 2016 and 2021.

Smith is one of eight FCI Dublin employees  including a former warden  charged with sexually abusing women at the prison. He is accused by inmates of actively roaming the prison, seeking out victims and locking women in their cells until they exposed themselves to him.

Todays superseding indictment includes three new allegations of sexual assault by Smith, a Correctional Officer at FCI Dublin," U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz said in a statement. "The 15 charges against Smith allege he sexually abused multiple inmates over several years, including brazen and violent acts."

The Bureau of Prisons closed FCI Dublin in April, saying it did not meet standards despite the agency providing resources to address the facilitys culture of abuse and employee misconduct.

Read more: Women at California prison dubbed the 'rape club' now worry where they'll be transferred

Allegations of criminal conduct at the prison went all the way to the top. Warden Ray J. Garcia was convicted in March of having sex with and sexually abusing inmates. Inmates cannot legally consent to sex with prison workers. Garcia was sentenced to 70 months in federal prison.

The latest indictment follows a years-long scandal surrounding the facility. Since an FBI investigation was launched and resulted in arrests in 2021, eight FCI Dublin employees have been charged with sexually abusing inmates. Five have pleaded guilty, and two  including Garcia  have been convicted by juries. One more employee is slated to go on trial this year.

Smith "engaged in appalling criminal acts when he sexually abused those in his care and custody, U.S. Deputy Atty. Gen. Lisa Monaco said in a statement. This superseding indictment is the latest product of the departments ongoing work to seek justice for victims of sexual assault at FCI Dublin."

The initial federal indictment against Smith, 55, who now lives in Florida, was filed April 13, 2023, and charged him with engaging in illegal sexual acts with three inmates. It included 12 counts of sexual abuse occurring between 2016 and May 2021 in which Smith is alleged to have engaged in sexual behavior with three inmates.

The new indictment identifies two additional victims by their initials and adds three charges against Smith, including a federal civil rights violation that arises from allegations of aggravated sexual abuse against one of the women.

An arraignment on the new indictment has not been scheduled. Smith, who was arrested in May and was released on bail, is scheduled for a jury trial beginning on March 17.

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.
CAMBRIDGE  Guernsey County Prosecutor Lindsey Angler was careful to say nothing can fix a family that has suffered the loss of a loved one at the hands of a murderer.

Nothing is going to repair the broken hearts of these family members, she said when discussing the 1990 murder of Guernsey County resident James Bradley. But if we can get them closure and some understanding of what happened, then its a good day.

Sgt. Bill Patterson, Detective Ryan Patterson (back) and Lt. Sam Williams discuss the 1990 cold case murder of James Bradley.

Bradley was murdered 34 years ago outside a bar that, at the time, was called the Raven. His murderer, Carl Butch Hoopingarner, 60, confessed to the crime earlier this year after being detained by the Guernsey County Sheriffs Office for a suspected homicide in Colorado. He pled guilty to the aggravated murder charge for Bradleys death in court June 14.

Hoopingarner was sentenced June 27 by the Guernsey County Court of Common Pleas Judge Daniel G. Padden to life in prison with the possibility for parole after serving 20 years. The Guernsey County resident was also sentenced to a consecutive 5-to-7.5-year prison term for aggravated trafficking in drugs, a second-degree felony, stemming from a Belmont County case.

The earliest hell be eligible for parole is 2049, said Angler. He must also register as a violent offender. No restitution was ordered in this case, according to court records.

Angler said the sheriffs office stayed on this case until they could get their suspect into custody.

Im extremely proud of our law enforcement agencies. They never give up on these investigations, said Angler of cold cases. Were lucky to be in a community with law enforcement officers that care so deeply about the right people being held accountable.

Just because a case is out of sight does not mean it ever goes out of mind for law enforcement, she said.

The cases that are not solved stick with them, she said. You never know when today is the day you get the information you need to get a result like this. They dont give up.

Sgt. Bill Patterson with the Guernsey County Sheriff's Office works on the James Bradley 1990 murder case which was recently closed after a confession by Carl "Butch" Hoopingarner.

The 34-year hunt for a killer

Back in 1990, Bradley was found dead in his car after it had been lit on fire, according to Sgt. Bill Patterson of the sheriffs office, who along with his team, Det. Ryan Patterson, and Lt. Sam Williams, was responsible for bringing Hoopingarner in.

How he died and what happened is a bit murky. To start with, there was very little physical evidence.

No autopsy was conducted, said Patterson. When asked if exhuming the body was a possibility to glean physical evidence that could better explain what happened to Bradley, Patterson was quick to point out: He was cremated.

Patterson said he doesnt know why an autopsy wasnt conducted in 1990, but that the requirements of documentation were not the same as they are now.

At the time of Bradleys death, the sheriffs office wasnt convinced it was simply accidental that the victims car caught on fire, so it remained open as a cold case given they had no physical evidence or eyewitness statements to provide any leads on the case.

Thirty-one years later, they got the call that every detective working a cold case is desperate for  somebody knew something.

In 2021, we got a phone call that a prisoner in Monroe County jail had information on our cold case, said Patterson. I went down and conducted an interview in Monroe County jail and this guy says he knows (Hoopingarner) and that (Hoopingarner) admitted that he was involved in the death of James Bradley.

Patterson said the informant gave them a substantial statement with details only the murderer would have known. At the time, Hoopingarner was in an Ohio prison with eight months left on his sentence.

We just waited it out, said Patterson. He wasnt going to talk with us willingly.

At the same time, Patterson started working a drug case on Hoopingarner in conjunction with Belmont County, of which Hoopingarner is now serving the 5 to 7 .5 years.

We were trying to get enough evidence to get him into jail so we could talk to him, said Sgt. Patterson. We filed charges and put a warrant out for his arrest (following his release from prison). When it came time to arrest him, we executed the search warrant to take him into custody, and hes gone.

Fast forward to February 2024, and the sheriffs office is contacted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation  theyve got warrants out for Hoopingarners arrest. Hes accused of murdering a Guernsey County resident in Colorado and they believe Hoopingarner fled in the victims car, back to Guernsey County.

So, we started to track him by cell phone and other means, but no luck, said Sgt. Patterson, adding that Hoopingarner later admitted to destroying his cell phone so he couldnt be traced. He also later admitted that he knew he had warrants out for his arrest in Guernsey County, which is why he fled to Colorado. So, we started checking addresses where he was known to live in Ohio.

He said at that point, Det. Patterson checked on one of the addresses in Buffalo. He drove by the house on Feb. 20 and saw the Colorado victims car sitting outside, said Sgt. Patterson.

We surround the house and meet with the homeowner who confirms Hoopingarner is inside, said Sgt. Patterson. Hoopingarner walks out and surrenders to law enforcement.

Holding Hoopingarner responsible 34 years later

When the sheriffs office took Hoopingarner into custody in February, Hoopingarner gave them an absolutely far-fetched, fabricated story that couldnt have been true if he wanted it to be, about the Colorado homicide hes suspected of, said Sgt. Patterson.

When we say This cant be true, he confesses to the homicide in Colorado, said Sgt. Patterson, who added the Colorado case is still under investigation. Hoopingarner would be extradited to Colorado only if he is paroled in 2049. But he denies his involvement in the murder of Bradley, so we stopped the interview and told him to let us know if he wanted to talk.

The next morning, Hoopingarner asked both Sgt. Patterson and Det. Patterson to come back.

He apologized to us and said, I lied to you, said Sgt. Patterson. He then gives us pretty much verbatim the same statement that (the informant gave us) back in 2021.

He said none of those details had been public record or reported in the news.

There was no way these two people would have had that same information.

During Hoopingarners confession, a third witness was implicated. When the sheriffs office tracked that person down, they got a third statement that supported the first two.

So, what really happened Aug. 19 and Aug. 20 of 1990?

According to Sgt. Patterson, what they believed happened on Aug. 19 and Aug. 20 that led to the death of Bradley all started over a pool game.

Hoopingarner says theyre at a different bar in Cambridge before they all end up at the Raven, said Sgt. Patterson. At the previous bar, they have a fight over a pool game and Hoopingarner and another person leave that bar.

Sgt. Patterson said its not clear if they went back roading or to someones house but at some point, they end up at the Raven. And when they walked in, lo and behold, the same people they fought with at the previous bar were at the Raven. One of them was Bradley.

The bartender tells Hoopingarner to leave because hes intoxicated, so he leaves and drives to his mothers house, said Sgt. Patterson.

He said two witnesses corroborated that Hoopingarner siphoned gasoline out of a motorbike. Sgt. Patterson said when the witnesses asked Hoopingarner what hes doing he told them to Leave me alone and dont worry about it.

Hoopingarner went back to the Raven and waited for Bradley to leave, according to Sgt. Patterson. Then, while Bradley is in his car, he and Hoopingarner got into a fight.

Its at this point Sgt. Patterson must draw his own conclusions, as its unclear from witness statements, he said, or even from Hoopingarners confession, exactly what happened next. An autopsy could have solved the issue, but that was, again, never conducted.

Some things indicate a knife was involved, said Sgt. Patterson. Witnesses mention seeing stabbing motions.

Sgt. Patterson said Hoopingarner only admitted to dumping gasoline on Bradley and the car, and some admissions to how the fire was started.

(Hoopingarner) tried to implicate someone else in starting the fire, said Sgt. Patterson. And he tried to say Bradley was intoxicated (and thats why he didnt try to escape the fire).

But according to Sgt. Patterson, witnesses said Bradley made no noise and had no reaction to the fire, leading him to believe that Bradley could have already been dead or near death, at the time the fire was started.

When asked about holding those witnesses accountable who stood by and did nothing, Sgt. Patterson said many of the charges that would have applied in 1990 are no longer available for prosecution.

Were well past the statute of limitations for many of the charges (for bystanders and witnesses), he said. Were still investigating all avenues. If we can hold anyone else responsible, we will.

Cold cases are never truly cold

One of the hardest parts about law enforcement is there isnt always a finished product, said Sgt. Patterson, who has been working cases for 15 years.

Its not like construction, where you get to build a house and stand back and look at the final product, he said of working cases that often dont see closure, or they see less than favorable closures when a sentence or charge is less than what they want. When you get to close a cold case  in this case, waiting 34 years for justice  I dont know that theres a more satisfying feeling than to sit down with a family member and say we have enough to bring closure, to bring justice for their lost family member.

Sgt. Patterson said of the Hoopingarner case that the hurry up and wait course of the case was difficult.

For me, I have very impatient tendencies, so to sit back and wait can be frustrating, he said. But I knew we were heading down the right path. Working a case in its entirety and having the patience required for a long-term investigation is necessary.

The most important thing is that the families can have closure, said Sgt. Patterson. Justice, in this case, was served.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Jeffersonian: Guernsey County Sheriffs Office closes 34-year-old murder case
How do you charge your electric car when you can't find a charging station? In Shanghai, with a simple operation in a WeChat mini-program, robots that recharge cars will assist you instantly. #AmazingChina

Produced by Xinhua Global Service
A fatal shooting near downtown Hagerstown has sparked reaction that turned political after a state senator publicly posted a letter to the mayor and council stating that the city is "in crisis and under siege."

State Sen. Paul Corderman, R-Washington, sent a letter to the Hagerstown mayor and council on July 24, six days after the shooting and one day after a council meeting, expressing concerns about their "remaining silent, with no plan" and "welcoming the opportunity" to meet, discuss and support city officials to try to better the community. Corderman also posted the letter on his Facebook page.

Corderman wrote that it's been concerning that city political leaders "have not taken a more proactive approach to address the longstanding social issues that have been plaguing our City" and that community members are "now seeing this issue being compounded with repeated violence in our community."

But at the previous night's meeting, the mayor and some council members did briefly address concerns about violent crime and the effects of the drug epidemic during a portion set aside for council comments, according to a Facebook video of the meeting. Near the start of the meeting, several residents had expressed concerns to the council about the shooting, drug use near their homes and finding numerous discarded needles.

Councilwoman Tiara Burnett called for a meeting with Hagerstown Police, the Washington County Sheriff's Office and Maryland State Police about what's being done and what city officials can do to help.

In this March 2023 file photo, Hagerstown Mayor Tekesha Martinez speaks at the 2nd annual Black Economic Empowerment Summit on at Hagerstown Community College.

Mayor Tekesha Martinez later looked toward Burnett and said they do need to talk with law enforcement, and asked a police captain at the meeting what the city could do to help.

It's not just up to the city, Martinez said during the meeting. Referencing state and county political leaders, Martinez said "it takes all of us working together."

"The last thing to do is to just point fingers and blame one particular person," Martinez said. "I dont think that that works. I also dont believe that having discussions around all the problems and not putting some solutions on the table will work either."

Martinez did not respond to requests for comment for this story. But some council members repeated in interviews with The Herald-Mail that it's not just the city's responsibility.

Fort Ritchie revival: When so many efforts to redevelop Fort Ritchie failed, why is the Ritchie Revival working?

Corderman's letter to Hagerstown officials on crime

A file photo of Maryland State Sen. Paul Corderman, R-Washington.

In his letter to city officials, Corderman highlighted several points he would welcome the chance to discuss or help with, including the possibility of seeking state legislation.

One of them is something he noted that "the City" had talked about in the past  a drug ordinance similar to one in Martinsburg, W.Va.

Martinsburg's "drug house" ordinance fines violating property owners, according to Herald-Mail archives.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

He also expressed concerns about the "plethora of social services continuing to expand" in the city's core and how those need to be spread out more. Corderman said in a phone interview Thursday that he's not opposed to treatment and having resources available for people, but those services should not be centralized in downtown Hagerstown.

"Obviously, what we're doing now is not working," Corderman said.

Corderman told The Herald-Mail that "we've come to a point ... where continuing to just say that we're going to collaborate and work and do something is not an option. They have to actually do something. We're seeing violent crime repeatedly happen in the core ... shootings, murder, assault."

Councilwoman Shelley McIntire said in a phone interview Friday that she can see what Corderman means.

McIntire said she led meetings for an anti-violence youth program and food and transportation coalitions.

"We're all so busy and all trying to do this work and a true action plan hasn't really been formed yet for all of us to collaborate together," McIntire said.

A strategic plan is needed for these social issues the community is experiencing, McIntire said. One where "everyone understands their roles and responsibilities and has action items," and egos and personal agendas are checked at the door, she said.

Could Washington County schools close?: BOE members insist there's no interest in closing two county schools, despite claims

Senator's letter draws criticism from council members

While Corderman's letter wasn't sent until July 24, he also had posted on Facebook after the July 18 shooting that the "local administration needs to take a leadership position and demonstrate this is not the acceptable standard for our city."

His two posts about the issue resulted in comments from residents and current and former elected officials about the issues and various government actions or inactions.

Several city council members told The Herald-Mail they agreed that public meetings need to be held with representatives from multiple government bodies and agencies as well as nonprofits to discuss what can be done about violent crime and societal issues that seem to be on the rise in the city.

At the same time, some city officials took issue with parts of Corderman's letter, and his posting it publicly rather than reaching out more directly to city officials.

In interviews, Councilman Kristin Aleshire described Corderman's letter as "disingenuous" while Burnett said it was "divisive."

Tiara Burnett

Burnett said in a text to The Herald-Mail that the letter was the only one the mayor and council, "as a body," received from Corderman's office outlining his concerns. Instead of asking to join a public meeting to discuss the issues and offer support, "he chose to send this letter via email and post it on his senator Facebook page first."

"Using these unfortunate events to make his stance on crime and drugs was insensitive to the families and communities still grieving from these traumas," Burnett wrote. His letter also downplayed Hagerstown Police's efforts and "dismissed the work of non-profits addressing these social issues."

"It is time to stop blaming and pointing fingers. Instead, we need to roll up our sleeves, work together, and show our communities the power of collaboration by setting aside our differences for the betterment of our constituents. I hope the Senator will join us in the upcoming discussions," Burnett texted.

Councilman Matthew Schindler said he was both frustrated and encouraged by Corderman's letter.

"It's great to see our state delegation willing to come to the table with us," Schindler said.

But Schindler said he thought the letter "was very politically motivated and kind of accusatory when we're all working for the same thing."

Maryland state lawmakers are not up for election this year. The Hagerstown mayoral post and all five council seats are up for election on Nov. 5 with Aleshire, Burnett, Schindler and Peter Perini facing several challengers to retain their council seats.

Perini said Friday that he was sure the entire council appreciated Corderman's concern and interest and that he hopes the state lawmaker "did that with the best of intentions and that he sincerely means what he says when he offers his help."

"I hope that the senator is sincere in his offer to help and I look forward to hearing what suggestions he has on what he can do," Perini said Friday. "Other than to write letters and post them all over Facebook."

Hagerstown double shooting: Hagerstown man charged in recent double shooting that left one dead

Hagerstown councilman: City officials can't change state laws

In this November 2020 file photo, Kristin Aleshire is sworn in for another term as a Hagerstown City Councilman.

Aleshire responded to Corderman's letter with an email Wednesday night that he sent not only to the state senator, but to state and county political and law enforcement leaders as well as to court and county health department officials.

Aleshire noted in the letter and in a phone interview that city officials and police are limited in what they can do in some ways because of state laws, state and federal directives, and funding programs with nonprofits and other agencies. He specifically referenced the legalization of recreational marijuana in Maryland, despite the drug remaining a Schedule I controlled substance on the federal level.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Aleshire also said the city has no control over how cases are treated through the court system, and expressed concerns about a harm reduction program run by the Washington County Health Department, part of the Maryland Health Department, that includes providing clean needles to drug users.

"There are clearly concerns in the community about" the needle program, Aleshire said. "If that is a concern, as Paul indicates, and I get it, it's a rub among the parties at the state level ... I think we should have that discussion as a mayor and council. Do we or do we not want to send communication to the (Washington) County Health Department to say, 'Hey, we don't think it's good for the city. We would like you to stop doing this and providing this service within the City of Hagerstown?' " Aleshire said.

In Corderman's letter, he highlighted  among other issues  the "needles and feces all over the place." Among the points Corderman offered to discuss was calling on the Public Works Department and the county health department to clean up the city's core. If the health department continues to promote and provide needles, "they should be held accountable by the City to be the ones cleaning it up daily  not the City and not our citizens," Corderman wrote.

Aleshire called for multiple meetings, taking one issue at a time with the appropriate parties to vet them publicly so residents know what the city can and cannot do, and who is or isn't responsible for each specific item.

Schindler agreed with the idea of multiple meetings, including one with the State's Attorney and court officials, and another with nonprofits and social services.

"I am happy to participate in any public hearings to discuss these concerns," Washington County State's Attorney Gina Cirincion, the head prosecutor in the county, emailed The Herald-Mail.

"We're all raising our families here," Schindler said. "We all want the same thing."

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Corderman letter on Hagerstown being 'under siege' sparks crime debate
In the wake of a fatal shooting near Hagerstown's downtown on July 18, several Hagerstown elected officials agreed that public meetings should be held with various community leaders to discuss how to address factors contributing to crime and drug issues in the city.

The shooting occurred shortly before 1 p.m. on a Thursday in the 200 block of East Washington Street. Two men shot at a car parked along the street, resulting in the death of Rusty Mark Edwards, 49, and injuring another person in the car, according to court documents. Edwards had gotten out of the car after the shots started and fired back, Hagerstown Police wrote in court documents.

As of Friday, one of the two men accused of shooting at the car has been charged in Edwards' homicide and was being held without bond at the Washington County Detention Center.

Hagerstown Police Capt. Thomas Langston said in an email Thursday that an arrest warrant had been issued for a second shooter whom police were trying to find.

At the Hagerstown City Council meeting July 23, several people addressed city officials with concerns about crime and drug use in the city, according to a video of the meeting on the city's Facebook page.

One resident told city officials he could have been shot because he had walked through the area before the shooting. He also mentioned trash, "all-night prostitutes" and "druggies" in the neighborhood.

Mayor Tekesha Martinez later asked Langston if he had a directive for city officials.

"I think the one thing that you all could do for us and the city would be to focus on hiring more cops. Immediately. Thats the easiest ask that I can ask right now," Langston said.

Hagerstown double shooting: Hagerstown man charged in recent double shooting that left one dead

Status of Hagerstown Police staffing

Police were checking out a car at the corner of East Washington Street and Cannon Avenue early Thursday afternoon after a shooting in the area.

While authorized for a sworn force of 91 officers, Hagerstown Police had 76 sworn officers as of Thursday, according to an email from Langston, who is second-in-command at the police department.

That includes 51 officers, four officer trainees in field training, 15 sergeants, four lieutenants, one captain and one chief.

The department has two recruits in the police academy. Recruits are hired for the academy and will be at least 21 years old upon graduation when they will be sworn in, Langston explained.

Hagerstown Councilman Kristin Aleshire said in a phone interview Thursday that the city has funds available to hire more officers, but it takes time to get candidates through appropriate vetting and training to the point they can go on patrol.

People also have to want to be police officers, and people aren't migrating to that profession the way they did decades ago, Councilman Peter Perini said.

Hagerstown Police Chief Paul Kifer, who was on vacation this past week, discussed issues regarding recruiting and retaining police with The Herald-Mail last September.

Among the challenges is the number of agencies seeking officers  Hagerstown Police isn't the only law enforcement agency in the region or country competing for police officers, city officials said.

Perini gave Hagerstown Police credit for finding new ways to help with policing, including using technology such as cameras and drones.

Langston said the department also has three cadets. Cadets range in age from 18 to 21. They are not sworn officers, but perform administrative duties and do some on-the-job training to prepare for when they can enter the police academy near turning 21, Langston wrote.

"The Cadet program is a feeder program for persons on the way to becoming police officers," Langston wrote. It focuses on hiring local youths from Washington County Public Schools, such as the technical high school.

The Boyd J. Michael III Technical High School's programs include criminal justice, homeland security information and communications technology and a Fire & Rescue Academy.

Fort Ritchie revival: When so many efforts to redevelop Fort Ritchie failed, why is the Ritchie Revival working?

Ideas include collaborative meetings, action plan, greater transparency

Hagerstown Police and the Washington County Sheriff's Office were investigating a shooting Thursday afternoon in the area of East Washington Street, between Cannon Avenue and Mulberry Street.

Councilwoman Tiara Burnett said Thursday that she emailed City Administrator Scott Nicewarner after the July 18 shooting to suggest a meeting regarding what can be done about gun violence and overall crime. She echoed that at the council meeting, asking for a meeting with Hagerstown Police, the Washington County Sheriff's Office and Maryland State Police.

Burnett said Thursday there needs to be a long public meeting, separate from a regular work session and bringing in partners to discuss issues related to crime as a whole.

Councilman Matthew Schindler said he also emailed Nicewarner and his colleagues, suggesting a violent crimes task force. Schindler, like Burnett, also sought ideas from the public through his Facebook page.

One suggestion Burnett heard was greater transparency from Hagerstown Police after shootings.

Hagerstown Police posted on Facebook about 1 1/2 hours after the shooting that they were investigating the incident, urged anyone with information to come forward and advised residents to avoid the area because several streets were closed for the investigation.

About a half-hour later, Hagerstown Police issued a news release stating the preliminary investigation showed the shooting was a targeted incident.

Burnett said a public statement that an investigation was underway could have been shared faster for the community.

City officials might need to make it easier for people to find out how to share information with police about criminal or suspicious activities, Burnett said.

She also suggested greater transparency regarding how many officers Hagerstown Police has, how many of them are on patrol and the status of recruiting officers.

"I think those are easy wins, achievable if we have the OK across the team to do that," Burnett said.

Perini said he would encourage Burnett's call for a summit with law enforcement. "A lot of times ... investigative work is not done in the public eye for obvious reasons and cannot be discussed," he said.

Councilman Kristin Aleshire told The Herald-Mail there needs to be a series of meetings to address various issues, including substance abuse and mental health, contributing to crime, and reports of residents finding discarded needles and watching people injecting themselves with drugs near the residents' homes.

"I want multiple meetings. Take each issue one at a time with the appropriate parties" and vet that issue in public so residents have clarity on what it is the city can and cannot do and who is or isn't responsible to take action on each specific item, Aleshire said.

Maryland State Sen. Paul Corderman sent a letter to the city's political leaders last week that included, among a list of possible issues to discuss, Martinsburg, W.Va.'s "drug house" ordinance. That ordinance holds property owners accountable with fines, The Herald-Mail has reported.

Councilwoman Shelley McIntire said in a phone interview Friday that "a true action plan" is needed with collaboration from other government and community groups.

A strategic plan is needed for these social issues the community is experiencing, McIntire said; one where "everyone understands their roles and responsibilities and has action items," and egos and personal agendas are checked at the door, she said.

McIntire also suggested two possible funding sources the city might be able to use to help address issues.

One possibility is using Invest Hagerstown money for one year to help execute a strategic plan. Invest Hagerstown is money from the city's general fund used to provide grants to help residents and business rehabilitate, reuse and repurpose properties, she said.

McIntire also said the city hadn't yet used the opioid response money it had been awarded through the state. Perhaps that money could be used to hire an outside consultant to help guide a strategic plan, she wrote in a follow-up text.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Hagerstown officials talk about next steps after public shooting
(The Hill)  Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said the GOP attacks on Vice President Harris over her race and gender are not helpful.

Haley joined CNNs Jake Tapper for an interview Thursday to discuss recent political events, including President Biden suspending his reelection campaign and endorsing Harris.

In the days since, several Republican lawmakers have claimed Harris was a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hire and made remarks about her becoming the Democratic Partys likely nominee because of her gender and race.

Its not helpful, Haley said. Its not helpful. Look, I mean, were talking about a liberal senator who literally has not accomplished very much and what she was given, she didnt do much with.

You dont need to talk about what she looks like or what gender she is, the former United Nations ambassador continued. The American people are smarter than that.

Harris made a splash entering the election at an unusual time after Biden said Sunday he would no longer be seeking reelection. The vice president, of Jamaican and Indian descent, would be the first woman and first woman of color to serve as the countrys president.

Earlier this week, Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) called Harris a DEI hire. He later doubled down on his claim even though he admitted he regretted calling her that. Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) said Harris was the bottom of the barrel, calling her a DEI hire as well. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) said Democrats feel like they have to stick with Harris after Biden dropped out because of her ethnic background.

Some Republicans are warning their GOP colleagues to back off the DEI talk.

Haley, who acknowledged she had to defend her race and gender on the campaign trail, argued that its pointless to criticize Harris on her race and gender when there are policy issues that could be referenced. Haley, who suspended her GOP presidential primary bid in March, pointed to Harriss stance on fracking, taxes and the Israel-Hamas war.

There are so many issues we can talk about when it comes to Kamala Harris that it doesnt matter what she looks like, Haley said. It matters what she said, what shes fought for and the lack of results that shes had because of 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 Queen City News.
Many people are curious about what transpired between Donald Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray regarding Trumps bullet injury. This question arose after Wrays testimony about the uncertainty of the exact cause of Trumps ear injury during an assassination attempt. As a high-profile incident, the details and implications have sparked significant discussion and speculation.

For those interested in understanding the context behind Wrays statements and the specifics of the investigation into Trumps injury, heres all you need to know.

What did FBI director say about Donald Trump?

FBI Director Christopher Wray, during his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, expressed uncertainty about the cause of Donald Trumps ear injury from the assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania rally. Wray stated, With respect to former President Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear (via The New Republic).

According to Wray, Thomas Crooks, the suspect, had searched online about the JFK assassination a week before the incident and became fixated on Trump. Crooks reportedly used a drone to surveil the rally area about two hours before the shooting. He then positioned himself on a nearby rooftop with an AR-15-style rifle, firing eight shots. The attack hit Trump in the ear, killed one rally-goer, and injured two others.

Authorities reportedly found crude explosive devices in Crooks car and home. The FBI believes Crooks acted alone, though his motive remains unclear. Investigators are still determining whether a bullet or shrapnel hit Trump.

How did Donald Trump react?

Donald Trump reacted strongly on Truth Social to FBI Director Christopher Wrays testimony, expressing his frustration and criticism.

He wrote, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasnt sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively uneventful  Wrong!

Trump emphasized that his injury was definitively caused by a bullet, rejecting any other explanations. He accused Wray of neglecting pressing issues like terrorism and criminal activities and focusing only on politically motivated actions, such as targeting January 6th participants and conducting raids on Mar-a-Lago.

The former US President concluded by asserting that the hospital confirmed his injury as a bullet wound to the ear. He also criticized the FBI, stating it had lost the confidence of America.

The post What Happened Between Donald Trump & FBI Director? Bullet Injury Explained appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More.
Cocomentum is upon us.

Lets get the to-be-sure stuff out of the way: As I have written before, I have a pretty low opinion of Joe Biden, but even if he were literally brain-dead, I think hed be less of a threat to the country in the presidency than Donald Trump would. I believe Kamala Harris has a better chance of beating Trump than Biden did, but I also believe that Harris has less of a chance of beating Trump than a half-dozen other DemocratsGretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear, Jared Polis, Wes Moore, Willie Nelsons weed guys chauffeurs personal masseuse, etc. If I were betting my own money on it today, Id bet on Trump to beat Harris in November.

All that being stipulated, a few thoughts on how the Harris campaign might improve its odds.

Presidential elections in the United States are pure Kulturkampf. If they were about policy, Donald Trump would be another retired game-show host with a very active Twitter account, slightly to the left of Pat Sajak, and of no great interest. We have made the presidency into a kind of sacral kingship based on the idiotic notion that the president personifies the spirit of the nation in the way the British monarch does. (Formally, at least: King Charles the Mundane is no Elizabeth II.) The president has become a democratic idol in which the demos worships itself. But the demos is divided, with each half defining itself exclusively in opposition to the other half. Hence, the current situation in which alternating halves of the country believe we are in a state of existential crisis owing to the fact that the wrong kind of priest-king (Republican/Democrat, Catholic/Protestant, Hutu/Tutsi) occupies the national priesthood.

There is no way to campaign for the presidency in 2024 without making the campaign into a culture-war battle. Each partys base demands above all that its candidate define the other partys memberstheir fellow Americansas enemies, and not only enemies of their respective parties but enemies of the nation and enemies of the good. That makes reaching out to the other side to try to pry away enough voters to build a comfortable majority coalitionwhat used to be known as normal politicsvery difficult.

Instead, the most reliable winning strategy in recent elections has been to try to increase the turnout of ones own base and, if possible, to build a sense of momentum that attracts uncommitted or weakly committed voters from the other side without subjecting the candidate to the desecrating indignity of treating members of the other party like human beings and fellow citizens and asking them for their votes. That would requireangels and ministers of grace, defend us!asking them what it is that they care about most, what they want from government, and trying to accommodate them.

Them.

But Harris is going to need some of them if she wants to win. The Biden campaign did a piss-poor job of a great many things, but one of its worst pieces of political malpractice was how little effort it expended trying to reach out to the 10 to 20 percent of Republican primary voters who oppose Trump, who made a point of voting for Nikki Haley even after she was out of the race. Harris, who is largely unknown to most of the electorateremember that if you are reading this article, you are not a normal American voter!has a chance to do better on that score.

There are simple things she could do to wage her culture war in a less-Pyrrhic fashion.

For one, she could get serious about illegal immigration, which, being a child of two high-achieving legal immigrants, she is in a good position to do while telling any critics from within her own coalition to go pound sand. With the right increasingly hostile to legal immigration in a way that most Americans are not, she has an opportunity to back Republicans into a cornerbut only if she can at least make people think she is serious about getting control of the border. And that wont be easy, given the record of the administration in which she serves. But simply conceding that immigration anarchy is a problema real, legitimate, national problem and not simply a matter of white-guy panicwould be a good start.

Second, she could simplify her message on abortion to approximately this: If Republicans in Congress try to pass a national ban on abortion, I will veto that bill. That simple statement will remind pro-choice Democrats why they want her in the White House without imputing malice or bad-faith motives to moderates and uncommitted voters with pro-life sympathies who might be otherwise inclined to support her over Trump. And there are more than a few pro-lifers who would concede that vetoing such a bill would be at least defensible as policy inasmuch as it is not entirely clear that Congress has the constitutional authority to enact such a ban.

Third, when talking about gun control, she would do well to emphasize Congress role in such matters and the need for reform at the state and local levelreforms that can be helped along by federal resources and federal prodding. Promising a slew of undemocratic (and probably unconstitutional) executive orders to make an end-run around the legislative process would be a mistake as policy and probably a mistake as politics, too, cultivating unrealistic expectations on her own side and provoking fear and a sense of persecution on the other. Being a former prosecutor, she is excellently positioned to take my advice and make enforcing the godmned laws the centerpiece of any national effort at reducing the criminal use of firearms. If you get brought in on a gun charge today in a big, Democratic-run city such as Philadelphia, the most likely outcomeoverwhelminglyis that you walk, that the charges are dropped or dismissed without a trial.

Harris could make dealing with that the focal point of her gun-crime agenda, rather than fixating on exotic weapons that are so seldom used in crimes that the FBI doesnt even really bother to keep track of them. The overwhelming majority of gun crime in this country is committed with ordinary handguns and rifles, which are not going to be banned, in spite of whatever your favorite Democratic politician promises. If Harris and her team work forward from that blindingly obvious fact, they can come up with a package that is both reasonable as policy and, potentially, a political winneror at least not as much as a political loser as gun control has been for Democrats in recent decades.

Given her background, Harris probably has a lot of people in her social and political circles who are far to the radical side of her on the progressive spectrum, as difficult as it may be for some non-Californians to imagine such people. She will be tempted to flatter their prejudices. But she doesnt need to worry about hearing footsteps on her left: Left-of-center voters are going to vote for anybody over Donald Trump, and theyll crawl over broken glass to vote for a progressive woman of black and South Asian background who isnt already old enough to collect a Social Security check. She can afford to go looking for some votes in the middle.

Or she could take her chances on running an exclusively pump-up-the-base campaign, trying to beat Donald Trump in an outrage contest, and see where that takes her. My guess would be back to California.

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.
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House. Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa

US Vice President Kamala Harris has affirmed her "unwavering commitment" to Israel following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

At the same time, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate called on the Israeli leadership to do more to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Israel had the right to defend itself, Harris said, but added "how it does so matters."

She said she had expressed her "serious concern" about the scale of human suffering in Gaza in her conversation with Netanyahu.

This included the death of "too many innocent civilians" and the catastrophic humanitarian situation.

"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent," Harris said.

Harris called on the people of the United States to keep in mind the conflict's complexity and the region's history. Terrorism and violence must be condemned, she said.

"Let us all do what we can to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians. And let us condemn anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hate of any kind."

Thanks to the leadership of US President Joe Biden, an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of hostages is on the table, Harris continued.

"There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal," she said. "And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done."

Netanyahu thanks Biden for supporting Israel

Earlier on Thursday, Netanyahu thanked Biden for his support for Israel during a meeting at the White House.

"I thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the State of Israel," Netanyahu said.

He added that he was looking forward to discussing the "great issues" with Biden.

Biden said the two had much to talk about. Neither answered questions from the press present.

Iran condemns Netanyahu's US visit

Netanyahu met with Biden and Harris on Thursday after delivering a combative speech to a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday. In his speech, he appealed for the US and Israel to stand shoulder to shoulder to confront the "murderous enemy" Iran.

Iran harshly attacked Netanyahu following his speech and condemned his warm reception in the US.

Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for the Iranian foreign minister, accused Netanyahu of killing Palestinian children every day. Kanaani referred to Netanyahu as the "Butcher of Tel Aviv," and yet the Israeli premier was welcomed with applause by the US Congress, Kanaani wrote on the platform X.

Since the beginning of the Gaza war, the decades-old conflict between Israel and Iran has intensified. Israel finds itself under attack on several fronts from militias allied with Iran. Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Israel and the US have been considered arch-enemies of Iran.

On Friday, former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

It is Netanyahu's first visit to Washington in almost four years and his first trip abroad since the attack by the Palestinian extremist group Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, which triggered a devastating retaliatory response on the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House. Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with US President Joe Biden at the White House. Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa
Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House. Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa

US Vice President Kamala Harris has affirmed her "unwavering commitment" to Israel following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday.

At the same time, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate called on the Israeli leadership to do more to protect civilians in the Gaza Strip.

Israel had the right to defend itself, Harris said, but added "how it does so matters."

She said she had expressed her "serious concern" about the scale of human suffering in Gaza in her conversation with Netanyahu.

This included the death of "too many innocent civilians" and the catastrophic humanitarian situation.

"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent," Harris said.

Harris called on the people of the United States to keep in mind the conflict's complexity and the region's history. Terrorism and violence must be condemned, she said.

"Let us all do what we can to prevent the suffering of innocent civilians. And let us condemn anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and hate of any kind."

Thanks to the leadership of US President Joe Biden, an agreement on a ceasefire and the release of hostages is on the table, Harris continued.

"There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal," she said. "And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done."

Biden urges Netanyahu to reach swift agreement on Gaza

Earlier on Thursday, Netanyahu thanked Biden for his support for Israel during a meeting at the White House.

"I thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the State of Israel," Netanyahu said.

He added that he was looking forward to discussing the "great issues" with Biden.

The two leaders spoke about "developments in Gaza and the ongoing negotiations on the ceasefire and hostage release deal in detail," the White House said in a statement issued after the meeting.

Biden emphasized the need to "close the remaining gaps, finalize the deal as soon as possible, bring the hostages home, and reach a durable end to the war in Gaza," it said.

Biden also reiterated his call for increased humanitarian aid to Gaza and improved protection for the civilian population, and called on Israel "to remove any obstacles to the flow of aid and restoring basic services for those in need."

Iran condemns Netanyahu's US visit

Netanyahu met with Biden and Harris on Thursday after delivering a combative speech to a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday. In his speech, he appealed for the US and Israel to stand shoulder to shoulder to confront the "murderous enemy" Iran.

Iran harshly attacked Netanyahu following his speech and condemned his warm reception in the US.

Nasser Kanaani, spokesman for the Iranian foreign minister, accused Netanyahu of killing Palestinian children every day. Kanaani referred to Netanyahu as the "Butcher of Tel Aviv," and yet the Israeli premier was welcomed with applause by the US Congress, Kanaani wrote on the platform X.

Since the beginning of the Gaza war, the decades-old conflict between Israel and Iran has intensified. Israel finds itself under attack on several fronts from militias allied with Iran. Since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Israel and the US have been considered arch-enemies of Iran.

On Friday, former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

It is Netanyahu's first visit to Washington in almost four years and his first trip abroad since the attack by the Palestinian extremist group Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, which triggered a devastating retaliatory response on the Gaza Strip.

Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with US Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House. Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with US President Joe Biden at the White House. Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa
Harris blitz to define herself as Trumps team races to beat her to it

Since getting thrust into the race for president after President Joe Biden announced on Sunday he would step aside, Vice President Kamala Harris and her team have been racing to define her to the American people as their attention turns to the newly energized campaign before Donald Trump could beat her to the punch.

In a shift, the vice president, who has served as San Francisco's district attorney and California's attorney general, is leaning heavily into that part of her resume -- which was largely a liability during her 2020 bid for the presidency, a campaign she abandoned before the first voters were cast in that primary.

"In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds," Harris told staffers at her campaign headquarters Monday in what was officially her first campaign event since getting in the race. "Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain."

"So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trump's type," she added. "And in this campaign, I will proudly put my record against his."

It's a framing of prosecutor vs. convict that Harris and her team have pushed aggressively in early days of her nascent campaign

PHOTO: Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (Alex Brandon/AP)

MORE: Harris' candidacy has led to surge in Black voter enthusiasm. It could make a difference in swing states

On Thursday, Harris attacked Trump over his legal woes in the first ad of her campaign. In it Harris said her vision of the future includes an America "where no one is above the law" as the former president's mugshot and newspaper headlines following his conviction on 34 counts in New York flashed on screen.

"Their campaign says, 'I'm the prosecutor and he is the convicted felon," Trump said at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, his first since Biden dropped out. "That's their campaign. I don't think people are gonna buy it."

Harris has also worked to define the race as being between someone who is fighting to protect Americans' freedoms and Donald Trump, who she argues will strip them of their freedom.

"In this election, we each face a question: What kind of country do we want to live in?" Harris asked in that first ad titled "We Choose Freedom" and that features Beyonce's "Freedom," which the vice president walks out to at rallies.

"There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos. Of fear. Of hate," she adds over images of Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. "But us? We choose something different; we choose freedom."

Speaking at the American Federation of Teachers convention in Houston Thursday, Harris said, "In this moment, across our nation, we witness a full-on attack on hard-won, hard-fought freedoms."

Harris, said that those freedoms include the right to an abortion, pointing to the Supreme Court's overuling of Roe v. Wade, for which she blames Trump, and vowing to fight to restore them.

"When I am president of the United States and when Congress passes a law to restore those freedoms, I will sign it into law. We are not playing around," she said at the historically Black Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.'s Grand Boule in Indianapolis on Wednesday.

PHOTO: Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th National Convention in Houston, July 25, 2024. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)

MORE: Trump mocks Kamala Harris' name but her campaign is putting it front and center

But the Trump campaign is trying to define Harris in ways they think could hurt her prospects and that they hope the American people will buy.

Sources told ABC News that Trump's attacks will largely focus on Harris' role leading the administration's effort on the migrant crisis and use it to make the case that the administration failed to secure the border.

Prior to Biden stepping down, Trump began ramping up personal attacks against the vice president, going after her laugh by nicknaming her "Laffin' Kamala" and dubbing her "nuts."

"You can tell a lot by a laugh," Trump said at a rally in Michigan on Saturday. "I call her Laffin' Kamala. You ever watch her laugh? She's crazy. She's nuts."

At the North Carolina rally he unleashed a barrage of false claims, referring to her as "Lyin' Kamala Harris," as a "radical-left lunatic" and a liar before suggesting that she is okay with the "execution" of a baby.

"She wants abortions in the eighth and ninth month of pregnancy, that's fine with her right up until birth. And even after birth, the execution of a baby because that's not abortion. That's the execution of a baby," Trump falsely claimed before touting the U.S. Supreme Court decision that sent the issue back to the states.

In the early days of his administration, Biden tasked Harris with leading his administration's efforts to address the root causes of migration, primarily tackling economic and social issues in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. But in the face of migrant surges at the border, Republicans have placed blame on Harris, who they disparagingly, inaccurately nickname the "border czar."

"Kamala Harris was appointed border czar, as you know, in March of 2021 and since that time, millions and millions of illegal aliens have invaded our country and countless Americans have been killed by migrant crime because of her," Trump said during a press call Tuesday.

The Harris campaign responded to these attacks by pointing the finger at Trump for his opposition to a bipartisan deal to secure the border and address immigration.

"The only 'plan' Donald Trump has to secure our border is ripping mothers from their children aand a few xenophobic placards at the Republican National Convention. He tanked the bipartisan border security deal because, for Donald Trump, this has never been about solutions just running on a problem," Harris campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said in a statement.

"Like everything with Donald Trump, it's never been about helping the country, it's only about helping himself," Munoz added. "There's only one candidate in this race who will fight for bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security, and that's Vice President Harris."

Trump allies, in a sign they are struggling to define Harris, have also resorted to describing the presumptive nominee as someone who is unqualified and chosen because of her race and gender, with some calling her a so-called "DEI" (diversity, equity, and inclusion) candidate.

Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who is now a supporter of Trump, told CNN's Jake Tapper on Thursday that these attacks are "not helpful."

Harris has seized being thrust into the spotlight with her newly minted campaign, positioning herself as leader during moments she would otherwise have to wait for Biden's lead.

After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuseparately from Biden's own meetingHarris came before the cameras to outline her view on the war in Gaza, which had become a political headache for the president in recent months. (Biden, himself, did not speak with reporters after his meeting.)

Biden has been plagued domestically over criticism of his response to the war and for not being more forceful against Netanyahu as scores of civilians get killed in Gaza, and for continuing to supply Israel with weapons.

And although her policy stances on the war largely don't stray far from Biden's, Harris on Thursday notably signaled a future shift.

"We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering," Harris said. "And I will not be silent."

Harris blitz to define herself as Trumps team races to beat her to it originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Vice President Harris spoke Friday with the family of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who police shot and killed in her home earlier this month.

A spokesperson with Harriss office confirmed the vice president spoke with Masseys family. NBC News first reported on the call, and a family member said the vice president gave her heartfelt condolences, and she let us know that she is with us, 100 percent.

Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman, called 911 to report a prowler outside her Springfield, Ill., home. Officers arrived and inspected the property and did not find a prowler.

Body camera video released by Illinois State Police showed Sean Grayson, a Sangamon County Sheriffs deputy who has since been fired, shooting Massey three times. An autopsy report released Friday found she died of a gunshot wound to her head.

The footage showed officers speaking with Massey, and the situation grew more tense when she took a pot of water off her stove. Grayson can be heard cursing at Massey, telling her you better fing not. I swear to God I will fing shoot you right in your fing face.

Grayson, who is white, has pleaded not guilty to the charges of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct, The Associated Press reported.

Harris earlier this week issued a statement saying Massey deserved to be safe and expressing grief over her senseless death.

President Biden issued a statement saying Masseys family deserves justices and reiterating his call for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a major police reform bill named after the Minnesota man whose killing by a police officer in 2020 set off nationwide protests.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Vegetables from northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region are for sale at a supermarket under the Wenchao Group in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), July 5, 2024.(Xinhua)

YINCHUAN, July 26 (Xinhua) -- In the inland Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, cool-season vegetables, traditionally exported via road, have had a faster option since May this year with the air transport, which better preserves their freshness.

Almost every Thursday, approximately six to ten tonnes of such variety of vegetables are transported via passenger flight 3U3781. This flight departs from Yinchuan, the regional capital, and reaches Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), after an eight-hour journey.

Since May, over 80 tonnes of vegetables have been air-freighted. The cool-season vegetables in the region benefit from abundant sunshine, a cool climate, clean air and water, and soil rich in organic matter.

"After harvesting, cooling, sorting and packaging, some 20 varieties of locally grown vegetables, such as Chinese broccoli and spinach, are exported to Dubai," said Wei Xinmin, head of Ningxia Xingyuntian Modern Agricultural Development Company.

After customs clearance in Dubai, the vegetables will be delivered to malls, supermarkets, hotels and restaurants.

UAE is an important export destination for China's agricultural products in the Middle East. According to Xiao Yonggang, an official with the regional commerce department responsible for foreign trade, the passenger flight service from Yinchuan to Dubai, launched in 2015, has significantly facilitated trade and economic exchanges between Ningxia and Middle Eastern countries, and this year, there has been a push to encourage vegetable exports via air transport.

"Dubai has a rich selection of meat and seafood, but fruits and vegetables are relatively scarce, which presents us with a business opportunity," Wei said, adding that even though logistics costs are nearly 15,000 yuan (about 2,105 U.S. dollars) per tonne, the company can still generate over 30 percent profit.

"We're also discussing opportunities in the vegetable export business with seven other Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia and Oman," Wei said.

WenChao Group, one of the largest Chinese supermarkets headquartered in Dubai, serves as a major retail outlet for Ningxia's cool-season vegetables in the city.

"Most of our vegetables are imported from China, with Ningxia's cool-season vegetables being the most popular," said Sun Jiansheng, head of the Wenchao Group. "Cool-season Ningxia vegetables are on my family's dining table every day. While my favorite is Chinese flowering cabbage, which is crisp in taste and can be either blanched or stir-fried."

"Our six stores sell about 50 tonnes of fresh produce daily, while we import less than 10 tonnes of cool-season vegetables from Ningxia through the flight every week," Sun said. "We expect an increasing supply and more flights to meet the growing demand for Ningxia produce."

In recent years, Ningxia has achieved year-round production and supply of vegetables through the use of greenhouses, arch sheds, and open fields, with 70 percent of its produce sold outside the region.

By 2025, the planting area for cool-climate vegetables in Ningxia is projected to reach 233,333 hectares, with a total output of over 7.5 million tonnes, according to the region's agricultural and rural affairs department. 
Harris' candidacy has led to surge in Black voter enthusiasm. It could make a difference in swing states

Harris' candidacy has led to surge in Black voter enthusiasm. It could make a difference in swing states

When Jotaka Eaddy, the founder of Black women's leadership network Win With Black Women, heard Sunday that President Joe Biden had decided he wouldn't run for reelection, clearing the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to become the Democratic Party's first Black woman presidential nominee, her first thought was "Oh my God, what a time to be alive."

Her second? "Oh, our Zoom call tonight -- I'm gonna have to shift the agenda."

Formed in 2020, Win With Black Women has met by Zoom most Sundays for almost four years, drawing hundreds of attendees and support from names like Oprah Winfrey and Dionne Warwick. But Eaddy said they had never had a call anything like this past Sunday's, which drew tens of thousands of viewers, raised more than $2 million for the just-launched Harris campaign, and inspired a similar call led by Black men the next night that raised $1.3 million more for Harris' campaign.

MORE: Election 2024 updates: 'Let's go': Harris says she's ready to debate Trump

"We thought, 'Well, we probably gonna hit 1,000 [people]. And so we were prepared for 1,000," Eaddy said. "I knew something was different when at about 8 o'clock ... I couldn't get in my own Zoom because it was at capacity."

Win With Black Women's Zoom call this past Sunday -- joined throughout the night by prominent Black woman politicians such as Ohio Rep. Joyce Beatty, California Rep. Maxine Waters and Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile -- could herald a surge of support from Black voters and organizers, women, in particular, who could make up lost ground for Democrats in critical battleground states and down-ballot races nationwide.

PHOTO: Guests listen as Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Grand Boule at the Indiana Convention Center on July 24, 2024 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Black voters helping to swing red states blue

Many Georgia Democrats are looking to the change at the top of the Democratic ticket to help keep Georgia blue.

"For all of our clients, we will need to revise our projections for turnout upward," Georgia Democratic strategist Amy Morton told her team Tuesday after a flood of Harris endorsements early in the week. "That's the impact Harris will have on the ticket."

Since Biden announced on Sunday that he was leaving the 2024 race, Harris has secured commitments from enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee if they all honor their commitment when voting, according to ABC News reporting. And Morton said having Harris as the nominee "is energizing" to the party and could lead to high turnout rates with voters.

MORE: Harris attacks Trump at energetic 1st presidential rally in Milwaukee

"Black women have been critical to Democratic victories in Georgia for as long as I've been working in local space," Morton continued. "And I think that having Harris at the top of the ticket is energizing for all Democrats."

"I expect to see turnout in November that approaches 2020 levels," she added. In 2020, the voter turnout rate was the highest for any national election since 1900.

Georgia played a crucial role in Biden's 2020 victory, going blue for the first time since 1992 due in significant part to organizing efforts from former Georgia Rep. Stacey Abrams, who spent years spearheading get-out-the-vote efforts in Black communities.

In North Carolina, another Southern battleground state with a large Black population, many Democrats said they hope that Harris could reproduce the energy that powered former President Barack Obama to the party's last presidential-election victory in the state in 2008.

PHOTO: Vice President Kamala Harris greets members of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority after speaking at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center on July 10, 2024 in Dallas, Texas. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

"President Obama was the last one who was able to mobilize Black people the way that he did back when he ran for office in '08 and '12," said Aimy Steele, who leads a North Carolina voter engagement organization focusing on Black and Hispanic voters.

Black voter turnout peaked in North Carolina in 2008 with a record 73% of Black registered voters turning out to vote, according to North Carolina's Board of Elections. For comparison, 2016 saw 64% and 2020 saw 68% in the state,

But with Harris at the top of the ticket, Steele said, "I expect the same thing to happen again, if not exceed what he was able to do."

Hoping to ensure that happens, several Black groups have responded to grassroots enthusiasm for Harris with new efforts to mobilize voters to the polls.

Quentin James founded Collective PAC, an organization that supports Black candidates at all levels of government around the country. James helped organize the Monday night Win with Black Men Zoom call -- telling ABC News that the call was just the beginning.

"As someone who's done a lot of fundraising, I've never raised $1.3 million over three or four hours from grassroots donors, I've never seen that kind of momentum," James said. "The energy is inspiring. Each one of those people on the call can organize 10 people or 100 people, and we hope to mobilize all of them."

MORE: Abortion, Israel-Hamas War, criminal justice: Where Harris' agenda could break from Biden's on key issues for voters

On Monday, the presidents of the group of nine historically Black sororities and fraternities known as the "Divine Nine" wrote in a press release that they had agreed to collaborate on "an unprecedented voter registration, education, and mobilization coordinated campaign."

Harris joined Divine Nine sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha when she attended Howard University, a historically Black university.

Alpha Kappa Alpha International President Danette Anthony Reed said there is enthusiasm among the sorority's ranks for Harris as a candidate.

"We are just ecstatic and excited that a member of our organization, as well as the first woman of color, has the opportunity to become a candidate for president," Reed said.

'We know when we organize, mountains move'

Already the campaign is seeing the return on Harris' momentum. The campaign has reported a record-breaking $126 million in donations in the 48-hours after Biden's endorsement. The campaign said 74,000 of those who donated were from new recurring donors, with two-thirds of these recurring donors signing up for weekly donations. There has also been a surge of 100,000 volunteers, according to the campaign.

PHOTO: Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the 2024 ESSENCE Festival of Culture at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana on July 6, 2024. (Christiana Botic/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

MORE: Harris campaign outlines path to the White House, 'The race is more fluid now'

Although there are few polls out that have data to fully capture this moment, Harris is already seeing significantly higher numbers in favorability with Black voters. Black voters in April or June who split 70% for Biden to 23% for Trump in previous polling, now break 78% for Harris to 15% for Trump, according to a CNN/SSRS released on Wednesday.

In a memo outlining the campaign's path forward Wednesday, Campaign Chair Jennifer O'Malley Dillon wrote that the vice president has "multiple pathways to 270" thanks to her support among different groups of voters, including Black, Latino and women voters.

Recently, Harris delivered remarks to another Divine Nine sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, which, like AKA, was also founded at the vice president's alma mater, telling the women that "we know when we organize, mountains move."

Lois Lofton-Donivei, a teacher from Houston, Texas, heard Harris' call and was ready to answer it.

"I'm ready to hit the pavement and to do whatever I can to get her elected as the first female president," said Lofton-Donivei. "We're finally acknowledging that women have the ability to lead."

Harris' candidacy has led to surge in Black voter enthusiasm. It could make a difference in swing states originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Vice President Kamala Harris will not seek to ban fracking if shes elected president, an official with her campaign told The Hill on Friday.

Harriss position not to support a ban on fracking differs from where she stood when she was running for president last cycle.

While she was one of several Democrats vying for the 2020 nomination, she told CNN, Theres no question Im in favor of banning fracking.

However, since that time, she joined the Biden campaign and administration, neither of which supports a ban on fracking

Since Harris became the partys likely nominee after Biden dropped out of the race, Republicans, including former President Trump, have highlighted her 2019 stance.

She wants no fracking, Trump told supporters this week during a rally in Charlotte, N.C. Youre going to be paying a lot of money. Youre going to be paying so much. Youre going to say bring back Trump.

A spokesperson for Harriss campaign pushed back, saying, Trumps false claims about fracking bans are an obvious attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class.

The Biden-Harris Administration passed the largest ever climate change legislation and under their leadership, America now has the highest ever domestic energy production, the spokesperson said in an email. This Administration created 300,000 energy jobs, while Trump lost nearly a million and his Project 2025 would undo the enormous progress weve made the past four years.

Project 2025, a plan from the Heritage Foundation think tank, is not directly affiliated with the Trump campaign. Though portions of it are written by former Trump administration officials, Trump has sought to distance himself from it.

Fracking is a technique for extracting oil and gas that has been linked to water contamination and other pollution. Candidates positions on the issue may impact their standing in Pennsylvania, a key swing state that is also a major gas producer.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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) -- Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee, has begun vetting potential running mates as she faces a tight deadline before a virtual roll call to complete the partys ticket.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said Harris has directed her team to begin the scrutinizing potential picks  as her presidential effort accelerates just days after she entered the race.

That process has begun in earnest, he said in a statement.

Harris is seeking a running mate who could assume the presidency if necessary and be effective in the role, according to a campaign official who shared details on the search. She is also looking for a governing partner who shares her economic values, including bolstering the middle class and creating equal opportunities.

The selection will be one of the most momentous decisions of her campaign, with a little more than 100 days until Election Day and as she attempts to make up lost ground after a month of Democratic infighting over President Joe Bidens future and polls showing Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, with an edge.

Delegates to the Democratic National Convention will meet virtually within the next two weeks to confirm Harris as the partys nominee for president and her running mate. The exact date of the vote  some time between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7  will be decided by the conventions co-chairs.

The convention convenes in Chicago on Aug. 19.

Earlier: Democrats Will Nominate Kamala Harris, Running Mate by Aug. 7

The vice president herself has faced intense scrutiny in the role, with Republicans questioning her readiness to take over as commander-in-chief as questions mounted over the health and mental acuity of Biden, 81, the oldest president in American history.

Listen to the Big Take on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Biden last Sunday announced that he would no longer seek reelection after a disastrous debate performance that crystallized Democratic fears that he would not be able to beat Trump or serve another term.

The shocking assassination attempt against Trump has also provided a stark reminder of the importance of the vice presidency. Last week, Trump unveiled his pick, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, a populist firebrand in the former presidents image.

Public speculation about Harris selection has swirled around a cast of governors and senators, many from competitive swing states that could determine the outcome of the election, including North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo has been among those who have received vetting materials, a person familiar with the matter said. Another cabinet member and former 2020 presidential candidate, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has suggested he is open to being Harris vice presidential pick.

In an acknowledgment of the way race and gender are factoring into the 2024 election, Harris is mostly considering male and White candidates for the post. Harris, who made history in her role as vice president, would be the first woman of color to win a major political party nomination in US history.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder has been tapped to lead the vetting process, according to a person familiar with the process.

--With assistance from Jenny Leonard.

(Adds comment from Harris spokesman in third paragraph)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Vice President Harris leads former President Trump by 8 points in Maine about 100 days out from Novembers election, according to a poll from the University of New Hampshire released Friday.

The poll showed 48 percent of voters supporting Harris, 40 percent backing Trump, 4 percent for independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and 1 percent each for third-party candidates Jill Stein and Cornel West.

The poll was conducted after President Bidens withdrawal from the presidential race on Sunday; 48 percent of Maine residents surveyed said they were relieved he withdrew from the race, including 50 percent of both Democrats and independent voters.

Theres a stark break in support for Harris between Maines two Electoral College districts  along with Nebraska, the Pine Tree State is one of two in the country that splits its presidential votes. In Maines southern 1st District, which leans heavily to the left, Harris leads by 20 points. While the northern 2nd District, which Trump won in 2016 and 2020, the 45th president leads by 4 points.

The poll is another positive sign for the vice presidents newly established campaign. In an April 30 poll conducted by Digital Research in April, Biden led by just 2 points in Maine, lagging far behind his 2020 performance.

Harris is viewed more favorably than the GOP ticket and than Biden, with a 42 percent approval rate. In comparison, Trump is at 36 percent, and Biden follows at 34 percent.

Trumps vice presidential pick, Ohio Sen. JD Vance (R), lags behind all of them, with less than a third of the electorate viewing him favorably, and 12 percent of Maine voters saying they dont know enough about him to say.

Harris has yet to select her running mate, but two Democrats lead the pack in Maine  21 percent of voters think Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is the best pick for Harris, while 17 percent prefer former astronaut, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.). Other top vice presidential contenders poll in the single digits, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.

The Maine poll was conducted between Tuesday and Thursday with 1,502 eligible voters. The margin of error is 2.5 percent.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Vice President Kamala Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in private Thursday and followed it with a strikingly forceful call on his government to get a cease-fire deal done and ease the suffering of civilians in Gaza.

Harris, as she works to define herself as her partys new likely nominee, did not diverge from Biden administration policy except perhaps in the directness of her message.

Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, she said.

Harris, standing in front of a row of American flags, delivered on-camera remarks soon after the meeting ended. She told reporters that she had a frank conversation with Netanyahu.

The vice president said a two-state solution is the only path to ensure it remains a secure, Jewish and democratic state, while providing Palestinians with the freedom they deserve.

She pleaded with Americans to understand the complexity of the foreign policy issue, urging them to condemn acts of hate, antisemitism, Islamophobia and violence, a day after some protesters burned American flags and voiced support for Hamas in Washington

She addressed head-on the Democratic unrest that has been facing the Biden administration for months.

We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent, Harris said. So to everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire, and to everyone who has been calling for peace, I see you and I hear you. Lets get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Lets bring the hostages home, and lets provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people.

The substance of the vice presidents remarks didnt diverge from President Joe Bidens past comments, but her delivery was notable and offered the clearest picture of Harris views on the conflict to date.

Just days into her young campaign for president, Harris faces the political challenge of defining herself on one of the countrys most fraught foreign policy issues, while continuing to serve under Biden as he works to finalize a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas.



It remains unclear if and how the vice president might try to distance herself from Bidens Israel-Gaza policy, though there has been some daylight between the two leaders in the past. In December, Harris told administration officials, including the president, that she wanted the White House to show more public concern for the humanitarian devastation in Gaza  Biden sharpened his public criticism of Israel in the months after. And she also argued at the time that the administration needed to begin making day after plans for how to handle the aftermath of the war.

Biden met with Netanyahu ahead of Harris meeting, urging the Israeli prime minister to secure a cease-fire deal in Gaza  and the Israeli leader committed to hostages families that he would step up negotiations with Hamas. They held their high-stakes meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday, the leaders first meeting since October and after months of growing frustration in the White House about Netanyahu's approach to the war.

No longer worried about his political future after ending his reelection bid, Biden pledged to take a tougher tone with Netanyahu  with whom he has frequently clashed  to reach an agreement with Hamas to free the groups hostages and end the fighting that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The slow pace of negotiations has angered both Biden and the families of the hostages still being held in Gaza. After the president and prime minister met for 90 minutes, they then spent another hour with the families of Americans still being held captive by Hamas  and the anguished loved one said they felt some new hope.

"After the meeting we feel more optimistic than we have at any point since the previous hostage deal last November," said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of Sagy Chen, told reporters. "Biden and Netanyahu pledged that they understand that time should not be wasted and that the current deal on the table should be completed with as few changes as possible.

With each passing day bringing our loved ones back alive becomes less likely," he said.

Dekel-Chen stressed that the families told Biden and Netanyahu that a deal must be concluded to return all the hostages and end the suffering in Gaza. The families said that Netanyahu denied he was slow-walking the negotiations for his own political benefit and vowed to send a new proposal to Hamas in the coming days.

The war started when Hamas surged across the border on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 hostages. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israels invasion of Gaza, including many civilians.

After bowing out of the presidential race, Biden vowed to make a cease-fire deal a centerpiece of his remaining time in office. National Security spokesman John Kirby, who spoke to reporters as the men met, said that the president believed strongly that it was time to get a hostage deal in place.

The president is reaffirming to Prime Minister Netanyahu that we need to get there and we need to get there soon, Kirby said. There are gaps that remain. But we believe that they are of a nature that can be closed, and we can achieve a deal. But it will require, as it always does, some leadership, some compromise, and some effort to get there."

U.S. officials have said that negotiations in the region would resume next week and that a deal could be struck before long.

Netanyahu is also slated to visit Trump at the Republican nominees Mar-a-Lago estate on Friday.
Vice President Harris said she told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that it is time to get a cease-fire deal with Hamas done, describing their one-on-one meeting as frank and constructive.

Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, sought to dole out in equal measure her position of supporting Israels right to exist and defend itself in its more than nine-month war against Hamas and her serious concern about the scale of suffering for Palestinian civilians.

I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself including from Iran and Iran-backed militias such as Hamas and Hezbollah, she said in remarks following her meeting with the Israeli leader.

Ive said it many times but it bears repeating, Israel has a right to defend itself, but how it does so matters, she continued, saying she brought up with Netanyahu the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.

Emhoff goes to bat for Harris in challenging Trump on the trail

Harriss remarks, delivered from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, served to lay out how she will distinguish herself from President Biden on foreign policy heading into her campaign against former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee.

While the White House says there is no daylight between Harris and Biden on the message they delivered to Netanyahu, the vice president has distinguished herself as more empathetic to the plight of Palestinians among those who criticize the president for failing to hold Netanyahu to account.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating, Harris said. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.

Still, the vice president condemned Hamas as a brutal terrorist organization that triggered the war with its attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

It massacred 1,200 innocent people, including 44 Americans. Hamas has committed horrific acts of sexual violence and took 250 hostages. There are American citizens who remain captive in Gaza, Harris said, reading out the names of the eight men and women, alive and dead, who remain in Hamas captivity.

Harris described hopeful movement on talks to secure a cease-fire deal first laid out by Biden at the end of May.

So to everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you, Harris said.

Lets get the deal done. So we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Lets bring the hostages home. And lets provide much-needed relief to the Palestinian people. And ultimately, I remain committed to a path forward that can lead to a two-state solution.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 would a Harris presidency mean for the environment?

Vice President Harriss ascendance as the likely Democratic nominee has sent a wave of excitement through environmental advocates and climate hawks in Congress, who point to her history of investigating the oil industry and support for the Green New Deal in the Senate.

Environmental issues have not been a major part of Harriss portfolio as vice president, but advocates see her as a figure who both has bona fides on the issue and is positioned to generate enthusiasm among younger and more progressive voters who were ambivalent about President Bidens reelection bid.

I think she deserves more credit than she often gets in this area, said Lena Moffitt, executive director at Evergreen Action. Shes made it a priority of the offices shes overseen going back two decades in a way thats really impressive.

Harriss tenure as California Attorney General included a 2016 investigation into allegations that ExxonMobil knowingly concealed the impacts of fossil fuels on climate change, although no case was ultimately filed. The same year, her office reached a $14 million settlement with BP subsidies over allegations the companies had not properly secured leaky underground gas tanks at California stations, and brought criminal indictments against a Houston pipeline operator over a 2015 rupture in Santa Barbara County.

As a senator and presidential candidate, Harris staked out positions to Bidens left on climate and energy issues. Unlike Biden, she supported a fracking ban and the ambitious suite of climate actions introduced by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) known as the Green New Deal.

Were seeing this enthusiasm for a reason, Moffitt said. She has gone out on a limb to show leadership in this area.

The same positions that are inspiring enthusiasm among environmental advocates could also fuel attacks from conservatives, however.

Former President Trump has frequently, and misleadingly, conflated Bidens energy policies with the Green New Deal. Those attacks could take on a new context against an opponent who has backed the policies.

Republicans have already indicated a willingness to attack Harris  and other Democrats  over her positions.

As early as July 12, more than a week before Biden officially withdrew from seeking reelection, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), a vocal Trump ally, told Fox Newss Shannon Bream that if Trump were to run against Harris, he would invoke her co-sponsor[ing] this radical Green New Deal.

And Rep. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), the GOP Senate nominee against Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), swiftly sought to tie Casey to Harriss previous support for a fracking ban.

Former President Trump also pointed to Harriss past support for a fracking ban, among other positions she has taken, as he attacked her during a Wednesday rally as an ultra liberal and a lunatic.

Its unclear whether she would still back a fracking ban as president. Harris walked back her support for such a ban after joining Biden, who opposed one, on the Democratic ticket in 2020.

The issue has a particular prevalence now because Pennsylvania, the nations second-largest natural gas-producing state, is also a critical swing state in the upcoming election.

A spokesperson for the Harris campaign referred The Hill to a campaign statement about Trumps reported promise to oil executives to roll back environmental regulations in exchange for $1 billion in campaign contributions, as well as noting record U.S. oil production under the current administration.

The Trump campaign has called those reports false, and a source who confirmed Trumps request to The Hill denied a quid pro quo was proposed.

Democratic strategist Mark Longabaugh said attacks related to Harriss environmental record will likely come her way no matter what.

I think [Democratic] candidates and the environmental community need to lean in on these things, he said.

Specifically, Longabaugh said Harris can go on the offensive against Trump on environmental issues by contrasting her and the Biden administrations records with Trumps, as well as his reported reported remarks to oil executives.

I believe the Republicans and Trump will try and make those attacks, I just dont think theyll stick if we do the work thats necessary in any political campaigns, Longabaugh told The Hill.

In addition to environmental groups, Harris also received high marks from some members of the congressional Democratic caucus who have long pressured Biden for aggressive action on climate and the environment.

Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday that Harris, who has invoked her law enforcement background to draw a contrast with Trumps recent felony convictions, could make a similar argument to take on polluters as president.

I do think that that that fighting bad guys and protecting the planet is popular and theres nobody better positioned to fight the bad guys and protect the planet than a former prosecutor, he said.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Ca.), a member of the House Natural Resources Committee who has confirmed he has ambitions of chairing it, said Harris is going to be great on the environment as president.

She is going to prosecute the case in every way against Trumps Project 2025, Huffman said, referencing the Heritage Foundations policy manifesto for a future Republican administration, which includes calls to make sharp reversals on environmental policies. Former President Trump has sought to distance himself from the project, though much of it was written by former members of his administration.

Shes going to bring the best of this administrations record forward for another four years, Huffman continued. Shes going to bring her own unique California-based perspective on innovation and clean energy, and I just cant wait. Its really exciting.

Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who chaired the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis before it was disbanded under the Republican majority, said she would be very much excited about a Harris presidency, saying she could specifically speak to climate change as an economic issue.

Shes been committed to everyday Americans and lowering their costs, and people now are more awake than ever to what climate change is doing to their pocketbooks, Castor told The Hill. Florida in particular has seen numerous insurers exit the state due to a combination of fraud rates and increasingly costly natural disasters.

Its not clear how much, if any, of the current cabinet a hypothetical Harris administration would leave in place, but Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan have both been broadly popular among climate-focused voters and advocacy groups.

Regan was noncommittal on whether he would remain at the EPA under a Harris administration, telling The Hill Ive learned not to get out ahead of any conversations that Ive had with the president and the vice president.

Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz told The Hill in a statement, Secretary Haaland is committed to fulfilling the mission of the Department and ensuring that communities, wildlife and Tribal Nations thrive. We have nothing further to offer.

Rachel Frazin 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.
Georgia Democrats will gather in Fulton County on Friday afternoon for the opening of a coordinated campaign office promoting Vice President Kamala Harris presidential campaign.

According to a release from the Harris Campaign, members of Georgias Democratic Party, as well as East Point officials and a U.S. Representative will be at the event.

The campaign said this is the 22nd coordinated office Democrats are opening in the state of Georgia, dedicated to energizing voters and electing Vice President Harris and Democrats up and down the ticket.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

The office opening up comes just days before Harris is set to visit Atlanta for a presidential campaign event.

On Friday morning, the Vice Presidents presidential campaign was endorsed by former President Barack and former First Lady Michelle Obama.

RELATED STORIES:

The event starts at 1 p.m. and will include:

U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal

East Point Mayor Deana Holiday Ingraham

Democratic Party of Georgia Senior Caucus Chair Gloria Jenkins

Candidate for East Point City Council Jermaine Wright

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

IN OTHER NEWS:
Harris said she would not be silent on Palestinian suffering in Gaza after talks with Netanyahu

Insights from The Times of Israel, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and Axios

The News

US Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris said that she would not be silent on Palestinian suffering in Gaza after talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

She pressed for a peace deal during her conversation with Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday and expressed her serious concerns over casualties in Gaza.

Her comments were seen as striking a tougher tone than that adopted by President Joe Biden, who met Netanyahu earlier in the day and has for months faced criticism from progressives over his unequivocal support for Israel.



SIGNALS

Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories.

Israel accuses Harris of emboldening Hamas

Sources: The Times of Israel, Axios

Despite Harris perceived outspokenness on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, US officials denied there was any substantive daylight between her and Biden on the issue. But a top Israeli official said the government had been uncomfortable with the remarks, and suggested they risked making a truce deal harder to secure by emboldening Hamas, The Times of Israel reported. Israels hardline finance minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on X that Harris comments represented a surrender to [Hamas military leader Yahya] Sinwar, while national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir tweeted: There wont be a stop to the war, Mrs. Candidate. However, families of hostages still held in Gaza said they felt more optimistic about a hostage deal following Bidens meeting with Netanyahu, Axios reported.

It could be savvy for Harris to take a tougher stance on Israel

Sources: The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, The Hill

It would be politically savvy for Harris to change US policy toward Israel, argued the first Jewish appointee to resign from Bidens administration in protest of the war in Gaza: What better way to draw attention to the authoritarianism of Trump than for Harris to resoundly reject authoritarianism abroad? But Harris should tack to the center, a Wall Street Journal columnist argued, instead of appeasing leftists, a minority of Democrat voters. Still, Gaza remains a top issue for voters in swing states like Michigan, and a more even-handed approach from Harris would mobilize groups that won Biden the presidency in 2020, a political activist told The Hill.
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- China has allocated 66 million yuan (about 9.26 million U.S. dollars) of funds to support urgent restoration of roads damaged by rain-triggered floods and geological disasters, the Ministry of Finance said Friday.

The funds will be used to restore roads that have been damaged by flooding and geological disasters in six provincial regions, including Shaanxi, Sichuan, Henan, Shandong, Chongqing and Jiangsu, while also ensuring the safety of the road infrastructure during the flood season, it said. 
Harris says she will not be silent about suffering in Gaza, stresses complexity of the war

Harris says she will not be silent about suffering in Gaza, stresses complexity of the war

Harris said after her meeting with Netanyahu that Israels war with Hamas is complicated and that too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but.

The vice president said she supports Israels right to defend itself but also described widespread suffering among Gazas civilian population as fighting continues.

We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies, she said. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.

Harris said she had a frank and constructive meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Emphasizing that she and President Biden are working every day to bring home U.S. hostages being held in Gaza, she also expressed concerns about civilians being killed and displaced in Gaza, saying, I will not be silent.

The vice president recalled planting trees for Israel as a child and said that as a senator from California and as vice president shes had an unwavering commitment to the existence of the state of Israel and its people. She said Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters.

Harris said both sides are working toward a cease-fire and that she remains committed to a two-state solution.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Harris Says She Pressured Netanyahu to Get Cease-Fire Deal Done

(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Kamala Harris said she pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a cease-fire and warned him about the civilian death toll in Gaza during a meeting  their first since she entered the 2024 race for the White House.

Most Read from Bloomberg

As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done, Harris told reporters after meeting with the Israeli leader on Thursday.

Harris said she had made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Listen and follow The Big Take DC on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts

With over 2 million people facing high levels of food insecurity, and over half a million people facing catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity, what has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating, she said. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent.

The comments from Harris struck a far more strident tone than the language President Joe Biden has customarily used while discussing the conflict, suggesting an alternate approach the vice president  now likely the Democratic presidential nominee  may adopt.

Democrats are heading into the November election against Republican Donald Trump with the conflict in Gaza threatening to fracture their electoral coalition. Harris has expressed more empathy for Palestinian suffering than Biden throughout the war.

Harris on Thursday acknowledged the domestic political tensions over the war in Gaza.

To everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you. Lets get the deal done, Harris said.

Netanyahus visit has put a spotlight on those intraparty tensions. He delivered a fiery address to Congress on Wednesday that defended Israels war, dismissed concerns about the mounting civilian death toll in Gaza and urged the US to fast-track weapons to help his country achieve victory.

The speech was boycotted by many top Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and drew massive protests near the US Capitol. Video footage showed some demonstrators pulling down a US flag near Washington Union Station and setting it on fire. Netanyahu in his speech called the protesters useful idiots for Hamas backer, Iran.

Harris has denounced what she called despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric in Washington. Harris said in a statement she supported the right to peacefully protest but condemned the burning of the American flag, saying it should never be desecrated in that way.

Earlier: Netanyahu Vows to Press On in Gaza in Defiant Speech to Congress

Netanyahu met Biden earlier Thursday, thanking the president for his support of Israel and pledging to continue working together at a meeting marking the US leaders first sit-down with a foreign counterpart since forgoing reelection.

From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel, Netanyahu said in the Oval Office.

Netanyahu said the two had known each other for 40 years, adding, I look forward to working with you in the months ahead.

Despite the public display of goodwill, the two leaders have clashed over Israels conduct of the war against Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US and European Union.

The Israeli leader is also seeking to foster ties with Trump, with a planned visit Friday to the former presidents Mar-a-Lago resort. The two enjoyed a close relationship during Trumps presidency but they split over Netanyahus recognition of Bidens 2020 election victory.

Netanyahus address to Congress made no direct mention of a cease-fire proposal put forward by Biden. Senior administration officials said Wednesday that negotiations for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas are continuing. Netanyahu, however, repeated his stance that the war will not end until Hamas is destroyed.

Republicans have assailed the vice president for not attending Netanyahus speech, casting it as a show of disrespect. Harris would have sat behind him on the dais, but was in Indianapolis for a campaign event.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Washington State Democratic Party Chair Shasti Conrad, left, and Vice President Kamala Harris at an event in 2020.

Washington states delegates to the Democratic National Convention united Thursday night behind Vice President Kamala Harriss bid to be the partys presidential nominee.



Delegates, on a 79-17 vote, endorsed Harris after President Joe Biden withdrew as a candidate a week ago. The Democratic National Committee intends to conduct a virtual nomination vote for its presidential candidate as soon as Aug. 1.

With Harris as our nominee we will protect our fundamental rights and freedoms and defeat Donald Trumps and MAGAs extremist Project 2025 agenda, Washington State Democratic Party chair Shasti Conrad said in a statement.

As a party, we will shield Vice President Harris from the racism and misogyny already being hurled her way while also amplifying her vision for a democratic and prosperous future, she said.

Harris had already cemented her status as presumptive nominee before Washingtons delegation met Thursday.

A survey by The Associated Press found 3,284 delegates who had said by Thursday morning they would support her on the first ballot of the partys nominating vote. A candidate needs 1,976 delegates on the first ballot to secure the Democratic nomination.

Democrats will still hold a ceremonial roll call of the states from the floor of the United Center in Chicago during the convention that starts Aug. 19.

Washington is sending 111 voting delegates to the convention.

Of those, 90 had been pledged to Biden, and two are uncommitted. Washington also has 19 automatic delegates who are party leaders, members of Congress and statewide elected officials. As a result of Bidens exit, all the delegates are able to cast their vote for any qualified candidate, or not vote at all, during the virtual nomination vote.

The purpose of Thursdays meeting was to gauge the states delegations sentiment ahead of that tally.

State party officials said 119 people  delegates and newly elected alternates  were eligible to participate. Those who dissented were not necessarily opposed to Harriss ultimate nomination but seemed disinclined to making an endorsement decision at this stage, officials surmised.

In the meantime, Donald Trump is the official Republican Party candidate following his formal nomination at the GOP national convention earlier this month in Wisconsin.
Nearly five months after Donald Trump vowed on social media that he would debate ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE, the former president has backed out of that promise.

Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee, Trumps communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Cheung referenced former president Barack Obama, who has yet to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, and claimed that there is a strong sense in the Democrat Party that Harris cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone better.'

Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds, wrote Cheung.

The news arrives after Trump and President Joe Biden previously agreed to two televised debates, one on June 27 and the other on Sept. 10, before the first took a disastrous turn as Bidens performance cast widespread doubt among the Democratic party and led to calls for him to step aside for a younger, more able nominee.

Amid the mounting outcry, Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and minutes later, endorsed Harris. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year, wrote Biden in a statement at the time. Democrats  its time to come together and beat Trump. Lets do this. His endorsement was soon followed by other party leaders, including former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Earlier this week, Harris earned support from enough Democratic delegates to become the likely party nominee for president. Delegates at the Democratic national convention will still be able to vote for the candidate of their choice in August, however, and a virtual roll call will be held during which convention delegates can pick a nominee prior to the Chicago event.

Trump, who previously said that the debates could be run by the Corrupt DNC when faced with Biden as an opponent, recently said that he believes a debate against Harris should be hosted by Fox News, instead of ABC News.

Despite his waning eagerness to take on Harris, on Thursday, the vice president said she is ready to go in a showdown against Trump and accused him of backpedaling.

I have agreed to the previously agreed upon Sept. 10 debate. He agreed to that previously, Harris said. Now, here he is backpedaling, and Im ready, and I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage, and so Im ready. Lets go.

VP: Trump agreed upon September 10 debate. It now appears he is backpedaling, but I'm ready and I think the voters deserve to see this split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage. And so I'm ready, let's go. pic.twitter.com/ys43ssm748  Acyn (@Acyn) July 25, 2024

Shortly after Trumps campaign released the statement backing out of the scheduled debate, Harris posted to X: What happened to any time, any place?

What happened to any time, any place? https://t.co/HlR6UmlZxx  Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 26, 2024

More from Rolling Stone

Best of Rolling Stone
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  Former president Donald Trump appears to be walking back his commitment to a 2nd presidential debate.

His campaign says they are waiting until Vice President Kamala Harris is formally nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate.

A spokesperson with the Trump campaign argued because of recent political chaos within the Democratic party it would be inappropriate to schedule a debate because Democrats could change their candidate.

On the heels of a multi-state campaign run Harris told reporters she and Trump each agreed to debate in September.

I think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage and so, I am ready. Lets go, Harris said.

Back in May President Joe Biden and Trump agreed to two debates one in June on CNN, the other in September on ABC.

In a tweet Harris asked what happened to anywhere any time. Trump insists he wants to debate Harris and is not shying away from criticizing the VP.

Kamala Harris is the most liberal elected politician in American history, said Trump.

Earlier this week Trumps running mate Senator J.D. Vance suggested he wanted in on the action.

I was told I was going to get to debate Kamala Harris, and now President Trump is going to get to debate her? Im kind of pissed off about that, if Im being honest with you, said Vance.

Since President Biden dropped out of the race Trump says he would prefer if FOX News hosted the next debate.

FOX News has now requested to host a debate a week after the ABC debate. The Harris campaign has not responded.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) Harrisburg residents often see that when the weather gets hotter, acts of violence become more frequent.

According to the Harrisburg Bureau of Polices second-quarter report, the Bureau established first-quarter goals of maintaining a homicide clearance rate above the national average and reducing gun violence in the city. While the Bureau is living up to its goal of keeping homicide clearance above the national average, gun violence reports to the Bureau show it has gotten slightly worse during its second quarter.

Statistics from the report show an increase from three reported homicides and murders in the first three months of the year to eight reported homicides and seven murders in more recent months.

Additionally, the Bureau made 454 total arrests in its second quarter compared to its previous with 373 arrests.

The nations opioid epidemic continues to sweep the nation, and Harrisburg is no different.

While the Bureau saw a slight decline in drug violations from its previous term, it also saw a rise in Narcan-administered overdose deaths.

But its not all bad news.

The Harrisburg Bureau of Police has made progress in taking guns off the street. Last month, in collaboration with Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis, the Harrisburg Bureau of Police hosted a gun buyback event where they took around 100 firearms off the street. Only 43 firearms were taken off the street during the first quarter.

1369816Download

The Harrisburg Bureau of Police says its continuing its work in quelling gun violence in the city, maintaining and improving upon community response services, and keeping the homicide clearance rate above the national average.

To check out the City of Harrisburg Bureau of Polices full quarterly report, you can 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 ABC27.
Weinstein is currently waiting to be retried in Manhattan on sex crime charges after a New York appeals court reversed his 2020 conviction

Jefferson Siegel - Pool/Getty Harvey Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein has reportedly been hospitalized with COVID-19 and double pneumonia.

The former film producers representative and prison consultant Craig Rothfeld revealed in a statement obtained by multiple outlets on Thursday, July 25, that Weinstein had been transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward.

Weinstein, 72, is being treated for the "conditions that he is still afflicted with on a daily basis such as diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions," Rothfeld said, per NBC News.

"In addition, Mr. Weinstein tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs, the statement continued.

PEOPLE has contacted Weinsteins rep for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.

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.

YANN COATSALIOU/AFP via Getty Harvey Weinstein in 2017

Related: Harvey Weinstein Hospitalized in N.Y.C. After Rape Convictions Overturned

Rothfeld added to The Hollywood Reporter, We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses at DOCS, CHS, and NYC H+H who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward and will continue working hand in hand with them to ensure Mr. Weinstein receives proper medical treatment.

Weinstein was previously hospitalized in April to undergo a series of tests.

His attorney Arthur Aidala told Deadline at the time, "They examined him and sent him to Bellevue. It seems like he needs a lot of help, physically. He's got a lot of problems. He's getting all kinds of tests. He's somewhat of a train wreck health-wise.

Scott Heins/Getty Harvey Weinstein in 2020

Related: Harvey Weinstein's Lawyers Argue He Was Denied a Fair Trial in Appeal of L.A. Rape Conviction: Reports

Weinstein is currently waiting to be retried in Manhattan on sex crime charges after a New York appeals court reversed his 2020 conviction.

In February 2020, Weinstein was found guilty in New York City of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape during the landmark #MeToo era case. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.

However, on April 25, 2024, the New York Court of Appeals overturned that conviction in a 4-to-3 decision. This came after the high court found that trial judge James Burke erroneously allowed three women whose allegations were not a part of the criminal case against Weinstein to testify about the producer's prior bad acts.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Disgraced and imprisoned movie mogul Harvey Weinstein tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs, Juda Engelmayer, Weinsteins spokesman, said in a statement Thursday.

Craig Rothfeld, Mr. Weinsteins authorized representative and prison consultant, confirms that Mr. Weinstein has been brought back to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward so that he can be treated for the myriad of health conditions that he is still afflicted with on a daily basis such as diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions. In addition, Mr. Weinstein tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs, the statement said.

Engelmayer also confirmed to CNN that Weinstein was transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward late on Wednesday night.

The New York Court of Appeals overturned a sex crimes conviction against Weinstein in April, but he has remained in custody in New York. The Manhattan District Attorneys Office said in April that it plans to retry the case, in which he was originally convicted in 2020 of first-degree criminal sexual act and third-degree rape and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

In 2022, the former film producer was found guilty of three of seven charges of rape and sexual assault against one of four women he was accused of assaulting in Los Angeles.

In that case, Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

He has maintained his innocence and denied any nonconsensual sexual activity.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
NEW YORK  Disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein has been hospitalized with COVID-19 and double pneumonia, alongside a range of ongoing health issues, as he prepares for a pretrial on sexual assault charges in New York.

The convicted sex offender, 72, who is currently incarcerated, was transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward in Manhattan on Thursday, reported Deadline.

Craig Rothfeld, Mr. Weinsteins authorized representative and prison consultant, confirms that Mr. Weinstein has been brought back to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward so that he can be treated for the myriad of health conditions that he is still afflicted with on a daily basis, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions, his lawyers told the outlet.

Rothfeld added Weinstein also tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs.

Earlier this month, a Manhattan judge set a Nov. 12 trial date for the former moviemakers retrial on sex crime charges after his previous conviction was overturned on appeal in April.

The tentative trial date was set, though the court indicated that the date could be moved up depending on the pace of the grand jury proceedings.

Prosecutors have recently accused the 72-year-old of raping more women than those included in his previous prosecution.

Weinstein, who has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct, is also currently appealing a rape conviction in Los Angeles, where he was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

_____
Harvey Weinstein appears for a pretrial hearing in Manhattan criminal court, Friday, July 19, 2024, in New York. The former Hollywood movie mogul appeared Friday ahead of a planned retrial on rape and sexual assault charges. (Adam Gray/Pool Photo via AP)

NEW YORK (AP)  Former film mogul Harvey Weinstein has been transferred from a New York City jail to a hospital to undergo treatment for a variety of health problems including COVID-19 and pneumonia in both lungs, his representatives said Thursday.

Weinstein, who is awaiting trial in New York on rape and sexual assault charges, was moved from the city's Rikers Island jail complex to a locked ward at Bellevue Hospital. The other conditions he was to be treated for included diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, and fluid on his heart and lungs, according to a statement released by Weinstein's publicist that attributed the health information to Craig Rothfeld, Weinsteins prison consultant.

We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses in the city's corrections and public hospital systems who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, said the publicist, Juda Engelmayer.

Weinstein has had at least one stint at Bellevue before, after he was first brought to New York City for legal proceedings related to his rape case.

Weinstein, 72, was found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault. The conviction was tossed out by appeals judges who said jurors shouldnt have heard testimony from women who had accused the film producer of misconduct but whose allegations werent part of the case.

A retrial has been scheduled for November.

While his conviction was thrown out, Weinstein has remained behind bars in part because he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in California after he was convicted in a rape case in Los Angeles in 2022.

Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone.

At a recent court hearing, Weinstein's lawyers had said he was in poor health and asked for him to be transferred from the jail to the hospital.
Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, attends a teleconference convened by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters in Beijing, capital of China, July 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin)

BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing on Friday called for high vigilance against floods, emphasizing that people's safety must always come first.

Zhang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during a teleconference convened by the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters in Beijing.

He stressed ensuring that all responsibilities are thoroughly enforced, implementing targeted measures, and fortifying disaster defenses to win the battle against floods.

Noting that China's flood prevention and disaster relief situation remains severe, Zhang urged authorities to promptly and decisively evacuate residents from dangerous areas to minimize casualties.

Preparations for Typhoon Gaemi were also critical, with measures for wind damage prevention and risk mitigation in place to minimize disaster losses, he said.

Zhang instructed officials to conduct thorough inspections and risk assessments concerning transportation infrastructure, embankments and reservoirs, and prevent secondary geological disasters such as mountain floods and landslides. 
Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced Hollywood movie mogul who has been in prison following a sexual assault conviction, has been hospitalized after testing positive for COVID-19 and double pneumonia, his rep told The Hollywood Reporter.

Weinstein was taken back to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward to be treated for a myriad of health conditions that still affect him on a daily basis such as diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions, according to his representative and prison consultant Craig Rothfeld. He then tested positive for COVID-19 and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses at DOCS, CHS, and NYC H+H who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward and will continue working hand in hand with them to ensure Mr. Weinstein receives proper medical treatment, he rep added in a statement.

Weinstein was serving a 23-year jail sentence after his 2020 rape conviction in New York, however, it was overturned earlier this year. A tentative new trial date has been set, with jury selection estimated to begin on Nov. 12.

In the original New York case, he was found guilty on two charges  criminal sexual assault in the first degree, based on the testimony of former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley, and rape in the third degree, based on the testimony of onetime aspiring actress Jessica Mann.

He was also convicted by a Los Angeles jury in 2022 on three counts of sexual assault against Jane Doe No. 1, who later came forward as former Russian model Evgeniya Chernyshova. Weinstein has also filed to appeal that 16-year prison sentence.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter
Harvey Weinstein in Manhattan Criminal Court on July 19, 2024 - Credit: Kena Betancur-Pool/Getty Images

Harvey Weinstein has been hospitalized after testing positive for Covid-19 and double pneumonia as he deals with a myriad of health conditions, a representative for the imprisoned former movie mogul confirmed to NBC News Thursday.

Prison consultant Craig Rothfeld told the outlet that the disgraced Hollywood executive was currently at Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, and dealing with conditions that he is still afflicted with on a daily basis such as diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions.

More from Rolling Stone

In addition, Mr. Weinstein tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs, Rothfeld said.

An attorney for Weinstein did not immediately respond to Rolling Stones request for comment.

The health update from Weinstein comes just a few weeks after he appeared at a Manhattan criminal court for a hearing on discovery and compliance on July 9. There, Assistant District Attorney Nicole Blumberg noted that prosecutors are continuing to investigate an alleged violent matter with the possibility of presenting additional charges against him during an upcoming trial, per the Associated Press.

Blumberg claimed that the investigation into new claims from additional women with assault allegations delayed prosecutors in summoning a grand jury. In May, Blumberg stated that some people who were not ready to speak out in 2020 now appear ready to do so.

Weinstein was found guilty of criminal sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree at the original trial in February 2020. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison based on testimonies from Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann. Weinstein was also acquitted on three other charges including two counts of predatory sexual assault, as well as first-degree rape.

In a 77-page decision, the New York Court of Appeals panel decided that the judge who oversaw Weinsteins trial, Justice James M. Burke, should not have allowed prosecutors to let accusers whose allegations were not part of the charges against him to testify in the trial.

Best of Rolling Stone
Harvey Weinstein is in the hospital this week as he faces several health concerns, according to multiple media outlets.

The former film producer, who is currently serving time at Rikers Island in New York, was recently transported to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward. Weinsteins representative and prison consultant, Craig Rothfeld, confirmed his clients hospitalization in a statement shared with NBC News on Thursday, July 25.

The 72-year-old is battling some health issues he deals with on a daily basis, Rothfeld said, which include diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions.

In addition to those ongoing problems, the Miramax co-founder also recently tested positive for COVID-19 and has been diagnosed with double pneumonia, Rothfeld said.

We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses at DOCS, CHS, and NYC H+H who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward and will continue working hand in hand with them to ensure Mr. Weinstein receives proper medical treatment, Weinsteins lawyers told Deadline.

The disgraced movie moguls health was a topic of discussion when his legal team was in court on his behalf on Friday, July 19. Weinstein, who faced dozens of rape and sexual assault allegations during the launch of the #MeToo movement in 2017, is expected to go through a retrial in New York this fall. Weinstein has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.

One of Weinsteins attorneys told reporters last week that his health concerns came up during a sidebar with the judge overseeing last weeks hearing. Weinsteins legal team has alleged that their client has not been receiving the health care he needs while at Rikers, and have been pushing for him to be moved to Bellevue Hospital, according to The Associated Press.

Weinstein was convicted of rape in New York in 2020, but that conviction was tossed by the states Court of Appeals earlier this year. He was also convicted in 2022 of rape and sexual assault in California, where he received a 16-year prison sentence, though his lawyers filed an appeal in that case this past June.

Next: Paris Hilton Recounts Upsetting Harvey Weinstein Incident
Harvey Weinstein has tested positive for COVID and has been hospitalized as he awaits a retrial on sexual assault charges against him in New York.

In a statement to media, the incarcerated producers representative, Craig Rothfeld, said that Weinstein has returned to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward so that he can be treated for the myriad of health conditions that he is still afflicted with on a daily basis, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs and various other conditions.

In addition, Mr. Weinstein tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs, Rothfeld said. We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses at DOCS, CHS, and NYC H+H who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward and will continue working hand in hand with them to ensure Mr. Weinstein receives proper medical treatment.

In 2020, Weinstein was found guilty of first degree criminal sexual assault and third degree rape based on the testimony of former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley and former actress Jessica Mann. Those convictions were overturned this past April in a 4-3 appellate court ruling determining that the judge overseeing the trial prejudiced the jury by allowing women to testify about sexual harassment and assault allegations that were not part of the case.

A retrial has been set for a tentative start on Nov. 12. Even if the retrial leads to an acquittal, Weinstein still faces a 16-year prison sentence in California after he was convicted on three counts of sexual assault in a Los Angeles court in 2022.

The post Harvey Weinstein Hospitalized After Testing Positive for COVID and Double Pneumonia appeared first on TheWrap.
Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, shown in a recent court appearance, has been hospitalized again in New York's Bellevue Hospital prison ward. (Adam Gray / Pool photo)

Former Hollywood movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, who is awaiting retrial on rape charges in New York, has been hospitalized again.

New York Corrections Department records show that the 72-year-old was transferred from the Rikers Island jail complex in to a locked ward at Bellevue Hospital.

At Bellevue, he is undergoing treatment for COVID-19, double pneumonia and other health conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis and fluid on his heart and lungs, his representative told the Associated Press on Thursday.

We continue to express our gratitude to the officers, doctors and nurses in the citys corrections and public hospital systems who saw to it that Mr. Weinstein was immediately transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward, said his publicist, Juda Engelmayer, who attributed Weinstein's health information to his prison consultant, Craig Rothfeld.

Read more: Prosecutors seek September retrial for Harvey Weinstein after N.Y. rape conviction was tossed

Engelmayer did not immediately respond Friday to The Times' request for comment.

Weinstein was previously admitted to Bellevue in late April after an appeals court overturned his 2020 rape conviction.

In May, prosecutors asked for a September retrial during a hearing at a Manhattan courthouse. Weinstein had previously appeared in court using a walker, but appeared at the May preliminary hearing in a wheelchair pushed by a court officer. Defense attorney Arthur Aidala said Weinstein was attending the hearing despite his hospitalization and was undergoing unspecified tests due to health issues.

Aidala added that he had no concerns about his clients mental abilities, describing Weinstein as sharp as a tack. As sharp as he ever was," the AP reported.

Reports later surfaced that alleged the "Shakespeare in Love" and "Pulp Fiction" producer was receiving special treatment at Bellevue, and he was pulled out of the medical center.

Read more: Is Harvey Weinstein's California conviction in jeopardy after N.Y. appeals ruling?

Weinstein was initially sentenced in 2020 to 23 years in prison in New York after allegedly assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haley and once-aspiring actor Jessica Mann. The state appellate court overturned the conviction last spring, determining that the judge who presided over Weinsteins 2020 trial prejudiced his case by allowing four women who accused Weinstein of assault to serve as witnesses despite their allegations not being part of the case.

The court ruled that the trial judge also erred in ruling that prosecutors could cross-examine Weinstein about uncharged and decades-old allegations if he decided to testify.

Read more: Hollywood, accusers condemn reversal of Weinstein conviction: 'We know what happened'

Weinstein's New York retrial hinges on whether the women who accused him of assault are willing to testify again. Haley has said that she is still considering it, and prosecutors have said Mann is prepared to testify, suggesting setting a date for a retrial after Labor Day.

Weinstein is due to return to court Aug. 7, jail records said.

The disgraced studio boss was convicted of rape in Los Angeles in 2022 and is still sentenced to 16 years in prison in California.

Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Harvey Weinstein has been admitted to hospital with Covid and double pneumonia in the latest episode of ill health to hit the disgraced producer.

The 72-year-old, who is awaiting a retrial in his New York rape case, was moved from Rikers Island jail to Bellevue Prison Hospital on Friday.

He is being treated for a myriad of health conditions, including diabetes, high blood pressure, a spinal condition and fluid in his heart and lungs, according to Craig Rothfeld, a prison consultant.

The former film mogul spent 10 days in Bellevue Hospital in April, with Arthur Aidala, his lawyer, describing him at the time as somewhat of a train wreck, health-wise whose life is on the line but is mentally still sharp as a tack.

Once one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, Weinstein fell from grace when dozens of women came forward to accuse him of inappropriate and criminal behaviour.

He was found guilty in 2020 of rape and sexual assault but the conviction was overturned on appeal in April.

New Yorks highest court found Weinstein did not get a fair trial because a judge had improperly allowed testimony from accusers who were not directly linked to the case. It was one of a series of egregious errors the Court of Appeals identified as depriving him of due process. A retrial has been scheduled for November.

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, is pressing for an early retrial for Weinstein - Seth Wenig/AP

He has denied any wrongdoing and claimed that all sexual activity was consensual.

Weinstein has remained behind bars in part because he was sentenced to 16 years in prison in California after he was convicted in a rape case in Los Angeles in 2022.

Weinstein has often appeared in recent court hearings in a wheelchair and looking frail. New York prosecutors are now pushing for a new trial as early as September and Weinsteins lawyers have said they want to proceed as soon as possible.

Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, has vowed to do everything in our power to retry the case and said his office remains steadfast in our commitment to survivors of sexual assault.

Prosecutors said they intend to charge Weinstein for additional violent sexual assaults after more women agreed to testify.

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.
Harvey Weinstein has been hospitalized for a "myriad of health conditions" and has also contracted COVID-19 and double pneumonia, according to his representative.

Weinstein, 72, was transferred to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward in Manhattan, his representative and prison consultant, Craig Rothfeld, said Thursday.

PHOTO: Harvey Weinstein appears in Manhattan Supreme Court as Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg prepares to file new charges in the rape case against him on July 9, 2024 in New York City. (Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images, FILE)

He is being "treated for the myriad of health conditions that he is still afflicted with on a daily basis such as diabetes, high blood pressure, spinal stenosis, fluid on his heart and lungs, and various other conditions," Rothfeld said.

"In addition, Mr. Weinstein tested positive for COVID and contracted double pneumonia in his lungs," Rothfeld said.

MORE: Harvey Weinstein set to be retried on sex crime charges Nov. 12

Weinstein is currently awaiting retrial in Manhattan on sex crime charges after his conviction was overturned on appeal in April. He is tentatively set to be retried in November.

Prosecutors accused the disgraced movie mogul earlier this month of raping more women than those included in his previous prosecution.

MORE: Harvey Weinstein raped additional women, prosecutor says, but yet to file new charges

Weinstein has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct, and his attorneys have expressed skepticism about any new accusers.

He is separately fighting a rape conviction in Los Angeles, where his defense attorneys argued he lacked a fair trial. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in that case.

ABC News' Aaron Katersky contributed to this report.

Harvey Weinstein transferred to hospital, has COVID-19 and double pneumonia: Rep originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
TOMS RIVER  Had the knife with which Dion Marsh stabbed him not broken off in his neck, Tzbi Schechter believed Marsh would have stabbed him again in the chest and killed him, Schechter said in a letter read in court Friday.

Schechter, in his letter read to Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan by Executive Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Michael Weatherstone, recounted the events of April 8, 2020, when Marsh ran over him with a car.

Schechter, in the letter, said he was in agony, believing both of this legs were broken, when Marsh asked if he was okay. When he responded he wasn't, Marsh "kicked me in my ribs and stomped on my injured foot," he said.

Dion Marsh listens to his attorneys Bill Smith and Vita Mennie during his sentencing Friday, July 26, 2024, for terrorism in a violent crime spree targeting Orthodox Jews in Lakewood and Jackson. Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan presided over the proceeding at the Ocean County Courthouse in Toms River.

Then, Schechter said he threw up as he felt "the sickening twist of the knife," which broke off in his neck, preventing a further attack.

But, with his jugular vein and an artery severed, Schechter, of Lakewood, said he lost almost half of the blood in his body and nearly died.

"What have I done to you to deserve this?" Schechter said he asked his assailant. Marsh just laughed, he said.

"I was attacked because I was born a Jew," Schechter, who was not in court, said in his letter.

"I was attacked because I dress like a religious Jew and because, in the defendant's own words, 'Jews are the devil,' " he said.

Schechter was one of six Orthodox Jews terrorized by Marsh that day and one of four Marsh tried to kill.

Ryan on Friday sentenced Marsh, 29, of Manchester to 30 years in prison with no chance for early release on parole for his violent crime spree.

The sentence will run concurrently to a 40-year prison term imposed on Marsh Tuesday in federal court in Trenton for federal crimes related to the same course of events.

Dion Marsh stands during his sentencing Friday, July 26, 2024, for terrorism in a violent crime spree targeting Orthodox Jews in Lakewood and Jackson. Superior Court Judge Guy P. Ryan presided over the proceeding at the Ocean County Courthouse in Toms River.

Marsh pleaded guilty in state Superior Court in January to terrorism, admitting a series of acts in Lakewood and Jackson that included a carjacking, the stabbing and hit-and-runs against pedestrians, all on the same day.

Marsh said he specifically targeted all of his victims because he believed they were of the Orthodox Jewish faith.

He later pleaded guilty in federal court in Trenton to five counts of violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and one count of carjacking related to the same series of events.

The acts Marsh admitted to are:

Approaching an occupied vehicle on Arlington Avenue in Lakewood in an unsuccessful attempt to steal the car;

Forcing a motorist out of a 2016 Toyota Camry at Martin Luther King Drive and Pine Street in Lakewood and driving away in it;

Attempting to pull a child out of the front seat of another vehicle at New Egypt Road and Carlton Avenue in Lakewood, while driving his grandmother's Honda Accord, with the intent to injure and terrorize the child;

Striking a pedestrian at Kimball Road and Central Avenue in Lakewood with his grandmother's car with the intent to kill the victim, who survived;

Striking another pedestrian, Schechter, at Pine Circle Drive and New Egypt Road in Lakewood and stabbing him after he fell to the ground;

And, driving over a curb and onto a grass lawn on Galassi Court in Jackson, purposely striking yet another pedestrian,

All of the victims survived.

In pleading guilty, Marsh said he concluded all the victims were Orthodox Jews based on the neighborhoods he was in and the clothing they wore.

When police arrested him later the same night at his home, he was lying on a bed, clasping a machete to his chest. He later admitted the crimes to police, telling detectives, "It had to be done.'' He admitted in court that he also told detectives, "These are the real devils - Hasidic Jews.

Marsh had nothing to say to the judge before he was sentenced.

William Smith of the Ocean County Public Defender's Office asked the judge to take into account that Marsh didn't have a criminal record before this crime spree.

Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer, in a statement issued after the sentencing, vowed to prosecute to the fullest those who commit hate crimes.

"I am hopeful that this lengthy prison sentence will serve as a deterrent to anyone with even the slightest inclination to act on their misguided feelings of bias and hate,'' Billhimer said.

"It is clear that Marsh's virulent rampage was intended to terrorize the Jewish community," the prosecutor said.

"This prison sentence sends a clear message to those who would seek to terrorize innocent citizens of Ocean County, we will pursue you, prosecute you and ultimately convict you," he said. "We will do everything within our power to send you to prison for a very long time. I've said it before and I'll say it again: hate has no home in Ocean County,"

Billhimer thanked all the law enforcement agencies involved in Marsh's swift apprehension after the crime spree and the teamwork that led to the defendant's lengthy prison sentence.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Terror spree in Lakewood, Jackson nets 30-year term for Manchester man
An alternative healer who thought Western medicine was evil has been convicted of manslaughter after a diabetic grandmother died at one of his slap therapy workshops.

Hongchi Xiao, 61, congratulated Danielle Carr-Gomm after she stopped taking insulin at his four-day retreat where he performed paida lajin, a Chinese holistic therapy that involves slapping patients.

Mrs Carr-Gomm, a follower of Xiaos who wanted to get rid of her Type 1 diabetes, fell gravely ill over the course of the workshop at Cleeve House in Seend, Wiltshire, in October 2016.

She was heard howling in pain before dying of diabetic ketoacidosis on the fourth day, aged 71.

Duncan Atkinson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that Mrs Carr-Gomm, who considered Xiao a messenger sent from God, had sought alternatives to her insulin medication because of her vegetarianism and fear of needles.

The court had heard how Xiao said well done to Mrs Carr-Gomm after she told the group she had stopped taking her insulin.

Police said Danielle Carr-Gomm 'put her trust' in Xiao - Wiltshire Police/Solent News & Photo Agency

Mr Atkinson said that by the third day she was vomiting, tired and weak, and by the evening she was howling in pain and unable to respond to questions.

Teresa Hayes, a chef at the workshop, told jurors Mrs Carr-Gomm was delirious and frothing at the mouth before she died, adding that she wanted to call an ambulance but trusted those with more experience of the holistic healing method.

Xiao did not react as he was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence by a jury at Winchester Crown Court.

The alternative therapist, from Cloudbreak, California, will be sentenced on Oct 1.

The court heard he ignored medical evidence that diabetics need lifesaving insulin and evangelised his slap therapy course as a cure for the disease.

Xiao refused to call for urgent medical help, which jurors heard would have saved Mrs Carr-Gomms life, and led patients to think that her worsening condition was a healing crisis.

He rediscovered the ancient Chinese healing art and became the worlds leading expert in it after his re-invention, the court was told. A video released by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) showed how he slapped people during his workshops and encouraged them to slap themselves.

Prosecutors told of his entrenched views that medicines such as insulin were poison and instead believed in the curative powers of paida lajin.

Previous manslaughter conviction

Paida lajin means slap and stretch in Chinese, and practitioners such as Xiao  who has no medical qualifications  believe the practice of slapping people in various positions can cure diseases and ailments.

Xiao claimed it could lead to full recovery in 90 per cent of cases, including for people with diabetes.

In March 2015, he held a workshop in India in conjunction with the Diabetes Research Centre and was given a report informing him about the risk of death for Type 1 diabetics who stop taking insulin.

A month later, in Australia, the parents of a six-year-old boy with the disease took their son to Xiao in the hope of curing him.

The child stopped taking insulin under Xiaos instruction and he died during one of his workshops, around 17 months before Mrs Carr-Gomms death.

Jurors heard Xiao was convicted of manslaughter in Australia over the case.

Important influence

Mrs Carr-Gomm, from Lewes, East Sussex, first attended one of Xiaos workshops in Bulgaria in July 2016.

She was an obsessive vegetarian who had a fear of needles, so did not like injecting insulin and as a result tried every kind of alternative therapy, the court heard.

At the Bulgarian workshop, Xiao assured Mrs Carr-Gomm he could help her with her diabetes and she stopped taking insulin, but was eventually given it when she became extremely unwell.

Mr Atkinson said Xiao had an important influence over Mrs Carr-Gomm and would have known there was an obvious and serious risk of death from her not taking insulin.

He added that Xiaos failure to take reasonable steps in those circumstances substantially contributed to Mrs Carr-Gomms death and amounted to gross negligence.

Giving evidence during the trial, Xiao said he would never persuade someone who needed insulin not to take it, adding that insulin was useful.

On his attitude towards medication at his workshops, he said: First of all, I said Im not a medical doctor, so everyone is responsible for their own medication.

Secondly, Im not fully against medicine, what Im concerned about is the side effect of the medicine.

Hongchi Xiao will be sentenced in October

Little remorse

Following the verdict, Rosemary Ainslie, from the CPS, said Xiao knew the consequences of Ms Carr-Gomms decision to stop taking insulin because he had seen it before.

She added: Hongchi Xiao was the man in charge, yet he failed to respond to Mrs Carr-Gomms worsening condition, with tragic consequences.

His failure to take reasonable steps to help Mrs Carr-Gomm substantially contributed to her death and amounted to gross negligence.

Detective Constable Dave Topp, from Wiltshire Police, said: Danielle put her trust in Xiao; he was extremely convincing and confident in his beliefs.

This has been an extremely complex investigation with a high level of medical expertise sought before Xiao could be extradited and put before the courts.

He added: Xiaos not guilty plea has only shown the little remorse he has over Danielles death and has made an extremely difficult and upsetting process for Danielles family even more prolonged and distressing.

Danielle was a mother and a grandmother who enjoyed life and had a love of travelling.

Her death came as a huge shock to her family and friends and our thoughts are very much with them at this 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.
Health officials raise concerns after 20 cases of dengue fever confirmed in Georgia

Health officials are raising concerns about a significant increase in cases of dengue fever.

Here in Georgia, there are currently 20 reported cases, with most of them in metro Atlanta.

The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a warning to healthcare providers to be vigilant for the virus.

The World Health Organization has also highlighted a dramatic rise in dengue fever cases globally.

Nearly 2,900 Americans have been infected with dengue fever so far this year, which is almost five times the number of cases reported in 2023.

More than 10 million cases have been documented in North and South America alone, doubling last years figures.

ABC News Dr. Darien Sutton said there are several contributing factors to the rise in cases.

TRENDING STORIES:

Weve got more flooding. Weve got extreme record-breaking heat. More international travel. That allows mosquitoes to thrive, and many people come home with these infections. The highest numbers are in New York, most associated with travel, and places like Florida and Puerto Rico mostly associated with mosquito bites, Sutton said.

The virus is not contagious from person to person but is transmitted through mosquito bites.

The CDC issued a health alert to inform healthcare providers of the heightened risk of infection.

The most common symptoms of dengue fever include fever with aches and pains, headache, nausea and vomiting, and a rash.

Severe cases might involve bleeding from the gums or mouth.

Treatment is mostly supportive. Treating from your own couch. For the majority, it will be mild. Staying hydrated. Important to note here, you want to avoid ibuprofen or aspirin. That can increase the rare risk of bleeding, Sutton said.

Doctors stress the importance of prevention and recommend eliminating standing water, using bug repellents containing DEET, and wearing clothes that cover the arms and legs to avoid mosquito bites.

IN OTHER NEWS:
Let the #Paris2024 Olympic Games begin! What unique experiences await us in this fashion & romance capital? Join Xinhua's Miao Xiaojuan as she makes new friends from around the world & soaks in the #sportsmanship of this global event!
Bloomington-based HealthPartners no longer will accept UnitedHealthcares Medicare Advantage plan at the end of the year, meaning some 30,000 senior patients will have to change medical providers or pick a different insurance plan.

HealthPartners says UnitedHealth has been denying insurance claims from the plan at a much higher rate  sometimes 10 times higher  than other insurers and forces unnecessary waits for medical care. Starting next year, HealthPartners wont be making appointments with the insurers patients at all, even if theyre willing to pay much higher, out-of-network rates.

Its unusual for us to leave a health plan network. Unfortunately, after a year of negotiations, weve determined that we can no longer participate in the UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage network, HealthPartners said in a letter to Medicare Advantage users.

UnitedHealthcare told the Pioneer Press they still hope to negotiate an agreement and that HealthPartners accusations are untrue.

Unfortunately, HealthPartners seems intent on disrupting access to care for our Group Retiree members as part of its effort to secure significant rate increases that are not affordable or sustainable for our members, spokesman Cole Manbeck said.

The affected patients, all either 65 or older or with a qualified disability, include around 2,300 retirees of St. Paul Public Schools.

We are mostly in our 80s and healthcare is a big deal for us, said John Brodrick, a retired teacher and school board member who survived quadruple bypass surgery. I am worried about potentially not being accepted by HealthPartners as a member of UnitedHealth.  I dont know if Im going to have to find a new cardiologist on Jan. 1. These are all the questions that are up in the air right now.

HealthPartners runs Regions Hospital in downtown St. Paul, the HealthPartners Clinic in the St. Paul Midway and Lakeview Hospital in Stillwater, among other Twin Cities hospitals, clinics and specialty centers.

St. Paul Public Schools said Friday that the district had no advance notice about the change.

The district is working closely with the insurance providers to identify potential next steps. As soon as we have more information, the district will communicate with the impacted retirees about their options, a district spokesperson said.

The HealthPartners letter suggests patients switch to a different insurance plan if they want to keep receiving care from HealthPartners. Medicares annual enrollment period runs Oct. 15 to Dec. 7.

Uncertainty for retirees

Brodrick said he still was on the school board a few years ago when UnitedHealth won the health contract for retirees with a really low-ball bid, and he made sure to ask if retirees would still be able to access HealthPartners services. I was assured by the benefits department that was true, he said Friday. Whether that was written into the contract or not, I hope St. Paul Public Schools is looking into it. I was uneasy at the time, for a lot of different reasons.

Retired teacher Roy Magnuson said part of the debacle dates to 2019, when the St. Paul Federation of Educators Local 28 switched insurers for active employees, dropping UnitedHealth in favor of a public employees insurance plan. As a result, other employee groups associated with the school district suddenly had less bargaining leverage with UnitedHealth.

The affected employees are retirees for whom the school district continues to pay part of their medical coverage.

Ive had three other people contact me, Magnuson said Friday. Theyre old and theyve stayed with their doctor. The contract was that UnitedHealth would honor out-of-network providers if the school district gave them the contract. The union pulled out on fairly short notice, which left all of the different bargaining units in a different spot.

Brodrick on Friday called on the school district to take a firm, public position in the dispute between the two healthcare giants.

The little guy always seems to get caught in the middle, he said. Healthcare is the elephant in the room of every home in America, but the big-wigs seem to rule.

Related Articles
Heavy rain in northern Japan triggers floods and landslides, forcing hundreds to take shelter

A police vehicle is seen overturned following a heavy rain in Shinjo, Yamagata prefecture, northern Japan Friday, July 26, 2024. Heavy rain hit northern Japan Thursday, triggering floods and landslides, disrupting transportation systems and forcing hundreds of residents to take shelter at safer grounds. (Kyodo News via AP)

TOKYO (AP)  Heavy rain in the past week has triggered floods and landslides in Japan, disrupting transportation and forcing residents to take shelter on safer ground. Four people were missing Friday, including two police officers.

The rain had subsided in Yamagata and Akita prefectures Friday, but the area was still at risk of flooding and landslides. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged people to put safety first.

According to the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, one person was missing Thursday in Yuzawa city in Akita prefecture after being hit by a landslide at a road construction site. In Akita city, rescuers were searching for an 86-year-old man whose bicycle and helmet were found floating by a river, media reports said.

Rescue workers in Yokote city evacuated 11 people from a flooded area with the help of a boat.

In Shinjo city in Yamagata prefecture just south of Akita, two police officers were missing after reporting from a patrolling vehicle that they were being swept away by floodwaters. A police vehicle half filled with water was found by the swollen river, the agency said. Thirty-seven people were stranded at a flooded nursing home in the city.

More than 10 centimeters (4 inches) of rain fell in the hardest-hit Yuza and Sakata towns in Yamagata within an hour earlier Thursday.

Thousands of residents have been advised to take shelter at higher and safer grounds, but it was not immediately known how many people took that advice.

Yamagata Shinkansen bullet train services were still partially suspended Friday, according to East Japan Railway Company.

The Japan Meteorological Agency forecast up to 20 centimeters (8 inches) of more rainfall in the region through Friday evening, urging residents to remain cautious.
Here's what to know about a Trump-Harris televised debate

After President Joe Biden stepped out of the race, the details of a debate between presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican nominee Donald Trump are up in the air.

Trump's campaign said Thursday that he won't participate in a debate until a Democratic nominee is officially selected. The Democratic Party will nominate a presidential candidate at the Democratic National Convention, which is in Chicago on Monday, Aug. 19, through Thursday, Aug. 22.

He initially agreed to debate Harris on Tuesday after Biden dropped out of the election on Sunday, ending his chance for a second term and endorsing Harris.

Harris said Trump is "backpedaling" after agreeing to a Sept. 10 debate.

"But Im ready. And I think that the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage and so, Im ready. Lets go," Harris said Thursday.

All eyes will be on Harris' debate performance after the last Trump-Biden showdown in June ended with top Democrats calling for Biden to step back after concerns about his showing against Trump.

Heres what we know about a potential Trump-Harris debate.

Where and when is the debate?

No concrete dates have been set for a televised debate between the two candidates, but Trump has been vocal about which network should host it.

Biden and Trump were originally scheduled for a second debate on Sept. 10 on ABC. Both candidates committed to the ABC debate on this date before Biden dropped out of the race.

But Trump recently posted on Truth Social that he would instead have the debate aired on a network other than ABC.

Now that Joe has, not surprisingly, has quit the race, I think the Debate, with whomever the Radical Left Democrats choose, should be held on FoxNews, rather than very biased ABC, Trump posted.

Fox News sent a letter to Trump and Harris campaigns on Tuesday inviting the candidates to a debate in Pennsylvania on Sept. 17, according to the letter obtained by The Arizona Republic. The letter states that the network would choose Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum as moderators.

Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee, FOX News Media is amending our proposal for a debate this cycle. Given the race has changed, we'd like to request the opportunity to host a Presidential Debate between VP Harris and former President Trump," the invitation says.

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will face off in the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 5.

When and where was Trump-Biden presidential debate?

The last debate was in Atlanta on June 27. Trump and Biden debated live in CNNs studios.

Unlike most presidential debates in the past that had an audience, the debate featured only Trump, Biden, and moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash of CNN.

CNN reported that over 51 million people tuned into the 90-minute Trump-Biden debate.

When was Kamala Harris last in Arizona?

Harris hasnt been a stranger to Arizona, appearing six times in the last four years.

She visited Phoenix in June to talk about abortion rights, a policy discussion shes led during the Biden-Harris administration.

The second gentleman Doug Emhoff made several stops around Phoenix last week to call for Arizonas support of the Biden-Harris campaign.

When was Donald Trump last in Arizona?

Trump most recently appeared in Arizona last month for the first time since late 2022. He headlined a town hall hosted by Turning Point Action at Dream City Church in northern Phoenix.

His visit to Arizona was a week after a New York jury found him guilty of 34 charges related to a hush money scheme during the 2016 election. The sentencing for the trial was recently pushed to Sept. 18 after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could cause the case to be tossed.

But as the momentum of the Harris campaign sets in, Trumps recently selected running mate JD Vance is set to visit Arizona next week.

Vance will make his first appearance in Arizona next week after he was declared the Republican vice-presidential nominee at the Republican National Convention last week.

Vances rally is scheduled on Wednesday, July 31, at the Arizona Christian University Event Center in Glendale, the Republic reported.

Will there still be a vice-presidential debate?

Details of a televised vice-presidential debate are now skewed after Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

She previously agreed to three preliminary dates for a televised debate with Vance. ABC was set to host the debate on July 23, Aug. 13, or Aug. 12, USA Today reported.

While Harris has yet to choose a running mate, a few candidates are in the running, including Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.

Vance agreed to debate Harris, saying he was annoyed he wouldnt be able to.

I was told I was going to debate Kamala Harris, Vance said in Ohio on Monday. And now President Trump is going to get to debate her? Im kind of pissed off about that, if Im being honest with you.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Will Donald Trump and Kamala Harris debate?
Selling the Pasco County Planning Commission on the need for higher school impact fees wasnt much of a challenge this week given that no aspect of Pasco is getting smaller these days  including the need for more classrooms.

Ray Gadd, Pascos deputy superintendent of schools, said that when the last impact fee study was done in 2017, the cost to build Cypress Creek Middle School was about $178 per square foot. Recently the district built a school building that ran $390 a square foot.

The impact fee increase, he said, is very much needed. He also expressed gratitude that voters approved the Penny for Pasco renewal in the last election  sales tax funds that help the school district keep up with growth. Impact fees are paid by new construction to offset the cost of growth and for schools. That means funding to build new schools, add classrooms and buy buses.

Carson Bise, impact fee consultant, said new impact fees are set by looking at student population growth estimates, calculating how much the school district pays for new school land and considering how much construction costs have risen. The impact fee study determined that there will be 13,700 students generated by new housing units over the next 10 years.

The school district, he said, has plans on the table now to build 4,160 new spots for students at the Kirkland Ranch K-8, Skybrooke K-8, an addition at West Zephyrhills Elementary School and the Dayspring Angeline K-5 in the next five years. Even with those new seats, at the end of five years, the student capacity will still be at 99%, he said.

Without adding the extra space, that would be 105% of capacity.

Bise said it is anticipated that the district will also come forward with plans in that 10-year planning period for new permanent student spots at the high school level.

The added twist on resetting impact fee levels is that the state set limits on impact fee increases in recent years, which means that the new costs will increase incrementally over the next four years.

The impact fees proposed would increase from the current fee of $8,328 for a single-family home to $9,328 in the first year of the new fees and then $1,000 added per year, reaching $12,328 by 2028. The impact fee costs for multifamily housing, such as apartments, will also increase incrementally from the current $4,884 to $6,389, and mobile home fees from $5,114 to $6,477 by 2028.

Gadd said the school district reached out to the Tampa Bay Builders Association early on in the process. Impact fees are always a concern for building interests in a community. He joked that when the 2017 impact fee study was done, an apartment building association voiced concern that increases in multifamily impact fees would be devastating to the apartment building business.

I find that humorous given what has happened with apartments in Pasco since 2017, he said, referring to the explosion in multifamily developments in the county.

Pasco County School Board member Alison Crumbley said the board is strongly behind this increase in the fees. She said the district has grown to nearly 90,000 students. Thank you very much on behalf of my board, she said.

Planning commissioners voted unanimously to recommend the fee increase proposal to the County Commission. Youve got to do what needs to be done for the kids, said Planning Commissioner Derek Pontlitz.

Hearings by the County Commission are slated for Aug. 6 and 21.
The history of Virgin Atlantic: How a record executive took on the airline establishment and won.

Virgin Records founder Sir Richard Branson started Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984.

The airline survived growing pains and financial strife to become a major transatlantic carrier.

Virgin Atlantic celebrated the 40th anniversary of its maiden flight in June.

In June 2024, Virgin Atlantic Airways celebrated the 40th anniversary of its first flight.

Since its founding in 1984, the Richard Branson-led carrier has weathered its fair share of growing pains, financial challenges, and underhanded tactics from its biggest rivals to become one of the industry's most innovative and visible airlines.

Today, as one of Great Britain's two flag carriers, along with British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and its instantly recognizable livery are mainstays at major airports around the world.

"Richard Branson has said what sets this company apart is an immense and obsessed focus on making our customers smile and having the best team in the sky," Virgin Atlantic CEO Shai Weiss told Business Insider in an interview. "Today, we are more mature (as a company) and continue to lead from the front."

Here's a closer look at the 40-year history of Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Before entering the airline industry, Sir Richard made his money in the record business.

Sir Richard Branson, seen here standing inside his Virgin Mega Store in London in 1979. Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Branson established the Virgin brand in 1970 as a discount mail-order record distributor. Within its first decade, the Virgin Group had evolved into a chain of retail locations, a recording studio, and a record label. Virgin Records, which helped bankroll Virgin Atlantic during the airline's nascent years, would go on to sign iconic acts such as the Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, and eventually the Spice Girls.

Branson's first foray into the airline business was an impromptu charter flight in the British Virgin Islands in 1978.

Necker Island is Branson's private island and home in the British Virgin Islands. Virgin Limited Edition

According to Branson, he was bumped from a flight to the British Virgin Islands in 1978, the same year he purchased Necker Island.

"I figured there was a whole plane load of people who wanted to get somewhere  all I needed was the plane," Branson said in a blog post last year. "I went to the back of the airport, hired a plane, and found a blackboard. As a joke, I wrote 'Virgin Airways: $39 single flight' and filled up the flight with all the bumped passengers."

The bankruptcy and liquidation of Laker Airways in 1982 gave Branson the opportunity to officially enter the airline industry.

A Laker Airways DC-10 pictured flying over the Severn estuary in 1973. Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Laker Airways and its McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Skytrains pioneered low-cost, long-haul flights across the Atlantic during the late 1970s but collapsed in early 1982 under the weight of $300 million in debts.

In the wake of Laker's collapse, the airline's former chief pilot, Capt. Alan Hellary and a young American lawyer named Randolph Fields proposed a new, all-business class carrier called British Atlantic Airways.

According to Branson's 1998 autobiography "Losing My Virginity," Fields reached out in February of 1984 with an opportunity to become an investor in British Atlantic.

Before signing on to the new airline, Branson sought advice from Laker Airways founder Sir Freddie Laker.

Sir Freddie Laker (Left) is pictured with Sir Richard Branson holding a bottle of Champagne in 1992, celebrating the christening of a Boeing 747 named "Spirit of Sir Freddie" in Laker's honor. Neil Munns/PA Images/Getty Images

Over the course of a lunch meeting on Branson's houseboat in London, Laker advised the music industry magnate to avoid going with a single-cabin model, whether that be an all-business or a no-frills, all-economy class offering, Branson wrote.

It's advice that Branson took to heart as Virgin Atlantic would go on to pioneer the three-class model, with Business, Premium Economy, and Economy.

According to Branson, Sir Freddie offered another piece of advice that would become handy in the future.

"British Airways will try to wipe you off the map like they did to me. Three words of wisdom: sue the bastards!" Laker told him.

In 1992, Virgin Atlantic christened one of its first Boeing 747s, "Spirit of Sir Freddie," in honor of Laker.

Less than a month after being approached to become an investor, Branson agreed to join the project with the caveat that the airline be renamed Virgin Atlantic Airways.

Capt. Alan Hellary, Richard Branson, and Randolph Fields pictured announcing the creation of Virgin Atlantic in 1984. Express/Getty Images

On February 29, 1984, Branson, Hellary, and Fields held a press conference announcing the launch of a newly renamed Virgin Atlantic Airways.

"The first arrangement I made with Randolph (Fields) was that we would have an equal partnership," Branson wrote in his autobiography. "I would invest the funds; he would run the airline."

In addition to Hellary, Fields also recruited key members of Laker Airways' engineering and operations teams to help run the airline.

Unfortunately, the Fields-Branson partnership would fall apart within weeks.

"The first casualty of Virgin Atlantic Airways was my relationship with Randolph Fields," Branson wrote in "Losing My Virginity."

The two could not agree on how to run the business, and Fields was frozen out of the airline's day-to-day operations. This disagreement led to a 1 million buyout offer from Branson before the airline's first flight, which Fields turned down. Fields would go on to accept an unspecified buyout at a later date.

Branson and company got to work with the goal of getting the airline in the air by June of 1984 to take advantage of the summer travel season.

Branson, pictured on board his houseboart weeks before Virgin Atlantic's maiden flights with a Boeing 747 model. Tom Stoddart/Getty Images

The newly minted airline leased a secondhand 747-200 from Boeing for its maiden flight.

Virgin Atlantic's first plane registration (G-VIRG) was originally delivered to Aerolineas Argentina in 1976 before returning to Boeing in 1982.

Christened the Maiden Voyager, the aircraft remained in the Virgin Atlantic fleet until the early 2000s before spending its final years with Nigeria's Kabo Air. It was scrapped in 2011.

In addition to leasing a plane, the Virgin Atlantic team set up a ticket distribution system and arranged for a rival carrier, British Caledonian, to handle maintenance for the aircraft.

Virgin Atlantic was finally ready for its maiden flight.

Sir Richard Branson posing in front of Virgin Atlantic's first Boeing 747 before the airline's inaugural flight in 1984. Mirrorpix/Getty Images

On June 22, 1984, Virgin Atlantic Airways Flight VS1 departed from London-Gatwick bound for Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. The jumbo jet, delivered to London just days earlier, lifted off with Branson's friends and family, Virgin Group employees, celebrities, media, and 70 cases of Champagne.

Branson called Virgin Atlantic's maiden flight an eight-hour party.

Branson pictured on board Virgin Atlantic's maiden flight in 1984 sitting beside his wife Joan with their daughter Holly. Virgin Atlantic Airways

"People danced in the aisles as we played Madonna's "Like A Virgin" and Culture Club and Phil Collins," Branson wrote in his autobiography.

During a period of calm amid the revelry, they showed the movie "Airplane" while flight attendants passed out ice cream bars.

Virgin Atlantic continued to grow over the next few years.

A group of Virgin Atlantic Airways flight attendants from early in the airline's history posing for a photograph in the first-class cabin of a Boeing 747. Virgin Atlantic Airways

In 1986, Virgin Atlantic expanded to a second route, between London Gatwick and Miami, and added a second plane to the fleet: another 747-200 leased from Boeing.

By 1987, the airline had flown its first million customers across the Atlantic.

In late 1987, British Airways acquired British Caledonian.

A British Airways Airbus A320 parked on the apron at Newcastle Airport in February 1989. Mirrorpix/Getty Images

This merger, which combined the UK's two largest airlines, helped put the growing Virgin Atlantic squarely in British Airways's crosshairs.

Since air transport treaties between the UK and countries like the US and Japan allowed for only two British carriers in each market, the merger proved to be a blessing in disguise for Virgin Atlantic. With British Caledonian out of the picture, Virgin Atlantic was able to jump in as that second British carrier after British Airways and expand to New York JFK, Tokyo, and Los Angeles.

In 1991, Virgin Atlantic was finally granted clearance to operate from Heathrow Airport, London's primary international gateway.

Branson, pictured on the apron at London Heathrow, welcomed Virgin Atlantic's first flight to the airport in 1991. Victor Crawshaw /Mirrorpix/Getty Images

Until that year, Virgin Atlantic's operations were based solely out of the smaller London-Gatwick Airport.

"Due to a single short runway and the lack of connecting flights, Gatwick was less profitable, both for cargo and passengers than Heathrow," Branson wrote in his autobiography. "We were struggling to make money."

According to Branson, an identical route from Heathrow would be 15% more profitable than one from Gatwick.

Virgin Atlantic also pioneered some unique service offerings during its early years.

Richard Branson pictured in 1992 on board a Virgin Atlantic 747 receiving a massage from one of the airline's inflight beauty therapists. Neil Munns - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

In 1990, Virgin Atlantic introduced inflight beauty therapists to its aircraft. The staff members, dressed in white, offered passengers free manicures as well as head, shoulder, and neck massages. The airline discontinued the service in 2008, but massages remain available to customers in its airport lounges.

Virgin Atlantic was the first airline to offer a premium economy cabin.

The modern version of Virgin Atlantic's premium economy cabin launched in 1992. Virgin Atlantic Airways

In March 1992, Virgin Atlantic launched an enhanced economy product with larger seats and more legroom called Mid Class, which would later be rebranded Premium class. It was the first international premium economy product in the world with Taiwan's EVA Air launching a similar offering later that year.

A decade later, Virgin Atlantic debuted its innovative business-class suite.

Virgin Atlantic Upper-Class Suites on board an Airbus A340-600. Hollis Johnson

The lie-flat beds arranged in a reverse herringbone pattern helped set the airline apart upon its debut in 2003.

In early 1991, a TV special about the competition between British Airways and Virgin Atlantic kicked open what would become the 'Dirty Tricks' campaign.

A British Airways Boeing 747-400 painted in the airline's retro livery from the late 1980s and 1990s. Benthemouse / Shutterstock.com

The Independent reported that the campaign against Virgin Atlantic and rival airlines started with a closed-door meeting among British Airways leaders at Gatwick Airport in the summer of 1990.

"[British Airways] went to extraordinary lengths to put us out of business," Branson told NPR's "How I Built This" podcast in 2017. "They had a team of people illegally accessing our computer information and ringing up our passengers and pretending that they were from Virgin, telling them that flights were canceled and switching them to BA."

According to Branson, the British Airways team also went through his garbage and the garbage from Virgin Atlantic's airport lounges in search of incriminating items such as drug paraphernalia.

British Airways denied Branson's claims and insisted that this was simply an attempt to generate publicity.

Branson turned to his mentor, Sir Freddie Laker, for advice.

British airline entrepreneur Freddie Laker (1922 - 2006), relaxed on one of his Laker Airways planes in 1978. John Williams/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

"Sir Freddie Laker repeated his advice (from our lunch meeting in 1984) to sue the bastards," Branson wrote.

In 1992, Branson sued British Airways for libel and won. he High Court in London in London rendered a judgment in favor of Branson and his airline totaling 610,000 or $915,000 in damages and another 3 million or $4.5 million for legal costs.

Branson distributed the judgment proceeds to Virgin Atlantic employees as a Christmas bonus to help make amends for the pay cuts that were instituted due to the financial pressure created by BA's campaign.

Despite the court judgment, the damage from the campaign's financial pressure was already done.

Branson pictured in 1992 standing next to Thorn EMI Chairman Sir Colin Southgate who is spraying champagne after acquiring Virgin Music. Richard Baker / In Pictures via Getty Images

In 1992, Branson was forced to sell Virgin Music Group, including Virgin Records, for $1 billion to Thorn EMI to help generate funds to bankroll the airline.

In a 2013 interview, Branson compared the pain of selling his beloved record label to selling one's child.

Until the mid-90s, Virgin Atlantic's fleet consisted exclusively of older, secondhand Boeing 747-100/200s.

An Airbus A340-300, similar to ones owned by Virgin Atlantic, on final approach for landing in 1995. SSPL/Getty Images

That changed with the A340-300, which remained a mainstay of the Virgin Atlantic fleet until the early 2010s.

New Boeing 747-400s followed, joining the Virgin Atlantic fleet in 1994.

Virgin Atlantic Airways 747. Virgin Atlantic Airways

With the arrival of the Airbus A340 in the fleet, Virgin Atlantic's Boeing 747 fleet became increasingly focused on servicing the airline's leisure destinations.

Virgin Atlantic retired its last Boeing 747-400 in 2020.

In 2002, the A340-600 joined the Virgin Atlantic fleet.

An Airbus A340-600 operated by Virgin Atlantic. Stefan Irvine/LightRocket/Getty Images

The A340-600, a more powerful, stretched variant of the A340-300, helped replace the aging 747-200s the airline relied upon during its early years.

At its release, the A340-600 was the longest airliner in the world. It was superseded in 2012 when Boeing introduced the 747-8.

Virgin Atlantic and many of its other operators struggled to make the economics of the aircraft work. As a result, the A340-600 would leave the fleet by the late 2010s.

In the early 2010s, the A340-300 was gradually replaced by the Airbus A330-300.

A fleet of Virgin Atlantic A330-300s parked at the gate. Bradley Caslin/Shutterstock

The twin-engined A330-300s offered improved economics over the pricier-to-operate four-engine A340s.

Branson sold a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic to Singapore Airlines in late 1999.

Flight Attendants for Virgin Atlantic (R) and Singapore Airlines pictured in 1999 at a press conference in London announcing SIA's acquisition of a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic. Michael Stephens - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images

The Singaporean carrier paid $975 million for the equity stake in Virgin Atlantic.

And in December 2012, Delta Air Lines acquired Singapore's 49% equity stake in Virgin Atlantic.

Then Delta CEO Richard Anderson pictured in 2012 onstage at a news conference in New York announcing the purchase of a 49% stake in Virgin Atlantic. Brendan McDermid/Reuters

Delta paid $360 million for its share in the British airline. The two carriers established a joint venture partnership in 2014 that allowed them to sell tickets on board each other's flights. More than 40 million passengers have traveled across the Atlantic over the first decade of the joint venture.

Unfortunately, not all of Virgin Atlantic's endeavors have been as successful as its Delta joint venture.

Sir Richard Branson pictured in 2013 arriving at Edinburgh Airport onboard a Virgin Atlantic Airways Airbus A320 wearing a Harris Tweed Kilt. Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

In 2013, Virgin Atlantic launched a domestic subsidiary called Virgin Atlantic Little Red. The airline leased a handful of narrowbody Airbus A320s from Aer Lingus to offer domestic service between London-Heathrow and destinations in the UK, such as Manchester and Edinburgh.

Virgin Atlantic shuttered Little Red in 2015 after suffering significant financial losses.

Virgin Atlantic filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy in 2020 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

A Virgin Atlantic Airways Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. Virgin Atlantic Airways

The airline lost 858 million in 2020, the highest annual loss in company history. To survive the financial crisis, Virgin Atlantic laid off thousands of employees and shuttered its London-Gatwick operation.

A 400 million cash injection in 2021 from Virgin Group and Delta Air Lines helped the carrier weather the storm and get back on its feet.

Today, Virgin Atlantic remains an underdog fighting its way to the top.

A Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330 pictured landing at JFK International Airport in New York in February 2024. CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

The rebellious underdog that challenged the status quo present at the outset of the airline is still there, but it's evolved and matured over the years, CEO Weiss said.

"At the beginning, it was just, let's take on British Airways," Weiss said. "Today, whether it's our partnership with Delta, our leadership in sustainability, or the fact that our customer experience continues to move forward, innovation remains a core part of us, and we are proud to be a challenger. "

Read the original article on Business Insider
A rock on Mars may have hosted microscopic life billions of years ago, Nasa believes.

The arrowhead-shaped rock  nicknamed Cheyava Falls  was found to contain carbon-based molecules and tiny structures and may once have been a home for tiny alien lifeforms.

The rock, which measures around 3.2ft by 2ft, was spotted by Nasas Perseverance rover, which is exploring the northern edge of Neretva Vallism  an ancient river valley that was carved by water rushing into Jezero crater.

It stood out because it contained strange marks, resembling leopard spots, which when scanned by the rover contained organic compounds.

Perseverance Mars rover took this selfie on Tuesday, its 1,218th Martian day. To the left is the arrowhead-shaped rock of interest, with drill hole visible - Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Prof Ken Farley, a Perseverance project scientist of Caltech in Pasadena, said: Cheyava Falls is the most puzzling, complex, and potentially important rock yet investigated by Perseverance.

On the one hand, we have our first compelling detection of organic material, distinctive colourful spots indicative of chemical reactions that microbial life could use as an energy source, and clear evidence that water  necessary for life  once passed through the rock.

On the other hand, we have been unable to determine exactly how the rock formed and to what extent nearby rocks may have heated Cheyava Falls and contributed to these features.

The Perseverance mission is looking for signs of alien life and so has focused on rocks that look like they have been created or modified by water.

A 360-degree view of a region on Mars called Bright Angel, where an ancient river flowed billions of years ago and near where the rover took a sample from the Cheyava Falls rock - Nasa/JPL-Caltech/ASU/MSSS

Cheyava Falls was found to contain large white calcium sulfate veins, clear evidence that water once ran through the rock.

Between those veins are bands of material whose reddish colour suggests the presence of hematite, one of the minerals that gives Mars its distinctive rusty tone, and it is here that the rover picked up traces of organic compounds.

When Perseverance peered more closely closer at the red regions, it found dozens of irregularly shaped, millimetre-size off-white splotches, each ringed with black material, akin to leopard spots.

The black halos contain both iron and phosphate and on Earth indicate that microbial life once lived beneath the surface.

Spotting such as seen on the rock, can occur when chemical reactions involving hematite turn the rock from red to white, releasing iron and phosphate, and causing the black halos to form and providing an energy source for microbes.

David Flannery, an astrobiologist and member of the Perseverance science team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, said: These spots are a big surprise. On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilised record of microbes living in the subsurface.

Nasa has hypothesised that the rock may have started as mud with organic compounds mixed in that eventually cemented into rock.

Later, water penetrated fissures in the rock, enabling mineral deposits that created the large white calcium sulphate veins seen today.

Morgan Cable, a Nasa scientist on the Perseverance mission, said: Weve never seen these three things together on Mars before.

Running the length of the rock are large white calcium sulfate veins. Between those are bands of material whose reddish colour suggests the presence of hematite, the mineral that gives Mars its rusty hue - Nasa/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Nasa says that although the rock does seem to hold promise for ancient microbial life, it is impossible to know for sure without bringing samples back to Earth.

We have zapped that rock with lasers and X-rays and imaged it literally day and night from just about every angle imaginable, added Prof Farley.

Scientifically, Perseverance has nothing more to give. To fully understand what really happened in that Martian river valley at Jezero Crater billions of years ago, wed want to bring the Cheyava Falls sample back to Earth, so it can be studied with the powerful instruments available in laboratories.

Perseverance has taken a sample of Cheyava Falls which will be collected and brought back to Earth for analysis under Nasas and the European Space Agencys Mars Sample Return mission.

We have designed the route for Perseverance to ensure that it goes to areas with the potential for interesting scientific samples, said Nicola Fox, associate administrator for Nasas Science Mission Directorate in Washington DC.

This trip through the Neretva Vallis riverbed paid off as we found something weve never seen before, which will give our scientists so much to study.

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.
As homeowner insurance costs soar, MS is offering one way to save. What you need to know

South Mississippi residents anxious for property insurance premium relief are calling the state insurance department about a program that will offer grants to strengthen homes for severe weather, including hurricanes.

The program will offer up to $10,000 each to qualified homeowners, primarily to fortify roofs to standards set by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, an industry-funded nonprofit. Applications should be available in the fall. However, the Legislature has provided only $5 million to fund the program, far less than states such as Alabama and Louisiana are spending.

Mississippi residents, particularly those on the Coast who face destructive hurricanes, pay some of the highest property insurance premiums in the country. As storms intensify with climate change, insurance-industry experts say stronger construction is the only way property owners will be able to find and afford insurance.

Mother Nature has changed the game on us in the last decade, IBHS Chief Engineer Anne Cope said during a webinar earlier this week. The last four years are the worst four years, particularly when were talking about convective storms and wildfires.

Mississippi is currently ranked No. 5 for highest homeowner insurance premiums by state, with an average annual premium projected at $4,482 for 2024, according to the National Association of Realtors. Florida rates were highest, followed by Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

The Mississippi Insurance Department expects to start the mitigation program after a contract is in place Oct. 1 for a program administrator. The department has advertised for proposals to run the program and expects to select an administrator by Aug. 15. If all goes smoothly, Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney told the Sun Herald, the program could start as early as September.

Gulf states such as Alabama and Louisiana have already put grant programs in place to meet IBHS standards in the trademarked FORTIFIED program, which also includes guidelines for new construction.

A roof covering designed to withstand hurricane-force winds is the first line of defense for strengthening a home. Most hurricane losses occur when roofs are damaged and allow wind-driven rain inside. A homeowner grant program in Mississippi could provide up to $10,000 toward a new or strengthened roof that meets guidelines recognized by insurance companies.

South MS needs stronger building codes

Alabama has been a leader in fortified construction, offering homeowner grants since 2016.

Another boost for Mississippis insurance market would be stronger building codes, said Carl Schneider, an independent insurance agent in Alabama who co-founded that states fortified home program.

However, both Mississippi and Alabama rank in the bottom third in IBHSs 2024 assessment of state building codes, enforcement and contractor licensing. Neither state has a statewide building code but Mississippi was named the most improved state for upgrades to licensing requirements for specific building trades.

Coastal Alabama is faring better. Most jurisdictions in Alabamas two coastal counties, Mobile and Baldwin, follow code-plus standards that adhere to IBHS guidelines for FORTIFIED construction. The insurance industry has taken note. With mandated insurance discounts for fortified construction, Alabamas coastal insurance market is flourishing compared to Mississippis.

Its saving consumers money, Schneider said. Its protecting homes and its a way to entice insurers to Alabama and other states. Still, Alabama has not adopted statewide building codes and ranks No. 8 for highest insurance premiums, projected at $4,281 for 2024 by the National Realtors Association.

Schneider believes Mississippis coastal insurance market would improve if political leaders and building officials in the six southernmost counties banded together and pushed for code-plus construction.

While Gulfport follows an older code than Harrison County or Biloxi, the 2015 International Building Code, the mayor is a believer in FORTIFIED construction. His family home directly across from the Mississippi Sound was built after Hurricane Katrina to FORTIFIED Gold standards, the highest level of protection for new construction.

Gulfport Mayor Billy Hewes, whose family owns insurance and real estate firms, said building to the Gold standard added 20-30% to construction costs, but hes saving thousands a year in insurance premiums. Theres another benefit, too.

Theres a chance that we may not have to move out of our home in a major storm, or well get back into it that much more quickly, Hewes said.

More than one study shows hes right: FORTIFIED homes have withstood hurricanes with little to no damage.

How homeowners qualify for MS program

FORTIFIED construction elements start with the roof because thats where the most potential for damage exists from high winds and wind-driven rain. An inch of rain would fill nine bathtubs of water, an IBHS engineer said during the insurance-sponsored webinar this week.

Mississippis mitigation program, called Strengthen Mississippi Homes, follows IBHS guidelines and will required FORTIFIED roofs first. If a homeowner already has a FORTIFIED roof, they may be eligible for storm shutters or other retrofits for structure openings such as doors.

Homeowners must cover costs above $10,000. The owners of single-family homes serving as their primary residence qualify for the program, according to an insurance department Q&A. Condominiums and mobile homes do not qualify. The homeowner is required to pay for an inspection by an evaluator certified in FORTIFIED construction to determine what retrofits are needed.

Other qualifications applicants must meet:

The home must be in good repair.

A homeowners insurance policy must be in force, along with a flood policy if the house is in a flood zone.

Proof of an insurance policy with wind coverage must be provided when work is completed.

Homeowners and elected officials are already lining up for the program.

This is a big step in the right direction, said Pass Christian Mayor Jimmy Rafferty, who has talked with insurance department officials about the program. The bottom line is, we have people that are in need.
At least four shell companies operating out of Hong Kong are facilitating the shipment of restricted military technology to Russia, according to an investigation by the New York Times published July 25.

Western nations imposed extensive sanctions against Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Sanctioned items, such as microchips produced in the United States, continue to flow into Russia via third-party countries.

The four companies are located on the seventh floor of 135 Bonham Strand, an address near near Hong Kong's financial district, the NYT reported. These companies are owned by oligarchs with ties to the Russian defense industry, and they have funneled millions of chips and sensors to sanctioned defense tech firms in Russia.

Approximately $4 billion worth of sanctioned chips have entered Russia since the launch of the full-scale war, according to a NYT analysis.

Such electronics have been found in Russian weapons, including the Kh-101 cruise missile that struck the Okhmatdyt children's hospital on July 8.

Moscow's sanctions evasion pipeline allowed it to import nearly the same amount of chips during the last quarter of 2023 as it did in the last quarter of 2021, the NYT found.

China, Russia's main economic backer against Western sanctions, plays a key role, exporting so-called dual-use goods into Russia to feed the Kremlin's war machine.

China's Foreign Affairs Ministry said it has not supplied military equipment to either Russia or Ukraine.

"What the United States should do is reflect on its responsibility for the Ukraine crisis rather than shirking responsibility to China," the ministry said in a statement to the NYT.

The U.S. continues to ship chips to China for production and assembly due to limited domestic manufacturing capabilities.

The NYT investigation coincides with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba's first visit to China since the 2022 invasion. Kuleba held lengthy talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Guangzhou on July 24, after which he said Beijing reaffirmed its commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity.

The Chinese delegation also again reiterated its promise not to supply Russia with weapons, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Blood donation in progress. (Sarah Ladd/Kentucky Lantern)

Since 2000, Indiana has arrested 18 Hoosiers with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) on charges of donating plasma, according to a report released this week. None were charged under provisions penalizing actual transmission.

But sixteen were convicted of at least one HIV-related crime. Thats more than were documented in 13 other states examined in previous studies, per the report.

Researchers with the University of California at Los Angeles Law Schools Williams Institute collaborated with Indianas HIV Modernization Movement to produce the 29-page study.

Theyre pushing the lawmakers to ditch the bans.

There has not been a reported case of HIV transmission from plasma donation in the U.S. in nearly 40 years. Yet, as recently as 2019, Indiana arrested, prosecuted, and convicted a person for attempting to donate plasma, lead author Nathan Cisneros said in a news release Monday.

Ending the HIV epidemic requires modernizing state HIV criminal laws to reflect what is known about HIV science today, Cisneros continued. He directs the institutes HIV Criminalization Project.

Decades on the books

Indiana lawmakers in the late 80s made it a felony for people with HIV to donate, sell or otherwise transfer whole blood, plasma or semen for artificial insemination through two laws.

Some Hoosiers contracted the virus from the blood supply, like the late HIV anti-stigma activist Ryan White. He received medication made from donated plasma for his blood clotting disorder, according to the Modernization Movements website.

Alan Witchey. (Photo from the Damien Centers website)

There was so much unknown. The laws were created to protect the blood supply of the country, Damien Center President and CEO Alan Witchey said. The Damien Center is the states largest HIV service organization.

Flash forward to today (and) the world is so different. We know so much more, Witchey said.  Our state has not really caught up to the science.

Universal screening procedures implemented since then mean donors must answer questions about their health and blood banks test all donations for infectious diseases. The American Red Cross, for example, began antibody testing for HIV in 1985 and nucleic acid testing in 1999, according to its website.

Plasma-derived products are also heat-treated to deactivate blood-borne pathogens, according to the report, while plasma donors identified as positive for those pathogens are placed on a permanent, national donor deferral registry.

Indianas donation ban was enacted the year Carrie Foote tested positive for HIV. She now chairs Indianas HIV Modernization Movement and is a professor of sociology at Indiana University Indianapolis.

I was 18 years old. Im going on 55 in August, said Foote, who is also an author on the report. That was decades ago in a time of fear and stigma, and we didnt have effective treatments like we do today. The blood supply wasnt safe like it is today.

Reports findings

Researchers found that, between 2000 and 2023, 18 unique individuals were charged with 21 violations of Indianas HIV-related donation ban.

Three people had more than one charge because they attempted to donate more than once, but were turned away at the screening phrase because of, for instance, low iron levels.

All donated plasma, not whole blood or semen.

Blood donations are uncompensated, but plasma can be an income source: the median compensation given in five probable cause affidavits was $50, per the study.

Fourteen of the arrests were made in Marion County. Lake County recorded two arrests, while Elkhart and Howard counties recorded one each.

Most of those arrested said they saw or completed the screening and informed consent documents, and slightly less than half indicated a negative status either orally or on their forms. Indianas laws dont punish people who donate without knowing of their HIV-positive status.

The arrestees ranged in age from 20-58, but averaged 33 years old. About three-quarters were men and about one-quarter were women. Almost 80% were Black, and more than 20% were white, researchers found.

All but one were found to be too impoverished to afford private counsel, and were instead assigned public defenders.

Ultimately, about 72% were convicted under the HIV-related donation laws, and 17% were convicted under a separate HIV status disclosure law  an 89% conviction rate. Indiana recorded more convictions than other states examined by the institute: Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia.

One was convicted of a non-HIV-related crime as part of a plea agreement and one was found not guilty of any crime.

Foote said the data doesnt include arrests that didnt lead to charges being filed, or court cases that were sealed, expunged or deemed confidential.

Researchers data sources  primarily bulk data requests, supplemented by electronic case filing services  also did better with more recent cases, Foote said.

Thats why the study begins in 2000, more than a decade after the laws were enacted. But researchers found newspaper evidence of at least one case in the 1990s.

The most recent case went through the courts in 2019, for an incident referred to law enforcement in mid-2018, according to the report.

Researchers suggested the decline may stem from a change in Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) policy. From at least 1996 through 2018, if IDOH confirmed people with HIV knew of their status when donating, the agency would refer the case to law enforcement. By the end of 2018, IDOH changed its policy in favor of providing mental health care and other needed services to donors with HIV.

The legislative session approaches

Foote and other advocates say laws criminalizing conduct that poses no risk of transmission discriminates against people with HIV. She has for years pushed to do away with the donation laws and several others.

She said the study shows several parts of the donation laws arent being used, like the bans on semen and whole blood transfers.

Today, its perfectly safe for a man who might be experiencing fertility problems and he lives with HIV to seek fertility treatment. We have safe conception practices, Foote added.

And she critiqued the donation laws handling of those with HIV given modern safety procedures.

If blood tests positive (for a blood-borne virus), itll get destroyed and screened out of the process, Foote said. People, for example, with viral hepatitis, they would just be screened out, turned away, not allowed to donate, but they wouldnt face potential criminal prosecution. But someone with HIV would. Theres just differential treatment in the law that is just outdated.

Foote plans to bring the studys results to lawmakers.

Legislators would ask us, Well, how are these laws even being used? We didnt even know they were on the books,' she said.  We didnt have the data to share with them. We just had anecdotal information, and there were no systematic studies to actually collect data.

She said prosecutors and defense lawyers organizations could pull up arrests, but lawmakers wanted greater context.

Previous bills have made it past the House, but havent received Senate committee hearings. A 2022 interim committee recommended lessening penalties, however.

Foote said studies on other HIV-related criminalization laws are on the way.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Visitors to the 25th World AIDS Conference walk behind a sign on the exhibition grounds. Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa

The World AIDS Conference wound down in Munich on Friday with hopeful impulses for better protection against HIV worldwide.

Data was presented that gave cause for optimism, Conference Co-Chair Christoph Spinner said. He noted that HIV is now very treatable, and that there has been great progress in prevention.

The world's largest conference on HIV and AIDS was held in Germany this week for the first time in over 30 years, with almost 10,000 participants attending and a further 2,000 online.

Networking was also important, said Spinner, a specialist in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Klinikum rechts der Isar of the Technical University of Munich. "We brought people from politics, science and the community together," he added.

However, Spinner also said that more efforts and binding funding commitments are needed from countries in order to largely defeat HIV by 2030 and reduce the rate of new infections by 90% as the UN is aiming for.

According to Spinner, there are high hopes for a drug to be injected every six months in the field of prevention.

In a study involving more than 5,300 young women and girls in southern Africa - disadvantaged groups with a high HIV risk - it prevented 100% of infections. The drug could become a "game changer," said Spinner.

"There is an opportunity for a breakthrough in prevention," he asserted.

The question now is whether the drug can be made available quickly and cost-effectively, especially in regions heavily affected by HIV, as called for by German AIDS service organizations, activists and the UNAIDS programme.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in Vientiane, Laos, July 26, 2024. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

VIENTIANE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The China-Japan relationship is at a critical juncture where it would reverse if failing to advance, Chinese Foreign minister Wang Yi said here on Friday when meeting with his Japanese counterpart Yoko Kamikawa.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said during the meeting that China's policy toward Japan has maintained stability and continuity.

The two countries should take the consensuses made by their leaders as guidance and push bilateral relations to overcome difficulties, remove disturbances, stay on the right track, and make steady and long-term progress, Wang said.

It is hoped that Japan will establish an objective and correct understanding of China and pursue a positive and rational policy toward China, he noted.

The Chinese foreign minister said that the two sides should work in the same direction, maintain the political foundation of bilateral relations, strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation, properly manage differences, and truly put the bilateral strategic and mutually beneficial relations in place.

For her part, Kamikawa said Japan and China have reaffirmed commitment to a comprehensive promotion of the bilateral strategic and mutually beneficial relations, with exchanges increasing at all levels. The Japanese people are pleased with the situation and hope to enhance the friendship between the younger generations of the two nations.

Japan is committed to implementing the important consensuses reached by the leaders of the two countries and building constructive and stable Japan-China relations, she said.

The Japanese foreign minister said that Japan's adherence to the One-China policy has not changed.

The bilateral cooperation covers a wide range of areas with huge potential, but there are still unresolved issues, Kamikawa said.

Japan's semiconductor export restrictions are not targeted at any specific country, she said, adding Japan is willing to maintain constructive communication with China. Facing challenges stemming from global and regional conflicts, Japan is willing to work with China to promote regional stability and prosperity.

Wang also reiterated China's position on the release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean, stressing the need to ensure the effective participation of stakeholders, independent sampling, and the establishment of a long-term international monitoring mechanism. 
Host of Party Noah Presgrove Attended Before His Death Speaks Out, Says Shes Cooperating with Police (Exclusive)

Host of Party Noah Presgrove Attended Before His Death Speaks Out, Says Shes Cooperating with Police (Exclusive)

In a statement to PEOPLE, an attorney for Avery Howard says that she has "coordinated and cooperated with the investigating law enforcement agencies completely"

Shanna Reece Photography (left) Noah Presgrove (left) and the house where he attended a party outside Terral, Okla., the night before he died

The host of the party that Noah Presgrove attended in the hours before his battered body was discovered beside an Oklahoma highway is speaking out to share her condolences.

But, otherwise, she's declining to answer specific questions in the media regarding the ongoing investigation into the teens mysterious death in September 2023.

The attorney representing Avery Howard  whose 22nd birthday bash at her home in Terral, Okla., was attended by dozens of teens and young adults, including 19-year-old Noah  says in this week's PEOPLE cover story that she and her extended Wilcoxson family are working with investigators.

The entire Wilcoxson family mourns the tragic death of Noah Presgrove, attorney Andrew Benedict says in a statement. The Wilcoxson family has coordinated and cooperated with the investigating law enforcement agencies completely and intends to continue such cooperation until the investigation is concluded.

Noah, a standout high school athlete, was last seen alive by his friends in the early morning hours of Sept. 4, 2023, at Avery's party.

Some of the attendees had been drinking and went hog hunting in an ATV side-by-side owned by Jack Newton, Noah's best friend, Jack tells PEOPLE.

For more on Noah Presgrove's life and death and his family's search for answers, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE or subscribe.

This week's PEOPLE cover story on Presgrove's death.

But the soiree got rowdier as the evening progressed and more people began showing up, around three dozen at most, according to Jack.

By 2 a.m., Jack says he had gone to sleep in a bedroom in the house  but about an hour later Noah got the keys to his ATV and went for a ride with several others.

After tipping the vehicle over on its side, Noah returned to the house not long afterwards, cleaned himself up and ended up having a disagreement with two young women at the party, whom Jack was later told, felt he had gotten too close to them.

Related: Noah Presgroves Okla. Community Hangs Banner Urging Anyone with Answers to Speak Up: Why Dont You Help?

That made him mad, says Jack, who notes that his version of events is based in part on secondhand information from others at the party. He told her [one of the women] that he was going to go cool off, to just walk around and cool off."

Noah was last seen leaving the house and disappearing into the night at 3:30 a.m., Jack says.

By 6:15 a.m. local authorities, acting on two 911 calls from motorists on nearby Highway 81, found Noahs body about a mile's drive from Avery's house.

Noah was naked, the base of his skull had been split in two, his spine was fractured and an 8-inch head wound peeled back part of his scalp to the bone.

Shanna Reece Photography Noah Presgrove (in 2023) and (right) the house where he attended Avery Howard's birthday party.

He was laying on his side. His knees were kind of pulled up to his chest a little, says Jack, who was heading out to go fishing when he spotted his friends body on the side of the highway before sunrise, noting that Noah was right by the white traffic line off the rural roadside.

Oklahoma state police  who are continuing to investigate the death  tell PEOPLE that they dont believe the Comanche, Okla., native was murdered but have otherwise not publicly commented on what exactly led to his fatal blunt force injuries.

Noahs family tells PEOPLE that local authorities never searched the house where Avery's party was held. They are working with a private investigator, who says she has zeroed in on some of the attendees that night, and are determined to solve the tragic case.

Says Noahs older brother Dailen Pregrove: Somebody knows something."

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Democrats have had a bright spot after several months of fretting about their electoral prospects: Their House candidates are flush with cash.

Both parties have sought to stockpile money as theyve prepared for a heated fight for control of Congress, and incumbents on both sides have raised large amounts. But Democrats in particular  despite being battered and bruised from weeks of chaos  have seen marked success in fundraising.

Democratic challengers last quarter outraised their incumbent Republican opponents in 17 of the 29 GOP-held districts that either party considers competitive, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission data. In races with settled primaries, those Democratic challengers raised an average of $1.2 million  compared to a $965,000 average raised by the Republicans theyre looking to oust.

That fundraising advantage, revealed in FEC reports last week, was a rare glimmer of hope for Democrats facing tough battles for the White House and Senate. They need to gain just a few additional House seats to win back a majority, but Democrats have in recent weeks feared that President Joe Bidens deep unpopularity would torpedo their chances.

Then Biden ended his bid, Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in and tens of millions of dollars began pouring into Democratic coffers. How much of that money ends up helping the dozens of battleground House races remains to be seen, and theres no guarantee that jolt will continue through the cycle, especially as Republicans aggressively look to define Harris and tie down-ballot Democrats to her.

Republicans say theyre used to being outraised, but the fundraising gap has not grown big enough to worry them. Plus, the GOP incumbents benefit from larger war chests on average compared to their Democratic challengers.

But Democratic candidates and groups, warily breathing a sigh of relief, are emboldened by what theyve seen in recent days.



Its the new beginning, different faces, fresh moment. Thats true in New Jersey, but its also now true nationally, said Sue Altman, a first-time candidate running against Republican Rep. Tom Kean in New Jerseys battleground 7th District. For a while there, our campaign was providing hope when other places in the country hope was hard to find, and thats including the presidential mess. I think now, however, its even more so the snowball is rolling down the hill because now theres hope everywhere you look.

Democratic challengers  but not Republican ones  are raising a lot of money

At the party committee level, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee outraised its Republican counterpart by $7 million last quarter. And more than a dozen non-incumbent Democrats brought in more than $1 million from April through June.

Many of those were repeat candidates and benefited from name recognition and fundraising infrastructure from their previous runs  but others, like Altman and Oregon state Rep. Janelle Bynum, whos challenging Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, posted impressive hauls as first-time congressional candidates.

Four Democrats in Republican-held districts targeted by DCCC raised more than twice as much as their GOP opponents in the second quarter:



Rudy Salas, who is challenging Rep. David Valadao (Calif.) in a district Biden won by 13 points in 2020;

Adam Gray, who is challenging Rep. John Duarte (Calif.) in a district Biden won by 11 points;

Josh Riley, who is challenging Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) in a district Biden won by 4 points;

And Janelle Stelson, who will face Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) in a district Trump won by 4 points.

Salas, Gray and Riley all ran in 2022. Stelson, a former TV anchor, is running for the first time.

What makes the Democratic challengers strong fundraising particularly notable is that Republicans looking to take down Democratic incumbents in battleground districts did not show the same strength.

Across 34 swing districts Republicans are targeting or Democrats have said theyre actively protecting, only one incumbent, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas), was outraised  and hes fending off a challenge from former Republican Rep. Mayra Flores, who held the seat in 2022 and 2023. In races where the primary is settled, the average Republican challenger raised $404,000, compared to $984,000 raised by the average incumbent Democrat.

The average Republican challenger had less than $500,000 cash on hand as of the end of June, compared to $2.5 million for Democratic incumbents.

There are still real challenges for Democrats

Democrats will still need to convert their strong fundraising into electoral wins, and theyll continue to face real obstacles to doing so.

For one thing, Democratic challengers have some catching up to do when it comes to their cash reserves. Thats the money that will be important heading into the most active stretch of campaigning, and while Democrats have narrowed the gap in recent months, GOP incumbents continue to hold an advantage, with a bit shy of $2.7 million cash on hand on average compared to more than $1.9 million on average for Democratic challengers.

Its difficult to oust an incumbent, and money doesnt guarantee a win. And it takes money for non-incumbents to erase the built-in advantages of those already in Congress, who have higher name ID, and get their message out to voters.

Republicans dismissed the Democratic fundraising numbers, saying GOP candidates remain in a strong position heading into the final months of their races.

Democrats traditionally always raise more money than our team does, National Republican Campaign Chair Richard Hudson told POLITICO last week.

He noted that the NRCCs second-quarter fundraising was its best ever for April-June of an election year and said hes pleased with the amount of money they have raised.

Our $37 million to $44 million, if we can keep that close, Im not concerned about it, Hudson said. We cant let them get so far ahead that they can kind of blow us out of the water, so weve got to continue this pace, weve got to continue to raise the money.



The NRCC has also boasted other statistics, like its candidates who are backed by Speaker Mike Johnson outpacing their top recruits from the midterms in fundraising and cash on hand. The Republican incumbents designated as top defensive priorities by the NRCC slightly outraised DCCCs endangered incumbent Democrats by just under $20,000 last quarter.

Republicans are also poised to be buoyed by big outside spending: The partys chief House super PAC, Congressional Leadership Fund, had nearly $111 million in the bank as of the end of June, compared to $88.6 million for its Democratic equivalent, House Majority PAC.

Democratic hopes spiked after Harris took over the Biden campaign

Down-ballot Democrats have been touting gains  from interest in their campaigns to hard dollars  in the days immediately following the launch of Harris campaign for president.

In the aftermath of Biden endorsing Harris, DCCC had its single best online fundraising day of the cycle. Democrats Senate campaign arm saw a boost, too  also coming off of a strong quarter for Democratic Senate candidates compared to their Republican challengers. And the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which marshals the partys strategy for state legislative races, also posted record-breaking days in the Harris aftermath.

A full picture of post-Biden fundraising wont be clear until all congressional campaigns file their third-quarter FEC disclosures in October, but several Democratic congressional candidates reported significant surges. Some House and Senate campaigns saw an 800 percent increase in daily donations in the immediate aftermath of Bidens decision. ActBlue, the major Democratic donation processing platform, said that small-dollar donors gave more than $154 million to Democratic campaigns and groups, from the presidential race on down, in the 48 hours after Harris campaign launch.

Donors have clearly gotten the message that we need to flip the House because the presidential is expected to be close, said Brian Derrick, co-founder of Democratic donation processor Oath.

He said the enthusiasm for Democrats with Harris at the top of the ticket can help down-ballot candidates in states that arent presidential battlegrounds, but have competitive House seats, like California and New York.

Dave Min, a Democratic state senator running for California's open battleground 47th District, said the days since Harris campaign launch on Sunday have seen an acceleration of the fundraising momentum he saw in the second quarter, when he raised about three times as much as his Republican opponent.

Normally we see a cyclical trend in our fundraising: Its kind of static for most of the quarter, and toward the end of the quarter it picks up significantly, Min said. In the last few days, weve seen numbers that look more like the end of the quarter.  It tells us theres a lot of excitement around the change at the top of the ticket.

And Will Rollins, a fellow California Democrat whos running for a second time to unseat Republican Rep. Ken Calvert and raked in more than $2 million in the second quarter, said he raised six figures online since Sunday with more than 2,000 unique donors.

I think its more than just a sigh of relief, Rollins said. Its feeling fired up.
House Democrats have launched a discharge petition to force a vote on legislation to codify the right to in vitro fertilization (IVF) nationwide, in a long-shot attempt to put Republicans on the spot about reproductive rights.

Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), lead sponsor of the Access to Family Building Act, said Thursday the discharge petition on the bill received 155 signatures in the first 24 hours it was open. In total, the petition has nearly 190 signatures.

This discharge petition is a chance for every Member of the House to show where they stand, House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) said during a press conference. Will Republicans stand up for freedom? Will they stand with tens of thousands of aspiring parents? Or will they continue to stand by Donald Trump and MAGA extremism?

The legislation would codify a statutory right to IVF and other assisted reproductive technologies and say that insurers have a statutory right to cover them.

It would also allow the Justice Department and private individuals to sue any state or local government official for restricting IVF access.

The bill was introduced after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling that found frozen embryos are considered children, criminalizing their destruction. The decision led multiple clinics in the state, including the states largest health system, to pause IVF operations for fear of legal repercussions until the legislature passed an emergency fix.

The ruling put Republicans on the defensive. They have scrambled to say they fully support IVF, but have largely avoided the underlying implications about fetal personhood, which many of them also support.

Democrats have been campaigning on reproductive rights ahead of the November election. The House Democrats campaign arm has accused Republicans of wanting to ban IVF if they win, and point to the anti-IVF stance of Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) as a warning.

Discharge petitions need 218 signatures to force action, meaning a handful of Republicans would need to sign on as well as every House Democrat. The legislation has only four Republican co-sponsors, and none of them have signed the petition to date.

Republicans have not signed onto any Democratic-led discharge petitions this congressional session, including a similar one about legislation protecting access to contraception.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 bipartisan group of House lawmakers is hitting back at China-based companies for violating U.S. trade laws through subversive actions like duty evasion and illegal transshipment.

The Select Committee on the CCP, led by Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI), alongside Congresswoman Ashley Hinson (R-IA) and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), on Thursday introduced the Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act.

More from Sourcing Journal

According to the legislators, the Department of Justice (DOJ) lacks sufficient resources to address the volume of trade crimes stemming from China-based commerce. The law would establish a new structure for halting international trade crimes, providing a framework for detecting, investigating and prosecuting trade fraud, the evasion of duties like the Section 301 tariffs, and transshipment, wherein other countries are used as intermediaries to facilitate the flow of China-made goods.

Not a week goes by without the Committee learning of yet another American company harmed by Chinese companies shipping their goods through other countries to illegally evade tariffs, Chairman John Moolenaar said in a statement. While heightened tariff rates can help level the playing field for U.S. businesses, the legislation we are introducing today adds teeth to the tariffs and punishes companies for breaking the law.

The Protecting American Industry and Labor from International Trade Crimes Act would establish a task force within the DOJs Criminal Division to investigate and prosecute trade crimes, while bolstering countrywide responses to such offenses through federal, state and local law enforcement training to facilitate parallel criminal and civil enforcement.

The bill would require the Attorney General to provide Congress with a yearly report on the DOJs efforts, including statistics on trade crimes and the way funds are being allocated. It would earmark $20 million for fiscal 2025 to support the efforts.

Rep. Hinson said China has blatantly violated U.S. trade laws and ripped off American workers with no accountability or consequences for decades. This has led to shuttered factories and devastating job losses across the country, hollowing out American industry and gutting rural manufacturing towns while enabling the CCPs forced labor practices.

The Iowa legislator said the bill would help spur a reshoring movement, bringing manufacturing back to the U.S.

Whether it is dumping below-market iron and steel, flooding the American market with illegal vapes, or violating the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, we must send an unmistakable message to companies based in the Peoples Republic of China that their illegal trade practices must end now, Ranking Member Krishnamoorthi added.

The America First Policy Institute said Chinas trade crimes have facilitated the sale of goods made with forced labor to U.S. consumers.

Refusing to abide by international law enables the PRCs non-market economy, authoritarian Communist leadership, and Uyghur forced labor in Chinas Xinjiang province while simultaneously undermining U.S. companies and workers, it said. AFPI supports efforts to prosecute PRC violations of Section 301 and 232 tariffs and abuses under the Uyghur Forced Labor Protection Act.

The Campaign for Uyghurs also threw its support behind the bill, saying it provides a means of ensuring compliance with laws like the UFLPA beyond the measures already in place.

The UFLPA has set a strong precedent to prevent the American market from being tainted by forced labor, the group said. This legislation goes a step further in holding violators accountable and closing accountability gaps in the current system.

No one should turn a blind eye to the ongoing Uyghur genocide and CCP state-sponsored exploitation of Uyghur people for forced labor, the group added. Those who continue to undermine the UFLPA and existing trade laws should face appropriate consequences.

The Coalition for a Prosperous America, which represents U.S. manufacturers, farmers and industry, said its members are being forced to compete with China and other foreign entities that are benefitting from illegal trade activities.

Michael Stumo, CEO of CPA, said DHS earlier this year raided Sunsong North Americas plant in Moraine, Ohiothe U.S. subsidiary of China-based Qingdao Sunsong, an automobile parts manufacturer. The group is currently being investigated for trade fraud, a fact that underscores the urgent need for the Department of Justice to have enhanced authority and resources to prosecute international trade crimes effectively, thereby protecting American manufacturers and workers from malicious foreign entities intent on displacing them.

National Council of Textile Organizations president and CEO Kim Glas commended the Committee for pushing the bipartisan bill.

NCTO has called for additional federal tools and resources to urgently address the pervasive trade crimes impacting our industry as well as other U.S. manufacturing sectors, she said. We are pleased that this legislation will do exactly that by establishing a formal structure within the Department of Justices Criminal Division dedicated to aggressively prosecute international trade crimes.

Glas has said the U.S. textile industry has taken a major hit due to the influx of cheap goods from direct-to-consumer e-tailers like Shein and Temu.

The U.S. textile and apparel supply chain has been severely harmed by rampant trade fraud, including an onslaught of imported products made with forced labor, which circumvent the U.S. ban on these imports, fraudulent rules of origin claims under our free trade agreements, and evasion of duties through abuse of the de minimis trade loophole, she added.

This had resulted in the closure of 18 textile plants over the past several months and job losses, combined with closures in Western Hemisphere trade partners who have suffered tens of thousands of job losses.

We believe this bipartisan legislation is a critical step forward in confronting such massive fraud and will serve to hold bad actors accountable and help shield our vital domestic industries from these crimes, Glas said.

The bills original co-sponsors include House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Reps. Darin LaHood (R-IL), Glenn Ivey (D-LA), Nate Moran (R-TX), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Ben Cline (R-VA), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Kevin Kiley (R-CA), Deborah Ross (D-NC), and Lou Correa (D-CA).
A number of House Republicans are privately bashing former President Trumps selection of Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate, warning that the pick will not help  and could hurt  the partys chances of winning in November.

The Republicans, speaking to The Hill on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive topic, raised concerns about Vances foreign policy positions, lack of experience and inability to expand the Republican coalition beyond Trumps base.

There are, to be sure, plenty of Vance supporters in the House GOP conference, particularly hard-line conservatives  including those in the House Freedom Caucus  who favor the populist, America First perspective that the vice presidential nominee espouses. And the Trump campaign is vigorously defending the pick.

But Republicans who spoke to The Hill  including veteran lawmakers, moderates and Reagan-styled conservatives who support a muscular foreign policy  said a much larger number of their colleagues harbor doubts about Vance.

He was the worst choice of all the options. It was so bad I didnt even think it was possible, one House Republican said. Anti-Ukraine, more of a populist. He adds nothing to the Trump ticket. He energizes the same people that love Trump.

I think if you were to ask many people around this building, 9 out of 10 on our side would say hes the wrong pick, a second House Republican said. Hes the only person who can do serious damage.

A third House Republican  who said there is major dissension to Vance in the conference  argued that if Trump falls short to Vice President Harris in November, Trumps vice presidential selection will be to blame.

The prevailing sentiment is if Trump loses, [its] because of this pick, the lawmaker said. It doesnt help.

Harriss ascension exacerbates electoral concerns

US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th National Convention in Houston, Texas, on July 25, 2024. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

US Vice President Kamala Harris delivers the keynote speech at the American Federation of Teachers 88th National Convention in Houston, Texas, on July 25, 2024. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

The anxiety surrounding Vance grew more pronounced after President Biden withdrew from the 2024 race and threw his support behind Harris, a move that is energizing Democrats, boosting their campaign coffers and turning the political landscape upside down.

I was concerned the whole time, but now its really concerning, a fourth House Republican said. It doesnt make it any easier.

The ascension of a Black and Asian American woman to the top of the ticket  and the contrast it draws with the Trump-Vance ticket  is one source of anxiety for Republicans who were hoping to see more diversity in their own nominees.

Vance defends sarcastic childless cat ladies remarks amid blowback

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) were at one point floated as candidates for the vice presidential nod, though neither was a finalist.

He wouldnt be my first pick, one of the House Republicans said. I thought we were going to have a female candidate, but they quickly [dismissed that idea].  Nikki Haley wouldve been great, but hes never going to, because she ran against him.  Kristi shot her puppy.

Thats a little bit of, I think a problem, when you put in that position because shes gonna rally women, a fifth House Republican said of Harris. And who do you have that can rally women on the [Republican] ticket, is the question.

Id do the same pick

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) is seen during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing of the Federal Bureau of Investigations on Wednesday, July 24, 2024.

Trumps selection of Vance has, nonetheless, energized the GOP base and elevated an heir apparent for the MAGA movement.

And Trump, his campaign and staunchest supporters are pushing back on criticisms of the Vance pick, contending that the ticket will see victory in November.

President Trump is thrilled with the choice he made with Senator Vance, and they are the perfect team to take back the White House, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told The Hill in a statement.

Asked Wednesday if he would have picked a different vice presidential nominee if he knew Harris would be at the top of the Democratic ticket, Trump told reporters, No, Id do the same pick.

Hes doing really well. Hes really caught on, he added.

Even House Republicans who were not immediate Trump supporters are backing Vance as the vice presidential pick. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), who endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in the GOP primary, said the names on the ticket must be simpatico with each other.

I think hes a great pick, because I think he is very much aligned with the president in most of the ways that matter, and can reflect the president, he said. The vice president is supposed to be simpatico with the president.

Expanding the Republican tent

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump arrives as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., watches during the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

But because the first-term senators views are largely aligned with Trumps, some Republicans worry about his ability to appeal to voters who are not already ardent supporters of the former president.

House Republicans say other vice presidential contenders  like Haley, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R)  could have helped expand the GOP coalition behind Trump with their more moderate demeanor and toned-down rhetoric.

Its not like hes a bad name, he just doesnt bring a single voter out that Trump didnt already have. Thats the problem, one of the House Republicans said. Every other option they were considering brought some other kind of voter to the table in some way.

Vance brings Trumps voters out. You know who else brings Trumps voters out? Trump, they added. Thats why a lot of us are scratching our heads.

Harris campaign: Vance already a disaster as Trump VP pick

One of the House Republicans contrasted the current dynamics to the 2016 election, when Trumps selection of then-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) to be his running mate reassured Republicans skeptical of the former presidents rapid rise and added balance to the ticket.

I was a little, in 16, on the fence, and Pence came in and I go, OK, the lawmaker said. We need someone like that that would grow his base.

Policy concerns amid short Senate tenure

Republican vice presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) speaks at a campaign rally at Radford University on July 22, 2024 in Radford, Virginia. Vance is on the first campaign swing for either presidential ticket since President Joe Biden yesterday abruptly ended his reelection bid and threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Republican vice presidential nominee, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) speaks at a campaign rally at Radford University on July 22, 2024 in Radford, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Some House Republicans have also taken issue with Vances foreign policy positions  particularly his isolationist stance when it comes to aid for overseas allies.

The Ohio Republican has been a leading voice in the Senate opposing additional aid for Ukraine, voting against the foreign aid package in April that included roughly $60 billion for Kyiv.

Years before that vote, during a podcast interview in 2022, Vance said, I gotta be honest with you, I dont really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other, remarks that are still reverberating in GOP circles today.

A sixth House Republican cited those remarks in knocking Trumps decision to have him join the ticket.

Obviously, some of the rhetoric concerns me a little bit, the lawmaker said. Some of the rhetoric, I think, has made some folks nervous.

Vances foreign policy stance was in the spotlight this week when the senator was notably absent from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus address to a joint meeting of Congress because, the campaign said, he had duties to fulfill as the Republican nominee for Vice President. Netanyahu is set to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.

Harris also missed the prime ministers speech because she was traveling in Indiana, though she did meet with him Thursday.

One House Republican, nonetheless, characterized Vance skipping the speech as a problem, while another was furious with his reasoning for missing it.

Its bulls, the lawmaker said of Vance blaming his absence on campaign travel. He can set his schedule whatever he wants.

Other Republicans, meanwhile, are amped up by Vances foreign policy perspective, arguing that his view of the world can help change the status quo at a moment where a shift is greatly needed.

Im excited about JD Vance, and I agree with his foreign policy, actually, for so many reasons, said Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.), a hard-line conservative member of the House Freedom Caucus. I think that we need to really examine our foreign policy stance around the globe, from a financial aspect, from an imperialistic aspect, from a history aspect.

Questions loom about breadth of experience, history of Trump criticism

Vance, 39, has had a meteoric rise in the Republican Party. Widely known for his 2016 bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, the Ohio Republican mounted a bid for Senate in the 2022 cycle, winning the GOP nomination over a crowded primary field before defeating then-Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) in the general election.

Two years later, Trump picked him to be his running mate, putting him in striking distance of the second highest office in the country.

A seventh House Republican questioned the breadth of Vances resume, wondering if he has enough experience to hold the office that is a heartbeat away from the presidency.

I dont know that he has the experience to step into that job, the lawmaker said. Hes experienced  I dont want to say hes not experienced and hes not smart or that I didnt like the book and his upbringing.  But I still rank other candidates higher, because they have deeper, more tested experience.

Vances previous criticisms of Trump have also caught the eye of some House Republicans.

Vance hammered Trump as unfit during the 2016 campaign before changing his tune after Trump won the election, later becoming one of his most ardent supporters on Capitol Hill.

But during his period of discontent, Vance publicly called Trump noxious and reprehensible, and, in a private Facebook message, referred to the then-candidate as Americas Hitler.

Vance has defended his evolution on Trump, telling CNN in an interview in May, I was wrong about him. Trump echoed those sentiments, saying in an interview with Fox News this week, He didnt know me.

The early broadsides, however, have stuck with some House Republicans, further fueling the confusion over Trumps vice presidential selection.

Hes incredibly disingenuous.  He called him Hitler, like, yesterday, one of the Republicans said. Now hes the most pro-Trump person in the world. And I just  I dont trust him.

Another House Republican questioned why Trump would select Vance considering that history, citing the recent assassination attempt he faced at his rally in Butler, Pa., which left the former president bloodied after a bullet pierced his ear.

Its hard for me to understand how the one Republican that has called Trump Hitler somehow became his VP, especially in the aftermath of an assassination attempt where I think any thinking person understands that heated rhetoric can lead to violence by crazy people, the GOP lawmaker said.

It blows my mind.

Updated at 11:38 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.
Moyle

Mike Moyles disingenuous opinion piece regarding Meridians budget is typical of his constant attempts to force his views onto the operation of municipalities in Idaho. Moyles condescending we know best attitude has resulted in the legislature insinuating itself into the business of city governments dealings in the service of his attempts to offer token property tax reductions which he thinks will paint the legislature as having done something for homeowners.

As a resident of Meridian, I can tell Mr. Moyle that I have a great deal more faith in Mayor Simison and the Meridian city council to run our city affairs than I do in him.

Mind your own business, Mike. If we want your self-serving opinion, well ask for it.

Bruce Harris, Meridian

Farmland

When we purchased our farm south of Kuna and began operating our dairy back in 1995, we were surrounded by other farms. In line with growth in the region, theres been a steady growth in the number of houses in our vicinity. While we didnt particularly like to see homes being built next door due to potential conflicts with ongoing ag activities, we believed in our neighbors right to develop and use their properties as they saw fit, and the law allows.

Now theres an orchestrated attempt to mislead others about the Powers Butte project and raising money, buying billboards and websites, all under the banner of Save our Farmland. Our land is not theirs to save. This is an attempt to control the way we use our farm for the benefit of others without any compensation and to scare others and deprive us of our private property rights.

If Ada County gives in to this campaign, then its a sad day for property rights and individual liberty in Idaho both of which are important principles supporting the economic health of our state and nation.

Denis Dunlop, Boise

Heat

July 23 was the 17th consecutive day that the air temperature at Ontario, Oregon, reached 100 degrees or more. In 1984, I had the opportunity to become the director of the Oregon State University Malheur Experiment Station in Ontario, and continued my employment until 2018. A weather station had been established at the station in 1942. In 1985, we examined the weather patterns over the past decades. On average there were two or three days each year when the air temperature reached 100 degrees or more. The summer heat patterns in recent years are very different from previous decades. This heat places both native vegetation and crops at great risk. The heat also increases crop water demands.

Clinton C. Shock, Ontario, Oregon

Wildfire smoke

Why is it that half of the year, the climate-conscious states to the West allow themselves to burn, thus putting millions of tons of smoke and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere? Anyone tired of breathing smoke half of the year. We should charge them $1 billion per day for their failure at basic land management practices, which would largely eliminate the yearly burn.

Brook Garrettson, Eagle

Election

What an interesting set of circumstances presenting itself to the electorate. Reminds me of the Democratic National Convention in 1968 held in Chicago. Conventions used to be a lot of fun, what with deal making and multiple roll call votes. President Biden withdraws from seeking reelection. The Republicans, under the Speaker of the House, are studying lawsuits seeking to force President Biden to remain on the ballot. Mr. Trump is facing charges in Washington, D.C., which, if found guilty, would disqualify him from serving as president. If elected, it would seem that he could compel dropping the charges. What I wonder out loud is this. Could not some individual bring a declaratory judgment action seek judicial determination that Mr. Trump engaged in sedition and conspiracy to commit sedition? The lower standard of proof, by a preponderance of the evidence, could make the case so much easier. So why not have Mr. Trump withdraw from the race and allow both parties a do-over where each one chooses a much brighter, and younger, candidate to carry their flag forward. Seems like it would be a good way out of the current mess.

Lawrence G. Sirhall, Jr., Boise

Democracy

If we had a dollar for every time we are lied to by campaign ads and media coverage of the Republican convention, we wouldnt need Social Security or the Affordable Care Act. We could just live in a world of fantasy like the politicians who call former President Trump compassionate, even if they were previously attacked by his party extremists in congress on January 6th. We wouldnt need to vote because we will not be allowed to vote. We wouldnt have to worry about integrity, honesty or civility because the only thing that matters is who has enough money to buy our democracy. Putin and other dictators must be so pleased.

Sheila Robbins, Boise

Trees

The sound of saws and chippers resound throughout the neighborhoods of Boise. Poignant, since the Treasure Valley is under an Excessive Heat Watch and Air Quality Alert. I propose the City of Boise take a radical stance to save our tree canopy.

I applaud and support the City of Trees Challenge. The Treasure Valley Canopy Network states: Trees play a critical role in our environment and provide important clean air, water and community cooling benefits that combat the negative effects of climate change.

Planting saplings is a worthwhile goal, yet what is being done about the existing trees and frequent tree removal. Saplings will take years before they will shade an area. New sapling mortality rate is an issue.

Solutions? More cities are considering ordinances that would make it harder to remove healthy trees on private property. Some cities impose a hefty fine if a tree is removed without permission. There are even requirements for new trees to be planted when a tree is removed on private property. The City of Trees Challenge could have resources available for homeowners to trim and maintain existing trees. Cities are realizing the essential role preserving the tree canopy plays in our survival.

Ruth Merrill, Boise
This article was originally published in Houston Landing.

From purchasing alarm clocks, donating Uber gift cards, showing up on families doorsteps and even attempting to help parents plan their vacations, Clear Creek ISD employees are exhausting their options to get students to show up to school.

In the roughly 40,000-student district southeast of Houston, 17 percent of students were considered chronically absent during the 2022-23 school year  meaning they missed at least 18 school days. Thats up nearly double from five years ago.

The issue is not unique to Clear Creek ISD. Mirroring a nationwide, persistent trend, rates of chronically absent Houston-area students exploded after the pandemic. Its a phenomenon that leaves many wondering why kids arent coming to school like they used to  and what it will take to fix that.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

Houstons other largest districts did not make administrators available for an interview for this story.

School leaders and education experts say high absenteeism has devastating ripple effects on students academic performance, school district funding and societys overall perceived importance of the classroom. Yet there is no clear solution, causing schools to scramble to improve attendance habits.

There did become the feeling of, Is schooling optional? said Holly Hughes, Clear Creek ISDs assistant superintendent of elementary education. We know that the habits start in pre-K, in our earliest years, with parents understanding the value and the intention. Its a lot to get our students to school in the morning.

When schools returned in-person after the pandemic sent classes online, most large Houston districts saw their chronic absenteeism rates double. Those rates decreased in the 2022-23 school year  the most recently available state data  but still remain much higher than pre-pandemic levels.

Do we even need the school?

The pandemic shattered the routine of going to school each morning, and once students returned, the lingering option of remote learning was largely seen as an acceptable alternative for when students dont show up in person.

People became comfortable staying home and not going to school, where they could dial in or not dial in, said Kevin Brown, executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators. There wasnt anybody there to enforce that.

Thats created an issue larger than anyone knows how to fix, let alone any one district, says Joshua Childs, a professor at the University of Texas at Austins College of Education. To him, it signals to him a shift in the culture of American schooling.

At this moment, we are wrestling, as a country, as a state, in terms of what we value when it comes to educating the kids under the age of 18, Childs said. Like, whats the value of education, and whats the purpose of the school itself? And do we even need the school?

School leaders and education experts agree that a students attendance has major impacts on their academic achievement. The Texas Education Agency warns that chronically absent students are more likely to perform poorly on standardized tests, and theyre less likely to attend or complete college.

In a late June State Board of Education meeting, TEA commissioner Mike Morath hypothesized that increased absences could be a reason why student math scores are declining across Texas.

Our broad hypothesis of this is that Covid caused much higher absenteeism from instruction, and as a result, much more mathematics gaps, Morath said. The linear nature of mathematics as a discipline is such that if a student misses little chunks of that discipline along the way, that may or may not cause them immediate problems, but it will certainly, at some point in time, prevent them from achieving higher levels of mathematics.

But the problem lies in getting students and families to understand these stakes.

One of the things that the pandemic  maybe raised more questions around, is, Whats actually the purpose of schooling? If I can do it through my phone. I can learn through TikTok. I can learn through using technology in different ways, and arriving in a building every single day may not be whats best for my kids or myself, Childs said. It has big impacts, as far as academic outcomes, employment, post-secondary opportunities, social, mental, physical health outcomes. All of that is impacted based on a childs attendance.

Across-the-board issue

Chronic absenteeism affects students across different demographics  campus-level data shows that in some Houston districts, schools in both affluent and underserved communities post similarly high rates of absenteeism.

Students in underserved areas may miss school because they lack necessities like transportation, or because they have a job to support their families. Meanwhile, students from more affluent families may miss class to take regular vacations or visit colleges. Across the board, its easier to keep kids at home because parents are increasingly able to work remotely.

With no simple root cause, theres no crystal-clear solution to keeping kids in the classroom.

Hughes, the Clear Creek administrator, said she found it isnt as simple as providing more wraparound resources such as clothing and transportation. Theyve had to urge families to schedule doctor appointments and college visits on staff professional development days, supply suggested dates for vacations, and try to communicate the overall importance of the in-person school routine.

Its important to start those traditions, those expectations and those structures in the home early, Hughes said. Going to school on a daily basis and committing to that follow through every day, it takes a lot on a family unit.  I think it became hard for parents.

A pricey problem

Brown said declining attendance is a circular issue  the more kids miss school, the less money districts have to rectify low attendance.

The Texas government funds schools based on their average daily attendance, meaning total attendance counts for the year are divided by the number of instructional days to produce the number of students a district is funded for.

Proponents of attendance-based funding say it provides incentive for improving attendance, while critics have long argued it more heavily penalizes schools with students dealing with socioeconomic factors that drive absenteeism.

Many school districts across Texas have outlined multimillion-dollar budget deficits this year, and several Houston-area school boards have pointed to declining attendance rates as a factor contributing to their financial woes.

Schools are working really hard to try to get the kids in but it takes the parents and the kids, as well, to get them into school, Brown said. Schools cant do much on attendance, other than encourage and try to build an environment where kids want to be there.

This article first appeared on Houston Landing and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
A California couple who were engaged and expecting their first child died in a tragic accident earlier this month, when they were swept out to sea by a huge wave while posing for a photo together.

According to KTVU 2 News, Pedro David Guadarrama Ceron, 30, and Emma Nelly Diazleal Lopez, 33, of San Jose had been standing on rocks near West Cliff Drive and David Way in Santa Cruz on July 16 when they were suddenly pulled into the water by large waves. Santa Cruz Fire Department Chief Rob Oatey said that locals refer to the spot as "death rocks" due to the turbulent, unpredictable currents.

First responders located the couple face down in the water, but they were unfortunately pronounced dead at the scene.

Ceron's father told NBC Bay Area that the couple had climbed onto the rock to take pictures when the wave "came out of nowhere." He said that his son had just immigrated to the United States from Mexico four years ago in search of the American dream. The family was heartbroken at learning that Lopez had been pregnant.

Two victims who died last week after being swept into the ocean in Santa Cruz were a couple who lived in San Jose, and they were expecting a child. https://t.co/8WDDSs8XUc pic.twitter.com/u4qxhipSeC  NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) July 24, 2024

David Hill, a deputy harbor master who responded to the scene on his boat, said that swimmers jumped into the ocean and pulled the victims onboard, but emergency responders were unsuccessful in their resuscitation efforts.

"You may have a perfectly calm day where it's not a lot of wind, there's not a lot of chop in the water," Hill told the outlet. "But there could be a swell system that creates a wave every 15 minutes. You may not realize it."

"Any surface before standing on it, you want to see if it's wet first because if there's water, water splashed on it," he continued, noting that beachgoers should also pay close attention to any blocked off areas or warning signs when visiting the coast.
By Gergely Szakacs, Boldizsar Gyori and Jason Hovet

(Reuters) -Slovakia said on Friday it had offered a technical solution to Ukraine to restore stopped Russian oil supplies to Slovak and Hungarian refineries, after warnings that a partial halt could lead to fuel shortages as early as September.

Eastern European Union members Slovakia and Hungary have been hit by a stop in flows from Russian group Lukoil via Ukraine after Kyiv imposed sanctions on the company, pressuring Hungarian and Slovak refineries that are owned by Hungary's oil and gas group MOL.

The dispute has shown how some EU countries still depend on Russian energy more than two years after a decision in the bloc to stop oil imports following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Governments in Bratislava and Budapest, which oppose sanctions against Moscow and sending military aid to Kyiv, have blasted Ukraine for the halt to Lukoil supplies and are seeking EU mediation in the dispute.

Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, said on Friday Ukraine's decision was blackmail for Hungary's and Slovakia's positions on Russia's war in Ukraine.

Slovakia's government office said Prime Minister Robert Fico had spoken to his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal on Friday.

"(Fico) proposed to Ukrainian partners a technical solution in which several states including Slovakia would have to participate," the office said, without giving more details.

The office said alternative supplies are more expensive and may not be technologically suitable for Slovakia's Slovnaft refinery.

Intensive negotiations would happen at the highest levels in the coming hours and days, it added.

Oil deliveries from other Russian suppliers have not been interrupted. In the Lukoil dispute, the two countries want the European Commission to use an association agreement with Ukraine, based on which they said Kyiv could not block oil transit.

Slovakia, which says it is hostage to Ukraine and the EU in the dispute, called on the Commission on Thursday not to delay.

Hungarian officials also urged action on Friday.

"If the situation is not resolved, there will be a fuel shortage ... a solution must be found by September," Gulyas told a news conference. "Ukraine is blackmailing the two countries that are standing for peace and ceasefire."

Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak rejected Budapest's accusations, saying that Ukraine's decision to suspend Russian oil transit to Hungary and Slovakia had nothing to do with blackmail.

Gulyas said Budapest was also looking for solutions.

"One is that the Ukrainians admit that they cannot do this to two EU countries," he said. "Another is that the European Commission helps us, and the third is that we find a legal loophole that allows the oil to be transferred by someone not affected by the sanctions."

Tamas Pletser, an oil and gas analyst at Erste Group Bank in Budapest, said big fuel shortages were not likely after summer but said for MOL, Lukoil supplies were "not irreplaceable but still painful to lose."

The EU imposed sanctions on Russian oil in 2022 although Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic gained exemptions due to their reliance on it. Czech refineries, owned by Poland's Orlen, do not have Lukoil as a supplier, so have not been directly impacted by the dispute.

(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs and Boldizsar Gyori in Budapest, Jason Hovet in Prague, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv, Writing by Alan Charlish and Jason Hovet, Editing by Angus MacSwan and David Evans)
VILNIUS, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Lithuania is set to allocate an additional 20 million euros (about 21.7 million U.S. dollars) this year for the acquisition of various types of combat and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), Defense Minister Laurynas Kasciunas announced on Friday.

The decision was made after meeting with Finance Minister Gintare Skaiste, Kasciunas said on Facebook.

According to Kasciunas, the money will be used to buy drones and train drone instructors and operators for the Lithuanian Armed Forces.

"This will allow us to reach a new qualitative level in the process of training drone instructors," he said.

As part of efforts to develop drone capabilities, the Lithuanian Defense Ministry has already allocated 10 million euros (10.8 million dollars) to Lithuanian UAV manufacturers this year. 
Huntsville woman arrested for embezzling money from Madison landscape company

MADISON, Ala. (WHNT)  A Huntsville woman is facing theft charges after police say she embezzled money from a Madison landscape company.

According to the Madison Police Department, 42-year-old Cassandra Watson Scott is charged with first-degree theft of property.

The Madison County Sheriffs Office arrested Scott at her home on July 23.

She was taken to the Madison County Jail and released later that 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 WHNT.com.
The experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) present at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) have been hearing explosions and shots at different distances from the plant over the past week.

Source: press service of the IAEA

Quote: "Over the past week, the IAEA experts stationed at the ZNPP have conducted several walkdowns focused on monitoring maintenance activities across the site [of the ZNPP  ed.]."

Details: At the same time, the agency reports that the experts have carried out several inspections focused on monitoring maintenance activities across the site as well as the availability of necessary spare parts for the plant.

Over the last few days, the IAEA team observed ongoing maintenance of the components of the main electrical transformer of reactor unit 3, which were being disassembled for servicing.

The experts also monitored planned maintenance activities in the reactor hall and the nuclear auxiliary building of unit 6, including the refuelling machine crane and the heat exchangers. The team was also able to observe the maintenance of some electrical as well as instrumentation and control equipment.

"When visiting the same units turbine hall, the team was once again not granted access to its western part," the report says.

Background:

The UN General Assembly adopted the resolution on security and safety of Ukrainian nuclear facilities, specifically the Zaporizhzhia NPP, initiated by Ukraine.

In late June, the IAEA reported that an external radiation monitoring station was destroyed by Russian attacks and a blaze.

Support UP or become our patron!
The famed and historic Canadian mountain town of Jasper, Alberta was hit by a fast-moving wildfire this week, with the town suffering significant damage from the blaze.

Photos and videos spread on social media showed the extent of the devastation, with blocks of homes and tourist lodges reduced to ash. Fires first broke out in the area on Monday, July 22, and reached the town within 48 hours. Evacuation orders soon followed, with 20,000 tourists and around 5,000 year-round residents fleeing for safety. Now, many are just beginning to get a view of the destruction.

There are no words. Jasper is burned to the ground.  pic.twitter.com/lV8koLhzUR  Ryan Jespersen (@ryanjespersen) July 25, 2024

During a Thursday press conference, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said that "potentially 30 to 50 percent" of buildings in the town had been destroyed, BBC reported. "There is no denying that this is the worst nightmare for any community," she said.

While damage to the town was significant, it was not complete. The famous Jasper Park Lodge shared that it had largely survived the fires, and other parts of town appeared to be spared. No deaths have been reported.

An awesome update from Jasper Park Lodge: its damaged, but it survived. Most of the buildings are OK and the iconic resort will reopen at some point. #abfire #Jasper pic.twitter.com/0mGwHuF8av  Sean Amato (@JSJamato) July 26, 2024

Jasper is a hugely popular tourist spot, serving as a gateway to the majestic Canadian Rockies. Jasper National Parkthe largest and most popular national park in Canadaremains indefinitely closed due to the fires. Nearby Banff National Park remains open at this time.

Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland shared a heartfelt message on Facebook amid the devastation, imploring residents to stick together. "In the face of such overwhelming adversity, it is imperative that we support and strengthen each other," he wrote. "While the road ahead is daunting and remains uncertain, please remember that you are not alone. Our community is resilient, and united we will find a way to get through this, together."

Firefighters continue to battle blazes in the area, with rain and cooler temperatures helping to tamp down the spread.
A marked uptick in banned materials inside Idahos prison system has led to growing concerns over the use of drones, which prisoners have employed to drop drugs and cellphones  and possibly to help with an escape.

In the past year, prison officials suspect at least one attempt to introduce contraband with a drone at the main prison complex south of Boise. They hope to leverage a new carve-out in federal law and a proactive approach to the increasing issue nationwide to prevent prisoners from gaining access to prohibited items.

Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt said that if the use of drones at prisons in the state isnt pervasive yet, its not far off. He pointed to sophisticated drone operations to deliver contraband to incarcerated people already happening around the country.

Even though we dont have a significant history of drone drops or drones being used that we can confirm to bring in contraband, we know its only a matter of time, Tewalt said in an interview with the Idaho Statesman.

Regardless, he said, Idaho prison officials have confiscated more cellphones this year than in the entirety of Tewalts time with the department, which dates to 2011. He took over as its director in December 2018 and is determined to avoid letting contraband, including cellphones, become more widespread at a time when new technologies threaten to upend usual operations of the states prison system.

A contraband cellphone, for instance, likely aided in the March escape of maximum security prisoner Skylar Meade, 32, from Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise during a planned ambush. Fellow suspect Nicholas Umphenour, 28, was charged with helping Meade break free during a hospital visit for treatment. Police said Umphenour shot two correction officers, and a third was shot by a Boise police officer when he responded to the early-morning incident.

During Meades sentencing last week, prosecutors showed text messages between him and Umphenour, some exchanged while Meade was still in prison, that detailed their plans to ambush the IDOC officers and escape from the hospital, according to previous Statesman reporting.

Skylar Meade, 32, pleaded guilty to escaping prison custody while at Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise on March 20, where he was receiving treatment for self-inflicted injuries, and other related charges. He was sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole after 35 years.

The two men were captured in the Twin Falls area after a 36-hour statewide manhunt. During that time, police suspect that Meade and Umphenour killed two men in North Idaho. The suspects were indicted in the killing of an 83-year-old Juliaetta man, and also are believed to have killed a 72-year-old Orofino-area man, though charges have yet to be filed.

Elsewhere, two men in Georgia made national headlines in 2019 when they were caught using drones to deliver contraband inside a state prison. Their plan was to deliver 14 cellphones, four rounds of ammunition and 75 grams of tobacco, according to a WIRED Magazine report. They became two of the first U.S. federal prosecutions for serving as an airman without an airmans certificate.

High-profile drone incidents have garnered significant state and national attention. They also showed the potential consequences of prisoners unauthorized access to cellphones  regardless of the methods used to get them inside prison walls, Tewalt said.

Its not just the means of how that contraband makes its way into our correctional institutions. At its core its the damage that contraband can do, he said. So for us, its looking at every potential way that those phones could have gotten into our system, and theres not just one way, but drones was a possibility that we continue to look at.

Evolving drone technology adds to challenges

The use of drones to introduce contraband into prisons became more prevalent in the U.S. in recent years, so much so that the issue drew the attention of the Department of Justice. The Federal Aviation Administration barred drones from flying over federal prisons in June 2018.

The FAA covers federal prisons under its special authority, but state prisons do not qualify, an FAA spokesperson wrote in an email to the Statesman. At least seven states have passed laws to ban drones flying over state prisons: Kentucky, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee and Virginia. Idaho has no such law.

In some documented incidents across the country, drones dropped drugs into prison yards, sometimes using fishing line to dangle them directly into the possession of prisoners  often in the middle of the day. One of the most common deliveries is cellphones, which can be worth thousands of dollars in prisons and allow inmates to access the internet and involve themselves in criminal matters like drug deals, according to a report from The Marshall Project.

You have a criminal already incarcerated, and if you introduce means to further crimes  theyre going to take advantage of that in every evil way that you can conceive, Idaho state Rep. Bruce Skaug told the Statesman by phone. So its an ongoing battle that we cannot give up on.

Prisons in Idaho werent designed to withstand modern technology threats like drones. Of the 10 prisons in Idaho, nine were opened in 2000 or earlier. Five of them were built before 1990. Idaho State Correctional Institution, the oldest prison, opened in 1972.

Meanwhile, the technology for drones  also known as unmanned aircraft systems  is constantly evolving, which makes for yet another challenge in the battle against its use around prisons.

Idaho Department of Correction Director Josh Tewalt, right, with Boise Police Department Chief Ron Winegar, addressed the media about maximum security prisoner Skylar Meades escape from Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise on March 20, 2024.

As drones become more autonomous and as their technology improves, Tewalt said, theres another industry thats out there working on ways to help thwart them being used for illicit purposes.

Prison systems in the U.S. are barred from shooting drones down or using a net to capture them. They also cant break the frequency link between the drone and its controller. Destroying a drone is a federal crime and punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Only the Justice, Defense, Homeland Security and Energy departments may use technologies to interrupt the frequency of drones, according to existing federal law.

And prison sentences for delivering contraband into prisons can be light. The FAA regulates federal prisons, but smuggling contraband into a state facility isnt a federal offense. All of Idahos prisons are state-run.

I support a shotgun approach to the problem, Skaug said. I dont know what the directors view on that is, but if they actually saw one landing in there, I hope they would have a shotgun handy and take action rather than just making a phone call to the FAA.

If deemed beneficial, Skaug believes a bill similar to the ones already on the books in other states would pass in Idaho. As chair of the House judiciary committee, he said he is also open to sponsoring it.

For now, Tewalt thinks inclusion this year of language specifically about prisons in the FAA funding and policy law to restrict federal airspace around all corrections facilities will help. It should arm states with the ability to take a more strategic approach to circumventing drones as a means for getting contraband to prisoners, he said.

We dont think its going to stop people from attempting, but it certainly is going to increase our arsenal, Tewalt said.

D.C. proposals could offer local counter-drone authority

DZYNE Technologies, an autonomous defense technology company, is part of the push to prevent the use of drones around prisons and other public facilities from becoming a greater problem. The Southern California-based firm operates a test site near Kuna, not far from Idahos main prison complex, for new counter-drone technology.

The convoluted patchwork of federal laws and restrictions in the U.S. makes it an obstacle to stay a step ahead of bad actors using drones right off the shelf with the latest technology, company officials told the Statesman.

The legal landscape is challenging to say the least, Al White, DZYNEs executive vice president of air defense technologies, said in a video interview with the Statesman. So thats some of the advanced research that were trying to do so that we can bring solutions to bear  without violating all these civil liberties and legal challenges that the current systems get tripped up on.

A drone hovers above DZYNE Technologies Sage Works test site south of the Boise Airport near Kuna. The facility, not far from the Idaho Department of Corrections Boise-area prison complex, will expand to 100 acres and carries approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct beyond visual line of sight testing.

Idahos federal lawmakers also are involved in the effort. U.S. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch, a former county prosecutor, and Rep. Mike Simpson have supported spending additional federal funds toward research on more advanced unmanned aircraft technologies.

DZYNE and other companies in the industry are investing in new ways to use existing technology, like a type of radar called lidar that uses laser lights and 5G mobile networks, to spot drones where theyre banned. Detecting them is one thing, but stopping them is another issue altogether, White said.

Even taking a shotgun and trying to shoot down a drone or something violates the Aircraft Sabotage Act, he said. So the only thing that prisons and airports and critical infrastructure operators have to hang their hat on is the FAA Reauthorization to detect and mitigate.

A couple of proposals working their way through Congress could begin to offer potential solutions. They would provide levels of training and authority to various local officials to take their own counter-drone measures when they feel it necessary, rather than have to call on federal agencies to intervene.

How quickly either federal legislative option may gain the support needed on Capitol Hill to put into practice is less clear.

Its going to take a major event before people get serious about the need for these delegated counter-drone authorities, said Joe Francescon, DZYNEs chief of government affairs. Theres a groundswell of concern thats been driven really by the corporate side  in addition to the operators like the prisons and others who have been screaming for this and the additional resources that would be required.

In the interim, the company recommended that public agencies, including prison systems, consider existing low-cost drone detection systems. Doing so will show that the drone threat is real and actually at home, Francescon said, to help justify expanding counter-drone capabilities at local and regional levels.

DZYNE Technologies Sage Works test site south of the Boise Airport near Kuna will soon expand to 100 acres. The facility, not far from the Idaho Department of Corrections Boise-area prison complex, carries approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct beyond visual line of sight testing.

With evidence of at least one attempt to use a drone to drop contraband at Idahos main prison complex near Kuna  and perhaps others that went undetected  Tewalt envisions the new federal recognition of state prisons starting to thread the needle to limit prisoners from obtaining items that threaten public safety.

I just know that to date if we avail ourselves of certain technology, we may be able to detect them, which can be helpful, he said. But being able to actually bring them down or stop them at certain points, that hasnt been on the table for us.
CENTRAL ILLINOIS (WCIA)  Two Illinois agencies have issued statements about offensive comments made on social media Thursday.

The Illinois Department of Corrections issued a statement announcing a correctional officer has been placed on administrative leave after they made an offensive Facebook post.

Autopsy of Sonya Massey to be released

The Department has been made aware of social media posting on Facebook made earlier today. The Department is conducting an internal investigation. CO Angeli has been advised of his administrative leave, effective immediately. The Illinois Department of Corrections is a multicultural agency deeply committed to ensuring diversity, equality, and inclusion. We want to be clear: the comments made by this individual do not reflect the principles and standards of the Department. We apologize to anyone affected by these remarks and reaffirm our commitment to upholding policies and practices conducive to eliminating all forms of exclusion, including, but not limited to, racism, ageism, ableism, sexism, discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender and gender identity, and religious oppression. We will continue to educate and engage our team on the importance of environments where all feel valued, respected, and included. Illinois Department of Corrections

The Sherman Police Department also alerted the public of a former resident making an offensive post.

Sherman Police are aware of an inflammatory social media post related to the Sonya Massey shooting by a subject who no longer resides in Sherman, officials wrote on Facebook. For those following this thread, please be aware that the current residents have no association with the author of this post.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
SANGAMON COUNTY, Ill. (WCIA)  The Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council filed a grievance saying the deputy that shot Sonya Massey in the face was terminated without just cause.

Sean Grayson shot 36-year-old Sonya Massey in the head while responding to a call at her home. Grayson was charged with first-degree murder earlier this month. He pled not guilty. Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell announced his firing minutes after he was charged.

She needed a helping hand, not a bullet to the face: Crump speaks out on Sonya Massey autopsy

Body camera footage captured the moment where Massey was moving a pot of boiling water from her stove when Grayson fired three shots at her. Grayson said in the video he thought Massey was about to throw the boiling water at him and his partner.

The grievant was terminated without just cause, officials wrote in the grievance form filed July 18 to the Sangamon County Sheriffs Department obtained by WCIA.

FOP officials also argue the Sangamon County Sheriffs Office publicly disseminated details of the investigation on Facebook, which violates the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the county.

We dont have any info and nobody will tell us: Dispatch records detail confusion after Sonya Massey shooting

The FOP is seeking reinstatement, reimbursement of all lost wages, and restoration of all benefits for Grayson.

WCIA reached out to the police union for comment about the grievance.

As a labor organization, we have an obligation to protect our members procedural, and due process rights contained in the collective bargaining agreement, The Illinois FOP said in a statement. Those rights come with very strict timelines.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Illegally convicted Ukrainians can be brought back from Russia  Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for Treatment of PoWs

Russia, in breach of the Geneva Conventions, remains silent about the criminal proceedings opened against Ukrainian prisoners of war. Stock photo: Caspar Benson, Getty Images

Ukraine is currently aware of at least 620 criminal cases opened against Ukrainian soldiers held captive by the Russian Federation. However, even conviction will not prevent their return home.

Source: Petro Yatsenko, Head of the press service of the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia

Quote: "Of course, receiving bogus sentences is a major source of stress for the families of soldiers and illegally imprisoned civilians. However, from the perspective of negotiations, having a criminal sentence is not an obstacle to exchanges," the official explained.

Details: At the same time, Yatsenko believes that Russia is unwilling to exchange Ukrainians for collaborators and their military personnel, and is purposely delaying the exchange procedure, which may impede the soldiers return home.

Despite the Russian Federation's silence on open criminal procedures against Ukrainian military personnel, which violates the Geneva Conventions, the Coordination Headquarters obtains this information from open sources within the Russian Prosecutor's Office and media.

As of 30 June 2024, Ukraine is aware that 620 Ukrainian defenders have become "suspects" of alleged crimes.

Currently, only 29 illegally convicted soldiers have been released from prison.

According to a representative for the Coordination Headquarters, it is easier to return defenders who have already received a "sentence" to a Ukrainian-controlled area than those whose "criminal proceedings" have not yet concluded.

"When a person is under a so-called 'investigation', the Russians refuse to exchange them, citing the fact that the procedure is incomplete. There have been such precedents. When a person already has their sentence, even if it is large and fabricated, the aggressor country's justice system can no longer see it as an impediment.

If the Russians still wish to take someone from their side, a person serving a term can be exchanged. A prison sentence should not cause despair, but it is hard for families," added Petro Yatsenko.

Shortly before the second anniversary of the Russian terrorist attack in Olenivka, which killed at least 53 Ukrainian soldiers, relatives of the victims and current Azov fighters urged Ukrainian parliamentarians to approve a day of remembrance for the defenders, members of volunteer formations and civilians who have been executed, tortured, or killed in custody.

Support UP or become our patron!
'Incredible how much things can change': New alliance stoked to get Harris elected

Vice President Kamala Harris is gaining ground with Americas youngest voters, a new Axios/Generation Lab poll shows, less than a week after the launch of her presidential campaign.

For some Gen Z, born between 1997-2012, the opportunity to elect Harris, a woman of Black and South Asian descent, to become the next president of the United States is on par with how voters felt with Barack Obama in 2008.

Quentin Wathum-Ocama, the Young Democrats of Americas president, 33, says it feels a lot like the Hope and Change vibe of the Obama campaign in 2008, adding, Its incredible how much things can change in just a few days.

Hoping to maximize their efforts, Voters of Tomorrow brought together 17 youth political advocacy groups representing tens of thousands of voters to join forces. This alliance aims to bolster Harris campaign in the final stretch, according to a statement released Friday morning.

More: Harris drawing parallels to Obama as young voters eye chance to be part of historic first

The groups are hoping their combined efforts could help get more young people to vote for the vice president this November, a voting bloc Democrats need more than Republicans and that President Joe Biden struggled to win over.

Wathum-Ocama said Bidens decision to exit the race and Harris entrance into the race Sunday energized a group of campaign volunteers who werent feeling confident about the partys odds in the fall.

They feel good, and they feel like we can ride this into November. We can ride this up and down the ballot, Wathum-Ocama, 33, said. If you had called me last Thursday, what would I have said?

With members on the ground in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., the coalition plans to knock on doors, run social media campaigns, and phone bank for Harris.

Young women react to meeting Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Senator Kamala Harris at a meet and greet for women voters in Birmingham, Alabama on June 7, 2019.

Santiago Mayer is the executive director for Voters of Tomorrow, an organization representing youth interests that brought the groups together this week. By uniting, he said, their campaign efforts will be more strategic and targeted.

We want to make sure that were working together so that our efforts are additive, rather than duplicative, Mayer, 22, said. Were going to have a single message, a single mission, and that message is: We have to beat Donald Trump. We have to elect Vice President Harris, and young voters are the way to do it.

But as Republicans hope to reelect Trump, they are trying to widen the partys tent, as seen in the Republican National Conventions speaker lineup last week. Several speakers made appeals to voters of color and young voters as the GOP tries to chart its course to victory this fall.

Charlie Kirk, who founded the influential right-wing youth organization Turning Point USA, criticized the Biden-Harris administration during his speech on the first day of the convention.

I visit college campuses, so you dont have to, Kirk said.

The College Republicans of America endorsed Trump in January.

On Thursday, Harris received backlash from some young people online who oppose U.S. support for Israel after she condemned unpatriotic protesters who burned the American flag outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus address to Congress Wednesday.

But Progress Libs founder Maya Luna, 20, said she thinks its a fact that Harris is better positioned to beat Republican nominee Donald Trump than Biden.

Between brat summer messaging, coconut tree memes, and a first campaign ad set to Beyonces song Freedom, it appears Harris has captured youth attention in a way Biden couldnt.

I didnt think it was going to be a brat summer, and Im so excited it is, Wathum-Ocama said. The last three to four weeks were really, really hard. To go from from really depressing dark news stories and all of the infighting to unity and then this really, really fun viral campaign  its honestly what the doctor ordered.

Rachel Barber is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY, focusing on politics and education. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @rachelbarber_

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kamala Harris nabs support of new, massive alliance of young voters
New Delhi  Scientists say Indian farmers' eager uptake of a painkiller for their cattle in the 1990s has led to the inadvertent deaths of half of a million people and massive economic losses  not from any harm to the cattle, but from the loss of millions of vultures, scavengers that historically devoured animals' remains before they could rot and become vectors for disease.

In early 1990s, the patent on a painkiller called diclofenac lifted, making it cheap and widely available for India's massive agricultural sector. Farmers use it to treat a wide array of conditions in cattle. But even a small amount of the drug is fatal to vultures. Since the beginning of its widespread use in India, the domestic vulture population has dropped from a whopping 50 million to just a few thousand  and according to a study published by the American Economic Association, the impact on humans has been monumental, reflecting the vital role the scavengers play.

Vultures have been a crucial part of India's ecosystems for centuries. According to the authors of the study, entitled "The Social Costs of Keystone Species Collapse: Evidence From The Decline of Vultures in India," the large, homely birds are a "keystone species"  one that plays an irreplaceable role in an ecosystem.

They're the only scavengers that feed entirely on carcasses, and they do it extremely efficiently, quickly devouring the remains and leaving little behind to spread disease. The study authors say India's vultures would typically eat at least 50 million animal carcasses every year, before their population was decimated.

A vulture feeds on a buffalo carcass at the Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India, in a March 3, 2024 file photo. / Credit: Anuwar Hazarika/NurPhoto/Getty

In doing so, they prevented the dead farm animals from rotting, and the deadly bacteria and other pathogens that thrive in carcasses from being transmitted into human populations.

"In a country like India with prohibitions on eating beef, most cattle end up turning into carcasses," Anant Sudarshan, an associate professor of economics at the University of Warwick in England, who co-authored the study, told CBS News. "Vultures provide an incredible disposal service for free.  A group of vultures takes about 45 minutes to turn a cow carcass into bone."

The vultures' keen appetite also helped keep the populations of competing scavengers in check, such as feral dogs and rats, which can transmit rabies and a host of other diseases.

In 1994, farmers began giving diclofenac to their cattle and other livestock. The drug causes kidney failure and death in vultures that feed on the carcasses of animals given the painkiller, and the population of the birds shrank from 50 million to just 20,000 over the course of the ensuing decade alone.

Without the vultures around to do the job, farmers started disposing their dead livestock in local bodies of water, which caused water pollution  and another way for pathogens to reach humans.

A file photo shows vultures eating an animal carcass in India. / Credit: Amit Pasricha/INDIAPICTURE/Universal Images Group/Getty

Sudarshan and study co-author Eyal Frank, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, examined the impact of the drastically reduced vulture population on human health by mapping vulture habitats with health data from more than 600 districts in India. They said their research shows 100,000 human deaths every year between 2000 and 2005 could be linked with the decreased vulture populations.

It also shows economic losses they estimated at $69 billion per year, largely associated with premature human deaths due to the collapse of the scavenger population.

These deaths were caused, according to their research, by the spread of diseases that a thriving vulture population would have mitigated. Stray dog populations, and with them, the spread of rabies, also increased during the timeframe, as did the amount of bacteria measured in many local water sources.

"India is now the largest center of rabies in the world, as the feral dog population has grown dramatically," Sudarshan told CBS News.

A young man fishes in the Jhelum river in Sopore, Jammu and Kashmir, India, June 12, 2024, as feral dogs watch from the bank. / Credit: Nasir Kachroo/NurPhoto/Getty

Without a major vulture rebound, the study authors said the spread of disease and resulting deaths will only continue in the coming years, as will the costs associated with health care.

India did ban diclofenac for veterinary use in 2006, but Sudarshan said the ban needs to be enforced much more effectively. He and Eyal have called for more conservation funding to boost vulture populations, but they've warned that even if the Indian government does mount a major effort, it will take at least a decade for the species to bounce back to the extent required because they're "slow reproducers."

As an alternative to bringing the vultures back, Sudarshan said India could build a network of incinerators around the country, but the estimated cost of that is about $1 billion per year, and they would use a huge amount of energy and create considerable air pollution, which is already a major problem for India.

"So, it makes more sense to bring back the natural way of dealing with the millions of animal carcasses that India produces each year," he said.

And he said that work must start urgently, as the "vultures began dying in the 1990s. India has not done anything three decades on."

A vulture is seen next to the carcass of sheep at the Zojila Pass in India, in a June 7, 2022 file photo. / Credit: Faisal Khan/Anadolu Agency/Getty

The government does spend about $3 million per year to save India's native tigers. Sudarshan said while vultures may be far less of a tourist attraction, there's a broader question about "the basis of our conservation policy."

"Our paper shows that the cost of losing them [vultures] is about $69 billion a year, which is far higher than any benefits the tiger" brings, he said, adding: "We need to think from a cost effectiveness point of view and growth view, how should we pick species to conserve?"

"Understanding the role vultures play in human health underscores the importance of protecting wildlife - and not just the cute and cuddly," said his co-author, Frank. "They all have a job to do in our ecosystems that impacts our lives."

Harris campaign releases video showing Trump mug shot

Park Fire in California expands, Jasper overtaken by Canada blaze

Can Harris maintain momentum through 2024 election?
As General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping's Special Representative, Wang Huning, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, leads a CPC delegation to mourn the passing of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

HANOI, July 25 (Xinhua) -- As General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping's Special Representative, China's top political advisor Wang Huning led a CPC delegation to Hanoi to mourn the passing of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), on Thursday.

Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also met with Vietnamese President To Lam and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

A respect-paying ceremony was held at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, where Trong's coffin was placed among flowers and draped in a large Vietnamese national flag in a somber atmosphere.

On behalf of Xi and the CPC Central Committee, and in the name of Xi's special representative, Wang laid a wreath, paused to observe a moment of silence before bowing three times to Trong's coffin, conveyed sincere condolences from Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan to Trong's widow Ngo Thi Man, and left a message in the condolence book.

While meeting with the Vietnamese leaders, Wang expressed deep grief over the passing of comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, saying that after learning the sad news, Xi went to the Embassy of Vietnam in China to pay tribute to the late leader, and the CPC Central Committee sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee.

Appointing Wang as Xi's special representative to lead a CPC delegation here for the mourning shows once again the heartfelt grief and sincere condolences of Xi and the CPC Central Committee to the CPV Central Committee and Trong's family. At this special moment, the party and people of China stand firmly with the party and people of Vietnam, Wang said.

Wang noted that Trong is a staunch Marxist, a great leader of the CPV and the Vietnamese people, and a great friend of the Chinese people. His death is a great loss to the cause of socialism in Vietnam and to the cause of peace and progress of mankind.

The Chinese party and government will, as always, support the Vietnamese party in leading its people on a development path suited to their national conditions, and support Vietnam's reform, opening-up and socialist development, Wang said.

It is believed that under the strong leadership of its central committee, the CPV will inherit and develop Trong's philosophy and principles on party and state governance, and unite and lead the Vietnamese people to successfully accomplish the goals and tasks set forth at the 13th National Congress of the CPV and welcome the successful convening of the 14th National Congress of the CPV, Wang added.

Wang said that Xi and Trong have devoted to the development of relations between the two parties and the two countries. Under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-Vietnam relations have maintained steady and sound development and have been lifted to a new height of a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, Wang noted.

He said that China is ready to work with Vietnam to implement the important consensus reached between the two sides during Xi's visit to Vietnam last year, maintain high-level exchanges, deepen practical cooperation in key areas, consolidate the foundation of public support for China-Vietnam friendship, and strengthen multilateral coordination and cooperation, so as to promote the building of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future in a deep, solid, steady and long-term manner, he said.

After the passing of Trong, the CPC Central Committee immediately sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee, the Vietnamese side noted, adding that Xi's visit to the Vietnamese Embassy in China to mourn and sending Wang as his special representative to Vietnam to pay condolences shows the special feelings of the CPC, Chinese government and people towards the CPV, Vietnamese government and people, which deeply moved the Vietnamese side.

The Vietnamese side said that Vietnam is more determined to follow the national development path established by the older generation of leaders and Trong, stressing that China is the only country that has all the priority factors in Vietnam's foreign policy.

Vietnam will keep in mind Trong's entrustment that "so profound is the friendship between Vietnam and China, because we are both comrades and brothers," always give top priority to the development of relations with China, and firmly promote the building of a Vietnam-China community with a shared future that carries strategic significance in accordance with the important consensus reached between Trong and Xi.

The Vietnamese side congratulates the successful holding of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, saying that the plenary session put forward important measures for further deepening reform comprehensively, which will effectively promote China's high-quality development and modernization, and will also provide important reference and impetus for Vietnam to continue to promote the cause of Doi Moi (reform).

During his stay in Hanoi, Wang also met with Esteban Lazo Hernandez, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and president of Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power, who attended the condolence activities. 

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Vietnamese President To Lam, in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 25, 2024. As General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping's Special Representative, Wang Huning led a CPC delegation to Hanoi to mourn the passing of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) on Thursday. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 25, 2024. As General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping's Special Representative, Wang Huning led a CPC delegation to Hanoi to mourn the passing of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) on Thursday. (Xinhua/Yao Dawei)

Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, meets with Esteban Lazo Hernandez, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and president of Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power, in Hanoi, Vietnam, July 25, 2024. As General Secretary of the CPC Central Committee Xi Jinping's Special Representative, Wang Huning led a CPC delegation to Hanoi to mourn the passing of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) on Thursday. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao)
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. Photo: Presidents Office

Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi is planning to visit Ukraine in August for the first time since the war began.

Source: WION citing Indian diplomats

Details: According to WION, Modi's visit to Ukraine is most likely set for 23 August. Several diplomatic sources in Delhi have corroborated this.

Zelenskyy encouraged India's prime minister to visit Ukraine in a phone call earlier this year.

Modi spoke with Zelenskyy in June on the sidelines of the G7 summit. During their meeting, the two leaders talked about the situation in Ukraine, with the Indian prime minister emphasising "dialogue and diplomacy".

Background:

Modi visited Russia in early July, on the day Russia attacked the Okhmatdyt childrens hospital in Kyiv. At a meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Modi urged him to end the war in Ukraine, telling Putin that a solution cannot be found on the battlefield.

Zelenskyy was critical of Modi's meeting with Putin, calling it a "devastating blow to peace efforts". In response, India summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to discuss Zelenskyys remarks.

The United States has expressed concern about India's relations with Russia in light of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine.

Support UP or become our patron!
Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters.

HARRISBURG  Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is being eyed as a potential Democratic vice presidential nominee, but with that attention has come intense scrutiny of his support for a traditionally conservative idea: taxpayer-funded private school vouchers.

Since taking office last year, Shapiro has become the most prominent Democratic voice in the state for such a program. Last summer, he backed a controversial Republican voucher proposal to the chagrin of longtime party allies and influential unions that supported his candidacy  though he ultimately vetoed the language after facing opposition from fellow Democrats.

Despite his high-profile public backing, Shapiros embrace of vouchers appears to be a relatively new conviction, according to political insiders and others who have worked with and followed the governor in his two-decade political career. As a state lawmaker in the 2000s, he didnt advocate for the issue, they recalled, let alone push legislation.

Shapiros thinking on the issue can be understood in part through his relationship with at least one prominent school choice advocate, sources told Spotlight PA.

Voucher programs vary widely, but they broadly route public money to pay for tuition at private and religious schools.

Proponents argue they give children attending struggling public schools crucial options, while opponents say they weaken public schools by diverting funding and dont necessarily help students. Studies have shown that their effects are mixed, with more recent reviews of statewide programs showing they have caused student test scores to decline.

Shapiro did not publicly back creating a voucher program until his run for governor in 2022, according to a review of news articles and public statements he has made.

He has tempered his position  deeply unpopular among many of his Democratic colleagues  by saying he will only support such a program if it does not take money away from public education.

I think its very important that we fully fund public education, Shapiro told reporters at a 2022 campaign event. And I also think its really important that we empower parents to put their kids in the best place for them to be able to succeed.

To be sure, during his time as governor, both state budgets have included major public education investments. This years $1.1 billion increase for K-12 education was the largest single-year bump in the states history, according to Shapiro.

In his time in office, Governor Shapiro has consistently delivered historic increases in public education funding and finally, after decades of inaction, moved Pennsylvania towards adequately and equitably funding our public schools, Shapiro spokesperson Manuel Bonder said in a statement to Spotlight PA.

Behind the scenes, however, he has also tried to convince fellow Democrats to set aside public dollars for vouchers. For many of them, Shapiros insistence on the issue is confounding.

Shapiro, 51, has been an elected official since 2005, when he joined the state House representing the Montgomery County district where he grew up and still lives. Several former colleagues say that during his eight years in the chamber, he wasnt involved in school choice debates in any significant way.

Ive had conversations with [Shapiro] about many other things, said Tony Payton, a former Democratic state representative from Philadelphia who supports school vouchers and served alongside the governor, and that wasnt one of them.

There would have been opportunities.

In 2011, while Shapiro was still a state House member, then-Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, launched a push to create a school voucher program. That effort passed the state Senate with bipartisan backing but foundered in the state House, where it never came up for a vote.

State Sen. Anthony Williams (D., Philadelphia) was one of the Democrats who supported it. He told Spotlight PA that Shapiro wasnt involved in pushing for the program.

Any Democrat that was for school choice, I would know that, he said.

Williams, who is still a member of the chamber and remains one of the Democratic Partys strongest school choice supporters in the state, says he didnt get a hint that Shapiro was open to vouchers until he was running for governor.

Now, I dont know the whole motivation, Williams said. He added that when he spoke to Shapiro about passing school choice legislation more recently, the governor said it was the right thing to do.

Williams added that Shapiro has friends who are in the school choice community who align with him about that issue. And so in the conversations, Im told, this issue came up, and they sort of found common ground.

Those friends, Williams said, were supporters, who are strong choice people, who supported his campaign, because they were supportive of the issue of choice.

Three sources who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive political issue told Spotlight PA that notable among them is Joel Greenberg, a billionaire co-founder of the global high-speed trading firm Susquehanna International Group.

Greenberg served on Shapiros gubernatorial transition team with an assignment to focus on education policy, and multiple sources confirmed to Spotlight PA that the two have known each other for more than a decade.

In 2015, Shapiro, then a Montgomery County commissioner, gave the Philadelphia Inquirer his assessment of Greenbergs political and philanthropic work.

Hes a major employer in the region and hes wonderfully philanthropic  for Jewish causes, educational causes and other community organizations, Shapiro told the paper.

Another co-founder of Susquehanna International Group is even more well-known in the world of Pennsylvania school choice advocacy: billionaire Wall Street trader Jeffrey Yass. Hes emerged as a major Republican donor nationally and an inescapable power broker within the commonwealth, despite his nearly nonexistent public profile.

Both Greenberg and Yass have been involved in bankrolling the school choice movement for more than a decade in Pennsylvania.

We are not in this to run charter schools, to manage charter schools. This is purely altruistic, Greenberg told WHYY in 2015, when asked about his support for Williams mayoral campaign. We view this as helping kids have a choice who are trapped in failing, oftentimes violent schools.

Along with fellow suburban Philadelphia billionaire and SIG co-founder Arthur Dantchik, Greenberg and Yass were at one point the main donors to Students First, a political action committee founded in 2010 to support school choice candidates.

Shapiro accepted $175,000 from that PAC between 2012 and 2016, according to campaign finance records. During that time, he was a Montgomery County commissioner and, by 2016, was running for attorney general.

The donations to Shapiros attorney general campaign so troubled Philadelphias teachers union that it quietly pulled its endorsement at the last minute, multiple news outlets reported.

The union declined to comment at the time, but a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed to Spotlight PA that the union pulled its endorsement over the Students First donations. (The Pennsylvania State Education Association, a larger, statewide teachers union, continued to back Shapiro in that election.)

During the 2022 gubernatorial race, PACs connected to Yass spent millions during the primary to oppose eventual Republican nominee state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin). One of those PACs, Commonwealth Leaders Fund, ran anti-Shapiro ads during the general election but scaled back then stopped that spending shortly after Shapiro publicly pledged his support for vouchers.

Once elected, Shapiro sought to create such a program as part of the 2023-24 state budget.

Gov. Josh Shapiro visits a Pittsburgh school in March 2023.

I believe every child of God deserves a shot here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and one of the best ways we can guarantee their success is making sure every child has a quality education, Shapiro told Fox News in June 2023, late in the states budget process.

The remarks preceded the Republican-controlled state Senates sudden passage of a budget deal that included $100 million in taxpayer money to fund private school tuition for students in low-performing public districts.

But once the budget reached the state House, Shapiro received hard pushback from the lower chambers new Democratic majority. In a politically embarrassing setback, Shapiro agreed to veto the voucher dollars in exchange for the rest of the plans passage. That veto led to a nearly six-month budget impasse as state Senate Republicans claimed betrayal.

In his February budget address this year, Shapiro called on the legislature to again consider vouchers, though a top Republican leader later accused him of being unwilling to use his bully pulpit to get such a program across the finish line.

His ongoing support also hasnt saved him from Yass-funded criticism.

For the past two years, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which does not have to disclose its donors, has spent prodigiously on ads and other lobbying to criticize politicians who dont support vouchers.

The group, Commonwealth Action, has received significant dollars from the free market Commonwealth Partners Chamber of Entrepreneurs, according to that groups most recent filings to the IRS. Commonwealth Partners runs two political action committees that are among the most active in Pennsylvania school choice advocacy, and both are almost entirely funded by Yass.

Between April 2023 and March 2024  the last recorded filing  Commonwealth Action reported spending more than $973,000 on indirect education lobbying, which includes advertising and other methods aimed at shifting public opinion.

One video from last summer funded by Commonwealth Action accused Shapiro of choosing special interests over kids.

Commonwealth Action is linked to an established conservative organization in Pennsylvania, the Commonwealth Foundation. Since summer 2023, the exterior of the organizations Harrisburg building, which is across the street from the state Capitol, has featured ads calling for Shapiro to pass the voucher plan. The foundation is now funding a six-figure newspaper and TV ad campaign.

You lied, and you turned your back on us again, Printess Garrett, a Harrisburg mother, says in a TV spot. The only thing we have for our children is our word, and if we cant trust in your word, we dont have anything else.

Moving forward, political sources told Spotlight PA they expect teachers unions and other public education advocates to be among the most skeptical of a Shapiro vice presidency.

On Wednesday, 28 education advocacy groups from across the country sent an open letter to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris arguing that it is essential that our President and Vice President be wholly committed to our nations public education system and willing to fight against school privatization in all its forms.

But to Payton, not considering Shapiro for backing a policy to aid parents in the hunt for whats best for their kids is a bad choice.

To blatantly disqualify somebody over something ideological like that is foolish, Payton said.

BEFORE YOU GO If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org/donate. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.
An inspection of the 59th Motorized Brigade ordered by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces due to the unit's recent losses, has found "management decisions" and other factors that could "negatively influence the course of combat."

However, it did not find any issues that warrant the issuing of criminal charges, the Military Service of Law and Order in the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a post on Facebook on July 26.

"In order to prevent such occurences, the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has made appropriate decisions and a number of measures aimed at preventing such cases. Individual officials of the command brigade have been brought to justice," it added.

The inspection was ordered by Oleksandr Syrskyi earlier this month and came only a day after Azovstal defender and medic Kateryna Polishchuk, known under the nickname Ptashka ("Birdie"), called on Syrskyi and President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the unit over the alleged misconduct of its commander, Bohdan Shevchuk.

"Since thousands of soldiers remain in the combat zone under Shevchuk's leadership, I ask you, Commander-in-Chief, to pay heed and conduct an internal investigation," Polishchuk wrote in a Facebook post on July 14, accusing Shevchuk of "criminal orders, negligence, actions that resulted in the deaths of a large number of troops," as well as careerism, removal of dissenting commanders, and other transgressions.

When announcing the investigation on July 15, Ukraine's General Staff did not explicitly name Polishchuk nor Shevchuk and did not mention specific circumstances that led to the start of the probe.

The 59th Brigade is deployed near Krasnohorivka in Donetsk Oblast, a front-line town under heavy pressure by Russian forces.

Polishchuk was captured by Russia in May 2022 after Azovstal, a metallurgical plant that served as Ukraine's last remaining holdout in besieged Mariupol, fell into Russian hands. The medic was released alongside over 200 defenders in the fall of the same year, joining the 59th Brigade and returning to the front soon after.

While praising the unit's previous commanders, Polishchuk said that Shevchuk was appointed to the position in April 2024 through "family ties in the top military leadership."

"Because of Shevchuk's inhuman and unprofessional attitude, I was forced to stop cooperating" with this unit, Polishchuk wrote, adding that "not everybody has the chance to resist the criminal orders aimed solely at winning extra stars by this man."

Polishchuk left the military last month, referring to "painful changes" in her life.

Last month, Zelensky dismissed Commander of the Joint Forces Lieutenant General Yurii Sodol.

Lieutenant Colonel Bohdan Krotevych, one of the Azov Brigade's commanders, said on June 23 that he filed an official complaint to the State Bureau of Investigation calling for an investigation of one of the generals.

Read also: Russian losses in Ukraine causing serious problems for recruitment, HUR says

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
A stream of blue and red flashing lights and blaring sirens marked Melvindale police Cpl. Mohamed Said's final goodbye in Dearborn on Friday morning.

Said, 26, was killed Sunday while responding to a call near a gas station on Oakwood Boulevard and Dix Road in Melvindale. A suspect, 44-year-old Michael Lopez, is facing multiple charges in the case.

"He was born to be a police officer, he had the integrity, he had the love, he had the community outreach, he had the support for his residents, the businesses," said Melvindale Police Chief Robert Kennaley.

Day two of funeral services for the fallen officer began with a police ceremony outside the Ford Community & Performing Arts Center in Dearborn on Friday morning. An air of solemn silence permeated over the cool, sunny July morning as officers lined up and brought Said's casket in front of the building, broken only by the occasional airplane overhead and the soft lull of the hearse's engine.

An American flag lay draped over Said's casket as an officer shouted out orders, alternating with the Metro Detroit Pipes and Drums playing bagpipes and live Quran recitation in Arabic and English. Livonia police officers performed a 21-gun salute, leaving plumes of smoke, and a horn's tune pierced through the air.

A law enforcement announcement played through speakers, marking Said's final call from the Dearborn United Dispatch center.

"He gave of himself, serving this community with courage and valor," the dispatch announcement said. "The men and women of the Melvindale Police Department are forever grateful and proud to have served with Cpl. Said. We shall never forget his ultimate sacrifice."

Officers marched Said's casket into the hearse and prepared for the law enforcement procession to the next stop, Dearborn's American Moslem Society.

Police departments from across the country, including New York and Boston, and across Michigan, as near as Allen Park and as far as Kent County, along with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security, several college and university police departments and tribal police, united to honor Said.

"Anything that I needed, anything that the department needed, anything that the residents of the city of Melvindale needed, he got them, he would do anything for them," Kennaley said.

The funeral with honors for Mohamed Said, 23, a police officer for the Melvindale police department who was killed in the line of duty Sunday was carried to Woodmere Cemetery from the American Moslem Society in Dearborn on Friday, July 26, 2024.

Hundreds of police vehicles, motorcycles and fire department trucks drove to the mosque, with police vehicles temporarily blocking traffic to allow for the procession. Community members lined up along the sides of local roads in lawn chairs and came out of nearby residences and businesses to take in the procession, many pulling out their cellphones to catch the moment on video.

Bill and Maureen Brinker, of Brownstown, are retired Taylor police officers and brought a thin blue line American flag and sign to watch the procession along Greenfield Road in Dearborn on Friday.

"We came to show our support for Officer Said and for the law enforcement community," Maureen Brinker said.

The procession marked a key show of solidarity for Said, Maureen Brinker said.

More: Community grieves slain Melvindale Police Officer Mohammed Said at visitation

More: Suspect in fatal Melvindale police shooting injured Detroit officer in 2011, records show

"It shows that the law enforcement community is a family, it's one big family and they support each other and they support the community too," Maureen Brinker said. "It's good to see the residents in the community out here supporting them as well."

Mourners then packed into the prayer halls, basement, alley and parking lot of the American Moslem Society for the funeral prayer Friday afternoon, seeking comfort in faith as they bid Said a tearful farewell. Imam Belal Alzuhairi led an Islamic lecture and prayers in Arabic and English, recognizing the diversity of faiths and races among those who loved Said.

Melvindale police officers and family members stand graveside at Woodmere Cemetery on Friday, July 26, 2024, for the funeral with honors for Mohamed Said, 23, a police officer for the Melvindale police department who was killed in the line of duty Sunday.

Alzuhairi tearfully discussed a text exchange between him and Said from 2015 in his lecture, recalling his affection for Said.

"He was expressing to me how much he loved me and that he is proud of me, he said 'I'm proud of the work that I do.' I thanked him back then and I said some kind words, but I did not also tell him that I was proud of him because I wanted him to achieve even more," Alzuhairi said. "But today, without any hesitation, and with complete certainty I say that 'I am proud of you too.' "

Police officers gathered in the main prayer hall to bring the casket in and out of the mosque and greet loved ones. Following the funeral prayer, the community gathered in the nearby Woodmere Cemetery for Said's burial, with Quran recitation playing over loudspeakers as loved ones prayed for Said.

Memorial services for Said also included an afternoon visitation Thursday at the Ford Community and Performing Arts Center in Dearborn.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered all Michigan and U.S. flags in the state to be lowered to half-mast Friday to honor Said and some local businesses launched fundraisers this week to benefit his family.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Police procession, funeral honors Melvindale Cpl. Mohamed Said
Brockton Public Schools new Interim Superintendent Priya Tahiliani is suing leaders of her former school district Everett Public Schools over allegations of racism and sexism while she served as superintendent.

The Brockton School Committee voted to hire Tahiliani for the role of interim superintendent of BPS on July 9, replacing Acting Superintendent James Cobbs for the upcoming school year. The appointment comes as Tahiliani and her former Deputy Superintendent Kim Tsai are currently in a lawsuit against Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria.

The lawsuit alleges DeMaria and members of the Everett School Committee racially discriminated against the two women on multiple occasions and made racist and sexist comments to them throughout their tenure.

Ultimately, DeMaria and the committee did not renew Tahilianis contract after it expired in 2024 despite her receiving positive performance reviews, the lawsuit said.

Prita Tahiliani was selected to be the new interim superintendent of Brockton Public Schools, replacing Acting Superintendent James Cobbs, at school committee meeting on Tuesday, July 10, 2024.

Tahiliani, who identifies as Indian, was the first superintendent of color in Everett, a school district thats roughly 80% students of color.

Tahiliani has the distinction of being the first Everett superintendent to be denied federal reimbursements, Medicaid funding, and money above net school spending on behalf of the school system, the lawsuit says.

What is in her contract: Brockton Public Schools' new interim superintendent 'excited' to join school district

While Tahiliani was superintendent of Everett, an independent investigation was conducted after claims arose that Tahiliani created a hostile work environment through bullying and favoritism among her staff.

She and Tsai also filed a lawsuit in 2018 against their previous employer Boston Public Schools over allegations of unequitable pay compared to their male counterparts. But that lawsuit was dismissed in 2020.

Tahiliani sues Everett

According to the ongoing lawsuit, which was filed in March 2023, Tahiliani and Tsai received demeaning and racist comments, abusive and disparate treatment, and unjustified and highly subjective discriminatory and retaliatory attacks from DeMaria and members of the Everett School Committee.

Both Tahiliani and Tsai have been subjected to blatant and overt acts of discrimination and retaliation at the hands of Mayor DeMaria and his cronies, said court case documents.

What we know about Priya Tahiliani: The person who's Brockton's new interim superintendent

The lawsuit states DeMaria was generally uninvolved in School Committee matters up until Tahiliani joined the district in 2020. Once she took office, DeMaria elected to become a voting member of the School Committee without holding any public hearings, violating Massachusetts General Law.

It was not until Tahiliani, the first minority superintendent was appointed, that Mayor DeMaria took this unprecedented step, the lawsuit says.

Brockton has striking racial disparity: Mostly white teachers and mostly students of color

The mayor allegedly made frequent comments during meetings about Tahiliani and other female school district officials facial expressions, encouraging them to smile.

Tahiliani hired staff of color to fill leadership roles in the district, and the percentage of non-white staff in the central office rose from 0% under the previous superintendent to 20% under Tahiliani.

She also created new positions like the Family Engagement Manager and the Chief Equity Officer and hired people of color to fill those roles.

As a result of this, Mayor DeMaria began to openly accuse her of being a racist to members of the School Committee and the school community, stating that she only hired people of color and that she hates white people, said the lawsuit.

Brockton Public Schools' new Interim Superintendent Priya Tahiliani takes her seat for the first time at the School Committee meeting on July 16, 2024, after signing a one-year contract with the district.

The mayor also withheld critical school funding, the lawsuit alleges, and stopped providing any additional funding beyond the state-require minimum for net school spending. The lawsuit states the city was cited by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for not meeting minimum school spending mandates.

By the end of Tahilianis tenure in Everett, DeMaria stopped recognizing her to speak at school committee meetings, calling on her white, male subordinates to provide updates to the committee. Eventually, Tahiliani was no longer invited to committee meetings, according court documents.

Tahiliani did not comment on the lawsuit when contacted by The Enterprise. DeMaria did not respond to The Enterprise's request for comment.

Back to School: When is the first day of school for Brockton students?

Investigation into Tahiliani

In October 2023, Tahiliani was placed on administrative leave as Everett launched an investigation into complaints from 10 of her staff members of bullying and favoritism within her office, according to WGBH. Once the investigation was completed in April, the school committee didn't release the results publicly.

Background: Brockton Schools to hire interim superintendent. What does it mean for Mike Thomas?

A state report: What has contributed to the decline of Brockton schools?

After two months, Tahiliani's lawyers were permitted to read the results of the investigation but weren't provided a copy of the results. WGBH reported that her lawyers said that "every single one of the complaints were unfounded and many bordered on frivolous."

Tahiliani sued Boston Public Schools

Tahiliani and Tsai were also involved in an earlier lawsuit against Boston Public Schools, where they both worked prior to Everett in the Office of English Language Learners.

The Boston Globe reported in 2018 that the two women sued the school district for unequal pay compared to male counterparts. While Tahiliani and Tsai worked as executive directors in the English Language office, they only made salaries of roughly $107,000 while male executive directors in similar offices, like the Office of Human Resources, made above $140,000.

That lawsuit was filed in November 2018 and was dismissed in 2020.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton's Priya Tahiliani suing Everett School Committee, mayor
Nichole Keway Biber, Mid-Michigan campaign organizer for Clean Water Action discusses the Kalamazoo River oil spill and threats posed by Enbridge's Line 5 pipeline during a July 25 gathering at the Michigan State Capitol. | Kyle Davidson

Fourteen years after Enbridges Line 6B pipeline ruptured, spilling up to a million gallons of tar-sands crude oil into a Kalamazoo River tributary, environmental advocates continue to speak out against Enbridges pipelines, calling for a shutdown of the companys controversial Line 5.

At six gatherings on Thursday in Michigan, Wisconsin and Canada, members of the Oil & Water Dont Mix Coalition, Sierra Club and Sierra Club Canada, Le Vivant se Defend, Water Watchers, Cross Border Organizing Working Group and Stop Line 9 Toronto launched North American Oil Spill Day to draw attention to ongoing concerns of environmental contamination in the Great Lakes.

Activists have long pointed to Enbridges Line 5 as a threat to environmental health and Indigenous sovereignty. The pipeline stretches from Northern Wisconsin, through the Straits of Mackinac into Michigans Upper Peninsula, through the Straits of Mackinac through the Lower Peninsula and into Sarnia, Ontario.

The pipeline transports about 23 million gallons of crude oil and liquid natural gas daily, with opponents saying a rupture of the pipeline would be catastrophic.

As part of the gathering in Lansing, a small group gathered to discuss their concerns about Line 5, as well as actions they could take to oppose the pipelines efforts to continue operation.

While Enbridge has maintained Line 5 is operating safely, Nichole Keway Biber, Mid-Michigan campaign organizer for Clean Water Action, said at a Lansing event that the company made the same assurances ahead of the Kalamazoo River spill, noting it took the company 17 hours to shut down the pipeline after repeated warnings of a leak. She later noted that the company did not shut down Line 5 after it was dented by an anchor strike, with the company instead reducing its maximum operating pressure until composite sleeves could be wrapped around the damaged portions of the dual pipeline.

Keway Biber also referenced news coverage of a recent modification of a consent decree, which requires Enbridge to investigate circumferential cracks in four pipelines in the companys Lakehead System  Lines 1, 2, 4 and 62  and alters the requirements for assessing whether circumferential cracks must be excavated and repaired, among other actions. These new assessment methods would also apply to cracks in Lines 5, 6A and 10 that Enbridge discovered in previous In-Line Inspections but that the company has not yet excavated and repaired.

In an email to the Advance, Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said the company had agreed to the modification of the consent decree agreement and would follow the actions outlined in the agreement as required by the U.S. Environmental Protections Agency (EPA).

We have worked very hard to satisfy the conditions set out in the Consent Decree and believe we are making significant progress so that the rest of the Decree can be terminated, Duffy said. Safety is one of our core values and remains our top priority at Enbridge, every day.

Enbridge conducted inspections for circumferential cracks on Line 5 in 2017 and 2018, and will reanalyze the data from those inspections in accordance with the modified consent decree, Duffy said. While this analysis has not yet been completed, no features of concern are expected, he said.

None of the cracks in Line 5 identified by the consent decree are located in the straits of Mackinac, with the company performing annual inspections on that section of the dual pipeline, Duffy said.

However, a rupture at any point in the 645 mile long pipeline would be disastrous, with the pipeline stretching through various bodies of water, Keway Biber said.

Line 6B went into a stream first, then into the Kalamazoo River. All of this water is connected, Keway Biber said.

We need those responsible for our public trust waters to be taking their responsibilities incredibly seriously. We know all the basics, you cant drink oil, Keway Biber said.

Keway Biber and Oil and Water Dont Mix Coordinating Director Ross Fisher told individuals attending the gathering they could submit comments on a proposed reroute of Line 5 around the Bad River Reservation demanding a full environmental review of the proposal from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).

In 2019, the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa filed a lawsuit against Enbridge after refusing to renew the companys easements to operate the pipeline on their land, which expired in 2013.

Wisconsins Western District Court ruled that Enbridge had been trespassing since the expiration of the easements, requiring the company to pay out more than $5 million in damages and shut down the 12-mile section of pipeline running through the tribes sovereign territory by 2026.

Enbridge has maintained it is not trespassing, arguing its 1992 easement agreement allows the company to remain on the reservation through 2043. Both Enbridge and the Bad River Band have appealed the ruling, with the band asking for a greater share of the companys profits, a shutdown of the pipeline within six months and stricter monitoring of a section of the pipeline the Tribe has warned is at risk of being exposed and rupturing due to erosion.

As Enbridge works to reroute the 12-mile section of the pipeline outside the Bad River Reservation, the Band has raised alarms that the 41-mile reroute would still pose a threat to treaty lands and waters, cutting through more than 900 waterways upstream from the reservation.

The USACE opened public comment on its environmental assessment of the reroute in May, later extending the deadline to submit public comments on the effort to Aug. 4.

Oil and Water Dont Mix is also working to pressure U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to take action to shut down Line 5. Buttigieg previously called for a shutdown during his 2020 presidential campaign.

In an amicus brief filed in the Bad River appeal, President Joe Bidens administration said that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), housed within the Department of Transportation, has a major role to play in regulating pipelines.

Were holding them to that and saying that if you say that this department is responsible for regulating this extremely dangerous pipeline, then we want Secretary Buttigieg to take all actions possible in getting this pipeline shut down, Fisher said.

The coalition is also pressuring Biden directly to revoke the presidential permit Line 5 uses to operate across the U.S.-Canada border.

We cant afford to wait on just the courts to take action, Fisher said.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Introduce the bill tomorrow: Family of Sonya Massey advocates for police reform after shooting video released

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA)  Sonya Masseys death is reigniting conversations around law enforcement reform, and her family is leading the charge.

They are calling for real, systemic change across all parts of government after the Springfield woman was shot and killed in her home by a former sheriffs deputy for Sangamon County earlier this month.

IL FOP: Sean Grayson fired without just cause, files grievance

Her family has heard from officials from all levels of government from city hall to the White House. They already have some ideas for them.

Masseys father, James Wilburn, doesnt want all of this to happen again.

Introduce the bill tomorrow, he said.

He first spoke up publicly at her funeral, and started calling for change.

In this country, you need to pass the George Floyd Policing Act, he said.

She needed a helping hand, not a bullet to the face: Crump speaks out on Sonya Massey autopsy

The familys attorney Ben Crump said the video will shock Americas conscience before the body camera footage was released Monday.

It didnt take long for America to be shocked. Shortly after the video was released, social media released an outpouring of support for Masseys family, including many Illinois politicians.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre started off Wednesdays White House press briefing with a statement on Sonya Massey. Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris previously addressed the shooting.

Body camera video of Sonya Masseys shooting released

All of us as Americans, regardless of who we are or where we live, should be able to do so without fearing for our lives, Jean-Pierre said. Sonyas death at the hands of a responding officer reminds us that all too often, Black Americans face fears for their safety in ways that many Americans do not. Sonyas family deserves justice.

Masseys family also met with Governor Pritzker this week, and he promised further action on police reform in the state.

The Governor and Lt. Governor participated in a private, intimate meeting with the family of Sonya Massey, Alex Gough, a spokesperson with the governors office, said. While the details of what was discussed will remain private, the Governor committed to a partnership with the Massy family to further efforts for racial justice in Illinois.

Pritzker, Sangamon Co. officials speak out on deputys shooting charges

But Masseys family want to see changes on the local level too, including in law enforcement hiring practices.

Wilburn questioned if Grayson could be hired. He was charged with two DUIs, one in 2015 and one in 2016. He had also worked at six different police departments since 2020.

Mr. James Wilburn, her father, was a little more forceful. He talked about why he dont understand why he was ever heard in the first place, Crump said. The fact that he had to do as Mr. James says hed been the that it was six times in four years.

Wilburn has also called for the Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell to resign. An online petition calling for Campbells resignation has gathered more than 5,000 signatures, but the county said in a statement he will not resign.

WCIA has obtained some of Graysons hiring records, including from the Auburn Police Department. He cited the reason for leaving his previous department, the Kinkaid Police Department, was not meeting the residency requirement of living within 10 miles. He also listed his DUIs on his applications.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Investigators searching for additional victims of Abilene man accused of paying teen for sex

TAYLOR COUNTY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC)  Investigators are now searching for additional victims of an Abilene man accused of paying a teen for sex.

Sergio Chacon was taken into custody Thursday on warrants for Online Solicitation of a Minor and Sexual Performance of a Child in connection to the investigation.

A press release states, Chacon admitted to paying a 16-year-old female victim money for photos and requested meeting up with her to pay for sex.

Chacon also told investigators he had similar encounters with other females of unknown ages, according to the press release.

Anyone with information on Chacon or potential additional victims is asked to contact the Taylor County Sheriffs Office at (325)674-1300.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr was personally involved in the decision to release a misleading Justice Department statement on the eve of the 2020 election, falsely claiming there was voter fraud because nine mail-in ballots for Donald Trump were found discarded in a dumpster in Pennsylvania, according to an inspector generals report released Thursday, CNN reported.

On September 23, 2020, Barr told Trump at a White House event that seven of the nine recovered ballots were "marked for Trump," which is something that was not made public yet. In commenting on a case he wasn't bringing charges over, he violated the Department of Justice guidelines; the very next day, Trump revealed the information shared with him on a national radio show and the Department of Justice issued a statement.

Investigators concluded that the discarding of the ballots in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, was a mistake by a contractor and no charges were ever filed.

The inspector general's report slammed Barr for breaking with department protocol.

Nearly every DOJ lawyer we interviewed  both career employees and Trump Administration political appointees  emphasized how unusual it would be for the department to issue a public statement containing details about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly before any charges are filed, the report said. As one then U.S. Attorney told us: If [we] dont have a charge, we dont say anything about an investigation; we just dont do that.

Although Barr didn't technically break the law, he crossed the line simply for clear political purposes. His department's announcement of an investigation came as Trump was spinning the false narrative that the election would be rigged because of mail-in ballots.
Protesters gather at the Iowa Capitol rotunda to voice opposition to the new ban on abortion after roughly six weeks of pregnancy introduced by Republican lawmakers in a special session in Des Moines, Iowa on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Hannah Fingerhut)

Planned Parenthood says it will continue providing abortions in Iowa but only in the very limited circumstances allowed by the states six-week abortion ban, which goes into effect at 8 a.m. Monday after a year of legal wrangling.

The law restricts the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, the point when fetal cardiac activity can be detected, with the only exceptions being cases of rape, incest, a fetal abnormality incompatible with life or if the life of the mother is in danger. Iowa had previously permitted abortions until 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post.

Reproductive care groups in neighboring states where the procedure remains legal are already seeing an influx of patients from Iowa. The Chicago Abortion Fund received more than 60 support requests from Iowa residents during the first three weeks of July, a 165 percent increase over previous months.

Its staggering even to me, executive director Megan Jeyifo said Wednesday.

The Iowa Supreme Courts sweeping decision on June 28 left abortion rights with the lowest level of constitutional protection, a ruling that reversed an injunction on the 2023 statute and paved the way for the near-total ban to take effect. The court on Monday declined a request for a rehearing from Planned Parenthood, the states largest abortion provider and one of the plaintiffs in the case. The following day, a district court judge lifted the injunction.

Our hearts are heavy as Iowans have lost the ability to make personal, private medical decisions, said Ruth Richardson, president of Planned Parenthood North Central States. We will continue to fight to restore their bodily autonomy.

Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who had pushed the GOP-led legislature to pass the measure, this week called the court ruling a victory for life.

There is nothing more sacred and no cause more worthy than protecting innocent unborn lives, Reynolds said in a statement. She said she remained deeply committed to supporting women planning for motherhood by elevating adoption and protecting in vitro fertilization.

Richardson estimates that the number of abortions performed in Iowa will drop by at least 97 percent starting Monday morning. More than 4,000 procedures were done in the state in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a policy and research organization that supports abortion rights.

Eighteen states will now ban all or most abortions, a Washington Post analysis shows, with reproductive rights expected to be a key issue in the fall presidential campaign. Constitutional amendments to enshrine abortion rights already are on the ballot in five states.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ended federal protection for abortion in 2022, the Chicago Abortion Fund has helped 465 Iowans seeking the procedure and now anticipates even greater need. Jeyifo said Floridas abortion ban, which took effect May 1, prompted a huge increase in pregnant patients coming to Illinois from there and throughout the South.

The Iowa Abortion Access Fund has seen a 27 percent jump in requests for help since 2021, officials said, and requests to date this year are up 7 percent over 2023.

Groups in Iowa have been planning for the bans eventuality for months, according to advocates. Planned Parenthood North Central States, which also covers Nebraska, Minnesota and the Dakotas, has expanded elsewhere. During a call Friday with reporters, chief medical officer Sarah Traxler said the organization increased its health center capacity in Minneapolis and moved to a larger site in Mankato, Minn. Its Omaha facility is growing from four to 16 exam rooms.

This abortion ban will further widen already gaping health inequities [in Iowa] affecting the working class, Black people, people living in rural areas and young people, Traxler said. She and other staff on the call described several challenging days and extremely difficult conversations as women set for abortions next week tried to change their procedures to this week. Only about half could be accommodated even with overbooking appointments, they said.

The impact of the law, Traxler stressed, will be widespread and generational.

Abortion measures are set for the November ballot in Florida, Nevada, Colorado, South Dakota and Maryland, with activists awaiting confirmation in Arizona, Missouri and Montana that they gathered enough signatures to also put measures on the ballot in their states. Voters have overwhelmingly supported abortion rights in ballot questions since 2022, including in red states such as Kansas and Ohio.

Iowas process toward a constitutional amendment is complex and could take years. In 2021, conservative lawmakers there launched a measure asking voters to decide that there is no right to an abortion in the state, but it has not moved forward.

The new law will limit the procedure to a time frame in which many people dont yet know they are pregnant. The nonmedical exceptions will only apply if a sexual assault is reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days for rape and 145 days for incest.

Related Content

They have jobs, but no homes. Inside Americas unseen homelessness crisis.

A Trump sharks tale: Whether to be eaten or electrocuted

A new Field of Dreams rises in Oakland, the city major sports abandoned
A car is seen on the Peljesac Bridge in Komarna, Croatia, on July 26, 2024. Since its inauguration in July 2022, the Chinese-built Peljesac Bridge in Croatia has significantly boosted local businesses, creating new economic opportunities and facilitating smoother transportation on the Adriatic coast. The 2.4-kilometer-long bridge connects Croatia's mainland with the Peljesac Peninsula on the country's southern Adriatic coast and was built by a consortium of Chinese enterprises led by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). (Xinhua/Li Xuejun)

KOMARNA, Croatia, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Since its inauguration in July 2022, the Chinese-built Peljesac Bridge in Croatia has significantly boosted local businesses, creating new economic opportunities and facilitating smoother transportation on the Adriatic coast.

The 2.4-kilometer-long bridge connects Croatia's mainland with the Peljesac Peninsula on the country's southern Adriatic coast and was built by a consortium of Chinese enterprises led by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC).

It has brought opportunities to local businesses such as the Dingac-Skaramuca Winery, located 20 minutes drive from the bridge. The winery's sales director Branimir Andjelic told Xinhua: "We have seen lots of Chinese people visiting us in the winery and wine shops."

He added that the winery's featured product, Dingac, has seen a sharp increase in sales on the Chinese market since the bridge was built. Last year, a total of 1,000 bottles were sold in China, and in 2024 the figure could reach 3,000. The winery has a long-term goal of selling 20,000 bottles in China.

"I see great potential in China because lots of Chinese guests and partners have visited our vineyards and our cellar," Andjelic said.

Local resident Josipa Borovic worked for four years on the Peljesac Bridge project. She said: "It was an honor and a pleasure for me to work at the Peljesac Bridge project," adding that it had left her with "unforgettable memories." Borovic was unemployed when she applied to work in the human resources department of the Peljesac Bridge project in 2018.

"From the very beginning, it was a (...) wonderful environment, and it was actually easy to work with them. We clicked very quickly, and regardless of the language and cultural barrier, we cooperated perfectly," said Borovic, who later transferred to the administrative department until the end of the project in July 2022.

The Chinese team was hard-working and efficient, she said, allowing the project to be completed on schedule despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, even without the pandemic, there had been several unsuccessful attempts to build the bridge.

"I feel proud and grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the Chinese team, and make a small contribution to the project," said Borovic, emphasizing the "significant role" played by the bridge in boosting tourism, transport, logistics, and other economic activities in southern Croatia.

According to CRBC Manager Lu Shengwei, more than 250 local people were employed by the Peljesac Bridge project, along with 18 design consulting companies, 45 construction companies from the European Union (EU), and 112 equipment and material suppliers from Croatia, Germany, Poland, and other countries.

In the two years since its inauguration, nearly 5 million vehicles have already crossed the bridge.

The bridge also means that tourists and logistics drivers no longer have to detour through the Neum Corridor in Bosnia and Herzegovina to go to Dubrovnik, Korcula, and other cities in southern Croatia, or deal with cumbersome entry and exit procedures and long queues.

The Peljesac Bridge, a major infrastructure project under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has been an example of mutually beneficial cooperation between China, Croatia, and the EU, according to Qi Qianjin, Chinese ambassador to Croatia. 

People take souvenir photos in front of the Peljesac Bridge in Komarna, Croatia, on July 26, 2024. Since its inauguration in July 2022, the Chinese-built Peljesac Bridge in Croatia has significantly boosted local businesses, creating new economic opportunities and facilitating smoother transportation on the Adriatic coast.

The 2.4-kilometer-long bridge connects Croatia's mainland with the Peljesac Peninsula on the country's southern Adriatic coast and was built by a consortium of Chinese enterprises led by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). (Xinhua/Li Xuejun)

People take souvenir photos in front of the Peljesac Bridge in Komarna, Croatia, on July 26, 2024. Since its inauguration in July 2022, the Chinese-built Peljesac Bridge in Croatia has significantly boosted local businesses, creating new economic opportunities and facilitating smoother transportation on the Adriatic coast.

The 2.4-kilometer-long bridge connects Croatia's mainland with the Peljesac Peninsula on the country's southern Adriatic coast and was built by a consortium of Chinese enterprises led by the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC). (Xinhua/Li Xuejun)
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump on Friday at the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years as the two sought to mend their political alliance.

Netanyahu's visit to Florida came a day after the Israeli leader met in Washington with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris has urged Netanyahu to reach a cease-fire deal with Hamas soon so that dozens of hostages held by the militants in Gaza since Oct. 7 could return home.

The Health Ministry in Gaza says more than 39,100 Palestinians have been killed in the war. The United Nations estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

Heres the latest:

Netanyahu says Israel is eager to reach a U.S.-mediated deal for a cease-fire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday that Israel was eager to wrap up a U.S.-mediated deal for a cease-fire and release of hostages in Israels war against Hamas in Gaza.

Netanyahu spoke during a visit with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, on the fifth day of a U.S. visit focused on the war.

I hope so, Netanyahu told reporters there, when asked if his trip was making progress for a deal. But I think time will tell. Were certainly eager to have one. And were working on it.

At home in Israel, Netanyahu increasingly has been accused of prolonging the conflict to stave off the expected collapse of his far-right government when it ends. Israels offensive has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in Gaza since a Hamas-led attack Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people in Israel.

He said Israel would be sending a team to negotiations in Rome, probably at the start of next week.

Asked about the status of talks on freeing hostages held by Hamas, Netanyahu said, I think theres been some movement because of the military pressure that we exerted. I hope that there will be sufficient movement to get the deal completed.

U.N. agency pushes back against Israel's calls to dismantle it

UNITED NATIONS  The U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees told the Security Council on Friday that the world body must push against Israels calls to dismantle the agency and raised alarms about proposed Israeli legislation that would designate the aid agency a terrorist group.

We cannot afford this to become a new standard for future humanitarian operations in conflict zones across the world, said Antonia De Meo, the deputy commissioner of the agency, known as UNRWA. She said the legislation, if passed, would threaten staff and the entire U.N. system around the world.

Israels parliament, the Knesset, is weighing measures that would brand UNRWA a terror group and cut diplomatic ties between Israel and the agency.

UNRWA operates schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and aid programs in refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. In Gaza, it has been the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians during the Israel-Hamas war.

Some 199 UNRWA staffers have been killed in the war, the vast majority with their families, and 560 displaced people have been killed while sheltering under the U.N. flag, De Meo said. She said 190 of the agencys buildings have been hit, and many schools that were used as shelters were demolished.

Israel has long railed against UNRWA, accusing it of tolerating or even collaborating with Hamas and of perpetuating the 76-year-old Palestinian refugee crisis. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said for years that the agency should be dismantled.

This winter, Israel claimed that a dozen UNRWA employees participated in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that prompted Israels invasion of Gaza.

The allegations prompted more than a dozen countries to suspend hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions to the agency, though the great majority have resumed their funding.

UNRWA denies Israels accusations, saying the agency adheres to U.N. standards of neutrality and hasnt knowingly helped Hamas or any other militant group.

Israeli U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan reiterated complaints Friday about the world bodys response to his countrys allegations of ties between UNRWA staff and Hamas.

Trump welcomes Netanyahu to Mar-a-Lago

PALM BEACH, Florida  Clasping his hand warmly, a beaming Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years on Friday, as they sought to mend an important political alliance that had broken down after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory over Trump.

Trump was waiting on the stone steps outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, to greet the Israeli leader on the fifth day of his visit to the U.S., his first trip abroad since Israels war with Hamas began nine months ago.

Netanyahus Florida trip follows a fiery address to Congress and separate talks with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, newly Trumps Democratic rival for the presidency.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have strong political interests in getting past their differences. As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahus top wishes from the United States.

Israel says it has killed 500 militants in Lebanon since the start of the war

JERUSALEM  Israels military said Friday that it has killed 500 militants in Lebanon since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, but did not provide evidence to support the claim or a breakdown of the figure.

The claim conflicts with a tally by the Associated Press, which puts the number killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon also at around 500, but including about 90 civilians. By the AP count, about 350 of those killed in Lebanon were Hezbollah fighters and 50 were allied with other militant groups.

The military did not respond to AP inquiries to provide more information on the figure, which was made public in a Friday speech to brigade commanders in Israels north.

The militarys commanding Officer of the Northern Command, Ori Gordin, said the military had killed more than 500 militants, the vast majority of them Hezbollah, and destroyed thousands of infrastructure targets across the border.

Israel and Lebanon have been exchanging cross-border fire since the day after the Hamas attack on Israel. The violence has damaged huge swaths of land on both sides of the border and killed about 20 soldiers and 13 civilians on the Israeli side of the border.

CIA director to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials in Rome

WASHINGTON  CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to travel to Rome on Sunday to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and Qatari officials about the ongoing hostage and cease-fire negotiations, according to a U.S. official familiar with his travel plans.

The official, who was not authorized to discuss the CIA directors travel plans and requested anonymity, said Burns would be meeting with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani, Mossad director David Barnea and Egyptian spy chief Abbas Kamel.

The meeting comes after President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris separately met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and underscored to him that it was critical for Israel and Hamas to come to agreement that will release remaining hostages and the remains of those who died in captivity.

Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is expected to head back to the Mideast next week for talks with regional leaders about the effort to reach a hostage agreement.

___

Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.

Israel and Hamas are in agreement on the basic framework of a deal, U.S. officials say

WASHINGTON  Israel and Hamas are in agreement on the basic framework of the three-phase deal as it was presented by President Joe Biden in late May, according to senior Biden administration officials.

Top administration officials, including Biden, have repeatedly expressed cautious optimism for weeks that a deal is close to being sealed. And families of American hostage families said that Biden and Netanyahu also left them with the sense during a White House meeting on Thursday that a deal could potentially arrive in the coming days.

But there are some serious sticking points between the two sides that still need to be resolved, the officials said.

Among the differences are Hamas demands that Israeli troops immediately leave the narrow strip of land between Gaza and Egypt known as the Philadelphi corridor, according to officials. Until May, Egypt had exercised full control of the roughly 14-kilometer (9-mile) strip.

Other kinks that still need to be worked out include differences on the number of Palestinian prisoners that would be released during the first phase and Israels push to establish a vetting system for displaced Palestinians returning to northern Gaza after a cease-fire is established, the officials said.

___

Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.

U.S. to halt deportation of Lebanese citizens due to conflict in Middle East

WASHINGTON  The White House announced Friday that U.S. officials will halt the deportation of Lebanese citizens who have run afoul of immigration laws because of the ongoing conflict on Lebanons border with Israel.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that humanitarian conditions in southern Lebanon have significantly deteriorated and many civilians remain in danger due to the ongoing low-level fighting between Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The two sides have engaged in near-daily clashes since October, which have killed around 500 people on the Lebanese side, most of them fighters with Hezbollah and allied groups, but also including some 90 civilians.

The White House statement said Biden had determined that it is in the foreign policy interest of the United States to defer for 18 months the removal of any Lebanese national with some exceptions, including anyone convicted of a felony or who the Secretary of Homeland Security determined presents a danger to public safety. The Lebanese citizens would be authorized to work during that period.

U.S. diplomats have been attempting to broker an end to the hostilities on the Lebanon-Israel border amid fears that the conflict might blow up into a full-on war that could become a regional conflagration. Hezbollah has said it will halt its fire only when there is a cease-fire in Gaza, while Israeli officials have threatened an invasion or expanded military operation in Lebanon in an attempt to drive the militant group back from the border.

Israel extends its ban on Al-Jazeera

JERUSALEM  An Israeli court decided Friday to extend the ban on Al-Jazeera in Israel for over a month, bolstering the far-right governments attempt to permanently bar the news agency from operating in the country.

With the decision, the states order to bar Al-Jazeera from operating in Israel is valid for another 45 days. Its the third extension since the order was enacted in May, confiscating the channels broadcast equipment, preventing the broadcast of the channels reports and blocking its websites. Its believed to be the first time Israel has shuttered a foreign news outlet operating in country.

In the Friday decision, obtained by the AP, Judge Hagai Brenner wrote that the state had provided convincing evidence  which he did not make public  that Al-Jazeeras coverage posed a security threat to Israel, including confidential information indicating that Al-Jazeeras journalists in the Gaza Strip were embedded with militant organizations. He argued that Al-Jazeeras coverage has incited specific acts of violence against Israelis and revealed activities of the Israeli military in Gaza.

I did not determine that these broadcasts are made with the intention of deliberately harming the security of the state, and there is certainly a lot of journalistic interest in them, he wrote in the decision, But their harm is bad and risks the lives of the IDF fighters and the home front.

Since the ban began in May, Al-Jazeera has moved many of its English-language service correspondents operating in Israel to Amman, Jordan. Others still operate from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Netanyahu says he met with billionaire Elon Musk in Washington after his speech to Congress

JERUSALEM  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he has met with billionaire Elon Musk in Washington following his speech to the U.S. Congress.

Writing on the social media platform X, Netanyahu said Friday he and Musk discussed Artificial Intelligence and technological cooperation with Israel during their meeting Wednesday. He posted a picture of the two men shaking hands.

Musk was present at Netanyahus address to Congress and has been an ally of Israel throughout the war. The Tesla CEO did not make any public statement about the meeting with Netanyahu.

Musk announced Wednesday that his satellite internet service Starlink was active for a hospital in Gaza, a move made in coordination with Israel.

Gaza has experienced frequent communications blackouts as the infrastructure crumbles with months of fighting and a lack of fuel.

Israel's far-right lawmakers criticize US Vice President Kamala Harris' call for a cease-fire deal

JERUSALEM  Israels far-right lawmakers criticized United States Vice President Kamala Harris call for a cease-fire deal to end the war in Gaza.

There will be no end to the war, Mrs candidate, Israeli National Security Adviser Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote Friday on X. Ben-Gvir is one of the most visible right-wing ministers and a key ultranationalist ally to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Harris, who is backed by enough delegates to become Democratic nominee in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, met Thursday with Netanyahu in Washington, saying that bringing home hostages was imperative and describing widespread suffering among Gazas civilian population as fighting continues.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israels finance minister, claimed Harris had revealed that a cease-fire deal amounted to surrendering to Hamas. It is forbidden to fall into this trap! he wrote.

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are opposed to a cease-fire deal in Gaza and say Israel should continue fighting until Hamas is vanquished. Netanyahu is accused by many in Israel of drawing out the war, partially to appease them. Their combined resignations would be enough to topple the Prime Ministers coalition government and prompt new elections.

Militants in Gaza hold about 115 hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7. Many of the hostages are believed to be dead.

'The human suffering is unacceptable,' Canada, New Zealand and Australia say in a joint call for an urgent cease-fire in Gaza

CANBERRA, Australia  Canada, Australia and New Zealand issued a joint statement Friday on the need for an urgent cease-fire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.

The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue, the statement from the three prime ministers said.

Israel must listen to the concerns of the international community. The protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law. Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas. It must end, the statement said.

The prime ministers said they were gravely concerned about the prospect of further escalation across the region and condemned Irans mid-April attack on Israel. They also called on Iran to refrain from further destabilizing actions in the Middle East and demanded that Iran and its affiliated groups, including Hezbollah, cease their attacks.

Hezbollah began firing rockets shortly after Hamas Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, saying it aimed to ease pressure on Gaza. The exchange of fire and airstrikes, which has been limited to a few kilometers (miles) on each side of the border, has displaced tens of thousands of people in both countries.

A West Bank Hamas leader dies in Israeli custody

RAMALLAH, West Bank  A Hamas leader in the occupied West Bank died in Israeli custody Thursday evening after a deterioration in his health, according to a Palestinian prisoners rights group.

Sheikh Mustafa Abu Arra, 63, was arrested in October and was recently transferred from Ramon Prison to Soroka hospital where he died, the Palestinian Prisoners Club said.

The rights group said Abu Ara was subjected to torture and starvation during his detention, and did not receive adequate medical treatment. The group did not elaborate further. Israels prison authorities have not commented on the circumstances of Abu Aras death, and could not immediately be reached.

Abu Ara was arrested shortly after the start of the latest Israel-Hamas war under a process known as administrative detention, the group said, whereby detainees can be held indefinitely for security reasons without trial and charge. Rights groups and recently released Palestinian detainees say conditions in Israeli-run prisons have deteriorated since the Israel-Hamas war broke out.

Since the early 1990s, Abu Ara was arrested several times and spent roughly 12 years in Israeli-run prisons, the prisoners group and Hamas said.
About 100 armed fighters from the Palestinian militant organization Hamas have been killed since the start of the latest Israeli operation in the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army said on Friday.

The offensive began on Monday after Israeli intelligence indicated Hamas militants had regrouped in the city.

The operation was also aimed at recovering the bodies of five Israeli hostages. The information could not be independently verified.

However, there were also numerous civilian casualties from airstrikes and tank fire, according to the Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza war was triggered by the unprecedented massacre of more than 1,200 people killed by militants from Hamas and other groups in Israel on October 7 last year.

Gaza's Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, says around 39,000 people have been killed in the densely populated coastal strip since the start of the war.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli officials criticized U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for the presidency, after she said it was time for the war in Gaza to end given the suffering being caused by the fighting.

Harris' remarks at a press conference following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reflect the growing pressure on Netanyahu from different sides of the political spectrum to reach a deal with Hamas to end the fighting in Gaza.

"There has been hopeful movement in the talks to secure an agreement on this deal, and as I just told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done," she said.

Netanyahu called for more U.S. military aid for Israel on Wednesday, saying that was the best way to restore peace to Gaza and secure the release of hostages held by Hamas.

An unnamed Israeli official said it was to be hoped that Harris' comments would not be interpreted by Hamas as indicating a gap between the United States and Israel "and thus push a deal into the distance."

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party nominee for the election in November, have also called for a swift end to the fighting, triggered by the attack on Israel by Hamas-led fighters last October.

Netanyahu is due to meet Trump later on Friday.

Both Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leaders of two hardline religious nationalist parties whose support is vital for Netanyahu's right-wing coalition, condemned Harris' remarks.

"Madam candidate, there will be no cessation of hostilities," Ben-Gvir wrote on the social media platform X.

Harris struck a more forceful tone in her remarks than Biden, who has himself pressed Netanyahu increasingly strongly to conclude an agreement with Hamas that would halt the fighting and bring Israeli hostages home.

She defended Israel's right to defend itself but her remarks suggested she was losing patience with Netanyahu's government.

"We cannot allow ourselves to be numb to the suffering and I will not be silent," she said.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
Smoke rises over Gaza, as seen from Israel

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli troops battled Palestinian fighters in Khan Younis in southern Gaza and destroyed tunnels and other infrastructure, as they sought to suppress small militant units that have continued to hit troops with mortar fire, the military said on Friday.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) said troops had killed around 100 Palestinian fighters since Israeli troops began their latest operation in Khan Younis on Monday, which continued as pressure mounted for a deal to halt the fighting.

It said seven small units that had been firing mortars at the troops were hit in an air strike, while further south, in Rafah, four fighters were also killed in air strikes.

The Islamic Jihad armed wing said it fired rockets toward the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon and other Israeli towns near Gaza. No casualties were reported, the Israeli ambulance service said.

The continued fighting, more than nine months since the start of Israel's invasion of Gaza following the Oct. 7 attack, underlined the difficulty the IDF has had in eliminating fighters who have reverted to a form of guerrilla warfare in the ruins of the coastal strip.

A Telegram channel operated by the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the two main militant groups in Gaza, said fighters had been waging fierce battles with Israeli troops east of Khan Younis with machine guns, mortars and anti-tank weapons.

Medics said at least six Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in eastern Khan Younis.

U.S. PRESSURE

U.S. President Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president, both urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a proposed ceasefire deal as soon as possible.

However there has been no clear sign of movement in talks to end the fighting and bring home some 115 Israeli and foreign hostages still being held in Gaza. Public statements from Israel and Hamas appear to indicate that serious differences remain between the two sides.

Local residents contacted by messenger app, said Israeli tanks had pushed into three towns to the east of Khan Younis, Bani Suhaila, Al-Zanna and Al-Karara and blew up several houses in some residential districts.

The military said air force jets hit around 45 targets, including tunnels and two launch pads from which rockets were fired into Beersheba in southern Israel.

Even while the fighting continued around Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, in the northern part of the enclave, Israeli tanks pushed into the Tel Al-Hawa suburb west of Gaza city, residents said.

A Hamas Telegram channel said fighters targeted an Israeli tank in Tal Al-Hawa and shot an Israeli soldier.

Medics said two Palestinians were also killed in an air strike in western Gaza city.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.

Israeli officials estimate that some 14,000 fighters from militant groups including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have been killed or taken prisoner, out of a force they estimated to number more than 25,000 at the start of the war.

(Reporting by James Mackenzie and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Editing by Sharon Singleton)
ISW analyses one Russia assault, saying their command has not learned its lessons

Russian forces are attempting to regain the initiative on the battlefield and achieve quick victories through mechanised manoeuvres. The large-scale frontal assaults indicate that the Russian military command has not fully learned its lessons about the difficulties of mechanised manoeuvres on the almost transparent battlefield in Ukraine.

Source: Institute for the Study of War (ISW)

Details: The current strategy of the Russian military, which involves deploying numerous armoured vehicles for limited tactical gains, highlights a lack of strategic foresight. As time goes on, the increasing scarcity of equipment is likely to make such mechanised offensives increasingly unsustainable and costly. To maintain its aggressive operations in Ukraine, Russia has been heavily reliant on refurbishing old stocks of Soviet-era weaponry, particularly armoured vehicles.

According to a report by the Ukraine-based open-source organisation Frontelligence Insight on 25 July, Russian forces have been observed transporting hundreds of pieces of military equipment, mainly older refurbished armoured vehicles such as T-62 and T-55 tanks, to the front lines during June and early July 2024. These vehicles have not yet seen combat, suggesting that Russia may be planning to deploy them later this year. Frontelligence Insight also noted that internal Russian documents reveal a backlog of tanks, damaged in the past six months, awaiting replacement parts, with engine shortages leading to the cannibalisation of newer T-80 tanks for repairs.

Despite these logistical challenges, Russia still has enough armoured vehicles to conduct periodic company-sized and larger mechanised assaults along the front lines in the foreseeable future.

To quote the ISWs Key Takeaways on 25 July:

Ukrainian forces blunted one of the largest Russian mechanised assaults in Ukraine since October 2023 in western Donetsk Oblast on 24 July.

The Russian military command's willingness to expend a large number of armoured vehicles on limited tactical objectives reflects poor longer-term operational foresight, and constraints on Russian equipment in the medium- to long-term will make such failed mechanised assaults costlier with time.

The Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) indicated that Lieutenant General Sergei Kobylash has become Deputy Commander of the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS).

Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov attempted to frame Ukraine as unwilling to negotiate, while demonstrating the Kremlin's own unwillingness to engage in good faith negotiations by reinvigorating Russian information operations falsely portraying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as an "illegitimate" leader of Ukraine.

The Kremlin continues to strengthen its ties with the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and National Police announced that they neutralised a group connected to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) that had been preparing to commit arson against civilian facilities in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe.

Select Russian officials continue to call for measures targeting diaspora groups while the Russian government continues efforts to extend its control over migrants in Russia.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 24 July.

Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Robotyne, and Russian forces recently marginally advanced north of Kharkiv City and near Toretsk, Donetsk City, and Robotyne.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin signed a law on 24 July granting deferments from military conscription to employees of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office and Investigative Committee who have higher education and special ranks starting in September 2024.

Support UP or become our patron!
Italy plans to return an ambassador to Syria to reflect new diplomatic developments, minister says

FILE - Italy's Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani speaks while meeting with members of the G7, on July 11, 2024, during the NATO summit in Washington. Italy plans to send an ambassador back to Syria after a decade-long absence in a diplomatic move that could spark divisions among European Union allies, the country's foreign minister said. Speaking in front relevant parliamentary committees Thursday, Antonio Tajani announced Romes intention to re-establish diplomatic ties with Damascus to prevent Russia from monopolizing diplomatic efforts in Syria. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

ROME (AP)  Italy plans to send an ambassador back to Syria after a decade-long absence, the countrys foreign minister said, in a diplomatic move that could spark divisions among European Union allies.

Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, speaking in front of relevant parliamentary committees Thursday, announced Romes intention to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria to prevent Russia from monopolizing diplomatic efforts in the Middle Eastern country.

Moscow is considered a key supporter of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has remained in power despite widespread Western isolation and civilian casualties since the start of Syrias civil war in March 2011.

Peaceful protests against the Assad government  part of the Arab Spring popular uprisings that spread across much of the Middle East  were met by a brutal crackdown, and the uprising quickly spiraled into a full-blown civil war. The conflict was further complicated by the intervention of foreign forces on all sides and a rising militancy, first by al-Qaida-linked groups and then the Islamic State group until its defeat on the battlefield in 2019.

The war, which has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the countrys pre-war population of 23 million, is now largely frozen, despite ongoing low-level fighting.

The country is effectively carved up into areas controlled by the Damascus-based government of Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces.

In the early days of the conflict, many Western and Arab countries cut off relations with Syria, including Italy, which has since managed Syria-related diplomacy through its embassy in Beirut.

However, since Assad has regained control over most of the territory, neighboring Arab countries have gradually restored relations, with the most symbolically significant move coming last year when Syria was re-admitted to the Arab League.

Tajani said Thursday the EUs policy in Syria should be adapted to the development of the situation, adding that Italy has received support from Austria, Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Cyprus and Slovakia.

However, the U.S. and allied countries in Europe have largely continued to hold firm in their stance against Assads government, due to concerns over human rights violations.

___

Associated Press writer Abby Sewell contributed from Beirut.
Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani speaks during the closing press conference of the G7 Ministers meeting. Valeria Ferraro/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Italy plans to again send an ambassador to Damascus after more than a decade, despite the brutal ongoing civil war in Syria, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Friday.

Tajani, testifying to a parliamentary committee in Rome, justified the decision by saying that the European Union "must not leave Moscow with a monopoly" in Syria. Russia is considered a major supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In recent years, Italy, like other EU countries, has handled diplomatic affairs with Syria from its embassy in Lebanon. But the Italian embassy in Damascus was never formally closed.

There has been a civil war in Syria since 2011 that has left more than 300,000 civilians dead. Despite being largely isolated by the West to date, Assad and his power apparatus currently control around two-thirds of the country.

The Italian foreign minister went on to say that after 13 years, the EU must adapt its Syria policy to the "development of the situation."

He said that his position on the issue is in line with his colleagues from Austria, Croatia, Greece, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Cyprus and Slovakia.

Italy is currently governed by a coalition of three right-wing parties.
J.D. Vance thinks the QAnon Shaman would be a fun guy to have a beer with.

In a recently resurfaced speech from 2023, Vance said that Jacob Chansley, more popularly known as the QAnon Shaman, should have gotten a lighter prison sentence since he was only walking around the Capitol.

It was a crazy guy with, like, the bullhorns  he looked like hed be a fun guy to have a beer with, right? The Q shaman, said Vance.

JD Vance weighs in on famous Jan 6 participant "The QAnon Shaman" in a 2023 speech:



He looked like hed be a fun guy to have a beer with," should've gotten a lighter prison sentence. pic.twitter.com/fT8s183Vxx  Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 26, 2024

Chansley received a 41-month prison sentence in November 2021 and was charged with obstruction of an official proceeding. He was released early from federal prison and sent to a reentry center in March 2023.



Following his prison sentence, Chansley indicated he was interested in running for Arizonas 8th congressional district seat, but he missed the deadline to get enough signatures.

One Republican actually has met up with Chansley. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said she was honored to meet the QAnon Shaman back in December 2023 at a Turning Point USA event.

When I spoke with Jake, he is remarkably positive, happy, forgiving, and determined. Most people would be crushed and forever destroyed after being treated so horrendously by the media and their own government, but not Jake, Greene wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter).

Maybe the three can grab a beer together?
Its been one hell of a week for J.D. Vance. Sorry, that should read hellish week. Lets rewind.

Last Thursday, Vance joyously accepted the nomination for Donald Trumps running mate at the Republican National Convention. By Monday morning, everything had changed.

Vance awoke to discover that hed become the target of Democratic vice presidential hopeful Andy Beshear, who slammed him for being a phony before hed even held his first campaign event. When the Ohio senator finally hit the campaign trail, he started things off with an awkward, low-energy speech in his hometown, during which he suggested that hed be considered racist for his love of Diet Mountain Dew, a strange gaffe that made him a laughingstock for a day and added fuel to the flames of Beshears attacks. Almost immediately, Trump allies began to suspect that the conservative calculus on Vances selection was fraught with errors.

All of this happened in one day. Every day since has been worse.

Over the next few days, it would be revealed that Vance had more than a few skeletons in his closet, ones that maybe hadnt bothered anyone when he was supposed to be a mini-Trump but now seemed demonstrably damaging.

Vance drew ire for a slew of past comments, including calling Democrats childless cat ladies, suggesting that Trump had committed serial sexual assault, promoting a right-wing conspiracy theorists book that called progressives unhumans, and writing a favorable foreword for a book linked to Project 2025.

All of this was really bad, and none of it even held a candle to something said about Vance that wasnt even true: A nasty rumor that hed gotten sexual with a sectional overwhelmed social media on Thursday.

In terms of headlines, Vance has taken a serious beating.

Screenshot of a tweet

And it seems to be translating into early approval polls.

Screenshot of a tweet

By Friday, things still werent looking good. While it was previously reported that some Republican lawmakers had severe buyers remorse about Vance, one House Republican told The Hill that there was major dissension over Trumps pick.

The prevailing sentiment is if Trump loses, [its] because of this pick, the lawmaker explained.

A few House Republicans spoke anonymously with The Hill about their take on the GOP nominee for vice president.

Vance was the worst choice of all the options. It was so bad I didnt even think it was possible, one Republican representative told the outlet. Anti-Ukraine, more of a populist. He adds nothing to the Trump ticket. He energizes the same people that love Trump.

Another House Republican told The Hill that despite public support for Vance, lawmakers were relatively united in their hatred of him. I think if you were to ask many people around this building, nine out of 10 on our side would say hes the wrong pick, the lawmaker said. Hes the only person who can do serious damage.

One week after his coronation, Kamala Harriss approval rating is skyrocketing, and Vance is starting to look like the worst vice presidential candidate in history.
[Source]

Japan experienced its sharpest population decline ever in 2023, dropping 861,000 (0.7%) to 121,561,801 total, according to an annual report released by Japans ministry of internal affairs on Wednesday.

Japans population has shrunk for 15 years in a row since peaking in 2009. Births in Japan also numbered a record-low 730,000, while the 1.58 million deaths were the highest ever. Foreign residents in Japan rose by 329,535 (11.01%) to a record high of 3,323,374, marking the second year in a row of increase. Surveys have indicated younger Japanese are less likely to get married or have children due to high cost of living and dimming job prospects, among other reasons.

Download the NextShark App:

Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today!
JAKARTA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Friday inaugurated the Batang Industrial Park on a 4,300-hectare site in Central Java.

"This afternoon I officially open the operations of the Batang Integrated Industrial Park in Batang Regency, Central Java," said Widodo, as broadcasted on the official social media.

Widodo declared that Indonesia's economic performance and efficiency have made it a prime destination for investment from various nations, securing the 27th position in the World Competitiveness Index.

The Batang Industrial Park is one of these destinations, where several factories have already been established through a total investment of 14 trillion rupiah (around 859 million U.S. dollars).

As one of the largest state-owned industrial zones to date, this industrial park currently employs 19,000 workers and is expected to generate up to 250,000 job opportunities. 
Jasper, Alberta is reeling after multiple wildfires combined to create what's being referred to as the Jasper Fire Complex. The blaze roared into town from two sides yesterday and did significant damage. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, but the fire began during a lightning storm.

A clip from CBC News shows individual footage of the damage done by the wildfires, with the narrator commenting that there is "nothing but chimneys standing." Watch below.

Since Monday, July 22nd, the fire has affected over 89,000 acres of land.

Jasper National Park and its small town community will require a significant rebuild as many structures have been destroyed altogether.

Both residents and tourists were evacuated to BC late in the day on Monday, with an evacuation notice being issued around 10pm. Come Wednesday, even firefighters had to evacuate due to toxic smoke coming from buildings destroyed by the fires.

Personnel at Marmot Basin, a local ski area, also evacuated their resort. Two days ago, the Vice-President of Marmot, Brian Rode, reported that this evacuation went smoothly as their summer staff is just 30 people, and even fewer people than that were at the resort when the evacuation order was issued. As of today there have been no updates as to the status of Marmot Basin.

The Jasper Fire Complex as seen from a plane flying overhead (Photo taken July 23, 2024) Photo by Alberta Wildfire/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images

Wildfires are a serious threat for Western North America: just over the provincial border at Kicking Horse in BC, Canada, officials also shut down resort operations for a few days due to local wildfire threats.

The Canadian National Railway announced on Thursday that it has been forced to shut down the railway throughout the town of Jasper. This presents a serious inconvenience to people in Canada and the U.S. as the railway functions as the connection between ports on the Pacific Coast, the rest of Canada and the entire United States. Firefighting trains have been dispatched to the area.

Alberta province is still asserting that this fire is "out of control." It's being estimated that around 30-50 percent of buildings in the town of Jackson have been destroyed.

However, at 10pm last night, the latest update from Jasper National Park in the form of a Facebook post announced that "temperatures cooled and rain started shortly after midnight last night. The 10-15 mm of rainfall in the national park led to minimal fire behaviour and spread today. This precipitation will likely keep fire behaviour low for the next 72 hours."

An aerial view of the Jasper Fire Complex. (Photo taken July 24th, 2024). Photo by ALBERTA WILDFIRE/HANDOUT/Anadolu via Getty Images

Hundreds of firefighters from around the world are arriving in Jasper to help and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that the Canadian government approved a request for federal assistance, which includes military assistance.

No deaths or injuries have been reported at this time.

Related: How Aaron Fox Skied 200 Days After Shattering His Femoral Neck

Be the first to read breaking ski news with POWDER. Subscribe to our newsletter and stay connected with the latest happenings in the world of skiing. From ski resort news to profiles of the worlds best skiers, we are committed to keeping you informed.

Submit your best clips for a chance to be featured on POWDER. Tune in and watch handpicked, high-quality ski videos streaming all day long on POWDER TV, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Vice presidential hopeful Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) acknowledged the white supremacist attacks against his wife, Usha Vance, who is a child of Indian immigrants.

Look, I love my wife so much. I love her because shes who she is, he told host Megyn Kelly on her show Friday. Obviously, shes not a white person, and weve been accused, attacked by some white supremacists over that. But I just, I love Usha.

Usha Vance has faced a slew of far-right attacks targeting her Indian heritage following her husbands nomination to the Republican ticket.

Who is this guy, really? Do we really expect that the guy who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity? prominent white supremacist Nick Fuentes said of Vance after former President Trump announced his running mate.

Fuentes was invited to Mar-a-Lago by Trump in November 2022, stirring a firestorm of criticism.

Vance has not publicly condemned the attacks, and in his comments Friday he was more critical of liberal commentators who have blasted his past comments about traditional family and gender roles, calling the criticism disgusting.

Shes such a good mom, Vance added of his wife. Shes such a brilliant lawyer, and Im so proud of her. But yes, her experience has given me some perspective on the way in which its really hard for working families in this country.

Stop AAPI Hate, a coalition working to fight injustice against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, said it observed a flood of racist comments after Usha Vance stepped into the spotlight at the Republican National Convention.

We are seeing a dangerous pattern of political leaders, conservative commentators, and far-right extremists blatantly targeting South Asians, the group told Politico.

Vice President Harris, who is half Indian, has also faced racially charged questions about her electability as she has emerged as the likely Democratic candidate against Trump.

As bigoted attacks against Usha Vance and Vice President Harris grow  including efforts to pit them against each other  its clear that the political leaders and others fueling this hate are completely disregarding the safety and wellbeing of Asian American and immigrant communities, Stop AAPI Hate said.

Vance on Friday also responded to public anger over past comments he made degrading Harris for being childless. During the interview, he lauded his own wife for continuing her career with children.

My own wife is a working mother. You hear leftists say JD wants to keep women in the home. My own wife, Ive supported her career for my entire life, he said. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming antifamily and antichild.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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) -- Just a week after riding high on conservative euphoria at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trumps running mate is confronting a harsher reality.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Comments JD Vance made in 2021 disparaging childless cat ladies are drawing criticism from not only Democrats, but also some members of his own party.

If youre trying to win suburban women and you call suburban women childless cat ladies, youre not going to convince them to come over to your side, said Tomi Lahren, a conservative political commentator and OutKick host. I think its funny as a Republican, but I dont think a lot of suburban women that are on the fence are going to find it funny.

The controversy is bubbling up just as the Trump campaign grapples with a shift in the dynamics of the 2024 election race. President Joe Bidens exit and his deputy Kamala Harris likely ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket have energized the partys base and donors, bringing in much-needed buzz and money.

On Friday, Vance said on the The Megyn Kelly Show that his remarks werent about criticizing people who for various reasons didnt have kids. Instead, this is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child, he said.

Swing State Vote

Since announcing her run for president, the 59-year-old Harris has narrowed the lead Trump, 78, had built against Biden in polls following the presidents disastrous debate performance in late June.

That means it will be even more crucial for Republicans to woo undecided and independent voters in critical swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Vance, with his Appalachian roots and record of giving voice to working class concerns, is a key part of the Trump campaigns strategy in those states.

I have been trying to warn every conservative man I know  these JD comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump supporting friends, Meghan McCain, the daughter of former Republican presidential candidate John McCain, said in a post on X. These comments have caused real pain and are just innately unchristian. This is not who we are.

The comments that have generated the most criticism were made by Vance in a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, who was then with Fox News. We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that theyve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too, he said.

He specifically referred to Harris, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, saying How does it make any sense that we have turned our country over to people who dont really have a direct stake in it.

Harris supporters were quick to point out that she is the stepmother to two children with her husband, Doug Emhoff. Buttigieg, who now has twins, said on CNN this week that Vances comments came as he and his husband had been through a fairly heartbreaking setback in their effort to adopt.

He couldnt have known that, but maybe thats why you shouldnt be talking about other peoples children, he said.

Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, pointed to separate comments Vance made in 2021 for what she described as important context. In that instance, during a speech delivered at a conference a few days before the interview with Carlson, Vance said that the target of his remarks about the childless left werent those unable to have children due to medical or biological reasons.

Now, Vance, 39, will have to face off with whoever Harris picks as her running mate. In an acknowledgment of the way race and gender are factoring into the 2024 election, Harris is mostly considering male and White candidates for the post.

In recent days, Vance has largely focused on targeting Harris, especially over the Democrats handling of migration at the southern US border.

The Democrats are in complete disarray with the most unpopular Vice President in history as their partys nominee, said Taylor Van Kirk, a spokesperson for Vance. The only childlessness we should be talking about are the childless parents who lost their kids to the murderous thugs and deadly fentanyl coming across Kamalas southern border.

Since his pick as Trumps potential VP, Vance hasnt leaned in on issues that could potentially put off more moderate voters. During his speech at the RNC, he didnt focus on his views against abortion.

Still, his critics are likely to scour for more comments from his past that could potentially weaken his  and Trumps  electoral position.

Emily Jashinsky, a conservative political commentator, suggested that Vance should change his approach. The right should appeal to the victims of the culture it seeks to repair, not denigrate them when our entire argument is that these women were set up for failure by others, she said on her news show.

--With assistance from Nancy Cook.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
JD Vance, the Republican U.S. senator from Ohio and Donald Trumps vice-presidential pick, lives in one of the most liberal areas of largely liberal Northern Virginia.

Vance and his family live in Del Ray, a neighborhood in Alexandria, a city where President Joe Biden won 80 percent of the vote in 2020. Alexandria is near Washington, D.C.

Vance, as author of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, positioned himself as a voice for the poor people of Appalachia, but the book has been criticized as painting a stereotypical picture of these people and blaming them for their problems. His mother worked as a nurse but abused prescription drugs (she is now sober), and Vance was raised primarily by his maternal grandparents. He became a Yale-educated lawyer and venture capitalist.

Del Ray is a particularly affluent enclave as well as a liberal one, The Washington Post notes. Vance railed against the liberal elites and then he picked the wealthy liberal neighborhood outside D.C. to bring up his kids, neighbor Pierce Kreutzer, told the Post. Hes more aligned, truly, with people like me than he is with your typical Trump voter.

Actually, despite the stereotype of Trump supporters as the forgotten people of the white working class, exit polls have indicated that the wealthier a person is, the more likely they are to vote Republican.

At any rate, the residents of Del Ray are liberal in addition to being well off, but several of those interviewed by the Post were OK with having him as a neighbor. Vance paid $1.6 million for a home there in 2023, when he began his Senate term. The 2,500-square-foot house has five bedrooms, three and a half baths, and a guesthouse.

It doesnt bother me that he lives here. Hes got to live somewhere, Kreutzers wife, Caroline Barna, told the paper. His politics arent great. I dont agree with him, but what are you going to do? Another Del Rey resident, Marc Greenberg, said he doesnt like Vance but thinks he picked a place thats a great place to live.

Some were less welcoming. I dont like him being here, said Pete Paccione. Im not a fan of him or his politics. With the heightened tension around politics, it makes me nervous. Everyone in the neighborhood is tense.

Vance and his staff declined comment to the Post. Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson, a Democrat, said the city has been the home of many Washington politicians, although he doesnt like to draw attention to that fact. More than a hundred members of Congress live in Alexandria, as do numerous federal government workers. Gerald Ford, at the time a congressman, lived in the city when President Richard Nixon appointed him vice president in 1973.
JD Vance is making headlines for a variety of unanticipated reasons this week  accused of both making love to a literal couch and searching online for sex-specific dolphin content. And the hits keep coming.

Amidst rumblings that Donald Trump is perhaps regretting choosing Vance as his running mate  now that Biden has made way for a stronger match with whomever the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, taps to join at her side in any upcoming debates  Vance's background is being heavily researched, and much of it is being served up as easy "not this guy" fodder.

The latest in a string of derogatory Vance content is a resurfaced clip from a 2023 event, in which Trump's #2 is shown referring to Jacob Chansley, AKA the Jan. 6 "QAnon Shaman," as a "fun guy" who got a bad rap for his participation in the Capitol riot.

"This guy who was sentenced to four years in prison for literally walking around in the Capitol . . . We were taught it was a crazy guy with, like, the bullhorns, you know what I'm talking about? He looked like hed be a fun guy to have a beer with, right? The Q shaman, that's what they called this guy," Vance says in the clip, which can be seen below.

Chansley pleaded guilty to obstructing Congress during the insurrection and was ultimately sentenced to 41 months in prison. He was granted early release from federal prison in March 2023 and transferred to a halfway house in Arizona to serve until his release on May 25, 2023.

JD Vance weighs in on famous Jan 6 participant "The QAnon Shaman" in a 2023 speech:



He looked like hed be a fun guy to have a beer with," should've gotten a lighter prison sentence. pic.twitter.com/fT8s183Vxx  Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 26, 2024
JD Vance Says He Was Being 'Sarcastic' About Childless Cat Ladies, Has 'Nothing Against Cats'

JD Vance isnt backing down from his past criticism of prominent elected Democrats as childless cat ladies.

In an interview on SiriusXMs The Megyn Kelly Show, Kelly talked to Vance in depth about scornful comments he made in 2021 about people who choose not to procreate. At one point, she asked him to respond to the outrage over his use of the term cat ladies.

Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. Ive got nothing against cats. Ive got nothing against dogs, and Ive got one dog at home, and I love him, Vance said.

People are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I said, and the substance of what I said, Megyn, Im sorry, its true, Vance said.

In his interview with Kelly on Friday, Vance acknowledged that Vice President Kamala Harris has stepchildren and that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has adopted children. He had named them both as childless cat ladies in 2021.

I wish her stepchildren, and Kamala Harris, and her whole family, the very best, Vance said. The point is not that shes lesser. The point is that her party has pursued a set of policies that are profoundly anti-child.

But Vance did not take back his 2021 statements that people without children dont have a direct stake in the countrys future. He didnt recant his claim that people whove chosen not to have children are miserable.

The Ohio Republican senator and vice presidential candidate went on to explain that Democrats are anti-family because, in part, of liberal commentary about the downsides of having children. (Some young people say, for instance, that they dont have want to have children because of climate change.)

Vance also pointed, repeatedly, to two anti-family policy positions that he claimed Democrats have taken: Why are they wanting to mask toddlers years into the pandemic? Why are they saying that we should get rid of the child tax credit, which lowers taxes for working families with children?

The child tax credit reduces household tax bills by as much as $2,000 per child, a policy with bipartisan support; Democrats temporarily expanded the credit to as much as $3,600 per child in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan. They wanted to make the expansion permanent but failed to do so in large part because of unanimous opposition from Republicans, including Vance.

Vance also falsely claimed to Kelly Democrats actually dont support the CTC, as its known. An ABC News story published Friday drew attention to a comment Vance once made arguing parents should pay lower taxes than non-parents. In that story, a spokesman for Vance pointed out that the CTC already does give parents a lower tax rate, which he acknowledged Democrats do support.

As for the idea of a childhood mask mandate, Vance seemed to be referring to past Democratic support for masking in places like schools and daycares.

The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, highlighted Vances interview with Kelly on Friday, and in an email about his support for an abortion ban, called him a creep and weird.

Related...
Since Donald Trump chose Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate, its been widely noted that Vance once described Trump as reprehensible and cultural heroin. However, the day after Vance won his own Senate race in 2022, he reportedly made it known that he would support Trump for president in 2024.

Given this dramatic change, what does Vances selection mean for the Republican Party and conservatism, the political philosophy that the GOP once claimed to embrace?

I am a political scientist whose research and political analysis focuses on the relationship between Trump, the Republican Party and conservatism. Everyday citizens define conservatism in different ways, but at its root it is a philosophy that supports smaller and less-centralized government because consolidated power could be used to silence political competition and deny citizens their liberties.

Since 2015, Trump has tightened his grip on the Republican Party, moving it further away from its professed conservative ideology. The choice of Vance as Trumps running mate  and the competition that preceded it  are the latest steps in this process.

Vance came from a small pool of contenders that included other noteworthy politicians who likewise once vehemently opposed Trump. By examining their trajectories, we can see how the Republican Party has abandoned conservative values to serve a single man.

Elise Stefanik

Elise Stefanik ran for Congress in 2014 from a district in upstate New York as a mainstream Republican who admired Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Ryan was a traditional conservative who had run for vice president alongside former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in 2012. Romney endorsed Stefanik for Congress, saying that she was a person of integrity. Every campaign is different, but values dont change.

But Stefaniks values did change. When forced to share the ballot with Trump in 2016, she couldnt even spit his name out, according to Republican consultant Tim Miller. But early in Trumps presidency, she became a vocal ally, eventually replacing Rep. Liz Cheney as chair of the House Republican Conference in 2021.

House Republicans ousted Cheney from that position after she criticized Trumps refusal to support the 2020 election results and his actions during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Cheney justified her opposition to Trump by highlighting her respect for the rule of law and support for limited government  even when those positions meant opposing her own party leader. These are foundational conservative principles, centered in aversion to consolidated government power.

This switch was a significant moment in the partys ideological transformation. Stefaniks rising star subsequently landed her in the mix for vice president, which she called An honor. A humbling honor.

Marco Rubio

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio challenged Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. During that race, Rubio issued a news release calling Trump a serious threat to the future of our party and our country, and blamed him for ushering in a climate of violence.

Statements like these made sense coming from a serious conservative whose worldview was defined by his familys Cuban heritage and who opposed communism, tyranny and excessive government power.

Eventually, though, Rubio became a Trump ally. He voted to acquit Trump in his second impeachment trial in 2021, which centered on charges that Trump had incited an insurrection. In line with Trumps wishes, Rubio opposed establishing an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 events.

In early 2024, Rubio was asked in an ABC interview if he really wanted to be vice president even though Trump had defended calls by Jan. 6 insurrectionists to hang former Vice President Mike Pence for certifying the 2020 election results.

When Donald Trump was president of the United States, this country was safer, it was more prosperous, Rubio responded. I think this country and the world was a better place.

This refusal to acknowledge and challenge Trumps apparent support of lawlessness by his followers was an abdication of fundamental conservative values.

Tim Scott

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott has touted his conservative values and principles throughout his political life. It was logical for him to endorse Rubio as Trump gained momentum in the 2016 Republican primaries.

In 2017, Scott insisted that Trumps failure to condemn white nationalists after violent clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, compromised his moral authority. Not long after, however, Scott met with Trump about his comments and was convinced that Trump had obviously reflected on what he said.

When Trump refused to flatly condemn white supremacists a few years later in a 2020 presidential debate, Scott suggested that Trump misspoke and should correct the comments, but added, If he doesnt correct it, I guess he didnt misspeak. After dropping out of the Republican primaries in 2024, Scott endorsed Trump as someone who could unite the country.

Why Vance?

These converted Trump allies still hold modern conservative stances on issues such as abortion and health care. But in seeking to become Trumps running mate, they tacitly endorsed an executives attempt to overturn a democratic election and subvert the liberties of U.S. citizens. Such a shift violates the spirit of conservatism.

These politicians have also moved away from conservative principles in areas including U.S. foreign policy and immigration. But the fundamental shift that is most profound is in their attitudes toward abuse of government power.

What should we make of Trump choosing Vance, who once privately compared Trump to Hitler but now says that he would not have readily certified the 2020 election if he had been in Pences shoes?

Many considerations affect the choice of a running mate. But Vance doesnt represent a swing state. He probably wont appeal to MAGA-skeptical independent voters who have yet to make up their minds about who to vote for.

Instead, people close to Trump call the 39-year-old Vance the new heir to Trumps MAGA movement. Vance is more than a protege, though; he embodies Trumps influence on the Republican Partys evolving relationship with government power and insists his political conversion is genuine.

If there was any speculation that Republicans would revert to some form of traditional conservatism after Trump leaves politics, the prospect of a JD Vance presidency makes clear that the answer is no.

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: Karyn Amira, College of Charleston.

Read more:



Karyn Amira does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Eight Democrats urged the U.S. Department of Transportation to release federal funds to remediate tracks and wires at root of recent delays. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Eight members of New Jerseys House delegation urged the U.S. Department of Transportation to deploy federal infrastructure funds to make urgent upgrades to tracks and overhead wires that have snarled trains in a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Friday.

The letter, which follows one sent last month that demanded an investigation into breakdowns along railways owned by Amtrak but used by NJ Transit trains, came after another set of overhead wire issues forced a series of cancellations on Sunday.

For many New Jerseyans, their commutes were delayed for the third or fourth time just in the past month. Thousands of our constituents are undoubtedly questioning if commuting by train to work or for leisure is even worth it at this point, which will only worsen congestion on our roads and pollution in our communities if not addressed, the letter says.

Trains along the northeast corridor, the countrys busiest commuter rail line, have faced repeated cancellations and delays over the past month.

In June, only 83% of NJ Transit trains arrived at stations within six minutes of their scheduled time, the worst performance for a month recorded by the agency since at least July 2022, according to a monthly agency report.

The eight Democratic lawmakers  Reps. Mikie Sherrill, Donald Norcross, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Frank Pallone, Josh Gottheimer, Bill Pascrell, Andy Kim, and Rob Menendez  asked Buttigieg to ensure that Amtrak provides a schedule of how it plans to use funds from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law to make repairs to the New Jersey portions of the northeast corridor.

They added that more needs to be done to keep commuters apprised of delays and cancellations.

We ask that you urgently outline a plan to keep commuters fully informed of planned and unplanned disruptions, they said in the letter.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The airline is also cutting several routes across the country.

Getty Images

JetBlue is on the move with new flight routes, while saying goodbye to others. Ahead of the winter travel season, the airline will add a variety of new routes to popular destinations such as Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Phoenix.



These moves underscore JetBlue's commitment to refining its network while leveraging its award-winning experience, the airline shared in a release announcing the news.



In the New York area, the airline will begin new service from Long Islands MacArthur Airport (ISP), with a new daily flight to Orlando, and also service to Fort Lauderdale (FLL) and West Palm Beach (VPS) four times a week.



From Boston Logan Airport, the airline will increase flights with a second daily route to Phoenix, which will also feature Mint, a business class-level service with a flat-bed seat.



From Manchester, New Hampshire, JetBlue will expand in Florida to Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, and Orlando in January 2025. The Orlando route will operate daily, while the Fort Lauderdale and Fort Myers route will operate three days a week. The airline will also begin a new Portland, Maine (PWM) to Orlando (MCO) route in October, that will operate three times a week as a winter seasonal service.



"We are incredibly proud of our strong roots in Boston and New England, a place that has always embraced our vision for low fares and superior travel experiences, JetBlues President Marty St. George shared in the release.



With the new routes, JetBlue will be pulling back to end routes and exit seven different markets including: Burbank, CA (BUR); Charlotte, NC (CLT); Minneapolis, MN (MSP); Palm Springs, CA (PSP); San Antonio, TX (SAT); Tallahassee, FL (TLH) and Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe (PTP).



JetBlue is constantly evaluating our routes to best serve our customers, return our airline to profitability, and find ways to improve our reliability, JetBlue shared in a statement to Travel + Leisure. These decisions are never easy; however, these markets have recently fallen short of our expectations.



The airline says customers will be be able to rebook to a different flight option, or receive a refund if a alternative flight is not available.



For more Travel & Leisure news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on Travel & Leisure.
ALGIERS, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The National Independent Authority for Elections (ANIE) validated the candidacy requests of three individuals for the presidential election scheduled for September 7 in Algeria, state-run television ENTV reported on Thursday.

According to the report, Mohamed Chorfi, the head of ANIE, held a press briefing to unveil the list of candidates for the September elections.

He said that ANIE has approved the candidacies of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, Secretary General of the Socialist Forces Front Youcef Aouchiche, and head of the Movement of Society for Peace Abdelaali Hassani Cherif, and deem them eligible as they met all the necessary requirements set forth by ANIE.

Under Algeria's electoral law, any candidate wishing to run must collect either 600 individual signatures from elected members of municipal, provincial, or parliamentary councils, or at least 50,000 signatures from eligible voters across at least 29 provinces, with a minimum 1,200 signatures in each province.

President Tebboune made the decision on March 21 to schedule snap presidential elections for September 7, citing "purely technical reasons". On July 11, he announced his intention to run for a second five-year term.

Over 24 million Algerian citizens, out of a total population of over 45 million, are eligible to participate in the upcoming elections. 
For more than 40 years, Harvey Bronstein has been a loyal Democrat and this fall, the Southfield resident intends to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

But the retired professor at Oakland Community College who's active in Michigan's Jewish community adds that "she's not the person if we could make up a perfect person for the Jewish community," expressing concern she may be more to the left on Israel than President Joe Biden.

"We have to get used to Kamala Harris," Bronstein said. "I think she's going to grow."

Imad Hamad, executive director of the Dearborn-based American Human Relations Council, also has some concerns about Harris, but he's concerned she may be too supportive of Israel, expressing concern about the thousands of Palestinians killed after Israeli strikes in recent months.

"We're reviewing her record," Hamad said. "For now, no decision taken yet, it's premature. We are waiting to see if ... it is going to be a continuation of the Biden administration ... or anything different."

Imad Hamad, executive director at American Human Rights Council, speaks during the American and Muslim American Political Action Committee's (AMPAC) community leadership press conference in response to the arrival of the President of the United State Joe Biden in Dearborn at the American Moslem Society Mosque on May 18, 2021.

The differing views in metro Detroit's Jewish and Arab American communities reflect intense discussions taking place in Michigan as Democrats move to endorse Harris, seen as the likely Democratic nominee for president. Michigan has the highest concentration of residents of Middle Eastern ancestry and an established Jewish community that's known nationally for its pro-Israel activism.

Michigan's Democratic delegates "overwhelmingly voted" to endorse Harris on Tuesday, the Michigan Democratic Party said. More than 100 delegates met on a Zoom call, with only one voting "present" and two Arab American delegates voting "no," a party official said. There was some controversy during the meeting that illustrated the frustrations some Arab Americans in Michigan feel towards the Biden administration's policies on Gaza. Abbas Alawieh, one of the two delegates who voted against endorsing Harris, said on X that while he was speaking about Gaza, someone else shouted out: "Shut up, a------."

The chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, Lavora Barnes, condemned the outburst against Alawieh.

"The disrespect shown to a member of our delegation was completely unacceptable," Barnes said in a statement to the Free Press. "We know that we are one Democratic family  our differences and the way we respond to them are what make us strong. In this moment, we want to reiterate that our Arab American and Muslim brothers and sisters are welcome in this party. We will continue to work toward our common goal of defeating Republicans up and down the ballot this November.

Alawieh, part of the "Uncommitted" movement that urged people not to vote for Biden during the primaries, said our "demands are reasonable: We just want a ceasefire and for our party's leaders to stop sending bombs to kill people we love." He said that the uncommitted delegates want to meet with Harris "to express what we're hearing from the voters we've mobilized."

On Thursday, Harris met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is visiting the U.S. and spoke before Congress on Wednesday, drawing protests. U.S. House Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, the only member of Congress of Palestinian descent, sat as he spoke, holding up a sign that read "war criminal" and "guilty of genocide." In Dearborn, Hamad held a press conference along with other Arab American and Muslim leaders calling for Netanyahu to be arrested during his visit for war crimes.

"It's a mockery of our democratic values" to honor Netanyahu, Hamad said. "Congress is awarding him for his war crimes."

Also, the Detroit-based UAW was one of several unions opposing Netanyahu's speech, saying in a statement this week: We reject this insult to all those calling for peace and justice.

But Bronstein said Netanyahu's speech "was magnificent," saying he was trying to explain what Israel is trying to accomplish. He added that he doesn't always support Netanyahu: "I have always had very mixed feelings about him."

Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, July 25, 2024.

On Thursday, Harris met with Netanyahu. She kept a serious face during her public handshake with him before they met and delivered remarks afterwards in a firm manner.

"What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating," Harris said. "The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent."

Harris called for a two-state solution, adding: "It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity and self determination."

Earlier in the day, Harris released a statement blasting some radical protesters who made pro-Hamas statements and others who burned American flags during the protests against Netanyahu in the nation's capital.

"Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington, D.C. we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric," Harris said. "I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews."

Harris's husband, Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, who is Jewish, spoke this week with Jewish advocates on a call with the Jewish Democratic Council of America, telling them he displays a Jewish symbol on his home, called a mezuzah, and may place one on the White House if Harris becomes president. If Harris wins, he would be the first Second Lady or Gentleman to be Jewish.

Im just going to keep living openly as a Jew, and maybe there will be a mezuzah on the White House, Emhoff said.

While several Arab American leaders said they were not yet ready to endorse Harris, one prominent government official of Arab descent has come out in support of her. Abdul El-Sayed, a Wayne County official who oversees its health department and ran for governor as a Democrat in 2018, said Monday on X: "Considering the dangers of the Republican nominee & potential of her leadership, its time for all of us to unite behind Kamala Harris to defeat Trump."

Former Michigan State Senator Gilda Jacobs at her home in Huntington Woods on August 9, 2022.

Gilda Jacobs, of Huntington Woods, a former state Senator and state House representative who is active in the Jewish community, is supporting Harris. She was on a Zoom call with other Jewish Democrats this week whom she said were excited for Harris.

"She's married to a Jewish guy," which could "possibly influence her sort of decisions," Jacobs said.

More: Arab Americans 'thrilled' Biden stepping down, but want new Gaza policy

Regarding what the policies on Israel may be in a Harris administration, Jacobs said it's unclear, but adds she believes she will work to free Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

"I think it's too early to tell to be really honest with you," how Harris will be on Israel, Jacobs said. "She has been a loyal supporter of Biden, because it's her job to do that. ... This is probably one of the most difficult world crises that we're in right now. And I am confident she's going to do everything she can to try to help get those hostages released."

Rep. Noah Arbit, (D-West Bloomfield), speaks Wednesday, April 26, 2023, about hate crime reform, during a press conference in the Anderson House Office Building. Also pictured are Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, left, and Rep. Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids), right.

State Rep. Noah Arbit, D-West Bloomfield, founder of the Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus, said he strongly supports Harris.

Harris has demonstrated her advocacy and support for American Jews throughout her time in office, from working to combat hate crimes as Attorney General of California, to pioneering the first-ever national strategy to combat antisemitism in 2023 as vice president," Arbit told the Free Press in a statement. "Michigan Jews will have a steadfast ally in our challenging fight against antisemitism on the far-right and far-left, and Israel will have a stalwart partner along the path to lasting security and a just peace.

Contact Niraj Warikoo:nwarikoo@freepess.com or X @nwarikoo

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan's Jewish, Arab American voters react to Kamala Harris
KANSAS CITY, Mo.  Johnson County leaders are moving closer towards a year-round, 24/7 homeless services center in Lenexa, Kan. The Board of County Commissioners Chairman Mike Kelly executed an assignment agreement with reStart Inc., the recommended operator of the proposed center.

Todays action reaffirms the countys commitment to ending homelessness and supporting some of the most vulnerable members of our community as they work towards stabilization, permanent housing and employment, said BOCC Chairman Mike Kelly.

While we are grateful for this once-in-a-generation opportunity to leverage federal dollars and provide temporary supportive housing for unhoused adults, we know that our work is not done. Increasing access to attainable housing is key to ending homelessness. We appreciate our partners in other government entities, non-profit organizations, businesses and residents, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate as we address the spectrum of housing needs in our community.

Kansas City first responders searching for man in Missouri River

The assignment agreement outlines the terms of transferring a current La Quinta hotel property, which is expected to close on or around October 31, from Johnson County to reStart. The agreement also includes a deed restriction that the property must be used as a non-congregate shelter for 10 years or it will revert to county property.

Additionally, the board action authorized the reallocation of $3.7 million worth of Countywide Support Funds. These funds were originally federal COVID-19 funds and will be used by reStart to begin renovations.

Dozens of county staff have worked on a cross-organizational team since early January to partner with experts in the field on due diligence, legal and financial reviews, a communication and outreach campaign and so much more, said County Manager Penny Postoak Ferguson.

I appreciate this effort, along with several months of discussions and policy decisions by our Board, to move us even closer to the finish line for this visionary and innovative project.

North Korean charged in ransomware attacks on American hospitals

reStart has already submitted an application for a Special Use Permit in the City of Lenexa on Monday, July 22. This permit is required for a homeless services center to operate.

The project is tentatively scheduled for consideration at Lenexas planning commission meeting on August 26, and then again by the Lenexa City Council on September 17. County staff will return to the BOCC with an action agenda for a county/city fund. If the agenda is approved, the fund will support reStarts operations.

The public has two upcoming opportunities to learn more about this project. The community is welcome on Wednesday, August 21 at 5:30 in the Sunset Drive Office Building, and again on Thursday, August 22 at 5:30 at the Monticello Library.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Johnson County man sentenced to over 41 years in prison in rape of child under 14 years old

A judge sentenced a 32-year-old Johnson County man to more than 41 years in prison for raping a child under the age of 14 years old, according to the district attorneys office.

Johnson County Judge Michael P. Joyce on Thursday sentenced Cameron J. McPheeters of Olathe to 41 years and three months in prison, according to a news release from the Johnson County District Attorneys Office.

McPheeters pleaded guilty in June to two counts of rape of a child. He was initially charged in May 2021 with aggravated indecent liberties with a child, rape of a child and aggravated criminal sodomy, according to court documents. Those charges were amended in May 2022 to include a charge of sexual exploitation of a child.

Under his plea agreement, McPheeters agreed to plea guilty to two counts of rape of a child and the district attorney agreed to drop the sodomy and sexual exploitation charges.

McPheeters and prosecutors also agreed upon the sentence the judge handed out and that McPheeters would not request probation. McPheeters will be required to register as a sexual offender.

McPheeters will have 14 days to appeal the sentence. If he challenges any part of the case, including the plea and sentence, and it reduces the agreed-upon sentence, the district attorney may withdraw the plea and reinstate the original charges, according to the plea agreement.
Is Johnson County tough enough on fentanyl? Opponent says Howe should charge more cases

Reality Check is a Star series holding those with power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email our journalists at RealityCheck@kcstar.com.

As Johnson County sees a surging number of fentanyl-related deaths  triple the number of homicides over the last several years  how to address the crisis has become a major point of debate in the district attorneys primary race.

Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe, facing his first Republican primary challenge since taking office 16 years ago, argues his office is a leader in the state on prosecuting fentanyl distribution and fatal overdose cases. But his opponent, David Greenwald, who was recently promoted to deputy district attorney in Douglas County, says a more aggressive approach is needed.

Greenwald argues that Johnson County should be seeing more charges in such cases, as the county, officials say, has recorded 170 deaths related to the synthetic opioid in the past four years.

I charge those because in my mind, theyre homicides, said Greenwald, who has led the Douglas County DAs drug unit for the past few years. If my option is to do nothing, or my option is to do something  and maybe we need to plead it out and its not a 40-year prison sentence, but its something  thats justice.

Douglas County has taken a hard stance on fentanyl. And Johnson County has been ahead of others in the Kansas City metro in prosecuting fentanyl-related cases. Howe, who is seeking his fifth term, argued his office has prioritized bringing the uniquely challenging cases to court.

There have been four jury trials in the state of Kansas on fentanyl overdose cases. Weve tried three of them. We have a trial going on right now, Howe said. Im proud of the work we do. We dont shy away from those difficult cases. And I think our reputation and our history indicates that.

Greenwald, 37, is an Overland Park native who previously worked in the Wyandotte County District Attorneys Office, and from 2019 to 2021 worked in the Johnson County DAs Office specializing in traffic crash cases and fatalities. He joined Douglas County as a senior assistant district attorney in 2021.

Howe began his career as a prosecutor in 1988. He worked his way up the ranks in the Johnson County District Attorneys Office before he was among eight attorneys who were fired amid sweeping administrative changes shortly after former district attorney Phill Kline took over the office in 2007. Howe ran in 2008 and defeated Kline in the Republican primary before winning the general election against Democrat Rick Guinn.

Howe on Aug. 6 now faces the most competition for his seat since he was first elected. In addition to his Republican primary challenge, two Democrats hope to advance to the November election: Vanessa Riebli, who spent 21 years in the Johnson County DAs Office, and Zach Thomas, a criminal defense attorney who sought to unseat Howe in 2020, but lost with 48% of the vote.

Early voting has started in Johnson County, allowing registered voters to cast ballots in person until Aug. 5, except on Sundays. On Aug. 6, polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Fentanyl front and center

The Republican primary race has largely been focused on how the district attorney should address the rise in fentanyl-related deaths in Johnson County, as the metro has been ravaged by the highly addictive, extremely potent drug.

An investigation by The Star last year showed there were 149 fentanyl-related deaths in Johnson County from 2018 through 2022, which was triple the number of homicides during that time. And that number has continued to soar.

The Star found only a small fraction of those overdose death cases have made it on the prosecutors desk for possible charges.

Law enforcement officials say the cases are among their most difficult to investigate, requiring police to track down one deadly pill, when it was bought and who sold it. Howe said Johnson County police departments have only referred 17 cases to his office in the past five years. His office has charged eight so far.

We are resolving those cases and they are getting time in the penitentiary, significant time, Howe said.

Earlier this month, for example, Howes office announced that Diego Alessandro Gomez-Rodriguez was sentenced to more than 8 years for two counts of distribution of fentanyl, in a case where investigators found more than 1,600 pills.

In May, the Johnson County DAs office announced Cameron B. Bryant, of Grandview, was sentenced to more than 11 years for the 2021 fentanyl death of Olivia Piotrowski, a Shawnee Mission East senior. He had pleaded guilty to distribution of a controlled substance causing death.

That same month, a different high profile case went the other way. A Johnson County jury found Aaron Hansberry not guilty of distribution of a controlled substance causing death. Hansberry was charged in connection to the death of 16-year-old Cooper Davis, of Shawnee, who took a pill that his family said he didnt know contained fentanyl. His case garnered national attention.

A federal law was named in honor of the teen, the Cooper Davis Act, which requires communication service providers, including apps like Snapchat, to work more closely with federal authorities who need data to fight illegal drug sales.

After the decision, Coopers family said in a statement to KSHB, We hope that this experience will help equip the DAs office with tools to be successful in future cases that can bring justice to other families.

Howe feels his office has been a leader in the state in going after such cases, which he said is proven by taking more cases to trial than any other county in Kansas. He said hes also shown leadership on the issue by testifying in front of the state Legislature to push for harsher penalties for fentanyl-related crimes and to make publicly available naloxone, often known by its brand name Narcan, which can reverse the effects of an overdose.

But Greenwald argues that more should be done.

He said in Douglas County, he has charged 15 defendants in fentanyl-related cases, in a county where he says the Lawrence Police Department has been proactive in investigating fatal overdoses. The Stars report last year showed his office had yet to take a case to trial, and instead secured guilty pleas with prison sentences.

I take a very aggressive stance on charging because its a homicide, Greenwald said. These arent cases where you delay charging because maybe one day youll find new evidence and itll get better.

His current office is led by Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez, whose brother died from fentanyl, which the family learned was likely found in a pain pill he was given, she previously told The Star.

Both Howe and Greenwald agree that fentanyl-related cases are especially tricky, with a major hurdle being when multiple drugs, not just fentanyl, are found in a victims system.

My opponent wants to say, You should do more cases. The problem with that is of the 170 overdose cases weve had over the last four years, 108 of those had multiple drugs on board, Howe said. And our medical examiner has made it clear, if there are multiple drugs on board, she cannot definitively say the cause of death was fentanyl. That eliminates a big percentage of those cases.

If my medical examiner cant say the cause of death is this pill that killed you, that kind of nullifies our ability to go forward with that case, he said.

Greenwald argued, I think that theres ways you can get creative. And if you have to let the defense call the Johnson County coroner as a defense expert, so be it.

If a coroner wants to say we cant definitively say it was fentanyl that killed them, maybe it was asthma or whatever other complication, I will put that to a jury every single time. We know that person took something. We all know how lethal it is. You decide what killed them, Greenwald said.

Multi-faceted approach

Greenwald also criticizes Howe for being slower to embrace the implementation of a drug court, which was launched in Johnson County last year for defendants charged with lower level crimes such as drug possession to receive supervision and substance abuse treatment as an alternative to incarceration.

He said Johnson County was behind many other municipalities in launching the program, as well as a similar behavioral health court, which also began last year for defendants in need of mental health care. Johnson County judges were instrumental in starting the specialized treatment courts and securing funding for them.

Johnson County already had a veterans treatment court, which was started in 2016.

Greenwald has pointed to a debate during the last election in 2020, where Thomas  running against Howe for the first time  advocated for the start of a substance abuse treatment court.

Howe said during the debate, hosted by Kansas City PBS: Theres a jurisdiction that has a drug court, its called Jackson County. Has that reduced crime, reduced violence, no. Drug courts arent some magic elixir thats going to solve all the worlds ails. Should we dedicate resources to help those struggling with substance abuse? Absolutely.

Howe now says the treatment courts are playing a role in his offices multi-faceted approach to handling drug cases.

But Greenwald criticizes Howe for not pushing for the programs sooner, saying that he is a huge believer in them.

One of the aspects of fighting the drug epidemic is getting people sober, Greenwald said. Its about combating the addiction. Getting people sober reduces the property crime rate, the violent crime rate, drug crime rate. It reduces the burden on the public health system. Reduces the burden on social services. And so standing in opposition to that has been a detriment to helping save peoples lives, but also reduce the overall crime rate here.

Howe said that he believes treatment court programs are one component of the solution, but stands by the idea that they are not going to solve the problem alone. He said other substance abuse programs that existed in Johnson County before the treatment courts are also making a difference.

Yes, it can be helpful. But in drug court were only handling 20 to 30 cases at a time. We have hundreds of drug cases, Howe said. But it can be a component of it. And when the courts finally had the resources, and we got district court judges wanting to implement that, I said, Sure, Ill be involved in that process. It can be helpful in some high-risk cases. I went to the training for it myself.

Howe said, Just because Ive been a prosecutor for some time doesnt mean Im not willing to look at different ways to go about doing our work.

But Greenwald argues its one example of the office needing a fresh perspective.

I have relevant experience in the courtroom on modern trial techniques, seeing what the next thing is to continually improve and expand our skills, Greenwald said.  Thats experience from being an active prosecutor now, and not a figurehead. What I bring to the table is somebody who is actively involved in a number of different types of cases, with a broad knowledge on multiple types of cases.

Howe countered that he has remained closely involved in his offices high profile cases, and argued that his experience leading the large district attorneys office cant be matched.

I was a supervisor for nearly a decade before I became district attorney. This is the largest DAs office in the state. We have 42 lawyers, 128 employees, a $15 million budget, in the biggest county in the state, Howe said. To me, experience, which (Greenwald) doesnt have, as well as just leadership experience is critically, critically important.
Jon Stewart Calls Out Media for 180-Flip on Trump Coverage Since RNC: What We Have Now Is Chaos | Video

Jon Stewart theorized about how to upend the political campaign timeline in his latest episode of The Weekly Show.

As TheWrap previously previewed, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels joined The Daily Show host for his first podcast since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

Goodwin argued that the modern phenomenon of choosing candidates so early is a money waster. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author said that in the days of Abraham Lincoln and LBJ, delegates wouldnt even think about the campaign until after the convention.

Somehow, we may have done it better back then, the historian pondered.

After the unpredictable past few weeks in the swift political news cycle, Stewart pushed back against the medias flippant portrayal of the candidates.

Stewart pointed out how one day headlines read that Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump smells victory, and then just days later called him pathetic Trump already trying to weasel his way out of debating Kamala Harris.

What we have now is chaos without context or perspective, hot takes that in many ways inflame the electorate rather than illuminate the electorate, Stewart said of the current media climate. We cant change the speed at which events take place, but can we change the manner by which we either cheer that on or cover it?

Presidential historian Goodwin added, We can never go back in time.

Daniels, who spends a lot of time in Washington, D.C., and engages in closed-door conversations, argued that part of the problem with the media landscape is there are too many voices, not all of them held to the same journalistic standards.

Theres a fine line between analysis and kind of prognosticating and guessing, Daniels said. A lot of people are using the word journalist that are not journalists.

The Daily Show host then elaborated on the convoluted mess of our election systems.

We are always at each others throats and never have time for makeup electoral sex in the country. Just fighting at all times, Stewart said, nearly out of breath.

But Goodwin, the historian with the hindsight of generations before us, has not given up hope just yet.

We created these problems. We can solve these problems. We can change things. We can have a political revolution, she said. We can make it so money is not in politics.

Daniels agreed that this kind of shakeup may be possible if people, politicians in particular, just speak their minds. People dont always speak the things that they feel. Many people do want these changes. Many of them do want money out of politics, the reporter noted.

At that, Stewart beamed as he told his guest hosts that they got him all riled up about the future of American politics.

Because the elections are never ending, the money is unceasing. If we change the time, we change the money, we change the atmosphere, he concluded. We shorten the time we have to endure this nonsense.

Watch the full podcast, above,

The post Jon Stewart Calls Out Media for 180-Flip on Trump Coverage Since RNC: What We Have Now Is Chaos | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Judge to decide Monday whether RFK Jr. can be on New Jerseys ballot

Attorney Scott Salmon argues New Jerseys Sore Loser Law bars presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from appearing on the ballot as a third-party candidate. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

A judge is expected to decide Monday whether independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can be on the November ballot in New Jersey.

Kennedys push to get on the ballot has been challenged by attorney Scott Salmon, who said New Jerseys Sore Loser Law bars candidates like Kennedy from running as an independent in November after trying and failing to secure a major partys nomination. Kennedy had initially said he would challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination for president before launching his indepedent bid.

Under questioning by Mercer County Judge Robert Lougy, Salmon conceded that Kennedy didnt submit paperwork to seek the Democratic Party nomination in New Jersey, but he still took concrete steps to win the partys nod, raising money and holding events to get support from Democrats before launching his third-party bid for the White House.

Theres a difference between words and deeds, Salmon told the judge. And if someone is just saying, Im going to run for president, and then they dont do anything about it, that theres a distinct difference between that and someone who is actively raising money and spending money.

Donald F. Burke, attorney for Kennedy, argued that Salmons case should not have been filed in state Superior Court, saying that venue is reserved for Kennedys presidential rivals. Voters like Salmon are supposed to take their complaints to the New Jersey secretary of state, he said.

Burke has argued that if Kennedy is dropped from the ballot, the winners would be the Democratic and Republican parties, not voters.

Major political parties would love Salmon to win because what that would do is make a choice of their candidates and no one else, he said.

New Jersey Secretary of State Tahesha Way is a defendant in the case. Adam Marshall, attorney for the state, said Friday that if Salmon had filed an objection to Kennedys candidacy with the secretary of state instead of with the courts, there likely would already have been a hearing at the Office of Administrative Law and a decision by a judge, and the secretary of state could have responded to those findings, Marshall said.

Salmon maintained he filed in the correct venue because he isnt challenging Kennedys petitions to get on the ballot. He added that taking this matter to the Office of Administrative Law now could delay it further and limit the rights of myself as well as Mr. Kennedy.

Way, who is also lieutenant governor, has until Aug. 9 to formally certify which presidential candidates will be on New Jerseys ballot. Lougy said he understands the urgency of ruling on election matters quickly.

Petitions of electors for president and vice president are due to Ways office on the 99th day before the general election  that would be Monday, July 29  and filing objections are due four days after that, on August 2, Marshall noted.

Salmon filed his lawsuit in June. He helped get rapper Ye booted from New Jerseys ballot in 2020.

While Kennedys attorneys fight this case in New Jersey and other states, they scored a win in Nebraska. Kennedy secured enough signatures to appear as a nonpartisan candidate on the ballot in that state despite an objection from its Democratic Party, the states secretary of state announced Friday.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
CANBERRA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Australia's environment minister has commended the World Heritage Committee's decision not to list the Great Barrier Reef as in danger.

Tanya Plibersek, minister for the environment and water, said in a statement on Friday that the decision at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee in New Delhi reflected efforts by the governments of Australia and the state of Queensland to protect the iconic reef.

The committee on Thursday agreed to adopt June's draft decision from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that the Great Barrier Reef not be placed on a list of heritage-listed sites considered "in danger."

The decision recognized the increased action Australia has taken to protect the world's largest coral reef but asked for further progress reports in 2025 and 2026 on actions to protect and manage the reef.

Plibersek said in a joint statement with Nita Green, special envoy for the reef, Queensland Premier Steven Miles and the state's Minister for the Environment and the Great Barrier Reef, Leanne Linard, that there is more work to do to act on climate change and protect Australia's precious places.

"We are acting on climate change, improving local water quality, protecting our marine life, dealing with invasive species, and investing a record amount of money into reef programs," she said.

"No one loves the Reef more than we do, no one is more determined to protect it than Australians."

The federal and state governments have invested a combined 2.2 billion Australian dollars (1.44 billion U.S. dollars) in protecting the reef and have both committed to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 
LAFAYETTE COUNTY, Miss.  A judge in Oxford, Mississippi has ruled on a motion by the prosecution and defense to seal court documents in the capital murder trial of Timothy Herrington.

Herrington is accused of murdering a former University of Mississippi student Jimmie Jay Lee back in 2022.

ORIGINAL STORY: University of Mississippi student missing

What we were asking for was narrowly tailored, limited, until we got a jury seated, thats what we were requesting, said Ben Creekmore. He granted the motion in part and denied it in part.

Hes not going to seal the record, but if there is any specific things that could jeopardize the ability to seat a fair and impartial jury then he will take that under consideration and seal it or not seal it.

Lee disappeared on July 8, 2022, and garnered local and national news coverage. In court, investigators outlined in detail their case against Herrington and his role in Lees death, describing their relationship as sexual.

Herrington was ordered to be held without bond but later filed suit claiming he was being held illegally since Lees body had not been recovered.

There was a lot of proof that came out and it needs to be heard by the jury for the first time at trial, Creekmore said.

MORE ON JIMMIE JAY LEE

Creekmore also says filing the joint motion is to limit any further pre-trial publicity.

Its about protecting the integrity of the trial, the ability to get a fair and impartial jury where they hear about the facts of the case in court and not from some other source, he said.

Judge Kelly Luther has granted a change of venue and set a trial date for December 2.

Timothy Herrington Jr., who remains out on bond, was not in court on Thursday. WREG has reached out to his attorney for a comment but he has not returned our call.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
NEW YORK  The judge presiding over Donald Trumps civil fraud lawsuit on Thursday categorically rejected the former presidents request that he step down based on allegations he improperly discussed the case with a lawyer in passing  saying the attorney in question accosted and started haranguing him at the courthouse.

State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron said he was supremely confident in his ability to serve impartially and that the real estate attorney, Adam Bailey, who is not involved in the Trump case, boasted on TV about an interaction in February that he viewed very differently.

[At] the end of the business day, I left my robing room in the courthouse at 60 Centre Street and rode an elevator down to the main floor. There, on the outskirts of the famous rotunda, Bailey accosted and started haranguing me about [the New York law Trump was found liable for violating]. He did not relay any alleged facts, Engoron wrote of the interaction that happened a few weeks before he found Trump liable for fraud.

Prior to that time, I considered Bailey a professional acquaintance and a distant friend. His sudden appearance and vehement speech took me aback, and I simply told him that he was wrong. He trailed after me, still droning on, as I descended the Judges stairs to the street level. I entered my vehicle without saying another word (except, perhaps, goodbye) and departed.

Engoron on Feb. 16 found Trump, his sons, Eric and Don Jr., and former executives Allen Weisselberg and Jeffrey McConney civilly liable for breaking multiple state laws  including by falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, conspiring to commit insurance fraud, and other related offenses  by routinely exaggerating the value of properties like Trump Tower, 40 Wall St., and Mar-a-Lago, Fla., sometimes by billions of dollars.

He ordered Trump and his sons and associates to pay the state of New York around $464.6 million, growing by $112,000 in interest daily, with most of the sum owed by Trump. He temporarily barred the former president and his sons from running a New York company and permanently banned McConney and Weisselberg. Trump and his codefendants appealed the judgment earlier this week.

In an interview with NBC News after the stunning ruling, Bailey claimed he approached Engoron with advice about the law central to the case when they crossed paths at the lower Manhattan courthouse, claiming, I really want him to get it right.

In June, Trumps defense team filed a motion seeking Engoron recuse himself based on Baileys claims, arguing the judge was fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities attendant to donning the black robe and sitting in judgment.

Engoron said he had no doubt about his impartiality and that it was absurd to suggest he sought counsel from a random lawyer about a case he had presided over for over three years, calling the interaction a nothingburger.

I certainly did not need a landlord-tenant lawyer ranting about it. I did not initiate, welcome, encourage, engage in, or learn from, much less enjoy, Baileys tirade. I did not base any part of any of my rulings on it, as Bailey has outlandishly, mistakenly, and defamatorily claimed, the judge wrote.

[It] is up to me and my conscience to determine whether this 90-second, unsolicited diatribe about a law with which I was fully familiar and in which I was fully immersed, by a non-party and non-expert who conveyed no facts, in any way affected my adjudication of a dispute over which I had presided for three and a half years, during which time I had already issued several dispositive decisions. I hereby definitively state that it did not.

Attorneys for Trump did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment. Bailey could not be reached.

_____
Photo by iStock / Getty Images Plus

Republican lawmakers violated state law when they used the phrase unborn human being to describe the Arizona Abortion Access Act in a voter information pamphlet, a Maricopa County judge ruled on Friday.

The only issue before the Court is whether the phrase unborn human being as approved by the Legislative Council is an impartial analysis of the provisions of (the subject) ballot proposal as required by (Arizona law). It is not, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Christopher Whitten wrote in his ruling.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

State law mandates that lawmakers create impartial summaries of every ballot measure for a publicity pamphlet sent to voters before the November election. After a legislative panel of eight Republicans and six Democrats voted along party lines to approve a description of the abortion rights initiative that included unborn human being in the first sentence, the initiatives campaign went to court.

Backers of the abortion rights proposal argued the phrase illegally injects political bias into the summary and should be replaced with fetus as the more medically accurate, neutral term. Attorneys for the eight GOP lawmakers sought to convince the court that, because the phrase is a direct quote from the state law limiting abortion to 15 weeks, it should be regarded as impartial and left in place.

Whitten was unconvinced by the claim that the phrase, as a direct quote, is impartial. Simply existing somewhere in state law, he wrote, doesnt insulate the phrase from political bias. Unlike the law that prohibits biased language from being added to summaries in the voter publicity pamphlet, no equivalent mandate exists requiring legislators to use unbiased language when crafting state laws, Whitten pointed out.

The court is not persuaded that every word chosen by the legislature in every statute it enacts is intended to be a neutral in character (sic), he wrote. There is no requirement that the legislature chose its words in such a way, and plenty of evidence that they sometimes do not.

Whitten noted that previous court rulings have been clear about what kind of language violates the impartiality standard. Summaries that appear to advocate for or against a ballot measure, seek to mislead voters or are tinged with partisan coloring are illegal.

Even language that is technically accurate but uses provocative phrasing has been found to violate the impartiality requirement, Whitten wrote. GOP lawmakers argued in court that the phrase is just as medically accurate as fetus  and might even be more accurate, given that fetus is used to refer to any mammal.

Ultimately, Whitten concluded, the phrase unborn human being is too undeniably partisan to allow it to stand.

The term unborn human being is packed with emotional and partisan meaning, both for those who oppose abortion and for those who endorse a womans right to choose whether to have an abortion, he wrote.

Whitten ordered that the Legislative Council remove the phrase from the summary for the Arizona Abortion Access Act. But he left it up to lawmakers to decide what to replace the phrase with, writing only that it must create an impartial description.

Cheryl Bruce, the campaign manager for Arizona Abortion Access for All, celebrated the ruling as a win for voters, though she added that she expects litigation in the case to continue.

We are pleased to be one step closer to making sure Arizona voters get accurate and impartial information about our citizen-led effort to restore abortion access before they vote this fall, she said in an emailed statement. Though we expect and are prepared for an appeal, this is important progress toward giving Arizona voters the power to make an informed decision in support of protecting our reproductive freedoms once and for all.

If passed, the ballot measure would enshrine abortion as a right in the state constitution, guaranteeing access up to fetal viability, generally regarded to be around 24 weeks. It also invalidates restrictive abortion laws, including the current 15-week gestational ban, and includes exceptions beyond fetal viability if a health care provider deems an abortion necessary to preserve a patients life, physical or mental health.

GOP leaders denounced Whittens decision as biased and vowed to appeal the ruling.

House Speaker Ben Toma, a Republican from Glendale who chairs the legislative panel that adopted the summary language, criticized Whitten for trying to take on a lawmaking role.

The ruling is just plain wrong and clearly partisan if the language of the actual law is not acceptable, Toma said. The judge should run for the legislature if he wants to write the law.

President Warren Petersen, a Gilbert Republican, said that he looks forward to a favorable ruling in the appeals court.

The judges ruling is partisan, he said, in an emailed statement. Im confident he will be overturned on appeal.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
Assistant Attorneys General Thane Johnson (far left) and Michael Russell (second to left) confer with Judge Mike Menahan and plaintiffs' attorney Raph Graybill at a hearing on a preliminary injunction on July 26, 2024. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan)

Assistant Attorneys General Thane Johnson (far left) and Michael Russell (second to left) confer with Judge Mike Menahan and plaintiffs' attorney Raph Graybill at a hearing on a preliminary injunction on July 26, 2024. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan)

A Lewis and Clark County District Court judge granted a preliminary injunction Friday morning that says inactive voters signatures must count as valid signatures for three proposed ballot issues that are poised to be on Novembers ballot once signature totals are certified by the Secretary of States Office.

However, during the hearing, not all the matters surrounding the case or the signature counting could be conducted because attorneys for the Secretary of State could not be found and served with subpoenas compelling their testimony, as the plaintiffs attorneys had planned for in the hearing.

Two lawyers for the Montana Attorney Generals Office, which are representing Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen in the case, consented to the injunction which would allow inactive voters signatures with attorneys for Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights and Montanans for Election Reform ahead of Friday mornings hearing in Helena, both sides told Judge Mike Menahan.

While we are pleased that the Secretary of State has agreed to follow the law regarding this issue, we fully anticipate that they will continue to play political games with the petition process in their attempt to block this initiative and silence Montana voters, said ACLU of Montana Executive Director Akilah Deernose, a spokesperson for Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights. Montanans can be sure that we will remain vigilant and continue to fight for the rights of Montanans to participate in their democracy and make their voices heard.

Menahan last week granted a temporary restraining order saying Jacobsen and her office could not automatically reject signatures from voters who are registered, but inactive because they had not voted in recent elections or returned mail to verify their address.

He also ordered that county clerks be given 2 1/2 more days to re-add the signatures from inactive voters that had been rejected under Jacobsens offices orders, with a deadline of noon this previous Wednesday to finish and send the signatures to Jacobsens office.

The two petition groups sued Jacobsen earlier this month after they found out that attorneys for the Secretary of State had changed longstanding guidance to county election officials halfway through the verification process and told the officials inactive, but registered, voters signatures should not be counted.

The petition groups argued the new guidance was not legally correct and was violating the constitutional rights of both the groups and the registered voters who signed their petitions as they tried to meet the legally-required thresholds to make the ballot in November. Both groups have said in the week since that state elections software shows all three initiatives  Constitutional Initiatives 126, 127 and 128, which concern abortion protections and changes to Montanas elections  have met the necessary thresholds both with and without inactive voters counting.

Jacobsen last Thursday asked the Montana Supreme Court to take supervisory control of the case, arguing Menahans order was a gross injustice and the court needed to take over and toss out the order.

Meanwhile, attorneys for the two ballot groups responded and told the court that a group of Republican lawmakers and legislative candidates, including House Speaker Matt Regier, R-Kalispell, had filed suit against Jacobsen in Lake County District Court, and her office had agreed that CI-126 and CI-127 could only qualify with active voter signatures. According to court documents filed with the Montana Supreme Court, attorneys from the Secretary of States Office appeared to have brokered a deal with the lawmakers that it would not count inactive voters. That Lake County case happened just a day before Menahan, in Helena, issued the first preliminary injunction.

The particular Lake County case was not known at the time to the Helena court or the lawyers of the case from the Attorney Generals Office, they said in court Friday. And the two ballot initiative groups did not learn about that agreement until after the Lewis and Clark County hearing, their attorneys wrote in court filings.

When the judge in Lake County learned about Menahans order, she vacated the stipulated restraining order there, and the two petition groups filed a motion to intervene in that case, stay any prior decisions, and have the case moved to Lewis and Clark County District Court, the attorneys said. The Lake County judge also vacated a July 24 hearing date pending the Friday hearing in Lewis and Clark County.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected Jacobsens request to take over the case on Tuesday, saying she had not shown where Menahan erred in granting the temporary restraining order.

The justices said Jacobsens attorneys in the Menahan case had written the temporary restraining order alongside the two groups attorneys and they would not disturb a remedy that arose from a conference between the litigants.

Attorney Raph Graybill argues in front of Lewis and Clark County District Court Judge Mike Menahan on July 26, 2024 in a preliminary injunction hearing. (Photo by Blair Miller, Daily Montanan)

At the hearing Friday morning, Raph Graybill, the attorney representing Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights, told Menahan he had tried to get two Secretary of States Office attorneys  Clay Leland and Austin James  who testified as witnesses at last weeks district court hearing, to testify at Fridays hearing.

Graybill told the court that they would only agree to appear if he and his co-counsel representing Montanans for Election Reform, Martha Sheehy, issued subpoenas compelling them to appear.

But when process servers went to deliver the subpoenas on Wednesday, Graybill said, the two attorneys could not be found, and the Secretary of States Office did not accept the subpoenas on their behalf. He said the two attorneys declined to appear on their own and had hired separate, individual counsel for themselves.

It is that context in which the state has called us and said they would like to discuss consenting to preliminary relief, Graybill told the court.

Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell confirmed that the two Attorney Generals Office lawyers had been granted authority to concede to the preliminary injunction without waiving further claims or defenses in the case if there is any further dispute.

Menahan told both sides he had learned about the case in Lake County and noted that he felt it was very clear that neither Russell nor Assistant Attorney General Thane Johnson  who were in court Friday  were apprised of that stipulation.

I think the Secretary of States attorneys failure to inform you of that put you in a tenuous position  not only with this court but also with the Supreme Court, Menahan told the two attorneys. But clearly, in reading the documents that were filed in this case that indicated that you were both not aware of that litigation, and I just want you to know that was something that I noted.

I appreciate that greatly, Johnson responded.

The Secretary of States Office did not respond by a provided deadline Friday afternoon to a request for comment on the injunction and questions about the Lake County stipulation and why process servers could not find its two attorneys.

Graybill told Menahan that despite having an agreed-upon injunction ready for Menahan to sign, he wanted to discuss the matter more in open court. He said the two groups are unclear what other challenges the Secretary of State might find for the ballot issues, whether outside groups would challenge individual signatures before the date that Jacobsen must certify the ballot in August, and if the attorneys for the Secretary of States Office would have to testify further.

The two sides agreed the Attorney Generals Offices attorneys could not provide that information in court Friday morning, so the case remains open while the injunction is in place.

The court went into recess for about 15 minutes while attorneys for both sides finalized the language of the preliminary injunction, which Menahan accepted and signed after adjourning the hearing. Records show he also denied a motion to intervene in the case from the Montana Life Defense Fund, which had planned to challenge signatures of inactive voters during the challenge period.

Jacobsen has an Aug. 22 deadline to certify statewide ballot issues qualified for November for election administrators.

Today, we saw the Secretary of States office dodge accountability when they hid from a subpoena and refused to show up in court, said Frank Garner, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and Montanans for Election Reform board member. The Secretary of States actions this week prove we need CI-126 and CI-127 so that voters can hold politicians accountable. We look forward to Secretary of State Jacobsen swiftly certifying these initiatives for the November ballot so that Montana voters can choose more voice and more choice in our elections.

Order  Preliminary Injunction Granted
The CEO of Snapchat must answer questions in a Georgia lawsuit, according to documents filed in Spalding County.

Christal McGee crashed along Tara Boulevard in southern Clayton County in September 2015 injuring herself, three passengers in her car and permanently injuring the driver of the other car, Wentworth Maynard.

Heather McCarty, who was in the car that night, told Channel 2 Action News in 2016 that she remembers the highest speed she saw on McGees phone was 113 mph right before the crash.

Karen and Wentworth Maynard have sued the company. They allege McGee told her three passengers right before the crash that she was trying to go at 100 mph, to post it on Snapchat.

Snapchat disabled its speed filter in 2021 after criticism it encouraged dangerous driving.

Now, a Spalding County judge wants to hear from the companys CEO, Evan Spiegel.

According to (Snapchats) discovery responses, Mr. Spiegel is one of two (Snapchat) employees remaining at the company who conceived, proposed, and/or approved the speed filter which is the subject of this litigation, the judge wrote. (Snapchat) has identified Mr. Spiegel as the only person who approved the eventual removal of the speed filter.

The Maynards claim Snapchat was negligent in designing the speed filter.

RELATED STORIES:

He was in a coma, spent five weeks in intensive care. He has a brain injury that is permanent. His wife is having to take care of him, said Todd Henningsen, one of Wentworth Maynards attorneys told Channel 2 Action News in 2016.

Maynard had just turned right out of his apartment complex onto Tara Boulevard where the speed limit is 55.

A crash reconstruction expert examined both vehicles and determined McGees car was traveling 107 mph at the time of impact.

In 2022, the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that Snapchat must face the Maynards claims.

Snapchat argued that its speed filter was no more harmful than a vehicle capable of going faster than 100 mph, pointing out that no court had ever held that manufacturers have a duty under the law to prevent cars from going that fast. The company said its speed filter was misused by McGee, who failed to heed its warning not to use the app while driving.

Snapchat sent us a statement at the time of our original reporting saying: No Snap is more important than someones safety. We actively discourage our community from using the speed filter while driving, including by displaying a Do NOT Snap and Drive warning message in the app itself.

The statement continues, The complaint filed in this case is not factually accurate. Among other things, Snapchat has never offered in-app trophies or additional points for using the speed filter.

RELATED NEWS:
Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks at a press conference in the Missouri House Lounge, flanked by House Speaker Dean Plocher, left, and state Rep. Justin Sparks (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications).

A Clay County judge on Friday refused to reverse her order from earlier this month that Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey answer questions under oath about conversations with a local official that may have violated legal ethics rules.

Judge Karen Krauser ordered Bailey to sit for a deposition after it was discovered he and a deputy met with a member of the Jackson County Legislature without the knowledge of the countys attorneys.

Bailey filed a lawsuit in December over Jackson Countys property assessment process, and the Jackson County Legislature is a named defendant.

The meetings appear to have violated the rules of professional conduct set out by the Missouri Supreme Court, which prohibit attorneys from meeting with individuals involved in a lawsuit without the consent of their lawyer. Krauser ordered Bailey to answer questions under oath about the meetings from Jackson Countys attorneys.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

Jason Lewis, general counsel for the Attorney Generals Office, urged Krauser to reconsider her decision during a Thursday hearing, arguing that requiring Bailey to sit for a deposition could set a troubling precedent.

The Attorney Generals Office has profound institutional interest that a sitting statewide official cannot be deposed in every case, Lewis said.

Bailey has argued that Krausers order chills the attorney generals free-speech rights on the campaign trail, since the meeting he had with the county official was a brief, casual meeting between two elected officials and their campaign staffs unrelated to the lawsuit but where, at most, a passing remark was made about the lawsuit.

The judge did not lay out her reasoning for denying the motion to reconsider her order in the one-page ruling released Friday. She also denied Baileys motion to disqualify Jackson Countys attorneys from the property tax case.

Baileys spokeswoman said the attorney generals office is examining all legal options.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
FILE - Judge Arthur Engoron presides during closing arguments in the Trump Organization civil fraud trial in New York State Supreme Court in New York, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2024. Engoron, who ordered Donald Trump to pay a nearly $500 million civil fraud judgment said Thursday, July 25, 2024, he wont step aside from the case, rebuffing concerns that the verdict was influenced by a brief conversation hed had with another lawyer as a nothingburger. (Shannon Stapleton/Pool Photo via AP, File)

NEW YORK (AP)  The New York judge who ordered Donald Trump to pay a nearly $500 million civil fraud judgment said Thursday he wont step aside from the case, rebuffing concerns that the verdict was influenced by a brief conversation he had with another lawyer as a nothingburger.

Judge Arthur Engorons eight-page order came in response to Trumps attorneys' request that he recuse himself based on a claim by real estate attorney Adam Leitman Bailey that the two had discussed the state law at the heart of the case prior to the verdict.

In the ruling, Engoron vehemently disputed the attorneys description of their February encounter. He wrote that Bailey had accosted him in a courthouse hallway, then followed him down the stairs and onto the street while droning on" about his interpretation of the law.

I did not initiate, welcome, encourage, engage in, or learn from, much less enjoy, Baileys tirade, Engoron wrote, adding that the unpleasant occurrence lasted about 90 seconds.

Bailey claimed in an interview published by NBC New York in May that hed discussed the case with Engoron shortly before the verdict was issued and given him his take on a relevant portion of the law.

In a filing last month, an attorney for Trump, Christopher Kise, wrote that the conversation may have violated state rules around judicial communications and had created an appearance of impropriety and tarnish the integrity of this proceeding beyond repair.

The recusal request cited reports that the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct had opened an inquiry into the conversation.

Engoron responded that he had not been contacted by the commission and was not aware of any investigation. Throughout the high-profile trial, the judge said hed been frequently confronted by people on the street, in restaurants, parks, and on public transportation.

Sometimes their unsolicited words are complimentary. Sometimes they are derogatory, he wrote. Never do they affect my rulings. As with my forced encounter with Bailey, I feel no need to report these fleeting incidents.

He continued: I would have forgotten all about it by now had Bailey not attempted to burnish his reputation as someone who could influence judges."

Neither Kise nor Bailey responded to an emailed request for comment on the judges decision.

Engoron ruled on Feb. 16 that Trump lied to banks, insurers and others about his wealth. He found that Trump, his company and top executives  including his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr.  schemed for years to inflate his wealth on financial statements used to secure loans and make deals.

The judge ordered Trump to pay $355 million in penalties, but with interest the total has grown to more than $471 million  including $17.1 million that has accrued since the verdict. The sum will increase by nearly $112,000 per day until he pays, unless the verdict is overturned.

Trump posted a $175 million bond in April to halt collection of the judgment and prevent James office from seizing his assets while he appeals.
AUSTIN (KXAN)  The Austin Police Department said it was now investigating a June shooting as a homicide following a preliminary investigation.

According to APD, on June 25, officers responded to the call of a shooting in the 12200 block of Kelton Drive where the caller said a family member had been shot.

APD said medics arrived and found the victim, later identified as 13-year-old Julian Hernandez, on a bed and attempted life-saving measures. Hernandez was taken to the hospital, where he later died.

During an initial interview, the witness said Hernandez shot himself, but it was later discovered he had been shot and killed by a family member, who later told investigators they shot Hernandez by accident.

At this time, no formal charges have been filed, therefore, we are not releasing the name of the family member who shot Julian, APD said.

According to APD, this case is being investigated as Austins 35th homicide of 2024.

Police said anyone with any information should contact the Austin Police Department at 512-974-TIPS. Tips can also be submitted anonymously through the Capital Area Crime Stoppers Program by visiting austincrimestoppers.org by calling 512-472-8477.

A reward of up to $1,000 may be available for any information that leads to an arrest.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Defense attorney Michael Bertholf speaks during the trial for Peter Zielinski at the Marion County Circuit Court on July 16 in Salem.

For the third time in his life, Peter Zielinski was convicted of murdering his wife.

A jury unanimously found the 52-year-old Keizer man guilty of second-degree murder, rejecting his claim of extreme emotional disturbance as a defense.

The late-evening verdict came Thursday following multiple days of deliberation.

Zielinski was twice convicted of murdering his wife and twice successful in having his conviction overturned.

His seven-day trial concluded with closing arguments on Tuesday. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 22.

Peter Zielinski was convicted of murdering his wife, Lisa Zielinski, by a Marion County jury for the third time on Thursday.

Police arrested Zielinski in 2011 for shooting his wife, Lisa Zielinski, 38, at their Keizer home while their 5-year-old daughter was in the other room.

Prosecutors argued the shooting was an intentional act made after months of marital turmoil and controlling behavior. Lisa Zielinski wanted to leave her husband, Marion County Deputy District Attorney Katie Suver said.

"She had enough of the defendant's drinking, anger and verbal abuse," Suver said. "She was leaving him. He made sure that would never happen."

On multiple occasions, witnesses recounted Zielinski telling his wife, "If you ever try to leave me, I will kill you."

Defense attorney Michael Bertholf said Lisa Zielinski was checked out of her marriage by the summer of 2010, and the couple's finances had been ravaged by the 2008 housing crash.

Toward the end of their marriage, investigators said Lisa began a romantic relationship with another man and Peter was engaged in an emotional affair with a woman online. Both talked of divorce.

Bertholf said Peter Zielinski was doing "anything he could to save the marriage" and Lisa Zielinski was "gaslighting" her husband into thinking everything was OK.

As Bertholf stressed this point, friends and family members of Lisa Zielinski in the courtroom gallery silently shook their heads.

A forensic psychologist testified about the diagnosis of extreme emotional disturbance and said Peter Zielinski's behavior during the shooting was dissociative.

Bertholf said Zielinski snapped when he shot his wife and asked the jury to side with the defense of extreme emotional distress or convict his client of the lesser charge of manslaughter. First-degree manslaughter carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. It is defined in Oregon law as reckless or criminally negligent acts leading to a person's death. Second-degree murder carries a life sentence with a mandatory minimum prison term of 25 years.

An 'unspeakable monster'

Suver said Lisa Zielinski was completely defenseless and brushing her hair when her husband pointed the gun 6 to 12 inches from her head and fired once, watching as her body fell lifeless to the floor.

She contended that any emotional distress Peter Zielinski experienced was of his own making and that Lisa Zielinski was not on trial for her decisions; her husband was.

"This is not reckless conduct," Suver said, pointing to a crime scene photo of Lisa Zielinski's face. "That's intentional conduct."

"Let me be clear: he is guilty of murder, not manslaughter," she said.

Lisa Zielinski worked in sales at the KYKN radio station and sang in the choir at Saint Edward Catholic Church. She was known as a devoted mother and stepmother.

The day of the shooting, her 5-year-old daughter told police she didn't hear or see anything but when "she said goodbye to her mom, her mom didn't answer," Suver said.

Marion County Deputy District Attorney Katie Suver speaks during opening arguments for the Peter Zielinski trial.

Peter Zielinski took his daughter to her kindergarten carpool before calling a friend, admitting to the shooting and turning himself in at the police station.

Now the Chief of Police in Keizer, Andrew Copeland was a patrol sergeant and one of the first law enforcement officers to talk to Zielinski and find Lisa Zielinski dead in the master bathroom of the family's home on Nightingale Court. Copeland said she was in pajamas and slippers. When they found items indicating kids lived in the home, they searched the house and worked to locate the children. Both were safely at school.

Zielinski pleaded guilty to murder in 2013 and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. The plea was conditional, giving him the right to appeal.

At his sentencing, Lisa Zielinski's mother, Rhonda Tupper, called him an "unspeakable monster."

"You turned the world of a 5-year-old upside down and you took from me my beautiful daughter who was also my best friend," she said. "May you have a long time to reflect on your actions. As her family, we despise you."

Peter Zielinski case goes to trial for second time

In an opinion issued in 2017, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled the trial court erred in excluding expert testimony of Zielinski's anxiety disorder diagnosis.

His case returned to Marion County Circuit Court for trial in 2019.

Much of the defense centered around Zielinski's war experiences  he was a Marine in the mid-1990s and served as as a radio operator during the Gulf War  leading to flashbacks, suicidal ideation, alcohol use and nightmares.

Prosecutors argued Zielinski was demeaning and controlling.

The jury unanimously rejected the emotional disturbance defense and convicted Zielinski of murder.

Zielinski's attorneys appealed again, and in 2022, the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned the conviction.

The appeals court found Marion County Circuit Court Judge Susan Tripp improperly allowed the deputy district attorney to examine the past clients of an expert witness during the second trial.

Zielinski has been incarcerated since the shooting and conviction in 2013.

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: Keizer, Oregon man convicted for third time in killing of his wife
A Johnson County jury on Thursday found a 38-year-old man guilty of murder in a 2021 crash that killed a motorcyclist, the Johnson County District Attorneys Office announced.

The jury found Ruben Rodriguez guilty of reckless second-degree murder in the fatal crash that killed 23-year-old Dade Smith of Overland Park on the morning of Nov. 18, 2021.

This was the second time that Rodriquez stood trial on the charge. In the first trial, in October 2023, the jury became deadlocked, and a mistrial was declared, according to court documents.

Sentencing was set for Oct. 4. Rodriguez, whose bond was increased to $750,000, was held in Johnson County jail.

Smith, who was wearing a helmet at the time of the crash, was found unresponsive by responding police officers. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Rodriguez was unhurt.

The crash occurred on West 167th Street near Lone Elm Road, near the FedEx facility in Olathe, where the two men worked.

According to his obituary, Smith had a son. A GoFundMe fundraising page organized after his death said Smiths son was born in May, just months before his death.

Smiths family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against FedEx in Johnson County District Court, accusing the company of negligence and negligent hiring, supervision and retention.

They claimed that the morning of the crash, Smith and Rodriguez got into a dangerous altercation at work, and the on-duty supervisor sent both men home. The argument continued in the parking lot. Rodriguez, who was driving an SUV, struck Smith as they were leaving, the lawsuit alleged.

The lawsuit was removed to U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, where court documents showed a settlement had been reached last year.

After a judge declined a motion to conduct a wrongful death settlement hearing under seal, Smiths family dismissed their claims, and the case was closed, court documents show.
"Achieving peace among these groups, stemming from the same roots but diverging and splitting over time, is very valuable." A Turkish expert has hailed China's role in promoting the signing of a declaration by 14 Palestinian factions in Beijing. #Palestine
It has just gotten worse: Salem community disturbed by recent gun violence

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  Salem community members are disturbed from the recent gun violence after three separate shootings in different areas of the city unfolded within 24 hours.

The shootings this week come after a town hall with city leaders and community members was held to address gun violence a few months back.

The Salem Police Department shared a video with KOIN 6 News showing dozens of shots caught on camera. This was at a shooting at Riverfront Park on Wednesday morning just after 1 a.m. Police said that when officers arrived they found bullet holes in several nearby cars and the historic Riverfront Carousel building.

Iconic 154-year-old elm tree to be removed due to public safety

Witnesses said two groups got into an argument when the gunfire erupted. Police later found 96 spent shell casings from various types of guns.

Salem resident Anissa Wright said she routinely walks her two dogs past the Carousel building every day.

This is the first shooting I ever heard about at the Carousel. Children are here every day and its not great to hear, she said.

Kristine Miller, of West Salem, told KOIN 6 News that while there are some areas of the city she goes to by herself, shell often bring her kids to parks.

A recent analysis report found shootings doubled in the last give years in Oregons capitol.

Kroger, Albertsons agree to temporarily halt merger plans while lawsuit proceeds

Weve been thinking about moving out of Salem because of it, said Elizabeth Reck. I moved here four years ago. It has just gotten worse with the crime and homelessness.

Adding to the violence, on Thursday morning shortly after 5 a.m., Salem police responded to a shooting on Commercial Street Northeast. Officers found a 44-year-old man shot. He was taken to the hospital and is expected to be OK. The victim told officers he got into an argument with two other men.

Hours later on Thursday, just before 2 p.m., police said a man was shot inside a convenience store on Portland Road Northeast.

He got him on the top of his head, said Rezq Alsareli, the AMPM store owner. I go inside, run after the guy, I see him bleeding, I just get the shirt, take the shirt off and put my shirt on his head.

Alsareli said he was able to apply pressure and slow the bleeding until the police came. Police said the suspect was taken into custody a few minutes later.

MultCo Board rejects alternative ambulance resolution amid paramedic shortage

Since this happened, you never know, but it never happened before. Hopefully nothing is going to happen, Alsareli said.

Salem residents who spoke with KOIN 6 News said they hope there will be more police patrols on the streets. Anyone with information about the recent shootings at Riverfront Park or Portland Road Northeast is encouraged to contact police.

The Community Violence Reduction Initiative will have a listening session on Wednesday, July 31 from 6 p.m.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KOIN.com.
Just a little girl: Dad of missing 12-year-old reacts after shes found safe nearly 2 months later

The father of a 12-year-old girl missing from Gainesville said he was glad to learn she is safe tonight after she vanished nearly eight weeks ago.

Channel 2s Courtney Francisco has been following the story since Maria Gomez-Perez vanished in May.

Maria was found Thursday night with a 34-year-old man in Dover, Ohio nine hours from her home. Investigators have determined that Maria met Antonio Agustin online and he drove to Georgia to abduct her.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

On Friday, Francisco spoke exclusively to Marias father, Andres Gomez, after he learned his daughter had been found. He said hes prayed day and night for his little girls safe return.

I didnt think I was going to find her again, Gomez said through a translator. Many times, I thought that she was dead.

RELATED STORIES:

Deputies said that last week, someone claiming to be Maria sent her father a Facebook message telling him to stop searching for her and that she wasnt coming home. Detectives tracked computers and phones to Agustin and eventually to a swimming pool in Dover. From there, they tracked Maria and Agustin to a shopping center, where they rescued Maria and arrested Agustin.

Shes 12 years old. Shes a little girl, Gomez said. She has a life in front of her. She wants to study. She wants to go to school.

Investigators said Agustin communicated with Maria online for a long time before deciding to abduct her.

Gomez is worried he may have hurt more children. Investigators are looking into Agustins background to see if anyone else is at risk.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

Child Services is now working with Maria to determine what is best for her.

Agustin will face charges in both Ohio and in Hall County.

Gomez thanked the community, who rallied around him to help keep the pressure on investigators to find his daughter.
Justice declares state of emergency over drought in all WV counties

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, central and northern West Virginia have experienced moderate to severe drought conditions, while the states eastern panhandle has had extreme drought conditions. (Courtesy Office of Gov. Jim Justice)

Prolonged shortages of rain have led to drought conditions throughout the entire state, Gov. Jim Justice said Friday.

Justice declared a state of emergency in all 55 counties in an effort to help farmers, he said.

According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, southern, central and northern West Virginia have has experienced moderate to severe drought conditions, while the states eastern panhandle has had extreme drought conditions.

This drought has plagued West Virginia farmers, putting them at risk of losing everything, Justice said in a statement. We cannot and will not stand by and watch our hardworking farmers suffer from this severe lack of rain. We understand the immense stress and hardship this drought has caused.

He added that the state Emergency Management Division is working tirelessly to secure disaster assistance for people in need.

Declaring a state of emergency allows the state to access different pools of money and resources to respond to emergencies in a timely manner.

The emergency declaration will remain in effect 30 days unless terminated earlier.
FILE - Steve Kramer is seated Wednesday, June 5, 2024, at Superior Court, in Laconia, N.H., during his arraignment in connection with charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate. The federal Justice Department has filed a statement of interest in a civil lawsuit against Kramer and others, defending the legal right to challenge the calls.(AP Photo/Steven Senne, Pool, File)

CONCORD, N.H. (AP)  The federal Justice Department is defending the legal right to challenge robocalls sent to New Hampshire voters that used artificial intelligence to mimic President Joe Bidens voice.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke and U.S. Attorney Jane Young filed a statement of interest Thursday in the lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters against Steve Kramer  the political consultant behind the calls  and the three companies involved in transmitting them.

Kramer, who is facing separate criminal charges related to the calls, has yet to respond to the lawsuit filed in March, but the companies filed a motion to dismiss last month. Among other arguments, they said robocalls dont violate the section of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits attempting to or actually intimidating, threatening or coercing voters and that there is no private right of action under the law.

The Justice Department countered that the law clearly allows aggrieved individuals and organizations representing them to enforce their rights under the law. And it said the companies were incorrect in arguing that the law doesnt apply to robocalls because they are merely deceptive and not intimidating, threatening or coercive.

Robocalls in particular can violate voting rights by incentivizing voters to remain away from the polls, deceive voters into believing false information and provoke fear among the targeted individuals, Young said in a statement. The U.S. Attorneys Office commends any private citizen willing to stand up against these aggressive tactics and exercise their rights to participate in the enforcement process for the Voting Rights Act."

At issue is a message sent to thousands of New Hampshire voters on Jan. 21 that featured a voice similar to Bidens falsely suggesting that voting in the states first-in-the-nation presidential primary two days later would preclude them from casting ballots in November. Kramer, who paid a magician and self-described digital nomad who does technology consulting $150 to create the recording, has said he orchestrated the call to publicize the potential dangers of AI and spur action from lawmakers.

He faces 26 criminal charges in New Hampshire, along with a proposed $6 million fine from the Federal Communications Commission, which has taken multiple steps in recent months to combat the growing use of AI tools in political communications.

On Thursday, it advanced a proposal that would require political advertisers to disclose their use of artificial intelligence in broadcast television and radio ads, though it is unclear whether new regulations may be in place before the November presidential election.
OPINION: If the online debate over Kamala Harris Blackness has left you puzzled, dont worrywe have answers.

Editors note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the authors own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

Elon Musk is a DEI trailblazer.

For years, Black people have trailed their Caucasian counterparts in the conspiracy theory manufacturing industry. Americas greatest white liars perpetrated the most fantastic frauds, including Drapetomania, Stop the Steal, and  maybe the most magnificent myth ever  white genetic and intellectual superiority. Meanwhile, the best Black Americans could do was the Willie Lynch letter  a speech by a fictional racist white man that was loosely based on real-life violence committed by real-life racists.

To be fair, Black Americans workshopped a few good ideas. For more than 100 years, African Americans, from Aretha Franklin to Malcolm X believed there was a secret government program that used spies and informants to target every Black freedom movement in American history. Older Black folks spread stories that white doctors and the U.S. military intentionally poisoned Black communities. Ive even heard ludicrous statistics, like how the government sterilized 100,000 Black women in a nationwide eugenics program. Unfortunately, the wildest, most abominable horror stories conceived by Black brains paled in comparison to the things that white people actually did

Until Elon Musk bought DEI to Black Twitter.

Ever since the renowned corporate colonizer turned his social media company into an online university for courses on white genocide, Jewish space lasers and the woke-mind virus, Black Twitter has been slowly closing the racial conspiracy theory gap. Noted not-microbiologist Dr. Umar Johnsons theory that the FDA, the Chinese government, and the Rockefellers are responsible for most viruses is more diverse than Musks claim that COVID-19 was no worse than the common cold. When youre accustomed to social studies lessons about happy slaves, believing slave ships didnt exist feels like equity. Perhaps the biggest example of inclusion is the small sliver of Black people who have come up with a version of birtherism that is as racist, ridiculous and patently untrue as the search for Barack Obamas birth certificate:

Recommended Stories

Apparently, Kamala Harris is not Black.

Im not laughing; thats my asthma acting up!

While it is easy to dismiss this claim by using the age-old method of genetic testing called eyesight, theGrio decided to investigate this hilarious hypothesis seriously. Heres what we found.

What is Black?

To effectively debunk this allegation, we must first agree on what people are saying.

While there are numerous stories and tweets claiming Harris descended from a white slaveowner, those stories just prove peoples ignorance of Americas true history. Slavemasters often raped their human property, which explains an American Journal of Human Genetics study showing the average African Americans genome is nearly a quarter European. Loving vs. Virginia didnt cause that; the sexual violence of racial terrorism did. As one teenager wrote: It is fair to remember that almost the total of race mixture in America has come, not at Negro initiative, but by the acts of those very white men who talk loudest of race purity.

To be fair, what does a 17-year-old kid named Martin Luther King Jr. know about racism?

But the asinine assertions about Harris white ancestors look scholarly next to the rumors that Harris father, economist Donald J. Harris, is not Black. Some claim he is also of South Asian descent. Others say neither he nor Kamala refers to themselves as Black. Some people are just dumb. Even though Kamalas dad looks like he has fried his share of whiting, we wanted to investigate.

JAMAICA NOT IN AFRICA.



INDIA NOT IN AFRICA.



HOW IS KAMALA AFRICAN-AMERICAN?  Lavern Spicer  (@lavern_spicer) July 25, 2024

Kamala Harris is an Indian. Her dad is alive, why are they hiding him? Because if you heard him talk, you would know he is 100% Indian. Indian Mom + Indian Dad = Indian Woman who is NOT Black https://t.co/JoUffqVlz3  Nas (@nasescobar316) April 7, 2024

Actual scientists know that most individuals who have less than 28% African ancestry identify as European American, rather than as African American. But, using the one-drop rule  the absurd racial metric codified by white Americans  about 3.5% of the people who identify as white have at least one percent African ancestry in their DNA. Others believe self-identification determines ones Blackness, which technically makes Rachel Dolezal Blacker than Tiger Woods. However, in a country where white perception dictates reality, once white people believe a person is Black, does science, genetics, laws, self-identification or lineage even matter?

Luckily, we dont have to answer that question. However one defines Black, Kamala Harris fits the description.

Although Harris might be the descendant of a slaveowner, both Politifact and genealogist Jim McNiff trace Harris lineage to formerly enslaved Jamaicans. Her paternal great-great-great-grandmother was Black. So was her great-great-grandmother. Her great-great-grandfather Patrick Finnegan was described as a sambo scion of the aforesaid combination of Irish and African races. His mothers race is much clearer: Her color being black, wrote a Jesuit friar in 1906 (who, for some reason, doesnt have a Twitter account).

But you dont have to even go back that far. Kamalas father, economist and professor Donald J. Harris was described in the Jan. 25, 1974, edition of the Stanford Daily as Harris, a Black. A week later, in a letter to the editor, the universitys dean of undergraduate studies, who just happened to organize Stanfords Black Studies department, referred to Donald J. Harris as the economic departments only Black professor. Stanford sent him packing after he was accused of teaching radical Marxism. Even though Stanford treated him like he was Black, Professor Harris was fine with the schools decision because he wanted to link up with serious research of Black scholars applying system analysis to problems of Blacks throughout the world. Dr. Harris is currently listed among the economics departments emeritus faculty.

Although her dad wrote essays on Black history, spoke at Pan-African events, and took her to meet her Black cousins, he isnt the only reason Harris refers to herself as Black. My mother understood very well that she was raising two Black daughters, Harris wrote in her now-bestselling memoir The Truths We Hold. She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women. That was before Harris attended a historically Black college and joined a Black sorority.

Case closed.

Why are people saying this?

Some people are not smart.

We should also understand that racial classifications vary from country to country. A study of the Caribbean Commonwealth notes: Approximately 95 percent of all Jamaicans were of partial or total African descent, including 76 percent black, 15 percent mulatto, and 4 percent either black East Indian or black-Chinese. In America, all of those groups would just be considered naysayers. But, just as there are many people who distinguish between Black Americans and Black immigrants, it is entirely possible that a man from a 95% Black country calls himself Jamaican because it describes his heritage more precisely. While it is fair (and important) to acknowledge the cultural, historical and economic differences unique to descendants of Americas race-based, constitutional form of human servitude, confining the idea of Blackness to boundaries originally created by people who dont wash their legs also means Kamala Harris is not as Black as Tim Scott or Herschel Walker or Candace Owens.

Would you vote for them?

Anyone with Black skin whose feet have touched American soil has more in common with a Keisha from Atlanta than a Karen from Wisconsin. Even if one considers Kamala to be a first-generation Jamaican-South Asian descendant of Irish slaveowners, the people whose entire political party is predicated on the supremacy of whiteness have the same regard for Harris heritage as they do for my ancestors, who were enslaved in South Carolina by Irish immigrants who owned plantations in the Caribbean. The people who refer to an elected official who never lost a race as a DEI candidate put Michael Harriot, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris and every single American of African descent into the same distinct racial category:

Niggers.

In a sense, it doesnt matter if Kamala Harris is Black. The majority of Black voters have cast their ballot for the Democratic nominee for president in every presidential election since 1936. All but one of those candidates were white. If you dont think Harris is Black enough, just treat her like Black people treated FDR or JFK or LBJ or all of the white men whose ancestry was never questioned. Why werent you pressed when you voted for them?

To be fair, its possible that youre smarter and more politically astute than Mary McLeod Bethune and my grandmother and Stokely Carmichael and most of the Black people who risked their lives to choose a president. Maybe you think its perfectly fine to base your politics on a construct that didnt exist until white people made it up; just acknowledge that you would rather let white people choose the president. Of course, enabling white people to maintain power over people of other races is the literal definition of white supremacy. Its also interesting to note when the Kamala-aint-Black narrative rocketed to the top of the trending topics chart, but that might sound like a Black conspiracy theory. Then again:

White supremacy is the greatest conspiracy theory of all.

Michael Harriot is a writer, cultural critic and championship-level Spades player. His NY Times bestseller Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America is available in bookstores everywhere.

More must-reads:
'Kamala can't have my gun': A chaotic political week in 60 seconds.

Ted Cruz doesn't want Kamala Harris to have his gun or steak and news anchors tried to figure out "brat"  in a chaotic week of politics, following President Joe Biden's exit from the 2024 race, Harris dominated the news cycle.

Here are some of the other notable moments from the week:"Kamala can't have my gun," Cruz, a Republican Texas senator, said on Fox News. "And she sure as hell can't have my steaks and cheeseburgers."

I have decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation, Biden said as he addressed the nation from the Oval Office about his decision to end his presidential campaign.

Following Biden's exit, British pop star Charli xcx posted on X that "kamala IS brat."

The Harris campaign leaned into the apparent endorsement and changed its Twitter/X banner to match the green color and text style of Charli xcx's album "Brat."

"I will aspire to be brat," CNN's Jake Tapper said during a segment explaining the social media trend.

Meanwhile, Harris and Donald Trump, set to face off in the general election, are already trading verbal barbs as they seek to define the new contours of the race:

"I know Donald Trump's type," Harris said on the campaign trail, comparing her record as a prosecutor to the former president's conviction on 34 felony counts.

"I'm the prosecutor," Trump said, mocking Harris' talking point, "and he is the convicted felon."
The Constitution (Article 1, Section 9) is clear: No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States. We have no kings or emperors or dukes, but the U.S. does have a tradition of bestowing the informal title of czar upon leaders tasked with certain specific responsibilities. The term is often used as a pejorative to describe a position of power that is significant but not clearly defined by the Constitutionand at times not even clearly defined by the appointing administration.

That lack of definition is coming back to haunt Vice President Kamala Harris. Back in March of 2021, President Joe Biden asked her to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle as those nations need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.

He admittedly never used the words border czar. But during the recent Republican convention, a number of speakers called Harris out using the term to highlight her responsibility for what they say is an unmitigated disaster on the southern border. Since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president after Bidens withdrawal, however, Democrats and media reports have pushed back, saying that Harris responsibilities are more narrowly defined. Axios even had to publicly walk back on having used the term.

So was Harris the border czar or not? Its complicated.

When Joe Biden assumed office in 2021, he named immigration reform as a top priority to be tackled with what he called a whole of government approach. That spring, Biden put Harris, his vice president, in charge of that project:

Theres about five other major things shes handling, but Ive asked her, the VP, todaybecause shes the most qualified person to do itto lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle and the countries that helpare going to need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border.  The Vice President has agreedamong the multiple other things that I have her leadingand I appreciate itagreed to lead our diplomatic effort and work with those nations to accept rethe returnees, and enhance migration enforcement at their bordersat their borders.

The president went on to highlight Harris former role as a prosecutor, claiming that her efforts to both uphold human rights and fight organized crime uniquely qualified her for the role he had in mind: Its not her full responsibility and job, but shes leading the effort.

Vice President Harris then said of her new role (emphasis added here and following):

While we are clear that people should not come to the border now, we also understand that we will enforce the law and that we alsobecause we can chew gum and walk at the same timemust address the root causes thatthat cause people to make the trek, as the President has described, to come here.

So while the president said that Harris would personally lead diplomatic efforts, he named her as leading the effort that included contentious border issues. Interestingly, when President Barack Obama appointed a border czar in 2009, a New York Times article explicitly used that term to describe Alan D. Bersin, a former federal prosecutor who would help crack down on violence linked to drug cartels along the United States-Mexico border as well as focus on  illegal immigration.

The Times also used that nomenclature in reference to Roberta Jacobson, the former ambassador to Mexico whom Biden named as a special assistant to coordinate border security efforts for the first few months of his administration. In April 2021, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan announced that Jacobson was retiring, and implicitly passed the torch to Harris.

President Biden has asked Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the Administrations work on our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle, a testament to the importance this administration places on improving conditions in the region. The Vice President is overseeing a whole-of-government approach supported by outstanding public servants across the interagency including Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who were tasked by the President at the beginning of the administration to rebuild our immigration system.

At that point, pressure increased on the vice president regarding her attention to the border. At an April 14 virtual roundtable, for example, Harris was asked about her plans to visit the southern border. She immediately downplayed her connection to that part of the immigration issue:

The President has asked Secretary Mayorkas to address what is going on at the border. And he has been working very hard at that, and its showing some progress because of his hard work. I have been asked to lead the issue of dealing with root causes in the Northern Triangle, similar to what then-Vice President did many years ago. [] So, our focus is to deal with the root causes, and Im looking forward to traveling, hopefully, as my first trip, to the Northern Trianglestopping in Mexico and then going to Guatemala sometime soon.

Despite Harris protestations to the contrary, however, the impression given by the White House about Harris leadership role in the whole-of-government approach had already been made. In addition to the Axios article referring to Harris as appointed by Biden as border czar, Axios had earlier (in March 2021) published an article titled Biden puts Harris in charge of border crisis making the same connection.

Although Harris continued to emphasize that she was focused on root causes of migration, she could not avoid the connection to the southern border issues. During a trip to Guatemala in early June 2021, Harris said:

First, on the issue of securityits probably one of the highest priorities for each of our nationsthe President and I agreed to continue our work to manage migration at Guatemalas northern and southern borders. We also discussed illicit drugs that are being smuggled and humans who are being trafficked across those borders, undermining the security of both the people of Guatemala and the people of the United States.

Our nations have collaborated on these issues, and we will create a smuggling and human trafficking task force which will work with local law enforcement to stop these crimes. And I have personally worked on these cases in my career and can say that when we see some of the most vulnerable in our communities being taken advantage of, being sold for profit, being abused, it should be a priority for all of us who care about the human condition and humanity.

Harris continued to face pressure. On June 8, 2021, CNN reported on bumpy answers [from Harris] to questions about whether she will go to the US-Mexico border, in particular a sound bite [from an NBC interview] that would likely stick with Harris as she continues to confront the issue at the southern border.

At some point, you know, we are going to the border, Harris said in the interview. Weve been to the border. So this whole, this whole, this whole thing about the border. Weve been to the border. Weve been to the border. Holt responded: You havent been to the border. I, and I havent been to Europe. And I mean, I dontI dont understand the point that youre making, Harris said with a laugh. She added: Im not discounting the importance of the border.

Finally at the end of June, Harris made her long anticipated visit. NPR reported it this way:

Harris is in charge of the thorny issue of migration from Central America at a time when the Biden administration has struggled to keep up with a surge in migrants. In March, President Biden tasked Harris with addressing the root causes of the migration crisis, a role he had when he was vice president during an earlier spike in border crossings. Although the White House was careful to emphasize that her role was meant to be a diplomatic one, working with Central American countries driving the arrivals, critics immediately asked why the border czar was avoiding the border. Thats not a title she ever had.

The visit did little to tamp down border czar talk. On July 2, the Republican National Committee released a statement on Kamala Harriss 100 days as border czar.

If, as the White House says, the Vice President is overseeing a whole-of-government approach supported by outstanding public servants  including Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas  tasked by the President at the beginning of the administration to rebuild our immigration system, the argument could be made that Harris is the immigration czar of czars, which would obviously include the border.

Democrats and the White House clearly have an interest in distancing Harris from what is widely seen as a damaging situation. The U.S. has seen record numbers of border encounters during the Biden administration, and its a top-of-mind concern for many American voters. Polling shows voters are displeased with Bidens handling of the issue.

Republicans have an obvious interest in pinning the blame on the Democratic Partys new standard bearer. In the absence of a legislative or even a bureaucratic definition of the role of a border czar, the controversy over Harris role is impossible to answer precisely. But if the public perceives Harris rejection of the title as simply an evasion of responsibility, those consequences are likely to be far more significant than whether or not border czar ends up on her resume instead of president of the United States.

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.
Kamala Harris Calls For An End To The War In Gaza: I Will Not Be Silent

Kamala Harris Calls For An End To The War In Gaza: I Will Not Be Silent | Photo: Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images

On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris presented her views on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Mentioning the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and calling for a ceasefire and a long-term two-state solution to the overarching conflict, Harris expressed a point of view that creates a distinction between herself and President Joe Bidens more pro-Israel stance.

'Serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza'

Israel has a right to defend itself and how it does so matters, Harris said. What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating, she said. I expressed with the prime minister my serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, Harris told reporters, including the death of too many civilians and the reality of two million people facing food insecurity in the territory.

We cannot allow ourselves to be numb to the suffering and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris highlighted the images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. She added, We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies.

The vice president called on Netanyahu to finalize a proposed ceasefire deal, mentioning she had just told the Israeli leader to get this deal done. Harris presented to reporters a vision of a long-term solution that recognized the needs of Israelis, including those still being held hostage, as well as Palestinians, who have spent decades demanding statehood.

It is time for this war to end and end in a way where Israel is secure, all the hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can exercise their right to freedom, dignity and self-determination, Harris said.

Earlier today, I delivered remarks to press about my meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. pic.twitter.com/lNLSaufIvK  Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) July 26, 2024

Carving out own policy on Gaza

Since Harris became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee this week, she has separated her stance on Gaza from that of Biden, who has mainly supported the Netanyahu government. Harris joined nearly half of Congressional Democrats in boycotting Netanyahus Wednesday speech to Congress, including influential Democrats such as former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and progressives like New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. And even though she met with Netanyahu on Thursday, her tone and language are notably more critical of the Israeli war effort than Bidens has been.

This stance could help Harris attract progressive and pro-Palestinian Democrats who had been wary of Biden because of his strong support for Israel in the war. President Biden has, in past months, faced protests for his support for Netanyahus war efforts and calls from a variety of voices, including the NAACP, for the United States to stop supplying Israel with weapons as Palestinian civilians continue to be killed by Israels military campaign. Harris more critical stance could pressure Netanyahu to wrap up the war and move toward a longer-term solution. The vice presidents stance may win her support from Democrats in key states like Michigan and Minnesota, where sympathy for Palestinians remains high.

In the coming weeks, we will see how Harris distinct tone concerning the war in Gaza will impact the situation and if it will affect her standing in the presidential race.
A spate of opinion polls carried out since Joe Biden abandoned his presidential campaign last Sunday show the vice-president, Kamala Harris, closing the gap on Donald Trump but still narrowly trailing in a tight race.

While still often narrowly behind, the ability of Harris, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, to gain ground on her Republican opponent suggests her elevation to the top of the ticket has reset the presidential race, pollsters say, especially after weeks of plummeting Democratic poll numbers under Biden.

Fresh surveys carried out in battleground states show Trump ahead mostly within error margins in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia, while one survey showed the two are tied in Wisconsin at 47% apiece.

Related: Vast majority of Black voters trust Harris and distrust Trump, survey finds

Similarly tight margins have been reported in national polling, with Trump ahead by one point among likely voters, 48 to 47, in a New York Times/Siena poll released on Thursday - a stark contrast with the six point lead the Republican nominee held over Biden in the same poll at the beginning of July.

Trump is ahead by two points in a Quinnipiac University survey already begun before Biden withdrew, one point in another from Marist College, and three points in a CNN/SSRS poll conducted over two days.

Another poll from Ipsos/Reuters showed Harris with a two-point lead, 44% to 42%, while a You Gov/Yahoo survey had them tied at 46% each.

While still trailing, the trend represents momentum for Harris, who has started her campaign with a rush of enthusiasm this week after being endorsed by most leading Democratic figures, including Biden, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives. She is also believed to be close to gaining the endorsement of Barack Obama.

An aggregate of polls compiled by the Hill and Decision Desk HQ  and based on 80 polls  has Trump on 47.8% to 45.7% for Harris, a difference again within the margin of error that could essentially mean the two are tied.

Thats a narrower gap than the 3.3-point gap that had opened up in Trumps favor over Biden using the same aggregating methods.

Patrick Murray, director of the polling institute at Monmouth University, said the movement in Harriss direction  although slight  indicated that the contest had been significantly reset by Bidens withdrawal, though much more data is likely to be needed over the coming weeks before a firmer picture emerges.

Because of the intense polarisation in the American electorate, you should never expect a lot of movement from any event, because so many people are just so dug down into their Democratic or Republican trenches that nothing will move them. So youre always fighting over a very small chunk of the persuadable electorate, he said.

Therefore, the fact that the numbers have moved a few points suggest that there has been a reset of this election, although it doesnt tell us exactly what the trajectory is. It just simply tells us that weve got a new election that were looking at right now.

Nevertheless, the improved Democratic numbers seem to justify the pressure put on Biden to remove himself from the party ticket following last months baleful debate performance, which triggered a loss of confidence in his candidacy and a downward trend in his already stagnant polling numbers.

Theres no question in the last month that the trajectory in a Biden-Trump race was going in Trumps favor, Murray said. Whether Democrats made the right choice or not, we wont know until November, but it was certainly the right choice at the time because it didnt look like Biden was going to be able to turn this around.

The polling is telling me  that voters are willing to take a fresh look at this campaign with Harris at the top of the ticket.

The clearest indication of that is the jump in support from young voters following the sudden turnaround in the Democrat campaign.

An Axios/Generation Lab poll conducted this week among voters aged 18-34 showed Harris leading Trump by 20 points, 60% to 40. This represented a quantum jump on Bidens small 6% lead. Some 45% among the cohort said they had a positive opinion of Harris, compared with 33% who said the same about Biden  and 34% who felt positively about Trump.

Millennial and gen Z voters were a key component of Bidens 2020 win over Trump, turning out in large numbers. There are indications that Harris  with her focus on the threats to womens rights to abortion and stress on upholding freedoms in general  plans to target younger voters.

Among swing states, Trumps biggest lead is in Arizona, where he holds a five-point, 49-44, advantage over Harris, according to polling conducted by Emerson College Polling and the Hill. Arizona, where the flow of migrants over the frontier with Mexico is a key election issue, is home to Mark Kelly, a popular Democratic US senator for the state, who is one of several figures under consideration to be Harriss running mate.

Trump leads Harris by 46 to 45 points in Michigan, and 48 to 46 points in both Pennsylvania and Georgia, according to the same poll  smaller margins than he generally commanded over Biden in the weeks following the 27 June debate.

Swing-state polling trends could be instrumental in Harriss choice of a running mate in the coming weeks, particularly given that two candidates in the running include the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, and Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan. Biden won both states in 2020, along with Georgia and Arizona.

The first rule of choosing a running mate is to do no harm, because theres very little gain that you will get from a running mate, but theres a lot of harm that can be done, said Murray, who suggested Trumps choice of JD Vance as his vice-presidential candidate might fall into this category, given the notoriety being generated by his hardline anti-abortion positions and derogatory past comments on childless women.

On Kamala Harriss side, she probably should be looking at somebody who brings a key swing state with them.
RIGA, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The Baltic countries generated a total of 1,178 GWh of electricity in June, down 21 percent month-on-month, Latvian energy group Latvenergo reported on Thursday.

In June, Latvia alone experienced the biggest monthly decline in electricity generation, dropping 60 percent to 168 GWh. Estonia saw a 4 percent decrease, producing 413 GWh. Lithuania generated 597 GWh, marking a 7 percent reduction from May.

In June, the states also experienced a significant month-on-month decline in power generation from renewable resources. Wind power generation decreased by 20 percent, solar by 7 percent, and hydroelectric by 66 percent.

Electricity production at Latvenergo hydroelectric power stations decreased by 68 percent in June compared to May, totaling 121 GWh. At the same time, energy production at Latvenergo thermal power stations did not occur due to a lack of market demand.

Some hydroelectric generation areas in the region are receiving diminished water replenishment. In June, water inflow in the Daugava River continued its downward trend, falling by 66 percent from the previous month. According to the Latvian Environment, Geology, and Meteorology Center, the total precipitation in Latvia last month was 22 percent below the norm, resulting in water inflow being 26 percent below the multi-year average level for this period.

The drop in power generation drove up average electricity prices in the Baltics, which increased by 21 percent in June compared to May, amounting to 91.64 euros (99 U.S. dollars) per MWh, Latvenergo said in its latest Electricity Market Review. 
Vice President Kamala Harris , the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, was in Texas for the second time this month on Thursday, where she delivered a speech at the American Federation of Teachers national convention in Houston. The AFT is the second-largest labor union for teachers in the country.

In the speech, she reiterated her unwavering support for LGBTQ + rights, condemned Republican book bans, and called for an assault weapons ban.



Harris spoke passionately about the recent surge in anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in red states, particularly the dont say gay laws that have proliferated across the country. She recounted her early advocacy for marriage equality, sharing, In 2004, on Valentines Day weekend, I was one of the first elected officials in the country to perform same-sex marriages . Harris has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to LGBTQ+ rights.

Related: Kamala Harris marks 20 years since first officiating same-sex marriages and reunites with gay couple she wed

It pains me so to think that, 20 years later, there are young teachers in their twenties who are afraid to put up a photograph of themselves and their partner for fear they could lose their job, Harris said. She promised to fight to protect teachers and students from discrimination, affirming, Every American should be free from bigotry and hate.

Harris also condemned the wave of Republican-led book bans that have targeted educational materials dealing with LGBTQ+ issues and racial history. She called out the hypocrisy of those who seek to restrict academic freedom while claiming to champion free speech.

The American Library Association reported that 4,240 unique book titles were censored in 2023  up from about 2,000 in 2022.

While you teach students about our nations past, these extremists attack the freedom to learn and acknowledge our nations true and full history, she said. We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books. Can you imagine?

Turning to the issue of gun violence, Harris reiterated her commitment to passing an assault weapons ban. She criticized the idea of arming teachers as a solution to school shootings, a proposal often floated by gun rights advocates. They have the nerve to tell teachers to strap on a gun in the classroom while they refuse to pass common sense gun safety laws, she said.

Related: Kamala Harris: Our One-on-One With the Vice President

Harris promised that she and President Joe Biden , who announced that he would not stand for reelection and endorsed Harris on Sunday, would continue to push for sensible gun control measures. We who believe in the freedom to live safe from gun violence will pass an assault weapons ban, she declared, urging the audience to join the fight for safer schools and communities.

Harriss speech concluded with a fervent call to action, urging AFT members to remain steadfast in their advocacy for a better future.

We face a choice between two very different visions for our nation. One focused on the future, and the other on the past. And we are for the future, she said.

Watch Vice President Kamala Harris speak to teachers at the AFT convention.

Vice President Harris Delivers the Keynote Speech at the American Federation of Teachers Convention youtu.be
Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react to her speaking during a campaign rally at West Allis Central High School on July 23, 2024 in West Allis, Wisconsin.

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react to her speaking during a campaign rally at West Allis Central High School on July 23, 2024 in West Allis, Wisconsin. Harris made her first campaign appearance as the partys presidential candidate, with an endorsement from President Joe Biden. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

In her search for a running mate in her presidential bid, Vice President Kamala Harris is said to be eyeing a clutch of contenders with executive experience enhanced by an outside-the-Beltway flavor  at least five governors from the Rust Belt, South and Midwest.

Harris, if nominated by Democrats and elected, would be the first woman to serve as president, the first president of South Asian descent and the second Black president. She joined the U.S. Senate in 2017 after a career in California state politics.

That background may compel her to seek a white governor without D.C. baggage, experts said, a description several reported contenders fit. Most observers expect Harris to choose a man, though Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would also make a strong case.

Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Roy Cooper of North Carolina are seen as top-tier candidates to balance Harris profile. And U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who had a high-profile career before politics as an astronaut and Navy captain, would also complement Harris.

Selecting another woman, most likely Whitmer, may contradict the conventional political wisdom to seek a counterweight, but would allow the Democratic ticket to highlight one of its strongest campaign messages in advocacy of reproductive rights.

But experts told States Newsroom multiple factors swirl around a vice presidential pick, expected in coming weeks as Harris seeks election as the Democratic presidential nominee in a virtual roll call vote as soon as Aug. 1, following President Joe Bidens decision to not run. She could try for that desired balance, or play to her own strengths, or bestow the honor on a swing state key to a win.

Ultimately, Harris selection will send a message about her decision-making as president, said Joel Goldstein, a professor of law emeritus at Saint Louis University and an expert on the vice presidency.

Oftentimes the impact a running mate can have is as much in the messages it sends about the presidential candidate as it is something that the running mate contributes independently, Goldstein said.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks at the Michigan Democratic Partys Election Day watch party in Detroit on Nov. 8, 2022. (Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)

Helping the ticket

Presidential nominees typically look for a running mate who will even out perceived weaknesses among different constituencies of their party.

Think, for example, of Trump picking Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in 2016, hoping the selection of a mild-mannered Midwesterner with deep ties to the GOPs evangelical community would temper the bombastic New Yorkers reputation among the partys social conservatives.

Or the youthful Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 selecting Biden, whod spent decades in the Senate by then and unsuccessfully sought the presidency, to counter criticisms that Obama was too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief.

Goldstein said a vice presidential pick should not typically be the selectors ideological clone so that it broadens the appeal of the ticket to wider populations around the country.

Voters often see women candidates and candidates of color as more liberal than their voting record would reflect, which could lead Harris to favor a running mate seen as more moderate.

Gov. Andy Beshear talks to reporters after his Louisville rally Monday night, Nov. 6, 2023. Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman, right, stands at his side. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)

Harris has several choices that could reach voters for whom she doesnt have a natural appeal.

Choosing a white male governor from the Midwest or South would provide demographic and geographic balance, Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic campaign veteran and partner with the public affairs firm Bryson Gillette, said.

Walz, who grew up in a town of 400, and Beshear, the popular two-term governor of a rural, red state, would complement Harris roots growing up in Oakland, California, and dealing with Bay Area politics, she said.

Youre covering a lot of bases by picking somebody from a very different demographic background than the candidate, Pearcey said, which I think is smart.

Playing to a strength

While presidential candidates generally seek a running mate for balance, they dont always, Christopher Devine, a political science professor at the University of Dayton who has written two books on vice presidential candidates, said.

A running mate who emphasizes an advantage can also help a ticket, he said.

When its something thats actually a strength of yours, theres nothing wrong with doubling down, Devine said.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, the Arkansas governor, chose another younger Southern Democrat in U.S. Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee, but that helped emphasize the appeal of the youthful New Democrat candidate.

If Harris decides to go that route, Whitmer, who centered her 2022 reelection race on abortion rights, would be the obvious choice, Devine said.

If they see that as a strength that Harris is a better messenger on this issue because shes a woman  which obviously is what the Biden campaign believed  then maybe picking a woman is helpful, he said.

Ready to govern

Most important for Harris is to pick someone voters believe is qualified, Devine said.

Perceptions of a running mates readiness to be vice president or even president can actually affect how voters see the presidential candidates judgment, he said.

Pearcey agreed.

She has to have an eye on ready-to-govern, Pearcey said of Harris. Whos ready to step into the role of vice president and can take on some policy initiatives?

Harris vice presidential pick would also have to be someone voters could see assuming the role of the president if Harris was no longer able to fulfill her term.

Kathleen Dolan, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, pointed to previous vice presidential picks, like the late Sen. John McCains running mate Sarah Palin of Alaska, that left some voters wondering if they were ready to govern.

Dolan also noted that Trumps running mate, J.D. Vance, doesnt have the political experience many expect in a vice president. Vance, 39, has been the junior senator from Ohio since 2023 and before that had no political experience.

I think she (Harris) will probably be focused on somebody who has more government experience, probably not somebody quite as young as Sen. Vance, Dolan said.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, left, and Democratic Sen. Pat Leahy of Vermont at the U.S. Capitol going into lunch Dec. 1, 2022, with Senate Democrats prior to a vote on an agreement to end a looming rail strike (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

That could work against Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who ran a surprisingly strong race in the 2020 Democratic primary, but whose only elected experience is as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Hes been a mayor and hes been a secretary for a couple of years, Dolan said. So he doesnt have the political background.

Candidates for president and vice president also need to be able to work together, experts said.

Part of Harris process for vetting candidates will include her chemistry with each, Thomas Mills, a Democratic consultant, said.

Mills noted Clinton and Gores bond with each other was part of their appeal.

There was chemistry between them, he said. And it was pretty clear on the campaign trail.

Two governors under consideration  Beshear and Cooper  have existing relationships with Harris from when all three were state attorneys general last decade.

Why governors dominate

The list of reported contenders, which also includes Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, is more full of governors than usual.

That could be because Harris is looking for someone with a record of delivering results and navigating the political currents in a busy state capital.

It goes to the ability to govern, Pearcey said.

And governors need to balance their states budgets and deliver tangible results gives them a more moderate, practical image, Devine said.

Governors tend to deal with more pragmatic issues and theyre not as mixed up in the most divisive national issues, he said. Maybe voters will see them as more moderate and pragmatic.

And choosing a governor would not be as disruptive for federal politics.

If Kelly, the only member of Congress thought to be in contention, became vice president, it would force Democrats to defend his Senate seat in 2026, creating a swing-state campaign in a midterm election that typically disfavors the presidents party.

Swing state?

Running mates are often chosen to appeal to the electorate of a particular battleground state or region.

That would boost the case for Shapiro, whose nearly 15-point win in the critical state of Pennsylvania in 2022 is a strong part of his resume, as well as Kelly and Whitmer.

But there is actually little data to support the home-state advantage theory, Devine said. And making a choice voters see as politically motivated could backfire, which could come into play for Shapiro, who has been in office for less than two years.

If they are picking Josh Shapiro to win Pennsylvania  like, if he was the governor of New Jersey they wouldnt bother  then I think thats a bad pick, Devine said. If they believe in him because hes perceived as a moderate, then that could be a good swing-state strategy.

Dolan said Harris week-old campaign has differed in which swing states its targeting and that her vice presidential pick would have to appeal to a wide range of electorates.

She said the Harris campaign may be trying to broaden its reach to voters outside the Rust Belt states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in which Biden invested.

I think they see a potential for different electoral combinations, and that the more diverse populations of places like Arizona or Georgia or Nevada could help in ways that they wouldnt have helped President Biden, said Dolan. Harris running mate would have to reach these additional audiences as well.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper. (NC Newsline)

Cooper issue

Adding Cooper to the presidential ticket would create a unique challenge in North Carolina.

Under the states constitution, whenever the governor leaves the state, the lieutenant governor assumes the power of that office. That might be a problem for North Carolina Democrats, who describe Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as a right-wing Republican.

With Cooper on the campaign trail in contested states across the country, Robinson, who is the GOP candidate to replace the term-limited Cooper, would have his hands on the levers of state executive power.

Im tempted to say that it makes him not really a viable candidate, Devine said. Is he that far above the other candidates that its worth just messing up North Carolina politics?

But Mills, who is based in North Carolina, said Robinsons own race for governor would temper the risk of giving him the power of the office. Leading up to Election Day, Robinson will likely be proceeding with caution.

Thats somewhat of a concern, Mills said of the states succession rules impact on Coopers chances. But I dont think its that much of a concern, because it would be an awful risky thing going down the stretch as the gubernatorial candidate for him to look like he overreached.

Asher Hildebrand, a public policy professor at Duke University, also made clear that Robinson probably wouldnt have a major impact while Cooper would be campaigning.

It would be pretty extraordinary for Robinson to do anything that couldnt be undone immediately by Cooper through executive order, Hildebrand said.

SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE
Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react to her speaking during a campaign rally at West Allis Central High School on July 23, 2024 in West Allis, Wisconsin. Harris made her first campaign appearance as the partys presidential candidate, with an endorsement from President Joe Biden. (Jim Vondruska | Getty Images)

In her search for a running mate in her presidential bid, Vice President Kamala Harris is said to be eyeing a clutch of contenders with executive experience enhanced by an outside-the-Beltway flavor  at least five governors from the Rust Belt, South and Midwest.

Harris, if nominated by Democrats and elected, would be the first woman to serve as president, the first president of South Asian descent and the second Black president. She joined the U.S. Senate in 2017 after a career in California state politics.

That background may compel her to seek a white governor without D.C. baggage, experts said, a description several reported contenders fit. Most observers expect Harris to choose a man, though Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would also make a strong case.

Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Roy Cooper of North Carolina are seen as top-tier candidates to balance Harris profile. And U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who had a high-profile career before politics as an astronaut and Navy captain, would also complement Harris.

Selecting another woman, most likely Whitmer, may contradict the conventional political wisdom to seek a counterweight, but would allow the Democratic ticket to highlight one of its strongest campaign messages in advocacy of reproductive rights.

But experts told States Newsroom multiple factors swirl around a vice presidential pick, expected in coming weeks as Harris seeks election as the Democratic presidential nominee in a virtual roll call vote as soon as Aug. 1, following President Joe Bidens decision to not run. She could try for that desired balance, or play to her own strengths, or bestow the honor on a swing state key to a win.

Ultimately, Harris selection will send a message about her decision-making as president, said Joel Goldstein, a professor of law emeritus at Saint Louis University and an expert on the vice presidency.

Oftentimes the impact a running mate can have is as much in the messages it sends about the presidential candidate as it is something that the running mate contributes independently, Goldstein said.

Helping the ticket

Presidential nominees typically look for a running mate who will even out perceived weaknesses among different constituencies of their party.

Think, for example, of Trump picking Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in 2016, hoping the selection of a mild-mannered Midwesterner with deep ties to the GOPs evangelical community would temper the bombastic New Yorkers reputation among the partys social conservatives.

Or the youthful Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 selecting Biden, whod spent decades in the Senate by then and unsuccessfully sought the presidency, to counter criticisms that Obama was too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief.

Goldstein said a vice presidential pick should not typically be the selectors ideological clone so that it broadens the appeal of the ticket to wider populations around the country.

Voters often see women candidates and candidates of color as more liberal than their voting record would reflect, which could lead Harris to favor a running mate seen as more moderate.

Harris has several choices that could reach voters for whom she doesnt have a natural appeal.

Choosing a white male governor from the Midwest or South would provide demographic and geographic balance, Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic campaign veteran and partner with the public affairs firm Bryson Gillette, said.

Walz, who grew up in a town of 400, and Beshear, the popular two-term governor of a rural, red state, would complement Harris roots growing up in Oakland, California, and dealing with Bay Area politics, she said.

Youre covering a lot of bases by picking somebody from a very different demographic background than the candidate, Pearcey said. Which I think is smart.

Playing to a strength

While presidential candidates generally seek a running mate for balance, they dont always, Christopher Devine, a political science professor at the University of Dayton who has written two books on vice presidential candidates, said.

A running mate who emphasizes an advantage can also help a ticket, he said.

When its something thats actually a strength of yours, theres nothing wrong with doubling down, Devine said.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, the Arkansas governor, chose another younger Southern Democrat in U.S. Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee, but that helped emphasize the appeal of the youthful New Democrat candidate.

If Harris decides to go that route, Whitmer, who centered her 2022 reelection race on abortion rights, would be the obvious choice, Devine said.

If they see that as a strength that Harris is a better messenger on this issue because shes a woman  which obviously is what the Biden campaign believed  then maybe picking a woman is helpful, he said.

Ready to govern

Most important for Harris is to pick someone voters believe is qualified, Devine said.

Perceptions of a running mates readiness to be vice president or even president can actually affect how voters see the presidential candidates judgment, he said.

Pearcey agreed.

She has to have an eye on ready-to-govern, Pearcey said of Harris. Whos ready to step into the role of vice president and can take on some policy initiatives?

Harris vice presidential pick would also have to be someone voters could see assuming the role of the president if Harris was no longer able to fulfill her term.

Kathleen Dolan, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, pointed to previous vice presidential picks, like the late Sen. John McCains running mate Sarah Palin of Alaska, that left some voters wondering if they were ready to govern.

Dolan also noted that Trumps running mate, J.D. Vance, doesnt have the political experience many expect in a vice president. Vance, 39, has been the junior senator from Ohio since 2023 and before that had no political experience.

I think she [Harris] will probably be focused on somebody who has more government experience, probably not somebody quite as young as Sen. Vance, Dolan said.

That could work against Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who ran a surprisingly strong race in the 2020 Democratic primary, but whose only elected experience is as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Hes been a mayor and hes been a secretary for a couple of years, Dolan said. So he doesnt have the political background.

Candidates for president and vice president also need to be able to work together, experts said.

Part of Harris process for vetting candidates will include her chemistry with each, Thomas Mills, a Democratic consultant, said.

Mills noted Clinton and Gores bond with each other was part of their appeal.

There was chemistry between them, he said. And it was pretty clear on the campaign trail.

Two governors under consideration  Beshear and Cooper  have existing relationships with Harris from when all three were state attorneys general last decade.

Why governors dominate

The list of reported contenders, which also includes Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, is more full of governors than usual.

That could be because Harris is looking for someone with a record of delivering results and navigating the political currents in a busy state capital.

It goes to the ability to govern, Pearcey said.

And governors need to balance their states budgets and deliver tangible results gives them a more moderate, practical image, Devine said.

Governors tend to deal with more pragmatic issues and theyre not as mixed up in the most divisive national issues, he said. Maybe voters will see them as more moderate and pragmatic.

And choosing a governor would not be as disruptive for federal politics.

If Kelly, the only member of Congress thought to be in contention, became vice president, it would force Democrats to defend his Senate seat in 2026, creating a swing-state campaign in a midterm election that typically disfavors the presidents party.

Swing state?

Running mates are often chosen to appeal to the electorate of a particular battleground state or region.

That would boost the case for Shapiro, whose nearly 15-point win in the critical state of Pennsylvania in 2022 is a strong part of his resume, as well as Kelly and Whitmer.

But there is actually little data to support the home-state advantage theory, Devine said. And making a choice voters see as politically motivated could backfire, which could come into play for Shapiro, who has been in office for less than two years.

If they are picking Josh Shapiro to win Pennsylvania  like, if he was the governor of New Jersey they wouldnt bother  then I think thats a bad pick, Devine said. If they believe in him because hes perceived as a moderate, then that could be a good swing-state strategy.

Dolan said Harris week-old campaign has differed in which swing states its targeting and that her vice presidential pick would have to appeal to a wide range of electorates.

She said the Harris campaign may be trying to broaden its reach to voters outside the Rust Belt states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in which Biden invested.

I think they see a potential for different electoral combinations, and that the more diverse populations of places like Arizona or Georgia or Nevada could help in ways that they wouldnt have helped President Biden, said Dolan. Harris running mate would have to reach these additional audiences as well.

Cooper issue

Adding Cooper to the presidential ticket would create a unique challenge in North Carolina.

Under the states constitution, whenever the governor leaves the state, the lieutenant governor assumes the power of that office. That might be a problem for North Carolina Democrats, who describe Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as a right-wing Republican.

With Cooper on the campaign trail in contested states across the country, Robinson, who is the GOP candidate to replace the term-limited Cooper, would have his hands on the levers of state executive power.

Im tempted to say that it makes him not really a viable candidate, Devine said. Is he that far above the other candidates that its worth just messing up North Carolina politics?

But Mills, who is based in North Carolina, said Robinsons own race for governor would temper the risk of giving him the power of the office. Leading up to Election Day, Robinson will likely be proceeding with caution.

Thats somewhat of a concern, Mills said of the states succession rules impact on Coopers chances. But I dont think its that much of a concern, because it would be an awful risky thing going down the stretch as the gubernatorial candidate for him to look like he overreached.

Asher Hildebrand, a public policy professor at Duke University, also made clear that Robinson probably wouldnt have a major impact while Cooper would be campaigning.

It would be pretty extraordinary for Robinson to do anything that couldnt be undone immediately by Cooper through executive order, Hildebrand said.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react to her speaking during a campaign rally at West Allis Central High School on July 23, 2024 in West Allis, Wisconsin. Harris made her first campaign appearance as the party's presidential candidate, with an endorsement from President Biden. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

In her search for a running mate in her presidential bid, Vice President Kamala Harris is said to be eyeing a clutch of contenders with executive experience enhanced by an outside-the-Beltway flavor  at least five governors from the Rust Belt, South and Midwest.

Harris, if nominated by Democrats and elected, would be the first woman to serve as president, the first president of South Asian descent and the second Black president. She joined the U.S. Senate in 2017 after a career in California state politics.

That background may compel her to seek a white governor without D.C. baggage, experts said, a description several reported contenders fit. Most observers expect Harris to choose a man, though Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would also make a strong case.

Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Roy Cooper of North Carolina are seen as top-tier candidates to balance Harris profile. And U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who had a high-profile career before politics as an astronaut and Navy captain, would also complement Harris.

Selecting another woman, most likely Whitmer, may contradict the conventional political wisdom to seek a counterweight, but would allow the Democratic ticket to highlight one of its strongest campaign messages in advocacy of reproductive rights.

But experts told States Newsroom multiple factors swirl around a vice presidential pick, expected in coming weeks as Harris seeks election as the Democratic presidential nominee in a virtual roll call vote as soon as Aug. 1, following President Joe Bidens decision to not run. She could try for that desired balance, or play to her own strengths, or bestow the honor on a swing state key to a win.

Ultimately, Harris selection will send a message about her decision-making as president, said Joel Goldstein, a professor of law emeritus at Saint Louis University and an expert on the vice presidency.

Oftentimes the impact a running mate can have is as much in the messages it sends about the presidential candidate as it is something that the running mate contributes independently, Goldstein said.

Helping the ticket

Presidential nominees typically look for a running mate who will even out perceived weaknesses among different constituencies of their party.

Think, for example, of Trump picking Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in 2016, hoping the selection of a mild-mannered Midwesterner with deep ties to the GOPs evangelical community would temper the bombastic New Yorkers reputation among the partys social conservatives.

Or the youthful Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 selecting Biden, whod spent decades in the Senate by then and unsuccessfully sought the presidency, to counter criticisms that Obama was too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief.

Goldstein said a vice presidential pick should not typically be the selectors ideological clone so that it broadens the appeal of the ticket to wider populations around the country.

Voters often see women candidates and candidates of color as more liberal than their voting record would reflect, which could lead Harris to favor a running mate seen as more moderate.

Harris has several choices that could reach voters for whom she doesnt have a natural appeal.

Choosing a white male governor from the Midwest or South would provide demographic and geographic balance, Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic campaign veteran and partner with the public affairs firm Bryson Gillette, said.

Walz, who grew up in a town of 400, and Beshear, the popular two-term governor of a rural, red state, would complement Harris roots growing up in Oakland, California, and dealing with Bay Area politics, she said.

Youre covering a lot of bases by picking somebody from a very different demographic background than the candidate, Pearcey said. Which I think is smart.

Playing to a strength

While presidential candidates generally seek a running mate for balance, they dont always, Christopher Devine, a political science professor at the University of Dayton who has written two books on vice presidential candidates, said.

A running mate who emphasizes an advantage can also help a ticket, he said.

When its something thats actually a strength of yours, theres nothing wrong with doubling down, Devine said.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, the Arkansas governor, chose another younger Southern Democrat in U.S. Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee, but that helped emphasize the appeal of the youthful New Democrat candidate.

If Harris decides to go that route, Whitmer, who centered her 2022 reelection race on abortion rights, would be the obvious choice, Devine said.

If they see that as a strength that Harris is a better messenger on this issue because shes a woman  which obviously is what the Biden campaign believed  then maybe picking a woman is helpful, he said.

Ready to govern

Most important for Harris is to pick someone voters believe is qualified, Devine said.

Perceptions of a running mates readiness to be vice president or even president can actually affect how voters see the presidential candidates judgment, he said.

Pearcey agreed.

She has to have an eye on ready-to-govern, Pearcey said of Harris. Whos ready to step into the role of vice president and can take on some policy initiatives?

Harris vice presidential pick would also have to be someone voters could see assuming the role of the president if Harris was no longer able to fulfill her term.

Kathleen Dolan, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, pointed to previous vice presidential picks, like the late Sen. John McCains running mate Sarah Palin of Alaska, that left some voters wondering if they were ready to govern.

Dolan also noted that Trumps running mate, J.D. Vance, doesnt have the political experience many expect in a vice president. Vance, 39, has been the junior senator from Ohio since 2023 and before that had no political experience.

I think she (Harris) will probably be focused on somebody who has more government experience, probably not somebody quite as young as Sen. Vance, Dolan said.

That could work against Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who ran a surprisingly strong race in the 2020 Democratic primary, but whose only elected experience is as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Hes been a mayor and hes been a secretary for a couple of years, Dolan said. So he doesnt have the political background.

Candidates for president and vice president also need to be able to work together, experts said.

Part of Harris process for vetting candidates will include her chemistry with each, Thomas Mills, a Democratic consultant, said.

Mills noted Clinton and Gores bond with each other was part of their appeal.

There was chemistry between them, he said. And it was pretty clear on the campaign trail.

Two governors under consideration  Beshear and Cooper  have existing relationships with Harris from when all three were state attorneys general last decade.

Why governors dominate

The list of reported contenders, which also includes Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, is more full of governors than usual.

That could be because Harris is looking for someone with a record of delivering results and navigating the political currents in a busy state capital.

It goes to the ability to govern, Pearcey said.

And governors need to balance their states budgets and deliver tangible results gives them a more moderate, practical image, Devine said.

Governors tend to deal with more pragmatic issues and theyre not as mixed up in the most divisive national issues, he said. Maybe voters will see them as more moderate and pragmatic.

And choosing a governor would not be as disruptive for federal politics.

If Kelly, the only member of Congress thought to be in contention, became vice president, it would force Democrats to defend his Senate seat in 2026, creating a swing-state campaign in a midterm election that typically disfavors the presidents party.

Swing state?

Running mates are often chosen to appeal to the electorate of a particular battleground state or region.

That would boost the case for Shapiro, whose nearly 15-point win in the critical state of Pennsylvania in 2022 is a strong part of his resume, as well as Kelly and Whitmer.

But there is actually little data to support the home-state advantage theory, Devine said. And making a choice voters see as politically motivated could backfire, which could come into play for Shapiro, who has been in office for less than two years.

If they are picking Josh Shapiro to win Pennsylvania  like, if he was the governor of New Jersey they wouldnt bother  then I think thats a bad pick, Devine said. If they believe in him because hes perceived as a moderate, then that could be a good swing-state strategy.

Dolan said Harris week-old campaign has differed in which swing states its targeting and that her vice presidential pick would have to appeal to a wide range of electorates.

She said the Harris campaign may be trying to broaden its reach to voters outside the Rust Belt states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in which Biden invested.

I think they see a potential for different electoral combinations, and that the more diverse populations of places like Arizona or Georgia or Nevada could help in ways that they wouldnt have helped President Biden, said Dolan. Harris running mate would have to reach these additional audiences as well.

Cooper issue

Adding Cooper to the presidential ticket would create a unique challenge in North Carolina.

Under the states constitution, whenever the governor leaves the state, the lieutenant governor assumes the power of that office. That might be a problem for North Carolina Democrats, who describe Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as a right-wing Republican.

With Cooper on the campaign trail in contested states across the country, Robinson, who is the GOP candidate to replace the term-limited Cooper, would have his hands on the levers of state executive power.

Im tempted to say that it makes him not really a viable candidate, Devine said. Is he that far above the other candidates that its worth just messing up North Carolina politics?

But Mills, who is based in North Carolina, said Robinsons own race for governor would temper the risk of giving him the power of the office. Leading up to Election Day, Robinson will likely be proceeding with caution.

Thats somewhat of a concern, Mills said of the states succession rules impact on Coopers chances. But I dont think its that much of a concern, because it would be an awful risky thing going down the stretch as the gubernatorial candidate for him to look like he overreached.

Asher Hildebrand, a public policy professor at Duke University, also made clear that Robinson probably wouldnt have a major impact while Cooper would be campaigning.

It would be pretty extraordinary for Robinson to do anything that couldnt be undone immediately by Cooper through executive order, Hildebrand said.
Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react to her speaking during a campaign rally at West Allis Central High School on July 23, 2024 in West Allis, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

In her search for a running mate in her presidential bid, Vice President Kamala Harris is said to be eyeing a clutch of contenders with executive experience enhanced by an outside-the-Beltway flavor  at least five governors from the Rust Belt, South and Midwest.

Harris, if nominated by Democrats and elected, would be the first woman to serve as president, the first president of South Asian descent and the second Black president. She joined the U.S. Senate in 2017 after a career in California state politics.

That background may compel her to seek a white governor without D.C. baggage, experts said, a description several reported contenders fit. Most observers expect Harris to choose a man, though Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would also make a strong case.

Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Tim Walz of Minnesota, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Roy Cooper of North Carolina are seen as top-tier candidates to balance Harris profile. And U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who had a high-profile career before politics as an astronaut and Navy captain, would also complement Harris.

Selecting another woman, most likely Whitmer, may contradict the conventional political wisdom to seek a counterweight, but would allow the Democratic ticket to highlight one of its strongest campaign messages in advocacy of reproductive rights.

But experts told States Newsroom multiple factors swirl around a vice presidential pick, expected in coming weeks as Harris seeks election as the Democratic presidential nominee in a virtual roll call vote as soon as Aug. 1, following President Joe Bidens decision to not run. She could try for that desired balance, or play to her own strengths, or bestow the honor on a swing state key to a win.

Ultimately, Harris selection will send a message about her decision-making as president, said Joel Goldstein, a professor of law emeritus at Saint Louis University and an expert on the vice presidency.

Oftentimes the impact a running mate can have is as much in the messages it sends about the presidential candidate as it is something that the running mate contributes independently, Goldstein said.

Helping the ticket

Presidential nominees typically look for a running mate who will even out perceived weaknesses among different constituencies of their party.

Think, for example, of Trump picking Indiana Gov. Mike Pence in 2016, hoping the selection of a mild-mannered Midwesterner with deep ties to the GOPs evangelical community would temper the bombastic New Yorkers reputation among the partys social conservatives.

Or the youthful Illinois Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 selecting Biden, whod spent decades in the Senate by then and unsuccessfully sought the presidency, to counter criticisms that Obama was too inexperienced to be commander-in-chief.

Goldstein said a vice presidential pick should not typically be the selectors ideological clone so that it broadens the appeal of the ticket to wider populations around the country.

Voters often see women candidates and candidates of color as more liberal than their voting record would reflect, which could lead Harris to favor a running mate seen as more moderate.

Harris has several choices that could reach voters for whom she doesnt have a natural appeal.

Choosing a white male governor from the Midwest or South would provide demographic and geographic balance, Rebecca Pearcey, a Democratic campaign veteran and partner with the public affairs firm Bryson Gillette, said.

Walz, who grew up in a town of 400, and Beshear, the popular two-term governor of a rural, red state, would complement Harris roots growing up in Oakland, California, and dealing with Bay Area politics, she said.

Youre covering a lot of bases by picking somebody from a very different demographic background than the candidate, Pearcey said. Which I think is smart.

Playing to a strength

While presidential candidates generally seek a running mate for balance, they dont always, Christopher Devine, a political science professor at the University of Dayton who has written two books on vice presidential candidates, said.

A running mate who emphasizes an advantage can also help a ticket, he said.

When its something thats actually a strength of yours, theres nothing wrong with doubling down, Devine said.

In 1992, Bill Clinton, the Arkansas governor, chose another younger Southern Democrat in U.S. Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee, but that helped emphasize the appeal of the youthful New Democrat candidate.

If Harris decides to go that route, Whitmer, who centered her 2022 reelection race on abortion rights, would be the obvious choice, Devine said.

If they see that as a strength that Harris is a better messenger on this issue because shes a woman  which obviously is what the Biden campaign believed  then maybe picking a woman is helpful, he said.

Ready to govern

Most important for Harris is to pick someone voters believe is qualified, Devine said.

Perceptions of a running mates readiness to be vice president or even president can actually affect how voters see the presidential candidates judgment, he said.

Pearcey agreed.

She has to have an eye on ready-to-govern, Pearcey said of Harris. Whos ready to step into the role of vice president and can take on some policy initiatives?

Harris vice presidential pick would also have to be someone voters could see assuming the role of the president if Harris was no longer able to fulfill her term.

Kathleen Dolan, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, pointed to previous vice presidential picks, like the late Sen. John McCains running mate Sarah Palin of Alaska, that left some voters wondering if they were ready to govern.

Dolan also noted that Trumps running mate, J.D. Vance, doesnt have the political experience many expect in a vice president. Vance, 39, has been the junior senator from Ohio since 2023 and before that had no political experience.

I think she (Harris) will probably be focused on somebody who has more government experience, probably not somebody quite as young as Sen. Vance, Dolan said.

That could work against Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who ran a surprisingly strong race in the 2020 Democratic primary, but whose only elected experience is as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Hes been a mayor and hes been a secretary for a couple of years, Dolan said. So he doesnt have the political background.

Candidates for president and vice president also need to be able to work together, experts said.

Part of Harris process for vetting candidates will include her chemistry with each, Thomas Mills, a Democratic consultant, said.

Mills noted Clinton and Gores bond with each other was part of their appeal.

There was chemistry between them, he said. And it was pretty clear on the campaign trail.

Two governors under consideration  Beshear and Cooper  have existing relationships with Harris from when all three were state attorneys general last decade.

Why governors dominate

The list of reported contenders, which also includes Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, is more full of governors than usual.

That could be because Harris is looking for someone with a record of delivering results and navigating the political currents in a busy state capital.

It goes to the ability to govern, Pearcey said.

And governors need to balance their states budgets and deliver tangible results gives them a more moderate, practical image, Devine said.

Governors tend to deal with more pragmatic issues and theyre not as mixed up in the most divisive national issues, he said. Maybe voters will see them as more moderate and pragmatic.

And choosing a governor would not be as disruptive for federal politics.

If Kelly, the only member of Congress thought to be in contention, became vice president, it would force Democrats to defend his Senate seat in 2026, creating a swing-state campaign in a midterm election that typically disfavors the presidents party.

Swing state?

Running mates are often chosen to appeal to the electorate of a particular battleground state or region.

That would boost the case for Shapiro, whose nearly 15-point win in the critical state of Pennsylvania in 2022 is a strong part of his resume, as well as Kelly and Whitmer.

But there is actually little data to support the home-state advantage theory, Devine said. And making a choice voters see as politically motivated could backfire, which could come into play for Shapiro, who has been in office for less than two years.

If they are picking Josh Shapiro to win Pennsylvania  like, if he was the governor of New Jersey they wouldnt bother  then I think thats a bad pick, Devine said. If they believe in him because hes perceived as a moderate, then that could be a good swing-state strategy.

Dolan said Harris week-old campaign has differed in which swing states its targeting and that her vice presidential pick would have to appeal to a wide range of electorates.

She said the Harris campaign may be trying to broaden its reach to voters outside the Rust Belt states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in which Biden invested.

I think they see a potential for different electoral combinations, and that the more diverse populations of places like Arizona or Georgia or Nevada could help in ways that they wouldnt have helped President Biden, said Dolan. Harris running mate would have to reach these additional audiences as well.

Cooper issue

tom-

Adding Cooper to the presidential ticket would create a unique challenge in North Carolina.

Under the states constitution, whenever the governor leaves the state, the lieutenant governor assumes the power of that office. That might be a problem for North Carolina Democrats, who describe Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson as a right-wing Republican.

With Cooper on the campaign trail in contested states across the country, Robinson, who is the GOP candidate to replace the term-limited Cooper, would have his hands on the levers of state executive power.

Im tempted to say that it makes him not really a viable candidate, Devine said. Is he that far above the other candidates that its worth just messing up North Carolina politics?

But Mills, who is based in North Carolina, said Robinsons own race for governor would temper the risk of giving him the power of the office. Leading up to Election Day, Robinson will likely be proceeding with caution.

Thats somewhat of a concern, Mills said of the states succession rules impact on Coopers chances. But I dont think its that much of a concern, because it would be an awful risky thing going down the stretch as the gubernatorial candidate for him to look like he overreached.

Asher Hildebrand, a public policy professor at Duke University, also made clear that Robinson probably wouldnt have a major impact while Cooper would be campaigning.

It would be pretty extraordinary for Robinson to do anything that couldnt be undone immediately by Cooper through executive order, Hildebrand said.
Kamala Harris is no Hubert Humphrey  how the presumed 2024 Democratic presidential nominee isnt like the 1968 party candidate

Staring straight at the camera, with a grave expression on his face, the president uttered these famous words: I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

Lyndon Johnson made that announcement at the end of his nationally televised address on the Vietnam War on March 31, 1968. Those words now echo loudly, as pundits recall them in the wake of Joe Bidens withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election.

Like Biden, Johnson was a sitting Democratic president who was eligible for another term. Both men understood the odds against reelection, and both opted out. Their decisions shape their legacies as presidents who compiled impressive records yet failed to sustain their power across a longer span.

As the author of The Men and the Moment, a short narrative history of the presidential election of 1968, I have reflected on these parallels, too. But I think we can learn more from the differences in the circumstances of Bidens and Johnsons withdrawals. They illustrate the high hurdles that the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, now must clear, while also sounding a note of hope for the Democratic Party.

When they did it

One important distinction between Johnson and Biden was the nature and timing of their decisions.

Johnson arrived at his decision not to run for a second full term on his own, five months before the Democratic National Convention. It surprised everyone. No one expected this larger-than-life president  the force behind a massive slate of liberal government programs known as the Great Society, as well as the escalation of the Vietnam War  to voluntarily give up power.

But Johnson suffered as communist forces launched the Tet Offensive against U.S. troops in Vietnam. At home, critics on both the right and left blasted him. He realized that he could no longer forge a consensus in Congress. He rationalized that he could serve his final year in office by crafting peace in Vietnam.

That choice allowed other candidates to compete for delegates, from his loyal vice president, Hubert Humphrey, to anti-war senators Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy.

Biden, by contrast, renounced his nomination well after the primaries and just one month before the convention. Moreover, he succumbed to external pressure from donors and party leaders to leave the race, stemming from his disastrous performance in the June 27, 2024, debate.

Bidens prolonged candidacy appears to have dictated that the party anoint Harris as his successor. Can she craft a message that resonates with voters? Can she win their trust and respect?

Running in the primaries would have provided answers. Instead, for now, those questions linger.

Delegate selection differences

Another divergence between 1968 and 2024 was the process of delegate selection.

In 1968, only a handful of states had binding primaries, where all delegates pledged their vote to the elections winner. It was more common for party insiders to choose delegates through state conventions and other bureaucratic means.

Humphrey campaigned through the spring and summer of 1968, but he avoided primary elections. McCarthy and Kennedy battled in those primaries, each trying to claim the mantle of the popular anti-war challenger. Then Kennedy was assassinated in June, and McCarthy failed to rally a viable coalition. Humphrey captured the nomination by winning the support of most Democratic officials.

By the next election cycle, the party had enacted reforms for choosing delegates, including open primaries and caucuses. That system remains in place now.

Yet this years extraordinary turn of events means that Harris has bypassed that system. Unlike Humphrey, she has to overcome voters doubts about whether she is the genuine preferred candidate of the Democratic Party.

Party unity not the same

If these distinctions from 1968 illustrate the obstacles before Harris, a final difference suggests one of her greatest assets: She has the support of almost the entire Democratic Party, including the sitting president.

Humphrey could not say the same. His own president kept hanging him out to dry.

To attract voters seeking change, Humphrey needed to articulate his own position on the Vietnam War, but Johnson was unwilling to make concessions as a prelude to peace. He bullied Humphrey into supporting his tough stance, which included a reluctance to halt bombings in North Vietnam.

Johnson didnt respect Humphrey. Early in the race, LBJ privately beseeched Republican Nelson Rockefeller to run. By the general election, Johnson seemed more politically aligned with Republican nominee Richard Nixon than with his own vice president.

President Lyndon Johnson, left, bullied and disrespected his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, right, who was the 1968 Democratic presidential nominee. Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

Vietnam was cleaving the party, and Humphrey could not heal the wounds. Finally, at the very end of September, Humphrey cast his independent stance on the war, pledging to halt the bombing of North Vietnam as an acceptable risk for peace. But it was too little, too late.

McCarthy, his fellow Minnesotan, offered the limpest of endorsements, and not until one week before Election Day. In the end, Humphrey could not unite Democratic voters, and Nixon triumphed.

Now, for all the ideological differences among prominent Democrats, the party looks unified in its ambition to negate the threat they see in Donald Trump. Biden will almost certainly exhibit more political generosity than Johnson.

In addressing the monumental task of a late presidential run against the polarizing figure of Trump, Harris faces challenges that are unique in American political history. If she can overcome them, she might avoid the fate of Humphrey.

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: Aram Goudsouzian, University of Memphis.

Read more:



Aram Goudsouzian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Kamala Harris to take over for Biden after support from Pelosi, Obama

Vice President Kamala Harris' emergence as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination is a historic moment for the United States, as she seems poised to become the first Black woman and Asian American to lead a major party ticket.

The 2024 general election will be the first since 1976 that does not include someone named Bush, Clinton or Biden on the ticket.

Harris quickly garnered support from influential Democrats and raised a record $81 million within 24 hours of President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the presidential race. From Sunday to Tuesday evening, Team Harris raised $126 million since the endorsement.

She is preparing for her most significant moment yet, as she hits the ground running and makes the case for why voters should elect her the next president.

VIDEO: Who is Kamala Harris? (ABCNews.com)

Her story began in the San Francisco Bay Area. She was a first-generation American, born to an Indian mother and a Jamaican father who divorced when she was 6 years old.

She attended law school at UC Law San Francisco. She worked her way up the political chain, first as deputy district attorney in Oakland in the 1990s, prosecuting gang violence, drug trafficking and sexual abuse cases. In 2004, she became the first woman to serve as the district attorney in San Francisco. She later became California's first female and person of color to be elected as attorney general before joining the U.S. Senate in 2017.

Harris gained recognition for her work on the judicial and intelligence committees. She held a strong stance on civil rights and abortion rights, which she questioned future Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh about during his nomination hearing.

Harris ran for president in 2019. Although she was not elected as the Democratic nominee. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard in debating Harris in 2019 criticized her, for example, saying there's no excuse for her record as a prosecutor and she owed an apology to those who suffered under her reign.

Harris oversaw more than 1,900 marijuana convictions in San Francisco, according to previously unreported records, which became a point of criticism. Her critics pointed to her prosecutors appearing to convict people on marijuana charges at a higher rate than her predecessor, based on city data.

After she dropped out of the race in 2019, Biden chose her as his running mate.

Five years later, she now has the opportunity to become president of the United States.

"My biggest thing is making sure that Trump doesn't get in the White House," David Brown, a Democratic voter, said in an AP interview. "But I would want to know what her policies are, that's the big thing for me."

Harris has secured commitments from enough delegates to become the presumptive nominee if they all honor their commitment when voting, according to ABC News reporting.

And now speculation is turning to who her running mate would be  with prominent figures in battleground states rising to the top, such as Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

VIDEO: Who could be Kamala Harris running mate? (ABCNews.com)

"Harris' team, they're already talking about picking someone from a potential swing state, somebody who hails from one of these critical states that Harris would need to win the presidency," said Rachael Bade, a Politico reporter and an ABC News contributor. "They're trying to figure out a way that she can extend her reach beyond her typical base."

Other potential running mates for Harris are Governors Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Roy Cooper of North Carolina.

Though a source familiar tells ABC News Mary Bruce the pool is roughly 12 people being considered for Harris' running mate. Harris is expected to make her announcement by Aug. 7.

Without wasting any time, Harris' team is launching their first campaign ad hammering Republicans over their anti-abortion rights position.

As Harris steps into the spotlight, she will face criticisms of her past  from Republicans over issues like immigration and Democrats wary of her time as a prosecutor.

Biden had tasked Harris with leading diplomatic efforts in 2021 to address the root causes of migration in three Central American countries. The White House has praised her work, but Republicans have strongly criticized her on the immigration issue.

During her first overseas trip as vice president, she advised Guatemalan migrants not to come to the U.S., which drew criticism from immigration advocates.

With the Democratic convention just weeks away in Chicago, Republicans are taking aim at the likely nominee. Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance made his first solo campaign appearance Monday and attacked Harris.

"If you want to lead this country, you should feel grateful for it," Vance said. "You should feel a sense of gratitude and I never hear that gratitude come through when I listen to Kamala Harris."

Vance took another jab at Harris and the Democratic Party at his rally in Virginia Monday evening.

VIDEO: Veepstakes: Kamala Harris ramps up her presidential campaign (ABCNews.com)

"A couple of elite Democrats got a smoke-filled room and decided to throw Joe Biden overboard," Vance said. "That is not how it works. That is a threat to democracy."

Trump has expressed frustration over restarting his campaign now that Biden has exited the race. While Republicans and the Trump campaign used Biden's age as a problem, with Biden out of the race Trump is now the oldest presidential nominee in history.

Trump himself was once a supporter of Harris. He donated $6,000 to her campaign for reelection as California attorney general, including a $5,000 check.

Both campaigns are gearing up for a fight with only three months left before voters go to the polls.

"We have doors to knock on, we have people to talk to, we have phone calls to make, and we have an election to win," Harris said Monday in Wilmington, Delaware.

Kamala Harris to take over for Biden after support from Pelosi, Obama originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Vice President Kamala Harris voiced support for defund the police in a radio interview in June 2020 amidst nationwide protests for police reform, just months before denouncing the movement after she had joined the Biden presidential campaign.

Harris said in the June radio interview the movement rightly called out the amount of money spent on police departments instead of community services such as education, housing, and healthcare, emphasizing that more police did not equate to more public safety.

This whole movement is about rightly saying, we need to take a look at these budgets and figure out whether it reflects the right priorities, Harris said on a New York-based radio program Ebro in the Morning on June 9, 2020, adding that US cities were militarizing police but defunding public schools.

Harris made her comments just weeks after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer galvanized the defund movement among progressive activists. At the time, Harris was six months removed from ending her own presidential campaign and was still two months away from being tapped as Joe Bidens vice presidential nominee.

In an interview a day earlier, Harris also lauded Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti for his decision to slash $150 million from the police budget and move it into social services.

As Harris works to replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee following his decision to drop out of the 2024 race, the newly unearthed interview could complicate her strategy of highlighting her history as a tough on crime prosecutor in a potential matchup against Donald Trump, who is facing numerous legal challenges, including multiple felony convictions.

Before she was elected to the Senate in 2016, Harris spent seven years as the district attorney in San Francisco before serving as Californias attorney general for six years.

Mitch Landrieu, national co-chair for the Biden-Harris campaign and former mayor of New Orleans, on Friday walked back Harris 2020 statements, saying Harris meant that she supports being tough and smart on crime.

Her position has always been that you can both be tough and smart on crime, and it requires funding police, but it also requires funding rehabilitation and things that might criminal justice system safer. You can do both, Landrieu told CNNs Pamela Brown on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.

Our actions indicate that she wants to fund the police, but she wants to do the other things as well, Landrieu said.

Flurry of June 2020 interviews

After June 2020, Harris rarely if at all mentioned the defund the police movement. The Biden campaign later tried to clarify after adding her to the ticket that she supported funding the police.

But in June 2020, Harris argued the defund movement was correct to examine police budgets, and also talked about police departments needing to be demilitarized.

We need to have this conversation and critically examine and understand this is not working, Harris said on Ebro in the Morning. Its not working. So, this is an important conversation and not just a conversation  cause to your earlier point, cant just be about talk. It has to be about forcing change.

And this is why, you know, I was out there with folks and well, any movement, any progress we have gained has been because people took to the streets, Harris added.

Harris appears on "The View" with Meghan McCain discussing the "Defund the Police" movement. - From ABC

A day before her Ebro in the Morning radio interview, Harris appeared on MSNBC where she explicitly called to demilitarize police departments and said it was backward to think more police officers created more safety.

Part of what we have to do here is also look at the militarization of police departments and, and the kind of money that is going to that. And we need to demilitarize police departments, Harris said. At its core, one of the issues that I think we should all agree on is that it is old thinking. It is outdated and is actually wrong and backward to think that more police officers will create more safety.

In another interview on The View on June 8, 2020, Harris engaged in an exchange on defunding the police where she directly suggested the funding for police could be used in other social programs.

In many cities in America, over one third of their city budget goes to police. So, we have to have this conversation. What are we doing? What about the money going to social services? What about the money going to helping people with job training? What about helping with the mental health issues that communities are being plagued with for which were putting no resources?

Also on June 8, 2020, Harris praised the mayor of Los Angeles for removing money from police and investing it in social services in an interview on Good Morning America. 

I applaud Eric Garcetti for doing what hes done, she said.

In the same interview, Harris added she didnt support getting rid of police.

We have to be practical about this, she said.

Reimagine how we are creating safety

At the time defund the police became a rallying cry for protestors, with some arguing that police departments should be abolished altogether. Others, like Harris, framed it as a means of questioning spending on police budgets and investing more in areas like education, mental health services, and affordable housing as essential for creating safer communities.

Defund the police, the issue behind it is that we need to reimagine how we are creating safety, Harris said in the June 2020 radio interview. And when you have many cities that have one third of their entire city budget focused on policing, we know that is not the smart way and the best way or the right way to achieve safety.

For too long, the status quo thinking has been, you get more safety by putting more cops on the street, Harris added. Well, thats wrong, because by the way, if you wanna look at upper middle class suburban neighborhoods, they dont have that patrol car.

Harris, citing suburban communities, said that true safety comes from well-funded schools, homeownership, thriving small businesses, and access to health services  not increased police presence.

Despite the nationwide movement, polling showed reducing police budgets remained heavily unpopular, even in 2020. A Pew Research poll found that just 25% of adults supported reducing police budgets that year and, by 2021, that support had decreased to 15%, with 47% of adults supporting more police spending.

After Biden picked as VP

After Harris was selected as Bidens running mate in August 2020, the Biden campaign tried to make it clear she opposed defunding the police  and said she supported increasing police funding.

Biden and Harris appear in a joint interview on ABC News in August of 2020. - From ABC News

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do not support defunding the police, and it is a lie to suggest otherwise, Sabrina Singh, Harris then-press secretary said in October 2020. Throughout her career, Sen. Harris has supported increasing funding to police departments and boosting funding for community policing.

According to a POLITICO-Morning Consult poll published in mid-June 2020, almost 60% of registered voters supported major reforms or a complete overhaul to police departments in 2020, but only 29% backed the defund the police movement.

Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee at the time of the protests in the summer of 2020, made clear repeatedly throughout his campaign that he opposed the defund movement  saying he supported increasing spending for both police and social services.

In a joint interview on ABC News from August 2020 featuring both Biden and Harris, Biden answered the question on whether the campaign supported the defund the police movement.

I dont want to defund police departments. I think they need more help. The vast majority of the police  theyre ashamed of what they saw, Biden said in reference to the Floyd murder. But you have to take action and it has to be national.

Harris record as a prosecutor was heavily scrutinized during her failed 2020 presidential campaign. Harris was known for her smart on crime approach, initiatives like truancy prosecution, and the creation of the Back on Track program for first-time drug offenders.

She also defended the death penalty as California attorney general, opposed a statewide ballot measure to legalize marijuana, and pushed for higher bails for certain gun charges as district attorney.

This story has been updated with additional reporting.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Democrats are feeling giddy over President Joe Bidens decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential race and pave the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his place. But before Bidens disastrous June 27 debate performance, many considered Harris to be an even weaker candidate than the presidenta feeling that he and his top advisers couldnt shake for weeks after the debate debacle.

That concern was partly due to Harris habit of spouting Veep-esque pablum in interviews and partly due to the fact that she had staked out a policy record as a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and California politician that was far to the left of Scranton Joe, who had squeaked to victory in 2020 by less than 1 percentage point in Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona.

The vice president now faces two daunting tasks in her 100-day sprint to November 5: sufficiently separating herself from an unpopular incumbent and allaying concerns among swing voters about her progressive record. Heres a overview of Harris record on seven domestic policy issues that could shape the 2024 race:

Medicare for All

One of the key differences between Biden and most of his Democratic primary opponents in 2020 was the issue of Medicare for All. While Biden opposed a single-payer health care plan, Harris was an original co-sponsor of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders Medicare for All legislation. In January 2019, CNNs Jake Tapper asked Harris in a town hall forum: I believe it will totally eliminate private insurance. So for people out there who like their insurance, they dont get to keep it? Harris replied: Lets eliminate all of that. Lets move on. Harris later insisted she only supported getting rid of bureaucracy and waste and claimed the Sanders bill didnt eliminate private insurance because it allowed supplemental plans. But Sanders bill provided for supplemental insurance only for services not typically covered by traditional insurance, such as cosmetic surgery. In July 2019, Harris released her own Medicare for All proposal that promised to maintain existing insurance plans for a 10-year transition period.

Energy and Climate

In 2019, Harris co-sponsored Green New Deal legislation introduced by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. During her presidential campaign, which ended in December 2019 amid bleak poll numbers, Harris introduced a climate plan that dedicated $10 trillion to implementing the program. Harris said the funds would make 100 percent of cars carbon-neutral by 2035 and create a carbon-neutral economy by 2045. As president of the United States, I am prepared to get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal, she said at the time. Harris also said in a CNN town hall meeting that year: Theres no question Im in favor of banning fracking. CNN reported that she walked back that support for banning fracking when she became Bidens running mate.

The Supreme Court

While Biden opposed increasing the number of Supreme Court justices during the 2020 presidential campaign, Harris said she was open to the proposal. Politico reported in March 2019 that Harris would not rule out expanding the Supreme Court if elected president, showcasing a new level of interest in the Democratic field on an issue that has until recently remained on the fringes of debate.

We are on the verge of a crisis of confidence in the Supreme Court, Harris told Politico. We have to take this challenge head on, and everything is on the table to do that.

Gun Control

In 2019, Harris claimed that as president she would issue an executive order to ban so-called assault weapons, but in a September 2019 debate, Biden said theres no constitutional authority to issue that executive order.

Hey, Joe, instead of saying, no, we cant, lets say yes, we can, Harris said. Replied Biden: Lets be constitutional. Weve got a Constitution.

As a presidential candidate, Harris didnt just support a ban on new sales of assault weapons but favored a mandatory buyback program to confiscate assault weapons owned by Americans.

Harris told reporters in 2019 that she owns a handgun: I own a gun for probably the reason that a lot of people dofor personal safety. I was a career prosecutor. As San Francisco district attorney, Harris filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court not to find a broad right to gun ownership in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case.

Abortion

The differences between Biden and Harris on abortion generally have more to do with rhetoric than substance. While Biden once opposed Roe v. Wade, voted in favor of the partial-birth abortion ban, and supported the Hyde amendment prohibiting federal funding of elective abortion, he reversed himself on Roe in the 1980s and on the Hyde amendment in 2019. Since the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, progressives have been frustrated that Biden hasnt spoken more about abortion but pleased that Harris has been front and center in holding campaign rallies on the issue.

In March, she became the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion clinic when she toured a Minnesota Planned Parenthood facility that advertised performing elective abortions up to nearly 24 weeks of pregnancy and making referrals for abortions later than that. As a senator, Harris interrogated a judicial nominee over his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic charity and fraternal group with 2 million members, because its leader opposed abortion.

On Face the Nation in September 2023, Harris said it was a mischaracterization for Republicans to say Democrats support abortion up until birth but would not give a specific answer when host Margaret Brennan asked: What week of pregnancy should abortion access be cut off?

In the Senate, Harris co-sponsored the Womens Health Protection Act, legislation introduced before the Dobbs decision that would have created a sweeping national right to abortion, including a liberal mental-health exception after an unborn child could survive outside the womb. Every Democratic senator supported that bill in 2022, except for Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who opposed it on the grounds it would eliminate modest state level restrictions allowed under Roe v. Wade.

Harris is intent on making the abortion issue a central focus of the 2024 campaign, but its not clear how much it will help her. Since the Dobbs decision, advocates of a right to abortion have prevailed in every state where an abortion referendum was on the ballot, but Republican candidates who opposed abortion generally did not pay much of a price at the polls in the 2022 midterm elections.

Criminal Justice

In her first stump speeches since Biden dropped out of the race, Harris clearly aimed to also put her record as a prosecutor at the top of voters minds. At her rally in Milwaukee on Monday, Harris said that as a prosecutor she took on predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trumps type.

During the 2020 Democratic primary, Harris was attacked from the left by her rivals for supporting jail time for parents of chronically truant children and prosecuting marijuana-related crimes.

But the Trump campaign has already signaled it intends to hit Harris for being soft on crime. As a San Francisco district attorney, Harris declined to seek the death penalty for a man convicted of murdering a police officer, even though Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein explicitly called on Harris to do so. Harris handling of the case was a key issue in her 2010 state attorney general race that she won by less than a point, even as all other statewide Democratic candidates won by double digits. Since 2010, however, Gallup polling has found that support for the death penalty has significantly declined nationwide.

In 2020, Harris praised Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcettis proposal to cut $250 million earmarked for the police and redirect those funds to health care and jobs programs. That same year, she posted on Twitter a link to the bail fund for those arrested protesting the murder of George Floyd, encouraging donations. In a 2020 campaign memo, she also favored ending cash bail and mandatory-minimum sentences.

Immigration

While Harris and Democrats want to focus on abortion and her record as a prosecutor, Trump and Republicans want to zero in on Harris role in the Biden administrations handling of immigration. The crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border badly hurt President Bidens job approval ratings, and in the administrations early days the vice president was tapped for a key role in addressing the problem.

Trump is campaigning against Harris as Bidens border czar, but the Harris campaign says it is false to describe Harris role that way even though several media outlets described her as a point person or czar on immigration in 2021. The term czar is not an official titleits typically used to refer to an executive branch official tasked with overseeing a particular issue. For example, many media reports dubbed Vice President Mike Pence the coronavirus czar in February 2020. When Biden took office, Roberta Jacobson, former ambassador to Mexico, was widely described in the media as Bidens border czar, and when she left that role in April 2021, the Biden administration indicated Harris would be taking over Jacobsons key duties. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement that Jacobson had launched our renewed efforts with the Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras and added:

President Biden has asked Vice President Kamala Harris to lead the Administrations work on our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle, a testament to the importance this administration places on improving conditions in the region. The Vice President is overseeing a whole-of-government approach supported by outstanding public servants across the interagency including Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra, who were tasked by the President at the beginning of the administration to rebuild our immigration system.

On Wednesday, The Dispatch contacted both the White House and the Harris presidential campaign seeking clarity on Jacobsons portfolio of issues. We also asked whether border czar Jacobson had a successor, and, if she didnt, how her portfolio was divided up among administration officials. The White House and Harris campaign did not provide any answers.

Regardless of whether Harris work addressing the root causes of migration from Central American nations earned her the unofficial title of border czar, she will undoubtedly face questions about the fact that the flow of illegal immigrants into the U.S. reached record highs before the presidents recent executive order.

Harris may also face questions about positions she staked out during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. When asked in 2018 if she would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Harris said in an interview: We need to probably think about starting from scratch. In a 2019 Democratic presidential debate, both Harris and Biden indicated they supported making illegal entry into the United States a civil rather than criminal offensea policy Vox described as the most radical immigration idea in the 2020 primary.

While its unclear which aspects of her record Harris seeks to emphasize, downplay, or abandon, how she handles these questions between now and when voters begin heading to the polls could very well determine the outcome of the election.

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.
by Xinhua writer Zhao Wencai

CAIRO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- As the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in Gaza stretches into its 10th month, there was a bid for peace and unity from Beijing this week: Under China's mediation, senior representatives from 14 Palestinian factions signed the Beijing Declaration on Ending Division and Strengthening Palestinian National Unity.

According to the declaration, the Palestinian factions have agreed to establish an interim national reconciliation government, carry out reconstruction in Gaza and prepare and hold a general election as soon as possible in keeping with the adopted election laws.

As witnessed by their Chinese friends, once-bitter rivals among the Palestinians, notably Hamas and Fatah, have decided to bury the hatchet and join forces. They are setting their sights on establishing an independent State of Palestine with Jerusalem as the capital, based on relevant United Nations (UN) resolutions and ensuring the integrity of Palestinian territory, including the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza.

During the reconciliation talks, Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, was asked why different factions could resolve their differences in Beijing.

After thinking for a while, he replied, "Because China is decent and honest and wants to help us without interfering in our internal affairs, (and) to support our struggle by enhancing Palestinian unity and enabling Palestinians to achieve what they deserve, which is their freedom, their independence, their rights to sovereignty."

Barghouti's remarks offered a compelling elucidation of China's sincerity and continual progress in assisting the Middle East in achieving peace.

The Palestinian question has always been the core issue in the Middle East, and achieving internal reconciliation within Palestine is an important step toward resolving the issue and achieving peace and stability in the region.

China has long been committed to promoting reconciliation within Palestine, a goal shared by other Arab nations including Egypt and Jordan.

However, efforts have previously stalled due to an unfavorable international environment, particularly interference from the United States.

The recent round of conflicts in Gaza has highlighted for Palestinians the detrimental impact of internal divisions on their goal of establishing a state. There is a growing recognition that a unified voice will amplify their calls for justice, and only by standing together can they advance their cause for national liberation. This has spurred a renewed desire for reconciliation among Palestinian factions.

Meanwhile, the international community has increasingly recognized that the establishment of a Palestinian state is the key to resolving the Palestinian question. Inspired by China's successful mediation between Saudi Arabia and Iran, the world and the Palestinian leaders in particular are hopeful that China will play a significant role in addressing the thorny issue.

The most urgent task now is to achieve a comprehensive, lasting and sustainable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible, and ensure access to humanitarian aid and rescue on the ground. China has engaged in close communication and coordination with relevant parties since the outbreak of recent hostilities.

Deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, China has provided significant amounts of humanitarian aid through various channels. It has also actively facilitated the UN Security Council's adoption of a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

In the Position Paper of the People's Republic of China on Resolving the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict released last November, China calls for Palestine's full membership in the UN and a more authoritative and effective international peace conference to work out a timetable and road map for the two-state solution.

China's drive for an early, comprehensive, just and lasting resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict stems not from self-serving geopolitical motives, but from a profound empathy for the Palestinian people and an earnest aspiration for peace and prosperity in the Middle East.

Unlike some Western countries that have often overlooked the suffering in Gaza, China's historical experience with Western interference has given its people a unique perspective on the hardships faced by those in the Middle East, who long for peace and stability amidst the turmoil of war.

China's efforts to promote peace in the region are underscored by its role in facilitating the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran in 2023, ending seven years of diplomatic deadlock. The current Beijing Declaration further exemplifies China's concrete steps to bridge regional divides and lay the foundation for a peaceful Middle East.

On their journey toward lasting peace and prosperity, all parties involved in the Middle East conflict will find in China a true advocate committed to peace and justice in the region. 
Five years ago, when Kamala Harris was running for president, she labeled herself the top cop and progressive prosecutor that was tough on crime. With that came backlash from some criminal justice reform advocates and even those in law enforcement. In 2024, its unclear where she stands ideologically as vice president.

Yet in her first speech this week as the likely Democratic presidential nominee, she was crystal clear about how she plans to take on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

I was a courtroom prosecutor, and in those roles I took on perpetrators of all kinds, Harris said to campaign staffers at her Delaware headquarters. She went on to list some of the types of cases she once prosecuted: Predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say I know Donald Trumps type.

In this campaign, I will proudly, she repeated, I will proudly put my record against his.

As those remarks were met with applause from the crowd, reactions from those in the criminal justice reform space were more mixed. Some were on high alert and listening for words that inadvertently could feed into Trumps offensive rhetoric about, and toward, Black people  the former president said that Black people can relate to him because of his criminal conviction and pending prosecutions. Others were energized, and for some it sparked curiosity and critiques about her past as San Franciscos district attorney and Californias attorney general. And other critics were simply skeptical about her ascension.

I do believe that the normal process that would take place at the Democratic National Convention should still take place as it has in years past. I dont think its very democratic to simply appoint her as the nominee, said the Rev. Keyanna Jones, an activist and pastor at Park Avenue Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Jones, like some on the left, are not convinced that Harris is the right candidate.

In her second year as Californias AG, Harris office fought to keep a man behind bars even after his defense attorney was disbarred and two judges said he would not have been convicted had jurors heard additional evidence. And in the following year, legislation Harris supported to criminalize truancy led to a Black mothers arrest for her daughters school absences while she was receiving treatment for sickle cell disease.

Read More: Where Does Kamala Harris Stand on Key Issues Affecting Black Voters?

Those are not things that I can support or get behind, Jones said. She does not represent me or any of my values.

While part of that skepticism is fueled by misconceptions about Harris prosecutorial and legislative record, her legacy in the criminal legal system is complicated. As a prosecutor, she mixed criminal justice reform with a tough-on-crime approach that put her at odds with progressives and police.

She did the work as a prosecutor

In her decades long career, Harris has spent more time as a prosecutor in California than as a senator or vice president in Washington.

Her career has been filled with roles where she and the other 1% of elected Black women prosecutors broke barriers. She was the first Black and South Asian woman to get elected as San Franciscos district attorney, Californias attorney general, and vice president of the United States.

In 2005, as San Francisco district attorney, she created one of the first Back on Track programs in the country. It is described as a reentry initiative aimed at reducing recidivism among low-level drug-trafficking defendants. This is where the term progressive prosecutor was born. As the DA, she was against utilizing the death penalty as a form of sentencing for a high-level felony. Yet, in 2010, as the California attorney general, her office continued to pursue the controversial form of punishment in criminal cases.

As the states AG, she became the head of over 1,100 federal prosecutors. In 2014, prosecutors in the attorney generals office argued against releasing incarcerated individuals who are eligible for early release because they needed them for cheap labor to fight the California wildfires. Harris conceded at the time that she wasnt aware of her offices stance.

But for Max Parthas, that was a missed opportunity by Harris to correct an ongoing human rights issue of using incarcerated people to work free-world jobs at a low cost.

Harris office put out a letter saying that it would cost over a billion dollars a year for California to pay inmates salaries for the work they do, and California cant afford them, so they just kept doing it, said Parthas, the national campaign coordinator and a founding member of the Abolish Slavery National Network.

As a chief prosecutor, Harris enforced policies and laws that included criminalizing marijuana, but her office didnt issue jail sentences for low-level amounts. Since then, Harris has changed her tune about prosecuting individuals for smoking weed, and as a first-year senator, she co-sponsored a bill that reclassifies the plants addiction level to less than that of heroin.

One observer sees Vice President Kamala Harris stance on criminal justice as evolving rather than as inconsistency. (Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images)

What seems like Harris flip-flopping, said Lillian Henny Alexander, a family law attorney in Harris County, Texas, is really Harris showing that shes evolved.

What shes going to appropriately do is expand her messaging, Alexander said. I think the way that she does it is to say, Look, I did the work as a prosecutor, but heres some receipts of where I was still sensitive to race and if you feel that I wasnt sensitive to race or poverty, or circumstances, heres how my initiatives will be better.

During her six-month stint in Congress, she co-authored the first draft of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Biden also campaigned to sign it once it got through the U.S. Senate and onto his desk. The proposed police reform package has not made it to a vote in the Senate and was reintroduced in May by the late Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, who represented Texas.

Read More: The Thwarted Promise of Black Women Prosecutors

Perhaps with Harris as president, some hope, theres a fighting chance to have some form of a robust criminal justice and policing reform as well as movement with other proposed bills that have stalled in Congress.

She has more than proven that she has the qualifications, the charisma, the leadership and the respect to be our commander-in-chief, said Sherry Boston, district attorney for DeKalb County, Georgia.

Boston, a Democrat who is also going to be on the ballot this November, supported Harris when she first ran for president in 2020. As an elected prosecutor, Boston sees her record in a much more positive light.

When I look at myself, who became DA in the 2016 election, and those that have come in 2018 and 2020, we have seen the evolution of criminal justice reform from the prosecution space. I can tell you that the work that Ive been able to do was done on the shoulders of Vice President Harris, Boston told Capital B.

Boston pointed to Harris Back on Track pre-trial diversion initiative, which has been replicated in DA offices across the country, including her own.

Now in 2024, we say the word diversion and everybody knows what we mean, but when she was DA, that was not the case, Boston said.

What the critics say

Harris critics also wonder if she learned from the criticism she faced during her 2020 campaign. And they hope that shes mindful of the words she uses to describe people with justice system involvement  even Trump.

During her speech this week, she reminded supporters that she was a prosecutor for 30 years who has handled perpetrators like Trump before.

I just dont feel comfortable with a cops and robbers scenario. Id like for us to get to a point where were talking about the positive things of the candidate who is running, rather than trying to find out whos the worst of the worst, Parthas said.

Words like offender, inmate, felon, and convict are examples of dehumanizing language, DeAnna Hoskins, president and CEO of JustLeadershipUSA, a national organization of justice-impacted individuals that aims to reduce mass incarceration by 2030, said. For the people who support you, when you dehumanize him [Trump], and theyre not in our world, it dehumanizes us.

Were just asking, do not get caught up in the dehumanizing language  hold him accountable for his actions, and the policies hes violated that turned into a criminal charge, but please refrain from using the word felon and all of that rhetoric.

Theres just too much on the line not to unite

Defense of Harris record does not fall entirely on deaf ears among criminal justice reformer advocates like Robyn Hasan-Simpson, who said she was initially wary of Harris but is now glad she is positioned to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

Hasan is the executive director of Women on the Rise, an advocacy group by and for formerly incarcerated women of color. Through her organization, Hasan has been an outspoken proponent of diversionary programs, and learning about Back on Track helped to sway her to Harris side.

Shes done a lot around abortion access and [has] been pro Medicare, Hasan said. In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, Hasan, like many women, have been ready for a candidate that unequivocally supports the right to choose.

Hasan said she was hearing a lot of apathy from the people around her when the candidates were Biden and Trump, but now theyve become reinvigorated. She was one of 44,000 Black women to join a Zoom call earlier this week in support of Harris candidacy.

And for Hoskins, theres just too much at stake not to support Harris.

Everybody has stepped up. We have too much on the line. Project 2025, is not going to win. I aint built for what Trump is bringing to the table  you gotta be born into slavery for what they finna bring.

The post Kamala Harris Top Cop Legacy Is Complicated appeared first on Capital B News - Atlanta.
Kannapolis teen rescued in Illinois where man was charged with sex abuse: Sheriff

GREEN OAKS, Ill. (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  A missing Kannapolis teen was rescued from an Illinois house where a man was arrested for sexual abuse and numerous drug and firearm charges.

According to the Lake County Sheriffs Office, the United States Marshals Service informed their deputies and the Homeland Security Investigations Chicago Field Office on July 23 of a missing 15-year-old girl who might be at a home in the Chicago suburb of Green Oaks.

Chick-fil-A owner drove over 400 miles to engage in sex acts with 15-year-old: Rowan County Sheriff

After a search warrant was obtained the next day, detectives set up surveillance at the home, and at approximately 4 p.m., Andrew W. Szech, 43, was allegedly seen leaving the home where he resided with the victim. Detectives then apprehended Szech and rescued the missing teen.

The sheriffs office reports that Szech began communicating with the teen online in June. Szech reportedly encouraged her to take a bus from her Kannapolis home to Chicago in early July, and Szech picked her up from the Chicago bus station and took her to his home, where he sexually abused her.

Detectives reportedly recovered the following from their search:

One firearm

2,700+ grams of cannabis

Nearly 30 grams of psilocybin-laced candy

55+ grams of psilocybin mushrooms

27 cannabis plants

55+ Adderall pills

These are among the charges Szech is facing:

Three counts of criminal sexual abuse (class 1 felonies)

Unlawful possession of psilocybin mushrooms with intent to deliver (class 1 felony)

Unlawful possession of Adderall with intent to deliver (class 2 felony)

Aggravated Battery (class 3 felony)

Unlawful Possession of Cannabis Plants (class 3 felony)

Two Counts of Aggravated Unlawful Possession of a Firearm (class 4 felonies)

The sheriffs office believes additional charges are expected. The victim is safely away from her abuser and has been placed in care.

Lawsuit accuses Uber driver of trafficking 12 and 13-year-old girls in York County

Lake County Jail records show Szech being held without bond, but he was given a $300,000 bond for reckless discharge of a firearm.

He was in court Thursday and is scheduled to appear again Friday afternoon on one of the drug possession charges. The Kannapolis Police Department said they found evidence that the victim was in Illinois, and thanked the U.S. Marshals Service for their 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 Queen City News.
Kansas man fined and must refund client after pretending to be lawyer, DAs Office says

A 53-year-old Derby man pretending to be a lawyer could have to pay $61,197 after he took $500 from a Sedgwick County woman under the pretense that he would represent her in a Social Security dispute, court records show.

If he successfully completes 40 months of probation, Andrew Wells, who went by the last name West when the woman visited his law office in Goddard, will have $57,000 of that forgiven.

Wells will have to pay $4,197, which includes the $500 he took from the woman plus fines and court fees, according to the consent judgment he signed off on this month.

Here is what court records say happened:

The woman went to the law office at 120 W. Second Street in Goddard on Dec. 2, 2022, looking for an attorney to represent her in a social security payment dispute.

Wells told her he would need $2,000 to take the case because he would need to involve his legal team. She accepted, and gave him her login for her Social Security and banking accounts.

She paid him $100 in cash that day, receiving a receipt that said for lawsuit, and paid him $100 in each of the following four months.

But, she kept receiving notices from Social Security about the dispute.

Her May 2023 social security check was garnished in full and she received a letter ... that the remaining money she owed would be taken from her June check.

She contacted Wells that month.

Wells told (her) he was in the process of filing motions to fight the case.

However, she asked that he return her documents and stop any further legal action.

Wells did not return her documents. Wells told (her) the documents were at his offices in Augusta. Wells told (her) he would continue to fight the case.

She filed a complaint with the Sedgwick County District Attorneys Office in April 2024. That same month, Wells told a DA investigator that he believed he owed the woman $300 and his intention was to return it.

At all times relevant, Wells was not a licensed attorney in the State of Kansas ... Wells has never been licensed to practice law in the State of Kansas, the court records say.
Kansas Supreme Court Justice Dan Biles authored the court's unanimous opinion affirming that state law didn't preempt a county's ability to issue conditional use permits as long as the permit wasn't in conflict with Kansas law. The issue emerged from a dispute in Finney County about development of a sand and gravel quarry. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA  The Kansas Supreme Court issued an opinion Friday that determined the Finney County Commission had authority to delegate decisions about land-use permits to a zoning appeals board as long the local actions didnt conflict with state law.

The opinion written by Justice Dan Biles was inspired by a dispute that emerged in 2021 when Huber Sand applied to the Finney County Board of Zoning Appeals for a conditional use permit to operate a sand and gravel quarry under regulations adopted by the county commission.

More than 100 people submitted protest petitions in opposition to the development on 177 acres southeast of Pierceville.

The zoning board approved on a 2-1 vote the permit for a quarry on land that was zoned agricultural. Finney County landowner Brian Price and American Warrior, a company with an oil and gas lease near the proposed quarry, filed a lawsuit.

Finney County District Court sided with Huber Sand and the county commission, but American Warrior appealed to the Kansas Court of Appeals. That appellate court, on a 2-1 vote, reversed the district court.

The Supreme Court unanimously decided the majority on the Court of Appeals got it wrong, and affirmed the original action by District Court Judge Wendell Wurst.

Biles opinion for the Supreme Court said county zoning power could be limited by state law through the concept of preemption, which occurred when the Kansas Legislature reserved exclusive jurisdiction for the state. However, he wrote, Kansas law contained no such express statement of preemption for conditional use permits.

The (Court of Appeals) panel majority critically failed to engage in a straightforward, textual interpretation of the act and regulations, Biles said.

Instead, the justice wrote the Court of Appeals considered two previous cases from 2003 and 2008, which shouldnt have been viewed as applicable, and improperly extended their holdings to the present controversy.

The decision of the Supreme Court established the Legislature granted cities and counties the authority to enact zoning regulations without state interference as long as those local decisions didnt conflict with the Planning, Zoning and Subdivision Regulations in Cities and Counties Act.

Exercising that authority, Finney County adopted its own local rules and delegated the issuance of conditional use permits to the Finney County Board of Zoning Appeals.
Kari Lake continues her outreach to moderate Republicans and independents, calling MAGA firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene one of the greatest fighters in our country.

Greene is one of the biggest conspiracy kooks in Congress.

On Tuesday, she demanded proof of life  by 5 p.m. today that Joe Biden was still alive, accepting hook, line and sinker the social media hysterics that Biden was dead and the deep state was covering it up.

Naturally, Greene has proclaimed the attempted assassination of Donald Trump was a conspiracy.

Democrats dont just want President Trump in jail, they want him dead, she wrote.

Greene and Lake previously touted Project 2025

Greene is perhaps the most infamous far right firebrand at Capitol Hill  one who is too out there even for the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus  and like attracts like.

Meidas Touch reported Thursday that Greene and Lake both appeared in a video last year promoting Project 2025.

In case youve been living under a rock, thats the Heritage Foundations extreme blueprint for Trumps second term  the one fashioned by his former administration officials and allies and promoted by Trump loyalists like Greene and Lake. The one Trump says he knows nothing about and doesnt support.

They are extreme, seriously extreme, Trump said in a July 20 rally. I dont know anything about it. I dont want to know anything about it.

The 922-page plan would expand the power of the presidency, lay waste to democratic institutions, individual rights and the separation of church and state.

Now, Greene is raising cash for Kari Lake

Kari Lake and Marjorie Taylor Greene appear in a July 25, 2024 fundraising appeal for Lake's campaign. Video is from Rumble.

Now Lake and Greene are together again, this time teaming up in a fundraising appeal to boost Lakes Senate prospects.

In their joint video, released on Thursday, Lake calls Greene one of the greatest fighters in the country.

Greenes response: Backatya.

Kari Lake had a bad week: Then she went off the deep end

I need you to pitch in and help my dear friend Kari Lake, Greene says in the pitch to her donor network. I need her in Washington, D.C., fighting alongside me.

This, then, is how Lake broadens her base, to reach those all-important McCain Republicans and independent voters who in 2022 made Democrat Katie Hobbs Arizonas governor?

Genius plan.

This, as a donor says Lake 'cannot win'

The Greene-Lake appeal was released just as the Washington Post reports that one of Arizonas powerhouse Republican donors, Randy Kendrick, wife of Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick, sent out an email to her Christmas card list saying Lake cannot win the general election.

I have tried to help (Lake) and worked on this, and apparently cannot overcome it, Kendrick wrote in the email obtained by the Post. There is no time for blame or analysis. These are just the facts.

Kendrick is supporting Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb in Tuesdays Republican primary amid polls showing that moderate Republicans and independent dont like Lake.

I am trying to make more people aware of Lamb because, according to our polls, if people are made aware of him they prefer him over Lake and certainly over (Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben) Gallego, Kendrick wrote.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRobertsaz.

Support local journalism: Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake repulses moderates by teaming with Marjorie Taylor Greene
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre pointed out on Thursday that it speaks volumes that Republican congressional leaders had to admonish members to refrain from being racist and sexist towards Vice President Kamala Harris.

Asked about a Politico report about a closed-door meeting on Tuesday morning in which party leaders begged lawmakers to stop attacking Harris on the basis of identity, Jean-Pierre replied, When you have the Speaker of the House [Mike Johnson] set up a meeting to tell Republican leaders to stop being racist, to stop being misogynist, to stop being sexist, I think that says a lot that they have to be told to not do that.

But more broadly, she continued, I think itsI think its desperate. I think its disgusting and I think its a dog whistle. And we should not forget that she is the vice president of the United States. Shes the vice president of the United States. She should get that respect.

KJP: When you have the Republican Speaker of the House set up a meeting to tell Republicans to stop being racist, sexist.. I think that says a lot that they have have to be told to not do that. pic.twitter.com/OHFjh3DuKW  Acyn (@Acyn) July 25, 2024

Shortly after Harris campaign announcement on Sunday, several Republicans waded in to slam her as a DEI hire undeserving of the nomination.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) whined that Harris was 100 percent a diversity hire in a CNN appearance on Monday.

Biden said, first off, he said hes going to hire a Black female for vice-president. What about white females? What about any other group? he asked. When you go down that route, you take mediocrity, and thats what they have right now with the vice president.

Hours earlier, Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) told a local CBS affiliate that he was sure Democrats feel they have to stick with [Harris] because of her ethnic background.

Johnson on Tuesday denied to reporters that the Republican line of attack should have anything to do with the vice presidents identity.

This election is going to be about policies, not personalities, he said, according to The Hill. This isnt personal with regard to Kamala Harris. Her ethnicity, her gender, has nothing to do with this whatsoever.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.

Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has passed an important milestone in his run for president, securing the signatures he needs to appear on the Nevada ballot.

Enough signatures had been verified by Friday, the Nevada Secretary of States office confirmed.

Legal challenges to Kennedy Jr.s campaign could still be ahead. Democrats in Nevada and other states filed a lawsuit in June challenging whether he could appear on the ballot as an independent because of his affiliation with political parties in other states.

The latest 8 News Now poll showed Kennedy Jr.s presence on the ballot would hurt Democrats. But that was when Joe Biden was still pressing his re-election bid. The political landscape changed significantly on Sunday when Biden ended his candidacy and threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

The poll showed Kennedy pulling support from both Trump and Biden, but more from Biden.

The signatures cap a months-long battle for Kennedy Jr. in Nevada, where his campaign had to file a petition after signatures for his first petition were jeopardized because he collected them before he named his running mate. Nevada law requires the candidate to declare a vice presidential candidate  even though the running mates name doesnt appear on the petition.

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilars office clarified guidance that would likely nullify his original petition because he did not list a running mate.

Kennedy Jr. picked California lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in late March.

Kennedy Jr.s campaign sued Aguilars office, saying that they received approval in January from Aguilars office allowing them to collect the required number of signatures for a petition that did not list his vice presidential selection.

Aguilars office had said in a statement that they sent correct guidance to all independent candidates that had filed petitions for ballot access well in advance of the deadline to submit signatures.

Kennedy has gained traction with a famous name and a loyal base, and he has the potential to do better than any independent presidential candidate in decades, according to The Associated Press. Strategists from both major parties fear he could tip the election against them, though a big blow to his campaign came when he did not qualify for the CNN debate in June. Instead, he held a separate event where he responded in real time to the questions that were posed to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

State and county election officials verified over 22,000 signatures on the new petition, well over the requirement of just over 10,000.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KLAS.
Two teen brothers arrested in the murder of a 13-year-old Kent boy at Turnkey Park had their first appearance in a King County courtroom Friday.

A third suspect, 18-year-old Faysal Abdullahi, has already been charged with First Degree Murder in the fatal shooting.

Probable cause documents from the King County Prosecutors Office paint the picture of what all went down on July 16th.

Detectives say the suspects set up a meeting to buy a camera from one of Stavkovys friends, but one of the suspects admitted to investigators they didnt have the money to buy the camera and that they were going to steal it.

This is something that people do all the time: whether they buy things off an offer up or craigslist or any kind of platform like that, Casey McNerthney with KCPAO said.

Prosecutors say this recent tragedy is adding to an already alarming trend in the county.

I think we have had 9 homicides so far this year where young people have been killed. And that is really surprising because that is more than some full years in years prior, McNerthney said.

Prosecutors say murder and robbery charges could come as early as next week for the two suspects. Both remain in custody.
HENRY COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN)  A Middle Tennessee arson investigation resulted in the arrest of a Kentucky man earlier this week.

At the request of the Henry County Sheriffs Office, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) said its special agents started investigating a suspicious fire on Monday, July 22 that destroyed a home along Nordan Drive in Springville.

Sheriffs office searching for escaped inmate out of Fentress County

Over the course of the investigation, authorities said they determined 59-year-old Forrest John Johnson, of Morgantown, Kentucky, was responsible for starting the fire.

According to officials, the TBI arrested Johnson in Kentucky on Tuesday, July 23 and charged him with arson. Then, on Thursday, July 25, he was extradited to Tennessee. As of Friday, July 26, he is being held in the Henry County Jail on a $250,000 bond.

Kentucky State Police arrest man for child sexual exploitation

The charges and allegations referenced in this release are merely accusations of criminal conduct and not evidence. The defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and convicted through due process of law, the TBI said in a Friday statement.

If you have any information about an intentionally set fire, you are asked to call the Tennessee Arson Hotline at 1-800-762-3017.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
He Lifeng, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, meets with Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, chief executive officer of Singapore's Temasek, in Beijing, capital of China, July 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese official He Lifeng on Friday met with Dilhan Pillay Sandrasegara, chief executive officer of Singapore's Temasek, in Beijing.

He, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Commission for Financial and Economic Affairs, said that since the beginning of this year, the Chinese economy has continued to rebound and made solid progress in high-quality development.

Noting that the just-concluded third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee has made strategic plans for further deepening reform comprehensively and advancing Chinese modernization, He said China will continue to adhere to the basic policy of opening up and build a new system of an open economy at a higher level.

China welcomes investors from other countries, such as Temasek, to share the opportunities of China's economic development, he added.

Sandrasegara said Temasek has full confidence in the long-term development of the Chinese economy and will continue to deeply cultivate the Chinese market. 
The city of Kharkiv has decided to rename three metro stations and 48 streets to "remove Russian markers from public space," Governor Oleh Syniehubov announced on July 26.

"This is an important step of decolonization," Syniehubov said after signing the decree.

Ukraine's parliament outlawed most Soviet and communist symbols, street names, and monuments as part of a decommunization process in 2015.

President Volodymyr Zelensky then signed a law in April 2023 that banned naming geographic sites in Ukraine after Russian figures or historical events in response to Russia's full-scale invasion.

Heroes of Labor metro station in Kharkiv will be named Zavodska, meaning factory in Ukrainian.

Malyshev Factory metro station, originally named after the Russian-born Soviet statesman and engineer Vyacheslav Malyshev, will be renamed Saltivska, after Saltivka, the Kharkiv residential neighborhood that has been hardest hit by Russian attacks.

Gagarin Avenue, named after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, will be renamed Aerospace Avenue. Gagarin Avenue metro station will now be named Levada metro station, after the name of a nearby neighborhood.

Read also: Everyone says culture has nothing to do with it. It does  Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Rafeyenko on Russias war

Other streets that have been renamed include Lermontov Street, named after Russian writer and poet Mikhail Lermontov. The street will now be named after Maik Yohansen, a Ukrainian poet of Latvian ancestry who rose to prominence in Kharkiv in the 1920s.

The Soviet authorities accused Yohansen of being part of a "Ukrainian bourgeois-nationalist terrorist organization." He was executed by firing squad in 1937.

Tchaikovsky Street will be renamed after another Ukrainian poet executed in 1937, Mykhailo Semenko, who is considered the founder of Ukrainian futurist poetry.

The targeting of Ukrainian cultural figures in the 1930s was so widespread that those who were murdered are referred to in Ukraine as the "Executed Rennaisance." Many of those who were killed were living and working in Kharkiv, the capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1919 to 1934.

Other renamings will have more modern references. One street will be named after the 92nd Assault Brigade, while another street will be named after the Khartiia Brigade of the National Guard. Both brigades fought in the Battle of Kharkiv in 2022.

The new names were chosen by a special working group of the Kharkiv City Council, which included local historians, scientists, and members of the public.

"The working group held nine meetings, discussing all proposals in detail," Syniehubov said. The members of the working group chose the new names through a vote.

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Kim Davis is back, and shes trying to set up a Supreme Court case to overturn marriage equality.

Davis, as clerk of Rowan County, Ky., shut down all marriage license operations at her office shortly after the high courts marriage equality ruling in 2015 rather than issue licenses to same-sex couples. She cited religious objections to same-sex marriage.

David Ermold and David Moore, who were denied a license, sued Davis and won. In January, a federal judge ordered Davis to pay $260,104 in fees and expenses to the lawyers who represented them. She had previously been ordered to pay the couple $100,000 in damages.

Davis appealed the order and called for the overturning of Obergefell v. Hodges, the marriage equality ruling, in a brief filed this week with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Plaintiffs failed to present competent evidence of any damages, and instead presented the jury with little more than speculation and conjecture, the brief reads. Their case should never have been presented to the jury, and the district court erred in doing so.

It further argues that Obergefell was wrong when it was decided and it is wrong today because it was based entirely on the legal fiction of substantive due process, which lacks any basis in the Constitution. Substantive due process is the theory that the Constitution grants certain rights even if they are not explicitly spelled out.

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas railed against substantive due process in his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, the 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, the decision that established abortion rights nationwide. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion in Dobbs, said the ruling should be read narrowly, not infringing on other rights, but Thomas, in his concurring opinion, said the reasoning used in Dobbs should be applied to overturn Obergefell as well as decisions that struck down state sodomy laws and bans on contraceptives. That would take a case getting to the Supreme Court, but Davis and her lawyers at Liberty Counsel, a far-right nonprofit, are trying to construct one.

Davis acknowledges that this Court does not have the authority to overrule Supreme Court precedent.  Nevertheless, she must present her argument to preserve it, says a footnote in the brief.

Kim Davis deserves justice in this case since she was entitled to a religious accommodation from issuing marriage licenses under her name and authority, Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said in a press release. This case has the potential to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges and extend the same religious freedom protections beyond Kentucky to the entire nation.

Marriage equality received some protection from negative Supreme Court action when President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act into law in December 2022. The act writes the rights to same-sex marriage and interracial marriage into federal law, assuring that the U.S. government will recognize these marriages and that all states will recognize those performed in other states. It forbids anyone acting under a state law to discriminate based on the gender or race of a married couple. However, it does not require any state to allow same-sex marriages to be performed.

The Supreme Courts 6-3 conservative majority would probably overturn Obergefell. While Alito said the Dobbs ruling was not intended to affect marriage rights, he too has called for the overturning of the marriage equality decision. Donald Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett has suggested that the definition of marriage should be left to individual states. Chief Justice John Roberts dissented from the majority in Obergefell.Obergefell. And the courts other two conservatives, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both Trump appointees, would likely join the others in ruling against marriage equality.

Davis was briefly jailed in 2015 for contempt of court for not complying with a federal judges order to issue marriage licenses without discrimination. Eventually, she decided to allow her deputies to serve same-sex couples, and then Kentucky changed its marriage license form so that it does not include the county clerks name. This satisfied the religious exemption that Davis said she wanted.

Davis was first elected Rowan County clerk in 2014 as a Democrat. She succeeded her mother, Jean Bailey, who had been the clerk for 37 years. In 2015, Davis switched her party affiliation to Republican. In 2018, she lost her reelection bid to Elwood Caudill Jr.

Chris Hartman, director of Fairness Campaign, Kentuckys statewide LGBTQ+ rights group, told the Kentucky Lantern that Davis's action is sad and desperate, adding, The threat of anti-LGBTQ hate groups  is real, however, and it comes as no surprise that they are seeking to overturn LGBTQ marriage in America. With an archconservative Supreme Court thats already upended half a century of abortion rights, anything is unfortunately possible.
Kingman resident faces murder charge after man found shot once in the head

LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A 58-year-old Kingman, Arizona, man faces a murder charge after a shooting early Wednesday morning, according to police.

Melvin Leroy Grayson was arrested by Bullhead City police and transported to Kingman as authorities investigated the death of Patrick Eugene Benson, a 31-year-old Kingman resident.

Grayson faces felony charges of first-degree murder by domestic violence, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon by domestic violence and misconduct involving weapons / prohibited possessor, according to information provided by Kingman police.

Police found Benson with a single gunshot wound to the head when they responded to a call at about 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday in the 2200 block of Davis Avenue, just south of the Mohave County Fairgrounds. Benson died at the scene.

Grayson was booked into the Mohave County Adult Detention Facility in Kingman. The investigation is continuing.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA)  KNWA welcomes Doug Warner as one of the main evening anchors starting Friday, July 26.

A native of DeRidder, LA, and a graduate of McNeese State University (Lake Charles, LA), Doug has worked in several news markets including Oklahoma City, OK, Shreveport, and Lake Charles, LA, and Beaumont and Waco, TX.

Warner is a four-time Reporter of the Year recipient, honored by many professional industry organizations including the Louisiana Associated Press, the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters, and the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (Emmy award). Warner has earned 13 Emmy awards with over 40 nominations and multiple regional and national Edward R. Murrow awards for his reporting.

KNWA News Director, Joshua Harvison expressed his excitement about Warner joining the team. While Doug has a ton of accolades throughout his career, Im also excited about the mentorship he will afford our teams, from producers to reporters, and even management. Dougs experience and dedication will serve the people of northwest Arkansas and the River Valley incredibly well!, said Harvison.

Warners award-winning career spans three decades across four states  Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. And now, Doug and his wife Ashley are excited to call Northwest Arkansas home.

You can learn more about Doug Warner, 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 KNWA FOX24.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends a meeting at the Konstantinovsky Palace. Peskov warned on 26 July that Russia will respond to the European Union's decision to transfer the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. Vladimir Smirnov/KREMLIN/dpa

A top Kremlin spokesman warned on Friday that Russia will respond to the European Union's decision to transfer the proceeds of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.

There will be no immediate response, but Russia will consider its next steps in response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

"But of course such steps by the European Commission will not go unanswered," he said.

The European Commission has released 1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in interest income from Russian assets frozen by the EU, the first time the bloc has done so.

The money is to be used for the defence of Ukraine against the ongoing Russian invasion and the country's reconstruction, wrote European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

According to the commission, around 210 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank have been frozen in the EU in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

The Brussels-based financial institution Euroclear recently announced that it had collected around 4.4 billion in interest on those assets in 2023.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Kremlin on Friday welcomed Donald Trump's comments on Russia being "a war machine" that had defeated Napoleon and Hitler, but said it was not wearing rose-tinted spectacles when it came to the U.S. Republican presidential candidate.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was responding to a question about comments Trump said he had made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a phone call on July 19.

Trump told Fox News later that he had told Zelenskiy that the war needed to be brought to an end.

"This is a war machine you're facing. That's what they (the Russians) do they fight wars. They beat Hitler. They beat Napoleon. We got to get this war over with," said Trump.

Commenting on Trump's remarks, Peskov said:

"It will probably be useful for most of the American audience to know that there are many glorious pages in the history of Russia, and indeed, probably few people in the U.S., we mean ordinary Americans, and maybe representatives of the so-called political establishment, know history in such depth."

But Peskov, when asked next about a commentary in the Wall Street Journal co-authored by Mike Pompeo, a former secretary of state under Trump, said the Kremlin was clear-eyed when it came to assessing what a Trump presidency could mean for Russia.

The Pompeo commentary suggested Trump enact tough new sanctions on Moscow if elected and step up help for Ukraine.

"We have never worn and do not wear rose-coloured spectacles. (Trump) is a representative of the U.S. political elite, which is now all absolutely suffering from total anti-Russian sentiment," said Peskov.

"When he was president, under Trump, the Americans started this sanctions race, under Trump a huge number of sanctions were imposed against our country, and in this respect he is not much different for us from everyone else.

"Maybe he shows a little more political wisdom in terms of maintaining channels of dialogue. But de facto it does not have a special impact on anything, and we should be aware of that," said Peskov.

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
Dmytro Lykhovii, spokesman for the Tavriia Operational Group of Forces, has noted that the Ukrainian defence forces continue combat missions on the left (east) bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast, including near the village of Krynky and on the islands in the area.

Source: Lykhovii in a comment to Krym.Realii

Quote: "The fact that the positions of the Ukrainian forces in the village of Krynky were destroyed to the ground as a result of intense, prolonged enemy attacks and airstrikes was also taken into account. The village itself was almost completely destroyed. There is no possibility to hold the defence there, no possibility to cling to any fortifications, and therefore Ukrainian defenders are now on other designated positions and footholds, as well as on the left bank of the Dnipro River."

Details: Lykhovii said that in the entire operational area of the Tavriia Operational Group of Forces, the Prydniprovske front is "the hottest, but relatively speaking, there are enemy assaults there every day".

Quote: "There are relatively more of them [assaults  ed.] compared to other sections of our line of contact in our operational area, but these figures are measured in numbers of about three or four per day, sometimes two. Sometimes there can be about a dozen... This is a little less intense than it was before, and the Russians' attempts to advance to these footholds continue, but they remain unsuccessful."

Background:

In October 2023, Ukrainian troops consolidated in Krynky. Since then, the occupation forces have been trying to drive Ukrainian forces out of the area almost every day, as regularly mentioned in the daily reports of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Last week, Ukrainska Pravda's sources in the marines reported that the Ukrainian military had withdrawn from Krynky in Kherson Oblast. Suspilne noted that this happened several weeks ago. The General Staff did not officially confirm this.

On 17 July, Slidstvo.info reported, with reference to the police, that 788 Ukrainian soldiers went missing during a defensive operation in the village of Krynky on the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast between October 2023 and the end of June 2024. The number of soldiers KIA who were taken out of the area and eventually buried is much smaller  262 defenders during this period.

On 18 July, Lykhovii said on air during the national joint 24/7 newscast that the situation in Krynky was "not as critical as some media and bloggers interpret it."

At the same time, Lykhovii confirmed that most of the main positions of Ukrainian troops in the village were destroyed as a result of intense combined and prolonged Russian fire. The village itself has turned into a pile of stones, completely destroyed by Russian attacks. It is no longer a settlement but a place where it is virtually impossible to hold defence. However, Ukrainian defenders continue to hold their positions and footholds on the left bank of the Dnipro River.

Support UP or become our patron!
Kuleba calls on Hong Kong to close sanctions circumvention routes for Russia

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the Hong Kong government to take measures to prevent Russia and Russian companies from using the country to circumvent restrictive sanctions.

Following a trip to China in late July, Kuleba also went to Hong Kong, where he met with the Chief Executive of Hong Kong John Lee.

Kuleba said that these restrictive measures are necessary to "weaken Russia's potential to wage war and kill people in Ukraine."

Russia's actions should not spoil Hong Kong's reputation as a highly developed liberal economy based on unwavering respect for the rule of law, the minister added.

The parties also discussed creating new opportunities for trade and investment in Ukraine's reconstruction, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry.

Western nations imposed extensive sanctions against Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Sanctioned items, however, such as microchips produced in the United States, continue to flow into Russia via third-party countries.

China, Russia's main economic backer against Western sanctions, plays a key role, exporting so-called dual-use goods into Russia to feed the Kremlin's war machine.

China's Foreign Affairs Ministry has said it has not supplied military equipment to either Russia or Ukraine.

At least four shell companies operating out of Hong Kong are facilitating the shipment of restricted military technology to Russia, according to an investigation by the New York Times published on July 25.

Kuleba held lengthy talks with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Guangzhou on July 24, after which he said Beijing had reaffirmed its commitment to Ukraine's territorial integrity.

The Chinese delegation also again reiterated its promise not to supply Russia with weapons, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Read also: Opinion: The new EU leadership must unite on China

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
We are three weeks into a Labour Government, and yet another dire decision has been slipped out without scrutiny. In this case, the defence of free speech. The new Education Secretary has decided to stop the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act dead in its tracks in order to consider its repeal.

Unless youre an avid campaigner in this area, you would barely have noticed. It was announced at the end of a written statement tucked away on the Parliament website. There was no debate in the chamber, no opportunity for scrutiny from MPs, no press release. I suppose thats quite fitting considering the matter in hand.

I was the minister who delivered this legislation, which protects the free speech of academics and students in our universities. Labour fought us every step of the way. They were more concerned about the workload of university administrators than the needs of students and academics whose free speech had been curtailed  speaking events had been cancelled, placements at universities had been withdrawn, and in the very worst cases, careers had been ruined.

For what reason? Because they had shared views which were not hateful, nor illegal, but merely controversial.

This shouldnt surprise us. The kind of world the radical Left want is one where no debate is allowed. Lets look at recent history. If you questioned whether vulnerable womens spaces should be protected, they called you a bigot. If you questioned whether it was fair to impose the Ulez tax on those with the lowest incomes, they called you a flat-earther. If you questioned whether excessive lockdowns harmed the mental health of our children, you were a granny killer.

Labour cannot hide from who they are  a party of people so wrapped up in the politics of student unions that rather than debate an issue, their instinct is to shut down the other side.

Our Freedom of Speech Act held universities accountable for the state of free speech on campus and gave academics, students and speakers the right to go to court if their rights were wrongly infringed. It created a new free speech director with a legal duty to protect free speech and investigate cases of no-platforming at universities.

During the passage of the Act, I was horrified to hear the stories of those who had fallen foul of cancel culture and self-censorship on campus. One group of mathematicians were being pressured into decolonising their curriculum by suppressing the work of white mathematicians and elevating that of non-white mathematicians. The message I heard from them was one I heard countless times: We are fearful of speaking out because of the potential for a backlash that could put our jobs at risk.

The truth is that Labour politicians are in denial about the scale of this issue, and they dont think free speech is worth protecting. This week the Education Secretary told the BBC that the culture wars on campus end here. But the culture wars are not being waged by those who want a free debate on divisive ideology. They are being waged by radical groups of activists on the Left who believe their own sense of self-righteousness trumps the right of other people to disagree. It takes an eye-watering amount of delusion to accuse people of starting culture wars, when it is those people who are holding the line of mainstream opinion.

This is the greatest risk that Labour poses. They want to push an incredibly radical agenda, but they also want to do that without debate. One of the fundamental reasons Im a Conservative is that I believe in our right to ask difficult questions and to say difficult things.

The Lefts instincts are what led to vulnerable children being put at risk because of the demands of activist groups like Stonewall. It will lead to the rewriting of our rich history, and if not stopped it will lead to an ideological approach to net zero that will leave our nation poorer. If we do not stand up for our right to ask questions, I shudder to think where Labour will take us next.

Claire Coutinho is the shadow energy secretary and Conservative MP for East Surrey

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
by Xinhua writer Wang Siyuan

BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- China has plenty of experience in rural development to share with the Global South, said Donal Brown, a senior official with United Nation's specialized agency, the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), adding that the fund will work with China to convey the experience to other developing countries.

"I heard a lot about Chinese government's rural revitalization policy and I saw it in action. It is impressive," Donal Brown, the associate vice president of the Program Management Department at IFAD, said in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.

Brown visited China earlier this month. He attended the Second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development and visited an IFAD-financed project in central China's Hunan Province.

"It must be one of the most beautiful places in the world," said Brown while talking about his trip in Hunan, adding that he is very pleased to see the Chinese government's commitment to really bringing development to some of its most remote areas, and efforts to ensure that ethnic minorities and women are very much included in the whole development process.

China has done a lot to develop rural areas to make them attractive to young people, who can bring back more innovations and technologies, and the country is striving to make agriculture more climate friendly, he said.

Brown spoke highly of the over 40 years of cooperation between IFAD and China. "IFAD has been working in China for 44 years, and we share a very similar vision in terms of rural development, from poverty elimination to rural revitalization," he said.

China plays a very important role in South-South cooperation, said Brown, citing that China renewed the China-IFAD South-South and Triangular Cooperation Facility and made an additional RMB contribution equivalent to 10 million U.S. dollars to be used to support agricultural development of the Global South last month.

IFAD-financed projects can be used to share China's development experience, innovations and technologies with other developing countries, said Brown.

For instance, IFAD has been working in Tanzania to help local farmers to take China's experience to improve the processing of sunflowers, and the fund is looking at using China's satellite data and information systems in Africa to deliver accurate weather forecast and improve agricultural production, he said.

Brown looked forward to building an even stronger partnership with China. "We will widen the number of institutions in China we work with and we will explore ways of utilizing China's expertise directly," he said.

Brown noted that people who are just lifted out of poverty may find it hard to adapt their farming system and businesses to climate change, and in this regard China also has experience to share.

"China is very committed to dealing with climate change and it has shown a lot of innovations in the area," said Brown, adding that the IFAD will keep working with China and bring its expertise in climate-smart agriculture and making the rural economy greener in other developing countries. 
The B-1 bomber crash site at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City on Jan. 4, 2024. (Courtesy of the U.S. Air Force)

The B-1 bomber crash site at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City on Jan. 4, 2024. (Courtesy of U.S. Air Force)

An undisciplined chain of command and unforeseen weather caused the $456 million B-1 bomber crash at Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City, according to a July 7 report from the U.S. Air Force.

The B-1B Lancer crash-landed Jan. 4, 2024. The mishap occurred at 5:47 p.m. during a training mission.

The aircraft hit the ground about 100 feet ahead of the runway on the base, striking an approach lighting system before skidding across the runway and catching fire.

The B-1 was declared a total loss.

All four crew members ejected. The pilot used his cellphone to signal their location, leading to a prompt response from emergency personnel. The crew survived with varying injuries.

The report said the total cost of the B-1 destruction and airfield damage was $456 million.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

The Air Forces Accident Investigation Board identified several contributing factors to the crash. The crew did not properly monitor or respond to critical flight data, the report says. This kept the crew from recognizing dangerous conditions in time to avert the crash.

The mishap occurred as dense fog rolled across the airfield. Rapid shifts in wind direction and speed during the final minute of the crews approach went undetected, the report says. The dense fog, low visibility and sudden wind changes significantly hindered the crews ability to maintain the proper path and landing speed.

Additionally, the report cites inadequate supervision, citing one supervisor being task saturated. Changing weather conditions and procedures to address them, the report says, were not properly communicated or enforced.

An undisciplined organizational culture was also noted in the report. Effective cross-checking of flight instruments, situational awareness, and communication about critical airfield conditions eroded as a result, according to the report. Plus, training and standards were not rigorously enforced, resulting in complacency that undermined flight safety.

Addressing these cultural and communication issues is essential to prevent future accidents, the report says.

B-1s are long-range bombers initially developed in the 1970s. The planes will eventually be replaced by B-21 Raiders, which are currently under development for the Air Force by Northrop Grumman and are expected to begin arriving at Ellsworth sometime this decade.

4JAN24-AFGSC-Ellsworth-AFB-AIB-Report-1-1

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
(KLFY) Mayor-President Monique B. Boulet and law enforcement agencies around Louisiana are sending prayers and condolences to the Lafayette Police Department after one officer died and three others were injured in an armed hostage standoff in Jeanerette.

I am deeply saddened to share the news of the recent loss of one of our cherished community members and a devoted officer of the Lafayette Police Department, Boulet shared. This rare and tragic event brings us great sadness and grief. Our hearts go out to the officers family, friends, and colleagues during this incredibly difficult time.

To honor their courage and dedication, I ask that you join me in prayer and support for all those affected by this heartbreaking loss, she added.

The Jeanerette Marshals Office and other law enforcement agencies, including LPD, responded to the hostage situation that resulted in an officer-involved shooting.

Close

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

KLFY Daily Digest

The Lafayette Police Department is mourning the loss of one of our own. Please keep these officers and their families in your prayers during this tragic time, LPD said.

After the suspect, 31-year-old Nyjal Hurst, barricaded himself and two others, he later fired multiple shots at officers, according to LPD, resulting in one being killed and three others being hospitalized.

The Office of the Louisiana Attorney General posted: Im praying for the Lafayette Police Department tonight, after one officer was tragically killed and three others were injured in a hostage standoff in Jeanerette. Just devastating and heartbreaking news.

The Lafayette Parish Sheriffs Office posted: The Lafayette Parish Sheriffs Office sends our prayers and condolences to our brothers and sisters at the Lafayette Police Department as they mourn the loss of one of their own. We also support and wish a speedy recovery to the other officers who were injured in the line of duty.

The Jeanerette Police Department shared: We send our prayers out to the Lafayette Police Department along with the Officers Families. We ask the community as a whole to keep them in prayer.

Our thoughts and prayers are with our brothers and sisters at the Lafayette Police Department tonight, The Berwick Police Department shared on their Facebook.

The Carencro Police Department posted: The Carencro Police Department is keeping our brothers and sisters at the Lafayette Police Department in our thoughts and prayers this evening. I ask that you join us as we will all help them get through this difficult time.

The St. Martinville Police Department shared on their Facebook page: Our prayers go out to Lafayette Police Department. Please pray for the injured and a fallen officer! Rest Easy Brother! Days like today remind us how important and delecate life is, yet we still put on our uniform and badge and go out there every day to protect our citizens!

Chief Gibson along with the entire Baldwin Police Department and Community sends our prayers to Lafayette Police Department and Officers Families, the Baldwin Police Department posted.

The Youngsville Police Department shared: Our thoughts and prayers are with our brothers and sisters at the Lafayette Police Department tonight.

The men and women of the Scott Police Department wish to convey their condolences to the Lafayette Police Department on the tragic, in the line of duty death of one of their SWAT team members. Prayers are also going out to the other officers who suffered injuries in this terrible incident, The Scott Police Department posted.

The Broussard Police Department posted: Thoughts and prayers go out to all of our Lafayette Police Department brothers and sisters tonight.

Our prayers are with Lafayette Police Department and the fallen officers family, The Basile Police Department posted.

The Baton Rouge Police Department posted: One Lafayette police officer was killed and three injured during a hostage situation that occurred in Jeanerette, Louisiana. We are keeping the families, as well as the men and women of the Lafayette Police Department and other agencies involved, in our prayers during this difficult time.

Please join us in prayer for peace for the family (personnel and professional ) of the Lafayette Police SWAT officer killed today in Jenerette. 3 other LPD SWAT officers were also injured. We pray for the speedy recovery of those officers, The Port Allen Police Department shared on their Facebook page.

The Alexandria Police Department posted: One Lafayette police officer was killed and three were injured today while performing their duties during a call. We extend our prayers to the men and women of the Lafayette Police Department, other involved agencies and the families of these brave officers.

The Town of Woodworth posted: We invite everyone to join us in prayer for peace and support for the familyboth personal and professionalof the Lafayette Police SWAT officer who was tragically killed today in Jenerette. Additionally, we pray for the swift recovery of the three other LPD SWAT officers who were injured. Our thoughts are with their families and the community during this difficult time.

The Iberia Parish Sheriffs Office SWAT Team, New Iberia Police Department SWAT Team, Lafayette Police Department SWAT Team, Vermilion Parish Sheriff Office, Baldwin Police Department and Jeanerette Police Department were all called out to help with the incident.

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.
A heated confrontation between a homeowner and a family of beachgoers in Laguna Beach, California, is going viral on social media.

A video shared last week on TikTok by Rosie Garcia (@rosiecheeks_irl) shows an angry woman berating Garcia and her children, whom she accused of crossing onto her property at Victoria Beach in the upscale SoCal community.

Get f***ing moving. Im not joking around! the woman shouts while attempting to rope off a section of sand in front of an existing rope barrier. Its not harassment on the beach. Its harassment in my home property  Get moving now!

The video, titled Karen on Laguna Beach, had more than 860,000 views as of Thursday afternoon. It does not show what preceded the womans tirade. However, Garcia claims they were never on her property.

Garcia said she and her family were packing up their belongings when the woman first confronted them and told them they werent allowed to have a tent on the beach.

Maam, were f***ing walking, Garcia replied as she and the children walked toward the stairs to leave the beach, the video shows.

Video shared on TikTok shows a woman berating a family of beachgoers in Laguna Beach, California in July 2024. (@rosiecheeks_irl /TMX)

Video shared on TikTok shows a woman berating a family of beachgoers in Laguna Beach, California in July 2024. (@rosiecheeks_irl /TMX)

Pretty f***ing slow, the homeowner fired back.

The video ends with more profanity and the beachgoer calling the woman Karen of the week.

According to the California Coastal Commission, all beaches are public up to the mean high tide line.

Garcia said she reported the incident to the Coastal Commission and was told officials would investigate.

On Thursday night, Laguna Beach city officials released a statement to KTLA saying:

The City of Laguna Beach is aware of an incident involving a resident roping off a section of the beach near her property. Yesterday, two Laguna Beach Park Rangers spoke with the residents, informing them that such behavior is unacceptable regardless of property boundaries and reminding them that any beach-related issues should be reported to the City for mediation. Our community treasures the accessibility and beauty of our beaches, and it is essential that everyone treats each other respectfully to allow for the enjoyment of these spaces.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Ashley Whitely is Lakota Local Schools' new superintendent, but she's not a new face to the Lakota community.

Whitely used to teach English at Lakota East High School and has lived in the district for several years. Her daughter is in the district and will be in seventh grade this fall.

"I was not looking to just be a superintendent anywhere. This is the place that I truly wanted to be," Whitely told The Enquirer.

July 1 marked her first day as superintendent of one of the largest districts in Ohio. Lakota serves nearly 17,000 students in Butler County across 22 schools. Whitely's contract, which the board approved in May, is valid through the 2028-29 school year and guarantees her an annual base salary of $199,000. After her first year as superintendent, Whitely will be eligible for a $38,500 performance annuity based on her annual evaluation. She's also entitled to a yearly $6,000 car allowance in lieu of any mileage reimbursement, according to her contract.

Elizabeth Lolli, who has led the district in the interim after former superintendent Matt Miller left in early 2023, is working with Whitely during this transitionary period. Lolli plans to retire in August.

Whitely sat down with The Enquirer to talk about her return to Lakota and her vision for what's next for the district.

What led you to this role as Lakota's new superintendent?

Whitely started her career as an English teacher in southwestern Kentucky. After a few years teaching there she moved with her husband to Ohio and got a job at Lakota East High School.

She taught at Lakota East for five years and also served as department chair. She loved teaching Advanced Placement English and working in a disciplinary role at the main building, she said. Once Whitely realized she was ready for a full-time administrative role, she took a job at Wyoming City Schools.

Ashley Whitely is Lakota Local Schools' superintendent. Her contract goes through the 2028-29 school year.

Whitely worked as an assistant principal at Wyoming High School, then became principal and eventually assistant superintendent of the district. Thirteen years later, she said she's "coming full circle" by returning to Lakota.

"The beauty of a small district is that you really get to see all of the inner facets and all of the inner workings," she said. "Which really, I think, paved the way to be prepared for a superintendent role because you've really, just, kind of seen it all and been involved in it all."

What's been your perception of the district since the culture wars launched Lakota into a national spotlight?

School board drama has landed Lakota in national headlines over the last three years. Former board member Darbi Boddy often spurred debates with fellow board members about COVID-19 vaccines, critical race theory and other controversial topics. The spats between board members eventually escalated to Boddy's court-ordered absence from board meetings and her subsequent removal.

Accusations and rumors against former superintendent Miller also put Lakota in the spotlight for many months in 2022 and 2023, when he resigned.

Whitely has been around for it all, as a community member.

"I live here. And so, it's your home, right?" she said. "When you see the journey or the path that we were on, you just, you wanted something different, right? You wanted something that was more positive, you wanted something that was more a reflection of the community and the excellence that you know and have experienced as a teacher here."

But controversies in the education world weren't unique to Lakota over the last several years, Whitely said. As an educator at Wyoming during that time, she said, she offered support as she could and waited for things to blow over.

"Every district has its own struggles at any given moment," she said. "I think sometimes you would say, 'That could be us.'"

How do you plan to support teachers' mental health?

"I think mental health in any organization  whether you're a school, a business, a corporation  you know, people need to feel safe. They need to feel healthy and they need to feel supported," Whitely said.

That includes at the building and central office levels, she said.

"I think it's really making sure that you are listening to your stakeholders and their challenges and what they're going through. And then, as a team, really developing appropriate supports and making sure there are direct conduits that people know how to utilize when they need that support," she said.

Whitely said she recognizes that mental health issues became exacerbated with the COVID-19 pandemic, for staff and students. She said she will work with the district's counseling team to make sure everyone gets the mental health support they need.

How are you ensuring an open line of communication with your stakeholders?

The district is planning to host listening and learning sessions with stakeholders during the fall semester, Whitely said.

The first session was for Lakota's executive team. Subsequent sessions will be held with local business partners, students, parents, teachers and other staff.

"It's about me listening," she said. "What are our strengths? What are our growth areas? And what do you need from me as a superintendent?"

Whitely said she has an open-door policy and anyone is welcome to come by her office with or without an appointment. If she's not there, you can likely find her in a classroom.

"I think it's important to see learning first hand," Whitely said. "When you talk about teaching and learning and really see it in a classroom, I think you can see where students and teachers are really thriving, or maybe where there is a gap that we need to fill. So my goal is to be in classrooms frequently. Not as anything evaluative or anything like that, but just to really, boots on the ground, to see what teaching and learning looks like on a day to day basis so that we can support our students and support our staff."

What do you think are Lakota's strengths?

Whitely sees Lakota's supportive community as its strength.

"Support is about being able to voice your opinion and to be heard. It doesn't mean we always agree," Whitely said. "I think we have a very supportive community. I think we have a very engaged community. And I think they value education. So any time you have that, that's a win."

She also sees staff, students and administrators who want to drive a standard of excellence.

"I think a growth mindset is really important in a district. And I think we are ripe for that and ready for that," she said.

What are Lakota's weaknesses?

"As far as our growth areas, I would probably boil it down to culture. And I think that is because of where we've been as a district, and maybe the narrative around us that has happened," she said. "I think it's really just a time to reenergize and refocus a culture and really make sure that we have a clear vision of who we want to be."

She also said she's focused on improving the district's report card scores in the achievement and growth categories.

Are you worried about Lakota's budget now that pandemic relief dollars are running out?

Lakota received nearly $19 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief during the COVID-19 pandemic. That money is also referred to as ESSER.

More: Southwest Ohio schools got $745 million in pandemic relief funds. Did they spend it all?

But Lakota has already spent all of those funds, which run out in September, and said she's not worried about sustaining any programs without more relief dollars coming in. There are some school fees that are returning this year, but no programs have been cut.

"From my understanding of how we used those ESSER funds, we were actually really smart," Whitely said. "Meaning that we invested those ESSER funds in things that were still sustainable after (the funds) went away."

Why did you want to come home to Lakota?

Whitely said she has a seven-minute drive to her office now. Lakota is her home, and she waited through a two-year process to land this job.

"When you know a place has been a destination district, that they are a great district regardless of the narrative and regardless of the distractions that were happening. To be able to come home and lead a district and really know and believe that you have the skill set to do that and be what they need, and have a great team around you to help in that, that's exciting," she said.

"There's a lot of really wonderful opportunities here," she said. "I think things happen for a reason. I believe in fit, I believe in timing. And sometimes you just have to wait until all of that becomes right."

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: New Lakota superintendent answers Enquirer questions
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS)  July is Disability Pride Month, coinciding with the creation of the Americans With Disabilities Act that protects the rights of those with disabilities. To commemorate this milestone, events are being held all across Michigan, including in Lansing, where the Disability Network Capitol Area held its own celebration on Thursday.

The beautiful part about this is that we celebrate the law thats been put forward, said Mark Pierce, executive director of Disability Network Capital Area, a division of the Disability Network, a nonprofit that provides people the support to live like everyone else. One of the things events like this do is it creates a sense of disability pride, where you can say Im not a person with a disability, Im a person with a different type of ability.

(WLNS)

The American Disabilities Act was signed on July 26, 1990, and it prohibits discrimination against people with physical and mental disabilities. This includes employment, transportation, public accommodations, and more.

It was a result of a lot of people fighting for their rights. And in this country, we are taught to fight for our rights no matter who we are, no matter what we look like, said Teri Langley, executive director of Disability Network Michigan.

According to the CDC, this impacts more than a quarter of the country.

(WLNS)

The American Disabilities Act created law and legislature for there to be curb cuts, captions, Braille, and for people with disabilities to be included in every aspect of the human condition, said Pierce.

I feel really honored to be a part of it, says Jace Keith, who used to receive Disability Network services. It has impacted me because it has shown what skills I might need to be independent at home and stuff.

Keith is now a member of the board due to the Networks assistance, and thanks to the ADA.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
An officer accused of falsifying records as part of an L.A. Police Department gang-framing scandal pleaded no contest Thursday to six felony counts.

Prosecutors alleged Braxton Shaw falsified dozens of interview cards that police fill out while in the field, labeling as gang members 43 people who had made no such admission or had outright denied affiliation. Some of those people ended up in a state gang database.

The 41-year-old officer entered the plea as part of a deal with prosecutors to resolve multiple felony counts that could have seen him sentenced to decades in prison.

Shaw was among six officers from the LAPDs elite Metropolitan Division charged in 2020 in the falsified-data investigation. Charges for the other five were dismissed.

Prosecutors said some of the people Shaw misidentified wound up in the state database known as CalGang. The LAPD and the county district attorney's office later said body-worn camera footage from Shaw and his partners showed the cards had been falsified.

Read more: CHP fired nearly 60 'less lethal' rounds during one UCLA protest, new report shows

In return for Shaw's no contest plea to six felony counts of filing a false police report, a prosecutor told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter, Shaw would serve two years' probation, surrender his peace officer certification and perform 250 hours of community service. If he violates the terms of his probation, Shaw could face more than seven years in prison.

Dist. Atty. George Gascon's office also reserved the right to object to any effort by the defense at Shaw's Sept. 25 sentencing to reduce the convictions to misdemeanors.

I am pleased with the outcome of this case," Gascon said Thursday. "Mr. Shaws betrayal of the oath to serve and protect the community is not only disappointing but undermines the integrity of our law enforcement and the trust that the community places in them. Our office remains committed to fostering a legal system that operates with integrity and fairness.

The investigation into falsified records was launched in 2019 after a Van Nuys woman received a letter informing her that her son had been identified as a gang member. She believed her son was misidentified and reported it to a supervisor at a nearby police station. The supervisor reviewed body-worn camera footage and found inaccuracies by the officer. The department removed the womans son from the gang database.

Shaw's attorney Greg Yacoubian in prior hearings had portrayed his client as relying on information from other officers and sources in describing a person as a self-admitted gang member.

Field interviews of gang members were used by the department as one measure of productivity, giving officers an incentive to make stops.

In the wake of the scandal, the police chief and mayor announced the LAPD would stop submitting new entries into the CalGang database. Then-Chief Michel Moore conceded to the Police Commission that a months-long review found glaring inconsistencies and inaccuracies in how the LAPD used the database, and the chief recommended the department permanently halt its participation.

A 2020 Times analysis found that field interview cards were used more by the Metro Division than by other parts of the department. The division made up about 4% of the force but accounted for more than 20% of the departments field interview cards issued during an 18-month period.





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.
FAIR LAWN, N.J. (PIX11)  A large fire broke out at a New Jersey strip mall early Friday morning, according to fire officials.

The two-alarm fire broke out around 2:30 a.m. on Fair Lawn Avenue in Fair Lawn. Employees inside Zadies Kosher Bake Shop called police when they noticed it was much hotter inside their bakery than usual, officials said.

More Local News

Multiple businesses were damaged in the fire. The fire was believed to have started in the rear of Green Dragon Asian Cuisine, according to fire officials.

We initially sent in an engine crew through the rear of the building to try to get a handle on it. Unfortunately, the fire quickly spread, compromising the roof, said Fair Lawn Assistant Fire Ralph Rinaldo.

The roofs collapsed at Green Dragon Asian Cuisine and a barbershop next door, causing heavy damage, officials said.

The fire caused widespread damage to all the businesses located in the strip mall. Its obviously devastating to lose these small businesses as people lose their livelihoods, Rinaldo said.

No injuries were reported. The cause is under investigation by the Fair Lawn Fire Prevention Bureau.

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.
Large wine conglomerate is going bankrupt. What does it mean for its 10 California wineries?

The parent company of San Luis Obispo Countys own Laetitia Vineyard and Winery has filed for bankruptcy, leaving Laetitias future in doubt and its employees facing layoffs.

Vintage Wine Estates announced the bankruptcy filing on Wednesday. The company is one of the largest wine conglomerates in the United States, with more than 10 California wineries under its umbrella including the Arroyo Grande property.

Vintage bought Laetitia in 2019 shortly prior to going public on the stock market.

The Santa Rosa-based company has been showing signs of struggle for months, with Laetitia being just one of multiple Vintage wineries to close their tasting rooms earlier this year.

Wine grapes are illuminated during harvest at Laetitia Vineyard & Winery in Arroyo Grande in 2018.

Longtime SLO County winery suddenly closes tasting room. Heres why and whats next

Vintage expects commercial operations to continue largely business-as-usual during the bankruptcy proceedings, the company said in a news release about its bankruptcy filing, but it is unclear exactly what this means for Laetitia and its other wineries.

The future of Laetitia depends on a buyer stepping up to purchase the bankrupt Vintage for its parts.

In conjunction with its filing for bankruptcy, Vintage has filed a notice for mass layoffs with California authorities after already cutting its workforce by at least 15% earlier this year and 7% in 2023.

Vintage will now slice 377 jobs across 10 locations due to permanent closures, including 20 positions at Laetitia, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notice. Whether or not those employees will get their jobs back after a potential sale of Vintages assets remains to be seen.

Laetitia Vineyard and Winery did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brut Rose, left, and Brut Coqurd, are among the sparkling wines made by Laetitia Vineyard and Winery in Arroyo Grande.

In the news release, Vintage also said that it sold one of its Napa wineries for $10.5 million to pay help down its existing debt, and it announced its intention to voluntarily delist from the stock market. Vintages stock price has plummeted since its initial debut at $9.68 in 2020 to under 10 cents today.

The decision to file for the voluntary petition for reorganization under chapter 11 was made after a careful evaluation of the companys financial situation and a determination that it is in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders, the news release said.

In January, when Vintage Wine Estates announced the 15% staff cuts, the company said it was restructuring its operations and planned to focus on its Premium+ brands, which included Laetitia.

We expect this transformation to result in a smaller company, but one that can grow sustainably while generating top-quartile industry margins, Vintage Wine Estates President and CEO Seth Kaufman said in a news release at the time. We are taking immediate actions now to move toward this vision.

Rodolfo Cardenas puts capsules on bottles of sparkling wine at Laetitia Vineyard and Winery in Arroyo Grande in 2013.

Deborah K. Pawlowski of Vintage Wine Estates said that Laetitia was a priority brand for the company.

Laetitia is a prime Central Coast property (where) we have about 1,100 vineyard acres owned and leased, she said.

Pawlowski said the company chose to temporarily close the local tasting room as they work to reposition and drive even greater brand desirability.

Laetitias history dates back to 1982, when French Champagne producer Maison Deutz planted its first vineyards in the Arroyo Grande Valley.

Today, according to its website, The Laetitia estate carries on in the longstanding traditions of Burgundy and Champagne with a focus on small-lot pinot noir and sparkling wines.

As of Friday, Laetitia Winerys online store and wine club membership remained open.
Octopus Teacher

A few American politicians are taking a stand for octopus-kind by introducing a bill that would ban the commercial farming of the eight-armed mollusc in the United States, while also prohibiting the import of farmed octopus meat into the country.

The bill  the Opposing the Cultivation and Trade of Octopus Produced through Unethical Strategies (OCTOPUS) Act  comes after NPR reported that a company in Spain plans to factory farm octopuses for seafood in the Canary Islands, which has alarmed both scientists and animal right activists.

Octopuses are among the most intelligent creatures in the oceans," said Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse in a statement. "And they belong at sea, not suffering on a factory farm."

Whitehouse, a Democrat, is co-sponsoring the OCTOPUS Act with Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, who said in the same statement she wants to protect her state's ecosystem and the fortunes of Alaskan fishermen who harvest seafood in the wild.

The bill proposes up to a $100,00 fine for each violation, but has loopholes for people who breed octopuses for research, replenishing native stock, or for aquariums.

Signs of Intelligent Life

The bill follows a similar ban that was made law in the state of Washington, the first government in the world to ban octopus farming.

Critics of octopus farming are concerned about its environmental impact, because a mass farming operation could become a hot spot for disease and contamination. And if the farm is out in open water, the surrounding wild open seas could suffer.

Another concern is that octopuses are apex predators and need to eat lots of other seafood, putting more pressure on overfished wildlife.

"Octopuses naturally feed on crabs and clams, small fish in the wild," US director of Compassion in World Farming, Ben Williamson told NPR in February. "It's estimated that it would take at least three pounds of wild caught fish to produce one pound of farmed octopus. So it's completely unsustainable in that respect."

But most importantly to these critics, as alluded to by Senator Whitehouse, octopuses are pretty smart.

In various experiments, octopuses have solved puzzles and navigated mazes. They can open jars with their flexible limbs and are one of the few invertebrates that can use tools. Astoundingly, they can even recognize individual people.

"Scientists have proven octopuses are complex, intelligent creatures who can feel a full range of emotions," Animal Legal Defense Fund's manager of legislative affairs Allison Ludtke told NPR. "Instead of exploiting them, we must protect this dynamic species who suffer terribly in confined settings."

More on octopuses: United Kingdom Declares Octopuses, Squids Are Sentient Beings
Migrants passing through the courtroom of the U.S. Detention Center in Port Isabel, Texas, often dont have lawyers representing them. Texas is among the states that, in an effort to get more lawyers to underserved communities, are considering an alternative pathway for law school graduates to become licensed. Veronica Gabriela Cardenas/Pool photo via The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore.  Before Bailey McQueeny-Rose attended law school at the University of Oregon, she worked in reproductive health care, first as a medical assistant and then as a trainer, teaching others to do the same job. The work opened her eyes to how access to health care differed based on the laws in the six states where she oversaw training, and she began to consider becoming a civil rights lawyer.

Shed planned to take the bar exam after law school, but in late 2023, Oregon began offering graduates an alternative pathway to practicing law. Instead of sitting for the multiday bar exam, which most states offer twice a year, new graduates can be admitted to practice in Oregon through on-the-job training.

The graduates are required to work 675 hours under the supervision of a licensed attorney as well as submit a work portfolio for approval to Oregons Board of Bar Examiners. And just like anyone who takes the traditional bar exam, those approved under whats known as a Supervised Practice Portfolio Examination, or SPPE, are required to pass an ethics test.

The bar exam is not going to teach me how to be a civil rights lawyer, McQueeny-Rose said. But the SPPE pathway, working with civil rights employers, learning what the day-to-day duties and what the day-to-day job looks like, its a hands-on way. Thats whats going to teach me how to be a civil rights lawyer.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Soon, such options will be available beyond Oregon, as other states begin rethinking their reliance on the bar exam as the sole means to ensure qualified lawyers enter the profession. Already, Minnesota, Nevada, Utah and Washington are considering comparable licensure options, and California has been studying the approach. Arizona, South Dakota and Texas have expressed interest in such programs as well. And New Hampshire since 2005 has had a version of supervised practice that allows a select group of law school scholars to work in the state upon graduation.

Many states see alternative licensure as a way of directing graduates toward areas of the law with too few specialists or to places where people lack access to legal representation. Such places might include rural areas and other underserved communities.

Oregon and other states have faced challenges in meeting the demand for public defenders. Many states in the West with large rural expanses  including Arizona and Idaho  have counties with only a few lawyers. The new pathway also is expected to diversify who becomes a lawyer; law schools have long known that wealthier students are more likely to pass the bar exam, as are white graduates.

The bar exam is not going to teach me how to be a civil rights lawyer.

 Bailey McQueeny-Rose, University of Oregon School of Law graduate

Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Meagan Flynn said in an interview that shes been astounded at the various approaches emerging in other states since Oregons move. She serves on a national committee of lawyers and court officials who will recommend practical changes to help diversify the bar admissions process through the National Center for State Courts, an administrative organization.

And really, no two look alike, Flynn said. Every state looking at this is coming up with very, very state-specific approaches.

States administer their own bar exams and determine passing scores. Most states use the Uniform Bar Exam, and some states have their own specific tests. Critics of the bar exam say that in most states, it doesnt assess minimum competency to practice the law, especially when it comes to skills that involve working directly with clients, such as handling negotiations or counseling people facing incarceration, divorce, bankruptcy or other stressful matters.

Multiple-choice tests fail to assess whether someone has the necessary skills to be a good lawyer, said Catherine Bramble, an associate professor at Brigham Young University Law School in Utah. And research has found that new lawyers perform better if theyve had practice and supervision.

We all know this intuitively, said Bramble, who has been pushing for change in Utah. Some things are not best assessed through a multiple-choice test. For example, the ability to fly an airplane. We would really hope a pilot has time in the cockpit under observation of an experienced flight instructor before we allow them to fly a plane.

Real-world skills

In Utah, the state Supreme Court, which oversees licensure, is considering a supervised practice proposal that would require applicants to take a core curriculum during law school. They would be required to complete 240 hours of supervised practice, which could be paid or unpaid. Twenty of those hours would have to be client-facing work, and 50 pro bono, meaning the services are provided to clients free of charge.

Utah encourages lawyers in the state to commit to 50 hours of pro bono work each year, Bramble said, and theyve found that those who are exposed to such service early in their careers tend to continue it. The proposal would require that prospective licensees take a six-hour well-being online module that teaches lawyers how to manage the stress of a legal career. Finally, there would be a three-hour test, which would require test-takers to write a basic legal motion using a sample law and case materials.

For Nevada, its proposed rules emphasize the necessity of representing clients well, said Joan Howarth, a professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. There, the proposal in front of the state Supreme Court would allow law students to complete most of the requirements for licensure during law school.

The Oregon Supreme Court is considering approving a similar, third licensure path  in addition to the traditional bar exam and SPPE  that would allow students to take coursework and complete supervised practice requirements during school so that they are licensed when they graduate.

Even the national bar exam is changing: The National Conference of Bar Examiners will begin rolling out a NextGen test in select states in 2026, with a focus on more foundational lawyering skills such as client counseling and advising, dispute resolution, and client relationship and management.

Law schools for several decades have been incorporating more real-world skills into their curriculum, said Deborah Jones Merritt, professor emerita at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, who has studied the bar exams deficiencies in producing good lawyers. Merritts research has determined that the exam is far more challenging to pass for people of color, those with caretaking responsibilities, or those who come from low-income households.

Beginnings of change

Many states began rethinking the necessity of the bar exam in 2020 during the pandemic, when gathering hundreds of people together in a big room for an exam was a potential superspreader event for COVID-19.

In place of the test, several states and the District of Columbia issued whats known as diploma privilege, the ability to practice without passing the bar. Utah, for example, required their graduates to fulfill a pro bono requirement first. It was an eye-opening experiment, said Bramble, in part because nothing crazy happened.

Then in 2021, the American Bar Association for the first time released statistics breaking down bar exam passage rates by race. White test takers were far likelier to pass the exams in 2020 than those of other races or ethnicities, according to the group. Although there are other barriers to a legal career, including law school entrance exams and the time, expense and quality of the schooling, the numbers made it clear that the bar exam itself had flaws that kept many candidates of color from becoming lawyers.

One of the biggest flaws of the bar is that its an expensive and time-consuming exam, said Brian Gallini, the former dean of the Willamette University College of Law in Oregon and one of the architects of the licensure push in the state. Law school graduates often pay for a law review class, which often can cost more than $1,000, to study for the test in the months following their graduation, as well as put off earning a living in their degree field until theyre licensed and can begin working as lawyers.

Those who work a job while they study are more likely to fail, but many students cannot afford not to work  they carry an average of $160,000 in student loan debt when they exit school.

Gallini, now the dean of the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut, fielded a lot of angry emails when he first introduced the idea to the Willamette law schools alumni in 2022. Many objections were reflexive: Critics of the proposal said they had suffered through the bar exam, so aspiring lawyers who followed them should face a similar rite of passage.

A law school graduate.

Oregons licensure is not portable for now, which means that graduates who choose the SPPE are not able to transfer their licenses to other states. This will likely change as more states adopt alternative licensure.

So far, only a handful of 2024 graduates from the states three law schools have chosen the new pathway; McQueeny-Rose said many of her peers havent been able to find supervising attorneys who are familiar enough with the program to oversee their work.

Thats also expected to change quickly. The states law schools are beginning to establish prestigious post-graduate fellowships aimed at placing SPPE participants in communities of need, including immigration law, public defense and rural law practices. Judicial clerkships also are eligible to fulfill many of the programs requirements.

McQueeny-Rose will be joining the team at Levi Merrithew Horst, a Portland, Oregon, firm, where shell work on police misconduct cases, class-action suits on behalf of incarcerated people and other civil rights work. Instead of studying for the bar, shes taking the summer off to devote time to her artwork and to move to Portland for her new job. She anticipates shell fulfill the requirements of the SPPE program in early 2025.

For me, it was a pretty easy decision, McQueeny-Rose said. I knew I wanted to stay in Oregon. Im committed to practice here, I love it here. I have a lot of ideas how to make Oregon better, and I want to stay and do my part.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Tents of homeless people are seen in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

LOS ANGELES, July 25 (Xinhua) -- California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments.

The executive order directs state agencies and departments to adopt humane and dignified policies to urgently address encampments on state property, including by taking necessary and deliberate steps to notify and support the people inhabiting the encampment prior to removal, said Newsom's office in a news release.

The state, home to nearly 40 million people, is experiencing a homelessness crisis decades in the making, with over 180,000 people estimated to have experienced homelessness on any given night in 2023, including 123,000 people who experienced unsheltered homelessness, living in tents, trailers, and vehicles across California, according to the governor's office.

"This executive order directs state agencies to move urgently to address dangerous encampments while supporting and assisting the individuals living in them -- and provides guidance for cities and counties to do the same," said Newsom in the news release, adding that "the state has been hard at work to address this crisis on our streets. There are simply no more excuses. It's time for everyone to do their part."

"It is imperative to act with urgency to address dangerous encampments, which subject unsheltered individuals living in them to extreme weather, fires, predatory and criminal activity, and widespread substance use, harming their health, safety, and well-being, and which also threaten the safety and viability of nearby businesses and neighborhoods and undermine the cleanliness and usability of parks, water supplies, and other public resources," he noted in his executive order.

Newsom's office said the governor has made record-level investments to address the housing crisis, investing over 24 billion U.S. dollars across multiple state agencies and departments, including billions of dollars in funding to assist local jurisdictions in providing services and wrap-around support to people living in encampments.

In Fiscal Year 2022-2023, these investments helped lift more than 165,000 people out of homelessness and into interim or permanent housing, the news release added.

The order came weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court decision ruled in June that local governments have the authority to ban people from sleeping and camping in public places.

California had 181,399 homeless people in January 2023, an increase of 5.8 percent from 2022, according to a national report released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last December. According to the report, California's homeless population accounted for 28 percent of the nation's total, by far the largest among all 50 states and Washington, D.C. 

Tents of homeless people are seen in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

People walk past a tent of homeless people in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

Tents of homeless people are seen in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

Tents of homeless people are seen in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

Tents of homeless people are seen in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

People are seen near a tent of homeless people in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

Tents of homeless people are seen in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)

Tents of homeless people are seen in downtown Los Angeles, California, the United States, on July 25, 2024. California governor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order on Thursday directing officials in the most populated U.S. state to urgently address homeless encampments. (Photo by Zeng Hui/Xinhua)
Migrants passing through the courtroom of the U.S. Detention Center in Port Isabel, Texas, often dont have lawyers representing them. Texas is among the states that, in an effort to get more lawyers to underserved communities, are considering an alternative pathway for law school graduates to become licensed. (Veronica Gabriela Cardenas/Pool photo via The Associated Press)

This story originally appeared on Stateline.

PORTLAND, Ore.  Before Bailey McQueeny-Rose attended law school at the University of Oregon, she worked in reproductive health care, first as a medical assistant and then as a trainer, teaching others to do the same job. The work opened her eyes to how access to health care differed based on the laws in the six states where she oversaw training, and she began to consider becoming a civil rights lawyer.

Shed planned to take the bar exam after law school, but in late 2023, Oregon began offering graduates an alternative pathway to practicing law. Instead of sitting for the multiday bar exam, which most states offer twice a year, new graduates can be admitted to practice in Oregon through on-the-job training.

The graduates are required to work 675 hours under the supervision of a licensed attorney as well as submit a work portfolio for approval to Oregons Board of Bar Examiners. And just like anyone who takes the traditional bar exam, those approved under whats known as a Supervised Practice Portfolio Examination, or SPPE, are required to pass an ethics test.

The bar exam is not going to teach me how to be a civil rights lawyer, McQueeny-Rose said. But the SPPE pathway, working with civil rights employers, learning what the day-to-day duties and what the day-to-day job looks like, its a hands-on way. Thats whats going to teach me how to be a civil rights lawyer.

Soon, such options will be available beyond Oregon, as other states begin rethinking their reliance on the bar exam as the sole means to ensure qualified lawyers enter the profession. Already, Minnesota, Nevada, Utah and Washington are considering comparable licensure options, and California has been studying the approach. Arizona, South Dakota and Texas have expressed interest in such programs as well. And New Hampshire since 2005 has had a version of supervised practice that allows a select group of law school scholars to work in the state upon graduation.

Many states see alternative licensure as a way of directing graduates toward areas of the law with too few specialists or to places where people lack access to legal representation. Such places might include rural areas and other underserved communities.

Oregon and other states have faced challenges in meeting the demand for public defenders. Many states in the West with large rural expanses  including Arizona and Idaho  have counties with only a few lawyers. The new pathway also is expected to diversify who becomes a lawyer; law schools have long known that wealthier students are more likely to pass the bar exam, as are white graduates.

The bar exam is not going to teach me how to be a civil rights lawyer.

 Bailey McQueeny-Rose, University of Oregon School of Law graduate

Oregon Supreme Court Chief Justice Meagan Flynn said in an interview that shes been astounded at the various approaches emerging in other states since Oregons move. She serves on a national committee of lawyers and court officials who will recommend practical changes to help diversify the bar admissions process through the National Center for State Courts, an administrative organization.

And really, no two look alike, Flynn said. Every state looking at this is coming up with very, very state-specific approaches.

States administer their own bar exams and determine passing scores. Most states use the Uniform Bar Exam, and some states have their own specific tests. Critics of the bar exam say that in most states, it doesnt assess minimum competency to practice the law, especially when it comes to skills that involve working directly with clients, such as handling negotiations or counseling people facing incarceration, divorce, bankruptcy or other stressful matters.

Multiple-choice tests fail to assess whether someone has the necessary skills to be a good lawyer, said Catherine Bramble, an associate professor at Brigham Young University Law School in Utah. And research has found that new lawyers perform better if theyve had practice and supervision.

We all know this intuitively, said Bramble, who has been pushing for change in Utah. Some things are not best assessed through a multiple-choice test. For example, the ability to fly an airplane. We would really hope a pilot has time in the cockpit under observation of an experienced flight instructor before we allow them to fly a plane.

Real-world skills

In Utah, the state Supreme Court, which oversees licensure, is considering a supervised practice proposal that would require applicants to take a core curriculum during law school. They would be required to complete 240 hours of supervised practice, which could be paid or unpaid. Twenty of those hours would have to be client-facing work, and 50 pro bono, meaning the services are provided to clients free of charge.

Utah encourages lawyers in the state to commit to 50 hours of pro bono work each year, Bramble said, and theyve found that those who are exposed to such service early in their careers tend to continue it. The proposal would require that prospective licensees take a six-hour well-being online module that teaches lawyers how to manage the stress of a legal career. Finally, there would be a three-hour test, which would require test-takers to write a basic legal motion using a sample law and case materials.

For Nevada, its proposed rules emphasize the necessity of representing clients well, said Joan Howarth, a professor at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. There, the proposal in front of the state Supreme Court would allow law students to complete most of the requirements for licensure during law school.

The Oregon Supreme Court is considering approving a similar, third licensure path  in addition to the traditional bar exam and SPPE  that would allow students to take coursework and complete supervised practice requirements during school so that they are licensed when they graduate.

Even the national bar exam is changing: The National Conference of Bar Examiners will begin rolling out a NextGen test in select states in 2026, with a focus on more foundational lawyering skills such as client counseling and advising, dispute resolution, and client relationship and management.

Law schools for several decades have been incorporating more real-world skills into their curriculum, said Deborah Jones Merritt, professor emerita at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law, who has studied the bar exams deficiencies in producing good lawyers. Merritts research has determined that the exam is far more challenging to pass for people of color, those with caretaking responsibilities, or those who come from low-income households.

Beginnings of change

Many states began rethinking the necessity of the bar exam in 2020 during the pandemic, when gathering hundreds of people together in a big room for an exam was a potential superspreader event for COVID-19.

In place of the test, several states and the District of Columbia issued whats known as diploma privilege, the ability to practice without passing the bar. Utah, for example, required their graduates to fulfill a pro bono requirement first. It was an eye-opening experiment, said Bramble, in part because nothing crazy happened.

Then in 2021, the American Bar Association for the first time released statistics breaking down bar exam passage rates by race. White test takers were far likelier to pass the exams in 2020 than those of other races or ethnicities, according to the group. Although there are other barriers to a legal career, including law school entrance exams and the time, expense and quality of the schooling, the numbers made it clear that the bar exam itself had flaws that kept many candidates of color from becoming lawyers.

One of the biggest flaws of the bar is that its an expensive and time-consuming exam, said Brian Gallini, the former dean of the Willamette University College of Law in Oregon and one of the architects of the licensure push in the state. Law school graduates often pay for a law review class, which often can cost more than $1,000, to study for the test in the months following their graduation, as well as put off earning a living in their degree field until theyre licensed and can begin working as lawyers.

Those who work a job while they study are more likely to fail, but many students cannot afford not to work  they carry an average of $160,000 in student loan debt when they exit school.

Gallini, now the dean of the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut, fielded a lot of angry emails when he first introduced the idea to the Willamette law schools alumni in 2022. Many objections were reflexive: Critics of the proposal said they had suffered through the bar exam, so aspiring lawyers who followed them should face a similar rite of passage.

Oregons licensure is not portable for now, which means that graduates who choose the SPPE are not able to transfer their licenses to other states. This will likely change as more states adopt alternative licensure.

So far, only a handful of 2024 graduates from the states three law schools have chosen the new pathway; McQueeny-Rose said many of her peers havent been able to find supervising attorneys who are familiar enough with the program to oversee their work.

Thats also expected to change quickly. The states law schools are beginning to establish prestigious post-graduate fellowships aimed at placing SPPE participants in communities of need, including immigration law, public defense and rural law practices. Judicial clerkships also are eligible to fulfill many of the programs requirements.

McQueeny-Rose will be joining the team at Levi Merrithew Horst, a Portland, Oregon, firm, where shell work on police misconduct cases, class-action suits on behalf of incarcerated people and other civil rights work. Instead of studying for the bar, shes taking the summer off to devote time to her artwork and to move to Portland for her new job. She anticipates shell fulfill the requirements of the SPPE program in early 2025.

For me, it was a pretty easy decision, McQueeny-Rose said. I knew I wanted to stay in Oregon. Im committed to practice here, I love it here. I have a lot of ideas how to make Oregon better, and I want to stay and do my part.

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.
Young people, drawn by flavored tobacco products, often get hooked on vaping and smoking and end up with a habit for life. (Vera Vita/Getty Images)

Young people, drawn by flavored tobacco products, often get hooked on vaping and smoking and end up with a habit for life. (Vera Vita/Getty Images)

As a student at Lake Oswego Junior High, I first learned about tobacco, smoking and e-cigarettes. It was viewed as a fun but costly activity to do with friends.

Then in the seventh-grade, my health teacher warned us of the dangers of smoking. I remember looking at my friend and laughing. Who would knowingly poison themselves?

Now, as I prepare to become a high school senior, I understand why many young people become addicted to tobacco: It is sold in a wide variety of flavors that appeal to kids. It is promoted as a stress reliever, a recreational activity, and above all, it is the new norm for many my age. Companies target unsuspecting youth with vibrant packaging and flavors that mask tobaccos taste, a marketing device designed to downplay the dangers while cultivating the perfect audience for their products.

Flavors, especially for youth, are tools to hook us, too often for life. Flavors hide the foul taste of tobacco but also the realism of the damage done every time my friends take a hit. Whether that be traditional cigarettes or the dangerous e-cigarette, the threat is real. No teen craves the flavor of tobacco. But pineapple ice? Birthday cake?

Its simple. Whats thought of as a one-time activity very quickly cascades into a spiral of addiction. Kids and teens dont understand the depth of what theyre getting themselves into when they take their first hit. Its time for a future in which Oregonian youth can reach adulthood without the pressures of tobacco marketing and use.

Oregon lawmakers have had multiple opportunities to get flavored tobacco products out of our communities. House Bill 3090 would have eliminated sales of flavored tobacco products in Oregon, but fell just short in the 2023 legislative session because of the walkout.

But now lawmakers are under renewed pressure to act. Multiple city councils, county commissions and agencies across the state have asked for action, with Deschutes County just this week calling for an end of the sale of flavored tobacco products and urging the Legislature to take up the issue in next years session. The Klamath County Board of Commissioners and the Klamath Falls City School District have made a similar appeal, joining at least 10 other jurisdictions that have passed resolutions  Salem, Lake Oswego, Newport among them  and seven more are currently in that process, including Eugene, Benton County and Clatsop County.

I can personally attest to the severity of this issue. Friends and peers are entrapped into a cycle of use and, by the time they realize, it feels like it is too late. Ask any high schooler you know, and I guarantee they will have dozens of encounters theyd be willing to share.

While I dont believe it is ever too late for someone to ask for help, those who do often face a harsh and long recovery, including social pressures, unwanted family attention and possible disciplinary consequences. Thats why many never ask for help.

My friends and peers who use these products are not evil. Too many generalizations are made about victims of addiction from both adults and fellow students. We need to get educated about the threat of the products and the necessary steps for prevention.

This is precisely why Im advocating for ending the sale of flavored tobacco products through the Lake Oswego Youth Leadership Council. Its my hope that my work can help at least one person quit using flavored tobacco.

I have had friends tell me that were it not for the flavors, they would be less inclined to use them and might even drop them all together. Many others would never have started. Data from the National Institutes of Health shows that 80% of youth who consume tobacco use flavored products, and 75% say theyd quit if they werent flavored.

My advocacy is about protecting my 6-year-old neighbor who doesnt know what an e-cig is. Its about making sure his dad can feel safe dropping him off at school every morning and its for the hundreds of thousands of other families who face this threat. Early death is a clear consequence of tobacco use, a fact that can be hard to come to grips with when you are in junior high.

Lawmakers have the ability to end the sale of all flavored tobacco products in the state. They have heard from us, and they have seen the damage themselves in their own schools. Thousands of kids have gotten hooked as we wait for their next opportunity to act. Corporate tobaccos profit model diminishes childrens lives, their health, their happiness. That simply cannot be acceptable for anybody who cares about the future of Oregon.
State Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward meets with State Sens. Tom Brandt of Plymouth and Danielle Conrad of Lincoln during the first day of the Legislture's special session on property taxes on Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

LINCOLN  A new K-12 school funding proposal from a bipartisan segment of five urban and rural Nebraska lawmakers is being pitched as an alternative approach to provide tax relief.

State Sen. Jana Hughes of Seward, a former school board member, introduced Legislative Bill 9 on Thursday. She has nicknamed the proposal Lower the Levy Cap because, over the course of 10 years, maximum general fund property tax rates for local K-12 school districts would fall to 25 cents per $100 of taxable valuation.

In the first year, maximum tax rates would fall from $1.05 per $100 of taxable valuation to 65 cents. The state would fill in the gap to cover the local portion of the school funding. Every two years after, lawmakers would have to find more state funding to lower the tax rate cap by an additional 10 cents, until the 2033-34 fiscal year when the cap would be reduced to 25 cents.

Lower the Levy Cap concept

Lower the Levy Cap would require about $444 million additional funds in its first year, according to estimates from Hughes and her office. She said her proposal is not anti the governors plan but is simply another approach to property tax relief.

Its just another way to do it, and I think its reasonable and can actually get accomplished because its just not quite so much money and we time it out over 10 years, Hughes said.

Hughes began working on the concept this spring shortly after a prior proposal that she had backed didnt pass.

Pillen, similarly, has suggested lowering the levy cap to 0 cents by the middle of 2027. That shift would require upwards of $2.6 billion, including nearly $1 million in current tax relief programs.

We cannot go away with nothing, Hughes told the Nebraska Examiner last week. Im worried we might be running into a buzz saw of nothing, and thats not acceptable to me.

State Sens. Tom Brandt of Plymouth, Myron Dorn of Adams, Danielle Conrad of Lincoln and Lynne Walz of Fremont were part of the bipartisan group working with Hughes.

An alternative option

Brandt said the group set out to find a practical solution and offer an alternative for the states 49 lawmakers to consider. In anticipation of the session, the group decided to divide and conquer, Brandt said, with each of them reaching out to about 10 other senators to explain the impact.

Today, I could easily say 40 of them are absolutely aware of this, and like it, Brandt said.

Hughes and the team shared the plan with local stakeholders and public school leaders, as well as Pillen and his staff, and asked for feedback.

According to estimates from Hughes staff, the proposal would lower property taxes for a home valued at $250,000 by an average of nearly $800. For a business property valued at $500,000, the savings would be more than $1,500. And for 80 acres of irrigated farmland, it would be more than $3,700 in savings, on average.

Conrad said that stood in sharp contrast to Pillens plan, which State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn introduced on his behalf Thursday. Contrary to past statements that the governors plan would reduce property tax rates to 0 in three years, Linehans LB 1 included no direct reductions.

At a news conference announcing his ideas last week, Pillen said the state needed to act now and couldnt have a 10-year incremental plan.

My job as governor is to make sure we have a plan so we can grow the State of Nebraska, and we have to do it now, Pillen said. If we dont do it now, the partys over and this place shrinks. I dont want to be any part of that.

Hughes said she is in favor of removing some sales tax exemptions and has herself in the past proposed increasing the tax on e-cigarettes, or vapes, to 20% wholesale. The Pillen-led plan suggests a 30% tax on vaping products.

A second Hughes bill, LB 19, calls for a 2% excise tax on taxable personal property that is sold, given or furnished via mail, delivery service, online sales, telephone or other electronic method. If enacted, the change would take effect July 1, 2025.

That tax rate would add 2 cents to a statewide sales tax rate of 5.5 cents per dollar purchase, as well as any other local sales tax rates (those range from 0.5 to 2 cents).

Grandest challenge for lawmakers

Conrad, who along with Walz is a member of the Legislatures Education Committee, said Lower the Levy Cap provides more resources and tax relief statewide.

In the face of Pillens misguided and radical plan, Conrad said, their alternative is gaining support at every moment. She said its more fiscally sustainable and doesnt rely upon huge tax increases.

We are well positioned to use this measure as a centerpiece to move forward this session, which is thrilling, Conrad said.

Brandt said he believes that the Legislature faces the grandest challenge that hes seen in his six years in the Legislature, but he sees a chance to rise to the occasion.

Im not being facetious when I say that, Brandt said. Weve talked about property tax, weve picked at the edges. We have an opportunity to focus on meaningful property tax relief for all the people in the state.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS)  A Lansing Community College professor is on administrative leave after being arrested during a police child sex sting operation.

Jonathan Marshall Tenbrink, 42, is charged with one count each of child sexually abusive activity and accosting a minor for immoral purposes, and two counts of using a computer to commit a crime.

Lansing Police Department Special Operations Section and a detective from Eaton County Sheriff arrested Tenbrink while conducting a sting operation on July 17.

Holt coach was one of four arrested in child predator operation

Tenbrink was arraigned July 18 in the 54A District Court in Lansing. He pled not guilty on all counts.

Dr. Jonathan Ten Brink is Program Faculty Chair of the Music Program at Lansing Community College. (Photo/LCC)

The Court document spelled his last name as Tenbrink, but the college spells it as Ten Brink online.

Dr. Tenbrink is listed as the LCC Music Program Faculty Chair.

An LCC official confirmed with 6 News that a Lansing Community College employee has been placed on administrative leave effective July 18, 2024, following an arrest by the Lansing Police Department. As the case is pending, we have no additional comments at this time.

Tenbrink was also involved with the Okemos Community Church as Director of Worship, Music and Technology until Mon., July 22, four days before his arrest. He had served at the church since August 2018, and resigned from his position.

The Okemos Community Church maintains that Tenbrink did not have direct contact with minors in his professional role at the church and that they have not been contacted by authorities regarding the investigation.

We are in the early stages of our investigation, Tenbrinks attorney, Edwar Zeineh told 6 News in a written statement. It is always important to remind others that our client is presumed innocent of these charges, a constitutional right which all citizens have.

Tenbrink has a scheduled probable cause conference on Aug. 1 at 9:30 a.m.

As of Friday, he is out on a $50,000 bond.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WLNS 6 News.
A new leadership team will be at the helm of the Gainesville Empowerment Zones Family Learning Center as it enters its second year of its efforts to close the achievement gap between Black and white students in Alachua County.

The center is located at 1250 NE 18th Ave. on the northwest part of the Metcalfe Elementary School campus. The Alachua County School Board in February 2022 approved a lease to GNV4ALL for three years after former Superintendent Karen Clarke suggested the more than 8,000-square-foot Metcalfe building be used to house the center.

The center, which serves struggling families with children 6 weeks to 4 years old, has an ongoing registration process and officials invite the public to take advantage of the wrap-around services the center offers for the entire family.

Registration for the centers services can be done online at GNV4ALL@GNV4ALL.org or by calling 352-225-3931.

The center has the capacity to accommodate 128 kids, and its building features a dining room, laundry room, two offices, rooms for children of different ages, a storage room, a laboratory and an outdoor classroom with a playground area.

Learning model: Family Learning Center seeks to improve public education

Volunteer pre-kindergarten (VPK) classes at the center start Aug. 12, the same day school starts for Alachua County Public Schools students, said James Lawrence, president and CEO of Gainesville For All (GNV4ALL), which was launched as an initiative of The Gainesville Sun and spun off as an independent agency with its own nonprofit charter in 2021 to find long-term solutions to long-term inequities that often fall along racial lines.

The center grew out of the 2018 report "Understanding Inequities in Alachua County," which examines the disparities between Black residents and others in the community.

The new leadership team will work hard to meet the needs of the families the center serves. The new team who will assume their new roles on Aug. 5 includes Cathyann Solomon, the new executive director, Trish White, the new interim site manager and Schuran Cartwright, the new curriculum coordinator and lead VPK teacher.

The Gainesville Empowerment Zone Family Learning Center on the campus of Metcalf Elementary School in NE Gainesville has registration that is ongoing as it seeks to meet its student capacity of 128 students ages 6-weeks to 4-years-old.

Were excited about our new leadership team, Lawrence said. Each possesses the skills needed to help us accomplish our mission of building strong families.

Solomon, a native of Trinidad, moved to Gainesville in 1999 and formerly was an associate director at Catholic Charities until she relocated four years ago to Cincinnati where her daughter, Sydni, was enrolled at the University of Cincinnati. As executive director she will be actively involved in forming community partnerships and collaborations as well as leading the centers management team, Lawrence said.

Increasing our enrollment and making the community more aware of the services we provide and how we can benefit families is my top priority, Solomon said. It appears the community is not fully aware of what we have to offer, and that our mission is to make sure kids are prepared and ready to start kindergarten. This is not a daycare center.

Building relationships with elementary schools, libraries, attending community events and engaging with the community in every way possible is how she plans to make the community more aware of the center, Solomon said.

White is a longtime Gainesville resident who joined the center in January as family engagement specialist. She is leveraging her extensive background in supporting and empowering families to ensure they have the resources and guidance needed to foster their childrens early education, Lawrence said.

White will continue in her family engagement role as she assumes additional duties as site manager on an interim basis, Lawrence said.

Cartwright, a native of South Florida, has served as interim director since January. With more than 20 years of experience in childcare, she holds a Bachelor of Science degree in human services and an associate degree in early childhood education.

In her new role, Cartwright welcomes a return to the classroom as lead VPK teacher and working with other center teachers as curriculum coordinator, Lawrence said.

The center earlier this year received a high rating from the Early Learning Coalition of Alachua County, which is a sign of the success of the center in its first year of operation, Lawrence said.

The center received an assessment score of 5.53, which is the high end of the mid-range, and just short of 6 and the excellent category. The ELC assessment scores range from 1.2 to 7 and are based on direct observations of teacher and child interactions. The scores are weighed by the presence of specific dimensions such as effective teaching practices, Cartwright said in a press release several months ago.

On the heels of receiving the high rating from the ELC, a $35,000 donation was made to the center by the Harris Rosen Foundation.

As founder of Orlando-based Rosen Hotel & Resorts, which created the Rosen Foundation 37 years ago to provide opportunities for underserved communities, I know a few things about startups and the importance of early learning in a childs life, said Harris Rosen, president and COO of Rosen Hotels & Resorts Inc., Floridas largest independent hotelier, in a press release in May. Seasoned as I am in both of these areas, I have been struck by the tenacity of Gainesville For All and its supporters in their efforts to improve academic achievement among children from low-income families.

This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Registration ongoing at learning center in NE Gainesville
A popular and powerful text-to-video AI generator developed by Runway was trained on copious amounts of pirated content and ripped off YouTube videos, according to a gigantic internal spreadsheet obtained by 404 Media.

Last month, the company's Gen-3 Alpha video generation tool drew huge amounts of attention, with publications  including Futurism  lauding the almost photorealistic clips it could generate. At the time, Runway claimed that Gen-3 Alpha was "trained jointly on videos and images," but stopped far short of elaborating on the source of the data.

Now, according to the document obtained by 404 Media, there may be a good reason for that coyness. The spreadsheet is chock full of popular content drawn from major YouTube channels, including those belonging to Disney, Netflix, and Sony, in addition to links to websites that are known to host pirated content.

https://twitter.com/MKBHD/status/1816487078265344313

While 404 Media couldn't confirm that Gen-3 Alpha was trained on all of the listed assets, it seems circumstantially very likely  and, as such, a striking new piece of evidence that AI companies are shamelessly stealing content to feed AI models with a complete disregard for copyright  a consistently recurring pain point in the world of generative AI.

While questions remain as to which videos actually made it into the training data, 404 Media was effortlessly able to generate believable videos of well-known YouTube personalities.

Runway even reportedly went as far as to hide its tracks by using a proxy to avoid being blocked by YouTube.

"The channels in that spreadsheet were a company-wide effort to find good quality videos to build the model with," an unnamed former employee told 404 Media. "This was then used as input to a massive web crawler which downloaded all the videos from all those channels, using proxies to avoid getting blocked by Google."

Runway raised a whopping $141 million in funding last year, including from YouTube owner Google, Salesforce, and chipmaker NVIDIA  for a heady valuation of $1.5 billion.

And it's not just Runway that has come under fire for using copyrighted material without obtaining the necessary licenses to train its AI models. Earlier this year, OpenAI CTO Mira Murati claimed in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that she didn't know if training data for the company's upcoming Sora video generator included videos from YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook  a bizarre admission that drew plenty of skepticism.

A couple of weeks later, the New York Times revealed that OpenAI had ignored corporate policies to skirt copyright laws, relying on tools that transcribe YouTube videos to train its AI chatbots.

Meanwhile, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan warned AI companies that training AI models on YouTube videos would be a "clear violation" of the video platform's terms of use.

In other words, this latest report is yet more evidence that AI companies including Runway and OpenAI are playing fast and loose with copyrighted material.

The topic of intellectual property will likely remain a major sticking point in the development of generative AI, perhaps especially when it comes to AI models that can generate entire videos.

The tech is even forcing legislators to revisit "fair use," a doctrine that permits the limited use of copyrighted material under US law. While AI companies have previously argued that much of the scraped data is fair game in court, many copyright holders have cried foul, leading to a fierce and still growing legal battle.

And by linking its work to ripped-off and pirated videos, Runway has vaulted itself into the hot seat.

More on generative AI: Google Researchers Publish Paper About How AI Is Ruining the Internet
Your voter guide for Michigan's August primary election: See who's on the ballot

A mural encouraging Michiganders to vote outside the offices for ACLU of Michigan in Detroit on Friday, June 14, 2024.

Amid all the visits Michigan's seen lately from the presidential candidates  as well as a lot of other news involving a switch among presumptive Democratic nominees, an assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump and more  it would be understandable if some voters lost track of our upcoming August 6 primary.

Yes, there's an election right around the corner. And while it doesn't carry the cache of a presidential primary  we had those way back in February, in what seems now like a universe, politically speaking  these are important.

That's why we're providing you with a handy-dandy voter's guide right here. Here's what to know.

What are the key Michigan August primary election races?

Our voter guide provides details about the candidates in competitive primaries vying for their parties' nominations to the major races to be decided in the general election on Nov. 5, including:

 Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat

 All 13 of Michigan's U.S. House seats, with a couple of potential tossups

 Michigan's state House of Representatives seats

And more!

How do I vote in the 2024 Michigan August primary election?

Absentee voting has already begun for the Michigan primaries and statewide early in-person voting will begin on Saturday, July 27. And of course, there will be in-person voting on Election Day, Aug. 6.

More: Voting absentee in the Michigan primary? Here's how to make sure your ballot made it.

More: Early voting for Michigan's August primary election begins July 27

Remember, if you're not registered to vote already and you want to vote in the Democratic or Republican primary, you'll need to visit your local clerk's office and register in person with proof of residency documentation. You can learn more about that, deadlines and locations for early voting and getting and submitting an absentee ballot at Michigan.gov/Vote.

And remember to come back to the Free Press on Aug. 6 (and thereafter!) to see how the election is progressing and how the general election contests shape up.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: August primary election 2024 in Michigan: Your voter guide
OKLAHOMA CITY  Less than a month before Oklahoma school districts begin classes, the state schools superintendent issued guidance for how public schools might incorporate his directive that the Bible be taught in every classroom.

In late June, Republican State Superintendent Ryan Walters ordered school districts statewide to integrate the Bible as an instructional support into the curriculum" for grades five through 12. While the controversial mandate has prompted outrage from civil rights groups and some Democratic lawmakers, Walters has argued that the Bible is "foundational for education" and a "cornerstone of Western civilization."

The guidelines from Walters detail how teachers should add the Bible to their lesson plans and how it should be taught for different grades.

Immediate and complete implementation of these guidelines for the 2024-2025 school year is required, Walters said in a memo sent to district superintendents. This memorandum and the included standards must be provided to every teacher, as well as providing a physical copy of the Bible, the United States Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Ten Commandments as resources in every classroom in the school district. These documents are mandatory for the holistic education of students in Oklahoma.

But the list of large districts that have said they wont be altering their curriculum despite the directive has grown to at least eight.

The Oklahoma Attorney Generals Office has said state law already allows for the Bible to be taught in classrooms, but doing so is a district-by-district decision. Based on comments to the media and letters sent to patrons, most of the districts that dont plan to implement the directive have leaned on that principle of local control in making their respective decisions concerning curriculum.

The Center for Education Law also has issued a memorandum to Oklahoma school districts calling Walters mandate invalid under state law. Earlier this year, the legal firm successfully represented Edmond Public Schools in the districts lawsuit against Walters and the Oklahoma State Board of Education. Responding to that lawsuit, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled the content of school libraries was a decision to be made by a local school board, not the state board.

Where do other states stand? Louisiana requires Ten Commandments in schools.

'No plans to change course from our current materials'

Piedmont Public Schools, in a letter to parents, said it adheres to the current set of Oklahoma State Academic Standards, which "acknowledge the significant influence of various religions in world history and culture."

"Studies include discussions on the impact of religion in shaping societies, traditions, and historical events," the Piedmont letter read. However, it is important to clarify that while students learn about religion's role in historical and cultural contexts, teaching any specific religious doctrine or practice is not a part of the current standards."

Jenks Public Schools in suburban Tulsa also told parents they have "no plans to change course from our current materials."

Jenks Public Schools will continue to use our current curriculum and approved resources aligned to the Oklahoma Academic Standards approved by the Oklahoma State Legislature, the letter said.

Other large districts that have indicated they wont follow the directive, but will stick with their locally approved curriculum, are Norman Public Schools, Moore Public Schools, Stillwater Public Schools, Bixby Public Schools, Yukon Public Schools, and the Deer Creek School District.

Oklahoma House Democrats urged more school districts to join the eight that said they plan not to follow Walters' directive.

"The state superintendent continues to feel emboldened enough to make mandates he has no authority to implement, said Rep. Cyndi Munson, of Oklahoma City, the House minority leader. "This is nothing more than an attempt to strip Oklahomans of their religious freedom. The state superintendent can say this Bible mandate is not for religious purposes all he wants, but his unlawful, unfunded mandate and clear disregard for the legislative process says otherwise."

What does Ryan Walters' guidance concerning Bible teaching contain?

The five-page document that lists the guidance says it provides guidelines for teachers on how to approach incorporation in a manner that emphasizes only its historical, literary and secular benefits, ensuring compliance with legal standards and precedents. It includes guidance on using the Bible to teach historical context, including its impact on Western civilization and U.S. history; as well as to teach its literary significance and the influence its had on art and music.

Under a section labeled Implementation Strategies, the document has subsections labeled Textual Analysis, Comparative Studies, Historical Documents and Speeches and Critical Thinking and Discussion, with ways Walters wants the Bible taught in classrooms.

The document also includes grade-specific guidelines, for students in grades five through 12. It also includes a Legal Considerations section. Among those instructions:

Ensure that all instruction is conducted in a neutral and objective manner. Teachers must not promote or favor any religious beliefs, focusing solely on the historical and literary aspects of the Bible.

Acknowledge the Bibles influence while recognizing and respecting the diversity of religious beliefs among students. Incorporate perspectives from other religious and secular traditions to provide a balanced view while remaining mindful of all rules for grade level and age level appropriate material.

Maintain open communication with parents about the purpose and content of incorporating the Bible as an instructional support into the curriculum. Provide information on how the curriculum addresses historical and literary aspects, emphasizing that it is not an endorsement of any religious belief.

The Bible must be used in student instruction for its historical, literary and secular value and is not to be used for religious purposes such as preaching, proselytizing or indoctrination.

Neither the original directive nor the guidance provided Wednesday indicated who would pay for the Bibles necessary to include one in every classroom, as Walters wants. There also hasn't been any indication from Walters which version, or versions, of the Bible would be acceptable to teach from.

Walters vows to force school districts to comply

In ordering instruction on the Bible, Walters has cited broad authority under Title 70 of the Oklahoma Statutes, which governs state education. The law reads, in part, School districts shall exclusively determine the instruction, curriculum, reading lists and instructional materials and textbooks, subject to any applicable provisions or requirements as set forth in law, to be used in meeting the subject matter standards. School districts may, at their discretion, adopt supplementary student assessments which are in addition to the statewide student assessments.

In its letter to school districts, the Center for Education Law said it believes Walters did not follow the states Administrative Procedures Act (APA) in issuing his directive. The APA governs the actions of state agencies and requires administrative rules to be authorized by law and passed by the agencys governing board.

The law group maintains the state Supreme Court, in its decision in Edmonds lawsuit, held unanimously that (the state Board of Education) may not exercise power unless the legislature has specifically delegated it that authority.

Walters believes he has the authority to issue such a directive and issued a veiled threat to districts that wont obey it: Some Oklahoma educators have indicated they wont follow the law and Oklahoma standards, so let me be clear: they will comply, and I will use every means to make sure of it.

Walters' order is the latest effort by conservative-led states to spread religious teachings into public classrooms.

Under a law signed by Louisiana's governor in June, every public classroom in Louisiana will be required to display the Ten Commandments. Other state leaders, including in Texas, have also proposed a curriculum that incorporates teachings from the Bible in schools.

Contributing: Thao Nguyen, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma order to teach Bible meets resistance from schools
Matt Caldwell has already served one term as property appraiser and has thrown his hat in the ring for a second term.

Incumbent Matt Caldwell threw his hat in the ring for reelection to the office of Lee County Property Appraiser.

As previously reported, since Hurricane Ian, the property appraiser's office has been in the news more than usual  first, when news of the 50% rule came out, a regulation that requires homeowners spend only up to half of the pre-disaster value of their home in repairs, unless the entire structure is brought up to current codes and floodplain management.

Then, when the Federal Emergency Management Agency initially disparaged the appraisal values out of Lee County Property Appraiser Matt Caldwell's office in February 2023, saying FEMA officials believed the values were overinflated, and threatened to kick the county's homeowner's out of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

Caldwell's office fought back, and after more than a month and several meetings, FEMA agreed that Caldwell's office had, in fact, assessed property values correctly.

"Its pretty rare you get a federal bureaucracy to admit theyre wrong," Caldwell said. "Thats a pretty big moment there."

In Lee County, per state documents on population size, the property appraiser position pays a base rate of $189,252.

Caldwell is facing a Stephen Cunningham, a real estate industry veteran, in the primary.

Winners of primary elections typically move on to the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 5, if they face a challenger. However, the two qualified candidates for Lee County Property Appraiser are both registered Republicans, meaning that whoever wins the August 20th primary will have won the seat.

Although Florida is a closed primary state, as both candidates are Republican, the primary for this race will be open to voters of all parties.

Caldwell answered a series of questions posed to him by The News-Press about his experience in office, what he hoped to do if re-elected to the office of the appraiser, and more.

Age: 42

Party: Republican

Experience: Caldwell served as a Florida House Representative from 2010 to 2018, until he was termed out. According to his bio, he served on and chaired several committees including those on tax policy, redistricting, insurance and banking, transportation and infrastructure, among others. In 2018, Caldwell ran unsuccessfully for the role of agricultural commissioner, and returned to doing property appraisals and consulting in Lee County. In 2020, Caldwell ran for and won the title of property appraiser for Lee County.

Caldwell has raised more than $19,000 in cash and in-kind contributions so far.

How do you hope to improve the work of the office of the county appraiser? What goals do you hold for yourself as appraiser? And for the office?

To continue providing high-quality constituent service while delivering a fair and equitable tax roll for Lee County. 1. Fairness and equity in valuation 2. Friendly and professional assistance in the public services 3. Continual improvement in public access to, and use of, GIS and tax records

What do your detractors say about you? Do their complaints have any merit? What are you doing to address your weaknesses?

My detractors might say I get involved in political issues beyond this office, which they find frustrating. However, the fact that I hold a public office doesnt mean that I am no longer a voter and constituent of Lee County myself. I strive to distinguish my personal political advocacy from my public role and will continue to do so.

Why should voters vote for you instead of your opponent?

I believe we have delivered on the goals outlined above and will continue to do so.

What have you done in office you are proud of? How has it helped voters?

Our engagement with FEMA, and their acquiescence to our position, following Hurricane Ian will go down as one of my proudest accomplishments in public office. Demanding, and receiving, a legally compliant process for the recovery continues to be critical for our property owners.

How has your life prepared you to serve as Lee Property Appraiser?

I spent eight years in the Florida Legislature as a state representative, which provided invaluable experience in the political process, as well as the ability to advocate for taxpayer focused legislation today. Additionally, I have over 20 years of professional real estate appraisal experience, including as an expert witness in state and federal court, which thoroughly prepared me for the responsibility of the office.

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Lee County Property Appraiser incumbent Matt Caldwell Q&A for election 2024
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- With population aging as a common global challenge, there is a burgeoning demand for innovative and comprehensive elderly care service, which unleashes potential for emerging industries.

With a growing aging population, China is expected to ride the trend and unlock rapid development of potential industries in the silver economy, drawing investment from foreign enterprises.

In 2023, people aged 60 and above in China amounted to 297 million, accounting for 21.1 percent of its total population. Experts have predicted that the number will surpass 400 million around 2035 and is expected to reach 500 million by 2050.

Meanwhile, China's silver economy now stands at around 7 trillion yuan (960 billion U.S. dollars), and is expected to reach around 30 trillion yuan (4.13 trillion dollars) by 2035.

Japan and the European Union have chosen to promote the silver economy when entering an advanced stage of aging, transforming the potential of an aging population structure into driving forces of domestic consumption by focusing on the needs and preferences of the elderly population.

The Netherlands is exploring digital applications in the field of home care; Japan is vigorously promoting nursing robots and assistant digital technologies; and Britain is developing fundamental research and business model innovation in the silver economy, according to Hu Zuquan, a researcher with China's State Information Center.

The silver economy encompasses a wide range of industries, has a long industrial chain, and exhibits diverse business forms.

Business leaders in relevant industries worldwide see opportunities in collaboration with Chinese companies and have made large investments in China.

Sindora Living, a Singapore-based corporation of nursing homes and residential care facilities, opened a high-end elderly care institution in May in Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu Province in east China.

"We see a booming market for elderly care in China in the future, and we chose to invest in China," said Nathaniel Farouz, managing director of Sindora Living.

Yada Panasonic Community is another example of foreign collaboration in the industry. In 2023, the community, aimed at providing advanced elderly care integrated into daily life, was opened in Yixing of Jiangsu Province, along with a Wellness Smart Town infused with Panasonic technologies in aging care and healthy lifestyle.

"Panasonic brought more than 20 years of experience accumulated in Japan, where the aging problem is more severe, to China, and fully participated in the building planning, landscape construction and space design of Yada Panasonic Community to create a safe and comfortable life for consumers," said Tetsuro Homma, executive vice president of Panasonic Holdings Corporation.

"Yada Panasonic Community is the largest smart retirement community of Panasonic in China, and also is the first named community of Panasonic overseas," he added.

Elderly care-related industries in China are currently mainly concentrated in basic services such as catering, nursing and health care, said Zhang Shixin, an official with the National Development and Reform Commission. The diversified and personalized needs of the senior community have not been effectively met, which contain huge development opportunities, Zhang said.

In 2023, the size of China's elderly products market reached 5 trillion yuan (548.57 billion dollars) with diverse types and large quantities. Meanwhile, there were more than 490,000 elderly care-related businesses in China at the end of 2023.

Jack Wu, managing partner of Acadia Advisory Group, told Xinhua that as a massive market, China is a good place for British investors.

"Take the elderly-care market as an example, China has a rapidly aging population, while the UK has one of the leading elderly-care industries in the world, and this will become a sector with huge investment potential between the two countries," said Wu. 
Left to languish: Jailed Marylanders in need of psychiatric treatment are waiting for months

BALTIMORE  Over the course of about a year, a 43-year-old Middle River man called police 62 times, often rambling or speaking in nonsensical speech about such things as the military infiltrating his home or his neighbors operating a sex trafficking ring involving the Baltimore Ravens.

Police described his 911 calls in court documents charging him with making false statements to officers. He was eventually convicted of two such counts and sentenced to two years of supervised probation, with the condition that he undergo mental health treatment.

But in April, after he allegedly threatened to kill his neighbors family with an airsoft pistol, the mans probation agent reported to the court that he didnt verify that he was in treatment. After he was arrested, a Baltimore County judge, at prosecutors request, ordered him evaluated for mental illness. Heeding the opinion of state doctors, the judge found he was too mentally ill to face charges that he violated his probation and that he presented a danger to himself or others.

On May 7, she ordered the Maryland Department of Health to admit him for psychiatric care within days. Yet the man remained until June 20 at the Baltimore County Detention Center, where correctional officials reported that detainees in the mental health unit sometimes smear feces on the walls, flood their cells and refuse daily activities, such as showers.

People with severe mental illness, accused of crimes in Maryland but deemed too sick by the courts to participate in their cases and who are considered dangerous, are languishing behind bars long beyond the 10-day deadline prescribed by state law for the health department to admit them to one of its five psychiatric facilities following a judges order.

It takes about 53 business days for a defendant to be admitted, the health department said. But at recent court hearings, some defendants had spent six months or more behind bars before being transferred.

The health departments 1,056 psychiatric beds are perpetually full, with patients staying in the departments care on average more than two years, health officials said. With a rapidly increasing number of court orders, the health department said it has a waitlist of close to 200 defendants.

Meanwhile, defendants often deteriorate in jails ill-equipped to care for their mental health, experts said.

Its inappropriate for individuals with serious mental illness, who are in such bad shape that those around them feel like theyre not even fit enough to go through the justice system, to languish in jails, which are some of the most nontherapeutic places that you can imagine, said E. Lea Johnston, a professor at the University of Floridas Levin College of Law.

Such delays are a nationwide crisis that dates to the 1960s, when the country transitioned away from institutionalizing the mentally ill in favor of community care, researchers said. But mental health care in the community never materialized, leaving sick people to deteriorate without support.

Individuals with mental disorder are increasingly in contact with the criminal justice system. Thats a function of not having enough community mental health resources, said Johnston, whose research focuses on mental health and criminal law. So individuals are more symptomatic, or are openly symptomatic, and come to the attention of law enforcement, and then these individuals are arrested.

The crisis is not new in Maryland  a Baltimore judge in 2017 held the health department in contempt of court, prompting the Maryland General Assembly to enact the law requiring the health department to admit defendants within 10 days of a judges order  and has only gotten worse. Frustrated judges are imposing large fines against the department.

Its an overwhelming problem, because the volume of competency decisions is increasing, and its certainly far exceeding the capacity that we have today, Dr. Laura Herrera Scott, Marylands health secretary, told The Baltimore Sun.

She pointed to data showing the courts committed almost twice as many people in 2023 than in 2020. The department has added 43 beds since 2018 and none since 2021, spokespeople said.

While health officials, judges and lawmakers search for answers, defendants suffer.

I want my client not to die

A Catonsville man was accused of a Baltimore carjacking in 2022, with witnesses telling officers he appeared to be under the influence of narcotics, police wrote in charging documents.

In April 2023, he appeared by video on the city circuit courts mental health docket, with court doctors having found his mental illness prevented him from understanding the proceedings and assisting his defense lawyers. They also believed he posed a danger to himself or others.

Circuit Judge Gale E. Rasin deemed the man incompetent to stand trial and ordered the health department to admit him.

You should be transferred to a hospital for treatment, she told him. I cannot tell you when exactly that is supposed to happen.

Two months later, the mans public defenders appeared before Rasin again. Their client remained in jail and was getting sicker. He weighed about 90 pounds, 35% less than the 140 police listed on his charging documents.

He is in a fetal position in a bed.  He refused his food, one of the public defenders, Michael Cooper, told Rasin.

Rasin read an earlier note from the jails behavioral health staff, which said he was staring with a blank expression, was irritable and argumentative and had a belief he was being poisoned.

My only question at this point, the mans other public defender, Sharon Bogins Eberhart, said, is: when is he going into a state mental health facility, as has been ordered by the court and as required by statute within 10 business days.  I just want to know when hes going. I want my client to get better. I want my client not to die.

Rasin questioned whether the health department was conducting acuity checks and whether they were working.

Every week, department clinicians check in with local detention centers to evaluate the severity of defendants psychiatric conditions. Those deemed most mentally ill are moved up the health departments waitlist, health officials said. Clinicians also must try to admit the person before they serve the maximum amount of time they could legally spend in jail if sentenced.

A health department official who attended the court hearing said the Catonsville man was slated to be taken to a hospital the next day.

This is a life-threatening situation. The system, the hospital system, its just broken. I think I said that five years ago, said Rasin, the judge who held the health department in contempt in 2017.

The man was admitted to the hospital the next day. After six months, doctors determined he was competent to stand trial, but recommended that he remain in their care.

Prosecutors later dismissed the charges against him because a witness was no longer available, a states attorneys office spokesman said. He added that the hospital delays can hinder prosecutions because victims and witnesses become disillusioned by the lengthy process.

A woman who answered the door in June at an address affiliated with him in online records identified herself as his aunt but declined to speak with a reporter. She said her nephew, now 31, was in a state mental hospital.

Squalid conditions and worsening waits

The Baltimore County Detention Centers deputy director visited the Towson jails mental health unit before testifying at a May 8 hearing where a judge was considering fining the health department for failing to admit five defendants within 10 days.

I get there and folks are screaming, Hilary Siakor-Sirleaf told Circuit Judge Nancy M. Purpura.

He described how the units squalid conditions, including walls painted with detainees excrement, strained his staff.

Every day, my officers are cleaning, Siakor-Sirleaf added. Theyre more like housekeepers.

James Dills, district public defender for Baltimore County, asked Purpura to impose fines on the back of an appellate opinion that deemed such sanctions appropriate. Calling the delays a recurring problem, the appeals judges cited a previous appellate opinion that said a defendant found incompetent to stand trial may not be detained unless the government is taking steps to provide treatment to restore the defendant to competence.

Dills struggled to contain his frustration.

The numbers arent changing. Theyre getting worse. Theres the human side of it, said Dills, referring to one of his clients who had been in jail for six months. Hes still psychotic. Hes still saying the same types of things he was saying six months ago.

Bryan Mroz, deputy secretary of the departments health care system and operations, testified for the health department, saying fines wouldnt bring it into compliance with the law, because it can only admit patients for the beds it has.

Every bed in our hospital system, including those at Clifton T. Perkins, are maxed out, said Mroz, referring to the states lone maximum security psychiatric hospital. Theyre all filled. And I can only admit [someone] when I discharge someone.

He testified that the department was adding 44 beds at a Western Maryland facility and expanding capacity at Clifton T. Perkins, but explained that hospital bed capacity was only part of its strategy. The department is also adding assisted living space within its facilities to ease placing patients into step-down care.

And the department brought on social workers to help patients get the paperwork they need to receive follow-up care, testified Mroz, adding that it also was working to stand up crisis response teams across the state to divert low-level offenders from the criminal legal system.

Were spending millions and millions of dollars trying to solve this, Mroz told Purpura.

Purpura began her ruling by reading from the preamble to the 2018 law that created the 10-day deadline, which described the issue as a serious public safety risk and a violation of the United States Constitution.

Keeping potentially dangerous, seriously mentally ill defendants from treatment exacerbates their problems and violates their right to due process, she read. The crisis of delayed treatment for seriously mentally ill and incompetent defendants in Maryland has been foreseeable for many years and well documented, facilitated by a steady reduction of capacity and staff in state hospitals while the demand for forensic beds has remained constant.

The judge ordered the department to pay $1,000 a day for defendants who had been in jail anywhere from 46 to 182 days beyond the 10-day deadline, adding up to $608,000.

Worst of all worlds

In December, a 34-year-old woman experiencing homelessness asked to borrow the cellphone of an employee at a Royal Farms in Essex and became hysterical when he asked her to return it. The employee called 911.

When police arrived, they told her to leave, but she said she wanted to go to jail and pushed over several display cases, according to court documents charging her with trespass, malicious destruction of property, disturbing the peace and resisting arrest. The woman, officers wrote, had to be physically removed out of the store.

In court April 30, a Baltimore County judge deemed her incompetent to stand trial and dangerous, ordering her committed to the health department. She remained in jail until the department admitted her June 28, almost two months later and after the judge threatened fines.

By the time doctors find those theyre treating mentally fit to stand trial, many plead guilty, are sentenced to time served and released without connection to follow-up mental health care, said Johnston, the law professor. Those accused of low-level offenses sometimes spend more time waiting for treatment than they would if sentenced to the maximum penalty.

What we have right now is almost the worst of all worlds, Johnston said. Something, almost anything, is better than that.

How to fix this crisis depends on whether one thinks that our criminal justice system has too large a footprint currently, whether we are over-criminalizing to begin with, Johnston said. If one adopts that perspective, then we shouldnt be prosecuting petty offenses that reflect symptomatic behavior.

That would require treating mentally ill people accused of petty crimes in a different setting.

If you take for granted that we continue to over-criminalize, then I do think that you have to make more use of outpatient treatment  outpatient evaluation, or evaluation within the jails, and outpatient treatment and education opportunities  if you want to restore individuals competency, Johnston said.

Health Secretary Herrera Scott said the multifaceted problem requires a comprehensive solution.

Theres a lot of activity both upstream and downstream, downstream being the residential rehab programs and assisted living units for people to discharge to, but upstream like how do we prevent people from entering the judiciary, she said in an interview.

State Del. Luke Clippinger, a Baltimore Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, agrees. Hes encouraged that stakeholders like local police and states attorneys, public defenders, the courts and the health department are discussing solutions. At the same time, he recognizes the urgency because of his day job as an Anne Arundel County prosecutor.

Finding that true global solution is something I very much feel that theyre moving towards, said Clippinger, adding that his committee would watch this closely. Well have some conversations in the legislature in the next session and probably have a briefing before the next session.

The mother of the woman who was arrested at the Royal Farms attended one of her daughters court hearings in June alongside a pastor from an Essex church who occasionally fed the woman.

On the courthouse steps, the mother and pastor described the woman, who was in jail at the time, as a sweet girl who was very sick.

This mental health system is broken, the mother said. My daughter is suffering.
Del. Andre Johnson (D-Harford) calls the meeting of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland to order July 25, the first time ever in Harford County. Photo by William J. Ford.

About 200 people traveled to Rooted Bible Fellowship Church in Edgewood on Thursday to hear 31 words from Del. Andre V. Johnson Jr. (D-Harford).

Madam Chair, members of the Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland, it is my honor and my pleasure to call this first-ever Legislative Black Caucus meeting in Harford County to order, Johnson said to rousing applause.

The Legislative Black Caucus of Maryland made history Thursday when it met for the first time in Harford County to host a town hall and to recap this years 90-day legislative session.

Johnson, who opened the meeting, was the first Black state lawmaker from the county, which has nearly 38,000 Black residents, when he was elected in November 2022. According to the Census Bureau, Harford County had a population of about 261,000 residents in 2020, of which 190,128, or 73%, were white.

The Black Caucus visit came a little more than a week after the countys Board of Education voted unanimously, after an hourslong meeting, to restore an Advanced Placement course on African American studies to its high schools.

The board had voted 5-4 last month to cancel the AP course amid concerns of some board members that it portrayed police in a negative light, lacked positive narratives and did not provide full context on topics like the Black Panther Party and Malcolm X.

Scores of speakers showed up to protest the threatened canceling of the course, which also sparked a letter from the caucus asking the school board to reconsider the course. That letter was written by Del. Jheanelle Wilkins (D-Montgomery), the chair of the caucus, who reiterated Thursday the importance of African American history not only in Harford, but throughout the state.

We dont always weigh in on county and school board issues, but guess what? That is one of national importance, of statewide importance, she said. Because if thats allowed to happen here in Harford County  then other jurisdictions from all across the state will soon follow suit.

Caucus members said they had long planned a meeting in Harford County, and the timing of the school board flap was just coincidental.

Besides Del. Andre V. Johnson Jr. (D-Harford), 14 other members of the Legislative Black Caucus traveled to Harford County on July 25 for a first-ever meeting in the county. Photo by William J. Ford.

About 15 of the 65 caucus members attended Thursdays town hall, including Del. Joseline Pena-Melnyk (D-Prince Georges and Anne Arundel), who chairs the House Health and Government Operations Committee, Del. Mike Rogers (D-Anne Arundel) and Del. Greg Wims (D-Montgomery).

Five caucus members  Democratic Dels. N. Scott Phillips and Jennifer White Holland of Baltimore County, Stephanie Smith and Melissa Wells of Baltimore City, and Sandy Bartlett of Anne Arundel County  spoke on the caucus five priorities from this years legislative session. Those topics focused on health and environmental justice, housing and transportation, Black wealth and Black businesses, education equity and justice reform and public safety.

Legislators also answered questions written on index cards from the audience. One question was directed to Phillips on how the community can support the economic development and growth of Black business in Harford County.

Phillips, who sponsored state procurement legislation that takes effect Oct. 1, to raise the goal for small business awards on state contracts, said to take advantage of resources from agencies such as the Maryland Department of Commerce.

If theyre not engaged in Harford County, we need to get them here, he said. From a state perspective, leverage your resources and support one another.

Jim Thornton, former chair of the Harford County Caucus of African-American Leaders, called Thursday a very special night to have the states Legislative Black Caucus in his jurisdiction.

Sometimes in Maryland, you get the impression that if youre not from Prince Georges County, or Montgomery County, or Baltimore County, or Baltimore City, then youre not really a person of color in Maryland, he said. What you need to remember is that there are Black folks and people of color who live in Harford County.
Getty Images

As integral contributors to our states identity and economic advancement, Michigans workforce deserves recognition. Even more importantly, they deserve support that acknowledges their multifaceted lives. Being a small business owner who started out my career as a single mom, that is something I fervently believe and its why Im supportive of a paid family and medical leave policy for Michigan.

I became a single mom to my kid, Amy, during my sophomore year of undergrad at Lawrence Technological University. After graduating in 2009 with a B.S. in architecture, finding a job in architecture that would meet my familys needs wasnt possible.

Fortunately, I found a project opportunity online and made the decision with my now-partner in life (and work), Adam, to launch our architecture studio, Synecdoche. At the start, we worked from our dining rooms and took on one small build a year while attending grad school and working other flexible paid gigs, but we have since grown to a team of five with locations in Ann Arbor and Detroit.

While I faced many challenges and had limited financial resources at the start of my career, I was able to forge my own path because I had people around me who helped me press forward  from family and friends who were there for me in more ways than I can count, to my grad school professor who let me bring my kid into the office during my days as a research assistant. Without that support from a community of people who treated me as the whole person that I was, my career would surely have stalled.

Thats the kind of support that helps build success, and a guaranteed paid leave program in Michigan would do the same. It would be a monumental step forward in supporting all working Michiganders as whole people, especially those who may not have a community to help them like I did. And, for women who take on the childbearing role in families, it may mean the difference between them leaving the workforce after giving birth or staying on their chosen career paths.

A guaranteed paid leave program for Michigan makes a lot of sense from a business perspective, too. As a bootstrapped business, early investments in resources and people limited our ability to grow and make an impact. Only recently have we been able to implement a 12-week paid family leave policy in our studio, which one of our team members expecting a baby will use later this year. I can say that our small business would welcome a formalized state policy to adhere to when it comes to paid leave, and the funding for it could be structured in a way that works for everyone.

We need to look beyond just the cost of implementing a program like this, though, because guaranteed paid leave would provide real, quantifiable benefits to businesses, too. We only need to look to other states with paid leave laws to see that theyve helped address the very real business costs of losing talent, attracting and training new employees, and grappling with the productivity challenges that go hand-in-hand with low employee morale.

In our post-COVID world of remote and hybrid work options and more flexible schedules, we need to continue to think outside the box and find additional ways to make employees feel more cared for, secure and grounded in their workplaces. A holistic plan that connects flexible work options with other worker supports, like guaranteed paid leave, would help create a workforce that is happier, healthier and more stable.

The timing of this also makes sense when we look at Michigans population and economic challenges. As Michigan continues to work to find the upper competitive edge in attracting and retaining more people  including young professionals  here, guaranteed paid leave should be a priority. In fact, according to a 2023 nationwide poll by Morning Consult, Sixty percent of adults who planned to move in the next two years said they would be more likely to go somewhere with paid family and medical leave.

And according to a more recent statewide poll, a majority of likely Michigan voters support paid family and medical leave legislation that would ensure all working people have access to at least 15 weeks of paid leave to bond with a new child, address a personal or family-related illness, or for a paid family leave plan. The poll found almost two-thirds of respondents (63%) either strongly favor or somewhat favor a paid family leave policy.

The bottom line: guaranteed paid leave would provide the kind of support Michiganders need to balance their jobs with their personal lives, and businesses and the state economy would benefit too. The time is long overdue to make this happen for working Michiganders, and the Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has identified paid leave as one of her top policy priorities. But despite legislation being introduced by both the House and Senate over a year ago, there have been no hearings on the bills to date.

Lets break ground on paid leave so we can build a stronger foundation for Michigans workers and businesses.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Wilbur Streib of Lexington turned 100 Saturday, but he is no regular centenarian.

Just 120,000 servicemen who fought in World War II are alive today, according to to U.S. military historical statistics from January. Fewer fought at the Battle of the Bulge, as Streib did.

Wilbur Streib is enjoying the journey to become a centenarian. Streib is turning 100 years old on Saturday, July 20.

He served with the U.S. Army 125th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, Battery B.

The Battle of the Bulge was the last major German offensive on the Western Front and took place from Dec. 16, 1944, through Jan. 25, 1945, in the heavy forest of the Ardennes region, between Belgium and Luxembourg.

Streib told then-News Journal columnist Ron Simon in 2006 that the Battle of the Bulge had begun and American units were reeling under the German attack.

"In the Ardennes we were rushed to guard road blocks," Streib said. "They told us to get as many of them as we could before they got us."

Streib said the anti-aircraft guns would not have stopped oncoming German tanks. Fortunately none showed up.

"We were actually the second or third line of defense. It was the only time we were in the front line," he told Simon.

At one point the Germans strafed the 125th. Two men were wounded and equipment was damaged. But one of the gunners managed to bring the attacking German plane down, Streib said in 2006. Once the German attack had been blunted, the 125th moved back to Antwerp and continued to down buzz bombs. The 125th wound up with nearly 250 downed flying bombs to its credit, Streib said during the 2006 interview, when he was 81.

Wilbur Streib points to himself in a group photo of the Battery B 125th AAA Gun Battalion.

Streib was drafted into the Army in summer 1943 and wound up with an anti-aircraft outfit that brought down 750 V-1 and V-2 rockets, saving untold numbers of lives in London, where those unmanned German rockets were headed.

Two of Streib's brothers, Kenny and Harold, also served in the military during or shortly after World War II.

More: 'Not many made it through': Ohio forever connected to D-Day invasion

WWII veteran vividly recalls time in Europe

In an interview this month, Streib said he was traveling to Camp Haan, California, near Riverside, on a train powered by a steam engine, on his 19th birthday after graduating from Lexington High School. His wartime travels took him all over Europe including England.

A good storyteller, Streib shared how while in France the unit's tractor pulling the 90 mm heavy anti-aircraft gun gun broke down next to a farmer's sugar beet field. The 12 soldiers plus the driver sat there along the road for weeks.

The farmer would dig his beets and take them to a mill in a two-wheeled, horse-drawn cart.

"We decided to do a good deed and dig up sugar beets while the farmer was going to the mill. We took our little shovels we had for digging foxholes and dug sugar beets, putting them in piles we estimated to be a load," he said. "We dug the whole field. He came back and he was so excited. We loaded them for him on his cart."

Streib said he could only imagine the mill operator's face when the farmer returned time after time so quickly to the mill with so many beets.

"He gave us a couple bottles of cognac, which he dug up. They had to bury them to keep them from the Germans," he explained. "He thanked us and thanked us."

Streib came home from Europe with four battle stars and the Combat Infantry Badge.

Being a WW II veteran is something he now talks about.

"After World War II nobody, talked about it," he said. "Just in the last few years we've talked about it."

He said his late wife, Jean, then his girlfriend, wrote him letters overseas.

"It was a private war. She wrote me letters not knowing where I was at. The mail was censored and sections of the letters"  his, hers, even his mother's  were cut up to make sure details about the war or the locations soldiers were at was kept secret. "Even my own mother didn't know where I was at. But mail was such an important thing."

Wilbur Streib recalls his time in the U.S. Army as he pages through a book containing the history of his battalion.

Streib works at Ohio Brass, becomes auctioneer, starts insurance company

After the war, Streib worked as a clerk for his father, Walter Streib, who was an auctioneer. His dad also worked at the steel mill and farmed.

Stgreib said he operated a drop hammer at The Ohio Brass before opening Streib Insurance Agency in Lexington, retiring in 1982. His wife and a daughter worked with him at the business.

"I told my wife I wasn't going back to Ohio Brass after by back surgery in 1955," he said. "I was in the hospital for 30 days."

What a life: Hungarian immigrant who settled in Mansfield reflects on 60-year career

Growing up on a farm, he said he often took his father's spot driving the team of horses in the fields. He reminisced about the days when neighboring farmers came to help one another when it was time to harvest; the thrashers were operated by steam engines.

"And of course everyone reciprocated," he said. The family's original farm was on Orewiler Road and now is located at the bottom of the Clear Fork Reservoir.

Streib said he always had three jobs, including driving a school bus for Lexington Schools.

He said there really isn't anything he hasn't done.

Turning 100 is pretty special, Streib said

He believes his secret to a long life is being "totally blessed."

He said he was always active, exercising for years until he said he just "got tired of it." He called bingo in Florida where he wintered for years. He played shuffleboard, too.

He is a longtime member of Steam Corners Bible Church, formerly United Methodist Church, a member of Mansfield No. 35 Masonic Temple, American Legion 535 in Bellville and VFW 5101 in Lexington.

"I feel good," he said.

"I don't feel 60 anymore, but I don't feel 100," he said from the dining room table of his grandson Eric Lehnhart's house in Lexington Wednesday, joined by his son-in-law Jim Lehnhart, who is a Vietnam veteran.

Jim Lehnhart said Streib has been a "caring" man all his life and he said he has "great long-term memory."

The oldest of eight children, Streib has three children, six grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.

At the time of the interview, details of his birthday celebration were being kept "under wraps" although he seemed to have found out something was up.

lwhitmir@gannett.com

419-521-7223

X (formerly Twitter): @LWhitmir

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Lexington man, Battle of Bulge survivor, reflects on 100th birthday
Lil Baby paid tribute to his business partner Chad Dillon following his death. On Wednesday (July 24), Baby took to his Instagram Story, where he shared a picture of himself and Dilion and captioned the image, Damn big buddy get ya rest. Baby collaborated with Dillion to create the Seafood Menu Restaurant & Lounge in Atlanta, which held its grand opening in July 2023.

The Boiler Seafood, another restaurant Dillion had close ties to, issued a statement to IG regarding his untimely demise, stating, Chads passion for great food, warm hospitality, and creating memorable experiences will forever be a part of our establishment. His legacy lives on in every dish we serve, every smile we greet our guests with, and every moment we strive to make special. In honor of Chad, we will continue to uphold the high standards and values they instilled in us. We are grateful for your support and understanding during this difficult time.

Lil Baby reacts to the passing of his friend and business partner, Chad Dillon, who was found killed inside his car ??? pic.twitter.com/pxinq8S6Nk  My Mixtapez (@mymixtapez) July 25, 2024

Atlanta News First reported the news, detailing that Chad Dillion had been shot and killed at 480 John Wesley Dobbs Ave. NE, close to the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park. The chefs friends told the news outlet that Dilion was allegedly working at a restaurant called Dipped N Butter and stepped out to go to his car. He was then shot and killed in what police are describing as a targeted attack. Additionally, authorities stated that a Rolls-Royce was at the middle of the crime scene.

Police explained to the news outlet that the suspect is still at large.

Through Dilions restaurant businesses, which began with the massively successful Boiler Seafood, the man gave a percentage of his proceeds to community efforts. In 2022, Chad spoke to the ATL news outlet about giving $15,000 to ex-offenders through a 13-week program that teaches them how to hone their gifts.

Some of these guys are really good guys that made one mistake, Dillon told Atlanta News First in 2022. These people still have skills, they still have talent, they still have a lot of knowledge, and theyre still creatives. And we dont want to forget about our creatives.

More from VIBE.com
Despite writing frequently about politics, I rarely read a book about the subject purely for pleasure. Its daily reality is more than enough: in my leisure hours, I escape to fiction. But I do remember the first political book I ever voluntarily read and enjoyed, aged about 15.

It was The Fight for the Tory Leadership by Randolph Churchill, the talented, drunken son of Winston. It was an instant book, describing how a sick prime minister, Harold Macmillan, had resigned in 1963 and decided to advise the Queen to appoint Lord Home, rather than any of the more obvious candidates, as his successor.

The book, and a famous review in The Spectator by Iain Macleod, the rising Tory star at the time, brought about a great change. Out went what Macleod called the Magic Circle of grandees from whose conclave the party leader emerged. In came leadership election by MPs. Early this century, the system was further, uneasily democratised, giving party members the final choice.

Randolph Churchills account was neither accurate nor impartial, but it was fun. It captured the fascinatingly trivial motivations that sometimes lie behind big decisions, and the roles of chance, illness, intrigue, vanity and secrecy. I would happily read a comparable book (which will surely appear early next year) about how the Democratic Party establishment finally decided to ditch Joe Biden and insert Kamala Harris as their presidential candidate.

On Monday, entries close for the next fight for the Tory leadership. I bet no one will write a gripping book  or indeed any book  about it. It is the tale of an opposition party at its lowest ebb. Compared with the events of more than 60 years ago, it will be infinitely less colourful  except that the dramatis personae will not be all-male, all-white and all educated at public schools.

Nevertheless, the consequences of this contest could turn out to be more important than that of 1963. Then, it was the 12th year of Tory rule. The Conservatives were narrowly defeated the following year. The old order which both Macmillan and Home represented gave place to new. It was the end of something.

Now, it is  or could be  the beginning of something. Many think the Conservative Party is finished. Although I might, in moments of irritation, wish it were so, I doubt that it is. Leaving aside any preference and assessing only likelihood, I would bet that a party of such long standing will survive as the main vehicle for those who want a stronger, more secure nation, a smaller state and economic freedom.

For similar reasons, I would bet that Reform, a movement which keeps changing its name, has small chance of replacing the Tories. It exists chiefly for those who believe (often rightly) that the Conservatives have not been conservative enough. It has never been geared to governing. Even in its hour of triumph, it has only five MPs. Even in their hour of humiliation, the Tories have 24 times more.

In theory, that could change. I think the model in the mind of Nigel Farage and associates is a Trumpian one. They believe that, via social media, an army of followers of a single, larger-than-life, eloquent leader could grow so strong that the existing Conservative Party machine will have to take the knee before such raw power, as the Republicans just did before Trump in Milwaukee. This is possible, but remains improbable in a country like ours, governed via a parliamentary rather than a presidential system.

If I am right, the Tory candidate who wins in early November could make a real difference. The winner will have the freedom, indeed the duty, to rethink  a chance that has not presented itself to a Conservative leader since David Cameron won the job in 2005.

I do not propose to review the probable runners and riders here and now. There will be all too much time for that as they parade in the political paddock for the next three months. Better to think about what the right candidate should do.

To succeed, he/she will need an unusual mixture of humility and confidence.

Humility, because the Conservatives have never recovered the unity they lost during Brexit and the trust they forfeited in relation to immigration. They are still tainted by the confusion and bad behaviour they displayed in the face of Covid and their weakness in the face of wokerys march through the institutions.

To maintain morale, any leadership candidate will naturally wish to assert that things werent all bad. It was brilliant, given the parliamentary and judicial manoeuvring, that Boris Johnson outwitted opponents within and without his party and got Brexit done. It was impressive that Britain moved faster than any other Nato ally to back Ukraine after Putins invasion in February 2022.

And although growth rates remain unspectacular, Rishi Sunak deserves more credit than he is getting for steering the economy through the after-effects of Covid and Putins energy war. One might even hazard that a British citizen today has more reason for economic optimism than does a German or a French one.

Nevertheless, the Tories recent years in office have been embarrassing. They pulled off the astonishing feat of behaving unconservatively and yet fulfilling the hostile caricatures about how wicked Conservatism is.

The next leader, rather than blaming what went wrong on factions other than his or her own, needs to be seen to blush on behalf of all. He must also ask how more than half the votes won in the general election of 2019 disappeared in 2024. That means thinking not only about why Conservative voters defected to Reform but also to Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens, or just to staying at home.

Confidence, however, because now is the time to think, and there is time enough. It is remarkable how many conservative approaches to society have been abandoned, neglected or diluted in recent years. The leader must renew those approaches.

For example, a truly conservative approach to climate change would always have been sceptical of catastrophism. It would have led with the importance of adaptation and technical innovation. Instead, government policy was couched in the Left-wing language of big gestures and unattainable targets arbitrarily chosen. In consequence, stupefying costs built up for the consumer.

Similarly, the word equality, which correctly defines peoples rights before the law, has been twisted into the greatest of all weapons for economic interference in peoples lives and the invasion of the workplace and private life by identity politics. Successive Tory governments have allowed this equality to become a duty enforceable by law, spawning a vast regulatory structure of disapproval. In the process, conservative words like opportunity, personal liberty and fairness have been discounted.

Again, defence has repeatedly been invoked, but little advanced. Putin could attack a Nato member tomorrow. Would we be able to do our duty if he did?

The great Conservative rethink which began in 1975 sought to recover economic liberty in Britain. We need that liberty today, but perhaps the unifying conservative thread in the extraordinarily dangerous world of 2024 is best summed up in the word security.

We feel insecure in our defences, our borders, our energy needs and environmental fragility, and in our culture; in our jobs, savings, investments and pensions, in the value of money; in intergenerational relationships. Somehow, the country feels less like home and family.

Sir Keir Starmer has rightly identified this insecurity, but his ever-mightier state will not rectify it.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Parrots, toucans, and other brightly colored tropical birds are typically found exactly therethe tropics. Those that live further north and south tend to have more bland feathers. The origin of these differences in plumage has puzzled scientists for centuries: did colorful feathers evolve in the tropics or do tropical birds have colorful ancestors that flocked to the region from somewhere else?

A new dive into the bird family tree found that iridescent colorful feathers originated 415 times. In most cases, they arose outside of the tropics. Its also likely that the ancestor of all modern birds had iridescent feathers. The findings are detailed in a study published July 26 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Color and iridescence in the animal kingdom

One way animals produce color is by pigments produced by the cells. In birds, the pigment melanin generates black, gray, brown, and orange colors. Carotenoids are used by specialized feather structures to create those brighter hues.

The other process is through structural color. This comes from the way that light bounces off different arrangements of cell structures. Iridescencethat rainbow shimmer coming off of a soap bubbleis an example of structural color.

[Related: Why blue animals are so rare in nature.]

Iridescence works by filtering out some wavelengths of light but reflecting others back to your eye, Chad Eliason, a study co-author and research scientist at the Field Museum in Chicago, tells Popular Science. Because the color you see depends on the distance traveled by the light through the iridescent object, when you change your viewing angle you see different colors. Thats the phenomenon of iridescence.

Tropical birds get their bright colors from a mix of brilliant pigments and structural color like iridescence.

We did a lot of math

In the new study, the team built a database of 9,409 species of birds to look at how color spread around the world. The team combed through videos, photographs, and scientific illustrations of most of the living bird species that have been scientifically documented. Along the way, they kept track of which species have iridescent feathers, and where those birds are located.

They then combined the data on bird coloration and a pre-existing family tree that is based on DNA. This helped them determine how all of the species are related to each other. According to Eliason, we did a lot of math, and fed the information into a modeling system to pinpoint the origins and spread of iridescence.

The model indicated that colorful birds from outside the tropics came to the region millions of years ago. They then branched out into numerous different species over time. A surprise was also in all of that math.

A colorful surprise

Living birds are technically a specialized group of dinosaurs, and the model indicated that the common ancestor of all the birds alive today had the iridescent feathers that still glitter across the bird family tree.

The earliest known birdArchaeopteryxlived 140 million years ago. A sub-group of birds called Neornithes evolved about 80 million years ago and became the only birds to survive the mass extinction 66 million years ago that wiped out most other dinosaurs. Modern birds are members of Neornithes and the model indicates that iridescent feathers go back this far.

[Related: Leggy dinosaur species could be the latest feathery clue to bird evolution.]

Scientists search for evidence of iridescence by looking for the structures that cause iridescence in modern birds.

In this case, the structures are layers of melanin pigment in feathers, says Eliason. If we see similar layers or structures in the fossils, we can assume those extinct animals could make iridescence as well.

This finding could have important implications in paleontology, but there is still a lot more work to do to learn more.

Next steps are to study where on the body iridescence was found in ancestral birds, why some birds use iridescence structural color and others non-iridescent structural color for signaling, and also to study the biological function of iridescence to understand why it is associated with dispersal/expanding ranges across birds as we found, says Eliason.
Nearly 30 locations in the southern part of the Miami Valley are part of a Homeland Security raid on Friday, according to a spokesperson for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

>>RELATED: Fuyao plant, nearly 30 other area locations raided in massive Homeland Security investigation

News Center 7 has spent the day at Fuyao and other locations where raids were conducted, gathering information. Well have team coverage at News Center 7 at 5:00 and 6:00.

HSI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and other law enforcement agencies have been executing search warrants at Fuyao Glass America and 27 other locations in Dayton, Liberty Township, Miamisburg, Moraine, and West Carrollton.

>>PHOTOS: Homeland Security raids Fuyao plant, nearly 30 other area locations

Just before 5 p.m., State Senator Niraj Antani (R-Miamisburg) issued a statement on the numerous raids.

In part, Antani said he is deeply concerned by todays federal law enforcement action at Fuyao.

Im deeply concerned by todays federal law enforcement action at Fuyao. Before I was elected, the State of Ohio, through JobsOhio, provided millions of dollars in incentives to Fuyao, understanding that American jobs would be created. I look forward to learning more about today. https://t.co/zNC9R2PrKI  Niraj Antani (@NirajAntani) July 26, 2024
The whimsical logo of a lobster claw, clam shell and fish tail peeking out of the pot has teased downtown Tacoma for many months, but Chez Lafayette has finally swung open the doors at 1101 Tacoma Ave. S.

Described as a Creole brasserie, the ambitious new restaurant is the younger sister to Bourbon Street Creole Kitchen, which has served New Orleans specialties  including a raucous Mardi Gras celebration  for a decade. Brothers Mikey and Jehan de Alwis with their father Mike de Alwis set their sights on Tacoma last spring.

Mikey has led the design and ideation of this venture in addition to building the beverage program, which focuses on small-producer wines and the same high-caliber cocktails that regulars of Bourbon Street have come to know. His brother, who has worked in top kitchens in London for several years, created the food menu, which takes cues from the Puyallup restaurant but with a modernized, polished approach.

Brothers Jehan de Alwis (left) and Mikey de Alwis (right) pose for a portrait behind the bar with their father Mike de Alwis on Wednesday, July 17. Their second restaurant, Chez Lafayette, is now open in downtown Tacoma.

They are serving a limited menu to start, but it wont leave you wanting.

The house salad features a custom blend of gem lettuce, firm radicchio and textural frisee tossed in a Dijon vinaigrette with a little Creole spice. Its finished with toasted Oregon hazelnuts and fresh herbs to bring it all together, said Mikey de Alwis, adding, I hate the normal salad mix.

That mentality permeates the initial offerings.

You can get a catfish main  broiled, with a butter-laced pecan crust, served with haricot verts and a caper-speckled sauce  but you would be truly remiss to skip the fried catfish plate, an ideal appetizer (or standalone snack). Jehan called them simple; I might say divine. These nuggets are cut to be one or two bites each, carefully cooked in a light and airy spiced-cornmeal batter and ready to dip into a lickable Cajun tartar.

Other starters include a massive plate of oysters Rockefeller, sourced from Taylor Shellfish and baked in a rich pesto with parmesan and breadcrumbs and paired with Macrina baguette, as well as a summer panzanella.

The fried catfish appetizer feels like a must-order, delicately breaded in spiced cornmeal to dip in an awesome Cajun tartar.

From the mains  although these are also easily shareable  sink into the etouffee, swimming quite literally with crawfish tails and Manila clams from Northern Seafood, which Jehan notes are particularly flavorful thanks to a fresh cook in homemade stock. There is also a fried chicken and gumbo combo plate, and a blackened steak with crispy potatoes and a green peppercorn jus.

Not to leave vegetarians in the cold, the jambalaya-stuffed peppers offer a unique spin on the classic New Orleans dish. Completely meat-free, Jehan fills long peppers with rice cooked in a vibrant Creole tomato sauce with unexpected zing from pickled okra.

Poboys round out the opening menu, with a choice of shrimp, catfish or roast beef, served with Poppa Mikes Cajun chippies.

To drink, enjoy a glass of sweet tea or a nuanced low-ABV spritzer of vermouth blanc, elderflower, lemon and grapefruit. Wines lean into small producers with an emphasis not on France but rather on Spain and Portugal. A crisp Pansa Blanca from Catalonia, often used in cava, was a refreshing accompaniment to all of the above.

The space, which was previously 3uilt and before that Tower Bar and Grill, feels like it has finally met its match. Long and narrow with loads of natural light and an unexpected view of downtown and the bay, it reminded the elder de Alwis of shotgun homes that dot New Orleans, where he lived for many years before moving to the Northwest, eventually opening the familys first restaurant in downtown Puyallup.

The jambalaya stuffed peppers are deceivingly vegetarian, the rice wrapped in a Creole tomato sauce, all dotted with pickled okra.

They did a lot of work, expanding the kitchen and installing all-new equipment. An offshoot area in the back eventually will provide a private dining room complete with its own little bar. The original plan involved turning the adjacent unit, which has its own entrance, into a coffee shop with beignets, but for now that project is on hold.

Mikey has brought in pleasant aesthetic touches, including peachy walls with pops of teal, bistro-style chairs with woven cane backs, old Craftsman doors repurposed into bench seating and shutters that transport you to the Crescent City. Ceiling fans  already here, but still  add to the ambiance. Best of all, in addition to plenty of dining room space, de Alwis has carved out a bar in the front, where stools, I hope, will be coveted in the months to come.

CHEZ LAFAYETTE

 1101 Tacoma Ave. S., Tacoma, 253-329-1386, instagram.com/chez.lafayette

 Starting Hours: Monday-Thursday noon-8 p.m., Friday-Saturday noon-8 p.m.

 Menu: most dishes $13-$26, wine and cocktails $12-$14

 What to know: walk-ins welcome; extended hours and menu to come
Mayor Donna Deegan said its been a long time coming but the Old Middleburg Road Widening Project is finally underway.

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

The City of Jacksonville has begun work on Phase 1 of the widening project. It will expand Old Middleburg Road from two to four lanes from 103rd St. to Parman Rd.

[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]

Phase 2 will continue to Argyle Forest Blvd.

In a ceremony on the Westside, Mayor Deegan said the project will not only help traffic but also make the community a safer place.

We want to cut down on commute times for nearby residents. Bad traffic certainly has negative impacts on all of us, everything from economic development to mental health, so we want to make sure we get rid of that, Mayor Deegan said. Secondly, we want to improve the safety of this road for drivers and pedestrians alike.

READ: Several road projects scheduled to begin in Jacksonville and Clay County next week

The project includes improving drainage, sidewalks, and bike lanes.

I know this effort has been a long time coming, and there are so many people who made it possible, Mayor Deegan said. Im grateful for Council President Randy White and Councilman Rahman Johnson for getting the project across the finish line. Also, Mayor John Delaney for establishing the Better Jacksonville Plan that is funding this vital work.

[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.
HANOI, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's port system is now equipped to handle the largest ships in the world, attracting operations from 40 major international shipping lines, Vietnam News Agency reported Friday, citing the Vietnam Maritime Administration.

Out of the country's 34 ports, 30 are capable of accommodating large-tonnage vessels. Vietnam's three ports, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong and Cai Mep-Thi Vai, are among the top 50 container ports globally by throughput, said the administration.

Le Do Muoi, the administration's director, was quoted as saying that accommodating large ships had significantly enhanced operational efficiency for shipping companies. This has reduced transport costs and increased the competitiveness of Vietnamese ports, thereby contributing to local and regional economic and social development.

Vietnam saw more than 427.64 million tons of cargo handled at ports in the first half of 2024, up 18 percent year-on-year.

Vietnam's cargo output through seaports is set to reach 1.2-1.4 billion tons by 2030, according to the Ministry of Transport. 
Marion Police Sgt. Jason Watts was on a routine patrol on the north side of town when he saw a couple of motorists pulled over last week.

He stopped to see if they needed help. They told Watts they were fine.

They were just trying to get another glimpse of the bear.

Sightings of a black bear had already been reported in the Marion area and nearby Pope County so Watts decided to drive to a gravel road just off Interstate 57 near a Loves Travel Stop and a water tower.

Watts said he was just trying to make sure (the bear) didnt decide to take off towards the Loves truck stop.

I thought maybe if I was between it and the truck stop, it wouldnt go over there and cause a panic because its OK if its on the edge of town, I dont really want it to be in the middle of town.

Sure enough, Watts said the bear came bopping out beside the water tower and came about 40 yards from me and I was like, well Ill just stand here and might as well take a picture of it so I snapped a few videos.

It was 9:50 a.m. on July 19 when the bear took off running near Watts. It galloped across a field, crossed a gravel road in front of Watts, took a last look at the officer and then ducked into some heavy brush.

Once it saw me, it knew it wasnt going to go in my direction, Watts said.

Watts noted that black bears are not aggressive as long as you dont get close to them. If it had been a grizzly or polar bear, he said he would have hopped into his patrol car.

After Watts saw the bear, other sightings were reported in Jackson County and then in Brewer, Missouri, on Wednesday afternoon.

Several other residents have posted bear photos and videos to social media. The sightings have prompted hundreds of comments on social media.

I think I just happened to be the lucky one to get close to it and so I shared the video around, Watts said.

A wildlife official from Kentucky believes the bear seen in southern Illinois this month entered the state by crossing the Ohio River from Kentucky. There were a series of bear sightings reported in western Kentucky in late June and early July but those reports ceased after Illinois residents began reporting bear sightings, according to John Hast, the bear and elk program coordinator for the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.

Hast said black bears are excellent swimmers and he believes the bear seen Wednesday in Brewer, Missouri, could be the one that left Kentucky, traversed southern Illinois and then swam across the Mississippi River.

Officers previous bear sighting

This wasnt the first time Watts had seen a black bear.

He recalled a trip to West Virginia when he spotted a female bear with two cubs crossing a road. Watts wife was driving the 10-passenger church van they were in and Watts yelled, Deer! to make sure she saw the bears.

He said that deer yell came from his Midwest upbringing where its common to see deer crossing in front of vehicles.

West Virginia has about 13,000 black bears while Illinois doesnt have an established population. However, Kentucky has about 1,500 and Missouri about 900.

In the Lower 48 states, there are about 4 million black bears, according to Hast.

Before the bear sightings in southern Illinois this month, there was one reported in Randolph County last year and in 2021, residents reported sightings in Clinton, Monroe, Washington and Franklin counties.

I tell people to kind of enjoy it if youre lucky enough to see one, Hast told the News-Democrat. Especially when youre in western Kentucky or southern Illinois, man, that might be a once in a lifetime thing.
Luxury bags and a mini-fridge stuffed with cash: Orange County schools embezzler is going to prison

A photograph presented as evidence against Jorge Armando Contreras, a former Magnolia School District official, showed bundles of cash stacked in a mini-refrigerator. (U.S. attorney's office)

Jorge Armando Contreras seemed to enjoy a life beyond the means of a fiscal director for an Orange County school district.

He wore designer clothing, drove a BMW X5 and bought a new $1.5-million home in Yorba Linda, according to federal prosecutors.

He also had stacks of cash stuffed into Louis Vuitton purses and a mini-fridge at his home, federal prosecutors said.

Contreras, 53, was sentenced Thursday to nearly six years in prison after pleading guilty to embezzling $16.7 million from the Magnolia School District. The school district, for grades preschool through sixth, serves mostly students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds in Anaheim and Stanton, the U.S. attorneys office for the Central District of California announced in a news release.

Read more: Tipsters to split $100,000 after helping crack Aiden Leos road-rage killing case

From September 2016 to July 2023, Contreras carried out his theft as the director of fiscal services. He deposited more than 250 checks in his personal Wells Fargo bank account, according to drive-through ATM photos included in the criminal complaint, and then presented falsified bank records to the school district.

In just 11 months, Contreras embezzled more than $4.1 million, according to court documents. During that same time, he withdrew $325,000 from multiple ATMs, transferred more than $130,000 to his partner before they were married and paid $1.9 million on his American Express credit card.

He presented checks to his superiors to sign for small amounts from a school account that he claimed were meant to correct payroll errors and for school fundraising, court records show. He would later alter the check amounts. Checks were initially made out to MSD with large spaces in between the letters but he changed them to Maria Socorro Dominguez prosecutors said, but there were no employees at the school district with that name.

Photographs of designer handbags filled with cash presented as evidence against Jorge Armando Contreras, a former school official accused of embezzling over $16 million from the Magnolia School District. (U.S. attorney's office)

Between November 2018 and May 2023, Contreras wired more than $150,000 to multiple banks in Mexico, prosecutors said. In notes for one of the wire transfers Contreras wrote building home, and in another he wrote construction doors stairs and window, according to court documents, and a $5,000 wire transfer in 2022 was simply noted as luxury jackets.

Prosecutors claimed Contreras also had a front production company that he used to help explain his wealth. The company, JC Productions, was described in an Instagram post as staging the best musical productions and live events, according to court records.

Contreras gave school officials $25 Starbucks gift cards as Christmas gifts that he signed with JC Productions. One school official said they saw a JC Productions billboard in the school district to promote a musical act, prosecutors said.

Federal agents who searched Contreras Yorba Linda home on Oct. 19, 2023, found hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, designer bags and eight bottles of Clase Azul Ultra Tequila, which cost about $1,800 per bottle.

Federal agents seized 33 Louis Vuitton bags, wallets and purses, along with Cartier, David Yurman and Versace jewelry, 11 pairs of designer shoes and accessories, according to court records.

Read more: He stole millions from a mentally ill Malibu doctor. Now he'll spend nearly 16 years in prison

Contreras pleaded guilty March 28 to one count of embezzlement, theft and intentional misapplication of funds from an organization receiving federal funds, according to federal prosecutors.

Instead of using his job at a public school district to help socioeconomically disadvantaged children, Contreras embezzled millions upon millions of dollars, which he flagrantly spent on a luxury home, car, and designer clothes and accessories, U.S. Atty. Martin Estrada said in a statement.

Authorities said they have been able to recover about $7.7 million in property and personal items traced to the scheme. In sentencing Contreras, U.S. District Judge Fred Slaughter ordered him to pay $16,694,942 in restitution.

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.
Macys signs spotted at Elk Grove shopping center. When will the department store open?

The new Macys in Elk Grove has signage on the building with an opening soon banner hanging below.

Spediacci Construction superintendent Jimmy Bednash was inside the store Thursday getting ready for its eventual opening.

Residents are eagerly anticipating the new department store opening at 7261 Laguna Blvd., inside a 31,000-square-foot space located at the Laguna Crossroads shopping center.

The community has been definitely excited, peeking in. Theres been hundreds of faces every day, smiling. I know everybodys excited, Bednash said.

The anticipation is there for the new Macys store, first announced in January taking over a space formerly operated by Buy Buy Baby.

Gary and Kathy Silva were a couple of those hundreds who stopped to look inside the new store Thursday afternoon, while out running errands. They could only gaze through the window pane at the empty shelves and the walls filled with artwork.

Are they frequent Macys shoppers?

No, not really, Gary Silva said. But itd be nice to have one.

Garys wife Kathy said shes happy that she wont have to commute far to shop there.

We dont want to go drive all the way out there (to Arden), Kathy said. Were older. And so this is so convenient because its right here where we live. We dont have to get on the freeway and go everywhere.

The married couple have lived in Elk Grove for 24 years. Theyve seen the changes throughout the city over the years. Gary said that one thing thats changed is the traffic.

Theres just too much damn traffic, Silva said of Elk Groves expansion over the years.

That said, he wasnt worried about the Laguna Crossroads shopping plaza being overcrowded when Macys opens because traffic already exists here.

Kathy agreed, adding that the shopping center has a lot of parking.

Macys is here, she said. We dont have to go to Arden Fair.

How soon will Macys open?

A Macys spokesperson confirmed in a text to The Sacramento Bee that Macys is expected to open in August but did not provide a specific date. The spokesperson said that an official date would be given at a later time.

The building itself is very close to being ready.

Were finalizing all of our patchwork, Bednash said. Were basically down to the nitty-gritty punch list of just getting all the fixtures in place, making the place clean. Were actually almost 100% done and we got a couple of inspections today that were going to feel great about.

Spediacci is a general contractor with retail and commercial buildings whos been working with Macys for more than 25 years, Bednash said.

This project actually went fairly fast, he said. Weve been in the building for a little under four months and completion is right around the corner.

Our own little mall

Raja Braich joked on Thursday afternoon as he passed the soon-to-open Macys department store on his way to Target.

Its big. I mean, its pretty cool. Im really excited about that, he said. We needed it. This is becoming a hub in Elk Grove ... Theres plenty of restaurants. Its like our own little mall over here. I love it.

Braich has been an Elk Grove resident since 2006 and he too isnt worried at the moment about a potential increase in traffic.

Theyre managing it pretty well, I guess, Braich said. People are pretty courteous and they drive well in Elk Grove, so Im OK with it.

Braich believes that Macys will provide some competition to the Nordstrom Rack that recently opened in May just down the road at The Ridge shopping center on Bruceville Road and Elk Grove Boulevard.

Overall, Braich is happy that more of these stores are coming to Elk Grove. Like the Silvas, hes glad that he and residents no longer have to drive miles to places like Arden or Roseville for these shopping options.
MADISON COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT)  The Madison County detective who was seriously injured in a crash just over a week ago has been released from the hospital.

The Madison County Sheriffs Office says Detective Josh Moseley was discharged from Huntsville Hospital on Thursday after being treated for serious injuries received in a vehicle accident.

Alabama law enforcement introduces Metro Area Crime Suppression Unit

Moseley was seriously injured when he was involved in a wreck while working traffic control on I-565 around 9:13 p.m. on July 17. MCSO said he underwent several surgeries and was receiving treatment in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit (SICU) at Huntsville Hospital.

I am deeply grateful for the outpouring of kindness and concern from my department, citizens of Madison County, and beyond, said Detective Moseley. The thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes have been a beacon of hope and inspiration throughout my recovery. I am truly humbled by the generosity and compassion of our community.

The Rocket City Federal Credit Union has set up a Detective Josh Moseley Fund account to help assist with his recovery. All donations will be used to help with Moseleys medical expenses and other related costs.

The credit union is located at 2200 Clinton Ave West, Huntsville, AL 35805.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 MAGA trucker upended New Jersey politics in 2021. Can he do it again?

WEST DEPTFORD, New Jersey  In 2021, South Jersey was home to one of the largest upsets in New Jersey political history: An unknown truck driver with a shoestring budget ousted the states longest-serving Senate president.

Now that truck driver, Ed Durr, is hoping to pull off another upset: Rolling into the governors office.

Durr is among the four major GOP candidates running to be New Jerseys next governor. His 2021 victory attracted national attention, especially from conservatives: A blue-collar, Trump-loving trucker took on the top elected official of the states vaunted South Jersey political machine and won. Former President Donald Trump called Durr to congratulate him.

Durr spent only one two-year term in Trenton, where he was best known for pushing conservative causes, like bills to scale back abortion rights and loosen gun laws. But none of his bills  even his less partisan ones  became law. He lost his 2023 reelection bid to a Democrat.

A Durr administration would be a conservative departure from Gov. Phil Murphys. In a June interview with POLITICO in a South Jersey diner, Durr said he looked to the Dakotas and Florida as models for governance. And affordability  a perennial issue in this high-cost state  is the major issue facing New Jersey, he said.

We are dying in the state because of the affordability problem, Durr said. People can't afford to live here. They can't afford to raise a family here.

Durr faces a tough path ahead. His GOP opponents have higher statewide name recognition or fundraising abilities. While the state leans Democratic, many Trenton observers think Republicans could have a good shot to win back the governors office after eight years of Democratic rule. Durr, however, could be vulnerable in a general election because of his more conservative beliefs (the district he lost in 2023 is much more Republican than the state as a whole and would have voted for Trump in 2020).

Still, Durr is confident in pursuing his conservative agenda for New Jersey, regardless of the consequences.

I will do what is right for New Jersey, even if it means I would be tossed in the next four years, he said. Because I wouldn't care. I would do what's right, and not be owned by anybody. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Now that youre campaigning for governor, going around the state, do you plan to continue trucking?

Yes, I'm going to continue. ... One of the advantages I have with my driving is my hours allow me to do my job, get home and then go do events and stuff and campaign. Because I head out early. So I'm just going to be having very long days  20-hour days and 4-hour sleep.

Why are you still trucking?

I live in New Jersey, I'm not a millionaire and I gotta make ends meet. I mean, until I have a million dollars in my bank account and I don't have to work, I'm going to continue to work. I like to drive. It's always been something I've enjoyed. That's why Ive done it for 30 years.

Although if your governor perhaps, can't do both of those things at the same time.

Possibly (chuckles). You can always drive on the weekends.

You lost your Senate seat in 2023. You represented a district that is more conservative than what the state is at large. I believe your district would have voted for Trump. So how would you in a general election attract more centrist voters or even Democrats?

Well, I think once everybody gets to know me much better and sees I'm not this hard extremist that they portray me to be. I'm actually kind of very open minded. I have a very libertarian streak in me. I call myself a conservatarian. Kind of conservative and have libertarian natures. I believe in less government, smaller government, but I also believe in freedom and ... live and let live.

You said you're not an extremist of any kind. I feel like youre often referred to as a MAGA Republican, or a more conservative Republican. Do you agree with those characterizations?

Do I want America to be great? Yes, I want America to be great again. I don't mind MAGA as much. But the problem with that is they label it as youre a racist or you're an anti-this or an anti-that. That is one of the drawbacks. When people hear MAGA, they automatically come to white supremacist. ... Some kind of extremist. That's not the way it is.

Are you seeking Trump's endorsement in the Republican primary?

I absolutely will want to get his endorsement. I believe it can't hurt, can only help. And if I'm fortunate enough to have it, I'll be happy. If I don't get it, it doesn't change my view that I'm still going to run.

Do you think that the 2020 election was stolen and are you willing to accept the results of the 2024 election?

Joe Biden is the president. He was sworn in office in January 2021. I don't deny the fact that he's president. Do I think there was something wrong with the 2020 elections? Absolutely.

A lot of the bills that you did introduce when you were a senator  at least, the ones that got a lot of attention  were generally for more conservative causes. I'm thinking about some of your measures that you introduced on guns and abortion. So what are some issues that you would try to tackle with the (Democrat-controlled) Legislature and how would you approach doing that without having to concede some of your conservative beliefs?

Well, I think you brought up abortion. If you look at my bill on abortion, people try to say I'm an anti-abortionist. But personally, I don't agree with abortion.

But my bill actually allows for abortion, because I don't believe the government should be telling people what they can and can't do. But I do think we went to the extreme in New Jersey on abortion. I think if you poll this state, 70 to 80 percent of the people do not agree with 7-, 8-, 9-month abortions, because that just seems cruel. And I think we should scale it back. I don't think that the population agrees with abortion-on-demand for illegal aliens coming here and just getting their abortions when somebody living paycheck to paycheck can't afford their abortion. So it does seem out of place.

So there's different things but again, I think [the] major issue is affordability. Lower the taxes, bringing in jobs, businesses. We are losing good companies, and all I see is a bunch of warehouses going up and no manufacturing. We need manufacturing.

The bill that you introduced would have prohibited [abortion] in most instances after 12 weeks, correct?

Except for emergencies and allow for rape and incest [exceptions].

Would you still pursue the 12-week prohibition if you're governor?

I would pursue what I could scale back on the extreme. We're already at the extreme. Whatever I can get back I will take. If it was six months, I would be happy to get to six months. The thing with government is it's about compromise. Nobody gets everything they want, or shouldn't get everything they want.

Something adjacent to abortion rights: there's been a lot of conversation around in vitro fertilization, and I believe very recently, some conservative-leaning Christian groups actually came out in opposition to IVF. There's been a lot of debate over it and talk about in Congress. Do you think that access to IVF should be scaled back in the state?

I don't think the government should have any say in it, period. Because I think that's still a personal, moral thing. I don't think the government should be deciding whether it should be or shouldn't be.

Does that line of thinking also go along with something like access to contraception?

I would rather somebody have contraceptives than have an abortion. So I don't believe in restricting contraceptives because that at least stops abortions. And anybody who's against abortion should be in favor of contraceptives.

During your 2023 race, Democratic groups really went after you over Facebook posts that you made in 2020 that said A woman does have a choice. Keep her legs closed. Do you regret making those comments?

I'm a different person than I was five years ago. Hell, I'm a different person than I was a year ago.

That was a one-on-one argument  even though it was on Facebook, it was still a one-on-one argument with myself and an individual. And it got heated.

I regret saying that and apologize, but it doesn't take away from what the argument was, that I believe the best way to prevent an abortion is abstinence.

This was a discussion about women having abortion as birth control. And I think that it's one thing to have an abortion because you have to prevent a rape pregnancy or incest pregnancy. Thats one thing. But just because you didn't get contraceptives to prevent yourself from getting pregnant, so you're just gonna do it the quickie way?  Like I said, I owned up to it and apologized for it. But it doesn't change the fact that I'm still going to be pro-life. Im never going to apologize for being pro-life.

What is the earliest you would want to get to [on scaling back abortion access]? Because your bill was 12 weeks. Would you want to go further than 12 weeks? Further back?

What do you mean? Like like six weeks, like Florida?

Yeah.

No, no. Again, this is about government interfering. Personally, I would never partake in it. You know, that was my personal choice. I've made no secrets that I got my girlfriend pregnant when she was 19 and I was 20. And we decided to have the child. I don't regret it whatsoever, but it was never a question whether we were going to have the kid or not.

So that's my personal belief, but my personal belief should not be yours.

Speaking of things that are up to different states. Gov. Murphy, very famously said early in his first term that he wanted to make New Jersey the California of the East Coast. I can see that you're rolling your eyes right now and chuckling. Are there any states that you look to as a model for governance for New Jersey that you want to emulate as governor?

I think there's a lot of states that have a lot of great things going on in them. I saw somebody going postal on social media saying I want to make New Jersey Florida. I don't see a problem with that. I think Florida's doing pretty good, other than the floods that are going on right now, but that's just natural.

[In] Florida, they have a surplus and their taxes are great. Well, you see everybody moving out in New York and going to Florida because of the taxes. So yeah, states like that, like North Dakota, South Dakota, theyre run pretty good.

What are some of the policies of Florida, North Dakota, South Dakota that you approve of?

Business tax, income tax, freedom to let businesses grow. We are drowning in regulations in this state.

The regulations and requirements and licensing in this state is killing small entrepreneur businesses, and I would like to see that scaled back, because that will open up growth.

It's a very simple thing. What will help New Jersey? Well, let's see, if we had more businesses come here, that brings more jobs, that brings more workers to provide income. Jersey gets more revenue out of the income tax. Seems pretty simple-minded, you know, right? But we're doing everything backwards and chasing them all out.

You're expressing support for the fiscal and economic policies of states like Florida, the Dakotas. Would you also want to emulate some of their social policies?

Do you consider the gun policies social? I would like to see us have a little more Second Amendment belief in this state. Obviously, that's what I ran on at the very beginning.

I think that no man should have a right to tell me how I should be able to protect myself and I shouldn't be able to tell somebody else, and I shouldn't be restricted where I go and where I am able to protect myself.

You had mentioned flooding in Florida. I believe you had a social media post recently questioning climate change. Do you believe in climate change and that it's man made?

Yeah, climate change  its called seasons: winter, summer, fall and spring. Those are climate changes. [Are] there things we do to damage our air quality? Absolutely. Do I think that we are killing the world, like Al Gore or like [Environment and Energy Committee Chair] Sen. [Bob] Smith will say? No.

I sat in on the Environment Committee, and [Smith] would say that the world was coming to an end. The same guy who says the world is going to flood and come to an end has a house on the water. So I don't think he really believes it. I think it's a lot of hyperbole.

I leave you with the final word. Why should you be governor?

I want what's right for New Jersey, and I believe I'm the person who can do it because I'm not owned by any special interest groups. I'm my own man. My only care is for the citizens in New Jersey and to make our state great again.

We had a really good state when I was a kid, growing up. My father was able to provide for a family of six. I believe that it would be great if we could get back to families raising and staying here instead of going away. And I know I'm the person who will hold true to my word. I'm not somebody who's just going to say this now to get elected and then move this way when I'm governor.
Major Arizona GOP donor says Kari Lake 'cannot win.' That's going to sting

Ouch.

I mean, really ... OUCH.

One of the most well-known, most generous and most plugged-in Republican financial backers in Arizona, Randy Kendrick, wife of the Arizona Diamondbacks owner, told a great big bunch of her GOP pals that former news reader and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake cannot win.

And she did so in writing.

Oh my, that is gonna leave a mark.

Major donor is stumping for Lamb, not Lake

As reported by Amy B. Wang and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez of The Washington Post, Kendrick sent an email to her entire Christmas card list trying to sway support away from Lake to Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb prior to Tuesdays primary election.

Kendrick is convinced Lake will lose in the general election.

Her email said, I have tried to help (Lake) and worked on this, and apparently cannot overcome it. There is no time for blame or analysis. These are just the facts.

Lamb says Lake tried to bribe him: To leave Senate race

She added, I am trying to make more people aware of Lamb because, according to ur polls, if people are made aware of him they prefer him over Lake and certainly over (Democratic Rep. Ruben) Gallego. Yes it is late, but I am trying!

And shes succeeding, too.

At least, in giving Lake an tremendous owie.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

For more opinions content, please subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: DBacks owner's wife ditches Kari Lake, says she supports Mark Lamb
People take part in a demonstration in demand of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a deal for the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Tel Aviv, Israel, on July 25, 2024. (Photo by Jamal Awad/Xinhua)

The Beijing Declaration represents an important step toward achieving Palestinian unity and ending internal divisions that have negatively affected the Palestinian cause for decades.

RAMALLAH, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The signing of a declaration in Beijing by 14 Palestinian factions, aimed at ending division and strengthening unity, is widely seen as a positive step toward Palestinian national reconciliation, bringing fresh hope to the long-suffering Palestinian people.





"A POSITIVE STEP"

The most important consensus reached at this dialogue is to achieve grand reconciliation and unity among the 14 factions, and the core outcome is to make clear that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

The dialogue also highlights the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government focused on the post-war governance of Gaza. Meanwhile, it calls for the creation of a truly independent Palestinian state in accordance with relevant United Nations resolutions.

The signing of a declaration on ending division and strengthening unity by 14 Palestinian factions in Beijing is "an additional positive step" toward achieving Palestinian national unity, Hamas said on Tuesday.

This announcement came at an important time as Palestinians are facing an ongoing conflict, especially in the Gaza Strip, said Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas's political bureau, adding that the solution represents "the ideal and most appropriate national solution" for the Palestinian situation after the conflict.

The Beijing Declaration represents an important step toward achieving Palestinian unity and ending internal divisions that have negatively affected the Palestinian cause for decades, Abdulaziz Alshaabani, a researcher at Al Riyadh Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Xinhua.





CHINA'S EFFORTS

In a statement on Tuesday, the Palestinian presidency said that it appreciated China's support to help the State of Palestine obtain its full membership of the United Nations and to hold an international peace conference to implement the two-state solution.

It also expressed the gratitude of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian leadership for China's extensive efforts to support the Palestinian people across all levels and in various international forums.

China has played a crucial role in facilitating this agreement through mediation and providing political and diplomatic support, Alshaabani said, underscoring China's commitment to promoting stability in the Middle East and its active contribution to resolving international conflicts.

Ding Long, a professor at Shanghai International Studies University, told Xinhua that thanks to the continued efforts of the Chinese side, the Palestinian factions came to China to participate in the talks.

China has consistently supported the just cause of the Palestinian people and China, as a responsible country, has successfully brokered an Iran-Saudi deal and gained the trust of the Palestinian factions, Ding said.

The success of negotiations in Beijing demonstrates the growing maturity of China's mediation diplomacy in the Middle East, Ding said.





HEADING FOR PEACE

The Beijing Declaration has addressed pressing issues such as the establishment of an interim national reconciliation government, carrying out reconstruction in Gaza. It has also outlined long-term objectives, including resolving the Palestinian issue through a two-state solution.

Musa Abu Marzouk, head of the Fatah delegation Mahmoud al-Aloul and head of the Hamas delegation, voiced their readiness to implement the consensus, strengthen unity among factions, advance the reconciliation process, and work for an early solution to the question of Palestine.

The talks in Beijing involved 14 Palestinian factions with all their positions balanced, thus constituting a basis for ending the division, said Abdel Mohdy Motawe, a Cairo-based researcher and executive director of the Middle East Forum for Strategic Studies and National Security.

The prospects of internal Palestinian reconciliation after the Beijing Declaration hinge on the earnest commitment of Palestinian factions, sustained international support, and tangible improvements in economic and security conditions, Alshaabani said

"If these factors are achieved, the reconciliation can lead to improved political, economic, and social conditions in the Palestinian territories, enhancing the chances of achieving sustainable peace in the region," Alshaabani said.
SAN FRANCISCO (KRON)  A man who allegedly shouted anti-LGBTQ slurs at a man in the Mission District and hurled a sign at him has been charged with a hate crime, the San Francisco District Attorneys Office said. Jeffrey Landon, 58, was arraigned on Thursday and pleaded not guilty while denying all allegations.

According to the DA, Landon was charged with one additional count of assault with a deadly weapon. Landon is alleged to have shouted numerous anti-LGBTQ slurs at a man walking on Harrison Street toward 24th Street. The victim, the DA said, ignored him and continued walking.

Fired SFDA employee says he asked Brooke Jenkins about her panties by mistake

Landon then allegedly followed him and continued to shout obscenities and anti-LGBTQ slurs. As the victim continued walking away, Landon allegedly picked up an A-frame sign and threw it at him. The sign landed near the victims feet, not causing physical injury.

Landon fled the scene and was detained by the San Francisco Police Department, the DA said.

Hate crimes have no place in San Francisco and will be prosecuted, said District Attorney

Brooke Jenkins. We are proud of our diversity and will do everything we can to protect the

safety of all our people. Hate crimes deeply impact individual victims and the larger community

by sowing hate, mistrust and division. We will not allow hate to flourish in San Francisco and

stand for justice.

Landon currently remains in custody and will next appear in court on 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 KRON4.
A man has been arrested as part of a month-long Shawnee Police investigation into the killing of more than a dozen cattle belonging to the monks at St. Gregory's Abbey.

An 18-year-old was arrested on four complaints of cruelty to animals and two counts of larceny of livestock on Thursday, said Vivian Lozano, Shawnee Police public information officer. Lozano said the man was booked into the Pottawatomie County jail.

Lozano said a report regarding a juvenile involved in the case was sent to a government agency that deals with juvenile offenders. Police did not identify the juvenile involved.

The Rev. Simeon Spitz, a Catholic priest and monk at St. Gregory's Abbey, said about 14 cattle on abbey property were killed, costing the Benedictine monastery about $35,000. He said the cattle, which were killed with a cross bow, included female calves, which the abbey would have saved for their herd, and bull calves, which would either have been sold or raised for beef sold as part of the abbey's Mission Monks label at its Monk's Marketplace. The marketplace includes beef, but also jams, jellies and honey made at the abbey, along with other goods that help support the monastery.

Lozano said police received the first report about the cattle on June 22. She said another report was called in by someone working for the abbey, 1900 N MacArthur, about midnight on July 22. She said the worker said he saw flashlights in a field and found a cross bow near a tree when he went to investigate.

More: These monks have a beefy partnership with a Shawnee restaurant

Lozano said Shawnee police responded to the call and made contact with the 18-year-old and a juvenile on MacArthur Street, near the abbey. She said the two were detained and interviewed at that time.

Spitz said his father Jerry Spitz is the abbey's cattle manager and he had been concerned about disappearing cattle dating back to October and November 2023. Spitz, who was raised on his family's ranch in Canute, Oklahoma, said both he and his dad knew that it's common to lose a certain amount of cattle for different reasons, such as a poor family seeking food, but they each began to see an emerging pattern that was not typical.

'It seemed to be animal cruelty more than food-related'

"Normally, we check on cattle every three or four days, then we started checking every day," Spitz said. "Finally, we found one with an arrow lodged in it."

He said he thought the people killing the cattle were intentionally removing the arrows to keep anyone investigating uncertain about how the animals were dying.

"The best guess is that they weren't taking the meat  it was killing animals to kill animals. It seemed to be animal cruelty more than food-related," the monk said.

More: Creating buzz: St. Gregory's Abbey finds homes for bee hives in expanded honey operation

Spitz said some of the cattle were viewed as pets and the last calf that was found had been one of them. He said Brother George Hubl had bottle fed that calf more than any of the monks and took the animal's death particularly hard.

"It was that calf that would follow us around the pasture and acted like a puppy dog," Spitz said. "We all took turns bottle feeding him in the early days, but Brother George, he's the one that that was his primary thing. He really bonded with it and took it for walks."

The St. Gregory's Abbey chapel is pictured in Shawnee, Okla., Friday, June 7, 2024.

What's next?

Spitz said the monks are waiting to hear from the Pottawatomie County district attorney who will determine what happens in relation to the 18-year-old who was arrested.

He said the monks at the monastery have some thoughts on what should happen next.

"Our view on justice is restorative justice, and that's both for the person who is wounded, but also for the one who wounds, and we want their well being in this, as well," he said.

"And so we're prayerfully discerning when it comes time: How do we respond? What's best to help these young men hopefully break the pattern. If it's mental health, to get the help they need. We don't want to destroy anyone. We know that mistakes are a thing, but we also know that there are certain patterns of behavior that are very dangerous, very destructive, and this pattern of behavior looks like it's one of those kinds of things  this isn't somebody hungry, stealing. This is more meanness, wanting to kill something, it looks like. But, we're waiting to hear more from the investigation before we weigh in on all of that."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Shawnee police arrest man after cattle killed at St. Gregory's Abbey
(KRON)  A Santa Cruz man was arrested last week for allegedly drugging a victim at a local bar, the Santa Cruz County Sheriffs Office said.

The sheriffs office said it responded on July 16 to a call from a victim who said they had been drugged by another patron at the bar. An investigation led the sheriffs office to 33-year-old Christopher Riviello.

Dead body found in Palo Alto parking lot

He was arrested at a Santa Cruz home. Police are now searching for more victims.

The sheriffs office declined to identify the bar where the alleged drugging happened, saying a drugging couldve happened at any bar in the county.

A deputy clarified that while Riviello was charged with multiple felonies, this is not a sexual assault case.

Anyone with information is asked to call SCCSO at (831) 471-1121.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Man charged in connection to Yancey Co. shooting

BURNSVILLE, N.C. (WSPA)  A man accused of shooting three workers trimming trees in Yancey County Wednesday is facing multiple charges.

The Yancey County Sheriffs Office said the shooting happened in the area of Murphytown Road, when 36-year-old Lucas Wilson Murphy confronted workers clearing the right of way for a power company.

The sheriffs office said the three workers were shot and sustained serious injuries.

Deputies said they encountered gunfire when they attempted to take Murphy into custody.

Murphy was then injured during a shootout with deputies, subsequently being taken into custody and brought to an area hospital.

The District Attorney for the 35th Prosecutorial District of NC has charged Murphy with the following:

felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury

one count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill

four counts of assault with a deadly weapon on a law enforcement officers

According to the district attorney, Murphy was apprehended for similar charges in 2021, when he allegedly got into an altercation with his brother. The 36-year-old was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and inflicting serious injury in front of a jury.

Murphy was found guilty of misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon in December 2021.

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is leading the shooting 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 WSPA 7NEWS.
ST. LOUIS  A Florissant man was charged after a road rage pursuit ended with a shooting in a north St. Louis neighborhood.

According to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Departments probable cause statement, the shooting happened on July 19 in the OFallon neighborhood, between West Florissant and Warne Avenues.

The pursuit started in the vicinity of Adelaide Avenue and Interstate 70 after the victim sideswiped the suspects car and left the scene. Police say William Eberhart, 39, then allegedly began chasing the victims vehicle.

According to authorities, the Real Time Crime Center captured Eberhart following the victims vehicle close behind, travelling westbound on West Florissant Avenue.

When the victim tried to make a turn going southbound toward Warne, police say Eberhart made a sharp turn, cutting the victim off and striking his vehicle.

Police say Eberhart then accelerated his vehicle and pushed the victims vehicle into Warne Avenue, out of the view of a camera.

Another camera angle saw Eberhart exit his vehicle and run out of the view of the camera again until he was found holding onto the doorframe of the drivers side of the victims car, investigators say.

When the victims vehicle entered the intersection of West Florissant and Warne, investigators say Eberhart fell off the victims vehicle and was allegedly seen running back to his vehicle holding a firearm.

Police say shortly after, the victims son made the call to report that his father had been shot in the head. The victim was then rushed to the hospital to receive treatment.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorneys Office charged Eberhart with first-degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon, and two counts of armed criminal action. Eberhart is being held without bond. He will next appear in court on July 29 for a detention hearing.

The condition of the victim is unknown 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 FOX 2.
Man charged with starting massive wildfire in California as blazes burn across the West

Editor's note: This page is a summary of news on the Park fire for Thursday, July 25. For the latest news on the Park Fire, visit USA TODAY's story on the blaze for Friday, July 26.

A California man faces an arson charge after prosecutors say he started a fire near Chico that grew into a 125,000-acre blaze in less than 24 hours on Thursday, the latest wildfire to scorch its way across the West this summer.

The Chico blaze, dubbed the Park fire, is the largest in California so far this year.

Ronnie Stout, 42, is being held on no bail after California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection investigators said he started the Park Fire just before 3 p.m. Wednesday. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said a witness saw the man pushing a flaming car down a 60-foot embankment, creating a fiery chaos to the area.

"The male was then seen calmly leaving the area by blending in with the other citizens who were in the area and fleeing the rapidly evolving fire," according to a statement from Ramsey's office. "Cal Fire arson investigators responded immediately, secured the scene, and began to search for clues to the identity of the unknown man."

Those flames caused the Park Fire, the district attorney's office said. Stout was being held in Butte County jail with no possibility of bail until he's arraigned on Monday afternoon, "undoubtedly under a count of arson," Ramsey said.

"What that count will be and what enhancements to that is yet to be determined," Ramsey said. "We hope it will not be an enhancement of great bodily injury or death, but it is still early in this fire to make that determination." So far there are no reported injuries from the fire.

It was Stout's mother's car, Ramsey said.

Photo of a 42-year-old man's car that Cal Fire arson investigators say started the Park Fire in Chico, California, on July 24. The man's car is seen destroyed by the flames.

According to Cal Fire, the Park Fire is 3% contained. The fire has burned 124,949 acres and Tehama counties. Daniel Swain, UCLA climate scientist, said during a live YouTube video the fire is likely to become enormous and is one to be around for "weeks if not months, it might last until the fall."

"It went from 0 to 75,000 square miles overnight," he said. "I expect its really 100,000 square miles and its still growing rapidly. It established a 40-mile wide active fire line."

Many wildfires are caused by humans

The National Park Service said that nearly 85% of all wildfires are caused by humans, although many are accidental and caused from carelessness.

"Human-caused fires result from campfires left unattended, the burning of debris, equipment use and malfunctions, negligently discarded cigarettes, and intentional acts of arson," the agency said.

Arson fires may account for more than 20% of all human-caused fires, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Earlier this year, Reugio Jimenez Jr., pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and other charges for a blaze known as the El Dorado fire in San Bernardino County. Jimenez and his wife Angelina Jimenez used a pyrotechnic device on Sept. 5, 2020, to reveal the gender of their new baby. The wildfire burned more than 22,000 acres and killed U.S. Forest Service firefighter Charles Morton.

In Arizona, the San Carlos Apache Reservation police charged tribal member Keanu Dude, 22, for arson in starting a 2,000-acre fire on July 10. An investigation is ongoing for how the fire started. The fire was contained more than a week after starting and destroyed 21 homes and forced more than 400 tribal members to evacuate.

In 2021, Alexandra Andreevna Souverneva pleaded not guilty to starting the Fawn Fire in September 2021. She was charged with several arson-related charges for the fire just north of Redding, California. The fire burned 8,578 acres, according to the Redding Record Searchlight, part of the USA TODAY Network.

Wildfires devastate communities across North America

Firefighters are monitoring 89 large active wildfires across 10 western states and Alaska, encompassing 1.2 million acres. The size and severity of the fires are driven largely in part by climate change as warmer temperatures, high winds and dry conditions help fuel fires.

"Climate change is leading to larger and more severe wildfires in the western United States," the National Climate Assessment reported.

At least 26,825 wildfires have been reported in the U.S. this year, 6,000 fewer fires than the 10-year average year to date, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. However, the total acreage burned as of Thursday morning  3,633,567  is almost 300,000 acres more than the 3,350,598 year-to-date average.

The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings across the northwestern portion of the country due to high expected wind gusts and low humidity. That spells bad news for fires burning along the Pacific Coast and into Canada.

Firefighters work as Park Fire burns near Chico, California, U.S. July 25, 2024. REUTERS/Fred Greaves

Aside from the Park Fire in California, the state is battling several wildfires that have burned at least 60,000 combined acres, according to Cal Fire. In Santa Barbara County, the Lake Fire is 90% contained and burned 38,664 acres. In Tulare County, the Trout Fire is 10% contained and burned 22,231 acres.

In Oregon, the Durkee Fire has burned 268,492 acres and is 0% contained, according to the state's Wildfire Response and Recovery. In total, the state is facing 126 active fires that have burned 956,917 acres as of Thursday.

In Washington state, multiple fires are active across the state burning just over 60,000 acres, according to the state's Department of Natural Resources' fire map. The Northwest Interagency Coordination Center said midday Thursday the Big Horn, Swawilla and Bridge Creek fires are all 0% contained.

In Canada, a massive wildfire is exhausting firefighters in the Alberta province. The fire burned into the town of Jasper on Wednesday, where 25,000 residents were evacuated, and Parks Canada closed Jasper National Park to Visitors. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on X every federal agency in Canada is assisting Jasper in both firefighting and getting residents resources.

Contributing: Christopher Cann, Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY; Annie Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic; Michele Chandler, Redding Record Searchlight; Emma Logan, Salem Statesman Journal; Reuters.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Man charged in Northern California wildfire as blazes scorch the West
WEST JORDAN, Utah (ABC4)  A 20-year-old man was charged with five felonies on Thursday in connection to a shooting that hospitalized one victim in West Jordan earlier this month.

According to court documents, Hidir Yousef Doka, 20, is facing one count of felony discharge of a firearm with bodily injury, a second-degree felony; and four counts of felony discharge of a firearm, a third-degree felony.

Fisherman drowns at Grantsville Reservoir, dive teams working on recovery

Doka is also being investigated for attempted murder in connection to a shooting that injured two people, which took place right after the first shooting. However, no charges have been filed yet for the second incident.

On July 13, court documents say a fight broke out during a party at an apartment complex near 6800 South Redwood Road in West Jordan. Witnesses told police some partygoers punched Doka, knocking him to the ground, took his shoes, and broke his phone during the fight. Doka then left the party and allegedly told a witness that he was going to get them.

Doka returned to the party in a friends vehicle and allegedly shot out of the window toward the male who had broken his phone during the fight, according to witness statements.

A witness in the vehicle told police Doka yelled I think I got him! after he fired out of the car window. The victim received a gunshot wound to his thigh and was transported to the hospital.

Hogle Zoo fan favorite cat dies of kidney disease, potential mates future now up in the air

An investigation is still ongoing into a separate incident that took place within 24 hours after the first shooting. The West Jordan Police Department is investigating Doka for attempted murder after officers responded to the same location and recovered a total of 53 bullet casings on the ground.

Investigators say two additional people were shot in the second shooting, including a female who was shot in the neck. They also say five vehicles and several occupied apartments were discovered with bullet holes.

A witness told authorities Doka had returned to the West Jordan apartment complex after the first shooting to catch them, and when he got back told the witness, They all shot.

Doka has not been charged in connection to the second shooting as it is still under investigation.

Charges are allegations only. All arrested persons are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC4 Utah.
Man convicted in $90k car auction scheme now in custody

MEMPHIS, Tenn.  A man convicted of running a car auction scheme and skipping his trial date has been taken into custody.

Leandre Barner was arrested early Friday morning by the DeSoto County Fugitive Division and the Memphis Police Department Fugitive Division.

Barner was found guilty several years ago in Shelby County in a car auction scheme exposed by the WREG Investigators.

He posed as a car dealer offering low prices on vehicles at auction, but the victims who paid him never received their cars or their money back.

Barner was indicted by a grand jury in DeSoto County, Mississippi in 2022, accused of running the same scheme on an Olive Branch man.

A judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest on June 24 after he didnt show up for trial.

Man convicted in car auction scheme says victims will get money back

Barner is also scheduled to be back in Shelby County Court on Monday.

Prosecutors filed a motion to have his suspended sentence revoked after he failed to pay some $90,000 in restitution to victims.

A spokesperson for the Shelby County District Attorneys Office previously told WREG that prosecutors were working with Barner and he was attending court report dates to provide updates on restitution payments.

Cheap ride rip-off: Victims waiting on restitution after conviction

Weve reached out to the DAs office to find out if and how that may change given his arrest in DeSoto County.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
SUVA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese embassy in Fiji hosted a reception here on Friday to mark the 97th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China.

While addressing the celebration, Chinese Ambassador to Fiji Zhou Jian spoke highly of the development of the comprehensive strategic partnership between China and Fiji, and bilateral defense and security cooperation.

He said China stands ready to work with Fiji to pursue common development, uphold multilateralism and build a China-Fiji community with a shared future.

Zhang Jie, acting defense attache of the Chinese embassy in Fiji, highlighted the robust relations between the two armies, noting increased collaboration in various fields, including personnel training, group visits, maritime security, disaster response, and rescue operations.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the largest developing country in the world, Zhang said China will always remain a builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, a defender of the international order, and a provider of public goods.

For his part, Fijian Minister for Home Affairs and Immigration Pio Tikoduadua said the relationship between Fiji and China has grown and deepened over the years, built on mutual respect, cooperation and shared aspirations for a better future.

"Our two nations have collaborated across various sectors, from trade and investment to cultural exchanges and defense. This partnership has enriched our countries and fostered a spirit of friendship that transcends borders," the minister said.

Acknowledging the vital role that military forces play in maintaining global peace and stability, Tikoduadua said the PLA's contributions to international peacekeeping missions, disaster relief efforts and humanitarian assistance underscore the importance of cooperation and solidarity among nations in addressing the challenges of our time.

More than 200 guests from the Fijian government, armed forces and members of the diplomatic corps as well as representatives of the Chinese societies in Fiji attended the reception. 
DECATUR, Ga. (AP)  The Georgia sun scorched the slab of concrete beneath Juan Carlos Ramirez Bibianos body when nurses found him in a puddle of his own excrement, vomiting, according to a complaint.

Officers left Ramirez in an outdoor cell at Telfair State Prison on July 20, 2023, for five hours without water, shade or ice, even as the outside temperature climbed to 96 degrees by the afternoon, according to a lawsuit brought by his family. That evening, the complaint says, Ramirez died of heart and lung failure caused by heat exposure. He was 27.

Ramirezs family, including his mother, Norma Bibiano, announced a lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Corrections on Thursday, alleging that officers negligent performance of their duties caused his death. The warden directed officers to check on inmates, bring them water and ice and limit their time outside, the complaint says.

The Department of Corrections reported that Ramirez died of natural causes, Jeff Filipovits, one of Norma Bibianos attorneys, said at a news conference in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta.

Georgias prisons are under nationwide scrutiny. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice opened a civil rights investigation, which is ongoing, into the states prisons following concerns about violence, understaffing and sexual abuse.

Outside of Georgia, the Federal Bureau of Prisons has faced complaints of widespread dysfunction. The Associated Press found rampant sexual abuse, criminal misconduct from staff, understaffing, inmate escapes, COVID outbreaks and crumbling infrastructure inside prisons across the country.

The findings led U.S. Sen. John Ossoff of Georgia to introduce bipartisan legislation in 2022 that would overhaul oversight of the agency and improve transparency. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate on July 10.

At an 8 a.m. daily meeting on the day of Ramirezs death, Telfair State Prison Warden Andrew McFarlane ordered department heads to keep inmates hydrated, bring them ice and avoid leaving them outside for too long in the heat, according to the lawsuit.

A prison staff member brought Ramirez to an outdoor rec cell around 10 a.m., after his meeting with a mental health provider, the lawsuit says. The temperature had reached 86 degrees by then.

About 3 p.m., five on-site nurses rushed into the yard in response to an alert from security staff, according to the lawsuit. That is when the nurses found him lying naked on the concrete near his vomit and excrete, the lawsuit says.

Ramirezs breathing was strained, and his heartbeat was irregular, the lawsuit says. A nurse said that Ramirez was blue and hot to the touch, according to the complaint. Nurses pressed cold water bottles onto his groin and under his arms.

Nurses then put an automated external defibrillator on Ramirezs chest, but it did not deliver a shock. After some time passed, a doctor arrived to help the nurses administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the complaint says. He tried to insert tubes into Ramirez, who still had trouble breathing, seemingly because of his yellow stomach bile, according to the complaint.

Later, his internal body temperature was recorded at 107 degrees Fahrenheit (41.7 Celsius), the complaint says.

Around 3:35 p.m., Emergency Medical Services arrived and took Ramirez to a local hospital. He died at 8:25 p.m. from cardiopulmonary arrest brought by heat exposure, according to the complaint.

The number of deaths that are occurring in custody is galling, and the absolute lawlessness inside of prisons is a humanitarian crisis, Filipovits said at the news conference of Georgias prisons. I dont use those words lightly.

Homicides inside Georgias prisons are rising, and the number is higher than in other states, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. But the Journal-Constitution also reported that starting in March, the Department of Corrections stopped immediately reporting the causes of inmate deaths

The attorneys said they have minimal information about the events leading up to Ramirezs death. For example, they arent sure whether officers brought Ramirez to an outdoor cell for routine or punitive purposes. They say they remain in the dark about which officers were directly in charge of taking care of Ramirez.

A piece of my heart is gone, Norma Bibiano said in Spanish at the news conference. Ramirezs brother sat by her side. Ramirez also left behind a son, and he was a father figure to his partners son, the family said.

Bibiano recalled her son as loving, kind and intelligent. She said she always hoped her son would return home, and she misses hearing him say, I love you, mama over the phone.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS.
LEMON GROVE, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI)  A man killed in a hit-and-run crash earlier this week in Lemon Grove has been identified, authorities said.

Brian Colvin, 44, of Spring Valley, died at the hospital after being struck by a vehicle Monday in the 8300 block of Broadway, Lt. Michael Krugh with the San Diego County Sheriffs Department said in a news release Thursday.

Deputies received the call about a hit and run around 2:15 a.m. When they arrived on scene, they found Colvin, who was conscious and breathing, lying in the center lane on Broadway, according to authorities.

San Diego mayor reacts to governors order on homeless encampments

Colvin was taken to hospital where he died from his injuries.

His cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma and the manner was a homicide, per the sheriffs department.

Witnesses reported Colvin was standing in the roadway in front of an unknown vehicle, speaking with the occupants of the vehicle. A few seconds later, the vehicle accelerated, intentionally struck him and fled from the area, Krugh said.

Anyone with information about this crash is asked to call the Homicide Unit at 858-285-6330/after hours at 858-565-5200. You can remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX 5 San Diego & KUSI News.
On Friday night KIRO 7 learned a man had turned himself in and was booked on misdemeanor gun charges related to the fatal Pioneer Square shooting Thursday night that occurred during an art gathering.

It happened shortly before 9:30 p.m. on the rooftop of a building in the 400 block of Occidental Avenue South.

When officers arrived, they found a 30-year-old man with gunshot wounds.

Despite receiving aid from the police and the Seattle Fire Department, the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

Seattle Police confirm this is the third homicide in the neighborhood, matching 2023s total in Pioneer Square.

A second individual, a man, was discovered with a non-life-threatening injury caused by a shattered tile during the gunfire.

I dont think its the most surprising, said Mia Cyger who works several days a week in the neighborhood.

I did get followed this morning a little bit, so I think there are times when it feels less safe than others, but generally, during the day, its a very lovely space and there are not very many issues.

The party was a kickoff to the Forest for the Trees festival where murals from 37 different artists are painted in different areas across Pioneer Square. KIRO 7 spoke with several people who are part of the festival who hope people still visit the exhibits despite the shooting Thursday night.

A spokesperson for Mayor Bruce Harrell responded in a statement to Thursday nights events, expressing condolences for the victim and recommitting to downtown events.

We continue to support a wide array of events and activations that increase activitypeople in the neighborhood, feet on the street, eyes on the groundwhich can help improve safety as we bring people downtown. The statement said.

District 1 City Councilor Rob Saka also posted on social media, expressing his desire for people to continue to support the festival this weekend and the neighborhood in general.

Lets continue to support this great Seattle Art Fair happening this weekend and support many small businesses in Pioneer Square. Saka posted.

While the circumstances surrounding the shooting are still unclear, and no suspect has been identified, some with the festival believed that the suspect and the victim knew each other.

For Harrell, his spokesperson says this underscores the impact gun violence is having on the city.

This tragic event underscores the urgent need to take guns off our streets, advance both law enforcement and community-based efforts, and continue advocacy to the state Legislature to overturn state preemption of firearms, so municipalities like Seattle have the freedom to set our own gun safety laws.

Authorities are asking anyone with information about the incident to contact the Seattle Police Department Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS.
Man on moped dies after hit-and-run in Greensboro intersection, police say

Man on moped dies after hit-and-run in Greensboro intersection, police say

GREENSBORO, N.C. (WGHP)  Greensboro police are investigating a fatal hit-and-run on Wednesday.

At 11:03 p.m., Greensboro police responded to East Wendover Avenue and North English Street when they were told about a hit-and-run, according to a Greensboro Police Department news release.

Greensboro families cant bury teens after crash due to incomplete autopsies

Douglas Anderson, 56, of Greensboro, was on a moped going south on North English Street and entered the intersection at East Wendover Avenue.

A dark-colored SUV going north on North English Street made a left turn onto East Wendover Avenue.

The moped and SUV crashed in the intersection.

The SUV left the scene and headed west on East Wendover Avenue.

Anderson was taken to a hospital where he died from injuries sustained in the crash.

The vehicle that left the scene was described as a newer model Dodge Durango with possible passenger-side 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 FOX8 WGHP.
An Alabama man indicted for threatening election workers in Maricopa County, Ariz., pleaded guilty Thursday, according to the Department of Justice.

Brian Ogstad sent several messages over social media to election workers in the county during the 2022 primaries, at times threatening to kill the workers for being cheats and frauds.

Maricopa County, a key swing district in the state, attracted national attention after the 2020 election, when then-President Trumps administration alleged that there was widespread voter fraud that led to his defeat. A GOP-led review found in September 2021 there was no support for stolen election claims.

The functioning of our democracy requires that our countrys public servants be able to do their jobs without fearing for their lives, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in response to the conviction.

We have no tolerance for this kind of heinous criminal conduct and the danger it poses to peoples safety and to our democratic process. Threats and acts of violence targeting those who serve the public will be met with the full force of the United States Justice Department.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco launched the Election Threats Task Force in June 2021, to address what she termed a significant increase in the threat of violence against Americans who administer free and fair elections throughout our Nation.

The U.S. attorneys office has worked in conjunction with the FBI to prosecute threats against workers.

The FBI takes seriously all threats of violence against public officials and will continue to pursue threats and acts of violence aimed at election workers, FBI Director Christopher Wray said.

Ogstad is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 21 and faces up to five years in prison, according to the Justice Department.

In a heightened political climate, people often make online remarks they wish they can take back, Todd Spodek, Ogstads attorney, told CNN after the plea deal was reached. Unfortunately, Mr. Ogstad let his emotions get the best of him and sent a number of messages that he regrets.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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 man sued a restaurant after a bone in his 'boneless' wings got lodged in his throat. He lost.

A man sued a restaurant after a bone in his 'boneless' wings got lodged in his throat. He lost.

A man in Ohio said he had to go to the ER after a bone in a boneless wing got lodged in his throat.

The man sued the restaurant, its supplier, and a chicken farm, but he lost his case.

He appealed the ruling twice. This week, Ohio's Supreme Court agreed with the lower courts.

A restaurant in Ohio was found "not negligent" for injuries sustained by a man who found a bone in wings that had been advertised as "boneless," Ohio's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

A lawsuit filed in 2017 said that while eating at Wings on Brookwood, a restaurant in Hamilton, in April 2016, Michael Berkheimer "suddenly felt a foreign object in his throat" but was unable to dislodge it.

The lawsuit said that after three days  during which Berkheimer said he struggled to eat  he went to the emergency room with a high fever, and physicians found a chicken bone lodged in his throat.

A doctor removed the bone, thought to be about an inch and a half long, the lawsuit said. Berkheimer said the bone tore his esophagus, causing a bacterial infection and other medical issues.

Berkheimer filed the lawsuit the next year against Wings on Brookwood as well as its food supplier and a chicken farm. After the Butler County Court of Common Pleas sided with the defendants, he took the case to the 12th District Court of Appeals, which similarly found the defendants weren't negligent.

Both courts said that because bones are naturally found in chicken breasts and not a foreign object added to them, a consumer could have reasonably expected to find them in their food and guarded against this. As a result, the courts said, the restaurant didn't breach its duty of care.

Boneless wings keep confusing diners

Breast meat tends to be cheaper than wings. bhofack2/Getty Images

Boneless wings aren't actually wings at all, and it confuses some diners.

They're typically made from strips or chunks of chicken-breast meat that are breaded and fried. The name is used to differentiate them from bone-in wings.

The confusion has led to at least one lawsuit. In 2023, a man sued Buffalo Wild Wings , claiming that the name of its boneless wings was misleading.

Before it added boneless wings to its menu this year, Popeyes considered alternative names, like "bites."

And International Wings Factory in New York City simply refers to the product as "boneless chicken."

'Boneless wing' is 'merely a description of the cooking style'

Berkheimer said in court documents that he cut the boneless wing into three pieces to eat.

"A bone of that size would have encompassed nearly the entire third bite of the boneless wing," the ruling from the appellate court said, adding, "We conclude a reasonable person could have anticipated and guarded against a similarly large-sized bone concealed in a bite size piece of chicken."

Berkheimer also appealed to Ohio's Supreme Court, which supported the Court of Appeals' ruling.

In response to Berkheimer's argument that the product was described as a "boneless wing," the Supreme Court said that it's "common sense that that label was merely a description of the cooking style" and that it wasn't a guarantee the chicken wouldn't contain any bones.

In statements to Business Insider, Berkheimer's lawyers expressed disappointment with the ruling and said it rendered the word "boneless" "completely meaningless."

Wings on Brookwood, the food supplier, and the chicken farm did not immediately respond to requests for comment from BI.

Read the original article on Business Insider
SOHO, Manhattan (PIX11)  A man is accused of threatening a woman inside a SoHo apartment to steal electronics on July 15, according to the NYPD.

A 29-year-old woman told police that a man knocked on the door of her apartment, located near Wooster and Prince streets, around 2 p.m. The man then allegedly entered the apartment, threatened the woman and stole two Apple iPads, according to authorities.

More Local News

The man then ran from the apartment, going northbound on Wooster Street, police say.

The suspect was last seen wearing a white t-shirt tied around his head, tan shorts and multicolored sneakers.

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).

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.
Man wanted by police in Maryland arrested in Lancaster County

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) Officers of the Quarryville Borough Police Department identified and arrested a man in Providence Township who is wanted by police in Maryland.

The Quarryville Borough Police Department said officers on a routine patrol of the Enola Low Grade Trail investigated several individuals getting out of a vehicle at a closed parking area on 520 Fairview Road in Providence Township around 11:00 p.m.

Close

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Severe Weather Alerts

During their investigation, police identified one of the individuals as Wade Alan Jones, 46, who was wanted by the Perryville, Maryland Police Department on charges related to Theft, Fraud, Possession of a Controlled Substance, and Possession of Drug Paraphernalia.

Police say Jones was taken into custody and transported to the Lancaster County Prison, where he will stay until extradited to Maryland.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- A new study has provided evidence showing that human activities have made global rainfall more volatile over the past century.

Published on Friday in the journal Science, the study was conducted by researchers from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the UK Met Office.

The study reveals a systematic increase in rainfall variability since the 1900s, ranging from global to regional scales and from daily to intraseasonal timescales.

Rainfall variability refers to unevenness in the timing and amount of rainfall. Higher variability means that precipitation is more unevenly distributed over time, resulting in wetter wet periods and drier dry periods. For example, some places may receive a year's worth of rain in just a few days, have long dry spells followed by heavy downpours, or alternate rapidly between drought and flooding.

By analyzing a wide range of observational data, the researchers found that rainfall variability has since the 1900s increased in about 75 percent of the land areas studied, particularly in Europe, Australia, and eastern North America. The researchers also discovered that daily global rainfall variability has increased by 1.2 percent per decade.

In the process of seeking to understand the causes of increased rainfall variability, the research team identified the dominant role of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, based on an optimal fingerprinting detection and attribution method.

"The increase in rainfall variability is mainly due to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which have led to a warmer and more humid atmosphere," said Zhang Wenxia, lead author of the study and an associate professor at the IAP.

This means that even if atmospheric circulation remains the same, the additional moisture in the air leads to more intense rain events and more drastic fluctuations between them, Zhang added.

Wide and rapid swings between climate extremes not only challenge existing capabilities of modern-day weather and climate prediction systems, but also have cascading impacts on human society, posing threats to the climate resilience of infrastructure, economic development, ecosystem functioning, and terrestrial carbon sinks, said Wu Peili, a scientist at the UK Met Office and co-author of the study.

"Immediate adaptation measures are essential to address these challenges," Wu added. 
MANOR, Texas (KXAN)  Manor Police are on the search for at least two suspects that could be linked to a recent drive-by shooting.

The shooting happened on July 21 at around 5:56 a.m., according to police.

Multiple bullets were shot into a home on Almodine Road in the Stone Water Neighborhood.

Manor Police are on the search for at least two suspects that could be linked to a recent drive-by shooting. (Courtesy Manor Police Department)

A spokesperson with the department said the vehicle involved looks to be a Dodge Challenger or Dodge Charger of an unknown color.

Manor Police tell KXAN they do believe this was an isolated incident related to relationships or associations with occupants of the home that was shot at.

This is an ongoing investigation.

Anyone with information or video of the shooting should contact Manor Police 512 272-8177.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Heres how many people have died in crashes related to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh since 1982

OSHKOSH  Monday's plane crash during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh isn't the first tragic incident to take place during the annual week-long convention and fly-in.

Two people died Monday when a plane crashed in a farm field near Old Knapp Road and Nekimi Avenue, 2 miles south of the EAA AirVenture grounds.

The plane was found fully engulfed in flames once emergency responders reached the field, where it was found two men had died. The men were identified July 24 by the Winnebago County Sheriff's Office as Sean Tommervik, 37, of El Paso, Texas, and James Sullivan, 32, of Nashville, Tennessee.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

During last year's AirVenture, five unexpected forced landings or crashes were reported in the region, with two fatal crashes July 29, 2023. No one was seriously hurt in the other three incidents.

Here's a look at some notable fatal crashes across Wisconsin with some connection EAA AirVenture Oshkosh dating back to the early 1980s. In some cases, the crashes happened near or on the convention grounds, while others involved pilots either headed to, or headed home, from the convention.

The data come from the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates the crashes. This list is not exhaustive, and excludes crashes headed to or from AirVenture that took place outside the state. If you know of a fatal crash missing from this list, contact Rashad Alexander at ralexander@gannett.com to have it added.

Everything to know about AirVenture: From admission to air show schedules and more

Deaths related to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh total at least 34 since 1982

July 29, 2023 : A gyroplane and helicopter collided midair while maneuvering for a landing at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh. Two people were killed and two others were seriously injured. According to the report, this was the gyroplane pilots first event in which he flew the gyroplane.

July 27, 2017: An aircraft hit a wave while taking off from the EAA's Seaplane Base. The plane crashed on Lake Winnebago, injuring its four passengers. One passenger died the following day, and its pilot died on July 31. The Oshkosh Northwestern previously reported the pilot was warned by Seaplane Base personnel that the water conditions were rough, even showing the pilot the waves of one and a half to two feet. The pilot still proceeded with the departure.

July 26, 2015: Two men on the way to EAA died when their plane crashed in the village of Bristol. The plane was found by authorities in a grassy field, yards away from a home.

July 31, 2014 : In a 10-minute flight during EAA AirVenture 2014, the pilot lost control of the airplane, striking a parked vehicle on the ground. The pilot was killed and the passenger was seriously injured. The probable cause of the crash, according to NTSB, is the pilot's failure to maintain airplane control during landing while the air traffic controller was simultaneously coordinating the landing of three airplanes on the same runway.

July 31, 2008 : A plane reportedly had a stall, coming down 100 yards before reaching the end of the runway at Wittman Regional Airport. Two occupants involved were killed. NTSB's investigation determined probable cause as the pilot failure to maintain adequate airspeed during landing.

July 27, 2007 : A plane collided with the tail of another plane while it was landing on the runway Wittman Regional Airport. The pilot who hit the leading plane was killed, while the pilot who was hit walked away with no injuries. The pilot who was hit reported he thought the other plane was departing and not landing.

July 30, 2006 : During an air show, a Grumman TBM-3, Avenger, crashed into the rear of another aircraft. A passenger in the vehicle that was hit died. NTSB determined the probable cause was that the Avenger pilot's visual lookout was inadequate and he failed to maintain clearance from the other plane.

July 23, 2006 : An airplane lost control and crashed into the runway at Wittman Regional Airport after it stalled. The pilot was flying to Oshkosh for EAA AirVenture. The pilot and the passenger were killed. NTSB determined the probable cause as the pilot's failure to maintain adequate airspeed on final approach, which resulted in a stall.

Aug. 1, 2004 : An amateur-built plane was destroyed when it hit a light pole and then the ground in Madison during a landing following a loss of engine power. The accident occurred when the pilot was returning home from AirVenture, headed for Rockford, Illinois. The pilot was fatally injured, according to NTSB.

July 26, 2001 : An airplane was destroyed after impacting the ground and engulfing in flames. The NTSB ruled the probably cause as an inadvertent spin/stall by the pilot, who was fatally injured. The impact happened at Wittman Regional Airport in Oshkosh.

July 24, 2001 : An airplane hit the ground after a loss of control when making the final approach to Wittman Regional Airport. The pilot was killed and the plane was destroyed. NTSB reported failing to maintain the aircraft and the pilot's overall lack of experience in the vessel as causes for the crash.

July 28, 2000: An airplane crashed in Sauk City during a cross country flight headed for AirVenture. Four people were killed in the flight, three passengers and the pilot. NTSB ruled the probable cause as exceeding the design limits of the aircraft.

Aug. 2, 1998 : Witnesses say a airplane made an abrupt turn in the air from west to south, diving into trees and bursting into flames. Accounts say this was after the plane struck a power pole. NTSB ruled probable cause as the pilot failing to maintain altitude, which resulted in the collision with trees. A passenger was killed, while the pilot was seriously injured. The plane was approaching Wittman Regional Airport.

July 31, 1998 : A plane inbound from Kankakee, Illinois, to Oshkosh hit a power line in Coloma and came tumbling down, according to a witness. The pilot was killed.

Aug. 5, 1997 : A pilot sustained fatal injuries after departing Oshkosh after their plane had a mechanical failure. NTSB ruled probable cause as the kit manufacturer's use of inadequate material in construction of the airplane.

Aug. 4, 1997 : Near Poygen, a pilot and passenger died after a plane hit the ground. NTSB ruled probable cause of a crash as a loss control of the aircraft. In this case, NTSB said the crash had no witnesses, though the property owner heard the plane come down.

Aug. 8, 1996 : In Fond du Lac, witnesses saw a plane spiraling down with smoke coming from it before it crashed. NTSB investigations ruled the cause as the fatigue in the propeller's flange. The pilot died.

Aug. 3, 1992 : A plane crashed in Oshkosh after the empennage and tailboom assembly separated from the fuselage/hull during descent. Two people died.

Aug. 2, 1992 : A pilot was participating in a fly-by during EAA when the plane appeared to enter a steep bank, causing a loss of control by the pilot. The pilot died from a heart attack before the crash, according to NTSB.

Aug. 2, 1990 : Aircraft was performing maneuvers in connections with EAA when the vehicle committed to an unexpected snap roll, descending into the terrain. NTSP said the pilot, who was fatally injured, failed to maintain speed when dealing with a stall.

Aug. 6, 1983 : During an air show, an aircraft hit the ground before recovering from its spin. According to NTSB, the pilot suffered severe neck and brain injuries, ultimately dying six days after the accident.

July 31, 1983 : During a showcase, an aircraft was destroyed after striking a tree. NTSB claims the aircraft was in an inverted position while in the air. The crash resulted in one death.

Aug. 3, 1982: A report from NTSB reported two aircrafts made contact while in flight in Oshkosh, resulting in two deaths.

How many pilots participate in EAA?

According to Dick Knapinski, EAA director of communications, 8,000 to 12,000 airplanes come to the Oshkosh region, with pilots landing in the Green Bay, Appleton and Fond du Lac areas as well.

How is EAA promoting pilot safety?

Knapinski told the Oshkosh Northwestern that EAA gives airmen a 32-page document that is required for pilots to read. They also put on a number of videos of how to safely fly the pattern, and specific landmarks to look out for.

He also explained incidents should not be linked to another, as each crash involves unique factors.

"Look at every incident as a separate occurrence, because most of the time, there are factors that are specific to that specific incident that may have caused it to happen," Knapinski said. "That could be anything from weather to flight experience, to what they did with a certain maneuver, things like that."

EAA's year-round impact: EAA is a year-round attraction beyond just AirVenture. Here's a look at its impact.

EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2024 runs through July 28.

The 71st EAA AirVenture Oshkosh runs daily through July 28 at Wittman Regional Airport, 525 W. 20th Ave., Oshkosh. Daily tickets are $45 for adult members and $63 for adult non-members. Veterans and active military members pay $45 while kids 18 years and younger are admitted free. For more information, visit eaa.org/airventure.

Rashad Alexander can be reached at ralexander@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: EAA AirVenture Oshkosh: How many people have died in crashes since 1982
The U.S. High Speed Rail Association, an independent nonprofit organization that advocates for high-speed rail development, just published a map that shows what the country would look like with a 17,000-mile network from coast to coast, Newsweek reported.

Other countries  most notably, China, which now has a robust high-speed rail network that spans nearly 28,000 miles of track  have invested heavily in high-speed rail. The United States has lagged far behind, save for a network that is now getting underway in California and a privately owned line in Florida.

Studies have shown that high-speed rail is the most planet-friendly form of long-distance travel, creating much less air pollution per passenger than cars or airplanes, while also requiring less total space and minimizing noise pollution.

As the United States is and has long been car-centric, many status quo lovers have made the argument that high-speed rail is not realistic here. However, the U.S. High Speed Rail Association presented not just a map but an entire, structured plan for how a comprehensive, countrywide system could be implemented  if only we had political leaders with the will and the priorities to carry it out.

The plan would be built out in four stages. The first stage would have construction focused on seven regions, including lines connecting Dallas to San Antonio and Houston, Chicago to Minneapolis and Detroit, and New York City to Washington, D.C.

When it's complete, travelers should be able to zoom around the country at speeds of 220 miles per hour, safely, quickly, cheaply, and with minimal environmental impact.

The project would also, of course, create a great number of jobs throughout the country.

"The Obama-Biden Administration set a goal of giving 80 percent of Americans access to high-speed rail within 25 years. Such nationwide access remains our goal," Andy Kunz, CEO of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association, told Newsweek.

Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the coolest innovations improving our lives and saving our planet.
Mark Kelly was there when I needed help for my daughter. He's the VP America needs

I am writing with a rebuttal of the opinion regarding Sen. Mark Kelly by Jake Byrne (Dont canonize Mark Kelly as a VP contender. Hes no saint).

Mark Kelly never wanted to be a politician. The tragedy suffered by his wife was the catalyst that propelled him into the world of politics. We need a leader that is not doing it for the power and notoriety, but for his family and country.

You need more proof of his authenticity? My daughter is serving in the military overseas stationed in Bahrain. We got a call one evening from her commanding officer as she was in dire straits due to a botched procedure by the locals. The news was grim, and I knew I needed to get her out of there.

Forget Kelly: This GOP senator should be Harris' VP

I reached out to the offices of both Sens. Kelly and Kyrsten Sinema for assistance. I never heard from Sinemas office; however, a representative from Kellys office responded within four hours and asked what they could do to assist and was prepared to intervene on her behalf.

Fortunately, by that time the crisis had passed. I have never forgotten that and I am proud to have that man represent me and my state.

He is exactly the type of politician we need at exactly the right time in America. Personally, I wish he was at the top of the ticket.

Brad Chamberlain, Maricopa

Whats on your mind? Send us a letter to the editor online or via email at opinions@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mark Kelly was there for my Navy daughter. He'd make a great VP
BENNETTSVILLE, S.C. (WBTW)  People who live in some low-lying communities in Bennettsville are back at home Thursday night after another breach in the Lake Paul Wallace dam forced them to evacuate.

Its the second time since May the dam has failed. The latest breach affected the Richardson Park and Shady Rest communities.

News13 photo: Savannah Denton

News13 photo: Savannah Denton

News13 photo: Savannah Denton

News13 photo: Savannah Denton

News13 photo: Savannah Denton

News13 photo: Savannah Denton

Marlboro County officials said they were worried about the latest dam breach on Beauty Spot Road after the May breach caused several evacuations. This time, only eight residents had to evacuate.

State officials say internal erosion was blamed for the breach of the earthen dam back in May. Both state and local officials spent Thursday working to assess the damage and determine the cause of the latest failure.

County officials said while fewer evacuations were needed this time, it continues to face ongoing issues with the dam. The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, which owns it, said it will perform daily inspections for the next several days since more rain is expected.

From a county standpoint, the city standpoint, I think weve done everything we can locally to try to alleviate this problem, Marlboro County Director of Operations Jamal Campbell said. The citizens are definitely tired, as well as the local governing officials in the county, were definitely tired.

Campbell said theres a need for proactive measures to address the problem. He said they hope to work with state and federal agencies to clean up the creek and find a long-term solution.

Were on the cusp of our hurricane season starting. So, you know, we have to be proactive and start thinking, well, whats to happen come late September, early October? Campbell said. So, we need to look with our state and federal agencies and see how we can be proactive and putting some things in place to try to rectify the situation as expeditiously as possible.

Campbell hopes they can get to the bottom of the situation sooner rather than later.

* * *

Savannah Denton joined News 13 in July 2023 as a reporter and producer. Savannah is from Atlanta, Georgia, and is a graduate of the University of Alabama. Follow Savannah on X, formerly Twitter, and read more of her work here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Martin S. Indyk, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, testifies before the Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Subcommittee during a hearing on U.S. policy toward Iran on May 14, 1998. | Congressional Quarterly/Newscom

The first and only time I met Ambassador Martin Indyk was in February 2020, at the offices of The National Interest, a magazine I worked for after graduating college. Indyk was there to give a talk related to his recent Wall Street Journal article, "The Middle East Isn't Worth It Anymore." Unlike many who believe that U.S. interventionism in the region has been destructive and wasteful, Indyk argued that Washington has basically gotten what it wantedand could now leave the region alone.

Indyk would know. The former White House official and diplomat, who passed away on Thursday at the age of 73, was one of the architects of U.S. policy in the Middle East in the 1990s, when Washington was first starting to flex its dominance over the region. Indyk's most (in)famous contribution was announcing the "dual containment" policy, which committed the U.S. to a virtually endless struggle against Iran and Iraq at the same time. Later in life, he became a skeptic of continuing those commitments.

Last year, Indyk called for ending U.S. military aid to Israel, which he had previously fought to secure throughout his career.

"Those who actually believe the Middle East doesn't matter anymore thought that I had become a defector to the isolationism crowd," Indyk joked at The National Interest event, in his distinctive Australian accent. But the U.S. did have legitimate reasons to intervene in the region, Indyk insisted: "The first three were oil, oil, and oil. The fourth was Israel." It was only because those interests were secure that Americans could back off. The global energy market had moved away from a reliance on Persian Gulf oil, he noted, and "Israel today is quite capable of standing on its own two feet."

His tone shifted yet again over the final few months of his life. Indyk's last public statements were a series of social media posts bemoaning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership of the country and failure to appreciate U.S. support. "Wake up Israel! Your government is leading you into ever greater isolation and ruin," Indyk wrote on May 22. The policy pillars that Indyk had helped erect had not only outlived their usefulness; it seems they had begun to collapse in on themselves.

It was Israel that got Indyk interested in the Middle East in the first place. Born in Britain and raised in Australia, he was studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem when he witnessed the Arab-Israeli war of 1973 break out. Indyk briefly served in the Australian intelligence services as a specialist on the Middle East, then moved to the United States in 1982 to work at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He helped found the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, another pro-Israel think tank.

In 1991, before announcing his candidacy for president, Bill Clinton sat down for a briefing with Indyk, who promised that they could secure four peace agreements: an Israeli-Palestinian treaty, an Israeli-Jordanian treaty, an Israeli-Lebanese treaty, and an Israeli-Syrian treaty. Clinton liked what he heard. Indyk was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1993and joined Clinton's National Security Council a week later. Clinton later appointed Indyk to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state.

Those were the optimistic first days of the Arab-Israeli peace process, which soured soon enough. Although Israel and Jordan did normalize relations, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations dragged on. (Diplomacy with Lebanon and Syria did not even come close to fruition.) At the end of the Clinton administration, in 2000, a breakdown in talks exploded into brutal Israeli-Palestinian violence. Clinton and his envoy Dennis Ross blamed the Palestinian leadership. Other officials such as Robert Malley and Aaron David Miller put some of the blame on Israeli intransigence and Clinton's tendency to "act as Israel's lawyer," in Miller's words.

The Clinton era also hardened the U.S. conflicts with Iran and Iraq. The two countries had gone to war with each other in the 1980s, and former president Ronald Reagan backed Iraq to prevent an Iranian victory. Then, in 1991, Iraq invaded U.S. partners Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, leading the U.S. military to smash the Iraqi army. The Clinton administration decided that it could and should play permanent policeman in the region. Indyk announced this "dual containment" policy in a 1993 speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

"The current Iraqi and Iranian regimes are both hostile to American interests in the region. Accordingly, we do not accept the argument that we should continue the old balance of power game, building up one to balance the other," Indyk said. "As long as we are able to maintain our military presence in the region," he declared, the U.S. would use that presence "to counter both the Iraqi and Iranian regimes."

Indyk's speech contained the seeds of an even more aggressive policy. The Clinton administration would provide "stronger backing for the Iraqi National Congress as a democratic alternative to the Saddam Hussein regime," Indyk announced. Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, later helped feed President George W. Bush's delusions that Iraqis would greet U.S. troops as liberators, and provided much of the false intelligence on "weapons of mass destruction" that justified the U.S. invasion in 2003.

Meanwhile, the containment of Iran was supposed to work hand-in-hand with Arab-Israeli normalization. "Our strategy was to, on one hand, use the engine of peacemaking to transform the region and on the other hand contain the [Iranians] through sanctions and isolation. The more we succeeded in making peace, the more isolated [Iran] would become," Indyk later said, according to the 2007 book Treacherous Alliance by Trita Parsi. Indyk had not foreseen that Iran would "outsmart us by taking on the peace process," supporting hardline Palestinian factions like Hamas to undermine any Arab-Israeli alliance, he told Parsi.

After Clinton left office, Indyk spent the remainder of his career in the academic and think tank world, only returning to government for a few months in 2013 and 2014 to serve as President Barack Obama's envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. By then, Indyk had become known as a skeptic of the Israeli position and a dove on the Iranian issue.

Shortly before Indyk stepped down in 2014, he anonymously complained that "the primary sabotage" for peace talks "came from the settlements. The Palestinians don't believe that Israel really intends to let them found a state when, at the same time, it is building settlements on the territory meant for that state." (Israeli media unmasked him as the anonymous source.) After stepping down, Indyk publicly reiterated that Palestinians who have "grown up under Israeli occupation" have no reason to hope "that the Israelis will ever grant them their rights."

In 2015, he testified to Congress in favor of Obama's proposed grand bargain over Iran's nuclear program. "The agreement buys a breathing space of at least ten years," Indyk said, although he also called for "a robust effort to promote a regional security strategy that takes advantage of the respite to begin to rebuild a more stable order." He proposed providing more military support to Israel and friendly Arab states, and bringing those countries under the U.S. "nuclear umbrella."

After President Donald Trump took office, Indyk testified again, urging Trump to stick to Obama's deal. (Trump famously did not take that advice.) "Nothing is easy about countering Iran in the conflict-ridden Middle East, but everything becomes easier if we do not have an Iranian nuclear threat to contend with at the same time," Indyk said. "Negotiations are not a concession to Iran, nor a sign of weakness, as long as they are backed by sanctions and the other elements of the strategy, and as long as they are fully coordinated with our regional allies," he added.

Perhaps it wasn't Indyk who changed. American and Israeli politics have both grown far more hawkish since the Clinton era. Indyk always wanted to use U.S. leverage over Iran to pressure it into making concessions; the hawks in Trump's inner circle want to use that leverage for a full-on regime change campaign. The Israeli government of the 1990s agreed with Indyk that Palestinian self-rule was vital to Israel's security; the Israeli parliament this month voted overwhelmingly to declare Palestinian self-rule an "existential danger." Indyk, a hawk in his time, now seems like a dove by comparison.

Yet his own role in creating these monsters can't be ignored. In the 1990s, the United States could have made peace with Iran and Iraq from a position of strength. Dual containment led to decades of war and tension, squandering Washington's advantage and making peace much harder to achieve. And the Clinton-era vision for an Arab-Israeli alliance against Iran became Netanyahu's strategy for stepping over the Palestinian question.

In other words, Indyk wanted the U.S. to build its power in the Middle East until a satisfactory point, and then consolidate its gains. Those who followed Indyk, however, saw no reason to stop pushing ahead. As long as the U.S. was "winning," prudence and restraint seemed like a cowardly half-measure. It took the catastrophe of October 2023 and everything that followed to remind American leaders that their power had limits. Some still don't want to admit it.

The story of Indyk's life is the story of the U.S. relationship to the Middle East. The people who ran U.S. foreign policy in the 1990s were suddenly thrust into the position of absolute overlords, and the Middle East felt like putty in their hands. By the time the unintended consequences of their overconfidence became clear, it was too late to stop those consequences from unfolding. The world that Indyk created will outlive himdespite his best efforts.

The post Martin Indyk Got Us Knee-Deep Into the Middle Eastand Then Tried To Get Us Out appeared first on Reason.com.
(From left to right): Philadelphia Councilwoman Quetcy Lozada, state Rep. Jordan Harris, House Speaker Joanna McClinton, Gabby Giffords (at podium) and Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords speak at Salt & Light Church in Philadelphia July 25, 2024 (Capital-Star photo by John Cole)

PHILADELPHIA Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton spoke about the impact of gun violence at a church in Southwest Philadelphia on Thursday, and touted their support of Vice President Kamala Harriss campaign for president.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been a fierce defender and protector of our communities, standing against gun violence for decades in America, McClinton said at Salt & Light Church. Kamala Harris not only has contributed her entire career to public safety, but she has been a vocal and effective advocate to ensure that we have less and less gun violence all across America.

During her speech, McClinton addressed the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump at a rally in western Pennsylvania on July 13 that resulted in the death of attendee Corey Comperatore and left two others hospitalized. The shooter was also killed at the scene.

McClinton said we continue to pray for the victims of the tragedy and those in attendance who had trauma from it, but added that it should be recognized that no one has been more beholden to the NRA, than Trump.

He has stood over and over again with the NRA over our children, McClinton said of Trump.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.

Our lives can change so quickly, Giffords said. Mine did when I was shot, but I never give up hope.

Giffords survived an assassination attempt in 2011 in Arizona and discussed her recovery during brief remarks on Thursday.

Emma Brown, executive director of the Giffords organization dedicated to addressing gun violence, highlighted the work that the Biden-Harris administration has done in regards to gun violence. She cited the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act gun safety bill signed into law in 2022 and the creation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which Harris oversees.

State Rep. Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia), lauded the vice presidents prior work addressing the issue and discussed the local challenges people of all ages in the community deal with related to gun violence.

How can a child learn mathematics when you subtracted their best friend from the classroom? Harris said during the press conference.

When discussing how the Pennsylvania General Assembly is addressing gun violence, McClinton pointed to the state House passing three bills that she said would ban ghost guns, close gun show loopholes, and red flag law. Those bills have not passed the GOP-controlled state Senate.

Pennsylvania has been at the center for much of the 2024 presidential campaign and is once again in the spotlight this week following reports that Gov. Josh Shapiro is on Harriss shortlist for running mates. McClinton, Harris, and various Pennsylvania Democrats have endorsed Shapiro as VP. Shapiro has not confirmed interest in the office, but he also has not denied it.

Giffords husband, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), is reportedly also one of the candidates on Harriss short list for potential running mates.

Giffords didnt address speculation about Kelly potentially joining Harris on the ticket, but did respond to a question from reporters when asked to tell them about him.

He is my best friend, Giffords said. He is my best friend. He is so funny, funny, funny. I love him a lot.

McClinton said the good news is its not up to me, who will be Harriss choice for vice president, but said shes focused on Harrisburg, electing Harris, and letting people across the nation know that our governor here, Josh Shapiro, has always been a peoples champion, and lauded his record on public safety from his time as governor and previously serving as attorney general.

But I also recognize, as I told the congresswoman when she came in, that Sen. Kelly continues to be a champion, a former veteran, an astronaut, someone who earned the United States Senate seat in Arizona with the support of the late Sen. John McCain, is someone we all hold in high regard, but Im not making those decisions, McClinton said.

Giffords is reportedly scheduled to stump for the Harris campaign in Michigan over the weekend.

Shapiro will be on the campaign trail for the Harris ticket this weekend in Cumberland County and will be joined by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer for an event in the Philadelphia area on Monday.

Trump will be holding a rally in Harrisburg on Wednesday, his first scheduled appearance in the state since the assassination attempt.

An Emerson College poll released earlier on Thursday showed Trump leading Harris by 2 points in Pennsylvania.
Dave McCormick, the Republican running for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, speaks to attendees at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

After witnessing the July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick called for cooler political rhetoric.

McCormick has said he believes that divisive and incendiary political rhetoric is, in part, responsible for the shooting where Trump was injured and rallygoer Corey Comperatore was killed. And hes calling for people on both sides of the aisle to temper the way they talk about one another and the politicians they disagree with.

I hope it will have people step back and reflect, McCormick said in an interview with a local CBS station the day after the shooting. The political rhetoric that we see, and weve seen growing, is really concerning. Its hard to imagine that this environment of nastiness and dehumanizing rhetoric doesnt contribute to violence.

But McCormicks calls for toned-down political rhetoric have drawn renewed scrutiny of his investment in a social media platform popular on the right wing, Rumble, which has been criticized for hosting antisemitism, amplifying conspiracy theories and allowing videos with extremist rhetoric to remain available on the site.

According to his most recent financial disclosure, McCormick has between $1 million and $5 million invested in the website.

The investment has already brought criticisms from McCormicks opponent, incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), whose campaign mentioned it in a recent attack ad.

The investment is one of many disclosed by McCormick in filings with the U.S. Senate. Reported assets include dozens of investments in individual companies, mutual funds, bonds, government-backed securities and properties owned by McCormick and his wife Dina Powell. Altogether, theyre worth at least $129 million.

Rumble did not respond to questions sent by the Capital-Star.

In a June filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company described itself as a high-growth neutral video platform and cloud services provider that is creating the rails and independent infrastructure designed to be immune to cancel culture. Rumbles mission is to restore the Internet to its roots by making it free and open once again.

Many of the sites most popular content creators, its investors, and its users, are associated with the political right.

In the days following the assassination attempt on Trump, the site platformed numerous livestreams and videos about the shooting on a curated section of its front page. Many of the videos alleged Democratic or deep state involvement, despite no evidence supporting those claims.

So far, the FBI has said no clear motive has been determined but investigations into the shooting are ongoing. The bureau has also said that it appears the shooter acted alone.

False claims about the 2020 election, COVID-19 vaccines and immigrants have thrived on Rumble as well, with many being repeated regularly on videos or channels featured on Rumbles homepage and by monetized content creators.

Content monetization allows video creators to profit from views through advertisement and other means. Many social media sites will disable ads or block income for users who violate their content policies.

A July 19 search for the term election on Rumble, replicated on multiple devices, one using a virtual private network (VPN) , primarily turned up results casting doubt on either the results of the 2020 election or the fairness of the upcoming 2024 election. Using multiple devices or a VPN are ways to prevent a sites algorithm from learning the users behavior and serving content the user previously viewed or clicked on.



Of the top 10 results in the July 19 searches, eight of the videos in each contained conspiracy theories alleging coordinated interference in either the 2020 or 2024 election. Many of the videos also included other conspiracy theories, including false claims that the Trump assassination attempt was orchestrated by Democrats or the deep state.

The things that we see [most mainstream social media] platforms trying to tamp down on, thats the central marketing for a platform like Rumble, Jonathan Lewis, a research fellow at the George Washington University Center on Extremism, told the Capital-Star. Fringe, right wing, online influencers and grifters that were pivotal to the Stop the Steal movements growth, were pivotal to the mobilization to the Capitol on January 6, those are the primary users and the primary audience of Rumble.

A McCormick campaign spokesperson responded to this claim by arguing that an investor is not responsible for all of a websites content, suggesting there was no incongruity between the candidates call to tone down political rhetoric and his investment in Rumble.

Daves position as a voice for moral clarity is indisputable, said Nate Sizemore, the McCormick campaigns press secretary. He has and will continue to forcefully condemn violent rhetoric. The idea that anyone who invests in Twitter or Facebook is responsible for the content of every post on the platform is absurd, and the same principle applies here.

McCormicks latest financial disclosure shows he was previously invested in Twitter, though an amount is not given and the asset is listed as no longer held.

Sizemore added, McCormicks strong voice against the antisemitic encampments terrorizing college campuses is a sharp contrast to Bob Casey, who has repeatedly failed to speak out.

Democrats in Pennsylvania, however, have also raised concerns about McCormicks investment in the site because of the alleged prominence of antisemitic content on it.

At a March press conference, Rep. Dan Frankel (D-Allegheny), a Jewish lawmaker whose district includes the Tree of Life synagogue, criticized the website for hosting antisemitic content.

According to a June report from Trib Live, Rumble sent a cease-and-desist letter to the state Democratic party and Frankel himself, threatening to sue if lawmakers didnt retract their claims.

Rumble is not antisemitic or extremist, Elizabeth Locke, a lawyer representing Rumble, wrote in a letter to Frankel. Rather, it is, and always has been, a proudly content-neutral video platform dedicated to protecting a free and open internet by providing a safe space for open discourse. Frankly, we are surprised that a political leader, such as yourself, would seek to smear Rumble for its commitment to upholding the First Amendment values that are central to American democracy.

Rumble does have a content moderation policy that includes disallowing content that is grossly offensive to the online community, including but not limited to, racism, anti-semitism and hatred.

It has similar rules for user comments.

Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski has said that he doesnt want Rumble to be exclusively associated with the far right.

Appearing on the Charlie Kirk Show live at the Republican National Convention, Pavlovski said the site was, based simply on the premise of helping the small creator getting the distribution and monetization they werent getting on the incumbent platforms.

Kirk is the founder of the conservative student group Turning Point USA, and a prominent spreader of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

Kirk was also an early investor in Rumble along with other conservative content creators, politicians and donors.

Other investors besides McCormick and Kirk have included Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, Trumps vice presidential pick, Dan Bongino, a former Fox News personality who now has a show on the platform and libertarian mega-donor Peter Thiel.

According to a 2023 Pew Research survey, about three quarters of respondents who regularly get news from Rumble either identify as Republicans or Republican-leaning.

In his conversation with Kirk, Pavolovski characterized Rumble as a home for content creators banned from or demonetized on other platforms.

Back in 2021 it was just us, Pavlovski said. If you had an opinion on COVID, if you had an opinion on the elections, and didnt go with the narrative of the incumbent platforms, they were gonna shadow ban you. They were gonna demonetize you or take you out.

The site has also made inroads with content creators from outside of the political world, striking deals with streamers focused on subjects like gaming and hip-hop. Rumble was also a streaming partner for the Republican National Conventions presidential debate in 2023.

In the view of Lewis, the research fellow, Rumble has quickly become the platform of choice for extremists who want to make long form video content, Lewis said. And that should tell you all you need to know about how willing Rumble is to appeal to this very specific subset of actors, he contends.
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- China's judicial authorities issued a guideline on Friday, emphasizing a stringent crackdown on cross-border telecommunications fraud and intensified efforts to recover stolen funds and compensate for losses.

The guideline, jointly released by the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security, called for thorough investigations into the financial status of criminal groups involved in cross-border telecom fraud and extortion.

It also highlighted the need for timely and lawful actions such as questioning, seizure, detention, and freezing of funds, as well as sealing of real estate, vehicles and other valuable assets linked to such cases.

The guideline specifically targets criminal groups and their organizers, planners, commanders and core members, as well as organizations providing shelter for such illegal activities.

The authorities will also focus on combating acts like intentional homicide, injury, kidnapping, rape, forced prostitution and illegal detention.

They will also target criminal activities related to the recruitment of members for cross-border telecom fraud groups and the facilitation of illegal border crossings. 
WASHINGTON  In one of the most stunning weeks in American politics, President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to be the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. The change leaves Harris with less than four months to prove to voters that shes the best person to lead the country  and to defeat Donald Trump.

Democrats have raced to publicly unite behind Harris, and their efforts are alreadyreenergizing a base of supporters sapped of enthusiasm for Biden, who was plummeting in the polls after a disastrous debate performance last month in Atlanta.

But theres another side to a massive transition like this  namely, the mechanics of it all  thats being hashed out behind the scenes and has raised questions. How can you just swap in Harris for Biden, after voters across the country picked Biden to be the Democratic nominee? How is Bidens campaign going to suddenly revamp its entire operation for a different candidate?

The short answer is that this is a lot easier to do because Harris was already on the presidential ticket with Biden. The long answer is that its not just about mechanics, but messaging.

Federal Election Committee rules allow Harris to use the tens of millions of dollars in existing Biden-Harris campaign funds, the campaigns tens of thousands of employees, and its crucial voter data lists (though Trump has already filed a complaint challenging her ability to do this).

A major partys presumptive nominee stepping down months before Election Day is not an ordinary event, but it is also not a crisis, Trevor Potter, president of Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement. There are Democratic Party rules in place to govern the process of selecting a new nominee. There are also rules established by the Federal Election Commission that apply to the funds currently held by the Biden-Harris campaign.

The Harris campaigns messaging will obviously have to change, at least somewhat. Harris is already facing ugly attacks from Republicans over her race and gender, which is not something that Biden, a white man, had to contend with. At 59, Harris is also not nearly as old as Biden, 81, or Trump, 78, so shes not going to deal with the same scrutiny about age.

Harris also has a different record than Biden as a former prosecutor and a former California attorney general, never mind her time as a senator and vice president, offices that Biden also held.

Some messaging shifts are happening in plain view. Brian Fallon, who is part of the Harris campaign and was Harris spokesperson when she was Bidens 2020 running mate, on Thursday laid bare some of the sharpest contrasts between Harris and Trump.

Prosecutor vs. the felon, Future vs the past, Repro repro repro, Fallon wrote on social media.

Prosecutor vs. the felon

Future vs the past

Repro repro repro  Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) July 25, 2024

The campaign also appears ready to have a little fun. Messaging on social media is leaning into viral hits, reposting singer Charli XCXs tweet that kamala IS brat and stylizing posts in the aesthetic  or maybe in the context?  of the singers hit album. On Thursday, a campaign press release referred to Trump as old and quite weird, a reference to Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) saying as much in an MSNBC interview earlier in the week, which spurred the use of the word weird to describe Trump and his associates. Another release wished a Happy World IVF Day To Everyone Except JD Vance  a dig at the Republican vice-presidential nominees stances on reproductive rights, and the GOPs quandary on how to reconcile their abortion policies with access to in vitro fertilization.

Harris has made some staff changes, too. The campaign announced Tuesday that she has tapped Kamau Marshall, formerly a senior adviser and spokesperson for the Biden-Harris ticket, as a senior adviser for her new presidential campaign.

Harris unveiled her first campaign ad on Thursday, titled Freedom, with a little help from Beyonce. And within 48 hours of Biden bowing out of the race, Harris was in Milwaukee  the largest city in a key battleground state and, perhaps in a dig at Trump, the site of last weeks Republican National Committee convention.

Campaign officials declined to comment to HuffPost on their new messaging strategy for Harris. Instead, they pointed to a memo released this week by Harris campaign manager Jen OMalley Dillon. The memo, titled The Path to Victory for Kamala Harris, breaks down how Harris has well-documented support from 2020 voters, why she is well-positioned to expand that support in 2024, and why she can win over more persuadable voters in todays highly polarized electoral environment.

The thrust of Harris message is that this election is a choice between two very different visions, OMalley Dillon said in the memo. She is fighting for a future that strengthens our democracy, protects reproductive freedom and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead. Donald Trump is a convicted criminal running to enact his extreme and dangerous Project 2025 agenda that would roll back Americans rights and freedoms, hurt the middle class, and threaten our democracy.

Hours after Bidens decision on Sunday to drop his reelection bid, OMalley Dillon was on an all-hands call with campaign staff emphasizing that their operation was built to beat Trump  and that is precisely how they will move forward, except with Harris at the top of the ticket.

All of you, all of us, wherever we come from, are here for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and to defeat Donald Trump, she told staff, per a source familiar with the call.

While today is a big day of transition, nothing changes with why you got here and what were all here to do. But the path forward is a path that is for all of us to do this together, OMalley Dillon said. So let me tell you what I know to be certain, which is that every single person here  whatever your job, whatever youre doing  you have a job. You have a home. You are us. We are a team. We are in this together.

The campaign also appears to be leaning into Bidens call for unity as they proceed, framing their work ahead as an effort to build on his successes.

He built a whole vote  81 million people  a coalition that was bigger and more broad and more diverse than anyone before him. And that coalition is there for Kamala Harris, and that coalition is what we are building today, OMalley Dillon told staff on the Sunday call. So when you are going off this call and you go back to your job tomorrow morning, for the work that we have in front of us, use him as your example for how we move forward.

We can and will be both fast and fair as we execute this nomination, Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said ahead of the party's plan to formally nominate Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Anna Moneymaker via Getty Images

As the campaign quickly readjusts to Harris as the partys presumptive nominee, the Democratic National Committee is also scrambling to adjust.

The partys nominating convention kicks off Aug. 19 in Chicago, and the DNCs rules committee voted Wednesday to set Aug. 1 as the first day that delegates can begin voting to formally pick a presidential nominee. In the span of days, Harris has already secured endorsements from the vast majority of Democratic delegates who, since Biden abandoned his bid, are free to cast votes for whomever they choose.

Someone else could, in theory, throw their hat in the ring if they want to challenge Harris for the nomination. But its unlikely: In order to qualify, the DNC requires that this candidate would have to secure the electronic signatures of at least 300 convention delegates. The DNC is holding a virtual roll call, which allows for multiple rounds of voting on nominees other than Harris.

We can and will be both fast and fair as we execute this nomination, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison told reporters on Monday.

For now, at least, nobody is challenging Harris. And if they did, theyd almost certainly face the wrath of countless top Democrats eager to wrap up the nomination and refocus attention on defeating Trump.

Harris has until Aug. 7 to pick a running mate. Several Democrats have been floated as potential vice presidential picks, including Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

The DNC is focused on that Aug. 7 deadline because Ohio law requires that both a presidential and vice presidential nominee be chosen by that date in order to appear on the states ballot. Ohio lawmakers have since nullified that deadline, but the change in state law doesnt take effect until Sept. 1 and Democratic Party officials dont want to risk legal challenges.

Some Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have suggested it is illegal to replace Biden with Harris as the nominee.

It would be wrong, and I think unlawful, in accordance to some of these states rules, for a handful of people to go in a back room and switch it out because theyre, they dont like the candidate any longer, Johnson, who is perhaps best known as the chief legal architect of Trumps effort to steal the 2020 election, told ABC News on Sunday.

But even attorneys who have long represented Republicans have said thats nonsense.

Theres nothing to those threats, Ben Ginsberg, a GOP-aligned lawyer, told Axios on Tuesday. A convention naming a candidate who then gets ballot placement in every state is the normal course of business.

President Joe Biden and Harris raise their arms as guests cheer after watching the Independence Day fireworks from the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 4. MANDEL NGAN via Getty Images

States have plenty of time to ensure that Harris name appears on the November ballots as the Democratic presidential nominee.

Assuming Harris is nominated at the DNC convention, her name will be officially submitted to every states chief election official, who would then certify her name to be placed on the November general election ballot.

Most of these deadlines occur in late August or during the first two weeks of September, notes the National Conference of State Legislatures. Only then do states begin finalizing and printing ballots to be sent to voters.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), who is also a former DNC chair, on Monday scoffed at the idea of Harris not earning the delegates to be the presidential nominee since people voted for Biden in the primaries.

I mean, when you go to a poll here in Florida, its not just the presidents name that was on the ballot. Its the vice presidents name as well, Wasserman Schultz said on CNN. Its a ticket that youre voting to support. And so, its a logical transfer to the vice president.

Whats key to remember, she said, is that Biden immediately threw his support behind Harris when he dropped his reelection bid. This process of transitioning to a new candidate would have been a lot messier if that hadnt happened.

Look, if Joe Biden had not endorsed her, if there was not a situation where she had earned those votes too, then, you know, I would say that probably delegates would be more likely to think about other candidates, said the Democratic congresswoman.

Even as he steps back from the campaign, Biden is clearly prepared to keep helping Harris. In his Wednesday night Oval Office address to the nation, he officially addressed his decision to end his reelection bid and heaped more praise on his vice president.

In just a few months, the American people will choose the course of Americas future, Biden said. I made my choice. I made my views known ... [Harris] is experienced, shes tough, shes capable. Shes been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.

Related...
In March of 2023, Erin Howard finally made an in-person visit to the groundbreaking Vera C. Rubin Observatory at the summit of Chile's Cerro Pachon.

"It was great," said Howard, a Bremerton resident who uses they/them pronouns. "I cried. And then I got sunburned in my eyes and cried some more."

The Rubin Observatory has been in the works for decades, and will finally begin its ten-year survey of the Southern Hemisphere sky in 2025. The observatory, which cost upwards of $500 million to construct, boasts the largest camera ever built for astronomy and astrophysics, according to Rubin's website. In its first two months of operation, Rubin will "collect more data than all the other telescopes in history combined," said former Olympic College professor Bob Abel, who has volunteered for Rubin since 2008.

Seeing Rubin in person was a milestone for Howard, who first knew that they wanted to work for the project in 2015, after Abel brought Rubin's team to Bremerton for their yearly retreat. (At the time, the observatory was known as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, or the LSST.) As part of the retreat, Abel organized a series of pop-up talks and workshops around downtown Bremerton.

"One of the nights, one of the astronomers said, 'You know what, we have a lot of data that we need to process, and humans can't physically go through all of this," Howard said. "'We need computer scientists to go through all this data."

Erin Howard poses on the summit of Chile's Cerro Pachon with the Vera C. Rubin observatory. Howard, a Bremerton native and Olympic College graduate, is part of the team erecting what will be the largest camera ever built for astronomy and astrophysics and planned to go online in 2025.

Howard had dropped out of college in their freshman year, and was already considering returning to school. But the Rubin talks gave them the shove they needed. Soon after, they enrolled at Olympic College, determined to eventually work for Rubin.

"The Rubin visit to Bremerton changed my career path," Howard said.

Howard's 'meandering path' to Rubin

Howard, who was born and raised in Bremerton, described their high school self as "one of those people who was either an A or F student, depending on whether I liked the class." They participated in Running Start, and said they probably would have dropped out of high school altogether if not for the program.

After high school, Howard attended a small Arizona college with an astrophysics program, but struggled with undiagnosed learning disabilities. They were later diagnosed with autism, OCD, and ADHD, "the trifecta of unpreparedness if you don't have accommodations," they said.

Howard dropped out, returned to Bremerton just in time for the 2008 financial recession, and spent a few years searching for work. Around 2010, they got their foot in the door of the tech industry  first with data entry, then website testing. Eventually, they taught themself to code.

When they heard about the Rubin talks coming to Bremerton, they initially weren't sure they wanted to attend.

"I was very hesitant to go," they said. "Because it was all like, I could be here already. I could have been one of the students giving the science presentations at the planetarium. I could have been one of the bigwigs giving the presentations, if I didn't drop out. So I was very hesitant to go  but I was really glad I did."

After enrolling at Olympic, Howard earned an associate's degree, then transferred to Western Washington University. There, they majored in physics and math/computer science, with a double minor in astronomy and statistics  "very much setting myself up to work for Rubin."

In 2022, after Howard was rejected from a graduate program at the University of Washington, they reached out to a UW scientist with whom they were already doing research.

"[I] said, 'Hey, look, I know you have a lot of Rubin scientists,'" Howard said. "'Can you help me get a job there?' And he said, 'Absolutely.'"

That connection was the final step of what Howard calls their "meandering path" to their dream career. Today, they operate and test software pipelines in their role as a research scientist for Rubin's Data Management team.

A series of coincidences  and a mentor for life

In a fun twist of fate, fellow Bremertonian Bob Abel played a role in almost every welcome change along Howard's path to Rubin.

In addition to bringing Rubin scientists to Bremerton, Abel spearheaded the community workshop format that Howard witnessed in 2015. Meanwhile, a connection made at the Rubin talks got Howard an interim job at Bremerton's Pacific Planetarium  a job that introduced them to Abel, a friend of the planetarium's owner.

Although Abel never taught or formally advised Howard while both were at OC, he became a source of support for them during their college years and beyond. He is constantly forwarding them links to conferences, programs, and other opportunities, Howard said.

"Everything he does is a learning opportunity, a mentoring opportunity," they said. "He's...what I aspire to be. I want to grow into the role of a professor and advisor and mentor, like Bob was for me."

Abel is an affiliate for UW's Institute for Data Intensive Research in Astrophysics and Cosmology, or DiRAC, which works closely with Rubin. For years, he balanced his Rubin work with teaching, until retiring from OC in 2022.

"I'm just really enjoying this pace," Abel said of retired life. "I love teaching. I taught for 30-some years, but I don't miss it. It's like I've always just wanted to have the time to slowly work through this stuff."

Abel currently works on analyzing simulated data coming down the software pipelines that Howard maintains. He noted that Rubin is revolutionary in part because all of the data produced by the observatory is available to researchers for free.

"Pretty unusual in any field of science," Abel said. "It's very democratizing."

In 2025, the simulated data that Abel analyzes will be replaced by real data from Rubin's enormous camera.

An image of the inside of the Rubin Observatory in Chile, which is expected to come online in 2025.

Excitement for what's to come

Both Howard and Abel are excited for Rubin to start its survey of the night sky.

"This project, and other telescopes that are coming out like the [James Webb] and the Euclid, they're going to change what we know about the universe," Abel said. "And who knows what's going to come of that?"

Scientists say the survey, which is known as the Legacy Survey of Space and Time and also uses the acronym LSST, has four main goals: understanding the nature of dark matter and dark energy; creating an inventory of the solar system; mapping the Milky Way; and exploring "transient" objects, or those that change position or brightness over time.

Abel put it this way: "With this project, if I know the language and I know the questions, I can ask the universe directly any questions I want."

The Rubin Observatory on the summit of Cerro Pachon in Chile.

The LSST will also help identify asteroids with trajectories that would take them dangerously close to Earth, Howard said.

"It really truly tells us where we are, and our neighbors, and whether our neighbors are trying to hurt us," they said, adding, "That's what I usually tell people who are like, 'Why should we fund these space things?'"

Howard is nearing their two-year anniversary with Rubin, and noted that although the LSST is set to take ten years, it will "probably" get extended another ten years. An indefinite extension would be Howard's best-case scenario.

"I would love to make this my career project," they said. "If [Rubin] can get all of the years, and I can work with Rubin for all of those years, I would be very happy."

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Vera C. Rubin Observatory project includes Bremerton resident
South Milwaukee Sam is the city's new spokesasquatch designed by Milwaukee-based Savage Solutions as part of a new marketing campaign for the city. Here Sam stands with City Administrator Patrick Brever celebrating his new favorite city.

Some may have caught glimpses of South Milwaukee's new big-footed resident in recent months wandering around the area.

His name is Sam, and hes a Sasquatch from the Pacific Northwest.

In a video introducing himself to the community, Sam said hes always lived a solitary life because people thought of him as some kind of monster.

In reality, Ive always just wanted to find a place to settle down, a place where I can be accepted for who I really am, Sam said. Then I found South Milwaukee.

Hes now on a mission to share what makes South Milwaukee a great place to live, work or play.

To say I was honored when South Milwaukee wanted me to be their new spokesperson was, lets just say, its a big understatement, Sam said in his video.

Funding for Sam as the new spokesasquatch for South Milwaukee came as part of a grant from the Bucyrus Foundation.

City Administrator Patrick Brever said Sam likes South Milwaukee because its a welcoming place and he now lives in Grant Park enjoying the hiking trails and the beach.

One of the businesses Sam visits in his video is Better Together Cafe. Owners Zach and Becky Kinzer said they thought we had a Wookiee coming to our shop straight out of Star Wars until they realized Wookiees arent real.

Turns out Sam is a Sasquatch, the couple said in an email to the Journal Sentinel about their experience meeting Sam. Super cool to meet him and who knew Sasquatches love coffee!?

The couple said it's awesome that South Milwaukee is "thinking outside the box and pushing for more opportunities to connect with people inside and outside our little city with such a fun idea.

Were really looking forward to seeing how Sam engages with the community and pretty stoked that we were able to be a part of his intro," the couple said. "We cant wait to see all the other fantastic ideas that (South Milwaukee) has up their sleeves."

Sam's first public event and his future

Sam made his first public appearance at the South Milwaukee Fire Departments Brat & Tot Fry on July 24.

His first trip to the downtown market was July 25. He's also part of the Heritage Days parade July 27, will be at the Community Night Out at City Hall on Aug. 5 and will enjoy a movie with residents at the Celebrations Commission movie night at Bucyrus Commons on Aug. 17.

Hes also set to be at the Family Spooktacular at Bucyrus Commons on Oct. 31 and Christmas at the Commons on Dec. 1.

Sam is also working to open a business in the city which will be chronicled in his next video focusing on small business recruitment in the city.

He demonstrates how easy it is to open a business because hes done it himself, Brever said.

What kind of business?

Sam wants to be a hairdresser.

South Milwaukee Sam is the city's new spokesperson designed by Milwaukee-based Savage Solutions as part of a new marketing campaign for the city. Sam, a Sasquatch from the Pacific Northwest, moved to South Milwaukee and lives in Grant Park. Here Sam meets Da Crusher.

Brever said the city is still working with Sam to schedule more events  possibly a story time at the library or visits to local schools this coming school year.

Brever said hes even heard a request that Sam face or tag team with notable local wrestler South Milwaukee Man at Crusherfest one day. Wrestling fans know to never say never.

Those interested in keeping up with Sam can follow him on social media:

Behind the scenes of Sam

When the Bucyrus Foundation issued a grant to South Milwaukee, it came with a request that some dollars be used toward a new marketing campaign for the city.

Savage Solutions, the Milwaukee-based agency which helped rebrand the city in 2018, was tasked with coming up with this new campaign.

They came back with a couple (ideas) that were a little more traditional, Brever said. And then they came back with this very creative and outside the box idea that we thought was a lot of fun and decided to go down that route.

Savage Solutions met with city officials one at a time because they didnt want to spoil the campaign by presenting in front of the Common Council publicly.

We were so pleasantly surprised with how much (city staff) were gravitating toward it, said Cory Savage, founder and CEO of Savage Solutions. Theyve been so supportive which makes us work twice as hard.

He was surprised the idea didnt leak out  other than a few times when Sam was out filming scenes reminiscent of classic Big Foot sightings.

Hes been out and about, Savage said. People were stopping in their cars looking and taking pictures.

Savage said the idea came from the Milwaukee Lion sightings on the citys north side from nearly a decade ago. He commended South Milwaukee officials and staff for agreeing to and rallying behind such a unique campaign.

This is the first project in the history of this company where every single employee at Savage had a piece of it, Savage said.

Creative Director and partner at Savage Solutions Mark Hungsberg said its a campaign that legitimately has legs. He said Sam was to be "a regular kind of guy" and was designed and redesigned many times to make sure he wasnt too scary for kids. The primary Sam actor has experience in childrens theater and mascot work.

We also wanted to be true to the history of South Milwaukee by doing this almost blue-collar worker shirt, that mechanic's shirt, Hungsberg said. Hes not some gimmicky, over-the-top, showboaty thing. Hes a hard worker.

Savage said Sam just fit the mentality and personality of what South Milwaukee has to offer.

Brever said hes happy with the costume and campaign.

Its just kind of a fun way to get some attention to the community and our businesses, Brever said.

South Milwaukee Sam was designed to be an everyday blue-collar guy complete with a mechanic's shirt, according to Savage Solutions. Sam is the new spokesperson for the City of South Milwaukee.

South Milwaukee Sam made his public debut on social media July 24

Work on the campaign has been underway for nearly a year behind the scenes and Sam made his full public debut on social media July 24 with his introduction video along with his own social pages and a website, www.smkesam.com.

Alderwoman Lisa Pieper shared more details in a comment responding to residents on the citys Facebook page. She said the council voted to hire a branding mascot consulting firm  Savage Solutions  and they came back with the very professional suggestion of Sam in about six months.

The costume was made in Hollywood specifically for (South Milwaukee) and there will also be TV commercials with Sam showing some of the things (South Milwaukee) has to offer and inviting everyone to visit (South Milwaukee), she wrote.

A few local businesses were tapped to help showcase Sam and Brever said theyve all been won over by South Milwaukees Sasquatch.

We recognize that its kind of outside the box and we didnt know how the response would be, but (local businesses) have been very big fans and theyve generated some of their own ideas how they want to involve Sam in the community, Brever said. Theyve been good partners throughout.

While Sam will showcase his hairdressing business in the next marketing video, residents wont be able to get their hair cut by their new neighbor, as the business is just for the video.

But what the community can get is some Sam swag through a partnership with South Milwaukee-based Styled Aesthetic, including shirts, a mug and other memorabilia.

More: LEGO to lilies, photos to patriotic clothes, 4 businesses that are new to the south suburbs

More: South Milwaukees Crusherfest wont happen this year. Heres why.

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: 'Super cool to meet' Sam, South Milwaukee's new resident Sasquatch
(Bloomberg) -- Former Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride threw his hat into the Conservative Party leadership contest, pledging to rebuild the UK opposition as he became the fourth contender to replace Rishi Sunak at its helm.

Most Read from Bloomberg

It requires a lot of painstaking work in order to work out a credible offer to the British people that is broad and generous in its nature and fiscally fundable, Stride told Times Radio on Friday. Im in a good position to get people together to do that. We have five years now to the next general election. This is about opposition, effective opposition, and rebuilding our party.

Stride follows former Foreign and Home Secretary James Cleverly, former Security Minister Tom Tugendhat and ex-Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick in declaring his candidacy in a competition that will run until Nov. 2

The leadership race will determine the political direction of the Conservatives party, which suffered its worst ever election defeat in this months general election, ending 14 years of power. While Stride and Cleverly are advocating for a more centrist approach, others, like Jenrick, want the party to focus on reducing immigration, to appeal to the 14% of voters who backed Nigel Farages anti-immigrant Reform UK party on July 4.

Jenrick has signaled a willingness to take Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights if needed to bring down immigration  a view that earned the surprise backing of Tugendhat, a party centrist from its so-called One Nation tradition, when he announced he was standing earlier this week.

If institutions do not serve the British people and make it harder to control our own borders, then we will have to exempt ourselves from them, or leave their jurisdiction, Tugendhat wrote in Thursdays Telegraph newspaper.

Cleverly, by contrast, has previously said he isnt convinced by the need to leave the convention, and only briefly mentioned immigration in his launch video this week.

ECHR membership has become a dividing line within the Conservatives after the court that enforces it blocked flights deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda in 2022. Polls suggest voters prefer to stay in the ECHR than leave it, although a majority of Conservatives favor withdrawal.

Stride said the Tories narrow appeal is problematic as it seeks to rebuild the trust of voters in the wake of its catastrophic defeat. If youre a party that relies on people who are substantially over the age of 60 for its majorities across the country, thats a very deeply difficult position to be in, he said.

Tugendhat  who was a soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan before chairing parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee  also called for an increase in defense spending to 3% of gross domestic product, from under 2.5% currently. Thats a small price to pay for our continued freedom and security, he wrote. The new Labour government has pledged to spend 2.5% of GDP on defense, without committing to a time frame for the increase.

The public wanted the things we promised: lower taxes, lower immigration, more control over their everyday lives, Tugendhat continued. We just didnt deliver.

Leadership nominations close mid-afternoon on July 29. Conservative Members of Parliament will then narrow the four candidates by the end of September  in time for the partys annual conference  before shortlisting two for a party member vote. The new leader is set to be announced on Nov. 2.

The bookmakers favorite to win the contest is former Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who has yet to declare. Other potential contenders include former Home Secretaries Priti Patel and Suella Braverman.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Merger discussions between Venice and Madison school districts end. Heres what we know

The school board of Venice School District 3 decided not to move forward with discussions to consolidate with Madison School District 12 at a special meeting the board held Wednesday evening.

Four of the seven members on each school board needed to have been interested for the merger proposal to continue. With the refusal of the Venice board, the proposal is dead.

The Madison District 12 board discussed the proposal at its July 18 regular meeting, according to the agenda. Its unclear what the boards decision was.

Representatives of neither district and school board could immediately be reached for comment Friday morning.

In mid-July, board members of the two school districts began considering the consolidation proposal during special meetings.

At those meetings, Ed Hightower, former longtime superintendent at Edwardsville District 7 and a consultant on the construction of a new elementary school in Venice, laid out the case in favor of a merger. He said it would improve the financial stability of the districts as well as the academic and co-curricular opportunities for students, among other things.

Madison County Regional Superintendent Robert Werden and the attorney representing both school districts, Barney Mundorf, were also at the meetings to outline the legal requirements for a consolidation and what the timeline for the districts would have been if they decided to pursue it.

As leaders of the Madison and Venice Boards of Education, your commitment to making decisions that best serve your students, employees, and communities is commendable, Hightower said in an email to both districts Thursday.

As previously discussed with both boards, a majority consensus from each board was necessary to proceed with merger discussions, he said. Given the Venice Boards decision, future consolidation discussions will cease.

Venice 3 is currently building a new school to accommodate up to 160 students with a $26 million emergency construction grant from the state. The former school was condemned in 2020 due to structural issues.

The district serves students from pre-K through eighth grade and consists of an elementary school that enrolled about 67 students at the end of the 2023-24 school year.

The new school is part of a larger economic revitalization plan in Venice that includes a grocery store, health care clinic, a career and technical education center, 40 affordable homes and a funeral home.

Venice High School closed in 2004 with an enrollment of 58 after a voter referendum, according to past BND reporting.

Now, when Venice Elementary students graduate from eighth grade, they go on to either Madison Senior High School, East St. Louis Senior High School or Lovejoy Technology Academy, the high school in Brooklyn District 188. Venice 3 pays the tuition for its students to attend the high schools.

Madison 12 is a pre-K through 12th grade district with an elementary school and combined junior high and high school. Its enrollment was about 675 at the end of the 2023-24 school year.
Metro couple recovering after being shot in the face from road rage incident

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  A metro couple is recovering after being shot in the face following a road rage incident that happened on Eastern near I-240 on July 12.

We now know the victims shot were a metro couple, Jacee and Jacob Wilson.

PREVIOUS STORY: Two victims injured in alleged metro road rage shooting

Jacee spoke with News 4 about what happened and how her family is recovering.

Their day started out normal, the couple were taking their one-year-old son to visit his grandmother.

As they were driving down Eastern towards I-240, a dark-colored vehicle began harassing and breaking checking them.

He was going crazy speeds, swerving in and out of traffic, says Jacee.

In an attempt to diffuse the situation, they pulled up to a stop sign on Eastern. From there, things turned violent.

He got to the side of us, rolled down his window, and thats where everything happened, said Jacee.

Jacee and Jacob were shot in the face by a bullet.

The bullet hit Jacob first, then police believe the same bullet hit her. Their one-year-old son in the backseat was not injured.

She says the bullet went through her husbands mouth and jaw.

It then went into her forehead. Once it hit her forehead, it came out and launched into her cheek.

The couple was rushed to OU Health, and the suspect kept driving.

News 4 reached out to Oklahoma City Police for new information. They say the shooter is still out there.

Despite her frustration, Jacee says shes moving forward and is grateful to be alive.

Im just blessed. I cant be more thankful that were here and were thankful that my son didnt get hurt. Were making the best of a bad situation, she says.

Her husband, Jacob, is home recovering from surgery he had on Tuesday.

Jacee says he has a long road of recovery ahead, and possibly more surgeries in the future.

For anyone that would like to donate, the couple have a GoFundMe page. Jacee says they are grateful to those who have donated already.

They also have a Meal Train set up for people to donate meals as well.

In regard to the suspect, police are asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Mexican drug kingpin Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia, a co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, was arrested in Texas on Thursday after being lured onto a U.S.-bound plane by the son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and news reports.

Joaquin Guzman Lopez, El Chapos son, made Zambada Garcia believe he was stepping onto a private plane to look at some real estate, law enforcement officials told The New York Times.

Both Guzman Lopez and Zambada Garcia turned themselves in to authorities upon arrival in El Paso, Texas, a Mexican federal official told The Associated Press.

The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

El Mayo is the co-founder of the cartel. Garland said the duo joins a growing list of Sinaloa leaders the DOJ is holding accountable in the United States, including El Chapo, one of his other sons, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, and the cartels alleged lead sicario, Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, known as El Nini.

Both men arrested Thursday are facing multiple charges in the U.S. for leading the cartels criminal operations, including its fentanyl manufacturing and distribution.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associated responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, Garland said.

The DOJ was offering a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the arrest of Zambada Garcia, who has been evading law enforcement for decades, the AP said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Zambada Garcia and Guzman Lopez oversaw the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States.

Zambada Garcia is one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico and was considered the cartels strategist, as well as its most politically connected leader, with a monthly budget for bribes of up to $1 million, according to The New York Times. He has been charged in a number of U.S. cases, including in February, when he was charged with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl.

In 2010, he spoke with a Mexican magazine and said he would rather die by suicide than go to prison, and he lived in constant fear of being arrested. Zambada Garcias son was arrested and pleaded guilty in San Diego in 2021, the AP reported.

Guzman Lopez and his brother, who has already been arrested, were believed to led a more flamboyant operation than Zambada Garcia, called the Chapitos or little Chapos.

Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, told the AP that the arrests are important but unlikely to have an impact on drugs coming to the U.S., because Guzman Lopez was the least influential of the Chapitos.

This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I dont think so, he said. Its not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him.

El Chapo was sentenced to life in U.S. prison in 2019. Last December, a court rejected his appeal of the sentence.

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.
LAS CRUCES, N.M. (KRQE)  Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham is traveling across the state hosting a series of town halls focused on public safety. Her first event was in Las Cruces on Thursday.

New Mexico legislators look into how climate change impacts natural disasters

The governor fielded questions from members of the community who voiced frustration over crime and drugs plaguing the state. Gov. Lujan Grisham said finding solutions is her top priority. She also said the problem has gotten so bad, its impacting efforts to clean up the community.

Some of the community work we engage in, we cant have because it is too dangerous for community members to be exposed to the risks for cleaning up. Thats a very harsh reality and I dont recognize my state, said Gov. Lujan Grisham.

This all comes after she convened a special legislative session last week where lawmakers failed to pass any of her legislation addressing crime, mostly due to members of her own party.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRQE NEWS 13 - Breaking News, Albuquerque News, New Mexico News, Weather, and Videos.
NEW MEXICO (KRQE)  The New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) received a four-year, $4 million federal grant to support the Educator Apprenticeships NM project. This project will incorporate apprenticeship programs into the PEDs educator recruitment and training efforts.

Story continues below

A strong apprenticeship component will complement the teacher residency work we already support, said Public Education Secretary Arsenio Romero in a news release. This grant and the Educator Apprenticeships NM project represent an opportunity to further ensure that every classroom has a well-trained educator.

Educator Apprenticeships NM is a statewide project that will integrate Registered Apprenticeship Programs (RAPs) and pre-apprenticeships through the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions into the PEDs existing educator recruitment and training initiatives.

With Educator Apprenticeships NM, the Public Education Department and the Department of Workforce Solutions will collaborate to create high-quality pathways into the teaching profession so every student in New Mexico has an instructor who can help them succeed, said Department of Workforce Solutions Secretary Sarita Nair stated in a news release. Together with funding support from the US Department of Labors State Apprenticeship Expansion Formula grant, we have an opportunity for New Mexico to lead the nation in teacher apprenticeships.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
BANGKOK, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's auto production recorded a further decline in June due to lower output for domestic sales and exports amid a sluggish economy, data from the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) showed on Thursday.

Thai auto manufacturers produced 116,289 vehicles in June, down 20.11 percent from a year earlier and accelerating from a 16.19-percent drop in May, according to the FTI.

For the first half of 2024, auto production fell 17.39 percent over the previous year to 761,240 units, said Surapong Paisitpattanapong, FTI's automotive industry club vice president and spokesperson.

Domestic auto sales plunged 26.04 percent year-on-year to 47,662 units in June as banks tightened lending standards on the back of high household debts, leading to a higher rejection rate for auto loans, Surapong told a news conference.

The Southeast Asian country's finished car exports inched up 0.28 percent from a year earlier to 89,071 units in June, buoyed by growth in trade partner economies, the FTI said.

The federation slashed its auto production target for 2024 to 1.7 million units, from 1.9 million units expected earlier, weighed down by a lower projection on output for domestic sales. 
Lis Gueguense does not have a car. Instead, she relies on Miami-Dades network of trains and buses to get around. When she was in college, that meant an hour-and-a-half commute each way.

Now, Gueguense, 35, works from home, but she still uses public transit for almost everything. On Wednesday morning, she was riding the Metrorail from Miami International Airport back home to Coconut Grove after taking her parents to the airport.

A question on the Aug. 20 county primary ballot will ask voters whether they support expanding rapid mass transit in Miami-Dade County. The measure, a non-binding straw poll sponsored by Miami-Dade County Commission Chairman Oliver Gilbert, asks voters if they think the county should expand its Metrorail, passenger rail and Metromover services, a simple yes or no answer to a complex issue.

Gueguense said she supports expanding public transit in Miami. And Gilbert expects much of Miami-Dade County to feel the same way. He told the Miami Herald he thinks the measure will pass but said that even if it doesnt, he will continue to push to expand Miami-Dades transit network. Gilbert said his goal is for Miami-Dade residents to be able to get anywhere in the county using rapid transit.

Commuters exit and enter the Metromover as they rush to connect to the Metrorail and buses at the Government Center on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. Miami-Dade County is asking voters if it should expand rail service through a primary ballot question.

Right now, Miami-Dade County has two Metrorail lines that start in Dadeland, with one running to the area around Hialeah and the other running to Miami International Airport. Three Metromover loops offer free service in Miamis Omni, Brickell and downtown areas, and Tri-Rail commuter trains transport passengers through Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties.

Miami-Dade has taken steps to expand its public transit system, including through the 2016 SMART Plan that identified transit solutions for major corridors throughout the county. So far, the only portion of that plan currently under construction is the expansion of bus infrastructure along the South Dade TransitWay, which runs between Dadeland and Florida City.

READ MORE: Is the SMART Plan for Miami-Dade transit dead? You asked, we answered

Nonprofit grant administrator Lis Gueguense, 35, rode the Green Line from Coconut Grove and returns home on the Orange Line after dropping her parents at the airport on Wednesday, July 24, 2024.

Gilbert said he wants the ballot question to engage voters directly and spark conversation about future plans to expand transit.

Everyone knows its a good idea, Gilbert said. You dont see world-class cities without rapid mass transit.

Gueguense, who administers environmental grants for a nonprofit, said she doesnt drive because she wants to do her part to mitigate climate change. And it doesnt hurt that taking public transit saves her money shed otherwise have to spend on gas, parking and insurance, she said.

Reflections of commuters waiting to board the Orange Line towards Dadeland are cast on the trains window as a passenger looks outward on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in downtown Miami. Using mass transit can be a time-saving choice for some commuters. Others enjoy the ability to multitask or relax during the commute, as they dont have to focus on driving.

Especially for lower-income Miami-Dade residents, the public transit system can be a lifeline. Gueguense said when she was young, her family could only afford one car, which her father used for work. That meant she and her mother used public transit to go almost everywhere. She said she thinks its possible to get anywhere using transit, but it does require patience.

Residents arent the only ones who say they use public transit to save money. Nicole Dyer and Jesus Segura, tourists from Costa Rica who were staying in downtown Miami this week, said they planned to use the Metrorail and downtown trollies to avoid steep Uber costs. On Wednesday morning, they took public transit to go to Dolphin Mall.

Elizabeth Prats, an HR director, right, enjoys a book during her 50-minute commute from Dadeland North to the Government Center on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, in Miami. Prats said she would vote in favor expansion of transit.

Others say the countys transit system offers an alternative to commuting in rush-hour traffic. Elizabeth Prats said taking public transit to work has saved her money on gas and allowed her to spend her commute reading and catching up on emails. Prats, who uses the Metrorail to get to her office in downtown Miami, was reading Colleen Hoovers popular romance novel, It Ends With Us, on the way to work Wednesday morning.

For Joaquin Rodriguez, an IT consultant who works in Brickell, it takes about as long to commute to the office by Metrorail as it does to drive. But by taking the train, he avoids sitting in traffic, which he said helps him feel alert and refreshed by the time he gets to the office.

Mark Merwitzer, who works for the advocacy group Transit Alliance Miami, said traffic is consistently a top local concern for voters. He believes transit is an absolute solution to Miamis congestion, which he said is among the worst in the U.S.

Like Gilbert, Merwitzer said he expects the ballot measure to pass.

Commuters take the Green Line northbound on the Metrorail on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. Miami-Dade County will ask voters if it should expand rail service through a primary ballot question.

The countys growing population has exacerbated congestion, but not everyone thinks expanding public transit is the solution. Yvonne Bayona, who lives in Miamis Shenandoah neighborhood, said she thinks the countys infrastructure has not kept up with its growing population, making traffic almost unbearable.

Bayona, who does not use public transit herself, said the county should address the problem by investing in infrastructure like roads and expressways, not its public transit. In fact, she said she plans to vote against the measure next month, saying she has seen little improvement in Miamis public transit system over the years.

Theres also been opposition to expanding transit in Miami Beach, said Matthew Gultanoff, the founder of Better Streets Miami Beach. Earlier this year, the Miami Beach City Commission voted against expanding the Metromover to Miami Beach. Commissioners there cited concerns about free transit bringing crime and homelessness to the city.

The view from the Orange Line eastbound train show the growing skyline to the east on Wednesday, July 24, 2024. Miami-Dade County is asking voters if they want to expand transit service through a primary ballot question.
A Miami man is accused of hoarding hundreds of child sex abuse pictures and videos; he didnt keep his horrific collection to himself, police said. Prior to his arrest Wednesday, hed been uploading the disturbing material online  some of his victims live in South Florida.

Miami police detectives uncovered Francisco Ramon Cruz Rodriguez, 51, uploaded 482 pictures and videos to the web, authorities announced Thursday. Its unclear who tipped off police.

Francisco Ramon Cruz Rodriguez, a Miami man, allegedly uploaded 482 videos and pictures of child sexual abuse material online, with more stashed on a USB in his home, cops say.

Sometime after, Miami and Miami Beach police raided his home near Brickell. Authorities seized several electronic devices and found a USB drive in Cruz Rodriguezs bedroom.

He stashed even more child sex abuse material on the drive, including screenshots of him in video phone calls exposing himself to prepubescent minors.

Assessing the pictures and videos, police identified at least three children, several of whom were living in Miami. Detectives are working to identify more victims as they comb through his files.

Through meticulous investigative work, detectives were able to successfully bring a perpetrator of such despicable acts to justice, and therefore prevent further harm to innocent children, the department said.

Cruz Rodriguez was arrested Wednesday. Hes charged with 15 counts of possession of sexual performance by a child in addition to two counts of promoting sexual performance by a child.

Appearing in court Thursday, Cruz Rodriguez was given house arrest along with a $57,500 bond. A judge also ordered he stay away from the victims.

He remained in the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center as of Thursday night.

This is a fantastic example of the hard work that the men and women who are in an incredibly difficult position within the Miami Police Department as they see these horrific images, Miami Police Chief Manuel Morales said.
Mich. Woman Accused of Killing Girlfriend's 'Happy, Smiling' 4-Month-Old While Mom Was at Work: Reports

Renzi McCall after four days on life support

Go Fund Me Renzi McCall

A Michigan woman is charged with murder in connection with the death of a 4-month-old baby she was babysitting.

Savannah Marie Miller was charged with murder following the death of Renzi McCall in Reed City, Mich., according to reports from Fox 17, WZZM and Cadillac News.

It is not immediately clear if Miller has entered a plea or retained an attorney.

Fox 17 reported that Miller was initially charged with child abuse, but the charge was elevated to murder after the baby was taken off life support on July 25, four days after being taken to the hospital.

Citing Renzis grandfather, Jeremiah White, WZZM reported that Miller is the girlfriend of the babys mother.

White told the outlet that the babys entire body was bruised and that she suffered brain swelling and seizures before her death.

Citing police and prosecutors, Cadillac News reports that Miller is accused of assaulting the baby while her mother was at work.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.



A GoFundMe started to raise money for Renzis family has raised nearly $7,000.

Renzi was a happy, smiling baby who brought immense joy to everyone around her. Amber is now facing unimaginable pain and grief, the organizer wrote. We ask for continued prayers and support for Amber and her family during this incredibly difficult time.

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.
"Michelle and I couldn't be prouder to endorse you": The Obamas call VP Kamala Harris to endorse her for president.

The Obamas called Vice President Kamala Harris to endorse her for president, arguably her most high-profile backing as the Democratic Party coalesces around her as its likely presidential nominee.

We called to say Michelle and I couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office, former President Barack Obama said in a video published Friday morning showing the call.

I can't have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala: I am proud of you, former First Lady Michelle Obama said. This is going to be historic.

President Joe Biden on Sunday announced he would not seek reelection after his widely-panned debate performance last month against Donald Trump, acquiescing to mounting Democratic pressure. He then backed Harris to replace him. Less than 32 hours later, the vice president secured enough verbal commitments from delegates to secure the nomination at the Democratic National Convention next month. Top party leaders  former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries  endorsed her this week, all but clearing her path to face Trump in the general election.
Michigan became the 20th state to ban gay and trans panic defense in criminal cases after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation this week to specify that an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity cannot be used as evidence in a defense for a crime committed against them.

The National LGBTQ+ Bar Association indicates panic defense involves an individual charged with a crime invoking the sexual orientation or gender identity of a victim to reduce or avoid criminal liability. The association lists the 1995 murder of Scott Ademure in Michigan as an instance of panic defense. Ademure, in a taping of an episode of "The Jenny Jones Show," which did not air, said he had romantic feelings for Jonathan Schmitz. Schmitz, three days later, shot and killed Ademure. A jury convicted Schmitz of second-degree murder in 1996, although his defense attorneys argued the show provoked Schmitz, according to Free Press reporting from 2017.

House Bill 4718, signed by Whitmer on Tuesday, prohibits using sexual orientation or gender identity as evidence to "demonstrate reasonable provocation," to "show that an act was committed in a heat of passion" or to "support a defense of reduced mental capacity."

"Notwithstanding the provisions of any other law of this state, an individual is not justified in using force against another individual based on the discovery of, knowledge about, or potential disclosure of the victims actual or perceived sex, gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation," the bill states.

Bill sponsor state Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia, said the ban of gay and trans panic defense in Michigan is another step taken by lawmakers to make Michigan a more welcoming state for LGBTQ+ people. In an emailed statement, she also pointed to Michigan's expansion of its civil rights law to bar discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, as well as a ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ minors signed into law last year.

Now that this legislation is law, members of our queer communities are even safer, and their freedoms even more secure, Pohutsky said.

Advocates for the LGBTQ community in Michigan had sought a ban on gay and trans panic defense, the Free Press reported last year.

A 22-page resolution adopted in 2013 by the American Bar Association urged local, state and federal government officials to ban gay and trans panic defense, stating laws allowing the defense "enshrine in the law the notion that LGBT lives are worth less than others."

More: Catholic charities sue over Michigan's ban on conversion therapy on LGBTQ+ minors

More: Prevailing wage law expanded to wind, solar energy projects in Michigan

Including Michigan, 20 states and Washington D.C. currently ban gay and trans panic defense, according to the Movement Advance Project, a think tank that researches LGBTQ+ issues.

HB 4718 passed the House, in which Democrats have a narrow majority, along party lines. In the Senate, four Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in supporting the bill.

Contact Arpan Lobo: alobo@freepress.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan bans gay and trans panic defense
The city of Detroit's retirement systems  covering both police and fire, as well as general retirees  have possibly lost as much as "several hundred thousand dollars" to a payment-card scheme that is part of an ongoing Michigan State Police investigation.

A former staff person who worked for the combined Police and Fire Retirement System and the General Retirement System  which both cover some 19,000 current retirees and some 8,000 current employees  was the target of an investigation by the Michigan State Police, according to a statement issued late Friday afternoon by the Retirement Systems of the city of Detroit.

The former staff person was taken into custody by Michigan State Police on Wednesday, according to the release. No further details were given. Michigan State Police were not able to respond to questions as of Friday afternoon.

A former employee of the Retirement Systems of the City of Detroit is the target of a Michigan State Police probe into theft involving prepaid cards. File: Spirit of Detroit on Sunday, Aug. 21, 2022.

The situation being investigated involves money disbursed on prepaid payment cards that typically are used by retirees who do not have bank accounts, or so-called unbanked consumers. Roughly 120 retirees use such prepaid cards, according to Bruce Babiarz, a spokesperson for the Police and Fire Retirement System of Detroit.

The former employee became a target of the Michigan State Police investigation after other law enforcement agencies worked on a separate, unrelated criminal probe. State police contacted the retirement system July 3 to alert the system of potential fraud and request assistance. The system is cooperating with state police in the ongoing investigation.

State police also issued a search warrant for specific retirement system records. The Retirement System of the city of Detroit's management, according to the release, provided documents and fully cooperated with state police.

The system said it has adhered to the request to "only discuss the investigation with those who needed to know for the purposes of their preliminary investigation."

"The former staff person allegedly reissued payments onto payment cards  pre-paid credit/debit cards," according to the release. Upon learning of the investigation, the Retirement Systems of the city of Detroit took "immediate steps to abate any further fraudulent or unlawful actions," the release stated.

The extent of the card theft remains under investigation. But the release stated that it "could be as much as several hundred thousand dollars."

More: Delta under investigation as flight troubles continue at Detroit Metro Airport, elsewhere

More: Delta customers lost time, money after major tech outage. How to file claims, complaints

Officials with the city retirement systems have been asked by state police to not comment further given the active investigation, according to the release.

The city's General Retirement System and Police and Fire Retirement System are separate entities that share a common staff and offices to reduce overhead costs and streamline operations.

The General Retirement System's board oversees the $1.7 billion fund serving some 11,000 retired members and approximately 5,000 active members.

The Police and Fire Retirement System's board oversees the $2.7 billion fund serving some 8,000 retired police and fire and approximately 3,000 active duty first responders.

Contact personal finance columnist Susan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com. Follow her on X (Twitter) @tompor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit pensions disclose possible theft involving prepaid cards
Michigan's Thumb is red, but St. Clair County hasn't always voted in a Republican for president

A woman fills out her ballot at the Precinct 5 polling location inside McMorran Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2020, in Port Huron.

PORT HURON  The prevailing expectation in the region might be that with results in big elections, Michigans Thumb bleeds red.

The vast majority of local partisan seats are held by Republicans, and so are state and federal representatives.

But for much of the last several decades, St. Clair Countys local presidential voting totals  with a few exceptions  have at times reflected the national results favoring both the GOP and Democrats.

Now, this year, with a higher number of Democratic candidates in a couple of state and local races, how the current race for U.S. president will be reflected in local voting results remains unclear, especially in the wake of a host of unprecedented events catching national headlines  from criminal convictions in court and an assassination attempt against former Republican President Donald Trump to President Joe Bidens stepping aside as the Democratic nominee.

Jim Frank, who chairs St. Clair County Democrats, said they generally arent in the business of predicting larger races, focusing more on voter turnout closer to November.

Still, in an interview on Wednesday, he admitted there was a sense that Vice President Kamala Harris emerging at the head of the Democratic ticket may reinvigorate voters to the polls who may have otherwise stayed home under Biden.

Im really puzzled as to why voters in St. Clair County have shifted to a party whose interests for the most part are not aligned with working-class voters, Frank said, citing Trumps administration and decisions like tax breaks skewed to favor wealthier Americans. I think a lot of it is related to single-issue voting. I think abortion is one of those issues. Its resulted in the voters of St. Clair County choosing someone else to vote for. But they voted for (Barack) Obama in 2008.

"I think mostly, we have people who are voting a lot more based on emotion, and I think thats probably related to the internet and things like that rather than acts. So, I think messaging has really played a huge role, and I think maybe the Republicans have done a better job of messaging to control the county.

Outside Thursday's St. Clair County Board of Commissioners meeting, in comments colored by discussion over a proposed Algonac brownfield plan, Mike Grover, a local chairperson for We the County, and wife Lynn Grover, treasurer for the county's Republican Party executive board, reflected on living in a conservative congressional district amid a major U.S. presidential race.

Although they said don't know many people who would admit to being Democrats, elements of what they shared reflected what Frank emphasized: With increasingly higher numbers turning out in the last two presidential elections, they just want to get people to the polls.

"That's what we're hoping for. That's what we're pushing for, educating for that," Lynn said. Mike chimed in, "Too big to rig."

The county GOP overall was early in posting its endorsement of Trump last March. As the presidential election inches closer, however, Mike said the climate has been impacted by a "tremendous amount of misinformation ... on both sides" where it seemed like voters were relying more on talking points paroted on broadcast TV than "dealing in reality."

"Theyre going along to get along almost. They dont have their own opinions," he said. "People should be able to see, feel. I know that Trumps going to say, its going to be one of the things he says over and over again, Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

How has the area voted historically for president?

When asked, Frank recalled how much Port Huron had changed since he first moved to the area in 1999. Often, though, the city still proves to be a Democratic pocket in a Republican county.

County Commissioner Lisa Beedon has served as the county boards only Democrat for the last four years, replacing Howard Heidemann whod been in the position the previous 18. She has a primary challenger Aug. 6 who has admitted his beliefs don't always align with Democrats, calling himself a centrist whose beliefs against big government spurred support for Trump over Biden.

In looking at local presidential results, the last election in 2020 may be a good example to evaluate what impact Port Huron plays with the countys results overall.

In 2020, the city of Port Huron leaned more Democratic, voting for Joe Biden over Trump 6,357-6,165 or by a 192-vote margin. The city also voted a Democratic straight ticket overall by 3,455-3,418 or a 27-vote margin. Additionally, the margin of Beedon's first county win over a Republican opponent was larger by a 835-vote margine.

The city leans a little left. That narrow margin, however, hardly impacted the county's overall presidential results favoring Trump over Biden 59,186-31,363.

In 2016, the area voted 49,051-24,553 for Trump over Hilary Clinton, and then, 39,271-33,983 for Mitt Romney over Obama in 2012.

Much earlier in local voting history, there were periods the county stood apart from national results, in favor of Republican presidential candidates.

In 1976, Republican Gerald Ford won in both St. Clair and Sanilac counties by a few thousand votes, though Jimmy Carter won the national popular vote and the presidency.

The tradition held up in 1992, when George W.H. Bush won the favor of Blue Water voters  more in Sanilac than St. Clair County  despite Bill Clintons first win nationally.

For much of the rest of the last century, St. Clair County was as Republican as expected.

However, with reflecting national elections also arose as anomalies.

Clinton would go on to win by a 6,000-vote margin in St. Clair County over Republican Bob Dole in 1996.

After John McCain conceded in November 2008, the Times Herald reported early numbers that St. Clair County had supported Obama by more than 2,000 votes with 50.5% of the local vote against McCains 47.4%.

Contact reporter Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Port Huron Times Herald: Michigan's Thumb is red, but St. Clair County hasn't always voted in a Republican for president
Go on Skyscanner, search Everywhere for the month of September and you will find return flights for under 30. Croatia, Portugal, Italy, Spain, all at our fingertips for the cost of two limoncello spritzers and a packet of nuts.

But with net zero targets and the dawning of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), it appears the low-cost epoch is coming to an end.

This week, Virgin Atlantic announced it would impose a green levy to cover the cost of SAF, which is currently two to three times the cost of kerosene.

Virgin is not the first. Last month, Lufthansa said fares would go up from between 1 (84p) to 72 (60) as it attempts to hit environmental targets. A spokesperson for the German airline said the charge would cover part of the steadily rising additional costs due to regulatory environmental requirements such as SAF.

The UK, the EU, and many other governments have pledged to achieve net zero by 2050. This means airlines must shift to SAF, which is produced using cooking oil and animal fats. In the UK, SAF must make up 2 per cent of all jet fuel volumes by next year, rising to 10 per cent in 2030 and 22 per cent by 2040, at which point the target will be reviewed. The EUs targets are more ambitious still, committing to 70 per cent by 2050.

'Decarbonisation is going to cost trillions': Luis Gallego, the head of International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways - Bloomberg

The catch? Right now SAF covers just 0.2 per cent of global jet fuel volumes, and both the International Air Travel Association (IATA) and The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a specialised agency of the United Nations, calculate that transitioning to net zero by 2050 will cost in excess of nearly $5 trillion.

Luis Gallego, the head of International Airlines Group (IAG), which owns British Airways, says that the switch to cleaner jet fuel will have a big impact on the cost of flying. We know that decarbonisation is going to be very expensive. Its going to cost trillions, he said during a panel at this weeks Farnborough Airshow.

Airlines and SAF producers have been stuck in a stalemate for decades. Airlines say they want to shift to green fuel, but the SAF suppliers have refused to produce the required quantities until airlines agree to pay the market price. However, last week the Government announced plans to introduce a price guarantee to incentivise producers to open more plants and produce more fuel, a move which has been roundly praised by the industry.

The most important thing from a regulatory perspective is government and industry working together to scale up production, so we can start to see prices come down as more SAF is made, together with transition support for airlines so we can keep prices competitive, says Tim Alderslade, the head of Airlines UK. The Government has made an excellent start on the former, with the promise of revenue support for UK production announced in the Kings Speech.

Even so, Alderslade says the shift to SAF will inevitably mean higher prices for passengers, and Sally Gethin, an aviation commentator, predicts that the transition to SAF could change the way we think about holidays: In some markets it is likely that middle-income families will be priced out of the sky, she warns. For long haul and premium destinations  think the Caribbean, southeast Asia, or remote, niche customised packages  a holiday for a family of four may become more of a once-in-a-lifetime luxury option than a standard annual break.

There could be workarounds. An ICAO report suggests that governments could intervene to keep air fares low. In some countries, airlines are charged various taxes which trickle down to the passenger through higher fares. In 2019, these taxes amounted to $111 billion across the industry.

Countries concerned about the cost increases due to decarbonisation goals in aviation may also like to look at the impact that taxes have on potential passenger growth, the report suggests.

Others believe that competitive market forces will mean flying can remain affordable for all. Ryanair this week revealed that its average fare dropped from 49.07 (41.32) to 41.93 (35.31) year on year as the post-pandemic travel boom simmered down, while Jet2 said passengers would only encounter modest price rises over the summer.

There is one certainty: change is afoot. To go from 0.1 per cent SAF to 50 per cent or more in 25 years is an immense undertaking involving huge investment from both governments and airlines. In the short term, you can expect to see more airlines following the lead of Virgin and Lufthansa by introducing green surcharges. It will be fascinating, and crucial to the global tourism industry, to see what a Skyscanner Everywhere search looks like in 2050.

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.
Midtown Atlanta bar reopens nearly 2 months after it closed due to water crisis

A midtown Atlanta bar has reopened, nearly two months after a water crisis shut it down.

Eleventh Street Pub posted that it was reopening on Thursday night.

It took crews nearly a week to repair multiple water main breaks impacting restaurants in and around midtown and downtown Atlanta.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

An adjacent bar and restaurant, Steamhouse Lounge re-opened nearly a week after the initial water issues arose.

Some businesses, like Big Daves Cheesesteaks on Forsyth Street, were unable to survive the water crisis and the issues it caused.

Last month, the Atlanta City Council approved a recovery fund that impacted businesses could apply to.

RELATED STORIES:

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
How might Netanyahu's visit to the US affect cease-fire efforts?

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington, Thursday, July 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

JERUSALEM (AP)  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to the United States comes as negotiations to end the Israel-Hamas war and recover hostages held in Gaza inch forward  with no immediate deal in sight.

Egypt, Qatar and the United States continue to push Israel and Hamas toward a phased cease-fire agreement that would stop the fighting and free the hostages. The negotiations have repeatedly hit obstacles over disputes about the governance of post-war Gaza and how enduring the cease-fire will be.

Netanyahu's vowing "total victory" in Gaza to thunderous congressional applause Wednesday risks inflaming tensions with Hamas at a time when talks are delicate. But he also came under increased U.S. pressure to engage sincerely in cease-fire efforts. Critics say Netanyahu is stalling during negotiations so that he can draw out the war for his own political gain.

A team of Israeli negotiators that was meant to travel to Qatar for another round of talks was held back Thursday and may be dispatched next week.

Here's a look at how Netanyahu's visit might impact the talks:

It may have bolstered pressure for a deal

During the trip, Netanyahu seemed to avoid public mention of cease-fire talks, angering hostage families in Israel who felt their plight was ignored. Domestic pressure runs high for a deal that would bring home the remaining 110 hostages, but Netanyahu also faces opposition from his far-right governing partners to any agreement to end the war.

His speech to Congress Wednesday made scant mention of the hostages. His office said reaching a deal was but one of several items on his wish list to discuss with American officials.

Still, the visit opened Netanyahu up to face-to-face pressure from Israel's top ally, on whom it counts for critical military and domestic support.

Both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris said that in their meetings with Netanyahu in Washington on Thursday, they would prioritize closing gaps on a hostage deal.

In some of her most forceful comments, Harris said she told Netanyahu it is time to end the war and bring back the hostages.

But with Netanyahu keeping an eye on his coalition partners - the key to his political survival - the trip could also be part of a broader delaying tactic to avoid reaching a deal.

While his coalition is wobbling because of the tension with the extreme-right parties, Netanyahu is deliberately delaying the negotiations for the release of the hostages, wrote columnist Amos Harel in the liberal Israeli daily, Haaretz, adding that Netanyahu had engineered a long trip.

The rapidly changing political developments in the U.S., Harel said, might distract leaders there from pressing the cease-fire talks urgently.

It inflamed tensions with Hamas

Netanyahu's visit and his fiery speech to Congress stoked tensions with Hamas at a time when the militant group's negotiators are at the table.

Hamas reacted angrily to Netanyahu's presence in the U.S., calling his vows to return the hostages insincere.

He is the one who thwarted all efforts aimed at ending the war and concluding a deal to release the prisoners, it said in a statement after the speech. It called Netanyahu's talk of intensified efforts to free the hostages a complete lie to mislead public opinion.

Hamas spokesman Jihad Taha said Thursday the group didn't believe the visit  during which Netanyahu received a standing ovation from Congress  would prompt enough pressure on him to impact the Israeli negotiating position.

If the American administration is serious, it should put pressure on the prime minister of the Zionist government Benjamin Netanyahu to stop this aggression, he said.

But Hamas stopped short of pulling out of talks over the visit, a sign the talks may resume.

Gaps in talks remain

Netanyahus U.S. trip came as the talks already faced challenges.

The cease-fire plan calls for an initial six-week phase in which Hamas would release some hostages  including women, older adults and wounded people  in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from populated areas. Palestinian civilians would be able to return to their homes and humanitarian aid would be ramped up.

The two sides are supposed to use that six-week period to negotiate an agreement on the second phase, which would include the release of all remaining living hostages, including male soldiers, and Israels full withdrawal from Gaza along with an enduring halt to the war.

But the two sides appear far apart on that second phase.

Israeli leaders have suggested they aim for a one-phase deal freeing some hostages, after which they would resume their campaign to destroy Hamas and keep troops in parts of the territory long term.

Netanyahu has spoken of striking a partial deal. A day before coming to the U.S., he told troops in Gaza's southernmost city Rafah that Israel demanded a maximum number of hostages be released in the first phase. On Tuesday, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel seeks a deal for the release of dozens of hostages. And after this issue has passed, we will know how to return to fighting.

That's a scenario Hamas has rejected. It dropped a demand that Israel commit up front to a complete end to the war, but it has sought guarantees from mediators that negotiations - and the halt to fighting - will continue until a permanent cease-fire is reached.

Mediators say they dont want to repeat the experience of a short-lived truce in November that led to the release of some Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners but was followed by a renewed Israeli offensive that has continued for eight months since.

Mediators appear to be trying to sort out as much of the second phase as possible now, including a post-war rule for Gaza without Hamas.

There are details to be worked through, said U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan while speaking in Aspen, Colorado last week. Sullivan said those issues include what is to be Israels remaining military presence in Gaza, humanitarian assistance and a day-after plan for governing Gaza.

Netanyahus office did not say when the Israeli negotiating team would be dispatched once more for talks. At Congress, he said Israel was actively engaged in intensive efforts" to secure the release of the hostages and was confident these efforts could succeed. But he also pledged total victory in the war with Hamas.

Taha said Hamas is waiting on an official Israeli response to amendments proposed by Hamas.

-

AP Correspondents Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington D.C., Bassem Mroue and Abby Sewell in Beirut and Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese leader Xi Jinping introduced a new package of reforms to propel the country's modernization at a key policy meeting held last week, listing over 300 reform measures and a timeline to complete reform tasks by 2029.

The reform-minded leader excels not only in designing reforms but also in making them work.

A story emerged this week about how he helped a fledgling airline, born in a pivotal aviation reform 40 years ago, grow from the ground up into a major player in the industry.

In 1985, 32-year-old Xi was appointed vice mayor of Xiamen, a city designated as a special economic zone in east China's Fujian Province. The zone was established by late leader Deng Xiaoping to test market reform policies during the early stages of China's sweeping reform and opening up drive.

The city had an airline established in 1984 as part of a reform process in the civil aviation industry aimed at separating the regulator from operators. At that time, China had no airline companies, with the civil aviation authorities directly operating all air services.

Xiamen Airlines became China's first air carrier to operate under a modern corporate system. However, it faced a tough start: no aircraft, no crew, and no funds.

"We were unsure how an airline company would be operated," recalled Du Hongying, one of the first seven employees. "We didn't even have a proper office back then."

As vice mayor, Xi was tasked with overseeing Xiamen Airlines' development. He visited the company many times and sat down with its management team to find solutions to its pressing difficulties.

A retired airline manager recalled that Xi often went to Beijing to seek help from central authorities, the Air Force and the civil aviation administration for the company.

With Xi's efforts, the airline managed to rent two Boeing 737 planes and recruit 23 veteran pilots from the Air Force, thereby settling the most imminent problems of the startup.

In November 1986, the first Xiamen Airlines flight took to the sky.

But a new problem soon emerged: the city's airport needed to be expanded, and there wasn't enough money. Xi spearheaded a government task force to borrow funds from Kuwait and personally led teams to negotiate and secure a loan.

He also helped with efforts to tackle other challenges ranging from fuel to recruitment.

"Your approach is correct, and your responsibility is great. As long as you persist, you will surely succeed," Xi once told company employees.

While helping the company grow, Xi also laid down tasks for it. He made clear the need for it to serve institutional reforms, boost economic and social development, and facilitate exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

Xi's connection with the airline did not end with his three-year tenure in Xiamen. While serving in higher positions in the province, Xi referred a top-tier pilot to the airline upon retiring from the Air Force. He also intervened when the airline risked losing its license as an independent carrier amid a sweeping industry restructuring initiative at the turn of the century.

Xi did this with a keen eye on the airline's status as a state-owned company reform model and its strategic potential in boosting exchanges across the Taiwan Strait.

Later developments proved Xi's foresight. In 2005, Xiamen Airlines was chosen as one of the first airlines to operate groundbreaking direct cross-Strait charter flights. It later became a key carrier for regular cross-Strait flights.

As Fujian governor, Xi once lauded the airline's progress by borrowing a widely-quoted verse from Deng, saying it was the result of "crossing the river by feeling the stone."

Reform and innovation were the recipes for the airline's success, according to Xi.

Today, Xiamen Airlines, celebrating its 40th founding anniversary this year, has become an industry heavyweight with a fleet of 213 planes and air routes reaching 192 cities in 43 countries and regions, serving nearly 40 million passengers annually.

Among the more than 270 members of the International Air Transport Association, Xiamen Airlines ranks among the top 13 when it comes to passenger turnover.

In a reply letter to airline staff made public this week, Xi said he was pleased to have seen Xiamen Airlines achieve a great leap in development over the past 40 years.

He called on the airline to remain committed to reform and innovation, enhance its core competitiveness, and contribute more to advancing the high-quality development of civil aviation and boosting China's strength in transportation. 
SAN DIEGO (Border Report)  The San Diego Sector averaged 460 encounters a day this last week, compared to more than 1,200 weekly encounters before President Biden issued an executive order to curtail migrant crossings along the southern border.

Border Report has obtained a fact sheet from the Department of Homeland Security detailing the number of migrant encounters since June 4, when President Biden restricted entry to most noncitizens.

Seven weeks since the order was issued, DHS reports the number of migrant encounters has decreased by 55% overall.

Border Patrol appeals to migrant relatives as death toll now at 140 in El Paso Sector

In the San Diego Sector alone, encounters are down by 62%, according to the DHS fact sheet.

It also states Border Patrols seven-day average has decreased to below 1,800 encounters per day, and that for the month of June, agents recorded a total of 83,536 encounters between ports of entry throughout the southern border, the lowest number since January 2021 and below the number of encounters in June 2019, before to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since June 4, when the executive order was issued, DHS is also reporting the following:

DHS has removed and returned more than 65,000 individuals to more than 125 countries, including by operating more than 200 international repatriation flights.

DHS has doubled the percentage of noncitizens processed through Expedited Removal while in CBP or ICE custody. Expedited Removal processing was already at record levels prior to the Proclamation.

DHS has decreased the number of people released pending their removal proceedings by 70%.

DHS continues to implement recently announced measures to increase the overall capacity of enforcement resources  including repatriation flights and detention capacity. ICE is optimizing air charter contracts to maximize the number of repatriation flights operated each week.

Over the last year, the agency has removed individuals to a range of South American and Eastern Hemisphere countries, including Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Egypt, Mauritania, Senegal, Uzbekistan, and India, and in the last few weeks, DHS conducted a removal flight to the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). Efforts to expand the number of removal flights continue with the expectation of additional flights added to the schedule in the coming weeks.

House Speaker Johnson criticizes border crisis

DHS says migrants will continue to be eligible for asylum, including individuals who use the CBP One mobile apps appointment system.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is making 1,450 appointments available per day at eight land ports of entry including Ped West at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Diego.

According to the DHS fact sheet, the majority of all Southwest border encounters during the past three fiscal years resulted in a removal, return, or expulsion from the U.S.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Migrants cant avoid drug and human traffickers at the border, White House official warns

SAN DIEGO (Border Report)  The White Houses top immigration adviser says migrants cant avoid reaching the border without interference from drug smugglers or human traffickers.

Blas Nunez-Neto held an online discussion with reporters from both sides of the border on Thursday and discussed migrants struggles to cross the border.

Nowadays, its impossible to get to the border unlawfully without crossing paths with cartels and risking their lives, he said, adding that organized crime has a stronghold on the border, running both human trafficking and drug smuggling.

Nunez-Neto revealed that in the past weeks, several members belonging to three different criminal organizations have been detained along the border.

Feds seize $500,000 from alleged migrant smuggler Uncle Ron

Well continue to go after members of organized crime who are committing crimes in the United States and were going to prosecute them in the weeks ahead.

According to Nunez-Neto, nine people have been detained and are now facing charges in federal court with 10 others being sought.

Three of the suspects in custody are said to be leaders of smuggling syndicates in Tijuana, one from the border city of Tecate and five from the state of Nayarit.

California man claims 5 Mexicans wearing camouflage in SUV were his relatives

All are accused of organizing either drug or human smuggling along the southern border or out at sea.

Nunez-Neto says migrants who are risking their lives entering the country along the water are paying smugglers anywhere from $7,000 to $16,000 a person.

Visit the BorderReport.com homepage for the latest exclusive stories and breaking news about issues along the U.S.-Mexico border

He also told reporters about the arrest of Abdul Karim Conteh, of Sierra Leone, who is accused of bringing migrants from Africa, China, Middle East, Russia and other countries to Tijuana.

Karim Contehs wife, Veronica Roblero Pivaral, a Mexican citizen, has also been arrested for participating in the transfer of migrants to the border for the purpose of getting them across unlawfully.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
For military business: Man breaks into home, demands victims car after showing military ID, Arlington police say

ARLINGTON COUNTY, Va. (DC News Now)  Arlington police arrested a man from Woodbridge who broke into someones home and demanded their car because he needed it for military business.

The Arlington County Police Department (ACPD) said officers responded to a breaking and entering report around 9:53 a.m. Wednesday in the 2900 block of S. Grant Street.

There, officers found out that a woman was inside her home when the man allegedly came in, showed her his military ID and demanded she give him her car. When she refused, the man left the area and tried to get into three other cars nearby.

Spend the money you saved on spoiling your new best friend: Help Animal Welfare League of Arlington empty its shelter

Officers found him nearby and arrested him. He was identified as 24-year-old Dayan Balderrama from Woodbridge.

Balderrama was charged with burglary, two counts of impersonating law enforcement, three counts of vehicle tampering and attempted robbery.

He was being held without bond.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to DC News Now | Washington, DC.
An actress and comedian on Friday filed the fourth sexual assault lawsuit this summer against one-time real estate heavy hitter Oren Alexander.

Renee Willetts lawsuit accuses Alexander of trapping her in his apartment nine years ago under the pretense of viewing his art collection, before sexually assaulting her. Willett said she filed her suit after reading the emotional accounts of 10 other women who alleged sexual misconduct against the wealthy, powerful, Alexander brothers in The New York Times this week.

Oren Alexander and his older brother, Tal, were once considered the princes of the luxury high-rise scene, but a series of lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct and drugging women over the past two decades has brought their kingdom crashing down.

The brothers used to be the darlings of Douglas Elliman, one of the largest real estate agencies in the country, before starting their own firm, Official, with three other co-founders in 2022. The duo resigned from Official shortly after the initial lawsuits were filed.

Millionaire Realtor Brothers Probed by FBI Over Rape Allegations

Orens twin brother, Alon, does not work in real estate but frequently socializes with his brothers and is named in several of the lawsuits.

An FBI task force on child exploitation and sex trafficking announced earlier this month that it is speaking to women who allege they were assaulted by the brothers.

All three brothers deny the allegations and Orens attorney, Isabelle Kirshner, told The New York Times that she has no comment on the most recent allegation.

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 Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission holds a meeting Thursday where it reelected Miriam Horwitz as its chairwoman.

The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission reelected Miriam Horwitz chair of the board at a meeting Thursday night and Commissioner Bree Spencer was named vice chair.

Horwitz addressed the board's new video release policy, which will require the Milwaukee Police Department to release footage from "critical incidents" within 15 days. The family of those killed in the incident, like during a police shooting, should be shown the video within 48 hours.

"I intend to review current committee assignments and make potential adjustments during the August recess, which will be effective in September," Horwitz said after being reelected unanimously by the board.

"I think we also kinda need to look at whether or not we need certain committees anymore because they don't seem to be necessary," she added.

Horwitz has been on the board since December 2022. She is an employment attorney who was also Deputy City Attorney from 2014 to 2020.

Commissioner Miriam Horwitz listens to public comments about the timely release of body camera footage for police shootings and other critical incidents at City Hall in Milwaukee on April 20, 2023.

Video footage policy will begin for new incidents

The board was provided an update Thursday about its video release policy by executive director Leon Todd.

The policy was passed in April 2023, but about three weeks later a Milwaukee County judge blocked the 15-day release policy from taking effect after the Milwaukee Police Association, the department's officer union, filed a lawsuit.

The union dropped the suit last week, the case was dismissed, and therefore the policy will be activated. Before, the department would release the footage within 45 days, which was a department goal.

The change comes as the community waits for footage from a recent police shooting.

According to police, in June, teens connected to an armed carjacking in downtown Milwaukee led police on a chase onto Interstate 43, which ended in an officer firing shots into the suspected vehicle with six teens inside, striking two of them, and ending one's pregnancy. Police said the vehicle came close to hitting an officer standing nearby after the driver entered a construction zone. Four of the teens face charges in adult court.

Police investigate a vehicle after all northbound and southbound lanes on Interstate 43 from Capitol Drive to Locust Street were closed due to a police investigation in Milwaukee on June 20.

Last week, the Columbus, Ohio Police Department released body cam footage the same day as the fatal police shooting of 43-year-old Samuel Sharpe Jr. in Milwaukee.

He had been living in a tent surrounded by others at King Park, where he died nearby. Five police officers opened fire on Sharpe as he held two knives during a street fight. The shooting took place during and near the Republican National Convention, which is why out-of-state police were in town. The incident sparked outrage in the community and garnered national attention.

Todd said the new 15-day video release policy was implemented on July 17, the day the suit was dismissed, but police said it will not be retroactive for prior incidents, such as the Interstate 43 police shooting.

"(The policy) is designed to promote transparency, public trust while at the same time balancing the need to protect the integrity of criminal and administrative investigations, as well as privacy interests," Todd said.

He added that the suit's dismissal is "a reflection of the fact that the board acted lawfully in its authority."

Horwitz said she was pleased to see an end to the litigation. "I think procedurally that matter lingered far longer than it was necessary," she said. "And I'm glad it's behind us.

"And since the RNC is also behind us, we will be seeing that policy in effect, but hopefully we won't have to use it very often."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Fire and Police board reelect chair; 15-day video policy now
This Milwaukee grocery store is giving away $10,000 of groceries this weekend

Maurice Wince and his wife Yashica Spears at their grocery store which will open July 15 at 4315 W. Fond Du Lac Ave. The location housed a number of daycare centers when Wince, a real estate developer, decided a grocery store was needed more in the Sherman Park neighborhood.

Wisconsin's only Black-owned full-scale grocery store will celebrate it's 2nd anniversary with a $10,000 grocery giveback to show customer appreciation.

The celebration is Saturday, July 27 at Sherman Park Grocery Store, 4315 W. Fond du Lac Ave. The store opened in July 2022 to provide residents with affordable healthy foods to address one of 13 food deserts in Milwaukee.

"In the meetups we found there hadn't been a full-scale grocery in this neighborhood in 18 years," said owner Maurice "Moe" Wince.

Development of the grocery store began when Parklawn Assembly Church of God members used the 2016 civil unrest in Sherman Park to spark conversation on food access, healthcare and job stability.

The store received support from Gov. Tony Evers, Milwaukee Commissioner of City Development Lafayette Crump, and Ken Little, the director of the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center, among others.

The anniversary party will include a $25 grocery gift card giveaway, food and more from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The gift cards do come with some stipulations. They must be used at Sherman Park Grocery and spent on fruits, vegetables and other healthy options.

WJMR Jammin' 98.3 radio host, Earl Stokes will be present too.

You must pre-register for the event to receive a gift card or visit the store.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Sherman Park Grocery Store to give away $10,000 in groceries
Democrat Tim Walz has slammed Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) over his record on reproductive rights issues, with the Minnesota governor sharing a personal message about his familys use of in vitro fertilization.

During a Thursday appearance on MSNBCs Inside With Jen Psaki, Walz recognized that it was World IVF Day before saying that he and his wife, Minnesota first lady Gwen Walz, had turned to IVF to expand their family.

Tim and Gwen Walz share two children: 23-year-old Hope and 17-year-old Gus Walz.

Todays IVF Day. Thank God for IVF  my wife and I have two beautiful children, he said as he criticized Vance, Donald Trumps vice presidential running mate, for his policypositions on reproductive rights issues.

He thinks he needs to dictate that? Tim Walz continued.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, left, and Dr. Sarah Traxler, the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood North Central States, stand behind U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris after a tour at Planned Parenthood on March 14, 2024, in St. Paul. Star Tribune via Getty Images via Getty Images

Last month, Vance and his fellow Senate Republicans blocked the Right to IVF Act, Democratic legislation that would have enshrined into federal law a right for individuals to receive IVF treatment. The bill would have also shielded doctors who provide it.

Republicans tried passing their own bill that would have revoked Medicaid funding for any state that enacts a ban on IVF access. But Democrats blocked that measure, saying it contained loopholes that did not protect the IVF process.

Calling your bill the IVF Protection Act without doing anything to protect IVF is despicable, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) said of the GOP legislation at the time. It is akin to an arsonist selling you fire insurance that doesnt cover arson.

Walz previously discussed his familys journey with IVF back in March, saying that he and his wife had gone through fertility treatments for seven years before welcoming Hope.

Its not by chance that we named our daughter Hope, he said, according to the Star Tribune.

On Thursday, the presidential campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris issued a press release celebrating World IVF Day with everyone  other than one person.

Happy World IVF Day To Everyone Except JD Vance, it read.

Related...
Missing 12-year-old Hall County girl found in Ohio with man she met online

Hall County Sheriff Gerald Couch is sharing new details in the missing person case of 12-year-old Maria Gomez-Perez.

She vanished from her Gainesville home in May. The sheriffs office said late Thursday night that Maria is safe and OK, and that she was located in another state.

Sheriff Couch confirmed on Friday morning that she had been found in Dover, Ohio with a 34-year-old man she met online.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

He says Maria met Antonio Agustin, a Guatemalan native, online and began chatting with him and other adult men through Facebook Messenger. She told Agustin that she was unhappy and wanted to leave home.

On May 29, Agustin drove from his Ohio home to Gainesville to pick Maria up and take her back to northeast Ohio, where investigators believe they have been since.

RELATED STORIES:

Agustin has since been arrested and is being held in the Tuscarawas County Jail.

A $50,000 reward had been offered for any information that could lead to finding Maria.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Authorities in Central California have located the car of a missing 47-year-old woman who vanished earlier this week.

Tiffany McClure was last seen in Tulare on Monday. Two days later, the Tulare Police Department found the womans car, a white BMV, at Morro Strand State Beach Campground in Morro Bay, over 130 miles from where she was last spotted.

Nothing about the car seemed suspicious and it was found properly parked, locked and secured. There was no indication of foul play.

Tiffany McClure, 49, went missing earlier this week in Central California (Tulare Police Department)

But friends said its not like McClure to fall off the radar for more than a day.

Theres going to be a lot of people in this area. Sometimes, people just arent aware if somebody needs to be contacted, said Amy Watkins from the Morro Bay Police Department. So its important, I think, right now for Tulare police department and certainly, the Morro Bay police department to get that information out there because Miss McClures family is concerned about her, and they just want to make sure shes ok and get contact with her as soon as possible.

Morro Bay Police Officer Tony Mosqueda told The San Luis Obispo Tribune that police officers searched the beach area where McClures car was found for multiple hours on foot and with a drone, but could not find anyone matching the womans description. Authorities are currently investigating the case as a voluntary missing persons report.

McClure is described as being 58 with blond hair and blue eyes. Her family reported her missing, and the investigation is ongoing.
VIENTIANE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell here on Friday.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, said the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee has drawn a new blueprint for further deepening reforms in a comprehensive manner and advancing Chinese-style modernization.

China's high-quality development and high level of opening up will also bring new opportunities for China-EU cooperation, Wang added.

The consensus between China and the EU far outweighs the differences, Wang said, noting that a healthy, stable and sustainable China-EU relationship is in the fundamental interests of both sides and is also the common expectation of the international community.

He added that China and the EU should stay committed to the partnership, keep to the overall direction of cooperation, respect the will and choices of their respective people, dialogue on an equal footing, enhance understanding, and cope with the uncertainty of the international situation with the stability of China-EU relations.

Wang said China will, as always, support the European integration and the EU's maintaining on strategic autonomy. The Chinese side hopes that the new EU leadership will pursue a rational and pragmatic policy towards China, look at China's development in an objective and friendly way, and realize a smooth transition in China-EU relations.

Wang said the EU's anti-subsidy investigations into China's electric vehicles is typical trade protectionism and is not conducive to global green transformation.

It is hoped that the two sides will find a reasonable solution through dialogue and consultation to jointly safeguard the free trade system and economic globalization, Wang noted.

Borrell said the EU attaches importance to Europe-China relations and maintains an independent policy towards China, noting that the EU is willing to maintain communication with China for the two sides to better understand their respective positions.

The EU is not involved in curbing China's development and is happy to see China's rise, and hopes to share mutual concerns with China openly and frankly, and develop a balanced Europe-China economic and trade relationship, Borrell said.

The EU has always maintained that Taiwan is not a country and the government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legitimate government representing the whole of China, said Borrell, adding that the EU will continue to pursue the one-China policy.

The EU attaches importance to the peace initiative of China and Brazil on the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, congratulates China for promoting the reconciliation of Palestinian factions, and is willing to work with China to promote peace, said the EU official.

Wang, the Chinese foreign minister, elaborated on China's principled position on the Ukraine crisis, saying that the most urgent task is to cool down the situation, and that China has always insisted on urging peace and promoting talks and a political solution.

The Chinese side supports the EU in playing a leading role in exploring a balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture, Wang said. 
Antonio Agustin , 31, has been arrested on charges of rape after he allegedly kidnapped Maria Gomez-Perez (Tuscarawas County Sheriffs Office)

A 12-year-old girl who went missing from her home in Georgia in May was found safe at a mall and her alleged abductor was arrested.

Authorities located Maria Gomez-Perez in Dover, Ohio on Thursday, about 600 miles from her home in Gainesville. Officials expected that the child would be back in Georgia by Friday.

The tireless work of our criminal investigative bureau, law enforcement partners and the community has resulted in the best possible outcome, Hall County Sheriff Gerald Couch said. Our prayers for Marias safe return have been answered.

Gomez-Perez went missing on May 29. The Hall County Sheriffs Office tracked the girls potential whereabouts to South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Illinois and Maryland, but none of the leads were successful, according to Fox 5.

Other agencies including the FBI, Homeland Security, Georgia Bureau of Investigation and South Carolina Law Enforcement Division assisted in the search.

The child was found with a 31-year-old man named Antonio Agustin. Investigators believe that the child had been talking with Agustin and other men on Facebook Messenger and other apps.

Maria had indicated that she was unhappy, and she would like to leave home, Sheriff Couch said.

Authorities said that Agustin drove down to Georgia to meet the girl and the two have been together since.

A break in the case came when the girl contacted her father on Facebook last week to tell him that she was okay and he should stop looking for her.

A team tracked down the IP address and after making visual contact with the girl swooped in to rescue her and arrested Agustin.

Agustin has been arrested on rape charges. Multiple felony charges are possible in the case.
Missing Woman's 2-Year-Old Told Family 'Momma Was in Blood.' Months Later, Police Believe They Found Her Remains

Gabriella Dixon, 18, disappeared in October 2023

Bibb County Sheriff's Office Gabriella Dixon

Authorities in Georgia say human remains found by a construction crew likely belong to a mother of two who vanished nearly a year ago.

Gabriella Dixon, 18, was last seen in Macon, Ga., on Oct. 30 2023, the Bibb County Sheriff's Office said in an announcement at the time.

On Wednesday, July 24, human remains were found in a wooded area in Monroe County, Ga., and authorities say they believe they are those of Dixon, the sheriffs office said in a statement.

The remains, which were discovered by a construction crew, have been sent to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for positive identification, police said.

The sheriffs office said they charged Jatarvius Deangelo Price with conspiracy to commit murder after the remains were found. Price, 19, was initially arrested in November on charges of making false statements and tampering with evidence, but was released on bond.

It wasn't immediately clear if Price has entered pleas or retained an attorney to speak on his behalf.

Authorities have also issued warrants for Reginald Harris on a charge of murder. Dixons family says Harris is the father of her children, per 13 WMAZ.

Bibb County Sheriff's Office Gabriella Dixon

Related: Chilling Details Emerge in Disappearance of Woman as 2-Year-Old Daughter Says She Saw Her In Blood

Dixons family reported her missing on Oct. 31, 2023, the Bibb County Sheriffs Office previously said.

In Dixon's missing persons report, her family shared chilling details, including assertions made by her 2-year-old child.

On Oct. 30, 2023, when Harris dropped their children at Dixons mothers home, the 2-year-old told their grandmother, Momma was in blood, 41 NBC, 13 WMAZ and WGXA-TV reported at the time, citing the missing persons report.

The childs older sibling reportedly said that Momma is sleeping, the report said, per 41 NBC and WGXA-TV.

Bibb County Sheriff's Office Reginald Harris (left); and Jatarvius Price

Dixons mother Gabriella Searcy told 13 WMAZ the family is 99% sure the remains are of Dixons given the red hair and clothing found on the body.

Searcy had launched a campaign to find her missing daughter in the last few months, several posts on the bereaved mother's social media show.

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.



A GoFundMe was set up for Dixon in November to assist the family with rescue efforts.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
The Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation issued 57 marijuana microbusiness licenses in the second round of applications. A minimum of six licenses were awarded within each of the state's eight congressional districts. Per district, two licenses are for microbusiness dispensaries and four are for microbusiness wholesale facilities. In this round, an additional nine licenses were awarded due to the revocation of round one awardees for rule violations, including one in Springfield.

More than 2,000 applications were filed during the April 15-29 application period, according to a Department of Health and Senior Services news release. A microbusiness license allows licensees to operate on a smaller scale than medical or comprehensive licenses and the majority owner must meet certain criteria. The license is designed to provide a path to facility ownership for those for whom that opportunity may not be as easily accessible.

In the 7th District, which represents the southwest corner of the state, all three dispensary licenses were awarded in Springfield, two to individuals and one to Virgo Vermilio. With this type of license, these entities can process, package, deliver and sell marijuana and marijuana products to other microbusiness facilities and consumers.

For both of the individual licenses, John Payne, who was the campaign manager for Legal Missouri 2022 backing the legalization of marijuana in the state, is listed as the designated contact. Both of these license applications also list 1612 N. Lexington Ave. in northeast Springfield as the address, per DHSS lottery results. According to the Heyle Realtors website, this space is available to lease and was the former office and lab for the nearby railroad.

The address listed on the Virgo Vermilio's application is 1770 W. Sunset St., which is where BluCurrent Credit Union is located. A representative from BluCurrent said the bank had no knowledge of the address being listed on applications and is not affiliated with any marijuana businesses. The address was likely listed due it being advertised for lease for half of the building where BluCurrent is housed, according to the Jared Commercial & Management website.

While Virgo Vermilio does not show up in the Secretary of State business search, the designated contact for the application is Amanda Kilroe, an attorney with Michigan-based commercial marijuana real estate agency Canna Zoned MLS. Another application with Kilroe as the contact had its license revoked in Columbia for Frankenstein Enemy LLC due to failure to respond and provide documents requested by the DHSS.

Both Payne and Kilroe appear as the designated contacts for numerous applications, with both the Lexington and Sunset locations listed for several applications. According to past News-Leader reporting, just because the address is listed in the application, does not mean the dispensary must operate there. As long as it remains housed within the 7th District, it can be built elsewhere. All marijuana microbusiness applicants had to provide proposed facility locations, however, and these locations had to comply with location requirements outlined in the Missouri Constitution. Applicants also had to submit proposed blueprints of the entire facility.

Wholesale facilities awarded in Springfield

Two of the five wholesale facility licenses for the 7th District were awarded to applicants in Springfield. With this type of license, these four entities can grow up to 250 flowering plants and then process, manufacture and transport the products.

Braxton Jeske and Andrew Dean Bedell were both awarded the license. Per DHSS, the address listed on the Jeske's application is 3244 E. Gasconade St., a home in southwest Springfield. According to the Secretary of State business search, Jeske has three active LLCs registered at this address. The address in Bedell's application is 1612 N. Lexington Ave.

The other wholesale licenses awarded in the 7th District were to Sacred Smoke LLC in Seneca, Monsta Farms LLC in Sarcoxie and Fallout170 in Sarcoxie.

The 57 microbusiness licenses were selected by a random lottery conducted by the Missouri Lottery without reference to the identities of the applicants to ensure the "integrity" of the random drawing, according to the news release. Prior to issuing the licenses, DHSS conducted a review to determine whether applicants were eligible to receive a license.

What's next?

Marijuana microbusiness license holders are required to be in operation within two years of their business license issuance, according to previous News-Leader reporting. Over the next 60 days, DHSS will review eligibility for all 57 entities in order to certify them.

Applicants not selected in the lottery may be eligible for a refund of their application fees. Refund requests will be accepted from Aug. 24 through Jan. 24, 2025. Each applicant had to pay $1,500 to apply.

Another 48 licenses will be issued during the third and final round of microbusiness applications in 2025.

More: Here's why these Springfield, Columbia marijuana microbusiness licenses were revoked

Who received the remaining marijuana microbusiness licenses?

District 1 Dispensaries

Millennium Retail LLC at 6934 Olive Blvd. in University City

Green Oasis LLC at 322 Taylor Rd. in Hazelwood

The Chronic Club LLC at 322 Taylor Rd. in Hazelwood

District 1 Wholesale Facilities

Rare Breed Farms at 1283 Research Blvd. in St. Louis

BlueMeanies at 1009 Locust St. in St. Louis

Platinum Craft at 1009 Locust St. in St. Louis

MicroLegacy at 1009 Locust St. in St. Louis

District 2 Dispensaries

Euphoria Group LLC at 16590 Manchester Rd. in Wildwood

Bug Stinging LLC at 3 Valley Park Rd. in Valley Park

Pure Leaf Labs LLC at 16345 Westwoods Business Park in Ellisville

Premium Pack LLC at 16345 Westwoods Business Park in Ellisville

District 2 Wholesale Facilities

Clifton Cannabis LLC at 1291 N. Highway Dr. in Fenton

Andrew Venne at 611 Trade Center Blvd. in Chesterfield

Wolfie Dank Co. at 670 Goddard Ave. in Chesterfield

Travis Dickens at 611 Trade Center Blvd. in Chesterfield

District 3 Dispensaries

Both are individuals at 3990 Mexico Rd. in Saint Peters

District 3 Wholesale Facilities

Twin Elephant at 6280 County Road 108 in Fulton

Individual at 1664 Highway W in Elsberry

DMS420 LLC at 7040B Highway HH in Catawissa

Individual at 1664 S. Highway W in Elsberry

District 4 Dispensaries

Potent Pals LLC at 501 W. Reed St. in Moberly

Xylo Gleam LLC at 689 S. Monroe St. in Lebanon

Divergent Dancers LLC at 689 S. Monroe St. in Lebanon

High & Tight LLC at 900 E. Broadway in Columbia

District 4 Wholesale Facilities

Lit Naturals LLC at 3421 State Route H in Fayette

High Maintenance Farm LLC at 4509 Interstate 70 Dr. SE in Columbia

Travis L Brown at 34651 Highway M in Edwards

Marley at 19015 S. Mackie Lane in Hartsburg

District 5 Dispensaries

KC Cultivators LLC at 1622-1624 Saint Louis Ave. in Kansas City

Flower to the People at 13621 US-40 E. in Independence

Farm Fantasies LLC at 3945 S. Bolger Rd. in Independence

District 5 Wholesale Facilities

Drama Dunes LLC at 704 Squire Ct. in Grain Valley

Cut the Grass LLC at 3690-3700 Main St. in Grandview

Verdant Sun Journey LLC at 113 Shotwell St. in Richmond

Cobalt Star Voyager LLC at 113 Shotwell St. in Richmond

Infinite Luck LLC at 340 NW Capital Dr. in Lee's Summit

District 6 Dispensaries

Idyll Zone LLC at 119 S. Business Hwy 61 in Bowling Green

BL Enterprises at 4797 Siena Dr. Unit B in Saint Joseph

Captured Crescents LLC at 1403 N. Jesse James Rd. in Excelsior Springs

District 6 Wholesale Facilities

Individual at 35475 in Taylor (While this is an incomplete address, DHSS Communications Director Lisa Cox said there is only so much required early on in the application process.)

MB Doinks LLC at Pike 301 in Cyrenne

Individual at 35475 300th St. in Taylor

BK Doinks LLC Pike 301 in Cyrenne

District 8 Dispensaries

Individual at 330 N. Creek Dr. in Festus

Individual at 333 Leroux Dr. in Doniphan

District 8 Wholesale Facilities

Dorris Cultivating & Wholesale at 1166 Wayne Route EE in Silva

Andrew L Hoover at 16565 Highway BB in Licking

LL Wirtz LLC at 3602 Highway K in Bonne Terre

Baca Cultivating & Wholesale at 1166 Wayne Route EE in Silva

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: Missouri awards 5 marijuana microbusiness licenses in Springfield
John Payne, managing partner at Amendment 2 Consultants, discusses legislation at an industry summit in downtown St. Louis on March 28 with Amy Moore (middle), director of the Division of Cannabis Regulation, and Mitch Meyers, partner at BeLeaf Medical (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

When John Payne was leading the campaign to legalize recreational cannabis in 2022, he faced a major hurdle.

Black business owners were largely excluded from the medical marijuana program when licenses to grow and sell cannabis were doled out by the state in 2019, and many feared history was about to repeat itself.

So to soothe the concerns and win over skeptics, Payne partnered with Black community leaders to come up with what they hoped was a solution  a social equity program, known as microbusiness licenses, that would diversify the industry and ensure communities most impacted by the War on Drugs were not once again left out of the burgeoning industry.

We do know from data that the people who have been harmed by marijuana prohibition directly, Black Americans are overrepresented, Payne, who is white, told The Independent last year.

Because marijuana prohibition did the most harm on the Black community  Black Missourians are 2.6 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Missourians  that should carry over into a disproportionate good impact of the microbusiness licenses, Payne said.

But documents uncovered by The Independent show that in some cases, Payne and his business partners were the ones aiming to benefit most from the social-equity program.

Paynes name is connected to more than 300 social-equity applications submitted earlier this year for the second round of microbusiness licenses, winning six of the 24 dispensary licenses selected through a lottery in June and officially issued on Wednesday.

For some of the applications, Payne recruited eligible Missourians and had them sign a 47-page contract that would ultimately give him and his partners 90.1% of profits and majority control of the business.

Despite only owning a fraction of the business, under state law the applicants would bear the lions share of the regulatory scrutiny. If they ever want to walk away from the deal, they would be required to pay a nearly $1 million fee.

In an interview with The Independent, Payne defended the contract, saying the arrangement was designed for people who wanted to get into the industry but didnt want to put in their own money.

Payne insists the six successful applications hes involved with this year didnt use the contract. However, one license connected to Payne that was approved last year involved a nearly identical contract, which The Independent obtained through a public records request.

Four legal experts who reviewed the contract from this year for The Independent concluded it was unfair and potentially predatory. All four agreed state cannabis regulators should reject any license application connected to the contract because it violates the constitutional mandate requiring licenses to be majority owned and operated by the eligible applicant.

If you dont have the staying power and legal assistance, youre going to get screwed, said Michael Goldberg, managing partner of the Chicago-based firm Goldberg Law Group, about the 47-page contract.

Nimrod Chapel  an attorney, president of the Missouri NAACP and an outspoken critic of the 2022 legalization amendment  believes the contract meets the states definition of predatory practices.

I find it incredibly disappointing that this section of licensees is getting monopolized by John Payne, Chapel said, the very person who was in the middle of the campaign for cannabis legalization and used this as a way to gain minority buy-in.

Joseph von Kaenel, a St. Louis corporate governance attorney, likened the arrangement to companies abusing public contracting dollars meant to empower minority businesses by finding a woman or minority to front the business.

The contract states several times that, the applicant understands that this agreement is not predatory.

It doesnt mean its true, said Michael Wolff, a former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court and dean emeritus of the St. Louis University Law School.

Need to get in touch?

Have a news tip?

CONTACT US

But the harshest criticism came from Adolphus Pruitt, president of the St. Louis NAACP who served on the committee that helped write the 2022 legalization amendment. Pruitt said he brought the idea for the social-equity licenses to Payne and spent months working alongside him publicly defending the proposal during the 2022 campaign.

Im insulted, Pruitt said. This is indentured servitude. Thats what this is.

There are seven categories where people can qualify for a microbusiness license, ranging from a lower income level or living in an area considered impoverished to having past arrests or incarcerations related to marijuana offenses.

When you look at the categories and the qualifications, theres no doubt that overwhelmingly the qualifications are geared up for people who were impacted by the unjust enforcement of marijuana laws, Pruitt said. No one would dispute that that population, in most cases, are African Americans.

Payne told The Independent his critics have it all wrong.

The contract The Independent obtained was used in a relatively small number of the more than 300 microbusiness applications that his company worked on.

The applicants in these cases were typically personal contacts of our team members with whom we could envision a mutually beneficial long-term partnership, Payne said.

Payne founded the cannabis consultancy group Amendment 2 Consultants and is a leader in the Missouri Cannabis Trade Association, also known as MoCann Trade. He said the trade associations law firm  Armstrong Teasdale  wrote the contract.

Even though the firms name appears in the contract, Armstrong Teasdale adamantly denies preparing or providing it to Payne.

The firm had nothing to do with that agreement, said Jay Wager, Armstrong Teasdales acting chief business development director, adding that Payne is not the firms client.

When asked if Payne repurposed an agreement written by Armstrong Teasdale without the firms permission, Wager said the firm is too busy helping their clients to read the agreement to see if the language was theirs.

Payne did not respond to questions about Armstrong Teasdales comments.

In response to The Independents questions, the Division of Cannabis Regulation said it has opened an investigation into three microbusiness licenses awarded last October and connected to Payne in order to verify that the licenses continue to be majority owned and operated by eligible individuals, spokeswoman Lisa Cox said.

The Independent obtained the notices of investigation the division sent Tuesday evening to Payne, who is the designated contact for the licenses, giving him seven days to provide documents regulators need to verify ownership.

The agreement

Garrett Farley said he was approached by Payne this spring to apply for a social-equity dispensary license.

Payne said he would take care of the $1,500 application fee and do all the work to get the dispensary running  and Farley could sit back and get a paycheck when profits rolled in every quarter.

The way he made it seem, Farley, who is white, told The Independent, there was like no catch.

Farley is a cannabis union organizer  something Payne didnt know at the time. He said he was curious about the social-equity process, but the way Payne described the deal raised red flags for him. When Payne shared the 47-page agreement, it confirmed Farleys suspicions.

The moment Farley won a license, his contract states, hed have to pay nearly $1 million as a break-up fee to walk away even though the only investment the consultant had put in at that point was the $1,500 application fee.

Hed have to immediately set up an LLC, where he would give up almost all control of the business. So if he ever wanted to sell the license he wouldnt have the voting power to make that choice.

Instead, hed only get 9.9% of the profits if the license was ever sold.

Hed later have to transfer ownership to the person who would eventually loan the company $1 million in startup costs.

If he failed to do any of these steps, hed be in breach of contract.

After reviewing the contract, the St. Louis NAACPs Pruitt compared it to the slave owner giving me some land to work on. Its their company, they put up the capital, theyre preparing the applications, theyre paying the fees, theyre managing the business. And if at any time me as the slave fails to do something, I owe them.

Payne vehemently disagreed with that assessment.

I see it as a partnership, Payne told The Independent. That is an agreement for the long term.

Payne confirmed that he never told Farley about the break-up fee when they talked about the deal, but he said that was because Armstrong Teasdale had not finished drafting the agreement.

I did not actually write the agreement, and did not yet have it at that point, Payne said. I will say that if I had known that exact figure was in there, yeah, I would have explained that. But there does have to be some provision on what happens if a contract is voided.

Von Kaenel, the St. Louis corporate governance attorney, said the amount of the breakup fee is significant.

He said the amount is so far in excess of any damages that are likely to occur that it could be considered a punitive provision calculated to limit applicants business options.

While Farley would be entitled to 9.9% of the companys profits, the LLC must pay Payne a $10,000 monthly consulting fee before the applicant receives any revenue.

Frankly, thats a decent deal for helping to essentially manage a lot of the administrative functions of a dispensary, Payne said. It is not as if the applicant is on the hook, that it is the business that is on the hook for that.

Unconstitutional?

All four of the legal experts who analyzed the agreement said it does not meet the constitutional mandate that the business is to be majority owned and operated by the eligible applicant.

If Farley won the license, he must set up an LLC and ask the state to approve a name change of the license. After that happens, a board with three managers would be established to make all the top-level decisions about the company.

In Farleys case, the board would have included one of Paynes business partners, who Payne said would also be eligible for a microbusiness license because he has a marijuana charge on his record.

The other board manager is fronting the money, Payne said, and is eligible because she lives in a qualifying ZIP code.

Von Kaenel called the board structure the agreements fatal blow, because it gives Farley only a third of the voting power and a sliver of the companys equity.

We pay the application fee, we are going to pay for everything to get up and running, Payne told Farley in a meeting together. And were going to basically put in the work to do that. And in exchange, we would take 90% of the equity, you will keep 10% of the equity.

Goldberg, the Chicago attorney, said the profit distribution and company control are what the state regulators should be looking at.

This contract should not get past the state, he said. Social-equity applicants are supposed to have control. Theyre not supposed to have 10% or one third of the voting power. Thats the whole thing.

Missouri cannabis law says a person or group cannot have significant voting or financial interest in more than one microbusiness license  or the state can revoke the license.

The contract is between Farley and a consultant group called Comonca LLC, with whom Payne is the registered agent in documents filed with the Missouri Secretary of States Office.

The minute Mr. Applicant signs that agreement with the consultant, the consultant already has an interest in the business, said Wolff, the former state Supreme Court judge.

Thats largely because if the applicant changes his mind and wants to get out of the deal, he owes them $995,750 in liquidated damages, or their expected value of the license, Wolff said.

And if the agreements are the same for all six dispensary licenses connected to Payne in this round, then Payne and his associates indeed have a financial interest in all of these licenses, Wolff said.

Payne told The Independent that none of the applicants with an agreement like Farleys won a license. He could not elaborate about how many of his applications included agreements that were similar to Farley because either he wasnt involved in that aspect for all of his clients or he signed a nondisclosure agreement.

Contracts of winning applicants will soon be publicly available now that the latest round of licenses have been issued, and the state has officially begun its post-licensure review.

Payne said he believes the agreement will win the divisions approval.

It is going to be something that is compliant with what the department requires because I trust the standard of Armstrongs work, Payne said.

Up for interpretation

These are not the first licenses Payne has orchestrated  and caused a stir.

The first round of 48 microbusiness licenses  16 of which were dispensary licenses  were selected through a lottery last August. Paynes clients won two dispensary licenses and two wholesale licenses.

One dispensary license was under investigation by the Division of Cannabis Regulators for several months, after the division issued a letter in December stating that the application was misleading.

In its letter to Payne, the state said the licensee entered an agreement that transfers ownership and operational control to another entity. This is cause for revocation in violation of the regulations requiring all owners to be disclosed in the application.

The nature of the agreement also did not allow the state to verify the microbusiness license will be majority owned and operated by individuals who meet qualifications, state regulators said in the letter.

The Independent obtained a copy of a redacted contract through a public records request, and the available language is almost identical to the contract offered to Farley.

As with Farleys contract, last years contract states that, Armstrong Teasdale LLP has no conflict of interest in drafting this agreement. But Wager said the firm could not comment on whether it wrote the contract for this licensee.

Payne was able to submit new documents that satisfied these concerns, according to a March 21 letter from the division. The state allowed the applicant to retain the license, but this week opened a new investigation into the ownership structure  along with the two wholesale licenses where Payne is the designated contact.

Cox, the spokeswoman for the Division of Cannabis Regulation, confirmed the investigation focused on the ownership of the license holder but could not offer additional details about the inquiry.

Ownership issues led to the state revoking eight microbusiness licenses in the first round last year, she said.

We will continue to exercise our authority at each stage of this process to ensure the microbusiness program is benefiting the individuals for whom it was so evidently designed, Cox said.

The state recently approved this licensees request to change the name of the license to Green Zebra LLC, Cox confirmed. According to the contract, the next step would be to establish a three-member board, leaving the original applicant with one-third of the voting power.

Given the timeline, its possible the board structure sparked the states inquiry.

Payne did not respond to a request for comment on the states investigation, but he previously told The Independent all board members would meet the programs eligibility requirements.

As for Farley, he never ended up signing the contract to jump into the lottery for a Missouri social-equity license, but said Payne submitted his name anyway.

He didnt get a license, but on July 3 received a letter from Paynes group asking him if he would like to submit his name in the Minnesota social equity cannabis license lottery.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
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.

Denny Hoskins, a Republican candidate for Missouri secretary of state, had just started his stump speech to the Greater Kansas City Pachyderm Club when he turned to his distrust of voting machines. A state senator, Hoskins has proposed legislation to require ballots be counted by hand.

Hoskins, who lives in Warrensburg, recalled how the satellite radio in his GMC pickup had malfunctioned in the minutes after a would-be assassin tried to kill former President Donald Trump. He admitted to wondering at that moment whether the country was under a cyber attack.

It was just a glitch in the software in my truck because an hour later it started working fine, Hoskins told the luncheon crowd earlier this month. There  can be all sorts of glitches when we talk about anything electronic and computerized.

Several Republicans running for secretary of state are promising significant changes to elections and voting in Missouri.

Ahead of the Aug. 6 primary election, they have made baseless fears of migrant voting a centerpiece of their campaigns and played into lingering distrust of elections among conservatives as former President Donald Trump continues to falsely deny he lost the 2020 presidential election.

Hoskins wants to mandate the hand-counting of all ballots  a monumental shift that would stretch election officials in Kansas City and St. Louis to the breaking point. Candidates have also called for mandatory signature verification of absentee ballot envelopes.

Others oppose steps to make voting easier, including expanded voting by mail, even though the Trump campaign now embraces it. The idea of allowing ballot drop boxes in Missouri is verboten.

Local election officials and election experts are highly skeptical of some of the proposals, especially plans to hand count all ballots. The number of workers necessary to count ballots would prove significant. Unofficial results, expected by the public on election night, would likely be pushed into the next day.

I can tell you that for our jurisdiction here in Jackson County, where we have over 270,000+ active registered voters, the additional work and resources would be more than double, Sara Zorich, the Democratic director of the Jackson County Election Board, wrote in an email.

Missouri state Sen. Denny Hoskins.

Eight Republicans are competing for secretary of state. The large field and a lack of public polling on the race makes discerning a likely winner difficult.

The candidates include Missouri House Speaker Dean Plocher, Rep. Adam Schwadron, Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, former congressional staffer Jamie Corley, Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller, social media personality Valentina Gomez, municipal judge Mike Carter and Hoskins.

Most candidates are vowing to secure Missouri elections against voting by non-citizens, an exceedingly rare occurrence. But their plans to address the issue are often vague, boiling down to calling for state or federal legislation instead of actions they would take in office.

The aggressive rhetoric reflects a focus on illegal immigration among Missouri Republicans generally as GOP candidates across the country attempt to link Democrats to President Joe Bidens handling of the southern border. Plocher, for instance, has gone as far as convening a House committee to assess criminal activities involving illegal immigrants in the state.

I am very concerned that the thousands of illegals pouring into the state will attempt to register and displace Missouri citizens voter rights, Plocher said when he launched his campaign. We must protect the integrity of our elections and only allow those that are legal residents of this state and citizens of this country to participate in Missouri elections.

Becky Wells of Grain Valley, Missouri, votes in a general municipal election on Friday, March 29, 2024, in Independence.

GOP election fraud focus

The Missouri secretary of state  like many secretary of state offices across the country  was once thought of as a largely ministerial, even sleepy, job. Politicians sometimes used the position to burnish their reputation on the way to higher office. But the offices key functions, including managing business records and overseeing elections, didnt attract much attention.

In the era before term limits, Democrat James Kirkpatrick held the office for 20 years, from 1965 to 1985. In recent decades, the role has served as a stepping stone  former U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, former Gov. Matt Blunt and Jason Kander, who ran for U.S. Senate, all took turns in the office. The current secretary of state, Republican Jay Ashcroft, is running for governor.

But Republicans growing focus on elections and the specter of voter fraud over the past decade, and especially since 2020, has raised the profile of secretary of state offices. In Kansas, Republican Kris Kobach pioneered the new model a decade ago and personally defended a proof of citizenship voter registration law that a federal court struck down.

Today, Missouris term limits, which forces politicians to try to quickly climb the political ladder, and a conservative electorate likely to elect the GOP primary winner in November, has led to a large field of candidates. Many hopefuls have adopted increasingly aggressive rhetoric and proposals in an attempt to set themselves apart from the competition.

John J. Martin, a law professor at the University of Virginia who researches election law, said 10 years ago he would have been surprised by this level of interest in a secretary of state race. Now, not so much.

Its not necessarily that their roles have changed dramatically over the past 10 years, but given all the election denialism thats been propagated since 2020, I think theres been a lot more focus  from both sides  on this process of election administration, Martin said.

Hoskins has offered legislation that would prohibit the use of machines to count ballots. He has also proposed to restrict the use of voting machines to mark ballots to only individuals with disabilities.

Schwadron, who represents St. Charles in the House, on his campaign website voices support for requiring the use of hand-marked paper ballots, which would mean stopping the use of machines to fill out ballots. He has sponsored legislation that would cause voter registrations to expire every six years  a change that would require even active voters to regularly re-register.

And Schwadron introduced the Missouri Elections Sovereignty Act, a measure that asserts state authority over state and local elections to the maximum extent authorized by the Constitution of the United States.

Any attempt by the federal government to come in here and tell us how to do it will be met with resistance, Schwadron told a gathering of Jackson County Republicans this month. I have a size 15 shoe and I will use it to personally kick them out of this state.

iRepresentative Adam Schwadron, a Republican, who is a candidate for Missouri Secretary of State, speaks to members of the Jackson County Republican Party during an ice cream social in Kansas City on Sunday, July 14, 2024.

Hand counting concern

As the candidates barnstorm Missouri, calls to hand-count ballots prompt the most concern among local election officials.

Missouri law allows for hand counting but, practically speaking, most localities use machines that scan paper ballots. Hand counting requires bipartisan teams to look at each ballot when recording votes.

If a ballot contained just one question, hand counting would potentially go smoothly, even in a relatively large jurisdiction, said Eric Fey, president of the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities.

The problem is that primary and general election ballots can contain dozens of questions  and every mark on the ballot must be examined by a Republican and Democrat election judge, then recorded. Multiply that by hundreds of thousands of ballots and the scale of task becomes massive.

You would have to find a whole bunch more people to help with hand counting and they have to be in equal numbers of the two major political parties under Missouri law, Fey said. So finding enough Democrats in rural Missouri and enough Republicans in the urban areas of Missouri would be nearly impossible, in my opinion.

Osage County, in central Missouri, tried hand counting in its April 2023 municipal election. The county had used optical scanning machines from Dominion, a voting machine company thats been the subject of false election conspiracies.

County Clerk Nicci Kammerich detailed the results in a letter to the editor in the local newspaper, the Unterrified Democrat. Even in the largely rural county, some results took an additional two to three hours with hand counting. April elections using optical scanners required about 28 election workers, but she estimated that hand counting going forward would require an additional 44 workers.

Kimmerich wrote that the county would continue using the machines. Our tabulation machines the county uses for elections are faster, accurate and more efficient to get the job done, she wrote.

A move to hand counting would also place Missouri well outside the mainstream of American elections. More 75% of U.S. voters in 2020 cast ballots that were counted by optical scan machines, according to data compiled by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab. Less than 1 percent of ballots cast were counted by hand.

Some candidates oppose mandatory hand counting. Carter, the municipal judge, told St. Louis Public Radio in June that while ballots can be hand counted, voters can also trust the machinery at a very basic level because all it is doing is tabulating the dots that roll through it.

The push for ever-more aggressive election security measures comes even as some elected Republicans say the states elections are already secure. In 2022, Ashcroft said the state was setting the pace in the area of election security and confidence.

Rep. Peggy McGaugh, a Republican from rural Carroll County who chairs the House Elections and Elected Officials Committee, said Missouris elections are well run.

I believe that Missourians know that our elections are sound and solid, said McGaugh, who spent 32 years as the Carroll County clerk.

Rep. Peggy McGaugh, a Carroll County Republican.

Non-citizen voting fears

In the Missouri secretary of states race, the emphasis on election security has frequently been linked to fears of non-citizen voting.

Amid an influx of migrants, Trump and national Republicans have stoked unsubstantiated concerns that individuals in the United States illegally or seeking asylum will try to cast ballots.

The woke radicals believe illegal immigrants should be allowed to vote in Missouri elections. Not on my watch. As your next #MOSOS, illegals wont get to vote, but we will support their imprisonment and deportation, Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a state senator, wrote in a recent social media post.

Mary Elizabeth Coleman, now a state senator, shown as a state representative.

Republicans are planning to highlight fears of non-citizen voting for several more months.

Missourians in November will vote on a state constitutional amendment to ban ranked-choice voting. The ballot question will also ask whether voters want to ban non-citizens from voting in the state, a practice that is already illegal.

The provision has been called ballot candy, or a way to entice voters as Republicans seize on fears about illegal immigration. Proponents say it will stop Missouri cities from ever allowing limited non-citizen voting in municipal elections, which a handful of localities have done across the country.

I believe that the push in Missouri is to be proactive, rather than reactive, and make a law, get it in a statute, or at least in the code of state regulations, that Missouri will not allow non-citizens in any election, McGaugh said.

Election experts flatly say instances of non-citizens voting illegally are extremely rare and are easy to catch. And at a gut level, they say, it doesnt make sense that non-citizens would risk arrest and deportation from a country where they want to live  all for the chance to cast a single ballot.

It happens exceedingly rarely and its largely because the states and federal government already have really good policies in place, David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, which seeks to build trust in elections, told reporters in May.

Republicans have drawn attention to the issue in part because concerns about illegal immigration in general are near the top of voters minds.

Three-fourths of voters say the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border is a crisis that must be resolved immediately, according to a February poll conducted by Saint Louis University and YouGov. Nearly all Republican voters surveyed agreed its a crisis.

John Hancock, a former Missouri Republican Party executive director and chair, said in a recent interview that most of the states elections are effectively over in the primaries. Democrats havent won a statewide election since 2018, when Nicole Galloway won a full term as state auditor.

Republicans, in turn, increasingly cater to the concerns of primary voters.

So when youve got an issue that polls as strongly as immigration does in GOP primaries, Hancock said, its a no brainer that thats going to be an issue that gets a lot of focus.

The Stars Kacen Bayless contributed reporting
Missouri GOP governor candidates take position that would put IVF access into question

Two of the top Republican candidates for Missouri governor said Thursday that frozen embryos deserve legal protections, signaling a more aggressive stance than former President Donald Trump and some Republicans who have broadly said they support protecting in-vitro fertilization.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and Sen. Bill Eigel made the comments during an hour-long TV debate taped on Wednesday that aired Thursday night on St. Louis station KSDK. The other leading candidate, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, did not attend, citing a scheduling conflict.

During a yes-no portion of the debate, both candidates were asked whether they believe a frozen embryo deserves the same legal protections as a fetus developing in the womb.

Eigel, a Weldon Spring Republican, quickly responded: Yes.

Ashcroft, who has served as secretary of state since 2017, initially appeared to hedge his answer.

I guess so, he said. I mean, Ive never really thought about it.

When pressed, Ashcroft said Sure, Ill say yes.

The comments from Ashcroft and Eigel suggested a more extreme position on the issue than mainstream Republicans have promoted both nationally and in Missouri.

Mike Kehoe is 100% pro-life and, unlike Jay Ashcroft and Bill Eigel who oppose President Trump, will stand with him to protect innocent life, Kehoe spokesperson Gabby Picard said in a statement.

Plank in GOP platform

The Missouri Republican Party platform says the party supports the protection of the lives of In Vitro Fertilized embryos and all other human embryos from the beginning of biological development.

Protections for IVF have become a major issue for Republicans after the Alabama Supreme Court in February declared fertilized embryos are people, throwing access to IVF in the state into question.

After the Alabama ruling, Trump said he would strongly support the availability of IVF.

However, the two Republican U.S. senators from Missouri  Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt  last month helped block a bill offering federal protections for IVF.

Access to IVF has special resonance in Missouri, which banned abortion in nearly all circumstances after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in 2022. Democrats and legal experts have quickly pointed to the fact that Missouri state law declares that all life begins at conception, raising questions about how courts might rule on access to IVF.

Mallory Schwarz, the executive director of Abortion Action Missouri, criticized Ashcroft and Eigels comments on Friday, saying that the states abortion ban has tied doctors hands, and patients are being turned away from emergency rooms, risking lasting health consequences.

Missouri Republicans, Democrats, Independents, and everyone in-between overwhelmingly agree decisions about pregnancy, including miscarriage management, abortion, fertility care, and beyond, should be left between patients, their families, and their doctors NOT their politicians, Schwarz said in an emailed statement.

If either Ashcroft or Eigel win the Republican nomination in the Aug. 6 primary election, Democrats are poised to attack their comments in the general election. Missourians are likely to vote on constitutional amendment in November that would overturn the states abortion ban.

The amendment would protect access to IVF, legal experts previously told The Star.

During IVF, eggs are fertilized in a lab, creating embryos, which are then placed into a womans uterus. The embryos can be placed shortly after they are created or they can be frozen and then thawed for placement months or years later.

According to the Cleveland Clinic, frozen embryo transfers are more common and more likely to lead to live births.
ST. LOUIS  The Missouri Supreme Court has rejected an attempt from the Missouri Attorney General to prevent an innocence hearing next month for Marcellus Williams, a man who claims innocence in a murder that landed him on death row.

The court rejected writ of prohibition from Attorney General Andrew Bailey, which sought to block the hearing ahead of Williams scheduled execution date in September.

A hearing remains planned as scheduled on Aug. 21 to determine if Marcellus Williams is innocent in the murder. If that is not the case, Williams face an execution date of September 24.

During the Aug. 21 hearing, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell is expected to present new DNA evidence in hopes to overturn the conviction.

Grandmother pleads for justice after body found on Carondelet street

We are relieved that the Missouri Supreme Court has turned away AG Baileys latest attempt to prevent the circuit court from considering the compelling evidence of Marcellus Williams innocence, said Tricia Rojo Bushnell, attorney for Marcellus Williams, via a news release from the Innocence Project. No one should stand in the way of this hearing, requested by the county prosecutor, aimed at ensuring Missouri does not execute an innocent man.

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.

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.

Close

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

Daily News

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.

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.

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.
The mob thinks it rules Britain  and can impose its will on the rest of us

Any fair-minded person would look at the video of the incident at Manchester airport this week and agree that it merits further investigation. The footage is disturbing. It shows a man, lying prone on the floor, having his head kicked and then seemingly stamped on by an armed police officer. The mans mother looks on in distress as his brother is also forcibly restrained by police.

What triggered this incident remains unclear. It has been claimed that the mother was struck in the face; that a female police officer had her nose broken; and that one of three officers needed hospital treatment following the encounter, having been punched to the ground.

What is clear is that we need to know the full context. That is why we have processes in place to ensure justice is served  on all sides. The police officer has been removed from operational duties by Greater Manchester Police and the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) is now conducting a full independent investigation.

Yet our tried and tested rules-based system is seemingly inadequate for the protesters (some wearing balaclavas) who subsequently gathered outside Rochdale Police Station seeking retribution. Addressing the 200-strong crowd with a megaphone, one man declared: We can cause havoc, we can cause riots. tomorrow, if we dont get justice, these motherf---ers are going to get it.

Another local figure has called for all the police officers to be arrested  or threatened mass protests until they get their way.

This is obviously problematic, for a number of reasons. As a democratic nation, we follow the rule of law, not mob rule. We dont threaten civil unrest until our demands are met. Moreover, in this case, any threats of thuggery appear completely contrary to the familys wishes.

Although their lawyer, Akhmed Yakoob, has been unhelpfully stoking the situation by suggesting it was an attempted assassination and accusing police officers of going around trying to kill people, local MP Paul Waugh said they are acutely aware that there are extremists of all sides who are keen to hijack this event and use it for their own ends. The family are not interested in that at all.

Sadly, though, we have seen this kind of if-we-dont-getwhat-we-want-were-going-to-cause-trouble response time and again in recent months. In February, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, broke with precedent to allow Labour to lodge a Gaza ceasefire amendment, largely because MPs had been on the receiving end of abusive and threatening behaviour.

Earlier that month, Mike Freer, the former Tory MP for Finchley and Golders Green, announced he was stepping down after facing death threats and an arson attack on his constituency office. And a pro-Palestinian mob surrounded the family home of Tobias Ellwood, the former Tory MP for Bournemouth East, and branding him a war criminal.

Numerous Labour MPs faced criticism after they voted for their partys Gaza amendment in November, which stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. Since October 7 we have witnessed a growing trend of people thinking that established rules and procedures can be broken simply under threat of intimidation, harassment and worse.

But it isnt just anti-Israel protesters, who casually chant from the river to the sea on the streets of London, acting as though they are above the law. Climate activists have also been at it for years. Like the anti-police or pro-Palestinian protesters, they believe their cause is a just one. Thus, they operate under the false impression that they can cross the rubicon from peaceful protest to criminality and get away with it.

Fortunately, however, the law now appears to have caught up with the eco-extremists. Earlier this month, Roger Hallam, 58, the co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, was jailed for five years, and four others were sentenced to four years, after disrupting the M25 in November 2022, causing more than 50,000 hours of traffic delays, affecting the journeys of over 700,000 vehicles and costing the police 1 million.

They were prosecuted under a new law of conspiracy intentionally to cause a public nuisance introduced by the last Tory government. Naturally, their supporters have been up in arms at what they perceive to be disproportionate terms, but it is only right that the law has been changed to stop righteous people thinking they can impose their will on everyone else through direct action.

Lefties may complain; more than 1,000 people signed an open letter describing the jail terms handed to the activists as one of the greatest injustices in a British court in modern history. Weve even had the mother of Cressida Gethin, a 22-year-old jailed for four years, moan that she cant go to her brothers wedding (play me the worlds smallest biodegradable violin), but the law has rightly reasserted its authority over the mob. Judge Christopher Hehir, who presided over that case, was perfectly clear: I acknowledge that at least some of the concerns are shared by many, but the plain fact is that each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.

The definition of fanatic is a person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, especially for an extreme religious or political cause. While I wholeheartedly welcome considered campaigning on the streets of the UK  there is no place whatsoever for the kind of behaviour which seeks to wreak the maximum amount of disruption on the public, wantonly causes criminal damage to property, incites violence and advocates mob rule.

Sadly, the tough justice that has been applied to Hallam and Co has not been meted out to others  which is neither fair nor acceptable. Why, for instance, was more not done to stop the scenes we witnessed during the election when, for instance, former Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth was bullied, harassed and intimidated as he campaigned in Leicester? At one point, the politician was chased down the street and forced to seek refuge in a vicarage by members of The Muslim Vote campaign, which last month warned: This is just the beginning. Beginning of what, exactly?

Various exposes have revealed that the group supported unsuccessful candidates who spread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, was accused of supporting intimidatory tactics online against candidates it opposed and denounced Muslims who canvassed for Labour as parasites. Sorry, but that is simply not the way we do democracy in this country.

The marches, the eco-extremism, the election incidents, and now these anti-police protesters are threatening to cause havoc if they dont get their way. We cannot let them. If the mob thinks it can win, it will continue. Then there is no law at all.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
DICKSON, Tenn. (WKRN)  Tennessee has been ranked 40th in the nation for access to mental health care, according to Mental Health America. One state-funded program is working to expand access for Tennessees youngest patients by meeting them where they are.

Youth Villages, a private, nonprofit organization, officially launched its Intercept program in 2006. The Intercept program provides in-home mental health care to Tennessees vulnerable youth.

Read the latest from the TN State Capitol Newsroom

According to Youth Villages, there are zero psychologists in 39 out of Tennessees 95 counties. Dakota Sullivan, a family intervention specialist for Youth Villages Intercept program, has witnessed the limitations of mental health care access throughout the state.

I have a lot of families that struggle to access mental health care simply because of where they live and how far out they are from the metro areas, Sullivan said. A lot of families are an hour, maybe two, [away] from any kind of mental health service.

Various public and private organizations refer children to the Intercept program. Some of those children include those at risk of entering, or are involved in, the juvenile justice and foster care systems, among other situations. Youth Villages family intervention specialists would then travel to childrens homes three times per week anywhere from four to nine months to provide care.

Usually, the first step is showing them its okay to talk about their mental health  that its okay to say, I am struggling and Im having a hard time with this, because most of them really dont want to do that, Sullivan said. Most of them want to keep those struggles to themselves; they feel like something is wrong with them.

The Intercept program serves around 1,600 children living in any of Tennessees 95 counties on any given day. In 2023, 6,746 children received care through Intercept, according to Youth Villages.

The organization said that one year after discharge, data showed that 91 percent of patients live at home, 96 percent go back to school or become employed, and 93 percent had no further issues with the law.

 Read todays top stories on wkrn.com

Seeing them thrive where they used to struggle, that means something to me quite a bit, Sullivan said.

While Intercept officially launched in 2006, Youth Villages started its in-home services in 1993. The program is mainly funded through Tennessees Department of Childrens Services.

To learn more about Intercept, 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 WKRN News 2.
Monsanto agrees to $160 million settlement with Seattle over pollution in the Duwamish River

Ending an eight-year legal battle, chemical giant Monsanto has agreed to a $160-million settlement with Seattle for its part in polluting a river that runs through the heart of the city with toxins that posed a threat to humans, fish and wildlife, the city attorneys office said Thursday.

We all play a role in protecting our environment and I am glad that Monsanto will contribute to this important environmental cleanup, City Attorney Ann Davison said in a news release. Its the largest single-city settlement Monsanto has paid, she said.

The Duwamish River cuts through Seattle, emptying into Puget Sound just south of downtown. Water samples collected from the Lower Duwamish detected polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which are man-made chemical compounds that were manufactured by Monsanto, according to the citys lawsuit.

Although Monsanto stopped manufacturing PCBs in 1977, the chemicals continued to exist in paints, caulking and sealants on buildings, Davison said. As a result, stormwater flowing into the Lower Duwamish River has been continually contaminated with PCBs.

Seattle sued Monsanto in 2016, saying the company was well aware that PCBs were toxic to animals, fish and the environment, but it continued to manufacture its products.

While the scientific community and Monsanto knew that PCBs were toxic and becoming a global contaminant, Monsanto repeatedly misrepresented these facts, telling governmental entities the exact opposite  that the compounds were not toxic and that the company would not expect to find PCBs in the environment in a widespread manner, Seattles lawsuit said.

Under the settlement, Monsanto did not admit to any wrongdoing, fault or violation of the law. The settlement requires the company to pay Seattle $160 million by Aug. 4.

Monsanto did not immediately respond to an email message seeking comment.

Under a consent decree issued by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Washington Department of Ecology, the city was required to construct a stormwater treatment plant along the river to remove PCBs. The cost was estimated to be about $27 million.

The river is listed as a Superfund Site and in 2014, the EPA estimated the total cost of cleaning it up would be $342 million, the lawsuit said. The city is responsible for most of the costs.

The case was scheduled to go to trial in September, but the city participated in a mediation that let to an unprecedented settlement amount, Davison said.

The funds will allow Seattle Public Utilities to take further steps to protect the Duwamish, which could include expanding the agencys program that identifies sources of pollution, Davison said.

The settlement money will help care for the Lower Duwamish and mitigate the cost of pollution control to find and remove PCBs, Davison said.
Watch this vlog to learn about Timothy Joseph Hutagaol's inspiring journey from Indonesia, achieving academic success in China, and his future plans in chemical engineering after graduating with honors from Tianjin University.

Produced by Xinhua Global Service
Demonstrations every few days for a month.

One public funeral with prominent activist Al Sharpton and local political leaders in attendance.

Detailing a painful life experience over and over again for reporters.

That's how the family of D'Vontaye Mitchell has spent the month since his unexpected death on June 30. Mitchell, 43, was pronounced dead outside the Hyatt Regency in downtown Milwaukee after security guards knelt on his back for several minutes - the exact time is still unclear. Bystander video capturing his final minutes of life evoked similarities between his death and the death of George Floyd.

The four guards have been fired but charges have yet to be brought against them.

For Mitchell's family, it's the charges that equal justice; nearly a month from his death, justice remains elusive.

Its frustrating, its exhausting, stressful," Nayisha Mitchell, DVontayes sister, told the Journal Sentinel. "Its all of that.

Earlier this month, the Milwaukee Police Department referred four charges of felony murder to the Milwaukee County District Attorneys Office. For its part, the District Attorneys Office is reviewing Mitchell's death as a homicide case and is awaiting the results of a full autopsy before deciding on charges.

It is expected to make a "swift decision" once the autopsy report is released, according to its most recent statement from July 16.

Weve been out here trying to fight for justice. It doesnt leave us any time to properly grieve for my brother, Mitchell said. Weve been able to get him laid to rest  and then right after that its right back to work. We wont have the chance to properly grieve until we get the justice that were trying to get.

D'Vontaye Mitchell's sister Nayisha Mitchell holds a photo of her brother on her cellphone on Wednesday. Seated next to her is D'Vontaye Mitchell's cousin Latrisa Giles. The women and other members of the family continue to advocate for charges to be brought against the security guards involved in actions that occurred prior to his death.

'My bills keep rolling in': Efforts for justice and realities of life collide

Brenda Giles, D'Vontaye Mitchells mother, works as a certified nursing assistant. Her job does not include paid time off.

If I take off, I dont get paid," she said. "My bills keep rolling in."

Consequently, one week after her son's death, she was back at work.

When she's not working, Giles tries to keep her son's death off her mind by cleaning the and doing other small chores around the house.

Still, it is knowing her son was repeatedly begging for his life, saying "please, please, please," with none of the bystanders coming to his aid, that plays over and over in her mind.

"Thats something Ill never be able to get out of my head," she said.

Shes supported by her fiance John Battiste who says he does everything he can to make sure shes alright.

The pull between advocating for her brother and juggling work also impacts Mitchell. A sales consultant with AT&T, Mitchell said her employer has been been understanding of the time she is taking off.

Family members of Dvontaye L. Mitchell were photographed outside their mother's home in Milwaukee. They are: Darrell Gile and Nayisha Mitchell, holding a photo of their brother Dvontaye, and Mitchell's sister-in-law Candice Miller, (rear).

Still, missing work is stressful, she said.

Thats just added stress on top of the stress with everything that is happening," Mitchell said. "Everything is like a domino effect."

Giles and the rest of the family are fixtures at the demonstrations, sometimes occurring several times a week. They often appear alongside longtime community activists, protesting outside police and court buildings, the Hyatt Regency and the home of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm.

They protested during the Republican National Convention alongside the family and supporters of Samuel Sharpe Jr., a man who was shot and killed by Columbus, Ohio, police during the convention while wielding two knives.

Giles said all the demonstrations are necessary to ensure her son's death doesnt get swept under the rug.

The family tries to take care of itself while continuing efforts

Nayisha Mitchell, left, sister of D'Vontaye Mitchell, and Latrisa Giles, Mitchells first cousin, sit outside Brenda Giles', DVontaye Mitchells mother, home in Milwaukee on Wednesday. D'Vontaye Mitchell, 43, died last month after being held facedown on the ground outside the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee.

Latrisa Giles, Mitchells first cousin who handles media outreach for the family, said they have been assisting with attorneys investigations into what happened that day. They are still trying to find people who may have more knowledge of events, she said.

Privately, the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office showed the family video from inside the hotel. The family and their attorneys detailed that video at a July 10 press conference.

The family said it showed Mitchell running away from security and into the womens bathroom. 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 family members told the Journal Sentinel it wants the footage they have seen released to the public.

The family members said they have yet to see footage from what instigated the conflict between Mitchell and hotel security. For that reason, the family is working with investigators and attorneys, "beating the streets" in an effort to put the puzzle pieces together.

"Were not getting answers, so were forced to do the work on our own," Latrisa Giles said. "Outside of doing the protests, were still connecting the dots.

While the stress has been building up, they say theyve been trying to find ways to still take care of themselves. Mitchell said she is focused on trying to keep her job and finances secured and doing other things that make it so I can be OK.

Latrisa Giles, a real estate investor, said friends have assisted her in managing her business, giving her some peace of mind and the time to help her family gather information and coordinate events associated with her cousin's death.

It is a juggling act. It wasn't until last week that she cooked for herself and had enough time and energy to put together a bedroom set she bought in early June.

"When that happened to DVontaye, everything just like halted, she said. I think everybodys world just stopped.

She said another cousin is planning a gathering for the entire family, and hopefully provide some space to relax.

I just think everybodys entire focus is DVontaye right now," Latrisa Giles said. "It is going to be that way until we get justice."

A GoFundMe for the Mitchell family is available here.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Justice means charges for family of man who died a month ago at Hyatt
A Culex pipiens mosquito plays a role in the West Nile Virus transmission cycle. (Getty image)

Mosquitoes collected from a sample in Pawtucket tested positive for West Nile virus  the first sign of the disease in Rhode Island this year, state officials announced Friday.

The new positive tests reflect samples collected on July 15 by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and tested at the Rhode Island State Health Laboratories. The rest of the 190 samples, collected from 28 traps set across the state, tested negative for all mosquito-borne diseases, including West Nile, Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE), and Jamestown Canyon Virus, state officials said.

In June, the state announced mosquito samples taken from Tiverton and Coventry tested positive for EEE. More positive tests of West Nile are expected as summer progresses and mosquito-borne diseases become more prevalent, state officials said.

Already this season, Massachusetts has detected 27 mosquito samples that tested positive for West Nile and 14 for EEE, while Connecticut announced 48 West Nile detections and four EEE-positive samples. The diseases do not appear to have spread to humans in any of the three states so far.

Still, state officials are urging residents to take preventative measures, noting that most people infected with West Nile do not feel symptoms, with 1 in 5 people infected noticing a fever. More severe cases, though rare, can lead to other symptoms or even death, which is the case for 1 in 150 people infected.

Eastern Equine Encephalitis is even more rare in humans, but more fatal, killing 30% of those infected and leaving many survivors with ongoing neurological problems, including abdominal pain, rash, diarrhea, vomiting, muscle aches, loss of appetite, and more.

To prevent the chance of disease, residents are encouraged to wear protective clothing and bug spray, and to limit outdoor activities at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most prevalent. Property owners are also encouraged to remove standing water from their land, which is a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Additional prevention tips and information about EEE is available at health.ri.gov/mosquito. Mosquitoes are trapped weekly by DEM and tested at the State Health Laboratories. DEM issues advisories on test results from June through September, with additional reports as necessary. Typically, positive test results trigger additional trapping to assess risk.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Most college sexual assaults occur in the first months of class: What students, parents should know

This article contains mention of sexual assault. Resources to report sexual assault are listed at the bottom of the article.

Freshman year of college usually entails a newfound independence as 18-year-old students live without their parents for the first time in their young adult lives. It's a time for incoming students to meet people, discover new interests and familiarize themselves with a new environment.

But the first few months of a freshman's college career presents a unique risk. Their lack of support systems, knowledge of resources and familiarity with a new environment creates the "perfect storm" of vulnerability to sexual assault.

The "Red Zone" is the portion of the fall semester beginning when the school year starts until Thanksgiving break. This is when more than 50% of all college sexual assaults occur.

"It's the combination of not knowing people. If you're involved in Greek life, you're rushing, so there are a lot of parties that they're going to, and mixers and things so that they can get familiar with the individuals in those organizations," explained Jodie Stewart, the communication and event specialist at the Women's Resource Center in Norman. "It could be just the perfect storm of them being new and not having the resources and trying to get to know the environment that they've been introduced to."

The Women's Resource Center is a victim service program that assists individuals who have been victimized by domestic violence, sexual violence and stalking. The nonprofit organization encompasses the Rape Crisis Center, which houses a 24/7 sexual assault crisis line, and an exam room where victims can receive a rape kit without having to go to the hospital.

During the Red Zone, the Women's Resource Center sees college-age sexual assault victims increase anywhere from 30% to 50%, Stewart said.

Universities work to raise awareness about the Red Zone

To prevent victimization, incoming college students, parents and universities should all make efforts to raise awareness about the dangers of the Red Zone, Stewart said.

Students need to become aware of the resources around them, Stewart said, and parents should communicate to their child that if something happens, they're a safe, nonjudgmental place to go to.

Fear of judgment is common among sexual assault victims. Stewart estimates that over 50% of college-age victims at the Women's Resource Center are afraid to tell their parents.

"It's important for parents to understand that there is a likely chance that your child will be drinking, and if something happens, it's not their fault," Stewart said. "[Parents should] reiterate that they are that safe space, and then look up resources together and have those conversations about, 'If this does happen, here's where you can go and here's our plan.'"

Sexual assault happens beyond the Red Zone

The Red Zone isn't the only time college students might experience sexual assault. Among undergraduate students, 26.4% of women and 6.8% of men experience rape or sexual assault through physical force, violence or incapacitation, according to statistics from Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). Of all college students, undergraduate and graduate, that number is 13%.

Among the largest universities in Oklahoma, the University of Oklahoma has seen the most reported rapes on campus, though numbers have declined over the past few years.

In 2022, OU saw 27 reported rapes, a decrease from 32 in 2021, and 46 in 2020, according to the university's Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.

In comparison, 16 rapes were reported on Oklahoma State University's campus in 2022, an increase from 14 in 2021, and three in 2020.

One rape was reported on the University of Central Oklahoma's campus in 2022, three were reported in 2021 and one was reported in 2020.

At OU, OSU and UCO, all new students are required to complete sexual violence prevention training.

Resources for victims of sexual violence

Resources for OU students:

The Women's Resource Center's Emergency Domestic Violence Shelter Crisis Line is 405-701-5540. Its Rape Crisis Center Line is 405-701-5660.

OU Advocates is a confidential advocate and referral resource for sexual assault or misconduct issues for students, faculty or staff that can be contacted through their website or anytime at 405-615-0013.

The OU Sexual Misconduct Office can be contacted through email at smo@ou.edu or by phone at 405-325-2215. Community members also can contact the 24-hour reporting hotline with reports of bias, discrimination, harassment or misconduct at 844-428-6531.

Resources for OSU students:

Victim Advocates at OSU are available as a confidential resource for students who have experienced sexual violence. They can be reached by calling or texting 405-564-2129. Students also may email advocate@okstate.edu, or call the 24-hour helpline through Wings of Hope at 405-624-3020.

Students can report sexual assault to OSU Police at 405-744-6523, or the Stillwater Police at 405-372-4171.

Resources for UCO students:

UCO students can report sexual assault to the University Title IX coordinator at 405-974-2793.

Students also can reach Project SPEAK at 405-974-2215.

The YWCA is an off-campus resource. Its 24-hour domestic violence hotline is 405-917-9922. Its 24-hour sexual assault hotline is 405-942-7273.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Sexual assault rates are highest in first months of college
VOLUNTOWN, Conn. (WTNH)  A 55-year-old motorcycle driver from Jewett City was killed Thursday afternoon after hitting a guardrail, according to state police.

The crash happened at about 5:20 p.m. Thursday on the Shetucket Turnpike near the intersection of Campbell Mill Road in Voluntown.

CSP partnership provides safe spots to get help

Donald R. Sunny, 55, was driving a 2023 Kawasaki KLR605 west when he hit the guardrail and was thrown off the motorcycle, according to Connecticut State Police. He was driving downhill and through a left curve at the time.

He was pronounced dead at a 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 WTNH.com.
Here are the munitions Navy jets used for first time against Houthis

Navy fighter jets from Carrier Air Wing 3, embarked aboard the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower, employed several weapons in combat for the first time during their recently completed deployment to the Middle East, where they battled Houthi attacks and struck targets held by the Iran-backed group in Yemen.

Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets from Strike Fighter Squadron 105 became the first squadron in the Navy to shoot off the AIM-9X infrared-seeking missile in combat.

The milestone came as the squadron, known as the Gunslingers, took out Houthi one-way-attack air drones targeting civilian merchant ships, according to the Navy.

The squadron also led the first strikes against Houthi facilities in Yemen in January. These missions allowed the squadron to launch an Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile, or AARGM, for the first time from an F/A-18E Super Hornet. The air-to-ground missile is used to suppress or destroy enemy air defenses.

Eisenhowers salty pilots are putting kill marks on their jets

The squadron also successfully employed the Joint Standoff Weapon-C Variant for the first time in combat, the Navy said. It is the Navys first air-to-ground network-enabled weapon that can be used against stationary land and moving maritime targets.

Our families and friends that loved us, supported us, and sacrificed daily to enable our team to execute continuous combat operations are the true heroes, Cmdr. Travis Sweet T Amerine, commanding officer of the Gunslingers, said in a Navy news release. For nine months straight, the entire Gunslinger family, those deployed and those back home, banded together to fight evil and save innocent lives. I could not be more proud nor more humbled to have been a witness to them all.

Additionally, an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot from Strike Fighter Squadron 32 was piloted by the first American woman to engage and kill an air-to-air contact, taking down a Houthi air drone targeting civilian merchant vessels.

Other firsts for Carrier Air Wing 3 include Electronic Attack Squadron 130 becoming the first E/A-18G Growler squadron in the Navy to secure an air-to-air kill, as well as the first to fire off an Advanced Anti-Radiation Guided Missile in combat.

I cant remember the last time the Navy had a more challenging deployment with a combination of multiple extensions, severely limited opportunities for R&R, and true combat, Cmdr. Carl Ellsworth, the commanding officer of Electronic Attack Squadron 130, said in a Navy news release. not just for aviators, but the crew of the whole strike group as well, in the most kinetic action at sea since World War II.

The crew of the Ike earned the Combat Action Ribbon  or the CAR  for their actions during the deployment to the Middle East. The award is for sailors and Marines who actively participated in ground or surface action, and has rarely been issued since the 1991 Gulf War.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro also approved the Air Medal for those with the Strike/Flight designation for conducting sustained aerial operations in the region.

The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt arrived in the Middle East this month to swap spots with the Ike and to deter aggression, promote regional stability, and protect the free flow of commerce in the region, according to U.S. Central Command.
FILE - A pink tape is marked on the ground on Feb. 21, 2011, at the site of a former medical school in Tokyo as Japan has started to excavate the site of the former school linked to Unit 731, a germ and biological warfare outfit during the war. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File)

TOKYO (AP)  Depending on who you ask, the bones that have been sitting in a Tokyo repository for decades could be either leftovers from early 20th century anatomy classes, or the unburied and unidentified victims of one of the country's most notorious war crimes.

A group of activists, historians and other experts who want the government to investigate links to wartime human germ warfare experiments met over the weekend to mark the 35th anniversary of their discovery and renew a call for an independent panel to examine the evidence.

Japans government has long avoided discussing wartime atrocities, including the sexual abuse of Asian women known as comfort women and Korean forced laborers at Japanese mines and factories, often on grounds of lack of documentary proof. Japan has apologized for its aggression in Asia, but since the 2010s it has been repeatedly criticized in South Korea and China for backpedalling.

Around a dozen skulls, many with cuts, and parts of other skeletons were unearthed on July 22, 1989, during construction of a Health Ministry research institute at the site of the wartime Army Medical School. The schools close ties to a germ and biological warfare unit led many to suspect that they could be the remains of a dark history that the Japanese government has never officially acknowledged.

Headquartered in then-Japanese-controlled northeast China, Unit 731 and several related units injected prisoners of war with typhus, cholera and other diseases, according to historians and former unit members. They also say the unit performed unnecessary amputations and organ removals on living people to practice surgery and froze prisoners to death in endurance tests. Japans government has acknowledged only that Unit 731 existed.

Top Unit 731 officials were not tried in postwar tribunals as the U.S. sought to get ahold of chemical warfare data, historians say, although lower-ranked officials were tried by Soviet tribunals. Some of the unit's leaders became medical professors and pharmaceutical executives after the war.

A previous Health Ministry investigation said the bones couldn't be linked to the unit, and concluded that the remains were most likely from bodies used in medical education or brought back from war zones for analysis, in a 2001 report based on questioning 290 people associated with the school.

It acknowledged that some interviewees drew connections to Unit 731. One said he saw a head in a barrel shipped from Manchuria, northern China, where the unit was based. Two others noted hearing about specimens from the unit being stored in a school building, but had not actually seen them. Others denied the link, saying the specimens could include those from the prewar era.

A 1992 anthropological analysis found that the bones came from at least 62 and possibly more than 100 different bodies, mostly adults from parts of Asia outside Japan. The holes and cuts found on some skulls were made after death, it said, but did not find evidence linking the bones to Unit 731.

But activists say that the government could do more to uncover the truth, including publishing full accounts of its interviews and conducting DNA testing.

Kazuyuki Kawamura, a former Shinjuku district assembly member who has devoted most of his career to resolving the bone mystery, recently obtained 400 pages of research materials from the 2001 report using freedom of information requests, and says it shows that the government tactfully excluded key information from witness accounts.

The newly published material doesn't contain a smoking gun, but it includes vivid descriptions  the man who described seeing a head in a barrel also described helping to handle it and then running off to vomit  and comments from several witnesses who suggested that more forensic investigation might show a link to Unit 731.

Our goal is to identify the bones and send them back to their families, said Kawamura. The bones are virtually the only proof of what happened, he says. We just want to find the truth.

Health Ministry official Atsushi Akiyama said that witness accounts had already been analyzed and factored into the 2001 report, and the government's position remains unchanged. A key missing link is a documentary evidence, such as a label on a specimen container or official records, he said.

Documents, especially those involving Japans wartime atrocities, were carefully destroyed in the wars closing days and finding new evidence for a proof would be difficult.

Akiyama added that a lack of information about the bones would make DNA analysis difficult.

Hideo Shimizu, who was sent to Unit 731 in April 1945 at age 14 as lab technician and joined the meeting online from his home in Nagano, said he remembers seeing heads and body parts in formalin jars stored in a specimen room in the units main building. One that struck him most was a dissected belly with a fetus inside. He was told they were maruta  logs  a term used for prisoners chosen for experiments.

Days before Japans Aug. 15, 1945 surrender, Shimizu was ordered to collect bones of prisoners bodies burned in a pit. He was then given a pistol and a packet of cyanide to kill himself if he was caught on his journey back to Japan.

He was ordered never to tell anyone about his Unit 731 experience, never contact his colleagues, and never seek a government or medical job.

Shimizu said he cannot tell if any specimen he saw at the 731 could be among the Shinjuku bones by looking at their photos, but that what he saw in Harbin should never be repeated. When he sees his great-grandchildren, he said, they remind him of that fetus he saw and the lives lost.

I want younger people to understand the tragedy of war, he said.
Baby Steps

The rocket designed to carry the first humans to the Moon in over half a century has officially made its way to NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), just over a year ahead of its tentative launch date.

The 212-foot rocket stage made its way from NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to Cape Canaveral on board a barge. It then was carted to the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where it will later be mated to the Space Launch System (SLS).

Once fully assembled, it will be rolled out to Launch Pad 39B just over four miles away, where its predecessor launched in November 2022.

"Our team has been chomping at the bit trying to get flight hardware back to KSC," one of the center's managers Sean Arrieta said during a live stream, as quoted by Space.com. "When we get in the VAB, we'll go ahead and set that [core stage] down on some skid beams, where it'll remain for four to five weeks for some pre-processing, and then we'll get ready for its next steps in operations."

It's an exciting next step in NASA's efforts to return the first astronauts to the Moon. While next year's Artemis 2 mission will see a crew of four only fly around the Moon and back, it sets the stage for Artemis 3, the first landing on the Moon in over half a century, which is tentatively scheduled for just over two years from now.

Mooner Than Later

The core stage of NASA's SLS rocket includes four Space Shuttle-era RS-25 engines. Before launch, it will be joined with two solid rocket boosters, producing a combined 8.8 million pounds of thrust.

NASA's Orion crew vehicle at the top will house NASA astronaut Victor Glover, who's slated to become the first Black person to leave Earth's orbit, commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialist Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

NASA has already successfully sent an uncrewed test flight around the Moon and back  the most powerful rocket to make it into orbit at the time  meaning the space agency will have far fewer unknowns to deal with this time around.

However, the agency's Office of Inspector General is still concerned that unexpected damage to Orion's heat shield during reentry the last time around still poses a "significant risk" for the upcoming crewed mission.

"The delivery of the SLS core stage for Artemis II to Kennedy Space Center signals a shift from manufacturing to launch readiness as teams continue to make progress on hardware for all major elements for future SLS rockets," said SLS program manager John Honeycutt in a statement.

"We are motivated by the success of Artemis I and focused on working toward the first crewed flight under Artemis," he added.

More on Artemis: NASA Astronauts Run Into Cow While Practicing for Lunar Landing
Rock Opera

NASA's Perseverance Rover has found a rock on Mars that scientists believe may contain signs of ancient life on the Red Planet.

As the New York Times reports, NASA researchers aren't quite ready to declare that they've found definitive biosignatures  the scientific term for "signs of life"  in the piece of ancient rock the rover picked up this month.

Instead, the three-by-two foot rock fragment that's been nicknamed "Chevaya Falls" could better be characterized as "Most Likely to Contain Fossilized Microbial Martians," as the newspaper puts it.

Kenneth Farley, a CalTech geochemistry professor and Perseverance's mission project scientist, said that the Cheyava Falls find is, to his mind, the "most compelling" collected thus far.

While the timeline to return samples like Cheyava Falls to Earth is still up in the air, the rock may, if brought back to labs here on our planet, have "the potential to really get at the question" of whether life ever existed on the now-barren Red Planet, Farley told the NYT.

Organic Panic

After Perseverance picked up a veiny rock chunk on the edge of Mars' gigantic Jezero crater on July 21, its sensors detected organic compounds that could contain the building blocks for life. The rover also discovered calcium sulfate, which could have been deposited by flowing water  another necessity for life as we know it.

As Farley explained, the deposits and the chemical reactions they catalyzed with Cheyava Falls' other minerals seem to have created a sort of leopard-printed look featuring white splotches with black rings of iron phosphate around them.

While NASA scientists don't know exactly how or why those spots occurred, they represent, as the agency explains in a press release, another fascinating part of the puzzle. To David Flanney, a Perseverance science team member who hails from Australia's Queensland University, the spots "are a big surprise."

"On Earth," Flannery said in the press release, "these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface."

The @NASAPersevere rover is posing next to her latest sampling location at a rock called Cheyava Falls. She took this selfie just two days ago on Sol 1218. https://t.co/wv2UewA3dX



Credit: Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Simeon Schmau pic.twitter.com/oX2tPW5FrO  Simeon Schmau (@stim3on) July 25, 2024

All told, this finding is huge  though as the Washington Post notes in its reporting on Cheyava Falls, intriguing but otherwise non-biological Mars rock samples have misled NASA scientists before.

"We cannot say right now that we have discovered life on Mars," concluded Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance's deputy project scientist, in an interview with WaPo. "But what we are saying is that we have a potential biosignature, which is a set of features that could have a biological origin but do need further study and more data."

More on Mars: Scientists Identify Plant That Could Grow on Mars
NASA's $450 million lunar explorer, the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), will not be going to the Moon. Something else will be taking its place, though  and given the costs involved, the decision is bound to raise a few eyebrows, if not serious questions about the space agency's budget situation.

The rover, which is already fully built, was originally going to be stowed aboard a lunar lander called Griffin, which was developed by the private firm Astrobotic for another $323 million.

Griffin will still go to the Moon. But instead of taking VIPER, the lander will lug along a "mass simulator" in its place  a jargony way of saying that NASA is swapping VIPER out with a nonfunctioning hunk of material that weighs the rover's roughly 950 pounds.

To sum it up, borrowing from Scientific American's reporting: "if VIPER fails to fly, the agency will have spent about $800 million to send literal deadweight to the Moon instead."

When the space agency announced its decision to cancel VIPER's mission last week, it came as a huge shock to space scientists. The rover was anticipated to gather groundbreaking data on water ice beneath the lunar surface at the Moon's underexplored South Pole, providing key groundwork that could prepare for the arrival of crewed missions in the future.

Now, all that VIPER is slated to do is to be scrapped for parts.

NASA argued it had no choice in the decision. VIPER's costs had already ballooned, and though the rover was fully built, it wasn't fully tested. Conducting further tests to prove it was spaceworthy was expected to bring expenses past the $600 million mark  and that's assuming the rover passed them without any serious issues.

The agency feared that if it didn't pull the plug, the costs would eat into the budget of other lunar missions.

"This is a tough and disappointing decision  we all know that  which we had to make in an uncertain and constrained budget environment," Joel Kearns, NASA deputy associate administrator for exploration, said in a presentation this week, per SciAm. "But we do believe that this is the way for us to continue to support a portfolio of lunar science and our dedication to studying the Moon."

It's worth pointing out that NASA has been slammed by federal budget cuts. This year, it was allocated some $2.3 billion short of what it was hoping for: a seven percent budget increase from 2023 that would give it a total of $27.2 billion.

Rather than getting seven percent more, NASA got two percent less, and it's now stuck with a $24.8 billion budget. That resulted in layoffs and belt-tightening across a number of programs. And it's likely that the budget situation won't improve next year, leaving the fate of ambitious efforts like the Mars Sample Return mission in limbo.

With all that in mind, the agency's frugality is understandable. But nixing the already-built VIPER at the last minute in favor of a mass simulator is undeniably a bad look  bad enough that it has scientists begging Congress to reverse NASA's decision.

More on the Moon: Scientists Detect Huge Caverns Under Surface of Moon
SACRAMENTO, United States, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Fire crews in California and Oregon on Thursday battled the largest active wildfires in their respective states this year as thousands of residents were under evacuation orders, while smoke from the blazes triggered health alerts across the western United States.

In California, the Park Fire exploded to become the state's largest wildfire of the year in 24 hours. The blaze, which started Wednesday afternoon near Chico in Butte County, grew dramatically overnight, fueled by winds and dry conditions.

The fire burned 45,550 acres (184.3 sq km) and only 3 percent had been contained as of Thursday noon, according to the latest update of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). No injuries have been reported.

Evacuations were ordered in Butte and Tehama counties as temperatures exceeded 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius) and high winds continued to drive the fire's expansion.

A suspect was arrested on suspicion of starting the Park Fire. Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey said in a release that the 42-year-old man was taken into custody early Thursday.

Witnesses reported seeing someone pushing a burning car into a gully in Bidwell Park shortly before the fire ignited. The vehicle tumbled 60 feet (18.3 meters) down an embankment and burned completely, sparking the massive blaze, according to the release.

In eastern Oregon, firefighters were still battling the Durkee Fire on Thursday, one of the largest active wildfires in the United States.

The lightning-sparked fire has scorched nearly 270,000 acres (1,092.7 sq km) since it began on July 17 near the Oregon-Idaho border. Amid high temperatures, extremely dry vegetation and strong winds, the fire remained zero percent contained as of Thursday morning.

The Durkee Fire has already injured three people and destroyed two homes as well as 12 other structures, according to the Oregon Department of Emergency Management. Evacuation orders were in place for areas around the fire.

Dense smoke from the flames periodically forced the closure of Interstate 84 freeway, impacting travel in the region.

Oregon has been hit hard by wildfires in recent days as more than 30 fires, including the Durkee Fire, are currently burning across the state. Oregon Governor Tina Kotek has deployed National Guard resources to assist with firefighting efforts.

Extreme fire behavior was observed in the Durkee Fire, including the formation of "pyrocumulus clouds" -- a sign that the fire was creating its own weather system and was especially challenging to control.

Weather conditions continued to pose significant challenges for firefighters. The National Weather Service in Boise reported on Thursday that there were over 2,800 cloud-to-ground lightning strikes across southeast Oregon and Idaho on Wednesday alone, raising concerns about potential new fire starts.

The wildfires were triggering air quality alerts across the western parts of the United States, as smoke drifted from California to Oregon, Idaho, and other states.

Air quality alerts have been issued for parts of Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, as residents grapple with the health impacts of widespread smoke. Officials were urging residents to stay informed about evacuation orders and air quality advisories.

Climate scientists pointed to climate change as a factor in the increasing frequency of wildfires, particularly those sparked by lightning, across the Pacific Northwest.

The region has endured record-breaking heat, with record-breaking temperatures and persistently dry conditions creating an environment conducive to rapid fire spread.

As of Thursday, the National Interagency Fire Center reported 98 large fires being suppressed across the country, with over 1.6 million acres (647.5 sq km) burned. 
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

NASA's Perseverance rover has discovered a rock on Mars that may have once hosted microbial life. The rock, nicknamed Cheyava Falls, has chemical compositions and structures that could have been formed by ancient life, although non-biological processes cannot yet be ruled out. . | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

NASA's Perseverance rover may have found signs of ancient life in a rock on Mars; the mission team's scientists are ecstatic, but remain cautious as further analysis is needed to confirm the discovery.

The rover has come across an intriguing, arrowhead-shaped rock that hosts chemical signatures and structures that could have been formed by microbial life billions of years ago, when Mars was significantly wetter than it is today. Inside the rock, which scientists have nicknamed "Cheyava Falls," Perseverance's instruments detected organic compounds, which are precursors to the chemistry of life as we know it. Wisping through the length of the rock are veins of calcium sulfate, which are mineral deposits that suggest water  also essential for life  once ran through the rock.

The rover also found dozens of millimeter-sized splotches, each surrounded by a black ring and mimicking the appearance of leopard spots. These rings contain iron and phosphate, which are also seen on Earth as a result of microbe-led chemical reactions.

"These spots are a big surprise," David Flannery, an astrobiologist and member of the Perseverance science team from the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, said in a statement . "On Earth, these types of features in rocks are often associated with the fossilized record of microbes living in the subsurface."

Related: 'An oasis in the desert': NASA's Curiosity rover finds pure sulfur in Martian rocks

"We've never seen these three things together on Mars before," Morgan Cable, a scientist on the Perseverance team, said in a video NASA posted to YouTube today (July 25).

Cheyava Falls sits at the edge of an ancient, 400-meter-wide (437-yard-wide) river valley named Neretva Vallis. Scientists suspect this ancient channel was carved out long ago due to water gushing into Jezero Crater; Neretva Vallis runs along the inner wall of this region. In one possible scenario, mud that already possessed organic compounds got dumped into the valley and later cemented into the Cheyava Falls rock, which Perseverance sampled on July 21. A second episode of water oozing into the formed rock would have created the object's calcium sulfate veins and black-ringed spots the team sees today.

To be clear, the rock's visible features arent irrefutable evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars  not yet, at least. It is possible, for instance, that the observed calcium sulfate entered the rock at uninhabitably high temperatures, perhaps during a nearby volcanic event. However, whether such non-biological chemical reactions could have resulted in the observed black-ringed spots is an open question, the scientists say.

"This trip through the Neretva Vallis riverbed paid off as we found something we've never seen before, which will give our scientists so much to study," Nicola Fox, the associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in the statement.

"We have zapped that rock with lasers and X-rays and imaged it literally day and night from just about every angle imaginable," Ken Farley, Perseverance project scientist of Caltech in California, said in the statement. "Scientifically, Perseverance has nothing more to give."

Related Stories:

 Little Mars 'snowman' spotted by NASA's Perseverance rover (photo)

 Perseverance rover's Mars rock sample may contain best evidence of possible ancient life

 Perseverance Mars rover digs into intriguing 'Bright Angel' rock formation (photo)

To fully grasp what really unfolded in the ancient river valley billions of years ago, scientists are keen to get the Cheyava Falls sample to Earth, where it can be scrutinized with powerful instruments that Perseverances limited suite doesn't have.

The complex Mars Sample Return effort, however, has run into many snags in recent months after its costs spiked to $11 billion. In its current form, the program requires multiple launches to Mars to place a vehicle on the Red Planet, after which either Perseverance will travel to the vehicle and drop off its collected samples, or pop those samples over to a retrieval helicopter that can complete the handoff. Then, an ascender would launch the samples into orbit, where a spacecraft would collect them and return them to Earth.

NASA assessed various simpler alternatives from industry and academic groups and awarded $1.5 million contracts to seven companies looking into the endeavor; three of the agency's own research centers are carrying out studies as well.
Nashville is a city of giants. To me, restaurateur Randy Rayburn was one of them.

Ever since The Tennessean moved from 1100 Broadway six blocks away to 1801 West End Avenue in 2019, Midtown Cafe became my favorite spot for business meetings.

The food never disappoints  from the famous lemon artichoke soup to the avocado toast  and the staff is always professional, friendly and acts like a family. A bonus is that it is just down the alley from my office  the quickest of commutes.

Over the years, I have taken to breakfast or lunch a variety of diverse guests from Republican operatives to progressive social justice champions, and it was the first place I went after COVID shutdowns ended.

I always looked forward to chatting with proprietor Randy Rayburn for a bit to get his take on the latest political news and absorb his wisdom from decades of involvement in politics and tourism  two of Tennessees most important industries.

Sadly, Rayburn died Thursday, and Nashville and Tennessee have lost a good man who enlightened, inspired and mentored many clients including me.

Rayburn inspired our journalists to live up to Seigenthalers legacy

Restaurateur Randy Rayburn of Mid Town Cafe and other ventures passed away on July 25, 2024.

Rayburn knew where the proverbial bodies were buried and he cared deeply about uplifting his fellow human being.

His establishment would be filled with current and aspiring politicians, social justice champions, and tourists who valued the food, the staff and the camaraderie.

Weekly meetings of luminaries included the late activists Avi Poster, Charles Strobel and James Zralek who planned how to make a more just, equitable and welcoming Nashville

Midtown Cafe is a place to see and be seen, to press the flesh, and to leave with some new insight or kernel of information about how city and state run.

I will miss Rayburn deeply. He gave me honest feedback on my columns, whether he agreed with them or not, sparked ideas for other essays, and helped refine me as a journalist.

Midtown Cafe has a photo of the legendary Tennessean Editor and Publisher John Seigenthaler at the entrance of the restaurant. I learned so much about this iconic journalist from Rayburn who revered the man.

Guest opinion column by Randy Rayburn: Nashville's parking system is broken. Mayor David Briley has the right idea.

Seigenthaler passed away 10 years ago in July just three months before I moved to Nashville, and Rayburn constantly urged our journalists to live up to his legacy.

I will return soon to Midtown Cafe in honor of Randy

Like many of his loyal customers, I was shocked when I learned Randy passed away Thursday.

Earlier in the day, I picked up a Get Well card for him because I l knew he was going through a health challenge.

I found that out because I had eaten twice this past week at Midtown Cafe with different guests.

Randy Rayburn, left, wipes away tears while standing with Tom Loftis during the dedication ceremony of the Randy Rayburn School of Culinary Arts at Nashville State Community College on April 21, 2011.

I regret not getting it to him in time. It is a reminder of how time is fleeting and we do not know the next opportunity we will get to say a kind word to someone we admire.

Nashville is a city of giants, characters, and wise men and women.

Rayburn is among those guiding lights who has made my experience in Music City so rich.

I look forward to returning to Midtown Cafe soon with a heavy heart, an empty stomach and a desire to continue the camaraderie and conversations that make this place so special because of Randy Rayburn.

Addendum: Midtown Cafe's public relations firm REED sent an email to media confirm that the restaurant will remain open. "Randy's dream was to provide continued support for this community and his sons through the legacy of Midtown Cafe. They are here and will remain here. They have employees who have worked at the restaurant for over 25+ years and will continue to celebrate and share this legacy and community for many more years to come!"

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee. He is an editorial board member of The Tennessean. He hosts the Tennessee Voices videocast and curates the Tennessee Voices and Latino Tennessee Voices newsletters. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or find him on X at @davidplazas.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Midtown Cafe owner Randy Rayburn, iconic Nashville restaurateur, dies
July marks National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, an observance aimed at raising awareness about mental health challenges faced by minority communities.

Among these communities, Native Americans are disproportionately affected by mental health issues, a situation compounded by historical trauma, systemic inequities, and cultural barriers to accessing care.

As we reflect on the significance of this month, it is important to highlight the unique mental health struggles faced by Native American communities and the ongoing efforts to address these challenges.

Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning.

Native American communities experience some of the highest rates of mental health disorders compared to other ethnic groups in the United States. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), AI/AN people are 1.5 times more likely to experience serious psychological distress than the general U.S. population.

Additionally, Native Americans face higher rates of depression, anxiety, substance use disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

One of the most alarming statistics is the rate of suicide among Native Americans. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reveals that suicide is the second leading cause of death for Native Americans aged 10 to 34, and their suicide rate is 3.5 times higher than that of the general population.

The prevalence of suicide is particularly pronounced among Native American youth, highlighting the urgent need for targeted mental health interventions.

Several factors contribute to the high prevalence of mental health issues in Native American communities:

Historical Trauma: Centuries of colonization, forced relocation, and cultural suppression have inflicted deep-seated trauma on Native American populations. The legacy of Indian boarding schools, where Native American children were forcibly removed from their families and communities, has had lasting psychological effects.

Socioeconomic Disparities: Native Americans often face significant economic challenges, including high poverty rates and unemployment. These socioeconomic stressors exacerbate mental health issues and limit access to quality care.

Healthcare Access: Native Americans frequently encounter barriers to accessing mental health services, including a lack of healthcare facilities, culturally insensitive care, and inadequate funding for Indian Health Service (IHS). According to a report by the National Congress of American Indians, 82% of Native Americans live in urban areas where mental health services specifically tailored to their needs are scarce.

Cultural Stigma: Mental health stigma within Native American communities can prevent individuals from seeking help. Traditional beliefs and values sometimes conflict with Western approaches to mental health, making culturally competent care essential.

Despite these challenges, numerous initiatives are working to improve mental health outcomes in Native American communities:

Culturally Competent Care: Organizations like the National Indian Health Board (NIHB) and the National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH) advocate for the integration of traditional healing practices with Western medicine. This approach respects cultural beliefs while providing effective mental health care.

Community-Based Programs: Initiatives such as the White Mountain Apache Tribe's Celebrating Life program focus on suicide prevention through community engagement, education, and culturally relevant interventions. This program has shown success in reducing suicide rates within the community.

Telehealth Services: The expansion of telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic has improved access to mental health care for many Native Americans, particularly those in remote areas. Telehealth allows individuals to receive care from mental health professionals without the need for long-distance travel.

Youth Outreach: Programs targeting Native American youth, such as the Indian Health Service's Youth Regional Treatment Centers, provide holistic care that addresses substance abuse, mental health, and cultural identity. These centers offer a supportive environment where young people can heal and thrive.

As we observe National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month, it is important to continue advocating for policies and practives that address the unique mental health needs of Native American communities.

Increased funding for IHS, the incorporation of traditional healing methods into mainstream mental health care, and the development of culturally sensitive mental health programs are crucial steps toward reducing mental health disparities.

By acknowledging the historical and ongoing challenges faced by Native Americans and supporting initiatives that promote mental well-being, we can work towards a future where all communities have access to the care and support they need.

National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month serves as a reminder that mental health is a vital aspect of overall health and that addressing the specific needs of minority populations is essential for achieving health equity.

About the Author: "Kaili Berg (Aleut) is a member of the Alutiiq\/Sugpiaq Nation, and a shareholder of Koniag, Inc. She is a staff reporter for Native News Online and Tribal Business News. Berg, who is based in Wisconsin, previously reported for the Ho-Chunk Nation newspaper, Hocak Worak. She went to school originally for nursing, but changed her major after finding her passion in communications at Western Technical College in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. "

Contact: kberg@indiancountrymedia.com
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN)  North Carolina is among the recipients of an $86 million multistate settlement in principle with opioid manufacturer Indivior.

State Attorney General Josh Stein announced the settlement on Friday. North Carolina state and local governments are expected to receive approximately $2.5 million from the settlement.

Invest in healthier future: Chatham County receives $5M to combat opioid crisis

According to the state attorney generals office, Indivior produced buprenorphine-based products to treat opioid use disorder, but Stein alleged the manufacturer inappropriately targeted its sales to dangerous prescribers and failed to monitor suspicious orders. As a result, Stein found that Indivior engaged in activities that helped fuel the opioid crisis instead of curbing it.

The settlement in principle announced will provide $86 million to participating states over five years, which will be used for opioid addiction treatment, recovery, and prevention programs, according to the state attorney generals office. A final settlement remains contingent on agreement on critical business practice changes.

The state attorney generals of New York, Illinois, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia negotiated the settlement in principal in coordination with Stein and the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oregon, and Vermont, according to the North Carolina Attorney Generals Office.

North Carolinians are dying every day from opioid overdoses, Stein said in a statement. I will continue to do everything in my power to hold accountable the companies that fueled this crisis. The money we have secured from this settlement will go a long way in helping people get the treatment and recovery services they need.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Opponents of LB 574 filled the Nebraska State Capitol Rotunda, as they have during nearly all previous rounds of debate on the bill, on Friday, May 19, 2023, in Lincoln, Neb. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

LINCOLN  The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday protected the Legislatures prerogative to decide which bills are related, allowing the last-minute combination of a stricter abortion ban and restrictions on the treatment options of trans minors.

Planned Parenthood, represented by ACLU of Nebraska, had argued that Legislative Bill 574 had merged two unrelated ideas that did not succeed on their own and that the merger was unconstitutionally combined to secure votes.

Nebraska Supreme Court

The court disagreed with the groups assertion that lawmakers overstepped the constitutional limit requiring bills to address a single subject. The decision could protect the practice of combining multiple bills as long as they address a related topic.

The court wrote that because the bills title was aimed at public health and welfare, that sufficiently covered the bills contents. It said they were logically connected and let the Legislature decide.

After our review of the facts of this case and our historical legal precedent wherein we have rarely found violations  we find no merit to Planned Parenthoods argument that LB 574 contains more than one subject, the court ruled.

For now, the decision likely protects a common practice as time runs low during legislative sessions, passing massive Christmas tree bills that contain multiple bills.

LB 574 restricts puberty blockers, hormone therapies and genital or non-genital surgeries for minors with gender dysphoria. The restrictions apply to Nebraska minors under 19 years old. The law does not restrict trans health care treatment for adults.

Youths must receive at least 40 hours of gender-identity-focused contact hours of therapy before puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones can be prescribed.

Also under the law, abortion is now banned in Nebraska after 12 weeks gestational age.

Hilgers, Pillen laud decision

Attorney General Mike Hilgers and Gov. Jim Pillen cheered Fridays ruling.

Pillen, in a statement, said he was grateful for the courts thorough and well-reasoned opinion upholding these important protections for life and children in Nebraska.

Hilgers, a former state senator, said he was pleased with the rulings deference to the Legislature.

The Legislature passed Nebraskas 12-week abortion ban and its ban on gender-altering procedures for minors, and we are pleased that the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Legislatures work, Hilgers said.

Solicitors with the Attorney Generals Office had argued that the Legislature was well within its rights to combine the bills because state senators had merged them under a title stating that both proposals regulated health care.

Plaintiffs disappointed, say fight isnt over

ACLU Nebraska issued a statement on behalf of Planned Parenthood saying the group was disappointed in the ruling and believes the Court should have found the two bills unrelated.

Mindy Rush Chipman, ACLU Nebraskas executive director, said the group respectfully disagrees with the majority and hoped for a very different outcome.

It is so important that Nebraskans do not lose sight of the impact of these restrictions, she said. Nebraskans have been harmed every week since the governor signed LB 574 into law. That will continue under todays ruling. However, this case will not be the final word on abortion access and the rights of trans youth and their families.

Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States, called the ruling a heart-wrenching and infuriating infringement of private medical decisions.

We understand that Nebraskans may feel anxious about their ability to access an abortion  now and in the future. We will proudly continue providing abortion care  and we remain dedicated to helping our patients in Nebraska access the care they so desperately need, even if it means having to travel out of state, Richardson said.

OutNebraska Executive Director Abbi Swatsworth said in a statement that Nebraskans should be able to make personal medical decisions without governmental intrusion.

Bodily autonomy is a human right, Swatsworth said. When these basic freedoms are taken from us, many others follow.

Court sided with district judge

During oral arguments in March, a states attorney argued that the court should side with Lancaster District Court Judge Lori Maret, who wrote that she would not speculate on whether one bill could have passed without the other.

That was because the abortion ban lawmakers adopted was different from the one in LB 626, which fell one vote short of beating a filibuster. That measure would have banned abortions after an ultrasound detects embryonic cardiac activity, at about six weeks.

Abortion rights advocates have said that women have had to visit other states for care since LB 574 went into effect. Trans advocates have said the changes in LB 574 have some people rethinking whether they should stay in Nebraska.

In March, Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman had questioned whether the court should apply a stricter single-subject standard to ballot initiatives than to acts of the Legislature. The majority said the court should be stricter with ballot initiatives.

The court in 2020 tossed out an effort to legalize medical marijuana, based on the single-subject rule. The ruling concluded that combining the use and production of the crop violated the rule.

Partial dissent from one justice

On Friday, Miller-Lerman issued a partial dissent. She wrote that a stricter abortion ban and limits on gender-affirming care are not the same subject and disagreed with the majoritys broader interpretation of the single-subject rule.

She wrote that the court inappropriately went searching for LB 574s main purpose and failing a clear articulation by the Legislature, invented its own main purpose, i.e., to regulate medical care. She said that was the Legislatures role.

Failure to so compose renders the bill unconstitutional, she wrote. It is not the role of this court to rescue legislative bills.

The majority addressed her dissent directly:

Unlike our dissenting colleague, and particularly in the absence of a suggestion that the title given by the Legislature was misleading, we decline to reject the elected representatives articulation of a subject in the guise of a search for the perfect title. Additionally, we find Planned Parenthoods assignments of error to be without merit.

singlesubjectruling

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
A Nebraska teenager has been accused of forcing a train to derail so he could record the incident and share it on YouTube, according to court records.

The 17-year-old, who was not named, was charged with two felony counts of criminal mischief in Lancaster County Juvenile Court, but prosecutors have already filed a motion to have the case transferred to adult court, NBC News reported.

According to an investigation carried out by BNSF Railway, the teen tampered with a railroad switch, causing two locomotives and five loaded BNSF cars to veer off the tracks near Bennet on April 21.

While the trains did not flip over, one of them crashed into an empty coal car, resulting in more than $350,000 in damage, per court documents.

Just before the crash, the conductor said he attempted to make an emergency stop but ran out of time before he could do so.

He told investigators a misaligned switch, at a crossing near Monroe and Juniper streets, caused the crash. He noted that a padlock for the switch had also been missing, indicating it had been tampered with.

The teen, described in court documents as a train enthusiast, was the one who alerted authorities to the incident and was still on the scene when they arrived.

He approached the investigator and asked what caused the crash. When the investigator said he didnt know, the suspect allegedly said, obviously a switch was flipped the wrong way, according to a warrant obtained by KOLN.

The teen also showed the investigator the video he took, but denied trespassing in the area and tampering with the switch. He was allegedly spotted setting up his camera and tripod near the crossing just four minutes before the train derailed, investigators said.

In the days following the derailment, a video of the derailment was posted to YouTube account ZUnit06, which is believed be associated with (the teen), an investigator wrote in the document. This account features numerous videos of trains filmed in Bennet, NE and other locations in Lancaster County, NE.

BNSF Railway operates trains on the rail to supply coal to a power plant in Nebraska City.

_____
Neighbors in shock after police say man went on violent rampage, stabbed Versailles man to death

Neighbors are still shaken after police say a man went on a violent rampage throughout their Versailles neighborhood on Thursday night.

>> 1 dead, 2 hurt in Versailles stabbing; officer, police K-9 injured during suspects arrest

Investigators say Robert Kail stabbed Vinny Bazzone to death before randomly attacking his next-door neighbor and putting his wife in a headlock.

Bazzones employer, FamilyLinks, said he was a valued member of their team.

He had just gotten home with his dinner in his hand, next thing you know its horrible. Its very scary, said neighbor Debbie Segady.

Segady lives right door and saw Kail come home.

He got out of his car stood by the steps over here where the owner of the home is, made a phone call, then the next thing I know he disappeared, Segady said.

After police say Kail killed Bazzone, the violence continued.

According to police, Kail first went into this home and attacked the man in there, killing him. Then police say he went next door and then attacked the couple there just randomly.

When investigators asked why he did it, they said that he told them, I did what I had to do.

Kail allegedly stabbed the neighbor next door in the hand and put his wife in a headlock. He left the home after they threatened him with a gun.

Its scary. They are the nicest people in the world, Segady said.

Police eventually found Kail in McKeesport  and when he was in custody at the department, investigators say he attacked an officer and started choking a police dog.

A day later, Segady is still shaken.

A loss for words. Nice guy. Very sad. You dont expect something like that to happen especially right next door to you when its somebody you know. Its horrible, she said.

Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW

TRENDING NOW:

Demolition of Saw Mill Run Boulevard bridge scheduled to begin soon, detours announced Kennywood rollercoaster reopens after photo appears to show cinderblocks supporting part of the ride Washington County couple arrested after Pa. AG shuts down DMT, THC manufacturing plant VIDEO: A tremendous loss: Beloved Pittsburgh Allderdice teacher, coach dies unexpectedly DOWNLOAD the Channel 11 News app for breaking news alerts
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Friday, July 26, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP)  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to mend ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday and offered measured optimism about progress toward a cease-fire deal for Gaza as he neared the end of a contentious U.S. visit that put on display the growing American divisions over support for the Israeli-Hamas war.

At Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years, Netanyahu told journalists he wanted to see U.S.-mediated talks succeed for a cease-fire and release of hostages.

I hope so, Netanyahu said, when reporters asked if his U.S. trip had made progress. While Netanyahu at home is increasingly accused of resisting a deal to end the 9-month-old war to stave off the potential collapse of his far-right government when it ends, he said Friday he was "certainly eager to have one. And were working on it.

As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahus top wishes from the United States. Yet relations soured after Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden for his 2020 presidential victory, which Trump continues to deny.

The two men now have a strong interest in restoring their relationship, both for the political support their alliance brings and for the luster it gives each with their conservative supporters.

A beaming Trump was waiting for Netanyahu on the stone steps outside his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He warmly clasped the hands of the Israeli leader.

Weve always had a great relationship, Trump insisted before journalists. Asked as the two sat down in a muraled room for talks if Netanyahus trip to Mar-a-Lago was repairing their bond, Trump responded, It was never bad.

For both men, Fridays meeting was aimed at highlighting for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and can again.

Netanyahus Florida trip followed a fiery address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday that defended his governments conduct of the war and condemned American protesters galvanized by the killing of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the conflict.

On Thursday, Netanyahu had met in Washington with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears on track to becoming the new Democratic presidential nominee after Biden decided to step out of the race. Both pressed the Israeli leader to work quickly to wrap up a deal to bring a cease-fire and release hostages held by Hamas.

Trumps campaign said he pledged in Friday's meeting to make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.

Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who has been held hostage by Hamas-led militants since the first hours of the war. Well get it taken care of, Trump assured him.

In a speech later Friday before a group of young Christian conservatives, Trump said he also asked Netanyahu during their meeting how a Jewish person, or a person that loves Israel can vote for Democrats.

He also laced into Harris for missing Netanyahu's speech and claimed she doesnt like Jewish people and doesnt like Israel." Harris has been married to a Jewish man for a decade.

For Trump, the meeting was a chance to be cast as an ally and statesman, as well as to sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

Divisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israels war against Hamas in Gaza have opened cracks in years of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.

For Netanyahu, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that Trump may once again become president of the United States, which is Israels vital arms supplier and protector.

One gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.

Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party, said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the next six months, that means mending ties with an irascible, angry president," Miller said, meaning Trump.

Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both mens political careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hoped would be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.

In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as not prepared for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.

In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday and again Friday at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump helped broker historic and thanking him for all the things he did for Israel.

Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments  the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem's status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

I appreciated that, Trump told Fox & Friends on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu's praise.

Trump has repeatedly urged that Israel with U.S. support finish the job in Gaza and destroy Hamas, but he hasnt elaborated on how.

___

Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Adriana Gomez Licon in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Jill Colvin in New York contributed. Knickmeyer reported from Washington. Price reported from New York.

___

Follow the AP's coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
Netanyahu meets with Trump, wraps trip to U.S.

WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  Former President Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Mar-a-Lago Friday for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years.

Lets get a good, beautiful picture, Trump said to Netanyahu. Come on.

While protesters against the Israel-Hamas war gathered outside, Netanyahu presented Trump with a picture of one of the hostages still held by Hamas. He said it came at the request of the toddlers grandfather.

Well get that taken care of, Trump said.

Trump then criticized his likely opponent in the presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris, following her meeting with Netanyahu Thursday.

Her remarks were disrespectful, Trump said. They werent very nice.

It is time for this war to end, Harris said in solo remarks after her Netanyahu meeting.

Harris is trying to unite her own party on the U.S. response to the war.

To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you, she said.

Harris supports a deal that includes an initial six-week ceasefire, the release of all hostages and a surge of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.

As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Harris did not mention military assistance for Israel, which some Democrats in Congress want to cut. However, Republicans remain largely supportive of Netanyahus ability to conduct the war.

What Prime Minister Netanyahu laid out for us was a reasonable path forward, said Sen. John Cornyn, (R-Texas.).

Cornyn cautioned his colleagues of being too critical of Israel as tensions only continue to escalate in the Middle East.

This is the most dangerous situation that Ive seen internationally since World War II, he said.

U.S. officials maintain a ceasefire deal is the closest its ever been.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
UNITED NATIONS, July 25 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for global action to tackle extreme heat, as "extreme temperatures are no longer a one day, one week or one month phenomenon."

"Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere," Guterres said in remarks to the press on extreme heat.

Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic -- wilting under increasingly deadly heatwaves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world, said the UN chief. "That's ... halfway to boiling."

Highlighting the impact of extreme temperatures, Guterres noted a deadly heatwave hitting the Sahel with spiking hospitalizations and deaths, broken temperature records across the United States, scorching conditions killing 1,300 pilgrims during Haj, tourist attractions shut down in Europe's sweatbox cities, and schools closures across Asia and Africa impacting more than 80 million children.

"Extreme heat is increasingly tearing through economies, widening inequalities, undermining the Sustainable Development Goals and killing people," he said.

According to the UN chief, heat is estimated to kill almost half a million people a year, that's about 30 times more than tropical cyclones.

"But the good news is that there are solutions," added Guterres. 
Former President Donald Trump stood on the steps of his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach on Friday to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the pair's first meeting since Trump left the White House in 2021.

Trump posted a video to his Truth Social account of himself smiling and greeting Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, after their motorcade made its way onto Palm Beach island just before noon Friday. Netanyahu stayed for roughly two hours, leaving Palm Beach at about 2 p.m.

During the meeting, Netanyahu thanked Trump and his administration "for working to promote stability in the region through, among many historic achievements, the Abraham Accords, moving the United States Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, eliminating Qasem Soleimani, ending the horrific Iran Nuclear Deal, as well as combatting anti-Semitism in America and abroad," Trump's campaign said in a news release.

Trump in turn shared his solidarity with Netanyahu in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel. Trump "pledged that when he returns to the White House, he will make every effort to bring Peace to the Middle East and combat anti-Semitism from spreading throughout college campuses across the United States," his campaign said.

    ,    pic.twitter.com/mfXt0vfiPp  Benjamin Netanyahu -   (@netanyahu) July 26, 2024

Trump criticized Vice President Kamala Harris, his presumed opponent in the Nov. 5 general election, who had voiced concern in public comments after meeting Netanyahu about the toll on Palestinian civilians from Israel's 9-month-old campaign in Gaza.

"I think her remarks were disrespectful," Trump said.

Netanyahu said he hoped his U.S. trip would lead to a quicker cease-fire deal.

"I hope so. But I think time will tell," he told reporters. He said he thought there had been movement in efforts to forge a cease-fire because of Israeli military pressure and said he would dispatch a team to talks in Rome.

While it had been expected that Netanyahu would arrive at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, his plane instead landed at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport about 10:30 a.m., according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.

His motorcade traveled up Florida's Turnpike to Southern Boulevard, and then east to Mar-a-Lago where his meeting with the Republican nominee for president began about noon. Netanyahu arrived in South Florida from Washington, where he spoke to Congress on Wednesday and met with President Joe Biden and Harris on Thursday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's motorcade crosses the Southern Boulevard Bridge as he travels to meet with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach on Friday, July 26.

Law enforcement agencies closed roads along Southern Boulevard as they escorted Netanyahu to and from his meeting with Trump.

Netanyahu's office told Israeli media earlier in the week that Netanyahu will remain in the U.S. through the Sabbath before returning to Israel.

Scenes from Palm Beach and West Palm Beach as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives to meet with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday in Palm Beach.

Protesters opposed to Netanyahu and the war in Palestine carried signs and shouted anti-Israel and anti-police chants as they stood on the Southern Boulevard Bridge on Friday morning. A group called Shut Down Elbit South Florida shared a press release and told a Palm Beach Daily News reporter that they want to arrest Netanyahu.

"I'm Jewish, there's other Jewish people present," said one organizer, who declined to give her name and said the group has been painted as terrorists by news outlets. "There's plenty of Jews who don't support committing genocide in Palestine. Zionism is a political ideology separate from Judaism."

Pro-Palestine protesters stand on the Southern Boulevard Bridge on Friday morning ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.

She said she believes about 50 percent of Jewish people in the U.S. do not support what's happening in Palestine. "That's why we're out here, to protest the person doing it, and tell him he's not welcome in the state of Florida," she said.

Supporters of Trump and Netanyahu also gathered near the bridge, with Israel and U.S. flags and signs that said, "Shalom Bibi," and, "I Stand With Israel."

Supporters of former President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu carry signs along Southern Boulevard just west of the Southern Boulevard Bridge in West Palm Beach, ahead of the leaders' meeting at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach on Friday, July 26.

"I stand with Israel, I stand with peace and I stand against this," Jax Mcanulty, a British citizen, said of the group of Palestine supporters on the opposite side of the bridge from where she stood.

The number of Trump and Netanyahu supporters increased notably around noon, bolstered by a group of Palm Beach County-based Trump supporters who regularly demonstrate on the Southern Boulevard Bridge. They included Boynton Beach resident Debbi Macchia, who called the pro-Palestinian protesters "terrorists."

At one point, she and a man holding a Gadsden flag interrupted a civil conversation between pro-Palestinian protester Gibson Lopez and pro-Israeli counterprotester Cindy Falco-DiCorrado by lobbing derogatory and anti-Muslim comments.

After several minutes, Lopez moved to the other side of the bridge after law enforcement officers intervened. Falco-DiCorrado patted his back and thanked him for the discussion as he walked away.

Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said Thursday that several law enforcement agencies  including the Florida Highway Patrol, Martin County Sheriff's Office and Broward Sheriff's Office  would assist with security for Netanyahu's visit.

Several international leaders traveled to Mar-a-Lago when Trump was president, including the late Shinzo Abe of Japan and Xi Jinping, president of China. During those visits, dozens of law enforcement officers were present in the area around Mar-a-Lago and along the stretch of Southern Boulevard between Palm Beach International Airport and Trump's estate.

The sheriff's office also had boats in the water around Mar-a-Lago. The estate is essentially a fishbowl, with the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Intracoastal Waterway to the west, busy Southern Boulevard to the south and Palm Beach's Estate Section to the north.

Scenes from Palm Beach and West Palm Beach as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives to meet with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Friday in Palm Beach.

Protesters were allowed to gather on the Southern Boulevard Bridge, but pedestrians were not allowed east past the smaller bridge on the causeway between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach.

The U.S. Secret Service has increased security around Mar-a-Lago since an assassination attempt on Trump during a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pa. Trump's ear was injured, and three people in the crowd were shot, one of whom died. The Secret Service shot and killed the shooter, identified as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pa.

Among the enhanced security measures: South Ocean Boulevard is now closed near Mar-a-Lago, from the Southern Boulevard traffic circle north to the intersection with South County Road. That change took effect July 20. Palm Beach officials are challenging the Secret Service's decision to close the road, suggesting that the road could be open when no protectees are at Mar-a-Lago.

Reuters contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Netanyahu leaves Palm Beach after meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the warm welcome he was hoping for at Mar-a-Lago on Friday after the Israeli got a thinly veiled rebuke from presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Washington.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Trump greeted Netanyahu and his wife Sara at the top step of the gilded foyer at his Florida estate and criticized Harriss remarks after meeting Netanyahu on Thursday  in which she cited the grave humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip  as not very nice pertaining to Israel.

It was as much as Netanyahu could have hoped for in making the trek to Florida after he gave a speech to Congress on Wednesday that was criticized by Democrats. The next day he met President Joe Biden, and then had a separate meeting with Harris, who said she would not be silent about humanitarian suffering in Gaza.

No president has done what Ive done for Israel, and weve always had a very good relationship, Trump said, sitting at a table across from Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago. He didnt mention the rift that opened up between the two men in 2020 after Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his election victory.

Netanyahu traveled to Mar-a-Lago looking to patch things up with the once and possibly future president and rally Republican support for his plan to press ahead with the war against Hamas. He and his coalition have made little secret of their preference for Trump to win in November.

Netanyahu posted on social media a photo standing next to the former president and showing off a blue baseball cap with the phrase Total Victory on it, a reference to his governments tough line against Hamas, which the US has designated a terrorist group. Netanyahu made no such display in his White House meetings, though he used the phrase in his address to Congress.

Trump inserted himself directly into the middle of complicated regional politics. He pledged that when he returns to the White House, he will make every effort to bring Peace to the Middle East, according to a statement from the campaign. Earlier on Friday, he posted on social media a letter he received from Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and a frequent target of Netanyahus scorn.

Trump has said Israel should be allowed to finish the job against Hamas, but he told Fox News in an interview they are getting decimated with this publicity.

That equivocal statement from Trump, along with the less-than-wholehearted backing Netanyahu got from Democrats this week, highlighted how the trip to the US risked isolating the Israeli leader even more. He scheduled the visit in what seemed like a different era  before the assassination attempt against Trump and Bidens decision to cede to the Democratic nomination and endorse Harris.

US leaders are now laser-focused on the election and political pressure around the war is mounting. Harris has been more willing to speak critically about Israels conduct than Biden.

After her meeting with Netanyahu on Thursday, Harris said she had made clear my serious concern about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. It is time for this war to end, she said.

Netanyahu and top aides fear that Harris comments about Palestinian suffering could drive Hamas to harden the terms of a hostage and cease-fire deal, according to a senior Israeli official who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. Israel hopes her statement after meeting Netanyahu on Thursday wont be interpreted by Hamas as evidence of a gap that could make a deal more remote.

After the meeting, far-right Israeli cabinet minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, who endorsed Trump for the presidency earlier this week, wrote on X: There will be no truce, Madam Candidate.

With momentum building behind her bid to challenge Trump for the presidency, the meeting with Netanyahu was a chance for Harris to reassure pro-Israel voters  and she did pledge firm US support for Israels security  while also presenting her with an opportunity to send a message to progressive voters upset about rising civilian casualties.

While the formal White House statement about her meeting with Netanyahu reflected official language on the administrations Middle East policy, Harris sharper tone and more poignant imagery about the suffering in Gaza reflected what seemed to be part of an ongoing attempt to distinguish her stance on the Israel-Hamas war from Bidens.

Shes positioning, shes changing the tone, shes saying something different in tone but not in substance from what Biden says, said said Brian Katulis, a former US official now at the Middle East Institute. Theres a tone difference there, but the policys not that different.

--With assistance from Peter Martin, Stephanie Lai and Ethan Bronner.

(Updates from second paragraph with details of meeting)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Florida on Friday with one mission in mind: Get Donald Trump to pledge unequivocal support for Israel militarily and financially should he win in November.

That kind of backing from Trump would arguably help Netanyahu solidify his grip on power amid an increasingly hostile political scene back at home. The Republican candidates strong standing in the polls has had the Israeli leader eager to get his backing. And with President Joe Biden, a staunch supporter of Israel, dropping off the Democratic ticket, Netanyahu feels it is even now more essential to garner goodwill with Trump, according to two people familiar with the prime ministers thinking.

But getting on Trumps good side is not as easy as it used to be  and it's unclear if Netanyahu got what he wanted.

A Trump campaign readout of the meeting said the former president told Netanyahu that should he return to the White House, he will make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East.

The Trump campaign did not say if he would continue to support the $3 billion weapons package the U.S. approves for Israel each year  something team Netanyahu has been trying to solidify and speed up this week in meetings. His delegation this week circulated a list of weapons Israel wants transferred quickly in the face of what it views as an increasingly aggressive Iran.

Trump and Netanyahu have been at odds over how and when to wind down the war in Gaza  a divergence that likely complicated the discussions Friday.

Even though Trump and Netanyahu worked closely together on the Abraham Accords, they have had a falling out in recent years. Following Bidens win in 2020, Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to publicly congratulate him, saying he looked forward to working with the administration. In a 2021 interview with Axios, Trump said of Netanyahu: "Fuck him.

I still like Bibi. But I also like loyalty," Trump said at the time, adding that hed done more for Israel than any other president.

Since then, the two have interacted infrequently.

Netanyau viewed the visit to Florida as critical, particularly because there is a growing feeling in his camp that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins, she may not be as forward-leaning in her support for Israel as Biden, one of the people familiar said, who, like others in this story was granted anonymity to speak freely about Netanyahus conversations.

Netanyahus Friday visit with Trump came after meetings in Washington with Biden and Harris. Netanyahu was unhappy with Harris public statement following their meeting, one of the people familiar said, in part because he did not view it as strongly supportive of Israel or indicative of their conversation.

Harris said afterward in a statement that she told Netanyahu the U.S. would always support Israels right to defend itself. But, she added, the images coming out of Gaza are devastating.

The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies, she said. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering and I will not be silent.

While not as focused on the civilian deaths, Trumps stance on Gaza is somewhat similar to that of Bidens  he wants the war to end quickly. He wants a deal that will bring the hostages home.

Netanyahu has resisted calls from within the Biden administration to halt operations in Gaza. Senior officials in Washington have behind the scenes grown frustrated with the Israeli leader, saying he is moving too slowly on the cease-fire deal and is unnecessarily delaying talks. But Netanyahu told Trump in the meeting, according to Axios, that he was dispatching a team to Rome to meet with CIA Director Bill Burns and officials from Egypt and Qatar to iron out a deal.

In an interview after his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump reportedly slammed Harris, telling reporters that she was disrespectful toward Israel, and adding: I actually dont know how a person whos Jewish can vote for her, but thats up to them.
A mobile billboard opposing military aid for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears in front of the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday. (Kevin Wolf / Associated Press)

Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrapped up a weeklong U.S. trip Friday with a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, tipping his hat to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, after stops at the two citadels of U.S. power: the White House and the Capitol.

Netanyahu intended his U.S. visit to be a triumphant lap that would show people back home, especially his political base, that he still enjoyed unconditional U.S. support.

What he received instead was more complicated, reflecting divisions and political uncertainty here , and growing opposition, even among some U.S. officials, to the way Netanyahu is conducting the Gaza war, about to enter its 11th month.

In separate private meetings with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday, Netanyahu heard some of the toughest talk yet on the urgent need to accept a cease-fire in Israels war in Gaza, according to U.S. officials.

Read more: In fiery speech to Congress, Netanyahu defends war in Gaza and denounces protesters

At the Capitol on Wednesday, he became the first foreign leader afforded the honor of making a fourth speech to a joint session of Congress, where he demanded help to keep fighting the war. But the reception was notably cooler than in past visits. The standing ovations were only partial. More than 50 Democratic lawmakers boycotted or were otherwise absent . And Palestinian American Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) held up a sign that read war criminal on one side and guilty of genocide on the other.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he arrives to speak to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday. (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)

At Trumps Florida resort, Netanyahu was more interested in repairing damage in his once mutually fawning relationship with the man he hopes will once again be president. As president, Trump had given Netanyahu everything he asked for. But Trump turned on Netanyahu when the Israeli leader recognized Bidens electoral victory over Trump in 2020.

But Friday it seemed all had been forgiven. Trump greeted Netanyahu as he arrived at Mar-a-Lago, smiling broadly and with an enthusiastic handshake. Before they sat to talk, Netanyahu gifted Trump a framed photo of a child he said had been captured by Hamas, the Associated Press reported. Well get it taken care of, Trump said.

In addition to pledging several times that he would be able to resolve the Gaza crisis quickly, without saying how, Trump had harsh descriptions of Harris, telling Netanyahu she was worse than Biden and had been disrespectful to Israel by raising the plight of Palestinians.

A key goal for Netanyahu was to court the Republican Party, with which he is confident he would have more leverage. While most previous Israeli leaders have strenuously avoided taking sides in U.S. partisan fights, Netanyahu has long allied himself more closely with the GOP.

Just weeks ago Trump and the Republican Party appeared ascendant. But the upheaval this week that appears to have brought Harris to the head of the Democratic presidential ticket scrambled those calculations.

Protesters demonstrate as Netanyahu visits Mar-a-Lago in Florida to meet with former President Trump on Friday. (Jim Rassol / Associated Press)

In his speech to Congress, the Israeli leader praised Biden, who announced Sunday he would not run again. Netanyahu praised Trump in even more glowing terms  and did not mention Harris by name.

Palestinian Hamas militants based in Gaza attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing nearly 1,200 Israelis and seizing several hundred hostages. The massacre triggered a punishing retaliatory war by Israel, which has pounded the narrow seaside enclave and killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, including vast numbers of civilians, according to Palestinian officials. Israel has blocked most food and medical aid, fueling a humanitarian crisis.

Here in Washington, Netanyahu could not escape the massive demonstrations that have dogged him in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Thousands of protesters lined his motorcade route each day and held rallies outside the Capitol and on the National Mall.

In his address to Congress  a largely dark speech vowing absolute victory in Gaza  Netanyahu dismissed U.S. protesters as useful idiots acting on behalf of Israels enemies.

Despite strains in the relationship with a pro-Israel Biden, the president welcomed the prime minister warmly to their meeting at the White House.

Harris declared herself a lasting friend of Israel, but was more pointed in criticizing the devastating toll of death and destruction among Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

I will not be silent, she said after her meeting with Netanyahu. The images of dead children and desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time.  We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering.

Read more: Israel is spying on Hezbollah commanders  and killing them one by one

It remains to be seen how Harris would refocus U.S. Middle East policy in contrast to Biden. The Israeli-Palestinian question is a tightrope for Harris: She wants to assert her sympathy for Israel while distancing herself from Bidens unstinting embrace of a country finding itself under heavy reproach from many Americans.

Administration officials who work with Biden and Harris say that there is no daylight between the two leaders on Israeli-Palestinian policy, but that there is a perception of difference, perhaps because Harris was more outspoken from the start about Palestinian casualties.

Both Biden and Harris, in their meetings with Netanyahu, pressed him on a cease-fire proposal now on the table  of which Netanyahu made no mention in his speech. The deal would also free most hostages and surge aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza. It has been negotiated for months, by Washington, Qatar and Egypt. U.S. officials say both Hamas and Israel at one time or another have delayed a final agreement.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Netanyahu appear before their meeting at the White House on Thursday. (Julia Nikhinson / Associated Press)

Biden and Harris urged Netanyahu to move to close the final gaps, which include timing on the negotiation of a permanent cease-fire and withdrawal from Gaza of Israeli troops.

Netanyahu, in public remarks during his trip, has also not mentioned the creation of an independent Palestinian state, which the U.S., regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia and many others consider critical to an enduring end of the Gaza war and broader pacification of the Middle East. To the contrary, he led a first-ever vote last week in the Israeli Knesset, or parliament, to formalize an official opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state.

Many critics, including a large number within Israel, said that Netanyahu, by taking such positions, is slow-walking any cease-fire agreement, even if it means sacrificing the hostages, as a way to protect his own political interests. The most radical members of his extremist right-wing government have threatened to tumble Netanyahus government if he makes any concessions before the complete annihilation of Hamas, a near-impossible feat.

For all of his unwavering defense of Israel, it falls flat for too many, Michael Koplow, chief policy officer for the Israel Policy Forum, a U.S.-based analytical group, wrote in a weekly column appearing Friday, both because of problems of Netanyahus own creation and his omnipresent choice to elevate his own political security before the fundamental security of Israel.

Koplow added: Netanyahu wins, Israel loses.

Read more: Barack and Michelle Obama endorse Harris: 'She gives us all reason to hope'

Israelis who traveled to Washington to protest against Netanyahu, including relatives of Israelis and Americans still being held hostage by Hamas, said many members of Congress and others in the U.S. fail to grasp how unpopular the prime minister is at home.

Before Oct. 7, the question was, Should Netanyahu resign or not? Now the question is not if but when, said Nadav Weiman, a former sergeant and sniper in the Israel Defense Forces who now heads Breaking the Silence, a group of Israeli military officers opposed to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank. He was in Washington to protest the prime minister and speak to American audiences.

Netanyahu came here to get standing ovations because he wouldnt get any from anybody in Israel, Weiman said.

Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving prime minister, argues that only he is a strong enough leader to get Israel through the Gaza war and the numerous other threats he says the country faces.

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.
Nevada chips in $5M to fund new Las Vegas campus for victims of domestic violence, sex trafficking

LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  State leaders announced Thursday that $5 million will go to help fund a new campus that will offer more services for victims of domestic violence and trafficking.

We are incredibly excited about what this investment from the state is going to be able to do to get victims safer and to help end the epidemic of sexual and domestic violence in Clark County and beyond, said Liz Ortenburger, CEO of SafeNest.

The funding is going to SafeNest for its One Safe Place Project in Las Vegas which is expected to be completed in 2025.

According to a news release from Gov. Joe Lombardos office, this latest funding will allow the state-of-the-art project to move forward immediately providing the resources victims need to rebuild their lives.

Since my time in law enforcement, Ive recognized SafeNest as a critical partner in providing essential support for victims of domestic and sexual violence and human trafficking, Lombardo said.

SafeNest received $9 million last month in American Rescue Plan Act funds. The projects total cost is expected to be $20 million and SafeNest will privately raise the remaining money needed for the 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 KLAS.
Justice scales, books and wooden gavel. (file)

Patrick Braxton is officially the mayor-elect of Newbern, Alabama and will be sworn in as mayor in a ceremony next month.

U.S. District Court Judge Kristi K. DuBose accepted a memorandum of understanding Tuesday arranged between Braxton; those he appointed to the town council and former town officials, formally designating him as mayor of the town in Hale County in the Black Belt four years after he was supposed to assume office.

It feels pretty good, Braxton said during an interview Wednesday. Anything worth fighting for or struggling for, it is worth holding on to.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

An attorney representing former Newbern officials declined to offer comment.

The deal formally ended the legal drama that had lasted for over four years and played out DuBoses court in the U.S. Southern District of Alabama for the better part of three months.

Opposing parties in the lawsuit announced they had reached an agreement in June to end the impasse and declare Braxton mayor of Newbern. The agreement, in which the defendants admitted no wrongdoing, ended a decades-old practice of allowing former Newbern leaders to appoint their successors without holding an election.

Braxtons lawsuit, filed in November 2022, was moved from a county circuit court to federal court in April. Braxton and others in the lawsuit alleged that Newbern officials appointed their successors once they no longer wished to serve. That, the lawsuit alleged, was how previous Newbern Mayor Haywood Stokes III and other members of the town council assumed office.

In 2020 however, Braxton sought to be Newberns next mayor.

I have seen stuff in the town, Braxton said. I know it could be better. I was doing stuff in the town, and around the town, all the time.

His lawsuit said that he filed the paperwork that was required and paid the necessary fees to qualify as a mayoral candidate, while Stokes failed to qualify for the contest.

As the lone candidate to qualify by the deadline, Braxton was declared mayor-elect of Newbern when the deadline passed in July 2020. But he would not be officially declared mayor of the town until November.

Between the time that Braxton became mayor-elect until he assumed office, the lawsuit states that Newbern officials, including Stokes, tried to have Braxton removed. They called a special election to decide who would be mayor and members of the town council.

The only candidates who could be on the ballot were Stokes and the individuals he recruited as members of the town council. They were the only individuals who paid the fee and completed the paperwork to be considered candidates for the special election.

Newbern officials did not post notices of the special election and no residents voted in the special election in October, according to the lawsuit.

Stokes and the residents then assumed office even though Braxton had been declared the mayor-elect of Newbern in July.

Duboses order declares Braxton as the lone official for Newbern, giving him access to all the documents, accounts and property of the town, which has about 130 residents and is 64.3% Black and 34.8% white.

As mayor, Braxton said one of his priorities is addressing Newberns storm system so that the water drains whenever it rains.

The town plans to have an election next year.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
Newsom calls on Oakland to allow more police chases, stop suspects from 'fleeing with impunity'

Oakland police officer J. Yuen leaves his car while on patrol at the In-N-Out restaurant on Feb. 27 in Oakland. The fast-food chain said it would close its only Oakland location over safety concerns for its customers and employees. (Paul Kuroda / For The Times)

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday sent a letter to Oakland officials urging them to allow police to engage in more vehicle pursuits, contending that the limitations placed on officers contribute to public safety challenges in the city.

The California Highway Patrol inspired the governor's missive after the agency "observed criminals fleeing with impunity" during the governor's campaign to boost law enforcement and reduce crime in a city that has historically been one of the most dangerous in the state.

Read more: California Highway Patrol presence in East Bay will increase four-fold starting next week

In a policy Newsom described as an "outlier," Oakland only allows police chases when a suspect is armed with a gun or involved in a forcible violent crime. The governor pointed out that unlike in other cities, Oakland police cannot pursue people suspected of committing many felonies or any misdemeanor, such as reckless driving, sideshow activity, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

"I urge you to reconsider whether OPD should be permitted to pursue suspects in more circumstances to improve public safety in your city and to establish a process to evaluate whether OPD is making full use of its authority, including that granted under the existing pursuit policy, to protect public safety and enforce the law," Newsom wrote.

The governor's letter, addressed to Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, the Oakland City Council and the Oakland Police Commission, laid out his support for a recent City Council decision to review the policy.

A top political topic in the 2024 election, crime has created pressure on Newsom and other elected officials and bolstered criticism of Californias criminal justice policies.

Newsom ramped up police presence in Oakland in February with the deployment of 120 California Highway Patrol officers to the city under a state law enforcement campaign targeting an uptick in violent crime and theft.

At the time, reports of In-N-Out Burger and other high-profile businesses in Oakland closing due to crime had made headlines around the country and raised questions about state policy and the need for criminal justice reform in the Golden State. In his letter, Newsom referenced viral videos and news coverage "witnessed regularly by the public" that show the dangers of allowing criminal acts, such as reckless driving at sideshows, to go unchecked.

The governor also acknowledged risks associated with pursuits, which he said can be "dangerous to police, suspects, and innocent bystanders."

Read more: Haunted by legacy of police misconduct, Oakland grapples for answers to street crime surge

Newsom quadrupled the number of shifts CHP officers conducted in Oakland two weeks ago, with the goal of targeting organized crime, sideshows, carjackings, and other criminal activity over the next four months.

In the letter, the governor wrote that CHP "observed suspects attempting to escape arrest by using the same routes, concluding that they knew where OPD would discontinue a pursuit" because of the pursuit policy. In comparison, CHP's pursuit of suspects, with the help of air support, caught suspects in each of the six chases that state officers initiated.

The increased CHP presence in the East Bay has resulted in the recovery of more than 1,142 stolen cars, the seizure of 55 firearms, and the arrests of 562 suspects, according to the governor's office.

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.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) sent a letter to Oakland officials Friday urging them to tighten their police pursuit policy.

Although some California jurisdictions allow vehicle pursuits for only certain crimes (e.g., felonies), Oakland is an outlier by imposing exceptional restrictions on [the Oakland Police Departments (OPD)] ability to police criminal activity, generally permitting pursuits only for violent forcible crimes, as defined in OPDs policy, and crimes involving firearms, Newsom said in the letter addressed to the citys mayor, the Oakland City Council and the Oakland Police Commission.

This means that, unlike in nearly all other California jurisdictions, local police in Oakland cannot pursue individuals suspected of committing many felonies, any misdemeanor, even if violent, and other offenses that endanger public safety, such as reckless driving, sideshow activity, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, he wrote.

The Golden States governor added that the California Highway Patrol (CHP) have observed, based on their professional law enforcement experience and expertise, certain dynamics that are contributing to Oaklands public safety challenges.

In particular, the CHP has brought to my attention that they observed criminals often fleeing with impunity because its common knowledge that the Oakland Police Departments (OPD) pursuit policy allows vehicle pursuits in only very limited circumstances, Newsom continued. They observed suspects attempting to escape arrest by using the same routes, concluding that they knew where OPD would discontinue a pursuit. Fortunately, with the resources available to the CHP, including air support, the suspects were unable to evade the six pursuits that the CHP initiated.

Newsom also recently ordered the removal of homeless encampments in the state, after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that cities have the power to enforce prohibitions on sleeping outdoors publicly.

The governor said he supports the city councils push for a review of the policy due to the citys public safety challenges.

I urge you to reconsider whether OPD should be permitted to pursue suspects in more circumstances to improve public safety in your city and to establish a process to evaluate whether OPD is making full use of its authority, including that granted under the existing pursuit policy, to protect public safety and enforce the law, he wrote in the letter.

He responded Friday to a local news outlets post about him pushing for the tightening of the policy: No more excuses.

Council member Noel Gallo told The Hill that he is in line with Newsoms position on the policy.

In an emailed statement to The Hill, Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao (D) said she is going along with Governor Newsom and the City Council to implore the members of the Oakland Police Commission to fulfill their mandate to the residents of Oakland by reviewing the OPD pursuit policy and making the necessary changes to bring the department in line with our regional counterparts.

OPD spokesperson Paul Chambers directed The Hill to the mayors office.

Oakland City Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas said in a statement emailed to The Hill that she is in favor of reevaluating policies on an ongoing basis to provide the best safety outcomes for our community.

The Hill has reached out to members of the Oakland City Council, the Oakland Police Commission and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao (D).

Updated at 2:44 p.m. EST on July 27.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
YANGON, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Over 130,000 people from over 33,000 households have been affected by floods across regions and states in Myanmar in July, according to a disaster management official on Friday.

The country has been ravaged by floods since early July, with Kachin state being the first affected, Min Thein, a senior official, told Xinhua.

Currently, the worst-hit area is Magway region, with over 53,000 people affected by floods, he said.

Over 110 houses have been damaged or destroyed due to flooding, with more than 90 of them completely destroyed, he added.

One death in Sagaing region was reported, he said.

The Myanmar government has provided rice, canned fish and cash in relief supply to flood-affected people, totaling over 390 million kyats (about 120,000 U.S. dollars), he said. 
(KRON)  California Gov. Gavin Newsom is urging Oakland officials to expand the criteria under which police can pursue criminal suspects. In a letter to Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao and other city leaders, Newsom called the Oakland Police Departments current pursuit policy an outlier among California law enforcement agencies.

Referencing the recently expanded California Highway Patrol deployment to the city, Newsom cited CHP observations regarding OPDs pursuit policy.

The CHP has brought to my attention that they observed criminals fleeing with impunity because its common knowledge that the Oakland Police Departments pursuit policy allows vehicle pursuits in only very limited circumstances, Newsom said.

Fired SFDA employee says he asked Brooke Jenkins about her panties by mistake

According to the governor, CHP officers observed suspects attempting to escape arrest by using the same routes, concluding that they knew where OPD would discontinue a pursuit.

The current OPD pursuit policy, as laid out by Gov. Newsom, allows for pursuits only for violent forcible crimes and those involving firearms.

That means that, unlike in nearly all other California jurisdictions, local police in Oakland cannot pursue individuals suspected of committing many felonies, any misdemeanor, even if violent, and other offenses that endanger public safety, such as reckless driving, sideshow activity, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Newsom said.

While the governor said he was mindful of the sensitivities around vehicle pursuits, which can be dangerous to police, suspects, and innocent bystanders, he warned of extreme danger to the public in allowing criminals to act with impunity, and the reckless driving associated with sideshows and other criminal acts.

Gov. Newsom said he supported recent action by Oakland City Council to direct a review of the pursuit policy and urged Mayor Thao to reconsider whether OPD should be permitted to pursue suspects in more circumstances.

KRON4.com has reached out to the Oakland Police Department and Oakland Mayor Sheng Thaos office for a response to Newsoms letter. We have not yet 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 KRON4.
Gov. Gavin Newsoms new executive order, urging local governments to tear down dangerous homeless encampments, culminates his months-long effort to politically shift responsibility and blame for the problem to city councils and county supervisors.

The governors approach - promising tiny home sites and never coordinating with local governments to get them built - is hardly a template for success. In the Sacramento region, Newsoms order might encourage communities to enact ordinances that would simply push the homeless into other communities. Already, it is the city of Sacramento that is bearing the brunt of the crisis.

Meanwhile, what a weird publicity stunt by a governor addicted to public attention.

Opinion

Newsom has been eclipsed by the Californian now running for president, Kamala Harris. So Newsoms way of getting a top headline in the New York Times is to remind the nation how badly California is handling its homeless issue.

The governors latest move comes after the U.S. Supreme Court gave the green light to local governments throughout the nation to remove homeless people from public property even if there is no alternative shelter space for these dislocated souls to live safely. Previously such local efforts were restricted in western states due to an appellate court decision that declared that dislodging the homeless in such circumstances violated the constitutions prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Newsom was among a large contingent of leaders urging the high court to consider that there was nothing cruel about moving homeless people when there is nowhere designated for them to go. Newsom got his wish thanks to the conservative majority of the court.

Its time to move with urgency at the local level to clean up these sites, said Newsom, wearing sunglasses against the backdrop of an unidentified road site, workers and law enforcement in the background busy cleaning up the debris of a shuttered encampment. There are no longer any excuses.

The homeless crisis demands resources and far better coordination between the state and local branches of government. Those 1,200 tiny homes that Newsom promised, and never delivered, is a perfect example. He now appears to be fed up with local government. Theres plenty of human imperfection to go around on this particular issue.

Locally, the latest bi-annual census of the homeless found an unsheltered population in Sacramento County that appeared to be both decreasing and consolidating into the capital city. Sacramento sheriffs deputies, one step ahead of the governor, managed to drive down the unincorporated countys share of the population from 20% to 14%. All that did, however, was to increase Sacramentos share of the homeless from. Two years ago, the city had 67% of all homeless residents in the county. Now it is 77%.

The court decision and the governors blame game may rekindle efforts in Sacramento to move the homeless around more. Last year council members Rick Jennings and Eric Guerra, for example, floated the idea of banning homeless encampments on public property during daytime hours. This idea could resurface and trigger a debate on a city council that may move toward increased homeless sweeps thanks to the governor.

If that happens, it wont be because the data says that rousting homeless people works. There is no statistical evidence it does. What we should be watching for are unintended consequences resulting from Newsoms latest publicity stunt.

If, for example, Sacramento County Sheriffs deputies get more aggressive in moving the homeless, it could push them into the city of Sacramento.

The bottom line is that local governments here and throughout California do not own the homeless problem. They have been addressing it primarily with somebody elses money, namely the states. And if that money begins to dry up, as Newsom has threatened to do, dont expect cities like Sacramento to use their own money to run shelters and build affordable housing. So then more homeless would end up back on the streets, where they can now be arrested or their tents taken away.

Newsom joins a very long list of elected leaders who are playing to a fed-up publics anger with the homeless problem. The governor does deserve credit for historic improvements in the states mental health strategy and providing new bond funds for expanded treatment and housing. But declaring himself victorious and claiming that cities now have all the tools they need to solve homelessness, thats pretty delusional.
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

The crewmembers for NS-26, Blue Origin's next suborbital space tourism mission. A launch date has not yet been announced. | Credit: Blue Origin

Blue Origin has announced the crew for its next New Shepard space tourism flight.

The diverse crew includes a NASA-funded researcher, a professor, a university student, a cardiologist and entrepreneurs, Blue Origin announced in a statement on Wednesday (July 24).

The announcement signals that Blue Origin is ready to resume flights, having tackled an issue that saw the capsule on its previous crewed flight  NS-25 this past May  touch down using just two of its three parachutes.

The upcoming NS-26 mission will carry Nicolina Elrick, Rob Ferl, Eugene Grin, Dr. Eiman Jahangir, Karsen Kitchen and Ephraim Rabin.

Elrick is a philanthropist and entrepreneur, while Ferl is a professor and director at the University of Florida's Astraeus Space Institute. Grin was born in Ukraine and emigrated to the US in 1979, forging a career in real estate and finance. Jahangir is a cardiologist and associate professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Rabin is an American-Israeli businessman, philanthropist and entrepreneur.

Kitchen, a senior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will become the youngest woman ever to cross the Karman line , according to the statement. The Karman line, at 62 miles (100 kilometers) in altitude, is a commonly used definition of the boundary for where space begins.

But it's not the only one ; NASA and the U.S. military, for example, award astronaut wings to anyone who gets above 50 miles (80 km). Eighteen-year-old Anastatia Mayers is the youngest person to reach space by that definition, getting 55 miles (88.5 km) up during a Virgin Galactic flight in August 2023 .

RELATED STORIES:

 Facts about New Shepard, Blue Origin's rocket for space tourism

 In photos: William Shatner launches to space on Blue Origin's New Shepard

 Blue Origin launches Michael Strahan and crew of 5 on record-setting suborbital spaceflight

Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos , did not reveal a date for the upcoming launch. The mission will, however, be the second New Shepard flight this year.

The company's space tourism launches had halted in fall 2022 after the NS-23 uncrewed research mission suffered a serious anomaly. This was determined to be caused by a "thermo-structural failure" of the nozzle of the rocket's reusable BE-3PM engine. The first-stage rocket was destroyed, but the upper-stage capsule landed safely using its parachutes.

Lifting off from West Texas, the upcoming mission will be the 26th overall New Shepard launch (hence the name) and eighth space tourism mission for Blue Origin. The previous flight, NS-25, carried the United States' first-ever Black astronaut candidate, 90-year-old sculptor, author and former U.S. Air Force Capt. Ed Dwight .
Nearly two weeks after a gunman attempted to assassinate Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania, new reports are presenting more questions than answers about the shooting that day.

Did a Bullet Really Pierce Trumps Ear?

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress on Wednesday that his agency is still unsure whether Trump was hit or grazed by a bullet, or by flying shrapnel.

And according to Michael Harrigan, an FBI special agent who retired in 2018 with 22 years at the agency under his belt, well probably never know.

A bullet shot between the torso, you might be able to extract the bullet, Harrigan told the Daily Beast. Unfortunately, with a shot to an extremity like that, an ear, its hard to tell and they may never know the difference.

A former Secret Service agent told the Daily Beast he was not surprised that Wray couldnt say conclusively whether Trump was struck by a bullet since the FBI investigation is ongoing. However, the former agent said, Looking at the video, it seems likely to me that he was hit directly by a round. (The former agent was referring to widely viewed live television news footage of the event.)

Trumps former White House physician, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), released a statement on Saturday saying that Trumps right ear had sustained a gunshot wound that was a quarter of an inch from entering his head.

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is rushed offstage by U.S. Secret Service agents after being grazed by a bullet during a rally on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Jacksons review is the most thorough account of the presidents health to date, but is ultimately questionable given his lack of an active medical license. The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment about what specific treatment the former president received at a Pennsylvania hospital following the shooting.

A spokesperson for Butler Memorial Hospital, where Trump was taken, would not comment on the former presidents treatment, citing standard patient confidentiality practices.

An investigator speaks with law enforcement officers near the body of a gunman on a roof after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally, in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024. Beaver Co Emergency Services Unit via Chuck Grassley/Handout via Reuters

Can the FBI Use Forensics to Find the Bullets Now?

Wray testified that it was conceivable that a bullet could have wounded Trumps ear and could have also landed somewhere else.

The FBIs standard procedure uses a metal detector to hunt for bullets at a crime scene, but its not uncommon for investigators to be unable to recover everything.

[The bullet] can bury itself into the ground, even beyond the bleachers, Harrigan explained. Theres a chance we can never find them.

What About the Photos of the Bullet Whizzing Past Trumps Face?

Doug Mills, a veteran NYT photographer, appeared to capture the image of a bullet streaking past Trumps head https://t.co/UPCxxdGO8u pic.twitter.com/gcTLH9G0w6  philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 14, 2024

The famous New York Times photo of what appears to be a bullet careening towards Trumps face has punctuated the drama of the historic moment while providing very little additional context. An investigation by The New York Times found that the photo likely captured a bullet flying past Trumps face, but the bullet itself was probably flying too low to be the one to have allegedly struck Trump.

So, Whats Next in the FBIs Investigation?

Although the FBI has specialized technology to track the trajectory of bullets, it could be well after Election Day until the agency is able to answer some of the biggest questions looming over the assassination attempt on the former president, Harrigan said.

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned from the agency Tuesday after being grilled by lawmakers at her own committee hearing, and admitted full responsibility for the security failure.

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.
NH moose population on decline, and it's harder to spot them

The Pemi Valley Moose Tours offer visitors a chance to see moose in the wild.

Moose are iconic to New Hampshires landscape. To lovers of the large, cold-climate animals, they represent the wilderness of northern New England. But its not always easy to find them.

I have only seen a moose twice despite living in New Hampshire for 25 years. So I decided to go on a moose tour with my producer, Mary McIntyre, whos never seen a moose before.

Its a dream of mine, she says, standing near a moose sculpture in the Lincoln parking lot for our moose tour. We are determined to make the dream come true tonight.

Moose are most active at dusk and dawn so we board the Pemi Valley Moose Tour bus at 8 p.m. Larry Hartle runs this operation, and he says hes extended the length of the tour because now its harder to find moose in the area. This means, we likely be done between 11 p.m. and midnight.

"[If it's] 11 that means we struck it rich out there with the moose," Hartle says. "[If it's] midnight, it means the moose are making us work because every night's a little bit different.

The moose population in New Hampshire has significantly declined over the years. According to New Hampshire Fish and Game, there were about 7,000 moose here in the year 2000. Now, the population is half of that.

So the tour guides have to get really familiar with the animals favorite haunts. One of those guides, Eric Pyra, warns us the moose can be unpredictable.

This is our 26th summer of doing it. And we know where they tend to be, but not always where they're going to be, Pyra says. It used to be like fishing in a barrel. There's a moose, there's a moose. Now it's a little tougher, but we're pretty stubborn.

Climate change holds some responsibility for their decline. Winter ticks and brainworm are two parasites that are devastating moose here. Those parasites would normally be staved off by deep snow and cold temperatures, but now theyre enabled by the warmer winters in New Hampshire.

Larry Hartle, the founder of Pemi Valley Moose Tours, checks a visitor in before the tour starts.

On the tour bus, Pyra and Hartle are trying to bring moose sightings into being with positive thoughts, or as they call it, "moose mojo."

That's positive energy to bring the moose, Hartle explains to the crowd on the bus. Do you guys have it tonight? The crowd cheers before being led into a moose cheerleading chant.

The tour guides work the crowd, playing educational videos on moose, moose-themed music, and colored dancing lights that turn this moose search into a disco.

But after nearly four hours of scanning the forests with spotlights, it looks like the mojo isnt working tonight. We leave the bus around midnight without seeing a moose. The guides are heartbroken on our behalf.

A little bit of a rough night. All right, a lot of a rough night, Pyra says.

At the beginning of the tour, Hartle reminded the crowd that the moose are wild animals, not performers.

The moose teach us a lesson every now and then, says Pyra.

But there are plenty of times when the moose mojo is with the guides. Just a few nights later, three moose made an appearance on the Pemi Valley Moose Tour.

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: NH moose population on decline, and it's harder to spot them
'Nightmare': Wildfires burn one of most beautiful places in the world

A welcome rain was falling Friday over parts of western Canada, where wildfires have been devastating some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the country  and the world.

Two fires moving at speeds of more than 60 miles-an-hour converged in the Canadian Rockies on Wednesday, burning through the town of Jasper  along the Athabasca River in Alberta, Canada  destroying nearly a third of its structures.

More than 25,000 residents and visitors were evacuated this week from the tourist town and surrounding Jasper National Park, officials said.

US wildfires: Park Fire swells to over 164,000 acres; thousands of residents under evacuation orders

Rain and cooler temperatures helped to subdue the fire somewhat on Thursday, officials said, but the fire is still burning. Firefighters continued to fight fires in the town, moving from one building to another on Thursday, according to an update from Parks Canada.

A male elk crosses the Yellowhead Highway, a route roughly followed by Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain Pipeline through the Rocky Mountains, in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada November 14, 2016.

Theres no denying this is the worst nightmare for any community, said Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.

For many generations, the town of Jasper and the park surrounding it have been a source of pride with some of the most beautiful scenery in the entire, in the world, said Smith, as she was overcome by emotion.

A general view shows the Howse Pass Viewpoint between the Banff and Jasper national parks, in Alberta, on September 9, 2022.

How much of Jasper was damaged in the fires?

Of 1,113 structures in the town of Jasper, 358 of them were destroyed in this week's fire, according to a Friday update from the incident command team overseeing the firefighting effort, which includes Parks Canada.

The fire is estimated at roughly 88,000 acres in size, although areas within that perimeter may be only partially burned or not burned at all.

Firefighters said they were able to protect the towns critical facilities, including the hospital, emergency services buildings, both the elementary and junior/senior schools, an activity center and the wastewater treatment plant.

The fire damaged a number of bridges throughout the national park, including the Moberly Bridge and the Old Fort Point Bridge, the park said. Bridges on the regions famed Icefields Parkway will be assessed for structural damage, and parks officials said that would slow down access to the picturesque Maligne Lake southeast of town.

The most significant structural damage occurred on the towns southwest side, officials said Thursday.

Crews continue to fight the fire "and we remain focused on making it safe for the people of Jasper to come home," the Friday morning update stated. The area remains closed for public safety and the evacuation order remains in effect.

Jaspers residents and visitors scoured social media posts for news this week trying to get word about their community.

Bishop Stephen London with the Anglican Diocese of Edmonton confirmed in a Facebook post that the St. Mary and St. George Anglican Church in Jasper was destroyed by the flames.

Jasper Mayor Richard Ireland called the fire an unprecedented challenge.

The blaze ravaged Jasper, Ireland said in an update. The destruction and loss that many of you are facing and feeling is beyond description and comprehension.

What is Jasper, Canada known for?

"Known for its vast wilderness, majestic peaks, abundant wildlife and outstanding natural beauty, visitors from all over Canada and round the world travel here to experience this very special place," Parks Canada's website says.

Jasper is a tourist destination for those who visit the Rockies and Jasper National Park. The park is a World Heritage Site with more than 2 million visitors a year passing through the gates, according to the towns website. Tourists travel the Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff National Parks and visit Athabasca Falls and Athabasca Glacier.

Idyllic scene in Maligne Lake in Alberta's Jasper National Park in 2016.

One of Canada's national treasures, the park boasts over 2.7 million acres and is the largest in the Canadian Rockies. It was established as Jasper Forest Park reserve in 1907 and became a national park in 1930. About 70 species of mammals live there, according to National Geographic, including grizzly bears, moose and elk. The park serves as a preserve for species of wildlife that have declined in other areas.

Whats the Athabasca Glacier?

The Columbia Icefield is the largest remnant of a thick ice mass that once covered much of the area in the Canadian Rockies. The Athabasca Glacier flows from the icefield and down into the valley, where tourists can walk up to the toe of the glacier, following a series of markers that show how much the warming climate has melted the glacier.

Athabasca Falls in Jasper National Park in 2016. Parts of the park were burned over in a fire on July 24-25, 2024.

The Athabasca has been averaging a retreat of about 16 feet a year. In 2023, when global average temperatures were their hottest on record, the Athabasca Glacier saw more glacial melt than in any of the previous 10 years, according to Parks Canada.

Contributing: Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Jasper wildfires: Iconic, beautiful national park damaged
Former U.N. Ambassador and Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley waves to the crowd after speaking on stage on the second day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 16, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Delegates, politicians, and the Republican faithful are in Milwaukee for the annual convention, concluding with former President Donald Trump accepting his party's presidential nomination. The RNC takes place from July 15-18. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said there is plenty to criticize Vice President Kamala Harris for without bringing up her race or gender, advising fellow Republicans to focus on her policies instead.

Its not helpful. Its not helpful, Haley told Jake Tapper in a CNN interview aired Thursday evening in response to a question about some Republicans calling her a DEI hire. (DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.)

Were talking about a liberal senator who literally has not accomplished very much, Haley said about the U.S. senator from California from 2017 to 2021. You dont need to talk about what she looks like or what gender she is to talk about that.

With President Joe Biden ending his re-election bid, Harris is now the likely Democratic candidate. During the primary, Haley predicted that Biden, now 81, would not complete a second term, saying repeatedly that a vote for him would be a vote for Harris as president.

Earlier this week, Politico reported that GOP House leadership told members to stop calling Harris a DEI candidate  suggesting shes in her position due to her race and gender rather than achievement. The DEI comments drew instant backlash as being racist.

Harris is not only the first female vice president but also the first Black and South Asian to hold that position. (Her father is from Jamaica and her mother is from India.)

She is also, Haley said, far more liberal than the American people want in a president. And, at 59, she is significantly younger than Biden.

Look, the Democrats are very smart to put in a younger candidate. I think thats what America has craved, but I think (with Harris)  they put in the weakest candidate they could put in, Haley said in the CNN interview, which the cable TV outlet touted as her first interview since endorsing Trump.

Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, did not endorse Trump as she exited the race in March.

In May, during an interview at the Hudson Institute, she explained why shes voting for Trump but still stopped short of giving an endorsement. It wasnt until she addressed the Republican National Convention last week that she gave her full support.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said she will vote for former President Donald Trump during an event at the Hudson Institute on May 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. Haley, who challenged Trump, her former boss, for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, was named the Walter P. Stern Chair of the institution. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

But, she told Tapper, she is not looking to join his administration again if Trump wins in November.

Im not looking for a job in his administration, she said when asked about future plans. I dont know whether I would run again. I think you never say never, but I dont know how you could be someone who goes through all that and says oh, lets run for president again.

Haley, who was appointed by Trump to be his first ambassador to the United Nations, ended the race as his last rival. Before she dropped out in early March, the contest got personal.

Haley not only questioned the mental competence of both Biden and Trump but also called the former president a chicken for refusing to debate her. Trump called her birdbrain and questioned the whereabouts of her husband, who was deployed in Africa with the South Carolina National Guard at the time.

At the time, Haley said Trumps comments on her husband showed hes not qualified to be president and characterized them as an attack on the military. In the interview with Tapper, Haley said she did not take Trumps comments personally.

I know Donald Trump. Hes going to throw something just to get people upset, she said of his remarks. But what I do feel bad, is for those who are serving.

She did not back away from anything she said during the primary.

I said a lot of tough things about him in the campaign. He said a lot of tough things about me in the campaign. Thats what happens in campaigns, she said. I dont think we need to apologize or take anything back. I dont plan on doing that.

Haley also repeated that she does not agree with all of Trumps positions. And she criticized Trumps running mate, Ohio Sen. J. D. Vance, for skipping a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Congress on Wednesday.

Harris also skipped the presentation for a speech in Indianapolis, instead of presiding over the presentation in her role as president of the Senate. Both Vance and Harris should have attended the speech, Haley said.

What does that say to the people of Israel? More importantly, what did you just tell the Iranians, because they love what theyre getting right now, if she wont even do her official job there? Haley said. Should J.D. Vance have been there? Yes, of course. We need to show a united front when it comes to Israel.

Netanyahus speech promised victory over Hamas militants in Israels war in the Gaza strip, now in its ninth month.

Hamas militants launched a surprise attack into Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, killing more than 1,100 people and taking upwards of 200 hostages. Israel retaliated with a war that has killed some 39,000 people in Gaza, according to Gaza health authorities in the Hamas-controlled territory.

Harris and Biden each met with Netanyahu separately on Thursday. Afterward, Harris described her meeting as constructive. In her post-meeting remarks, she also expressed concern about civilians killed by Israels offensive, saying I will not be silent.
Nikki Haley denounces GOP attacks on Kamala Harris over race, gender as 'not helpful'

During a wide-ranging interview Thursday about the state of the 2024 election, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley admonished Republican attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris over her race, age, and gender as "not helpful."

"There are so many issues we can talk about when it comes to Kamala Harris, that it doesn't matter what she looks like," Haley told CNN host Jake Tapper. "It matters what she said, what she's fought for, and the lack of results that she's had because of it."

Haleys comments came after Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week blasted Harris, who recently secured enough delegate endorsements to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, for her identity as a Black woman and person of South Asian descent.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., called Haley a "DEI hire," and "DEI vice president," while Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc., said Democrats chose Harris to replace President Joe Biden on the presidential ticket "because of her ethnic background."

'We believe in the promise of America': Kamala Harris attacks Trump convictions, touts American freedom in first campaign video

Haley on former attacks by Trump: 'That's what happens in campaigns'

Haley faced similar racially charged attacks while running for the GOP presidential nomination this year, including from former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly misspelled her birthname, Nimarata, as "Nimrada."

It was far from the only personal jab Trump leveled at Haley  or that she threw his way -- during the campaign. Trump at one point mocked Haleys husband, who was deployed overseas, and she questioned the ex-president's mental fitness.

Despite that heated rhetoric, the former Ambassador to the United Nations endorsed her former boss earlier this month.

When asked Thursday about whether the campaign insults and criticisms were water under the bridge, Haley said: "That's what happens in campaigns. I don't think we need to apologize or take anything back. I don't plan on doing that."

As for whether she believes Trump would follow the Constitution if elected again, Haley said she hopes he does.

"I hope that any President would follow the Constitution and the American people need to demand that," she added.

During the heat of the GOP primary, she responded to the same question with "I dont know."

The former South Carolina governor also noted that shes keeping options for her political future open. But don't expect Haley to take a role in a potential Trump administration  she said she's not looking for a job" from the ex-president.

In terms of another presidential run? You never say never," Haley remarked.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nikki Haley on Kamala Harris: GOP attacks over race are 'not helpful'
LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (KTSM)  New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was in the City of Crosses on Thursday, July 25 hosting a town hall meeting to discuss the issues of public safety.

I was doing a lot of these kinds of town halls on a number of issues around 2019. And actually I started some of those roundtable discussions about the economy and public safety and education and a number of things right here in Las Cruces, and then COVID and fires and floods and all relatively hard to deal with. But nonetheless, its been too long since weve had just a public discussion, Lujan Grisham said.

That was Lujan Grishams opening statement, as she addressed a packed and lively house, with the meeting running several minutes late to accommodate the large turnout.

The meeting ran well over three hours long. People across different walks of life described their experiences surrounding crime and the dangers of their everyday lives.

The governor addressed their concerns and discussed an array of topics and issues, but the recurring theme was crime and how it correlates to people with behavioral and mental issues being released back into the streets.

Since 2017, more than 16,000 cases have been dismissed in New Mexico courts for competency, Lujan Grisham said.

The governor said over 3,000 of them are released after committing very dangerous felonies, such as rape, attempted murder, drug and human trafficking.

Lujan Grisham explained the issue, adding that theyre released by judges because theyre deemed incompetent to stand trial before a judge.

She said this is a good standard in the legal process. Otherwise they would just prosecute people unfairly, but the problem she said is that people with mental health issues are released back into the streets without getting treatment.

How many of you in this audience believe that somebody with a severe drug addiction and/or mental illness is all better and ready to go in seven days after being in the hospital? Raise your hand if you think that can work. Well, that is what the state of New Mexico, under the current laws, thinks is helping. It is not, Lujan Grisham said.

The New Mexico Legislature recently completed a one-day special session on public safety in which they did not consider any of the governors proposals, according to multiple New Mexico news outlets.

Lujan Grisham said she welcomed creative solutions, and talked about what shes trying to do to address the issue.

There are actually two bills: commitment and competency. It gives judges the tools to give people who are, frankly, extremely dangerous and repeat felons. It gives them a tool to do something about it. The only tool they have now is to have them right back in the community, she said.

She spoke with our KTSM crews ahead of the meeting about what the goal of the meeting was.

We cannot have people who are both dangerous to themselves and dangerous to others in a situation where theyre not getting fair, constitutionally sound mandated treatment. So I am going to talk about that tonight. Because we have a chance in New Mexico to change those laws, Lujan Grisham.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTSM 9 News.
NM governor says special session was not fair, but she wont punish wildfire survivors for it

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham listens during a town hall she hosted in Las Cruces about public safety. (Photo by Danielle Prokop / Source NM)

More than a week after a contentious special legislative session, New Mexicos governor still has not signed the single piece of legislation lawmakers sent to her desk.

As part of a wide ranging five-hour-long town hall meeting in Las Cruces on Thursday night, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham talked about House Bill 1, the only proposal lawmakers voted to pass on July 18.

Jodi McGinnis Porter, a spokesperson for the governor, said Friday that Lujan Grisham and her staff are still reviewing the bill.

The legislation, called the feed bill, asks the governor to spend $211,900 for the special session itself, along with $100 million in relief for survivors of the South Fork and Salt fires in southeastern New Mexico.

If signed, it would also give $3 million to the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts to pay for assisted outpatient treatment and competency diversion pilot programs.

While the governor is seeking reforms to the laws governing these kinds of behavioral health programs, the bill would leave the law untouched and simply fund existing programs or those that are already legal.

After the Legislature adjourned on July 18, Senate Majority Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe) asked the governor not to use her line-item veto power to remove the pilot project money.

Lujan Grisham said Thursday the legislation gives me pause, and the existing treatment programs the bill would fund are not evidence-based. However, she conceded we do have to invest money in the kind of health care infrastructure that we should have.

I didnt ask for all that money in the special; I wasnt going to ask for all that money in the special, Lujan Grisham said at the town hall in Las Cruces. I wanted six or seven public safety bills, and I did encourage them to spend money in Lincoln County, and I dont regret that at all.

Lincoln County residents, along with people from nearby Otero County and Mescalero Apache, are still facing issues with the aftermath of the fires that burned thousands of homes. Rain calmed the fires, but flooding followed. Recovery is still ongoing.

Punishing people in Lincoln County for the failure to address public safety doesnt seem to me to be the design that I am all that interested in, but I havent signed the bill yet, Lujan Grisham said.

She said theres other stuff in the bill I need to take a look at.

An audience member in Las Cruces asked why Lujan Grisham didnt delay the special session once it became clear Democrats in both chambers were united in opposition to her bills. She responded by saying lawmakers promised a fair process, and I will tell you: it was not fair.

Im not a stranger to how the Legislature works, and I dont appreciate that any body of government doesnt play fair, she said.

Lujan Grisham said she has been asked to call a special session on public safety almost every year since Ive been governor.

I rejected that, to try to figure it out, and now it is clear to me that I need the public more involved because what the Legislature basically said to me is that, Nobody wants us to deal with this issue, and that they didnt have time, she said. I reject that. They had lots of time.
COLOMBO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Election Commission announced on Friday that the country's presidential election will be held on Sept. 21.

The Election Commission also announced Aug. 15 as the date of nomination of candidates for the election of the president, according to the gazette notification issued in this regard.

The term of the president expires on Nov. 17, 2024 and the poll for the election of the president shall be taken not less than one month and not more than two months before the expiration of the term of the incumbent president, as stipulated in the constitution, according to the Election Commission.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who won the presidential election in November 2019, resigned from the post in July 2022 amid a severe economic crisis in the South Asian country.

Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected as president in an election held in parliament following Rajapaksa's resignation. 
Actors used giant puppets depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American President Joe Biden to illustrate the latter's unconditional support for the former's ongoing war on Gaza. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)

At a mock peoples trial of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Santa Fe Plaza on Wednesday night, pro-Palestinian activists imagined what it would look like for authorities to hold him accountable, rather than inviting him to speak in Congress.

The street theater production coincided with mass protests against Netanyahus visit to U.S. lawmakers in Washington D.C. It was two months after International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan announced he was seeking an arrest warrant to charge Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza.

Actors dressed in all red played the role of President Joe Bidens red line, and held a silent procession from the Santa Fe railyard to the Plaza, where they met more actors who worked with oversized puppets of Netanyahu and Biden. Others played the role of Palestinian babies wrapped in white sheets who have been killed by Israel.

They depicted the American president handing gifts to the Israeli prime minister, which they said includes $14.3 billion in military aid; defunding UNRWA, the primary U.N. aid agency for Palestinians; vetoes of U.N. resolutions critical of Israel; and support for its ongoing war on Gaza.

Netanyahu, we charge you with the crime of apartheid and illegal occupation, said Dr. Fatima van Hattum, who presided over the mock trial.

Guilty, the crowd shouted in response.

After nine months, officials have counted at least 39,000 Palestinians killed in Israels war on Gaza. The actual death toll is probably much higher when including the indirect health implications of armed conflict beyond the direct harm from violence.

Israels destruction of infrastructure, prevention of entry to aid convoys carrying basic medicine, and the targeting of hospitals has led to rampant cases of Hepatitis A, food poisoning, and skin infections.

Even though the virus that causes polio was eradicated in Gaza years ago, the World Health Organization and Palestinian health officials said they found it in samples of sewage water last week. WHO said Israels war on Gaza has created the perfect environment for diseases like polio to spread.

The group who wrote the play based it in part on two recent rulings by the International Court of Justice: The court said in January what Israel is doing in Gaza could plausibly be considered genocide, and then ruled on July 19 that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law.

Van Hattum said it is everyones obligation to uphold the Genocide Convention and international law.

Since our government wont, and in fact would rather give Netanyahu a standing ovation in Congress, were here to do that today with a citizens arrest, she said.

The Netanyahu puppet was shackled with paper handcuffs, and walked away from the center of the Santa Fe Plaza where the show took place. Arrest him, the crowd chanted.

The production was put together by Jo Redline, a Santa Fe artist and community organizer with decades of experience in puppeteering and street theater. They said a Jewish elder in the group Santa Feans for Justice in Palestine asked them to put on a demonstration against Netanyahus arrival in Congress.

It wouldnt be happening if we werent sending the bombs, if we werent defunding UNRWA, Redline said. Were actually at fault.

None of New Mexicos five members of Congress attended Netanyahus speech, joining more than 100 other lawmakers who were absent.

While Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris chose not to preside over the joint session where Netanyahu spoke, she met with him privately on Thursday.

In a statement on Wednesday morning, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez described Israels war on Gaza as indiscriminate, and said rather than attending Netanyahus speech, she would meet with families of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, and other Israelis and Palestinians focused on fostering peace in the region.

I have heard from countless constituents who have asked me to send a message to Prime Minister Netanyahu, she said. My decision not to attend today sends a strong message that enough is enoughits time for Netanyahu to stop his indiscriminate war on Gaza and work toward peace.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury previously said Netanyahu and his military leaders have shown a blatant disregard for civilian life and have clearly and repeatedly crossed the red line.

Escalation is a clear violation of human rights, in addition to the continued blockage of humanitarian aid to civilians in need of food, water, and medicine, Stansbury said. Desperately needed aid must be allowed to pass.

Van Hattum asked the crowd to keep pressuring politicians; join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement along with local groups for racial justice, gender justice, and climate justice; and do not stop talking about Palestine, especially as we approach the election.

Redline said the theater production met a need for inspiration and vigilance among activists and anyone opposed to the war on Gaza.

We need to keep witnessing, we need to keep calling, we need to keep doing everything we can, they said.

The end of the production was a large puppet depicting a Palestinian woman, and representing Palestinian liberation.

We dont just want a ceasefire; we want liberation for Palestinian people, Redline said.
TIMES SQUARE, Manhattan (PIX11)  July is Fibroids Awareness Month and a local nonprofit held its annual event Thursday, aimed at not only raising awareness but also supporting women battling the condition.

It was a powerful evening of solidarity as attendees leaned on each other at the Fibroid Fighters Foundations fourth annual Night in Bloom event. Eugenia Buie, of Westchester County, shared her story of battling fibroids, which are non-cancerous growths inside the uterus, for decades.

More Local News

When I was working out I used to feel like maybe Im dehydrated, Buie said. Come to find out it was actually the fibroids because the blood supply thats supposed to be going through your body was actually being harvested by the fibroid.

Buie is now an ambassador for the nonprofit. She hopes her story will allow other women to know theyre not alone on their journey to recovery.

When I was able to identify that I wasnt alone because I had somebody that could be going through what Im going through, I said, Oh no, said Buie. I have to do my part in helping my sisters get free. I might not know you but were still sisters. I dont care what color you are.

The event, held at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square, was marked by empowering speeches from notable names like Bravo TVs Cynthia Bailey. She highlighted both the struggle millions of women face daily and the importance of raising awareness.

A lot of women still dont know what options they have to actually get on the other side of fibroids, Bailey said. A lot of women still think that hysterectomy is the only answer and that is absolutely the last resort you should ever take.

According to Dr. Yan Katsnelson, who founded the nonprofit, 40 million women experience fibroids across the country. He wants women to know about all available treatment options, including uterine fibroid embolization.

80% of black women and 70% of white women by age of 50 develop this condition, Dr. Katsnelson said.

Organizers hope these powerful stories of resilience will inspire a community of hope, as the nonprofit continues its unwavering commitment to education and support for womens 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 PIX11.
New North Carolina Music Office to Promote and Invest in States Music Industry

This article was originally published in EducationNC.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has announced the creation of a North Carolina Music Office to bolster and honor the states music industry and its artists by investing in the industry and creating music programming.

North Carolinas vibrant music industry is a key part of our states creative economy, driving economic growth and supporting nearly 45,000 jobs, Cooper said in a press release. An official N.C. Music Office will support this growing and important industry.

The office will raise awareness of North Carolinas musical heritage and education efforts while promoting economic development within the state through the music industry.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

This new office will be based within the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (DNCR) and will be equipped with a team to create a state music strategy through partnerships with several groups, including the N.C. Arts Council, the N.C. Museum of Art, the N.C. Museum of History, the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, the N.C. African American Heritage Commission, the N.C. American Indian Heritage Commission, and more.

The offices team will also partner with organizations such as Visit NC, the N.C. Department of Commerce, and PBS North Carolina.

Educational content will also remain part of the offices efforts, with collaboration planned between DNCR educators and the N.C. Arts Council, state symphony, and state museums to generate educational programming, said Michele Walker, public information officer for the DNCR.

The Department of Natural and Cultural Resources is uniquely positioned to support the new North Carolina Music Office thanks to our already robust cultural and educational programming centered on North Carolina music, said DNCR Secretary Reid Wilson in the release. We are excited to expand our resources and opportunities for the states thriving music industryone that creates jobs and improves quality of life in all 100 counties.

Cooper made the announcement on June 21 while proclaiming the day Make Music Day. A few other states such as Texas, Louisiana, and Tennessee also have state-supported music offices, according to Coopers office.

This article first appeared on EducationNC and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Chattooga County is the first north Georgia school district to welcome students back to class on Friday morning.

But its not just the kids celebrating their first day.

Michelle Helie is taking over as the Superintendent of Chattooga County Schools for the 2024-2025 school year. She previously served as the assistant superintendent.

She takes over for former Superintendent Jared Hosmer.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Helie expressed her excitement to students, parents and staff in a letter sent out before the first day of school.

As your new superintendent, I am honored to serve in a community dedicated to excellence and deeply rooted traditions, she wrote.

She goes on to thank returning students and families for their support and trust and welcomes new families.

MORE BACK 2 SCHOOL:

The new superintendent also highlights the passion and commitment of teachers and staff.

As we embark on this new school year, lets embrace the opportunities and challenges ahead with optimism and determination. Together, we will foster a culture of excellence, respect, and inclusivity where every student is supported and valued, she wrote.

For a full list of when school districts across metro Atlanta and north Georgia head back to school, click here.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]
North Jersey woman identified as one of two killed in Maine airplane crash

A North Jersey woman was among two people killed in a plane that crashed in Maine Thursday, hours after departing a Morris County airport, authorities said.

Christina Chung, 57, of Livingston, was a passenger in the single-engine Cirrus SR22 piloted by 71-year-old Michael Leibowitz, of Charleston, South Carolina, when it crashed and caught fire just off the runway at Hancock-Bar Harbor Airport in Trenton, Maine, said Shannon Moss, a spokesperson for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The plane took off from Morristown Municipal Airport around 10:16 a.m. with the two aboard and crashed on approach near the end of the runway shortly before 12:30 p.m.

"The single engine aircraft had caught fire upon impact and was destroyed," Moss said.

The plane is registered to Miller High Life Aviation, FAA records show. It was not immediately clear on Friday who owns that company.

The plane had made seven trips since July 17, and had last flown from Farmingdale, New York, to the Morristown airport Wednesday evening before departing Morristown on Thursday, according to FlightAware.

Reports say it was very foggy at the airport on Thursday afternoon, although it remains unknown what caused the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating.

Email: lcomstock@njherald.com; Twitter: @LoriComstockNJH or on Facebook.

This article originally appeared on New Jersey Herald: Livingston NJ woman identified as victim in Maine plane crash
U.S. attorney Kate Brubacher announces the indictment and reward for Rim Jong Hyok during a July 25, 2024, news conference at the federal courthouse in Kansas City, Kansas. On the right is George Brown, a Department of Justice attorney (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector).

KANSAS CITY, Kan.  Federal authorities on Thursday announced the indictment of a North Korea man accused of launching ransomware attacks on hospitals in Kansas and other states, then using the bounty to finance cyber attacks on military bases and defense contractors.

Rim Jong Hyok, a member of North Koreas military intelligence agency, faces federal charges of conspiracy to hack computers and conspiracy to launder money. Federal authorities are offering up to a $10 million reward for information about Hyok and the cybersecurity attacks.

The FBIs Kansas City field office led the investigation, which began with a May 2021 ransomware attack against an unnamed Kansas hospital. Hyoks group, known in the private sector as Andariel, also attacked health care providers in Arkansas, Florida and Colorado, and a health care advocacy group in Connecticut.

The group used the ransom payments to lease virtual private servers that were used to launch attacks on NASA, Randolph Air Force Base in Texas, Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia, and defense companies in California, Michigan, Oregon, Massachusetts, China, Taiwan and South Korea.

In total, the FBI identified 17 victims between May 2021 and March 2023.

Cybersecurity is critical to the systems and structures that uphold our way of life, said U.S. attorney Kate Brubacher. This indictment demonstrates our resolve to use every tool to protect the integrity of American organizations from foreign intrusion.

Brubacher announced the indictment of Hyok during a news conference at the federal courthouse in Kansas City, Kansas, alongside Stephen Cyrus, special agent in charge of the FBIs Kansas City field office, and attorneys involved in the case.

Hyok was a member of North Koreas Reconnaissance General Bureau, a military intelligence agency, and was last known to be living in North Korea.

The group used a previously unseen malware tool called Maui to seize control of the Kansas hospitals servers and left behind a ransom note that threatened to post all your files on the Internet unless a cryptocurrency payment was made.

Please do not waste your time! You have 48 hours only! the note said. After that the Main server will double your price. Let us know if you have any questions.

The hospital quickly agreed to make the payment, and also contacted the FBI, which began its investigation.

Cyrus said the North Korea group laundered the ransom money it received from hospitals and used the funds to launch attacks on some of our most sophisticated military weapons systems.

Our cyber adversaries use ransomware operations for financial gain, to steal proprietary information from our most advanced tech companies, and disrupt our critical infrastructure, Cyrus said.

The FBI was able to identify a cryptocurrency account linked to the scheme and recover funds that are in the process of being returned to the victims.

A federal grand jury this week indicted Hyok on the conspiracy charges. The hacking charge would carry a sentence of up to five years, and the money laundering charge would carry a sentence of up to 20 years, according to court records.

The U.S. State Departments Rewards for Justice program is offering up to $10 million for information leading to the identification of any person, including Hyok, who is acting under the control of a foreign government and engages in malicious cyber activities. Officials said the money is not meant to be a bounty.

We use every tool in our efforts to fight malware and ransomware attackers, and this is one tool, said Brubacher, the federal prosecutor. We are working closely with international partners. And certainly there could be regime change in North Korea. This is one step in pursuing justice against Rim, and borders will not stop us.

This story was originally published by Kansas Reflector, a States Newsroom affiliate.
Transferring between North Texas colleges could get easier because of an effort to prevent students from losing credits and help them stay on track to finish their degrees.

Four Dallas-area schools  Dallas College, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Texas Womans University and the University of North Texas at Dallas  are partnering to improve the pipeline from community college to four-year universities. The schools are introducing joint academic advising and new programs of study to help students pick courses that will transfer between the schools and count toward their bachelors degrees.

More than 13,000 Texas students who transferred from a two-year college to a university in the fall of 2022 did not receive credit for at least one of the courses they completed, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Those students did not get credit for about 21,000 community college courses because those credits fell outside of their new schools degree requirements.

Students lose time and money when they take classes that dont end up counting toward their degrees. The setback can discourage them from seeking or completing their bachelors degree altogether. Those who do complete their degrees are not graduating fast enough, which delays their entry into the workforce and makes going to college more expensive.

The partnership between the Dallas-area schools includes three new programs of study in high demand fields  business, education and health sciences. The schools have agreed on what Dallas College courses will be counted for credit if students transfer to related majors at the Texas A&M Commerce, TWU and UNT-Dallas.

The collaborative will simplify the process by providing clear, concise information for students, UNT-Dallas President Warren von Eschenbach said. It's really building the bridge across that pipeline between the two-year and the four-year institutions.

The new programs of study mimic Texas Direct, a state transfer initiative that identified courses from several majors that would be guaranteed to transfer to any public university in the state.

The Dallas-area schools will also launch an online portal in the fall where prospective students will be able to see how their credits will be counted across the schools and track their progress toward degrees.

Texas legislators changed how they finance community colleges last year in part to incentivize transfers. Community colleges now get more money when their students earn at least 15 semester credit hours before enrolling in a four-year university.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University and University of North Texas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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!
In April the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) finalized its Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) regulations, after being criticized by conservative lawmakers and religious organizations. Part of the update included a clarification that accommodations, like a leave of absence, applied to abortion care. But now since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference, which made it possible for Congress to rely on federal expertise when implementing a wide range of policy measures, conservative judges in lower courts can seek to reverse expert policies for ideological reasons  and that applies to policies regarding reproductive care.

As reported by Bloomberg Law this week, a coalition of 17 Republican attorneys general told a federal appeals court that the recent decision to overturn the Chevron deference should bring back their challenge to the EEOCs pregnancy regulation. In other words, theyre trying to leverage the Chevron ruling to remove the EEOCs approved leave of absence for abortion care. The move appears to be part of a more comprehensive anti-abortion plan to lean on the Chevron ruling to dismantle reproductive rights further.

A Chevron ruling says that government regulations, or when the agency passes a rule, if it is not strictly required by the statute that Congress passed, then a court may invalidate the rule, David S. Cohen, a professor of law at Drexel Kline's School of Law, explained to Salon. Previously, it was up to the agency to determine clarity in cases where there was vague language from Congress. But the ruling in the Chevron case says now it's up to the judges to answer that question. Depending on the judge, the decision could be made through an ideological lens.

That's not the only possible threat to reproductive health care. Cohen provided Salon with another example: under Obamacare, preventative medicine must be covered, which includes birth control.

Now, the conservative federal judiciary might say birth control, under our reading of the statute is not preventive medicine, so the agency went too far in requiring birth control, Cohen said. It used to be that the agency got a lot of deference. Preventive medicine is broad, its vague, so it's up to the agency to determine what the rule is when you've got vague language from Congress.

But now its up to the judges.

In late June, the U.S. Supreme Court voted along party lines in a historic decision against the government in a pair of cases  Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. The ruling set a precedent of gutting the power of regulatory agencies to protect the environment and consumers. Gautham Rao, a professor of legal history at American University, told Salon at the time that the case had "historic implications" as an attack "on what we call the administrative state." Reproductive rights advocates worry that the implications will extend beyond environmental protections.

Leila Abolfazli, director of National Abortion Strategy at the National Women's Law Center Action Fund, told Salon she fully expects conservative justices to now start making claims that due to the decision in the Loper Bright case, some regulations related to reproductive rights can be revisited by the lower courts instead of federal agencies.

But I will say that, with or without Loper Bright, the parties were making these claims, and some courts were open to them, Abolfazli said. But Loper Bright certainly gives them sights and saying, No we get to decide what the law is, and it's XYZ, not what the administration said.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative Christian legal advocacy group that argued against the FDAs approval of mifepristone and lost, filed an amicus brief for the Loper Bright case that outlined how a ruling to overturn the Chevron deference could unravel access to abortion care. In the amicus brief, ADF argues that agencies are weaponizing federal healthcare laws to violate the right to life. It specifically called out Title X, EMTALA covering life-saving abortion care, and the mail delivery of mifepristone. It also called out a range of agencies like the EEOC, for forcing employers to pay for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and amputating healthy organs.

ADF definitely has a full, comprehensive plan on how it wants to take down abortion and other reproductive health care, Abolfazli said.

In regards to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, that litigation will likely continue, Abolfazli said.

But I think there's an overarching comment here on how destabilizing the Supreme Court is right now. They are making these grand, sweeping decisions, overturning precedent and then not providing the rules of engagement, Abolfazli said.

Cohen said that leveraging the Chevron case to unravel reproductive rights is yet another example that the anti-abortion movement is not stopping at abortion.

They are looking to do anything to restrict family planning, sexual health, reproductive health. It's not just about abortion, Cohen said. This is about anything related to sexual reproductive health and women's health too.
Misgivings over a cannabis companys track record in other states, including a citation in Colorado for selling to a minor and a lawsuit alleging labor law violations, prompted the Fresno City Council to unanimously reject its permit for a retail dispensary in southeast Fresno.

Colorado-based Yuma Way Cannabis Co. had already won approval from the citys Planning Commission in March for its proposed Fresno Farms weed shop at the northeast corner of Cesar Chavez Boulevard, formerly Kings Canyon Road, and Jackson Avenue, across the street from the Fresno Fairgrounds. The building is a former Mexican restaurant.

But City Councilmember Luis Chavez, whose district includes the location, appealed that decision and led the effort on Thursday to overturn the approval of a conditional use permit for the dispensary. Yuma Way has already received a retail cannabis license from the state Department of Cannabis Control, but local cities and counties have the final say by way of local zoning and permit requirements.

Yuma Way had originally applied for a site about six blocks to the west, at Cesar Chavez Boulevard between Eighth and Ninth streets  a site directly across the street from the Fresno Unified School Districts future Farber Education Campus.

The one concern Ive always had has been the location and making sure its not a detriment to the surrounding community (and) surrounding businesses, Chavez said.

Yuma Way operates 16 dispensaries in five states, including 10 in Colorado. Its lone California shop is in Oxnard, in Ventura County.

Earlier this year, Chavez was critical of the company for selecting its first site without knowing it was across the street from a school that was at that time not yet under construction. Then they again decided to get a location that, in my view, is in close proximity to a lot of sensitive places that I dont believe this is the right place for this, he said. The new location is about a quarter mile southeast of Roosevelt High School.

The citys codes prohibit cannabis businesses from operating within 800 feet of any school serving children in grades from pre-school through high school.

Last fall, Chavez challenged Yuma Way CEO Margarita Tsalyuk and other partners, twice asking if any of the companys stores had been cited or fined for selling cannabis products to minors. The representatives said no, but acknowledged misspeaking after Chavez provided information that one of the Colorado stores had run afoul of the law forbidding sales to minors.

In California, legal marijuana and cannabis products can only be sold to people age 21 or older, or 18 or older for people with a medical marijuana card.

Councilmember Tyler Maxwell said he was troubled after learning that Yuma Way is being sued for allegedly denying employees their mandatory break periods; Chavez said he also was concerned by the lawsuit.

The combination of factors including the underage sale, the site selection and the lawsuit shows a track record of the folks that were having come into our city, Chavez said.

Jessica Reuven, Yuma Ways chief compliance officer, told councilmembers via Zoom that the company is contesting the case, which she said was filed by one disgruntled employee. I hope that you guys will go with innocent until proven guilty, she said.

The company presented the city with petitions of support signed by more than 100 people, as well as several letters backing Yuma Ways efforts.

But the city also received letters of opposition from nearby residents and businesses. Jose Nino, who operates the Furniture and Mattress Superstore next door to the Yuma Way location, addressed the council Thursday representing about three dozen other businesses along Cesar Chavez Boulevard.

In a letter to the council, Nino wrote that having a dispensary close to the business will only have negative impact on my customers and put my business and surrounding businesses at risk of going out of business.

A dispensary will only promote decay and vagrancy to an already vulnerable area, he added.

Tsalyuk told The Fresno Bee by telephone on Thursday afternoon that she was saddened and frustrated by the councils vote.

We did everything they asked for, she said. We dotted all the is and crossed all the ts. ... We even offered to be closed during the Big Fresno Fair, and an additional condition imposed by the Planning Commission called for providing more armed security at the store during the fair and the annual Hmong New Year celebration at the fairgrounds.

As she and her partners digested the councils vote, Tsalyuk said all options are on the table, including possible legal action against the city. I felt that I had an agreement with the city, that we entered a contract with the city of Fresno, she said.

The company may also consider looking for yet another site in southeast Fresno, but is concerned that the same concerns would be raised again to challenge it. The councils vote is very narrow-minded, very sad, Tsalyuk said, adding that the council is doing the city a disservice by rejecting the permit application.

Fresno currently has 13 state-licensed dispensaries operating in the city  an increase of more than six-fold from a year ago when there were only two cannabis retailers.
WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that Israel has a right to defend itself, but how it does so matters.

Speaking to reporters after what she called a frank meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Harris said the Palestinian militant group Hamas triggered the war in Gaza when it massacred 1,200 people in October.

But Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden's exit from the race on Sunday, said she also remains concerned about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating  the images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time, she said. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.

Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington

Middle East: Could Harris bring back Democrats upset with Biden over war in Gaza?

Harris meeting with Netanyahu followed an earlier meeting on Thursday between the Israeli prime minister and Biden in the Oval Office. On Wednesday, Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress in which he slammed his Democratic critics in Washington and pro-Palestinian protesters across the U.S.

Harris meeting with Netanyahu was her first sit-down with a controversial foreign leader since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president this week. Netanyahu and the Biden administration's policy toward Israel have sparked outrage in the left flank of the party and contributed to the weakening of Biden as a candidate. Voters are watching closely for clues to see how she would handle the conflict in the Middle East if she wins the presidency.

Maggots and furious interns: Netanyahu DC visit sparks protests

Harris, whose husband is Jewish, said she stressed to the prime minister that it is time to finish the cease-fire and hostage plan that Biden detailed at the end of May. Negotiators have continued to pursue the deal in hopes it will bring about an eventual end to the war.

As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done, she said. So to everyone who has been calling for a cease-fire and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you and I hear you. Let's get the deal done.

Harris said she also remains committed to a path forward that could lead to a two-state solution.

I know right now it is hard to conceive of that prospect, but a two-state solution is the only path that ensures Israel remains a secure Jewish and democratic state and one that ensures Palestinians can finally realize the freedom, security and prosperity that they rightly deserve, she said.

Michael Collins covers the White House. Follow him on X @mcollinsNEWS.

More: VP Harris presses Israel on civilian deaths in Gaza. What does international law say?

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: VP Kamala Harris defends Israel but laments 'suffering' in Gaza
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Two ships dispatched by the China Coast Guard (CCG) on Friday set out for this year's patrol mission to enforce fishery laws on the high seas of the North Pacific Ocean.

The CCG ships, which departed from Qingdao in east China's Shandong Province, will carry out a 45-day patrol, said the CCG, adding that this year is CCG's ninth patrol for such inspections.

Over the past years, they have undertaken the inspections under relevant United Nations General Assembly resolution and the Convention on the Conservation and Management of High Seas Fisheries Resources in the North Pacific Ocean, the CCG said.

Efforts have been made to crack down on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities on the high seas of the North Pacific Ocean, contributing to the fishery order and the sustainable development of fishery resources, added the CCG. 
With nowhere else to hide, Gazans shelter in former prison

By Hatem Khaled

GAZA (Reuters) - After weeks of Israeli bombardment left them with nowhere else to go, hundreds of Palestinians have ended up in a former Gaza prison built to hold murderers and thieves.

Yasmeen al-Dardasi said she and her family passed wounded people they were unable to help as they evacuated from a district in the southern city of Khan Younis towards its Central Correction and Rehabilitation Facility.

They spent a day under a tree before moving on to the former prison, where they now live in a prayer room. It offers protection from the blistering sun, but not much else.

Dardasi's husband has a damaged kidney and just one lung, but no mattress or blanket.

"We are not settled here either," said Dardasi, who like many Palestinians fears she will be uprooted once again.

Israel has said it goes out of its way to protect civilians in its war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs Gaza and led the attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that sparked the latest conflict.

Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced several times, say nowhere is free of Israeli bombardment, which has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.

An Israeli air strike killed at least 90 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone in the Al-Mawasi area on July 13, the territory's health ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted Hamas' elusive military chief Mohammed Deif.

On Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Younis had killed 14 people.

Entire neighbourhoods have been flattened in one of the most densely populated places in the world, where poverty and unemployment have long been widespread.

According to the United Nations, nine in ten people across Gaza are now internally displaced.

Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family that they should flee for safety as tanks were on their way, she said. The family had no time to change so they left in their prayer clothes.

After sleeping outside on sandy ground, they too found refuge in the prison, among piles of rubble and gaping holes in buildings from the battles which were fought there. Inmates had been released long before Israel attacked.

"We didn't take anything with us. We came here on foot, with children walking with us," she said, adding that many of the women had five or six children with them and that water was hard to find.

She held her niece, who was born during the conflict, which has killed her father and brothers.

When Hamas-led gunmen burst into southern Israel from Gaza on Oct. 7 they killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the air and ground offensive Israel launched in response, Palestinian health officials say.

Hana Al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrived at the prison after being displaced six times.

If Egyptian, U.S. and Qatari mediators fail to secure a ceasefire they have long said is close, she and other Palestinians may be on the move once again. "Where should we go? All the places that we go to are dangerous," she said.

(Writing by Catherine Cartier; editing by Michael Georgy and Philippa Fletcher)
A Des Moines nurse who was criminally charged last year with conspiracy to deliver narcotics has agreed to stop practicing. (Photo illustration by Iowa Capital Dispatch; background photo by JGI/Jamie Grill/Getty Images)

A Des Moines nurse charged last year with conspiracy to deliver controlled substances has agreed to stop practicing.

Jennifer Spieker, 42, of Des Moines has signed an agreement with the Iowa Board of Nursing in which she has agreed to stop practicing nursing and have her license placed on suspended status.

The board says Spieker is currently under investigation, but it has not imposed any charges against her or publicly disclosed the reasons for its investigation or the license suspension. Her suspension is to remain in effect until further notice from the board.

Police records indicate that officers searched Spiekers home last November and reported finding one ounce of methamphetamine inside her bedroom among her possessions. According to the records, officers also found a large sum of U.S. currency, digital scales and packaging materials.

The officers also reported finding multiple containers of loose, various prescription pills, including 100 pills that were prescription-only. The pill bottles did not have Spiekers name or personal information of them and were not in the same containers in which they would have originally been dispensed, according to court records.

According to court records, Spieker was allegedly working in Iowa as a traveling nurse at the time, taking assignments from an employment agency and earning $100,000 per year.

Immediately after the search, Spieker was charged with conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and unlawful possession of a prescription drug. As part of the same criminal case, two other individuals who allegedly lived at, or did business at, the same house where Spieker lived are facing drug charges.

In March, with Spieker released from jail and awaiting trial, the Iowa Department of Correctional Services reported she had violated the terms of her pretrial release agreement by testing positive for methamphetamine.

A trial in Spiekers criminal case is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2024.
Photo courtesy of Essentia Health.

Take a seat in the Break Room, our weekly round-up of labor news in Minnesota and beyond. This week: Minnesota nurses unions organizing blitz at Essentia; Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board reaches tentative agreement with striking workers; Medical staffing agency required to pay $336,000 to workers charged illegal fees; Unions line up behind Harris for president; and California Supreme Court ruling maintains ridehail drivers as independent contractors.

Minnesota Nurses Association unionizes more than 700 in 2024

A majority of more than 400 nurse practitioners, physician assistants and other advanced nursing staff voted to unionize across nine Essentia hospitals and 60 clinics spanning northern Minnesota and Wisconsin this week in the biggest victory for the Minnesota Nurses Association this year.

The union has gone on an organizing blitz of Essentia health care workers, unionizing nurses at the systems big hospitals and smaller clinics across northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, including the Duluth 1st Street Clinic, 2nd Street Clinic, 3rd Street Clinic and Solvay Hospice House.

This year the union says its brought in more than 700 new members, most of them at Essentia facilities, adding to the more than 22,000 workers unionized with MNA.

Its really a response to the working conditions, said MNA President Chris Rubesch, who is also a nurse at Essentias St. Marys Medical Center in Duluth.

Rubesch said Essentias corporate health care model focused on cutting costs and increasing productivity has burned out health care workers and compromised patient care.

When youre pressured to make more money and generate more revenue for the health system  you need to have a voice, Rubesch said.

Soaring executive pay has also embittered workers. Essentia CEO David Hermans pay increased 7% to $3.07 million in 2022, making him one of the highest paid health care executives in the state, while advanced practice providers say their pay has been stagnant in recent years.

Unionization among advanced providers like physician assistants and nurse practitioners is a new phenomenon that workers say is in direct response to consolidation in the health care industry. The Essentia advanced practice providers are the first professional providers to unionize at the health system, following doctors and other clinicians at Allina Health. Last fall, more than 550 clinicians across 60 Allina Health clinics formed the nations largest private-sector union of advanced care practitioners.

Following the vote tally on Tuesday, Essentia released a statement saying it was disappointed in the outcome and that it isnt in the best interests of patients or staff for nurse practitioners, physician assistants, certified nurse midwives and clinical nurse specialists to unionize.

A single bargaining unit that includes a wide range of settings, specialties and locations may not allow for unique approaches to caring for the different needs of patients, Tonya Loken, Essentias community relations director, said in a statement.

Essentia continues to challenge the legality of the bargaining unit of the advanced practice providers, which delayed the election for months after workers filed a petition for an election last November.

The nonprofit health care system argues that workers cannot legally form a union across both acute-care hospitals and non-acute care clinics, even though the union says workers frequently work across both settings. Essentia also argues the bargaining unit cant just include advanced practice providers without also including all other professional employees.

A regional director for the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees private sector unions, rejected Essentias arguments and allowed the election to proceed. On Thursday, Essentia filed a request for the NLRB to review the decision, saying there was a lack of precedent supporting it.

Minneapolis parks reached tentative agreement to end 3-week strike

The Minneapolis parks system and the union representing some 300 workers reached a tentative agreement in the early hours of Friday morning that will bring an end to a three-week long strike, the first in the park systems 141-year history.

Details of the agreement must still be finalized before theyre released, a union spokesperson said.

The tentative deal comes after union workers shut down the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Boards Wednesday meeting after the elected park leaders declined to intervene in negotiations between its administrative staff and the union.

A deal to end the strike seemed within grasp just days ago after the workers union accepted the park systems last proposal on pay raises, clearing the table of budget concerns that had hung over negotiations.

What remained were new language proposals, which union leaders called poison pilled. They included making seniority step increases, which come with pay raises, contingent on satisfactory performance reviews and limiting the number of workers who can serve as union stewards, helping their colleagues file grievances and respond to disciplinary actions.

GrapeTree Medical Staffing pays workers back fees deemed illegal

Iowa-based GrapeTree Medical Staffing was required to pay approximately $336,000 in back wages and damages to 997 Minnesota workers after the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry determined the agency illegally charged workers booking fees to sign up for shifts.

GrapeTree Medical Staffing employs health care workers to fill temporary assignments in understaffed nursing homes and assisted living facilities across 12 states. If employees missed a shift or canceled within 72 hours, the company deducted between $50 and $200 from their paychecks, according to a consent order with DLI the agency announced on Thursday.

The fees, which employees had to agree to in order to accept a shift, violated the Minnesota Payment of Wages Act and GrapeTree had to pay workers both the booking fees it deducted and an additional 85% of the fees in damages.

DLI audited the companys records from July 12, 2020 to July 12, 2022, during the height of the pandemic when skilled health care workers faced a high risk of contracting COVID-19.

Health care staff members worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to ensure Minnesotans had access to much-needed medical attention, DLI Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach said in a statement. No one should have to give up their hard-earned wages to secure employment, including our most essential workers.

The Illinois attorney general reached a $950,000 settlement with GrapeTree for charging workers fees in 2023.

GrapeTree CEO Steve Heeg said in an email that the company does not admit to violating the law but entered into the agreement with state regulators in order to resolve the case quickly. He also said GrapeTree has stopped charging booking fees to access shifts in the companys portal.

Organized labor lines up behind Harris

Within hours of President Joe Biden withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, the countrys largest labor unions began issuing full-throated endorsements of her candidacy. Endorsements rolled in from two dozen labor unions and organizations representing millions of workers, including the North American Building Trades Unions, Service Employees International Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, the United Steelworkers, the Communications Workers Union and the National Education Association.

The endorsements are unsurprising given the Biden administrations allegiance to organized labor. Biden, who calls himself the most pro-union president in American history, appointed worker advocates to the National Labor Relations Board, championed the massive infrastructure bill funding union construction jobs and advanced pro-worker policies like expanded overtime pay protections and a ban on noncompete agreements.

There are two major unions that are notably absent from Harris list of endorsements: the United Auto Workers and the Teamsters.

Biden became the first sitting president to visit a picket line during the United Auto Workers strike last fall and the union endorsed his bid for re-election. But the union did not rush to throw its support behind Harris, who herself walked a UAW picket line in 2019, although its ultimate endorsement of her seems likely.

Teamsters President Sean OBrien has won both praise and criticism from his members for his overtures to Republicans. OBrien spoke at the Republican National Convention, where he praised Ohio senator and Republican Vice President nominee J.D. Vance for truly (caring) about working people despite Vances opposition to pro-union legislation like the PRO Act. The speech was seen as a betrayal by the Biden administration, which bailed out the Teamsters pension fund over Republican opposition.

Organized labor also has the power to drive Harris pick for a running mate. This week, U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona came out in support of the pro-union PRO Act after unions raised concerns about him as a potential vice president.

California Supreme Court rules in favor of gig-work platforms

In a major victory for Uber, Lyft and other gig-work platforms, the California Supreme Court upheld a state law that defines drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. In a unanimous decision on Thursday, the California high court said the law passed by voters  called Proposition 22  was constitutional despite a challenge brought by SEIU California on behalf of four gig workers, Cal Matters reported.

The decision is the latest in a yearslong tug-of-war over the classification of ride-hail and delivery drivers, who as independent contractors are not entitled to labor protections afforded employees like overtime pay, workers compensation and unemployment insurance.

In 2019, California lawmakers passed a law known as Assembly Bill 5 that would have forced companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash to treat its workers as employees. The companies responded with a $200 million campaign to pass Prop. 22 through a ballot initiative exempting them from the law while providing workers with some benefits and protections. The measure passed with 58% support.

Minnesotas new law setting minimum pay and labor standards for Uber and Lyft drivers is notably silent on whether drivers are independent contractors while allowing ride-hail companies to continue treating them as such.

The new pay rates in Minnesota take effect in December.
The NYPD deployed a weapons-detection system at the Fulton St.subway station in lower Manhattan on Friday, scanning straphangers for weapons for the first time in the systems 119-year history.

The detectors  an AI-augmented array of cameras and traditional metal detector technology made by Massachusetts-based Evolv Technology  have been at the center of a controversial move by Mayor Adams to install such checkpoints at station entrances throughout the subway.

Were officially launching an initial pilot of a groundbreaking new weapons detection technology, Adams said at a late Friday press conference at the station. We will be deploying [the] electromagnetic detection system at select subway stations over the next month, he said.

Adams made the comments surrounded by fellow members of the African American Mayors Association. MTA officials were not present at the Friday evening event.

Critics of the technology say it will slow access to the subways and infringe on straphangers rights. The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society said Friday they were preparing legal action against the NYPDs detection plan.

The detectors, which Evolv claims can quickly find knives or guns while ignoring more innocuous devices like laptops, phones and tablets, will be used in concert with the NYPDs bag checks, police said Friday. Not every rider will be required to pass through, and, much like the bag check, straphangers can opt out of the scan. Riders who opt out will be denied entry to the subway.

It could be every tenth rider, every 15th, every 20th  its going to vary, said Michael Gerber, NYPDs deputy commissioner for legal matters. if they have a bag, the bag is getting checked, and they have to go through the scanner.

Reviews from the first batch of New Yorkers to encounter the device were mixed.

It doesnt take as long as I thought, Jeff Tse, a 28-year-old corporate banker from Long Island City, told The News as he exited the scanner Friday night.

Im OK with it, it makes transit safer, he said.

But Manhattanite Monica Harris, 59, called the scanner an invasion of privacy.

Its B.S.  baloney and salami, she said. Its a dog and pony show, it looks good on T.V.

The scanner, while large, is mobile, and police said it would be positioned at various stations throughout the day during the 30-day pilot program. The first run at Fulton St. Station lasted fewer than three hours.

Amid concerns the scanners would have trouble working underground, the NYPD has been quietly testing an Evolv scanner throughout the subway system for months, after Adams first showcased the technology at a March 28 presser following a spate of subway shootings. A transit source familiar with the matter told The News that the NYPD has conducted 22,000 test scans at 30 stations in the past eight weeks in anticipation of the start of the pilot. Those tests have not involved passengers.

The idea of adding metal detectors to the subways 472 stations has been suggested before. Adams pushed for the technology in 2022, after a gunman shot up an N train in Sunset Park, but the idea never materialized amid logistical concerns.

Those concerns have been shared privately by transit officials, who worry that slowing down the ingress to stations could cause separate safety and security concerns.

The company and its boosters claim the technology, which is currently used at several event venues around the city including Citi Field, has few false positives and wont slow straphangers down as they rush to the train.

But the firm has been the subject of a Federal Trade Commission probe looking into whether Evolv has been honest with investors and customers about the technologys capabilities, and is the subject of a non-public, fact-finding inquiry by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Evolv execs have said they are cooperating with both sets of regulators.

A group of investors filed a class action suit in May, alleging that Evolv has overstated the ability of its detectors to find knives and guns.

The technology has also raised the ire of the citys civil libertarians.

New Yorkers did not consent to give up their rights or be NYPD guinea pigs for over-hyped and error-prone surveillance tech, a joint statement by The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Aid Society said. We are prepared to protect the right of all subway riders to be free from NYPD intrusion and harassment.

Fridays installation comes a day after the NYPD posted its impact and use policy for the technology  a posting that itself came one day after the Daily News reported the department had failed to do so within 45 days of the close of public comments as required by law.

Gerber, the NYPDs legal czar, defended the detectors.

We think this is completely lawful [and] consistent with the case law, he told reporters. We believe that the technology, as were deploying it, is going to be quite accurate  cant say its perfect, but we believe it is quite accurate.

Albert Fox Cahn, head of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, expressed doubt Thursday that the machines would work as advertised. People love the idea of a magical machine, but theyll be furious of the reality of long lines and endless errors, he said.

Evolvs CEO has in the past expressed doubt that the technology would work properly in an underground transit system rife with potential electromagnetic interference. Subways in particular are not a place that we think is a good use-case for us, Evolv chief Peter George said on an investor call in March.

Adams, however, said last week that the recent run of NYPD tests had been encouraging.

They did thousands of tests  thousands  to gauge the success of it, Adams told The News last week. Were extremely impressed with the outcome.

The Mayor has repeatedly said the city is not committed to using Evolv Technologys equipment, and is open to working with other vendors  though so far only Evolv scanners have been showcased and no other systems have been tested in the transit system, according to sources familiar with the testing.
Does anybody truly believe that Kamala Harris has the vision, the character and the strength that this critical moment demands? A few people might, I suppose, but they are unlikely to include the Obamas, who dragged their feet for the best part of a week before finally endorsing the vice president in her run for the top job today.

Yet those very words were taken from the Obamas statement. You could almost hear the crack of gritted teeth. There is no doubt in our minds that Kamala Harris has exactly what it takes to win this election and deliver for the American people, the couple insisted, trying to persuade themselves as much as anyone else.

In recent days, rumours have swirled in Democrat circles that the former president was the conductor leading the orchestra that convinced Biden to step aside, in the words of Rod Blagojevich, a former governor of Illinois who branded Obama a threat to democracy in the Wall Street Journal this week.

Obama is running the Democratic Party like a Chicago ward boss, from the shadows in the back room, Blagojevich added, sniping: In this case, its a big back room because he has a lot of big houses.

To be fair to the Obamas, Blagojevich is hardly a disinterested observer. In 2008, Obama sacked the Chicago native from his position as senator; a year later, he was impeached for trying to sell the then-presidents vacant senate seat. He was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 14 years in a federal prison. This punishment was commuted by Donald Trump in 2020, after Blagojevich had been behind bars for almost eight years. The man has an axe to grind.

But more voices than that of a disgraced former Illinois senator are alleging that the Obamas have their hands on the tiller of the Democratic Party  or that they did until their plan for deposing and replacing Joe Biden went badly awry.

Back in 2016, Barack Obama was reportedly instrumental in persuading Biden  then a mere stripling at 73  to step aside in favour of Hillary Clinton, whom he believed had a better chance of beating Trump. He was not encouraging, Biden remarked stingingly to the New York Times.

We all know how that decision worked out. But it seems that Obama has not developed any greater confidence in his former vice president, who even before his apparent senility had a reputation for tiresome loquaciousness and muddled decision-making.

The New York Times column written by George Clooney two weeks ago, which asked Biden to throw in the towel before it was too late (I Love Joe Biden But We Need a New Nominee), was reportedly sent out into the world in coordination with Obama and other Democratic grandees as part of a plan that included the staged humiliation of Biden in the form of that early debate.

The intention, however, was to install the Arizona senator Mark Kelly  who, as if American politics couldnt get any weirder, is a former astronaut  as a replacement, according to the New York Post. But Biden struck back, endorsing Harris and tipping a Zimmer Frame into Obamas carefully-constructed works.

Hell hath no fury like a doddering octogenarian president scorned. Was the Harris endorsement the revenge of the Biden? Was he manipulated to buoy Harris to the top of the ticket? Did he have any idea what he was doing?

Nobody knows the answers to those questions. In fact, we are never likely to know. But one thing seems certain: It will be Harris who will go head-to-head at the next debate on September 10, Harris who will lead the Democrats to the polls in November, and  in all likelihood  Harris who will fold like a pack of cards before the juggernaut of Donald Trump.

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.
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR)  Former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama have endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in her White House bid.

Sunday will mark 100 days until the presidential election and both Vice President Harris and former president Trump are working to fire up their bases.

We call to say Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office., said the former president.

The endorsement was expected but still crucial for Harris to have the backing of the nations two most popular Democrats.

I cant have this phone call without saying to my girl Kamala, I am proud of you, said the former first lady.

As former president Trump adjusts his focus from President Biden to Harris, the vice president is calling for a debate.

Im ready to debate Donald Trump, said Harris.

In a statement late Thursday, the Trump campaign said debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee.

Friday Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Mar-a-Lago.

Now Im honored come on in, said Trump.

Trump says he feels confident about his chances against Harris.

Shes a radical left person, San Francisco destroyed, San Francisco. Shes really a destroyer, said Trump.

This weekend Trump is holding a rally with his VP pick Senator J.D. Vance in Minnesota. The Harris campaign says its holding a weekend of action for volunteers across battleground states.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama threw their support behind Vice President Kamala Harris bid for the White House on Friday.

The Harris campaign announced the endorsement with a video showing the vice president on a phone call with the Obamas. In the video, Michelle Obama said she is proud of Harris and that this election will be historic, before the former president shared they were endorsing her.

We called to say, Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office, he said.

The Obamas, two of the most popular figures in the Democratic Party, were the most prominent holdouts as the rest of the party quickly coalesced around Harris this week. And Barack Obama, who is a draw for events, will likely show up on the campaign trail for Harris in the run-up to November.

Harris and Barack Obama have been in contact over the years, with the former president often serving as a sounding board dating back to her days as California state attorney general. They have talked multiple times in recent days as Harris sought to rally support for her nomination after President Joe Biden exited the race and endorsed her.



On the call, Obama said Democrats are going to be underdogs and that as Harris herself has said, she will have to earn the trust of voters across the country.

Were absolutely confident that you're gonna be able to make it happen. And I wanna make sure that, you know, we're sending a message out to not just Democrats but every American  Democrat, Republican, Independent and especially young people  that the stakes are high. And your vision for a generous, inclusive, positive, community- minded, responsible, lawful America  that's exactly what we need. So, I know, I know you're gonna be working hard, but you're gonna have a whole bunch of folks working alongside you, Obama said, according to excerpts of the phone call.

Barack Obama was reportedly among the top Democratic officials privately urging Biden to examine his candidacy in the weeks after the disastrous debate performance. But the former president held off on endorsing Harris in recent days, a move that infuriated some Democrats.

But Obamas delay was intentional, a person familiar with his thinking said, noting that the former president didnt want to interject with an endorsement while the party decided its process for determining its nominee.
The Obamas Officially Endorse Kamala Harris As VP Hits At Trump For Ducking Out Of Debate | Photo: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images

In the week since President Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic nomination, she has amassed endorsements from nearly every Democratic official and scorn from the Trump campaign. Now, Harris lands a new major endorsement even as Trump appears shaken by the prospect of going up against the vice president.

This is going to be historic

Former President Barack Obama shared a recording from earlier this week on social media of Kamala Harris receiving a phone call from the Obamas in which they endorse her candidacy for president.

I cant have this phone call without saying to my girl, Kamala, I am proud of you, Michelle Obama said on the call. This is going to be historic.

The 44th president said, We called to say Michelle and I couldnt be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office.

Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think shell make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, were going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in pic.twitter.com/0UIS0doIbA  Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 26, 2024

The endorsement ended a week of speculation concerning Obama, who had not publicly backed Harris campaign even though she was endorsed by others such as former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Reports have now emerged that Obama had spoken to Harris multiple times this week and expressed his support privately before Fridays public announcement. One report said the former president didnt want to overshadow other moments, such as Bidens withdrawal on Sunday or his televised address on Wednesday explaining his decision to drop out of the race.

Harris calls out Trump for backing out of debate

With Harris as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, the Trump campaign appears hesitant to take on the vice president, backing out of the next presidential debate. On Thursday, Trumps team released a statement blaming the continued political chaos within the Democratic Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee. In other words, Trump appears to be backing out of the second presidential debate and trying to paint a false picture of disunity within the Democratic Party.

This years first debate proved disastrous for Biden, setting off a wave of Democratic criticism that ultimately led to him dropping out of the race. A second debate had been confirmed for Sept. 10, and Trump had previously said on social media he was ready to debate ANYTIME, ANYWHERE, ANYPLACE.

Harris criticized Trump for backpedaling on the debate and declared that voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage.

VP: Trump agreed upon September 10 debate. It now appears he is backpedaling, but I'm ready and I think the voters deserve to see this split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage. And so I'm ready, let's go. pic.twitter.com/ys43ssm748  Acyn (@Acyn) July 25, 2024

Harris mocked Trump for trying to get out of debating her, posting on X, formerly Twitter, What happened to any time, any place?

What happened to any time, any place? https://t.co/HlR6UmlZxx  Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 26, 2024

The Obamas endorsement and Trumps ducking of the next debate represent signs that Harris is continuing to gain steam as the presumptive Democratic nominee. With her poised to become the official nominee next month, we will likely see more public support from the Obamas and more pressure on Trump to debate his new opponent.
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Shortly after China's key policy meeting concluded last week, a U.S. business delegation visited China and had conversations with a number of ministries, indicating that they have received the signal of China's further opening up and are confident in continuing to deepen cooperation with China.

As Sino-U.S. relations arrive at a critical juncture, and the third plenum of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee reaffirms China's commitment to opening up, the visit by U.S. corporate leaders is not only timely, but also conducive to the two countries developing a correct perception of each other.

Economic and trade ties were long regarded as the "ballast stone" of bilateral relations. But in recent years, the U.S. administration has taken many unilateral moves to hinder two-way trade and investment.

While some in the West alleged that China is shutting its door to the world, Beijing's latest message is loud and clear: Opening up has been a defining feature of China's rapid development and remains a hallmark of Chinese modernization.

According to the recent plenum, China will steadily expand institutional opening up, deepen foreign trade structural reform, further reform the management systems for inward and outward investment, improve planning for regional opening up, and refine the mechanisms for high-quality cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative.

As China opens its goods, services, capital and labor markets to the rest of the world in an orderly manner, it will bring more business opportunities to the world, including U.S. companies. It's certainly good news for boosting Sino-U.S. economic and trade ties.

Members of the U.S.-China Business Council, consisting of CEOs and presidents of leading U.S. companies, formed the first delegation from the U.S. business community to visit China after the plenum.

Face-to-face meetings and field studies are the best way to clear up any misunderstandings and correct misconceptions. Such interactions are good for the two sides to reduce opportunity costs and elevate cooperation to a higher quality level.

Members of the delegation have voiced their confidence in continuing to deepen cooperation with China in fields such as economy, trade, investment, green development, health, education and people-to-people exchanges.

The enduring nature of China-U.S. economic and trade relations is mutual benefit while the common interests of the two countries far outweigh their differences in the economic and trade field. Even when there are economic and trade frictions, the "ballast stone" role of trade and economic cooperation should be strengthened rather than weakened.

Whether China and the United States can work together to achieve common prosperity and tackle global challenges is a matter that concerns the interests of the two peoples and the future of humanity. From the daily lives of the people to the global economic outlook, the impact of China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation is both significant and far-reaching. The two sides need to bolster the anchor of China-U.S. relations to raise economic and trade cooperation to new heights.

With U.S. business leaders eager to seize the opportunities of China's comprehensive deepening of reforms and optimistic about future cooperation with China, politicians in Washington should truly listen to the voices of the U.S. business community, handle the U.S.-China relationship from a long-term perspective, and do some good things for the economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.

If the "ballast stone" is damaged or even lost, it will not only harm the interests of the business people and consumers of the two countries, but also have a disastrous impact on the global economy. 
Odds of accidental gun death much higher in certain states

People in Southeastern states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama run the greatest risk of a gunshot accidentally killing them, researchers said. Photo by Adobe Stock/HealthDay News

Americans' risk of dying in a firearm accident depends in large part on where they live in the United States, a new study finds.

People in Southeastern states like Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama run the greatest risk of a gunshot accidentally killing them, researchers said.

Meanwhile, the risk of accidental gun death is much lower in Northeastern states like Massachusetts, New York, Maryland and Connecticut, results show.

"Crude rates in the states with the highest rates, clustered mostly in the Southeast, were about 10 times the rates in the states with the lowest rates, located mostly in the Northeast," concluded researcher David Schwebel, a professor of psychology with the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Nationwide, more than 12,300 people died in gun accidents between 2001 and 2021, Schwebel found in his analysis of firearms deaths data maintained by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers also found that specific factors within a state increased the risk of death in a firearms accident.

Unsurprisingly, states with more gun owners carried a higher risk of accidental gun death.

But the study, published Thursday in the journal Injury Prevention, also found that having a higher percentage of families living below the poverty line is associated with an increased risk of accidental death.

Any solution to this risk is not going to be easy, Schwebel said.

"Attempts to alleviate the complex nature of poverty in America are challenging, complex and unlikely to happen quickly," Schwebel in a journal news release. "Attempts to reduce firearms ownership are equally unlikely, and arguably inappropriate as firearms represent an integral part of culture and life for many Americans, including especially Americans living in rural areas."

Instead, officials need to focus on policies that promote safe gun handling and storage, Schwebel said.

"Efforts to improve safe use, transport and storage of firearms, plus policy change to promote safer handling of firearms handling and engineering of safety devices for firearms and firearms storage locations are likely to be most effective," he concluded.

More information

The National Shooting Sports Foundation has more on firearms safety.

Copyright  2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  An Oregon woman was abruptly released from a state prison earlier this spring, nearly two years after her sentence was set to end.

As first reported by Oregon Capital Chronicle, 56-year-old Bridget McDermott was notified of her immediate release from Coffee Creek Correctional Facility on Apr. 4 of this year  even though her reduced sentence was slated to end on July 5, 2022.

MultCo Board rejects alternative ambulance resolution amid paramedic shortage

According to the Oregon Department of Corrections, McDermott was serving time for being a felon in possession of a firearm, first-degree burglary, first-degree kidnapping and three counts of first-degree robbery. Per Oregon law, the kidnapping and robbery charges were not eligible for any sentence reduction.

She was initially sentenced to 16 years in prison in January 2010, although officials said her projected release date was Oct. 4, 2024.

But in 2021, a post-conviction case against ODOC pushed the department to change its policy. The state now allows earned-time credits for inmates who are concurrently serving time for some charges that are eligible for sentence reductions, and others that are not.

Air tanker disappears while fighting wildfire in Eastern Oregon, crew missing

Officials then reviewed 2,641 records on inmates who could have been impacted by the new policy. In an email, ODOC spokesperson Amber Campbell said this was an extremely large project, which required officials to evaluate a variety of sentencing factors.

Sentence calculation errors are not common, and it is the goal of ODOC to have an accuracy rate of 100%, Campbell added.

The corrections department is reviewing what exactly caused McDermotts late release.

Release planning is extremely important for every prisoner, Ben Haile, an Oregon Justice Resource Center attorney who is representing McDermott, said in an email. If our state would invest a little more in this, we would see more success stories and less people returning to prison.

Sewage floods South Portland elementary school playground

Release planning consists of finding a home, job, counseling and seeking support from family, according to the attorney.

Bridget McDermott got none of that due to errors by the Oregon Department of Corrections. ODOC needs a plan to support people through this transition when it deprives them of release planning, Haile said.

In a statement, McDermott added that many people have supported her through the transition from prison.

They caught me and held me when I needed them, McDermott said. My former cellmate for two and a half years took me in until I could find a job and a place to live. She worked for T-Mobile and got me a phone. Other people have helped me get oriented in many ways and enroll at U of O. It takes a village.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Sean P. Grayson, the now-fired Illinois sheriff's deputy charged with fatally shooting 36-year-old Sonya Massey in her home, had a disciplinary file that included accusations of bullying behavior and abuse of power, records obtained by CBS News show.

"He was acting like a bully," Girard (Illinois) Police Chief Wayman Meredith said over the phone, recalling an alleged incident last year when he says an enraged Grayson was pressuring him to call child protective services on a woman outside of Grayson's mother's home. "He was wanting me to do stuff that was not kosher."

Newly released audio recordings obtained by CBS News also show superior officers were worried about Grayson's behavior.

In a recording released by the Logan County (Illinois) Sheriff's Office, where Grayson worked from May 2022 to April 2023, a supervising officer is heard admonishing Grayson for what the senior officer said was his lack of integrity, for lying in his reports, and for what he calls "official misconduct."

"The sheriff and I will not tolerate lying or deception," the officer tells him in the audio recording of a Nov. 2022 meeting obtained by CBS News. At one point, the supervising officer warns Grayson that "officers [like you] have been charged and they end up in jail."

"Seven months on, how are you still employed by us?" the officer says to him. Grayson replies, "I don't know."

The audio recording and Meredith's description of Grayson's conduct paint a picture of a man quick to anger and, according to documents, willing to abuse his power as an officer.

Massey's family continues to seek answers following the release of bodycam footage showing Grayson, who was by then working for another department, shot her in the head as she crouched down in her kitchen. Grayson was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty.

In this image taken from body camera video released by Illinois State Police, Sonya Massey, left, talks with former Sangamon County Sheriff's Deputy Sean Grayson outside her home in Springfield, Ill., July 6, 2024. / Credit: Illinois State Police via AP

The March 2023 encounter with Meredith, in which Grayson was described as "steaming mad," was included in a multipage disciplinary file obtained by CBS News from the Logan County Sheriff's Office. The Girard police chief was concerned enough about the incident to flag it to the Logan County sheriff, noting that he believed Grayson had been recently diagnosed with cancer and his brother had died by suicide.

The disciplinary paperwork also included accusations against Grayson of "abusing his power" and "harassing" a man and woman arrested at a traffic stop. A complaint was filed against Grayson by the couple, accusing him of bullying behavior and of not respecting the woman's privacy. Police reports say she had hidden drugs inside her body. In her complaint she described being told by Grayson and another male officer to remove the bag of drugs in front of them. She was later taken to a local hospital to have it removed by a doctor. She described feeling violated when she said Grayson barged into the examining room while the doctor was performing the procedure. Grayson denied any wrongdoing or even being present at the hospital.

The allegations leveled by the couple against him were ultimately deemed unfounded, and according to the paperwork, he left Logan in "good standing."

Grayson was hired days later by the Sangamon County Sheriff's Office, in the Springfield, Illinois, area. He was working there on July 6 when Sonya Massey, a mother of two, called 911 to report a possible prowler. Grayson and another deputy responded to the call.

The other officer's bodycam video shows Grayson entering Massey's home and asking for her identification, and then directing her to turn off the stove where she had been boiling a pot of water. Massey complied, but said "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus." Grayson became angry.

"You'd better f***ing not. I swear to God, I'll f***ing shoot you right in your f***ing face," he said. He then raised his gun, described as a 9mm pistol, and yelled at Massey to "drop the f***ing pot!"

Massey is seen apologizing and ducking for cover, at which point Grayson opens fire. Three shots are heard in the video.

After the shooting, Grayson can be heard saying Massey was going to throw the hot water on him, which is not corroborated by the video.

CBS News previously reported Grayson pleaded guilty twice to driving under the influence prior to becoming a police officer, that he served in six different departments in four years, and that he left the Army after only 19 months.

Grayson's attorney declined to comment to CBS News.

New video shows moments before Trump rally shooting

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle open up about online bullying

Trump makes false claims about Harris' racial identity in contentious NABJ interview
The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled on Thursday that boneless wings means the cooking style, rather than meaning they are completey free of bones. They were ruling on a lawsuit brought by a patron who suffered medical complications after eating boneless wings (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Diners who order boneless chicken wings cannot expect the meat to be actually free of bones, an Ohio Supreme Court ruled on Thursday.

This rather bizarre ruling has stemmed from a much more serious case in which a restaurant patron suffered serious medical complications after getting a bone stuck in his throat after tucking into some boneless wings eight years ago.

The claim from Michael Berkheimer, the restaurant patron, was rejected by the divided court, which voted 4-3 in the ruling.

Berkheimer was dining with his wife and friends at a wing joint in Hamilton, Ohio, in 2016, ordering a plate of boneless wings with parmesan garlic sauce when a piece of the chicken went down the wrong way, the lawsuit reportedly stated.

Three days after dining out, Berkheimer claimed he was feverish and unable to keep his food down, so he visited the emergency room. While being examined, a doctor discovered a long, thin bone that had torn his esophagus and was causing an infection, the suit said.

Berkheimer sued the restaurant, Wings on Brookwood, and also named the supplier and farm where the chicken came from, and claimed that the restaurant failed to warn him that boneless wings could contain bones.

In the ruling, the Supreme Court said that boneless wings actually refer to the cooking style of the meat, and that the restaurant patron should have been on guard against bones as it is common knowledge that chickens do have bones.

The high court sided with lower courts that had previously dismissed the lawsuit.

The judges were in disagreement before reaching the decision, seemingly opening up a can of worms about whether labeling a dish as boneless wings is misleading.

Justice Joseph T Deters wrote for the majority that a diner reading boneless wings on a menu would no more believe that the restaurant was warranting the absence of bones in the items than believe that the items were made from chicken wings, just as a person eating chicken fingers would know that he had not been served fingers.

The food items label on the menu described a cooking style; it was not a guarantee.

Meanwhile, the disagreeing justices called this reasoning utter jabberwocky, arguing that it should have been up to a jury to decide whether the restaurant was negligent in serving Berkheimer a dish that was advertised on the menu as being boneless.

The question must be asked: Does anyone really believe that the parents in this country who feed their young children boneless wings or chicken tenders or chicken nuggets or chicken fingers expect bones to be in the chicken? Of course, they dont, wrote Justice Michael P Donnelly.

When they read the word boneless, they think that it means without bones, as do all sensible people.

Additional reporting from The Associated Press.
School lockers in a hallway. Getty Images.

An Ohio group said data showed troubling trends in youth mental health, but also said optimistic trends exist in school-community partnerships to address student behavioral health.

The Ohio Council of Behavioral Health & Family Services Providers, which says it represents 165 private entities that provide community-based prevention, substance use, mental health and family services in the state, studied data back to 2017 to track the partnerships between community behavioral health centers (CBHCs) and Ohio schools. They found the school-based behavioral health services have grown by more than 223% since then.

The council noted 3,610 schools  including public and private schools, educational service centers and charter schools  that offer critical screening, prevention, treatment and crisis intervention services through the CBHCs.

In the last year alone, partnerships between schools and CBHCs grew by 21.8%, one of the largest documented expansions in school-CBHC partnerships since this data tracking began, the study found.

Of those, 87.5% provide clinical or treatment services, 88.5% have prevention services and 60% engage in crisis intervention services.

Nearly all (97.5%) of the CBHCs collaborate with the schools in areas such as school planning teams or curriculum development, researchers stated.

Integrating comprehensive mental health services like crisis intervention and counseling into schools through school partnerships removes barriers so students can access behavioral health services if-and-when they need them, the study stated, and fosters significant improvements in students mental and behavioral health outcomes, including reduced absenteeism, better academic performance and improved social-emotional skills.

Though the CBHC progress was considered significant in the study, researchers also reported struggles staffing the school-based programs, with 1 in 3 schools/CBHCs reporting challenges have worsened over the last year. Vacancies in full-time school-based behavioral health staff has increased by more than 11% compared to the 2022-2023 academic year. The high needs of students/long wait lists is one of the top barriers to services, along with the shortage of staff.

The new data follows reports by the Health Policy Institute of Ohio, who ranked the state 44th of the 50 states in population health and health care spending, and found that youth mental health is struggling in Ohio, particularly among LGBTQ+ youth. The HPIO found that youth suicide rates are 4.8 times worse for LGBTQ+ youth in Ohio than for heterosexual/cisgender kids, and suicide attempts are 4.3 times higher for that group.

The state is also looking into the root causes of mental illness, along with substance use disorders and suicide. Gov. Mike DeWine announced in January that The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services would provide $20 million in grant funding for a study led by The Ohio State University, joined by other universities and hospitals across the state.

The study is set to identify what we dont know  the root causes, the risks, the preventive factors of mental illness, Dr. Luan Phan, OSU College of Medicines chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health said when the study was announced.

The most recent study by the Council of Behavioral Health & Family Service Providers further tasked the state, specifically Ohio policymakers, to expand school-based services by covering funding shortfalls in the areas of prevention, consultation and treatment services, guide schools on funding strategies to grow and strengthen community partnerships, along with bringing solutions to behavioral health workforce shortages and increases in access to screening and early intervention for mental health challenges and at-risk populations.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
Old Farmer's Almanac predicts a cooler than average 2024 fall season is ahead for Georgia

Don't fear, the days of sweltering heat won't last too much longer.

The Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting a cooler than average fall this year for Georgia. The publication also says the northwest section of Georgia will see above average amounts of rain.

The Georgia fall forecast differs from much of the rest of the country, with the Old Farmer's Almanac predicting warmer fall weather elsewhere.

"Your trek to the pumpkin patch may be a bit steamy this year," Almanac meteorologists Bob Smerbeck and Brian Thompson wrote in their long-range forecast. "In fact, it should be quite warm for the western half of the United States!"

The forecast also calls for a busy remainder to hurricane season, as the Almanac predicts the 2024 hurricane count to be higher than last year's.

The Old Farmer's Almanac, which began in 1792, has made a name for itself by providing long-term weather forecasts on an annual basis. The book also gives readers full moon dates, recipes and various self-help tips.

The Old Farmer's Almanac is predicting a wetter than average fall in Ohio this year.

What's the average fall temperature in Georgia?

Here's what a typical fall season looks like in the Athens region, according to the usclimatedata.com:

September: high 84 degrees, low 63 degrees

October: high 74 degrees, low 51 degrees

November: high 65 degrees, low 42 degrees

December: high 56 degrees, low 35 degrees

Here's what a typical fall season looks like in the Augusta region, according to the usclimatedata.com:

September: high 87 degrees, low 63 degrees

October: high 78 degrees, low 51 degrees

November: high 69 degrees, low 41 degrees

December: high 60 degrees, low 35 degrees

Here's what a typical fall season looks like in the Savannah region, according to the usclimatedata.com:

September: high 86 degrees, low 68 degrees

October: high 78 degrees, low 58 degrees

November: high 71 degrees, low 48 degrees

December: high 62 degrees, low 41 degrees

What's the average precipitation levels for fall in Georgia?

Here's what normal precipitation looks like in the fall for the Athens area:

September: 3.94 inches

October: 3.55 inches

November: 3.82 inches

December: 3.73 inches

Here's what normal precipitation looks like in the fall for the Augusta area:

September: 3.22 inches

October: 3.27 inches

November: 2.82 inches

December: 3.39 inches

Here's what normal precipitation looks like in the fall for the Savannah area:

September: 4.58 inches

October: 3.69 inches

November: 2.37 inches

December: 2.95 inches

What areas do the Almanac predict warmer than average temperatures?

Here are the regions that are expected to see warmer than average temperatures this fall, according to the Almanac:

The Heartland

Pacific Northwest and Intermountain

Texas-Oklahoma and High Plains

Pacific Southwest and Desert Southwest

Alaska

Hawaii

What areas do the Almanac predict cooler than average temperatures?

Here are the regions predicted to see cooler than average temperatures this fall, according to the Almanac:

Southeast and Florida

The Lower Lakes

Ohio Valley

The Appalachians

The Atlantic Corridor

Is the Old Farmer's Almanac accurate?

The Old Farmer's Almanac boasts an average accuracy of about 80% for its weather reports. Last year, it reported that its average was lower, coming in at around 64%. But many weather experts disagree, saying the Almanac's weather reports may be no better than chance.

Source: cantonrep.com

This article originally appeared on The Repository: Farmer's Almanac predicts 2024 fall weather in Georgia
By Mikhail Flores and Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) - A marine tanker carrying industrial fuel sank in rough seas off the Philippines on Thursday, causing the death of a crew member and an oil spill that could spread to waters off the capital Manila, officials said.

Sixteen of the 17 crew members of MT Terra Nova have been rescued, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said, after the ship capsized off the coastal town of Limay in Bataan province.

The coastguard said they found the body of a previously missing crew member in the sea off Limay town in Bataan province, less than three hours drive from the capital Manila, on Thursday afternoon.

"There is already oil spill. Right now, we cannot dispatch our resources because of strong winds and high waves," Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista told a situation briefing.

The ship was carrying 1,494 metric tonnes of industrial fuel, Bautista said.

Philippine coast guard spokesperson Armando Balilo told a separate briefing a 97-metre coast guard vessel had been deployed to combat the oil spill. Smaller vessels were waiting for the weather to clear before setting sail.

An aerial survey by the coast guard showed an oil slick spreading roughly two nautical miles and being driven by strong waves.

"We are racing against time. We will do our best to contain the fuel," Balilo said.

He added the waters where the ship sank is close to Manila and there is "big danger" the spill could reach the capital.

"That's part of the contingencies that we are preparing for," Balilo said.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had ordered the environment ministry to assess the damage and the ministry said its chief was on her way to Limay town.

Balilo said rescued crew members had described encountering rough seas before the ship capsized.

Officials were investigating whether the sinking is related to Typhoon Gaemi, which on Wednesday flooded swathes of the capital Manila and surrounding towns. At least 14 people have died from the typhoon and monsoon rains, according to government data, and officials said the toll could go up.

LSEG Eikon data shows Terra Nova has a deadweight tonnage of 1,415 tonnes and was headed to the central province of Iloilo.

Last year, oil tanker MT Princess Empress was carrying about 800,000 litres of industrial fuel when it capsized on Feb. 28 and eventually sank, causing an oil spill which took three months to cleanup and hit tourist towns.

(Reporting by Mikhail Flores and Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by John Mair, Michael Perry, Philippa Fletcher)
GUANGZHOU, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Jeff Williams, Apple's Chief Operating Officer (COO), has praised the upgrade of China's manufacturing industry, describing the shift from manual production lines to advanced lights-out factories as "exciting."

Williams was impressed by the level of automation and smart manufacturing he encountered when visiting the factory of an Apple supplier, Lingyi iTECH, in south China's Guangdong Province on Thursday.

Out of Apple's top 187 suppliers, 157 have manufacturing operations in China, he said.

Williams recalled that when Apple first entered the Chinese market, its operations were confined to basic manufacturing, while the company's presence in China now encompasses retail, research and development, and an extensive supply chain network.

"It's amazing to see the evolution through the years as we continue to pack more and more technology into the products, and see that this is only enabled by the advances in manufacturing that I see with our partners, including here in China," he said.

Initially emerging as a "world factory," Guangdong has since evolved, striving to establish itself as a global scientific and technological powerhouse. The province is home to over 75,000 high-tech enterprises, including world-class companies such as EV manufacturer BYD, drone pioneer DJI, and smart device provider Honor. 
On Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray triggered a firestorm when he told a congressional hearing on the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, With respect to former President Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear.

Thats right. Nearly two weeks after gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on a Trump rally, the director of Americas top law enforcement agency said under oath that law enforcement did not know what caused the injury to the presidents ear that launched a thousand stories of divine intervention and Trumpian heroics. Now, the New York Times reports, the FBI wants to interview Trump, as the agency examines numerous metal fragments found near the stage where he was speaking as the incident in Butler, Pennsylvania, unfolded on July 13.

Inevitably, Trump turned on Wray in a characteristically bellicose post on Truth Social Thursday night, claiming Wrays only focus is destroying J6 Patriots, Raiding Mar-a-Lago, and saving Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in D.C. burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monumentswith zero retribution. No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!

Trump is very sensitive about this ear wound, and the potent, symbolic meaning he has insistently imbued it with. The wound became the centerpiece of the Republican National Convention. It was one that was celebrated by Trump himself in remarks in which Trump stated, As you already know, the assassins bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life. He then waxed rhapsodic about the incident on that warm, beautiful day in the early evening in Butler Township in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. There was music. And of course when the crowd saw Trump take the stage it was cheering wildly.

Trump Says He Wont Change After Assassination Attempt: Not Gonna Be Nice!

Then he described instant by instant what happened next. He turned his head. And then I heard a loud whizzing sound and felt something hit me really, really hard. On my right ear. I said to myself, Wow, what was that? It can only be a bullet.

Reflecting on the moment, he said, If I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassins bullet would have perfectly hit the mark and I would not be here tonight. We would not be together.

Cries of No, no! could be heard from the adoring crowd many of whom were wearing on their right ears little white squares of gauze in solidarity with their president who was also wearing onedespite the fact that he had not been and his ear looked just fine at an event earlier that day.

TV commentators grew misty-eyed as they watched Trump, obviously changed by his near death experience. The presidents supporters sought to turn the event into legend.

Famed, unbiased, completely un-deranged presidential historian Elon Musk said, Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt.

He was drawing an analogy to the moment when in 1912 Roosevelt sustained a shot to the chest from a would-be assassin and shortly afterward, despite a doctors warning not to, delivered a speech at a Milwaukee auditorium in which he noted that he had a bullet in him and that as a consequence, he could not make a long speech. Over 100 million people saw Musks tweet.

Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump is whisked away by Secret Service after shots rang out at a campaign rally at Butler Farm Show Inc. on July 13, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Trump and his handlers were infuriated by Wrays comment. A spokesperson for the former president stated, Anyone who believes this conspiracy bullshit is either mentally deficient or willfully peddling falsehoods for political reasons. He then blamed Wrays statement on the Biden administration, about whom he asserted there is no depth to which they would not go.

But you see, there are a few problems with the theory that Wrays statement was politically motivated. First, Wray was appointed by Trump. Next, Wray is both a Republican and a member of the conservative Federalist Society.

Thirdly, no credible medical professional had actually said at any point following the assassination attempt that Trump was actually struck by a bullet. Yes, Dr. Ronnie Jackson, now a member of Congress said, It was a bulletIve seen the wound. Pathetic!!

But Jackson is no longer a practicing physician as his medical license has expired. Oh, and in 2022 he was demoted from the rank of admiral by the Navy after it an investigation revealed that he ran a pill mill when he served as Trumps White House doctor. And of course, it was Jackson who said that Trump had the body of a Hemsworth, despite all appearances to the contrary.

There is no doubt that Crooks actually opened fire in the direction of the former president. Crooks and another man were killed in the horrific incident. Two other individuals sustained grave injuries. Crooks wanted to be an assassin. Wray noted that he had searched the internet for information on John F. Kennedys murderer Lee Harvey Oswald and that he had in his possession a drone used for site surveillance and explosive devices.

There is no minimizing the gravity of the event that took place that beautiful day in the early evening. But the controversy over whether or not Trump was actually hit by a bullet is a self-inflicted wound made by the former president. That is because unlike in past such events, there was no formal medical report from the doctors that treated Trump after the shooting. As Rep. Dan Goldman of New York noted, We have not seen any medical records. We have not had an independent doctor other than a hyper-partisan elected member of Congress comment on what happened.

As a result, predictably, controversy has swirled. It might not have had the president been forthcoming with medical records. It might have had the big MAGA myth machine not immediately turned the event into an operatic tale of the hand of the Lord Almighty reaching down to save the heroic president who dodged death by mere millimeters.

Donald Trump supporter in front of Trump Tower a day after the former U.S. President has been injured during shooting at campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania. Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

It might not if the president had not insisted on the ridiculous and clearly unnecessary ear bandages and had not all the little Trumpinis followed suit like the good little mindless lemmings that they are. But all those things happened. And they raised very real questions about whether the Ear Wound Theater was all costume drama, and posed the possibility that, if it was, it was one of the most craven, cynical displays by a politician ever. Which is saying something, given Trumps history as a pathological liar.

It is therefore not surprising that even very serious people have publicly questioned what actually happened that day including a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. Observers have correctly argued that Trump could have been, like several police officers, hit by flying debris. Doctors have noted that the wound from an assault rifle, even a minor one, would have been much more severe.

Therefore, it is entirely on Trump and his team that rumors and doubts are swirling around the former president just like the debris kicked up by the eight shots fired by Crooks. Had they been more forthcoming with the details of the shooting, the event still would have been dramatic, the president still would have been targeted, the terrible loss of life and the injuries sustained by innocent bystanders would have been a powerful story without embellishment. Or without unnecessary mystery.

It might not have been quite the combination of the Roosevelt story and the second coming that the MAGA bards were hoping for. But it would have been a compelling drama nonetheless had it just been left to play out as Rebel Without a Gauze.

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.
J.D. Vances ascendance to vice presidential candidate on the Republican ticket, with ardent backing by tech investor and megadonor Peter Thiel, may seem improbable given the tech sectors longstanding role in Democratic Party fundraising.

Yet Thiels support of Vance reflects a larger backlash against the power of legacy tech firms in the United States. As some pro-tech Democrats chafe against the Biden administrations antitrust efforts, and Republicans nominate a former Silicon Valley venture capitalist who has voiced support for those same efforts, it is clear that the tech sector is further splintering politically.

Vances rise reflects the power of moneyed tech leaders who unapologetically assert principles of techno-libertarianism, or the idea that technology firms should be free from most government intervention. This view is growing in political power and influence in the GOP. Thiel gave Vance a job in his Silicon Valley venture capital firm and boosted Vances successful U.S. Senate campaign in Ohio by $15 million  the largest amount ever contributed to a single Senate candidate, Politico reported in 2022. He also connected Vance with former President Trump . Meanwhile, tech billionaire Elon Musk is financially supporting Trump through his America PAC.

Read more: Elon Musk's messy divorce with California leaves ugly grievances all around

This represents a shift from the tech sectors reputation as a bastion of support for the Democratic Party . Many startup founders have been based on the progressive West Coast, particularly in California, and for years theres been a revolving door of Democratic officials leaving D.C. for high-profile roles in Silicon Valley. Against that backdrop, the tech sector has largely furthered the Democrats interests  including by serving as campaign staffers, offering digital expertise and acting as major donors .

Yet as the sector has grown, so has the backlash against Big Tech as well as the calls from voters and politicians on both sides of the aisle to regulate the industry. Antitrust efforts, including from current Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, have rung alarm bells for tech firms seeking to preserve their market share. For his part, blaming the states overregulation and liberal policy, Musk announced this month that he will move the headquarters of X (formerly Twitter) and SpaceX out of California to Texas, highlighting the widening gulf between the techno-libertarian wing and the Democratic mainstream.

Potentially complicating the picture, Vance has singled out Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job. Khan has brought anti-monopoly lawsuits against large firms including Amazon, so it might appear that Vance supports regulation and oversight. However, its more likely that his position reflects a pro-competition streak designed to maximize the number of firms that can compete with the big players. Indeed, Thiel has argued that Google is a monopoly , and he donated to then-Missouri Atty. Gen. Josh Hawley around the time the latter launched an investigation into Google (though Hawley denied any connection between the campaign contributions and his probe of the tech giant).

Read more: Facebook lifts restrictions on Trump, giving him equal footing with Biden on the social media site

Thus it seems that the Vance-Thiel alliance is aimed at challenging the firms that have been identified as potential monopolies and now represent an establishment hoarding power away from emergent companies that hope for minimal oversight (such as the startups Thiel invests in, and the EV sector Musk has sought to dominate). Thiel and Musk, as key figures in the techno-libertarian movement, are making a reasonable bet that their regulatory environment will be much more permissive under a second Trump administration. But at the same time, they have signaled openness to policy that weakens the dominant companies.

Of course, personal investments can change that calculus. Consider Trumps massive turnaround from trying to ban TikToks U.S. operations to opposing a ban after meeting with GOP megadonor Jeff Yass, who owns a stake in TikToks parent company . It also remains to be seen how long Trumps otherwise hawkish approach to Chinas tech sector, exemplified by a preference for increased tariffs and export controls , will persist. Thiel has roundly critiqued Apple and Googles ties to China . On the other hand, Musk s Tesla business depends on the Chinese market , which is its second largest after the United States. As of 2023, nearly 40% of Teslas battery components also come from China, and the firm is building a sizable battery factory in Shanghai.

In selecting Vance, Trump has successfully courted support from some of the biggest money there is. But the new fault lines in Silicon Valley politics have become harder to predict. If Trump prevails, his administration may well dodge or roll back regulation  except of those companies and individuals perceived as too threatening to his and Vances allies.

Aynne Kokas is the author of Trafficking Data: How China Is Winning the Battle for Digital Sovereignty.

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.
Opinion: What Kamala Harris' run for California attorney general can tell us about this campaign

Kamala Harris, second from right, with family members watching election results in San Francisco in November 2010. (San Francisco Chronicle / Getty Images)

Smart Republicans could see a day like this coming  and tried mightily to prevent it  back in 2010.

That was the year Kamala Harris, a bright, young, charismatic prosecutor from San Francisco, ran her first statewide campaign, for California attorney general, and ultimately won. The race presaged the politics of 2020 and possibly 2024.

Republicans couldnt have predicted 14 years ago that Harris would become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in 2024. But they could be certain that if she prevailed then, the states top law enforcement job would not be her last stop.

Read more: Opinion: Can Kamala Harris change a presidential race barely affected by a series of seismic events?

In California and other states, after all, the office is a stepping stone: AG stands not only for attorney general but also for aspiring governor. So many Republicans figured it would be easier to stop Harris rise before it began.

As Harris opens her presidential campaign, most polls show her trailing Republican nominee Donald Trump. Its a familiar position for her.

Harris was the underdog when she ran for San Francisco district attorney against a well-known incumbent, Terrance Hallinan, in 2003. She won that race partly by running to Hallinans right. The San Francisco Chronicle endorsed her under the headline: Harris, for Law and Order.

Read more: Goldberg: Is replacing President Biden as his party's nominee an attack on democracy? Hardly

But she couldnt diverge too far from San Franciscos liberal orthodoxy, and she also made a costly promise not to seek the death penalty if elected.

Three months after she took office, a man shot and killed a young San Francisco police officer, husband and father, Isaac Espinoza. True to her word, the new district attorney announced that she would not seek the ultimate punishment. The reaction was swift and brutal.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein spoke at the officer's funeral and, with Harris seated in a pew at the front of the cathedral, said the cop killer should have been charged with a capital crime. The officers who filled the cavernous cathedral stood and applauded. Harris did not.

Prosecutors won a second-degree murder conviction and a life sentence . But Harris decision not to seek a death sentence reemerged in the 2010 campaign, and it probably will in 2024.

Harris was the underdog again in 2010, when she ran against Republican Steve Cooley, a three-term Los Angeles County district attorney who had spent most of four decades as a prosecutor . Some Democratic Party elders publicly predicted Harris would lose to Cooley  not unlike the Democratic pundits who have more recently questioned Harris ability to wage a national campaign.

Cooley was a prosecutor straight out of central casting, as Trump might put it, gray-haired and a bit rumpled, who gave the impression of having witnessed more than his share of crime victims pain. He was known for bringing successful cases against corrupt politicians and convicted killers alike.

The tea party movement helped Republicans seize control of the U.S. House and state legislatures across the country in 2010. They had legitimate hopes of making gains in California too, and the attorney generals office was a prime target. A national political action committee spent more than $1 million attacking Harris handling of Officer Espinozas killing  hoping to stop her ascent before it started.

"If that is a byproduct of defeating her, we're perfectly happy with that," a spokesman for the PAC told me a few weeks before the election, which I was covering for the Sacramento Bee.

The Republican primary had also foreshadowed what was to come. Cooley faced a challenge from the right in the person of John Eastman, the former Chapman University law school dean who went on to play a key role in Trumps failed effort to overturn the 2020 election.

Eastmans donors included Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo, who would be instrumental in Trumps nomination of the Supreme Court justices who helped end federal abortion rights. That decision is central to the 2024 election, perhaps even more so given Harris likely nomination.

Although Eastmans primary campaign failed, it didnt leave the eventual nominee unscathed. Eastman had raised the prospect that if elected, Cooley would take his pension from Los Angeles County on top of his salary as attorney general, for a combined annual pay of roughly $425,000. During Cooleys only debate with Harris, which I moderated, the Los Angeles Times Jack Leonard asked the Republican whether he would indeed take his pension along with his salary. Cooley answered that he had earned the pension and would take it to supplement the very low  incredibly low  salary thats paid to the state attorney general.

Harris saw the answer for what it was  a little too honest  and let it stand. Go for it, Steve, she said. Youve earned it; theres no question. The exchange became fodder for a pointed Harris campaign ad.

In the end, the Republican wave of 2010 stopped at the eastern slope of the Sierra. Harris won by about 74,000 votes out of 9.6 million cast, the narrowest statewide margin that year.

A decade later, Eastman wrote a column questioning Harris qualifications for the vice presidency on the grounds that her parents were not naturalized citizens when she was born. A fringe theory , yes, but it caught Trumps eye and is already being raised anew .

In the coming weeks, Harris will face all kinds of attacks. A few might be substantial, but my guess is that most will border on ridiculous. Can you imagine? The candidate laughs. And she dances!

During Harris runs for California attorney general and U.S. Senate, I saw firsthand what kind of candidate she can be: tough, formidable, disciplined. Without a doubt, Republicans should wish they had stopped her when they had their best chance.

Dan Morain is a former reporter for The Times and the author of Kamalas Way: An American Life.





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.
Wallace, an attorney and co-chair of the Wallace Global Fund, was the 2018 Democratic nominee in Pennsylvanias First Congressional District.

Its been a long time since either party had a convention that actually decided on candidates, and many Democrats worry about the potential chaos. Now that President Biden has stepped aside and Vice President Harris seems to have the nomination wrapped up, shouldnt we just let her pick her Veep and lock it in well before the convention?

Will it be Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona or Govs. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, Tim Walz of Minnesota, or Andy Beshear of Kentucky? These, according to sources speaking to the New York Times, are top of the list for Kamala Harris possible Veep pickseven if the list remains in flux. Add to the mix (even if she says she is not interested) Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Secretary of Transportation and dynamic former presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg.

How to pick the best? My grandfather, Henry A. Wallace, had experience as a vice presidential candidate in two contested Democratic conventions. One went great for him, the other not so much. But both were riveting for the nation, and both resulted in resounding victory for the ticket.

Henry Wallace Public Domain

Going into the 1940 convention, even the presidential nominee was in doubt. President Franklin Roosevelt sent delegates a message that he had no desire or purpose to seek an unprecedented third term, and others wanted the job for themselves, including FDRs own two-term VP. But with war clouds gathering, the delegates wanted continuity, and FDR was nominated on the first ballot.

FDRs Grandson: How Trump Warped Roosevelts Most Famous Words

But the vice presidential nomination was still unsettled. Though FDR insisted on my grandfather, who had served two terms as his immensely popular Secretary of Agriculture, conservative delegates to the convention rebelled. They didnt trust Wallace, who had never been elected to political office and was viewed as too liberal and intellectual. They fought for an establishment candidate like House Speaker William Bankhead.

Thats when FDR sent his wife Eleanor to deliver her famous no ordinary time speech in support of Wallace. The delegates acquiesced, and the Democratic ticket went on to win in a landslide. And my grandfather became an unprecedentedly active vice president, mobilizing public opinion against the rising tide of fascism and managing Americas immense war production infrastructure.

In the 1944 Democratic convention, at the climax of World War II, there was no question of changing horses at the top of the ticket. But with FDRs health obviously failing (at age 62, almost 20 years younger than Biden), the delegates knew that in choosing a vice president, they were probably also choosing a president. Wallace had overwhelming public support65 percent according to Gallup, versus 2 percent for Truman. A New York Times headline declared that Wallace keeps New Deal alive  has a good chance to be renominated.

But in an episode of remarkable political intrigue, the anti-Wallace party bosses shut down the convention just before the vote on the vice presidential nomination. When delegates reconvened in the morning, after a night of feverish deal-making by the bosses, Wallace led on the first ballot, but Truman won decisively on the second. And of course, the FDR/Truman team went on to win in a landslide.

My grandfathers reaction was unexpected. Instead of sour grapes, he doubled down on commitment to FDRs re-election and New Deal values. He campaigned vigorously all over the country, and FDR rewarded him with his choice of Cabinet position. He chose Commerce, for its power to rebuild American business and global tradethough Truman later fired him for proposing what later became known as detente with the Soviet Union.

Henry Wallace and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bettmann/Getty

Contested conventions at the presidential level also proved successful and invigorating. In 1932, going into the Democratic Convention, FDR had two formidable opponentsformer NY Governor and 1928 presidential candidate Al Smith and House Speaker John Nance Garnerand didnt win the nomination until the fourth ballot. And he was famously elected in a landslide, on a promise of a Depression-ending New Deal for the American people.

Even more remarkably, Abraham Lincolna mere one-term congressman from Illinoisdidnt win his conventions nomination (as the first Republican ever) until the second ballot, and went on to save the nation from splitting in half, and ended slavery.

Contested conventions be damned. FDR and Lincoln did just fine in their six combined elections.

So, far from fearing a contested convention, at least at the VP level, Democrats should embrace it. Let there be a spirited and engaging vetting of a raft of impressive vice presidential possibilities. An open vetting of the VP pick by the convention would feel more democratic than a pro forma ratification of the entire slate decreed from above. The whole party would emerge more overwhelmingly united than before, behind the imperative of dispatching Trump to the dustbin of history.

There would be remarkable unity of purpose, and remarkably unprecedented liabilities on the other sidea convicted felon, twice impeached, found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and for massive fraud in his businesses, his foundation, and his university, with six business bankruptcies, and facing multiple additional felony charges over a bloody insurrection at the US Capitol. The choice will be dramatically obvious, voters will be supremely engaged, and Americans worried about the fate of our democracy should feel greatly reassured.

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.
Orange County felon faces up to life in prison for stabbing man to death

An Orange County felon who prosecutors called a risk to public safety faces up to life in prison for stabbing a man to death.

Effrum Maland Burnett, 53, of Yorba Linda was sentenced to 46 years to life in prison for murdering Toye Mim Jones, 50, the Orange County District Attorneys Office announced Thursday.

On July 18, 2023, Burnett and an unidentified man drove with Christina Roberts, who is an acquaintance of both men, to a sober living home in Anaheim where Jones lived.

They tried to retrieve a 2009 Dodge Ram pickup truck that Roberts claimed was hers.

According to testimony, the woman falsely told Burnett that Jones had raped her and stole her pickup truck, the Orange County Register reports.

In actuality, the truck belonged to someone else and the woman had planned to take it. She reportedly told the false story to Burnett so he would help her retrieve it.

As the group arrived and tried to start the pickup truck, Jones confronted the woman and the situation escalated into a physical confrontation, court documents said. Jones was also upset about the false rape accusations.

Burnett intervened and struck Jones, which prompted him to retreat into the sober living home. However, minutes later, Jones came back outside, walked up to Burnett and hit him in the eye.

The violent confrontation escalated and Burnett stabbed Jones five times  in the face, armpit, groin, abdomen, and chest which punctured his heart, officials said.

Jones was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

At a sentencing hearing on Thursday, the judge acknowledged that Burnett had been lied to by the woman involved but also noted Burnett made the choice to use a knife in the deadly altercation.

Jurors had also rejected the argument by Burnetts attorney that he was acting in self-defense, the O.C. Register reports.

In April 2018, Burnett was facing felony charges for robbery and burglary. He asked an Orange County judge to dismiss his two prior strikes for kidnapping and robbery so he could participate in the Whatever It Takes court program. The program aims to help offenders who have been diagnosed as chronically, persistently mentally ill and are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Participation in the program was only possible if the court dismissed his prior strikes. Prosecutors at the time objected to the idea, citing his violent criminal history, but the court eventually granted Burnetts request by dismissing the strikes and admitting him into the program in December 2020.

We warned the Court that this individuals serious and violent criminal history posed too great of a risk to public safety, and he should not have been allowed to participate in a program in which his past criminal behavior excluded him from eligibility, said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. In some cases, the potential risk to public safety is just too great to take a chance on. This is one of those cases and a man paid the price for it with his life.

Following Jones death, Burnett was convicted and faces anywhere from 46 years to life in prison.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTLA.
The yacht sank after it was attacked by orcas - A/NPZ/SM/SOCIAL MEDIA

A British yachtsmans boat sank after it was attacked by orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar.

Robert Powell and two occupants of the Bonhomie William had to be rescued by Spanish coastguards when orcas buffeted the vessel at night.

The whales disabled the vessels steering and the boat started taking on water.

Sadly these [orcas] were not playing. It was a well-orchestrated and organised attack to sink my boat, Mr Powell, a London-based managing director, said in a social media post.

We were all rescued and are safe now.

He posted a film of his yacht disappearing under the waves in the sea off the coast of Tarifa and Barbate in southern Spain.

Robert Powell and two other occupants were rescued by the Spanish coastguard - A/NPZ/SM/SOCIAL MEDIA

A yacht sailboat called Bonhomie William which was two miles off Camarinal Cape between Tarifa and Barbate reported that after interaction with orcas, she needed to be towed as her steering system was inoperative, the Spanish coastguard said in a statement.

The skipper added that the three people on board were okay and the vessel was taking on water.

Our Tarifa centre mobilised coastguard vessel Salvamar Enif. The sailboat then called again to report the orcas were still interacting and it was now taking on water. The crew were told help was on its way and to prepare to pump water.

The statement said Salvamar Enif had reported two flares in the area, followed by a parachute flare when it was close to the other vessels position.

On arrival, it reported the life raft had been thrown into the water and the yacht had lost its waterline. The Salvarmar Enif crew rescued the three people on board and reported they were all okay.

Killer whales have launched a spate of attacks in recent years, ramming the rudders or sides of boats. Marine biologists believe that the whales may be attacking out of boredom.

Renaud de Stephanis, president of conservation group Circe said: The sea is a very boring place for an animal.

Imagine if youre a dog or some other mammal, you can interact with objects around you. But in the sea theres not much for the orcas to interact with, so they play with the rudders.

In May a number of orcas sank a yacht after ramming it in Moroccan waters in the strait of Gibraltar.

The vessel, which measured 15 metres (49ft) in length and was carrying two people, was hit at 9am local time.

Those on board said they felt sudden blows to the hull and rudder before water began entering the boat. After alerting the rescue services, a nearby oil tanker took them onboard and transported them to Gibraltar.

A humpback whale also capsized a small fishing boat with two sailors on board off the coast of New Hampshire in the US on Tuesday.

Video footage captured the moment when the whale breached the waters and smashed its snout on the back of the vessel.

Greg Paquette and Ryland Kenny were tossed into the waters off the city of Portsmouth and escaped unhurt.

Experts said the whale appeared to be lunge feeding  a way of catching fish  when it hit the boat.

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.
Order of Massachusetts ballot questions has been set

Bay State voters now know the order in which some crucial questions will appear in the voting booth in November.

Question 1: State Auditors authority to audit the legislature

Question 2: elimination of MCAS as a high school graduation requirement

Question 3: Unionization for transportation network drivers

Question 4: Limited legalization and regulation of certain natural psychedelic substances

Question 5: Minimum wage for tipped workers.

In September, all Massachusetts households will receive an Information for Voters booklet containing detailed information on each question. The booklet includes the text of each question, the full text and a summary of the proposed law.

The order of questions are assigned in a way to make the best possible layout, Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin says.

Ballots in some cities and towns may contain more questions.

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
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat, chairs the powerful Senate Finance Committee. He first promised he would propose a bill to punish agents in May, when he called on federal regulators to do more to combat sketchy Obamacare enrollment schemes. (Screenshot from committee webcast)

Health insurance agents who fraudulently enroll consumers in Affordable Care Act health plans could be subject to criminal charges  and civil penalties of $10,000 to $200,000  under legislation introduced by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee.

Wyden, a Democrat, first promised the bill in May, when he called on federal regulators to do more to combat sketchy Obamacare enrollment schemes. Often, consumers who are targeted dont know theyve been enrolled or that their coverage has been switched to a new plan until they lose access to preferred doctors, learn they have different deductibles, or find they owe taxes for Affordable Care Act insurance premium subsidies.

The schemes exploit the federal health insurance enrollment system, which requires only minimal proof of identity  a name, birth date, and state  for a broker to create or access an account. The lure is monthly commissions paid by insurance companies  amounts that are only about $25 per person but can add up when multiplied across transactions.

It is critical for these bad actors to be held criminally responsible and implement common sense consumer protections so working families can confidently purchase quality, affordable health insurance that works for them through honest brokers, Wyden said in a statement.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said July 19 that more than 200,000 people have complained about unauthorized Obamacare enrollment or plan switches this year.

KFF Health News began reporting on Affordable Care Act enrollment schemes this spring.

CMS directive last week also detailed new rules aimed at thwarting the problem by blocking agents from making changes to consumers coverage unless they are already associated with that policyholders account, or take other steps to verify that they have consumers permission.

Wydens proposal, introduced Wednesday and co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Patty Murray of Washington, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, would call on federal regulators to begin verifying that consumers have granted consent to brokers for ACA enrollment or plan switches, and to notify consumers whenever a change is made to their accounts or coverage.

The civil penalties would range from at least $10,000, in cases of straightforward negligence, to as much as $200,000 for agents who knowingly and willfully submit fraudulent information.

Wydens bill faces a seemingly impossible climb, landing in a very polarized Senate during an election year.

But next year, the ACA will be in the spotlight as Congress must decide whether to extend beyond 2025 enhanced subsidies that help people purchase coverage. Increased subsidies were instituted under the Biden administration at the height of the pandemic and are considered a key factor behind recent record ACA enrollment.

Some Republican lawmakers have demanded investigations of ACA enrollment-switching schemes, which they allege may be part of a larger problem of brokers or consumers misstating their incomes to garner insurance subsidies. Obamacare supporters say the complaint is a partisan effort to stop the enhanced subsidies from becoming permanent.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, sent a letter July 8 to CMS questioning how federal regulators verify incomes for those who get subsidies and what enforcement efforts are underway related to potential ACA subsidy fraud.

Wydens office said his proposal is supported by some insurers and agent groups, including AHIP, the trade association for insurance companies; individual insurers like Centene Corp.; and several disease-specific patient advocacy groups, including the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Health Agents for America, a group that has sought solutions to the issue, supports criminal charges for agents found to be falsely enrolling or switching consumers but stopped short of endorsing Wydens bill. Ronnell Nolan, its president and CEO, said her organization would like to see more effort to hold CMS responsible for allowing what she views as security loopholes in private sector enrollment websites, and in enforcement actions against bad actors.

The bottom line is to stop fraud and help the consumer, she said.

In a July 19 letter to Wydens office, CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure outlined steps the agency has taken to increase oversight of agents and brokers to protect consumers  including suspending 200 agents in recent weeks from enrolling clients in Obamacare plans.

The numbers being addressed are very low, said Nolan, who suspects it isnt just individual rogue agents seeking commissions by changing ACA enrollments, but a larger effort using automation to rapidly enroll or switch consumer policies.

Nolan and other agents say federal regulators should simply require private Obamacare enrollment sites to add layers of security before agents can access consumer accounts.

Eighteen states and the District of Columbia run their own ACA marketplaces and require additional security measures, including two-factor authentication, before consumer accounts can be accessed. Two-factor authentication, a common internet security feature, requires people to enter a code  usually sent to their phones  before accessing accounts at banks, social media platforms, and many other services.

The state-run enrollment sites report far fewer problems than the federal marketplace, Nolan and others say. If CMS simply added two-factor authentication to healthcare.gov, Nolan said, all these other shenanigans would not happen.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

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.
By Rich McKay

(Reuters) -Winds and lightning strikes have sparked and fanned wildfires across the Pacific Northwest this week, including the largest fire currently burning in the U.S., which was rapidly expanding near the Oregon-Idaho border on Friday.

The Durkee Fire near Huntington, Oregon, has scorched 600 square miles (1,600 square km), an area more than half the size of Rhode Island's land mass, authorities said. It is threatening several towns.

The blaze was set off by lightning on July 17, and wind gusts up to 60 mph (100 kph) drove the flames across brush, timberland and ranches, killing hundreds of cattle. The fire was only 20% contained on Friday, officials said.

While there is zero chance of rain through next week, winds have dropped and cooler air is in store, said meteorologist Marc Chenard of the National Weather Service.

"Hopefully it gives firefighters a break," he said.

As of Thursday, wildfires this year have burned almost 1 million acres (400,000 hectares) in Oregon and 125,900 acres in Washington, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland, Oregon.

In 2020, the worst year in recent memory, Oregon wildfires scorched more than 1.14 million acres, according to a tally by CBS TV affiliate KOIN.

In California, the Park Fire, believed to have been started by an arsonist, has forced the evacuation of more than 4,000 residents in Butte County, about 100 miles northeast of Sacramento.

A suspect was arrested on Thursday, accused of pushing a burning car down a bone-dry gully.

The fire grew uncontrolled overnight from 125,000 acres on Thursday to 178,090 acres on Friday afternoon, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. More than a hundred buildings had been damaged or destroyed.

"The biggest challenge with this fire is getting to it," said Fire Captain Dan Collins. "It's steep land with almost no roads. It's hard to get our people and equipment to the fire lines."

More than 1,600 firefighters were deployed to contain the blaze, CalFire said.

Forecasters warned that winds would reach 30 miles mph (50 kph) on Friday and through the weekend. Combined with low humidity, it is a recipe for rapid growth, officials said.

Smoke from fires in western Canada and the Pacific Northwest have brought hazy skies and unhealthy air from the Rocky Mountains to Minneapolis and as far east as Detroit, weather reports said.

Denver had the worst air quality in the U.S. on Friday and ranked the 30th worst in the world, according to IQAir, a group that tracks air pollution across the globe.

Much of the smoke coming into the Central and Eastern U.S. comes from a raging wildfire in the mountainous Jasper National Park in the Canadian province of Alberta.

The park and the town of Jasper, which draws more than 2 million tourists a year, were evacuated on Monday, displacing 10,000 residents and 15,000 park visitors. As much as half of the structures in the town could be damaged or destroyed, officials said, as the blaze burned more than 89,000 acres as of late Thursday.

Videos posted on social media show entire streets leveled by the blazes in the Alberta province, with scorched trees, charred metal skeletons of cars, and nothing but rubble where homes and businesses had stood.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Rod Nickel, Sandra Maler and William Mallard)
SUVA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Fiji's Education Ministry is working with other ministries and departments to introduce drug testing kits in schools.

Education Minister Aseri Radrodro said this will help mitigate drug issues in schools, where drugs have been a big topic, Fiji Broadcasting Corporation reported on Friday.

Over 3,000 drug-related cases involving students were recorded in Fiji in the past 12 months, according to the minister.

Radrodro said that they have an existing platform regarding students found with drugs in school, urging heads of schools to follow this policy.

He added that everyone has a responsibility to monitor and do regular checks on students who behave suspiciously.

According to Fiji's National Substance Abuse Advisory Council, drug abuse cases in schools have been increasing for the past three years, which is currently a national issue in the country. 
DANIELSON, Conn. (WTNH)  Two suspects were taken in on outstanding arrest warrants after a stolen dirt bike led police to them, Connecticut State Police officials say.

The incident started when troopers were requested to assist Putnam police with a stolen dirt bike investigation around 7 p.m. on Wednesday. They were told the owner of the dirt bike had a tracking device on it, leading them to the area of Knox Avenue.

Illegal cannabis items seized from Waterbury shops

A dirt bike matching the description of the stolen one was found in plain view of the driveway of a home on Knox Avenue when troopers arrived. They interacted with the homeowner- 52-year-old John Lane- who police said was not able to provide clear answers as to how the dirt bike- along with a second stolen dirt bike out of Putnam- ended up on his property.

During the investigation, troopers determined Lane had an active, extraditable arrest warrant out of Foster, Rhode Island.

He was charged with being a fugitive from justice and first-degree criminal trover, and held on a $15,000 bond.

CSP partnership provides safe spots to get help

While on scene, a trooper also recognized another man from prior police interactions and knew he had multiple outstanding arrest warrants.

Andrew Lowell, 33, was charged with six counts of failure to appear. He was held on a total $90,000 bond.

Both men were scheduled to appear in Danielson Superior Court on July 25.

The stolen dirt bikes were recovered by Putnam 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 WTNH.com.
PA man charged with raping minor after driving to Brookline meet victim

A Pennsylvania man is accused of raping a minor in Brookline.

According to police, Edward Garry allegedly communicated with the victim on Snapchat before driving to the Bay State to meet up, Brookline police say.

Garry was arrested in Pennsylvania and is charged with aggravated statutory rape with a greater than 10-year age difference.

He still needs to be extradited to Massachusetts.

Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Donald Trump is seriously pissed that FBI Director Christopher Wray is asking questions about what really happened during the attempted assassination of the former president.

While appearing before the House Judiciary Committee Thursday, Wray testified about the agencys ongoing investigation into the deadly shooting at a Trump rally almost two weeks ago. Wray said it was still unclear what had caused the injury Trump suffered to his ear, whether a bullet or a piece of shrapnel from a teleprompter.

Trump, who began claiming within hours of the attack that hed been struck by a bullet, didnt like that one bit. He said as much in a rant on Truth Social Thursday night, which took aim at Wray (whom Trump appointed) specifically.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasnt sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively uneventfulWrong! Trump wrote.

Thats why he knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our Country at record levels. His only focus is destroying J6 Patriots, Raiding Mar-a-Lago, and saving Radical Left Lunatics, like the ones now in D.C. burning American flags and spray painting over our great National Monumentswith zero retribution, Trump continued.

In the nearly two weeks since the attack, Trumps team has not released an official medical report on Trumps injury, only a memo from Trumps former White House physician, Texas Representative Ronny Jackson. Still, Trump has continued to double down on his claims that it had been a bullet that grazed his ear.

No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America! Trump wrote Thursday.
Several parents told board members that Keller school districts proposal to ban nicknames and pronouns that not consistent with a students name and gender on their birth certificate is an attack on the LGBTQ students.

The issue was a point of contention Thursday evening as the proposal  titled identification of students  was on the school boards meeting agenda.

A former Keller ISD student started the discussion, saying he felt the need to speak up for other students.

These new policies being proposed by the board will be extremely harmful to our LGBTQ students, the former student said.

He  in addition to other Keller students who spoke at the meeting  added that the proposal forces children to come out to family members who may not be accepting of their identity, thus putting them at risk of being kicked out.

Not everyone has the luxury of a family who is loving or accepting of them, no matter their identity, he said.

According to the proposal, staff and other school district employees shall not promote, encourage, or require the use of pronouns that are inconsistent with a students or other persons biological sex as it appears on the individuals birth certificate.

The former student described to the board members that being referred to by ones preferred pronouns is a harmless gesture.

All that is being done by purposely misgendering someone is telling them that they are not welcomed or accepted, a feeling that no kid should have to deal with at school, he said.

He, along with other high school students at the meeting, contend that school board members have used their positions to spread hateful ideology through its policies and social media.

A student at Keller ISD can only be called by their preferred name or pronouns if they have been given permission by parents or legal guardians, the proposal says. Furthermore, a different name can be used for a student when it is necessary for academic instruction, such as using a name more common in a foreign country while in a foreign language course.

This, said Jennifer Ramsey, a parent with children in Keller schools, is discriminatory toward the LGBTQ community.

The only nicknames that are allowed are those commonly associated with a students given name.

Other groups have exceptions except for that one group, said Ramsey in reference to LGBTQ students. Isolating a group, that creates a hostile environment.

Another parent of two children in Keller said the board claims the proposal is necessary to protect female students.

You have yet to cite a single example of a trans student victimizing anyone in our schools, said the parent. She asked the board if the students are just props for the members larger political agenda.

The parent added that the board cant keep its reasons straight regarding its proposals on LGBTQ-issues, including the school districts book bans that gained national attention in 2022. The bans included books that had trans characters, according to the parent.

Books arent the problem, neither are trans kids that are just trying to live their lives or teachers who are willing to listen to a student when asked to be called by a different name, she concluded.

In a Facebook post published before the meeting, Keller trustee Charlves Randklev said the members would be previewing a parental rights policy, which aims to empower parents and codifies their role as the main decision makers not only in their childrens education but in decisions that influence their upbringing, moral values, and care.

The proposal demands teachers or district staff to notify parents when a student has requested to be called by a different name or by their preferred pronouns. The proposal says the notice also applies to students when they request to use facilities, such as bathrooms or lockers rooms, that are not consistent with their biological sex.

One of the last speakers cited the school boards reference of Texas Education Code Section 26 in its proposal to support the passing of the student identification policy. The code says an attempt by any school district employee to encourage or coerce a child to withhold information from a childs parent is grounds for discipline.

She said the boards proposed policy is not consistent with the code as the words encourage and coerce suggest a scenario that is distinct from a district employee not disclosing information to a parent.

Nondisclosure is not an attempt to encourage or coerce, the speaker said.

She asked board members to discuss the burden the policy places on staff and the financial burden it has on the district due to attorney and other legal fees.
Parents can safely surrender babies up to 30 days old due to Indiana's safe haven law

Update: This story was updated to clarify that surrended babies do not always go into custody of DCS, they can go to pre-adoptive homes.

The deaths of two abandoned babies left out in the elements became foundational in establishing Indiana's Safe Haven Law.

After the discovery of these babies, the state's opinion on parents who couldn't care for their babies shifted, which is why there are safe haven laws today.

Here's what to know.

Who are Baby Ephraim and Baby Jacob?

Baby Ephraim was a baby found dead outside a hospital emergency room on Jan. 26, 2000. He died of hypothermia.

While the parents clearly wanted their baby to receive the care he needed, it was determined that the fear of prosecution is what deterred the parents from handing their child directly to a nurse inside the hospital.

Indiana had been mulling legislation like many states across the country, but Ephraim's death would solidify their decision and on March 24, 2000, then-governor Frank O'Bannon signed the Indiana law.

Although the law didn't exist to help Ephraim, it should have saved Baby Jacob.

Just a year later, on Dec. 8, 2001, Jacob was found dead in a trashcan by workers outside a laundromat. He was wrapped in a sheet, several shopping bags and a trash bag. He still had his umbilical cord attached to his tiny body.

At this point, Indiana's Safe Haven law had been enacted for 18 months, but few people in Indianapolis knew. Jacob's death would change that by prompting a widespread awareness campaign.

Read the full story: 2 babies found dead outside were buried in unmarked graves. How they changed Indiana law

A man (who preferred not to be named) places white roses on the gravestones of babies inside the Washington Park East Cemetery after the gravestone ceremony for Ephraim Doe and Jacob David Doe, on July 1, 2024, in Indianapolis.

What is Indiana's safe haven law?

Indiana's Safe Haven Law allows for the anonymous surrender of an infant 30 days old or younger without prosecution. Infants may be surrendered at fire departments, hospitals and emergency medical services stations. So long as there are no signs of intentional abuse or neglect, the person surrendering the child is not required to provide any information.

What's a safe haven baby box? How does it work?

Developed by Monica Kelsey, who learned as an adult that she had been abandoned at a hospital after birth, safe haven baby boxes are devices installed in an exterior wall of fire stations or hospitals that allow for the anonymous surrender of an infant. The first box was installed at a fire station in Woodburn, Indiana, near Fort Wayne, in 2016.

The device is a two-way box, with a door inside and outside the building. The boxes are temperature controlled and programmed with several silent alarms to alert first responders. A silent alarm is triggered when the outside door is opened, when the baby is placed in the bassinet and again when the door is closed and automatically locked.

First responders retrieve the baby from inside the building and transport the infant to an area hospital for medical evaluation. As of a new law passed in July 2023, these babies no longer have to go into custody of the Department of Child Services, they can go straight to a pre-adoptive home. The law is to help streamline the adoption process so the babies spend less time in foster care.

Do people actually use safe haven baby boxes?

Yes. In 2017 and 2018, babies were surrendered in a box at a Michigan City, Indiana, fire station. Delays in construction meant a box was still not ready when a baby was surrendered at Decatur Township Fire Department on Indianapolis' southwest side in 2018. The infant was found healthy.

In October of 2023, IndyStar reported that a baby box in Carmel was one of the most used in the country.

According to Kevin Albin from Safe Haven Baby Boxes, 2 babies have been surrendered via baby boxes in the state this year, with many more being surrendered directly to personnel using the national crisis hotline.

Previously: More infants are left in this Indiana baby box than anywhere else in the country

How to find a safe haven baby box near you

In Indiana, parents can surrender babies that are up to 30 days old either face to face or via baby boxes without facing prosecution.

You can check Safe Haven Baby Box's website to find the nearest baby box.

Katie Wiseman is a trending news intern at IndyStar. Contact her at klwiseman@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @itskatiewiseman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: What is Indiana's safe haven law? Here's what to know
'In Paris's main stations of Montparnasse, Gare du Nord and Gare de l'Est, operations were heavily disrupted and stations were extremely busy on Friday morning,' writes Dickinson - Mark Baker/AP

Thousands of passengers travelling from London to Paris face severe disruption on the day of the Olympic Games opening ceremony after a suspected co-ordinated attack on the French railway network.

Overnight, signals along railway tracks in northern France were set on fire and cables were cut and set alight, sources close to the investigation said.

The attacks on Frances transport system are expected to affect 250,000 passengers on Friday, rising to 800,000 by the end of the weekend.

A spokesman for Eurostar said: Due to co-ordinated acts of malice in France, affecting the high-speed line between Paris and Lille, all high-speed trains going to and coming from Paris are being diverted via the classic line today [Friday 26 July].

This extends the journey time by around an hour and a half. Several trains have been cancelled.

Eurostar expects this situation will last until Monday morning. Today, Eurostar will cancel 25 per cent of its trains. It will also be the case on Saturday 27 and Sunday 28, they added. It is expected that these cancellations could affect more than 8,000 passengers travelling from London to Paris.

Eurostars teams are fully mobilised in stations, in the call centres, and onboard to ensure that all passengers are informed and can reach their destination.

Here is everything you need to know if you are planning on travelling to Paris this weekend.

How many Eurostar services have been disrupted?

There was due to be a record 18 services from London St Pancras International to Paris Gare du Nord on Friday, but all will be affected by the travel disruption. Services that are still running are currently showing a delay of an hour or more on the companys website. One in four Eurostar services from London to Paris will be cancelled on Friday 26, Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 July.

As of early afternoon on Friday, the 3.31pm, 4.31pm and 7.01pm trains from St Pancras International to Paris had been cancelled.

Police officers patrolled Gare de Lyon railway station during service disruptions on Friday morning - Bloomberg

Are Eurostar services definitely running?

Yes. The first train from Paris Gare du Nord arrived at St Pancras International 82 minutes behind schedule. The delay is because trains are being routed along the classic line, as the high-speed TGV Nord line is shut. Many other high-speed lines, including those linking Paris with Brussels, Amsterdam and the rest of northern France, are also using the old railway lines.

How is Eurostar contacting affected passengers?

Passengers will be contacted by email or SMS. Eurostar says: We ask all travellers who can to postpone their trip and not to go to the station.

My train has been cancelled, what are my options?

If your train has been cancelled or delayed by more than 60 minutes, you can request a refund or switch trains, but beware that very few services have availability in the next 48 hours. You will also be able to claim compensation in the case of delays.

I am stranded, will I get any support?

Yes. If the chaos persists and you end up being stranded overnight, whether in London or Paris, you will be able to claim reasonable expenses for accommodation and food. Keep your receipts.

Can I book a flight instead?

Not unless you move very fast. All three Paris airports (Charles de Gaulle, Orly and Beauvais) will be closed from 6.30pm on Friday afternoon as a security precaution ahead of the opening ceremony  the last plane to land is expected to be the Edinburgh to Charles de Gaulle service, touching down at 5.10pm.

After this, an area of northern France approximately the size of Belgium will be closed for five hours to all flights, barring emergency and official government services. Normally the three Paris airports would handle as many as 350,000 passengers on a peak Friday summer day.

What about French domestic trains?

Frances national rail operator, SNCF, has advised passengers to postpone their trips and stay away from railway stations.

In Pariss main stations of Montparnasse, Gare du Nord and Gare de lEst, operations were heavily disrupted and stations were extremely busy on Friday morning after trains were delayed or cancelled.

By early afternoon on Frida, French transport minister Patrice Vergriete said: Traffic is starting to pick up again, and Id like to thank the SNCF Reseau staff who worked so hard this morning. It was really the Atlantic line that was affected. We should have 1 train out of 3 back this afternoon.

Are metro services in Paris affected?

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has insisted that the attack on high-speed rail lines will have no impact on the ceremony to open the Olympic Games on Friday evening, because it has no consequences for the transport network in the Paris region.

'Some travel insurance policies may have a trip disruption extension, but you should check the terms and conditions of your policy extension,' writes Dickinson - Thibaud Moritz/Getty

Is LeShuttle still operating?

LeShuttle, the service that carries both cars and foot passengers, is operating as usual. The service runs from Folkestone in Kent to Calais. There are still tickets available throughout the weekend.

Are ferry services still operating?

Cross-Channel ferry services have not been disrupted by the rail travel chaos in France.

The travel chaos has ruined my plans  can I claim anything back on insurance?

Rory Boland, travel editor at Which? Travel, says: If you have tickets to watch the Games and end up missing an event due to the transport issues, it may be possible to claim against your insurance  either against ticket protection insurance if you took this out at the point of purchase, or your travel insurance, depending on the specifics of your policy.

Some travel insurance policies may have a trip disruption extension, but you should check the terms and conditions of your policy extension and what type of disruption it covers. The best way to ensure you are covered is to call or email your insurance provider to ask for it to be added on.

More to follow

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.
(KRON)  Californias largest wildfire of 2024, the Park Fire near Chico, continued growing on Friday morning with zero percent containment. Cal Fire officials said the 164,286-acre blaze was ignited by an arsonist who pushed a flaming car into a gully covered with bone-dry brush.

The Park Fire exploded from a 400-acre fire to a more than 71,000-acre inferno consuming everything in its path on Wednesday, Cal Fire officials wrote. By Thursday night, the aggressive wildfire had doubled in size to 145,000 acres as it spread in Butte and Tehama counties.

A structure is seen engulfed in flames during the Park Fire in the community of Cohasset near Chico, Calif. on July 25, 2024. (Stephen Lam/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

One hundred thirty four structures, including many homes, have been destroyed, according to Cal Fire. Butte County Fire Chief Garrett Sjolund said thousands of residents were evacuated as the Park Fire threatened the communities of Cohasset and Forest Ranch.

Man suspected of sparking Californias Park Fire arrested

The Park Fires rotating, intensely hot smoke plume was recorded on ALERT Wildfires remote cameras on the ground and NOAA satellites from space.

The arson-sparked #ParkFire north of Chico is now 164,286 acres, making it California's largest #wildfire of 2024. (Video courtesy CSU/CIRA & NOAA) pic.twitter.com/is3vVA2XGL  Amy Larson (@AmyLarson25) July 26, 2024

California-based climate scientist Daniel Swain wrote on X, The Park Fire continues to advance very rapidly and pose an imminent risk to people in its path. Fire behavior is extreme, and there are extraordinary images emerging of potential pyrovortices.

Forecasters with the National Weather Service Sacramento told KRON4 that it does hot have verified reports of a fire tornado, also known as a firenado.

An ALERT California remote camera shows the Park Fire exploding beneath it on July 24, 2024. (Image courtesy UC San Diego / ALERT California)

Tim Fike of the U.S. Forest Service said gusty winds are plaguing crews at the Park Fire, causing new spot fires up to a mile beyond the main fire lines. Thats been a big, big problem on the Park Fire, Fike said.

On Friday, NWS forecasters issued a Red Flag Warning for the Sacramento Valley and wrote, smoke will impact portions of Northern California.

One family whose home was destroyed by the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise faced the same nightmare again this week. The Park Fire destroyed Robin Robbins house in Forest Ranch. A verified GoFundMe page created by one of Robbins daughter states, They lost their home, animals, and everything they had. They  will have to rebuild their lives from the ground up for the second time in six years.

Horses are evacuated during the Park Fire in the community of Cohasset near Chico, Calif. on July 25, 2024. (Stephen Lam /San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

On Thursday the Figaratto family also lost their home to the Park Fire. Aside from their home, they lost a kitten and their chickens, but managed to save their dogs and horses. By the grace of God, they were the last family to escape down their road, a verified GoFundMe page writes.

An evacuation center is set up inside Neighborhood Church located at 2801 Notre Dame Blvd. in Chico.

Cal Fire wrote in its Friday update, The Park Fire continues to burn very actively, especially when aligned with slope and winds, resulting in spotting and quick fire movement. The fire is burning in grass, brush, mixed timber and dead vegetation. This area is currently under a Red Flag Warning due to gusty winds and low humidity. Numerous firefighting air tankers from throughout the State are flying fire suppression missions.

5 Largest Wildfires Burning In California Right Now

Park Fire: Butte and Tehama counties. Ignited on July 24. 164,286 acres. 0% containment.

Flames consume a car and building as the Park Fire tears though the Cohasset community in Butte County, Calif., on July 25, 2024. (AP Photo /Noah Berger)

Lake Fire: Santa Barbara County. Ignited on July 5. 38,664 acres. 90% containment.

The Lake Fires smoke plume is seen on July 6, 2024, near Santa Ynez in Santa Barbara County. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)

SQF Lightning Complex: Tulare County. Ignited on July 13. 22,326 acres. 20% containment.

Shelly Fire: Siskiyou County. Ignited on July 3. 15,537 acres. 89% containment.

The Hill Fire is seen burning in Humboldt County in July 2024. (Image courtesy Cal Fire)

Hill Fire: Humboldt County. Ignited on July 16. 7,111 acres. 17% containment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KRON4.
Part of North Brunswick Municipal Complex will reopen nearly three years after Ida

NORTH BRUNSWICK - Nearly three years after the township's municipal complex was closed due to significant damage by flooding from the remnants of Hurricane Ida, a portion of the complex is reopening.

The municipal clerk's office, the municipal court and the public meetings area are among the departments that will open on Monday, North Brunswick Business Administrator Justine Progebin said.

Work will continue at the complex and full reoccupancy is expected in the fall, Progebin said.

Phase 2 of the reopening will be the offices for general government services, including community development, the water department, the tax collector and tax assessor's offices, administration, the mayor's office, police records and 9-1-1 dispatch. Those spaces should be ready to open by September, she said.

North Brunswick is opening a portion of its Municipal Complex, including the public meeting area.

The final phase of reoccupancy, which includes the reopening of the police department, including police administration, police training and the detective bureau, is expected to occur by Oct. 2, Progebin said.

The first floor of the administration wing will remain closed and is under evaluation for improvements based on state grant funding, she said.

The municipal offices will be open 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, except holidays.

The project has experienced several delays since the Sept. 1, 2021 storm, which caused severe damage to the Hermann Road complex to sections of the Police Department, main lobby, courtroom, exterior facade and basement where the mechanical room is located.

Earlier this year, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Developments (NJDOL) Division of Wage and Hour and Contract Compliance issued a stop-work order to Bella Contracting Services LLC, a Fair Lawn contractor, working on the North Brunswick Municipal Building.

A portion of the North Brunswick Municipal Complex, which has been closed since 2021 due to flooding from Tropical Storm Ida, is reopening.

More: North Brunswick man killed in Linden crash

In October, the township incurred a delay and additional expense when fungal spores were discover in the ductwork of the HVAC system.

Some township offices have been operating out of trailers at the site, while others have been moved to other locations.

"I'm very happy that we're going into a repaired and now fully viable municipal building that will meet the needs of the residents and provide a good working environment for our employees, which they so much deserve, Mayor Francis "Mac" Womack III said.

Womack said the process of recouping insurance and other governmental assistance continues and a final cost to the township has not yet been determined.

"We've tried to minimize as much as possible the impact to our taxpayers," the mayor said.

Email: sloyer@gannettnj.com

Susan Loyer covers Middlesex County and more for MyCentralJersey.com. To get unlimited access to her work, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Part of North Brunswick Municipal Complex will reopen on Monday
PATERSON  Paterson councilman Luis Velez dropped a $5,649 bank check off at The Brownstone banquet hall on Friday afternoon to settle the unpaid balance from his wedding last August.

The prominent catering halls owner, Albert Manzo, said he would ask the municipal court judge to drop the theft of services complaint he had filed against Velez last Monday.

We wish we didnt have to file a claim that apparently inspired him to settle the bill, Manzo said. But we have no hard feelings.

Velez attributed the delinquent payment to a misunderstanding, saying he had never asked for a copy of the contract and an itemized bill until this past week. Velez said he learned from the bill that he still owed payment for the sales tax and service charge.

Story continues below photo gallery

Its sad we had to go through this process, the councilman said.

Velez said on Friday he previously paid the Brownstone owners $17,000. Earlier in the week, he had said he paid $15,000.

The councilman and the catering hall owner agreed late Friday afternoon that Velez now has a zero balance on his account.

Paterson councilman Luis Velez dropped a $5,649 bank check off at The Brownstone banquet hall on Friday afternoon to settle the unpaid balance from his wedding last August.

Velez on Monday told Paterson Press he had paid The Brownstone the $15,000 fee he had agreed upon with Manzos brother, Thomas. But the councilman said Albert Manzo instead was charging him $19,000 for the event.

Albert Manzo acknowledged that his brother Thomas agreed to charge Velez $15,000 for a wedding with 200 guests, which he described as an extraordinary, wonderful price akin to a friends and family discount. But Albert Manzo said Velez ended up with 270 guests at his wedding and had to be charged extra under the per person price.

Thomas Manzo, The Brownstone's other co-owner, was found guilty in June for his role in the assault of his ex-wife's new husband. He had been on trial for directing an alleged mafia member to assault the then boyfriend of his former wife, "Real Housewives of New Jersey" star Dina Cantin.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Paterson councilman drops check at The Brownstone for unpaid bill
VERNAL, Utah (ABC4)  While Vernal officers were actively enforcing crosswalk laws on Main Street for Pioneer Day, a female pedestrian was struck by a vehicle in another part of the city.

Vernal Police Department said Thursday that a pedestrian was struck and injured Wednesday, July 24, while crossing the street using a crosswalk. She was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The victims identity was not released.

READ NEXT : Hogle Zoo fan favorite cat dies, potential mates future now up in the air

The driver allegedly told police they had not seen the pedestrian, and officers issued a citation.

On Vernals Main Street, officers were conducting traffic stops on drivers who failed to yield to pedestrians using a crosswalk. During the traffic stops, some drivers were discovered to have outstanding warrants or an invalid drivers license and were arrested. Police did not disclose how many people were arrested in connection to the Pioneer Day traffic stops.

The Utah holiday has passed, however Vernal police say they will continue to look for violations and issue citations in order to prevent future collisions.

The Vernal City Police Department encourages drivers to be mindful of pedestrians not only on Main Street but at all intersections and crosswalks, the department said. We want our community members, children, and visitors to be safe and enjoy what Vernal has to offer as they walk around town.

Police referred drivers to Utah Code 41-6a-1002 called Pedestrians right of way  Duty of pedestrian. State law says drivers must yield to pedestrians on a crosswalk and any pedestrian crossing the road who could be endangered by their vehicle.

If the crosswalk is in a school zone, the driver must completely stop if someone is using the crosswalk. Violations may result in fines and a required court appearance.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- China will prioritize employment and social security reforms to meet the needs of industrial upgrades and support the country's modernization drive, said Wang Xiaoping, minister of human resources and social security.

Noting that the overall employment pressure is yet to be eased, and that technological upgrades demand changes in workforce skills, Wang told Xinhua in an interview that more work remains to be done to facilitate high-quality and full employment.

"The structure of China's labor force is undergoing profound changes," said Wang, noting that the rapid development of new quality productive forces and emerging industries have highlighted the need to further deepen reforms in the fields of employment and social security system.

Meanwhile, an aging population, the acceleration of new urbanization and the rapid development of new types of employment have produced significant challenges for the country's social security network, Wang explained.

In this context, promoting high-quality and full employment has become a priority goal for social and economic development, Wang said, while urging effective coordination of employment policies with fiscal, monetary, investment, consumption, industrial and regional policies.

To address structural problems in the job market, the minister promised to strengthen workforce planning to align supply with demand, and urged the gradual raising of the incomes of skilled workers.

Stating that the employment of college graduates will be the focal point of pro-employment efforts, Wang said more should be done to improve services and guidance for youth job-seekers and expand employment opportunities.

Efforts will be made to allow more people access to social security services, ensure the stability and security of the social security fund, and accelerate the building of a unified social insurance public service platform to improve the convenience of this service.

China has always put stable employment in a prominent position, achieving relatively full employment and maintaining overall stability in the job market despite mounting pressure, the minister said.

Official data showed that the country had created a total of 6.98 million new urban jobs in the first half of this year, with the surveyed urban unemployment rate remaining generally stable at five percent in June 2024.

The country's reaffirmed pledge to improve the employment-first policy and its social security system is part of a comprehensive set of reforms outlined in a resolution released after the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee, which was held from July 15 to 18.

The country will develop sound mechanisms for promoting high-quality and full employment, tackle structural unemployment, and improve the system for unified national management of basic old-age insurance funds, among other measures listed in the resolution.

China has set a target of creating more than 12 million new urban jobs this year. It is also aiming to keep the surveyed urban jobless rate at around 5.5 percent in 2024. 
Pedestrian who walked onto freeway struck by semi driver in Mountlake Terrace

A pedestrian was struck by a semi-truck driver on Interstate 5 in Mountlake Terrace overnight.

The Washington State Patrol had initially believed the crash was a hit-and-run incident because the vehicle reported to have hit the victim was different than the vehicle that was actually involved.

The Washington State Department of Transportation first reported an incident in the northbound lanes near 220th Street Southwest at 1:50 a.m. Friday.

Washington State Patrol Trooper Kelsey Harding said when troopers arrived and began investigating, they discovered a semi tractor-trailer was involved. Troopers said a pedestrian walked onto the freeway, and the driver of the semi swerved, but the pedestrian was hit by the trailer.

The driver did pull over and walked back to help the pedestrian, but had pulled over north of the incident to ensure the large vehicle was out of the way, Harding said.

The victim, who may have been impaired when he walked onto the the freeway, was seriously hurt.

The two right lanes were blocked for several hours while troopers investigated.

The scene was cleared and the lanes reopened at about 4:30 a.m.









--

No, not a hit and run. Initially the vehicle reported was different that was involved. When troopers arrived and began investigating they discovered the semi was involved and had stayed on scene just pulled a bit further north to clear the semi and trailer from the roadway.

Sent from my iPhone
(Bloomberg) -- Petroleos Mexicanos posted its worst loss since the global pandemic emerged more than four years ago, a negative signal for whoever President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum chooses to revive oil production and slash the companys almost-$100 billion debt burden.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Pemex posted a second-quarter loss 255.9 billion pesos ($14 billion), compared with a 25.4 billion-peso profit a year earlier, the company reported Friday. It was the steepest loss since the first quarter of 2020, when lockdowns and economic contraction around the world gutted energy demand and prices collapsed. Meanwhile, Pemexs crude and condensate output slid to 1.784 million barrels a day during the quarter from 1.88 million a year earlier.

The loss was mostly due to Mexicos peso weakening in recent months, Pemexs acting-Chief Financial Officer Carlos Cortez said during a conference call with investors and analysts.

Sheinbaum has yet to announce who will run Pemex when her term begins Oct. 1. Possible candidates include Jorge Islas, an academic at Mexicos UNAM University who has worked as an advisor to the president-elect on energy issues, and Deputy Finance Minister Gabriel Yorio.

Whoever Sheinbaum picks will inherit a company saddled by financial and operational woes. Pemexs debt is the highest of any major oil explorer at roughly $99 billion, and output has been declining for the better part of two decades.

Pemex is not currently considering a return to capital markets to help cover debt payments, and hasnt received any instructions from Sheinbaum over a leadership transition, Cortez said.

Outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador prioritized investment in fuel making over crude exploration, but the companys refineries have been losing money due to a lack of technology and upkeep at aging facilities. Mexico continues to be a net fuel importer, though shipments are seen falling next year as Pemexs flagship facility in Dos Bocas, Tabasco, ramps up production.

The company has also been hampered by a spate of deadly accidents, oil spills and methane leaks in recent years, leading investors to pressure Pemex into releasing a sustainability plan to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Sheinbaum, who focused on cleaning up Pemexs image during her campaign, is also under pressure to solve the companys financial woes. In April, she said she expects the company to refinance bonds ahead of upcoming maturities in 2025.

Sheinbaum has also promised to keep oil production at around 1.8 million barrels per day in coming years, using renewable energy sources to meet Mexicos growing electricity demand. She aims to make Mexicos refineries more efficient, reduce fuel imports and grow Pemexs mandate to include new ventures like lithium extraction and electric-vehicle infrastructure.

She also has echoed the current presidents pledge to continue state support for the oil producer. AMLO, as he is known, showered Pemex with around 1.37 trillion pesos in cash injections and tax breaks since taking office.

Pemexs bonds due 2033 climbed 1.1 cent to nearly 102 cents on the dollar as of 2:23 p.m. in New York.

(Updates with finance chiefs comments on capital markets in sixth paragraph, bond price in final paragraph. A previous version corrected the currency conversion in second paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
BETHLEHEM, Pa. (WHTM)  Pennsylvania now has three sites on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The World Heritage Committee approved the addition of the Moravian Church Settlements to the list this month.

One of those settlements is in Pennsylvanias Lehigh Valley.

Close

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

WHTM Daily Digest

Ten acres in downtown Bethlehem  nine structures, four ruins, and a cemetery  are included in the site. The preserved structures are significant as an outstanding example of Moravian architecture and town planning.

Our community has long cherished and preserved Moravian Church Settlements  Bethlehem, and we are honored to receive this global recognition, said Bethlehem J. William Reynolds. The designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site is a profound testament to the unmatched historical and cultural significance of Bethlehem and the enduring legacy of the Moravian Church.

Bethlehem is described as the first and best-preserved Moravian settlement in North America.

Photo by Durston Saylor / The Single Sisters House along Church Street in Bethlehem was built in 1744 as the home for single women in the community. It is still used as private residences with a portion of this building open for guided tours.

Photo by Durston Saylor / Located in Bethlehems Colonial Industrial Quarter, the 1762 Waterworks  recognized as a National Historic Landmark, an Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, and an American Water Landmark  was the first pumped municipal water system in America.

The Moravian Church is considered one of the oldest protestant Christian denominations, with roots in the 15th century.

In addition to Bethlehem, three other Moravian settlements are included: Herrnhut, Germany; Gracehill, Northern Ireland; and Christiansfeld, Denmark. The latter had already been added to the World Heritage List in 2015.

Bethlehems addition was the result of a decades-long effort by Bethlehem Area Moravians, the Central Moravian Church, the City of Bethlehem, Historic Bethlehem Museums and Sites, Moravian University, and more.

On this date: The missing Pennsylvania plaque

We extend our deepest gratitude to all those whose passion and unwavering support have been instrumental in our efforts and have played a crucial role in reaching this momentous milestone, added Mayor Reynolds. We also recognize the Office of International Affairs of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, and the World Heritage Committee for affirming the cultural significance of these sites.

City officials hope the addition boosts cultural tourism to the Lehigh Valley.

It is the 26th World Heritage site in the United States and the third in Pennsylvania, joining Independence Hall in Philadelphia County and Frank Lloyd Wrights Fallingwater house in Fayette County.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Editor's Note: In an earlier version of this story, Eurasian Bistro was identified as having an administrative complaint, per the Florida Department of Professional and Business Regulation's records. According to the DBPR, the administrative complaint was given in error and the DBPR has worked with Eurasian Bistro Inc. to correct the error and ensure no lapse in business occurred. The change has been recorded in the DBPR database.

Here's the breakdown of recent restaurant inspections in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties for the week of July 15-21. Florida's restaurant owners are not required to post restaurant inspection results where guests can see them. So, every week, we provide that information for you.

During the latest round of inspections from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, one restaurant received an administrative complaint, three received high priority violations and 32 restaurants passed their first inspection with zero violations.

Database: Escambia and Santa County restaurant inspections

Disclaimer: The Florida Department of Business & Professional Regulation describes an inspection report as a snapshot of conditions present at the time of the inspection. On any given day, an establishment may have fewer or more violations than noted in their most recent inspection. An inspection conducted on any given day may not be representative of the overall, long-term conditions at the establishment.

One restaurant received an administrative complaint

Taylors

7175 N. Davis Highway, Suite K

Inspection details: Routine Inspection on July 19

Follow-up inspection: Violations require further review but are not an immediate threat to the public. A follow-up inspection is still required.

Total violations: Six total violations, with two high-priority violations

High Priority - Raw animal food stored over or with ready-to-eat food in a freezer - not all products commercially packaged. Raw chicken over open container of chocolate chips in walk-in freezer. Manager moved chicken during inspection. **Corrected On-Site**

High Priority - Time/temperature control for safety food cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. In reach-in cooler, sliced ham at 46 degrees Fahrenheit, sliced turkey at 51 degrees Fahrenheit. Both items for 40 minutes. Violation marked on inspections on Aug. 22, 2023 and Dec. 22, 23. **Repeat Violation** **Admin Complaint**

Three restaurants received a high priority violation

Eurasian Bistro

3 West Main St.

Inspection details: Routine Inspection on July 16

Follow-up inspections: Violations require further review but are not an immediate threat to the public. The restaurant met inspection standards.

Total violations: One total, high-priority violation

High Priority - Operating with an expired Division of Hotels and Restaurants license.

Bubbas 33

7001 N. Davis Highway

Inspection details: Routine Inspection on July 18

Follow-up inspections: Violations required further review but were not an immediate threat to the public. The restaurant complied with a follow-up inspection the next day.

Total violations: Five total violations, with three high-priority violations

High Priority - Heat strip failed to turn black to indicate the sanitization temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit was achieved on the dish surface and/or high temperature holding thermometer did not reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Discontinue use of dish machine for sanitizing and set up manual sanitization until dish machine is repaired. Inspector thermometer reading 141 degrees Fahrenheit as highest temperature, heat strip did not change colors. Manager called in emergency repairs. **Warning**

High Priority - Stop sale issued on time/temperature control for safety food due to temperature abuse. Sausage 50 degrees Fahrenheit in reach-in cooler for over four hours, blue cheese 63 degrees Fahrenheit in prep area for four hours.

High Priority - Time/temperature control for safety food cold held at greater than 41 degrees Fahrenheit. Sausage 50 degrees Fahrenheit in reach-in cooler for over four hours, blue cheese 63 degrees Fahrenheit in prep area for four hours.

Outback Steakhouse

903 Airport Blvd.

Inspection details: Complaint Inspection on July 17

Follow-up inspections: Violations require further review but are not an immediate threat to the public. A follow-up inspection is still required.

Total violations: Three total violations, with one high-priority violation

High Priority - Heat strip failed to turn black to indicate the sanitization temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit was achieved on the dish surface and/or high temperature holding thermometer did not reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit. Discontinue use of dishmachine for sanitizing and set up manual sanitization until dishmachine is repaired. Highest temperature reached on inspector's high temperature holding thermometer was 151 degrees Fahrenheit. **Warning**

32 restaurants receive a perfect score

RJ's Tasty Plates , mobile

3-D Eats , 6881 Highway 98

Broussard's Bayou Grill , 690 E. Heinberg St.

Jimmy John's , 4612 U.S. Highway 90, Unit B, Pace

Kentucky Fried Chicken , 4683 U.S. Highway 90, Pace

Krystal , 6663 Caroline St., Milton

Lickin Good Donuts , 4563 Watkins St., Suite G, Pace

Marco's Pizza , 4909 U.S. Highway 90, Pace

Philly's Cheesesteaks & Hoagies , 4371 5th Ave. Unit H, Pace

Pizza Hut, 4241 U.S. Highway 90, Pace

Socios Pizza and Pasta , 4430 E. U.S. Highway 90, Suite A, Pace

Subway , 6165 U.S. Highway 90, Milton

Subway , 4965 U.S. Highway 90, Pace

Taco Bell , 3860 U.S. Highway 90, Pace

Azalea Cocktail Lounge , 810 N. Davis Highway

B's Cafe , 2301 N. Pace Blvd,

Cousins Maine Lobster - Pensacola , 2 E. Texar Drive, Suite B

Crazy Horse Cafe , 13110 Lillian Highway

Days Inn , 8060 Lavelle Way

Frontera's Taco s, Mobile food dispensing vehicle

Pizzaioli Italian Cuisine , 1350 S Blue Angel Parkway, Suite A

Porky's Pizza, 500 N. Highway 29 A, Cantonment

Subway , 4600 Mobile Highway, Suite 122

Subway , 22 S. Blue Angel Parkway

Super 8 , 8001 Lavelle Way

The Happy Taco , 1803 S. Highway 95 A, Cantonment

The Hot Spot , Mobile food dispensing vehicle

The Wacked Out Weiner Pensacola , 6675 Pine Forest Rd Unit 5

Wendy's , 2 New Market St., Cantonment

Senor Frogs, 400 Quietwater Beach Road

Happy Place Pub & Play, 5661 Quintette Road, Pace

Smokin Country Flava, mobile

What agency inspects restaurants in Florida?

Routine regulation and inspection of restaurants is conducted by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The Department of Health is responsible for investigation and control of food-borne illness outbreaks associated with all food establishments.

How do I report a dirty restaurant in Florida?

If you see abuses of state standards, report them and the Department of Business and Professional Regulation will send inspectors. Call the Florida DBPR at 850-487-1395 or report a restaurant for health violations online.

Get the whole story at our restaurant inspection database.

What does all that terminology in Florida restaurant inspections mean?

Basic violations are those considered against best practices.

A warning is issued after an inspector documents violations that must be corrected by a certain date or within a specified number of days from receipt of the inspection report.

An administrative complaint is a form of legal action taken by the division. Insufficient compliance after a warning, a pattern of repeat violations or existence of serious conditions that warrant immediate action may result in the division initiating an administrative complaint against the establishment. Says the division website: "Correcting the violations is important, but penalties may still result from violations corrected after the warning time was over."

An emergency order  when a restaurant is closed by the inspector  is based on an immediate threat to the public. Here, the Division of Hotels and Restaurants director has determined that the establishment must stop doing business and any division license is suspended to protect health, safety or welfare of the public.

A 24-hour call-back inspection will be performed after an emergency closure or suspension of license.

Stay up to date on the latest restaurant news by subscribing to our free Pensacola Eats newsletter, delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. Sign up for the newsletter at profile.pnj.com/newsletters/pensacola-eats/.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia County inspections: Four restaurants receive high complaints
The Pensacola woman found in Kentucky a year after allegedly killing a bicyclist during a hit-and-run was extradited to Escambia County but quickly posted bond.

The Office of the State Attorney charged 41-year-old Jessica Hendrickson with failing to remain at a crash involving a death, a charge that could bring up to 30 years in state prison, for what Florida Highway Patrol says was a deliberate hit-and-run in 2023.

Hendrickson allegedly struck a 61-year-old man who was biking down Sorrento Road on June 10, 2023, who ultimately died after being propelled into the shoulder of the road.

Previously: FHP: Pensacola woman who allegedly killed cyclist in 2023 found and arrested in Kentucky

Over a year later, FHP says a "tag alert was issued to law enforcement" in Kentucky matching a description of Hendrickson's boyfriend vehicle. According to FHP, "Local law enforcement were in the general area and were able to conduct a traffic stop and ultimately arrest Hendrickson."

Hendrickson's attorney, James Barnes, told the News Journal that his client is "looking forward to her day in court," and there are "interesting" facts that will come out in her trial.

"There are a lot of facts that need to be analyzed and worked out, and there's a lot of moving parts to this case that people don't know about yet," Barnes said. "I don't think she's guilty at all. I don't think she was driving (that day)."

Despite Hendrickson posting her $100,000 bail Monday, she is scheduled to be back in court Tuesday for a pretrial detention hearing.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola woman faces 30 years for fatal Escambia County hit-and-run
The U.S. Defense Department has identified another $2 billion worth of accounting errors in its estimations of military aid sent to Ukraine, a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report revealed on July 25.

The Pentagon announced on June 21, 2023 that it had overestimated the value of arms sent to Ukraine over the past two years by $6.2 billion. Now, the discovery of additional errors brings the total unspent sum to $8.2 billion.

The Pentagon has struggled to accurately estimate the cost of defense articles shipped to Ukraine, the GAO report said.

U.S. Presidential Drawdown Authority (PDA) allows the president to allocate equipment from U.S. stocks, such as ammunition, vehicles, and medical supplies, to respond to crises abroad. PDA arises from the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.

The Pentagon's "efforts to properly value defense articles for drawdown are hampered because the Foreign Assistance Act does not clearly define certain terms and DOD lacks PDA-specific valuation guidance," according to the GAO.

Due to the errors, the Defense Department can send a further $2 billion in weapons to Ukraine to cover the amount already approved by U.S. President Joe Biden.

The U.S. Defense Department announced on July 3 a new package of military aid for Ukraine worth $150 million. The assistance includes air defense interceptors, ammunition for high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), artillery rounds, and other critical capabilities drawn from U.S. stocks.

Read also: Ukraine optimistic as Biden seeks to cement legacy

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Pentagon finds additional US$2 billion for weapons for Ukraine due to error in calculations

The Pentagon has found errors in its accounting calculations, which have allowed it to find an additional US$2 billion for weapons for Ukraine. The Pentagon has faced difficulties in accurately estimating the cost of military equipment sent to Ukraine due to unclear accounting definitions.

Source: European Pravda with reference to Reuters

Details: The US Department of Defense said it had used "replacement value" instead of "depreciated value" to calculate billions in materiel sent to Ukraine in 2023, causing a US$6.2 billion miscalculation that was later used to send new aid.

Since then, another US$2 billion in overstated costs have been found, the Pentagon said.

Consequently, an additional US$2 billion worth of weapons may be sent to Ukraine.

The US Government Accountability Office said that the discrepancies in the report on the value of the aid provided were caused by the unclear definition of value in the Foreign Assistance Act and the lack of specific guidance on valuation for the US presidential administration.

Background:

The United States on 11 July confirmed the allocation of another US$225 million military aid package to Ukraine.

The United States also announced the allocation of US$2.2 billion to order Patriot missiles and NASAMS air defence systems from manufacturers.

Support UP or become our patron!
Phoenix apartment complex says AC is back on hours before attorney general's deadline

On July 24, 2024, most of the units at the Buenas on 32nd apartment complex in Phoenix had AC units mounted in windows with cardboard or plywood filling in part of the window frame.

A Phoenix apartment complex has fixed its residents' broken and ineffective air conditioners following a demand from the Arizona Attorney General's Office, the complex's property management said Friday.

Attorney General Kris Mayes sent a demand letter to the property owner, Buenas Communities LLC, on July 19, giving the company one week to repair up to 400 broken or ineffective air conditioning units at their complex located on 32nd Avenue and Indian School Road.

Just before 11:30 a.m. Friday, Robert Farrell, an official with Buenas Communities, said the air conditioning was "up and running" in the complex.

The business was already facing 39 citations for violations of the cooling ordinance from Phoenix when the demand letter was sent, according to the city's Neighborhood Services Department. Notices of violations were initially issued to the owner on July 9.

Live heat updates: How the Valley and its residents cope with extreme heat

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix apartment complex says AC is back on following demand letter
Phoenix-area weekend travel: I-17, Loop 101 to close for highway crews; restrictions for US 60, I-10

Construction across highways in the Phoenix area will cause closures and detours through the upcoming weekend, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.

Portions of Interstate 17 and Loop 101 will close entirely, while Interstate 10 and U.S. 60 will remain open but restricted in certain areas.

ADOT recommended drivers allot extra time to deal with the closures and restrictions.

Here's what you need to know to detour around weekend traffic.

I-17 will close in north Phoenix for pavement work

The southbound lanes of Interstate 17 will be closed between Loop 303 and Happy Valley Road starting on Friday at 10 p.m. until Monday at 5 a.m. for crews improving the pavement, according to ADOT.

Southbound I-17 on-ramps will be closed for entrances at State Route 74/Carefree Highway and Dove Valley Road.

ADOT said westbound traffic should take Loop 303 to southbound Lake Pleasant Parkway, then to eastbound Happy Valley Road.

ADOT asked drivers to stick to the detour route and avoid congesting streets east of I-17 that are intended for local traffic. ADOT added that drivers should consider traveling in the early morning or later at night.

Loop 101 closes in Tempe for lane striping

Northbound lanes of Loop 101 will close between U.S. 60 and Loop 202 starting Friday at 9 p.m. until Monday at 5 a.m., according to ADOT. The closure is for restriping lane dividers, ADOT added.

The northbound Loop 101 on-ramps will be closed for entrances at Warner, Elliot and Guadalupe roads, added ADOT.

The traffic agency recommended drivers heading westbound use U.S. 60 to westbound Interstate 10, then to northbound State Route 143 to access the Loop 202 entrance near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

ADOT said drivers could use local routes like northbound McClintock Drive and Dobson Road to access Loop 202 beyond the closure but to expect delays and increased traffic.

What to know: Construction for Broadway Curve Improvement Project continues in Phoenix

I-10 narrowed to two lanes in southeast Phoenix

Eastbound Interstate 10 will be narrowed to two lanes between 24th Street and Broadway Road starting Friday at 10 p.m. until Monday at 4 a.m. for crews working the I-10 Broadway Curve Improvement Project. Only two lanes will be open through the span near Sky Harbor Airport.

Separately, eastbound I-10 will be narrowed to three lanes near U.S. 60, ADOT added.

Ramps closing as a result included the southbound I-17 to eastbound I-10 ramp, and the eastbound I-10 on-ramp at 24th Street.

ADOT suggested drivers take eastbound Loop 202 to southbound Loop 101, or westbound Loop 202 in Chandler to reach I-10 beyond the closure. ADOT also suggested southbound and eastbound Loop 202 as an alternative route.

US 60 ramps closed in Tempe

The westbound U.S. 60 ramp to eastbound I-10 in Tempe will be closed starting Friday at 10 p.m. until Monday at 4 a.m. for work on the Broadway Curve Improvement Project, according to ADOT.

The westbound I-10 ramp to eastbound U.S. 60 also will be closed, along with the westbound U.S. 60 HOV ramp to westbound I-10. ADOT recommended drivers detour using the primary ramp to westbound I-10 and exit at 40th Street and then enter eastbound I-10.

Separately, the eastbound I-10 off-ramp at Baseline Road and the westbound on-ramp also will be closed. ADOT recommended drivers detour northbound on Priest Drive, then to westbound Broadway Road to access westbound I-10 beyond the ramp closure.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 4 Phoenix metro closures and delays to know before weekend travel
HELSINKI, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- The incidence of Alzheimer's disease among the working-age population in Finland is on the rise, according to a study published Wednesday by Finnish researchers. Over a period of more than 10 years, the study found a significant increase in cases.

A press release from the University of Eastern Finland, published on Thursday, detailed the collaborative project conducted by the University of Eastern Finland, the University of Oulu, and Neurocenter Finland. The study investigated the prevalence of early-onset dementia (EOD) among working-age individuals by reviewing 12,490 patient records from the Kuopio and Oulu University Hospitals between 2010 and 2021.

The findings revealed that the incidence of Alzheimer's disease nearly doubled among working-age people during the study period, while the rates of other forms of EOD remained stable.

Specifically, the incidence rate of early-onset dementia was 20.5 cases per 100,000 person-years for people aged 30-64, and 33.7 cases per 100,000 person-years for those aged 45-64. A person-year is a unit that combines the number of people and the amount of time they are observed. Alzheimer's disease was the most prevalent subtype, accounting for 48 percent of cases, followed by frontotemporal dementia (23 percent) and dementia with Lewy bodies (6 percent).

The study observed higher incidence rates of early-onset dementia than previously reported in international studies. "The higher incidence rates observed in our study may be attributed to our methodology, which allowed us to capture nearly all EOD cases from the study areas. Additionally, heightened awareness of dementia among the public and healthcare professionals in Finland may also contribute to the high number of diagnosed cases," said Eino Solje, associate professor at the University of Eastern Finland.

However, the nearly doubled incidence rate of Alzheimer's disease cannot be simply explained by better diagnosis and earlier treatment, as researchers did not see an increase in the incidence of other dementias, argued Docent Johanna Kruger, principal author of the study from the University of Oulu.

The findings were published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. 
Photos: Park Fire from the view of firefighters and law enforcement

(FOX40.COM)  As Californias largest fire in years continues to burn in Northern California, fire agencies, law enforcement and local governments are capturing startling images of the Park Fire.

As fire crews battle back the flames, law enforcement agencies protect fire crews working near roadways, patrol evacuated areas and help fill in any gaps for local law enforcement agencies.

Sacramento County Sheriffs Office

Burned cars and structures in the aftermath of the Park Fire. (Sacramento County Sheriffs Office)

A mailbox marks where a nearby home once stood before it was destroyed by the Park Fire. (Sacramento County Sheriffs Office)

California Highway Patrol-Oroville

CHP officers patrol a roadway as fire crews battle the Park Fire. (CHP Oroville)

A CHP Oroville sits parked in front of the flames of the Park Fire. (CHP Oroville)

A CHP Oroville Patrol vehicle sits parked along a roadway in the area of the Park Fire. (CHP Oroville)

Despite the flames of the Park Fire rushing north from the city of Chico, the Chico Fire Department continues to battle Californias largest active fire.

A very Large Aerial Tanker (VLAT) flies over fire crews on the ground as they head into fight the Park Fire. (Chico Fire Department)

A Chico Fire Department jacket hangs from the outside of a fire truck covered in ash. (Chico Fire Department)

A distant look of the Park Fire from a property in Butte County. (Chico Fire Department)

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40.
Pine Prairie man accused of setting fire to home with family of 6 inside

EVANGELINE PARISH, La. (KLFY)  A Pine Prairie man is facing multiple attempted murder charges after a home, with a family of six inside, was set on fire, officials say.

Rusty Gautreaux, 33, is facing six counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of aggravated arson, the Louisiana State Fire Marshals Office announced in a press release.

The Fire Marshals office said Evangeline Parish Ward 4 firefighters responded to a report of a house fire around 9:30 a.m. Thursday in the 1000 block of Gautreaux Lane in Pine Prairie.

A woman, a teenager and four children were inside the home at the time of the fire but were able to escape safely. The Fire Marshals Office said Gautreaux is a relative of the family.

Gautreaux was taken into custody near the scene for outstanding warrants and in connection with a physical altercation that occurred outside of the home shortly after the fire was discovered, the Fire Marshals Office said.

Close

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

KLFY Daily Digest

Latest News

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
'Pink mold' and undated food: The best and worst Peoria food inspections for June 2024

The Peoria City/County Health Department conducts food inspections for a wide range of establishments in the area. Inspections look for issues that could contribute to the spread of foodborne illness, as well as general cleanliness and maintenance of the establishment.

The Journal Star examined routine inspections which took place in June for restaurants, mobile establishments and bars in Peoria County. More than 80 routine inspections  including risk factor inspections  were completed for these categories.

The establishments listed below received either no violations or enough violations to warrant a warning from the health department. According to the Peoria City/County Health Department, "inspections only provide a snapshot of a food establishment's practices, as they are based on what is seen at the time of the inspection."

Terminology used by the health department

Core violation: These violations relate to "general sanitation, operational controls, sanitation standard operating procedures (SSOPs), facilities or structures, equipment design, or general maintenance," according to the health department.

Priority foundation violation: These violations could lead to priority violations if they are not corrected.

Priority violation: These violations are considered the most high-risk by the health department, as they have the potential to directly contribute to foodborne illness.

Establishments with no violations during routine June inspections

Caterpillar Bldg LC & Kiosk, 501 SW Jefferson St., Peoria

Chef Moussa, 201 E. Lake Ave., Peoria

Fat Jacks Pizza, 7016 N. University St., Peoria

Getaway (The), 321 N. Western Ave., West Peoria

Jerusalem Restaurant, 2027 W. Farmington Road, Peoria

Johnny Vigs, 4700 N. University St. #15, Peoria

Mama Dean's, 1101 W. Garfield Ave. Unit B, Bartonville

Mayflower Family Restaurant, 211 N. 1st St., Dunlap

One More @ Oak Hill, 17201 W. State Road, Brimfield

Overlook Cafe, 530 NE Glen Oak Ave., Peoria

Ronald McDonald House - Guest Chef Kitchen Only, 401 NE Monroe St., Peoria

Tacos and Thai LLC, Mobile

The Last Hurrah, 8811 N. Knoxville Ave., Peoria

The Other Dawg, 712 E. War Memorial Drive Suite E, Peoria Heights

The Shot Spot Pub, 118 Argentina Ave., Bartonville

Wrapcity, 5401 Everett McKinley Dirksen Pkwy., Peoria

Leaks and undated food: The best and worst Peoria food inspections for May

Violations for Peoria Heights restaurant

Salt doing business as Cayenne at 4542 N. Prospect Road, Peoria Heights, received five priority, five priority foundation and six core violations during a routine inspection. These included:

The "Ice machine baffle is not clean to sight and touch and appears to be growing pink mold," according to the health department.

The health department found a lemon "covered with mold" in the basement's walk-in fridge. The violation was corrected on site.

The health department found "foods that do not have a date in which the product was made, and there are multiple foods that are past the 7 day limit." The violation was corrected on site.

An employee changed "gloves without washing hands to work with ready to eat foods" after touching raw fish. The violation was corrected on site.

The water was shut off at a handwashing sink by one of the prep areas, and "there was no drainage plumbing at the sink." According to the health department, "At least 1 handwashing sink necessary for convenient use by food employees shall be provided in all food prep locations."

Moldy queso and rodent feces: The best and worst Peoria food inspections for April

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: The best and worst Peoria food inspections for June 2024
TechCrunch

Tesla is gearing up to reveal its Robotaxi this Thursday, and everyone wants to know what it will look like, whether Tesla will unveil a commercialization strategy, and what outrageous timelines Elon Musk might announce to bump Teslas stock. Musk had originally planned to reveal the Robotaxi  which he has also referred to as a Cybercab  on August 8. While Musk initially accused Reuters of lying, over the next couple of weeks, Tesla indeed laid off 10% of staff to usher in a next phase of growth, and Musk said Tesla would be going balls to the wall for autonomy.
CHICAGO  Federal and local authorities on Thursday released long-awaited details of the planned security perimeter around the upcoming Democratic National Convention, a marquee event for the city that promises to bring not only the spotlight of the presidential race to Chicago but protests and safety concerns as well.

Let me state this unequivocally: Chicago is ready. We were born ready, Mayor Brandon Johnson told reporters.

This will be a peaceful and unified expression of our sacred democratic process, Johnson said.  You will be protected and served throughout this convention.

Officials unveiled a pedestrian-only restricted zone around the United Center that stretches approximately from Washington Boulevard on the north and Seeley Avenue on the west to Adams Street on the south, with the easternmost part of the border ending between Wood and Paulina streets.

Only people with credentials who have a need to be there  such as convention attendees, volunteers and other workers  will be allowed within that inner perimeter, said 2024 DNC coordinator Jeff Burnside.

An outer perimeter will allow vehicles subject to a screening checkpoint at the corner of Paulina and Monroe streets. The outer border extends east and south of the pedestrian-only zone by roughly a block.

The northern edge of the perimeter is less than 350 feet from Maypole Avenue, where city officials have offered to allow a huge contingent of protesters to march.

Similar restrictions will take effect around the McCormick Place convention center, with a small pedestrian-only border around the centers West Building and a vehicle screening zone bordered roughly by Michigan Avenue, 21st Street and the Stevenson Expressway.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Johnson and Chicago police Superintendent Larry Snelling were among those joining federal representatives at the announcement.

The eyes of the world will be on our great city and security and safety will be our top priorities, Pritzker said.  What will take place next month is a beautiful display of democracy in action.

Snelling stressed the Police Departments day-to-day responsibilities will not take a back seat to DNC security.

This is not just about the Democratic National Convention, Snelling said. The Chicago Police Department has an obligation to the entire city of Chicago. Every single neighborhood we will be protecting. And were looking at our manpower, were looking at our allocations, and we want to make sure and we will make sure that the neighborhoods who need us the most, we will be there for those neighbors. We will be there for the entire city of Chicago.

Meanwhile, about 500 additional police officers, mostly from municipalities across Illinois, will be sent to Chicago to assist CPD during the convention. Those officers will receive additional training as well, Snelling added.

Based on our assessment, we have a very good complement of officers who will be out there, Snelling told reporters. Theyre highly trained, they will be responding professionally. And were going to make sure that as we work with our partners  we will make whatever adjustments we need to make as things change.

The DNC is slated to be held at the United Center from Aug. 19-22. Thousands of delegates, politicians and hangers-on will descend on the Near West Side arena, where the party will formally select its candidate for president.

The perimeter restrictions around McCormick Place are scheduled to take effect at 10 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 16. The United Center closures will begin at 7 p.m. the next day. Before the restrictions formally take effect, residents might notice fencing or security barriers being installed, Burnside said. Parking restrictions are expected to take effect and will be posted in advance, he said.

Pedestrians can move freely within the outer perimeters, but vehicles will be screened at security checkpoints before they can enter. Bicycles will not be subject to the security checks, Burnside said.

Businesses in the outer perimeter will be accessible to anyone during the DNC, but businesses in the pedestrian-only zone can only be used by convention attendees and volunteers.

After President Joe Bidens exit from the race over the weekend briefly threw the process into chaos, the party is coalescing around Vice President Kamala Harris as nominee. Johnson called the expected nomination of Harris a new breath of life into our nation.

That means the events inside the United Center may be largely predetermined. Outside the building, however, is a different story.

The convention is expected to draw tens of thousands of protesters, whom city officials initially wanted to confine to Grant Park  some 3 miles away from the United Center.

A coalition of protesters filed a lawsuit arguing for closer access, and earlier this month revealed that the city had offered an alternate route. The revised plan calls for protesters to assemble in Union Park on the Near West Side before marching west along Washington Boulevard to Hermitage Avenue, then on Maypole past a small park north of the United Center. The route then turns east on Lake Street back to Union Park.

That route still presents challenges, the coalition stated in a court filing, including the potential for massive log jams on smaller side streets given the enormous number of expected participants. The lawsuit is still ongoing, with arguments before U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood slated for Aug. 5.

In a news release Thursday after the perimeter was announced, protest organizers reiterated that in their view the offered route is inadequate.

The ball is in the Citys court, Hatem Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the Coalition to March on the DNC, stated in the release. It just needs to give us a longer route with wider streets, that is, all the way up Washington Boulevard, and well immediately sign on the dotted line.

Meanwhile, Johnsons office has said it is preparing for as many as 25,000 migrants to be transported to Chicago from the southern border in the coming weeks. That number is speculative, Deputy Mayor of Immigration Beatriz Ponce de Leon said, but the possibility remains that Republican lawmakers in border states would strategically flood Chicago with migrants in an attempt to throw the city into chaos at a crucial time for Democrats.

Asked Thursday about the possible arrival of more buses, Johnson said our collective resources are prepared for as many as 15,000 new arrivals.

We certainly hope that (Texas) Governor (Greg) Abbott finds Jesus Christ as his lord and savior and doesnt do that, Johnson said.

Chicago has homegrown problems too. The widespread civil unrest of 2020 is a fresh memory, and the summer so far has seen the usual spike in gun violence, with more than 100 people shot over the long Independence Day weekend. The police superintendent has repeatedly stressed the departments training rigors  especially related to First Amendment and crowd control measures  for officers who will be assigned to the DNC.

And Cook County officials announced Wednesday that they will open a temporary court facility on the Northwest Side to handle court appearances if needed for an influx of arrestees.

The stakes for convention security, already high, were raised significantly after an assassination attempt on ex-President Donald Trump earlier this month. The shooting in Pennsylvania left Trump without serious injuries but solidified fears of escalating political violence and prompted criticism of the Secret Services capabilities. That agencys director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigned Tuesday amid questions of how the gunman was allowed to get so close.

Cheatle visited Chicago less than two months ago, addressing reporters with Snelling to tout the interagency coordination ahead of the convention.

Weve got a tremendous working relationship with Chicago police, as well as a multitude of other agencies, both local and federal, that will be contributing to this whole-of-government approach that were taking with the DNC, Cheatle said at the time.

Ive said this over and over again: We have been preparing for this DNC since we found out that were going to be a host city, Snelling said two days after the assassination attempt on Trump. And all of the incidents that could occur, were accounting for those things and were making sure that were training around those things.

As aldermen learned of the DNC security plans during a Public Safety committee hearing later Thursday, protests were once again top of mind. The City Councils lone Jewish member, Ald. Debra Silverstein, 50th, asked if Jewish organizations and businesses should shut down ahead of expected large pro-Palestinian protests.

Snelling said they should stay put and will be protected. The department will make sure free speech rights are protected, but will not tolerate violence and vandalism, he added.

I would never tell someone to run away, Snelling said.

Most aldermen shared general approval for the plans as the leaders of several city departments promised everything from CTA services to city ambulances would serve the neighborhoods normally during the convention.

Committee chair Ald. Brian Hopkins, Second Ward, said he believes the city is a little behind schedule in preparing, but felt reassured by the convention logistics presentation. But one last lingering question will play a key role in determining how the convention goes, and it cannot yet be answered, he said: How many protesters will come to Chicago?

Attempts to shut down expressways, block intersections, engage in vandalism, all of that. We know that there are people who have those intentions. We dont know how many, Hopkins said. If its 100, we are going to be fine. If its 50,000, you know, that is a real problem.

While much of the pressure to keep protests peaceful has been on Johnson, Pritzker will also be a partial owner of the conventions execution as he was a key player in attracting national Democrats to Illinois. Additionally, the governor has been in the spotlight this week as a potential running mate for Harris, among a deep bench of other popular Democratic leaders.

Asked about the possibility for unrest Tuesday on MSNBCs Morning Joe, Pritzker said all levels of law enforcement are engaged and pivoted to optimism about the partys energy inside the walls of the United Center, predicting that its probably going to be the best convention ever.

In an interview earlier this month, Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said that the agencys deployment will be the largest since the Chicago NATO summit in 2012. He declined to say exactly how many people would be involved in the convention specifically, but added ISP includes about 3,000 people and has the staff to work both the convention and its regular duties.

The possibility of mass arrests has already rippled through the local criminal justice system.

Cook County judges are scheduling around the convention, avoiding the dates on their calendars.

The 19th is out. No cases are being set in this building, Judge Kenneth Wadas said during a hearing Thursday morning as he scheduled a bench trial for early August. Weve been told to not do anything.

Wadas said judges were additionally told to keep it light during the week of the 12th. He noted in court that another judge based in the Leighton Criminal Court Building had a jury trial moved to the branch court in Rolling Meadows.

_____

(Chicago Tribunes Madeline Buckley contributed to this report.)

_____
TOPEKA (KSNT)  A man suspected of committing Topekas 14th homicide in 2023 took a plea deal with prosecutors, dismissing six of the seven charges filed.

On Friday, Christopher Lamar Brown, 36, of Topeka pleaded guilty to an amended charge of voluntary manslaughter in connection to the April 17 shooting and killing of Sherman Coleman, Jr., 33, of Topeka. The killing happened in the 2300 block of Bellview, near 10th and California in east Topeka.

Brown had been charged with murder in the 1st degree but the charge was later amended to voluntary manslaughter. Browns plea deal resulted in the murder in the 2nd degree, aggravated robbery, aggravated endangering of a child, criminal possession of a firearm by a felon, distributing marijuana between 25 and 450 grams and possession of paraphernalia with intent to manufacture charges being dismissed.

What are anti-photo license plate covers? Are they legal in Kansas?

Sentencing for Brown is scheduled for 3 p.m. on August 26. Brown was advised of his duty to register as a violent offender.

For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Plumstead is taking Pipersville slaughterhouse owner to court over its 'unbearable odors'

Update: On Thursday Bucks County and the Heritage Conservancy filed a separate complaint in Bucks County Common Pleas Court alleging Kingdom Provisions is violating its agricultural conservation easement on the property and asks the court to enforce the easement.

Plumstead Township wants to force a Pipersville slaughterhouse operator to stop its alleged illegal composting of animal remains until it has met state and local regulations.

In a civil complaint, the township alleges that Kingdom Provisions LLC and its parent company Kingdom Equity Partners LLC have repeatedly ignored violation notices and deadlines to fix issues at its 5900 block of Durham Road property.

Officials also allege the business regraded soil in an attempt to curb the stormwater runoff from its slaughterhouse and apply blood to fields without submitting plans and obtaining permits.

Kingdom Provisions has been composting animals in a manner not approved by any regulatory agency and applying blood from the slaughtering operations to the fields, according to the complaint filed in Bucks County Common Pleas Court.

Kingdom Provisions is a USDA custom meat processing slaughterhouse in Pipersville

What is happening at Kingdom Provisions Bucks County DA investigating cruelty allegations at Pipersville slaughterhouse

While there are approved methods for applying residual animal blood to fields for agricultural purposes, it has to be done according to an approved plan not simply spread in a field and forgotten, the complaint said.

The civil action filed on July 9 followed more than a year of local and state investigations after neighbors complained.

Kingdom Provisions is located in a rural residential district where residents have filed dozens of complaints with state and local agencies about foul odors from decomposing animal remains and the constant presence of insects and turkey vultures.

Neighbors also are worried about groundwater contamination and pollution to nearby properties and nearby Cabin Run Creek, the lawsuit says.

Plumstead does not have a public water or sewer system meaning residents rely on wells and septic tanks.

Kingdom Provisions, which describes itself as a USDA custom meat processing slaughterhouse, has been the tenant of the property since March 2023, according to the lawsuit.

Company owner, Ephraim Stoltzfus, is also a principal in Kingdom Equity Partners, which purchased the property in December for $1 million, property records show.

Neither Stoltzfus or his attorney, John VanLuvanee, responded to emails sent last week seeking comment. But the company has appealed the townships zoning violation notices issued against it last year.

Historically the property has been used for agricultural purposes, according to Plumstead. It has a single family home, apartment and small butcher shop.

In 2022, Plumstead purchased a conservation easement on the property, which prohibits dumping any materials except organic plant materials usually related to agricultural uses, according to the lawsuit.

The property is also subject to a separate agricultural conservation easement held by the Heritage Conservancy and Bucks County.

Kingdom Provisions is a USDA custom meat processing slaughterhouse in Pipersville

The previous property owner Gouldey and Sons Inc., which operated Gouldeys Meats for decades, sold to Plumstead Acquisitions LLC in 2021 for $1, according to county assessment records.

Under Gouldeys ownership there were no complaints received about foul odors, according to Plumstead and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

But shortly after Kingdom Provisions started using the property the township started getting odor complaints from neighbors related to the composting of animal remains.

Stoltzfus responded to the complaints in April 2023 assuring Plumstead officials the problems had been corrected and he promised to keep the compost site functioning properly, according to the suit.

But a month later, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection cited the business for unpermitted discharge of slaughterhouse wastewater into Cabin Run Creek, which abuts the property, according to the lawsuit and DEP records.

Two months later, in July 2023, the foul orders returned. So did the Pennsylvania DEP inspectors.

On three site visits that month, the inspectors found dumpsters of animal remains leaking fluids and improperly composted, and uncovered decomposing remains in dumpsters, which is not a practice sanctioned by the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the lawsuit alleges.

When a DEP representative suggested the business dispose of the slaughtering byproducts off site, an employee said that it would cost too much money, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit also alleges Kingdom Provisions failed to submit a revised conservation plan showing how it is managing and monitoring the activities and instead accelerated its composting practices, the suit said.

As recently as June 16, photographs show uncovered piles of animal remains surrounded by pools of blood, creating unbearable odors for neighbors, the lawsuit said.

Reporter Jo Ciavaglia can be reached at jciavaglia@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Plumstead suing slaughterhouse over alleged illegal animal composting
PnB Rock performs at University of Miami on August 10, 2017 in Miami, FL. - Credit: Thaddaeus McAdams/FilmMagic

The California teen charged with shooting and killing hip-hop star PnB Rock nearly two years ago appeared in a Los Angeles County courtroom Friday as the temporary judge overseeing his juvenile case agreed he was not yet competent to stand trial.

Wearing a bright orange detention center uniform, the teen, whose name is being withheld by Rolling Stone, sat quietly during the morning hearing in Compton. Prosecutors say he was 17-years-old when he walked into a Roscoes Chicken and Waffles restaurant in South Los Angeles on Sept. 12, 2022 and fired multiple shots at the rising rapper born Rakim Allen. The teen allegedly swiped several pieces of jewelry from Allen and his terrified fiancee Stephanie Sibounheuang as the Middle Child rapper lay bleeding out on the floor.

More from Rolling Stone

Commissioner Sharonda P. Bradford said Friday that the alleged shooter was receiving a range of services while in custody but that an expert recommendation said he still lacked the necessary competency to follow a criminal proceeding. The recommendation is that the previous orders remain, Commissioner Bradford said. The proceedings remain suspended, remediation continues. A follow-up hearing was set for next month.

The juvenile court hearing took place in the same building for the ongoing murder trial of the accused shooters father, Freddie Trone. The father, 42, has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder, two counts of robbery, and one count of conspiracy to commit a felony.

Another man, Tremont Jones, is a co-defendant in the same trial and accused of tipping off Trone and his son to Allens whereabouts the day of the deadly shooting. Jones, 46, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of robbery, one count of conspiracy, and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

On Friday, jurors saw a series of graphic photos showing Allens blood smeared and spattered over the walls and floor inside the Roscoes. One of the first police officers to arrive on the scene described rendering aid to Allen as he took his final breaths.

In testimony that could prove pivotal, the officer said she was applying pressure to Allens wounds for up to two minutes before paramedics arrived. She said the musician was lying on his back, and that it wasnt until firefighters began to lift him up off the ground that a firefighter discovered Allen had a gun. She said Allen had the black firearm tucked in his waistband on his back. It was completely out of sight when she arrived, she said.

The placement of the gun on Allens back is notable considering Trones lawyer argued in a filing last January that his clients son may have fired out of fear. From the video camera in the restaurant, it is unclear what Mr. Rakim was doing with his hands after he was approached by Mr. Trones son. [The son] could have been in fear for his own life, defense lawyer Winston McKesson wrote in his motion to dismiss charges.

On Friday afternoon, a county medical examiner walked jurors through the findings of Allens autopsy. Dr. Juan M. Carrillo said the musician was shot a total of three times: once in the center of his chest and twice in his back. The doctor said one of the bullets actually entered Allens body on the upper right side of his back, exited out his front and re-entered his body at his neck, fracturing his jaw. Richardson asked if the two gunshots wounds to the back were consistent with the shooter standing over Allens body and firing. Dr. Carrillo said he couldnt be sure.

Allen was 30 years old when he walked into the Roscoes nearly two years ago with Sibounheuang. The Philadelphia-bred artist, known for his melodic flow, became a breakout star in 2016 with his triple-platinum single Selfish. That same year, Rolling Stone named him a New Artist You Need to Know. He went on to reach crossover fame with his 2019 feature on Ed Sheerans Cross Me.

LAPD Officer Katryna Castaneda, the officer who rendered aid to Allen before paramedics arrived, testified Friday that she realized who the victim was when she saw a large diamond-encrusted pendant on the floor that read, Big PnB. She was familiar with Allens music, she said. Jurors saw a photo of the pendant on the ground next to a salt shaker. According to prosecutors, the alleged shooter stole different chains, rings, wristwatches, and a large New LANE pendant from Allen that day along with a luxury Audemars Piguet watch from Sibounheuang.

In opening statements earlier this week, Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Timothy Richardson told jurors that the evidence will show Trone drove his son to the Roscoes restaurant that day and sent him inside to commit robbery. He claimed Trone was using his son and should answer for the teen opening fire. Richardson said surveillance video would show that Trone spoke with Jones and another unidentified man outside the restaurant minutes before the shooting and then tried to cover up his and his sons alleged crimes by setting their getaway car ablaze a few blocks from their home.

Defense lawyer Winston McKesson said jurors should set aside their emotions and focus on the evidence. This is an unfortunate incident. This young man lost his life and a young lady who witnessed it will probably never be the same because she had to witness this horrendous crime, McKesson said. Everything you watch and hear will show you that unfortunately his son acted alone. The lawyer scoffed at Richardson showing jurors a photo of Trone and his son leaving their home together hours before the shooting. He said Roscoes doesnt take reservations, so there was no way his client could have predicted Allen and Sibounheuang would decide to walk into this restaurant in the heart of South Central Los Angeles wearing all of this jewelry that afternoon.

You will hear no evidence that he planned this with his son. That he instructed his son to do this or he egged him on. They will have evidence that my client did help his son cover this up. Were not disputing that. What were saying is the gunman acted alone, McKesson said in his opening statement Tuesday. This is a horrible thing. It is. Somebody should pay. They should. But focus on what is not there. Where is the evidence that these people sat down and planned this? Where is the evidence that my client gave his son the gun? Where is the evidence that my client planted this in his sons head? Where is the evidence that my client instructed his son to commit cold-blooded murder?

In his opening, Richardson said Jones was not charged with murder and that jurors should be mindful of that distinction. He said Jones was seen fist-bumping Allen before meeting up with Trone.

Jones defense lawyer, David Haas, used his opening statement to poke holes in the prosecutions claim that Jones tipped Trone off to Allens arrival at the Roscoes. He suggested Allen and Sibounheuang attracted plenty of attention when they walked from their white Mercedes to the front of the restaurant wearing about half a million dollars in jewelry, sparkling in the sun. He said the conspiracy charge required evidence his client had a meeting of the minds with Trone, and that prosecutors had only soundless video and phone records he described as inconclusive. All of this is guesswork, all guesswork, and when you cant put your finger on specific words or specific actions, we call that a finding of not guilty, Haas said.

Best of Rolling Stone
Poland is providing Ukraine with its 45th military aid package since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine's former Ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, said on July 25 in an interview with Ukrinform.

Warsaw, a staunch supporter of Ukrainian defense against Russian aggression, has previously supplied Kyiv with 44 military aid packages, totaling over $4 billion.

"The 45th package is now in the process of being implemented, which includes, among other things, a significant amount of ammunition for Ukraine," Zvarych told Ukrinform.

Zvarych served as Ukraine's ambassador to Poland from February 2022 to June 2024, when President Volodymyr Zelensky appointed him ambassador to Czechia.

In addition to ammunition, Poland is also "working on the possibility of additional reinforcement of the Ukrainian Air Force with its aircraft," namely MiG-29s, Zvarych said.

"We have an understanding of when and under what conditions this can happen, and we are working on this together with Poland and other NATO member states."

Zelensky and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk signed a security agreement in Warsaw on July 8, agreeing to ongoing political, military, and economic cooperation. The document specifies that Warsaw will "consider the possibility of transferring a MiG-29 squadron without compromising Polish security."

Poland has previously provided Ukraine with 10 MiG-29 aircraft, Zvarych said.

Read also: Czech FM: Ammunition initiative is a vital part of Ukraines defense but needs more donors, money

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
BANGKOK, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's economy is projected to grow 2.7 percent in 2024, up from 2.4 percent expected earlier, due to an increase in foreign tourist arrivals, private consumption and exports, the Ministry of Finance said on Friday.

The tourism sector, a key driver of the Southeast Asian country's economy, showed signs of improvement both in terms of inbound visitors and foreign tourism receipts on the back of the government's measures to expand visa-free entry to more countries and territories, said Deputy Finance Minister Paopoom Rojanasakul.

Foreign arrivals are expected to reach 36 million this year, up from a previous forecast of 35.7 million, and revenue from international tourists is projected at 1.69 trillion baht (about 46.98 billion U.S. dollars), with higher per-capita spending per trip seen at 47,000 baht (about 1,300 dollars) on average, Paopoom told a news briefing.

The kingdom's export value is expected to pick up 2.7 percent from the 2.3 percent seen earlier, owing to stronger spending and growth in trading partner economies, including the United States, China and the Eurozone.

He said the expansion in private consumption from a significant increase in agricultural sector income also contributed to the nation's higher growth projection. 
A 30-year-old man faces multiple drug charges after local and state police say he sold drugs at a Raleigh nightclub to someone who later overdosed and died, according to court documents.

State police charged Luis Baez-Roman, 30, with trafficking heroin, possession with intent to manufacture, sell and deliver cocaine and methamphetamine. He was also charged with selling drugs from his car, possession of a firearm by a felon and violating his probation. In January, Baez-Roman pleaded guilty to possessing with intent to sell the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

The new charges followed an investigation into a drug deal inside Insomnia nightclub at 15 Fenton Street, wrote Alcohol Law Enforcement Special Agent Tyler Pierce in court documents. The documents didnt reveal information about the overdose or the person who died, other than that the drug involved was likely heroin.

The investigation started around July 15 after Raleigh police Detective K. Morgan contacted Pearce about a person who overdosed and died after buying drugs inside Insomnia. The owner of Insomnia couldnt provide surveillance footage to Pearce, he said, because the tapes erase after 24 hours. Morgan, however, provided a telephone number for the suspected drug dealer, according to a Wake County search warrant.

On July 17, Pearce texted the phone number, asking to purchasing $60 worth of heroin. The person responded, saying he was dropping his girlfriend off at work, but would meet Pearce in the parking lot of the Walmart on New Hope Church Road in Raleigh.

Man detained during planned drug sale

When the man arrived, he texted Pearce his location and said he was in a Honda CRV, the warrant says. Pearce and another officer in an unmarked car pulled up on either side of the Honda as the man went from looking around to starting to flee.

His eyes got large, and he immediately began putting the vehicle in reverse to leave, Pearce wrote in the warrant application, which only tells the police side of the incident.

Officers detained the man, who they identified as Baez-Roman, in the parking lot. Pearce then called the cell phone number of the man he had been texting with, and Baez-Romans phone immediately rang and displayed the officers number.

Officers found methamphetamine and possibly heroin packaged in small packets in Baez-Romans SUV, the warrant states. When they searched Baez-Romans Jane Lane home, officers seized $21,637 in cash, two bags with suspected heroin and three bags of a substance they suspect is cocaine, according to the warrant.

Baez-Roman is being held at the Wake County jail on bonds that total $345,000, according to jail records.

In January, Baez-Roman was convicted of possession with intent to sell fentanyl in a plea deal with a prosecutor who dropped additional charges that included selling or delivering drugs within about 1,000 of a Broughton High School boundary, according to court documents. Baez-Roman was sentenced to 12 months of supervised probation, but now may have to serve time on the conviction after violating his probation.

Second Insomnia nightclub incident

The drug deal is at least the second instance in which the Insomnia club was linked to a fatal crime in recent years. A man was shot and killed at the club just before 3 a.m. on May 7, 2023, CBS17 reported. Police ruled the killing was a justifiable homicide, according to a Raleigh police report.

In general, local or Alcoholic Law Enforcement officers investigate criminal actions within bars and nightclubs, and sometimes report alleged violations of North Carolinas laws related to the sales of alcohol to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission.

ABC Commission spokesperson Jeff Strickland said there havent been any reported ABC violations following the July drug deal allegations, but sometimes such reports can come in days after the alleged crime.

Following the May 2023 shooting, Insomnia representatives have paid fines twice to the ABC Commission following allegations of violating the state alcoholic beverage sales laws.

In September 2023, club representatives agreed to pay $1,000 to avoid a 10-day suspension of ABC permits on the charge of failing to superintend the premises on June 17, 2023, according to ABC Commission documents and Strickland.

In October 2023, club representatives agreed to pay and additional $1,200 to avoid a 12-day suspension. The business was charged with allowing consumption of alcoholic beverages outside the legal hours and failing to clear tables and counters of all alcoholic beverages on May 14, 2023, according to an Oct. 11 meeting summary for the commission and Strickland.

The News & Observer left telephone messages with Rosemary Sanchez, who is listed as the clubs only officer on the ABC Commissions website. The club has had permits to sell alcohol since at least Jan. 1, 2023, according to the ABC Commission.

Virginia Bridges covers criminal justice in the Triangle and across North Carolina for The News & Observer. Her work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The N&O maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
A Broome County man is dead following a car-pedestrian crash early Friday morning in Derry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

The Derry Township Police Department identified the victim as 54-year-old Randy Ticknor, of Binghamton.

Around 12:45 a.m. Friday, Derry Township Police Officers were dispatched to the area of Hersheypark Drive and Hotel Road for a pedestrian who had been struck by a motor vehicle.

First responders and medical personnel who happened to be in the area at the time of the accident were already unsuccessfully attempting life-saving measures on Ticknor, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Ticknor had been struck by a Dodge Caravan. Police identified Isaac Young, of Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, as the driver of the Dodge Caravan that allegedly struck Ticknor. No charges have been filed as of Friday morning.

Hersheypark Stadium was hosting a concert featuring Def Leppard, Journey and the Steve Miller Band Thursday evening. Police did not say if Ticknor was leaving the concert at the time of the crash.

Public safety Binghamton man faces possible life sentence after conviction for raping minor in 2023

The investigation is in the early stages and investigators are attempting to determine the circumstances involved in the crash.

Police are not releasing any further information about the incident at this time.

Anyone who may have witnessed or may have information about the crash can contact the Derry Township Police Department at (717) 534-2202 or submit a tip on the department's Crimewatch page.

Matthew Toth of the Lebanon Daily News contributed to this report.

Follow Jeff Murray on Twitter @SGJeffMurray. To get unlimited access to the latest news, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Binghamton man dead after car-pedestrian crash in Pennsylvania
Ocoee police have identified a drowning victim Thursday morning after a body was discovered at Starke Lake.

According to the Ocoee Police Department, they were called to the area on July 17 after a woman said she saw a man in distress in the water, but after an extensive search, the man was not found.

On Friday, July 19 Ocoee PD was called again to the same area after an individual found a fan along the shore not breathing.

Read: Death investigation underway in Cocoa Beach

Ocoee Police have identified the victim as 31-year-old Terry DeWayne Werst.

There is no indication of a criminal incident as there are no signs of foul play, according to police.

Here is the press release from the Ocoee Police:

UPDATE on our death investigation:



Deceased: Terry DeWayne Werst (Male)

DOB: 03/10/1993



The next of kin has been notified. There are no signs of foul play. pic.twitter.com/X0y1UMhq0J  Ocoee Police (@OcoeePD) July 26, 2024

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.
DENVER (KDVR)  Police are investigating a shots fired call in west Denver Friday morning.

At around 5:30 a.m., the Denver Police Department posted on X that officers were investigating a shots fired incident in the 400 block of South Wolff Street in the Westwood neighborhood. The area is east of Sheridan Boulevard, bordering Lakewood.

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Police said a shelter-in-place was issued for nearby residents and was later lifted at 6:14 a.m.

FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox

At this time, no injuries have been reported. Police are still in the early stages of the investigation and have not said if they are looking for suspects. However, there will be a heavy police presence in the area for some time Friday morning.

If you see suspicious activity, Denver police want you to call 911 immediately.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Police: Maryland man charged for burglary spree around DC

WASHINGTON (DC News Now)  D.C. police arrested and charged a man from Maryland who went on a burglary spree around the District.

On Wednesday, just after midnight, officers from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) tried to stop 29-year-old Don Chase, of Prince Georges County, in the 1800 block of 9th St., NW but he ran away.

Post-protest clean-up begins at Columbus Circle near DCs Union Station

Officers were able to quickly catch up with him and take him into custody. A gun was found during the arrest.

Chase was charged with the following:

Carrying a Pistol Without a License

Possession of Unregistered Firearm

Possession of Unregistered Ammunition

Possession of a Large Capacity Ammunition Feeding Device

Possession with Intent to Distribute a Controlled Substance

Two counts of Fugitive from Justice

Resisting Arrest while armed

Receiving Stolen Property ($1000 or more)

MPD discovered that he was involved in numerous robberies around D.C. He would enter the establishment from the roof by creating holes in the ceilings.

Police said hes burgled the following businesses:

Establishment in the 1800 block of Benning Road, Northeast, on January 9, 2024, at approximately 1 a.m.

Establishment in the 1300 block of Bladensburg Road, Northeast, on January 18, 2024, at approximately 8 p.m.

Establishment in the 1600 block of New York Avenue, Northeast, on February 22, 2024, at approximately 1:50 a.m.

Establishment in the 4100 block of Rhode Island Avenue, Northeast, on February 23, 2024.

Burglary 2 of an Establishment in the 4600 block of Martin Luther King Jr Avenue, Southwest, on January 20, 2024.

Establishment in the 4100 block of Wheeler Road, Southeast, on February 13, 2024.

Establishment in the 4100 block of Wheeler Road, Southeast, on February 17, 2024.

Establishment in the 4600 block of Martin Luther King Jr Avenue, Southwest, on March 8, 2024.

DMV train service disrupted after Amtrak trespasser incident; person critically hurt

He was also charged with the following:

Residence in the 2000 block of Savannah Terrace, Southeast, on June 20, 2024.

Residence in the 2000 block of Savannah Terrace, Southeast, on June 24, 2024.

Armed Robbery of an Establishment in the 400 block of Ingraham Street, Northeast, on June 14, 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 DC News Now | Washington, DC.
Footage of an incident at Manchester Airport sparked two nights of protests

A Greater Manchester Police constable is under criminal investigation for assault, the Independent Office for Police Conduct has said.

The IOPC made the announcement on Friday afternoon following two nights of protest.

It came after videos emerged showing a confrontation at the airports Terminal 2 on Tuesday night, in which an officer could be seen appearing to kick a man of Asian descent in the head, and then another man in the upper leg.

Greater Manchester Police had referred the incident to the IOPC after suspending the police officer.

It made a second referral in respect of a second officer who sprayed PAVA spray in the eyes of a man, also of Asian descent, who was filming them.

In a statement on Friday, Catherine Bates, the IOPC regional director, said the police constable would be interviewed under caution as soon as possible.

She said: I have today met one of the men who was involved and his family members to outline our investigation and we will continue to update them and Greater Manchester Police as our enquiries progress. We will be speaking to the man involved in the second incident as soon as we can.

The family has asked me to reiterate their call for peace and wish to stress that they do not condone any acts of violence as a result of this incident.

Ms Bates added: We are meeting with a number of community leaders in Rochdale this afternoon to listen to their concerns and explain our role.

Our investigation continues to gather relevant evidence and will be following a number of lines of enquiry. We will provide further updates when we are in a position to do so.

On Friday evening, GMP Chief Constable Stephen Watson said: It is a source of profound regret that this weeks incident at Manchester Airport has caused shock and upset in some of our communities.

Throughout this week, senior officers have been meeting with community representatives to ensure their voices are heard and this will continue  we are at one with the best instincts of those engaged in appealing for calm.

Whilst we are constrained in publicly releasing further information or footage about the incident due to the conduct and criminal investigations, we are committed to providing the fullest practical assistance to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.

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 BRONX, N.Y. (PIX11)  Police are searching for a man they believe is connected to a burglary pattern in the Bronx.

The individual is accused of stealing over $400 in cash, cash register drawers, and beverages, according to the NYPD.

More Local News

The first burglary happened at a restaurant near Williamsbridge Road and Chesborough Avenue around 1:12 a.m. on Wednesday, June 26. The suspect forcibly entered the restaurant and stole $200 from the front cash drawer and two cash register drawers valued around $200 from the back of the store, police said.

Around 18 minutes later, an unknown individual forcibly entered another restaurant in the same vicinity and stole $200 from the front cash drawer and two cash register drawers valued around $200 from the back of the store, according to the NYPD.

The third burglary happened around 1:03 a.m. on Saturday, July 13. An unknown individual forced their way into a commercial building near Castle Hill Avenue and Lyon Avenue, police said. The individual stole 15 Arizona ice teas and fled.

Passenger recounts moment when MTA bus crashed into Brooklyn Burger King

The NYPD released a surveillance image of the suspect. No injuries were reported.

Credit: NYPD

Submit tips to police by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477), visiting crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, downloading the NYPD Crime Stoppers mobile app, or texting 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. Spanish-speaking callers are asked to dial 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).

Ben Mitchell is a digital content producer from Vermont who has covered both local and international news since 2021. He joined PIX11 in 2024. See more of his work here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.
Police searching for suspects accused of stealing womans scooter from a Buckhead Target

Atlanta Police are asking for your help to find a suspect who stole someones scooter.

On June 30, officers responded to the Target on Peachtree Road NE about a larceny.

[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]

Officers arrived at the store and spoke with a woman who said that her electric scooter had been stolen from the lobby of the store.

Management ran the cameras back and provided police with footage of two suspects.

One of the suspects had a slim build and wore a black hoodie with blue jeans, black slides, and a black skull cap.

The other suspect had a stocky/heavyset build and was wearing a black t-shirt with a black hoodie, blue joggers, and a black skull cap.

TRENDING STORIES:

Anyone with information on this case can submit a tip anonymously to the Crime Stoppers Atlanta tip line at 404-577-8477, online, or by texting CSA and the tip to CRIMES (274637).

You do not have to give your name or any identifying information to be eligible for the reward of up to $2,000.

[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]

IN OTHER NEWS:
MUNCIE, Ind.  An Indianapolis man has been accused of exposing himself to young women at Muncie's Target store  again.

Edward Clarence Uhles, 91, was charged July 23 in Delaware Circuit Court 1 with display of matter harmful to minors and public indecency, both Level 6 felonies with maximum 30-month sentences.

The incident reportedly captured on video took place in the store, at 3601 N. Barr St., on Nov. 9, according to an affidavit that said Uhles had displayed his genitalia to three teenage girls.

According to that document, Target employees were able to identify Uhles after determining he had been arrested in Carmel after an indecent exposure incident at that Hamilton County city's Target store in July 2023.

His trial in that case, in Hamilton Superior Court 7, is set for Oct. 2.

He also faces a public indecency charge that was filed in Bartholomew County on July 2.

In November 2016, Uhles was charged with two counts of public indecency in Delaware Circuit Court 3 after he was repeatedly accused of exposing himself at the Muncie Target store.

According to police reports, Uhles twice exposed himself to two women  ages 21 and 18  as they shopped in the Barr Street stores shoe and sleepwear departments on July 16, 2016.

City police investigated that incident but did not have a suspects name until October of that year, when Uhles allegedly returned to the Muncie store and showed his genitals to customers, including a mother shopping with her two daughters.

In 2018, he resolved those 2016 charges by pleading guilty to one count of public indecency, drawing a suspended sentence.

According to court records, Uhley has been convicted of public indecency at least five other times in Hamilton, Marion and Monroe counties.

He also has public nudity convictions in Hendricks and Monroe counties.

Douglas Walker is a news reporter at The Star Press. Contact him at 765-213-5851 or at dwalker@muncie.gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: Indy man, 91, faces indecent exposure charge again in Delaware County
An aerial drone photo taken on July 25, 2024 shows researchers collecting samples at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The Zoige Wetland Ecology Research Station, established by the Chengdu Institute of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Sichuan Province, went operational on Friday. The station is expected to provide scientific and technical support and policy recommendations for regional ecological protection and sustainable socio-economic development in southwest China, and also make scientific explorations for global wetland protection, according to Gao Yongheng, head of the research station. The Zoige plateau, one of the main distribution areas of high-altitude wetlands in China, serves as an important ecological barrier. With the backdrop of global climate change, the region is facing significant ecological challenges, including biodiversity loss and a weakened wetland ecosystem, scientists say. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

CHENGDU, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists are conducting monitoring, evaluation and research on biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration of the alpine wetlands in southwest China, harnessing the significant role of the wetlands in carbon sequestration and climate change adaptation.

The Zoige Wetland Ecology Research Station, established by the Chengdu Institute of Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Sichuan Province, went operational on Friday.

The station is expected to provide scientific and technical support and policy recommendations for regional ecological protection and sustainable socio-economic development in southwest China, and also make scientific explorations for global wetland protection, according to Gao Yongheng, head of the research station.

The Zoige plateau, one of the main distribution areas of high-altitude wetlands in China, serves as an important ecological barrier. With the backdrop of global climate change, the region is facing significant ecological challenges, including biodiversity loss and a weakened wetland ecosystem, scientists say.

China lacked long-term monitoring and research on the ecology of high-altitude wetlands. The systematic scientific research, technological development and promotion of sustainable agricultural and pastoral development in the Zoige region are still weak, said Zhu Dan, deputy director of the station, who has conducted research in the Zoige region for nearly two decades.

The Zoige region is the most populous area for yaks on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, and the yaks are a vital source of energy and materials for the local herdsmen, Zhu said.

In addition, the Zoige wetland is the world's most concentrated area of alpine peatlands, which are similar to huge loose sponges able to hold water up to eight times its own weight. During the dry season of the Yellow River, the Zoige wetland could provide 40 percent of the downstream flow, according to Zhu.

"If the Zoige wetland is not properly protected, it might become a source of sandstorms in south China, posing a threat of ecological degradation," Zhu said.

Peatlands play a crucial role in carbon sequestration, carbon fixation and climate change mitigation due to the slow decomposition rate of carbon dioxide in peat soils, Zhu explained.

Zhang Hui, an assistant researcher at the station, said peatlands, often in a state of being submerged or semi-submerged, contain a large volume of water but with little air and low soil fauna content. If peatlands degrade, there would be an increase in soil animals such as earthworms, as well as microorganisms, leading to peat decomposition and causing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, thereby exacerbating global warming trends.

"Our research has illustrated that the unique climatic conditions of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, with its low temperatures, inhibit carbon decomposition, thereby possessing a strong carbon neutralization function," said Ju Peijun, who is also conducting research in the Zoige region.

"Previously, people only focused on the ecological functions of wetlands in terms of water conservation and biodiversity protection. We hope to draw people's attention to the carbon fixation function of wetlands," said Liu Xinwei, another assistant researcher at the station.

The new station, focusing on the Zoige wetland and covering typical wetland distribution areas of the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau and the adjacent regions, adopts an interdisciplinary approach to mainly carry out monitoring, research and experimental demonstration works on the conservation and sustainable utilization of high-altitude wetland ecosystems.

The research mainly includes observation of wetland and grassland ecological elements, high-altitude ecosystem structure, function and processes, as well as wetland and grassland resource conservation and utilization.

The research station has set up field observation instruments and equipment at altitudes ranging from 3,400 meters to 4,100 meters, and utilizes efficient storage and automated information transmission methods to improve the accuracy and density of field data monitoring, as well as the comprehensiveness of observed parameters.

The researchers also established a climate change simulation platform to investigate the mechanisms of aboveground vegetation, underground soil microorganism and soil carbon processes in alpine wetlands in response to climate change.

Scientists will also comprehensively explore the relationship between plant diversity and ecosystem functioning, as well as investigate grassland degradation and restoration in high-altitude wetlands. Their experiments involve studying the impacts of environmental change such as warming, nitrogen deposition and grassland degradation.

Chinese researchers have engaged in exchanges and cooperation on wetland ecological protection with scientists from the United States, Canada, Australia and Croatia, as well as neighboring countries such as Russia, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bhutan and Afghanistan. 

An aerial drone photo taken on July 25, 2024 shows a researcher collecting samples at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

Researchers collect a peatland sample at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

A researcher collects gas samples at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

An aerial drone photo taken on July 25, 2024 shows a researcher collecting samples at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

A researcher collects gas samples at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

A researcher collects a peatland sample at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

A researcher presents a peatland sample collected at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

Guests attend the inauguration ceremony of the Zoige Wetland Ecology Research Station under Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 26, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

A drone photo taken on July 25, 2024 shows the Zoige Wetland Ecology Research Station under Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

An aerial drone photo taken on July 25, 2024 shows researchers collecting samples at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

Researchers collect samples at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

Researchers collect peatland samples at a test platform in Zoige wetland in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province, July 25, 2024. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
Razor wire is seen near the fence on Belarusian-Polish border in the forest near Topilo village

By Barbara Erling and Alan Charlish

WARSAW (Reuters) -Polish lawmakers voted on Friday in favour of a bill making it easier for security services to use weapons against migrants on the Belarus border, legislation that has public support but that critics say infringes human rights.

The debate pits Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-EU government against activists who had hoped he would abandon the previous, nationalist administration's approach to the migrant crisis on the bloc's eastern frontier.

Poland has been dealing with what it says is a form of hybrid warfare on the border since 2021, when large numbers of migrants started trying to cross illegally.

Both Warsaw and the EU say Belarus and its ally Russia have been orchestrating the crisis by flying in migrants from the Middle East and Africa, something Minsk and Moscow deny.

The situation took a tragic turn in June when a 21-year-old Polish soldier died after being stabbed through the border fence, provoking a wave of grief and anger.

Many Poles were also angered by news that soldiers who had fired warning shots on the border had been arrested and led away in handcuffs, an incident that cost a prosecutor his job.

The bill would allow security services to use force including firearms on the border in certain emergency situations.

Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said it would send "a clear signal of support to people in uniform fighting aggression at the border".

PUBLIC SUPPORT

An IBRiS survey for the Rzeczpospolita daily indicated that around 86% of Poles thought soldiers should be able to use weapons to repel migrants who use force.

However, activists expressed disappointment.

"I believe the government... stepped into the shoes of its predecessors because it was convenient," said Marcin Wolny, a lawyer from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

Human rights advocates say the bill may prevent proper scrutiny of incidents.

The government rejects such arguments, and Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has said the migrants are not refugees seeking asylum but "hordes of bandits who... try to attack Polish soldiers".

For Natalia Ciaston from the NGO 'We are Monitoring', such rhetoric paints a misleading picture.

"The narrative that these are dangerous criminals... is probably based on a few individual cases, such as the attack on a soldier, which of course should be condemned, but should not be projected onto all the rest," she said.

($1 = 3.9472 zlotys)

(Reporting by Barbara Erling and Alan Charlish; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Gareth Jones)
A study from Pew Research Center showed that 86% of Americans think that Republicans and Democrats are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems, with 63% expressing not too much or no confidence at all in the future of the U.S. political system.

However, in another study by Pew, an almost identical percentage of Americans, 62%, said that when someone disagrees with them about religion, its best to try and understand the persons belief and agree to disagree.

The tensions expressed in the first study are not to be ignored  we all feel them. But too often we look to the false promise of political policies for social salvation and solution, and we forget that we are indivisible not when we focus on politics, but when we transcend them  when we are one nation under God.

Faith in a higher power  in God  is perhaps the most transcendent unifier for diverse groups of people that we know today, even (and perhaps especially) among differing religious groups and traditions.

The beauty of interfaith unity is that you achieve it by first recognizing differences, before then rising above those differences in a broader unity of faith. Interfaith harmony teaches us that there is no social diversity without some kind of unity (nor unity without diversity); and, ultimately, that there is no unity without transcendence.

I have seen the unifying reality of faith firsthand, and never have, nor ever will, see anything more perfectly bind and unite a group of people with infinitely different lives and perspectives.

I saw it while living in Detroit. My wife and I were interns there for a summer and joined the downtown meetings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The congregation spent half the month conducting Sundays in English, and the other half in Spanish. Never once did I hear a single complaint.

At the end of our stay, the branch (congregation) held a baby shower for my sister-in-law on a Saturday afternoon. I sat there, marveling at the many people from different walks of life: an African American man who spent many years in prison and bore a strong testimony of Jesus Christ (with a 2-year-old daughter in his arms); a Mexican woman with a beautiful toothless smile; a handful of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo serving in leadership roles; a well-off Uruguayan man who led the congregation and wore the most beautiful two-tone shoes I had ever seen; and me, an average BYU student trying to figure out what to do with his life.

Ultimately, we were all there together not because we loved my sister-in-law necessarily, but because we loved Jesus Christ. Our faith unified our diversity and made us one. And in that unity, there was great joy.

A second experience came some years later while living in Spain. It was at another church-related event (a birthday for a Colombian girl in our branch) that I met Muhammad. He came to the event with his girlfriend (a member of our church). She introduced us and he told me of his home in Mali, his Ph.D. in engineering and his research. We spoke some about academia, but when the subject of God came up, we formed an immediate bond, proving that we were not mere acquaintances, but brothers. He explained how his faith in Islam brought him closer to God, as my own faith in Jesus Christ did for me.

We resonated on many more points than I thought would be the case, creating a harmony and a song that seemed to reach up into heaven and glorify the same Father we both knew and loved together. Every time I saw him thereafter he would hug me in the bonds of fraternal love.

A third experience occurred in Kansas. A young man, 16 years old, was frantically examining a car in the middle of our parking lot with his mother. I went to help. We put the car in neutral and pushed it off into a stall and began to search for the problem together. I learned that the mother was from India, and the father was away on a trucking route. As we charged the battery from my car, the subject of religion came up.

Yeah, my mom prays every day, all day, the young man said, smiling. She looked at me, knowing I was not Hindu, and said, Yes. One God, I pray to one Father God. Shiva, many gods below God, but one Father God.

In this small exchange I recognized some of my faith in her faith, as she recognized hers in mine. That faith unified us as neighbors, and as Americans in this nation of the free, and of the faithful.

These moments of unity through faith are not simple vignettes of good times, but illustrations of the role (and necessity) that both faith and interfaith respect play in achieving unity amid our increasing political tensions and differences. In this interfaith respect, our diversity doesnt dissolve into tribal-political chaos and contention, but into a civil identity as a people who respect and honor the freedoms, rights, and privileges of our neighbors. It is in this respect that we become Americans, one out of many (e pluribus unum).

In many ways, it is the unity of faith that actually makes America great. In fact, there is no America without it. In modern America, all who believe in God civically set aside their modes of worship (a collective sacrifice) in order to flourish in the unity that we even worship at all. In that unity, under God, we become indivisible; in that unity, we are not merely Republicans or Democrats, but Americans.

While religious and political infighting will inevitably continue on, those who seek truth and God will find Him as they also seek for unity with their neighborly brothers and sisters. It seems to me that God would have it no other way. That unity, the unity of faith, is the strongest chord that will ever bind a wide bushel of foreign branches. In that unity comes the harmony and the song of American glory which we sing: one nation, under God, a beacon to the world for freedom, sacrifice and the pursuit of happiness.
According to 2017 data from the Guttmacher Institute, 88% of abortions took place before the end of the first trimester of pregnancy at 12 weeks. (Getty Images)

Its an oft-repeated talking point of anti-abortion rights groups and Republican politicians, before and after the June 2022 Dobbs decision  that those who are supportive of abortion rights also must be in favor of abortions that happen during the last weeks of pregnancy, or even after birth.

Former President Donald Trump brought it up in the June debate against President Joe Biden, saying Bidens position on restoring abortion access would lead to doctors being able to take the life of the baby in the ninth month, and even after birth.

Trumps newly announced vice presidential running mate, Republican Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, told Fox News this week that Biden wants taxpayer-funded abortions up until the moment of birth.

And candidates in states such as North Dakota and Montana have campaigned on that rhetoric in recent months, saying some states allow post-birth abortions or abortion the day before a due date. Republican U.S. House candidates Julie Fedorchak and Alex Balazs referred to post-birth abortions during a June 6 debate. Fedorchak won the June 11 Republican primary and advances to the general election.

In reality, abortion after birth does not happen, because it would be categorized as murder under all state laws. And while abortions do occur later in pregnancy, they are exceptionally rare and happen for many diverse reasons, such as a fatal fetal diagnosis and financial or travel barriers that extend timelines.

Abortion-rights advocates say the rhetoric is used because public opinion polls show support becomes more mixed for abortion after 24 weeks, which is the second trimester of pregnancy and the medically recognized point of viability, when a fetus can reasonably be expected to survive outside of the womb with medical interventions. That argument was seemingly bolstered by an anti-abortion groups campaign strategy meeting against Amendment 4 in Florida this week, a ballot question that would restore abortion access to 24 weeks in the state where a six-week ban is currently the law, before many people know theyre pregnant. During a presentation, the campaign organizers displayed a slide that said, How we win: We win by talking about late-term abortion.

Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Dobbs decision, abortion was only protected as a federal right until viability, at which point it could be restricted by states. So if a Democratic presidential administration or Congress were to re-establish and codify Roe as the standard, third-trimester abortion would likely remain restricted in many states. In some states where abortion is legal and there is no restriction by gestational age, such as Alaska, it is still unavailable past the second trimester because there are no clinics that provide it.

According to 2017 data from the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights organization that gathers provider-specific data from across the country, 88% of abortions took place before the end of the first trimester of pregnancy at 12 weeks. A little over 10% happened between 13 and 20 weeks, and 1.3% occurred after 21 weeks, about halfway through the second trimester. Out of 862,320 abortions tracked that year, that means 11,210 happened after 21 weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows a slightly lower number of 1.1% after 21 weeks, but does not receive abortion data from Maryland, as it is voluntary reporting. Guttmacher reaches out to individual clinics to collect data, and several of the small number of clinics that take patients later in pregnancy are located in Maryland.

I dont need people to feel comfortable with it

The time between 21 and 40 weeks is a long span in a pregnancy, and in 20 states, abortion is generally banned after 22 or 24 weeks. Only nine states and the District of Columbia dont ascribe gestational limits to their abortion laws, and of those, only four  Maryland, New Mexico, Oregon and Colorado  and the District of Columbia have clinics that openly say they will take patients past 28 weeks.

One of those is Partners in Abortion Care in Maryland, where Dr. Diane Horvath is chief medical officer. That clinic opened in October 2022, and saw about 500 patients in its first year of operation. Horvath told States Newsroom that because there are so few clinics that will take patients at an advanced stage of pregnancy, the people who come to them have generally had to make it through many barriers to access care. That includes their home state laws, travel barriers, time restrictions and costs. In 14 states, a near-total ban on abortion is the law, and five others have bans before 12 weeks.

Nobody ever thinks theyre going to need a later abortion, but when you need it, you need it 100%, Horvath said. Just like youd never imagine yourself needing a later abortion, this could happen to you or anybody that you love.

The idea of an abortion happening in a persons third trimester of pregnancy can be uncomfortable for the average person, Horvath said, and for some physicians. Some doctors may have their own objections to it, or they may just choose not to make their feelings known about it at all for fear of being targeted by anti-abortion activists. Nobody should have to participate in that type of care, she said. But when a position is open at her clinic, she receives hundreds of applications.

Horvath said in all the time shes been practicing abortion care, shes never seen a patient who walked in during their third trimester of pregnancy who wanted to terminate simply because they were tired of being pregnant, as some anti-abortion groups might suggest. The idea that people are choosing that path carelessly is just wrong, she said.

The circumstances in which people are seeking abortions later in pregnancy are really dire. This is not to say every abortion has horrible circumstances, but by the time you find yourself later in pregnancy, lots has gone wrong for you, and this may be due to something that was completely out of your control, Horvath said. Its so easy to demonize when you dont want to understand something.

The most important point, she said, is that there isnt a line in pregnancy where the government becomes more well-equipped to make decisions about a pregnancy than the person carrying it, and there is no possible way to fully understand what a person making that decision is going through.

Its possible to feel uncomfortable about this care and the circumstances under which it occurs and still support someones ability to get that care when they need it, Horvath said. I dont need people to feel comfortable with it.

Women interviewed about abortions had fetal anomalies, financial difficulties

As States Newsroom has reported through a series called When and Where: Abortion Access in America, there are many situations when a clinical diagnosis of severe fetal anomalies happens at a routine anatomy scan, which is typically scheduled at 20 weeks. That leaves only two weeks to get an appointment in a majority of states with legal access  and post-Dobbs, it can be a tall order to get an appointment that quickly, as clinics have been inundated with patients from other states where no access is available at any stage.

Katrina Kimport, a professor at the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program at the University of California San Francisco, has published at least two studies about abortions that take place in the third trimester, including one that detailed interviews with 28 women of different races between the ages of 18 and 46. Their gestational ages ranged between 24 and 35 weeks.

One woman in Kimports study who had already had a complication with a previous pregnancy was assured at 20 weeks that everything was going well this time. But at 29 weeks, her doctors observed problems with the fetus brain and initially said she shouldnt worry too much. But further testing showed pieces of the brain were missing or concave, and specialists eventually told her there was no possibility it was compatible with life.

Theres a heartbreaking number of ways that pregnancy can go wrong, Kimport said.

Two women didnt know they were pregnant until their third trimesters  both of whom were still having regular menstrual cycles, indicating they were not pregnant.

Others reported significant financial difficulties affording the procedure, which can cost at least $500 during the first trimester and increase to tens of thousands of dollars in late stages of pregnancy, on top of the costs of out-of-state travel for some of the women. One of the women reported that she and her boyfriend were living on the street. To the extent any of them received financial assistance to obtain the abortion, according to Kimports research, it was through local or regional abortion funds. Many insurance providers do not cover out-of-state abortion care.

Anti-abortion physician says there is never a reason for abortion late in pregnancy

The Charlotte Lozier Institute, a research arm of anti-abortion rights organization Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, did not grant an interview for this story, but sent along its own prepared papers on the subject. In one of those papers, the Institute points out there is some research that indicates fetal anomalies or maternal health conditions make up a minority of abortions that happen late in pregnancy, and more often it is because of unplanned pregnancy, economic considerations and relationship issues.

Horvath said it is true that the circumstances include people who are dealing with complex situations in their own lives, like one patient she could remember whose house burned down. That patient was already in a shelter with her children, Horvath said, and could barely provide for them.

While some might suggest having the child anyway and putting it up for adoption at that point, Horvath said that isnt something that should be forced on a person.

The idea that somebody owes society or an infertile couple a baby is not just, she said. We have one of the worst maternal and infant mortality rates in the world, so to force someone to continue a pregnancy beyond the point theyve decided is not the right time is putting them at risk to give a baby to someone else.

The Institute also quotes an anti-abortion rights physician who says there is never an appropriate situation for an abortion at that stage of pregnancy to take place.

The infant may need to be delivered prematurely and die as a result of that, but it is not necessary to take the infants life, said Dr. Byron Calhoun, a known anti-abortion activist perinatologist. Further, if a fetus has an adverse prenatal diagnosis, all patients should be offered perinatal hospice care since this is far better for maternal health than any elective abortion. Perinatal hospice allows the parents to be parents and provide all the love they can for their child.

The Institute did not provide evidence that hospice care is better for maternal health, but perinatal hospice is an option for anyone who wants to do that rather than have an abortion, when the fetus is typically given an injection to stop the heart and then removed from the uterus. Kimport said she has also interviewed women who could not deliver a baby vaginally because of a health condition, and would be forced to have a Cesarean section surgery if abortion was not available.

Physicians who are affiliated with the Lozier Institute have also told news outlets such as the Washington Post that up to the moment of birth means any stage of pregnancy past 22 weeks, whereas others would think of it as the last two to three weeks of a 40-week pregnancy.

Some of the failure to push back on these really outrageously false claims comes from the fact that there are so many things that are wrong about it and its hard to know where to start, Kimport said.
A new poll found that a whopping zero percent of Black voters in Michigan plan to vote for Donald Trump, despite all of the former presidents underwhelming attempts to shore up support in that state.

A survey of 600 likely general election voters in Michigan, released late Thursday by WDIV Local 4/Detroit News, found that zero African American respondents said that they supported Trump, while 82.1 percent said they supported Vice President Kamala Harris.

While President Joe Biden was reportedly experiencing a loss of support from Black communities, it certainly doesnt appear that Harris will face the same difficulties now that shes taken over the Democratic ticket. Of course, Trump has done plenty of things to dissuade Black voters from backing him in November, in just the last month or so.

In June, Trump held a campaign event at a Black church in Detroit that revealed itself to be a blatant stunt. The campaign boasted 8,000 attendees in a space that could only seat a few hundred. At the event, which was meant to shore up his support among Black voters, roughly half of the attendees were white, WDETs Russ McNamara noted. After Trumps church stunt, the former president ran across town to give the keynote address to his real base of white nationalists at Turning Points The Peoples Convention.

Trump has repeatedly overstated his support among Black voters, who he claimed were abandoning Biden in droves. He bragged about the formation of a group called Black Americans for Trumpbut he failed to mention that at least three of his new endorsers were on his familys payroll.

Trump also found himself under fire for a remark he made in the first presidential debate about immigrants taking Black jobs, which had many asking, what exactly is a Black job?
Pomona man caught in prostitution sting with his baby in backseat

A Pomona man was arrested for soliciting sex from a prostitute while his 8-month-old baby was in the backseat of his vehicle on Thursday.

The 30-year-old man was arrested during an anti-human-trafficking operation on East Holt Avenue, the Pomona Police Department said in a news release.

The man, whom police described as a sex purchaser, was pulled over, and in his back seat, police found an 8-month-old child.

The Department of Children and Family Services was immediately contacted and took custody of the baby, police said.

The child was unharmed, and the father is cooperating with the investigation, police added.

The man faces charges of prostitution and child endangerment.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  The leaders of two law enforcement unions serving the Portland area have spoken out about the death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who was killed by an Illinois deputy after calling for help.

Portland Police Association President Aaron Schmautz and Multnomah County Deputy Sheriffs Association President Josh Zwick released a joint statement on the incident on Thursday evening.

ODOC releases woman from prison 21 months late due to policy change

The concern, confusion, and sorrow are shared by all community members, as well as the law enforcement officers throughout our country who serve every day, Schmautz and Zwick said, in part. Sonya Massey should be alive today, and we lift up her family, loved ones, and community as they grapple with this unimaginable loss.

The deadly shooting occurred in Springfield, Ill., about 200 miles outside of Chicago, on July 6. Thirty-six-year-old Massey called 911 out of concern there was a prowler in her neighborhood.

Two deputies from the Sangamon County Sheriffs Office arrived on the scene around 1 a.m., when they spotted an SUV with broken windows in her driveway. AP News reported that law enforcement knocked on her door for about three minutes before she responded, immediately saying Dont hurt me.

Oregons total active wildfires now greater than size of Rhode Island

Massey told deputies she didnt know who owned the damaged vehicle. Inside, 30-year-old Deputy Sean Grayson advised her to turn off her stove and remove a pot of hot water before they began the police report. Body camera footage shows Massey moving the pot and shouting, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.

The deputy then grabbed his 9 mm pistol, threatening to shoot her. Footage shows Massey apologizing and raising her hands before Grayson shot her three times, once in the head.

He has since been indicted for official misconduct, first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm. He pleaded not guilty on all charges.

On Wednesday night, the Portland Police Bureaus North Precinct was vandalized by people who are believed to be demonstrators. A bureau spokesperson told KOIN 6 it has a policy not to get into why people are demonstrating, but images show that suspects wrote Stop killing us now, and murders on the building.

9 arrested after demonstration leaves PPB precinct vandalized

Read Schmautz and Zwicks full statement below.

In Springfield, Illinois, Sonya Massey called for help. She believed that she was in danger and trusted that law enforcement would ensure her safety. The events which followed leading to her tragic and inexplicable death at the hands of that very same responder create a fracture in the trust community places in its public servants. There are more questions than answers regarding this horrific incident. The concern, confusion, and sorrow are shared by all community members, as well as the law enforcement officers throughout our country who serve every day. Sonya Massey should be alive today, and we lift up her family, loved ones, and community as they grapple with this unimaginable loss.

When trust is broken, it is critical that Law Enforcement leans into relationships with community leaders, neighbors, and partners who wish to truly learn and understand each other. As leaders of our organizations and representatives of the law enforcement professionals our community interacts with every day, we are committed to transparency, connection, and open dialogue. We also respect that grief and outrage over such a dramatic and horrific incident can manifest in many ways. While speech and concern are vital outlets, we must not allow violence and discord to disrupt the necessity of connection and healing. The Portland Police Association and the Multnomah County Deputy Sheriffs Association stand with those who are grieving this heartbreaking loss.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) used an iconic Austin Powers character to explain why former President Donald Trump selected Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate earlier this month.

Hes the Donald Trump Mini-Me, Pritzker told CNNs Jake Tapper on Wednesday.

Pritzker  who is reportedly being considered as a potential running mate for Vice President Kamala Harris  said the Ohio senator insults women and hides his opposition to reproductive rights even in cases of rape and incest.

The Illinois governor told Tapper that the blue wall  which includes his state  is very important to Democrats when asked if the Harris campaign should consider someone from the area.

Donald Trump has done terribly in Illinois. And across the Midwest, there is a growing sense that JD Vance just doesnt stand where most Illinoisans and most Midwesterners stand. So, you know, its a question, he said.

Pritzker added that Trump seems to be drifting away from Vance, a VP choice that some Republicans have reportedly expressed buyers remorse over in private due to his weird views.

I mean, hes had the worst launch since Sarah Palin, Pritzker said of Vance, the least-liked non-incumbent VP nominee since 1980, according to CNNs senior political data reporter Harry Enten.

So, Im not sure if Donald Trump is going to frankly throw him off the ticket and pick somebody else because hes been just terrible on the stump.

Related...
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a potential vice presidential contender, has emerged among labor unions as a popular pick to join Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket, four union officials and a political consultant told ABC News.

Walz, a former public school teacher and union member, has drawn support for his record of pro-labor legislation in a blue-leaning state and his potential appeal with voters in nearby Midwest battlegrounds Wisconsin and Michigan, they said.

Still, some added, labor unions lack a consensus choice in part because it is difficult to determine which candidate will deliver the best chance of a Democratic victory in the November election.

"People are high on Walz," Steve Rosenthal, president of political consulting firm The Organizing Group, who has spoken with unions about the potential vice presidential nominee, told ABC News. "People in the labor movement would be very comfortable with him."

PHOTO: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks at a Biden-Harris campaign and DNC press conference on July 17, 2024 at venue name in Milwaukee, Wis. (Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)

However, Rosenthal added: "Mostly people understand the desperate need to win. It's not like there's somebody who's the union candidate and people have coalesced around that."

MORE: Potential VP pick Mark Kelly backs pro-labor legislation after unions voice concern

Walz has signed into law a series of measures viewed as pro-worker. Last year, Minnesota established paid sick and medical leave, banned non-compete agreements and expanded protections for Amazon warehouse workers. In May, Minnesota enacted a measure providing a raise for Uber and Lyft drivers while averting a threat made by those companies to stop doing business in the state.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, told ABC News that she considers Walz one of two top candidates for the vice presidential nod.

"He got the workers from Uber involved before passing the bill to support workers rights in the gig economy," Nelson said. "That trust of workers and that understanding of the engagement of working people is absolutely something we're looking for."

In addition to Walz, Nelson said she backs Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear as a potential VP pick, citing his willingness to walk the picket line in a red state and his legislative record on issues important to the working class such as an expansion of healthcare access.

"Those two should really rise to the top," Nelson said of Walz and Beshear, adding that she had communicated that view to the Harris campaign. "It makes a lot of sense to lean in harder on workers rights when the MAGA talking points are trying to say theyre for working people.

Representatives for Walz and Beshear did not immediately respond to ABC News' requests for comment.

Labor unions, a key part of the Democratic coalition, issued a flurry of endorsements for Harris over the days following her entry into the race. Harris spoke on Thursday in Houston at the national convention of the American Federation of Teachers, a teachers union.

One of the best ways to keep our nation moving forward is to give workers a voice -- to protect the freedom to organize, Harris said.

A senior staff member at a private sector union that backs Harris, who has participated in labor discussions about the vice presidential pick, said enthusiasm about Walz among union officials has grown in recent days. The person requested that their name not be used due to the sensitivity surrounding the Harris campaign's selection of a vice president.

"Walz may not be as splashy as some of the other potential folks, but I think he will really relate with working class voters, especially in the states we need to win in November," the person said.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wa., a labor ally, said on Thursday that she favors Walz for the vice presidential nomination due in large part to his record on worker issues.

"I like Governor Walz," Jayapal told CNN. "I want somebody that's super pro-labor, that really gets unions and can speak to a core constituency of ours."

To be sure, labor officials have not agreed upon a preferred candidate for the position, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Service Employees International Union, the largest private sector union, declined to respond to ABC News' request for comment on the vice presidential selection. The AFL-CIO, the largest labor organization, also declined to comment.

Concern emerged in recent days over the potential selection of Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly due to his previous unwillingness to back the PRO Act, a major labor reform measure. On Wednesday, Kelly said he would vote for the legislation if it came to the Senate floor. His comments were first reported by the Huffington Post.

A representative for Kelly declined to respond to a request for comment. In response to a previous request from ABC News, Kelly's office said the Arizona senator has robustly backed labor.

"Senator Kelly is the son of two union police officers and has been a strong supporter of workers throughout his time in the Senate," Kelly spokesperson Jacob Peters said.

Rosenthal, of The Organizing Group, said the shift in Kelly's position warded off a concerted opposition campaign from organized labor.

PHOTO: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz greets US Vice President Kamala Harris as she arrives at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in Saint Paul, Minn., on March 14, 2024. (Stephen Maturen/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)

"Had Kelly not taken the position he did, there would be a significant amount of pushback from labor unions," Rosenthal said, later adding: "Overall, it's really about winning."

MORE: Harris balances critical factors in 'lightning speed' VP choice

Jim McLaughlin, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 99, the largest private sector union in Arizona, praised Kelly in a post on X on Wednesday. "Unions in Arizona know [Kelly] for his commitment to the state and to our nation," McLaughlin said. "I respect Senator Kelly and am encouraged by the consideration he is being given by the [Kamala Harris] campaign.

At least one labor leader took issue with Kelly after his newfound support for the PRO Act. "If he changed his position on the PRO Act, he would've signed onto it," Transport Workers Union President John Samuelsen told ABC News on Thursday.

"I've heard talk about Walz from other union presidents," Samuelsen added. "And Tim Walz certainly sounds like a dream come true relative to Mark Kelly."

A labor leader, who has endorsed Harris, voiced praise for Walz's pro-labor legislative accomplishments and his potential appeal in the Midwest. At the same time, the person lauded Kelly as a skilled campaigner who would perform well as a running mate. The person requested that ABC News not use their name due to the sensitivity surrounding Harris's selection of a vice presidential nominee.

The decision should ultimately come down to which of vice presidential choices best helps Harris win the election, the person added. "It's hard to know," they said.

Potential VP pick Tim Walz emerges as popular candidate among labor unions, sources say originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
On Monday, July 22, the Potter County Commissioners Court made agreements with Amarillo College to provide mental health training for first responders and approved inmate housing contracts with other Texas counties to reduce continual overcrowding in the Potter County Detention Center.

In 2022, the Potter County Commissioners' Court approved the funding for State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds for a mental health project, which spurred this agreement with Amarillo College.

With Amarillo College being certified for this type of training, so we went with them to do this, Potter County Judge Nancy Tanner said. It is very important for the county because when these officers stop someone with a mental illness, they need to know how to handle the situation. It is really good to know that they will get the training that they need to know how to approach these people and deal with them. I think it's a really good deal.

Tanner said that, as a judge who has repeatedly stressed the need for better mental health training and facilities, this just gives another tool to deal with an underserved community.

Its really important to me, because I do all the mental health hearings for the entire Panhandle, Tanner said. So, for them to come forward and say were going to do some training with officers, it is a gift. It is a gift from above. This is a really good thing that we will take advantage of.

Another issue plaguing the county is the level of overcrowding in its county jail. The county has sought partnerships with other counties to alleviate overcrowding. A recent proposal to Deaf Smith County was rejected by its commissioners because they wanted a higher rate per prisoner. Potter County initially offered $60 per day, but a new agreement was signed to raise that amount to $75 per day.

Also approved at the meeting were inmate housing contracts with Deaf Smith County, Scurry County, and Garza County for additional beds. Deputy Chief Scott Giles of the Potter County Sheriffs Office spoke about the agreements and the need for more beds.

Our jail is a bit overcrowded. We have been seeing a steady increased jail population over the past 12 months. We are currently overcrowded, he said. As soon as they sign those contracts, we will start the process of taking advantage of those beds. We plan to send about 20 to 30 inmates to these outside counties right now. We typically contract five to 10 beds per jail per county, but we probably need to take advantage of 20 to 30 beds for now. Hopefully, the population will not continue to rise; otherwise, we will need more beds than contracted.

The contracts with Scurry and Garza County will pay about $60 to $65 per bed used per day for inmates, with the new agreed-upon amount to Deaf Smith County paying $75. One issue creating overcrowding is the number of felony inmates in the Potter County jail, which is over 80%.

While Deaf Smith County was more costly than the other counties, Giles said that the request was not unreasonable, especially when it costs Potter County over $70 to house its own inmates. He also cited the proximity to Amarillo as causing fewer issues and the costs for transporting prisoners back and forth to court as factors.

Giles said that this short-term solution is cheaper in the near future than building on to the current jail. He and Sheriff Brian Thomas have anticipated that, at some point, the county will have to address this issue by expanding the jail capacity. Thomas has previously said that the sheriffs department is in talks with the county about the needed expansion to create about 80 more beds.

This is a problem statewide; we are not the only ones experiencing it, Giles said. "In fact, we were told that as we have been looking for county jails to rent beds from, there is actually a lot of competition for this bed space. So, we are hopeful we can get a hold of some of those beds and reduce our jail population.

Giles said that both Randall County and Lubbock County are being forced to build onto their jails due to rising jail populations. He also said that if the Potter County Jail was expanded, there would be little issue with having too much space and the level of overcrowding statewide.

Anytime you take a prisoner outside of a facility, there is a risk involved plus more indirect costs from transportation and manpower, he said. The transportation costs are quite substantial.

In another action, the commissioners heard complaints about wastewater discharge from the Love's Travel Stop located off Interstate 40 in East Amarillo. Love's had no representatives and was not available at the meeting, where it was alleged that the travel stop was releasing wastewater onto private property and Randall County properties and had been reported to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality agency.

A private landowner showed evidence of wastewater being discharged onto his property to the court over the last six months, with discharging well above permitted levels. Commissioner John Coffee said that calls were made for Love's Travel Stop to come together with the affected parties to come back to an agreement, but it never materialized. He also said that Randall County had denied Loves request to discharge into the county.

If we allow them to continue with this discharge, we are facilitating their violation of an agreement with Randall County," Coffee said. "I am disappointed that no effort was made to come back with a resolution that everyone can live with. I am of the opinion that they need to keep the effluent on their own property.

Coffee recommended that the county give Loves a 30-day notice that they cannot release their wastewater onto the county right of way, which the commissioner's court unanimously approved.

No agreement ever happened to resolve the wastewater situation, so I think the best option is to deny them access to release their effluent, Coffee said. They have options to make the needed improvements to resolve this situation, such as using the wastewater in their sprinkler system. At this point, this is the best course of action.

After 30 days, if Love's Travel Stop is still releasing wastewater into areas that it is not agreed to, the company could face legal action.

I do not want anything to happen to Love's; I think they are a great business and great for the community, he said. I think if Loves had come to the table with all parties involved, this could have been resolved. At this point, the best option for the county is to opt out of our agreement with Loves."

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Potter County OKs first responder training, jail contracts
Central Maryland residents in growing numbers are vowing to stop a proposed upgrade to the regions energy grid involving a 500,000-volt overhead transmission line that would cut across farms, parks, neighborhoods, wetlands and forests in three counties.

The Maryland Piedmont Reliability Project would carve a 70-mile path through largely rural areas of Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick counties, in areas, opponents believe, where government land preservation programs have spent hundreds of millions of dollars over decades to purchase development rights placing land in perpetual easements.

In Carroll alone, data from the countys Department of Planning and Land Management shows proposed power lines could affect 130 farms preserved through various county, state and federal programs. In just one potential 3-mile stretch through Hampstead, power lines could be built across 10 farms and 900 acres  all preserved land.

At one of those farms, owned for generations by members of the Lippy family, one scenario runs lines between a home built in 2008 and a 300-year old farmhouse.

Its our heritage, said Heidi Lippy Sprinkle, who lives with her husband and daughters in the newer home near the old farmhouse, the birthplace of her father. I grew up a farmer and learned to drive down the pasture where these lines are supposed to go straight through. Its heartbreaking.

As Maryland and much of the nation struggle to navigate a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy, the regions electric grid operator says upgrades are critical to meet growing electricity demand and handle system overloads. PJM, the grid operator for 13 states and D.C., awarded a contract last year for work on the $425 million Maryland project. Its just a fraction of the $5 billion in transmission expansion projects PJM approved in December.

PJM says growth in future energy demand  at least 5% each year through 2039  will be driven largely by the shift to clean energy. That includes electrification of vehicles, manufacturing, data centers and other uses and accelerated closures of fossil fuel-fired power plants in Maryland and elsewhere.

States have renewable goals  and in order to connect more renewable energy to the grid, it needs to connect to something, and thats going to require transmission, said Susan Buehler, a PJM spokeswoman. You just dont send energy to one spot, this line is going to energize all of the region, particularly in a region that is short of electricity. Reliability across the footprint at least cost is the mission.

But opponents of the Maryland project believe the line wont benefit those in its path, serving mostly out-of-state energy needs, such as several dozen privately owned data centers proposed in Virginia.

Any of the 10 routes proposed by PJM could lead to loss of property through eminent domain, disruptions to livelihood and drops in property values, opponents say. Beyond that, they argue the lines would irreparably harm an important swath of Central Marylands rural economy, environment and history.

Folks are bereft, said Joanne Frederick, one of the leaders of the newly formed Stop MPRP. Its as destructive as a tornado going through all three counties and wiping out that amount of property. And it will similarly leave that type of scar across Maryland.

Lippy Sprinkle fears the project would shatter Maryland agriculture.

When you take away that many acres of farming, or you split farms or make areas that you cant till any longer, youre taking away from a huge industry in our state, she said. We dont know how much our land use would change once the towers go up.

Public Service Enterprise Group, a New Jersey energy company contracted by PJM, will narrow down the proposed routes to determine how to connect from an existing Baltimore Gas & Electric transmission line right of way in northern Baltimore County through Carroll County to a station in southern Frederick County.

Project managers held the first of a series of public information sessions July 11, drawing hundreds of people, many of whom said they felt blindsided by the plans. Customers across PJM territory will pay for the project, expected to be completed by 2027.

In northern Baltimore County, new lines could be installed in the Piney Run Rural Legacy Area, where an estimated 23,000 to 24,000 contiguous acres between Interstate 83 and the Carroll County line are preserved by easements. Preserved land includes forests, streams, wetlands, parks and farms that produce food for people, livestock and export, said Victoria Collins, president of the Land Preservation Trust Inc., a local land trust representing the Piney Run area. One proposed route would go through Gunpowder Falls State Park.

Collins argues that preservation has environmental benefits such as cleaner water in reservoirs and wildlife protection.

We are one of the largest conserved areas with such close proximity to a major city, Collins said, making space for vineyards, bicycle routes and pick-your-own produce farms. What theyre proposing is to take a commercial enterprise and run it right through where these folks have conserved their land. Our hope is that the authorities could choose existing rights of ways.

Ralph Robertson, a New Windsor farmer involved in Carroll Countys agricultural preservation efforts for decades, said hes angered most by the lack of transparency about the potential unraveling of years of preservation. Robertson served on Carrolls agricultural preservation advisory board for more than a decade while running a dairy and beef farm, then worked for the countys agricultural preservation office, eventually as program manager. He retired in 2019.

Im appalled that this transmission line will be going though agriculturally protected land that the county and the state have spent millions and millions of dollars to protect, Robertson said.

Since the county wrote its first easement in 1980, it has put more than 78,000 acres under easement, part of an effort to embrace smart growth by channeling new development to targeted areas and protecting the agricultural base.

Under one scenario, the power lines would run through meadowlands for cattle on about a quarter of Robertsons 105-acre farm that also grows soybeans and corn, includes protected wetlands and has been in the family a century.

As landowners, he said, we think we have rights that we dont have. We think weve protected land that we really havent protected.

PSEG has been reviewing the feedback from information sessions and a public comments page on its website, said William Smith, a spokesman. The company plans to announce a recommended route later this year, then file for a permit through a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity proceeding before Marylands Public Service Commission. The commission then would take recommendations during evidentiary hearings from its staff, the Office of Peoples Counsel and state agencies as well as hold public hearings.

Were very sensitive to the concerns of the community, Smith said. We would encourage the public to share concerns with us.

The Piedmont line is part of roughly $5 billion worth of transmission system expansion projects proposed by PJM to serve the 65 million electricity customers in its 13-state area.

In announcing the $5 billion transmission system expansion in December, PJM said grid upgrades are needed to prepare for significant impacts from up to 7,500 megawatts of new data centers being built in Virginia and Maryland, combined with the deactivation of more than 11,000 megawatts of power plants.

David Lapp, head of Marylands Office of Peoples Counsel, which represents utility customers, asked PJMs board to delay a vote of the project to give stakeholders and consumers more time to review plans he called unprecedented in scale, scope and cost, the board declined.

Pushback on the plans has come from all corners of PJMs territory, including Loudoun County, Virginia, where a coalition of nonprofit groups, community and neighborhood associations and business organizations formed in January to oppose a new 130-mile transmission line being developed there for PJM that would connect to data centers proposed in that state.

PJM says data centers account for just part of the growing demand it must address by 2030 to maintain electric power reliability. In a long-term load forecast released in January, the grid operator said total annual energy use throughout its footprint is expected to increase nearly 40% by 2039. The forecast showed the number of electric vehicles jumping by about 30% a year.

Rising energy demand in the region PJM serves is increasingly driven by the development of data centers throughout the PJM footprint, combined with the accelerating electrification of transportation and industry, the forecast said.

In Maryland, part of a new high voltage line could end up 30 to 50 yards off Connor Elines back porch in Upperco. Eline, an owner of Eline Funeral Homes, bought the home his grandparents built in 1989, which appealed to him because the farm next door has been in preservation for two decades. Now, he and many of his neighbors worry about land protections being stripped away and property values dropping. One of his neighbors could see lines running across the front lawn of a newly built house.

Ive heard from many farmers, their own children or grandchildren cant build a house on their own familys property thats been in the family for 200 years because they chose to put it in land preservation, he said. If a project like this can come in and claim eminent domain, its quite backwards.

Lisa Carton, who with her husband owns Black Locust Hops Farm Brewery, a commercial hops farm and brewery, said the proposed power line would not cross their Freeland property. But thats beside the point, she said.

She and many other nearby property owners have land in agricultural and forest buffer easements and follow strict county zoning rules.

I cannot cut firewood from the forest that I pay taxes on, Carton said. I am not even allowed to move soil on that land. I cannot touch it.  The idea that the project would simply devastate those lands with bulldozers is without conscience.

Frederick, a leader of Stop MPRP, said she began organizing residents, farmers, and land owners across the three counties after learning of the sheer number of homes and people, and amount of land, particularly productive farmland and pristine open space that will be catastrophically impacted.

Our goal is clear  stop the installation of high transmission power lines through our land and communities, she said.

The group asks those with concerns to email the Public Service Commission, which established a dedicated email address that as of Wednesday received more than 360 comments.

For Frederick, the fight is personal. One proposed route bisects her familys 100-acre farm once owned by her great-grandparents, who were dairy farmers. The land had been placed in land preservation and forest conservation by 2020, when she bought the property back. Her grandfather was born in the house she lives in now.

But even if the routes change, she said, this is not okay, regardless of whether it is in my yard or my neighbors yard or my neighbors neighbors yard. All of us are committed that this should not be in any one of our yards.
MAPUTO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- More than 100 business people, mostly of Asian origin, have left Mozambique due to heightened insecurity caused by a wave of kidnappings in the country over the past 12 years, said a report by the state news agency AIM on Friday.

The departure of these businesspeople has resulted in financial losses amounting to billions of dollars, said Pedro Baltazar, head of security department of Mozambican Confederation of Business Associations (CTA), quoted by the report.

Baltazar told reporters in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, on Thursday that the phenomenon of kidnappings is leading to the creation of an army of unemployed.

"With each kidnapping, each time a businessman leaves Mozambique, workers become unemployed. The labor market is severely affected", he said, quoted by the report.

Baltazar said that in recent times, the business sector has been engaging in advocacy aimed at eliminating kidnappings, through a Public-Private dialogue which involves the government at all levels to tackle the problem.

According to Baltazar, the approaches to eradicating kidnappings, including a camera surveillance system in the major cities like Maputo and Matola, have been recommended to the government in the ongoing consultation with the members of the CTA, the main employers' association in the country.

The government has been talking about the need to increase investment in the Mozambican defence and security forces, as well as setting up a specialist anti-kidnapping brigade within the police force.

However, despite repeated promises, these measures have not been implemented and the country's cities continue to face kidnappings in broad daylight, said the report.

According to the CTA, the kidnappings in the country in the past 12 years are harming the economy severely, which means that it has become more urgent than ever to put an end to this phenomenon. 
DENVER (KDVR)  Xcel Energy reported over 10,600 customers in the Denver metro region were without power on Thursday at about 1:20 p.m., according to Xcels electric outage map.

Xcel Energy told FOX31 that its outage map was over-calculating the number of customers without power, but did not have accurate numbers to share. At about 4:30 p.m., the service provider said the map was showing about 4,300 people without power, but the true number was closer to 3,500.

The map showed that the outages were located throughout Denver, Commerce City, Lakewood, Englewood, Wheat Ridge and Centennial. There were also some customers without power in the Boulder area. Xcel said the outage was caused by a tree that fell onto a power line, and that a crew was on scene clearing the debris. Additional crews are staged down the line to ensure it can power up again.

This screenshot of the Xcel Energy electric outage map shows power outages on July 25, 2024, at about 1:25 p.m.

Portions of the eastern plains were under a Red Flag warning, including Weld and Morgan counties, although they are not areas where Xcels power outages were reported. Red Flag warnings alert fire managers of federal lands to conditions that could lead to especially dangerous wildfire growth.

Additionally, the region is experiencing high temperatures that could reach the daily record of 99 degrees.

Denver weather: Near record heat with less smoke

Earlier this year, Xcel Energy submitted a proposed Wildfire Mitigation Plan that would increase residential bills by about 9.56% by 2028 and allow the company to shut off swathes of power if it believes its equipment could spark a wildfire.

The request was partially prompted by hundreds of complaints that were filed after the Boulder County Sheriffs Office pointed to the electric and natural gas supplier as a possible second-ignition cause of the Marshall Fire on Dec. 30, 2021.

The company was also scrutinized in April after it turned off power to customers during a strong windstorm. The company said the move was to prevent fires from sparking off power 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 FOX31 Denver.
Pregnant Teens Body Found in Wooded Area. Her Ex-Boyfriend Is Now Charged With Her Murder

Jesus Monroy, 20, was charged with murder, felony murder, feticide and aggravated assault in relation to the homicide of his pregnant ex-girlfriend, Mia Campos, 16

GoFundMe Mia Campos

A Georgia man has been charged for the murder of his pregnant ex-girlfriend in Loganville, Ga., the Gwinnett County Police announced in a Tuesday, July 23 press release.

The body of pregnant Mia Campos, 16, was discovered by her family early on the morning of July 15 in a wooded area just off the roadway, police said in their initial July 17 statement.

Six days later, On July 17, her ex-boyfriend and the father of the unborn child, Jesus Monroy, 20, was charged for allegedly providing false statements to police. On July 23, the detectives assigned to the case charged Monroy with murder, felony murder, feticide and aggravated assault, per court documents obtained by PEOPLE.

His arrest follows the initial reports from Campos family that they couldnt find her after she left home on Sunday, July 14. Police say Campos was lured "to the entrance of her neighborhood" before her body was left in the woods. She died due to asphyxiation, per an arrest warrant obtained by PEOPLE.

Related: Pregnant Teen Who Left Home with Unknown Person Found Slain in Woods  and Police Allege Ex-Boyfriend Lied to Them

After she disappeared, the family used a cell phone app to locate her body.

On July 17, the authorities arrested Monroy for allegedly "giving false statements to a police officer," police said in their statement.

As of Thursday, July 25, the court documents do not include information regarding Monroys plea. Additionally, the Gwinnett County Police have not revealed the motive. PEOPLE reached out to his attorney, Brandon Delfunt, for comment.

Gwinnett County Police Jesus Monroy

On July 17, Campos mother, Miriam Zarate, told 11 Alive that the family found the teen minutes away from their home. Zarate revealed when the family discovered Campos, her body was swollen, cold and purple, and her hand was on her belly.

I found my daughter laid face-down, the victims father, Edward Campos, said, per Atlanta News First. It was hard. I knew it was something wrong  her lips, her bleeding nose.

Mia was the youngest of five siblings, 11 Alive reports. And she was expected to welcome her first child, whom she already named Sebastian, this September.

The Campos family has started a GoFundMe to help cover her funeral expenses and to give Campos and her baby a dignified burial."

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.

Delfunt and a representative for Gwinnett County Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLEs request for comment on Thursday.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
The State House is reflected off the door to Prince George's County government offices in Annapolis. Photo by Danielle E. Gaines.

By Thomas Robertson

The Prince Georges County Board of Education has asked for an investigation into former member David Murray, who resigned earlier this month, several months after hed taken a job with a school system in Missouri and started working in that state.

The board said in a letter dated Wednesday that it has asked the county Office of Integrity and Compliance and other appropriate agencies to look into the matter.

The Board remains committed to transparency, accountability, and integrity. However, as this issue is now under investigation, the Board will refrain from making any further public statements regarding this issue until the conclusion of the investigation, the board wrote.

Murray began his new job as the chief academic officer for Missouris Ferguson-Florissant School District in January. Around the same time, his attendance at Prince Georges County school board meetings became spotty at best, with his appearances often occurring virtually, if at all.

According to Maryland law, school board members are required to live in the district they represent. But a legal expert told WTOP that cases surrounding residency arent always so black and white.

We all think we know where we live, but it gets awfully complicated, said Donald Tobin, an election law expert and law professor at the University of Marylands Carey School of Law in Baltimore.

Once we have a domicile or residence, that is our domicile or residence until we have successfully changed that to a different domicile or residence, he said. Going somewhere else doesnt necessarily change that domicile or residence.

Murray told WTOP via text he is still a homeowner and taxpayer in school board District 1, a seat that remains vacant on the board following his resignation. He said in that message his secondary residence is now out of state.

The Missouri school districts spokeswoman confirmed Murrays position requires living near the district full-time. She said Murray was a resident of St. Louis and had been 100% here in terms of attendance at meetings and events he was expected at.

 As part of Maryland Matters content sharing agreement with WTOP, we feature this article from Thomas Robertson, to which WTOPs John Domen contributed. Click here for the WTOP News website.
Prince William breaks King Charles 30-year tradition by not revealing what he paid in taxes

Prince William breaks King Charles' 30-year tradition by not revealing what he paid in taxes

Prince William has refused to reveal what he paid in taxes for the 2023-2024 financial year  breaking his father King Charles tradition which spanned more than 30 years.

The Prince of Wales, 42, inherited the Duchy of Cornwall estate worth over $1 billion when his father assumed the throne in Sept. 2022.

In addition to the tax-exempt estate, the father of three was given the Duke of Cornwall title.

Prince William has refused to reveal what he paid in taxes for the 2023-2024 financial year POOL/AFP via Getty Images

But William took a different approach from his father when it came to disclosing finances to the general public, as the prince declined to disclose how much he paid in taxes in his first full year as next in line to the throne.

Its understood that William paid a standard UK tax rate unspecified household expenses were deducted from the bill.

However, he did not publicize the amount.

This is a stark contrast to his father, who voluntarily began disclosing how much tax he paid each year since 1993, Hello! reported.

The Prince of Wales, 42, inherited the Duchy of Cornwall estate worth over $1 billion when his father assumed the throne in Sept. 2022. POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Before handing over the estates reins to William, Charles shared that he paid more than $6.4 million in taxes from the Duchy of Cornwall for the year ending in 2021 and $7.5 million the following fiscal year, The Telegraph reported.

As the heir to the throne, William, his wife, Kate Middleton, and their three children benefit from the tax-exempt Duchy of Cornwall  a private estate that funds his public, charitable and private activities.

As the state falls under the Crown exemption, William is not required to disclose the amount he has chosen to pay and is not legally liable to pay income or corporation tax.

King Charles voluntarily disclosed how much tax he paid each year since 1993. REUTERS

The estate is valued at more than $1 billion and was established in 1337 by King Edward III to provide funds for the heir to the throne for generations to come.

It covers roughly 205 square miles of land across the UK, which includes over 20 counties, and is comprised of arable and livestock farms, residential and commercial properties, as well as forests, rivers, quarries, and coastline, the 2023 report notes.

Its about twice the size of Queens, the largest of New York Citys five boroughs.

As the heir to the throne, William, his wife, Kate Middleton, and their three children benefit from the tax-exempt Duchy of Cornwall. Getty Images

Williams eye-popping annual salary was also revealed in the Integrated Annual Report, published Wednesday.

The prince received $30 million from the estate during the 2023-2024 financial year.
X, formerly Twitter, quietly pushed out a change that appears to default user data into its AI training pool for Grok, a move that was spotted by users of the platform on Friday.

Grok is the name of a conversational AI, or large language model (LLM), developed by Elon Musk-owned X and intended as a rival to OpenAI's viral ChatGPT chatbot  but with less political correctness (and more humor) as its claimed selling point. Anyone concerned about their X info being fed to Musk's chatbot can learn more about how to turn off the feature here.

The development has caught the attention of X's European privacy watchdog, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which told TechCrunch it's "surprised" by the platform's move. The watchdog said it has "followed up" and is awaiting a response from X.

The DPC has been engaging with X on this matter for a number of months, with our latest interaction occurring as recently as yesterday," DPC deputy commissioner, Graham Doyle, told TechCrunch. "Therefore we are surprised by todays developments. We have followed up with X today and are awaiting a response. We expect further engagement early next week."

The DPC leads on oversight of X's compliance with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a pan-EU law that allows for penalties for confirmed breaches of up to 4% of global annual turnover.

Text accompanying the default-enabled Grok data-sharing setting on X reads: "Allow your posts as well as your interactions, inputs, and results with Grok to be used for training and fine-tuning." Smaller (grayer) print adds: "To continuously improve your experience, we may utilize your X posts as well as your user interactions, inputs and results with Grok for training and fine-tuning purposes"  with X further specifying such data "may be shared with our service provider xAI for these purposes."

The language is ambiguous, so it's not clear whether X is helping itself to all user data for training Grok or whether this processing refers only to user interactions with the chatbot (which is available to subscribers of X premium).

Either way, in the EU the company needs a valid legal basis for processing people's data under the bloc's privacy laws. But it's not clear it has one.

A similar plan by Meta to repurpose the data of Facebook and Instagram users for AI training was paused in Europe just last month after GDPR complaints drove regulatory scrutiny in Ireland and the U.K.

We understand the DPC expects further developments on the Grok AI data-sharing issue next week.

We contacted X to ask about the legal basis it's relying on for processing European's data to train Grok. But at the time of writing, the company's press email had only delivered the standard automated line: "Busy now, please check back later."
Through guitar lessons and group music sessions, Leticia Castro helped students in her small, rural district in western Oklahoma build confidence and form deeper relationships with their peers. Over a semester, she taught 60 students in kindergarten through 12th grade how to express their emotions and encourage others through music.

By the end of the semester, my groups were supporting each other, Castro said. Maybe somebody had a hard day, and the other students would jump up and say, Tell us about it, were here to listen to you.

Although Castro said her services helped students and reduced the burden on teachers and administrators, she will not return to the district for the upcoming school year. Castro was one of 300 counselors and mental health professionals hired through Oklahomas Counselor Corps program. Funding for the successful program is running out, leading some school districts to reduce or eliminate mental health services for students.

The state Department of Education under former Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister funded the grant program with $35.7 million in coronavirus relief funds. Grants covered half of the salaries and benefits of school counselors between 2021 and 2024 in response to learning loss and mental health concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Counselor Corps program provided more counselors to help students

Since the program began in 2021, the state has improved its counselor-to-student ratio from one counselor per 411 students to one counselor per 378 students. Oklahoma is still above the American School Counselor Associations recommended ratio of one counselor per 250 students. The association said increasing the number of counselors available to students can increase standardized testing scores, reduce absenteeism, and improve postsecondary results.

El Reno Public Schools, which serves more than 2,900 students, added three counselors at its elementary schools through the Counselor Corps.

Mary Stiles is the counselor for 400 first and second-grade students at Rose Witcher Elementary School. She leads lessons on lunchroom manners, friendship, respect and positive thinking in every class, coordinates with teachers and administration to address common issues in the school and meets with higher-need students in small groups to work through grief, build social skills and address needs that may not be met in a traditional classroom setting.

More: When should you call 988? Oklahoma's mental health lifeline can be used before a crisis

In her classroom, Stiles created a care closet stocked with extra clothes and hair brushes for students, many of whom are from low-income families.

If students come to school with dirty clothes or messy hair, were not going to make fun of them, Stiles said. Im going to brush their hair and make sure theyre taken care of. They cant learn if their needs arent being met.

Julie Huber, the associate superintendent and director of federal programs, said the counselors added through the Counselor Corps grant received 100% positive feedback from the staff and families.

They see growth in the students, Huber said. Whether it be in the classroom or the office secretary noticing that students arent coming in as often with issues. Theyre learning coping skills and they can stay in class.

To find out how districts are handling the sunset of the program funding, Oklahoma Watch sent survey questions to 196 superintendents of school districts that received funding from the Counselor Corps. Fifty-two responded.

Several superintendents said the program reduced the financial burden on their districts while helping them meet their students needs. Many also expressed disappointment and frustration that the program was ending.

'A lot of students are just thrown behind screens, and it shows'

Although the Counselor Corps grant began in response to the pandemic, district officials say the counselors are still needed.

Superintendents and counselors said social isolation and excessive technology use have left students, especially at the elementary level, without the social and emotional skills they need to succeed in the classroom.

In El Reno, Stiles said she has to rebuild social skills, like having one-on-one conversations, regulating emotions and reducing aggression and reactivity.

A lot of students are just thrown behind screens, and it shows, Stiles said. These students need help. Those things arent just embedded into you, they just need to be taught.

In addition to behavioral issues, districts are also struggling to keep up with their students mental health.

Lisa Souza, an administrator at Santa Fe South Charter Schools, said her district prioritized mental health services, something many families in her district could not afford. Before the Counselor Corps funding, Souza said, the districts resources were stretched thin among teachers and staff. The grant allowed them to hire two full-time counselors and a mental health coordinator.

More: Screen time can be safer for your kids with these devices

Weve had student deaths, weve had teacher deaths, weve had parent deaths, Souza said. We have half-a-dozen of these crises a year where weve called in our counselors to go sit at a site to work with students and with families.

Souza said her district plans to retain the counselors and has spent the past three years preparing to absorb the salaries into the districts general fund.

We could probably add another counselor and still not have the capacity we need, Souza said. The need is there and will likely stay there. Its just a huge blessing to have somebody to refer to instead of having to rely on outside crisis teams to come in.

In Allen Public Schools, Superintendent Jeff Hiatt used Counselor Corps funding to create a full-time position for an elementary counselor. He said teachers and administrators needed help addressing increasing behavioral issues among young students.

We thought it was just a little wave coming through, but its only getting worse, Hiatt said. Social-emotional learning kind of gets a bad rap, but theres a lot of emotional problems with kids and its driving teachers out of the workforce.

What happens to counselors once the Counselor Corps funding is gone? School districts make sacrifices

Hiatt said he needed to keep the full-time elementary counselor to ensure his students and staff got the support they needed. Before the Counselor Corps, his school district had one counselor for all 500 students in the district from kindergarten through 12th grade.

When youre spread too thin, you cant do a real good job, Hiatt said. Youre just kind of putting out fires. This allowed her to focus on her end, and theres no way shed go back and do all the elementary things. We created a job that we have to have now.

To maintain this position, however, Hiatt said his small school district had to make significant budget cuts elsewhere. He said the district consolidated small, 12 or 13-student elementary classes into 27-student classes and reduced elective offerings.

Twenty-nine of the 52 responding districts said they would not reduce counseling services, but like Allen Public Schools, some districts sacrificed staff and programs to support their counselors salaries.

Opinion: We need to boost child outcomes. Investing in adult mental health system would help

Three superintendents said they reduced staffing or will not replace retiring staff. Seven superintendents said they would pay for the counselors salaries out of their districts general fund, but expressed concerns about their ability to support their staff and student programming in the long run.

Six of the 52 responding districts reported that they would contract with outside mental health agencies, but superintendents noted that this meant it would take longer for students to access referrals and support services. Additionally, these counselors cannot maintain the same level of communication with staff, students and families as a full-time counselor.

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.

Not all districts that chose to keep their counselors had to make significant cuts elsewhere. Four superintendents said their districts applied for additional state and federal grants to offset the costs of counselors, and some districts said recent growth in their student population allowed them to take on the full salaries of counselors.

Chuck McCauley, superintendent of Bartlesville Public Schools, said his district could retain all three counselors it hired through the program largely because of the 300-student increase in his district between 2019 and 2024.

If our enrollment hadnt increased, this is not something we would be talking about, McCauley said. It would be really challenging to keep those positions. If we had kept them, we most likely would have reduced staffing elsewhere, which would have made the teacher-student ratio worse.

McCauley said although most of the districts funds come from the state, four successful bond issues over the past nine years have given the district much-needed revenue for purchasing instructional materials and technology.

If we didnt have that resource, then we would be halving the full general fund, McCauley said. Having that support and student growth has helped us survive. But there are districts where enrollment is not growing, and theyre still facing the same issues that we are. We just have a little bit more resources than they do.

Of the survey results, 23 respondents said their districts reduced counseling services. Sixteen said their districts laid off counselors or moved them into teaching positions. Seven made their counseling positions part-time.

In Leticia Castros district, one of the two mental health professionals added through the Counselor Corps is returning for the next year. Castros contract was not renewed.

Castro said that although she was glad the district was able to retain some mental health support, a single counselor could not provide the same depth and variety of care the district had supported this past year. Castro, who said she saw the greatest progress when working with young students or students with developmental disabilities, said reducing staffing meant a significant population of the school would not receive the same level of care.

It was nice to provide another option, Castro said. Its nice to have someone embedded in the school community, but no person can serve everyone. Theres a whole population of students that will not be seen.

Oklahoma legislators have attempted to preserve the Counselor Corps program

Hofmeister first proposed the Counselor Corps program in 2018 when she requested a $58 million addition to the departments budget to hire more counselors. The program did not receive funding until 2021 when coronavirus relief funds became available to the state.

Although the coronavirus relief-funded Counselor Corps was only intended to last for three years, some have tried to preserve the grant program.

In 2023, Rep. Meloyde Blancett, D- Tulsa, and Sen. Dewayne Pemberton, R- Muskogee, sponsored House Bill 2827, which would have established a similar grant program to support school nurses, counselors and mental health professionals. The bill passed the Oklahoma State House and was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee, but it never came to a vote in the chamber.

Lawmakers did include an additional $240 million for schools through the funding formula in 2023. These funds give greater flexibility to school districts, but Castro said many districts do not prioritize mental health like they do teacher pay, instructional materials or new facilities.

If theres extra funds, people are really enthusiastic about mental health, Castro said. But its not being put as a top priority.

Castro said the decision not to fund a similar grant program was disappointing but not a surprise. In her experience, mental health supports are often the first to be affected by budget cuts.

Administrators know were lifting a little bit of weight from the school and from the teachers, Castro said. But I think sometimes their hands are tied. Theyre disappointed theyhave to put funds and priorities in a different area first.

Oklahoma Watch, at oklahomawatch.org, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that covers public-policy issues facing the state.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma mental health help for students losing funding
A prominent operative for the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation and a co-author of the Republican Project 2025 agenda that the organizations president, Kevin D. Roberts, has said aims to institutionalize Trumpism across the government, is being called a hypocrite after The Advocate discovered a photo of him with a friend dressed in drag .



The photo, posted on Yelp on December 12, 2012, and captioned The good doctor with his lost wife, shows a younger Mike Howell, Heritages executive director of the Oversight Project, smiling alongside a friend in full drag attire. According to Esquire, the Oversight Project is Heritages oversight initiative that targets the Biden administration. The initiative, led by Howell, focuses on developing data to support controversial claims and investigations. The project has come under scrutiny for its dubious methods and significant financial investments in efforts to undermine political opponents. Esquire reports that the Oversight Project has even insinuated that the FBI and the Biden administration were involved in the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump .

Howells enjoyment of men in womens clothes starkly contrasts with his public condemnations of drag culture and the LGBTQ + community. Howell has been a vocal critic of drag queens and an outspoken opponent of transgender rights and LGBTQ+ rights broadly. His public statements and aggressive actions, including targeting drag queen story hours and asserting that drag culture is harmful to children, make this revelation particularly striking.

For instance, Howell has harshly criticized events like Drag Queen Story Hours, where drag performers read to children in libraries and other community spaces. He has repeatedly voiced concerns about exposing children to drag culture, arguing it is inappropriate and damaging. On social media, Howell has not held back his disdain. On April 25, he posted on X (formerly Twitter): As the disputed winner of the 2005 election for student president of West Potomac, and with the power that vests in me, I officially condemn on behalf of all Wolverines. It was much easier when it was just MS-13 gang fights. Dont need the trans sex stuff.

In another tweet on March 21, Howell remarked: These are not man bites dogs stories. These are the norm. Frankly, I wish we cleared a drag queen in one of our investigations. Such statements underline his consistent position against drag culture and the LGBTQ+ community.

In 2023, Howell wrote critically about a Drag Story Hour event hosted by Washington, D.C.s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, asserting that drag queens harm children. Howells harsh rhetoric targeted organizations like the HRC, which he labeled a radical LGBTQ group that is a major proponent of giving cross-sex hormones to minors, despite science clearly indicating the horrific dangers of this practice.

Gender-affirming care and access to puberty blockers and hormones for teenagers are, under the care of physicians, safe treatments for transgender youth suffering from gender dysphoria and endorsed by every major American medical association.

The Advocate confirmed the connection between the Yelp account and Howell through open-source intelligence means, which checked if email accounts and phone numbers were connected to various online accounts. A private email address for Howell was linked to the Yelp account named Fern M. Further scrutiny of the Yelp account revealed that it often referred to The Good Doctor in its reviews, including a photo of Doctor Who actor William Hartnell.

When The Advocate asked him for a comment, Howell confirmed the photos authenticity and the Yelp account. Congratulations on your discovery of Halloween and a satirical Yelp account. I am guilty of enjoying the spirit of mischief that makes Halloween so special, he wrote, adding, I will be recommending you for a Pulitzer for your above and beyond journalisming (sic) at your fancy website. Bans on men dressed in drag in public, like one that is in effect in Tennessee, do not differentiate between Halloween and other days.

GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis pointed to the hypocrisy of Howells actions in a statement to The Advocate. Project 2025 is a dangerous, unhinged playbook showcasing the insidious plans of anti-LGBTQ extremists hell-bent on destroying democracy, she wrote. Writing a 1,000-page screed railing against LGBTQ peoples mere existence, while in your personal life cavorting with a friend dressed in drag, is the definition of hypocrisy.

She added, For anyone who didnt get it the first time they saw Project 2025, here it is clear as day: its authors believe that cisgender heterosexual white men are free to do whatever theyd like, but the rest of us do not deserve equal rights, jobs, families, or protection from discrimination.

Sam Lau, spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign , told The Advocate, MAGA loyalists dont care about hypocrisy or consistencythey just care about accumulating power for themselves at the expense of everyone else so they can enact their white nationalist agenda. Thats what the Trump-Vance Project 2025 is all about: a government takeover that threatens our freedoms and rolls LGBTQ+ rights, civil rights, reproductive rights, and more back decades.

According to his LinkedIn page , Howell has been with the Heritage Foundation for nearly six years and has served in his current role since March.

Howells Yelp account comprises five reviews, including one of Smith Point, a lounge in D.C.s Georgetown neighborhood popular with Republicans, which closed in 2017. According to the Washington Post, Smith Point was a magnet for preppy young professionals during the George W. Bush administration. In his comments, Howell wrote: What a find by the Good Doctor. Entrance to this establishment is rare, but with the right guest one can find themself in quite dignified air. The Good Doctor met a range of the young elite- from those who answer the phones for Congressmen to those who read the letters. Caution is urged because lovers of past can emerge from the corners and darkness without any notice.

Howell also left a review for Clermont Lounge, a well-known strip club in Atlanta. His LinkedIn profile details his various roles in Georgia , including legal intern positions with Republican U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall, who served in Congress from 2011 until 2021, and the Department of Justice, as well as a legal externship with the Department of Homeland Security, all between 2012 and 2013. In his review of the Clermont Lounge, Howell wrote: Finally a place in this charming American city where the Good Doctor can enjoy the company of those near his age during the dwindling twilight hours. The dancers move with an exotic and instinctive precision that reminds me of my many travels to the remote villages of the Pacific Islands.

The revelations about Howell come on the heels of his aggressive behavior toward SiegedSec, a group of self-described gay furry hackers that targeted the Heritage Foundation in early July to protest Project 2025. In chat logs released by SiegedSec, Howell called them degenerate perverts and threatened to expose the group, the Intercept reports . You cannot hide. Your means are minuscule compared to mine, he wrote. Howell, who confirmed the authenticity of the chat logs to the Daily Dot, told one of SiegedSecs leaders, Are you aware that you wont be able to wear a furry tiger costume when youre getting pounded in the ass in the federal prison I put you in next year?

Related: Gay furry hackers target Heritage Foundation

Heritages influence in Republican politics is significant. As a co-author of the more than 900-page Project 2025 , the manifesto proposes radical changes, including the elimination of non-discrimination protections, the eradication of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and the dismantling of LGBTQ+ rights. Project 2025 also advocates for banning transgender people from military service, stating explicitly, Transgender individuals are not eligible for military service in any capacity. The plans broader implications include closing the Department of Education, implementing ROTC requirements for all students in public schools, and enabling employers to eliminate overtime pay.

The Heritage Foundations sway extends to former President Donald Trumps vice-presidential pick, Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance. Vance, who has a history of shifting stances , has been a vocal opponent of LGBTQ+ rights despite his memoir detailing a childhood experience when he struggled with his sexuality that might have fostered empathy toward the community. He has reinvented himself multiple times, changing his name twice and going from staunch anti-Trumper who once called him Americas Hitler to showing fealty to the twice-impeached former president, a multiply convicted felon. His changing tunes have led to accusations of hypocrisy similar to Howells.

According to NBC News, Trump has attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, describing its authors as part of the severe right and calling some of its provisions seriously extreme. However, the close involvement of numerous Trump allies in crafting the plan undermines these denials, exposing the deep connections between the former president and the controversial agenda. Media Matters reports that Vance wrote the foreword for Roberts forthcoming book, Dawns Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America, with proceeds benefiting Heritage. This further cements the deep ties between Trumps campaign and Project 2025.

The deranged Project 2025 and the extremists behind it at the Heritage Foundation have never been credible with fair-minded Americans, and the more Americans learn, the more they are going to continue to distance themselves from and denounce it all, Ellis said. This election year is a fight for our lives, and we are doing all we can to educate Americans about the candidates track records with Project 2025, LGBTQ people, and issues important to all marginalized communities.
Statement: Project 2025 would end Head Start.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, warned that Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda, could spell the end for Head Start, a federally funded program that supports early education and other services for low-income Americans.

During a July 18 campaign event in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Harris said, "Their Project 2025 agenda would even end Head Start to take away preschool from hundreds of thousands of our children."

Before and after President Joe Bidens announcement July 21 that he would forgo a second term, Democrats have been targeting the conservative policy agenda, saying it promotes proposals that would be unpopular with American voters.

Some Biden-Harris warnings about Project 2025 have gone too far in describing what the policy blueprint calls for, including exaggerating claims about its impact on Social Security and abortion policy. Other claims are accurate; much of the plan calls for extensive executive branch overhauls and draws on both long-standing conservative principles, such as tax cuts, and more recent culture war issues, such as LGBTQ issues and diversity, equity and inclusion. Project 2025 lays out recommendations for disbanding the Commerce and Education departments, eliminating certain climate protections and consolidating more power to the president.

Harris claim about ending Head Start, which the Department of Health and Human Services administers, is accurate. On Page 482, the Project 2025 document read, "Eliminate the Head Start program."

What is Head Start?

Two related programs, Head Start and Early Head Start, collectively provide free early childhood education, health and nutrition services for infants, toddlers and preschoolers from low-income families. The programs are federally funded but run by local nonprofit organizations and focus on pregnant women and children up to 5 years old.

Head Start was established in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnsons Great Society initiative. During the 2022-23 school year, the program enrolled about 788,000 children and 13,000 pregnant women. For fiscal 2024, Congress appropriated $12.27 billion for the Office of Head Start. About two-thirds of program participants are Black or Latino.

In 2023, Biden signed an executive order calling on the Department of Health and Human Services to reduce Head Start eligibility barriers and to increase pay and benefits for the programs teachers and staff.

Lawmakers from both parties have regularly supported Head Start since its creation. During his presidency, Donald Trumps daughter Ivanka brought attention to early childhood education and convened a panel in Mississippi in 2018 that included a local Head Start official.

Head Start tends to be popular with a wide cross section of voters. A July 2023 poll by the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies on behalf of the First Five Years Fund, a child care advocacy group, found widespread support for Head Start across party lines. When asked whether funding for Head Start and Early Head Start should increase, 71% of Republicans and 89% of Democrats said yes.

What is Project 2025?

Project 2025 is a presidential transition project led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank with contributions from more than 100 conservative organizations. The foundation released a 900-page guide in 2023 advocating a range of policies to be instituted after a potential Republican win in November.

In his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has sought to disassociate himself from Project 2025, writing on Truth Social that he "knows nothing" about the project and has "no idea" who leads it. However, CNN reported that at least 140 former Trump administration advisers contributed to the project.

Max Eden, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., drew a distinction between congressional Republicans views of Head Start and those of outside conservative groups.

"There's quite a bit of daylight" between conservative think tanks "and the Republican Party proper, much less President Trump," Eden said. "The call to end Head Start is pretty common within the conservative wonk sphere. Heritage has been saying this for many, many years."

What does Project 2025 say about Head Start?

Kamala Harris

The Project 2025 document proposes that Head Start be eliminated because it is "fraught with scandal and abuse."

"Given its unaddressed crisis of rampant abuse and lack of positive outcomes, this program should be eliminated along with the entire (office that runs it). At the very least, the programs COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements should be rescinded," the document says on Page 482. (The Department of Health and Human Services eliminated the universal masking and vaccine requirements for Head Start programs in January 2023 and June 2023, respectively.)

The Project 2025 document cited a Heritage Foundation report from 2022 that details 1,000 incidents in which children were abused, left unsupervised or released to an unauthorized person while enrolled in Head Start programs.

It also referred to Heritage Foundation research that said Head Start programs do not have lasting positive effects on students academic achievement.

How big an impact would ending Head Start have?

Greg J. Duncan, a professor in the University of California, Irvines School of Education, told PolitiFact that eliminating Head Start would be a consequential development for low-income families, including the one-third of participants who were dual-language learners, most of them in families that speak primarily Spanish at home.

"By providing no-cost child care services, Head Start helps to support parental employment efforts," Duncan said. "Pre-K programs are a rapidly growing alternative to Head Start, but most pre-K programs have to ration slots owing to high demand. Reducing Head Start slots would undoubtedly increase further the demand for pre-K programs" and cost more for families out of pocket.

Head Starts effectiveness in improving educational readiness is more of an open question.

In 2005, a report by agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, found that a year of Head Start improved cognitive skills, but only modestly. A 2010 report by the same groups showed that by the end of first grade, the effects phased out. And the next report in the series, released in 2012, found no effect by the end of elementary school.

Eden pointed to a 2019 study that "found no statistically significant impacts on earnings and mixed evidence of impacts on other adult outcomes."

Duncan acknowledged that "longer-run benefits of the program on children's developmental trajectories are still being debated."

Duncan added that Head Start has had other positive effects, however, such as increasing parents' involvement with their children, including reading to them and participating in math activities.

PolitiFact's ruling

Harris said Project 2025 would "end Head Start."

She is correct about what Project 2025 would do with Head Start. The conservative policy blueprint says on Page 482 that it would "Eliminate the Head Start program."

We rate the statement True.

Our sources

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: PolitiFact: Yes, Project 2025 would end early education program
Increasing memory lapses may just be a sign that you are getting older - or point to incipient dementia. Getting to the bottom of such symptoms is important, since there are various reasons for cognitive impairment. Mascha Brichta/dpa

If your partner, an elderly parent or sibling starts having memory lapses, you may worry it's a sign of incipient dementia. Frequently forgetting names or words is no cause for alarm though, experts say.

"But if someone often forgets about agreed meetings and medical appointments, repeats things they said a short while earlier and begins losing their sense of direction, family members should take notice," says Marion Langhorst, a telephone counsellor with the German Alzheimer Association.

This is particularly true, she adds, if these signs are accompanied by social withdrawal and personality changes, because dementia may be behind them.

More than 55 million people have dementia worldwide, according to the World Health Organization, which estimates that Alzheimer's disease - the most common form of dementia - may contribute to 60-70% of the cases.

"'Dementia' is the term experts use to describe certain symptoms that appear in everyday life. Alzheimer's is a disease that leads to these symptoms especially often," Langhorst says.

So not everyone suffering from dementia has Alzheimer's disease, a progressive neurologic disorder that causes brain cells to die and the brain to shrink.

Misplacing things - putting eyeglasses into the refrigerator or a carton of milk into the bathtub, for instance - is among the signs of possible dementia. Getting to the bottom of such behaviour is important, since there are various reasons for cognitive impairment.

"It could be due to hormonal changes, severe depression - also called pseudodementia - side effects of medications, dehydration or altered cerebrospinal fluid pressure," explains Langhorst. "Many of these problems can be treated" - so long as the cause has been accurately diagnosed.

Fearing the loss of their independence, a lot of people with symptoms of possible dementia are reluctant to see a doctor. "A diagnosis [of dementia] doesn't automatically mean you're legally incompetent, however," reassures Langhorst.

Loved ones of people displaying dementia-related behavioural changes, such as those caused by Alzheimer's, often struggle to accept the changes as signs of an illness. Partners or spouses often fret about them no longer being able to hold up their end of the couple's decades-long division of responsibilities.

"They report that they're gradually 'losing' their partner, which is painful," Langhorst says.

Trying to repress the problem won't help. Although a cure for Alzheimer's hasn't yet been found, she says, "there are ways to mitigate the symptoms by changing the way you interact with the sufferer and adjusting the way you communicate."
Protection of kids on social media platforms advances in U.S. Senate

The U.S. Senate voted 86-1 Thursday to move ahead with the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act. Both were rolled into one legislative vehicle. (Photo by Mayur Kakade/Getty Images)

This story mentions suicide. If you or a loved one are experiencing a mental health crisis or thoughts of suicide, please dial 988 or chat with a live counselor at 988lifeline.org.

WASHINGTON  The U.S. Senate advanced online safety legislation Thursday aimed at protecting children from targeted advertising, data harvesting, bullying and sexual exploitation on popular social media platforms.

But the rare bipartisan effort by Senate lawmakers did not escape criticism from advocates who warn the legislative package would curtail free speech online.

The body voted 86-1 on a procedural vote to move ahead with the Kids Online Safety Act and the Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act. Both were rolled into one legislative vehicle.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the sole no vote.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praised the ground-breaking step just before the vote began.

The bill arrived on the chamber floor with the support of nearly 70 co-sponsors, well beyond the 60 votes needed for the procedural vote.

The New York Democrat thanked parents sitting in the Senate gallery to watch the vote  including those who lost children to suicide after cyberbullying  calling them the true heroes of this effort.

We met together, weve felt pain together, weve cried together. What they have endured is incomprehensible, Schumer said. Today the Senate tells these parents: We hear you, were taking action.

Schumer said the proposal will now be on a glide path for final passage next week before the chamber heads into August recess.

Updates from 1990s

The proposal, in part, updates a 1998 law meant to protect children under 13 on the internet.

The Kids Online Safety Act, co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, would require social media platforms to take reasonable measures to mitigate harm when designing products and would also tighten age verification tools.

The bill mandates companies take into consideration evidence-informed medical information on mental health disorders including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, substance use disorders, and suicidal behaviors.

The bill would also prohibit hidden black box algorithms, as Blumenthal put it, that are used to target content to minors.

If enacted, the Children and Teens Online Privacy Protection Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, would prohibit social media companies from collecting minors personal data for the purpose of targeted marketing.

The legislation would require companies to provide a mechanism for removal of children and teens personal information from the platforms.

Lawmakers on the Senate Committee on Commerce favorably passed both bills, separately, out of committee in December.

After likely passage next week in the Senate, the legislation will then head to the House, which just began its six-week summer recess.

I am looking forward to reviewing the details of the legislation that comes out of the Senate, House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said in a statement provided by his office. Parents should have greater control and the necessary tools to protect their kids online. I am committed to working to find consensus in the House.

The internet not designed with kids in mind

Sustained support from health advocacy groups and concerned parents bolstered the long process for the bills to finally reach the Senate floor.

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a series of videos featuring pediatricians explaining why they want to see lawmakers approve the online protections.

The internet was not designed with kids in mind  and every day, pediatricians see the impacts of social media in their offices. Thats why they are making their voices heard, according to the academys advocacy materials.

The organization has long advocated for safeguarding children and adolescents from addictive social media platforms and targeted digital advertising.

Opposition from ACLU

The legislation faces continued opposition from various advocacy groups across the political spectrum, including the American Civil Liberties Union, which planned to lobby on Capitol Hill with hundreds of teens Thursday against the Kids Online Safety Act.

At its core, KOSA is an internet censorship bill that would harm the very communities it claims to protect, Jenna Leventoff, the ACLUs senior policy counsel, said in a statement Wednesday.

The First Amendment guarantees everyone, including children, the right to access information free from censorship. We urge lawmakers to protect young people by listening to their concerns and voting no on the bill that could be used to silence them, Levenoff said.

Paul, the no vote, described the legislation Thursday as vague, bizarre and a Pandoras box of unintended consequences.

While proponents of the bill claim that the bill is not designed to regulate content, imposing a duty of care on the internet platforms associated with mental health can only lead to one outcome, the stifling of First Amendment protected speech, Paul said on the Senate floor Thursday specifically about the Kids Online Safety Act.

Paul criticized the legislations mandate for a Kid Online Safety Council housed within the Federal Trade Commission, dubbing the potential body as the speech police.

Blumenthal, Blackburn, Markey and Cassidy rebuked Paul on the Senate floor after he delivered his comments and offered an amendment to weaken the legislation.

Cassidy called the bills bipartisan no-brainers.

Blackburn rebutted Paul, saying the legislation was years in the making.

We have worked tirelessly over three years to get this bill in shape, she said.

Without real and enforceable reforms, Blackburn said, social media companies will only continue to pay lip service to the issue of protecting children while putting profits over their safety.
MANILA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines has prevented the entry into the country of 69 registered sex offenders from January to June this year, mainly Americans, the Philippines' Bureau of Immigration said Friday.

Immigration Commissioner Norman Tansingco said that 58 of the excluded passengers are registered sex offenders or persons convicted of sex crimes in their countries.

The remaining 11 are facing pending complaints or are under investigation or prosecution for various sex offenses, he added.

Tansingco said 48 Americans account for the bulk of the excluded sex offenders, followed by four Britons and two Australians.

In 2023, the bureau said it barred the entry of 171 registered sex offenders, including 129 Americans, into the Southeast Asian country. 
ST. CLOUD  While many are traveling to St. Cloud to see former President Donald Trump this Saturday, not everybody is thrilled with his visit. The St. Cloud Police Department told the St. Cloud Times it expects to see protesters in light of his rally.

We support people's First Amendment rights to protest and anytime people want to protest we want them to be law-abiding, Assistant Chief of Police Brett Mushatt said. This comes in all shapes and forms. Sometimes it's people marching; sometimes it's people at a designated location.

Mushatt said protests are welcome but suggests those seeking to protest get a permit from the police department before doing so.

The St. Cloud Police Department said it hasnt responded to many unruly protests in the past, but said it would have to take action if a protest that does not have a permit disrupts day-to-day activities, including blocking the roadway, sidewalks or other key pedestrian pathways.

The DFL's response to Trump's rally: Minnesota DFL releases statements tying state House GOP candidates to Trump ahead of rally

Mushatt said that even if a permit is issued, it doesnt mean the department will assign officers to watch over the protest. He said officers will respond to calls regarding potentially disruptive protests and look to de-escalate the situation after accessing it with an independent viewpoint.

If we get called to those locations, we certainly respond and then deal with things appropriately, Mushatt said. Sometimes that doesn't necessarily mean the protest is getting shut down. We find out what the issue is, is it a valid complaint? If it is something where somebody's not remaining law-abiding, we'll talk to people and try to work through the issue so people can exercise their rights.

A protest is currently scheduled along Division Street and 12th Avenue North near the Great River Regional Library, according to a Keep Minnesota Blue Facebook event page. Protesters will then rally at the Stearns County Courthouse steps at about 7 p.m.

Corey Schmidt covers local government for the St. Cloud Times. He can be reached at cschmidt@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: St. Cloud prepares for Trump rally protests, police urge permits
Purple-colored fentanyl powder found in two vehicles

CALEXICO, Calif. (FOX 5/KUSI)  Around 80 pounds of purple-colored fentanyl powder was seized in two separate smuggling attempts over the weekend at the Calexico West Port of Entry.

The first attempt occurred Saturday around 3:29 p.m. when authorities examined a 2024 pickup truck, driven by a 25-year-old man, entering the United States from Mexico, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a news release Thursday.

During a secondary inspection, CBP officers found a total of 20 purple-colored fentanyl powder packages, weighing 48.01 pounds, hidden within the spare tire of the pickup truck.

Treasury to freeze US assets of Jalisco cartel leaders

On Sunday around 10:20 p.m., CBP officers inspected a 2007 SUV, driven by a 31-year-old woman, entering the U.S. from Mexico. Thats when authorities found a total of 16 purple-colored fentanyl powder packages, weighing 40.56 pounds, concealed within the dashboard area of the vehicle.

Both drivers were turned over to the custody of Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation, while CBP officers seized the drugs and vehicles.



Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
BAYSIDE, Queens (PIX11)  Residents of a Queens neighborhood are very concerned after an early morning shooting Tuesday.

The shooting left a 43-year-old man dead. The gunman then stole a second mans cellphone, according to the NYPD.

More Local News

Police say the victim and his 21-year-old friend were walking near 32nd Avenue and 208th Street in Bayside when they were approached from behind.

The gunman opened fire, a bullet hit the 43-year-old in the head. The victim died at the scene according to police.

One resident who lives on the block where the shooting happened said he couldnt believe anything like this happened there. NYPD crime statistics show overall crime is down in the confines of the 111 Precinct, until this incident police say they have not responded to a murder or shooting.

Countdown clock in NYCs Union Square ticks below 5 years  what it means

Robberies are down more than 15%.

The second victim was not hurt, police have not released the identity of the victim pending family notification. The phone was later found on the Clearview Expressway service road at 26th Avenue, sources told PIX11 News.

The suspect, wearing all black, fled the scene in a Subaru, according to authorities.

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).

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
PENN TOWNSHIP, SNYDER COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) Three people were injured after a fox attack on Thursday in central Pennsylvania.

According to Pennsylvania State Police, the attack occurred Thursday morning on the 300 block of Pleasant Drive in Penn Township.

Shelter impact on the recent homeless camp removal in Luzerne County

A release states a gray fox had jumped into the yard of a family and swam in their swimming pool before leaving without incident. The fox then allegedly returned later and bit one person, left, then returned and bit another two individuals.

Troopers say that one victim was bitten while trying to get the fox off of the other person who was being attacked.

The PA Game Commission confirmed state troopers were able to kill the fox after a failed attempt by a PA Game Warden, and being struck by a vehicle.

The fox was given to the PA Game Commission for rabies testing, according to PSP.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
CEDARHURST, N.Y. (PIX11)  A feral cat tested positive for rabies in Cedarhurst on Long Island, the New York State Department of Health announced Thursday.

The rabies case is the first since 2016, when a raccoon tested positive.

More Long Island News

We urge all residents to avoid contact with feral and wild animals and to ensure their pets are up to date with their rabies vaccinations, said Nassau Health Commissioner Dr. Irina Gelman. The detection of rabies in our county after several years of no reported cases is a stark reminder of the ongoing risk, and its crucial that we take proactive measures to protect our community.

Rabies is caused by a virus that invades the central nervous system and is usually fatal in animals and humans if left untreated. Its most commonly spread through a bite from an infected animal. Most U.S. infections in recent years have been traced to bat encounters.

Rabies infections can cause a range of symptoms, including insomnia, anxiety, confusion, paralysis, excessive salivation, hallucinations, difficulty swallowing, and a fear of water.

Death can occur only a couple of weeks after symptoms begin. However, it can be prevented through five shots given within two weeks of exposure.

NY Health Department recommends:

Not feeding or touching wild animals, including stray cats and dogs.

Ensuring pets, including dogs, cats, ferrets, horses, and livestock, are up to date on rabies vaccinations.

Keeping family pets indoors at night. Dont leave them outside unattended or let them roam free.

Do not feed unknown animals.

Advise your family against approaching any unknown animal, especially those acting unusually.

If a wild animal is on your property, let it wander away and bring children and pets indoors.

Do not touch a dying or dead animal.

To prevent the possible spread of rabies, the Nassau County Department of Health partnered with the Town of Hempstead to offer free vaccinations. The vaccination clinic will be held on Saturday, Aug. 24, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Town of Hempstead Animal Shelter, officials said.

This story comprises reporting from The Associated Press.

Matthew Euzarraga is a multimedia journalist from El Paso, Texas. He has covered local news and LGBTQIA topics in the New York City Metro area since 2021. He joined the PIX11 Digital team in 2023. You can see more of his work here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to PIX11.
Harry Filby is presented with his war medal by Colonel Andy Taylor at his home in Hereford - Jam Press/Elgar Care

A war veteran was left absolutely flabbergasted after finally receiving a long overdue service medal on his 99th birthday.

Harry Filby served as an RAF radio operator in Egypt and Iraq during the Second World War but never applied for the honour as he felt he was just doing what he had to do.

However, staff at Elgar Care, who support Mr Filby in his home in Hereford, decided to step in and apply for the medal on his behalf.

The 1939-45 war medal presented to Harry Filby - Jam Press

It was presented to him on his birthday earlier this month by Colonel Andy Taylor, a war veteran from Ledbury, Herefordshire, in a ceremony also attended by his family.

A flabbergasted Mr Filby told the BBC: Im not normally stuck for words  but my God I was.

He added: My daughter has been [on at] me for years Apply for your medals!

Recalling the emotional ceremony, Tracey Waters, Elgar Cares registered manager said: This is the thing about care  its about stories like this.

A spokesman for Elgar Care said: Harry was in communications in World War II. He never applied for his medal, as he felt he was just doing what he had to do.

His family wanted him to have it as they know what an amazing man he really is and wanted him to be honoured.

Thank you, Harry, for your service, we really do appreciate you.

The 1939-45 war medal was created for anyone who served full-time in the Armed Forces for at least 28 days during the conflict.

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.
No deaths have yet been reported but evacuation orders have forced around 5,000 residents and 20,000 tourists to leave the area. Photo courtesy of Parks Canada

July 26 (UPI) -- Rain and cooler temperatures Friday are expected to help crews in the Canadian province of Alberta, where wildfires have destroyed up to half of the historic town of Jasper, forcing some first responders to pull back.

Officials estimate around 89,000 acres have burned so far in Jasper National Park, including up to 50% of the structures in the town of Jasper, Alberta Premiere Danielle Smith said Thursday.

Entire streets have been engulfed in fast-moving flames fed by heavy winds in the region, leading the Municipality of Jasper to declare a State of Emergency Monday.

An evacuation order issued Wednesday forced many wildfire firefighters to abandon their lines and retreat to safety, leaving only municipal firefighters with water to battle the flames.

"Temperatures cooled and rain started shortly after midnight. The [0.59 inches] of rainfall in the national park has led to minimal fire behavior and spread today. This precipitation will likely keep fire behavior low for the next 72 hours," Parks Canada said in its latest update.

"Crews will take advantage of this time to make as much progress as possible to suppress the wildfire and reduce further spread. While rain in Jasper is a welcome sight, warm weather is forecasted and will increase wildfire activity. Currently, the Jasper Wildfire Complex poses no threat to neighboring communities."

We will continue to provide information as soon as we are able to ensure that this information is accurate and not subject to change given the still dynamic situation.  Another update will be provided today, July 25 before 10 pm. Photo: July 24, 8:30 pm pic.twitter.com/MhqM5Qrx55 Jasper National Park, Parks Canada (@JasperNP) July 25, 2024

Federal, provincial and local firefighters are working to contain the blaze, while members of the Canadian Armed Forces began arriving Thursday. Shifting winds have made it difficult to develop established perimeters around the fire.

Smith said Thursday she asked Ottawa for more help with the fire that is expected to continue burning for another week despite the change in weather. Lightning strikes in the tinder-dry grass and forested area is also upping the risk of further blazes developing.

"I also spoke to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau earlier to ask for a full update from the federal government on their wildfire efforts within the Jasper National Park," Smith said on X.

No deaths have yet been reported but evacuation orders have forced about 5,000 residents and 20,000 tourists to leave the area.

Hundreds of active blazes also are buriing in the neighboring province of British Columbia, as well as in California and Utah.

The iconic Jasper Lodge said on X the tourist destination had been damaged badly by the fire, but did not elaborate on the extent of the damage.

"My heart goes out to the community of Jasper on this devastating evening, wildfire reached the Jasper townsite. We need to pray for the firefighters that remain in town doing everything they can to combat multiple structural fires and protect critical infrastructure," Alberta Minister of Forestry and Parks Todd Loewen said on X.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to the press on extreme heat at the UN headquarters in New York, on July 25, 2024. Guterres on Thursday called for global action to tackle extreme heat, as "extreme temperatures are no longer a one day, one week or one month phenomenon." (Mark Garten/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua)

UNITED NATIONS, July 25 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for global action to tackle extreme heat, as "extreme temperatures are no longer a one day, one week or one month phenomenon."

"Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere," Guterres said in remarks to the press on extreme heat.

Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic -- wilting under increasingly deadly heatwaves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world, said the UN chief. "That's ... halfway to boiling."

Highlighting the impact of extreme temperatures, Guterres noted a deadly heatwave hitting the Sahel with spiking hospitalizations and deaths, broken temperature records across the United States, scorching conditions killing 1,300 pilgrims during Haj, tourist attractions shut down in Europe's sweatbox cities, and schools closures across Asia and Africa impacting more than 80 million children.

"Extreme heat is increasingly tearing through economies, widening inequalities, undermining the Sustainable Development Goals and killing people," he said.

According to the UN chief, heat is estimated to kill almost half a million people a year, that's about 30 times more than tropical cyclones.

"Extreme heat is the new abnormal," he said, pointing to "fossil fuel-charged, human-induced climate change" as the cause behind extreme temperatures.

"But the good news is that there are solutions," he said.

The UN chief announced a global call to action with four areas of focus: caring for the most vulnerable; stepping up protections for workers; boosting the resilience of economies and societies using data and science; and fighting the "disease" -- "the madness of incinerating our only home," the addiction to fossil fuels, and climate inaction.

He urged that leaders across the board must wake up and step up, including governments as well as the private sector, cities and regions, noting that "all countries must deliver by next year nationally determined contributions -- or national climate action plans -- aligned to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius."

Noting that the International Energy Agency has shown fossil fuel expansion and new coal plants are inconsistent with meeting that limit, Guterres urged countries to phase-out fossil fuels, "fast and fairly."

"They must end new coal projects," he stressed.

The UN chief called on the G20 to shift fossil fuel subsidies to renewables and to the support of vulnerable countries and communities.

"And national climate action plans must show how each country will contribute to the global goals agreed at COP28 to triple the world's renewables capacity, and end deforestation by 2030. They must also cut global consumption and production of fossil fuels by 30 percent in the same timeframe," he said.

Guterres also called for similar 1.5-aligned transition plans from business, the financial sector, cities and regions.

Noting that climate action also requires finance action, he said that includes countries coming together for a strong finance outcome from COP29; progress on innovative sources of finance; drastically boosting the lending capacity of multilateral development banks to help developing countries tackle the climate crisis; and wealthier countries making good on all their climate finance commitments.

"The message is clear: the heat is on," said the UN chief, calling on the world to "rise to the challenge of rising temperatures." 
Wing wasting disease is infecting bats in Mineral Wells. The bacterial disease is not a threat to humans or other animals.

Bat World Sanctuary in Weatherford, about 70 miles west of Dallas, is warning residents of "raining bats" as disease takes over a local colony, leaving bats stranded across Downtown Mineral Wells.

Within 24 hours, the rescue center  which is the world's only accredited bat sanctuary  has rescued about 50 bats with wing wasting disease.

"They can fly for a bit before grounding, so they're everywhere right now in downtown," said Bat World Sanctuary Founder Amanda Lollar. "They're found in grocery stores, beauty parlors, everywhere. We're going to continue to go out every night to investigate until there's no one left to rescue."

How do bats get wing wasting disease?

Wing Wasting Disease is caused by the common bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is commonly found in soil, water, plants and rotted wood. It thrives in damp, poorly ventilated areas like attics and crawlspaces where bats often roost.

"Last night we went to investigate and discovered bats flying from a collapsed building," the sanctuary wrote on Facebook. "Most were ending up in the street and on the sidewalks and even in the road, where sadly, some were run over. After an extensive search we ended up with over 20 bats scattered throughout a several block area."

The infected bats were believed to have been roosting on the decaying beams of an abandoned building that had not collapsed, according to the Facebook post, and most likely ingested the bacteria while grooming their feet and toes, which they use to hang from the beams.

The bacteria infects the wing membrane, often deteriorating the tissue completely. This leaves the bat unable to fly, and they are often found grounded with no visible injury, though it appears painful at the onset.

Rehabilitation at Bat World Sanctuary will likely take several months before the bats can be released back into the wild. The disease cannot be spread from animal to animal, including pets, humans, or even other bats. The bacteria requires direct contact with the animal.

"It's everywhere right now," Lollar said. "It's all over the U.S."

What are the symptoms of wing wasting disease?

Wing Wasting Disease is a serious condition with symptoms that can severely impact the health and survival of affected bats.

There's no easy way for non-professionals to detect the symptoms of wing wasting disease in bats. But it's important to note that about 95% of grounded bats are injured or orphaned and would benefit from professional care.

Are there any other common diseases among bats?

In late spring, Texas officials detected evidence of white-nose syndrome in tri-colored bats, marking the first known case of the fungal disease in this species within the state and the southernmost confirmation of the disease in tri-colored bats.

Texas officials also confirmed the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans, which causes white-nose syndrome, in three other bat species in Texas: fringed myotis, long-legged myotis, and canyon bats. This is the first time canyon bats have tested positive for the fungus in the U.S.

What to do if you've found a bat

It's crucial to ensure that bats receive proper care, and its also illegal to rehabilitate wildlife without the appropriate permit. If you encounter a bat, follow these steps, as advised by the Bat World Sanctuary website:

Avoid direct contact: Never touch the bat with bare hands, as some states may euthanize a bat if touched this way. Use gloves, a thick towel, or, if outside, a small twig or branch. For indoor situations: Wait until the bat is motionless

Gently contain it using a box or a similar container with a lid

Important: Do not use a bird cage or any container with small openings, as bats are adept at squeezing through tiny gaps For outdoor situations: Ensure there are no predators in the vicinity.

If the bat appears healthy, place it back on a nearby tree or in a safe location, using an object between. Do not touch the bat with bare hands. Do not place the bats in the same tree where the attack may have occurred and do not place bats on the trunk of a tree where they will be vulnerable to predators. Also make sure there is no visible birds nest in the tree.

Once contained, contact wildlife assistance. Avoid calling local animal control services, as many may euthanize the bat.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: World's only accredited bat sanctuary warns of bat disease in Mineral Wells
Reality Check is a Sacramento Bee series holding those in power to account and shining a light on their decisions. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@sacbee.com.com.

A Sacramento County sheriffs deputy  filmed in a viral 2020 video after he repeatedly punched a 14-year-old boy in Rancho Cordova  tarnished the legacy of his law enforcement agency after using a forbidden technique, according to the Sheriffs Office administrative disciplinary review of the incident.

Deputy Brian Fowells use of force was not justified because the boy, Elijah Tufono, did not pose a threat or carry weapons, the report said. Tufono, who is now an adult, could not be reached.





Fowell was ultimately fired in 2020, a decision recommended by then-Sheriff Scott Jones. Fowell was reinstated in April 2022 after appealing the decision.

Capt. Kate Adams, who formerly led the Rancho Cordova Police Department that operates under the Sheriffs Office, sought a 240-hour suspension without pay for Fowell, as well as a transfer to correctional services for two years. But a Sheriffs Office investigator thought Adams recommendation was substantially too lenient and recommended his termination, according to the administrative disciplinary review.

The detrimental effects of Deputy Fowells actions have noticeably tarnished the legacy of the Sacramento County Sheriffs Office, the report said.

The documents disclosure was previously denied when The Sacramento Bee filed a public records request in 2020. A Bee journalist reviewed the report after it was included in a defense motion filed by attorneys in the trial of Anton Paris. He was convicted Tuesday of murdering Deputy Mark Stasyuk and the attempted murder of his partner, Julie Robertson.

Defense attorneys sought to cast doubt on Fowells testimony after he was scheduled to testify in the trial. Paris fired at him during the incident and the deputy returned gunfire, striking Paris in the back, according to the documents.

The report was also quietly released online by the Sheriffs Office, which is mandated to release use-of-force investigations by California Senate Bill 1421.

But Fowells action had implications beyond the immediate community he serves  Adams declared Fowell single-handedly undid years of goodwill and trust within not only the city of Rancho Cordova, but negatively impacted the profession of law enforcement, according to her review of the incident.

The video, filmed by a bystander, proliferated nationwide through social media and gained more than 9 million views. Fowells actions were called a horrific abuse of power on social media by then-vice presidential nominee and California Sen. Kamala Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

This is a horrific abuse of power. This officer must be held accountable. pic.twitter.com/jcAABFzWvj  Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) April 28, 2020

Tufono, then 14 years old, reached a settlement in November 2021 with the city of Rancho Cordova for $125,000, according to court documents. The familys attorney was scheduled to be paid $50,000, the documents indicated.

His guardian, Leataie Tagalu, did not respond to requests for comments. Attorney John Burris also did not return requests for comment.

The internal investigation

In April 2020, Tufono, who is Black, and a friend received tobacco from a man named Mark Sims near the intersection of Mather Field and Mills Station roads.

Fowell said he drove past the boys at least two times. That account doesnt align with the deputy claiming everything happened so fast so he didnt get a chance to call dispatchers, according to Chief Deputy Chet Madison, who wrote the administrative disciplinary review, which is conducted to investigate use of force incidents.

If Fowell had announced his actions to dispatchers, this entire event could have been mitigated with the assistance of another officer, the review says.

Fowell also didnt follow standard law enforcement practices when he focused on Tufono and his friend who received the tobacco, rather than targeting Sims, the person who bought it, or the business, the report says. In a statement released by the Sheriffs Office at the time of the incident, deputies said there was reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and Tufono resisted Fowell.

Tufonos possession of tobacco products is not a citable offense, the report said.

The initial interaction between Fowell and Tufono was not consensual as Fowell claimed, the report said. He had turned on his rear emergency light, which is inappropriate when performing a consensual contact.

Tufono lied to Fowell about his name and age, the report said. Both of them ended up on the ground, and Fowell mounted Tufono, the report said.

In the video, Fowell pushed Tufonos head into the ground as he tried to turn the teen onto his stomach. When the 14-year-old didnt turn over and instead moved onto his back, Fowell struck Tufono three times. The deputy grabbed Tufonos wrist and slammed his face on the ground while pinning his arm behind his back.

The punches did not seek to injure the boy, but to distract him from further resistance Fowell said, according to the report.

I expected them to distract him enough and also let him that, you know, I was capable of  of doing that and not just control holds, Fowell told the investigator.

He also said the first punch was a grazing strike that did not work. The other two punches were instantaneous and at 40% strength  just to distract, you know, and keep his mind working, too, rather than just trying to pull away from a grasp but also to try and block strikes, Fowell said, according to the report.

Fowell said he was trained in the police academy to use distractionary blows. He also couldnt remember the last time that he used distractionary blows, the report says.

Investigators also spoke with Fowells instructors at the academy who both adamantly stated distractionary blows and punches were not approved or taught.

Fowell made $292,936.53 in total pay in 2022, according to payroll records maintained by Transparent California. In 2023, the deputy made $184,105.

While race may not have been a motivating factor in Deputy Fowells initial contact with Tufono ... it resulted in discord, distrust and anger in the Black community, the report said. Additionally, the community as a whole was outraged at the use of force utilized on a 14-year-old, half the size of Deputy Fowell.
Reaction to California Gov. Gavin Newsom's directive to state officials to dismantle thousands of homeless encampments across the state has drawn a mix of praise and criticism across the state.

In San Diego, where a conference on finding solutions for homelessness in California was held on Thursday, the same day Newsom issued his executive order, participants praised the move.

"People should not be able to live in public spaces or wherever they want. Weve gotten to the point where were tolerating it, and its become normalized," State Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-San Diego, told CBS 8 San Diego.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria told CBS 8 the governor's order aligns with what's already happening in San Diego under the city's encampment ban.

San Francisco Mayor London Breed also said her city was already removing homeless encampments.

San Francisco is already doing what the governor is calling for, with efforts well underway since long before the Grants Pass ruling, she said in a statement.

San Francisco is already doing what the Governor is calling for, with efforts well underway since long before the Grants Pass ruling. Weve made significant investments in shelter and housing, and consistent daily outreach continues to offer services and support. This proactive https://t.co/13Z4ycP1hk  London Breed (@LondonBreed) July 25, 2024

Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln, a Republican running for Congress in the 2024 election, told the Stockton Record the executive order was a "critical moment for our state and the city of Stockton."

Criticism of Newsom's homeless encampment directive

Newsom is getting criticism from both the right and left wings of the political spectrum over Thursday's executive order.

Criminalizing homelessness wouldn't solve the problem, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said.

Strategies that just move people along from one neighborhood to the next or give citations instead of housing do not work," she said in a statement, pointing to programs her city has already put in place to clear encampments in a less punitive way.

More than 35 Angelenos that were living on the streets in Westlake moved indoors with supportive services.



Homelessness is down in Los Angeles  Inside Safe is part of our long term solution to bring people indoors immediately. pic.twitter.com/NsQgksuqAw  Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) July 24, 2024

In the San Francisco Bay Area, advocates for people experiencing homelessness decried the executive order, describing it as a declaration of war on the unhoused.

State Assembly Minority Leader James Gallagher, R-Chico, was dismissive of Newsom's proclamation, describing it as the same-old failed approach to the problem.

Big promises. No action. blame locals. No press. Rinse and repeat. https://t.co/y4xRHVfERR  James Gallagher (@J_GallagherAD3) July 25, 2024

Praise for Newsom from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Top Florida Republicans, including a leading lawmaker and Gov. Ron DeSantis' office staff, applauded Newsom for the executive order.

"Im glad to see Governor Newsom finally accept reality and acknowledge the damage chronic homelessness does to communities and businesses," said Florida State Rep. Sam Garrison, a Republican.

DeSantis spokesman Bryan Griffin urged California to make the executive order a state law. "Keep following the Florida model," he posted on X.

Great! Now make it law, like Florida.

Under HB 1365, championed by @GovRonDeSantis in March, Homeless individuals are prohibited from camping on city streets, sidewalks, and parksand homeless shelters require occupants to not use drugs.

Keep following the Florida model.  https://t.co/Q8TUq54c9r pic.twitter.com/tyMuSiAFUe  Bryan Griffin (@BryanDGriffin) July 25, 2024

How Newsom's homelessness order may affect California

Newsom can't force cities and counties to dismantle homeless encampments but is advising local authorities the best way to take action.

The directive will order other state agencies, such as Caltrans, California State Parks and the Department of Fish and Wildlife, to first target encampments that pose a health and safety risk.

Those agencies will give 48 to 72 hours of advance notice to people in the encampments while working with local homeless organizations to help those experiencing homelessness. Personal property collected at each site will be bagged, tagged, and stored for at least 60 days, according to a proclamation issued Thursday by the governor's office.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Politicians, advocates react to Newsom's homelessness directive
The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education have formally accepted Chancellor Allison Garrett's resignation, effective no later than Jan. 2, and have begun their search for her successor.

The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education formally accepted Chancellor Allison Garretts resignation during a special meeting this week and formed a committee to begin searching for her successor.

Garrett, the first woman to serve as state chancellor, said earlier this month that she plans to retire in January 2025, after a little more than three years of service as the chancellor, who leads the state higher education system. Under the proposal unanimously accepted by the nine-member regents board, Garretts resignation will be effective no later than Jan. 2, 2025, with the specific date to be determined by the board at a future meeting.

Regent Chair Dennis Casey of Morrison said the search committee will consist of him and fellow regents Jeff Hickman, of Fairview; Courtney Warmington, of Edmond; and Steven Taylor, of McAlester.

While a search committee will be used, I want to emphasize that there will be plenty of opportunity for the entire board to provide input and participate in the process, Casey said.

Kylie Smith, the regents vice chancellor for administration, told regents the search for Garretts successor would be national. The job posting will appear in five major higher education publications, including the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. She said the ideal candidate would have an earned advanced degree and at least 10 years of experience in higher education administration or comparative executive experience, among other qualities.

Under a proposed search timeline Smith presented, the open position would be posted on Aug. 1 and candidates would be recruited throughout August. At the next scheduled regents meeting on Sept. 4-5, regents would discuss candidates during a closed session, with the first round of interviews set for mid-September. Background checks would follow into early October, with the finalists to be interviewed again once the checks are completed.

The goal is to announce a new chancellor sometime between mid-October and early November at a regents meeting. The regents presently have meetings scheduled to be held Oct. 16-17 and Nov. 7.

This is a very rough timeline, Smith said. It needs to be flexible, based on how the search process actually goes. Factors could include number of applicants (and) applicant availability for interviews.

Ken Levit, the newest regent  having taken office in June  asked if consideration was given to using an outside search agency, either national or local, to assist in the search. After a brief discussion involving him, Taylor and Casey, he was asked by Casey to work with Smith to look into whether or not that would be a good idea.

I think there would be some value in at least considering some level of third-party assistance, said Levit, whos also the executive director of the George Kaiser Family Foundation in Tulsa.

Smith said regents used a search firm during the search that ended up with the selection of Garrett. She said the only advantages of using a search firm would be that the firm could reach out to potential candidates and suggest they apply or make cold calls to candidates.

Other than that, I think we can run everything on our own internally, given what we did the last time, Smith said.

Regents reconsider tuition, fee increase requests from Langston, Rogers State

In other business, regents approved a 1.9% increase in Rogers State Universitys tuition rate for the 2024-25 academic year and a proposal by Langston University that would increase mandatory student fees to an average of $66.32 over an academic year. Regents initially had rejected those two proposals during a June meeting.

Regents did reiterate they initially didnt appreciate the two universities asking for direct funding from the Oklahoma Legislature for campus projects  money that isnt controlled by the regents.

Thats something that kind of has a little heartburn with this board, because we govern 25 institutions, not one, two or three that (are) going to the Legislature, regent Dustin Hilliary of Lawton said. I just wanted to point that out.

Warmington expressed similar sentiments, but she said she, like Hilliary, had reconsidered.

I say that with a caveat, that I still have a lot of serious concerns about the long-term impact of institutions lobbying for direct funding, and overall, what that will do to the system, if we dont have a handle on when thats right and when its not, and sort of what our philosophy is on it, Warmington said.

Both joined unanimous votes to approve the requests from Langston and Rogers State.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma higher education regents to start looking for new chancellor
A 20-year-old who was killed during World War II has been accounted for, military officials announced on Thursday.

U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph H. Bode was assigned to a bombardment squadron in the European Theater in late 1944, the Department POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a news release, and flew with the Hansen Crew. Bode was a tail gunner on a B-24H aircraft during a mission over Kassel, Germany.

The aircraft was shot down after encountering heavy resistance from German ground and air forces. Over two dozen aircraft were downed. Some soldiers escaped through hatches, but Bode "was not among them," according to the DPAA.

U.S. Army Air Force Staff Sgt. Ralph H. Bode. / Credit: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

The War Department issued a "finding of death" in September 1945, a year after the crash. Bode - who earned the Purple Heart, among other citations - was survived by his parents, two grandmothers and one brother, according to a news clipping announcing memorial services.

In September 1951, the American Graves Registration Command, which searched for and recovered the remains of American personnel in that region, were told by local residents about several bombers that had crashed outside of Richelsdorf, Germany. Investigators were able to locate remains of multiple crashed planes based on the shared information, "various bits of scattered clothing," and remains of two servicemembers. Those remains were believed to have come from Bode's aircraft.

A news clipping announcing requiem services for Bode. / Credit: Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency

Those two remains could not be identified at the time and were labeled X-9070 Liege and X-9071 Liege. The X-9070 Liege remains were interred at the Luxembourg America Cemetery in Luxembourg, and the X-9071 Liege remains were interred at the North African American Cemetery in Tunisia.

The first set of remains was exhumed in April 2018, and the second set in May 2022. Both were transferred to the DPAA laboratory for analysis. The agency uses a series of techniques to make identifications, and for these sets of remains, scientists used anthropological analysis and mitochondrial analysis.

One of the sets of remains was identified as Bode's. A rosette will be placed next to his name on the Walls of the Missing at the Luxembourg American Cemetery. He will be buried on Sept. 27, 2024, in Racine, Wisconsin.

Harris campaign releases video showing Trump mug shot

Can Harris maintain momentum through 2024 election?

Arson attacks strand Olympics travelers across Europe
The remains of an Air Force sergeant who died defending a top-secret radar site on a mountaintop in Laos during the Vietnam War have been identified and located, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency announced this week.

Sgt. David S. Price, 26, of Centralia, Washington, who died in 1968, was stationed at Lima Site 85 -- a highly covert tactical air navigation radar site on the remote, nearly 6,000-foot high mountain peak known as Phou Pha Thi in Houaphan Province, Laos, the agency said in a news release. He and 18 other men were there working on a top-secret Air Force and CIA mission code-named "Project Heavy Green," according to the Department of Defense, which provided support with a TSQ-81 radar nicknamed COMMANDO CLUB for U.S. bombing runs in North Vietnam.

But the site eventually was seen as a valued target by the North Vietnamese Army and from March 10-11, 1968, the site was bombarded by artillery and commandos and was seized from the small team of radar technicians. While eight of the men were rescued, 11 of them, including Price, died.

Read Next: National Guard May Be Without Leadership After Last-Minute White House Nomination for New Chief

A passage from the CIA-published "Studies in Intelligence" quarterly journal detailed that, in the days that followed, bombing runs were ordered on the site to cover up the covert operation, further complicating the retrieval of any American remains.

"By midday, hopes of recovering the missing Americans were discarded and attention turned to destroying the radar to prevent it from falling into the hands of the North Vietnamese, along with the documentation and operational information that was left in the COMMANDO CLUB operations building," the journal detailed. "Between the 12th and 18th, 95 sorties were directed to destroy the radar; and on the 19th, two A-I Sandys leveled every building on the ridge. This aerial barrage had the collateral effect of probably obliterating the remains of any Americans who were left on the mountain."

Due to the secrecy behind the operation, many of the family members were left in the dark about the airmen's whereabouts. A news clipping from March 1970 referenced the shock and surprise of Price's mother after she read about the attack in the national press two years after his death. She had been informed by the Pentagon only that her son was declared dead after he had gone missing in an unnamed Southeast Asian country.

"Now, I know what he was referring to in some of his letters," Price's mother was quoted as saying in the article. "This is definitely where he was."

Decades later, in 1994, the then-Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command tried to search for remains but was unsuccessful. A successful finding of remains at the site happened in 2003, leading to further investigation.

In 2023, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency "discovered unexploded ordnance, incident-related materials, possible material evidence, and possible osseous [or bone] remains from the research site," the agency said in a press release.

To identify Price's remains, the agency used circumstantial evidence and mitochondrial DNA analysis.

His funeral will take place in his hometown of Centralia, Washington, on Aug. 30, according to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

Eight of the 11 men Price died alongside still remain unaccounted for, according to the agency's records.

Related: Forensic Teams Work to Identify Remains of American POWs Killed in Tokyo Firebombing During World War II
The first offshore wind turbines installed in U.S. federal waters 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia.

In 2020, installation was completed on the first wind turbines installed in U.S. federal waters 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, Virginia. (U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)

Federal energy regulators announced Friday that they received an unsolicited request from a renewable power company seeking an offshore wind lease in a part of the Gulf of Mexico considered critical to the nations transition to renewable energy and the Biden administrations climate goals.

The request came from Hecate Energy, an American company that specializes in solar and wind electricity generation and renewable energy storage in multiple locations across the country.

Hecate submitted a lease request for two potential areas off the Texas coast roughly 30 miles southeast of Matagorda Beach, according to a news release from the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

Hecate is proposing to build 133 offshore wind turbines that would generate 2 gigawatts of electricity, which is enough to power around 750,000 homes.

The two areas in question span a total of about 223 square miles on the Outer Continental Shelf and sit within a sector that sees some of the highest wind speeds in the Gulf, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Studies conducted under the Trump administration found that offshore wind development in the Gulf of Mexico has the potential to generate double the energy currently being used in all five Gulf states.

However, development has so far made a few stutter steps that some worry may have scared off investors. BOEM had to cancel a previous lease sale held in March because of a lack of competitive interest.

In its proposal, Hecate noted that investor reluctance around Gulf wind projects, saying its proposal could jumpstart the industry. Having seen much success in developing onshore wind farms in Texas, the company said it is uniquely positioned and has a high level of confidence to tackle offshore wind in the Gulf.

Map showing wind speeds in federal lease areas of Gulf of Mexico

Because Hecates request was unsolicited, federal rules require BOEM to issue a public notice requesting comments from any other industry competitors who might be interested in the lease. If any other companies express a legitimate interest in acquiring the lease and are qualified to actually purchase it, BOEM could decide to open it up for a competitive auction. If the agency doesnt receive any other interest, it will likely move forward with the sale to Hecate.

Since the start of the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of the Interior has approved the nations first nine commercial scale offshore wind projects with a combined capacity of more than 13 gigawatts of clean energy  enough to power nearly 5 million homes.

Since January 2021, the department has held four offshore wind lease auctions  including a record-breaking sale off the shore of Long Island, New York, and the first-ever sales off the Pacific Coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. The Department of Interior also recently announced a schedule of up to 12 additional wind lease sales through 2028.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Repeat offender allegedly caught with large amount of meth in Rowan County dollar store parking lot

ROWAN COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  A Kannapolis man known to authorities for previous convictions and ongoing criminal cases is now facing drug trafficking charges, according to the Rowan County Sheriffs Office (RCSO).

In June 2024, detectives kicked off a month-long investigation into Marion Dajuan Feasters activities, which they say led them to buy trafficking amounts of methamphetamine from Feaster multiple times in both Rowan and Cabarrus Counties.

Repeat rapist sentenced to 410 years for three assaults in Mooresville, Lincoln County

On July 22, Feaster was arrested after allegedly delivering about 256 grams of Crystal Methamphetamine to a Dollar General parking lot. He is charged with the following:

At least two counts of Trafficking in Methamphetamine

Possession of a Schedule III Controlled Substance

Possession of Marijuana between 0.5 and 1.5 oz

Possession of Drug Paraphernalia

Resist/Delay/Obstruct a Public OfficerNon-Assault

In North Carolina, anyone with more than 28 grams of methamphetamine can be charged with trafficking the substance.

Feaster is being held without bond at the Rowan County Detention Center due to the Pretrial Integrity Act. He is expected in court on August 14.

At the time of this arrest, Feaster was out on bond for unrelated charges in Stanly, Cabarrus and Mecklenburg Counties. He was previously convicted in Cabarrus County of the following:

Sell/Deliver Cocaine

Attempted 2nd Degree Kidnapping

Attempted Common Law Robbery

Felony Breaking and/or entering

He has previously spent 6 years and 10 months in prison for federal firearm violations and was released from the Federal Bureau of Prisons in October 2022.

The RCSO Special Investigation Unit, the Cabarrus County Sheriffs Office, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the RCSO Patrol and Civil Divisions were all part of 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 Queen City News.
U.S. Capitol | Jennifer Shutt, States Newsroom

The candidates competing for the Republican nomination in the open race for Wisconsins 8th Congressional District seat discussed federal regulation, U.S.-Mexico border and taxation during a debate Thursday.

The seat, which includes Appleton, Green Bay, Door County and other areas of northeast Wisconsin, was represented by U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher since 2017 until he resigned in April. The debate for the seat comes a little over two weeks before the primary on Aug. 13, and the winner of the primary will face Democrat Kristin Lyerly, an OB-GYN, in November.

During the debate, hosted by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, the candidates, who appeared to agree on many of the issues, attempted to distinguish themselves by pointing to their experience and endorsements.

Tony Wied, a former gas station owner, looked to position himself as an outsider who is aligned with former President Donald Trump on most issues. He repeatedly mentioned throughout the debate that he is the only candidate with the endorsement of Trump, though each candidate seemed to embrace another Trump presidency.

Ive always just left politics to politicians. They seem to speak well. They dress well, and I always thought, they know what theyre doing, Wied said in his opening remarks. I realized our career politicians are absolutely failing us right now. We see the dysfunction in Washington.

Meanwhile, Roger Roth looked to highlight his experience in the military, as a small business owner and in the state Legislature, where he served for eight years. He also touted his endorsement from former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Walker is endorsing me in this race as the principled conservative who can go to Washington, work with President Trump and get this country moving in the right direction, Roth said. When my time in public service was done, I came right back home just as our founding fathers intended public service to be.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Andre Jacque (R-De Pere) leaned on his experience and recent work in the state Legislature to make his case for the nomination.

I am not the best looking up here. I dont have the biggest wallet, but Im gonna fight the hardest for you, Jacque said, adding that he is proud to be the proven conservative in the race.

The candidates were in agreement that regulations that are imposed on businesses and consumers by federal agencies needed to be reduced. They all said they would support a federal version of the REINS Act, a 2017 Wisconsin state law signed under Walker that requires state agencies to get legislative approval whenever the costs of a proposed rule on businesses, local governments and individuals are estimated to exceed $10 million.

We think the politicians are in control, but its the unelected bureaucrats that have the most control, Roth said.

Jacque said he was excited about the U.S. Supreme Courts recent decision to overturn the 40-year old Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council decision, which had allowed federal agencies broad discretion to use their judgment to resolve ambiguity that Congress left in a federal statute. He said that the government needs to work to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, including the number of federal employees.

Wied also suggested that federal agencies need to be audited and he would be in favor of eliminating some of those agencies including the Department of Education. He said the Environmental Protection Agency should also be looked into.

Our agencies are completely bloated. They need to be audited each and every one of them, and they need to have accountability right now, Wied said. I think we can cut each of them and cut spending in half and maybe even more.

The discussion about federal regulations also came up later in the debate as candidates were critical of the Biden administrations policies on electric vehicles, which have sought to encourage companies and consumers to embrace them over gas-powered cars and trucks as a way of cutting carbon emissions and addressing climate change.

Wied, who previously owned a chain of gas stations in Wisconsin, said the government shouldnt subsidize electric vehicles.

If people want to have an electric vehicle, they should have the right to buy one, our government shouldnt be making or forcing people to use electric vehicles and we shouldnt be subsidizing electric vehicles, Wied said.

Talking about the border

The candidates also addressed immigration policies at the U.S-Mexico border, an issue that voters have and that Republicans have sought to make a core issue of the 2024 elections.

Roth called the border a catastrophe and said the U.S. needs to go back to the immigration policies that were in place under Trump, but implement them through federal statute rather than through executive order, so that another administration cant get rid of them.

Jacque also said the policy needs to be in statute and a border wall needs to be built, and he also looked to shift some blame for the issues at the border to Vice President Kamala Harris, who is the likely Democratic presidential nominee, on the same day that the U.S. House passed a Republican-led resolution condemning Harris and the Biden administration for its immigration policy. The criticism on immigration at the border comes as migrant encounters along the southern border are down 55% since the administration implemented new restrictions seven weeks ago, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security.

We need to build the border wall. We need to get that done and build a perimeter around that wall and also the Remain in Mexico policy that President Trump put into place was effective, Wied said. The Biden administration ended Remain in Mexico, which required asylum seekers to stay in their country of origin until their US immigration court date.

The candidates were in agreement about their opposition to any tax increases.

Taxation is theft, Jacque said.

Wied said he would always be in favor of lowering taxes, including for businesses, and that he wanted to make the tax cuts passed by Trump in 2017 permanent.

I think we need to lower the corporate tax rate. We need to let businesses get back to business, and I saw that in running my business, Wied said. We were taxed at such a high rate.

Roth said that he would want to go further than the 2017 tax cuts, and noted he supported cutting the state income tax in Wisconsin, a proposal that has been blocked by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

I am a conservative you can trust to go to Washington to work with President Trump to do more. We are going to do more than just extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts, but we absolutely will do that, Roth said.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
ISLAMABAD, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Commerce Minister Jam Kamal Khan assured support for the upcoming Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Business and Investment Conference 2024 scheduled to take place in Islamabad.

The minister accepted the invitation extended by the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) for the event here during a meeting, acknowledging the importance of the upcoming SCO conference, which will be held on September 11-12, the commerce ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

The conference will feature business-to-business (B2B) sessions on key sectors such as regional tourism in the SCO and digital transformation and information technology collaboration in the region, said the statement.

He also emphasized the role of FPCCI in facilitating the relocation of China's industry to Pakistan, it added.

Khan urged the chamber to actively participate in creating a conducive environment for this transition.

The minister expressed keen interest in FPCCI's study on the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) with China, asking the chamber to submit its suggestions, according to the statement. 
LITTLE ROCK, Ark.  Division in the state republican party played out Thursday as the partys rules committee repealed some actions taken at the state convention, including the creation of closed primaries.

According to the state party rules, the final authority in all party matters rest in the republican state convention which is made up of delegates, but Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Joseph Wood said that following a complaint filed by a delegate, the party received an advisory opinion on whether, according to party rules, they can adopt certain changes that were not on the original convention agenda.

Arkansas Republicans vote to hold closed primaries, critics voice concerns on rollout

An executive meeting Thursday to discuss that opinion resulted in an 18-5 vote, according to Convention Chairwoman Jennifer Lancaster, accepting the opinion that deems actions taken under Lancasters leadership null and void.

We were supposed to adopt the rules committees, Woods said. They had two votes to change that, and they didnt. They had to add an agenda that makes it more flexible that was not approved, and they went ahead and did it anyway.

Arkansas GOP members say they see shift in Trumps energy since assassination attempt

Lancaster, as one of the few voting against this, said she pushed back on leaders in the executive meeting on their authority to override the will of the delegates, according to party rules.

She, along with delegates outside, said they will continue fighting back and nothing is off the table, including possible litigation.

Theyre trying to exclude the peoples voice in the Republican Party of Arkansas who legally met as we were supposed to do, made decisions to make this a better country, delegate Corry Branson said.

Capitol View: Arkansas GOP closes primaries, Winthrop Rockefeller Institute looks to expand participation

Chairman Joseph Wood released an official statement hours after the vote.

Today the Republican Party of Arkansas (RPA) Executive Committee voted overwhelmingly to declare null and void certain actions taken by the State Convention Chair in violation of RPA Rules, Article 1, Section 6. While the State Convention is the final authority on RPA matters, that body adopted RPA Rules in their entirety, and then repeatedly violated the notice requirements provided in Article 1, Section 6, Items F-G. Those violations of the RPA Rules were predictable considering the Convention Chair attempted not once, but twice, to strip those sections from adoption. Those failed attempts at eliminating the notice requirements, prior to their adoption as a whole, are an admission of their necessity. The will of the body was to preserve those sections of the Rules; sections which protect against the chaos of unknown and unvetted proposals. This does not negate the certification of state and federal candidates, presidential electors, or the additional platform changes which complied with RPA Rules Article 1, Section 6, Items F-G. Todays decision is not about any one proposal or group of proposals, but about applying the Rules equally to protect the will of the delegates, which was to preserve required notice. RPA Chairman Joseph Wood

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
JD Vance has had a difficult week, and some Republicans arent hiding their frustration.

Despite momentum after former President Donald Trump named him as his running mate, the Ohio senator started receiving unwanted attention after old clips resurfaced of him calling some Democrats childless cat ladies and suggesting parents should have more political power than non-parents.

Vances change of fortune also collided with the rise of Vice President Kamala Harris, who has broken fundraising records and is on a glide path to receiving the Democratic nomination after President Joe Biden bowed out of the race. And Harris  who would be the first Black and South Asian woman president and is running a campaign with the unofficial slogan were not going back  has made the contrast with the Trump-Vance ticket even more stark.

Its all starting to get some Republicans worried  and frustrated. Some, like Arizona Republican operative Chuck Coughlin, conceded that Vance has had a tough week.

Nothing like a baptism by fire, Coughlin said.

Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro bluntly questioned whether Trump should have picked Vance, saying on his show: If you had a time machine, if you go back two weeks, would [Trump] have picked JD Vance again? I doubt it.

Other Republicans also wondered aloud if the Trump campaign had truly anticipated the tidal wave of resurfaced comments, book writings and remarks that would come with picking a 39-year-old, recently elected senator who had grown up online and was firmly seated on the right of the Republican Party.

Of the people that were mentioned as finalists, he had the most risk, because he had never been vetted nationally, said Bill McCoshen, a Republican strategist in Wisconsin. Doug Burgum ran for president, he had been vetted, mostly. Marco Rubio has run for president, he had been vetted. JD Vance hadn't. So there was risk in the pick. And we're going to see over the next 102 days how he stands up to the bright lights of a national campaign.

One House Republican lawmaker suggested those vetting concerns werent just coming from the pundit class.

Find me one publicly elected official in the Senate who is pushing JD Vance other than Mike Lee, said the Republican lawmaker, who was granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter. I'll wait."



Since Harris began her presidential campaign, Democrats have begun to go on offense against Vance, and polls suggest these attacks are beginning to take a hit. Vance averages a net favorability rating of negative 5 percent across all polls, lower than any vice presidential nominee in history, CNN analyst Harry Enten said this week  a lower figure than former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, perhaps the most infamous GOP running mate pick.

Vances favorability was underwater by 3 percentage points in two polls of a Harris-Trump race released this week by the New York Times/Siena College and NPR/PBS News/Marist College  the latter of which found that 28 percent of registered voters hold a favorable view of Vance, while 31 percent viewed him unfavorably. Forty-one percent were unsure or have not heard of him, the Marist poll found.

The lawmaker accused Donald Trump Jr. of pushing Vance as a means of securing a legacy for the former president. Instead, Republicans have mounting worries after a week of resurfaced clips of Vance calling Harris and other Democrats childless cat ladies and suggesting parents should have more political power than non-parents.

The Harris campaign, in response to Vances comments, issued a statement titled Happy World IVF Day To Everyone Except JD Vance. Even actress Jennifer Aniston, who does not have children, weighed in: Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day. I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.

Critics also highlighted Vances authoring of the foreword to an upcoming book by Kevin Roberts, the president of the Heritage Foundation who has advocated for a second American revolution he hopes will remain bloodless. Roberts is the head of Project 2025  a far-right policy blueprint from which Trump has fought to distance himself.

In a review of the book, Vance wrote: We are now all realizing that its time to circle the wagons and load the muskets. In the fights that lie ahead, these ideas are an essential weapon.

Im a little surprised they didnt vet him as thoroughly as they should have, or if they did, did they not know he was writing the foreword to Kevin Roberts book, said a Republican strategist and veteran of multiple presidential campaigns, granted anonymity to speak freely. So, youve got Trump trashing this Project 2025, and Vance writing the foreword.

And thats not to mention the countless memes suggesting Vance had intimate relations with a couch in his youth following a disinformation post on social media, made worse by the fact that the Associated Press published an article with the headline No, JD Vance did not have sex with a couch, then retracting it because the story didnt go through our standard editing process, according to AP spokesperson Nicole Meir.



Vance spokesperson Luke Schroeder referred POLITICO to reports that Vance rallies this week had reached capacity and news reports on the seven-figure fundraising events he held.

Vance was picked during an entirely different phase of the presidential race  the Biden-Trump matchup of just a week ago  as a way to energize a base that was already strongly unified behind Trump rather than pick up any new constituencies, experts said.

Vance was not a political pick, said Joshua Novotney, a Republican political strategist in Pennsylvania. He was not chosen to get a leg-up in some area, he was chosen as someone who Trump trusted and wanted to serve with.

Contenders for the Democratic veepstakes have gone on the offensive against Vance, too. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear slammed the Hillbilly Elegy author as a phony, saying he aint from here and accusing him of writing his memoir to profit off our people. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said people like JD Vance know nothing about small town America, adding: none of my hillbilly cousins went to Yale. And Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said hed met a lot of people like Vance at Harvard who would say whatever they needed to to get ahead.

Despite Vances arguably awful week, Trump has insisted he has no regrets picking the Ohio senator, telling Fox News on Thursday that he wouldnt have picked differently had he known Harris would take the top of the ticket.

He is essentially for the worker. He has seen the worker be horribly abused and taken advantage of and he is for the worker, Trump said, describing the message of Vances book as one of the main reasons he picked the Ohio senator.

Yet strategists said the fringes of that Hillbilly Elegy message is making it even harder for Vance to benefit Trump on the electoral map.

He's Tucker Carlson's boy right now, and that represents a certain segment of the base of the Republican Party, Coughlin said. I just don't see how that projects to somebody who can grow the base, particularly if he's stumbling over his own words.
The November 1975 shipwreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is probably the most famous one of the Great Lakes, thanks to Gordon Lightfoots hit ballad. But a new discovery is putting another ship  the Margaret A. Muir  on the map.

An intrepid team of maritime historians working with the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association recently located the schooner that was lost to a fierce gale on the morning of Saturday, September 30, 1893.

The Muir  a 130-foot, three-masted ship built in 1872  was found under about 50 feet (15 meters) of Lake Michigan water off Algoma, Wisconsin, according to a WUAA news release.

It sank only a few miles off the entrance to Algoma Harbor, according to the release. It went undetected for more than a century despite hundreds of boats passing over it each fishing season.

Maritime historian Brendon Baillod, who found the ship on May 12, 2024, along with teammates Robert Jaeck and Kevin Cullen, said its a significant archaeological discovery.

One of the things thats important about this wreck is that its opened up  we call it filet of schooner  where the deck came off and then the sides opened up. And we can see the architectural construction details of how a 19th-century Great Lakes wooden vessel, a schooner, was built, he told CNN Travel.

This is almost like somebody architecturally dismantled it to show you exactly how it was built, he said. In addition, all its deck gear remains, including two giant anchors and hand pumps.

This is not too unusual in the Great Lakes, whose cold, fresh waters often provide an environment for preservation, according to the University of Buffalo.

Altogether, these commercially vital waters are estimated to hold the remains more than 6,000 ships going back to the 17th century, creating a mysterious and fascinating lore of which the Muir is a part.

Fighting for their lives

Like other working ships of the late 1800s, the Margaret A. Muir was part of the booming maritime trade economy of the Great Lakes, which had access to the Atlantic Ocean via the St. Lawrence Seaway.

This was  the engine that fueled the Industrial Revolution in America. All the raw goods  the copper, the iron ore, the lumber that built our cities came out of the Great Lakes via this huge freshwater freeway, Baillod said.

The Muir was intended primarily for the Great Lakes grain trade, although it carried many diverse cargoes, frequenting all five Great Lakes over her 21-year career, according to the release.

On that calamitous day when the Muirs labors ended, Capt. David Clow reported the schooner, carrying a load of salt, had cleared the Straits of Mackinac and was making its way to the Wisconsin coast. According to the release, a 50-mile-per-hour gale struck at about 5 a.m.

The ship was holding up to the sudden storm well until about 7:30 a.m. when the waves increased dramatically, with some breaking over its decks. The vessel was nearing Algoma (back then called Ahnapee) when Clow discovered several feet of water in the hold.

Reports said he immediately ordered the crew to abandon ship. No sooner than the order was given, the ship lurched violently and plunged for the bottom, taking Captain Clows faithful dog and ships mascot with it, according to the WUAA release.

Fortunately for the crew of six, they were able to make their way through 15-foot seas to the safety of shore. Townspeople spirited the freezing and soaked crew to a hotel and gave them dry clothes.

The loss of his faithful pooch was tough for Clow, though. He was reported as saying that I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did.

Making the news of the day

The loss of the Muir was covered by major Great Lakes newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press and the Plain Dealer of Cleveland.

In a roundup of Marine Notes on October 4, 1893, the Tribune reported the survivors had arrived in Chicago, and had lost everything except what they had on.

It also quoted Clow as saying, I have quit sailing for the water seems to have no liking for me. Its understandable that he felt the lakes had turned on him. In the previous sailing season, the Tribune wrote that Clow had run the schooner A.P. Nichols on rocks at an entrance to famed Green Bay.

Demonstrating how treacherous this line of work could be, the Free Press reported the gale that took down the Muir claimed other ships as well, resulting in a long list of wrecks being added to the remarkably heavy marine losses of the present season.

The Muir re-emerges

A diver from the Wisconsin Historical Society collects photos for a 3D photogrammetry model of the Muir. - Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society

The Margaret A. Muir eventually became just another name, another footnote in the vast sea of Great Lakes shipwreck history. It might have remained that way if not for the efforts of Baillod and his team.

Baillod grew up on Michigans Upper Peninsula, and his fascination with a couple of wooden hulks in Lake Superior near his house sparked a lifelong interest in the maritime history of the Great Lakes.

About 30 years ago, Baillod began compiling a database of Wisconsins missing vessels, he said. The Muir stood out to him as one that had a good possibility of being found. He graded the ships on factors such as accurate accounts from survivors of where a ship went down.

The Margaret Muir was in the top 10 because I had a very good account from her captain, and I also had really good accounts from the local newspapers because her masts were breaking the surface after she sank and she was a hazard to navigation, Baillod said. She was sort of in the way of the harbor mouth a few miles out. So I had a strong inkling that I could find her.

In 2023, Baillod approached the WUAA about undertaking a search for the Muir. A year later, it all came together.

Baillod and his team struck gold at the very end of the very first day of looking.

It was around 4 oclock. And as were pulling up the sonar, the darn wreck crawls across the screen, we caught her in the last 30 seconds that we could have.

We were very excited to find her because we had done all this research, like I had done genealogies of the captain and of the builders and the owner and I had traced her entire career, he said. So it was really exciting to actually find the physical remains of the vessel itself on the bottom.

Within weeks, thousands of high-resolution images of the site were made, the release said.

The WUAA is now working to nominate the site for the National Register of Historic Places. If its accepted to the register, it would join the schooner Trinidad, which the team located in deep water off Algoma in June 2023.

The reason we look for these wrecks is we want to share them with the communities of Wisconsin because these are some of the last tangible hooks that these communities have to their maritime history, Baillod said.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
An Orlando assisted living home that closed because of hurricane flooding is inviting its residents back this week for its grand reopening, marking an end to two years of displacement for its aging and often disoriented population.

About 75 residents vacated The Bridge at Orlando during Hurricane Ian in 2022 because of the storm. The homes executive director Katrina Beasley said the seniors  many of whom require walkers and wheelchairs to move  waded through five feet of water to be rescued.

I thought they must have been traumatized, Beasley said, but the one thing that I love about my seniors is that they are the most resilient individuals, and they took it.

Eight residents have returned since The Bridge renewed its assisted living license in May. In the communitys first-floor apartments, Beasley said, the stormwater destroyed the carpeting and kitchenettes, and also infested the building with mildew.

The residents who fled either moved home or to another assisted living space.

Beasley said per the facilitys emergency plans, most residents were temporarily transported after the flood to The Bridges sister community, Harbor Place, in Port St. Lucie.

Carol Lyons was among four residents who stayed stayed longer at Harbor Place, a two-hour distance from The Bridge, so they wouldnt have to move again. Lyons lived in Port St. Lucie for over a year. She said two of the residents who came with her died before they could move back.

My family is all here in Orlando, Lyons said. They live 15 minutes from here, and I could only see them if they could get off on the weekends and come down there.

Lyons, who uses a wheelchair, said the experience of being evacuated was terrible. She remembered only grabbing a few items because she thought shed be gone just a handful of days.

Then all of a sudden here comes the army and the fire department, she said. And they started carrying us down in the wheelchairs. When they got me, I said, Please dont drop me.

About 40 other assisted living facilities in the state were flooded by Hurricane Ian, which made landfall in Lee County in September 2022 as a Category 4 hurricane before reaching Central Florida as a tropical storm. Ian is considered one of the deadliest Florida hurricanes, accounting for 149 deaths, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Beasley said a nursing home nearby, Life Care Center of Orlando, is still in the process of reopening after it was flooded. The Bridge never weathered such damages before Ian, and the entire first floor of the building had to be remodeled, she added.

Many of the residents that Ive talked to  they really didnt see this trauma, Beasley said. I think they probably were more upset because they wanted to come back to their home sooner, and it was taking a little bit longer than we anticipated.

The Bridge held its grand reopening Thursday, welcoming about 40 people to a tour of the community.

Richard Tucker, one of the homes newest residents, said he had no concerns about future emergency flooding at the facility and that hes hoping more seniors move in. There are currently 12 residents.

It would be nice, Tucker said. I would enjoy that, having more people to talk to.

Resident Maurice Flemings, 78, said he enjoys the renovations but that hes especially excited to be back at The Bridge because of the freedoms he can partake in, like reading.

I was ready to move back in a week later, Flemings said. I said, I dont care if I have to backstroke to my room.
Retailer closing store at Eastside Tacoma shopping center as well as Olympia, Lacey sites

A store that was part of the revitalization of an Eastside Tacoma shopping center six years ago is shutting down.

Discount retailer Big Lots, 1414 E. 72nd St. in the Tahoma Vista Shopping Center, is one of 12 stores in the chain slated for closure in Washington state.

The location was part of a multi-million dollar makeover in 2018 following the 2017 closure of Kmart, the centers original anchor.

Big Lots, already at the site, moved into a portion of the former Kmart for a larger space, and a new Grocery Outlet took its former spot at the center.

Last June, the shopping center sold for $14.2 million to Tahoma Vista Venture LLC, affiliated with Rhino Investments of Henderson, Nevada.

Other Big Lots locations closing in the South Sound include stores at 1515 Marvin Rd. NE, Lacey, and 2815 Capital Mall Dr. SW, Olympia.

Closures also are planned in Bellingham, Burien, Covington, Everett, Kent, Lynnwood, Port Angeles, Renton and one of the retailers Vancouver, Washington, stores.

Store-closure sales are now advertised at the locations on Big Lots website.

The Big Lots in Lakewood and Puyallup and a second Tacoma location at 2401 N. Pearl St. will remain open, along with its Port Orchard store, among others.

According to its website, Big Lots has 26 locations in Washington state.

News agency Bloomberg reported July 25 that the Columbus-Ohio based chain was seeking more financing even after receiving a loan earlier this year for up to $200 million. The chain has nearly 1,400 stores, according to regulatory filings.
Retired Rock Hill officer slain 3 years ago. Why hasnt the murder case gone to trial?

Three years since former South Carolina deputy Evan Robert Hawthorne was charged with killing retired Rock Hill police lieutenant Larry Vaughan, his case hasnt gone to trial.

And itll be at least five more months before the case has its day in court, according to prosecutors and Hawthornes attorneys.

It is unclear why the case has taken so long to reach a trial, especially after there was a bond hearing in December 2022, more than 15 months after charges were filed. But a number of factors, including COVID and defense attorney schedules, may have combined to delay the case.

Hawthornes legal defense team denies the charges and has claimed he acted in self-defense after Vaughan attacked him.

The criminal case is one of the oldest murders outstanding in York County and isnt shown in any public records as being scheduled. Jail records show only two defendants charged with murder before Hawthornes arrest remain in custody waiting for trial.

It is vital for public trust of courts that defendants receive a fair trial and that victims receive justice, the S.C. Supreme Court said in a May 2023 order requiring cases be moved through the system.

There must be an emphasis on the disposition of older cases and addressing new cases as they come into the system, the order stated. The jury trial is a crucial stage of the criminal justice system and, accordingly, jury trials receive the most attention from the public.

As it waits for the criminal trial, Vaughans estate filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against Hawthorne and the Tattooed Brews bar and restaurant where Vaughan and Hawthorne drank before the killing.

The civil case and the criminal case are separate.

Vaughans death

Rock Hill police found Vaughan dead July 23, 2021, at his apartment on Main Street. But the Rock Hill Police Department asked the York County Sheriffs Office to investigate because of Vaughans ties to city police.

York deputies charged former Chester County deputy Hawthorne with murder a few hours after Vaughans body was found. The arrest warrant stated Hawthorne killed Vaughan with malice aforethought, by assaulting the victim causing his death.

Deputies said they had video surveillance, witness statements and other evidence to charge Hawthorne.

Court documents allege Vaughan and Hawthorne were both drinking alcohol July 22, 2021, at Tattooed Brews. Hawthorne allegedly went to Vaughans apartment after Vaughan left the bar. Then, Hawthorne left the apartment covered in blood, prosecutors said previously in court in 2022.

Vaughan lived at the Anderson apartments  across Black Street from the police department and down Main Street from the bar.

Vaughan, 54, known as LV, retired from Rock Hill police after a 30-year career less than a year before he died. He had been a supervisor in the detective division where his officers investigated crimes and dealt with victims.

Vaughan was one of two officers who pulled a woman out of an apartment in 2008 unharmed after serial shooter Phillip Watts shot people in seven armed robberies in York County. He spent two decades on the SWAT team.

In 2021, Vaughan was listed as a victim himself.

Hawthorne has pleaded not guilty. He is represented by two of South Carolinas most high-profile lawyers, Jack Swerling and S.C. Rep. Todd Rutherford.

The criminal case

York County prosecutors with the 16th Circuit Solicitor office left the case because of a conflict  they knew Vaughan through his many years with Rock Hill police.

Spartanburg County prosecutors from the Seventh Circuit Solicitors Office took over prosecuting the case in December 2021  and still have it.

Hawthorne was jailed without bail for more than a year after his arrest  including when York County Circuit Judge Dan Hall denied bail in January 2022.

Hawthornes lawyers argued for bail in a second hearing in December 2022 in front of visiting judge Alex Kinlaw Jr. And Kinlaw, from Greenville, released Hawthorne on $250,000 bail before Christmas in 2022 despite statements from police and family not to do so. The judge also ordered Hawthorne to be tracked by an electronic monitor.

Reports to the court about Hawthornes adherence to the electronic monitor have been sent to the court periodically since, including as recently as Tuesday, documents show.

Why has the criminal case not gone to trial?

With the three-year anniversary of Vaughans death, the Herald requested information from court officials about why the case had not gone to trial.

One potential reason: trials in South Carolina were halted for about a year in 2020 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Trials did not start in York County until after April 2021.

But arrests continued, and cases piled up.

The S.C. Supreme Court issued an order in May 2023 requiring county courts to schedule and move older criminal cases, especially after COVID-19 shut down trials. The court specifically mentioned cases pending more than 30 months.

The Hawthorne criminal case involving the death of retired police officer Larry Vaughan now is 36 months old.

The supreme court in its May 2023 order also mentioned specifically that the goal must be justice.

The backlog of old cases brought on by the COVID-19 shutdown must be addressed and older cases disposed of, the court wrote. However, it is not enough that cases are disposed of; how cases are disposed of is paramount. All cases must be handled within the singular focus of obtaining justice.

Date scheduled for December?

Another factor: Hawthornes lawyers have other cases and other roles. Swerling regularly defends murder cases around the state and also has clients in federal court. Rutherford also gets court scheduling immunity for periods of the year because he is a member of the S.C. General Assembly. Lawyers who are legislators get court-ordered scheduling protection while doing the publics business.

Swerling told The Herald cases involving jailed defendants often have been scheduled first since COVID. And Hawthorne has been free on bail since December 2022.

After The Herald questioned court officials on both sides why the case hasnt been scheduled for trial, prosecutors and Hawthornes lawyers exclusively told The Herald late Wednesday the case is scheduled for the first week of December.

Swerling said he was able to reach a scheduling agreement with prosecutors for then.

In a statement to The Herald Wednesday, prosecutors from Spartanburg also confirmed the case is expected to start by the end of the year after sides talked about bringing the case to court.

The charge is tentatively scheduled to come before the court in York County on the week of December 2, 2024, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said they had no comment on the civil case.

The civil lawsuit

Lawyers Michael Melonakos and Ryan Alderson filed the separate civil lawsuit against Tattooed Brews LLC and Hawthorne in York County civil court July 19 on behalf of Vaughans estate. In that case, defendants Hawthorne and Tattooed Brews have 30 days to respond in writing to the claims.

Generally after that, courts require the sides to seek alternative dispute resolution before the case moves forward.

The lawsuit places blame on Tattooed Brews, saying that Hawthorne became verbally and physically abusive as a result of the alchohol served to him.

As the Decedent left Tattooed Brews to walk home, he was followed by an intoxicated Defendant Hawthorne. Defendant Hawthorne then entered the Decedents apartment and proceeded to beat him to death, the civil lawsuit claims.

Swerling, another of Hawthornes lawyers, said Wednesday when reached by telephone he had not seen the civil lawsuit before he was contacted by The Herald.

Our position remains that of self-defense, Swerling said. Mr. Hawthorne denies the allegations as he has from the beginning.

Rutherford said previously in criminal court in December 2022 that materials provided to him by police and prosecutors show Vaughan had a blood alcohol level of .27 when he died  more than three times the .08 legal limit for operating a car, WSOC-TV reported in 2022.

In a written emailed statement to The Herald Wednesday, Tattooed Brews owner Nikki Perlowich said the business committed no wrongdoing. Perlowich said in the statement Vaughan was a loyal patron of the restaurant and a close personal friend.

His passing was tragic and we miss him dearly, the statement said.

Melonakos, lawyer for Vaughans family estate who filed the lawsuit, declined comment when his office was contacted by The Herald.

Reality Check reflects the Rock Hill Heralds commitment to holding those in power to account, shining a light on public issues that affect our local readers and illuminating the stories that sets the Rock Hill region apart. Email realitycheck@heraldonline.com
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A retired veteran said his Henderson home was repeatedly vandalized over the past six months, and while police arrested a suspect in the case, he has no idea why it happened.

This wall, Larry Utter described. He threw paint against this wall.

Utter told 8newsnow.com he has had a rough six months as he walked around the outside of his home.

It was depressing, Utter said. Having the house destroyed like this.

The retired Air Force veteran said his home was vandalized by a single person more than a dozen times since January.

Photos show damage done to Larry Utters home. (Larry Utter)

Photos show damage done to Larry Utters home. (Larry Utter)

Photos show damage done to Larry Utters home. (Larry Utter)

Photos show damage done to Larry Utters home. (Larry Utter)

Photos show damage done to Larry Utters home. (Larry Utter)

Photos show damage done to Larry Utters home. (Larry Utter)

Photos show damage done to Larry Utters home. (Larry Utter)

Photos show damage done to Larry Utters home. (Larry Utter)

Both these windows here were covered in paint, Utter explained, referencing his front bedroom window.

Utter said the outside of his property was covered in white paint, rocks, and human feces on multiple occasions. At one point, he said trash was even set on fire in his driveway.

It was very aggravating, Utter said. Very discouraging.

On Wednesday, Henderson Police arrested Keith Duane Murrey, 51, in connection with the case.

Booking photo of Keith Duane Murrey, 51, provided by the Henderson Police Department (HPD)

Murrey now faces 17 charges, including first-degree arson, stalking, and defacing property. Utter said he has never met the defendant and doesnt know why he was allegedly targeted. However, as he started to put his property back together, he told 8 News Now his shock and frustration turned to gratitude.

All of a sudden, neighbors started showing up, Utter said. Saying anything you need, were going to help you with.

He said a local company offered to power wash his driveway, and a group from the Henderson Police Department came out to paint and repair his home for free.

Bad things do happen to people, Utter said. But there are good people that are going to come over and take care of you.

What started as a sad story has turned into a prime example of the power the southern Nevada community has to come together and make change.

Out of everything bad comes something good, Utter concluded.

Records show Murray is due in court for his first appearance on Friday at 8:30 a.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 KLAS.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  Crime Stoppers of Oregon is offering cash rewards of up to $2,500 for information on an unsolved murder of a Portland Uber driver in June.

The Portland Police Bureau said 42-year-old Joshua Kelvin, of Aumsville, was shot to death in Southeast Portland on the evening of June 4. He was working for the rideshare company at the time and his passenger, a teenage boy, was also shot and critically injured.

Sewage floods South Portland elementary school playground

Police said no suspect or suspects have been found for the shooting that happened near Southeast 130th Place and Southeast Ramona Street.

The investigation is considered ongoing and anyone with information is encouraged to contact police.

Additionally, people with information about the case that could lead to any arrest for the unsolved felony crime can anonymously leave tips for Crime Stoppers of Oregon for a potential reward. Tips can be submitted via the Crime Stoppers of Oregon website or by using the P3 tips app for smartphones or tablets.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he thinks Joe Biden damaged his reputation by not dropping out of the race sooner.

Kennedys comments come after Biden, bending to pressure from his party, dropped out of the presidential race on Sunday and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the next Democratic candidate. The third-party candidate held a press conference shortly after to argue that Biden and his vice president, who appears poised to take over the Democratic ticket, will be indistinguishable.

Now, he tells CBS News the decision to leave should have come sooner.

Ive known Joe Biden for 40 years, and I commend him and respect him for the 50 years that he gave in service to our country, but I think he tarred that reputation and that career over the past year by refusing to let go of power, Kennedy told CBS News on Thursday.

Kennedy also criticized the presidents Oval Office speech on Wednesday, in which he further explained his decision to bow out.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., pictured, said Biden tarred his reputation by not dropping out of the 2024 race soooner (Getty Images)

Its been the honor of my life to serve as your president, Biden told the nation. But in the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think its more important than any title.

Kennedy criticized the speech, telling CBS News it was more of a statement about what his accomplishments were, rather than a reassurance to the American public about where we are today.

The independent candidate is reportedly weighing an endorsement of Donald Trump.

Kennedy recently called Trump to discuss the possibility of dropping out of the race and throwing his support to the former president, The Washington Post reports. Kennedy also floated a job in Trumps White House during the call, sources familiar with the conversation told the Post.

Several of his Democratic colleagues praised his decision to pass the torch.

Joe Biden has not only been a great president and a great legislative leader but hes a truly amazing human being. His decision of course was not easy, but he once again put his country, his party, and our future first, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

President Biden is a great public servant who knows better than anyone what it takes to defeat Donald Trump, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said.

Meanwhile, many Republicans called for Biden to step down from the presidency after dropping out of the race.

If Joe Biden is not fit to run for President, he is not fit to serve as President, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said. He must resign the office immediately. November 5 cannot arrive soon enough.

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik echoed a similar point: If Joe Biden cant run for re-election, he is unable and unfit to continue serving as President of the United States.
Medication abortion has been the most common way to terminate a pregnancy since 2020, when pills accounted for 53% of all pregnancy terminations, according to the Guttmacher Institute. (Getty Images)

Reproductive rights has taken center stage in the first post-Roe presidential election that presently features a longtime advocate for reproductive rights in possible Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, opposite former Republican President Donald Trump, whose three appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices helped overturn federal abortion rights. Although Trumps former health staffers have co-authored the Heritage Foundations conservative anti-abortion policy blueprint for a future Republican administration, called Project 2025, Trump, his outspoken anti-abortion running mate Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, and many GOP candidates have attempted to soften their abortion stances while also adopting the longtime movement narrative that abortion is dangerous to women and equivalent to infanticide.

As the first presidential election season since the Supreme Courts Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision heats up, here are the facts behind the most commonly touted myths about abortion.

1. Abortion is safe.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) concluded in a comprehensive review of the safety and quality of abortion care in the U.S. in 2018 that complications from abortion are rare, especially when compared to the complications of pregnancy and childbirth. The anti-abortion movement falsely claims abortions are more dangerous than childbirth, and tried unsuccessfully to legally force the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approval of the abortion medication mifepristone. Meanwhile, a new Louisiana law will, starting this fall, classify mifepristone as dangerous, despite opposition from state doctors.

Medication abortion has been the most common way to terminate a pregnancy since 2020, when pills accounted for 53% of all pregnancy terminations, according to the Guttmacher Institute. When administered at 9 weeks gestation or less, the FDA-approved regimen has a more than 99% completion rate, a 0.4% risk of major complications, and a reported 32 associated deaths over 22 years. Common symptoms include heavy bleeding and cramping, diarrhea, and nausea.

2. Abortion can reduce health risks and infertility and save lives.

There are many conditions that can develop during pregnancy  such as ectopic and molar pregnancies, severe preeclampsia, and preterm premature rupture of membranes  that can put the pregnant person at risk of death, serious health complications, and future infertility, as well as make it unlikely the fetus would survive even if the pregnancy continued. Though anti-abortion activists do recognize this reality, they use the political term separation of a mother and her unborn child to obfuscate that abortion is sometimes necessary. And even in emergency cases, they advocate for riskier procedures like C-sections to avoid performing less invasive abortion procedures. Meanwhile, the future legality of emergency abortions in states like Idaho remains uncertain.

3. Abortion is not infanticide.

Candidates have been campaigning on rhetoric that abortion is infanticide and happens post birth, up until the moment of birth, or after birth, as Trump alleged in the June debate with President Joe Biden. However, abortion does not happen after birth. That would be categorized as murder, as it was in the case of former Philadelphia abortion doctor and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell.

4. Late-term and partial-birth abortions are political terms not grounded in science.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 93% of abortions occur within the first trimester, and less than 1% after 21 weeks gestation. Still, anti-abortion groups and candidates emphasize the idea of late-term abortions, which is not a medical term. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which helps elect anti-abortion candidates, has begun calling the vice president an abortion czar, with president Marjorie Dannenfelser claiming Harris wants to impose on all 50 states all-trimester abortion without any limits, even painful late-term abortions in the 7th, 8th, and 9th month of pregnancy. Though abortions do occur later in pregnancy, they are rare and typically involve nuanced and heartbreaking circumstances. The GOPs national platform opposes late term abortion.

Sometimes anti-abortion activists also refer to partial-birth abortions, a non-medical term for a procedure known as dilation and extraction (D&X), which is already banned under federal law.

5. Abortion exceptions for rape, incest, fetal anomalies, and health risks do not exist in most states where abortion is totally banned.

Despite Republicans oft-touted support for rape and incest exceptions in abortion bans, many currently on the books dont include them. Of the 14 states with near-total abortion bans, only Idaho, Indiana, and North Dakotas maintain some exceptions for survivors of rape and incest. Indiana also allows for abortion if there is a fatal fetal anomaly. Reproductive health experts say abortion exceptions are rarely granted even when they exist.

6. The terms heartbeat bill and six-week abortion bans are misleading.

Currently Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and soon Iowa will ban abortion at the moment embryonic cardiac activity can be detected on an ultrasound, which typically occurs around six weeks gestation. This type of law is often referred to as a heartbeat bill, but reproductive health experts say the term is misleading because the heart is not fully developed at that stage. These laws are also referred to as six-week bans, which is also misleading, given how gestational age is calculated: by counting from the first day of ones last menstrual cycle. This is an approximate estimate and varies depending on when conception officially occurs. For many, a six-week ban is closer to four weeks or less of pregnancy, before many people realize theyre pregnant.

7. The GOP platform contradicts promises to leave abortion to the states and to protect IVF.

The Republican Partys recently unveiled Make America Great Again! policy platform does not explicitly call for a federal ban on abortion and expresses support for birth control and in vitro fertilization. But it simultaneously supports states establishing fetal personhood under the U.S. Constitutions 14th Amendment, which legal experts warn could lead to the criminalization of pregnancy and implicate abortion, contraception, and IVF.

A nationwide concern about Americans access to IVF kicked off this winter after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos are children, leading IVF clinics in Alabama to shutter temporarily. In the aftermath, some states, including Alabama, have taken steps to ensure access to the fertility treatment, but future access remains largely uncertain, especially as congressional bills to protect IVF nationally have failed to advance.

8. Emergency contraceptives are not abortifacients but could be impacted by personhood laws.

Emergency contraceptives like Plan B and ella are designed to be taken shortly after sex, to delay or prevent ovulation. They are not abortifacients, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and they dont work on someone who is already pregnant. Anti-abortion activists largely oppose emergency birth control (and many other contraceptives), based on outdated drug labeling that Plan B might work by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg, which many in the movement say should be treated in law as a person. The FDA revised the label in December 2022, following additional scientific evidence concluding Plan B works before fertilization.

Research on ella also indicates it likely does not prevent implantation, but Project 2025 includes a proposal to exclude ella from contraceptives currently covered under the Affordable Care Act, referring to it as a potential abortifacient.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
MANILA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The Asian Development Bank (ADB) approved 400 million U.S. dollars in concessional loan on Friday to support the reconstruction of houses and community infrastructure in Pakistan's southern Sindh province damaged by the devastating floods in 2022.

The ADB said the Sindh Emergency Housing Reconstruction Project will rehabilitate flood-damaged houses and community infrastructure and support livelihood recovery, focusing on strengthening communities' resilience against climate change-induced natural hazards.

According to the ADB, Sindh province sustained about 83 percent of the total housing damage inflicted by the 2022 floods, with around 2.1 million houses either fully destroyed or damaged.

Two years on, the ADB said many victims still reside in inadequate, temporary shelters lacking essential services such as water, sanitation, and electricity.

The project will support conditional cash grants for reconstructing 250,000 houses with multi-hazard resilient and environment-responsive designs.

It will also support the construction of infrastructure such as drinking water facilities, sanitation facilities, covered drainage, and renewable energy solutions for 100,000 households in around 1,000 flood-damaged villages in Sindh.

The project will also support conditional cash grants for livestock, agriculture, small enterprises, and e-commerce. 
Medication abortion has become the most common method since the 2022 Dobbs decision that overturned federal abortion rights. (Getty Images)

Reproductive rights has taken center stage in the first post-Roe presidential election that presently features a longtime advocate for reproductive rights in possible Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, opposite former Republican President Donald Trump, whose three appointed U.S. Supreme Court justices helped overturn federal abortion rights. Although Trumps former health staffers have co-authored the Heritage Foundations conservative anti-abortion policy blueprint for a future Republican administration, called Project 2025, Trump, his outspoken anti-abortion running mate Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, and many GOP candidates have attempted to soften their abortion stances while also adopting the longtime movement narrative that abortion is dangerous to women and equivalent to infanticide.

As the first presidential election season since the Supreme Courts Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision heats up, here are the facts behind the most commonly touted myths about abortion.

1. Abortion is safe.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) concluded in a comprehensive review of the safety and quality of abortion care in the U.S. in 2018 that complications from abortion are rare, especially when compared to the complications of pregnancy and childbirth. The anti-abortion movement falsely claims abortions are more dangerous than childbirth, and tried unsuccessfully to legally force the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approval of the abortion medication mifepristone. Meanwhile, a new Louisiana law will, starting this fall, classify mifepristone as dangerous, despite opposition from state doctors.

Medication abortion has become the most common method since the 2022 Dobbs decision. When administered at 9 weeks gestation or less, the FDA-approved regimen has a more than 99% completion rate, a 0.4% risk of major complications, and a reported 32 associated deaths over 22 years. Common symptoms include heavy bleeding and cramping, diarrhea, and nausea.

2. Abortion can reduce health risks and infertility and save lives.

There are many conditions that can develop during pregnancy  such as ectopic and molar pregnancies, severe preeclampsia, and preterm premature rupture of membranes  that can put the pregnant person at risk of death, serious health complications, and future infertility, as well as make it unlikely the fetus would survive even if the pregnancy continued. Though anti-abortion activists do recognize this reality, they use the political term separation of a mother and her unborn child to obfuscate that abortion is sometimes necessary. And even in emergency cases, they advocate for riskier procedures like C-sections to avoid performing less invasive abortion procedures. Meanwhile, the future legality of emergency abortions in states like Idaho remains uncertain.

3. Abortion is not infanticide.

Candidates have been campaigning on rhetoric that abortion is infanticide and happens post birth, up until the moment of birth, or after birth, as Trump alleged in the June debate with President Joe Biden. However, abortion does not happen after birth. That would be categorized as murder, as it was in the case of former Philadelphia abortion doctor and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell.

4. Late-term and partial-birth abortions are political terms not grounded in science.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 93% of abortions occur within the first trimester, and less than 1% after 21 weeks gestation. Still, anti-abortion groups and candidates emphasize the idea of late-term abortions, which is not a medical term. Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which helps elect anti-abortion candidates, has begun calling the vice president an abortion czar, with president Marjorie Dannenfelser claiming Harris wants to impose on all 50 states all-trimester abortion without any limits, even painful late-term abortions in the 7th, 8th, and 9th month of pregnancy. Though abortions do occur later in pregnancy, they are rare and typically involve nuanced and heartbreaking circumstances. The GOPs national platform opposes late term abortion.

Sometimes anti-abortion activists also refer to partial-birth abortions, a non-medical term for a procedure known as dilation and extraction (D&X), which is already banned under federal law.

5. Abortion exceptions for rape, incest, fetal anomalies, and health risks do not exist in most states where abortion is totally banned.

Despite Republicans oft-touted support for rape and incest exceptions in abortion bans, many currently on the books dont include them. Of the 14 states with near-total abortion bans, only Idaho, Indiana, and North Dakotas maintain some exceptions for survivors of rape and incest. Indiana also allows for abortion if there is a fatal fetal anomaly. Reproductive health experts say abortion exceptions are rarely granted even when they exist.

6. The terms heartbeat bill and six-week abortion bans are misleading.

Currently Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and soon Iowa will ban abortion at the moment embryonic cardiac activity can be detected on an ultrasound, which typically occurs around six weeks gestation. This type of law is often referred to as a heartbeat bill, but reproductive health experts say the term is misleading because the heart is not fully developed at that stage. These laws are also referred to as six-week bans, which is also misleading, given how gestational age is calculated: by counting from the first day of ones last menstrual cycle. This is an approximate estimate and varies depending on when conception officially occurs. For many, a six-week ban is closer to four weeks or less of pregnancy, before many people realize theyre pregnant.

7. The GOP platform contradicts promises to leave abortion to the states and to protect IVF.

The Republican Partys recently unveiled Make America Great Again! policy platform does not explicitly call for a federal ban on abortion and expresses support for birth control and in vitro fertilization. But it simultaneously supports states establishing fetal personhood under the U.S. Constitutions 14th Amendment, which legal experts warn could lead to the criminalization of pregnancy and implicate abortion, contraception, and IVF.

A nationwide concern about Americans access to IVF kicked off this winter after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos are children, leading IVF clinics in Alabama to shutter temporarily. In the aftermath, some states, including Alabama, have taken steps to ensure access to the fertility treatment, but future access remains largely uncertain, especially as congressional bills to protect IVF nationally have failed to advance.

8. Emergency contraceptives are not abortifacients but could be impacted by personhood laws.

Emergency contraceptives like Plan B and ella are designed to be taken shortly after sex, to delay or prevent ovulation. They are not abortifacients, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and they dont work on someone who is already pregnant. Anti-abortion activists largely oppose emergency birth control (and many other contraceptives), based on outdated drug labeling that Plan B might work by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg, which many in the movement say should be treated in law as a person. The FDA revised the label in December 2022, following additional scientific evidence concluding Plan B works before fertilization.

Research on ella also indicates it likely does not prevent implantation, but Project 2025 includes a proposal to exclude ella from contraceptives currently covered under the Affordable Care Act, referring to it as a potential abortifacient.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
If Richland County were saddened by jail deaths at Alvin S. Glenn, it would stop them | Opinion

John Henry Simmons Jr., 54.

Anthony Sayles, 37.

Rolando Howell, 34.

Howard Cline, 58.

Kelvin Minder, 44

Juluis Batts, 25.

Charles Hammon, 60.

Rhonda James, 40.

Nicholas Murphy, 32.

Charles Green, 75.

Daniel Pope, 35.

Earnest Johnson, 61.

Lason Butler, 27.

James Mitchell, 38.

Demond Thompson, 47.

Antonius Randolph, 29.

Kevin Gladden, 66.

Melvin Anderson, 49.

Easther Williams, 74 or 75.

LaRoyal Hawley, 20.

Robert Moore, 56.

Marty Brown, 25.

Lamont Powell, 54.

Those are the names and ages of 23 people who have died in 10 years at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center or when taken from it to a hospital.

Their average age was just 45 (based on reporting, and reports, which in Williams case only listed a birth year, gathered by University of South Carolina assistant professor of law Madalyn Wasilczuk and her students.)

The rate of death is accelerating. Despite efforts to stop it, more people than ever are dying in Richland Countys supposed care in Columbia. On Sunday, two days after this column was first published, an unnamed person being held at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center died, the 24th death in a decade and the fourth this month.

Call them inmates or detainees but dont call them criminals. Also, dont dehumanize them. They not only have names, they have families, loved ones still celebrating their birthdays and holidays without them. Yes, one was an accused serial rapist, so its not as if all of them were accused of minor violations. But in a nation where everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, they were all jailed to await a trial.

Like the vast majority of people in U.S. jails, they had a pretrial status, charged with but not convicted for the alleged crimes that brought them to their end in custody. A handful had only been in custody for days when they died. One was only in custody for hours.

Two-thirds  16  have died since April 2021, about one government failure every three months over the past three years. Ten people have died since January 2023, one failure every two months over the past two years. And four died 19 days apart this month, two this week from overdoses of drugs Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said were smuggled in by either inmates or people who work there.

People who work there? The investigation will be eye-opening.

Sadly, investigations are nothing new at a facility thats unusual because its run by a county administrator and a jail director, not the sheriff as most jails in South Carolina are.

The jail is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged violations of inmates civil rights due to deaths, brutal attacks and squalid living conditions. And years of inspections by the South Carolina Department of Corrections have criticized clothing, toilets and food  health inspectors once gave its kitchen a C letter grade  and repeatedly blasted its understaffing. The jail is also defending itself in several lawsuits.

One attorney for Disability Rights South Carolina said his legal experts consider the jail one of the most dangerous in the country. Another lawyer filed suit for Lason Butlers mother after the county coroner ruled his 2022 death a homicide because of a lack of action by jail staff. He died of dehydration in a room without running water, bitten by rats. He was arrested in a mental health episode for reckless driving, failure to stop for blue lights and driving with a suspended license, hardly deserving of a death sentence.

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center has had three directors in three years, one who resigned after a riot in 2021 and another who was terminated soon after being hired in 2022 because he didnt disclose an accusation of sexual harassment at his prior job.

The turnover among directors and the understaffing of guards has not only fueled a sense of instability and fear in the jail, but also fostered a culture that accepts death as customary.

In fact, county leaders are so accustomed to routine death that each news release follows the same format: Richland County is saddened to announce the death of a detainee. In March, a release said, We are devastated by this loss of life.

Beyond stopping them, the county could better show its remorse and recognition of the problem by actually and fully noting these deaths, publicly, on the countys website, as other jurisdictions have done, with a listing of the dead persons name, age, race, gender and custody status as well as where the death occurred and the cause and manner of it.

But Richland County doesnt announce names of the dead, let alone announce all the deaths. No news release ever mentioned Williams death. Only Wasilczuks database reported it until now. Thats shameful. Even if she died at a hospital and not in jail, she died a week after being taken into custody and the county should have told the public.

These deaths are increasingly common despite millions of dollars spent on electric door locks, and new housing, and additional security, and guard pay raises, but if the county were truly saddened and devastated by these deaths, it would prevent them.

Of course, thats easier said than done in a society with so many problems and a jail with a capacity for 1,100 inmates that this month held more than 1,000, where mental health issues and addiction run rampant, where drugs are easy to obtain, where the pay is so low some employees sell drugs and phones to inmates to triple or quadruple their salary, where 20 detention officers have been arrested since 2023, 11 this year alone.

If Alvin S. Glenn operators cant keep people alive, state lawmakers need to intervene and create new oversight measures or a new oversight body, as the U.S. just did for prisons, so jails are accountable. Time for excuses is over. Time to say and take names.

An earlier version of this column contained an incorrect reference to research about jail turnover.

Send me 250-word letters to the editor here, 650-word guest essays here and email here. Say hi on X anytime.
If Richland County were saddened by jail deaths at Alvin S. Glenn, it would stop them | Opinion

John Henry Simmons Jr., 54.

Anthony Sayles, 37.

Rolando Howell, 34.

Howard Cline, 58.

Kelvin Minder, 44

Juluis Batts, 25.

Charles Hammon, 60.

Rhonda James, 40.

Nicholas Murphy, 32.

Charles Green, 75.

Daniel Pope, 35.

Earnest Johnson, 61.

Lason Butler, 27.

James Mitchell, 38.

Demond Thompson, 47.

Antonius Randolph, 29.

Kevin Gladden, 66.

Melvin Anderson, 49.

Easther Williams, 74 or 75.

LaRoyal Hawley, 20.

Robert Moore, 56.

Marty Brown, 25.

Lamont Powell, 54.

Those are the names and ages of 23 people who have died in 10 years at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center or when taken from it to a hospital.

Their average age was just 45 (based on reporting, and reports, which in Williams case only listed a birth year, gathered by University of South Carolina assistant professor of law Madalyn Wasilczuk and her students.)

The rate of death is accelerating. Despite efforts to stop it, more people than ever are dying in Richland Countys supposed care in Columbia.

Call them inmates or detainees but dont call them criminals. Also, dont dehumanize them. They not only have names, they have families, loved ones still celebrating their birthdays and holidays without them. Yes, one was an accused serial rapist, so its not as if all of them were accused of minor violations. But in a nation where everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, they were all jailed to await a trial.

Like the vast majority of people in U.S. jails, they had a pretrial status, charged with but not convicted for the alleged crimes that brought them to their end in custody. A handful had only been in custody for days when they died. One was only in custody for hours.

Nearly two-thirds  15  have died since April 2021, about one government failure every three months over the past three years. Nine people have died since January 2023, one failure every two months over the past two years. And three died 14 days apart this month, two this week from overdoses of drugs Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said were smuggled in by either inmates or people who work there.

People who work there? The investigation will be eye-opening.

Sadly, investigations are nothing new at a facility thats unusual because its run by a county administrator and a jail director, not the sheriff as most jails in South Carolina are.

The jail is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged violations of inmates civil rights due to deaths, brutal attacks and squalid living conditions. And years of inspections by the South Carolina Department of Corrections have criticized clothing, toilets and food  health inspectors once gave its kitchen a C letter grade  and repeatedly blasted its understaffing. The jail is also defending itself in several lawsuits.

One attorney for Disability Rights South Carolina said his legal experts consider the jail one of the most dangerous in the country. Another lawyer filed suit for Lason Butlers mother after the county coroner ruled his 2022 death a homicide because of a lack of action by jail staff. He died of dehydration in a room without running water, bitten by rats. He was arrested in a mental health episode for reckless driving, failure to stop for blue lights and driving with a suspended license, hardly deserving of a death sentence.

The Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center has had three directors in three years, one who resigned after a riot in 2021 and another who was terminated soon after being hired in 2022 because he didnt disclose an accusation of sexual harassment at his prior job.

The turnover among directors and the understaffing of guards has not only fueled a sense of instability and fear in the jail, but also fostered a culture that accepts death as customary.

In fact, county leaders are so accustomed to routine death that each news release follows the same format: Richland County is saddened to announce the death of a detainee. In March, a release said, We are devastated by this loss of life.

Beyond stopping them, the county could better show its remorse and recognition of the problem by actually and fully noting these deaths, publicly, on the countys website, as other jurisdictions have done, with a listing of the dead persons name, age, race, gender and custody status as well as where the death occurred and the cause and manner of it.

But Richland County doesnt announce names of the dead, let alone announce all the deaths. No news release ever mentioned Williams death. Only Wasilczuks database reported it until now. Thats shameful. Even if she died at a hospital and not in jail, she died a week after being taken into custody and the county should have told the public.

These deaths are increasingly common despite millions of dollars spent on electric door locks, and new housing, and additional security, and guard pay raises, but if the county were truly saddened and devastated by these deaths, it would prevent them.

Of course, thats easier said than done in a society with so many problems and a jail with a capacity for 1,100 inmates that this month held more than 1,000, where mental health issues and addiction run rampant, where drugs are easy to obtain, where the pay is so low some employees sell drugs and phones to inmates to triple or quadruple their salary, where 20 detention officers have been arrested since 2023, 11 this year alone.

If Alvin S. Glenn operators cant keep people alive, state lawmakers need to intervene and create new oversight measures or a new oversight body, as the U.S. just did for prisons, so jails are accountable. Time for excuses is over. Time to say and take names.

An earlier version of this column contained an incorrect reference to research about jail turnover.

Send me 250-word letters to the editor here, 650-word guest essays here and email here. Say hi on X anytime.
RIPTA OKs extra money for East Side Tunnel repairs, now expected to be finished in October

The East Side Tunnel has been closed by the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority since March for scheduled renovations initially set to be completed in September. But the recent discovery of additional stress cracks has led the agency to postpone the completion of the project through late October. (Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)

Ongoing repairs to the 110-year-old bus tunnel connecting the East Side of Providence to downtown are going to take longer and cost more than Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA) initially planned.

RIPTAs board of directors voted 7-0 Thursday to spend $7.5 million more on the tunnel, bringing the total project cost from $15.8 million to $23.3 million. Board members Marcy Reyes and Heather Schey were not present.

The extra money is needed to fix stress cracks caused by water seeping through a layer of shotcrete  a type of concrete sprayed at a high speed onto internal rebar support, usually on vertical or high surfaces. Funding for the project will be covered through Federal Transit Administration grants, according to the informational packet provided to the agencys board of directors.

This is an investment thats going to hopefully hold for the next 30 years, Christopher Durand, the agencys interim CEO, told the board.

The East Side Tunnel was first built in 1914 in order for trolleys to reach the top of College Hill. Today, the roadway is used on six bus routes  and sometimes emergency vehicles  as a way to avoid the steep incline of the hill. The structure last underwent repairs in the 1990s.

RIPTA closed the tunnel in March for planned improvements to its drainage, lighting, and other structural repairs. Because of the damage discovered during the renovation, the initial September completion date has now been pushed to late October.

Leak repairs were half completed at the time of the administrations request Thursday, according to the board packet.

This tunnel needs to be completed before the cold weather, said Jack Plouffe, project manager. You cant have those buses going around icy roads or snow.

Plouffe told the board that RIPTA was aware of about 1,000 feet of cracks and leaks when the project began, but demolition of the shotcrete revealed 10 times more.

When we took the shotcrete off, that let all the water through the cracks, the pressure was released, Plouffe said. It was pretty much raining in there.

To try to prevent future cracks, Plouffe said the project team will be working with Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design  both of which own property atop the tunnel  to ensure their drainage systems wont leak into the structure. Shotcrete will not be used on the ceiling in the renovation, Plouffe assured the board.

Board Chairman and Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti Jr. called this request a one-off while pointing out the need for additional exploration before a major project starts to avoid unexpected cost increases.

RIPTA, like many transit agencies across the country, has struggled to remain financially solvent in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The state in its fiscal year 2025 budget allocated $15 million for RIPTA  not enough to cover its $18.1 million shortfall. The agency must also submit an operational analysis to the governors office by March 1, 2025.

Correction: RIPTA was initially aware of 1,000 feet of cracks, not 2,000.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
This is one of five mailers supporting Jon Albert, a candidate for the Florida House in District 48, identified as paid for by the candidate. Three of Albert's opponents suggested that he violated state law by ordering the mailers without enough campaign money to pay for them.

Fellow candidates have raised questions about the campaign finance activity of Jon Albert, one of six Republican candidates for an open seat in Florida House District 48.

Three Republican candidates signed a petition sent Thursday to the Polk County Sheriffs Office and the State Attorneys Office for the 10th Judicial Circuit. The candidates  Jerry Carter, Chad Davis and Benny Valentin  suggested that Albert may have violated state law by ordering campaign mailers when his campaign account lacked sufficient funds to cover the costs.

According to the petition, Alberts campaign sent five campaign mailers between approximately June 20 and July 10, all bearing the printed disclaimer, Paid by Jon Albert, Republican, for State Representative, District 48. Campaign mailers to likely Republican primary voters in the district typically cost $6,000 to $8,000 each, the candidates wrote.

As of Friday, Albert had reported $10,785 in campaign contributions and $4,312 in expenditures. That left him with $6,473 in campaign funds.

The petition cites a state law covering campaign expenses. It says that a candidate or campaign manager may not authorize any expenses unless there are sufficient funds on deposit in the primary depository account of the candidate or political committee to pay the full amount of the authorized expense.

Violation of the law is a first-degree misdemeanor.

Albert, who is the mayor of Frostproof, shared a screenshot Thursday night with the other candidates showing a $50,000 check he had recently deposited. In an email Friday, Albert told The Ledger that he loaned his campaign $50,000 to pay for the mailers.

I cut the check in early July and I believe it was received at the end of last week, so it should show up on this (next) report, he said. The money came from me, as I loaned it. I pay expenses as they come in, just as were required to do. I pay the bills as I get them, which will also be reflected on this report  which is the law.

Six Republicans are running in the Aug. 20 primary election for the District 48 seat, which is open because Rep. Sam Killebrew, R-Winter Haven, faces term limits. The other two Republican candidates in the race, Debbie Owens and Amilee Stuckey, are not listed as signing the petition. The race includes one Democrat, John Hill of Poinciana.

The district covers much of southeast Polk County, including Winter Haven, Lake Wales and Frostproof. The primary winner will face the lone Democrat in the race, John Hill of Poinciana.

State complaints filed

Albert filed a financial disclosure form on June 7 that listed $3,800 in a personal bank account and about $68,000 in a business account. He also listed assets of $1.1 million for a business, ILove Productions LLC, and $310,000 for his home in Frostproof.

He listed four sources of income: about $65,000 from TMS International, $38,000 from Titan Building Supply Holdings, $2,500 from White Sign Company and $6,000 from his salary as mayor of Frostproof.

Alberts campaign has reported a series of expenditures to three recipients, including a qualifying fee of $1,781.82 to the Division of Elections. The other expenses have been paid to Strategic Image Management, a Republican-aligned consulting group in Tampa known as SIMWins, and to Anedot, a donation platform based in New Orleans.

The payments to Anedot, ranging from $1.30 to $50.90, are all described as service fee. The report did not include any expenses for printing, production, postage or any costs related to the dissemination of campaign mailers, the petition said. The most recent expenditure was dated July 8.

Albert said that a complaint against him was submitted by a political consultant who lives in Tallahassee and represents one of my opponents  so this is absolutely 100% just a political trick with no merit.

Davis said that Mark Zubaly, a consultant to his campaign, filed complaints with the Florida Elections Commission and with the Office of Election Crimes and Security.

"My client plays by the rules, and I did not want my client to have an election stolen from him by someone who is cheating, Zubaly said by email.

Scott Wilder, a spokesperson for the Polk County Sheriffs Office, acknowledged receiving the petition but said the agency is not investigating. He said that state agencies investigate potential violations of election laws. Lori Edwards, Polk Countys supervisor of elections, said the Florida Elections Commission is responsible for enforcing the statute cited in the petition.

Jacob Orr, a spokesperson for the State Attorneys Office, said he had no comment.

Bemoaning outside influence

"Over the last few months, I have gotten to know Jon Albert, Davis said in an email. He seems like a nice guy who got some bad advice from his consultant. I wish it did not come to this, but we owe it to the voters to protect the integrity of this election."

Davis is a lawyer for Polk County Public Schools and a former assistant to Florida Sen. Kelli Stargel of Lakeland.

Stuckey, the state committeewoman for the Polk County Republican Party, lamented the influence of an outside political committee on the election.

The voters prefer a local candidate that is funded by local money, she said by email. Anyone can look at my reports and see exactly where my money comes from. They are just regular everyday people, most of whom cannot even afford to give $1,000, which is the maximum allowed by law for an individual or a business.

We should not let outside influences buy our local elections. Especially when the money comes from a PAC, where it is hard to determine who owns it and that does not have to disclose where their money comes from.

Albert, 44, has served on the Frostproof City Commission since 2016. He graduated from Fort Meade High School in 1997 and attended Polk State College before joining the U.S. Marine Corps, according to a campaign news release.

Albert filed to enter the race on Feb. 26, according to records with the Florida Division of Elections. As Frostproofs mayor, he was required to submit an irrevocable letter of resignation at least 10 days before the start of the qualifying period in June. Albert said that he did so, and he is listed as a qualified candidate on the Division of Elections website.

Voters in Florida House District 48 have also received at least two mailers promoting Albert that are labeled as paid for by Make America Great Again, a political-action committee formed in 2018 and based in Venice. Randy Krise, a Fort Myers real estate broker, is listed as the PACs chairperson, but Krise told a reporter he hasnt been involved with the PAC for years.

Republican National Convention: Polk Countians help fuel 'electrifying' mood

Krise said the committee was created by Anthony Pedicini, founder of Strategic Image Management. Pedicini did not respond to a voicemail left Thursday.

The MAGA committee has received $2.1 million in contributions since 2018, according to Florida Division of Elections records. It has received much of its money from other conservative political committees, including Save Our Quality of Life, Citizens Alliance for Floridas Economy (chaired by Pedicini), Rebuild Florida, Freedom First Committee and Friends of Randy Fine  a state House member running for the Florida Senate.

Albert originally listed his wife, Anna Albert, as his campaign treasurer. In a letter submitted to the Division of Elections on Feb. 29, Anna announced her resignation and wrote that Wendy White would serve as Jon Alberts campaign treasurer.

White, who has served the same role for many Republican candidates, lists the same office address as Strategic Image Management in Tampa. She is also listed as chair of the Save Our Quality of Life PAC.

Mailers and texts

The Ledger obtained an image of one mailer identified as paid for by Albert. It stated: Jon Albert will use any and all means necessary to protect Florida from Bidens Border invasion. The mailer includes the dubious claim that 9.2 million illegal aliens have entered the U.S since Biden took office. The figure apparently refers to all encounters at the southern border, and the Department of Homeland Security says that most unauthorized migrants are captured and expelled.

Of the mailers identified as paid for by the Making America Great Again PAC, one features a large photo of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and a much smaller photo of Albert. The mailer, describing Albert as a conservative, small-town mayor, says that he supports Governor DeSantis plan to make Florida the last place illegal aliens want to come.

Another declares, Jon Albert will sue the Biden administration so Florida can be reimbursed for tax dollars spent on costs associated with the Biden Border invasion. Florida legislators do not have the authority to sue the federal government, though Attorney General Ashley Moody has filed various legal actions against the Biden Administration.

The Ledger asked DeSantis political office if he had given permission to the MAGA committee to use his image in the campaign mailer. The office had not responded as of Friday afternoon.

Text messages supporting Alberts campaign have also been sent to voters. One states, Paid for by Keep Florida Winning. That committee lists the same Venice address as the Make America Great Again PAC. Its registered agent is Jennings DePriest.

As of Friday, Keep Florida Winning had reported $1,656 in contributions, including $1,000 on July 16 from Making A Better Tomorrow, another committee with the same Venice address.

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: In Polk state House race, rivals question candidate's mailers, funds
Roaches, rodents among restaurant food in Broward and Palm Beach. See the inspections

Robust roaches and rodents survived all the unsafe food in restaurants cited by health inspectors, although about 100 roaches didnt survive the cold of a walk-in cooler while they were contaminating food.

Welcome to the latest list of state inspection failures by restaurants in Miami-Dade, Monroe, Broward and Palm Beach counties. This week, the 305 came through clean.

Which brings us to the reminder that we neither choose which restaurants get inspected nor do we do the inspecting. Thats done by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. You can contact them with complaints about restaurants.

We do this without passion or prejudice, with a dash of humor and a pinch of judgment.

MORE: Inspector finds bugs in food and rodent excrement on a Broward grocers shelves

In alphabetical order:

Annes Paradise Takeout & Catering Restaurant, 2428 N. State Rd. 7, Lauderdale Lakes: Routine inspection, 17 total violations, five High Priority violations.

Observed employee speaking on a cell phone, then engaging in food preparation without washing hands.

If employees washed their hands at the front counter or in the restroom, theyd have to let their hands drip dry because there were no paper towels or blow dryers.

Interior of microwave has accumulation of black substance/grease/food debris.

Underfoot, eight roaches were on the floor and baseboard behind kitchen prep tables. Another four roaches were moseying round a kitchen prep table shelf. Three others were on the floor, on the wall and behind the steam table.

A hole marred the wall near the back exit.

Paradise was back open after passing re-inspection the next day.

Banh Cuon Tan inh, 2845 N. Military Tr., Suite No. 2, Unincorporated Palm Beach County: Routine inspection, six total violations, five High Priority violations.

Banh Cuon made this list nine months ago by ignoring 170 dead roaches on the floors of the kitchen, dry storage and the front line and having more live roaches than restaurant guests.

This time, they didnt sweep up 30 dead roaches under kitchen equipment and 10 dead roaches under dry storage floors.

Roaches didnt live. Flies and rodents did, however.

About 10 flies swept and swooped around the kitchen prep area and five took their flying act to the dining room. At the front counter, 15 swarmed. Six checked out the three-compartment sink and landed on clean dishes on a shelf over the sink.

The rodents left three pieces of poop under the front counter, two on a dry storage floor, one inside a kitchen cabinet and one on a shelf with canned food.

Staff left fresh garlic in oil on a prep table overnight. Thats why it measured 62 degrees when it needed to be under 41. Stop Sale there and on the cooked pork and more fresh garlic in oil (both 46 degrees) in the cooler.

They took two days, then passed the callback inspection.

BJs Restaurant & Brewhouse, 12100 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines: Complaint inspection, six total violations, one High Priority violation.

It isnt a Sick and Shut Down List until we get some type of dark-or-green gunk in an ice machine: Accumulation of brown-like substance buildup inside.

And these findings from bad to worst:

 Observed accumulation of old food residue buildup on walls at prep stations.

 Cutting board has cut marks and is no longer cleanable at cookline.

 Three rodent droppings behind the linen cabinet ... two rodent droppings underneath a table in the dishwashing area ... two rodent droppings at the service station next to the cookline.

BJs apparently swept the floor, got one of those Broward same-day re-inspections and was back in business without missing a day.

Casa Santiago Latin Cuisine, 11150 Okeechobee Blvd., Royal Palm Beach: Complaint inspection, 10 total violations, seven High Priority violations.

Two flies landing on kitchen cutting boards. About 20 dead roaches dotted the floor outside the walk-in cooler.

But the real show was inside the walk-in cooler  more than 100 dead roaches, about 50 live roaches  and they werent just there but apparently in the food as a Stop Sale was issued due to food not being in a wholesome, sound condition.

All tossed: bread, uncovered and unbaked pastries, plantains, limes, onions, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, peppers, potatoes.

Also, the walk-in was broken. Eggs measured 78 degrees. The inspector hit those with another Stop Sale and ordered food needing to be kept under temperature control not be stored there until the cooler was repaired.

During the next days re-inspection, three roaches roamed in the walk-in. The flip-top cooler held Swiss cheese, cut lettuce, cut tomatoes, raw beef and raw chicken that measured either 53 or 54 degrees when they needed to be under 41. More Stop Sales.

Casa Santiago reopened after the second callback inspection.

Express Caribbean Restaurant, 1401 S. State Rd. 7, North Lauderdale: Routine inspection, 20 total violations, seven High Priority violations.

To find the inspections for this place, youd have to look under Express Caraibbean Restaurant on the DBPR website.

It probably wasnt intentional. But, if you anticipate having inspections like these, youd probably want people to have trouble Googling your inspections, too.

Plastic water bottles stored on floor front counter.

Should you do that if you have little furries running around leaving a dirty dozen of dung pieces, including four under to-go racks in a storage area?

Food-contact surface soiled with food debris, mold-like substance or slime ... the shelves over the kitchen flip top cooler has a surface soiled with food debris, mold-like substance or slime.

Observed employee talking on a cell phone and then engaging in food preparation without washing hands.

Something with no handle was used to scoop rice, dried beans and corn meal.

Standing water in the bottom of the reach-in-cooler.

Meanwhile, the flip-top cooler failed to do its job as cut tomatoes and cut iceberg lettuce measured 55 degrees despite being inside for four hours. Stop Sale and Stop Sale, and food tossed.

Not all bags are made equal. Nonfood-grade bags used in direct contact with food ... pork being stored in contact with a Glad Quick Tie bag.

The Express ran again after re-inspection the next day.

Its All Greek, 9704 Clint Moore Rd., Unincorporated Palm Beach County: Routine inspection, nine total violations, three High Priority violations.

One dead roach on a wall and about 20 in a roach-killing device on the prep area floor.

In that area, the inspector saw five surviving roaches and one bold soul was on the roach-killing device. One roach disappeared into the wall under a kitchen handwash sink. Another two were between the three-compartment sink and the warewashing area. Two more were in a freezers wheel.

All those roaches and multiple items in the walk-in cooler were stored uncovered.

Wall soiled with accumulated grease, food debris, and/or dust.

This place passed the callback inspection the next day.

La Gourmandize, 7108 Pembroke Rd., Miramar: Routine inspection, 10 total violations, six High Priority violations.

Exterior door has a gap at the threshold that opens to the outside.

20 rodent droppings under the vegetables reach-in cooler in a storage room away from the kitchen.

Three live roaches were in a reach-in cooler.

In that vegetable reach-in cooler, cooked chicken measured 62 degrees after sleeping over. Stop Sale.

Bowl or other container with no handle used to dispense flour.

La Gourmandize passed inspection the next day.

Latin American Grill, 12638 Pines Blvd., Pembroke Pines: Complaint inspection, 18 total violations, three High Priority violations.

In the dry goods storage area, bags of rice and sugar sat open to contamination.

Beyond that were the water problems.

No water for the handwash sink in the rear kitchen. So, an employee came from the outside, wearing gloves, continued to prepare food without washing hands.

Standing water or very slow draining water in a cookline prep sink.

The dishwasher sanitizer measured zero parts per million and the three-compartment sink had been removed so there were no dishwashing facilities of any kind.

Five flies interrupted clean airspace.

An enclosed cooler with washed vegetables, cans and gallons of food was stored next to dumpster area, which is a no-no.

The floor was described as soiled with an accumulation of debris because of a substantial build up of food debris in the front kitchen, rear kitchen, dry storage area and under the cooking equipment.

Latin American passed re-inspection the next day.

Rhum Shack, 802 Lake Ave., Lake Worth Beach: Routine inspection, nine total violations, four High Priority violations.

Rodents left 25 pieces of regularity on top of a water heater and nine on the floor in the dishwasher area.

About 10 flies bellied up to the dining room bar.

Chili got hit with a Stop Sale for being kept at 97 degrees, then 105 degrees when hot storage requires it to be 135 degrees.

Cook preparing food without any hair restraint for loose head hair.

Brisket cooked on Tuesday was not date-marked by the Thursday, July 18, inspection.

Rhum Shack passed re-inspection the next day.

Sbarro, 9411 Atlantic Blvd., in Coral Square Mall, Coral Springs: Routine inspection, seven total violations, three High Priority violations.

Nobody knew how long the pasta salad, the garbanzo bean salad or the cucumber tomato salad had been in the cooling unit. They just knew none of it was made that day. What the inspector knew was all of them were over 50 degrees when they needed to be 41 degrees or under, and Stop Sales were dropped on the salads.

A dead roach in front of the walk-in cooler, two under a prep area table were outnumbered by the living, four of which were on a floor next to a drain in the back prep area. Another one was next to a front counter handwash sink. Two more were next to an office.

At the back prep area handwash sink, you couldnt dry your hands.

Re-inspection No. 1: A dead roach under a prep table and two live roaches. Failure No. 2.

Re-inspection No. 2: Eight dead roaches, six of them under the three-compartment sink.

Re-inspection No. 3: Passed it.

Solo BBQ & Seafood, 1561 S. Congress Ave., Delray Beach: Routine inspection, 14 total violations, four High Priority violations.

Flies on cooked chicken and roaches in a sink, under a bag of onions and many other places put Solo on this list in December.

Solo still ran a strong roach motel with 20 live roaches in and underneath a salt box on a kitchen prep table and 14 in a reach-in cooler and gasket. There were 18 live roaches in the three-compartment sink. Under the three-compartment sink, the inspector counted another 10 live ones. Four under the microwave. Three behind a freezer.

But this time, the rodents stole the show with two droppings by the microwave, 20 under a reach-in cooler and on shelvings throughout the establishment. The water heater had 39 droppings around it or on top of it.

Exterior door has a gap at the threshold that opens to the outside.

Employee came from bathroom and then removed food to the reach-in cooler without washing hands.

Objectionable odors in the kitchen.

Nonfood-contact surface soiled with grease, food debris, dirt, slime or dust ... all the handwashing sinks and the three-compartment sink.

At Mondays re-inspection, four rodent droppings at the water heater, 15 live roaches (including two in the dining area and two at the front counter) and 32 dead roaches (17 in the kitchen) kept Solo a no-go.

Solo resumed business after Wednesdays re-re-inspection.

Sushi Sake, 7750 Nova Dr., Davie: Routine inspection, four total violations, two High Priority violations.

All about the bugs here.

A dead roach under the dishwasher and three live roaches under the rolling bin of rice in the dishwasher area of the kitchen got Sushi Sake taken out of action until Tuesdays re-inspection.

Tarka Karahi & Kebab House, 7881 W. Sample Rd., Coral Springs: Complaint inspection, 17 total violations, three High Priority violations.

The floor mixer bowl has food debris buildup.

Maybe that food debris helped attract the rodents that left 17 droppings under the small hand sink by the floor mixer...

Multiple employees in kitchen are not wearing hair restraints.

Drain lines under handwash sink and triple sink at far end of kitchen were leaking which is probably why there was standing water on the floor under those sinks.

Container of fish thawing on back prep table at room temperature, a bacteria builder.

Employee left cook line to mop floor area and move items to cooler and returned to cookline without washing hands before putting on gloves.

The next days callback inspection went much better.

Villa Rosano, 9858 Clint Moore Rd., Unincorporated Palm Beach County: Routine inspection, seven total violations, two High Priority violations.

Standing water  or water just draining very slowly  at a cookline floor drain.

About 10 roaches crowded in a pasta water boiler wheel. Another four were inside a drip pan area. Five live roaches were elsewhere.

The Villa was good after passing re-inspection the next day.
Tiffany Jackson contends that when she killed a stranger in the parking lot of a CVS in Southeast Raleigh, she feared for her life.

On the afternoon of March 26, 2022, a stranger driving a blue Toyota Camry rammed Jacksons car multiple times in the parking lot of a shopping center off Battle Bridge Road, said Jacksons attorney, Jonathan Trapp. After being hit, Jackson pressed on the gas, but the car wouldnt go. She went to exit the vehicle, and the door wouldnt open The windows rolled down.

This is like a scary movie, where everything youre trying to do to escape goes wrong, Trapp said.

But a prosecutor argued that Jacksons actions werent those of someone cowering in fear, but rather someone who was angry enough to shoot a gun into a strangers back car window. The bullet pierced the drivers side headrest and hit 53-year-old Sharon Thomas, a mother of three who was blaring gospel music in her car. Thomas died six days later.

Its simply not self-defense when someone stops their car, gets out of it, raises a firearm at another car and shoots into that car, said Assistant District Attorney Stacy Newton.

A Wake County jury agreed on Friday afternoon. Jurors found Jackson, 38, guilty of first-degree murder after deliberating for about an hour.

Superior Court Judge Graham Shirley then sentenced Jackson to life in prison, the mandatory sentence for murder in North Carolina.

The verdict follows three days of testimony in which law enforcement officials, multiple witnesses and even Jackson herself outlined their version of how two strangers crossing paths at a shopping center in the middle of a sunny day resulted in one of them being shot in the head and the other in handcuffs.

What the defense argued

Jacksons burgundy Acura TL had been hit multiple times in the parking lot by the Camry, Trapp said.

A year before that encounter, Jacksons cousin had been shot and killed in his car, and his fiance had also been murdered, Trapp said. Jackson bought a gun following that, as her family received threats.

The shooting took place in Southeast Raleigh, which has a high crime rate, Trapp said, in a time when murders were frequent and people generally were living with angst. Jackson heard a loud pop and thought it was a gunshot, her attorney said.

It created fear and trepidation in Ms. Jackson, Trapp said. She thought that she was going to be the next victim, like her cousin.

What the prosecution said

Newton pointed to the multiple witnesses, who didnt know either party before the shooting. Their testimony contradicted Jacksons.

One man described seeing Jacksons burgundy Acura hit the blue Camry, Newton said. The man looked down at his phone, heard a loud pop, and then saw Jackson standing outside her car pointing a gun at the Camry, Newton said.

A second witness said she had picked up a prescription through the CVS drive-through, heard a gunshot and saw Jackson standing outside her Acura and pointing something at the blue Camry.

Two others said they saw Jackson pacing by the CVS, and they asked her what was wrong.

I think I may have killed someone, the women testified that Jackson told them, Newton said. She cut me off and my gun went off, the witnesses said Jackson said.

What the family and judge said

After the verdict, both Jackson and Thomas family folded over crying.

Jasmine Knight, one of Thomas daughters, said she could never forgive Jackson.

You have shattered my heart to pieces. The glue to my family is now sleeping peacefully due to your senseless acts of rage, Knight said.

Jackson said she never meant to hurt Thomas, and she hopes that one day the Thomas family will forgive her.

Judge Shirley, who pointed out that Jacksons husband was on disability and she was the sole family provider, recommended that Jackson be considered for work release. He said he has never made such a recommendation in a murder case.

I dont believe you are an evil person. You just made a mistake, Shirley said. A big mistake.

Virginia Bridges covers criminal justice in the Triangle and across North Carolina for The News & Observer. Her work is produced with financial support from the nonprofit The Just Trust. The N&O maintains full editorial control of its journalism.
Videos on social media that purport to show Romanian air defense units shooting down Russian attack drones above Ukraine are spreading a false narrative. Romania's Defense Ministry said in a statement on July 26.

Romania's Defense Ministry said that the videos falsely spread "the idea that Romania was targeted by the Russian Federation's drone attacks" against Ukraine.

The claims have "no real basis" as Russia was targeting Ukraine's port infrastructure on the Danube and not targets in Romania, the Defense Ministry said.

Russia launched a drone attack against Izmail in southwestern Ukraine overnight on July 24. The port city lies on the Danube River, which forms the border between Romania and Ukraine.

The attack led the Romanian Air Force to scramble its F-16 fighter jets. Drone debris was found on July 25 in Plauru in Romania, just across the Danube from Izmail.

The caption of one video shared thousands of times on X claimed that Romania had downed Russian drones over Ukrainian airspace using Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns during the attack.

Romanian forces "deployed in the border area with Ukraine did not, in any such situation, fire on the means of attack of Russian Federation," the Defense Ministry said.

"In order to shoot them down, we have to fire on the territory of Ukraine, and I dont think this is allowed yet, I have not heard of any decision in this regard," Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said on July 26.

"These drones are usually hit by the Ukrainian artillery and immediately fall on the bank of the Danube. There is still absolutely no danger for Romanians in the area," Ciolacu added.

Romania has taken measures to protect its citizens who live close to the Ukrainian border, including the construction of air raid shelters and the deployment of drone defense systems.

Read also: Russia using new, cheap drones to locate Ukraines air defense, military intelligence says

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, in Vientiane, Laos, July 26, 2024. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

VIENTIANE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy met on Friday here, with the two sides agreed to work together for closer communication and stable relations.

A series of meetings of foreign ministers of southeastern and eastern Asian countries are being held in the capital of Laos, the current rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

During his meeting with Lammy, Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said the relationship between China and Britain is of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation, noting they are both permanent members of the United Nations Security Council as well as major economies in the world, and have extensive exchanges, solid foundation for cooperation and deeply intertwined interests.

China's efforts following the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee to further deepen reform in an all-round way and promote high-quality development and high-level opening-up will bring more opportunities to Britain and other countries around the world, Wang said.

The two countries can complement each other's strengths in their cooperative efforts towards common advancement, Wang said. Britain has said it will view its relations with China from a long-term and strategic perspective, and China attaches importance to this, Wang said.

Wang called for joint efforts by the two countries to develop a stable and mutually beneficial relationship, unleashing cooperation potential and boost each other's development while strengthening bilateral communication and coordination on international affairs and shouldering their due responsibilities to jointly promote world peace.

China is willing to work with Britain to build a positive and stable bilateral framework and smooth down exchange channels, Wang said, while urging both sides to set the right policy orientation, uphold a balanced, pragmatic, open and cooperative attitude, and provide stable and positive expectations for all sectors in the two countries.

The Chinese foreign minister called on the two sides to properly manage differences and carry out communication and exchanges on the basis of equality and mutual respect. He also voiced hope that Britain will provide a fair, just and non-discriminatory business environment for Chinese companies.

During the meeting, Lammy said his country and China are important cooperative partners, noting the British side is willing to maintain communication and exchanges with the Chinese side to develop a relationship featuring predictability, mutual respect and long-term stability.

Britain's adherence to the one-China policy remains unchanged, he said.

The British side looks forward to strengthening cooperation with China in areas including culture, education, health care, technology innovation and climate change, he said.

Lammy said Britain attaches importance to China's important influence and role in international affairs and hopes for a joint response to global challenges.

The two sides also exchanged views on the Ukraine crisis and other international and regional issues of common concern. 
Romania has no way to shoot down Russian UAVs over Ukraine  Romanian PM

Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, speaking about the crash of Russian drones on Romanian land, said that his country lacks the capability to shoot them down over Ukraine to prevent the drones from hitting Romania.

Source: Marcel Ciolacu, Romanian Prime Minister, during a visit to Buzau County in southeastern Romania on Friday 26 July, writes Digi24, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The Romanian PM was asked to comment on the situation with Russian drone fragments discovered in Romania in the last few nights.

Quote: "In order to shoot them down, we must open fire on Ukrainian territory, and I believe that this is not yet allowed, I have not heard of any decision on this issue," he explained.

Ciolacu said that, according to air intelligence, Russian drones near the border with Romania in the Danube region are usually shot down by the Ukrainian side.

"There is still no danger to the Romanians in the area," Ciolacu said, adding that security measures had been taken after previous incidents and airspace patrols had been stepped up.

Earlier, Romania scrambled F-16 fighters due to a Russian Shahed drone attack on Ukraine's south.

The Romanian Ministry of Defence later confirmed that wreckage identified as parts of Russian Geran-1/2 drones was found in one of three areas designated as possible crash sites.

Support UP or become our patron!
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), former President Trumps physician, said FBI Director Christopher Wray was wrong to imply that Trump was struck by anything other than a bullet during the attempt on his life at a Pennsylvania rally.

During the Congressional Hearing two days ago, FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested that it could be a bullet, shrapnel, or glass, Jackson wrote in a letter he posted Friday to Truth Social.

There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet. Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else, he added.

Jackson drew upon his experience serving as a combat physician in the U.S. Navy to back his assessment. He detailed that Butler Memorial Hospital, where Trump was sent immediately following the incident, evaluated and treated [Trump] for a Gunshot Wound to the Right Ear.

Based on my direct observations of the injury, my relevant clinical background, and my significant experience evaluating and treating patients with similar wounds, I completely concur with the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors and nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting, he wrote.

Wray testified in front of Congress Wednesday, where he suggested to lawmakers that something other than a bullet could have struck the presidents ear.

I think with respect to former President Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, hit his ear, Wray said.

The former president lashed out against the director in a post to Truth Social on Thursday.

FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasnt sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!), but he was sure that Crooked Joe Biden was physically and cognitively uneventful  Wrong! Trump wrote.

The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!

The FBI is still analyzing shrapnel found near Trumps stage to assess what grazed his ear.

This was a heinous attack and the FBI is devoting enormous resources to learn everything possible about the shooter and what led to his act of violence, the bureau said. The FBIs Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing.

In his letter, Jackson also provided updates on the presidents condition since the shooting, writing that his ear is rapidly recovering.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
RTD using live cameras on buses and trains as it focuses on safety

DENVER (KDVR)  A major advance in RTDs efforts to increase safety for its 3.8 million public transit riders includes live cameras that monitor what happens on buses and trains so transit police can take quick action if something goes wrong.

Riders have voiced their concerns about crime on RTD trains and buses. The district has responded with a comprehensive plan to clean up Union Station and assess security risks throughout the system.

Colorado holds final hearing on psychedelic mushroom rules

The live look-in camera system will provide bus and train operators with the ability to call for immediate backup if problems arise whether dealing with a flat tire or serious crime or accident.

They have an emergency duress button on their vehicle to be able to press and report any issues, said Israel Laufer, RTDs security systems manager.

A dispatcher sits before several screens monitoring RTD trains and buses

The new system, part of the Welcoming Transit Environment Strategic Initiative, was made possible by a $2.4 million grant in 2020 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Public safety dispatchers can view live pictures inside and outside of buses and trains at all angles. Cameras can provide playback on request with information about the date, time, location and speed of the vehicle, which is helpful during investigations.

Recordings are not stored for more than a week to 10 days. Each of the more than a thousand RTD vehicles is equipped with eight to 10 cameras.

Grand jury indicts Lakeside police chief, town clerk

Riders were given a chance to voice opinions on the plan during RTDs board meetings.

I dont really think its going to affect too many peoples privacy, one rider said.

Others tell FOX31 that while they support any effort to enhance safety, privacy is a concern.

What if Im having a private phone conversation and its picking up everything, one rider said.

Onboard signs clearly notify riders that the cameras are live.

RTD deputy police chief: Its keeping our officers safe

RTD Deputy Police Chief Steve Martingano told the Problem Solvers that one of the biggest benefits of live cameras will be bolstering RTDs growing security force, which now has 78 certified officers.

Its keeping our officers safe. Its giving them real-time information as they get there so they know exactly how to handle the situation, he said.

Riders can quickly report crimes through the Transit Watch app, which can be downloaded from app stores.

They immediately will reach the dashboard. Our dispatchers will be able to view live look-in and perform playback in any vehicle, Laufer said.

How often is RTD activating live cameras?

The Problem Solvers found at least 178 passenger reports of assault or injury in 2021 and the first two months of 2022, but the numbers also show a 121% drop in service calls and decreased narcotics activity at stations involved in a recent elevator security pilot program.

RTD says the live cameras combined with increased foot patrols and safety landscaping will provide riders with a safer, cleaner experience.

Theyre trying to do a good job as it is with security, but the cameras I think are going to be a stellar thing, said one rider using a downtown Denver stop.

FOX31 Newsletters: Sign up to get breaking news sent to your inbox

Cameras are only live unless a recording is requested. RTD told FOX31 that operators have used emergency buttons 10 times per day, but some activations may be accidental. There have been 40-50 video retrievals per day.

The live cameras are on buses and 20% of light rail trains, with the complete fleet scheduled to be online by 2027.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

An illustration shows a runaway brown dwarf escaping a spiral galaxy. | Credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva)/NASA

A newly discovered rogue stellar body may well be a "failed star," but it certainly isn't a failure when it comes to velocity!

The potential brown dwarf is racing through our Milky Way galaxy at 1.2 million mph (1.9 million kph). That's about 1,500 times faster than the speed of sound! Thankfully, this cosmic runaway is heading toward the center of the Milky Way and not toward us. However, the object is traveling so fast that it could eventually escape our galaxy entirely.

The incredible speed of this newly uncovered stellar body, designated CWISE J1249+3621, isn't the only fascinating thing about the object, which is currently around 400 light-years from Earth.

The stellar body has a mass that is just around 8% that of the sun, or 80 times the mass of Jupiter, which puts it right on the dividing line between a star and a fascinating group of objects called "brown dwarfs," often (somewhat unfairly) labeled "failed stars."

CWISE J1249+3621,was originally discovered by citizen scientists working with the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project, which uses data from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to detect faint, moving objects relatively close to the sun.

Related: Hubble Space Telescope discovers 'failed stars' are bad at relationships too

After several citizen scientists flagged the object, a team of astronomers followed up using the Keck I Telescope, one of two 10-meter twin telescopes located on the dormant volcano Maunakea, in Hawai'i.

"We discovered a very low-mass object, right on the star/brown dwarf mass boundary, that has an extreme velocity, moving fast enough that it may actually be unbound to the Milky Way galaxy," study team leader Adam Burgasser, of the University of California San Diego, told Space.com. "It joins a collection of 'hypervelocity' stars that have been found over the past few decades, most of which are thousands of light-years from the sun, whereas this source is a 'mere' 400 light-years away."



Burgasser added that the team's observations included an analysis of CWISE J1249+3621's atmosphere. This indicated that the potential brown dwarf also has an unusual chemical composition. The team aimed to use the information they gathered about the motion and composition of CWISE J1249+3621 to speculate on its possible origins.

"This discovery mainly opens up a new pathway to studying brown dwarfs that are in remote regions of the Milky Way, including its center, its halo and its various globular clusters and satellites," Burgasser said. "All of these systems are too far away to study brown dwarfs in detail directly, but if they get thrown at us, it's much easier!"

What is this rogue star running from?

Brown dwarfs form just like stars do  from giant clouds of gas and dust, called molecular clouds, that develop overly dense patches that collapse under the influence of their own gravity. However, unlike a regular star such as the sun, brown dwarfs fail to gather enough material from the remains of the cloud that birthed them to reach the mass needed to generate the pressures and temperatures in their cores that kickstart the fusion of hydrogen to helium. This is the process that defines a "main sequence" star. Hence, the "failed star" moniker foisted on brown dwarfs.

Brown dwarfs have masses ranging from around four times that of Jupiter to around 80 times that of the gas giant. (For comparison, the sun is 1,000 times more massive than Jupiter.) The mass of CWISE J1249+3621 is exciting because it puts it right at the hypothetical boundary between a star and a brown dwarf.



"The low mass is significant because it's by far the lowest-mass, high-velocity 'star' found to date. The original hypervelocity stars found about 20 years ago were massive O stars [around 50 times as massive as the sun] and B stars [up to 16 times as massive as the sun], a likely selection bias because these stars are rare and would need to be found at large distances," Burgasser said. "Our discovery indicates that whatever process (or processes) causes these stars to run away must operate at both high and low masses."

A size comparison of stars, brown dwarfs, and gas giants.

The UC San Diego researcher explained that the team is really excited to try to answer what sent this stellar body careening through the Milky Way.

"The star could have been kicked out of the center of Milky Way by our supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, a process commonly used to explain the origins of other hypervelocity stars," Burgasser said. "Notably, our star is moving into the center, not away, but it might be on a return trip after being ejected previously."



He added that it is also possible that the brown dwarf is on the run from a "cosmic vampire." The rogue stellar body may have been part of a binary system with a white dwarf stellar corpse that was ripping material away from it. This gruesome feeding eventually causes the white dwarf to erupt in a cosmic explosion called a Type Ia supernova. This would destroy the white dwarf and provide the "kick" that sent this runaway racing through the Milky Way at incredible speeds.

"Another possibility is that the star was launched out of a globular cluster through dynamical interactions with black holes in the center of the cluster; recent simulations show that this should happen several times over the age of the Milky Way," Burgasser said. "Any of these processes above, given a fast enough kick, could have launched it out, or in the case of an 'extragalactic' star, it just happens to be passing through."

He added that, currently, the team can't rule out the possibility that this potential brown dwarf is an intruder in our galaxy that came from outside the Milky Way. But the fact that it's passing through the plane of our Milky Way makes that a less likely case.

"The orbit is certainly the most surprising aspect of this object; it is moving radially in and out of the center of the Milky Way and almost perfectly in the plane," Burgasser said. "Most of the high-velocity stars we see are on much more chaotic or inclined orbits. I think this is a real clue to its real origin."

Related: Brown dwarfs: The coolest stars or the hottest planets?

A blue and black ringed sphere with a red ring at its pole

Runaway brown dwarfs, if that is indeed what CWISE J1249+3621 is, appear to be rare, but this could be because of their cool and faint nature, which makes them difficult to detect. This means that the population of rogue brown dwarfs could be much larger than current detection rates indicate.

"These types of stars are exceedingly rare; only a few dozen have been found out of billions of stars examined, and, as noted, this is the first low-mass one. And this object in particular is difficult to see because it's a very cool and dim star, nearly 10,000 times fainter than the sun and emitting most of its light at infrared wavelengths," Burgasser said. "It's hard to say how common these bodies are, with only one found so far, but since this is so close, we speculate that there may be many more.

"That speculation is informed partly by the fact that the majority of stars in the Milky Way are low mass, and about one in five are brown dwarfs, and that these objects are the easiest to 'throw around' since they are so low mass."

RELATED STORIES:

 James Webb Space Telescope spots hint of mysterious aurora over 'failed star'

 A record-breaking 'failed star' that shouldn't exist (video)

 Volunteers spot almost 100 cold brown dwarfs near our sun

The team now intends to follow up on the investigation of CWISE J1249+3621's atmosphere in greater detail to see if its chemical abundances reveal something about its origin. They will also attempt to discover more of these low-mass stellar runaways, a hunt in which citizen scientists will play an integral role.

"We definitely want to find more of these objects, and our citizen scientists have identified several more high-velocity candidates to follow up," Burgasser concluded. "Citizen scientists were absolutely essential to this study! They were the ones who identified this source as an interesting target worth investigating. Without them, we'd still have hundreds of thousands of faint little dots to sort through."

The team's research is discussed in a pre-peer-reviewed paper featured on the repository site arXiv.
Russia will have to scale back front lines assaults in 6 weeks due to losses, Ukrainian commander says

Russia will have to scale back front lines assaults in 6 weeks due to losses, Ukrainian commander says

Russia will have to scale back front-line assaults in a month and a half, per a Ukrainian commander.

General Oleksandr Pivnenko told Ukrinform that Russia's offensive capabilities are "not unlimited."

Moscow has suffered mounting death tolls in Ukraine, in part due to its meat assault attacks.

Russia will have to scale back its front lines assaults in a month and a half due to battlefield losses, according to a Ukrainian commander.

General Oleksandr Pivnenko, the commander of Ukraine's National Guard, made the assessment to Ukrinform on Thursday.

"In another month and a half, they will not be able to conduct active assaults in many directions at once and will switch to defense," he told the outlet, according to a translation by the Kyiv Independent.

Pivnenko cited Russian force's "not unlimited" offensive capabilities and the losses they are suffering on the front lines.

Russia has suffered mounting deaths since the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022, in part due to it using waves of troops in head-on "meat assault" attacks.

The UK's Ministry of Defence reported in March that Russia averaged nearly 1,000 casualties a day in February, which included both killed and wounded soldiers, likely due to Russia's attritional approach to the fighting.

Last year, independent Russian outlets Important Stories and the Conflict Intelligence Team estimated that life expectancy on the battlefield for Russian soldiers was about four and a half months.

On Monday, the UK MOD said that Russia's casualty rate reached a high of more than 1,000 losses a day on average in May and June, with that number likely to stay above 1,000 over the next two months as Russia continues to try to overrun Ukrainian positions using large numbers of troops.

Despite mounting losses, Russia has been able to reconstitute its manpower and capabilities, according to senior military officials.

Martin Herem, the commander of the Estonian Defense Forces, told Bloomberg in January that NATO has significantly underestimated Russia's capacity to replenish its armed forces with personnel and ammunition.

And during a talk hosted by the Center for a New American Security in April, Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said Russia has "almost completely" reformed its military capabilities after taking heavy losses in Ukraine.

Pivnenko also said that Russia will replenish its troops, so Ukraine needs to prepare its own reserves and armament.

He told Ukrinform that this involves developing training centers, and procuring weapons, military equipment, drones, armored vehicles, air defense systems, man-portable air defense systems, and ammunition.

If Ukraine plans "one step ahead of Russia, then everything will be fine," he said.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Russia using new, cheap drones to locate Ukraine's air defense, military intelligence says

Russia is now launching a new type of cheaply-made drone to identify air defense systems and act as decoys, Andrii Cherniak, a spokesperson of Ukraine's military intelligence, told Reuters in an interview published on July 26.

Russia has launched thousands of cheap but effective Shahed-type drones against Ukraine since the fall of 2022. First used on the battlefield, they are now typically deployed to target energy infrastructure and cities far from the front line, such as Kyiv.

According to Cherniak, Russia is now using not only Shahed-type drones but also a new type of drone made of plywood and plastic foam in long-range attacks against Ukraine.

The new drones can reveal the location of air defense systems and film damage, with one type able to carry a camera and Ukrainian sim card to send footage back to Russia.

"They identify where our mobile groups are positioned, where the machine guns are that can destroy them," Cherniak told Reuters.

Russian forces are trying "to get a picture of where all our air defenses are located," he added.

The drones have been used in five attacks in July, including an overnight strike on July 25-26, Cherniak said.

Cherniak's comments follow a report by the Ukrainian Air Force on July 20 that a new unidentified drone had targeted Kyiv overnight.

Images of the downed drone circulating on social media indicate that the new weapon does not resemble a Shahed-type drone. The drone was reportedly flying at a low altitude of 20-30 meters.

The news outlet Defense Express obtained additional photographs and details about the unidentified drone. The drone has "a possible wingspan of more than 4 meters, beam plumage, a push rotor, and a square fuselage," Defense Express reported, citing its sources.

Images of the drone show some similarities to the Russian ZALA 421-20 reconnaissance drone, but these types are not widespread and no longer appear in ZALA's current catalog, Defense Express reported.

Read also: One night with Ukrainian drone hunters near Russia

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Russian army drops explosives on Kindiika in Kherson Oblast, injuring one civilian

Russian forces dropped explosives from a drone onto a courtyard in Kindiika, Kherson Oblast, injuring one civilian on 26 July.

Source: Kherson Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram

Quote: "Around 18:00, the Russian military dropped bombs from a drone into the courtyard of a residential building in Kindiika.

The explosion injured a 56-year-old man."

Details: The victim sustained an explosive wound as well as injuries to his shoulder, arm, and leg.

Background: On the morning of 25 July, the Russian military attacked Kindiika in Kherson Oblast with a drone, killing a 51-year-old resident. Later, a 58-year-old man and his 54-year-old wife were injured in another attack.

Support UP or become our patron!
Editor's note: The article was updated with a casualty figure in Chernihiv Oblast and with a report from Ukrenergo.

Russian attacks across Ukraine killed at least three civilians and injured at least 20 over the past day, regional authorities reported on July 26.

In Donetsk Oblast, two people were killed and four injured over the past day, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported.

A Russian strike against the town of Toretsk killed one resident and injured another. Another person was killed in Illinivka, while two were injured in Kostiantynivka and one in Berestok, Filashkin said.

Eight civilians were injured during Russian attacks against Kharkiv Oblast, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

This figure includes two injured in the town of Lozova, two in the village of Kurylivka, three in the Kupiansk district, and one in the Volokhivske village.

Russian attacks against Kherson Oblast killed one person and injured seven, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

A medical facility, an administrative building, eight high-rise buildings, 24 houses, and multiple cars were reported as damaged.

In Chernihiv Oblast, one person was injured during a Russian attack against the town of Nizhyn, Governor Viacheslav Chaus said. A residential dormitory was reportedly hit in the attack.

Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Zhytomyr, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts also came under attack, but no casualties were reported.

Two energy facilities were damaged during the attacks against Chernihiv and Zhytomyr oblasts, resulting in outages in the latter region, Ukrenergo said.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 20 of the 22 Shahed-type attack drones launched by Russia overnight, the Air Force reported. The defenses did not manage to intercept one Iskander-M ballistic missile.

Read also: Land on fire: Russias offensive in Donetsk Oblast brings destruction to new towns (Photos)

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Dmitry Bulgakov, who formerly served as a Russian deputy defense minister until September 2022, was arrested on July 26 on corruption-related charges, Russia's Investigative Committee reported.

In his previous position, Bulgakov was in charge of the military's logistics chains during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. His dismissal was widely seen as a response to the logistic failures that accompanied the early months of Russia's all-out war.

The details of the accusations against Bulgakov were not specified, but the Investigative Committee said he had been remanded into pre-trial detention in Moscow's Butyrka prison.

Bulgakov's arrest was the latest in a series of investigations and detentions of former and current officials from Russia's Defense Ministry, in what some have characterized as a "purge."

The day before, Andrei Belkov, the head of the military construction company linked to Russia's Defense Ministry, was arrested on suspicion of corruption.

Belkov was previously supervised by former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, who is currently also under investigation on corruption-related charges.

In May, Lieutenant General Yuri Kuznetsov, the head of the personnel department of the Russian Defense Ministry, was detained on criminal charges, and Lieutenant General Vadim Shamarin, a deputy chief of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff and head of the Main Directorate of Communications, was arrested for allegedly receiving a large bribe.

Read also: High-ranking officials arrested for alleged budget theft in Russias Karachay-Cherkessia, FSB says

Sign up for our newsletter

WTF is wrong with Russia?

Sign up

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Russian losses in Ukraine causing 'serious problems' for recruitment, HUR says

Russian personnel and materiel losses in Ukraine are so high the Kremlin is having "serious problems" recruiting new contract soldiers, and is relying on decommissioning Soviet-era weapons as it can't produce enough modern versions, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) spokesperson said on July 26.

Speaking on national TV, Andrii Yusov said the situation will soon have an impact on the frontline situation and Russia's ability to effectively wage war.

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.

On July 18, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the BBC that around 20,000 Russian troops were killed during Russia's failed offensive in Kharkiv Oblast.

"They can replenish these losses," Yusov said, adding: "But there are already serious problems with the recruitment of new contract soldiers.

"The aggressor state is coming up with new incentives at various levels to attract new cannon fodder. But this machine is starting to malfunction."

As Russia has sought to replenish its military, decimated by high losses in Ukraine, authorities have implemented financial perks to incentivize enlistment.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin signed a decree on July 23 establishing a one-time signing bonus of 1.9 million rubles ($21,200) for city residents who join the military.

While other regional authorities have also instituted signing bonuses, such as 1 million rubles ($11,200) in Krasnodar Krai and 500,000 rubles ($5,600) in Dagestan, the Moscow signing bonus appears to be the highest reported so far.

With the addition of the signing bonus, a Moscow resident who enlists in the army will make over 5.2 million rubles ($58,600) over the course of their first year in service, Sobyanin's office said.

In terms of military equipment, Yusov said Russia's high losses mean it is now "mainly focused on the decommissioning and modernisation of old Soviet weapons."

"There are problems with the production of new equipment, in particular, because of the sanctions policy," he said.

"Access to modern electronic systems, optics, communication systems  the enemy still has significant problems with all this."

Russian equipment losses in Ukraine last month passed another milestone, with the total number of tanks claimed as destroyed by Kyiv passing the 8,000 mark.

As of July 26, the figure stands at 8,320, according to the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces.

At the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia was estimated to have around 3,300 operational tanks, suggesting that all those that initially drove into Ukraine and then some, have been taken out over the course of two-and-a-half years.

At the beginning of its full-scale invasion, Russia had around 3,330 operational tanks, according to the Military Balance 2021 database.

The database included all tank types then employed by Russias military, notably T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s, and their modifications.

While most of that force has now been destroyed, Russia had thousands of tanks in storage which it has been forced to use as the war dragged on far beyond what the Kremlin initially envisaged.

Read also: As Russian tank losses in Ukraine continue to mount, heres what you need to know

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
BEIRUT, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The Italian Agency for Development Cooperation will provide 2 million euros (about 2.17 million U.S. dollars) to fund major rehabilitation works in at least three Lebanese public schools, the Italian Embassy in Beirut announced Thursday.

The Italian Ambassador to Lebanon Fabrizio Marcelli made the announcement during a joint visit to a public school with Lebanese Minister of Education and Higher Education Abbas Halabi and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Deputy Representative in Lebanon Ettie Higgins.

"Following its rehabilitation, the Aramoun Public Secondary School is now offering a better educational environment for students," Halabi said.

The school has solar energy, and its playgrounds, halls, and classrooms are designed to the best standards. Rehabilitated school buildings are urgently needed to accompany the enhanced teaching curriculum, Halabi added.

For his part, Marcelli said that since 2017, Italy has been committed to fostering inclusive and high-quality education in Lebanon, by providing around 60 million euros which have been used to rehabilitate 107 public schools so far. 
Kremlin state media on July 26 released a video purporting to show a Russian man confessing to a car bombing in Moscow earlier this week, which reportedly injured a Russian military officer and his wife.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) identified the man as Yevgeny Serebryakov, who in the video claimed he carried out the attack on the orders of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).

He said he had been recruited last year and told to "kill an officer," and was promised $10,000-$20,000 payment.

The claims have not been independently verified.

The explosion on July 24 is reported to have blown the feet off a man who the Kommersant newspaper said served in the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (GRU).

Russian state news agency TASS said his wife was also injured in the attack and five other cars were damaged.

Russian Telegram channel Baza published CCTV footage of what it said was the moment of the explosion, which occurred shortly after the man got in the parked Toyota Land Cruiser.

Surveillance video of the moment when an apparent car bomb went off on a car in Moscow. @kommersant says a man who was wounded in the blast is a GRU officer. Investigative Committee says it's investigating. https://t.co/Vxv2Lvg4Dn pic.twitter.com/zt7jChZj1K  Mike Eckel (@Mike_Eckel) July 24, 2024

At the time, Kyiv denied any involvement in the attack.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told independent Russian media he believed there was "a malfunction with the gas equipment in the car."

Read also: Biden could cement his legacy by boosting Ukraine support, experts say

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Russia's missiles and drones, which it uses to attack Ukraine on a regular basis, comprise components from more than 20 countries.

Source: Nataliia Nestor, Deputy Director of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, in a comment to Ukrinform

Quote: "Our analysts discovered foreign components in Russian missiles used to attack Ukraine. Russian missiles and drones, which are used for daily strikes on Ukraine's peaceful cities and towns, contain foreign components manufactured in over 20 countries. These include China, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United States, Canada, and Iran, among others."

Details: Nestor also noted that throughout 2023, the institute's experts conducted about 30,000 studies related to the facts of Russia's military aggression against Ukraine.

According to her, the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise experts study almost all types of missiles Russia uses to attack Ukraine: Iskander, Kinzhal, Kalibr, Kh-101, Kh-55, Kh-59, etc. In addition, attack drones such as Shahed-136 and Shahed-121, and reconnaissance drones Kartograf, Orlan-10 and Supercam are researched as well.

Quote: "For example, in Shaheds, there are servos, processors, switches, and generators from the United States, contact tips from Iran, spark plugs and indicators from China, electric fuel pumps from Germany and the United Kingdom, seals from Taiwan, Schottky modules from South Korea, and so on. The Kinzhal missiles contain sensors from Spain, buffers, diodes, transceivers, converters from the United States, flash memory from Taiwan, filters from Japan, relays from Germany, converters from Switzerland, and so on. This means that all missiles and drones, as well as the primary high-tech component that allow them to function, are manufactured outside of Russia. We're talking about navigation, control, and guidance components, such as microcircuits, various chips, sensors, and motherboards."

Details: According to Nestor, most electronic components are not designed specifically for use in weapons. Dual-use parts are employed in a variety of applications, including washing machines, computer technologies, network connection, and so on. Such products are imported for some other purpose and eventually become components for weapons. Missiles of the same type do not share the same set of components in certain systems. They use whatever they could smuggle into the Russian Federation.

The expert also underlined that, despite the sanctions, microchips from Dutch companies NXP and Nexperia continue to enter Russia. They were discovered in UAVs such as Shahed-136, ZALA, PTERO, Eleron-3SV, Kub, Orlan-10, Takhion, Geran-2, as well as Kh-101 and Iskander missiles.

Support UP or become our patron!
Russian strike on accommodation building in Chernihiv Oblast: number of injured grows to 15

The number of people injured in the Russian attack on Nizhyn, Chernihiv Oblast, has risen to 15. The accommodation centre that was hit by the Russians is now uninhabitable.

Source: Oleksandr Kodola, Mayor of Nizhyn, in a comment to Suspilne , Ukraine's public broadcaster

Details: Kodola said that all the people were immediately taken to the Nizhyn City Hospital. As of 09:30, four people remain in the hospital.

Quote: "We are now dealing with the aftermath of the attack. The building itself was badly damaged. We are resettling people. People of retirement age used to live in the accommodation centre.

There were 24 apartments there. We are going to board up the doors and windows. There is no gas, no water, no electricity. It needs to be overhauled."

Background:

Earlier, Viacheslav Chaus, Head of Chernihiv Oblast Military Administration, said that Russian Shahed drones hit an infrastructure facility and an accommodation centre in Nizhyn, Chernihiv Oblast, on the night of 25-26 July. At the time, one casualty was reported.

On the night of 25-26 July, the military detected Russian attack drones flying from the country's northeast and south. The air-raid warning lasted about four hours.

Support UP or become our patron!
Russian forces attacked the Nikopol district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast over 20 times on 26 July, injuring a 75-year-old man.

Source: Serhii Lysak, Head of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Military Administration, on Telegram Quote: "Nearly 20 attacks were carried out on the Nikopol district during the day. Kamikaze drones and artillery were used to target the settlements.

It was very loud in Nikopol, Pokrovsk, Marhanets, Myriv, and Krasnohryhorivka hromadas [an administrative unit designating a town, village or several villages and their adjacent territories  ed.]. A 75-year-old man sustained injuries. He has been hospitalised in serious condition."

Photo: Serhii Lysak on Telegram

Details: In addition, according to local authorities, 12 houses, 2 outbuildings, an administrative building, cars and gas pipelines were damaged in the area.

Photo: Serhii Lysak on Telegram

Support UP or become our patron!
Russians drop explosives on people near store in Kherson

The Russians dropped explosives from a drone on people standing near a store in Kherson on 26 July. As a result of the attack, five Kherson residents have been injured.

Source: Kherson Oblast Military Administration; Roman Mrochko, Head of Kherson City Military Administration

Details: Men aged 64, 66, 55, and 63, as well as a 66-year-old woman, sustained blast injuries and shrapnel wounds. The Russians dropped explosives on people while they were near a store on the street.

All of them were transported to medical facilities by emergency services in a moderate condition. They are receiving the necessary medical care.

Quote from Mrochko: "The men, aged 64 and 66, and the 66-year-old woman have blast injuries and shrapnel wounds. They are receiving the necessary medical care.

The 55-year-old man sustained explosive and closed craniocerebral traumas, a concussion, and shrapnel injuries to the face. The 63-year-old man sustained blast trauma and shrapnel injuries to the abdomen."

Background: On the morning of 25 July, the Russian military attacked Kindiika in Kherson Oblast with a drone, killing a 51-year-old resident.

Support UP or become our patron!
Russian forces struck the village of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi in Kharkiv Oblast with two aerial bombs on the morning of 26 July, injuring two men aged 54 and 60.

Source: Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutors Office

Quote: "The investigation team said that the Russian Armed Forces conducted airstrikes on the village of Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi on 26 July, at around 05:35."

Damaged houses in Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi.

Photo: Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutors Office

Details: It is noted that these two men were wounded in the attack. The Russians also damaged residential buildings. According to early reports, the Russians attacked the settlement with two 250-kg aerial bombs.

Damaged houses in Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi.

Photo: Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutors Office

In addition, the prosecutor's office reported that a woman, 47, had been wounded in the village of Kyrylivka, Chuhuiv district, and a 58-year-old man had been killed in the village of Volokhivka, Chuhuiv district, on the evening of 25 July.

Damaged houses in Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi.

Photo: Kharkiv Oblast Prosecutors Office

Background: On the evening of 25 July, Russian troops fired on the village of Prystin in the Kupiansk district of Kharkiv Oblast. As a result, three people were injured.

Support UP or become our patron!
Russian troops attacked Ukrenergo facilities in Zhytomyr and Chernihiv oblasts on the night of 25-26 July, causing power outages in a number of households [Ukrenergo is Ukraines state-run power distribution company  ed.].

Source: Ukrenergo on Telegram

Quote: "Power outages occurred in certain districts of Zhytomyr Oblast."

Details: The power supply was reported to have been restored to most consumers in the morning. Repair works are ongoing.

Background: On the night of 25-26 July, the Russians attacked Ukraine with an Iskander-M ballistic missile and 22 Shahed attack drones; 20 of these drones were destroyed.

Support UP or become our patron!
Ukraine said Russia is trying to make naval drones by learning from fragments of Ukrainian ones.

A drone warfare expert said that's unlikely to be much help and may waste Russian resources.

Ukraine has hammered Russia's fleet, but it doesn't have a proper navy that Russia could target.

Russian efforts to copy Ukraine's naval drone success won't help its invasion and may be a waste of resources, a drone warfare expert told Business Insider.

Ukraine's homemade naval drones have been instrumental in helping contain Russia's Black Sea Fleet. And Ukraine last year warned that Russia was attempting to use recovered parts of its drones to try to make its own, The Telegraph reported.

UK intelligence also said Russia was trying "to close the capability gap with Ukraine."

Meanwhile, Yevhen Yerin, a representative of the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, said this week that Russia will try but fail in its efforts.

But according to one expert, Russian attempts to copy the technology may be pretty pointless, at least in the short term.

James Patton Rogers, a drone expert at the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute, said doing so may be a waste of resources, given Ukraine doesn't really have a navy to target.

Patton said Ukraine's drones have been successful as they've been launched against crewed Russian naval assets. But Ukraine doesn't have warships, only smaller vessels, which means Russian drone attacks would be pretty inconsequential.

"Put simply, Russia may be able to utilize the parts and intel to build maritime drones, but the question to ask is: 'Would this be the most effective use of Russian resources?'"

Footage that appears to show a Ukrainian naval boat attacking a Russian warship. Screengrab via the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine

Naval drones have formed a key part of Ukraine's attacks against Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Crimea.

Earlier this year, Ukraine's military claimed to have destroyed a third of the fleet, and in March, the UK's Ministry of Defence declared it "functionally inactive."

Ukraine said this month that Russia had pulled its last Black Sea Fleet patrol ship out from Crimea.

Rogers said that "there is no denying that Ukrainian engineers have had great success in building a maritime drone force from very little."

He added that their ingenuity in the earlier stages of the war had "led to jet skis, speed boats, and commercial technologies being transformed into viable and vital defensive weapons that severely stunted Russian naval operations."

Drones, both on land and sea, have been used more in Russia's invasion than in any other conflict to date.

They've been used to attack soldiers, weaponry, and infrastructure, as well as to gather intel to guide other weaponry.

Drones and drone-jamming equipment are also constantly being upgraded, with both sides trying to out-develop and learn from each other's technology.

A sea drone during a presentation by Ukraine's Security Service in Kyiv region, Ukraine. Evgeniy Maloletka/AP

Rogers previously described this to BI as a "cat and mouse game."

In his comments earlier this week, Yerin said that Russia was unlikely to succeed in copying Ukrainian technology because Ukraine's engineers are so skilled.

He said Ukraine worked on them for years and that it's "unlikely that the enemy will be able to replicate anything like this."

Rogers, however, said Russia could be successful.

"Just because Ukraine has led the way on maritime drone development, does not mean that Russia would not benefit from capturing and analyzing parts of captured Ukrainian drones," he said.

He added that Russia has "vast experience in naval engineering and could utilize elements in their own maritime drone designs if needed," and that it could lean on its relationship with Iran, which has been aiding Russia's drone efforts and has been working on sea drones itself.

But that still wouldn't make them very useful in the current conflict, he said.

Russia may, however, be thinking about future wars, like one with NATO.

Many European countries say Russia could attack elsewhere in the continent if it's not defeated in Ukraine, which could result in a wider conflict.

Even so, it's not clear how much of an advantage naval drones would be in such a war.

Read the original article on Business Insider
(FOX40.COM)  Crews with the Sacramento Fire Department responded to a four-alarm commercial fire in Sacramento on Thursday.

Officials said a single fire engine was dispatched to a reported trash fire on Florin Perkins Road and Fruitridge Road around 5 p.m. Once they pulled out of the firehouse, crews said they immediately saw a large column of black smoke and labeled the fire a two-alarm fire.

Once the fire department arrived at the scene, they quickly realized they needed to upgrade to a 3-alarm for more resources. At that point, there were about 100 firefighters on the sceneThe main focus is to just contain this to the property of the recycling yard, officials said.

Butte County Sheriffs Office issues evacuation orders for Park Fire

Just after 7 p.m., officials upgraded the fire from a three-alarm to a four-alarm fire.

Officials with the Sacramento Fire Department said to FOX40.com, This is a massive fire.

Video captured by a FOX40 News team member of the fire showed thick, black smoke filling the air quickly.

Fire crews said they threw four aerial streams on the fire, each carrying 1,000 gallons per minute. Officials added that Union Pacific tracks in the area have been notified to shut down. This will be an extended operation. Road closures will remain in place for the next 2-4 hours, the Sacramento Fire Department added.

Man arrested, accused of starting the Park Fire, Butte County District Attorney says

Facebook users chimed in immediately with comments like, Drove by [the fire] and can see the smoke all the way to Sunrise Boulevard. Another user said, I can see black smoke from my house and Im in West Sacramento.

Someone else said those in Stockton, which is about 50 miles south of Sacramento, could see the smoke from the city.

No injuries have been reported in the fire and its cause is still unknown.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Keanu Dude (Photo/San Carlos Apache Police Department)

A 22-year-old San Carlos Apache Tribe member has been arrested and charged with arson in connection with the Watch Fire that terrified hundreds of people as they fled for their lives, leaving many homeless.

The San Carlos Apache Police Department (SCAPD) and the Tribes Game & Fish Rangers arrested Keanu Dude 13 days after the fire was started. Dude was arrested at approximately 2 p.m., July 23 and is being held in the San Carlos Adult Detention & Rehabilitation Center. Dude lives in the Gilson Wash District and is unemployed. Dude has a criminal history of assault, domestic violence, and other charges.

Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning.

The case remains under investigation.

It saddens me deeply that a member of our Tribe has been charged with starting this fire that devastated our community, said San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler. Arson is a senseless act that will never be tolerated under any circumstance. I am thankful for the swift and thorough investigation by tribal and federal law enforcement that has resulted in an arrest.

An arson investigation was initiated as the fire was still spreading by the San Carlos Apache Fire Investigation Task Force with the Tribes Game & Fish Rangers as the lead investigator. The Task Force included the FBI, the Tribes Forest Resources Fire Management team, the federal Complex Incident Management Team II - Southwest, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Police, and the Tribes Chief Prosecutor.

I would like to commend SCAPDs officers, Detectives, and the Tribes Game & Fish Rangers on how quickly they reacted and responded to this incident. Our priority is the safety of the community, SCAPD Chief of Police Elliot Sneezy said. We all worked around the clock together with our partners from other agencies. With the communitys help, we were able to come to a quick resolution. We will continue to support and pray for our community and its members affected by this tragedy.

The Watch Fire began as a small brush fire around 11 p.m., July 10. It erupted into an uncontrolled wildfire the next afternoon when high winds from a thunderstorm caused the fire to rapidly spread in all directions. The fire burned 2,162 acres, destroyed 21 homes and 13 auxiliary structures, forced the evacuation of more than 400 and left about 73 members of the Tribe homeless.

While thankfully no one was injured, many face extreme hardship, losing their homes and all their possessions and were left with only the clothes on their back, Chairman Rambler said. It is imperative that everyone in our Tribe work together to overcome this criminal act and rebuild our community better and stronger than ever.

The Tribe continues to seek funds for rebuilding homes and infrastructure. Monetary donations can be sent here.

About the Author: "Native News Online is one of the most-read publications covering Indian Country and the news that matters to American Indians, Alaska Natives and other Indigenous people. Reach out to us at editor@nativenewsonline.net. "

Contact: news@nativenewsonline.net
BEIRUT, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Two Hezbollah members were killed on Friday in an Israeli strike on a Lebanese village in southern Lebanon, Lebanese military sources told Xinhua.

The sources, who spoke anonymously, said that an Israeli warplane fired two air-to-ground missiles targeting the vicinity of the southeast village of Markaba in southern Lebanon, killing two Hezbollah members. The two killed men were Abbas Hussein Hammoud and Fadl Nour al-Din.

They added that a civil defense ambulance transported their bodies to a hospital in the border area, and several houses adjacent to the targeted point were damaged.

Military sources said that Israeli warplanes and drones carried out on Friday four raids on four towns and villages in the eastern sector of the border area, and Israeli artillery shelled nine towns and villages with about 45 shells, causing material damage and the outbreak of several fires that the Civil Defense worked to extinguish.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced in separate statements that air defense units fired anti-aircraft missiles at Israeli warplanes inside Lebanese airspace in the southern region, forcing them to retreat and withdraw behind the Lebanese border with occupied Palestine.

In this context, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon spokesman Andrea Tenenti expressed on Friday concern over the increasing intensity of the conflict across the borderline and the potential risks of a sudden, wider conflict that is difficult to control.

He called on all concerned parties to cease fire and return to the full implementation of Resolution 1701, which is ultimately the path to stability and peace.

He called on Lebanon and Israel to commit to UN Resolution 1701, which remains the most effective framework for addressing the current situation and working towards a long-term settlement of the conflict. 
The News

The technology hub of San Francisco, one of the last holdouts on the use of policing tools from drones to facial recognition, is beginning to get comfortable with the controversial methods.

The citys Board of Supervisors voted to ban facial recognition technology in 2019. But residents have been angered by what they see as a post-pandemic increase in crime, homelessness, and drugs, spurring lawmakers and voters to slowly back away from the anti-surveillance viewpoint. That has allowed law enforcement to experiment with the technology as the city deals with a significant shortage of police officers.

San Francisco will soon complete a rollout of 400 license plate readers made by Flock Safety that have the capability of notifying police immediately when a stolen or suspicious car enters the city limits, allowing them to apprehend suspects before they commit additional crimes.

Were on the late freight in using this technology, said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins in an interview with Semafor. This is a real game changer for a department that has not had any use of helicopters, drones, or these kinds of cameras. Theyve been old school, just cops chasing robbers, and we cant continue to move forward that way.

The shifts come as the citys place in the American imagination  as the home of the counterculture, the birthplace of the tech boom, and the poster child for downtown anarchy, all at once  reaches one of its periodic peaks.

In my hometown of San Francisco, Democrat rule has turned the streets of our beautiful city into a cesspool of open encampments and open drug use, the investor David Sacks told Republicans gathered in Milwaukee last week.

And as Vice President Kamala Harris moves closer to becoming her partys presidential nominee, her background as a former district attorney of the city will likely bring it even more into the conversation.

But San Francisco isnt immune from the national backlash against progressive policing and prosecutors.

On Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, himself a former San Francisco mayor, ordered state and local agencies to begin removing homeless encampments.

Even as San Francisco gets comfortable with surveillance technology, the DAs office and police are still deliberating on what is acceptable.

For instance, Jenkins said she has so far resisted the use of AI to write first drafts of police reports using bodycam footage. Im more of a proponent that we, as humans, need to be the ones sifting through what technology gathers for us, she said. I can cross examine a human witness or a human police officer to find out what sort of bias and other things may have played a role in an investigation. I cant cross examine software.

Jenkins has also banned the use of AI in the DAs office to draft legal documents.

But the office is planning to use the technology to redact documents for facts that may indicate a suspects race, so that prosecutors can avoid using that identifier in a decision on whether to charge a suspect.

Know More

The tide appeared to turn in 2022, when Supervisor Aaron Peskin sponsored a bill authored by Mayor London Breed that allowed law enforcement to use non-city owned camera footage to stop crime.

Peskin had been the sponsor of the 2019 bill that banned facial recognition. As the author of the legislation that created reasonable regulations for oversight of the Citys use of surveillance technology, the policy as amended endeavors to balance the publics civil liberties and right to privacy with practical logistics of enforcing the publics safety, he said at the time.

In March, San Francisco voters passed Proposition E, which allows the police department to use technology like drones and facial recognition for a year without getting approval from the board of supervisors.

I think there were a number of board members who either were running to retain their seats or who were planning to run for other offices that had to make a choice of whether they stood against what their constituents were wanting, said Jenkins.

The Flock Safety cameras have already been used to solve crimes, and Jenkins said her department is prosecuting a case where the license plate data could become evidence.

Flocks founder, Garrett Langley, started the company after his neighborhood in an Atlanta suburb fell victim to a string of organized burglaries. Despite a lot of Ring doorbell footage, a police major told him he couldnt do much with it and instead needed license plate data.

Langley called two friends at Georgia Tech and asked them to help him build a license plate reader, which he then installed in his neighborhood. A couple of months later, another break-in happened. Langleys reader singled out a license plate that hadnt been seen in the neighborhood before. Less than 12 hours later, the driver was arrested.

The device became the basis for Flock, founded in 2017 and now valued at $4 billion by investors like Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, and Kleiner Perkins.

The cellular-connected, solar-powered cameras constantly capture license plates and can flag police when they see a stolen car, or a car with a mismatched plate. When crimes occur, such as a kidnapping, the cameras can help police quickly apprehend the perpetrators.

Flock cameras create a vehicle fingerprint for a car. So even if a criminal removes or switches a license plate on a car, the cameras can still locate it in real time to solve or stop a crime.

But the key to winning the business of San Francisco and other privacy-conscious cities was Flocks customizable software that allows cities to adjust data retention policies and other privacy settings.

For instance, some cities might want to keep a database of license plates and locations indefinitely, which might help solve cold cases or aid in current investigations. Others, like San Francisco, opt for very short data retention time periods to protect against any possible abuse of the information.

We let the city decide what is societally enforced, said Langley in an interview with Semafor. Well build that technology and then hand it over to the city.

Reeds view

As the pandemic fizzled and things began to get back to normal, I started hearing from friends who live in San Francisco about how furious they were about the lack of law and order on the streets. Most of these friends had young kids and had horror stories about brushes with danger and exposure to things kids should never see.

I live on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco and when I take my kids into the city, I steer clear of certain areas. Its been fascinating to observe, from a safe distance, how these problems have turned some people who are normally on the far left end of the political spectrum toward more conservative views.

Even during the pandemic, the draconian measures taken by the city and the chaos that ensued in its public schools pushed some people I know in that direction.

And more recently, the reaction to the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, after which Jews in San Francisco endured ethnic slurs shouted at them and their children in front of synagogues during the High Holidays, have pushed even more people in the city away from the left.

San Francisco, as the district attorney pointed out to me, is one of the last cities to embrace the use of technology in law enforcement. That makes it a bellwether. If San Francisco is on board, the country is probably never going back.

But companies should look at San Francisco not as the last place they go to sell law enforcement tech, but the best proving ground: A place that is naturally skeptical, but newly open to it.

By working with lawmakers and law enforcement in San Francisco, tech companies can iron out privacy issues that some more aggressive cities might overlook.

Room for Disagreement

Pro-privacy groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation fought Prop E vigorously and have warned against the use of surveillance technology in crime fighting:

Across the country, police often buy and deploy surveillance equipment without residents of their towns even knowing what police are using or how theyre using it. This means that dangerous technologies  technologies other cities have even banned  are being used without any transparency, accountability, or democratic control, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote.

Notable

Its not just surveillance technology: San Francisco has been getting more conservative across the board, according to this Washington Post article from March.
SAN MIGUEL COUNTY, Colo. (KREX)  San Miguel and Dolores counties teamed up to recover a 21-year-old hiker who fell on the El Diente in Mt. Wilson.

San Miguel County Search and Rescue reported it found the Arizona man after searches on Tuesday and Wednesday in the El Diente, about 20 miles southwest of Telluride. When crews found the hiker, he was deceased.

According to the San Miguel County Sheriffs Office, the man fell around 800 vertical feet into the upper Kilpacker Basin while trying to navigate a challenging part of the traverse.

The mans remains were recovered and transferred to the Dolores County Coroner and Sherrifs Office staff on Wednesday.

On behalf of our SAR team and the sheriffs office, our condolences to the family, the San Miguel County Sheriffs Office 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 WesternSlopeNow.com.
Sayre man sentenced up to 5 years in prison for failing to update as a sex offender

ATHENS TWP, Pa. (WETM)  A Sayre man was sentenced to prison after documents from the Bradford County District Attorneys Office said he failed to update as a sex offender after changing addresses.

According to documents, 39-year-old Eric Trumbull was sentenced to a minimum of 27 months to Five years in a state correctional institution for the offense of failing to comply with registration of sexual offender requirements, a felony.

Waverly man sentenced on fraud charges after $700 stolen card shopping spree

Documents state that Trumbull is a former New York State resident, and was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse in Steuben County back in 2012. This conviction required him to register with state authorities as a sex offender but he failed to do so when he moved to Pennsylvania.

Athens Township Police arrested Trumbull in November of 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 WETM - MyTwinTiers.com.
Sayre man sentenced more prison time after causing $6,000 in damages to prison facilities

WEST BURLINGTON, Pa. (WETM)  A Sayre man was sentenced to more prison time after documents from the Bradford County District Attorneys Office claimed he caused thousands of dollars in damages to prison property.

Documents say that 49-year-old Patrick L. Ferro was sentenced to a minimum of 30 days to a maximum of 23 months and 29 days for the offense of criminal mischief.

Waverly man sentenced on fraud charges after $700 stolen card shopping spree

The release claims that Ferro, who was an inmate in the Bradford County Correctional Facility on unrelated charges when he destroyed a sink, toilet, and a camera, resulting in nearly $6,000 in damages back in October of 2022.

Ferro is required to pay back the damages as part of his sentencing, with documents noting that Ferro is currently awaiting sentencing on federal drug 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 WETM - MyTwinTiers.com.
Richland School District One Superintendent Craig Witherspoon addresses a report by the South Carolina inspector general Thursday, July 25, 2024, at the district's Columbia headquarters, which found the district had not followed state and local laws when it started construction of a new childcare center. (Jessica Holdman/SC Daily Gazette)

COLUMBIA  The South Carolina inspector general found a Columbia-area school district violated state and local laws, exposing itself to liability and wasting taxpayer dollars, when it started construction of a childcare center without the necessary approvals.

State Inspector General Brian Lamkin, in his report, referred to mismanagement by Richland School District One, but his offices investigation found no evidence rising to the level of criminal or fraudulent activity.

Now that the review is complete, district leaders said, the district will work with the state Department of Education in hopes of restarting work on the proposed Vince Ford Early Learning Center. The district was forced to pause construction on the project, located south of Columbia, earlier this year.

The Richland One Board of Commissioners and my administrative team at all times did our best to advance this much-needed project for our youngest childrens school readiness and at no time did we knowingly evade or ignore the rules for such projects, Richland One Superintendent Craig Witherspoon said in a statement.

While we acknowledge that there may have been misunderstandings early in the procurement and construction process, we stand by our unwavering commitment to ensure that we continue to meet the educational and developmental needs of children throughout the district, he added.

Yet, it may again find itself readjusting its plans.

Deeply concerned

The state inspector general launched his investigation in January at the request of state Superintendent of Education Ellen Weaver, who asked Lamkin to examine Richland One and everything related to the Vince Ford Early Childhood Learning Center, including its financing, procurement, and construction, according to a letter previously obtained by the SC Daily Gazette.

The 22,000-student district, which covers the center of the states capital city, broke ground on the $30 million center in February 2023, despite not having a building permit, according to the state education agency.

The groundbreaking came after months of infighting between school board members over whether the district actually had enough money to pay for the project. Richland One originally planned for the center to serve about 300 students between 6 weeks and 5 years old.

The district paused work on the center Jan. 19, 2024, after receiving a letter from Richland County Administrator Leonardo Brown issuing a stop work order. In the meantime, the district has racked up more than $352,000 in costs associated with security at the site and complying with state and federal environmental regulations regarding wastewater runoff.

The state Education Department, in a statement, said the inspector generals report validated the departments original concerns over Richland Ones violation of state law and wasteful spending.

Quoting from the report, the state agency added it is deeply concerned that the District exposed itself to wasteful expenditures, contractual liabilities, costs associated with project delays, reputation damage, and insurance issues.'

Witherspoon and Richland One School Board Chairman Aaron Bishop said the district will follow all guidance in the inspector generals report to get the project back into compliance.

We do want to make sure that we are responsible to our stakeholders, responsible to our neighbors and our children and our parents to make sure that we are doing this properly, Bishop told reporters in a news conference held just a half-hour after the reports public release.

But State Rep. Heather Bauer, whose district covers parts of Richland County and who urged Weaver to call for the inspector generals review, criticized the districts response to the report as downplaying the situation.

Those failures have real consequences in the form of wasted money that could be used to serve Columbias children, the Columbia Democrat said in a statement. The fact is the district broke the law and wasted money and the lack of remorse over that fact is stunning.

Building without a permit

Building permits for traditional schools are the purview of the state Department of Education.

But Richland Ones center did not qualify as a public education building because its not a K-12 school, according to a notice from the education agencys Office of School Facilities dated Dec. 15, 2023.

With that determination, the construction project fell back into the jurisdiction of Richland County. Still, the district never applied to the county for a permit, even as construction continued.

In response, the districts governing board in January voted to adjust plans for the center. Instead of a center for children starting at 6 weeks, it was changed to serve children from 3 years old to second grade to fit the description of school-age children, starting with preschool.

That still may not be enough, as the inspector general found. State law requires the Department of Social Service to license any childcare centers operated more than four hours a day by public school districts.

If the district ultimately is not able to address the county and state permitting issues, it will instead use the building for just kindergarten through second grade, Witherspoon said.

Even though there are already several elementary schools serving that area, the superintendent pointed to some 2,500 more homes being built in the area, which will increase the need for more classroom space for those grades.

Statewide implications

Beyond Richland One, the inspector generals report went on to say there could be statewide implications for other school districts childcare centers serving pre-kindergarten-aged children.

Thats because former agency heads at the education and social services agencies in the early 2000s had operated under an unwritten agreement that 3K and 4K programs at public schools did not require a license. As laws shifted, the agencies agreed the programs would be the purview of the education superintendent, according to the inspector generals report.

Under Weavers leadership, the education agency no longer plans to take on that responsibility, Lamkin wrote in his report.

In Richland One, that potentially puts more than 10 of the districts 52 pre-kindergarten programs out of compliance, having not been licensed. It is unclear how many other districts in the state may face this issue.

Lamkin recommended that the state Department of Social Services and Department of Education issue temporary guidance to all public school districts for the upcoming school year until the issue of which agency is responsible for oversight can be addressed by the state Legislature.
Rep. Jordan Pace during the budget debate in the S.C House on Tuesday, March 12, 2024 in Columbia. (Travis Bell/STATEHOUSE CAROLINA/Special to the SC Daily Gazette)

A freshman legislator from the Lowcountry is the new leader of South Carolinas uber-conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Rep. Jordan Pace, R-Goose Creek, was elected chairman of the caucus that launched in 2022, replacing Rep. Adam Morgan of Greenville County, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress.

Im deeply energized by the gains that weve made, Pace said Friday, when the caucus election results were announced. I think we have really, really good momentum.

He was referring to shifting debates further to the right over the last two years, rather than specific legislation.

The 2022 elections gave Republicans a beyond-supermajority in the House, with 88 of the chambers 124 seats. But House debates often get bogged down in a GOP civil war between Republicans in the majority and the hardline faction.

House Majority Leader Davey Hiott discounted Paces assessment.

The numbers dont prove that, the Travelers Rest Republican said of Freedom Caucus gains. Our majority is just as strong as it was two years ago.

Other than Pace, the Freedom Caucus other leadership remains from the Upstate, where the majority of members live.

Reps. Josiah Magnuson of Spartanburg County and April Cromer of Anderson County were elected co-vice chairs of the caucus. Magnuson, R-Fingerville, previously served as secretary, a role the caucus is dropping.

All 13 members of the caucus seeking re-election participated in last weeks vote, Pace said. The leadership change took effect immediately. The caucus will vote again in two years.

Four Freedom Caucus members did not run for re-election to the state House, including Morgan, who last month lost his bid to oust U.S. Rep. William Timmons in the 4th District.

Rep. Stewart Jones of Laurens, another founding caucus member, ran unsuccessfully for the 3rd District seat left open by the retirement of U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan. Jones placed third in the seven-way GOP primary.

The two other members exiting the chamber are Reps. David ONeal of Tega Cay and Ashely Trantham of Pelzer, who didnt seek higher office.

Despite the loss of four, the caucus will likely end up with 20 members after the November election, Pace said.

They may end up with slightly more than the number they started with in 2022.

Pace was among just two Freedom Caucus members who didnt face a primary opponent. He also has no Democratic opposition in November.

The House Majority Caucus tried to shrink the Freedom Caucus ranks in the June primary, while the Freedom Caucus sought to expand their numbers by working to help challengers oust GOP incumbents. Ultimately, all Freedom Caucus members defeated their challengers, while a few Republicans got ousted by challengers expected to join the GOP subset.

Thats exactly what got the Freedom Caucus booted from the majority after the November 2022 elections, when most caucus members refused to sign a new pledge not to work for GOP challengers. A couple of Republicans left the Freedom Caucus amid the kerfuffle to continue meeting with the majority.

Despite the caucus combative relationship with House leaders, Pace said the Freedom Caucus is open to working with anyone.

We get called a lot of names, but at the end of the day our platform is the Republican party platform, Pace said.

The focus of the caucus is conservative policy, not trying to poke anyone in the eye, he said.

Hiott scoffed at that too, saying video of floor debates show differently.

The Freedom Caucus celebrated big wins on the last day of the regular session May 9, as members procedural objections in the final hour managed to kill several bills advocated by GOP leaders in both chambers. That included proposals to streamline municipal elections and merge six agencies in an overhaul of the public health system.

Gov. Henry McMaster urged legislators to resurrect the health care bill in a special session. But that debate will have to start all over next year.
Scare in the air: Passenger recalls Tampa flight that plunged 150 feet above water

Scare in the air: Passenger recalls Tampa flight that plunged 150 feet above water

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  Passengers on a Tampa-bound flight say their trip took a terrifying turn when the plane came dangerously close to the water and the Courtney Campbell Causeway.

The plane dropped 150 feet above the water before being re-routed to Fort Lauderdale leading to an investigation into what happened.

I was concerned we were flying in a Tampa storm, so I opened my window, and when I opened my window. I was watching how we were approaching, we were coming around MacDill air force base and I know you cant fly over MacDill force base, it was just a unique approach, passenger Nancy Allen said.

Allens cell phone video shows the plane ascending back into the sky after trying to land in Tampa, and being redirected to Fort Lauderdale.

It was in that moment Allen she knew something was wrong.

I was feeling a little panic, at that moment I panicked, and I started texting my husband this is sketchy and I was texting him, abort, abort, Allen said.

Allen said she is relieved she landed safely. but still wonders about exactly what happened.

That was the worst flight I have been on in a really long time, Allen said.

Southwest Airlines issues a statement on the incident:

Southwest Flight 425 safely diverted to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on July 14 after the Crew discontinued their planned approach into Tampa International Airport. The aircraft returned to Tampa after a short time on the ground in Fort Lauderdale. Southwest is following its robust Safety Management System and is in contact with the Federal Aviation Administration to understand and address any irregularities with the aircrafts final approach. Nothing is more important to Southwest than the Safety of our Customers and Employees. Southwest Airlines spokesperson

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
SCHAUMBURG, Ill.  A Schaumburg man has been charged for allegedly shooting a tree trimmer working at his residence on Wednesday.

Michael Lang, 55, is facing charges of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm.

Officers responded to the 800 block of South Braintree Drive on the report of a shooting at around 2:50 Wednesday.

A 66-year-old man, of Hanover Park, working as a tree trimmer for Lang, was found laying in the front yard suffering from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. He was transported in critical condition and was stabilized, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Armed suspect in custody following hours-long standoff after tree trimmer found shot in Schaumburg

Police allege Lang began yelling at the victim and his three co-workers to leave after accusing them of making too much noise.

I told you to leave or one of you is going to die, Lang allegedly said, according to court documents.

The workers were in the process of gathering equipment when the worker was shot, according to police.

A SWAT situation then occurred until around 9:20 p.m.

According to court documents, during a 911 call  Lang said that someone keeps sending him messages from outer space.

Langs initial hearing is scheduled for Friday in Rolling Meadows.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has denounced the arson attacks on the French high-speed train network on the day of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games as unacceptable.

"This is something that is absolutely condemnable. To disrupt such a celebration of peace with acts of violence can never be accepted and demands the most resolute rejection," Scholz said on Friday during a visit to the German Embassy in Paris.

He hoped "that the French authorities will soon be successful in identifying the perpetrators."

Unknown persons had carried out arson attacks on several facilities on the French high-speed train network early on Friday. According to the railroad company SNCF, this led to severe disruptions.

Despite the incidents, Scholz said he is looking forward to the Olympic Games and wished the German team every success.

He hopes "that all the efforts of the last few years and the preparation for the competitions" will pay off for the athletes.

The most important thing, however, is "to be there and feel the whole atmosphere associated with this celebration of sport," Scholz said.

Only a few trains are on the tracks outside Gare Montparnasse station. A few hours before the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris, unknown persons have carried out arson attacks on several facilities on the French high-speed train network. Sebastian Kahnert/dpa

Franck Dubourdieu (C), Director TGV Atlantic, speaks to journalists. A few hours before the opening of the Olympic Games in Paris, unknown persons carried out arson attacks on several facilities on the French high-speed train network. Sebastian Kahnert/dpa
TOPEKA (KSNT)  The Shawnee Heights School District (USD 450) is searching for people who want to help kids get to and from school.

Before signing up for official training, job candidates can test drive one of the school buses. On Thursday, July 25 experienced bus drivers went with trainees around school grounds.

This effort gives potential drivers a taste of school day traffic in the hopes of filling a crucial need.

The most important thing is weve got to get the kids to school and we want to do that safely, said USD 450 support services director Nick Taylor. When we are able to hire some more staff, it benefits the regular drivers we have now.

High school students can ride Topeka buses for free for 2024-2025 academic year

The district says you can apply by clicking here.

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.
TOKYO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- At least two people died with multiple unaccounted for after heavy rain lashed parts of northeastern Japanese prefectures of Yamagata and Akita, triggering river flooding and landslides, local authorities said Friday.

An 86-year-old man is believed to have been carried away by the flooded Omono River in Akita Prefecture and was found dead Friday morning, while another man was reported missing at a construction site in Yuzawa in the same prefecture, police said.

Two police officers in their 20s in the neighboring Yamagata Prefecture were unaccounted for after being swept away in a police car, with one of them found and confirmed dead on Friday afternoon.

Yamagata prefectural police said it received an emergency call at around 11:45 p.m. local time on Thursday from one of the missing officers in the city of Shinjo, who had gone out to respond to a request for help, saying that the car they were in was being carried away by the water. The vehicle was later found half submerged.

The Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) said some 389 millimeters of rain had fallen in Yamagata's Shinjo in the 24 hours up to 6:30 a.m. local time on Friday, noting extremely unstable atmospheric conditions in the Tohoku region triggered the record-breaking downpours.

The JMA issued a second emergency warning of heavy rain for parts of Yamagata late Thursday, which was downgraded to a warning early on Friday. But the agency is calling on people to remain alert to possible river flooding and landslides. 
Middle school students at the district "participate in National Bullying Prevention Month" and take additional anti-bullying measures, a spokesman for the school says

Aubreigh Wyatt/TikTok: OSMS Aubreigh Wyatt, left, and Ocean Springs Middle School

The school district where Aubreigh Wyatt  who died by suicide at 13 years old in September 2023  attended has "numerous anti-bullying measures and curriculum," a spokesman for the district tells PEOPLE.

Aubreigh's name and story have spread far and wide on social media after her mother, Heather Wyatt, began posting TikToks about Aubreigh and shared her grieving process. But recently, Heather was ordered by a court to shut down her social media accounts after a lawsuit was filed against her by the parents of four teenagers claiming Heather had implicitly accused their children of bullying Aubreigh before her death, The Washington Post reported.

The court-ordered shutdown brought Aubreigh's name into the spotlight again as social media users and other popular TikTokers began posting messages of support for Heather.

Although Heather never named the four teenagers involved in the suit publicly, some of their names and information were shared widely on the internet along with purported texts between Heather and Aubreigh detailing the alleged bullying that took place while Aubreigh attended Ocean Springs Middle School.

In the parents lawsuit, they claimed defamation and slander, stating that their children were sent "revolting" messages, Newsweek reports. The outlet further reported that the parents said in their suit that an investigation by local authorities found Heather's bullying claims to be unsubstantiated.

Aubreigh Wyatt/TikTok Aubreigh Wyatt

On July 16, the parents dropped the lawsuit, according to a filing shared by Vicksburg News and reviewed by PEOPLE. Two days later, on Thursday, July 18, the Sun Herald reported that the judge overseeing the case also lifted the social media ban against Heather.



Related: Everything to Know About Aubreigh Wyatt's Death and Her Mom's Fight to Tell Her Story on TikTok

Trey Brennan, spokesman for the Ocean Springs School District, tells PEOPLE that initiatives to create "healthy relationship building" begin as early as elementary school.

"Our middle and high school students (7th-12th grade) also participate in National Bullying Prevention Month, and have school counselors assigned to each grade level to meet with students and provide them with appropriate resources," Brennan says.

Later, Brennan added: "OSSD has also partnered with several local and state organizations to provide additional mental health resources and anti-bullying initiatives. Through our partnerships with these organizations, we are able to provide our students with access to mental health therapists, televisits with counselors, and additional materials for bullying prevention and education. All of our schools have a Positive Behavior Specialist in-house, which is a licensed professional counselor or licensed clinical social worker, to work with all of our students."



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: Aubreigh Wyatt's Mom Speaks Out After Social Media Ban Lifted: 'You Guys Fought for My Baby When I Couldn't'

As for "future initiatives," Brennan also added that, "OSSD recognizes there are always ways to improve our procedures and methods for each student to be provided with a safe and successful learning environment. We are collaborating with other local school districts to launch a Hope Squad program for our students in grades 7-12. The program uses evidence-based methods for creating a sense of community and belonging for students, and trains them to serve as leaders for their peers to help improve school and community culture. We are hoping to launch this program sometime in the fall."

The district has also "worked to reassign duties internally and added support positions to allow for more face-to-face interaction between our students and counselors," Brennan says. "These changes will help provide our students and counselors with additional time and resources to develop relationships for both academic success and social wellbeing."



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.
The debate over how Georgia handles Advanced Placement African American Studies courses in high schools is heating up, with some lawmakers arguing that the course is not being treated equally.

State Rep. Jasmine Clark from Lilburn criticized the handling of the course by State Superintendent Dr. Richard Woods, stating that despite recent changes allowing the course to be taught this year, the issue remains unresolved due to uncertainties about AP credit recognition.

He didnt actually reverse the damage, Clark said.

On Tuesday, Woods announced that the state would not fund the AP African American Studies course for more than 4,000 students.

However, following a news conference from lawmakers on Wednesday and concerns raised by Gov. Brian Kemp, Woods agreed to funding for the course.

Despite this decision, districts must use the course code for a version that is not Advanced Placement.

The students are the ones that will be asked to take a college-level course and not given the credit for it, said Clark, emphasizing the issue of credit recognition.

Gwinnett County Schools canceled the AP class for this school year due to these concerns.

RELATED STORIES:

In a statement, a Department of Education spokesperson wrote, Use of the existing state course code allows districts to offer parts of or the entire AP African American Studies course, with state funding.

Daniel Herrera, a DeKalb County student, voiced his frustration over the situation, saying, The ruling in the past few days has created chaos in my schedule.

Herrera decided not to take the course this year because of the uncertainty.

Theyve set the precedent that history is the responsibility of the government to regulate, Herrera said.

Clark is advocating for the course to be treated like the 38 other AP courses available.

Theres absolutely no reason not to create an AP-specific code for AP African American Studies, she said.

Despite these concerns, DeKalb County Schools, Cobb County Schools, and Atlanta Public Schools have pledged to continue offering the course.

Some time after the interview, Herrera reached back out to Channel 2s Matt Johnson on Saturday and said that the class was added back to his schedule and he plans to take it this coming school year.

RELATED NEWS:
Crazy few weeks in American politics, huh?

With Joe Biden out and Kamala Harris in, the Democrats last-minute, presumptive presidential nominee will once again have to reckon with her controversial legacy combatting student absences  and their nationwide surge since the pandemic  as she faces off against Donald Trump between now and November.

Elected first as San Francisco district attorney and then California attorney general, Harris has offered her tough-on-crime bonafides on the newly forged campaign trail as an alternative to Trump, a convicted felon. Yet just five years ago, her signature education issue as Californias top cop  as she sometimes called herself  was seen as a liability.

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter

Harris at an Oakland elementary school in 2014 promoting new truancy rules. (Getty Images)

By portraying a crackdown on student truancy as a way to avert future criminals, Harris championed a California truancy law that set into motion a hold-parents-accountable approach that leveraged fines and jail time for chronic absences that are often the result of barriers including health problems and homelessness.

Parents, as a result, wound up behind bars. Such an outcome, Harris said during her failed presidential bid in 2019, was an unintended consequence.

Want more info on Harriss anti-truancy crusade? EdSource has you covered.

Fast forward to 2024: A coalition of education nonprofits launched a bipartisan effort last week to slash chronic absenteeism in half over the next five years, with one expert noting that punitive measures do nothing but burden families.

In the news

A Big Tech reckoning on child safety? Senate Democrats renewed efforts this week to pass the most sweeping tech industry regulations in decades, with the goal of formalizing new online privacy protections for children before their August recess. Taken together, two bills would ban companies from feeding content and targeted ads to teens with algorithms and hold tech firms to a duty of care to ensure their products dont harm kids. | The Associated Press

The White House isnt waiting for Congress to act. In new guidance, a Biden administration task force outlines strategies parents can use to ensure their children are using the internet safely. | Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force

Getty Images

From AllHere to where? The Los Angeles superintendent plans to appoint a task force to examine what went wrong  and how to move forward  after a company that built its $6 million AI chatbot went kaput. The task force will look into allegations that the company misused L.A. students data before it collapsed under financial strain. The allegations were first reported by yours truly. | Los Angeles Times

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho remains committed to the supposed AI revolution in education, but Los Angeles parents are urging the rhetorically high-flying schools chief to pump the brakes and focus on pressing issues including a literacy crisis and student homelessness epidemic. | LA School Report

New York educators must alert parents at least a week in advance of lockdown drills under new regulations that require the safety routines be conducted in a trauma-informed, developmentally and age-appropriate manner. | Chalkbeat

Ending forced disclosure: A new California law prohibits school districts from imposing rules that require teachers to notify parents when a student changes their gender identity. | Los Angeles Times

A Justice Department lawsuit alleges that employees at Southwest Key, a nonprofit that serves as the largest operator of shelters for unaccompanied migrant children, repeatedly subjected minors under its care to sexual abuse and harassment. | The New York Times

No qualified immunity: Three Honolulu police officers can be sued on excessive force allegations that stem from a 2020 incident in which the cops handcuffed and arrested a 10-year-old girl at her elementary school. No reasonable official could have believed that the level of force employed against the student was necessary, a panel of federal judges wrote in their decision. | Honolulu Civil Beat

A ransomware attack targeting the Pueblo, Colorado, school district led to a massive data breach that exposed the sensitive information of students over a 15-year period. | KKTV

The high cost of cyber crime: About two-thirds of K-12 schools were hit by ransomware in the last year, according to a new report by the cybersecurity company Sophos. Thats a significant decrease from 2023, when 80% were targets. But recovery costs have surged over the last year  from $1.6 million to more than $3.75 million. | Sophos

ICYMI @THE74

Emotional Support

Im pleased to announce that Mika has joined the School (in)Security team after an exhaustive, nationwide search. Im told that Mika  who was hired alongside The 74s new editor-in-chief Nicole Ridgway  offers extensive experience and sonar dish ears that detect news leads with unrivaled precision.

(Send Mika a news tip)
A 10-year enrollment forecast show a decline in students in the coming years, followed by a slight increase, but not reaching pre-pandemic levels. (Credit: Getty Images)

A state forecast indicates Florida schools will experience declining enrollment in five of the next six years, with the one positive year representing less than a 0.1% increase.

The student enrollment forecast from the state Office of Economic and Demographic Research predicts that 12,379 fewer students will attend traditional public schools during the 2024-2025 school year, a 0.5% drop from 2.366 million to 2.354 million.

The numbers do not include students receiving scholarships to attend nonpublic schools, home-based students, students in the juvenile justice system, and other groups.

The new school year will mark the fifth full school year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first year after the start of the pandemic, 2020-2021, the state saw 6.1% fewer students in school. Since then, enrollment has increased by 2.6% in 2021-2022 and 1.4% in 2022-2023.

According to forecaster Elisabeth Goodman, the enrollment during the most recent school year reflects a leveling out since the COVID-19 pandemic.

District-by-district forecasts

Some districts with notable forecasted changes in 2024-2025:

Broward Decrease from 194,838 to 191,855

Miami-Dade Decrease from 235,454 to 229,751

Hillsborough Decrease of 181,406 to 179,821

St. Johns Increase 49,137 to 50,192

St. Lucie Increase 37,315 to 39,315



What were seeing  is stabilization when it comes to students choosing which setting theyre going to be in, especially when it comes to district virtual and [Florida Virtual School], it looks like the students who were going to return to brick and mortar have, as we see, that they have stabilized in 2023-2024 relative to 2022-2023, Goodman said during a June estimating meeting.

Some of those students came back to the districts, but the number is not expected to rebound to pre-pandemic levels in the next 10 years, according to the forecast.

State forecasters within the Education Estimating Conference project that enrollment will increase by tenths of 1% annually between 2030 and 2035, the furthest the forecast extends. The 2034-2035 forecast foresees nearly 100,000 fewer students than pre-pandemic enrollment.

In that same time, Floridas population has grown from 21.5 million in 2020 to 23 million in 2024 and is projected to hit 25.7 million in 2034, well above pre-pandemic numbers.

Students have opted to attend private schools and charter schools at higher rates in recent years due to school choice programs enacted by the state Legislature and the governor that provide taxpayer funded scholarships for that purpose. These programs go toward tuition and other educational costs for students to attend private schools, or to be home schooled.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
A science-focused group that urged Mark Kelly to run for the U.S. Senate five years ago is now recommending him for the vice-presidential nomination.

The 314 Action Fund, a name intended to evoke the math formula for pi, added its backing to those seeking to elevate Kelly, who is an engineer and former astronaut.

Kelly, D-Ariz., is among those being vetted by Vice President Kamala Harris campaign as a possible running mate. He is believed to be a top contender, along with perhaps three Democratic governors, but there are other names under consideration as well.

Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is expected to make her pick before Aug. 7 to avoid potential ballot-access problems, most notably in Ohio.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at The American Federation of Teachers National Convention Thursday, July 25, 2024, in Houston. Harris is visiting Houston as she charges on with her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination after President Joe Biden announced he won't seek reelection.

Shaughnessy Naughton, the founder and president of 314 Action, called Kelly a champion for solving problems and getting things done. She also referenced his 2020 and 2022 election wins in a statement.

He knows how to win tough, competitive elections, turning Arizona from Red to Blue by defeating a formidable incumbent the first time and another Peter Thiel acolyte the second time, Naughton said. He uses facts, science, and data to make informed public policy decisions. He knows how to work across the aisle to get results for his constituents.

The organization said it plans to release an ad supporting Kellys possible candidacy in battleground markets next week on cable TV, digital screens and text messages.

It said it spent $3 million backing an effort to draft Kelly into the 2020 Senate race.

The Arizona Democratic Party also has endorsed Kelly for the vice-presidential slot on the ticket.

At least one vice-presidential possibility is facing formal pushback.

A group identifying itself as No Genocide Josh has posted a website by that name to make its case against Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Shapiro, who is Jewish, said two days after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel that it was not a moment to retreat from who we are, but to be proud of who we are, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. He has resisted calls for a ceasefire to Israels war in Gaza, the Inquirer said.

Shapiro has also been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him a failed leader and on Netanyahus watch the government took the eye off the security risk to Israel.

That isnt good enough for the group opposing him as a possible vice president. The group posted a long message thanking President Joe Biden for bowing out of the 2024 race and acknowledging that Harris will be the Democratic nominee.

It said that to win the trust of working-class, progressive and young voters Harris must commit to an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Israels war with Hamas.

The group rips Shapiro, without naming him, as draining enthusiasm from the left.

A VP nominee who has failed to support the rights of workers and immigrants, diverted public education funding toward for-profit entities, or restricted access to reproductive or gender-affirming care would risk losing the support of millions of working-class voters, the group wrote.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Science group backs US Sen. Mark Kelly in VP race
Kids float down French Creek; a sign stands near the city of Custer's treated wastewater discharge point along Flynn Creek. (Courtesy photos)

Kids float down French Creek; a sign stands near the city of Custer's treated wastewater discharge point along Flynn Creek. (Courtesy photos)

A voter-backed ordinance from Custer County that sought to stop the city of Custer from discharging treated wastewater into French Creek is invalid, the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The city requested a discharge permit from the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources in 2020. The city is working on an upgrade to its wastewater treatment facility, and chose to switch its discharge point to French Creek instead of rebuilding the discharge pipe used for Flynn Creek, which is the currently designated dump zone.

The upgrades are not yet complete.

A notice of the discharge permit application was published in a legal newspaper in late 2020. No one submitted comments during the 30-day comment window, and the department issued the permit in January of 2021.

Two years later, a group of locals organized a push to put an ordinance on the county books that would prevent the city from dumping into French Creek. The initiated measure passed 809-609 in June 2023.

It declared wastewater discharges into French Creek or any of its tributaries a public nuisance

The city did not alter its discharge plans.

French Creek Preserve Inc. filed a lawsuit, arguing that the legal notice of the permit hearing published in the Custer County Chronicle did not amount to actual notice of the permit application. The preserve wanted to force the city to follow the new ordinance upon completion of the treatment plant.

A circuit judge rejected the preserves argument, setting up a Supreme Court appeal. The justices heard oral arguments on the dispute in April.

The city won at the local level on the strength of a state law that says nothing which is done or maintained under the express authority of a statute can be deemed a nuisance.

The state department has the legal authority to grant permits by statute, the circuit judge ruled, so the county ordinance is unenforceable.

On Thursday, the state high courts justice agreed unanimously, handing a win to the city of Custer.

Because the Ordinance attempts to prohibit what state law permits, the Ordinance is preempted by state law and invalid, Chief Justice Steven Jensen wrote in the opinion.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
CHICAGO  Officers with law enforcement agencies involved in the planning of next months Democratic National Convention hit the neighborhoods that will be impacted by security measures on Friday to ensure residents know what to expect.

We are intentional about creating a plan that minimizes disruptions to the community as much as possible, said Joel Heffernan, the U.S. Secret Service assistant special agent in charge of the Chicago field office.

Heffernan said the outreach touched about 1,000 residents and business owners.

The security zones, identified Thursday, will establish hard and soft perimeters around the United Center and McCormick Place. That will include street and sidewalk closures in the days before the convention kicks off August 19.

DNC 2024 security zones and protest plans: What we know

This is a large event, but Chicago does large events all the time, whether its NASCAR, the marathon or events with hundreds of thousands of people, Glen Brooks with the Chicago Police Department said. We can handle this. This is something we regularly do and were looking forward to the convention.

Yet to be determined by a judge are the demonstration zones where citizens will be able to exercise their First Amendment rights.

More than 500 officers from other cities will assist Chicago police during the convention but wont patrol neighborhoods.

The patrolling in the neighborhoods, the patrolling around here in the downtown are going to be Chicago police officers, Brooks said. Thats our primary responsibility and we will fulfill it.

After Republicans hold their convention in Milwaukee in July, Democrats will host their nominating convention in Chicago August 19-22. Chicago has hosted Democrats 12 times, the last being nearly 30 years ago when President Bill Clinton was nominated for a second term.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Have you seen him? Charlotte teen has been missing since Monday

CHARLOTTE (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  Authorities are asking for the publics assistance in locating a 16-year-old boy from Charlotte who has been missing since Monday.

Linnex Sylvester is described as 52 tall, weighing 100 pounds with brown hair and eyes.

Missing Kannapolis teen rescued in Illinois where man was charged with sex abuse: Sheriff

Linnexs family is extremely worried for his wellbeing and want nothing more than to bring him home safely, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children said on Friday.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police at 704-336-7600.

This is a Developing Story . Check back 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 Queen City News.
MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG)  A Semmes man was arrested in connection with a 2023 attempted rape of an elderly woman, according to the Mobile County District Attorneys Office.

Mobile County sheriff fed up, says gang violence ignored for years

The DAs Office said in a press release that 45-year-old Elvis Dewayne Henderson was arrested this morning as officials with the Mobile County Sheriffs Office, Mobile Police Department, and the U.S. Marshals executed an arrest warrant on a secret indictment.

According to documents, Henderson was indicted in December 2023 for attempted rape, second-degree burglary, third-degree robbery, and second-degree elder abuse.

Prosecutors said the charges stem from an incident that occurred in June 2023 when Henderson allegedly broke into the home of an elderly woman and beat her in an attempt to sexually assault her.

Henderson was booked into the Metro Jail with the following charges and bond amounts, officials said:

$30,000 bond for the first-degree attempted rape charge

$20,000 for the second-degree burglary charge

$10,000 for the third-degree robbery charge

$20,000 for the elder abuse charge.

UPDATE: Alabama Attorney General clears fired Mobile Police Commander Kevin Levy

This kind of violence against our most vulnerable citizens will not be tolerated, says Keith Blackwood, Mobile County District Attorney. We will prosecute Mr. Henderson to the fullest extent of the 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 WKRG News 5.
SANAA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-British naval coalition launched three air strikes on Houthi-held Yemeni airport in the port city of Hodeidah on Friday, the Houthi-run al-Masirah TV reported.

The television did not provide further details.

Local residents said on social media that the strikes hit Houthi targets.

These airstrikes occurred shortly after four other strikes carried out by coalition forces targeted the Yemeni island of Kamaran in the Red Sea, as reported by the Houthi television.

There was no immediate comment from the coalition.

The armed Houthi group seized much of northern Yemen in late 2014, forcing the internationally recognized Yemeni government out of the capital Sanaa.

Since November last year, the Houthi group has been targeting ships linked to Israel with ballistic missiles and drones, to show solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

In response, the U.S.-British coalition in the area has since been targeting Houthi military sites to deter the group, which only led to an escalation of Houthi attacks. 
Sen. Mark Kelly addressed at least one possible concern this week that could affect his standing in consideration as Vice President Kamala Harris running mate: where he stands on labor unions.

Kelly, D-Ariz., told HuffPost on Wednesday that he would support a pro-union bill that has floated, inconsequentially, in Congress for years.

Kelly previously had expressed reservations about at least one provision of the bill but never signaled outright opposition to it. His view of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or PRO Act, takes on newfound importance as Democrats look to finalize their presidential ticket.

The bill is a significant measuring stick for labor unions that typically back Democrats even though it is unlikely to advance in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

As Kelly gets a lookover from Harris campaign, his biography as a combat pilot and astronaut help build the case for adding him to the ticket.

Find out more: 'This is not about me': What Sen. Mark Kelly is saying about VP speculation

He has solid support from some traditional Democratic-leaning blocs, such as conservationists and those supportive of gun-control policies. But to this point, traditional labor unions have not been his most prominent supporters.

John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union, told ABC News that it was unimaginable that Democrats would consider Kelly, citing the PRO Act as a top concern.

Why would the Democrats even consider a senator for the vice presidency if the senator doesnt support the PRO Act? Its the most important piece of national legislation workers have right now, he said.

On Wednesday, Kelly spoke in clear support of organized labor.

Unions loom large in our life, and Im supportive of the PRO Act, Kelly said.

I would have voted for it on Day 1, he said. I would vote for it today. I am, like a lot of legislation, working to make it better. But if it came to the floor today or any day going back to the day I was sworn in, I would vote for it.

Kelly has held owner or investor stakes in several businesses and has been a self-reliant entrepreneur for years. He was a registered Republican when he lived in Texas during his NASA career.

Its not the kind of background that suggests he would be the darling of organized labor. But, Kelly maintained that unions have always figured in his life.

My parents were both union members, Kelly said in reference to his upbringing in New Jersey to parents who worked as police officers. I come from a family of cops and firefighters, all union members. When I was younger at the Merchant Marine Academy serving on merchant ships, all union ships.

My mom, after she was injured, it was the union that got her her benefits, so I see the value of unions.

Kelly had mixed support from unions in his two prior Senate runs.

In 2022, for example, Fred Yamashita, the executive director of the AFL-CIO in Arizona, praised Kelly as a worker-friendly candidate.

Months earlier, Yamashita also pointed to news accounts of Kelly joining Sens. Kyrsten Sinema, who was then an Arizona Democrat, and Joe Manchin, who was then a West Virginia Democrat, sinking the nomination of a former Obama labor appointee to head the Labor Departments Wage and Hour Division under Biden.

I heard from a lot of business owners, and being somebody who started a business myself, its hard, Kelly told Politico at the time. There were concerns about how hed interpret things  and he had served in the position before, so theres precedent.

Yamashita could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.

Israel Torres, the spokesperson for the Arizona Building and Construction Trades Council that represents 14 unions and 15,000 workers, said Kelly is somebody we can work closely with.

Hes a pragmatist and we havent seen eye-to-eye on every issue, Torres said. But hes surely been someone to roll his sleeves up and fight for what he thinks is important, and weve found that more often than not to be very consistent with labor needs.

That is most evident in the construction demands for the $20 billion expansion of Intels semiconductor plants and the $65 billion construction of the TSMC facilities. Both projects are part of the semiconductor manufacturing push at the heart of the CHIPS and Science Act that Kelly helped shape.

Hes been on the front line willing to ensure that the spirit of the (Biden) administrations support for workers has trickled down to workers in Arizona, Torres said.

Kelly supported raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour in early 2021, when he knew he would be back on the ballot in 2022. The issue came up as part of a COVID-19 relief package in the early days of the Biden administration.

Ive spoken to folks that try to survive ... on minimum wage, try to raise a family. Its nearly, its impossible, Kelly said after an inspection of Luke Air Force Base. I mean, you cant work 40 hours a week on minimum wage and raise a family and have a decent standard of living.

The proposal is $15, that makes sense. The details of how we do this  when we do this  that all matters.

Kellys 2022 Republican opponent, Blake Masters, said Kelly was beholden to the Teachers Unions but it was because Kelly supported school closures during the pandemic.

When Kelly held a news conference in Phoenix to celebrate his projected victory over Masters, he did so with dozens of union workers behind him.

Last year, Kelly said he supported the nomination of Julie Su to permanently head the Labor Department. His support came when her confirmation prospects already looked doomed. She continues to serve as the acting secretary.

Before taking a post in the Biden administration, Su served in a pair of labor-related positions under Democratic governors in California. Her record there raised concerns that she supported labor provisions out of step with federal rules. Her supporters have said her job was to enforce the rules California adopted.

According to Open Secrets, a nonpartisan watchdog tracking money in politics, Kelly has received about $673,000 from those in labor-related fields since entering politics in 2019.

By comparison, those with miscellaneous business-related backgrounds have given him $6.5 million, the organization found.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mark Kelly supports the PRO Act. Why it matters to his VP prospects
TOPEKA (KSNT)  The Senate Luxury Suites hotel in downtown Topeka is shuttered after the city condemned the property on July 24.

City of Topeka spokeswoman Rosie Nichols said the building was vacant but the city received multiple complaints of activity at the location. City Property Maintenance Unit (PMU) inspectors received a complaint on July 22 and, with permission from the property owner, closed the building off, ensuring the doors and windows were locked and secured.

Nichols said there were two property maintenance investigations of the hotel this year. One was for weeds, the other was for sanitation. The building was condemned due to a lack of utilities.

Senate Luxury Suites at 900 SW Tyler St.







Nichols said the cost to close off the property will be billed to the property owner.

What are anti-photo license plate covers? Are they legal in Kansas?

According to Shawnee County appraiser documents, the 28-suite property built in 1928 is owned by H2O Hospitality LLC. The propertys appraised value has steadily been increasing since 2021.

In 2021, the propertys appraised value was $852,180. The property value increased in appraised value to $1,066,500 by 2023. This year the property saw a $8,550 decrease in the appraised value.

According to a City of Topeka letter stapled to the door of the property, the property was determined to be unsafe for humans due to non-compliance with plumbing and plumbing fixtures requirements. The letter also outlined violations for entering the property that would constitute as criminal trespassing and could see fines of $1,000 or confinement for up to six months.

Nichols said the Topeka Police Department has received 24 calls to the address this year. The call types were:

Call Type Count Assault 1 Burglary 4 Disturbance 5 Miscellaneous 1 Suspicious Person 5 Suspicious Vehicle 1 Theft 1 Unsecured Building 2 Unwanted Subject 4

Will Heartland Motorsports Park stay a race track?

As of July 26, the hotels website has been abandoned. 27 News attempted to call the publicly listed phone numbers for the property but the lines had been disconnected.

PMU inspectors will continue to monitor the property and report any criminal activity to law enforcement, Nichols said. The same actions would be taken if an owner didnt respond, but more attempts to make contact would be made.

For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News.
The legislation introduced by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, along with Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, has been endorsed by several environmental organizations. (Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images)

U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine introduced legislation Thursday that would solicit experts to issue periodic health guidance and clinical recommendations on PFAS, a class of harmful, man-made chemicals.

PFAS  or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances  are widely used in industrial and consumer products for their water- and stain-resistant properties. They are widespread throughout New Hampshire and have had acute impacts in the southern part of the state with contamination from Pease Air Force Base and French manufacturer Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics.

The bipartisan bill  by Shaheen, a Democrat, and Collins, a Republican  has been endorsed by several environmental organizations, according to Shaheens office, including the local groups Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water and Testing for Pease.

U.S. Reps. Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat, and Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, introduced a companion bill in the House in December.

As we continue to learn about the health impacts caused by PFAS exposure, its critical that health care providers have the most up-to-date guidance so they can best care for their patients, Shaheen said in a statement. As we continue to address PFAS contamination in the Granite State, and across the country, this bipartisan legislation would take an important step toward keeping Americans healthy by requiring regular updates to clinician guidance.

Laurene Allen, co-founder of Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water, said eight years ago communities surrounding Saint-Gobain learned they had an estimated 10 to 15 years of exposure to types of PFAS chemicals  chemicals that were tasteless, odorless, and very disruptive to the endocrine system and every system in your body, basically, she said.

What was missing back then, which still were trying to get in place, is health guidance and physician guidance, Allen said. Its been an ongoing challenge.

Getting the State House to approve legislation that connects exposure to health outcomes has been difficult, she said.

Bills over the years that have been on this particular topic have been defeated or sent to committee for further study, she said, and then they go nowhere.

In January, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry updated clinical guidance on PFAS for the first time since 2019.

If this bill becomes law, it would give the agency director 60 days to enter into an agreement for the work to be conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine or, if they decline, another appropriate entity.

Within two years, that entity would be required to complete an initial assessment and formulate recommendations on the health effects of PFAS that can be measured in human tissues. Those recommendations would be updated every five years or more frequently if determined necessary by the agency director based on an assessment of the science.

In crafting these assessments, the experts would be required to engage with and solicit feedback from PFAS exposed communities about their experiences with exposure, testing, and clinical follow-up.

Within five years of entering into the agreement, the experts would also have to issue up-to-date clinical guidance on addressing the health effects of PFAS, make that guidance available on the agencys public website, and disseminate the guidance to state and local health authorities and relevant health care professionals. This would also have to be updated at least every five years.

Research has linked PFAS to a number of health problems: high cholesterol, weakened immune systems, decreased fertility, increased blood pressure in pregnant women, developmental problems in children, and prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers.

Almost all Americans have measurable amounts of PFAS in their blood, the agency has found. They have even been found in measurable amounts in newborns whose mothers have been exposed to the chemicals, a study led by Emory University found.

If we dont talk about health, and we dont talk about the proper guidance that people need, were not supporting public health, Allen said. Environmental health is a significantly overlooked portion of public health.
Gov. Wes Moore signs an executive order June 17 to pardon 175,000 misdemeanor cannabis convictions. Photo by William J. Ford.

With a stroke of his pen, Gov. Wes Moore last month pardoned 175,000 individuals for prior cannabis offenses from his office in Annapolis, the Sailing Capital of the United States. His executive action will help many Marylanders with prior convictions navigate the criminal justice systems uncharted waters.

In 2022, Maryland embarked on this journey by creating an expungement process  sealing criminal records permanently  for individuals with cannabis-related offenses. During the 2023 session, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle went a step further by reducing the waiting period for filing an expungement petition for many other nonviolent misdemeanors after individuals have completed their sentences and any mandatory supervision.

These measures were critical advances toward a comprehensive course correction for improving the states criminal justice system. Unfortunately, the narrow scope of these laws means that many other former justice-involved residents are struggling to chart a new course in life.

Now lawmakers need to take the helm and steer the state toward even greater opportunity.

Currently, Maryland allows for petition-based sealing of certain criminal records after a defined period of time has elapsed. This means an individual must hire legal representation, attend relevant judicial proceedings, and pay relevant costs to have their records expunged. Adopting a Clean Slate policy would address many of these challenges.

Clean Slate laws simply automate the process so an individual no longer needs to hire a lawyer, attend judicial hearings, and there is no cost to the individual whose record is expunged.

Its currently estimated that 1 million adults in Maryland have a criminal record, and 410,000 of those adults could benefit from a Clean Slate law. While the majority of states, including Maryland, offers petition-based record sealing, reports have found that fewer than 2% of eligible individuals take advantage of this opportunity because of the rigors of navigating the convoluted and costly process.

In many cases, these records do not stem from violent or serious offenses, but from the growing impact of overly punitive laws that criminalize mental illness, poverty and substance use. Regrettably, these nonviolent criminal charges and convictions anchor these individuals to a past with little means to obtain a productive and positive future.

Moreover, individuals who were never convicted but only charged or arrested can be adversely impacted. These marks remain on an individuals permanent record and hinder their ability to earn a living and provide for themselves and their families. Without the opportunity to obtain employment and earn sufficient wages, individuals are increasingly likely to reoffend.

A Clean Slate policy would set Maryland on a voyage to automatically clear certain criminal records after a rehabilitation period. This effort would help individuals secure stable employment, housing and educational opportunities. In fact, research has found individuals whose records are sealed can more easily secure employment and are more likely to remain above board.

Its no wonder nearby states, like Virginia, Delaware and Pennsylvania have successfully undertaken this journey by adopting laws that automate record sealing at no cost to the individual.

Removing these barriers extends benefits not only to those who have records sealed, but it will also prevent the states economy from running aground. Reports have found the national economy is deprived of approximately $87 billion annually by excluding individuals with arrest and criminal records from employment. Regrettably, its taxpayers who are left moored to the fiscal and social costs.

But, lets not overlook the public safety costs of relying solely on a petition-based system. According to existing research, when those with previous arrests and convictions secure gainful employment it corresponds to an ebbing of criminal activitymaking communities safer.

Opponents may argue that its too complicated to automate the record sealing process, but if that were true, then more than one-fifth of states would not have embarked on this voyage. Additionally, there have been concerns expressed that expunging records will undermine safety, but the evidence proves otherwise as they can still be accessed for public safety purposes, such as when an individual seeks to purchase a firearm or work in law enforcement.

Moores pardon has unfurled the sails for many Maryland residents anchored by past cannabis offenses. However, the journey toward true progress within the criminal justice system requires more than a pardonit demands a compass to navigate the choppy waters of the justice system. A compass that points towards a comprehensive Clean Slate policy. Maryland lawmakers must climb aboard, take the helm, and head towards calmer seas where their constituents are not left adrift by their past mistakes.
The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) announced multiple road closures across the state due to ongoing wildfires.

The closures affect several major highways as fire crews work to contain the blazes.

SR 20 North Cascades Highway is closed in both directions near Rainy Pass, between mileposts 148-157, due to the Easy Fire. Fire crews are actively creating a fire line to protect the roadway.

US 12 is also closed in both directions from the summit of White Pass (MP 151) to the junction of US 12 and Highway 410 (MP 185) because of the Retreat Fire, with downed power lines and burning logs blocking the highway.

Additionally, SR 14 is closed from Frontage Road (MP 133) to Alder Creek (MP 149) due to smoke from the Big Horn Fire.

SR 21 is closed from Keller Ferry (MP 106) to Cache Creek Road (MP 123) because of the Swawilla Fire. The Keller Ferry has resumed limited operations to assist with evacuations, running from the north landing only.

Travelers are advised to expect delays and use the WSDOT mobile app or real-time travel map for updates.

WSDOT urges everyone to follow road closure signs and avoid the closed areas to allow fire crews to work safely. The department also reminds the public to take precautions to prevent additional fires, such as avoiding dragging tow chains or parking on dry grass and not discarding cigarette butts.
Convicted sex offender Kevin Gray will not be released to a housing unit in Turlock. The ruling came after a motion was filed that argued the location was not suitable because of a nearby home-schooled student, the Stanislaus County District Attorneys Office announced.

Kevin Gray, 72, was set to be released as part of the state of Californias conditional release program (CONREP) for sexually violent predators. However, the motion filed by the DAs Office, fueled by public outcry and condemnation from public officials, prevented that from happening.

We would like to thank the community for their assistance and the nearly 1000 emails we received offering input into the proposed placement, read a statement from the DAs office.

Gray was convicted of four separate sex crimes against children ages 11 and younger. However, hes admitted he was not prosecuted for most of his crimes, which he said included fondling 50 young girls and indecently exposing himself to 1,000.

Gray has been incarcerated since his last conviction in 1992. After his sentence was served, he was sent to a state hospital in Coalinga. While at the state hospital, Gray underwent treatment and numerous psychological evaluations. According to these evaluations, Gray was qualified to be released through CONREP.

The DAs Office filed two motions  one to prevent Gray from being housed in a unit off Central Avenue and another to completely block his release. The motion to prevent Gray from being housed in Turlock was approved. However, the motion to completely block his release from the Coalinga hospital was denied, according to the DAs Office.

DA investigators found that a child is being home-schooled near the proposed location of Grays release, which was reportedly not found by Liberty Healthcare during its initial assessment of the property. Liberty is the only organization in California that facilitates CONREP.

Grays blocked release came in tandem with the release of another convicted pedophile, Timothy Weathers. Between Gray and Weathers, they have admitted to molesting more than 70 children, according to the DAs Office. Both are diagnosed with pedophilia disorder.

The pair were to be released to the same location. The argument against Weathers release was that the converted barn where he was to be housed was deemed uninhabitable by county inspectors.

Because the motion to not place Gray in Turlock was granted but the motion to completely block his release was not, it could mean that either, or both, men could be released in the area in the future. While the search for a new location would be kicking the can down the road, District Attorney Jeff Laugero said the effort to prevent Gray being placed at the Turlock location was in the interest of public safety.

Both Weathers and Grays cases were put over, to allow time for their attorneys to appeal the judges decision.
The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned the acting Russian charge d'affaires following the intrusion of Shahed drones into Romanian airspace.

Source: European Pravda with reference to Romanian news agency Agerpres

Details: The Romanian Foreign Ministry expressed a strong protest to the Russian diplomat regarding the wreckage of Shahed drones falling on Romanian territory and condemned the repeated Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

The Romanian side also emphasised the recklessness of military strikes, including those in close proximity to Romanias border, which threaten national security.

Background:

Earlier, Romania scrambled F-16 fighters due to a Russian attack on Ukraine's south using Shahed drones. Specialists were also sent to inspect the area around the village of Plauru located just opposite the Ukrainian city of Izmail, as drone wreckage might have fallen there.

The Romanian Ministry of Defence later confirmed that wreckage identified as parts of Russian Geran-1/2 drones was found in one of three areas designated as possible crash sites.

Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk reported that three Russian drones had entered Romanian territory.

NATO, following the discovery of the wreckage of Russian drones in Romania, stated that there had been no information about a "deliberate attack" on NATO territory.

Support UP or become our patron!
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who is considered a possible running mate for Vice President Harris, is set to kick off a weekend campaign blitz for her Saturday.

The Weekend of Action Volunteer Kick-Off with Governor Josh Shapiro will take place Saturday morning in Carlisle, Pa., which is outside of Harrisburg. Shapiro will be joined by Harris for President volunteers from central Pennsylvania.

The Harris campaign noted she has received unanimous endorsement from the 159 delegates in Pennsylvania, which is a critical battleground state. Shapiro has been floated as a top pick for Harriss running mate, and he is seen as a rising star in the party.

Saturday marks 100 days before Election Day, and the Harris campaign is holding other events to mark it.

Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff will headline a canvass launch for Harris and Democrats in Stevens Point in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) will join other Harris surrogates and volunteers for a canvassing kickoff ahead of former President Trumps rally in St. Cloud, Minn.

Harris, meanwhile, will hold a fundraiser in Pittsfield, Mass., which will reportedly include appearances from musicians James Taylor and Yo Yo Ma.

And, on Tuesday, Harris will hold a campaign rally in Atlanta, making her sixth visit to swing state Georgia this year.

Harris announced her intention to seek the Democratic nomination Sunday and, since then, has made gains in critical swing states compared to President Bidens polling. A survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill on Thursday found Harris trailing Trump in key battleground states but by smaller deficits than Biden was facing.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.
Gov. Josh Shapiro signed into law a bipartisan budget for fiscal year 2024-25 on Thursday, July 11, 2024. (Commonwealth Media Services photo)

Thrust into the national limelight as a leading candidate to become Vice President Kamala Harris presidential running mate, Gov. Josh Shapiro is brooking criticism from groups that both support and oppose expanding public funding for alternatives to traditional public schools.

Since his campaign for governor two years ago, Shapiro has said he backs an expansion of Pennsylvanias programs using tax dollars to help families pay for educational expenses, including private and religious school tuition.

But after President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that he would not seek reelection and support for Harriss nomination solidified, Shapiros credentials as a moderate Democrat with a record of success at several levels of government and strong appeal in a crucial swing state put him into the running as a potential vice presidential pick.

In response, political groups that oppose Shapiros school choice policies or say he hasnt made good on campaign promises have taken their messages to a national audience.

The conservative Commonwealth Foundation is airing a television ad starting this weekend in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., media markets that flips Shapiros Get S**t Done slogan on its head, claiming Shapiro Aint got s**t done.

The ads are critical of Shapiros record, claiming hes the least effective Pennsylvania governor in 50 years, but highlight Shapiros decision to veto a Republican plan to fund private school scholarships for students in the states lowest performing public schools.

The group has also published full-page ads in The Washington Post and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel during the Republican National Convention and plans to run the ad in the Chicago Tribune during the Democratic National Convention next month.

Certainly hes in the spotlight right now and were going where the attention is, Commonwealth Foundation Senior Vice President Erik Telford told the Capital-Star.

Ever since he was forced to veto his own promise  his rhetoric has shifted to pointing fingers to the legislature and saying he has to deal with a divided legislature, Telford said that in addition to vouchers, Shapiro has not delivered on commitments to speed reductions in the states corporate net income tax or negotiate an alternative to a challenged regional carbon credit trading agreement.

A grassroots coalition of public education advocates led by the Network for Public Education Action (NPE) released an open letter to Harris this week urging her not to choose Shapiro and claiming that he supports education policies mirroring Project 2025, the conservative presidential transition plan promoted by the Heritage Foundation.

Among the more than two-dozen groups that signed the letter are Pittsburgh-based 412 Justice and its education justice arm Education Rights Network.

Carol Burris, executive director of NPE, said Shapiros support for expansion of the programs that currently divert public money to pay for private education is puzzling when support for public education is a core value for Democrats.

Shapiro nonetheless has refused to engage in discussions or back away from support for vouchers when allies have asked, Burris said.

Kamala Harris has a deep bench to choose from, Burris told the Capital-Star. All of them are stalwart allies and friends of public education and all of them are opposed to vouchers.

Asked for Shapiros most recent position on vouchers, a spokesperson touted the administrations achievements in public education funding increase in the 2024-25 state budget.

In his time in office, Governor Shapiro has consistently delivered historic increases in public education funding and finally, after decades of inaction, moved Pennsylvania towards adequately and equitably funding our public schools, spokesperson Manuel Bonder said in a statement. Despite being the only Governor in the nation with a divided legislature  and despite bad faith attacks from all sides  Josh Shapiro has been a champion for public education and delivered real results.

Bonder noted that Shapiro has increased support for public education in the last two budgets, including the largest investment in state history with a $1.1 billion increase in total K-12 funding.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

During the 2022 gubernatorial campaign Shapiros positions on education cast a stark contrast with those of his Republican opponent, state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R-Franklin), who spoke about drastically reducing per-student funding and eliminating property taxes, upon which school districts depend for much of their budgets. A group of school board members from across the state called Mastrianos plan dangerously out of touch with the vast majority of Pennsylvania parents.

Shapiro, then-attorney general, touted his backing of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the state that resulted in the historic 2023 ruling that declared Pennsylvanias education funding system unconstitutional. He called for increased spending on public education while backing legislation to provide Lifeline Scholarships to students in the bottom 15% of schools based on reading and math scores.

While Shapiros support for the scholarship proposal surprised some, it also had support from Democratic Philadelphia state lawmakers Sen. Anthony Williams and Rep. Amen Brown. And although the state teachers union opposed Lifeline Scholarships, it still endorsed Shapiro as governor.

When Senate Republicans included the scholarships, then rebranded as the Pennsylvania Award for Student Success, in their response to Shapiros first budget proposal in 2023, House Democrats, who fiercely opposed the program, killed it. Finger pointing ensued and Shapiro said Republican Senate leaders had failed to negotiate with Democratic House leaders. Shapiro then agreed to veto the $100 million line item to obtain the Houses approval of the spending bill.

The most recent budget, which Shapiro signed July 11, does not include the new voucher program, although it includes a $75 million increase for two existing tax credits for businesses and individuals who fund scholarship programs for students to attend public schools.

Burris, of the Network for Public Education, said there is concern among public school advocates that Shapiros support for a voucher program stems from ties with conservative mega donor and school choice advocate Jeff Yass. Spotlight PA reported Shapiro received contributions from a political action committee funded by Yass before and during his first campaign for attorney general in 2016

If none of this is true, Shapiro needs to make a statement that he is not in support of vouchers, Burris said.

(This article was updated on Monday, July 29, 2024, at 4:15 p.m. to correctly state that state Sen. Anthony Williams has expressed support for school vouchers.)

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
Sharks tested positive for cocaine off the coast of Brazil: Why does it matter?

Thousands of beach goers pack Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2014. A recent study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment confirmed that sharks off the coast of Brazil were found with traces of cocaine in their systems. | Felipe Dana

A recent study published in the journal Science of the Total Environment confirmed that sharks off the coast of Brazil were found with traces of cocaine in their systems.

The study, titled Cocaine Shark: First report on cocaine and benzoylecgonine detection in sharks, covered the details of the positive drug tests in Brazilian sharpnose sharks.

While scientists are still teasing out the implications of this finding, per the Smithsonian Magazine, experts are becoming concerned with the environmental effect of illegal human drug use.

The affected sharks

Thirteen Brazilian sharpnose sharks were tested off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, according to CNN. The species was chosen for its small size and coastal habitat.

Cocaine was found in the liver tissue of all of the sharks, with three times as much found in the muscle tissue of each shark. Additionally, female sharks had higher cocaine concentrations in muscle tissue compared to males.

We were actually dumbfounded, Rachel Ann Hauser Davis, a biologist and co-author of the study, told The New York Times. We were excited in a bad way, but its a novel report. Its the first time this data has ever been found for any top predator.

The animals indicated a chronic exposure to cocaine. According to the BBC, the concentrations of the drug were as many as 100 times the amount found in other aquatic animals.

Scientists speculate that cocaine is finding its way into the water through illegal labs or through drug users excrement. There is also a possibility that packs of the drug are being be lost or tossed by traffickers at sea.

Dr. Hauser Davis shared with The New York Times that wastewater treatment plants cant filter substances like cocaine very effectively, dumping them into the ocean instead.

A future threat?

Scientists are not totally sure what the side effects may be for sharks and other marine wildlife that have ingested cocaine.

In a joint statement, co-authors of the study Mendes Saggioro and Rachel Ann Hauser Davis said that previous research shows the harm that can be done to fish and mussels by the drug.

It is probable, although not yet proven that exposure would have deleterious physiological effects on the sharks, they said, per CNN.

According to NPR, a study done in 2018 found that cocaine-exposed eels had trouble mating. Environmental engineer Tracy Fanara told NPR about the potential other potential effects and sharks and marine wildlife.

Exposure to recreational drugs can slow down their processes to the point where they miss migration periods that are essential for the survival of their species, she said.

Fanara, who also led a research team for a documentary called Cocaine Sharks, told The New York Times that cocaine is only a small part of a bigger problem.

Cocaine gets people interested, she said. But we have antibiotics, antidepressants, pharmaceuticals, sunscreen, insecticides, fertilizers. All of these chemicals are entering our ecosystem.
NAIROBI, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The livestock trade in Eastern Africa saw a significant increase in the second quarter of 2024, driven by robust demand in the Middle East, according to a joint report released on Friday by two United Nations agencies.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP), traders in the region exported 204,000 goats, 57,000 cattle, 28,000 camels, and 6,000 sheep to the Middle East during the quarter.

"This total livestock trade marks an increase of 16 percent, 21 percent, and 106 percent than the first quarter of 2024, the second quarter of 2023, and the five-year second quarter average, respectively," the agencies said in the report.

Since 2023, the Middle East livestock market has continued its recovery after the COVID-19 lockdown, the institutions said, noting that in Eastern Africa, livestock herd sizes have continued to improve due to favorable pasture and water conditions following droughts that ended in 2022, therefore boosting exports.

"Notably, the supply of goats, cattle, and camels from Ethiopia to Somalia for domestic use and re-exports exceeded the average, as were most livestock exports from Somalia to Kenya and Uganda to South Sudan," the agencies said.

According to the East African Community Secretariat, the region is Africa's largest exporter of livestock, making the sector a significant income generator for pastoralists, processors, and governments in the region. 
Sheriff's office knew about Sean Grayson's DUIs. Were there any other red flags?

SPRINGFIELD, Ill.  A former Illinois sheriff's deputy facing murder charges for shooting a woman in the face in her home was the subject of two driving under the influence charges, one while enlisted in the U.S. Army, records show.

A sheet in Sean P. Grayson's personnel file, obtained by The State Journal-Register, part of the USA TODAY Network, through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, listed "misconduct (serious offense)" as his reason for separation from the Army on Feb. 27, 2016. An online record of the Aug. 10, 2015, DUI in Girard, Illinois, about 40 minutes southwest of Springfield, listed Grayson's address as Fort Junction, Kansas.

Grayson was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, among other places.

Grayson's former first sergeant, in writing a recommendation letter for him for the Auburn Police Department, noted that "aside from Mr. Grayson's DUI, there were no other issues that he had during his tenure in the U.S. Army."

Grayson faces five counts in connection with the July 6 fatal shooting of Sonya Massey, 36, a Black woman, who was shot in the face in her home in an unincorporated area of Woodside Township after making a 911 call.

The chaotic and sometimes gruesome video, released to the public on Monday, has caused international outrage. President Joe Biden weighed in on the release of the footage earlier this week, saying: "Sonyas family deserves justice."

In a news conference earlier this week, civil rights attorney Ben Crump said the Justice Department opened an investigation

Grayson pleaded guilty in 2 DUI cases

Grayson, 30, who lived in Riverton, pleaded not guilty on Thursday and remains in custody. He was fired from the department by Sheriff Jack Campbell last Wednesday after being indicted by a Sangamon County grand jury.

Jeff Wilhite, a spokesman for Sangamon County, said the sheriff's office knew about both DUIs. The second DUI, also in Girard, occurred on July 26, 2016. Grayson pleaded guilty in both cases.

Campbell, in a statement emailed Wednesday afternoon, said the sheriff's office "understood that the serious misconduct referenced (in Grayson's Army personnel file) was a DUI."

Asked on the employment application for the Auburn Police Department if he had ever been "convicted of, charged with or (was) currently awaiting trial for any crime greater than that of a minor traffic offense to include driving while intoxicated," he answered, "No, I have only been arrested and charged for DUI."

According to his personnel file and the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board, Grayson's first employment as a police officer, working part-time, was in Pawnee in August 2020.

Grayson was simultaneously working at the Kincaid Police Department, also part-time. But in his file, he said he left after three-and-a-half months because his hours were cut and he didn't want to move closer to the Christian County community, a demand of his employment.

Grayson caught on with the Virden Police Department in May 2021 and lasted through the end of the year. He left Pawnee in July 2021 to go to Auburn full-time.

The personnel file didn't include any reprimands.

Massey's father critical of Grayson hiring

Grayson went to the Logan County Sheriff's Office in May 2022 before being hired by Sangamon County a year later. According to Wilhite, Grayson had "no use of force complaints or citizen complaints" while employed by Sangamon County, nor at previous law enforcement stops.

The State Journal-Register is seeking additional employment records.

James Wilburn, Massey's father, has been critical of the sheriff's department's hiring of Grayson, saying they should have known about his past "if they did any kind of investigation."

Wilburn also has called on Campbell, who has been sheriff since 2018, to resign.

Contact Steven Spearie at sspearie@sj-r.com or on X @StevenSpearie

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Sonya Massey case: Everything we know about former deputy Sean Grayson
The Ventura County Sheriffs Office released body camera footage Wednesday of a deputy in Thousand Oaks shooting a man who appeared to be holding a knife and aiming what officials described as a bow at a deputy.

In the nearly five-minute video, Sheriff Jim Fryhoff talks about the shooting before and after body camera footage of two deputies is shown. Fryhoff said the investigation was in its early stages and could take up to a year to complete.

The sheriff said that deputies from the Thousand Oaks station attempted to detain a pedestrian in the 2000 block of Avenida De Los Arboles at 6:30 a.m. on June 30.

A still photo from a Ventura County Sheriff's Office video of a deputy shooting shows a man with a bow and a knife June 30 in Thousand Oaks. The video was released Wednesday.

The person, later identified as Adan Perez Hernandez, was believed to be armed with a knife and what appeared to be a bow, the sheriff said.

A still photo of a person pointing what appears to be a homemade bow with no arrow at a deputy was shown in the video. Fryhoff said the bow was pointed at the first deputy who tried to contact Perez Hernandez as another deputy arrived on scene and exited his vehicle.

Perez Hernandez advanced toward the deputy while exhibiting the bow in a threatening manner, Fryhoff said.

Deputies gave multiple commands in English and Spanish, but the Perez Hernandez failed to comply and a deputy-involved shooting occurred, Fryhoff said. Deputies rendered aid to Perez Hernandez until paramedics arrived, and he was taken to a hospital for treatment of his gunshot wounds, Fryhoff said.

The body camera footage first shows a deputy parking his vehicle saying, Be careful, I think he has a knife. The deputy appeared to hold a yellow Taser gun as he approached a second sheriff's vehicle.

Footage shows the deputy walking toward Perez Hernandez before another deputy fires his gun. Perez Hernandez can be heard moaning while one of the deputies says, Drop it, drop it, put it away.

In the second clip, from the deputy who fired the shots, he can be heard saying to Perez Hernandez, Im going to shoot you. Get down, get down, before firing one shot and missing. Perez Hernandez had been walking toward the deputy.

After the first shot, Perez Hernandez walks away, saying something in Spanish. He turns to look at the deputy, and the deputy fires two more times and misses.

Perez Hernandez begins to run. The deputy shoots Perez Hernandez, whose back is toward the deputy, on his fourth and final shot. Perez Hernandez drops to the ground.

A still photo from a Ventura County Sheriff's Office video of a deputy shooting shows a man deputies said had a knife and a bow in Thousand Oaks. The video was released Wednesday.

Shots fired, shots fired. The subject is still holding something in his hand, the deputy said at the end of his body camera footage.

Deputies said they found two knives, a 3  inch knife with a straight-edge blade and a round-edged knife, like a butter knife, in addition to a device that Fryhoff said was used as a bow.

The sheriffs office conducts investigations of all police shooting to determine if the deputys actions were lawful and within policy, Fryhoff said. The sheriffs office will also internally review and evaluate the actions of the deputy within policy and training standards, he said.

On Thursday, Sheriff's Sgt. Monica Smith said by email that both deputies were placed on paid administrative leave following the shooting, under the policy of the sheriff's office and a standard procedure.

Deputy Erick Adrianzen, who fired his handgun, has been with the sheriffs office for 17 years, Smith said. He was placed on leave June 30 and cleared to return to work on July 8.

Deputy Marco Conradi, who was present during the shooting, has been with the agency for six years, she said. He was placed on leave June 30 and cleared to return to work on July 3.

Neither deputy had previously fired their handguns in the line of duty, Smith said.

The sheriffs office arrested Perez Hernandez on Tuesday, about a month after the June 30 shooting. Officials said he is from eastern Ventura County and did not disclose his city of residence.

When Perez Hernandez was discharged from the hospital, he was arrested, Smith said.

The Ventura County District Attorneys Office charged Perez Hernandez with a felony of exhibiting a deadly weapon to a police officer to resist arrest and attempting to prevent an executive officer from performing their duty.

Perez Hernandezs arraignment Wednesday morning in Ventura County Superior Court was rescheduled to 9 a.m. Aug. 15 for a competency hearing. His bail was set at $50,000.

Wes Woods II covers West County for the Ventura County Star. Reach him at wesley.woodsii@vcstar.com, 805-437-0262 or @JournoWes.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Body camera footage of Thousand Oaks shooting released
Sherrard CUSD extends superintendents contract for 5 more years

Sherrard is keeping its school superintendent for another five years, according to a news release from the Sherrard Community Unit School District (CUSD).The Sherrard School Board voted to extend Superintendent Dr. Carl Johnsons contract for five more years, from 2024 to 2029. The extension is due to Johnsons accomplishments during his two-year tenure, including improving financial management, staff development and student engagement.

His leadership is a great asset to our organization, and we see limitless potential in his continued leadership, said school board president Rhys Fullerlove.The board extended Dr. Johnsons contract because we are extremely satisfied with his performance. His leadership has guided the district through continuous growth, and we believe extending his contract is crucial for our ongoing success.

Dr. Carl Johnson (Sherrard CUSD)

Johnson was hired as Superintendent in November 2021 after an extensive search and vetting process by the school board under the direction of the Illinois Association of School Boards (IASB). In his first two years, he successfully managed a multi-million dollar project, kept it on budget from the start and negotiated one of the districts best teacher and staff union contracts.

Dr. Johnson has demonstrated exceptional leadership, making bold decisions and taking full responsibility for them, Fullerlove said. The board has been consistently impressed with his compassionate approach, combined with his ability to hold individuals accountable.

Dr. Johnsons contract was extended without major changes, maintaining the existing terms, he continued. However, we introduced a performance-based pay raise tied to the achievement of the districts strategic planning goals. Additionally, any salary increase Dr. Johnson receives will not exceed the average salary increase of our teachers for the year, ensuring fairness and alignment with district-wide standards.

Johnson is committed to enhancing the districts stability and prosperity. He expects to focus on developing an environment where governance supports excellence for students, staff and the community by building on the districts solid foundation.

The Sherrard district is a phenomenal place to be. It has everything a family could want and has more to offer than most districts our size, said Johnson. This is the district my family has called home for over 100 years, and it is a wonderful set of communities to serve. The school board is a model of how effective and productive volunteer service can actually be. The students, staff, parents and community members here are second to none.

Under Dr. Johnsons leadership and working with the school board, staff and administration, the district has achieved these objectives:

Collaborative Staff and Faculty: Creating a cohesive team of dedicated professionals.

Efficient Negotiations: Concluding a collective bargaining agreement in record time.

Financial Optimization: Maximizing investment opportunities to strengthen cash reserves.

Lowering Taxes: Reducing the districts property tax rate to ensure fiscal health.

Teacher Vacancy Grant: Securing a $94,000 annual grant to address teacher shortages.

Improving Administration: Enhancing the administrative teams effectiveness.

Modernizing Fleet Vehicles: Updating the districts vehicles for safety and efficiency.

Student-Led Conferences: Introducing student-led conferences to improve engagement.

Tier 3 Intervention Room: Establishing a new intervention room at SHS for targeted support.

Johnson has 28 years of education experience and previously served as the superintendent of Colona School District 190. He was a high school teacher for nine years, then served five years as assistant principal and principal of a middle school. He followed that by working as a high school principal for seven years before becoming Sherrards superintendent. He graduated from Sherrard High School in 1990.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.
Shipwreck recovered at bottom of Lake Michigan 130 years after it sank with faithful dog on board

The Margaret A. Muir schooner, pictured, was found at the bottom of Lake Michigan in May (Tamara Thomsen, State Historical Society of Wisconsin)

Underwater archeologists found a 130-year-old ship at the bottom of Lake Michigan that went down with the captains beloved dog on board.

Shipwreck hunters with the Wisconsin Underwater Archeology Association found the Margaret A. Muir schooner two months ago using sonar technology. The ship has since broken apart, but some components remained intact, including all its deck gear, two anchors and its bow windlass - a mechanical device used to pull anchors up, according to a news release from the association.

The ship sank on September 30, 1893. Captain David Clow, his dog and the crew were on board when the ship encountered a devastating storm and water began filling its hold.

The Margaret A. Muir schooner, pictured, was found at the bottom of Lake Michigan in May (Tamara Thomsen, State Historical Society of Wisconsin)

Clow ordered the crew to evacuate  but not before tragedy struck.

No sooner than the order was given, the ship lurched violently and plunged for the bottom, taking Captain Clows faithful dog and ships mascot with it, the association said.

The captain and the rest of his crew survived.

The lifeboat filled with water as soon as it was launched and was only kept afloat with much bailing as the men pulled for the harbor lights through 15-foot seas, the association said.

After losing his unnamed dog, Clow said he was quitting sailing. Clow described his dog as an intelligent and faithful animal, and a great favorite with the captain and crew.

I would rather lose any sum of money than to have the brute perish as he did, Clow said at the time, according to the association.

A diver from the Wisconsin Historical Society pictured collecting photos for a 3D model of the ship. The Wisconsin Underwater Archeological Association has been looking for the ship since 2023 (Tamara Thomsen, Wisconsin Historical Society)

The association has been searching for the vessel since 2023. Kevin Cullen, executive director of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, and his team of shipwreck hunters found the vessel late in the day on May 12. Cullen told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he remembers thinking, This is it, this is really it!

This is what shipwreck hunting in Wisconsin is about, he told the outlet.

The organization is now working with the Wisconsin Historical Societys Maritime Archeology Program to add the shipwreck to the National Register of Historic Places.
ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WSPA)  The Asheville Police Department said a man was shot to death early Friday morning at an apartment complex.

Officers responded to a report of a gunshot wound at the Hillcrest Apartments on Atkinson Street before 2:30 a.m. Upon arrival, police located 31-year-old Denzel McKnight suffering from a gunshot wound.

McKnight was taken to Mission Hospital where he later died.

No suspect(s) have been arrested at this time.

Officers are currently investigating the scene to determine what may have led to the fatal shooting.

Anyone with information is asked to send an anonymous tip to the Asheville Police Department by texting TIP2APD to 847411 or call (828) 252-1110.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WSPA 7NEWS.
A popular Uptown lunch location will close its doors.

Showmars confirms to Channel 9 the restaurant opted to not renew its lease at the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Government Center on E. Fourth Street.

ALSO READ: City workers, residents voice concerns over 2024-2025 budget at council meeting

After careful consideration, the decision was made not to renew our lease at the Government Center location, a Showmars spokesperson said. Showmars will continue to serve Charlotte with more than 25 other locations throughout the area. We look forward to welcoming our guests at these locations and we are continuing our growth and expansion across the Carolinas.

A closing date has not been announced.

A City of Charlotte spokesperson says the lease with Showmars expired and the city released a request for proposals to replace the restaurant. The proposals are being evaluated. The city declined to release which restaurants applied for the Showmars space.

The new lease will require Charlotte City Council approval and a final decision is expected in the fall.

Showmars is a popular choice for lunch for people who work in the Second Ward. It is the only food option in the Government Center.

ALSO READ: Showmars employee struck by stray bullet while cleaning tables in southwest Charlotte

The citys relationship with Showmars dates back to 1999. Prior to Showmars, the city experienced high turnover of different restaurant businesses in the Government Center space due to lack of quality and less than optimal service, a former city agenda said.

According to the city, a 2019 survey of 500 Government Center employees indicated 75% were satisfied with the quality of food from Showmars and 90% were satisfied with the level of service.

In 2019, Charlotte City Council voted to slash Showmars rent from $3000/month to $500/month. The city cited flattened sales and limited profitability as two reasons for the rent reduction.

The city also said Showmars can only provide 10 services per week instead of the standard 21 services and the restaurant has experienced lower revenue due to the installation of security checks at the Government Center in 2012.

According to the citys RFP, the restaurant must offer full-service sit-down meals with to-go options. It must be open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. at minumum.

The city no longer plans to charge $500/month in rent for the space, saying rent will be a fair market value.

(WATCH BELOW: Showmars employee struck by stray bullet while cleaning tables in southwest Charlotte)
Sierra Club asks EPA to take over oversight of Iowa waters because of state failures

The U.S. government should oversee Iowa cities, farms and businesses' impact on the state's waters, an environmental group says, arguing the state has done a poor job protecting its rivers, lakes and streams.

The Sierra Club Iowa Chapter filed a petition this week, asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to pull the Iowa Department of Natural Resources authority to enforce the 1972 Clean Water Act, the legal framework for improving and preserving the nations waters.

The group, representing 7,000 members, says the Iowa DNR has failed to properly regulate concentrated animal feeding operations, called CAFOs, even after spills occur; renew discharge permits for all facilities; and develop plans that can help restore impaired waters.

"The Iowa DNR has been entrusted by EPA with the responsibility of protecting Iowas water resources. But DNR has for years violated this trust. Now EPA must step in, said Wally Taylor, an Iowa Sierra Club attorney who filed the petition.

The Iowa DNR didnt immediately respond to the petition Friday.

Eldon McAfee, a Des Moines attorney representing the Iowa Pork Producers Association, said Friday the petition is without merit. "Accidents do happen. But when they occur, first of all, there's a penalty, and second of all, producers have to show" they've taken corrective action, McAfee said.

Taylor wrote in the petition that Iowa DNR's CAFO enforcement is weak, with fines that rarely reach agency's the $10,000 cap  or referred to the Iowa attorney general's office for greater penalties. The remedy is "basically just a promise not to discharge again," the petition says. "This is not sufficient to show that a future discharge will not occur."

The Sierra Club, along with other environmental groups, filed a similar petition with the EPA in 2007 that six years later resulted in Iowa DNR agreeing to adopt a five-year workplan to address the organizations concerns.

When the workplan ended, "Iowa DNR took the position that it was off the hook and could go back to its previous posture of not enforcing the Clean Water Act on CAFOs, Taylor wrote in the petition.

While forcing some action, McAfee said the groups were unsuccessful in revoking the state's power to regulate clean water standards.

Taylor said Friday the EPA may not be willing to revoke the state's ability to regulate pollution discharge into the state's waters, but the federal government could require more rigorous enforcement from the state.

In the petition this week, the Sierra Club said the Iowa DNR has failed to adequately regulate discharges from sources such as cities, businesses and livestock operations.

Cities, businesses and other operations that need to discharge into the state's waters must apply for permits that regulate the amount.

Almost all CAFOs in Iowa claim that they do not discharge, and therefore do not need a permit under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program. Then when a CAFO does discharge, the CAFO owner claims that the cause of the discharge has been remedied and there will be no more discharges."

All CAFOs that have a spill should have been required to apply for permits, the group says. The fact that a CAFO has discharged is proof that it does discharge and likely will again.

McAfee said spills may occur because of mechanical failures such as a plugged pipe  or because of human error. And the state-required corrective action requires more than promises  sometimes investment in new equipment or systems that alert producers to manure losses.

The Sierra Club's petition says 467 operations in Iowa are operating on expired permits, some for more than two decades. Permits are required to be renewed every five years. A facility operating on an expired permit "may be discharging pollutants that would violate the requirements of the Clean Water Act."

To our knowledge, Iowa DNR has made no effort to require these expired permits to be renewed. This is a violation of the Clean Water Act," the group says.

Lastly, the Sierra Club says state has failed to write plans to improve stretches of Iowa rivers, lakes and other waterways that have been listed as impaired for nearly two decades. Some of those waters on the list since 2006 and 2008 are designated as Outstanding Iowa Waters, according to the petition.

As part of the 2015 workplan, Iowa DNR used satellite imagery to identify potential CAFOs and discovered an additional 5,063 facilities. Of those, 1,300 were subject to regulation by the DNR, and half would require on-site inspections, the petition says.

EPA determined in 2019 that the workplan and DNRs response addressed the petitions allegations.

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at deller@registermedia.com or 515-284-8457.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Sierra Club says EPA should take over Iowa water pollution enforcement
Six U.S. House Dems join GOP in condemning Harris, Biden administration over border policy

U.S. Capitol on March 14, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON  The U.S. House Thursday passed a Republican-led resolution condemning the president and Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, for the administrations immigration policies.

Republicans announced they would move forward with the resolution hours after President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and threw his support to Harris to become the new Democratic nominee to face off with former President Donald Trump this November.

The resolution, H.R. 1371, was introduced Wednesday. It passed 220-196 shortly before the House was due to leave for a six-week recess.

Six Democrats voted with Republicans: Reps. Yadira D. Caraveo of Colorado, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Mary Peltola of Alaska and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington.

Immigration policy at the U.S.-Mexico border has remained a core campaign issue in the presidential elections and a top concern for voters.

Ahead of the vote, the White House Thursday put out a fact sheet pointing out that for the past seven weeks, encounters at the southern border have decreased by more than half, or 55%.

While the Presidents action has led to significant results, our nations immigration system requires Congressional action to provide needed resources and additional authorities, the White House said.

Border czar label

Since Harris gained the necessary Democratic delegates to become the partys likely nominee on Monday night, Republicans have criticized her for the Biden administrations immigration policies and labeled her the Border Czar, inaccurately claiming its an official title given to her from the White House. It was also a title used in some media reports.

In March 2021, Biden tasked Harris with addressing the root causes of migration, in an effort to stem the flow of undocumented people at the southern border.

Harris was never given the title of Border Czar, but that title was officially given to Roberta Jacobson, the former U.S. ambassador to Mexico. Jacobsons role was created for a short stint  Bidens first 100 days in office  before ending in April 2021.

U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Tennessee, is one of hundreds of congresspeople permanently banned from Russia. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Additionally, U.S.-Mexico border security is tasked to the Department of Homeland Security. Republicans in February impeached DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over policy disagreements. The Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment in April.

Republicans said Harris and the administration are one and the same. She owns all of his failed border policies, House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green of Tennessee said during debate Thursday.

Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, said the resolution was unserious, and nothing more than a campaign press release.

This resolution is only before this body because Vice President Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee for president, Thompson said. This resolution is incredibly petty.

Republicans like Indiana Rep. Rudy Yakym and Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez again referred to Harris as a Border Czar and blamed her for the high number of encounters at the southern border.

Gimenez also criticized Harris for not visiting the southern border frequently. She made one trip to El Paso, Texas, which is a border town, in June 2021, but that was due to her work addressing the root causes of migration leading to the border problems.

Task was narrower, Dems say

Democrats argued that Harris was given a diplomatic role rather than a border security role.

Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, said that Harris was never a Border Czar.

She was narrowly tasked with developing agreements that could help bring government and private sector investments to those countries that are sending migrants to the United States, so that those countries could help strengthen the conditions in those countries, she said.

The White House in March said that Harris had secured about $5 billion in commitments from the private sector to promote economic opportunities in the region and reduce violence in Northern Central America.

The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Democratic Rep. Nanette Barragan of California, said that border security is the responsibility of Mayorkas and that Harris was never placed in charge of domestic immigration policy.

Now they have a desperate resolution to blame Vice President Harris for the border, she said of House Republicans.
ABUJA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Nigeria's oil revenue grew from 11 percent in the first half (H1) of 2023 to 30 percent in H1 2024, with the economy growing faster due to ongoing reforms, a senior government official said Friday.

The growth in government revenue has been largely due to the "reconfiguration and improvement in government finances," Minister of Finance Wale Edun said in a statement obtained Friday by Xinhua in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

Highlighting the growth across sectors, Edun, who also serves as the coordinating minister of the economy, said that the economic activities in the first quarter (Q1) of 2024 were not only faster than Q1 of 2023 but were also the second fastest first-quarter growth in the past six years.

While attributing the positive economic performance to "the government's well-coordinated fiscal and monetary policies," the minister said the agricultural sector in particular had recovered from negative in Q1 of 2023 to modest growth in Q1 of 2024.

He emphasized the government's determination to mobilize non-oil revenue has consistently delivered impressive results, saying for H1 2024, non-oil revenue surpassed the revenue in H1 2023 by 30 percent, and above the 2024 budget target without increasing taxes.

Edun said the government aimed to further improve revenue through increased oil production and sales while enhancing the fiscal policy landscape to attract more investments into the sector. He declared that the government had reduced its debt burden in dollar terms, and improved fiscal deficit, saying it also planned to continue to yield positive results with ongoing economic reforms.

"Our debt has fallen in dollar terms from 108 billion U.S. dollars to 91 billion dollars. Additionally, the government has diligently serviced all its loans and obligations with no recourse to ways and means of financing," he added.

In their separate forecasts earlier this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank predicted a growth of 3.3 percent for Nigeria's economy for 2024, up from 2.9 percent last year.

While the World Bank affirmed that the Nigerian economy was mildly buoyant in the early part of the year despite macroeconomic adjustments, the IMF cited a pick-up in the services and trade sectors. 
FLORENCE, S.C. (WBTW)  Four days after a murder suspect died in an exchange of gunfire with authorities in Florence, SLED on Friday confirmed that 41-year-old Matthew Barry was killed by officers.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said late Friday afternoon in a news release that its agents are investigating Monday nights shooting at the Brittany Place apartment complex. SLED had not previously released any information about the investigation, despite multiple calls and e-mails from News13 since Tuesday morning.

Florence police said on Monday that Barry started shooting at officers when they went to his apartment to serve a murder warrant. Barry was wanted in Sundays killing of Idris Chance Ali Cooper, 34, at the Colonial Drive Apartments.

SLEDs news release also confirmed earlier reports from police that said Barry barricaded himself inside of his apartment. Barry died at the scene, and no officers were hurt, SLED said.

Barrys family told News13 they had no idea what led up to the deadly confrontation but that they also are hurting.

SLED was asked to investigate by the Florence Police Department and the Florence County Sheriffs Office, which is standard practice when there is an officer-involved shooting. SLED said the investigation is ongoing and that no other information about the case will be disclosed by SLED at this time.

SLED conducts law enforcement officer involved shooting (OIS) investigations at the request of the agency involved in the incident or the agency with jurisdiction, the agency said. When requested to investigate an OIS, SLEDs goal is to conduct a thorough, independent criminal investigation as timely as is possible under the circumstances.

The agency said its agents will interview all potential witnesses and collect all relevant information for forensic testing. Once the investigation is completed, information will be given to prosecutors.

Mondays shooting was the 27th officer-involved shooting in the state 2024 and the first one involving Florence police, SLED said. There were 43 officer-involved shootings in the state in 2023. None of those were in Florence.

* * *

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.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico spoke by phone with his Ukrainian counterpart, Denys Shmyhal, and proposed a "technical solution" for restoring the transit of Russian oil from Lukoil through Ukraine.

Source: TASR, citing Slovak governments press office, as reported by European Pravda

Details: During the conversation, the statement says, Fico proposed a "technical solution" for the transit of Russian oil, "involving several countries, including Slovakia", to his Ukrainian counterpart.

Quote: "The restoration of a part of the Russian oil transit is extremely important for the Slovnaft refinery, as alternative sources of oil are more expensive and may be technologically unsuitable," the Slovak government emphasised.

They added that "intensive negotiations at the highest political and professional levels" will continue in the coming hours and days. The Slovak side did not disclose details of the proposed solution.

Hungary and Slovakia received exemptions from the European-wide ban on Russian oil imports following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. However, Kyiv recently ordered the suspension of Lukoil's oil product transit through the Druzhba pipeline.

Ukraine insists that the same amount of oil flows through the pipeline as before, thanks to other Russian companies. Hungary and Slovakia, on the other hand, argue that Kyiv's decision threatens their energy security.

Support UP or become our patron!
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP)  Two inmates died from drug overdoses in two days at a South Carolina jail, which has been under a federal civil rights investigation, authorities said.

The inmates at the jail in Richland County were killed by two different drugs, one on Monday and a second on Tuesday, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said.

Deputies are investigating how the drugs got into the jail. Its smuggling, either through jail employees or inmates as they are booked, the sheriff said.

There is no magician that pops them in there. Someone has to bring them physically in, Lott said at a Wednesday news conference.

Drug sniffing dogs were sent to the jail Tuesday night, but didnt find any illegal substances, Lott said.

Lamont Powell, 54, overdosed on fentanyl, while Marty Brown, 25, died after taking Pentazocine, a narcotic painkiller that has started to show up as an alternative to fentanyl, authorities said.

ALSO ON WJBF: Man dies at 27 from heat exposure at a Georgia prison, lawsuit says

The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating whether Richland Countys Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center violated inmates civil rights. The agency launched the investigation after stabbings, rapes, escapes and a riot, all in the past few years, investigators said.

Federal officials cited a long list of issues, including an inmate who was beaten to death by five attackers locked in cells with unsecured doors and a man who died of dehydration while suffering from fresh rat bites. Hed reportedly lost 40 pounds (18 kilograms) during the two weeks he spent in a cell lacking running water.

A state investigation in late 2023 found the Richland County jail lacked written plans to evacuate inmates during a fire; left keys for cells and exits in an unlocked desk drawer in a juvenile wing; tasked prisoners with conducting head counts; and only gave prisoners clean clothes once a week.

Women were being held in a unit with urinals and a male inmate was able to drop into the female unit through the ceiling. The women werent regularly given toothbrushes, soap, tampons and pads, according to 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 WJBF.
Long-time Smyrna Airport Executive Director John Black announced he'll be retiring by the end of 2024, according to a press release.

I am truly grateful to have had the incredible opportunity to be part of the growth and development of one of Rutherford County's greatest assets, Black said in the press release from the Smyrna/Rutherford County Airport Authority. We have accomplished so much with an amazing team, and the airport is set for a bright future ahead.

John Black

Black started his 33-year career with the airport in 1991. He touted in February that the 1,700-acre Smyrna Airport was the fourth busiest in Tennessee for flight operations.

Black also served as the long-time director for The Great Tennessee Air Show at the airport with performances from fighter jet pilots with the U.S. Navy Blue Angels. The event attracted thousands of people over the years, according to the press release.

Black has pursued economic development efforts to attract companies to the Airport Industrial Park. This includes establishing a relationship with Hillwood commercial real estate that resulted in the buildout of more than 2 million square feet of warehouse space that is completely leased and provides strong financial returns for the Airport Authority, the press release said.

Economic development: Smyrna Airport evolves with new industrial park

The airport executive director also supported other nearby projects, such as Sewart's Landing. The $215.6 million Sewart's Landing is honoring a previous name of the airport known as Sewart Air Force Base from 1950 to 1970. The commercial and residential project includes 75 townhomes, two medical office buildings that combined will offer 400,000 square feet, a 240-room hotel and retail spaces that total 250,000 square feet.

"The type of businesses going in complement the airport and the type of businesses that we support through corporate aviation," Black told The Daily News Journal in February.

'Very high-end development': Smyrna's Sewart's Landing to attract WaWa, Jonathan's, Starbucks

Smyrna mayor, airport chairman praise Black's leadership

During Blacks tenure, Smyrna Airport won Airport of the Year twice from the Tennessee Aeronautics Division. Black also received the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Southern Region General Aviation Airport Manager of the Year recognition, Aeronautics Division Airport Manager of the Year recognition and Career Contribution Award.

He also led the airport to FAA Part 139 Certification.

Airport authority board chairman Mike Woods praised Blacks legacy of navigating a period of unprecedented growth and development of what is now one of the premier airports in Tennessee and the Southeast, according to the press release.

The Smyrna Airport is an incredible resource for our community, Woods said in the press release. Its the third-largest airport in the state and the busiest general aviation airport in Tennessee. Its evolution over the last 30 years has been nothing short of remarkable. A primary reason for this growth and success is the leadership of John Black, plain and simple. We are forever indebted to Johns more than three decades of service and leadership. We wish him the best of luck in all future endeavors.

Black also saw to the establishment of the Airport Westside Development in 2003, which included the terminal and business center on the westside of the airport. The project jumpstarted that areas development, which became a hub for all types of aviation activity, the press release said.

Smyrna Mayor Mary Esther Reed told The Daily News Journal that Black has played a significant role in the town and surrounding community.

"Throughout his career, John continued to build on the strong foundation left by those before him at the airport," Reed said. "While we will miss John in his current role, we wish him nothing but the best during his retirement and future endeavors."

Mary Esther Reed

The Great Tennessee Air Show: Blue Angels return for 2nd time to Smyrna air show since death of Capt. Jeff Kuss

Black founded Cub Scout and Boy Scout Troop 374

Beyond his duties with the airport authority, Black has served in the following ways:

adjunct faculty member of the Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) Aerospace Department for 23 years;

past president of the Smyrna Rotary Club;

president of the Tennessee Aviation Association;

president of the Community Council for the Arnold Engineering Development Complex at Arnold Air Force Base in the Tullahoma area.

The retiring airport leader also has served on the TriStar Stonecrest Medical Center and Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce boards. He was recognized by the chamber with its Pinnacle Award and Businessperson of the Year Award.

Black also helped start Cub Scout and Boy Scout Troop 374 and is proud of the scouts, the press release said. He is anxious to spend more time with family and looks forward to traveling with his wife, Libby.

The retiring airport leader plans to continue teaching aerospace courses at MTSU and serve the Tennessee Aviation Association, along with the Great Tennessee Airshow in June 2025, the press release added.

The airport authority will begin a formal search for Blacks replacement, chairman Woods said.

Tax issue with airport Smyrna/Rutherford County Airport Authority, Texas developer challenge Rutherford property tax appraisal for warehouse

Reach reporter Scott Broden with news tips or questions by emailing him at sbroden@dnj.com. To support his work with The Daily News Journal,sign up for a digital subscription.

This article originally appeared on Murfreesboro Daily News Journal: Smyrna Airport Director John Black announces retirement after 33 years
A Snohomish County man has filed a federal complaint against the county over his neighbors residential shooting range.

Christian Volkle, of Granite Falls, said he has been hearing gunshots for nearly two years.

Im exhibiting symptoms of PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and its increasing every time the shooting happens, he said.

Volkle purchased his retirement home on Crooked Mile Road in unincorporated Granite Falls more than three years ago.

After living in his new home for less than a year, he said his neighbor created a shooting range, which is located roughly 50 feet away from his property.

His family has suffered hearing loss after rounds of gunshots were fired without any warnings, he said, adding that he is also concerned about the lead from the bullets possibly leaking into the groundwater.

Ive measured it over 120 decibels, which is the equivalent of standing next to a jet engine on an airport runway or in front of a speaker at a rock concert he said. Lead is highly toxic. It leaches very easily. It contaminates ground water. Im concerned about the quality of my well water Im going to have in the future here.

Volkle, also a gunowner, has filed a federal complaint against the Snohomish County Council after the county did not help him, he said.

I want to see the shooting stop, period, he said.

He has not talked with his neighbor due to fear of his safety, Volkle added.

Im extremely angry. The people weve voted for and employed to protect us and that were paying as citizens of this county are ignoring this issue, he told KIRO 7 News.

The Snohomish County Sheriffs Office told KIRO 7 News that unincorporated Granite Falls is a legal shooting area.

KIRO 7 News spoke with his neighbor, Christian Betzold.

I would have loved it if he came and talked to me, but I understand he might have some reservations, he said.

Betzold said he purchased his home in large part to safely practice shooting his handguns on his property.

He told KIRO 7 News that he hopes he will never have to use his weapon, but if I do, its extremely proficient, extremely safe, extremely responsible. And so, all the training I do, which I believe is to be very safe, responsible training, is in light of that.

Betzold learned about his neighbors concerns last week, he shared.

That gave me a lot of concern and grief because I want to make sure Im a good neighbor. Im a responsible neighbor. I immediately talked to my wife. We stopped shooting and things like that that day. I havent shot since, he said.

Betzold said he would like to speak with Volkle about his concerns and offer him a chance to inspect the range to make sure he feels its safe.

If he wants me to let him know before I shoot, every time with a 30-minutes heads up so he can just know thats going to be happening, or things like that, Id be more than happy to do that, he shared. I want to be a really good responsible neighbor, but I also want to make sure that Im taking my responsibility as a firearms owner seriously and continue to be safe and effective.

The Snohomish County Council said it cant comment on an active lawsuit.
BRIDGEWATER - A Somerville man has been charged with spray painting bias graffiti at Al Falah Center on Route 202-206, Police Chief John B. Mtzak said.

Julian B. Dale, 29, has been charged with fourth-degree bias intimidation, an indictable offense, and a disorderly persons count of criminal mischief in connection with the July 19 incident.

According to Mitzak, Dale was seen driving a black Honda Civic at about 6:34 p.m. July 19 onto the property of the mosque, parking near the entrance of the mosque, then leaving a short time later.

At about 7 p.m., an employee of the mosque found bias graffiti on a pillar near the main entrance, according to police.

Dale was arrested on July 22.

More: FBI helps nab suspect in Rutgers Islamic Center vandalism

According to the New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NJ), the graffiti contained a derogatory and anti-Muslim remark against Islams Prophet Mohammed.

Far too often mosques and Islamic centers throughout New Jersey and beyond are subjected to hateful acts such as this at Al Falah Center,"CAIR-NJ Executive Director Selaedin Maksut said in a press release. "Al Falah Center is the heartbeat of the Bridgewater Muslim community. Witnessing such a vile message on the house of worship is unsettling and alarming to the many Muslims who seek the masjid for spiritual growth and community. "

CAIR-NJ said it "welcomed" the arrest.

"Al Falah Center was deeply shocked to discover the anti-Muslim graffiti following Friday prayer, a weekly ritual that draws dozens of Muslims in the Bridgewater community. The hateful message should be thoroughly investigated, and justice must be served in accordance with the law," the Al Falah Center said a statement released through CAIR-NJ. Despite the hateful act against our community, we invite the perpetrator for a proper visit at Al Falah Center for an open dialogue about Islam and Muslims. Al Falah Centers doors will remain open to welcome anyone curious to learn about our Islamic faith and values.

From Jan. 1 to June 30, CAIR-NJ has received 186 complaints of bias incidents putting the chapter on pace to surpass last years total of 304 reports.

"Hateful, divisive actions such as this are damaging to our community, and antithetical to our shared identity as Americans," Mayor Matt Moench said in a statement. "I am confident that I speak on behalf of all Bridgewater residents when I say that we stand in solidarity with our al-Falah community in unequivocal rejection of this egregious behavior, as well as the ignorance and prejudice which fueled it."

Email: mdeak@mdeak@mycentraljersey.com

.

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Somerville man charged with vandalism at Bridgewater mosque
The son of former Gateway Church pastor Robert Morris has stepped down from his associate pastor role at the church.

James Morris resignation comes a little more than a month after his father resigned amid allegations of sexual abuse. In a statement Thursday, church leaders confirmed that James Morris and his wife Bridgette Morris would be stepping down from their roles at the Southlake megachurch, Star-Telegram media WFAA-TV reported.

According to the statement obtained by WFAA, church elders met with James Morris and his wife, who also served as a pastor, and they made the decision collectively. James Morris had been set to take the position of senior pastor in 2025.

We love Pastors James and Bridgette and their children  we deeply care about them and sincerely thank them for investing their lives here at Gateway Church, the statement said. They have faithfully and honorably served our congregation and this community through all the years that they have been part of Gateway Church.

Church leaders also said in a social media post Thursday that worshipers are encouraged to attend services this weekend for important updates from the board of elders.

Following Robert Morris admission that he sexually abused a girl in the 1980s, Gateway Church hired the law firm Haynes & Boone LLP to conduct an independent investigation.

James Morris volunteered to temporarily step down from the board of elders at that time on the recommendation of the law firm to demonstrate a truly independent and unbiased inquiry, church leaders said in a June 28 statement. Three other elders who served on the board between 2005 and 2007 also took a temporary leave of absence.

Pastor James Morris is a man of integrity, and he has clearly stated that he had no knowledge of the true facts of this situation, the statement said.

Robert Morris, who founded Gateway Church in 2000, resigned from his position as lead pastor on June 18. Cindy Clemishire, who is now in her 50s, told the religious watchdog blog The Wartburg Watch in June that Morris abused her for four years in Oklahoma and Texas beginning when she was 12 and Morris was 21.

Clemishire confronted Robert Morris with her intention to file a civil lawsuit in 2005, and his attorney responded by saying it was Clemishires fault. After she asked for $50,000 to reimburse her for counseling, Morris and his attorney said they would provide $25,000 if she signed a non-disclosure agreement, which Clemishire refused, according to The Wartburg Watch.

North Texas leaders including former Southlake mayor John Huffman, urged Robert Morris to resign after Clemishires allegations came to light last month.

 More top stories from our newsroom:

 We fact-checked Gov. Abbott on terrorism claims

 Bones found in 1984 identified as missing 25-year-old

 Settlement reached for fired Fort Worth police chief?

[Get our breaking news alerts.]
Anadolu/Getty Images

In this op-ed, Angie Jaime explores the connection between the tragic death of Sonya Massey, presidential hopeful Kamala Harris' rise to power, and America's police crisis.

Sonya Massey called 911 to report what she believed was a prowler in the area around her Springfield, Illinois home. A body camera video released on Monday shows that two officers responded and walked around the house to inspect before knocking on the door of the home. A few minutes later, Massey opened the door. The first thing she said upon seeing the two officers? Dont hurt me.

From there, footage shows the interaction in which the police duo grew increasingly frustrated with Masseys behavior as she looked for identification they requested. Then, with the permission of the officers, the video shows Massey going to the stove to get a pot of boiling water, where she at one point appears to share a bit of levity with officers.

The interaction quickly escalated just moments later, when Massey said, I rebuke you in the name of Jesus over her shoulder. The now former Sangamon County Sheriffs Deputy, Sean Grayson, then threatened to shoot her and raised his 9mm pistol, the video shows. Massey apologized, raised her hands and ducked. Grayson can then be seen firing his pistol at her. After Grayson shot her, the video shows Grayson discouraging his partner from grabbing a medical kit to save her. You can go get it, but thats a headshot, he said. Theres nothing you can do, man.

The footage is harrowing; a Black woman alone allowing two white, male officers into her home in the middle of the night for help with a suspected prowler, despite the very real risks interacting with police could bring. She is unarmed and relatively calm, if at times confused in her actions. Her father has told news sources that she had been in mental health treatment recently. Still, the interaction resulted in the tragic death of Sonya Massey, and an indictment of first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct for Grayson. (In a court appearance last week Grayson pleaded not guilty to the charges.)

Any other moment, the story of Masseys death at the hands of police would have taken over social media and news conversations for weeks or months, perhaps even sparking significant protests as it had in the aftermath of deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Philando Castile, and many others. Though the incident occurred on July 6, bodycam footage of Masseys death was not released until Monday, July 22less than 24 hours after another seismic moment in the American public took place: the end of President Bidens campaign for reelection, and the announcement of Vice President Kamala Harriss bid for nomination on Sunday.

The Internet, as they say, broke. A tidal wave of Kamala memes and videos and reactions to reactions of reactions spilled forward from every news channel and social platform, dominating conversations digital and real-world. In the days since, Harris presidential campaign has been the topic on the minds of individuals and families across the country. Groups rallied on Zoom calls from every corner of the United States to raise historic amounts of money in grassroots campaign donations. Analysts spilled digital ink and soaked up television air time.

The competing imagery is, however, one of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, the beaming, joyous face of the would-be first woman, and the first African American and Asian American President of the United States, a former prosecutor and Californias top cop. On the other, seeping through the cracks in the media landscape: the shocking footage of Masseys death.

We are prepping for virulent misogynoir this election while trying to get one of us across the finish line and simultaneously push for peace across global genocides, writer and activist Brittany Packnett Cunningham wrote in an Instagram caption. We cant scroll without unprovoked attacks on everything from our dateability to our femininity to our bitternessall results of the very systems and attitudes you depend on us to fight for you. We set the blueprint on Sunday calls and wake to videos of a brutality specifically reserved for us.

Elsewhere on Threads, Packnett Cunningham also raised that Masseys death is part of a long legacy of lynching. Sonya Massey is a descendant of William Donnegan, who was lynched in 1908 during a Springfield, Illinois racist massacre. They were [killed] in the same city. By the hands of the same people. And died in the same hospital, she wrote.

Indeed, James Wilburn, Masseys father, noted how egregious the killing of his daughter was, given his own former profession. "Some of my best friends are in law enforcement. I'm former law enforcement," he told CBS, "so it's embarrassing."

In the case of Harris, its worth parsing out how she has both benefited from and received backlash from the police culture in which she cultivated her legal and political aspirations. Back in 2016 as California Attorney General, she gave herself the moniker top cop of the biggest state in the nation, positioning herself as tough on crime and in lock-step with police. As she rose to Senator of California, her stances often shifted, becoming a polarizing figure in the state. As public attitudes towards police became more critical, she distanced herself from the narrative her self-given nickname suggested.

By then, opponents had latched on. Tulsi Gabbards criticism of her track record as a prosecutor has dogged her and evolved into somewhat of a conspiracy theory, that she had sent untold numbers of Black and brown men to prison in California for drug offenses. The reality is of course more nuanced, according to a 2019 investigation from the San Jose Mercury News. During her time as San Francisco District Attorney, her office totaled 1,956 misdemeanor and felony convictions for marijuana possession, cultivation or sale between 2004-2010. Only 45 were sent to state prison. While district attorney, she did however pioneer programs like Back on Track, which enabled low-level drug offenders to obtain a high school diploma and a job instead of prison time.

On Tuesday, Harris perhaps shrewdly seized the moment of conversation surrounding Sonya Massey to push forward legislation regulating police. Writing in a post on X, Sonya Massey deserved to be safe. The disturbing footage released yesterday confirms what we know from the lived experiences of so many  we have much work to do to ensure that our justice system fully lives up to its name. Together with President Biden, she called for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a bill which civil rights advocates say can be pushed further. The ACLU said in a statement following the reintroduction of the George Floyd act in May, Congress must go further to provide strong federal intervention that protects the rights of individuals against the often unchecked power of the police.

Ultimately, Harris alignment with the police and carceral state will be subject to scrutiny in the days and weeks leading up to the election  and it is highly likely that she will face racist abuse and disinformation online and across the media. But what remains to be seen is how, the complexities of her standing as a Black woman in the highest corridors of power positioned closely with police, does or does not protect her  does or does not backfire against her.

Masseys death is an all-too-chilling reminder that no one in America, from everyday citizens in need of help, to the countrys top cop escapes the realities of an insidious police culture  one that perpetuates and simultaneously obscures its own violence against people of color.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
SAN FRANCISCO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- A massive wildfire in the U.S. state of Oregon has grown rapidly to some 600 square miles (1,554 sq km), an area more than half the size of Rhode Island's land mass, officials said on Friday.

The Durkee Fire, sparked by lightning on July 17, is the largest blaze in the United States so far. Officials said the fire was only 20 percent contained on Friday.

Meanwhile, a single-pilot tanker plane contracted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management went missing Thursday while fighting another wildfire, the Falls Fire, near the town of Seneca on the edge of the Malheur National Forest.

The plane was found Friday morning, authorities said, adding that the pilot on board was killed during the crash.

The Falls Fire has grown to 219 square miles (567 sq km) with 55 percent contained, according to the government website InciWeb.

As of Thursday, wildfires had burned almost 1 million acres (4,047 sq km) in Oregon and 125,900 acres (509 sq km) in Washington state so far this year, according to the Northwest Interagency Coordination Center in Portland, Oregon.

In California, the Park Fire has forced the evacuation of more than 4,000 residents in Butte County, north of California's capital city Sacramento. The fire grew uncontrolled overnight from 125,000 acres (505 sq km) on Thursday to 164,200 acres (664 sq km) Friday morning, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 sq km) were burning across the country on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. 
Sonya Massey, shot by Illinois sheriff's deputy, died of gunshot wound to the head, autopsy finds

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Authorities in central Illinois on Friday released an autopsy report that confirmed 36-year-old Sonya Massey died of a gunshot wound to the head, after she was shot by a sheriff's deputy in Springfield earlier this month.

According to the autopsy report from the Sangamon County Coroner's office, Massey was shot just beneath her left eye, and the bullet exited the back of her upper neck. The bullet caused a skull fracture, perforated her carotid artery, and caused bleeding in her brain.

Massey also suffered minor blunt force injuries to her right leg.

Sangamon County Sheriff's deputy Sean Grayson has been charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and official misconduct in Massey's death. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges, and is being held in the Sangamon County Jail while he awaits trial. He was fired by the sheriff's office after the shooting.

After learning of the autopsy results on Friday, Massey's family said they are still struggling mentally and emotionally nearly three weeks after her death.

"I haven't been able to sleep for real. The only time I really feel comfortable sleeping is when I'm just on the floor. I can't even sleep in my bed," said her son, Malachi Hill-Massey. "I really don't have words. Like I've been said, I don't have words for real."

Massey's uncle, Raymond, said her daughter has been "having nightmares to the point where we have to check the room."

"It just makes me so angry to see my family hurt as they do," Raymond said.

On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke to Massey's family, an advisor to Harris confirmed to CBS News.

Grayson worked for six law enforcement agencies since 2020. He served in the Army, and records show he was discharged for serious misconduct.

Audio recordings from the Logan County, Illinois Sheriff's office obtained by CBS News also show Grayson was reprimanded in November 2022 for writing false information in his police reports.

He also had two DUI convictions.

"Why did he even have a job as a sheriff's deputy after those red flags?" said family attorney Benjamin Crump.

Crump said Massey had been struggling with her mental health.

"She needed a helping hand, not a bullet to the face," said Crump. "She just needed those officers to extend an ounce of humanity, not to kill her."

Bodycam video shows sheriff's deputy shooting Massey inside her home

Authorities said Massey, a Black mother of two, called 911 in the early morning hours on Saturday, July 6, to report a suspected prowler outside her house near Springfield, Illinois.

The bodycam video shows Grayson and his partner, who are both White, arriving at Massey's home, and searching outside the house and talking to Massey at the front door. They are later seen inside her home, and Deputy Grayson instructs Massey to check on a pot overheating on the stove, saying they don't need a fire in the house.

Massey went to turn off the flame and picked up the pot. She asked where the deputies were going, to which Grayson replied, "Away from your hot, steaming water."

Massey replied, "Away from my hot, steaming water?" and then twice said, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus."

"You'd better f***ing not. I swear to God, I'll f***ing shoot you right in your f***ing face," Grayson said. He then raised his gun and yelled at Massey to "drop the f***ing pot!"

Massey is seen apologizing and ducking for cover. Grayson opens firethree shots are heard.

Massey's family and friends claim authorities tried to cover up the fatal shooting

The family said if it weren't for the bodycam video of the shooting that was released on Monday, no one would know the truth.

Massey's friends and family have said police first suggested it was a neighbor who had a previous dispute with Massey who shot her, and then later suggested the shooting was self-inflicted.

Massey's oldest son, Malachi, said no one from law enforcement ever told the family who actually shot Massey. He said he didn't learn until he saw it on the news the next day.

Protest held in Chicago to express outrage

On Friday evening, a small, yet passionate group came together in South Shore to voice their outrage over Massey's killing.

"For what? For being a Black woman in America," a protester said. "Let's be real."

As they rallied for justice, the group also spoke out about other deadly police shootings across Illinois and specifically in Chicago too.

"[Massey said], 'I rebuke in the name of Jesus' because she feared for her life from the ones who were supposed to protect her life," another protester said.

There are also two more upcoming rallies in Chicago calling for justice for Massey. One is set for Saturday at 11 a.m. at Federal Plaza.

Crump said Massey's family will attend another rally for justice next Tuesday.

Harris campaign releases video showing Trump mug shot

2 Sinaloa cartel leaders, including son of "El Chapo," arrested in Texas

New details reveal troubled past for deputy charged with murder in Sonya Massey shooting
Theyre different

President Biden made a very difficult decision and dropped out of the race because he loves his country more than he loves himself. What a shame the same cant be said for criminal Donald Trump.

Why now?

The Democrats have watched President Biden fall apart for the last two years, at least. And theyre just now getting around to forcing him out? Where was their concern before the polls went south?

A good one

Thank you, Living Well Sound Off-writer. I actually liked the very annoying exercise antics of Richard Simmons, Keith Richards is a musical treasure, and I bet both would laugh if they heard this one.

No substance

You wonder why Donald Trump cant stop attacking his opponents? Because he has nothing else to offer. He killed the border bill, crime is down, joblessness is down and the economy is steady.

Saving democracy

So, President Biden won. Millions of Democrat voters stood in line to vote for him. He captured 4,000 delegate votes all across America compared to just a handful earned by someone else. However, just its looking like Donald Trump is headed to win against him, the party elites sat down in that smoke-filled back room and planned. Yep, theyve planned how to save democracy by negating all the voters who didnt vote correctly.

Who is the president?

If President Biden is as bad off as he looked on the debate stage, and if his health is such that he cant fulfill his role as the Democrats presidential candidate, how are we supposed to believe he can continue on as president until November?

Hard-working

The idea that Blacks receive special treatment in the workplace is an excuse for your failure to succeed. Many Blacks in charge have worked their way up the ladder after being loyal to their jobs. So, go back to school, get a skill and stop blaming everyone else.

Send your Sound Offs to soundoff@sunherald.com.
ROCK HILL, S.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS)  Child sex trafficking is a growing problem with a new lawsuit in York County underscoring the issue.

The families of two preteen girls are suing Uber, accusing the ride-sharing company of playing a role in one of their daughters sexual assault.

Lets be honest, theyre after our children. The average age of a trafficking victim [is believed to be] 12 to 14 years old these days or 12 to 16 years old, but its young and its getting younger. And so prevention is a big part of what we do, says Switch Executive Director Oliver Lollis.

Kannapolis teen rescued from Illinois home where man was charged with sexual abuse: Sheriff

Lollis heads a grassroots organization working to end sex trafficking and sexual exploitation in South Carolina.

Its definitely the fastest-growing crime in the world, which is crazy, Lollis said. And the United States is the largest consumer of sex trafficking.

He says the nonprofit group has five primary programs: awareness, prevention, demand, intervention and restoration.

When someone wants out, we can help them and we walk with them from the time from, step one, meeting that first need, whether its a place to stay, maybe its rehab, maybe its dental work, maybe its a doctor, all the way to where they dont need us anymore, he told Queen City News. And we walk with them as long as that takes,

Oliver Lollis, executive director of Switch.

While adults are at risk of being trafficked, minors face even greater peril. Lollis says the common denominator with trafficked minors is the cellphone.

At the end of the day, these traffickers have been trained to manipulate children, he explained. Childrens minds arent fully developed, obviously, and so they dont really have a concept that this person is trying to take advantage of me, and I cannot trust them.

Lawyers believe 19-year-old Fayvion Jarrod Williams played a role in a November 2023 sex trafficking case. Now hes in prison for at least five years for luring two girls younger than 14 to his Gaston County home for sex through Facebook Messenger.

Tuberculosis case discovered in Union County high school student; hundreds could be exposed: Health Department

Lawyers for the girls families say he ordered two Uber rides for them round trip from Rock Hill to Gaston County, North Carolina.

Fayvion Jarrod Williams.

Lollis emphasizes the importance of policing childrens social media.

Its important to keep a pulse on because the top three ways traffickers are getting to their victims are through your Instagrams or Facebook, your TikToks of the world, he said. And so theyre going to where the kids are and knowing that they can also pick them up just as easily as they can get to them online. Its actually quite terrifying and certainly something that we need to all kind of keep an eye out for as a 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 Queen City News.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.  Two people were taken to Regional One Thursday night after a shooting in South Memphis.

The shooting was reported at 8:23 in the 2000 block of Boyle, police said.

A male victim at that scene was taken to the hospital in critical condition. A second victim was located at fire station 16, and taken to the hospital in non-critical condition.

Police are investigating and did not relase information on a 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 WREG.com.
Southwest is changing the way travelers find their seats on the plane. How it will work

The Southwest Airlines seat scramble is a familiar drill for South Florida travelers.

Line up to get on the plane, search for a good open seat, pray that theres some nearby overhead bin space.

But the 50-year-old tradition is ending.

Southwest, which has up to 67 daily departures from Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports, will start assigning seats to fliers for the first time, the company said on Thursday.

Open seating helped Southwest become one of the nations most popular low-cost airlines, although customers have had a love-hate relationship with the free-for-all.

The airline said it decided to start assigning seats after communicating with customers. Southwest research found that 80% of its fliers and 86% of potential customers prefer an assigned seat. And when a traveler chose to switch from Southwest to a competitor, open seating was cited as the No. 1 reason for the change.

The airline did not give a time frame for the switch to assigned seating.

Other changes for Southwest Airlines

The airline also is making other changes, which include adding premium seats on all flights, more legroom on about one-third of all seats and the return of overnight flights known as red-eyes.

The moves are meant to appeal to a broader group of travelers, including business people. The company is also looking to improve its bottom line after having a rough year so far.

The changes will better position Southwest Airlines to produce higher returns in a more competitive, higher cost environment, Bob Jordan, president and chief executive officer of Southwest, said on a call with investors and media on Thursday.

Jordan said seats assignments would bring in more customers and that premium seats would bring in more money for tickets and future amenities.

Southwests Miami and Fort Lauderdale market

Southwest has as many as 49 daily departures from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to places including Raleigh/Durham, Baltimore, Chicago, Kansas City and New Orleans.

The carrier has up to 18 daily departures from Miami International Airport to destinations such as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Oakland and Austin.

The Dallas-based airline even added flights to Fort Lauderdale and Miami for Taylor Swifts concerts at Hard Rock Stadium in October.

But changes come with risks, especially for a popular airline. For three straight years, JD Power has ranked Southwest as fliers top economy class.

Reconfiguring the Southwest Airlines fleet

On Thursday, Southwest executives said they are close to finishing the design of the newly configured planes. The Federal Aviation Administration will then need to certify the changes, a process which could take several months. Then would come the construction work on Southwests 800 aircraft and the rollout to customers in 2025.

On Thursday, executives said the extra legroom is needed now because the airline runs longer and fuller flights than in past years.

Southwest on Thursday also said red-eye flights are coming. The first ones will land the morning of Valentines Day in 2025, serving Las Vegas to Baltimore and Orlando, Los Angeles to Baltimore and Nashville, and Phoenix to Baltimore.
This post originally appeared in the Insider Today newsletter.

You can sign up for Business Insider's daily newsletter here.

Happy Friday! Be careful what you wish for, Chipotle fans. The chain might turn to robot workers to address the complaints about its portion sizes. But good luck making those last-second tweaks to your order .

In today's big story, Southwest ditching its unassigned seat policy is a sign of the end times for budget airlines as we know it.

What's on deck:

But first, that's going to cost extra.

If this was forwarded to you, sign up here.

The big story

Seating-as-a-Service

Getty Images; Chelsea Jia Feng/BI

You are no longer free to move about the cabin.

Southwest Airlines is ending its open seating policy , opting for assigned and premium seating options. It's a substantial change for the budget airline that has let passengers pick their seats after boarding since its founding more than 50 years ago .

But tradition takes a backseat when the bottom line is suffering. Despite a record $7.4 billion in revenue for the second quarter, the airline's quarterly profit ($367 million) was almost cut in half compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, activist investor Elliott Management's $1.9 billion stake in Southwest has it calling for big changes . And the airline manufacturer Southwest relies on is going through its own crisis . So yes, something had to give.

A timeline on when the change will occur wasn't announced  more details are coming in September  but the impact is already estimated to be big. Between paid seat assignments and premium seating, Southwest could add as much as $3 billion in new revenue, according to one analyst.

Southwest isn't alone in its struggles. Prior to the announcement, the S&P 500 Passenger Airlines index was down almost 9%. The issue? Despite an influx of demand, there are simply too many cheap, economy-class seats on the market , writes Business Insider's Benjamin Zhang.

Kevin Carter/Getty Images

The real pain of the current travel landscape is being felt by budget airlines.

High labor and fuel costs are difficult to navigate for all airlines, but it's especially tricky for ones trying to do it at a much lower cost than their rivals.

That's why Southwest's decision to end its open seating policy could be a sign of the end of budget airlines as we know it, writes BI's Taylor Rains and Pete Syme. The shift shows how low-budget airlines are rethinking their business models as they face an uphill battle not following their high-priced peers' footsteps.

Southwest CEO Bob Jordan has been adamant these are changes customers want. But there is an undeniable financial factor to the move.

Similar changes from Southwest could ultimately upend the way a good chunk of the country travels. Southwest, American, United, and Delta make up the country's Big 4 airlines. But only Southwest markets itself as a budget airline.

In the meantime, you might need to start paying for that window or aisle seat on your next Southwest flight.

Or don't. After all, the middle seat really isn't that bad .

3 things in markets

Emmalyse Brownstein/screenshots

New logo, who dis? Goldman Sachs is launching a new logo that's a partial callback to a design the bank used for decades before largely retiring it in 2020. But some insiders questioned if the time and money spent on the overhaul was worth it. The US economy had a huge second quarter. US real GDP growth was 2.8% at an annualized rate , well above the 2.0% forecast. It also doubled its growth from the first quarter (1.4%). But the "perfect report for the Fed," as it was described by one expert, likely won't lead to a rate cut next week. What's worse, it might be too late to avoid a recession , according to one former central bank president. This sector isn't sexy, but it's worth your investment. America's infrastructure is crumbling, and Bank of America expects an uptick in restoration and building projects in the next decade. That's a huge growth opportunity for investors .

3 things in tech

Stocks could see a double-digit correction within the next three months, according to one veteran strategist. Getty Images; Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/BI

3 things in business

Taylor Hill/Getty, Prince Williams/Getty, RB/Bauer-Griffin/Getty, Burazin/Getty, Tyler Le/BI

Behind-the-scenes worries about music stars' COVID cashouts. Los Angeles accounting firm NKSFB helped stars like Nickelback and Chris Brown secure COVID relief cash from the federal government. The stars got millions in taxpayer money  even though NKSFB initially fretted that they could be breaking the law by applying, court documents say. How moguls like Rupert Murdoch control their companies without owning them. The Murdoch family is headed for a fight over Fox and News Corp that would make "Succession" writers proud. Though both are publicly traded companies, they're built on a stock structure that lets one family wield enormous power. They're not the only ones . The US job market teeters near the "danger zone," according to a famed economist. Claudia Sahm is the creator of the highly accurate recession indicator Sahm Rule. She warned that the job market is in the "yellow zone" as unemployment ticks higher.

In other news

What's happening today

Donald Trump meets with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago.

Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony.

The Insider Today team: Dan DeFrancesco, deputy editor and anchor, in New York. Jordan Parker Erb, editor, in New York. Hallam Bullock, senior editor, in London. Annie Smith, associate producer, in London. Amanda Yen, fellow, in New York.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Launch recap: Below is live coverage of the Saturday, July 27, liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on the Starlink 10-9 mission.

After a two-week grounding period, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fleet will return to flight with a post-midnight Starlink mission launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Welcome to FLORIDA TODAY Space Team live coverage of the Starlink 10-9 mission. After a pair of delays, SpaceX is targeting a 1:45 a.m. EDT Saturday liftoff from pad 39A.

The Falcon 9 will deploy a batch of 23 Starlink internet satellites, which are packed inside the fairing atop the 230-foot rocket.

No Central Florida sonic booms are expected. After soaring skyward along a northeasterly trajectory, the rocket's first-stage booster will target landing aboard a SpaceX drone ship out at sea roughly 8 minutes after liftoff.

Cape Canaveral: Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA, ULA rocket launch schedule in Florida

Countdown Timer

Watch Falcon 9 launch 23 @Starlink satellites to orbit https://t.co/WT1fkM0Byl  SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 27, 2024

SpaceX Falcon 9 booster lands

Update 1:53 a.m.: The Falcon 9 first-stage booster just landed aboard SpaceX's drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean, wrapping up its 17th mission.

Falcon 9 lands on the Just Read the Instructions droneship pic.twitter.com/56KSGFLeON  SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 27, 2024

Liftoff!

Update 1:45 a.m.: SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket fleet has returned to flight with today's liftoff from KSC.

Falcon 9 lifts off from pad 39A in Florida! pic.twitter.com/ozYLYUxCss  SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 27, 2024

SpaceX launch webcast begins

Update 1:40 a.m.: SpaceX's launch webcast hosted on X (formerly Twitter) is now posted above, right below the countdown clock.

Liftoff is scheduled in five minutes from KSC.

SpaceX rocket launch weather looks clear

Update 1:35 a.m.: This National Weather Service radar loop shows no cloud cover of note over Cape Canaveral. Ten minutes to go until liftoff.

SpaceX booster to land on drone ship

Update 1:30 a.m.: Tonight's mission marks the 17th flight for this Falcon 9 first-stage booster, SpaceX reported.

The well-traveled booster previously launched CRS-24, Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F, OneWeb 1, SES-18 and SES-19, and a dozen Starlink missions.

Following stage separation, crews expect the booster to land on the SpaceX drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean 8 minutes, 14 seconds after liftoff.

Spectators watch as a SpaceX first-stage booster is brought into Port Canaveral aboard Just Read the Instructions on July 4, 2020.

SpaceX launch countdown timeline

Update 1:20 a.m.: Here's a rundown of SpaceXs remaining countdown timeline as we approach the 1:45 a.m. liftoff target. T-minus:

16 minutes: Second-stage liquid oxygen loading begins.

7 minutes: Falcon 9 begins engine chill prior to launch.

1 minute: Command flight computer begins final prelaunch checks; propellant tank pressurization to flight pressure begins.

45 seconds: SpaceX launch director verifies go for launch.

3 seconds: Engine controller commands engine ignition sequence to start.

0 seconds: Liftoff.

SpaceX Falcon 9 fueling about to begin

Update 1:10 a.m.: SpaceX just announced Falcon 9 fueling procedures are about to begin at pad 39A  and "all systems are looking good."

That means tonights Starlink countdown will be locked in to lift off at 1:45 a.m. without any delays, or else the launch must be postponed.

All systems are looking good, weather is 85% favorable, and propellant load is about to begin for tonights launch of 23 @Starlink satellites from Florida  https://t.co/DvO0z1NbUm  SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 27, 2024

SpaceX explains why Falcon 9 failed July 11

Update 12:52 a.m.: In a statement released Thursday night, SpaceX officials provided insight as to why the Falcon 9 upper stage malfunctioned after its July 11 launch from California.

"Post-flight data reviews confirmed Falcon 9s first stage booster performed nominally through ascent, stage separation, and a successful droneship landing. During the first burn of Falcon 9s second stage engine, a liquid oxygen leak developed within the insulation around the upper stage engine," the statement said.

"The cause of the leak was identified as a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicles oxygen system. This line cracked due to fatigue caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line," the statement said.

"Despite the leak, the second stage engine continued to operate through the duration of its first burn, and completed its engine shutdown, where it entered the coast phase of the mission in the intended elliptical parking orbit."

NWS radar shows clear skies at Cape Canaveral

Update 12:30 a.m.: This radar loop from the National Weather Service station at Melbourne Orlando International Airport shows no significant cloud cover over Cape Canaveral, though widespread showers are lingering northwest of Orlando and offshore from Daytona Beach.

SpaceX launch prep underway in Brevard

Update 12:10 a.m.: Brevard County Emergency Management officials have activated the agency's launch operations support team ahead of SpaceXs upcoming Falcon 9 launch.

7/26/24 4:21 PM | We have activated our launch operations support team in preparation for the SpaceX Falcon9 launch. Window: 12:21 - 4:21 AM pic.twitter.com/YxhdxGVz5M  Brevard EOC (@BrevardEOC) July 27, 2024

SpaceX postpones launch again, to 1:45 a.m.

Update 11:42 p.m.: Another delay. Liftoff has been pushed back nearly another hour, to 1:45 a.m. Saturday.

New T-0 of 1:45 a.m. ET for liftoff  SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 27, 2024

Starlink service supports 2024 Paris Olympics

Update 11:31 p.m.: This afternoon, Starlink officials shared a TikTok video showing the company's broadband equipment supporting live coverage of the Olympic torch traveling through the streets of Paris.

The 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony took place today.

Starlink supported live coverage of the Olympic torchs travel to the games! #Paris2024 #Olympics https://t.co/l7PGHCQN4N  Starlink (@Starlink) July 26, 2024

SpaceX pushes back liftoff to 12:59 a.m.

Update 11:11 p.m.: SpaceX officials just announced they are now targeting 12:59 a.m. Saturday for liftoff, a 38-minute delay.

Now targeting 12:59 a.m. ET for tonight's Falcon 9 launch of 23 @Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit from pad 39A in Florida  https://t.co/DvO0z1NbUm pic.twitter.com/xtE5k2CS8M  SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 27, 2024

Space Force: 85% odds of 'go for launch' weather

Update 11 p.m.: The Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron pegs the odds of favorable launch weather at 85%.

"The western Atlantic ridge axis is north of the Spaceport with deep onshore flow continuing to drive the east coast seabreeze quickly inland each afternoon. Lingering effects from Saharan dust will keep conditions drier than normal, with lower chances for overnight coastal showers," the squadron's forecast said.

"The primary weather concern for an attempt early Saturday morning is the Cumulus Cloud Rule associated with a stray coastal shower," the forecast said.

LAUNCH ALERT



Early tomorrow morning, SLD 45 will support the Falcon 9 Starlink 10-9 launch.



The launch window opens at 00:21 EDT, 04:21 UTC on July 27th.



T-0 may vary.



Make sure you check our launch hazard and airspace closure areas at https://t.co/nWgTbtgMnB pic.twitter.com/8AZAW3UtOT  Space Launch Delta 45 (@SLDelta45) July 26, 2024

For the latest news and launch schedule 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 launch recap: Updates from Saturday's Falcon 9 return to flight
The familiar rumble of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has been absent from Space Coast skies the past two weeks  but the Federal Aviation Administration has granted the company permission to return to flight amid its ongoing anomaly investigation.

And SpaceX is already targeting 12:21 a.m. Saturday for its next Falcon 9 mission. The 230-foot rocket will launch 23 Starlink satellites into low-Earth orbit from pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

FAA officials had grounded the Falcon 9 rocket fleet while SpaceX studied why a second-stage engine failed following a July 11 launch from Vandenburg Space Force Base in California. The engine suffered an liquid oxygen leak  and 20 Starlink satellites got deployed into a lower-than-intended orbit and later burned up in the atmosphere.

Thursday night, SpaceX announced the findings of its engineering review, blaming a liquid oxygen leak that developed within the insulation around the upper-stage engine. In tandem, the FAA granted approval for the Falcon 9 to return to flight and announced that "no public safety issues were involved in the anomaly."

When is the next Florida launch? Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, NASA, ULA rocket launch schedule in Florida

"When a public safety determination request is received, the agency evaluates safety-critical systems, the nature and consequences of the anomaly, the adequacy of existing flight safety analysis, safety organization performance, and environmental factors," an FAA statement said.

"If the FAA agrees no public safety issues were involved, the vehicle may return to flight while the investigation remains open, provided all other license requirements are met," the statement said.

In a statement, SpaceX announced the liquid oxygen leak traced to a crack in a sense line for a pressure sensor attached to the vehicles oxygen system.

"This line cracked due to fatigue caused by high loading from engine vibration and looseness in the clamp that normally constrains the line. Despite the leak, the second stage engine continued to operate through the duration of its first burn, and completed its engine shutdown, where it entered the coast phase of the mission in the intended elliptical parking orbit," the statement said.

For near-term Falcon 9 launches, the failed sense line and sensor on the second-stage engine will be removed, the statement said.

The Falcon 9 is the workhorse of the American rocket fleet. Besides launching Starlink satellites, it also flies commercial and national-security satellites to orbit, as well as ferrying astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.

SpaceX completed a static fire test of a Falcon 9 booster overnight Wednesday at Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Spaceflight Now reported.

With SpaceX making up the bulk of the Space Coast launches  46 out of 50 so far in 2024  it has been a quiet two weeks since the Falcon 9 has been grounded.

SpaceX has Florida astronaut launches coming up

SpaceX has two crewed missions that were slated to take off in the coming weeks. Launch dates remain unknown, in light of the FAA investigation:

Polaris Dawn: A private mission commanded by Shift4 founder Jared Isaacman, which will include the first spacewalk by a private citizen. In 2021, Isaacman commanded and paid for Inspiration4, the first orbital spaceflight with only private citizens aboard.

NASA Crew-9: The latest NASA crew will swap places onboard the International Space Station with Crew-8.

Be sure to follow the FLORIDA TODAY Space Team for the latest from the Space Coast.

Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Return to flight: SpaceX gets OK from FAA to resume launching Falcon 9s
KHARTOUM, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Heavy rains continued to batter Kassala, the capital city of Kassala State in eastern Sudan on Friday, worsening the plight of thousands of displaced people residing in the city's shelter centers, as reported by local organizations.

The Kassala Youth Emergency Room, a local volunteer group, appealed in a statement to the authorities and residents in Kassala to provide water suction pumps and assist in draining rainwater from shelter centers.

It warned of a "catastrophic situation" in some centers, noting that the rainwater has completely flooded three of them, severely hindering access to food, medicine, and clean drinking water for the displaced individuals.

"The situation is truly catastrophic. The water volume is immense, and so far the young volunteers have failed to drain the water due to the lack of water suction pumps," an eyewitness told Xinhua.

The Nidaa Al-Wasat Initiative, a civil society organization, warned of the severe risks facing children, women, and the elderly, calling for the provision of relief aid to the displaced.

"The water flooded shelter centers housing displaced families, who became surrounded by water as the streets turned into rivers," the organization said.

Over the past week, Kassala State has been witnessing heavy rains that have destroyed about 1,470 homes in the Kassala locality and its suburbs, said Director General of Kassala State's Ministry of Agriculture Khidir Ramadan.

Flooding is a yearly occurrence in Sudan, typically happening between June and October. Over the past three years, heavy rains have claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed vast swathes of agricultural land.

This year's rainy season is bringing even more hardship to the people already caught in the deadly conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Data published by the UN International Organization for Migration in June showed that more than 7.7 million individuals had been internally displaced within Sudan since the conflict began, with approximately 2.2 million others seeking refuge in neighboring countries. 
Their Spanaway home got water damage, leaving them in hotel for months. Their case is over

A Spanaway family stuck for months in a Federal Way hotel soon will be returning home after wrangling with their insurance company over remediation and repairs following water damage from leaking upstairs pipes.

Renee and Alphonso Niles sued The Travelers Home and Marine Insurance Co. in Pierce County Superior Court before the case was moved to federal court in February. The couple accused Travelers of failing to fully extend coverage for the loss, investigate the family of fives claim for coverage or provide coverage for necessary repairs to the home.

The lawsuit was dismissed on July 12 following a notice that it had been settled after mediation during or before late June, federal court records show.

Attorney Leah Snyder, who represented the family, said in an interview Thursday that she couldnt comment on the suit except to say that the matter was resolved.

The Niles are happy to be moving back in their home shortly, Snyder said.

A message left with Travelers corporate office was not returned. The insurance company previously declined to comment but denied wrongdoing in a submitted answer to the complaint in court.

Last August, the Niles spacious two-story home, where they have lived since 2016, sustained water damage. It led to mold and sewage inside their house. Amid a dispute with Travelers, the family moved into three cramped hotel rooms roughly 25 miles away.

The family, including three sons between the ages of 14 and 20 and a young German shepherd, conveyed the difficulties of their cramped living quarters to The News Tribune in February. By then, they had been in a holding pattern at the hotel for five months as they waited to get their house addressed.
Sparse crowd, some demonstrators greet Netanyahu on his visit with Trump at Mar-a-Lago

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla.  Sparse groups of supporters sporting campaign colors and bearing an occasional Israel flag lined Southern Boulevard along the route to Mar-a-Lago Friday morning ahead of a highly anticipated meeting between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A group of about 50 pro-Palestinian demonstrators lined the sidewalk along the bridge between West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, marching with flags and chanting as the motorcade sped by just before noon on its way to Mar-a-Lago. A group of about a dozen Trump and pro-Israel supporters gathered on the opposite side of the road.

Tensions increased for about 20-30 minutes after the motorcade moved through, with pro-Palestinian supporters and Trump and Israel supporters shouting at each other from their opposing sides of the street.

Yaron Shwartz who is originally from Jerusalem, arrived at the small parking lot at the foot of the bridge near Mar-a-Lago before the sun was up, leaving his home in Miami about 5 a.m. He hoisted a a cross-shaped pole with a T-shirt that read Bring me home please, an homage to the hostages held captive as a result of the war in Gaza.

Life after Oct. 7 when the war began will never be the same, Shwartz said.

Its a tragedy for both sides, he said.

Cindy Falco-DiCorrado, who held a pro-Israel sign, said she was there to express support for former president Trump and BiBi, which is a nickname for Netanyahu.

Trump is still trying to protect us, she said. So I come out to say President Trump, were still with you.

She also said Netanyahu has people who stand with him no matter what the naysayers say.

After the motorcade, pro-Palestinian protesters shouted accusations about Netanyahu being a war criminal.

Netanyahu you cant hide, you brought human genocide! protesters chanted, led by a woman with a megaphone.

Farther west, away from the Intracoastal bridge, the law enforcement presence seemed to outnumber the people who had gathered on Southern Boulevard between Parker and Lake avenues. A Broward County resident wearing a yarmulke, who wouldnt identify himself, said he came because he supports Netanyahu and Israel, but not Trump.

A few segments of security vehicles passed through before the motorcade carrying Netanyahu arrived about 11:45 a.m., and the morning remained relatively uneventful. Traffic resumed by noon, but police returned to start barracading streets again shortly after 1 p.m.

Residents and workers in the area expressed frustration at the barriers and traffic shutdowns at lunchtime. A worker from a nearby business spent 15 or 20 minutes trying to cross Southern Boulevard on foot to pick up a sandwich he had ordered from a nearby Subway store. Im taking the loss, the unidentified man finally said as he abandoned the effort. Its a power move to not want to see him (Netanyahu).

The meeting between Trump and Netanyahu lasted about two hours, and the departing motorcade went on its way about 2:10 p.m..

A day earlier, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw had vowed that his law enforcement agency was on top of the ball game, and things will go very smooth when the ex-president meets with the leader of Israel.

On Wednesday, thousands of protesters against the war in Gaza converged on Washington to condemn Netanyahus visit, chanting Free, free Palestine as they marched toward the Capitol before police deployed pepper spray on some in the crowd, The Associated Press reported.

______
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty made public Friday the analysis and $578,000 cost to taxpayers for the law firm she hired to prosecute trooper Ryan Londregan that instead helped persuade her to drop the case.

Moriarty got the Hennepin County Board's OK in April to hire Washington D.C.-based law firm Steptoe LLP to take over the case after the lead attorney from her office stepped aside. The unusual contract with an international firm for a criminal case had an initial $1 million cap and required monthly invoices.

In June, Moriarty announced she was dropping murder and manslaughter charges against Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II last summer. She said a new analysis of the evidence, statements from Londregan's attorney and a recommendation from Steptoe lawyers convinced her to drop the charges.

Moriarty's office released two invoices Friday afternoon from Steptoe totaling 733 hours worth of work since April at a cost of $578,321, in response to a public records request.

Phone calls and emails seeking comment from Moriarty about the cost of hiring Steptoe were not returned.

Earlier this week, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association (MPPOA) and former GOP Minnesota Attorney General candidate Jim Schultz filed an ethics complaint against Moriarty accusing her of prosecutorial misconduct.

In a statement, Moriarty dismissed the complaint as "unsurprising" and said the MPPOA "consistently lobbied against attempts to hold law enforcement accountable."

Moriarty's office also released the entire report that was prepared by Steptoe on Friday afternoon. The officially titled "Special Prosecutors' Report and Recommendations in State v. Ryan Patrick Londregan" is 858 pages long with a 69-page report and hundreds of pages of exhibits.

The report notes that grand jury materials and testimony the state had argued should be disclosed to the public are not included because the court denied that request.

"I believe it's still important to release as much of this information as we can," Moriarty said in a statement about the report. "Such transparency is key to creating community trust. The family of Ricky Cobb II deserves this transparency, as does the larger community."

In June, an executive summary of the report was released and the complete version highlights the same conclusions and recommendations  namely that there was "insufficient evidence to defeat Trooper Londregan's affirmative defense that the shooting was justified."

It also states that recommendation was based on testimony and information that came to light after Moriarty had initially charged Londregan with second-degree murder, manslaughter and assault in the fatal shooting of Cobb last July during a traffic stop on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis.

After Moriarty announced she was dropping the case against Londregan, a representative of Cobb's family said they could not be more disappointed in prosecutors. The Cobb family is now suing Londregan and trooper Brett Seide for their roles in the shooting.

It is unusual, but not unprecedented or outside prosecutors to handle high-profile criminal cases. Attorney General Keith Ellison had outside counsel who worked pro bono to prosecute Derick Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.

The Ramsey County Attorney's Office hired one outside lawyer to assist with prosecuting St. Anthony Police Officer Jeronimo Yanez. He was acquitted of manslaughter in the killing of motorist Philando Castile.

Star Tribune staff writers Andy Mannix and Liz Sawyer contributed to this story.
House Republicans are turning their focus to a debate over whether to fund the government through December or into next year after their hopes of passing 12 full-year funding bills before the August recess collapsed.

With no one expecting the annual funding process to be complete by a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline, hard-line conservatives are advocating for a stopgap measure, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), that would run into March of next year in order to avoid being jammed with a massive spending package under a lame-duck president.

They want to avoid a December funding deadline that historically has teed up a massive omnibus spending bill negotiated by leaders in the House and Senate.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), a spending cardinal and member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he and other Republicans would prefer a CR into next year, calling the prospect of a trillion-dollar-plus omnibus a danger.

If the Democrats want to negotiate in good faith in December, we could always negotiate something in good faith, he added. But Id rather not see a December deadline.

Conservatives confident of former President Trumps chances of taking back the White House in November also hope a stopgap bill into next year would allow Trump to have more influence over how the government will be funded through fall 2025.

But other Republicans, including members of the House Appropriations Committee, have pushed back against the idea of a CR into next year, instead pressing for the current Congress to finish its funding work before the years end and avoid a repeat of the last funding cycle, when Congress had to pass multiple stopgaps and didnt finish its work until March.

The longer we prolong this and go into another calendar year, it just puts tremendous stress on so many agencies, and I think itll put an undue burden on the new president, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), a spending cardinal, told The Hill last week.

Little more than two months separates Congress from a looming shutdown deadline, and both chambers have yet to pass their 12 annual government funding bills  let alone begin bicameral negotiations. That all but assures the need for a stopgap.

Still, asked Wednesday if a continuing resolution was inevitable, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) responded facetiously.

Nothings inevitable in American politics, havent we all learned that now? Johnson said, an apparent reference to President Biden recently dropping his reelection bid and former President Trump surviving an assassination attempt earlier in the month.

Were talking about all the options on the table, havent made a decision on it, Johnson said. Were just going to hit a pause for a week and then get right back to it.

The Democratic-led Senate has passed zero appropriations bills, and only began advancing its first batch of bills out of committee earlier this month. By contrast, the House Appropriations Committee, which crafts the lower chambers funding bills, has already approved all its funding bills  and the full House has cleared roughly half of the measures.

But the Houses funding push has been sputtering in recent weeks as concerns over spending increases and rifts over policies in areas such as reproductive rights that held up funding bills last year resurface.

House GOP leaders canceled votes that were scheduled for next week after pulling three bills that were slated for votes this week from the floor.

Thats after 10 Republicans joined most Democrats in tanking their fiscal 2025 legislative branch bill earlier this month. The final tally caught Republicans off guard as the measure, by far the smallest of the 12 funding bills, drew opposition from the partys right flank partly over its funding levels.

It also forecast the partys challenge of passing what some members considered its toughest bills remaining. On Tuesday night, House GOP leaders pulled a scheduled vote on an energy and water appropriations bill.

Ive got concerns about all of them right now, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a spending cardinal, told The Hill this week when discussing the outstanding funding legislation, which also covers funding for the FBI and the departments of Education and Health and Human Services. Were struggling to get it passed.

Yet some Republicans have begun to downplay the need for the party to pass its remaining funding bills, particularly as both sides are already looking to kick the shutdown deadline beyond the November elections  the outcome of which could afford either party leverage in fiscal 2025 funding talks.

Asked about Johnsons previous pledge to work through August to finish their spending bills, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said with disappointment, Its all kind of fake, anyway. Its going to be an omnibus. Probably a CR, and a lame-duck omnibus.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the question now is whether or not Republicans are going to be smart enough not to hand the keys to the kingdom over to Democrats with an omnibus bill in December because we do a CR into the lame duck.

Everything else youre going to write about is just bogus, inside-the-beltway nonsense, Roy also said. The only thing thats going to matter is what we do a CR into March or a CR into December.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), head of the powerful funding committee, has also repeatedly advocated for lawmakers to wrap up their fiscal 2025 funding work before January.

I was around here in 2017 when we tried that, and we had the House, the Senate, obviously President Trump won, he said last month. But Republicans still did not have more leverage, because you still have the filibuster in the United States Senate.

We forced [Trump] to have to sign bills that he did not get to negotiate.  Frankly, they didnt even have an [Office of Management and Budget] director at the time, we got [them] done, he said. I dont think you do that to a new president, and honestly, I dont think you do it to a new Congress.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
After being named one of four finalists for a city manager job in Manhattan, Kansas, Springfield City Manager Jason Gage has withdrawn his candidacy. Gage has worked for the city of Springfield for six years.

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 to his employment agreement, the fourth of its kind, increased his salary to $267,644.52 in September.

Gage was announced as one of four finalists selected for the Kansas position from a field of 50 applicants in early July. Gage had the most experience in local government of the four. The city held in-person interviews and community engagement events July 22-23 that Gage attended. City's chief spokesperson Cora Scott confirmed Gage's decision to withdraw and noted that he withdrew Wednesday, July 24, ahead of the Manhattan City Commission's deliberations.

"After weighing all factors, leaving Springfield just didnt feel right," Scott shared as Gage's statement regarding the decision.

City Manager Jason Gage speaks with his colleagues before the Springfield City Council meeting on Monday, April 17, 2023.

During Gage's tenure, the city has experienced a turnover in leadership both from resignations and retirements. Within the past three years, the 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 the positions of City Attorney and director of Planning and Development, as well as Springfield-Greene County Health Department positions.

More: Springfield city manager named a finalist for position search in Kansas

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.

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, compared 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 withdraws as Kansas job candidate
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA)  The Sangamon County States Attorney has announced criminal charges in relation to a seven-year-olds drowning in Springfield earlier this year.

States Attorney John Milhiser said David Yankee was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday on four counts of endangering the life or health of a child. The charges come following an investigation by Springfield Police and Illinois DCFS.

Ben Crump speaks on autopsy of Sonya Massey

The charges allege that on March 16, Yankee left three children, ages 4, 7 and 10, unattended for over an hour with a dangerous environment  the pool  in the backyard. Under Illinois law, each individual child was considered unattended because no one over the age of 14 was supervising them.

While Yankee was allegedly away from the children, the seven-year-old fell into the pools deep end, sank to the bottom and drowned. It was Yankees alleged violation of Illinois law that Milhiser said was the cause of the boys death.

If convicted, Yankee faces two to 10 years in prison for two of the counts and up to a year for the other two counts. Probation is also a possibility for each count.

Yankee made his first court appearance on Thursday. A public defender was appointed to represent him in court and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for Aug. 8.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
(Bloomberg) -- Sri Lanka will hold elections in September to elect a new president as the incumbent leader Ranil Wickremesinghe seeks a mandate for his tough fiscal reforms in the South Asian nation thats trying to move past its worst financial crisis on record.

Most Read from Bloomberg

The Election Commission said the vote will be carried out on Sept. 21 with nominations for presidential candidates due on Aug. 15, according to a government notice. The national vote will be the first for the country after a historic debt default in May 2022 that saw living standards plummet and widespread unrest, forcing the populist Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country and resign.

Wickremesinghe, 75, who took the presidency through a parliament vote, went on to negotiate a $3 billion bailout package with the International Monetary Fund. A career politician who has been prime minister five times, Wickremesinghe has become deeply unpopular for his austerity measures that include raising taxes, hiking utility prices and putting some state enterprises up for sale.

An ally of Wickremesinghe was the first to make a deposit for his candidacy, Dinouk Colombage, director of international affairs for the president, said in a post on X. Wickremesinghe is standing as an independent candidate though political observers say he is backed by the Rajapaksa clan through their party, the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna that holds a majority in parliament.

Wickremesinghes key contenders are likely to be Sajith Premadasa, 57, who leads the main opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya party, and Anura Kumara Dissanayake, 55, of the Janata Vimukthi Peramuna party. It started out as a radical group and led insurrections against the government in the 1970s and 1980s before evolving into a socialist party that Sri Lankans are increasingly backing over the traditional parties led by the elites.

While all the potential presidential candidates have negative favorability ratings in June, Dissanayake has remained the least unpopular leader in Sri Lanka since Wickremesinghe took power July 2022, according to the Colombo-based Institute of Health Policy, an independent pollster. About four in five Sri Lankans say the island nation is still heading in the wrong direction, a view that has become more negative since polling started on this in early 2022.

Other politicians are also looking to take part in the presidential contest. Retired general Sarath Fonseka, who led the military offensive to crush a decades-long insurgency by separatist Tamil guerrilla fighters, has announced his candidacy. A member of the current cabinet, Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe has also declared he will take part in the race.

The elections will take place against a backdrop of austerity measures slowing inflation. Nevertheless, the economy remains resilient with better-than-expected 5.3% growth in the first quarter and Sri Lanka has struck a deal to restructure $12.6 billion of bonds with its commercial creditors, allowing it to tap more funding from the IMF.

--With assistance from Aradhana Aravindan.

(Updates throughout)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
SSA says they are making progress on underpayments to tens of thousands of people

SSA says they are making progress on underpayments to tens of thousands of people

The Social Security Administration says they have released millions of dollars to Social Security recipients who were underpaid.

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<

Last year, while investigating the Social Security Administrations overpayments, Action News Jax and our sister stations around the country found that people were also underpaid.

Now, the Social Security Administration commissioner said they have made some headway.

[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]

Martin OMalley said that as of June 2024, they had released $901 million in SSI underpayments, including $209.1 million of underpayments to roughly 81,000 peoplethe oldest and highest priority caseswho are counting on SSI as a vital lifeline.

But that did not include Ramona Harris. Action News Jaxs sister station WFTV introduced her to viewers back in December. She was waiting to see if she had any recourse for the $18,000 she is owed.

Read: Proposal puts 10-year limit on how far back Social Security overpayments can be recouped

Harris wasnt overpaid; she was underpaid.

Im 75 years old now, you know, and, and I have we have needs that we just cant take care of right now, Harris said back in December. Because were living month to month, that 18,000 plus dollars could help an awful lot just for those rainy days. and we work for it.

The appeals council has completed its evaluation of claimant Ramona Harris case and concluded that there was no basis for granting the request for review, a letter from SSA said.

The council carefully considered the case before the administrative law judge, the applicable law and regulations, and the claimants reasons for requesting review.

Read: Its Hell: Georgia woman living in car after losing her Social Security disability payments

The council has decided that the record does not provide a basis for granting the request for review and has denied the appeal.

Accordingly, the decision dated July 18, 2023, is the commissioners final decision.

When the appeals council issued its action, it notified the claimant of the right to file a civil action in federal district court.

Read: Senators press nominee to lead Social Security Administration about overpayments

This decision was made before the new commissioner promised a full review of the agencys underpayments and overpayments, so she is not giving up.

In 2023, a monthly average of 7.4 million people with disabilities who have little to no income or resources received approximately $61 billion in federal SSI payments.

For fiscal years 2019 through 2023, underpayments represented less than one percent of all SSI payments.

[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]

However, although that number is small, the commissioner acknowledged that underpayments can cause significant hardships for people waiting, so this year, they made underpayments a priority.

This is not just about numbers, its about people, OMalley told Americans.

Here is the link from SSA with OMalley and their new info.

Read: Congress holds hearing on Social Security overpayments following Action News Jax investigation

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 St. Louis Post-Dispatchs editorial board has endorsed St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell in the Democratic primary against Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), the high-profile progressive who is a member of the House Squad.

The editorial criticized Bush, arguing she and the other progressives in that group had been more effective at winning headlines than enacting strong public policies.

Missouris First Congressional District, encompassing St. Louis city and northern St. Louis County, is our regions most direct connection to the federal governments seat of power, the editorial board said in a piece published Thursday.

For the past four years, the district has been in the hands of U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a Democrat who has generally appeared less interested in working that system for the good of her constituents than attacking it on behalf of a small, hard-left klatch of lawmakers  the Squad  who are good at getting headlines but bad at actually accomplishing anything, the board continued.

Bush is facing a tough primary race against Bell.

A poll released in late June found Bell ahead of her by 1 point. Her fellow Squad member Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) lost his primary last month to a moderate after pro-Israel groups entered the race.

Bowman and Bush have been outspoken critics of Israels war in Gaza against Hamas, which has killed tens of thousands.

The district is heavily Democratic, and whoever wins the primary will be the heavy favorite in November.

Democratic primary voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic district werent offered a viable alternative to Bush two years ago, the Post-Dispatch editorial board said in their Thursday piece. This year, they have a terrific one. We enthusiastically endorse Wesley Bell for the Democratic nomination to this seat in the Aug. 6 primaries.

The Post-Dispatchs editorial board said Bushs almost immediate induction into the small clique of progressive House rabble-rousers positioned her as a darling of fringe-left activists  and thus irrelevant to what actually happens in Washington.

Bush voted against the Biden administrations landmark infrastructure package  one of only six House Democrats to do so  to protest the fact that a separate social-spending package was stalled, the board continued. That myopic stance helps explain why labor interests that previously backed Bush have moved to Bell.

The board also went after Bushs position on the war between Israel and Hamas, throughout which she has been a strong advocate for Palestinian rights and has pushed for a cease-fire.

Even more outrageous has been Bushs stance on the Israel-Hamas war, the board wrote. Israels conduct of the war has been far from perfect, but it remains a democracy fighting for survival against an evil terrorist organization. Bushs tendency to equate both sides  and even to side with the terrorists, as when she cast one of just two House votes against a resolution to bar Hamas members from the U.S.  should in itself be disqualifying for re-election.

The Hill has reached out to Bushs office and campaign 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.
BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Emergency Management on Friday activated a Level-IV emergency response to floods in the four provinces of Guangdong, Shandong, Henan and Hubei, as well as raising the emergency response from Level-IV to Level-III in the northeastern province of Liaoning in the wake of Typhoon Gaemi.

The ministry said that Typhoon Gaemi was traveling further inland and northward after it made landfall at Xiuyu District in the city of Putian, Fujian Province, in east China on Thursday night.

It said that joint consultations among different government departments continued on Friday regarding the typhoon's impact on rains, as well as the targeted preparedness measures that need to be taken in coping with floods in provinces including Fujian, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Liaoning.

"Typhoon Gaemi is moving deeper inland and northward, bringing heavy rainfall to the central and eastern parts of the country. Some small and medium-sized rivers have experienced floods above the warning level, and the flood control situation is severe and complicated," according to the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters.

"We must give full play to the overall coordination and leading role of the flood control headquarters, and urge relevant departments to perform their duties and cooperate closely," the headquarters said.

It ordered continuous updates on monitoring, forecasting and warning on the typhoon so as to avoid casualties, and called for strengthened efforts in removing hidden dangers and implementing emergency measures to ensure safe operations.

It also called for strengthened efforts on disaster relief and the allocation of disaster relief materials in a timely manner in disaster-stricken areas.

China has a four-tier emergency response system for flood control, with Level I being the most urgent response, and a four-tier, color-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe warning, followed by orange, yellow and blue.

At 6 p.m. Friday, the Ministry of Water Resources and the China Meteorological Administration also jointly issued a red alert, the highest level of warning, for mountain torrents in parts of Fujian, Jiangxi and Guangdong from 8 p.m. Friday to 8 p.m. Saturday. In eastern areas of Fujian Province, mountain torrents will be highly likely, according to the alert.

At present, nine working teams dispatched by the ministry are assisting and guiding flood prevention work in different provinces, it said.

The National Meteorological Center on Friday also warned of medium-to-high disaster risks induced by the typhoon in at least eight provinces, including Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi, calling attention to possible damage as a result of secondary disasters and severe convection weather.

Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing on Friday called for high vigilance against floods, emphasizing that people's safety must always come first.

He stressed ensuring that all responsibilities are thoroughly enforced, implementing targeted measures, and fortifying disaster defenses to win the battle against floods.

As of 6 a.m. Friday, about 628,600 people in Fujian had been affected by the typhoon, with some 290,000 residents temporarily relocated so far, said local authorities.

China has allocated 66 million yuan (about 9.26 million U.S. dollars) of funds to support the urgent restoration of roads damaged by rain-triggered floods and geological disasters, according to the Ministry of Finance. 
Two political newcomers want to unseat the St. Lucie County tax collector, who's been in the job for 12 years.

Republicans Christy Romano and Gabby Rothman will face off in the Aug. 20 Republican primary to see which one will challenge Democrat incumbent Chris Craft in the Nov. 5 election.

The tax collector facilitates your paying various taxes to different agencies, getting licenses for things like driving, hunting and fishing, and registering your boat.

Among the issues in the race, Romano and Rothman cited increasing revenue, accessibility and cybersecurity amid explosive growth in St. Lucie County, especially Port St. Lucie.

Who is running for St. Lucie County tax collector?

Gabby Rothman, 2024 St. Lucie County Tax Collector candidate.

Candidate: Gabby Rothman of Port St. Lucie

Age: 60

Profession: Retired; formerly worked 34 years at the 19th Judicial Circuit Public Defender's Office as a legal administrative professional and director of community outreach

Time in office: First time running

Campaign finances: As of July 23, she had spent $27,452 of her $53,617, of which $12,823 was her own money

Christy Romano, 2024 St. Lucie County Tax Collector candidate.

Candidate: Christy Romano of Port St. Lucie

Age: 49

Profession: Owner of AApex Electric, Inc.

Time in office: First time running

Campaign finances: As of July 23, she had spent $3,621 of her $10,689, of which $2,510 was her own money.

Bringing more revenue to St. Lucie

Both candidates said they would increase revenue by offering new services and expanding services to residents of other counties, not just St. Lucie.

One example is offering TSA PreCheck enrollment. St. Lucie County residents currently have to go to Martin or Indian River counites for that service. Another example is offering concealed weapons permits, which are available online, but not in the office.

Any time a resident leaves this county, that's our tax dollars walking away from this county," Rothman said.

Bringing more bilingual services

Both candidates want to enhance multilanguage services for customers who don't speak English.

The office currently has bilingual employees and a few Pocketalk handheld translation devices with more than 80 languages per branch, Tax Collector Craft said.

Romano said she would hire more diverse staff who speak Spanish and/or Creole. She said technology such as Pocketalk and Google Translate can help overcome language barriers, but she said nothing compares to human interaction.

Expanding office services to accommodate the population

Both candidates said the office needs to expand accessibility to accommodate the growing population, including extending hours and opening on Saturday. Romano suggested once a month while Rothman suggested a half-day.

The office currently requires appointments from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.; allows walk-ins from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.; and offers driver's license services from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  which are limited hours when most people are working.

Romano said she would increase the staff in the three offices and use the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles' mobile unit to bring services to residents in underserved communities.

Rothman said she would open more branches in existing buildings, such as libraries and circuit court clerk offices, and opposes spending taxpayer money to build new offices.

"I have to open additional branches," Rothman said. "If we remain in the same position, we remain stuck."

Cybersecurity

Both candidates said they would improve cybersecurity in the wake of the office being hacked in October, resulting in over 22,000 people likely having their driver's license numbers taken, and about 1,000 people's Social Security numbers were vulnerable. Cyber gang ALPHV, also known as BlackCat, claimed it listed the office on the dark web.

In response, the tax collector's office left the county government's network and joined a cloud service called Thrive.

Romano said she thinks the tax collector and county government should share the same firewalls.

"Why not align ourselves with what protects all the other four constitutional offices?" Romano said. "We're the one office that touches every single person in this county. We have the most information (and) we should have top-of-the-line cybersecurity."

Rothman said she would isolate the current server from the county government's to prevent other government entities from accessing the offices' information.

"This [isolating servers] would also allow my office to quickly detect and immediately respond to the public of such a breach to ensure public trust," Rothman said. "I do not need to reinvent the wheel, so I will actively seek advice and best practices from other Florida tax collectors in the Tax Collector Association to enhance our cybersecurity."

St. Lucie County tax collector

Term: 4 years

Salary: $173,814

Who can vote?: Only St. Lucie County residents who are registered Republicans can vote in the Aug. 20 Republican primary between the two Republican candidates

What's next?: The winner will face Democrat incumbent Chris Craft in the Nov. 5 general election.

Gianna Montesano is TCPalms trending reporter. You can contact her at gianna.montesano@tcpalm.com, 772-409-1429, or follow her on X @gonthescene.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: St. Lucie tax collector election: Christy Romano vs. Gabby Rothman
Hundreds of nurses at Brigham and Womens Faulkner Hospital voted to authorize the bargaining committee to call for a strike on Thursday night.

Now the hospital has ten days to respond before the nurses walk out for one full day.

We are having a lot of trouble retaining staff, leading to a lot of staffing shortages and unsafe situations at the hospital and part of the reason is that nurses leave to make more money elsewhere, said Elise Hurley, a nurse at Faulkner Hospital.

Staffing shortages, salaries, and safety issues are among the top concerns for nurses at Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain.

We had an incident in the emergency room the other day where a couple of nurses were injured quite badly by a patient, and so far we are not happy with managements response to that incident, we feel they are not taking it seriously enough, said Hurley.

Nurses say they face similar challenges as the nurses at the Brigham, but theyre paid less for the same work.

We follow Brigham and Womens procedures for things like setting up OR rooms or GI procedures, patients are admitted to Faulkner from the Brigham emergency room sometimes, said Hurley.

On the issue of wages at Faulkner, Mass General Brigham says: Brigham and Womens Faulkner Hospital is licensed as a community hospital, with lower reimbursements from the insurance carriers and less specialized care. The nursing salary scales reflect these differences.

Thousands of nurses at the Brigham voted Wednesday to authorize a strike if Mass General Brigham doesnt meet their demands for this next contract.

Really fired up: Fed-up nurses at Brigham and Womens Hospital vote to strike

Now the 500 nurses at Faulkner Hospital plan on doing the same.

Mass General Brigham released the following statement Thursday:

We have been negotiating with the Massachusetts Nurses Association since August of 2023 and have participated in 28 sessions with the union to date, along with a federal mediator since May 6. We made progress, reached tentative agreements on several issues, including workplace safety, and feel confident that we proposed a fair and equitable contract. Our focus remains on supporting our nurses while providing high-quality, safe care for our patients. If, through this vote announced today by the MNA, the bargaining committee is authorized to call for a strike and one is called, we are positioned to continue to provide the same high-quality care that patients expect.

So even though we do worry about the impact on the patients that striking would have, the goal is that in the long term it would help us provide better care and a better environment for them, said Hurley.

Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.

Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Starland Pizza jacket could lead to ID of burglar targeting businesses in Athens

Athens-Clarke police want to identify this burglary suspect.

The drive-thru appears to be a preferred way to enter a business for a burglar who has yet to be identified in Athens.

Athens-Clarke police believe this late-night criminal entered the Burger King on Hawthorne Avenue on July 2 and the Dunkin Donuts on Prince Avenue on July 21.

Police have released a security camera photo on their Facebook page that shows the burglar wearing a sweater jacket with Starland Pizza scripted on the back.

So far that evidence has not led to the mans identity.

There have been a number of commercial burglaries in Athens this summer. Police spokesman Lt. Jody Thompson said Friday that police are trying to determine if this person might be responsible for some of those as well.

Drug plea: Oglethorpe County man pleads to crimes that will land him in federal prison

In the latest burglary, the man shattered the glass of the Dunkin Donuts shop with a stone removed from decorative landscaping near the drive thru.

A video shows the man at the location shortly before 11 p.m. The man, who is also carrying a backpack, entered the business and removed a cash drawer and then exited the same way he entered, according to the report.

At the Burger King, police were called to the restaurant shortly after 5 a.m. when an employee found a large rock had been used to shatter the drive-thru window.

A video shows the burglar entering the store at about 2.45 a.m., where he removed a large sum of cash from the safe.

The suspect is described as a slender, black male. Anyone with information on a possible suspect is asked to contact Detective Austin Pilkington at 762-400-7179 or austin.pilkington@accgov.com

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Athens police attempt to ID burglar targeting stores at night
Construction workers perform tasks on an apartment building in 2019. Algorithmic price estimates, in which landlords might rely on complex data formulas to set rental rates, have become more popular in recent years, but lawsuits question whether the algorithms amount to price-fixing. (Photo by John Raoux/The Associated Press)

In the past two years, more than 30 lawsuits have been filed in federal and state courts alleging that companies such as RealPage and Yardi are equipping corporate landlords with software algorithms that allow competitors to collude on rental housing prices.

Algorithmic price estimates, in which landlords rely on complex data formulas to set rental rates, have become more popular in recent years. State and federal investigations, along with nascent pieces of legislation to crack down on the practice, could affect millions of tenants who have seen rents skyrocket in the past few years as private companies market their algorithms to corporate landlords.

According to a ProPublica investigation, the algorithms collect lease transaction data from across the country on actual rents paid, versus advertised rates, using it to churn out daily price estimates for vacant units. The results, which are then fed to corporate owners, could offer suggested rent increases that often are far higher than what landlords might try on their own.

The practice is creating an affordability crisis in housing as corporate landlords seek to maximize profits off the backs of families who are just trying to find an affordable place to live, said Liz Zelnick, director of the Economic Security & Corporate Power Program at Accountable.US, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group.

Several landlords familiar with RealPages YieldStar algorithm told Stateline that rents are often set based on factors such as occupancy as well as lease expiration and transaction data, but not renter demand or area incomes.

Both RealPage and Yardi deny any wrongdoing, saying their algorithm services use data responsibly and that apartment owners make their own decisions about rental rates.

Its one of the first times were seeing federal regulators and states take on corporate greed in the rental housing space and hold these corporations accountable.

 Liz Zelnick, director of the Economy Security & Corporate Power Program at Accountable.US

In November, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb, a Democrat, sued 14 of the citys largest landlords in an antitrust lawsuit alleging that landlords colluded with RealPage to raise rents up to 7% across nearly 40,000 apartments in the District.

Shortly afterward, Accountable.US sent letters to the attorney general offices in nine states  Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Washington  alerting them to possible price-fixing in their rental markets. The letters named corporations that were under investigation in D.C., tallied those companies rental units in each state, and urged law enforcement to probe further.

Some of those states have since taken action. Arizona Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes in January filed a lawsuit against RealPage and nine apartment landlords. The complaint says that area landlords acknowledged that while they are technically competitors, RealPage helps them work together  to make us all more successful in our pricing.

And in North Carolina, Democratic Attorney General Josh Steins office confirmed to Stateline that officials are investigating RealPage over alleged antitrust concerns.

Its been encouraging to see, Zelnick said. You see some states saying, Hey, we wanna start to cut down on some of these practices that obviously are hampering peoples ability to find a home.

Its one of the first times were seeing federal regulators and states take on corporate greed in the rental housing space and hold these corporations accountable, she said.

Rising rents raise eyebrows

While rents nationwide jumped by 30% from 2019 to 2023, wages in that same period didnt keep pace, rising just 20%, according to an analysis from real estate companies Zillow and StreetEasy.

The dramatic increase in rents and subsequent rise in evictions coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic have shed light on the hurdles that renters  especially those with lower incomes  have faced for years.

I wouldnt say that the entire housing crisis is attributed to price-fixing and the ways in which corporations use them, but it certainly exacerbates the housing challenges renters face, said Sarah Saadian, senior vice president of public policy and field organizing for the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which advocates on behalf of tenants. This is something that had long been happening to renters on lower incomes.

The worry is that software systems provide landlords with essentially non-market information that can be used to increase rents, she said.

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.

The concern there is that if many landlords are using that sort of software and concentrated in a particular housing market, it can certainly make the housing market unaffordable if every local rent is priced well above what people can afford, Saadian said.

The state actions coincided with a federal probe into RealPages algorithm by U.S. Department of Justice antitrust investigators. That effort escalated with an unannounced raid in May of Cortland Management, a major corporate landlord based in Atlanta.

The DOJ is preparing to sue RealPage over alleged collusion and price-fixing within the rental housing market, according to reporting by Politico.

Last September, a Washington state resident filed a class-action suit in federal court against Yardi and 18 property managers, accusing them of using pricing software to fix rental rates. Yardi denied wrongdoing, saying in a statement, there is nothing illegal about revenue management.

Six of the largest publicly traded apartment companies  all of which are included in legal action on suspicion of alleged collusion  reported roughly $300 million combined in increased profits in the first quarter of 2024, according to an analysis by Accountable.US.

However, RealPage has denied the allegations in these lawsuits, arguing that scrutiny of their business practices began in October 2022, around the time the ProPublica story was published.

In response to questions, RealPage pointed Stateline to a lengthy statement it had posted on its website in June, saying customers that use the management software decide their own rents and can decline rent recommendations without penalty.

According to Competition Policy International, a company that reports on global antitrust issues, RealPages influence covers 70% of the nations multifamily apartment buildings and impacts 16 million units.

Legislative efforts stall

While state attorneys general are scrutinizing algorithmic price-fixing  which is illegal under the federal Sherman Antitrust Act  state lawmakers legislative attempts to weed out the practice in rental housing have stalled.

In Colorado and New York, there were bills to prohibit price setting or raising via algorithm.

Need to get in touch?

Have a news tip?

CONTACT US

The Colorado bill passed the House, but ultimately failed after suggested changes in the Senate became unpalatable to House members. In recent weeks, Colorado housing advocates have urged state Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, to open investigations into rental price-fixing, especially in its major rental housing hub, Denver.

If that bill would have passed, this sort of price-fixing would have not been an issue, said Zach Neumann of the Community Economic Defense Project, a Denver-based group that advocates for low-income residents. My hope is that the sponsors behind that bill bring it back in the 2025 legislative sessions.  In the meantime, our goal is for the attorney generals office to explore this issue, and if collusion and price-fixing is taking place, to root it out so the housing struggles many are facing arent further exacerbated.

The New York legislation died in committee.

New Hampshire state Rep. Eric Gallager tried something a bit different with his bill. Gallager wanted to discourage the use of these algorithms by making any eviction against a resident unlawful if their housing provider had been price-fixing.

I dont think I was really able to get the committee to fully understand it properly, Gallager, a Democrat, told Stateline. His bill failed to make it out of committee.

Saadian, of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and other housing advocates argue that in the meantime, stronger state and local tenant protections such as eviction caps and anti-gouging laws can act as a safeguard against algorithmic price-fixing.

That would prevent landlords from dramatically and egregiously raising rents, Saadian said.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The Michigan Legislature appropriated $1.25 million in the upcoming years Michigan state budget to support the Sault Ste. Marie Tribes Bgwasendam Gamigong, or Lodge of Hope shelter. The state budget was signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

The Sault Tribe-operated facility opened in August 2023 with 21 rooms and is only the second homeless shelter in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

The funding includes $500,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services and $750,000 from the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.

Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians Chairman Austin Lowes praised the legislature and Gov. Whitmer for recognizing the need and including funding to support the tribes efforts to address homelessness.

The Bgwasendam Gamigong is one of only two shelters available to help unhoused people in the Upper Peninsula. This funding will help ensure we can continue to provide a safe space where people can seek shelter and also help the tribe provide the wrap-around services necessary to help the guests at the Lodge address the issues that have prevented them from obtaining stable long-term housing, Chairman Lowes said. I want to personally thank Sen. John Damoose who worked tirelessly to advocate to his colleagues in the legislature for the need for this funding and helped ensure it was included in the budget.

Chairman Lowes also thanked Gov. Whitmer for recognizing the need for the funding and keeping the Lodge of Hope appropriation in the budget.

Never miss Indian Countrys biggest stories and breaking news. Click here to sign up to get our reporting sent straight to your inbox every weekday morning.

There is a growing need to address homelessness and the factors that contribute toward it throughout the eastern U.P., so we very much appreciate Gov. Whitmers support to ensure the great work at the Lodge of Hope can continue into the future, said Lowes.

About the Author: "Levi \"Calm Before the Storm\" Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online. Rickert was awarded Best Column 2021 Native Media Award for the print\/online category by the Native American Journalists Association. He serves on the advisory board of the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association. He can be reached at levi@nativenewsonline.net."

Contact: levi@nativenewsonline.net
FRESNO, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE)  The state says Fresno County is trying to suppress participation in its elections by deliberately placing the voting dates for District Attorney and Fresno County Sheriff in years where there is no presidential election.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and California Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber filed a lawsuit Friday against Fresno County challenging its recently passed initiative Measure A. Measure A amended the Fresno County charter to move elections for District Attorney and Fresno County Sheriff away from the presidential cycle to the gubernatorial cycle.

In the lawsuit, Bonta says that this measure is preempted by a state law that explicitly requires counties, including charter counties, to hold elections for district attorney and sheriff during the presidential election cycle, which traditionally has higher voter turnout.

Bonta says the lawsuit comes after the Fresno County Board of Supervisors approved Resolution 23-287 in August 2023, which, among other things, called a Special Election to place Measure A on the ballot for the March 5, 2024, primary election to amend the Fresno County Charter. It was then approved by the voters.

Our democracy works best when everyone can participate and make their voices heard. Fresnos Measure A unlawfully conflicts with California law and has the potential to suppress voter turnout, said Attorney General Rob Bonta. State election law already provides election timing requirements crucial for voter turnout across the state. Ensuring that a large and more inclusive pool of voters can vote for candidates who reflect their values is a fundamental step to making democracy work. Were asking the court to block Measure A. The California Department of Justice stands ready to defend the voting rights that make our democracy strong.

In a statement in response, Fresno County officials describe the lawsuit as an invalid attempt to overturn the will of the voters of Fresno County in violation of the California Constitution and the statute that the state is trying to enforce as an illegal infringement on the charter powers of Fresno County and its voters.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
States funding anti-abortion clinics have some of highest rates of maternal and infant mortality in US, report finds

States that fund so-called crisis pregnancy centers where pregnant patients are dissuaded from seeking abortions have some of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the US, according to a new report from a reproductive health watchdog group.

The unregulated pregnancy clinic industry  which encompasses roughly 2,500 to 4,000 sites in all 50 states, most of which are affiliated with anti-abortion groups  is increasingly funded by state legislatures that allocate taxpayer dollars to support them, according to Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch.

That pace of funding has accelerated in the wake of the Supreme Courts 2022 ruling to overturn Roe v Wade, which struck down the constitutional right to abortion care and granted states wide latitude to restrict access.

Money has been flowing into the industry within the last several years, but direct taxpayer funding is increasing even faster, according to the report.

At the same time, the industry is working to evade watchdog attempts to understand exactly how those public funds are used, with a significant lack of accounting for a billion dollar industry, according to the report.

Between 2021 and 2024, at least 21 states have funded clinics with taxpayer dollars  all of them anti-abortion states with high rates of maternal and infant mortality above the national average.

Clinic supporters have argued that pregnant patients are provided care to understand the risks of abortion, but abortion rights advocates say that the information is not rooted in any medical or scientific guidance.

Abortion rights activists demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court in Washington DC on June 24. (AFP via Getty Images)

While support for such clinics is typically positioned as a response to infant and maternal health needs, only 5 percent of such clinics provide prenatal care, and a majority of clinics distract and divert pregnant women from the legitimate medical system to promote their own [ideological] ends, according to the report.

Anti-abortion lawmakers who encourage public funding for crisis pregnancy centers have also turned away public funding for maternal healthcare, the report noted.

For example, in Mississippi, which has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country, with 39.1 deaths per 100,000 births, lawmakers who supported clinic tax credits have also tried to block Medicaid expansion to support postpartum care.

In Arkansas, where maternal mortality rates are 38.3 deaths per 100,000 births, lawmakers introduced legislation to double direct taxpayer funding to clinics  while Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders rejected that Medicaid coverage.

The state is among only a handful that has not taken advantage of the federal option to extend postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months after birth.

Private donations remain the largest source of clinic industry revenue, but a growing number of state legislatures are approving public funds to support the industry.

The report, citing publicly available IRS forms, found that 53 percent of industry-supported clinics reported a 30 percent increase in revenue between 2019 and 2022  up from $1 billion to more than $1.4 billion within a three-year period.

Roughly 87 percent of that revenue came from private donors and corporations.

But between 2021 and July 2024, state lawmakers approved more than $511 million in taxpayer dollars to crisis pregnancy centers.

In the two years before the Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs v Jackson Womens Health Organization, that figure was roughly $184 million, according to the report.

In the years after Dobbs, it surged to roughly $327 million.

Seven states have created new public funding programs within that four-year period, while 11 states increased total funding appropriated for clinics, according to the report. Lawmakers are turning to funding mechanisms like tax credits, sales tax exemptions and government contracts, among others.

The findings follow a wave of anti-abortion laws that followed the Dobbs decision, with 14 states outlawing abortion at any point in pregnancy, while several other states have strict gestational limits  including at roughly six weeks, when most women dont know they are pregnant.

Anti-abortion laws have threatened access to care for more than 20 million women, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Including states that ban abortion at 12 or 15 weeks of pregnancy, the number of affected women grows to roughly 25 million.
The status symbols that parents are obsessed with in 2024

Parents with disposable income have been turning to certain luxury baby and toddler brands.

The Snoo smart bassinet has a high price tag, but some parents swear by it.

These are the brands and items that have become status symbols.

Becoming a parent is a whirlwind of emotions. It also means spending a lot of money on items for the new baby.

While babies need very little  a safe place to sleep, diapers, and to be fed around the clock  parents with disposable income often turn to high-end products that offer extra features and stylish designs.

As a parent of three kids under the age of 6, I've seen the same products make the rounds over and over again from momfluencer Instagram accounts, celebrities, and friends' baby registries.

Here are some of the most popular status symbol brands and products for babies and why parents are obsessed with them.

Baby in Snoo bassinet Happiest Baby

undefinedundefinedundefined

A car seat and a stroller in one

Doona

It can be overwhelming to find car seats and strollers because there are so many options. The Doona car seat makes it easier with a car seat that has wheels and easily converts into a stroller.

The Doona is another celebrity favorite, with Suki Waterhouse, Kourtney Kardashian, Paris Hilton, and many more choosing it to transport their kids.

Perfect for city-dwelling parents because it's easy to install in any car, the Doona retails for $550 and can hold kids up to 35 pounds or 32 inches (whichever they hit first).

Two brands dominate the luxury stroller market

The Vista and Donkey are two of parents' most sought-out strollers in big cities. UppaBaby and Bugaboo

There are endless stroller options, from travel strollers to multiple kid strollers. But two products dominate the luxury stroller market: UppaBaby's Vista stroller and Bugaboo's Donkey stroller.

While pregnant with my first child, I debated which of these two to buy. I ended up going with the Vista because its frame is narrower, allowing me to walk through single doors with the stroller.

While my kids don't use strollers anymore, I still get texts from friends asking which of these two is a better option.

Both strollers have similar specs: they come with a bassinet for infants and a seat for when a baby can hold their head up. They both have a single adjustable push bar, big sturdy wheels, and ample storage space.

The Vista retails for $999.99 and the Donkey for $1,499.

A Scandinavian high chair that grows with your child

The Tripp Trapp chair grows with your child. Stokke

The Norwegian brand Stokke launched its famous Tripp Trapp high chair in 1972. The chair has become a status symbol because of its sleek design and practicality, and it's beloved by influencers for its simplicity.

The high chair grows with your child and can even be turned into a stool for older kids and adults.

The chair retails for $299 to $399 and is available in 10 different colors.

An easy to clean changing pad

The Peanut changing pad was voted the best in 2024 by Parents.com Kekaroo

The $149 Peanut Kekaroo changer is so popular that its website only allows people to buy two per order. It's no surprise since parenting websites have consistently voted it one of the best changing pads for babies.

Since becoming a parent in 2018 I've seen this changing pad in every baby registry my friends have put together.

Word of mouth has turned it into a parent favorite because it makes changing diapers easy, as the rubber texture prevents babies from slipping. It's also easy to clean if accidents happen  which they do, all the time.

A diaper bag ready for anything

The Indi diaper bag by Dagne Dover is a parents' favorite. Dagne Dover

Leaving the house with a baby means parents need to carry so many things: diapering items, feeding items, extra clothes, a collection of pacifiers, and the beloved stuffie that can never get lost.

The trendy Dagne Dover Indi diaper bag, named a diaper bag for modern parents by Vogue, helps you keep track of everything.

It has enough compartments to separate items and includes a Neoprene sleeve for dirty clothes or diapers. The bag also has several outside pockets for must-reach items like wipes and keys.

The Indi diaper bag comes in three sizes and 11 colors. The larger bag retails for $219.

A crib out of a fairy tale nursery

The Oeuf crib is a hot ticket item for luxe nurseries. Courtesy of Ouef

Oeuf is a pricey Brooklyn-based baby brand that strives for sustainability in a market known for generating lots of waste.



The brand uses recyclable materials like birch wood in its furniture, including the $975 Moss crib.

The crib has been featured in Vogue as a "must-have" baby item. Celebrities like Kourtney Kardashian and Liv Tyler have also shared photos of their nurseries featuring the Oeuf crib.

To make it the ultimate status symbol, you can add the $499 Newton baby mattress, which is breathable, washable, and can keep your baby cool. Because leaks happen, there's a waterproof option that retails for $399. A $280 kit to convert the crib into a toddler bed is also sold separately.

Hands-free pumps

Insider

Nothing is more time-consuming for new parents than feeding a baby, and the idea that breastfeeding is free doesn't take into account the number of hours someone has to spend hooked to a baby or pump for those first six months.

While many insurance plans cover regular pumps, the next big trend is getting a hands-free pump that allows parents to do other things while pumping. Brittany Mahomes shared a photo of herself using a hands-free pump while doing pilates, and Blake Lively has been seen wearing one too.

Two brands stand out as being beloved by parents: the $499 Willow and the $550 Elvie.

Having used both myself, I can say they are pretty comparable.

A baby carrier that costs almost as much as a stroller

The Artipoppe baby carrier comes in many different prints. Artippope

I often see people asking in luxury goods Facebook groups where people buy and sell products if anyone is selling their Artipoppe baby carrier.

The carriers are priced from $370 for a standard carrier to $3,800 for a 30% cashmere carrier and come in over a dozen prints and fabrics, some of which need to be hand-washed.

All Artipoppe carriers are designed for use from birth until 2 years old. They can be carried facing in, facing out, or as a backpack.

A minimalistic balance bike

The Iimo balance bike is stylish and minimal. Iimo

The Iimo balance bike stands out because of its minimalist design and limited color scheme  it's only available in white and red.

The Japanese brand launched in the US in 2019 with the goal of bringing stylish and practical products to American parents. It has won several design awards in Japan for its balance bike and tricycle.

The bike retails for $280 for the balance option and $388 for the bike plus the pedal kit to turn it into a regular bike. Other similar balance bikes, like the Retrospect balance bike, retail for just $69.99.

A diaper that is up for a challenge

Coterie's diapers are absorbent and made of clean and hypoallergenic ingredients. Coterie

Having had twins, I've tried all the diapers on the market. There was a clear winner when it came to keeping my babies dry overnight: Coterie diapers.

While they don't come in cute prints like other brands, the quality is unparalleled. Models and moms Karlie Kloss and Ashley Graham not only have used the diapers with their kids, but have become ambassadors of the brand. Kloss is also an investor in the brand.

Sizes range from newborn (under 10 pounds) to seven (over 41 pounds) and retail for $90 without the autorenewal options. If you choose to auto-renew, you get a 10% discount.

A smart baby monitor that tracks sleep

The Nanit pro baby monitor can track sleep and breathing. Nanit

Sleep is essential for kids as they grow, so it's no surprise that parents with disposable income are going for the Nanit Pro baby monitor.

The Nanit offers a sensor-free breathing band that can be used when the baby is a newborn up to 3 months old. After that, a sleep tracking subscription option lets parents see how many hours a child has slept and get insights on what they should adjust. The app also shows the temperature and humidity in the room.

Beyond the extra features, the camera's definition in the dark is excellent, allowing parents to keep an eye on their little ones even in the darkest of rooms.

Celebrity moms like Gigi Hadid and Halsey put the Nanit in their baby registries.

The camera can be mounted on a floor stand or on the wall and retails for $249 to $399.

An airline-approved ride-on suitcase

The Jet Kids ride-on suitcase allows parents to travel more comfortably with kids. Stokke

Traveling with kids can be stressful, especially with little ones who can't walk long distances. The Jet Kids ride-on suitcase solves that problem.

Kids as young as 3 can ride on the suitcase, which can also store their favorite stuffie inside so it's not left behind at TSA. The suitcase turns any airplane seat into a bed by filling up the footrest gap, making travel more comfortable for kids. Travel influencers swear by it, saying it makes traveling with little kids easier.

The Jet Kids ride-on suitcase is light enough that you can also carry it from the strap if needed. It comes in seven colors and retails for $229.

Read the original article on Business Insider
To stay afloat, RI Baptist Churches Association puts 300-acre camp in Exeter up for sale

EXETER  For decades, the Canonicus Camp and Conference Center on 300 bucolic acres has hosted religious retreats, innumerable summer camp programs and fall festivals.

But its future is less certain now that its owners, the American Baptist Churches of Rhode Island, made the difficult decision to sell the property.

The Rev. Courtny Davis Olds, executive director of the church group, told The Journal that the Board of Ministries is exploring options to sell the property for development, land conservation or portions for both.

Town tax records assess the Exeter Road property at $3,045,100, which encompasses an 18-acre pond and includes nine separate buildings, including a 200-year-old house.

The Board of Ministries for the American Baptist Churches of Rhode Island is exploring options to sell Canonicus Camp and Conference Center, a 300-acre property in Exeter, for development, land conservation or portions for both.

Why sell the property?

The church association, made up of 67 Baptist congregations, announced its decision on its website, noting it came only after years of serious discussions, the painful reality of annual deficit budgeting and increasing insurance costs to run and maintain property.

Decades of deficit budgeting and drawing too heavily on unrestricted endowment funds have resulted in ABCORIs being at a critical financial crossroads, the board reported.

Only through two unplanned infusions of revenue  a major bequest and a portion of the sale of a church property  was the church association able to fund its operating costs through the last and current fiscal years.

The fact is that there has been a deficit averaging $100,000 per year for many years, reported the associations Interim Executive Minister Doug Harris. My deeper research has shown that the deficit is created primarily by owning and operating the Canonicus Camp and Conference Center.

A wider issue among churches nationwide

Harris said the dire financial situation wasnt unique to Rhode Island American Baptists.

Most regions in the country have had to face this reality over the past 20 years or so," he said. "The old models for programming and financing of church camp properties are no longer viable.

History of the Canonicus Camp property

Stanley Lemons, a church historian and former professor at Rhode Island College, told The Journal that the Rhode Island Baptist State Convention first purchased property for the camp and conference center in 1946.

In 1950, on the shore of the camp pond, the property was named Canonicus Camp and Conference Center in honor of the Narragansett sachem who befriended Rhode Island founder Roger Williams.

For years, various organizations rented the camp and conference center for events.

Hasbro Children's Hospital and CVS Pharmacy hosted a free summer overnight program called Asthma Camp. Supervised by a medical staff, children participated in outdoor and indoor activities while learning how to manage their asthma.

The center also played host to Womens Discovery weekends, events hosted by the Institute for Labor Studies and Research and the group Rhode Island for Community and Justice.

In autumn, the center hosted Columbus Day fall festivals, complete with hayrides, canoe paddling and apple pie contests.

Change in insurance forces the group's hand

But this year, the board reported that its longtime insurance carrier declined to renew its policy.

Only after an exhaustive search did the church association find new liability coverage but at a significantly higher cost and with significantly more exclusions than its previous policy.

Those exclusions included waterfront activities, the ropes course, and the practice of insuring volunteers.

And the association was unable to obtain a new property insurance policy, which means that losses resulting from a fire, flooding or major storm would not be covered and could have a devastating impact for ABCORI.

The Board of Ministries says it will host two informational sessions next month for church members to ask questions. Meanwhile, its executive committee will explore possible sale options.

The full board then will discuss and vote on the specifics of the sale once that information is available.

Money from the sale of the property will generate funds to expand the ministries and programs ABCORI provides for its member churches and their pastors, as well as to develop new ministry opportunities.

Contact Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: 300-acre camp in Exeter up for sale. What to know about Canonicus Camp.
Stay cool as Iowa's summer heats up with these tips from local public health officials

One and half year old Addy Martens enjoys water as cooling off from heat wave at Furman Aquatic Center on Monday, June 24, 2024, in Ames, Iowa.

Mary Greeley Medical Center's emergency department has treated about a dozen patients for heat-related illnesses since June 1, according to director Staci Olson.

"Many of those (were seen) towards the end of June," Olson said. "It is fairly common to see heat-related illnesses during the summer months when it is extremely hot and humid."

The Ames Tribune spoke with local health officials to help provide the best safety tips as the summer hits its stride.

How to stay cool in the heat

The Centers for Disease Control recommends wearing lightweight clothing, staying hydrated, avoiding hot and heavy meals and carefully scheduling outdoor activities to stay cool.

Here's some advice from local nurses and energy service experts when it comes to keeping cool during summer months:

More: West Nile Virus found in mosquitoes in central Iowa. What to know:

Keeping homes cool without central AC

City of Ames officials said Ames Electric Services power demand peaks in the summer, while the typical cooling season is from June through September.

Window air conditioning units are a good option for homes or apartments without central air conditioning, Ames Energy Services Coordinator Joel Zook said. Renters and homeowners should look for an Energy Star rated unit to ensure they're getting as efficient a unit as possible.

Window heat pumps are new to the scene, he said, and can be especially useful if the home has an electric baseboard or other resistance heaters.

Homes can stay cooler by limiting the use of items that generate heat, as well.

"Cooking can add a lot of heat to a home, so hot summer days are a great time for unheated meals like sandwiches or salads - or to grill outdoors," Zook said. "Saving energy by turning off lights when you're not in the room is doubly important in the summer - leaving lights on adds to the heat indoors."

More: Ames wastewater treatment facilitys needed renovation could cost more than $50 million

Ames youth have a free meal at the Ames Public Library in 2023.

Use air-conditioned public spaces to cool off

Neither the city of Ames nor Story County has an official cooling center though Ames has occasionally opened the Community Center Gym in the city hall.

The city and the county direct overheated residents to seek refuge at the Ames Public Library, North Grand Mall, shopping areas, movie theaters and other air-conditioned facilities.

Those in need of immediate assistance for heat exhaustion should visit a healthcare professional. Excessive heat can create serious health concerns for vulnerable populations such as the elderly and the very young.

More: Sneak Peek: Mullets restaurant opens in Ames

Children get cool off from heat wave by staying in the water at Furman Aquatic Center on Monday, June 24, 2024, in Ames, Iowa.

The summer 'don'ts'

Treasa Ferrari, a nurse registered nurse with Story County Public Health, said people should not rely on electric fans when the temperature is high.

"Electric fans can provide comfort, but when the temperature is in the 90s, they will not prevent heat-related illnesses," Ferrari said. "They obviously help because theres air moving, but theyre not going to keep you from getting heat-related illness if it's really hot."

She also suggests limiting outdoor activity in extreme heat, such as only going outside in the morning or evening.

Sunscreen is also a must when it comes to keeping your body cool, she said.

"Sun can significantly slow the skins ability to release excess heat, so its important to stay out of the sun," Ferrari said. "Sunburn affects your bodys ability to cool down as well. You do not want to be out in the sun and get burned because its going to accelerate heat exhaustion."

Celia Brocker is a government, crime, political and education reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached at CBrocker@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Ames Tribune: Public health officials offer tips to stay cool in the summer
MEXICO CITY, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The Mexican government expects to receive more information from U.S. authorities in the next few hours regarding the custody of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, a drug trafficking organization, a senior official said on Friday.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico informed the Mexican side on Thursday afternoon that Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, both leaders of the drug trafficking cartel, were in custody in El Paso, Texas, Secretary for Security and Citizen Protection Icela Rodriguez confirmed at a press conference.

Icela Rodriguez said she still couldn't define whether it was a surrender or capture, so they were waiting for more information from the U.S. government.

"The information and investigation is being carried out in the United States," said the minister.

When questioned whether Mexico was involved in the operation, Icela Rodriguez said that the Mexican government did not participate in the arrest or surrender.

The U.S. Justice Department announced on Thursday the capture of Zambada, co-founder and alleged leader of the Sinaloa cartel, and Guzman Lopez, son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in the United States. 
A woman who previously served time in prison for child neglect is now facing charges in connection to the death of her 6-year-old stepson.

Anitra Burks, 33, of Milwaukee, was charged Friday with intentional homicide and neglecting a child in connection with Zane Adams' death. Zane, Burks' stepson, was pronounced dead early Monday morning.

According to online court records, Burks pleaded "no contest" to child abuse-recklessly causing bodily harm and was sentenced in 2013 to three years in prison and six years of extended supervision for burning a 14-month-old boy with hot water during a bath. A judge in 2015 reduced her supervision from six years to five years.

She served two years and two months at Taycheedah Correctional Institution, followed by roughly five years on extended supervision that ended in August of 2021.

According to the criminal complaint connected to Zane's death, Burks was arrested Monday after taking her stepson to a hospital. Zane was in critical condition with "bruises head to toe," according to the complaint. Despite lifesaving efforts by staff, the 6-year-old died Monday.

According to the complaint, Burks told Milwaukee police detectives while being questioned at the hospital that she had been Zane's sole caretaker since his biological father's arrest. The father is awaiting sentencing for an unrelated crime. Burks told detectives the injuries on the child's body were self-inflicted due to behavioral issues, according to the complaint.

The complaint said Burks told police she called an on-call nurse to report Zane was vomiting and his abdomen felt "hard." Burks asked the nurse if she should bring Zane in for medical care, and the nurse said yes.

Burks and Zane took a transport van to the hospital. The child died during a surgery to stop internal bleeding, the complaint said.

The Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office preliminary autopsy determined the cause of death to be blunt force trauma, stating his injuries were "extremely rare in accidental trauma" and ruled Zane's cause of death to be homicide.

On Friday, Burke remained in Milwaukee County Jail on $100,000 bail.

The state Department of Children and Families was notified of the child's death and is performing what's known as a summary review, which is standard practice in such cases. The results will be released in 90 days.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Woman with prior child neglect conviction charged in stepson's death
Vice President-elect Kamala Harris hugs her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, as she arrives for the 59th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. Harris' stepson, Cole Emhoff, stands on the right. | Carolyn Kaster

Does it really need to be said? You dont have to be genetically related to your children to be a real parent.

Vice presidential candidate JD Vance seems to think differently. He spoke of Vice President Kamala Harris in an interview with Tucker Carlson in 2021 that was republished online earlier this week. It has racked up over 28 million views on X alone.

We are effectively run in this country  by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that theyve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too, Vance said to Carlson. Its just a basic fact. People like Kamala Harris, he said, have no direct stake in America.

Those of us with children not genetically related to us would like a word. So would cat lovers.

Vice President Harris actually is a mother  a stepmother, or bonus mother, if you prefer, to two children: Ella and Cole Emhoff. They call her Momala. When Ella graduated from college in 2021, Harris was there. When Cole was married in October, Harris officiated.

Ella, now 25, took to social media to defend her stepmom, saying How can you be childless when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I? She told her biological mother, Kerstin Emhoff, Say it louder for the people in the back.

Kerstin Emhoff, ex-wife of Doug Emhoff, the current second gentleman, provided statements to news outlets saying, These are baseless attacks. For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.

According to the latest research on Smart Stepfamilies, between 29 and 30 million stepparents exist in the U.S. today, parenting over 11 million children. If you take all steprelationships  parent, sibling or child  there are more than 113 million Americans with those relationships. There are an estimated additional 5 to 7 million people who have been adopted, like most of my children.

Thats a lot of people without genetic ties to their families.

You also dont have to birth children to be eligible to be president of the United States. To date, no presidents have ever given birth. Additionally, five U.S. presidents did not have biological children: George Washington, James Polk, James Madison, James Buchanan and Andrew Jackson. Our first president, Washington, had no biological children, but, like Harris, was the stepparent to two children, and Andrew Jackson had one adopted child.

Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks during a rally in his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, Monday, July 22, 2024. | Paul Vernon

Vance continued with the Tucker Carlson interview, saying, If we want a healthy ruling class in this country, we should invest more, we should vote more, we should support more people who actually have kids. ... I mean, these people recognize that theyre unhappy. Theyre living in one-bedroom apartments in New York City. Theyve played their entire lives to win a status game. Theyre obsessed with their jobs, he claimed, saying that they hate normal Americans for choosing family.

His comments are causing hurt and backlash in online communities. Meghan McCain, a conservative former host on The View, had several posts on X about the controversial comments. One of my best friends did rounds and rounds of unsuccessful IVF wanting to have a child. It is still painful to talk about. This childless women comment by JD Vance has made so many waves with so many different friends of mine for its insensitivity and cruelty to women, read one post.

Another read: I have been trying to warn every conservative man I know  these JD comments are activating women across all sides, including my most conservative Trump supporting friends. These comments have caused real pain and are just innately unchristian. This is not who we are.

The cat-lover crowd is motivated too, with multiple social media users pointing to the Time magazine cover of Taylor Swift with her cat draped around her shoulders and saying things like The armageddon is coming for him and Vance attacked childless women who love cats. Taylor Swift would probably like a word.

Trump lost women voters by 11 percentage points in 2020. No word on how the cat lover demographic voted.
Theyre still here: Daughter of Florida developer Sergio Pino details alleged hitman encounter during 911 call

Theyre still here: Daughter of Florida developer Sergio Pino details alleged hitman encounter during 911 call

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  A 911 call from the daughter of a Florida home developer detailing an alleged encounter with a hitman has been released, NBC affiliate WTVJ reported.

Sergio Pino, a prominent home developer in South Florida, was at the center of a murder-for-hire investigation when the FBI raided his $8 million home in Coral Gables last week. Pino was found dead inside the home from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Credit: WTVJ via NBC News

FBI officials alleged in a news conference the following day that Pino hired two crews to kill his estranged wife Tatiana amid their two-year divorce battle.

Theres a gun, theres a guy with a gun, please, Alessandra Pino, the developers daughter, can be heard telling the 911 dispatcher.

What do you mean theres a guy with a gun? the dispatcher responded.

Yes, he just pointed a gun at me, and theyre still here, Alessandra said.

The 911 call, captured on the morning of June 23, reportedly details what happened when the second crew Pino hired arrived at Tatianas Pinecrest home, according to WTVJ.

Credit: WTVJ via NBC News

In total, nine people have been arrested in the alleged plots, officials said.

Dispatcher: Are you there?

Alessandra: Yes.

Dispatcher: Ale, is there anyone else there with you?

Alessandra: No, I need to tell my mom not to come home. I think they might be looking for her.

The FBI alleged the man who held a gun to Alessandra was Vernon Green, who was on probation after serving 27 years for armed robbery and attempted murder.

Tatiana was at home, having just pulled her car into the back of the house as the gunmen searched for her. Criminal complaints said Sergio had placed a $300,000 contract on her life.

Alessandra: I hear them. Theyre passing me, theyre passing my house.

Dispatcher: Ok, maam. Ale, theyre trying to look for the subjects as well, OK? Ones going to go to you and the other vehicles are going to continue looking for those subjects, OK?

Alessandra: I know, but my moms phone says shes here and

Dispatcher: We have officers there now, OK?

WTVJ reports the FBI said Tatiana had been followed that morning by Diori Barnard, who served time in state prison for attempted burglary and assault. The time he spent overlapped with two others charged with the murder-for-hire plot: Avery Bivins, who served 15 years for attempted murder and armed robbery, and Fausto Villar, who robbed a man back in 2010 who had just collected $130,000 in cash winnings from a bookie.

Credit: WTVJ via NBC News

The FBI said Villar met Bivins in prison and had previously done roof work for Pino. Pino allegedly hired Villar to put together a crew to kill Tatiana.

Following Pinos apparent suicide, his attorney Deanna Shifrin told WTVJ that Sergio was an innocent man.

We can categorically state that Mr. Pino was not involved in any of the alleged conduct, Shifrin 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 WFLA.
2nd District U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Knoxville Republican, made national news when he called Vice President Kamala Harris a "DEI hire."

Tennessees GOP political leaders are bouncing off the walls amid recent upheaval in the nations presidential race.

From a post by House Majority Leader William Lamberth that liberals were to blame for the shots fired at former President Donald Trump to House Speaker Cameron Sextons proclamation that President Joe Bidens decision to drop his re-election race is a historical disenfranchisement of tens of millions of Americans, its enough to make people ask: Are these guys serious?

Lamberths initial foray into finding the motive for the shooter can be dismissed as hysteria. He was probably a little shocked? Then again, it is comforting to know he can see into the hearts and minds of men near and far.

The FBI, of course, said it cant find a motive.

Sexton, meanwhile, questioned whether Democrats are eliminating half the countrys primary votes with Bidens decision to step out of the race.

This uprooting of the election process is anti-democratic and should worry us all, he said on social media. This action by the Democrat Party, joining the progressives, truly shows they are politics above all else, and not people before politics.

Wait a second, havent key people from both parties been saying Biden should leave the race after his dismal showing in the first debate? The president didnt look good, and neither did the aging Trump, who spent most of the evening repeating a litany of lies.

Truth be told, both are too old to be president. Take this from someone who spent the last decade taking care of 80-plus-year-old people.

Cant we find someone whos young and sharp, instead of these doddering old men who dont know when to go to the house?

Aside from that, Sextons disenfranchisement statement is disingenuous at best.

Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett isnt even getting on board with it, the Tennessee Journal reported earlier this week.

Hargetts office is following a state law that says the chair of the nominating body of a statewide political party or recognized minor party shall certify the partys nominees for president and vice president for the November general election to the coordinator of elections by the first business day in September (Tuesday, Sept. 3).

Lest we forget, state law says people have to pledge allegiance to a party to vote in its primary, even though technically they remain open.

MTSU political science professor Kent Syler dismisses the rhetoric as a pretty big exaggeration but notes it is part of Sextons job to put a good spin on the situation.

Whether either party held a real primary is questionable.

Syler points out Biden was the de facto nominee as the sitting president and everyone else stayed out of the race. The partys top dogs, though, and people who voted for him wound up pushing him out.

You could probably as easily argue that it was an enfranchisement, says Syler, former chief of staff for Democratic U.S. Rep. Bart Gordon.

Syler adds that the choice is ultimately up to the party, thus the state law saying the party shall certify the nominee.

If something disabling were to happen to Biden or Trump, somebody else would have to step into the fold, as Vice President Kamala Harris did, which is what Veeps do.

This social media bump sounds more like an argument to hand Trump the election instead of making him earn it.

Just days after the shooting incident, Trump gave Biden kind parting words, saying hes not fit to remain in office for seven more months.

But Republicans know if Biden were to resign immediately, that would leave Harris as president, which would break all sorts of barriers for Black and Asian women and make her position even stronger.

Do they really want that or do they just spout whatever comes to mind? Likely the latter.

The old dog whistle

U.S. Rep. Tim Roadkill Burchett referred to Vice President Harris this week as a DEI hire, meaning the only reason Biden asked her to be his VP four years ago was that she is a woman of color. Her father is Black, and her mother is from India.

DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion, the target for many Republican lawmakers who oppose efforts to bring more minorities into important positions. Nevermind the fact she served as Californias attorney general and then as a U.S. senator.

Democratic state Rep. Sam McKenzie, chairman of Tennessees Black Caucus, criticized Burchetts comments as beyond disrespectful and delusional, saying he has gone off the rails with his latest asinine statements about Harris and now-former Secret Service Director Kim Cheatle, who resigned after being blamed for the Trump assassination attempt.

"Nothings free in life. But we live in a connected country and world, so to isolate Tennessee is really shortsighted, said Rep. Sam McKenzie, D-Knoxville, of a Republican move to reject federal funds for public schools. (Photo: John Partipilo)

Burchett, whose greatest contribution to society is passage of a roadkill bill in 1999 that allowed people to take home deer carcasses without a TWRA tag, went on to call her record abysmal. At least she hasnt made a government living being a smart-aleck.

The former state rep and senator, Knox County mayor and now congressman has been on the government teat longer than most people who collect welfare and food stamps.

As a federal official, he also should be aware that this type of statement would violate U.S. laws dealing with hiring and housing. The nation spent decades outlawing redlining and employment barriers for minorities, only for Burchett to return us to 1950 in a matter of days.

The uproar led national Republican leaders to warn their minions against making such sexist and racist remarks. In 2024, this type of admonition shouldnt be necessary?

We need a pick me up

Gov. Bill Lee endorsed state Rep. Scott Cepicky this summer as he tries to build support for his private-school voucher plan.

The Tennessee Federation for Children PAC (pro-voucher group) followed that up with spots boasting about the support, which Cepicky promptly posted on social media.

If the ads didnt contain the wording saying they werent authorized by any candidate or candidates committee, we might be so crazy as to think they were coordinating illegally. Heaven forbid.

In spite of the governors pat on the back, Cepicky didnt mind going on stage at a Maury County election forum and calling Lees bill terrible.

It was wide open. It probably would have added a billion dollars to the budget. It would have put us in the same pitfalls as Arizona would have been, or is, Cepicky said.

How bad was Lees private-school voucher bill? So bad that the House had to add several golden nuggets to bring teachers and school administrators into the fold with $400 million for insurance and school maintenance.

Cepicky claims the version he wrote would have exempted homeschoolers out to keep the government from sticking its nose in their business.

His measure also protected the autonomy of private schools by removing the same sort of accountability public schools face, Cepicky told the audience. Incidentally, he claimed students who shift to private schools would show gains in four years.

Challenger Ray Jeter told the audience he supports school choice but doesnt want to see public schools defunded, claiming Cepickys bill would have shifted money.

Rep. Scott Cepicky, a Culleoka Republican, posted a message from PAC that is endorsing him on his Instagram page.

Cepicky balked at that, arguing the bill he wrote would do no such thing.

Yet the financial impact analysis for Cepickys deal shows the legislation didnt have a hold-harmless provision for school systems that suffer a decrease in local revenue when students leave for private schools. Districts, in fact, would lose direct state funding of $58.9 million in fiscal 2025-26 and $64.7 million in fiscal 2026-27, according to the analysis.

Either way, trying to split these educational costs is similar to saying: I hit .300 in the big leagues this season, but later adding, only in batting practice

Whose resume?

During the forum, Cepicky also claimed to be chairman of the education committee, which is skirting the truth at best. He is chairman of the House Education Instruction Subcommittee, which does make him a player in this mess, but not a chairman of a full committee.

(Were getting accustomed to this resume massaging from some of our favorite elected officials.)

Then again, nearly everyone in the House is a chairman of something, a move former House Speaker Glen Casada made in 2019 to shore up his own support and garner backing for the governors voucher plan for Metro Nashville and Memphis schools.

It took arm-twisting to break a tie vote that led to an FBI investigation and, finally, a questionable decision by the Tennessee Supreme Court to put it into effect, only for student test results to be deemed nothing to write home about by the state education commissioner.

Nothing wrong here

The Tennessee Registry of Election Finance dismissed a complaint this week by a supporter of Bobby Harshbargers Senate campaign in upper East Tennessee claiming illegal coordination by Sen. Jon Lundberg and his backers in District 4. Lt. Gov. Randy McNallys political action committee is spending heavily to bolster Lundberg.

The Registry board found the complaint against Lundberg was legally and factually incomplete and could be refiled. But by that time, the primary election, set for Aug. 1, will be a wrap.

Senate Republican Caucus Chairman Ken Yager initiated the conflict with a complaint against the Harshbarger campaign, saying it was coordinating illegally with a political action committee and the candidates mother, Republican U.S. Rep. Diana Harshbarger.

The state Attorney Generals Office is purportedly investigating.

The AGs Office recently notified the Registry board in connection with a separate matter that it is not an investigative body. Responding to a Registry members complaints, their letter added that if the Registry doesnt like how long it takes to complete an investigation, they can look somewhere else for help. (The Registry now plans to seek more money for an auditor.) That word came down from on high even though the Legislature approved 10 more positions for AG Jonathan Skrmetti to start a federal task force at a cost of $2.25 million last year, bringing the total budget to $53 million for 363 positions.

That begs the question: How many AGs Office attorneys does it take to screw in a lightbulb? It depends on whether the bulb turns right or left.

So youve had a little trouble in town / Now youre keeping some demons down. Stop Draggin My Heart Around, Stevie Nicks (Tom Petty)

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX






(KRON)  Police arrested a suspect for allegedly stealing a car and colliding with a business, a transit bus, and several cars in the East Bay on Thursday.

GIG Car Share to permanently end services in Bay Area, Seattle

The Union City Police Department said they received reports of a stolen car just past 8:15 a.m.

Police responded to an area by Tamarack Drive and Mission Boulevard to locate the suspect. Upon arriving at the scene, police said the suspect had already driven away with the stolen car.

While fleeing, the driver crashed with the outside of a Union City business, police said. UCPD said tables and chairs outside the business were damaged, and no pedestrians were struck.

Shortly after, UCPD said the car continued driving onto Tamarack Drive before it collided with a University of California transit bus.

After the collision with the UC transit bus, a police officer located the suspect approaching an intersection. Police said the car thief suspect drove in the opposite direction upon noticing the police officer approaching them.

As the suspect was driving westbound on Decoto Road, police said the car collided with a second car, which hit another car causing a three-way collision.

UCPD said passengers inside one of the cars involved in the crash were hospitalized and are expected to survive. Police said the suspect who allegedly stole the car was arrested for various 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 KRON4.
The story of how the lobster roll became New Englands most iconic food

Once thought of as the New England fishermans typical work lunch, the lobster roll has grown to become an important part of the regions food culture and a must-try food item for visitors. Photograph by David Williams, Redux

Few foods evoke summer in New England like the lobster roll. The sandwiches are as iconic as lighthouses and the dropped rs of the northeastern U.S. regions unique Yankee dialects. Once a lowly work lunch for fishermen, the lobster roll is in such demand today that Hannaford supermarkets has announced a $10 version of the coastal classic, available across stores until Labor Day.

As New England tourism has grown, the rise of the lobster roll has gone along with it, says Evan Hennessey, chef-owner of Stages at One Washington and the Living Room in Dover, New Hampshire. Its this incredible, flavorful, quintessential right-from-the-ocean New England food thatand heres the key partyou can walk around and eat.

History of the lobster roll

Lobster didnt always have such cachet. The crustaceans were once so abundant that they could easily be caught in shallow waters. For a long time, [lobsters] were just local foodstuff you ate if you lived on the coast, says Boston University food historian Megan Elias.

Branden Lewis, chef and sustainability professor at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, says that English and Portuguese sailors, shipwrights, and fishermen created the earliest iteration of the lobster roll by tucking the discarded trimmings of tail and claw meat between pieces of bread.

Lobster recipes didnt gain cultural capital until the countrys nascent elite began vacationing along the East Coast, especially in states like Rhode Island, where they built summer cottages. The rolls were a mainstay until the early 1960s, when the country found itself besotted by the proper cooking techniques of Julia Child.

New Englands iconic sandwich came back into fashion in the 1990s, with the renewed interest in American regional foods. By then, lobster is even more expensive, Elias says. There are even fewer of them. So its like, Oh, its regional and its also hard to get, so it must be cool.

(These are the dishes taking Boston by storm.)

Lobster population in decline

Cool doesnt always equate to sustainable. A 2023 lobster assessment in the Gulf of Maine demonstrated a 40 percent population loss over a three-year period. In southern New England, the hardest-hit areas include Buzzards Bay, between Marthas Vineyard and Cape Cod, and Long Island Sound, off the coast of Connecticut, where the harvest has decreased by 97 percent since 1998.

Jeremy Collie, oceanography professor at the University of Rhode Island, attributes the decline to decreased production, predation of small lobsters by larger fish, shell disease (which is not harmful to humans), and overfishing. All but the last are related directly or indirectly to increasing [ocean] temperatures, Collie explains.

(Is climate change putting the lobster roll in jeopardy?)

Is it okay to eat lobster rolls?

The short answer is yes, Collie says, thanks to strict regulations that include minimum shell size and trapping limits, and releasing breeding females, which can carry 20,000 eggs on the undersides of their tails, back into the water. Although laws vary by state, fishermen who violate the rules are subject to fines starting at $500 per violation. Repeat offenders can lose their fishing licenses.

Lewis recommends that visitors diversify their seafood choices to reduce the risk of overfishing, and asking restaurants where they source their lobsters from. The U.S. has the most regulated fishing waters in the world, so if you buy American-caught, you are making a more sustainable choice, Lewis says, noting that there are rules in place to prevent seafood fraud.

Where to find the best lobster rolls in New England

The perennial debate surrounding the lobster roll relates to its two predominant types. Connecticut style, served warm with drawn butter, is sometimes credited to now defunct Perrys restaurant in Milford, Connecticut. The Maine-style sandwich, sometimes attributed to Moodys Diner in Waldoboro, Maine, uses a cold mayonnaiselemon juice dressing seasoned with herbs like chives or chervil. Some say its a spin-off of an 1829 recipe in The American Frugal Housewife cookbook that combined lobster meat with egg yolks, oil, vinegar, mustard, and cayenne pepper.

One constant in lobster roll evolution, at least since the 1920s, is its delivery system: the hot dog bun. The mixture of high and low end is part of the sandwichs allure, says Elias. Its not fussy. Americans love food that you dont need a fork and knife to eat it. We are just crazy about anything we can put our paws on.

Attend one or more of New Englands signature seafood festivals [see box below] to try both styles. Or look for chefs who are finding creative ways to honor the history of the lobster roll while updating it for adventurous modern palates.

At Stages at One Washington, Hennessey serves a glammed-up Connecticut-style sandwich, swapping the white roll for a potato bun and heating the steamed meat with a lobster reduction. He dresses it with smoked butter, pickled seaweed, citrus peel, cumin, coriander, and chives.

In Portland, Maine, Mimi Weissenborn, executive chef of Sur Lie, has leaned into regional nostalgia. I thought it would be a cool idea to stuff a popover, another classic New England food, with something, she says. Inside the breads air pocket, she tucks a corn and fontina puree, and lobster blanched in butter.

Hennessey also recommends the Lobster Shack in Ogunquit, Maine, which serves an overstuffed Maine- or Connecticut-style sandwich, on a griddled hot dog bun. Lewis names Providence eatery Dune Brothers, which combines both mayonnaise and warm butter into its roll. For Weissenborn, Maine-style Lukes Lobster in Portland has the freshest, off-the-boat flavor.

Still cant decide? Hook + Line, in Bostons Seaport District, serves one Maine style and one Connecticut style roll, on the same plate.

Robin Catalano is a New York State travel writer. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
Strict mask, vaccine rules could have saved as many as 250K lives, says new study

Strict mask, vaccine rules could have saved as many as 250K lives, says new study

Stricter COVID-19 restrictions could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the states that refused to institute them, though efforts to close nursing homes and schools likely caused more harm than good, a new study has found.

Between 118,000 and 248,000 more Americans would have survived the pandemic if all states had followed some restrictions practiced in Northeastern states, according to findings published Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The most effective responses were mask mandates and vaccine requirements, the JAMA study found.

COVID-19 restrictions saved lives, the researchers wrote.

The death toll was probably considerably higher than it would otherwise have been in states that resisted imposing these restrictions, banned their use, or implemented them for only relatively short periods of time.

Vaccine requirements and mask mandates have been politically controversial and continue to cast a shadow on politicians in Washington.

But the JAMA research extolled these policies and said they should help guide public health response in future pandemics even as an uncontrolled rise in bird flu hits the West.

At first, there was little difference in COVID-19 response between red and blue states, the researchers noted.

For the first four months of the pandemic, most states pursued overlapping and nearly universal strategies like closing businesses and schools and imposing mask mandates.

About 57 percent of Texans supported the mask restrictions, according to polling from The University of Texas. Those numbers are roughly in line with the 62 percent nationwide who told pollsters at Pew that the lives saved were worth what nearly 70 percent acknowledged as a considerable economic costs.

But by the middle of 2020, as right-leaning groups fomented opposition to these restrictions, conservative governments in states like Texas reacted by banning mask mandates.

As late as 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was telling conservative talk show hosts that he would keep his pandemic-derived emergency powers in place until state legislators codify my executive orders that ban mask mandates, that ban forced vaccines and things like that, The Texas Tribune reported.

The cost of these reactions in conservative states was tens or hundreds of thousands of additional deaths  a cost that would have been even worse if all states had followed their lead, the JAMA researchers found.

If all states had followed more the lenient practices in the Southeast or Texas, as many as 200,000 people would have died, the study found.

At its most dramatic, Mississippi  the state with the weakest restrictions  saw five times as many deaths per capita as Massachusetts, a state with among the strongest restrictions, the study found.

The findings emphasized that not all interventions were equally helpful; particularly when it came to closures of public spaces, the costs may have outweighed benefits. As much as three-fourths of the lives saved by restrictions could be attributed to just two practices  masks and vaccines.

By contrast, the researchers found, benefits were weakest for school closures, which hurt students social development and test scores without achieving much benefit in reducing the death rate.

For high-poverty school districts, this disparity was particularly stark. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that low-income districts that went remote in the 2020-21 school year, for example, will need to spend nearly all of their federal aid on academic recovery to help students recover from pandemic-related achievement losses.

The data suggests that school closures may have been too aggressively pursued in some states, the researchers found.

On the other hand, requiring students and teachers to wear masks was probably more effective and imposed lower costs.

Another area where researchers argued that the costs of restrictions likely outweighed benefits was social isolation for nursing home residents  which seem to have saved people from death by COVID-19 but caused them to be more likely to die overall.

The researchers acknowledged that simply saving lives was not necessarily sufficient to justify imposing restrictions because they also imposed a variety of costs, though they noted that some of these  like loss of liberty  were difficult to quantify.

But by using accepted actuarial numbers for the monetary value of a life  from about $5 million to about $12 million  they found that the lives that could have been saved by stronger restrictions was on the order of $1.2 trillion to $5.2 trillion.

Thats the equivalent of between 6 percent and 22 percent of 2021 gross domestic product.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Striking Minneapolis parks workers have reached a tentative agreement with the Park and Recreation Board, the union representing the employees said Friday.

Local 363s months-long fight over stalled contract negotiations with Park Board commissioners led to the first strike in the agency's 141-year history. Orange t-shirts and picket signs have become common sights for park-goers since the strike began July 4.

Workers have called for improved wages, health insurance and safety precautions. The Park Board's last offer included a 10.25% wage increase over three years.

Their final July 16th offer is estimated to cost $5.1 million over the three years of the contract and would result in an increase property taxes by approximately 1.32% in 2025 and 1.17% in 2026, according to the park board.

Since the start of the strike, bandshell concerts have been canceled and trees that have fallen victim to storms have remained on boulevards longer than usual.

"Today's picket plans are canceled. We're back at bargaining this morning to finalize details about returning to work," Local 363s post said Friday.

The Park Board confirmed the same in a news release.

"The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board has reached a tentative agreement with Local 363," the board said.

Earlier this week, workers delivered a petition of no-confidence with 2,000 signatures to the elected board. On Wednesday, striking workers shut down the park board meeting with a three hour protest.

The union said Friday that more details would be announced soon.
STUART  City Commissioner Troy McDonald for the fourth time in 12 years is facing a political opponent in the nonpartisan race that will be decided Aug. 20 during Floridas Primary Election.

McDonald, 56, of Stuart, who also is a Realtor for Illustrated Properties, won his first commission race in 2011 and remained unopposed until 2018 when he was unseated by Merritt Matheson, who in 2022 was then ousted by political newcomer Christopher "Doc" Collins, election records show.

In 2020, McDonald returned to the commission dais by beating challenger Caryn Hall Yost-Rudge, of Stuart, who he trounced again in August 2021.

Troy McDonald

Born in Pennsylvania and raised in Ohio, McDonald has lived in Stuart since 1995, served as mayor in 2014 and 2017 and said hes running a positive reelection campaign in part by defining the citys achievements under his watch.

Hes also touting his vision for a prosperous Stuart and his commitment to budget oversight.

I've been speaking a lot about our fiscal responsibility. We haven't raised taxes since 2019  and we have a stable, low tax rate, McDonald said. We have access to the St. Lucie River; our businesses are thriving, and we have a (class) 1 rated fire department  which means our residents get cheaper insurance rates.

Along with McDonalds race, Stuart voters will also decide whether to keep Group 2 Commissioner Becky Bruner in the seat shes held for seven years or back her first-time challenger Laura Giobbi, 74, of Stuart.

Who is challenging Troy McDonald?

His political rival 34-year-old Sean Reed, a preschool, small business owner and Stuart native, said hes challenging McDonald to prioritize the community's voice over developers' desires.

My opponent serves the interests of a small group of elite developers, bureaucrats, and the greedy who only want to profit from our beautiful city, said Reed, who with his family operate three childcare centers.

Sean Reed

Growth and development remain at the forefront of city issues, especially in the last few years as an influx of approved multifamily apartments and condominiums have completed construction.

In August 2022, both Collins and Campbell Rich were elected to the city commission, pledging to create a higher threshold for developers seeking land-use changes, media reports show.

Reed, too - who Collins appointed to the citys Board of Adjustment in 2022 - said if elected, he wants a full review of the citys land-use codes, and roll back development density levels.

I keep hearing them talk about  what we have is considered smart growth. I don't consider it smart growth, Reed said. I think density needs rolled back. Its not your job as an elected official to make the developers project profitable.

McDonalds reelection priorities

McDonald said while he and Bruner are not coordinating their reelection bids, as longtime city office holders, he expects theyll be challenged on their record and commission decisions.

We're the incumbents, so the attack is coming towards us. And theres always a bit of throw-the-bums out theory that some people have, he said. But I think overall, people are very happy with the city of Stuart.

While out canvassing neighborhoods, McDonald said residents repeatedly tell him they love it here, and they love Stuart.

Hes also standing by his proven track record of leadership and tangible results that have directly benefited city residents.

He pointed to expanded public access to the St. Lucie River and completing a Reverse Osmosis Plant, a $28 million project he called a significant milestone in the citys efforts to provide clean, safe drinking water.

Within the city of Stuart water treatment plant at 1002 S.E. Palm Beach Road, the well for the citys new reverse osmosis system is seen next to water storage tanks Friday, May 10, 2024. The well is drilled into the Floridan aquafer 1,680 feet below the plant property.

McDonald also touted serving as chairman of the Martin County Metropolitan Planning Organization and as vice chair of the Business Development Board.

Reelecting me means continued stable governance, enhanced community amenities, and a steadfast commitment to environmental protection and public safety, he wrote in a TCPalm candidate questionnaire. Together, we can keep Stuart a vibrant, safe, and prosperous place for all.

If reelected, he looks to complete the $4.5 million Fire Station #3 on Southeast Green River Parkway, and effectively utilize tens of millions of dollars expected from the 3M lawsuit settlement related to contamination of the citys water.

Cash advantage

With $34,500 in his campaign account as of July 25, McDonalds incumbency likely helped boost his fundraising edge over Reed, who collected $7,041 during the same period, election records show.

McDonald, who donated $1,000 to his race, said the cash hes raised shows his strength of support from dozens of residents and others outside the city who care deeply about Stuarts future.

All of these things, McDonald said, add up as a show of community support.

Reed, though, suggested the disparity in cash donations proves his grassroots race is beholding only to his constituents.

When you follow the donor money, you see who represents certain elected officials  who is behind the scenes coordinating all of this? he asked. Then you go look at my campaign funds and it's going to be locals that are sick of what's happened  I'm going to raise probably $10,000 versus Troy McDonalds $40,000 to $50,000.

Reeds campaign priorities

Reed is offering voters strong leadership to prioritize the community's voice over developers' desires, he said.

Our leaders must stand firm in ensuring that the community's interests and welfare are at the forefront of decision-making processes, Reed wrote in a TCPalm candidate questionnaire. We cant handle four more years of poor development decisions, unplanned traffic pressures, and continued strain on our St. Lucie River. As your potential leader, I am committed to this cause.

He said hes watched every commission meeting dating to 2017 and has worked to educate himself on issues residents care about most.

And as a big family person, Reed said he hopes to see fewer apartments and more single-family homes built to accommodate future generations.

If the next generation can't raise up a family in a one-bedroom, 700-square foot apartment, what benefit does it have? he asked. You don't build equity, and I believe in generational wealth - building it for the next generation, for your children passing that along.

Added Reed: How do you accomplish that when you can't buy something? Are we going to just have one-bedroom apartments and a bunch of storage units?

A view of the ongoing construction at the future site of the Costco store along Kanner Highway in Stuart on Monday, June 10, 2024. Along with the store, developer M&M Realty expects to build 378 apartments, an 18-pump gas station, restaurants and other stores on the 49-acre site.

City residents, he said, should ask themselves if youre happy with the direction the city is headed.

If you think your quality of life hasn't been affected, keep voting the same way and you're going to get the same stuff, Reed said. It's just going to get more and more intense over the next four years.

STUART CITY COMMISSION, GROUP 4

Position: City commissioner

Term: Four years

Salary: $19,845

Who can vote: All Stuart residents can vote in this nonpartisan race

Next steps: The nonpartisan winner on Aug. 20 will be sworn into office Aug. 26 during a city commission meeting

Troy McDonald, incumbent

Age: 56

Profession: Current city commissioner and Realtor with Illustrated Properties

Time in office: 12 years as a Stuart City Commissioner, 2011-2018 and 2020 to present

Sean Reed

Age: 34

Profession: Owns three childcare centers with family

Time in office: Would be his first term in elected office

Higher speed rail: Will the Stuart Brightline station save time, money for local travelers?

Stuart City Commission races: TCPalm Editorial Board recommendations 2024

Melissa E. Holsman is the legal affairs reporter for TCPalm and Treasure Coast Newspapers and is writer and co-host of "Uncertain Terms," a true-crime podcast. Reach her at melissa.holsman@tcpalm.com. If you are a subscriber, thank you. If not, become a subscriber to get the latest local news on the Treasure Coast.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Incumbent Troy McDonald to defend Stuart City Commission seat Aug. 20
AMMAN, July 26 (Xinhua) -- King Abdullah II of Jordan and U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday discussed efforts to achieve an immediate and enduring ceasefire in Gaza and address the humanitarian crisis in the region.

During the phone call, King Abdullah underlined the need to end the war on Gaza immediately and ensure the flow of sufficient aid through all crossings, while guaranteeing its delivery to civilians across the Strip without delay or hindrance, according to a statement by the Royal Hashemite Court.

On the situation in the West Bank, the King called for ending all unilateral measures and extremist settler attacks against the Palestinians, as well as violations of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.

He also stressed the role of the United States in helping achieve just and lasting peace in the region on the basis of the two-state solution.

For his part, Biden commended Jordan's efforts to bolster the humanitarian response in Gaza and stressed the U.S. support for Jordan as a key partner in efforts to enhance security and stability in the region. 
BROCKTON  For the past three years on Election Day, while Brockton Public Schools students stayed home, staff and faculty participated in the Achieving Change Together conference, an internal professional development training for staff across the district that focuses on issues relating to diversity.

According to Darnell Williams from the Brockton Public School Department of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), the goal of the conference was to help them understand EDI in their classrooms and the school-wide level.

"It was a huge day," he said.

The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion office, which opened in 2021, has worked to decolonize and diversify the school districts curriculum and instruction materials.

I am proud of what my team has accomplished in just 3 years, said Assistant Superintendent Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Renee Heywood said.

In late-March, Heywood and Williams, who serves as the senior administrator of professional growth and school culture for the department, found out their jobs would be removed from the district next year. As Brockton schools wrangle with budget constraints, district leaders eliminated the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion department and created a director-level position to carry out the work of the office.

Hiring one director without a team and not having an assistant superintendent with districtwide authority is not sufficient for a district such as Brockton, Heywood said.

Brockton Area Branch NAACP Phenomenal Woman award recipient Renee Heywood, left, speaks from the podium at the Brockton Community Access studio in downtown Brockton on Sunday, March 27, 2022. Heywood, who is the executive director of Diversity Equity & Inclusion for Brockton Public Schools, and an educator for over 25 years, spoke to the audience in front of her on-screen picture about the honor of being in the company of such amazing and accomplished women. To Heywood's left is NAACP member Courtney Henderson, who is the host of the event.

Heywood and her team have developed a list of programs and services for both students and faculty in Brockton Public Schools. According to Williams, its unclear how those services will continue going into next year as no meetings have been held with the department.

It doesnt seem to make a lot of sense, Williams said. This will become a low priority for the district.

Read more: Brockton schools plan to cut Equity, Diversity, Inclusion office. Students say it's vital

What the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion office does

The department's website homepage lists several ways the office helps students and teachers:

Reviewing school policies, procedures, and practices to ensure they are equitable and inclusive of all employees and students and that they promote positive relationships.

Supporting the district in creating positive and academically rigorous school learning environments for educators, staff, and students through affinity spaces and groups.

Supporting employees of color through affinity spaces and groups that promote inclusion and agency.

Supporting employees in professional learning workshops that center our work in the Focus Areas and on equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice.

Supporting educators in using instructional curriculum materials that decolonize learning for students by providing more "mirrors and windows".

Supporting students through BPS Community Mentor program.

Collaborating on affinity spaces and groups that promote inclusion and engagement for students.

Bridging community organizations to the students (i.e., college/career access, health & wellness agencies, etc.)

Preparing schools for integrating trauma-informed care and restorative practices as the approach for restoring harm

'Nothing short of lifechanging': Brockton students outraged over plan to slash DEI office

The school district's Director of Communications Jordan Mayblum said, "The budget realities we're facing require that we prioritize classroom-level support for a growing population of students from diverse backgrounds as well as those with special education needs, which this restructuring ultimately enables."

Bringing in diverse staff

Angel Cosme, a special education teacher at West Middle School, said the office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion helped him land his current job. He had applied to several Brockton Public Schools positions but wasn't hearing back, even though he previously taught life skills in the district.

"I've pushed to get him hired for that," Williams said.

The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion department works to bring in more teachers and staff of color, since more than 80% of students in BPS identify as students of color and over 70% of teachers are white.

Angel Cosme as the Latina Women's Association in conjunction with the office of Mayor Robert Sullivan celebrated the 2nd annual Hispanic Heritage Parade on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023.

Williams said that a member of the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion office is present during staff job interviews to ensure personal biases or prejudices of the hiring team aren't impacting a potential candidate during the hiring process.

The department also created an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion "starter kit" for elementary and middle schools that includes library books from diverse authors, calendars, flags and other resources to use in classrooms. It also made an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion glossary of terms to be used across Brockton Public Schools.

Williams said this cut reflects a "national trend" that's happening in schools across the country.

"When there's a slash of a budget, oftentimes EDI is the first to be on the chopping block," Williams said. "In fact, it is happening in Brockton."

Brockton High renovation: 'Great for Brockton Public Schools:' Brockton High could earn massive renovation project

Student peer mentorship

The department's work doesn't just revolve around racial justice issues but supports students with disabilities and other student communities that are usually left out.

Tyler Curry, an eighth-grade student at West Middle School, told school committee members that he's been bullied by his peers and the office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion helped improve his school life.

"Cutting off the EDI, I think that would be wrong for everyone," Curry said at a May 29 school committee meeting. "The EDI is helping all of us and I can't just do nothing for it."

"I want to keep EDI so life in school could be better than now," he said.

The Brockton School Committee meeting gets underway on Wednesday, May 15, 2024.

Curry is part of West Middle School's student equity council, a group of peer mentors who advocate for the voices of other students. The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion department oversees the student equity councils at all Brockton Public Schools middle schools, and Cosme is the faculty advisor for the team at West Middle School.

At the high school level, the department oversees the student ambassador program at Brockton High, Promise High School and the Edison Day Academy.

For many of my peers and for myself, the EDI program has been nothing short of lifechanging, Brockton High student ambassador Amelia Vieira said at a school board meeting on April 9. It provided us with a platform to share our experiences and our voices and affect change within our school community.

Without the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion department, Cosme hopes the student equity council and ambassador programs become school clubs so students can continue their peer mentorship. Williams said that no one knows who will take on the office's work next year, or if the district-wide professional development conference will stay in place.

"This EDI office got created because of the blood, sweat and tears of community members to push for this type of work," Williams said.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: What is Brockton Public Schools' Equity, Diversity, Inclusion office?
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) Lawmakers and students from colleges across the commonwealth met at the capitol yesterday to discuss anti-semitism on college campuses.

Statistics from the Anti-Defamation League show that antisemitic incidents on college students have risen 500% in the past two years.

Students claim that the effects of hate on campus reach all students.

We have seen so many instances of anti-Americanism on campuses as well, and its associated with the same groups, the same protesters. I just wanna remind everyone that this is impacting everyone. Its impacting all students. Its impacting America, and its impacting Western civilization, said one student.

One solution students at the capitol are confident in is The Stand with Israel Act. An act that would prevent Pennsylvania colleges that boycott Israel from receiving state tax dollars.

PA Senators pushed a bill that would put higher education funding towards college policies on anti-semitism, but it did not pass in this years state budget.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Stunning ancient Egyptian artifacts discovered in more than 60 burials, including 'ba-birds' and 'eye of Horus'

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.

Credit: Courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities

Archaeologists in Egypt have found the ancient burials of more than 60 people along with bronze coins and gold foil figurines, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced in a statement.

The team found the burials in the city of Damietta on the northern coast by the Mediterranean. Some of the graves date to the 26th dynasty (688 to 525 B.C.) while others appear to date to the Ptolemaic period (304 to 30 B.C.), the statement noted. The discoveries include pottery and shabti figurines, which were meant to work for the deceased in the afterlife.

Researchers zeroed in on the 38 bronze coins found within a pottery vessel at the site. The coins date to the Ptolemaic period, a time when the descendants of one of Alexander the Great's generals ruled Egypt.

Thomas Faucher , the director of the Center for Alexandrian Studies in Egypt who was not involved in this research, told Live Science that from the released images, it appears that many of the coins are engraved with the head of Zeus Ammon. This deity is a combination of the Greek god Zeus and the Egyptian god Ammon (also spelled Amun), who is associated with oracles and prophecies. At least one coin in the images seems to have an eagle engraved on it with a cornucopia (a horn) depicted to the left of the eagle. Based on these details, Faucher dated the coins to the late third century B.C.

Related: Rock carvings of ancient Egyptian pharaohs found underwater near Aswan

Image 1 of 4

A pile of old coins spills out of a cracked ceramic vessel

Image 2 of 4

Different angles of an Egyptian statue made of greenish stone

Image 3 of 4

An array of stone artifacts depicting scarabs, cows, and abstract figures

Image 4 of 4

An array of small artifacts made from stone and metal including geometric objects and figurines of people and animals

Egypt was going through political turmoil when this coin was minted. Around 206 B.C. a large-scale revolt broke out against the Ptolemaic dynasty.

"A large number of hoards were buried at the time of the revolt in Southern Egypt in 206 B.C." Faucher told Live Science in an email, noting that there was a coin recall after this, with recalled coins being assigned new values and given new additional markings. It's unclear if the newly found coins were buried during the time of revolt, and more details from the excavations may shed light on them. In any event, the discovery of the burials and coins "is significant, especially given the region's limited known material from this period," Faucher said.

Image 1 of 3

An array of ceramic vases, bowls, and urns

Image 2 of 3

Gold figurines are laid out in a diagonal line

Image 3 of 3

An excavation site showing many rectangular holes in the desert

RELATED STORIES

Ancient Egyptian 'office workers' had terrible posture just like us, disfigured skeletons reveal

'Exceptional' discovery reveals more than 30 ancient Egyptian tombs built into hillside

Why are so many ancient Egyptians buried at the Saqqara necropolis?

Aside from the coins, the gold foil figurines buried with the deceased are also notable. From the images released, it appears that a few of the figurines depict "ba-birds"  creatures from Egyptian mythology that have wings and a human head. The "ba" in ancient Egypt represented part of the human soul and was sometimes depicted as a bird that could gather food to feed the deceased, according to Swansea University's Egypt Centre .

In addition to the ba-birds, some of the gold foil figurines appear to depict the 'eye of Horus,' a falcon-headed god. Artifacts depicting his eyes were popular in ancient Egypt and were believed to have a protective power.
The court said it "improvidently granted" certification to the case, which weighed whether public newsletter email lists are subject to public records law. (Amanda Brown for New Jersey Monitor)

The New Jersey Supreme Court will no longer consider a case about whether the email addresses of residents who sign up for publicly funded newsletters are subject to release under the Open Public Records Act, a win for the three towns who sought to keep them private.

The high court dismissed the appeal via a brief order made public Friday, saying it had improvidently granted certification in the case. That means the court found it shouldnt have accepted the appeal in the first place.

The case rose to the high court after an appellate panel ruled in favor of towns that argued there was little to no public interest in releasing residents emails. Rise Against Hate, a South Jersey nonprofit, had sought email addresses belonging to residents in Cherry Hill, Bridgewater, and West Deptford through the Open Public Records Act.

The March appellate decision ruled the email addresses were not subject to disclosure, citing a 2004 privacy study commissioned by the Legislature that suggested email addresses be made confidential.

The panel proposed a new standard that would require requestors to justify their interest in the requested email addresses.

Lawmakers codified some of the reports recommendations when they approved a bill narrowing the scope of the Open Public Records Act in June.

C.J. Griffin, who represented Rise Against Hate and plaintiff Andrew Jung, in a May filing said the appellate decision went against the disclosure statutes plain language and would enable agencies to deny more records requests despite the Appellate Divisions finding that releasing the email addresses would do little to harm residents privacy.

Griffin has represented the New Jersey Monitor in various legal matters.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
The statue "Authority of Law" by artist James Earle Fraser is seen outside the U.S. Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., in 2010. Credit - Mark WilsonGetty Images

There is something cruelly ironic about reading the recent Surgeon Generals report on gun violence and the Supreme Courts June decision on the Second Amendment in United States v. Rahimi.

Even though Rahimi upheld a ban on those with domestic-violence restraining orders against them possessing firearms, two of the conservative justices used concurrences to attack the notion that judges ought to pay attention to the consequences when deciding on the constitutionality of gun laws. But judges, lawyers, and legislators at the time the Second Amendment was enacted were keenly aware that consequences mattered and were necessary to evaluate the constitutionality of laws.

Thus, although the Supreme Courts conservative majority claims to be faithful to the idea of originalismthat is, identifying the meaning of constitutional provisions at the time they were enactedthey ignore the history of the Founding Era when it comes to assessing gun laws. By contrast, the Surgeon Generals Report on the danger gun violence poses to American society never mentions history, but its approach to the problem of gun violence comes far closer than the Courts to capturing how the Founding generation understood gun policy and regulation.

Despite the claims of todays originalists, early American judges, lawyers, and legislators were not obsessed with words alone; consequences mattered very much to the Founding generation.

Legislatures enacted hundreds of gun laws in the era of the Second Amendment. Among the most common were gun-powder storage laws. Judges evaluated their constitutionality using a legal doctrine called the police power, a concept developed by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, perhaps the greatest judge in American history.

Read More: What the Supreme Court Keeps Getting Wrong About the Meaning of a Well Regulated Militia

The doctrine rested on the notion that police power is inherent in government and flows from the most basic right in Anglo-American law, the right of the people themselves, acting through their representatives, to enact laws to promote public health and safety. As the Supreme Court explained in an 1847 decision, the police power is not susceptible of an exact limitation. As new and vicious indulgences emerged, they required restraints that can only be imposed by new legislative power. When this power shall be exerted, how far it shall be carried, and where it shall cease, must depend upon the evil to be remedied. In other words, regulation was not frozen in time, but would evolve in response to changing dangers.

When evaluating gun laws, early American judges applied the police power framework by asking two basic questions: first, was the law in question a legitimate exercise of the police power, and, second, was it a regulation or did it effectively negate the right protected by the amendment entirely?

The second question stemmed from the unique language of the Second Amendment. Unlike the First Amendmentwhich prohibits abridging the freedom of speechthe Second Amendment bans infringing upon the right to bear arms, a very different construction. This language meant that restrictions and limitations on the right to bear arms were constitutional under two conditions: they needed to promote public health and safety, and avoid destroying the essence of the right. Bearing arms could be restricted, but not so much as to eliminate the right altogether.

The application of this approach was made clear in a landmark 1840 case called State vs. Reid. The state of Alabama prosecuted a local sheriff for carrying a concealed weapon in violation of its strict prohibition on public carry of such arms. (Police officers did not routinely carry guns until decades after the Civil War.) In upholding this law, the states highest court concluded that there was no unfettered right to carry guns. The terms in which this provision is phrased, the court noted, leave with the Legislature the authority to adopt such regulations of police, as may be dictated by the safety of the people and the advancement of public morals.

Banning concealed carry, in other words, was perfectly constitutional. Moreover, the alternative optionopen carrywas a practice that could only be justified when an emergency was pressing or when an individual was traveling far from home, especially on the frontier.

Another common tool at the time for restricting when and how early Americans could carry firearms stemmed from the unique structure of law enforcement at the time. There were no police forces in early America. In most communities, law enforcement was handled by the Justices of the Peace who used a legal tool inherited from England, sureties, which were also known as peace or good-behavior bonds.

Any justice of the peaceor even a member of a communitycould come forward and demand that people posing a danger post a financial bond to guarantee their good behavior. In the cash-poor environment of the Founding era, obtaining the money for these bonds often involved approaching a wealthy neighbor who then had a strong financial incentive to keep potentially unruly or dangerous people in line. That created enormous financial and social pressures, which would compel someone not to carry a weapon and risk losing the bond. Courts blessed this approach as well.

Finally, the Reid Court articulated a guiding principle that continues to elude todays Supreme Court: judicial humility and modesty. Striking down an act of the legislature was not an ordinary everyday occurrence for judges in the Founding era. It was a solemn task. The Reid Court captured this vision of judicial humility by observing that there had to be no rational doubt about the laws unconstitutionality if it were to be struck down. In close cases, courts deferred to legislatures.

Read More: Supreme Court Upholds Gun Ban for Alleged Domestic Abusers

The actions of the Reid Court, and the general practices of Founding-era jurists, make clear that judges at the time when the Second Amendment was drafted and ratified and in subsequent decades approached the law very differently than does todays Supreme Court. Rather than focusing on hyper-textualism, they focused on consequences, what todays originalists disparage as policy.

The people themselves, acting through their legislatures, had broad latitude to address issues of public safety. Further, in close cases, where a law butted up against the boundaries of legitimate regulation, courts generally deferred to legislatures giving them the benefit of the doubt. That explains why they routinely blessed new gun regulations despite the presence of the Second Amendment and related state laws.

Today, its the Surgeon General talking about the need to address the consequences of the proliferation of guns in the U.S.  a crucial public safety issue. By contrast, the Supreme Court, despite a majority of the justices professing to care about originalism, scorns such considerations as policy, which they erroneously claim has no place in Second Amendment jurisprudence. This idea is a modern invention and would have appalled the authors of the Second Amendment.

Indeed, in making this claim, they are perverting the Founders version of the Second Amendment by limiting the police power of the state in a way the Founding generation wouldve found baffling and alarming.

Worst of all, by rewriting the past, and erasing much of it that they find inconvenient, the Supreme Court has made it more difficult to solve the crisis of gun violence, which as the Surgeon General frankly recognized, is taking an enormous toll on American society. Instead of deferring to the peoples representatives, as the Founders intended, today originalists on the Supreme Court have arrogated power to themselves.

Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that if anyone at the time the Constitution was proposed had suggested that the new Supreme Court would behave as the current court has done time and again, the Constitution would never have been ratified and there would be no Second Amendment to protect, because early Americans would never have countenanced these sorts of restrictions on the police power.

Saul Cornell is Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American history at Fordham University and a visiting research scholar at Yale Law School.

Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors.

Write to Made by History at madebyhistory@time.com.
Even in maroon Florida, Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential bid has fueled a surge of enthusiasm and volunteers, her campaign said late Wednesday.

The Florida director of the Harris campaign said they've seen the largest total of volunteer recruitment with more than 6,600 new sign-ups across the state through Thursday morning. That's a 1,706% increase over the previous one-week total, the campaign said, even though it was during a less-than-four-day period since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed the vice president on Sunday.

"Florida is a critical state this election, and it's one we're determined to win. We are seeing an overwhelming groundswell of support for Kamala Harris in Florida and our campaign is ramping up, building on the strong foundation weve already established, and working for every vote in this state," said Jasmine Burney Clark, the Harris campaign's Florida director, in a statement.

Clark added that the vice president's campaign now lists 12 field offices and more than 33 hired staff members. The volunteer totals in Florida, the campaign added, are more than in battleground states.

On Friday, Harris for President kicked off a what it called a "weekend of action in Florida to mark 100 days until the general election." The campaign said more than 36 events would take place. The weekend's activities were mostly targeted in the Panhandle.

"This is the campaign's first weekend of action and comes on the heels of hundreds of endorsements in Florida highlighting the groundswell of support for Vice President Harris," the campaign said in a statement.

Florida Democrats issue new targets for school board races

On Friday, the Florida Democratic Party issued a list of six school board races they are targeting as part of the party's Take Back Local strategy, a program to assist candidates in "competitive local races."

Our Take Back Local program is our way of investing in the candidates we feel will be most competitive in the upcoming election, said FDP Chair Nikki Fried. We are not going to let Ron DeSantis and his allies take over our school boards with far-right, Moms for Liberty candidates.

The list includes: Stephanie Arguello (Seminole), School Board Member Nadia Combs (Hillsborough), School Board Member Debbi Hixon (Broward), School Board Member Sarah Leonardi (Broward), Sarah Mannion (Duval), Jeremy Rogers (Leon), School Board Member Luisa Santos (Miami-Dade), Rebecca Thompson (Broward), Max Tuchman (Miami-Dade), Stephanie Vanos (Orange), and School Board Member Jessica Vaughn (Hillsborough).

An more energetic effort in the Sunshine State might help down-ballot races, political analysts have said.

FAU-Mainstreet poll: Kamala Harris behind Donald Trump, but by less of a gap than Joe Biden

"There are a lot of people running for down-ballot races, including in Florida, where they might have some chance to pick up some seats. In that, I think it could be helpful," said Florida politics watcher Susan MacManus.

U.S. Sen. Rick Scott is seeking re-election. And there will be a constitutional amendment on the ballot determining the future of reproductive rights in Florida.

Elsewhere in the state, Republicans and Democrats will seek to win important local races that could determine the balance of power in city halls, county commissions and school boards.

And Republicans also will seek to maintain their super-majority in both chambers of the Florida Legislature, which in the past four years has made possible laws restricting abortion access, providing private school vouchers and curtailing support for LGBTQ+ community efforts that otherwise may not have been possible.

Bullishness aside, GOP has a grip on still-reddening Florida

While Clark is bullish on Sunshine State prospects, analysts still have said winning Florida's 30 electoral votes appears as a steep climb at the outset of Harris' campaign.

As of June 30, Florida Republicans held a mammoth 956,443 registered-voter advantage in the state. At last week's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida GOP Chairman Evan Power vowed to increase that advantage north of 1 million voters by the time the Nov. 5 election rolls around.

How Harris' ascension as the party's presumptive nominee might change polling and voter attitudes is unknown. But in a match-up with Biden, Trump appeared a prohibitive favorite to win his home state for a third straight time.

The FiveThirtyEight average of Florida polling showed Trump up by 8.8 points over Biden, 46.5% to 37.7%, through July 21, the day Biden exited the race. The gap has been virtually unchanged over the past three months.

A Harris for President campaign memo issued Tuesday, July 23, stated it is "a tight race" to 270 electoral votes and listed plans to "continue to focus on the Blue Wall states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania  and the Sun Belt states of North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada."

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks about gun violence at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Saturday March 23rd, 2024.

"We intend to play offense in each of these states and have the resources and campaign infrastructure to do so," said campaign chair Jen OMalley Dillon in a statement.

It did not mention efforts in Florida.

A Haley effect? Potential impact on so-called down ballot races in Florida?

An Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey released Thursday focused on voters in five swing states  Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin  and not Florida. The poll found Harris trailing Trump in four of those states and tied in one.

Burney Clark's note about Florida noted the more than 155,000 Republican voters who cast ballots for Trump rival Nikki Haley in the March presidential preference primary. But at last week's convention, Haley endorsed Trump in her speech and pointedly said she wanted to direct her remarks to the Republicans who supported and voted for her.

Haley insisted a vote for Biden, who was the presumptive Democratic nominee at the time, is a vote for "President" Harris and "if we have four more years of Biden, or a single day of Harris, our country will be badly worse off."

But USA Today reported Thursday that a group of former Haley voters who are now supporting Harris' bid for the White House said they plan to ignore a letter from the former GOP presidential candidate's attorney's demanding that they stop using her name.

A letter sent on Thursday afternoon by a law firm representing the "Haley Voters for Harris" political action committee said that the group "will continue to exercise its First Amendment rights" to encourage former Haley supporters to back Harris over former President Donald Trump in the general election.

It comes in response to a Tuesday cease-and-desist letter lawyers representing Haley sent asking the group to refrain from using her name or likeness in any way that would imply she supports Harris' presidential campaign. The warning letter from the Haley campaign said that it would get authorities involved if the group tried to fundraise under the name "Haley Voters for Harris.

And The Palm Beach Post reported in the immediate aftermath of former President Donald Trump's attempted assassination that Harris had planned a visit to Palm Beach County the following Tuesday to meet with Republican women.

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Kamala Harris team sees volunteer surge. What does it mean in Florida?
ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC)  A suspect arrested after a chase through a north Abilene neighborhood Thursday night has been identified.

Christopher Owens has been booked into the Taylor County Jail on warrants for Evading Arrest x2 and Resisting Arrest in connection to the incident, which took place near N 15th Street and Lillius Street around 10:15 p.m.

Police say officers pulled Owens over for a traffic stop, but instead of stopping, he fled the scene.

A police dog assisted in helping officers search the mans car and later locating him.

No additional information is available at this time.

Owens now remains held in Jail on bonds totaling nearly $90,000 for his new charges as well as unrelated warrants.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KTAB - BigCountryHomepage.com.
CRESTONE, Colo. (KREX)  A Saguache County deputy is being investigated after fatally shooting a pipe-wielding suspect on Thursday, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

CBI is assisting the Saguache County Sheriffs Office in the investigation.

The incident occurred around noon when a Saguache County deputy was driving near Crestone to serve papers. He then allegedly spotted a 40-year-old White male, recognizing him as having an active warrant.

The law enforcement officer tried to speak with the suspect when the man allegedly began attacking the deputy with a 4-foot metal pipe. The deputy pulled out his service weapon and fired twice, hitting the suspect.

According to the CBI, the deputy immediately began performing life-saving measures, but the suspect was pronounced deceased at the scene.

The deputy was transported to a local hospital where he was treated and released for minor injuries.

The CBI said it is not releasing the suspects identity until his family has been notified. An autopsy is pending.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WesternSlopeNow.com.
The areas safe, secure. Thats all we were told, neighbor says after Springfield standoff

Residents on North Belmont Avenue in Springfield were left wondering about the standoff Thursday night involving police and SWAT that shut down the street for nearly two hours.

>> GALLERY: See photos of the police North Belmont Avenue standoff in Springfield

[Police] said the areas safe and secure. Thats all we were told, Deidra Grimm, who lives next door to the house in the 700 block of North Belmont Avenue law enforcement was focused on.

The standoff ended sometime after 9 p.m. with no immediate comment from police.

Sometime after 11 p.m., a police lieutenant told our Malik Patterson, who was on scene all evening and spoke to Grimm for News Center 7 at 11, the suspect police were looking for was not in the house and that no new information would be released at this time.

Grimm said she began seeing police scurrying around the neighborhood about 5:30 p.m. I looked out the dining room window and saw a bunch of police officers pulling up. They were getting out and running around the sidewalk, she said.

When News Center 7 contacted police about 7:30 p.m. based on a tip from a viewer about the police presence, Sgt. Mercado said police had been at the house at least 30 minutes.

>> Police release mug shot of driver accused of hitting, dragging 9-year-old girl a half-mile

Police blocked traffic from entering North Belmont Avenue and the sergeant said the situation possibly involved a suspected felony theft involving at least two persons.

They had their assault rifles and they had the house surrounded, Grimm said. It makes me afraid. Im afraid to let the kids come outside and play anymore without them being watched, and my yard is completely enclosed.

We will continue to update this developing report on whio.com as we learn more.




HANGZHOU, July 26 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese paleontological research team has identified a new species of tyrannosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous period, approximately 72 to 66 million years ago.

Researchers from the Zhejiang Museum of Natural History named the dinosaur "Asiatyrannus xui" in honor of Xu Xing, a Chinese scientist dedicated to dinosaur research.

The fossil specimen includes a nearly complete skull, along with tail vertebrae and hind limb bones, marking the first deep-snouted tyrannosaur discovered in southeastern China, according to Zheng Wenjie, a researcher from the museum.

Histological analysis revealed that the holotype of Asiatyrannus xui was not a fully mature adult but had passed through its most rapid growth stages.

Zheng added that the skull measures 47.5 centimeters in length, and the body length was approximately half that of Qianzhousaurus, which is estimated to reach around nine meters at similar growth stages.

The earliest tyrannosaurs appeared in the Middle Jurassic, around 165 million years ago. They became the apex predators in their respective ecologies during the final 20 million years of the Cretaceous in Asia and North America.

The findings were recently published online in the journal Scientific Reports. 
One minor was killed and three others were injured at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia when a wall at the men's locker room of the on-base pool collapsed on them earlier this week.

The incident occurred Monday at the Heritage Club Pool men's locker room, according to a statement from Col. Deedrick Reese, the installation and 78th Air Base Wing commander. The incident was under investigation, the wing said Friday.

"Our hearts are broken for these individuals and their families. We remain committed to supporting our airmen and their loved ones as we navigate this difficult time for Team Robins," Reese said. "We want to thank the first responders -- including lifeguards, installation and community personnel -- who responded to this tragic incident with compassion and professionalism."

Read Next: The Myth of Choice: Why We Ignore Military Spouses Out of the Workforce

One minor was treated on scene and three others were rushed to the hospital -- where one individual died from their injuries, the base said in a statement.

Melissa Noles told Military.com in a phone interview Friday that her grandson and step-grandson were injured when a cinderblock and concrete wall collapsed on the boys Monday afternoon.

Her grandson, who suffered broken ribs, a collapsed lung and other internal injuries from the incident, was released from the hospital Friday afternoon. She said all the kids were close and that her grandson and step-grandson are carrying "survivor's guilt" from witnessing the fatal injuries of their friend.

"It's been very traumatic," Noles told Military.com. "He's going to have to live with this for the rest of his life, and we also don't know whether he's going to have any long-term physical issues from his injuries."

Shellie Espinosa, a spokesperson for the 78th Air Base Wing, told Military.com that the pool, which is available only to those with base access, is temporarily closed and that the incident is under investigation.

The base said in a news release that chaplain services are available to service members, their families and those who were at the scene of the incident.

Robins Air Force Base in Houston County, Georgia, is home to "the largest single-site industrial complex in Georgia, employing a workforce of almost 24,000 civilians, contractors and military members," according to the base's website.

Related: $450 Million B-1B Lancer Crash Attributed to Crew Failures and 'Degradation of Airman Skills'
Democrats commemorated the 34th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act by coming out swinging against Donald Trump, after his nephew claimed in a new memoir that the former president once suggested people with disabilities should just die.

Its hard to describe the pain millions of Americans with disabilities are feeling in response to Donald Trumps newly-reported comments against folks with disabilities, Senator Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs serving in the Iraq War, said in a statement shared by the Democratic National Committee on Friday.

But we know this is nothing new for him  he mocked a reporter with a physical disability, dismissed traumatic brain injuries as not very serious, attempted to slash support for disabled veterans and so much more. Any human being who suggests that people with disabilities should just die is fundamentally unfit to serve.

Duckworths slam comes after the former presidents nephew, Fred Trump III, revealed shocking details from a private conversation the pair had following a meeting about patients with disabilities and their families at the White House at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Those people... The shape theyre in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die, Trump allegedly said in the Oval Office, according to Fred Trump IIIs memoir, All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way.

Democrats also sought to tie Trumps words about disability to Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundations blueprint for a potential second Trump administration. Trump has sought to distance himself from the program, despite the fact many former administration officials helped write it.

Sen Tammy Duckworth arrives for a briefing on Ukraine at the US Capitol on 20 September 2023 (Getty Images)

Friday marks 34 years since former President George H W Bush, a Republican, signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law, thanks to bipartisan collaboration in Congress.

In recent years, there has been less agreeement between parties on disability rights. The DNCs release points out that Trump faced multiple lawsuits during his presidency claiming that his properties did not comply with the ADA and also notes his attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have reduced funding for Medicaid, which many people with disabilities rely on to receive care in their homes.

The Republican National Committees research account on X has also taken heat for mocking Vice President Kamala Harris in 2022 for describing what she was wearing, a common practice to aid people who are blind or who have low-vision. The Republican National Committee did not release a statement commemorating the law.

Democrats also noted how Project 2025 proposes eliminating the Department of Education, which enforces accommodations for students with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Despite the eroding bipartisan consensus, a few areas of agreement remain on the issue. Numerous states with Republican governors have outlawed the practice of paying people with disabilities below the minimum wage, as have many Democratic governors.

Similarly, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a recent candidate for the Republican nomination for president, recently signed legislation to allow for supported decision-making as an alternative to guardianship to allow for people with disabilities to still have control of their finances. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed similar legislation.

Harris for her part was the first Democratic presidential candidate in the 2020 contest to release a disability policy.

On the 34th anniversary of the ADA, were reminded how far weve come but how much work still remains, and we wont go backward, Duckworth sad. The disability community cannot withstand another four years of Trump.
From addiction to smartphones to the rising prevalence of disinformation on platforms like Facebook, the 21st Century is the era of social media. And yet, within a matter of less than two decades, centuries-old institutions are facing existential crises due to our over-reliance on social media.

Perhaps the first  and most tragic  victim of social media is the newspaper industry.

Even though many papers have transitioned to digital mediums, social media platforms have continued to undermine the industry. Newspapers often use social media as a means of sharing their coverage, yet they often receive little to no support from social media platforms, and users often reproduce content that undercuts the revenue of newspapers.

Opinion

While large newspapers like The New York Times and The Washington Post have survived, regional newspapers have disappeared at alarming rates. Unlike the average social media user, journalists are professionals regulated by standards who provide readers with trusted reporting.

This is why we need bills like Oakland Asm. Buffy Wickss Assembly Bill 886 and Contra Costa County Sen. Steve Glazers Senate Bill 1327. Both bills would require compensation from various methods from certain large tech corporations  namely Google and Meta  for their acquisition of user data for advertising. One approach would be to require the Franchise Tax Board to divert funds from these taxes to local news organizations.

Advertising has become increasingly based on user data collected by websites like Facebook and Google. Meanwhile, newspapers have lost valuable income from advertising agencies. These bills are touted by their authors as a stopgap for saving dozens of newspapers across the state in danger of shutting down.

Since the advent of social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, newspapers across the country are hemorrhaging. Northwestern Universitys Medill School of Journalism reported last November that more than half of all U.S. counties have either no access or limited access to local news coverage and more than 200 counties throughout the U.S. have no newspaper at all.

In 2014, the Brookings Institute reported that between 1989 and 2012, the number of journalists in the U.S. declined from 59,000 to 36,000. Now, more than half of all the countrys 3,100 counties either do not have a local news outlet or have only a single surviving outlet (what experts call news deserts, where residents have little access to local news beyond one outlet).

In California, Alpine, Sierra, Sutter and Glenn counties have zero local news outlets, while 11 other counties have only one. There is also a need to save ethnic community newspapers, like the Black American Los Angeles Sentinel and the Japanese American Nichi Bei News  the only source of information for their ethnic communities.

In the Assembly, Wicks bill has received bipartisan support.

I dont believe in corporate welfare, I dont believe in transferring wealth, but I also dont believe in unjust enrichment, Republican Asm. Bill Essayli told The Red Bluff Daily News. I do think Big Tech is being unjustly enriched off the backs of journalists.

Unsurprisingly, critics of the bill include tech companies. Several industry advocacy groups have attempted to frame the bill as creating a link tax that would undo the existing state of the connected economy. Some criticism offers constructive suggestions to ensure that the funding only goes toward California news outlets instead of national media companies like People Magazine or Breitbart.

Community journalism not only offers a means of keeping citizens informed, but democratizes access to news.

These bills ensure accountable funding for news outlets across our state. When news outlets are shuttered, it deprives residents of a reliable source of information and a means of holding local leaders accountable for their actions.

When newspapers disappear, so does reporting on local issues and investigative journalism, allowing corruption to fester and suffering to go unnoticed.

Jonathan van Harmelen is a U.S. historian at UC Santa Cruz. He is an independent journalist, and his work has previously appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, TIME and The Mercury News.
School is almost back in session. That means teachers will be digging into their own pockets to get their classrooms ready for their students. Luckily, a program called Tools 4 Clay Schools is picking up the bill for their school supplies.

We just want to take that one thing away from teachers where they dont have to worry about their finances. We want them to know they are supported by the community, Vice President of Clay Education Foundation Heather Obermiller said.

The nonprofit announced the free teacher supply store will open on Aug. 7 at Garber Automall in Green Cove Springs. It will remain open through Aug. 12.

In a news release, the nonprofit said teachers spend about $750 yearly on needed supplies. Last year, 1,200 teachers from 45 schools shopped at the free supply store, saving an average of $120 for each visit.

The teachers can shop four times a year. As they run out of things, they can replenish so we open up on their planning days throughout the year, Obermiller said.

[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]

The program gave away $130,000 worth of supplies in 2023. The nonprofit plans to increase that number this year.

I absolutely believe we will exceed it. Last year, we had 66 new teachers to come. I think its going be a lot more this year, Obermiller said.

Brand new Clay teachers can start their shopping even earlier on July 30. Just visit the Clay Education Foundation website to see their open times. Teachers can shop at this programs store once per quarter.

[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.
CHICAGO  A teen has died and a man was injured in a shooting Friday morning on Chicagos Southwest Side.

Chicago police said the shooting happened at around 10:40 a.m. Friday in the 2500 block of West 46th Street in the citys Brighton Park neighborhood.

According to investigators, a 16-year-old boy and a 40-year-old man were on the street when an SUV rolled up to the area. Thats when someone inside the SUV got out and shot both the teen and the man.

Read more: Latest Chicago news headlines

CPD said the teen was shot in the head and chest and was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital. The man was shot in the chest and leg and was taken to Mount Sinai in grave condition.

Area One detectives are investigating and no other information was released.

This is a developing story. Check back 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 WGN-TV.
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  A teen suffered a brutal attack while leaving a Southwest Florida party earlier this month.

According to a Collier County arrest report, the teenager, whose identity was not disclosed, went to a house party on 21st Avenue Southwest in Naples on the night of July 16.

Man asks undercover detective for sexual acts at family park, Polk officials say

The victim told officials that as he was leaving the party at about 1 a.m. on July 17, the suspect, whose identity was also not disclosed, confronted the boy for dinging his car door.

When the victim denied that happening, the suspect punched him in the face and grabbed him around the neck in a reverse headlock, as the victim tried to defend himself, the report said.

During the attack, the teen began to get lightheaded due to the suspect squeezing him around the neck. The victims two friends pulled them apart and they left the area.

The teen suffered several cuts and abrasions, including two black eyes and a swollen knee.

According to the report, the suspect is facing battery 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 WFLA.
Neighbors in Jean Flores' senior apartment building often come to resident association meetings to talk about how they might approach management about maintenance problems. But many stop coming, she said, because they're afraid their landlord will discover they're involved in organizing and find a reason to evict them.

"They'll quit because of their fear of retaliation," said Flores, 67, a tenant leader at the Legends of Spring Lake Park apartments. "Many won't get involved in the first place."

Community organizers believe that sentiment could change soon around the state as nervous renters, who want to meet to resolve issues like rising rent, security concerns and maintenance delays, learn about a new state law that prohibits property owners from retaliating against resident associations and tenants trying to organize.

"It was quite challenging to do the organizing without the law in place," said Juan Luis Rivera-Reyes, a coalition organizer with Equity in Place, a Minneapolis coalition of community groups concerned with racial equity issues in housing.

Rivera-Reyes said many residents of apartment buildings began trying to organize in recent years, but some groups were unsuccessful because residents were scared of losing their housing. Tenant associations aren't illegal, but they also aren't protected, he said.

Legends of Spring Lake Park has an "open-door policy" and wants to hear about concerns from residents, assistant community manager Jeremias Luna Fierro said in a statement. "We look forward to working with all of our residents to create a great environment for all of them."

The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, has already "reinvigorated" some residents and associations, Rivera-Reyes said.

It's one of about 20 new measures intended to protect renters. The new changes come after more than a dozen new renters' rights laws passed in the 2023 legislative session  the most significant series of changes in years.

"This biennium has been really transformative in the areas of tenant-landlord law," said Rachael Sterling, a housing attorney for HOME Line, a tenants' rights organization that operates a hotline. "The pandemic and housing crisis ... really did put a spotlight on the power imbalances."

The new laws clarify that property owners must keep common areas of buildings reasonably maintained and provide new regulations for apartment buildings where a single utility meter is shared by multiple tenants. Developers will also need to offer alternative housing, or the right to end a lease, if construction delays prevent residents from moving into a new building.

Sen. Zaynab Mohamed, DFL-Minneapolis, who authored the Tenant's Rights Omnibus Bill in the Senate, noted that one-third of Minnesotans are renters.

"That is a huge community across the state that is renting that needs to be protected," she said, adding that the new laws aren't meant to punish property owners.

Cecil Smith, president and CEO of the Minnesota Multi Housing Association, a trade group for property owners and operators, said there was "good dialogue" among involved parties about potential changes and how they would work.

Smith said that, though he supports several of them, complying with the new laws will require more training, new processes and updates to leases; some of that is already underway.

"All of that means costs, expenses, and that's at a time when certainly the affordable housing sector of our industry ... [is] already under a little duress with rising expenses," he said.

Landlords must try to re-rent 'abandoned' units

Before 2023, many tenant-landlord laws hadn't been updated since the 1980s. The goal with the new laws is to put renters and property owners on equal footing, said Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, who carried several tenants' rights bills in the House of Representatives.

One important change will require landlords to try to rent out a unit if a tenant leaves mid-lease, Agbaje said. Landlords have to show that they have "made a good faith effort" to find a new tenant instead of continuing to collect rent from the previous one.

Smith countered that most landlords were already doing this, since they're unlikely to see any additional rent once a tenant has abandoned their lease.

911 mental health calls protected

Another key law guarantees a tenant's right to call 911 for emergency assistance, specifically in instances involving mental health, without being penalized by their landlord.

Sue Abderholden, executive director of the National Association of Mental Illness (NAMI) Minnesota, who advocated for this change, said her organization heard from renters who were nervous to call 911 more than a couple times. They feared the city would go after their landlord, threatening to take away their rental license for excessive emergency calls, and the landlord would try to evict them. Parents of suicidal children or those with autism were worried, she said.

In some cases, police were viewing calls about mental health as nuisance calls, she said.

"When you're having a mental health crisis, that is not a nuisance," she said. "This is a bona fide crisis."

Abderholden said the change applies to any health-related call.

Smith called this change "best practice" and said property owners "don't need the city on their case" when they're trying to resolve a situation involving a resident's mental health.

Protections for renters with shared utility meters

Another new law aims to define how utility costs should be divided for renters who share a common utility meter for natural gas, water or electricity.

Previously, it was unclear how the bills should be calculated and there was no enforcement mechanism if renters were charged incorrectly by landlords or a third party. There was no regulation about how common areas were billed or how much landlords could charge in extra fees. People could be evicted for neglecting to pay the landlord for utilities on time.

Now, there are logical rules for how bills are divided up, said Sen. Scott Dibble, who authored the bill in the Senate. Gas is charged on a square footage basis, for instance.

Tenants will receive all protections any utility customer would get, such as the right to appeal charges.

The law now applies Minnesota's cold weather rule to landlords in charge of shared-meter billing  they can't evict a tenant for not paying utilities from Oct. 1 through April 30 and must try to make a payment plan with the tenant if bills are unpaid, said Sterling, of HOME Line.

If electricity is billed separately by the landlord, a submeter, or individual power meter, must now be installed to measure exact electricity use. Otherwise, electricity costs must be rolled into tenants' rent.

Smith said the measure will affect a majority of Minnesota renters, adding: "We think it's a balanced approach."
Texas man, 75, dies after being stung by dozens of bees while bulldozing trees on his property

Texas man, 75, dies after being stung by dozens of bees while bulldozing trees on his property

A 75-year-old man was killed in a bee attack as he was bulldozing trees on his property in Texas.

The beehive was in one of the trees Bryce Smith was clearing at his home in Bedias, about 80 miles from Houston, when the attack occurred. KBTX reported that Smith was stung more than 60 times on his face and neck.

Someone brought the man inside his home and called 911. First responders declared him dead at the scene.

The Bedias community lost a very, very good individual yesterday, a very good man, said Grimes County Justice of the Peace Precinct 1 Judge Chris Acord. He was a wonderful husband, great dad, great grandfather to his kids. He was very well respected.

Bryce Smith, 75, died after being stung to death by bees at his home in Bedias (KBTX)

The judge advised the community to remain vigilant as bee hives are common in the area.

The severity of what happened and how this could happen to anybody and we dont think about these things, said Acord.

Texas A&M AgriLife Research Honeybee Scientist, Juliana Rangel, told the outlet that the bees that attacked Smith were likely Africanized honey bees.

Africanized bees are a little bit more prone to feeling threatened by any external stimuli than more often than not, European bees, said Rangel.

Between 2011 and 2021, a total of 788 deaths took place from hornet, wasp, and bee stings, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
VIENNA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday reiterated its concerns over the lingering "highly challenging" nuclear safety and security situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP).

IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi noted in a statement the difficulty of ensuring adequate maintenance of key safety systems and other vital equipment at the ZNPP during the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

"At all nuclear power plants around the world, maintenance is essential to prevent the degradation of reactor structures, systems, and components... if not conducted regularly and comprehensively, it could further increase the risk of a nuclear accident in the future," Grossi warned.

Over the past week, the IAEA experts stationed at the ZNPP have conducted several walkdowns focused on monitoring maintenance activities across the site and the availability of necessary spare parts for the plant. They did not report any nuclear safety issues related to the observed maintenance activities, according to the statement. 
Texas Mom Was Found Hanging from Dock, But Police Suspected a Staged Suicide  Now They've Arrested a Suspect

Nearly two months after Giselle Tapia-Salazar was found dead, police arrested her boyfriend James Hart on a tampering with evidence charge

Gofundme Giselle Salazar-Tapia

Authorities in Texas have made an arrest nearly two months after a mother of four was found hanging from a dock in a scene police allege was a staged suicide.

Giselle Salazar-Tapia, 30, was found hanging off a dock of a marina in League City, Texas, on May 31, local police said at the time.

On Friday, July 26, League City police announced they arrested 51-year-old James Hart, identified in several outlets as the woman's boyfriend, in connection with her death.

They charged Hart with tampering or fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair a human corpse, police said in their statement.

Police have not publicly identified the victim, but she was identified as Giselle Salazar-Tapia by ABC 11, The Daily News and FOX 29.

League City Police Department James Ray Hart

Hart's arrest comes nearly two months after League City police were notified of Salazar-Tapia's body found in the marina.

Callers told LCPD the woman appeared to have been lifeless as she was hung by a rope from the dock, League City police said in their May statement.

As police spoke with friends and family, Salazar-Tapia's boyfriend became very distraught and would not come out of his boat, police said. Shortly afterwards, police say they were able to convince him to come out of the boat.

Hart spoke to local media after his girlfriends death, saying he was not involved.

"It feels like a nightmare you can't wake up from, he told KHOU. I didn't have anything to do with it, and I never would have.

He said they were "together 24/7" and that he wanted "justice for Giselle and for myself."



Related: Texas Mom Was Found Hanging from a Dock. Police Believe It Was a Staged Suicide and Suspect Foul Play

In June, police said they were investigating Salazar-Tapia's death as a possible homicide and identified two people of interest, KHOU, KTRK and The Daily News reported at the time.

League City authorities said they believe she died in a different location and that her body was allegedly staged to appear as though she died by suicide, ABC 11 reported.

Her body was partially submerged in the water with her arm suspended up in the air with nothing holding it there, police told the outlet. So, we believe she probably passed away with her arm extended up above her head like that, and then rigor mortis had set in prior to her being placed like that."

Gofundme Giselle Salazar-Tapia

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Sign up for PEOPLE's free True Crime newsletter for breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases.

In a GoFundMe set up to help cover funeral expenses and child care for her children, Salazar-Tapia's family alleged she was a victim of domestic violence.

Giselle was the most charismatic person you could ever meet, sharing a smile and making a friend of everyone she came across, the fundraiser reads in part. Giselle always looked for the best in people, even when they didn't deserve her kindness.



Authorities did not announce any domestic-violence related charges against Hart. League City police told ABC 13 that officers had been called several times in the past regarding domestic disturbances involving Salazar-Tapia

It wasn't immediately clear if Hart has entered a plea or retained an attorney to speak on his behalf.

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
Former Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Bangkok

Former Move Forward Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Bangkok

By Panu Wongcha-um and Devjyot Ghoshal

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's main opposition figurehead is hopeful his election-winning Move Forward party will survive an upcoming dissolution case, but warned of the impact of another investigation that could leave the popular progressive outfit decimated.

Pita Limjaroenrat, who led the Move Forward to victory in last year's election but was blocked from taking power by army-appointed lawmakers, said Thailand's conservative establishment was once again flexing its muscle to contain popular leaders.

"This is the fifth vicious cycle in 20 years. It's been a way that the conservative elites have found a way to keep elected officials at bay," Pita told Reuters in an interview in an office at parliament, amid the din of lawmakers debating in its chambers.

"It's almost like an old record playing the same song over and over again."

Thailand's politics has been defined by a relentless two-decade struggle between its conservative-royalist establishment, backed by the military, and popular political parties, including Move Forward.

In January, the Constitutional Court ruled Move Forward's plan to amend a law against royal insults that protects the monarchy from criticism was a hidden effort to undermine the crown and ordered it to drop its campaign.

The party now faces potential dissolution by the same court over the same issue, in a case brought by the election commission, with a verdict due on Aug. 7. Move Forward denies wrongdoing.

"We found that the complaint process (conducted by the election commission) was legally flawed," Pita said, repeating arguments that the party has said it submitted in writing to the court.

In this case, the court conducted proceedings behind closed doors and invited written submissions from both sides.

"I still believe in judicial fairness and judicial consistency," Pita said, arguing that a similar complaint considered by the court more than a decade ago was rejected.

Pita remains Thailand's most popular prime ministerial choice, polling at 46% in a survey last month ahead of premier Srettha Thavisin who was backed by only 13% of respondents.

'VICIOUS CYCLE'

The 43-year-old Harvard-educated politician said his party faces another major challenge from a complaint submitted by conservative activists to the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The commission hasn't publicly commented on whether or when it will submit the case to a court.

It could result in lifetime political bans on 44 current and former lawmakers for allegedly breaching ethics in backing the plan to amend the royal insult law, which is among the strictest laws of its kind in the world.

"If we were to be found immoral in our political actions inside the parliament, we will be banned for life," Pita said.

"There's no any other penalty."

That case alone could gravely weaken the progressive movement that has gained nationwide support for its agenda, including ending military conscription and breaking up business monopolies.

"That will be almost like dissolving opposition in Thai democracy," Pita said.

Four Thai political parties, starting with those backed by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, have been dissolved in the last two decades.

The most recent was Move Forward's forerunner, Future Forward, which was disbanded in 2020 and had 16 senior members banned from politics for 10 years for receiving a loan from its founder.

"Maybe it's time to stop this vicious cycle," said Pita. "I want to prove to the establishment, and also to the world, that dissolving parties is futile."

But if it were to prevail over the upcoming challenges, Move Forward would dive into its legislative agenda, including a proposed law to open up the $8.6 billion alcohol industry, currently controlled by Boon Rawd Brewery and ThaiBev.

Boon Rawd declined to comment, while ThaiBev did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"We are trying to demonopolise the liquor industry," Pita said, explaining that Thai farmers, such as those growing crops like sugarcane and rice, would benefit from the liberalisation without significantly hurting the market share of incumbents.

"It's a way that we prove that the Thai economy works for the 99% and not just the top 1%."

(Reporting by Panu Wongcha-um and Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Martin Petty and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Thailand Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has a simple but pricey solution to the country's economic woes: Give everyone cash. Lauren DeCicca/Getty Images

Thailand has a simple plan to boost its pandemic-hit economy.

It will give $275 to about 50 million people, more than two-thirds of the population.

The prime minister said the program would cost $13.7 billion and stimulate a struggling economy.

Thailand is the latest country to experiment with a cash handout program, hoping it will help its economy recover from a pandemic-induced slump.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said the program  called "Digital Wallet"  will offer payments of 10,000 baht, or about $275, to anyone making less than 840,000 baht, or $23,000, a year.

In Thailand, that's about two-thirds of the population. Thavisin said about 50 million people will likely qualify. The cash handout was a central promise in the prime minister's campaign before he took office last year.

After the success of pandemic-era cash handouts, numerous countries have flirted with extending the programs, or even making them permanent. Many of them are forms of a basic income, programs that typically offer cash payments with no strings attached to a particular group of people. Some candidates running for top office have even promised a universal basic income, which gives regular cash payments to all citizens with no strings attached.

In South Africa, the country's largest political party pledged to create and implement a universal basic income program within the next two years. Kenya also offers a basic income program that gives unconditional payments to 20,000 people.

Andrew Yang became one of the most famous advocates for a universal basic income in the United States when he ran for president in 2020 on a plan to give all citizens $1,000 a month.

Since then, numerous American cities  like Houston and Denver  have started basic income programs for low-income residents, inspired in part by the success of pandemic aid. The Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Houston program after conservative politicians in the state challenged its constitutionality.

The Thai prime minister's plan differs from these kinds of basic income schemes because it restricts how recipients can spend the cash.

In the "Digital Wallet" program, recipients can only spend the money in shops registered through the program. Spending on things like alcohol, cigarettes, and online purchases is prohibited and participants only have six months to spend the cash after they receive it, Time reported.

Thavisin said this infusion of cash would create an "economic tornado" and called it a "life-changing policy for the people" when he announced it in April. Thailand has struggled to regain its footing after the COVID-19 pandemic leveled its economy.

The program will start taking applicants on August 1 and payments will begin in October, Thavisin said on X.

Read the original article on Business Insider
TOMS RIVER - Toms River Regional's $291 million school budget for 2024-2025 has been put in place by the Ocean County Superintendent of Schools, including a 9.9% increase in school taxes, but no additional state education aid.

In a letter sent to Board of Education President Kathy Eagan, Interim Executive County Superintendent Susan Naples said the board's failure to adopt a budget at its July 17 meeting gave her no choice but to enforce the provisions of a tentative spending plan  with the tax increase  supported by the board in June. At the time, board members agreed to adopt the increased tax rate, but only if the state provided the more than $12 million needed to balance the spending plan.

Toms River Regional Superintendent Mike Citta wrote a letter to the community explaining that even with the tax increase, Toms River Regional remains short of funds. The district is in the process of having several properties appraised for potential sale, he said.

You can read the letters at the bottom of this story.

Reduced lunch costs: Toms River Regional schools slammed by budget crisis, but hungry students get a break

Toms River Regional Board Attorney William Burns, left, Superintendent Mike Citta and Board of Education President Kathy Eagan at the July 3, 2024 school board meeting.

"For one thing, it means we are still more than $12 million short of a balanced budget for this school year, which is part of the reason our school board rejected this measure in the first place. Therefore, we are continuing the pursuit of liquidating assets, and are in the process of appraising certain community assets that do NOT directly impact schools or student programs. Some examples include the office building at 1144 Hooper Avenue and the transportation yard that houses the largest board-owned bus fleet in the state, among other ancillary properties," Citta said.

The higher tax increase for the 2024-2025 school year is permitted in legislation Gov. Phil Murphy signed in early May, which also included $1.2 million in extra money for Toms River Regional schools. The tax increase would raise an additional $12.8 million revenue.

Toms River: Mayor bans Silverton EMS from first aid calls, cites 'financial irregularities'

School Business Administrator William Doering said the 9.9% school tax increase would raise taxes by $325 annually on a Toms River house assessed at $446,100, the township's average. Toms River taxpayers are responsible for more than 90% of the taxes that support Toms River Regional schools.

In Beachwood, taxes would increase $270 a year for an average house, assessed at $207,700; the increase would be $307 a year in Pine Beach, on an average assessment of $412,000. and $134 a year in South Toms River, on a $194,500 average assessment, Doering said.

Our ongoing dialogue with the NJDOE began, from our perspective, in earnest, hopeful and diplomatic, said Board President Eagan. But that good faith was clearly one-sided, and this latest action on the states part reveals their contempt for this community and their willingness to cast blame on anyone but themselves for the untenable and unjustifiable position theyve placed us in.

Local control for this commissioner must mean only blind adherence and enforcement by local boards of each and every ridiculous mandate promulgated by the Department of Education, not actual governance by locally elected officials Eagan added.

Car break-ins: Man was breaking into Toms River neighborhood vehicles late at night, police say

On July 17 the school board unanimously approved hiring The Busch Law Group of Metuchen to sue the state over "unconstitutional actions" the board said has left the schools $137 million short of aid.

Toms River Regional Board of Education member Joseph Nardini.

The state, over the last seven years, has reduced Toms River Regional Schools aid by over $137 million, said Board Vice President Joseph Nardini. Now, the state, recognizing the harm that the massive and inequitable reduction has caused, shifted the burden from the seemingly limitless state coffers to working residents wallets.

The state also announced that it has put Jackson's school budget in place after that township's school board refused to adopt the spending plan with a 9.9% tax increase. The Jackson budget will include a $102 million tax levy. Jackson has also threatened to sue the state after facing "unthinkable cuts," including the planned closing of the Sylvia Rosenauer School.

"While the Department does not underestimate the difficulty of these decisions  budget development and adoption is a complex, multifaceted, even emotional process, given the importance of school programs to our students and communities  we also fully expect New Jerseys world class district leaders to rise to that challenge," the Department of Education said in a prepared statement. "The difficulty of these decisions does not excuse any failure by district leaders or local boards of education to comply with one of their most critical statutory obligations to successfully oversee a public school system."

NJ letter to Toms River Regional by Dennis Carmody on Scribd

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Citta letter to Toms River Regional by Dennis Carmody on Scribd

This embedded content is not available in your region.

Jean Mikle covers Toms River, Seaside Heights and several other Ocean County towns. She's also passionate about the Shore's storied music scene. Contact her: @jeanmikle, jmikle@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Toms River Regional 9.9% tax increase still leaves budget $12M short
Editors Note: Sign up for Unlocking the World, CNN Travels weekly newsletter. Get the latest news in aviation, food and drink, where to stay and other travel developments.

Boarding a sweltering airplane cabin on a hot summer day has never been anyones favorite part of a flight, but as aviation traffic picks up  generating congestion that keeps planes on the ground for longer  and global heat records keep being broken, overheated airplane cabins could soon become a problem.

There is currently no regulatory standard for cabin temperature during boarding, but the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA)  an American group and the largest flight attendant union in the world  has since 2018 called for one in the US, where every airline deals with the issue in its own way.

In July 2023 in Las Vegas  during the hottest summer on record, according to NASA  emergency services had to attend to at least one passenger on a United flight bound for Atlanta that had been sitting on the tarmac for hours due to delays. The outside temperature reached a high of 115 degrees, and the flight was eventually canceled.

The temperature in the cabin was in triple digits. There were several people who had to go to the hospital for overheating and get medical treatment, says Sara Nelson, president of the AFA.

The incident might be a glimpse into things to come. When the AFA petitioned the US Secretary of Transportation to set a federal limit for cabin temperatures during boarding of 80 F (26.7 C), or 85 F if in-flight entertainment screens are switched on, it also launched an app where passengers and crews can report instances of uncomfortably hot cabins. In the five years since, it has received more than 4,000 extreme temperature reports, 80% of which are about boarding.

Some of the airlines have internal policies that actually match or come near to the standards that were calling for, like, for example, Delta Air Lines, Nelson continues. And yet, in the July of 2023 incident, the cabin was hitting temperatures well above 100 degrees. This shows that without a federal requirement, these policies are oftentimes set aside.

Delta said at the time that it was looking into the circumstances that led to uncomfortable temperatures inside the cabin.

Up to 90 degrees

According to an AFA spokesperson, among the US airlines that have policies somewhat aligned to the unions proposed federal limit are Spirit and Hawaiian, both of which instruct their flight attendants to not let passengers board if the cabin is above 85 F. For American Airlines, that limit stretches up to 90 F, according to AFA.

Other airlines, like Alaska, United and Frontier, the AFA spokesperson said, dont have a set temperature and leave the issue to the judgment of the captain and crew. Alaska, for example, requires a crew member to inspect the center of the cabin one hour before departure to subjectively determine if its too hot or too cold.

These airlines did not offer details about temperature limits in response to CNNs queries.

It doesnt help, the union remarks, that different aircraft have different ways to set cabin temperature, with some controlled by flight attendants and some by flight crew.

We were actually giving out keychain thermometers to passengers and crew for a while, Nelson says.

The reason why cabins can get hot on the ground is that the engines cannot power the on-board air conditioning systems until the plane is airborne. It is still possible to do so via the auxiliary power unit (APU)  a smaller engine in the tail of the plane whose purpose is specifically to power electric systems while on the ground  but it costs fuel, which is why most airlines avoid it.

There is typically a lot of pressure on the pilots to limit the APU at the gate to also limit the burning of fuel if theyre waiting to take off, Nelson says. The pressures on everyone and it creates conditions that make people sick. The aircraft cabin is designed in a way that it will often heat up very quickly, and the smaller the aircraft is, the faster it heats up.

In mid-May, the House passed a major federal aviation bill that renewed the FAAs authority for five years and provided more than $105 billion in funding. It also called for a a 1-year study on the health and safety impacts of unsafe cabin temperature with respect to passengers and crew members during each season.

The study must be completed within the next two years, and results will have to be submitted to both the National Academies of Sciences and Congress, which will then decide if further action needs to be taken.

Pulling down the blinds is a first line of defense when it's hot outside. - Chalabala/iStockphoto/Getty Images

Shades down

The first line of defense against the heat while the aircraft is sitting on the ground is trying to prevent the cabin from becoming excessively hot to begin with, according to Charles Horning, a professor of aviation maintenance science at the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Many of us have been on flights where the flight attendants have asked all the passengers to close the sliding windows before they get off the aircraft, he says. Thats probably the best thing that can be done to try to keep the cabin from heating up.

There are other ways to cool down a plane; for example, by using special carts that provide air conditioning in lieu of the APU. But again, youre burning fuel in order to generate the compressed air that has to be used for the air conditioning system, so its a trade-off, says Horning.

The other thing to work on, he adds, is to prevent aircraft from sitting on the ground for too long in the first place. Thats a whole other issue, but once the aircraft gets in the air and you have the engines running, the air conditioning system works much more efficiently.

CNN reached out to several airlines for comment on this story.

Delta told CNN that it focuses on keeping aircraft cabins cool during the summer through use of ground power and air and systems on board the aircraft, with crew working with boarding agents to ensure the cabin is comfortable before passengers get on board. Customers can help keep cabins cool by following crew member instructions to keep window shades down and air vents open while aircraft are on the ground, the spokesperson added.

Southwest Airlines said it adheres to all Federal Aviation Regulations concerning temperatures aboard aircraft and manages operations by using aircraft most capable of operating efficiently in high temperatures with heavy flight loads in places that experience extreme heat.

Southwest hasnt recently experienced widespread delays or cancellations related to heat. Were running aircraft air conditioning on the ground and asking customers to close window shades and open overhead air vents to help maintain cooler cabins, Lynn Lunsford, SWA spokesman, said in an email to CNN.

Lunsford said Southwest provides water, ice and frequent breaks in air-conditioned areas to employees and encourages them to take measures to stay hydrated and as cool and protected from the sun as possible. The airline also trains employees to look out for signs of heat-related illness.

Spirit, Hawaiian, Frontier, JetBlue and United did not respond to a request for comment on their cabin temperature policies. American and Alaska responded to the request but did not provide comment.

A balancing act

Airlines for America, a trade association that represents major North American airlines, did not directly answer a CNN question on whether it is in favor of a federal mandate on cabin temperature. However, its spokesperson Hannah Walden said that the safety of all passengers, flight and ground crews is always the US airline industrys top priority and that extreme heat impacts on commercial aircraft operations are rare given that aircraft are designed and certified to safely operate in a wide range of low and high temperatures.

Hassan Shahidi, president of the Flight Safety Foundation  an international non-profit organization that champions the cause of aviation safety  says that implementing international regulations and standards for cabin temperatures must take multiple issues into consideration.

Airlines must balance fuel efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, and the technological limitations of current aircraft cooling systems, he says. Additionally, setting a uniform temperature standard can be complicated due to varying climates at different airports and the diverse types of aircraft in operation.

He adds that running APUs when aircraft are on the ground may be constrained by environmental regulations in different regions around the world: We urge industry stakeholders to share data on cabin temperature events and best practices they use to keep temperatures down. We support a comprehensive study on this topic.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Annalena Baerbock German Foreign Minister, gives a statement during a visit to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Baerbock is in Hamburg as part of her summer trip. Christian Charisius/dpa

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has sharply criticized the actions of the authorities in Belarus in connection with a German citizen sentenced to death there.

"It is unbearable how the Belarusian regime paraded a German national on television," Baerbock told journalists on Friday on the sidelines of her summer trip to the northern port city of Hamburg.

"Of course, as the Foreign Office and also with our embassy on site, we are in close contact, not only with the affected person, not only with the family, but also providing the best possible consular support," she said.

"We must do everything to ensure that his rights are maintained and remain protected," Baerbock added.

She said that the death penalty has been abolished and forbidden in Europe. "There are clear rules for dealing with foreign nationals, and we are doing everything to support the German national in the best possible way," Baerbock added.

In a video aired by state television on Thursday, the German sentenced to death pleaded with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko for mercy.

The German government wasn't doing anything to save him, the man, who was sentenced for carrying out terrorism offences on behalf on Ukraine, said in the television clip.

"I plead guilty, definitely," he said in German, with his statements partially audible over the simultaneous translation track.

There are significant questions about the circumstances under which the video was made, the Foreign Office in Berlin said.
Annalena Baerbock, German Foreign Minister, stands in front of numerous international flags at the entrance to the courtroom during her visit to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS). Baerbock is in Hamburg as part of her summer trip. Christian Charisius/dpa

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has sharply criticized the actions of the authorities in Belarus in connection with a German citizen sentenced to death there.

"It is unbearable how the Belarusian regime paraded a German national on television," Baerbock told journalists on Friday on the sidelines of her summer trip to the northern port city of Hamburg.

"Of course, as the Foreign Office and also with our embassy on site, we are in close contact, not only with the affected person, not only with the family, but also providing the best possible consular support," she said.

"We must do everything to ensure that his rights are maintained and remain protected," Baerbock added.

She said that the death penalty has been abolished and forbidden in Europe. "There are clear rules for dealing with foreign nationals, and we are doing everything to support the German national in the best possible way," Baerbock added.

In a video aired by state television on Thursday, the German sentenced to death pleaded with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko for mercy.

The German government wasn't doing anything to save him, the man, who was sentenced for carrying out terrorism offences on behalf on Ukraine, said in the television clip.

"I plead guilty, definitely," he said in German, with his statements partially audible over the simultaneous translation track.

There are significant questions about the circumstances under which the video was made, the Foreign Office in Berlin said.

According to the authorities in Minsk, he had been convicted of terrorism on behalf of the Ukrainian secret service. The man was sentenced to death in June, including on mercenary charges, but the verdict was only made public by human rights organizations a month later.

Belarus is the last country in Europe that still carries out the death penalty, specifically by a shot in the back of the neck.

At the time, the Foreign Ministry in Minsk said it had made offers to Berlin to negotiate in the case, without giving further details.

There was speculation that Belarus, which is allied with Russia, could be seeking an exchange of prisoners. The German government did not comment on this.
Two alleged leaders of Mexicos Sinaloa crime cartel arrested after landing in the US

Two of the alleged leaders of one of the most violent and powerful criminal organisations in the world were arrested after being lured to the United States in an elaborate sting operation.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada Garcia, the co-founder of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel and the son of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman Lopez were arrested after being tricked into flying to the US instead of to another airport in Mexico.

The suspects landed in a private jet at the airport in El Paso, Texas on Thursday where they were arrested.

Details of how the alleged drug lords were captured are unclear but Fox News reported Mr Guzman Lopez convinced Mr Zambada Garcia to board the jet which he believed was heading south in Mexico but instead, it flew north and landed in the United States.

When the plane touched down, Mr Guzman Lopez surrendered and El Mayo was detained.

Agents stand by a plane believed to have carried Mr Zambada Garcia and Mr Guzman Lopez - Reuters

The New York Times quoted US officials saying the son of El Chapo lured Mr Zambada Garcia to El Paso under false pretences.

It is not clear if or why he may have betrayed his fellow cartel boss. The US is known to use plea deals to encourage members to cooperate with them.

Merrick Garland, the US attorney general said in a statement: The Justice Department has taken into custody two additional alleged leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organisations in the world.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to Mr Zambadas capture.

The Justice Department earlier put up a $15 million bounty for any information leading to Mr Zambada Garcia's arrest or conviction

Mr Garland said both men were facing multiple charges in the US for leading the cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

He added that the two men joined a growing list of Sinaloa cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, he said.

Court documents showed on Friday that Mr Zambada pleaded not guilty to US drug trafficking charges.

He waived his right to appear personally in court and directed that a not guilty plea be entered on his behalf.

He was ordered detained without bond and is scheduled to be arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne Berton next Wednesday, the records showed.

Undated images of Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada Garcia - AFP

The two men were said to be among the most consequential drug traffickers in Mexico and oversaw operations that sent drugs to the US, Europe and other parts of the world.

It is understood that Mr Zambada Garcia has never been imprisoned, unlike his top ally, Joaquin Guzman Loera, known as El Chapo.

After his father was extradited to the US, it appeared that Mr Guzman Lopez was promoted to head the cartel.

In 2019, El Chapo was sentenced to life in prison by a court in New York.

After El Chapos capture, several of his sons, who were known as Chapitos or The Little Chapos took control of the crime organisation, US authorities said.

One son, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was extradited to the United States last year to face drug charges.

Killing Americans coast to coast

Anne Milgram, the US Drugs Enforcement Administration chief, said in a statement that the arrest of Mr Zambada Garcia strikes at the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast.

She said the capture of El Chapos son strikes another enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel.

In 2012, a federal grand jury in Texas indicted the 76-year-old Mr Zambada Garcia on charges of murder and conspiracy connected with drug trafficking, money laundering and organised crime.

Breon Peace, the US attorney for the eastern district of New York, said: As alleged, Zambada Garcia is charged with numerous drug offences, now including the manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, a deadly drug that was largely unheard of when he founded the Sinaloa Cartel more than three decades ago and today is responsible for immeasurable harm.

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 reference to the Sinaloa cartel along a well-known smuggling route in Sahuarita, Arizona.

A reference to the Sinaloa cartel along a well-known smuggling route in Sahuarita, Arizona. Photograph: Norma Jean Gargasz/Alamy

The US justice department has arrested two leaders of Mexicos powerful Sinaloa cartel, including the cartels co-founder, for leading deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the charges against cartel leaders Ismael Zambada Garcia, known as El Mayo, one of the groups co-founders, and Joaquin Guzman. Both men face several charges in the United States for allegedly leading the cartels criminal operations.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, said Garland on Thursday. The justice department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.

The arrests were made in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday.

On Friday morning, in a statement issued by the White House, Joe Biden described the cartel as one of the deadliest enterprises in the world.

The US president said: I commend the work of our law enforcement officials, who made this arrest, for their ongoing work to bring Sinaloa cartel leaders to justice. Too many of our citizens have lost their lives to the scourge of fentanyl. Too many families have been broken and are suffering because of this destructive drug. My administration will continue doing everything we can to hold deadly drug traffickers to account and to save American lives.

The charges are part of a crackdown on Sinaloa cartel leaders. Last year, the US justice department charged more than two dozen members of the Sinaloa cartel, including the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, accusing them of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl.

The Sinaloa cartel has smuggled millions of pounds of illegal drugs, millions of US dollars and weapons between the two countries, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

Zambada founded the Sinaloa cartel along with El Chapo, and he faces several charges for crimes relating to drug trafficking and organized crime in the United States.

US federal prosecutors in February charged Zambada with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute fentanyl.

The arrests come a month after the DoJ indicted two dozen people, accusing Chinese underground bankers of helping Mexicos Sinaloa cartel launder over $50m in drug proceeds.

The investigation revealed a partnership between Sinaloa cartel associates and a Chinese criminal syndicate to launder drug money, exploiting Chinese nationals demand for US dollars.

Reuters contributed reporting
Attempts to intimidate China with military exercises will never work: spokesperson

Xinhua) 08:16, July 26, 2024

BEIJING, July 25 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese military spokesperson on Thursday said attempts to intimidate China with military exercises or aggressive rhetoric will never work.

Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, made the remarks in response to a media inquiry about the U.S.-led multinational "RIMPAC-2024" exercise, which is believed by some to be an act of "muscle-flexing against China."

The Chinese military will never be swayed by fallacies, deterred by intimidation or cowed by pressure, said Zhang, adding that it has the resolve, capabilities and means to defeat all aggressors and safeguard China's national sovereignty, security and development interests.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing)
PRAGUE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Slovakia and Hungary have sought to resolve a dispute with Ukraine over its recent decision to block the transit of oil supplies from the Russian company Lukoil to the two European Union (EU) member states.

In a telephone conversation on Friday, Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico proposed a technical solution to his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal, regarding the Lukoil oil transit via Ukraine.

Fico's office said the proposed scheme would require the participation of several countries, including Slovakia, and noted that it is crucial for Bratislava-based refiner Slovnaft that the transit of at least a part of the Russian oil supplies be resumed, as alternative sources of oil are more expensive and may not be suitable from the technological point of view.

Intensive negotiations are expected to take place at the highest political and technical levels in the coming hours and days.

Meanwhile, Hungary has also been exploring options to resolve the oil transit dispute.

"If the situation is not resolved, there will be a fuel shortage," Gergely Gulyas, minister in charge of the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office, told a press conference on Friday. He added that there was no reason to panic given the high oil stock levels, but the situation needed to be resolved by September.

"One solution is for Ukraine to admit that it cannot do this to two EU member states," he said. "Another solution is for the European Commission to help us, and the third is that we find a legal loophole that will allow (Russian) oil to be transported by someone who is not subject to sanctions."

The EU in 2022 passed sanctions on the import of Russian oil into the bloc in response to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. However, a temporary exemption was granted to Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic to allow them time to find other crude sources.

Slovakia's Economy Ministry said last week that oil deliveries from Russian company Lukoil had stopped flowing to the country via Ukraine following the company's inclusion on a Ukrainian sanctions list in June. The move has affected Slovnaft.

The two EU countries on Monday asked the European Commission (EC) to urgently intervene in the dispute on their behalf.

According to Slovak Foreign and European Affairs Minister Juraj Blanar and his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto, Ukraine's move violates the EU-Ukraine association agreement.

"The European Commission is supposed to act as a guardian of the treaties and to ensure compliance with EU law, which Ukraine as an associated country is also obliged to follow. We therefore consider it to be essential that the Commission should act immediately in this case," Blanar said in a statement on Monday.

According to Blanar, the EU sanctions against Russia, which Slovakia has opposed several times, have once again proven to have a greater negative impact on Slovakia and the EU than on Russia. "The Slovak Republic has an exemption for Russian oil imports until the end of the year," he said, adding that "the Ukrainian side has made it impossible to apply this exemption."

Blanar said on social media Wednesday that the EC would delay intervention until it had more information on the matter. "I urge the European Commission not to waste time and to side with the (EU) member states and, most importantly, their citizens, the citizens of Slovakia and Hungary, as soon as possible," he said.

On the same day, Slovak President Peter Pellegrini said his country might take retaliatory measures against Ukraine as its decision to halt Lukoil oil transit to Slovakia and Hungary undermines good neighborly relations between the countries.

While the EC is "gathering information" on the dispute, Slovakia and Hungary have agreed to "continue to coordinate our actions in relation to the EC," Blanar said Friday following a phone call with Szijjarto.

"The European Commission must first and foremost represent the interests of the EU member states. If two countries are affected by Ukraine's violation of the association agreement, we would expect willingness to provide help on the Commission's side all the more," Blanar said. 
In this March 21, 2024, file photo, the seal for the Department of Justice is seen at the Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, FILE)

In this March 21, 2024, file photo, the seal for the Department of Justice is seen at the Department of Justice Building in Washington, D.C. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images, FILE)

Two top leaders of the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel have been taken into custody by United States authorities to face charges for their role in leading the group's vast drug trafficking enterprise, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.

Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of "El Chapo" Guzman, were placed under arrest in El Paso, Texas, on Thursday, according to Attorney General Merrick Garland.

"Both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartel's criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks," Garland said in a statement. "El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa Cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable in the United States."

MORE: El Chapo conviction upheld

Zambada made his initial appearance Friday morning in El Paso federal court before Judge Anne Berton, according to court records. He pleaded not guilty to the 12 charges in his 2012 indictment in the Western District of Texas and was ordered detained pending his next hearing, scheduled for July 31, according to court records.

Zambada, 76, required the use of a wheelchair and made no other statements other than responding to Berton with "Yes," "No," or "Yes, I understand," as she questioned him, according to a transcript of the proceedings obtained by ABC News.

During the proceedings, Berton said that Ray Velarde, an attorney who plans to join the case, has an outstanding conflict in representing Zambada which the defendant would be permitted to waive if he chooses. The judge did not address the nature of the conflict.

Zambada faces multiple federal indictments in jurisdictions across the U.S. for his alleged role in the cartel and has been on the run from U.S. and Mexican law enforcement for years. His fellow co-founder of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, was extradited to the U.S. in 2017, convicted in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.

PHOTO: Joaquin Guzman Lopez arrives in U.S. custody. (Obtained by ABC News)

"Today, the FBI and DEA arrested two alleged cartel leaders who have eluded law enforcement for decades. Ismael Mario 'El Mayo' Zambada Garcia and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of El Chapo, will now face justice in the United States," FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.

"Garcia and Guzman have allegedly overseen the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl into the U.S. along with related violence. These arrests are an example of the FBI's and our partners commitment to dismantling violent transnational criminal organizations like the Sinaloa Cartel," Wray said.

The men were arrested in an operation that ended on U.S. soil.

"El Mayo" thought he was headed to inspect a clandestine Mexican airfield, of which the Sinaloa cartel has many in the country. Instead, according to a Homeland Security Investigations official, a senior ranking member of the cartel tricked him and flew him to El Paso instead.

MORE: El Chapo's sons purportedly ban fentanyl in Mexico's Sinaloa state

Upon landing on the tarmac, agents from HSI, along with the FBI arrested "El Mayo" and Guzman.

The HSI official tells ABC News the operation had been planned "for months."

They were placed in handcuffs by FBI agents during an operation culminating at an airstrip not far from El Paso.

"The arrest of Ismael Zambada Garcia, better known as 'El Mayo,' one of the alleged founders and leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, strikes at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast. El Mayo is one of DEA's most wanted fugitives and he is in custody tonight and will soon face justice in a U.S. court of law," said Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram.

PHOTO: This combo of images provided by the U.S. Department of State show Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, left, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez after they were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas, Thursday, July 25, 2024. (U.S. Department of State via AP)

"Joaquin Guzman Lopez, another alleged leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, and the son of 'El Chapo,' was also arrested today -- his arrest is another enormous blow to the Sinaloa Cartel. In 2017, he and his brothers, the Chapitos, allegedly took control of the Sinaloa Cartel after El Chapo was extradited to the United States. DEA will continue to seek justice for any American life that is lost and will work tirelessly to prevent more needless deaths and pursue those that are responsible," Milgram said.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called the arrests a "breakthrough" in the fight against the drug crisis impacting the U.S. in comments on Friday.

The Mexican government said was not aware that the two were going to be extradited to the U.S. to be arrested, Mexican authorities said during a press briefing on Friday.

The Mexican government received a phone call from the U.S. Embassy Thursday afternoon informing them the two were in custody in El Paso, the authorities said. The Mexican government has asked U.S. officials for pictures of the two men to confirm the information.

According to the flight plan, the private plane that was used to transport the two men traveled from Hermosillo, Sonora, to Santa Teresa, New Mexico, Mexican authorities said.

PHOTO: The plane that brought Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez to the U.S. is seen on the ground at Dona Ana Jetport, July 25, 2024, in Santa Teresa, N.M. (KVIA)

The U.S. government had offered a $15 million reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Zambada.

"Too many of our citizens have lost their lives to the scourge of fentanyl," President Joe Biden said in a statement Friday morning. "Too many families have been broken and are suffering because of this destructive drug. My Administration will continue doing everything we can to hold deadly drug traffickers to account and to save American lives."

Guzman Lopez's brother, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, was charged last year with two dozen others as part of a crackdown targeting a global drug trafficking network run through Mexico's Sinaloa cartel. According to the charges, the cartel used precursor chemicals shipped from China to fuel the fentanyl crisis plaguing the U.S.

PHOTO: This frame grab from video, provided by the Mexican government, shows Ovidio Guzman Lopez is detained in Culiacan, Mexico, on Oct. 17, 2019. (CEPROPIE via AP, FILE)

Ovidio Guzman Lopez had been wanted by U.S. authorities since 2019 and was captured by Mexican armed forces in January 2023 in a small town just outside the city of Culiacan, the capital of the Mexican state of Sinaloa.

He was captured in an overnight raid that had been in the works for more than six months, officials said at the time. The arrest followed an infamous incident in 2019, in which authorities briefly detained Guzman Lopez at a home in Culiacan, before word spread and heavily armed gunmen flooded the city. Massive shootouts occurred between cartel members and Mexican armed forces around the city. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered Guzman Lopez released in order to avoid more bloodshed.

Their father is serving a life sentence in the U.S. after being convicted in 2019 of conducting a continuing criminal enterprise, including large-scale narcotics violations and a murder conspiracy, drug trafficking conspiracies, unlawful use of a firearm and a money laundering conspiracy.

Top Sinaloa cartel leaders, including son of El Chapo, taken into US custody: DOJ originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
TOPEKA (KSNT)  On Thursday, the TPD took to social media to ask for public assistance in solving the crimes. According to police, this year the city has seen nearly 350 vehicle thefts and vehicle theft attempts.

Police say of those vehicle thefts, 72 were Kia or Hyundai vehicles. The TPD recommended Kia and Hyundai drivers take advantage of a Kia/Hyundai recall that works to address a security flaw.

Data from seven U.S. cities gathered by The Associated Press shows that the number of Hyundai and Kia thefts is still growing despite the companies efforts to fix a security flaw that was exposed on TikTok and other social media sites, which makes 8.3 million vehicles relatively easy targets for thieves.

What are anti-photo license plate covers? Are they legal in Kansas?

The TPD recommended drivers:

Never leave a vehicle running and unlocked.

Ensure all vehicle doors and windows are closed and locked anytime you leave the vehicle, including at night.

Invest in tracking technology such as AirTags, Tile trackers, etc.

Install security cameras outside and point them toward your vehicle.

Take any valuables or weapons out of your vehicle.

If you have information regarding vehicle theft, the police department asks you to contact detectives at telltpd@topeka.org. If you drive a Hyundai or Kia, you can check for recalls by clicking here.

For more local news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news in northeast Kansas by downloading our mobile app and by signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track Weather app by clicking here.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KSNT 27 News.
The recently released stand-alone sequel "Twisters" follows two storm chasers on their quest to research the destructive power of tornadoes, while potentially disrupting the twister altogether and mitigating risk.

The methods used to harness the tornado dives deepest into science fiction, experts say. So, how do tornadoes actually dissipate?

Here's everything we know:

How do tornadoes stop?

Tornadoes can form anywhere the right ingredients come together, but they most often form in the eastern half of the United States, when dry winds coming in from high over the Rockies meet moisture-rich, low-level winds blowing up from the Gulf of Mexico.

That interaction provides wind shear  an essential ingredient for tornado formation. The other two essential ingredients are lift and instability.

Rick Smith is the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Norman. He was an informal consultant on "Twisters."

Smith explained to The Oklahoman that tornadoes need a source of warm, moist unstable air to develop and sustain themselves. They'll typically die or dissipate when that feed of warm buoyant air is cut off.

Can a tornado really be stopped?

In "Twisters," storm chasers attempt to kill the tornado by launching rockets filled with silver iodide at it to create rain. The team then drives into the center of the twister to release superabsorbent polymers to stop the tornado.

Smith said there's no science to suggest using chemicals to harness a tornado is possible.

"You would need such a massive amount, and getting enough of it into the storm in the right place at the right time would be close to impossible," Smith said. "And we have to remember that thunderstorms are there for a reason, and we don't know about unintended consequences that could result from us tampering with storms."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: How do tornadoes stop spinning? Can you stop a tornado?
YORK, Pa. (WHTM)  Emergency crews pulled a tractor-trailer out of a bank in York County after it crashed into the building Friday afternoon, officials said.

According to a spokesperson with the York County Office of Emergency Management, they received a report of the tractor-trailer crash into First National Bank, located along S. Queen Street, after 1:30 p.m.





There were employees and customers inside the bank when the crash happened, but no one was injured, York County Regional Police said.

The tractor-trailer was parked at a gas station, on the other side of the street, and when the driver got out, it then drifted across the street, hitting two vehicles, before crashing into the bank, police said.

K9 tries to track down motorcyclist after Franklin County high-speed chase, crash

The cab of the truck was wedged in the bank, but crews were able to pull it out of the building. Photos from the scene from an abc27 photojournalist show the cab went through the front doors of the bank and got stuck.

There also was no fire from the crash, the spokesperson added.

Close

Thanks for signing up!

Watch for us in your inbox.

Subscribe Now

abc27 Evening Newsletter

This is a developing story. Stay with abc27 News as more information becomes available

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.
UPDATE at 2:25 p.m.

CHAPMAIGN COUNTY, Ill. (WCIA)  State Police announced all lanes are open again after a semi-truck partially blocked I-74 West Friday afternoon.

The closure lasted just over an hour. No further information is available at this time.

IL FOP: Sean Grayson fired without just cause, files grievance

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, Ill. (WCIA)  Traffic is backed up significantly on part of I-74 West after a semi-truck broke down in one of the lanes Friday afternoon.

Illinois State Police said as of around 1:20 p.m. at Milepost 177.5  halfway between I-57 and Mahomet  the semi-truck is blocking the right lane. They added that the left lane is open, but the obstruction has caused a large backup.

Police ask that drivers exercise caution when driving through the area and, if possible, take alternate routes until the semi-truck can be removed.

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 WCIA.com.
FILE PHOTO: The train engine is seen at the site of a train crash in Santiago de Compostela

MADRID (Reuters) - A Spanish train driver and a former traffic safety chief at national rail infrastructure operator ADIF were sentenced on Friday to two-and-a-half years in prison over a train disaster that killed 79 people 11 years ago.

In Spain's worst rail accident in decades, an eight-carriage, high-speed Alvia 04155 train veered off the track on a sharp bend near the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela, slammed into a concrete wall and burst into flames. Another 143 people were injured in the 2013 crash.

Presiding judge Elena Fernandez Curras said two elements caused the derailment: the driver got distracted when receiving a call, and there was no safety system in place in case the driver did not respect the speed limit.

The defendants and the insurance companies of ADIF and Renfe were sentenced to pay 25 million euros ($27.14 million) in damages to the victims in the civil part of the trial.

After the crash, ADIF identified more than 300 spots on the Spanish railway network where speed changes were needed.

The judicial investigation into the crash was complex and took years, and the trial ran for 10 months. Only two of more than 20 people investigated were eventually put on trial.

Fernandez revised down the official death toll to 79 from 80 as she considered one of the passengers, who passed away weeks after the crash, died as a result of a serious illness he was suffering from, and not the injuries. His relatives will still be compensated as he was injured in the crash.

($1 = 0.9213 euros)

(Reporting by Emma Pinedo, editing by Inti Landauro and Mark Heinrich)
BRIDGETON  A state trooper has admitted he punched a woman in the face while she was handcuffed in a police vehicle, according to the state Attorney General's Office.

The trooper  Nicolas J. Hogan, 28, of Gibbstown  held a metal flashlight in his hand while striking the victim during a 1:30 a.m. incident in September 2022, the agency said in a statement.

Hogan admitted guilt to aggravated assault at a July 25 hearing in Superior Court in Cumberland County.

Prosecutors will recommend he serve up to 364 days in county jail as part of a probationary term.

Search led to scrutiny: New Jersey State Police fire trooper who went missing

The incident occurred after New Jersey State Police troopers received a report of a woman trespassing at a home in Upper Deerfield, Cumberland County,

Troopers were heading to the home when they encountered the woman, who "appeared to be inebriated, walking in the middle of the road," said an account from the Attorney General's Office.

Victim was detained, not arrested

Troopers determined the woman, whose name was not disclosed, needed a medical evaluation.

She was "detained, but not under arrest" while troopers waited for medical personnel to arrive, the account said.

Hogan was among other troopers who arrived at the scene during the wait.

The woman became "increasingly distraught" and began weeping and spitting on the ground, said the account.

It said troopers' body-worn camera footage also showed "fluid and mucus on her face and falling from her mouth."

After the woman tried to walk away, her hands were cuffed behind her back and she was secured in the rear seat of a police car.

According to the account, the woman then made multiple requests for a tissue "but was never given one."

The situation intensified when the woman spat toward a trooper standing near the open rear passenger door.

Hogan then opened a rear door on the other side of the car and warned the woman, 'If you f---ing spit on a trooper,'" the account continued.

The woman turned toward Hogan and spat in his direction.

Hogan, a trooper since March 2021, then struck the restrained woman in the face.

The statement did not address the woman's condition, but state law notes a charge of aggravated assault can be filed when an assailant causes "significant bodily injury purposely or knowingly."

The woman was later charged with resisting arrest, obstruction, disorderly conduct and subjecting a law enforcement officer to bodily fluid.

The charges were administratively dismissed 15 days later, according to the Cumberland County Prosecutor's Office.

In announcing Hogan's plea, Attorney General Matthew Platkin said police "face difficult circumstances and put their lives on the line every day. But they must exercise discretion when they need to use force."

He said Hogan, who has been suspended since Nov. 16, "inexcusably crossed the line, and he has been held accountable for his conduct.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, Hogan has consented to a lifetime ban on public employment and holding public office, the statement said.

An attorney for Hogan could not be reached for immediate comment.

Superior Court Judge Joseph M. Chiarello scheduled sentencing for Sept. 13 in his Bridgeton courtroom.

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: Nicholas Hogan admits he punched handcuffed woman in NJSP patrol car
Trooper injured after single-car crash in Hampton

HAMPTON, Conn. (WTNH)  A state trooper suffered minor injuries after a single-vehicle collision Thursday evening, officials with the Connecticut State Police said.

Police said Troop D-Danielson was notified of a single-vehicle collision involving a trooper on Station Rad just before 9 p.m.

Hundreds of illegal cannabis products seized from Waterbury shops

The trooper was transported to a hospital with minor injuries.

State police could not provide any additional information as of Friday morning.

This is a developing story. Stay with News 8 for more information.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTNH.com.
Related video: Observing hurricanes from space

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA)  The National Hurricane Center is monitoring an area of potential tropical development in the central Atlantic.

Friday, the NHC said an area of disturbed weather was forecast to have an interaction with a tropical wave approaching the Caribbean Sea.

At this time, little development is expected over the weekend, but experts said the system may develop as it approaches the Lesser Antilles early next week.

For the forecast, the Atlantic ridge will build over the eastern Caribbean through Sun, following a tropical wave that will move through the western Caribbean, the NHCs Tropical Weather Discussion stated. This pattern will support fresh to strong trade winds and rough seas across the central Caribbean into the middle of next week. Expect fresh E to SE winds and building seas over the northwest Caribbean early in the week following the tropical wave, with locally strong winds and rough seas across the Gulf of Honduras Sun night.

As of this report, the NHC said the system had a 20% chance of development over the next week.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFLA.
PRAGUE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- In a telephone conversation on Friday, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico proposed a technical solution to his Ukrainian counterpart, Denys Shmyhal, to partially restart the transit of Russian company Lukoil's oil via Ukraine.

Without disclosing any details, Fico's office said the proposed scheme would require the participation of several countries, including Slovakia.

Restoring at least partial access to Russian oil is extremely important for the Bratislava-based Slovnaft refinery, as alternative sources of oil are more expensive and may not be technologically compatible, it said.

Slovakia's economy ministry said last week that oil deliveries from Lukoil had stopped flowing to Slovakia via Ukraine following the company's inclusion on Ukraine's sanctions list. The move has heavily affected Slovnaft.

Intensive negotiations will take place at the highest political and technical levels in the coming hours and days, reported the News Agency of the Slovak Republic (TASR), citing government sources.

Slovak President Peter Pellegrini said on Wednesday that his country might take retaliatory measures against Ukraine for its decision to cut off oil supplies from Lukoil to Slovakia.

Slovakia's Foreign and European Affairs Minister Juraj Blanar, together with Hungary's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto, on Monday asked the European Commission to intervene in this matter. 
In reaction to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress on Wednesday, raucous anti-Israel protests erupted across Washington, D.C. Protesters vandalized statues outside D.C.'s Union Station with phrases like "Hamas is comin" and "long live the resistance." At one point, protesters replaced the American flag with a Palestinian flag and then burned the American flag.

In response to the flag burning, former President Donald Trump told Fox and Friends on Wednesday that he believed those who burn or damage the American flag should face jail time. Trump also brushed off those who would point out that flag desecration is First Amendment-protected speech.

"You should get a one-year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag," said Trump. "Now, people will say, 'Oh, it's unconstitutional.' Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that."

"We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence," Trump continued. "When they're allowed to stomp on the flag and put lighter fluid on the flag and set it afire, when you're allowed to do thatyou get a one-year jail sentence, and you'll never see it again."

This isn't the first time Trump has called for imprisoning flag burners.

"We ought to come up with legislation that if you burn the American flag you go to jail for one year," Trump said during a 2020 rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. "We oughta do it. We talk about freedom of speechbut that's desecration," he added.

However, Trump is simply wrong. In 1989, the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning is protected speech. While you can still face property destruction-related charges for burning someone else's flag (as occurred Wednesday), burning a flag you own is protected political expression.

"If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable," wrote Chief Justice William Brennan in the court's majority opinion. "We have not recognized an exception to this principle even where our flag has been involved."

While D.C.'s anti-Israel protestors can still face vandalism charges for their actions on Wednesday, every American has the right to burn their own American flagno matter how offensive some presidential candidates think their actions are.

The post Trump Calls for Jailing Flag Burners appeared first on Reason.com.
Trump campaign finally reveals why ex president continues to profess love for Hannibal Lecter in speeches

Speculation has long swirled over Donald Trumps repeated and bizarre references to fictional cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter at his campaign rallies.

Suggestions have ranged from the former president confusing the meaning of the word asylum when talking about migrants to simple jokes  though he recently seemed to imply that the famous killer is a real person.

However, when asked directly by The Independent for insight into Trumps baffling mentions of Dr Lecter and the film Silence of the Lambs, the former presidents campaign offered a somewhat terse explanation.

President Trump is an inspiring and gifted storyteller and referencing pop culture is one of many reasons why he can successfully connect with the audience and voters, a Trump campaign spokesperson said.

The character of Hannibal Lecter was created by novelist Thomas Harris. The character was featured in Harris 1988 novel The Silence of the Lambs. Then, Hannibal Lecter was played by actor Anthony Hopkins in the 1991 film adaptation of the same name.

Anthony Hopkins played the character of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs 1991 film adaptation (Ken Regan/Orion/Kobal/Shutterstock)

The films star, Sir Anthony Hopkins, was reportedly appalled by the connection.

Trump has repeatedly brought up Hannibal during campaign speeches and brought him up this month in both his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last week and at a rally in North Carolina on Wednesday.

You know, they go crazy when I say, the late great Hannibal Lecter, OK, they say, Why would he mention Hannibal Lecter? He must be cognitively in trouble, Trump said at a Charlotte, North Carolina rally this week.

These are real stories. Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs is a lovely man, he continued. He wants to have you for dinner. Hed like to have you for dinner.

Trump has made references to the fictional serial killer at rallies as far back as May (REUTERS)

Previous speculators over Trumps fawning over the fictional serial killer have pointed out that the mentions only come during his discussion of immigrants, raising the question that the former president has somehow conflated those seeking asylum with Dr Lecters residence  an insane asylum.

Trump has often also listed insane asylums among the places he claims millions of immigrants are coming from to enter the US. He has also said they come from jails and prisons.
Trump campaign now says it would be "inappropriate" to go ahead with the debate it already agreed to

Former President Donald Trump is trying to back out of the only scheduled debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris, 78-year-old's campaign claiming it would be "inappropriate" for him to follow through on his prior commitment because Democrats have not yet formally nominated a candidate, HuffPost reported.

Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement on Thursday. He cited the fact that former President Barack Obama had yet to endorse Harris as evidence Democrats "could still change their minds"; Obama and his wife, Michelle, endorsed Harris Friday morning, The Hill reported.

Trump and President Joe Biden had initially agreed to two debates, one on June 27 and one on September 10. The latter debate is set to be hosted by ABC and, under the terms Trump previously accepted, is open to any candidate eligible to be president and polling at or above 15% in four national polls.

Harris will secure her party's nomination in a virtual roll call early next month ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In a post on social media, she called out Trump for getting cold feet, asking: What happened to any time, any place?

In a separate post, she accused the former president of going back on his word. Trump agreed on a September 10th debate," she wrote. "It now appears he's backpedaling. Voters deserve to see the split screen that exists on a debate stage. I'm ready. So let's go.

Earlier this week, Trump suggested in a press conference with reporters that he didnt want to participate in an event hosted by ABC, as agreed to, but would instead consider a debate on Fox News, The Hill reported.
Former President Donald Trump wont commit to debating Vice President Kamala Harris because hes not convinced shell be the Democratic nominee.

A Trump campaign statement Thursday evening suggested that there is too much uncertainty within the party to assume Harris will be the nominee.

Harris became the front runner for the nomination earlier this week after President Joe Biden backed out of the race and put his support behind his vice president to succeed him.

In short order, she gathered enough delegate pledges to lock up the nomination when the party gathers next month at the Democratic National Convention.

Will Donald Trump debate Kamala Harris?

Former President Donald Trump had previously agreed to three debates with President Joe Biden.

The first one was held in late June and featured a poor performance by Biden, amplifying concerns that he wasnt up to the challenge of keeping Trump out of the White House. He quit the race on July 21.

Trumps campaign statement suggested former President Barack Obama had doubts about Harris as the nominee because he had not yet endorsed her.

That endorsement came Friday.

Is Kamala Harris the Democrat nominee?

Despite her securing delegate pledges and party endorsements, Vice President Kamala Harris is not the official candidate until the party meets for the Democratic National Convention and nominates her.

The DNC is set for Aug. 19-22.

Harris also has not yet named a vice president for her ticket.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly are all names that have been suggested as possible running mates on a Harris-topped ticket.

Gov. Josh Shapiro, in particular, has gained attention for his strong appeal in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania.

Harris has said she is ready and eager to debate Trump.

The next debate is tentatively set for Sept. 10. A third debate would likely happen in October.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Trump not ready to say yes to Harris debate
Trumps Doctor Ronny Jackson Doubles Down on Claim He Was Hit By Bullet not Shrapnel

Donald Trumps former White House physician insisted Friday he is certain the former president was hit by a bullet during his assassination attempt two weeks ago.

There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet, Ronny Jackson, a Republican U.S. House representative from Texas who is no longer a fully licensed physician, said in a letter posted on Truth Social.

Jackson slammed FBI Director Christopher Wray, who told Congress this week that he could not conclude whether Trump was hit or grazed by a bullet, or by flying shrapnel.

Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else, Jackson said.

Trump also attacked the FBI director, posting on Truth Social Thursday night: FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress yesterday that he wasnt sure if I was hit by shrapnel, glass, or a bullet (the FBI never even checked!) ...

Questions over the cause of Trumps ear wound have swirled since the assassination attempt and were fueled this week by Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, saying the agency does not know if he was hit by a bullet or shrapnel. Tom Brenner/Reuters

Jackson, who earned the nickname Candyman during his White House tenure for allegedly freely doling out prescription drugs, said that based on his experience as a combat doctor who has treated many gunshot wounds in my career, he concurs with what he called the initial assessment and treatment provided by the doctors and nurses at Butler Memorial Hospital on the day of the shooting.

However, the hospital where Trump was treated following the July 13 attempt on his life, which injured his right ear, has declined to release any information on the former presidents condition and treatment, referring all inquiries to the Trump campaign.

A spokesman for Butler Memorial Hospital, Tom Chakurda, told the Daily Beast two days after the assassination attempt, Were deferring any comment to the Trump team. The Trump campaign has declined to respond to questions about Trumps condition and treatment.

The update on Trumps condition came from Ronny Jackson, who was his White House physician but who is. now only licensed to practice in emergency situations and not to provide ongoing care. David Dee Delgado/Reuters

In his statement on Friday, Jackson, who also served as White House physician to former president Barack Obama, said, I want to reassure the American people and the rest of the world, that President Trump is doing extremely well. He is rapidly recovering from the gunshot wound to his right ear.

As well as giving up his full medical license, Jackson was demoted from admiral to captain after the Pentagon inspector general found that he drank on the job and verbally abused subordinates. He retired in the wake of disciplinary action.

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.
Former President Donald Trump called for swift revenge in a hypothetical Iranian attack on him, years after he enflamed tensions in the region in an assassination that a UN official called extrajudicial.

Responding to Benjamin Netanyahus claim that Iran brazenly threatened to assassinate him, Trump wished that America obliterates Iran if he were assassinated.

The claim, stemming from Secret Service reports that Iran may have plotted against Trump, was made by the Israeli Prime Minister on Wednesday.

Irans regime has been fighting America from the moment it came to power, Netanyahu said in his congressional address. As we recently learned, they even brazenly threatened to assassinate President Trump, he added.

Netanyahu, who falsely claimed that Iran paid to organize pro-Palestinian demonstrations within the United States during the address, garnered cheers for the name-drop, hours before he is set to meet with the former president.

Trump, who in 2020 ordered the killing of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, ran with Netanyahus claim of the Iranian plot, wishing for revenge were they to assassinate him.

If they do 'assassinate President Trump,' which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered 'gutless' cowards!

Trumps revenge promise in case of a hypothetical strike on his life comes weeks after a real attempt on his life, one with ties not to Iran but to a 20-year-old Pennsylvania resident who espoused conservative, pro-Trump views in the past.

Though Secret Service protection on Trump was boosted following reports of an Iranian plot against Trump, that plan had no connection to Thomas Matthew Crookss shooting.
Donald Trumps hush money conviction should stand because his payoff to a porn star isnt covered by presidential immunity, Manhattan prosecutors argued Thursday.

The US Supreme Courts recent ruling immunizing presidents official acts has no bearing on the case in which jurors found Trump guilty of lying on company records about reimbursing his fixer Michael Cohen for a $130,000 payoff made to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election, the Manhattan District Attorneys office wrote.

Trumps cover up of hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels is not an official act protected by the US Supreme Court, the DAs office said. JUSTIN LANE/POOL/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The first-ever criminal prosecution of a former president exclusively stemmed from unofficial acts like Trump, 78, ordering Cohen to pay off Daniels  who testified about having a brief tryst with a married Trump in 2006  to hide a sex scandal from voters, according to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.

Trumps lawyers have argued that Justice Juan Merchan should toss the guilty verdict because the trial was tainted by evidence that the jury should have never heard based on the Supreme Courts ruling.

The GOP 2024 presidential nominee told his White House communications director Hope Hicks, for example, that it was better that Daniels lurid tale of sex with Trump was revealed in 2018 rather than before the 2016 election, Hicks testified.

Stormy Daniels testified at the trial about having a brief sex tryst with a married Trump inside his hotel suite. REUTERS

That conversation should be considered official conduct that cant be used against a president in a criminal case, according to Trumps lawyers. The DAs office countered Thursday that Hicks testimony was personal in nature and not an official presidential action.

But even if Manhattan jurors never heard that conversation and other challenged evidence from Trumps White House stint, such evidence constitutes only a sliver of the mountains of testimony and documentary proof that jurors used to convict Trump on 34 counts of felony falsifying business records, prosecutors wrote.

Under these circumstances, there is no basis for disturbing the jurys verdict, and defendants motion should be denied, Braggs office added.

Prosecutors also urged Merchan to find that the evidence in question relatively harmless to the overall case, and to agree with a federal judges July 2023 ruling that, Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a presidents official acts.

Manhattan DA Alvin Braggs office urged the judge to block Trumps bid to scuttle the conviction. REUTERS

Merchan delayed Trumps sentencing date from July 11 to Sept. 18 to hear from both sides on the presidential immunity issue, and said hell decide by Sept. 6. whether to scuttle the historic verdict.

If the sentencing does happen as planned, Trump faces up to four years in prison, though legal experts told The Post that hes more likely to get probation or community service.

Trump has denied having sex with Daniels, but chose not to testify at the trial.

Hes repeatedly claimed that the case brought by Bragg  an elected Democrat in a borough Trump lost in landslides in 2016 and 2020  is a politically motivated plot to hurt his 2024 campaign.
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trumps falsification of business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to a porn star before the 2016 election was purely personal conduct and isnt protected by the US Supreme Courts landmark decision on presidential immunity, Manhattan prosecutors told a judge.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg urged the judge to reject Trumps argument that his felony conviction and indictment should be tossed after the high courts decision granting presidents broad immunity from criminal charges. The Supreme Courts decision has no bearing on this prosecution, the DAs office said in a filing released Thursday.

The Supreme Court has long recognized that a president can act in an unofficial, personal capacity, Braggs office wrote. Nothing in the courts recent immunity decision changes that basic fact. This case involved evidence of defendants personal conduct, not his official acts.

The clash over whether to uphold Trumps guilty verdict comes as his likely opponent in the November election, Vice President Kamala Harris, seeks to frame the race as a choice between a prosecutor and a felon. A reversal of the verdict would instantly deprive her of a powerful line of attack and largely vindicate the former president.

Trump said earlier this month that the guilty verdict was tainted by testimony and other evidence that wouldnt have been allowed under the Supreme Courts July 1 ruling. The sweeping decision, in addition to giving presidents immunity for many official actions, also said that evidence about their conduct or public statements couldnt be used at trials.

Harmless Errors

But in their response, prosecutors said the immunity didnt extend to the hush money case because the conviction was supported by overwhelming evidence. Even if Justice Juan Merchan concludes that some evidence of presidential acts was erroneously shown to jurors, the errors were harmless and wouldnt have changed the outcome.

Trumps arguments are meritless in any event, since the evidence at issue either concerned unofficial conduct that is not subject to any immunity, or is a matter of public record, prosecutors said.

A Manhattan jury on May 30 found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors argued that the payment on the eve of the 2016 presidential election was intended to keep her quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with the former president a decade earlier.

The 78-year-old Trump was due to be sentenced July 11. Merchan, who is presiding over the case, rescheduled it for Sept. 18 to allow time to consider Trumps request to toss the conviction in light of the Supreme Court decision.

Trump argued his conviction was tainted by testimony and other evidence from his time at the White House that he says should have been excluded from the trial.

The United States Supreme Courts immunity decision mandates that the sham Manhattan DA witch hunt be summarily dismissed, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trumps campaign, said in a statement. The entire case is irreparably tainted, leaving dismissal as the only lawful option.

Braggs team also said that Trumps lawyers failed to raise objections during the trial about most of the evidence they now say was wrongfully admitted. The former presidents lawyers had no conceivable excuse for failing to raise objections, prosecutors argued.

Trumps lawyers argued the verdict was called into question by extensive evidence related to his official duties, including social media posts and statements about the scandal he issued from the White House. They also argued jurors shouldnt have heard testimony by former White House aides Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout about his alleged motive as the scandal was unfolding.

Prosecutors also cited a Manhattan federal judges decision last year rejecting Trumps claims that the hush-money charges were related to actions he took while in the White House.

The New York case was the only one of four prosecutions against Trump to make it to trial. The proceedings were closely followed by the national media with live blogs on websites and wall-to-wall coverage on cable news.

Separately on Thursday, the New York judge who in February found Trump liable for inflating the value of his assets in a civil fraud trial denied a long-shot request by the former president to remove himself from the case while he appeals the verdict.

Trump had argued that Justice Arthur Engoron should step down from the case because a lawyer who wasnt involved with the matter gave the jurist unsolicited advice on the law as he walked to his car, potentially influencing the verdict and Trumps $454 million penalty.

But Engoron said the tirade by the attorney who accosted him in the courthouse was legally incorrect and that his advice was unnecessary because the judge had been studying the relevant law in depth for more than three years.

I certainly did not need a landlord-tenant lawyer ranting about it, Engoron wrote in a brief decision. I did not initiate, welcome or encourage, engage in, or learn from, much less enjoy the encounter.

(Adds decision in separate case in final four paragraphs)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
CAIRO, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Delegations from Egypt, the United States, Qatar, and Israel will meet Sunday in Italy's capital Rome to continue the Gaza truce talks, Egypt's Al-Qahera News TV channel reported on Friday.

The Rome meeting comes within the framework of the mediators' continued efforts to reach a truce agreement in the Gaza Strip, the TV channel reported citing a high-level source.

The source added that an Egyptian security delegation is participating in the Rome meeting, which aims to achieve a ceasefire, ensure the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, facilitate the freedom of movement for Gaza's citizens, and secure the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing.

Since the Gaza conflict broke out in October 2023, Egypt, along with mediators from the United States and Qatar, has been working to broker a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, the governing body in Gaza.

The latest round of negotiations was held in Cairo and Doha earlier this month, but little progress had been made. 
Trump jumped on the cryptocurrency bandwagon and comes to Nashville. Take note, Democrats

On July 18, former President Donald Trump became the nominee of the Republican Party for the 2024 election.

Trump, a recent convert to crypto, chose crypto supporter Sen. J. D. Vance, R-Ohio, as his running mate, signaling that support for digital currencies may play an important role in the GOP campaign.

As of this writing, the actual Democratic Party nomination is somewhat in limbo. The current administration however has been less than friendly at times to the crypto universe.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the rise of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies could undermine the U.S. dollars reserve currency status. Speaking at a New Economy Forum in Singapore, Clinton said she hopes "nation-states start paying greater attention to the rise of cryptocurrency."

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, back in May 2022 signed an executive order aimed at spurring responsible Web3 innovation. Yet in a recent Forbes column, Veronica Irvin noted his cautious approach that included his veto of a licensing structure he called premature.

Trump, who was unfriendly to cryptocurrencies during his presidency, and the Republican Party have more recently become increasingly friendly toward digital assets, noted Politico columnist Jasper Goodman. And on July 27, Trump will be a featured speaker at the Bitcoin 2024 event in Nashville.

Even Democrats joined pro-crypto law that Biden opposed

Former CoinDesk senior research analyst George Kaloudis noted that crypto is standing in as a feather in the cap for the individual freedom talking point GOP voters love, to the point where Trump has completely backtracked on his anti-crypto rhetoric of just a few years ago". One reason, he suggested, is that there are enough single-issue crypto voters out there to make a difference.

A collection of cryptocurrency miner machines are encased in glass inside the new upscale private social club called The Register.

A sea change may be underway. Certain Democrats, led by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, announced support for an effort to undo Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidelines that critics said discouraged banks from holding digital assets.

Schumers support was tied to his own states strong law on the books and his statement that New York officials were not consulted on the SEC regulation. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, another of the 11 Senate Democrats to support the SEC rollback, was frustrated that there had been no opportunity to debate any of the real [crypto] bills.

This was a stark rebuke to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, and President Joe Biden, who vetoed the bipartisan rollback (House Joint Resolution 109). But many other Democrats were holding firm with the White House. It scares the dickens out of me, said Rep. Sean Casten, D-Illinois, citing fears over money laundering.

Fear over money laundering and other nefarious activities in cryptos early days now appears to be mere growing pains in an industry eager to be properly regulated.

Number of cryptocurrency users worldwide skyrockets

Financial journalist Nicole Willing says that asset-backed tokens, which combine the security and transparency of distributed ledgers with tangible, real-world assets, provide the crypto universe with a unique measure of stability and trust.

Silvina Moschini, executive producer of Unicorn Hunters, fueled by Unicoin, a cryptocurrency tied to such real world assets (RWA), derides those who refuse to imagine a future in which cryptocurrencies will be integral to the financial system as forced, self-serving, and even fanatical  and a dying breed.

She noted that cryptocurrency users grew from 432 million to 580 million worldwide  a 34% jump in one year.

Duggan Flanakin

That said, the choice facing the Democratic Party as its own nominating convention draws near is even more important for the partys public face on an issue that may for now directly impact only a small fraction of the electorate but whose advocates represent a sizable block of single-issue voters.

Duggan Flanakin is a policy analyst and senior fellow at the Center For a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Cryptocurrency users will sway 2024 election and Trump's on board now
Former President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent Friday morning meeting at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, the first meeting for the pair since Trump left office.

The high-stakes meeting comes as tensions in the Middle East continue to escalate and the Israel-Hamas war is a top foreign policy issue heading into November's election.

Netanyahu has spent the week in the United States meeting with officials and addressing Congress. Netanyahu met with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris separately on Thursday and delivered an address to Congress earlier this week.

MORE: Fact-checking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress

PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they pose for a photo during their meeting at Mar-a-Lago estate, in Palm Beach, Fla., on July 26, 2024. (Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)/Handout via Anadolu via Getty Images)

After Harris' meeting with Netanyahu, she took the lead in addressing the public about their discussions. Harris called on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid in, and later stressed the importance for Israel to avoid more civilian casualties in Gaza. The vice president is working to define her stance in a key election issue that has been a source of criticism for Biden.

"I see you and I hear you. Let's get the deal done so we can get a cease-fire to end the war. Let's bring the hostages home, and let's provide much needed relief to the Palestinian people," Harris said in her remarks.

Trump attacked Harris for her comments following his own meeting with Netanyahu, calling them "disrespectful to Israel."

"She's really a destroyer, she doesn't know how to build," Trump said of Harris, later adding -- without any specifics -- that "she was certainly disrespectful to Israel, in my opinion."

On the campaign trail, Trump has claimed that the Israel-Hamas war would not have happened under his presidency and that if reelected, he will ensure peace in the Middle East and around the world -- while not detailing how he would make that happen other than claiming that he gets along with world leaders.

The Friday meeting comes as Trump has recently couched his support for Israel with sharp criticisms of Netanyahu's handling of the Israel-Hamas war, arguing he wasn't prepared to handle the attack on Oct. 7.

PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the chamber of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol, on July 24, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

"I want him to finish it up and get it done quickly. You got to get it done quickly," Trump said when he called in to "Fox & Friends" on Thursday morning, adding that "Israel is not very good at public relations."

And as families of American hostages held captive by Hamas, after meeting with Biden and Netanyahu this week, called for a prompt cease-fire deal that allowed their release, Trump has repeatedly said over the past few months that the negotiations are going slowly because he believes "many" of the hostages have already been killed.

Roughly 75 living hostages are thought to be held in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

President Trump greets Prime Minister Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago  pic.twitter.com/UTrjCDar4h  Margo Martin (@margommartin) July 26, 2024

"You got to get your hostages back," Trump said on "Fox & Friends." "I think they are going to have a lot of bad news with the hostages. I think some of those hostages, many of them maybe, are dead."

Trump mentioned the hostages on Friday, saying "it's a very tough situation."

"They have to be given back immediately because there can be no way that they're in good shape. They're obviously not being treated properly," he said. "And you hope that they're OK, but there are a lot of hostages. I'm sure they will not be OK. And that's just not an acceptable situation."

While Trump was president, the pair had a close relationship. Netanyahu visited the White House in September 2020 to sign the Abraham Accords -- a bilateral agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates seen as a peace treaty recognizing Israel's sovereignty mediated by the United States.

"We're here this afternoon to change the course of history. After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East," Trump said on the White House South Lawn at the time. "Thanks to the great courage of the leaders of these three countries, we take a major stride toward a future in which people of all faiths and backgrounds live together in peace and prosperity."

Trump now frequently takes credit for the Abraham Accords and has said he believes it would be the key to pressuring Palestinians into brokering a peace deal to support his claims that he would have prevented the war.

Also, during his presidency, Trump moved the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem -- a controversial move signaling that the U.S. was officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel, despite Palestinian claims to the land.

PHOTO: Israeli troops on the ground in the Gaza Strip during operations amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hama. July 25, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces/AFP via Getty Image)

However, the relationship soured in the aftermath of the 2020 election. The former president famously grew irate with Netanyahu, who was one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden on his 2020 electoral victory as Trump was still contesting the results of the election.

Using expletive-filled language, Trump argued in the aftermath of the 2020 election that he felt betrayed by Netanyahu, who he felt he strongly supported during his presidency.

"Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake," Trump said to journalist Barak Ravid.

In recent months, Trump has also blamed Netanyahu for the conflicts that are taking place in the Middle East, telling Time magazine in April that the Oct. 7 attack on Israel "happened on his watch."

However, with a potential second term on the horizon, Trump is seemingly putting aside personal differences by agreeing to the meeting as he pushes for an end to the international conflict.

Asked about their relationship on Friday, Trump said "we've had a good relationship."

MORE: Abortion, Israel-Hamas War, criminal justice: Where Harris' agenda could break from Biden's on key issues for voters

Earlier this week, Trump, while touting his meeting with Netanyahu, attempted to strike a balance: he posted on his social media what appears to be a letter from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wishing him well after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Posting the letter on his social media platform, Trump wrote, "Looking forward to seeing Bibi Netanyahu on Friday, and even more forward to achieving Peace in the Middle East! DJT"

The letter, signed by Abbas and dated July 14, the day after the assassination attempt, expresses concern for Trump and then condemns the violence that took place that day, stressing the importance of resolving "differences" through "communication and freedom of expression."

"Our thoughts are also with the families of those who lost their life and were injured," the letter continues, concluding with, "Wishing you strength and safety."

Trump wrote on the letter, "Mahmoud  so nice  thank you  everything will be good. Best wishes."

Trump meets with Netanyahu for 1st time post-presidency amid Israel-Hamas war originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
How Trump nearly paid the ultimate price for the Secret Services diversity targets

This now-iconic image shows Trump surrounded by US Secret Service agents following the assassination attempt - AP

A rare thing happened following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump: agreement between the Democrats and Republicans. Namely, that the director of the Secret Service, Kimberley Cheatle, had to go.

After being mauled by both sides at a congressional hearing a day earlier, Cheatle resigned, albeit reluctantly, on July 23. But the entente cordiale over her fate was short-lived, with Republicans quickly apportioning blame for Cheatles perceived failings on her drive to reform the very make-up of the Secret Service.

You are a DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] horror story, Republican congressman Tim Burchett told Cheatle, 53, at Mondays highly charged hearing.

His remarks added to a swell of criticism from the Right, with a slew of Republicans accusing the agency stalwart of being so concerned with diversity targets during her two-year tenure that she took her eye off the ball and failed at the only task that really mattered  keeping presidents and presidential candidates alive.

Such initiatives are increasingly mainstream in the United States and have become a lightning rod for controversy. Supporters argue they are a means to help all people thrive, particularly those from previously marginalised communities. But critics, including Trump himself, argue they are discriminatory, particularly against white Americans.

Last year Cheatle, the second woman to ever lead the service, wrote in its 2023-2027 strategic plan that the agency must embrace diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA).

DEIA must be demonstrated by all employees  leading by example  through every action every day, she added. Cheatle set a target for 30 per cent of recruits to be women by 2030.

Her embrace of DEI has included recruiting at Pride events, hosting seminars on pronoun use, forming an Inclusion Engagement Council to create a workforce where diversity and inclusion is not just talked about, but acted upon, and bringing in YouTube influencer Michelle Khare to attract a more diverse workforce.

For Republicans, though, the failed attempt on Trumps life was proof that the DEI agenda was not just wrong but dangerous. Both the Obama and Biden administrations have populated federal departments and agencies with bureaucrats more concerned with DEI than carrying out their organisations mission, Senator Ron Johnson said this week.

Part of Cheatle's diversity drive included a target for 30 per cent of the force to be made up of women - Getty

Such criticism has been fuelled by revelations of a string of operational failures at Trumps July 13 rally.

Shortly after the shooting, Cheatle claimed that the sloped roof the 20-year-old shooter Thomas Crooks fired from was unsafe for her agents to be on. However, following the incident, congressional lawmakers from the US House Committee on Homeland Security visited the site and walked on the roof without difficulty.

The Secret Service also blamed local police for not securing the roof, arguing that it was outside the area the federal agency was tasked with protecting  despite being just 400ft from the former president.

Numerous rally goers came forward to say they had informed police that they had seen Crooks on the roof with a gun, yet he was still able to fire off eight shots before being killed by a sniper.

The Secret Service fire at Thomas Crooks: Cheatle has taken 'full responsibility' for the security lapse - AP

And after some denial, the Secret Service eventually admitted that it had turned down requests to boost Trumps security detail.

In her resignation announcement, Cheatle said she took full responsibility for the security lapses.

One particularly contentious charge levelled that female agents couldnt properly shield the 6-foot 3-inch Trump  the implication being that such agents were in position as a result of the DEI drive.

Having a small person as body cover for a large man is like an undersized Speedo at the beach  doesnt cover the subject, said tech giant Elon Musk.

Critics of the Secret Service have suggested that female agents would not have been capable of protecting the former president - AP

But Barry Donadio, who served in the Secret Service under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was dismissive of those who criticised the female agents.

People making fun of them should be ashamed of themselves, he told The Telegraph. I know female agents that are on President Trumps detail now and its wrong to say they arent as good as the men. Size has nothing to do with it. Those women agents ran towards the danger; there was not one instance of cowardice.

Paul Eckloff, a veteran of the Secret Service having served there for 23 years, has suggested that the agencys Achilles heel is a recruitment crisis, not DEI.

Eckloff, who served in the Presidential Protective Division during the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations, believes that frequent criticism of law enforcement agencies in the media dissuaded young Americans from imagining a career there.

Even presidential-hopeful Kamala Harris has sniped at the profession, saying in 2020 while discussing the killing of George Floyd, that it is outdated and is actually wrong and backward to think that more police officers will create more safety.

Presidential-hopeful Kamala Harris has previously criticised the law enforcement profession - AFP

Eckloff told The Telegraph: The Secret Service needs far more manpower; it has 500 fewer agents today than it did 10 years ago. But weve got to quit vilifying law enforcement to score political points because it puts people off joining.

If you attack law enforcement theres no upside to protecting your community anymore. Law enforcement agents and officers dont make that much money, they dont have as great pensions as people think, and they are spat upon by politicians and the mainstream media alike, he says.

So how does the Secret Service recruit from that law enforcement pool that is only getting smaller? Its terrifying. I remember a time when people in law enforcement wished their children would follow in their footsteps. But due to the dangerous hatred of the police, they now hope their kids are doctors, lawyers, teachers, anything but what are labelled as the villains of society when in truth, they are the ones who charge towards bullets like at the Trump rally.

Jason Russell, a Secret Service agent for eight years who protected George W. Bush and Barack Obama, explains that it was a lack of resources that contributed to the perfect storm at the event in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.

They have to do more with less, he says. On that day alone the Vice President was in Pennsylvania, the First Lady was in Pennsylvania, as was former president Trump. The week previous to that was the NATO summit. And then you were coming into the Republican National Convention. So all of that on top of the general lack of resources created a perfect storm.

Russell says Cheatles biggest misstep as leader of the Secret Service was her missed opportunities to figure out how to fix the staffing issues. Although he concedes that, some people in the agency felt like she focused too much on diversity.

Robert McDonald, a former Secret Service agent who ran protection for Biden while he was Vice President, believes that changes need to be made to the agencys structuring, and fast.

There are a lot of big events coming up: the Democratic convention, the UN General Assembly in New York, and the home stretch of the presidential campaign, he says.

The Secret Service needs to rework its priorities. If it has more people involved in investigations and not in protection, it may need to rework its personnel allocations.

He adds that while there are legitimate questions to answer over the promotion of DEI, I dont really think the ground agents really worry about the DEI aspect of their job.

At a hearing on July 22, Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle was told she was 'a DEI horror story' - REUTERS

But critics of DEI and its perceived role in the agencys failings are definitive: the practice is the problem.

If youre not hiring the best people for the job thats going to impact the optimal functioning of your organisation, Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at the University of Buckingham and author of the recently released book The Third Awokening, a critique of progressive extremism, told The Telegraph.

The bottom line is, I think DEI value just needs to be downgraded. So the Secret Service shouldnt do Pride Month or Black History Month.

It shouldnt do any of these sort of identity affinity things  it should just have a reasonable recruitment policy to be the most effective organisation it can be.

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.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in Novembers election, says he would absolutely debate Vice President Kamala Harris. But Trumps campaign is noncommittal  and refuses to formally agree to a debate until Harris becomes the official Democratic nominee.

Harris, who has coalesced support from Democratic officeholders, donors and delegates after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, is her partys presumptive nominee. That will not be formalized until delegates to the Democratic National Convention vote in early August.

In a statement released Thursday evening, Trump communications director Steven Cheung said a debate cannot be finalized until that vote occurs.

There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party  namely Barack Hussein Obama  that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone better, Cheung wrote. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, endorsed Harris for president on Friday morning.

In a post on X Thursday evening, Harris wrote, What happened to any time, any place?  a reference to Trumps insistence in April that Biden debate him.

Trump wants debate to move to Fox

Trump previously agreed to two general election debates with Biden. The campaigns decided to sidestep the Commission on Presidential Debates, which has held every U.S. general election presidential debate since the 1980s, and organize their own with the help of TV networks. The first was hosted by CNN on June 27, and Bidens shaky performance there was the first major event in the saga that let to Bidens exit from the race. The second debate is scheduled for Sept. 10, to be hosted by ABC.

By circumventing the CPD, the three previously scheduled general election debates  including an Oct. 9 debate at the University of Utah  were canceled.

Now, the Trump campaign is noncommittal about whether the ABC debate will occur. Instead, the Trump campaign has pushed for a debate hosted by Fox News, and the network has sent a formal proposal to both campaigns pitching a Sept. 17 debate.

At the time Biden and Trump agreed on two debates, Trump called for even more, leading the Biden campaign to call for an end to the debate about debates.

No more games, a Biden campaign official said.

In a call with reporters Tuesday, Trump said he would absolutely be willing to debate Harris, and said he is willing to do more than one debate, actually, The New York Times reported. But he argued that his initial agreement was with Biden, not Harris, and he has made no commitment to appear in a debate with Harris.

I havent agreed to anything. I agreed to debate with Joe Biden, Trump said. But I want to debate her, and shell be no different because they have the same policies.
Trump promises big and beautiful rally in return to Pennsylvania town where he was shot

Donald Trump said he plans to hold another rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, after a gunman fired an AR-15-style rifle at the former president moments after he stepped on stage in the town on July 13.

In an all-caps message on his Truth Social on Friday, Trump said he will be going back for a big and beautiful rally to honor a rally attendee who was fatally shot and two others who were critically injured during the assassination attempt.

WHAT A DAY IT WILL BE  FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS, he wrote.

It is unclear whether Trump will return to the same open-air fairgrounds where 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks fired at the former president from a rooftop outside a security perimeter. Secret Service and federal law enforcement officials have repeatedly urged Trump to stop holding campaign rallies outdoors.

Within the last two weeks after the shooting, Trump has instead held rallies at indoor arenas.

Earlier this week, Trump announced a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on July 31, roughly four hours away from Butler.

Donald Trump is surround by Secret Service agents after he was shot at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13. On July 26, he said he plans to hold another rally in the town. (AP)

On July 13, Crooks fired eight rounds within six seconds, killing Corey Comperatore and injuring David Dutch and James Copenhave. A bullet grazed Trumps ear.

The weapon, which Crooks owned, was initially purchased by Crookss father more than a decade ago, according to congressional testimony from FBI director Christopher Wray this week.

Crooks had Google searched details about the assassination of John F Kennedy a week before the attack, and registered for Trumps rally that same day, Wray said. Crooks visited a shooting range the day before the attack and flew a drone around the area hours before setting up on a nearby rooftop.

Wray had also suggested that there remains some uncertainty whether a bullet or shrapnel struck Trumps ear. Trumps physician, Republican congressman Ronny Jackson, said on Friday that there is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet. A statement from an FBI spokesperson later clarified that what struck former President Trump in the ear was a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subjects rifle.

Following the hearing, Trump called on Wray  who Trump appointed to the agency  to resign for lying to Congress.

On Friday, Trump said he fully accepted the FBIs latest statement as an apology from Wray.

Security failures after the attack have prompted bipartisan calls for law enforcement officials to come before Congress. After she was grilled by House lawmakers on Monday, Secret Service director Kimberly Chealte stepped down.
Trump to rally in Butler again in return to scene of near-assassination

Former President Donald Trump is returning to Butler, Pennsylvania, less than a month after a would-be assassin shot him, killed a rally attendee and critically wounded two other people.

Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social platform Friday afternoon.

Writing in his signature all-caps style, the 78-year-old one-term president said: "I WILL BE GOING BACK TO BUTLER, PENNSYLVANIA, FOR A BIG AND BEAUTIFUL RALLY, HONORING THE SOUL OF OUR BELOVED FIREFIGHTING HERO, COREY, AND THOSE BRAVE PATRIOTS INJURED TWO WEEKS AGO. WHAT A DAY IT WILL BE  FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS."

Story continues below photo gallery

Corey refers to Corey Competatore, a Pennsylvania firefighter who was killed in the gunfire at Trumps July 13 rally at the Butler Farm Show Grounds.

Trumps Butler announcement comes one day after he said hell be in Harrisburg later next week, his first campaign rally in Pennsylvania since the attempt on his life by Thomas Matthew Crooks.

There was no date announced for the Butler rally or location revealed. The Secret Service has advised the GOP nominee to keep his events inside.

This article originally appeared on Cherry Hill Courier-Post: Trump says hes going back to Butler, where man tried to kill him
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) welcomed by Former US President Donald Trump ahead of their meeting in Mar-a-Lago. Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida on Friday and sharply attacked his political rival Kamala Harris.

Trump called the Democrat a "destroyer."

The encounter between Netanyahu and Trump was the first face-to-face meeting between the two men since Trump left the White House more than three years ago.

The Republican assured Netanyahu of his full solidarity during the meeting, Trump's team said.

The former president Netanyahu that he would do everything in his power to promote peace in the Middle East and fight anti-Semitism at US universities if he was re-elected.

At the meeting, Netanyahu praised Trump's services to Israel during his term of office from 2017 to 2021, according to reports.

Netanyahu praised Trump's mediation in the negotiations of the so-called Abraham Accord, the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of sovereignty over the Golan Heights, the killing of Iranian General Soleimani, the termination of the nuclear agreement with Iran and its fight against anti-Semitism.

Trump is the US Republican presidential candidate and hopes to re-take White House in the election in early November.

Netanyahu's reception at Trump's lavish Mar-a-Lago residence comes as the US election campaign approaches the home stretch.

On Sunday, incumbent President Joe Biden withdrew from the presidential race. His deputy Harris is supported by Biden and many Democrats as a replacement candidate.

Netanyahu is currently visiting the US and has met with both Biden and Harris and addressed Congress.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and his wife Sara (C) welcomed by Former US President Donald Trump ahead of their meeting in Mar-a-Lago. Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO/dpa
TUNIS, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Tunisian Parliament Speaker Ibrahim Bouderbala met on Friday with his visiting Algerian counterpart here to promote bilateral ties.

Heading a parliamentary delegation, Speaker of the People's National Assembly of Algeria Ibrahim Boughali was on a four-day official visit to Tunisia, according to the Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP).

In a press release issued after the meeting, Bouderbala stressed the mutual dependence of the two countries' security and the importance for both sides to have a shared vision on regional and international issues.

For his part, Boughali said his visit was part of the bilateral interparliamentary consultation and cooperation on regional and international issues of common concern, as well as efforts to consolidate bilateral ties and strengthen friendship.

"The goal is to unify positions and find solutions that serve the interests of the two brotherly peoples and countries," he added. 
Republican U.S. presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the National Rifle Association presidential forum at the Great American Outdoor Show on February 9, 2024 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (Capital-Star photo by Peter Hall)

Former President Donald Trump will hold a campaign rally in Harrisburg next week, his first appearance in Pennsylvania since he was injured in a July 13 assassination attempt in Butler.

The GOP candidate for president will appear Wednesday at the New Holland Arena, part of the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center, the campaign said in a news release. This will be Trumps first visit to Pennsylvania as the official GOP nominee, and the first since President Joe Biden bowed out of his bid for reelection. Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, who has since won pledges from enough Democratic delegates to gain the Democratic nomination.

The people of Pennsylvania are paying the price for the Democrats disastrous policies, the Trump campaign said in the release announcing the rally. Kamala Harris and the Democrats pro-criminal and open border polices are wreaking havoc in Pennsylvania, the release states.

Trump last visited Harrisburg in February, when he spoke at the National Rifle Association presidential forum, also held at the Farm Show complex.

During the rally in Butler, a gunman shot at Trump and killed rallygoer Corey Comperatore. Two other spectators were injured in the incident, and Congress has held several hearings to try to determine how the gunman was able to get within such close range of the former president. U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned on Tuesday, following widespread outrage that her agency failed to prevent the assassination attempt.

The Harris campaign is planning a large get-out-the-vote effort across Pennsylvania this weekend. Allyson Bayless, Pennsylvania spokesperson for the Harris campaign told the Capital-Star in an email that voters have never been more fired up to defeat Trump.

We still havent forgotten how Trump screwed the commonwealth over as president  destroying 275,000 jobs, hiking workers taxes while giving handouts to the rich, and ripping away reproductive freedoms to put MAGA extremists in control of womens bodies, Bayless said. For weeks, voters have been sounding the alarm on Trumps dangerous Project 2025 agenda that would give him unchecked power. Were not going back to Trumps extremism. Instead, were going to elect Vice President Harris to defend our fundamental freedoms and keep our economy moving forward.

This article was updated at 10:30 a.m. July 26, 2024 with comment from the Harris campaign.
Former President Trump insisted late Thursday that he was hit by a bullet at a campaign rally earlier this month, after FBI Director Christopher Wray suggested it was still an open question whether Trump was struck by a bullet or shrapnel.

Trump, in a lengthy post on Truth Social, slammed Wray for his comments on the assassination attempt against the former president, as well as the FBI directors comments that he had not noticed cognitive decline in President Biden in their limited interactions and the prosecution of J6 Patriots who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel, Trump posted. The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was. No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!

Wray testified Wednesday before Congress about the investigation into the assassination attempt against Trump during a Butler, Pa., campaign rally.

I think with respect to former President Trump, theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that, you know, hit his ear, Wray told lawmakers.

In a statement, the FBI said it had been consistent and clear since the day of the shooting that it was an assassination attempt that resulted in his injury and the death of one rally attendee.

This was a heinous attack and the FBI is devoting enormous resources to learn everything possible about the shooter and what led to his act of violence, the bureau said. The FBIs Shooting Reconstruction Team continues to examine evidence from the scene, including bullet fragments, and the investigation remains ongoing.

Video of the shooting showed Trump reach for his ear after pops could be heard. He ducked to the ground and was swarmed by Secret Service agents moments later. Upon getting to his feet, Trumps ear had begun to bleed, and he had blood streaked across his face.

A New York Times video analysis published Friday determined a bullet, not debris, likely wounded Trumps ear.

The former president has sported a bandage on his right ear in each public appearance since the incident.

Trump and his campaign have provided limited information about his treatment and recovery from the shooting, with most of the updates trickling out through family members describing it in broad terms.

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who served as White House physician during the Obama and Trump administrations, said he has examined Trumps ear and changed the dressing on his wound. Jackson issued a letter Sunday providing additional detail on what he saw.

The bullet passed, coming less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear, Jackson wrote. The bullet track produced a 2 cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear. There was initially significant bleeding, followed by marked swelling of the entire upper ear. The swelling has since resolved, and the wound is beginning to granulate and heal properly.

Updated at 10:55 a.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 The Hill.
Trump Says His Dying Wish if Assassinated Is Revenge

Former President Donald Trump took to his social media app Truth Social to vow revenge in a hypothetical scenario where Iran succeeded in assassinating him.

If they do assassinate President Trump, which is always a possibility, I hope that America obliterates Iran, wipes it off the face of the Earth, Trump wrote. If that does not happen, American Leaders will be considered gutless cowards!

Trump included a brief clip of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Irans regime has been fighting America from the moment it came to power, Netanyahu said. As we recently learned, they even brazenly threatened to assassinate President Trump, he added.

Will Gun Victim Trump Get PTSD? Changes You Mentally

Shortly after a gunman tried to assassinate Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, Secret Service sources told CNN that Trump was recently given heightened security presence around the same time due to an alleged assassination plot from Iran.

Sources told the network that Thomas Matthew Crooks, the shooter at the Trump rally in Butler, was likely not connected to this plot.

A spokesperson for Irans Foreign Ministry also said the nation strongly rejects any involvement in the recent armed attack on Trump or claims about Irans intention for such an action, the Associated Press reported, citing Iranian state-run media. The spokesperson did say the Islamic Republic wanted to pursue legal action against the former president for his role in the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani, a commander in Irans Revolutionary Guard.

Trump is planning to meet with Netanyahu on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

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 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee was Donald Trumps official coronation.

Trump has promised to be the countrys first dictator. At a rally in Michigan several days ago, Trump praised China's Xi Jinping as a brilliant man" who rules over 1.4 billion people with his "iron fist." Trump then said such authoritarian leaders make President Joe Biden look like a baby. Trumps promise to be Americas first dictator is not hyperbolic or idle. He has plans to achieve such a goal as detailed in the Heritage Foundations Project 2025, his own Agenda 47 and elsewhere.

Donald Trump has also repeatedly shown that he is a megalomaniac with a god complex. The personal is very political for authoritarians and demagogues. As such, Trumps political project reflects his personality defects and other great deficiencies in character, values, and behavior. Such personalities, especially if they are charismatic, attract similar people. The MAGA movement and other such neofascist and fake populist movements are a prime example.

But Donald Trumps coronation at the Republican National Convention was not just a fascist spectacle for his personality cult to show its unending loyalty to him. It was also a type of political-religious ceremony where Donald Trump was even more fully made into a hero who was sent by God to be a martyr-warrior-prophet for militant right-wing Christianity and its increasingly violent behavior and hostile attitudes towards secular pluralistic democracy and societyand modernity itself. After the unsuccessful attempt on Trumps life last week in Butler, Pennsylvania, these cult-like beliefs have hardened and the threats of violence (both explicit and implied) and paranoia against some imagined they who are persecuting Trump and his MAGA people have greatly increased.

The Democratic Party and other pro-democracy Americans must prepare themselves for a political battle that will take place on those terms. This is not the terrain or realm of normal politics or the horserace that the mainstream news media and its pundits are fixated on despite years of evidence that those frameworks do not apply in the Age of Trump.

For Donald Trump, his MAGA people, and the larger Republican-fascist movement and project, the 2024 election is a type of holy war where no quarter or mercy will be given to the enemy. The unity that Trump and the other MAGAfied Republicans and the larger conservative movement and neofascist campaign want is obedience and surrender by those Americans who oppose them.

In a new essay at Talking Points Memo, Sarah Posner, author of The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism, explains:

Less than 24 hours after Donald Trump survived an assassins bullet in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, Jack Posobiec, the far-right conspiracy theorist and MAGA rabble-rouser, tweeted a Bible verse. The bullets were fired at 6:11pm, Posobiec, who is Catholic, wrote. Ephesians 6:11. The Bible verse, which reads, Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devils schemes, is key to the spiritual warfare that Christian nationalists have made the centerpiece of Trumpian politics. They pit Trumpism against democracy in a cosmic showdown between the godly and the demonic, believing they are on a divine mission to save a debased America from the evil left, with Trump as Gods battle commander.

Here, Posner focuses on the 2024 Republican National Convention as a site where Trump was elevated above being a mere mortal and into a fascist messiah:

At the Republican National Convention, Trump loyalists lined up to declare a miracle had saved Gods chosen one. The devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said Monday night. But the American lion got back up on his feet and he roared! MAGA star Marjorie Taylor Greene added, Two days ago, evil came for the man we admire and love so much. I thank God that his hand was on President Trump. Arkansas governor and former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, God Almighty intervened, because America is one nation under God, and He is not done with President Trump. Other Republicans were even more explicit about how the assassination attempt proves that Christians are locked in spiritual warfare against evil enemies. Tucker Carlson, whose floundering post-Fox career has been revitalized by his outsized presence at the RNC, told a Heritage Foundation gathering on Monday that the assassination attempt proved there is a spiritual battle underway, and warned that forces that are against Trump are hoping to eliminate Christians, a statement amplified on the Christian Broadcasting Network. T rump campaign spokesperson Caroline Sunshine, appearing on Fox News on Tuesday, called the left godless, and then cited Ephesians 6:11 and the need for Trump supporters to put on the full armor of God. In her convention speech Wednesday night, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the fiancee of Donald Trump Jr., proclaimed God has put an armor of protection on Donald Trump.

As political scientist and religion scholar Paul Djupe explained to me in a recent conversation here at Salon, the armor of god is more than a Biblical metaphor or allusion. In the Age of Trump it is increasingly literal "the full armor of God, therefore, enables proud resistance to outsiders and assertive advocacy for their own views."

In a recent survey of self-identified Christians, almost two-thirds of respondents agreed that The final battle between good and evil is upon us, and we must stand with the full armor of God. That justifies, in their minds, all sorts of extreme behavior and policies. They appear to be following the Inverted Golden Rule: Do unto others what you expect them to do to you. This helps explain why Christian nationalist elites portray the left in wildly hyperbolic terms. If the left is engaged in the widespread persecution of Christians, then that justifies the right of Christians to fight back and fight dirty.

Religion scholar Anthea Butler has also emphasized the increasing role of violence in right-wing Christianity in the Age of Trump. In a 2021 conversation with me here at Salon she warned, There's war imagery all through Biblical scripture. There are war songs that people sing in churches. This idea about battling for the Lord, whether we're talking about the Crusades or the Civil War or fighting communism and everything else, is embedded in our history. That language of war and fighting is being used to incite people now.

Most people in America do not want such violence to happen. The problem is that if you've got enough people who want such an outcome, who can make it hell for everybody else, and there are people in power who want to use the public to create decay and destruction, such violent language is going to be used to that end. Donald Trump knows how to push every one of these buttons.

In a new feature, Raw Story examines the role played by right-wing Christian extremism at the Republican National Convention last week:

In hallways and corridors, delegates spoke of the Holy Spirit's presence, the precious blood of Jesus being upon them. A true battle between the forces of good and evil was already underway, one man told another as they walked onto the Fiserv Forum delegation floor. Only days before, a gunman nearly took the life of former President Donald Trump. And nothing short of divine intervention kept Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, alive during that assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pa., Scott said. Our God still saves. He still delivers, and he still sets free, because on Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back up on his feet, and he roared. ... The overt displays of Christianity were not surprising, said Peter Montgomery, managing director of Right Wing Watch who specializes in writing about religious discourse. Often, the overlap between the MAGA movement and the Christian nationalist movement is very large, Montgomery told Raw Story. Trump often plays to that. He knows that he got elected in large part because of the overwhelming support he got from conservative evangelicals, and he's counting on their support to put him back in the White House. The assassination attempt on Trump further imbued him with savior-like status  some of his followers consider him ordained by God to be president, Montgomery said. Trump used Scripture language in his posts immediately after the shooting on Saturday, further fueling that narrative, Montgomery said. It was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening, Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness. Some speakers outside of the convention hall took the Christianity devotion to a more extreme level.

Violence undermines civil society and the larger political community. There are few if any ways of having civil disagreement and constructive compromise with those individuals and groups who will resort to violence if they do not get their way. Violence (as in all power flows from the end of the barrel of the gun) is in many ways the ultimate conversation stopper. Violence, especially in a society like the United States where a relatively small number of people have 1) a majority of the guns and 2) control an extremely disproportionate amount of political and economic power is an almost certain way for a true tyranny of the minority to take power.

When this tyranny of the minority is racialized, per the American right-wing and conservative movements fear of a white minority in a majority black and brown country (as though non-whites are a hive mind who operate in lockstep), political violence becomes even more likely. In reality, if current demographic trends continue in the United States, white people will still be the largest racial group but not the majority; historically, new ethnic groups are inducted into Whiteness to prevent such an outcome in the United States.

Malign actors such as Donald Trump and the other enemies of multiracial democracy know the power of white anxiety and white fear as seen in such new/old white supremacist antisemitic conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement Theory. Such malign actors are experts at yielding such white fears and white anxieties to get and keep power for themselves. When appeals to religion and God are added to this mix the challenge for democracy becomes even greater.

Faith is a belief in that which cannot be proven by empirical means. Per the Constitution, church and state are separate because there is no way to determine the truth and facts in a logical and reasoned manner when one is dealing with people whose truth claims and knowledge are rooted in God or other supernatural figures or unprovable and unfalsifiable claims and beliefs. Magic is antithetical to democracy and the types of reasoning and critical thinking it is dependent upon. How does a rational person even begin to reason with a person whose ultimate appeal to the truth is because God said so!

For that reason and many others, theocracy (or in the contemporary American context Christian Nationalism or any other form of religious nationalism) is antithetical to democracy and a cosmopolitan, diverse, future-oriented and prosperous society that respects the fundamental human rights of all people.

Given how civic education, specifically, and high-quality public education, more broadly, have been intentionally atrophied in American society by the neoliberal regime and its desire to create drones and compliant workers and consumers instead of actively engaged citizens who are capable of effectively challenging Power, these basic lessons about democracy (and democratic culture and what it requires) are increasingly not being taught to the American people.

Members of the mainstream news media, the responsible political class, and everyday Americans who are politically engaged and knowledgeable all too often assume that their values and beliefs are shared by all Americans. They are not. The Age of Trump and how tens of millions of Americans yearn for a strongman leader is proof of that fact.

Ultimately, Donald Trump and his MAGA people and the larger neofascist movement and their Christian extremist allies believe that they have a mandate from God.

In his essential book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Chris Hedges warned of the horrors that such beliefs can birth:

Radical Christian dominionists have no religious legitimacy. They are manipulating Christianity, and millions of sincere believers, to build a frightening political mass movement with many similarities with other mass movements, from fascism to communism to the ethnic nationalist parties in the former Yugoslavia. It shares with these movements an inability to cope with ambiguity, doubt, and uncertainty. It creates its own "truth". It embraces a world of miracles and signs and removes followers from a rational, reality-based world. It condemns self-criticism and debate as apostasy.

How will Vice President Harris and the Democrats defeat such a force? In the next few months, we will find out how and if such a thing is possible. The survival of American democracy depends on their success.
Was Trump shot or not? Trumps campaign and the FBI weigh in

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump gestures while surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents as he is helped off the stage at a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., Saturday, July 13, 2024. | Gene J. Puskar

On Saturday, July 13, shocked viewers around the nation saw former President Donald Trump narrowly avoid an assassination attempt on live television, per Newsweek. The shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was immediately killed by a Secret Service sniper, while guards surrounded Trump and escorted him to safety.

On July 24, FBI Director Christopher Wray told members of Congress that it was unclear whether an actual bullet or shrapnel hit Trumps ear. Meanwhile, Trumps doctor said Trump received a bullet wound and asked Wray to correct the record.

Late Friday, the FBI said Trumps ear was hit by a bullet, whether whole or fragmented into smaller pieces, fired from the deceased subjects rifle, according to a NBC News correspondent.

This disagreement is only the latest trouble between Republicans and the FBI, which has been accused of showing political bias.

What the FBI is saying

The FBI Shooting Reconstruction Team are investigating the assassination attempt at the scene of the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, examining debris and measuring distances, per ABC News. The investigation is ongoing, but on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee convened to receive updates.

Theres some question about whether or not its a bullet or shrapnel that hit (Trumps) ear, Wray said when answering whether or not the FBI has yet found all the bullets Crooks shot. Its conceivable  although as I sit here right now, I dont know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else.

The FBI has not contested that the shooting was an attempt on Trumps life, per a spokespersons remarks to Newsweek.

Nevertheless, the uncertainty created by Wrays testimony reignited accusations that the FBI has a left-leaning political agenda.

As the Deseret News previously reported, perceptions of partisanship have already affected how some local law enforcement agencies cooperate with the FBI.

A piece published by the New York Post says that many officers disagree with the FBIs approach to the Jan. 6 riot, while some personnel have been accused of a bias against Trump and other Republicans.

As a result, some agencies are increasingly slow to share information with the FBI  including actionable, substantive information on criminal and other intelligence-related activity.

What Trump and his allies are saying

Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, who was Trumps doctor during his presidential tenure, cared for the former president after the shooting, per Fox News.

There is absolutely no evidence that it was anything other than a bullet, Jackson said in response to Wrays testimony. Congress should correct the record as confirmed by both the hospital and myself. Director Wray is wrong and inappropriate to suggest anything else.

This degrades any level of credibility that this man (Wray) may have had  after years of weaponizing the FBI and the DOJ against the president, Jackson later said in an interview on Fox Business. It was absolutely a bullet, I examined it. There was a track of a bullet.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., have also weighed in, according to Fox News.

Graham sent a letter to Wray asking him to correct his testimony, while Johnson, who was present at the House Judicial Committee hearing, said: Weve all seen the video, weve seen the analysis, weve heard it from multiple sources on different angles that a bullet went through his ear. Im not sure it matters that much.

Meanwhile, Trump took to Truth Social.

No, it was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard, he posted. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel. The hospital called it a bullet wound to the ear, and that is what it was.

We dont have any confidence in the No. 1 law enforcement agency in this country right now, said Jackson, per Fox News. If (Wrays) going to come make statements like that, he better have some evidence of what hes talking about.
Trump tells Netanyahu there will be third world war if he loses in November

Trump tells Netanyahu there will be third world war if he loses in November

Former President Trump on Friday claimed there will be a major war in the Middle East and potentially a third world war if he does not win Novembers election.

Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, one day after Netanyahu met at the White House with President Biden and Vice President Harris.

If we win, itll be very simple. Its all going to work out and very quickly, Trump told reporters at the start of the meeting. If we dont, youre going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war. You are closer to a third world war right now than at any time since the second world war. Youve never been so close, because we have incompetent people running our country.

The former president has previously said the world is on the brink of another world war with the fighting in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas and Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Trump has also made dire predictions about what might happen if he does not win back the White House, including a claim that the stock market would crash.

His meeting with Netanyahu on Friday came amid upheaval in the presidential campaign. Biden announced Sunday he would not seek reelection in November and endorsed Harris as the nominee. Harris has quickly consolidated support among Democrats and is the likely presidential nominee for the party in November.

Harris met with Netanyahu separate from Biden on Thursday, which she described as frank and constructive. She told reporters after the discussion that Israel has a right to defend itself, but she has serious concern about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

Trump has been critical at times of Netanyahu since the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel that killed more than 1,100 people and the subsequent fighting in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

But on Friday, he sought to underscore his support for Israel, citing his administrations decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and impose sanctions.

Weve had a good relationship. I was very good to Israel, better than any presidents ever been, Trump said.

The Biden administration has expressed optimism that a cease-fire deal and the release of hostages being held by Hamas is within reach.

Trump said Friday it was not an acceptable situation and questioned the condition of those still being held.

They have to be given back immediately because there can be no way theyre in good shape, 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.
Garip, a stray dog, who has been taken care by the shopkeepers at a local market, is pictured in Istanbul

Garip, a stray dog, who has been taken care by the shopkeepers at a local market, is pictured in Istanbul

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkish police scuffled with protesters in the capital Ankara on Friday during a demonstration against plans to round up millions of stray dogs.

The plan, presented to parliament by President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK Party earlier this month, has alarmed animal lovers who say a mass neutering campaign would be a better solution than locking dogs up in shelters.

Police pushed back the protesters as they tried to gather in the city centre, leading to scuffles.

The demonstrators held banners reading, "You cannot round them up, you cannot jail them, you cannot kill them" and "Take back the law".

"People here are those taking care of many animals. What is this grudge? Do you want the dogs and cats on the street to be killed?" one protester said through a megaphone.

Under the draft law, municipalities would be charged with moving strays off the streets and into shelters until they are adopted. Aggressive dogs or any with untreatable diseases would be put down.

The population of street dogs in Turkey is estimated to be 4 million, and 2.5 million dogs have been neutered in the past 20 years by municipalities, according to the draft bill.

There are currently 322 animal shelters with a capacity to host a total of 105,000 dogs, the bill says.

(Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Gareth Jones)
TIRANA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) has granted 136 million euros (148.2 million U.S. dollars) to help reconstruct the Vore-Hani i Hotit railway line in Albania, following an agreement Friday between the EU, the Ministry of Finance of Albania and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) in Tirana.

According to the Ministry of Finance of Albania, the fund is the largest EU grant received so far by Albania.

The railway is a part of the EU's strategy to extend the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) to the Western Balkans region.

The total investment for the project will reach 373 million euros and be co-financed with loans from European Investment Bank (EIB) and EBRD. It will help Albania electrify more than 120 km of railway tracks and renovate 12 train stations, as well as construct a new signaling system and other safety improvements. The targeted operating speed of the railway system is 100 km per hour. (1 euro = 1.09 U.S. dollar) 
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (WIAT)  A Tuscaloosa woman pleaded guilty this week to theft of government funds during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to U.S. Attorney Prim F. Escalona and FBI Special Agent in Charge Carlton L. Peebles.

In Aug. 2020, 42-year-old Erica Lasha Prewitt received a fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan from the Small Business Administration (SBA) that amounted to $96,875. In Sept. 2021, Prewitt submitted a PPP Loan Forgiveness Application. In this application, she claimed that her business employed 30 people, and that her loan was fully spent on payroll costs. According to Escalona, these claims were false, as Prewitt did not own or operate a business during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bibb County deputies responded to house of mass shooting day before it happened

Prewitt is scheduled for sentencing on Nov. 26, with a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

FBI investigated this case, and it is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jack Harrington.

Anyone with information on cases of fraud relating to COVID-19 relief funds is encouraged to report it to the Department of Justices National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721. It can also be reported via the NCDF Web Complaint Form.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42.
Two former Marines were sentenced to prison Thursday for their participation in a plot to attack the U.S. power grid, the Justice Department said.

A judge sentenced Liam Collins, 25, of Johnston, Rhode Island, to 10 years in prison. Justin Wade Hermanson, 25, of Swansboro, North Carolina, received a prison sentence of one year, nine months. Both men were part of a neo-Nazi group that sought to destroy transformers, substations and other components of the power grid at about a dozen locations across Idaho and its surrounding states.

As part a self-described modern day SS, these defendants conspired, prepared, and trained to attack Americas power grid in order to advance their violent white supremacist ideology, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement. These sentences reflect both the depravity of their plot and the Justice Departments commitment to holding accountable those who seek to use violence to undermine our democracy.

A third man was also sentenced Thursday. Paul James Kryscuk, 38, of Boise, Idaho, was sentenced to six years, six months in prison. Collins and Hermanson both pleaded guilty to federal firearms charges, while Kryscuk pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to destroy an energy facility.

Two other men were previously convicted in the plot. Joseph Maurino, a member of the New Jersey Army National Guard, and Jordan Duncan, a Marine veteran, pleaded guilty to weapons charges. Neither men have received their sentences.

Marine veteran pleads guilty to federal weapons charge in neo-Nazi plot

Collins was the leader of the neo-Nazi group, which communicated through the now-defunct web forum Iron March. He described the group as a modern day SS that went hiking and camping together, did gym sessions and performed live-firing training exercises, according to federal indictments. Collins reportedly added that the group had planned to buy a lot of land, and posted that all members would be required to have served in the military.

Collins joined the Marine Corps in 2017 with the intention of gaining experience and training to benefit his group, according to his indictment. He was stationed at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where he allegedly stole body armor and rifle magazines and delivered them to other neo-Nazi members, according to federal prosecutors.

Collins was kicked out of the Marine Corps in 2020. The nature of his discharge is not included in court documents. Hermanson served in the Marines as part of the same unit that Collins was last assigned.

Ill be in the USMC for 4 years while my comrades work on the groups [sic] physical formation, Collins posted on Iron March in 2016. It will take years to gather all the experience and intelligence that we need to utilize  but thats what makes it fun.

In addition to the weapons charge, Collins was accused by federal authorities of threatening to shoot Black Lives Matter protestors and conspiring to destroy government-owned energy facilities. Investigators said Collins asked group members to purchase thermite, a powdered mixture used in incendiary bombs. The group had discussed using the substance to burn through transformers.

On Iron March, Kryscuk shared his ideas for the group, which included buying property in predominantly white and right leaning locations, where they could recruit residents and stockpile weapons to take over local governments and industries.

While Collins was serving in the Marine Corps, Kryscuk manufactured firearms, and Duncan gathered a library of information, including some military-owned information, regarding firearms, explosives and nerve toxins.

The group created propaganda video montages of their live-fire training. In one video obtained by federal authorities, the participants are seen firing assault-type rifles. The video showed four group members wearing masks with a symbol of the neo-Nazi Attomwaffen Division and giving the Heil Hitler sign. An image of a black sun, a Nazi symbol, was pasted above them.

This story was produced in partnership with Military Veterans in Journalism. Please send tips to MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com.
Two men charged for allegedly robbing woman at gunpoint at Pizza Hut

DANVILLE, Va. (WFXR)  Danville Police say they have made two arrests in connection to an armed robbery that occurred at Pizza Hut on July 17.

19-year-old Jayvian Amari Davis has been arrested and charged with carjacking, armed robbery, and two counts of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony.

21-year-old Phayzaun Shacore Edmonds has been charged with conspiracy to commit carjacking. He is being held in the Danville City Jail without bond.

New details learned in Jakolbi Taylor shooting investigation

Danville PD says around 7:45 p.m. on July 17, officers responded to Pizza Hut on the 3000 block of Riverside Drive after reports of an armed robbery. A female victim claimed she was allegedly robbed at gunpoint while waiting for her food in the parking lot. The gunman allegedly stole her vehicle and personal belongings before fleeing the scene.

The stolen vehicle was later seen by officers driving south on South Main Street. The driver then crashed near the intersection of Lockett Drive, exited the vehicle, and fled into a nearby wooded area.

Police say no one was injured during the incident.

Halifax PD says a juvenile is in custody after a shooting on Hedderly Street

On Friday, July 26, Davis was arrested in Kannapolis, NC U.S. Marshal Service and local law enforcement. Davis is currently awaiting extradition and was given a $1 million bond.

The Department wishes to thank the U.S. Marshal Service Carolinas Regional Fugitive Task Force (CRFTF) and the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force (CARFTF) for their assistance with this investigation.

Check back with WFXR News for more updates soon.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WFXRtv.
Falun Gong supporters protest against China outside of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C., in 2012. On Thursday, two men pleaded guilty for forwarding a Beijing-backed scheme targeting Falun Gong practitioners in the United States. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI

July 26 (UPI) -- Two people, including a Chinese national, have pleaded guilty to bribing an Internal Revenue Service agent as part of a Beijing-backed scheme targeting the U.S. tax-exempt status of a Communist Party opposition religious movement.

Falun Gong is a spiritual practice that has been banned in China since 1999 and its supporters are considered one of the so-called Five Poisons of the Communist Party along with the supporters of Uyghurs and Tibetans as well as those in favor of Chinese democracy and Taiwan independence.

John Chen, 71, a former citizen of China and a Chino, Calif., resident, and Lin Feng, 44, a Chinese citizen and a permanent resident of Los Angeles, were accused of executing this plan at the direction of a Chinese official starting in January of 2023 through to May of the same year.

Prosecutors said Chen was directed by the Chinese official to submit a false whistleblower report to the IRS seeking to revoke the tax-exempt status of a nonprofit organization run by Falun Gong practitioners.

The charging document describes the whistleblower complaint as "facially deficient and contains rhetoric similar to the propaganda that the PRC Government uses to justify its subjugation and harassment of Falun Gong members."

The official name of China is the People's Republic of China.

To forward the scheme, Chen and Feng contacted a purported IRS employee who was actually an undercover agent. The pair promised the agent up to $50,000 in cash and 60% of any whistleblower award to forward their complaint and have it succeed.

On May 14 of last year, Chen and Feng met with the agent in Newburgh, New York, and gave an initial cash bribe of $1,000, the charging document states.

Four days later, Feng paid the agent an additional cash bribe of $4,000 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, with Chen telling the agent in a recorded call that he will return from China with more bribe money, and that Feng would hand deliver the agent two $25,000 cash payments in New York.

The pair were arrested May 26 in the Central District of California and were charged in a four-count indictment.

They have both pleaded guilty to one count of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, which comes with a maximum 10-year sentence, and one count of bribing a public official, which has a maximum 15-year sentence.

Chen pled guilty Wednesday with Feng pleading guilty Thursday.

"John Chen and Lin Feng brazenly attempted to bribe an undercover agent they believed to be an IRS agent here in the United States on behalf of the PRC Government in order to harass and intimidate the Falun Gong, a target of PRC repression. Efforts such as this to repress free speech by targeting critics of the PRC in the United States will not be tolerated," Damian Williams, the U.S attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

The announcement comes days after the U.S. State Department marked the 25 anniversary of China's repression and abuse of Falun Gong practitioners, stating "the United States will continue to speak out for human rights, including freedom of religion or belief."

According to the State Department's report on international religious freedom for China, 188 Falun Gong adherents in the Asian country died as a result of persecution, 755 were imprisoned, 3,457 were arrested and 2,749 were harassed just during the year of 2023.

"We call upon the PRC to cease its repressive campaign and release all who have been imprisoned for their beliefs," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
Two teens arrested, charged with robbing 9-year-old boy at gunpoint in Boston

Two teens have been arrested for allegedly robbing a 9-year-old boy of his cellphone at gunpoint in Boston Thursday, police say.

The young boy was at Childrens Park at the corner of Intervale and Fernboro Street waiting for a cookout around 6:30 p.m. when two 15-year-olds approached him and took his cell phone at gunpoint, Essex County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said.

The two 15-year-old teens were charged with armed robbery and threat to commit a crime in West Roxbury Juvenile Court on Friday.

Being robbed at gunpoint is a terrifying experience for anyone. But the age of the victim here, and the ages of the charged juveniles, adds an extra layer of shock and heartbreak. I commend this young boy and the adults present for providing the information that led to the arrest, Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said.

The identity of the two arrested teens will not be released.

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
BEIJING (Reuters) -Typhoon Gaemi pummelled towns on China's coastal Fujian province on Friday with heavy rains and strong winds as the most powerful storm to hit the country this year began its widely watched trek into the populous interior.

The storm has affected almost 630,000 people in China's Fujian so far, with almost half of them having to be relocated, Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier this week, it killed dozens of people as it swept through Taiwan and worsened seasonal rains in the Philippines.

Gaemi was packing winds of up to 100.8 kph (62.6 mph) near its centre, easing slightly from 118.8 kph logged on Thursday night when it landed in the Fujian city of Putian.

While Gaemi has been downgraded to a tropical storm because of slower wind speeds, its vast cloud-bands remain a significant flood risk, particularly to rivers in central China already elevated due to summer rains.

Hours ahead of the typhoon's arrival, the Standing Committee of the Communist Party's politburo, helmed by President Xi Jinping, held a special meeting on flood control and urged cadres across the country to protect lives.

Efforts must be made to prevent breaches of major rivers and the collapse of large and key medium-sized reservoirs, Xinhua quoted a readout of the meeting as saying.

Due to the typhoon, 72 townships across Fujian recorded accumulated precipitation exceeding 250 mm (9.8 inches), with the highest reaching 512.8 mm, local weather bureaus said.

By late Friday, Gaemi is expected to reach Jiangxi province, home to China's largest freshwater lake, Poyang.

Forecasters warned as many as 10 provinces could be affected, including Henan, a province with a population of over 100 million in central China.

Henan's meteorological bureau expects Gaemi to start ushering in rains on Friday night.

Into next week, Gaemi's impact is expected as far north as the provinces of Jilin and Liaoning, both of which are still grappling with overflowing rivers and waterlogged cities following a powerful cluster of summer storms a few days ago.

Scientists have warned that global warming is worsening tropical storms, making them less frequent but much more intense, according to a report published on Friday.

On Thursday, Gaemi flooded several Taiwanese cities and towns, injuring more than 700 people and killing seven as well as sinking a freighter off the island's coast.

Rescuers pulled nearly 1,000 people out of floodwater in inflatable boats, the Taiwan government said.

In the Philippines, the storm killed 32 people, with the capital Manila declaring a "state of calamity" after widespread flooding. A marine tanker carrying industrial fuel also sank in rough seas off the Philippines.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo in Beijing and Yimou Lee in Yilan, Taiwan; additional reporting by Mikhail Flores in Manila; editing by Miral Fahmy and Edwina Gibbs)
Its been said a lot alreadyand its going to need to be said a lot more through November and potentially for the next four to eight yearsbut the attacks being leveled against Vice President Kamala Harris this week are just staggeringly sexist, misogynistic, and racist. This, despite the fact that Republican leadership continues to warn prominent party members that such attacks are likely to turn off key constituencies needed to win the election for former President Donald Trump. And yet the sexist and racist attacks on Harris for being a childless cat lady, a weird laugher, and a winsome slut who slept her way to power persist unabated.

Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican from Tennessee, called Harris a DEI vice president, and former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly tweeted: She actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California politics. Kellyanne Conway called her lazy, saying, She does not speak well; she does not work hard; she doesnt inspire anyone. And Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman went with intellectually, [she is] just really kind of the bottom of the barrel. On Monday, Trump called Harris Dumb as a Rock on social media, and because Trump cant stop himself from calling women crazy, he launched this brilliant salvo in his remarks in Michigan on Saturday: I call her Laffin Kamala, he said. You ever watch her laugh? Shes crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. Shes crazy. Shes nuts. So. Crazy. Laughter. Lazy. Slutty. DEI hire. Stupid. That seems to be the brief. As Jill Filipovic pointed out earlier in the week, none of this was unexpected, none of it is actually true, none of it is even a little bit new. But of course some of it has historically worked against women candidates.

Yet there is one vital difference between a campaign in which Hillary Clinton was targeted and abused for being a woman in 2016 and the race for the presidency in 2024. The difference is that in 2022, with the Supreme Courts ending of Roe v. Wade in around half the country, women began to experience punishment and threats for a class of actions that are, for the most part, wholly out of their control. They disliked it immensely. Targeting Harris as someone who is ostensibly a politician who has no control over her career and her success is the same exact play. Query whether it has succeeded with voters in the past couple of years.

Immediately after Roe v. Wade fell two years ago last month, we began to hear stories of women who nearly died because they were unable to get urgently needed medical care while pregnant; young girls unable to terminate a pregnancy that was the result of rape; and women allowed to die because they were given the wrong information about the risks of their pregnancies. Weve learned about states banning in vitro fertilization and states overregulating mifepristone and jurisdictions attempting to prevent pregnant women from leaving the state for abortion care. We now know that the conscience rights of physicians seem to supplant the rights of women bleeding on their tables. And weve also met the bullies and sickos who would help husbands prosecute their wives for terminating a pregnancy. Of course, we have remet newly adjudicated sex abuser Donald Trump, and it seems his vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, has zealously suggested that abortion is wrong even in cases of rape and incest and floated the idea that parents should have votes proportionate to the number of their children.

Nothing about this overt GOP platform of forced pregnancy, acceptance of one kind of birth and family, anticontraception rocket-natalism should surprise anyone. This stuff is, after all, the lifeblood of both Project 2025 (Families comprised of a married mother, father and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society) and the Dobbs decision. But whats different for women voters in 2024, alongside Dobbs and Project 2025, is the recognition that a lot of men out there seriously dont trust us to make good choices at all; that a lot of men think we are not actually moral agents in our own right; and that a lot of men still think of all women as chess pieces they can move around at their discretion.

What has changed, in short, since 2016, is that many women who still believe themselves to be the sum of their decisions have started to bristle at being told that we never truly had the power to make those decisions in the first place. Now look again at the most virulent attacks against Harris. Theres an invisible through line here, and its actually pretty consistent: Harris slept her way to the top? That suggests that it was California kingmaker Willie Brown who plucked her from obscurity and made her career. Shes an unqualified affirmative action baby and a mediocre DEI pick? That suggests that a bunch of white men and party bosses pushed her up a ladder despite the fact that she never did anything to merit it. Even the tedious claims about women marrying late and about childlessness trade on the same old tropes measuring women based on not their life choices but their desirability to men, who boldly grab and impregnate women at their own pleasure.

One of the most vile attacks came from Jan. 6 enthusiast and Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau, who said on Monday that Harris represents the spirit of Jezebel, and in a way thatll be even much more ominous than Hillary because shell bring a racial component and shes younger. He thus also casts her as an object, a temptress, while only men remain the moral deciders. Its the same dopey story every time: Every woman, in this telling, is just lined up against a wall, hoping against hope that some savior will come along to ask them to dance, then marry and impregnate them, then (if they are allowed to work at all) give them a job they dont actually deserve, in service of some byzantine liberal plot to harm the other men.

The stunning rise of Kamala Harris from law school, to prosecutors office, to state elected office, to the U.S. Senate, to the vice presidency of the United States can thus be reduced by Republicans into a devious plot in which men used her for her entire life as she just floated along, laughing crazily. And one might suppose thatbeyond the obvious racist dog whistlethis is why Vance is going with the line of attack that suggests she is somehow lazy, because, as he suggested earlier this week, she just sat around collecting a government paycheck for the last 20 years.

There is, to be sure, a cohort of voters who respond well to the message that women are all soft, silky bunnies who need to be cared for by their men, their government, their president, and their party. But after Dobbs, the number of women who reject the idea that because they cant make good choices, male elected officials should step in to help them out has probably not increased. The women who put abortion on the ballot in state after state post-Dobbs, and who won abortion rights in every single one of those contests, seem not to respond well to the message that they are the sum of a mans life choices, as opposed to the infinite possibility of their own. And as American women increasingly reject the imperative that has J.D. Vance sorting them on the basis of their fertility and Donald Trump sorting them on the basis of their hotness, the language of women as creatures who rise and fall based exclusively on the choices of men feels ever more airless.

Its not just that Dobbs and IVF bans and the reviving of the Comstock Act and Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk took away womens choices and replaced it with their own. Its also that the language of women as the totality of male preferences in marriage, parenting, hiring, promotion, and mentoring isnt a story of women and power. Its a story of men and their female props. Whether or not Kamala Harris will speak to women as an epoch-shifting politician remains to be seen. The early numbers suggest that she certainly might. The real question is whether a set of attacks rooted in the idea that any woman who succeeds in America does so only because men desire her, sleep with her, promote her, and support her can be salient for women who dont think of themselves that way. And if the reaction to Dobbs isnt the answer, Im not sure what is.

There are a thousand good reasons that going after Harris for her race and gender are stupid and should stop now. But from a purely strategic perspective, chief among these reasons is that every woman who votes has been told within the past two years that someone elsea doctor, a legislator, a husband, a Supreme Court justiceis better suited to make life choices for her than she is. Im not sure theyre buying it. Reducing Harris this time around to a cartoon version of a person who never made any real choices because powerful men have been slinging her around the chessboard for 30 years is not a persuasive argument for the GOP, even while its a familiar one. Maybe Republicans think women resonate with being called lazy sluts who stand on the shoulders of powerful men for the entirety of their careers. But it seems to me that a failure to treat the putative next president as a moral and political actor in her own right signals a failure to believe that women voters are themselves moral and political actors as well.

Come November, it will be up to all these voters to purge the Republican Party of this notion, once and for all.
The United States indicted North Korean hacker Rim Jong Hyok for cyberattacks targeting defense secrets, the Justice Department said Thursday. Photo courtesy of FBI

July 26 (UPI) -- The United States indicted a North Korean hacker for cyberattacks that helped steal military and nuclear secrets and offered a $10 million reward for information about him, multiple agencies announced Thursday.

Rim Jong Hyok was charged for his involvement in a conspiracy to "hack and extort U.S. hospitals and other healthcare providers, launder the ransom proceeds and then use these proceeds to fund additional computer intrusions into defense, technology and government entities worldwide," the Justice Department said in a statement.

Rim and his co-conspirators allegedly worked for North Korean intelligence agency Reconnaissance General Bureau in a hacker collective known by various names including Andariel, Onyx Sleet and APT45.

According to the indictment, Andariel victimized five healthcare providers, four U.S.-based defense contractors, two U.S. Air Force bases and NASA's Office of Inspector General.

"The Andariel actors stole terabytes of information, including unclassified U.S. government employee information, old technical information related to military aircraft, intellectual property and limited technical information pertaining to maritime and uranium processing projects," the Justice Department said.

The operation also infiltrated networks and stole data from Taiwanese and South Korean defense contractors and a Chinese energy company.

Andariel hacked into multiple U.S. hospitals and healthcare providers' computer networks and encrypted the servers responsible for health records, diagnostics and imaging services, the indictment said. After the attacks, the hackers demanded the victims pay a fee to restore access.

In one case, the group sent a ransom note to a Kansas hospital demanding roughly $100,000 in Bitcoin.

"Otherwise all of your files will be posted in the Internet, which may lead you to loss of reputation and cause the troubles for your business," the note read. "Please do not waste your time! You have 48 hours only! After that the Main server will double your price."

"Today's indictment underscores our commitment to protecting critical infrastructure from malicious actors and the countries that sponsor them," U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas Kate Brubacher said. "Rim Jong Hyok and those in his trade put people's lives in jeopardy. They imperil timely, effective treatment for patients and cost hospitals billions of dollars a year."

The Justice Department and the FBI also announced the recovery of $114,000 in virtual currency from the ransomware attacks and related money laundering transactions, as well as the seizure of online accounts used by the co-conspirators.

Rim's last known location was in North Korea, where he worked at the Reconnaissance General Bureau's offices in Pyongyang and Sinuiju, the indictment said.

On Thursday, the U.S. State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to his location or identification.

In addition, U.S., South Korean and British government security agencies released a cybersecurity advisory outlining Andariel's ransomware tactics and warning that North Korea is conducting a global espionage campaign "to advance the regime's military and nuclear programs and ambitions."

It was co-authored by the FBI, the U.S. National Security Agency and cyber agencies, Britain's National Cyber Security Center and South Korea's National Intelligence Service.

"The authoring agencies believe the group and the cyber techniques remain an ongoing threat," the advisory said.

While North Korea remains under heavy international sanctions, it has increasingly turned to hacking and cybertheft in recent years to bankroll its illicit missile and nuclear programs.

Pyongyang funds 40% of its weapons programs through "illicit cybermeans," the U.N. Security Council's Panel of Experts estimated in an annual report released in March. The panel said that 58 suspected cyberattacks on cryptocurrency-related companies generated some $3 billion for the regime between 2017 and 2023.

The Treasury Department sanctioned the Reconnaissance General Bureau in 2015 and U.S. officials previously publicized the threat from North Korean hackers targeting hospitals and other healthcare organizations with ransomware.

In 2022, U.S. law enforcement recovered roughly $500,000 in payments made to North Korean hackers by victims including a medical center in Kansas and a healthcare provider in Colorado.
Soldiers patrol in Culiacan, the northern Mexico city that is the base of the Sinaloa cartel, on Oct. 18, 2019. (AFP via Getty Images)

Two of Mexico's most powerful drug traffickers  one a longtime partner of the Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the other his son  were taken into U.S. custody on Thursday afternoon, a pair of arrests likely to upend the world of international drug trafficking.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez were detained at a private airport in El Paso, according to two sources familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

A lawyer who represents Zambada said his client appeared in federal court in El Paso on Friday morning and pleaded not guilty to drug, money-laundering and weapons charges.

Frank Perez told The Times that his client did not voluntarily fly across the border, as some reports have suggested.

I have no comment except to state that he did not surrender voluntarily," Perez said. "He was brought against his will.

The Justice Department confirmed the arrests in a brief statement Thursday, with Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland saying that "both men are facing multiple charges in the United States for leading the Cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks."

Zambada, 76, faces federal indictments in multiple districts across the United States on charges of trafficking tons of cocaine, fentanyl, heroin and other drugs across the border.

For decades he was business partners with El Chapo Guzman, who is serving a life sentence after a 2019 conviction for his leadership role in the Sinaloa cartel alongside Zambada.

Guzman Lopez, 38, was elevated within the cartel hierarchy after his father was arrested.

Few details were immediately available about the circumstances of the detentions in El Paso.

Zambada had been wanted by U.S. authorities for many years.

The hunt for the drug lord has intensified in recent years as U.S. authorities have crusaded to combat the trafficking of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that killed 100,000 Americans last year. In February, prosecutors opened a new case against Zambada for the manufacture and trafficking of the drug, which has become the leading cause of death for Americans between 18 and 45 years old.

"He has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in jail, the U.S. State Department website says.

In 2021, the U.S. government raised its reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Zambada to up to $15 million.

After Guzmans arrest, a violent power struggle broke out, with the former kingpins sons, who are known as the Chapitos, vying with Zambada for control of the Sinaloa cartel.

The Chapitos faced a setback last year when one of Guzmans sons, Ovidio, was captured by Mexican authorities and sent to the United States, where he faces drug-trafficking and money-laundering charges.

Guzmans arrest followed a notorious 2019 incident in which he was briefly detained at a home in the northern Mexican city of Culiacan, but was later released after cartel gunmen flooded the city and held civilians hostage. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered Guzman released to avoid more bloodshed.

Three of Zambadas sons have been prosecuted in the United States, along with his brother, Jesus "El Rey" Zambada, who pleaded guilty to federal drug-trafficking charges and delivered damning testimony against Guzman during Guzman's trial. Testifying as a cooperating witness, he described how his brother and Guzman formed the Sinaloa cartel and together grew the organization.

They were partners, Zambada said on the witness stand.

Ismael Zambada's son Vicente Zambada Niebla, 49, also testified against Guzman. He was prosecuted in Chicago and received a 15-year sentence after pleading guilty. He is now believed to be in witness protection.

Another son, Ismael Zambada Imperial, known as "Mayito Gordo," was extradited from Mexico in 2019 and pleaded guilty to federal charges in San Diego. Believed to be in his late 30s, Zambada Imperial was sentenced to nine years but received credit for time served, and, according to sources familiar with his case, is now residing in the U.S.

The third son who was prosecuted, Serafin Zambada-Ortiz, was sentenced to just over five years in federal prison last year after pleading guilty to drug charges. Zambada-Ortiz, who described a harrowing childhood growing up inside his fathers cartel while pleading for mercy from his judge, was released in September 2018 after receiving credit for time served.

Mexicans welcomed the news. But some lamented that it was U.S. authorities, not their own, who had captured the suspects.

The day will come when it will be our prosecutor's office  and not the American one  who will bring the big bosses of this country to justice so that they pay for all the lives they have stolen, Lilian Chapa Koloffon, a Mexican security analyst, wrote on X.

Hamilton reported from San Francisco and Linthicum from Mexico City.

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.
Migrants line up to get on a bus outside the Deportation Office of the Libyan Illegal Immigration Control Department in Tripoli, Libya, on July 25, 2024. The Illegal Migration Control Department of Libya on Thursday deported more than 700 illegal migrants to their home countries of Niger and Egypt, an official told Xinhua. (Photo by Hamza Turkia/Xinhua)

TRIPOLI, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The Illegal Migration Control Department of Libya on Thursday deported more than 700 illegal migrants to their home countries of Niger and Egypt, an official told Xinhua.

"The number of migrants is between 700 and 750," said Mohamed Breda, a security affairs officer of the department.

He said that "the deportation of migrants from Libya will continue."

Since the fall of late leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, the ensuing insecurity and chaos in Libya have prompted many migrants, primarily from Africa, to attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach European shores.

Libyan Interior Minister Emad al-Tarabelsi said earlier in July that the number of foreign nationals currently in Libya is around 2.5 million, most of whom crossed the Libyan borders without entry visas. 

Migrants wait at the Deportation Office of the Libyan Illegal Immigration Control Department in Tripoli, Libya, on July 25, 2024. The Illegal Migration Control Department of Libya on Thursday deported more than 700 illegal migrants to their home countries of Niger and Egypt, an official told Xinhua. (Photo by Hamza Turkia/Xinhua)

Migrants leave the Deportation Office of the Libyan Illegal Immigration Control Department in Tripoli, Libya, on July 25, 2024. The Illegal Migration Control Department of Libya on Thursday deported more than 700 illegal migrants to their home countries of Niger and Egypt, an official told Xinhua. (Photo by Hamza Turkia/Xinhua)

Migrants line up to get on a bus outside the Deportation Office of the Libyan Illegal Immigration Control Department in Tripoli, Libya, on July 25, 2024. The Illegal Migration Control Department of Libya on Thursday deported more than 700 illegal migrants to their home countries of Niger and Egypt, an official told Xinhua. (Photo by Hamza Turkia/Xinhua)
By Christopher Bing and Karen Lema

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department admitted that it spread propaganda in the Philippines aimed at disparaging Chinas Sinovac vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a June 25 document cited by a former top government official earlier this month.

The U.S. response to the Philippines was recounted in a podcast by Harry Roque, who served as spokesman for former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Reuters subsequently reviewed the document, which hasnt been publicly released by either government. The news agency was able to verify its contents with a source familiar with the U.S. response.

It is true that the (Department of Defense) did message Philippines audiences questioning the safety and efficacy of Sinovac, according to the document, which references information sent from the U.S. Defense Department to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of National Defense. According to the document, the Pentagon also conceded it had made some missteps in our COVID related messaging but assured the Philippines that the military has vastly improved oversight and accountability of information operations since 2022.

The U.S. admission followed a June 14 Reuters investigation that revealed how the Pentagon launched a secret psychological operation to discredit Chinese vaccines and other COVID aid in 2020 and 2021, at the height of the pandemic. As a result of the Reuters investigation, the Philippine Senate Foreign Relations Committee launched a hearing into the matter and sought a response from the U.S.

According to the June 25 document, Pentagon officials concluded its anti-vax campaign was misaligned with our priorities. It says the U.S. military told Filipino officials that operatives ceased COVID-related messaging related to COVID-19 origins and COVID-19 vaccines in August 2021.

The Philippines defense and foreign affairs departments did not respond to requests for comment about the U.S. militarys admission that it ran the propaganda program. A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department referred Reuters to the Defense Department for comment. Pentagon spokesman Pete Nguyen declined to confirm the U.S. response cited in the document. But he acknowledged the Pentagon did distribute social media content about the safety and efficacy of Sinovac.

At the time the Pentagon launched its campaign, national security officials in Washington worried that China was exploiting the pandemic to negotiate important geopolitical deals and undermine U.S. alliances internationally by sending aid to the Philippines and other nations.

The clandestine psychological operation uncovered by Reuters wasnt limited to the Philippines. It also targeted developing countries across Central Asia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia in 2020 and 2021. The Philippines and those other nations were, at the time, heavily reliant on Chinas Sinvoac to inoculate their populations against the deadly virus.

Among Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines was among those hit hardest by the coronavirus. By 2024, COVID had killed almost 67,000 Filipinos, and the number of infections there had reached more than 4 million, according to World Health Organization data.

Working with a group of defense contractors and other non-military partners, the U.S. used networks of online bots and other phony social media accounts to influence foreign audiences, Reuters found. The news agency identified a network of hundreds of fake accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that closely matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. When Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles after independently determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign. The Reuters article showcased a handful of these posts as examples of the messaging.

Pentagon spokesman Nguyen said an initial review by the Defense Department last month found that the U.S. military was not responsible for the troubling social media content related to the Philippines cited in the Reuters report. Asked whether the social media accounts with those particular posts were handled by contractors or other non-military partners working on behalf of the U.S. government, Nguyen declined to say. He also declined to answer questions about U.S. military anti-vax propaganda efforts across Central Asia and the Middle East.

In exposing the Pentagons anti-vax propaganda campaign, Reuters interviewed more than two dozen current and former U.S officials, military contractors, social media analysts, academic researchers and public health experts. The health experts called the propaganda campaign indefensible, saying it put innocent lives at risk.

In a statement to Chinese media after the Reuters investigation in June, a Sinovac spokeswoman blasted the U.S. military. Stigmatizing vaccination will lead to a series of consequences, such as a lower inoculation rate, the outbreak and spread of disease, social panic and insecurity, as well as crises of confidence in science and public health, said Sinovac spokeswoman Yuan Youwei.

The Reuters investigation has spurred a Senate investigation in the Philippines led by Senator Imee Marcos, head of the Foreign Relations committee. At a hearing on June 25, Marcos described the U.S. military campaign as evil, wicked, dangerous, unethical. She questioned whether it violated international law and wondered whether the Philippines had any legal recourse.

(Reporting by Christopher Bing in Washington and Karen Lema in Manila. Edited by Blake Morrison.)
FILE - A ride share car displays Lyft and Uber stickers on its front windshield in downtown Los Angeles, Jan. 12, 2016. The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday, July 25, 2024, that app-based ride sharing and delivery services like Uber and Lyft can continue treating their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.(AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that app-based ride-hailing and delivery services like Uber and Lyft can continue treating their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

The unanimous decision by the state's top court is a big win for tech giants. It also ends a yearslong legal battle between labor unions and tech companies over a law dictating the status of app-based service workers in the state.

The ruling upholds a voter-approved law passed in 2020 that said drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft are independent contractors and are not entitled to benefits like overtime pay, paid sick leave and unemployment insurance. Opponents said the law was illegal in part because it limited the state Legislatures authority to change the law or pass laws about workers compensation programs.

A lower court ruling in 2021 had said the measure was illegal, but an appeals court reversed that decision last year. The California Supreme Courts decision means companies like Uber and Lyft can continue their operations as before.

Uber called the ruling a victory for drivers. Companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash spent $200 million on a campaign in 2020 to help the law pass.

Whether drivers or couriers choose to earn just a few hours a week or more, their freedom to work when and how they want is now firmly etched into California law, putting an end to misguided attempts to force them into an employment model that they overwhelmingly do not want, the company said in a statement Thursday.

The ruling is a defeat for labor unions and their allies in the Legislature who fought to secure more rights for drivers.

Whats going on is not just. Its not what California is about, said Nicole Moore, president of Los Angeles-based Rideshare Drivers United. Its a sad day for workers.

Labor unions vowed to continue fighting for drivers' job protections and benefits, noting that an earlier ruling in the appeal process had opened doors for the Legislature to pass laws to allow drivers to join a union.

"We are committed to fiercely backing workers across our economy who have been written out and left behind and helping them knock down big obstacles to winning their union rights, Service Employees International Union President April Verrett said in a statement.

Lawmakers in 2019 passed a law aimed directly at Uber and Lyft, mandating they provide drivers with protections like minimum wage, overtime, health insurance and reimbursement for expenses. It changed the rules in California of who is an employee and who is an independent contractor.

While the law applied to lots of industries, it had the biggest impact on app-based ride-hailing and delivery companies. Their business relies on contracting with people to use their own cars. Under the 2019 law, companies would have to treat those drivers as employees and provide certain benefits that would greatly increase the businesses expenses.

In November 2020, voters approved a ballot proposition to exempt app-based ride-hailing and delivery companies from the law. The proposition included alternative benefits for drivers, including a guaranteed minimum wage and subsidies for health insurance if they average at least 25 hours of work a week.

Labor groups and drivers across the nation are pushing for more job protections, higher wages and increased benefits. Drivers in Massachusetts are rallying behind what they describe as a first-of-its-kind ballot question that could win them union rights if approved.
The News

The UKs new Labour government will abandon its opposition to the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, the prime ministers spokesperson said Friday.

They added that the government had not withdrawn the challenge but instead decided to not proceed with a proposal by the previous government, which had not been formally submitted to the ICC, the Financial Times reported.

After ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants against both Israeli politicians and senior Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes in May, a then-foreign office minister from the Conservative Party said: We do not think the ICC has jurisdiction in this case, the UK has not recognised Palestine as a state and Israel is not party to the Rome Statute.

Separately, Foreign Secretary David Lammy announced earlier this month that the UK would restore funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
Defence Intelligence of the United Kingdom has noted that Russia cancelled the Navy Day parade on the Neva River because it could not guarantee the protection of its troops.

Source: UK Defence Intelligence review dated 26 July, as reported by European Pravda

Details: The intelligence describes Russia's Navy Day as "an annual display of Russian maritime power."

The main event of this celebration takes place in Saint Petersburg along the Neva River up to the Kronstadt Naval Base, the review reads.

This year, however, the Kronstadt component of the parade, which was scheduled for 28 July, was cancelled due to security reasons, the intelligence added.

Quote: "This is not the first time that events have been cancelled since Russia invaded Ukraine. However, it is the most high profile event to be cancelled and highlights a growing trend that Russia is unable to guarantee the protection of its forces," the review reads.

Background:

In a previous preview, Defence Intelligence of the United Kingdom analysed the Ukrainian strike on the Russian ferry Slavyanin at the port of Kavkaz.

Earlier, UK Defence Intelligence shared its conclusions on the aftermath of the Ukrainian strike on a Russian ammunition depot in Russias Voronezh Oblast on 7 July.

Support UP or become our patron!
Ukrainian air defense shot down 20 of the 22 Shahed-type attack drones launched by Russia overnight on July 26, the Air Force reported.

Ukraine's Air Force was not able to down the other aerial target, a single Iskander-M ballistic missile, launched overnight. The impacts of the missile launch are currently unclear.

Russia reportedly launched the missiles and drones from various locations overnight, including Russia's Rostov and Kursk oblasts, as well as Cape Chauda in occupied Crimea.

One of the Shahed-type attack drones struck a residential dormitory in the city of Nizhyn in Chernihiv Oblast, injuring one person overnight, regional Governor Vyacheslav Chaus reported. Earlier in the evening a nationwide air raid siren was issued.

Drone attacks are a daily occurrence in Ukraine, affecting various regions across the country.

Mobile fire groups of the Ukrainian Air Force were involved in repelling the air attacks. The drones launched on July 26 were downed over Kherson, Sumy, Zhytomyr, and Chernihiv oblasts.

In recent months, Russian attacks on critical infrastructure have increasingly targeted Ukrainian energy facilities.

Overnight on July 26, Russia's Defense Ministry also claimed that its air defenses had shot down six Ukrainian-launched drones over Rostov and Kursk oblasts. The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the claim.

Read also: Explosions, fire reported at airfield in occupied Crimea













Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Ukraine and Moldova join EU decision to extend sanctions against Iran

Nine European countries supported the European Union Council's decision on 15 July to extend sanctions against Iran for another year in response to the country backing Russia and groups in the Middle East.

Source: Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, in a statement, as reported by European Pravda

Details: According to Borrell, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Montenegro, as well as European Free Trade Association members Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, have all agreed to continue EU sanctions against Iran.

Quote: "They will ensure that their national policies conform to this Decision. The European Union takes note of this commitment and welcomes it," Borrell added.

Background:

On 15 July, the European Union Council agreed to prolong sanctions against Iran due to its backing for Russian aggression against Ukraine and armed organisations in the Middle East.

After 2022, the European Union slapped sanctions on Iran due to its support for Russia's war of aggression.

In mid-May, the EU Council broadened the scope of sanctions to cover drones, missiles, and Middle Eastern groups controlled by Tehran.

Support UP or become our patron!
Ukraine's High Anti-Corruption Court approved the Justice Ministry's claim to nationalize a manufacturing enterprise belonging to Russian oligarch Viktor Kononov worth more than Hr 2 billion ($48.4 million), the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said on July 25.

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainian courts have continued to seize various assets belonging to Russian oligarchs as well as Ukrainian pro-Russian officials and politicians.

Kononov, a Russian billionaire sanctioned by Ukraine, served as the director of the publicly traded enterprise "VinnytsiaPobutkhim" based in Vinnytsia Oblast. A conglomerate, the enterprise operated a number of companies that specialized in producing cosmetics as well as household cleaning products, the SBU said.

Kononov has served as a public supporter of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and has contributed financially to support the Kremlin's war effort, according to the SBU.

As part of the nationalization of the assets, 100 per cent of the company's shares, as well bank accounts associated with the company, industrial and transportation equipment, and owned real estate will be redirected to the Ukrainian state.

Earlier on July 25, in an unrelated case, Ukraine's Asset Recovery and Management Agency (ARMA) reported that the agency sold two vehicles seized from pro-Russian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk. The proceeds will go towards purchasing Ukrainian military bonds.

Read also: Ukrainian agency sells vehicles seized from pro-Putin oligarch to buy military bonds

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Ukraine to receive nearly $8 billion in direct budget support from US by November, ambassador says

Ukraine will receive $7.9 billion in direct support to the state budget by November this year, part of the $61 billion aid package passed by the U.S. Congress in April, Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, said on July 26.

After months of political infighting and a deteriorating situation on the battlefield in Ukraine, the U.S. House of Representatives finally passed the crucial foreign aid package on April 20, which included $60.84 billion in support for Ukraine.

The $7.9 billion in direct budget aid from the package will be transferred to Ukraine "in the near future," while the rest will be received by the end of October, Markarova said.

"That is, by the end of October, all budget aid funds will be received and used by Ukraine," Markarova added.

Markarova was referring to direct economic support to Ukraine's state budget, which will help Kyiv keep essential public services running. The economic assistance takes the form of a loan that can be forgiven by the U.S. president.

According to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine has received at least $12 billion in external financing since the beginning of the year to help the Ukrainian government address its budget deficit.

In an address to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund forum last October, Shmyhal noted that Ukraine would require nearly $42 billion in economic assistance in 2024 to offset the deficit.

These funds are crucial for financing state-provided services like healthcare, salaries for medical workers and teachers, and social programs.

Read also: Pentagon finds accounting errors worth $2 billion in aid for Ukraine

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
BAMAKO, July 25 (Xinhua) -- At least 16 people were killed and 48 others were injured, including six in serious condition, following a head-on collision between two buses in central Mali on Thursday, local authorities said.

The accident took place at around 8:30 a.m. local time Thursday on National Road 6 in Ouan, central Mali, causing significant material damage, according to a press release issued by the Malian Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure.

One of the drivers died in the accident, the release said.

The probable causes of the accident were excessive speed and reckless driving, and an investigation was underway to elucidate the exact circumstances, said the press release. 
Political advisor of Ukrainian President Podolyak speaks during an interview in Kyiv

Political advisor of Ukrainian President Podolyak speaks during an interview in Kyiv

KYIV (Reuters) - Ukraine's decision to suspend the transit of oil from Russian group Lukoil to Hungary and Slovakia was in accordance with Kyiv's sanctions against the company and nothing to do with blackmail, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters on Friday, rejecting a Hungarian statement.

Kyiv last month adopted sanctions blocking the transit of Russian crude through the Druzhba pipeline, sparking fears of supply shortages in Hungary and Slovakia.

On Monday, Hungary and Slovakia took their complaint to the European Commission, asking it to use an association agreement which they said meant Ukraine could not block oil transit.

An aide to Hungary's prime minister on Friday accused Ukraine of blackmailing Hungary and Slovakia by halting oil deliveries.

"The situation with the suspension of Russian oil transit through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia has nothing to do with blackmail in the Ukrainian version," Podolyak said in a written comment.

"And certainly Hungary and Slovakia do not stand up as actual peacekeepers and do not insist on peace and justice, but insist solely on concessions to Russia," he noted.

Podolyak accused the neighbouring countries of going "against the line" of the European Union, which has supported Kyiv in its war with Russia, and recommended they urge the Kremlin to stop attacking Ukrainian energy and transit channels.

The Ukrainian energy sector has been under constant Russian missile and drone attacks for months and has lost half of its generating capacity, which has led to massive outages throughout the country.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Tom Balmforth; Editing by Alex Richardson, Elaine Hardcastle)
Ukraine war latest: Russian losses in Ukraine causing 'serious problems' for recruitment, HUR says

Key updates on July 26:

Russian losses in Ukraine causing 'serious problems' for recruitment, HUR says

Ukraine hit Russian airfield in occupied Crimea, General Staff confirms

Russia using new, cheap drones to locate Ukraine's air defense, military intelligence says

Inspection of Ukraine's 59th Brigade finds management issues, but no criminal charges laid

Demobilization could repeat Ukraine's 'mistake' in 1918, parliament speaker says

Russian personnel and materiel losses in Ukraine are so high the Kremlin is having "serious problems" recruiting new contract soldiers and is relying on decommissioning Soviet-era weapons as it cannot produce enough modern versions, Ukraine's military intelligence (HUR) spokesperson said on July 26.

Speaking on national TV, Andrii Yusov said the situation will soon have an impact on the front-line situation and Russia's ability to effectively wage war.

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.

On July 18, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the BBC that around 20,000 Russian troops were killed during Russia's failed offensive in Kharkiv Oblast.

"They can replenish these losses," Yusov said, adding: "But there are already serious problems with the recruitment of new contract soldiers.

"The aggressor state is coming up with new incentives at various levels to attract new cannon fodder. But this machine is starting to malfunction."

As Russia has sought to replenish its military, decimated by high losses in Ukraine, authorities have implemented financial perks to incentivize enlistment.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin signed a decree on July 23 establishing a one-time signing bonus of 1.9 million rubles ($21,200) for city residents who join the military.

Read also: Ukrainian athletes who will never have a chance to compete at the Olympics

Ukraine hit Russian airfield in occupied Crimea, General Staff confirms



The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces confirmed that Ukraine hit Russia's Saky military airfield in occupied Crimea overnight on July 26 following media reports about explosions in the area.

The consequences of the attack are being clarified, the military said.

Following sounds of explosions heard by local residents, a fire was reported at the Saky military airfield in the town of Novofedorivka, western Crimea, the Telegram channel Crimean Wind reported.

The fire was allegedly caused by a strike on an ammunition depot at the airfield, according to Crimean Wind.

Russia uses the Saky airfield to control the airspace, in particular over the Black Sea, and to launch air strikes on Ukrainian territory, according to the General Staff's statement.

"The airfield was covered by 'modern' Russian air defense systems, which once again failed to protect an important Russian military facility," the General Staff said.

Earlier in the night, around 1 a.m. local time, multiple explosions were reported by residents in the western communities of Dobrushino, Novoozerne, as well as the city of Yevpatoria. Explosions were also heard in the southern city of Simferopol.

Residents reported seeing drones in the area where the explosions were reported. Local occupation authorities in Sevastopol also reported Ukrainian drones overhead, as well as the threat of ballistic missiles in the region.

The occupied peninsula has been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian drone and naval strikes, forcing Russian forces to withdraw much of its naval power and beef up air defenses.

A Ukrainian attack on occupied Crimea on July 23 resulted in a ferry used by Russian forces to transport military equipment being "seriously damaged," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces reported.

Read also: Long an Olympic powerhouse, Russia has the smallest participation in 30 years

Russia using new, cheap drones to locate Ukraine's air defense, military intelligence says

Russia is now launching a new type of cheaply-made drone to identify air defense systems and act as decoys, Andrii Cherniak, a spokesperson of Ukraine's military intelligence, told Reuters in an interview published on July 26.

Russia has launched thousands of cheap but effective Shahed-type drones against Ukraine since the fall of 2022. First used on the battlefield, they are now typically deployed to target energy infrastructure and cities far from the front line, such as Kyiv.

According to Cherniak, Russia is now using not only Shahed-type drones but also a new type of drone made of plywood and plastic foam in long-range attacks against Ukraine.

The new drones can reveal the location of air defense systems and film damage, with one type able to carry a camera and Ukrainian sim card to send footage back to Russia.

"They identify where our mobile groups are positioned, where the machine guns are that can destroy them," Cherniak told Reuters.

Russian forces are trying "to get a picture of where all our air defenses are located," he added.

The drones have been used in five attacks in July, including an overnight strike on July 25-26, Cherniak said.

Cherniak's comments follow a report by the Ukrainian Air Force on July 20 that a new unidentified drone had targeted Kyiv overnight.

Images of the downed drone circulating on social media indicate that the new weapon does not resemble a Shahed-type drone. The drone was reportedly flying at a low altitude of 20-30 meters.

The news outlet Defense Express obtained additional photographs and details about the unidentified drone. The drone has "a possible wingspan of more than 4 meters, beam plumage, a push rotor, and a square fuselage," Defense Express reported, citing its sources.

Images of the drone show some similarities to the Russian ZALA 421-20 reconnaissance drone, but these types are not widespread and no longer appear in ZALA's current catalog, Defense Express reported.

Read also: Land on fire: Russias offensive in Donetsk Oblast brings destruction to new towns (Photos)

Inspection of Ukraine's 59th Brigade finds management issues, but no criminal charges laid

An inspection of the 59th Motorized Brigade, ordered by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces due to the unit's recent losses, has found "management decisions" and other factors that could "negatively influence the course of combat."

The inspection did not find any issues that warrant criminal charges, the Military Service of Law and Order in the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a post on Facebook on July 26.

"In order to prevent such occurrences, the leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has made appropriate decisions and a number of measures aimed at preventing such cases. Individual officials of the brigade's command have been brought to justice," it added.

The inspection was ordered by Oleksandr Syrskyi earlier this month and came only a day after Azovstal defender and medic Kateryna Polishchuk, known under the nickname Ptashka ("Birdie"), called on Syrskyi and President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the unit over the alleged misconduct of its commander, Bohdan Shevchuk.

"Since thousands of soldiers remain in the combat zone under Shevchuk's leadership, I ask you, Commander-in-Chief, to pay heed and conduct an internal investigation," Polishchuk wrote in a Facebook post on July 14, accusing Shevchuk of "criminal orders, negligence, actions that resulted in the deaths of a large number of troops," as well as careerism, removal of dissenting commanders, and other transgressions.

When announcing the investigation on July 15, Ukraine's General Staff did not explicitly name Polishchuk nor Shevchuk and did not mention specific circumstances that led to the start of the probe.

Read also: Biden could cement his legacy by boosting Ukraine support, experts say

Demobilization could repeat Ukraine's 'mistake' in 1918, parliament speaker says

Adopting demobilization law now could repeat the "mistake" of the Ukrainian People's Republic during its war against the Bolsheviks in 1918, said Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of Ukraine's parliament, on national television on July 25.

Most Ukrainian soldiers cannot legally demobilize and have been serving without any long-term breaks for the third year in a row since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

"I do not know of a country that demobilized people during the war. Excuse me, I do know such a country  the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918. At that time, Defense Minister Mykola Porsh submitted a draft law on demobilization to the Central Rada," Stefanchuk said.

"It is very important to me that the current Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine's parliament) does not repeat the 'mistake' of the Central Rada."

The Central Rada was an analog of the parliament in the times of the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic.

According to Vitalii Skalskyi, the director of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Archival Affairs and Records Management, it is a common misconception that the Ukrainian People's Republic carried out demobilization of its regular army in January 1918, eventually leading to its defeat in the war with the Bolsheviks.

Skalskyi argues that it was not the demobilization of the Ukrainian army but of the remnants of the old Russian imperial army in Ukraine.

"They were absolutely incapable and had no burning desire to fight for Ukraine," Skalskyi told the Kyiv Independent.

Nonetheless, Stefanchuk said that the Ukrainian military on the front line "has an exclusive right to justice," which is why it is necessary to provide them with vacations, rotations, or other "privileges."

Stefanchuk believes these issues were partially resolved after the new law on mobilization was adopted in April.

Most Ukrainian soldiers cannot legally demobilize. The grounds for demobilization may include health problems or the need to care for sick family members.

In April, before the law on mobilization was voted on in the second reading, the provisions on demobilization and rotation were removed from it.

The Defense Ministry said that the parliamentary committee had instructed it to develop a new law within eight months that would deal specifically with rotation and demobilization.

The ministry later announced in April that it plans to submit the draft law to the parliament in "the next few months." It has not been introduced yet.

Read also: Czech FM: Ammunition initiative is a vital part of Ukraines defense but needs more donors, money

Weve been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Stock photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The Russians have attacked Ukraine with an Iskander-M ballistic missile and 22 Shahed drones on the night of 25-26 July. Ukraines air defence has managed to down 20 drones.

Source: Ukraines Air Force on Telegram

Quote: "The Air Forces air surveillance troops detected and tracked 22 Shahed drones. Air defence downed 20 of them over Kherson, Sumy, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv oblasts."

Details: The Russians launched a missile from Russias Rostov Oblast toward Donetsk Oblast.

The drones were launched from Cape Chauda in temporarily occupied Crimea and from the Russian city of Kursk.

Mobile fire groups from Ukraines defence forces as well as anti-aircraft missile troops and electronic warfare units from the Air Force were involved in repelling the attack.

Support UP or become our patron!
The Armed Forces of Ukraine launched an attack on the Saky airbase in temporarily occupied Crimea, which the Russians used for launching airstrikes on the territory of Ukraine, on 25-26 July at night.

Source: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

Quote: "At night, the units of the Rocket Troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, jointly with other units of the defence forces of Ukraine, launched an attack on the Saky airbase in temporarily occupied Crimea."

Details: This is one of the operational airfields used by the Russians to control the airspace, specifically the water area of the Black Sea, and to launch air attacks on Ukrainian territory. Information on the consequences of the strike is currently being clarified.

The Ukrainian General Staff adds that the airbase was covered by "advanced" Russian air defence systems, which once again failed to protect an important Russian military facility.

Background: A threat of ballistic missile attack was announced in temporarily occupied Crimea on the night of 25-26 July. Explosions were heard in Novofedorivka, near Okunivka and Simferopol.

Support UP or become our patron!
CONWAY, Ark.  Ukrainian Kateryna Pitchford spoke at the Rotary Club of Conway on Thursday, discussing the clubs efforts to support Ukraine.

As the war between Ukraine and Russia has raged on for more than two years, Pitchford finds ways to help out in the war through the Rotary Club she first joined in 2007, three years after moving to the United States.

Ukraines Zelenskyy urges Britain to help it strike deeper inside Russia as he addresses UK Cabinet

Now, she helps raise money for supplies that Ukrainian shelters can offer to their refugees.

They would need flashlights, generators, more washing machines and dryers because they had up to 100 people coming every three days, Pitchford said.

Pitchford said that through the Rotary Club, she can serve her new home country while also connecting with the country she moved from 20 years ago.

She also said it breaks her heart to think about what her life would be like if she didnt make the decision to move.

Election outcomes wont change its Ukraine support, says the UN General Assemblys president

When it comes to the future plan of the Rotary Club, Pitchford said she looks forward to helping the youth in Ukraine as many have lost their parents or have been displaced.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
After spending nearly 40 years in prison for a crime he didnt commit, a Michigan man is finally free as new evidence prompted a judge to throw out his conviction on July 23.



Paul Clark was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in 1987 for the shooting death of Trifu Vasilije during an attempted robbery in Highland Park, Mich. His legal team worked on appealing his conviction for years as Clark maintained his innocence.

Finally, in 2020, there was an important break in the case, when the Wayne County prosecutors office found a mans mug shot who was arrested in Highland Park for a similar crime in 1987. According to the Associated Press, the man in the mug shot had a fresh wound on his face  an important detail to the case because the victim was discovered with a knife in his hand. Clarks legal team did not have access to the photo during his trial.

After years of appealing his wrongful conviction, Clarks legal team is relieved that their persistence and Clarks determination have finally paid off.

Paul is a walking reminder of what it means to be free. Throughout his wrongful incarceration, he was fighting for his innocence, and finally, he was heard, Clarks lawyer, Shereef Hadi Akeel, told PEOPLE. Pauls freedom is a testament to his innocence and a relief for his family.

I am so amazed right now. I just cant believe it. I have waited for this day my entire life, Clarks now 36-year-old daughter DeAngelic Clark told The Detroit Free Press. Born just after her father was sent to prison in 1987, shes lived most of her life without her dad.

For his part, Clark, who has been out on bond since May, is looking forward to life as a free man with his family and the opportunity to get back to doing something he loves  cutting hair.

I want to get my life started back up. I want to get back to work, Clark told the AP in an interview. Ive been cutting hair all my life. I want to get back in the barbershop.

For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Unbowed by Oct. 7 aftermath, Israeli, Palestinian teens come together for future of troubled region

From left, Ary Hammerman of White Plains, New York, Ali Salman from Ghajar, in the Golan Heights, and Tina Shammas of Nazareth in the West Bank, pose for a photo after an interview as part a Geneva junket for the Jerusalem Peacebuilders program in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, July 25, 2024. The program is pressing on despite troubles for the coexistence movement in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks in lsrael and the military campaign of Israeli forces in Gaza. (AP Photo/Jamey Keaten)

GENEVA (AP)  They are teens from the U.S. and a torn Middle East: mostly Christians, Jews and Muslims, who have been taking part in a years-long program to become leaders and peace-builders. While a lot changed on Oct. 7, they persist in working for a better future for Israelis and Palestinians.

Unbowed by the Hamas-led attacks and Israel's ongoing military response in Gaza, the Jerusalem Peacebuilders Program, a small nongovernmental organization, have escorted 16 teens to Geneva to explore the mechanics of global institutions and diplomacy. Organizers are hoping to shape open-minded leaders who could help lead the troubled region one day.

The group, created to help foster cross-cultural understanding after the Sept. 11 attacks by now-retired Episcopal priest Rev. Nicholas Porter and his wife Dorothy, has survived off donations and a persistence in keeping hope alive from both the teens and their parents.

It is incredibly important at this time of war and division in the Holy Land, that there are people who are willing to cross that line of difference, Porter said.

Anger and a state of emergency initially led some Israeli and Arabic-speaking schools to cancel participation with the program, but slowly they came back, he said.

Their continued efforts come at a time when coexistence initiatives in the Middle East, which support understanding and shared land among Palestinians and Israelis, have been devastated since the attacks.

Despite the deepened divisions, the youths are focusing on their personal relationships and their futures. The weeklong trip to Geneva is part of a Diplomacy Institute program by JPB for 16- and 17-year-olds.

We were so afraid for our families back in Oct. 7, but now were a bit calmer because we can talk with people who have been experiencing a lot of hard things  and we can, like, relate to each other, said Tina Shammas, a 17-year-old Christian from Nazareth in northern Israel.

Of those who made the trip, six are Muslim, five are Jews, and five are Christian. They live in Israel, the West Bank, the Golan Heights and the United States.

Some are hopeful, but fear about antisemitism or anti-Arab sentiment lingers in many minds. The group has built friendships despite discussions about tough and divisive issues.

Its always great to disagree. I think it makes the conversation between Israelis and Palestinians and Americans healthier, said Adileh, a 29-year-old Muslim from east Jerusalem. "If we cant sit and talk about our narratives and acknowledge them, we will never have a brighter future.

I will never accept war as a solution of this conflict, he said. "Peace is the answer.

The 8-day visit that began Tuesday included stops at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies headquarters and U.N. offices in Geneva as well as a meeting with a Swiss diplomat who focuses on the Middle East.

Some teens on the program stayed home because they feared discrimination and racism.

I have two friends that couldnt come this year," said Ali Salman, 17, a Muslim from Ghajar in the Golan Heights. "They were scared to come  because they might face discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism. Theyre both Jewish.

Ary Hammerman, a 16-year-old from White Plains, New York who attends a Jewish school and was born in Israel, said it's been hard for her to balance her secular identity with her religious one.

Some people in her community back home who might be unfamiliar with Muslim or Palestinians don't understand any perspective, besides what they believe the terrorist perspective is, she said. Meanwhile, some non-Jews consider Israel a colonial state and have no understanding of the Jewish connection to Israel.

"I think that for me, finding my place in the middle of that was hard prior to October 7th. And now its even harder," she said, alluding to tensions on college campuses in the United States over the Mideast conflict.

Other such groups have fallen on hard times, or even shut down.

A similar group with a young leaders program known as Hands of Peace -- which was also born out of a hopeful response to the Sept. 11 attacks -- closed in March.

One of its alumna was Naama Levy, a 20-year-old Israeli soldier who was taken hostage on Oct. 7.

Her brother, Amit Levy, said she believed deeply in the values of the Hands of Peace mission. She believed that through young people you could achieve things that older people hadnt been able to achieve," he said.

Levy said that in the long term, he still dreams of peace and a lasting solution with the Palestinians. But right now hes just focused on bringing his younger sister home.

Other groups that have similar young leaders programs with Israelis and Palestinians also remain unbowed by the aftermath of the attacks.

Since October 7, weve invested in the arduous work of rebuilding trust - and trauma healing, said Holly Morris, executive director of Tomorrows Women/

This year's cohort is particularly brave in that they are coming to stand in the fire - together - and that is not something embraced in their homeland right now, she wrote in an e-mail. Not everybody can move through the trauma and get back to a base of co-existence -- but most want to."

___

Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Underestimate us. That will be fun. Taylor Swift fans mobilize for Kamala Harris

Taylor Swift has not endorsed anyone in this years presidential race. But her army of fans isnt waiting for her. Swifties know which way she leans.

Swift, currently traveling in Europe with her mammoth Eras Tour, endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020.

Since Sunday, when Biden stepped down from his reelection campaign and Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee, Swifties have flooded social media supporting Harris, enchanted by the prospect of the first female president.

If the mammoth success of Swifts tour has demonstrated anything, its this: When millions of Swifties mobilize, get out of their way.

And by millions we mean her 283 million Instagram followers, 32.8 million TikTok followers and 95 million followers on X.

They spend money, lots of it; the international tour is projected to generate close to $5 billion in consumer spending in the United States alone.

They are TikTok savants. Memes, fan edits and AI-generated images of Harris are flooding the social media platform.

Swifties will stand in line for hours to buy Swift merchandise. (Stand in line at the polls? Piece of cake.)

They are fiercely loyal. Dare to say anything negative about Swift and be ready for payback, something Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is finding out.

Make fun of Harris laugh? Swifties like it.

They are very aware of their collective power and what it could mean if Swifties join forces with the just-as-passionate BeyHive, Beyonces fans, to campaign for Harris. Beyonces Freedom is the soundtrack for Harris first campaign ad that debuted earlier this week.

Swifties started organizing the minute Biden endorsed Harris. @Swifties4Kamala But they should continue to underestimate us, that will be fun, one fan warned on X this week.

The X account Swifties4Kamala sprang up within hours of Bidens announcement and had more than 45,000 followers as of Friday. It is not affiliated with Swift.

Kamala already has the Swifties vote, says the headline on a New York magazine story about Swift fan Emerald Medrano, a college student in Texas who started the account.

On Sunday he put out a tweet urging U.S. Swifties to mass organize for Harris. Since then, Swifties have started a group chat that has attracted hundreds of followers, formed committees  one specifically for beaded friendship bracelets, no surprise  and laid plans to educate voters and get them registered.

The first Swifties to reach out were in their 50s. Medrano has heard from fans around the world.

Were doing good, were on some new shit



Make sure youre following all our official accounts! We are @swifties4kamala on X(Twitter), Instagram, Threads (NEW!) & Tiktok!



You can also find links to all our accounts here  https://t.co/qPVbzIJMpA pic.twitter.com/imCpTYqSua  Swifties For Kamala (@Swifties4Kamala) July 23, 2024

Hey, hey, hey! Check out this thread of opportunities to connect with other supporters and learn about ways to do your part  https://t.co/PixrwgITiY  Swifties For Kamala (@Swifties4Kamala) July 25, 2024

Fans have turned three of Swifts songs into theme music.

Look What You Made Me Do.

The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.

Whos Afraid of Little Old Me?

On Thursday, an online Harris fundraising event called White Women: Answer the Call became the first Zoom in history with more than 100,000 participants. The livestream crashed at one point  yup, it broke Zoom  but raised more than $1 million.

It followed Zoom meetings this week of Black women, Black men, South Asian and LGBTQ supporters.

According to social media posts, Swifties are donating to the campaign $13 at a time.

Thirteen is Swifts favorite number.

Now theyre waiting for their Zoom call.

Childless cat ladies

If theres a mascot for these efforts, its feline.

Vances comments to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a 2021 interview have resurfaced, and Swifties have claimed them as a rallying cry.

We are effectively run in this country  by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that theyve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too, Vance told Carlson.

Its just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.

Harris has spoken of her close relationship with her two stepchildren through husband Douglas Emhoff, and stepparents around the country this week rose up in her defense.

Swift, who is dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, does not have children. She does, though, have three cats named after TV and movie characters  Benjamin Button, Meredith Grey and Olivia Benson.

Vance didnt name-check Swift, who wore one of her cats draped around her shoulder in a photo shoot last year when she was named Time magazines Person of the Year. But fans are insulted on her behalf.

He has secured his own demise, one wrote on Instagram.

"Shillbilly uber-misogynist JD Vance is about to learn

that working woman Taylor Swift is childless, has cats... along with a reported 283 million followers on Instagram, 32.8 million followers on TikTok, 95.2 million followers on X, & 105 million monthly listeners on Spotify. pic.twitter.com/MI7m5lGN2t  Geo Is Still Pissed (@Geo_Is_Pissed) July 26, 2024

We know the other camp has nothing nice to say about childless women with cats, so I think #Swifties should get behind @VP Harris. pic.twitter.com/p98JO4wWWx  Yolanda (@ScarlettYoli) July 24, 2024

Former Friends actress Jennifer Aniston didnt like the comment either. The Morning Show star normally shuns social media but reposted the Vance comment to her Instagram Stories with a rebuke.

I truly cant believe this is coming from a potential VP of the United States, Aniston wrote. All I can say is  Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day.

I hope she will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.

Look What You Made Me Do

Vance isnt the only one sideways with Swifties at the moment. Theyre angry with conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro for this hot take, which has been seen millions of times on X this week.

What exactly do her qualifications look like, other than, again, this sort of intersectional magic of Kamala Harris and the fact that Democrats have to manufacture enthusiasm for  Shapiro told Fox host Jesse Waters on Tuesday. Ive never seen this much manufactured enthusiasm for anyone outside of maybe Taylor Swifts last album. Its amazing.

Waters laughed. Me neither. Its so obvious. You cringe when you see it, he said.

Swifts The Tortured Poets Department album sat atop the Billboard 200 albums chart for 12 straight weeks, only recently dethroned by Eminems new album.

Shapiro: I've never seen so much manufactured enthusiasm for anyone outside of maybe Taylor Swift. pic.twitter.com/UhnLCyJPCS  Acyn (@Acyn) July 24, 2024

If you're going to denigrate the Swifties while putting down Kamala, that may not end the way you want it to. https://t.co/hvjmUix6QL  Radio Clash  (@fettwalp) July 24, 2024

Calling @taylorswift13 fan enthusiasm "manufactured" is so insane. Like, are you TRYING to piss off the #SwiftiesForHarris #Swifties to call your bluff? They REALLY don't understand the power to today's fandom and how movements work. Regardless of their age, this is ignorant. pic.twitter.com/aEZHBMRdqz  Minding My Melanin Business (@MindinMyMelanin) July 24, 2024

In the 48 hours after Biden stepped away from the campaign, nearly 40,000 people, mostly 34 and younger, registered to vote at the nonpartisan voter registration site Vote. org.

It matched the energy Swift created in September when she encouraged her Instagram followers to register to vote, leading to more than 35,000 new registrations.

In the 48 hours after President Bidens announcement on Sunday, we registered nearly 40,000 voters- an almost 700% daily increase in new registrations. Thats the largest number of new voters registered over a 48 hour period weve seen this entire cycle.  Andrea Hailey (@AndreaEHailey) July 24, 2024

Swifties are planning what to wear to the polls. Fashion is serious for fans, who wear elaborate outfits and armloads of friendship bracelets to Eras Tour shows. Theyre learning about what can and cant be worn to polling places on election days.

Its been a long time coming! Swifties are not only going to make a difference in this election, but were also gonna look damn cute while doing it. Portion of all shop sales go to @KamalaHQ via ActBlue. 123LGB!https://t.co/9kIppQXfFT#SwiftiesForHarris@Swifties4Kamala pic.twitter.com/s3vqDWXIHO  Briana Cap (@BrianaCap) July 23, 2024

Harris T-shirts with Swift themes are being cranked out; cats are a popular icon. Fans are buying Converse Chuck Taylors because Harris wears them.

After Swift began dating Kelce, Swifties spent hours online figuring out how her concert schedule and his game days would mesh.

Theyre using that same energy now to calculate when a Harris endorsement might happen or when Harris and Swift  Beyonce too?  might appear together on a stage.

Swift begins a two-month break on Aug. 21, coincidentally during the week of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

She has a concert in Indianapolis on Nov. 3.

Thats just two days before Election Day.
DES MOINES, Iowa  Embracing the farm life in Iowa is intentional.

You got to be connected to your food source, urban farmer Ed Fallon said.

Youd be hard-pressed to find a duo more connected than Fallon and Kathy Byrnes

This is part of sustainable, responsible living and were super proud to be even a part of that, Byrnes said.

From the food they grow to the livestock they raise, proof of their mission can be seen on the dinner table each night.

Everything they normally would buy from a store is raised in the backyard. From chickens, to rabbits, seed to corn all grown in the heart of Des Moines within the Sherman Hill neighborhood.

Its also a thing about freedom. You know we really value freedom in this country and people should be able to be free to live the life they live, providing theyre not messing up their neighbors or their community.

During Mondays special city council meeting, Ward II Council Member Linda Westergaard pointed to noise and odor complaints raised by residents living next to chicken flocks.

There are a lot of people with chickens. There are also a lot people who live next door to where chickens and roosters are and they are being disturbed of their peace and quiet, Westergaard said during the meeting.

During the meeting members voted on changing the existing city ordinance reducing backyard chicken flocks from 30 to 12 and restrict all roosters within city limits.

Ive never seen anything quite so sneaky. Not a single chicken person was alerted. It was a whistle blower who called me and said, hey you better know this is going on, Fallon said.

City manager Scott Saunders waived the required three readings on the change if the council voted unanimously to change the ordinance. Ward III Councilman Josh Mandelbaum chose to hit the brakes.

My hope is that we slow this down and have some conversations, so I intend to vote no as it is currently written, Mandelbaum said.

The council plans to have a second reading at the next meeting August 5.

Right now Im focused on educating seven people about this and thats the seven members of the Des Moines City Council and four of them have been out to our farm including Linda Westergaard. Theyve seen what we do here, they all seemed to be very approving of it and when we proposed back in 2020 that the city setup a food security task force to get more urban agriculture going, they passed it unanimously, Fallon 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 who13.com.
WINDHOEK, July 26 (Xinhua) -- China Railway Seventh Group will soon commence a major rehabilitation and widening project on two roads including Auas Road in Windhoek, Namibia's capital, a key initiative in the Namibian government's drive to boost road safety and enhance transportation infrastructure.

The announcement was made during a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday in Windhoek by Namibia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Works and Transport John Mutorwa, who said the Auas road had long been plagued by heavy traffic, congestion, and frequent accidents.

"Once this project is completed, road safety will undoubtedly be improved because of the dual carriageway and improved intersection layouts. Road users will also enjoy reduced congestion and a significant reduction in the likelihood of motor vehicle accidents," Mutorwa said. "The Dr. Hage Geingob stadium road will also be upgraded to bitumen standards."

Ma Linlin, general manager of China Railway Seventh Group Namibia Pty Ltd, told reporters that the total length of Auas Road is 5.6 km. The upgraded work is divided into two phases, with a planned construction period of 17 months.

Auas Road is one of the busiest main roads in Windhoek. Ma pledged that the company will work hard to overcome the impact on public transportation and environment during the construction, striving to complete the upgrade and reconstruction of the road with high quality and speed.

After the upgrade and renovation of Auas Road is completed, it will be a four-lane bidirectional road equipped with traffic lights and streetlights, as well as pedestrian-only sidewalks, which will greatly ease traffic pressure and improve road safety, she said, adding the construction activities will also create much-needed employment opportunities.

The project, which is entirely funded by the Namibian government through the Road Fund Administration, is estimated to cost around 138 million Namibian dollars (about 7.57 million U.S. dollars). 
Washington, D.C.  The U.S. Defense Department admitted it spread propaganda in the Philippines aimed at disparaging Chinas Sinovac vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a June 25 document cited by a former top government official earlier this month.

The U.S. response to the Philippines was recounted in a podcast by Harry Roque, who served as spokesman for former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Reuters subsequently reviewed the document, which hasnt been publicly released by either government. The news agency was able to verify its contents with a source familiar with the U.S. response.

It is true that the (Department of Defense) did message Philippines audiences questioning the safety and efficacy of Sinovac, according to the document, which references information sent from the U.S. Defense Department to the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of National Defense. According to the document, the Pentagon also conceded it had made some missteps in our COVID-related messaging but assured the Philippines that the military has vastly improved oversight and accountability of information operations since 2022.

The U.S. admission followed a June 14 Reuters investigation that revealed how the Pentagon launched a secret psychological operation to discredit Chinese vaccines and other COVID-19 aid in 2020 and 2021, at the height of the pandemic.

Through phony internet accounts with tens of thousands of followers meant to impersonate Filipinos, social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and China's Sinovac shot. As a result of the Reuters investigation, the Philippine Senate Foreign Relations Committee launched a hearing into the matter and sought a response from the U.S.

COVID in Paris Olympics: What happens if an athlete tests positive?

According to the June 25 document, Pentagon officials concluded its anti-vax campaign was misaligned with our priorities. It says the U.S. military told Filipino officials that operatives ceased COVID-related messaging related to COVID-19 origins and COVID-19 vaccines in August 2021.

The Philippines defense and foreign affairs departments did not respond to requests for comment about the U.S. militarys admission that it ran the propaganda program. Department of Defense spokesperson Pete Nguyen declined to confirm the U.S. response cited in the document. But he acknowledged the Pentagon did distribute social media content about the safety and efficacy of Sinovac.

At the time the Pentagon launched its campaign, national security officials in Washington worried that China was exploiting the pandemic to negotiate important geopolitical deals and undermine U.S. alliances internationally by sending aid to the Philippines and other nations.

The clandestine psychological operation uncovered by Reuters wasnt limited to the Philippines. It also targeted developing countries across Central Asia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia in 2020 and 2021. The Philippines and those other nations were, at the time, heavily reliant on Chinas Sinvoac to inoculate their populations against the deadly virus.

In Southeast Asia, the Philippines was among the countries hit hardest by the coronavirus. By 2024, COVID-19 had killed almost 67,000 Filipinos, and the number of infections there had reached more than 4 million, according to World Health Organization data.

In the wake of the U.S. propaganda efforts, however, then-Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte had grown so dismayed by how few Filipinos were willing to be inoculated that he threatened to arrest people who refused vaccinations.

You choose, vaccine or I will have you jailed, a masked Duterte said in a televised address in June 2021. There is a crisis in this country  Im just exasperated by Filipinos not heeding the government.

Reuters identified a network of hundreds of fake accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that closely matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. When Reuters asked X about the accounts, the social media company removed the profiles after independently determining they were part of a coordinated bot campaign.

The military program started under former President Donald Trump in the spring of 2020 and continued for months into Joe Bidens presidency, Reuters found  even after alarmed social media executives warned the new administration that the Pentagon had been trafficking in COVID-19 misinformation. The Biden White House issued an edict in the spring of 2021 banning the anti-vax effort, which also disparaged vaccines produced by other rivals, and the Pentagon initiated an internal review, Reuters found.

Nguyen, the Pentagon spokesperson, had said the review "found that the U.S. military was not responsible for the troubling social media content related to the Philippines."

Asked whether the social media accounts with those particular posts were handled by contractors or other non-military partners working on behalf of the U.S. government, Nguyen declined to say. He also declined to answer questions about U.S. military anti-vax propaganda efforts across Central Asia and the Middle East.

Briefed on the Pentagons secret anti-vax campaign by Reuters, some American public health experts also condemned the program, saying it put civilians in jeopardy for potential geopolitical gain. An operation meant to win hearts and minds endangered lives, they said.

I dont think its defensible, Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Dartmouths Geisel School of Medicine, told Reuters. Im extremely dismayed, disappointed and disillusioned to hear that the U.S. government would do that, said Lucey, a former military physician who assisted in the response to the 2001 anthrax attacks.

The effort to stoke fear about Chinese inoculations risked undermining overall public trust in government health initiatives, including U.S.-made vaccines that became available later, Lucey and others said. Although the Chinese vaccines were found to be less effective than the American-led shots by Pfizer and Moderna, all were approved by the World Health Organization.

It should have been in our interest to get as much vaccine in peoples arms as possible, said Greg Treverton, former chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, which coordinates the analysis and strategy of Washingtons many spy agencies. What the Pentagon did, Treverton said, crosses a line.

In a statement to Chinese media after the Reuters investigation in June, a Sinovac spokeswoman blasted the U.S. military. Stigmatizing vaccination will lead to a series of consequences, such as a lower inoculation rate, the outbreak and spread of disease, social panic and insecurity, as well as crises of confidence in science and public health, said Sinovac spokeswoman Yuan Youwei.

The Reuters investigation has spurred a Senate probe in the Philippines led by Senator Imee Marcos, head of the Foreign Relations committee. At a hearing on June 25, Marcos described the U.S. military campaign as evil, wicked, dangerous, unethical. She questioned whether it violated international law and wondered whether the Philippines had any legal recourse.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: US admitted it spread anti-vax COVID propaganda about China
Editor's note: This story contains major updates throughout.

MEXICO CITY  Mexican drug kingpin Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, the co-founder of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel, is in U.S. custody. He briefly appeared in federal court in Downtown El Paso

Zambada founded the Sinaloa Cartel along with now-jailed drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, and he faces a litany of indictments for crimes relating to drug trafficking and organized crime in the United States.

A plane believed to have carried Mexican drug lord Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of "El Chapo" Guzman, remained on the tarmac of the Dona Ana County private airport Friday morning, July 26, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico.

A plane believed to have carried Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of Zambada's former partner, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who were arrested in El Paso, Texas, is seen on the tarmac at the Dona Ana County International Jetport on Friday, July 26, 2024.

'El Mayo' Zambada pleads not guilty to 7 charges in El Paso

Zambada made an initial appearance Friday, July 26, in the Western District of Texas at the Albert Armendariz Sr. Federal Courthouse in Downtown El Paso, federal court records show.

He pleaded not guilty to the seven charges filed against him, records show. The charges are:

Continuing criminal enterprise - murder

Two counts of continuing criminal enterprise

Conspiracy to possess narcotics

Attempt/conspiracy - narcotics - importation/exportation

Laundering of monetary instruments

Conspiracy to possess firearm/drug traffickers and aid and abet

U.S. Magistrate Judge Anne T. Berton ordered Zambada to be held without bond at Fridays hearing, court records show.

Federal court records nor El Paso jail logs show where Zambada is being held. Officials from the El Paso County Sheriff's Office, who oversee the El Paso County Jail and jail annex, declined to comment on where Zambada is being held.

"As a professional protocol, we refrain from providing information regarding other agency arrests/inmates," sheriff's office officials said in an email.

Federal officials have not released any information on where Zambada is being jailed. Zambada was taken into custody by U.S. Marshals, an arrest warrant filed in federal court states.

Zambada's attorney, Frank A. Perez of Dallas, could not immediately be reached for comment. Perez told the Los Angeles Times, I have no comment except to state that he did not surrender voluntarily  He was brought against his will.

An arraignment and detention hearing was scheduled for 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 31, in El Paso with Berton scheduled to preside over the hearing, court records showed. However, Zambada waived his rights to the July 31 hearing, federal filings submitted Friday afternoon state.

A status conference is now set for 1 p.m. Aug. 1 before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone. A plea deadline was set for Sept. 11, records show.

Court records show Zambadas case was transferred to Cardone from Senior U.S. District Judge Frank Montalvo.

A newspaper vendor walks through traffic selling newspapers reporting the El Paso, Texas, U.S., arrest of Mexican drug lord Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, "El Chapo" Guzmans son, in Mexico City, Mexico July 26, 2024.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland addressed the arrests in a video statement released Friday, July 26, by the U.S. Department of Justice.

"I said that the Justice Department would never stop working to hold accountable, those who are responsible for the fentanyl epidemic," Garland said in the video statement. "On Thursday, the Justice Department took into custody in El Paso two more alleged leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

"El Mayo and Guzman Lopez join a growing list of Sinaloa cartel leaders and associates who the Justice Department is holding accountable in the United States ... Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced. The Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable."

President Biden praises law enforcement for arrests of 'El Mayo' and son of 'El Chapo'

President Joe Biden on Friday praised the work of law enforcement to arrest the two well-known drug traffickers.

"I commend the work of our law enforcement officials who made this arrest for their ongoing work to bring Sinaloa Cartel leaders to justice," Biden said in a statement. "Too many of our citizens have lost their lives to the scourge of fentanyl. Too many families have been broken and are suffering because of this destructive drug. My administration will continue doing everything we can to hold deadly drug traffickers to account and to save American lives."

Son of 'El Chapo' Guzman faces federal charges in Illinois

Federal court records show no cases filed against Guzman Lopez in the Western District of Texas. Guzman Lopez is named as a defendant in a case filed in the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.

Northern District of Illinois federal court records show Guzman Lopez is charged with:

Conspiracy to distribute controlled substance

Continuing criminal enterprise

Attempt/conspiracy - controlled substance  distribute

Money laundering - transportation of stolen property

Penalties for firearms

No other information on Guzman Lopezs arrest or upcoming hearings is listed in Northern District of Illinois federal court records.

DEA offered up to $15M for 'El Mayo' capture

Before Zambada's arrest on Thursday, the Drug Enforcement Administration had been offering a reward of up to $15 million for his capture.

U.S. federal prosecutors in February charged Zambada with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, which U.S. officials say is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45.

The Justice Department said the two are facing charges in the U.S. for their roles in running the cartels criminal operations, including complex fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks.

The two are latest to be targeted by U.S. authorities. Other cartel figures already in custody include: Cartel cofounder, "Joaquin Guzman Loera, or El Chapo; another of El Chapos sons and an alleged Cartel leader, Ovidio Guzman Lopez; and the Cartels alleged lead sicario, Nestor Isidro Perez Salas, or El Nini," Garland said.

Mexico's Security Minister Rosa Icela Rodriguez informs of the detention of drug traffickers Joaquin Guzman Lopez, El Chapo Guzman's son, and Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, as she stands near next to Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, during a press conference at the National Palace, in Mexico City, Mexico July 26, 2024.

Fentanyl is a deadly drug that has led to a spike in drug-laced overdoses in the U.S. El Paso and the other part of the country continue to a see a rise in Fentanyl-related overdose deaths. The chemical used to make the deadly drugs are imported from other countries, including China, manufactured in Mexico by the drug cartels and smuggled into the U.S., Drug Enforcement Administration officials said.

'El Mayo' charged with conspiracy to manufacture, distribute fentanyl

In the latest indictment in February, federal prosecutors charged Zambada with conspiracy to manufacture and distribute fentanyl. Zambada was previously charged in four other superseding indictments with running a continuing criminal enterprise, in addition to murder conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and other drug-related crimes.

The fifth superseding indictment extended the end-dates of the criminal enterprise and several conspiracies from May 2014 to January 2024, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

"As alleged, Zambada Garcia is charged with numerous drug offenses, now including the manufacture and distribution of fentanyl, a deadly drug that was largely unheard of when he founded the Sinaloa Cartel more than three decades ago and today is responsible for immeasurable harm," said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace in a statement in February.

As the alleged leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Zambada employed individuals and "sicarios," or hit men, to carry out the organization's criminal operations, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. These individuals would secure transportation routes and warehouses to import and store narcotics, as well as commit murders and kidnappings in Mexico to retaliate against those who threatened the cartel.

Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada

The cartel's operations generated millions of dollars from drug sales, which were then transported back to Mexico, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Why is the cartel co-founder known as 'El Mayo'?

Mexican drug kingpin Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada is known as "El Mayo." No one really knows for sure why. But some observers say the nickname may be linked to his first name, Ismael. "El Mayo" is said to be short-hand for Ismael.

Where is El Chapo?

Guzman is serving a life sentence in a Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

El Chapo wife

Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of "El Chapo" Guzman, was released from a halfway house last year, almost two years after she was sentenced to prison for her role in her husbands criminal empire and participating in his escape from custody in 2015.

Reuters and USA TODAY reporter Thao Nguyen contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: US arrests Mexican drug lord 'El Mayo' Zambada, 'Chapo' Guzman's son
WASHINGTON (AP)  Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a longtime leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, were arrested by U.S. authorities in Texas on Thursday, the U.S. Justice Department said.

A leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel for decades alongside Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, Zambada is one of the most notorious drug traffickers in the world and known for running the cartels smuggling operations while keeping a lower profile.

A Mexican federal official told The Associated Press that Zambada and Guzman Lopez arrived in the United States on a private plane and turned themselves in to authorities. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized discuss the matter.

The U.S. government had offered a reward of up to $15 million for information leading to the capture of Zambada, who eluded authorities for decades.

Zambada and Guzman Lopez oversaw the trafficking of tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the United States, along with related violence, FBI Director Christopher Wray said, adding that now they will "face justice in the United States.

Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

Mexican authorities didn't immediately comment on the arrests.

U.S. officials have been seeking Zambada's capture for years, and he has been charged in a number of U.S. cases. He was charged in February in the Eastern District of New York with conspiring to manufacture and distribute the synthetic opioid. Prosecutors said he was continuing to lead the Sinaloa cartel, one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world.

Zambada, one of the longest-surviving capos in Mexico, was considered the cartel's strategist, more involved in day-to-day operations than his flashier and better-known boss, El Chapo Guzman, who was sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. in 2019 and is the father of Guzman Lopez.

Zambada is an old-fashioned capo in an era of younger kingpins known for their flamboyant lifestyles of club-hopping and brutal tactics of beheading, dismembering and even skinning their rivals. While Zambada has fought those who challenged him, he is known for concentrating on the business side of trafficking and avoiding gruesome cartel violence that would draw attention.

In an April 2010 interview with the Mexican magazine Proceso, he acknowledged that he lived in constant fear of going to prison and would contemplate suicide rather than be captured.

Im terrified of being incarcerated, Zambada said. Id like to think that, yes, I would kill myself.

The interview was surprising for a kingpin known for keeping his head down, but he gave strict instructions on where and when the encounter would take place, and the article gave no hint of his whereabouts.

Zambada reputedly won the loyalty of locals in his home state of Sinaloa and neighboring Durango through his largess, sponsoring local farmers and distributing money and beer in his birthplace of El Alamo.

Although little is known about Zambadas early life, he is believed to have gotten his start as an enforcer in the 1970s.

By the early 1990s, he was a major player in the Juarez cartel, transporting tons of cocaine and marijuana.

Zambada started gaining the trust of Colombian traffickers, allegiances that helped him come out on top in the cartel world of ever-shifting alliances. Eventually he became so powerful that he broke off from the Juarez cartel, but still managed to keep strong ties with the gang and avoided a turf war. He also developed a partnership with El Chapo Guzman that would take him to the top of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Zambadas detention follows some important arrests of other Sinaloa cartel figures, including one of his sons and another son of El Chapo Guzman, Ovidio Guzman Lopez. Zambada's son pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court in San Diego in 2021 to being a leader in the Sinaloa cartel.

In recent years, Guzmans sons have led a faction of the cartel known as the little Chapos, or Chapitos that has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the U.S. market.

They were seen as more violent and flamboyant than Zambada. Their security chief was arrested by Mexican authorities in November.

Ovidio Guzman Lopez was arrested and extradited to the U.S. last year. He pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges in Chicago in September.

Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the DEA, said Zambadas arrest is important but unlikely to have much impact on the flow of drugs to the U.S. Joaquin Guzman Lopez was the least influential of the four sons who made up the Chapitos, Vigil said.

This is a great blow for the rule of law, but is it going to have an impact on the cartel? I dont think so, Vigil said.

Its not going to have a dent on the drug trade because somebody from within the cartel is going to replace him, Vigil said.

___

Verza and Sherman reported from Mexico City.
US nabs a cartel leader after El Chapo's son tricks him onto a flight across the border: report

The Justice Department arrested two cartel leaders Thursday.

One, El Chapo's son, worked with authorities to trick the second, leader "El Mayo," onto a plane, according to CNN.

At his trial, El Chapo argued El Mayo was the real boss behind the cartel.

The Justice Department on Thursday arrested two alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel  which Attorney General Merrick Garland called "one of the most violent and powerful drug trafficking organizations in the world."

Ismael Zambada Garcia, also known as "El Mayo," and Joaquin Guzman Lopez  the son of the cartel's other jailed cofounder, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman  were arrested in Texas and are facing multiple charges related to manufacturing and trafficking fentanyl, Garland said.

FBI director Christopher Wray noted both men had "eluded law enforcement for decades."

According to CNN, Guzman Lopez worked with authorities to capture the 76-year-old Zambada by tricking him onto an airplane under the guise of looking at properties in Mexico. But once the plane landed across the border, both men were arrested.

Zambada pleaded not guilty to all seven federal criminal counts he was charged with, according to CNN.

The Mexican government did not participate in the operation, CNN reports, and Mexico's president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, requested a full report from the US government.

The Washington Post reported that Mexico's top security minister said US authorities didn't tell her about the plan until hours after the drug kingpins had already been arrested.

"El Chapo" Guzman, Guzman Lopez's father, was the cofounder of the Sinaloa Cartel. He escaped from Mexican prison twice. He was extradited to the US in 2017, where he is now serving a life sentence.

During his trial, Guzman argued Zambada was the real boss behind the cartel.

Frank Perez, a lawyer for Zambada, told The Los Angeles Times that he did not surrender voluntarily and was brought to the US against his will.

Perez did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider
A US Navy fighter squadron scored a series of firsts fighting the Houthis from an aircraft carrier in the Red Sea

A US Navy fighter squadron that battled the Houthis scored a number of historic firsts during the fight.

The squadron flew combat missions from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Its pilots intercepted Houthi drones and also conducted strikes into Yemen.

A US Navy fighter squadron that was recently attached to the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower scored several historic firsts while flying combat missions against the Houthis.

Strike Fighter Squadron 105, also known as VFA-105, was stationed aboard the Eisenhower during a restless, nine-month-long deployment that saw the Navy defend merchant shipping lanes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden from relentless Houthi missile and drone attacks.

The squadron, which flies the F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet, flew various missions between December and June, during which pilots intercepted dozens of Houthi one-way attack drones and carried out strikes against the Iran-backed rebels in Yemen.

During its deployment, the fighter squadron  nicknamed the "Gunslingers"  racked up a number of firsts, the Navy revealed this month.

Sailors observe as an F/A-18E Super Hornet lands on the flight deck of the Eisenhower in the Red Sea on March 12. US Navy photo

For instance, VFA-105 became the first naval squadron to use the AIM-9X missile in combat, scoring a direct hit on a Houthi drone that was targeting merchant vessels. The infrared-seeking AIM-9X is the newest variant in the Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missiles.

This fighter squadron was also the first to fire AGM-88 HARM missiles from an F/A-18E in combat. These air-to-surface missiles are made to take out hostile air defenses by targeting their radar systems. Additionally, VFA-105 used the Joint Standoff Weapon-C Variant, a precision-guided munition that can strike surface targets, for the first time in combat during this deployment.

Eisenhower's carrier air wing, which includes VFA-105, released 420 air-to-surface weapons and nearly 60 air-to-air missiles during the monthslong Middle East deployment, and it logged more than 31,400 hours of flight time across almost 14,000 sorties.

Other squadrons in the carrier air wing also made history during this combat deployment. For example, a naval aviator flying a F/A-18F Super Hornet became the first American female to score an air-to-air kill, and an EA-18G Growler electronic-warfare aircraft, as a platform, received its first ever air-to-air kill.

An F/A-18E Super Hornet launches from the flight deck of the Eisenhower in the Red Sea on April 9. US Navy photo

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group  which consisted of the carrier Ike, several destroyers, and a cruiser  left the Middle East in June, and VFA-105 returned to its homeport in Virginia earlier this month. The Navy is replacing these assets with another carrier , the Truman, and additional warships.

"After an unprecedented deployment, the Sailors of VFA-105 look forward to returning to their loved ones, reconnecting, and enjoying some much deserved rest," the strike group said in a July 14 statement.

"For nine months straight, the entire Gunslinger family, those deployed and those back home, banded together to fight evil and save innocent lives," said Cmdr. Travis Amerine, the squadron's commanding officer.

"I could not be more proud nor more humbled to have been a witness to them all," he added.

Read the original article on Business Insider
US operation to capture Sinaloa cartel leaders had the help of one of the captured men: a son of El Chapo, official says

The arrest of two leaders of the Sinaloa cartel in the United States on Thursday was organized by one of the two men arrested, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, the son of infamous cartel boss Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

Guzman Lopez organized his arrest along with that of Ismael El Mayo Zambada, 76, who co-founded the cartel with El Chapo, by luring Zambada on a flight to examine a piece of land he thought was in Mexico, an official familiar with the operation told CNN.

Instead, the plane landed in El Paso, Texas, where federal agents, including from Homeland Security Investigations, arrested the two cartel bosses.

Zambada didnt know US investigators had exploited a rift in the cartel and Guzman Lopez was helping with Zambadas capture, the official said. FBI agents arrested both men, in one of the biggest victories for US law enforcement against the cartels.

The cartel, one of the worlds most powerful narcotics trafficking organizations, is thought to be responsible for the trafficking of vast amounts of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl into the US. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said the arrests strike at the heart of the cartel that is responsible for the majority of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine, killing Americans from coast to coast.

Experts have told CNN a power struggle between Zambada and El Chapos sons, also known as the Chapitos, has existed for some time in the cartel. With Zambada gone, violence inside the cartel and other criminal organizations in Mexico, is set to ramp up.

The agents from HSI, who have been working the case since earlier this year when Attorney General Merrick Garland announced charges against El Chapos three sons, were skeptical when Guzman Lopez first made the offer.

The entire operation, a source told CNN, went off surprisingly smoothly given the gravity of the arrests and the disruption it could cause to Mexican drug trafficking.

Zambada entered a not-guilty plea to all charges at his first federal court appearance Friday morning in El Paso and is being held without bond on seven federal criminal counts, including continuing criminal enterprise and money laundering.

He also agreed to waive his right to personally appear and to ask for bond at a hearing set for July 31.

Guzman Lopez, 38, was flown from El Paso via an FBI jet used for extradition operations and arrived near Chicago early Friday, a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said. He is currently being held in a Chicago federal prison, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, and hes scheduled to make his first court appearance Tuesday morning, his attorney Jeffrey Lichtman told CNN in an email Saturday. His father is serving a life sentence in a US prison after he was convicted five years ago on multiple charges.

Both Zambada and Guzman Lopez face several charges in the US for allegedly leading the cartels criminal operations, including its deadly fentanyl manufacturing and trafficking networks, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement after the arrests.

Zambadas attorney told the Los Angeles Times his client did not voluntarily surrender to law enforcement. He told the paper Zambada was brought against his will.

Ismael El Mayo Zambada, a historic leader of Mexicos Sinaloa cartel, left, and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of another infamous cartel leader, after they were arrested by US authorities in Texas, the US Justice Department said Thursday. - US Department of State/AP

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Friday said the US government must give a full report on the operation that led to the arrests.

There has to be transparency, he said during his daily news conference.

AMLO, as the president is known, said the arrests show important progress in the battle against drug trafficking. He added, however, the arrests are not everything, adding the US must do more in solving the drug consumption problem by addressing the causes.

Mexican officials were informed of the arrests during a phone call from the US Embassy in Mexico Thursday afternoon, Mexicos secretary of security, Rosa Icela Rodriguez, said Friday.

The Mexican government did not participate in this detention or surrender, Rodriguez said during AMLOs daily news conference, adding Mexico is waiting for more information from the US government.

FBI Director Christopher Wray said Zambada and Guzman Lopez had eluded law enforcement for decades and will now face justice in the United States.

US authorities had sought Zambadas capture for years and in 2021 raised the reward for information leading to his arrest to $15 million. He was indicted by a northern Illinois grand jury in 2009, according to the US State Department, and faces various criminal charges.

Ismael Mario Zambada Garcia is the long-time leader of the Zambada Garcia faction of the Sinaloa Cartel. Zambada Garcia is unique in that he has spent his entire adult life as a major international drug trafficker, yet he has never spent a day in jail, according to the US State Department.

Similarly, Guzman Lopez was previously indicted by a federal grand jury in Illinois on narcotics, money laundering and firearms charges, according to a statement last year from prosecutors.

Powerful cartel

The Sinaloa Cartel, named after the Mexican state where the gang was formed in the late 1980s, is one of the most powerful criminal groups in the world, raking in billions of dollars annually by trafficking drugs into the US and around the globe.

Notorious cartel boss Guzman, better known as El Chapo, was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 on homicide and drug charges and extradited to Mexico. But he escaped Mexican prison in 2001, reportedly by bribing prison guards to smuggle him out in a laundry truck. He was arrested again in 2014, but escaped again, this time through a tunnel.

Guzman was arrested for a third time in 2016 and then extradited to the United States.

In a major trial, he was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn in 2018 and sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years, according to the Justice Department.

Guzman was found guilty on 10 federal criminal counts, which included engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana, and use of firearms.

During the trial, Guzmans lawyers argued Zambada was the real kingpin of the cartel who bribed the Mexican government to frame Guzman and remain free to run the criminal organization.

In the latest in a string of US indictments against him, Zambada was charged in February with conspiring to manufacture and distribute fentanyl, an extremely potent synthetic opioid that has killed tens of thousands of Americans in an epidemic of overdoses.

Fentanyl was largely unheard of when [Zambada] founded the Sinaloa Cartel more than three decades ago and today is responsible for immeasurable harm, said Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, in the indictment.

Since 1989, Zambada has imported and distributed massive amounts of narcotics, generating billions of dollars in profits, according to the indictment.

Federal prosecutors said he employed people to obtain transportation routes and warehouses to import and store narcotics, along with hit men, or sicarios, to carry out kidnappings and murders in Mexico to retaliate against rivals who threatened the cartel.

Zambadas son, Vicente Zambada Niebla, admitted during testimony at Guzmans 2018 trial to passing along orders for murders and kidnappings and was sentenced to 15 years in 2019 by a federal judge in Chicago.

He began cooperating with the US government in 2011, prosecutors said in a May 2019 filing. They said he aided authorities in helping target members of the Sinaloa Cartel and a rival gang, which lead to the charging of dozens of high-level targets and hundreds of their associates in indictments throughout the country, CNN previously reported.

The younger Zambada had known El Chapo since he was 15 years old, he testified at the kingpins trial in 2018. The younger Zambada frequently referred to El Chapo as mi compadre, or my buddy, during his testimony and said the drug lord was godfather to his youngest son.

A history of violence

El Mayo Zambada was also indicted by a US federal grand jury in April 2012, in Texas, along with other suspected top Sinaloa leaders and 22 people allegedly connected with the cartel, including Guzman. They were charged with murder and conspiracy connected with drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime.

At that point, Guzman and Zambada had already been indicted on drug trafficking and organized crime charges in several US federal courts.

The 2012 indictment in western Texas detailed two acts of violence federal prosecutors said were committed by members of the cartel; one took place during a 2010 wedding ceremony in Ciudad Juarez, when an American citizen and two members of his family were kidnapped because of their ties with the rival Juarez cartel.

The target was the groom and a resident of Columbus, New Mexico, whose body was found to be beaten, strangled and whose hands had been severed above the wrists and placed on his chest, according to the indictment.

Police found the bodies of the groom, his brother and his uncle three days after the wedding in the bed of a pickup truck, the indictment stated.

Another incident detailed in the indictment related to the kidnapping, killing and mutilation of a Texas resident in 2009 to answer for the loss of a 670-pound load of marijuana seized by the Border Patrol, prosecutors said.

CNNs requests for comment were not immediately returned Friday by Zambadas attorney, Frank Perez. CNN has reached out to law enforcement for comment.

This story has been updated with additional developments. CNNs Abel Alvarado, Kathleen Magramo, Fidel Gutierrez, Sahar Akbarzai, Evan Perez, Josh Campbell, Mark Morales, Hannah Rabinowitz, Andy Rose and Zoe Sottile contributed to this report.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
Insights from Nikkei Asia, The Diplomat, and The New York Times

The News

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began a 10-day Asia tour on Thursday. His longest trip in the region so far, including visits to Vietnam, Laos, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, and Mongolia, was aimed at reassuring US allies about Washingtons commitment to the Indo-Pacifics security concerns, analysts said.

Blinken is set to meet Chinas foreign minister at an ASEAN security conference in Laos on Saturday, which Russia is also attending. In Vietnam, Blinken is expected to offer condolences to the family of late General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.

SIGNALS

Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories.

The trip aims to signal to allies that Biden is all in on Asia

Sources: Nikkei Asia, The Diplomat, The New York Times

Blinkens trip is meant to signal to US allies that President Joe Biden is all in on Indo-Pacific security concerns, a US State Department official said, especially after political uncertainty over Biden ending his reelection campaign. Washington has been criticized for not keeping up with its avowed commitment to Southeast Asia, and letting it play second fiddle to its China policy, The Diplomat noted. Bidens administration has notably been striking military alliances in Asia to counter Beijing, The New York Times wrote. On trade, however, the US still prioritizes China, leaving Asian allies to wonder: How can the United States hope to compete with China when its economic commitment is so lackluster?

Blinken hopes to court swing state of Vietnam

Sources: Nikkei Asia, The Diplomat

Observers are closely watching Blinkens visit to Vietnam, which has been described by some as a swing state in the US-China bid for influence in the region, Nikkei wrote. His presence there underscores the improvement in relations between the two former foes over the past year, The Diplomat wrote; Hanoi and Washington announced a new partnership last September to strengthen cooperation across trade, politics, and diplomacy.

Southeast Asian countries worry about US political uncertainty

Sources: The New York Times, The Japan Times

Blinkens trip comes at a turbulent time in US politics; he has already had to delay his schedule twice. US allies in Asia and elsewhere are worried about a second Donald Trump presidency, The New York Times reported, given his complaints that the US spends too much money to defend them, and some allies believe the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, is unlikely to defeat him. Southeast Asian countries have long tried not to side too openly with either the US or China, the Japan Times wrote. That could continue under Harris, who is largely expected to follow in Bidens foreign policy footsteps, but under Trump, escalating tensions means those countries may have to take sides.
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 Court overturned the death sentence of Douglas Lovell this week, ruling that attorneys for the convicted murderer were ineffective during testimony about his excommunication from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The opinion, issued on Thursday, reaffirms Lovells murder conviction. But instead of facing the death penalty, he will be resentenced by a lower court. A spokesperson for the Utah Attorney Generals office didnt say whether Lovell could again be sentenced to death.

In 1985, Lovell kidnapped and raped Joyce Yost, who then filed a police report and had planned to testify against him. In an attempt to stop her testimony, Lovell tried to hire two people to kill Yost  when that failed, Lovell kidnapped Yost and killed her in a canyon near Ogden. Her body has never been found.

The most recent mug shot of Douglas Lovell.

Lovell was initially sentenced to death in 1993. But after years of appeals, the Utah Supreme Court withdrew his guilty plea, writing that Lovell was not properly informed on his trial rights when he pleaded guilty, and ordered a new trial in 2010. Five years later, a jury again found him guilty and he was sentenced to die by lethal injection.

The most recent trial included testimony from bishops with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who volunteered at the prison and told the court Lovell was consistent in expressing remorse. Prosecutors for the state then questioned the bishops if Lovell had been excommunicated from the church.

Lovell had been excommunicated and was not readmitted. According to the Supreme Court, the state suggested in their questioning that Lovells failure to be readmitted was evidence that he lacked genuine remorse.

That line of questioning is central to Lovells case. In his argument Lovell said his attorneys rendered ineffective assistance when they failed to object or respond to this testimony.

This testimony encouraged the jury to not thoroughly consider Lovells evidence of his remorse, the courts Thursday opinion reads. By inserting a religious test for remorse into the proceedings, the State gave the jury a way out of making a decision that is difficult for any person to make about another: whether a defendant has truly changed.

In a statement on Friday, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said he agreed with the courts decision to affirm Lovells conviction.

But the State respectfully disagrees with the Courts conclusion that Lovell should be resentenced because of ineffective assistance of counsel during the sentencing stage, Reyes said.

lovell

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Lovell was one of seven Utah inmates currently on death row. They include:

Ralph Menzies , convicted of the 1986 kidnap and murder of Maurine Hunsaker, who was working at a gas station at the time. He is expected to be executed by firing squad.

Troy Michael Kell , who was already serving a sentence for murder and robbery in Nevada. In 1994, after being sent to Utah through an interstate trade, Kell stabbed fellow inmate Lonnie Blackmon to death. He is expected to be executed by firing squad.

Douglas Stewart Carter , convicted of stabbing and shooting an elderly Provo woman during a burglary in 1985. Carters case is also currently being appealed to the Utah Supreme Court. He is expected to be executed by lethal injection.

Michael Anthony Archuleta , convicted of torturing, raping, and murdering a Southern Utah University student in 1988. He is expected to be executed by lethal injection.

Von Lester Taylor, convicted of killing two women, kidnapping two others and attempting to kill a man in 1990 in a cabin in Weber Canyon. He is expected to be executed by lethal injection.

Taberon Honie, Utahs sixth death row inmate, is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 8 by lethal injection for sexually assaulting and murdering Claudia Benn in 1998 while her three grandchildren were inside the home.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR)  OG&E wants Oklahomans to know about different resources available for those who need assistance paying utilities.

From seniors to those experiencing temporary hardships or families with low income, during Home Energy Aid Month in July, OG&E encourages customers who may have a difficult time paying their energy bill to learn about the companys assistance programs to see if they qualify.

Paris Olympics begins with ambitious, sprawling opening ceremony on the River Seine

We know the summer months can be difficult for some of our customers to pay their electric bill, said Kelli Hayward Walsh, OG&E Community Outreach & Engagement Manager. Our customers have a long history of joining with OG&E to help one another out through Lend-A-Hand, and we are grateful for the opportunity to partner with other organizations in the community to meet our customers needs.

OG&Es financial aid, energy saving programs and payment options include:

Silver Energy Discount gives qualified Oklahoma seniors age 65+ who enroll in any SmartHours plan a $10 monthly credit in June through October and a $5 monthly credit for all other months of the year. Thats $85 in savings each year.

Weatherization and home energy efficiency programs provide customers with upgrades to their homes that reduce energy usage and lower bills at no out-of-pocket cost. Homeowners and renters alike may be eligible for these programs.

Low-Income Assistance Program (LIAP) gives qualified OG&E customers a $13 per month credit on their bill.

Direct financial assistance from OG&E to nonprofit organizations for qualifying customers in our service area who need help paying their energy bills.

Theres been times that its been really rough, commented one OG&E customer in a recent survey. [OG&E] has been able to work with me and help me out. They have good programs where I can be able to pay my bill and not worry about my service being disconnected., according to OG & E officials.

In addition to the programs directly offered by OG&E, the company is also partnering with local nonprofits to offer several programs for customers experiencing hardships.

OG&Es Lend-A-Hand program provides energy bill assistance from OG&E customers and company donations. The program, administered by The Salvation Army, allows OG&E customers to donate money when they pay their OG&E bill that is distributed to qualified customers who need help paying their bills throughout the year.

Visit OGE.com/Assistance to learn more about how you or someone you know can get help with your electric bill.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Guests attend the opening ceremony of the 7th China-Africa People's Forum and the 7th China-Africa Young Leaders Forum, in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, July 25, 2024. African officials attending the 7th China-Africa People's Forum have spoken highly of the outcome of the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.(Xinhua/Chen Zhenhai)

CHANGSHA, July 25 (Xinhua) -- African officials attending the 7th China-Africa People's Forum have spoken highly of the outcome of the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.

The 20th Central Committee of the CPC adopted a resolution on further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization at its third plenary session held in Beijing from July 15 to 18.

It is of great significance for Africa and China to jointly seek a development path towards modernization, said the African officials, adding that political parties and civil organizations of African countries are willing to strengthen cooperation with China to help build a China-Africa community with a shared future.

The 7th China-Africa People's Forum and the 7th China-Africa Young Leaders Forum are being held in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province from Wednesday to Friday.

More than 200 representatives from over 50 African countries are attending the events jointly held by the International Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Hunan Provincial Committee of the CPC.

Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe, president of the National Assembly of Burundi, expressed appreciation for China's efforts to provide Africa with useful experience, which has helped enhance its people-centered awareness and promote its development.

On Wednesday, the International Department of the CPC Central Committee and the Hunan Provincial Committee of the CPC jointly held a briefing to introduce the major measures adopted by the plenum to further deepen reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. More than 200 foreign guests from over 50 African countries attended the briefing.

Ndabirabe said at the briefing that he hopes to further strengthen education, culture and training exchanges between the two sides, break the barriers of languages and cultures, and learn from China's experience in governance and advanced technology.

Marvin Fanny, vice president of the United Seychelles political party, was impressed by the specific measures adopted by the CPC to further deepen reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization. He added that he has drawn inspiration from the resolution and hopes it will help empower the governance of political parties.

Obert Mpofu, secretary-general of the ruling ZANU PF party of Zimbabwe, praised the Chinese government for its efficient decision-making and executive force. "We are willing to strengthen our relations with the CPC, whose sincere advice and friendly support have promoted the development of Zimbabwe," he said. 

Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe, president of the National Assembly of Burundi, speaks at the opening ceremony of the 7th China-Africa People's Forum and the 7th China-Africa Young Leaders Forum, in Changsha, central China's Hunan Province, July 25, 2024. African officials attending the 7th China-Africa People's Forum have spoken highly of the outcome of the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee.(Xinhua/Chen Zhenhai)
(Getty Images)

After a years-long input process, the Virginia Board of Education approved its newly designed Standards of Accreditation regulations on Thursday. These regulations simplify how schools are rated and allow the state to separate accountability from accreditation.

A final vote on the accountability system is expected at next months board meeting. The accountability system includes Virginias Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan, readiness indicators and weighting.

Im really excited for what this new system provides for our students, for our parents, for our families, for our teachers [and] for our school divisions across the state, said Board President Grace Creasey, who was appointed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. I think it absolutely contributes to increasing transparency and understanding the outcomes that our students are achieving, and how well our schools are ensuring students are having those positive outcomes for life beyond our schools.

Under Gov. Youngkins direction, the board was tasked last year with separating the existing system because information about the quality of schools or student learning outcomes wasnt clearly delineated, the repeal states. In addition, the existing system used the process for accrediting schools as an accountability system to foster school improvement, instead of fostering the establishment of effective school-level educational programs.

Under the list of regulation changes, schools would receive credit for seniors who earn an advanced studies, standard or applied studies diploma within six years and credit for helping students demonstrate college and career readiness.

The changes also include providing credit to schools for middle school students taking advanced coursework.

According to Chad Aldeman, a co-consultant on the redesign, a central theme of public comment about Virginias school system accreditation standards is the importance of transparency, high academic standards, and career and college readiness and pathways.

Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons said the public comment on the regulation changes, which ended on July 5, shaped and developed the proposed system. She said the system will help the commonwealth focus on what schools need and provide the support that they need to achieve a distinguished rating.

The department said out of the 34 total comments submitted, most were supportive of the regulations changes, including the revamped standards favoring student mastery in a school subject over growth and supporting a continued focus on chronic absenteeism, or students missing at least 18 days of instruction for any reason, including excused and unexcused absences.

Unlike other states, Virginia is proposing to raise the academic standards for English learners by including more students in the accountability calculations. English learners are typically excluded because some children are learning English for the first time and may need more time to grow in proficiency of the language.

To meet that goal, more resources would likely be required to address the achievement gap.

The agency said the new rules would reduce the number of semesters English learners are excluded from the calculations, from 11 semesters to three. Approximately 35,000 students were excluded under the existing regulations.

Consultants said the change would help identify schools struggling to support students classified as English Learners and provide them with resources and services. According to VDOE, 1.5 years is the maximum allowed under federal law to exclude an English learner from accountability calculations.

As a former high school English teacher, I have seen the frustration of ELL students, many of whom have a second or third-grade English comprehension level being placed in a high school English class without any support, said Shelly Norden, a director with the School Board Member Alliance.

She said ELL students would often give up out of frustration.

Data collection on assessments will begin at the start of the 2024-25 school year, and full implementation will begin the following school year. The federal governments adoption of the state ESSA plan is a vital part of the implementation.

According to Todd Reid, a spokesman with VDOE, Virginia is on track to submit its state plan to the U.S. Department of Education by the February deadline.

Note: An earlier version of this story stated that Chad Aldeman was the Edunomics Lab policy director at Georgetown University. He left that position during the accountability system redesign.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Girls, I beg you, do not pay attention to the petty, cruel insults that come from the vicinity of men like former President Donald Trump and Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, his running mate. You are not a lesser creature simply because they dare to say so beyond the confines of their own thoughts.

In fact, I would have you believe that its likely men like that try to hurt women because they know we have real power  political, familial and otherwise  and they seek to diminish us to raise up their mediocre selves.

Opinion

I will not waste my time and energy attempting to refute Vances cruel words that childless women are miserable cat ladies who dont have a direct stake in our country.

Men like that are best ignored, left to stew in their own vile execrations.

What I will do is replace their hatred with love and support for all women; be they wives or mothers or childless and single, and whether they were born a woman or became one. Women, your worth is not defined by the industry of your womb or the beauty of your body, but rather by the content of your mind. You have it within you this November to deny power in this country to those who would seek to hold us down and keep us subservient to them. Will you answer the call?

America has been blessed with numerous, talented women who have been candidates for the U.S. presidency, from Victoria Claflin Woodhull to Shirley Chisholm and Hillary Clinton. This year, another woman has added her name to that list. With her entry onto the field, she has given this nation back its sense of hope  a hope that someday in our lifetime, we will see a Madam President.

Girls, they will call you a childless, miserable cat lady. They will call you a spinster and other vile words. They will say you are barren, unlovable and ugly. They will dismiss your successes and focus on your failures, all while demanding that you perform at the highest levels of your industry and then they will fault you for choosing that career in the first place. We cannot win in this game, and thats their point.

But nothing will make them angrier than ignoring them, and succeeding on your own terms.

The fact that even Vice President Kamala Harris so daily deals with misogyny  she who has served as a district attorney, attorney general, United States senator, vice president and now a woman in serious contention for the presidency  should shatter the glass ceiling for any girl in this country who has ever felt held down by the weight of misogynistic expectations.

This week, women across the country have come together of their own accord, in massive online video calls to support Harris. It started with more than 40,000 Black women in a historically large Zoom call just hours after Harris was given President Joe Bidens endorsement. Then, a similar event was organized for Latinas, who also showed up in the thousands and reached capacity in the first hour. On Thursday, white women broke Zoom again, in the first call to have more than 100,000 registrants. We gathered to heed the call for solidarity from our sisters of color and promised to vote accordingly.

Together, we will support Harris so that these men who so obviously despise women know that we have a power they can never take away. United, we will stand  women supporting women.

We will extend a hand to those behind us and gratefully accept the hand of the women who came before. We will show our children  whether they are biologically ours or not  that American women are not a punching bag, nor a punchline.

We realize the importance of our voices only when they are silenced, Malala Yousafzai has said. Will we continue to let these petty men, drunk on power, silence and humiliate women? If the answer is no, then vote for Harris this November, and hope will win the day.
The introduction of the Oracle Cerner electronic health records system at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Illinois, has lawmakers questioning the future of the program at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

According to VA officials, the rollout in March was "promising overall," with no critical patient safety incidents.

But the deployment needed the support of nearly 200 new staff members and 800 temporary workers, including experienced users from military treatment facilities, contractors and experts, raising concerns about cost and viability, said members of the House Veterans Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee on Monday.

Read Next: National Guard May Be Without Leadership After Last-Minute White House Nomination for New Chief

The full rollout of the new medical records system, used now at six VA medical centers, has been on hold since April 2023 over concerns for patient safety, a lack of user-friendliness and pharmacy components. Its introduction at Lovell, a joint facility operated by the VA and Defense Department, was to serve as a test bed for resuming the deployment VA-wide next year.

But given the effort and resources needed to ensure a smooth rollout at Lovell, lawmakers are wondering whether the VA can sustain that level of attention at future sites.

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., said that if the manpower isn't available, "the result could be a disaster."

"Their ability to work around the problem is commendable, but make no mistake, despite all the spin, the problems have not disappeared," Rosendale said during a hearing on the modernization effort.

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida, the subcommittee's ranking Democrat, also expressed dismay at the amount of manpower needed for the transition and the impact on the VA's budget.

"The need for facilities to hire more people to do the same task will limit their ability to fill other vacancies. This could have a disastrous effect on veterans' access to VA health care and would lead to further expansion of community care," Cherfilus-McCormick said.

The VA awarded a $10 billion contract, later revised to $16.1 billion, to Cerner in May 2018 for an electronic medical record system that would work seamlessly with the system purchased by the Defense Department in 2015, ensuring that service members and veterans would have a single digital record for most of their lives.

The Oracle Cerner system known as MHS Genesis is used at roughly 50 Defense Department military treatment facilities worldwide while the VA's version, Millennium, is in use at medical centers and affiliated clinics in the Pacific Northwest and Ohio.

In April 2023, the VA paused further deployments of the system for a "reset," following reports of patient harm caused by the system and an IG report that found a technical construct caused 149 patients to lose referrals in the system for additional or specialty care.

A decision was made for the VA to work with Oracle, which purchased Cerner in 2021, to improve operations, streamline the system and test it at Lovell, which also was the last DoD site to receive the system.

According to VA Secretary Denis McDonough, the Lovell rollout was an integral step in resuming the program in fiscal 2025.

"We're committed to this. We see this as in the veterans' interest," McDonough said during a hearing on the VA's fiscal 2025 budget in April.

During the hearing, Dr. Neil Evans, acting program executive director of VA's Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office, said the deployment at Lovell went well. According to Evans, the facility was able to maintain full use of its emergency room and inpatient capacity and, while it saw a 50% decrease in outpatient appointments and care, it is now operating at 80%.

"The leadership and staff at Lovell ... should be commended for their success. They've demonstrated tenacity and a continuous commitment to successfully adopting the new electronic health record to care for the veterans, Navy recruits, DoD beneficiaries and others who are served by their organization," Evans said.

Still, lawmakers have concerns about the cost of the project, which Oracle maintains will not exceed $16 billion but doesn't include many incidentals such as the increased manpower needed to adopt it and provide continued training for users.

A 2022 Institute for Defense Analyses report estimated that costs could exceed $50 billion over the program's lifetime.

Evans said that, while the $16 billion did not include the sustainment costs of the program over time, he "didn't know where the number $50 billion comes from." He added that, once the VA has a deployment schedule, it can provide Congress with a revised cost estimate.

"We agree that a life-cycle cost estimate is critical for this program," Evans said. "One of the things that we've said is that, as part of this reset, as we move toward restart and a new deployment schedule, that we would deliver a revised life-cycle cost estimate."

Related: A VA Medical Center in Colorado Paused Heart Surgeries for 13 Months. Its Leaders Didn't Tell Higher-Ups.
By Deisy Buitrago, Mayela Armas and Tathiana Ortiz

CARACAS/SAN CRISTOBAL (Reuters) -Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and her coalition's candidate Edmundo Gonzalez have commanded enthusiastic crowds during their campaign to unseat President Nicolas Maduro and end 25 years of ruling party dominance.

But uncertainty remains about how Sunday's election will play out, with Maduro  whose 2018 reelection is considered fraudulent by the United States, among others - sounding a confident note and opposition figures and analysts warning of possible underhandedness.

Gonzalez has attracted significant support, even from former supporters of the ruling party, but the opposition and some observers have questioned whether the vote will be fair, saying decisions by electoral authorities and the arrests of some opposition campaign staff are meant to create obstacles.

Gonzalez and Machado have urged voters to cast ballots early and hold "vigils" at polling stations until they close. They have said they expect the military to uphold the results of the vote.

Venezuela's military has long supported Maduro and his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez. Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino has said the armed forces will respect the outcome of Sunday's election.

Maduro, who has been in power since 2013 and is seeking his third six-year term, has said the country has the world's most transparent electoral system and has warned of a "bloodbath" if he were to lose, comments rejected by his Latin American counterparts.

Maduro's government has presided over an economic collapse, the migration of about a third of the population, and sharply deteriorated diplomatic relations, crowned by sanctions imposed by the United States, European Union and others which have crippled an already struggling oil industry.

Members of the nearly 8 million-strong Venezuelan diaspora say they found it difficult to register to vote. Fewer than 68,000 look set to be able to cast ballots.

Some have opted to return home to participate.

Bus companies in western Tachira state, along the border with Colombia, said they had seen an uptick of 40% in ticket sales in the last 10 days.

"We want to come home, but to a free Venezuela, thriving and prosperous," said Maritza Quemba, a 64-year-old seamstress who has lived in Bogota for five years and returned to San Cristobal to cast her ballot.

She plans to move back to Venezuela in a year if the opposition win, she said.

"I came to vote for Edmundo. I believe in him and Maria Corina," said Dani Pernia, 32, who crossed Peru, Ecuador and Colombia by bus from Chile so he could vote in San Cristobal. "I'm ready to put my faith on Sunday in the option that means change."

More than 95% of 30,000 ballot boxes nationwide have been set up, an official from the National Electoral Council said on social media platform X.

Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said on Friday several former Latin American presidents en route to observe the election had not been allowed to travel, including Panama's Mireya Moscoso and Mexico's Vicente Fox, because Venezuela's airspace was closed, which was later denied by the Venezuelan government.

Meanwhile, the United States said it was prepared to calibrate its Venezuela sanctions policy depending on what happens on Sunday.

Gonzalez, 74, is known for his calm demeanor and his promises that change could bring home many migrants.

He inherited the opposition mantle from Machado, 56, after a ban on her holding public office was upheld by the country's top court. Machado won a resounding victory in the opposition primary last year, but has toured the country on Gonzalez's behalf.

Maduro, a 61-year-old former bus driver and foreign minister, whose face will appear on the ballot for 13 parties, says he will guarantee peace and economic growth that will make Venezuela less dependent on oil income.

Public spending has grown only slightly during the campaign, analysts say, a change from past campaigns when spending was generous.

Maduro says he has opened 70 public works projects, but many have been renovations of already existing schools, hospitals and roads, according to events broadcast on state television.

Thousands of people came on hundreds of buses to Maduro's closing rally in central Caracas on Thursday evening, including many public sector employees.

Unlike many of the people around her, retired teacher Noris Rojas, 70, was not wearing a crisp new Maduro T-shirt.

Instead she held a worn, homemade poster of Chavez, featuring a quote from the late president: "No one said this would be easy."

"Maduro is a man who has shown spiritual strength and has been loyal to Chavez's project," she said. "There are weaknesses but he must win."

Venezuela's attorney general this week denied participating in political persecution or holding political prisoners and said the elections should be peaceful.

Results could be published Sunday night or in the following days. Polls will be open between 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time on Sunday.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas, Deisy Buitrago, Vivian Sequera and Julia Symmes Cobb in Caracas and Tathiana Ortiz in San Cristobal; Editing by Diane Craft, Daniel Wallis and Rosalba O'Brien)
Venezuelans abroad say they are struggling to register to vote

By Lucinda Elliott, Corina Pons and Oliver Griffin

MONTEVIDEO/MADRID/BOGOTA (Reuters) - Venezuelan migrants in South America and Europe say they have struggled to register to vote in their country's presidential election on Sunday, with only a small fraction able to overcome a range of bureaucratic hurdles.

Though more than half of the nearly 8 million Venezuelans who have emigrated in the last decade are of voting age, official figures from the country's electoral authority show just under 68,000 are registered to vote abroad.

Voter advocacy groups pointed to problems ranging from closed consulates to requests for varied - and what they said were unnecessary - documents.

The Venezuelan embassies in Buenos Aires, Bogota, Madrid and Montevideo did not respond to requests for comment on voter difficulties. The Venezuelan Ministry of Information did not respond to a request for comment on why overall registration figures were so low.

This vote is seen by much of the Venezuelan diaspora as the country's last chance of rescuing its economy from acute crisis and their last chance to eventually return home.

A quarter of the population has fled economic turmoil under President Nicolas Maduro, the largest refugee exodus in recent history recorded in the Americas.

Maduro, who is seeking a third term in Sunday's election, has presided over an 80% collapse in gross domestic product since taking office in 2013, and even former core supporters have been voicing support for the opposition.

The Spanish capital of Madrid is expected to be the largest site of foreign voting by Venezuelans on Sunday.

However, many Venezuelan citizens in Spain have been left out of the process. They were asked by their embassy to show at least 12 months on their Spanish residency permit to be eligible, said several voter advocacy groups.

But people granted residency for humanitarian reasons have their permit renewed annually, making it impossible for them to meet the requirement.

"I only managed because I have Spanish citizenship, the vast majority don't," said Eriana Zuleta, 26, who registered in Madrid.

Five Venezuelans Reuters spoke to in Spain also said they were unsure which polling station they had been assigned to.

In total, some 24,772 are expected to vote in Spain, a fraction of the nearly half a million Venezuelan migrants in the country.

"This campaign is different because it is the people who are mobilized, not the political parties," said Lorena Lima, 28, who said she was unable to register in Madrid and held a five-day hunger strike in protest in March.

In Uruguay, meanwhile, the Venezuelan electoral authority's registry system required potential voters to upload a valid five-year residency permit.

But initial residency permits are only granted for three years, said Gustavo Becerra, who helps migrants with the registry process in Montevideo. Fewer than 500 of the 33,000-strong Venezuelan community in Uruguay had managed to sign up, he added.

In southern Brazil, voters said they faced a different challenge - getting to the Venezuelan embassy polling station, some 2,100 kilometers (1,300 miles) away in the Brazilian capital.

"I'd like to vote, I always did in Venezuela," said Hector Lopez, 47, who lives in Porto Alegre and had registered. "But it is too far and I don't have the money to travel to Brasilia."

'BRING THEM HOME'

By far the largest number of Venezuelans who have left their country have settled in neighboring Colombia - roughly 2.8 million.

But only 7,000 of those have been able to register to vote, according to figures from the country's electoral authority.

Juan Carlos Viloria, a Venezuelan doctor who helps run a migrant advocacy group in the Colombian port city of Barranquilla, said he did "everything possible," including gathering documents and going in person to his local consulate, but was denied registration. He said he did not know the motive behind the rejection.

In Argentina, the Venezuelan embassy was closed due to technical problems for two weeks of the one-month period in which citizens were supposed to register, opposition campaigners said.

Mariana Pinero, who lives in Buenos Aires, was unable to register because the registration had closed. But she was undeterred.

"I couldn't register, so I booked my ticket to Venezuela," said the 45-year-old.

The opposition boycotted the 2018 contest where Maduro won what the United States and others say was a fraudulent reelection, but this time the opposition coalition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez has encouraged supporters to cast ballots.

Gonzalez, who has attracted significant support, has tapped into voter desire to reunite families splintered by migration, saying migrants may return if change comes and touting "we'll bring them home" as a slogan.

Carmen Chourio left Venezuela three years ago, and now lives in Porto Alegre, working as a cleaner. She cried as she recalled the hardship that made her leave her home.

"Thirty years of bad government made life impossible," she said.

She does not have the right documents to vote, even if she could make it to Brasilia.

(Reporting by Corina Pons in Madrid, Oliver Griffin in Bogota and Lucinda Elliott in Montevideo, additional reporting by Candelaria Grimberg in Buenos Aires, Vivian Sequera in Caracas and Diego Vara in Porto Alegre; Editing by Julia Symmes Cobb and Rosalba O'Brien)
The News

Venezuelans head to the polls Sunday for a consequential presidential election marred by doubts over whether incumbent President Nicolas Maduro, who is running for a third consecutive term, will allow for a free and fair vote.

So far, the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is expected to win in a landslide, despite Maduros crackdown in the weeks leading up to the vote, including arresting the security chief of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and warning that protests against his regime would result in a bloodbath.

The government has also made it increasingly difficult for the nearly 8 million Venezuelans living abroad to vote  more than a quarter of the countrys population has fled in recent years as the economy collapsed, and 90% of Venezuelans are living below the poverty line.

SIGNALS

Semafor Signals: Global insights on today's biggest stories.

Concerns over a free and fair election persist, but ordinary Venezuelans are defending the vote

Sources: UN Watch, The Washington Post

Theres a chance Maduros government could undermine the election again given his track record, experts warned at a UN Watch conference recently. But hopes for change are high among Venezuelans. Thousands of opposition-recruited volunteers are serving as witnesses on election day to make sure rules are followed, The Washington Post reported. Maduros government tried to deter them by only allowing volunteers to supervise their own area  meaning they will effectively surveil their own neighbors and risk being ostracized, especially in pro-government regions  but many said they were prepared to face the risks. There are hundreds of Venezuelans joining an army of brave men, brave women, willing to defend our vote, even with our lives, one witness told the Post.

An opposition win would have far-reaching domestic and global implications

Sources: CNN, The Guardian

A win for the opposition could change Venezuelas fate both domestically and internationally, CNN wrote. It would have a huge impact on migration to the US and neighboring Latin American countries: Recent surveys found that up to 18% of Venezuelans are preparing to leave the country if Maduro is reelected, while 65% of those who left during Maduros reign would consider returning if he lost. Geopolitically, the opposition would turn away from Maduros allies of Iran, Cuba, and Russia, and rebuild ties with the West, seeking to end the political and economic isolation that Venezuela found itself in under his governance.

The West has a key role in the electoral results

Sources: The New York Times, UN Watch

US President Joe Biden has the opportunity to accomplish something big before he leaves the White House, by truly supporting the restoration of democracy in Venezuela, Venezuelan anthropologist Elisabeth Burgos said during the recent UN Watch conference. Last year, the US temporarily lifted several of the 350 sanctions imposed on Venezuela to incentivize free elections, and experts agreed that Western pressure was key to ensuring a free and fair election in the country. US government officials told The New York Times that while it was too early to discuss repercussions in case Maduro undermined the election, a concerned Biden administration was closely watching for fraud.
Supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro attend a campaign event this month in Caracas. Venezuela goes to the polls on Sunday. (Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)

Venezuelas authoritarian president is about to face his biggest test yet, as uncertainty swirls around Sunday's election and what Nicolas Maduro  a longtime U.S. adversary  might do to hold on to power.

Millions of Venezuelans will cast votes in what is widely seen as the nation's most crucial election since Maduro took office as president 11 years ago after the death of his mentor, Hugo Chavez.

Maduro's government already disqualified a rival who won the opposition primary. But the long-fractured opposition has largely regrouped around another candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, a former diplomat who has a double-digit lead in polling.

Many are skeptical that Maduro would give up power, and speculation is rampant about what the president would do if he loses.

"The degree of uncertainty around this election is higher than in any election in Venezuela in the last 25 years," said Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group. "The fact is that, in spite of the playing field being stacked against the opposition, there are reasons for optimism with regard to the prospect for change."

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro salutes while riding on the back of a military vehicle during the Independence Day parade in Caracas this month. (Cristian Hernandez / Associated Press)

Here's what to know about Venezuela's election and why it matters to the United States:

What is behind Venezuela's turmoil?

Economic woes and political upheaval have sent millions of Venezuelans fleeing their homeland, and hundreds of thousands have made their way to the United States.

Venezuela, home to the world's largest petroleum reserves, was long one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America  though deep divisions between rich and poor were a source of instability.

After Chavez, a former military officer, was elected president in 1998, he embraced Cuba's Fidel Castro and later called President George W. Bush "the devil " during a United Nations speech.

A mural of late President Hugo Chavez in Sabaneta, Venezuela. (Matias Delacroix / Associated Press)

Chavez's populist policies helped reduce poverty and inequality, but critics say his government neglected a dilapidated petroleum infrastructure, scared off investors, sent the country into deep debt and edged Venezuela toward authoritarianism.

Tumbling oil prices during the rule of his handpicked successor, Maduro, hastened an economic collapse that has led to the exodus of more than 7 million Venezuelans. Washington has largely blamed Maduro's ineptitude, while Maduro blames U.S. sanctions targeting the oil industry and hypes somewhat improving economic results in the last few years.

Venezuelan presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia stands with Maria Corina Machado, who was banned from the presidential ballot, at a news conference in Caracas this month. (Cristian Hernandez / Associated Press)

Who is running and who is banned?

Maduro, 61, is seeking his third term as the ideological heir of Chavez. Supporters say Maduro has continued Chavez's legacy of helping the poor while standing up to U.S. "imperialism."

Critics call Maduro a dictatorial and corrupt strongman who has rigged elections, jailed opponents and cratered the economy. The International Criminal Court is investigating allegations of crimes against humanity by Maduro's security forces in a 2017 crackdown against protests.

Gonzalez, 74, is a former ambassador who emerged after the government disqualified former lawmaker Maria Corina Machado. Called the "Iron Lady," Machado won the opposition primary by a landslide but was banned from the presidential ballot through what she has called "rigged judicial procedures." She now backs Gonzalez.

Colleagues call Gonzalez, who was little known before his presidential run, a low-key consensus builder. He has vowed a return to prosperity and democratic norms.

There are more candidates on the ballot, but they have little support. A simple majority of votes decides the winner, who would take office in January 2025 for a six-year term.

No boycott this time

The opposition's decision to run in this year's election  despite long odds against the Maduro machine  represents a stark departure from the last vote in 2018, which the United States and many other countries called a sham. The opposition largely boycotted that election in a move encouraged by the Trump administration, which had hinted at a "military option" in Venezuela.

Amid massive opposition protests in 2019, the Trump White House recognized a Venezuelan lawmaker, Juan Guaido, as the country's "interim" president and declared Maduro's leadership "illegitimate." The Trump administration later stepped up sanctions and indicted Maduro and top lieutenants on "narco-terrorism" and other charges. But Maduro cut diplomatic ties with Washington and remained in office. Guaido eventually fled into exile in Florida.

"The opposition has learned from its mistake," Ramsey said. "The solution to Venezuela's crisis isn't going to come from abroad. It's going to come as a result of complex negotiations and domestic pressure."

Maduro, accompanied by Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, in Caracas in 2019. (Jhonn Zerpa / Associated Press)

Is the fix in?

No matter the outcome, analysts say, Maduro is likely to claim victory. But how far would he take that assertion and who would back him are key questions. Regional leaders, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, have called on Maduro to respect the results of the balloting.

The opposition has assembled teams of monitors on the lookout for vote tampering and other irregularities. The U.S.-based Carter Center and the United Nations plan to have small number of observers in place. The government in Caracas blocked a European Union delegation from coming.

Maduro's legitimacy could be tested if opponents can show that the election was fraudulent. And evidence of widespread cheating could prompt a new round of street protests.

For insiders and his government, it's very important for Maduro to show that he is powerful enough to win an election, and to actually mobilize support," said Will Freeman, a fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Even if he wins cleanly, however unlikely, experts say, Maduro will probably be forced into concessions toward a newly energized opposition. His government is desperate for relief from U.S. sanctions and for broader acceptance on the global stage.

An opposition victory  if recognized by electoral authorities who are mostly Maduro loyalists would present its own set of challenges. A new government-elect would probably enter talks with Maduro on how to achieve a peaceful transition. There is also uncertainty about what role Machado  the ex-lawmaker credited with galvanizing the opposition  would play in a Gonzalez-led administration.

And a major question is whether the Venezuelan military  long Maduro's staunchest ally  would continue to back the president if electoral results clearly show him defeated.

"So much will hinge on the military, and it's super opaque," Freeman said.

Some question whether Maduro could rely on his security apparatus to quash any street protests in the aftermath of a phony claim of victory  if the military would go along with a new round of repression in light of the international condemnation after it crushed large-scale demonstrations in 2014 and 2017.

"Elites in the military and ruling party would likely apply quiet pressure on Maduro, even as he declares victory, to demonstrate an openness to reforms and a willingness to signal an element of power-sharing with the opposition in his next term," the Atlantic Council predicted in a report.

Venezuelan migrants prepare to cross the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, into the United States in 2022. Millions of Venezuelans have fled their homeland as economic and political woes engulfed the country. (Christian Chavez / Associated Press)

Why the election matters for the U.S.

Geopolitics, immigration and oil are all key points on Venezuela.

Washington would like to bring the country  and its vast oil reserves  back into the U.S. orbit and curtail the Caracas government's increasingly friendly relations with Russia, China and Iran. Flipping Venezuela would be a major geopolitical coup for the Biden administration in an election year.

Migration to the United States from Venezuela has surged over the last decade. An improved economy or more open government could, in theory, dissuade some from leaving.

Also, Washington would like to be able to repatriate Venezuelans without legal status back to their homeland  something difficult to accomplish without formal diplomatic ties between the countries.

On the ground in Venezuela

Tensions in Venezuela are high going into Sunday's election.

The bombastic Maduro has waged a provocative campaign, denigrating the opposition as "ultra-right fascists" and telling Venezuelans they face a choice between "barricades and peace, war or tranquility ... hate or love, intolerance or understanding."

The opposition has accused government thugs of targeting candidates and their supporters. The opposition says dozens of supporters have been arrested on trumped-up charges.

Recent weeks have seen the release of a fawning new biography of the president and a seven-part documentary series on state television lauding his life trajectory.

Maduro's ruling United Socialist Party, experts say, has the core support of about one-third of the electorate, including multitudes on the public payroll and the many beneficiaries of subsidized housing, food and other social aid programs central to chavismo, as Chavez's legacy is known.

"Thanks to Maduro I have my house, here in the center of the city, not on some hillside," said Raul Perez, 28, a father of two and moto-taxi driver in Caracas, the capital. "My wife works in a ministry. If Maduro loses these elections, we lose everything."

But high turnout, analysts say, should favor the opposition. And many Venezuelans seem eager to cast ballots.

"I think the people are going to come out to vote like never before: They are desperate, fed up," said Antonio Manzano, 45, a teacher in Caracas. "We have to make clear that the people don't want this government. ... For Venezuela, the 28th of July is going to mark a 'Before  and After.' "

Times special correspondent Mery Mogollon in Caracas 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.
President Nicolas Maduro waves a Venezuelan flag during his closing election campaign rally in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, July 25, 2024. Maduro is seeking re-election for a third term in the July 28 vote. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP)  Venezuelas government and opposition closed the official presidential campaign season Thursday with demonstrations that drew thousands of people to the streets of the capital.

The events three days before the highly anticipated election on Sunday encapsulated the massive disparities between the top contenders, including their resources.

President Nicolas Maduro, who is seeking a third term, appeared before supporters on a massive stage set up on one of the citys main roads and rallied attendees with musical intermissions and dances throughout his speech. He told the crowd, part of it transported to Caracas on state-owned buses, his opponents are promoters of violence and described himself as a man of peace.

Who of the 10 candidates guarantees peace and stability? Maduro asked the crowd. Yet it was he who in recent days spoke of a possible post-election bloodbath.

Meanwhile, former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who is representing the Unitary Platform coalition, and opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gathered far fewer supporters. Gonzalez and Machado moved through the city standing atop a platform affixed to a truck until they reached a middle-class district of the capital.

Lack of funding and government repression against Machado and any service provider who may volunteer or enter a contract with the campaign has affected their ability to set up proper stages, including Thursday when their sound system was not powerful enough to allow all supporters to listen.

State television transmitted live the entirety of Maduros rally and ignored the oppositions event.

Sunday's election is giving the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela its toughest electoral test in decades.

Maduro is as unpopular as ever among many voters, who blame him for the complex crisis that has affected them for more than 11 years. At the same time, after years of boycotting elections and party divisions, the main opposition parties have come together to support a single candidate, Gonzalez.
On Sept. 23, 2023, authorities allege that Oxnard resident Rodney Rey Yanez sold fentanyl to Dylan Rusch at the Oxnard gas station where Rusch worked. Above, the Oxnard Police Department headquarters. (Google Maps)

An Oxnard man has been charged with murder following the fatal overdose of a gas station worker to whom he allegedly sold fentanyl, authorities said Thursday.

This marks the first time the Ventura County district attorney's office has filed murder charges against someone who sold fentanyl to another person.

"The filing of murder charges in a fentanyl overdose case underscores the grave responsibility we have to protect our community from the devastating impact of this deadly drug, Dist. Atty. Erik Nasarenko said in a statement. We are committed to seeking justice for victims and holding accountable those who provide this poison."

Rodney Rey Yanez, 55, was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Dylan Rusch, according to the district attorney's office. He faces nine felony charges in all, as well as four drug-related misdemeanors.

Read more: 3-year-old L.A. twins die from fentanyl-laced drugs. Mother now charged with murder

On Sept. 23, 2023, authorities allege that Yanez sold fentanyl to Rusch at the Oxnard gas station where Rusch worked. Rusch overdosed in the bathroom and died at the scene despite resuscitative efforts by police officers and other first responders.

There was a lethal dose of fentanyl in Rusch's system, which caused his death, according to the Ventura County Medical Examiner's Office.

Yanez was arrested by the Oxnard Police Department on July 24 and charged with selling and transporting fentanyl, methamphetamine and other drugs in the 14 months before Rusch died.

He appeared in court for the first time Thursday and is scheduled to be arraigned Aug. 21 in Ventura County Superior Court, according to the district attorney's office. He is being held in lieu of $1-million bail.

Read more: Temecula man sentenced to prison in first fentanyl-related murder trial

Last year, a Temecula man who gave a fentanyl-laced pill to a 26-year-old woman was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in connection with the woman's death.

The conviction of Vicente David Romero marked California's first jury conviction of a fentanyl-related homicide, according to Riverside County prosecutors.

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.
NAIROBI, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The China (Anhui)-Kenya Economic and Trade Conference was held on Thursday in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi to promote trade relations between the two sides.

The event attracted a high-level delegation from east China's Anhui Province, senior Kenyan government officials, and representatives of about 50 local enterprises keen to partner with Chinese counterparts.

Juma Mukhwana, principal secretary in the Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry, said Kenya offers diverse economic opportunities for Chinese investors due to its strategic location as a gateway to the East African Community and the wider African market.

"So far, 18 counties have set up industrial parks that offer world-class facilities for Chinese investors to process raw materials into finished goods for both domestic and international markets," Mukhwana said.

He noted that the Chinese delegation's visit underscores the deepening ties between the two countries and the immense potential for mutually beneficial cooperation.

Shan Xiangqian, vice-governor of Anhui Province, said the delegation has traveled more than 9,000 kilometers with the sincerity of carrying forward the China-Africa friendship.

Shan added that Chinese investment will benefit Kenya by creating jobs and transferring technology to improve local industrial capacity.

Florence Benta Were, managing director of Kenya Investment Authority, said Kenya has established special economic zones to facilitate the flow of investment from foreign investors.

Were noted that the synergies between Kenya's abundant resources and Anhui Province's industrial expertise will result in numerous advantages for both countries. 
When authorities started investigating people selling Glock switches to criminal groups in 2022, they discovered a scheme to distribute dozens of such devices, including to a Cincinnati gang.

Denico Hudson, 22, of West Price Hill served as the gangs connection to a supplier of the devices, which investigators linked to numerous shootings locally, according to testimony from Hudsons sentencing in federal court in Covington.

On Thursday, U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Hudson to serve nine years in prison. He pleaded guilty to weapons trafficking charges in February, court records show.

Hudson worked with two other men, Isaiah Smith and Demarco Sturgeon, to transfer machine gun conversion devices, also known as Glock switches or auto sears, between themselves and others, according to prosecutors.

A Glock switch is a small device installed on the back of a Glock handgun. Instead of firing one round per trigger pull, the device allows the gun to continue firing at a high rate as long as the trigger is pressed.

Smith made more than 80 Glock switches using a 3D printer and sold the majority to Sturgeon, who acted as a primary distributor in the region and sold the bulk of his inventory to Hudson, prosecutors said.

Sturgeon was sentenced to 11 years in March and Smith has yet to be sentenced despite his December guilty plea.

Hudson was a member of a Cincinnati gang dubbed the Button Boys, whose name is derived from a slang term for the selector switch on a machine gun conversion device, said Jeff Price, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

More: How 1 gun led police to those responsible for at least 5 homicides and dozens of shootings

The group was behind a July 2022 shooting where more than 100 rounds were fired after four of the gangs members  each armed with handguns equipped with Glock switches  went to collect a street bounty on a target in Avondale, the special agent added.

The gang's members, including those connected to violence, initially purchased their Glock switches from Hudson, Price said.

Hudson was recorded in a music video, along with at least one person involved in that shooting, showing off a handgun with a Glock switch attached to it. He also advertised the devices on social media for as much as $600 each.

A cooperating witness told investigators that Hudson was the first to deal with Sturgeon, the gangs source for supplying the devices, who later started selling directly to the gang after forming relationships with its members, prosecutors said.

This is a very profitable crime, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Bracke said.

While Hudson was in custody at the Campbell County Detention Center, he repeatedly instructed his associates to retaliate against someone he believed to be cooperating with federal authorities, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors described Hudson as one of the leading figures in distributing the devices to individuals with criminal intent but his lawyer argued that he played a minor role in the scheme.

Denico Hudson (left) and Demarco Sturgeon (right) in a photo submitted in federal court in Covington. Prosecutors say the two men were part of a scheme to distribute dozens of Glock switches in Greater Cincinnati, including to a local gang.

Mr. Hudson is at best the third person in that chain, if not farther down, said Kerry Neff, Hudsons attorney.

Hudson admitted in court to trafficking two Glock switches  down from the more than 25 devices prosecutors said he helped distribute  saying that he wouldnt have owned the devices if he knew it was illegal to do so.

Federal and local law enforcement have warned of the growing prevalence of such devices in Greater Cincinnati.

The ATF says Glock switches make shootings more deadly because more bullets can hit the victim and it makes the weapon harder to control, meaning bullets can be sprayed around, striking innocent bystanders.

They are very dangerous, Bunning said of the devices. Its becoming a real problem.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati man gets prison for selling Glock switches to gang members
Jacoby Ray cant choose a favorite from the more than two dozen barbecue products he sells for MeatSoHorny, a line of dry rubs, sauces and salts with risque names. While the off-color names may lure customers to the brand, he said, they come back for the variety and flavor.

It's like Pokemon barbecue," Ray said. "We want you to collect them all."

After growing through viral TikTok promotion videos and direct-to-consumer online sales for five years, MeatSoHorny's parent company  MSH Nation  opened a physical storefront at 5715 Churchman Avenue in Beech Grove on July 1. For now, it's the company's only brick-and-mortar store.

The Miami-based company famous for its humorous, and at-times NSFW, barbecue rub and sauce names set down roots in Indianapolis because of the popularity of Ray, a 45-year-old Beech Grove native who has worked as a social media face of the brand for four years.

The people in Indy love not only Jacoby, but also the brand, and we knew this was the spot, said CEO and co-founder Robert Gilbert.

At the store, customers immediately walk into a tasting room where they can try any of the brands 11 dry rubs, three seasonings, two barbecue sauces and 13 hot sauces. Behind the counter, a door separates the shopping area from a makeshift studio, where Ray hosts live TikTok videos with B. Sutherlin, another brand ambassador from Beech Grove. Adjacent to the studio, rows of salts are stacked up, waiting to be shipped to customers.

While the brands product packaging is laced with sexual innuendos, the products themselves do not contain any sexual-enhancing ingredients, a common misconception of the products, Ray said.

MSH Nation is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. for tasting and purchasing sauces, rubs and finishing salts. Customers can also watch social media livestreams in real time at the store.

Origins of MeatSoHorny name linked to 2 Live Crew song

The multi-million-dollar company grew out of a love for family barbecues and an infamous rap song.

Although he said that he is no professional, Gilbert enjoys barbecuing for his family, and in 2019, a friend of his encouraged him to start a line of barbecue sauces and rubs.

Gilbert said he initially shot down the idea, wanting to focus his time on his executive-level job at an IT consulting company. But he had one selling point: a show-stopping brand name.

I said, Listen, if we could come up with a brilliant name, I might do it,' Gilbert recalled.

Shortly after, inspiration struck when the two were driving around and spotted a butcher shop when the song Me So Horny by rap group 2 Live Crew started playing on the radio. Thats it, Gilbert said.

Jacoby Ray shows some products for tasting and sale at the MeatSoHorny store Thursday, July 18, 2024 in Beech Grove. MeatSoHorny, or MSH Nation, is a viral barbecue sauce and dry rub company that grew out of TikTok since 2019. This is their first storefront that includes a filming studio and a tasting/shopping area.

The next day, Gilbert trademarked the name MeatSoHorny.

MeatSoHorny, run by Gilbert and co-founder Steve Culley, started out by selling three dry rubs out of its headquarters in Miami, Florida. Each had its own humorous play on words, starting with the original Rub Your Chub barbecue rub, an all-purpose spice blend.

To market the spices, Gilbert would post pictures of the spicy-themed products to social media from the comfort of his kitchen but soon realized he was not the ideal face for the brand, as he split his time between the company and his corporate job. He began to seek out brand ambassadors who had strong social followings but were not necessarily "celebrity" influencers.

Enter: Jacoby Ray.

A stand-up comedian and veteran from Indiana, Ray knew how to talk to people on social media and felt comfortable in front of the camera, Gilbert said. The MeatSoHorny team flew Ray to Miami for a test run in 2020, put him in a tent at a market, set the dry rubs in front of him and said sell this, Ray recalled.

Ray started talking. And the next thing you know, we had people lining up, he said.

The brands sales grew 200% from its first to second year and continued to grow 100% over each year, Gilbert said.

Jacoby Ray shows a dry rub spice while filming his TikTok show at the new MeatSoHorny store Thursday, July 18, 2024 in Beech Grove. MeatSoHorny, or MSH Nation, is a viral barbecue sauce and dry rub company that grew out of TikTok since 2019. This is their first storefront that includes a filming studio and a tasting/shopping area.

In early 2023, the company raised $500,000 in just 60 days through Start Engine, an online crowdfunding platform. After the crowdfunding round, the company was valued at nearly $15 million.

Weve just been going and going and going and going up ever since, Ray said.

The owners and influencers behind MSH Nation don't call themselves masters of barbecue. Rather, they describe themselves as home chefs, and their products are made for amateur chefs who grill at family cookouts.

The companys signature dry rubs started the viral brand, but ventures into other flavors soon led to a transition to MSH Nation, an umbrella company that houses MeatSoHorny's barbecue ingredients alongside new products such as freeze-dried candy, seasonings and hot sauces. Ray said they also hope the rebrand will help get their products on the shelves at major retail grocers while staying true to the company's original character.

For now, the brick-and-mortar storefront on the southside of Indianapolis is the only place where customers can buy off the shelf and try sauces before purchasing.

Retail openings: Maine-based L.L. Bean to open store in Indianapolis

Two live Hoosiers on TikTok helping grow company

On a recent afternoon inside the small warehouse in Beech Grove, Ray and Sutherlin walk around a wooden counter wearing bright orange jerseys as they prepare to film a live video for social media. They laid the products out in front of them  a pineapple-flavored hot sauce, a camouflage MSH hat and one of their famous dry rubs.

One click, and they are live on TikTok.

Jacoby Ray and B Sutherlin film their TikTok show at the new MeatSoHorny store Thursday, July 18, 2024 in Beech Grove. MeatSoHorny, or MSH Nation, is a viral barbecue sauce and dry rub company that grew out of TikTok since 2019. This is their first storefront that includes a filming studio and a tasting/shopping area.

In less a minute, hundreds of people join the livestream, and 12 visitors are active on the MSH Nation website. Within three minutes, a loud ding echoes across the studio.

They simultaneously fist bump the air and yell: Sale!

Below the counter, a black vestaboard flips its letters to show a new message: Thank you Sarah B. for your order.

People love seeing their name come up on the board, Sutherlin said. Then, we sign the products live on air and pack it up, and they just love it.

The duo goes live a few times a week from the store. The timing is random based on social media analytics, they said.

Indianapolis food scene: Restaurants that have opened and closed so far in 2024

All products on the MSH Nation website are made in Miami, then shipped to the Beech Grove warehouse where they are packed and mailed out to customers. On the livestreams, lucky viewers can watch their items packed up by Ray and Sutherlin. The company also sells on Amazon.

Ray and Sutherlin, 60, each amassed a social media following long before their days promoting MeatSoHorny.

Sutherlin, a carpenter for 40 years who designed sets for the annual Haunted House at the Indianapolis Childrens Museum, sees the barbecue marketing as an extension of his creative career.

Amanda DeBoo, from left, Jacoby Ray and B. Sutherlin film their TikTok show at the new MeatSoHorny store Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Beech Grove. MeatSoHorny, a part of Miami-based MSH Nation, is a viral barbecue sauce and dry rub company that grew out of TikTok since 2019. The Beech Grove shop is their first storefront and includes a studio and a tasting/shopping area.

The shop is lively as Amanda DeBoo runs behind-the-scenes work at the store during livestreams, monitoring online sales and website traffic in real time. Their families are a part of the lively brand, too. On a recent afternoon, Sutherlins wife stopped by to visit, taking pictures of the two gleeful men while their livestream camera follows them around the warehouse.

Were just a pair of goofballs having fun, Sutherlin said with a smile. Thats really all it is.

Customers can go to the stores grand opening on Saturday, July 27, from noon to 10 p.m.

Alysa Guffey is a business reporter covering growth and development for IndyStar. Contact her at amguffey@gannett.com or follow her on X: @AlysaGuffeyNews.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: MeatSoHorny barbecue brand opens storefront in Beech Grove
From the G-File on The Dispatch

Dear Reader (even those of you forming bizarre political friendships),

As a conservative, the best case I can make for Kamala Harris is shes a fraud.

That sounds harsh. Let me rephrase: I could make a good case for Harris if she were a fraudand I hope she is.

This is kind of hard to explain because I have so little experience making this argument. So bear with me, and maybe cut me some slack if I mess up a little along the way.

Growing up in Reagan-Buckley conservatism, I was always a believer in conviction-politicians, people who state their beliefs forthrightly and fight for them come hell or high water. Theres a reason Bill Rushers warning to young National Review writersPoliticians will always disappoint youbecame almost a mantra for some of us. Rusher didnt mean it as some sweeping condemnation of politicians as a class. His point was simply that idealists, firebrands, and intellectuals who write about their principles for a living at places like National Review are under little or no pressure to compromise with political reality the way people who run for public office have to.

Reagan is remembered today, by those of us who loved him, as a passionate and principled conservative who stuck to his guns and offered a clear, undiluted, optimistic, vision of America. All of that is true to one extent or another when he is graded as a politician. But its worth remembering that when he was actually in office, a lot of conservatives had a more nuanced view. Heres a New York Times headline from June 26, 1983: CONSERVATIVES DISAPPOINTED WITH SHIFTBY REAGAN.

The article begins:

Ideological conservatives, who provided the core of Ronald Reagans support in 1980, have been deeply disappointed with his performance as President, especially what they regard as his growing moderation in advance of the 1984 campaign. The conservatives said in interviews this week that they agreed with most of Mr. Reagans goals but felt he had been too timid in fighting for them. As an example, they noted that he was no longer pressing Congress to abolish the Department of Education.

It goes on to quote one prominent conservative after another expressing disappointment and dismay with the Gippers inability or unwillingness to execute parts of his agenda. This was during the height of the Let Reagan be Reagan era. (For the record, I was in junior high school then.) M. Stanton Evans told the Times that Reagan was ill-served by some members of his staff who do not seem to share his commitment to the conservative program on which he ran. I think that was true in some instances, and a little unfair in others. Reagan was a politiciana very good oneand politicians are constrained in what they can accomplish, and when they can accomplish it.

Bill Clinton was the kind of politician I once detested. He admitted that he smoked pot, but didnt inhale. He said he agreed with the arguments of those who opposed the first Iraq War, but would have voted with the supporters. Whenever he came to a fork in the road, he took it, as Yogi Berra might say.

This was the guy who took time off from the campaign trail to oversee the execution of a man so mentally impaired he asked the guards escorting him to the death chamber to save his slice of pecan pie from his last meal so he could eat it later.

Jesse Jackson once said of Clinton, I can maybe work with him but I know now who he is, what he is. There is nothing this man wont do. He is immune to shame. Move past all the nice posturing and get really down in there in him, you find absolutely nothing  nothing but an appetite. That was probably a little unfair to Clinton, but it did point to what made him so infuriating to conservatives. His political character seemed a reflection of his personal characteror lack thereof. Indeed, my opposition to both Clinton and Trump is perfectly consistent: Character matters. The people who said Bill Clintons character mattered were right, and so are the people who say Trumps character matters. The fact that the teams saying character matters have switched sides is annoying but immaterial as far as I am concerned.

But one of the reasons Ive softened, somewhat, on Clinton is that there was a benefit to his lack of conviction. Clintons political giftand he was an extremely gifted politicianwas to figure out where the median voter was and tell him or her whatever they wanted to hear.

Sure, he was an Olympian flip-flopper, a chameleon, an appetite in a suit. But he used that skill to do things that were broadly popular and geared toward a positive historical legacy. I certainly dont agree with all his policies, but he triangulated and Sister Souljahd his way to running a budget surplus, expanding NATO (a good thing in my book), reforming welfare, signing a (considerably overhyped) crime bill, signing NAFTA (another good thing), and not getting in the way of roaring economy. Now, before you take away my right-wing decoder ring, Im the first to admit that he was forced to do many of these things by Republicans and conservatives against his preferences. Theyre the ones who forced him to declare (falsely, alas), The era of big government is over. He screwed over the ideological base of his party constantly because it was good for him to do so.

In an era when we think the president should be a culture-war avatar, a purist who serves as the id of the ideological base made flesh, its no surprise people hate flip-floppers. But heres the thing: You should always welcome it when a politician flip-flops to your position, regardless of what it says about the politician. Indeed, the job of serious activists and ideologues should be to create the circumstances in which politicians switch positions to your position. Obviously, it would speak better of them as a person if the conversion is sincere and in good faith. But, no Israel supporter should care that much if John Fetterman is being cynical by supporting Israel wholeheartedly. (I dont think he is, but you get the point.) Pro-lifers should cheer when pro-choicers switch sides. If Bernie Sanders declared tomorrow that he now favors Social Security reform and freer trade, it would be insanity for free-market conservatives to denounce him. Take the win.

Which brings me to Kamala Harris. Obviously, shes way too left-wing for me. But I sincerely hope that her left-wingness is the product of Clintonian ambition and not sincere conviction.

In other words, I hope shes prepared to be the Mother of All Flip Floppers.

I want her to cut an ad where she looks straight into the camera and says, That stuff I said about getting rid of cows? Screw that noise, and then take a bite of a giant cheeseburger.

Medicare for All? That sounded like a great idea. But I now realize we cant afford it and there are better and more affordable approaches within the current system.

Defund the police? Are you high? Ive seen what a lack of policing does to the most vulnerable. I want to provide whatever resources the police need to do their jobs the right way.

When asked about her immigration position, she should come up with an entirely new one: Pathway to citizenship for anybody who crosses the border illegally? Thats bonkers. I learned from my work on this issue that we cannot be a magnet for an endless flow of migrants, no matter how much I sympathize with their plight. We are a nation of laws.

I want her to do this because I think these are the right positions. But it shouldnt be lost on anybody that it would be smart for her to do this politically. If she runs as the Kamala Harris of the 2020 primaries, she will get crushed.

This gets to the benefit of flip-floppers: They do what is popular. And what is popular in MSNBC green rooms and New York Times editorial boardrooms is unpopular in America. The median American voterheck the median Democratic voteris to the right of the people most excited by her candidacy. She should use that popularity, and that hunger to defeat Trump, to leverage support from Americans who arent enthusiastic or hopeful about her.

Is she capable of doing this? I have my doubts, but I dont think its impossible.

Kamala Harris rose through the ranks of San Francisco politics. As Jeane Kirkpatrick noted long ago, San Francisco Democrats are the worst. In nerd terms, San Francisco is the Salusa Secundus of lefty lunacy, breeding all manner of pacifist-warrior castes of smug progressives, trustafarian radicals, and hippies in open-toed shoes with closed minds. Outside of San Francisco, California is marginally better, but its still effectively a one-party state. As a result, it produces politicians who speak progressivism as their first language. Worse, years of powerlessness have produced a state GOP that serves as little more than a foil or punchline for Democrats.

In short, early 21st century California aint late 20th century Arkansas, and Harris aint no Bill Clinton, alas. But its worth noting that Harris wasnt a George Soros prosecutor. Those came later.

When Harris was Californias district attorney she called herself Californias top cop. In her 2010 book, Smart on Crime, she wrote, If we take a show of hands of those who would like to see more police officers on the street, mine would shoot up. A more visible and strategic police presence is a deterrent to crime, and it has a positive impact on a community. As district attorney in San Francisco, citing her promise to oppose the death penalty, she refused to seek it for a cop killer, infuriating the police. But when the California Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional, she appealed the decision, saying it didnt follow the law. In 2004 she opposed easing mandatory minimum sentences, infuriating the social justice left.

Now, all that changed when she became senator. The national Democratic Party lurched leftward and she lurched with it. She then ran for president in the middle of the Black Lives Matter frenzy, and the last thing she could do was run on a tough-on-crime record (a record that had admittedly been partially muddied by her time as a senator).

But she has a short window of opportunity to redefine herself. I understand why, in her debut speech, at Bidens former campaign headquarters, she leaned into the Prosecutor vs. the Felon line. She needed to reassure and fire up both her campaign and Democrats not yet sold on her. But that line is not what Trump-Biden voters want to hear. Theyre much more skeptical (wrongly in my opinion) of the criminal cases against Trump. Others may not be skeptical, they just dont care very much. Immigration and crime are good issues for Trump and they were terrible ones for Biden. She has a chancejust a chanceto claw back people who care about that stuff. And the way to do that is to throw the MSNBC left under the bus so hard that being run over by a bus is a secondary concern.

I dont mean she should openly relish it or even admit thats what shes doing. Show, dont tell. Let the left complain. That buys support and trust from the middle. Brag about how were producing more oil and gas than ever and talk about how thats good for the economy. Let Trump flail in response. Show actual leadership.

Thanks to ideological polarization, leadership has been redefined as a kind of pandering followership: There go my people, I must go with them for I am their leader.

Earning criticism or attacks from your political opponents is easy; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Marjorie Taylor Greene do that every day. Standing up to your fans and telling them that they can get partial victories with you, or total defeat from your opponent, is what actual leadership looks like.

Thats what I mean when I say I hope shes a fraud. I want her to be a fraudulent ideologue and reveal that shes an authentic politician. I want her to listen to voters who think the left is too statist, too obsessed with identity politics, too un-American, and say, I hear you and move toward them. It would be smart for her to do it, and it would be good for America.

One last point: I know I am going to get a lot of grief from some on the right for giving a Democrat, never mind this Democrat, advice about how to win. Fair enough, I am being a little hypocritical on this point in that Ive written a lot about how its not my job to give advice to politicians. But my aim here isnt to be a political consultant for Kamala Harris. Its to point outagain!that we have a structural problem in our political system.

We dont have enough good politicians who think their job is to do whats right for the country rather than whats most satisfying for their party and their media cheerleaders. This dysfunction has been good at times for Republicans, but bad for conservatism. It is not good for conservatism to have one of the two major parties be so leftwing. Why? For starters, because it will win sometimes. But more importantly, this polarization has moved the center of gravity in American politics leftward over the last two decades. A Democratic Party that moved rightward would move the center of gravity rightward. Thats what Bill Clinton did for a time in the 1990s. That wasnt his goal or desireit was merely necessary for him to win. And, if Harris flip-flops like a mackerel on the pier, but in a rightward direction, I would welcome it.

Canine Update: Everything in quadruped land is going well, except that twice this week I had to go to CNN very early in the AM to do CNN This Morning and that meant leaving pre-morning walk. Zoe continues to believe this is an outrageous breach of all decorum and protocol. On Monday, she chastised me vigorously upon my return (Warning: Strong Aroo Content). They ended up forgiving me. And yesterday, Zoe even woke up Pippa to lobby for a pre-departure walk.

On Tuesday, Z&P had a brief conversation with some sort of doodle. Pippa continues to have a grand time with her best friend, Clover, on the midday walks. Clover is a Boykin and until recently didnt smile much. But now she smiles all the time, including for an excellent group shot of the small dog posse, which was immediately turned into an album cover. Zoe was providing security out of the frame, but she has come to be a very sweet protector of the whole pack, and very tolerant of Clover, who tends to talk ill-advised smack in the car. Zoe has mellowed so much in her old age, though the neighborhood rabbits have different opinions.

Oh, and folks should know that executive editor Declan Garvey has a new Boykin puppy, Penny. Shes a doll. And if he gives me permission, Ill share pictures. Chester is doing fine and we are still appeasing him. But we have a zero-tolerance policy about him being in the backyard because thats where he bullies Gracie. The other day we heard an intense low meoowwrr and it was coming from Grace, who was hiding under the table. TFJ ran out with the dogs in tow and scared him away. Pippa continues to play hard and nap hard. And everyone gets their treats.

ICYMI

Relief for the hounds

Nah-poleonic ruminations

No coup for you!

Worst National Ice Cream Day ever

Not my problem

Sisterhood of the traveling pundits

Shiny new GLoP

Weird Links

Shark Week star falls from grace

The toasty tale of Taquitos tortilla

Making Eric Cartman proud

Blaze of glory

Liver Lips McGrowl

The GOAT goat

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.
VP candidates Josh Shapiro and Gretchen Whitmer to campaign for Harris next week

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro will campaign together for Kamala Harris next week.

Whitmer and Shapiro both endorsed the vice president as the next Democratic candidate to face Donald Trump after President Joe Biden ended his re-election bid on Sunday.

The duo is set to appear at a campaign event in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania on Monday,The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. They are expected to speak out against Project 2025, a blueprint for a second Trump term.

The 2025 plan was spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and more than a dozen former Trump administration officials. The document includes plans to expand his executive authority, replace civil servants with loyalists, crush abortion rights, attack civil rights for LGBTQ+ people and impose an anti-immigrant agenda.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (left) pictured with Vice President Kamala Harris (right). Shapiro and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer will campaign for the vice president on Monday (REUTERS)

Both governors are considered front-runners for Harris running mate. Shapiro is attending several weekend events to back Harris in her election bid.

Harris began sending initial vetting materials to potential vice presidents on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. Shapiro said he hadnt received any materials on Tuesday. However, when asked a similar question on Wednesday, he referred the inquiry to Harris campaign team, according to the AP.

Additional top picks for Harris include Senator Mark Kelly, a former astronaut who represents the swing state Arizona, and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper.

However, her entire list of candidates includes more than a dozen names, the AP reports. Other names include Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, pictured campaigning for President Joe Biden, is now one of Kamala Harris potential running mates (AFP via Getty Images)

The campaign is also vetting at least one person who isnt currently in government, according to the AP.

Meanwhile, in the GOP camp, some Republican lawmakers are concerned about Trumps decision to run alongside Senator JD Vance, Axios reports.

The road got a lot harder, one House Republican told Axios. He was the only pick that wasnt the safe pick. And I think everyone has now realized that.

Another unnamed GOP lawmaker told Axios Vance doesnt add much to the Trump campaign.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe Biden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Kenny Holston-Pool | Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool / Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice President's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly ten months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with U.S. President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. | Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice President's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly ten months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with U.S. President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages. Harris did not attend the joint session.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.
JOHANNESBURG, July 26 (Xinhua) -- South African police have arrested 95 Libyan nationals in an operation to raid a suspected illegal military training base in White River, Mpumalanga Province, the South African Police Service (SAPS) said Friday.

The SAPS in Mpumalanga, working together with the Department of Home Affairs and other role players, carried out the joint operation Friday, resulting in the subsequent arrests, and the 95 arrested are currently being questioned by the relevant authorities, the SAPS said in a statement.

The locality, which was initially designated as a training site, appeared to have been converted into an illegal military training base, the statement said.

"We take any threat to the security and stability of our province and country very seriously. This operation demonstrates our commitment to acting swiftly and decisively against any activities that could undermine our national interests and ensure the safety of our citizens because that is our primary mandate," said Zeph Mkhwanazi, acting provincial commissioner of the SAPS in Mpumalanga.

The SAPS said they are still investigating the matter and will provide details in due course. 
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

Let us know what you think...

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.

SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images.

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.

SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE
WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 25: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice President's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly ten months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with U.S. President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice President's ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Photo by Kenny Holston/Getty Images-Pool)

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.

SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE
Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands before the start of a meeting in the Vice Presidents ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024 in Washington, DC. Netanyahus visit occurs as the Israel-Hamas war reaches nearly 10 months. In addition to meeting with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, Netanyahu also met with President Joe BIden and families of American Hostages held by Hamas. (Photo by Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images

WASHINGTON  Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday afternoon, a day after he vowed to Congress that he wants total victory in the deadly Gaza war.

Harris said she and Netanyahu had a constructive meeting and that she expressed to the prime minister serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza. Harris also said she stands by a two-state solution for the region as the only path to peace.

Ive said it many times, but it bears repeating: Israel has a right to defend itself, and how it does so matters, Harris said during remarks from the White House following the meeting.

What has happened in Gaza over the past nine months is devastating. The images of dead children and desperate hungry people fleeing for safety, sometimes displaced for the second, third or fourth time. We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent, she said.

Harris said there has been hopeful movement for a cease-fire deal that includes the release of all hostages and a phased withdrawal of the Israeli military.

And as I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu it is time to get this deal done, she said.

Pressure on Harris over Gaza

Harris, now vying for president after President Joe Biden exited the race Sunday, will inevitably face demands and questions from voters, including reliably Democratic young and progressive blocs, who want to see an immediate and permanent cease-fire, and the release of all hostages.

Cease-fire negotiations have been stop-and-start for months, including on a Biden-backed proposal announced in May.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 39,000 since Israels offensive began nearly 10 months ago, according to Gaza health officials in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory.

Netanyahu told lawmakers during a joint meeting of Congress in the U.S. House chamber Wednesday that he will accept nothing less than total defeat over Hamas, the militant group that invaded Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,100 and taking upwards of 200 hostages.

The day after we defeat Hamas, a new Gaza could emerge, Netanyahu said. My vision for that day is of a demilitarized and deradicalized Gaza. Israel does not seek to resettle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.

Israels parliament voted overwhelmingly on July 18 to disapprove of the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, bucking Bidens longstanding advocacy for a two-state solution in the region.

Netanyahus meeting with Harris followed his afternoon meeting with Biden separately, and both then met with the families of hostages still held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Harris appeals to protesters

Seemingly in reference to the uprising of protests across the U.S. over the Gaza war, Harris asked Americans to encourage efforts to acknowledge the complexity, the nuance, and the history of the region.

Netanyahus trip to Washington attracted thousands of protesters to areas surrounding Capitol Hill who demanded the U.S. stop providing aid and weapons to Israel.

Following Netanyahus near hour-long address to lawmakers, demonstrators amassed outside the citys Union Station, where they burned American flags and graffitied the words Hamas is coming among other messages on a statue and fountain dedicated to Christopher Columbus, according to numerous media reports.

Harris issued a statement Thursday morning condemning the despicable events outside Union Station, just under a half-mile from the Capitol.

I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organization Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the State of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation, Harris said.

I condemn the burning of the American flag, Harris said in the statement issued by the Office of the Vice President. Harris continued that she supports the right to peacefully protest, but lets be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.
MOMBASA, Kenya, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan President William Ruto on Friday said his government will soon be proposing changes to the relevant laws to seal the loopholes that undermine the fight against corruption.

Ruto, who has faced pressure from young Kenyan protesters demanding accountability, said the legal amendments will include cracking down on corrupt officials and those displaying opulence and wastage in government spending amid high cost of living.

"We cannot continue to tolerate those who steal from the public and then obtain injunctions while their cases drag on for years," he said in the coastal city of Mombasa during an inspection of development projects.

The Kenyan leader said the Executive will work together with the criminal justice system to ensure corruption cases are resolved within six months, promising that it will no longer be possible for the corrupt to use injunctions to evade prosecution or delay justice.

He said the legal amendments are aimed at cementing integrity and dealing firmly with corruption.

Ruto on Wednesday nominated four Cabinet secretaries from Orange Democratic Party, the main opposition party, into his Cabinet to form a broad-based government, aiming to fix the governance issues raised by the young protesters.

He emphasized the government's focus on the prudent use of public funds to ensure Kenyans receive value for their money.

The Kenyan leader said that the government has redirected funds previously earmarked for office renovations, seminars and vehicles to projects that benefit the Kenyan people. 
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers' 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. The American Federation of Teachers is the first labor union to endorse Harris for president since announcing her campaign. | Montinique Monroe/Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris  the likely 2024 Democratic presidential nominee  outlined on Thursday some of her vision of the future while touting the administrations education record in her keynote address to the American Federation of Teachers national convention in Houston.

Harris has quickly drawn the support of major unions like the AFT in the fast-moving four days since President Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race and passed the torch to her. The unprecedented move could make the 59-year-old the first woman to serve as president if formally nominated and elected in the race against GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.

Today, we face a choice between two very different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, and the other focused on the past, and we are fighting for the future, Harris said to an enthusiastic crowd of teachers at the convention.

In our vision of the future, we see a place where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead  a future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every senior can retire with dignity, and where every worker has the freedom to join a union, she said.

Harris also took jabs at the Heritage Foundations Project 2025  a nearly 900-page proposal that sets forth a sweeping conservative agenda if Trump is elected  calling it a plan to return America to a dark past.

Despite Trump distancing himself from the platform, some former members of his administration helped write it.

Harris said Trump and his allies want to cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants  They even want to eliminate the Department of Education and end Head Start.

She also boasted about the administrations student loan forgiveness, which has now provided almost $169 billion in debt relief to nearly 4.8 million borrowers, according to the Department of Education.

Harris also blasted extremists, saying to the teachers that while they try to create safe and welcoming places where our children can learn, extremists attack our freedom to live safe from gun violence.

We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books, she added.

The Trump campaign sent out a statement on Thursday reiterating his education platform, including civil rights investigations into any race-based discrimination, firing radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education and instituting funding boosts for schools that do things like implement the direct election of school principals by parents.

Union support

Harris promised that she and Biden would sign the PRO Act into law, which would offer protections for workers when unionizing or collectively bargaining.

The AFT, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, threw its support behind Harris shortly after she declared her intent to earn the Democratic nomination.

Harris, who said she is a proud product of public education, thanked AFTs 1.8 million members for their service to the country.

From the public service workers and higher education faculty, to the school bus drivers and the custodians, to the school nurses and our teachers  you all do Gods work educating our children, Harris said.

Shes also received the support of some of the countrys biggest labor unions, and the National Education Association, the largest labor union, endorsed Harris this week.

Some of those recent endorsements include the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, known as AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME and the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.

Meanwhile, the prominent union UAW has not endorsed Harris as of Thursday.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. The American Federation of Teachers was the first labor union to endorse Harris for president since announcing her campaign. (Photo by Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)

Vice President Kamala Harris  the likely 2024 Democratic presidential nominee  outlined on Thursday some of her vision of the future while touting the administrations education record in her keynote address to the American Federation of Teachers national convention in Houston.

Harris has quickly drawn the support of major unions like the AFT in the fast-moving four days since President Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race and passed the torch to her. The unprecedented move could make the 59-year-old the first woman to serve as president if formally nominated and elected in the race against GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.

Today, we face a choice between two very different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, and the other focused on the past, and we are fighting for the future, Harris said to an enthusiastic crowd of teachers at the convention.

In our vision of the future, we see a place where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead  a future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every senior can retire with dignity, and where every worker has the freedom to join a union, she said.

Harris also took jabs at the Heritage Foundations Project 2025  a nearly 900-page proposal that sets forth a sweeping conservative agenda if Trump is elected  calling it a plan to return America to a dark past.

Despite Trump distancing himself from the platform, some former members of his administration helped write it.

Harris said Trump and his allies want to cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants  They even want to eliminate the Department of Education and end Head Start.

She also boasted about the administrations student loan forgiveness, which has now provided almost $169 billion in debt relief to nearly 4.8 million borrowers, according to the Department of Education.

Harris also blasted extremists, saying to the teachers that while they try to create safe and welcoming places where our children can learn, extremists attack our freedom to live safe from gun violence.

We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books, she added.

The Trump campaign sent out a statement on Thursday reiterating his education platform, including civil rights investigations into any race-based discrimination, firing radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education and instituting funding boosts for schools that do things like implement the direct election of school principals by parents.

Union support

Harris promised that she and Biden would sign the PRO Act into law, which would offer protections for workers when unionizing or collectively bargaining.

The AFT, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, threw its support behind Harris shortly after she declared her intent to earn the Democratic nomination.

Harris, who said she is a proud product of public education, thanked AFTs 1.8 million members for their service to the country.

From the public service workers and higher education faculty, to the school bus drivers and the custodians, to the school nurses and our teachers  you all do Gods work educating our children, Harris said.

Shes also received the support of some of the countrys biggest labor unions, and the National Education Association, the largest labor union, endorsed Harris this week.

Some of those recent endorsements include the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, known as AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME and the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.

Meanwhile, the prominent union UAW has not endorsed Harris as of Thursday.

SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST. DONATE
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the American Federation of Teachers 88th National Convention on July 25, 2024 in Houston, Texas. The American Federation of Teachers was the first labor union to endorse Harris for president since announcing her campaign. (Photo by Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)

Vice President Kamala Harris  the likely 2024 Democratic presidential nominee  outlined on Thursday some of her vision of the future while touting the administrations education record in her keynote address to the American Federation of Teachers national convention in Houston.

Harris has quickly drawn the support of major unions like the AFT in the fast-moving four days since President Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race and passed the torch to her. The unprecedented move could make the 59-year-old the first woman to serve as president if formally nominated and elected in the race against GOP nominee former President Donald Trump.

Today, we face a choice between two very different visions for our nation: one focused on the future, and the other focused on the past, and we are fighting for the future, Harris said to an enthusiastic crowd of teachers at the convention.

In our vision of the future, we see a place where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead  a future where no child has to grow up in poverty, where every senior can retire with dignity, and where every worker has the freedom to join a union, she said.

Harris also took jabs at the Heritage Foundations Project 2025  a nearly 900-page proposal that sets forth a sweeping conservative agenda if Trump is elected  calling it a plan to return America to a dark past.

Despite Trump distancing himself from the platform, some former members of his administration helped write it.

Harris said Trump and his allies want to cut Medicare and Social Security, to stop student loan forgiveness for teachers and other public servants  They even want to eliminate the Department of Education and end Head Start.

She also boasted about the administrations student loan forgiveness, which has now provided almost $169 billion in debt relief to nearly 4.8 million borrowers, according to the Department of Education.

Harris also blasted extremists, saying to the teachers that while they try to create safe and welcoming places where our children can learn, extremists attack our freedom to live safe from gun violence.

We want to ban assault weapons, and they want to ban books, she added.

The Trump campaign sent out a statement on Thursday reiterating his education platform, including civil rights investigations into any race-based discrimination, firing radicals who have infiltrated the federal Department of Education and instituting funding boosts for schools that do things like implement the direct election of school principals by parents.

Union support

Harris promised that she and Biden would sign the PRO Act into law, which would offer protections for workers when unionizing or collectively bargaining.

The AFT, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, threw its support behind Harris shortly after she declared her intent to earn the Democratic nomination.

Harris, who said she is a proud product of public education, thanked AFTs 1.8 million members for their service to the country.

From the public service workers and higher education faculty, to the school bus drivers and the custodians, to the school nurses and our teachers  you all do Gods work educating our children, Harris said.

Shes also received the support of some of the countrys biggest labor unions, and the National Education Association, the largest labor union, endorsed Harris this week.

Some of those recent endorsements include the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, known as AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME and the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.

Meanwhile, the prominent union UAW has not endorsed Harris as of Thursday.
Stephen Persutti (Courtesy: VBPD)

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WAVY)  Virginia State Police have canceled the critically missing adult alert for a 44-year-old man in Virginia Beach.

Police said 44-year-old Stephen Lee Persutti, who was reported to have been last seen around midnight on July 26 in Coleridge Court, was found safe.

The investigation agency originally determined Persuttis disappearance as a credible threat to his health and safety.

Continue to check WAVY.com 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 WAVY.com.
KIOWA COUNTY, Okla. (KFOR)  Two former employees at a Head Start facility in Hobart turned themselves into the Kiowa County Sheriffs Office Wednesday for allegations of child neglect.

The allegations stem from an investigation launched in April by the Kiowa County District Attorneys Office. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said it was asked by the District Attorney to assist with looking into Pamela Siesser, 40, and Crystal Edmundson, 43.

ORIGINAL STORY: Hobart daycare workers facing child neglect charges

Two Hobart daycare workers facing child neglect charges.

Two Hobart daycare workers facing child neglect charges.

The Director of Community Action Development Corporation Head Start (CADC) in Hobart confirmed that Siesser and Edmundson both worked at the facility, but were now former employees.

Court documents say the two women were observed on video yanking and/or grabbing children in a rough manner. Edmundson was observed dumping children off their cots while they were sleeping.

Documents cite examples with at least three different children, but note that every fact known in the investigation was not included in them, just what was needed to establish probable cause.

If you were to have done that to anyone, I dont care the age, if you were to have done that to anyone youd go to jail immediately, said Dennis Mowery, the father of one of the victims.

Mowery says he was shown video of his daughter being dragged across the classroom by her arm before dropping her; and letting her fall on the ground. Documents say Siesser also went back and yanked her up off the ground by both arms.

My child still has nightmares to this day, said Mowery. She wakes up screaming and its not ok.

News 4 employees also spoke with Christine Knight. Knight says she also was allowed to review video of her son being dumped out of a cot while he was sleeping and grabbed in a rough manner; before being forced to the ground to pick up his toys. Knight says her son was a 4-year-old at the time.

He would always scream like he would when he [fell] asleep at home on the couch, said Knight. Like he would wake up just screaming, screaming bloody murder.

News 4 received the following statement from CADC Head Start after inquiring about Siesser and Edmunsons employment:

Thank you so much for reaching out to us. The individuals were previously employed by us, but neither one is employed with us currently. Child safety is always our number one priority. Any alleged incident prompts an immediate investigation. That may include internal staff, the Department of Human Services, local/state law enforcement, or any other resource deemed necessary. In this case, CADC worked directly in collaboration with many of the aforementioned agencies. We are confident in the determinations made by those agencies to ensure our children are safe, and always adhere to their recommendations! Every alleged incident is followed up with continued education services for all staff members to reduce the risk of incident for both children and staff. Robin Harris, Director-CADC, Head Start/Early Head Start

The Oklahoma Human Services website says CADC is a five star level program. The site was visited on the same day the investigation was launched in April after a complaint and found to be in compliance. A follow up visit was conducted two days later and the site was found in compliance. Two back-to-back visits in May showed the site was mostly in compliance, but one visited noted that a teacher did not have their Oklahoma Professional Development Ladder certificate.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
(Bloomberg) -- A US election victory for former president Donald Trump could send oil prices lower, according to some prominent Wall Street banks.

Most Read from Bloomberg

While the Republican nominees pledges to bolster the nations crude production are unlikely to be fulfilled, his imposition of trade tariffs could be bearish for prices, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. said in separate reports.

If the tariffs severely affect the global economy, it could slash prices by as much as $11 to $19 a barrel next year, Goldman analysts led by head of oil research Daan Struyven wrote. His re-election would create downside risks to crudes expected range of $75 to $90 a barrel, they said.

The banks economists examined a scenario in which Trump imposes an across-the-board tariff of 10% on all goods imports, provoking a retaliatory levies of the same amount from other countries. The candidate has said he may target China with new tariffs ranging from 60% to as much as 100%.

Read: Trump on What Hed Do With Taxes, Tariffs, the Fed and More

A Trump administration continues to pose mostly bearish risks, analysts at Citigroup including Eric Lee wrote, pointing to trade, oil and gas policy, and his influence on the OPEC+ producer alliance.

Both banks added the caveat that Trump could also bolster oil prices if he renews the crackdown on Iranian exports deployed in his previous term. The former president had used a strategy of maximum pressure in an attempt  which ultimately failed  to renegotiate a nuclear pact with Tehran.

Iranian output could fall by about 1 million barrels a day, or almost a third, during a second Trump term, Goldman projected. However, other exporters in OPEC+ would likely try to fill in the gap, limiting the boost to oil prices to roughly $9 a barrel.

Despite Trumps vow to bolster American oil production with a slogan of drill, baby, drill, the banks envisage little material impact on output, which is already at record levels.

The most likely options available would include an increase in leasing and acreage auctions, and lifting any ban on leasing of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, according to Citigroup.

Even though Trump appears to have a more oil and gas friendly agenda than a Democratic candidate, its immediate impact on physical oil markets is likely to be limited, the bank said. Broader market conditions look more binding on constraining US oil and gas production growth than regulatory factors.

Earlier this year, Citigroup forecast that a Trump win would strengthen the banks confidence in prices sinking to $60 a barrel in 2025. Conversely, Sanford C. Bernstein analysts predicted in January that oil prices could strengthen during a Trump administration if it squeezed shipments from Iran.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Check your produce! A major recall was recently updated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) informing grocery shoppers that a listeria outbreak has expanded after a recall for cucumbers was announced on July 12. As of July 22, there is a recall for multiple vegetables and herbs, as well as packaged items like bagged lettuce and fresh vegetables.

This particular recall is from Wiers Farm Inc. located in Willard, Ohio, who is doing an additional produce recall out of an abundance of caution in case any of these items were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. This is a type of bacteria that can cause listeriosis, which can cause gastrointestinal issues. Symptoms of this disease include fever and muscle aches, and symptoms can last for several weeks. If you think you or someone you love has been affected, contact a medical provider as soon as possible.

If you purchased any of the following items packaged between July 5 and July 12, discard it safely and contact the store you purchased from for a refund. You can keep up with more information about this particular recall on the FDAs website.

Recalled Packaged Items from the FDA

Here are the recalled packaged items at Walmart stores in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Wiers Farm Bagged Poblano  UPC 073064202581  16 oz. bag

Wiers Farm Bagged Cubanelle  UPC 073064201836  16 oz. bag

Wiers Farm Bagged Green Beans  UPC 073064200846  variable weight bag

Wiers Farm Bagged Salad Cucumber  UPC 073064459619  2 lb. bag

Wiers Farm Bagged Serrano  UPC 073064201829  4 oz. bag

Wiers Farm Organic Bell Pepper  UPC 073064201416  2 count tray

Wiers Farm Organic Cucumber  UPC 073064201423  2 count tray

Wiers Farm Organic Yellow Squash  UPC 073064201447  2 count tray

Wiers Farm Organic Zucchini Squash  UPC 073064201430  2 count tray

These are the packaged goods being recalled at Aldi stores in Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Freshire Farms Bagged Green Beans  16 oz. bag

Freshire Farms Bagged Jalapenos  8 oz. bag

Recalled Vegetables and Herbs from the FDA

Here are the bulk retail items being recalled, sold individually by the pound. These items were sold in stores such as Walmart, Kroger, Save-a-Lot, and Shop n Save in the following states: Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Anaheim peppers

Cilantro  sold in bunches

Cubanelle peppers

Cucumber  whole

Green beans

Green bell peppers

Habanero peppers

Hungarian wax peppers

Jalapeno peppers

Mixed vegetable box (shipped to Cleveland and Youngstown, Ohio Foodbanks only)

Mustard greens  sold in bunches

Pickling cucumber

Plain parsley  sold in bunches

Poblano peppers

Serrano peppers

Tomatillos

Sign up for The Kitchn's Daily newsletter to receive our best recipes, posts, and shopping tips in your inbox.
A virtual rendering of the new visitor's center coming to Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in Walton County

SANTA ROSA BEACH  On Tuesday, the Walton County Commission approved using $285,000 in tourist development tax funds to build a new visitor center at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park.

Here is what you need to know.

Project details

Among the features of the new visitor and nature interpretive center will be an event space that can accommodate up to 100 guests, allowing the community to host events at the park.

A virtual rendering of some of the new educational components coming to the new visitor's center at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park.

Featured prominently in virtual renderings and an accompanying presentation found in Walton County agenda files, the new visitors center will feature a walk-through exhibit leading to the tram stop displaying five habitat areas and the various types of wildlife found in the park.

A floor plan of the new visitor's center at Topsail Hill Preserve State Park features new bathrooms and an indoor event space that can hold up to 100 guests.

How will this be funded?

The visitor center is expected to cost $4.15 million, but its primary funding source is a $3.5 million grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. The remainder of the funds were accrued by either project partners or the $285,000 allocation of Walton County TDT funds.

Responding to a question from Walton County Commissioner Danny Glidewell, Florida State Park Foundation CEO Julia Gill Woodward said that Walton County officials would not be asked to pay a recurring cost.

When will this be finished?

The new visitor and education center will hold its groundbreaking in October. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

This article originally appeared on Northwest Florida Daily News: Walton County approves $285K for new visitor center at Topsail Hill
FILE - This June 7, 2023, image provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows the female Mexican gray wolf F2754 during a health check before being released into the wild in southeastern Arizona. The exceptionally restless female Mexican gray wolf nicknamed Asha will be held in captivity with a potential mate through another breeding season in hopes of aiding the recovery of the species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday, July 25, 2024. (Aislinn Maestas/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP, File)

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP)  An exceptionally restless female Mexican gray wolf nicknamed Asha will be held in captivity with a potential mate through another breeding season in hopes of aiding the recovery of the species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.

Asha captivated the public imagination after she was found wandering far beyond the boundaries established along the Arizona-New Mexico border for managing the rarest subspecies of gray wolf in North America. She has twice been captured north of Interstate 40, most recently in December 2023 near Coyote, New Mexico, and the Valles Caldera National Preserve.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson Aislinn Maestas said the wolf, known to wildlife biologists as F2754, has shown signs of bonding and breeding activity with a captive-born male, though so far without producing pups. The hope is that the pair may be released with pups, depending on the outcome of a February-May 2025 breeding period.

Our hope is that they will now spend enough time together to produce offspring, Maestas said.

Some environmentalists say theres more to be gained by freeing Asha and her mate to roam.

We should embrace the opportunity to make new scientific discoveries by allowing wolves to teach us, rather than continuing to disrupt and control their lives, said Claire Musser, executive director of the Grand Canyon Wolf Recovery Project, which advocates for public support to restore wolf populations.

Prior to her capture last year, Asha ventured into the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. At the time, nearly two dozen environmental groups sent a letter to state and federal officials saying that the wolfs movements were evidence that the recovery boundaries are insufficient to meet the needs of the expanding population.

The Fish and Wildlife Service noted that the wolf, born in 2021, had wandered into territory where there are no other wolves to breed with.

Ranchers in New Mexico and Arizona who have long complained that wolves are responsible for dozens of livestock deaths every year are concerned about any expansion of the wolves range.
NAIROBI, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Delegates from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African bloc, convened on Friday in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, to initiate a four-day meeting aimed at enhancing cooperation to combat the menace of transboundary pests in the region.

The gathering brought together senior government officials from the eight-member bloc to minimize the threat posed by migratory pests such as desert locusts, quelea birds, fall army worms, and African army worms.

Abdi Fidar, coordinator of IGAD Food Security, Nutrition and Resilience Analysis Hub, said that despite efforts undertaken individually by member states at the national level, it is clear that the challenge of pests extends beyond borders and necessitates collaborative regional approaches.

"This calls for collective action aimed at establishing a coordinating framework for effectively managing the scourge," Fidar said.

He added that the agricultural landscape in the Horn of Africa grapples with significant challenges posed by transboundary pests, which poses a severe threat to the region's already fragile food security and agricultural productivity.

Moses Mwesigwa, director of Desert Locust Control Organization for Eastern Africa, emphasized the critical importance of regional collaboration and unified action in mitigating the impact of transboundary pests, given their ability to freely traverse borders facilitated by shared climatic conditions.

Mwesigwa said that the region remains at high risk of migratory pest infestations and invasions exacerbated by climate change.

Ibrahim Elmi Mohamed, permanent secretary of Djibouti's Ministry of Agriculture Livestock Water and Fisheries, called for joint aerial surveys and applied research on migratory pests to enhance control of the menace.

Elmi added that Djibouti has mobilized over 8 million U.S. dollars to undertake various locust control actions such as the procurement of aircraft and vehicles equipped with locust sprays.

Somalia State Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation Asad Abdirisaq Mohamed said that his country as a frontline state fully recognizes the need for stronger collaboration and coordination to curb the breeding and spread of these pests, which pose significant economic risks by devastating crops, pastures, forests, and vegetation across the region. 
"War stops immediately": Former US Secretary of State predicts Trump's "peace plan" for Ukraine

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has outlined what Donald Trump's "peace plan" might look like if he wins the presidential election. It involves increasing military aid to Ukraine and its membership in the EU and NATO.

Source: Pompeos op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Pompeo said there is "no evidence" that Trump, if elected president, would push Ukraine towards capitulation. Instead, due to the "Biden administrations weakness," Ukraine finds itself with "cities destroyed, hundreds of thousands killed, and millions of refugees, and without the means to win".

Pompeo believes that a "successful plan" for Ukraine from a future Trump administration might include the following points:

Unleash America's energy potential, restore ties with Saudi Arabia and Israel, and work together against Iran.

Implement real sanctions against Russia, including the removal of exemptions for Russian banks involved in energy extraction  a crucial revenue source for the Kremlin's military machine.

Expand the American defence industry and require NATO allies to spend at least 3% of their GDP on defence.

Establish a US$500 billion "lend-lease" programme for Ukraine, which involves providing military aid on a loan basis rather than as a grant.

Remove all restrictions on the types of weapons Ukraine can receive and use.

Quote: "These steps would position Mr. Trump to set the terms of a deal: The war stops immediately. Ukraine builds up substantial defence forces so Russia never attacks again. No one recognizes Russias occupation and claimed annexation of any Ukrainian territories," Pompeo said.

Additionally, within this "peace plan," Crimea would undergo demilitarisation (the author does not specify whether this means Russia would end its occupation). Ukraine would be rebuilt using frozen Russian assets and would join NATO and the EU as soon as possible. The Alliance would also create a US$100 billion fund to arm Kyiv, with the US contributing 20% of the total.

Quote: "If Russia complies with these terms, the West will gradually lift sanctions. They will be fully removed once Ukraine is in both NATO and the EU. These steps, and not the half-measures of the Biden administration, will end the war, establish a lasting peace, ensure Europe bears the burden of maintaining it, and re-establish freedom and security on the Continent," Pompeo said.

Background:

Trump himself has previously claimed that he wants to end the war in Ukraine "within 24 hours" and before he assumes the US presidency, but he has never detailed his "peace plan".

Last week, after a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he reiterated his desire to "bring peace to the world" by bringing Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table.

Support UP or become our patron!
Friday: On Friday, we will see a few peaks of sunshine with a mostly cloudy sky. There will still be some pop-up afternoon/evening showers and storms, but the coverage will be lower than it has been the last few days across Central Alabama thanks to high pressure over the Gulf of Mexico. High temperatures will heat up into the middle to upper 80s.

Drought Update: There was improvement with the drought across Central Alabama along and south of I-20 where it is now just abnormally dry. However, severe to extreme drought conditions persist for parts of Lamar, Fayette, Walker & Marion Counties.

Weekend Outlook: The weather pattern starts to change this weekend. The trough will move northeast as the high pressure sits over the Gulf of Mexico. This will reduce the chance for rain and temperatures will heat back up to start the weekend. Saturday will be partly cloudy with some pop-up showers and storms. High temperatures will be in the upper 80s to lower 90s. The area of high pressure over the Gulf will pump in plenty of tropical moisture over Alabama, so expect Sunday to be mostly cloudy with a much better chance of showers and storms. High temperatures will be in the upper 80s to lower 90s.

Next Week Outlook: Monday will have numerous storms as an upper-level wave moves across the Southeast U.S. Some rain could be heavy. Highs will be in the upper 80s. Scattered storms are expected on Tuesday with highs around 90.

There will be a ridge of high pressure over the Southern Plains, and Alabama will be on the eastern side with northwest flow aloft over us. This will reduce the chance of storms on Wednesday through Friday giving up more sunshine. However, we must watch out for some MCSs moving in from the northwest each day. High temperatures will heat up into the lower 90s.

Be sure to follow the CBS 42 Storm Team:

Follow Us on Facebook: Chief Meteorologist Dave Nussbaum, Meteorologist Michael Haynes, Meteorologist Alex Puckett, and Meteorologist Jacob Woods.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to CBS 42.
TOPEKA (KSNT)  Washburn University is introducing a new forensic investigation sciences degree this fall.

The new degree will allow students to study crime scene investigation, fingerprint and firearm work. Students will get hands-on experience, and have the opportunity to work directly alongside the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI).

Washburn University excites students with annual summer block party

Proffessor Kim Gerhardt-Whiddon with the University tells 27 News, this degree has been in the works for two years.

Part of the reason we drafted the new degree was to help students be more competitive, Gerhardt-Whiddon said. Be more marketable, but also to help students get internships at agencies like the KBI.

The degree will be open to all Washburn students.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN)  The Washington Department of Health announced the state is seeing an increase in Dengue Fever cases  urging residents to take precautions during travels.

In the departments July 18 announcement, health officials said the uptick in cases were among Washington residents who traveled internationally, particularly to South America, Central America, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

Dengue Fever is caused by a virus carried by Aedes aegypti or Aedes albopictus mosquitos, which are not found in Washington.

Oregon State University captures first-ever images of ship striking shark

A spokesperson for the department of health told KOIN 6 News the virus is also not found in Washington. However, we do have Washington residents who travel to regions where dengue virus is circulating, and with an increase in dengue virus outbreaks in other parts of the globe we have seen an increase in Washington residents becoming infected while travelling.

Washington reports an average of 13 Dengue Fever cases a year among residents who have traveled internationally, according to the department of health.

In 2023, the state reported an increase of cases, at 31 reported cases, and has been recording higher than its average number of cases in 2024.

Portland mom has long road in ICU after horrendous attack from pack of dogs

The department of health urged community members to check their health risks at their travel destinations. Officials also recommend using an Environmental Protection Agency-registered insect repellent, treating clothing and gear with permethrin, and to sleep in a bug-proof room with intact screens on windows and doors, a mosquito net, and wearing long-sleeved shirts, pants, and hats to cover up from bugs.

Washington health officials also warn residents to protect themselves against other diseases, such as West Nile Virus, which is present in mosquitoes in the state.

In Oregon, the state health authority only has data on Dengue Fever cases through 2022, which saw nine cases in the state.

Iconic 154-year-old elm tree to be removed due to public safety

All nine of those cases among Oregon residents had a history of recent travel to areas where Dengue Fever is endemic.

Previously, Oregon reported one case in 2021, seven cases in 2020, 12 cases in 2019, and 11 cases in 2018.

Dengue Fever symptoms range in severity from asymptomatic infections to high fever, headache, muscle aches, and rashes, the Oregon Health Authority said.

Very rare home designed by Pietro Belluschi for sale in Portland

In May 2019, a vaccine against the virus was approved in the United States and is recommended for children nine- to 16-years-old with previous lab-confirmed infection who live in areas where the virus is common.

According to OHA, there is no evidence of Dengue Fever transmission in Oregon, noting the mosquito species that carries the virus is not native to the state. OHA said there have been reports that the species has been found in California.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dengue Fever cases have risen at an alarming rate in recent years, as the World Health Organization reported an eight-fold increase in cases from the years 2000 to 2019.

In 2023, there were over five million cases reported from 80 countries, with at least 23 of those countries reporting outbreaks, the CDC said, adding that the number has more than doubled so far in 2024 with over 10.6 million cases reported in North and South America alone.

According to the CDC, there is no specific treatment for the disease, but patients are encouraged to see a healthcare provider if a fever or other symptoms develop.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Waupun prison staff Tasered man who died of dehydration, failed to give him medication, claim says

Waupun prison staff used a Taser on Donald Maier as he was moved to the solitary confinement cell where he later died naked and gasping for water, according to a recently released legal filing.

Maier, 62, received his prescribed medications only once, if at all, during his nine days in solitary, and prison staff did not once follow agency protocols for documenting a water shut-off to a person's cell, according to a notice of claim filed by Jeff Scott Olson, a civil rights attorney who represents Maier's family.

A notice of claim typically is a precursor to a lawsuit. The Journal Sentinel obtained the filing through an open records request to the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

Olson told the Journal Sentinel he based the filing on records from the Dodge County Sheriff's Office, which investigated all four prisoner deaths. The Sheriff's Office has denied the Journal Sentinel's requests for the records, citing an ongoing investigation.

Maier was one of four prisoners who died at Waupun Correctional Institution over a period of eight months. Maier died of probable malnutrition and dehydration, and his death was ruled a homicide.

"The publicity given to the criminal case ... opened a window into a world that most citizens and most politicians choose to pretend does not exist  a world of unimaginable inhumanity inside our state's prison system," Olson said in an interview.

Seven former prison staffers, including the former warden, face charges in connection with his death. The notice of claim names 26 other prison staff members who were supposed to be caring for Maier or witnessed his deteriorating condition in the days leading up to his death in the Restrictive Housing Unit.

The Journal Sentinel asked the state Department of Corrections about the employment status of those 26 employees.

Eighteen remain employed, while eight are no longer working for the department, said Beth Hardtke, a DOC spokeswoman.

Hardtke, citing privacy rights governing the release of public employee records, said she could not provide more specific information within the Journal Sentinel's deadline.

Those still employed include staff who may be on administrative leave, who may have been disciplined, those still under investigation and others who may have been cleared of wrongdoing, she said.

"When criminal charges were announced in the death of Donald Maier, the Department of Corrections was clear that the criminal investigation must remain open and DOCs internal investigations would continue to ensure that everyone involved is appropriately held accountable," she said.

Prison staff did not follow protocol when shutting off water to Maier's cell, claim says

The notice of claim offers a more detailed look at what occurred in the days before Maier's death.

According to the claim:

Maier was in the prison's Behavioral Housing Unit for unspecified mental health problems when he was found unresponsive on Feb. 13.

Staff planned to move him to the Health Services Unit for medical treatment, but as they tried to move him, Maier became alert and "resistive."

Prison staff used a Taser on Maier and then placed him in a suicide observation cell in the prison's Restrictive Housing Unit, more commonly known as solitary confinement or segregation. The notice of claim does not name the individual staff members responsible for moving Maier or deploying the Taser.

"Although he had severe mental and medical concerns that were well-documented in his prison records, he received none of the medication (or possibly just one dose of medication) that had been prescribed for his medical and behavioral issues," the claim says.

At 12:45 a.m. Feb. 16, Michael Lueneburg, a correctional officer on the restrictive housing unit, requested that the water in Maier's cell be shut off.

It was the first time the water was shut off to Maier's cell, and the claim does not say why Lueneburg made that decision.

Lueneburg did not follow DOC rules which required him to get initial approval from a supervisor for a water shut-off, nor did he file an incident report, the claim says.

If water is shut off for more than two hours, prison staff are required to notify a nurse and the prison's security director, offer water to the prisoner, and write down when water has been offered.

Capt. Joel Sankey, the shift commander, did a "wellness check" of Maier at 12:45 a.m. and 2:10 a.m. that day without documenting the water shut-off or preparing an incident report, the claim says.

Lueneberg and Sankey were not criminally charged in Maier's death, and both are still employed by the Department of Corrections.

Later that same day, Feb. 16, Maier told a doctor he wanted "water, water, water, all the water in the world" and multiple officers reported Maier had been "drinking from the toilet, acting like he was swimming in his cell, speaking incoherently, and repeatedly saying he wanted water."

Staff did turn on the water at several points over the following days, but never notified Maier when that happened. Maier ate his last meal on Feb. 17, five days before his death.

Staff did not intervene and Maier was found dead in his cell

In the final days of his life, prison staff, including physicians, noted Maier's deteriorating condition but none intervened.

The notice of claim provided the following examples:

On Feb. 19, staff reported he was found unresponsive on the floor of his cell, shaking, but did not help him.

On the morning of Feb. 21, a staff member and a registered nurse checked Maier for a possible seizure or any other medical emergency, but took no action.

Later that day, a physician from the prison's Health Services Unit visited Maier to perform an out-of-cell evaluation. Staff told the doctor Maier refused the meeting. The doctor saw Maier on the floor of his cell and commented on his frail condition, but did not insist on entering his cell.

That evening, one of the correctional officers on shift notified his superior that Maier was not doing well. He was told to "keep an eye on it" and file an incident report if the situation continued, the filing says.

Maier was later found by a correctional officer shaking in his cell and appeared to be having a seizure. No medical personnel were called for help, nor did staff intervene.

On the morning of Feb. 22, seven prison staffers saw Maier unresponsive and naked, lying on the floor of his cell. Again, none of them entered Maier's cell to check on him or call for medical staff.

At 3:41 p.m., Maier was found dead.

Seven former prison staffers, including the warden, face charges in Maier's death

The notice of claim includes the names of Hepp, the former warden, and six other former staff members who were charged in Maier's death.

Lt. Brandon James Fisher, Sgt. Alexander John Hollfelder, nurse Jessica Hosfelt, and correctional officers Jamall Rabb Russel, Jeramie Heyward Chalker and Sarah Anne Margaret Ransbottom face a mix of charges, including misconduct in office and abuse of residents in a penal facility.

The criminal case was seen as a rare flare of hope for criminal justice reform advocates and prisoners across the state and their families.

Olson, the attorney for Maier's family, called the charges "remarkable."

"We litigate civil damages cases for violation of the civil rights of prisoners all the time. We always have several of them pending, and almost none of those situations gave rise to criminal charges," he said. "This is an extraordinarily rare thing and the sheriff's department deserves a lot of credit."

Olson said he plans to file a lawsuit on behalf of Maier's family in the coming months.

Editor's note, July 26, 2024: This article has been updated to clarify that the individuals accused of using a Taser on Donald Maier were not named in the notice of claim.

Contact Vanessa Swales at 414-308-5881 or vswales@gannett.com. Follow her on X @Vanessa_Swales.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Waupun prison staff Tasered Donald Maier who died of dehydration
WAVERLY, N.Y. (WETM)  A Waverly man was sentenced to prison time after a release from the Bradford County District Attorneys Office states hes responsible for buying nearly $700 in items with a stolen debit card.

According to documents, 41-year-old Alan Craig White Jr. was sentenced to a minimum of six months to 23 months and 29 days on the charge of access device fraud, a felony in the third degree.

Binghamton man killed after being struck by car in Hershey

The documents state that in March of 2023, White used a debit card that belonged to someone else to make several charges at businesses in Sayre and Athens, Pennsylvania, totaling $694.85.

White, a current inmate in a New York State prison on unrelated charges, will have to pay back the $694.85, fines and court costs.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
RICHMOND, Va. (WAVY)  WAVY-TV 10 has been named a top employer for interns in Virginia.

WAVY Internship Coordinator Stephanie Cooke traveled to Richmond Thursday to be recognized on a day Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin proclaimed Virginia Intern Day.

Photo courtesy: Stephanie Cooke

Speakers included Newport News Mayor Barry Duval, who now leads the Virginia Chamber of Commerce. He spoke about the importance of work-based learning.

Duval said it can help keep talent in Virginia when done right.

Other companies that made the list of top employers for interns in Virginia include Dollar Tree, Huntington Ingalls and the City of Virginia Beach. The 136 awards were separated by region.

Click here to see the complete list of recipients.

And if you are interested in learning more about internship opportunities at WAVY TV, we have all of that information on WAVY.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 WAVY.com.
What is WEA? Here's what to know about NC's emergency alert system.

Many North Carolina residents received unexpected notifications on their mobile devices July 25 with the attached text "Activate WEA in Region 6." This morning, many residents have questions.

The alert referred to a child abduction in Durham. The missing child, Geon King-Parriett, was last seen July 25. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children provided the following description of King-Parriett:

"The Durham Police Department is searching for Geon King. Geon King-Parriett is a 9 year old Black male, approximately 4 feet 10 inches tall, weighing 100 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes and was last seen wearing a black hoodie and black sweatpants. The abductor, Mariah King, is described as a 43 year old Black female, 5 feet 4 inches tall, weighing 140 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes wearing grey sweatpants and a black crop top. Her hair was styled in a bun with a ponytail. They were last seen at 202 S. Benjamine St on foot."

If you have any information regarding this abduction, call the Durham police Department immediately at 919-560-4427 or call 911 or star HP.

While this WEA notified the public of an Amber Alert - an alert referring to a missing person, usually a child - not all WEAs are the same. Here's what to know about the different types of alerts, how they work and more.

More: Permanent license suspension: NC is one of the harshest states for unlicensed drivers

What is a WEA?

The NC Department of Public Safety explains what WEAs are used for. In short, WEAs allow public safety officials to send important warnings directly to mobile devices in affected areas.

WEAs are broadcast to all phones within range of designated cell towers, rather than being sent directly to individual phone numbers like text messages. Older phone models may not receive WEAs - contact your cell provider to learn whether or not your phone will give you the alerts.

More: New rules on GenX, other forever chemical water pollution again delayed by NC commission

What does WEA stand for?

WEA stands for Wireless Emergency Alert.

What triggers a WEA?

The Integrated Public Alert and Warning System allows federal, state, local, tribal and territorial alerting authorities to transmit messages to affected areas using the Emergency Alert System, WEA alerts, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other public alerting systems from one interface.

There are also regular monthly tests of the EAS. Remaining tests in N.C. scheduled for 2024 include:

Aug. 13 - State EOC

Sept. 17 - WQDR-FM

Oct. 15 - State EOC

Nov. 13 - NC Center for Missing Persons

Dec. 12 - State EOC

More: At $512,000, Asheville home prices broke quarterly records; US prices reach all-time highs

What are the four types of emergency alerts?

There are several different types of WEAs, all covering critical emergency situations. The four types of alerts include:

"National Alerts" issued by the President of the United States or the Administrator of FEMA. "Imminent Threat" alerts involving imminent threats to safety or life. "Amber Alerts" about missing children. "Public Safety Messages" conveying recommendations for saving lives and property.

More: Baby animals help break WNC Nature Center visitor record; beloved otter recently died

Iris Seaton is the trending news reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at iseaton@citizentimes.com.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: What is a WEA? What to know about emergency alert systems
KAMPALA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Norway has officially closed its embassy in Uganda, marking the end of 19 years of diplomatic presence in the east African country.

The embassy posted on its official handle on X, formerly Twitter, Friday, saying that the country's flag had been formerly lowered.

"It is with mixed emotions as we lower the Norwegian flag for the last time. The Embassy is now closed, but Norway remains engaged in Uganda," the embassy posted. The lowered flag was handed to Norwegian Ambassador to Uganda Kristin Hermansen.

According to the embassy, the flag was raised in Uganda in 2005.

At an earlier function, Uganda's Minister of Foreign Affairs Odongo Jeje Abubakher emphasized the "strength and tangible results of the Uganda-Norway relationship over the years, expressing Uganda's deep appreciation for this partnership."

"He acknowledged Norway's sovereign decision to close its embassy in Kampala while welcoming the assurance that bilateral relations will persist and flourish," an embassy statement posted on X said.

Norway shut down five missions in 2022. The closure of its embassy in Uganda, which was also overseeing Rwanda and Burundi, was first announced last October, signaling that several changes were underway in the country's diplomatic presence abroad.

Norway supports a variety of projects in Uganda, including education, health, agriculture, and assistance to refugees. 
If you're heading to the Cincinnati Music Festival this weekend, you're in luck.

According to the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Friday will bring mainly clear skies and abundant sunshine, with temperatures reaching the mid-80s. Mostly clear and dry conditions will persist through Saturday night.

Temperatures will dip into the upper 50s overnight but rebound to the upper 80s to around 90 by Saturday afternoon.

An unsettled weather pattern will develop on Sunday and last for much of next week as warmer and more humid air settles into the region. Several showers and storms will likely occur in the Ohio Valley Region through midweek.

Excessive rainfall will be possible. However, details about the location and strength of the thunderstorm activity are uncertain.

No rain expected the next couple of days as high pressure supplies lower humidity air. A pattern change is expected late Sunday with showers and thunderstorms back in the forecast early next week. pic.twitter.com/yimApPnCea  NWS Wilmington OH (@NWSILN) July 26, 2024

Detailed 7-day weather forecast for Cincinnati

Friday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 87. Calm wind becoming northeast around 6 mph in the afternoon.

Friday night: Clear, with a low of around 60. Northeast wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.

Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 91. Calm wind.

Saturday night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 67. Calm wind.

Sunday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2 p.m. Mostly sunny, with a high near 92. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph in the afternoon. The chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Sunday night: There is a chance of showers and thunderstorms, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2 a.m. Mostly cloudy, with a low of around 71. The chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.

Monday: Showers and possibly a thunderstorm are likely. It will be partly sunny, with a high near 88. The chance of precipitation is 70%.

Tuesday: Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before 8 a.m., then a chance of showers and thunderstorms between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m., then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2 p.m. Partly sunny, with a high near 90. The chance of precipitation is 70%.

Wednesday: There is a chance of showers and thunderstorms. It will be mostly sunny, with a high near 92. The chance of precipitation is 40%.

Thursday: There is a chance of showers and thunderstorms. It will be mostly sunny, with a high near 94. The chance of precipitation is 30%.

Source: National Weather Service, Wilmington.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Music Festival 2024: Check weekend weather forecast here
What a difference a week can make, at least in a state suffering from extreme and severe drought conditions.

With much of the state seeing two to three inches of rain over the past week, the N.C. Drought Management Advisory Council is reporting that North Carolina is free of extreme drought conditions and has seen a significant decline in severe drought.

While the deficits from June and early July have not been completely erased, conditions have improved significantly. The rains from this week should result in continued improvement, Klaus Albertin, chair of the drought advisory council, said in a statement.

A U.S. Geological Survey rain gage at Crabtree Creek near Crabtree Valley Mall is indicative of the change in conditions.

In the past week (since July 19), the gage has recorded 4.45 inches of rain. Thats more than the 4.26 inches it recorded in the seven weeks ending July 18, including 0.2 inches total rainfall in June.

In Martin Countys Williamston, June was the driest month in the last decade. The 0.82 inches of rain there was just one one-hundredth of an inch less than the area saw in April, according to N.C. State Climate Office data.

That was quickly reversed in July, with a weather station in Williamston recording 10.78 inches of rain as of Friday. Thats the fifth-wettest month at that location in the last decade, already wetter than September 2018, when Hurricane Florence drenched eastern North Carolina, and quickly approaching October 2016, when Hurricane Matthew passed through the state.

Severe drought conditions are lingering in a large portion of Columbus County and a sliver of Robeson County. The northwestern part of the state is still in severe drought, too, including Davie, Forsyth, Stokes and Yadkin counties.

Still, severe drought covered about 20% of the state last week and is down to about 3.5% now, according to state drought officials.

Much of the Triangle is still classified as abnormally dry, although the northern edge of Wake County does not have any drought status in the updated map.

In early July, The News & Observer reported that farmers were worried about how the drought could impact the corn crop at a pivotal time in its growing season.

The rainfall is helping many crops across the state. In Pender County, for example, the local N.C. Cooperative Extension office is reporting that hay, soybeans and other crops have improved. But corn still remains in rough shape, the office reported.

Streamflow conditions in most of the state are either normal or even much above normal, according to USGS data. Thats a marked change from early in July, when many of those same gages were in the lowest 10th percentile recorded for this time of year.

More rain could be on the way, with the National Weather Services Raleigh office forecasting scattered thunderstorms on Friday. Next week could also see precipitation, with the NWS forecast saying showers and thunderstorms are possible Tuesday through Thursday.

This story was produced with financial support from the Hartfield Foundation and Green South Foundation, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners, as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. If you would like to help support local journalism, please consider signing up for a digital subscription, which you can do here.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is having an internet moment.

The second-term Democrat has spent much of the last week doing quick-hit interviews on TV news shows in support of Vice President Kamala Harris' bid for the White House as she's racked up support from the party and become the presumptive nominee ahead of next month's convention.

Walz, who chairs the Democratic Governors' Association, has been identified as a possible running mate for Harris and his frequent appearances on major networks have turned him into a bit of an internet darling. Like other Democrats, Walz has taken aim both at Republican policies and smeared the opposing party as "weird people."

Many see Walz's quotable clips as proof he's auditioning for the No. 2 spot on the Democratic presidential ticket. While the Harris campaign asked the Minnesota governor for vetting material as she mulls over her options, Walz has among the lowest name recognition and delegate support of the other Democrats she's considering. (Among them: Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Pennsylvania Gov. Mark Shapiro.)

Walz, for his part, has remained demure amid questions about his desire to run alongside Harris. Asked about whether he wants to be second on the ticket, he told MPR's Cathy Wurzer that "if that's the direction she goes, I guess that's fine."

Still, Walz has seen plenty of breakout moments over the last few days. Here are a few of them:

"These are weird people"

David Hogg, a prominent gun control activist who survived a 2017 school shooting in Parkland Florida, on Thursday shared video of Walz on MSNBC where the governor summed up the Democratic strategy in eight words: "These are weird people on the other side."

"He's been an extremely productive governor, he's a total midwestern dad, he's hilarious and genuine," Hogg wrote.

'My god, they went after cat people'

Earlier in the week, Walz went on MSNBC's "11th Hour" broadcast and riffed on Vance's 2021 comments calling Democrats "a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too."

"Go ahead and continue to denigrate people," Walz told host Stephanie Ruhl. "My god, they went after cat people. Good luck with that. Turn on the internet and see what cat people do when you go after 'em."

'Mind your damn business'

The White House has long dispatched Harris to push its agenda on reproductive rights, even going so far as having her visit a Planned Parenthood in St. Paul earlier this year. Walz, who signed a law strengthening abortion rights in Minnesota last year, has touted the topic as well and framed it as an issue of individual rights.

"The golden rule that makes small towns work so we're not at each others' throats all the time in a little town is: Mind your own damn business," Walz said.

'Where has this man been?'

While Walz isn't as well-known as some of the other men and the woman Harris is considering as a running mate, several folks online have marveled at his "favorite uncle" energy and even one person has asked, "Did Joe Biden have Tim Walz locked in the basement of the White House? Where has this man been?"
Who were the press secretaries from the Trump and Biden eras? And what are they up to now?

In this Tuesday, June 20, 2017, file photo, then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer smiles as he answers a question during a briefing at the White House, in Washington. | Alex Brandon

The White House press secretary acts as the spokesperson for the president and interacts with the media on his behalf. On a daily basis, the press secretary sorts through a vast amount of information coming out of the Oval Office, interacting with the presidents aides on views of current events as well as ongoing policies and presents them to the world.

As such, the relationship between president and press secretary is deeply important and must be defined by great trust. The White House press secretary plays a large role in defining the face of the White House to America and the rest of the world.

Lets take a look back at the press secretaries that served former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. Trump had four, while Biden has had two.

Trumps press secretaries

Sean Spicer (JanuaryJuly 2017)

Harvard Law graduate Sean Spicer was fresh off a successful stint as communications director and chief strategist for the Republican National Committee when he was drafted onto Trumps press team. The Associated Press called him sometimes ... fiery and occasionally flustered in his press briefings.

Trump then added Anthony Scaramucci to the White House communications staff as its director. Spicer, who believed Scaramucci was underqualified, resigned his office in protest.

Nevertheless, Spicer and Trump parted on good terms. Trump told the media that he was grateful for Seans work on behalf of my administration and the American people. He shared to Twitter that Sean Spicer is a wonderful person who took tremendous abuse from the Fake News Media- but his future is bright!

Where is Spicer now? After leaving the White House, Spicer sought contracts with major media outlets including CNN, Fox News and NBC, but reportedly was refused due to a lack of credibility, per The Hill. Spicer went on to host a political talk show on Newsmax and appear on NBCs Dancing with the Stars, according to NewsNationNow, for which he currently works as a politics contributor.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders (July 2017-July 2019)

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2017, in Washington. | Evan Vucci

Sarah Huckabee Sanders worked with her father, Mike Huckabee, on his campaign and tenure as governor of Arkansas (a role she would later take herself), and also worked on winning campaigns for Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman.

Sanders was loyal to Trump, according to Politico. When she resigned from office she expressed a desire to spend more time with her children and to return to Arkansas.

Im going to continue to be one of the most outspoken and loyal defenders of the president, she said when she stepped down, per Politico. Meanwhile, Trump called her a special person, a very, very fine woman and a warrior.

Where is Sanders now? In 2023 Sanders became Arkansass first female governor and the youngest governor in the country. In July 2024, she attended the Republican National Convention, where she praised Trump, according to Politico.

Stephanie Grisham (July 2019April 2020)

In this Oct. 3, 2019 file photo, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham listens as President Donald Trump speaks to the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Grisham is leaving her post after never holding a single press briefing. Grisham will be assuming a new role as chief of staff to first lady Melania Trump. | Andrew Harnik

Stephanie Grisham served as first lady Melanias Trump communications director before her appointment to White House press secretary, per NPR. ABC News reported that Grisham defended President Trump during her tenure, which covered Trumps impeachment and the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. She stepped down in 2020  and then her relationship with the Trumps took a turn.

Just a year later, Grisham unveiled a new book titled Ill Take Your Questions Now, according to ABC News. The book described a culture of exaggeration, dishonesty, anger and impropriety at the White House.

When asked by news anchor George Stephanopoulos if she felt she was part of that culture, she said: Yes, I was. And Ive reflected on that and I regret that. Especially now when watching him, and so many people, push the false election narrative. I now want to, in whatever way I can, educate the public about the behaviors within the White House because it does look like hes going to try to run in 2024.

Stephanie didnt have what it takes and that was obvious from the beginning, Trump said after the book was published. She became very angry and bitter... as time went on she was seldom relied upon, or even thought about. ... Now, like everyone else, she gets paid by a radical left-leaning publisher to say bad and untrue things.

Where is Grisham now? Following her resignation, Grisham moved to Plainsville, Kansas, where she wrote her book and has now opened an animal rescue, per The Arizona Republic.

Kayleigh McEnany (April 2020January 2021)

In this Dec. 2, 2020 file photo, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany speaks during a briefing at the White House in Washington. McEnany has signed on as a Fox News contributor. | Evan Vucci

Kayleigh McEnany graduated from Harvard Law, worked for multiple conservative media groups and published a book on Trumps 2016 election before taking over for Grisham in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, per BBC.

McEnanys press briefings were related to claims of 2020 election fraud, impeachment fraud and pandemic management strategy, per ABC News.

After leaving the White House, McEnany joined Fox News and began to offer criticism and advice for Trumps post-presidential career. In response, Trump criticized her several times over X.

Where is McEnany now? McEnany still works for Fox News. She co-hosts Outnumbered and serves as an on-air political commentator.

Bidens press secretaries

Jen Psaki (January 2021May 2022)

White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Friday, Oct. 22, 2021, in Washington. | Evan Vucci

Georgetown University graduate Jen Psaki was an adviser and traveling press secretary in President Barack Obamas reelection campaign, a spokesperson for the Department of State and White House communications director from 20152017 before Biden appointed her as press secretary.

Psaki reinstated daily press briefings and quickly became a favorite of left-leaning media outlets. Conservative outlets criticized her for avoiding questions. Psaki left office on good terms with Biden.

Where is Psaki now? Soon after leaving office, Psaki became the anchor for a talk show for media outlet MSNBC.

Karine Jean-Pierre (May 2022  present)

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Tuesday, July 9, 2024, in Washington. | Evan Vucci

Jean-Pierre served as chief of staff for Kamala Harris, lectured in international and public affairs at Columbia University and served as deputy press secretary to Psaki before replacing Psaki as press secretary, according to Carnegie. She made history as the roles first Black occupant as well as its first openly gay occupant.

Jean-Pierre garnered criticism for dodging questions, according to The Associated Press. The Office of Special Counsel also issued her a warning for using the term MAGA in reference to the Trump campaign.

Recently, Jean-Pierres role has included responding to questions on issues like the attempted assassination of Trump as well as Bidens presidential debate fiasco, perceived cognitive decline and COVID-19 diagnosis. She has defended Biden throughout, per Fox 25.

At the same time, she has criticized Republican calls for Biden to resign the presidency early and has insisted that his term was successful. Hes been able to do more again than any president has been able to do in two terms, she said, per Fox News.
MACOMB, Ill. (WCIA)  The union representing faculty and academic support workers at Western Illinois University is speaking out after university administration announced that more layoffs could be coming to the university.

The university previously laid off 35 faculty members in June. On Thursday, the universitys interim president announced at a faculty senate meeting that the university intends to lay off more faculty members and academic support professionals. The exact number is unknown and details wont be known until after a Board of Trustees meeting scheduled for Aug. 6.

IL FOP: Sean Grayson fired without just cause, files grievance

Merrill Cole, president of the WIU Chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI), Local 4100, shared a statement in response:

The administrations announcement to lay off more of our experienced, dedicated faculty and academic support professionals is short-sighted and ill-conceived. These layoffs will impact the quality of education that WIU offers to students, devastating our community and regional economy. These layoffs  only days before students return to campus  will reduce academic programs and devalue the high standards we are so proud of here at WIU. Regardless of the potential timing of additional layoffs, they would have a negative and immediate impact. Lower enrollment is sure to follow, which will further harm the universitys bottom line. For years, this Board of Trustees has been content to pass irresponsible, unbalanced budgets, while insisting that the university could not cut its way out of its problems. Now, their solution is to take extreme action that would immediately damage WIUs capacity to serve students and destroy the universitys academic reputation. It didnt have to be this way. This new administration needs to strengthen and guide the university forward instead of gutting the quality of education. For the sake of our students, community, and the future of the WIU, we urge the administration and board members to reconsider their reckless plan, and work with us to find ways to build  not break  this important rural institution. Merill Cole, president of the WIU Chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI), Local 4100,

Illinois community college students may have automatic admission to more state universities, thanks to new bill

The WIU chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois represents about 500 faculty, instructors and academic support professionals.

Rep. Gregg Johnson also gave a statement to WCIA on the layoffs.

My heart goes out to the faculty and academic support workers whose jobs will be lost. I encourage anyone affected to reach out to my office. We will do everything in our power to connect you with programs and services that will help get you back on your feet, said Johnson. Layoffs will hurt our local and regional economy, and I am particularly concerned in light of other recent layoffs impacting our region. I am committed to working with my colleagues Sen. Halpin and Rep. Sorenson in conjunction with stakeholders across the area to address this growing problem head-on.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR)  Are you a weather fan or an expert? See if you can correctly guess this WFXR Weather Trivia question!

Fill in the Blank: A heat index of _____ or greater would result in an Excessive Heat Warning for Lynchburg.

An Excessive Heat Warning is typically issued within 12 hours of the onset of extremely dangerous heat conditions. However, the criteria for heat alerts vary across the country. Certain areas are used to heat and humidity more than others. For example, Florida residents are much more prepared for 90-degree weather than residents in Alaska.

The National Weather Service in Blacksburg would issue an Excessive Heat Warning for Lynchburg when heat index values are forecast to reach 110 or greater.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Bossier City Municipal Complex July 25, 2024, following the announcement of a verified petition for term limits in Bossier City.

On Thursday, July 25, Bossier City Mayor Tommy Chandler held a press conference to announce that the petition for term limits had been signed and a certificate of registration had been awarded by the Registrars of Voters.

Chandler said, "I felt this press conference was necessary because this is an issue that has been debated and discussed over the past year in our city."

He continued by saying that he is dedicated to keeping the citizens informed and he is not promoting any position on this matter. He said, "I'm here to announce that the filing of this petition, that the matter of term limit in Bossier City will now be on the ballot and determined by the vote and by the will of the people."

This is the second attempt at term limits in Bossier City.

On July 10, 2023, the Bossier Term Limit Coalition delivered 2,977 signatures from Bossier City voters demanding term limits. On Aug. 11, 2023, Bossier City Attorney requested an outside counsel to look over this petition. Four days later, the outside counsel requested the opinion of the Louisiana Attorney General's Office.

It was determined that the petition lacked proper requirements such as date of birth.

The petition that was signed and certified on July 25, 2024, has all the required information that was requested in the original petition from 2023. 2,928 names were verified on this petition.

David Crocket, member of the Bossier Term Limits Coalition said, "we're trying to bring the power back to the people and make sure that they have a voice on the city council."

The petition calls for the City Charter of Bossier City to amend the term limit to a three-term limit for the mayor as well as the City Council.

The Bossier City Council has 30 days to vote on the language of the ordinance. If the council votes it down petitioners can seek a declaratory judgement.

Ordinance written by the petitioners for term limits in Bossier City, July 25, 2024.

If approved the matter of term limits in Bossier City will appear on the December ballot.

More: Louisiana Attorney General declines to give an opinion on Bossier City term limits

Makenzie Boucher is a reporter with the Shreveport Times. Contact her at mboucher@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: What's the future of term limits in Bossier City?
What's in a name? Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance has had many of them

FILE - Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, speaks at a campaign rally, July 22, 2024, in Radford, Va. Vance introduced himself to the world in 2016, when he published his bestselling memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," under the name J.D. Vance  with periods between the initials for James David. Over the course of his 39 years, Vance's first, middle and last names have all been altered in one way or another. Vance's name has been the source of both questions and curiosity, including why he no longer uses periods in "JD." (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson, File)

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  When it comes to Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance's name, it's complicated.

The senator from Ohio introduced himself to the world in 2016 when he published his bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, under the name J.D. Vance  like jay-dot-dee-dot, he wrote, short for James David. In the book, he explained that this was not the first iteration of his name. Nor would it be the last.

Over the course of his 39 years, Vance's first, middle and last names have all been altered in one way or another. As Vance is being introduced to voters across the country as Donald Trumps new running mate, his name has been the source of both curiosity and questions  including why he no longer uses periods in JD.

He was born James Donald Bowman in Middletown, Ohio, on Aug. 2, 1984, his middle and last names the same as his biological father, Donald Bowman. His parents split up around the time I started walking, he writes. When he was about 6, his mother, Beverly, married for the third time. He was adopted by his new stepfather, Robert Hamel, and his mother renamed him James David Hamel.

When his mother erased Donald Bowman from his and her lives, the adoption process also erased the name James Donald Bowman from the public record. The only birth certificate for Vance on file at Ohio's vital statistics office reads James David Hamel, according to information provided by the state.

Beverly kept the boy's initials the same, since he went universally by J.D., Vance explains in the book. He didn't buy his mother's story that he was named for his uncle David, though. Any old D name would have done, so long as it wasn't Donald, he wrote.

Vance spent more than two decades as James David J.D. Hamel. It's the name by which he graduated from Middletown High School, served in Iraq as a U.S. Marine (officially, Cpl. James D. Hamel), earned a political science degree at The Ohio State University and blogged his ruminations as a 26-year-old student at Yale Law School. Those facts are borne out in documentation provided by those entities upon request, or otherwise publicly available, and were confirmed by campaign spokesperson Taylor Van Kirk.

But the situation gnawed at him, particularly after his mother and adoptive father divorced.

I shared a name with no one I really cared about (which bothered me already), and with Bob gone, explaining why my name was J.D. Hamel would require a few additional awkward moments, he writes in Hillbilly Elegy. Yeah, my legal father's last name is Hamel. You haven't met him because I don't see him. No, I don't know why I don't see him. Of all the things that I hated about my childhood, nothing compared to the revolving door of father figures.

So he decided to change his name again, to Vance  the last name of his beloved Mamaw, the grandmother who raised him.

It didn't happen on his wedding day in 2014, as the book implies, but in April 2013, as he was about to graduate from Yale, Van Kirk said. It felt right to take the name of the woman who raised him before dying in 2005, as he was putting the struggles of his early life behind him and launching into this new phase.

Throughout his tumultuous childhood, Mamaw  or Bonnie Blanton Vance  raised JD and was always his north star, Van Kirk said in a statement. It only felt right to him to take Vance as his last name.

Claiming the Vance name also served to tie JD more clearly to what he writes was hillbilly royalty on his grandfather's side not long before he would release a book opining on hillbilly culture. A distant cousin to his Papaw, also named James Vance, married into the McCoy-hating Hatfield family and committed a murder that kicked off one of the most famous family feuds in American history, Vance wrote in his book.

Vance achieved a clean slate of sorts with his new name, just as he was entering his career as a lawyer and author. Besides being the name on his book, it's the name he used to register for the bar, to marry, to enter the world of venture capital in the Silicon Valley and as he became a father.

But there was one more name alteration to come.

When Vance jumped into politics in July 2021, he had removed the periods from J.D. He'd often used this shorthand, JD, over his lifetime.

Asked by The Associated Press at the time if this was a formal change, or merely stylistic, his campaign said it was how Vance preferred to be referred to in print. He has maintained the usage as a U.S. senator, referring to himself as JD Vance on his Senate website, in press releases and in certain campaign and business filings.

The nominee's legal name today is James David Vance. The AP, whose industry-standard AP Stylebook advises to generally call people by the name they prefer, honors his request to go by JD with no periods.

___

Associated Press researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed to this report.

___

Follow the AP's coverage of JD Vance at https://apnews.com/hub/jd-vance.
Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris not only has a very real chance to make history, but she also has a shot at defying science.

The past few days have been a whirlwind for the Harris campaigna campaign that technically only launched on Sunday and has already amassed more than $100 million in donations and secured the all-important endorsement of Charli XCX, which catapulted her into the pop-culture stratosphere. However, alongside that endorsementand many others including from former president and first lady Barack and Michelle ObamaHarris switched over her campaign X (formally Twitter) account to the handle KamalaHQ. According to research, its a move that could make or break her campaign.

I kept seeing men referred to by just their last name, and equally famous, well-known, eminent women, not identified the same way, Dr. Stav Atir, an assistant professor studying behavioral science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told Glamour about what inspired her research, How gender determines the way we speak about professionals, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. I saw it in academia. We would have lab meetings and casually talk about women and men differently. And watching panel shows on TV and politics, Id notice the same thing.

Think about it this way: You call her Jane Austin. You call him Dickens. You call her Hillary. You call him Clinton. You call him Trump and her Kamala.

That same thing was that women, even those running for the highest office in the United States, are more often referred to by their first name alone, while men are more often referred to by their last. And that, Atir and her coauthor Dr. Melissa Ferguson reported, is a form of gender bias that can have serious consequences when it comes to how people are perceived.

Think about it this way: You call her Jane Austin. You call him Dickens. You call her Hillary. You call him Clinton. You call him Trump and her Kamala.

To come to these conclusions, Atir and Ferguson collected transcripts from shows like All Things Considered, Fresh Air, Morning Edition, The Rush Limbaugh Show, and The Sean Hannity Show, coding 9,572 references from 336 segments. After crunching the numbers, they found that speakers were more than twice as likely (126.42%) to use a surname when speaking about a man than when speaking about a woman.

They ran eight different studies in total. Across the studies, the results suggested that this gender bias may be seriously consequential.

By referencing female candidates informally, newspeople infantilize the candidates and detract from their power and legitimacy.

Participants judged fictional researchers referred to by surname as better known and more eminent in their field than researchers referred to by full name, the study stated. Evidence suggests that this inference of fame and eminence, in turn, led to increased judgments of status, likelihood of winning an award, and deservingness of career award[s] and associated funding.

Their study isnt the only one showing this effect.

Media coverage can profoundly affect election outcomes, the 2011 study Whats in a Name? Coverage of Senator Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Democratic Primary, published in the journal Political Research Quarterly, proclaimed. Specifically, gender bias in coverage can disadvantage female candidates. Historically, female candidates receive 50% less coverage than their comparable male counterparts.

Opinion

The Cat Lady Conundrum

A resurfaced clip of JD Vance calling Kamala Harris and other prominent child-free Democrats cat ladies is making the rounds. Its petty, yes, but it underscores a vital question: If procreation is what matters to Vance and his party, why arent they doing more to support women?

As this study noted, throughout the 2008 election, television newspeople referenced Clinton more informally than her main male counterpart, Barack Obama, and the other male candidates in the race, adding, The names newspeople use to reference candidates paint a subtle, yet pervasive, picture of social status. By referencing female candidates informally, newspeople infantilize the candidates and detract from their power and legitimacy.

If it hadnt been for Chris Matthews misogyny, the data actually wouldve kind of been basic, Dr. Lilly Goren, a professor of political science and global studies at Carroll University and coauthor of the study, said. But Matthews constant, constant attacks on her and the way that he talked about her really made it statistically significant.

Kamala is more informal. Its more familiar. Its potentially meaningful that she gets a first name. This could, in turn, make her more familiar and more approachable.

What kind of misogyny, exactly? As the study noted, on January 8, 2008, Matthews took to television and said, The reason shes a U.S. senator, the reason shes a candidate for president, the reason she may be a frontrunner is her husband messed around. We keep forgetting it. She didnt win there on her merit. Failing to mention her Yale Law degree, her work as an attorney, her work as an advisor in the House Committee on the Judiciary during the Watergate scandal, or her body of work as first lady. Not to mention that she was democratically elected by the people of New York state.

Matthews appears most frequently in the data for referring to her as Hillary rather than by her full or last name 13 times in his show. But, even taking Matthews out of the data set, Clinton was still referred to by first name 30 times compared to Obamas seven across all other pundits the team ran data on.

But heres the fun part about all these rules: they are meant to be broken. And, as both researchers noted, Harris has the best shot at bucking convention.

We focused on the disadvantages, Atir said about her research. But I dont think [Harris] is necessarily at a disadvantage. I think the way that people refer to her reflects how shes seen, and her gender and her ethnicity clearly play a role.

TL;DR

What Does Kamala Is Brat Meanand Could It Help Her Campaign?

Shes so Kamala.

Trump, Atir noted, is often just Trump, adding, We know that this single name is linked to fame and eminence, and his prominence is reflected and reinforced by this use of his last name. But Harris, on the other hand, sometimes shes called Kamala Harris and sometimes just Kamala. And just Kamala, I think like Trump, also assumes recognition without the full name.

Kamala is more informal. Its more familiar. Its potentially meaningful that she gets a first name, even though theyre both quite well-known at this point, Atir noted. This could, in turn make her more familiar and more approachable. While the use of a surname is often associated with coldness, it can also make someone appear more distant. And with a candidate like Harris, whose policies are less known, familiarity may be critical.

I think in terms of presenting herself as the presidential candidate, her name distinguishes her, Goren added. However, Goren says, all this is, of course, the difficulty of being a woman running for the presidency, is that the form that youre trying to fit into is uncharted territory.

Neither wanted to wade into the water of saying which naming convention would be the optimal strategy, because it can vary from candidate to candidate and gender identity to gender identity. And even with all this scientific data, they both agree that it comes down to one easy thing: Harris choice.

I think that the use of her first name can mean really different things if its embraced by her and done by her and her supporters, Atir said. And all her names appear to be embraced by the VP  who uses @KamalaHQ on X, @KamalaHarris on Instagram, Wife, Momala, Auntie on her bio, and Harris for President as her official campaign site. That highlights her identities in a positive way.

Think: Shes got a shot at being called whatever she wants, including Madam President Kamala Devi Harris.

Originally Appeared on Glamour

More on Kamala Harris
A special encore 20/20 airing Friday, July 26, at 9 p.m. ET, which originally aired in 2020, revisits the case of missing Utah mom Susan Powell. The show looks at the continued hunt for Susans body and the heartbreaking details surrounding the murders of her two sons at the hands of her husband, Josh, who died by suicide after killing the boys.

Chuck and Judy Cox have spent the past eight years in agony while trying to find some semblance of justice after their son-in-law, Josh Powell, murdered their two young grandsons.

When it finally seemed like they were on the verge of finding some closure earlier this year, the coronavirus pandemic brought everything to a halt.

I don't know anything else I could have done and they're still dead. My daughter's still missing, and now the children are dead, said Chuck Cox. I had them safe... They were in my care.

His daughter, Josh Powell's wife Susan Powell, was the mother of Braden and Charlie Powell. She disappeared under suspicious circumstances in 2009 and her body has never been found.

In February 2012, Josh Powell killed himself along with Braden, 5, and Charlie, 7, in a house explosion during a supervised visit. Josh Powell locked out the social worker from the home upon their arrival.

Why take the kids, why? It makes absolutely no sense, said Cox.

Chuck and Judy Cox are seen here with their grandsons. (The Cox Family)

After the house explosion, Chuck and Judy Cox sued the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) in civil court, alleging that its negligence contributed to the deaths of their grandsons. The lawsuit was thrown out in 2015 but was appealed and revived in 2019 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The fact of the matter is they're the only ones who could have protected the children at that point, Cox said of the child welfare agency run by DSHS. They're the ones with responsibility.

The wrongful death civil trial began in February in Tacoma, Washington, but was interrupted in March as COVID-19 swept through the nation.

We have been robbed of three precious lives and its just devastating to think the same person did it, Denise Cox-Ernest, Susan Powell's sister, told ABC affiliate KOMO-TV in 2012.

Susan and Josh Powell are seen here with their two sons. (The Cox Family)

What happened to Susan Powell remains a mystery to this day.

She was reported missing in December 2009 when the family was living in West Valley City, Utah. That night, Josh Powell claimed he had gone on a camping trip in the middle of the night with their sons. Susan Powell, he said, stayed home because she was tired.

As soon as I heard that he was back and Susan was not with them, I instantly said to myself, What has he done? Kiirsi Hellewell, Susan Powell's friend. Susan would have never allowed him to ever take the boys out in the winter to the desert, in the middle of the night. Never. I never believed his story at all.

PHOTO: A flier seeking information on the whereabouts of Susan Powell, who was reported missing in Utah on Dec. 7, 2009, at a press conference in Puyallup, Wash., Dec. 17, 2009. (Ted S. Warren/AP)

West Valley City Police Det. Ellis Maxwell, who led the investigation into Susan Powells disappearance, said that when investigators arrived at the house, there were no signs of a disturbance or physical altercations.

At the bank in which she'd worked, inside a safe deposit box that belonged to her, investigators discovered a handwritten will and testament. In the will, Susan Powell had written about how bad her marriage had become and that Josh Powell had taken out a $1 million life insurance policy on her.

If I die," her note said, "it may not be an accident."

That is our biggest piece of evidence," Maxwell said. "It's her last words. There was no doubt that this document was authored by Susan.

Authorities also determined that Josh Powell had filed paperwork to withdraw money from her retirement account about 10 days after she had disappeared.

At the time of her disappearance, Susan Powell's close friends said her marriage had been in turmoil for years and that she had even seen a divorce lawyer.

PHOTO: Susan Cox Powell is seen here in this undated family photo. (The Cox Family)

She'd been really happy. He'd been a great husband, and she said that he really changed. He became not affectionate, said the Cox family attorney, Anne Bremner.

Her friends also said Susan Powell would complain about a lack of intimacy from her husband.

He kept her at arm's length. He wouldn't kiss her anymore. He wouldn't touch her. He wouldn't hold her hand, said Hellewell.

Josh and Susan's marriage reaches rock bottom in the summer of 2008. Josh and Susan are constantly fighting. They're arguing in front of the kids. Josh is exhibiting extreme control over Susan, said Dave Cawley, the host of "Cold," an investigative podcast on the case.

MORE: If Something Happens to Me | The 20/20 Event Special airs Friday 9|8c on ABC

Hellewell said Susan Powell would email her a lot, saying she wants "to do everything in my power to save my marriage before I walk away."

Chuck Cox said that after his daughter's will was found, he felt "frustrated" that authorities didn't arrest Josh Powell.

I felt they had plenty of evidence to arrest him, Chuck Cox said.

Police publicly declared Josh Powell as a person of interest about a week after his wife went missing. However, despite suspicions, Josh Powell was never charged in Susan Powells disappearance.

Susan Cox Powell is seen here in this undated family photo. (The Cox Family)

Those close to the family say Josh Powell acted strangely in the wake of his wifes disappearance. He was observed cleaning his minivan and the garage.

It was really odd to me because he was running around the house grabbing piles of towels and putting them in the washer And finally, we're like, you've got to go to your interview with the police, said Jennifer Graves, Josh Powells sister.

Friends and close relatives also said that he never participated in search efforts or showed urgency to find his wife.

There was no point at which Josh ever seemed to even be concerned that Susan was missing," said Hellewell. "He never participated in any of the massive, massive efforts that myself and relatives and friends launched to put out flyers in malls and parking lots."

MORE: Death row inmate says he's facing execution based on lying jailhouse snitch's word

When detectives pushed Josh Powell on the details from the night his wife went missing, he said he could not remember the events leading up to her disappearance.

I just dont remember what activity we were doing, he had told Maxwell.

PHOTO: Josh Powell, the husband of missing Utah woman Susan Powell, listens during a court hearing regarding the custody of his two sons in Tacoma, Wash., Sept. 28, 2011. (Ted S. Warren/AP, FILE)

Investigators also questioned then 4-year-old Charlie the day after his mother disappeared.

Charlie confirmed to investigators that he went camping the night his mother vanished, saying my dad and my mom and my little brother were also there.

The children said, Mommy was in the van but didn't come back with us, a pretty significant thing for a 4-year-old to tell a detective, said Rebecca Morris, who authored a book about the case titled If I Cant Have You.

My mom stayed at Dinosaur National Park. My mom stayed where the crystals are, Charlie had also said.

Many people interpreted Charlies statement to mean that his mother was dead. However, the toddler also made comments that were clearly false, including taking an airplane to go camping.

There's a pile of circumstantial evidence, said Maxwell. Is there enough there to arrest him and book him into jail and hold him accountable? Absolutely, there is. Could we? No.

Maxwell said that the Salt Lake County district attorney refused to file charges without a body until a year had passed.

ABC News reached out to the district attorney at the time, but they declined to respond to this claim and refused to comment on this case.

PHOTO: A makeshift memorial with photographs of Susan Cox Powell and her sons Braden and Charlie, is lit with candles during a vigil at McKinley Park in Tacoma, Wash., Feb. 6, 2012. (Ted S. Warren/AP, FILE)

In January 2010, less than a month after his wife disappeared, Josh Powell said he had sought to get away from media attention and moved with his sons into his father Steven Powell's house in Puyallup, Washington.

In an effort to get more information for authorities, Graves wore a wire and confronted her brother about his wifes disappearance.

Suddenly I just shoved Josh into the bathroom and at that point, I was like, Drop all pretense. Just tell me where her body is, said Graves.

He continued to deny knowing anything about Susan Powells disappearance and the situation escalated. Steven Powell then kicked Graves out of the house.

I regret not getting the confession, but I don't regret going, said Graves.

MORE: John Lennon's friends, collaborators share memories, mementos from him

In 2010, about a year after investigators first spoke to Charlie on the day after his mothers disappearance, they sat down with the 5-year-old again and asked him about what he remembers from that night.

We cant talk about Susan or camping. I always keep things as secrets, Charlie said in the interview. I didnt want to talk to you on this long, I mean this many minutes. Now Im done.

The only thing we got out of [Charlie] that time was that he said that she went camping, but she didn't come home with them. Then, he kinda clammed up after that, said Det. Sgt. Gary Sanders of the Pierce County Sheriffs Department.

All the while new details began to emerge about Steven Powell's unusual fixation and inappropriate behavior toward his daughter-in-law, Susan Powell.

In a 2011 interview with ABC News, he alleged that Susan Powell had made sexual advances toward him.

She told me that part of the reason they moved to Utah was to get away from her father-in-law, Steven Powell. She was like, He is the most filthy, foul, sick, disgusting pervert the world has ever seen. He's in love with me, said Hellewell.

Susan was very, very sexual with me. She was very flirtatious, Steven Powell told ABC News. We interacted in a lot of sexual ways because Susan enjoys doing that. I enjoy doing that."

MORE: Slain former NBA player's loved ones still want answers to ex-wife's involvement in his murder

Why are you telling everyone that? That's not to your benefit," Graves said of her father. "But somehow in my dad's own twisted mind, he thought that that was the greatest strategy to keep the dogs off Josh or something. I don't know."

Denise Cox-Ernest said her sister, Susan Powell, had complained about her father-in-law's inappropriate advances and that she had told Josh Powell about them, too.

She was extremely upset about that and disturbed, but even more disturbed when Josh just said that, you know, that's his dad, said Cox-Ernest.

Shortly after ABC News interview, Utah police searched the Powell family home in Puyallup, where Josh Powell and his sons were living at the time. Investigators found home videos taken by Steven Powell that showed secret recordings of his daughter-in-law's body parts and video diaries in which he smelled her underwear and expressed his love and sexual feelings toward her. The search also yielded dozens of computer disks containing images of women and young girls that focused on their private parts, according to prosecutors.

Police arrested Steven Powell in November 2011 and charged him with voyeurism and possession of child pornography. Josh Powell was named as a subject in the child pornography investigation.

PHOTO: Charles and Judy Cox, the parents of Susan Powell, enter a courtroom in Salt Lake City, July 8, 2014. (Ted S. Warren/AP, FILE)

Following Steven Powell's arrest, Josh Powell lost custody of his two sons. Chuck and Judy Cox were awarded temporary custody of the children in which they acted essentially as foster parents -- the state had official custody -- and Josh Powell was given weekly supervised visitation.

Because of all the things that the police encountered in the search of the Steven Powell home, it became apparent, eventually, these boys were at imminent risk of harm, Ted Buck, another attorney for the Cox family.

MORE: 'Suitcase Killer' Melanie McGuire defends innocence from inside prison

In February 2012, new evidence emerged that a laptop from Josh Powells Utah home contained images of cartoon pornography. A judge then ordered Josh Powell to undergo a psychosexual evaluation and take a polygraph test.

But before Josh Powell could take the evaluation or polygraph test, he killed himself and the two boys. On Feb. 5, 2012, a state caseworker brought the boys to Powells home for a supervised visit. He locked the official out, incapacitated the 5- and 7-year-old children with a hatchet, poured gasoline on them and around the house and then caused an explosion, according to authorities.

A few months later, in June 2012, Steven Powell was convicted on the voyeurism charges and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. The trial court had initially dismissed the charge for possession of child pornography in 2012, but the state's court of appeals reinstated the charge in 2014. He was convicted of possession of child pornography in 2015 and spent another two years in prison.

PHOTO: Chuck Cox, father of missing Utah mother Susan Powell, is comforted by his wife Judy, right, before speaking to reporters, June 15, 2012, in Tacoma, Wash. (Ted S. Warren/AP, FILE)

Steven Powell served a total of seven years in prison before being released in July 2017. He died of heart problems a year later.

Maxwell believes that Josh Powells murder-suicide was definitely an admission of guilt for Susan Powells murder.

She was going to divorce him. If he can't have her, nobody will, he said. So he essentially kidnaps Susan and most likely murders her and disposes of her body. Where? I have no idea. Nobody knows.

The Cox family civil case reconvened at the end of July this year. In August, the jury awarded the family a record $98.5 million award against the State Department of Social and Health Services.

Chuck Cox said he is going to use the reward money to honor his late grandchildren.

I intend to ... use the award to try and help other people, [so] that we can save more children, said Chuck Cox.

The judge presiding over the case has since reduced the reward to $32 million -- $16 million for Charlie and $16 million for their other grandson Braden. The Cox family will appeal the courts decision to reduce the jurys verdict, their attorney said.

Graves said Susan Powell's story "will continue to live on and inspire others to move in the right direction. To move towards good relationships and get out of bad situations -- abusive situations."

Where is Susan Powell? Her disappearance, young sons' horrific deaths haunt family originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
HANOI, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Rice exports could bring in a record turnover of 5 billion U.S. dollars to Vietnam this year if the pace of shipment is maintained like at present, Vietnam News Agency reported Friday, citing Vu Tuan Anh, CEO of GLE company, a rice exporter.

According to the Vietnam Customs, since the beginning of the year to mid-July, Vietnam shipped more than 4.8 million tons of rice, bringing home nearly 3.1 billion dollars.

The average rice export price increased 12 percent compared to the same period last year, reaching 612.3 dollars per tons.

Nguyen Ngoc Nam, chairman of the Vietnam Food Association, affirmed that demand for rice in the world is still enormous with traditional markets such as China, the Philippines, Indonesia being major importers of Vietnamese rice.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said Vietnam's unhusked rice output was expected to reach more than 43 million tons in 2024, which is enough to ensure domestic consumption and export demand of more than 8 million tons of husked rice. 
White House announces new AI actions as Apple signs on to voluntary commitments

The Biden administration Friday announced new AI regulation progress as Apple signed on to voluntary commitments for responsible AI development outlined in a previous executive order from President Joe Biden on mitigating AI risks. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

July 26 (UPI) -- The White House on Friday announced new artificial intelligence actions as Apple signed on to voluntary commitments in line with the administration's previous AI executive order.

"Today, the administration announced that Apple has signed onto the voluntary commitments, further cementing these commitments as cornerstones of responsible AI innovation," a White House statement said Friday. "In addition, federal agencies reported that they completed all of the 270-day actions in the Executive Order on schedule, following their on-time completion of every other task required to date."

Those actions were required in a presidential executive order on AI that President Joe Biden signed in October.

The executive order "built on voluntary commitments" was supported by 15 leading AI companies last year.

The White House said the agencies have taken steps "to mitigate AI's safety and security risks, protect Americans' privacy, advance equity and civil rights, stand up for consumers and workers, promote innovation and competition, advance American leadership around the world, and more."

It's a White House effort to mobilize government "to ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence," according to the White House.

After signing the October executive order on AI, in April Biden announced further steps taken to regulate AI use to protect safety and worker's rights.

The actions represented some of the strongest government guardrails to date on machine-learning technology, the White House said at the time.

Government agencies have developed AI safety and security guidelines while launching the first AI safety and security board to advise Homeland Security on potential issues.

Biden has urged tech companies to voluntarily commit to a responsible approach to artificial intelligence development.

Federal agencies have been directed to take sweeping actions to address AI safety and security in a variety of ways.

The White House said the effort to responsibly manage AI development is underway internationally as well with 55 nations now endorsing a political declaration for responsible development and deployment of military AI capabilities.

The White House said a U.N. resolution unanimously adopted with over 100 co-sponsors lays out a common vision for countries around the world to promote the safe and secure use of AI to address global challenges.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) weighed in on the Republican claims that when Vice President Harris becomes the Democratic nominee for president it will be an undemocratic shift, saying give me a break.

Asked by Fox News Digital what she thinks of the criticism coming from the GOP about Harriss rise to the top of the ticket, Whitmer brushed off the concerns.

Its hard to take the Republican criticism serious because one day, its Joe Biden shouldnt be running and the next day its well, he should be running, she said Thursday. Give me a break.

The Michigan governor was responding to GOP criticism that the late campaign switch-up between President Biden  who announced Sunday that he would not seek reelection  and Harris is bypassing the proper democratic processes.

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who was recently tapped as former President Trumps running mate, said the coronation of Harris is a threat to democracy, per reports.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick claimed in a statement that Democrats took Biden off the ticket because they knew he would lose, ignoring the results of the primary elections earlier this year.

Whitmer, who has been rumored to be on Harriss vice presidential shortlist, said Biden dedicated decades of his life to service and has been an incredible leader and ally.

As co-chair of the Biden campaign, the Michigan governor said the presidents announcement that he was suspending his campaign came as a surprise.

The Michigan governor has enthusiastically endorsed Harris, saying she was fired up to back the vice president in her historic campaign. She added that Harris has more experience than the whole GOP ticket put together.

I think its the right decision and thats why we have a vice president, Whitmer said. Kamala Harris has been his No. 2 for four years. No one should be surprised that if he steps away that shes the one to step into the breach.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Ever since President Biden ended his reelection bid Sunday, theres been little doubt about whos likely to replace him atop the Democratic ticket: Vice President Kamala Harris.

But one mystery remains: Who will Harris recruit as her running mate?

Welcome to the veepstakes. Its a time-honored Washington tradition. Speculation swirls. Names emerge. Pundits pontificate. Vetting begins. Ultimately, a new political partnership is born.

According to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll, which was conducted from July 19 to 22, Democrats dont have a clear favorite for the job  yet. When shown a list of potential Harris running mates and asked to select all they would approve of, a plurality of voters who identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents answered not sure (30%) or none of the above (6%).

The next-highest finishers were California Gov. Gavin Newsom (30%), Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (25%) and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (24%)  the most familiar names on the list.

Less prominent  but potentially more realistic  Democratic contenders such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (24%), Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (18%), Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (15%) and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (11%) brought up the rear.

Heres a quick guide to the leading VP candidates  their pros, their cons and what we know about their current chances.

Gavin Newsom, governor of California (30%)

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (John Bazemore/AP)

Current chances: Newsom, 56, hasnt publicly ruled it out  but hes not one of the people reportedly being vetted (perhaps because he has privately taken [himself] out of the running, according to NBC News).

Pros: Telegenic, smooth-talking governor of the most populous state in the country. Spent the past few years fashioning himself as a national spokesman for anti-Trump, anti-MAGA liberals. If the key to beating Trump is winning the attention war, then Newsom is a step ahead of other VP prospects.

Cons: Two Californians is probably one too many for Middle America. The 12th Amendment prohibits presidential tickets with two candidates from the same state, so one would have to establish residency elsewhere. It doesnt help that he dined out at the luxurious French Laundry restaurant during COVID-19 lockdowns. Would almost certainly prefer to sit out this cycle and make a play for the presidency in 2028 or beyond.

Pete Buttigieg, secretary of Transportation (25%)

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. (Rod Lamkey Jr./AP)

Current chances: MSNBC has reported that the Harris campaign is considering Buttigieg, 42, as a possible running mate. And hes been serving as a surrogate on TV a lot lately  a potential sign of interest.

Pros: Midwestern roots in Indiana. Reinforces continuity with the Biden administration after serving in his Cabinet. Knows how the White House works. Next-highest national profile after Newsom. Has built up a lot of goodwill after his surprisingly successful 2020 presidential bid. Doubles down on Harriss future vs. past message. Historic in his own way; would be first openly gay vice presidential nominee. One of the best political athletes  or messengers  in the Democratic Party.

Cons: Indiana is too Republican to flip; probably wouldnt change the math in nearby Rust Belt states, either. Historic, yes  but too historic? Republicans would criticize his record as transportation secretary and link him to what they see as Bidens failed policies.

Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan (24%)

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (Al Goldis/AP)

Current chances: Whitmer, 52, has said shes not interested. I am not leaving Michigan, Whitmer told reporters earlier this week. I know everyone is always suspicious and asking this question over and over again ... I am not going anywhere." The Harris campaign has reportedly requested vetting documents from Whitmer anyway  but Whitmer has denied those reports.

Pros: Enjoys the most buzz of any up-and-coming Democratic governor. In charge of Michigan, perhaps the most important swing state. Showed off her tightrope-walking political skill in the 2022 midterms  typically a tough time for members of the presidents party  when she won reelection over her GOP challenger, a conservative media personality, by more than 10 percentage points, helping Democrats flip the state legislature. Went on to sign progressive laws on climate change, LGBTQ rights, guns and unions and positioned herself as a leading post-Roe crusader for abortion rights  all while maintaining one of the highest net approval ratings of any battleground governor. Could help Harris in a must-win state.

Cons: Fear of the unknown. Until Harris, America had never elected a woman vice president; now shes asking voters to make her the first woman president (and first Black woman president and first South Asian woman president). Would an all-female ticket be too historic for middle-of-the-road swing voters  or would it energize Democrats and boost turnout? Judging by the other names making the rounds, Harris seems inclined toward a safe, middle-age white man instead.

Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania (24%)

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (Matt Freed/AP)

Current chances: The Harris campaign is reportedly vetting Shapiro, 51; he has been described in the press as a leading contender. Asked Monday if he would accept the job, Shapiro said that Harris will make that decision when she is ready  adding that the choice is deeply personal and that Harris should pick whoever she is most comfortable with. In other words, he has left the door open.

Pros: Won the crucial blue wall state of Pennsylvania by a landslide 15-point margin in 2022. Has earned a reputation as a practical, nuts-and-bolts governor. Remains popular after spearheading the I-95 bridge reconstruction earlier this year. Could boost the ticket in the crucial Philadelphia suburbs and help deliver the Keystone States 19 electoral votes. Served as Pennsylvania attorney general while former President Donald Trump was trying to overturn his 2020 election loss; led multiple successful lawsuits to block Trumps scheme. Double prosecutor ticket could bolster Harriss tough on Trump message. Would be the first Jewish vice president.

Cons: Has rankled teachers unions with his support for school vouchers. Could reignite Democratic in-fighting over Israel and alienate some younger voters with his vocal criticism of Gaza protests on college campuses.

Mark Kelly, senator from Arizona (18%)

Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP))

Current chances: Kelly, 60, is another leading candidate being vetted by the Harris campaign, according to various reports. He has not commented publicly on the process.

Pros: Political resumes dont get much more sterling than Kellys: Working-class roots. Son of police officers. Flew 39 combat missions as a Navy pilot during Operation Desert Storm. Commanded the space shuttle Endeavour as a NASA astronaut and engineer. Cared for his wife, Rep. Gabby Giffords, after she was shot in the head at a political event. Gun owner and Second Amendment supporter who has campaigned for gun-safety measures ever since. Won two U.S. Senate races in Arizona, where no Democrat had held a Senate seat from 1988 until 2018  and where the 2024 presidential election may be decided. Could shore up Harriss biggest vulnerability (immigration) with his expertise on the technical issues and politics of the U.S.-Mexico border  and the trust hes earned from Republicans as a result.

Cons: Tends to keep a low, cautious profile. Not an attack dog. Arizonas Democratic governor can appoint a replacement through 2026, but after that the party might struggle to find another candidate who could win Kellys seat.

Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky (15%)

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (Timothy D. Easley/AP)

Current chances: Beshear, 46, has confirmed reports that hes being vetted. I am honored to be considered, and regardless of what comes next Ill do everything I can between now and Election Day to elect Kamala Harris as the next President of the United States of America, he said in a statement Thursday. You all know what question that is in response to and that is my full statement on that topic. Has been auditioning for the job with attacks on Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Pros: Cruised to reelection in 2023, his second victory in a state that hasn't voted for a Democrat in a presidential election since the 1990s. Currently ranks as the second most popular governor in America with a 67% approval rating, according to Morning Consult. Has positioned himself as a next-generation moderate who can emphasize pocketbook issues over culture war battles and appeal to crossover voters. Also a former state attorney general (like Harris).

Cons: Deeply Republican Kentucky isnt going to vote for Harris, regardless of who she selects as her running mate. Not clear that Beshear can help elsewhere.

Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina (14%)

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (Chris Seward/AP)

Current chances: Cooper, 67, is reportedly being vetted. Hes dodged questions about the VP slot  but hasnt ruled it out. I appreciate people talking about me, Cooper said Monday on MSNBC, but I think the focus needs to be on [Harris] this week. Has since mocked Vance as Trumps mini me.

Pros: A former Sunday schoolteacher from rural Nash County who grew up working on his parents' tobacco farm, Cooper has never lost an election in North Carolina. Viewed as a moderate, bipartisan dealmaker. Won three statewide races  for state attorney general, governor and second-term governor  in years when North Carolina voters also chose Trump and other Republicans for federal office. Could put the Tarheel State back in play for Democrats for the first time since 2008.

Cons: The oldest candidate on this list. Blunts age contrast with Trump. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a controversial MAGA Republican, would serve as governor whenever Cooper leaves the state to campaign. [UPDATE: Cooper removed himself from the running on July 29. "This just wan't the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket," he said.]

J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois: Told MSNBC Tuesday that he hasnt received any vetting materials. Has since said hes not going to talk about any private conversations that Ive had  but added it would be hard to resist a call to serve.

Tim Walz, governor of Minnesota: Reportedly being vetted. Asked whether he wants the job, Walz told Minnesota Public Radio if that's the direction [Harris] goes, I guess that's fine. Has appeared on TV several times this week to defend Harris and criticize the Republican ticket.

Cedric Richmond, senior Biden adviser and former congressman from Louisiana: Perhaps the most obscure figure on the reported vetting roster. Richmond declined an interview with WDSU in New Orleans but did say he was caught off guard by the consideration, according to the outlet  which added that Richmond said he was flattered at the possibility and is willing to help in any way possible to get Harris elected.

____________

The Yahoo News survey was conducted by YouGov using a nationally representative sample of 1,743 U.S. adults interviewed online from July 19 to 22, 2024. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondents most recent answer given prior to Nov. 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (33% Democratic, 27% Republican). Respondents were selected from YouGovs opt-in panel to be representative of all U.S. adults. The margin of error is approximately 2.8%.
This article is part of HuffPosts biweekly politics newsletter. Click here to subscribe.

Its hard to believe its been only five days since President Joe Biden announced he was dropping his reelection bid and passing the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris.

Its even harder to believe how well these five days have gone for her.

Harris has gotten the endorsement of every would-be challenger and major party leader  including, as of Friday morning, former President Barack Obama. Shes secured pledges of support from the vast majority of Democratic delegates, far more than she needs to lock down the nomination. Shes raised more than $100 million and drawn tens of thousands of supporters onto campaign organizing calls. She even got permission from Beyonce to use a song in a campaign video.

And then there are the Republicans, who seem to be struggling a bit. Nominee and former President Donald Trump keeps raising objections to the prospect of debating Harris, in a way that sounds an awful lot like hes trying to duck out. His campaign is busy contextualizing and rationalizing past comments by running mate JD Vance in which the Ohio senator suggested that women should stay in abusive marriages, and that childless cat ladies  that is, adults with no biological children  should have less voting power.

The sheer giddiness among Democrats is palpable, in a way Ive seen only twice in my lifetime: in 1992 with Bill Clinton, and in 2008 with Obama. Notably, those were years in which Democrats were finally on the verge of breaking an extended Republican hold on the White House. This time, though, the incumbent is a Democrat. It says something about the desperation to stop Trump from returning to the White House  and the despair over Bidens chances of doing it  that Democrats are feeling the same kind of euphoria now that Harris is leading the ticket.

It also says something about Harris herself, in ways that probably surprise a lot of people and certainly surprise some members of the political class. A big reason Democratic leaders didnt think seriously about switching out the ticket earlier this year, despite Bidens clear political struggles, was their assumption that Harris in the top spot would be a weaker candidate.

They were not crazy to think that. Harris really does have some serious political liabilities, starting with the difficulties that a Black woman running for office inevitably faces, especially while confronting the kind of racist, sexist attacks that  as HuffPosts Igor Bobic has detailed  are already underway. New polls show Harris making up the ground Biden lost in the last few weeks, which is huge. But even as she is winning back younger, Black and Latino voters whom Biden had lost, shes losing some of the older, white voters Biden had won.

Shes got time. And even the most gifted politicians have to win over skeptical groups. But an even bigger reason for the reservations about Harris was her performance in 2020, when she ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primaries. The campaign was so dismal, following such high expectations, that it was easy to assume Harris just wasnt very good at it.

But looking back, her failures had a lot to do with her professional trajectory to that point, and the political environment prevailing at the time. Both are different now. In fact, the circumstances of the 2024 election may play perfectly to her strengths, just as the circumstances of 2020 exposed all of her weaknesses.

For better or worse, Democratic voters care a lot about policy. And in years when there have been openly contested primaries, they want to hear detailed plans from their presidential candidates, with lengthy white papers and expert testimonials as support. They also crave vision  candidates who have big ideas about what the world should look like, and how their agenda will achieve that.

Ironically, this may not be what it takes to win in the general election, which frequently requires attracting voters who care less about such ambition  or who arent going to get excited about the sorts of ideas that energize Democratic activists. They might be looking for somebody they simply trust to manage the countrys business, or to provide an acceptable alternative to another candidate they find objectionable.

But usually the only way to get to the general election is to win in the primaries, which means delivering some of the big themes that will capture the imagination of Democratic Party loyalists.

Bill Clinton and Obama both did that in their initial runs. So did other high-profile Democratic candidates who won or came close to winning the nomination. That includes Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator who in 2020 was the clear progressive in the race at a time when the partys progressive base was gaining more influence. Biden, who would eventually get the nomination, had staked out a clear position as a more moderate candidate. Other candidates, including Harris herself, had to find a political lane somewhere in between, so they could distinguish themselves while staying true to their core values.

Its the sort of challenge thats tough for any politician running in the primaries for the first time. But Ive always thought it was particularly tough for Harris, given the road shed taken there.

Shed come up through state politics as a prosecutor and then the attorney general of California. That gave her valuable experience, especially when it came to linking policy to real-life people. But it didnt create much opportunity to fine-tune a policy vision or the best way of presenting it. Serving in the Senate could have offered that opportunity, but shed been there for barely two years by the time she was running for president.

It showed most clearly in that years debate over health care, when Sanders was campaigning on his promise for Medicare for All, Biden was arguing for a more incremental set of expansions on the Affordable Care Act, and Harris came out with a hybrid plan. She had trouble defending her proposal, and ended up making contradictory claims that suggested she didnt understand the specifics, didnt know what she really wanted, or both.

The lack of experience continued to show in her early years as vice president  including in some remarks she gave about immigration, when she stumbled over trip wires that a more seasoned politician might have known how to avoid.

During a high-profile trip to Guatemala, she included a sharp admonishment to would-be migrants: Do not come. Furious progressives called it tone-deaf because it sounded like she was ignoring the difficult conditions in those countries, and the role the U.S. had historically played in creating them. Later, during an interview with NBC, Harris gave a confusing answer to a question about whether shed visited the border (she personally hadnt), which provided Republicans with easy fodder for attacks they are still using today.

But that was 2021. Shes now spent nearly a full term as vice president, which means shes gotten a lot more practice addressing policy issues in the national spotlight, with every word under scrutiny. And in 2024, unlike 2020, she doesnt have to prevail in a monthslong debate over her vision while trying to establish an ideological niche between two better-known contenders. Taking over Bidens mantle, and his campaign, means shes running more or less on the record of the incumbent administration  and in a context where the focus is less on what she would do as president, and more on what shed stop from happening.

Its a campaign about protecting abortion rights and health care, figuring out a way to fight a radically conservative Supreme Court, and keeping a convicted felon with contempt for democracy out of the White House. Thats perfect for a former prosecutor who has always been best on the attack, and who has always been most comfortable talking about questions of rights  especially the rights of women.

Whether this all puts her in a position to win in November remains to be seen. Its going to be a tough campaign, no matter how promising this past week has been. But Democrats who remember Harris disappointing 2020 run have good reason to think this time will be different.

Related...
(Bloomberg) -- When Brexit architect Nigel Farage announced he was standing for Reform UK in the July 4 general election, he was clear where his votes would come from. The Conservatives had betrayed the trust of voters, and deserve to pay a price for that, he said.

Most Read from Bloomberg

But after Reform took 14% of the vote, the populist leader adjusted his sights, with an eye to the next election in 2029: Were coming for Labour, be in no doubt, he said.

Farage is going to shake the tree and create chaos and havoc, said Andres Rodriguez-Pose, a professor of economic geography at the London School of Economics.

Nevertheless, Bloomberg analysis of the election results and interviews with voters in Northeast England, a region where Reform did well, suggest Farage may have maxed out on the partys potential in traditionally Labour areas.

Factors weighing on the insurgent party include public perception that its a one-man band, Farages polarizing personality, and a policy program to shrink the state while Labour voters typically want more government investment in public services.

On the face of it, the bare statistics suggest Prime Minister Keir Starmer should take the threat seriously: Reform won just five constituencies in the House of Commons  but came second in another 98  including 89 won by Labour. Moreover Farage now has a voice in Parliament, after finally winning a seat at the eighth attempt.

But drill down, and its less promising for Reform: In seats where they came second to Labour, the average margin was 25%, according to Bloomberg calculations. Farages party would likely need to chisel away more at Tory support  already at record low ebb in modern times  to make inroads into the governing party.

In interviews in Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland and Gateshead, just two of the 25 voters Bloomberg spoke to who hadnt voted for Reform said theyd consider doing so in the future. The other 23 said theyd never contemplate it.

Harry Stephenson, a Labour voter in Newcastle, described Farage as a wolf in sheeps clothing. Tom Smith  who didnt vote  said Farage is the last person Id vote for. In Gateshead, Green Party backer Keith Davidson dismissed the Reform leader as an idiot.

Those remarks are typical of the visceral reaction Farage provokes in many Britons, because of his role in the divisive Brexit referendum and his inflammatory anti-immigration rhetoric. Kelly Beard Golden, a Labour voter from South Shields said she thinks Reform UK is a party that attracts racist voters.

Yet Farage will need to win over those who didnt vote Reform if hes to encroach on Labour.

In the northeast, Reform came second in 18 of 27 seats, taking almost 20% of votes. That relative success is in part down to tapping into a sense of alienation among people in left-behind regions, according to Fiona Hill  a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former adviser to Donald Trump who hails from Bishop Auckland, a northeastern town where Reform polled well.

We effectively live in two countries divided by differing opportunities, Hill said by phone.

Key to Labours efforts to defuse Reforms threat will be getting a handle on immigration. The Conservatives oversaw record levels of net immigration by legal routes  peaking at 764,000 in 2022  and those arriving by small boat from France.

That made for a potent electoral boost for Reform: two thirds of their voters said it was their primary issue of concern, according to More In Common. Steven Averill, who works at a market in Newcastle, is a case in point, saying he voted Farage because hed sort out immigration.

Hill said that places like Bishop Auckland may not have a large immigrant population, but theres a perception that European migration to London has deprived northeasterners of opportunities to work in industries such as construction in the UK capital, while central government spending that might have gone to the region has instead been spent on services for the newcomers.

Mass uncontrolled immigration has increased demand for houses and therefore contributed to rising prices, according to Rhys Burriss, the Reform candidate in Bishop Auckland. Its on pages one, two and three of any economic textbook.

Farage also taps into a sense that mainstream political parties have failed for decades to improve the lot of left-behind areas  a perception that also contributed to the Brexit vote.

The Tories and Labour are all the same, said Jane Dowling, a Reform voter who owns a sandwich shop near Newcastles quayside. Weve had Labour and Conservatives for god knows how many years and its killing us.

Nevertheless, if Reform is really to pose a challenge to Labour, it needs to broaden its appeal by showing its policies are viable. Reforms support this month is little more than the 12.6% of votes Farages UK Independence Party win in 2015  illustrating how little his electoral coalition has changed since then.

In 2024, Reforms election manifesto promised 140 billion ($182 billion) of tax cuts and spending increases  sums that do not add up, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Farages views in other areas  hes advocated for more private involvement in the National Health Service and blamed the West for provoking Russia  also dim his appeal in a country where health care free at the point of use is totemic.

Reform also lacks the party infrastructure needed to run a full-scale election campaign that mobilizes voters. During this years campaign, activists were filmed making racial slurs, some candidates were not properly vetted, and one even had to deny being imaginary.

This is a party that has functioned essentially as a one-man band, with very little ground game, said Eoin Sheehan, analyst at Redfield & Wilton.

While Farage has said he intends to leading Reform through to the next election, with ambitions to become prime minister, he was already absent from Parliament last week to be in Milwaukee for the Republican Party convention.

Perhaps the biggest danger to Labour is if Reforms fortunes head in the other direction. Bloomberg analysis using Focaldata figures suggests 68% of Reforms backers in 2024 voted Tory in 2019. If all went back, the Conservatives could reclaim 101 Labour seats.

Ultimately, Starmers best defense is delivery: hes pledged to stimulate growth by getting Britain building. If he can do that while slashing immigration and cutting NHS waiting lists, he may go a long way to addressing the grievances fueling Reforms success.

If the economy improves under Labour, and if public services improve under Labour, it almost doesnt matter who they are trying to win votes from because they will get more votes, said Maria Sobolewska, a politics professor at the University of Manchester. The fundamental truth of electoral politics is that voters will reward a successful incumbent.

--With assistance from Michael Ovaska, Andre Tartar and Jeremy Diamond.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
Kamala Harris is not new to politics, nor the public scrutiny that comes with it. Harris is also certainly not new to attacks dripping in misogyny, racism and xenophobia. She has weathered it all throughout her career as Californias attorney general, the states senator and the vice president of the United States  the whole time reminding the public of how to pronounce her Indian first name.

So, why are so many Republicans and right-wing talking heads still mispronouncing Kamala, even  and especially  after she recently took the presidents place in running against Donald Trump as the presumptive Democratic nominee?

They are doing it on purpose, Nicole Holliday, a sociolinguistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told HuffPost. Some people are doing it on purpose. Some people are not exactly doing it on purpose, but theyre doing it because its what everyone around them does  in particular, Trump has a cult of personality around him, and so what he says goes, and thats how hes pronouncing it.

Harris has long clarified to the public that her name is to be pronounced comma-la, like the punctuation mark. During her 2016 run for Senate, Harris released a PSA about her name. Eight years and many corrections later, the politicians name still takes up space  her campaigns first ad released Thursday shows crowds chanting Kamala using the candidates pronunciation.

(The name Kamala, which in Sanskrit translates to lotus, is not traditionally pronounced comma-la in India. In Dravidian languages like Tamil, which is spoken in the South Indian state Harris maternal side is from, the more accurate pronunciation would be KUM-uh-lah. And because many Dravidian language speakers tend to roll over words while talking, that pronunciation may sound closer to KUM-lah.)

NEW: We just launched the first video of our campaign.



We choose freedom.pic.twitter.com/AJ2WCAupRt  Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 25, 2024

About half of the speakers who mentioned the vice president by first name at the Republican National Convention earlier this month had mispronounced it, saying either Kuh-MA-luh, Camel-uh or Camilla. The CEO of Goya Foods even mocked her name as Que-mala, which means how bad in Spanish.

After President Joe Biden dropped out of the race for reelection and endorsed Harris to take his place, the public mispronunciations by the right only increased  not only by politicians, but also by conservative media. Trump, notably, still mispronounces her first name, an almost certainly intentional decision given that the two are far from strangers to each other.

Trumps attacks to delegitimize people of color arent new  he led the birther charge, right  and what it shows you more than anything, is that Trump and his movement know that the vice president is a tested, proven leader, a Harris spokesperson told HuffPost.

Holliday described the situation as a shibboleth, a linguistic term originating from the Bible that in English is defined as almost a slogan or catchword identifying someone with a community or ideology. The way a person decides to pronounce Harris first name can be an immediate identifier of their political alignment, she said.

I live in California. If I say pop when I go out and I run into another Midwesterner, immediately we have solidarity, said Holliday, who is originally from Ohio. So it goes the other way too. If youre a Republican, or lets say an independent but leaning Republican, and you say, Kuh-MA-luh, then everybody knows  either youre not really for her, or youre not consuming the media where people bother to say her name, right?

If you're a Republican ... and you say, 'Kuh-MA-luh,' then everybody knows ... either you're not really for her, or you're not consuming the media where people bother to say her name.Nicole Holliday, sociolinguistics expert at University of California, Berkeley

Referring to Harris only ever by her first name is already a trend rooted in misogyny, as EMILYs List research reportedly finds that the long, evidence-based habit of calling female politicians by their first name leads to negative political consequences for them. Women in politics are not considered as serious as their male counterparts, most of whom get the benefit of being referred to by their surname.

But adding on much of the rights likely intentional mispronunciation of Harris first name works to disrespect and disempower, painting a Californian woman descended from Indian and Jamaican immigrants as foreign, other, unamerican.

In speaking of the vice presidents last name, Holliday said that people in English-speaking communities tend to use their fathers last name. That, she said, became a disadvantage for former President Barack Obama, who faced racist attacks  including from Trump, the architect of the birther conspiracy  over his lineage and his patriotism because of his full name.

The foreignness is her mother, which is less scary than what it was with Obama, in particular because shes a woman. So nobody can challenge her from the fathers side, even though hes also an immigrant, hes an Anglophone immigrant from a country that speaks English and English Creole, whereas her mother is the scary brown one, Holliday said.

Like, we understand Black people, even though the country hates Black people. But brown people are mysterious, right? she continued. And thats what ties into her name. Its just her first name, because thats a weird, mysterious one. Her last name is as American as apple pie as far as people know, even though its Jamaican.

As Harris presidential campaign ramps up ahead of the November election, it is a guarantee that the vice president will face increased attacks from the right over her many identities, including her name. Its Comma-la, as it has always been. And if Republicans wanted to pronounce it correctly so they can focus on the policies, they would.

This story has been updated with a clarification about the pronunciation of Kamala in India and a clarification from Holliday that Jamaica is a country that speaks English and Jamaican Creole, not English Creole. Jamaican Creole is an English-lexifier creole.
French intelligence sources hinted that the massive sabotage attack on rail lines leading to Paris on Friday may have been the work of Left-wing radicals.

But with no confirmed suspects, Russia was also blamed as suspicions swirled that Vladimir Putin has been yearning for a chance to humiliate Emmanuel Macron.

There are reasons to believe either may be correct.

As of Friday afternoon, with theories coming from multiple quarters and little to no hard evidence, it remained unclear who exactly the perpetrators were.

The French authorities have laid on a large, high-tech security regime to defend the Olympics, with Reaper drones in the skies and AI-powered cameras on the ground to watch for suspicious activity.

But Fridays attack suggests they paid far less attention to key rail routes, which were sabotaged by old-fashioned arson methods rather than cyber-attacks.

Damaged cables near Courtalain, France, at the site where saboteurs targeted the high-speed train network - Mayor of Vald'Yerre/Franck Marchand/Mayor of Vald'Yerre via REUTERS

Russia is a suspect in the Olympics sabotage - Brian Snyder/REUTERS

The perpetrators had a good working knowledge of the railway and were most likely seeking to cause maximum disruption while avoiding any loss of human life.

There have been five incidents of damage to the SNCF rail network, all of them targeting electronic or signalling boxes. French media reports said bundles of cables in the network had been burned or severed.

The result was around 50 per cent of the trains in the north and east of France were not running as of Friday morning, while the high-speed TVG network was also paralysed. The disruption is expected to last throughout the weekend.

Passengers wait for their train departures at the Gare Montparnasse in Paris - THIBAUD MORITZ/AFP

The attacks came in the early hours, when no trains were running on the high-speed network, and were carried out in such a way that control centres would have become immediately aware of the damage and shut down the system.

Had the perpetrators struck during the morning rush and employed acts of sabotage that could not have been so easily detected remotely  such as parking vehicles across the line  the outcome might have been very different.

France has not yet accused any group or state over the sabotage, but many will immediately point the finger at Moscow. Other possible suspects include terrorism groups, Left-wing radicals or environmental activists.

The head of SNCF has described the arsonists as a band of lunatics but gave no clues as to their identity. Gabriel Attal, the French prime minister, said the attacks were carried out in a prepared and co-ordinated manner, as he vowed to find and punish the saboteurs.

We are obviously in a situation of conflict with Russia, and Russia is obviously not going to do anything, and thats an understatement, to help these Olympic Games be a success, suggested Jean de Gliniasty, the former French ambassador to Moscow, in an interview with French broadcaster LCI.

In April, Mr Macron, the French president, said he had no doubt whatsoever, including in terms of information, that Russian leaders were planning to disrupt or damage the Games.

Around the same time, an aide to Mr Macron warned: There is a hardening from Russia, which we have been seeing for several months.

A security source said on Friday that a smoking gun had not yet been discovered to establish whether the railway sabotage was the result of a Russian hybrid attack.

They added: We do assess overall that Russian, and their supporters, activity is rising.

This will see an increase in both the severity and frequency of incidents in the grey zone, designed to disrupt and deter the supporters of Ukraine.

However, a French intelligence source told AFP news agency that the sabotage was similar to previous incidents involving the far-Left. The modus operandi  arson attacks on installations  resembles that used by the ultra-Left in the past, the source said.

Israel, meanwhile, has blamed Iran, its arch nemesis in the Middle East, which continues to fund and support Hamas, as well as the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

The sabotage of railway infrastructure across France ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics was planned and executed under the influence of Irans axis of evil and radical Islam, said Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister.

Based on information held by Israel, Iranians are planning terrorist attacks against the Israeli delegation and all Olympic participants. Increased preventive measures must be taken to thwart their plot, he added.

Stranded passengers wait inside Gare du Nord station in Paris following cancellations - MAST IRHAM/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Frances diplomatic and military support for Ukraine has put it in the crosshairs of a new Russian campaign against Europe known as hybrid warfare, which involves sabotage, arson, cyber-attacks and other attempts to destabilise Western democracy.

And there is already a precedent for Russia launching arson attacks on businesses and infrastructure in Europe.

In May, when a mysterious fire broke out at the Diehl arms factory in Berlin, German investigators initially ruled it an accident  despite the Diehl group being part of the supply chain that supports Ukrainian forces with weapons.

They have since received intelligence from a Nato member state which strongly suggests it was actually a Russian sabotage attack.

In the previous month, pro-Russian arsonists targeted a business with commercial links to Ukraine in east London. The British Government expelled Russias defence attache in response to the attack.

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.
Widespread smoke and poor air quality is forecast for much of Oregon into the weekend and for an indefinite amount of time due to numerous wildfires burning statewide.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality issued an air quality advisory Friday for southern, eastern and central Oregon counties due to 38 large wildfires burning in Oregon. The massive Park Fire in northern California is also contributing to additional smoke in parts of Oregon.

A westerly wind is forecast to keep most of northwest Oregon largely free of smoke. The rest of the state isn't so lucky.

Oregon has already burned over 900,000 acres during a very active wildfire season.

Air quality Friday afternoon ranged from "hazardous" in Burns and "unhealthy" in John Day, to more moderate across central and southern Oregon.

Places expected to see smoke degrade air quality most from Oregon wildfires

The places smoke is expected to degrade air quality most, according to DEQ, include:

Baker County

Deschutes County

Eastern Lane County

Eastern Wheeler County

Grant County

Harney County

Klamath County

Lake County

Malheur County

The air quality advisory in Lane County is expected to lift Saturday afternoon, but all others remain in effect "until further notice," meaning it's not expected to get better anytime soon.

"Smoke experts will revisit forecasts on Monday and possibly update the advisories," DEQ said.

DEQ also expects intermittent smoke in eastern Douglas, Gilliam, Jackson, Josephine, Morrow, Umatilla, Union and Wallowa counties due to smoke from fires in Oregon.

"Smoke can irritate the eyes and lungs and worsen some medical conditions," DEQ said in a news release. "People most at risk include infants and young children, people with heart or lung disease, older adults and pregnant people."

Ways to protect yourself and your family when smoke levels are high

Here are some ways to protect yourself and your family when smoke levels are high.

Stay inside if possible. Keep windows and doors closed. If its too hot, run air conditioning on recirculate or consider moving to a cooler location.

Avoid strenuous outdoor activity.

Use high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters in indoor ventilation systems or portable air purifiers. Or create your own air purifying filter. Find instructions at bit.ly/4cXwyEa.

Be aware of smoke in your area and avoid places with the highest levels.

When air quality improves to moderate or healthy (yellow or green on the Air Quality Index), open windows and doors to air out homes and businesses.

If you have a breathing plan for a medical condition, be sure to follow it and keep any needed medications refilled.

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 16 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast. Urness is the author of Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon and Hiking Southern Oregon. He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon wildfires: Widespread smoke, poor air quality forecast
The wife of a Palm Coast man who was stabbed to death in Dixie County and her two sons were found guilty Friday of tampering with evidence, a felony.

But what evidence where they tampering with? Was it the blood of the slain husband? Or the blood of the wife's boyfriend? The jury could choose either one.

No one has been charged with the murder of David Rainey, 54, three years ago in Dixie County. Rainey was killed while vacationing in Suwannee with his wife, their two sons, another person, and his wifes boss, Jeffrey Sawyer, with whom the wife was having an affair, according to a lawsuit which was later dismissed.

David Raineys widow, Cindy Sue Rainey, 49, was sentenced Friday to one year in the Dixie County jail followed by four years' probation. Circuit Judge Mark Feagle also fined Cindy Rainey $5,000.

Cindy Rainey

But unlike their mother, the sons, Bailey Rainey, 22, and Jack Rainey, 20, did not post bail when they were arrested last year and have been locked up in the Dixie County jail for 10 months. They were sentenced each to five years' probation.

The three Raineys are responsible for paying restitution to the Dixie County Sheriffs Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for the cost of investigation. That amount will be set at a hearing within 60 days.

The six-member jury took 26 minutes to return guilty verdicts against the Raineys.

Assistant State Attorney Jarrett Thomas presented the case. He said each of the Raineys scored 16 points according to state sentencing guidelines. Neither had a prior criminal record, but they required a score of at least 22.2 points to be sentenced to prison.

In a phone call with The News-Journal, Thomas explained what investigators believed happened and where David Rainey was killed.

Bailey Rainey

We absolutely 100% believe that he was killed in the house. What we knew that we could prove is that they cleaned up the blood, he said.

But whose blood did they clean up? Thomas said that decision was left to the jury.

Palm Coast man slain, wife's lover injured

Cindy Rainey was having an affair with Jeffrey Sawyer who was her boss at Better Buy Realty in Palm Coast, Thomas said.

The love-triangle exploded in violence in Dixie County.

David Rainey caught them in the bathroom together and he charged into the bathroom with a knife and stabbed Jeff, Thomas said in the interview. And then David is found dead. Everyone in the house tells authorities that David stabbed Jeffrey. Everybody in the house says they dont know what happened to David. We dont believe that.

There were six total people in the house, so who is the one that stabbed David? We dont know, Thomas said.

They called 911 to report that Sawyer had been stabbed. But when paramedics and police arrive, they said he hadnt been stabbed but that he suffered his injury when he fell off a dock, Thomas said.

They didnt say anything about David being missing, Thomas said.

Jack Rainey

They were all standing outside the house with Sawyer, who had suffered some serious gashes to his arms, when first responders arrived. Law enforcement had no reason to check the house, he said.

The next day on July 25, 2021, a Sunday, they filed a missing persons report about David Rainey.

Everyone claims David walked outside to cool off and they never saw him again. But we dont believe that, Thomas said.

His wallet, his phone and his keys were still in the house.

That night, a deputy finds David Raineys body in a canal. He had suffered three stab wounds.

Thomas said that there were two ways the jury could reach a guilty verdict on tampering with evidence. They cleaned up after the stabbing of David Rainey or they cleaned up after the stabbing of Sawyer.

They admitted to cleaning up the stabbing of Jeffrey, Thomas said. Theres no doubt that they covered up the stabbing of Jeffrey.

Investigators were able to find little spots of blood that were from David Rainey in the house and found that a lot of other blood had been cleaned up but they could not tell who it belonged to.

All three Raineys took the stand. They said they didnt know it was a crime to clean up. But Thomas said its common sense that a stabbing is a crime. They said that Sawyer didnt want to press charges.

Thomas said that if any new evidence were to develop his office would seek to hold the person responsible.

There is no statute of limitation on murder, he said.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Palm Coast widow, sons guilty of tampering with evidence at stabbing
Firefighter Christian Moorhouse jumps over a fence while battling the Park Fire in the Cohasset community of Butte County, Calif., on Thursday, July 25, 2024. His crew was able to keep flames from reaching the mobile home they were protecting. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

California's largest active fire exploded in size on Friday evening, growing rapidly amid bone-dry fuel and threatening thousands of homes as firefighters scrambled to meet the danger.

The Park Fire's intensity and rapid spread led fire officials to make unwelcome comparisons to the monstrous Camp Fire, which burned out of control in nearby Paradise in 2018, killing 85 people and torching 11,000 homes.

More than 130 structures have been destroyed by this fire so far, and thousands more remain threatened. It stood at 374 square miles (967 square kilometers) on Friday night and was moving fast after igniting Wednesday when a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico, authorities said, and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene.

Theres a tremendous amount of fuel out there and its going to continue with this rapid pace," Cal Fire incident commander Billy See said at a briefing.

Officials at Lassen Volcanic National Park evacuated staff from Mineral, a community of about 120 people where the park headquarters are located, as the fire moved north toward Highway 36 and east toward the park.

Communities elsewhere in the U.S. West and Canada were under siege Friday, from a fast-moving blaze sparked by lightning sent people fleeing on fire-ringed roads in rural Idaho to a new blaze that was causing evacuations in eastern Washington.

In eastern Oregon, a pilot was found dead in a small air tanker plane that crashed while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states.

More than 110 active fires covering 2,800 square miles (7,250 square kilometers) were burning in the U.S. on Friday, according to the National Interagency Fire Center. Some were caused by the weather, with climate change increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures record heat and bone-dry conditions.

The fire in Eastern Washington was threatening homes, the railroad, Interstate 90 and the community of Tyler, which was evacuated Friday. The Columbia Basin fire in Spokane County closed part of Highway 904 between the interstate and Cheney. Multiple planes, helicopters and fire personnel were working hard to contain the fire, according to the Washington State Patrol.

In Chico, California, Carli Parker is one of hundreds who fled their homes as the Park Fire pushed close. Parker decided to leave her Forest Ranch residence with her family when the fire began burning across the street. She has previously been forced out of two homes by fire, and she said she had little hope that her residence would remain unscathed.

I think I felt like I was in danger because the police had come to our house because we had signed up for early evacuation warnings, and they were running to their vehicle after telling us that we need to self-evacuate and they wouldnt come back, said Parker, a mother of five.

More than 130 structures have been destroyed by the fire, and thousands more remain threatened. The state's largest active wildfire began Wednesday when a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene, authorities said.

Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested early Thursday and held without bail pending a Monday arraignment, officials said. There was no reply to an email to the district attorney asking whether the suspect had legal representation or someone who could comment on his behalf.

Fire crews were making progress on another complex of fires burning in the Plumas National Forest near the California-Nevada line, said Forest Service spokesperson Adrienne Freeman. Most of the 1,000 residents evacuated by the lightning-sparked Gold Complex fires were returning home Friday. Some crews were peeling off to help battle the Park Fire near Chico.

As evidenced by the (Park) fire to the West, some of these fires are just absolutely exploding and burning at rates of spread that it is just hard to even imagine, Tim Hike, Forest Service incident commander of the Gold Complex fire about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Reno, said Friday. The fire does not look that bad right up until it does. And then that just might be too late."

Forest Ranch evacuee Sherry Alpers, fled with her 12 small dogs and made the decision to stay in her car outside a Red Cross shelter in Chico after learning that animals would not be allowed inside. She ruled out traveling to another shelter after learning the dogs would be kept in cages, since her dogs have always roamed free at her home.

Alpers said she doesnt know whether the fire spared her home or not, but she said that as long as her dogs are safe, she doesn't care about the material things.

Im kind of worried, but not that much," she said. If its gone, its gone.

Brian Bowles was also staying in his car outside the shelter with his dog Diamon. He said he doesn't know if his mobile home is still standing.

Bowles said he only has a $100 gift card he received from United Way, which handed them out to evacuees.

Now the question is, do I get a motel room and comfortable for one night? Or do I put gas in the car and sleep in here?" he said. Tough choice.

In Oregon, a Grant County Search and Rescue team on Friday morning located a small single-engine air tanker that had disappeared while fighting the 219-square-mile (567 square kilometers) Falls Fire burning near the town of Seneca and the Malheur National Forest. The pilot died, said Bureau of Land Management information officer Lisa Clark. No one else was aboard the bureau-contracted aircraft when it went down in steep, forested terrain.

The most damage so far has been to the Canadian Rockies Jasper National Park, where a fast-moving wildfire forced 25,000 people to flee and devastated the parks namesake town, a World Heritage site.

In Idaho, lightning strikes sparked fast-moving wildfires and the evacuation of multiple communities. The fires were burning on about 31 square miles (80 square kilometers) Friday afternoon.

Videos posted to social media include a man who said he heard explosions as he fled Juliaetta, about 27 miles (43 kilometers) southeast of the University of Idahos campus in Moscow. The town of just over 600 residents was evacuated Thursday just ahead of roaring fires, as were several other communities near the Clearwater River and the Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery Complex, which breeds salmon.

Theres no estimate yet on the number of buildings burned in Idaho, nor is there information about damage to urban communities, officials said Friday morning.

Oregon still has the biggest active blaze in the United States, the Durkee Fire, which combined with the Cow Fire to burn nearly 630 square miles (1,630 square kilometers). It remains unpredictable and was only 20% contained Friday, according to the government website InciWeb.

The National Interagency Fire Center said more than 27,000 fires have burned more than 5,800 square miles (15,000 square kilometers) in the U.S. this year, and in Canada, more than 8,000 square miles (22,800 square kilometers) have burned in more than 3,700 fires so far, according to its National Wildland Fire Situation Report issued Wednesday.

___

Associated Press writers Holly Ramer, Sarah Brumfield, Claire Rush, Terry Chea, Scott Sonner, Martha Bellisle and Amy Hanson contributed to this report.
Wilson County Schools 2024-25: Police dogs, calendar and what to else to know for classes

Here we go. After slightly more than a two-month summer vacation that seemed like two weeks, Wilson County Schools will start classes Friday.

Growing enrollment, building projects, police dogs and staffing are all part of the coming school year.

Here is an overview going into a new academic year in Wilson County.

Calendar highlights

The district will have 89 instructional days in the fall semester and 91 instructional days in the spring semester with 10 days available for inclement weather closings. There are some differences with the Lebanon Special School District calendar with many families having children in both systems.

A bus arrives at West Elementary School in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2023.

Wilson County's calendar includes:

Aug. 2: First day of classes for students following Election Day, which requires multiple schools to be used as voting centers. The Lebanon's Special School District for students up to eighth-grade is scheduled to start Aug. 1.

Oct. 7-15: Fall break for students with a full week and two additional days the following week for students who return Wednesday, Oct. 16. Teachers are back Oct. 15.

Nov. 5: Election Day with no classes for students.

Nov. 25-29: Thanksgiving break.

Dec. 20: Final day of the fall semester leading into winter break.

Jan. 6: First day of classes for the spring semester.

March 10-14: Spring break.

Feb. 14-Feb. 17: No classes Friday, Feb. 14 (stockpile day) and no school Monday, Feb. 17 (Presidents Day).

Spring break: The week of March 11-15.

April 18: No classes (Good Friday).

May 22: Last day of school:

Two police dogs coming

Two firearm detection dogs were approved for Wilson County Schools this academic year.

The selected handlers will attend training with the canines that are selected through the Global K9 Paws on Patrol Program in Alabama, Wilson County Sheriff Office Capt. Scott Moore said.

The dogs will be on no particular schedule  so that no one can predict what they will be doing, Moore said. The main focus will be high schools, but the animals will be accessible to all schools and will make visits to every school, Moore said. The dogs will also be available for bigger events and activities when their presence is requested by the school system.

Training is expected to be finished around mid-August and the dogs will then work in schools across the district. The Lebanon Special School District brought in Deputy Dusty Burton and police dog Blaze in the 2023-24 school year.

The use of these valuable K-9s adds an additional layer of security for our schools and sporting events," Wilson County Schools Public Information Officer Bart Barker said. "We are a large district with large buildings, so having these K-9 officers available to our schools gives us additional resources that helps maintain a safe environment for everyone. Their capabilities are incredible on detecting things that are strictly prohibited from our campuses."

Tornado rebuild

West Wilson Middle School's new building that opens in the 2024-25 school year.

The new West Wilson Middle School building opens this school year after the previous building was destroyed in the March 2020 tornado.

Last school year West Wilson Middle sixth- and seventh-graders were attending Mt. Juliet Middle while Mt. Juliet Middle eighth-graders went to Green Hill High and West Wilson Middle eighth-graders were at Mt. Juliet High.

The start and dismissal time for West Wilson Middle will be 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.

Lee Nachand

New principals

Mt. Juliet Middle: Lee Nachand is the new principal for 2024-2025 school year. Nachand has been an assistant principal at Green Hill High School for the last three years. Nachand replaces Candis Angle who announced her retirement during this past school year.

West Elementary: Taimi Reese was named the new principal at West Elementary after three years as an assistant principal at Southside. Ashley Hough is the new assistant principal at West. Reese replaces Alex Juneau who accepted a job outside the district.

Taimi Reese

New building projects

Construction is underway on the future LaGuardo Elementary School with the goal still to open by the start of the 2025-26 school year. The bidding process is about to start on another elementary school on Central Pike toward the south end of the county, Barker said.

Enrollment

The latest projection from July 25 were for 20,533 K-12 students to start the school year. The district had 20,069 students in grades K-12 at the end of the 2023-24 academic year, up 299 students from the end of 2022-23.

These schools were not on the district's open enrollment list based on present and projected enrollments.

Lebanon High School

West Wilson Middle School

Gladeville Elementary School

Mt. Juliet Elementary School

Rutland Elementary School

Stoner Creek Elementary School

Springdale Elementary School

West Elementary School.

Schools that will utilize portable classrooms this year include: West Elementary, Gladeville Elementary and Mt. Juliet Middle.

Start and dismissal times

Kindergarten through fifth-grade schools: 7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

K-8 schools: Carroll-Oakland  7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; Southside  7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.; Tuckers Crossroads  7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Middle school grades 6-8: Gladeville Middle  8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; Mt. Juliet Middle  8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; West Wilson Middle  8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; Watertown Middle  7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

High Schools: Green Hill High  8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; Lebanon High  8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; Mt. Juliet High  8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; Wilson Central High  8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m.; Watertown  7:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.

Teacher and bus driver staffing

The district had approximately 155 drivers as of July 19 and would hope to hire an additional 10-15 drivers for full-time, part-time or substitute work, Barker said.

The district had 1,450 teachers as of July 25, also a number that will likely fluctuate.

Transgender guidelines

The school board formally approved changes to district handbooks to comply with a new state law that addresses parents being notified about transgender students.

The law requires when a student requests an accommodation from a school employee to affirm a different gender identity or the intent to transition to a different gender identity than what is listed at the time of birth  the employee must report that to a school administrator, who must then report it to the student's parents.

Wilson County went forward to document the changes to make sure teachers and school board employees, parents and students are aware of the new law and its responsibilities, officials said.

Reach Andy Humbles at ahumbles@tennessean.com or 615-726-5939 and on X, formerly known as Twitter @ AndyHumbles.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Wilson County Schools overview: Dogs, calendar changes and more
Betsy Cleveland, a Haines City native, has been chosen as president and CEO of the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce.

After conducting a national search for its new leader, the Winter Haven Chamber of Commerce selected someone who grew up just a few miles to the northeast.

Betsy Cleveland, a Haines City native, has been appointed as president and CEO, the chambers board of directors announced Friday afternoon.

Cleveland, 50, will succeed Sara Beth Wyatt, who resigned in June after two years of leading the business organization. She is scheduled to start Aug. 5.

Cleveland served as executive director of the Haines City Area Chamber of Commerce (now called the Northeast Polk Chamber) from 2009 to 2017. During that period, the chambers membership increased by more than 100, The Ledger reported.

Since leaving the Haines City Chamber, Cleveland has worked as director of community services for the Polk County Supervisor of Elections and as community liaison director for Polk County Public Schools. She has lived in Winter Haven for about 15 years.

I feel like Ive returned home to the Chamber, Cleveland said Friday. I did then and have always since I left the Northeast Chamber believed in their mission and their work and advocating for business and commerce. It really is a love of mine. I feel like Ive come full circle, and I hope to stay there until retirement.

Cleveland graduated from Haines City High School, earned an associates degree from Polk State College and a bachelors from Warner Southern (now Warner University). She holds the title of IOM, indicating that she completed the Institute for Organization Management program, administered by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Cleveland is the married mother of an adult son and twins who are seniors in high school.

Earlier in her career, Cleveland worked as a district legislative aide for Florida Sen. J.D. Alexander, a Republican who served from 2002 to 2012.

Cleveland will be the third consecutive woman to lead the chamber since the retirement of Bob Gernert in 2014, following Katie Worthington Decker and Wyatt.

The Winter Haven Chamber chose Wyatt as its leader in 2022, when she was 29.

Arts and cultural groups Private donors direct $200,000 to Polk arts groups hit by DeSantis' veto of state grants

The chamber conducted a nationwide search and received over 45 applications, Nick Plott, search committee chair and chamber board chair-elect, said in a news release. We were thrilled that the ideal candidate was someone in Polk County who already knows and loves the Winter Haven community,

The Winter Haven Chamber reported revenue of about $571,000, expenses of about $545,000 and net assets of $991,000 for the fiscal year ending in September 2022, the most recent period for which a filing with the IRS is publicly available.

The Chamber has five employees and approximately 730 business members, said Brianna Price, vice president of operations, communications and programs.

The Chamber also operates a nonprofit foundation whose mission includes economic development, leadership development, educational support and community beautification.

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: Winter Haven Chamber picks Polk County native as next leader
Deysha Smith-Jenkins is part of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.  AKA  the same historically Black sorority that Harris joined at Howard University. She wore her "power green: suit for the Harris rally in Milwaukee. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

If you want a measure of how the sudden change-up at the top of the 2024 presidential ballot is affecting Wisconsin voters, compare the crowd of about 3,000 that turned out for Vice President Kamala Harris in Milwaukee Tuesday to the group less than one-third that size that showed up to see President Joe Biden in Madison at his rally on July 5.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan says voters he has spoken with in his district and around the state, campaigning for other Democrats, were nervous about Bidens ability to win after his debate performance in June. After Biden dropped out and Harris essentially locked up the nomination, there was a palpable sense of relief.

I think its like everyone just lost the anxiety, Pocan says. Their shoulders dropped, they were able to breathe. And, you know, feel like we were back on track.

As Baylor Spears reported from the Milwaukee rally, Harris particularly appeals to women, younger voters, and people of color.

In a state where all abortion services immediately ceased for a year and a half after the U.S. Supreme Courts Dobbs decision  a decision for which former President Donald Trump takes credit  Harris outspoken defense of reproductive freedom is particularly significant.

Last year, in a bellwether race for state Supreme Court, now-Justice Janet Protasiewicz defeated her conservative, anti-abortion opponent and flipped the ideological balance of the court in large part by leveraging outrage over the loss of abortion rights and peeling off women in the Republican-voting suburbs around Milwaukee, who have been moving toward Democrats as the Republican party leans right.

Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski, speaking at the Harris rally this week, celebrated Harris as a champion for womens rights, saying, She understands that its our body, its our choice and its not going to be this second or third tier issue. Its going to be a top priority for her to make sure we get these reproductive rights back once and for all.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsins most diverse city, where the Republicans just held a convention celebrating white, male power, there was something particularly gratifying about a rally elevating a woman of color.

Motivating women, voters of color and young people can make all the difference in Wisconsin elections. So much so that Republicans actively worked to suppress those votes in Milwaukee County in 2022 to reelect U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson  an effort celebrated by Bob Spindell, former fake Trump elector and current member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Wisconsin Republicans are already trying to make Harris race and gender a liability. U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman on Sunday told Milwaukees CBS-58 A lot of Democrats feel they have to stick with her because of her ethnic background.

But such comments could backfire and give Harris a boost. After all, several rally-goers told Spears they were excited to see someone who looked like them running for president.

Harris might also help the Democrats get over a serious enthusiasm gap with young people and progressives who are upset with Bidens support for Israel during the war in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Pocan, who boycotted the speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week, and who is seen as a champion of the antiwar cause by his constituents, said hes spoken with leaders of the uncommitted campaign that encouraged voters not to support Biden in the Wisconsin primary, and they are feeling hopeful about Harris.

There have been a couple instances where the vice president has spoken in a more favorable way to the protest movement than wed seen come directly from Joe Biden, Pocan told me.

Harris, who has called the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza devastating, describing the shortage of food and medicine and the suffering of children in stark terms, has centered human rights concerns, Pocan said. He attributes a difference in tone between Harris and Biden to age. Joe Biden had been talking about Israel in a certain way for decades, despite the fact that things may have changed on the ground, he said, adding, you dont have that with the vice president.

I do think this does allow us to tap into some of the constituencies that were not energized going into November, Pocan says.

That could make a big difference in narrowly divided Wisconsin.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WLAX/WEUX)  In a recent study done at QRFY, experts analyzed government data on the percentage of citizens who shop online in each state, to determine which ones have the most tech-forward shoppers.

Colorado topped the list, with 84.8% of residents using the internet for shopping purposes.

Wisconsin came in fifth in the United States. The study found 81.4% of shoppers do their shopping online.

Mississippi rounded out the list in last place, with 58.5% of shopping being done online.

The U.S. averaged 74.1% when it came to online shopping. Ages 25-44 reportedly had 81.8% of the population shopping online.

In Wisconsin, there were a reported 3.6 million residents who shopped online. Mayfair Mall, the biggest mall in the state, had over 160 stores for in-person shopping, but some big name stores such as Forever 21 and the Disney Store have had to close over the recent years.

Marc Porcar, CEO of QRFY, has commented:

Online shopping has revolutionised the way we make purchases. With the wide array of products available at our fingertips, it is no surprise that many states have embraced it. Amazon is the biggest online retailer, with 310 million users globally and 230 million in the US alone.

Some of the smaller states in the U.S. are higher in the ranking, which could be due to a lack of larger shopping malls, meaning a lack of certain stores. It is also important to note the impact that COVID 19 had on retail. At a time when people werent able to shop in person, they inevitably resorted to shopping online, and it is possible that these effects have lasted.

Online shopping is also beneficial for smaller companies, who can sell their products to a much wider audience than they could through in-store shopping. However, while it offers much more convenience and often better prices than shopping in person, it is important to note the environmental impact of online shopping, with increased packaging and transportation. There is also a lack of physical interaction with products before buying, which can lead to customers not being satisfied with their purchases and therefore returning them.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX2548 & WIProud.
Rhett Barclay and his girlfriend in January 2023 obtained from a source in Fort Worth about 40 fentanyl pills that they intended to distribute, law enforcement authorities said.

The fentanyl dealers girlfriend ingested one of the pills and overdosed. She was pregnant and died as her toddler watched, according to a prosecutor.

In U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Judge Mark Pittman on Thursday sentenced Barclay to about 23 years in prison in connection with his conviction on conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute fentanyl.

Barclay, 24, lived in Alvord, a city in Wise County. He was indicted in September 2023 and pleaded guilty in February. Judge Pittman selected the prison term from a possible range of between five years and 40 years.

The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Northern District of Texas did not release the name of Barclays girlfriend.

In a document known as a factual resume, Barclay admitted that fentanyl he obtained led to a second fatal overdose.

This defendant is implicated in multiple deaths, including the tragic demise of his unborn child, U.S. Attorney Leigha Simonton wrote in a statement to the press. Those who traffic in fentanyl should know that the poison they peddle can take the lives of anyone who ingests it  even their nearest and dearest. Once again, this case proves that even half of one pill can kill.

Two years before his girlfriends death, Barclay in January 2021 distributed from his residence one fentanyl pill to two people who each ingested half. Each overdosed. One was resuscitated by medics. The other died.
UPDATE: Sen. Mike Halpin emailed his statement on the layoffs to Our Quad Cities News.

I am disappointed to learn of the painful cuts happening at Western Illinois University. WIU is a major employer in my district and has provided high-quality education to thousands for many years, and these cuts undoubtedly will make maintaining those standards of excellence that much more difficult, State Sen. Mike Halpin, D-Rock Island, said in a statement.

All of our Illinois colleges and universities, both public and private, are facing very challenging times as student needs change. As Chairman of the Illinois Senate Higher Education Committee, I am committed to doing everything possible to help increase funding for our colleges and universities, to ensure they drive our economic and educational success for the short term and long term. We have to address this challenge together.

Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati emailed this statement on the layoffs.

While the QC region is reeling from recent layoffs in the private sector, it is unfortunate that there will also be layoffs in the public sector at WIU. After speaking with leaders from the school, its clear that much needed fiscal responsibility is coming to their plans for the future of the institution. Many midwestern colleges have had to make difficult decisions in order to weather the variables that have led to tough times, including a demographic cliff related to the availability of traditional college-aged students. We will work to be resilient in the face of these difficult decisions for our partners. Im thankful for the open communication today from Interim Pres. Mindrup about their upcoming decisions.

EARLIER: Western Illinois University is among other area employers who are cutting staff.

The college laid off 35 faculty members earlier this summer and more cutbacks are expected after an emergency Board of Trustees (BoT) meeting on August 6. Merrill Cole, professor of English and the president of the WIU Chapter of the University Professionals of Illinois (UPI), Local 4100, spoke with Our Quad Cities News via Zoom to discuss the potential impacts of another round of layoffs at the college.

The administrative rationale for why theyre doing, what theyre doing keeps changing, said Cole. I do not have an insider insight into what theyre doing but I can tell you that we are very frustrated with what appears to be a constantly shifting rationale, constantly shifting numbers, shifting objectives and what appears to be no real plans to grow WIU in the future.

Doing this to our students is horrible; we shouldnt be doing this. WIU has a very long track record of lifting up students, especially students from underprivileged and marginalized backgrounds. I want that record to continue. I want to be there for my students. I think my faculty and my academic professionals feel the same way.

The cutbacks are causing stress among staff members, Cole said. People are terrorized, to put it bluntly. This is no way to start the school year and we urge the administration and we urge the BOT (Board of Trustees) to stop before more damage and perhaps irreparable damage is done.

Weve already had a round of layoffs this summer where 35 of our instructors, people who are not on the tenure line, got laid off. Every other instructor just about at the university, besides a few select programs that are run by instructors, could be on the chopping block. The union doesnt know but we are concerned. Weve heard figures ranging up to 100 of our tenure line, including tenured faculty, perhaps going under the axe. The administration is not being clear about whats going to happen so again like when I use the verb terrorized, I dont think Im exaggerating.

Students will also feel the effects of fewer staff members. Ive heard of classes being cancelled, of class sizes being increased. None of this is good for our students and none of it is good for our faculty, and honestly, none of it is good for the communities that we serve. We are a major economic engine in west central Illinois and to damage us means to damage everyone. Majors at the college could be eliminated due to the cutbacks.

A lack of funding appears to be the issue. I think the bottom line is the State of Illinois has not adequately funded us, so I would encourage everyone to contact their elected representatives, including the governors office, to let them know that WIU is in dire shape. I dont want to make it sound like Im against the BOT and the administration. Im not. Theyre dealing with a very difficult situation and that situation really comes down to terrible underfunding.

WIU released a statement from Alisha Looney, Interim Assistant Vice President, University Communications, Marketing & Media Relationsabout the staffing cuts. The statement says:

Like many institutions across the country, Western Illinois University is adapting institutional expenditures, operations, services, and staffing to reflect the changing population and student needs. In an ongoing commitment to achieving fiscal stability 35 Unit B faculty contract non-renewals were announced earlier this summer, and additional layoffs are being identified and expected to take place shortly after an Aug. 6 board meeting to address the remaining deficit. WIU has implemented a number of cost saving measures over the past months, and as a result of these efforts, WIU will be positioned to evolve and innovate by attracting new markets of students, increasing retention and transfer focus, and responding to the educational workforce development needs of our region and beyond.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.
A newly released court document revealed disturbing details about a string of crimes that ended in a standoff at a New Jersey home earlier this month, including that one woman involved took photos with a mans dismembered corpse.

Elizabeth C. Mascarelli, 29, was charged on July 13 with offenses including hindering apprehension and desecration of human remains, the Ocean County Prosecutors Office said. Mascarelli allegedly helped Maxwell Johnston, 35, hide for several days inside the Toms River, New Jersey home where she was living, after Johnson killed his girlfriend, 25-year-old Gabriella Caroleo, HuffPost previously reported.

Mascarelli was arrested after a July 5 police standoff, along with three alleged accomplices: Danielle Bolstad, 42, Jared Krysiak, 34, and Jarred Palumbo, 36. Johnston killed himself before he could be taken into custody, authorities said.

As authorities investigated Caroleos death, they discovered the remains of another person in a separate home in Jackson  56-year-old Kerry Rollason, who owned the home Johnson was hiding in. Rollasons body had been dismembered and stuffed into bags.

Home where police believed Kerry Rollason was dismembered via Google Maps Home where police believed Kerry Rollason was dismembered via Google Maps

A forensic search of Mascarellis phone revealed photographs of her and Johnston next to a clearly deceased Rollason, whose legs had been amputated, according to the newly released arrest affidavit. The picture shows Mascarelli holding a hatchet in the bodys chest, per the affidavit.

Additional images discovered during the search show Mascarelli, Johnston, and Bolstad in a wooded area. In one, Johnston holds a large ax and an active burn barrel is seen behind him, according to the affidavit. An unspecified item with possible bloodstains can be seen protruding from the barrel.

Palumbo told detectives that he was in the basement of Rollasons home on July 3 with Krysiak when he heard three gunshots coming from outside, according to the affidavit. Johnston came into the basement shortly after, telling the two they needed to leave the house immediately.

Upon leaving the basement, Palumbo saw that Rollason was dead, according to the affidavit. Krysiak, Palumbo, Bolstad, Mascarelli and Johnston allegedly left the home, only to return shortly afterward to take care of the body.

Palumbo said Johnston, Mascarelli and Krysiaki cut off Rollasons limbs and then asked him to bring several bags up from the basement and load them into Bolstads car, according to the affidavit.

The medical examiner said Rollasons body was dismembered into eight separate pieces, according to the affidavit. His cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds and blunt force trauma.

Bolstad traveled to the area of a house in Jackson, New Jersey, on the day Rollason was killed, according to phone data cited in the affidavit. Authorities who searched that house found a burn barrel near the property and gloves similar to those worn by Mascarelli and Johnston in the photos, according to the affidavit. The barrel was stained with human blood, and a knife was inside it.

A search of the area found a number of body parts in black bags and wrapped in blankets, several 9mm rounds, a saw and the hatchet Mascarelli was seen holding in the photographs, according to the affidavit.

Prosecutors said at a hearing on Wednesday that Johnston had been a member of the Bloods street gang, but did not specify a specific motive for her alleged involvement in Rollasons death. Mascarellis public defender claimed she had a history of addiction and was afraid of Johnson, and Bolstads defender said she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, according to NJPatch.

Related...
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said that the incident occurred after the two women "had an argument inside their residence"

Getty Stock image of a samurai sword

A woman in Southern California has been arrested after allegedly stabbing her wife to death with a samurai sword.

The attack occurred on Thursday, July 18, at the 300 block of S. Huntington Ave, San Dimas, said the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in a news release.

When officers arrived, a woman holding a sword was seen walking alone in the street before dropping the alleged weapon after being approached by an officer, video obtained by KTLA shows.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Lt. Daniel Vizcarra said during a press conference that the female, who was "suffering numerous cuts and lacerations on her body," then directed them "to a residence on the street where the deputies find an additional female suffering also from lacerations, was later pronounced dead at the scene."

Getty Stock image of police siren

Related: Woman Allegedly Shot and Killed Elderly Man After Argument, Had Accomplice Hide Remains in Shed

"And as they continued through the residence, an additional female was found in the residence unharmed, who was also transferred to a local hospital due to a medical emergency," he added.

The victim was identified as Chen Chen Fei, 47, with the alleged attacker being her wife, Weichien Huang, 44, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department announced in an update on Wednesday, July 24.

Huang was arrested and booked for murder.

"Through investigation, investigators learned Huang and her wife, Fei, had an argument inside their residence. At some point, Huang attacked Fei with a sword," the update states. "Feis mother was also attacked and severely injured; however, was able to gain control of the sword and fled the residence looking for help."

Getty Stock image of yellow crime scene tape

Related: A Woman 'Unfriended' a Man She'd Met on a Dating App. He Killed Her the Next Day

According to the department, Feis mother remains in stable condition at a local hospital for her injuries sustained during the attack.

While the incident remains under investigation, San Dimas resident Trinh Garcia told KABC-TV that the women all lived in the same home and typically remained to themselves.

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.

"They were quiet people, they only came out to get the mail, open the garage, take the trash out, other than that, they were quiet people," she said, expressing, "We are shocked, we are stunned."

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.



For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.
This photo taken with a mobile phone on July 26, 2024 shows properties damaged by a tornado in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, Myanmar.

A tornado ripped through two villages in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, destroying 71 houses, an official from the Yangon Rescue Organization told Xinhua on Friday. (Yangon Rescue Organization/Handout via Xinhua)

YANGON, July 26 (Xinhua) -- A tornado ripped through two villages in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, destroying 71 houses, an official from the Yangon Rescue Organization told Xinhua on Friday.

The tornado struck around 4:45 a.m. local time, he said.

Of the 71 houses, 34 were completely destroyed, and the rest had their roofs torn off. Over 340 people were affected, he added.

The Fire Services Department, relevant departments, rescue teams, and the Myanmar Red Cross Society worked together to clear fallen trees and debris from the roads and move the affected residents to a monastery, the official said. 

This photo taken with a mobile phone on July 26, 2024 shows properties damaged by a tornado in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, Myanmar.

A tornado ripped through two villages in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, destroying 71 houses, an official from the Yangon Rescue Organization told Xinhua on Friday. (Yangon Rescue Organization/Handout via Xinhua)

This photo taken with a mobile phone on July 26, 2024 shows properties damaged by a tornado in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, Myanmar.

A tornado ripped through two villages in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, destroying 71 houses, an official from the Yangon Rescue Organization told Xinhua on Friday. (Yangon Rescue Organization/Handout via Xinhua)

This photo taken with a mobile phone on July 26, 2024 shows properties damaged by a tornado in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, Myanmar.

A tornado ripped through two villages in Kungyangon township of Yangon region, destroying 71 houses, an official from the Yangon Rescue Organization told Xinhua on Friday. (Yangon Rescue Organization/Handout via Xinhua)
Axl Rose from Guns N' Roses performing on the Pyramid Stage at the Glastonbury Festival in 2023. - Credit: Yui Mok/PA Images/Getty Images

A woman is speaking out on decades-old claims that Axl Rose sexually assaulted her when she was a minor in the 1980s, dating back to before Guns N Roses first broke through as one of the biggest rock bands of all time.

Michelle Rhoades has spoken out about her allegations against Rose before, coming forward earlier this year during a press conference about sexual misconduct in the music industry, but she went into much further detail speaking to the podcast over the past two weeks.

More from Rolling Stone

The podcast shared several interview recordings another reporter had conducted with associates of Rhoades in 2019, who recalled what Rhoades had previously told them about the alleged incident. The podcast itself does not mention Rose by name nor any of the other members of Guns N Roses, though Rolling Stone has confirmed Rhoades was referring to Rose in the podcast. (A rep for Rose did not reply to a request for comment.)

Speaking with the enough., podcast, Rhoades alleged that she met Rose when she was 15 years old and he was 23, claiming the relationship quickly became sexual. She alleges she became pregnant with Roses child, but miscarried at West Hollywood concert venue the Troubadour the night of one of the bands earliest shows.

Rhoades said that she later showed up to the bands rehearsal space to tell Rose what happened. It went from we need to talk because youre pregnant with my baby to him screaming at me that I killed the baby, to him sobbing in my arms that he should have been there for me, Rhoades alleged.

Rose left her at the studio, and Rhoades says she eventually went outside to use an outhouse behind the studio. She alleged that she saw Rose having sex with a different woman, and she approached them to confront him about it. Rhoades alleged Rose was still fucking her while hes talking to me, and he starts telling me these really sick things.

Rhoades alleged that she went back to the studio to grab her purse before Rose brought her back to the outhouse and ripped off her dress. As soon as my clothes hit the floor, his roadie came in and grabbed my clothes, she alleged.

Rhoades yelled at Rose demanding she get her clothes back, she claimed, but he picked her up, took her through the parking lot and brought her back to the studio as she yelled for help, she claimed.

He threw me in the studio, and almost immediately he was holding me down, Rhoades alleged. He was holding me down with his hands on my knees, and his knees were on this part of my elbows. I remember hurting so bad, and his ass was in my face. He was calling people over to me like a carnival barker. Like shes got the best tits in town, and had people coming over and touching me. I was surrounded by people, and I was screaming. And he kept screaming that he was going to shit in my face if I wouldnt shut up.

She alleged that Rose and others had put bondage cuffs around my ankles, and that Rose was really hurting me and allowing these other people to put themselves inside of me and pinch me and all these things.

Soon after, she claims that Rose raped her. And then he spun me around and he put himself in me and entered me and put his face in my face. I remember trying to bite him, Rhoades alleged. And then it was almost as if he came to himself for a second. He threw everyone off of me, the ankle cuffs off of me. And he was holding me again. I remember begging him for my clothes. I told him please just give me my clothes, Ill never come here again. And he told me that I didnt deserve my clothes.

Rose threw her out of the studio naked, and a member of a band in the studio next door saw her and gave her a towel to cover herself, she alleged.

Her mothers boyfriend, Vince Gilbert, who at the time ran another local recording studio, picked Rhoades up from the space and demanded she be given her clothes. Gilbert confirmed picking Rhoades up in an audio recording of an interview he gave in 2019, which the podcast shared this week.

I was there immediately afterwards, I went and got her, walked back, and the next morning took her to her moms house, he said in the interview. He also claimed that he knew that Rose and Rhoades had some type of relationship though to what extent I couldnt say with any authority.

Rhoades claimed that she told Gilbert not to tell her mother, but she found out and called the police. Rhoades alleged that several of the band members had contacted her begging her not to go to court. Duff McKagan, who Rhoades referred to only as the bass player in the podcast, came to her home with his girlfriend and begged my mother to drop the charges, she said.

Ill never forget him saying, we know theres something wrong with him, and we promise that he will get mental health and that hes not going to hurt any more girls. (A rep for McKagan did not reply to a request for comment.)

Rhoades claims she had increased mental anguish and suicidal ideation leading up to the court date for the charges and ultimately decided to not pursue charges. She says Rose profusely apologized to her and that after she told the rest of the band she would not be pursuing the case, the band came and hugged me that night.

Different versions of this story have appeared in books and memoirs recalling Guns N Roses early history. In Slashs autobiography in 2007, the guitarist wrote about an unnamed woman who he wrote had sex with Axl up in the loft. Slash made no mention in the book on if he knew the girl or knew how old she was.

Toward the end of the night, maybe as the drugs and booze wore off, she lost her mind and freaked out intensely, Slash wrote. Axl told her to leave and tried throwing her out. I attempted to help mediate the situation to get her out quietly, but that wasnt happening.

Slash wrote that the studio was raided by the LAPD, and that he and Rose were charged with felony rape. Rose went to Orange County, Slash said, while he went to Santa Monica. For fear of arrest, we didnt book gigs and maintained a low profile. The truth was, Axl had definitely had sex with the girl but it had been consensual and no one had raped her.

A few weeks later, he and Rose moved in with their future manager Vicky Hamilton to stay on her couch. Speaking with Rolling Stone in 2016, Hamilton recalled some of the same details.

Axl had a guest at the rehearsal studio, and he basically took her clothes off and locked her outside, and the girl went to the cops and said he raped her, Hamilton said. Slash called me up and said, Can Axl come stay on your couch for a little while? And Im like, Why? He told me that story, and it was pretty clear that I would be harboring a fugitive at that point, but I let him come. It was only supposed to be a couple of days, but it ended up being six months.

Rhoades came forward more publicly after former Penthouse model Sheila Kennedy came forward with a lawsuit late last year, alleging that Rose sexually assaulted her in a New York hotel room in 1989. Through Adult Survivors Act in New York, Kennedy was one of many women who filed lawsuits against prominent music industry figures, accusing them of sexual misconduct.

Rose filed a motion to dismiss that suit in April, calling Kennedys claims salacious, inflammatory, and false, and alleging that Kennedy is a fabulist and an opportunist looking to rewrite history in pursuit of a financial windfall.

Best of Rolling Stone
Woman who died of ME was frightened no doctors could help

A young woman who died from ME said that it was frightening to discover that there are no doctors who can help you just months before her death, an inquest was told.

Maeve Boothby ONeill died from the debilitating illness myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) in October 2021 at the age of 27.

The inquest into her death on Friday heard an account from the young woman for the first time, as a private note she had written during her treatment was read out at Exeter Coroners Court.

Ms Boothby ONeill said her treatment was not working and described seeking alternatives as like walking in a wilderness of quacks and blogs.

Earlier in 2021, as her health rapidly deteriorated, she wrote: I cannot adequately explain how frightening it is to find at 18 that the only treatment which medical professionals are offering you, the only treatment there is, is not working, does not work, and that you are getting worse, not better.

How frightening to discover that there are no doctors who can help you, that they do not even know what is wrong with you, and that in looking for effective alternatives you will be wandering in a wilderness of quacks and blogs.

She said she had every potential to be an asset to humanity and was determined to be a good patient but went on to describe the helplessness she felt.

Ms Boothby ONeill had suffered from ME since her teens, but her illness became more serious in her mid-20s, with her condition deteriorating sharply in the last seven months of her life.

She was admitted three times to Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital (RD&E) over the course of 2021, but she refused a fourth admission because no treatment was available to alleviate her condition.

ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome, is a debilitating disease that affects the nervous and immune systems and energy production, making it difficult to perform physical and mental tasks. It also causes severe pain and fatigue.

Severely affected

The inquest also heard on Friday from consultant Dr Julia Prague, who was asked by Devon coroner Deborah Archer if she had previously ever cared for someone as severely affected by ME as Ms Boothby ONeill.

She replied: Never ... and never since.

Dr Prague cared for Ms Boothby ONeill during two admissions to the RD&E in May and July 2021.

She first saw Ms Boothby ONeill in hospital when the severely ill patient was wearing sunglasses, had large headphones on and was covered in blankets. When Dr Prague tried to lightly touch her, the weight was too much for her.

The consultant said: She [Ms Boothby ONeill] said hospital was not a good place for her with ME. It is noisy, loud, its chaotic and bright. Maeve always felt she would be better at home.

During her second admission, between May and June, Ms Boothby ONeill told doctors she wished to be discharged and to continue treatment at home in Exeter.

Dr Kashyap Patel, a consultant in diabetes and endocrinology, told the hearing he had tried to persuade her to remain on his ward but, as she had mental capacity, he could not stop her leaving.

The inquest continues next week.

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.
MANHATTAN, N.Y. (PIX11)  Two women were shot and killed in a murder-suicide in Manhattan Friday morning over an ongoing custody dispute, police said.

The shooting happened near 519 East 88th St. and York Avenue, steps from Gracie Mansion in Yorkville, just before 9 a.m., according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny. Authorities found Marisa Galloway, 45, on the street behind a parked Honda Civic and Kathleen Leigh, 65, on the sidewalk. Both had gunshot wounds to the head, police said.

More Local News

Investigators believe Leigh approached Galloway while she was putting a stroller in the trunk before shooting her in the head and back, Kenny said. Leigh then shot herself in the head.

Galloway was rushed to the hospital but could not be saved. Leigh died at the scene, police said.

A 1-year-old child who was in the backseat of the Honda was not injured in the incident, Kenny said.

Authorities believe the women were in an ongoing custody dispute over Galloways 4-year-old child, Kenny said. Leigh, a retired probation officer from Chicago, is the childs grandmother. There have been five domestic incident reports and two complaints, but there were never any arrests, police said.

Two guns were recovered at the scene.

Suicide prevention and mental health resources for those in need

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988. It is a free, 24/7 service that offers support, information, and local resources. You can also click here for additional hotlines within your state.

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.
Inga Rublite, 39, died two days after having a seizure in A&E at Queen's Medical Centre, Nottingham - PA

The NHS has said it is truly sorry after a mother died from a massive bleed on the brain after being found hidden under a coat in an overcrowded A&E waiting room.

An inquest has concluded that Inga Rublite had a condition that had likely been present for years which took its naturally occurring course.

The 39-year-old suffered a massive bleed on her brain from an aneurysm while she waited more than eight hours to be seen by a doctor at Queens Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham on Jan 20, causing significant, irreversible brain damage.

Ms Rublite, originally from Latvia, died two days later when brain stem tests showed no improvement in brain function.

The two-day inquest heard that NHS staff missed opportunities to diagnose a bleed on her brain.

It was told that A&E staff believed that Ms Rublite had left the QMC after calling for her three times in the waiting room at 4.30am, 5.26am and 6.50am, and once on her phone, so they discharged her from their system.

The mother of two was found 10 minutes later slumped on the floor with a coat over her face seemingly asleep, but she was found to be having a seizure.

Evidence presented in the inquest showed staffing levels were depleted during the shift and the dedicated senior decision-maker had been diverted to help with pressures elsewhere.

Nottinghamshire coroner Elizabeth Didcock recorded a death by natural causes.

She said in her final statements that the triage nurse should have spoken to a senior decision-maker, who could have escalated the situation based on her symptoms.

She said: I find on balance had she been seen by a senior decision-maker, she would have had a CT scan which would have found the bleeding.

Significant overcrowding

Ms Didcock concluded that all was done to try to stabilise her once her condition had been ascertained.

The ward also had significant overcrowding, at more than double its maximum capacity of 38 people.

Ms Didcock said the investigation conducted by the NUH (Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust) had been thorough and thoughtful, and that many of the issues that this case has identified were out of its control.

Dr Manjeet Shehmar, medical director at the NUH, said the trust was truly sorry it did not meet the standards it strives to deliver.

He said: We would like to offer our sincere condolences to the family of Inga for their loss.

Although due to the nature of the bleed on the brain, the outcome is unlikely to have been different, we accept there were missed opportunities in Ingas care and are truly sorry that we did not meet the standards we strive to deliver.

We have completed an investigation in order to assess and implement learning, and as a result have introduced changes in our emergency department to ensure we can deliver better care to patients and support our staff to do this in the future.

We fully accept the coroners findings and are determined to take all action possible to improve our care.

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 energy that Zeta Phi Beta emitted when Vice President Kamala Harris visited the sororitys national convention was massive, and Stacie NC Grant doesn't see that waning.

The sorority, one of the countrys oldest historically Black Greek-lettered organizations, has plenty in store for the city of Indianapolis before it closes out its eight-day conference at the Indiana Convention Center.

When the presumptive Democratic nominee for U.S. president gave her keynote address on Wednesday, the sorority notched its latest first, said Grant, the international president and CEO of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc.

Vice President Kamala Harris, left, greets Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc.s President and CEO Stacie NC Grant before she speaks Wednesday, July 24, 2024, during Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc.s convention at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. The appearance is one of Harris' first since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed her for the position.

This is beyond historic. This moment is incredible for our organization of firsts. We have carved our name in history once again, as the first Black Greek-letter organization to host the first female of color presidential nominee that represents more than one culture and experience in this country.

(Zeta Phi Beta was first Greek-letter organization to charter a chapter in Africa; it was the first to form adult and youth auxiliary groups; and it's the first, and only, National Pan-Hellenic Council sorority to be constitutionally bound to a fraternity.)

Grant has been in Indianapolis since Thursday preparing for the July 23-28 meeting, with the address by the sitting vice president being a highlight.

VP Kamala Harris: Her visit to Zeta Phi Beta convention in Indianapolis

How Indianapolis became an early stop in the 2024 Kamala Harris presidential election bid

At the helm of the sorority since 2022, Grant had requested Harris participate in the organizations 2023 Zeta Day on the Hill, an annual day of workshops, forums and meetings with congressional representatives on issues that affect minority communities across the U.S.

The notice was too short for Harris to make that September event though, so Grant asked if the vice president could attend the sororitys 2024 convention, slated for the Circle City.

You know how busy the vice president is, so we didn't know if it would be possible and it takes a long time for them to navigate her schedule to get back to confirm any appearance, Grant said.

The Zeta leader said she got word a couple of months ago that Harris was considering the sorority's biennial convention  called the Grand Boule  as part of her scheduled appearances for July.

Then in early July, Harris office released the list of stops that included Zeta.

I released to our membership that she would be coming, so everybody was like, Oh, my gosh! The vice president is coming! she said.

Harris appeared at Essence Festival in New Orleans July 6, and then was the keynote speaker on July 10 during the convention of her own Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority in Dallas.

Before the Zeta meeting though, U.S. President Joe Biden faced a deluge of calls from within his party to abandon his reelection bid. He bowed out Sunday and endorsed Harris for the partys nomination.

Suddenly, the Zetas were preparing to host the likely Democratic nominee for president and the first woman of color in that position. Harris mother was born in India and her father had moved to the U.S. from Jamaica.

Little did we know while I was here planning to kick off the week that the news would hit on Sunday about President Biden choosing to pass the baton. And everything changed  the excitement, the planning, the Secret Service needs, the White House conversations, Grant said. It was like Wait, wait, wait, what happened?

Was there a possibility that Harris would cancel the Indianapolis engagement?

Attendees cheer as Vice President Kamala Harris is introduced Wednesday, July 24, 2024, during Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc.s convention at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis. The appearance is one of Harris' first since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed her for the position.

Some questioned whether Harris would change plans and skip Indianapolis.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was later scheduled to speak before the U.S. Congress at about the same time as the Zeta Social Justice Town Hall at which Harris had committed to speak.

I did hear some rumbling of that, but she's a woman of character and a woman of her word. And I know she was committed to being here, Grant said. And I'm so grateful that she kept her promise because that goes a long way with our constituency.

Divine Nine: Black Greek-letter organization flexes political muscle as VP Kamala Harris runs for president

There are still days to go before the convention ends. During that time, Zeta will elect officers, participate in workshops and attend concerts and celebrate its best performing chapters. It also has had training for local women-owned startups.

This week, the sorority kicks off a nationwide initiative to help end period poverty through a partnership with Project Period, having raised $100,000 for the Indianapolis-based program that provides free menstrual hygiene products in underserved communities.

Zeta Phi Beta leader on the 2024 presidential election

Founded in 1920 on the campus of Howard University, Zeta Phi Beta is one of the nation's oldest Black Greek-letter organizations.

IndyStar spoke with the organizations president and CEO, Stacie NC Grant about the 2024 U.S. presidential race.

The sorority, which has inducted more than 130,000 members, is meeting in Indianapolis and hosted one the first public appearances by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris since she became a candidate for president of the United States.

President Biden leaving the 2024 race

It stopped my heart a little bit because I've had an opportunity to build a little rapport with him, as well. He has been an excellent leader for our country, and I know how much he loves the United States of America; and I know this was not an easy decision. But I could also understand that he might want to just take some time with family, take some time to enjoy the results of the work because he will go down in history as a president that has accomplished so much more than many or most.  I was a little sad, but I was excited to know that he has given America his best and he deserves to be celebrated for that.

The countrys progress since President Barack Obama left the White House

We've done an interesting navigational turn in some of the ways in which members of this country have not been properly respected. And from Obama to now, we've had reversals on what we never thought we would see reversals on, from the Supreme Court down. It's very challenging to think how that can be forward movement when those original cases stood the test of time for so long and were reversed because of a shift in the changing of the guard.

Supporting Kamala Harris for president

As my individual personal self, I am jumping up and down. As the official self as president I am just happy that I can educate and provide opportunities for discourse and dialogue for my members to make their personal choices. ... Speaking for my personal self, I was excited to see the work of Biden-Harris and I think it's just going to be more exciting to see what else comes from this.  I wish I could do cartwheels. Because if I could still do them, I'd be flipping all over this stage right now. But I'm excited to be a part of witnessing this history.

Choice running mate for Kamala Harris

Picking a vice presidential running mate is a critical part in the political process of being able to extend across all aisles for what's best for the country, so it'll be interesting to see how the decision is made to move forward and to allow the country to have a full opportunity to engage on who they want to see lead this nation. I don't believe in getting into all of the noise and the rhetoric. It should be on the facts. What can each candidate do to move this country forward? Period.

Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at cheryl.jackson@indystar.com or 317-444-6264. Follow her on X.com:@cherylvjackson.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: 'Beyond historic': Sorority president on getting VP Harris to Indy
Rosa Ramirez, 45, right, suffered permanent injuries to her dominant left hand during a police dog attack, her attorney Colleen Flynn said at a news conference on Friday. (KTLA-TV)

A woman who was mauled by a Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department dog is suing the county and asking the department to end its find and bite canine program.

In a lawsuit filed this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, attorneys for Rosa Ramirez say the 44-year-old was standing just outside her front door talking to a deputy last year when an off-leash patrol dog swooped in and clamped down on her hand, permanently injuring her.

There needs to be no more victims like Rosa Ramirez, attorney Colleen Flynn told The Times on Friday. The only direction to take this dog attack program is to end it immediately  these are find and bite dogs so they dont just find people, they bite them.

The Sheriff's Department said in a statement that it had not officially received the lawsuit, but acknowledged the incident occurred and said it uses canines only under "strict guidelines" in high-risk scenarios.

Read more: L.A. City Council refuses police dog donation over training firm's name, shared with Hitler's bunker

"The department is dedicated to ensuring that handler control canines are used in adherence to our policy and rigorous training standards," the statement said.

In recent years, police dog programs have come under increasing scrutiny. According to an investigation by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news site, there is little oversight of how the animals are used, though data show dog bites send more people to the hospital than any other type of force used by police.

Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California released a report calling for legislation to limit the use of police dogs, noting that they are often used on people experiencing behavioral health crises and sometimes maul bystanders.

Just after 9 p.m. on Feb. 22, 2023, sheriffs deputies searching for a fleeing suspect in South Los Angeles came to Ramirezs door, the lawsuit says. She opened it and took a step outside, when a 55- to 65-pound patrol dog charged her from the left. The dog bit Ramirez, gouging out a large chunk of flesh from her left hand, according to the lawsuit.

She was rushed to the hospital, and ultimately her injuries required multiple surgeries and a skin graft. More than a year later, her lawyers say, Ramirez still cant grip or write with her left hand and struggles with numbness and limited movement.

Her hand is now permanently disfigured and functionally disabled, Flynn said at a Friday news conference outside the downtown Hall of Justice, where she was flanked by large posters showing graphic images of Ramirezs injuries.

In 1980, according to the lawsuit, the Sheriffs Department launched a program relying on dogs to find criminal suspects. At the time, the suit alleges, department leaders knew the dogs would bite the suspects they located. But the suit says that those leaders impermissibly and unreasonably delegated to the dogs the discretion whether to bite suspects, in effect shifting decisions about how much force to use from humans to animals.

When deputies use other weapons  such as a baton, pepper spray or a gun  they can be held accountable for the outcome.

"They evade accountability by blaming the dog, and since the dog doesnt have human judgment they just treat it as an accident, Flynn told The Times. But these attacks are foreseeable. Its not an accident if youve been doing it for close to 50 years.

Read more: Maulings by California police dogs linked to lack of regulation, ACLU report finds

At one point, the suit points to a 1992 report that warned leaders of serious problems in the dog program and showed several instances in which dogs were allowed to keep biting people far longer than appeared necessary.

In all this time theyve never learned to control these dogs because they cant, Flynn said. They cant control where a dog bites someone, how hard a dog bites someone or how much flesh is torn away and they cant even control whos bitten."

According to her lawyers, the attack on Ramirez derailed the deputies from the fleeing suspect, who was not found.

The lawsuit does not list a dollar amount Ramirez is seeking in damages.

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.
SAN ANGELO, Texas (Concho Valley Homepage)  Saturday, July 27, marks 100 years of life for San Angelo resident Dr. Maurice Shelton. To celebrate the occasion, Shelton shared tales from his storied life  including his travels across 64 countries  with Concho Valley Homepage.

Ive lived a pretty significant life for 100 years, Shelton said.

Born in 1924 in Wayne County, Tennessee, Sheltons life would quickly shape into one of world travel with the arrival of World War II. He left his education at a junior college and volunteered to serve in the United States Navys Submarine Service as a Morse Code operator in the days before he turned 18.

Following his time in the military, Shelton would use veteran services and funding allotted to him by the GI Bill of Rights to continue his education and move out of Tennessee. His affinity for agriculture and livestock, especially when it comes to sheep and goats, would eventually lead him to become a teacher himself, helping fellow veterans also benefitting from the GI Bill to pursue their own careers following their time in the war.

Film fest to be hosted for San Angelo stars 100th birthday

Most of my life since then has been associated with universities or education, Shelton said.

Shelton would spend decades of his life traveling the world and using his expertise in agriculture to foster learning, visiting countries such as Lebanon, the Soviet Union and Kuwait while also serving at Texas A&M University for 40 years. He currently holds a doctorate received from Texas A&M and has authored and co-authored hundreds of literary works related to his field.

That was a big part of my life, wandering around the world, trying to help agricultural interests, Shelton said.

A copy of Angora Goat and Mohair Production, one of the many books authored by Dr. Maurice Shelton.

Among his many accomplishments is his work in the Texas A&M University Research stations, having served at the Sonora, McGregor, College Station and San Angelo stations. Shelton shared that he was the first university staff member to ever be employed at the San Angelo station as well.

I spent my last 20-plus years working at that center [the San Angelo station], and that all adds up to 30 years or more in San Angelo, Shelton said.

He also met and married Lucy Vise in 1950 during his time working in education, who would accompany him on his globetrotting and raise four children together until her passing in 2007. Shes been gone for 17 years now, but Shelton still remembers the time they shared.

She was a pretty significant addition to the community of San Angelo, and she was one of the worlds best pianists as far as Im concerned, Shelton said.

Shelton retired from Texas A&M at the age of 65, after which he spent traveling the world even more as an advisor for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Headquartered in Rome, Italy, the organization sent him to different countries to share his expertise.

Shelton stated that health complications have kept him close to his home in San Angelo for roughly 20 years now. Despite this, hes confident that the years of life hes poured into agriculture across the world have made a definitive impact.

I feel pretty good about my contribution, Shelton said. I started in one of the most backward communities in the United States, and Ive traveled much of the world, theoretically trying to be helpful. I cant complain or take credit for anything going in the world. Im just a little cog in the wheel, trying to have some influence.

Its these years of service dedicated to promoting agriculture on a global scale that he also hopes people will remember him by once he passes.

The ranching community and the great people from the universities, I hope remember me as being competent and capable, available and interested, willing to do what I had to, to my gain and to theirs, Shelton 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 ConchoValleyHomepage.com.
People walk past a Heritage Foundation welcome sign for the Republican National Convention at the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport on July 12, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images)

Project 2025 is one of the most pernicious plans for an American presidential administration ever conceived, not just for what it is but also for how it might be implemented.

Its far-right policy prescriptions could transform the federal government into a MAGA instrument of authoritarianism. Many of them are in fact familiar planks that have been recycled through decades of hardline conservative platforms. But in Project 2025 theyve taken on an America-First snarl and sweep, and they would be most destructive in the hands of an unscrupulous second Trump administration.

Equally alarming is that Project 2025s authors appear prepared to use violence to realize its vision.

We are in the process of the Second American revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be, warned Kevin Roberts, president of Project 2025 creator The Heritage Foundation, during an appearance this month on Real Americas Voices War Room.

Project 2025 includes a volume of policy goals more than 900 pages long known as the Mandate for Leadership. The document is the latest edition of the Mandate, which the organization first published in 1981 as a roadmap for the new Reagan administration. Heritage has updated it roughly every four years ever since. It was estimated that two-thirds of its recommendations were adopted in Reagans first year in office, and there is every reason to expect the latest version to guide former President Donald Trump, if he wins the November election, to a comparable extent.

This formidable legacy of influence can be traced back to a person whose name is well known to Coloradans: Coors.

Joe Coors was the grandson of brewer Adolph Coors. Though his family is famous for building one of Colorados most successful business empires, Joe Coors most consequential efforts came in conservative politics. He hitched himself early to Reagan, having cast a vote for the future president as a Republican delegate from Colorado at the 1968 Republican National Convention.

Over the next several years, he was among a group of conservatives who saw the need for a right-wing think tank in Washington, D.C., and, with $250,000 in seed money from Coors, the Heritage Foundation was born in 1973. Coors, commonly called Heritages founder, provided the think tank an annual grant of $300,000 for years.

There wouldnt be a Heritage Foundation without Joe Coors, former Heritage president Edwin J. Feulner said.

Heritage was just one of many conservative Coors creations. He was instrumental in starting the Free Congress Foundation think tank, the Mountain States Legal Foundation law firm, and the Denver-based Independence Institute think tank.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST

He wasnt just a money man. The same policies pushed by Heritage in the original Mandate he would advocate through what The Guardian termed backstairs influence. Coors was a member of Reagans kitchen cabinet of advisors, and he engineered the appointment of a fellow Coloradan, Anne Gorsuch, mother of a future Supreme Court justice, as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, which she set out to dismantle from the inside.

The conservative movement simply would not exist in the form it does today without the profound influence of Joe Coors, the Wall Street Journal said in an obituary when Coors died at 85 in 2003.

One theme that threads through Heritage projects, and which could be the most malign quality of a second Trump administration, is a push to deconstruct the administrative state. This was a goal in the 1981 Mandate, and its a defining feature of the current plan. Project 2025 would impose a new Schedule F employment category to install Trump loyalists in tens of thousands of positions that otherwise are filled based on merit. Government agencies would be reprogrammed to serve the interests of the president, not the people, and where once professionals and experts worked for the public good now legions of toadies would carry out whatever authoritarian order came down from the Oval Office, however unconstitutional or corrupt. This is the main Heritage method for institutionalizing Trumpism.

Heritage agitates for the wholesale reduction of the federal government. The Department of Education should be completely restructured, Heritage said in 1981.

Today it says the department should be eliminated.

Several passages from the modern Mandate are of particular concern to Coloradans, especially in a section on the Department of the Interior. The section was written by Reagan administration veteran William Perry Pendley, an Evergreen resident who was Trumps acting director of the Bureau of Land Management and is a former president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation.

In general Pendley wants to see the government wring economic benefit out of public lands, primarily through fossil fuel extraction, and he would roll back the withdrawal of federal lands from mineral extraction in the Thompson Divide.

Under Trump, the BLM relocated its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Grand Junction, a move the Biden administration reversed. Pendley calls for the headquarters to be moved back West, and he lauds supposed advantages of the Grand Junction site.

Pendley suggests that the first national monument designated by Biden, the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in Colorado, could be reduced  adjusted downward, in his parlance  under a new Trump administration, and he writes that the Antiquities Act of 1906, under which Biden made the designation, should be repealed.

Elsewhere, in a section on the Department of Transportation, the document implies that the Federal Railroad Administration is misspending money at the Transportation Technology Center, a federal testing and training facility in Pueblo, and suggests research funds should be pulled from the facility.

A section on the Department of Commerce calls for the federal government to break up and downsize the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has a substantial presence and provides many jobs in Boulder. Project 2025 disdains NOAA as one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and says its functions could be provided commercially, likely at lower cost and higher quality.

The larger goals of the Mandate are at least as much of a threat to Coloradans as to every other American. It would give more control to Trump over the Department of Justice, crack down on immigration, revoke federal approval of the abortion pill, and police women who seek out-of-state abortions. The authors envision a country where pornography is outlawed, Christian faith is elevated, and the traditional family unit is at the center of American life.

Marriage. Family. Work. Church. School. Volunteering. Those are the building blocks of any healthy society, Roberts tells us in the foreword.

In The Coors Connection, a 1988 book about how the Coors familys philanthropic products, such as The Heritage Foundation, undermines democratic pluralism, Russ Bellant wrote, The Coors family funds pro-family organizations which advocate maintaining a rigid social order in the midst of a society experiencing rapid change. They support groups which lament the breakdown of what is called the traditional American family, where the mother raises the children and the father earns their living  The Coors family funds organizations which believe in Christian, segregated schools, and it has supported groups that have called for the abolition of American democracy and the establishment of a theocratic state.

The goals of the American far-right havent changed much, but in Trump it might have found its most effective vehicle yet. Joe Coors no doubt would have been very pleased.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and X.
KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The East Coast Rail Link (ECRL), a mega rail project in Malaysia being built by the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) will enable seamless logistics connectivity between ports and logistics centers in Malaysia when completed thus optimizing the country's trade and transport potential, a Malaysian official said on Friday.

Not only will this enable greater efficiency, it will also allow Malaysia to realize its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) by moving a large portion of freight transported from fossil fuel trucks and vehicles to electrified trains, Darwis Abdul Razak, chief executive officer of Malaysia Rail Link (MRL), the ECRL project owner, said during a panel discussion here.

"Instead of trucking freight cargo, a large amount is projected to be carried on the ECRL which will help reduce emissions and realize our ESG goals, especially environmental and emission goals as it will be a transition from trucks to an electrified railway," he said at the "Seamless Connectivity: ECRL's Role in Optimizing East and West Ports Logistics" panel held in conjunction with the Selangor Investment & Industrial Park Expo (SPARK) 2024.

"It will also mean less competition on our road network not to mention the reduced number of vehicles as the passenger component of ECRL will enable safe and efficient travel for the public," he added.

Meanwhile, Kuantan Port chief commercial officer Mazlim Husin said the ECRL has incentivized the upgrading of the Kuantan Port to be capable of handling much larger vessels and allowing for greater economies of scale.

"This has enabled us to support the development of heavy industries in the hinterland," he said, adding that this has contributed to development in not just Pahang state but along the east coast.

The ECRL runs from Malaysia's largest transport hub Port Klang and travels across the peninsula to Kelantan state in northeastern Malaysia. The rail link is expected to greatly enhance connectivity and bring more balanced growth to the country by linking its less-developed region on the east coast to the economic heartland on the west coast upon its completion. 
Amal Abdel-Hadi, left, and Nour Abdel-Hadi, right, react over their 2-year-old wounded niece, Siwar, as she receives treatment at a hospital in Deir al-Balah, Wednesday, July 24, 2024. Siwar Abdel-Hadi is the sole survivor in her family after an Israeli airstrike on her home in central Gaza killed her parents and three siblings. She becomes one of thousands of children orphaned in Israel's campaign in Gaza against Hamas. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP)  The 2-year-old toddler lay on a foil blanket, her face covered with salve for her burns and her little body riddled with scars from shrapnel. She squirmed, her breath heaving, as doctors examined her and the tube in her chest.

Siwar Abdel-Hadi is now an orphan. Shes the lone survivor of an Israeli strike that hit their family home in central Gaza, killing her parents, her two sisters and her brother, along with a brother of her mother.

The whole family was gathered around a table for lunch when the missile struck Tuesday in the Bureij refugee camp, said Nour Abdel-Hadi, one of Siwars paternal aunts. She spoke at nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where the overwhelmed staff rushed around her dealing with influxes of wounded.

Israels campaign of bombardment and offensives in Gaza has left thousands of orphans. Cases like Siwars have become so common, doctors created an acronym for it: WCNSF, wounded child, no surviving family. The United Nations estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The Israeli military rarely comments on individual strikes. It says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and blames the militants for civilian deaths because they work in residential areas and among the population. On the day of the strike that killed Siwars family, the military said it hit dozens of targets across the Gaza Strip, including military structures, observation posts and individual militants.

Israel says it is determined to destroy Hamas after the militants Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. Its campaign has killed more than 39,100 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Of those, women and children make up around half the dead whom the ministry has firmly identified, and an unknown proportion of the nearly 10,000 it has yet to identify. Doctors often say children make up a large proportion of the wounded that come streaming into hospitals.

At the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, another orphaned child was recovering from her wounds.

Three-month-old Asma Ajours family was fleeing their neighborhood in Gaza City after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders and moved in against Hamas militants it said were operating there.

As the family fled July 8, Israeli shelling hit the street, killing Asmas mother and father and two sisters, 3 and 5 years old, said Asmas grandmother, Basema Qwedar. Asma lay in the street in her dead mothers arms for 12 hours, until her grandfather  who was searching for them  heard her cries and found her, Qwedar said, rocking the infant in a childs seat at the hospital.

Two of Qwedars sons were killed by strikes earlier in the war, and now she has lost her daughter, Asmas mother. They dont know yet who will take in Asma, but Qwedar said her daughter had told her, If something happens to me, take care of my child.

At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, Siwar's extended family was similarly trying to figure out how to take her in. Her grandparents are still alive, but are sick and may not be able to raise her, Nour Abdel-Hadi said. Otherwise, one of her aunts will take her, but they are struggling with their own children during the shortages of food and supplies in the war.

The Abdel-Hadis were a close-knit, loving family, relatives said. The parents, Hisham Abdel-Hadi and Hedaia Yasin, made sure their kids got high grades. As the youngest, Siwar was showered in toys, they said. They had fled their home three times during the war to escape frequent bombardment in central Gaza, but each time returned, most recently in May.

Israel didnt leave anything for Siwar, no father, mother or siblings. Even her toys and bed are gone, Nour Abdel-Hadi said, sobbing.

Doctors said they were treating Siwar for second-degree burns on her face, shrapnel wounds and collapsed lungs.

God give us the capability to raise her, said another aunt, Amal Abdel-Hadi. May she live a dignified life, to play among children. May she not keep enduring what shes already experienced, all the bombing and missiles and deprivation.
This 1944 photo provided by Honoring Our Fallen shows WWII veteran U.S. Army Air Force Tech. Sgt. Donald V. Banta from Los Angeles. Banta, 21, was killed in action in early 1944 when his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Gotha, Germany. On Thursday, July 25, 2024 community members lined the roads to honor Banta as he was brought from Ontario International Airport in southern California to a burial home. (Honoring Our Fallen via AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP)  After 80 years, a World War II sergeant killed in Germany has returned home to California.

On Thursday, community members lined the roads to honor U.S. Army Air Force Tech. Sgt. Donald V. Banta as he was brought from Ontario International Airport to a burial home in Riverside, California.

Banta, 21, was killed in action in early 1944 when his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Gotha, Germany, according to Honoring Our Fallen, an organization that provides support to families of fallen military and first responders.

One of the surviving crewmembers saw the plane was on fire, then fell in a steep dive before exploding on the ground. After the crash, German troops buried the remains of one soldier at a local cemetery, while the other six crewmembers, including Banta, were unaccounted for.

Banta was married and had four sisters and a brother. He joined the military because of his older brother Floyd Jack Banta, who searched for Donald Banta his whole life but passed away before he was found.

Donald Banta's niece was present at the planeside honors ceremony at the Ontario airport coordinated by Honoring Our Fallen.

The remains from the plane crash were initially recovered in 1952, but they could not be identified at the time and were buried in Belgium. Banta was accounted for Sept. 26, 2023, following efforts by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency within the U.S. Department of Defense and the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System.
Bison on Blacktail Deer Plateau (NPS/Diane Renkin)

Yellowstone National Park released its new bison management plan Wednesday which has been in the works for more than two years and will aim to keep around 5,000 bison in the parks herds and continue prioritizing the use of a program to transfer healthy bison to tribes across the country.

The park will keep the bison population in a range of between 3,500 and 6,000 animals after calving, which will keep the population in line with the average of about 5,000 bison that has been largely maintained during the past 10 years.

The record of decision contains most of the same goals as the final environmental impact statement released in June, but the Gianforte administration continues to express its displeasure with the plan and its involvement.

The new plan, which was ordered to be completed following lawsuits that challenged the adequacy of the original proposal, is the first update since the last one was completed in 2000. The park chose the second of three alternatives that were available.

Park officials said new scientific information showing no Yellowstone bison had transferred brucellosis to cattle, and changes to the land surrounding the park and the addition of tribal hunting were factors that went into the management changes.

Brucellosis is a disease present in 60% of adult female bison and many elk in the park that can cause abortions in pregnant animals and can spread to other animals. Montana has for years fought an increased bison population over fears they would spread the disease to Montana cattle.

This new plan solidifies much of the progress made over the past two decades and provides a foundation for future decision making, Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cam Sholly said in a statement. We appreciate the significant engagement on this plan by our affiliated Tribes, partners, and the general public.

Details of the plan

In addition to setting population boundaries, the plan aims to keep the Bison Conservation Transfer Program at full capacity  capturing and holding from 100 to 300 bison for the program each year that will eventually be sent to Native American tribes in 12 different states to establish their own herds. The Interagency Bison Management Plan team would continue its operations and biannual planning.

The plan would continue the Tribal Food Transfer Program by which brucellosis-positive bison are sent to tribes like the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes to be processed for food, and also continue to manage the herds through tribal and State of Montana hunting when bison leave the park boundary in the winter. That program is also beneficial, Sholly said, because it keeps the incident rates of brucellosis down within the population.

Bison warming up in the sun (NPS / Jacob W. Frank)

If the population sits at 5,200 or more at the start of winter, the park would establish an assurance threshold and would manage the population to decrease it so there are not more than 6,000 bison after calving and rely more on hunting than capturing bison for the transfer program or to keep them in the park.

Were on the same page of conserving those animals. We believe the park can accommodate a great number of animals, and then what they cant accommodate, we believe should be translocated to the tribes, InterTribal Buffalo Council attorney Majel Russell told the Daily Montanan in June.

When the population nears 3,000 late in the winter during severe winters like that of 2022-23, the park would protect the animals inside the park and encourage a reduction in hunting outside of it. The plan would cap removals at 25% of the population but could be further limited to account for sex, age and herd structure.

I feel even though its not necessarily maybe perfect, I dont know if you ever get to perfect on bison, to be honest, in this area. But I think it does solidify a lot of the good things that have happened over 24 years, Sholly said in an interview Thursday.  Im comfortable with the (environmental impact statement process). I think its a foundation for the future, whatever that might hold.

Gianforte says Montana felt shut out of process

The park said public feedback played a key role in the record of decision and process along the way  more than 27,000 comments were submitted during last years comment period  but Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte has derided the Department of interior and National Park Service over the plan and what he says amounted to Montana getting shut out of the process as a cooperating agency.

A spokesperson for Gianforte said Thursday he and his office were still reviewing the decision but provided a letter Gianforte sent to the leaders of the Interior Department and National Park Service on July 1, after the final environmental impact statement was released, criticizing the decision itself and what he says was the park services failure to uphold its cooperative responsibilities.

Gianforte has written Sholly and other agency leaders numerous times over the past 2  years giving opinions on the plan, asking for meetings, threatening to do away with tolerance zone agreements  a buffer zone where bison are allowed outside of park boundaries  asking the park to keep less than 3,000 bison in the population, and now criticizing the final plan for what he says is a lack of what his administration had hoped for in the new plan.

Gianforte wrote in the July 1 letter that Yellowstone avoided discussions with Montana scientists and advisers at every turn and offered meetings when decisions were fully cooked. He claimed the chosen alternative was pre-plotted before the National Environmental Policy Act process that led to the new environmental impact statement ever started.

The condescending and disingenuous methods of NPS, and other agencies, is forcing a new day in the West. Gone are the opportunities for States and affected stakeholders to show up and earnestly engage in collaborative process, Gianforte wrote.

Repeated and continuous procedural abuses, like those outlined above, have hardened those who once believed in fair play. Instead, states like Montana will now show up prepared for marginalized participation, short-changed processes, dishonest brokerage, and ultimately, litigation, he continued, concluding his letter.

Sholly says plan accounted for some of Montanas concerns

Sholly told the Daily Montanan that Gianforte and his administration had submitted comments and written letters and that the final record of decision included further analysis the park service conducted based on some of those comments.

They can say, you know, this is great, or this is not great. Thats part of the process. Theyve made it very clear that they didnt like any three of the alternatives, Sholly said.

Bison cow/calf herd in Lamar Valley (NPS/Diane Renkin)

He contended that he had offered Montana a chance for a different alternative at an IBMP meeting in 2022, had been to Helena and sent biologists here several times to try to work toward a solution. The State of Montana is one of eight cooperating agencies that contributed to the plan.

Sholly said he thinks if Montana looks at the plan closely, officials will see that it does account for the states concerns. He said the park was committed to continuing to work with Montana and other partners to successfully manage a wild and free-ranging bison population while keeping bison-to-cattle brucellosis transmission to zero.

Weve obviously kept all tools on the table despite considerable public discontent with some of the tools that are used like ship-and-slaughter. And were committed to continuing to work together basically in the same paradigm that weve been in. I would think that the state would recognize that and see what happens as we move forward. Sholly said.  I appreciate the partnership with the state; its something weve got to work on together. This does not dramatically shift where weve been.

Sholly said hes heard displeasure from all different sides over the plan and more often the population goals; some people and groups want fewer than 3,000 bison, while others would like to see more than 10,000 in the park on an annual basis. He said he believes the plan strikes the right balance and is in line with where populations have largely sat for the past decade. In the last eight years, the population has ranged from 4,400 to 5,900 after the calving season.

And he noted that surveys have found seeing bison were among the top reasons visitors wanted to go to Yellowstone, that visitor numbers could break an all-time record this year, and those visits benefit Montanas economy as well.

I get it; not everybodys happy on either side. This is where we are at this point in time, and the plan does allow for adaptive management like the last EIS did, Sholly said. And as opportunities present themselves over time, with partners we can make adjustments and make changes based on what conditions are happening on the ground.

The two alternatives not chosen

There were two other alternatives considered in the environmental impact statement that the park did not choose.

The first was a no-action alternative and would essentially have kept management operations the way they are currently, setting a population range goal of from 3,500 and 5,000 bison after calving, sending live and harvested animals to tribes, working with Montana on brucellosis mitigation, and allowing for tribal hunting.

Alternative 3 would have kept the park bison population from 3,500 and 7,000, but the park service would capture fewer bison for the transfer program and rely more on natural selection and tribal hunting to manage the population. That alternative, according to the document, would have increased the risk of brucellosis spreading to cattle as more bison would likely wander out of the park.

Record of Decision for Bison Management_YELL_July 2024_508_FINAL
A Yolo County criminal grand jury has indicted two Pennsylvania men accused in 2021 Woodland homicide, which moves the murder case directly to trial.

Markeec Brunson and Donald Womack are accused of murder in the death of Enrique Loranca of Arbuckle. The 67-year-old Colusa County man was found dead in a motel room, and Brunson and Womack were arrested two years later in Philadelphia.

The criminal grand jury indicted Brunson, 48, of Norristown and Womack, 46, of Philadelphia, each on one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder, the Yolo County District Attorneys Office announced Friday in a news release.

Prosecutors said the murder charge includes an enhancement alleging Lorancas death was committed by the defendants in act of willful, deliberate and premeditated murder. Yolo Superior Court records show the criminal grand jury indicted Brunson and Womack on Monday.

The investigation into Lorancas death began about 11 a.m. June 24, 2021, when officers received a call from the Quality Inn & Suites at 1562 East Main St. in Woodland. The caller reported housekeeping staff had entered one of the motel rooms to clean it and found a dead man.

The Yolo County Coroners Office identified the victim as Loranca. Investigators determined Lorancas death was the result of a homicide. The Woodland Police Department has not released details about how Loranca died.

Investigators later identified Brunson and Womack as suspects in the homicide and determined they were in Pennsylvania.

Woodland police detectives and Philadelphia Police Department officers arrested Brunson on Aug. 6 in Philadelphia. Police said Brunson was extradited Jan. 12 and returned to Yolo County with help from the U.S. Marshals Service.

Police said Womack was already in custody for an unrelated criminal charge in Pennsylvania when he was arrested in connection with the Woodland homicide. Womack was extradited and made his first court appearance on May 14 in Yolo County.

In California, criminal grand jury proceedings are held behind closed doors, and the prosecution present evidence and can call witnesses to testify without the defendants or their attorneys present. A criminal grand jury indictment means the case skips the preliminary hearing phase and moves straight to trial.

Brunson and Womack, who remain in custody at the Yolo County Jail, will return to court Monday morning for their arraignment hearing. Their trial has not yet been scheduled.
The New York Times issued a correction to one of its articles after inadvertently quoting a woman who was infamously jailed after she faked finding a finger in her Wendys chili, Anna Ayala (Getty Images)

The New York Times was forced to issue an embarrassing correction to one of its articles after inadvertently quoting a woman who was infamously jailed after she faked finding a finger in her Wendys chili.

An article put out on Thursday by the outlet interviewed a range of voters, one of whom was Anna Ayala of Northern California.

Ayala was sentenced to four years in prison in 2006 for putting a severed finger in a bowl of Wendys chili at a restaurant in San Jose, earning her global attention, and the unfortunate nickname Chili Finger Lady.

In The Times article, Ayala was interviewed about her voting tendencies and was quoted saying she planned to vote for Donald Trump in November, despite being a Democrat.

The section later appeared to be removed from the online piece, and the newspaper issued the following correction: The Times removed comments from one voter in an earlier version of this article after learning that the person had been convicted in an extortion scheme in which she made fraudulent claims.

Honestly happens to the best of us, but this is also quite funny: Im a Democrat, but Ive changed my mind after everything thats happened with Joe Bidens administration, said Anna Ayala... https://t.co/fJt7zSKTT8 https://t.co/1ptYBumAUg pic.twitter.com/4UshKJQNtm  Ben Smith (@semaforben) July 25, 2024

The Independent has reached out to The Times for further comment about the interview and subsequent correction.

Social media users were quick to point out the blunder, with one user pointing out that the Times had reported on Ayalas case multiple times. Others made jokes.

NY Times reports that Anna Ayala is giving Kamala Harris the finger, wrote one user.

Another added: Seems like Anna Ayala will he going to prison next year for voter fraud, if that convicted felon votes for...the convicted felon running for president. Thanks for the less-than-awesome journalism @nytimes, you and Ms. "Severed Chili Finger" played yourselves.

Others were more sympathetic, with Ben Smith  editor in chief of Semafor  writing: Honestly happens to the best of us, but this is also quite funny.

Ayala was arrested in April 2005 after making claims she had found a severed human finger in a portion of Chili sold by the Wendys restaurant chain. Following a police investigation, it was determined that the body part had not come from an employee of the store.

Though early reports suggested that the finger was "fully cooked," the Santa Clara County coroners office initially concluded that the finger "was not consistent with an object that had been cooked in chili at 170 degrees for three hours, The Times reported at the time.

Her claims cost the chain more than $21 million in lost revenue after seeing its reputation hurt and led to a felony charge of attempted grand larceny against her, to which she pleaded guilty in September 2005.

Ayala was infamously jailed in 2006 after falsely claiming to have found a severed finger in a portion of Wednys chili - hurting the chains reputation and costing millions (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The finger was later discovered to belong to Brian Paul Rossiter, an associate of Ayalas husband, who had lost it in a work accident and agreed to sell it to him to settle a $50 debt, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Ayala was sentenced to nine years in prison in January 2006 and served four years. She was also banned from all Wendys locations for life.

Her husband, who had supplied her with the finger, was sentenced to 12 years and four months behind bars.

Ayala was incarcerated again in 2013 after making up another story, this time telling police that her son had been shot in the ankle by two men. In actual fact her son had shot himself and Ayala lied to prevent him from going to prison as a felon in possession of a firearm.

She pleaded no contest to three felony charges and received a two-year prison term.
Young girl flown to hospital after falling 15 feet into rocks at Cascade Park

ELYRIA, Ohio (WJW)  Elyria first responders rescued a young girl who was seriously injured after falling into the rocks at Cascade Park Thursday afternoon.

According to the Elyria Fire Department, firefighters and Elyria police officers were called to the park around 3 p.m.

Local police hope to identify dirt bike vandals with surveillance photos

When they got there, officials found the child stuck between large rocks and the Black River near the West Falls. Investigators say she fell about 15 feet.

Courtesy of Elyria Fire

Courtesy of Elyria Fire

Courtesy of Elyria Fire

First responders and park rangers made their way down to the girl, who was lifted up with a Stokes Basket.

Waterspouts spotted over Lake Erie, Cedar Point

Due to the extent of her injuries, the child was flown by Metro Lifeflight to MetroHealth Medical Center.

Crews from Lorain County Metro Parks Rangers, Lifecare, Elyria Fire, under the Command of Captain Mark Slack and Elyria Police did an exceptional job working together and safely extricating her which took roughly 40 minutes, said Fire Chief Joseph Pronesti in a Facebook post. All should be commended for a job well done.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
A girl who was found murdered with her body set on fire in Southern California has been identified.

The victim, Marcia Shirree Thomas, 14, was a missing child from Reno, Nevada, according to the Irvine Police Department.

Through DNA testing and years-long investigations, authorities were able to identify the victim 15 years after her murder.

On Sept. 4, 2009, the young girl was lured into a van by two brothers in Santa Ana  Zenaido Valdivia-Guzman and Gabino Valdivia-Guzman.

Zenaido was 23 at the time and his older brother, Gabino, was 30. Gabino was driving the van and Zenaido was hiding in the backseat.

When Thomas entered the van, she began to panic after discovering Zenaido was sitting in the back, police said. The girl began screaming and trying to escape but Zenaido pulled her into the back area and began beating her in the face and neck, authorities said. The older brother continued driving as Zenaido assaulted the girl.

An artist's rendering of Marcia Shirree Thomas, 14, after she was found murdered on Sept. 4, 2009. (Irvine Police Department)

As she tried to escape, Zenaido eventually strangled her to death, police said. Gabino drove the van to a business complex on the 1800 block of Kettering Street in Irvine. Thats where the brothers dumped the girls body in the parking lot, doused her with gasoline and set her on fire, detectives said.

The brothers then took the girls cell phone and fled the scene.

The next morning, the girls body was discovered by employees who had arrived at the complex for work. Police and homicide detectives arrived and began searching for leads on the suspects.

On Nov. 5, 2010, over a year after the murder, Zenaidos DNA was linked to the girls murder stemming from a 2009 misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence.

He was located the next day at a shopping center in Santa Ana where he was taken into custody. His older brother, Gabino, was with him at the time and was also arrested.

On Nov. 15, 2022, Zenaido was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and the special circumstance of murder in the commission of a kidnapping.

His brother, Gabino, will be tried at a future date.

The Irvine Police Department has been committed to this case since 2009, said Police Chief Michael Kent. Marcias family remains in our thoughts during this difficult time. We appreciate the agencies that have assisted in providing crucial information to support the case and the family.

Anyone with additional information on the case can call Detective John Sanders at 949-724- 7233.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
UMaine System students told Maine Morning Star that they feel reinvigorated by Harris candidacy: (clockwise from top left) Aaron Skinner, Keegan Tripp, Camille Alipalo, Tristin Friend and Meredyth Waters. (Courtesy photos)

Last Sunday, Camille Alipalo was setting up for her brothers graduation party in their backyard in Springvale when her mom came outside and yelled out the news: President Joe Biden was dropping out of the presidential race.

The University of Southern Maine student said she was shocked, but not surprised. Over the next few hours, her family watched CNN while Alipalo checked social media for updates. When she learned that Biden had endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, her excitement grew.

This is the first presidential election in which the soon-to-be 20 year old can vote, but she has been involved in the Olympia Snowe Womens Leadership Institute since she was 16 and currently serves as the student representative to the UMaine Board of Trustees. As a young woman of color involved in politics, Alipalo felt like former President Donald Trump and Biden were not ideal options for her first opportunity to vote.

Its kind of hard for me to comprehend sometimes how much older they are, she said. Especially in how they can relate to younger generations, or how younger generations can relate to them.

Now, with the likely opportunity to vote for the first woman of color for president, Alipalo feels like she is voting for real change..

Earlier this week, the vice president secured enough pledged delegates to be the likely Democratic nominee. The Democratic National Committee said Wednesday it will hold a virtual nomination vote as early as Aug. 1.

Watching Harris throughout this time in my life where Im also starting to take on big leadership positions in my college career makes me think that I could have an opportunity to go as far as she does, she said.

Several young Maine voters told Maine Morning Star that they feel reinvigorated by Harris candidacy. Many of them had resigned themselves to voting for Biden, but find Harris far more relatable because shes younger and a woman of color who understands and sympathizes with the issues they care about, such as climate change and reproductive rights.

Its been kind of Trump and Biden, and those are the two thats been shoved down everyones throats for so long, said Keegan Tripp, undergraduate student body president at the University of Maine and a political science student.

I think that her being just a different choice and getting us out of this painful and tiring dichotomy that weve been stuck in for so long  does kind of represent like a breath of fresh air, Tripp said.

All six students, five of whom are voting in presidential elections for the first time, said their interest and engagement in the election is higher now that Harris is more likely to be the nominee, and that they believe she has a better chance at defeating Trump.

This is my very first presidential election, so Ive been very interested in it since it began, said 20-year-old Aaron Skinner, a UMaine Farmington student who is not enrolled in a political party and was unsure who he would vote for.

Skinner said that having Biden resign so late into the campaign has kept me interested and has helped me learn a little bit more about that campaign and election process. So Id say Im actually more interested in it now.

Someone that looks like us

Carolyn Kinney, a 19-year-old student at UMaine Farmington, said when she heard the news of Biden dropping out, she felt relieved. Harris is a much better choice, she said, because young people feel like she can understand them, and are inspired by how she carries herself confidently, Kinney said.

People in my generation are seeing someone young, or seeing someone that looks like us, or is like us in different aspects, she said.

Shes like me because shes a woman, shes like my friend because shes African American, shes like my other friend because shes African American and a woman. She just is the most relatable candidate out there, Kinney said.

Tripp said he prefers Harris to Biden because her age keeps her accountable to young voters.

I want a leader whos going to kind of see the consequences of the decisions they make, because I think thats an accountability mechanism, he said.

And Biden just didnt have that.

Tristin Friend, a 27-year-old veteran and nontraditional student at UMaine, finds Harris background as a prosecutor and attorney general reassuring, both because he works as a security guard part time and comes from a family that values law enforcement.

Issues young people care about

Friend, who was part of the Army National Guard, voted for Trump in 2016 because he believed he would stand up for members of the military. But watching the former president in action, including his many anti-immigrant comments, prompted Friend to vote for Biden in 2020.

After four years of Bidens presidency, I think we can be disappointed and appreciate what hes done at the same time, Friend said.

In particular, while Friend said he appreciates the Biden administrations efforts towards forgiving student loans and building a better healthcare system, he feels like theres more work to be done, which he hopes Harris can continue.

Kinney was disillusioned by the Biden administrations support for Israel and its war on Gaza, and by the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which ended the right to an abortion.

Kinney said that since Roe v. Wade was overturned, a lot of women and people with uteruses are really upset at the fact that our rights are slowly dwindling, Kinney said. So I think having a woman  let alone a woman of color  in charge, is the most strategic move right now.

Lack of choice in the Democratic nominee

Meredyth Waters, chair of the UMaine College Democrats and a political science student, said while she plans to vote for Harris, she feels left out of the democratic process with Biden dropping out less than a 100 days before the election.

Young people wouldve actually had the chance to pick someone who represents their values, she said, talking about a hypothetical scenario where Biden had announced that he wasnt seeking re-election before the primaries. Its incredibly exclusionary of voters to basically bypass the process by dropping out this late.

As a local organizer tasked with getting more Orono voters to the polls, Waters said she thinks that Harris being the likely nominee will make her job easier, as people seem more excited to vote. She also thinks Harris has a better chance of winning against Trump, based on the amount of money she has raised since Biden endorsed her as the nominee on Sunday. According to the campaign, Harris raised more than $81 million in the 24 hours after Biden stepped down.

I think the drastic change isnt actually going to be in the net increase of votes, but in the net increase of fundraising dollars, Waters said.

Tripp said Harris nomination was not completely unexpected, given that she is vice president and Democrats had already voted for her as part of the Biden-Harris ticket.

This is what people voted for. They voted for her to take Bidens place in the event that he cannot do so, Tripp said.

DONATE: SUPPORT NEWS YOU TRUST
Ambar Leanez grows quiet when she thinks of a future beyond this weekend.

A staunch supporter of Venezuelas opposition movement, shes buoyant about her coalitions chances to win this Sundays presidential election. The thought of another six years under the incumbent  Venezuelas entrenched authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro  would drive her to flee the country, she says.

The alternative is to go somewhere else to look for a better life, she told CNN.

This Sundays vote will be a consequential moment for Venezuela, and particularly for many young opposition voters who tell CNN they will emigrate if there is no political change.

Often divided among its many political parties, Venezuelas anti-government coalition has united behind a single presidential candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez.

Many experts believe that Gonzalez could pose Maduros toughest political challenge to date. On top of a galvanized opposition, pressure from the international community and Venezuelas oil sector have led to a series of agreements that paved the way to a competitive election this year.

On Friday, members of a young opposition group in Maracay, a mid-size city in central Venezuela, took to the streets with fliers and slogans to galvanize votes for Gonzalez. A few years ago, openly calling for Maduros removal here could have invited trouble.

But the group, called Neighbors for Venezuela, campaigned without incident. Leanez among them shouting anti-Maduro slogans in the citys market: Urgent, we need a new president!

Another protester, Julio Cesar Perez, described the choice looming on Sunday in stark terms: For me, its change or the Darien.

Fellow protester Victor Medina agrees. The plan B is packing your bags and the border, he told CNN. I cant see myself living another six years under this government. I cant give up my future, Im out of here.

Campaigning with your bags ready

Thousands of Venezuelans have already trekked through jungles and rivers in the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama to head northward toward the United States.

If Maduro remains in power, experts predict that millions more may follow. One poll conducted in June by Venezuelan firm ODH Consultores, estimates up to a third of the population is considering leaving the country after the election.

I dont want to leave! has become a popular chant among opposition supporters.

Most people in Venezuela know someone who has emigrated already. Large numbers of Venezuelans now live in Colombia, Peru, and Brazil, and growing numbers have attempted relocating to the United States  part of a significant election year issue for American voters.

Leanezs uncle, Rafael Cabrera, moved to Miami in 2021. On a videocall to his niece in Maracay, he expressed anger that he would not be able to vote on Sunday  Venezuelans living abroad are not allowed to vote by mail, and Venezuela doesnt have consular representation in the US, which means there are no paths to the vote for Cabrera.

To join him one day, Leanez said she would consider migrating as an undocumented migrant. I would wish to migrate as legally as possible, but its is one of the cards in my hand. An option What else could I do? she said.

Opposition protesters in Maracay, Venezuela. - Rhonny Zamora/CNN

To all Venezuelans abroadcome home!

On the campaign trail, both Venezuelas current government and the opposition are urging Venezuelans abroad to return.

Since 2018, a government-sponsored Return to the Homeland program organized free flights for more than 10.000 Venezuelan migrants who wished to come back from other Latin American countries.

We have gone through a bad stretch, really bad, but were getting better, were improving to all Venezuelans abroad [] come home! Maduro said last month.

Gonzalez has called migration a drama that every Venezuelan family has endured. Its something that we must find a solution for, immediately. We ask them to come back and to help us to rebuild the country, he told CNN.

Its an issue that has touched the top leaders of the opposition movement personally  though they have chosen to stay and fight, in a battle for Venezuelas future that will be decided on Sunday.

Gonzalezs own daughter and his two grandchildren live in Madrid, Spain. He is able to see them about once a year, otherwise its videocall, he told CNN.

Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who has campaigned alongside Gonzalez after being barred from running as a candidate, has endured a familiar separation, with her three adult children and their families all living abroad.

When I walk by their rooms, I have to turn my head away. Its not something you get used to, she told CNN.

For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com
ISLAMABAD, July 26 (Xinhua) -- A high-value terrorist was killed in an operation conducted by security forces in Pakistan's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Friday, the Pakistani military said in a statement.

The security forces conducted the intelligence-based operation in North Waziristan district on the reported presence of terrorists, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistani military said in the statement.

The killed terrorist was actively involved in numerous terrorist activities in the area, including target killing and facilitation of suicide bombing, the statement added.

A clearance operation is being conducted to eliminate any other terrorists found in the area, the ISPR said. 
A youth camp support services director was arrested on Friday for allegedly sexual assaulting a child in Alpine, officials said.

Jelani McKenzie, 32, of Queens, New York, is accused of the sexual assault of a minor under the age of 16 on multiple occasions, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office stated.

The sexual assault began in March of this year, police said, and the Alpine Police Department and Bergen County Prosecutors Office Special Victims Unit began their investigation on Tuesday.

McKenzie is charged with four first-degree aggravated sexual assault, second-degree endangering the welfare of a child and three counts of third-degree aggravated criminal sexual contact.

McKenzie was arrested in Queens and was taken into custody at Rikers Island Facility, pending extradition to Bergen County.

The New York City Police Department and special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation also assisted with the arrest.

A statement from the prosecutor's office did not specify the youth camp where McKenzie worked.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Youth camp employee accused of sexual assault of minor in Alpine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at a joint press conference during the International Ukraine Reconstruction conference in Berlin. Kay Nietfeld/dpa

The Ukrainian armed forces are under heavy pressure in the east of the country, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday in his nightly video address to the nation.

The situation around Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region in particular has been thoroughly analysed by the military leadership, Zelensky said.

"This area was and continues to be the focus of Russian attacks," Zelensky said. Everything must be done to strengthen Ukrainian defence positions in the region, he added.

The Ukrainian leader expressed "special appreciation" to all units that attacked Russian bases and logistics in the occupied territories, without naming any specific units.

"The occupier must feel that this is Ukrainian land," Zelensky asserted.

Ukrainian media had previously reported a missile attack on a military airport in Crimea, which has been annexed by Russia since 2014, citing military sources in Kiev. No details were initially provided about the impact of the attack. There was no explanation from the Russian side.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has praised Ukrainian soldiers for striking Russian positions and logistics on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Source: Zelenskyy in his evening video address on 26 July

Quote: "The second [issue] for today. I want to especially acknowledge our warriors who strike Russian bases and logistics on the occupied territory. The invader must feel that this is Ukrainian land. And each destroyed Russian airbase, each destroyed Russian military aircraft  whether on the ground or in the air  means saving Ukrainian lives. Guys, our warriors, I thank you for your precision!"

Details: Zelenskyy also said that he met with the Ukrainian minister of defence. They discussed the new defence packages that are being developed together with Ukraines partners.

Quote: "It is important that our warriors receive exactly what they need under these conditions of very intense battles and pressure from the Russian army. In particular, together with the Minister and the military command, we are carefully analysing the situation in the difficult areas; primarily it is the Pokrovsk front in Donetsk Oblast. This is the direction that has been and remains the main focus of Russian attacks. There have been two reports today from Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi. Everything must be done and will be done to strengthen our positions, our Ukrainian ability to inflict tangible losses on the occupier."

Background: On the night of 25-26 July, the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched an attack on the Saky airbase in temporarily occupied Crimea, which the Russians used for launching airstrikes on the territory of Ukraine.

Support UP or become our patron!
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the most difficult combat situation is on the Pokrovsk front in Donetsk Oblast, and the Ukrainian positions must be strengthened there.

Source: Zelenskyy in his evening video address on 26 July

Quote: "In particular, together with the [Ukrainian defence] minister and the military command, we are carefully analysing the situation in the difficult areas; primarily it is the Pokrovsk direction in Donetsk Oblast. This is the direction that has been and remains the main focus of Russian attacks. There have been two reports today from Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi. Everything must be done and will be done to strengthen our positions, our Ukrainian ability to inflict tangible losses on the occupier."

Details: Zelenskyy said he met with Defence Minister Rustem Umierov on Friday, discussing new defence packages for Ukraine, which are being planned in collaboration with Western partners.

In addition, Zelenskyy praised Ukrainian soldiers for striking Russian positions and logistics on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

Support UP or become our patron!
Zip Trip: History of Great Smoky Mountains

PIGEON FORGE, T.N. (WSPA)  More than 13 million people visited the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 2023.

Thats the second most on record.

Many of those same visitors, plus many more, will spend time in three neighboring cities to help fuel their tourism success.

Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, around the size of Lyman and Walhalla respectively, are destination cities for visitors to eastern Tennessee. Neighboring Sevierville is also part of that success story.

The three cities work really well together, Leon Downey, Executive Director of the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism, said. Our department works very well with the Gatlinburg CVB. And with the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce, we do a lot of joint promotions together.

Pigeon Forge started part of its journey to becoming a tourist destination with the opening of Goldrush Junction in 1970. Then came Dolly Parton. Her name was put on the park, now called Dollywood, in 1986. That was a huge step, but it still wasnt enough.

When I came here it was not a year-round destination, Downey explained.

At the end of October, when the leaves fell off the trees and Dollywood closed, the city basically shut down. You know, the mom-and-pop restaurants and hotels would put up signs and say see you in the spring and lay off their employees. So when we started Winterfest.

Winterfest was first held in the early 1990s and featured Christmas lights in Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, Sevierville and Dollywood. Today, there are roughly 15 million lights featured from early November into February.

Dollywood extended its months of operations for Winterfest and eastern Tennessee became a year-round attraction for vacationers.

The Upstate of South Carolina and western North Carolina provide many of those visitors.

Last year Greenville, Asheville, Spartanburg a third largest number of producers of Pigeon Forge visitors behind Knoxville, which is of course just 30 miles down the road, Downey told 7NEWS.

And then Atlanta, the largest market in the southeast. So, you guys were third, you and your viewers were the third largest producer of visitors to Pigeon Forge last year.

We thank you for that!

Tourism is a billion and a dollar industry for Pigeon Forge according to the citys Department of Tourism. There are currently 11 hotels under construction for the city with a population of around 6,000.

Learn more about our special guests:

Dollywood Family Vacation Giveaway

You can win 4 tickets to Dollywood! To enter the contest 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 WSPA 7NEWS.
Hundreds of thousands of Kamala Harris supporters have rallied behind the presumptive Democratic nominee this week, with Zoom calls breaking records with six-digit attendance numbers.

The events started Sunday following President Joe Bidens announcement he would not seek re-election. More than 44,000 Black women joined a call to galvanize supporters for the vice presidents historic run for president, drawing celebrity names  including Yvette Nicole Brown and Jenifer Lewis  and raising an estimated $1.5 million.

More from The Hollywood Reporter

The trend continued with thousands of Black men on a call earlier this week, followed by Zooms for white women, LGBTQ supporters, South Asian supporters and more.

At the white women call Thursday night, Answering the Call for Kamala Harris, there were more than 100,000 participants, a number so staggering it caused significant technical glitches that sent many to watch the livestream on YouTube, where more than 25,000 also joined the call.

Author Glennon Doyle shared on Friday that the call raised over $8.5 million so far.

Hollywood was represented across the interest groups. Mindy Kaling joined the South Asian call, with George Takei, Zachary Quinto, Raven Simone, Sophia Bush, Ashlyn Harris, Brian Michael Smith and Justin Tranter attending the LGBTQ call. (Tranter, the co-writer of Chappell Roans Good Luck Babe, announced he would donate $20,000 to the cause.)

Katie McGrath, Connie Britton, Pink and more signed on to the white womens call, with Pink reportedly joining right after leaving the stage of a performance in Sweden.

Another Zoom call, women for Harris, is scheduled for Monday.

July 26, 12 p.m. Updated to note $8.5 million raised.

Best of The Hollywood Reporter
If you are sending a Letter To the Editor, please be sure to follow these rules:

Letters have a firm 200-word limit and will be edited for grammar, clarity and accuracy.

The person who signs the letter must be the author. Anonymous letters will not be considered. Letters must address the editor, not a third party.

We will not print form letters, libelous letters, business promotions or personal disputes, poetry, open letters, letters espousing religious views without reference to a current issue, or letters considered in poor taste.

Letters reflect the opinion of the writer. The Yakima Herald-Republic cannot verify the accuracy of all statements made in letters.

Writers are limited to one published letter per calendar month.
ST. PETERSBURG, July 25 (Xinhua) -- As of July 1, about 1.86 million passenger cars of Chinese brands were registered in Russia, accounting for 4 percent of the total, according to a report released by Russia's analytical agency Autostat on Thursday.

Chery is the most popular Chinese car brand in Russia, with a total of 444,700 units registered, followed by Geely with 341,100 units, and Haval with 296,000 units.

The three brands account for about 60 percent of the total number of Chinese-brand passenger cars registered in Russia, the report said.

According to experts from Autostat, currently, the share of French- and American-brand cars in Russia accounts for about 6 percent and 7 percent, respectively, and if the current market situation continues, Chinese brands are expected to overtake French and American brands to enter the top five in a few years. 
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith attend a trilateral meeting in Vientiane, Laos, July 25, 2024. The meeting was chaired by Saleumxay. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

VIENTIANE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- China, Russia and Laos on Thursday pledged to enhance cooperation to safeguard the common interests of the three countries, contributing to regional stability, prosperity and response to risks and challenges.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith made the remarks during a trilateral meeting in the Lao capital Vientiane, where a series of meetings of foreign ministers of southeastern and eastern Asian countries are being held.

At the trilateral meeting, Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, highlighted a world of accelerating changes unseen in a century, with new turbulences ahead, a transforming international system, and a sluggish global economic recovery.

He cited rising hegemonism, unilateralism and protectionism, and the undercurrents of "small courtyard and high wall" and "decoupling and breaking chains," coupled with persisting regional conflicts as among pervading destabilizing, uncertain and unpredictable factors around the world.

However, the Chinese foreign minister emphasized peace, development, cooperation and mutual benefit remain the common aspiration of the people of the international community, with world multipolarity, economic globalization and democracy in international relations still being the major trend of today's world.

Wang said the Global South is growing and emerging powers are rising inexorably, noting strengthening regional cooperation, promoting integrated development and practicing multilateralism are the common aspirations of countries while building a community with a shared future for mankind presenting a brighter prospect.

Wang stressed China, Russia and Laos as emerging economies in the Asia-Pacific region and as constructive forces for regional peace and development, as well as the fact that they are the current rotating chairs of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS group and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), respectively.

Enhancing cooperation among the three countries will not only help safeguard their common interests, but also send a clear message of solidarity and cooperation among regional countries joining efforts to promote regional stability and prosperity and cope with risks and challenges, he said.

China speaks highly of Laos' chairmanship of ASEAN and stands ready to work with Russia to support the ASEAN-centered regional cooperation architecture and support Laos and ASEAN countries in keeping East Asia cooperation on the right track, Wang said.

Agreeing to China's insights into the international situation, Lavrov and Saleumxay said the three countries have shared stances and views on many major issues.

According to the two foreign ministers, Russia and Laos are willing to strengthen communication and coordination with China, consolidate political mutual trust, and plan for future cooperation in forming greater synergy to safeguard the common interests of the three countries as well as regional countries.

During their meeting, the three sides spoke highly of the fruitful outcomes of high-quality Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) cooperation, pledging to push for synergy between the BRI and development strategies of the Eurasian Economic Union and ASEAN, creating more growth areas for cooperation to revitalize regional integration.

They vowed efforts to forge a closer connectivity partnership, with the help from a high-quality two-way operation of China-Laos Railway and China-Europe Express that enables a railway corridor linking Russia, China's Manzhouli, Chengdu, and Kunming, Laos' Vientiane and Thailand's Bangkok, including expanding and upgrading supporting industries, and maintaining stable and smooth industrial and supply chains.

The three sides expressed concerns over non-regional forces fanning fires in the Asia-Pacific region, and the willingness to step up coordination and cooperation to cool down hotspot issues in maintaining regional security and stability.

They agreed to jointly oppose power politics, to resist camp confrontations, to practice multilateralism and to safeguard international fairness and justice.

The three sides said they will work for a synergy of SCO and BRICS cooperation mechanisms with the ASEAN cooperation architecture, pushing regional integration. They expect to welcome the attendance by the Secretary-General of ASEAN and the Secretary-General of the SCO to each other's meetings.

During the meeting, the Chinese and Russian sides also said they support Laos in becoming a dialogue partner of the SCO and participating in activities of the BRICS mechanism. 

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith attend a trilateral meeting in Vientiane, Laos, July 25, 2024. The meeting was chaired by Saleumxay. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Vientiane, Laos, July 25, 2024. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, holds talks with Lao Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith in Vientiane, Laos, July 25, 2024. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)
Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Best Car Modification Market: Karol Bagh is a bustling area in the heart of Delhi and is a haven for car enthusiasts looking to modify their vehicles as per their individual choices. It's a place known for transforming cars from ordinary to extraordinary inside-out. In Karol Bagh, you can find almost anything related to car modification, from accessories to engine tuning, and whatnot. It is one of the biggest and most known car modification markets in the country.

What To Expect?

Karol Bagh car market offers a wide range of car modification options, including simple accessories like seat covers and floor mats to extensive body kits, and performance upgrades that could make a huge difference to the vehicle from visual appearance to mechanical aspect. There are tons of shops specializing in audio systems, lighting, wheels, tyres, denting and painting, etc. You can even find custom paint jobs and interior modifications.

Karol Bagh Car Market: Location & Timing

The Karol Bagh car market is huge and is spread across several streets. It is situated in the Central District of Delhi and is a mixed residential and commercial area. Some popular areas of Karol Bagh car market include Abdul Rehman Road and the lanes nearby.

The market is open all day and it is best to visit between 10 am to 8 pm, when most shops are open. The timings may vary by the particular workshop, so it's advisable to check before heading out.

Karol Bagh Car Market: Things To Keep In Mind

Bargaining: Like most markets in Delhi or any other places, bargaining is expected. Don't be afraid to negotiate prices before getting modifications done.

Research: It's a good idea to research products and prices online before visiting Karol Bagh. It will give you an idea of what to expect during your visit.

Patience: The market can be crowded, so be patient and take your time exploring the different shops. Take quotes, evaluate them, and then select one for the job.
Dustbin Mandatory In Vehicles Visiting Uttarakhand: Citing "natural cleanliness of the state and protecting its environment", the Uttarakhand government on Thursday issued instructions to strictly enforce the rule of mandatory installation of dustbins and garbage bags in vehicles entering the state. Before issuing trip cards to vehicles, it should be ensured that they have a dustbin or garbage bag installed, Chief Secretary Radha Raturi said.

The State Transport Department recently wrote to the Transport Commissioners of Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Chandigarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, informing them that it is mandatory for vehicles coming to the state during the Chardham Yatra to have dustbins and garbage bags installed to prevent travelers from littering roads.

Vehicles entering the state should be checked and fined if they do not comply with this mandatory rule, the chief secretary said. Tour operators, travel agencies, drivers and the general public should be informed about this rule, the chief secretary added. Officials will check vehicles to make sure they follow this rule.

"Uttarakhand is a tourist state. Maintaining the natural cleanliness of the state and protecting its environment is the collective responsibility of its residents as well as lakhs of tourists and devotees who visit the state every year," Raturi said. It is noteworthy that Uttarakhand is a weekend getaway for the people of Delhi and surrounding areas, resulting in a large number of people visiting Uttarakhand on weekends.

A few days back the Sikkim government had also made it mandatory for all tourist vehicles visiting the state to carry large garbage bags. The purpose of doing this is to promote environmental sustainability in all tourist destinations. Vehicles that don't comply will be fined according to government rules, the Sikkin's Tourism and Civil Aviation Department said.

(Inputs- PTI)
New Delhi: Digital payments in India have registered a 12.6 per cent increase year-on-year with the RBI's Digital Payments Index (RBI-DPI) rising to 445.5 at the end of March 2024 compared to 418.77 in September 2023 and 395.57 in March 2023.

"The RBI-DPI index has increased across all parameters driven by significant growth in payment performance and payment infrastructure across the country over the period," the RBI said on Friday. The Reserve Bank has been publishing a composite RBI-DPI index since January 1, 2021 with March 2018 as the base to capture the extent of digitisation of payments across the country.

The RBI-DPI comprises 5 broad parameters that enable the measurement of penetration of digital payments in the country over different time periods. These parameters are -- (i) Payment Enablers (weight 25 per cent); (ii) Payment Infrastructure  Demand-side factors (10 per cent); (iii) Payment Infrastructure  Supply-side factors (15 per cent); (iv) Payment Performance (45 per cent), and (v) Consumer Centricity (5 per cent).

Each of these parameters has sub-parameters which, in turn, consist of various measurable indicators.
Ballia: In a shocking revelation from the Uttar Pradesh-Bihar border at Ballia, police officers have been caught extorting illegal money from trucks entering from Bihar. Following the exposure of this racket, officials from constables to the SP have faced severe action. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has swiftly removed the ASP and SP from their posts, while several constables and COs have been suspended.

An Illicit Income of 1.5 Crore Per Month

The crackdown revealed a staggering monthly illicit income of 1.5 crore. Approximately 1,000 trucks passed through this border every night, with each driver being forced to pay an illegal toll of 500 to the police officers. This racket allowed the officers to pocket around 5 lakh per night.

The Raid that Uncovered the Scandal

The extortion came to light when ADG and DIG jointly raided the Bharouli check post following numerous complaints about continuous extortion by police officers. During the raid, two police officers were caught red-handed, along with 16 middlemen involved in the racket.

DIG's Raid Reveals the Extortion Scheme

DIG (Azamgarh Range) Vaibhav Krishna, who led the raid, stated that they conducted a covert operation in plain clothes at the Bharouli intersection near the Bihar-UP border in Narhi police station area. It was discovered that police officers were charging 500 per vehicle, with around 1,000 trucks passing through each night.

Swift Action by Yogi Government

In response to the revelations, the state government suspended the entire Corantadeeh outpost. The accused police officers were found to be extorting money from those involved in liquor, cattle smuggling, and red sand smuggling at the Bihar-UP border. CM Yogi Adityanath quickly removed the SP and ASP of Ballia from their positions and appointed IPS officer Vikrant Veer as the new SP of Ballia.

Furthermore, orders have been issued for a vigilance investigation into the assets of the CO, SHO, and outpost in-charges involved in the extortion scandal. Head constable Hardayal Singh was arrested during the raid, revealing the entire racket. Cases have been registered against the SHO of Narhi, the in-charge of Corantadeeh outpost, and seven other police officers.

Suspension of 10 Constables

Head constable Chandrajeet Yadav, Aurangzeb Khan, constables Parvind Yadav, Satish Gupta, Pankaj Yadav, Gyanchand, Dharmveer Patel, night officer SI Mangla Prasad, head constable Vishnu Yadav, constables Haridayal Singh, Deepak Mishra, Balram Singh, Udayveer, Prashant Singh, and driver Omprakash are among the ten constables who have been suspended. The residences of the involved constables have also been sealed.

An Eye-Opening Calculation by DIG

The extortion racket, led by police officers from Narhi police station, collected over 1.5 crore per month. With approximately 1,000 trucks crossing the UP-Bihar border every night and each driver being extorted 500, the nightly illegal income reached 5 lakh.

This scandal has sent shockwaves through the region, showcasing the extent of corruption and the swift action taken by the state government to address it.
Ghaziabad: In a significant political development, Ghaziabad MLA Nand Kishore Gurjar has revealed that the BJP is in touch with 22 MPs from the Samajwadi Party (SP) in Uttar Pradesh. This announcement came after a crucial meeting with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

Meeting with the Chief Minister

Nand Kishore Gurjar, known for his outspoken nature, discussed the details of his meeting with the Chief Minister. He mentioned that the meeting was part of a regular review session where legislators from the Meerut division were called to discuss public issues and development work. Gurjar highlighted the declining vote bank in Ghaziabad, attributing it to the dissatisfaction among traders due to excessive official notices and harassment.

Impact of Bureaucratic Actions

According to Gurjar, the local administrations actions had significantly affected over 150,000 votes in Ghaziabad. He accused certain officers, influenced by Samajwadi Party ideology, of deliberately undermining the BJP's vote bank. He pointed out that some of these officers were already under scrutiny, with actions taken against a few, and more likely to follow.

Dissatisfaction with the Administration

Expressing his frustration, Gurjar stated that elected representatives' voices were not being heard by the officials. He emphasized that representatives don't have personal demands but are compelled to act on public grievances related to corruption and false cases. He stressed that ignoring these issues only deepens public anger and weakens the BJP's position in the state.

Law and Order Concerns

Comparing the current law and order situation in Ghaziabad to the 1990s, Gurjar lamented the rise in crimes, including a recent incident where a milk trader was murdered in Modinagar. He criticized the local officials for their failure to maintain order and cited instances of receiving threats from Dubai and other Muslim countries, yet facing indifference from the administration.

Criticism of Ghaziabad Commissioner

Gurjar did not hold back his criticism of the Ghaziabad Commissioner, accusing him of indiscipline and making reckless statements about removing security for legislators. He called for disciplinary action against the Commissioner, emphasizing the importance of respecting elected representatives who serve the public.

Challenges Faced by BJP Legislators

Highlighting the challenges faced by BJP legislators, Gurjar mentioned that many had stopped meeting the public due to the lack of support from officials. This disconnection, he argued, was eroding the BJP's grassroots support. He recounted a personal experience where despite intervention from Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya, a public grievance remained unresolved, showcasing the bureaucratic resistance.

Allegations of Electoral Manipulation

Gurjar also accused officials of attempting to influence election outcomes, citing instances where recounting was done to ensure his defeat despite winning by 9,000 votes. He alleged that similar tactics were used against Deputy Chief Minister Maurya, indicating a deeper conspiracy to weaken BJP leaders.

Future Political Moves

In a surprising turn, Gurjar mentioned that over 22 Samajwadi Party MPs were in touch with the BJP and could soon take action. He suggested that Akhilesh Yadav should consider joining the BJP-led government to avoid further fragmentation of his party. Gurjar offered to mediate with the central leadership for a ministerial position for Yadav, underscoring the potential for significant political realignment in Uttar Pradesh.
SOFIA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The Bulgarian National Library inaugurated a Chinese Book Corner on Friday, aiming to acquaint more Bulgarians with Chinese literature and culture.

Chinese Ambassador to Bulgaria Dai Qingli, speaking at the opening ceremony, highlighted the significance of the National Library as one of Bulgaria's most important cultural institutions, known for its rich history, extensive readership, and diverse collections.

"We are delighted to provide over two hundred Chinese books and 100 discs covering both classic Chinese subjects such as history, culture, and art, as well as writings about contemporary China, including the Bulgarian version of President Xi Jinping's 'On Governance'," Dai said at the event, which also marked the 75th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Bulgaria.

Dai emphasized the potential for deepening mutual understanding and strengthening the traditional friendship between the two countries through this partnership with the National Library. She expressed hope that Bulgarians would read more books by Chinese authors to gain a more authentic, multi-dimensional understanding of China.

"Greater knowledge will lead to a more comprehensive and objective understanding of our cultural context, development path, and ingredients for success," Dai said.

Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nevyana Miteva expressed her excitement about the initiative, describing the National Library as a "palace of Bulgarian literature." She believed the Chinese Book Corner would offer a fascinating glimpse into both ancient and modern China, attracting many visitors.

Miteva also highlighted the strategic partnership between China and Bulgaria, viewing the event as a testament to the respect and friendship shared by the two nations.

Krasimira Alexandrova, the National Library's director, praised the long-standing cooperation with Chinese libraries and acknowledged the value of the donations received under the Window to China program, which are highly popular among readers.

Attendee Dora Todorova, a regular visitor to the National Library, described the event as wonderful and important for enthusiasts of Chinese literature and culture. She eagerly recommended the Chinese Book Corner to her friends. 
I have been using serums in our professional range all along and was impressed with their results. With regular use of the serums, you can attain highly improved skin. They help to Reset your Skin and give you Good Skin Days ahead, says Dr Blossom Kochhar, chairperson of Blossom Kochhar Group of Companies.

Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Vitamin C Serum is an amazing skincare product that combines the benefits of natural extracts, essential oils, and vitamin C. This serum is an antioxidant and anti-ageing agent that repairs sun damage, treats hyperpigmentation and reduces fine lines. The vitamin C in this serum is sourced from natural extracts, making it highly effective in promoting collagen production, fighting free radicals, and brightening the skin. The essential oils and natural extracts present in this serum nourish and rejuvenate the skin, making it healthy and radiant.

Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Vitamin C serum offers multiple benefits, making it a must-have in every skincare routine.

Brightens Skin Tone: The regular use of the serum helps to diminish dark spots and hyperpigmentation, resulting in a brighter and radiant complexion.

Boosts Collagen: Vitamin C in this serum is sourced from natural extracts, making it highly effective in promoting collagen production.

Calming: Natural extracts like aloe vera gel soothe and calm the skin and reduce redness and inflammation.

Hydration and Nourishment: Formulated with Hyaluronic acid, this serum provides deep nourishment, leaving the skin supple and soft.

How to Use: Take a few drops of Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Vitamin C Serum. Apply and massage gently on the cleansed face and neck. Use it every morning and night. Apply Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic sunscreen during the day for added protection.

Availability and Pricing: Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic Vitamin C Serum is available to purchase at select outlets in Delhi and NCR region, the official website of Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic, and marketplaces such as Myntra, Amazon, Flipkart, Big Basket, Nykaa, and Purplle.

The serum is priced at INR 575 for a 30 ml bottle making it an affordable luxury for all the skincare enthusiasts.

About Aroma Magic

In 1994, to inspire society for a holistic approach to life, Dr Blossom Kochhar, along with her husband, the late Col V Kochhar sowed their seed of faith in Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic giving the world the healing power of nature through the best of Aromatherapy in India. Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic prides itself on being one of the pioneers of Aromatherapy products in India committed to giving people a touch of nature in a world taken over by artificiality. Today, the company's affairs are spearheaded by Dr Blossom Kochhar's daughter, Ms. Samantha Kochhar who preserves the roots while driving the company to new heights. Currently, the Earth to Bottle 200+ signature Aromatherapy skin, hair, and wellness products are present in over 100 cities in India. All the essential oils are 100% organic and every product is cruelty-free with eco-friendly and recyclable packing.

As Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic takes from nature, it holds itself obliged to give back to nature too. The company engages itself month upon month in a plethora of tree plantations and conservation drives in collaboration with 'Give Me Trees (GMT) Trust.' With a pledge of planting at least one tree a day since 2015 Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic has planted over 6000 trees. The company also contributes and works closely with Cankids Kidscan an NGO specialising in childhood cancer, the Indian Cancer Society, and Festival of Hope. Education and skilling, that is from where Dr. Blossom Kochhar started have provided free training and livelihood to economically backward youth and women, especially disabled youth and widows in the last 3 decades. Helping Other People Eat (HOPE) is a corporate philanthropic initiative taken by Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic. Dr Kochhar launched the initiative in 2020 to feed COVID-19 patients. We havent looked back since and continue to feed cancer patients, underprivileged people, and migrant labourers in association with Kalyan Trust NGO.

Dr Blossom Kochhar has started a school in Patparganj, New Delhi to educate the children of the slums. We have more than 60 people studying in the learning centre and underprivileged students are employed as teachers. The rent of the premises and the salaries of the teachers at the learning centre have been taken care of by Blossom Kochhar Group of Companies.

(This article is part of IndiaDotCom Pvt Ltds Consumer Connect Initiative, a paid publication programme. IDPL claims no editorial involvement and assumes no responsibility, liability or claims for any errors or omissions in the content of the article. The IDPL Editorial team is not responsible for this content.)
A three-month-old infant was killed and five family members were injured when a portion of their home's roof collapsed in southeast Delhi on Friday, Zee News Television reported. According to reports, the incident occurred at 3 a.m. in Churiya Mohalla, Tuglakabad, while the family was sleeping at home. A police officer stated that a portion of the roof collapsed while the family was sleeping.





He added that the single-story house is located in a narrow lane and is an older structure. Sonu Bhure Khan, his wife, and their three children, ages nine, five, and four, were all injured. Their three-month-old daughter died in the incident, according to police. The injured are receiving treatment, according to the officer.
BJP MP Nishikant Dubey on Thursday triggerred a controversy by demanding that border areas of Jharkhand and West Bengal be declared a Union Territory and the National Register of Citizens (NRC) be implemented in the region or else Hindus will disappear. Dubey while taking part in the debate over Union Budget 2024-25 cited "exponential growth" of the Muslim population in the region as the reason behind his demand. Citing these concerns, he further demanded for implementation of NRC in Jharkhand.

Allegations of Demographic Shift

Dubey, who represents the Godda constituency in Jharkhand, alleged that there has been a significant decline in the tribal population in the region, while the Muslim population is rising exponentially. He claimed that in 2000, tribals formed 36% of the population in Santhal Pargana, but today their population has dwindled to 26%.

"Where did 10% of the tribals vanish? This House never worries about them, it indulges in vote bank politics. Our State Government - JMM and Congress - are not taking any action over this,"the BJP MP added.

Intrusion From Bangladesh

The BJP MP further alleged that there has been an influx of people from Bangladesh, particularly from Malda and Murshidabad in West Bengal, who are "ousting local people" and leading to a decline in Hindu population. He claimed that Hindu villages are being emptied and the state police are unable to stop this under the current JMM and Congress-led government.

He continued, "Intrusion from Bangladesh is rising in our states. Bangladeshi intruders are marrying tribal women...There are 100 tribal 'mukhiya' in our area but their husbands are Muslims...Riots broke out in Pakur's Taranagar-Ilami and Dagapara, because people from Malda and Murshidabad are ousting our people and Hindu villages are going empty. This is a serious matter."

Demand For NRC, UT Status

Dubey demanded the implementation of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Jharkhand and urged the government to declare Kishanganj, Araria, Katihar, Malda, and Murshidabad as a Union Territory to address these concerns. He warned that if nothing is done, Hindus will "disappear" from the region.

Challenge To Prove Him Wrong

The BJP MP challenged anyone to prove him wrong, saying he is ready to resign if his claims are incorrect. He also urged the government to send a Committee of the House to the region to investigate the matter and implement the report of the Law Commission from 2010. Dubey's demands have sparked a controversy, with many questioning the basis of his claims and the implications of his demands.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to attend the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Kargil war on Friday and will pay tribute to the soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the nation. The Prime Minister landed in a special aircraft at the technical area of Srinagar International Airport on Friday morning, from where he took a Mi-17 helicopter to Drass.

Upon arrival at the technical area of Srinagar International Airport, the Prime Minister was welcomed by the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha, Chief Secretary Atal Dulloo, and DGP R.R. Swain. BJP Chief of Jammu & Kashmir, Ravinder Raina, along with other senior party officials, also greeted PM Modi before his departure to Drass.

During his visit to the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, PM Modi will participate in the silver jubilee celebrations of India's victory in Kargil. Chief of Army Staff, General Upendra Dwivedi, who arrived in Drass on Thursday, has taken part in several events commemorating this historic win and is scheduled to address the troops at the memorial.

The PM will also visit Siachen Glacier, the world's highest battlefield guarded by the country's Army. The Kargil War of 1999 lasted for three months during which the Indian Army backed by the Air Force pushed back Pakistani Army regulars from tough and rugged mountain tops of the region in one of the most challenging military operations in India's Independence history.

More than 500 brave soldiers of the Army paid the supreme sacrifice to make the country proud. Ladakh Lt. Governor, Brigadier (Retd) B.D. Mishra, Army Chief and senior Commanders of the Army will be present on the occasion. During his visit to Ladakh on Friday, PM Modi will also carry out the first blast of the Shinkun La tunnel project virtually.

Once completed, the Shinkun La tunnel will be the highest in the world. The tunnel is being constructed on Nimu-Padum-Darcha road in Ladakh. The 4.1-km-long twin-tube tunnel will be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet above sea level. It will provide all-weather connectivity to Leh town.

The tunnel will ensure prompt and efficient movement of armed forces and equipment while helping economic and social development in the Ladakh region. The tunnel will serve as a vital link connecting the Lahaul Valley in Himachal Pradesh with the Zanskar Valley in Ladakh. There are two existing axes to Leh, the Srinagar-Zojila-Kargil-Leh and the Manali-Atal Tunnel-Sarchu-Leh.
New Delhi: Indians are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas on Friday, June 26. The day is marked by numerous events across the country, honouring the courageous warriors who played pivotal roles during the Kargil War. Highlighting these heroic tales, introducing the remarkable story of Group Captain K. Nachiketa Rao of the Indian Air Force, whose bravery in difficult circumstances amazed the Pakistani forces. Captain K. Nachiketa was a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force during the Kargil War. When his MiG-27 aircraft suffered an engine failure, he was forced to eject. Subsequently, he was captured by Pakistani Army soldiers.

Captain K. Nachiketa shared his Kargil War experiences multiple times, in an interview with one of the channel, he expressed that the image of the enemy soldier's eyes and face remains vivid in his mind, He added that enemy soldiers had shoved the barrel of AK-47 into his mouth and he was staring at the soldier's finger on the trigger, wondering if he would pull it.

The Group Captain also stated that he maintained his confidence in the enemy after his jet crashed. He further added that he had flown from Srinagar with three other pilots. Their target was a location in Manthu Dhalo, where the enemy had a significant logistics hub. They flew in a formation of four planes and upon reaching their target, fired rockets. After the rocket attack, the engine of his MiG-27 aircraft failed.

Group Captain Rao further added after ejecting from his aircraft, he landed amidst heavy snow. His back was aching due to the ejection and the cold was seeping into his shoes. The whole body was feeling cold. There was only a small pistol and a total of 16 rounds of bullets nearby. At the time he had only a small pistol and 16 rounds of ammunition with him.
The political landscape of Purvanchal is witnessing a significant shift with the release of Udaybhan Karwariya, a prominent figure among the Karwariya brothers. Once considered the right-hand man of Murli Manohar Joshi, Udaybhan Karwariyas early release from prison has stirred political equations in the Prayagraj region. The sudden release has sparked various speculations, especially following BJP's recent losses in the area dominated by Karwariya's influence.

In 1996, Udaybhan Karwariya was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment five years ago for the murder of MLA Jawahar Pandit. After serving about nine years in jail, the government decided to release Udaybhan, citing good behavior, a decision approved by the Governor. Udaybhans release is seen as a potential boost for the BJP in the Prayagraj division, reigniting the battle for dominance in the region.

Is Udaybhans Release a Strategic Move Against Keshav Maurya?

Currently, the political scenario of Prayagraj revolves around Deputy CM Keshav Prasad Maurya. Although there is no personal enmity between Maurya and Karwariya, Udaybhans release poses a challenge to Mauryas stronghold. Political analysts suggest that a powerful figure may be strategically positioning Udaybhan to contain Mauryas influence within the region.

BJP Eyes Benefit from Udaybhans Release

Udaybhan Karwariya, who served as an MLA twice from Bara constituency under BJPs banner, is recognized as a significant Brahmin face in the Prayagraj division. His organizational skills were acknowledged by senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who entrusted him with managing his Lok Sabha election campaigns. Before his imprisonment, Udaybhan was instrumental in managing the BJPs organizational activities in the region, directly or indirectly.

With recent setbacks in the Lok Sabha elections, weakening organizational structure, and discontent among Brahmin voters, BJP is looking to Udaybhan Karwariya for revival. Udaybhan was a formidable opponent against Revati Raman Singh, and now, with Revati Raman Singhs son Ujjwal Raman Singh as the MP from Prayagraj, BJP aims to recalibrate its strategy for the 2027 elections with Udaybhans support.

Can Udaybhan Strengthen BJPs Weakened Organization?

Despite his release, Udaybhan cannot contest elections, limiting his role to organizational activities. BJP hopes that Udaybhan will return to organizational work and prepare ground-level workers for the 2027 battle. The Prayagraj BJP organization is currently fragmented, with reports from losing candidates indicating a need for consolidation.

Will Udaybhan Unite the Factionalized BJP?

Post-election reviews revealed that the Prayagraj BJP organization had splintered into several factions, particularly among Brahmin leaders, forming groups like the Shukla, Pandey, and Ojha factions. Udaybhan Karwariya, with his stronghold among Brahmin voters and the sympathy garnered from his imprisonment, is viewed as a unifying force capable of addressing these divisions.

Karwariyas Influence Extends to Kaushambi

Udaybhan Karwariya, a seasoned player in Prayagraj politics, also has roots in Kaushambi. His influence remains strong among Brahmin voters in Kaushambi, where BJP lost all three assembly seats and the Lok Sabha seat. BJP plans to leverage Udaybhans influence to rectify the political equations in Kaushambi.

Launch of Udaybhans Son in Politics?

During Udaybhans imprisonment, his wife Neelam Karwariya carried forward his political legacy, winning the Meja assembly seat on a BJP ticket in 2017, although she lost in 2022 and has been ailing since. Udaybhan may now look to launch his son, Saksham Karwariya, into politics.

Political Legacy of the Karwariya Family

Udaybhan Karwariyas family holds considerable political clout. Udaybhan himself was an MLA twice from Bara, while his elder brother Kapilmuni Karwariya was elected as an MP from Prayagraj in 2009 on a BSP ticket. Another brother, Surajbhan Karwariya, served as an MLC. Many of Udaybhans relatives are also active in politics.

Background of Udaybhans Conviction

In 1996, Jawahar Yadav alias Jawahar Pandit, an SP MLA from Jhunsi, was murdered along with his driver and a passerby in Civil Lines area, Prayagraj, with an AK-47. Udaybhan, his brothers Kapilmuni and Surajbhan, and relative Ramchandra were accused of the crime. Despite initial evasion due to political influence, Udaybhan surrendered after the SP government took power in 2012, and in November 2019, he was sentenced to life imprisonment along with other accused. Five years later, he was released due to good conduct in prison.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to visit the Kargil War Memorial on Friday, July 26, to pay tribute to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty, according to his office.

The Prime Minister will also virtually carry out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project.

Prime Minister's Office (PMO) shared information about Modi's visit to the Kargil War Memorial in a recent statement and said, "On the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas on 26th July 2024, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi will visit the Kargil War Memorial at around 9:20 AM and pay homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty."

PM Modi also shared a post on the microblogging site X and said that July 26 is a very special day for every Indian.

"We will mark the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. It is a day to pay homage to all those who protect our nation. I will visit the Kargil War Memorial and pay tributes to our brave heroes. Work will also commence for the Shinkun La Tunnel Project. This project is important to improve connectivity to Leh, especially during bad weather," the post read.

Tomorrow, 26th July, is a very special day for every Indian. We will mark the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. It is a day to pay homage to all those who protect our nation. I will visit the Kargil War Memorial and pay tributes to our brave heroes. Work will also commence for the Shinkun  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) July 25, 2024

The Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1-km-long twin-tube tunnel which will be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet on the Nimu-Padum-Darcha road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh, the statement said.

Once completed, it will be the highest tunnel in the world. The Shinkun La tunnel will not only ensure swift and efficient movement of the armed forces and equipment but also foster economic and social development in Ladakh.
New Delhi: On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to the Bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. During his speech at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass on Friday, Modi also warned Pakistan, stating that our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and that the enemy will receive a befitting reply.

"I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed. Our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply," he said.

Modi also added, "Pakistan has learned nothing from its history. They continue to use terrorism and proxy wars. I am speaking today from a place where terrorists might be listening directly to me, and I want to tell them that their plans will never succeed."

#WATCH | Ladakh: PM Narendra Modi says, "Pakistan has failed in all its nefarious attempts in the past. But Pakistan has not learned anything from its history. It is trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war. Today I am speaking from a place where pic.twitter.com/HQbzjcVKVq July 26, 2024

While addressing Kargil Vijay Diwas Shradhanjali Samaroh in Drass, Ladakh, PM Modi remarked that Kargil Vijay Diwas tells us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal.

"Kargil Vijay Diwas reminds us that the sacrifices made for our nation are eternal and forever remembered. As time passes, days turn into months, months into years, and years into centuries - the names of those who laid down their lives for the sake of national security remain etched in our collective memory, forever immortalised!" PM Modi said ANI reported.

Addressing on Agneepath scheme, he said that some individuals are politicising this issue for their personal gains.

"The motive behind the Agneepath scheme is to rejuvenate the army by making it younger. However, some individuals are politicizing this issue for their personal gain. These are the same people who have been involved in scams related to army procurement and who were opposed to acquiring fighter jets for the army," Modi said.
In Uttar Pradesh's Ballia, a police team raided a police pocket after getting information that the whole police station was involved in an extortion racket. Taking decisive action against extortion from truck drivers in the Narhi area on the Bihar border, the Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday transferred the Ballia Superintendent of Police and the Additional SP, and suspended the Deputy SP, Sadar. Earlier in the day, a raid was conducted in the area, resulting in the arrest of 18 people, including two police personnel, while two others were suspended, officials said.

The extortion gang collected Rs 500 from each vehicle. It is estimated that about 1,000 vehicles cross the border each night, highlighting the extent of the illegal operation. Thus, they used to collect around Rs 5 lakhs per day and around Rs 1.5 crore per month.

Watch Full News Coverage Here

A vigilance inquiry into the properties of the Deputy SP Sadar, Narhi police station SHO, and police outpost in charge has been ordered, according to a statement issued by the government. This action follows the revelation of illegal money collection from vehicles by police personnel on the Bihar border. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has responded with a strict zero-tolerance policy. Consequently, Ballia Superintendent of Police Dev Ranjan Verma and Additional SP Durga Prasad Tiwari have been transferred and placed on the waiting list, while DSP Sadar Shubh Soochit has been suspended, the statement said.

Earlier, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Azamgarh zone) Vaibhav Krishna told reporters that several complaints of extortion by policemen along the border were received by Additional Director General of Police (Varanasi zone) Piyush Mordia. DIG Krishna said that during the raid, two policemen involved in extortion were apprehended while three others managed to escape, and added that 16 middlemen were also taken into custody.
New Delhi: Leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi stopped his car midway to meet a family of cobblers on Friday. The Congress leader was travelling to appear before the MP-MLA court in Sultanpur for a defamation case hearing, midway he stopped for at least 30 minutes to listen to cobbler's family problems and talk to them about the challenges they are facing.

The cobbler's shop is located near the MLA Nagar intersection of the Kurebhar police station area of Sultanpur districts in Uttar Pradesh. The cobbler, identified as Ram Chait, informed the Rae Bareli MP of his financially condition.

Congress shared a post on microblogging site X and said, "Leader of Opposition Shri Rahul Gandhi stopped the car on the way and met a family of cobbler. We are continuously fighting for the rights of these hardworking people, raising their voice from the streets to the Parliament. Our aim is to make their present safe and their future prosperous."

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to appear before the MP-MLA court in Sultanpur on Friday for a defamation case hearing. Congress district president Abhishek Singh Rana announced that Rahul Gandhi will arrive at Lucknow airport at 9 am on Friday and will then head to Sultanpur.

A local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, Vijay Mishra, filed a defamation lawsuit against Congress leader on August 4, 2018, alleging that he made derogatory remarks about the then BJP president and current Home Minister Amit Shah. Gandhi granted a bail in this matter on February 20. and Special Magistrate Shubham Verma has called upon Gandhi to present his statement on July 26.
BUCHAREST, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank Group's Board of Executive Directors has approved development loan totalling 599.1 million euros (650.5 million U.S. dollars) for Romania to support its economic and environmental sustainability.

The loan is aimed at helping Romania promote fiscal consolidation and sustainability, and increase pension system equity, said the bank group in a statement Thursday.

The loan will also introduce incentives to decarbonize Romania's transport sector and support its first green bond issuance to boost public investment.

Additionally, the loan will promote private-sector involvement in renewable energy, and boost energy efficiency by introducing new financing for green investments, among others.

These steps are vital for Romania to meet its commitments under the European Green Deal and achieve climate mitigation goals, given its vulnerability to climate risks, said the statement.

The World Bank Group remains a steadfast partner in Romania's journey toward a more equitable and sustainable economy, Anna Akhalkatsi, World Bank Regional Director for the European Union, was quoted as saying in the statement. 
Maharashtra is one of the four poll-bound states going to the elections in the coming month. After facing a debacle in the Lok Sabha polls, the ruling Mahayuti (NDA) consisting of BJP, Shiv Sena-Shinde and NCP-Ajit Pawar is facing a tough challenge to retain power in the Maharashtra assembly elections. In the Lok Sabha elections, the Mahayti bagged only 17 seats out of the total 48 while the opposition party bagged 30 seats.

The Maharashtra assembly has 288 members and the majority mark is 145. In the current assembly, the Mahayuti has 201 MLAs while the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) of Congress, Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) and the NCP (Sharadchandra Pawar) - have 67 MLAs.

Now, the three parties - BJP, Shiv Sena and NCP - are looking to strike a seat-sharing deal for the upcoming assembly polls. However, the battle for constituencies has intensified as parties gear up for the upcoming elections. Reports indicate that the BJP aims to contest at least 150 seats, leaving 138 seats for the two allies.

However, the Shiv Sena, led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde, is targeting a minimum of 100 seats. Therefore, the NCP could get only 38 seats but the Ajit Pawar-led faction is not willing to settle for less than 80 seats.

Securing these numbers is crucial, particularly as the coalition is still reeling from its disappointing performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections. In that contest, the coalition won only 17 of the state's 48 seats, falling short against the Maha Vikas Aghadi, which secured 30 seats.

Ajit Pawar and Eknath Shinde are meeting the top BJP leadership including Union Home Minister Amit Shah to discuss the seat-sharing issue and resolve the difference. Finalizing the seats is also important thus to have an early advantage over the MVA which has been in the campaign mode after the Lok Sabha poll boost.
New Delhi: The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a weather alert across India due to Monsoon. The weather department forecasted extremely heavy rainfall for Maharashtra and Goa on Friday, July 26, and has issued a Red Alert warning for the regions. The isolated regions of Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Gujarat and Karnataka are likely to experience heavy rainfall today, while, IMD predicted a Thunderstorm accompanied with lighting for Bihar and Chhattisgarh.

IMD Predicts More Rain For Delhi

The national capital continues to experience heavy rains and thunderstorms early on Friday, providing much-needed relief from the humid weather. The weather department predicted rainfall over the region of Delhi and NCR during the next two hours.

"Light rainfall/drizzle is very likely to occur at a few places in Delhi ( Narela, Alipur, Badili, Pitampura, Punjabi Bagh, Seelampur, Shahadra, Vivek Vihar, Red fort, President House, Rajiv Chowk, ITO, India Gate, Lodi Road, RK Puram, Defence Colony, Hauz Khas, Malviya Nagar, IGNOU, NCR ( Hindon AF Station, Ghaziabad, Gurugram, Ballabhgarh) Meham (Haryana) Saharanpur, Deoband, Muzaffarnagar, Sadabad (UP) during next 2 hours," the IMD said.

#WATCH | Delhi: The city faced traffic jams and waterlogging in various areas after heavy rains this morning.



(Visuals from Ashoka Road) pic.twitter.com/sRBVflkbLu July 26, 2024

A total of 235.5 mm of rain was recorded, marking the maximum rainfall in 24 hours in June since 1936.

Heavy Rainfall In Mumbai: IMD

According to IMD, Mumbai continues to experience heavy rainfall with a cloudy sky on Friday. The dream city may record a minimum temperature of 25.0 degrees Celsius and a maximum temperature of 28.0 degrees Celsius. While the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation said that all the schools and colleges in its area will operate normally on Friday.

The department has also issued a red alert for Ratnagiri and Satara for July 26. Reportedly, Rainfall recorded during the past 24 hours until 8:30 a.m. on Thursday was 44 mm in Mumbai city, 90 mm in the Eastern suburbs, and 89 mm in the Western suburbs.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has recently made a significant change in its Bihar leadership, removing Samrat Chaudhary from his position as the state president. This move comes after 16 months of Chaudhary steering the party according to his vision. The BJP high command not only stripped him of his ceremonial turban but also removed him from the presidency, appointing veteran leader Dilip Jaiswal in his place. This shake-up has sparked considerable speculation about Chaudhary's future, particularly regarding his role in Nitish Kumar's cabinet. Heres a detailed look into the reasons behind this political reshuffle.

Aggressive Stance Against Nitish Kumar

When Samrat Chaudhary took charge of the BJP in Bihar in March 2023, he adopted an aggressive stance against Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. Initially, this assertiveness seemed to be within acceptable limits, but soon Chaudhary's opposition turned personal. He vowed not to rest until Nitish was unseated, even pledging not to wear his turban until this goal was achieved. This uncompromising attitude did not sit well with the party high command, especially when political dynamics shifted unexpectedly.

Unexpected Political Alliances

Chaudhary's aggressive tactics were based on the assumption that Nitish Kumar would not return to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). However, in a surprising turn of events in February 2024, Nitish Kumar rejoined the NDA. This unexpected alliance caught Chaudhary off guard and his earlier statements against Nitish created a challenging situation for the party. Sources indicate that Chaudhary was initially furious about the new political alignment but eventually complied due to the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Reduced Influence and Responsibilities

Despite being appointed as Deputy Chief Minister in Nitish Kumar's government, Samrat Chaudhary saw his influence wane. Initially assigned several major departments, his portfolio was gradually reduced to just the finance department. Significant departments like Public Works Department (PWD), Urban Development, and Road Construction were taken away, diminishing his role in the state administration.

Poor Performance in Lok Sabha Elections

The BJP's performance in Bihar during the Lok Sabha elections was disappointing, with only a few seats won despite Chaudhary's efforts. This poor showing further weakened his position within the party. The old guard faction of the BJP, led by former Union Minister Ashwini Choubey, seized this opportunity to challenge Chaudhary's leadership. Choubey and other senior leaders openly opposed Chaudhary, arguing that an outsider should not lead the state unit.

Internal Party Dynamics

The internal dynamics within the BJP also played a crucial role in Chaudhary's downfall. His promise to not wear his turban until Nitish Kumar was removed became a point of contention. After the formation of the BJP-JD(U) government, Nitish himself questioned Chaudhary about his vow. Given Nitish's influence and the BJP's need to maintain a stable alliance, Chaudhary had no choice but to publicly remove his turban, symbolically acknowledging the political realities.

The Aftermath

Appointment of Dilip Jaiswal

In a strategic move, the BJP high command appointed Dilip Jaiswal as the new Bihar BJP president. Jaiswal, a veteran from the party's old guard, has a good rapport with Nitish Kumar, which is expected to facilitate smoother coordination between the allies. Jaiswal's appointment marks a shift from Chaudhary's unilateral style of leadership to a more collaborative approach.

Future Uncertain for Chaudhary

The future of Samrat Chaudhary in Bihar politics remains uncertain. Political analysts like Prashant Kishor and leaders like Lalu Yadavs daughter Rohini Acharya have predicted that Chaudhary's political career may face further challenges. They suggest that he might even lose his position as Deputy Chief Minister in the upcoming cabinet reshuffle scheduled for mid-August.
Days before the Lok Sabha Election result, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal shook the political air of Uttar Pradesh by claiming that the BJP would change the Chief Minister after the polls. After the BJP faced a humiliating defeat in the state Lok Sabha polls, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya made trips to Delhi while state BJP chief Bhupendra Singh Chaudhary met Amit Shah. The state BJP leaders have also been meeting leaders of the Rashtriya Swyamseval Sangh and both the organisations have been discussing the future strategies for the upcoming polls. However, the party sent out a message that Yogi Adityanath would lead the party in 2027. However, despite all assurance, it appears that the internal turmoil in the state BJP is far from over. It's being reported that Maurya has been lobbying with Delhi to replace Yogi Adityanath.

Who Is The Pawn?: Keshav Maurya Vs Akhilesh Yadav

The opposition has alleged that all is not well within the Uttar Pradesh BJP. Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said that some people have become 'pawns' in the BJP. "In 10 years, they ruined every system. The poor are not getting treatment anywhere, they did not build a single district hospital. It is not known how much corruption there is and some of this is getting exposed because some people have become pawns," said Yadav during a press conference. He further added, "I came to hear that Maurya Ji is Mohra (pawn). He is the password of Delhi's WiFi."

"10                ,                           "



-        pic.twitter.com/GNKxfcPd8a  Samajwadi Party (@samajwadiparty) July 26, 2024

However, Keshav Prasad Maurya hit back saying that Akhilesh Yadav is a Congress 'pawn'. "Akhilesh Yadav has always been against the backwards and Dalits and he himself is a pawn of the Congress party," said Maurya.

Yogi Adityanath Meets Pallavi Patel

Pallavi Patel met CM Yogi Adityanath. Amid the turmoil within the Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party, this meeting is being interpreted in various ways. The two leaders met for about half an hour. The message of this meeting is said to be more significant for Keshav Prasad Maurya than for Akhilesh Yadav. Political analysts are interpreting the implications of this meeting. Pallavi Patel contested her first assembly election in 2022, where she established her political clout by defeating Keshav Prasad Maurya.

Meetings In Delhi

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Deputy CM Maurya are in Delhi to attend Niti Ayog meeting. The leaders are expected to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other BJP leaders tomorrow. This comes amid the internal turmoil in the party.

Big Shake-Up Likely: Yogi To Be Removed?

It's being speculated that a big shake-up will take place in Uttar Pradesh. The shake-up will be at both levels - at the organisation level and at the government level as well. Aam Aadmi Party MP Sanjay Singh said, "Arvind Kejriwal has already said that Yogi Adityanath will be removed from the post of CM just 2 months after the Lok Sabha elections. Whatever is happening in Uttar Pradesh is at the behest of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and soon Yogi Adityanath ji will be removed from his post."
School Bus Stuck On Railway Tracks In Nagpur: Timely intervention by a loco pilot and locals saved the lives of 40 students after the school bus they were traveling on got stuck on railway tracks at a level crossing in Nagpur, an official said on Friday. The incident occurred at Khaperkheda around 4 pm on Thursday when the school bus driver did not stop even after seeing the red signal at the level crossing, the police official said.

When the bus was on the tracks, both gates of the level crossing closed as a train was to pass through the area, he said. Within moments, panic and chaos prevailed at the road-rail intersection. Locals soon spilled onto the tracks in their efforts to signal the train driver to stop.

A railway official said a passenger train was going from Chhindwara in MP to Itwari in Nagpur at the time. Seeing the school bus in the middle of the level crossing, the gatekeeper alerted the officials through a walkie-talkie.

Sensing something was not right since many people had gathered on the tracks, the loco pilot applied the brakes and brought the train to a halt before the level crossing, he said. Within ten minutes, the track was cleared and the bus safely crossed to the other side, he said.

Khaparkheda police station in-charge Dhanaji Zalak said the school bus driver was at fault as he drove the vehicle despite seeing the red signal and knowing the automatic gates would be closing. On his part, the driver had moved the bus parallel to the railway tracks, he said.
New Delhi: Dalljiet Kaur took a leap of faith and got married for the second time to businessman Nikhil Patel, but this time too fate decided otherwise. The actress's marriage didn't last for a year and she is now in a divorce procedure with her second husband.

Being a woman and a single mother it's a tough phase for Dalljiet. Amid her divorce news with Nikhil Patel, the actress spoke about being wronged in this entire scenario.

Dalljiet took to her Instagram stories and penned a cryptic post where she questioned those who saw the wrong as there are many judgments around her second divorce. The post read, "At the end of this road, the real question would be, who saw the wrong, realised it was wrong, told me it was wrong while it was happening, and felt bad that this happened in the first place, and also had the guts to stand by me".

The actress further wrote, "Even I want to see what this journey holds ahead and who were the ones who stood by me, and who were those who chose the convenience to be on both the sides. I am letting god decide the path ahead. And also letting the universe show me the truth of everyone around me .. whether it was a relationship of years or a year I want to see if humanity stood a chance".

Dalljiet alleged that Nikhil cheated on her and had another woman in his life and even took to her social media and indirectly slammed him. Nikhil in return asked Dalljiet to stop mud-slinging and confirmed their divorce to E Times, "In January this year, Dalljiet decided to leave Kenya with her son Jaydon and return to India, which ultimately led to our separation.

We both realized that the foundation of our blended family wasnt as strong as we had hoped, making it hard for Dalljiet to settle in Kenya. In March 2023, we held an Indian wedding ceremony in Mumbai. Though it held cultural significance, it was not legally binding. This ceremony was intended to reassure Dalljiets family about her move to Kenya".

Dalljiet earlier parted ways with TV actor Shalin Bhanot in 2015 after she accused him of domestic violence.


Mumbai: Actor Sunil Lahri, who is known for his role as Lakshman in 'Ramayan', on Friday voiced his opinion on the ongoing Kanwar Yatra nameplate issue, expressing his support for the Uttar Pradesh government's decision.

The Kanwar Yatra nameplate controversy arose when the Uttar Pradesh government issued an order requiring eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route to display the names of the owners on their shops.

Following UP's lead, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh also issued similar orders. Sunil has expressed his support for this order.

Have A Look At The Post:

In a video posted on Instagram, the actor stated: "Name is our identity. We place a nameplate at our home entrance, so why should we shy away from putting it on our shops? Some people have a habit of making issues out of everything. They should stop doing politics on it."

Sunil remains active on social media, where he shares anecdotes from his 'Ramayan' days, interacts with fans, and provides insights into his personal and professional life.

Recently, the actor also voiced his opinion about the BJP losing the Ayodhya seat, blaming the "Ayodhyawasi" for it. He later clarified his statement.
New Delhi: OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, has released SearchGPT --an AI-powered search engine with real-time access to information across the internet.

"Were testing SearchGPT, a temporary prototype of new AI search features that give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources," OpenAI said in a blogpost.

SearchGPT, the market is speculating is a probable competitor to, Google search engine, which will be available as a prototype in limited release. OpenAI is mulling to eventually integrate it into ChatGPT.

"Were testing SearchGPT, a prototype of new search features designed to combine the strength of our AI models with information from the web to give you fast and timely answers with clear and relevant sources. Were launching to a small group of users and publishers to get feedback. While this prototype is temporary, we plan to integrate the best of these features directly into ChatGPT in the future. If youre interested in trying the prototype, sign up(opens in a new window) for the waitlist," said OpenAI.

OpenAI says SearchGPT 'will quickly and directly respond to your questions with up-to-date information from the web while giving you clear links to relevant sources'. The user will also be able to ask follow-up questions, like you would in a conversation with a person, with the shared context building with each query, it added.

"Weve partnered with publishers to build this experience and continue to seek their feedback. In addition to launching the SearchGPT prototype, we are also launching a way for publishers to manage how they appear in SearchGPT, so publishers have more choices. Importantly, SearchGPT is about search and is separate from training OpenAIs generative AI foundation models. Sites can be surfaced in search results even if they opt out of generative AI training," added OpenAI.
The Indonesian island of Bali is known for its magnificent beaches, lush rice fields, ancient temples and vibrant culture. It is a popular tourist destination that attracts tourists from all over the world. Bali is famous for its beautiful beaches such as Kuta Beach, Seminyak Beach and Nusa Dua Beach. You can enjoy surfing, swimming, sunbathing or just relaxing. If you are planning to visit Bali for 5 days and wondering where to go, we have planned the whole tour for you.





Arrive at Bali International Airport (DPS) from your flight and check into your hotel. Then take a taxi or rent a car to drive to Ubud in the afternoon. Ubud is known as the cultural center of Bali and is surrounded by many temples, art galleries and rice fields. In the evening, you can also watch a traditional Balinese dance performance. After that, you can also have dinner at your hotel or at a local restaurant here.Bali has many beautiful places to visit. The next day, head to the Tegallalang rice terraces near Ubud, famous for their beauty. Next, meet the macaques at the Ubud Monkey Forest a short drive from here. It's an experience you'll want to remember for the rest of your life. In the evening, you can take a yoga class or an Ayurvedic massage in Ubud to make the trip even more fun.Third, you should go to Kuta Beach, which is one of the most popular beaches in Bali. People come from far and wide to enjoy surfing, swimming or sunbathing at this beach. In the evening, head to Kuta's bar street and enjoy the nightlife. This place is great for those who like to sing and dance.Tanah Lot Temple is one of the most famous temples in Bali. It would not be wrong to say that your trip to Bali is incomplete without a visit here. It is a Hindu temple built on a rock. Then spend the afternoon in Uluwatu. Eating at this beach-view restaurant is also a memorable moment. Watching the sunset at Uluwatu Temple is also a lifetime experience. In addition to that, you can also watch Kecak's dance performance here.Last Day in Bali Relax at the spa or do some last minute shopping. Check out of your hotel and head to the airport for your flight. You can customize it according to your interests and schedule. With so much to see and do in Bali, you're sure to keep yourself busy during your 5-day trip.The best time to visit Bali is the dry season, which lasts from May to October. The currency here is Indonesian rupiah (IDR). Most people here speak Indonesian, but English is also widely spoken here. One thing to remember is that the outlets in Bali are 220 volts, 50 Hz. If you are traveling from another country, you will need an adapter.
Finnish society is the happiest society but why? The answer lies in the nature of Finnish people: the trust and care they have for others contributes in the building of a happy environment all over. The welcoming nature of Finnish people has made it possible for Finland to be ranked as the happiest country in the world for the past many years. The proximity of nature is one of the major reasons for them feeling happy. Which allows Finnish people to stay connected to each other along with nature. This always makes them filled with love, joy and care.

Habits That Makes Keeps You Happy:

Gratitude: Showing gratitude is expressing gratitude towards all things that you have right now. Being grateful about all you have right now allows the universe to attract more into your life.

Positive Mindset: A positive mindset is responsible for all the positive environment. This builds a happy environment. The positivity in you can boost the positivity in others.

Grounded: Always stay grounded. Being aware of reality is the most peaceful experience. A person who feels content in the ,fe promotes a positive environment.

Care: Caring nature is the best a human can have. Because if you are caring the chances of you hurting someone decreases with a huge difference.

How Finland Maintains The Happy Culture:

They are more inclined towards caring nature. They believe in an anti - stressful lifestyle. There is a concept of SiSu Which means resilience, grit and determination. This promotes a healthy competitive nature in the Finnish people. The people believe in quality not in quantity. Which helps in maintaining a good quality work and living a rich life.

Having a peaceful environment to live in is the best you can expect right. Think about the surroundings of the country finland. A stable mind and positive habits builds a happy environment. Try to create the habits and values that can promote happiness and positivity.
ROME, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni on Thursday reiterated commitment to de-escalation of the war on a regional level while expressing strong concern for the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

She made the remarks when meeting with visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog, according to a government statement. Meloni also called on Israel to do more to facilitate humanitarian initiatives in Gaza and to take steps to prevent the war there from escalating and widening in the region, noting that Italy would continue to support mediation aimed at ending the conflict.

Herzog also met with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and the two leaders discussed the need to secure the release of Israeli hostages, Italian humanitarian aid to residents of Gaza, and the need to find a pathway to creating a Palestinian state with borders accepted by both Israel and the Palestinians.

As the Israeli president entered the prime minister's office at Palazzo Chigi, a group of protesters chanted "Free Palestine" about 100 metres away. 
LONDON, July 26 (Xinhua) -- A police officer is under criminal investigation after being filmed kicking and stamping on a man's head at Manchester Airport earlier this week, Britain's police complaints watchdog said on Friday.

The Greater Manchester Police (GMP) officer was caught on camera by an onlooker kicking and stamping on a man who was lying face down on the ground at the airport during an arrest on Tuesday evening, leading to accusations of police brutality and two nights of protests later in the week.

"We can confirm we are conducting a criminal investigation into the use of force during events which took place on 23 July at Manchester Airport," Catherine Bates, regional director of the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), said in a statement.

The investigation began following a referral made on Wednesday.

IOPC said their investigators have already secured a significant amount of body-worn video and CCTV footage which will be subject to detailed analysis.

It said that at the end of the investigation, they will decide whether to refer the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision and decide whether the officer should face disciplinary proceedings.

The GMP has suspended a police officer involved in the incident from all duties on Thursday. 
Central Asian banks reject Russian payments, disrupting transactions 26 July, 01:24 PM Banks in Central Asia begun massively refuse to accept payments from Russia (Photo:Russian Central Bank)

Banks in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan are increasingly refusing to accept funds from Russian companies, according to a review of the activities of fuel and energy sector transportation companies Digital FEA, GTL, and Logita Trade, The Moscow Times reported on July 25.

According to these companies, the share of refused payments through Central Asian banks rose to 30% in July, and the average transaction time increased by 15%, now taking up to two weeks.

This situation is attributed to the tightening of compliance measures by banks in these countries. They are requesting more additional documents and explanations, including information about companies, their founders, customers, sources of funds, and transaction details. These problems intensified in the second quarter of 2024 and now occur even for payments in local currencies.

Video of day

The cross-border transfer format is changing daily, and companies are facing increasing difficulties, including a rise in the number of returns and refusals of transfers, noted payment aggregator CDEK Pay.

The Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the business organization Opora Rossii confirmed the issues with transfers to Central Asian banks. According to Nikolai Dunaev, chairman of the Support of Russia Committee on International Relations, banks are avoiding connections with US sanctions.

Problems with international payments began in Russia at the end of 2023 when US President Joe Biden authorized the US Treasury to impose secondary sanctions on credit institutions for working with sanctioned Russian companies and aiding Russia's military-industrial complex.

Following this, banks in Turkey, the UAE, and China began refusing payments from Russia. In June, the United States expanded this mechanism to include all Russian sanctioned legal entities, including banks, under the definition of the Russian military-industrial base.

Will you support Ukraines free press? Dear reader, as all news organizations, we must balance the pressures of delivering timely, accurate, and relevant stories with requirements to fund our business operations. As a Ukrainian-based media, we also have another responsibility  to amplify Ukraines voice to the world during the crucial moment of its existence as a political nation. Its the support of our readers that lets us continue doing our job. We keep our essential reporting free because we believe in our ultimate purpose: an independent, democratic Ukraine. If youre willing to support Ukraine, consider subscribing to our Patreon starting from 5$ per month. We are immensely grateful.

Please help us continue fighting Russian propaganda. Truth can be hard to tell from fiction these days. Every viewpoint has its audience of backers and supporters, no matter how absurd. If conscious disinformation is reinforced by state propaganda apparatus and budget, its outcomes may become deadly. There is no solution to this, other than independent, honest, and accurate reporting. We remain committed to empowering the Ukrainian voice to push against the muck. If youre willing to stand up for the truth  consider supporting us on Patreon starting from 5$ per month. Thank you very much.

Will you help tell Ukraines story to the world? Twenty years ago, most people hadnt even heard of Ukraine. Today, the country is on everyones lips and everyones headlines. War pushed us on the front page. But there are many other things we do that we are proud of  from music and culture to technology. We need your help to tell the world Ukrainian story of resilience, joy, and survival. If youre willing to back our effort, consider supporting us on Patreon starting from 5$ per month. We are immensely grateful.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Google News
Description

Help save up to THREE lives by donating blood! Urgent need for donors as the heatwave continues to affect blood donations in the area.

Wantagh Public Library will be hosting a summer blood drive on Friday, July 27th from 10:30am - 3pm. Appointments encouraged, walk-ins welcome!

All donors will receive a $10 electronic gift card that can be redeemed at various retailers such at Target, Starbucks, Macy's, etc. Donors will also receive a box of Girl Scout Cookies while supplies last!
Sergio Perez foresees a change implemented on his Red Bull car at Spa as a crucial factor that could help him turn around his fortunes  and hopefully his season.

A dismal period of underperformance has put Perez on the edge, with whispers of a replacement after F1s summer break growing louder if the Mexican endures another poor weekend.

Hungary was another case of what might have been. A Q1 crash ruined his prospects  and further eroded his goodwill, despite a solid albeit unremarkable run from P16 to seventh on race day.

Nevertheless, Perez is hoping for a rebound in Belgium, based on several changes introduced on his car and more learnings derived from his race weekend at the Hungaroring.

The Friday we were the fastest car and obviously on Sunday we were a bit compromised with the mistake I did in qualifying, Perez told the media at Spa on Thursday.

So I think there are a lot of positives to take from Hungary. Things that we learned, that we were doing better.

Here were going to be on a bit of a different spec [to Verstappen], but, I really hope that thats a building momentum to the things that we were doing.

We were able to find a couple of things that were just out of sync that potentially can transform our season in the coming races.

Perez also alluded to a specific set-up change tested in Red Bulls simulator that hell test in FP1 on Friday at Spa, weather permitting, that should help improve his overall feel and sensitivity for the RB20s package.

Its definitely been peakier and harder, he admitted. We are changing as well for this weekend.

Were doing another change that hopefully will make me feel the car a little bit better. Well try that in FP1 and well see.

Something cannot go too much into detail, but its something to improve the feeling with the car.

If it works, great, but if not, I think we already did really good steps forward in Hungary.

Ive tried that in the sim. It felt positive. It had my feeling with the car, so I really hope that it translates well to the track. Well see.

The weather is not looking great, so probably we dont get much running, but well see.

Perez suggested the existence of a causal relationship between Red Bulls updates and adjustments and his difficulties in getting on top of his car, highlighting changes that have narrowed the RB20s optimal window of performance.

At the moment, I feel like there has been something that we have introduced in a few of the weekends, he explained.

Whether its with an upgrade or with setup or with the tyres. These cars are so sensitive that has made this window a lot smaller.

Like I said, there will be teams that will be in a similar situation to us.

There are teams that have been in this situation, but Red Bull is obviously a lot more noticeable, but its okay. I think the focus is over there.

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
Amidst a backdrop of global economic uncertainties and fluctuating markets, Germany's DAX index recently experienced a notable decline, shedding 3.07% as investors grapple with rising U.S.-China trade tensions and mixed signals from the European Central Bank. In such an environment, dividend stocks can be appealing for their potential to provide investors with steady income streams. Understanding what makes a good dividend stock is crucial, especially in current market conditions where stability and reliable yield are prized attributes for weathering volatility.

Top 10 Dividend Stocks In Germany

Name Dividend Yield Dividend Rating Allianz (XTRA:ALV) 5.31%  INDUS Holding (XTRA:INH) 5.38%  OVB Holding (XTRA:O4B) 4.79%  Mercedes-Benz Group (XTRA:MBG) 8.35%  Sudzucker (XTRA:SZU) 7.46%  DATA MODUL Produktion und Vertrieb von elektronischen Systemen (XTRA:DAM) 7.41%  MLP (XTRA:MLP) 5.27%  Deutsche Telekom (XTRA:DTE) 3.21%  Uzin Utz (XTRA:UZU) 3.31%  FRoSTA (DB:NLM) 3.17% 

Click here to see the full list of 30 stocks from our Top German Dividend Stocks screener.

Here's a peek at a few of the choices from the screener.

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: FRoSTA Aktiengesellschaft, along with its subsidiaries, specializes in developing, producing, and marketing frozen food products across Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy, and Eastern Europe with a market capitalization of approximately 429.19 million.

Operations: FRoSTA Aktiengesellschaft generates its revenue primarily through the development, production, and sale of frozen food products across key European markets including Germany, Poland, Austria, Italy, and Eastern Europe.

Dividend Yield: 3.2%

FRoSTA Aktiengesellschaft's dividends, with a yield of 3.17%, have shown consistency and growth over the last decade, supported by a sustainable payout ratio of 40% and a cash payout ratio of 19.3%. Despite earnings increasing by an average of 16% annually over five years, its dividend yield remains below the top quartile in the German market. The company maintains a competitive edge with a P/E ratio of 12.6x, lower than the market average. Recent financials indicate stable performance with slight fluctuations in sales and net income as of mid-2024.

DB:NLM Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: Deutsche Telekom AG operates as a provider of integrated telecommunication services, with a market capitalization of approximately 118.48 billion.

Story continues

Operations: Deutsche Telekom AG generates revenue primarily through its operations in the United States (72.18 billion), Germany (25.34 billion), Europe (11.97 billion), along with contributions from Systems Solutions (3.94 billion) and Group Headquarters & Group Services (2.27 billion).

Dividend Yield: 3.2%

Deutsche Telekom has maintained stable dividends for the past decade, with a current yield of 3.21%. Despite being below the top quartile of German dividend payers, its dividends are well supported by both earnings and cash flows, with payout ratios at 87% and 19.3% respectively. Earnings are expected to grow by 21.69% annually. However, the company is trading significantly below estimated fair value and carries a high debt level, which could impact future financial flexibility. Recent activities include share buybacks totaling 700 million and presentations at major international conferences.

XTRA:DTE Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: MPC Munchmeyer Petersen Capital AG is a publicly owned investment manager, operating with a market capitalization of approximately 138.88 million.

Operations: MPC Munchmeyer Petersen Capital AG generates its revenue primarily through Management Services (30.83 million), followed by Transaction Services (7.73 million).

Dividend Yield: 6.9%

MPC Munchmeyer Petersen Capital AG demonstrated robust growth with first-quarter sales rising to 9.6 million from 8.63 million year-over-year and net income increasing to 5.88 million from 3.72 million. Despite a short dividend history of only two years, the company's dividend yield stands at 6.85%, higher than the German market average of 4.67%. Dividends are well-supported by both earnings and cash flows with payout ratios at 72.6% and 73.6% respectively, indicating sustainability despite its relatively recent initiation into dividend payments.

XTRA:MPCK Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Make It Happen

Discover the full array of 30 Top German Dividend Stocks right 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.

Elevate your portfolio with Simply Wall St, the ultimate app for investors seeking global market coverage.

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 DB:NLM XTRA:DTE and XTRA:MPCK.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
Amidst a backdrop of fluctuating global markets and heightened trade tensions, the Netherlands' stock market remains a point of interest for investors seeking stable returns. Dividend stocks, particularly those offering high yields, stand out as attractive options in the current economic environment where value seems to be gaining an edge over growth.

Top 5 Dividend Stocks In The Netherlands

Name Dividend Yield Dividend Rating ABN AMRO Bank (ENXTAM:ABN) 9.14%  Signify (ENXTAM:LIGHT) 6.43%  Randstad (ENXTAM:RAND) 5.11%  Van Lanschot Kempen (ENXTAM:VLK) 9.94%  Koninklijke KPN (ENXTAM:KPN) 4.12%  Koninklijke Heijmans (ENXTAM:HEIJM) 3.78%  Acomo (ENXTAM:ACOMO) 6.61% 

Click here to see the full list of 7 stocks from our Top Euronext Amsterdam Dividend Stocks screener.

We'll examine a selection from our screener results.

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: ABN AMRO Bank N.V. offers a range of banking products and financial services to retail, private, and business clients both in the Netherlands and globally, with a market capitalization of 13.77 billion.

Operations: ABN AMRO Bank N.V. generates its revenue primarily through three segments: Corporate Banking (3.50 billion), Wealth Management (1.59 billion), and Personal & Business Banking (4.07 billion).

Dividend Yield: 9.1%

ABN AMRO Bank's dividend profile is nuanced, with a relatively low payout ratio of 47.9%, suggesting that dividends are well-covered by earnings despite a history of volatility in payments. Recent strategic expansions into Germany's wealth management sector could influence future financial stability and asset management growth, potentially impacting dividend sustainability. However, the bank's dividends are considered unstable due to historical fluctuations and a short track record of less than 10 years in consistent dividend payments. Additionally, while the stock trades below estimated fair value, earnings are expected to decline over the next three years, posing risks to ongoing dividend reliability and growth.

ENXTAM:ABN Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: Koninklijke Heijmans N.V. is a company based in the Netherlands that operates in property development, construction, and infrastructure sectors, with a market capitalization of approximately 631.75 million.

Operations: Koninklijke Heijmans N.V. generates revenue through its Real Estate segment (411.79 million), Van Wanrooij division (124.76 million), Infrastructure Works (800.03 million), and Construction & Technology sector (1.08 billion).

Story continues

Dividend Yield: 3.8%

Koninklijke Heijmans exhibits a mixed dividend profile. Its 3.78% yield is lower than the top Dutch dividend payers, and its history of dividend payments has been volatile, with no consistent growth over the past decade. However, the dividends are well-supported by earnings and cash flows, with payout ratios of 37.1% and 59% respectively. The company's share price has shown high volatility recently, despite earnings growing at an annual rate of 19.4% over the past five years.

ENXTAM:HEIJM Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: Van Lanschot Kempen NV is a financial services provider operating both in the Netherlands and internationally, with a market capitalization of approximately 1.70 billion.

Operations: Van Lanschot Kempen NV generates revenue primarily through its Investment Banking Clients and Wholesale & Institutional Clients segments, contributing 41 million and 83.10 million respectively.

Dividend Yield: 9.9%

Van Lanschot Kempen, with a dividend yield of 9.94%, stands out in the top 25% of Dutch dividend payers. The company's dividends are well-covered by earnings, with a payout ratio of 70.9%. Despite only initiating dividends three years ago, payments show promising growth and stability. Recent share buybacks totaling 22.66 million underscore confidence in financial health, although its short dividend history suggests potential uncertainty in long-term sustainability. Trading at a P/E ratio of 13x, it offers value relative to peers.

ENXTAM:VLK Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Key Takeaways

Embark on your investment journey to our 7 Top Euronext Amsterdam Dividend Stocks selection here.

Already own these companies? Link your portfolio to Simply Wall St and get alerts on any new warning signs to your stocks.

Elevate your portfolio with Simply Wall St, the ultimate app for investors seeking global market coverage.

Contemplating Other Strategies?

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Companies discussed in this article include ENXTAM:ABN ENXTAM:HEIJM and ENXTAM:VLK.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
New York-based Trian Partners, a high-profile hedge fund and multi-billion dollar investment management firm, is buying up shares in Minnesota's Solventum, the spinoff of 3M's health care business, and says its investment will push the company toward accelerated growth.

"Trian believes the company can unlock its potential through re-accelerating organic growth, restoring margins while investing to drive growth, and simplifying the company's portfolio of businesses," the fund's leaders said in a statement." Trian looks forward to engaging constructively with Solventum's management and board."

Solventum's stock gained 4.6% on Tuesday on the Trian news. The company's stock opened at $58.06 per share Friday and was up 2% in mid morning trading. The stock has increased over 7% in the past five days, but is still below the closing price on its first day of trading at $69.10 per share.

Moving forward, Trian will certainly have management's ear about changes they are pushing.

"As a newly independent company, we are intently focused on executing our previously articulated strategy designed to accelerate revenue growth, drive margin expansion, improve free cash flow and optimize the portfolio, all of which will allow the company to reduce leverage and unlock significant value for shareholders," said Solventum in a statement. "As a public company, we welcome shareholder feedback and look forward to engaging with Trian as we do with all of our shareholders,"

Solventum investors have already been wondering if the company has plans to streamline its business, according to analysts.

"While investors have been contemplating when and what the company can either spin or sell to improve its [weighted average market growth rate], [management] has noted that its focus over the next 24 months is debt repayment," Vik Chopra, an analyst with Wells Fargo, wrote in a research note. "In addition, we see a multi-year turnaround ahead to address execution challenges and optimize the portfolio."

Solventum started out as Minnesota's newest public company in April with $8.3 billion in long-term debt. The company, which makes medical and surgical devices, dental products, health information systems and purification-filtration products., reported first quarter sales of $2 billion when it was still part of 3M's business.

Paul Vaaler, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and Carlson School of Management, said it's hard to gauge Trian's plans, given Solventum's short history as a standalone, publicly-traded company

Story continues

"They've indicated intentions, but they're pretty general," he said.

Trian describes itself as "one of the largest shareholders of Solventum," but its specific stake could not be determined. Trian has a reputation as an activist investor that pushes for changes to companies in which it has acquired a stake.

Trian recently challenged Walt Disney Co. in proxy battle and was trying to secure two Disney board seats, including one for its CEO and co-founder Nelson Peltz. In April, Disney shareholders voted against Trian's proposal.

Solventum is scheduled to report second quarter financial results Aug. 8.
Annabelle Gordon / CNP / Shutterstock.com

Trump recently announced his VP pick, JD Vance. You may be familiar with Vances background and upbringing. After all, he shared his story in Hillbilly Elegy, a memoir about his past that made Vance rich and gained him a great deal of attention.

Im A Self-Made Millionaire: 6 Steps I Took To Become Rich On an Average Salary

Also: 6 Subtly Genius Things All Wealthy People Do With Their Money

In short, Vance shared in the book about his impoverished upbringing and life path that led him to be worth millions of dollars today. Along the way, Vance said he learned valuable lessons about life and finances.

Heres a look at five financial life lessons from Vance based on the stories and information he shared in the book.

Wealthy people know the best money secrets. Learn how to copy them.

Your Beginning Doesnt Determine Your Outcome

This is perhaps the most significant lesson Vance shares in his book: Your beginnings dont dictate where youll go in life.

While thats true in many areas of life, it certainly applies to finances. In Vances case, he talked about coming from a rough start to creating a small fortune and a much better life for himself.

By finding creative ways to make money and not settling for where he started, Vance has found financial success for himself and his family.

Read: Barbara Corcorans 5 Best Passive Income Ideas

Supporters Can Change Your Life

Vance may be a wonderful example of the importance of having supporters and cheerleaders in life. For Vance, according to his book, life took a vastly different direction thanks to his grandmother.

According to Forbes, Life changed when Vance moved in with his grandmother as a sophomore. (His grandfather had died a few years earlier.) He got a part-time job as a cashier, and his grades improved.

Creativity Can Save the Day

Once his grades started to improve, Vance said he thought about going to college. But he wasnt convinced, especially given the costs, that college was the right choice for him.

So Vance got creative and took a different back  enlisting in the Marines. According to Forbes, He served in Iraq and used extra money he won from playing online poker to pay for his grandmothers health insurance.

Discipline Can Bring Success

Vance, 39, is the first post-9/11 veteran to find a spot on a major party ticket and the first veteran on a major party ticket since John McCain in 2008, according to USA Today.

Vance has talked about the difference being in the Marines played in his life. Along with the typical discipline you learn in the service, Vance said the Marine Corps taught him to live like an adult and learn to save money, balance a checkbook and invest.

Story continues

Even if youre not into taking a strict approach to your finances, even a bit of discipline can make a big difference. Perhaps, like Vance, learning to save or invest could be a good choice when it comes to your own finances.

A Straight Path Isnt Necessary

Heres a final financial life lesson to take away from Vances story: You dont need to take a straight path to find success.

Vance has taken many twists and turns that led him to where he is today. He eventually went to law school, used financial aid, worked to fight the opioid epidemic, focused on startups and took on a political career that has led him to be the VP pick.

Perhaps your finances arent where you want them to be today. As Vances story shows, its not too late to head on a different path to find your own success.

Editors note on election coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 5 Financial Life Lessons from Trumps VP Pick JD Vance
GarysFRP / iStock.com

When summer kicks into high gear and the days get scorching hot, most consumers first instinct is to turn on the air conditioning. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, energy usage tends to follow seasonal patterns, with the highest usage occurring in July. Southwestern and southeastern states use the most energy, likely because they experience higher temperatures than northern states.

As energy usage climbs, so do utility bills, especially in hot and humid locations. The biggest contributors to household utility bills are heaters and air conditioners. When consumers crank up their air conditioners to full blast, the result is a higher monthly utility bill. Other major energy draws are water heating, lighting and refrigeration. However, since the need for hot water, lights and refrigeration is consistent year round, this usually doesnt spike utility costs.

Read Next: 5 Unnecessary Bills You Should Stop Paying in 2024

Find Out: 6 Unusual Ways To Make Extra Money (That Actually Work)

Utility bill costs can vary widely by location. Read on to learn more about energy costs and the cities with the cheapest utility costs so you can stay cool and save money this summer.

Zillow

What You Can Do To Keep Your Utility Costs Low

Air conditioning is a must if you live in an area with sweltering summer temperatures. No one wants to sit in a miserable, blazing-hot house. If your home doesnt have air conditioning, you may get by with fans, but it can be slightly uncomfortable. However, turning on the air conditioning usually means a higher bill. To keep your costs low, you can try a few strategies.

Use a programmable thermostat to increase the temperature when youre away and lower it when youre at home.

Try to find a reasonable setting that isnt unnecessarily cool.

Turn on the bathroom fan after a hot shower to remove the heat.

Keep your air conditioning system well maintained.

Turn off your ceiling fans when you leave a room since they dont impact the rooms temperature.

Seal any cracks around your windows and doors to prevent hot outside air from entering your home.

Window coverings, such as blinds, curtains and shutters, can also keep the sun from warming up your home during the day. Try shutting them during the morning and afternoon, when temperatures climb.

Explore More: Dont Waste Your Money on These 5 Unreliable Appliance Brands

Try This: Mortgage Rates Are Dropping: 20 Housing Markets With the Most Affordable Home Prices

halbergman / iStock.com

Where Utilities Are Least Costly

Pacific Northwest cities utility costs are relatively low, according to a recent GOBankingRates study in which the costs across the U.S. were analyzed to find the cities with the cheapest utilities. The results are clear: 49 of the 50 cheapest cities for utility costs are in Oregon and Washington. Just one of the cities on the list is outside those states  Carthage, Tennessee.

Story continues

The nationwide average utility bill is $379 per month. However, all 50 cities on the list are well below the average.

The most inexpensive city for utility costs is Long Beach, Washington, where summer temperatures rarely exceed 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Located on the border of Washington and Oregon, Long Beach is a seaside city that doesnt experience extreme weather conditions, so residents likely dont require much air conditioning during the summer. Its also a highly affordable place to live, with the monthly cost of living averaging about $3,954.

The cheapest city for utilities in Oregon is Coos Bay, a coastal town located southwest of Eugene. Utility bills average $241.10 monthly in Coos Bay. As in Long Beach, the cost of living in Coos Bay is affordable, with monthly expenses averaging $3,649. Summer daytime temperatures in Coos Bay hover in the mid-60s, and evenings drop to the mid-50s.

Major cities where utilities are affordable include Edmonds, Aberdeen, Tacoma, Seattle, Everett and Mount Vernon in Oregon and Washington. However, while utilities may be cheap in those locations, the overall cost of living is generally much higher due to housing, food and transportation costs.

Heres a look at the 50 cities with the lowest utility costs.

Be Aware: 7 Appliances Frugal Homeowners Steer Clear Of

JeffGoulden / Getty Images

Long Beach, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $228.59

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($150.50)

Average monthly cost of living: $3,954

Livability index: 74

Ershov_Maks / Getty Images

Port Angeles, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $238.44

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($140.64)

Average monthly cost of living: $4,399

Livability index: 76

Kyle Gibson / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Coos Bay, Oregon

Average monthly cost of utilities: $241.10

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($137.99)

Average monthly cost of living : $3,649

Livability index: 60

4nadia / Getty Images

Bandon, Oregon

Average monthly cost of utilities: $241.86

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($137.23)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,560

Livability index: 75

Check Out: 6 Valuable Everyday Items You Should Never Throw Away

iStock.com

Edmonds, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $246.03

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($133.06)

Average monthly cost of living : $7,770

Livability index: 74

SeeSAW / Getty Images

Hoquiam, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $246.03

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($133.06)

Average monthly cost of living : $3,302

Livability index: 74

JeffGoulden / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Aberdeen, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $247.16

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($131.92)

Average monthly cost of living : $3,422

Livability index: 80

lightasafeather / Getty Images

Quincy, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $247.92

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($131.16)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,337

Livability index: 79

Trending Now: 6 Things the Middle Class Should Sell To Build Their Savings

benedek / Getty Images

Lynnwood, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $248.30

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($130.78)

Average monthly cost of living : $6,843

Livability index: 75

thyegn / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Parkland, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $249.44

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($129.65)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,724

Livability index: 75

Zillow

Oak Harbor, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $249.82

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($129.27)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,823

Livability index: 77

Google Maps

Mill Creek, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $250.57

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($128.51)

Average monthly cost of living : $8,324

Livability index: 81

Read More: Heres the Living Wage a Single Person Needs To Live Comfortably in Arizona

Ultima_Gaina / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Mukilteo, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $250.57

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($128.51)

Average monthly cost of living : $8,016

Livability index: 76

Jeff Huth / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Port Townsend, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $250.57

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($128.51)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,653

Livability index: 60

BenDC / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Gold Beach, Oregon

Average monthly cost of utilities: $252.47

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($126.61)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,559

Livability index: 70

samuel howell / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Sequim, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $253.61

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($125.48)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,299

Livability index: 67

Learn More: Im a Self-Made Millionaire, but I Still Opt For the Budget Versions of These 6 Items

JeffGoulden / Getty Images

East Wenatchee, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $254.74

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($124.34)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,656

Livability index: 84

gjohnstonphoto / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Wenatchee, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $254.74

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($124.34)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,603

Livability index: 73

John Callery / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Longview, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $254.74

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($124.34)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,149

Livability index: 69

Kelso, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $254.74

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($124.34)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,101

Livability index: 63

For You: If You Live in One of These 20 Housing Markets, Consider Selling While Its Still Hot

Shutterstock.com

Brookings, Oregon

Average monthly cost of utilities: $256.64

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($122.44)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,724

Livability index: 60

Sean Pavone / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Tacoma, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $257.02

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($122.06)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,907

Livability index: 78

Yan Lu / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Kingston, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $257.40

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($121.69)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,930

Livability index: 88

Nickdelrosario / Getty Images

Mountlake Terrace, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $259.29

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($119.79)

Average monthly cost of living : $6,297

Livability index: 84

Discover More: 8 Places Where Houses Are Suddenly Major Bargains

Art Wager / iStock.com

Fox Island, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $259.29

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($119.79)

Average monthly cost of living : $8,415

Livability index: 65

Jonathan Ross / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Carthage, Tennessee

Average monthly cost of utilities: $259.67

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($119.41)

Average monthly cost of living : $3,644

Livability index: 70

benedek / Getty Images

Seattle

Average monthly cost of utilities: $260.81

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($118.27)

Average monthly cost of living : $7,903

Livability index: 75

gregobagel / Getty Images

University Place, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $261.19

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($117.89)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,969

Livability index: 86

Find Out: Heres the Salary Needed to Actually Take Home $100K in Every State

Everett, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $262.33

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($116.76)

Average monthly cost of living : $6,007

Livability index: 71

MarkHatfield / iStock.com

Shoreline, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.08

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($116.00)

Average monthly cost of living : $7,275

Livability index: 84

benedek / iStock.com

Stanwood, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.46

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.62)

Average monthly cost of living : $6,101

Livability index: 83

AndrewSoundarajan / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.46

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.62)

Average monthly cost of living : $7,660

Livability index: 80

Read Next: How I Went From Middle Class to Upper Middle Class

christiannafzger / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Mount Vernon, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.46

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.62)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,255

Livability index: 78

benedek / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Lakewood, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.46

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.62)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,026

Livability index: 73

Visitor7 / Wikimedia Commons

Enumclaw, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.84

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.24)

Average monthly cost of living : $6,011

Livability index: 88

From Listing on Trulia

Edgewood, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.84

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.24)

Average monthly cost of living : $6,298

Livability index: 79

Be Aware: States Whose Economies Are Failing vs. States Whose Economies Are Thriving

Jasperdo / Flickr.com

Gig Harbor, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.84

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.24)

Average monthly cost of living : $6,742

Livability index: 74

Real Window Creative / Shutterstock.com

Midland, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.84

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.24)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,782

Livability index: 71

GarysFRP / Getty Images

Florence, Oregon

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.84

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.24)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,383

Livability index: 69

Sung Choi / Shutterstock.com

Clover Creek, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $263.84

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($115.24)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,106

Livability index: 67

Learn More: 5 Genius Things People With Healthy Savings Do

SEASTOCK / Getty Images

Ferndale, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.22

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.86)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,471

Livability index: 80

EyeMindSoul / Flickr.com

Lincoln City, Oregon

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.22

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.86)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,929

Livability index: 70

SEASTOCK / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Bellingham, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.22

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.86)

Average monthly cost of living : $6,240

Livability index: 79

400tmax / Getty Images

Kenmore, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.60

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.48)

Average monthly cost of living : $8,796

Livability index: 86

Explore More: 20 Best Cities Where You Can Buy a House for Under $100K

Joecho-16 / Getty Images/iStockphoto

Kirkland, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.60

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.48)

Average monthly cost of living : $10,604

Livability index: 83

Shutterstock.com

Astoria, Oregon

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.60

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.48)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,673

Livability index: 80

Google Maps

Medina, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.60

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.48)

Average monthly cost of living : $29,134

Livability index: 79

chinaface / iStock.com

Frederickson, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.98

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.10)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,211

Livability index: 71

Check Out: 7 Types of Homes Expected To Soar in Value by the End of 2025

Sarah Flotard / Westward, Seattle

Spanaway, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.98

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.10)

Average monthly cost of living : $5,002

Livability index: 71

Yelm, Washington

Average monthly cost of utilities: $264.98

Difference from the national average cost of utilities: ($114.10)

Average monthly cost of living : $4,754

Livability index: 70

Photo Disclaimer: Please note photos are for representational purposes only. As a result, some of the photos might not reflect the locations listed in this article.

Methodology: For this study, GOBanking Rates analyzed the cost of utilities across the United States to find the cities with the cheapest utilities. First, GOBankingRates found the lowest utility cost of living cities as sourced from Sperlings BestPlaces. For each city, a number of factors were found, including total population, total households, household median income as sourced from the U.S. Census American Community Survey, the cost of living indexes as sourced from Sperlings BestPlaces, the average single family home value as sourced from Zillow Home Value Index, and the livability index as sourced from AreaVibes. Using the cost of living indexes and the average national expenditure costs, the average expenditure costs for each city can be calculated. Using the average home value, assuming a 10% down payment, and using the national average 30-year fixed mortgage rate, the average mortgage cost can be calculated. The average mortgage cost and average expenditure costs can be used to calculate the monthly total cost of living. The difference from the national average utility cost was calculated and included as supplemental information. The cities were sorted to show the cheapest to most expensive average monthly utility cost in order to show the cheapest utilities. All data was collected on and is up to date as of July 12, 2024.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 50 Cities With the Cheapest Utilities
A Southwest Airlines jet arrives at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix in 2022. (Matt York / Associated Press)

Jim Kingsley of Orange County, who recently flew Southwest on a two-leg journey from Minneapolis to Los Angeles, likened the budget-friendly airline to In-N-Out Burger.

Both brands are affordable, consistent and simpler compared with competitors, Kingsley said.

Theyre not trying to offer all the things everybody else offers, he said, but they get the quality right and its a good value.

Change, however, is in the air.

Southwest, which since its founding nearly 60 years ago has positioned itself in the cutthroat airline industry as an easygoing, egalitarian option, upended that guiding ethos this week with word that it would get rid of its famous first-come, first-seated policy in favor of traditional assigned seats and a premium class option. It will also offer overnight, red-eye flights in five markets including Los Angeles.

Experts say the changes, especially the switch to assigned seating, are a smart move and will appeal to many as the company tries to stabilize its precarious finances, which included a 46% drop in profit in the second quarter from a year earlier, to $367 million. But it remains to be seen whether Southwest will pay an intangible cost in making the moves: Will it be able to hold on to its quirky identity or will it put off loyal customers, and in doing so, become just another airline?

You're going to hear nostalgia about this, but I think it's very logical and probably something the company should have done years ago, said Duane Pfennigwerth, a global airlines analyst at Evercore.

In many markets away from core Southwest markets, we think open seating is a boarding process that many people avoid, he said.

Read more: End of an era: Southwest Airlines will end open seating, introduce red-eye flights

That is all well and good, but "I didn't ask for these changes," Kingsley said. "Cost and quality is what I care about."

Open seating has its pros and cons, Kingsley said, though hes generally a fan. On his trip to Los Angeles, his group wasnt able to get seats all together. But he likes that preferred seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis, instead of being offered for a high price.

Eighty percent of Southwest customers and 86% of potential customers prefer an assigned seat, the airline said in a statement.

By moving to an assigned seating model, Southwest expects to broaden its appeal and attract more flying from its current and future customers, the airline said.

An even bigger draw of Southwest, according to Kingsley, is its policy of including two free checked bags per ticket. This perk often makes Southwest a better bargain, especially for longer trips or bigger groups, he said.

Story continues

The free bags are a big deal to customers, experts said, and contribute to the airlines consumer-friendly brand. The airline hasn't indicated any plan to change its bag policy.

Southwest has always had a really good, positive vibe, said Alan Fyall, chair of Tourism Marketing at the University of Central Florida's College of Hospitality. It's free bags, good prices and point-to-point routes. That's what they stand for and that's what people love about them.

Southwests change to assigned seating doesnt mean it's no longer a budget-friendly airline, Fyall said, but it does differentiate the carrier from the lowest-cost, lowest-amenity options such as Frontier and Spirit.

The move will require Southwest to update all or a portion of its fleet to include first-class seats. Currently, all seats on a Southwest flight are identical. Fyall said its worth the investment.

Its an appropriate time for Southwest to make adjustments, said Chris Hydock, an assistant professor at Tulane University's Freeman School of Business.

They've not been profitable the last couple of quarters and they've had some activist investor pressure to increase their revenue, he said.

Costs such as wages and maintenance have risen across the airline industry even as travel increased after the pandemic. Southwest saw a net loss of $231 million in the first quarter of 2024. Wall Street analysts estimate that assigned, premium seating could boost revenue by $2 billion per year.

This is one of the options where they could potentially increase their revenue and do something that a lot of consumers have a strong preference for anyway, Hydock said.

For Southwests changes to pay off, it has to stick to its roots when it comes to its culture and brand, experts and travelers agreed.

I love Southwest being different, Kingsley said. If theyre trying to be like the other airlines, I think theyre shooting themselves in the foot.

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.
BING-JHEN HONG / iStock.com

Theres a fine line to tread when shopping for items to go in your carry-on luggage at Costco. While shoppers wont be able to find travel-size items for sale at $1 prices, certain bulk buys and slightly more expensive items are worth spending the money on to keep using after travel has wrapped.

View More: 4 Best Frozen Foods To Buy in Bulk at Costco on a $50 Budget

Check Out: 6 Unusual Ways To Make Extra Money (That Actually Work)

GOBankingRates reviewed the Costco website for carry-on must-haves and carefully avoided including any out-of-stock items on this roundup. Keep reading to find out which seven Costco items should be in your carry-on luggage.

Costco

Apple AirTags (4 Pack)

If youre planning to check luggage in addition to bringing along a carry-on and dont already own Apple AirTags, nows a good time to make the investment.

Apple AirTags help keep track of checked luggage and find any lost items. All you need to do is attach them to your checked items and youll be able to see these items in the Find My app. Each set includes four individual AirTags: enough for your own checked luggage or to help track the checked luggage of family members. And in the event youre asked to check your carry-on because there isnt enough overhead compartment space, you can enjoy peace of mind in knowing where your carry-on is by adding an AirTag to it.

See More: Ikea: 9 Best New Arrivals for Your Money in July

Read Next: Dollar Tree: 21 Best Buys for Your Money in Late Summer

Costco

Bose QuietComfort SC Noise-Canceling Headphones

At nearly $320 a pair, Bose QuietComfort SC noise-canceling headphones are the most expensive item on this roundup but many travelers would argue theyre among the most essential travel purchases.

Whether youre on a short or long flight, these headphones help cancel out the noise of other passengers around you so you can read, work or sleep in peace and quiet. Each pair has a battery life that lasts up to 24 hours and includes a soft case for storage.

Discover More: 9 Things You Must Buy at Big Lots While on a Retirement Budget

Costco

ThermoFlask Stainless Steel Bottles (2 Pack)

While a full water bottle is a no-go, the TSA does allow passengers to bring empty water bottles in their carry-on luggage. If you dont already have a reusable water bottle handy, add the two-pack ThermoFlask stainless steel bottles to your Costco shopping cart.

Keep one at home and bring the other on the flight, or gift a family member or friend youre traveling with a reusable water bottle so everyone stays hydrated. Fill it up with water before your flight departs to avoid excessive spending at airport kiosks.

Story continues

Costco

Emergen-C Variety Pack (120 Packets)

Give yourself on-the-go immune support and an energy boost as you travel by tucking a few Emergen-C packets into your carry-on.

The bulk set at Costco has 120 packets inside for $32.99 in individual packaging. Slide a handful of packets into your carry-on and save on space that a bottle of gummy supplements might take up. As an added bonus, every box includes delicious flavors like super orange, raspberry and tangerine.

Trending Now: Dollar Tree: 10 Best New Arrivals for Your Money in July

Costco

Skineez Medical-Grade Advanced Healing Compression Socks

Travelers that experience swelling in their feet and ankles during long flights know all about the importance of investing in compression socks.

Costco has a few compression sock offerings available to shop including the Skineez brand which includes a two-pack of ultra soft socks designed to soothe tired and achy legs and feet. When we do the math, Costco members only spend about $15 per pair.

Costco

Quaker Chewy Granola Bars Variety Pack

Buy overpriced granola bars at an airport store or grab a bulk box of Quaker granola bars and add a few into your carry-on?

Savvy travelers know to pick up the 60-count box of Quaker granola bars at Costco and pack some bars for their flight to save money. Every box includes 30 chocolate chip and 30 peanut butter granola bars, leaving you with plenty to snack on and enjoy once the trip is over.

For You: Costcos Best End-of-Summer Sales You Cant Miss for Less Than $100

Costco

Extra Sugar-Free Chewing Gum, Mint Variety Pack

A pack or two of gum from the Extra mint variety pack should be in your carry-on. Not only does chewing gum help with ear popping during flights, but it helps keep breath minty fresh as you arrive at your destination.

Just dont wait to buy your gum at the airport. Shop the 18-count pack at Costco and tuck a few gum packages into your carry-on while saving the rest for later to help save on space.

Editors note: Prices may change or vary by location and are up to date as of July 24, 2024.

More From GOBankingRates

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: 7 Costco Items To Buy for Your Carry-On Luggage
On Friday, a flawed update from U.S. cybersecurity company CrowdStrike crashed Windows PCs all over the world, with computers displaying the dreaded "blue screen of death." The outage hit global airlines particularly hard, disrupting thousands of flights as staff scrambled to get systems back online. Some airlines, like U.S. carrier Delta Air Lines, are still struggling.

Tony Fernandes, CEO of Capital A, owner of low-cost carrier AirAsia, says he's "100%" asking for compensation from Microsoft, the developer of the Windows operating system.

"If I delay my flight, you would come after me for a refund, right? Or if I cancel my flight, it means I need to give you a refund," Fernandes told reporters at an event in Subang, Malaysia.

"The principle is if we do something wrong, we have to compensate. They did something wrong. We and other airlines lost a lot," he said.

Total financial losses from the CrowdStrike outage could reach as high as $15 billion, insurer Parametrix estimated on Wednesday. The cost to Fortune 500 companies alone could be over $5 billion.

Malaysia's digital minister has also chimed in. On Wednesday, Gobind Singh Deo suggested to reporters that five government agencies and nine companies were among those affected in Malaysia, and that he'd met with representatives from Microsoft and CrowdStrike to seek a full report, according to Reuters.

Services at Asian airports needed to be done manually when the outage first hit on Friday, with passengers facing delays at both Singapore's Changi Airport and the Hong Kong International Airport. The outage affected services at over 10 airlines in Singapore and at least five in Hong Kong, according to local media reports.

Airlines are still picking up the pieces from Friday's outage. Delta is still cancelling hundreds of flights, with over 6,000 flight cancellations since the outage began. It's the worst affected among the major U.S. carriers, and is now being probed by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Fernandes has been on the warpath regarding Microsoft and CrowdStrike since the outage. On Sunday, the airline executive complained in a LinkedIn post that "tech companies have little empathy" for what airlines went through during the pandemic.

"Now they have issues they expect us all to understand. Well, I'm not going to. Airlines need answers and compensation," he wrote.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com




Image source: Getty Images

I try to travel as much as possible. One way I do that is by taking advantage of hotel and airfare deals to keep my spending in check. I pay for an annual subscription to an airfare deal service that sends me deal alerts so I don't waste time searching online for the best flight prices.

Want to save on airfare costs? I'll share how I've saved over $3,000 on airfare expenses this year.

This service sends flight deals to my inbox

Flight deal subscriptions have become more popular in recent years, and several companies provide such services. One of those is Thrifty Traveler. I've been using Thrifty Traveler Premium for over a year, and I'm impressed with the offerings. It costs $99.99 a year to join.

Subscribers get access to the following:

Domestic and international flight deals by email

Economy, first class, and business-class flight deals by email

Points and miles award flight deal alerts by email

Error fare alerts by text message

Members-only Facebook group

A couple of weeks ago, I booked a business-class flight using credit card points -- all thanks to Thrifty Traveler Premium.

I was alerted to a deal on roundtrip business-class United Airlinesoperated flights to Europe. I use one of the best Chase credit cards and had some points saved up already. Thanks to this deal, I paid only 50,000 points each way when transferring my Chase points to the Air Canada Aeroplan frequent flyer program.

Air Canada Aeroplan is a Chase travel partner, and you can search for United-operated flights on the Air Canada Website. I scored a roundtrip business-class flight to Brussels for 100,000 Chase points and $168.20 in taxes and fees. Talk about a steal!

After securing my reservation, I researched the cash price for my booked flights. If I had booked without points, I would have paid $3,448.20. Considering I only charged my travel credit card for $168.20, I saved $3,280 by booking this points-and-miles award flight deal. Having paid only $99.99 for my Thrifty Traveler Premium subscription, I'd say it was worth it.

I can't wait to see what other flight deals I book later this year. While I may have lucked out and stumbled upon this deal another way, I saved time by not having to search around, and I have plenty of money left in my savings account to fund the rest of my upcoming vacation costs.

Don't overpay for airfare

If you're not paying attention to flight sales and discount opportunities, you're likely overpaying for airfare. Investing in tools that help you land the best flight deals could help you reduce your annual travel spending so you can afford to see more of the world. Flight subscription services are one tool that you may want to consider exploring if you love to travel like I do.

Story continues

It's also an excellent idea to use credit cards that earn rewards. You can earn rewards when you swipe your card for everyday purchases and redeem them for cash back, travel, and more. If you're already using credit cards for everyday purchases, don't ignore opportunities to earn rewards. If you prefer cash back rewards, check out our list of the best cash back credit cards.

Alert: highest cash back card we've seen now has 0% intro APR until 2025

This credit card is not just good  it's so exceptional that our experts use it personally. It features a 0% intro APR for 15 months, a cash back rate of up to 5%, and all somehow for no annual fee!

Click here to read our full review for free and apply in just 2 minutes.

We're firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers. The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.JPMorgan Chase is an advertising partner of The Ascent, a Motley Fool company. Natasha Gabrielle has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends JPMorgan Chase. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

This Airfare Deal Service Has Saved Me Over $3,000 So Far in 2024 was originally published by The Motley Fool
Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad's (KLSE:AJI) investors are due to receive a payment of MYR0.384 per share on 25th of September. This takes the annual payment to 2.6% of the current stock price, which is about average for the industry.

View our latest analysis for Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad

Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad's Earnings Easily Cover The Distributions

Unless the payments are sustainable, the dividend yield doesn't mean too much. Before making this announcement, Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad was easily earning enough to cover the dividend. As a result, a large proportion of what it earned was being reinvested back into the business.

If the trend of the last few years continues, EPS will grow by 48.0% over the next 12 months. Assuming the dividend continues along recent trends, we think the payout ratio could be 25% by next year, which is in a pretty sustainable range.

Dividend Volatility

Although the company has a long dividend history, it has been cut at least once in the last 10 years. Since 2014, the annual payment back then was MYR0.20, compared to the most recent full-year payment of MYR0.384. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 6.7% over that duration. We have seen cuts in the past, so while the growth looks promising we would be a little bit cautious about its track record.

The Dividend Looks Likely To Grow

Growing earnings per share could be a mitigating factor when considering the past fluctuations in the dividend. We are encouraged to see that Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad has grown earnings per share at 48% per year over the past five years. A low payout ratio gives the company a lot of flexibility, and growing earnings also make it very easy for it to grow the dividend.

We Really Like Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad's Dividend

Overall, a dividend increase is always good, and we think that Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad is a strong income stock thanks to its track record and growing earnings. Earnings are easily covering distributions, and the company is generating plenty of cash. Taking this all into consideration, this looks like it could be a good dividend opportunity.

Companies possessing a stable dividend policy will likely enjoy greater investor interest than those suffering from a more inconsistent approach. However, there are other things to consider for investors when analysing stock performance. Case in point: We've spotted 2 warning signs for Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad (of which 1 can't be ignored!) you should know about. Is Ajinomoto (Malaysia) Berhad not quite the opportunity you were looking for? Why not check out our selection of top dividend stocks.

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
American Airlines is sorry, okay? After instituting a booking policy that rubbed many passengers the wrong way, the carrier has seen a dive in profitsand is now walking back the controversial strategy for fear of further hemorrhaging dollars.

The worlds second-largest airline is basically standing outside annoyed travel agents windows with a boom box asking for another chance after bungling it up. It cant afford not to, as its net income in the just-ended second quarter has slipped by 46% to $717 million from a year ago. While the airline has seen record revenue this past quarter, the CEO acknowledges that theyre off target for a couple of reasons.

I want to first acknowledge that our current revenue performance is not where we want it to be, Robert D. Isom, American Airlines CEO, president, and director, said on a less-than-cheery earnings call on Thursday. Attributing some of its issues to an industrywide imbalance in domestic supply and demand and Americans former sales strategy, the CEO said, we know we can do better, and we will rise to meet this challenge.

American Airlines did not immediately respond to Fortunes request for further comment.

The strategy Isom referred to is one where the airline made customers buy tickets directly, as opposed to having the freedom to book from other agencies. The choice alienated corporate customers and led to the ousting of Vasu Raja, Americans chief commercial officer, this past spring. Stopping customers from using booking agencies in favor of Americans own website proved to be too hasty a move, as Bloomberg noted complaints that the internal technology wasnt developed enough to handle this new policy.

Naturally, travel agents were incensed by the former rule. To assume that all customers prefer to buy direct through AA.com is arrogant at best, wrote the American Society of Travel Advisors in a fiery statement. And claiming that consumers asked for NDC is like Apple claiming consumers asked that no wall charger be included with new iPhones. We may have to live with it, but we certainly didnt ask for it, they said, referencing the new policy known as new distribution capability bookings.

Isom soon acknowledged that the plan had backfired. We know we dug ourselves a hole in the second quarter, he said in late May at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference. Indicating his change of course, the CEO called for a reset, adding that American moved faster than we should have, and we didnt execute well.

But such choices end up leaving long-lasting dents in relationships. Theyre not going to be able to turn it around in three monthsthats for sure, Helane Becker, a TD Cowen analyst, told Bloomberg Television this past spring. It will take at least 18 months to two years to turn things around, and even then it might take longer.

Story continues

And now American is seeing the fruits of said misstep. In its latest earnings report, Isom said a reset will take some time, likely impacting earnings throughout the rest of the year.

Theres some mending of bridges to be done, too. Isom said hes so far spoken to more than 30 of his counterparts at corporate customers: We recognize we have a lot of relationships to repair.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
Investors have piled into artificial intelligence (AI) stocks in recent times on optimism about the technology's game-changing potential. The idea is that AI could help companies become more efficient, generate cost savings, and even make great discoveries. And this may supercharge their earnings down the road.

But some companies already are seeing the benefits of AI, and these are the players offering products and services to those developing AI platforms. One of these tech giants just reached a huge milestone, thanks, in part, to its investment in AI and offering these tools to its customers. I'm talking about Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL), most known for its Google search platform and Google cloud services.

Is it time to buy this AI stock?

Image source: Getty Images.

Google Search's dominance

First, a little background on Alphabet and its businesses. The company makes the lion's share of its revenue thanks to advertising on Google search, which holds more than 91% of the worldwide search market. Customers buy advertising that appears on Google pages to reach their target audiences. In the most recent quarter, Google's advertising revenue totaled $64.6 billion of the company's total revenue of $84.7 billion.

Though advertising is the company's biggest moneymaker, Alphabet also is gaining significant ground in another area -- cloud computing services. This includes everything from cloud storage to platforms for companies developing AI programs. And this brings me to the subject of Alphabet's big milestone. In Alphabet's earnings report for the first time ever, Google cloud reached more than $10 billion in quarterly revenue and more than $1 billion in quarterly operating profit.

Alphabet's cloud business still is far from catching up to market-leader Amazon's Amazon Web Services (AWS). This bigger rival reported $25 billion in revenue and $9.4 billion in operating profit in the most recent quarter. But Google cloud is growing faster, with 28% growth in revenue and 197% growth in operating profit in the quarter year over year. That's compared to 17% and 84% respective growth for AWS.

Importantly, Alphabet's AI infrastructure and generative AI solutions segments have brought in billions of dollars in sales, signaling that the company's AI investments are starting to bear fruit. And more than 1.5 million developers are using Google's large language model Gemini. On top of this, most of Google cloud's 100 biggest customers are using generative AI solutions.

Monetizing AI investments

It's not yet clear when Alphabet will fully monetize its AI investments -- this will be a long-term story rather than a short-term one, as with any new investment in a major technology. But it's positive to see the efforts beginning to drive revenue growth and even help the cloud business reach a key milestone. Though cloud is a much smaller part of the revenue picture than Google advertising, it's a significant growth driver -- and this could continue as the AI opportunity expands.

Story continues

Is it time to buy this AI stock? A look at Alphabet's valuation shows it's trading for about 23x forward earnings estimates, up from this year's low of less than 20 just a few months ago. But the stock still remains cheap, considering the strength of the Google search business, as well as the recent progress made by Google cloud.

Alphabet's focus on AI is a major positive and should drive growth in the years to come. Though it will take time for the company to fully monetize its investments, its return on invested capital has generally increased over the past five years.

GOOG Return on Invested Capital Chart

All of this means right now is a great time to invest in Alphabet shares. You'll be picking them up at a very reasonable price -- and buying them during an early chapter of the AI growth story. By holding your shares over time, your portfolio could benefit as both AI development and Google cloud continue to become a more important part of the Alphabet revenue picture.

Should you invest $1,000 in Alphabet right now?

Before you buy stock in Alphabet, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Alphabet wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $700,076!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks 

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 22, 2024

John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Adria Cimino has positions in Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

This Artificial Intelligence Giant Just Reached a Huge Milestone. Time to Buy? was originally published by The Motley Fool
As the ASX200 shows signs of recovery, buoyed by positive developments in global and domestic markets, investors are keenly observing trends that could indicate sustainable growth. In this context, growth companies with high insider ownership present a compelling narrative, as they often signal strong confidence from those closest to the company's operations and future prospects.

Top 10 Growth Companies With High Insider Ownership In Australia

Name Insider Ownership Earnings Growth Cettire (ASX:CTT) 28.7% 26.7% Telix Pharmaceuticals (ASX:TLX) 16.1% 37.1% Acrux (ASX:ACR) 14.6% 115.3% Clinuvel Pharmaceuticals (ASX:CUV) 13.6% 26.8% Hillgrove Resources (ASX:HGO) 10.4% 109.4% Catalyst Metals (ASX:CYL) 17.1% 75.7% Ora Banda Mining (ASX:OBM) 10.2% 106.8% Liontown Resources (ASX:LTR) 16.4% 49.3% Plenti Group (ASX:PLT) 12.8% 106.4% Change Financial (ASX:CCA) 26.6% 76.4%

Click here to see the full list of 88 stocks from our Fast Growing ASX Companies With High Insider Ownership screener.

Below we spotlight a couple of our favorites from our exclusive screener.

Simply Wall St Growth Rating: 

Overview: Chrysos Corporation Limited specializes in the development and supply of mining technology, with a market capitalization of approximately A$631.21 million.

Operations: The company generates its revenue primarily from mining services, totaling A$34.24 million.

Insider Ownership: 21.3%

Earnings Growth Forecast: 63.5% p.a.

Chrysos Corporation Limited, poised for significant growth, is forecasted to see its earnings expand by 63.48% annually. Despite recent shareholder dilution, the company's revenue growth at 35.3% per year outpaces the Australian market significantly. Insider activity presents a mixed picture with more substantial buying than selling over the past three months, aligning interests with shareholders. However, its projected Return on Equity remains low at 7.7%. Analysts remain optimistic about stock performance, anticipating a near 50% price increase.

ASX:C79 Ownership Breakdown as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Growth Rating: 

Overview: Kelsian Group Limited operates in providing land and marine transport and tourism services across Australia, the United States, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, with a market capitalization of approximately A$1.37 billion.

Operations: The company generates revenue through three primary segments: Australian Bus services contributing A$934.76 million, International Bus services at A$448.87 million, and Marine and Tourism activities accounting for A$337.90 million.

Story continues

Insider Ownership: 20.9%

Earnings Growth Forecast: 25.5% p.a.

Kelsian Group is set to outperform the Australian market with its earnings growth forecasted at 25.5% annually, compared to the market's 13.3%. Revenue is also expected to slightly exceed market growth at 5.6% per year. Despite this, financial challenges persist as interest payments are poorly covered by earnings and profit margins have declined from last year. Insider buying trends are positive, showing more acquisitions than sales in recent months, though the stock trades below estimated fair value and analyst price targets suggest a potential increase of 39.9%.

ASX:KLS Ownership Breakdown as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Growth Rating: 

Overview: Technology One Limited is a company that specializes in developing, marketing, selling, implementing, and supporting integrated enterprise business software solutions both in Australia and internationally, with a market capitalization of A$6.29 billion.

Operations: The company generates revenue through three primary segments: Software (A$317.24 million), Corporate (A$83.83 million), and Consulting (A$68.13 million).

Insider Ownership: 12.3%

Earnings Growth Forecast: 14.3% p.a.

Technology One, a software firm in Australia, is poised for robust growth with earnings expected to increase by 14.3% annually, outpacing the market's 13.3%. Its revenue growth forecast at 11.1% yearly also surpasses the Australian market average of 5.4%. Despite a high Price-To-Earnings ratio of A$57.30, it remains below the industry average. The recent appointment of Paul Robson as Non-Executive Director could further enhance strategic and operational capabilities, aligning with its growth trajectory.

ASX:TNE Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024

Make It Happen

Dive into all 88 of the Fast Growing ASX Companies With High Insider Ownership we have identified 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.

Maximize your investment potential with Simply Wall St, the comprehensive app that offers global market insights for free.

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.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 ASX:C79 ASX:KLS and ASX:TNE.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
Key Insights

The projected fair value for Avolta is CHF47.57 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity

Avolta is estimated to be 27% undervalued based on current share price of CHF34.82

The CHF49.21 analyst price target for AVOL is 3.5% more than our estimate of fair value

In this article we are going to estimate the intrinsic value of Avolta AG (VTX:AVOL) by estimating the company's future cash flows and discounting them to their present value. The Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model is the tool we will apply to do this. Believe it or not, it's not too difficult to follow, as you'll see from our example!

We generally believe that a company's value is the present value of all of the cash it will generate in the future. However, a DCF is just one valuation metric among many, and it is not without flaws. For those who are keen learners of equity analysis, the Simply Wall St analysis model here may be something of interest to you.

View our latest analysis for Avolta

The Model

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.

A DCF is all about the idea that a dollar in the future is less valuable than a dollar today, 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 (CHF, Millions) CHF442.4m CHF483.0m CHF595.0m CHF639.0m CHF668.6m CHF690.7m CHF707.1m CHF719.3m CHF728.3m CHF735.1m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x5 Analyst x5 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 4.64% Est @ 3.31% Est @ 2.37% Est @ 1.72% Est @ 1.26% Est @ 0.94% Present Value (CHF, Millions) Discounted @ 9.4% CHF404 CHF404 CHF455 CHF446 CHF427 CHF403 CHF377 CHF351 CHF325 CHF300

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = CHF3.9b

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 0.2%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 9.4%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2034  (1 + g)  (r  g) = CHF735m (1 + 0.2%)  (9.4% 0.2%) = CHF8.0b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= CHF8.0b ( 1 + 9.4%)10= CHF3.3b

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 CHF7.2b. To get the intrinsic value per share, we divide this by the total number of shares outstanding. Relative to the current share price of CHF34.8, the company appears a touch undervalued at a 27% discount to where the stock price trades currently. Remember though, that this is just an approximate valuation, and like any complex formula - garbage in, garbage out.

dcf

Important Assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Avolta as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 9.4%, which is based on a levered beta of 2.000. 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 Avolta

Strength

Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry.

Debt is well covered by cash flow.

Weakness

Interest payments on debt are not well covered.

Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Specialty Retail market.

Opportunity

Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the Swiss market.

Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%.

Threat

Dividends are not covered by earnings.

Revenue is forecast to grow slower than 20% per year.

Next Steps:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize 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. 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 discount to intrinsic value? For Avolta, we've put together three relevant aspects you should consider:

Risks: For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Avolta (1 is concerning!) that you should be aware of before investing here. Future Earnings: How does AVOL's growth rate compare to its peers and the wider market? Dig deeper into the analyst consensus number for the upcoming years by interacting with our free analyst growth expectation chart. Other Solid Businesses: Low debt, high returns on equity and good past performance are fundamental to a strong business. Why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals to see if there are other companies you may not have considered!

PS. The Simply Wall St app conducts a discounted cash flow valuation for every stock on the SWX every day. If you want to find the calculation for other stocks just search here.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But every investor is virtually certain to have both over-performing and under-performing stocks. So we wouldn't blame long term Axiata Group Berhad (KLSE:AXIATA) shareholders for doubting their decision to hold, with the stock down 52% over a half decade. Shareholders have had an even rougher run lately, with the share price down 12% in the last 90 days.

With the stock having lost 6.2% in the past week, it's worth taking a look at business performance and seeing if there's any red flags.

Check out our latest analysis for Axiata Group 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 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.

We know that Axiata Group Berhad has been profitable in the past. However, it made a loss in the last twelve months, suggesting profit may be an unreliable metric at this stage. Other metrics may better explain the share price move.

The steady dividend doesn't really explain why the share price is down. However, revenue has declined at a compound annual rate of 4.1% per year. With revenue weak, and increased payouts of cash, the market might be taking the view that its best days are behind it.

You can see how earnings and revenue have changed over time in the image below (click on the chart to see the exact values).

Axiata Group Berhad is a well known stock, with plenty of analyst coverage, suggesting some visibility into future growth. If you are thinking of buying or selling Axiata Group Berhad stock, you should check out this free report showing analyst consensus estimates for future profits.

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. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. We note that for Axiata Group Berhad the TSR over the last 5 years was -44%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. The dividends paid by the company have thusly boosted the total shareholder return.

A Different Perspective

Axiata Group Berhad shareholders are down 4.3% for the year (even including dividends), but the market itself is up 21%. 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. However, the loss over the last year isn't as bad as the 8% per annum loss investors have suffered over the last half decade. We'd need to see some sustained improvements in the key metrics before we could muster much enthusiasm. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Axiata Group Berhad better, we need to consider many other factors. Take risks, for example - Axiata Group Berhad has 2 warning signs we think you should be aware of.

But note: Axiata Group 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
You win some, you lose some.

LVMH CEO and chairman Bernard Arnault has taken a hit in the wealth department compared to his high-earning counterparts. The Frenchmans fortune plummeted by a whopping $20 billion this year, the biggest loss of any billionaire in 2024, Bloomberg reported. The decline has brought his net worth down to $187 million, and he now sits in third behind Jeff Bezos and frontrunner Elon Musk on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which ranks the worlds 500 wealthiest people.

More from Robb Report

Musk, whos currently the richest person in the world, also experienced a significant decrease in his net worth on Wednesday. The Tesla cofounders fortune plunged a staggering $21.7 billion in a single day. However, hes still worth an eye-watering $240.5 billion and is up $11.5 billion for the year despite facing one of the largest market-driven drops in the history of Bloombergs wealth index.

In second position, as previously mentioned, is Bezos. The Amazon founder is only $37 billion behind Musk with a net worth of $204 billion. At the same time, Chinas richest man, Zhong Shanshan ($54.8 billion), could be dethroned following a $13 billion loss.

Arnaults decline comes amid a slowdown in demand for luxury goods, especially in China. LVMH recorded a 14 percent slump in sales in Asia (excluding Japan) in the second quarter. For context, thats a 6 percent slip compared to Q1 sales. Arnaults conglomerate also noted that its overall revenue growth had dipped 1 percent year-on-year in the first six months of 2024.

The results for the first half of the year reflect LVMHs remarkable resilience, backed by the strength of its Maisons and the responsiveness of its teams in a climate of economic and geopolitical uncertainty, Arnault said in a statement.

LVMHs rival, Kering, founded by Francois Pinault, has also been struggling. Earlier this week, the luxury conglomeratewhich owns Gucci, Boucheron, and Saint Laurent, among othersestimated that its operating profit could drop approximately 30 percent in the second half of the year, after falling 42 percent in the first six months.

There was a deterioration of the trends in June that so far are persisting in July, Jean-Marc Duplaix, deputy chief executive officer in charge of operations and finance at Kering, told WWD. In this very volatile environment, its very difficult to predict what will happen in August and September, so I wont predict anything when it comes to the trends for the rest of the quarter.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), undeniably, has been the standout stock of the year. Its dominance in the stock market extends even further, with a staggering 800% surge in its stock price in less than two years.

Yet, recent sales by billionaires -- including company insiders -- have many investors on edge. Moreover, there is an additional factor, which is flashing warning signs for Nvidia.

So, let's dive in and see what's going on with Wall Street's hottest stock.

Image source: Getty Images.

Billionaires are bailing on Nvidia

First, let's get a handle on two things:

Which billionaires are selling Nvidia stock. How much stock they're selling.

Obviously, there are many billionaires who own Nvidia stock, but there are only a select number who are forced to disclose their stock purchases and sales. For the purposes of this article, I'll cover billionaires that are company insiders (defined as company officers or those with over 10% beneficial ownership).

Let's focus on two billionaire company insiders: Jensen Huang (Nvidia's CEO and founder) and Mark Stevens (Nvidia board member). Huang's net worth is estimated at over $100 billion; Stevens' is estimated at over $8 billion. So far this year, Huang and Stevens sold a combined $731 million in Nvidia stock -- Huang sold $366 million worth of stock; Stevens sold $365 million.

Even though these are massive stock sales, they must be put into context. Huang, for example, owns more than 800 million shares of Nvidia stock, worth over $100 billion as of this writing. Stevens owns nearly 39 million shares of Nvidia, which are worth close to $5 billion.

So, from that standpoint, neither one is dumping Nvidia shares hand over fist. Rather, they have sold very small portions of their massive holdings. Stevens sold 0.7% of his stock this year, while Huang has sold even less -- only 0.3%.

What's more, there are many reasons insiders sell stock. For example:

Portfolio diversification.

Charitable giving.

Personal expenses.

Outside business projects.

Investors should approach insider sales with caution, understanding that they can sometimes be significant but often require a deeper understanding of the context.

In any event, there is another factor regarding Nvidia stock that investors should be paying attention to.

Nvidia's stock valuation is reaching precarious heights

To properly value a stock, investors have to examine more than just its price. That's because the price investors pay for a stock doesn't take into account important factors such as the number of shares outstanding or the underlying financial health of the company.

Story continues

That's why valuation metrics like the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio and price-to-sales (P/S) ratio are critical when attempting to compare two or more stocks. They allow investors to make apples-to-apples comparisons.

The problem for Nvidia is that by examining its current P/S ratio, for example, it's clear that the stock is trading at an unsustainable level.

Here is Nvidia's P/S ratio dating back to its initial public offering (IPO) in 1999:

NVDA PS Ratio Chart

Its current level (37 times) is nearly 500% greater than its lifetime average (8 times). That's troubling in and of itself, but the concerns grow when comparing Nvidia to other tech stocks.

Microsoft is another company whose stock price benefited as the AI revolution has taken off. However, its stock trades with a P/S ratio of 14 times. And while that is almost double its historical average (8 times), it's still well below Nvidia's. Moreover, when examining Microsoft's lifetime P/S ratio, you do see a period when its stock traded with a sky-high P/S ratio of 30 times. That was during the lead-up to the dot-com stock bubble of 2001. And remember, following that bubble, Microsoft's stock dropped 65%.

NVDA PS Ratio Chart

In summary, Nvidia's insider selling may be a red herring. However, the stock's lofty valuation should give investors pause. While the company's surging revenue could help moderate its valuation, risks remain that the stock is overpriced at current levels and could experience a pull-back -- particularly if actual sales fall short of heightened expectations.

Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Nvidia wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $700,076!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks 

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 22, 2024

Jake Lerch has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Billionaires Can't Stop Selling Nvidia. But There's Something Else That Investors Need to Know. was originally published by The Motley Fool
US soups and snacks processor Campbell Soup Co. is to cease production of its canned soups at a factory in Paris, Texas.

The move is being made to focus purely on production of its sauce brands.

Up until now, the Paris factory has produced Campbells sauce brands, including Prego Italian sauces and Pace salsa, and around 10% of Campbell Soup Co.s total soup volumes.

In a statement, the group said that the decision to get rid of the plants soup line was made after assessing the role the Paris plant plays in the companys supply chain network.

It added: After completing a thorough analysis, the company is moving forward with plans to invest in the Paris plant to transform it into Campbells flagship sauce facility.

Just Food has asked Campbell to confirm how much it is spending on the investment.

Production of the Goldfish brand owners tinned soups, such as its namesake brand Campbells, will be moved to other manufacturing sites following the factorys closure.

The soups line is expected to cease operations in two years time, the company said.

The line closure is expected to affect around 300 employees. Around 680 people are currently employed at the plant. Campbell said it is committed to providing support and assistance to impacted employees throughout the transition.

Earlier in May, the Swanson chicken broth maker announced a series of closures affecting 415 positions.

In a statement at the time, the company said it would shut its site in Tualatin, Oregon, which makes Pacific Foods organic soup, broth and plant-based drinks. It also announced intentions to scale down crisps production at the Jeffersonville, Indiana site, in a bid to hone in on tortilla chips.

It described the plans as part of an ongoing effort to invest in and transform its supply chain to fuel business growth, improve return on invested capital and enhance the overall effectiveness and efficiency of its manufacturing and distribution network.

"Campbell Soup Co. to cease soup production at US facility" was originally created and published by Just Food, 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.
LAS VEGAS (KLAS)  A new casino is coming to Boulder Highway, along with dining and the potential for a hotel near Hendersons Cadence community.

Boyd Gaming officials on Thursday announced Cadence Crossing, a small casino project that will eventually take over land occupied by Jokers Wild at Boulder Highway and Warm Springs Road.

The new building will include dining options and 450 slot machines in a 10,000-square-foot casino. Before the project has even started, Boyd President and CEO Keith Smith said he expects it to expand with a larger casino and possibly a hotel.

Smith said when Cadence Crossing opens by early 2026, Jokers Wild will shut down. Construction will begin later this year, he said.

The site is particularly attractive to casino companies as homes fill in the southeast valley. Cadence is just east of the site.

Ballys takeover announced as Tropicana implosion nears

One of Boyd Gamings top properties, Sams Town, is about six miles northwest on Boulder Highway, and the shuttered East Side Cannery is even closer. But the company has been watching the development in that part of the valley for a long time as it announces the new project. The plan dates back to late 2022, when the proposal came before the Henderson City Council.

Jokers Wild is a small casino at just over 23,000 square feet, but its still more than twice the size of initial plans for Cadence Crossing. Smith described the project as a modest investment but clearly with the opportunity to expand.

How much will it cost? Thats unclear for now as Smith said only that a $100 million budget would pay for Cadence Crossing and two other projects at properties outside Nevada.

The announcement came as Boyd Gaming posted its second-quarter earnings with revenue of $967.5 million, up from $917.0 million in the second quarter of 2023. Boyd reported net income of $139.8 million for the quarter.

The new venture comes as the December opening of Station Casinos Durango Casino & Resort continues to take business away from two off-Strip Boyd properties  The Orleans Hotel & Casino and the Gold Coast Hotel and Casino. Durango has tilted the locals market in the southwest valley, even draining some business from Stations Red Rock Casino Resort Spa.

Analysts on the earnings call asked if Boyd Gaming was looking to buy other properties  a frequent topic involving the company, which operates in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania, in addition to its 10 Las Vegas properties.

But officials didnt reveal any expansion plans if they exist.

Story continues

The company recently completed a major project in Louisiana, opening the land-based Treasure Chest to replace a 30-year-old riverboat casino operation. The Fremont Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas also recently completed renovations, and officials said there are plans for work at The Orleans.

Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media, Inc. 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.
Amkor Technology, which earlier this year announced a major expansion in Peoria, has qualified for up to $600 million in preliminary federal funding to complete the project and operate it.

The U.S. Department of Commerce said the Chandler-based semiconductor-services company has received tentative approval for up to $400 million in grants under the federal CHIPS and Science Act and up to $200 million in federal loans on favorable terms.

Amkor, which tests and packages semiconductors made by other companies, expects to start construction in Peoria around the middle of next year on the facility and begin production in 2027, said Mike Schmidt, director of the U.S. Commerce Department's CHIPS Program Office.

The project will create around 1,000 permanent jobs and roughly the same number of construction positions, he said.

More funding for Arizona companies

The grants and loans for Amkor follow even larger CHIPS funding announcements for Intel Corp. in Chandler and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. for a complex it is building in north Phoenix, as well as funding for Chandler-based Microchip Technology for operations in other states.

Corporations that are headquartered or operating in Arizona have been near the forefront for funding under the CHIPS Act, which aims to revitalize U.S. manufacturing and expand supply chains for the critical semiconductor industry and its products, which are found in an array of electronic devices and systems including smartphones, computers, data centers, cars, medical devices, military weapons, electric-power components and more.

The legislation was a major theme of the Biden administration but also has received bipartisan support.

Arizona certainly is emerging as a hugely important market ecosystem for semiconductor manufacturing in the U.S., Schmidt told The Arizona Republic. The Amkor funding announcement is an investment that really demonstrates the potential of the CHIPS Act, he said.

Amkor Technology has received tentative approval for CHIPS Act funding at its planned $2 billion complex in Peoria. Shown here is the companys headquarters building in Chandler.

Key step in semiconductor pipeline

Amkor tests semiconductors manufactured by others and packages them. Packaging involves protecting or enclosing semiconductors and other components and finalizing their electrical connections.

Right now, a very significant share of (semiconductor) production is packaged overseas, mainly in East Asian nations, Schmidt said.

Part of the thrust behind the CHIPS Act is to perform testing and packaging activities for advanced semiconductors in the U.S., strengthening and improving supply chains, partly out of national security concerns. The Amkor project along with one in Texas are the main testing/packaging recipients so far under the act, Schmidt said.

Story continues

He predicted Amkor would test and package semiconductors made at TSMCs fabs or factories in north Phoenix, along with those made by Global Foundries in New York. Many of these and other chips will go into Apple products.

The Amkor CHIPS Act funding could be finalized within several months, he said.

Focus on advanced applications

Amkors complex in Peoria will support semiconductors used in high-performance computing and artificial intelligence as well as applications in communications, the automotive industry and other markets. Advanced packaging is an area where semiconductors can be improved further, from both an efficiency and power-reduction standpoint, Schmidt said.

One of the fundamental goals of the CHIPS and Science Act is creating an advanced packaging ecosystem in the U.S. to ensure full start-to-finish chip production occurs domestically, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, in a prepared statement. Advanced packaging drives chip innovation at all levels.

Giel Rutten, Amkors president and CEO, issued a statement underscoring the companys commitment to grow Americas domestic semiconductor ecosystem and calling advanced packaging an essential component of semiconductor innovation and manufacturing.

When fully operational, the Commerce Department said, Amkor would package and test millions of leading-edge chips serving autonomous vehicles, 5G/6G smartphones, large-scale data centers and other applications.

Metro Phoenix also has become a national leader in data centers.

Reach the reporter at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Amkor Technology's Peoria complex qualifies for federal funding
Image source: The Motley Fool.

Core Laboratories (NYSE: CLB)

Q2 2024 Earnings Call

Jul 25, 2024, 8:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:





Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Core Laboratories second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Today, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. [Operator instructions] After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator instructions] Please note that today's event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Larry Bruno, chairman and CEO. Please go ahead.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Chris. Good morning in the Americas. Good afternoon in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, and good evening in Asia Pacific. We'd like to welcome all of our shareholders, analysts, and most importantly, our employees to Core Laboratories' second quarter 2024 earnings call.

This morning, I'm joined by Chris Hill, Core's chief financial officer; and Gwen Gresham, Core's senior vice president and head of investor relations. The call will be divided into six segments. Gwen will start by making remarks regarding forward-looking statements. We'll then have some opening comments, including a high-level review of important factors in Core's Q2 performance.

Should you invest $1,000 in Core Laboratories right now?

Before you buy stock in Core Laboratories, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Core Laboratories wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $700,076!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks 

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 22, 2024

In addition, we'll review Core strategies and the three financial tenets that the company employs to build long-term shareholder value. Chris will then give a detailed financial overview and have additional comments regarding shareholder value. Following Chris, Gwen will provide some comments on the company's outlook and guidance. I'll then review Core's two operating segments, detailing our progress and discussing the continued successful introduction and deployment of Core Lab technologies as well as highlighting some of Core's operations and major projects worldwide.

Story continues

Then we'll open the phones for a Q&A session. I'll now turn the call over to Gwen for remarks on forward-looking statements.

Gwen Gresham -- Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations

Before we start the conference this morning, I'll mention that some of our statements that we make during this call may include projections, estimates, and other forward-looking information. This would include any discussion of the company's business outlook. These types of forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to materially differ from our forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K as well as other reports and registration statements filed by us with the SEC.

We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Our comments are also included on non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is included in the press release announcing our second quarter results. Those non-GAAP measures can also be found on our website.

With that said, I'll pass the discussion back to Larry.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Gwen. Moving now to some high-level comments about the second quarter of 2024. Core continued to build on the operational momentum established over the past few quarters. Revenue was up slightly compared to Q1 of 2024, but the company did see nice sequential improvement in operating income, operating margins, free cash flow, and earnings per share.

In Reservoir Description, revenue in the second quarter was up over 2% compared to Q1, reflecting the continued improvement in market demand for our global rock and fluid laboratory analysis. This improvement occurred despite the ongoing geopolitical conflicts that continue to negatively impact demand for laboratory services that are directly tied to the assay of crude oil and derived products. These geopolitical conflicts produce headwinds to both revenue growth and operating margins. For the second quarter, operating margins in Reservoir Description were 14%.

In Production Enhancement, revenue declined by approximately 2% compared to Q1, largely reflecting lower product sales outside the U.S., which offset growth in domestic product sales. However, profitability improved nicely with operating margins climbing to 10%, up over 260 basis points as cost control measures aimed at rightsizing the operation to hold. In line with our stated financial strategy after funding our dividend, Core continued to dedicate free cash to paying down debt. During the quarter, Core's net debt was reduced by $15.8 million or 10%.

This reduction in our outstanding debt also decreased our leverage ratio to 1.66, down from 1.76 last quarter. This is the lowest our leverage ratio has been in the last five years. We will continue to focus free cash on reducing debt and strengthening our balance sheet. Lastly, for the full company, ex-items, EPS was $0.22 per share compared to $0.19 in Q1 of 2024 and operating margins improved from 12% to 13%, which includes the absorption of higher G&A costs in the second quarter.

As we look ahead, Core will continue to execute on its key strategic objectives by, one, introducing new product and service offerings in key geographic markets; two, maintaining a lean and focused organization; and three, maintaining our commitment to delevering the company. We will remain focused on strengthening our balance sheet and advancing to our stated goal of achieving a leverage ratio of 1.5 times or lower. As we continue to reduce debt, Core is also reviewing various options of returning value to our shareholders through the use of excess free cash. Now, to review Core Lab's strategies and the financial tenets that Core has used to build shareholder value over our 28-year history as a publicly traded company.

The interest of our shareholders, clients, and employees will always be well served by Core Lab's resilient culture, which relies on innovation, leveraging technology to solve problems, and dedicated customer service. I'll talk more about some of our latest innovations in the operational review section of this call. While we navigate through the current challenges and pursue growth opportunities, the company will remain focused on its three long-standing, long-term financial tenants, those being to maximize free cash flow, maximize return on invested capital, and returning excess free cash to our shareholders. I'll now turn it over to Chris for the detailed financial review.

Christopher S. Hill -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Larry. Before we review the financial performance for the quarter, the guidance we gave on our last call and past calls specifically excluded the impact of any FX gains or losses and assumed an effective tax rate of 20%. So, accordingly, our discussion today excludes any foreign exchange gain or loss for current and prior periods. The comparison periods for the first quarter of 2024 and second quarter of 2023 also include items that were discussed in those calls and highlighted in our earnings release for those periods.

These items have also been excluded from our discussion of the financial results today. You can find a summary of those items in the tables attached to our press release for the second quarter of 2024. So, now looking at the income statement. Revenue was $130.6 million in the second quarter, a slight increase from $129.6 million in the prior quarter and $127.9 million in the prior year second quarter.

Sequentially, increased demand in both the U.S. and certain international regions for reservoir rock and fluid analytical programs was partially offset by lower completion diagnostic services and completion product sales in international markets. Of this revenue, service revenue, which is more international, was $96.3 million for the quarter, flat sequentially and up over 3% from last year. Demand for our laboratory-based reservoir rock and fluid analytical programs continues to improve and is expected to continue growing globally with the stronger growth in certain international regions.

However, the sequential growth was offset by a slightly lower level of completion diagnostic services in the U.S. and continued disruptions in some of the international regions where assay services continue to be impacted by the ongoing geopolitical conflicts. Product sales, which are more equally tied to North America and international activity were $34.2 million for the quarter, up over 3% sequentially and relatively flat from last year. Sequentially, product sales increased 18% in the U.S., primarily driven by improved market penetration of our completion products.

This sequential growth in product sales in the U.S. was offset by a lower level of product sales into international markets and the Canadian market as a result of typical seasonal decline. Moving on to cost of services. Ex-items for the quarter was approximately 78% of service revenue, up slightly from 77% in the prior quarter and 76% last year.

As we discussed during our last call, in February, a fire damaged one of our buildings on the campus of our Advanced Technology Center in Aberdeen. Although our insurance programs are reimbursing us for operating costs and additional costs associated with remediation of the equipment and the facility, the $1.3 million of associated insurance is recorded as other income and not reflected in cost of services or revenue. For the remainder of 2024, we project service revenue to continue growing with strong incremental margins. Cost of sales ex-items in the second quarter was 82% of revenue, improved from 93% last quarter and 84% from last year.

As mentioned by Larry, the sequential improvement was primarily driven by savings from cost-reduction initiatives and manufacturing efficiencies implemented at the end of the prior quarter. The company will continue to manage the business as efficiently as possible due to continued volatility in the U.S. market as onshore completion activity in the U.S. has shown signs of softening as we exited the second quarter and starting the third quarter of this year.

G&A ex-items for the quarter was $10.3 million, an increase from the prior quarter, which was $8.3 million. The sequential increase in G&A expense was primarily due to the change in value of company-owned life insurance investments, which was a loss this quarter versus a gain in the prior quarter. Additionally, the company initiated a third-party assessment of our cybersecurity environment and also implementation of a global human capital management system, which increased G&A expense in the second quarter of 2024. For 2024, we expect G&A ex-items to be approximately $40 million to $42 million.

It is also important to note that 100% of our corporate G&A expenses are allocated and absorbed into the financial performance of the reported segments. The operating margins in both of our segments improved this quarter compared to the first quarter of this year. And the expansion of operating profit in both segments include the absorption of the $2 million increase in G&A expenses this quarter. Depreciation and amortization for the quarter was $3.8 million, flat compared to last year -- last quarter.

EBIT ex-items for the quarter was $16.4 million and increased 10% from $14.9 million last quarter, yielding an EBIT margin of approximately 13%. EBIT margins are up from 12% last quarter and year over year. Our operating income for the quarter on a GAAP basis was $16 million. Interest expense of $3.2 million decreased from $3.4 million last quarter.

The decrease was primarily due to lower average borrowings on the credit facility this quarter. Income tax expense and an effective tax rate of 20% and ex-items was $2.6 million for the quarter. On a GAAP basis, we recorded a tax expense of $3.6 million for the quarter. The effective tax rate will continue to be somewhat sensitive to the geographic mix of earnings across the globe and the impact of items discrete to each quarter.

We continue to project the company's effective tax rate to be approximately 20%. Net income ex-items for the quarter was $10.4 million, an increase of over 16% from $8.9 million last quarter and up from $9.8 million in the second quarter of last year. On a GAAP basis, we recorded net income of $9 million for the quarter. Earnings per diluted share ex-items was $0.22 for the quarter, up from $0.19 in the prior quarter and $0.21 in the same quarter last year.

On a GAAP basis, earnings per diluted share was $0.19 for the quarter. Turning to the balance sheet. Receivables were $115.6 million and increased slightly from $115.1 million last quarter-end. Our DSOs for the second quarter were at 75 days, up slightly from the 74 days last quarter.

We anticipate our DSOs will improve in future quarters. Inventory at June 30, 2024, was $69.9 million, down approximately $800,000 from last quarter-end. Inventory turns have also shown some slight improvement over the last few quarters. We continue to focus our efforts on reducing the amount of inventory we are currently carrying and anticipate inventory turns will gradually improve and inventory levels to decline as we progress through the remainder of 2024.

On to the liability side of the balance sheet. Our long-term debt was $150 million at the end of the second quarter of 2024 and considering cash of $17.7 million, net debt was $132.3 million, which decreased $15.8 million or over 10% from the last quarter. Free cash flow generated during the quarter was primarily used to reduce debt. Our leverage ratio was reduced to 1.66 at June 30 from 1.76 last quarter-end.

This quarter marks the lowest level of leverage the company has maintained since the end of 2018, and we anticipate the leverage ratio will continue to improve during the remainder of 2024. Our debt is currently comprised of our senior notes at $110 million and $40 million outstanding under the bank credit facility. Our credit facility has a borrowing capacity of $135 million, of which approximately $85 million was still available as of June 30, 2024. The company will continue applying free cash toward reducing debt until the company reaches its target leverage ratio of 1.5 or lower.

Looking at cash flow for the second quarter of 2024, cash flow from operating activities was approximately $17.2 million. And after paying for $2.9 million of capex, our free cash flow for the quarter was $14.3 million. When we compare free cash flow of $16.8 million generated by the company for the first half of this year to $1.2 million generated last year, we are pleased with not only an improvement in cash generation but also managing the excess inventory levels down. As we indicated in our last call, we expect capex to modestly expand in 2024 compared to 2023 and we will continue to manage investment in working capital during a period of growth.

Additionally, we expect capex to remain aligned with activity levels. And for the full year 2024, we expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $12 million to $14 million. Core will continue its strict capital discipline and asset-light business model with capital expenditure primarily targeted at growth opportunities. Core Lab's operational leverage continues to provide the ability to grow revenue and profitability with minimal capital requirements.

Capital expenditures have historically ranged from 2.5% to 4% of revenue even during periods of significant growth. Although we have improved the efficiencies in our global laboratory infrastructure through some consolidation of facilities, that same intellectual property and leverage exists in the business today. We believe evaluating a company's ability to generate free cash flow and free cash flow yield is an important metric for shareholders when comparing and projecting company's financial results, particularly for those shareholders who utilize discounted cash flow models to assess valuations. I will now turn it over to Gwen for an update on our guidance and outlook.

Gwen Gresham -- Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, Chris. We maintain our constructive outlook on international upstream projects for 2024 and anticipate sustainable client activity growth in the years ahead to support rising crude oil demand and energy security concerns. Aligned with this, the company will continue to execute our strategic plan of technology investments and pursue growth opportunities. The IEA, the EIA, and OPEC projections continue to forecast growth in crude oil demand of 1 million and 2 million barrels per day for both 2024 and 2025.

The projected growth in crude oil demand is in addition to the natural decline of production from existing fields. As such, continued investment in the development of onshore and offshore crude oil fields will be required to meet the projected growth in demand. In the near term, crude oil markets will remain volatile due to global economic and geopolitical risks and uncertainties. As international project activity continues to expand committed long-term upstream projects from the Middle East, South Atlantic Margin, and certain areas of Asia Pacific and West Africa, support year-over-year growth and demand for Core Lab's proprietary services and products.

However, as the third quarter began, demand in laboratory assay work was negatively impacted by military attacks on hydrocarbon refining infrastructure in the maritime transportation network in the Russia-Ukraine region, along with the temporary closure of client facilities and ports in the Gulf of Mexico due to Hurricane Beryl. In addition, the company anticipates U.S. onshore client activity will be sequentially lower. Consequently, we project Reservoir Description's third quarter 2024 revenue to modestly grow.

Turning to Production Enhancement. The U.S. frac spread count continues to trend lower and the company anticipates a soft market for the remainder of the year. However, growth in demand for Core's international and offshore diagnostic services and energetic system product sales should offset declines in U.S.

onshore activity. Reservoir Description's third quarter 2024 revenue is projected to range from $86.5 million to $89.5 million with operating income of $13.4 million to $14 million. Our Production Enhancement segment's third quarter revenue is estimated to range from $44.5 million to $47.5 million with operating income of $3.3 million to $4.9 million. In summary, the company's third quarter 2024 revenue is projected to range from $131 million to $137 million with operating income of $16.9 million to $19.1 million, yielding operating margins of approximately 13%.

EPS for the third quarter is expected to range from $0.23 to $0.27. The company's third quarter 2024 guidance is based on projections for underlying operations and excludes gains and losses in foreign exchange. Our third-quarter guidance also assumes an effective tax rate of 20%. With that, I'll pass the discussion back to Larry.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Gwen. First, I'd like to thank our global team of employees for providing innovative solutions, integrity, and superior service to our clients. The team's collective dedication to servicing our clients is the foundation of Core Lab's success. Looking at the macro.

As Gwen mentioned, IEA, EIA, and OPEC projections, forecast growth in crude oil demand of between 1 million and 2 million barrels per day for both 2024 and 2025. This projected growth in demand is in addition to the production that needs to be brought online to account for the natural decline from existing fields. These forecasts continue to bode well for increasing demand for the Core Lab services and products that will be required to grow production. As we look ahead, we see long-term improvement in the international rig count over the past year and a half as a harbinger of an improving landscape for Reservoir Description, a trend that we project will play out for the next several years, particularly in the Middle East, North and South America, and most other regions.

Production Enhancement in addition to its exposure to the U.S. land market also has expanding opportunities in international areas, such as with unconventional plays in the Middle East and emerging onshore and offshore conventional plays in a number of regions. Personal face-to-face visits with Middle East operators during the second quarter reinforced the continuing growth opportunities for both of Core's operating segments. Furthermore, Core Lab continues to expand its portfolio of innovative offerings for plug and abandonment programs in mature offshore basins around the globe as well as other products for well completion and remediation applications.

Now, let's review the second-quarter performance of our two business segments. Turning first to Reservoir Description. For the second quarter of 2024, revenue came in at $86.3 million, up 2% compared to Q1 of 2024. Operating income for Reservoir Description ex-items was $11.8 million, and operating margins were 14%, flat compared to margins in Q1.

The segment is still feeling the negative impacts of ongoing international geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine. These conflicts are somewhat detracting from growth that is occurring across other regions. Now, for some operational highlights from Reservoir Description, in the second quarter of 2024, Core Lab's Colombian operation was engaged by a leading independent E&P company to conduct a multi-well analytical program to evaluate the effectiveness of various enhanced oil recovery or EOR techniques under consideration for a mature oilfield. Due to this endeavor was the utilization of Core Lab's advanced geochemical technologies, which enable precise determination of fluid compositions and isotopic signatures across several reservoir zones.

With these data sets, the operator was able to assess the viability of various reservoir fluid mixing strategies with the goal of achieving sweep efficiency across the oil field. Moreover, Core Lab's rock properties measurements and geological analysis also provided valuable insight into fluid flow behavior patterns that would occur in the subsurface during the EOR process. Following the laboratory program, and the identification of the most effective EOR strategy, core Lab's Production Enhancement team then deployed specialized chemical tracers into the injection wells to monitor the progress of the EOR field flood. With meticulous tracer evaluation still ongoing, Core's team is continuing to assess inter-well fluid displacement vectors and sweep efficiencies, while also identifying unswept areas of the field and potential barriers to flow.

All of which are important factors in optimizing hydrocarbon recovery and extracting that all-important incremental barrel from existing fields. Moving now to Production Enhancement, where Core Lab's technologies continue to help our clients optimize their well completions and improve production. Revenue for Production Enhancement came in at $44.3 million, down slightly compared to Q1. However, operating income ex-items was $4.5 million, up from $3.4 million in Q1 and operating margins were 10% for the second quarter of 2024, up 260 basis points from Q1 and reflective of implemented cost controls and improved efficiencies.

Second-quarter performance was supported by continuing demand for completion diagnostics along with a rebound in U.S. product sales. Quarter over quarter, we saw a somewhat lower international product sales, along with some softness in completion activity in the U.S. land market in the back half of the quarter.

Now, for some operational highlights from Production Enhancement. An operator in the U.S. land shale play teamed up with Core's completions expert to improve cluster efficiencies and well performance. The operator wanted to deploy an oriented perforating system with the goal of preferentially aligning perforating guns and energetic charges with natural bedding planes in the strata.

However, using standard non-customized commodity energetics for these applications would yield unequal hole size, which, in turn, would produce inconsistent profit placement and stimulation. To address this problem, Core's ballistic engineers developed a new family of energetics for unconventional-oriented plug and perf completions. Core's new HERO Oriented FRAC technology reduces whole-size variation and maximizes cluster efficiency by using a proprietary ballistic innovation for oriented perforating gun applications. By specifying Core Lab's HERO Oriented FRAC technology for their wells, the operator was able to improve cluster efficiencies, increase stimulated reservoir volume, reduced frac cost, and increased well productivity.

Also in the second quarter of 2024, an operator in the Gulf of Mexico employed Core's completion diagnostic technologies to assess a frac pack. Core's technologies revealed effective frac pack coverage over the targeted interval with no significant void in the annular pack across the sand control screen. In addition, an ample profit reserve was set above the screen. When reversing out the excess proppant slurry, a larger-than-expected volume of co-mingled natural gas was detected.

A thorough examination of the PackScan log by Core's engineering staff revealed that the unexpected gas quantity was produced from the lower portion of the annular pack. Identification of this interval of high gas production is assisting the operator in calibrating their reservoir model. The results will also help optimize future completion designs in this stratigraphic horizon. That concludes our operational review.

We appreciate your participation. And Chris will now open the call for questions.

Questions & Answers:





Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. And today's first question comes from John Daniel with Daniel Energy Partners.

Please proceed, sir.

John Daniel -- Daniel Energy Partners -- Analyst

Hey, guys, thank you for including me. Good job on the free cash flow.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, John.

John Daniel -- Daniel Energy Partners -- Analyst

Larry, I've got a sort of a dumb product question for you. I was interested in the press release comment about the emulsion treatment plant. That example where you're working with NOCs on sort of identifying problematic wells with the water, if you will. Could you elaborate on that? And is that something given all the water that is here in the U.S.

Lower 48? Is that an opportunity set that's being marketed here?

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I mean, emulsions are, I'll call it, oil-specific is probably the best way to put it. There's always water that occurs in association with oil production referred to as the water cut and that oil -- that water is either easily separated out, disassociates from the oil in the separator. It's one of the functions that separators do, separate water from oil and gas from liquids.

But in some cases, the composition of the oil and the water chemistry lead to emulsion. So, you've got discrete droplets where you can consider the water is kind of trapped in droplets in the oil. And so, in this particular case, where they've had multiple wells flowing in together, they needed to find out where that emulsion was coming from because it is implications for production and transportation and eventual processing of the oil. So, we do that type of analysis wherever there are emulsions present for clients.

And that can also generate or expand into midstream and downstream applications as well. It's understanding the nature of the physical interaction of water and oil and what are the things that are causing that. So, the answer to your question is yes, wherever there are emulsion problems, and if they're occurring in the U.S. land market, we'll address it there.

The scale of this particular project has big implications for what kind of treatment plans the client is going to have to develop. And so, high impact on the bottom line of the client if we can sort out a way to minimize that trapped water in the emulsions.

John Daniel -- Daniel Energy Partners -- Analyst

OK. Got it. And then I think we're all excited about international. In the press release, again, you guys called out the personal face-to-face meetings.

It might be -- it's not meant to be a softball question, but it probably will come across that way, but did you -- when you walked away from those meetings, was it reaffirming or made you feel even better? Does that make any sense? Just if you could elaborate on what they're telling you over the next several years.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Sure. So, I'd say, at a minimum, reaffirming and, in some cases, inspirational to accelerate some capital investment and some expansion of operations. So, came out with both of those in no instances did we walk away thinking that we were going to see a downward trend from any of the clients. And we went through five different countries, and Chris actually came along with me on this trip.

We went through various operators talk to NOCs. We talk to IOCs that, in some cases, are seconded to the NOCs staff, where they're working on big projects. All had a very up-and-to-the-right attitude, some with a -- I won't call it hyperbolic, but up with an inspiring slope on expectations for work. The only thing I would say is the flow of committed work is still not meeting what we would anticipate the pace to be for some of these projects.

We know in many cases, Core's out of the ground. They're going through some internal review and we're anxiously awaiting them to pass on those cause to us because it's revenue waiting for us to, I'll call it, harvest out of a committed project work. So, still up into the right, we can go faster if the opportunity presents itself and that -- if that happens, we'll see revenue and profit click up nicely.

John Daniel -- Daniel Energy Partners -- Analyst

Great. OK. Thank you all very much.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Thanks, John. Appreciate the call.

Operator

[Operator instructions] The next question comes from Stephen Gengaro with Stifel. Please proceed.

Stephen Gengaro -- Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everybody.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

Stephen Gengaro -- Analyst

I guess two for me. One, kind of at a high level. One of the things that's been a little surprising to us has just been the lack of a recovery in U.S. land, right? And obviously, there's efficiency gains, etc.

When you guys think about sort of 2025, what do you think needs to happen to get at least some positive momentum in U.S. activity?

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I think one thing that would help a lot would be firmer natural gas prices. I think that's put a weight on completion activity, drilling, and completion activity in the U.S. So, I think that's an underlying, call, foundational to activity levels in the U.S. And so, if there are, I'll call it altered views of the role that exporting natural gas might play.

I think that would also be supportive of an increase in activity for natural gas drilling and completion. And then I think one of the things, Steve, that needs to be looked at here is -- and this is looking back over nearly four decades, and I cringe when I say that nearly four decades of experience here. Whenever there are consolidations in the market, inevitably, even the best-case scenarios, there's always a period of what I would call a reorganization and realignment of operations. I think the consolidations that have occurred or are in the process of occurring in the U.S., all bode well for Core Lab.

We see that the acquiring companies tend to be heavy users of science, and we think that that's a great thing for us. People that are willing to make data-driven decisions, whether it's on the evaluation of the rocks and fluids or on how they complete their wells. So, we think that plays out well for us. But I do think that there is a little bit of an overhang of sort of a consolidation effect that will work its way out over the next two, three, four quarters.

Some companies are a little faster than other companies.

Stephen Gengaro -- Analyst

Yeah. Great. Thank you. And the other question, one of the things that we're trying to get our arms around better is when we think about drilling and completion efficiency and kind of who benefits and who kind of gets hurt just because there's less wells being drilled or less wells being completed.

So, when we think about your Production Enhancement division, I know that the perforating gun business has been kind of evolving over the last several years for many reasons. But when you think about that business. What parts of it do you think you bring incremental value and really benefit from the strive for efficiency and more efficient completion? And is there any part that it actually hurts you?

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

So, I think let's -- first thing for Core Lab. Let's kind of delink the connection with Core Lab in large measure from the drilling activity as it relates to Production Enhancement, right? We really don't have a revenue opportunity during the drilling of an oil well. So, the rig count in North America, short-term perturbations in that aren't going to really impact Core Lab. The completion side, that's where we have our revenue opportunities in Production Enhancement.

So, with longer laterals and more complex completions, that, I think, feeds into the idea that they're still going to need plenty of perforating systems, energetic systems to complete those longer laterals. And I think on the diagnostics side, important concept there is, as wells get more complicated, U-shape geometries and simul-frac to trimul-frac to quads, every time clients try new technology, they need to establish, did I complete this now third, fourth, maybe some indications of folks looking at a fifth mile. Did they get the stimulation, the completion, and stimulation effect that they wanted, and that's where our diagnostics come in. So, I think if you -- and I've talked about this a little bit in previous calls, the frac spread may be becoming a little less relevant for us as a bogey of what activities like if the wells are getting longer and more complex, they'll still be consuming energetic systems for perforation and the more complex the wells, the better for us.

Because they've got to unravel, are they getting what they wanted from that extra horsepower or the larger frac jobs they're doing now?

Christopher S. Hill -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

The only other thing I would add, Stephen, just to give a full picture is if the trends are either more shots or less shots per foot, that would obviously have an impact on the product side.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Charge sales specifically, right?

Stephen Gengaro -- Analyst

Yeah. No, that makes sense. I appreciate the color, gentlemen.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

OK. Thank you, Stephen.

Christopher S. Hill -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Stephen.

Operator

At this time, there are no further questioners in the queue, and this does conclude our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Larry Bruno for any closing remarks.

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

OK. We'll wrap up here. In summary, Core's operational leadership continues to position the company for improving client activity levels for 2024 and beyond. We have never been better operationally or technologically positioned to help our global client base, optimize their reservoirs, and to address their evolving needs.

We remain uniquely focused and are the most technologically advanced, client-focused reservoir optimization company in the oilfield service sector. The company will remain focused on maximizing free cash and returns on invested capital. In addition to our quarterly dividends, we'll bring value to our shareholders via growth opportunities, driven by both the introduction of problem-solving technologies and new market penetration. In the near term, Core will continue to use free cash to strengthen its balance sheet while also investing in growth opportunities.

So, in closing, we thank and appreciate all of our shareholders and the analysts that cover Core Lab. The executive management team and the board of Core Laboratories give a special thanks to our worldwide employees that have made these results possible. We're proud to be associated with their continuing achievements. So, thanks for spending time with us, and we look forward to our next update.

Goodbye for now.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 0 minutes

Call participants:

Lawrence Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Gwen Gresham -- Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations

Larry Bruno -- Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Christopher S. Hill -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

John Daniel -- Daniel Energy Partners -- Analyst

Stephen Gengaro -- Analyst

Chris Hill -- Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer

More CLB analysis

All earnings call transcripts

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Core Laboratories. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Core Laboratories (CLB) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool
Country-wise Fastest Growing Millionaire Population Revealed; U.S. Has 62% More In 10 Years But Isn't Even Close To The Top

The Visual Capitalist website recently published a new infographic depicting the fastest-growing millionaire populations from 2013 to 2023. While the United States has seen a 62% increase in its millionaire population, it's not even close to the top of the list.





Don't Miss:

Topping the charts is Vietnam, where the number of millionaires has skyrocketed by an astonishing 98%. However, according to Visual Capitalist, the number of millionaires there is still under 20,000  19,400, to be exact. Following closely behind is China, with a 92% increase, and Mauritius, a small island nation in the Indian Ocean, saw an 87% rise.

Although the U.S. didn't grow as fast percentage-wise, it still boasts the largest number of millionaires in the world. In 2023, the U.S. had over 5.4 million millionaires. China is trying to catch up with 862,400 millionaires, becoming the second country to approach this milestone.

Emerging economies are making big progress. India's millionaire population grew by 85%, reaching 326,400 (4th on the list). The United Arab Emirates (UAE) saw a 77% increase, hitting 116,500 millionaires (5th). These countries benefit from strong economic policies, more foreign investments, and a growing middle class.

Trending: Dont miss out on the next Nvidia  you can invest in the future of AI for only $10.

Smaller countries are also seeing impressive growth. Malta's millionaire count jumped by 74%, and Monaco's increased by 68%. Singapore is trailing behind them in 8th place with 244,800 millionaires in 2023  a rise of 64% in 10 years. These nations have become attractive to wealthy individuals mainly because of their favorable tax policies and luxurious living conditions.

However, it hasnt been a net positive for every nation. The United Kingdom saw an 8% drop in millionaires, likely because of economic uncertainties like Brexit. Japans number of millionaires fell by 6%, and Hong Kongs decreased by 4% due to political and economic challenges in the region.

Story continues

See Also: This billion-dollar fund has invested in the next big real estate boom, here's how you can join for $10.

What's Driving The Growth?

Vietnam's remarkable rise in millionaires is fueled by its rapid economic reforms and integration into the global economy. Key drivers are trade agreements, foreign investments, and a booming manufacturing sector.

According to Fortune, Vietnam's economy grew by 5.7% in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous year. This was faster than the 3.4% growth in the previous quarter but still below the governments target of 6.0% to 6.5% for the year.

Despite a tough year for Vietnam, Jens Lottner, CEO of Techcombank, is optimistic about the countrys future, saying, "Sixty to seventy percent of Vietnamese people are very optimistic. They think the future will be better than today. It's a huge number."

Lottner believes they have good reason to be optimistic: if Vietnam keeps growing at this rate, in about 10 years, its GDP per person will be similar to Chinas current level.

Read Next:

"ACTIVE INVESTORS' SECRET WEAPON" Supercharge Your Stock Market Game with the #1 "news & everything else" trading tool: Benzinga Pro - Click here to start Your 14-Day Trial Now!

Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga?

This article Country-wise Fastest Growing Millionaire Population Revealed; U.S. Has 62% More In 10 Years But Isn't Even Close To The Top originally appeared on Benzinga.com

 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
(Bloomberg) -- CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer George Kurtz said in a Thursday LinkedIn post that more than 97% of the companys Falcon agent sensors that use Windows are now back online.

Most Read from Bloomberg

CrowdStrike sent out a botched software update that crashed millions of computers on July 19, triggering a global IT outage that grounded flights, closed businesses and brought markets to a standstill. The disruption lasted days, wreaking approximately $5.4 billion of havoc on Fortune 500 companies, according to Parametrix. CrowdStrike shares have fallen by about a quarter since the outage.

The company has struggled to fix the problem, which it said was caused by an error in a quality-assurance tool it uses to screen updates. The bug, which the company said wasnt the result of a cyberattack or security breach, affected more than 8.5 million Windows users, according to Microsoft Corp.

To our customers still affected, please know we will not rest until we achieve full recovery, Kurtz wrote in his post.

Mac and Linux machines werent impacted by the incident.

--With assistance from Katrina Manson.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
We recently compiled a list of the 8 Best Scientific Instruments Stocks to Buy. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) stands against the other scientific instruments stocks.

A scientific instrument is a device or tool used for scientific purposes, including the study of natural phenomena and theoretical research. These instruments are designed to facilitate theoretical research and are utilized to measure, analyze, and verify the properties of materials and elements. Scientists have worked in laboratories equipped with an ever-evolving array of scientific instruments for hundreds of years. In the 1990s, benchtop automation devices spurred a surge in productivity and discoveries, further enhanced by computerized networking in the 2000s and 2010s. Today, most pharmaceutical companies' R&D labs remain at this advanced stage, featuring sophisticated centrifuges and stations that have been instrumental in making significant health advancements.

The global scientific instrument market reached $44.1 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow to $67.5 billion by 2032, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.7% during the period from 2024 to 2032. The primary driver of demand in the global scientific instrument market is the growth of the research and development sector. Additionally, increased collaboration between governments and manufacturers to equip government and university laboratories, as well as other research institutions, with the best instruments is expected to contribute to market growth. Furthermore, the integration of scientific instruments with computers enhances their functions, allows for parameter adjustments, and streamlines data sampling, collection, resolution, and analysis, thus further expanding the global demand for scientific instruments.

In addition, the scientific instruments market has been segmented into various categories. According to a report by Allied Market Research, the clinical analyzers segment is projected to generate the highest revenue from 2021 to 2030. This growth is driven by the increasing adoption of point-of-care testing devices and laboratory automation, as well as the rise in chronic conditions requiring clinical analyzers for diagnosis. Additionally, the research segment is anticipated to experience the fastest compound annual growth rate. This is due to the rising demand for scientific instruments in the research of chronic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and neurological diseases, along with the development of advanced instruments for research purposes.

Story continues

Science heavily relies on technology, and without sophisticated instruments designed to meet the demands of experiments and test new or existing theories and models, scientific progress would stall. A prime example is the life sciences industry, which has produced groundbreaking innovations such as COVID-19 vaccines, cancer immunotherapies, glucose monitors, and pacemakers. Another emerging trend is the use of AI in laboratories. According to a report, the global life science analytics market size is projected to grow from $15.27 billion in 2023 to $43.86 billion by 2032, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8%. Another growing trend comes in the form of Generative AI (gen AI), which is set to revolutionize nearly every aspect of the life sciences, and in turn, the scientific instruments sector. According to McKinsey, gen AI could create $60 billion to $110 billion in annual economic value for pharmaceutical and medtech companies, with $18 billion to $30 billion of that value coming from commercial functions alone.

With these details in mind, we will now take a look at the best scientific instruments stocks to buy.

Our Methodology

To compile the list of the best scientific instruments stocks to invest in, we focused on companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq that are involved in the scientific instruments industry. The stocks were ranked according to Insider Monkeys database, which tracks 919 hedge funds as of the end of Q1 2024. The ranking is based on the ascending order of the number of hedge fund investors in each stock. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple, our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletters strategy picks 14 small and large-caps every quarter and it has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

A healthcare professional in a lab coat holding a microscope and looking at a slide under the lens.

Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 98

Founded in 1984 by brothers Steven and Mitchell Rales, Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) is a diversified American conglomerate headquartered in Washington, D.C. The company specializes in designing, manufacturing, and marketing medical, industrial, and commercial products and services, operating through three distinct segments: Life Sciences, Diagnostics, and Environmental & Applied Solutions.

Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) reported a strong start to 2024, with first-quarter revenue, earnings, and cash flow surpassing expectations. Q1 2024 revenue reached $5.8 billion, though core revenue declined by 4%. The company maintained a gross profit margin of 60% and an adjusted operating profit margin of 30.1%, with adjusted diluted net earnings per share at $1.92. Additionally, the company's bioprocessing business is projected to achieve high single-digit growth by year-end, while the Diagnostics segment saw a core revenue increase of 7.5%.

Following Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR)'s first-quarter earnings report, Baird expressed a positive outlook on the company, raising the stock's price target to $271 from $259 and reiterating an Outperform rating. Despite the better-than-anticipated results, Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) has chosen to maintain its guidance for the full year 2024, with Baird suggesting that this decision may indicate a degree of caution. Nonetheless, the medium-term outlook for DHR remains positive.

As of the end of the first quarter, 98 out of 919 hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held stakes in Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR). The largest stakeholder during this period was Boykin Currys Eagle Capital Management, with a $1.8 billion investment. The stock ranks among the top 3 on our list of the best scientific instruments stocks to buy.

RGA Investment Advisors stated the following regarding Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:

In our Q3 2023 commentary, we featured a section on our investment in Danaher Corporation (NYSE:DHR) entitled Purity in the Crown Jewel of Bioprocessing. Specifically, we were speaking to Cytiva, Danahers bioprocessing business formed by the merger of Pall Corp and GEs bioprocessing division. We will not repeat the features that attract us to bioprocessing in general, nor the elements of timeliness, though we will emphasize that our confidence in timeliness has actually increased since writing that piece. While Danaher has performed admirably ever since, its peer Sartorius, which was referenced by labeling bioprocessing an oligopolistic market, with a small number of critical players and extremely high barriers to entry.

Overall DHR ranks 2nd on our list of the best scientific instruments stocks to buy. You can visit 8 Best Scientific Instruments Stocks to Buy to see the other scientific instruments stocks that are on hedge funds radar. While we acknowledge the potential of DHR as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than DHR but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: Analyst Sees a New $25 Billion Opportunity for NVIDIA and Jim Cramer is Recommending These 10 Stocks in June.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
Dave Ramsey's Tough Advice For Woman Making $11,500/Month: 'Live Like No One Else So Later You Can Live And Give Like No One Else'

Personal finance guru Dave Ramsey gave tough advice on The Ramsey Show to a woman and her husband living paycheck to paycheck yet making $11,500 a month. Here's what advice Ramsey gave the couple.

Alyssa called in for guidance from the finance expert because she and her husband were worried about finances. Alyssa tells Ramsey that she's remarried, and together as a couple, they bring in $11,500 per month, yet they're unable to contribute to their retirement and only have around $3,000 in their savings.

Don't Miss:

Earning a combined salary puts the couple at an annual salary of $140,000, much higher than the average annual salary in the U.S. For example, USA Today reported that the U.S. Bureau of Labor released findings that the average American earned $59,384. Even with the amount doubled, Alyssa and her husband earn significantly more. So, why are they living paycheck to paycheck? This is what Ramsey wants to find out.

He starts by finding out how much debt the pair have, and Alyssa reveals that combined, they have $138,000 in debt, with $90,000 of it from Alyssa's studies to become a mental health care therapist. Her husband has the remaining $40,000 from his time at college, even though he did not want to attend college. But that wasn't all. They still owed an additional $60,000 on car payments and a mortgage with $240,000 still to go. So, the total debt is more than $130,000.

Ramsey's co-host, George Kamel, an expert on all things money, questions Alyssa about how quickly they can pay this debt off. He asks if they can throw up to $5,000 per month at the smallest debt. Alyssa's sigh of hesitance worries Kamel, and he asks her what is holding her back from zapping her debt away.

See Also: How much money will a $200,000 annuity pay out each month? The numbers may shock you.

Alyssas fear of taking $5,000 per month to pay off debt is motivated by ensuring her daughter has enough. Because Alyssa is self-employed and her husband works in construction, she reveals that she gets worried about "catastrophic expenses." But that's not what Ramsey was worried about listening to her talk.

He tells her, "You know what I'm worried about?" and dishes out some hard truths, "You make $130,000 a year and you're freaking broke. That's what I'm worried about." Ramsey points out that they're living a lifestyle they can't afford, and that's what she must be worried about.

Story continues

Trending: This Jeff Bezos-backed startup will allow you to become a landlord in just 10 minutes, and you only need $100.

"You have a lifestyle that's absolutely asinine, and that's nothing to do with a nine-year-old," Ramsey said. Alyssa tells the two finance experts that the money she needs for her daughter is for "just in case," an emergency savings fund. But Ramsey didn't buy it and explained, "But you're not doing anything about it. You got $3,000." He tells her in disbelief that her $3,000 in savings is just a "red herring" and "you're doing nothing about that except creating anxiety."

Ramsey tells Alyssa that she and her husband have no idea where their money goes, so to help them, Ramsey puts them on a detailed written budget. Ramsey tells her that looking objectively at their finances, he could easily see them being able to put aside at least $50,000 a year toward debt and should consider selling a car or two. He then dishes out some tough advice, "You live like no one else so that later you can give and live like no one else." To get out of debt, which he jokes has been so long it's like their family pet, Ramsey tells her it's going to be uncomfortable, but it has to be done.

Read Next:

"ACTIVE INVESTORS' SECRET WEAPON" Supercharge Your Stock Market Game with the #1 "news & everything else" trading tool: Benzinga Pro - Click here to start Your 14-Day Trial Now!

Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga?

This article Dave Ramsey's Tough Advice For Woman Making $11,500/Month: 'Live Like No One Else So Later You Can Live And Give Like No One Else' originally appeared on Benzinga.com

 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Carrier Global Corp showcases robust financial performance with significant year-over-year net income growth.

Strategic divestitures and acquisitions mark a transformative phase for the company.

Technological innovation and market leadership position Carrier Global Corp for future growth.

Global economic factors and competitive pressures present ongoing challenges.

Carrier Global Corp (NYSE:CARR), a leader in climate and energy solutions, has recently filed its 10-Q report on July 25, 2024. This SWOT analysis delves into the company's financial health and strategic positioning, informed by the latest data from the filing. Carrier Global Corp has demonstrated a remarkable financial performance, with net income attributable to common shareholders soaring to $2,337 million in the three months ended June 30, 2024, compared to $199 million in the same period last year. This impressive growth is further underscored by a substantial increase in total net sales, from $5,992 million to $6,689 million year-over-year for the same quarter. The company's strategic moves, including the acquisition of Viessmann and the divestiture of its fire and security and commercial refrigeration businesses, signal a focused realignment towards core competencies and growth areas.

Decoding Carrier Global Corp (CARR): A Strategic SWOT Insight

Strengths

Financial Robustness: Carrier Global Corp's financial strength is evident in its remarkable increase in net income, which surged from $199 million to $2,337 million year-over-year for the quarter ended June 30, 2024. This financial robustness is supported by a solid increase in total net sales, which rose from $5,992 million to $6,689 million in the same period. The company's ability to generate higher revenue and effectively manage costs has resulted in a strong balance sheet, positioning it well for future investments and shareholder returns.

Strategic Acquisitions and Divestitures: The strategic acquisition of Viessmann for approximately $13 billion has expanded Carrier Global Corp's HVAC offerings, particularly in the high-efficiency heating and renewable energy systems market in Europe. This move not only diversifies the company's product portfolio but also enhances its geographic footprint. Additionally, the planned divestiture of its fire and security and commercial refrigeration businesses allows Carrier to streamline operations and focus on its core segments, potentially improving operational efficiency and profitability.

Market Leadership and Innovation: Carrier Global Corp maintains a leadership position in the HVAC industry, with a 60% commercial and 40% residential sales mix. The company's commitment to innovation is reflected in its extensive product range, including industry-leading brands such as Carrier, Viessmann, Toshiba, and Automated Logic. Carrier's focus on intelligent, digitally-enabled lifecycle solutions positions it at the forefront of technological advancements in climate and energy solutions.

Story continues

Weaknesses

Dependence on Economic Cycles: Carrier Global Corp's performance is closely tied to the cyclical nature of the construction and real estate markets, particularly in the commercial sector. Economic downturns can lead to reduced demand for HVAC and refrigeration products, impacting the company's revenue and profitability. This dependence on economic cycles poses a risk to sustained growth, especially in volatile market conditions.

Integration Risks from Acquisitions: The integration of Viessmann into Carrier Global Corp's operations presents significant challenges. The success of this acquisition hinges on the company's ability to seamlessly integrate the new business, realize synergies, and manage the expanded product portfolio. Any missteps in this process could lead to operational inefficiencies and financial strain.

Competitive Pressure: Carrier Global Corp operates in a highly competitive industry, with numerous players vying for market share. Intense competition can lead to price pressures, margin erosion, and the need for continuous investment in technology and product development. Staying ahead of competitors requires constant innovation and strategic marketing, which can strain resources and affect the bottom line.

Opportunities

Expansion into Renewable Energy: The acquisition of Viessmann positions Carrier Global Corp to capitalize on the growing demand for renewable energy solutions. With an expanded product line that includes heat pumps, boilers, and photovoltaic systems, Carrier can tap into new markets and customer segments, driving growth and diversifying revenue streams.

Technological Advancements: Carrier Global Corp's focus on digital and intelligent solutions offers significant opportunities for growth. By leveraging advancements in IoT, AI, and machine learning, Carrier can enhance its product offerings, improve operational efficiency, and provide value-added services to customers. This technological edge can differentiate Carrier from competitors and drive market share gains.

Global Urbanization and Climate Change: The global trends of urbanization and climate change present opportunities for Carrier Global Corp to expand its footprint in emerging markets and offer solutions that address energy efficiency and sustainability. As cities grow and the need for environmentally friendly solutions increases, Carrier's expertise in HVAC and refrigeration can meet the demand for green buildings and infrastructure.

Threats

Global Economic Uncertainty: Economic instability, including fluctuations in currency exchange rates, commodity prices, and geopolitical tensions, can adversely affect Carrier Global Corp's international operations. These factors can lead to unpredictable business conditions, impacting the company's financial performance and strategic planning.

Regulatory Changes: Carrier Global Corp must navigate a complex regulatory landscape that includes environmental, health, and safety standards. Changes in regulations, particularly those related to energy efficiency and emissions, can result in increased compliance costs and necessitate product redesigns, affecting profitability.

Technological Disruption: The rapid pace of technological change poses a threat to Carrier Global Corp's existing product lines. Emerging technologies and new market entrants can disrupt the industry, potentially rendering Carrier's offerings obsolete. The

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.


General Dynamics Corp showcases robust revenue growth with a 18.1% increase in the first half of 2024 compared to the previous year.

Operating earnings reflect a strong upward trend, marking a 15.4% rise in the first six months of 2024.

Net earnings demonstrate a solid performance, with a 15.6% increase in the first half of 2024 over the same period in 2023.

General Dynamics Corp's comprehensive income faced a downturn, with a significant drop in the first half of 2024 compared to 2023.

General Dynamics Corp (NYSE:GD), a leading defense contractor and business jet manufacturer, has recently filed its 10-Q report on July 24, 2024. This SWOT analysis delves into the company's financial performance and strategic positioning, based on the latest financial data. The first half of 2024 has been promising for GD, with notable increases in revenue, operating earnings, and net earnings. However, comprehensive income has seen a decline, indicating areas that may require strategic attention. This analysis aims to provide investors with a data-driven perspective on GD's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, informing investment decisions and contributing to the company's market understanding.

Decoding General Dynamics Corp (GD): A Strategic SWOT Insight

Strengths

Financial Performance and Market Leadership: General Dynamics Corp (NYSE:GD) has demonstrated a strong financial performance in the first half of 2024. The company's revenue from products and services has increased significantly, with a total revenue of $22.7 billion, up from $20.0 billion in the same period last year. This growth is a testament to GD's market leadership and the high demand for its diverse offerings, including Gulfstream business jets and defense products like the M1 Abrams tank. The operating earnings have also seen a healthy increase to $2.2 billion, up from $1.9 billion, indicating efficient operational management and cost control.

Innovation and Product Certification: GD's commitment to innovation is evident in its recent achievements, such as the FAA and EASA certifications for the ultra-long-range, ultra-large-cabin G700 aircraft. This not only showcases the company's engineering prowess but also opens up new market opportunities and strengthens its brand in the aerospace sector. The anticipated delivery of about 50 G700 aircraft within the year reflects the company's ability to capitalize on its strengths and meet market demands effectively.

Weaknesses

Comprehensive Income Volatility: Despite the strong operational performance, General Dynamics Corp has experienced a notable decline in comprehensive income, from $1.9 billion in the first half of 2023 to $1.4 billion in the same period of 2024. This reduction could be indicative of underlying issues such as market volatility or increased costs that have not been fully offset by revenue growth. It is crucial for GD to address these challenges to maintain investor confidence and financial stability.

Story continues

Supply Chain and Production Challenges: The company's Aerospace segment has faced supply chain challenges that have affected its ability to ramp up production in response to strong customer demand. These challenges have led to out-of-sequence manufacturing, which can increase costs and reduce operational efficiency. Additionally, the geopolitical tensions and the COVID-19 pandemic have further strained the supply chain, potentially impacting GD's ability to deliver on contracts and maintain its production schedules.

Opportunities

Global Defense Spending Increase: The current geopolitical climate, characterized by increased tensions and defense spending, presents significant opportunities for General Dynamics Corp. The company's expertise in land combat vehicles, munitions, and marine systems positions it well to benefit from the growing demand for defense products. With a backlog of $91.3 billion, GD is poised to capitalize on this trend and expand its market share in the defense sector.

Technological Advancements: General Dynamics Corp's focus on technological innovation, as demonstrated by the successful certification of the G700 aircraft, provides an opportunity to lead in the aerospace industry. Continued investment in research and development can lead to new product offerings and improvements in existing products, further solidifying GD's competitive edge and opening up new revenue streams.

Threats

Intense Competition and Market Dynamics: The aerospace and defense sectors are highly competitive, with several established players vying for market share. General Dynamics Corp must continuously innovate and improve its offerings to stay ahead of competitors. Market dynamics, such as fluctuating defense budgets and changes in government policies, can also pose threats to GD's business and financial performance.

Regulatory and Legal Challenges: As a major defense contractor, General Dynamics Corp is subject to stringent regulations and government audits. Legal proceedings, such as the ongoing class action lawsuit alleging anti-competitive practices, can result in financial penalties and damage the company's reputation. It is imperative for GD to navigate these challenges effectively to avoid adverse impacts on its operations and financial health.

In conclusion, General Dynamics Corp (NYSE:GD) exhibits a robust financial performance with significant strengths in market leadership and innovation. However, the company must address weaknesses such as comprehensive income volatility and supply chain challenges to sustain its growth trajectory. Opportunities in increased defense spending and technological advancements are within reach, but GD must remain vigilant against threats from competition and regulatory landscapes. Overall, GD's strategic focus and operational excellence position it well to navigate the complex market dynamics and continue its legacy of success.

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.


Robust growth in premium revenue, up 17% from the previous year.

Strategic acquisitions and contract wins expanding market presence.

Challenges with Medicaid redeterminations and competitive bidding processes.

Opportunities in government-sponsored healthcare programs amidst evolving market dynamics.

Molina Healthcare Inc (NYSE:MOH), a leading provider of managed healthcare services, recently released its 10-Q filing on July 25, 2024. The company, known for its Medicaid-related solutions for low-income families and individuals, operates through a network of subsidiaries licensed as health maintenance organizations (HMOs). The filing reveals a significant increase in premium revenue, reaching $9.4 billion for the quarter, up from $8.0 billion in the previous year. This growth is a testament to the company's expanding membership base and strategic initiatives. However, the net income saw a slight decrease from $309 million to $301 million year-over-year, indicating areas where operational efficiencies could be enhanced. As we delve into a SWOT analysis, we will explore the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that shape Molina Healthcare Inc's market position and future prospects.

Decoding Molina Healthcare Inc (MOH): A Strategic SWOT Insight

Strengths

Financial Growth and Stability: Molina Healthcare Inc has demonstrated robust financial performance, with a 17% increase in premium revenue year-over-year. This growth is attributed to an expanding membership base across all segments, primarily due to new Medicaid contract wins, acquisitions, and organic growth within the company's current footprint. The consistent rise in premium revenue underscores the company's ability to attract and retain members, which is a critical strength in the competitive healthcare market.

Strategic Acquisitions and Market Expansion: The company's strategic acquisitions, such as the recent purchase of ConnectiCare, have bolstered its market presence and diversified its offerings. With approximately 140,000 new members added from this acquisition alone, Molina Healthcare Inc is well-positioned to leverage its increased scale to drive operational efficiencies and negotiate favorable terms with providers. Additionally, the company's successful bids for new contracts, such as the Medicaid contract in Mississippi, further solidify its competitive edge and growth trajectory.

Investment Income and Cost Management: Molina Healthcare Inc's investment income has seen a 19% increase compared to the same quarter in the previous year, contributing positively to the company's operating income. Moreover, the company has maintained a disciplined approach to managing its general and administrative expenses, achieving a lower G&A ratio compared to the previous year. This financial prudence enhances the company's ability to reinvest in growth initiatives and manage medical costs effectively.

Story continues

Weaknesses

Dependence on Government Contracts: A significant portion of Molina Healthcare Inc's revenue is derived from government-funded programs, making it susceptible to changes in policy, funding, and competitive bidding processes. The recent exclusion of Molina Healthcare of Virginia as an awardee for the Cardinal Care Managed Care procurement highlights the risks associated with reliance on government contracts. Such developments can impact the company's revenue streams and necessitate a strategic response to mitigate potential losses.

Operational Challenges: The company faces operational challenges, such as the impact of Medicaid redeterminations, which could affect membership retention and revenue projections. Additionally, the cybersecurity incident involving Change Healthcare, a major claims processing vendor, underscores the need for robust data security measures and contingency planning to ensure uninterrupted operations and protect member data.

Market Concentration Risks: Molina Healthcare Inc's business is concentrated in a few key states, such as California, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. While this concentration has contributed to the company's growth, it also exposes the company to risks associated with regulatory changes, economic downturns, or competitive pressures within these specific markets. Diversifying its geographic footprint could help mitigate these risks and ensure long-term stability.

Opportunities

Growth in Government-Sponsored Programs: The evolving dynamics of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplaces and the increasing integration of Medicare and Medicaid programs present significant opportunities for Molina Healthcare Inc. The company's expertise in managing government-sponsored healthcare plans positions it well to capitalize on these trends and expand its member base.

Technological Advancements: Investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and other technological innovations offer opportunities for Molina Healthcare Inc to enhance operational efficiencies, improve care management initiatives, and reduce administrative costs. Embracing digital transformation can also lead to improved member experiences and competitive differentiation in the market.

New State Contracts and Expansions: The company's proactive approach to bidding for new state contracts and expanding into new regions, as evidenced by the Nebraska Medicaid contract commencement, provides avenues for growth. Winning these contracts can increase Molina Healthcare Inc's market share and reinforce its reputation as a reliable provider of managed healthcare services.

Threats

Regulatory and Compliance Risks: The healthcare industry is heavily regulated, and Molina Healthcare Inc must navigate a complex landscape of federal and state laws. Compliance failures or adverse legal actions, such as the ongoing legal action in Virginia, could result in significant fines, sanctions, or reputational damage, posing a threat to the company's operations and financial health.

Competitive Pressures: The managed care industry is characterized by intense competition and consolidation. Molina Healthcare Inc faces the threat of emerging competitors and larger entities that may have greater resources or more aggressive pricing strategies. Staying ahead requires continuous innovation, strategic partnerships, and a focus on member satisfaction.

Economic and Market Volatility: Economic downturns, shifts in healthcare spending, or changes in government funding for Medicaid and Medicare programs

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.


Robust financial performance with significant sales growth in Aeronautics Systems.

Strategic realignment to enhance focus on defense systems and space systems.

Increased global tensions and defense spending present opportunities for expansion.

Supply chain challenges and competitive pressures remain key threats.

Northrop Grumman Corp (NYSE:NOC), a leading global aerospace and defense technology company, has recently released its 10-Q filing dated July 25, 2024. The filing reveals a strong financial performance, with total sales increasing by 7% to $10,218 million in the second quarter of 2024 compared to $9,576 million in the same period of 2023. Net earnings also showed a robust increase, rising from $812 million in Q2 2023 to $940 million in Q2 2024. This financial overview sets the stage for a detailed SWOT analysis, providing investors with a comprehensive understanding of the company's strategic positioning.

Decoding Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC): A Strategic SWOT Insight

Strengths

Financial Performance and Market Position: Northrop Grumman Corp's financial health is a testament to its strong market position. With a 7% increase in total sales and a 16% rise in net earnings for the second quarter of 2024, the company demonstrates solid growth, particularly in its Aeronautics Systems sector, which saw a 14% increase in sales. This financial stability is underpinned by a diverse product portfolio and a significant presence in the defense sector, which ensures steady demand for its offerings.

Innovation and Technology Leadership: Northrop Grumman Corp is at the forefront of technological innovation in the defense industry. Its investment in advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and cyber capabilities, positions the company as a leader in developing cutting-edge solutions for modern warfare and security challenges. This technological edge is crucial for maintaining competitive advantages and securing new contracts.

Weaknesses

Supply Chain Vulnerabilities: Despite its strong financial performance, Northrop Grumman Corp faces challenges in its supply chain, exacerbated by global events such as the conflict in Ukraine and the ongoing pandemic. These events have led to increased costs, shortages in labor and materials, and extended lead times, which could impact the company's ability to meet contract deadlines and control costs effectively.

Reliance on Government Contracts: A significant portion of Northrop Grumman Corp's revenue is derived from contracts with the U.S. government. While this provides a stable revenue stream, it also exposes the company to risks associated with changes in government spending, procurement policies, and political factors. Any reduction in defense budgets or shifts in priorities could adversely affect the company's financial performance.

Story continues

Opportunities

Global Defense Spending Trends: Rising global tensions and security challenges present opportunities for Northrop Grumman Corp to expand its business. The company is well-positioned to benefit from increased defense spending by the U.S. and its allies, as governments seek to modernize their military capabilities in response to evolving threats. This environment could lead to new contracts and growth in international markets.

Strategic Realignment and New Programs: The realignment of the Strategic Deterrent Systems division from Space Systems to Defense Systems, effective July 1, 2024, reflects Northrop Grumman Corp's strategic focus on areas with high growth potential. The company's involvement in key programs like the Sentinel and HALO projects positions it to capitalize on opportunities in missile defense and space exploration, sectors expected to see significant investment in the coming years.

Threats

Competitive Pressures: The defense industry is highly competitive, with several large players vying for government contracts. Northrop Grumman Corp must continuously innovate and offer cost-effective solutions to maintain its market share. Competitors may introduce new technologies or more aggressive pricing strategies that could erode the company's competitive position.

Regulatory and Legal Risks: Northrop Grumman Corp operates in a heavily regulated industry, subject to stringent government oversight. Changes in laws, regulations, or enforcement practices could increase compliance costs or lead to penalties that impact the company's operations and reputation. Additionally, legal proceedings and disputes could result in financial liabilities and distract management from core business activities.

In conclusion, Northrop Grumman Corp (NYSE:NOC) exhibits a robust financial foundation, marked by significant sales growth and technological leadership in the defense sector. However, the company must navigate supply chain vulnerabilities and its reliance on government contracts. Opportunities for expansion are ripe due to increased global defense spending and strategic realignments, while competitive pressures and regulatory risks pose ongoing threats. Overall, Northrop Grumman Corp's strategic initiatives and market positioning suggest a strong potential for continued growth, provided it effectively manages the challenges ahead.

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.


Tradeweb Markets Inc showcases robust revenue growth and solid operating income in its latest 10-Q filing.

The company's strategic acquisitions and technological advancements position it well for future growth.

Despite strong performance, Tradeweb must navigate the complexities of a competitive and regulatory landscape.

Tradeweb's forward-looking strategies indicate a commitment to leveraging strengths and addressing market challenges.

Tradeweb Markets Inc, a leading fixed-income trading platform, has recently released its 10-Q filing dated July 25, 2024, providing a comprehensive view of its financial performance and strategic positioning. The company has demonstrated a significant increase in revenues, with transaction fees and commissions rising to $330,475 thousand for the three months ended June 30, 2024, compared to $246,461 thousand for the same period in 2023. Subscription fees and LSEG market data fees also saw an uptick, contributing to a total revenue of $404,951 thousand for the quarter, up from $310,613 thousand year-over-year. Operating income followed suit, increasing from $116,335 thousand to $162,494 thousand. Net income attributable to Tradeweb Markets Inc stood at $119,239 thousand, reflecting a solid financial foundation. These figures underscore the company's financial health and its ability to generate shareholder value.

Decoding Tradeweb Markets Inc (TW): A Strategic SWOT Insight

Strengths

Revenue Growth and Diversification: Tradeweb Markets Inc has exhibited a strong revenue growth trajectory, with its latest 10-Q filing revealing a significant year-over-year increase. The company's diversified revenue streams, including transaction fees, subscription fees, and market data fees, have collectively contributed to this upward trend. The growth in transaction fees, from $246,461 thousand to $330,475 thousand for the quarter, is particularly noteworthy as it indicates a robust demand for Tradeweb's trading platforms and services. Additionally, the increase in subscription fees from $45,748 thousand to $50,746 thousand and LSEG market data fees from $15,461 thousand to $20,581 thousand reflects the company's ability to monetize its offerings effectively. This revenue diversification not only enhances financial stability but also reduces reliance on any single income source, positioning Tradeweb well against market volatility.

Technological Leadership and Innovation: Tradeweb Markets Inc's commitment to technological innovation is a core strength that sets it apart from competitors. The company's electronic trading networks are at the forefront of the industry, offering advanced features and seamless integration for broker/dealers and institutional clients. Tradeweb's technological prowess is further evidenced by strategic acquisitions, such as the r8fin Acquisition, which enhances its algorithmic trading capabilities and the Yieldbroker Acquisition, expanding its geographical footprint in the Australian and New Zealand markets. These moves not only demonstrate the company's proactive approach to growth but also its dedication to maintaining a competitive edge through technology-driven solutions.

Story continues

Weaknesses

Operational Costs and Expenses: While Tradeweb Markets Inc has shown impressive revenue growth, it also faces the challenge of managing operational costs and expenses, which have risen from $194,278 thousand to $242,457 thousand year-over-year for the quarter. Employee compensation and benefits, the largest expense category, increased from $103,924 thousand to $137,236 thousand, reflecting the costs associated with retaining and attracting top talent in a competitive market. Depreciation and amortization expenses also saw a notable increase from $45,887 thousand to $49,936 thousand. These growing expenses, if not managed effectively, could impact the company's profitability and margins over time, necessitating a strategic review of cost structures and efficiency measures.

Market Competition and Innovation Pressure: Tradeweb Markets Inc operates in a highly competitive industry where innovation is critical for maintaining market share. The pressure to continuously innovate and upgrade platforms can strain resources and require significant investment in research and development. Competitors with greater financial or technological resources could potentially outpace Tradeweb's innovation efforts, leading to a loss of competitive advantage. Additionally, the need to keep up with evolving customer demands and regulatory changes adds to the complexity of sustaining a leading market position.

Opportunities

Expansion into Emerging Markets: Tradeweb Markets Inc's global presence and technological infrastructure present significant opportunities for expansion into emerging markets. With offices in key financial hubs and a track record of successful acquisitions, such as Yieldbroker, Tradeweb is well-positioned to capitalize on the growth potential in regions like Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. By leveraging its existing platforms and expertise, the company can tap into new customer segments and diversify its revenue base further, driving long-term growth.

Regulatory Environment and Market Evolution: The evolving regulatory landscape in financial markets presents opportunities for Tradeweb Markets Inc to offer tailored solutions that address specific compliance needs. As regulations become more complex, clients seek reliable platforms that can navigate the regulatory maze efficiently. Tradeweb's ability to adapt quickly to regulatory changes and provide compliant trading environments can attract a larger client base and strengthen its market position. Furthermore, the shift towards electronic trading in various asset classes, accelerated by the pandemic, aligns with Tradeweb's core offerings, providing a conducive environment for growth.

Threats

Regulatory Risks and Compliance Costs: Tradeweb Markets Inc, like all financial institutions, faces the threat of regulatory risks that can impact its operations and profitability. Changes in laws, regulations, or policies affecting the financial services industry, particularly those related to electronic trading platforms, can result in increased compliance costs and operational complexities. The company must continuously monitor and adapt to these changes to avoid penalties and maintain its reputation. Failure to comply with regulatory requirements could lead to fines, sanctions, or restrictions on business activities, which would adversely affect Tradeweb

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.


Union Pacific Corp showcases robust financial growth with a 1% increase in freight revenues.

Operational efficiency improvements reflected in flat freight car velocity despite weather challenges.

Strategic investments and operational excellence position UNP for sustainable growth.

UNP's proactive approach to market fluctuations and operational challenges underscores resilience.

Union Pacific Corp (NYSE:UNP), the largest public railroad in North America, based in Omaha, Nebraska, recently released its 10-Q filing dated July 25, 2024. The filing reveals a company that continues to leverage its extensive rail network to generate significant revenue, with a slight increase in freight revenues from $11,225 million in 2023 to $11,254 million in 2024. The company's net income also saw a healthy increase from $3,199 million to $3,314 million, with diluted earnings per share rising from $5.24 to $5.43. These financials reflect Union Pacific's ability to navigate the complexities of the transportation industry and maintain profitability amidst dynamic market conditions.

Decoding Union Pacific Corp (UNP): A Strategic SWOT Insight

Strengths

Financial Performance and Operational Efficiency: Union Pacific Corp's financial strength is evident in its consistent revenue growth and profitability. The company's operating income increased from $4,498 million in 2023 to $4,772 million in 2024, showcasing its ability to manage expenses effectively and capitalize on revenue-generating opportunities. Additionally, the slight increase in freight revenues, despite a challenging economic environment, underscores the company's robust pricing strategy and operational efficiency.

Extensive Rail Network and Market Position: UNP's extensive rail network, covering over 30,000 miles, provides a significant competitive advantage. This vast network allows the company to serve a diverse range of industries, including coal, industrial products, intermodal containers, agriculture goods, chemicals, fertilizers, and automotive goods. UNP's strategic position in the market is further strengthened by its ownership stake in Mexican railroad Ferromex, which contributes to approximately 10% of its revenue, highlighting the company's cross-border trade capabilities.

Weaknesses

Dependency on Economic Cycles: Union Pacific's performance is closely tied to the economic cycles of the industries it serves. Fluctuations in coal demand, agricultural production, and industrial output can significantly impact freight volumes and, consequently, revenue. The 10-Q filing indicates a slight increase in volume, which may be susceptible to downturns in these sectors, potentially affecting the company's financial stability.

Story continues

Operational Disruptions: The filing also notes that UNP faced multiple weather events in the second quarter of 2024, which, while not catastrophic individually, cumulatively impacted network fluidity. Such disruptions can lead to increased operational costs and service delays, affecting customer satisfaction and the company's reputation for reliability.

Opportunities

Expansion in Intermodal and Automotive Segments: Union Pacific has observed growth in international intermodal and finished automotive shipments, as indicated by the increased revenues from these segments. This presents an opportunity for UNP to further expand its services in these areas, leveraging its rail network to meet the growing demand for efficient and cost-effective transportation solutions.

Technological Advancements: Investing in technology can enhance operational efficiency and safety, reduce costs, and improve service quality. UNP can capitalize on advancements in automation, data analytics, and predictive maintenance to stay ahead of the competition and meet the evolving needs of its customers.

Threats

Competitive Pressure: The transportation industry is highly competitive, with numerous players vying for market share. Union Pacific must continuously innovate and improve its service offerings to maintain its leadership position. Competitors with newer infrastructure or more advanced technologies could pose a threat to UNP's market dominance.

Regulatory and Environmental Challenges: Union Pacific operates in a heavily regulated industry, and changes in regulations, particularly those related to environmental protection, can impose additional costs and operational constraints. The company must navigate these challenges while balancing the need for sustainable practices with business growth objectives.

In conclusion, Union Pacific Corp (NYSE:UNP) demonstrates a strong financial foundation and operational resilience, as evidenced by its latest SEC 10-Q filing. The company's strengths lie in its robust financial performance, extensive rail network, and strategic market position. However, it must address weaknesses such as its dependency on economic cycles and susceptibility to operational disruptions. Opportunities for growth exist in expanding intermodal and automotive segments and embracing technological advancements. UNP must also remain vigilant of threats from competitive pressure and regulatory changes. Overall, Union Pacific's strategic focus and proactive management position it well for future success.

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.


We recently compiled a list of the 10 Best Information Technology Services Stocks to Buy. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) stands against the other information technology services stocks.

Information technology (IT) services are a key component of the broader IT market, which also includes services, devices, enterprise software, and data center systems. By 2023, global IT spending had surged to over $1.3 trillion. Regionally, North America and Asia were projected to account for 66% of global IT expenditure in 2022. Meanwhile, IT services spending in Latin America has consistently held a 6% share since 2019. Cloud computing is one segment of the broader IT market that is experiencing robust growth, with end-user spending anticipated to exceed $590 billion by 2023. Projections from Mordor Intelligence indicate an increase from $0.68 trillion in 2024 to an estimated $1.44 trillion by 2029, reflecting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.4%. This upward trend is expected to persist, with the market value approaching $2.5 trillion by 2032. These figures highlight the increasing adoption and utilization of cloud solutions across various industries.

On another front, the advent of 5G technology has led companies to establish networks on their premises. According to Ericsson, global 5G subscriptions are projected to exceed 5.6 billion by the end of 2029, accounting for 60% of all mobile subscriptions. Set to replace 4G by delivering ultra-fast speeds and significantly reduced latency, 5G is expected to become the leading mobile access technology by 2028. In Q1 2024 alone, 5G subscriptions surged by 160 million, bringing the total to 1.7 billion.

According to Gartner's latest forecast, worldwide IT spending will reach $5.06 trillion in 2024, marking an 8% increase from 2023. This revised growth rate is up from the previous quarter's estimate of 6.8%, setting the stage for IT spending to exceed $8 trillion well before the decade's end. Additionally, spending on data center systems is anticipated to experience a significant growth surge, rising from 4% in 2023 to 10% in 2024, largely driven by preparations for generative AI. Speaking on this, John-David Lovelock, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, said the following:

"Spending on IT services is projected to grow by 9.7%, surpassing $1.52 trillion and becoming the largest market tracked by Gartner. Enterprises are increasingly unable to compete with IT service firms in attracting talent with critical IT skill sets. As a result, there is a rising need for investment in consulting services over internal staffing. This year marks an inflection point, with more spending on consulting than on internal staff for the first time."

Story continues

Moreover, the AI industry has seen significant growth, with global funding doubling to $66.8 billion by 2021. According to a report by Precedence Research, the market will grow to approximately $2,575.2 billion by 2032, reflecting a CAGR of 19% from 2023 to 2032. Additionally, PwC suggests that AI could contribute around $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, surpassing the current combined output of China and India. This contribution is expected to consist of $6.6 trillion from increased productivity and $9.1 trillion from effects related to heightened consumption.

Our Methodology

To identify the best information technology services stocks to buy now, we utilized Insider Monkey's extensive database, which tracks 920 hedge funds as of Q1 2024. We selected the information technology services stocks that had the highest number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletters strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

A team of IT experts discussing the latest network security trends over a laptop screen.

Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 82

Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) has emerged as a leading vendor for AI-oriented servers, which are in high demand as companies invest in infrastructure for predictive and generative AI.

Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) reported first-quarter earnings on May 30 that surpassed analysts expectations for both earnings and sales. The company projected current-quarter earnings of $1.65 per share and sales between $23.5 billion and $24.5 billion, while analysts anticipated $23.35 billion. For the full fiscal year, Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) forecasted sales between $93.5 billion and $97.5 billion. The company also reported a net income of $955 million for the quarter, or $1.32 per diluted share, compared to $578 million, or $0.79, in the same period last year. Dells Infrastructure Solutions Group, which includes data center sales, saw a 22% annual increase in sales, reaching $9.2 billion. In addition, the company's server unit experienced significant growth, with sales rising 42% to $5.5 billion, driven by strong demand for AI servers.

Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan reiterated his Buy rating for Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) following the Q1 earnings report. Mohan believes the AI adoption phase is still in its early stages and expects continued momentum around AI servers. He set a $180 price target for Dell, indicating a 33% upside potential from current levels.

As of the close of Q1 2024, 82 investors disclosed positions in Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL), with total stakes amounting to $2.97 billion, an increase from $2.81 billion in the previous quarter.

Carillon Scout Mid Cap Fund stated the following regarding Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:

Dell Technologies Inc. (NYSE:DELL) reported results that exceeded earnings expectations and announced a better than expected AI-optimized server order pipeline. We expect Dell to participate in the growth of artificial intelligence hardware in its server, storage and personal computing franchises. Long-term, we like the companys depth and breadth of products and services, as well as its focus on keeping costs low.

Overall DELL ranks 5th on our list of the best information technology services stocks to buy. You can visit 10 Best Information Technology Services Stocks to Buy to see the other information technology services stocks that are on hedge funds radar. While we acknowledge the potential of DELL as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than DELL but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: Analyst Sees a New $25 Billion Opportunity for NVIDIA and 10 Best of Breed Stocks to Buy For The Third Quarter of 2024 According to Bank of America.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
As European markets navigate a challenging landscape with the CAC 40 Index experiencing a 2.46% decline amid broader regional tensions, investors are increasingly attentive to stable income opportunities. In this context, dividend stocks like Aubay Societe Anonyme offer a potential avenue for steady returns amidst market volatility. A good dividend stock typically combines reliable payouts with strong business fundamentals, which can be particularly appealing in uncertain economic times as noted in current market conditions.

Top 10 Dividend Stocks In France

Name Dividend Yield Dividend Rating Rubis (ENXTPA:RUI) 6.96%  CBo Territoria (ENXTPA:CBOT) 6.86%  SCOR (ENXTPA:SCR) 8.73%  Carrefour (ENXTPA:CA) 5.99%  Teleperformance (ENXTPA:TEP) 3.72%  Arkema (ENXTPA:AKE) 4.18%  VIEL & Cie societe anonyme (ENXTPA:VIL) 4.03%  Sanofi (ENXTPA:SAN) 4.02%  Exacompta Clairefontaine (ENXTPA:ALEXA) 4.38%  Piscines Desjoyaux (ENXTPA:ALPDX) 8.47% 

Click here to see the full list of 36 stocks from our Top Euronext Paris Dividend Stocks screener.

Let's take a closer look at a couple of our picks from the screened companies.

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: Aubay Societe Anonyme operates in providing application services across multiple European countries including Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, with a market capitalization of approximately 485.13 million.

Operations: Aubay Societe Anonyme generates its revenue from various segments, with notable contributions from Banking/Finance (205.60 million), Insurance and Social Protection (107.50 million), Telecoms, Media & Gaming (77.70 million), Services/Utilities/Health (70.10 million), Industry/Transportation (29.60 million), Administration (31.40 million), and Commerce & Distribution (12.20 million).

Dividend Yield: 3.2%

Aubay Societe Anonyme's dividend yield at 3.23% is modest compared to other high-yield stocks in France, reflecting a cautious approach amidst its unstable dividend history over the last decade. Despite this, both earnings and cash flows substantiate its current payouts with payout ratios of 46.9% and 39.5%, respectively, ensuring dividends are well-supported financially. Recent strategic moves include a share repurchase program initiated on May 21, 2024, enhancing shareholder value by potentially reducing share supply and supporting per-share metrics.

Story continues

ENXTPA:AUB Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: Carrefour SA operates a diverse range of food and non-food retail stores across multiple formats and channels in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, with a market capitalization of approximately 9.84 billion.

Operations: Carrefour SA generates 39.02 billion in revenue from France, 24.27 billion from Europe (excluding France), and 22.54 billion from Latin America.

Dividend Yield: 6%

Carrefour SA's recent earnings show a significant increase in net income to 867 million from 25 million year-over-year, with sales slightly up at 40.74 billion. Despite this, the company's dividend track record remains unstable with volatile payments over the past decade. Dividends are covered by both earnings and cash flows, with payout ratios of 66.8% and 21.1% respectively, suggesting financial capability to sustain dividends despite past inconsistencies. However, profit margins have decreased from last year, indicating potential pressure on future profitability and dividend stability.

ENXTPA:CA Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Dividend Rating: 

Overview: Colas SA is a global company specializing in the construction and maintenance of transport infrastructure, with a market capitalization of approximately 5.71 billion.

Operations: Colas SA generates revenue primarily through its diverse geographical operations, including 5.97 billion from Roads France-Overseas France/IO, 3.36 billion from Roads EMEA (Europe-Middle East-Africa), 2.38 billion from Canada Routes, 2.24 billion from Roads United States, and 1.38 billion from Railways and Other Activities.

Dividend Yield: 4.2%

Colas has experienced a 22.8% earnings growth over the past year, yet its dividend performance presents challenges. With a dividend yield of 4.2%, it falls below the top quartile of French dividend payers at 5.35%. Despite a high payout ratio of 81.3%, dividends are sufficiently covered by both earnings and cash flows, with respective payout ratios of 81.3% and 58.9%. However, dividends have been historically volatile and unreliable, reflecting an unstable track record over the past decade.

ENXTPA:RE Dividend History as at Jul 2024

Seize The Opportunity

Dive into all 36 of the Top Euronext Paris Dividend Stocks we have identified here.

Invested in any of these stocks? Simplify your portfolio management with Simply Wall St and stay ahead with our alerts for any critical updates on your stocks.

Streamline your investment strategy with Simply Wall St's app for free and benefit from extensive research on stocks across all corners of the world.

Seeking Other Investments?

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Companies discussed in this article include ENXTPA:AUB ENXTPA:CA and ENXTPA:RE.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
As global markets experience shifts, with a notable rotation towards small-cap and value shares in the U.S., Sweden's market also presents unique opportunities for investors looking to diversify their portfolios. Amid these changing dynamics, exploring lesser-known small-cap stocks like engcon can offer potential growth avenues aligned with current investment trends focusing on value-oriented sectors. In this context, a good stock typically exhibits solid fundamentals, a strong business model, and the potential to benefit from current economic conditions. Stocks like engcon that operate within niche markets or possess innovative technologies might be particularly poised for appreciation in an environment where investors are increasingly looking at value and small-cap investments.

Top 10 Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals In Sweden

Name Debt To Equity Revenue Growth Earnings Growth Health Rating Softronic NA 3.58% 7.41%  Bahnhof NA 9.47% 15.07%  Duni 29.33% 10.78% 22.98%  AB Traction NA 5.38% 5.19%  Firefly NA 15.31% 29.94%  Creades NA -28.54% -27.09%  Linc NA 56.01% 0.54%  Rederiaktiebolaget Gotland NA -14.29% 18.06%  Karnell Group 44.29% 22.04% 39.45%  Solid Forsakringsaktiebolag NA 7.64% 28.44% 

Click here to see the full list of 54 stocks from our Swedish Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals screener.

Let's uncover some gems from our specialized screener.

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: Engcon AB (publ) specializes in the design, production, and sale of excavator tools across a broad international market including Europe, North and South America, and Asia-Pacific regions, with a market capitalization of SEK 15.76 billion.

Operations: The company generates revenue primarily through the sale of construction machinery and equipment, with a notable increase in gross profit from SEK 447 million in 2019 to SEK 968 million by the first quarter of 2023. It manages significant operating expenses which include sales & marketing and research & development costs, contributing to a net income margin that has seen fluctuations, most recently recorded at approximately 17.98% as of mid-2023.

Engcon, a notable player in the machinery sector, reported a challenging fiscal period with sales dropping to SEK 844 million from SEK 1.2 billion year-over-year and net income falling to SEK 102 million from SEK 224 million. Despite these hurdles, the company's debt management remains robust with a satisfactory net debt to equity ratio of 8.5%. Looking ahead, Engcon is poised for recovery with earnings expected to grow by 44% annually, supported by strong EBIT coverage of interest payments at 20.4 times, signaling financial stability amidst expansion efforts marked by strategic executive enhancements aimed at bolstering operations for future growth.

OM:ENGCON B Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: Scandi Standard AB (publ) is a producer and seller of chilled, frozen, and ready-to-eat chicken products, operating across Sweden, Norway, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom and other European countries with a market capitalization of SEK 5.11 billion.

Operations: The company generates its primary revenue from the Ready-To-Cook and Ready-To-Eat segments, contributing significantly to a total revenue of SEK 12.98 billion as of the latest report. It operates with a gross profit margin of 38.61%, reflecting its cost management in production processes despite varying operational costs over recent periods.

Scandi Standard, a lesser-discussed gem in Sweden's stock market, is trading at a significant 46% below its estimated fair value. The company recently secured a SEK 3.2 billion sustainability-linked bank loan, enhancing its financial flexibility for growth. Despite not outperforming the food industry's earnings growth last year, Scandi Standard has high-quality earnings and forecasts an annual profit increase of 20%. Additionally, it has successfully reduced its debt-to-equity ratio from 122% to 61% over five years.

OM:SCST Debt to Equity as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: TF Bank AB (publ) is a digital bank that offers consumer banking services and e-commerce solutions via its proprietary IT platform, with a market capitalization of SEK 5.74 billion.

Operations: The company generates its revenue through three primary segments: credit cards, consumer lending, and ecommerce solutions excluding credit cards. It consistently achieves a gross profit margin of 100%, indicating that it operates without the cost of goods sold. The business model focuses on expanding these financial services while managing operating expenses which include sales & marketing and general & administrative costs to maintain profitability.

TF Bank, a lesser-known Swedish entity, is showing promising financial health with significant earnings growth of 21.3% over the past year, outpacing the industry average of 10.4%. Currently trading at 48.6% below its estimated fair value, it offers potential upside for investors. Despite challenges like a high bad loans ratio at 10.6%, TF Bank maintains a low allowance for bad loans at 62%, signaling areas needing attention in risk management. With total assets of SEK24.1B and robust deposit and loan portfolios, the bank's foundational stability is evident, supported by primarily low-risk funding sources constituting 95% of liabilities.

OM:TFBANK Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024

Key Takeaways

Access the full spectrum of 54 Swedish Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals by clicking on this link.

Are any of these part of your asset mix? Tap into the analytical power of Simply Wall St's portfolio to get a 360-degree view on how they're shaping up.

Invest smarter with the free Simply Wall St app providing detailed insights into every stock market around the globe.

Ready To Venture Into Other Investment Styles?

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 OM:ENGCON B OM:SCST and OM:TFBANK.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
The United Kingdom market has seen a positive uptrend, rising by 4.5% over the past year with earnings expected to grow by 13% annually. In this context, identifying stocks that have not yet caught the attention of mainstream investors but show potential for growth can be particularly compelling.

Top 10 Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals In The United Kingdom

Name Debt To Equity Revenue Growth Earnings Growth Health Rating Andrews Sykes Group NA 1.69% 3.16%  Globaltrans Investment 15.40% 2.68% 16.51%  London Security 0.31% 9.47% 7.41%  Georgia Capital NA -27.80% 18.94%  Impellam Group 31.12% -5.43% -6.86%  M&G Credit Income Investment Trust NA -0.35% 1.18%  Fix Price Group 43.59% 12.53% 23.49%  Ros Agro 57.18% 17.80% 18.35%  BBGI Global Infrastructure 0.02% 6.58% 9.90%  Mountview Estates 16.64% 4.50% -0.59% 

Click here to see the full list of 77 stocks from our UK Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals screener.

Let's dive into some prime choices out of from the screener.

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: Bioventix PLC is a company focused on the creation, manufacturing, and supply of sheep monoclonal antibodies for diagnostic uses globally, with a market capitalization of 227.06 million.

Operations: The biotechnology firm generates revenue through its specialized products, evidenced by a consistent gross profit margin averaging around 93.74% over the past decade, reflecting efficient cost management and strong pricing power. The company's net income has shown growth, reaching 8.67 million as of the latest reporting period in 2024, up from 1.61 million in late 2013.

Bioventix, a lesser-known player in the biotech sector, showcases solid financial health with a debt-free status and a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.2, below the industry average of 32.6. The company's earnings have grown by 3% over the past year, outpacing the industry's growth rate of 2.8%. Looking ahead, Bioventix is expected to see earnings grow by approximately 5% annually. This growth trajectory is supported by high-quality earnings and positive free cash flow, positioning Bioventix as an attractive prospect within its niche market.

AIM:BVXP Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: Warpaint London PLC, together with its subsidiaries, specializes in the production and sale of cosmetics, operating with a market capitalization of 490.64 million.

Story continues

Operations: Warpaint London primarily generates its revenue from its own brand products, contributing 87.07 million, while close-out sales add an additional 2.52 million. The company's business model has shown a notable increase in gross profit margin over the years, rising from 37.79% in 2013 to 39.87% by the end of 2023, indicating improved efficiency in managing production costs relative to sales revenue.

Warpaint London PLC, a lesser-known gem in the UK market, has demonstrated robust financial health with a 122.4% earnings growth over the past year, significantly outpacing its industry's 16.5% growth. The company is debt-free, having reduced its debt from a ratio of 5.2% five years ago to zero today. Recent activities include a 31.5 million equity offering and an increased dividend payout of 6 pence per share, underscoring confidence in sustained profitability and growth prospects estimated at 14.71% annually.

AIM:W7L Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: Wilmington plc is a global provider of information, data, training, and education solutions to professional markets, with a market capitalization of 356.87 million.

Operations: Wilmington generates revenue through two primary segments: Intelligence, which contributed 57.86 million, and Training & Education, which added 67.13 million. The company's financial performance shows a trend of increasing gross profit margins over recent periods, indicating an improvement in the efficiency of its operations.

Wilmington stands out as an intriguing investment, currently trading at 28.6% below its estimated fair value. With no debt and a past year earnings growth of 4.4%, it surpasses the Professional Services industry's growth by 1%. Despite projections of a 6.6% annual earnings decline over the next three years, Wilmington's robust financial health, underscored by high-quality earnings and a significant reduction in debt from five years ago, positions it as a potentially undervalued opportunity in the market.

LSE:WIL Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024

Where To Now?

Gain an insight into the universe of 77 UK Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals by clicking here.

Are you invested in these stocks already? Keep abreast of every twist and turn by setting up a portfolio with Simply Wall St, where we make it simple for investors like you to stay informed and proactive.

Enhance your investing ability with the Simply Wall St app and enjoy free access to essential market intelligence spanning every continent.

Want To Explore Some Alternatives?

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 AIM:BVXP AIM:W7L and LSE:WIL.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
Amidst a backdrop of global economic uncertainties and fluctuating markets, the Hong Kong stock market has recently shown signs of undervaluation, presenting potential opportunities for investors. Given the current market conditions where value stocks are gaining interest, exploring undervalued stocks on the SEHK could be a prudent strategy for those looking to capitalize on discounts ranging from 41% to 48.8%.

Top 10 Undervalued Stocks Based On Cash Flows In Hong Kong

Name Current Price Fair Value (Est) Discount (Est) Giant Biogene Holding (SEHK:2367) HK$39.65 HK$76.17 47.9% Beauty Farm Medical and Health Industry (SEHK:2373) HK$17.50 HK$33.17 47.2% Bairong (SEHK:6608) HK$8.70 HK$15.62 44.3% AIA Group (SEHK:1299) HK$50.85 HK$88.64 42.6% Shanghai INT Medical Instruments (SEHK:1501) HK$27.85 HK$48.46 42.5% Hangzhou SF Intra-city Industrial (SEHK:9699) HK$10.12 HK$19.64 48.5% FIT Hon Teng (SEHK:6088) HK$2.63 HK$4.54 42% AK Medical Holdings (SEHK:1789) HK$4.41 HK$7.99 44.8% Vobile Group (SEHK:3738) HK$1.18 HK$2.30 48.8% MicroPort Scientific (SEHK:853) HK$5.09 HK$9.42 46%

Click here to see the full list of 38 stocks from our Undervalued SEHK Stocks Based On Cash Flows screener.

Let's review some notable picks from our screened stocks.

Overview: Best Pacific International Holdings Limited specializes in manufacturing, trading, and selling elastic fabric, elastic webbing, and lace, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$2.35 billion.

Operations: The company generates revenue primarily through two segments: HK$834.34 million from the production and sale of elastic webbing, and HK$3.37 billion from the production and sale of elastic fabric and lace.

Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 41%

Best Pacific International Holdings, priced at HK$2.25, is significantly undervalued based on DCF analysis, with an estimated fair value of HK$3.81. The companys earnings have grown by 15.9% over the past year and are expected to increase by 24.29% annually over the next three years, outpacing Hong Kong's market growth rate of 11.3%. Despite its unstable dividend track record and a recent cautious approach from international customers impacting sales, Best Pacific anticipates a substantial net profit of not less than HK$260 million for HY 2024, nearly doubling the previous year's figure due to improved confidence in economic recovery and increased customer restocking.

Story continues

SEHK:2111 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024

Overview: Vobile Group Limited, an investment holding company, offers software as a service for digital content asset protection and transactions across the United States, Japan, Mainland China, and other international markets with a market capitalization of approximately HK$2.69 billion.

Operations: The company generates revenue primarily through its SaaS offerings, totaling approximately HK$2.00 billion.

Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 48.8%

Vobile Group, with a current trading price of HK$1.18, is perceived as undervalued based on DCF analysis, indicating a fair value of HK$2.3. Despite low forecasted ROE at 6.6% in three years, the company's earnings are expected to surge by 66.63% annually. Revenue growth projections stand at 21.7% per year, surpassing Hong Kongs average market growth rate of 7.7%. However, shareholder dilution has occurred over the past year which might raise concerns among investors about future equity value erosion.

SEHK:3738 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024

Overview: MicroPort Scientific Corporation is an investment holding company that manufactures and markets medical devices across regions including the Peoples Republic of China, North America, Europe, and South America, with a market capitalization of approximately HK$9.29 billion.

Operations: MicroPort Scientific's revenue is generated from various segments including Orthopedics Devices at $238.37 million, Neurovascular Devices at $94.17 million, Cardiac Rhythm Management (CRM) at $207.04 million, Endovascular and Peripheral Vascular Devices at $168.22 million, Cardiovascular Devices (excluding CRM & Surgical Robot Device & Heart Valve Business) at $158.88 million, Heart Valve Business at $47.52 million, Surgical Robot Devices Business at $14.81 million, and Surgical Devices Business at $7.76 million.

Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 46%

MicroPort Scientific, priced at HK$5.09, is trading well below its estimated fair value of HK$9.42, reflecting a significant undervaluation based on DCF analysis. The company is expected to become profitable within the next three years with an earnings growth forecast of 74.27% per year. Although its revenue growth at 14.7% annually is slower than some high-growth benchmarks, it still outpaces the average market rate in Hong Kong (7.7%). Recent board changes and corporate governance updates could influence strategic directions ahead.

SEHK:853 Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024

Turning Ideas Into Actions

Gain an insight into the universe of 38 Undervalued SEHK Stocks Based On Cash Flows by clicking here.

Already own these companies? Bring clarity to your investment decisions by linking up your portfolio with Simply Wall St, where you can monitor all the vital signs of your stocks effortlessly.

Take control of your financial future using Simply Wall St, offering free, in-depth knowledge of international markets to every investor.

Want To Explore Some Alternatives?

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:2111 SEHK:3738 and SEHK:853.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
Amid a backdrop of global economic fluctuations and regional tensions, Germany's DAX index recently experienced a notable decline, shedding 3.07% as investors navigated through a complex landscape of trade disputes and shifting market dynamics. This environment may present opportunities for astute investors to identify undervalued stocks that could be poised for recovery or growth as market conditions evolve.

Top 10 Undervalued Stocks Based On Cash Flows In Germany

Name Current Price Fair Value (Est) Discount (Est) Stabilus (XTRA:STM) 42.25 79.06 46.6% technotrans (XTRA:TTR1) 17.00 29.29 42% Stratec (XTRA:SBS) 41.45 81.52 49.2% CHAPTERS Group (XTRA:CHG) 24.00 43.25 44.5% MTU Aero Engines (XTRA:MTX) 253.10 421.48 39.9% R. STAHL (XTRA:RSL2) 18.50 29.24 36.7% Vitesco Technologies Group (XTRA:VTSC) 56.55 112.38 49.7% INTERSHOP Communications (XTRA:ISHA) 2.04 3.86 47.2% Your Family Entertainment (DB:RTV) 2.48 4.56 45.6% Dr. Honle (XTRA:HNL) 17.60 34.78 49.4%

Click here to see the full list of 26 stocks from our Undervalued German Stocks Based On Cash Flows screener.

We're going to check out a few of the best picks from our screener tool.

Overview: CHAPTERS Group AG operates in the DACH region, offering software solutions through its subsidiaries, with a market capitalization of approximately 0.47 billion.

Operations: The company generates 70.77 million from its data processing segment.

Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 44.5%

CHAPTERS Group AG, currently trading at 24, significantly below the estimated fair value of 43.25, shows promise as an undervalued stock based on cash flows in Germany. Despite a net loss of 4.08 million in 2023, improvements are evident with reduced losses from the previous year and a substantial increase in sales to 70.77 million from 42.07 million. The company's revenue is expected to grow by 20.8% annually, outpacing the German market average of 5.3%. However, shareholder dilution over the past year and a forecasted low return on equity at 13% suggest potential concerns.

XTRA:CHG Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024

Overview: MTU Aero Engines AG operates in the development, manufacture, marketing, and support of commercial and military aircraft engines and industrial gas turbines globally, with a market capitalization of approximately 13.62 billion.

Operations: The company generates revenue primarily from two segments: the Commercial Maintenance Business (MRO) which brought in 4.35 billion and the Commercial and Military Engine Business (OEM) which contributed 1.27 billion.

Story continues

Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 39.9%

MTU Aero Engines AG, priced at 253.1, is valued below its estimated fair value of 421.48, indicating a significant undervaluation based on cash flows. The company's recent financials show a slight decline in net income from 134 million to 126 million year-over-year despite increased sales from 1.54 billion to 1.65 billion. Forecasted revenue growth at 12.1% annually surpasses the German market's 5.3%, and profitability is expected within three years with robust earnings growth projected at 34.95% annually.

XTRA:MTX Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024

Overview: SAP SE operates globally, offering a wide range of applications, technology, and services through its subsidiaries, with a market capitalization of approximately 226.07 billion.

Operations: The company generates 32.54 billion from its Applications, Technology & Services segment.

Estimated Discount To Fair Value: 24.5%

SAP, priced at 193.82, trades 24.5% below its fair value of 256.86, reflecting potential undervaluation based on cash flows. With earnings growth anticipated at a significant rate annually over the next three years and revenue growth forecasted to outpace the German market average, SAP appears attractively positioned despite a recent drop in net income from 2.98 billion to 918 million in Q2 2024 and challenges like large one-off items affecting financial results. Additionally, strategic expansions like the Kyndryl partnership enhance its cloud solutions delivery capabilities.

XTRA:SAP Discounted Cash Flow as at Jul 2024

Make It Happen

Gain an insight into the universe of 26 Undervalued German Stocks Based On Cash Flows by clicking here.

Are any of these part of your asset mix? Tap into the analytical power of Simply Wall St's portfolio to get a 360-degree view on how they're shaping up.

Discover a world of investment opportunities with Simply Wall St's free app and access unparalleled stock analysis across all markets.

Seeking Other Investments?

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Companies discussed in this article include XTRA:CHG XTRA:MTX and XTRA:SAP.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
Over the past year, the United Kingdom stock market has shown a modest uptick, rising by 4.5%, with earnings expected to grow by 13% annually. In this stable yet growing environment, identifying stocks that have not yet caught the attention of mainstream investors can offer unique opportunities for those looking to diversify their portfolios.

Top 10 Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals In The United Kingdom

Name Debt To Equity Revenue Growth Earnings Growth Health Rating Andrews Sykes Group NA 1.69% 3.16%  Globaltrans Investment 15.40% 2.68% 16.51%  London Security 0.31% 9.47% 7.41%  Georgia Capital NA -27.80% 18.94%  Impellam Group 31.12% -5.43% -6.86%  M&G Credit Income Investment Trust NA -0.35% 1.18%  Fix Price Group 43.59% 12.53% 23.49%  Ros Agro 57.18% 17.80% 18.35%  BBGI Global Infrastructure 0.02% 6.58% 9.90%  Mountview Estates 16.64% 4.50% -0.59% 

Click here to see the full list of 77 stocks from our UK Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals screener.

We'll examine a selection from our screener results.

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: Bioventix PLC is a company that specializes in the creation, manufacturing, and supply of sheep monoclonal antibodies for diagnostic applications globally, with a market capitalization of 227.06 million.

Operations: The company operates in the biotechnology sector, generating revenue of 13.60 million as of the latest reporting period. It maintains a high gross profit margin, consistently above 90% over several years, indicating efficient management of production costs and strong pricing power within its market niche.

Bioventix, a lesser-known yet promising player in the biotech sector, boasts a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.2, notably below the industry average of 32.6. This debt-free company has demonstrated resilience and growth potential with earnings growth outpacing the industry at 3% over the past year, compared to the industry's 2.8%. With a forecasted annual earnings growth of 5.23%, Bioventix exemplifies solid financial health and potential for investors seeking undiscovered gems in the UK market.

AIM:BVXP Debt to Equity as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: Warpaint London PLC, a cosmetics manufacturer and distributor, operates with a market capitalization of 490.64 million.

Operations: The company generates significant revenue from its own brand, contributing 87.07 million, while the close-out segment adds an additional 2.52 million. It maintains a robust gross profit margin, which has seen an upward trend reaching 39.87% by the end of 2023, reflecting efficient cost management and strong pricing strategies.

Story continues

Warpaint London PLC, a standout in the Personal Products sector, has demonstrated robust performance with earnings growth of 122% last year, surpassing the industry's 16.5%. This growth trajectory is supported by its debt-free status and a positive free cash flow. Recently, Warpaint increased its dividend to 6 pence per share and successfully raised 31.5 million through an equity offering, indicating strong market confidence and financial health. Looking ahead, earnings are projected to grow by nearly 15% annually.

AIM:W7L Debt to Equity as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Value Rating: 

Overview: Wilmington plc operates as a provider of information, data, training, and education solutions targeting professional markets across the UK, Europe, North America, and other global regions with a market capitalization of 356.87 million.

Operations: The company generates its revenue primarily from two segments: Intelligence and Training & Education, which together brought in 124.99 million in the most recent fiscal period. It operates with a gross profit margin of 19.63%, reflecting the cost efficiency relative to its revenue generation capabilities.

Wilmington stands out in the UK's professional services sector with its robust performance, surpassing industry growth with a 4.4% earnings increase last year against an industry average of 1%. Notably debt-free, Wilmington is trading at 28.6% below estimated fair value, presenting a potentially undervalued opportunity. Despite forecasts suggesting a 6.6% annual earnings decline over the next three years, its high-quality past earnings and lack of financial liabilities position it intriguingly for discerning investors.

LSE:WIL Debt to Equity as at Jul 2024

Seize The Opportunity

Navigate through the entire inventory of 77 UK Undiscovered Gems With Strong Fundamentals here.

Are these companies part of your investment strategy? Use Simply Wall St to consolidate your holdings into a portfolio and gain insights with our comprehensive analysis tools.

Simply Wall St is a revolutionary app designed for long-term stock investors, it's free and covers every market in the world.

Interested In Other Possibilities?

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 AIM:BVXP AIM:W7L and LSE:WIL.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
FedEx operates nearly 400 freighter aircraft but will soon downsize U.S. flight operations after losing a large contract with the U.S. Postal Service. Pilots are expected to see a substantial reduction in pay with fewer flights scheduled. (Photo: Shutterstock/John Gress Media)

FedEx Corp. plans to significantly slash daily flights and the number of U.S. cities served by air during the daytime when its air cargo contract with the U.S. Postal Service expires on Sept. 29, resulting in significant pay cuts for pilots, senior managers informed crews this week.

Shedding daytime flying capacity in response to the lost postal business is part of a broader FedEx (NYSE: FDX) initiative to boost corporate profits that includes restructuring airline operations to align with lower parcel demand and improve efficiency.

The parcel logistics giant will reduce daytime domestic flying time by 60% and the number of city destinations by 55%, which will add about 500 pilots to the existing surplus, said Justin Brownlee, senior vice president for flight operations and network planning, in a letter to airline workers obtained by FreightWaves. No pilots will be hired for the foreseeable future, he added.

The company now has 5,500 pilots, down from 5,800 at the start of the year. With the workforce redundancy, remaining flight hours will be divided up among the entire cohort, resulting in a significant reduction in the minimum number of flight hours guaranteed to pilots starting in October, Brownlee told the flight team.





Pilots have made substantially less money the past year because they share a smaller pool of flying assignments. No progress has been made on a new labor contract since June 2023, when members of the pilots union rejected a tentative contract. Negotiations remain in federal mediation. Company officials have privately suggested that a new ratified contract would incentivize pilots to retire, which would help address overstaffing.

The Postal Service in early April selected UPS (NYSE: UPS), instead of incumbent FedEx, as its air cargo carrier for the next 5 1/2 years. The last day FedEx will provide service to the Postal Service is Sept. 29, but the company has already been scaling back flights as the agency transitions volumes to UPS. FedEx recently said losing the Postal Service business will drag down operating income by $500 million in the current fiscal year.

Lower postal volumes left FedEx with surplus equipment for its daytime air network and higher operating costs per unit. Management previously said the Postal Service contract wasnt making money. Postal revenue in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022, fell $236 million to $1.9 billion and was expected to continue decreasing. The contract previously generated annual revenue of at least $2 billion.

Equity research analysts argued that FedExs airline was much bigger than necessary, partly because of commitments to fly postal shipments during the daytime in addition to its overnight express operation.

Story continues





FedEx officers earlier this year said expiration of the Postal Service contract gives them more flexibility to reorganize the daytime air network because aircraft wont be dedicated to a single customer.

Pat DiMento, vice president flight operations and training, provided pilots more details about the network changes in a follow-up memo, also shared with FreightWaves. The route map in October will go from 75 to 28 cities served  a 63% reduction versus the 55% mentioned by Brownlee, with daily flight trips in an average week falling nearly two-thirds. Cities losing daytime service include Atlanta; Austin, Texas; and Baltimore. Weekly flight hours will tumble from 2,045 to 1,203 (down 60%). Airbus A300 freighters, for example, will experience an 81% reduction in weekly daytime flight legs while Boeing 767 trips will be cut 70%, going from nearly 700 to 209 per week.

Executives stressed that the tentative October schedule was released now to give flight operations personnel pertinent information as early as possible, but that adjustments could still be made.

The above plan will likely change as we settle into the new system form and other business opportunities develop. Our company is rapidly moving towards the network efficiencies that will ensure we remain the leader in the incredibly competitive cargo and logistics industry. We appreciate the significant impact these changes will have on your schedules and value your commitment to FedEx as we navigate these changes together, DiMento wrote.

Despite the reduced daytime flying, FedEx expects to maintain fleet size at current levels because the number of aircraft is primarily dictated by the priority overnight network and the company is working to attract other cargo business, Brownlee said.

In preparation for the conclusion of our air freight contract with the United States Postal Service, we have begun implementing adjustments to network operations that support postal volume. These adjustments include a reduction in daytime flight hours, said Caitlin Adams Maier, FedExs director of public affairs, in a statement to FreightWaves. As we transform our network and operations for the future, we remain committed to delivering world-class service to our customers around the world while providing outstanding service to the USPS through the contracts completion in September.

Fleet plan

The airlines mainline fleet has shrunk from 417 aircraft in fiscal year 2022 to 389 as more aircraft are put out of service than are being added to modernize the fleet. FedEx last quarter permanently retired 22 Boeing 757-200 freighter aircraft as part of the downsizing effort. The older 757s were expendable because they are less fuel-efficient than other planes operated by FedEx, which still has 92 of the narrowbody freighters in the fleet. The company also retired nine MD-11s in the fiscal year ending May 31 and plans to phase out the tri-engine aircraft by mid-2028, subject to changes in customer demand.

FedEx last year received 14 freighter aircraft from Boeing (four 777s and 10 767-300s medium widebodies). The company is scheduled to take delivery of two factory-built 777 freighters in the next 12 months and 14 B767s over the next two years, according to its latest statistics.





Meanwhile, as part of the new effort to consolidate the Express and Ground networks into one integrated system, FedEx in late January began repainting mainline cargo jets to present a unified brand, said Brownlee. That means aircraft will no longer show Express markings. The new paint scheme, which features a larger logo and different positioning to reflect a more modern look, has been applied to 18 freighters so far.

Tricolor drive

FedEx is now implementing its Tricolor strategy for streamlining its global air network with the goal of segregating the fleet according to various product categories and demand. Brownlee said new flights are being added to the Orange network to accommodate nonparcel cargo growth.

The so-called Purple network is geared toward international customers willing to pay the most for the fastest speeds using dedicated aircraft that are well timed to go overnight into FedEx hubs for next-day delivery. Fewer large freight shipments will be mixed in to maximize density on aircraft and sorting efficiency, executives explained in the spring.

Orange-designated flights will operate during the daytime and focus on priority international freight. Management describes this deferred air network as an extension of its European and U.S. less-than-truckload networks, designed to attract high-yield freight, such as pharmaceuticals, perishables, electronics and automotive components, that is more profitable per pound than heavier, general consignments. FedEx says it will mix in deferred parcels to fill out the aircraft.

FedEx is reorganizing air operations to ensure planes are as full of packages and other cargo as possible. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

The White network will handle e-commerce and other low-priority shipments, much of it processed through the companys freight forwarding arm, FedEx Trade Networks. Those loads will utilize the belly space of commercial passenger aircraft operating between major international gateways that can be integrated into the FedEx Ground network in the U.S.

Starting in September and October, FedEx will add a Boeing 777 route between Liege, Belgium, and its regional hub in Oakland, California; a route connecting Miami, Guatemala City and San Pedro Sula, Honduras, operated with a Boeing 757 freighter; and a Miami-Buenos Aires-Santiago, Chile-Quito, Ecuador-Miami route with a Boeing 767, according to Brownlees letter.

In addition to those routes, the logistics integrator is expanding the Orange network in the Asia, Middle East and Africa operating out of a hub in Guangzhou, China. FedEx in early June also launched an MD-11 route from Guangzhou to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, with stops in Tokyo and Anchorage, Alaska, and bypassing the global hub in Memphis, Tennessee.

This route provides parcel and freight growth opportunities by directly connecting the East Coast and Asian markets while improving service levels by removing unnecessary touch points in our U.S. domestic network, which prevents more congestion in Memphis, said Brownlee.

He also disclosed that FedEx launched an intra-China flight between Guangzhou and Beijing utilizing a Boeing 737 freighter operated five times per week by Tianjin Air Cargo. As a foreign airline, FedEx does not have regulatory authority to operate the flight itself. Brownlee said the flight strengthens FedExs position in the China market and provides freight growth opportunities by feeding additional volume into the global international air network without displacing any company aircraft.

Tricolor is part of a comprehensive restructuring program launched two years ago to strengthen profits after the pandemic surge wore off, specifically aimed at reducing redundant infrastructure and associated costs.

The Drive initiative to take out $4 billion in structural costs by mid-2025, coupled with pickup and delivery efficiencies from a new consolidation of separate operating companies into one organization, has helped achieve four consecutive quarters of operating income and margin expansion despite revenue declines.

FedExs adjusted operating profit increased 5.6% year over year to $1.9 billion last quarter on a 1% gain in revenue, underscoring the companys progress in containing costs amid soft market conditions. It was the first time FedEx had year-over-year revenue growth after six quarters of declines.

The company achieved $1.8 billion in structural savings last year and is targeting an additional $2.2 billion in savings from its transformation program in fiscal year 2025.

(Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said FedEx has 1,200 excess pilots. The overage is well below that as the pilot ranks have come down this year through attrition.)

Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.

RECOMMENDED READING:

FedEx retires one-fifth of Boeing 757 freighter fleet

UPS wins air cargo contract with Postal Service, replaces FedEx

FedEx explores divestment of Freight business

The post FedEx to cut daytime domestic flight activity by 60% appeared first on FreightWaves.
The House is now out until the week after Labor Day, meaning that lawmakers will have a key item on their agenda when they return: funding the government. Congress will need to pass a stopgap funding measure known as a continuing resolution, or CR, to avoid a government shutdown that would otherwise start when the calendar turns to October and a new fiscal year begins.

The House has passed five of the 12 annual appropriations bills, largely along party lines. House Speaker had pledged to pass all 12 bills before lawmakers left for their August recess, but the Republican leaders ambitious plans and aggressive timetable were derailed by divisions within his own conference  the same divisions that plagued Republicans during last years drawn-out appropriations process and were always likely to arise again.

Johnson has been bringing bills to the floor, only to pull them from consideration before they failed as far-right Republicans take hard-line stances on their own priorities, The Washington Post reported. GOP leaders were forced to pull their Energy and Water bill Tuesday night.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise blamed Democrats for the lack of progress. When you have a situation where the Democrats all vote no on every appropriations bill, you eventually hit a wall because, you know, we have a few of our own members that vote against some of these bills, he told The Hill this week.

Of course, House Republicans partisan spending measures would have gone nowhere in the Democratic-led Senate, which has yet to pass any of its own spending bills, though the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday advanced four funding bills with bipartisan support. That brings the total number approved by the Senate panel to seven, and the five remaining bills are scheduled for consideration on August 1.

Getting here has not been easy, Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray said in her opening remarks at Thursdays markup hearing. It has required all of us to make some tough decisions and seeking out common ground. But as I made clear at our last markup, here in the Senate, we are moving ahead with strong bipartisan bills that can actually be passed and signed into law, and which actually address the issues we all hear about back home, and the many challenges we are seeing abroad.

Lawmakers are scheduled to be in session for just three weeks  13 legislative days  in September before departing again until after the November elections.

Republicans hoping to govern responsibly ahead of the election want to extend funding until the end of the year, the Post reports, adding that the lawmakers would then look to pass a larger funding package to avoid dropping a crisis on Donald Trumps doorstep, if hes re-elected. But far-right members want any extension of current fiscal levels to go through early next year and include the SAVE Act, which would require voters to present proof of citizenship to vote.

Story continues

That would essentially dare Senate Democrats to oppose such a bill, potentially putting Congress on track for a shutdown. But conservatives may not be able to get their wish, and the speaker is still deciding on how he wants to approach the CR.

Like what you're reading? Sign up for our free newsletter.
Ideally, your overall portfolio should beat the market average. But even the best stock picker will only win with some selections. At this point some shareholders may be questioning their investment in Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance, Inc. (NYSE:ARI), since the last five years saw the share price fall 44%.

It's worthwhile assessing if the company's economics have been moving in lockstep with these underwhelming shareholder returns, or if there is some disparity between the two. So let's do just that.

See our latest analysis for Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance

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 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).

In the last half decade Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance saw its share price fall as its EPS declined below zero. At present it's hard to make valid comparisons between EPS and the share price. However, we can say we'd expect to see a falling share price in this scenario.

The company's earnings per share (over time) is depicted in the image below (click to see the exact numbers).

We're pleased to report that the CEO is remunerated more modestly than most CEOs at similarly capitalized companies. It's always worth keeping an eye on CEO pay, but a more important question is whether the company will grow earnings throughout the years. It might be well worthwhile taking a look at our free report on Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance's earnings, revenue and cash flow.

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 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. We note that for Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance the TSR over the last 5 years was 5.0%, which is better than the share price return mentioned above. This is largely a result of its dividend payments!

A Different Perspective

Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance shareholders gained a total return of 5.1% during the year. But that return falls short of the market. The silver lining is that the gain was actually better than the average annual return of 1.0% per year over five year. It is possible that returns will improve along with the business fundamentals. 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. For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance that you should be aware of before investing here.

Story continues

For those who like to find winning investments this free list of undervalued companies with recent insider purchasing, could be just the ticket.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on American 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
Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance, and US Vice President Kamala Harris. Alex Wong/Getty Images, Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris looks set to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.

Her campaign has gained momentum with high-profile endorsements and donations from tech leaders.

"Momentum has certainly shifted in the tech industry," Box CEO Aaron Levie told BI.

Vice President Kamala Harris is shaking up the 2024 election.

Harris looks set to secure the Democratic presidential nomination amid a burst of popularity following President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race. The US President endorsed his current vice president, and many prominent Democrats, including Barack Obama, have followed his lead.

Money has been pouring into Harris's campaign, and the vice president has already begun campaigning against former president Donald Trump.

While several Silicon Valley veterans, including former Meta exec Sheryl Sandberg, have voiced their support for Harris, others have spent the last few months throwing considerable weight behind Trump and his running mate JD Vance.

David Sacks, an old PayPal colleague of Peter Thiel, donated $1 million to a pro-Vance Super PAC, while Thiel gave $15 million to his campaign, Politico reported.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also been enthusiastic about Vance, reportedly participating in a secret lobbying campaign for the former VC. The billionaire officially endorsed Trump for President after an assassination attempt against him in July.

With Vance by his side, Trump has been trying to woo Silicon Valley away from Biden.

But with Harris at the helm, it's a whole new race.

"Momentum has certainly shifted in the tech industry, and many including myself  are now optimistic that Harris can take the reins and drive the Democratic party into the future," Aaron Levie, CEO of Box cloud company, told Business Insider.

A California candidate

In Harris, techies have a candidate from their home turf.

Born in Oakland, Harris has served as a California senator and as the state's attorney general.

She has roots and high-profile friends in the Bay Area. She reportedly attended the 2013 wedding of former Facebook president and investor Sean Parker, and her brother-in-law, Tony West , is Uber's chief legal officer.

Many in the Valley view Harris as a much-needed breath of fresh air.

"I have known Kamala for decades, and she's been a fighter, a leader, and an advocate for the tech ecosystem," Silicon Valley "super angel" investor Ron Conway said in an X post calling on the tech community rally around Harris.

Chiente Hsu, cofounder and CEO of bitcoin platform ALEX, told BI that Harris is "generally viewed more favorably among tech leaders" than Biden.

Story continues

She cited Harris' closer ties to the tech community and favorable stance toward innovation for the renewed enthusiasm.

Harris has also shown a willingness to take on Big Tech when needed. During her time as attorney general, she tackled issues such as the distribution of explicit content on social media platforms, with a particular focus on "revenge porn."

During the Biden Administration, Harris played an active role in AI regulation. She's previously stated she rejects the "false choice that suggests we can either protect the public, or advance innovation."

"Her work on tech-related legal issues and proactive stance on innovation further bolster her reputation," Hsu said. "Harris has been vocal about the need for ethical AI development and robust oversight of Big Tech, reflecting a nuanced approach to tech regulation."

A lucrative opportunity

Several business elites have already expressed their support for Harris. Some, like Netflix's cofounder Reed Hastings, have been putting their money where their mouth is with hefty donations.

If Harris does win over tech executives, it could mean significant financial contributions and strategic support.

Levie said Harris represented a "unique opportunity" for the Democratic Party to position itself as pro-tech, pro-AI, and pro-science.

"Biden stepping down and the party aligning around Harris has reenergized the community, and many who were previously neutral are now excited about the direction Harris can drive," he said.

Harris's stance on some tech issues is still a bit uncertain. Notably, the vice president hasn't taken a strong stance on cryptocurrency, but some expect her to become more pro-crypto than Biden.

The Biden administration has been increasing its scrutiny of the sector following the collapse of FTX in 2022.

Meanwhile, with support from pro-crypto running mate JD Vance, Trump has announced he plans to be the first "crypto president."

Nigel Green, CEO of financial services company deVere Group, previously told BI that Harris's views "reflect a cautious approach" to the sector. However, he said he expected Harris to become more pro-crypto to compete effectively with Donald Trump.

"This regulatory clarity could bring greater legitimacy to the industry, potentially attracting more institutional investors and mainstream adoption," he added.

Read the original article on Business Insider
BALTIMORE (AP)  Kevin Spaceys $5.6 million waterfront condominium in Baltimore has been sold at auction amid the disgraced actor's financial struggles following a slew of sexual misconduct allegations.

Last summer, a London jury acquitted Spacey on sexual assault charges stemming from allegations by four men dating back 20 years. That was his second court victory since he saw off a $40 million lawsuit in 2022 in New York brought by Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp.

But Spacey said in an emotional interview with British broadcast host Piers Morgan last month that he was millions of dollars in debt, largely because of unpaid legal bills, and facing foreclosure on the Baltimore property.

Spacey moved to the Baltimore area when he started shooting the hugely popular political thriller House of Cards there in 2012. Speaking through tears during the interview, Spacey said he would have to go back to Baltimore and put all his things in storage. He said he nearly had to file for bankruptcy a couple times but managed to dodge it.

His luxury condo on Baltimores Inner Harbor sold at auction Thursday morning for $3.24 million, according to the auctioneers website. It sits on a floating pier and boasts six bedrooms, seven full baths, an elevator, sauna, home theater, rooftop terrace, multiple verandas and a four-car garage.

A small group of potential buyers gathered on the steps of the downtown Baltimore Circuit Court building and made their bids, according to local media reports. The suggested opening bid was $1.5 million.

The winning bidder was acting as proxy for a real estate developer and local businessman whose identity hasnt been disclosed, The Baltimore Sun reported.

During tearful testimony in a London courtroom last summer, Spacey denied the allegations against him and told the jury how they had destroyed his acting career as the #MeToo movement gained momentum in the U.S.
NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty Images





Key Takeaways

Apple will report third-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday, Aug. 1.

Analysts expect revenue and earnings to grow from the year-ago period.

Investors will likely be watching for signs that iPhone sales are stabilizing in China.

The iPhone maker could also provide updates related to artificial intelligence.







Apple (AAPL) is set to report fiscal third-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday, Aug. 1, with investors likely to be watching for sales results in the China region and updates related to artificial intelligence (AI).

The iPhone maker is expected to report revenue of $84.39 billion, according to estimates compiled by Visible Alpha, which would represent 3.1% growth from the year-ago period. Net income is projected to be $20.64 billion, or $1.34 per share, an increase from the third quarter of 2023.



Analyst Estimates for Q3 2024 Q2 2024 Q3 2023 Revenue $84.39 billion $90.75 billion $81.8 billion Diluted Earnings Per Share $1.34 $1.53 $1.26 Net Income $20.64 billion $23.64 billion $19.88 billion

Key Metric: iPhone Sales in China

Worries surrounding slowing sales in China have weighed on Apple's stock, but analysts said the third quarter could be the end of the decline, ahead of recovery.

CFRA analysts said they believe "the companys fate is turning around in the region," based on increased iPhone shipments in China driven by pricing discounts.

Analysts project Apple will report a 2.6% decline in sales in the region for the third quarter, according to consensus estimates compiled by Visible Alpha. CFRA expects the China iPhone sales figure will represent a revenue trough ahead of the anticipated new iPhone 16.



Business Spotlight: iPhone 16 Anticipation Builds

Apple is expected to launch an AI-supercharged iPhone 16 in September after recently unveiling iOS 18 with Apple Intelligence and an AI partnership with OpenAI.

The iPhone maker could be on track to reach a $4 trillion market capitalization, Wedbush analysts said, with a new iPhone upgrade cycle in the near future. The company could discuss its ongoing AI initiatives during the earnings call, offering investors greater clarity on how the emerging tech could affect Apple.

Apple shares have gained about 13% so far this year, at $217.96 as of Friday's close.



UPDATEJuly 26, 2024: This article has been updated to reflect more recent share price information.

Read the original article on Investopedia.
A mega merger between Kroger and Albertsons is on hold while legal challenges play out in state and federal courts (AP)

The potential megamerger between Kroger and Albertsons, two of the largest supermarket operators in the United States, is on hold while lawsuits play out in state and federal court.

On Thursday, the two companies agreed to a temporary injunction in Colorado  where the state Attorney General Phil Weiser sued to block the $24.6 billion deal from closing. Weiser said the merger violated Colorado antitrust laws and would cause irreparable harm to consumers, workers and suppliers.

Simultaneously, the Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit in federal court in Oregon, raising concerns the deal would lead to higher prices, fewer choices for consumers and threaten employees ability to secure higher wages.

The federal agency is also pursuing an injunction. A hearing is expected to occur on August 26.

Thursdays preliminary injunction, granted by Colorado Judge Andrew Luxen, will ultimately cancel a hearing that was supposed to happen on August 12. The trial to determine a permanent injunction is set to begin on September 30.

A spokesperson for Kroger and Albertsons said the preliminary injunction was welcome news.

We look forward to defending in court how the combination of Kroger and Albertsons will provide meaningful, measurable benefits, including lower prices and more choices for families across the country and more opportunities for stable, well-paying union jobs, the spokesperson said.

The $24.6 billion deal between Kroger and Albertsons will now have to wait as the legal process plays out (EPA)

The powerful merger between Kroger and Albertsons was initially announced in October 2022. The two companies proposed joining in order to compete with retailers such as Amazon and Walmart. In exchange for regulatory approvals, they agreed to sell more than 579 current store.

Kroger operates more than 2,700 stores including chains such as Harris Teeter, Smiths and Fred Meyer. Albertsons operates more than 2,200 store locations including popular chains such as Acme Markets, Safeway and Vons.

But state and federal watchdogs moved to block it, fearing that it would reduce competition and raise consumer prices.

Krogers acquisition of Albertsons would lead to additional grocery price hikes for everyday goods, further exacerbating the financial strain consumers across the country face today, Henry Liu, the director of the FTCs Bureau of Competition said in a statement.

Essential grocery store workers would also suffer under this deal, facing the threat of their wages dwindling, benefits diminishing, and their working conditions deteriorating, he added.
Key Insights

Genetec Technology Berhad's estimated fair value is RM1.87 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity

With RM2.20 share price, Genetec Technology Berhad appears to be trading close to its estimated fair value

Industry average of 299% suggests Genetec Technology Berhad's peers are currently trading at a higher premium to fair value

Today we will run through one way of estimating the intrinsic value of Genetec Technology Berhad (KLSE:GENETEC) by taking the forecast future cash flows of the company and discounting them back to today's value. We will take advantage of the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model for this purpose. Before you think you won't be able to understand it, just read on! It's actually much less complex than you'd imagine.

Remember though, that there are many ways to estimate a company's value, and a DCF is just one method. If you want to learn more about discounted cash flow, the rationale behind this calculation can be read in detail in the Simply Wall St analysis model.

Check out our latest analysis for Genetec Technology Berhad

Is Genetec Technology Berhad Fairly Valued?

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 begin with, we have to get estimates of the next ten years of cash flows. Where possible we use analyst estimates, but when these aren't available we extrapolate the previous free cash flow (FCF) from the last estimate or reported value. We assume companies with shrinking free cash flow will slow their rate of shrinkage, and that companies with growing free cash flow will see their growth rate slow, over this period. We do this to reflect that growth tends to slow more in the early years than it does in later years.

Generally we assume that a dollar today is more valuable than a dollar in the future, and so the sum of these future cash flows is then discounted to today's value:

10-year free cash flow (FCF) estimate

2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 Levered FCF (MYR, Millions) RM81.8m RM105.4m RM116.7m RM128.2m RM138.3m RM147.5m RM155.9m RM163.7m RM171.3m RM178.6m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Analyst x1 Est @ 9.81% Est @ 7.93% Est @ 6.62% Est @ 5.70% Est @ 5.05% Est @ 4.60% Est @ 4.29% Present Value (MYR, Millions) Discounted @ 12% RM73.1 RM84.1 RM83.2 RM81.6 RM78.7 RM75.0 RM70.8 RM66.5 RM62.1 RM57.9

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = RM733m

Story continues

We now need to calculate the Terminal Value, which accounts for all the future cash flows after this ten year period. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 3.6%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 12%.

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2034  (1 + g)  (r  g) = RM179m (1 + 3.6%)  (12% 3.6%) = RM2.2b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= RM2.2b ( 1 + 12%)10= RM715m

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 RM1.4b. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of RM2.2, the company appears around fair value 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

The calculation above is very dependent on two assumptions. The first is the discount rate and the other is the 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 Genetec Technology Berhad as potential shareholders, the cost of equity is used as the discount rate, rather than the cost of capital (or weighted average cost of capital, WACC) which accounts for debt. In this calculation we've used 12%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.320. 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 Genetec Technology Berhad

Strength

Earnings growth over the past year exceeded the industry.

Debt is not viewed as a risk.

Weakness

Earnings growth over the past year is below its 5-year average.

Shareholders have been diluted in the past year.

Opportunity

Annual earnings are forecast to grow faster than the Malaysian market.

Good value based on P/E ratio compared to estimated Fair P/E ratio.

Threat

No apparent threats visible for GENETEC.

Moving On:

Valuation is only one side of the coin in terms of building your investment thesis, and it ideally won't be the sole piece of analysis you scrutinize for a company. 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. For Genetec Technology Berhad, there are three relevant factors you should further research:

Risks: As an example, we've found 1 warning sign for Genetec Technology Berhad that you need to consider before investing here. Future Earnings: How does GENETEC'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
MUNCIE, Ind.  North American Stamping Group is closing its Muncie plant effective Nov. 30, affecting 62 employees of the factory along West Eighth Street, according to information filed with the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

The company, headquartered in Portland, Tennessee, filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (Warn notice) with the state agency Tuesday. The notice did not provide a reason for the planned closing, and phone calls to the local plant and the company headquarters were not returned Thursday.

The metal stamping plant makes parts for automobiles. According to the WARN notice, no separation benefits will be provided to the employees.

This impact is expected to be permanent in nature, the notice said.

Muncie Mayor Dan Ridenour said the city had been in contact with company officials and it appeared the manufacturer was consolidating operations among its facilities resulting in the end of work in the city.

North American Stamping has 10 facilities In Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan, Canada and Mexico in addition to the Muncie plant.

Its the market, Ridenour said. Its unfortunate.

The mayor said he and other economic development officials have already started working to find a new employer to take over the 158,000-square-foot facility.

North American Stamping acquired the plant in 2009 from Duffy Tool LLC, which had operated the factory at 3401 W. 8th St. after its founding in 1961, according to the research firm Pitchbook.

David Penticuff is a freelance reporter with the Star Press.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: North American Stamping closing Muncie plant, idling 62 employees
By Jihoon Lee

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's economy grew sharply in 2023 after shrinking for three straight years as trade with China increased after COVID-19 pandemic border controls were eased, according to estimates by South Korea's central bank.

Gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023 likely expanded 3.1% in real terms, the biggest percentage growth since 2016, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said on Friday.

The BOK's estimates are considered among the most reliable indicators of economic activity in the secretive North, which does not publish official data.

"Although economic sanctions remained, the economy grew on eased COVID-related restrictions, growth in trade with China and favourable weather conditions," a BOK official told reporters.

North Korea's economy contracted by 0.2% in 2022, 0.1% in 2021 and 4.5% in 2020 amid COVID restrictions and U.N. sanctions.

During the pandemic, humanitarian groups raised concerns about food shortages for many North Koreans, and as recently as January leader Kim Jong Un said a failure to provide people with basic living necessities including food was a "serious political issue".

"Most experts assess the rebound in 2023 to be temporary, but there are also positive factors, such as the possibility of further growth in trade with China and expansion in economic cooperation with Russia," the BOK official said.

Pyongyang and Moscow agreed last month to expand cooperation in trade, economy and investment as they signed a mutual defence pact during Russian President Vladimir Putin's first visit to North Korea since 2000.

In 2023, North Korea's trade with China accounted for 98.3% of the total trade volume, according to the BOK.

The data showed industrial output jumped 4.9%, the fastest in seven years, led by production of metal items and wigs, and the construction sector grew by 8.2%, the biggest since 2002, on more housing projects. The agricultural sector increased by 1.0%.

The industrial sector accounted for 30.7% of the economy in 2023, while the agricultural and construction sectors accounted for 22.0% and 11.0%, respectively.

The North's trade volume rose 74.6% to $2.77 billion in 2023, after growing by a record high of 123.9% in 2022, when the North started to ease border controls from the pandemic. The figure, however, was still lower than $3.25 billion in 2019 before COVID.

Its exports jumped 104.5% in 2023, led by shoes, hats and wigs, while imports rose 71.3% with a surge in demand for fertilisers.

North Korea's nominal gross national income in 2023 was estimated to be 1.59 million won ($1,147.56) per capita, equivalent to just 3.4% of the South's 47.25 million won.

Story continues

The BOK has been publishing its estimates of the North Korean economy since 1991, based on information from various sources including intelligence and foreign trading agencies and data from the South's unification ministry.

($1 = 1,385.5500 won)

(Reporting by Jihoon Lee; Editing by Jamie Freed)
After a volatile day of trading, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) stock ended Thursday's trading in the red. The company's share price fell 1.7% in the session, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Nvidia stock opened the day's trading down as much as 7%, but it was able to climb to a gain of 2.1% on better-than-expected economic data before retreating to bearish territory after some analysts suggested big-tech earnings could continue to underwhelm. Investors have been pivoting away from the artificial intelligence (AI) leader and other megacap tech stocks amid geopolitical risks and valuation concerns, and recent earnings reports from Alphabet and Tesla have added to selling pressures.

Nvidia stock has now fallen in four out of five of its last daily trading sessions. The company's stock is now down roughly 17% from the peak that it reached on June 18. Is it time to buy the high-profile AI stock?

Image source: Getty Images.

Investors can still win with Nvidia stock

Nvidia has become a battleground stock  and arguably the single-most influential company when it comes to shaping performance for the stock market at large. Its graphics processing units (GPUs) and other accelerated computing technologies are the go-to platform for powering advanced AI applications.

The company's existing strengths in data center computing technologies have been magnified by surging demand for AI services, and the business has seen stellar sales and earnings growth in tandem with the trend. On the other hand, the incredible rise of artificial intelligence technologies is a relatively recent phenomenon  and that makes it difficult to chart future performance and forecast valuations.

Valuations for AI stocks will likely see significant levels of volatility over the next few years as investors try to assess economic opportunities created by the progression of the tech. But Nvidia has strong competitive advantages thanks to its category-leading GPUs and related software platform, and there's a good chance that the company will retain a dominant position in the most important category of artificial intelligence hardware.

For long-term investors looking to build exposure to hardware technologies powering key AI trends, taking a dollar-cost-averaging approach to Nvidia stock looks like a smart move right now.

Should you invest $1,000 in Nvidia right now?

Before you buy stock in Nvidia, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Nvidia wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Story continues

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $700,076!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks 

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 22, 2024

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Nvidia Fell Again Today -- Time to Buy the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Leader's Stock? was originally published by The Motley Fool
Customers chat at a Starbucks store featuring local intangible cultural heritage elements in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 27, 2023. [Photo/Xinhua]

Over the past three years, more than 3,700 first stores of various brands have opened in Beijing, the municipal commerce bureau told a press conference on Thursday.

"First store" refers to the very first stores of brands or companies in the global, Asian, or Chinese mainland markets.

In July 2021, China approved Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Chongqing to take the lead in building international consumption center cities.

Over the last three years, Beijing has actively promoted the "first-store economy," with over 4 million square meters of new commercial areas for such first stores added, according to Piao Xuedong, head of the municipal commerce bureau.

During this period, Beijing has ranked first in the country in urban competitiveness, the total number of Fortune 500 companies, the added value of the service sector, the number of departure tax refund stores and the number of cities accessible via direct flights, Piao said.

A total of 26 multinational companies in the consumer sector, including Starbucks and the high-end department store Galeries Lafayette, have set up their regional headquarters in Beijing. The city has also seen the establishment of China's first demonstration zone for payment services targeting foreign visitors.

Going forward, Beijing will accelerate the development of its comparative advantage in commodity consumption, focus on strengthening new types of consumption and attract more well-known brands to open their first stores in the city, according to Piao.
As Big Lots plans to close its Chester store, attention turns to what might replace it.

Big Lots said in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing last month the company expects to close 35 to 40 stores this year. The filing didnt list which stores would close but noted it had a 10.2% overall sales drop, or almost $115 million, this first quarter compared to the same time last year.

Chester County Economic Development posted on its Facebook page the Chester Crossing location at 1841 JA Cochran Bypass will close. The webpage for that store also states its closing. Neither said when.

The discount retail company based in Ohio did not respond to calls and an email from The Herald regarding which stores will close, and when.

Big Lots has 38 South Carolina stores including one each in Rock Hill, Lancaster and Chester. Its 75 North Carolina stores include two in Charlotte and others in nearby communities like Albemarle, Belmont, Concord, Gastonia, Kannapolis and Monroe.

Unlike in Chester, neither the Rock Hill nor Lancaster store websites mention anything about store closings.

Online community comments on the Chester County Economic Development post suggested a similar retailer, grocery store or home improvement store could replace Big Lots. The site is part of a nearly 60,000-square-foot shopping center built in 1990.

The shopping center has been sold four times in the past five years, according to county land records.

San Diego-based real estate company Realty Income bought the shopping center last year for $3.9 million. It also has a Tractor Supply Co. and a Roses Express discount store.

The Chester Big Lots will close, as economic development leaders in the South Carolina city look to replace it with another retail option.

Recruiting businesses to Chester County, SC

Chester County Economic Development announced this month its working with consultant Retail Strategies to recruit more retail businesses.

That focus is countywide, but the group is particularly aiming to develop the Gateway District along S.C. 9 and Interstate 77. Increased retail will help increase sales tax revenue to support capital projects in the county, said economic director Robert Young.

Economic development is working to try to fill the Big Lots space. For instance, its staff will attend a large retail industry event next month in Tennessee to market the county to potential employers.
Key Insights

The projected fair value for Essentra is UK2.89 based on 2 Stage Free Cash Flow to Equity

Essentra is estimated to be 43% undervalued based on current share price of UK1.64

Our fair value estimate is 9.6% higher than Essentra's analyst price target of UK2.63

Today we will run through one way of estimating the intrinsic value of Essentra plc (LON:ESNT) by taking the expected future cash flows and discounting them to today's value. One way to achieve this is by employing the Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) model. It may sound complicated, but actually it is quite simple!

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. Anyone interested in learning a bit more about intrinsic value should have a read of the Simply Wall St analysis model.

See our latest analysis for Essentra

The Model

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.

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) estimate

2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 Levered FCF (, Millions) UK36.2m UK41.4m UK45.2m UK48.3m UK50.9m UK53.1m UK55.0m UK56.7m UK58.2m UK59.6m Growth Rate Estimate Source Analyst x5 Analyst x5 Est @ 9.17% Est @ 6.95% Est @ 5.40% Est @ 4.31% Est @ 3.55% Est @ 3.01% Est @ 2.64% Est @ 2.38% Present Value (, Millions) Discounted @ 7.6% UK33.6 UK35.7 UK36.3 UK36.0 UK35.3 UK34.2 UK32.9 UK31.5 UK30.0 UK28.6

("Est" = FCF growth rate estimated by Simply Wall St)

Present Value of 10-year Cash Flow (PVCF) = UK334m

The second stage is also known as Terminal Value, this is the business's cash flow after the first stage. The Gordon Growth formula is used to calculate Terminal Value at a future annual growth rate equal to the 5-year average of the 10-year government bond yield of 1.8%. We discount the terminal cash flows to today's value at a cost of equity of 7.6%.

Story continues

Terminal Value (TV)= FCF 2034  (1 + g)  (r  g) = UK60m (1 + 1.8%)  (7.6% 1.8%) = UK1.0b

Present Value of Terminal Value (PVTV)= TV / (1 + r)10= UK1.0b ( 1 + 7.6%)10= UK497m

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 UK831m. In the final step we divide the equity value by the number of shares outstanding. Compared to the current share price of UK1.6, the company appears quite undervalued at a 43% discount to where the stock price trades currently. The assumptions in any calculation have a big impact on the valuation, so it is better to view this as a rough estimate, not precise down to the last cent.

dcf

The Assumptions

Now the most important inputs to a discounted cash flow are the discount rate, and of course, the actual cash flows. Part of investing is coming up with your own evaluation of a company's future performance, so try the calculation yourself and check your own assumptions. The DCF also does not consider the possible cyclicality of an industry, or a company's future capital requirements, so it does not give a full picture of a company's potential performance. Given that we are looking at Essentra 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 7.6%, which is based on a levered beta of 1.068. 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 Essentra

Strength

Debt is not viewed as a risk.

Weakness

Dividend is low compared to the top 25% of dividend payers in the Chemicals market.

Opportunity

Annual earnings are forecast to grow for the next 3 years.

Trading below our estimate of fair value by more than 20%.

Threat

Dividends are not covered by earnings.

Annual earnings are forecast to grow slower than the British market.

Next Steps:

Although the valuation of a company is important, it is only one of many factors that you need to assess for 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. What is the reason for the share price sitting below the intrinsic value? For Essentra, we've compiled three important factors you should look at:

Risks: For example, we've discovered 2 warning signs for Essentra that you should be aware of before investing here. Future Earnings: How does ESNT'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 British 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
Patagonia Gold Corp.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, July 26, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Patagonia Gold Corp. (Patagonia or the Company) (TSXV: PGDC) announces it has entered into an agreement with Cantomi Uruguay S.A. (Cantomi) to increase the maximum aggregate amount of the Cantomi Loan (as defined below). The original loan facility, which Cantomi provided in February 2019 for US$15 million was subsequently amended and further increased to US$33 million with a maturity date of December 31, 2025 (as amended, the Cantomi Loan). The agreement amending the Cantomi Loan provides that the maximum aggregate amount of the Cantomi Loan is increased to US$35 million. The funds from the increased Cantomi Loan will be used to refinance existing lines of credit to reduce interest costs and for general working capital purposes. Other than the amendment to increase the maximum amount of the Cantomi Loan, all other terms of the Cantomi Loan remain unchanged.

About Patagonia Gold

Patagonia Gold Corp. is a South America focused, publicly traded, mining company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company seeks to grow shareholder value through exploration and development of gold and silver projects in the Patagonia region of Argentina. The Company is primarily focused on the Calcatreu project in Rio Negro and the development of the Cap-Oeste underground project. Patagonia, indirectly through its subsidiaries or under option agreements, has mineral rights to over 430 properties in several provinces of Argentina and is one of the largest landholders in the province of Santa Cruz, Argentina.

For more information, please contact:

Christopher van Tienhoven, Chief Executive Officer

Patagonia Gold Corp

T: +54 11 5278 6950

E: cvantienhoven@patagoniagold.com

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This news release contains certain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements with respect to the use of the funds from the increase of the Cantomi Loan, advancement and development of gold and silver projects in the Patagonia region of Argentina and the anticipated growth in shareholder value. Wherever possible, words such as may, will, should, could, expect, plan, intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict or potential or the negative or other variations of these words, or similar words or phrases, have been used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements reflect managements current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management as at the date hereof.

Forward-looking statements involve significant risk, uncertainties and assumptions. Many factors could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from the results discussed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These factors should be considered carefully and readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management believes to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure readers that actual results will be consistent with these forward-looking statements. These forward- looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and the Company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law.

Story continues

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.




By Luciana Magalhaes and Marta Nogueira

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras is wrapping up due diligence for a bid on the Mataripe refinery it sold to Abu Dhabi sovereign fund Mubadala for $1.65 billion in 2021, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva campaigned against the sale of Petrobras refineries and has pushed for the company to accelerate job-creating investments in the segment. However, an agreement on the structure and price of a possible buyback has not been reached, said people involved in the talks.

Those discussions could delay the deal, which has been in the works for several months, given that the refinery, also known as RLAM, was sold below market value by some accounts.

Brazil's Comptroller General found that Petrobras may have sold the refinery at a discount during the COVID-19 pandemic. The union-backed Institute for Strategic Studies in Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuels (Ineep) estimated in 2021 that the refinery was worth between $3 billion to $4 billion.

Petrobras did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mubadala representatives declined to comment.

Discussion of a possible buyback surfaced last year when Mubadala proposed a joint investment in traditional refining and a new biorefinery sharing infrastructure with the Mataripe refinery in Bahia state, a stronghold of Lula's Workers Party.

"If you ask me if Brazil should have sold refineries, I would peremptorily respond: No," Brazil's Mines and Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira told Reuters this week.

He said in an interview that he is also talking to representatives of the Mataripe refinery but said Petrobras will only enter into an agreement if the buyback is "economically viable."

According to a person familiar with talks, Petrobras was first planning to buy an 80% stake in Mataripe and make a minority investment in a biofuel plant with Mubadala. The same person said it is unclear if a deal will proceed with that structure after Lula replaced the CEO of Petrobras in May.

Petrobras has also discussed offering Mubadala the same price it paid for the refinery in 2021, plus interest and reimbursement of the sovereign fund's investments to update the plant, according to two people close to the talks.

Petrobras owns 11 refineries producing about 80% of domestic fuel production after selling two plants under former President Jair Bolsonaro, when the oil company shed downstream assets to focus on deepwater exploration.

Built in the 1950s, RLAM is Brazil's second largest refinery, with the highest capacity for production of gasoline, diesel and other oil derivatives in north and northeast Brazil, according to operator Acelen, which is controlled by Mubadala.

Story continues

Silveira said Mubadala is looking to sell RLAM because it made the acquisition under the assumption that Petrobras would sell several more refineries. Instead, Mubadala's share of the refining market is still dwarfed by Petrobras, on which it depends for crude oil.

"This buyback will have to go through, it no longer makes sense for a private investor like Mubadala to own a refinery in Brazil," said Adriano Pires, an oil industry analyst once floated as a potential Petrobras CEO under the last government.

(Reporting by Luciana Magalhaes in Sao Paulo and Marta Nogueira in Aracaju; Editing by Brad Haynes and Marguerita Choy)
Croatian food business Podravka has struck a deal to buy a clutch of food and drink companies from the local agri-food business Fortenova Group.

The total value of the transaction is 333m ($361m).

The completion of the deal depends on receiving approval from the Croatian Competition Agency and other regional regulatory agencies, Podravka said in a statement.

Podravaka had been appointed as "the preferred partner" for the transaction earlier this month. It had been required to pay a deposit of 15m for the takeover of Fortenova's six agri-food subsidiaries.

The brands in the deal include fruit and vegetables processor Pik-Vinkovci and grains wholesaler Felix.

Podravka is also taking over Belje which produces wines, dairy products, cured meats and tomatoes under its namesake brand for the domestic and global markets.

Another food and beverage group included in the deal is Vupik, which works in cattle and pig farming and cereals and vegetable growing. It also produces a range of Grasevina and Frankovka wines under the labels Goldschmidt and Golubica.

Podravka said it expects the transaction to solidify the group's "position as one of the most significant and largest domestic companies, with the majority of its revenue generated from international markets".

Following the acquisition, these companies will sit in a third category within Podravka called Podravka Agri, accompanying its Food and Pharmaceuticals businesses.

Podravka is funding the purchase through commercial bank loans. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has been named as one of the partners financing the deal.

The EBRD will own a minority stake in Podravka Agri unit, while Podravka will own more than 80% of the shares.

Speaking on the deal, Martina Dalic, president of Podravka said: "This acquisition signifies modernisation and increased efficiency in crop and vegetable production, adherence to the highest European standards in livestock farming, improved relationships and expanded network of cooperatives, and a strengthened market presence of the Belje and Baranjka brands.

"These goals cannot be achieved overnight, but Podravka's current success and strength assure that our plans for these companies are both realistic and attainable.

"Honouring the long-standing traditions of agricultural production  centuries-long in the case of Belje  we will continue to develop these companies as leaders in Croatian agriculture and models of best practices in crop and livestock production and viticulture."

Story continues

Dalic added that "workers and the improvement of their material status will remain our priority" following the acquisition.

"Podravka signs deal to buy Fortenova food and drink assets" was originally created and published by Just Food, 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.
The place for all things cold chain.

This years Future of Freight Festival takes place Nov. 19-21 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But its not your average conference. Sure, there are wonderful speakers and fireside chats. But thats only half the fun. F3 is set up with half-days of speakers and amazing content. The other half we take over downtown Chattanooga, and there are events, networking and a lot of fun to be had by all. This year, subscribers to Running on Ice get a promo code exclusive to us! You can register with this link or use the code F3ROI24 at checkout for a discount.

All thawed out

(Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Last week the world watched as Lineage brought forth the largest IPO for the year. The company was valued at approximately $19 billion. Its safe to say the IPO was a massive success. Lineage was able to bring home $4.4 billion in proceeds. It was originally expecting to net $3.4 billion to $3.9 billion. Lineage initially planned to offer 47 million shares priced at $70 to $82 each. That changed.

FreightWaves Todd Maiden writes: Lineage Inc. said nearly 57 million shares of its common stock were priced at $78 per share ahead of its initial public offering on Thursday. A 30-day option for a 15% allotment (a little more than 8.5 million shares) has been granted to underwriters. The company said it will use proceeds to repay debt, fund cash grants to certain employees and pay transaction expenses. Any additional proceeds will be used for general corporate expenses or to repay other outstanding debt.

What a record to set as the largest IPO listing of the year, bringing home more than $1 billion more than anticipated in the process.

Temperature checks

(Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Motor City is just moving right along; it has found itself the home of a new cold storage facility expansion. Weeks Food Corp. has decided to expand its Detroit facility, which will add 21,515 square feet of temperature-controlled space to the facility.

Once complete, the expansion will include a 34 F-36 F cooler, 6,232-square-foot 36 F cold dock and 4,795-square-foot minus-10 F freezer. Site development includes city utility connections and decommissioning and removal of the existing sanitary field system.

This project will still allow Weeks to supply KFC and Popeyes across Michigan and northern Ohio. There is no anticipated service interruption during this expansion.

Food and drug

(Photo: Kraft Heinz)

Summer is the time of the ice cream man and cold treats. Well, Kraft Heinz might have gone a little overboard with its recent launch of a Fudge n Vanilla French Fry Pop, a product of a partnership between Ore-Ida and GoodPop. I love to dip a piping hot french fry into a chocolate shake as much as the next person, but this feels a step too far.

The fry and ice cream combo is one of Americas most popular food combinations, according to a survey. The Fudge n Vanilla French Fry Pop wraps a frozen vanilla oat milk base in a chocolate fudge shell rolled in real, crispy potato bits.

Daniel Goetz, CEO and founder of GoodPop, added in a news release: At GoodPop, we love creating cleaned-up versions of classic treats. With this seasonal collaboration, we hope to rekindle that child-like joy of summer, with a decidedly modern twist. As always, GoodPops goal is to elevate expectations for nostalgic favorites, so these Fudge n Vanilla French Fry Pops are dairy- and gluten-free, fit for all families to enjoy.

Cold chain lanes

SONAR Tickers: ROTVI.MEM, ROTRI.MEM

This weeks SONAR market is the Home of the Blues: Memphis, Tennessee. Reefer outbound tender rejections took a dive after the holiday and have only slightly started to recover. The ROTRI is up a mere 93 basis points week over week to 10.99% rejections, whereas reefer outbound tender volumes have stayed elevated for most of the summer and will extend that trend as shippers continue to protect from spoilage in the hottest months. Produce season also isnt helping capacity as carriers are moving with harvest times to stay on lucrative produce runs.

Shippers and brokers should expect somewhat better carrier compliance on routing guides compared to most of June and July. Carrier compliance for tendered loads will mimic mid-April and mid-May until the upswing in rejections levels out.

Is SONAR for you? Check it out with a demo!

Shelf life

Pharmaceutical-pitched refrigerated vans find wider market

Paris Olympics will be a true test of supply chains

California Supreme Court upholds AB5 exemption for gig workers

Saia Q2 first look

Wanna chat in the cooler? Shoot me an email with comments, questions or story ideas at moconnell@freightwaves.com.

See you on the internet.

Mary

If this newsletter was forwarded to you, you must be pretty chill. Join the coolest community in freight and subscribe for more at freightwaves.com/subscribe.

The post Running on Ice: An IPO gold rush for Lineage appeared first on FreightWaves.
View of the entrance area of the Alsterhaus in Hamburg. - The owner of Germany's best-known luxury department stores, Munich's Oberpollinger and Hamburg's Alsterhaus, has struck new lease agreements for both properties, sources familiar with the matter told dpa on 26 July. Bodo Marks/dpa

The owner of Germany's best-known luxury department stores, Munich's Oberpollinger and Hamburg's Alsterhaus, has struck new lease agreements for both properties, sources familiar with the matter told dpa on Friday.

The rental agreements, struck with the bankruptcy administrator for the former owner of the buildings, are expected to allow both stores to remain open and operating, according to the KaDeWe Group, which owns both stores.

Employees at the stores were informed of the deals on Friday morning, dpa has learned.

The agreement is also accompanied by about 40 job cuts, which will particularly affect the administration of the KaDeWe Group but will also affect the stores themselves. The company has a total of about 1,300 employees.

The KaDeWe Group did not immediately respond to requests for comment from dpa on Friday.

The Thai retail and hospitality giant Central Group took direct control of business operations of the three luxury department stores in June. Central Group already held a 50.1% stake in the KaDeWe Group.

The remaining stake in the stores, as well as the buildings themselves, belonged to the bankrupt Signa empire of controversial Austrian real estate mogul Rene Benko.

In January, the KaDeWe Group filed for insolvency, although business operations in the department stores are continuing.

Berlin's iconic Kaufhaus des Westens (KaDeWe) department store, which is also owned by the same company, is not affected by the agreement. According to Berlin's government, the Central Group took control of the KaDeWe building in April for 1 billion ($1.1 billion).
AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) are two telecom giants favored by many income investors for their exceptionally high yields. These companies have been transforming their businesses, focusing on 5G wireless technology and fiber broadband expansion.

Which of these high-yield dividend stocks is the better buy following their most recent earnings reports? Let's dive into their financials and core value proposition to find out.

Image source: Getty Images.

Market position and financial performance

Both AT&T and Verizon are investing heavily in 5G technology and expanding their fiber networks to capture market share in the lucrative broadband segment.

AT&T has made strides in its fiber business, adding 239,000 fiber net additions in the second quarter of 2024. Verizon reported strong growth in its fixed wireless business, with 378,000 net additions in the same period.

AT&T reported 2024 second-quarter revenue of $29.8 billion, with wireless service revenue growing 3.4% year over year. The company's adjusted earnings per share (EPS) was $0.57, and it generated $4.6 billion in free cash flow.

Verizon posted total revenue of $32.8 billion in Q2 of 2024, a 0.6% increase year over year. Its wireless service revenue grew 3.5%, slightly outpacing AT&T. Verizon's adjusted EPS was $1.15, and it generated $8.5 billion in free cash flow for the first half of 2024.

Stock and dividend comparison

AT&T's stock has outperformed Verizon's year to date, with AT&T up 8.52% compared to Verizon's more modest 3.2% gain. Both stocks have underperformed the benchmark S&P 500 this year, which isn't surprising, given their core appeal as income stocks.

On the valuation side, AT&T's stock is cheaper based on its price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 9.8, compared to Verizon's 14.6. Compared to the S&P 500's hefty 27.4 P/E ratio, though, both telecom stocks scan as a bargain.

AT&T currently offers a dividend yield of 6.1% with a payout ratio of 59.7%. Verizon's shares pay a modestly higher yield of 6.84% but with a 100% payout ratio, which could limit future dividend growth.

Near-term outlook: 5G and fiber expansion

Both companies are banking on 5G and fiber expansion to drive future growth. AT&T aims to pass 30 million-plus consumer and business locations with fiber by the end of 2025.

Verizon is focusing on its "network-as-a-service" strategy, leveraging its 5G network to expand into new business areas and increase average revenue per account.

Wall Street is forecasting low-single-digit top-line growth for both companies over the course of 2024 and 2025, reflecting the intense competition in the telecom industry as a whole.

Story continues

Key takeaways

While both AT&T and Verizon offer compelling dividend yields for income-focused investors, AT&T appears to have a slight edge. Its lower payout ratio provides a greater margin of safety for the dividend and room for growth. AT&T's lower valuation also suggests more upside potential over the long term.

The choice between these two telecom giants will ultimately depend on your specific income needs and risk tolerance. However, AT&T's combination of a solid yield, lower payout ratio, and better recent stock performance makes it a potentially more attractive option for many dividend-focused investors.

Should you invest $1,000 in AT&T right now?

Before you buy stock in AT&T, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and AT&T wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $700,076!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks 

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 22, 2024

George Budwell has positions in AT&T. The Motley Fool recommends Verizon Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Is AT&T or Verizon Communications the Better High-Yield Dividend Stock? was originally published by The Motley Fool
As global trade tensions persist and the Chinese economy shows signs of a slowdown, investors are increasingly focusing on companies with strong insider ownership, which can signal confidence in the company's future prospects. In this context, examining top growth companies on the Shanghai Exchange with high insider ownership could provide valuable insights into firms that are well-positioned to navigate current market uncertainties.

Top 10 Growth Companies With High Insider Ownership In China

Name Insider Ownership Earnings Growth Anhui Huaheng Biotechnology (SHSE:688639) 31.5% 26.5% Ningbo Sunrise Elc TechnologyLtd (SZSE:002937) 24.3% 27.7% ShenZhen Woer Heat-Shrinkable MaterialLtd (SZSE:002130) 19% 27.9% Zhejiang Jolly PharmaceuticalLTD (SZSE:300181) 24% 22.3% Cubic Sensor and InstrumentLtd (SHSE:688665) 10.1% 34.3% KEBODA TECHNOLOGY (SHSE:603786) 12.8% 25.1% Arctech Solar Holding (SHSE:688408) 38.7% 25.4% Suzhou Sunmun Technology (SZSE:300522) 36.5% 63.4% Sineng ElectricLtd (SZSE:300827) 36.5% 39.8% UTour Group (SZSE:002707) 23% 33.1%

Click here to see the full list of 363 stocks from our Fast Growing Chinese Companies With High Insider Ownership screener.

Let's uncover some gems from our specialized screener.

Simply Wall St Growth Rating: 

Overview: Suzhou Novosense Microelectronics Co., Ltd. is a company engaged in the research, development, and sale of high-performance analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits, with a market capitalization of approximately CN13.48 billion.

Operations: The revenue segments for the company are not specified in the provided text.

Insider Ownership: 25.1%

Revenue Growth Forecast: 33.6% p.a.

Suzhou Novosense Microelectronics, a key player in the Chinese semiconductor industry, is poised for significant growth with a forecasted revenue increase of 33.6% per year, outpacing the broader CN market's 13.6%. Despite its highly volatile share price recently, the company's earnings are expected to surge by 109.08% annually. However, its projected Return on Equity remains low at 2.3% over three years. Recent product launches and participation in major expos underline its commitment to innovation and market expansion.

SHSE:688052 Ownership Breakdown as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Growth Rating: 

Overview: MEMSensing Microsystems, based in Suzhou, China, operates in the micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) industry with a market capitalization of approximately CN2.36 billion.

Story continues

Operations: The company generates revenue primarily from its Integrated Circuit segment, totaling approximately CN395.25 million.

Insider Ownership: 25.9%

Revenue Growth Forecast: 27.2% p.a.

MEMSensing Microsystems, based in Suzhou, China, demonstrates robust growth potential with its revenue expected to increase by 27.2% annually, outstripping the Chinese market's average of 13.6%. Although the company recently reported a net loss reduction from CNY 20.55 million to CNY 14.45 million year-over-year and is predicted to achieve profitability within three years, challenges remain with a low forecasted Return on Equity of 4.5%. Additionally, recent actions such as completing a significant share buyback for CNY 14.79 million underscore management's confidence in its trajectory despite ongoing share price volatility.

SHSE:688286 Earnings and Revenue Growth as at Jul 2024

Simply Wall St Growth Rating: 

Overview: Shenzhen Ampron Technology Co., Ltd. specializes in the R&D, manufacturing, sales, and servicing of sensors within China, with a market capitalization of approximately CN3.81 billion.

Operations: The company primarily generates its revenue from the development, production, and distribution of sensor technologies in China.

Insider Ownership: 39.6%

Revenue Growth Forecast: 30.7% p.a.

Shenzhen Ampron Technology, while experiencing highly volatile share prices over the last three months, is poised for significant growth with earnings expected to rise by 46.5% annually and revenue projected to increase at 30.7% per year, both metrics surpassing broader market averages in China. Despite this promising outlook, there is a lack of data on its Return on Equity forecasts, and no recent insider trading activities have been reported. The company also affirmed a cash dividend recently, underscoring its financial health amidst rapid expansion.

SZSE:301413 Ownership Breakdown as at Jul 2024

Key Takeaways

Access the full spectrum of 363 Fast Growing Chinese Companies With High Insider Ownership by clicking on this link.

Invested in any of these stocks? Simplify your portfolio management with Simply Wall St and stay ahead with our alerts for any critical updates on your stocks.

Enhance your investing ability with the Simply Wall St app and enjoy free access to essential market intelligence spanning every continent.

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.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 SHSE:688052 SHSE:688286 and SZSE:301413.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
A Chinese military spokesperson on Thursday said attempts to intimidate China with military exercises or aggressive rhetoric will never work.

Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson for the Ministry of National Defense, made the remarks in response to a media inquiry about the U.S.-led multinational "RIMPAC-2024" exercise, which is believed by some to be an act of "muscle-flexing against China."

The Chinese military will never be swayed by fallacies, deterred by intimidation or cowed by pressure, said Zhang, adding that it has the resolve, capabilities and means to defeat all aggressors and safeguard China's national sovereignty, security and development interests.
Ukraine has received the first payment of 1.5bn ($1.6bn) taken from frozen Russian assets, the EU has announced today (26 July).

The payment marks the first step in the EU and G7s wider plan to support Ukraine with a $50bn loan.

Annual interest on this loan will be generated from $325bn of frozen assets in the Russian Central Bank, which the EU imposed sanctions against following Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The EU stands with Ukraine. Today we transfer 1.5 billion in proceeds from immobilised Russian assets to the defence and reconstruction of Ukraine, said Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission. There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlins money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live.

In the past 24 hours, Russia has launched a series of attacks on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and the surrounding area, killing three people and wounding at least six, local officials said. The office of a Swiss mine-clearing NGO was also damaged.

https://twitter.com/TheStudyofWar/status/1816662279288402249

Moscow also launched drones on southern Ukraine from the occupied Crimean peninsula, wounding three people and damaging port infrastructure and residential buildings in the city of Izmail.

How will Ukraines military spend the funds?

The EUs plan intends to bolster Ukraines military capabilities and finance its eventual reconstruction.

There is also speculation that the Ukrainian armed forces could use these funds to acquire ammunition amid shortages, which would feed into the European defence sector.

German prime Rheinmetall has announced it will build an ammunition factory in Ukraine, creating a direct production line. Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukrainian Minister for Strategic Industries and Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger signed the agreement in June  weeks before reports emerged that Russia had planned to assassinate Papperger.

https://twitter.com/AKamyshin/status/1816046756578124050

The UK has also announced a 2bn ($2.6bn) loan to Ukraine air defence systems and other equipment, following Ukrainian President Zelenskyys cabinet meeting in London last week.

UK officials will sit on a joint panel to decide what the funds are used for.

"Ukraine gets first $1.6bn from frozen Russian assets" was originally created and published by Investment Monitor, 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.
If you buy and hold a stock for many years, you'd hope to be making a profit. But more than that, you probably want to see it rise more than the market average. But Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE:UNP) has fallen short of that second goal, with a share price rise of 34% over five years, which is below the market return. Meanwhile, the last twelve months saw the share price rise 1.4%.

In light of the stock dropping 3.2% in the past week, we want to investigate the longer term story, and see if fundamentals have been the driver of the company's positive five-year return.

See our latest analysis for Union Pacific

There is no denying that markets are sometimes efficient, but prices do not always reflect underlying business performance. 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.

Over half a decade, Union Pacific managed to grow its earnings per share at 5.0% a year. So the EPS growth rate is rather close to the annualized share price gain of 6% per year. This indicates that investor sentiment towards the company has not changed a great deal. Indeed, it would appear the share price is reacting to the EPS.

You can see below how EPS has changed over time (discover the exact values by clicking on the image).

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. Before buying or selling a stock, we always recommend a close examination of historic growth trends, available here..

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 incorporates the value of any spin-offs or discounted capital raisings, along with any dividends, based on the assumption that the dividends are reinvested. It's fair to say that the TSR gives a more complete picture for stocks that pay a dividend. In the case of Union Pacific, it has a TSR of 50% 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

Union Pacific shareholders gained a total return of 3.7% during the year. Unfortunately this falls short of the market return. 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. It may well be that this is a business worth popping on the watching, given the continuing positive reception, over time, from the market. It's always interesting to track share price performance over the longer term. But to understand Union Pacific better, we need to consider many other factors. Even so, be aware that Union Pacific is showing 1 warning sign in our investment analysis , you should know about...

Story continues

If you are like me, then you will not want to miss this free list of undervalued small caps that insiders are buying.

Please note, the market returns quoted in this article reflect the market weighted average returns of stocks that currently trade on American 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
A historically high number of new homes are up for sale in the US South, thanks largely to Florida and Texas.

There were 293,000 newly built houses still on the market in that part of the country in June, topping the previous high of 291,000 set in August 2006, according to new data released this week.

Supply is tight elsewhere in the US as high borrowing costs discourage sellers from listing their properties, and developers race to build more new homes.

The South doesnt have that problem, especially in Florida and Texas, and that dynamic might provide an advantage to homebuyers in the near future. The glut of new homes may eventually help push down prices, which remain well above pre-pandemic levels.

"There's a measurable correction already occurring in the market on list prices, but it's still a fraction of what the appreciation was," said Nicholas Gerli, founder and CEO of Reventure Consulting, a real estate analysis firm.

Workers construct new Pulte homes in Mesa, Ariz., in 2010. (AP Photo/Matt York, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

PulteGroup CEO Ryan Marshall acknowledged the increased inventory of new and previously owned homes in Florida and Texas, telling analysts this week that orders for new Pulte homes were down 9% in Florida and off 8% in Texas in the company's second quarter.

"These markets are now in the process of finding the new clearing price needed to work down any excess inventory," Marshall told analysts.

Read more: Is this a good time to buy a house?

How it happened

So how did this happen in the South, at a time when other regions of the country are struggling to provide enough homes for the people who want them?

It all goes back to the pandemic, when people migrated away from certain pockets of the US. Florida and Texas, in particular, became popular destinations.

Investors and builders followed, ramping up development during a period of mass relocations.

But these states are no longer the draw they once were during the pandemic. That COVID-era migration is waning, even reversing in some metros.

Florida, which had reigned as the most popular move-in state, now ranks third, according to PODS, a moving and storage company. Austin, Texas  a top 20 move-in city during the pandemic  is the No. 5 move-out city this year. South Florida is third.

"You have a little bit of what's called a boomerang migration occurring where a lot of the people who moved into Texas and Florida during the pandemic are leaving," Gerli said.

"Some of that's happening because people are getting called back into the office, other people got laid off  maybe they work in tech. Other people are just moving back to where they came from."

Story continues

At the same time, housing investors and pandemic-era buyers that rushed into these markets are selling their properties to capture high prices before they fall further.

And all of that is creating a glut, with existing-home inventory in the South jumping 48.7% year over year in June. That was the biggest increase of any region.

"It's really all those forces kind of combining at once that's causing the inventory in Florida and Texas to spike," said Gerli of Reventure Consulting.

Workers toil on new homes in a housing development in Loveland, Colo., on June 25. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Texas investors looking for an exit

In Texas, some of those looking to sell at the moment appear to be investors.

They are offloading properties at a rate that is higher than the national average and higher than the state's pre-pandemic norm, according to an analysis from Realtor.com senior economic research analyst Hannah Jones.

So far this year, 13.6% of Texas sellers are investors, higher than the 8.4% average for the state between 2017 and 2019 and higher than the current average of 11.7% for the US.

Jones noted that many of these investors bought even before the pandemic began and have realized significant price appreciation. At the same time, the rental markets in key cities in the state are softening. Those are big reasons to sell now.

"Texas metros like Austin and San Antonio are among the areas seeing the largest year-over-year rent declines," she said. "Texas investors are seeing falling rents and may be looking to get out before rents fall further."

They've also had to swallow higher property taxes and, in some areas, higher insurance costs because of worsening hurricane trends. That's made it more expensive to carry the properties.

Miami Beach, Fla., St. Tropez Oceanfront Condominium with view. (Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) (Jeff Greenberg via Getty Images)

Florida's condos

Meanwhile, in Florida, some people who bought during the pandemic are reselling their properties  especially townhomes and condos.

In Florida, 15.8% of July listings were previously listed in 2020 or 2021. That's higher than the national average of 13.1%, according to Realtor.com's Jones. Inventory levels for both single-family homes and townhouses and condos are higher than at any time in the past four years.

But for condos and townhomes, it's decidedly a buyer's market. It would take 7.4 months to sell all the condo and townhouse supply on the market. A year ago, it was 3.6 months. A balanced market is 6 months.

"Florida condo owners especially are facing added costs since the collapse of that condo building a few years ago," said National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun, referring to the Surfside condo collapse in 2021.

New state regulations this year that were a response to that collapse require condominium associations to regularly appraise the safety of their buildings, often collecting more money for maintenance and repairs as a result.

Add to that higher homeowners insurance premiums as many insurers abandon the state and condo owners "may not be able to pay this extra additional amount, and they have to give it up," Yun said.

Janna Herron is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @JannaHerron.

Click here for real estate and housing market news, reports, and analysis to inform your investing decisions

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance
By Nick Carey and Nora Eckert

LONDON/DETROIT (Reuters) -Problems in the highly competitive U.S. car market including weak prices, high inventories and difficult logistics dented profits and hit shares of automakers including Ford Motor, Stellantis and Nissan on Thursday, as they scramble to find a fix.

Global automakers are facing a weakening outlook for sales across major markets such as the U.S., while also juggling an expensive transition to electric vehicles and growing competition from cheaper Chinese rivals.

U.S. automaker Ford plunged 16% after its second-quarter profit missed analyst expectations, weighed down by high warranty costs and a cash-burning electric vehicle business.

Shares in Milan-listed Stellantis lost nearly 9% after earlier hitting their lowest in almost a year. Nissan dropped 7%, sending the stock of its French alliance partner Renault down as well despite posting a first-half profit that beat estimates.

Automakers were dragged down by excess inventory in the United States, in part due to a June software outage that slowed or halted some dealerships' operations. New-vehicle supply at the start of July was more than double the year-ago period, according to Cox Automotive.

Cox analysts expect inventories to normalize in a couple of months as the effects of the CDK software outage wane. Still, investors are wary of higher inventories as motor vehicle output has been strong in the United States.

"Most investors have cited concerns on pricing risk emerging, especially amid rising inventory," Barclays analyst Dan Levy wrote in a note this week. U.S. federal data shows average spending per vehicle has ebbed of late.

Honda U.S. sales chief Lance Woelfer said inventories haven't been an issue for the Japanese automaker in the United States, but it affects everyone when any automakers struggle as that can then affect pricing.

"It creates a market dynamic you need to be aware of and adjust to," he said.

Woelfer said this year has been about balancing inventories and demand. Honda's U.S. sales are expected to rise 10% this year.

Nissan was hit hard by higher inventories, as its fiscal first-quarter profits were virtually wiped out and it slashed its annual outlook due to deep discounting in the U.S. market to get cars off lots.

CEO Makoto Uchida said it was a "tough one" to optimise inventory buildup in the United States and it would focus on better cars it can charge more for.

Ford has been beset by structural inefficiencies and by its electric vehicle business as it struggles to gain traction in that market. The company's EV and software unit posted a $1.1 billion operating loss for the quarter and expects that business to lose up to $5.5 billion for the year before taxes.

Story continues

WEAKENING OUTLOOK FOR SALES

World No. 4 automaker Stellantis said it was taking steps to fix weak margins and high inventory in the U.S. after delivering worse than expected first-half results. CEO Carlos Tavares said he will not hesitate to axe underperforming brands in its sprawling portfolio.

"If they don't make money, we'll shut them down," he said.

He has maintained since Stellantis was created in 2021 from the merger of Italian-American automaker Fiat Chrysler and France's PSA that all of its 14 brands including Maserati, Fiat, Peugeot and Jeep have a future.

Stellantis' profit margins have been higher than its peers in recent years, but in a note Bernstein analysts said its margins were now not far above those of General Motors, which posted solid results earlier this week and raised its annual profit forecast.

"This raises questions over Stellantis' cost efficiency reputation," they wrote. Its shares have fallen more than 20% this year, worst among the major European carmakers.

The world's number 3 automaker by sales, Hyundai, posted strong second-quarter results, lifted by U.S. sales of premium SUV models and hybrid vehicles, which helped it offset prolonged weakness in South Korea.

Like Stellantis, Nissan plans to bolster sales from new and refreshed models in the second half, including the Armada and Murano SUVs.

"It's totally unclear what vehicles that Nissan is selling in the United States are popular," said Seiji Sugiura, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Intelligence Laboratory.

"As the competitiveness of the models in their lineup is falling, they have no other choice but to make new vehicles, sell those and hope that they will be popular."

(Reporting by Nick Carey, Nora Eckert and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Additional reporting by Daniel Leussink in Tokyo, Giulio Piovaccari in Milan and Gilles Guillaume in Paris; Editing by Josephine Mason, Elaine Hardcastle and Nick Zieminski)
(Reuters) -The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Wednesday it has closed a preliminary evaluation investigation of about 1.5 million Honda vehicles over loss of power.

In November 2022, NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) had opened an investigation for 2018 to 2022 model year Honda CR-V and HR-V vehicles equipped with all-wheel drive after reports alleging rear differential seizure.

Some of the reports that were received alleged the vehicle's wheels locked up with no warning while still in motion, NHTSA said.

However, Honda stated the operator can control the vehicle without stability loss in the event of differential failure, NHTSA added.

After the driver shafts break due to a differential failure, the vehicle will still function as a two-wheel drive preventing complete loss of power, the agency said.

The ODI said it is closing the investigation as the information regarding field failures did not indicate hazardous outcomes and the repairs were covered under the manufacturer's warranty.

(Reporting by Disha Mishra and Shivansh Tiwary in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Krishna Chandra Eluri)
By Tom Hals

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has blocked a Department of Labor rule from taking effect that would have expanded the types of retirement advisers who are considered fiduciaries, finding the rule was arbitrary and conflicted with a law that governs retirement plans.

The rule, unveiled in April as the "Retirement Security Rule," was challenged by insurance groups who argued it conflicted with ERISA, or the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

Judge Jeremy Kernodle in Tyler, Texas, said in a Thursday ruling that the Federation of Americans for Consumer Choice Inc and other insurance groups were likely to prevail in their arguments. He blocked the rule nationally from taking effect on Sept. 23 while the lawsuit plays out.

The insurance groups had argued the rule improperly treated as fiduciaries those who provide one-time recommendations to retirees, such as for rolling over investments from an ERISA plan to an individual retirement account, or IRA.

The Labor Department said in a statement that the rule ensures retirement savings advice is in the best interest of the customer, not of the financial professional. "The department continues to believe that this rule is essential to ensuring that retirement investors are protected," the DOL statement said.

The rule was meant to close a loophole in the fiduciary standard that did not apply to recommendations for purchases of non-securities such as fixed index annuities, which are typically sold by insurance companies, according to the White House.

Investments in such annuities are attractive to risk-averse investors and have grown rapidly but also come with higher costs. The White House estimated the fiduciary rule could have saved retirees $5 billion a year on such investments.

Business groups have been using the courts to chip away at regulatory power and won a major Supreme Court victory in June in a case known as Loper Bright, which held that judges should not defer to an agency's interpretation of an ambiguous law.

Kernodle said as a result of Loper Bright, he did not owe deference to the Labor Department's interpretation of ERISA.

The Labor Department tried to expand the fiduciary rule in 2016, under the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama. That effort was blocked by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018 and Kernodle said the latest version of the fiduciary rule fails for many of the same reasons.

(Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
The US saw record-breaking oil production in 2023, according to government data. wenbin/Getty Images

US oil production will be "robust" for at least the next 18 months, Goldman Sachs said.

That's because drilling efficiency is improving, and oil prices are poised to stay high.

Still, the bank is calling for a slight slowdown as rigs begin to age in the Permian Basin region.

America's oil production boom will last for at least the next 18 months, according to Goldman Sachs.

Analysts said they expect oil production in the Permian Basin to remain strong through the end of 2026, despite crude oil production slowing slightly from its rapid pace in 2023. The US produced a whopping 12.9 million barrels of crude a day last year  drilling more oil than any other country in history, according to data from the US Energy Information Administration.

Oil production will keep growing, just at a slower clip in the coming years, the bank said. Researchers predicted that the US would churn out 340,000 barrels of crude a day in 2024 and a "still robust" 270,000 barrels per day in 2026.

That growth will largely be supported by increased drilling efficiency, as well as elevated oil prices. Drilling in the Permian Basin tends to be highly price-sensitive, and West Texas Intermediate crude prices are expected to remain above a key threshold of $50 for at least the next 18 months, the bank predicted.

"Drilling and completion efficiency continues to improve via lower drilling costs and shorter drilling and completion times," Yulia Grigsby, energy economist at Goldman Sachs Research, added in a note.

Slowing production, though, will largely be caused by the aging of the oil wells throughout the Permian Basin, where the average oil rig begins to stagnate after three to four years.

The number of active oil rigs in the region has fallen 30% from the average number recorded in 2018 and 2019  and will likely keep falling through the end of 2026, the bank predicted.

Well production could rise to 100 barrels per day in 2024, but slow to around 50 barrels per day starting in 2025  just a third of the growth recorded in 2019, it added.

"Years of intense exploration and production have had an impact on the rock quality of the basin, leading to geological deformations that limit further improvements in the productivity of oil wells," researchers said.

Oil prices have risen this year as markets took in supply cuts from OPEC+ and escalating geopolitical tension in the Middle East. Oil demand, meanwhile, is set to rise for the next 10 years, Goldman Sachs previously predicted, which suggests the market is still at risk of a supply shortage. Conversely, the International Energy Agency has argued that demand is set to peak before 2030.

Read the original article on Business Insider
Virgin Atlantic

Virgin Atlantic will impose a fee of up to 24 per flight as part of new green levy aimed at covering the costs of using sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

The 24 charge will be levied on the carriers upper class premium tickets, with travellers paying an 8 fee in economy and 12 in premium economy, the company said on Friday.

The green levies, which Virgin says are equivalent to about 1pc of ticket prices, will result in an extra 32 charge for a family of four flying in the cheapest seats from London to Florida or New York, climbing to 96 in the front of the plane.

Virgin, owned by Sir Richard Branson, said the levies will be applied with immediate effect for bookings on flights from January next year.

They will only apply to flights outbound from the UK.

The company said the fees will help meet costs associated with a government requirement for flights to be powered by at least 10pc SAF by 2030, as well as expenses from the UK emissions trading scheme.

SAF costs at least three times as much as traditional kerosene, with prices inflated by scarce production.

The industry is hopeful that pressures will ease after the Government pledged support for domestic SAF production during the Kings Speech.

However, Virgin said more detail is required to ensure greater levels of investment.

Shai Weiss, the Virgin chief executive, unveiled plans for the green levy this week, telling The Telegraph that the carrier wanted to be transparent about any additional charges.

After confirming the fees, Virgins chief commercial officer Juha Jarvinen said: The introduction of a carbon surcharge reflects increasing regulatory and compliance costs and we want to be open and clear with our customers, while doing everything we can to keep these costs as low as possible.

SAF, which is made from used cooking oil, is viewed as the most practical route towards reducing the aviation sectors emissions.

Lufthansa has previously been the only major airline to go public with plans for SAF-related fees.

The German operator revealed last month it will include a surcharge of up to 72 (61) per ticket starting next year to help cover the costs of European Union SAF mandates.

Brussels will introduce a statutory quota of 2pc SAF for flights starting in January, rising to 6pc from 2030, lower than the target facing Virgin and other UK carriers.

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.
If we want to find a stock that could multiply over the long term, what are the underlying trends we should look for? In a perfect world, we'd like to see a company investing more capital into its business and ideally the returns earned from that capital are also increasing. Basically this means that a company has profitable initiatives that it can continue to reinvest in, which is a trait of a compounding machine. However, after investigating Hexza Corporation Berhad (KLSE:HEXZA), we don't think it's current trends fit the mold of a multi-bagger.

Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What Is It?

For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for Hexza Corporation Berhad:

Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT)  (Total Assets - Current Liabilities)

0.017 = RM7.2m  (RM434m - RM3.2m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2024).

Therefore, Hexza Corporation Berhad has an ROCE of 1.7%. Ultimately, that's a low return and it under-performs the Chemicals industry average of 6.2%.

View our latest analysis for Hexza Corporation Berhad

roce

While the past is not representative of the future, it can be helpful to know how a company has performed historically, which is why we have this chart above. If you want to delve into the historical earnings , check out these free graphs detailing revenue and cash flow performance of Hexza Corporation Berhad.

How Are Returns Trending?

When we looked at the ROCE trend at Hexza Corporation Berhad, we didn't gain much confidence. Over the last five years, returns on capital have decreased to 1.7% from 6.0% five years ago. Given the business is employing more capital while revenue has slipped, this is a bit concerning. If this were to continue, you might be looking at a company that is trying to reinvest for growth but is actually losing market share since sales haven't increased.

The Bottom Line

We're a bit apprehensive about Hexza Corporation Berhad because despite more capital being deployed in the business, returns on that capital and sales have both fallen. The market must be rosy on the stock's future because even though the underlying trends aren't too encouraging, the stock has soared 107%. In any case, the current underlying trends don't bode well for long term performance so unless they reverse, we'd start looking elsewhere.

Hexza Corporation Berhad does come with some risks though, we found 3 warning signs in our investment analysis, and 2 of those don't sit too well with us...

Story continues

For those who like to invest in solid companies, check out this free list of companies with solid balance sheets and high returns on equity.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.



This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team@simplywallst.com
China's Guangdong takes lead in new reforms

Xinhua) 08:20, July 26, 2024

GUANGZHOU, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Shenzhen, in the vibrant southern Chinese province of Guangdong, is not just a city but a canvas illustrating tomorrow's urban life.

In Shenzhen's Pingshan District, the streets pulse with a symphony of future transportation: yellow unmanned logistic cars pause obediently at red lights before zipping off to deliver piping hot meals; driverless cabs glide effortlessly alongside, ferrying passengers to their destinations; above it all, a fleet of autonomous buses cruise along the elevated rails.

An aerial drone photo shows an autonomous bus running on elevated rails in Pingshan District of Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province, July 22, 2024. (Xinhua/Li He)

This captivating scene is the result of Guangdong's bold reforms over the decades. In late 1978, China launched its reform and opening up initiative, designating Guangdong as a testbed by establishing three of the country's first four special economic zones in the province, including Shenzhen.

Initially emerging as a "world factory," Guangdong has since evolved, striving to establish itself as a global scientific and technological powerhouse. As China pushes for deeper comprehensive reforms, with over 300 measures unveiled at the third plenary session of the 20th Communist Party of China Central Committee, Guangdong once again leads the charge. It continues to pioneer efforts that reinforce its position as a beacon of innovation, opening up and creativity.

SUPPORTING INNOVATION

From July 15 to 18, the plenum was held in Beijing to discuss further reforms, with "supporting all-around innovation" as a vital topic. Meanwhile, an innovative demonstration in Shenzhen's Pingshan captured the public's imagination.

At the inauguration of a government-funded facility designed to test intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) and drones, onlookers were amazed as a drone launched from a built-in docking bay of a moving SUV, then automatically returned and completed a battery swap.

Liu Yingjie, who oversees Pingshan's sci-tech innovation bureau, sees this facility, the first of its kind in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, as Shenzhen's major step in nurturing smart cities and the low-altitude economy, sectors poised to shape China's future development. This progress follows years of institutional and infrastructure support from the city.

An aerial drone photo taken on July 22, 2024 shows a test facility of intelligent connected vehicles (ICVs) and drones in Pingshan District of Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province. (Xinhua/Li He)

In August 2022, Shenzhen pioneered China's autonomous vehicle regulation, becoming the first city to implement rules allowing licensed operators to deploy driverless cars on specific roads. Pingshan took a bold step forward, opening its entire area for commercial pilot programs of fully autonomous ICVs, with a network of roads spanning 440 kilometers.

Following Shenzhen's rollout of measures to boost the low-altitude economy in December 2022, helicopter taxis and drone delivery services have emerged in the city.

Represented by Shenzhen's endeavors, Guangdong is endeavoring to foster new industries with its vibrant innovation ecosystem. The province is home to over 75,000 high-tech enterprises, including world-class companies such as EV manufacturer BYD, drone pioneer DJI, and smart device provider Honor.

The province now ranks first among all provincial-level regions in China in terms of key scientific and technological indicators, such as R&D expenditure and the number of R&D personnel and international patent applications.

According to Liu, enterprises' R&D investment accounts for over 98 percent of the total social R&D investment in Pingshan. He highlighted the district government's role as a bridge and pledged to take new measures to boost closer enterprise-led collaboration between industries, universities and research institutes.

EMBRACING OPENING UP

Nansha District in Guangzhou, comparable in size to Singapore, is located at the geographical center of the Greater Bay Area, linking nine major cities in Guangdong with Hong Kong and Macao. Leveraging its prime location and open policies, Nansha has transformed into a crucial gateway, attracting global resources and empowering Chinese enterprises to venture abroad.

This photo taken on July 23, 2024 shows the building of an international talent port in Nansha District of Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province. (Xinhua/Li He)

"Just like Guangdong since the late 1970s, Nansha today is thriving on deeper reforms and greater opening up," said Xu Yuqi, deputy head of the reform office under the district's Party committee.

Tam Hio Hong is among the 129 professionals from Hong Kong and Macao who have benefited from Nansha's new policy that recognizes 146 overseas professional qualifications across six major industries. With her Macao legal credentials now recognized, Tam can perform legal services in Nansha, just like mainland lawyers.

Knowing there will be improved measures to facilitate the lives of people from outside the mainland, Tam said that she is more optimistic about her life and career here.

RJE Tech, a Guangzhou-based electronic battery manufacturer, chose Nansha as its R&D and production base because the district is located in the center of the Greater Bay Area and is attractive to talent. Zhu Kunqing, RJE Tech's general manager, said he is impressed with the government's proactive support in helping enterprises achieve their goals.

In October 2023, a government-supervised platform was established in Nansha to help small and medium-sized enterprises invest and do business overseas. Through the platform, professional institutions from overseas provide the enterprises with financial, tax and legal consultations.

According to He Yinghua from the platform, it has served 230 enterprises and signed cooperation memorandums with over 120 entities.

SERVING THE PEOPLE

Guangdong's reforms extend beyond economic growth. Reforms are carried out in many other areas to improve people's wellbeing.

An aerial drone photo taken on July 22, 2024 shows the Pingshan Library in Pingshan District of Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province. (Xinhua/Li He)

In Shenzhen's Pingshan District, residents regularly have the opportunity to interact with esteemed figures from various fields at the local library, in addition to a diverse variety of activities.

Lu Qimei, deputy head of the Pingshan Library, highlighted the district's reform of the management system for public cultural facilities. The system now employs talent from relevant sectors to oversee operations, a departure from traditional government-run models. "Professional management ensures diverse and advanced cultural offerings," Lu explained.

Meanwhile, in Guangzhou, an 81-year-old retired teacher surnamed Yang has become the envy of her friends living abroad after sharing photos of her meals from a senior canteen just a 10-minute walk from her home. To her friends' surprise, the meals were prepared by robots.

Yang is one of Guangzhou's 2.09 million seniors aged 60 and above. They can enjoy affordable, diverse meals at over 1,400 senior or community canteens throughout the city. Introduced in 2010, these canteens are subsidized by the government and most of their meals cost less than 15 yuan (around 2 U.S. dollars).

"I am sure we will enjoy even better elderly care services in the years to come," Yang said.

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Zhong Wenxing)
China's homegrown large civil unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are moving swiftly to support the fight against torrential rains, typhoons and other natural disasters in the critical flood season this summer.

The independently-developed large civil UAVs, including the Wing Loong-2H and Haiyan-1, have been dispatched to support disaster relief, disaster prevention and mitigation, and other emergency rescue missions, according to the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC).

The country has entered the annual critical flood season, which normally runs from late July to early August. Large UAVs are performing unique roles in serving disaster monitoring, meteorological monitoring, communication support, post-disaster recovery efforts and more.

The Wing Loong-2H large UAV flew for a total of 45 hours over three consecutive days, from July 20 to 22, over the flood-stricken Hanyuan County under the city of Ya'an, southwest China's Sichuan Province, said AVIC.

Responding to the task from the Ministry of Emergency Management, the Wing Loong-2H carried out comprehensive disaster monitoring over the affected areas. It supported searches for missing personnel and provided long-term and stable communications support, said AVIC.

This large UAV provided rescue-command authorities with real-time information in the form of high-definition images, voice and data from the disaster-hit areas, supporting them in confirming risk points, monitoring disaster conditions, as well as efficient and precise on-site command and rescuer dispatch, said the developer.

With its ability to remain in flight for long periods, the Wing Loong-2H also served as an airborne communication base to ensure communication services. It provided stable and continuous communication signals covering a total area of about 2,700 square km during missions over three days, and sent 42,000 rescue-related messages, serving as a lifeline for both people and rescue forces in disaster areas.

As a meteorological monitoring-specialized model, the Haiyan-1 large UAV is playing its part in the typhoon season this summer.

In responding to the task from the Meteorological Observation Center under the China Meteorological Administration, the Haiyan-1 flew into the interior of Typhoon Prapiroon, the fourth typhoon of the year, said AVIC.

It carried out typhoon detection work in cooperation with an aircraft sent by the Hong Kong Observatory. They precisely captured the outer cloud system structure of Typhoon Prapiroon, supporting meteorological disaster prevention and reduction efforts.

In this mission lasting about two hours, Haiyan-1 sent more than 4,200 valid items of data to a meteorological big-data cloud platform and provided them to meteorological authorities and related institutions for further study.

It also obtained data on the temperature, humidity, wind direction, wind speed and air pressure at different altitudes, allowing meteorological forecasters to clearly observe the three-dimensional structure of the typhoon.

The Haiyan-1 large UAV enabled the forecasters to clearly "see" the inner structure of the typhoon cloud system, helping them to grasp the typhoon's development and make forecasts in a more scientific manner, said AVIC.
It wasn't so long ago when Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) stocks were flying high thanks to their hotly popular weight loss drugs (Wegovy/Ozempic for Novo Nordisk and Zepbound/Mounjaro for Lilly).

In the pharmaceutical industry, as in other sectors, a high-demand product encourages competitors to enter the same segment. News of a rapidly emerging rival put the hurt on both Novo Nordisk and Lilly stocks Thursday, with the former closing the trading session down by almost 3% and the latter declining at a nearly 5% clip. Another weight-loss drug developer, Roche Holdings (OTC:RHHBY) fared better, with a 2.7% gain.

Threat of a Viking invasion

That rival is ambitious clinical-stage biotech Viking Therapeutics. The company published its second-quarter results and business update after market close on Wednesday, and the obesity drug incumbents probably wish it hadn't.

In that update, Viking revealed that it aims to advance its investigational drug VK2735 to a phase 3 clinical trial. This has the potential to put a real dent in the weight-loss segment that Novo Nordisk and Lilly are currently dominating; according to Viking management, VK2735 demonstrated a roughly 15% decrease in body weight after 13 weeks of use by participants in a phase 2 study conducted earlier this year.

That, uncomfortably for the two incumbents, topped the clinical results of their weight-loss products.

At the moment, investors are more excited about the prospects of the upstarts. That's a key reason why Roche stock rose along with Viking, and both Novo Nordisk and Lilly slipped. Last week, the Switzerland-based company announced that its CT-996 experimental diabetes/obesity drug had -- similarly to Viking -- clearly showed solid results compared to a placebo.

While Roche's treatment hasn't yet advanced past Phase 1 testing, it obviously has potential. What might even make it a "Wegovy killer," is that it's administered in the form of a once-daily pill, as opposed to an injection.

The power of incumbency

I should note here that in both cases, Viking and Roche, the two companies' products are still in development. Those of Novo Nordisk and Lilly, in sharp contrast, are already on pharmacy shelves and available for use.

It's not wise to ignore first-mover advantage. Novo Nordisk is a pioneer, as it was the first to win Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for this category of drugs. So Wegovy/Ozempic are the twin products most readily associated with such therapies, and many potential patients might only be familiar with these. That will make it challenging to market competing new drugs, and to take share from the established companies.

Story continues

Should you invest $1,000 in Novo Nordisk right now?

Before you buy stock in Novo Nordisk, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now and Novo Nordisk wasnt one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, youd have $700,076!*

Stock Advisor provides investors with an easy-to-follow blueprint for success, including guidance on building a portfolio, regular updates from analysts, and two new stock picks each month. The Stock Advisor service has more than quadrupled the return of S&P 500 since 2002*.

See the 10 stocks 

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 22, 2024

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Why Weight Loss Drug Developer Stocks Tumbled on Thursday was originally published by The Motley Fool
(Bloomberg) -- New Yorks $260 billion pension fund is urging Micron Technology Inc. to adopt a global policy of labor neutrality, which would pave the way for workers at the companys chip factories to form and join unions.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Micron previously agreed to hold talks with the Communications Workers of America in New York about such an agreement, after the chipmaker won a preliminary award for billions in federal grants and loans from the 2022 Chips and Science Act. But the negotiations have been disappointing so far, according to a CWA spokesperson.

We have had discussions with Micron but have not made meaningful progress toward an enforceable labor peace agreement, the union said in a statement.

Micron said it respects the rights of workers to form and join trade unions of their own choosing, to bargain collectively and to peacefully assemble as permitted under applicable local law. It didnt immediately respond to a request for comment on the unions characterization of the discussions.

Under a typical neutrality accord, companies agree not to interfere with organizing and workers pledge not to disrupt operations. That would be a boon for unions looking to organize a wave of new factories spurred by President Joe Bidens economic policy.

Its an uphill battle in the semiconductor industry, where companies have resisted unionization over concerns including the risk of adversity between labor and management. Intel Corp., CWA President Claude Cummings said earlier, has responded coolly to the prospect of labor peace discussions.

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said that a neutrality policy at Micron would reduce the likelihood of labor disputes, strikes or work stoppages that could disrupt operations and negatively impact shareholder value, according to his July letter to Micron Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Mehrotra. The New York State Common Retirement Fund owned about 1.7 million Micron shares as of March 31. Micron hasnt responded to the letter, according to Mark Johnson, the funds press secretary.

Micron is investing as much as $100 billion to build as many as four chipmaking factories in upstate New York, and is in line to receive $6.1 billion in Chips Act grants, plus billions more in loans and tax credits. Thats on top of $5.8 billion in incentives from the state, which has its own semiconductor subsidy program.

Story continues

--With assistance from Ian King.

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

2024 Bloomberg L.P.
The American Express Business Gold Card is now offering an increased welcome offer: You can earn 100,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $15,000 on eligible purchases within the first three months of card membership.

If you travel often for work, 100,000 business credit card points can significantly reduce your upcoming trip expenses  especially if you transfer points to one of over 20 Amex hotel and airline partners.

American Express Business Gold Card Rates & fees , terms apply Annual fee $375

Welcome offer Earn 100,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $15,000 on purchases within the first 3 months. The Business Gold Card now comes in three metal designs  Gold, Rose Gold, and Limited Edition White Gold (while supplies last).

Card type(s) Business, Rewards

Introductory Purchases APR 0% on purchases for 6 months from the date of account opening

Ongoing Purchases APR 18.99% - 27.99% Variable

Recommended credit score Excellent/Good Rewards rate Earn 4x Membership Rewards points on the top two eligible categories (out of 6 total categories) where your business spends the most each month. Although your top 2 categories may change each month, you will earn 4x points on the first $150,000 in combined purchases from these categories each calendar year, then 1x after that (only the top 2 categories each billing cycle will count towards the $150,000 cap; terms apply). 3x points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on AmexTravel.com 1x points on all other purchases

Benefits Earn up to $20 in monthly statement credits (up to $240 annually) for eligible U.S. purchases at FedEx, Grubhub, and office supply stores Receive a monthly $12.95 statement credit after you pay for a monthly Walmart+ membership (subject to auto-renewal; up to $12.95 plus applicable taxes on one membership fee) Your spending limit is flexible and adjusts based on factors such as your purchase, payment, and credit history

Read our full review of the Amex Business Gold card Learn more

Breaking down the Amex Business Gold offer

With the Amex Business Gold, you can earn 100,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $15,000 on eligible purchases within the first three months of card membership. The exact value of the 100,000 points depends on the redemption. Lets look at a few examples of how you can use your points using Amex transfer partners:

Iberia business-class flights: You can find business fares available on Iberia for 34,000 Avios (plus taxes and fees) each during off-peak months, such as March and April. You can typically find up to two award seats available on flights to Barcelona and Madrid from Boston and New York. For the same fares we found available in April, the flights would cost you around $2,700 each.

KLM economy flights: KLM and Air France regularly offer flight promotions through their Flying Blue loyalty program. Sometimes, you can fly to Europe for as little as 15,000 miles in economy class. For example, we found availability for six passengers to fly from Atlanta to Amsterdam for a total of 90,000 miles (plus $585 taxes and fees). In cash, that same flight would cost a total of $8,264 (which is a ridiculously high amount, even for that many passengers).

Virgin Voyages cruises: Virgin Voyages cruise itineraries can often be booked with Virgin points, something to keep in mind for the next corporate retreat. The price is typically for the cabin, which often fits up to two people. Recent offers weve seen are four- or five-day Caribbean cruises ranging from 95,000 to 115,000 points and seven-day European cruises for 160,000 points. You can stretch your points even further with frequent transfer bonuses between American Express and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

Related: The best cruise credit cards available today

Should you apply for the Amex Business Gold Card?

Consider these factors to help you decide whether the Amex Business Gold makes sense for you:

Welcome offer

You can earn 100,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $15,000 on eligible purchases within the first three months of card membership. Thats a hefty spend requirement, but its often doable if you have a lot of business expenses.

Read more: The best credit card sign-up bonuses

Annual fee

The Amex Business Gold has a $375 annual fee (see rates & fees), which might not make sense for everyone. The cards rewards and benefits offer plenty of potential value to help offset the yearly cost, but you have to see if that value applies to your business spending.

Rewards

You can earn:

4x points on your top two eligible spending categories each billing cycle (up to $150,000 in combined spending each calendar year, then 1x)

3x points on flights and prepaid hotels booked on AmexTravel.com

1x points on all other purchases

Eligible spending categories include:

Purchases at US media providers for advertising in select media (online, TV, radio)

U.S. purchases made from electronic goods retailers and software & cloud system providers

U.S. purchases at restaurants, including takeout and delivery

U.S. purchases at gas stations

Transit purchases, including trains, taxicabs, rideshare services, ferries, tolls, parking, buses, and subways

Monthly wireless telephone service charges made directly from a wireless telephone service provider in the U.S.

If your business expenses fall into these categories, the Amex Business Gold Card could be the right fit for your company.

Benefits

Some of the top benefits include:

Earn up to $20 in monthly statement credits (up to an annual savings of $240) for eligible U.S. purchases at FedEx, Grubhub, and office supply stores  enrollment is required.

Receive up to $12.95 statement credit (plus applicable taxes) for one Walmart+ membership.

These two benefits are likely the easiest way to offset some of the cards annual fee. If they dont make sense for you, consider looking into other travel credit cards.

Read more: The best American Express Credit Cards for 2024

This article was edited by Rebecca McCracken

Editorial Disclosure: The information in this article has not been reviewed or approved by any advertiser. All opinions belong solely to Yahoo Finance and are not those of any other entity. The details on financial products, including card rates and fees, are accurate as of the publish date. All products or services are presented without warranty. Check the banks website for the most current information. This site doesn't include all currently available offers. Credit score alone does not guarantee or imply approval for any financial product.
The JetBlue Plus Card is the premium credit card for loyal JetBlue travelers. Considering its reasonable annual fee, its packed with perks and money-saving features that reward users when flying JetBlue.

New cardholders can earn a generous welcome bonus and save money on interest when using its intro APR offer on balance transfers. Learn more about the JetBlue Plus Card to determine if it's right for you.

JetBlue Plus Card Annual fee $99

Welcome offer Earn 50,000 bonus points after spending $1,000 on purchases within the first 90 days

Card type(s) Airline, Travel

Introductory APR 0% intro APR on balance transfers for the first 12 months, after which the standard APR applies

Purchase APR 21.24% - 29.99% variable Rewards rate 6x points on eligible JetBlue purchases 2x points at restaurants and eligible grocery stores 1x points on all other purchases

Benefits Free first checked bag for you and three travel companions on JetBlue flights Get 10% of your points back after you redeem them for a JetBlue award flight Earn 5,000 points bonus each year on your account anniversary Receive up to a $100 statement credit after you purchase a JetBlue Vacations package 50% savings on eligible inflight purchases when flying JetBlue

Learn more

Additional benefits

Beyond earning and redeeming points, the JetBlue Plus Card includes numerous benefits that make the card worthwhile for JetBlue travelers.

First checked bag free

On JetBlue flights, you and up to three travel companions on the same reservation get the first checked bag for free.

Earn Mosaic status with your purchases

JetBlue has four levels of Mosaic elite status, with different perks for each level. To reach these tiers, you must earn "tiles" based on your spending with the airline, its partners, or a JetBlue credit card. For every $1,000 you spend on the JetBlue Plus Card, you'll receive one tile. Earn 50 tiles to reach the first level of Mosaic status.

50% off inflight purchases

During your JetBlue flight, you'll receive a 50% statement credit on all inflight food and drink purchases. Eligible purchases include beer, wine, cocktails, and meals. However, other purchases, such as pillows and earphones, dont count.

10% rebate on JetBlue award flights

When you redeem points for award flights on JetBlue, you'll receive a 10% rebate on your points after you take the flight. For example, if you redeem 50,000 TrueBlue points to book a flight, you'll receive 5,000 points when the flight is complete.

No foreign transaction fees

JetBlue has expanded its international destinations over the last few years. It now flies to the Caribbean, Latin America, the U.K., France, and the Netherlands. Bring your JetBlue Plus Card with you to earn additional points since it doesnt charge foreign transaction fees on purchases made outside the U.S.

How to earn rewards

There are multiple ways to earn rewards with the JetBlue Plus Card, including the anniversary points and your purchases.

JetBlue purchases: Youll earn 6x points when paying for flights, upgrades, in-flight purchases, and other JetBlue purchases made directly with the airline. For frequent travelers on JetBlue, this is the best way to earn points on flights.

Other spending: The JetBlue Plus Card also earns bonus points on other purchases. Youll get 2x points on every dollar you spend at restaurants and eligible grocery stores. Warehouse-type stores such as Target, Walmart, and Costco typically dont apply. On all other purchases, youll receive an unlimited 1x points. Even when youre not spending money at JetBlue or on bonus categories, youll earn one TrueBlue point for every dollar spent.

Anniversary bonus: Each year you renew the card and pay the annual fee, youll receive 5,000 anniversary points. Worth at least $50, this bonus alone can cut the annual fee in half.

How to redeem rewards

After earning points from the JetBlue Plus credit card, you have numerous options to redeem them. Here are a few of the best options for your rewards.

JetBlue flights: TrueBlue members can redeem points for any JetBlue flight. Award flights are available for any seat at any time, with no blackout dates. However, you cannot redeem points to book Blue Basic fares.

JetBlue Vacations packages: When booking a JetBlue Vacations package, your points can cover flights, hotels, and car rentals. During your search, select points instead of cash to redeem rewards for some or all of an eligible reservation.

Cash + Points flights: Many TrueBlue members don't have enough points to cover the entire cost of their trip, or they're saving their points for other redemptions. With Cash + Points, you can use nearly any combination of points and cash to pay for your reservation. This payment option is available for all JetBlue flights, except when booking a Blue Basic fare.

Redeem points on other airlines: Because JetBlue partners with Hawaiian Airlines and Qatar Airways, you can earn and redeem TrueBlue points on these flights. Search for flights online at JetBlue.com or through the airline's mobile app, and eligible Hawaiian and Qatar flights will appear in the search results.

Points Payback: Although the best value for your points is usually booking a flight or vacation package, Points Payback allows cardholders to redeem points for statement credits on purchases made within the last 90 days.

Who is the JetBlue Plus Card best for?

The JetBlue Plus Card is best for travelers who want to maximize rewards and benefits on JetBlue flights. It earns 6x points on JetBlue purchases and includes money-saving perks like the first checked bag free and a 50% discount on inflight purchases.

Frequent or even occasional JetBlue fliers will likely find it easy to offset the cards annual fee. After factoring in the 5,000 bonus anniversary points each year, youd only need to take advantage of two free checked bags to cancel out the cards cost.

JetBlue Plus Card pros

Easily attainable welcome bonus

Free checked bags

Anniversary bonus points when renewing the card

Earn Mosaic status based on everyday spending

Redeem points on any JetBlue flight

JetBlue Plus Card cons

No travel or purchase protections

Intro APR offer does not include purchases

JetBlue flies to limited destinations

Where can you use JetBlue Plus Card?

The JetBlue Plus Card can be used anywhere that accepts Mastercard as a form of payment. Mastercard is widely accepted in the U.S. and across the globe, so if a merchant accepts credit cards, it is likely that you can use your JetBlue credit card there. The card does not charge foreign transaction fees, so there are no hidden charges when making purchases outside the U.S.

How to make a JetBlue Plus Card payment

Online a Cards.BarclayCardUS.com

Barclays US mobile app

Pay by phone: (877) 523-0478

Mail payments to one of two addresses: Card Services, P.O. Box 13337, Philadelphia, PA 19191 Card Services, P.O. Box 60517, City of Industry, CA 91716



JetBlue Plus Card customer service info

Customer service is available 24/7

Phone number: (866) 928-3104

JetBlue Plus Card login page

Alternative cards to consider

The JetBlue Plus Card is an excellent choice for travelers who are loyal to the airline. But with an annual fee and a limited number of destinations, these alternative travel cards may be a better option.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Card Annual fee $95

Welcome offer Get up to $1,050 in Chase Travel value: Earn 60,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months  worth $750 when redeemed through Chase Travel  plus up to $300 in statement credits on Chase Travel purchases within your first year

Card type(s) Travel

Ongoing Purchases APR 21.49% - 28.49% Variable

Recommended credit score Excellent/Good Rewards rate 5x points on travel purchased through Chase Travel 3x points on dining, select streaming services, and online groceries 2x points on all other travel purchases 1x points on all other purchases

Benefits Points are worth 25% more when you redeem for airfare, hotels, car rentals and cruises through Chase Travel Earn up to $50 in annual statement credits for hotel stays purchased through Chase Travel On every account anniversary, earn bonus points equal to 10% of your total purchases made the previous year

Learn more

Why we like it: The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a general travel card that earns flexible points, which can be redeemed for travel, cash back, gift cards, and more. It earns 5x points on travel booked through Chase, 3x on dining, select streaming services, and online grocery orders, and 2x on all other travel purchases.

Cardholders can book travel through Chase and get 25% more value on their points, or they can transfer points on a 1:1 basis to TrueBlue (or 13 other airline and hotel partners) to book an award reservation. This card also includes valuable travel and purchase protections, something the JetBlue Plus Card lacks.

Read our full review of the Chase Sapphire Preferred

Southwest Rapid Rewards Plus Credit Card Annual fee $69

Welcome offer Earn 85,000 points after spending $3,000 in first 3 months

Card type(s) Travel, Airline

Ongoing Purchases APR 21.49% - 28.49% Variable

Recommended credit score Excellent/Good Rewards rate 2x on Southwest purchases 2x on Rapid Rewards hotel and car rental partners 2x on local transit and commuting, including rideshare 2x on internet, cable, and phone services; select streaming 1x on all other purchases

Benefits 3,000 bonus points after your Cardmember anniversary 2 EarlyBird Check-In each year

Learn more

Why we like it: Southwest is a direct competitor of JetBlue for budget-conscious travelers because of its low fares and "bags fly free" policy. The Southwest Plus Card features two free EarlyBird check-ins per year, 3,000 anniversary points, and a 25% inflight discount. Additionally, all points earned from the card, including the welcome bonus and anniversary points, count toward earning the coveted Southwest Companion Pass.

American Express Gold Card Rates & fees , terms apply Annual fee $325

Welcome offer Earn 60,000 Membership Rewards points after you spend $6,000 on eligible purchases in the first 6 months, plus 20% back on restaurant spending worldwide (up to $100 in statement credits) for new cardmembers through November 6, 2024

Card type(s) Travel, Rewards

Ongoing Purchases APR See Pay Over Time APR

Recommended credit score Excellent/Good Rewards rate 4x Membership Rewards Points at restaurants worldwide (on up to $50,000 per calendar year in purchases, then 1x) 4x Membership Rewards points at U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 per calendar year in purchases, then 1x) 3x Membership Rewards points on flights booked directly with airlines or on AmexTravel.com 2x Membership Rewards points on prepaid hotels and other eligible purchases booked on AmexTravel.com 1x Membership Rewards points on all other eligible purchases

Benefits Earn up to $10 in statement credits each month when you pay with your American Express Gold Card at Five Guys, Grubhub, The Cheesecake Factory, Goldbelly, and Wine.com (enrollment required) Up to $100 in annual statement credits ($50 semi-annually) when you use your American Express Gold Card on eligible purchases at U.S. restaurants on the Resy app or Resy.com Up to $84 per year ($7/month) in statement credits after using your American Express Gold Card to pay at more than 9,000 Dunkin locations nationwide

Learn more

Why we like it: Another general travel card, the Amex Gold offers the chance to earn valuable Membership Rewards points, which can be transferred directly to JetBlue or 17 other airlines.

American Express Gold Card review: Everyday rewards for travel savings

This article was edited by Rebecca McCracken

Editorial Disclosure: The information in this article has not been reviewed or approved by any advertiser. All opinions belong solely to Yahoo Finance and are not those of any other entity. The details on financial products, including card rates and fees, are accurate as of the publish date. All products or services are presented without warranty. Check the banks website for the most current information. This site doesn't include all currently available offers. Credit score alone does not guarantee or imply approval for any financial product.
 Flash

As General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Xi Jinping's Special Representative, China's top political advisor Wang Huning led a CPC delegation to Hanoi to mourn the passing of Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), on Thursday.

Wang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, also met with Vietnamese President To Lam and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh.

A respect-paying ceremony was held at the National Funeral Hall in Hanoi, where Trong's coffin was placed among flowers and draped in a large Vietnamese national flag in a somber atmosphere.

On behalf of Xi and the CPC Central Committee, and in the name of Xi's special representative, Wang laid a wreath, paused to observe a moment of silence before bowing three times to Trong's coffin, conveyed sincere condolences from Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan to Trong's widow Ngo Thi Man, and left a message in the condolence book.

While meeting with the Vietnamese leaders, Wang expressed deep grief over the passing of comrade Nguyen Phu Trong, saying that after learning the sad news, Xi went to the Embassy of Vietnam in China to pay tribute to the late leader, and the CPC Central Committee sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee.

Appointing Wang as Xi's special representative to lead a CPC delegation here for the mourning shows once again the heartfelt grief and sincere condolences of Xi and the CPC Central Committee to the CPV Central Committee and Trong's family. At this special moment, the party and people of China stand firmly with the party and people of Vietnam, Wang said.

Wang noted that Trong is a staunch Marxist, a great leader of the CPV and the Vietnamese people, and a great friend of the Chinese people. His death is a great loss to the cause of socialism in Vietnam and to the cause of peace and progress of mankind.

The Chinese party and government will, as always, support the Vietnamese party in leading its people on a development path suited to their national conditions, and support Vietnam's reform, opening-up and socialist development, Wang said.

It is believed that under the strong leadership of its central committee, the CPV will inherit and develop Trong's philosophy and principles on party and state governance, and unite and lead the Vietnamese people to successfully accomplish the goals and tasks set forth at the 13th National Congress of the CPV and welcome the successful convening of the 14th National Congress of the CPV, Wang added.

Wang said that Xi and Trong have devoted to the development of relations between the two parties and the two countries. Under the strategic guidance of the two leaders, China-Vietnam relations have maintained steady and sound development and have been lifted to a new height of a community with a shared future that carries strategic significance, Wang noted.

He said that China is ready to work with Vietnam to implement the important consensus reached between the two sides during Xi's visit to Vietnam last year, maintain high-level exchanges, deepen practical cooperation in key areas, consolidate the foundation of public support for China-Vietnam friendship, and strengthen multilateral coordination and cooperation, so as to promote the building of a China-Vietnam community with a shared future in a deep, solid, steady and long-term manner, he said.

After the passing of Trong, the CPC Central Committee immediately sent condolences to the CPV Central Committee, the Vietnamese side noted, adding that Xi's visit to the Vietnamese Embassy in China to mourn and sending Wang as his special representative to Vietnam to pay condolences shows the special feelings of the CPC, Chinese government and people towards the CPV, Vietnamese government and people, which deeply moved the Vietnamese side.

The Vietnamese side said that Vietnam is more determined to follow the national development path established by the older generation of leaders and Trong, stressing that China is the only country that has all the priority factors in Vietnam's foreign policy.

Vietnam will keep in mind Trong's entrustment that "so profound is the friendship between Vietnam and China, because we are both comrades and brothers," always give top priority to the development of relations with China, and firmly promote the building of a Vietnam-China community with a shared future that carries strategic significance in accordance with the important consensus reached between Trong and Xi.

The Vietnamese side congratulates the successful holding of the third plenary session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, saying that the plenary session put forward important measures for further deepening reform comprehensively, which will effectively promote China's high-quality development and modernization, and will also provide important reference and impetus for Vietnam to continue to promote the cause of Doi Moi (reform).

During his stay in Hanoi, Wang also met with Esteban Lazo Hernandez, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and president of Cuba's National Assembly of People's Power, who attended the condolence activities.
You have permission to edit this article.

Edit Close
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks to the National Governors Association as Vice President Kamala Harris, left, looks on during an event in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 23, 2024, in Washington.
Just a handful of Colorado hospitals over the past three years have been cited by the state over contaminated equipment concerns similar to the Rocky Mountain VA Medical Center in Aurora, which lead to rescheduling hundreds of procedures.
The Colorado Springs Police Department is investigating a shooting reported Thursday night just east of downtown.

The shooting was reported at the Homewood Point Apartments near Pikes Peak Avenue and Institute Street, west of Memorial Park.

According to police, a male victim has been transported to a local hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

According to an online list of calls for service, a call for shots fired was reported shortly before 7 p.m. A shelter-in-place order was sent out around 8 p.m. and lifted an hour later.

Law enforcement says the incident is between known parties, and is not an active shooter situation.

This is an ongoing investigation and police are still on the scene. Police have identified a male suspect but no arrest has been made.

Expect detours or delays if traveling in the area.

This article will be updated as more information becomes available.
Of all the technological marvels Grace Burns has seen throughout her lifetime, the most amazing has been the television, she said.

I was already married when I got my first TV, said Burns, who turned 100 on Thursday. My husband and I took a vacation to California, and we brought back a black-and-white television set. We had to buy one in California, because they werent being sold in Colorado yet.

Aspen Trails, a retirement resort in northeast Colorado Springs, toasted the citys newest centenarian during a lunchtime party in her honor. But to hear her tell it, the birthday wasnt a big deal.

When she learned that we were celebrating her birthday, she said, Really? But its just another day, said community manager Kaitlyn Pennebaker. And we all said, Oh, no, its not!

Born in 1924 in southwestern Nebraska, Grace remembers going to school, on a horse-driven buggy, before she reached her fifth birthday. The country school she attended housed about 15 students, ranging from first to eighth grade.

There was no kindergarten, she said. The teacher didnt have any first-graders, so she begged my mother to send me to school. So, off to school I went. I was about 4."

People born in the 21st century can barely remember a time when people didnt carry telephones around in their pockets and purses. But Burns remembers.

We had one telephone when I was little, she said.

It was a community line. There were any number of people on the same line, and you had a special ring for your phone. Of course, people always listened in. That was common. You could hear the other receivers. I didnt see anything unusual about it, because everybody was in the same boat.

Grace attended school in Nebraska through 11th grade before her family moved to Denver. She graduated from Denvers North High School when she was 16.

I turned 17 that July, after I graduated, she said. I didnt think anything about it. Its quite remarkable now, I guess.

Grace remembers working several jobs, including manufacturing flies at a fishhook factory, before meeting her husband, James Burns Jr., through a church group. They were married in 1944.

James was in the Navy, a radioman, during World War II, Burns said. When he came home, he went to Denver University on the GI Bill and became a teacher. He was a wonderful teacher.

Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters.

The couple had three children, two sons and a daughter, and moved to Colorado Springs in 2006 to be closer to their two sons. James died in 2014. Their eldest son died a little over two years ago, Grace said.

Residents and employees at Aspen Trails offered gifts and hugs on Thursday, marveling at how good Burns looked.

When I first got here, I was shocked to find out that she was our oldest resident, Pennebaker said.

You put us all to shame, one resident told Burns.

You dont look older than 80, another said. It almost (expletive) me off.

Burns laughed at that.

Burns makes it a point to walk each day, outside when weather permits. When the weather doesnt cooperate, she walks the halls of the resort.

If you dont keep moving, itll stop.

She gets around really well, Pennebaker said. Shes involved in a lot of activities here, and she gets good nutrition, which also helps.

Pennebaker said 100 years of life is cause for celebration, whether Burns thinks so or not.

Just think about everything shes seen between 1924 and today, she said. The changes in technology, the Depression, World War II, all the way through to the (COVID-19) pandemic. Amazing Grace, we call her.

Asked the secret to her longevity, Burns just shrugged.

My mother lived to be 82, and my father died at 65, she said. I have no idea how this happened.
A new aeration system at Prospect Lake will kill and prevent harmful blue-green algae while also preserving the operation of motorized watercraft, including boats, within its waters.

Colorado Springs spokeswoman Cassie Melvin said in an email Thursday the city is finalizing a contract and scope of work with Colorado Springs-based Timberline Building Systems to install the new permanent, continuous aeration system that will combat blue-green algae blooms and prevent fish kills.

The algae harms water quality, decreases the amount of oxygen available to animals living in the water, and can be toxic to humans and pets.

Melvin said the city expects to begin installing the new aeration system this fall.

The city has battled the noxious algae in Prospect Lake for years, which has, at times, closed it to all recreation.

Parks staff announced Wednesday they again presume the presence of blue-green algae inside the lake at Memorial Park. It is indefinitely closed to swimmers, paddle boarders, non-motorized boaters, and others who could come into contact with the water. Fishing piers are still open, but anglers are encouraged to clean their fish well.

The parks department began searching for a long-term solution in 2022 and held communitywide meetings in March 2023 to help narrow down options for two aeration system designs.

Sign up for free: Springs AM Update Your morning rundown of the latest news from Colorado Springs and around the country overnight and the stories to follow throughout the day delivered to your inbox each evening. Sign Up View all of our newsletters. Success! Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. View all of our newsletters.

One design would have closed the lake to motorized watercraft, or any watercraft with a motor on it, because it could have damaged the system. However, residents pointed out if boating was banned at Prospect Lake there would be no alternative options in El Paso County.

Officials chose a design that would preserve motorized watercraft activity on Prospect Lake.

It will target the deepest parts of the lake, aerating the water through weighted lines. The aeration lines will force air bubbles through lake water, a project webpage states. Oxygen in the air bubbles then diffuses into the lake, reducing levels of pollutants in the water and increasing the amount of beneficial bacteria in the lake, among other improvements.

As needed, the system will also scatter an enzyme-based product into the waters that helps combat blue-green algae blooms.

The system will turn over the lake completely about every two days, reducing "excess nutrient content" in the lake, according to the project webpage.

It was unclear Thursday how much the project will cost.

Parks officials previously said the city is using about $450,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds to design and install the permanent system at Prospect Lake. To stay within federal guidelines, the city had to be under contract for construction by this year and must finish the project by 2026, officials previously said.
Work is underway on a wide stretch of land around the intersection of Powers Boulevard and Airport Road to build a new interchange meant to streamline traffic in one of Colorado Springs' busiest traffic corridors.

The Colorado Department of Transportation is building a diverging diamond interchange to replace the traditional intersection, which carries an average of 50,000 drivers everyday to the Colorado Springs Airport, Peterson Space Force Base and other destinations on the east side of the city.

When finished, the interchange  referred to in road planning as a "diverging diamond interchange"  will look very different from the current traffic configuration. A diverging diamond directs traffic by crossing over left and right lines.

Shane Ferguson, CDOT regional transportation director, said the new $46 million interchange would help solve issues with the Powers and Airport Road intersection. A diverging diamond helps eliminate at least one "phase" of traffic in which left turners must cross oncoming traffic in a protected turn. The interchange, by putting traffic on the left, allows drivers to avoid turning into traffic entirely.

Powers and Airport is the third diverging diamond to be built in Colorado Springs. One is now in place at Fillmore Street and Interstate 25, while Powers has another already open at the Research Parkway intersection.

Ferguson said that diverging diamonds would not work at every intersection, and that Powers and Airport "rose to the top" after an analysis. He proposed the busy intersection of Woodmen Road and Union Boulevard as area that would not work with a diverging diamond, since the pattern would streamline traffic too well for nearby residential street turnoffs.

The pattern is perfect for Powers and Airport, however, as airport travelers and commuters to Petersen SFB continue to swell daily usage. The interchange will also improve "multimodal" transit, including for bicycles and pedestrians, he said.

Crews broke ground on the project in June, and the interchange is expected to be complete by late 2026. More information about the project, including any expected closures, can be found here.
 Flash

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) on Thursday warned that the death toll of landslides in southern Ethiopia could reach as high as 500 amid ongoing emergency response and search operations.

The UNOCHA, in its latest situation update issued Thursday citing local authorities, said the death toll has risen to 257 as of Wednesday as more and more dead bodies are retrieved from under the mud.

Noting that an inter-agency humanitarian assessment team has reached the area and is currently supporting response coordination through the established emergency coordination center, the UNOCHA warned that "the death toll is expected to rise to up to 500 people."

According to local authorities, the first landslide occurred Sunday night after hours of heavy rains in a small village called Kencho Shacha Gozdi in the southern Ethiopia's Geze Gofa District.

The second landslide happened Monday morning and buried an unknown number of local community members who gathered at the scene for rescue efforts.

Among the casualties were children and women as well as security personnel and local government officials who were undertaking rescue operations, according to local officials.

Search and rescue operations are currently ongoing under the leadership of local authorities with the support from the Ethiopian Red Cross Society and community members, who are "mainly digging through mounds of mud with their bare hands and spades for lack of other options."

At least 125 people are displaced and currently sheltering with the host communities, while 12 people who sustained injuries were taken to nearby health facilities, according to the UNOCHA.

Noting that more than 15,500 people have been affected by the landslide as of Wednesday, the UNOCHA warned over further catastrophe endangering the affected community members.

"These people are at high risk of further landslides and need to be evacuated to safe zones immediately," it said, noting that among the affected people are at least 1,320 children under 5 years of age and 5,293 pregnant and lactating women.

The Ethiopian federal government, in collaboration with regional and zonal authorities, is currently finalizing an evacuation plan as part of precautionary measures to avert further tragedies.

The deadly landslides occurred as Ethiopia is in the midst of a rainy season, which started in July and is expected to last until mid-September.

Last month, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an East African bloc, warned of above-normal rainfall in parts of Ethiopia and across the wider Horn of Africa, triggering floods and landslides during the coming months.

In Ethiopia, IGAD, through its Climate Prediction and Applications Center, warned of anticipated flash floods that could trigger landslides, which would result in human and livestock deaths, property damage, displacement and water-borne diseases, affecting more than 2.5 million people across Ethiopia.
David Jenkins is president of Conservatives for Responsible Stewardship, a national organization with more than 1,000 members in Colorado.
 Flash

Yemen's Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi on Thursday said in a televised speech that his armed group would launch more attacks against the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

"I confirm that more military operations to target Tel Aviv are coming," the leader said in his weekly speech aired live by his group's al-Masirah TV.

Last week, the Houthis claimed responsibility for a drone attack on a building in Tel Aviv that killed a person and injured 10 others.

In retaliation, Israeli fighter jets bombarded fuel storage facilities in Yemen's Red Sea port city of Hodeidah, which is under the control of the Houthi rebels, killing six people and injuring 83 others, according to al-Masirah TV.

Since November last year, the Houthi group has been targeting ships linked to Israel in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden using ballistic missiles and bomb-laden drones to show solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
To mark World Hepatitis Day, which takes place every 28 July, the Ministry of Health and Social Security, in collaboration with the National Infectious Diseases Service and partner associations, is raising public awareness on the need to step up efforts to combat this disease, which affects millions of people around the world.

The Health Directorate is also taking this opportunity to remind people who have contracted the hepatitis C virus and who are not under medical supervision that there are now highly effective treatments available. In such cases, it is advisable to contact your GP or a specialist doctor (infectiologist, hepatologist, etc.) to assess your condition.

Local centres promoting prevention and screening

Under the aegis of the 2023-2028 national programme to combat viral hepatitis, and in line with the World Health Organisation's (WHO) objective of eradicating viral hepatitis by 2030, the Health Directorate is continuing its fight against this disease by facilitating access to hepatitis C screening for the most vulnerable sections of the population.

The Outreach project, which was launched in 2022 and funded by the Health Directorate, has led to significant advances in hepatitis C screening and treatment.

By 2023, more than 150 screening tests had been carried out in high-risk populations, three times as many as in 2022, making it possible to identify and treat people with the disease in hard-to-reach populations who are not necessarily able to attend hospital consultations. In addition, the acquisition of new rapid diagnostic equipment has enabled the diagnosis of 50 cases of active hepatitis C requiring treatment.

The availability of diagnostics and treatment in the close surroundings of reception centres such as Abrigado or the Jugend an Drogenhellef is crucial to the care of at-risk populations, particularly female drug users, who are all the more vulnerable because of their gender. The sexual violence and forced, unprotected prostitution that they sometimes have to face affects their self-esteem, prevents them from protecting themselves effectively and also makes it difficult for them to access healthcare.

A dedicated group has been set up in the Abrigado reception centre, where women can meet educators, nurses, social workers and other women with similar experiences. By 2023, 82 of them had benefited from this initiative.

The work of the carers in these facilities is invaluable. They provide a safe space where women can receive appropriate care and support, breaking their isolation and enabling them to maintain their dignity. On this World Hepatitis Day, we are reaffirming our commitment to the fight against this disease and our determination to facilitate access to healthcare for the most vulnerable people, with or without social security cover, because health is a right for everyone, explained Minister Martine Deprez.

Upcoming initiatives

A regular information and awareness-raising campaign aimed primarily at drug users focuses on four key areas: 'prevention', 'screening', 'treatment' and 'self-respect'.

The Test and Treat strategy, which is available to everyone in facilities specialising in addiction treatment, will continue with the aim of breaking the chain of transmission of infectious diseases. The Health Directorate, in collaboration with partner organisations, is also aiming to step up screening efforts and standardise them on a weekly basis at two reception facilities: the Abrigado and Kontakt Esch centres.

Training courses for healthcare professionals will also be available to improve the skills of those working in the field, ensuring high-quality care for people at risk.

In general, the Ministry of Health and Social Security is calling for greater collaboration with its partners to develop relationships of trust with drug users, in order to improve their access to treatment and patient follow-up.

Where to get tested?

Screening for hepatitis C can be carried out:

by making an appointment with your GP or any other doctor,

by attending the screening consultation of the national infectious diseases department at the CHL, where a blood test or rapid test may be prescribed,

by visiting the HIV-Berodung service of the Luxembourg Red Cross, where a rapid test will be offered,

service of the Luxembourg Red Cross, where a rapid test will be offered, at the Abrigado and Kontakt Esch , where rapid screening is available, as well as diagnosis, on certain days only, thanks to the new rapid diagnosis device for active infection.

and , where rapid screening is available, as well as diagnosis, on certain days only, thanks to the new rapid diagnosis device for active infection. at the LGBTIQ+ Cigale, which is open every Thursday from 12.30 pm to 2.30 pm.

Further information is available on the DIMPS website.

More information:

on the WHO's recommendations for eliminating viral hepatitis by 2030.

on the guide to sexually transmitted infections

Press release by the Ministry of Health and Social Security
 Flash

At the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, President of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste Jose Ramos-Horta will pay a state visit to China from July 28 to 31, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced on Friday.

It will be President Ramos-Horta's first visit to China since he took office in 2022, and the first state visit to China by a Timor-Leste president since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 2002, according to Mao Ning, another foreign ministry spokesperson, at a news briefing on Friday.

Xi will host a welcome ceremony and a banquet for Ramos-Horta, and the two presidents will hold talks, Mao said.

Premier Li Qiang and Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, will meet with Ramos-Horta respectively, she said.

Mao said China was the first country to recognize Timor-Leste's independence and establish diplomatic relations with it. Over the past 22 years, the bilateral relationship has continued to develop steadily.

Last September, President Xi and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao of Timor-Leste jointly announced the elevation of bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic partnership, opening up a new chapter of bilateral relations, said the spokesperson.

The visit will be an opportunity for the two countries to further their traditional friendship, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation, and promote the development of their comprehensive strategic partnership, she said.
Our friends at the Eastern Cabarrus Historical Society remind us that the society is part of the Miles for Museum program just like the ECHS Museum in Mount Pleasant. The Price of Freedom Museum is an American war memorial dedicated to the men and women of the United States armed services who paid the ultimate Price of Freedom with their lives and service to our great country. The museums goal is to teach all generations the true price of freedom. From uniforms to vehicles, the history of Americas conflicts is told through the stories of local veterans. The Price of Freedom Museum is located at 2420 Weaver Road in China Grove. The museum is open on Sundays from 3-5 p.m. and staffed by knowledgeable and dedicated volunteers. Pick up a passport at any of the participating Miles for Museums locations and plan your trip.
Profectus says a query that could take up to a week now takes minutes up to 50 times faster.

By automating the process of cross-referencing complex contracts against customer data sets, Profectus helps customers identify payment irregularities or errors, and claim back underpayments or overcharges.

The company began using Snowflakes AI Data Cloud in 2019 and found that it could run queries of its own data faster than before.

Our analysts now get their results faster, which means we can identify errors and recover funds quicker for clients. Profectus Groups own data estimates that one in every five supplier contracts has transactional errors occurring during the course of day-to-day trade. In FY23, the company identified more than $72 million in missed income across its Australian and New Zealand client base, claims Profectus chief information officer Abhinov Gulati.

More recently, the company placed its bet on Snowflake, shifting all client data required for operational and audit purposes into the data clout.

Profectus streamlined its data governance and speed up all queries of its data, achieved failover between cloud environments, and used and developed cloud-native applications.

It is also now trialing Streamlita framework built to simplify and accelerate the creation of data applications within Snowflaketo develop applications for its internal teams, while also testing some of the readily-available applications already available via Snowflakes platform.

Choosing Snowflake enabled us to create a data foundation that can allow us to undertake any analytics work now and in the future, including potentially exploring AI solutions in the future, says Gulati.

Streamlit helped us create an interactive dashboard which allows analysts to retrieve email data validation reports and easily confirm whether data is complete and of high quality.

Profectus relies on vast streams of disparate data to understand the pain points of their customers, and the faster it can query it the better, says Snowflake regional vice president ANZ Theo Hourmouzis.

What theyve been able to do since adopting Snowflake is not only speed up their already-superb service delivery to clients, but theyve solidified their data strategy and pushed themselves to the forefront of innovation.
Hitachi Vantara, the data storage, infrastructure, and hybrid cloud management subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today announced the general availability of initial offerings of the Hitachi iQ portfolio of AI-ready infrastructure, solutions, and services. Including NVIDIA DGX BasePOD certification, the first Hitachi iQ infrastructure offering meets the highest standards of performance and reliability and helps customers seamlessly power their most critical AI applications. Featuring the Hitachi Content Software for File solution, Hitachi iQ provides customers the speed, efficiency, and processing to accelerate and optimize their time to insights so that they can drive transformative outcomes for their business.

The availability of Hitachi iQ comes at a critical inflection point for AI use cases in the enterprise as organisations around the globe are prioritising GenAI implementation. A recent survey from Enterprise Strategy Group found 97% of organisations view GenAI as a top-five priority. However, despite the enthusiasm, the survey also found that less than half (44%) of organisations have well-defined and comprehensive policies regarding GenAI, and more tellingly, only slightly more than one-third (37%) believe their infrastructure and data ecosystem are well prepared for implementing GenAI solutions.

Attaining NVIDIA DGX BasePOD certification underscores Hitachi Vantaras commitment to providing robust, scalable, high-performance, and trusted data infrastructure that supports advanced AI workloads, helping ensure clients have an optimal foundation for their AI aspirations.

NVIDIA DGX BasePOD certification not only tells you that this solution has met rigorous standards for reliability and performance, but it also represents a significant upgrade to handle the extensive bandwidth and speed required by todays networks, said Octavian Tanase, chief product officer of Hitachi Vantara. Hitachi iQ is equipped to handle the most demanding AI workloads, helping our customers enjoy seamless, high-speed AI operations that keep them ahead of the curve.

Hitachi Vantara AI Discovery Service

To further support customers on their AI journey, Hitachi Vantara is also launching a new AI Discovery Service designed to help customers identify the most valuable AI use cases, assess their data readiness, determine ROI, and create a strategic roadmap for successful AI implementation. Customers can select between a range of AI consultative services from a Discovery program that can last as little as three weeks, to an Advisory and Jumpstart program up to 12 weeks, featuring a technology assessment, proof of concept scoping, production planning, and more.

AI solutions require a combination of tools, technologies, platforms, and frameworks that facilitate model development, deployment, and management, said Jeb Horton, senior vice president of Global Services at Hitachi Vantara. By combining the industry expertise of Hitachi and Hitachi group company partners such as GlobalLogic with the Hitachi iQ solutions portfolio, the company offers a unique blend of infrastructure and services capabilities to provide the market with customised, industry-specific tools.

Organisations across industries are looking to build the right AI platform that will help them turn their data into intelligence, said Tony Paikeday, senior director of DGX systems at NVIDIA. The combination of solutions built on NVIDIAs DGX platform and software, coupled with Hitachi Vantaras expertise in AI discovery and planning, will help provide customers with a foundation to turbocharge their generative AI capabilities.

Hitachi has a long history of IT/OT domain expertise in industries such as rail, energy, manufacturing and is a leader for integrating IT infrastructure and business applications. Offered through multiple consumption models, Hitachi iQ provides customers with mechanisms to consume the data infrastructure they need, all while providing improved on-premises performance and allowing for a better ROI.

Hitachi iQ and the AI Discovery Service are now both available globally. For more information on Hitachi Vantaras offerings in AI, please visit: https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/solutions/ai-analytics/hitachi-iq.
GUEST OPINION by Chaim Mazal, Chief Security Officer of Gigamon: Global events are particularly vulnerable due to the rise of geopolitical tensions. Whenever nation-states have a reason to stir the pot, it is essential to take extra precautions. Furthermore, in the last 12 months, only 1 in 3 organisations were able to detect theyd been breached, which is particularly concerning amid the Olympic organising committees announcement that cyber threats will increase tenfold this summer.

So where does the risk arise? One area, in particular, is from cloud-based streaming services. In a new era of live TV, enabling viewers to watch on-demand on any device in any location, bringing additional traffic to the organisations networks when viewed on a work device or network. However, with any cloud-based service comes risk.

All cloud traffic is automatically encrypted and despite its good intent to keep data safe, research has found that 93% of malware hides behind encrypted traffic. Once a threat actor breaches perimeter security, they hide behind encrypted traffic for weeks or even months making visibility into all network traffic essential. This includes North to South traffic  traffic that flows from outside to inside an organisation and East to West traffic  traffic traversing laterally within the organisation enabling threat actors to hide and locate sensitive data wherever it may live in the network.

An example of how this could play out is through social engineering techniques where a threat actor may leverage a phishing campaign to manipulate a user to click a link to watch highlights from a team or athlete's latest routine/match etc.

In reality, once clicked it opens the door to the user's information and potentially many doors after that, including their companys network the next time they log into its virtual private network (VPN) or access the companys Wi-Fi. When it comes down to it, risk is inevitable, however, visibility into all data in motion can be the difference maker between a bad actor walking away with highly sensitive data or being caught in their tracks before successful exfiltration.
MATTOON  The second National Night Out event on Tuesday, Aug. 6 on the First Southern Baptist Church campus will once again spotlight emergency responders and offer families activities.

The mission of the National Night Out program is to promote partnerships between the community and first responders and agencies that provide services to children and families.

First Southern Baptist reported in its announcement that the Night Out will feature demonstrations of police canine units and Mattoon Fire Department firefighting hoses in action, plus an appearance by an Air Evac Lifeteam helicopter. Participating law enforcement agencies include the Mattoon and Eastern Illinois University police departments and the Coles County Sheriff's Office.

Choices Pregnancy & Health, Douglas-Hart Nature Center, Hour House, Lifelinks and LIFT Kids are set to have informational booths. The announcement reported that food trucks, inflatables and the "tallest rock wall in the Midwest" also will be available at this event.

The Night Out is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 6 at First Southern Baptist, 3521 DeWitt Ave., along Illinois 121 on the northwest side of Mattoon.

Close Charleston firefighters Jordan Philpott and Phillip Mazar conduct a vehicle extrication demonstration during the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house on Saturday. Charleston police officer Brandon Spindler portrays a suspect being detained by police K-9 Vito during a demonstration Saturday that was part of the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house. Charleston police K-9 officer Chris Darimont and K-9 Vito conduct a vehicle search demonstration during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Five-year-old McKenna Lovejoy of Charleston crawls through a tunnel that was part of a kids' obstacle course at the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Rylan McSparran, 5, of Charleston gets help from Charleston firefighter Jordan Philpott trying out a fire house during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Charleston firefighter Tom Chaney helps his daughter Myka, 8, get into kid's sized fire gear during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Satruday. Charleston Fire Prevention Week open house A variety of activities took place Saturday during the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house. The open house was in conjunction with Fire Prevention Week and took place at the department's station No. 2 at 1510 A St. Charleston firefighters Jordan Philpott and Phillip Mazar conduct a vehicle extrication demonstration during the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house on Saturday. Charleston police officer Brandon Spindler portrays a suspect being detained by police K-9 Vito during a demonstration Saturday that was part of the Charleston Fire Department's annual open house. Charleston police K-9 officer Chris Darimont and K-9 Vito conduct a vehicle search demonstration during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Five-year-old McKenna Lovejoy of Charleston crawls through a tunnel that was part of a kids' obstacle course at the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Rylan McSparran, 5, of Charleston gets help from Charleston firefighter Jordan Philpott trying out a fire house during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Saturday. Charleston firefighter Tom Chaney helps his daughter Myka, 8, get into kid's sized fire gear during the Charleston Fire Department's open house Satruday.
MARION  An assumed risk for a coal miner is the possibility of a disaster. Just like any other industry, the coal mining industry must always stay prepared in case such an event occurs.

The Illinois Mine Rescue Association hosted a rescue competition on Wednesday at the Pavilion in Marion, held in tandem with the Illinois Mining Institutes annual gathering.

Twelve teams representing mines from Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana took part in the event, which saw them plan and execute a rescue operation during a simulated disaster scenario.

Shawn Batty, president of the Illinois Mine Rescue Association, said mine rescue teams must compete in at least two contests per year and undergo 96 hours of training.

They dont get anything extra for being on these teams. Theyre doing it for the right reason, Batty said. You dont know if its going to be any day of the week, or what time of day, but I assure you these guys are ready for the first phone call they get.

Teams were judged based on their employment of safe and proper techniques. The competition also featured a written component before the teams went out into the field.

Teams consisted of six miners, including five working inside the simulated mine while the sixth remained on the surface receiving and relaying information to the team.

Among the tasks were searching for and rescuing other miners, mapping out the mine and its conditions, checking gas levels at each point and simulating ventilating the mine to ensure fresh air can reach them.

What theyre looking for is how they can safely ventilate the coal mine and safely get people out of the barricade, or wherever they find them through the problem, Batty said.

Paul A. Perrine is on his second year with the rescue team at Foresight North, a mine in Hillsboro, Illinois. He was promoted to team captain after previously being the map man.

Weve got a pretty new team, Perrine said. Weve got a lot of new guys in new positions, but were coming along pretty well.

Perrine said the competition helps his team bond through experience to stay prepared in case of a real-world disaster.

Theres no way you can ever practice and simulate for the real thing enough, Perrine said. Its going to be its own animal. But the more you can practice, the more you can get your mindset, the more you can get familiar with different obstacles, its a huge advantage.

One of the challenges of Wednesdays competition was the environment, taking place in a field near the Marion Pavilion in sunny 90-degree weather. Along with the teams equipment and oxygen masks, it provided a unique twist to the competition.

We put ice packs in our packs, but they dont last long in this kind of heat, Perrine said. Youve just got to stick it through. You start to notice it towards the end, but that adrenaline keeps you going.

2024 Eclipse: See photos from around Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Solar Eclipse Bloomington Illinois Solar Eclipse Bloomington Illinois Solar Eclipse Bloomington Illinois Solar Eclipse Bloomington Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Chicago Solar Eclipse Decatur Illinois Solar Eclipse Decatur Illinois Solar Eclipse Decatur Illinois Solar Eclipse Decatur Illinois Solar Eclipse Mattoon Illinois Solar Eclipse Mattoon Illinois Solar Eclipse Mattoon Illinois Solar Eclipse Mattoon Illinois Total Solar Eclipse Makanda Total Solar Eclipse Makanda Solar Eclipse Eureka Solar Eclipse Eureka
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
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, meets with Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide in Vientiane, Laos, July 26, 2024. (Photo by Kaikeo Saiyasane/Xinhua)

VIENTIANE, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Norwegian counterpart Espen Barth Eide here on Friday.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that this year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Norway.

Bilateral trade has increased significantly since the beginning of this year, demonstrating strong resilience and huge potential, Wang noted.

China is willing to work with Norway to consolidate political mutual trust, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation and usher in the next 70 remarkable years of bilateral relations, Wang added.

He welcomed Norwegian companies to further explore the Chinese market and share the dividends of China's development, adding that China is willing to strengthen cooperation with Norway on green transformation and jointly safeguard economic globalization and the multilateral trading system.

Norway's foreign minister said his country attaches great importance to relations with China and is ready to strengthen communication for the preparation for high-level exchanges in the next stage.

He said Norway adheres to the one-China policy, and understands that no country allows secession.

Norway does not agree to impose tariffs on electric vehicles, and is willing to strengthen cooperation with China to address climate change and other issues in building a green partnership.

Wang elaborated on China's principled position on the Ukraine crisis and the Palestinian issue.

Noting that Norway is willing to work with China to promote peace, Eide said his country supports the statehood of Palestine and appreciates China's efforts to promote reconciliation among Palestinian factions. 
Ahead of the Wisconsin Fall Primary, Aug. 13, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) reminds U.S. citizens how to obtain identification, free of charge, that is valid for voting.

Valid identification for voting purposes, for those who will be at least 18 years of age by the next election, includes a driver license, identification card, military or student ID card, etc. There is no separate voter ID. A federally compliant REAL ID card is not required for voting purposes. Anyone unsure if their identification or qualification meets the requirements should visit the Wisconsin Elections Commission website to check.

To obtain identification to show at the polls, begin online. A list of the required documents to bring to a DMV Customer Service Center is available at wisconsindmv.gov. If the required documents needed for an ID are not readily available, DMV has a process for U.S. citizens to obtain the necessary information. This process, available free of charge, may be used to quickly obtain a receipt valid to take to the polls for voting while the remaining documents or verifications are obtained.

Anyone with questions related to obtaining an ID that can be used to vote should call DMVs toll-free hotline at 844-588-1069. Questions regarding voter eligibility, poll locations, voter registration information or other election information can be directed to the Wisconsin Elections Commission at elections.wi.gov.

Start the application now at wisconsindmv.gov or at a local DMV Customer Service Center. To find a DMV, check hours, services and wait times, visit wisconsindmv.gov/centers.
HELSINKI, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Amid escalating wildfire threats in southern Europe, the European Union (EU) has activated its Civil Protection Mechanism to support the most affected regions.

The Finnish government announced it will dispatch 48 experts to Portugal in August to combat wildfires, with each group serving for about two weeks. Portugal requested assistance through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism due to the wildfire threat. Rescue personnel from abroad will assist Portugal if wildfires erupt.

From July 17 to 24, in response to Bulgaria's request regarding a large forest fire in the Stara Zagora region, the Czech Republic sent two helicopters with Bambi Buckets, along with air rescue teams and support units. Spain also contributed two planes and ground personnel, helping to extinguish fires that destroyed 15 houses and large forest areas.

High temperatures across Europe have increased wildfire risks, causing significant damage and injuries. Italy, particularly the southern region of Puglia, is grappling with severe wildfires. Approximately 1,000 tourists were evacuated due to intense heat.

Fires have destroyed over 10,000 hectares in Italy, with nearly 8,400 hectares burned in the past month. The Italian fire department deployed three water-bombing planes and a helicopter to tackle the blaze.

Bosnia and Herzegovina also face severe wildfires, primarily due to prolonged drought and extreme heat.

Greece, experiencing its warmest winter and spring since the 1960s, has prepared nearly 18,000 firefighters and invested over 2 billion euros in new equipment. The Greek authorities focus on creating firebreak zones to prevent the spread of wildfires.

Malta announced that its Civil Protection Department will send 40 firefighters to Greece, marking the fourth international operation in two years and exemplifying EU collaborative efforts against the wildfire crisis.

The EU Civil Protection Mechanism, established in 2001 by the European Commission, aims to enhance cooperation for disaster prevention, preparedness, and response among EU countries and 10 participating states.

This summer, the Commission has assembled a fleet of aircraft and pre-positioned firefighters across Europe. A total of 556 firefighters from 12 countries are strategically placed in key locations, such as France, Greece, Portugal, and Spain, to support local fire brigades.

The dedicated rescEU fleet for this summer includes 28 airplanes and four helicopters stationed in 10 Member States. 
On 25 July Brazils finance minister,, opened the two-day G20 finance ministers meeting in Rio de Janeiro and repeated the Brazilian governments calls for member states to agree on a global wealth tax on billionaires.

End of preview - This article contains approximately 388 words.

Subscribers: Log in now to read the full article

Not a Subscriber?

Choose from one of the following options
"Would you like Arabica or Robusta coffee?"  how many times have you heard this question in coffee shops? And how many times have you paused for a moment, wondering what to say? Robusta and arabica are two different types of coffee, and not everyone knows how they differ from each other.

ADVERTISIMENT

The FoodOboz editorial team decided to dot the i's and cross the t's in this matter and turned to a professional for help. In his column, Andrii Hunevskyi, a coffee expert and representative of Pound Coffee in Kyiv, tells us what is the difference between Arabica and Robusta and which coffee is better.

Even though there are about 120 types of coffee in the world, only two are used for industrial purposes - Arabica and Robusta.

Let's start with Robusta. This type is cheap to produce. Robusta contains a high level of caffeine, which gives the coffee beans an unpleasant bitterness. It is because of the caffeine that Robusta is resistant to insects and other pests: it is too bitter for them.

ADVERTISIMENT

Robusta is bitter, astringent, and poor in flavor. The maximum that can be read in the flavor shades are walnut, bitter chocolate, and wood. I've never met anyone who enjoys the taste of espresso made with one hundred percent Robusta. Sugar, milk, and various syrups are always added to a drink made with Robusta, and these simple manipulations help mask the unpleasant bitterness. But is it really necessary? After all, this is how people unknowingly deceive themselves and their bodies. Remember what bitter foods you eat? And what would you choose - bitter or not bitter cucumber, bitter or sweet almonds, and do you like the taste of citramon? So that's it!

Arabica is a different story. Firstly, it is very capricious and requires more attention and care during cultivation. Therefore, it is given a lot of attention at all stages - from growth to preparation.

ADVERTISIMENT

Arabica's genetics is more complex. It contains more lipids, organic acids, and sugars. Arabica will always have acidity, but don't let that scare you. Associate its taste with the taste of wine, dairy products, berries, fruit, etc. You can easily find hints of pineapple, apple, plum, pastries, and other products in an Arabica drink. More and more often I meet people who are moving away from robusta after tasting arabica. I have never seen the opposite story.

All of this affects the price of coffee beans: the price of Robusta fluctuates around $2.8 per kilogram of green beans, while the price of Arabica starts at $3 (commercial) and $10 (specialty) per kilogram. Therefore, producers often mix Arabica with Robusta to reduce the cost of coffee.

ADVERTISIMENT

Arabica and Robusta also differ in appearance. Robusta has round beans, while Arabica has an oblong shape. The caffeine content of both varieties is very different. In Arabica, it is usually 1.2-1.3%, but in Robusta, the caffeine level is almost twice as high: 2,5-3%

Interesting to know:

Robusta is the mother of Arabica. Arabica arose as a result of the natural crossing of Robusta and Eugenioides species.

There are more than 20 varieties of Arabica in the world: Tipika, Katura, Bourbon, Geisha, and Moka. Some varieties are also the result of crossbreeding. For example, the Timor variety was the result of a cross between Robusta and Tipika Arabica.

Some enthusiasts work on high-quality robusta. Ignoring the weak genetics, they work hard at all stages from selection to storage.

The highest price per kilogram of Arabica reached $10000. It was the Geisha variety that the Panamanian coffee farm Ninety Plus sold to Dubai.

ADVERTISIMENT
UN chief urges global action to tackle extreme heat

Xinhua) 09:27, July 26, 2024

UNITED NATIONS, July 25 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called for global action to tackle extreme heat, as "extreme temperatures are no longer a one day, one week or one month phenomenon."

"Earth is becoming hotter and more dangerous for everyone, everywhere," Guterres said in remarks to the press on extreme heat.

Billions of people are facing an extreme heat epidemic -- wilting under increasingly deadly heatwaves, with temperatures topping 50 degrees Celsius around the world, said the UN chief. "That's ... halfway to boiling."

Highlighting the impact of extreme temperatures, Guterres noted a deadly heatwave hitting the Sahel with spiking hospitalizations and deaths, broken temperature records across the United States, scorching conditions killing 1,300 pilgrims during Haj, tourist attractions shut down in Europe's sweatbox cities, and schools closures across Asia and Africa impacting more than 80 million children.

"Extreme heat is increasingly tearing through economies, widening inequalities, undermining the Sustainable Development Goals and killing people," he said.

According to the UN chief, heat is estimated to kill almost half a million people a year, that's about 30 times more than tropical cyclones.

"Extreme heat is the new abnormal," he said, pointing to "fossil fuel-charged, human-induced climate change" as the cause behind extreme temperatures.

"But the good news is that there are solutions," he said.

The UN chief announced a global call to action with four areas of focus: caring for the most vulnerable; stepping up protections for workers; boosting the resilience of economies and societies using data and science; and fighting the "disease" -- "the madness of incinerating our only home," the addiction to fossil fuels, and climate inaction.

He urged that leaders across the board must wake up and step up, including governments as well as the private sector, cities and regions, noting that "all countries must deliver by next year nationally determined contributions -- or national climate action plans -- aligned to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius."

Noting that the International Energy Agency has shown fossil fuel expansion and new coal plants are inconsistent with meeting that limit, Guterres urged countries to phase-out fossil fuels, "fast and fairly."

"They must end new coal projects," he stressed.

The UN chief called on the G20 to shift fossil fuel subsidies to renewables and to the support of vulnerable countries and communities.

"And national climate action plans must show how each country will contribute to the global goals agreed at COP28 to triple the world's renewables capacity, and end deforestation by 2030. They must also cut global consumption and production of fossil fuels by 30 percent in the same timeframe," he said.

Guterres also called for similar 1.5-aligned transition plans from business, the financial sector, cities and regions.

Noting that climate action also requires finance action, he said that includes countries coming together for a strong finance outcome from COP29; progress on innovative sources of finance; drastically boosting the lending capacity of multilateral development banks to help developing countries tackle the climate crisis; and wealthier countries making good on all their climate finance commitments.

"The message is clear: the heat is on," said the UN chief, calling on the world to "rise to the challenge of rising temperatures."

(Web editor: Zhang Kaiwei, Liang Jun)
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Police have seized 46 kg of opium poppy in south Afghanistan's Kandahar province and arrested three persons on the charge of involvement in the drug business, provincial police spokesperson Mawlawi Asadullah Jamshid said Friday.

The trio was arrested in the provincial capital Kandahar city on Thursday while attempting to sell drugs to locals, the official said without providing more details.

Afghan police earlier on Tuesday also reported eradication of 251 acres of poppy farms in the northern Baghlan province.

The Afghan caretaker government banned poppy's cultivation, its processing into drugs and drug trafficking in April 2022. 
There is probably no person in the world who is completely indifferent to sweets. Just the words macaroon, eclair, or tiramisu make your mouth water.

ADVERTISIMENT

The FoodOboz editorial team has prepared a selection of the world's most popular desserts, which, by the way, can be easily prepared in your kitchen.

Tiramisu, Italy

Today, this dessert, originally from Tuscany, has won the recognition of sweet tooths from all over the world. And this is not surprising. After all, in Italian, tiramisu means "to lift me up". Delicious, airy, and tender, it is a real pleasure and can make you forget about all the problems around you.

Earlier we wrote a tiramisu recipe.

Creme brulee, France

A dessert based on custard and burnt cream on top  the French are not afraid of experiments. Besides, they set well-known trends: eclairs, macaroons, or profiteroles. The same goes for creme brulee, which will leave a few people indifferent. Traditionally, the creamy dessert is served chilled. Because of this, it is often considered a subspecies of ice cream.

ADVERTISIMENT

Earlier we wrote a recipe for custard.

Brownie, USA

Yes, this is the brownie whose recipe has caused a real boom among housewives around the world. And it was expected: affordable products, easy and unpretentious to prepare. Besides, it is unrealistically delicious. According to the original recipe, a real brownie should contain walnuts.

Earlier we wrote a brownie recipe.

Churros, Spain

We owe this dessert to Spain. Today, it can be enjoyed almost anywhere in the world. Churros are sticks of soft dough that look like a star when cut open. The dessert is best enjoyed in the cold season. It is said that this is when the taste reveals itself in a special way.

ADVERTISIMENT

Earlier we wrote a recipe for churros with sugar.

Baklava, Turkey

Some people are used to associating baklava with Greece, which is a mistake. After all, the dessert first appeared in the Ottoman Empire, when Turks and Greeks actively shared ideas and recipes for culinary masterpieces. Baklava is made with a special phyllo dough, which is quite demanding. Melted syrup is poured over many layers of dough, and the top is decorated with walnuts.

ADVERTISIMENT

Earlier we wrote a recipe for baklava.
China issued a rare compliment to the administration of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. yesterday for his order banning widespread and Chinese-run online gaming operations. Marcos accused some of venturing into crimes including financial scams, human trafficking, kidnappings, torture and murder.

Marcoss order in his state-of-the-nation address Monday immediately banning all Chinese-run online gambling outfits  estimated to number more than 400 across the Philippines and employing tens of thousands of Chinese and Southeast Asian nationals  came amid an ongoing government crackdown backed by Beijing.

China, through its embassy in Manila, belatedly welcomed Marcoss move.

We believe this decision echoes the call of the Philippine people and serves the common interests of people of both countries, a Chinese Embassy statement issued Thursday night in Manila said. China is ready to continue its strong law enforcement cooperation with the Philippines and better protect the safety and well-being of the two peoples.

The Chinese Embassy statement it attributed to an unnamed spokesperson stated that China prohibits all forms of gambling and added that the Chinese government has cracked down on Chinese citizens engaging in overseas gambling businesses including the so-called Philippine offshore gaming operators, or POGO.

POGO breeds serious crimes and gravely undermines the interests of both Philippine and Chinese peoples, the Chinese Embassy said.

The Philippine government crackdown has led to the shutdown of several sprawling complexes where authorities suspect thousands of Chinese, Vietnamese and other nationals mostly from Southeast Asia have been illegally recruited with promises of high salaries but later forced to work in dismal conditions and threatened with severe harm if they disobeyed orders or tried to escape.

Disguising as legitimate entities, their operations have ventured into illicit areas furthest from gaming such as financial scamming, money laundering, prostitution, human trafficking, kidnapping, brutal torture, even murder, Marcos said in his address. The grave abuse and disrespect to our system of laws must stop.

Marcos closure order covered online gaming outfits, which have acquired permits from Philippine authorities, and those, which have been operating underground. The order would be strictly enforced despite the massive scale of the task, Philippine officials said.

The absolute policy of the president is no more POGO, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin told The Associated Press last month.

Marcos ordered his governments gaming agency to wind down the operations of the gambling outfits by years end. He asked labor officials to look for alternative jobs for Filipino workers who would be displaced because of the shutdowns.

The Philippines, Washingtons oldest treaty ally in Asia, has a complicated relationship with China, including significant trade engagements and cooperation against crime. But they have also had longstanding disputes, particularly in two contested shoals in the busy South China Sea.

Marcoss predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, nurtured cozy ties with Chinese President Xi Jingping while often denouncing U.S. security policies. Marcos has, in stark contrast, worked to deepen defense ties with the U.S. and its Western and Asian allies since taking office in mid-2022 despite Chinas warnings and alarm.JIM GOMEZ, MANILA, MDT/AP
Authorities have arrested a 27-year-old Tanzanian man, identified as Biseko, for his alleged involvement in the trafficking of cocaine in Macau.

According to Judiciary Police (PJ), they had had earlier received information indicating that an African man was engaged in drug trafficking in Macau. After a thorough investigation, the suspect was identified and tracked down in Taipa. On July 24, at around 10:45 p.m., criminal investigation personnel intercepted the suspect near his residence in the North District.

During the search of the suspects home, the authorities seized a tin can containing 45 small packages of cocaine, weighing a total of 16.35 grams, as well as more than 300 small transparent plastic bags believed to be used for drug packaging. Additionally, the police confiscated HKD5,100 and MOPD4,200 in cash, suspected to be drug proceeds.

The suspect, who tested negative for drug use, refused to cooperate with the investigation and provide details about the source of the drugs or his involvement in the drug trafficking activities. According to the investigation data, the authorities believe that the suspect has been engaged in drug trafficking in Macau for about half a month, primarily supplying to nightclub dealers.

In this operation, the police seized a total of 16.35 grams of cocaine, worth approximately MOP59,000.

The police have detained the suspect and the case will be forwarded to the Public Prosecutions Office for the crime of illegal trafficking of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and for further investigation.

The bureau said it will continue to investigate the source of the drugs and any other individuals involved in the suspects alleged drug trafficking operation. Victoria Chan
* Taobao free to Macau

 Taobao unveils free shipping on clothing sales to several Asian postcodes, including Macau, to outpace fast-fashion rivals

* Youth lifestyle | Education bureau efforts falling short of plan goals

* Taste of Edesia

* In the first half, the labor bureau conducted 1,600 inspections across various workplaces, uncovering five safety and health violations

* Gaming inspectors crack down on unlicensed junket activities

* China issues rare praise to Philippine president for crackdown on online gambling

DOWNLOAD PDF

Friday, July 26, 2024  edition no. 4532
A defense lawyer said yesterday that prominent publisher Jimmy Lai will testify in his defense in the landmark national security trial brought under a security law that has all but wiped out public dissent.

Lai, the 76-year-old founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper, was arrested in 2020 during a crackdown on the mass pro-democracy protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2019. He was charged with colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security and conspiring with others to put out seditious publications. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

On Wednesday, Lais lawyer Robert Pang argued his client had no case to answer because the prosecutors evidence was insufficient. Pang said the prosecution had failed to prove Lais intent after the introduction of the 2020 law and stressed the importance of freedom of speech.

But judges Esther Toh, Susana DAlmada Remedios and Alex Lee, who were approved by the government to oversee the case, ruled against him yesterday.

Having considered all the submission, we ruled that the first defendant has a case to answer on all charges, Toh said, without elaborating.

Lai appeared to be at ease after the ruling.

Pang said in court that Lai would testify in his defense. The case has been adjourned to Nov. 20.

Observers said Lais high-profile case, which has already stretched over 90 days, is a trial of press freedom and a test for judicial independence in the Asian financial hub.

When Britain handed back Hong Kong to China in 1997, the city was promised to have its Western-style civil liberties kept intact for 50 years. However, the freedoms that once set Hong Kong apart from mainland China, including freedoms of press and assembly, have drastically shrunk since the enactment of the 2020 security law.

Beijing and Hong Kong governments insist that the law brought back stability to the city following the social unrest.

The prosecutors have alleged that Lai had engaged in requesting foreign countries, especially the United States, to take actions against Beijing under the guise of fighting for freedom and democracy.

They pointed to Lais meetings with former U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other senior senators in the United States in July 2019 to discuss a now-withdrawn extradition bill that sparked the massive anti-government protests that year. They alleged Lai had sought support from the U.S. on sanctioning Beijing and Hong Kongs leaders who allegedly cracked down the movement.

In 2022, six former Apple Daily executives entered guilty pleas and admitted to the court they conspired with Lai to call for sanctions or other hostile activities against Hong Kong or China. They were convicted and await sentencing behind bars.

During the trial, some of the former executives, alongside two others who also pleaded guilty to collusion charges, have testified as the prosecutions witnesses.

Hong Kong, once seen as a bastion of media freedom in Asia, ranked 135th out of 180 countries and territories in Reporters Without Borders latest World Press Freedom Index. KANIS LEUNG, HONG KONG, MDT/AP
When a group of military officers appeared on state television in Niger one year ago to announce a dramatic coup, they said they deposed the West African nations elected government for two key reasons: its security and economic crises.

But those challenges have persisted, even worsened. The countrys 26 million people  among the worlds youngest and poorest  are struggling after the junta severed ties with key international partners, who have imposed sanctions and suspended security and development support affecting close to half of Nigers budget.

The coup was the latest and perhaps most significant of the recent military takeovers in Africas Sahel, the vast, arid expanse south of the Sahara Desert that has become a global hot spot for extremist violence. Niger had been the Wests last reliable partner in the region in battling jihadists linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

Now, a crucial U.S. drone base is gone, along with U.S. forces vacating ahead of a September deadline. More than 1,000 French troops also pulled out after being told to leave. A key China-backed pipeline once meant to turn Niger into an oil exporter has stalled with the insecurity and uncertainty.

Support from international partners, notably the European Union, had made up close to 40% of Nigers budget. With that gone, we are only looking for something to live on, said one resident in the capital, Niamey, Ibrahim Amani. Everything has become more expensive, he said.

On the streets, where thousands of mostly young people cheered the coup in its early dramatic days, there is growing frustration. But there are no public protests amid concerns about possible retaliation by the junta, which still holds deposed President Mohamed Bazoum in detention. The junta has said he will be charged with treason, to widespread criticism abroad.

Theres a real depressing effect on the ability of the government to provide services and on the ability of businesses to thrive, said Daniel Eizenga, a research fellow with the African Center for Strategic Studies.

As Nigers military leaders consolidated their grip on power, they promised a three-year transition period to civilian rule. Analysts now say that is unlikely to happen on time.

The junta, along with those in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, is breaking away even from longtime West African allies.

The three countries, after expelling the forces of former colonizer France, have completely changed the geopolitical dynamics of the region and are forming their own anti-Western, pro-Russian alliance, said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

Russia is a new force in the Sahel, but its ability to make up for Nigers lost security support is limited. Nigers army is running out of material with the retreat of Western forces which the Russians  which has sent troops to Niger as its new security partner  can only partly compensate, Laessing said.

On the ground, insecurity has worsened. Niger has quickly become the new target for extremists. Violent killings by rebels and militia groups more than doubled, from 770 people killed in the year before the coup to 1,599 in the year that followed, according to the U.S.-based Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, or ACLED.

Extremists carried out nearly five times as many large-scale attacks  involving at least 10 deaths  in the year after the coup, ACLED data shows.

Al-Qaida and IS militants have  consolidated control over more territory since the junta took power by taking advantage of security force limitations that the withdrawal of Western support has contributed to, the American Enterprise Institutes Critical Threats Project said in a new report.

That follows the trend in Mali and Burkina Faso, even after military juntas have invoked insecurity to justify taking power, experts have said.

The coming years are likely to be difficult and violent in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, given the absence of clear inclusive strategies, Alexander Thurston, an associate professor of political science at the University of Cincinnati, said in the new report.

On the business front, Nigers already import-dependent economy is reeling from sanctions and the impact of border closures in the early days after the coup.

The status of hundreds of millions of euros in support from the European Union, one of Nigers biggest donors, remains unclear. That affects agriculture, education, security, businesses and humanitarian activities along with work addressing migration.

Neither Russia nor other countries like Iran that Nigers junta is seeking closer ties with is likely to step up and fill such gaps, said Eizenga with the African Center for Strategic Studies.

Russia is ultimately acting in the interest of Russia, he said. And none of these other countries has the resources to provide the assistance that former partners did. CHINEDU ASADU & BABA AHMED, ABUJAMDT/AP
Southeast Asian foreign ministers and top diplomats from key partners including the United States and China are gathering in the Laotian capital yesterday for the start of three days of talks expected to focus on the increasingly violent civil war in Myanmar, tensions in the South China Sea and other regional issues.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will participate in the meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Vientiane, which come as both Beijing and Washington are looking to expand their influence in the region. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is also expected to attend.

Lao Foreign Minister Saleumxay Kommasith thanked ASEAN members and partners for their unwavering collective effort that led to its past achievements and emphasized the importance of the blocs continuous work to promote peace and stability.

In light of the rapid and complex geopolitical and geoeconomic changes, we need to further enhance ASEAN centrality and unity so as to promote the relevance and resilience of ASEAN, aiming at addressing emerging challenges and seizing opportunity in the future, he said in an opening statement.

For the ASEAN nations  Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos  the violence in Myanmar is at the top of the agenda as the bloc struggles to implement its five-point consensus for peace.

The plan calls for the immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar, a dialogue among all concerned parties, mediation by an ASEAN special envoy, provision of humanitarian aid through ASEAN channels, and a visit to Myanmar by the special envoy to meet all concerned parties. The military leadership in Myanmar has so far ignored the plan and has raised questions about the blocs efficiency and credibility to mediate for peace.

Broader talks, including diplomats from elsewhere in the region including Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, are expected to focus on issues including the economy, security, climate and energy.

Regional issues, including Cambodias decision to build a canal off the Mekong River that Vietnam, which is downstream, worries could have ecological and security implications, as well as massive dam building projects in Laos further upstream could also feature in the meetings.

In Myanmar, the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021 and suppressed widespread nonviolent protests that sought a return to democratic rule, leading to increasing violence and a humanitarian crisis.

In an effort to put pressure on Myanmar, ASEAN has prohibited it from sending any political representatives to top-level meetings, and it has sent bureaucrats instead. Aung Kyaw Moe, the permanent secretary of Myanmars Foreign Ministry, is representing the country in this weeks meetings, which run through Saturday.

More than 5,400 people have been killed in the fighting in Myanmar and the military government has arrested more than 27,000 since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. In addition, there are now more than 3 million displaced people in the country, with the numbers growing daily as fighting intensifies between the military and Myanmars multiple ethnic militias as well as the so-called peoples defense forces of military opponents.

As the needs of civilians grow, discussions on humanitarian assistance to Myanmar will also be a focus of the ASEAN talks, Bolbongse Vangphaen, head of the Thai Foreign Ministrys department for ASEAN, told reporters ahead of the meetings.

Thailand, which shares a long border with Myanmar, has already been heavily involved in providing humanitarian assistance, and Bolbongse said the country is ready to support the next phase of delivery being planned by the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management.

He did not say when or where the aid delivery would be.

Thailand initiated its first delivery of aid to Myanmar in March from the northern province of Tak. It was said to be distributed in Kayin state to approximately 20,000 out of millions of people displaced by fighting.

Landlocked Laos is the blocs poorest nation and one of its smallest, and many have expressed skepticism about how much it can accomplish while the crises mount. But it is also the first ASEAN chair that shares a border with Myanmar. Laos has already sent a special envoy to Myanmar for meetings with the head of the ruling military council and other top officials in an attempt to make progress on the peace plan.

ASEAN also has introduced a mechanism of trilateral informal consultation among its current, past, and future chairs, specifically for ensuring continuity in its response to the situation in Myanmar. The troika met for the first time on Wednesday, attended by Laos, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Indonesia Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said after Wednesdays meeting that she raised concerns about increasing numbers of cross-border crimes and refugees resulting from the crisis in Myanmar. She said she urged ASEAN to promote trust and confidence-building through a balanced and low-key approach to foster a dialogue among all stakeholders in Myanmar.

The worsening conditions in Myanmar have a direct impact on efforts to maintain peace and stability in the region, she said.

Dulyapak Preecharush, a professor of Southeast Asia Studies at Bangkoks Thammasat University, said ASEAN is not the only stakeholder when it comes to Myanmar, with China and India also major players  and both attending the ASEAN meetings.

Progress on Myanmar needs to start with countries that share borders with Myanmar, such as China, India and Thailand, to find a joint consensus to address the problems before expanding to other countries, he said.

In other issues, ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei are locked in maritime disputes with China over its claims of sovereignty over virtually all of the South China Sea, one of the worlds most crucial waterways for shipping. Indonesia has also expressed concern about what it sees as Beijings encroachment on its exclusive economic zone.

An estimated $5 trillion in international trade passes through the South China Sea each year. China has been increasingly involved in direct confrontations, most notably with the Philippines and Vietnam.

This year, tensions between the Philippines and China have escalated, with Chinese coast guard and other forces using powerful water cannons and dangerous blocking maneuvers to prevent food and other supplies from reaching Filipino navy personnel.

The Philippines, a treaty partner with the U.S., has been critical of other ASEAN countries for not doing more to get China to back away from its increasingly assertive approach.

China and the Philippines said Sunday they have reached a deal that they hope will end the confrontations, aiming to establish a mutually acceptable arrangement at the disputed area without conceding either sides territorial claims.

The rare deal could spark hope that similar arrangements could be forged by Beijing with other countries to avoid clashes while thorny territorial issues remain unresolved.

ASEAN has been working with China to produce a South China Sea code of conduct, which is expected to be part of the talks in Vientiane. JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI, VIENTIANE, MDT/AP
On July 23, the Pastoral Data Research Institute (PDRI) in South Korea released the results of its survey on Christian youth highlighting areas that churches should focus on to strengthen the faith of Christian middle and high school students. It revealed that half of Christian youth spend less than five minutes a day on their faith activities, and only 43% are comfortable expressing their faith and discussing it at school.

Evaluating the main findings of the Christian Middle and High School Students' Faith Awareness Survey, which was conducted with 500 church-attending middle and high school students, the institute reported that these students exhibited a level of faith where they struggled to express their Christian identity.

According to the survey, 30% of respondents reported not practicing their faith at all during the day, which was the most common response. This was followed by less than 5 minutes at 21%, and between 5-10 minutes at 15%. Combining the responses for not practicing and less than 5 minutes amounted to 51%. Only 22% of the students spent more than 30 minutes on faith-related activities each day.

Additionally, 43% of students said they were comfortable expressing their Christian identity and discussing their faith at school. However, 19% felt reluctant to mention that they attend church, and 17% reported having been criticized or mocked for being Christian.

The fact that students are not proud to reveal their Christian identity and that it can even be a target of criticism among peers indicates the presence of a negative image of Christianity within the school culture, PDRI commented.

Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up

28% of students stated that they had made a commitment to live a changed life after being inspired by worship and sermons (frequently). Similarly, 27% said they had reflected on their past actions and themselves during worship. Other findings included 21% who received comfort and courage from sermons when they were discouraged, and 16% who tried to remember and practice insights from worship throughout the week.

The PDRI noted, In general, the impact of sermons on students' lives is evident in about 2-3 out of 10 students.

The institute also emphasized, Sermons currently have little impact on nurturing the faith or changing the lives of Christian youth. Therefore, it is crucial to consider touching on specific life circumstances of youths and reconsider the delivery methods to engage them more effectively. Above all, the dedication and passion of pastors are critical for youth ministry.

When asked about practicing their Christian life in daily activities, 20% of students reported that they often refrain from using vulgar expressions or swearing, and 18% said they strive to live more diligently. The PDRI pointed out that only about 2 out of 10 students actively practice their Christian life in their daily routines.

49% of students found church middle and high school worship services to be not boring, while 27% said they were average and 24% found them boring. Thus, about 1 in 4 Christian youths felt that worship services were boring.

17% responded that the atmosphere of the worship is rigid, while 62% disagreed. Regarding worship music, 12% said it was not inspirational, whereas 70% found it inspirational. The PDRI concluded, Although the overall atmosphere and worship music are not bad, the relatively high percentage of those finding the services boring suggests a need to reassess the structure and delivery of sermons and the overall worship experience.

When asked what they expect from middle and high school worship services and activities, 30% of students prioritized fellowship with friends and peers, followed by praise at 28%, sermons at 14%, and prayer at 11%. Students showed a clear preference for fellowship with friends and praise over sermons and prayer, the PDRI observed.

72% of students reported feeling close to their youth pastor, and 74% felt close to their youth group teachers. Conversely, 28% did not feel close to their pastor, and 26% did not feel close to their teachers.

The PDRI stressed, About 3 out of 10 students do not feel close to their youth pastors or teachers, highlighting the need to prioritize building close relationships in youth ministry. Such relationships can encourage active participation in worship and significantly influence the faith growth of students.

When students who did not feel close to their pastors or teachers were asked why, the most common reason was there is no particular reason to be close (37% for pastors, 34% for teachers).

Originally published on Christian Daily Korea. Translated and edited by Christian Daily International staff.
Southwest Airlines is doing away with its 50-year tradition and plans to start assigning seats and premium seating for customers who are seeking more legroom.

The airline said yesterday that it has been studying customer preferences and expectations and is making the changes because of what theyve heard, but it could also generate revenue and boost financial performance.

While Southwest has used an open seating model for 50 years, the company said that it understands that preferences have changed, with more customers taking longer flights and wanting an assigned seat.

Southwest unveiled changes to how it has boarded flights on the same day it reported that it topped profit and revenue expectations for the second quarter.

The airline is said it will offer redeye flights for the first time.

Southwest said that its first overnight, redeye flights will land on Feb. 14, 2025 in nonstop markets that include Las Vegas to Baltimore and Orlando; Los Angeles to Baltimore and Nashville; and Phoenix to Baltimore. It plans to phase in additional redeye flights over time. MDT/AP
The Public Security Police (PSP) have arrested two men suspected of stealing approximately MOP2,600 worth of goods from a supermarket.

According to a report filed with police on July 21, a tally clerk at a supermarket in ZAPE discovered a shortage of goods after counting the stores inventory.

Surveillance video from July 18 and July 21 showed three men stuffing goods into plastic bags while staff were distracted.

Using footage from the supermarket cameras and surveillance system, police identified and detained two suspects on July 22: an unemployed man in his 40s, who holds a travel permit to Hong Kong and Macau; and an unemployed man also in his 40s, who holds a Chinese passport.

Both men admitted to stealing from the store twice, citing financial hardship as their motivation. The goods were transported to mainland China by a third man, who remains at large as investigations continue.

During a search of the suspects residence, officers discovered an unlicensed accommodation operation. The Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) has since sealed the offending residence for violating the regulations that govern short-term rentals. The investigation continues. VC
Items inside Susans Antiques and Collectibles may not be the only thing catching customers eyes as they walk past the store in downtown Twin Falls. The Wall of Shame  a collage of photos of thieves stealing items from the store  right next to the front door is for everyone to view before stepping inside.

Some customers have told owner Susan Hall that they do not like the display and will turn away but she doesnt mind.

The collage reduces the chances that someone might steal another antique, Hall said.

Hall has been selling antiques in downtown Twin Falls for nearly 19 years. Throughout the years, she has had countless experiences of people stealing from her store because some people cant help themselves, she said.

Perpetrators usually wait until Hall gets busy  shes the only one working the store  then sneak out the front door. Items can be tucked up a persons sleeve, hidden in pockets, or stuffed away in large bags.

A man who stole a 12-inch Griswold cast iron skillet tucked it in his pants when Hall got busy during her shift. It was the most expensive item taken from the store valued at $300. If the skillet had been clean, it could have easily been worth $600, she said.

It was a beautiful, wonderful skillet, she said, but I hope it fell out and broke his toes.

With the 15 cameras in her store, she also posts videos of people stealing on Facebook to let others know to be wary. Halls video of a woman stealing a butter dish reached 65,000 views and an unexpected outcome.

The comment section was full of observations. People quickly recognized the woman in the video. Hall soon learned that the woman was a federal employee working at the Veterans Administration with vulnerable adults with dementia.

Drawing mixed reactions

While some Facebook users notice the faces in the videos and help Hall with the identities of the shoplifters, others disapprove of Halls decision to upload surveillance clips.

Ive had people give me a hard time about it and its like theres nothing in here anybody has to have, Hall said. Theyre not stealing a loaf of bread.

Across the street, the St. Vincent de Paul Societys thrift store suffers differently. People will come to the store wearing their own outfits and leave wearing an item tagged and waiting on a hanger for a buyer.

Workers have also noticed customers taking their shoes off and walking out of the store with a new pair.

Why would you come to a thrift store thats a godly store to steal? Cathi Walton, assistant manager of St. Vincents, said. You can come into the social services area and we can give you an in-store voucher.

Saint Vincent offers social services to help people pay their rent, utilities, gas and food. In-store vouchers are offered to those who need clothes or household items.

With various forms of shoplifting, workers have learned that it is common for parents to be the culprit because they are seen teaching their children how to steal.

We have a couple of people that come in that we keep a close eye on  that are adults with younger children  and they will come in and almost teach them how to stick something in their pocket, Walton said.

I take it more personally

Poindexters Novelty and Costume Store has not experienced the constant frequency of stealing as Susans Antiques and Collectibles and St. Vincents but they still try to be cautious.

Poindexters has 16 cameras installed throughout the store and a computer located at the front desk to showcase the videos. Its intimidating for those who may want to steal.

The store also has established a policy allowing workers to conduct bag searches if they suspect items were stolen.

It honestly just offends me more, Robert Sanchez Jr., manager of Poindexter, said. I take it more personally that way because its a local business.

Susans Antiques and Collectibles will be celebrating its 19th anniversary in December. Despite facing the struggles of stealing and loss of business throughout the years, Hall holds onto her passion while working and tackles any problem that comes her way.

For every one knucklehead thats a shoplifter, theres 99 people that are great and arent so. Its just that fine line, Hall said. I know its part of the business  its sad, its sickening  but you cant be jaded by just a few bad apples because overall, people are good.
A High Court judge in England on Thursday (July 25) upheld a ban on Christian Joshua Sutcliffe from teaching following his dismissal for refusing to use the preferred pronoun of a schoolgirl identifying as a boy.

The indefinite ban in response to Sutcliffes appeal means the teacher, fired from Cherwell School in Oxford after the incident in 2017, cannot return to his profession. Sutcliffe had said, Well done, girls to a group of students including a girl who identified as a boy.

Sutcliffe, 34, had launched legal action against the school and settled out of court but still received a minimum two-year ban from The Professional Conduct Panel Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA). The ban had been created in May 2013 for those bringing the profession into disrepute.

His legal counsel had argued the ban was an unjustified interference with Sutcliffes rights to freedom of speech and religion.

Justice Pepperall ruled that regardless of a teachers faith and beliefs, compelled speech must be used for transgender pupils, according to a press statement by advocacy group Christian Concern. The judges direction reportedly included the requirement to respect and celebrate the pupils personal autonomy.

Stay informed with The Christian Daily Newsletter Sign up

Just because misgendering a transgender pupil might not be unlawful does not mean that it is appropriate conduct for a teacher, the judge said.

The ruling came despite the previous Conservative U.K. government publishing draft transgender guidelines for schools in 2023 that stressed that teachers must not be forced into violating their consciences by using preferred pronouns contrary to biological sex.

Pepperall, noting the guidelines, reportedly said that Sutcliffes conscience based on his Christian beliefs did not justify his referring to a girl identifying as a boy as a she.

The draft guidance, which of course postdated these events and the panels decision, envisaged that schools would rarely agree to change a pupils pronouns but did not purport to suggest that such course would never be appropriate, the judge reportedly said. As the draft made plain, such decisions are complex and are made by schools and not individually by each member of staff according to their own assessment of the merits of the request.

The judge also reportedly said the unnamed pupil had credibly passed for a male and was only known by male pronouns at the school. He accused Sutcliffe of failing to treat the student with dignity and respect.

After the ruling against his appeal, Sutcliffe issued a public statement saying he stood by his Christian convictions that it is harmful and detrimental to affirm gender confused children.

This is the belief I am fighting for which is shared by not only Christians but many who do not believe in harmful transgender ideology, said Sutcliffe. I have been a marked man ever since I dared to express my Christian beliefs in a school and tell the media about how I was punished for doing so.

He said no training and guidance was given to teachers on such issues in 2017. He pointed out that as a young teacher then, he was building my career in the profession at a time when schools took guidance about transgender issues from gay rights charity Stonewall, not the U.K. government or any experts.

With this ruling, every teacher is at risk if they share their beliefs and views in the classroom, Sutcliffe said. I believe affirming children in a transgender identity in the classroom is psychologically damaging for them. I refused to go against my Christian faith and conscience and cause a child harm.

Saying he refused to apologize for declining to go against his conscience, he asserted that it is not any childs best interests to affirm them in something that is untrue.

The Cass Review, the Policy Exchange report and the transgender guidance from the Conservative government vindicate me on this, he said. The TRA wanted me to capitulate and say that I was wrong. I have been severely punished for refusing to do so. Despite this setback, I will continue to fight for justice and to get my career back.

British pediatrician Hilary Cass led the independent Cass Review of gender identity services for children and young people for the U.K.s National Health Service (NHS), with the final review released in April. NHS England commissioned the review to make recommendations on how to improve NHS gender identity services and ensure that children and young people questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria receive a high standard of care that meets their needs and is safe, holistic and effective.

For the majority of young people, a medical pathway may not be the best way to manage their gender-related distress, the review concluded.

For those young people for whom a medical pathway is clinically indicated, it is not enough to provide this without also addressing wider mental health and/or psychosocially challenging problems, Cass concluded. The controversy surrounding the use of medical treatments has taken focus away from what the individualized care and treatment is intended to achieve for individuals seeking support from NHS gender services.

Clinicians are unable to determine with any certainty which children and young people will go on to have an enduring trans identity, her review noted.

The rationale for early puberty suppression remains unclear, with weak evidence regarding the impact on gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health, the review stated. The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown. The use of masculinizing/feminizing hormones in those under the age of 18 also presents many unknowns, despite their longstanding use in the adult transgender population.

The review concluded that while a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.

The strengths and weaknesses of the evidence base on the care of children and young people are often misrepresented and overstated, both in scientific publications and social debate, Cass stated.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre that supported the High Court appeal, said the description of Sutcliffe in Judge Pepperalls ruling reads like fiction.

The picture Mr. Justice Pepperall paints of Joshua and his beliefs is a far cry from the caring, kind and brilliant maths teacher we know Joshua to be, Williams said. We create a turbulent environment in schools when facts are turned on their head against the teacher in a context where children are identifying as the opposite sex. Teachers are treading on eggshells for fear of saying the wrong thing.



The teaching profession is not a safe place for Christian teachers, she said.

Expressing long-held Christian beliefs on marriage and gender can get you suspended, investigated and barred, Williams said. We are looking at the judgment carefully. We will continue to support Joshua for as long as it takes to secure justice.
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 OS and GEFS of the study cohort. The solid line and the dashed line show OS and GEFS curves, respectively. OS and GEFS at 2 years post-HCT are described with 95% confidence intervals in brackets. Grade IIIIV acute GVHD, systemically treated chronic GVHD, second transplantation, and death were defined as failure events for GEFS. OS, overall survival; GEFS, graft-versus-host disease-free, event-free survival. Credit: Department of Child Health and Development, TMDU

Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is a commonly used curative therapy for individuals with inborn errors of immunity (IEI). HCT involves introducing stem cells from a compatible donor with the aim of replacing the affected cells in the recipient's body. Reduced-toxicity conditioning (RTC) is an approach for reducing drug-related toxicities post HCT in patients with IEIs.

Alemtuzumab is a humanized anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody that strongly suppresses the function of immune cells and is used with RTC regimens to increase the acceptance of transplanted stem cells, thereby reducing graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). Although alemtuzumab is a well-established drug used for RTC in Western countries, the clinical experience of using it on Asian patients with IEIs is limited.

In a study published in the Journal of Clinical Immunology, researchers from Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) in Japan sought to address this knowledge gap.

The researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of Asian patients who underwent allogeneic HCT alongside RTC with alemtuzumab and shed light on the efficacy and limitations of this drug in an Asian cohort for the first time. They included 19 patients in the analysis who had undergone their first round of HCT conditioning with alemtuzumab in TMDU or collaborative centers.

The donors comprised HLA-half-matched parents, HLA-matched siblings, and unrelated donors. The cohort displayed a diverse range of IEIs, including chronic granulomatous disease, familial hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, leukocyte adhesion deficiency, and X-linked lymphoproliferative syndrome. The diverse range of IEIs helped cement the wide applicability of alemtuzumab. Out of the 19 patients, 18 survived during the follow-up period of a median of 18 months, resulting in an overall survival rate of 94.7% post-HCT.

Highlighting the efficacy demonstrated by alemtuzumab, senior author Prof. Hirokazu Kanegane says, "All surviving patients recovered from the symptoms occurring from the original disease after HCT, including those with active hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, which is life-threatening,"

Except for one patient who passed away, all other patients achieved high levels of neutrophil and platelet engraftment within three months. In other words, the precursors of these cells successfully made their way to the recipient's bone marrow, where they managed to survive and multiply into healthy immune cells.

However, there were notable variations in donor chimerismthe proportion of grafted donor cells found in the recipient's body. It was found that six months to a year after HCT, six patients exhibited less than 80% of donor CD3+ T cells in their blood, implying that these immune cells were not as effectively replaced as the other types.

Another important point to mention is that GVHD, which is a typical complication following allogeneic HCT, occurred in acute form in only eight patients and in chronic form in five. Fortunately, the acute GVHD never reached the most severe categories, and only two of those with chronic GVHD had to receive additional immunosuppressive therapy. Among other typical complications of HCT, viral infections were observed in 11 patients, with 6 of them showing a symptomatic infection- a higher frequency when compared with patients who didn't receive alemtuzumab.

Overall, the researchers demonstrated that RTC with alemtuzumab was safe and effective in patients with IEIs. However, further investigation is necessary to make it even more safe and effective through optimized treatment and management protocols.

"We need to carefully address the development of frequent viral infections and unstable levels of donor T-cell chimerism, emphasizing the importance of monitoring viral status and T-cell-specific chimerism in patients with IEIs treated with HCT using alemtuzumab. Moreover, the optimal dose of alemtuzumab should be further investigated in future prospective studies," concludes lead author Dr. Satoshi Miyamoto.

More information: Satoshi Miyamoto et al, Allogeneic Hematopoietic cell Transplantation Using Alemtuzumab in Asian Patients with Inborn Errors of Immunity, Journal of Clinical Immunology (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s10875-024-01734-5
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

Europe's medicines watchdog on Friday rejected a marketing request for a new Alzheimer's disease treatment, saying the risks of the medicine's side effects, including potential brain bleeding, outweighed the benefits.

The decision by the Amsterdam-based European Medicines Agency was met with dismay, but experts said effective treatment for the degenerative mental disease affecting millions in Europe alone, was getting closer.

"The CHMP recommended not granting a marketing authorization for Leqembi, a medicine intended for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease," the European Medicines Agency said, referring to its committee for evaluating drugs for human use.

Leqembi, which was developed by US multinational Biogen and Japanese-based Eisai, is the brand name of an active substance called lecanemab, which is used to treat adults with mild memory and cognitive problems resulting from the early stages of the common type of dementia.

But the CHMP said "the observed effect of Leqembi on delaying cognitive decline does not counterbalance the risk of serious side events associated with the medicine."

"The most important safety concern with Leqembi is the frequent occurrence of amyloid-related imaging abnormalities (ARIA), a side effect, seen in brain imaging, that involves swelling and potential bleedings in the brain," the EMA said.

'Unmet need'

Leqembi is a monoclonal antibody, a type of protein that clings to a substance in the brain and can delay worsening of the disease. It is given intravenously every two weeks.

Leqembi, together with another Alzheimer's drug called Aduhelmalso developed by Biogen and Eisaireceived approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) early last year.

Both drugs were approved through an accelerated process by the FDA for drugs treating serious conditions where there is an unmet medical need.

But in late January this year, Biogen pulled the controversial Aduhelm from the market, saying it was focusing on Leqembi instead.

Preliminary data from a trial of Leqembi was released in September 2022 and found it slowed cognitive decline in Alzheimer's patients by 27 percent.

Around eight million people in the European Union live with dementia, with Alzheimer's disease accounting for more than half of these cases, according to the Alzheimer Europe website.

Eisai, in a statement, said it was "extremely disappointed with the CHMP's negative opinion".

"There is a significant unmet need for new innovative treatment options that target an underlying cause of disease progression," Eisai's chief clinical officer Lynn Kramer said.

Eisai said it would seek a re-examination of the EMA's opinion "to ensure this treatment is available for eligible people living with early Alzheimer's disease in the EU as soon as possible."

The EMA said Eisai presented a main study involving 1,795 people with early Alzheimer's who either received Leqembi or a placebo, measured over a span of 18 months.

Eisai said that the watchdog added that its refusal had "no consequences for patients in clinical trials with Leqembi".

Eisai may now ask for a re-examination within 15 days, the EMA said.

'Ramp up efforts'

Experts voiced disappointment at the EMA's refusal, but added there were "reasons to remain hopeful".

"Lecanemab has shown that it is possible to slow down disease progression, and research does work," said Tara Spires-Jones, president of the British Neuroscience Association.

"Now we need to ramp up our efforts to discover new and safer treatments," she said in a statement, adding that "each discovery brings us closer to new and better treatments."

Bart De Strooper, a professor in Alzheimer's disease at the University College London called the EMA's decision "unfortunate yet not unexpected".

"This conservative approach means that patients and doctors eager to explore a proven effective drug are now denied access," he said in a statement.

"With no current therapies available, it's disheartening to think that if we had applied such caution in the past, particularly with cancer drugs and their severe side effects, we might still be without cancer treatments today," De Strooper said.

 2024 AFP
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

The first-ever deaths from the Oropouche virus, a little-known disease spread by the bites of infected midges and mosquitoes, have been recorded in Brazil.

Here is what we know about the virus so far.

What happened?

Two women under 30 years old from the Brazilian state of Bahia have become the first known people to have died from the virus, Brazil's health ministry said on Thursday.

They showed symptoms similar to dengue, another mosquito-borne virus which is often confused with Oropouche.

What is it?

The virus was first detected in Trinidad and Tobago in 1955.

It is transmitted mostly through the bites of midges, though it can also be spread via mosquitoes.

"It's very important to point out that, according to our current knowledge, the virus is not transmitted directly from human to human," Italian infectious disease researcher Concetta Castilletti told AFP.

This means that travelers visiting affected regions cannot transmit the virus elsewhere.

Authorities in Brazil are investigating recent reports that pregnant women could have transmitted the virus to their unborn children, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

Where is it?

The virus has been reported in parts of South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

PAHO said that more than 7,700 cases of Oropouche virus have been detected so far this year in five countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Cuba and Colombia.

Brazil alone has recorded 7,236 cases in 2024, according to its health ministry.

What are the symptoms?

The virus causes similar symptoms to dengue, such as fever, muscle aches, stiff joints, headache, vomiting, nausea, chills or sensitivity to light, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Severe cases can result in life-threatening complications such as meningitis.

There are no specific treatments or vaccines for the virus.

The best protection is to avoid getting bitten by midges and mosquitoes when in an affected area.

That includes covering up legs and arms, using strong bug repellent and fine-mesh mosquito nets, since midges can get through traditional nets, according to PAHO.

Threat of a wider outbreak?

Compared to other viruses in its family, such as dengue and chikungunya, the virus is considered understudied and little understood.

A Lancet review earlier this year called the virus "a prototypical neglected disease."

The review added that the virus "has the potential to emerge as a substantial threat" given its potential to spread widely and cause serious health problems.

Castilletti's laboratory detected the first two cases ever recorded in Europe, in two unrelated passengers who returned to Italy from a trip to Cuba earlier this year.

Because of the high numbers of travelers visiting the affected regions, "we can reasonably expect more cases" in Europe, she said.

Researchers have been sounding the alarm that warmer temperatures driven by climate change have been increasing the range of mosquitoes across the world. This in turn could raise the potential spread of viruses such as Oropouch, Castilletti said.

What needs to be done?

She said that researchers need to study the virus more to understand how it affects different kinds of people.

A test that can rapidly detect the virus at the "earliest possible stage" is also needed, Castilletti said.

She also called for regional, national and international health authorities to ramp up communication and preparedness to prevent potential outbreaks in the future.

"'Expect the unexpected', as the COVID-19 epidemic should have taught us," she added.

 2024 AFP
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Doctors and others who take care of hospitalized patients may want to sit down for this piece of news. A new study suggests that getting at a patient's eye level when talking with them about their diagnosis or care can really make a difference. Sitting or crouching at a hospitalized patient's bedside was associated with more trust, satisfaction and even better clinical outcomes than standing, according to the new review of evidence.

The study's authors, from the University of Michigan and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, note that most of the studies on this topic varied with their interventions and outcomes, and were found to have high risk of bias. Their findings are published in a systematic review in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

So, the researchers sat down and figured out how to study the issue as part of their own larger evaluation of how different non-verbal factors impact care, perceptions and outcomes.

Until their new study ends, they say their systematic review should prompt clinicians and hospital administrators to encourage more sitting at the bedside.

Something as simple as making folding chairs and stools available in or near patient rooms could helpand in fact, the VA Ann Arbor has installed folding chairs in many hospital rooms at the Lieutenant Colonel Charles S. Kettles VA Medical Center.

Nathan Houchens, M.D., the U-M Medical School faculty member and VA hospitalist who worked with U-M medical students to review the evidence on this topic, says they focused on physician posture because of the power dynamics and hierarchy of hospital-based care.

An attending or resident physician can shift that relationship with a patient by getting down to eye level instead of standing over them, he notes.

He credits the idea for the study to two former medical students, who have now graduated and gone on to further medical training elsewhere: Rita Palanjian, M.D. and Mariam Nasrallah, M.D.

"It turns out that only 14 studies met criteria for evaluation in our systematic review of the impacts of moving to eye level, and only two of them were rigorous experiments," said Houchens.

"Also, the studies measured many different things, from length of the patient encounter and patient impressions of empathy and compassion, to hospitals' overall patient evaluation scores as measured by standardized surveys like the federal HCAHPS survey".

In general, he said, the data paint the picture that patients prefer clinicians who are sitting or at eye level, although this wasn't universally true. And many studies acknowledged that even when physicians were assigned to sit with their patients, they didn't always do soespecially if dedicated seating was not available.

Houchens knows from supervising U-M medical students and residents at the VA that clinicians may be worried that sitting down will prolong the interaction when they have other patients and duties to get to. But the evidence the team reviewed suggests this is not the case.

He notes that other factors, such as concerns about infection transmission, can also make it harder to consistently get to eye level.

"We hope our work will bring more recognition to the significance of sitting and the general conclusion that patients appreciate it," says Houchens. Making seating available, encouraging physicians to get at eye level, and senior physicians making a point to sit as role models for their students and residents, could help too.

A recently launched VA/U-M study includes physician posture as part of a bundle of interventions aimed at making hospital environments more conducive to healing and forming bonds between patient and provider.

In addition to encouraging providers to sit by their patients' bedsides, the intervention also includes encouraging warm greetings as providers enter patient rooms and posing questions to patients about their priorities and backgrounds during conversations.

The researchers will look for any differences in hospital length of stay, readmissions, patient satisfaction scores, and other measures between the units where the bundle of interventions is being rolled out, and those where it is not yet.

In addition to Houchens and the two former students, the authors of the systematic review are U-M and VA hospitalist Ashwin Gupta, M.D., Whitney Townsend of the U-M Taubman Health Sciences Library, VA chief of medicine and U-M professor Sanjay Saint, M.D., M.P.H., and Jason Engle, M.P.H. Saint and Engle are part of the VA Center for Clinical Management Research, and Saint is a member of the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

More information: Nathan Houchens et al, Effect of Clinician Posture on Patient Perceptions of Communication in the Inpatient Setting: A Systematic Review, Journal of General Internal Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s11606-024-08906-4 Journal information: Journal of General Internal Medicine
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

For adults, increased substance use (ISU) is seen in populations with direct, indirect, and media exposure to mass terrorism, according to a study published online July 24 in JAMA Network Open.

Roi Eliashar, from the Israel Center on Addiction in Netanya, and colleagues examined which factors are associated with reporting ISU in a population affected by mass terrorism and examined whether psychological distress mediated the association between trauma exposure and reporting ISU. The study was a partially representative cross-sectional survey of the adult Jewish population in Israel (aged 18 to 70 years) conducted four weeks after Oct. 7, 2023. Data were included for 968 participants (mean age, 41.5 years).

The researchers found that participants were significantly more likely to report ISU if they had experienced direct exposure, indirect exposure, media exposure, psychological distress, or previous mental health difficulties. The association between indirect exposure and media exposure with reporting ISU was partially mediated by psychological distress (b = 0.20 and 0.14, respectively). There was no evidence to support previous mental health difficulties as a moderator of these indirect effects.

This cross-sectional study "added important insights regarding the outcomes of psychological distress on these consequences and emphasized the potential prevalence of distress and ISU among individuals exposed to events of such scope and to unparalleled media attention, independent of their preexisting vulnerability," the authors write.

"These insights are crucial for planning and disseminating essential health services and preventative measures."

More information: Roi Eliashar et al, Reported Increase in Substance Use Following Mass Terrorism and the Role of Psychosocial Factors, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.23993 Journal information: JAMA Network Open

 2024 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Spanky Spangler could be described as one wild and crazy guy.

After all, in years past, the daredevil took some swan dives off the Finlen Hotel while lit on fire, rolled his car on East Park Street and jumped from a hot air balloon. Hes also knocked down a couple of school buses, crashed his car during a fake police pursuit, plunged to the earth from the Metals Bank and climbed to the platform of the Original Mine headframe only to jump from it minutes later.

The Original was the last jump he performed in Butte and that was 10 years ago. The daredevil is now 75 years old and more than ready to retire. Before he does, though, he wants to make one last jump and he chose Butte as the place to close out his daring career.

Spangler, who was a Hollywood stuntman for many years, was a crowd favorite at Evel Knievel Days.

Spangler made his Butte debut 22 years ago when he jumped from the ledge of the Finlen Hotel. Falling nine stories and landing onto a gigantic airbag, the crowds were quickly hooked on his antics and he became one of the most popular attractions for the annual summer event.

Spangler will again be one of Buttes main attractions, this time at the Butte-Silver Bow County Fair.

I havent been up to Butte in a long time, he said. Im looking forward to it.

Its no coincidence he chose Butte for his last jump. Spangler fell in love with the town and its people during the inaugural Evel Knievel Week in the summer of 2002.

Butte is so easy-going and has treated me really good, said Spangler. Everyone had a good time.

A friend of many years, Bill Rundle of Butte, thinks its cool that Spangler wants to finish his career here in Butte.

I love him like a brother, said Rundle. Its pretty nice that he thinks that much of our city.

Spanglers first Finlen jump took place Friday, Aug. 2, 2002. Its interesting to note that he will finish his career also on a Friday, Aug. 2. He plans to jump from atop a crane and land on an airbag at 8:30 p.m. at the Civic Center.

The distance will be the equivalent of jumping from an eight- to 10-story building, said Spangler.

Among those attending will be Rundle, who helped bring Spangler to Butte back in 2002.

He has a hell of a history, said Rundle. Theres not a lot of things he hasnt done.

Rundle got that right. Spangler has wowed crowds all over the world. The native Arizonan started his career as a Hollywood stuntman, which eventually evolved into more daredevil endeavors.

He did some things that were crazy as hell, said Rundle, but thats what he did for a living.

Spangler credits the late Evel Knievel for his success.

I followed his career before he was even famous, he said.

Spangler recalled how his mother would mail newspaper clippings about Knievel while Spangler served in Vietnam.

Evel did a lot of great things for me, he said. He opened the doors for a lot of stuntmen like me.

Once he retires, Spangler will remain homebased in Phoenix. No plans are set in stone, but he will be spending more time with his family and doing some traveling, all the while feeling no pressure to do anything more.

I tried to do a little bit of everything, but its time to slow down, he said.
Embakasi East MP Babu Owino has declared himself the de facto opposition leader, challenging the current political landscape and denouncing what he sees as political opportunism.

In a media interview on Thursday, July 25, 2024, Owino criticized Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) leaders who recently took up Cabinet positions. He accused them of prioritizing personal gain over the interests of the opposition movement.

Actually from today henceforth, I am the chief opposition leader, because there are so many jokes, doing rounds. There are so many people, who are in the opposition, who are now in bed with the government, Babu stated.

Owino did not hold back, labeling the ODM defectors as greedy and power-hungry. He pointed out the disconnect between their actions and the core values of the opposition.

Babu emphasized his decision to distance himself from these leaders and defended the ODM partys original stance to remain in opposition. He reaffirmed his commitment to fighting for Kenyas underprivileged, particularly impoverished children who lack access to education and healthcare.

My interest is to fight for Kenyans, it pains me to see a person who was a fellow member of parliament, joining the government. It pains me, to look back in Soweto slums, Kibera slums, to look back in central region, Nyanza, Coast and everywhere else, to see that child sent away because he lacks Ksh5000 to pay, for the schooling in a secondary school. I am so pained to see that child, who is stuck in hospital because they cannot be treated because they lack money. Babu said.
The National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC) has poked holes in the recent cabinet secretary nominations, highlighting non-compliance with the one-third gender rule and insufficient representation of persons with disabilities.

In a statement, NGEC said it conducted a preliminary review and made key observations. Out of the 21 nominees, 15 are male and 6 are female, resulting in a composition of 17 males and 6 females, including the President and Deputy President.

The current configuration does not adhere to Article 27(8) of the Kenyan Constitution, which mandates that no more than two-thirds of an appointive body should be of the same gender, the commission stated.

NGEC emphasized that the gender composition should not exceed 16 members of the same gender. To meet constitutional requirements, the appointments for the Attorney-General and one additional Cabinet Secretary must include women.

The Commission recommended that one of these female appointees should also be a person with a disability. This adjustment would result in a final composition of 17 males and 8 females, achieving gender parity.

Regarding representation for Persons with Disabilities (PWD), NGEC noted the absence of nominees from this group. This oversight represents a missed opportunity to fulfill the constitutional mandate of achieving 5 percent representation as stipulated in Article 54(2) of the Constitution, the Commission added.

NGEC acknowledged the nomination of Eric Muriithi Muuga, aged 32, as a positive step towards fulfilling Article 55(b), which mandates youth representation in decision-making processes.

The Commission also recognized efforts to include members from marginalized communities, aligning with Article 56(c) that calls for affirmative action to ensure opportunities for minorities and marginalized groups.

The NGEC strongly urged the appointing authority to ensure the final Cabinet list complies fully with Articles 27, 54, and 55 of the Constitution.

The Commission stressed the need for rigorous vetting by the National Assembly to ensure that all nominees meet the stringent requirements of Chapter 6 of the Constitution, which pertains to leadership and integrity. This rigorous vetting is crucial for upholding principles of equality, non-discrimination, and ethical leadership.
The High Court has suspended the rollout of the new digital identity cards, commonly known as Maisha Namba, pending the resolution of a case filed by the Haki na Sheria Initiative.

Justice Lawrence Mugambi issued the order, stating that it would be challenging to remedy the damage if the court later ruled the process unconstitutional.

The court is satisfied that based on the latest disclosure, an order suspending any further or continued implementation of Maisha Namba, Maisha card, and Maisha Database pending hearing and determination of this application ought to be issued, the judge said.

Haki na Sheria Initiative told the court about a July 22 circular confirming the start of mass data collection, processing, and storage for the Maisha Namba and enrollment into the Maisha Database, also known as the Maisha Namba ecosystem.

Three Ways to Enroll in Maisha Ecosystem

According to the documents, there are three ways to enroll in the Maisha ecosystem: issuing Maisha cards to newborns at birth, to first-time ID applicants who have turned 18, and to adults with second-generation IDs who apply for a replacement upon loss.

The petitioner has challenged the entire Maisha ecosystem rollout due to concerns about potential mass data breaches and the permanent exclusion of certain groups. The court heard that the Maisha ecosystem lacks adequate safeguards for processing personal data.

There is a great risk of prejudice being caused to members of the public and their right to privacy by the disclosure of certain types of personal information in the absence of proposals on how the data will be protected, the documents state.

Exclusion Fears

Haki na Sheria argues that the rollout will exacerbate the already significant exclusion margin on citizenship in Kenya. They point out that children from minority and marginalized communities often face difficulties obtaining citizenship documents, such as birth certificates, due to challenges in accessing registration centers or the prolonged vetting process of their parents and grandparents for first and second-generation IDs. They also highlight that this problem affects individuals with double registration.

If the state is allowed to proceed with this process, there is going to be a countless number of people who will be left in a state of limbo. They will not be able to go back and obtain Maisha card at birth nor be able to replace the same as adults for lack of the second-generation ID, Haki says.

They claim this will impact other constitutional rights, such as access to government services, education, and healthcare.

Justice Mugambi directed the petitioner to serve the respondents with the application by July 26. The respondents include the Attorney General, CS Interior, Director General of Kenya Citizens and Foreign Nationals Management Service, Principal Registrar of Births and Deaths, and Principal Registrar of Persons.

Further directions will be issued on September 17.
Stephen Munyakho, a Kenyan facing imminent execution in Saudi Arabia, has issued a heartfelt plea for assistance as he faces a grave situation.

Munyakho, who was born Stephen Bertrand Munyakho on March 5, 1974, in Pumwani, Nairobi, shared his distressing story during a press briefing on July 24, 2024.

As the eldest of nine siblings, Munyakho left Kenya at the age of 22 in 1996 after completing his studies at Nyangori Boys High School. Although he initially aimed to pursue further education in the US, he found employment in Saudi Arabia and decided to stay. However, his life took a tragic turn in 2011.

While working as a warehouse manager, Munyakho became involved in a physical altercation with a Yemeni colleague, Abdulhalim Mujahid Makrad Saleh. The altercation led to Salehs death, and Munyakho sustained injuries. Munyakho was sentenced to five years in prison for manslaughter. He had hoped to start anew by his 40th birthday, but the case took a different trajectory.

After the Yemeni colleagues family appealed, a Sharia court imposed the death penalty. The execution was postponed until the youngest child of Saleh reached 18, as required by Sharia law.

Munyakho explained, The matter went to trial, and I was sentenced to five years in jail for manslaughter. This means I could have been out of jail by the time I was hitting 40. Life, some say, begins at 40  and I was ready to begin mine on a new slate. That was not to be. Abduls family lodged an appeal before a Sharia court, and the verdict was that I have to die by execution, Sharia fashion. That is the reason I am currently at Shimeisi Prison in the Makkah region.

He continued, I would have been executed a long time ago, but Abdulhalims youngest child was only five years old when he died. He had to reach 18 to give consent for my execution. During that period, the family softened its stance and said I could pay blood money to be released.

Kes.150 Million Blood Money

The family demanded Kes.150 million as blood money for Munyakhos release. Despite ongoing negotiations and the familys softened stance, Munyakhos modestly resourced family cannot afford this amount.

Consequently, a campaign named Lets Bring Back Stevo has been launched to raise the necessary funds to prevent Munyakhos execution, scheduled for November 26, 2024.

The Bring Back Stevo campaign has raised Kes.11 million so far, thanks to donations from Kenyans. Munyakho expressed his gratitude, saying, Since this matter was first brought to the attention of Kenyans, there has been overwhelming assistance. The donations have been streaming in from far and wide. A Sh1,000 here, a Sh200 there. An enquiry here, a passionate plea there. They give me hope.

Campaign chairman Joseph Odindo highlighted the support from prominent figures such as Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi and Kenyas Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohamed Ramadhan Ruwange. Odindo urged Kenyans to continue their generous contributions and emphasized that if 100,000 people donate Kes.1,000 each, the campaign would be significantly closer to reaching its goal.

Odindos message resonated with Munyakho, who echoed his sentiments: Odindos words rang large: The journey of 1,000 miles starts with one step, and we have faith and we have confidence that Kenyans who have always shown an extraordinary spirit in the past when things were difficult.'

Munyakho endorsed Odindos call for action, emphasizing the campaigns target: If 100,000 Kenyans send Sh1,000 each, we will be much, much closer to the target.

Donations can be made through the M-Pesa PayBill number 8056675, with the account name Lets Bring Back Stevo, or directly to Dorothy Musopole at 0702878717.

Munyakho remains hopeful that the continued support will help prevent his execution and secure his release.

I thank you all, he concluded.
Ruben Munguia, who founded the Snake Pit Society, was a famed West Side printer and political kingmaker instrumental in the careers of several early Mexican American political leaders, including his nephew Henry Cisneros. File

It may surprise even those who follow San Antonio politics that the legendary Snake Pit Society still meets every Saturday at Mi Tierra over breakfast tacos, pots of coffee and a full agenda.

The current average age of its members: about 75.

At one time, the Snake Pit wielded power out in the open and shaped policy behind the scenes. They vetted political hopefuls and guided them through campaigns.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

They got things done in town, big and small.

Its membership is still mostly male, and theyre still a politically diverse lot and bipartisan philosophers-at-large. They sit mostly on the Democratic side, one avowed socialist among them.

Many of their past members obituaries rest in Express-News archives now, graduates of that great coffee klatch in the sky.

Those left behind are still at work. One is a practicing lawyer. Another is an energy consultant.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

But the majority are active retirees, all of them with military experience. Theyre volunteers in other membership organizations, veteran groups and political causes. Two are Democratic National Convention delegates.

One points at some nearby framed photos of Snake Pit gatherings and says, Theyre all gone.

But the work remains. And one rule stands  be respectful to one another, no matter what the point of view.

They pour cups of coffee for one another. They tip their longtime waitress generously. They hire two old musicians to sing a couple of songs.

Last Saturday, I was the invited guest, the latest in a long line of journalists. And there was so much on their minds: President Joe Bidens next presidential campaign or whether he should step down, chief among them.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

In an instant straw poll, four out of seven voted for the latter. Biden complied the very next day.

Its not a secret society by any means, but if you want to attend, you either need an invitation or a certain amount of pre-clearance.

Youll also need a set of instructions.

They still meet at Mi Tierra, arriving long before the restaurant is open to the public.

So, a trusty parking attendant requires briefing. Hell escort a guest through a side door and walk you to the special table set up way in the back.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

By the time I arrived, most were already there having coffee. The table was set for about 10. Seven arrived. Over the next hour, more coffee refilled every last cup.

Snake Pit history goes back many decades  about 1976  though thats debated, too.

Its founder was Ruben Munguia, the famed West Side printer and political kingmaker instrumental in the careers of several early Mexican American political leaders, including his nephew Henry Cisneros.

ELAINE AYALA: Kamala Harris, the answer standing in front of us the whole time

Ralph Lopez, 88, a former Bexar County sheriff, the groups ambassador, heads up the Snake Pit now.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Among the others are Jose Antonio Contreras, a retired United Way executive; Larry Romo, a former director of the U.S. Selective Service; Arturo Ramirez Adan, a solar, wind and geo-energy consultant; and Ricardo Gonzalez, a former Alamo Colleges trustee. Harry Greer, a retired child psychiatrist, is another longtime member, as is attorney Ben Buecker, an honorary consul to Germany.

Theyre members of other groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens and the American G.I. Forum.

Myths about the origin of the Snake Pit abound. But what all of them know is that too many of its members are gone  Munguia, Bill Sinkin, Manuel Vara, Edward Montez and George Harrison.

They cant dwell on the losses. Theyre an opinionated lot and students of history with plenty on their minds.

They railed against the lack of Latino representation in the news media and in Hollywood. Son chismosos. They wanted the inside scoop on whats happening at the Express-News. Theyre devoted readers.

They follow local and national politics and bemoan the continued impact of past discrimination. It kept Mexican Americans from equal employment opportunities.

One wears an old helmet displaying an image of a Mexican flag. Allegedly, it was borrowed from another member but he never returned it. It remains a matter of contention.

They took turns presenting their agendas.

One champions a Mexican-born World War II hero whose case for a posthumous Medal of Honor rests at the Pentagon. He also gets this one off his chest: The name of Sidney Lanier High School. Its linked to the Confederacy. End it.

Democrats cant afford to lose the White House to a candidate and a party linked to the Jan. 6 insurrection, another says during his turn to speak. Nor can the Supreme Court continue to dismantle long-established precedent.

Americans will rally to what is right, another says, emphasizing the far rights demonization of immigrants.

Thats a top issue among them. Its members are sons and grandsons of immigrants, not only from Mexico but from Nazi Germany, Scotland and Great Britain.

Theyre old school, so their meetings are about decorum. One is told not to speak when others are speaking.

But the thing that brings them together early Saturday over breakfast tacos and pots of coffee?
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a five-year, $67 million investment establishing the Safeguarding the Entire Community of the U.S. Research Ecosystem (SECURE) Center. The national SECURE Center grant will also encompass five regional hubs, including $6.4 million to fund SECURE Southeast, to be managed by Emory University.

Research security is a concern because some foreign entities attempt to unethically  or even unlawfully  access and use U.S. research.

As mandated in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, the national NSF SECURE Center, led by the University of Washington with support from nine institutions of higher education  including Emory  will serve as a clearinghouse for information empowering the research community to identify and mitigate foreign interference posing risks to the U.S. research enterprise.

The United States invests billions of dollars in research, says Robert Nobles, Emory vice president for research administration and a leader in the national initiative. The SECURE Center is a whole new approach to help the entire nation protect its research assets. It will make sure that institutions large and small, public and private, have an opportunity to work together to build effective research compliance and security tools. Were all really in this together.

The SECURE Center will share information and reports on research security risks, provide training on research security to the science and engineering community and serve as a bridge between the research community and government funding agencies to strengthen cooperation on addressing security concerns.

NSF is committed to principled international collaboration. At the same time, we must address threats to the research enterprise, says Sethuraman Panchanathan, NSF director.

The SECURE Center is how we are bringing the research community together to identify risks, share information and leverage national expertise on research security to develop solutions that protect essential research being done at institutions across the nation, Panchanathan adds. This is a community-focused platform, and the research community will be the drivers of how SECURE Center tools and services are designed, used and improved upon.

To ensure that this approach to research security is community-designed, community-used and community-improved, the SECURE Center will also serve as the nexus for five regional centers to be managed by local universities.

Emory received $6.4 million of the NSF funding over five years to establish and manage SECURE Southeast. Deepika Bhatia, Emory associate vice president for research compliance and regulatory affairs and chief research security officer, is principal investigator for SECURE Southeast. Nobles will also play a role in the regional center, along with his national role.

This grant recognizes Emorys national leadership in research security, says Deborah Bruner, Emory senior vice president for research, citing the positive impact of Nobles and Bhatia. Their work, along with their teams, will allow Emory to both lead and to stay at the forefront of research security and research administration best practices. Emory is fortunate to have thought leaders who are distinguished throughout the research community and we are confident they will help shape this important national conversation.

The SECURE project allows us to build stronger research connections, both regionally and nationally, says Bhatia, who will lead SECURE Southeast. We will exchange ideas with institutional compliance professionals and researchers. By learning what will work for individuals from different institutions we can then help them to customize solutions to achieve the highest standard of research compliance and security.

The additional regional hubs include: SECURE Northeast (Northeastern University), SECURE Midwest (University of Missouri), SECURE Southwest (University of Texas at San Antonio and Texas A&M University) and SECURE West (University of Washington).
Undergraduate students have energized the warm summer days at Emory College of Arts and Sciences by testing themselves.

From challenging their skills with complex piano performances to upending expectations about molecular reactions, the students in the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) program have expanded their coursework with full-time, hands-on research.

This years SURE program included 111 students and affiliate researchers.

Launched 35 years ago as an initiative to support students in the natural sciences, SURE has since grown to encompass those studying the social sciences, humanities and the arts. The program provides free housing and 10 weeks of independent research working directly with professors.

SURE is a centerpiece of the Pathways Centers Undergraduate Research Programs. In addition to giving students more time to explore their interests and possible career paths, SURE helps them hone the perseverance, creativity and problem-solving skills they will apply in their post-Emory lives.

Research is not just an academic skill confined to the natural sciences  its a life skill that all Emory students need to develop to navigate an increasingly ambiguous world, says Branden Grimmett, vice provost for career and professional development and Emory College associate dean. I am thrilled to see more social sciences, arts and humanities students and faculty embracing the SURE program. The thriving research culture at Emory is a testament to our students' curiosity and love of learning.

The program will culminate with SURE participants and other student researchers showcasing their work at the Summer Undergraduate Research Symposium on Wednesday, July 31. Activities kick off at 9 a.m. with performances at the Emory Performing Arts Studio on North Decatur Road. Oral and poster presentations will continue at 10:30 a.m. in the Emory Student Center.

Designed to invite questions and discussion on the students achievements, the symposium is open to the broader community.

The 2024 SURE students hailed from Emorys Atlanta and Oxford College campuses. Meet four who will present at the symposium.

Ajani Claxton-Warner: The privilege of exploration

As a sophomore last year at Oxford College, Ajani Claxton-Warner knew declaring a philosophy, politics and law major would help him reach his goal to become a trial lawyer. He was far less certain about what his research idea  looking at historical African American music  would look like or how it fit into his plans.

Brainstorming with Regina Barrett, Oxfords director of programs in academic affairs, led him to Emorja Roberson, an assistant professor of music who specializes in gospel and classical music.

Together, they shaped a project that focuses on the music and storytelling in three song arrangements that use Psalm 23 for the text.

The Lord is my shepherd verse comforted Claxton-Warner during his own anxiety and uncertainty. His summer research included reviewing case studies on the pieces and conducting one-on-one interviews with those who performed them.

Most significantly, he says, he learned how to listen to a cappella, gospel and chorale arrangements to reveal how separate sacred traditions interpret the metaphor, which deepened his own spiritual journey.

He will share his research by including snippets of the different songs and seeking audience participation during his oral presentation at the symposium.

The practice of intentional listening, then going deeper to articulate what youre feeling, was entirely new to me, says Claxton-Warner, whose research inspired him to write poetry and songs.

The privilege of this exploration is it challenged me to develop a more well-rounded sense of how to tell stories within different frameworks, he adds.

As a SURE mentor for the first time, Roberson was excited to immerse a student in the different performances, including at a recent Hymn Society conference on the Atlanta campus. Roberson plans to do more than participate in the program in the future. He has already decided to incorporate some of Claxton-Warners research in his fall course on the globalization of gospel music.

It has been inspiring to see Ajani looking at what informs this music for the composer and the techniques composers use to create emotion for the audience, Roberson says. I have a firm belief that music will always be interdisciplinary because there is so much you can glean from it.

Nyasha Musoni: Putting puzzle pieces together

Researching how a high-blood pressure medication might be repurposed to overcome chemoresistance in prostate cancer could seem like straightforward medicinal chemistry work.

Rising senior Nyasha Musoni can attest that it isnt. And the challenges, such as making the special type of molecule needed to create and test a new compound, are exactly the appeal.

I specifically like the puzzle piecing of chemistry, says Musoni, a double major in film and media and chemistry. Seeing how all of these molecules come together, putting together little pieces of the puzzle, is literally all I want to do.

With plans to pursue a joint MD/PhD degree, Musoni began conducting research the spring of her sophomore year with chemistry professor Frank McDonald. She successfully synthesized the necessary chiral (or left- and right-handed) molecules for the drug repurposing last spring.

She has continued that work in SURE this summer through Maximizing Access to Research Careers (MARC), Emorys undergraduate-only program funded by the National Institutes of Health focused on biomedical, public health and other science research.

Being full-time in the lab gave Musoni the time needed for closely monitoring the experiments to show that two chemical reactions creating the molecule, or ligand, were happening at essentially the same time, instead of in sequence.

There is something funny with this chemistry, because Nyasha has documented that the first reaction triggers a faster second reaction, which is not often observed, says McDonald, who is also a member of the Discovery and Developmental Therapeutics Research Program at Winship Cancer Institute.

Now that she has shown how to create the ligand as part of the catalyst to do the chemistry we want to test, we can set up control experiments, and we plan to thoroughly test the catalysts early in fall semester, McDonald adds. Nyasha has been making real progress this summer.

Musoni has practiced giving updates on her research during SURE networking and professional development events this summer. That same research will become her honors thesis.

She plans to apply what she learned listening to other students projects  including one on 19th-century theater  and her film courses to break down her projects story during an oral presentation at the symposium.

If youre having a good time talking about it, Im going to have a good time hearing about it, Musoni says of listening to her peers. Working on this project in particular, where the larger impact and medical application is clear, provides me with a lot of motivation to enjoy talking about it.

Alex Martinez: Conducting research, building community

Growing up in Houston, Alex Martinez instinctively understood fixin to and Texas drawls.

Then he arrived at Oxford College and met people from around the globe using dozens of languages, dialects and phrases on the small campus 36 miles east of Atlanta.

Now a rising senior with a joint psychology and linguistics major, Martinez mentioned his interest in such social factors of language last year to Emory linguistics teaching professor Susan Tamasi. The chat led to his SURE project: figuring out ways to build a database of Emory students speech.

The work serves as the foundation of Emory Voices, Tamasis long-envisioned idea to record every undergraduate as incoming first-year students and again as seniors, capturing features such as vocabulary, accent and intonation. That data would be open for researchers from multiple fields to study.

This is a strange and big project, but Alex has gone further than I ever expected because of his attention to detail and ability to extract ideas from what hes reading, Tamasi says. To do this work, he also has to build community by talking to people, which I know he can do because his research came out of a conversation we had.

Martinez has completed literature reviews and begun testing questions designed to encourage natural discussions to record. He also has developed questions that reveal language attitudes, or speakers opinions about terms and phrases.

For his symposium presentation, he will share some of those questions and how smaller projects approached similar research.

The vision is to be able to ask questions like whether students incorporate yall into their vocabulary by being in the South or if all Emory students start saying Coke for any kind of soda, Martinez says. Every piece of it is cool, and its been hugely important in letting me explore whether I could do this kind of research and feel passionate about it.

Martinez is certain enough in the topic and his skills that he plans to continue working with Tamasi in the fall and to pilot interviews. He is less certain about what else his future has in store, but his work with Tamasi has helped how he views that uncertainty.

It brings me a lot of comfort to know that she didnt know she wanted to be all the impressive things she is now when she was in my position, Martinez says. Right now, I think research in general might be too broad for me, but then I also think I could do this project or something like it forever.

Peiming Yang: Developing skills from a personal challenge

With a double major in music composition and psychology, rising senior Peiming Yang originally thought he would conduct research this summer related to human behavior.

By pairing with Elena Cholakova, Emorys professor of piano studies and an associate music professor, for in-depth study and performance of Chopins Ballade No. 2 and No. 3, he focused instead on his own behavior.

I wanted to challenge myself, so I set an overall target to play all four Chopin ballades by graduation, Yang says of the single-movement piano pieces renowned for their poetic atmosphere and elaborate complexity. SURE has been a great opportunity to work with Dr. Cholakova to make the pieces more understandable.

Creative endeavors expand the common understanding of research with their original contributions. They also build on traditional investigations, such as Yangs work to read thematic analyses and to listen to virtuoso recordings of the pieces.

Cholakova guided Yang on that deeper consideration, mentoring his ability to visualize the pieces and unearth the contrasts that add to their depth. She also reviewed recordings of his two- and three-hour daily practices.

Despite being primarily self-taught  he had only two years of piano lessons as a child  Yang is making the connections required to play such intricate works, Cholakova says.

When we perform Chopin, we try to imitate the human voice, she says. Musically speaking, they are a combination of extreme technicality and refined listening and production. Peiming has improved his playing and pedaling, which means his listening skills have improved.

Yang is one of two pianists, both Cholakovas students, who will perform at the symposium at Emorys Performing Arts Studio on North Decatur Road. It will be his debut performance of Chopin  and the first time he has played anywhere but for himself and in class.

He is open to playing in competitions once the academic year begins, when he will work on Ballade No. 4 and apply for graduate school. Yang still plans to become a clinical psychologist but says his summer research has gotten him closer to one goal.

I want to be able to call myself a pianist, Yang says.
Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal encouraged stakeholders in the Leather and Footwear industry to scale up the industry to USD 50 billion by 2030 during his interaction in Delhi. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry stated that the minister also encouraged the industry to showcase world-class products through a large-scale exhibition, inviting participation from domestic and international brands. He called for synergy within the industry to develop a Design Studio with state-of-the-art infrastructure and globally competitive footwear designs. Goyal highlighted the importance of Quality Control Orders (QCOs) for ensuring product quality for consumers and promoting the Make in India brand. He also stated that the industry will benefit from the implementation of QCOs in the long run. To address industry concerns regarding QCOs, the minister assured that the government would make the QCO certification procedure smooth and flexible for the industry. He also added that micro and small units under MSME would continue to be exempted from the purview of QCOs. The ministry informed that to ensure quality footwear for consumers and promote the Make in India brand, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has notified two QCOs dated March 15, 2024, for the leather and footwear sector, which will become effective from August 1, 2024. Manufacturers were given a chance to declare old stock before August 1, 2024, and sell the declared stock by June 30, 2025. Micro and small units and imports of soles for making footwear for export purposes are exempted from the purview of QCOs. The interaction between the minister and leather industry stakeholders included deliberations on the implementation of QCOs for the Leather & Footwear Sector effective from August 1, 2024, and other issues pertaining to the Leather and Footwear industry. "The interaction saw a participation of more than 120 stakeholders including representatives from bodies like Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI), Council of Leather Exports (CLE), Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), National Productivity Council, Invest India, Bureau of Indian Standards, representatives from associations like Confederation of Indian Footwear Industries (CIFI), Indian Footwear Component Manufacturers Association (IFCOMA), representatives of Retailers Association of India (RAI)," said the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The ministry highlighted that the leather and footwear industry in India is a dynamic sector driving economic growth. With its roots deeply embedded in Indian tradition and its eyes set on future possibilities, this industry exemplifies the harmonious blend of time-honoured craftsmanship and modern technology. It added that with immense employment and export potential, India stands as the second-largest producer of footwear, contributing 10.7 per cent of global production, highlighting the industry's capability and global competitiveness. The leather and footwear sector contributes around 2 per cent of India's GDP, generating employment for approximately 4.42 million people, mainly consisting of young age population and women workforce. According to the ministry of commerce and Industry, India is producing and exporting in various product segments such as Leather, Saddlery & Harness, Leather Apparel, Leather Gloves, Leather Goods like bags, trunks, and other accessories, Leather Footwear, Non-Leather Footwear, and Footwear Components. The Government is spearheading initiatives under the Indian Footwear and Leather Development Programme (IFLDP) scheme, which aims at developing infrastructure, addressing environmental concerns, facilitating investments, generating employment, and increasing production in the leather & footwear sector. (ANI)
BusinessWire India Kolkata (West Bengal) [India], July 26: Rakhi is a festival that celebrates the love that siblings share worldwide. 'Rakshabandhan' comprises two words 'Raksha', which means protection, and 'Bandhan', which means to tie the siblings in the eternal bond of love, care, and protection. It is all about having each other's back and ensuring one does not have to face anything alone. But with changing times the siblings live away from each other and find it difficult to celebrate Rakhi with their siblings like old times. Each year the festival is observed on the full moon day in the Shravana, August. GiftstoIndia24x7 aims to provide easy Rakhi gifting options for the NRIs and they can choose from a huge variety. With the vibrant collection of Rakhi, one can add more vitality to the celebration. Curating Rakhi Collection When it comes to celebrating Rakshabandhan, the NRIs often find it difficult to look for ways to send Rakhis to their siblings living in India. But online websites like GiftstoIndia24x7, have made it easy to celebrate Rakhi online. They have made special efforts to curate Rakhi gifts for the loved ones. From choosing the designer Rakhi threads to curating gift hampers for the brothers, a lot goes on behind the scenes. The website has a huge variety of Rakhis and gifts so it fulfills the wishlist of those who are looking for gifts for their siblings. There are Rakhi threads for the spiritual brother to the cool one. The ample number of designs makes it easy to select gifts for the ones living far away but do not want to miss out on making their siblings feel special on the occasion of Rakshabandhan. The gifts are specially curated keeping in mind that they can emotionally connect even from a distance and it doesn't ruin the celebration. Wide Variety of Rakhis This year GiftstoIndia24x7, the online gifting portal has come up with the largest collection of over 750 Rakhi threads and Rakhi gifts that one can send to their siblings online even from a distance. Sending rakhi online has become a lot easier and comes without any hassle. The website delivers Rakhis all over India and they have launched a whole lot of variety in the Rakhi threads. Spiritual Rakhis feature traditional designs like Om, Swastik, Rudraksh, Radha Krishna, Lakshmi, Ek Onkaar, Hanuman, Shiv, and Ganesh. These types of Rakhis are best for those who have a divine interest and traditional values. There are premium Rakhi threads that include Pearl, Stones, Peacock, and others. Bracelet Rakhis are also a type of Rakhi that is famous among brothers as they can wear it as an accessory even after the occasion is over. From premium designer rakhis to luxurious silver rakhis, you will find it all. There are traditional Raksha Sutras, the thread that one can wrap around the wrist two or three times. Bhaiya Bhabhi Rakhi sets are special lumba rakhis available in various designs with exclusive elements. Evil eye Rakhis are trending these days and you will find a variety of it on this website. Resin Rakhis are also gaining a lot of popularity these days and these are designed to perfection. There are also Rakhi sets available so you can also send Rakhis to the whole family at once. Last but not least, there are also Rakhis for the little ones. They would love to wear vibrant rakhis of their favorite cartoon characters and they will be elated to receive them as gifts. All the Rakhis are made with premium quality threads, beads, and elements which certainly give a good experience to the brothers who are far away from their sisters living in a different country but they can still soak in all the love even from a distance. Exclusive Gift Hampers When it comes to gifting brothers, one leaves no stone unturned. So the ample choices of gift hampers make it easy for the sisters to send Rakhi gifts to India to their brothers. The latest collection of Rakhi threads and gift hampers makes the Raksha Bandhan celebrations more ecstatic. There are unique designer Rakhis along with gift hampers specially curated for the brothers. Different gift hampers contain gift items that the brothers can use. Be it gourmet, personalized, or grooming- there are multiple options that one can choose from. For a change, the brothers can also find return gifts for the sister. With their choice of 'Customize your Combo', one enjoys more options and chooses the favorite one for their siblings. Sending Rakhi gift hampers serves the purpose of sending Rakhi threads along with curated gift hampers. Amit Desai, the CEO of GiftstoIndia24x7 says, "Over the years, we have catered to the likes of the customers and made sure we walk that extra mile to fulfill their requirements. When it comes to celebrating your loved ones from a distance, we try to give a satisfying experience and deliver what they have chosen. There are a lot of emotions attached and we try to care for them in the best way possible." GiftstoIndia24x7 ensures that the celebration of Rakshabandhan is done wholeheartedly. They have ensured that Rakhis are available from as low as the price of Rs. 99 so that they fit into the budget easily. The website has curated its largest collection to date and significantly expanded its delivery area. At more than 15000 pincodes they have services of same-day delivery of Rakhi and Rakhi gifts. Distance should not ruin the celebrations so one can rely on their services when it comes to delivering rakhis to different parts of the country. With options of same-day delivery, one can avail to send rakhi to India to their brother. The website has a huge range of gifts, including flowers, cakes, chocolates, and exclusive gift hampers specially curated for Rakhi. There are also special personalized gift ideas that add up to the beauty of the occasion. GiftstoIndia24x7 makes sure that distance does not dampen the spirit of Raksha Bandhan and enables the customers to celebrate the occasion with a difference. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
NewsVoir Chandigarh [India], July 26: As the commercial and residential sectors in tier 2 cities flourish, channel partners have become the key drivers of this growth. To further fuel this momentum, Sushma Group proudly presents the second edition of Building Business Summit - India's only event dedicated to channel partners. After the immense success and appreciation gathered by Sushma's First Building Business Summit, the highly anticipated second edition of the Building Business Summit is set to take place on July 26th, 2024, at The Tagore Theater in Chandigarh. This second edition gives a platform to industry experts to share their valuable insights and promises to empower and educate channel partners to elevate their brands and businesses. Spearheaded by Sushma Group, a name synonymous with innovation and excellence in real estate, the Building Business Summit is more than just a conference; it's an immersive experience designed to empower and elevate channel partners. The event will bring together the brightest minds and most influential figures in the industry, providing unparalleled opportunities for learning, networking, and business development. The Building Business Summit promises a lineup of extraordinary sessions, from retail and commercial leasing to Integration of Artificial Intelligence for building a brand, each meticulously designed to deliver actionable strategies and inspiring ideas. The event is a unique confluence of motivation and knowledge, ensuring an enriching experience for all attendees. Building Business Summit will be presenting a unique platform for networking, learning, and growth. It's an opportunity for enriching discussions and contributing to driving the evolution of the Real estate market. The summit is designed to offer both professional development and personal growth, making it a must-attend event for all channel partners. Mark your calendars for a transformative experience at Building Business Summit 2024 This is your chance to be part of a movement reshaping the future of real estate in the Tricity area. For an experience that will undoubtedly leave a lasting impact. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
NewsVoir Gurgaon (Haryana) [India], July 26: In the auspicious month of Savan, a time revered for acts of charity and goodwill, M3M Foundation, the philanthropic arm of M3M Group, reaffirms its commitment to the welfare of Migrant workers through its impactful "Share for Care" initiative. Since its inception in 2020, this initiative has demonstrated M3M Foundation's unwavering dedication to supporting the backbone of our communities, impacting over 50,000 migrant workers in just four years. This year in the month of Savan, under the "Share for Care" initiative, M3M Foundation has distributed over 20,000 T-shirts and 20,000 pairs of shoes to migrant workers at various sites across the Delhi NCR region. Additionally, the foundation has prioritized the health and well-being of these essential workers by ensuring they receive daily nutritious meals. Dr. Payal Kanodia, Chairperson and Trustee of M3M Foundation, emphasized the Foundation's mission, stating, "Our 'Share for Care' initiative, conducted during the holy month of Savan, reflects our deep gratitude towards the migrant workers who tirelessly contribute to our communities. By providing basic necessities and nutritious meals, we aim to support their well-being and recognize their invaluable role in nation-building. The month of Savan, associated with generosity and compassion, is the perfect time to honor their hard work and dedication." A local migrant worker expressed gratitude by sharing, "I am grateful for the support provided by M3M Foundation's 'Share for Care' initiative. The T-shirts, shoes, and nutritious meals they have provided make a significant difference in our daily lives on the construction site. It shows that our hard work is valued and that we are not forgotten, especially during this holy month." Since its inception in 2020, the initiative has evolved into a cornerstone of our commitment to philanthropy. M3M Foundation believes in holistic support for these workers, ensuring they are not only acknowledged, but also cared for in every aspect. Through these efforts, M3M Foundation reaffirms its unwavering support for the hardworking individuals who significantly contribute to community development and societal progress. By promoting their well-being and fostering a sense of dignity and appreciation, this initiative exemplifies M3M Foundation's steadfast commitment to social responsibility, particularly during the spiritually significant month of Savan. M3M Foundation is committed to fostering sustainable development across various sectors in India. Through initiatives focusing on education, healthcare, skill development, and community welfare, M3M Foundation strives to create a positive impact on society, enriching lives and fostering inclusive growth. (ADVERTORIAL DISCLAIMER: The above press release has been provided by NewsVoir. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of the same)
PNN Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], July 26: Sathlokhar Synergys E&C Global Limited has emerged as integrated EPC company offering comprehensive design and build services across sectors, has announced its plan to go public with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on July 30, 2024, aiming to raise Rs 92.93 Crores, with shares to be listed on the NSE Emerge platform. The issue size is Up To 66,38,000 equity shares at a face value of Rs 10 each. * Total Issue Size - Up To 66,38,000 Equity Shares of Rs 10 each * Issue Size - Rs 92.93 Crores (At Upper Band) * Price Band - Rs 133 to Rs 140 Per Share * Lot Size - 1,000 Equity Shares Equity Share Allocation * QIB Anchor Portion - Up to 18,10,000 Equity Shares * Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) - Up to 12,08,000 Equity Shares * Non-Institutional Investors (NII) - Not less than 9,06,000 Equity Shares * Retail Individual Investors (RII) - Not less than 21,14,000 Equity Shares * Market Maker - Up to 6,00,000 Equity Shares The net proceeds from the Issue are set to be utilized primarily to meet Working Capital Requirement of the company, strategic initiatives, brand building, operational expenses and General Corporate Purposes. The bidding for the Anchor portion will open on July 29, 2024, the issue will open for subscription on July 30, 2024 and closes on August 01, 2024. The Book Running Lead Manager to the Issue is GYR Capital Advisors Private Limited, The Registrar to the Issue is Purva Sharegistry (India) Private Limited. G Thiyagu Chairman Managing Director & CEO of Sathlokhar Synergys E&C Global Limited expressed, "As we launch our Initial Public Offering (IPO), we are filled with pride and gratitude. This milestone reflects the dedication of our entire team at Sathlokhar Synergys E&C Global Limited. Since inception, we have grown into a dynamic player in the engineering, procurement, and construction sector. Our strategic transformations and commitment to excellence have enabled us to deliver innovative solutions across various sectors. Our IPO will provide the capital needed for further growth and expansion, allowing us to enhance our services, invest in new technologies, and expand our footprint. We are committed to quality, safety, and sustainability, and our partnerships, like with TATA Power Solar Systems Ltd., highlight our dedication to a greener future." Mohit Baid, Director of GYR Capital Advisors Private Limited said, "With great enthusiasm, we announce the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Sathlokhar Synergys, designed to meet the company's immediate working capital needs and propel its ambitious vision for growth. They have consistently demonstrated strong performance in the engineering, procurement, and construction sector. The capital raised through this IPO will enhance their operational capabilities and support the expansion of their service portfolio to meet growing market demands. This IPO represents a compelling investment opportunity, poised to bolster the company's financial stability and foster long-term value creation." About Sathlokhar Synergys E&C Global Limited: Sathlokhar Synergys E&C Global Limited is an integrated Engineering, Procurement, and Infra Turnkey Construction (EPC) company, renowned for its comprehensive design and build services across various sectors, including industrial, commercial, institutional, pharmaceutical, solar, healthcare, and hospitality. Operating in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal & Pondicherry the company manages projects from detailed design and planning through to procurement, engineering, execution, and commissioning. Sathlokhar provides specialized services in Mechanical, Electrical, Plumbing (MEP) installations, HVAC and Utilities through its in-house team of professionals. As an authorized channel partner for TATA Power Solar Systems Ltd., Sathlokhar offers installation, sales, commissioning, and maintenance for solar power projects. It independently participates in government tenders, leveraging in-house capabilities to ensure faster turnaround times and effective risk management. The company's core strengths lie in managing the entire project lifecycle and attracting and retaining top talent to maximize value creation. In FY24, The Company achieved a Revenue of Rs 24,697.37 Lakhs, EBITDA of Rs 3,572.45 Lakhs, & PAT of Rs 2,621.43 Lakhs. (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)
PNN New Delhi [India], July 26: Durable Pipes & Fittings Pvt Ltd has been honored with the esteemed "Orange Business Excellence Award" for Excellence in Best Emerging PVC Pipe Manufacturer. The award was presented by the Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, Nitin Gadkari, at the Orange Business Excellence Awards ceremony held at the Ambassador, New Delhi IHCL. Founded five years ago, visionary team embodying a perfect blend of modernity and tradition--Akash Mittal, Kuldeep Singla, Mayur Mittal, and Vishal Mittal--Durable Pipes & Fittings Pvt Ltd has rapidly ascended to a prominent position in Indian market. Renowned for their excellence in manufacturing and distributing CPVC, UPVC and SWR pipes fittings, the company has become the preferred supplier for numerous Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Jammu & Kashmir Government departments. In addition to their significant accomplishments in the CPVC and UPVC sectors, Durable Pipes & Fittings Pvt Ltd is actively expanding into the sanitary ware market, offering a diverse range of products including HDPE pipes, PPR, and DWC. Their unwavering commitment to quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction has set a high standard in the industry, propelling their continuous success and growth. The "Orange Business Excellence Award" not only acknowledges the company's hard work and pioneering spirit but also serves as a beacon of inspiration for others in the industry to strive for excellence. In his address, Shree Nitin Gadkari commended the achievements of Durable Pipes & Fittings Pvt Ltd and extended his heartfelt congratulations on their well-deserved honor. This accolade is a testament to Durable Pipes & Fittings Pvt Ltd's dedication to excellence and their relentless pursuit of industry leadership. As they continue to innovate and expand their product offerings, the company remains committed to delivering top-quality solutions that meet the evolving needs of their customers. (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)
Launching an attack on former Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu accused him of destroying the state's economy on Thursday. As per the white paper released by the Andhra Pradesh government, the state suffered a loss of Rs6.94 lakh crore due to the reduced growth rate. Outlining the state's growth rate between 2014 and 2019, which was 13.5 percent, it stated this growth rate would have fetched a revenue of Rs76,195 crore. It further mentioned that even considering the COVID-19 impact on revenue, an additional revenue of Rs52,197 crore should have come to the state. According to the data in the white paper, the growth rate of the state's economy reduced to 10.5 percent in 2014-19, which was three percent less compared to 2019-24. Under its section titled "Misgovernance after 2019," the white paper added that during the previous regime, the state suffered an additional burden of Rs12,250 crore due to the increased power cost from short-term power purchases. The paper further alleged that due to illegal sand mining, the state treasury lost Rs7,000 crore and Rs9,750 crore due to mismanagement in mineral revenue. The state also suffered losses due to the cancellation of contracts in Amravati, Polavaram, and the energy sector, it outlined. The white paper further added that, due to inefficient governance during this period, the state lost Rs1.29 lakh crore in the power sector. Due to delays, the loss in Polavaram stood at Rs45,000 crore, while Rs4,900 crore was lost due to damages and repairs, and Rs3,000 crore was lost due to a delay in hydel power generation, the paper alleged. The white paper also claimed that during this period, no major new industry or infrastructure project was undertaken in Andhra Pradesh. It was also observed that the central sector schemes and funds, including the state share of Rs6,600 crore during the previous government, were not released. "DBT schemes were supposed to increase wealth in the hands of people. However, the per capita income growth reduced," as per the white paper. The per capita income growth of the state, according to the white paper, during 2014-19 stood at 13.2 percent, which reduced to 9.5 percent during 2019-24. It pointed out that the DBT expenditure led to an increase in borrowings by the state, resulting in an increase in per capita debt. Furthermore, it highlighted the issue of mismanagement of financial resources in the state, alleging that re-routing or diversion of funds from the state's institutional bodies to AP State Financial Services Ltd. took place. Mentioning the amount of Rs1,452 crore, the white paper added, "The government did not transfer the amount received in March 2024 from the central government for local bodies." Highlighting the debt burden on the state, it added that the debt burden as of March 31, 2019 was Rs3,75,295 crore, which rose to Rs9,74,556 crore. (ANI)
India has so far signed MoUs with 10 countries for cooperation in the field of sharing of digital public infrastructure, Minister of State for Electronic and Information Technology, Jitin Prasada, informed Rajya Sabha in a written reply on Friday. Those countries are Armenia, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Antigua and Barbuda, Papua New Guinea, Trinidad and Tobago, Tanzania, Kenya, Cuba, and Colombia. Digital Public Infrastructures (DPI) has been developed across various domains, aimed at enhancing accessibility, efficiency, and inclusivity. Aadhaar: Aadhaar is the world's largest digital identity programme that provides biometric and demographic-based unique digital identity; which can be authenticated anytime, from anywhere and also eliminates duplicate and fake identities. As on date, 138.04 crore Aadhaar numbers have been generated. Unified Payment Interface (UPI): It is India's leading digital payment platform. In the month of June, 2024 alone more than 1,388 crore financial transactions were done through UPI. By making digital payment platform technology and device agnostic, UPI has contributed to financial inclusion up to the grassroot level. Payments through digital means in India are hitting fresh highs, as its citizens are increasingly adopting the emerging modes of transacting on the internet. Among others, a key emphasis of the Indian government has been on ensuring that the benefits of UPI are not limited to India only; other countries, too, benefit from it. DigiLocker: It is a platform for issuance and verification of documents and certificates digitally. It has facilitated more than 30 crore users and made available 675 crore issued documents. Several fintech companies, working in the banking and financial sector, are using DigiLocker for easy on boarding of users. The government has also taken several measures to enhance the reach of Indian Digital Public Infrastructure at the national and international levels. Some of the key initiatives are India Stack Global and Global DPI Repository. India Stack Global has been developed and rolled out with the aim to share the success of Indian DPIs with the global community and to facilitate replication in friendly countries. Under Indian Presidency of G20 in 2023, Global DPI Repository (GDPIR) portal (https://www.dpi.global/) was designed, developed and rolled out by India. (ANI)
Comfort, which is known for its historical downtown area and shops, is struggling to bring in tourists, local business leaders say.

The Kendall County Commissioners Court is considering a countywide hotel occupancy tax after business owners in the Comfort area said the tax revenue could help the towns struggling tourism industry.

Advocates for the tax, many of them from the Comfort area, told commissioners this week that revenue generated by a hotel occupancy tax could be spent on marketing Kendall County and Comfort to tourists.

Comfort is an unincorporated community about 15 miles northwest of Boerne known for its historical district and shops. The community doesnt have a municipal government so the county would have to choose to levy the occupancy tax for local businesses.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

HILL COUNTRY NEWS: Another battery storage project draws ire of Hill Country residents

Boerne, the only municipality entirely in Kendall County, has a hotel occupancy tax rate of 7%. The state collects a hotel occupancy tax of 6% of a rooms cost. That means guests staying in Boerne pay an effective 13% tax rate on their rooms including the 6% state tax.

Business owners and leaders in the Comfort area say their community is struggling and that dwindling tourist traffic has led to the closure of a number of businesses. They asked commissioners to levy the tax and spend the revenue on advertising and marketing efforts to lure tourists to the area.

Andrew Ivankovich, co-owner of Singing Water Vineyards in Comfort, said a hotel occupancy tax could be a lifeline for the struggling community.

Comfort needs help, he said. Were asking a visitor from out of town to help with similar fees they pay everywhere else.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Charlie Hueber, executive director of the Comfort Area of Commerce, said the areas economy is going in the wrong direction.

Without some outside source of funding, without some outside influence, we will continue to spiral down, Hueber told the court. This can support these small businesses.

He proposed the county create a five-person Kendall County Visitors Center Board to oversee the hotel tax revenue. The members could be unpaid volunteers, he said, addressing concerns about cost raised by some members of the court.

Amy Story, CEO of the Boerne-Kendall County Economic Development Corp., said the hotel tax is a way to make sure tourists who use the countys roads, resources and services chip in to help maintain them. She suggested the commissioners court look at the tax from a community and county perspective, as the county would be advertising for the region as a whole, she said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Objections

Paul Rushofsky, general manager of Crescent Hotels & Resorts, spoke against the proposed tax in the current economic climate, which has seen a significant tightening in consumer confidence and consumer spending.Crescent Hotels & Resorts owns more 110 properties, including the Tapatio Springs Hill Country Resort in southwest Kendall County.

Having no county-wide hotel occupancy tax has let hotels in this county remain competitive against San Antonio and other resort communities that do not have them in place, Rushofsky said. While we are sympathetic to a large number of small businesses closing and agree the county is heading in the wrong direction in that regard, (a hotel occupancy tax) is not a fix at all to ignite economic development in a city and county.

Kevin Welborn, managing director at Joshua Creek Ranch, a hotel in Kendall County, also spoke against the tax.

He said the timing of the tax would be really off as the costs of running a hotel have increased.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

READ MORE: State OKs water quality permit for controversial quarry in Comal County

We feel like our business right now could not handle another increase passing on to our customers in the climate that were in, Wellborn said.

County Judge Shane Stolarczyck said he, too, had concerns about taxing other Texans to help keep Comfort afloat. Hueber responded by saying Texans pay hotel taxes almost everywhere they go. Stolarczyck also expressed concern about the county government taxing guests to promote private businesses rather than the businesses spending money to do it themselves.

Commissioners took no action on the issue and didnt provide a potential timeline for when they might take it up again.
Under the MoUs, financial assistance of Rs. 2.5 crore each will be provided as a part of CSR fund for the procurement of Hemo-Dialysis machines to treat advanced kidney failure patients, as per a release from the Chief Minister's Office.

The new hemodialysis machines will be installed in dialysis centres to cater to the needs of the patients.

The MoU aims to facilitate the availability of dialysis machines and reduce out-of-pocket expenditure of patients currently undergoing treatment with nephrological ailments.

Department of Health and Family Welfare, Government of Assam through the Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis program is providing free hemodialysis services in 41 dialysis centres with 277 hemodialysis machines established in Public Health Institutes such as medical colleges, district hospitals, and community health centres. Moreover, considering the increasing demand, dialysis services are to be expanded to 37 new hospitals with 150 hemodialysis machines across the state.

Commissioner and Secretary Health and Family Welfare, P. Ashok Babu, Mission Director, NHM Assam M.S. Lakshmi Priya, MD NRL Bhaskar Jyoti Phukan, CGM NRL Kajal Saikia, President Oil India Rural Development Society Bhairab Bhuyan, CGM Administration Pipeline Headquarters Arunjyoti Baruah and other senior officers of Government of Assam, NRL and OIL were present on the occasion. (ANI)
Fans have been eagerly waiting to know the updates regarding Yash-starrer 'Toxic' ever since the film was announced. Recently, several media reports suggested that actor Tara Sutaria is the second female lead in the film and will essay the role of Yash's love interest. Reacting to the ongoing buzz, Tara on Friday took to Instagram and penned a cryptic note. In the note, she wrote that the "articles released over the last few days about a project and her" are not true. Without mentioning the film's name, Tara posted, "Hello all! The articles released over the last few days about a project and I are false and not shared by me." She added, "Whenever there is something to share, I will share it with all of you! My love always. PS - Nobody is second to anyone." 'Toxic' was announced in December 2023. Taking to Instagram, Yash shared a post, which he captioned, "'What you seek is seeking you' - Rumi A Fairy Tale for Grown-ups #TOXIC."Helmed by Geetu Mohandas, the film is all set to hit the theatres on April 10, 2025. The film is touted to be an action-oriented film set against the backdrop of the drug mafia. Earlier, actor Kareena Kapoor Khan was also rumoured to be a part of the film. However, an official announcement regarding the film's female cast has not been made yet. (ANI)
As the country celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas today, the families of the soldiers remember the bravery and dedication of their loved ones who laid their lives during the war between India and Pakistan at icy heights in 1999. Madhubala, widow of Kargil hero Vinod Kumar, said, "On May 18, 1997, we got married and on June 14, 1999, he lost his life. I feel very good to be here and feel proud." Rajender Kumar, the elder brother of Kargil hero, soldier Bejender Kumar, said that he feels proud that his brother died for the country. "I feel so proud; he died for the country. We remember him every day," he said. Prashanti, wife of Kargil hero, Group Captain K Nachiketa Rao, said that, like all the other countrymen, she used to pray everyday for his repatriation from Pakistan. K Nachiketa Rao was a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force who was captured by Pakistani forces before he was handed over to the Indian authorities. "I feel very proud. The bravery and courage he had shown. We were not married at the time of the war. We married after two years of it. Like all the other countrymen, we used to pray every day for his repatriation (from Pakistan). We feel proud as there are very few people who get such a chance to show such bravery and then get to comeback and live to tell those tales," Prashanti said. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Kargil today on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas and pay homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. PM Modi will visit the Kargil War Memorial at around 9:20 am and pay tribute to the bravehearts. "Tomorrow, 26th July, is a very special day for every Indian. We will mark the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. It is a day to pay homage to all those who protect our nation. I will visit the Kargil War Memorial and pay tributes to our brave heroes. Work will also commence for the Shinkun La Tunnel Project. This project is important to improve connectivity to Leh, especially during bad weather," PM Modi said in a post on X. The Prime Minister will carry out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project virtually. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
In a sigh of relief amid heavy downpours, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation declared that all the schools and colleges in its area will operate normally on Friday. Taking to X, the BMC said that the weather and rainfall in Mumbai are normal at present, allowing life in the metropolitan city to proceed smoothly. "As a result, all schools and colleges in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) area will remain open regularly tomorrow, Friday, 26th July 2024. Parents are humbly requested not to believe any other information or rumours regarding school and college holidays and to rely only on official information from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation," it said. Meanwhile, the Raigad administration has ordered the closure of schools and colleges in the district on Friday in the wake of a heavy rainfall alert. The IMD has issued an orange alert for Mumbai for July 26 and a yellow alert for July 27. As the state of Maharashtra faces the effects of continuous rainfall, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde took stock of the situation in the state on Thursday. CM called the Raigad collector, told him to help all flood-affected people, and assured him of all the help. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a press release and said, "Isolated extremely heavy rainfall very likely over ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra during July 25-27 and in Konkan & Goa on 25 and 26 July and Gujarat region on 25th July." The IMD has issued a red alert for the Raigad district for July 26 and an orange alert for July 27. The weather department has also issued a red alert for Ratnagiri and Satara for July 26. Rainfall recorded during the past 24 hours until 8:30 a.m. on Thursday was 44 mm in Mumbai city, 90 mm in the Eastern suburbs, and 89 mm in the Western suburbs. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Kargil today on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas and pay homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. PM Modi will visit the Kargil War Memorial at around 9:20 am and pay tribute to the bravehearts. The arrangements are in full accordance with security purposes at the Kargil War Memorial at Dras, ahead of the Prime Minister's visit. The Prime Minister will carry out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project virtually. An official release said that Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1 km long Twin-Tube tunnel which will be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet on the Nimu - Padum - Darcha Road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh. Once completed, it will be the highest tunnel in the world. Shinkun La tunnel will not only ensure swift and efficient movement of the country's armed forces and equipment but also foster economic and social development in Ladakh. As the country celebrates the 25th anniversary of the Kargil Vijay Diwas today, the families of the soldiers remember the bravery and dedication of their loved ones who laid their lives during the war between India and Pakistan at icy heights in 1999. Madhubala, widow of Kargil hero Vinod Kumar, said, "On May 18, 1997, we got married and on June 14, 1999, he lost his life. I feel very good to be here and feel proud." Rajender Kumar, the elder brother of Kargil hero, soldier Bejender Kumar, said that he feels proud that his brother died for the country. "I feel so proud; he died for the country. We remember him every day," he said. Prashanti, wife of Kargil hero, Group Captain K Nachiketa Rao, said that, like all the other countrymen, she used to pray everyday for his repatriation from Pakistan. K Nachiketa Rao was a fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force who was captured by Pakistani forces before he was handed over to the Indian authorities. "I feel very proud. The bravery and courage he had shown. We were not married at the time of the war. We married after two years of it. Like all the other countrymen, we used to pray every day for his repatriation (from Pakistan). We feel proud as there are very few people who get such a chance to show such bravery and then get to comeback and live to tell those tales," Prashanti said. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
After Congress' Lok Sabha MP and former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi's statement in the Lok Sabha on jailed MP Amritpal Singh, the 'Waris Punjab De' Chief, Balwinder Kaur, mother of Amritpal Singh, thanked Channi on Friday for raising the issue of injustice. Speaking to ANI, Kaur said that she wants to tell people they should speak out against whatever injustice takes place. She further said that the NSA had invoked Amritpal and that he should be released. "We thank Channi ji for raising the issue of all the injustice that is being done to Punjab. I would like to tell everyone that wherever any injustice is taking place, they should speak up. The NSA has invoked action against him and he should be released. We thank Channi Ji for raising his voice for the truth," she said. Amritpal's father, Tarsem Singh, also said, "We appeal to the other members too to speak up for the rights of Punjab. What was done to Punjab in this budget should also be opposed." Earlier on Thursday, the Indian National Congress distanced itself from Lok Sabha member Charanjit Singh Channi's remark on controversial MP Amritpal Singh, saying the former's views don't reflect the position of the party. Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh clarified that his statement does not reflect the position of the Indian National Congress in any way. Taking to social media platform X, Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh wrote, "The views expressed by Charanjit Singh Channi on Amritpal Singh are his own, and do not reflect in any way the position of the Indian National Congress." Earlier in the day, Congress Lok Sabha MP and former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi triggered an uproar in Parliament after he alleged that there is "undeclared emergency" under the BJP-led government's rule and noted that "free speech" of the Waris Punjab De chief and Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha MP Amritpal Singh, who is in jail, is being curbed by invoking the National Security Act against him. His remarks had drawn sharp criticism from the BJP with spokesperson Shehzad Poonawala demanding answers from the leader of the opposition Rahul Gandhi "Congress MP and Former Punjab CM Channi bats for radical pro-Khalistan separatist Amritpal Singh. Is this Jai Sanvidhan? Batting for separatist who wants tukde tukde of India ? Rahul ji must answer - the idea of Khalistan that caused the assassination of PM Indira ji is being hailed," he said. (ANI)
Biju Janata Dal leader Saurabh Srivastava on Thursday thanked former Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik after the BJD chief informed that he would continue as the media coordinator of the party. "I humbly and wholeheartedly thank BJD Odisha National President and former Odisha CM and my source of inspiration, Shree Naveen Patnaik Sir for reposing his faith in me. I am blessed to work under your leadership and promise to give it everything it takes to match up to the expectations and faith shown to me. Jai Jagannath," Saurabh Srivastava posted on X. Earlier on Thursday, Biju Janata Dal informed that Saurabh Srivastava will continue as the media coordinator of the party. "I am glad to inform you that you continue as Media Coordinator, Biju Janata Dal, in New Delhi until further orders," Naveen Patnaik stated in a letter to Saurabh Srivastava. Earlier, former Odisha Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Naveen Patnaik criticized the Union Budget, claiming that while special packages were allocated for Andhra Pradesh and Bihar, Odisha has been entirely neglected. "BJP had put special category status in their manifesto as a promise to the people of Odisha. However, this promise had not been considered for Odisha whereas special packages allocating crores of funds have been announced for Andhra Pradesh and Bihar," Patnaik said. He added that the Central government during the election campaign, had made big promises for different sectors in Odisha but it did not fulfil any promises. He said, "Along with this, the demand of Odisha for revision of coal royalty which has been pending for years with the Central Government has been rejected. Because of this, the state will lose thousands of crores of revenue every year. Lots of big promises in different sectors were made to the people of Odisha during their election campaign related to the agriculture sector and MSPs. There is no mention of any promise being fulfilled in this Budget. This is a complete neglect of Odisha and her people." Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the first Union Budget of the Modi 3.0 government on July 23. In her seventh consecutive Union Budget for 2024-25, Sitharaman outlined nine key priorities aimed at fostering economic growth and creating opportunities. (ANI)
President Droupadi Murmu offered tribute to soldiers as she hailed the "courage and extraordinary valour" of the country's armed forces on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas on Friday. In a post on X, President Murmu urged all the countrymen to "draw inspiration from the sacrifice and valour" of the soldiers. "Kargil Vijay Diwas is an occasion for a grateful nation to pay tribute to the indomitable courage and extraordinary valour of our armed forces. I pay tribute to each soldier who made the supreme sacrifice while protecting Mother India on the peaks of Kargil in the year 1999 and bow in reverence to their sacred memory," the President mentioned in her post. "I am confident that all countrymen will draw inspiration from their sacrifice and valour.Jai Hind! Jai Bharat!," she added. Minister of External Affairs (EAM) S Jaishankar also took the opportunity to "salute the valour and dedication of soldiers" on the occasion. "On Kargil Vijay Diwas, salute the valour and dedication of our brave soldiers. The legacy of their courage and patriotism acts as a guiding light for all Indians," Jaishankar said in a post on X. Earlier, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh also offered tribute to the soldiers to commemorate the occasion. In a post on X, Singh heaped praise on the "unwavering commitment, valour and patriotism" of the soldiers ensuring the safety and security of the country. "Today, on the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, we remember the indomitable spirit and courage of the brave soldiers who fought valiantly in the 1999 war. Their unwavering commitment, valour and patriotism ensured that our country remained safe and secure. Their service and sacrifice will continue to inspire every Indian and our coming generations," Singh mentioned in the post. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Kargil today to commemorate the Kargil Diwas. Security has been heightened in Kargil ahead of the Prime Minister's visit. PM Modi will visit the Kargil War Memorial and pay homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. The Prime Minister will also carry out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project, virtually. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this operation, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday paid tribute to bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty in the 1999 Kargil War. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memoria in Drass, Ladakh, on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan and all ranks of the armed forces also joined in remembering the supreme sacrifice made by the soldiers during the Kargil war. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh offered his tributes to the valiant bravehearts of the Kargil War at the National War Memorial in the national capital Delhi. Earlier, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that Kargil Vijay Diwas is a symbol of the unwavering resolve and valour of the brave soldiers of the army. "Kargil Vijay Diwas is a symbol of the unwavering resolve of the valor of the brave soldiers of the army. In the Kargil war, the brave soldiers displayed the ultimate valor in the inaccessible hills of the Himalayas and forced the enemy army to kneel down, and made the country proud by hoisting the tricolour again in Kargil," Shah posted on X. "Today on 'Kargil Vijay Diwas' I salute the brave soldiers who protected the motherland with their courage in this war. The nation will never forget your sacrifice, dedication and sacrifice," he added. On the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas today, families of the soldiers remember the bravery and dedication of their loved ones who laid their lives during the war between India and Pakistan at icy heights in 1999. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister will carry out the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project virtually. An official release said that Shinkun La Tunnel Project consists of a 4.1 km long Twin-Tube tunnel which will be constructed at an altitude of around 15,800 feet on the Nimu - Padum - Darcha Road to provide all-weather connectivity to Leh. Once completed, it will be the highest tunnel in the world. Shinkun La tunnel will not only ensure swift and efficient movement of the country's armed forces and equipment but also foster economic and social development in Ladakh. (ANI)
He also paid tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives in the 1999 Kargil War.

Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari and Navy Chief Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi also paid their tributes to the braveheart soldiers by laying wreaths at the Kargil War Memorial.

Chief of Staff, Eastern Command Lieutenant General RC Srikanth, paid tribute to the heroes of the Kargil War at Vijay Smarak in West Bengal's Kolkata.

Families of the soldiers also remembered the bravery and dedication of their loved ones and paid tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives in the 1999 Kargil War.

Earlier, President Droupadi Murmu offered tribute to soldiers as she hailed the "courage and extraordinary valour" of the country's armed forces on the occasion of 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas.

In a post on X, President Murmu urged all countrymen to "draw inspiration from the sacrifice and valour" of the soldiers.

"Kargil Vijay Diwas is an occasion for a grateful nation to pay tribute to the indomitable courage and extraordinary valour of our armed forces. I pay tribute to each soldier who made the supreme sacrifice while protecting Mother India on the peaks of Kargil in the year 1999 and bow in reverence to their sacred memory," the President mentioned in her post.

"I am confident that all countrymen will draw inspiration from their sacrifice and valour.Jai Hind! Jai Bharat!," she added.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Kargil War Memorial and paid homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty.

Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
Liz Teitz covers environmental news and the Hill Country for the San Antonio Express-News. She writes about the San Antonio Water System, news in New Braunfels and Comal County and water issues around Central Texas. She can be reached at liz.teitz@express-news.net.

Liz joined the Express-News in June 2023. She has been a reporter for eight years, covering housing, government, education and other topics for the Ouray County Plaindealer, Hearst Connecticut Media Group and the Beaumont Enterprise. Liz grew up in Rhode Island and graduated from Georgetown University.
Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday laid a wreath and paid tribute to the heroes of the Kargil War at the National War Memorial in the national capital on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. Defence Minister remembered the indomitable spirit and courage of the brave soldiers who fought valiantly in the 1999 war and said that the Armed Forces service and sacrifice will continue to inspire "every Indian" and our "coming generations." "Today on the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, we remember the indomitable spirit and courage of the brave soldiers who fought valiantly in the 1999 war. Their unwavering commitment, valour and patriotism ensured that our country remained safe and secure. Their service and sacrifice will continue to inspire every Indian and our coming generations," Rajnath Singh posted on X. Earlier, the father of Kargil war hero Captain Vikram Batra, GL Batra laid a wreath at the Headquarters Western Command and paid tribute to soldiers who lost their lives in the 1999 Kargil War. Union Home Minister Amit Shah on X wrote that Kargil Vijay Diwas is a symbol of the unwavering resolve and valour of the brave soldiers of the army. "Kargil Vijay Diwas is a symbol of the unwavering resolve of the valor of the brave soldiers of the army. In the Kargil war, the brave soldiers displayed the ultimate valor in the inaccessible hills of the Himalayas and forced the enemy army to kneel down, and made the country proud by hoisting the tricolour again in Kargil," read Shah's post on X. "Today on 'Kargil Vijay Diwas' I salute the brave soldiers who protected the motherland with their courage in this war. The nation will never forget your sacrifice, dedication and sacrifice," he added. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday warned Pakistan that its nefarious plans would not materialise, as our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply. Speaking during Kargil Vijay Diwas Shradhanjali Samaroh in Drass, Ladakh, PM Modi said that Kargil Vijay Diwas tells us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal. "Today, the majestic land of Ladakh marks a significant milestone - 25 years since the triumphant victory of Kargil. Kargil Vijay Diwas reminds us that the sacrifices made for our nation are eternal and forever remembered. As time passes, days turn into months, months into years, and years into centuries - the names of those who laid down their lives for the sake of national security remain etched in our collective memory, forever immortalised!" PM Modi said. PM Modi said that he feels fortunate to have been among our soldiers during the Kargil War as a common citizen. "Now, as I stand again on the sacred soil of Kargil, it's natural for those memories to resurface. I remember how our forces successfully executed the operation despite the extreme and challenging battle conditions," he added. He further attacked Pakistan and said that the neighbouring country has not learned anything from its history and is carrying out a proxy war. "Pakistan has failed in all its nefarious attempts in the past. But Pakistan has not learned anything from its history. It is trying to keep itself relevant with the help of terrorism and proxy war. Today I am speaking from a place where the masters of terror can hear my voice directly, I want to tell these patrons of terrorism that their nefarious intentions will never succeed. Our soldiers will crush terrorism with full force and the enemy will be given a befitting reply," he added. The Prime Minister said that falsehood and terror were defeated in the face of truth. "I bow down with respect to all the brave warriors who brought victory to the country. I pay homage to the soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in Kargil to protect the motherland. In Kargil, we not only won the war, we also gave a wonderful example of 'truth, restraint and strength'. You know, India was trying for peace at that time, and in return, Pakistan once again showed its untrustworthy face. But falsehood and terror were defeated in the face of truth," said PM Modi. He further said that India will defeat every challenge that comes in the way of development. "Be it Ladakh or Jammu and Kashmir, India will defeat every challenge that comes in the way of development. In a few days, on August 5, it will be 5 years since Article 370 was abolished. Jammu and Kashmir is talking about a new future, talking about big dreams... Along with infrastructure development, the tourism sector is also growing rapidly in Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. After decades, a cinema hall has opened in Kashmir. After 3 and a half decades, the Tazia procession was taken out in Srinagar for the first time. Our heaven on earth is rapidly moving towards peace and harmony," he said. PM Modi paid tribute to bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty in the 1999 Kargil War. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, Ladakh, on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday expressed his grief and paid condolences on the demise of the veteran leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Prabhat Jha. BJP leader Jha passed away in Delhi on Friday morning at the age of 67 after being sick for a very long time. Amit Shah took to his social media platform X and wrote, "The demise of senior BJP leader Prabhat Jha ji is an irreparable loss for the BJP family. Prabhat Jha ji, who selflessly dedicated his all to the nation and the organisation, played a significant role in strengthening the organisation in Madhya Pradesh. " Further, he wrote, "As a Rajya Sabha MP, he always promoted works in public interest. In this hour of grief, the entire BJP is with his family. May God give a place to the departed soul in his lotus feet. Om Shanti Shanti Shanti." Union Minister JP Nadda also expressed his grief over Jha's death and took to his social media account X to post, " The news of the demise of senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and former state president of Madhya Pradesh Prabhat Jha ji is extremely sad. His entire life was dedicated to public service and the organisation. His departure is an irreparable loss for the BJP family." Further, he wrote, "I express my deepest condolences to the bereaved family, may God give them strength and grant a place to the departed soul in his feet. Om Shanti!" Earlier today, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav expressed grief and paid condolences on his demise. CM Yadav posted on X, "Quite sad news was received about the demise of former state president of the BJP MP and senior leader Prabhat Jha. May Baba Mahakal give peace to the departed soul and give strength to the bereaved family to bear this loss." He further wrote, "Your (Prabhat Jha) vital role in the development of Madhya Pradesh will always inspire us. Your demise is an irreparable loss to the political world. Om Shanti!" (ANI)
According to the Indian Coast Guard release in the early hours of Friday, despite adverse conditions limiting air operations, ICG launched a daring operation to evacuate the crew from the stranded vessel.

"At 1327 h on July 25, Indian Coast Guard ship Sankalp on Patrol and Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre, Mumbai, received a distress call from JSW Raigad, a 121.6 m long bulk carrier with 14 Indian crew anchored off Alibag. The vessel reported anchor dragging and loss of control. This was further worsened by flooding in the engine room. In turbulent sea conditions, the vessel ran aground on reefs, 01 Nm from Alibag. Given the extreme sea conditions of the Maharashtra coast and the reefs in the area, airlift was the only option left," ICG stated.

"In the early hours of July 26, despite adverse conditions limiting air operations, ICG launched a daring operation to evacuate the crew from the stranded vessel. All 14 crew were successfully evacuated from the vessel by CG Helicopter and safely disembarked at Alibag beach," it added.

It further said that ICG station Murud Janjira is coordinating with local authorities for further aid to the mariners

The fort is an old fortified maritime base located in Alibag.

Earlier on July 25, the Indian Coast Guard's Mumbai centre received a distress call from JSW Raigad. The vessel reported a loss of control. In turbulent conditions, the vessel ran aground.

In its statement, the JSW group said "A small carrier vessel operated by JSW got caught in the stormy weather today (Thursday) between Jaigarh and Salav as it drifted due to strong winds and low visibility," It further said that so far, no casualties had been reported. (ANI)
The Uttar Pradesh government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court opposing petitions challenging its directive regarding the display of the names of shop owners on the Kanwar route. In its affidavit, the UP government said that the directive was issued to ensure a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra and to ensure greater transparency. The government said that the idea behind the directive was transparency and informed choice of the consumer/Kanwaria regarding the food they eat during the period of the Yatra, keeping in mind their religious sentiments so that they don't, even accidentally, fall foul of their beliefs, the UP government said. "Such situations would obviously lead to flare ups where lakhs and crores of people are walking barefoot carrying holy water," affidavit of UP government stated. The affidavit was filed on a batch of petitions challenging the directive issued by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Muzaffarnagar, in Uttar Pradesh, to shop owners to display their names outside shops during the Kanwar Yatra season. The police had said that the decision was in the interest of law and order. The directive was reportedly enforced across many districts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh also came up with similar directives. On July 22, the Supreme Court had put an interim stay on directives issued by authorities of State governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route should display the names of the owners outside such shops. The apex court had also issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh, where Kanwar Yatra takes place. A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti will resume the hearing of the case today. In it's affidavit, the UP government stated that the requirement of mere transparency, with prominent disclosures of the names of the operators of the eateries and the type of food they serve, is certainly "not discriminatory or restrictive at all.". The UP government said that the state has imposed no ban or prohibition on the trade or business of the food sellers (except the restriction on selling non-vegetarian food), and they are free to conduct their business as usual. "The requirement to display the names and identities of the owners is merely an additional measure to ensure transparency and avoid any potential confusion among the Kanwariyas," the affidavit added. "Past incidents have shown that misunderstandings regarding the type of food being sold have led to tensions and disturbances. The directives are a proactive measure to avoid such situations," the UP government told the Supreme Court. It said the directive was issued solely in the interest of ensuring a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra, in which more than 4.07 crore Kanwariyas participate annually. The petitions were filed by Member of Parliament Mahua Moitra, the Association for Protection of Civil Rights, Delhi University Professor Apoorvanand, and activist Aakar Patel. They have challenged the directives, saying they're causing religious discrimination and questioned the source of the power of the authorities to issue such directions. Last week, the Uttar Pradesh government asked the food and beverage shops along Kanwar Yatra routes to display the name and identity of the operator/owner of their establishments. (ANI)
On the occasion of the Kargil Vijay Diwas, Rajasthan Chief Minister Bhajan Lal Sharma paid tribute to the soldiers who lost their lives in the 1999 Kargil War. Speaking to ANI, he said, "On the occasion of Kargil Diwas, I salute all the brave soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for the country. These soldiers had fought for the country under extreme weather conditions. Several soldiers from Rajasthan also sacrificed their lives on this day." Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty in the 1999 Kargil War. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memoria in Drass, Ladakh, on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan and all ranks of the armed forces also joined in remembering the supreme sacrifice made by the soldiers during the Kargil war. Earlier, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that Kargil Vijay Diwas is a symbol of the unwavering resolve and valour of the brave soldiers of the army. "Kargil Vijay Diwas is a symbol of the unwavering resolve of the valor of the brave soldiers of the army. In the Kargil war, the brave soldiers displayed the ultimate valor in the inaccessible hills of the Himalayas and forced the enemy army to kneel down, and made the country proud by hoisting the tricolour again in Kargil," Shah posted on X. "Today on 'Kargil Vijay Diwas' I salute the brave soldiers who protected the motherland with their courage in this war. The nation will never forget your sacrifice, dedication and sacrifice," he added. On the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas today, families of the soldiers remember the bravery and dedication of their loved ones who laid their lives during the war between India and Pakistan at icy heights in 1999. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999.(ANI)
Taking a dig at the opposition, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that the opposition wanted to scrap the Tejas jet project, adding that some people weakened the army by "committing scams worth thousands of crores in the army." Speaking during Kargil Vijay Diwas Shradhanjali Samaroh in Drass, Ladakh, Prime Minister Modi said that "some people used to think that the Army meant saluting politicians, doing parades but for us, the Army means the faith of 140 crore countrymen." "The Army means the faith of 140 crore countrymen. The army means - the guarantee of peace for 140 crore countrymen and the army means - the guarantee of security of the country's borders. Unfortunately, such a sensitive issue related to national security has been made a subject of politics by some people. Some people are playing politics of lies on this reform of the army for their personal interests. These are the same people who weakened our armed forces by committing scams worth thousands of crores of rupees in the armed forces. These are the same people who wanted the Air Force to never get modern fighter jets. These are the same people who had made preparations to scrap the Tejas fighter plane. These are the same people who had made preparations to lock the Tejas fighter plane in a box, PM Modi said. The Prime Minister said that he is "astonished" by the mindset of some individuals (opposition). "I am astonished by the mindset of some individuals. What has happened to their reasoning and intellect? Can someone explain to me the logic behind demanding pensions for those who joined the service today during Modi's tenure? They will only receive their pensions after 30 years. By then, Modi will be 105 years old! I am shocked! Why would the government take a decision for it today? We would have left that to the governments, but we have respected this decision taken by the forces because, for us, the security of the country is paramount, not politics," he said. He further said that those (the opposition) who are misleading the youth of the country do not care about the soldiers. "These are the same people who lied about One Rank, One Pension by showing Rs 500 crore. This is our government, which implemented One Rank, One Pension and gave more than Rs 1.25 lakh crore to ex-servicemen. These are the same people who did not build a war memorial for the soldiers even after 7 decades of independence. These are the same people who did not even provide adequate bulletproof jackets to our soldiers deployed on the border," the PM added. PM Modi said that a significant share of defence procurement is being given to the Indian defence industry. "Today, a significant share of defence procurement is being given to the Indian defence industry. Additionally, 25 per cent of the research and development budget in defence has been reserved for the private sector. As a result of these steps, India's defence production has now exceeded Rs. 1.25 lakh crore," he said. He further mentioned that in the last 10 years, the central government has made defence reforms a top priority in the defence sector. "The country has felt the need for major reforms in the defence sector for decades. The army has been demanding this for years, but unfortunately, it was not given enough importance earlier. In the last 10 years, we have made defence reforms a top priority in the defence sector. Due to these reforms, our armies are now more capable and becoming self-reliant!" he said. PM Modi further asserted that the victory of Kargil was not a victory of any party but of the nation. "This triumph is an integral part of our country's heritage, a testament to its pride and self-respect. On behalf of 140 crore countrymen, I pay my heartfelt respects to our brave soldiers. I extend my warmest wishes to all citizens on the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas!" he said. PM Modi paid tribute to bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty in the 1999 Kargil War. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, Ladakh, on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
The sleuths of the Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) of Delhi Police nabbed a drug peddler with links to a drug nexus based in Afghanistan in the Lajpat Nagar area of Delhi. An Afghan national named Hasan Reza was apprehended by Delhi Police's ANTF on Thursday with 512 grams of heroin worth more than one crore in the international market. The drug peddler was nabbed by the police from the Haji Hamid area of Lajpat Nagar upon information provided by an informant about an Afghan national who would deliver a huge amount of heroin to one of his receivers at the Sant Kanwar Ram Mandir in Lajpat Nagar between 9:00 PM and 9:30 PM. Upon receiving the above information, a raid was conducted in the Lajpat Nagar area and a trap was laid out by the police. During this operation, the accused, Hasan Reza, was apprehended and thereafter a search of the transparent, weighty polythene that he was carrying was conducted and 512 grams of heroin were recovered. Hasan concealed the drugs inside a juice packet. During the interrogation, he disclosed that he was a part of an international drug trafficking syndicate and he was procuring heroin in huge quantity from Afghanistan and further selling it to his receivers in India. (ANI)
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has initiated a preliminary inquiry on the allegations that an extortion racket was being run from Tihar and other prisons in the national capital Delhi. Sukesh Chandrasekar had moved a petition seeking a direction to CBI for the registration of FIR. Following this the central probe agency has has filed a status report before the Delhi High Court. Justice Amit Sharma noted in an order of July 19 that a status report has been filed by the CBI. "Special Public Prosecutor for CBI has placed on record the status report, which reflects that a preliminary inquiry had been initiated on the allegations of the present petitioner," Justice Sharma noted in the order. The court has re-notified the matter for a hearing on November 18, this year. The status report was filed in response to the petition moved by Sukesh Chandrasekar in 2022. It said that he had filed a petition and sought a direction to the CBI to register an FIR and investigate extortion racket and nexus prevailing inside (Tihar Jail) in view of his complaint of March 14, 2022, to the CBI. The CBI has submitted a complaint/petition under the letter of March 11, 2022, of Ashok K Singh, counsel for the petitioner, forwarded to the Director CBI alleging therein extortion and threat from DG Prison. Sukesh Chandrasekar had alleged that during an investigation by Economic Offence Wing of an FIR registered in 2021. He disclosed to the EOW that an extortion racket was being run by them to extort money on the pretext of obtaining protection and a comfortable stay in Tihar Jail, the report stated. It is also stated that Chandrasejar had alleged the two top senior officials had extorted Rs 12.50 crores between the period of December 2019 to June 2022 in different branches through this person. However, no action was taken against the then DG Prison. The same fact was also disclosed in a statement before the Enforcement Directorate. He also alleged that, in view of statements beside EOW and ED, he is being threatened to be killed in the prison and closed the case as suicide. Sukesh Chandrasekar had moved a petition through advocate Ashok K Singh in 2022. In compliance with the orders by the High Court dated April 22, 2022, and August 5, 2022, a status report was filed by the CBI on November 17, 2022, mentioning that EOW Delhi police are investigating the matter and the court may pass the order it deems fit. The High Court on April 22, 2024, directed the CBI to file an updated status report on July 19. In compliance with this order, the CBI has filed a status report stating that "A Source information on the similar matter was received and CBI has registered a preliminary enquiry on April 16, 2024, on the basis of source information to enquire into the allegation that an Extortion racket being run from Tihar and other prisons in Delhi." (ANI)
Karnataka's BJP party members protested over the alleged Mysore Urban Development Authority (MUDA) and the Valmiki Development scam in the Parliament premises on Friday. Speaking to ANI, former Karnataka Minister and MP Basvaraj Bommai said the Congress has looted Rs 1087 crore of the people in the Valmiki Development Corporation case. He also questioned what Rahul Gandhi was doing when the money of the Dalits was being looted. "The Congress has looted Rs. 1087 crore from the people in the Valmiki Development Corporation case. What was Rahul Gandhi doing when the money of the Dalits was being looted? Such looting can only be done by the Congress party," he said. Further, he said, "If they are right, let them allow the CBI to investigate." Additionally, BJP MP Jagadish Shettar spoke about the MUDA issue and said, "Siddaramiah is not ready to allow hearing the case in the assembly. All the leaders of the opposition have been demanding a discussion, but detailed discussions are being denied, which shows the BJP is the culprit. This is the reason why the BJP is holding a protest," he said. Brijesh Chowta, another MP from Karnataka said "The government led by Siddaramiah is the worst government in the history of Karnataka. He claims himself to be the champion of the backwards, but he is the one who is involved in such a big corruption scam that involves the Schedule tribes." Further, he said, "The most unfortunate thing is that Siddaramiah was a very senior-level politician. The BJP seriously demands that the CM should resign and give the case to CBI and come clean if he is innocent." Union Minister Prahlad Joshi said, "The level of corruption which has been taking place in Karnataka is horrible, which is why the people have been raising the issue continuously." Further, he said, "The leaders of the Karnataka BJP have been continuously raising the issue of corruption in the MUDA and Valmiki scams, but unfortunately, they are not allowing any discussion on the MUDA issue. The CM of Karnataka is directly involved in the MUDA scam. Their intentions are visible. The Congress Party is the root of corruption in the country. I urge the Chief Minister Siddaramiah to resign and transfer the case to the CBI." (ANI)
Rhyma Castillo is a trending reporter for the Express-News and a member of its Digital Go Team. She can be reached at rhyma.castillo@express-news.net.

A native of San Antonio and a Texas A&M University graduate, she is a journalist with nearly a decade of experience. She has reported on politics, immigration, climate change, gun violence, and workers rights. Additionally, she excels in lifestyle and entertainment writing, covering music, television, video games, technology, and relationships.

In her free time, she enjoys painting, drawing, cooking, hiking, climbing, gardening, playing video games, cuddling with her cats, and making music with her band.
Uttarakhand Governor Lt. General Gurmit Singh (Retd.) laid a wreath at Shaurya Sthal War Memorial, Dehradun, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas. He also paid tribute to soldiers who lost their lives in the 1999 Kargil War. Earlier, President Droupadi Murmu offered tribute to the soldiers as she hailed the "courage and extraordinary valour" of the country's armed forces on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas. In a post on x, President Murmu urged all countrymen to "draw inspiration from the sacrifice and valour" of the soldiers. "Kargil Vijay Diwas is an occasion for a grateful nation to pay tribute to the indomitable courage and extraordinary valour of our armed forces. I pay tribute to each soldier who made the supreme sacrifice while protecting Mother India on the peaks of Kargil in 1999 and bow in reverence to their sacred memory," the President mentioned in her post. She added, "I am confident that all countrymen will draw inspiration from their sacrifice and valour. Jai Hind, Jai Bharat." Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Kargil War memorial on Friday and paid homage to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty. "Kargil Vijay Diwas tells us that the sacrifices made for the nation are immortal. Days, months, years, and centuries pass by, but the names of those who risk their lives to protect the nation remain immortal. This country is forever indebted to the valiant heroes of our army; this country is grateful to them," the PM said in his address. "The victory of Kargil was not a victory of any party, but of the nation. This triumph is an integral part of our country's heritage, a testament to its pride and self-respect. On behalf of 140 crore countrymen, I pay my heartfelt respects to our brave soldiers. I extend my warmest wishes to all citizens on the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas," he added. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector from soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Kerala and West Bengal governor's offices on two separate pleas over keeping the bills pending for assent in both states. A bench led by Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud issued notice to the Additional Chief Secretary to the Governor of Kerala and the Union Government on the Kerala Government petition. The court also issued notice to the concerned respondent in the West Bengal matter as well. The court also gave liberty to implead the Union government as a party in the West Bengal matter. The court asked the concerned respondent to file a reply in three weeks. Senior Advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for West Bengal, submitted before the court that whenever the court hears a similar matter, some bills are cleared. He also mentioned that similar things happened in the Tamil Nadu matter as well. Senior Advocate KK Venugopal, appearing for the Kerala Government, said that the bills have been pending for eight months and that the state is a challenging reference to the President itself. The West Bengal Government has moved the Supreme Court against the Governor for withholding the assent of 8 bills and says that it is affecting the residents of the State of West Bengal for whose welfare the bills were passed. The plea was filed by Advocate Astha for the West Bengal Government. "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," the petitioner said. The petition said that the 8 bills that were passed in 2022 have been kept in limbo without any action, hereby rendering the actions of the State Legislature otiose, and in turn directly affecting the residents of the State of West Bengal, for whose welfare the Bills were passed, and thereby creating an unconstitutional state of affairs by the Constitutional Post itself. "The petitioner is constrained to move this Court invoking its extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 32, Constitution of India, aggrieved by the constitutional crises created by the acts of omissions and commissions of the Governor, State of West Bengal, concerning as many as 8 key Bills, for which assent under Article 200 of the Constitution of India has been withheld, for no reason and dishonours the Constitutional Datete," the petition said. The petitioner urged the top court to declare that the inaction, omission, delay and failure to comply with the constitutional mandate by the Governor of West Bengal, C.V. Ananda Bose, through its Secretary/ Respondent No. 1, qua the consideration and assent of the bills passed and forwarded by the State Legislature to him and the non-consideration of files, government orders and policies forwarded by the State Government for his signature is unconstitutional, illegal, arbitrary, unreasonable, and besides malafide exercise of power. The petitioner sought to issue appropriate direction to the Governor of West Bengal through its Secretary to dispose of all the bills, files, and government orders forwarded by the State Legislative Assembly and Government that are pending with his office within a specified timeframe. The petitioner sought to issue directions to lay down guidelines stipulating the outer time limit for the Governor of West Bengal to consider Bills passed by the Legislature and sent for assent qua Article-200 of the Constitution of India in light of the recommendations of the Sarkaria Commission. The West Bengal Government also sought to issue directions for laying down guidelines stipulating the outer time limit for the Governor of West Bengal to consider files, policies, and government orders sent for signature in the discharge of his constitutional functions. The State Legislature deliberated upon the provisions of 8 Bills, passed them, and forwarded the same to the Office of the Governor. They continue to lie dormant with the office of the governor despite the lapse of considerable time, the petitioner informed the top court. A governor who is a constitutional functionary but acts in gross disregard and violates the provisions of the self-same Constitution, cannot be said to be functioning in the discharge of his duties as the governor through either his actions or inactions, the state government said. It further submitted, that no part of the powers and duties of the office of the Governor provides for him to refuse to deal with bills pending, in this case, for almost two years, while at the same time, granting assent to other bills. 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. The Kerala government has moved the Supreme Court against the Governor's decision to reserve some bills for the assent of the President and said that "the conduct of the Governor in keeping bills pending for long is manifestly arbitrary. In the plea, the Kerala Government has sought to declare that the act of the Governor of Kerala in reserving the seven bills--University Laws (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2021; University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021; the Kerala Co-operative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022; the University Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2022, Kerala Lok Ayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2022; The University Laws (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2022; and The University Laws (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill, 2022 for the consideration of the President, was illegal and lacked bona fides. (ANI)
The diary entry, unveiled by Modi Archive, a platform that tracks Prime Minister Narendra Modi's life, his early days and his journey, shared several photos and clippings describing his experience visiting the battlefield and the lessons he learned speaking to the war heroes in Kargil 25 years ago. "A pilgrimage of a lifetime" - Narendra Modi's Lessons from the Kargil War Front 25 Years Ago. Today marks #25YearsofKargilVijay, a defining moment in India's history. Pakistani troops infiltrated deep into Indian territory, prompting India to launch Operation Vijay. The Indian Army fought fierce battles, reclaiming every inch of land and securing our nation's integrity," Modi Archive posted on X. "One such battleground was Tiger Hill, a strategic vantage point that saw some of the war's most intense fighting. On July 4, 1999, after a relentless and bloody battle, Indian forces hoisted the tricolour atop Tiger Hill. This victory paved the way for the eventual eviction of Pakistani intruders from Indian territory on July 26, 1999. As the Kargil War unfolded, another tale of the indomitable spirit of the soldiers and the leaders who supported them was being inscribed. One such leader was Narendra Modi," it added. The clip, shared by Modi Archive, highlighted the Prime Minister's support for the soldiers during that time. PM Modi who was then responsible for overseeing work in Himachal Pradesh, boarded a Mi-17 helicopter loaded with essential supplies and landed in Srinagar. "Charged with overseeing work in Himachal Pradesh, Narendra Modi, then BJP's General Secretary, boarded a Mi-17 helicopter laden with essential supplies for the soldiers while the war was still raging. Braving continuous shelling by the Pakistani Army, Modi and his team landed in Srinagar. Narendra Modi had the chance to speak with the brave soldiers who had been fighting relentlessly. During the conversation, Modi thanked the soldiers for their bravery, but they insisted that the credit for the victory should go to then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This surprised Modi, as the courageous soldiers on the frontlines attributed the victory to the nation's leader. A soldier explained. Despite many attempts to capture Tiger Hill and the loss of many soldiers' lives, the Indian army remained unable to achieve success. But before a sense of demoralisation could take over them, one evening, while listening to the radio in their bunker, they heard that American President Bill Clinton had invited Atal Bihari Vajpayee to visit the US. Vajpayee declined the invitation, stating that his soldiers were on the battlefield and he had no time for a visit. This refusal inspired the soldiers immensely. Motivated by their Prime Minister's commitment, they fought with renewed vigour that very night achieved victory and hoisted the flag," it added. Further, the X thread mentioned how PM Modi particularly questioned the silence of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi on Pakistan and how the opposition never hesitates to politicise issues pertaining to even national security. "In an interview with Sadhana Magazine in 1999, he pointed out how pursuing political interests during such a critical time was unfortunate. He reminded everyone how Atal Ji, despite being in the opposition, fully supported Indira Gandhi during the 1971 war, showing true national unity," the Modi Archive posted. "Narendra Modi learned a crucial lesson from Kargil: the opposition won't hesitate to politicise even national security. Then, as now, those questioning our armed forces put their petty politics over the national interest. Back then, the BJP was in power, and opposition parties like the Congress and the Left showed their true colours by calling for a special Rajya Sabha session during the middle of the Kargil War only to criticise the armed forces. Just as today Congress refuses to criticise any adversary nation, be it China or Pakistan, things were no different back then. Narendra Modi particularly questioned Sonia Gandhi's silence on Pakistan. He pointed out how pursuing political interests during such a critical time was unfortunate. He reminded everyone how Atal Ji, despite being in the opposition, fully supported Indira Gandhi during the 1971 war, showing true national unity. In stark contrast, Sonia Gandhi's silence during the Kargil conflict was concerning and raised doubts--a silence that continues even now, 25 years later," it added. Earlier on Friday, PM Modi paid tribute to bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty in the 1999 Kargil War. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, Ladakh, on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
The WHO Regional Director for Southeast Asia, Saima Wazed, appealed to everyone on Thursday, July 25, to save lives and prevent the heartbreak of drowning on World Drowning Prevention Day. She said, "We join the global community in observing World Drowning Prevention Day, dedicated to raising awareness and accelerating action on global drowning prevention. The World Health Assembly Resolution WHA76.18, passed in 2023, underscores the urgent need for coordinated multi-sectoral action to combat this leading cause of injury-related death and disability worldwide."Highlighting this year's theme, "Anyone can drown, no one should," she said, "This year, under the overarching theme "Anyone can drown, no one should," the World Health Organisation has chosen the slogan "Seconds can save a life." This highlights the dual nature of drowning: it can occur in a matter of seconds yet taking a brief moment to act--whether by wearing a lifejacket, keeping watch over children while they are near water, checking the weather forecast before boating, or choosing safety over distraction--can prevent a tragedy."."Drowning is a sudden and silent killer, often catching victims and those around them unaware until it is too late. A few seconds may not be enough time to respond. The power is in prevention," she added. Globally, an estimated 236,000 lives are lost to drowning every year--an average of 650 every day, or 26 every hour. This silent epidemic of preventable deaths excludes drownings related to flood disasters and water transport incidents, thus underreporting the true magnitude of the issue.She further added, "In our Southeast Asia Region, the consequences of drowning are particularly devastating. In 2019 alone, drowning claimed 70,034 lives, making it the second-highest contributor to drowning deaths worldwide after the Western Pacific Region. Most of these tragedies occur within proximity of the home, primarily due to a lack of supervision, exposure to hazardous water bodies, a lack of awareness and education, as well as poverty.".WHO is finalising the Global Status Report on Drowning, set to be launched by the end of 2024. This report will provide updated information on the global burden of drowning and will generate key recommendations for impactful actions at global, regional, and national levels. WHO has outlined evidence-based, cost-effective, and scalable measures to prevent drowning and provided detailed guidance for their implementation. While the application of these measures will vary by context, the global drowning prevention community must remain vigilant and coherent in its efforts."We all have a role to play in preventing drowning. Whether by raising awareness, promoting knowledge of effective solutions, collaborating on prevention plans and policies with local or national governments, volunteering with relevant organisations, or ensuring personal and family safety around water, each of us can make a difference," she added. (ANI)
The Supreme Court extended its interim order on Friday, staying directives issued by the authorities of certain state governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route should display the names of the owners outside such shops. A bench of Justices Hrishikesh Roy and SVN Bhatti granted time to the Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh governments to file their responses to the pleas. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, told the bench that the regulations under the Central Law Food and Safety Standards Act, 2006, require that every food seller, including 'dhabas', must display the names of the owners. He said the interim order passed by the apex court staying the directive to display the names of the owners was contrary to the central law. Deputy Advocate General of Uttarakhand, Jatinder Kumar Sethi, also told the bench that the law mandates the display of the owners' names and that the interim order was creating problems. He added that if an unregistered vendor causes any mischief along the Kanwar Yatra route, it will lead to law and order problems. The bench said there is no restriction on shops or eateries voluntarily displaying the names of their owners and employees outside their eateries but they cannot be forced. Meanwhile, counsel appearing for Madhya Pradesh denied a news report that the Ujjain Municipal Corporation has issued a similar directive. The top court was hearing a batch of petitions challenging the directive issued by the Senior Superintendent of Police, Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh, to shop owners to display their names outside shops during the Kanwar Yatra season. Police had said that the decision was in the interest of law and order. The directive was reportedly enforced across many districts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh also came up with similar directives. On July 22, the Supreme Court put an interim stay on directives issued by authorities of State governments that eateries along the Kanwar Yatra route should display the names of the owners outside such shops. The apex court had also issued notice to Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh where Kanwar Yatra takes place. On Thursday, the Uttar Pradesh government has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court opposing petitions challenging it's directive regarding display of name of shop owners on Kanwar route and said directive was to ensure a peaceful completion of Kanwar Yatra and to ensure larger transparency. The government said that the idea behind the directive is transparency and informed choice of the consumer/Kanwaria regarding the food they eat during the period of the Yatra, keeping in mind their religious sentiments so that they don't, even accidently, fall foul of their beliefs, said UP government. "Such situations would obviously lead to flare ups where lakhs and crores of people are walking barefoot carrying holy water," affidavit of UP government stated. Filing it's affidavit, the UP government stated that requirement of mere transparency, with prominent disclosures of the names of the operators of the eateries and the type of food they serve is certainly "not discriminatory or restrictive at all". UP government said that the State has imposed no ban or prohibition on the trade or business of the food sellers (except the restriction on selling non veg food), and they are free to conduct their business as usual. "The requirement to display the names and identities of the owners is merely an additional measure to ensure transparency and avoid any potential confusion among the Kanwariyas," affidavit added. "Past incidents have shown that misunderstandings regarding the type of food being sold have led to tensions and disturbances. The directives are a proactive measure to avoid such situations," UP government told the Supreme Court. It said directive was issued solely in the interest of ensuring a peaceful completion of the Kanwar Yatra, in which more than 4.07 crores of Kanwariyas participate annually. The petitions were filed by Member of Parliament Mahua Moitra, Association for Protection of Civil Rights, Delhi University Professor Apoorvanand with activist Aakar Patel. They have challenged the directives saying it's causing religious discrimination and questioned the source of power of the authorities to issue such directions. Last week, the Uttar Pradesh government asked the food and beverage shops along Kanwar Yatra routes to display the name and identity of the operator/owner of their establishments. (ANI)
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, saying that he is the one spreading lies and doing petty politics even on the occasion of the Kargil Vijay Diwas. This came after PM Modi's address at the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas in Ladakh's Kargil, where he criticised the opposition parties for opposing the 'Agnipath' scheme and for "politicising a sensitive issue related to national security." Taking to X, Kharge said, "It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas. No Prime Minister has ever done this before. Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army; this is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant Armed Forces." Kharge also accused the Modi government of doing the opposite of what former Army Chief (Retd.) General MM Naravane had said about the recruitment of soldiers and forcibly implementing the scheme in all three armed forces. "Former Army Chief (Retd.) General MM Naravane has said on record that 75% of recruits were to be taken for permanency in the 'Agnipath Scheme' and 25% of people were to be let go after 4 years. But the Modi Govt did the opposite, and forcibly implemented this scheme for all three Armed Forces," Kharge said. Kharge further stated that in General MM Naravane's book, it was mentioned that the 'Agnipath Scheme' was shocking for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. "...According to news reports, Former Army Chief (Retd) General MM Naravane in his book which the Modi Govt, has stalled from being published, has also said, that the 'Agnipath Scheme' was shocking for the Army, and for the Navy and Air Force, it came like a "bolt out of the blue"!" Kharge said. He further mentioned that many retired officers had strongly criticised the Agnipath scheme and said that it was endangering national security. "Many retired officers have strongly criticised Agnipath and said that it is endangering National Security... Agniveers do not get any pension, no gratuity, no family pension, no liberalized family pension, and no education allowance for their children...15 Agniveers have been martyred so far. At least respect their martyrdom," Kharge added. Earlier, speaking during Kargil Vijay Diwas Shradhanjali Samaroh in Drass, Ladakh, Prime Minister Modi had said that the opposition was misleading the youth on the Agnipath issue "The Army means the faith of 140 crore countrymen. The army means - the guarantee of peace for 140 crore countrymen and the army means - the guarantee of security of the country's borders. Unfortunately, such a sensitive issue related to national security has been made a subject of politics by some people. Some people are playing politics of lies on this reform of the army for their personal interests. These are the same people who weakened our armed forces by committing scams worth thousands of crores of rupees in the armed forces. These are the same people who wanted the Air Force to never get modern fighter jets. These are the same people who had made preparations to scrap the Tejas fighter plane. These are the same people who had made preparations to lock the Tejas fighter plane in a box, PM Modi said. (ANI)
The BJP government is likely to stage a 10-day padayatra against the alleged scams of the Siddaramaiah government. The padayatra is likely to begin on July 31. On this, Karnataka's Deputy Minister DK Shivkumar said on Friday, in a press conference at the KPCC office, that the BJP government was trying to tarnish the image of Chief Minister Siddaramiah by planning a padayatra to protest against the Mysore Urban Development Authority's (MUDA) irregularities. Addressing the press conference, Shivakumar said, "It was the Congress that introduced padayatras in India. Padayatra is our product. Now, the BJP is planning a padayatra from Bengaluru to Mysuru against the alleged Muda scam to bring disrespect to CM Siddaramaiah and destabilise the Congress government in the state." Further, he added, " BJP is the master of scams and they are digging their own grave in this case. Karnataka is the biggest state the Congress party is in power in and hence they are trying to bring it down at any cost. Let them do what they want, we will respond to it appropriately." "The state government was investigating the Valmiki Corporation case, but the BJP has sent its own agencies to investigate and create unnecessary trouble. Let them fight it out legally rather than trying to garner publicity and target people," he added. Further, he said, "They are trying a similar trick by ratcheting up Muda case. The BJP and JDS know that they are losing ground in the State and hence have joined hands to carry out a padayatra. We will expose them in this case by releasing a list of sites illegally allotted during their tenure," "The Muda had taken over land belonging to the Chief minister without issuing any notification. Later, it allotted sites as compensation for that land. The bylaws allow allotment of sites if land is acquired without any notification. The Chief Minister's family has not asked for sites in specific locality but accepted whatever was allotted by the Muda. These sites were allotted during the previous government," he added. He also said, "Sites have been allotted to others during the same time and the minister concerned will give details on this. We will reveal the scams that took place during the BJP government. As far as the CM's family is concerned, everything has happened within the legal framework," When asked about the BJP's plan to stage a protest against the alleged Muda irregularities in the Parliament, he said, "It is just a conspiracy to destabilise our government as they are scared that the INDIA alliance is getting stronger by the day." "On each day of the BJP-JDS padayatra from Bengaluru to Mysuru, we will expose one scam a day. The CM has already listed out the scams by the BJP. By doing the padayatra, they have allowed us to expose their scams," he said. He also challenged the BJP and said, "Before doing the padayatra, let them answer questions about scams during their tenure. Let them disclose the chief minister, ministers and officials involved in the scams. I am ready for a discussion on this on any media platform or public forum if Kumaraswamy, Yediyurappa, Jagadish Shettar, Basavaraj Bommai, and R Ashok are ready to debate," he said. (ANI)
Retired Air Marshal SP Singh vouched for the Agnipath scheme, which is facing criticism from opposition parties, and said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has clarified it very well. Speaking to ANI on Friday about the scheme, the retired personnel said, "The Prime Minister clarified it very well. I don't think I would have anything else to say about it. It doesn't require an explanation because the PM said that it's a decision taken by the armed forces. Now, I retired 12 years ago, and all this has happened since my retirement. I believe in the very firm principle that I did my bit when I was serving. Now is the chance for our youth, who are taking over those reins from us, to serve the country the way we did." Singh said he believes the younger generations always outwit the older ones and they do better. "Let people go to service. Now it's premature. If you have put pickle in it, and if you don't wait for 4 months, and if you eat it like this, then you will say, it's raw, it's not tasty. But when it is time-ripened, let the fruit ripen, you will love it. So, give the scheme a chance," he added. Singh called it a "very good scheme" and said, "And like the Prime Minister said, it's a decision by the armed forces. The politicians have endorsed it. The government of the day has endorsed it, and the country is accepting it. So, like I said, I don't think there's much for me to explain on that. It's a very good scheme." Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) MP Ravi Kishan criticised the opposition parties on Friday for opposing the Agnipath scheme. Ravi Kishan alleged that the opposition is "breaking the morale" of many children who want to serve the country. "This is the thought of strengthening the country. For 5 years, their politics has been that whatever PM Modi and the government do, they (the opposition) only oppose it. How will these people take the country forward with a negative attitude towards everything?" Ravi Kishan said while speaking to ANI. Congress MP Karti P. Chidambaram slammed the scheme and said that it in no way strengthens the capacity or capability of the armed forces. He further said that the Agnipath scheme is a short-term induction into the armed forces without the necessary training and benefits. "A professional army going forward needs comprehensive training and a full commission, so the Agnipath scheme in no way strengthens the capacity and the capability of the armed forces," the Congress MP said while responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech in Kargil, in which he vouched for the scheme, calling it a "necessary reform in the Army." Samajwadi Party MP Awadhesh Prasad also dismissed the scheme and said that when the opposition alliance, INDIA bloc, comes to power, this scheme will be ended. "I am proud to say that our army has a glorious history, but it is unfortunate that the BJP government has made arrangements for the Agnipath scheme. There cannot be a greater insult to the army than this. When the INDIA alliance government comes, we will end this scheme in 24 hours and do general recruitment," Awadhesh Prasad said. On the occasion of Kargil Vijay Diwas, Prime Minister Modi paid respects to the military and placed a wreath at the Kargil War Memorial this morning. Speaking on the occasion, PM Modi said that the goal of Agnipath was to make the Army young and keep the Army continuously fit for war. He said that major reforms in the army have been a long-standing demand. "The country has felt the need for major reforms in the defence sector for decades. The army has been demanding this for years, but unfortunately, it was not given enough importance earlier. The Agnipath scheme is also an example of the necessary reforms done in the Army. For decades, discussions have been going on in Parliament and many committees on making the army young," PM Modi said during his address on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas. PM Modi said that the average age of soldiers in India being higher than the global average was a concern raised over the years, and Agnipath resolved the matter. The Prime Minister also criticised the opposition parties opposing the scheme for "politicising sensitive issues related to national security." Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this operation, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
The Rouse Avenue court on Friday deferred the recording of evidence in a sexual harassment case against ex-MP and former WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh due to a mobile phone seized during the investigation lying in the Forensic Science Lab (FSL) in Rohini, Delhi. Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate (ACJM) Priyanka Rajpoot deferred the chief examination of Constable Mukesh Kumar. Constable Mukesh Kumar was associated with the case investigation and went to the village of the ex-MP in Gonda, Uttar Pradesh. The police team seized two mobile phones from Deepak Singh and Subedar Yadav, which are currently at the FSL. Meanwhile, the court summoned one victim and another witness, Rashmi, to record their evidence. The court said that the victim's statement would be recorded in vulnerable witness room if she would not be comfortable to depose in the court room. The court has scheduled the matter for August 6. On July 11, the court directed the trial and recording of the statements of prosecution witnesses in the alleged sexual harassment case against former MP and ex-WFI chief Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and Vinod Tomar to begin. Meanwhile, advocate Rajiv Mohan, counsel for Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, withdrew the application seeking direction for certain documents related to foreign travel and hotel stays by Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, CDR, etc., with the liberty to file a fresh application with details of authorities. The court formally framed the charges against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and Vinod Tomar on May 21. They denied all the allegations and demanded a trial. The court had directed the framing of charges against them on May 10. On May 10, the court ordered the framing of charges on sexual harassment allegations levelled by several women wrestlers against former WFI chief and BJP leader Brij Bhushan Singh and Tomar. While passing the order, the court said there was sufficient material against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh to proceed with the sexual harassment of five women wrestlers and the offence of outraging the modesty of women. "The court found sufficient material to proceed against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh under sections 354 and 354A of the IPC. Charges have also been framed against him under section 506 (part 1) on the allegations of two women. However, the court discharged Brij Bhushan from the allegations made by the sixth wrestler," the court said. The court also framed charges against the second accused, Vinod Tomar, under Section 506 (part 1) of the IPC on the allegation of one woman and discharged him from the rest of the allegations made against him. The court has now listed the matter for the official framing of charges on May 21. The Delhi Police chargesheet filed against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and Vinod Tomar stated that both accused are charge-sheeted for trial 'without arrest' as they complied with the directions under Section 41A of the CrPC by joining the investigation. The chargesheet further stated that based on the investigation so far, Brij Bhushan Singh was "liable to be prosecuted and punished for offences" of sexual harassment, molestation, and stalking. A 1,599-page chargesheet in the case, containing the statements of 44 witnesses and six statements recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC, was filed. The Delhi Police chargesheet also submitted several pictures, including those clicked during events. The chargesheet stated that based on the "investigation so far" of the complaints by six top wrestlers, Singh was "liable to be prosecuted and punished for offences" of sexual harassment, molestation, and stalking. The chargesheet mentioned that witnesses in the matter saw the physically inappropriate gestures of the then WFI president. The Delhi Police filed a chargesheet against Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and Vinod Tomar on June 15, 2023. This case was lodged based on a complaint by women wrestlers. In the wrestlers' matter, two FIRs were registered against Brij Bhushan Singh based on the wrestlers' complaints. One FIR was registered under the POCSO Act, and a cancellation report has been filed in the case of a minor wrestler. The second FIR was filed on the complaint of several wrestlers. In both matters, Delhi Police officials stated that after the completion of the investigation, a chargesheet was filed for the offences under sections 354, 354A, and 354D of the IPC against accused Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh and for offences under sections 109, 354, 354A, and 506 of the IPC against accused Vinod Tomar before the Rouse Avenue Court, according to Suman Nalwa, PRO, Delhi Police. (ANI)
A statue of Capt Haneef Uddin, Vir Chakra awardee, a gallant officer of the Rajputana Rifles, was unveiled at a school in Kerala, his alma mater, in a solemn ceremony on Friday. The event was attended by Lt Gen ADS Aujla, Colonel of the Rajputana Rifles, and other dignitaries. Capt Haneefuddin, a braveheart from 11 Rajputana Rifles, laid down his life fighting valiantly against the enemy in the Turtuk area of Kargil, Ladakh, during the Kargil war with Pakistan. His unwavering courage and sacrifice earned him the prestigious Veer Chakra award posthumously. The statue, a fitting tribute to the Kargil hero, was dedicated by Lt Gen ADS Aujla, who praised Capt Haneef Uddin's bravery and selflessness. The event aimed to inspire the younger generation to emulate the values of courage, sacrifice, and patriotism embodied by Capt Haneef Uddin. The event was organised by the ex-students of the school, who also instituted four scholarships of Rs 15,000 each in the name of Capt Haneef Uddin. The unveiling ceremony included a wreath-laying ceremony, distribution of scholarships for this year and an inspiring speech by Lt Gen Aujla. The event was attended by school students, teachers, and alumni who paid their respects to the fallen hero. (ANI)
China actively promotes international cooperation on cross-border flow of data

09:29, July 26, 2024 By Li Jiabao ( People's Daily

Data is a new type of production factor in the era of digital economy. As an important link of digital economy, the cross-border flow of data has evolved into a foundation for the exchange and sharing of global capital, information, technology, talent and goods.

Recently, China has made new progress in international cooperation on the cross-border flow of data. It signed with Germany a memorandum of understanding on cross-border data flow, and had exchanges with Singapore on relevant cooperation at the inaugural meeting of a bilateral digital policy dialogue mechanism.

A man sells commodities to foreign consumers via livestream at the Ganzhou International Inland Port in east China's Jiangxi province. (People's Daily Online/Zhu Haipeng)

Such collaboration marked a positive signal of China promoting international cooperation on the cross-border flow of data. In recent years, the country has been advocating safe and orderly cross-border flow of data, working with all relevant parties to build an open and win-win international cooperation in the data field.

Zhang Pengyang, a professor with the College of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Technology, said that China has enacted a series of laws to cement the legal foundation for the cross-border flow of data, including those on cybersecurity, data security and the protection of personal information.

Besides, the country has been constantly optimizing its business environment and standardizing the management of cross-border data flow, so as to better facilitate foreign enterprises, Zhang said, adding that this demonstrated China's resolution and confidence in opening up.

China also participates in the making of relevant international rules, Zhang noted. It has signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership agreement, and is working to align itself with the high-standard economic and trade rules of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement.

Furthermore, China and some other countries and regions have signed bilateral and multilateral agreements on cross-border data flow.

At the border between China and Laos, specialized data that ensure cross-border railway transport are transmitted via information networks, enabling end users to operate in their respective systems and thus guaranteeing the smooth operation of the China-Laos Railway.

Patient treatment data from a clinical data research platform at Beijing Friendship Hospital affiliated with Capital Medical University, are securely processed and transmitted halfway across the globe to the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, in a bid to support joint research efforts between Chinese and Dutch medical experts.

Today, foreign purchasers can browse and obtain relevant information about Chinese suppliers with only a few clicks on their mouse on Chinese e-commerce platforms.

Such cross-border flow of data will become even more active as China deepens its cooperation and exchanges with other countries in various fields.

At present, the cross-border flow of data has become a new driver for global growth. It is expected to contribute $11 trillion to global GDP by 2025, according to a McKinsey & Company report.

The Global Digital Economy Conference 2024 kicks off in Beijing on July 2, 2024. Photo shows visitors learning about sci-tech industrial services at an immersive experience zone of the event. (People's Daily Online/Chen Xiaogen)

"The cross-border flow of data is crucial for supporting international trade activities, global scientific and technological cooperation, and the sharing of data resources worldwide. It calls for international cooperation and sharing to promote the safe and orderly cross-border flow of data, Zhang said.

Zhang believes that China's proposals and actions to promote such international cooperation would help global trade transit from commodity trade to digital trade and open up more opportunities for international cooperation on science and technology, culture, education and more fields.

Besides, these proposals and actions would improve China's institutional opening up, further optimize the country's business environment, expand the value of data, fully release the potential of data factor, stimulate enterprises' passion for innovation, and finally promote regional and even global economic growth, Zhang added.

However, as data are extremely replicable and non-exclusive, the cross-border flow of data comes with a series of security problems, bringing challenges to data sovereignty, privacy protection and even national security.

According to statistics, as of May 2023, more than 70 countries and regions had formulated regulations on the cross-border flow of data, and more than 180 regional trade agreements newly added specific articles or terms related to digital trade, including the cross-border flow of data.

In September 2020, China proposed the Global Initiative on Data Security, calling on countries to foster an open, fair and non-discriminatory business environment for mutual benefit, win-win outcomes and common development.

Zhang said the Global Initiative on Data Security stresses that countries should respect the sovereignty, jurisdiction and governance of data of other countries, and jointly safeguard the security and order of the global data flow. They should not only focus on their own data security, but also respect other countries' rules on cross-border data flow.

This initiative demonstrates China's sense of responsibility in global digital governance, and will inject new vitality into building a fair, inclusive and efficient global digital governance system, Zhang added.

(Web editor: Chang Sha, Liang Jun)
Rene Guzman writes about all things San Antonio, from past and present to pop culture and puro cultura. He can be reached at rguzman@express-news.net.

Before joining the Express-News in 1998, the San Antonio native co-owned a college humor magazine called Bitter, for which he wrote, designed and edited, as well as distributed at various campuses and businesses citywide. His features writing has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Times-Union.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on Friday paid tribute to the heroes of the Kargil war at Shaurya Smarak in Bhopal on the occasion of 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas. CM Yadav remembered the contribution of the brave soldiers for safeguarding the nation and paid floral tribute to them amid rain in the state capital. "We are proud of our army, who protected our country; their sacrifice and courage has created a new history. Amid various challenges of the enemies, our soldiers not only hoisted the tricolour on the height but also created a history of victory. With such an unmatched contribution, sacrifice and courage, a new history of India's victory was created," CM Yadav said. "It has been 25 years to that glory and many of our soldiers have sacrificed their lives in the battle. I pay tribute to the brave soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country. The country is standing along with the soldiers. Whenever challenges appears, our Army is capable and will emerge victorious in all the difficult situations," he added. President Droupadi Murmu also offered tribute to soldiers as she hailed the "courage and extraordinary valour" of the country's armed forces on the occasion of 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas. In a post on X, President Murmu urged all countrymen to "draw inspiration from the sacrifice and valour" of the soldiers. "Kargil Vijay Diwas is an occasion for a grateful nation to pay tribute to the indomitable courage and extraordinary valour of our armed forces. I pay tribute to each soldier who made the supreme sacrifice while protecting Mother India on the peaks of Kargil in the year 1999 and bow in reverence to their sacred memory," the President mentioned in her post. "I am confident that all countrymen will draw inspiration from their sacrifice and valour. Jai Hind! Jai Bharat!," she added. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami paid tribute to the Kargil martyrs at the Shaheed Smarak in a programme organised at Gandhi Park on Kargil Vijay Diwas on Friday. The Chief Minister also honoured the families of the Kargil martyrs. The Chief Minister made four announcements on the occasion of Kargil Vijay Diwas. He announced that the ex-gratia grant amount given to the martyred soldiers in the state will be increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 50 lakh. The period for applying for government jobs for the families of martyred soldiers will be increased from 2 years to 5 years. The dependents of the martyrs will now be given appointments to Group 'C' and Group 'D' posts in various departments, including the District Magistrate's offices. Additionally, contract workers in the Sainik Welfare Department will be granted leave similar to Upanal employees. "Our brave soldiers showed valour and indomitable courage to protect Mother India in the Kargil War. The way Indian soldiers displayed bravery in the Kargil war and drove the intruders across the border in adverse conditions, the whole world acknowledged the might of the Indian Army. The nation will always remember the sacrifice of the brave soldiers to protect the country's borders in the Kargil War," Dhami said. The Chief Minister emphasised that the victory story of Kargil is incomplete without the heroes of Uttarakhand and that the "brave land" of Uttarakhand will never forget the sacrifice of its 75 sons. As a soldier's son, the Chief Minister said he has seen the struggles of a soldier and his family since childhood. "We won the war and also won diplomacy at the global level. Atal Bihari Vajpayee (the then Prime Minister) made arrangements to perform the last rites of the martyrs with state honours in their native villages," the Chief Minister said. The Chief Minister added that due to the efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the army is not only becoming more capable and strong but also gaining increased fame and glory. "While on one hand our government is emphasising the modernization of the army, on the other hand it is also increasing the facilities available to soldiers and their families. The Prime Minister is constantly boosting the courage and morale of the soldiers, and this is why today the army responds to bullets with shells. "Today also, the Prime Minister paid tribute to the martyrs on the occasion of Kargil Vijay Diwas at the Kargil War Memorial, Ladakh. The Chief Minister stated that a provision for reservation in government services will be made for Agniveers in the state, and an Act will be brought for this," he said. (ANI)
The Leader of Opposition in the West Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Friday criticised the Speaker of the Assembly, Biman Banerjee, for rejecting the BJP's adjournment motion seeking a debate on the controversial remarks made by Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim. Suvendu Adhikari alleged that the Speaker's decision to disallow the adjournment motion was politically motivated. "We lodged a complaint against the inappropriate remarks by Firhad Hakim, who is both the mayor of Kolkata and a member of Mamata Banerjee's party. The Speaker, motivated by politics, rejected the adjournment motion," Adhikari told reporters. "The Speaker stated that this subject is not related to the state government. In an event, Firhad Hakim remarked that those born in other religions are very unfortunate," he added. Earlier in the day, Adhikari submitted an adjournment motion proposal seeking a discussion on Firhad Hakim's comment made at a community gathering. After the Speaker refused to admit the adjournment motion, BJP MLAs protested and came to the Well of the House. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) demanded the resignation of Firhad Hakim. Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Friday that she would protest against the political discrimination faced by Bengal at the NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi on Saturday, July 27. Before leaving for Delhi, the All India Trinamool Congress Chairman said, "I will protest against the political discrimination being done to Bengal at the NITI Aayog meeting. In the budget, the way they have discriminated against Bengal and other opposition states, we can't agree to that." She further stated that the BJP ministers and leaders' attitude is such that they want to divide Bengal while also imposing economic and geographical blockades on the state. "The attitude of their ministers and BJP leaders is such that they want to divide Bengal. Along with the economic blockade, they also want to impose a geographical blockade. The Minister said this while Parliament was in session. Different leaders are making statements to divide Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam, and Bengal. We strongly condemn this attitude," she said. (ANI)
Union Minister Jitendra Singh stated on Friday that Kargil Vijay Diwas reminds us that whenever the country's borders have faced any kind of challenge, the nation has stood united. "Kargil Vijay Diwas is a symbol of the fact that whenever India's borders and sovereignty have faced any challenge, the nation has stood united. The people of this country have repeatedly proven that they can face any situation and overcome it," Singh said. "After Modi ji became the Prime Minister, several policy changes were implemented. The Armed Forces have been given additional freedom, and the defence budget has been increased. India has now become a defence exporter," Jitendra Singh added. He was speaking on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas, celebrated every year on July 26 to commemorate India's victory over Pakistan. Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tribute to the soldiers and laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memorial. The Prime Minister also initiated the first blast of the Shinkun La Tunnel Project virtually. President Droupadi Murmu paid tribute to the soldiers and hailed the "courage and extraordinary valour" of the country's armed forces. In a post on X, President Murmu urged all countrymen to "draw inspiration from the sacrifice and valour" of the soldiers. "Kargil Vijay Diwas is an occasion for a grateful nation to pay tribute to the indomitable courage and extraordinary valour of our armed forces. I pay tribute to each soldier who made the supreme sacrifice while protecting Mother India on the peaks of Kargil in 1999 and bow in reverence to their sacred memory," the President mentioned in her post. "I am confident that all countrymen will draw inspiration from their sacrifice and valour. Jai Hind! Jai Bharat!" she added. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
The Sudarshan S-400 air defence missile system achieved a major success in a recent exercise where it 'shot down' 80 per cent of the 'enemy' fighter aircraft package while forcing others to retreat, aborting their missions. The exercise was carried out by the Indian Air Force in a theatre where the force has deployed one of its squadrons of the long-range air defence missile system, defence sources told ANI. The exercise was conducted by the Indian Air Force to showcase full integration of air defence missile system into the force, they said. During the exercise, real fighter aircraft were flying to test the capabilities of the S-400 weapon system, now called Sudarshan by the Indian Air Force after the mighty Sudarshan chakra of Lord Krishan. The Sudarshan, 'locking on and targeting' in simulated action, could 'shoot down' 80 per cent of the 'enemy' offensive package. The other remaining aircraft aborted their mission which was to 'attack' their targets within Indian territory and were intercepted by the air defence system.The Indian Air Force has now fully integrated the system, whose three squadrons have already been inducted and two more are expected to be supplied in 2026. The Indian side has requested that Russia expedite the delivery of the systems. The Indian side, during a high-level visit to Russia, also requested the Russian side deliver the system. India and Russia signed an over Rs 35,000 crore deal for five squadrons of S-400. The Indian Air Force, which recently received the indigenous MR-SAM and Akash missile systems as well as the Israeli Spyder quick reaction surface-to-air missile systems, believes the S-400 will be a game changer for it. The Indian Defence Acquisition Council recently cleared the procurement of the Indian Long Range Surface Air Missile System under Project Kusha. The development came after the project was approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security. The Indian Air Force, which recently received the indigenous MR-SAM and Akash missile systems as well as the Israeli Spyder quick reaction surface-to-air missile systems, believes the S-400 will be a game changer for it. The Indian Air Force has significantly improved its air defence capabilities in recent years.Air defence systems have been deployed in a big way by the Chinese military across the Line of Actual Control, while India has also deployed its own systems in a big way there. (ANI)
Prof. Uma Kanjilal, serving as the Pro-Vice Chancellor, brings a distinguished academic and administrative career to her new role.

Prof. Uma Kanjilal began her illustrious career as a Research Assistant at IIT Kanpur in 1984. She has since held various positions, including Cataloguer and Professional Assistant at IGNCA, and rose through the academic ranks at IGNOU from Lecturer to Professor, a position she has held since 2003.

Her administrative experience is extensive, having served as Librarian in Charge, Director of the School of Social Sciences, Director of the Advanced Centre for Informatics and Innovative Learning, Director of the Inter-University Consortium for Technology-Enabled Flexible Education and Development, and also as Director of the Centre for Online Education.

Prof. Uma Kanjilal's international assignments include consultancy roles for CEMCA and UNRWA, and module development for the Commonwealth of Learning. She has been a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Illinois and has received numerous awards including the Manthan Award for eGyankosh and DELNET's Best Lending Library Award.

Prof. Uma Kanjilal serves as one of the National Coordinators for SWAYAM which offers free online courses across various disciplines, allowing learners to access high-quality educational content. Additionally, Prof. Kanjilal is also associated with SWAYAM PRABHA, which involves educational DTH (Direct-to-Home) channels broadcasting educational programs 24/7, providing valuable content to learners.

IGNOU is confident that Prof. Kanjilal's leadership will further its mission of providing accessible, high-quality education. The university community extends its heartfelt congratulations to Prof. Uma Kanjilal and looks forward to her visionary leadership. (ANI)
State Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister HK Patil, speaking on Friday, cited the aspirations and demands of the people and their representatives as the driving force behind the decision to merge Ramanagara district with Bengaluru South. While speaking to ANI, HK Patil said, "It is because of the aspirations and representations made by people's representatives and people at large. It is to get the Brand Bengaluru name. Bengaluru is a brand, you can't say 'no' to that. If it helps everyone, it is fine."Criticising the decision, Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) MP Pralhad Joshi stated that the Congress party opposes "Ram," which is why they have renamed Ramanagara district. "This shows their allergy towards Ram and Ram Mandir, even to the name of Ram. They are quite allergic. They used to do it while we were constructing the Ram Mandir. But with the decision to rename Ramanagara, Congress party and Congress Government have proven that they are against Ram. Nobody had demanded this. MP Manjunath had also written that the name should not be changed. But this is being done for vote bank politics and greed for real estate. Siddaramaiah says that when it comes to Ram, he has Ram in his name. If that is the case, why are you doing this? I strongly condemn this and I ask, demand and urge them to withdraw this proposal, otherwise BJP will strongly oppose this and the local unit will agitate for this," Joshi said while speaking to ANI.The Karnataka cabinet on Friday approved the renaming of Ramanagara district to Bengaluru South, a decision followed by an announcement made by Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar."The (state) cabinet has approved to rename Ramanagara district to Bengaluru South district," Karnataka Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister HK Patil announced, while addressing a press conference on Friday. (ANI)
Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit said on Friday that there is now better coordination among Indian security forces to ward off security threats emanating from Pakistan. The governor said that since Pakistan is not in a position to engage in a direct fight with India, it always tries to backstab India. "Pakistan cannot fight us directly; therefore, it always backstabs. Earlier, there was a lack of coordination. People were scared. But now coordination has been established between the BSF, Army, NIA, NCRB, IB, Army Intelligence, and Police, which has been beneficial," Purohit told reporters here. Purohit's comments came on a day when India celebrates Kargil Vijay Diwas. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this operation, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. Reacting to questions related to his stand-off with the Aam Aadmi Party government in the state, Purohit said that it is his responsibility to ask the government to do the work that has not been done. He added that there is no need for Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to be scared of him. "There is no need for the CM (Bhagwant Mann) to be scared of me. I give time to every party that comes to me. Why should the Governor be a problem for anybody... I will definitely ask them to do the work that has not been done. It is my responsibility," Purohit said. Earlier this month, President Droupadi Murmu refused to clear a Punjab government bill seeking the removal of Governor Banwarilal Purohit as the Chancellor of state-run universities. After the refusal, the state government said it will seek legal options. There have been many instances where the governor and the AAP government were at loggerheads. The AAP government has alleged that the governor unnecessarily interfered in governance at the behest of the BJP-led central government. (ANI)
Addressing the Kargil Vijay Rajat Samaroh on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas, Union Minister and Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) President JP Nadda on Friday accused the opposition of using the army for their political purposes without giving anything in return. Launching a scathing attack on the opposition, JP Nadda said, "I also want to say that some people use the army for politics and don't give them anything. Few people do politics and as I am also a member of a political party, I want to highlight One Rank, One Pension (OROP). Army personnel have been demanding it since 1971, but they didn't bring it. They said they would bring OROP by putting 500 crore rupees in the budget. When Modi Ji came into government for the first time in 2014, he brought the One Rank One Pension scheme." He further alleged that during the Congress-led UPA regime, soldiers didn't have the liberty to counterattack Pakistan, but this changed when PM Modi came into power in 2014. Nadda stated, "Earlier, when I used to visit Jammu and Kashmir, soldiers under Pakistani attack used to tell me that they didn't have the liberty to counterattack; they didn't have permission from Delhi. When PM Modi came to power, he gave them the liberty to counterattack, and that's why now, in Jammu and Kashmir, the life of any declared terrorist is not more than one and a half weeks." Alleging corruption in arms deals under the opposition, Nadda said, "Earlier, the Defence Minister of India used to say we don't make roads on the border to stop China from infiltrating India. Today, we hear about crashing MiG planes because they had become obsolete, and the focus was on scams first and soldiers later." Nadda also praised the BJP for dedicatedly celebrating Kargil Vijay Diwas, noting that every district office of the BJP is always involved in the celebration. JP Nadda said, "BJP, as always, is celebrating Kargil Vijay Diwas not only at the national office but at each district level office as well, standing with the nation's army and its people. This day is important because we are celebrating the silver jubilee of Kargil Vijay Diwas. It wasn't a normal victory; it was a victory of India's pride and self-respect. Our soldiers fought in difficult conditions yet hoisted the Tiranga at the war site." Specifying the war details, he said, "It is very important for us to remember what kind of war it was. I remember seeing a soldier's martyrdom almost every day. Everyone knows that we don't start wars, but we do retaliate when provoked." "I come from Himachal Pradesh. From every house, there is a soldier. Then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji said that a soldier doesn't belong to a family, village, or city but to the country, and the whole nation is standing with them. Since then, it has been established that the mortal remains will not go to their houses but will be honoured by the nation," he added. Furthermore, he praised the Modi government, saying, "Our government is committed to the safety and security of our country." Earlier in the day, PM Modi paid tribute to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice in the line of duty during the 1999 Kargil War. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, Ladakh, on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999. During this conflict, Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee met with Sunita Kejriwal, the wife of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, on Friday after arriving in New Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog meeting scheduled for July 27. The meeting took place at the residence of the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) national convenor. The Chief Minister's Office shared pictures of the meeting. Speaking to ANI, Raghav Chadha said that Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern about the health of the Delhi CM. "West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee visited the residence of CM Arvind Kejriwal to meet his wife and parents. She was concerned about the health of Arvind Kejriwal and conveyed that, in this hour of struggle, she stands with AAP and Arvind Kejriwal," he mentioned. Earlier, before leaving for Delhi on Friday, Mamata Banerjee said she would be protesting against the political discrimination meted out to Bengal at the NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi on Saturday, July 27. "I will protest against the political discrimination being done to Bengal in the NITI Aayog meeting. The budget has discriminated against Bengal and other opposition states, and we can't agree to thatt," she added. She further stated that Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) ministers and leaders aim to divide Bengal while imposing economic and geographical blockades on the state. "The attitude of BJP ministers and leaders is such that they want to divide Bengal. Along with the economic blockade, they also want to impose a geographical blockade. The Minister said this while Parliament was in session. Different leaders are making statements to divide Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam, and Bengal. We strongly condemn this attitude," she said. This move by the West Bengal CM came as a surprise after most Chief Ministers of opposition-led states had said they would boycott the NITI Aayog meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Saturday. On Wednesday, Chief Minister of Punjab Bhagwant Mann and Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy announced that their governments would boycott the NITI Aayog meeting in protest against the central government's alleged injustice to their states in the allocation of funds in the 2024 Union Budget. The Prime Minister is the Chairperson of the NITI Aayog. Other attendees will include Chief Ministers and Lieutenant Governors of States and Union Territories, Union Ministers as Ex-officio Members and Special Invitees, and the Vice Chairman and Members of NITI Aayog. (ANI)
Recent rains in Medina County and Bandera County have helped raise the water level in Medina Lake, but it remains far below normal due to more than two years of drought. As of Friday, the lake was 3.5% full with a mean water level of 975.85 feet above sea level according to Water Data for Texas. Water levels have risen about 5.6 feet this week. Marvin Pfeiffer/Staff Photographer Exposed trees rise above the water just north of the dam at Medina Lake on July 25. Recent rains have helped raise the water level in Medina Lake, but it remains far below normal due to more than two years of drought. Marvin Pfeiffer/Staff Photographer Recent rains in Medina County and Bandera County have helped raise the water level in Medina Lake, but it remains far below normal due to more than two years of drought. As of Friday, the lake was 3.5% full with a mean water level of 975.85 feet above sea level according to Water Data for Texas. Water levels have risen about 5.6 feet this week. Marvin Pfeiffer/Staff Photographer A floating dock sits in the water below a home on Medina Lake on July 25. Recent rains have helped raise the water level in Medina Lake, but it remains far below normal due to more than two years of drought. Marvin Pfeiffer/Staff Photographer Water begins to cover established vegetation below exposed trees at Medina Lake on Thursday, July 25, 2024. The lake is currently 3.5% full with a mean water level of 975.75 feet above sea level according to Water Data for Texas. Water levels have risen 5.47 feet in the last two days due to recent rains though the lake is still 88.46 feet below conservation pool level. Marvin Pfeiffer/Staff Photographer Floating docs sit stranded far from the water just north of the dam at Medina Lake on July 25. Recent rains have helped raise the water level in Medina Lake, but it remains far below normal due to more than two years of drought. As of Friday, the lake was 3.5% full with a mean water level of 975.85 feet above sea level according to Water Data for Texas. Water levels have risen about 5.6 feet this week. Marvin Pfeiffer/Staff Photographer

The Edwards Aquifer Authority said Friday it is easing restrictions on pumping water from the aquifer, as recent rainfall in the area has eased drought conditions.

The authority said slightly improved water levels and spring flow readings in the Edwards Aquifer have triggered a move from Stage 4 drought restrictions to Stage 3 restrictions.

The authority manages how much water is pumped from the Edwards Aquifer, a limestone cavern system that spans more than 3,000 miles and provides water for more than 2 million people.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The aquifer authority has bounced back and forth from Stage 3 to Stage 4 restrictions several times this summer as conditions in the aquifer have shifted.

The move to Stage 3 restrictions will allow permit holders to take a bigger percentage of the water they are allowed to pump from the aquifer. Under Stage 3 restrictions, pumping is cut by 35%, while in Stage 4 pumping is cut by 40%.

This latest move comes after some parts of Central Texas have received as much as 5 inches of rain in the past week.

The aquifer authority said the conditions that trigger a move to Stage 3 were met at Comal Springs, which had a 10-day average flow rate above 103 cubic feet per second, at San Marcos Springs, which had an average flow rate of 110 cubic feet per second, and at the J-17 index well in Bexar County, which had a 10-day rolling average of 631.8 feet. The threshold for Stage 4 is 630 feet or lower in that well.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The pumping restrictions apply only to permitted users of the aquifer, such as municipalities, utilities and farmers with their own aquifer wells. That means the restrictions are separate from any water-use regulations by utilities and other water providers, which set their own rules to comply with the authoritys limits.

For San Antonio Water System customers, the aquifer authoritys move to Stage 3 wont lead to any immediate changes. The San Antonio City Council recently approved changes to SAWS' drought rules to align the utilitys Stage 3 restrictions with the aquifer authoritys triggers. SAWS, which gets more than half of its water supply from the Edwards Aquifer, is already in Stage 3 restrictions, so it will remain there for now, spokesperson Anne Hayden said.

If the Edwards Aquifer Authority further ease restrictions to Stage 2, SAWS would also go to Stage 2 after a 15-day waiting period, Hayden said.

In Stage 3, SAWS customers are still limited to outdoor watering once per week, but under the new rules different watering hours are in effect. Customers who use sprinklers or drip irrigation can only water their lawns from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 9 p.m. to midnight.
In a recent Lok Sabha session, Minister of Women and Child Development Annapurna Devi clarified that there are currently no plans to mandate paid menstrual leave for all workplaces. Instead, the government is focusing on other initiatives to promote menstrual hygiene. In a written reply in Lok Sabha on the issue of menstrual leaves, Minister of Women and Child Development Annapurna Devi said, "At present, there is no proposal under consideration of the Government to make provision for paid menstrual leave mandatory for all workplaces." Under the Scheme for Promotion of Menstrual Hygiene, adolescent girls aged 10-19 receive subsidised sanitary napkins through Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA). The National Health Mission supports this scheme, funding state-level programmes aimed at increasing menstrual hygiene awareness. Additionally, the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation, as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, has established the National Guidelines for Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) to educate rural areas on menstrual health. To further support women's health, the Pradhan Mantri Bharatiya Janausadhi Pariyojna (PMBJP) provides affordable medicines and oxo-biodegradable sanitary napkins named Suvidha at just Rs1 per pad. Over 10,000 Janaushidhi Kendras across the country distribute these products. Furthermore, the Ministry of Women and Child Development has received a recent Supreme Court order related to menstrual leave, reflecting ongoing legal and policy discussions on the subject. Menstrual leave has become a topic of growing discussion and advocacy in India. Traditionally, menstruation has been shrouded in stigma and silence, with many women experiencing discomfort and health issues during their periods. Recently, there's been a push towards recognising menstrual leave as a legitimate and necessary aspect of women's health. Last year, in November, the Vice Chancellor of Gauhati University allowed a relaxation of 2 percent for female students as 'menstrual leave' in minimum class attendance for all departments of Gauhati University as well as for the affiliated colleges, an official notification from the university said. With the leave provisions that are eligible for women students, a minimum class attendance of 73 percent will be needed to sit in the semester examinations. In a similar move, The Social Lions, a leading digital marketing agency in Mumbai, introduced a menstrual leave policy for its female employees starting in 2023. This move reflects the company's commitment to creating a supportive and inclusive work environment where all employees feel valued and respected. Under this new policy, female employees at this digital marketing agency in Mumbai will be allowed to take up to 2 days of menstrual leave per cycle. This policy is in addition to their regular sick leave and vacation days and will enable female employees to take the time they need to rest, recover, and prioritise their health and well-being. (ANI)
Janata Dal (United) spokesperson KC Tyagi has praised the Government of India's decision to observe 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas' but has called for further action to honour those affected by the Emergency declared on June 25, 1975. Tyagi revealed that over 100,000 individuals were detained during the period, with only a few survivors remaining. JDU spokesperson KC Tyagi while speaking to ANI said, "We welcome the decision of the Government of India to celebrate 'Samvidhaan Hatya Diwas'. More than 1 lakh people were arrested on 25 June, 1975. Now only a few of them are left. We want that they should be respected. They should get Rs 50,000 per month. There should be a provision for free treatment for their family members". Tyagi announced that a party delegation plans to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is seeking an appointment with Home Minister Amit Shah to press for these demands. Earlier this month, the Union Government made an announcement 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."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," he wrote. (ANI)
Earlier on July 8, the Mumbai Crime Branch filed a 1,735-page chargesheet under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against nine accused in the firing case at Bollywood actor Salman Khan's residence.

The chargesheet was filed in the Special MCOCA Court, Mumbai.

The chargesheet is filed against six arrested accused and three wanted accused, including gang leader Lawrence Bishnoi.

The chargesheet includes various investigation documents incorporated into three volumes, containing a total of 1,735 pages.

The evidence includes statements from 46 witnesses, statements of witnesses under Section 164 CrPC before the Magistrate, confessional statements under the MCOCA, a total of 22 panchanamas, and technical evidence, which are part of the chargesheet documents.

The firing incident took place on April 14 outside Salman Khan's residence at Galaxy Apartments in the Bandra area of Mumbai. The subsequent arrests revealed connections to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, leading the Mumbai Police to invoke the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against all involved in the shooting.

So far, the Mumbai Crime Branch has arrested six individuals in this case. (ANI)
Congress, via its social media handle X, stated that after Rahul Gandhi's engagement with the loco pilots, the Modi government began addressing their issues.

During his visit to Sultanpur, Rahul Gandhi also interacted with a local cobbler.

In a post on X, Congress wrote: "Today, Leader of Opposition Mr. @RahulGandhi met the loco pilots in Sultanpur. Recently, Rahul Gandhi had listened to their concerns and highlighted their challenging working conditions. Following this, the Modi government began paying attention to their problems. Loco pilots are the backbone of the railways. Providing them with necessary facilities and humane working conditions is crucial for railway safety. We will ensure justice for them."

On July 7, Rahul Gandhi criticised the Bharatiya Janta Party-led (BJP) central government after meeting railway loco pilots at New Delhi Railway Station who complained about long working hours and inadequate facilities.

Criticising PM Modi, Gandhi stated that the lives of loco pilots had "derailed" under the BJP's regime, dubbing them "Railways Ka Agniveer."

In a post on X, along with a video of his interaction with railway workers, Gandhi noted that loco pilots work over 14 hours a day without basic necessities like urinals in locomotives.

He highlighted that loco pilots endure harsh working conditions and claimed that "non-movement" railway workers are receiving the bulk of the allocated budget benefits.

The video featured loco pilots alleging human rights violations, demanding an 8-9 hour work shift, basic facilities like urinals and AC in locomotives, and a limit of two consecutive night shifts.

On July 6, after meeting street vendors and daily wage labourers in GTB Nagar, Delhi, Rahul Gandhi criticised the BJP's central government, stating that daily wage labourers face severe hardships.

He asserted that these labourers live in poverty, sustaining their households for four days with one day's earnings.

In his post on X, accompanied by a video, Gandhi stated that the families of workers building India's future are in danger and reiterated the struggle of labourers living on minimal earnings.

The video showed Rahul Gandhi interacting with the public, discussing their issues, and engaging with labourers at a construction site in Gopalpur. (ANI)
On the historic occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw praised the Modi government, stating that India has become 'aatmanirbhar' (self-reliant) in the defence sector under its leadership. Addressing the media, Ashwini Vaishnaw said, "Today is a historic Kargil Vijay Diwas. Under PM Modi's leadership over the last 10 years, India has become aatmanirbhar in the defence sector due to significant reforms. There are three major points to highlight. Firstly, around 70 percent of our defence products are now manufactured in India. The production value of defence equipment in India has surpassed Rs 1 lakh crore. The valuation of Public Sector Units (PSUs) in the defence sector has reached new heights. The proudest moment is that 'Made in India' defence products are being exported to 80 countries, worth Rs 25,000 crore. Ten years ago, India had to import bulletproof jackets, but now we have taken the lead in the design sector as well. We have more than 300 startups in this sector. We have our own designed and manufactured artillery guns, which are also being exported." Vaishnaw further added, "The second issue is infrastructure. Ten years ago, there was no road construction in the border areas, but under PM Modi's leadership, more than 6,800 kilometres of roads have been constructed in these regions. PM Modi has worked on roads, railways, telecom, connectivity, and optical fibres for our soldiers." The Union Minister highlighted the third major point, which is structural reforms in the sector. He said, "The introduction of the post of CDS (Chief of Defence Staff) has brought needed integration in the defence sector, allowing all three wings to work more effectively. During the Congress government, there were only scams. They prioritised the party and named the islands after their leaders and family members. In contrast, we (BJP) name them in honour of our soldiers. All facilities in the border areas have been improved under PM Modi's leadership." Earlier in the day, PM Modi paid tribute to the bravehearts who made the supreme sacrifice during the 1999 Kargil War. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, Ladakh, marking the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas. Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999, during which Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
"Under the Agniveer scheme, the government has successfully inducted young blood into the armed forces," Fadnavis told reporters.

"If the average age of our Army is higher than that of other armies around the world, we may face problems during war. Keeping this in mind, the Agnipath scheme was initiated," he added.

The Deputy Chief Minister emphasised that Agniveers should be respected and should not face any issues in the future.

"Agniveers should be respected and provided with all kinds of facilities, ensuring they do not encounter any problems in the future. All these provisions are included in the scheme, but the opposition deliberately spreads confusion," he reiterated.

He also referenced Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech on Kargil Vijay Diwas, criticising the opposition for questioning the Agnipath Scheme.

"Prime Minister Modi commented on the opposition's actions, which are, in a way, jeopardising national security," Fadnavis said.

On Kargil Vijay Diwas, PM Modi paid tribute to the bravehearts who made the ultimate sacrifice during the 1999 Kargil War. The Prime Minister laid a wreath at the Kargil War Memorial in Drass, Ladakh, on the occasion of the 25th Kargil Vijay Diwas.

Kargil Vijay Diwas, observed annually on July 26, commemorates the success of Operation Vijay in 1999, during which Indian forces successfully reclaimed strategic positions in the Kargil sector of Jammu and Kashmir that had been infiltrated by Pakistani soldiers and terrorists. (ANI)
Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Friday announced that the state government would provide up to 10 per cent reservation in its uniform services for those Agniveers from the state who are not absorbed in the defence forces, according to a press release from the office of the Odisha CM. Majhi termed the launch of the Agniveer scheme "historic." Speaking to media at Lokseva Bhawan before leaving for Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog Governing Council meeting, the Chief Minister said that our soldiers are our pride. The Agniveers, who are trained by our defence forces, are qualified to serve the nation in various security-related sectors, according to a press release from the office of the Odisha CM. He further said, "The Agniveer Scheme is a historic initiative launched by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This initiative has made our youth able and fearless, so that they can face various challenges in life." That is why, the Chief Minister said, the Odisha government has decided to recruit Agniveers in the state's uniformed services. He announced that the state government will provide up to a ten per cent reservation in its uniform services for those Agniveers from the state who are not absorbed in the defence forces. There will also be five years of age relaxation for them, the CM announced. Notably, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also made an announcement that Agniveers, after serving the country, will be given weightage in recruitment for the UP Police and Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) forces. He mentioned that the nation would benefit from having trained and disciplined young soldiers in the form of Agniveers. The Chief Minister made these remarks to the media at his official residence on Friday evening, before attending the NITI Aayog meeting in New Delhi. Criticising the opposition's stance on the Agniveer issue, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath stated, "The role of the opponents is to create obstacles and spread rumours in every effort towards progress and reform." He highlighted that, under the leadership of PM Modi, India has become the fifth-largest economy in the world. "In the last 10 years, significant reforms have taken place in India," CM Yogi said, adding that the country is moving towards self-reliance in the modernization of the Indian Army and its equipment. (ANI)
He further said that MyGov has emerged as a vibrant forum for participative and good governance.

Taking to X, PM Modi wrote, "Today, we mark #10YearsOfMyGov. I compliment all those who have enriched this platform and shared their valuable insights as well as inputs. Over the last decade, MyGov has emerged as a vibrant forum for participative and good governance."

https://x.com/narendramodi/status/1816804388654186876?t=ydiEjFhs-pdgqBGnrv3HiQ&s=08

MyGov portal was launched on July 26, 2014.

MyGov is a citizen-centric platform that empowers people to connect with the Government and contribute towards good governance.

MyGov has been established as the Government of India's Citizen Engagement Platform which collaborates with multiple Government bodies/ Ministries to engage with citizens for policy formulation and seeks the opinion of people on issues/ topics of public interest and welfare.

Since its launch on 26th July 2014, MyGov has more than 30.0 million registered users.

MyGov has also launched State instances in 23 States, namely Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Uttarakhand, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, karnataka, Gujarat, Dadra and Nagar Haveli & Daman and Diu, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Ladakh and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. (ANI)
Union Minister Amit Shah on Friday said that it is a proud moment for India that Assam's Moidams, the mound burial system of the Ahom dynasty, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Furthermore, he asserted that this inscription will bring global prominence to the history of Assam. In a social media post on X, Amit Shah wrote, "It is a proud moment for India as the Moidams--the mound-burial system of the Ahom Dynasty--are included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The royal burial mounds at Charaideo in Assam bear the memories of the kings and queens of the Ahom Dynasty. The dynasty is known for vanquishing the vast Mughal army several times. This inscription will bring global prominence to the history of Assam." https://x.com/AmitShah/status/1816789553837146263 The mound burial system of the Ahom dynasty, also known as the Moidams, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List under the category of Cultural Property. The decision was taken during the ongoing 46th session of the World Heritage Committee (WHC), held in the national capital, Delhi. Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, who hails from Assam, said that it is a "big recognition for us." "I thank PM Modi on behalf of the people of North East. This again proves that PM Modi continues to serve Assam and North-East and as a result, we got a chance to gain recognition across the world. I also thank the Ahom community and Assam government," Sonowal said. The World Heritage Committee is one of the two bodies governing the Convention for the Protection of the World's Cultural and Natural Heritage. It is composed of the representatives of 21 states, elected from the 195 states parties to the Convention. In the ongoing session, from July 23 to July 25, the Committee will examine the state of conservation of the 124 sites already inscribed on the World Heritage List, 57 of which are also on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Similarly, from July 26 to July 29, the Committee will examine the dossiers of 27 sites proposed for inscription on the World Heritage List. The sites will be examined according to three categories. The three categories are natural, mixed, and cultural. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said it was a "great win for Assam.""The Moidams make it to the UNESCO World Heritage List under the category Cultural Property. A great win for Assam Thank you, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji, members of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee and the people of Assam." "The Moidams of Charaideo embody the deep spiritual belief, rich civilizational heritage and architectural prowess of Assam's Tai-Ahom community. Apart from the fact this announcement has been made from the soil of Bharat, its entry also stands out for 2 more reasons," he added in a post on X. "It is the first time a site from the North East has made it to the UNESCO World Heritage List under the Cultural Category. After Kaziranga and Manas National Parks, it is Assam's 3rd World Heritage Site. I urge all of you to come and experience Awesome Assam," he further said. The Moidams are the burial mounds of the Ahom kings, queens, and nobles. The word Moidam is derived from the Tai word Phrang-Mai-Dam or Mai-Tam. Phrang-Mai means to put into the grave or to bury and Dam means the spirit of the dead. Though Moidams are found in all the districts of upper Assam, Charaideo, the first capital of the Ahoms was the necropolis of almost all the Ahom Royals. Charaideo is situated 28 kilometres east of Sivasagar. The first king of the Ahoms, Chau-lung Siu-ka-pha, was buried at Charaideo after his death, observing all the Tai-Ahom religious rites and rituals. (ANI)
Launching scathing attacks on Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge over Kargil Vijay Diwas, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini said that on such an auspicious day, the Congress is busy spreading lies and misleading the youth. CM Saini also mentioned that insulting our soldiers is in the DNA of Congress. "Even on a day like this (Kargil Vijay Diwas), Congress chief Mallikarjun Kharge is busy playing politics; this is very unfortunate. Even today, they (Congress) are busy spreading lies and misleading our youth. We all saw thousands of posts on social media regarding Kargil Vijay Diwas but from the Congress' side, they didn't go to any memorials and did not pay tribute. This is very unfortunate. Insulting our soldiers is in the DNA of Congress," he said. Earlier, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge lashed out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday, saying that he is the one spreading lies and doing petty politics even on the occasion of the Kargil Vijay Diwas. This came after PM Modi's address at the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas in Ladakh's Kargil, where he criticised the opposition parties for opposing the 'Agnipath' scheme and for "politicising a sensitive issue related to national security." Taking to X, Kharge said, "It is very unfortunate and deplorable that Prime Minister Narendra Modi-ji is doing petty politics even on occasions like paying tribute to martyrs on Kargil Vijay Diwas. No Prime Minister has ever done this before. Modi ji is saying that his government implemented the Agnipath scheme at the behest of the Army; this is a blatant lie and an unforgivable insult to our valiant Armed Forces." Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi offered tribute on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Kargil Vijay Diwas on Friday. In a post on X, Priyanka Gandhi said that Kargil Vijay Diwas is that golden page of Indian military history that reminds us of the valour and sacrifice of our brave soldiers. "In the Kargil war, the brave soldiers of our army, facing difficult conditions, risked their lives, drove away the enemy and made the country proud by hoisting the tricolour on the high peaks of the Himalayas," she said. "Salute to all the brave soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice to protect the country! The country will always be indebted to our brave martyrs. Jai Hind!," she added. Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, in a post on X, said that the country will be indebted to the supreme sacrifice of the soldiers. "On Kargil Vijay Diwas, I pay my heartfelt tribute to the immortal martyrs who sacrificed their all to protect India. The country will always be indebted to them for their supreme sacrifice," Rahul Gandhi said. (ANI)
Alex Tannous, who presented himself to potential investors as Prince Alex Tannous, pleaded guilty in San Antonio federal court on Thursday to defrauding 30 Texas investors to the tune of $2.35 million. Courtesy

A man who claimed to be a Middle Eastern prince and touted sterling business connections to scam Texas investors pleaded guilty Thursday to wire fraud and agreed to pay $2.35 million in restitution.

Dressed in a blue jail jumpsuit with a white long-sleeve shirt underneath, Alex Tannous, 39, admitted he swindled an Austin man who wanted to run ghost kitchens in the Middle East, to the tune of at least $40,000.

A federal grand jury indicted Tannous on Feb. 21 on six counts of wire fraud.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

As part of the plea agreement, Tannous acknowledged Thursday that he pulled a similar fraud on other investors, resulting in a total loss of $2.35 million.

Hes going to pay restitution to everybody, but is only pleading to the charge related to one victim, said his lawyer, Daniel Mehler.

Tannous lured investors into putting their money into business ventures that would operate in the Middle East. But thats not where the money went. Tannous used it to pay personal expenses or sent it to relatives overseas, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons.

Simmons told U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia that he had a total of 30 victims, and that the one who lost the most  $800,000  is now deceased.

For many years, the defendant, Alex Georges Tannous, a citizen of Lebanon, claimed to be a businessman and diplomat from the United Arab Emirates with close ties to Emirati royalty, the indictment said. In reality, Tannous was none of those things. Rather, he used his gifts of persuasion to bilk unknowing victims.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Behind the wheel of expensive vehicles, he crisscrossed affluent San Antonio neighborhoods  including the Dominion, Stone Oak and Sonterra, and the suburban city of Shavano Park  and Austin in search of investors.

Tannous was a San Antonio resident when he executed his scheme and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in August 2022.

He told potential investors, mostly small- to midsize business owners, that he could help them do business in the United Arab Emirates by tapping financing sources in the Persian Gulf country, according to the indictment and San Antonio Express-News interviews with alleged victims.

According to the indictment, Tannous directed his victims to pay thousands of dollars to entities that he controlled to secure Emirati financing. He said he would use the funds to pay government fees required to do business in the UAE.

In reality, Tannous had no such ties, and instead, he used the money given to him by his victims to fund his personal lifestyle and enrich his family members, the indictment said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The indictment focused on three alleged victims of Tannous, but the charge to which he has agreed to plead guilty relates to only one of them  an Austin resident whom Tannous met through a mutual friend in spring 2021.

Tannous allegedly told the man that he was an Emirati emissary charged with finding U.S.-based businesses that could operate in Dubai.

The Austin businessman  referred to in court filings as Victim One  developed software for so-called ghost kitchens, which take orders online and prepare food for pickup and delivery only. Tannous persuaded the man to join him in a venture to set up ghost kitchens in the Middle East, promising to secure millions of dollars from an Emirati economic development fund.

The man wired thousands of dollars in four payments to Tannous-controlled Equico Enterprises in summer 2021.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

He told him the hed take actions back in Dubai, where he would get Victim Ones business started in Dubai, Simmons told the judge. He said that this would require a $100,000 payment. He did take that money or portion of that money  I think it was a total of $80,000, if I remember correctly  and spent that money on personal items and sent a large chunk of that money to other family members located throughout the world.
Vice President and Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, Jagdeep Dhankhar, emphasised that the government must examine the authentic report of the Shah Commission and place it in the house as it relates to the "darkest period of Indian democracy." VP Dhankhar replied after BJP member Deepak Prakash, during the zero hour, demanded that the Shah Commission report be made public. The Rajya Sabha Chairman told the government that the member had raised an issue of grave public importance. "The report relates to the darkest period of Indian democracy; the government must examine the authentic report and place it on the table of the House," Dhankhar said. The Shah Commission was appointed by the Government of India to inquire into excesses of the Emergency (1975-77), imposed by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Afterwards, AAP MP Raghav Chadha alleged state-sponsored spyware attacks, and MoS (Electronics and IT) Jitin Prasada told the Upper House that there is no such thing as state-sponsored hacking or tracking. He said that the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) is in touch with Apple and getting information from the company about the alerts. He said agencies will act on the information provided Amid opposition protests in the Lok Sabha, Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that the UPA government refused to implement the Swaminathan report as they only wanted to indulge in politics. The Lok Sabha was adjourned till 12.30 pm after an uproar in the House as TMC members sought to raise the remarks of Bengal BJP chief Sukanta Majumdar for making north Bengal part of the northeast and BJP members sought to raise alleged corruption in Karnataka. Speaker Om Birla did not allow the issues to be raised in the lower house. Targeting the INDIA Bloc, Janata Dal (United) MP and Union Minister Rajiv Lalla Singh said that the NDA alliance is strong and is glued by Fevicol. "NDA alliance is strong and is glued by fevicol," he said. "Aap gidth ki tareh nochte hain," Lallan Singh said, adding that the Opposition should accept the reality of the NDA majority so that they have peace of mind. Union Health Minister JP Nadda said in the Lok Sabha, while responding to queries, that India has become the dispensary of the world. The speaker supporting Nadda's remarks said that whichever country he has visited, there is demand for Indian medicines. "India can be number one in exports in terms of medicine," Speaker Birla said. (ANI)
As West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is set to attend the NITI Aayog meet amid the INDIA bloc's boycott, BJP MP Jagannath Sarkar said that there is no problem if she attends the meeting, but under her rule, North Bengal is deprived. "Everyone should attend the NITI Aayog meeting. There is no problem if she is attending the meeting. Under Mamata Banerjee rule, North Bengal is deprived. Mamata Banerjee does not want the centre to do any development in the state," MP Sarkar said. Meanwhile, Mamata Banerjee met with Sunita Kejriwal, the wife of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, on Friday after arriving in New Delhi to attend the NITI Aayog meeting scheduled for July 27. Earlier, before leaving for Delhi on Friday, Mamata Banerjee said she would be protesting against the political discrimination meted out to Bengal at the NITI Aayog meeting in Delhi on Saturday, July 27. "I will protest against the political discrimination being done to Bengal in the NITI Aayog meeting. The budget has discriminated against Bengal and other opposition states, and we can't agree to that," she added. She further stated that Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) ministers and leaders aim to divide Bengal while imposing economic and geographical blockades on the state. "The attitude of BJP ministers and leaders is such that they want to divide Bengal. Along with the economic blockade, they also want to impose a geographical blockade. The minister said this while Parliament was in session. Different leaders are making statements to divide Jharkhand, Bihar, Assam, and Bengal. We strongly condemn this attitude," she said. This move by the West Bengal CM came as a surprise after most Chief Ministers of opposition-led states had said they would boycott the NITI Aayog meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Saturday. The Prime Minister is the Chairperson of the NITI Aayog. Other attendees will include Chief Ministers and Lieutenant Governors of States and Union Territories, Union Ministers as Ex-officio Members and Special Invitees, and the Vice Chairman and Members of NITI Aayog. (ANI)
US President Joe Biden hosted Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Thursday (local time) amid the ongoing ceasefire talks and escalating Israel-Hamas war. Both leaders also met with the families of American hostages, including the Siegel family, the Alexander family, the Dekel-Chen family, the Naftali family, the Neutra family, the Goldberg-Polin family and the Chen family. "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden met at the White House with the families of the American hostages: The Siegel family, the Alexander family, the Dekel-Chen family, the Naftali family, the Neutra family, the Goldberg-Polin family and the Chen family," the Prime Minister of Israel stated on X. Before he met with Biden, Netanyahu said that he was looking forward to working with Biden in the forthcoming months. "I look forward to discussing with you today and working with you in the months ahead on the great issues before us," the Israeli PM's office stated. Earlier, before meeting the US President, the Israeli PM signed the guestbook in the Roosevelt Room. "Today, President Biden sits down with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel to talk about all things in the Middle East, particularly, of course, the conflict in Gaza," White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said in a statement prior to their talks. Kirby affirmed that it is "absolutely urgent" to get the hostages back home to their families. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is currently on a visit to the United States. This visit has come at a contentious time, when Israel is engaged in a massive conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, where over 39,000 Palestinians have been killed. This has drawn severe criticism of the US administration from some leaders and sections of society. As Netanyahu addressed the joint session of US Congress on Wednesday, over 5,000 protesters massed on the streets near Capitol Hill, waving Palestinian flags and chanting for the United States to stop arming Israel. PM Netanyahu also met Elon Musk on Wednesday after his address to the US Congress. The two discussed opportunities and challenges in AI, as well as its influence on the economy and society, and opportunities for technological cooperation with Israel. (ANI)
DIG South Asad Raza confirmed that a total of five individuals lost their lives while two others got injured after an exchange of fire between two groups in Karachi's Defence Nishat Commercial area.

The deceased individuals were identified as Fahad Bugti, Naseebullah, Mir Mehsum Bugti, Mir Essa Bugti and Ali; meanwhile, the injured two are Mir Ali Haider Bugti, and Qaim Ali, according to the details, reported ARY News.

Moreover, eyewitnesses to the incident reported that several people were injured during the violent altercation, while vehicles belonging to both groups involved in the incident were also seen at the scene.

"The incident is currently under investigation," DIG South Asad Raza said, according to ARY News.

Furthermore, authorities are investigating to find out the reasons leading to the incident.

Meanwhile, the Baloch Solidarity Committee, in collaboration with the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, has diligently organised teams to facilitate corner meetings and mobilise support for the upcoming Baloch National Gathering on July 28 in Gwadar.

The Karachi zone of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee has been actively engaged in outreach across neighbourhoods in the port city, including Malir, Lyari, and Hawkesbay.

They distributed pamphlets, affixed stickers, and solicited donations in readiness for the forthcoming Baloch National Gathering planned for July 28 in Gwadar. The committee shared pictures of the campaign.

Recently, Mahrang Baloch, speaking on behalf of the BYC, passionately articulated plans for the gathering, emphasising their strong opposition to the ongoing Baloch genocide by Pakistan. (ANI)
Abu Dhabi [UAE], July 26 (ANI/WAM): Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan Al Nahyan, Minister of State, participated in the Mediators Planning Retreat on Sudan, held in Djibouti, with the participation of 32 countries as well as regional and international organisations. During the meeting, participants discussed international initiatives and efforts aimed at establishing peace in Sudan and developing a collective vision. Sheikh Shakhboot bin Nahyan delivered a speech during the opening ceremony highlighting the importance of immediately halting violence, and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid. He emphasised the importance of intensifying regional and international efforts to reach efficient solutions that would enable Sudan to overcome the ongoing challenges. In his speech, the UAE Minister of State stressed that the meeting reflects the current critical situation for the Sudanese people, including a growing humanitarian crisis and the imminent threat of famine endangering civilian lives. He reiterated the need for the international community to intensify its diplomatic and humanitarian efforts in order to facilitate a resolution to the conflict and its humanitarian repercussions, and to provide an urgent and coordinated response to meet the needs of the Sudanese people. Furthermore, Sheikh Shakhboot underlined the tangible steps implemented by the UAE to alleviate the severity of the humanitarian circumstances in Sudan and its neighbouring countries, emphasising the keenness of the UAE's leadership to provide humanitarian assistance and relief aid. Since the beginning of the conflict in Sudan in April 2023, the total amount of aid from the UAE has reached USD 245 million, in addition to the establishment of two field hospitals in the Republic of Chad to support displaced Sudanese in Chad, as well as the Republic of Chad, to alleviate the humanitarian repercussions as a result of the significant influx of refugees. Sheikh Shakhboot affirmed the UAE's support for all efforts and initiatives aimed at de-escalating tensions, ending the crisis, and endeavours that support a consensual path between the Sudanese parties, and achieving concrete steps in the political process. He also highlighted that the UAE's unwavering position in the conflict calls for an immediate ceasefire and an urgent halt to violence as a main demand, stressing that there is no military solution, and highlighting the importance of the warring parties working towards finding a peaceful solution to the conflict through dialogue. (ANI/WAM)
Jaishankar said that he would keep working to advance India-Liberia partnership.

In a post on X, Jaishankar said, "Congratulate FM Sara Beysolow Nyanti and the Government and the people of Liberia on their Independence day. Will keep working to advance our partnership."

https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1816663476959605055

He added that there have been high-level interactions in online mode as well as in-person between the two countries. There have been initiatives on development and economic cooperation between the two countries.

Giving an example, Jaishankar said that a 50km Barclayville-Sasstown-Klowne Road in Liberia at the cost of USD 50 million is under implementation.

He added that bilateral trade between the two countries stood at USD 255.75 million in 2023-24.

On capacity building between the two countries, Jaishankar gave various examples of educational and training opportunities given to Liberians.

He said that India offers 70 slots to Liberia under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation scheme.

Indian Council for Cultural Relations offers four slots to Liberia for undergraduate/ post graduate/ Philosopher's Degree courses and one slot for Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery course in India. Under the Defence Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation, six slots in Army and Navy are provided to Liberia, Jaishankar added.

A Liberian Protocol Officer attended the 69th Professional Course for Foreign Diplomats at Sushma Swaraj Institute of Foreign Service in Delhi in October, the External Affairs Minister said.

Talking about diaspora and Cultural connection between both countries, Jaishankar said that about 3,000 Indian nationals and People of Indian Origins reside in Liberia and celebrate Indian festivals like Onam and Holi with enthusiasm. Liberia also celebrated the 10th International Yoga Day this year. (ANI)
US Vice President and Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris on Friday said that she had a "frank and constructive meeting" with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Harris said that the discussion touched upon US's commitment to Israeli security during which she urged Netanyahu for a ceasefire deal in his country's ongoing war against Hamas. In a post on X, Harris said, "Today, I had a frank and constructive meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu about a wide range of issues, including my commitment to Israel's security, the importance of addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and the urgent need to get the ceasefire and hostage deal done." https://x.com/VP/status/1816639588066054648 Vice President Harris offered Netanyahu strong support for Israel's right to defend itself after their meeting, but also declared that she "will not be silent" about Palestinian suffering and pressed the parties to finally agree to the long-delayed Gaza cease-fire deal, the New York Times reported. The meeting between Harris and Netanyahu followed an address to a joint session in US Congress by the Israeli PM where he defended his country's operation in Gaza. Earlier on July 17, US Secretary of Defence, Lloyd J Austin, said he discussed the latest round of hostage negotiations with Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant.Austin said he underscored the US's commitment to Israel's security and right to self-defence, remains ironclad. In a post on X, Lloyd said, "I spoke to Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant today about ongoing attacks against Israel by Lebanese Hizballah, enhanced U.S.-Israel military cooperation, and the status of the JLOTS temporary pier. We discussed the latest round of hostage negotiations and reaffirmed our commitment to secure the release of all the hostages held captive by Hamas, including American citizens. I underscored that our commitment to Israel's security and right to self-defence remains ironclad." https://x.com/SecDef/status/1813384201129119960 On June 11, this year the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution vote on the US proposal for a permanent ceasefire and release of the hostages in Gaza. The US-drafted text calls for Hamas to accept a ceasefire proposal announced on May 31 by President Joe Biden that has already been accepted by Israel. The resolution was notably adopted with 14 votes in favour, zero against, and one abstention by Russia, as the country chose not to exercise its veto power. (ANI)
Doval met the Myanmar National Security Advisor Admiral Moe Aung on Thursday and BIMSTEC Security Chiefs called on Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

In a post on X, the Indian Embassy in Myanmar said, "NSA Shri Ajit Doval is leading the Indian delegation at the 4th Annual Meeting of #BIMSTEC Security Chiefs being held in Naypyitaw today. He met with the Myanmar NSA Admiral Moe Aung yesterday, and BIMSTEC Security Chiefs called on Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing."

https://x.com/IndiainMyanmar/status/1816665380653256777

On Thursday, India took the helm as the lead country for security sector collaboration within the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in a significant stride towards enhancing regional security cooperation.

This development was highlighted during the Senior Officials' Meeting held in Naypyitaw to prepare for the upcoming 4th Meeting of BIMSTEC National Security Chiefs.

The meeting in Myanmar's capital city convened to strategize and coordinate initiatives crucial for addressing common security challenges faced by member states.

https://x.com/MEAIndia/status/1816353841270644741

"Indian delegation participated in Senior Officials' Meeting to prepare for the 4th Meeting of BIMSTEC National Security Chiefs in Nay Pyi Taw. India is the Lead Country for security sector cooperation in BIMSTEC," said Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, on Thursday.

Earlier this month, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar hosted the foreign ministers from member countries of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for BIMSTEC grouping gathered in the national capital to bolster cooperation among Bay of Bengal countries.

BIMSTEC is a regional organisation that connects countries around the Bay of Bengal to promote economic growth, trade, and cooperation in areas like transportation, energy, and counter-terrorism. (ANI)
Speaking at the ASEAN meeting at Vientiane, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that political, economic and security cooperation with ASEAN is of the utmost priority. Jaishankar said that for India, ASEAN is the cornerstone of its Act East policy, the Indo-Pacific vision that was built on it and the people-to-people linkages that India is constantly seeking to expand. "The priority that India attaches to ASEAN and AS platforms is evident from Prime Minister Modi visiting Jakarta last year on the very eve of our own G20 summit. He had announced a 12-point plan that has been largely acted upon," he said. Jaishankar said that it is encouraging to see that ASEAN's partnership acquires more dimensions every year. "Though ASEAN's achievements are substantial, our ambitions must remain high," he said. Jaishankar thanked Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore Vivian Balakrishnan, for his wishes on the former's reappointment and said he looked forward to working with him in the future. He also appreciated Balakrishnan's role as country coordinator. As the Philippines will take over as the next country coordinator, Jaishankar said that he looked forward to working closely with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, Enrique Manalo. He congratulated Lao PDR for the chairmanship of ASEAN. "I extend our fullest support for the successful chairmanship [to Lao PDR]. I also thank our colleague and Lao PDR for the warm welcome and hospitality." He welcomed Timor-Leste as an observer in the meeting. "Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that we will open an embassy in Delhi. We are proceeding to do so very shortly and in fact, we will be undertaking high-level visits there as well." "I extend my deepest appreciation to all of you for strengthening ASEAN India relations through substantive and tangible cooperation identified under the ASEAN India Plan of Action," Jaishankar said, adding that he looked forward to further discussions. The ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference with India was convened in Vientiane on Friday and attended by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers, Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar and the Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Political-Security Community Dato' Astanah Abdul Aziz. Timor-Leste attended as an Observer. The Meeting reaffirmed both sides' commitment to further enhance the ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) in the coming years by continuing the robust implementation of the ASEAN-India Plan of Action and its Annex and develop its successor document which will guide both sides in realising the full potential of the CSP in the next five years. The Ministers also exchanged views on several regional and international issues of common interest and concern. (ANI)
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Dato Haji Erywan on the sidelines of the ASEAN meetings in Vientiane, Laos and launched a logo celebrating 40 years of diplomatic relations of both the countries. Jaishankar said that he was confident that the warm and friendly ties between the two countries would prosper further. In a post on X, he said, "Very happy to meet Brunei FM Dato Haji Erywan today in Vientiane. Launched the logo celebrating 40 years of our diplomatic relations. Confident that our warm and friendly ties will prosper further." https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1816723631940207100 Earlier, speaking at the ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting at Vientiane, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday said that political, economic and security cooperation with ASEAN is of the utmost priority. Jaishankar said that for India, ASEAN is the cornerstone of its Act East policy, the Indo-Pacific vision that was built on it and the people-to-people linkages that India is constantly seeking to expand. "The priority that India attaches to ASEAN and AS platforms is evident from Prime Minister Modi visiting Jakarta last year on the very eve of our own G20 summit. He had announced a 12-point plan that has been largely acted upon," he said. The ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference with India was convened in Vientiane on Friday and attended by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar and the Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Political-Security Community Dato' Astanah Abdul Aziz. Timor-Leste attended as an Observer. The Meeting reaffirmed both sides' commitment to further enhance the ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) in the coming years by continuing the robust implementation of the ASEAN-India Plan of Action and its Annex and develop its successor document which will guide both sides in realising the full potential of the CSP in the next five years. The Ministers also exchanged views on several regional and international issues of common interest and concern. (ANI)
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath speaks to reporters at the Somerset ISD Performing Arts Center in 2022. Jerry Lara/Staff photographer

The Texas Education Agency plans to release A-F accountability ratings for the 2023-24 school year on Aug. 15, the first official look at grades under the states highly contested, raised performance standards.

Lackluster performance on revamped state testing has school districts across Texas anticipating worse grades under the new system. The agency made no announcement of the pending rollout, but a TEA spokesperson confirmed it this week.

Similar expectations that school systems would do poorly under tightening standards prompted a lawsuit a year ago that halted the release of the 2022-23 rankings.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Nick Maddox, the lawyer who pushed that case on behalf of more than 100 school districts, said another such suit probably will be filed within weeks in a bid to prevent the latest TEA grades from being released, based largely on objections to the latest standardized tests administered in the spring.

School officials agreed that the TEA ratings will show a broad drop in grades and expressed a familiar mix of indifference, annoyance or pushback against the renewed state effort to toughen how they are calculated.

I would be really surprised if you saw any district increase (its state ranking this year), given not only the changes in testing but the changes in the accountability metrics of how they are determining campus and district ratings, said Janis Jordan, the Northside Independent School Districts deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

The Texas accountability system has always been a moving target, making year-to-year comparisons difficult, Jordan said, so Northside ISD regularly monitors student progress instead of waiting for standardized test scores to spot deficiencies.

The TEA typically assigns scores to each public school district and campus every year based on standardized test performance, student growth and progress on closing racial and socioeconomic achievement gaps, although it has not done so for all schools since 2019.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

READ MORE: Southwest ISD joins growing revolt of school districts against TEA report card

The state updated the formula to calculate last years ratings, which included raising the bar that schools need to reach to qualify for higher letter grades. However, a judge blocked the TEA from officially assigning ratings in 2023 after the lawsuit argued that the agency did not provide enough advance notice about the changes.

Texas school districts and individual campuses also did not receive ratings in 2020 or 2021 due to a declared state of disaster caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, Senate Bill 1365 required the TEA to issue a Not Rated label to institutions that would have otherwise received a D or F, meaning some schools did not officially receive a rating during that year either.

The TEA assigns 70% of its rating based on students achievement or student progress, and the remaining 30% based on the progress closing gaps among students. Scores are expected to decrease amid declines in average State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness scores in math and science this year.

Northside ISD, the largest school system in the San Antonio area with more than 100,000 students, received a B on the 2021-22 accountability system but administrators predict a lower grade this year, Jordan said.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

A single letter grade does not accurately capture the success or challenges of a campus, and the district plans to communicate that directly to parents, she said.

If, after a particular lesson or unit, we have a group of students who did not achieve what they needed to, we have mechanisms we put in place right then to help accelerate students so they can get back on target  and none of thats related to the accountability system, Jordan said. So yes, we look at it because we have to, but that is not what drives our daily work.

Northside ISD didnt join last years lawsuit but agreed with its premise, she said. The states decision in 2023 to raise the bar on the college, career and military readiness (CCMR) indicator, from a score of 60% to 88%, and then apply it retroactively to students who had already graduated, for example, was completely inappropriate, Jordan said.

This year, administrators statewide are also perplexed by the number of elementary school students who received a zero on their state standardized essay test questions, which increased by about 20% from 2023. The TEA attributed the spike to a more difficult essay portion this year, but some say the increase raises questions about the agencys new use of an automated computer model to grade the writing.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

At Northside, 45% of third-graders and 50% of fifth-graders received a zero on their constructed response questions this spring on the STAAR English tests.

If the state drops in an area and the vast majority of districts are dropping in the same place, its an indication perhaps more so of the nuances of the test and the metric, not that the student is not mastering the content, Jordan said.

The automated grading system will be among the concerns listed in the new lawsuit, Maddox said.

We are challenging the validity of the STAAR test statewide, he said. It is our legal opinion that these new changes violate state statute and have not been properly vetted by psychometricians, the scientists who help to develop tests.

For example, psychometricians would likely invalidate a question requiring prior knowledge of a game called cornhole because many children of various backgrounds have not played it, Maddox added.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The initial lawsuit, which is currently pending in appeals court, produced testimony that we believe pretty conclusively demonstrates the state did not meet the validity standards for this new test, he said. In our opinion, all subsequent scores will be equally invalid.



Maddox said school districts are still being recruited for the new lawsuit, with significant interest from the original plaintiffs and others.

Southwest ISD joined the original lawsuit in October. At the time, Superintendent Jeanette Ball said the districts decision wasnt because of its own expected grades but the process Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath used and the principle of it being wrong.

The district received a B for the 2021-22 and 2018-19 school years. During this weeks board meeting, Southwest ISDs executive director of assessment and accountability, Lisa Bolte, predicted it will get a C for 2023-24.

We cannot compare 2022 to 2024 because of all the massive sweeping changes that happened, she said. It would be like comparing apples and grapes.

Still, district spokesperson Jenny Collier said in a statement that preliminary scores indicate that seven of Southwest ISD campuses will actually improve by a letter grade under the new rankings.

We are treating these results as a baseline and moving forward from here, Collier said.

She said Ball plans to meet with other superintendents next month to discuss the issues and potential outcomes of the new lawsuit before deciding whether to join.

To end a state takeover of Houston ISD, that district must keep all of its campuses from earning consecutive failing ratings from the TEA. The district calculated and released unofficial accountability ratings in January based on data from the 2022-23 school year that showed more than 120 schools would have received failing grades if the TEA had released scores last year.
As a leader of the Indian delegation at the meeting, Doval delivered India's national statement where he spoke about strengthening cooperation in counter-terrorism and combating drug trafficking and organized crime.

In a post on X, the Indian embassy in Myanmar said, "NSA delivered India's national statement at #BIMSTEC meet. He spoke on strengthening cooperation in counter-terrorism; combating drug trafficking, arms smuggling and organized crime; BIMSTEC connectivity; holding 2nd Ports Conclave; and water security of Himalayan river systems."

https://x.com/IndiainMyanmar/status/1816740003063410983

Doval met the Myanmar National Security Advisor Admiral Moe Aung on Thursday and BIMSTEC Security Chiefs called on Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

In a post on X, the Indian Embassy in Myanmar said, "NSA Shri Ajit Doval is leading the Indian delegation at the 4th Annual Meeting of #BIMSTEC Security Chiefs being held in Naypyitaw today. He met with the Myanmar NSA Admiral Moe Aung yesterday, and BIMSTEC Security Chiefs called on Prime Minister Senior General Min Aung Hlaing."

https://x.com/IndiainMyanmar/status/1816665380653256777

On Thursday, India took the helm as the lead country for security sector collaboration within the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) in a significant stride towards enhancing regional security cooperation.

This development was highlighted during the Senior Officials Meeting held in Naypyitaw to prepare for the upcoming 4th Meeting of BIMSTEC National Security Chiefs.

The meeting in Myanmar's capital city convened to strategize and coordinate initiatives crucial for addressing common security challenges faced by member states.

The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is a multilateral grouping that promotes economic cooperation and regional connectivity among seven countries in the Bay of Bengal region. India is a founding member of this initiative. (ANI)
Suhel Ajaz Khan, Ambassador of India to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been concurrently accredited as the next Ambassador of India to the Republic of Yemen, with residence in Riyadh, a government press release said. The press release added that Ajaz Khan, IFS of the 1997 batch, is expected to take up the assignment shortly. Ajaz Khan expressed gratitude for being given the additional responsibility. In a post on X, he said, "It is a matter of great honour for me to be given this additional responsibility-concurrent accreditation to Yemen. I look forward to working closely with the Internationally Recognized Government in Yemen to strengthen India-Yemen relations. @BinmubarakAhmed @yemen_mofa" https://x.com/SuhelAKhanIFS/status/1816741612321464725 Earlier on January 8, then Union Minister of State for External Affairs, V Muraleedharan met with the Indian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Suhel Ajaz Khan and other officials of the Indian Consulate in Jeddah. He also appreciated their efforts in addressing grievances and sought their commitment to work for the welfare and well-being of the Indian community. "Had an engaging session with the Ambassador of India in Saudi Arabia & Officers of @CGIJeddah reviewing consular matters. Appreciated their efforts in effectively addressing grievances. Sought their continued commitment to work for welfare and well-being of the Indian community," Muraleedharan posted on X. https://x.com/MOS_MEA/status/1744306953772237182 In a major development, then MoS Muraleedharan along with then Union Minister Smriti Irani signed the Bilateral Haj Agreement 2024 with Tawfiq bin Fawzan Al-Rabiah, Minister of Hajj and Umrah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at Jeddah. A total quota of 1,75,025 pilgrims from India has been finalised for Haj 2024, with 1,40,020 seats reserved for pilgrims to proceed through the Haj Committee of India, which will greatly benefit the common first-time pilgrims intending to undertake the Haj pilgrimage in 2024, whereas 35,005 pilgrims would be permitted to proceed through Haj Group Operators, according to the Ministry of Minority Affairs. (ANI)
Republican Senator Marco Rubio has introduced a bill in the US Senate to strengthen ties between US India and to bar Pakistan from receiving security assistance if it is found to have sponsored terrorism against India. The bill titled US-India Defence Cooperation Act requires a report to Congress on Pakistan's use of offensive force, including through terrorism and proxy groups, against India; and bar Pakistan from receiving security assistance if it is found to have sponsored terrorism against India. "The US-India partnership is vital to countering influences from Communist China. In order to strengthen this partnership, it is essential to enhance our strategic diplomatic, economic, and military relationship with New Delhi," Rubio said after he introduced the US-India Defence Cooperation Act in the Senate on Thursday. https://x.com/SenMarcoRubio/status/1816545452713730184 "Communist China continues to aggressively expand its domain in the Indo-Pacific region, all while it seeks to impede the sovereignty and autonomy of our regional partners. It's crucial for the US to continue its support in countering these malicious tactics. India, along with other nations in the region, is not alone" Senator Rubio said. The bill proposes to set a Statement of Policy that the US will support India in its response to growing threats to its territorial integrity, provide necessary security assistance to India to deter adversaries and cooperate with India with respect to defence, civil space, technology, medicine, and economic investments. The bill seeks to provide a limited exemption for India from Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) sanctions for purchases of Russian equipment that are currently used by the Indian military; expedite consideration of certifications of letters of offer to sell defence articles, defence services, design and construction services, and major defence equipment to India is consistent with US interests and it is in the interest of peace and stability India to have the capabilities needed to deter threats. The bill proposes to treat India as if it were of the same status as US allies such as Japan, Israel, Korea, and NATO allies regarding technology transfers; authorize the Secretary of State to enter into a memorandum of understanding with India to increase military cooperation;expedite excess defence articles to India for two years and grant India the same status as other allies; and expand International Military Education and Training Cooperation with New Delhi; "In order to strengthen our partnership with India, it's essential we increase our strategic relationship w/ New Delhi. Introduced a bill to best support India as they continue to face aggression from Communist China." (ANI)
Former US President Barack Obama on Friday publicly endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the US Presidential post after Joe Biden exited the race recently. Obama said he and former US First Lady Michelle Obama will do everything they can to make sure Harris wins the Presidential election in November. In a post on X, Barack Obama said, "Earlier this week, Michelle and I called our friend @KamalaHarris. We told her we think she'll make a fantastic President of the United States, and that she has our full support. At this critical moment for our country, we're going to do everything we can to make sure she wins in November. We hope you'll join us." In a video posted by both- Obama and Harris, they are seen to be on a phone call where the former voiced their support for the latter. Obama can be heard as saying, "I can't have this phone call without saying to my girl, Kamala, I am proud of you. This is going to be historic. We call to say Michelle and I couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the Oval Office." A visibly overwhelmed Harris said,, "This means so much to me. I am looking forward to doing this with the two of you... Most of all, I just want to tell you the words you have spoken and the friendship that you have given over all these years mean more than I can express. So thank you both. It means so much. And we're going to have some fun with this, too, aren't we?" Kamala Harris posted the same video on her X handle and expressed her gratitude. "It means so much to have your endorsements, @MichelleObama and @BarackObama. Let's get to work." https://x.com/KamalaHarris/status/1816760632982622245 Earlier on Wednesday, Actor and prominent Democratic fundraiser George Clooney publicly endorsed Harris for the US Presidential post. Harris is expected to clench the nomination ahead of the Democratic National convention scheduled for August in Chicago.
Hundreds of pilgrims have raised concerns about the poor condition of roads that lead to a pilgrimage site situated near the mountain peaks of Pakistan-occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB). Reportedly, these pilgrims had to spend several extra hours climbing the peak to complete their journey, as they had travelled from Skardu to offer their prayers at the resting place of Ayatullah Sheikh Ali, Skardu TV reported. These pilgrims were travelling to the spot during the last days of the recently passed Muharram. While explaining the hardships they had to face, a traveller in the report mentioned that he had to face severe heat along with poorly built roads to offer his prayers. He said, "One, the site is so high on these mountains, it is a treacherous path, we had to travel so much carrying our baggage and kids, even the street signs are not in the right direction or place. Some of us got lost and confused in these mountains". Another traveller mentioned, "Several of us had started our journey from Skardu late at night. we had reached the base of the mountain by ourselves but later on we were warned by the locals about the road. They told us that the local administration had given the contracts years back but since then no development can be seen." Another traveller added, "We are young so it is comparatively easier for us, but there are old people along with us, there are kids and there are women who face a lot of problems. Numerous people just like us come to this place to offer their prayers and must have faced similar hardships that we are facing right now. And this is not acceptable." "We have travelled a lot and have been climbing these mountains for at least eight hours and now there is no place built by the administration for sitting or resting all of us are forced to sit and lie down on hard and pointy rocks. And this is other than the road issue, we had years ago filed a complaint with the local administration for road construction but there is no action on it till now," another traveller added. Since its forceful occupation by Pakistan in 1947, Gilgit-Baltistan has faced significant challenges regarding development and infrastructure. This has resulted in underdeveloped road infrastructure, which has impacted the region's economic growth and connectivity. (ANI)
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on the sidelines of ASEAN events in Laos' Vientiane on Friday. In a picture shared by the Russian Embassy in India, Jaishankar and Lavrov were seen sharing a laugh as they shook hands. Russian Embassy in India stated on social media platform X, "#Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and #India's External Affairs Minister Dr S.Jaishankar @DrSJaishankar met on the sidelines of #ASEAN events." Previously, the two leaders had met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of State Council meeting in Astana. During his meeting with Lavrov on July 3, Jaishankar raised "strong concern about Indian nationals" currently in the war zone in Russia. The two leaders also discussed the "global strategic landscape" and exchanged assessments and views. In a post on X, Jaishankar said, "Good to meet Russian FM Sergey Lavrov in Astana today. Wide ranging conversation on our bilateral partnership and contemporary issues. Noted the progress in many areas since our last meeting in December 2023." "Raised our strong concern on Indian nationals who are currently in the war zone. Pressed for their safe and expeditious return. Also discussed the global strategic landscape and exchanged assessments and views," he added. Earlier in the day, Jaishankar, who is on a visit to Vientiane from July 25-28, participated in the ASEAN meeting. In his remarks, Jaishankar said that political, economic and security cooperation with ASEAN is of the utmost priority. Jaishankar said that for India, ASEAN is the cornerstone of its Act East policy, the Indo-Pacific vision that was built on it and the people-to-people linkages that India is constantly seeking to expand. Jaishankar thanked Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore Vivian Balakrishnan, for his wishes on the former's reappointment and said he looked forward to working with him in the future. He also appreciated Balakrishnan's role as country coordinator. As the Philippines will take over as the next country coordinator, Jaishankar said that he looked forward to working closely with the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, Enrique Manalo. He congratulated Laos for the chairmanship of ASEAN. "I extend our fullest support for the successful chairmanship [to Lao PDR]. I also thank our colleague and Lao PDR for the warm welcome and hospitality." He welcomed Timor-Leste as an observer in the meeting. "Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that we will open an embassy in Delhi. We are proceeding to do so very shortly and in fact, we will be undertaking high-level visits there as well." "I extend my deepest appreciation to all of you for strengthening ASEAN India relations through substantive and tangible cooperation identified under the ASEAN India Plan of Action," Jaishankar said, adding that he looked forward to further discussions. (ANI)
India and the US signed the Cultural Property Agreement on the sidelines of the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee in the New Delhi on Friday. The agreement provides for the repatriation of India's cultural properties from the US. "A historic day for India's cultural heritage! Today, on the sidelines of the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee #46WHC, India & USA signed the Cultural Property Agreement. The Agreement provides for the repatriation of our priceless heritage, deepening our cultural ties," MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal posted on X. The agreement was signed by the US Ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti and Govind Mohan, the Secretary, of the Ministry of Culture. The Union Minister of Culture, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, was also present on the occasion. "This event marks the culmination of nearly two years of diligent work by experts from both countries and fulfills President Biden's and Prime Minister Modi's commitment to enhance cooperation to protect cultural heritage highlighted in the joint statement issued after their meeting in June 2023," the US Embassy said in a press release. The US State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, working with the US Embassy in India, worked in partnership with India's Ministry of Culture and the Archaeological Survey of India to bring this cultural property agreement to fruition. Cultural property agreements prevent the illegal trade of cultural property and simplify the process by which looted and stolen antiquities may be returned to their country of origin, the release stated. "The United States has been unwavering in its commitment to protect and preserve cultural heritage worldwide and to restrict trafficking in cultural property," it added. US Ambassador Eric Garcetti lauded the agreement and said its primary aim is to return those things to India and Indians, which is "rightfully theirs," and also connect India with the world. "This cultural property agreement is about two things. First and foremost, it's about justice - returning to India and to Indians, what is rightfully theirs. Secondly, it's about connecting India with the world. Every American and every global citizen deserves to know, see, and experience the culture that we celebrate here today. To know Indian culture is to know human culture," Garcetti said. Union Minister Shekhawar also praised the agreement and called it a big day for India and the US, adding that it will pave the way for easy repatriation of cultural properties to India. "Today is a big day for India and the US as the repatriation agreement has been signed...This is indeed a big day for India as it will pave the way for easy repatriation of cultural properties to our country which have illegally gone to other countries and especially the United States. Moreover, it will pave the way for such agreements with other countries as well," he told ANI. He also congratulated the Government of India for being a gracious host of UNESCO's 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, noting that by hosting this important meeting, India demonstrates its commitment to not only protecting its own cultural property, but to also assisting other countries in doing the same. With this agreement, India joins the ranks of 29 existing US bilateral cultural property agreement partners, the release stated. The US-India Cultural Property Agreement was negotiated by the US State Department under the US law implementing the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, it added. (ANI)
Israeli Ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, said that Israel, through its ongoing operation in Gaza, wants to ensure that Hamas doesn't control the strip anymore and is not in a position to attack Tel Aviv again. In an exclusive interview with ANI, Gilon also alleged that Hamas in its attempt to mount international pressure on Israel manipulated casualty figures to spread misinformation and propaganda. The Israeli envoy has raised questions on the estimated death toll announced by the Hamas run Health ministry in Gaza and alleged that Hamas "plays" with the numbers to mount international pressure on Israel. The outgoing Israeli envoy termed the October 7, 2023 attack when Hamas stormed across the border into Israeli communities as the "worst thing" against the Jewish community since the Holocaust. "It's the worst thing that happened to Jewish people since the Holocaust in second World War. On October 7 morning, it was a Jewish holiday...there was infiltration of Hamas terrorists, thousands of them to 20 Jewish communities around Israel. They murdered 1200 people on the way, they raped, they burned people alive...Now, we are in a situation, where still 120 people held hostage, some of them are dead," Gilon said. Over 2000 Hamas terrorists breached Israeli borders on October 7, killing 1200 Israelis and taking around 250 as hostages, out of whom around 120 still are in Hamas captivity, with many of them feared dead. Following this, Israel launched a strong counteroffensive, carrying out military operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip with the aim of "completely eliminating" the group. The Israeli envoy emphasised his country through its operation in Gaza Strip wants to ensure that it is able to safely bring back all the people who were taken as hostages and also ensure that Hamas, which Israel and some EU nations have designated as a terror organization, wont be able to attack again. An estimated over 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli operation in Gaza. This has led to international criticism of Israel, and mounting calls for reaching a ceasefire. Asked about Israel's stance on a potential ceasefire deal, Gilon said that Hamas intentionally doesn't want to finalise a hostage deal since doing so will mean that it will not have any "human shields" after that. "There are two main targets of this operation...The first one is to make sure that Hamas does not control Gaza anymore, it does not have the ability to build its force in Gaza in order to attack Israel. The second is to bring back the hostages," Gilon said in the exclusive interview with ANI. "We were able to, through military operation, release a few (hostages). The biggest tranche was released through a deal with Hamas, with international countries mediating. Now, we are discussing another deal. The main problem from Hamas point of view is that if they give up the hostages, they are afraid they don't have any human shield anymore," the envoy said. Responding to the criticism about "collateral damage" in the military offensive, the Israeli envoy asserted that while Tel Aviv wanted to minimise civilian casualties it was Hamas that hid behind civilian population. "I don't know what is collateral damage...I think the goal has to be achieved. Collateral damage, we are trying to minimize anyhow...our biggest problem is Gaza is the most densely populated area in the world. Secondly, Hamas had the tactic, doing something to Israel...and hide behind the civilian population. From their point of view, any Palestinian dying, is someone else creating pressure on Israel to stop the war. That's what they are aiming at doing," the Israeli Ambassador said. Gilon also put a question mark on the death toll provided by the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, and claimed that Hamas did not differentiate between terrorists and civilians, and every casualty was counted as a civilian. "We have conflicting interests. Ridiculously, while we have the interest in protecting the Palestinian population, they (Hamas) have the interest of not protecting them, and on contrary sacrificing them," he said. "The only figures we get of the dead are the figures given by so called Ministry of Health of Hamas in Gaza...for them everyone is a civilian, they never differentiate terrorists and civilians. From their point of view, everyone dead is a civilian," Gilon added. "The figures they are playing with, we have to take that into account," the Ambassador stated. During his July 24 address to a joint session of the US Congress, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that "That's why despite all the lies you've heard, the war in Gaza has one of the lowest ratios of combatants to noncombatants casualties in the history of urban warfare." Gilon has been serving as the Israel Ambassador to India since 2021. His tenure will come to an end in August this year. Last month, the Israel Embassy in India hosted a farewell dinner to honour the departing diplomats, including Ambassador Gilon. Speaking on the occasion, Gilon called it an "honour" to represent Israel in India. He stressed that the bond between Israel and India is "unique" and built on shared values and mutual respect. (ANI)
Israel's Ambassador to India, Naor Gilon, has said that relations between two nations are good on all fronts. He recalled Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Israel in 2017 and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to India in 2018, calling the visits "game changer" for ties between the two nations. PM Modi travelled to Israel in July 2017 and it was the first time that an Indian PM visited Israel. Later in January 2018, Netanyahu arrived in India for a five-day visit. PM Modi received him at the airport and the two leaders warmly greeted each other. In an exclusive interview with ANI, he called people-to-people ties the secret ingredient for relations between Israel and India. Gilon talked about Israelis visiting India after their military service ended. When asked about strengthening ties between India and Israel, Gilon said, "There is something, there is a secret ingredient that I did not fully understand. There is something very special between the people. It is the people-to-people that is the secret. Somehow, as I said both in service in Israel, India became the comparative one, India became the first place in popularity among Israelis and Israelis for years have been coming here for full emergent visits after the military service for six seven eight months. So, you know for years." Naor Gilon spoke about Jews living in India for 2,500 years. Speaking about Jews living in India, Gilon said, "Jews lived here for 2,500 years. Now, I saw a stone that was found here, a graveyard stone of 800 years ago something like that. In India, Jews lived here. They were Indians, they are Indian Jains and Indian Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Jews. It is part of being an Indian. It is part of that you have your religion, enjoy that as much as you want. So, in general, I think there is something very interesting. Famous Jews along the years like General Jacob and like the Sassoon family for example in Mumbai that is. Until to date some of their charities worked, schools, hospitals, libraries are still there and foundation is still there." Highlighting the ties between India and Israel, he said, "Jews here are part and parcel and then came here First World War and Indians were part of the Anglo-Indian army which liberated...from the Turks, what 30 years later became Israel. So, there is a lot in the past and then somehow there is something maybe because Israel was, not like Ambassador Carmona, I will not go into details, I would say assisting India from the 60s on the defence side, cooperating...that came here and 26/11." Notably, India and Israel are strategic partners and the bilateral ties between the two nations are warm and forward-looking, according to Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). In 2022-23, the two countries jointly celebrated 30 years of the elevation of bilateral ties to full diplomatic relations. He called PM Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar big supporters of Israel and noted that the two leaders know that people are supportive of their policies. Stressing that India is a growing power, he said that New Delhi is coveted by many nations today. Naor Gilon said, "Each one has its own reason, why he likes Israel and India and but most like this is the interesting thing and this is also a nurturing environment for a politician who is also pro-Israel like Prime Minister Modi, Dr Jaishankar and all the group. I think they are big supporters of Israel and when they know that the public is also supporting their policy, it's an easy shot and the relations between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Prime Minister Modi..." "Prime Minister Modi was the first Prime Indian Minister to visit Israel in 2017 and a few months later 2018, Netanyahu visited here. So, I think that was a game changer for our relations. The relations are very, very good on all fronts and again, you know, your relations are good with many countries. India is a growing power, super power maybe, already definition that people here don't like to make, to go into but India is a very important power, size of population, economy, everything geostrategically and India is coveted by many countries today," he added. Notably, PM Modi was one of the first world leaders to condemn Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7. However, India has also called for a complete ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. India has also put its weight behind the 'two-state solution' to the long-running Israel-Palestine conflict. (ANI)
Prominent activist Jibran Nasir has criticised the Pakistani government over the state of unrest in the country, alleging that its policies and actions continue to sow seeds of "anarchy, unrest and insecurity" in the country. He further accused the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) of lacking accountability to the public and sitting in the "lap of the establishment." In a post on X, Jibran stated, "The State repeatedly expresses its desire to establish order and at the same time its policies and actions continue to sow seeds of anarchy, unrest and insecurity. PMLN and PPP while sitting in the lap of the establishment do not consider themselves accountable to the people. PPP specially believes that it will always have its feudal fiefdoms to maintain control of Sindh with PPP in particular relying on its feudal control over Sindh." Jibran Nasir condemned the arrest of Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Chairman, Asad Iqbal Butt, who who was detained at Gulberg Police Station due to his plans to attend a Baloch Yakjehti Committee event in Gwadar. He also noted that four BYC activists--three from Lyari and one from Old --were arrested for distributing flyers about the gathering. Taking a jibe, Nasir said that Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will likely address the issue with a "well-prepared speech on human rights" in Parliament. A lawyer by profession, Jibran is known for his advocacy on human rights, social justice, and political accountability. He gained recognition for his work in challenging corruption and promoting civil liberties. Nasir has been involved in various social and political movements, including efforts to address issues such as police brutality, religious intolerance, and the protection of minority rights. He is also known for his outspoken criticism of government policies and political parties, often using social media and public forums to raise awareness and mobilise support for his causes. His activism has made him a notable figure in Pakistan's civil society, where he continues to be an influential voice on issues of governance and human rights. In 2023, Jibran Nasir was reportedly abducted from the streets of Karachi while travelling with his wife. He was later returned home following widespread public outcry and rallies demanding his safe return. Despite his release, questions remained about who held him captive for over 24 hours and why he was targeted. Amid speculation that the establishment might have detained him for questioning, human rights activists, journalists, and lawyers held a protest outside the Karachi Press Club. (ANI)
ARLINGTON, VA - JUNE 29: An American Airlines passenger jet is silhouetted against the terminal lights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport after sunset on June 29, 2024, in Washington, DC. (Photo by J. David Ake/Getty Images) J. David Ake/Getty Images Travelers loaded up with luggage make their way to check in at the San Antonio International Airport on Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023 in San Antonio, Texas. The day before Thanksgiving is usually one of the busiest, if not the busiest, travel day of the year. It's expected to be a record-setting year. Josie Norris/San Antonio Express-News American Airlines gates are seen at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arranging, Va., Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press A JetBlue A320, dubbed Whats Old is Blue Again, lands at San Antonio International Airport, Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022. Jerry Lara, Staff / San Antonio Express-News WASHINGTON - MAY 7: A JetBlue Airlines Airbus A320 jet flies past the U.S. Capitol dome as it comes in for a landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Imag

JetBlue Airways and United Airlines are trying to derail American Airlines' bid to fly nonstop from San Antonio to Washington D.C.

But American is fighting back, arguing that several other airlines vying to operate new  and highly coveted  nonstop service at Washington Reagan National Airport fail to meet basic requirements.

City leaders have tried, but failed, for decades to win nonstop service to D.C., stymied by rules restricting the number of direct flights to Reagan National, frequently referred to as DCA. But a bill re-authorizing the Federal Aviation Administration, which Congress passed in May, gives San Antonios airport a shot.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The slot rule controls the number of takeoffs and landings at DCA. The perimeter rule prohibits flights to or from airports outside a 1,250-mile boundary around DCA. Supporters say the rules prevent additional congestion and delays at Reagan National.

American is one of eight airlines vying for the five round-trip flights promised in the FAA reauthorization. The U.S. Department of Transportation is expected to select airlines to fill the slots this summer.

JetBlue is asking for a second nonstop flight between DCA and Luis Munoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and United is pushing for round-trip service at San Francisco International Airport. (Both airlines propose Los Angeles as a backup.)

JetBlue said it ought to win one of the slots over San Antonio since the Texas city is "within driving distance to/from Austin."

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

"While people in San Antonio can drive to Austin for the existing nonstop service to DCA, flying is the only available means of transportation between San Juan and the mainland United States," JetBlue said.

JetBlue also asked the Department of Transportation to disqualify United Airlines from winning a round-trip flight because the airline pitched taking off from DCA before 7 a.m., which JetBlue argues is prohibited by Congress, Reuters reported.

United counter-punched, saying JetBlue's application is a "scattershot of half-baked ideas, built on hearsay and overly optimistic projections."

United picked on San Antonio's size, calling it "a smaller metropolitan area than many others in consideration," adding that the route "has limited booking demand."

Travelers United, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, also pressed for American's S.A.-to-D.C. proposal to be tossed.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

The nonprofit said it wants to see more competition at DCA so it's advocating for airlines, especially low-cost carriers, with few existing routes at the airport to win the new slots.

Travelers United said giving American the route would be the wrong move, claiming the Fort Worth-based airline already holds one-third of flights that have received special exemptions to operate beyond Reagan National's strict perimeter rules.

For its part, American also claims United Airlines holds a monopoly on D.C.-area traffic since its the only carrier operating any nonstop service from San Antonio to Washington Dulles International Airport, and that it's charging higher fares as a result.

The airline also said carriers including Delta, JetBlue, Southwest and United fail to meet a requirement in the FAA reauthorization bill that calls for the new nonstop flights to be handed to cities lacking a DCA flight.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

JetBlue, United and American aren't the only airlines brawling for a round trip flight. Many airlines' applications include a section bashing competing bids. The San Antonio Business Journal was the first to report on JetBlue and United taking aim at American.

In 2023, 56,000 people traveled between San Antonio International and Reagan National, even without nonstop service, according to American's application. That shakes out to 154 passengers per day each way.

American said more than 221,000 annual passengers travel between San Antonio and the Washington, D.C. region  when including passengers traveling between San Antonio and two other popular D.C.-area airports: Washington Dulles International and Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall.

S.A. to DCA support

Americans application included more than 150 letters of support from the San Antonio community, including policymakers, mayors, military organizations and chambers of commerce.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Thirty-six senators and members of Congress sent a letter early this month to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg urging him to allocate San Antonio one of the new round-trip flights to DCA. The letter signers were a bipartisan group, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio; and U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin.

Many who signed the letter have been saying for months that San Antonio is likely to receive a flight this year.

Americans application calls for a flight to leave San Antonio every morning at 6:35 and land in DCA at 11 a.m. The flight from D.C. would take off at 7:45 p.m. and land at SAT at 10:20 p.m.

The first flights number would be 1718 to recognize the year that San Antonio was founded. The flight from DCA to SAT would be 1947 to commemorate the year the U.S. Air Force was established.
South African BRICS Youth Association (SABYA) will host the third BRICS+ Summer School in collaboration with the University of Johannesburg's (UJ) Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation (IPATC), TV BRICS reported.

The aim of the school is to take a deep dive into the BRICS world: history, principles, current initiatives, and future prospects.

BRICS+ refers to the expanded intergovernmental bloc. It consists of 10 nations, namely: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates became full members of the organisation during the summit in South Africa last year.

The school not only expands participants' knowledge of BRICS countries but also strengthens connections between member countries and encourages interaction in areas ranging from economics to culture, TV BRICS, which is also the media partner for the event, reported.

The event will bring together young people of 18-35 age group, students of grades 9-12, young leaders from BRICS+ and Global South countries, as well as researchers, unemployed youth, young professionals interested in international relations, and entrepreneurs.

All the participants will be provided with meals and shared accommodation by the South African BRICS Youth Association (SABYA). They will also be assisted with obtaining entry permits to South Africa for international participants.

The applications for the Summer School are being submitted till July 31.

The BRICS+ Summer School is not just an educational programme but a tool for creating a new era of mutual understanding and cooperation between the countries involved, TV BRICS report stated.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of the Yarkand massacre. The WUC members recalled the victims of the massacre and highlighted the continued struggle for justice and transparency.

WUC President Dolkun Isa, said at the event, "Ten years later, the situation on the ground hasn't improved; it has drastically deteriorated over the past few years."

"The Yarkand massacre marks the deadliest episode since the Urumchi massacre in July 2009," he added.

The protests in Yarkand began in response to the Chinese government's actions in Bashkent Township, where a Uyghur family of five was extrajudicially killed during house-to-house searches.

This led many Uyghurs to flee to nearby Elishku Township, where they participated in the protests.

https://x.com/UyghurCongress/status/1816783223688511725

Chinese state media labelled the incident a "premeditated terrorist attack on a police station in Xinjiang." Notably, despite the attack occurring on July 28, state media took a full day to release any official reports.

Uyghur groups, however, rejected the claims, and said the residents were protesting against the "Chinese security forces' heavy-handed Ramzan crackdown and extrajudicial use of lethal force in recent weeks."

According to the statistics of the Chinese government, 96 civilians, including 59 Uyghurs, were killed when police and security forces clashed with protesters.

But, the Uyghur sources estimate that up to 3,000 Uyghurs might have been killed during and after the protests. To this day, the full number of those arrested, killed, and disappeared remains unclear due to a lack of transparency and judicial accountability.

On the 10th anniversary of the Yarkand massacre, the WUC has called for international solidarity to honour the victims.

The World Uyghur Congress has renewed its demands for the Chinese government to immediately and transparently disclose the whereabouts and fate of the missing and deceased to their family members and the wider Uyghur community. (ANI)
Several specially-abled people criticised the local administration of Pakistan-occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB) for their "lack of social apathy" over the issues faced by them in the area, Pamir Times, a local news outlet, reported. The specially-abled people lamented the lack of facilities during the meeting with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) held at Hunza in PoGB. The meeting was attended by the PoGB's Minister for Social Welfare and Women Development, Dilshad Bano. The HRCP meeting also highlighted the inconsistency of the basic data in the numbers of specially-abled people in PoGB, as the data from government sources identify 1000 people with special abilities in PoGB, whereas private data mentions around 1,800 persons with special abilities in Hunza, PoGB, according to the Pamir Times report. A specially-abled member during the HRCP meeting said that the lack of proper data makes it very difficult for them to take grants by the local administration. "The non-availability of proper data is the biggest issue here. The data has been wrong for a long time, someone who has a back issue is also included in the same data, and someone who has weak eyesight due to old age is also included in the same data," he said. "The situation is this much worse because the data has not been collected by an expert who can judge the disability properly. Hence, there are a lot of problems when we try to get the grants that are issued for specially-abled people, as many people are not included in the data despite being specially-abled," the member added. While expressing his views on the financial and medical constraints faced by the specially-abled, the activist said the officials don't even spend 15 minutes with the people to understand their needs. "In this situation, where can we go and ask for help? We cannot depend on anyone and there are no help centres or officials for us in the PoGB area. There is no support for our people in Hunza. Sometimes when we call officials as chief guests in functions organised by and for specially-abled people, they don't even spend 15 minutes with us. We are thankful that there are individual businessmen, NGOs and people who help us in our time of need. It is because of them, that we can run a small school of specially-abled people." Another female activist highlighted a discrepancy in the examination system for job opportunities, as people with special abilities do have a special quota but don't have a special exam. She said that these loopholes force them to compete with normal people. "Every time a two per cent quota is allotted to us, then we are forced to take tests with normal people and are rejected. If a two per cent quota is assigned to us then, a test must be designed especially for us. This will level the playing field. The only specially-abled people who can get jobs are those who are relatives of previously employed officials. So we are again put at a disadvantage," she mentioned. She also highlighted that the education system has not been designed as per the needs of specially-abled individuals. "You talk about inclusive education, tell me in which schools you have made special resource centres for our needs. As all students are not equal, they are specially-abled people who need a special teacher for their education. We are often promised that resources and special teams will be sent for our aid, we keep waiting but no team ultimately reaches us," the activist said. "Is this a joke? Are we considered beggars? it is the responsibility of the government to take care of us and support us. There are special funds for the protocol of central government employees, just transfer a small amount from that fund for our betterment," she added. (ANI)
Three days after the fatal air crash at the premises of Tribhuvan International Airport, which killed 18 people, the Nepali authorities have started handing over the bodies of the victims to their family members from Friday onwards. Out of 18 bodies, five were handed over to the families for cremation from the morgue of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital (TUTH) upon completion of the autopsy. As per officials, the identity of victims was established under 'Disaster Victim Identification' (DVI). Families and relatives of those who died in the aircraft of domestic carrier Saurya Airlines received the bodies after a long wait and completing the arduous paperwork. A total of 25 doctors were stationed at the mortuary of the TUTH to expedite the process and hand over the bodies for cremation. Before the formal handover, authorities have called family members of the victims for identification. "A total of 5 bodies has been handed over to the respective families for cremation. Uddav Puri, Ashmin Niraula, Shyam Bindukar, Sushant Katuwal and Rajaram Acharya's bodies were received by the family members today. More bodies will be handed over tomorrow," Amar Thapa, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Maharajgunj, told ANI. A total of 18 people died when a Saurya Airlines aircraft crashed at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu on July 24. A total of 19 people, including two crew members, were on the Pokhara-bound flight that took off from Kathmandu. According to the Tribhuvan International Airport, the CRJ7 (Reg-9NAME) of Saurya Airlines took off from Kathmandu at 11:11 am (local time) during the flight to Pokhara, turned right and crashed at a place on the east side of the runway. The fire was reportedly brought under control and rescue work was started immediately. The bodies of 18 people were recovered and one injured person was rescued and taken to the hospital. The pilot of the Saurya Airlines plane that crashed at Tribhuvan International Airport (TIA) in Kathmandu is the lone survivor of the crash. The plane 9N-AME (CRJ 200) was only carrying technical staff of the airline, with no passengers on board. Gyanendra Bhul, information officer at TIA, confirmed that the plane was carrying a few technical staff members. (ANI)
Saint Hilarion Monastery in Palestine, also known as 'Tell Umm Amer', has been added by UNESCO to its World Heritage List, during the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, here in the national capital. Simultaneously, the site was also placed on the list of World Heritage in Danger on an emergency basis. The UNESCO designation comes amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. The ruins of the monastery are located in An-Nuseirat town, approximately 10 kilometres south of Gaza City and 10 kilometres from its port. The site occupies a strategic position at the crossroads of major trade and communication routes between Asia and Africa, making it a centre for religious, cultural, and economic exchange during the Byzantine period. In a post on X, UNESCO stated, "Just inscribed on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List & World Heritage in Danger List: Saint Hilarion Monastery/ Tell Umm Amer, #Palestine." https://x.com/unesco/status/1816714414315438264 The site holds exceptional historical, religious, architectural, and cultural significance as it represents a formative milestone in establishing Christian monastic life in Palestine. The ruins of Saint Hilarion Monastery at Tell Umm Amer bear witness to the evolution of monastic life and architecture in Palestine and the eastern Mediterranean. During the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, Palestinian Ambassador to UNESCO, Monir Anastas, expressed gratitude to India and all the committee members for their support of the inscription. He said, "I am honoured to have this inscription taking place in the greatest democracy in the world. Thank you, India. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all committee members for their valuable support of this inscription." He called the inscription of the site "very important" for the people of Palestine, as it is a message of hope to residents in Gaza, who he stressed, were fleeing bombs with no shelter and no food. Monir Anastas said, "This inscription is very important for us because it is a message of hope to our people in Gaza, who are fleeing bombs with no shelter, no food or water. Through this inscription, we tell them we have not forgotten you, and UNESCO has not forgotten you either." "I will not discuss the killing of innocent civilians, including children, women, elders, students, teachers, medical Doctors and journalists, nor the starvation and lack of food and water. Instead, I will focus on the spirit and purpose of our convention," he added. During the session, he called on members of the committee and all state parties to call upon Israel to refrain from targeting any cultural property in the Gaza Strip and to immediately and permanently end the ongoing destructive war in Gaza. "A state party must recognise that once its property is inscribed on the World Heritage List of Humanity, not UNESCO, it becomes a property of all humanity. This means that all state parties are responsible for the protection of any property on the World Heritage List," he added. Over 2000 Hamas terrorists breached Israeli borders on October 7, killing 1200 Israelis and taking around 250 as hostages, out of whom around 120 are still in Hamas captivity, with many of them feared dead. Following this, Israel launched a strong counteroffensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip with the aim of completely eliminating the group. The World Heritage Committee is one of the two bodies governing the Convention for the Protection of the World's Cultural and Natural Heritage. It is composed of the representatives of 21 states, elected from the 195 states parties to the Convention. In the ongoing session, from July 26 to July 29, the committee will examine the dossiers of 27 sites proposed for inscription on the World Heritage List. The sites will be examined according to categories: natural, mixed and cultural. (ANI)
The US-based Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party's (SCCCP) Fentanyl Policy Working Group (FPWG) recently concluded its session, discussing the 'tactics' used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to facilitate drug trade-based money-laundering into the US and the measures to counter it. The session was headed by US lawmakers Jake Auchincloss and Dan Newhouse. Former members of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) participated in the event. During the session held on Wednesday, several negative aspects of CCP bypassing law enforcement and the banking system in the US were discussed. These tactics are allegedly being used to support and flourish the drug trade in the US. The session also highlighted a crucial demand for renovation in the current system to compete and counter the CCPs shady tactics to bypass the law. https://x.com/committeeonccp/status/1816460294736007657 US lawmaker Dan Newhouse in his statement during the session highlighted that how money launders in China use modern technologies and the opaque nature of the Chinese banking system to move large sums of money with impunity. "Chinese money-launderers have taken terrorist money-laundering playbook and digitized it. They use modern technologies, messaging and payment apps, e-commerce sites, digital assets, and the opaque nature of the Chinese banking system to move large sums of money and facilitate trade-based money laundering with impunity," Newshouse said. "This system largely evades the formal banking system in the United States Mexico and elsewhere, making it particularly difficult to counter with traditional anti-money-laundering tools. But you should make no mistake, the CCP financing system runs right through Chinese banks, and the CCP knows all about it," he added. Newhouse also stated that the Beijing's "illicit financing" of the fentanyl trade is state-sponsored in China, and state actors protect these organizations from US prosecution and the elites in China often use these networks to enrich themselves. He also recommended special steps be taken to repair these discrepancies. During the meeting, Don Im a former member of the DEA explained with an example how the drug trade expanded by the CCP uses an elaborate system to launder money from the US to China. Im mentioned, "They call it a contract. Let's assume that the Sinaloa cartel just sold USD 1 million worth of fentanyl and methamphetamine in Queens, New York. The head of that drug sale in Queens will contact his superior in Mexico. The Sinaloa cartel financier in Mexico will then reach out to various Chinese-Mexican businessmen who operate as money launderers and money brokers. They own businesses. They own shopping malls. They sell all kinds of products, namely from China." His remarks further underscored how the money generated by drug sales in the US is passed through various channels and reaches China. https://x.com/committeeonccp/status/1816468829062476060 Im also elaborated on the scale of the ongoing illicit trade in the US and said it bypasses Washington's ability to find the nexus making the situation more challenging. "You're seeing literally half a trillion to three-quarters of a trillion dollars' worth of drug proceeds generated every year. So this bypasses our ability to find that nexus between the drug proceeds in New York with those commodities that are shipped into Mexico. That makes it more challenging," he added. Another member of the session, John Cassara a former CIA agent in his statement said that Chinese money launderers completely avoid US' primary anti-money laundering countermeasures and financial intelligence. https://x.com/committeeonccp/status/1816466964082004082 "One of the things that makes this so difficult for US criminal investigators is that it almost completely avoids our primary anti-money laundering countermeasures and financial intelligence. There's no paper trail to follow. And that's what we've been relying on so much to fight this war against money laundering. We don't have that kind of record because they successfully bypass it. We don't have that kind of record because they successfully bypass it," he stated. He added, "The CCP is an ideological, military, economic, commercial, high-tech, intelligence, and diplomatic rival of the US and the West. And while these threats are known, the CCP's involvement with transnational crime and money laundering is not. We cannot look at the fentanyl issue in a vacuum or as an isolated concern". Cassara further alleged that criminal activity has seemingly become part of the CCP's "overall strategy to grow its power." "By measuring the illicit proceeds of crime generated, China leads the world in all of those criminal categories," he added. (ANI)
The Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Penny Wong, will travel to Laos and Japan next week to participate in the ASEAN meetings and the Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting respectively. She will also travel to South Korea for a bilateral visit. In a statement, Penny Wong stated, "Over the next week I will travel to Laos for ASEAN meetings, Japan for the Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting and the Republic of Korea for a bilateral visit." "This year we proudly mark 50 years since Australia became ASEAN's first dialogue partner. A strong ASEAN underpins regional stability, contributes to prosperity and reinforces the rules and norms that protect us all. At the ASEAN-Australia Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Laos, we will progress outcomes agreed at the Special Summit held earlier this year in Melbourne," she added. Penny Wong will attend the East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers' Meeting and ASEAN Regional Forum in Laos. She said that Australia strongly supports Laos leadership as the ASEAN chair. She noted, "Our friendship with Laos is built on longstanding development cooperation and people to people ties, forged over 70 years." Penny Wong said that she is looking forward to meeting her counterparts from Japan, India and the United States at the Quad Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Tokyo. She noted that Quad is working closely with Indo-Pacific nations and institutions to deliver on positve agenda that responds to region's priorities and challenges. She said, "The Quad is working closely with Indo-Pacific countries and institutions to deliver on a positive agenda that responds tangibly to the region's priorities and most pressing challenges. Quad Foreign Ministers will take forward cooperation on infrastructure, supply chains, connectivity, education, research, humanitarian and disaster responses, counterterrorism and security." Quad is a diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the United States committed to supporting an open, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific that is inclusive and resilient, according to Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Wong called South Korea Australia's "close friend and a comprehensive strategic partner." She said that she looked forward to meeting South Korea's Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul in Seoul to progress implementation of the outcomes from 2+2 meeting in Melbourne in May. She stated that Australia and South Korea are building on strategic alignment with expanded bilateral and regional cooperation, including on the energy transition and economic security. In a statement, Penny Wong stated, "While in the ROK, I will visit the UN Command Buildings in the Joint Security Area within the Demilitarised Zone, which is an enduring symbol of international cooperation in addressing North Korea's challenges to security and stability." "This visit to Laos, Japan and the Republic of Korea is an opportunity to promote Australia's interests and deepen collaboration with key partners and regional architecture in pursuit of a peaceful, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region," she added. (ANI)
Pakistan has intensified its efforts to obstruct the Baloch National Gathering, scheduled to be held on July 28, to show solidarity with the Baloch people and highlight the issues they face. Pakistani defence forces have repeatedly stopped the representatives of the Baloch Solidarity Committee, popularly known as the Baloch Yakjehti Committee, from collecting funds, spreading awareness, holding meetings or rallies or distributing pamphlets of the Machi. In a video shared on 'X', prominent human rights lawyer Imaan Mazari alleged that volunteers and the organisers of the Machi are being targeted in several areas and the organisers are not being allowed to collect funds. "The Baloch National Gathering is being organised. But unfortunately, the administration has learned nothing from its past atrocities. Even today, the organisers of the gathering are not allowed to gather funds or participate in the event. The volunteers and the organisers of the Machi are being targeted in several areas like Awaran, Khuzdar and DG Khan. The Baloch women are specifically targeted, they are arrested, and their families are threatened to stop them from participating in this national gathering," Mazari stated. https://x.com/ImaanZHazir/status/1816759838178967925 In her statement, the human rights lawyer further urged her countrymen to stand with their Baloch brethren, help them raise their voice against the Pakistani administration and show solidarity with them against the Pakistani administration. In a separate incident, a law student at Lahore's Punjab University, Sadia Baloch, alleged that several officials harassed her family members, forcing them to vacate their house. "When I left for Gwadar from Taunsa to participate in Baloch Raj Machi, the Punjab Government, Dera Ghazi Khan district administration and state institutions have been harassing my house and family members in various ways for four consecutive days by tagging them as terrorists. Fed up with the police harassment, my family had to vacate their private house and take shelter in another house," she posted on X. https://x.com/sadiabalochssb/status/1816802543881629997 The law student further asserted that she has the right to participate in any peaceful political activity. She appealed to human rights activists to raise voices against state crackdowns and abuses being inflicted against the Baloch people. "Participating in any political activity and entering the territory of Balochistan comes under the purview of which prohibited law...?" she asked. "I want to make it clear to the district administration of Dera Ghazi Khan and the state that I have a constitutional and democratic right to participate in any peaceful political activity. If in return for participation in Baloch Raji Machi, you want to violate all morals and the constitution, target women and children in my house, and force us to retreat, then it is not possible because we are peaceful, apolitical people. I appeal to human rights activists and conscious people to raise voices against state crackdowns and abuses against Baloch political workers," Baloch added. (ANI)
External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar held meetings with his counterparts from South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the European Union, on the sidelines of ASEAN events in Vientiane, Laos, on Friday. The EAM met Cho Tae-yul, the Foreign Minister of Republic of Korea and held a wide ranging conversation on Special Strategic Partnership. "A pleasure to meet RoK @FMChoTaeyul today in Vientiane. Wide ranging conversation on Special Strategic Partnership. Our shared convergences in the Indo-Pacific region is also opening new avenues of cooperation," Jaishankar posted on X. https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1816821812694786433 He also met Josep Borrell Fontelles, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. The leaders discussed enhancing the India-EU ties in areas of trade, clean energy transition and advanced technologies. "Delighted to meet EU HRVP @JosepBorrellF, this time in Vientiane. Spoke of India-EU potential to augment partnership in trade, clean energy transition and advanced technologies. Exchanged perspectives on regional and global issues. Thank HRVP Borrell for his friendship and staunch support for strengthening India-EU ties," the Foreign Minister stated. https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1816821469554573409 The EAM held conversation with Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan and thanked Singapore for steering ASEAN-India relations. "Great conversation with dear friend FM @VivianBala of Singapore. Thank Singapore for steering ASEAN-India relations in the last three years as Country Coordinator. We spoke about creating a new agenda for our bilateral ties. Also appreciated his thoughts on the current geopolitical situation," he said. https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1816821196656431472 The Foreign Minister also met Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. He congratulated her stint as Foreign Minister and appreciated her contribution towards India-Indonesia and India-ASEAN relations. "Always good to see my friend FM @Menlu_RI of Indonesia. Congratulated her on a great stint as Foreign Minister. Her contribution towards India-Indonesia and India-ASEAN relations are notable. Enjoyed working with her during our G20 Presidencies," Jaishankar posted. https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1816820955731354030 Jaishankar met Malaysian Foreign Minister, Mohamad Haji Hasan, and discussed the initiatives in the bilateral relationship between the two nations. "A warm conversation with Malaysian FM @tokmatn9 today in Vientiane. Discussed ongoing initiatives in our bilateral relationship. Look forward to enhancing our ties in the second decade of our Enhanced Strategic Partnership," he said in a subsequent post. https://x.com/DrSJaishankar/status/1816820582065012834 Earlier in the day, EAM Jaishankar met his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, on the sidelines of ASEAN events in Laos' Vientiane on Friday. In a picture shared by the Russian Embassy in India, Jaishankar and Lavrov were seen sharing a laugh as they shook hands. Previously, the two leaders had met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Heads of State Council meeting in Astana. Jaishankar, who is on a visit to Vientiane from July 25-28, participated in the ASEAN meeting on Friday. In his remarks, Jaishankar said that political, economic and security cooperation with ASEAN is of the utmost priority. Jaishankar said that for India, ASEAN is the cornerstone of its Act East policy, the Indo-Pacific vision that was built on it and the people-to-people linkages that India is constantly seeking to expand. "The priority that India attaches to ASEAN and AS platforms is evident from Prime Minister Modi visiting Jakarta last year on the very eve of our own G20 summit. He had announced a 12-point plan that has been largely acted upon," he said. Jaishankar thanked Minister for Foreign Affairs of Singapore Vivian Balakrishnan for his wishes on the former's reappointment and said he looked forward to working with him in the future. He also appreciated Balakrishnan's role as country coordinator. The Foreign Minister said that it is encouraging to see that ASEAN's partnership acquires more dimensions every year. "Though ASEAN's achievements are substantial, our ambitions must remain high," he said. He welcomed Timor-Leste as an observer in the meeting. "Last year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that we would open an embassy in Delhi. We are proceeding to do so very shortly and in fact, we will be undertaking high-level visits there as well." "I extend my deepest appreciation to all of you for strengthening ASEAN India relations through substantive and tangible cooperation identified under the ASEAN India Plan of Action," Jaishankar said, adding that he looked forward to further discussions. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Friday met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Dato Haji Erywan on the sidelines of the ASEAN meetings in Vientiane, Laos and launched a logo celebrating 40 years of diplomatic relations of both the countries. The ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference with India was convened in Vientiane on Friday and attended by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar and the Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Political-Security Community Dato' Astanah Abdul Aziz. Timor-Leste attended as an Observer. The meeting reaffirmed both sides' commitment to further enhance the ASEAN-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) in the coming years by continuing the robust implementation of the ASEAN-India Plan of Action and its Annex and develop its successor document which will guide both sides in realising the full potential of the CSP in the next five years. The ministers also exchanged views on several regional and international issues of common interest and concern. (ANI)
The Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia on Friday confirmed the return of an Indian national who was stranded in the Gulf nation after being duped by an agent who had promised getting him a job in Qatar. Kumar, a resident of Andhra Pradesh, was allegedly cheated by a job agent who had promised him a job in Qatar but sent him to Saudi Arabia, Khaleej Times reported. The Indian Embassy also thanked the community volunteers who worked with the Embassy to ensure Kumar's safe return to India. "Few days back, plight of an Indian National, Mr Veerendra Kumar was brought to the attention of the Embassy. We are happy to announce that he has safely returned to now. We wish to thank all the community volunteers who worked with the Embassy to ensure his safe return to India," the Indian Embassy stated on X. https://x.com/IndianEmbRiyadh/status/1816776727533670566 Earlier, after the video of Veerandra Kumar pleading for help surfaced, Telugu Desam Party leader Nara Lokesh assured that he would work for his return to India. "Veerendra, we will bring you back home safely! Don't worry!" he said in a post on X on July 19. https://x.com/naralokesh/status/1814359817592680966 Veerendra Kumar said he was cheated by a job agent who had promised him a job in Qatar but sent him to Saudi Arabia where he was asked to work as a herder in the desert. He reached the international airport in Hyderabad on Friday where his family was waiting for him, Khaleej Times reported. (ANI)
Migrants breach barriers set up by the Texas National Guard on the Rio Grande in El Paso in this March 21 photo. El Paso County leaders say a recent surge in migrant arrests by the state has cost the border county millions of dollars and spurred them to issue a disaster declaration. Omar Ornelas/El Paso Times via AP

El Paso County leaders say a recent surge in migrant arrests by the state has cost the border county millions of dollars and spurred them to issue a disaster declaration this week  a move they have avoided for more than two years.

County Judge Ricardo Samaniego on Tuesday signed the disaster declaration, a necessary step for the county to become eligible to apply for up to $5 million of grants reserved for local governments that participate in Operation Lone Star, the states multibillion-dollar border security mission.

Gov. Greg Abbott launched the program in March 2021, shortly after President Joe Biden took office, arguing that the state needed to step up because the federal government wasnt doing its job to secure the border. The border security mission has resulted in at least 516,300 migrant apprehensions and more than 45,300 criminal arrests across the Texas-Mexico border, according to Abbotts office.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

El Paso residents have been reluctant to align themselves with that mission for fear of sowing distrust in a community known for welcoming new migrants. But the need for state funds has become dire, Samaniego told the Texas Tribune in an interview this week, leaving the county with no choice but to issue the declaration.

The numbers are just horrendous, Samaniego said, referring to the number of migrants held in the El Paso County Jail because of Operation Lone Star. The costs of housing, feeding and attending to their medical needs come out of the countys already strained budget.

About 2,000 people have been booked into the jail since March 2021 because of the border initiative, according to the county. This year has seen the highest number of arrests, with most detainees charged with human smuggling and some charged with lower-level misdemeanors like rioting or trespassing.

County jails are legally required to accept people arrested by Texas law enforcement officers.

County leaders say all those state inmates have resulted in an $11.7 million loss in revenue the county otherwise would have reaped through a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service to hold people arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol or other federal agents.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

That contract reimburses the county $110 per day per federal inmate, said Ryan Urrutia, assistant chief deputy for the county sheriffs office. Basic services cost the county $101 a day, so the county earns a profit of $9 a day on federal inmates, Urrutia said.

The U.S. Marshals Service also reimburses the county for any additional medical costs incurred by federal inmates, but the same has not been true for Operation Lone Star inmates, county officials said. Samaniego said the county has had to pay as much as $30,000 for a state inmates dialysis.

Urrutia said the county has relied on that contract for at least two decades to pay for overtime and jail operations, which, along with public safety administration and county court operations, make up nearly 70% of the countys budget, which is $601.4 million this year. The county expects to receive $18.5 million less from the federal contract in fiscal year 2025 compared with fiscal year 2022.

The disaster declaration comes as the county prepares to move into budget season with a nearly $35 million budget shortfall, according to County Commissioner David Stout. He said the countys finances have become increasingly strained as the state has saddled counties with more unfunded mandates over the years, such as forcing the county to hold migrants detained at the border without compensating them for the associated costs.

They have put us in a very precarious situation financially, Stout said. If the federal government can reimburse us for their inmates, I dont understand why the state cant.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Abbotts office did not immediately respond to questions about the Operation Lone Star grant program, but the application period appears to have closed for this fiscal year. Samaniego said he is hopeful the office will still accept the countys application.

In 2021, the state gave $36.4 million to at least 12 counties participating in the border mission. Another $30 million was offered to cities and counties in July 2022.

Theres no crisis

Counties across the state have relied on agreements to hold federal inmates to profit off of unused jail beds, a tactic that has been criticized by advocates of incarcerated people who say it creates incentives to keep people jailed for longer periods, often far from their home communities.

County officials say those federal dollars are a lifeline.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Urrutia said the sheriffs office tries to keep about 250 to 300 federal inmates in the jail at any given time, since each of those inmates comes with a check. The goal is always to keep the jail beds full, he said. On Wednesday, federal inmates occupied 106 beds and state detainees arrested through Operation Lone Star occupied 322 beds in the jail, which can hold nearly 3,000 inmates, he said.

It really complicates things, Urrutia said. We then have to reduce our federal inmates and send them elsewhere to make room for state inmates.

The district attorneys office is also in talks with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice about transferring Operation Lone Star inmates from the El Paso County Jail to the Rogelio Sanchez State Jail in El Paso. County commissioners this week also authorized the county to apply for funding from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission to pay for legal assistance for state detainees.

County officials said they tried to obtain state funds without issuing the disaster declaration, but when they sent a letter to Abbotts office detailing the costs the county had incurred because of Operation Lone Star and asking for reimbursement, they received no response.

That left county officials with the difficult decision of either forgoing state funds amid a budget shortfall or issuing a disaster declaration against many community members wishes.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Theres no crisis, theres no emergency, theres no disaster on the border, said Stout, the county commissioner. Its more of political rhetoric than anything else.

Yet he and the rest of the commissioners ultimately decided to issue the disaster declaration. Community advocates have warned that seeking state funds could lead to an influx of National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers who would stoke fear and unrest.

Melissa Lopez, the executive director of Estrella del Paso, a nonprofit that offers free immigration legal services, warned that accepting money from the state would entangle the county in Operation Lone Star.

El Paso County will become another tool in Gov. Abbotts tool chest to arrest and detain people who are fleeing their countries with no regard for the reasons why they left, she said at a Commissioners Court meeting in June. El Paso County is not Operation Lone Star.

Samaniego said he has been loath to involve the county in the state border mission, which, he says, has brought more chaos than help to his constituents. He pointed to some DPS pursuits of vehicles suspected of smuggling migrants that have led to fatal accidents. Such accidents have killed at least 74 people in Texas since Operation Lone Star started, according to a November 2023 Human Rights Watch report.

We know how to take care of crime here, Samaniego said. We dont need more agents here.

According to Samaniego, issuing a disaster declaration does not mean the county will see a surge of DPS officers. Others are not so sure.

Aimee Santillan, a policy analyst at the Hope Border Institute, said that after the city of El Paso issued a disaster declaration in 2022 after an increase in migrant crossings, more DPS officers arrived in town and the state began deploying razor wire on the banks of the Rio Grande. The DPS media office did not respond to multiple emails with questions about their presence in El Paso.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi visited the Vietnam Embassy in India on Friday, and paid tribute to Nguyen Phu Trong, the late General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, who passed away in Hanoi earlier this month. In a statement, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, said the legacy of the leader will continue to inspire all those fighting to build an alternative future. Rahul Gandhi also recalled Nguyen Phu Trong's political journey spanning over six decades and praised his "ideological and moral clarity" and "decisive leadership." https://x.com/INCIndia/status/1816858379513475583 "I extend my condolences to the people of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on the passing of the General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong," the statement read. He appreciated Vietnam for its "ability to overcome adversity" and termed it a "powerful symbol of hope." "I have been fortunate to visit your beautiful country several times. During my journeys, I was struck by the fortitude of the people of Vietnam. Their ability to overcome adversity has shaped a culture of courage and community. I was moved by their dignified acceptance of their past, and their innate ability to treat everyone with kindness and compassion. Amidst the global turmoil, Vietnam remains a powerful symbol of hope," Rahul Gandhi said. He added, "General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong emerged from this great culture and spent a lifetime working for the people of Vietnam. In a political journey spanning over six decades, he worked towards building a formidable party organisation. His ideological and moral clarity were admired deeply. His decisive leadership helped build a more inclusive society and lifted millions out of poverty. His legacy will continue to inspire all those fighting to build an alternate future." He further offered his condolences to Nguyen Phu Trong's family and the Vietnam government. "I would also like to offer my condolences to his family and the Government of Vietnam at this difficult time," Rahul said. Nguyen Phu Trong passed away on July 19 in Hanoi. National Security Adviser Ajit Doval represented India at the state funeral held in Hanoi on Thursday. He personally conveyed India's condolences to Vietnamese President To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, and the bereaved family. Earlier, Indian National Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge also offered condolences on the demise of Nguyen Phu Trong. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, a prominent figure in Vietnamese politics, passed away recently, prompting an outpouring of condolences from leaders across the globe. Vietnam's Nguyen Phu Trong was widely regarded as the country's most influential figure, as reported by state media. His death concludes over 13 years of leadership after he recently stepped down due to health reasons. According to state media reports on Friday, Trong died at a military hospital due to advanced age and a severe illness. His passing comes amidst a period of political transition in Vietnam, where a new president was appointed in May following the resignation of his predecessor. To Lam, a former public security minister known for his significant influence, has assumed Trong's responsibilities. Lam took over from Vo Van Thuong, who resigned in March amid party-acknowledged "violations and shortcomings" after just a year in office. (ANI)
This effort comes in light of the difficult conditions the city is witnessing and the destruction of infrastructure, which has led to a severe shortage of drinking water.

Operation Chivalrous Knight 3 aims to provide urgent relief and alleviate the suffering of displaced families who were forced to leave their homes due to ongoing operations.

Dates and hundreds of gallons of water were distributed in an organised manner to ensure they reached the largest number of families. This move was widely praised by the beneficiaries, who expressed their deep thanks and gratitude to the UAE for this humanitarian support.

The Chivalrous Knight 3 operation distributed 80 tonnes of humanitarian and urgent aid to relieve Palestinian families suffering from a shortage of basic materials and water due to the dire circumstances they are witnessing.

Operation Chivalrous Knight 3 seeks to alleviate the water crisis in areas where residents and displaced persons are present. It has implemented a water distribution campaign that has benefited more than 70,000 people.

The operation is currently working with the Khan Younis Municipality to repair water lines and tanks to ensure a permanent and sufficient supply, thereby avoiding humanitarian disasters and diseases. (ANI/WAM)
Australia, Canada and New Zealand, in a joint statement on Friday, stressed the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza, calling the situation over here "catastrophic". Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and New Zealand's PM Christopher Luxon issued the statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. "The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue," the statement read. They further stressed that Hamas must lay down its arms and release all hostages, adding that they do not see any role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza. "We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of Hamas for the atrocities of October 7 and ongoing acts of terror. Hamas must lay down its arms and release all hostages. We see no role for Hamas in the future governance of Gaza," they stated. Emphasising that Israel must listen to the concerns of the international community, the leaders said that the protection of civilians is paramount and a requirement under international humanitarian law. "Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas. It must end," they said. They said that an immediate ceasefire is desperately needed, adding that civilians must be protected, and that a sustained increase in the flow of assistance throughout Gaza is needed to address the humanitarian situation. Recalling US President Joe Biden's comprehensive ceasefire deal, the leaders expressed support for the deal. "We fully stand behind the comprehensive ceasefire deal outlined by President Biden and endorsed by the UN Security Council. We call on parties to the conflict to agree to the deal. Any delay will only see more lives lost," they stated. They further committed to work towards an irreversible path to achieve a two-state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians can live securely within internationally recognised borders. "This is the only realistic option to achieve a just and enduring peace," the statement read. The leaders called on Israel to respond substantively to the ICJ's advisory opinion, ensure accountability for ongoing acts of violence against Palestinians by extremist settlers, reverse the record expansion of settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law, and work towards a two-state solution. Expressing concern about the prospect of further escalation across the region, the leaders condemned Iran's attack against Israel on April 13-14 and called on Iran to refrain from further destabilising actions in the Middle East, and demand that Iran and its affiliated groups, including Hizballah, cease their attacks. "We also condemn the Houthis' ongoing reckless acts, including their indiscriminate drone attack in Tel Aviv and ongoing attacks on international shipping," they added in the joint statement. Moreover, the leaders stated that they are particularly concerned by the situation along the Blue Line, including the escalation of hostilities and rhetoric between the terror group Hizballah and Israel. "It has led to the displacement of thousands of Israelis along the northern border and thousands of Lebanese along the southern border. Further hostilities put tens of thousands of civilians in Lebanon and Israel at risk," they added. This escalation in hostilities only makes a ceasefire in Gaza more urgent. The Australian, Canadian and New Zealand leaders urged all involved actors to exercise restraint and de-escalate, further expressing support for diplomatic efforts to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701. "A wider scale war would have disastrous consequences for Israel and Lebanon, and for civilians across the region," the statement read. (ANI)
2 lions made a mile-long swim across a crocodile-infested channel in search of mates. It's a sign of how desperate the animals are getting.

Two lions in Uganda swam nearly a mile across a crocodile-infested channel seeking mates.

Researchers said the swim is the longest on record for lions.

Lion populations in the area are under serious threat due to conflict with humans.

Two lions recently proved that there's no river wide enough to keep them from potential mates.

In February, the pair of brothers, Jacob and Tibu, swam for nearly a mile across a channel between two lakes in Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park.

They had to turn back several times because the water was likely full of crocodiles, according to Alexander Braczkowski, a conservation biologist with Griffith University who filmed the animals' epic swim.

Not only is this the longest swim for lions on record, but one of the brothers, Jacob, previously lost a leg when a poacher's trap caught his foot, making his feat all the more impressive.

"We didn't know lions could do this," Braczkowski, told Business Insider in an email.

Lions will wade or swim short distances, he said, "but nothing like what you see in the video."

The males were likely seeking out lionesses, Braczkowski and his fellow researchers reported in a recent paper in the peer-reviewed journal Ecology and Evolution.

Though the brothers made it to the channel's other side, it's unclear if they reached their goal of mating.

Jacob, the lion with three legs, is a survivor

Jacob lost a limb when a poacher's snare trapped his foot. Alexander Braczkowski

Competition for mates is fierce because the lion population in the area has been cut in half in the past five years, Braczkowski said. Only 39 remain, with roughly two males for every female, New Scientist reported. In a healthy lion population, that ratio would be flipped.

An estimated 60,000 people live in the park, which has contributed to the decline in the animals' numbers.

"The main stressor is people," Craig Packer, founder and director of the University of Minnesota's Lion Center who was not involved in the research, told Business Insider. The lions hunt livestock and are killed in retaliation, he said.

Jacob is a reflection of the tension between humans and lions. Not only did he lose a limb, but poachers poisoned his family. And unrelated to humans, he also survived a buffalo goring.

"Jacob is a true symbol of the challenge lions face in Uganda but also their immense resilience," Bosco Atukwatse, a co-author of the paper, said.

A coalition of lions

It's common for two male lions who grew up together to become life-long companions. Alexander Braczkowski

Despite what Disney's "The Lion King" taught many of us about brotherly dynamics between the big cats, the close relationship between Jacob and Tibu is pretty typical. "Lions are the only social cat," Packer said.

Female lions live in prides, and they often give birth at the same time, Packer said. They raise their cubs together in a type of lion nursery, called a creche.

Male cubs who grow up together, whether they're brothers or cousins, will stay together their whole lives in what's known as coalitions. "A coalition of two is not at all unusual," Packer said.

In fact, it's pretty necessary for their survival, Packer said. "It's scary being a male lion if you don't have a partner," he said. "And so you really need to look after your partner."

Just the roar of a second lion might be enough to chase off any competition for territory from other male lions.

And when it does come down to a fight, Jacob probably wouldn't be all that helpful to Tibu, Packer said, "but he's still better than nothing."

Read the original article on Business Insider
ATVs are illegal in Providence. So why are police shipping them to the Dominican Republic?

In the past, the City of Providence destroyed the nuisance dirt bikes and ATVs that it took away from the miscreants who were caught riding the machines illegally on local streets.

It was quite dramatic.

But then a Rhode Islander named Ibn-Hashim Bakari had an idea.

Why not keep the machines in good condition and put them to use in a place where they might help people?

The place that Bakari had in mind was the Dominican Republic, which has been a beneficiary of aid and cross-cultural opportunity supported by an organization he founded in 2009: Lights & Sirens International.

Bakari recalls that the idea drew some sharp criticism from some naysayers.

Some suggested, citing problems with corruption, that criminals would snatch the machines and no public service would result from their presence in the Caribbean nation, which shares a large island, Hispaniola, with Haiti.

But on Thursday, Bakari could confirm with great satisfaction that 17 of the 21 machines had made it all the way from Rhode Island to the country's capital city, Santo Domingo.

Each of the 17 dirt bikes and four ATVs remain in good hands

Four of the 21 pieces of equipment were still in transit, under the control of customs officials, Bakari said.

The other 17, he said, had been lined up outside the front entrance of a transportation facility for the Dominican National Police, where police officials held a press conference on Thursday.

After being seized from lawbreakers in Rhode Island, dirt bikes and ATVs were lined up Thursday at a Dominican National Police transportation facility in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

An international covenant on dirt bikes and ATVs negotiated by Rhode Islanders and Dominicans

The shipment of the dirt bikes and ATVs to the Dominican Republic was the goal of a pact that Bakari helped negotiate.

Cranston and Providence officials agreed to provide the equipment to the Dominican National Police, and the Dominican agency agreed to pay for the shipment.

Bakari said he bought the lock for the container and tracked the shipment.

Enclosing police reports with an overseas shipment

Due to the status of the machines as confiscated, Rhode Island authorities did not have ownership papers for them, Bakari said.

Instead of titles, he said, authorities supplied police reports to the customs officials who inspected the ATVs in both the United States and in the Dominican Republican.

Bakari has been in close contact with a Dominican National Police leader, Col. Roberto Lerebours, who frequently networks with American police agencies, including the New York Police Department.

Ibn-Hashim Bakari, founder of Lights & Sirens International, a Rhode Island-based organization that provides aid to the Dominican Republic, stands with Dominican National Police officials at a news conference held in Santo Domingo on Thursday. Col. Roberto Lerebours

Lerebours was present in March when Rhode Island officials, including Providence Mayor Brett Smiley and Cranston Mayor Ken Hopkins and Cranston's police chief, Col. Michael J. Winquist, ceremoniously announced the planned shipment.

That day the seized machines were loaded into the container.

On Thursday, Lerebours was present at the other end of the trip in Santo Domingo, Bakari said. Also present was General Latif Madfoud, whose responsibilities for the national police include transportation.

Bakari said Dominican police have promised to provide photos of each of the bikes after they are painted with police markings and numbered.

Providence's police chief, Oscar Perez, said Thursday that he has talked with Lerebours through the process and gotten to know him a little bit.

A collection of almost 30 seized dirt bikes and ATVs were destroyed through a crushing procedure in the yard at Providence's Department of Public Works on Allens Avenue in 2019.

Desired in Santo Domingo; despised in Providence

Perez, who emigrated from Colombia and has visited the Dominican Republic, has some familiarity with terrain-related challenges that police officers grapple with in regions near the equator.

ATVs and dirt bikes can provide vital mobility and help police stay visible in rugged territory, he said.

"It's a more practical choice," he added.

A more practical option for Dominican police officers  but not an option for thrill-seekers in Providence and Cranston.

"These illegal ATVs will be confiscated and put to use somewhere else," Perez said.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Dirt bikes seized by police in RI to help police in Dominican Republic
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON  A conservative group and a group of Republican state parties Thursday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing Vice President Kamala Harris of improperly assuming control of Biden campaign funds after he withdrew from the race.

The complaint is asking the FECs six-person commission  split evenly between Democrats and Republicans  to immediately initiate enforcement proceedings to prevent Harris from using her ill-gotten gains for her campaign in the little time remaining between now and the November general election.

After President Joe Biden suspended his reelection campaign and endorsed Harris to take his place as the likely Democratic nominee, the Biden campaign officially changed its name to the Harris campaign, giving the vice president access to about $96 million of campaign funds as of June 30.

Harris campaign spokesperson Charles Kretchmer Lutvak said in a statement to States Newsroom that the complaint had no merit.

Republicans may be jealous that Democrats are energized to defeat Donald Trump and his MAGA allies, but baseless legal claims  like the ones theyve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections  will only distract them while we sign up volunteers, talk to voters, and win this election, he said.

The FEC declined to comment.

Citizens United, a group that led the reversal of campaign finance restrictions in a 2010 Supreme Court case, was joined by one U.S. territory, the Virgin Islands, and 16 state GOP parties.

Those state GOP parties are Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.

The Harris campaign stated it raised $100 million from Sunday, when Biden announced he would bow out of the race, to Monday evening. Those campaign records wont be publicly available until mid-October, when quarterly reports are due to the FEC.

The Trump campaign also filed a similar complaint to the FEC on Tuesday, according to CNN.

The chair of the FEC, a Republican appointed in 2020 by Donald Trump, Sean Cooksey, indicated in a social media post that Harris might not have access to the funds, pointing to a regulation.

If the candidate is not a candidate in the general election, all contributions made for the general election shall be either returned or refunded to the contributors or redesignated , or reattributed , as appropriate, he wrote.

Because Harris is the vice president, her name was on Bidens presidential campaign committee. However, any complaint is likely not going to be resolved before the November elections, as the FEC is still reviewing cases from the 2016 election.
A team of divers discovered a 19th-century shipwreck off the coast of Sweden that was "loaded to the sides" with historical artifacts  including 100 bottles of champagne.

The shipwreck was discovered in the Baltic Sea, about 20 nautical miles off the Swedish coast, by a team of Polish technical divers from the group Baltictech.

PHOTO: Baltictech divers discovered a 19th-century shipwreck off the coast of Sweden. (Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech)

"We encountered a 19th-century sailing ship in very good condition, loaded to the sides with champagne, wine, mineral water and porcelain," Baltictech diver Tomasz Stachura said in a press release this week.

MORE: 'Most valuable treasure': $17 billion Spanish shipwreck from 1708 to be recovered

Stachura said it was difficult for divers to determine exactly how much bubbly was aboard the ship but confirmed they "certainly" saw more than 100 bottles.

PHOTO: Baltictech divers discovered a 19th-century shipwreck off the coast of Sweden. (Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech)

Interestingly, it wasn't the alcohol that piqued the divers' interests, but rather the mineral water in clay bottles, which Stachura said was "treated almost like medicine and only found its way to royal tables" in the 19th century.

"Its value was so precious that transports were escorted by the police," Stachura added.

PHOTO: Baltictech divers discovered a 19th-century shipwreck off the coast of Sweden. (Tomasz Stachura/Baltictech)

Historians determined that the stamp on the mineral water, which hails from the German brand Selters, was produced between 1850 and 1867, according to Stachura, who has been in contact with the brand, which is still in business.

"The pottery factory into which the water was bottled also exists, and we are in contact with them to find out more details," Stachura said.

PHOTO: Baltictech divers discovered a 19th-century shipwreck off the coast of Sweden. (Baltictech)

When the team initially spotted the wreck via sonar on July 11, they believed it was a fishing boat, according to Stachura.

MORE: Treasure-hunting divers seek mother lode of riches from 400-year-old shipwreck

"We were already after one dive that day and at first, there were doubts whether there would be anyone willing to go down," Stachura said, before adding fellow divers Marek Cacaj and Pawel Truszynski decided to take the now-historic plunge.

For now, the shipwreck remains in the Baltic Sea outside of economic waters, according to Stachura, who is collaborating regarding the wreck with the Marie-Stella-Maris Foundation, Sodertorn University, and Professor Johan Ronnby, who is in charge of all underwater research in Sweden.

Divers discover 100 bottles of champagne in 19th-century shipwreck originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
This electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health shows a human T cell, in blue, under attack by HIV, in yellow, the virus that causes AIDS. | Seth Pincus, Elizabeth Fischer, Austin Athman

When the first case of HIV/AIDS was reported in 1981 and for years after that, the disease was a death sentence. Later, treatments made it possible to live with the virus, with proper drug maintenance. Now a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that twice-yearly injections offer complete protection against transmitting HIV to women.

A phase 3, double-blind randomized controlled trial involving 5,338 HIV-free adolescent girls and young women in South Africa and Uganda showed that getting a shot of lenacapavir, produced by drug company Gilead, every 26 weeks prevented infection from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. None of the females in the clinical trial who received the injections got the virus, though about 2% of the comparison group given daily prevention pills caught HIV from infected partners.

It was also noted that compliance was poorer among those who were supposed to take the pills every day.

As CNN reported, For years, most people have taken prevention tools known as PrEP (it stands for pre-exposure prophylaxis), such as a daily pill called Truvada to prevent infections. ... More recently, some people have received regular injections of the drug Apretude  two shots administered one month apart then every two months thereafter  to reduce their risk of HIV.

These stellar results show that twice-yearly lenacapavir for PrEP, if approved, could offer a highly effective, tolerable and discreet choice that could potentially improve PrEP uptake and persistence, helping us to reduce HIV in cisgender women globally, Linda-Gail Bekker, director of the Desmond Tutu HIV Center at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and former president of the International AIDS Society, said in a news release.

Testing in other populations

A separate study is being conducted in men to see whether the twice-a-year injections of lenacapavir are effective. Those results are pending.

In announcing the trial results in women, Gilead reported that study results are expected later this year and in early 2025 from a separate study looking at the twice-a-year injections to prevent HIV infection in men, transgender women and those who are nonbinary in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand and the U.S. who are sexually involved with male partners.

The company hopes those will show the injections are a prevention tool for multiple populations and communities most in need of additional HIV prevention options. The drug is not approved for prevention anywhere at this point. The Associated Press reported that the shots sold as Sunlenca are approved in the U.S., Canada, Europe and elsewhere, but only as a treatment for HIV. The company said it is waiting for results of testing in men before seeking permission to use it to protect against infection.

Per the article, The prospect of a twice-a-year shot is quite revolutionary news for our patients, said Thandeka Nkosi, who helped run the Gilead research at the Desmond Tutu Health Foundation in Masiphumelele, South Africa. It gives participants a choice and it just eliminates the whole stigma around taking pills to prevent HIV.

CNN reported that separate research presented Tuesday at the AIDS Conference in Munich suggests that the production of a generic version of lenacapavir could cost under $100 per person.

AP reported that Gilead hasnt agreed to a price in the U.S., where as an HIV treatment, the drug costs more than $40,000 a year, although what individuals pay varies. AIDS organizations are encouraging Gilead to share its patent on Sunlenca with a United Nations-backed program that helps negotiate contracts with generic drug companies to make cheap versions for poor countries.

About HIV/AIDS

HIV attacks the bodys immune system by targeting white blood cells. People are then much more likely to get sick from other illnesses, including infections, some cancers and tuberculosis.

Its spread by certain body fluids from someone who has the infection. Its not, however, spread by kisses, hugs or sharing food. Instead, it can be transmitted from blood, breast milk and through sex. Initially, people get flulike symptoms like fever and headache, which can lead to other signs of illness, including weight loss, swollen lymph nodes, diarrhea and cough. Treatment can prevent some of the susceptibility to more serious illnesses.

HIV/AIDS has killed more than 4 million people and transmission is ongoing in all countries globally, per the World Health Organization. Nearly 40 million people were living with AIDS at the end of 2023 worldwide, with about 65% in the WHO African Region.

There is no cure for HIV infection. However, with access to effective HIV prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, including for opportunistic infections, HIV infection has become a manageable chronic health condition, enabling people living with HIV to lead long and healthy lives, the public health giant reported.
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)  Kansas firefighters are on their way to Oregon to help battle wildfires.

A crew of 10 firefighters from the Kansas Forest Service out of Wichita, Olathe, Ottawa, and Edwardsville are now on the way. Hutchinson Fire Department also sent crews, and more are preparing to go.

We have another crew that is sitting in wait right now that, if they get to the end of their 14 days, those guys will start making plans for our second crew to meet them out there and just do a crew swap, Justin Holzrichter, Hutchinson battalion chief, said.

Holzrichter said every year, the Kansas Forest Service has a list of firefighters available to go wherever is needed.

KBI: Man killed in Salina officer-involved shooting identified

I think our truck has been to Texas, Idaho, California many times, Holzrichter said. Now Oregon, Colorado, so were able to go anywhere wherever theyre needed.

Despite some of the firefighters heading out of state, Holzrichter said the other crew members are signing up for overtime and extra shifts to ensure the citizens of Hutchinson are taken care of as well.

The Durkee Fire, caused by lightning, has burned more than 200,000 acres along the Oregon-Idaho state line. According to InciWeb, the fire is 20% 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 KSN-TV.
Newark police have arrested two male suspects whom they accuse of installing skimming devices at a grocery store to illegally steal credit or debit card information.

A man who identified himself as Marco Ernesto, 23, and a male juvenile from Romania were arrested July 14 on suspicion of installing and trying to retrieve the skimming devices from a grocery store, Newark police said Wednesday in a news release. They did not identify the grocery store where employees first identified what they thought was a skimming device.

Sgt. Chuck Wilhelm, a Newark police spokesman, told The Advocate he could not immediately provide the name of the store involved.

Police reviewed video footage and were alerted when the suspects returned to collect the devices, according to the news release. When officers found the pair and pulled them over, they allege the suspects tried to rid of the devices, which officers later recovered.

Detectives are working with federal law enforcement to confirm the suspects' identities and find the juvenile's family members, the release states.

Police urged credit and debit card users to be vigilant for the skimming devices, which can be used at ATMs or any other location where electronic purchases are made.

Advocate reporter Josue Perez can be reached at jhperez@newarkadvocate.com.

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Newark police arrest 2 accused of placing card skimmers at store
A Bloomington man shot in the head and left 20 feet off the side of a dead-end gravel road in Owen County likely died the day before someone passing by discovered his body.

Court documents filed after Thursdays arrest of suspect Quentin Lamont Porter Jr. described blood and shards of broken glass on Stephenson Road near 23-year-old Malik Sims body. Blood also was found inside the victims car, which police say was stolen by his killer.

Sims was wearing red gym shorts, a white tank top and no shoes, a police affidavit said. He was laying on his side with a black plastic bag pulled over his head.

On Thursday, 10 days after Sims was found dead, police arrested 25-year-old Porter on charges of murder and auto theft. Owen County Sheriff Ryan White said the two men were acquainted but not good friends.

Police: Malik Sims' roommate tracks phone to rural county road

Sims roommate told police the last time he saw his friend he was on the porch of their apartment with Porter, known as QP.

Details about the investigation that led to Porters arrest are contained in a probable cause affidavit filed by Sgt. Nathan Martin, an Owen County Sheriffs Office detective. He described how the roommate and another friend of Sims had arrived at the crime scene the afternoon of July 15, a few hours after police.

They had traced the victims phone to the remote site and said it had been at that location 20 hours.

Sims was last seen outside his West Alder Court apartment, with Porter, about 2 p.m. on July 14. About 11 that night, Porters family members said he arrived alone at his grandmothers Indianapolis home driving Sims gray 2012 Audi A4, according to the police affidavit.

Police said on July 17, Porter identified himself as Sims and paid $400 to arrange for a transport service to tow the car from his grandmothers house to a repair shop in Bloomington. Police got a search warrant for the car before it was towed and had it taken to an Indiana State Police garage.

Evidence technicians discovered a large amount of blood inside the vehicle, as well as bleach stains and spray paint on the upholstery. New covers had been put on the seats, likely to conceal or cover the blood, Martin wrote.

Blood also was found on the south edge and just off the north side of Stephenson Road, more than 10 feet away from the body, the report said. There were also multiple glass fragments found within and near the blood in the roadway.

An autopsy determined Sims died from a gunshot wound to his head. The entry wound was on the right side near his ear and there was an exit wound on the left side of his head, the affidavit said. No weapon was found.

Receipt helps police track Quentin Porter Jr.'s alleged actions after shooting

Inside the Audi was a July 15 receipt from an Indianapolis OReilly Auto Parts store that showed the purchase of seat covers and duct tape, both recovered from the car. Investigators watched surveillance video from the store and reported seeing Porter buy the items at 10:22 a.m. the day Sims body was found. Police say he paid with the same credit card used at the towing business.

On July 16, a man who identified himself as Sims rented a Gray Nissan Sentra from an Indianapolis rental firm. Two days later, Porter was back in Bloomington, where a Bloomington Police Department officer stopped the car for a traffic violation.

Investigators gathered information about the Audi and where it had been before and after Sims was killed. Using a video license plate tracking system called Flock Safety, police traced the car to West Third Street and South Muller Parkway at 5:41 p.m. July 14, the day Sims was last seen. About 45 minutes later, at 6:24 p.m., the car was at the intersection of Ind. 46 and Stinesville Road, a few miles west of Ellettsville, headed toward Owen County.

The next time the car is seen on the camera network was 10:43 that night at the intersection of South Harding Street and West Troy Avenue in Indianapolis, not far from Porters grandmothers home. The probable cause affidavit was filed July 23 and a warrant was issued for Porters arrest. He was booked into the Owen County Jail at 2 a.m. July 25 and appeared in Owen Circuit Court that afternoon for an initial hearing. He is jailed with no bond.

Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Malik Sims' death: Quentin Porter Jr accused of Owen County murder
Kirill Gryaznov was arrested on Sunday and later charged on espionage charges

A Russian reality TV bachelor turned Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef has been unmasked as an alleged spy plotting to sabotage the Paris Olympic Games.

Kirill Gryaznov, 40, was arrested on Sunday at his apartment in central Paris, where French authorities found documentation linked to an elite special operations unit under the command of Russias FSB security service.

The Russian, who has lived in France for 14 years, was charged with sharing intelligence with a foreign power with a view to provoking hostilities in France.

Mr Gryaznov said on a phone call, intercepted by French officers: The French are going to have an opening ceremony like there has never been before.

Witnesses also claimed he had brandished his FSB identification at a boozy dinner, telling neighbours he had a special mission to disrupt the Olympic Games.

While allegedly working as a Russian deep cover agent, Mr Gryaznov learned to cook at Le Cordon Bleu, one of the worlds most prestigious culinary schools, in 2010.

Kirill Gryaznov trained as a chef while allegedly deep undercover for the FSB

His Instagram account, which has more than 10,000 followers, is littered with carefully curated pictures of food, pancake recipes or of him posing in tailored suits and fur jackets.

Before moving to the French capital, the law graduate starred in the Russian reality television dating series Choose Me  modelled on the US show The Bachelor  as a self-styled successful businessman and restaurateur.

His CV, according to The Insider, the Russian investigative outlet, detailed a previous career path in finance, with two Luxembourg-based firms.

During his time in Luxembourg, Mr Gryaznov received a confidential military dossier on Maj Andrey Belyashov, a veteran of the second Chechen War, as an attachment, according to emails unearthed by the investigation.

The then young lawyer would often receive requests asking him to verify the profiles of Russian intelligence officers according to a joint probe by French newspaper Le Monde, Germanys Der Spiegel and The Insider.

At roughly the same time, he is said to have shared correspondence with Lord Skidelsky, a crossbench peer who was on the board of directors of Rosneft, the Russian energy giant, between 2016 and 2021.

Im so pleased that Ive met you yesterday! Hope to meet you soon in Moscow! We have a lot of things to talk about! Waiting for your reply, Mr Gryaznov wrote to the peer.

Lord Skidelsky replied: I too was happy to meet you  do vskoroi strechi [until next time]. Im in Moscow 13-15 and 22-24 April and again in June.

It is unclear whether the pair went on to meet.

Kirill Gryaznov at a visit to a KGB museum

In 2011, Mr Gryaznov moved to Courchevel, the French ski resort with a reputation for being a playground for the rich. There he worked in the kitchen at K2, a Michelin-starred restaurant favoured by Russian elites.

His friends in Paris, according to Le Monde, were unaware of his former life in Luxembourg.

It unravelled for the chef when he was picked up on the radars of several European intelligence services during a visit to Turkey, where he had arrived from Moscow.

On May 8, he was refused boarding on a plane from Istanbul to Paris for being too drunk, according to reports.

Instead, the 40-year-old took a taxi to the Bulgarian border, where he picked up another car to St Vlas, a resort on Bulgarias Black Sea Coast, where he owns property.

It was here at the dinner where Mr Gryaznov disclosed his identity and his assignment under the influence of alcohol, witnesses told the Insider.

He then travelled to Varna, a town 60 miles north, to catch a flight back to the French capital.

Before flying, Mr Gryaznov is said to have phoned his FSB handlers to inform them the operation was on track and that he had hired one more Moldovan from Chisinau.

It was this detail that piqued the interest of French investigators, because they have previously discovered Moldovans who have links to Russian espionage groups carrying out hybrid attacks in France.

Ironically, a former love interest once told him that alcohol will get to you one day.

Mr Gryaznov now faces up to 30 years in a French prison if he is found guilty.

Lord Skidelsky was contacted for comment.

Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
There has been a lot of commentary stemming from the most recent special legislative session. If you are confused by what took place, you are likely in good company. Based on media reporting and statements from the governors office, an illusion was created that the entire Legislature rebuffed the governor in her attempt to crack down on New Mexicos crime problem. The governor said, The legislature as a body walked away from their most important responsibility: keeping New Mexicans safe. That statement, however, is only half true.

The reality is Democrats failed to protect New Mexicans, and the proof is the fact that Democrats who control the legislature did not pass a single bill that would address our out-of-control crime problem. House Republicans, on the other hand, have been laser focused on keeping criminals off our streets and out of our neighborhoods. So much so that Democrats have mocked Republicans as being all crime all the time due to ongoing efforts to hold criminals accountable for their actions.

New Mexico Rep. Gail Armstrong.

The recent special session was no different. House Republicans authored nineteen pieces of legislation to address our states worst-in-the-nation crime rate. Legislation ranging from pre-trial detention and bail reform, stopping the flow of fentanyl across the border, and protecting children in abusive situations was offered to protect New Mexicans. Not only were all these bills rejected by the Democrat Majority, they didnt even allow them to be officially introduced into the public record. In other words, Democrats didnt just avoid passing crime legislation, they didnt want anything on the record to show Republican members were ready to work and reduce crime plaguing New Mexico.

The only bill passed during the public safety special session was a bill to help provide relief to the people of Ruidoso from the recent wildfires, as well as a small appropriation to the Administrative Office of the Courts to do pilot projects. Because this was the only bill Democrats allowed to be considered, House Republicans proposed an amendment to the bill that would have appropriated $10 million for the Department of Public Safety to enhance border security and help stop the disastrous flow of fentanyl into our communities. Not surprisingly, every member of the Democrat Majority voted against this amendment.

Why anyone would vote against an appropriation to help stop the flow of dangerous drugs into our state is a question every New Mexican should ask the Majority. The rejection of this amendment, however, is a perfect example of why New Mexico is such a dangerous place. If members of the Legislatures Majority cannot bring themselves to vote to help stop the flow of fentanyl into our communities, how can we ever expect them to tackle other crime issues like ending catch and release, increasing penalties for violent offenders, and protecting vulnerable children from abusive caregivers?

The governor is right to be frustrated with the Democrat controlled Legislature. In fact, she was quoted as saying, it is noteworthy that a majority of Republicans would have passed many or all of these bills that made up her public safety special session agenda. The governor is just now discovering the very people she helped put into office are the same people who created the problem and now refuse to fix it. New Mexico citizens have a choice. We can keep voting for the same people into office, or we can replace those who are responsible for ignoring the problem. Either way, the power to create change is in the hands of voters.

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: House Republicans are ready to work on public safety
A look inside an ISO 7 clean room at UNHs Space Technology Hub, the first-of-its-kind center in the region that will provide cutting-edge space expertise and equipment to commercial space businesses. The clean room has an ion accelerator and a separate area for flight assembly and integration.

DURHAM  The University of New Hampshire has announced the launch of a Space Technology Hub, a first-of-its-kind center in the region that will provide cutting-edge space expertise and equipment to the burgeoning commercial space sector.

"We are thrilled to be launching the Space Technology Hub, which will connect the resources at UNH with the rapidly developing New Space industry, thereby accelerating the growth of the space economy in the Northeast, said Reka Winslow, director for the Space Technology Hub. We are truly excited to partner with companies in the region and beyond, offering testing and engineering solutions closer to home, all while developing a workforce pipeline for the space tech sector."

"We are thrilled to be launching the Space Technology Hub, which will connect the resources at UNH with the rapidly developing New Space industry, said Reka Winslow, director for the Space Technology Hub.

In opening its doors to engage more closely with businesses, the Space Technology Hub will help fulfill critical needs in the rapidly growing commercial space sector. The World Economic Forum estimates that the space economy will reach $1.8 trillion by the year 2035 as satellite and rocket-enabled technologies become increasingly prevalent. And while space seems far away from daily life, what happens there can have profound effects on Earth  for example, solar flares that cause space storms can wreak havoc on satellites, interfere with GPS and shut down power grids.

Local commercial space businesses tour UNHs Space Technology Hub that will provide cutting-edge space expertise and equipment. Here they get a look at the NASA flight-certified thermal vacuum chamber that simulates the temperature and pressure of a space environment.

The University has already partnered with Hanover, N.H.-based engineering and research firm Creare, to test space instruments that are ultimately destined for Saturns largest moon. The company needed access to a local facility that could simulate the space environment and UNHs thermal vacuum chamber met their stringent requirements.

Creare was impressed with UNHs facilities and skilled technical staff and expects to work with UNH for qualification testing on future programs, said Lucas ONeill, a research and development engineer for Creare.

The thermal vacuum chamber, along with other cutting-edge equipment, clean rooms skilled engineers and specialists who can lend their space mission expertise, are all part of the Space Technology Hub. Over the past 60 years, UNH researchers have partnered with NASA and other agencies on more than 100 space and rocket missions to learn more about the suns influence on Earth and its atmosphere, as well as to investigate mysterious space phenomena from even farther out in space, such as gamma rays and neutron stars.

A peek inside the anechoic chamber at UNHs Space Technology Hub designed for EMI/EMC diagnostic testing to measure electromagnetic emissions from the test article.

Over that long arc of time, UNHs Space Science Center grew in capacity and capability, with facilities and personnel designing, developing, testing and delivering instruments for scientific missions and supporting the space research missions of NASA, NSF, and NOAA, said Harlan Spence, director for the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space. The Space Technology Hub extends those capabilities to industry partners, not only in terms of our facilities but also in terms of our scientific support of emerging new disciplines such as space weather.

The hubs highly skilled engineers, technicians and scientists bring extensive flight heritage experience in all aspects of space mission design, testing and operation, as well as niche expertise not readily available in the commercial space sector. The hub also has a shorter wait time for businesses to access its facilities and skillsets than many of its competitors across the nation.

To learn more, visit the UNH Space Technology Hub website.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: University of New Hampshire launches Space Technology Hub
Wheat grows in a field in Burleigh County, North Dakota, on July 11, 2024. (Jeff Beach/North Dakota Monitor)

FARGO  Some wheat fields in North Dakota are showing the potential for 100 bushel per acre yields with the overall crop a potential record-setter.

The annual Wheat Quality Council tour wrapped up Thursday in Fargo after participants spent three days criss-crossing the state to inspect fields and estimate yields.

The yields could definitely be a record-breaker, National Wheat Foundation director Brian Walker said after estimates were tabulated.

The average yield came in at 54.5 bushels per acre for spring wheat.

In a July 12 report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated North Dakota spring wheat yields at 56 bushels per acre, up 7.5 bushels from 2023 and a record high if realized.

North Dakota is the nations largest producer of spring wheat.

North Dakota spring wheat production was projected to be up 14% from last year, according to the USDAs National Agricultural Statistics Service, with 1% fewer acres planted to wheat.

Last year, the tour predicted an average yield of 47.4 bushels per acre.

Charlie Rohde of Langdon noted that the tour only estimates the wheat left standing, and that there are a lot of low areas where crops were drowned out during a wet spring.

But he was still impressed by the crop in his area that will be harvested in the coming weeks.

Theres a lot of 100 bushel wheat around, Rohde said.

Anne Osborne of the National Wheat Foundation, who lives at Sibley, near Valley City, said the northeast corner of North Dakota that was toured Thursday had the best-looking fields in the state.

She said there was some evidence of the wet spring with the presence of scab, a fungus that can affect quality.

The highest estimated yield from the tour actually came from northwest Minnesotas Polk County. Ralph Loos of U.S. Wheat Associates said the 109 bushels per acre estimate on that field was conservative.

We saw a lot of good wheat today, Loos said.

Loos was visiting North Dakota from Washington, D.C., to take part in the tour. The tour brings in a mix of professionals from the agriculture, the milling and baking industry, journalists and others. Participants get a lesson on how to estimate yields based on a small sample of the field.

Starting Tuesday, tour participants fanned out across North Dakota and western Minnesota to estimate yields and gathered at the end of the day to compare notes.

Samples are averaged for each field and compiled for an overall average.

There are other educational stops, such as a tour of the North Dakota Mill and Elevator in Grand Forks.

Dave Green of the Wheat Quality Council organizes the annual spring wheat tour and a similar winter tour in Southern Plains.

Youre not going to remember any of these wheat fields in 10 years, Green said at the end of the tour. I guarantee that you will remember that you went through the North Dakota Mill and what it looks like and how exciting it was.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
TOKYO, Jul 26 (News On Japan) - Theft of air conditioner outdoor units has surged as Japan's heatwave continues, leaving some businesses unable to run critical cooling systems.

Surveillance footage from Hachioji, Tokyo, captured around 9 p.m. on July 19th, shows individuals loading what appears to be an air conditioner outdoor unit and bundled cables onto a truck. The footage continues, revealing two people struggling to carry a box. According to the victim, items stolen included water heaters and copper pipes.

A photo taken last month in a residential area in Chiba Prefecture shows a missing outdoor unit.

Victim: "When I realized it was stolen, I was shocked. One room is now used as storage since it's too hot to enter during the day."

The theft of outdoor units is becoming more frequent. Being placed outdoors makes them easy targets, and the rising price of copper used in their parts adds to the problem.

Over the past year, domestic copper prices have risen approximately 30%. Since the beginning of this year, the price per ton has increased by 400,000 yen. According to the National Police Agency, there were 16,276 reported cases of metal theft, including outdoor units, nationwide last year, up by about 6,000 cases from the previous year.

In Joso, Ibaraki Prefecture, a gyoza shop known for its juicy dumplings is bustling during lunchtime. However, the shop fell victim to outdoor unit theft.

Seishun Gyoza Owner, Noboru Ishikawa: "The outdoor unit was here. It was cut and taken away a week ago. Despite running the air conditioner 24 hours, it was gone the next morning."

The dedicated preparation area near the shop was affected.

Ishikawa: "I couldn't believe it. I didn't think it could be stolen, so I hadn't taken any precautions or installed security cameras."

A photo from last year shows the outdoor unit in place. When the staff measured the outside temperature, it was 36C, but inside the workspace, it reached 40.3C due to the lack of air conditioning.

In Shimotsuma, near Joso, temperatures have exceeded 35C for four days this month. The impact of the stolen outdoor unit is significant.

Ishikawa: "Weve stopped preparations here. With such high temperatures, there's a risk of heatstroke for workers and food poisoning or quality decline for ingredients. Now, we prepare in the shop in the morning, reducing the amount we can make. Weve had to stop shipments to some clients, resulting in a loss of about 300,000 yen in sales."

When contacting a supplier, Ishikawa was told, "The outdoor unit is more expensive than the indoor unit." Due to the planned closure of the workspace by the end of September, he decided not to purchase a new unit.

Ishikawa: "I want the thief to imagine the situation we're in without air conditioning during this season."

Source: ANN
A mother and son solemnly pay a visit to the memorial at Robb Elementary as the community of Uvalde commemorates the one year anniversary of the school shooting of 19 students and two educators on Wednesday, May 24, 2023. St. Philip?s Episcopal Church honored the victims with a butterfly release. Mariachi Campana de Americas - that performed in Uvalde last year to comfort mourners - played once again at Town Square in honor of the victims and families. The memorial at Robb Elementary remained in place at the one-year mark as people solemnly remembered the victims on Wednesday. Kin Man Hui/Staff photographer

The Texas Education Agency rolled out a new online tool Thursday to help school districts access information and grants to help them meet safety requirements aimed at preventing mass shootings.

The school sentinel program is part of an effort to make Texas a leader nationwide in school safety, Texas Chief of School Safety and Security John Scott told Hearst Newspapers in an interview Wednesday.

Scott said he thinks this program will help streamline access to information about school safety for all Texas public schools, including requirements for schools, sharing of safety plans with TEA and the availability of different grants. The state has not released more details about how the system will work.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Gov. Greg Abbott created Scotts position in 2022 to coordinate on school safety policy between the TEA, Abbotts office and other state agencies following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde that left 19 students and two teachers dead. Scott, a former U.S. Secret Service agent, is the first to hold the job.

Scotts office audits school districts to test their security measures, including an intruder detection audit where auditors arrive unannounced at schools and attempt to enter via exterior doors.

And he has helped oversee implementation of a sweeping school safety law passed last year that requires school districts to place an armed guard at each campus. Some district leaders say the state did not provide enough money to make the hires, so they have opted out of the mandate or instead armed school staff through various state programs, including the guardian program and the marshal program.

Some parents have spoken out against those efforts, saying the training isnt enough and more guns at schools makes them inherently less safe. Hundreds of police amassed at Robb Elementary before the gunman was killed more than an hour after the rampage began.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

Records show only a fraction of school staff are armed, but their numbers have grown after recent school shootings.

Scott said he believes theres a benefit to having armed security in schools, adding that state-run programs provide training to school staff who carry firearms on campus.

Its very hard for somebody to determine what somebody would do in any scenario until theyre in that scenario, he said. Seconds matter. And if we were able to have those armed security in schools, then thats beneficial.

Scott spoke with Hearst Newspapers about the offices efforts and what may be coming next. The questions and answers have been edited for clarity.

Q: You started toward the end of 2022. What makes schools safer now than they were then?

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

A: Prior to the establishment of our office, schools had some requirements, but they didnt have any guidance. So they didnt have a lot of folks that could help them get to where they need to be and answer questions.

I also think that (new TEA rules about school building safety requirements) went a long way. It standardized what schools had to do, the minimum standard that they had to meet.

When I first got hired, I went and visited superintendents all over the state.

And one of the main things they told me when I got started was we just want to know the standards, we just want to know whats required. We will do it, but we just need to know where to start. And I really think that with the technical assistance that were able to provide schools and having the standards, it really helps.

In addition to that, we have the intrusion detection audits. That really helps schools and ensures that everybody is mindful of using one entrance and the doors being locked at all times.

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

And now weve begun the district vulnerability assessments, and (they) are a detailed assessment of a school and their security plan, and not so much the plan but also are they able to implement that plan? Are they actively following the procedures that they put in place?

Q: When the intruder detection audit process was announced, there were some folks who were concerned about this idea of someone showing up at a school and shaking the doors. What does this look like in practice?

A: Initially, the School Safety Center did them and there was some angst about it. I know what youre talking about there, but I think that has really subsided.

Superintendents now really accept and welcome the intruder detection audits. They want to know that you know that the security measures that theyve put in place and the programs that they put in place are actually being followed and acted at the campus-level.

Q: Gov. Greg Abbott has been pushing the Legislature to let families use public dollars to send their children to private schools. What role does the state play in making sure that private schools are safe or prepared for the risk of a shooting or something horrible happening?

Advertisement Article continues below this ad

A: TEA doesnt have any jurisdiction over private schools. So I cant really comment on that.

Q: The Legislature gave schools more money to pay for security upgrades, including an increase per student and $15,000 per campus. But many districts say thats not enough to pay for a lot of the new requirements. Is that something that youre hearing and should the Legislature consider allocating more funds for this purpose?

A: It is a sharp increase, but youll probably never hear a security guy say that thats enough money.

But in addition to that, the Legislature also provided $1.1 billion in grants that went directly to schools, to get those schools to where they were able to improve their facilities and get their facilities up to meet the commissioners school safety facility standards.

That money is in the schools hands now and there are some of them, many of them, already at the standards and have met the standards and improved their facilities. And the other ones have the money in hand and are working on that now.

Q: What are some other school safety requirements, or standards, or policy changes that should be considered in the future to make schools safer?

A: Well, I think thats in development now with the legislative session coming up  in January itll come on and that will be discussed at that point. Im not sure where that will go. I cant comment on that right now.

I will say that I think that the state of Texas is probably leading the group in school safety.

I dont know of another state that does such a tiered or layered approach to security as we do. Im sure that there may be some out there.
TOKYO, Jul 26 (News On Japan) - The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is facing a decline in the number of applicants, leading to concerns about future recruitment. In an effort to showcase the appeal of the profession, the department held a training event for students, featuring demonstrations by special police units.

At the police academy in Fuchu City, Tokyo, the training sessions were open to over 100 high school and university students. The event included a demonstration by the special police unit (SP), showcasing their ability to protect dignitaries from approaching vehicles, as well as a synchronized slalom performance by female motorcycle officers.

A participating student commented, "It's impressive to see how they protect the citizens of Japan. It has sparked my interest in joining the forensic department or similar units."

The Metropolitan Police Department has seen a 40% decrease in applicants for its recruitment exams compared to ten years ago, highlighting the need for initiatives to attract new talent.

Source: ANN
By James Ogunnaike, Abeokuta

Former Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has disclosed that his mother carried his pregnancy for 12 months before his birth, as she battled with those he described as witches and wizards for being responsible.

Obasanjo spoke at the presentation of the drama, titled Aremu omo Asabi in honour of his late mother held at the main auditorium of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State capital, on Wednesday, however, lamented that it was unfortunate his mother did not live to enjoy the fruit of her labour.

Obasanjo said: I was told I was in her womb for 12 months, and since I was born, I have not been left for once. She had nine children but two of us survived, myself and my sister but I was the only one who went to school because my father believed that no matter how educated a female child is, she would end up in the kitchen.

In his remarks, the Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun, described Mama Bernice Obasanjo as a great woman while alive, saying her influence would continue to endure through the lives of her children, especially Chief Obasanjo, who remains a formidable figure in Nigerias history.

Abiodun, represented by the Deputy Governor, Noimot Salako-Oyedele, stated that mothers will forever be the bedrock upon which the foundation of any society is built.

He asserted that the musical drama was not just recounting history but was also a prompt reminder of the sacrifices of mothers.

This tribute is also a call to action for all of us to honour and support mothers in every way possible. It is a reminder of our collective responsibility to create an enabling environment where every mothers hope for their children can flourish. This is why the present administration continues to pursue policies that ensure access to quality education, healthcare and opportunities for all so that the dreams that mothers have for their children can be realised, he said.

Also speaking, the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Mrs. Salu Hundeyin, commended Chief Obasanjo for honouring his late mother after 66 years, pointing out that mothers are special instruments in the hands of God and man, that must be treated specially and accorded the necessary honour.
Late Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

PRESIDENT Bola Tinubu has extended his heartfelt commiserations to the family of Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, who passed away on Thursday.

Chief Iwuanyanwu was the President-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide. He was an accomplished businessman and notable politician.

President Tinubu condoled with the Imo State Government, the friends and associates of the deceased, and Ndi Igbo over this irreparable loss.

The President in a statement by his spokesman, Chief Ajuri Ngelale, affirmed that Chief Iwuanyanwu will always be remembered for his remarkable legacy.

President Tinubu prayed for the repose of the soul of the departed elder statesman and comfort to his family.
By Olasunkanmi Akoni

Emergency responders are currently battling to put out a raging fire that gutted a manufacturing firm at Abule Osun, Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area, Ojo, Lagos.

According to eyewitnesses, the fire gutted the firm, JOSIEN Complex in the early hours of Friday.

Several items were said to have been destroyed in the process, while men of the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, and Lagos State Emergency Management Authority, LASEMA, and Nigeria Police are on the ground on a rescue mission.

As of press time, 11 am, there was neither record of death nor injury in the incident.

Permanent Secretary, LASEMA, Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyitolu, said the situation has been put under control.

Details later.
By Oladipo Abiola

The Federal Capital Territory Command of the Nigeria Police Force has deployed 4,200 policemen in Abuja ahead of the planned nationwide protest.

The spokesperson of the FCT Police Command, Josephine Adeh, in a statement on Friday, disclosed that the deployment was to ensure public safety, protection of protesters and to prevent the protests from being hijacked by non-state actors.

Adeh added that Police operatives deployed include explosive ordinance device experts at various strategic locations.

She added that there would be raids on identified black spots, uncompleted buildings/shanties, and stop and search operations, among others, in collaboration with sister security agencies.

Nationwide Protest: IGP Allegedly Orders Police To Seize Tyres In Vulcaniser Shops

A report has indicated that the Inspector General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, has directed all state commands to raid all vulcaniser shops in their jurisdiction and seize all unused tyres and dispose them.

The police said the action would stop Nigerians planning to partake in the nationwide #EndBadGovernanceInNigeria protest from getting tyres to burn on highways or any other place of importance.

According to SaharaReporters, in a leaked police wireless message, the Commissioner of Police for the Ekiti State Police Command addressed the Divisional Police Officers and various unit commands, warning that divisional police officers (DPOs) in whose areas protesters start fires would be sanctioned accordingly.
By Enioluwa Adeniyi

President Bola Tinubu has acknowledged his participation in various protests throughout his political career but stressed the importance of maintaining non-violence during demonstrations.

The President made these remarks while receiving the Letter of Credence from the newly appointed United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Richard Mills Jr., at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

During the ceremony, President Tinubu emphasized the critical role of peaceful protests in a democratic society, highlighting that they are a fundamental aspect of democracy and a legitimate way for citizens to express their grievances.

However, he noted that no government would tolerate protests that escalate into violence, leading to the destruction of lives and property.

The President reiterated his commitment to sustaining democracy and its institutions in Nigeria, ensuring that citizens rights to peaceful assembly and expression are protected.

He expressed optimism about the continued partnership between Nigeria and the United States, particularly in areas of democratic governance and institutional support.

The President said, Our relationship with America is rich. We believe in democracy and freedom. Some of your predecessors worked hard during our transition to democracy, and we remember the likes of Ambassador Howard Jeter.

We look forward to Nigeria and the United States continuously working to expand cooperation on shared goals and democratic values.

During the military era, we made our voices heard against dictatorship, and I was part of the group that engaged in peaceful protests without resorting to the destruction of property. We have worked hard to ensure 25 years of unbroken democracy, and I will continue to maintain this democracy.

The President said in as much as he believes that demonstrations are part of democracy, we will never encourage any protests that lead to the destruction of lives and property.

Welcoming the U.S. State Departments acknowledgement of Nigerias strategic role on the continent as Africas largest democracy, President Tinubu called on the U.S. government to pay more attention to Africa.

He further stated, Nigeria is ready to play its role as the largest democracy in Africa that is worthy of emulation to other African countries, but we need more U.S. partnership on the continent that is beneficial to both sides. We believe in freedom, and we are providing the leadership to make Nigerias economy grow.

Ambassador Mills affirmed U.S. support for Nigerias democracy and pledged support for bigger roles for Nigeria in the international arena.

Mills said, Nigeria is crucial to the United States because we share democratic values, and we are ready to give you all the support.

I am here to make sure that the relationship blossoms both on democracy and the economic side.

Expressing the United States commitment to expanding cooperation with Nigeria on cybercrimes, the Ambassador announced the establishment of a special office at the Embassy to work closely with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
By Justina Otio

A former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has dared the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike over the planned nationwide strike.

Recall that Wike had stated that the protest would not hold in Abuja.

He said that August 1 had been set aside for the chairmen of the six Area Councils of the FCT to give out certificates of recognition to their traditional rulers.

The Minister gave the warning while briefing journalists on the outcome of the FCT Security Council meeting in Abuja on Thursday.

Reacting via his X handle on Friday, Sowore stated that the protest would start from Abuja.

He shared a news article of the minister declaring that there would be no protest in the territory, and wrote, It is starting from and in Abuja!.

Naija News reports that some Nigerians are mobilising for the nationwide protest slated for August 1 to August 10, 2024.
A New Jersey woman who went missing in Nashville near where University of Missouri student Riley Strain disappeared this spring surprised search crews when she emerged from the banks of the Cumberland River, shoeless and looking dazed, police and local media reported.

The Metro Nashville Police Department launched an extensive search Thursday after Alexandria Chmiel, 33, became separated from a friend around 2 a.m. and was reported missing at 3:42 a.m.

She was last seen on downtown cameras near the Woodland Street bridge and First Avenue, near where Strain, 22, was last seen after he was drinking with friends on March 8, WKRN reported.

Strain's body was found in the Cumberland River in April, and his death was ruled accidental.

Officers involved in the search for Chmiel, using a helicopter and a drone, found a shoe and a trail of blood earlier Thursday, the station reported.

Around 9 a.m. Chmiel emerged from the riverbank and told officers she didn't know how she got there.

The Nashville Fire Department said she was taken to the hospital for treatment.

"The best news we could've had!! The missing person has been located! NFD crews are assessing her on scene and preparing to transport her to the hospital," the department said in a posting on X that showed Chmiel on a stretcher.
Emily Newby

Emily Newby is the daughter of Dan and Julie Newby of Crescent.

Emily graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School this past May where she was the Student Council President, National Honor Society Vice President, and Show Choir Dance Captain. She was active in National History Day and recently returned from the national contest in Washington DC. This organization also selected Emily for the Sacrifice for Freedom  WWII in the Pacific  Summer Institute in Hawaii last summer where she researched a local Iowa Silent Hero and presented a eulogy for him at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. She has also participated in Speech and was a 5-time All Stater. Additionally, Emily held lead roles in her schools plays and was Vice President of the Tri-M Music Honor Society. Emilys future plans include attending the University of Northern Iowa a Presidential Scholar studying Theater Performance and Communications.

Emily is also active in her community. She volunteers at the PACE Cultural Center, Rose Theater, and Broadway Methodist Church. Currently, she is the President of her 4-H Club and volunteers with her club at many organizations such as the Salvation Army and Midlands Living Center. Emily also works part-time at Old Navy. In her spare time, she enjoys attending concerts and Broadway musicals.

Her sponsor is her grandmother, Betty Shomshor.
Local union members and labor leaders called on Iowa lawmakers to restore collective bargaining rights for public workers.

Members of Iowa Teamsters Local 238 and Cedar Rapids-area Democratic lawmakers decried what they say has been a deterioration of standards for public employees across the state. They say changes made to Iowa law in 2017 have undermined their collective bargaining rights and protections, making it more difficult for them to advocate for fair working conditions.

In 2017, Republican lawmakers dramatically altered the states collective bargaining laws, restricting the ability of public-sector unions to negotiate over key issues such as health insurance, evaluation procedures, overtime pay and layoffs. The law limited contract negotiations for non-public safety government employees to base wages and required unions be recertified roughly 10 months before each negotiation period  typically once every two to three years.

Republican lawmakers at the time said removing mandatory bargaining items would give local governments and school districts more flexibility, allowing them to reduce costs or find more innovative ways to deliver services, better manage and ensure better performance from employees.

Earlier this year, members of the largest public employees union in Iowa rallied at the Iowa Capitol against a legislative proposal that would decertify a public worker collective bargaining unit if the public employer fails to submit to the state a list of union-eligible workers. The bill, Senate File 2374, failed to advance during the session.

Iowa Senate Republicans who introduced the legislation said it was needed to close a loophole in the 2017 collective bargaining law. Since then, many public bargaining units have not submitted lists of union-eligible workers and thus not held annual recertification elections, both of which are required by the 2017 law.

Labor advocates have called it a union-busting bill because it places bargaining units fate in the hands of the employer.

On Monday, speakers in Cedar Rapids emphasized the need to restore dignity and rights for public employees in Iowa, citing issues such as increased turnover rates, lower recruitment and retention levels and a broken system that has stagnated wages.

It was nothing more than an attempt by an anti-worker administration to bankrupt public sector unions and eliminate the voice and rights of thousands of public sector workers in the state of Iowa, Rick Moyle, executive director of Hawkeye Area Labor Council AFL-CIO, said of the 2017 law.   The governor and the Republicans in control have the ability to change this. We ask that Gov. (Kim) Reynolds do that right thing and give working families in Iowa our dignity back.

Reynolds office and spokespeople for Iowa House and Senate Republicans did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Monday afternoon.

Rick Melton and Monica Frank are bus drivers for the Cedar Rapids Community School District and members of Iowa Teamsters Local 238. The pair said they face challenges due to Iowa's weakened collective bargaining laws, which impact their ability to negotiate for better working conditions and better benefits.

Every day I have the privilege of ensuring that our students get to and from school safely. It's a responsibility that I take very seriously, because I know the impact it has on our children and our community, Melton said. However, like many of my fellow public sector workers, I have faced significant challenges due to the actions of our state Legislature.

He said ability to negotiate over these critical issues is fundamental to ensuring he and other public employees can perform their jobs effectively and safely.

Despite the importance of our work, we are ultimately met with disregard from our state officials instead of recognizing the value we bring to our communities, Melton said. They continue to push for legislation that undermines our rights and our ability to advocate for ourselves. This lack of respect is felt deeply by all of us who are dedicated to public service.

As a school bus driver, my job goes beyond just driving a bus. It's about ensuring the safety and well-being of the students in my care. We are public servants who are literally caring for us and deserve the respect that comes with this responsibility.

Frank said the district has witnessed a high turnover rate for bus drivers, which she said is largely due to the lack of pay during the summer months.

We need some form of unemployment benefits to supplement our income during these times, she said. Additionally, during the school year, there are several days when school is not in session, and we do not get paid. Providing a couple of more paid days for these times would greatly benefit us and help stabilize our income.

Jesse Case, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 238 in Iowa, said public workers in the state face indignity despite responding to crises with little recognition.

During times of crisis, we expect our public servants to ride in like superheroes to protect us and restore normalcy during blizzards, tornadoes, derechos and floods, Case said. And they do time and time again. But where's their normalcy? Where's their respect? And when they return home after a long day of flood mitigation, or transporting our kids, of maintaining the streets that we drove on to get here today, what expectations do they have?

What expectations do they have when wage disparity between public sector and private sector workers continues to grow?  What expectations do they have when the right to seniority and the right to bid on their own jobs has been stolen under a broken system?

Case added: It's time to close the wound and restore the dignity.
We have used your information to see if you have a subscription with us, but did not find one. Please use the button below to verify an existing account or to purchase a new subscription.
Africas trade deficit with China has shrunk in the first half of this year, as exports from some, especially resource-rich, African countries have soared in the first half of the year, while imports from China to Africa fell slightly, according to the latest Chinese customs data.

During the first six months of this year, Chinas imports from Africa rose by 14% year on year to reach $60.15 billion, while Chinese exports to the continent fell marginally by 2.3% to $84.85 billion, figures from Chinas General Administration of Customs showed. During this period, total China-Africa trade grew by 3.9% to $145 billion compared to the same period last year.

Economists have attributed the increased imports from Africa to the growing production of minerals, rising commodity prices and the depreciation of key African currencies. However, they also cautioned that while a shrinking trade deficit was good news for Africa, this trend was not likely to last.

Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Africa and other resource-rich African countries have seen heavy investment from Chinese companies as they ramp up mineral production amid the global push for green energy. Therefore, Africas boosted exports to China are largely due to the latters great appetite for the continents valuable resources, from cobalt to copper to bauxite and oil.

Chinas trade with Africa appeared to buck the general trend, with China recording an overall increase in exports. But according to Mark Bohlund, a senior credit research analyst at REDD Intelligence, African exports to China would probably weaken somewhat in the second half of the year, mainly due to lower copper exports. At the same time, as Charlie Robertson, head of macro strategy at asset management firm FIM Partners, points out, as Chinas big priority right now is exporting its way out of its domestic property slump, I would expect it to try to boost exports to Africa over the coming year.
In the last five years, Moroccan diplomacy, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, won increasing support from global powers for its territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Sahra territory.

The US recognition of Moroccos sovereignty over the Sahara territory in 2020- as part of a trilateral deal involving the resumption of ties with Israel- was a watershed moment cementing centuries old ties between Washington and Rabat.

The US stand was followed with Spanish support for Moroccos autonomy plan for the Sahara under the Kingdoms sovereignty.

Within the past five years, 28 countries opened consulates in the Saharan cities of Dakhla and Laayoune, bringing tangible support for Moroccos sovereignty over the territory.

These include 22 African states, or 40% of the African Union member states.

The King made it clear that the Kingdom would never compromise on its sovereignty.

The Sahara issue is the lens through which Morocco looks at the world, the King said.

An upcoming full recognition from Paris, a former power bearing responsibility in Moroccos colonial partition, would send shockwaves across the globe and put another painful nail in the Algeria-nurtured separatist plot in southern Morocco.

Moroccos King has also led efforts to ensure Moroccos return to the African Union in 2017.

The triumphal return to the pan-African organization was followed by active participation of Morocco, which won a seat in the top-decision making body, the Peace and Security Council.

History shall remember how opponents of Moroccos territorial integrity, usually failed dictatorships turning in Algerias orbit, have used the same council to defend separatism.

The African Union, as part of mending its past bias, adopted a resolution in its 31st summit in Mauritania in 2018, recognizing the UN process as the sole process to settle the Sahara issue. The decision was a victory for Morocco which always decried the aberration of having a separatist entity lacking all state attributes as a member state within the AU.

Development

Recognitions abroad came in tandem with a speed up of the development process at home.

The King gave instructions to make the Sahara a champion of economic and human development domestically.

After a development program worth 7 billion dollars, Morocco is launching major infrastructure projects in the Sahara, including a world-class container port in Dakhla to make the region a hub for trade and foster its standing as a gateway to the African market.

Morocco is also close to opening a highway linking Dakhla to Tiznit, as well as desalination and renewable energy projects that would meet the needs of the region and beyond while creating a propitious investment climate.

As Morocco continues to win support for its territorial integrity from global powers, it has achieved a human development index in the Sahara that is higher than the national average, making the territory a model in the African continent for peace, stability and doing business.
South African authorities apprehended 95 Libyan nationals during a raid on a suspected secret military training camp, AP and local media reported.

The camp was discovered at a farm in White River, Mpumalanga province, approximately 360 kilometers northeast of Johannesburg.

The Libyans claimed they entered the country on study visas for security guard training, but police investigations suggest they received military training instead.

The Newsroom Afrika TV news channel broadcast images of the camp, revealing large green tents arranged in a military-style formation.

The arrested individuals, dressed in civilian clothing, were seen lining up during the operation.

Local government official Jackie Macie stated that investigations are ongoing, and authorities suspect similar secret camps near two other towns in Mpumalanga province.

The region, which borders Mozambique and Swaziland, is a concern for South African authorities due to illegal immigration.
Several high-level meetings on the strategic Nigeria-Morocco African Atlantic Gas Pipeline project were held in Rabat this July 15-19, with the participation of all the countries involved in the project and representatives of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and the West African Gas Pipeline Authority (WAGPA), Moroccos National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM) announced this Saturday in a press release.

The meetings provided an opportunity to finalize Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) and to present the status of the environmental and social studies. The delegations also made progress on finalizing the future Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) and the host countries agreement (HGA).

Following these meetings, the heads of the national companies expressed their satisfaction with the progress made, reaffirmed their firm commitment to supporting this strategic project, and underlined the considerable energy, economic, and social benefits expected for the region.

The delegations from the countries involved  Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Republic of Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote dIvoire, Ghana, Benin and Nigeria  were chaired by the heads of their respective national oil companies, while ECOWAS was represented by Sediko Douka, Commissioner in charge of Energy, and WAGPA was represented by Chafari Hanawa, Managing Director, ONHYM said in the press release.

The meetings were also attended by representatives from the Ministry of Energy Transition, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General Directorate of Taxation (DGI), the Customs and Excise Tax Administration (ADII), as well as the National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water (ONEE), OCP and MASEN, the press release added.

The Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline is regarded as one of the most critical projects ever launched on the African continent. The pipeline will stretch from Nigeria up the West African coast, passing through 13 African nations up to Morocco before connecting to the European market through Spain.
.

In his most recent remarks on the matter, Trump posted a Truth Social message late Friday in which he proposed a September 4 debate hosted by Fox News and held in a full arena. Trump said that I have agreed with Fox News to debate Kamala Harris on that date. He also said he would not do a debate hosted by ABC News as he had originally agreed to do against Biden. That debate had been terminated, he said.

On July 23, the day after Harris quickly established herself as the Democratic Partys new presumptive nominee, Trump told reporters that I havent agreed to anything regarding debating Harris. I agreed to debate with Joe Biden. He insisted he would absolutely debate Harris. I want to debate her, and shell be no different because they have the same policies, he said. I would be willing to do more than one debate, actually, he also said.

Trump adviser Jason Miller told Axios on Thursday, July 25, that a [Trump-Harris] debate will happen and also called for multiple debates  but that Im not sure it will be ABC.

Later that day, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said the campaign would not agree any specifics regarding a debate with Harris until she was officially the Democratic nominee. Cheungs statement doubled as a multipronged attack on Democrats and Harris, and he echoed the far-fetched speculation on the right that former president Barack Obama didnt support Harris:

Given the continued political chaos surrounding Crooked Joe Biden and the Democrat Party, general election debate details cannot be finalized until Democrats formally decide on their nominee. There is a strong sense by many in the Democrat Party  namely Barack Hussein Obama  that Kamala Harris is a Marxist fraud who cannot beat President Trump, and they are still holding out for someone better. Therefore, it would be inappropriate to schedule things with Harris because Democrats very well could still change their minds.

Obamas endorsement was already imminent at that time and was officially announced the next morning.

During a July 29 interview with Laura Ingraham, Trump said he probably would debate Harris  unless he wouldnt:

The answers yes, Ill probably end up debating. I think actually the debate should take place before the votes start getting cast. So the answers yes. But I can also make a case for not doing it.

Trump called into Fox & Friends on August 7, just one day after the campaign debut of Harriss new running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. During his appearance, he indicated that he would be debating the vice president in the future, but gave no specifics.

I dont know how she debates. I heard shes sort of a nasty person, but not a good debater. But well see because well be debating her, I guess, in the pretty near future. Its gonna be announced fairly soon, but well be debating her. Id like to see it on Fox, by the way.

However, when the Fox anchors asked if Trump was working on details behind the scenes with Harriss team, he said no and proceeded to talk about how all the TV networks loved him.
Authorities arrested a man accused of killing his 18-year-old girlfriend after her battered body was found in the back of his pickup truck.

Juan Carlos Diaz Perez, 20, has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the death of Suceli Perez, according to police.

Diaz Perez was apprehended by U.S. Marshals near a quarry Tuesday, following a 24-hour manhunt in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Authorities first began their investigation into Suceli's death Monday after receiving a tip from a "third-party... that a man had gravely injured his girlfriend" at a home in Knoxville, according to police.

Investigators responded to the residence and allegedly found evidence of a "potential deadly assault," but the victim and suspect were not on the scene.

A short while later, Suceli's body was allegedly found in the bed of Diaz Perez's abandoned pickup truck. A medical examiner ruled she died from blunt force trauma.

According to a GoFundMe campaign aimed at raising money for funeral costs, Suceli leaves behind a 2-year-old girl.

It's unclear if Diaz Perez is the girl's father.

A motive in Suceli's alleged slaying remains under investigation.
Photo: Evan Vucci//Bloomberg/Getty Images

We rarely see these opportunities for bipartisan self-improvement, but weve got one right now: How about if everyone agrees to knock off the sensationalistic nonsense around the 25th Amendment?

Three and a half years ago, Democrats and others  rightly enraged about Donald Trumps effort to seize power by force on January 6  wrongly pointed to the 25th as a source of potential legal redress. (Impeachment and indictment, sure, but the 25th didnt fit.) Right now, Republicans are having a disingenuous constitutional temper tantrum about Joe Bidens cognitive ability to finish out his term. Both parties tried to distort the meaning and intent behind the 25th Amendment to achieve expedient political and rhetorical ends. Wed be better served by reserving the provision for when its truly needed.

The history is vital here. In 1965, less than two years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, both the House and Senate passed the 25th Amendment by the constitutionally mandated two-thirds vote. Nearly two years after that, in early 1967, the amendment was ratified when it gained approval from the required three-fourths of states. The overarching concern arose from the horror of the Kennedy assassination. What if, we rightly wondered, Kennedy had been hit at a slightly different trajectory and wound up alive but comatose? What if any president reached a point of incapacitation?

Up until 1967, we had no answer. But the 25th Amendment established a procedure to transfer power away from a president who is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. The text is key: unable to do the job. Not has declined from his prime and has trouble descending staircases and reading from a teleprompter (in Bidens case). Not even is making dangerously unhinged decisions and trying to subvert the Constitution (in Trumps, back in 2021). Unable. Incapacitated. To borrow from a famous Supreme Court argument about a very different topic: Well know it when we see it.

And this, folks, isnt it, or even close to it. Consider, again, the history. Weve seen the 25th Amendment invoked four times to transfer power away from the president, each for just a few hours: in 1985 when President Ronald Reagan underwent cancer surgery (though there was uncertainty about whether he had formally invoked the amendment); in 2002 and 2007 when President George W. Bush had routine colonoscopies; and in 2021, when Biden had a colonoscopy. In all these cases, the president was under anesthesia and truly unable to perform the job. As in out cold.

We can imagine a circumstance where the 25th Amendment kicks in without the president being so obviously and completely incapacitated  a stroke or injury serious enough to substantially impair the persons ability to function, for example. But were nowhere near that point with Biden.

Republican howling about the 25th is based on a palpably false premise: If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president, as House Speaker Mike Johnson put it. First, thats just not what Biden said. In his letter announcing that hed drop out of the race, the president made clear that his decision was based on politics, not competence: And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe 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. In other words, I get it; my party is all over me to quit, and I cant win.

Republican logic also fails on a more basic level. While Biden is plainly in decline, its an overreach to claim he is currently unable to serve. Earlier this month at the NATO summit, for example, Biden was imperfect but obviously fluent on complex nuances of foreign policy. Hes not in tip-top shape, but hes nowhere near unable to do the job. And even if Biden likely could not finish a second term ending in 2029, it doesnt follow that he cant serve out the six months remaining in the current term.

In any event, Republicans are wasting their breath with their cries to sideline Biden under the 25th. Most fundamentally, its simply not up to them. The 25th Amendment can be invoked only from inside the presidential administration. Theres an easy way and a hard way to transfer power away from an incapacitated president, and neither can be forced by outsiders.

The easy way is that the president can voluntarily certify in a written declaration to Congress that he is or will be incapacitated, passing temporary power to the vice-president, who then becomes acting president  as we saw in the aforementioned scenarios involving Bush, Reagan, and Biden. (You might remember that Vice-President Kamala Harris briefly served as acting president during Bidens medical procedure in 2021, becoming the first woman to exercise presidential power.) When the president recovers sufficiently, he can so certify, and the job is his again.

The hard way also starts inside the incumbent administration. It requires the vice-president and a majority of the principal officers of the executive department to certify to Congress that the president is incapacitated. After January 6, certain members of Trumps Cabinet briefly discussed invoking the 25th. The Biden administration has had no such talks.

(If youre a fanatic for mind-boggling, high-stakes constitutional ping-pong matches, the process doesnt necessarily end once power transfers over to the VP. The president can contest his sidelining by certifying to congressional leaders that no inability exists, at which point he returns to power. But, its still not over. If the vice-president and Congress disagree, they can again certify to Congress that the president remains incapacitated. And if the president disagrees, then he can object and throw it to Congress, which can transfer power to the vice-president by a two-thirds vote of both the Senate and House. I warned you.)

I dont think Republicans are serious about the 25th Amendment. They must understand, down deep, how its really supposed to work. And what would the 25th get them anyway? Harris would become president for the next few months, and Trump would suddenly be running against an incumbent with access to the Oval Office and Air Force One, and the presidential seal behind her. Democrats were operating in better faith back in 2021, but they also plainly understood the stagecraft.

The 25th Amendment is one of our ultimate constitutional safeguards. We hope we never have to use it, brief inpatient medical procedures aside. If we ever do reach a day when the 25th Amendment merits serious consideration, itll be a scary moment for the nation. Lets not trivialize it now by treating it as a cheap political gadget.

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
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Photo: Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

Kamala Harriss entry into the presidential race has reinvigorated a Democratic Party that was spiraling into despair and disunity. But every honeymoon has to end, and the Republican lines of attack against her are rapidly coalescing: Shes President Bidens feckless border czar, shes soft on crime, shes childless by choice. All of which has freighted her selection of a running mate with extra importance. Harriss reported shortlist, which is topped by Senator Mark Kelly and Governors Josh Shapiro, Roy Cooper, and Andy Beshear, suggests her campaign believes that a moderate white man can offset her perceived weaknesses.

And yet none of these shortlisters recent news-show appearances, which are de facto audition tapes, have generated anywhere near the social-media buzz, approving group-chat link-shares, or Hey  what about this guy?themed blog posts as Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Why Walz? Why not Walz, for one, given Harriss implied criteria: Hes a well-liked white governor from the must-win upper Midwest. He represented a rural congressional district for 12 years, which demanded fluency with a subset of voters the Democrats have been hemorrhaging. And hes been very productive with a slim legislative majority, expanding labor rights and delivering universal school breakfast and lunch.

But the bigger reason for Walzs growing popularity is that he has proved himself to be a relentless and entertaining attack dog on TV, coining a compelling and replicable message thats resonating with a growing share of partisans and that has real crossover potential: that Republicans are weird and that the supposed populism of the Trump-Vance ticket is bullshit.

Heres Walz on MSNBC, where he has appeared several times in the last week, articulating the inherent strangeness of Republicans wanting to control what women do with their bodies: These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room  Dont get sugarcoating this, these are weird ideas. Listen to them speak.

Heres Walz, who grew up in a town of 400 residents, undercutting the perception that people in small towns are innately drawn to small-minded policies and xenophobia: Its not about hate, its not about collapsing in. The golden rule there is mind your own damn business.

Heres Walz undercutting Vances status as a rural America-whisperer after the former venture capitalists memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, became a best seller and a Netflix movie. He misreads this, in Hillbilly Elegy, about how theres some type of cultural angst, or whatever. No: Were angry because robber barons like him gutted Middle America.:

Heres a more tongue-in-cheek Walz on Vances denigration of childless women as cat ladies who have no real stake in the future of the United States. Good luck with that. Turn on the internet, see what cat people do when you go after them.:

And heres Walz riding the slingshot at last years Minnesota State Fair with his daughter.

Walz may have a knack for sound bites, but its the substance and straightforwardness of his message thats been revelatory for the growing number of Walz-pilled liberals and progressives and that has transformed the formerly obscure governor into an overnight sleeper VP candidate who sits above the likes of Beshear and Pete Buttigieg in the prediction odds, according to Predictit. If you buy the reasoning that Harriss running mate can neutralize her vulnerabilities, then Arizonas Kelly, who hails from a swing state along the U.S.-Mexico border, or North Carolinas Cooper, who has been elected twice in a red state, probably have stronger cases. But Walz has been easily the most successful at building on the energy that greeted Harriss candidacy. Republicans might be weird, but its almost weirder that Democrats have found not one development to smile about in the last week but two.
37 items in this article 11 items on sale! Photo-Illustration: Photo-Illustration: Stevie Remsberg; Photos: Courtesy of the retailers

The key to delighting 1-year-olds is in finding toys that will stimulate and surprise their growing minds. Babies brains develop so quickly  something like a million neural connections per second, says Sarah MacLaughlin, a child-development expert and the author of What Not to Say: Tools for Talking With Young Children. To keep them interested, you have to add sensory or mobility features to the mix. So an engaging toy for a 1-year-old could be anything from a touch-and-feel book or a musical instrument to an interactive stuffed animal or a ride-on toy.

My 1-year-old sons favorite toys are those that let him practice new skills like opening and closing a box or recognizing common objects in his life  dogs, fruit, buses. My favorite toys are open-ended ones that encourage him to play independently and look nice in our apartment. As any small child would be, he is drawn to brightly colored plastic toys, a book we inherited that plays The Farmer in the Dell as sung by Elmo, and my phone. So I try to strike a manageable balance between what will make him giggle and what I can reasonably tolerate. And when buying gifts for other babies, I always take the parents taste into account as well, since they could end up playing with and staring at the gift I choose for years.

Keeping all this mind, I set out to find the best toys for 1-year-olds that will provide hours of fun while challenging their rapidly growing brains. All 37 of the thoroughly vetted gifts below have been a hit with the 1-year-olds or soon-to-be 1-year-olds in my life, including my son, or come recommended by teachers and arts educators, child-development professionals like MacLaughlin, cool parents, and toy experts.

To make it easy to stay within your budget, Ive organized the list by price, so you can jump ahead or read all the way through to get a full picture of the best toys for 1-year-olds.

And if youre also shopping for older kids, the Strategist has gift guides for 2-year-olds, 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds, 6-year-olds, 7-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 9-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 11-year-olds, and 12-year-olds  plus the meticulously curated Strategist Toy Store filled with all our greatest hits.

Update on October 4, 2024: Added the Stick-O magnetic building toy to replace a train set that is almost out of stock; updated prices and checked stock on all products.

Under $25

At around 15 months, my son started to show an interest in feeding and giving pretend water or orange juice to his toys. So I gave him an tiny splattered enamelware mug, meant for a single shot of espresso, to encourage the inklings of pretend play. That cup is now one of his most prized possessions. He uses it both to pour and scoop water in the bath or his water table, as well as to mirror us drinking with an exaggerated and satisfied ahhhhh. We only have one little mug, but if I were giving it as a gift, Id buy a set of two or four in different colors to give me a reason to talk to him more about colors.

Wolson Friction Powered Cars Push and Go Construction Vehicles Set $18 $25 now 28% off $18 Though he hasnt shown any special preference for any one stuffed animal, my son is obsessed with toy cars and trucks  especially this set of four friction-powered construction vehicles that Ro wrote about when her oldest son was 21 months old. They are perfectly sized for toddler hands, making it easy for him to hold onto one (and not let go) while we are strolling through the park or riding the subway. Because of the inner mechanism, they require very little effort or skill to get them going and make them go really far  simply push one forward several times on the floor before letting it go. He loves driving them around his playpen, at the playground, under my legs, and down makeshift ramps we construct out of board books or cardboard boxes. They are solid-feeling and have survived daily play for the past six months through sand, gravel, and the occasional puddle. Plus since they come in a four-pack, I was able to dole them out slowly between his birthday, Christmas, Hanukkah, and Easter. $18 at Amazon Buy $18 at Amazon Buy

Hide N Side Crawl Tunnel From $20 From $20 Crawl tunnels are a thrill for this age group and get big giggles, to be sure, but they also help young toddlers with spatial awareness and a better understanding of object permanence. Older kids and adults know that the person whose face leans into and out of the tunnel is always nearby, but for a 1-year-old, these types of lean-in, lean-out peekaboo games genuinely help them learn about the way the world works. The pop-and-play tunnel offers six feet of play space, and collapses into a flat carrying case when its not in use. To expand the fun, you can even buy a two-pack. From $20 at Amazon Buy

LouLou Lollipop Silicone Stacking Cup Toys $20 These squishy textured nesting cups by Loulou Lollipop hold my sons attention for a surprisingly long time. They can be stacked to create a tower and stay that way thanks to embossed artwork on each cups bottom. And because they have small holes in the bottom they make great toys for water play. Theyre BPA-free and made of 100 percent food-safe silicone, so theyre safe to use as a teething toy too. $20 at Loulou Lollipop Buy

PlanToys Submarine Bath Toy $20 $20 Im a fan of all of the toys from the sustainable brand PlanToys and bought this submarine bath toy for my sons first birthday. Its now part of our nightly routine and helps distract when Im scrubbing his toes or washing his hair. The diver can be removed from the sub to swim free and the rear propellor spins when you push it through water. $20 at Lalo Buy

Bug Out! Stickable Foam Bath Shapes $17 $17 This set of stickable foam bugs is the other non-negotiable for my son at bath time. At first he simply held and looked at them floating in the water. But now hes figured out how to stick them to the side of the tub, to his belly, and sometimes, hilariously, to my forehead. $17 at Mudpuppy Buy

The Pigeon Needs a Bath Book! by Mo Willems, With Pigeon Bath Toy $8 $9 now 11% off $8 Figueras-Daniel suggests this bath book by beloved childrens author Mo Willems for 1-year-olds. The book is waterproof and can be read in the tub, making it a great way to encourage a reluctant child  like the pigeon protagonist itself  to take a bath. Somehow, the simplicity of Willemss books make them engaging and fun for little kids, says Figueras-Daniel. $8 at Amazon Buy

Reading Bug Box Monthly Book Subscription From $20 From $20 Photo: Retailer According to speech-language pathologist Ellice Kim Lacerda, you can never go wrong with the gift of books, especially if they come in a curated box. Lacerdas favorite book subscription comes from her local Bay Area bookstore, the Reading Bug  which happens to ship nationwide. It was fun receiving books we had never read or even heard of, she says, adding that many of the titles her family received became fast favorites. You can either choose a curated box with preselected titles or opt for a personalized one based on age, gender, interests, and reading level. As far as curated boxes go, the store has lots of options, but the Baby box of board books for 0- to 30-month-olds or the Read to Me box of developmental read-aloud titles would both make excellent choices for 1-year-olds. From $20 at Crate Joy Buy

TouchThinkLearn: ABC, by Xavier Deneux $25 now 32% off $17 Or you can gift your own favorites. Tze Chun, founder of Uprise Art and mom of two, loves the TouchThinkLearn series by Xavier Deneux. These books are so beautifully constructed. Each page is super-thick and has embossed areas so that babies can feel the surface of each one, she says. Her favorites include ABC (shown here), 123, and Colors. The pages really hold up, even after years of playtime and bedtime. $17 at Amazon Buy

Wheres the Cat? $9 $10 now 10% off $9 As a little kid I loved looking at books with special features like pull tabs, flaps, and pop-ups. And while they might appreciate the magic of a door you can open or a building that lifts off the page, a lot of 1-year-olds dont have the finesse for such things. But this ingenious book, by author and illustrator Ingela P. Arrhenius, uses felt flaps instead of paper, making it much more well-suited to the littlest hands. Its fun to watch my son proudly lift the colorful covers to reveal one of four animals and a mirror. $9 at Amazon Buy $9 at Amazon Buy

Casdon Replica Dyson Ball Vacuum $25 $25 Photo: Courtesy of the vendor Children love emulating their caregivers: Thats why play kitchens, play lawnmowers, and ride-on cars are so popular. When Strategist contributor Steven Johns daughter was 1, she loved playing with her toy Dyson, just like her big brother before her. If my wife or I grabbed our actual Dyson from the closet, she ran full-speed across the house to grab her own little vacuum and followed us around laughing as she helped, he says. Not only does it look remarkably like the real thing, it has a motion-activated suction that can pick up little bits of paper, adding a dose of realism to playing make-believe. $25 at Target Buy

Easy Playhouse Cardboard Fort $17 $23 now 26% off $17 Children love to play house, so why not get them their very own place? Eater restaurant editor Hillary Dixler Canavan recommends this low-commitment house made out of cardboard, and her 1.5-year-old daughter loves it, too, especially sitting in there with books or opening and closing the window. Inexpensive, customizable  its a blank canvas, after all  and perhaps best of all, sustainable, its a great option for city folks who dont have access to a backyard. We set this up in our living room, and while its not inconspicuous, its also pretty small, she says (its about four feet tall). And if we ever decide we just cant take it anymore, well recycle it. Still, she cautions, Its a commitment to have it in our living area, but its worth it for her to have a little imaginative play space. $17 at Amazon Buy

Under $50

STICK O Forest Friends 16 Piece Magnetic Building Set $30 $36 now 17% off $30 When my son was 15 months old, I went to Japan for a wedding, leaving him at home with my husband. This magnetic building toy turned out to be my favorite souvenir, and my sons favorite too, even though I didnt realize until later that its also available to purchase online in the U.S. So its not the hard-to-find gem I thought it was, but that means I can easily buy more sets. What makes Stick-O stand out from other magnetic toddler toys are its sleek yet wacky designs  I bought this one because the forest friends animals reminded me of Pokemon and Miyazaki characters  and the satisfying sounds the pieces make when you click them together (or even just shake a single one). $30 at Amazon Buy $30 at Amazon Buy

Gund Flappy the Elephant $40 $40 All little children need a stuffed friend to cuddle with at night (and tote around tucked under an arm all day). Let me apologize in advance for recommending this singing elephant, says Fiorella Valdesolo, a writer, creative consultant, and mom. Tap one of its feet and the cuddly toy plays peekaboo; tap the other and it sings Do Your Ears Hang Low in what Valdesolo describes as a creepy childish voice. And yet your baby will find it endlessly entertaining, she says. $40 at Target Buy

Hape Pound & Tap Bench With Slide Out Xylophone $32 $32 For kids who love music  and hitting things  this two-in-one toy ought to be, well, a hit. The multifunctional bench features a pullout xylophone and three wooden balls that can be banged on with a mallet. Once theyre pushed through, the balls either land on the xylophone to create a pleasing melody or simply roll down the ramp to be fetched. Remove the xylophone from the bench and you have a stand-alone musical instrument. Publicist and mother of two Sonya Li Casino says her now-3-year-old son loved it so much, I ended up purchasing it for a few other 1-year-olds. $32 at Amazon Buy $30 at Walmart Buy

Baby Einstein Magic Touch Wooden Piano $29 $29 The ever-popular magic touch piano from Baby Einstein lets children play classic tunes or create their own melodies with a gentle tap of the colored keys. As Dr. Sarah Roseberry Lytle, director of outreach and education at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, explains, Young kids love making music and noises and exploring things like, Can I make it softer? Can I make it louder? What happens when I hit it harder? Does that make it louder? Thats a really interesting learning process. The piano comes with a handful of color-coded song cards that babies and parents can play together. $29 at Amazon Buy

Mookie Scuttlebug Fold & Go First Rider $40 $40 According to Strategist senior editor Ailbhe Malone, who has an almost 2-year-old daughter, this bug-themed ride-on toy is the trike of choice for every cool 1-year-old in London. Malone likes that the wheels dont scuff up her floors and that it folds up flat and can be popped into a tote bag for trips to the park. Based on her recommendation and another one from Ro, whose 1-year-old tried the Scuttlebug and loved it on a recent play date, my parents bought one for my own son this past Christmas. $40 at Lakeshore Learning Buy

Melissa & Doug Animals Jumbo Knob Wooden Puzzles Set $30 $30 They might look simplistic, but these jumbo knob puzzles from Melissa & Doug will keep toddlers busy for a shockingly long time. My son has an older version of this same type of puzzle from Melissa & Doug that he played with every single day at around 11 to 13 months old. The wooden knob makes it easy for his little hands to pick up as he attempts to put each piece back in its place. They are also pretty indestructible and will last for years and years. $30 at Amazon Buy $30 at Amazon Buy

These curved wooden rainbow and fire blocks can often be found in Montessori and Waldorf classrooms alongside more basic rectangular versions. Each arc in the set can be stacked, balanced, and combined with the others to create imaginary city scenes with bridges and buildings or to simply allow for experimenting with texture and gravity. Stacking is fun, but even if theyre not coordinated enough to stack their toys, they would love to watch you stack and then be able to knock it down, says MacLaughlin. This is also a classic grow-with-me toy that older kids can get surprisingly creative with  say, by pairing two pieces to form Skee-Ball rings, talking into one of the arcs as if its a phone, or building obstacle courses for dolls and toy cars.

Manhattan Toys Baby Stella Doll $26 $26 For a more humanlike plush toy, Figueras-Daniel says that a doll with removable clothes, like this one, provides opportunities for children to use fine-motor skills in fun ways. She says such a doll will also help with symbolic thinking and sociodramatic play  or imaginative play with a social element  which begins at age 1. Items that facilitate pretend play, like dress-up clothes, play phones, dolls, food, and dishes, allow children to start to carry out these play routines on their own and with others, she says, adding that this kind of play ties in with language development as they engage with other adults and children. Figueras-Daniel loves that Baby Stella comes in various styles, including what the brand calls peach and brown, saying its important to get dolls that reflect the children who are playing with them, as children need toys that reflect who they are. $26 at Amazon Buy

Under $100

Kiwico Color Wheel Racers and Ramp $60 $60 Strategist-favorite STEAM-kit maker Kiwico recently re-launched its subscription box for children from 0 to 3 years old, the Panda Crate, and sent me a selection of the new toys to try out. But even more than the age-themed boxes we tried, this toy that can be purchased separately has captured my sons attention. Most subscription toy services have a similar style of ramp that comes with little cars. But we like this one the best for several reasons: The cars and wheels that come with it are incredibly eye-catching and can be used with the ramp or as stand-alone toys. Because of the color-block design, they create optical illusions when they roll. My son uses the cars and the wheels like toddler fidgets, staring at them for minutes on end as he makes them spin. $60 at KiwiCo Buy

Little Tikes Cozy Coupe $54 $54 This little car has been delighting toddlers for more than 40 years now, and its surely got many decades of popularity left. By the time they are about 18 months old, most toddlers will be able to drive the classic coupe themselves  meaning use their feet to scoot it around. The smooth plastic exterior wont mark or scratch most surfaces, so its suitable for use indoors; the plastic tires can handle brick and concrete, too. $54 at Walmart Buy

Radio Flyer Classic Wagon Walker $80 This wagon is great for the stage when your baby begins to cruise or walk around the room by holding onto things, says Zahra Kassam, founder of the at-home Montessori program Monti Kids. Its a Montessori-teacher favorite because it allows babies the opportunity to practice their walking skills while building their independence. A tip she shared: Weigh it down with heavy books or free weights to slow it down at first. $80 at Walmart Buy

BlaBla Kids Sardine The Cat Knit Doll $62 $62 Blabla dolls are my go-to gifts for all the little people in my life, says postpartum doula Julie Arvan, who invented the Nesting Days baby carrier. She adds that she starts giving them at age 1, telling us, The dolls are more than toys. Theyre whimsical companions for young children. Arvan explains that transitional objects like these dolls are key for gradually learning to separate from mother and explore the world. I recently bought this cat in a sweater for my son as he was doing a lot of enthusiastic meowing around the apartment. The dolls are handmade in Peru from 100 percent cotton, and you can choose between two sizes: 18 inches or 12 inches. I prefer the larger size because its closer to matching the size of a toddler, making it easier to look in the eyes and more huggable. $62 at Blabla Kids Buy

Guidecraft Peekaboo Lock Boxes With Storage Tray: Sorting & Stacking Toy for Children $110 My oldest would sit forever and try to work on these little locks when he was a toddler, says Hawthorne about her now-teenage son. This lock box incorporates shape sorting and color matching in addition to different styles of locks. Though the age recommendation for this toy begins at 2 years old, many 1-year-olds will enjoy playing with it, especially after watching you model how it works. The buckling and unbuckling also allow them to exercise their developing fine-motor skills. $110 at Guide Craft Buy

$100 and up

Stapelstein Inside rainbow $109 $109 We wrote about German toy brand Stapelsteins lightweight stepping stones in our holiday gift guide and included them on our list of the coolest, weirdest, and squishiest toys of 2023. Now the brand has launched a smaller set of stones, called Inside, perfect for younger kids. The new stones are designed to fit inside the original-size stones like nesting dolls and can be used exactly like the larger counterparts  stepped on, sat on, stacked, spun, used as a doll bed or bowl or drum, or just about anything else a kid can dream up. But they also make a wonderful bath toy. Not only do they float, but if you put all three of the inside stones in water you can even use them like a xylophone, with each one making a slightly different sound when tapped. $109 at Stapelstein Buy

Lovevery 1-Year-Old Play Kits $120 Ro swore by these kits  which contain a curated mix of developmentally appropriate toys and books  for her kids when they were as young as 1, and my own son has been playing with them since he was 3 or 4 months old. Ro says, I was impressed with the quality, design, and thoughtfulness of each box, which came with in-depth instructions and suggestions for use as well as a breakdown of what you can expect your baby to do in that two-month span. (Theres also an app with instructional videos and a chat space for parents.) One shipment might include a simple stacking toy; another might feature a soft baby doll. My sons favorite one to date is a set of faux keys that feel real since theyre made of stainless steel. While you can buy a lot of similar toys individually, the convenience factor is undeniable; plus, when you are done with each box the Lovevery brand name makes them easy to resell. $120 at Lovevery Buy

Doona Liki Trike S5 $290 $290 While this is definitely an investment, mom Jennifer Beall Saxton, the founder and CEO of Tot Squad, calls the Doona the most versatile tricycle ever and promises that its something that can grow with a 1-year-old, with the recommended age range being 10 months to 3 years. According to her, its the only ride-on toy that allows you to adjust each element, from who steers to who pedals or pushes, so that parents can relinquish some control at each stage of development. The Doona Trike starts off as a stroller with a partially enclosed seat and a handle for pushing, both of which can eventually be removed to leave just a trike in its most advanced mode. Says Saxton, We got it just after my daughter turned 1 and had to steer and push for her, but as we spent time exploring our neighborhood she got more proficient, and now we can let her loose. If youre worried about gifting something that looks cumbersome, know that the Doona Trike folds up for easy transport and storage. $290 at Amazon Buy

Manhattan Toy Celestial Star Explorer Wooden Toddler Activity Center $220 $220 I have long been a fan of Manhattan Toys astonishingly not-ugly wooden activity centers. But that fandom was always from a distance  until now. I recently attended the first birthday party of a close friends daughter who is also my sons very first baby bud. At the party, my son found his way to this space-themed activity center and could not be pulled away. He was mesmerized by the beads, doors, and little space explorers that travel through tunnels on a track. My husband quickly declared that we need to buy the same one, and I agreed. The quality and level of detail is incredible, and its sturdy enough to keep my very wobbly baby upright. Best of all, its a toy Id want to show off. My friends cleared away a lot of their babys toys for the party but left the activity center out right next to a tasteful moss-colored Brentwood Home play couch. $220 at Maisonette Buy

Additional reporting by Lauren Ro and Steven John.

get the strategist newsletter Actually good deals, smart shopping advice, and exclusive discounts. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.

The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Some of our latest conquests include the best acne treatments, rolling luggage, pillows for side sleepers, natural anxiety remedies, and bath towels. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.

Every editorial product is independently selected. If you buy something through our links, New York may earn an affiliate commission.
This Things Incredible A series where we share products that are so good we would do an entire infomercial about it. (But instead, we published this review.) Read more here. Photo: Liza Corsillo

Ive always liked my hair better when its a little messy. But after seeing a photo of myself from the back a few months ago, I realized that what I had thought was charmingly undone actually just looked unbrushed. So when, a little over a week later, the French brand La Bonne Brosse reached out to me offering a sample of one of its very cute boar-bristle brushes, I took it as a sign and said yes. I have tried dozens of different hair brushes, from cheap nylon-bristled detanglers to boar-, mixed-, and wooden-bristle brushes. But, regardless of design or price, they have all seemed more or less the same to me. So I wasnt expecting a miracle from this brush either. That said, the La Bonne Brosse design  an undulating pastel-colored acetate handle with a gold cap  is so attractive that, as long as it did a decent job, I knew I was going to like it. I took the quiz on the brands website (I have very fine hair, but depending on your hair type, the brand recommends a different combination of bristles: all boar, all nylon, or a mix of the two) and ordered the recommended N.01 Shine and Care Hair Brush in a creamy white color.

My first impression as I opened the box was that the brush is exceedingly pretty, like real-life-princess pretty. The handle is twisted and has a nice balanced weight that makes it feel good in my hand and easy to use. Ive been carrying it around with me in my bag since I got it, and every time a friend or a colleague sees it, I get a compliment. Brushing my hair in public used to feel embarrassing to me  now it feels glamorous. But the real surprise is that it instantly made my hair look and feel soft and healthier, and over time it has made my hair shinier, less prone to flyaways, and has allowed me to go longer between washes. The bristles are flexible but kind of sharp, and they vary in length, so when I use it I can feel them vigorously massaging my scalp. I notice that I am shedding less since using it. And the brush does a good job of capturing any loose hairs with each stroke, so I can be confident I wont end up with them on my shoulders later in the day. Like flossing, its a tiny bit painful but satisfying and leaves me feeling refreshed and clean.

La Bonne Brosse brushes are most often compared to Mason Pearson. Both offer different bristle combinations and different sizes, but Mason Pearsons website doesnt offer a quiz to help you choose the best brush. Both are expensive, though the small La Bonne Brosse costs $35 less than the Mason Pearson equivalent and the large, starting at $158, is nearly half the price of Mason Pearsons large all-boar bristle brush. Both brands use high-quality natural boar bristles, known for helping to distribute oils from your scalp throughout the rest of your hair. Ive tried boar bristles before, but this is the brush that made me realize how perfect they are for my kind of hair: greasy at the roots and dry at the ends.

I do not own a Mason Pearson brush, so I asked my co-worker, Strategist writer Lauren Ro, if I could borrow hers to compare the two. I also asked her to try my brush to see if she had a preference. The La Bonne Brosse is spikier, and thats a good thing, she told me, adding that the longer bristles do a better job of penetrating all the way to her scalp. What I noticed right away is that each little hole in the rubber face of the La Bonne Brosse is packed with more bristles and the bristles are varied in length. The difference in sensation is like the difference between a handshake and a long hug. Because the bristles on the La Bonne Brosse hold my hair more fully and for longer, it does a better job of smoothing my numerous postpartum flyaways and making my hair look shinier. Ro mentioned that she prefers the domed rubber head of the La Bonne Brosse over the Mason Pearsons flatter head and I think this adds to the more thorough brushing experience.

I like that the brush is made in a thoughtful and sustainable manner. The handles of their brushes are made of biodegradable cellulose acetate rather than a plastic acetate from petrochemicals. I have only been using my brush for a few months but I can tell by the quality that it will last a long time and because it makes my hair less greasy and more evenly moisturized, I havent had to reach for dry shampoo or other styling products as often. At first, I waffled over whether to order the small size or the regular size, asking myself if the small would be enough or if I would always wonder what I was missing with the bigger one. But Im glad I picked small because its so easy to pop into even my smallest bag. Portability means that I no longer worry about a windy day turning my just-styled hair stringy. Of course I have carried brushes with me in the past. But this one does more than deliver great results, it makes me excited to brush.

get the strategist newsletter Actually good deals, smart shopping advice, and exclusive discounts. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.

The Strategist is designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read about here. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
Photo: Hanna Kozlowska

The other Saturday afternoon, I found myself on Irogami Lake in Wisconsin, lying on my paddleboard reading The Guest as the water lapped against the dock I was tethered to near a friends family lake house. My head was resting on the mandatory life jacket Id attached to the board  water cops dont make you actually wear it unless youre a child. I was floating, but things felt sturdy. It was my reward after paddling for an hour and a half around the lake in a meditative state. Id done a full-body workout and barely broken a sweat: My core, legs, and arms felt ever so slightly sleepy.

Theres still more than a month of summer left, and its not too late to invest in an inflatable stand-up paddleboard. You dont need anything fancy. In fact, Amazons inexpensive best seller will do just fine  and if mine is any evidence, it will last you a while and save you expensive SUP rental fees.

I purchased my white-and-turquoise ROC board in April 2021. Unlike with some other foolish height-of-COVID acquisitions, I have never regretted the decision (getting a wet suit for paddling in the spring and fall was perhaps overkill). It has been with me on crystal-clear lakes upstate and on leafy, luscious inlets in the Midwest, on a Maryland bay where wild ponies grazed on the shore, and the gentle ocean of Brooklyns very own Brighton Beach, the nutcracker guys calls bouncing across the water.

(A note: Much like the nutcracker guys business, paddleboarding is not allowed on NYC beaches, but the only time Ive gotten in trouble was when a lifeguard noticed me paddling out to Manhattan Beach to spy on the rich peoples houses.)

Paddleboarding is a simple pleasure. You just stand (or sit or kneel) in the middle of the board and push off like a Venetian gondolier (look up a YouTube tutorial for an efficient stroke). When inflated to the minimum required 10 PSI, the ROC is shockingly solid. You can plop a friend, child, or dog in front of you (the board has a 350-pound weight limit).

I got mine while living in Brighton, determined to be a surfeuse without the necessary upper-body strength or steep learning curve. In the summer, I would keep it inflated on my balcony and walk four city blocks with it hanging from a special shoulder contraption Id purchased. I lugged it to the beach out of laziness, unwilling to take the approximately seven to ten minutes and moderate arm exercise to blow it up with the included high-capacity pump. In retrospect, this didnt make any sense because the ROC board, pump, and paddle packs down to a comfortable  and, crucially, included  backpack. Its easily subway-able, and Ive traveled with it on a plane (as checked luggage, but its 100 percent worth it) and road-tripped 1,000 miles with plenty of other bags and people in a Prius.

You dont really need anything else other than the kit the board comes with  except a life jacket, and a cheap one will do. ROC even includes a waterproof dry bag so you can take your keys and phone. But learn from my mistakes: Collapse your paddle as soon as youre finished to prevent the sand and saltwater from making it irrevocably stuck. Also, when youre traveling, make sure youve packed the detachable fin  its a must if you dont want the board to just keep spinning in circles.

You could get a fancier board. One that will go faster and be more nimble to steer. But this one is less than $300 and relatively compact, and you can even get a seat to convert it into a kayak.

get the strategist newsletter Actually good deals, smart shopping advice, and exclusive discounts. Email This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice and to receive email correspondence from us.

The Strategist is designed to surface useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. Every product is independently selected by our team of editors, whom you can read about here. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change.
should have called it cherry bomb after that awesome song but i will always love alan cummings name for his cologne cumming love it just own that last name



Edited at 2024-07-26 12:24 am (UTC)

Reply

Thread

Link

I love perfume that smells like an old lady would like it.

Reply

Thread

Link

Chanel no. 5



Edited at 2024-07-26 04:12 am (UTC)

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Yes! Love it. Rey strong old lady smell. Reminds me of my nan.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i love gucci bloom, which i've seen many people say smells like grandma.



if it doesn't smell like it belongs in an edwardian matron's doilie-smothered boudoir, i don't want it!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Third? I'm still not over her having 6 albums.

Reply

Thread

Link

I knew she had around with music for a while but "third perfume" made me gasp out loud.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

that chocolate bar bottle design is not cute at all

Reply

Thread

Link

I was just thinking that it's really cute lol

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

It's uninspired for sure. I swear I've seen this exact packaging design on multiple products.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Reminds me of makeup revolution when they would dupe the too-faced chocolate palettes.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I thought this was a single for a second and got excited.



I'm so picky about perfume, and most of them give me a rash now, so I don't really wear them much. I do love Nest's Black Tulip. Sweet Tooth sounds interesting with the chocolate marshmallow, but all the perfumes I've tried with chocolate don't really do it for me. I just want to smell like a brownie all the time tbh.

Reply

Thread

Link

You should try Comptoir Sud Pacifique's Amour de Cacao! I was absolutely obsessed with it a few years ago. It smells like cocoa puffs!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Thank you, I'll see if I can get my hands on it.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

My ~signature fragrance is probably Byredo Bal d'Afrique. I also love to wear L'Artisan Mure et Musc and Premier Figuier (I have both EDT and EDP and like to combine them, since one is more green and the other is more woody, so put together you have the full tree). Last year I finally got Serge Lutens' La Fille de Berlin, and I was a bit disappointed that it's more jammy than rosey, so now I layer it with a little bit of musk rose oil to boost its rose.



I'm now on the lookout for the perfect lavender fragrance that captures the essence of walking through a field of lavender in the summer, yet doesn't make you smell like you've been doused in air freshener. 



Edited at 2024-07-26 12:48 am (UTC)

Reply

Thread

Link

byredo bal d'afrique truly is the best



i just wish it wasn't so fucking expensive

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

It really is. To its credit, a little bit goes a long way, which is why I'm still spraying from the same bottle I bought back in 2014.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

byredo bal d'afrique is my GOAT perfume...it's just so pricy...

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

La Fille de Berlin is wonderful! If you like Lutens and want something more rosey, I cannot recommend Sa Majeste la Rose enough. It's knee-bucklingly beautiful (to me!), pure rose

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

this sounds up my alley bc the last perfume i used consistently was called cherie cerise and i mourn her daily

Reply

Thread

Link

I'm a cherry girlie--FYI if you need other cherries in your life!



Escada Cherries in the Air (a very similar scent still available is Cherry in Japan)

Kayali Lovefest

Born to Stand Out Indecent Cherry--most expensive perfume I've purchased but I fell in love with it and I haven't found a dupe Straight-up cherry. You can get samples from LuckyScent.

7 Virtues Cherry Ambition

Fuckery by Sorce (aka Sorcellerie Apothecary)

Lost Cherry and a million clones of it (including Finery, at Target)--every clone I've tried has lasted longer than the original LC, FYI.

Snif Tart Deco



There are other cherry scents I've tried, but off the top of my head, these are the best ones. :)



Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

those notes make it sound like it would be pretty intense and not really in a good way, like there's a lot going on here. but I'd probably still try it if I ever came across it in a store somewhere.



right now I'm wearing Phlur's Solar Power (because I'm on the hunt for a new citrus scent ever since Atelier Cologne stopped selling in North America and I can't get Clementine California anymore ) and I looove it at the start and for the first hour or two, but it disappears so fast. by mid-day I can't even smell it directly on my skin at all. thankfully I only bought the travel spray size.

Reply

Thread

Link

Yeah, the cherry liqueur + apple + plum + peony + chocolate + musk + patchouli is just an olfactory overload imo. Some of the notes by themselves (like the peony) can be quite overwhelming, let alone combined in a fragrance.



I'd like a cherry fragrance that is more minimalist, supplemented by notes of almond.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

it's the pachouli + peony + chocolate that makes the least sense to me, like it'd be equally powdery floral and heavy sweet. but idk maybe in combo it somehow works??



I love woody/musky bases so that plus cherry + plum + almond would be right up my alley. like a musky cherry amaretto, yum.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

You might like Tom Ford's Lost Cherry. It's a grip cost wise (the travel spray is $80) but you get what you pay for with Tom Ford, and all of his perfumes are well made with long throw; if I put it on in the morning, it's still there late afternoon. There's dupes, but I can't say if I recommend them or not. I would go to one of those decanter sites and try a sample first.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Ikr Atelier has the best fragrances rip.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I've been wearing Elizabeth Arden Green Tea to the gym and around the house since it's so cheap, but I want to buy Black Tie by Celine sometime this year because it's so nice on and I feel like I smell pretty and expensive lol

Reply

Thread

Link

ONTD, what perfume/cologne do you use?



I review indie perfume as a hobby so I have more perfume than goddddddd. But my 3 most worn lately have been:



Moon Magic  Sorcellerie Apothecary: herbal lavender and chai spice on a dry vanilla base. Really lovely and cozy.

Bardic Inspiration  Nui Cobalt Designs: a non-indolic jasmine and citrus fruity-floral that's uplifting and great for summer.

Tobacco Flower  L'Apothecaire: a sophisticated sandalwood vanilla (well, tonka) with a twist. This one will wear fantastically into the fall.



Reply

Thread

Link

What does non-indolic Jasmine mean

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

A lot of jasmine can have an element to it that people interpret as either having a urine or poo kind of overtone to it. That's indolic. It's very common in musky scents, especially ones that don't use synthetic versions of things like civet, etc.



So a non-indolic jasmine is sweet, fresh, and doesn't have any stinky tinges.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Every cherry perfume just smells like cough syrup. Even that Tom Ford one. Kayali has a cherry scent that is not bad, the fake cherry doesnt linger on me and the dry down is gorgeous.

Reply

Thread

Link

I've been collecting and wearing various Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab oils for *checks notes* two decades now. Damn.



It always depends on my mood/what I'm doing that day, but I like wearing Hollywood Babylon when venturing into Hollywood, and Smut is still in heavy rotation. Really anything gourmand or pomegranate based.

Reply

Thread

Link

I love celeb fragrances, I loved finding the good ones and seeing a ridiculous amount of flankers and seeing just how tacky and cheap they could get. The fact that theres Trump fragrances makes me guffaw



A couple years ago I saw a Khloe & Lamar: Unbreakable Bond perfume haunt the back shelf of a Marshalls, a divine piece of pop culture history

Reply

Thread

Link

Sensi by Giorgio Armani was my absolute favorite but for some reason they discontinued it and now you can only get it on eBay for around $300. If anyone knows of a dupe let me know.

Reply

Thread

Link
well at least we have it now and that is all that matters wonder what her slogan is since his was Yes we can

Reply

Thread

Link





We are not going back

When we fight, we win

Lets win this/Together we can win this

We are not playing around



Im partial to We are not going back bec it had a great organic reception



In real time you can see Kamala realize that she may have found her campaign slogan:



Were Not Going Back



pic.twitter.com/PF3X1p8lnq  Mr. Pop (@MrPopOfficial) July 24, 2024 Her campaign is trying out these four:We are not going backWhen we fight, we winLets win this/Together we can win thisWe are not playing aroundIm partial to We are not going back bec it had a great organic reception

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

nice

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

We are not going back is the one that makes sense for the moment and also doesnt make me cringe or 



Edited at 2024-07-26 12:52 pm (UTC)

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I also like were not going back. And it was the one that felt organic.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I think We Are Not Going Back is a nice counter to Make America Great Again.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Yeah, I like We are not going back. It seems like a direct response to Trumps new slogan and I like that.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

it's been like 3 days 

Reply

Thread

Link

In political time that is months

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

and in cnn time that's years

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Trump was shot at LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AGO and it's already out of the news cycle

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

if wolf blitzer can be dragged away from DC brunch to deal with the biden dropped news cycle then obama can come out of retirement for 10 sec to give his endorsement ok!!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Their endorsement is going to be the top story for the entire day, it would have been a waste to do it earlier.

Reply

Thread

Link

Agreed. This gets its own news cycle and keeps the positive Kamala news rolling.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Agreed, I almost feel like they should have waited even longer.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

IMO it is because of the Olympics. Opening Ceremony is today and it's possible that Olympic coverage starts to dominate people's attention so they wanted to get the endorsement out first.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I agree.



They were sprinkling the endorsements throughout this week.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

say it louder for the haters in the back

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

jamelle bouie suggested there's some daylight between obama and biden on how obama wanted a contested convention and the biden team wanted more of what happened with kamala having a clear path

Reply

Thread

Link

I think a contested convention would have tanked the Democrats chances at winning. The full on, full throated support of Kamala so early is what energized the base

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

oh, I agree with that.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I was dragging my feet about wanting Joe out because that's exactly what I was afraid of, an absolute mess of a fight to be the nom.



The Dems executing a plan flawlessly? Never saw it coming.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

The biggest worry was probably: Can Kamala unite the party fast enough? Many people had doubts because she was kind of a blank slate and the Dems were in a perpetual "We have to play it safe to defeat Trump!" modus operandi. But oh boy, she and her team pulled it off. There was an article somewhere that detailed how she and her team got together when Biden told her so that the moment his announcement went out she could make a gazillion calls to every important Democrat to get them on board immediately. Very impressive work all around. (To be honest, she probably had something like this prepared anyway just in case Biden might not make it through his next afternoon nap, but still.)

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

a contested convention wouldve been a terrible idea, like what would it have been? weeks before they decided on a candidate?



also no way in hell was Biden going to let Obama play kingmaker lol, Obama is very bad at it!



Edited at 2024-07-26 01:04 pm (UTC)

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

this would be totally in line with Obama fucking things up by choosing half measures

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

It is weird since shes essentially the female Obama

Reply

Thread

Link

Except she actually has had more experience than 3 years as a junior senator

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

weird time to release this, most of the US is sleeping

Reply

Thread

Link

dropping a "Barack HUSSEIN Obama"? what year is this?! https://t.co/ytvUAhn455  Matt Binder (@MattBinder) July 26, 2024



Edited at 2024-07-26 11:14 am (UTC)

Reply

Thread

Link

everytime they say crooked joe i think of the nursery rhyme the crooked man but also whos the one who has 34 felonies steven you dumbass though joe should be arrested for crimes against humanity

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

honestly as far as Trump's dumb nick names go, crooked joe was a good one



he has nothing on Harris.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

wild that they're calling her a Marxist when her father, an avowed Marxist, thinks she's a neo-lib (which she is)

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Well he hit on all the buzzwords at least

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i came to this post to say that it looks like barack ~hussein~ obama doesn't thibk kamala's a marxist fraud after all, so thank you for providing the context lol

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

This statement is soooo embarrassing

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

it will never not absolutely infuriate me that the man who created the birther movement against Obama was his successor.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

JADE HELM



FEMA CAMPS

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Last night white women had a zoom call called "Answer the call". 140k women joined.



I'll admit, segregated zoom calls sounded like a bad idea but apparently they were talking about how white women traditionally rely on black women to do their work and giving tips on how to campaign and move forward.



They raised $2 million. Probably more since they said they were raising $20k a minute and the link kept breaking.

Reply

Thread

Link

I was on that call and it was pretty incredible. They had some big names as guest speakers. Zoom crashed at least twice during the call. They had a YouTube live stream which had an additional 29k who couldn't get in. Over 2 million in 2 hours.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I still don't trust white women. I may change my tune if over 55% show up for Kamala

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

jfc, as a white woman myself, I don't trust white women either. How in the fucking world could they vote for that rotting orange buffoon? Or for any republican at all!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Yeah I think it was widely reported her (UK) white women shifting demographics to support Trump what got Trump elected.



But people on ONTD are still gonna blame Bernie Sanders supporters and brown people.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

republican women are going to vote republican. they aren't gonna change their minds just because a woman is running. they will be the first to shit all over other women.



they interviewed a bunch of women teachers and they were calling an accomplished attorney general, senator and VP "an unqualified idiot". they have worms for brains.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link





the 52% ww stat has long been debunked as they used inaccurate early exiting polling to come up with that number. it was 45% vs 47%

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

The most interesting thing about this is how support for Trump actually went up in 2020 for every demographic except white men.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

That call made it into the IG stories of at least two white American women I've randomly followed for a few years, and none of them have ever posted about political stuff until now. One of them is also really careful about it (and vocal about being careful), but is also actually doing it. It seems.. good, I think?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I was on it too, it was good.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Middle eastern women where you at? How ya feeling? Bc last thing I wanna do is join a call 

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I was on the call and it was VERY good. The focus was on learning to take the lead from BIPOC women and how to use our positions of privilege as white women to talk to people in our communities and networks about politics. One of the underlying messages was that our whiteness will not protect us from what the patriarchy has in store for us, so we have to grab an oar and do the work.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

They were clearly staggering endorsements so it seems like less of a coronation.

Reply

Thread

Link

Well this will shut up all the people i saw screaming that Obama would never endorse Kamala because Michelle was planning on running.



The Republicans are terrified and it's glorious.



Edited at 2024-07-26 12:18 pm (UTC)

Reply

Thread

Link

These people are idiots Michelle wants nothing to do with politics. She will never run.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I still don't understand why republicans have been so obsessed with the idea that Michelle is running. They've been talking about this for years and she's never indicated even a little bit that she's interested in starting a political career.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

They can't wait to be super racist again

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

They want the chance to call her a man some more

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I cant believe people are still delulu enough to think Michelle would run for any office. How many times does she have to say she wants no part of elected office

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

They really think the Obamas are the black Clintons. Michelle has repeatedly said she has no interest in running for office. She initially didn't even want Barack to run for President. Leave her the fuck alone.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Why do people keep screaming about Michelle? She doesn't want it and knows better than anyone that the public loves you until you run for politics.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I do not understand those people. Michelle hates politics and has said multiple times she never run.



Just delusional

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Hahaha Michelle would NEVER

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

If I have to have another lecture for someone who insists that Michelle can be convinced to run, I will legitimately scream 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO' in their face.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I know Michelle would never run but I love her speeches. To me, she's a better speaker than obama.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Id like to think they held off just long enough to let Trump to run his mouth and do something embarrassing like saying he wont debate Harris because she isnt the official nominee since Obama hasnt endorsed her.

Reply

Thread

Link

I think they wanted their endorsement to be a big deal. It got people talking about why they didnt do it right away. It gives them more control over it now than if they had did it right away. I dont see it as a negative impact and I dont think its something that needs to be analyzed by the public and media.

Reply

Thread

Link

I mean it's a public endorsement why wouldn't it be something that should be analyzed by the public and media? I think it's actually the opposite of wanting their endorsement to be a big deal. It's a way smaller deal now because the decision's already been made. I think they didn't want to be seen as putting their thumb on the scale again.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Alright.



I dont think they wanted to rush an endorsement for her.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i agree it makes trump look like an idiot because of the comment above yours

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

One less talking point the racists republicans can use.





Reply

Thread

Link

The US looked at the UK's election results on July 4 and thought we could do that too, push for a change and succeed.



Well, maybe they will succeed in rallying everyone together. I hope you succeed US.

Reply

Thread

Link
What is awful is the age gap between you and your wife and that you're still alive"

Why did he have to voice hades

he keeps showing up in kingdom hearts and i'd like that to stop
Opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is a proxy stand-in for Maria Corina Machado, an increasingly popular figure whom Maduro had banned from running. This Sunday will be different in terms of voting because the opposition appears to have gained quite a bit of momentum by taking in those disillusioned with Maduros rule. Its winning converts, and more and more people appear to be expressing a desire for change. If the polling stations are anything to go by, the opposition candidate is heading towards victory. One polling company is predicting he will win by a landslide whether voter turnout is low or high. Other polling companies that are considered credible are offering

As of the time of writing, the most likely outcome of Sunday elections in Venezuela is impossible to predict. All indications are that the opposition is gaining momentum in a dangerous threat to Maduro, who has ruled since 2013. If Maduro wins again, and it is determined to not have been free and fair, Venezuelans are concerned things could turn into a bloodbath. Maduro himself has suggested a bloodbath was in store, which he will blame on the opposition. It will start with protests if he wins in a sham vote, and this will be all that Maduro needs to unleash security forces in a violent purge of the streets. Either way, this is the first time in decades that the opposition stands a real chance of winning in Venezuela, keeping in mind that Maduro controls the electoral authority.

As of the time of writing, the most likely outcome of Sunday elections in Venezuela is impossible to predict. All indications are that the opposition is gaining momentum in a dangerous threat to Maduro, who has ruled since 2013. If Maduro wins again, and it is determined to not have been free and fair, Venezuelans are concerned things could turn into a bloodbath. Maduro himself has suggested a bloodbath was in store, which he will blame on the opposition. It will start with protests if he wins in a sham vote, and this will be all that Maduro needs to unleash security forces in a violent purge of the streets. Either way, this is the first time in decades that the opposition stands a real chance of winning in Venezuela, keeping in mind that Maduro controls the electoral authority.

Opposition presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia is a proxy stand-in for Maria Corina Machado, an increasingly popular figure whom Maduro had banned from running. This Sunday will be different in terms of voting because the opposition appears to have gained quite a bit of momentum by taking in those disillusioned with Maduros rule. Its winning converts, and more and more people appear to be expressing a desire for change. If the polling stations are anything to go by, the opposition candidate is heading towards victory. One polling company is predicting he will win by a landslide whether voter turnout is low or high. Other polling companies that are considered credible are offering similar predictions. Polling stations are maintaining their opposition victory predictions despite the fact that Maduro has already stripped them of their overseas voters, who would definitely vote for Machados proxy.

The polling stations seem to think an opposition victory is fairly clear, but what happens after that is dangerously uncertain, at best. Whether an opposition vote would be recognized by the election authorities is another question entirely, and thats where things stand to get bloody.
Canadas federal government plans to postpone the sale of the state-owned Trans Mountain oil pipeline for after the 2025 general election amid politics, regulations, and slow progress in talks with indigenous groups, Bloomberg reported on Friday, quoting officials with knowledge of the discussions within the cabinet.

The Federal Government of Canada bought the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion (TMX) from Kinder Morgan back in 2018, together with related pipeline and terminal assets. That cost the federal government $3.3 billion (C$4.5 billion) at the time. Since then, the costs for the pipeline expansion have soared to nearly $23 billion (C$30.9 billion).

Its not certain that Canadas government can recoup all the costs it had plowed in the pipeline and its expansion if an auction is held before the election. A possible change of government after the 2025 election and ongoing talks with Indigenous groups about them owning a stake in the pipeline could also be reasons to delay the sale of the Trans Mountain pipeline, according to Bloombergs sources.

Regulatory hurdles have added years to the timeline for the pipeline completion, but TMX received the final permits in early May from the Canada Energy Regulator (CER). This allowed it to enter into service on May 1.

The expanded pipeline is tripling the capacity of the original pipeline to 890,000 barrels per day (bpd) from 300,000 bpd to carry crude from Albertas oil sands to British Columbia on the Pacific Coast.

The rise in pipeline egress is set to boost the price of Western Canada Select (WCS), the benchmark for Canadian heavy crude sold at Hardisty in Alberta, as it will narrow the discount at which WCS has traded in recent years relative to the U.S. crude oil benchmark, West Texas Intermediate (WTI).

With TMX now in service, producers see more options to get their crude to demand centersthe U.S. West Coast and the prized Asian crude oil market.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: